The frown of scorn, contortions strange and wild, And thus did Japheth in the hour of care Onward he passed-the hostile tribes dismayed, Onward he passed-through perils how severe; All gay with flowers, or bright with cheerful green. She rides the wandering zephyr, as he roves Onward did Japheth pass, where savage men, Onward he passed, his visage shone so clear, Rivers, still rushing with resistless force, LYMAN BEECHER. LYMAN BEECHER, a divine, who recalls by his vigor and activity through a long life the remembrance of the best days of the New England pulpit, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, September 12, 1775. He was educated at Yale, pursued theology under the supervision of President Dwight, was ordained and settled at East Hampton, Long Island, in 1798. In 1810, he removed to Litchfield, Conn., where he remained actively engaged, in addition to his parochial duties, in the foundation of the Connecticut Missionary, the Education, the Bible, and other societies formed for the advancement of the Christian cause, until 1826, when he accepted a call to the Hanover Street Church, where he continued until 1832, becoming the President of the Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati. He resigned this office in 1842, and returned to Boston, where he still resides. His chief publications consist of sermons and addresses, and a work on Political Atheism. A collection of his writings, in four compact duodecimo volumes, was made in Boston in 1852. The energy and activity which have characterized every stage of Dr. Beccher's long, useful, and laborious carcer, have descended in unimpaired vigor to his children. Of his four sons, all eminent in the ministry, one-Charles Beecher -has published a popular volume, The Incarnation; or, Pictures of the Virgin and her Son, and an ingenious work, entitled The Conflict of Ages, in which he maintains a theory referring the origin of evil to a supposed existence of the progenitors of the human race prior to Adam. Another brother, Edward, has written a duodecimo volume on Baptism, its Import and Modes; and a third, Henry Ward Beecher, is one of the most popular speakers of the day. His sermons attract an audience, Sunday after Sunday, sufficient to crowd the large place of worship in Brooklyn, of which he is pastor; and he is equally favored in his frequent appearances as a lecturer on topics of the day. The daughters of Dr. Beecher contribute their full share to the general activity of the family. Miss Catharine Beecher is the author of Domestic Service; the Duty of American Women to their Country; Housekeeper's Receipt-Book; Moral Instructor; The True Remedy for the Wrongs of Woman, with a History of an Enterprise having that for its object; Treatise on Domestic Economy; and Truth Stranger than Fiction, a vigorous denunciation of the alleged flirtations of young divinity students. These volumes are of small compass, and designed for wide popular influ ence. Of the other sister, Mrs. Stowe, we shall have occasion to speak at a later period. "The Beecher family," remarks a writer in the North American Review,*"almost constitute a genus by themselves. The same type of mind and style is reproduced in the writings of the venerable father and of his singularly gifted children, though stiffening into a certain solemn stateliness in the author of The Conflict of Ages, and in Henry Ward trenching close upon the dividing line between licit humor and lithe buffoonery. The father, in his palmy days, was unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness, scathing invective, pungent appeal, lambent wit, hardy vigor of thought, and concentrated power of expression; but he always fumbled over an extra-Scriptural metaphor, and exhibited little beauty except that of strength and holiness,-a beauty which never shone from him so resplendently as now, that, on the verge of fourscore, it hallows the sunset of as noble a life as man ever led, and presages the dawning of a renewed youth in a more exalted sphere of the Divine service." JOHN HENRY HOBART. JOHN HENRY HOBART, a descendant from Joshua Hobart, one of the early settlers of Massachusetts Bay, was born in Philadelphia, September 14, 1775. He was prepared for college in the Protestant Episcopal Academy of that city, under the charge of the Rev. Dr. Andrews, afterwards Provost of the University, and was graduated from Princeton College in 1793. He was then induced to engage in mercantile pursuits, a mode of life which he abandoned after a brief trial, for the ministry. While engaged in his preparatory studies he received and accepted the appointment of tutor in Princeton College, which he retained until his ordination by Bishop White, in June, 1798. He commenced his clerical labors by taking charge of two country parishes, Trinity, Oxford, and All Saints', Pequestan. In the following year he accepted a call to New Brunswick, but preferring the quiet of a country parish, removed to Hempstead, Long Island. During his ministry at this place, he married a daughter of the Rev. Dr. Chandler, the learned and zealous defender of Episcopacy in the controversy on that subject before the Revolution. In December of the same year, he became assistant minister of Trinity Church, New York, where he soon attained a high rank as an eloquent preacher. In 1804, he published a small devotional volume, The Companion for the Altar. It was followed by the Companion to the Book of Common Prayer, and in 1807 by his Apology for Apostolic Order, a work designed as a reply to the strictures of the Rev. John M. Mason on Episcopacy in the Christian Magazine. In 1808, he commenced a monthly periodical, The Churchman's Magazine. In May, 1811, he was elected Assistant Bishop of New York, the Bishop, Dr. Moore, being incapacitated by age for the performance of official duty. One of the earliest acts of his Episcopate was to urge upon the Convention the founding of an institution for the education of the ministry. His exertions were seconded by those of others, and resulted in the establishment of the General Protestant Episcopal Seminary. *Oct. 1954, p. 4 4. An In 1815, he published a Pastoral Letter to the Laity on the Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, in which he urged the propriety of the distribution of the Prayer Book with the Bible. This occasioned much opposition from those who were in favor of a general union of all sects in the distribution of the sacred volume alone. institution of this character, the American Bible Society, was soon after established. The Bishop, fearless in the discharge of what he considered to be his duty, published an Address to Episcopalians, in which he urged those under his charge to refrain from supporting a plan which would necessarily weaken their own agency for promoting the same object. In his charge to the Convention of 1815, on the Nature of the Christian Ministry as set forth in the Offices of Ordination, he still further enforced his views of the inexpediency of union between those who differed widely in essential points of doctrine. He was soon after called upon to preach the funeral sermon of his associate, Bishop Moore. On the publication of this discourse, he appended to it a Dissertation on the State of Departed Spirits and the Descent of Christ into Hell, in which he advocated the doctrine of an intermediate state of consciousness between death and the resurrection, with a thoroughness which has caused the essay to become a standard authority upon the subject. In 1823, Bishop Hobart sailed for Europe, the relaxation of travel having become necessary for the re-establishment of his health, impaired by his unremitting labors. He remained about two years abroad. During his visit to England, where he was very warmly received, he published two volumes of sermons, which were immediately reprinted in this city. The Sunday after his return, he preached a serinon in Trinity Church, in which he compared the countries he had visited with his own, and dwelt with force upon the superior advantages of our voluntary system over an established church for the promotion of Christianity. The discourse was printed and excited much comment, both in this country and in England. The Bishop, restored to health, resumed the duties of his office with his wonted efficiency, continuing their discharge to the moment of his last illness. He was attacked by a fever while at Auburn, in the course of his visitation of the diocese, and died at that place after a brief illness, September 12, 1830. A collection of his Posthumous Works, with a Memoir by the Rev. William Berrian, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, was published in 1833.* His life was also written by the Rev. John M'Vickar.† The character of Bishop Hobart was warm, generous, impulsive; quick in intellect, benevolent in temper, and of unwearied activity in all the habits of life. He was always busy with earnest devotion to his Christian calling, while he did not neglect the social courtesies and innocent enjoyments of life. He had a scholar's taste for books, and a poet's enjoyment of nature. A well stored library gratified the one, and a small but nobly situated piece of land on the historic site in New The Posthumous Works of the late Rt. Rev. John Henry Hobart, D.D. With a Memoir of his Life, by the Rev. William Berrian, D.D. 8 vols. 8vo. Swords, Stanford & Co. In a series of three volumes, the Early, the Professional, and the Closing Years of Bishop J. II. Hobart. Jersey among the Short Hills, where Washington had held his post of observation, ministered to the other in his few opportunities for rural retire ment. His pulpit style was quick and energetic. No audience ever slumbered under his preaching. His services to his church were constant and untiring. Death found him away from home engaged in a laborious visitation of his diocese. New York, whither his remains were brought, gave a distinguished testimony to his personal character in the long procession which followed on foot in his funeral from the parsonage attached to St. John's Church in Hudson Square to Old Trinity, where a fine monument, sculptured by Ball Hughes, was erected to his memory. AMERICAN PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL FREEDOM.* Let us never withhold the acknowledgment, that from the first of European nations, drawing our origin, we have also derived her admirable principles of civil freedom. Rejecting, indeed, the feudal characteristics of her polity, the monarchical and aristocratic features of her constitution, we broadly and fearlessly recognise the great truth, that though, in its general powers, and in its sanctions, government is "ordained of God," in the particular form of its administration "it is the ordinance of man ;" and that, in this sense, the people only are the source of that political power, which, when exercised according to the legitimate forms of the constitution which they have established, cannot be resisted, but under the penalty of resisting the "ordinance of God." Still, though, in these respects, our governments differ from that of England, let us gratefully remember, that from her we have derived not only many of her unrivalled maxims of jurisprudence, those which protect the freedom of the subject and secure the trial by jury, but those great principles which constitute the superiority of the modern republics above the ancient democracies. These are, the principle of representation; the division of the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments; the check on the exercise of the power of legislation by its distribution among three branches; the independence of the judiciary on all influence, except that of the constitution and the laws; and its accountability, and that of the executive, to the people, in the persons of their representatives; and thus what constitutes the characteristic blessing of a free people, a government of laws securing to all the enjoyment of life, of liberty, and of property. But even in this, next to our own, the freest of nations, it is impossible not to form a melancholy contrast between the power and the splendour and the wealth of those to whom the structure of society and the aristocratic nature of the government assign peculiar privileges of rank and of political consequence, with the dependent and often abject condition of the lower orders; and not to draw the conclusion, that the one is the unavoidable result of the other. Advantages confessedly there may be in privileged orders, as constituting an hereditary and permanent source of political knowledge and talent, and of refinement and elevation of character, of feeling, and of manners. And in this view, no men can be more imposing or more interesting than the highminded noblemen and gentlemen of England. But, in this imperfect world, we cannot enjoy at the From the Discourse on the United States of America compared with European Countries, 1825. same time all possible advantages. And those which result from the hereditary elevation of one small class of society, must produce in all the noble qualities which distinguish independent freemen, a curresponding depression of the great mass of the community. And can we for a moment hesitate which state of society to prefer? No. It is the glorious characteristic of our admirable polity, that the power, and the property, and the happiness, which in the old nations of the world are confined to the few, are distributed among the many; that the liveliness and content which pervade the humblest classes among us, are not the mere result of that buoyancy of animal spirits which nature seems to have kindly infused into our frame, and which man shares with the beast that sports in the field or courses over the plain--but a sober sentiment of independence, nurtured by the consciousness that in natural rights and original political power all are equal. The obedience, therefore, which fear in a great measure extorts from the mass of the people of other countries, is here the voluntary offering of a contented and happy, because, in the broadest sense of the term-a free people. PHILANDER CHASE. Whilan. Chase BISHOP CHASE, one of the greatest promoters of institutions of sound learning in the United States, was a descendant from Aquila Chase, a native of Cornwall, England, who came to America in 1640, and after a residence of five years at Hampton, New Hampshire, settled at Newbury, Massachusetts. His grandson, Dudley, the father of the bishop, removed with his several brothers to a township of which he had obtained a grant on the Connecticut river, above Fort No. 4, now Charleston, which was then the limit of settlement. After planting a crop, but before the settlers could build a house, he was joined by his wife, who was the first white woman who sought a home above Fort No. 4. The scene, as described by his mother, is happily narrated in the bishop's Reminiscences. Your "With your leave, madam," said Pilot Spalding, "I think it prudent that your husband come to us, and give orders where he will have his family landed." Accordingly he made fast the canoe to the willows, and desired us to await his return. father could get no direct answer from Spalding as to the nature of the cargo he had brought. "Come and see," was all he would say. "Is all well?" said your father, "have you brought us a good supply of food!" "Come and see," replied Spalding, with animation, and in an instant they burst upon our view; and as your dear father stood on the margia of the high bank, he saw beneath his feet the frail bark, in which were his wife and children. The emotion was almost too much for him. I saw this, and sprang forward, the children quickly following. He received us with a mixture of joy mingled with agony. Are you come to die here," he exclaimed, "before your time! We have no house to shelter you, and you will perish before we can get one erected." Cheer up, cheer up, my faithful!" said I to your father; "let the smiles and the ruddy faces of your children, and the health and cheerfulness of your wife, make you joyful. If you have no house, you have strength and hands to make one. The God we worship will bless us, and help us to obtain a shelter. Cheer up, cheer up, my faithful!" The sunshine of joy and hope began to beam from his countenance; the news was communicated throughout the company of workmen, and the woods rang with shouts at the arrival of the first white woman, and the first family on the banks of the Connecticut river above Fort Number Four. All assembled to see the strangers, and strove to do them acts of kindness. The trees were quickly felled and peeled, and the clean bark in large sheets was spread for a floor; other sheets being fastened by thongs of twisted twigs to stakes driven in the ground, were raised for walls or laid on cross-pieces for a roof; and the cheerful fire soon made glad our little dwelling. The space of three hours was not consumed in effecting this; and never were men more happy than those who contributed thus speedily and effectually to supply our wants. Beds were brought from the canoe to this rustic pavilion, and on them we rested sweetly, fearless of danger, though the thick foliage was wet with dew, and the wild beasts howled all around us, trusting to the protecting hand of Providence, and the watchful fidelity of our faithful neighbors. The settlement was called Cornish, in honor of the ancient family home, and prospered. It was here that Philander Chase was born, December 14, 1775. Ile was the youngest of a family of fourteen, and derived his Christian name from one of the characters of Young's Night Thoughts, of which he tells us his father was so great an admirer, that he knew the whole poem by heart. One of his brothers, Dudley, became Chief Justice of Vermont, and Senator of the United States. Philander was brought up on the farm, with the expectation of leading an agricultural life, when in his fifteenth year he broke his leg, and in the season of confinement which consequently ensued, was advised by his father to change his plans. The advice was followed, and in the fall of 1791, after a preparation of less than a year, he entered Dartmouth College. It was here, he states, that in the winter of 1793 and 4 he became acquainted with the Book of Common Prayer, and soon after, with many of his relatives, conformed to the church in which he was to occupy a prominent position. After taking his degree in 1795, he went to Albany in search of "an English clergyman," who was said to reside in that city. His narrative relates the result. Having passed Market, he entered Court street, and, stopping at Wendal's Hotel, inquired, where lives the Rev. Thomas Ellison, the Episcopal clergyman? "What, the English Dominie?" replied a friendly voice. "You will go up State street-pass the English stone church, which stands in the middle of that street, and as you go up the hill, turn the second corner to the right; there lives the English Dominie, the Rev. Mr. Ellison, in a newly-built white house, the only one on the block or clay bank." It was indeed just so; and the writer mounted the plank door-steps, and with a trembling hand knocked at the door of the rector of St. Peter's, Albany. "Is this the Rev. Mr. Ellison?" said the writer, as the top of a Dutch-built door was opened by a portly gentleman in black, with prominent and 66 piercing eyes, and powdered hair. My name is Ellison," said he, " and I crave yours?" Giving his name, the writer said, "I have come from New Hampshire, the place of my nativity, and being very desirous of becoming a candidate for holy orders I will be much obliged for your advice." Mr. Ellison then said, "God bless you! walk in." He pursued his studies for the ministry with Mr. Ellison, and on the tenth of May, 1798, was ordained deacon in St. George's Church, New York. He was immediately appointed an itinerant preacher in the northern and western portions of the State. At that time there were but two clergymen of his faith above the Highlands, Mr. Ellison at Albany, and Mr. Nash in Otsego County. In his western tour, after organizing parishes in Utica and Auburn, he visited "good Mr. Nash." The account of this visit is one of the most characteristic passages of the "Reminiscences." FATHER NASH. The writer does not pretend to more sensibility than falls to the lot of most men, but there was something in this meeting between Mr. Nash and himself of a peculiar character, and calculated to call forth whatever of moral sensibility he possessed. It was a meeting of two persons deeply convinced of the primitive and apostolic foundation of the Church to which, on account of its purity of doctrine, and the divine right of its ministry, they had fled from a chaos of confusion of other sects. They were both "missionaries," though the name was not understood or appreciated. The one had given up all his hopes of more comfortable living in the well stored country at the East, and had come to Otsego County, to preach the Gospel, and build up the Church on apostolic ground, with no assurance of a salary but such as he could glean from the cold soil of unrenewed nature, or pluck from the clusters of the few scions which he might engraft into the vine, Christ Jesus. He lived not in a tent, as the patriarchs did, surrounded with servants to tend his flocks and to milk his kine, and "bring him butter in a lordly dish;" but in a cabin built of unhewn logs, with scarcely a pane of glass to let in light sufficient to read his Bible; and even this cabin was not his own, nor was he permitted to live in one for a long time together. All this was witnessed by the other, who came to see him, and helped him to carry his little articles of crockery, holding one handle of the basket and Mr. Nash the other, and as they walked the road, “talked of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." The writer cannot refrain from tears in bringing to mind the circumstances attending this interesting scene, that man, who was afterwards emphatically called, "Father Nash," being the founder of the Church in Otsego County-who baptized great numbers of both adults and children, and thus was the spiritual father of so many of the family of Christ, and who spent all his life and strength in toiling for their spiritual benefit-was at this period so little regarded by the Church at large, and even by his neighbors, that he had not the means to move his substance from one cabin to another but with his own hands, assisted only by his wife and small children, and a passing missionary. Well does the writer remember how the little one-roomed cabin looked as he entered it; its rude door, hung on wooden hinges, creaking as they turned; how joyful that good man was that he had been mindful to fetch a few nails, which he had used in the other cabin, just left, for his comfort in this, now the receptacle of all his substance. These he drove into the logs with great judgment, choosing the place most appropriate for his hat, his coat, and other garments of himself and family. All this while his patient wife, who, directing the children to kindle the fire, prepared the food for-whom? Shall it be said a stranger? No; but for one who by sympathy felt himself more their brother than by all the ties of nature, and who, by the example now set before him, learned a lesson of inexpressible use to him all the days of his subsequent life. Mr. Chase soon after established himself in Poughkeepsie, where he remained until 1805, supporting himself mainly by teaching. He then, at the request of the Bishop of the Diocese, who had received an application for a clergyman from the Protestants of New Orleans, removed to that city. He assisted in the organization of Christ Church, became its rector, established a school, and made missionary excursions in the surrounding country. In 1811 he returned to the North, in consequence of the necessity of providing for the education of the children he had left there. His next parochial charge was at Hartford, where he spent, he informs us, the most peaceful period of his life. In 1814 his father and mother died, having attained the venerable ages of eighty-six and eighty-one years. In 1817 he left his comfortable and happy home, to devote himself to the great work of missionary labor in Ohio. He started on the second of March, and travelled in a stage-sleigh to Batavia. From Buffalo, he proceeded over the ice on the lake to Ohio, a journey, owing to the lateness of the season, attended with great peril. We again resort to the bishop's narrative. It was terrific to the feelings, if not in the eye of reason, to hear the water pour over the runners of the sleigh as we crossed this muddy stream, in a dark night, so far out from shore. The man (who had brought them a stage on their journey) was liberally rewarded for his extra trouble, and that night we stayed at Mack's Tavern; an elderly per Bon, who agreed that his hired man should take us on the lake as far as the Four Corners-a place where there were two log cabins-about twenty-five miles short of Pennsylvania line. The next morning was cold but clear-no wind, and the day promised to be mild and pleasant. A large, good, travelling horse was put before a onehorse sleigh, called by the landlord his "cutter," large enough to accommodate two and the driver. It was sunrise ere we set off. In getting out on to the lake, we had to pass between several mounds of ice, and sometimes to climb over large cakes, which had been thrown up together by the force of the winds and waves. But the driver knew his way, and the horse was rough-shod, and the cutter was strong and well built. The scene before us, as we came out from among the mounds of ice, was exceedingly brilliant, and even sublime. Before us, up the lake, was a level expanse of glassy ice, from two to three miles wide, between two ranges of ice mountains, all stretching parallel with the lake shore and with one another, as far as the eye could extend, till they were lost in the distance. On this expanse, and on these mountains, and on the icicles, which hung in vast quantities, and in an infinite variety of shapes from the rocky, lofty, and sharp-angled shore on the left, the rising sun was pouring his beams. Light and shade were so distinct, brilliancy and darkness were in such proximity, and yet so blended, as to produce an effect of admiration and praise to the great Creator, never before experienced. It would be in vain to express them here. What added to the adoring gratitude to God, for having made all things with such consummate skill and splendor, was what appeared as we rode alo: g between these mountains of ice, manifesting God's providential goodness, which went hand in hard with His power and wisdom. The bald-headed eagles sat on these mountains of ice, with each a fish in his claw, fresh and clean, as if just taken from the limpid lake. "What noble birds! How delicious the repast! Whence do they obtain these fish at this inclement season?" said the writer. "They get them," said the driver, "from the top of the ice. These were thrown up and deposited by the winds and waves, in the storms of last winter, and being immediately frozen, have been kept till this spring, when the sun thaws them out for the eagles and ravens, who at this season have nothing else to feed 011," As the driver told this simple story of the fish, and the storms, and the eagles, how clearly appeared the providential goodness of God! And will not He who feedeth the eagles and the ravens, which he hath made to depend on his goodness, feed, and support, and bless a poor, defenceless, solitary missionary, who goeth forth, depending on his mercy, to preach his holy word, and to build up his church in the wilderness? There was an answer of faith to this question, more consoling than if the wealth of the Indies had been laid at his feet. Leav It was a little before noon when our Cataraugus driver stopped on the ice, opposite Four Corners. Having received his pay and jut the luggage on the bank, he returned. "Thus far had the Lord helped.” What next would be our lot we knew not. ing our trunks on the beach, where there was nothing to molest them, we walked up the back towards the cabins. As we went, the writer perceived a pair of smooth, black horses, with their harness on, eating beside the fence, a: d a man, sitting not far off, shaving shingles. Who owns these horses?" said the writer. "I do," said the man, 'Have you also a good sleigh?" "Yes." "Will you put them before it immediately, and take two persons up the lake as far as Pennsylvania line?" At this he paused- said he had just moved on from the east, and wanted money," bad enough," having, in moving his family, expended every cent he had. "But," said he, "it is a dangerous job you ask of me, for the lake is open above, and the wind puts the water in motion, and that causes the ice this way to crack; and they say it is dangerous to travel o:; but if you reward me a little extra, I think I'll go." The bargain was soon made; a few dough-nuts bought of the woman in the cabin sufficed to allay the hunger of the two travellers, and hearing the man whistling for his dog, and cracking his whip to his prancing horses, just ready to start, they both ran to the lake and were soon adjusted in their seats. The horses trotted with uncommon speed, and had evenness as well as length of step. The shore seemed to fly beside us, as since when on our railroads, and soon were the Four Corners out of sight. The writer soon perceived the dangers to which his present driver had alluded, and the sight cansed no ordinary feelings. The cracks in the ice became more and more visible, and continued to increase in width, as we drove rapidly along. Nothing, however, was said. The horses having trotted without injury over the small cracks, became soon accustomed to leap over the wide ones; but none were so wide |