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MR. ALCOTT. But when Conscience governs our weak body, is it not a Supernatural Force? Do you not feel the awe of the inferior before a superior nature? And is not that worship? The sun cannot produce it.

Spiritual Awe.

Supremacy of
Spirit over
Nature.

JOSIAH.
Clay.

Spirit worships Spirit. Clay worships

MR. ALCOTT. Wait a moment, Josiah. I wish to talk with the others; let me ask them this question; Do you feel that Conscience is stronger than the mountain, deeper and more powerful than the ocean? Can you say to yourself, I can remove this mountain?

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JOSIAH (burst out,) Yes, Mr. Alcott! I do not mean that with my body I can lift up a mountain - with my hand; but I can feel; and I know that my Conscience is greater than the mountain, for it can feel and do; and the mountain cannot. There is the mountain, there! It was made and that is all. But my Conscience can grow. It is the same kind of Spirit as made the mountain be, in the first place. I do not know what it may be and do. The Body is a mountain, and the Spirit says, be moved, and it is moved into another place.

Mr. Alcott, we think too much about Clay. We Worldliness, should think of Spirit. I think we should love Spirit, not Clay. I should think a mother now would love her baby's Spirit; and suppose it should die, that is only the Spirit bursting away out of the Body. It is alive; it is perfectly happy; I really do not know why people mourn when their friends die. I should think it would be matter of rejoicing. For instance, now, if we should go out into the street and find a box, Flesh. an old dusty box, and should put into it some very fine pearls, and bye and bye the box should grow old and break, why, we should not even think about the box; but if the pearls were safe, we should think of them and nothing else. So it is with the Soul and Body. I cannot see why people mourn for bodies.

Release from

MR. ALCOTT. Yes, Josiah; that is all true, and we are glad to hear it. Shall some one else now speak beside you? JOSIAH. Oh, Mr. Alcott! then I will stay in the recess and

talk.

Instinct of

MR. ALCOTT. When a little infant opens its eyes Adoration in upon this world, and sees things out of itself, and has Infancy. the feeling of admiration, is there in that feeling the beginningof worship?

JOSIAH. No, Mr. Alcott; a little baby does not worship. It opens its eyes on the outward world, and sees things, and perhaps wonders what they are; but it don't know any thing about them or itself. It don't know the uses of any thing; there is no worship in it.

MR. ALCOTT. But in this feeling of wonder and admiration which it has, is there not the beginning of worship that will at last find its object?

JOSIAH.

No; there is not even the beginning of worship. It must have some temptation, I think, before it can know the thing to worship.

MR. ALCOTT. But is there not a feeling that comes up from within, to answer to the things that come to the eyes and ears? JOSIAH. But feeling is not worship, Mr. Alcott.

MR. ALCOTT. Can there be worship without feeling?

JOSIAH. No; but there can be feeling without worship. For instance, if I prick my hand with a pin, I feel, to be sure, but I do not worship.

MR. ALCOTT. That is bodily feeling. But what I mean is, that the little infant finds its power to worship in the feeling which is first only admiration of what is without.

JOSIAH. No, no; I know what surprise is, and I know what admiration is; and perhaps the little creature feels that. But she does not know enough to know that she has Conscience, or that there is temptation. My little sister feels, and she knows some things; but she does not worship.*

Mr. ALCOTT. Now I wish you all to think. What have Subject. we been talking about to-day?

CHARLES. Spiritual Worship.

MR. ALCOTT. And what have we concluded it to be?
CHARLES. The Worship of Spirit in Conscience.

One of the most frequent objections raised against the principle of an interior development is, that the answers are not really those of the children, but of the teacher. And in proof of this, parents have adduced the fact, that they never could succeed in eliciting such expressions from their own children, as these printed conversations report. The latter is quite true; but it does not prove the former assumption. A truly spiritual mind is requisite to the justly putting a spiritual question; and this is not attained by imitation, nor by education wholly, but by genius chiefly, by generation, by the Spirit's presence. In the few leisure moments of a mercantile man, there can be none of that large and deep preparation which preceded these remarka

* Here I was obliged to pause, as I was altogether fatigued with keeping my pen in long and uncommonly constant requisition. I was enabled to preserve the words better than usual, because Josiah had so much of the conversation, whose enunciation is slow, and whose fine choice of language and steadiness of mind, makes him easy to follow and remember.- Recorder.

ble results, of which we readily concede such a parent may rationally doubt. The anxieties of domestic life, whether rich or poor, also preclude the mother from coming into that serene and high relationship to her little ones, without which no approach to spirit-culture can be effected. Skepticism is unavoidable until the doubter is in a position to try the experiment, and such position is unattainable while he doubts.

But supposing it were a fact, that the responses are not spontaneous but mere echoes of the teacher's mind, it is not a small achievement to have discovered a mode of tuition which, while it is highly agreeable to the student, succeeds so well in making him acquainted with the deepest facts of all existence. Could it not, then, still more easily open to him the superficial facts, to attain which years and years of dull laborious college life are painfully occupied ? If the laws in moral consciousness can there be presented to children; assuredly the reported facts in history and language should not be suffered to be any longer a grievous burden to our young men.

The Record we estimate as a very valuable book for teachers, and therefore find it difficult to make any extract which shall do justice to the work. Nor is it needful in this case, as the book is within the reach of all. The talented Recorder informs us that

"This book makes no high pretensions. It is an address to parents, who are often heard to express their want of such principles, and such a plan, as it is even in the author's power to afford. It will perhaps be more useful than if it were a more elaborate performance; for many will take up the record of an actual school, and endeavor to understand its principles and plans, who would shrink from undertaking to master a work, professing to exhaust a subject, which has its roots and its issues in eternity; as this great subject of education certainly has." Preface to Record of a School, 1st Edition.

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A transcript of one of the quarterly cards will, however, help to some idea of the comprehensive extent of the tuition, and it offers a field worthy the diligent study of all teachers.

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CONVERSATIONS ON SPIRITUAL CULTURE on Friday Evening of each week, at the School Room No. 7, in the Temple; commencing at 7 o'clock. Teachers of Classes in Sunday Schools, parents, and others interested in Spiritual Culture, are respectfully invited to attend. Children of both sexes, between the ages of four and fourteen, are admitted to the exercises of the School.

We cannot avoid the conclusion, that Boston withheld her patronage from Mr. Alcott by reason of her failure to inquire into the merits of the case, and not because she had duly and fully investigated and calmly judged. None but a willing eye can appreciate. A love-insight in the observer is needful in order to understand the labors and motives of a love-inspired man. Shakspere is to be judged by the Shakspere standard, not by Homer's works. Milton must be studied in the Miltonic idea. This æsthetic law applies to the criticism of actual works. Let spiritculture be viewed from the spirit-ground, and then the spectator may freely speak. On that ground we affirm, Boston should not have permitted such a son to have wanted her home-protection and support for one moment. Should the opportunity again be afforded, we hope it will be even in a broader and deeper manner, when the idea being presented in great integrity will be better understood and more favorably received.

C. L.

CANOVA.

Natura, onde legge ebbe ogni cosa,

Chi pietra, e moto in un congiunti vede,
Per un instante si riman pensosa!

Pindemonte on the Hebe of Canova.

I WELL remember when I first saw the work which called forth this graceful flattery. We saw very little sculpture here, and there was a longing for those serene creations, which correspond, both from the material used and the laws of the art, to the highest state of the mind. For the arts are no luxury, no mere ornament and stimulus to a civic and complicated existence, as the worldling and the ascetic alike delight in representing them to be, but the herbarium in which are preserved the fairest flowers of man's existence, the magic mirror by whose aid all its phases are interpreted, the circle into which the various spirits of the elements may be invoked and made to reveal the secret they elsewhere manifest only in large revolutions of time; and what philosophy, with careful steps and anx

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