open arms, and their best wishes and their fervent prayers followed them from their shores. It was fortunate for both that they parted, for it was decreed that their mutual offspring, in after times and under other skies, should form a union that space could not separate nor time destroy. The descendants of the Pilgrims have always enjoyed one manifest and important advantage over the founders of New-York. They have had industrious historians, and untiring defenders, who have allowed no occasion or opportunity to remain unimproved, to spread before the world, and repeat to all succeeding generations, the accounts of the sufferings and virtues of the early settlers, and the noble efforts of their no less worthy descendants. In all this they have set an example of which we might have availed, to some extent, with advantage. But it is well, it is more than well; it is fortunate, it is thrice fortunate, not only for us but for the human family, that this bold, hardy, adventurous, liberty-loving race, should not have been satisfied with a less extended sphere of thought and action than the one they at last sought and found. Their restless activity, their untiring zeal, their unwavering confidence in their own resources, and their confiding hope in a Protecting Arm above, required a wilderness to be subdued for their own and their children's sake; and they could be satisfied with nothing less than the Western World, as a habitation and a home for themselves, and their posterity. Our Dutch ancestors, fully aware of the value and importance of the early training of the youthful mind, cultivated with assiduity and care those domestic relations and affections which endear the offspring to the parent, by making their home the cherished object of their attachment, the idol of their youthful hearts, as that home was seen and felt and enjoyed, under a parent's watchful eye, in its sports and its pastimes, its holidays and games. Who has not read with delight, and repeated with pleasure, and who but a son of St. Nicholas could have written, the graphic, joyous account of the New-Year'sEve Visit of our patron Saint to the youthful recipients of his bounty and his cheer? How we all welcome his jovial advent! We admire his gay and airy equipage; we hear the stamping of his impatient steeds; we wonder at his curious entrance — we regret his sudden exit; while we strive in vain to follow him in his rapid course; and yet we know not, nor should we inquire too minutely, how much of history may be embodied in the recital, or how far imagination and fancy may have embellished the tale. Let not the dignity of age nor the gravity of years mock at the joys of childhood, the gambols of youth, and the scenes of our early days. It is alike pleasing and instructive to go back in imagination, and retrace our footsteps in 'life's morning march,' when our spirits were buoyant and gay; that spring-time of life, when earth was green beneath us, and the skies were bright above;' when all was joy and gladness, and no cloud of gloom or sorrow had shaded the brow. How distinct are the impressions, how quick the discernment, how correct the discrimination even of childhood, after its own way,and - in its own familiar sphere; and how serviceable are the recollections, how pregnant with many a useful lesson, to maturer years! The absence of respect for age and experience; the impatience of restraint, and the want of submission to parental admonition, and of obedience to parental authority, are among the most objectionable as well as striking features that are but too often displayed in our country. It is the fault of early education - not of our institutions. Filial respect and obedience should be combined with affection and love, that the child may be led to look up to his parent as his friend and companion, no less than his counsellor and guide, his director and instructor. The fireside of the Hollander is exhibited in glowing colors on the canvass of the painter, and celebrated in story and in song. There met and mingled the attachment of kindred, the love of offspring; every tender tie, every fond endearment, every kindred association, every hallowed recollection; to be treasured up in the garners of their affection, as they brightened the circle of domestic felicity and clustered around the hearth of home. The first dawnings of the youthful mind, man's break of day,' are displayed under the parent's eye, and it is for them to permit that dawn to be obscured by the clouds of error, or cheered and enlightened by the rays of moral and intellectual truth. For the moral impressions, the genial influences, and the gentler affections, as awakened in early life, at home, serve as bright and beaming stars not only to guide our erring reason in its earlier efforts, but to direct our future course. The want of this early training, of this parental education, of this direction and exercise of the gentler virtues in the opening mind, has led astray many a noble nature. It has marred the prospects of the greatest, and blasted the hopes of the proudest. While, as regards that mighty mass, whose weal or wo must exert, for good or ill, its lasting influence on the character of our institutions and the destinies of our republic, the consequences of the absence or neglect of this early training on the unsubdued, unrestrained and unenlightened minds of youth, are seen in those desolating tempests that sweep with destructive force over the fair face of nature, and strew with many a wreck the stream of time. But although these paramount obligations should ever be considered as primary objects of devotion, they should not occupy our thoughts and attentions to the exclusion of other no less essential and important duties of life; for although of necessity the first, they should not form the only sources whence to derive the consolation of having performed our duty to ourselves and to society. It has sometimes been charged upon the descendents of Dutch ancestry, that they restrain within the limits of domestic life not merely its appropriate feelings and attachments, but that experience and those attainments also which require but space and room—a sufficient object and a proper direction-to become enlarged, and embrace within their range all the relations and ties that should connect and bind us to our common country. They are thus supposed to retain within the sphere which they imagine these duties. have described, that worth which should endear them to the world, and thus confine within the narrow circle of self what was equally intended for friendship and mankind. If this be so, or if aught of this be true, no common object can so beneficially divert, or so properly direct and fix the attention, enlist our feelings, arouse our patriotism, and awaken the energies of the mind, as a Society like this, formed for objects so worthy in themselves, and so dear to us all. In the exercise of its duties, or when joining in its festivities, we leave and forget for a moment our severe duties and labors and cares, and we hail the return of its anniversary as a pastime and a holiday of life. Assembled in the birth-place of our ancestors, in honor of their memory, we cannot but feel an anxious wish, a laudable desire, to strive to emulate their virtues, and prove worthy of a portion of their fame; and as the remembrance of a common ancestry begets mutual good-will, we are disposed to entertain kindlier feelings toward our fellow men; and as each joins the other in tracing the associations of the past, and bringing back the recollection of days gone by, we rekindle the fires of our youth, and are warmed by a generous enthusiasm ; and when we pledge the memory of the FOUNDERS OF NEW-YORK, we naturally recur to own responsibilities as their lineal descendants, and as the inheritors of their patrimony and their name. And when we consider the rapid advancement, the palmy state, and the future prospects of our city, and then bear in mind that it constitutes so important and integral a part of this Great Union, we are led to reflect on the never-ending benefits of that union to all the parts of which it is composed; and thus, by a natural gradation, we are induced to extend our views, and elevate our hopes, and direct our aims to the contemplation of the welfare of our common countay, and the destinies of our Native Land. And what is the city that our ancestors have left us for our inheritance, and what are our duties as possessors of their patrimony? New-York, from its extraordinary natural advantages, was destined to be the commercial emporium of this continent; attracting to itself not only the intelligent and the enterprising of the Old World, but affording to citizens, from every part of our extended country, an appropriate sphere of action, as well as employment and occupation for their diversified talents and acquirements. Placed at the confluence of an arm of the sea and a noble river that unites its waters with the ocean at her very feet; open at all seasons to the commerce of the world; rapidly increasing in population, which is now exceeded in numbers only by some of the capitals among the cities of Europe; occupying the centre of the Union on its ocean boundary, and supported by the influence of the enlightened and liberalizing aid of an extended commerce, which identifies and reconciles so many conflicting interests, our city may become a rallying point where extremes of opinions, or it may be of error, may meet and mingle in reconciliation. Fortunate in her ancestors, safe in her position, proud of her attachment to the Union, and powerful in her commerce, her enterprise and her public spirit, New-York must remain a tower of strength amid the bulwalks of our Republic. The Hudson, that contributes so largely to the greatness of our city, from the point where it receives its tributary from the west to its outlet in the Atlantic, possesses perhaps the greatest extent of serviceable tide-water navigation of any river that is known. Considering the depth of its channel, and its freedom from obstruction; its exemption from sudden and injurious ebbs and flows, either from its sources of supply or the tides of the ocean; its relative position; the vast country that is supplied by its means, and sends its products to its shores; the directness of its course, the salubrity of the climate through which it passes, and the great mart of commerce to which it is tributary, the Hudson may be called the safest as well as the most useful river in the world, and second in importance only to our boundless outlet of the west. Two centuries and a quarter ago, our forefathers erected Fort Orange at the head-waters of navigation. One-third of a century since, on the waters of the same Hudson, FULTON made his successful experiment with the mighty power of steam, which has advanced our country to an extent and with a rapidity that defy calculation. The speed of our river steamers is now four times as great as that of Fulton in his day of triumph. By the aid of the same power we travel with the speed and on the wings of the wind, and internal communications connect and bind together the distant parts of our extended Union. England boasts of her twelve hundred miles of rail-road; we have constructed nearly three times that extent; while our Erie Canal and Croton Aqueduct are works to which Europe can produce no parallel. Removed from the influence, and unconnected with the interests, of the Old World, if we are mindful only of our own true glory, we have a career of greatness to pursue, with which none can effectually interfere; for with one common object in view- the happiness and security of the greatest number-and one common fate and destiny, firmly united in the preservation of our glorious Union, we need fear no ills but such as our own faults or errors may create. We have seen that the troubles which often annoy, and sometimes alarm, will disperse at their own time and of their own accord; while the gathering clouds that occasionally impend in our political atmosphere, will be found to resemble the mists and vapors that hang upon our lofty mountains, forming the cloudy curtain of the sky: If we are but true to ourselves, our own hands may draw aside the veil, and display the distant horizon, clear and bright and boundless as the hopes of our people and the prospects of our country. But as NEW-YORKERS, let us ever remember the principles and example of our Dutch progenitors, not only for our own sake, but for that of our common country. Let us exercise a portion of that patience and perseverance which securely attains its end, rather than the hasty zeal which often outstrips the object of pursuit. Let us practice that economy which is displayed in the proper use of time and money. Let us hold fast by that integrity which justified and consecrated, while we practice the charity and benevolence which alike improved and adorned the wealth which their industry and enterprise accumulated. Let us emulate that stubborn virtue VOL. XXVII. 5 which, firm in defence of its own rights, always respected the rights of others; and when remembering, with grateful homage, their glorious example, as the early, consistent and steadfast friends of civil and religious liberty, let us for ever honor their memory, while we rejoice in the name of the SONS OF ST. NICHOLAS. THE JUDGMENT O F THE DEAD. ΒΙ MARY GARDINER. DIODORUS has recorded an impressive Egyptian ceremonial, the judgment of the dead by the living. When the corpse, duly embalmed, had been placed by the margin of the Acherusian lake, and before consigning it to the bark that was to bear it across the waters to its final resting place, it was permitted to the appointed judges to hear all accusations against the past life of the deceased, and if proved, to deprive the corpse of the rites of sepulture. From this singular law not even kings were exempt WITH sable plume and nodding crest, They bore him to his dreamless rest, Before the whisper of whose name Strong hearts had quailed in fear and shame, The victor's laurel at his feet; In solemn state they swept the glowing strand, And soon with bright exultant eye, Where fierce revenge flashed wild and high, From prison-keep and living grave With faltering step aghast : And sightless men with silver hair, Who for long years had sought to die, And wrestled with their agony Till thought grew wild and intellect grew dim; With pallid cheek and eager prayer, The world might start, the sable plumes might wave, |