sonian verbosity which so much characterized the late and lamented Dr. R. W. Hamilton, he has much, as regards style, in common with him. The extent of reading, the choiceness and richness of imagery, the quaintness of expression, the ability to illustrate, the readiness in applying the events of daily life to religious instruction, and the number of appropriate anecdotes, which mark the preaching of the one, also distinguish that of the other. Short, Saxon sentences mark his style, and a Demosthenic tire and vigor his delivery, which is occasionally interrupted and relieved by a modulated Ciceronian flow. His voice on the whole is harsh and monotonous, but capable of strong and vigorous outbursts, for which those who are little acquainted with him would scarcely give him credit. His orations (for they are such in the strictest sense of the word) are sometimes marred by mannerisms and vulgar-seeming expressions. These, however, are becoming less and less frequent, and, we doubt not, will ultimately vanish. The formation of his periods is scriptural; tinged a little with what may be denominated Puritanism; of which, by the way, he is an enthusiastic admirer. In a word, few men have been, or are, listened to with more satisfaction and improvement than George Dawson. And of fewer can it be said, that their congregations were never wearied of listening; ever more willing to enter than depart.

Such is our impression of George Dawson as a Christian preacher. That he has his failings and shortcomings we are willing to admit. That his youth, and the bitterness of his opponents, may have led him to commit errors, may be easily allowed; and no one is more willing to confess, and anxious to atone for them, than himself. Early success is a difficult thing to support. Many have fallen beneath a much, a very much less load; few have stood so firmly beneath so great a one. It is a fearful ordeal thrö which to pass; but that he will come forth a stronger, wiser, and better man, we entertain the strongest confidence.

room.

We now turn to Mr. Dawson as a Lecturer. It has long been a complaint among wise and thoughtful men, that Christian principles have been in abeyance in the Lecture That men treating of scientific questions have been extremely wary and vigilant, lest unawares some incidental expressions indicative of religious belief should escape them. The two subjects have been looked upon as entirely irreconcilable; nay, completely antagonistic.

We now need a resuscitation of that fine old doctrine which looked at all things thro the spirit of Christianity. Not the narrow, creed-fettered thing of to-day-falsely so called; but the universal, free, and transcendental Christianity of the Master. Mr. Dawson attempts this, with a desire to permeate every part of life with its influence.

Mr. Dawson as a Lecturer is more known, and therefore better appreciated, than as a preacher. There are few places in England, of any literary character at all, in which numerous and delighted audiences have not listened to his disquisitions. The characteristics which mark his pulpit discourses, distinguish also his lectures. The same beauties and the same blemishes. Perhaps the latter have been a little more marked in the theatre than in the temple. A greater aptness to indulge in dogmatism; a greater display of his peculiar mannerisms-degenerating at times into flippancy, and approximating very closely to vulgarity. But these faults are now fast disappearing. With all the dross there is enough of sterling gold left, to consummate a worthy vessel. Few will be found indeed, who do not willingly pardon his eccentricities, for the instruction, delight, and elevation, which his lectures always produce in his hearers.

Mr. Dawson, as a Lecturer, partly supplies a desideratum of the present times, partly answers a want long felt; a deficiency long complained of. By uniting philosophy with

the truths of a high and chivalrous Christianity, he is paving the way for a better class of Lecturers, in the highest acceptation of the word, than we at present possess.

Christianity is the democracy of religion, and democracy is the Christianity of government." No words better than these, quoted from Theodore Parker, can express the position of Mr. Dawson as a Political Reformer. He is a Christian democrat. Drawing his politics, as he does his leading views of man and of life, from the New Testament. Democracy and Christianity are synonymous. Not the democracy which at present exists in any part of the world; but the democracy at present ideal, that day by day will develop itself and grow stronger, as men increase in the true knowlege of the religion of Christ, until it becomes an actual, realized existence. With this end constantly in view, Mr. Dawson's platform Orations are marked by his earnest efforts to make the people become their own improvers. To depend little upon what government, laws, and external machinery can do for them; but on what they can do for themselves, by sobriety, industry, and religion. With little trust upon the elevating effects of any merely political reform, his hopes are high as to the issues of social reform. "Mau can be thoroly free only thro the bondage of Christ; and what the world has to do, is to get (as speedily as may be) His laws so firmly and deeply engraven in its heart, that the necessity for other laws and other governments will entirely pass away." Such is his theory respecting politics. That our words should be religious politics; not religion and politics. This gives a depth and sincerity to his public speeches which has won for him a high position in the favor and love of the people, and has given him great influence over them, invariably exercised for their improvement and elevation, with the view of making them worthy of those rights which they righteously demand. To gain this popularity he has adopted no mean and demagogic practices; has never descended to that vilest of all vile things, to flatter their vices and prejudices. These have always been the subjects of his sternest animadversions. Looking upon every public meeting as one more opportunity for teaching the people, he has ever labored to send them therefrom with some little seed of fresh wisdom, which may in time fructify into a noble tree. The people love him for his truthfulness, and he loves the people, for they are the children of God, the souls for whom Christ taught, suffered, and died!

Such, then, is an outline of Mr. Dawson in his triple capacity of Preacher, Lecturer, and Reformer. Tho traced by a friendly hand, we trust we have been able to draw the line between friendship and partiality. We believe he has yet much to learn, and not a little to unlearn. But from the fact that he is himself conscious of this, and, like all truly great minds, is the first to confess an error which he deems he has committed, we anticipate much for his future career. His present position, and the manner in which he fills it, warrant us in believing, that by assiduous study, industry, and self-denial, he is capable of accomplishing the highest achievments; and of reaching the highest point of his profession.

In private life, those who know Mr. Dawson best, respect and love him most.

THE HOME OF CHILDHOOD REVISITED.

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“Visited............after a lapse of twenty years.-The property had been parted with some time before--the old Court-farm pulled down, and a modern Mansion erected,— now in chancery.—The neighboring Cottage, where some of the happiest days of my early childhood were spent, was still standing, but untenanted. On enquiry I found my former nurse, the daughter of the old people, and one of the gentlest and most affectionate creatures in the world, had long been married,-not equally. She and her husband were living in a distant part, and very poor; he decrepid-she afflicted with helpless paralysis, and wholly dependant on the hard earnings, and devoted solicitude, of her own married daughter."

m

Y native vale! my native vale !
Tho I have left thee long,
And listened since to many a tale,
And many a glowing song,

Of charms that other lands display,-
And wandered many a weary way,-

I ne'er have done thee wrong;—
For still my heart returns to thee,
With all its old fidelity.

The peace that in thy bosom reigns,-
The calm unruffled mien,-

Unchanged by lapse of years, remains

As it has ever been.

The crested height-the steep hill side-
The rock-the glen-the forest wide,-
Each well-remembered scene,

The same sweet smile of beauty wears
That Nature's aspect ever bears.

Not so with Human things! I look
Where stood my Father's Hall,—
I seek each old familiar nook,—

The antique garden wall,—

Each spot by some fond thought endeared
Of childhood's hour,-no more revered,-
Rude hands are laid on all,

And they who now possess that shrine,
Look coldly down on me and mine.

I turn me to an humbler sphere,-
The lowly cot hard by,

Where, with the mingled smile and tear,
Was nursed my Infancy.

The Cottage stands; -but oh! how great
The change within,-how desolate

Is all that meets the eye!

Deserted now is every place,

And strange cach new or altered face.
The aged Pair, whose chief delight
(Unused afar to roam)

To watch me seemed, by day and night,
Have long been gathered home.
But she on whom I most relied,
Who scarcely let me from her side,
Of her what has become?
The playmate, sister, nurse combined,
The young, the vigorous, the kind.
Her soft and guileless check imbued
With health's elastic glow,―
Just ripening into womanhood,

No care had marred her brow.
But she hath since her ample share,
That neither cot nor palace spare,
Of changes here below,-

Of toil and suffering known-and more,
Of feeling wasted at the core!

The One to whom her troth was given,

In full confiding truth ;

Of all who for the prize had striven,
The chosen of her youth,—

When came the sterner things of life,
With sorrow, pain, and struggling rife,-
When needed most his sooth,-
Proved hard or worse. I drop the veil
On that too oft affecting tale.

A poor and distant roof to gain
I sought, and there, decayed,

Long helpless, on a bed of pain,
A withered form was laid.

Her help-mate too was now grown old,-
And Penury is very cold!-

But there was one arrayed

In likeness near, to Heaven allied,-
A Daughter watching by her side!

B.

OATHS-SWEARING.

To the Editor of the Truth-Seeker.

SIR; Before making any reply to the remarks of B. E., I would observe, that the expressions used by him in reference to oaths as administered in our courts of law (as "the witness is passive "—" our witnesses are not required to do any thing but kiss a book". '—" witnesses merely give their evidence after having been adjured to do so etc.), might lead one to suppose that no sense of additional obligation ought to result from the proceeding.

B. E. divides the oaths in use among the Jews into three classes :-profane swearing, -vows strengthened by the obligation of an oath,—and the oath of adjuration. As it is desirable to reduce the question into a narrow compass, I shall confine my remarks to the last mentioned, the oath of adjuration; because, if we can show that it is included in the prohibition of Christ against swearing, there will be little difficulty in proving that the judiciary oath of this country stands in the same category. Your Correspondent, indeed, admits their resemblance, and conjectures that the English form is the offspring of the judicial oath of the Hebrews. Is the latter, then, included in the prohibition of Christ?

In doubtful cases, an examination of the grounds on which anything is forbidden, will sometimes enable us to ascertain the extent of the prohibition, and to make a more definite application of it. It does so in the present instance. Swearing appears to have been prohibited on two considerations :-first, as implying that the obligation to speak the truth

.

a What is meant here by additional' obligation. Nothing in my communication is calculated to make light of a witness's obligation to speak the truth. I know of no other obligation for a witness than to speak the truth, which is an abiding one under all circumstances. The words of an adjuration, in the olden time, did, and perhaps may now, impose an obligation TO SPEAK, in opposition to being silent; and, viewed in that light, a sense of additional or peculiar obligation "ought to result from the proceeding." But that, I suspect, was not the writer's meaning.

b X. Y. Z. is here in error. The threefold division given as mine, is not mine; nor have I said any thing, in that connection, about oaths "in use amongst the Jews."

There is certainly a resemblance in one main particular, viz., in their both being a form pronounced by the Civil Ruler, and the person addressed saying what he is told to say. But it may assist in the enquiry, briefly to glance at the points of difference.In the Hebrew Courts of law, when evidence was wanting, and the witness not known, a proclamation was made in open court, calling upon any one, under penalty of being cursed, to come forward and tell what he knew in respect of the transaction: we have nothing like this; but, when wanting evidence, we print an Advertisement offering a Reward. In the Hebrew Courts of law, a witness was adjured to SPEAK; it was taken for granted that he would speak the truth: whereas we call upon such to speak"the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Sometimes the Jewish form of adjuration closed with a curse. Civil rulers now-a-days not having the power to curse, have appended a form of prayer to the adjuration: to the effect that God would help the witness to speak the truth. Probably there is another point of difference, but I do not insist upon it; viz. that the adjuration was not pronounced, or administered, except when the witness was not known, or when a known witness refused to give his testimony-the form of the adjuration being different in each case: we, on the contrary, adjure known and willing witnesses.