to this? Am I dreaming still? No, no, it is the Carol Singers. Sweetly travel the voices from the house-through the shrubbery, and refined, and refined again, by blowing through the close leaves of the evergreens, they rest softly on my ear

Melodious voices, and put to a beautiful use! To one coming from the city, so full of the present time, and the present time's doings, holy is the sound of children's voices singing of that gentle past, which sways our future; that gentle past wherewith we associate the bright star, and the shepherds kneeling to the lovely virgin mother, and the GREAT ONE in the manger! Melodious voices, and put to a beautiful use! would that your sound could flow in among the lamps yonder, and fall upon the millionears! Would it not come (a mountain stream for freshness) on the parched and shrivelled heart of dissipation? Yes! the rouè would listen (perhaps with a laugh at first), but the silver stream would find its way even to the core of his nature, and flood it with the spirit of love. The man of ledgers would forget his gold for a while, and incline his ear; and the weary woman would pause, and another victim would be rescued from the "Bridge of Sighs," by the carol of the village singers.

Ah! I am before my own gate-I shake off my fancies, and hear far down the green lane, the shouts and laughter, and flying feet of merry children. These are the Carol Singers, they have done their singing, and-I my speaking. SHAGGYQUILL.

SONNET.

"GOD and the People!" Hark, the mighty cry,
That like an echo from the moss-green tomb
Of ancient Freedom,-thrills the soul of Rome,
And wakens thought to her vitality!

"God and the People! God and Italy !"

Aye, Romans, waken to your morn of glory,
React the heroic deeds of classic story,-

Win back your former fame and liberty!

The spirit of Rienzi, like a star

In Heaven, keeps watch above you; oh! spring forth,
And lead the banded freemen of the earth,

To win the victory of the final war,
When king, and priest, and coronetted clan,
Shall flee before the march of liberated Man!

W. TIDD MATSON.

THE TALKING OF THE BELLS.

(FOR MUSIC.)

Down through the gloomy glen,
Past the closed homes of men,
Languidly o'er the fen,

As the dawn nears again

Faintly and clear again

Sing the bells-sing the bells.

Voices in every tone

Float on the breezes lone,

Voices of ages flown

Leap from the lichened stone

With the bells-with the bells.

At those awakened shades of the olden olden time

Shrouded right solemnly in the sober suits of rime.

Ghosts of unremembered years
Sing their stories in our ears;
Shrilly tones of feeble seers
Call the old year to his peers

With the bells-with the bells.

Now they die-now they die,
And a quivering echo dwells
On the breezes lying low,
That the weary year may go,

Stay the bells-stay the bells.

[THE NEW YEAR IS BORN.]

Swelling up merrily,

Welling up lovingly,
Gushing up cheerily,

(From where the breezes lie,)

Fountains of melody;

Bring the bells-bring the bells.

Welcome-true welcoming

Be to thee Baby-King,

Harmony's fullest string
Long service gladdening.

Bring the bells-bring the bells.

Ah, the Baby-Year! he is smiling in his bed,

Rays of sunny hours to come, glisten round his head.

See, that glory brighter grows,
And the cradle-couch of snows,

With shadowed joyance glows,

And a mellow flood there flows

From the bells-from the bells.

Now they ring-now they ring,
And the music eddying swells,
With its woven webs of tone,
Round the tender yearling's throne.

"Tis the bells-'tis the bells.
SHAGGYQUILL.

ITS BEARINGS UPON REVEALED THEOLOGY.

66

We live in an extraordinary age, when God seems to be opening the windows of heaven and man the bowels of the earth, to substantiate the truths of the Christian religion; and when, on the other hand, the perverted intellect is straining itself in every way to render these truths abortive, and Infidels assume the Christian name for the purpose of divesting Christianity of all that renders it worth the having. Under such an aspect of things, it is not marvellous that some mistaking the import of the term LEARNING," should consider it inimical to Revealed Religion. Such a notion, however, is entirely a mistaken one. True learning never was, and never can be, injurious to the interests of truth in any way, though what may be termed "erudite ignorance," which an inspired writer designates as "science, falsely so called," and "philosophy and vain deceit," may indeed be inimical at once to Christianity and the real advance of knowledge.

As scarcely anything can be more opposite than the ways in which two classes of modern investigators (both assuming the name of philosophers,) seek for knowledge, we need not marvel at a difference in the result of their labours. The one is the true man of science, the other the genuine idealist-not using that term in its limited sense as the designation of a particular class of so-called philosophers. The one adopts the Baconian or inductive process in all his investigations, rising from what we know to his inquiries into what we do not know. The other is too fond of system to commence with the outskirts of anything. He must begin at the beginning. These two classes might almost be said to be typified in the modern Anglo-Saxon, and the modern Sclavonic-German. The one is the investigator, the other the systematizer-the one the worker, the other the dreamer.

Supposing that one of each of these two classes had a query to solve, they would usually set about the difficulty in very different modes. Let that query, for example, be, "What shall we be likely to find two miles below the ordinary level of the earth ?" the Anglo-Saxon, if required to give the answer, would first ascend some mountain which gave evidences of upheaval, and calculate from the inclination of the strata what had been two miles below; or, to make more sure, he might call in trigonometry to his aid to find the ordinary level; and then, turning up his shirt sleeves, set to work with mattock and spade, bucket and windlass, and endeavour satisfactorily to find what was there,

But far different to this would be the conduct of the German type. Deeply meditating in his study, he would first endeavour to make out what existed in earth's centre, and from thence proceed to the outer crust. Or rather-for this would scarcely be deep enough for him—since the earth is only a portion of the universe, he might first consider it needful to discover what was the nature of the universe—whether a reality or a phantasy-and if a reality, whether the creation or merely an adumbration or vegetation of Deity; or whether there were any God, or whether nature was God. Having settled these questions to his own satisfaction (if he lived long enough to do so) the German might then descend from the universe to the consideration of the earth, and proceed in systematic order from its centre to its outer crust. What marvel, then, if these different investigators came to different conclusions, and the German discovered that those things could not be, which the Anglo-Saxon in his simplicity supposed he had demonstrated as really existing.

66

Gentle reader, put not this away as an overdrawn picture. Perhaps thou art not learned enough to know that learning has aforetime shown itself far more ridiculous-that for upwards of two thousand years the philosophic world and the common sense of mankind were diametrically opposed on the fact of the true existence of the visible universe! Yet such was really the case. Ignorance and common sense could not forbear believing that what they saw, they really did see-that there was a non-ego," a something existing besides themselves, something which they could see, and hear, and feel. Learning and "Philosophy," on the other hand, contended that ignorance and common sense only thought they heard, and saw, and felt; that the visible universe was wholly a phantasy, and mind the only thing really existing. Far be it from me to represent them as speaking or writing intelligibly on such a subject, or bringing down their transcendental opinions to the level of the ordinary intellect; but I will endeavour to give some intelligible analogical idea of their meaning. What we call seeing, for example, is the effect of an image impressed upon the retina-what we call hearing, the effect of vibrations upon the auric nerve-what we call feeling, a sensation conveyed to the sensorium, by an impression upon the nerves which convey the sense of touch. Really then, these sensations are not "non-egoistic," but "egoistic," not without ourselves, but within ourselves; and the ideal philosophers contended that all without ourselves were phantasies-were mental representations-and that the physical universe had no actual existence. Nor was there scarcely a

single philosopher before the time of Reid who dared to assert the reality of the universe, and declare that common sense was right.

It is by mistaking such fond theorising for learning that men condemn learning as inimical to religion; but so to speak, is a prostitution of the term learning, and a libel upon religion, which makes many conceive of her as shrouding herself in the clouds of ignorance, and shunning the light of scientific truth. Such a conception is entirely false. Religion and Science, like Reason and Faith, are twin-sisters. Both are the daughters of Truth the children of heaven, and lead men back from darkness unto God; though the one might delay him on his journey by entering into a thousand curious inquiries, were not the other attracted to God's throne as undeviatingly as the magnet to the pole.

Be not alarmed, then, gentle reader, nor let thy faith be shaken or thy heart become uneasy, if men who seem to possess a mighty store of erudition, and who, it might therefore be considered, ought to know better than thee, should boast of sceptical opinions and put questions forward equally puzzling to thy common sense and common faith. They may be able to quote against thee the writings of Vater, or De Wette, or Strauss, of Kant or Cloudavich, or Breakenback, or Muddyouski, or a host of other unpronounceables, the bare appearance of whose names is enough to lock an Englishman's jaws by the reflex action of the brain upon the muscles. But even if they have read these men's writings, and understand them into the bargain, (which is more than can be said of many of their authors), they may have no more real learning than a parrot who has learned some words has knowledge of the language of mankind. Take thy stand upon what thou dost know, upon what science testifies and God reveals. Believe whatever claims thy belief on evidence sufficiently substantial, whether that evidence be mathematical demonstration, or credible testimony. Watch over the sceptical spirit which is ever suggesting doubts-remembering the transcendent folly to which the indulgence of such doubts has led. Conceive not of anything that it cannot be, because thou canst not understand the mode of its existence, as even the wisest cannot understand that of light and electricity and magnetism. Search with a humble and inquiring heart into the mysteries of nature, the book which Almighty love has spread open before their eyes; and receive with humble and inquiring faith the mystery of godliness pourtrayed in the other revelation of free grace; and if thou art not as erudite as the mystical, the ideal, or the sceptical" philosopher,” thou shalt have more knowledge and that knowledge sounder.

T.