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these feelings we have nothing now to do. Whether for good or ill, they have had their day. They have done their work, and their place is now among the things that are past. It is no longer in our choice to revive them if we would. They are

But these sentiments, gentlemen, were among the elements with which the framers of our institutions had to do. In these they saw a principle of repulsion between the states, against which they deemed it necessary to provide. In doing this, they did not miscalculate the energy of this principle of state pride. They only mistook its duration. They did not deem it possible that the time should ever come, when, in the eyes of her own sons, Virginia in herself should be nothing; when the memory of her glorious deeds should be forgotten, and their anniversaries pass by unheeded; when her own proud banner should no longer float above her capitol; and when all her pride of sovereignty and independence should be habitually derided as the apery of children, doing the honors of the baby-house, and mimicking the airs of men and women.

day Virginia had not forgotten to boast that the love of liberty which then animated her, was a principle hardly more lofty and generous, than her steadfast and devoted loyalty in earlier times. It was her pride to reflect, that in all her struggles with power, no want of fidelity, no want of grati-gone-FOREVER. tude, no disregard of natural or covenanted obligations, and no defect of magnanimity, could be imputed to her. When the crown was torn from the head of Charles I. she had stood alone in her loyalty; she was the last to acknowledge the usurper; the last to submit to inevitable necessity, and the first to return to her allegiance, in defiance of a power before which Europe trembled. In the recent conflict she had not dishonored her old renown. Though foremost in the race of revolution, she had been the last to renounce her allegiance; and in this, her resolute fidelity to the crown, she saw a justification of her resistance to the usurpation of parliament, and her final renunciation of that relation to the king himself, to which he, by abetting that usurpation, had shown himself unfaithful. The men of that day did not need to be told that it was not on the fourth day of July, 1776, that Virginia first proclaimed her independence. What others then declared their purpose of doing, she had already done. It was on the twenty-ninth of the preceding month, that she, by her own separate act, completed the organization of her own separate government, and, taking her independent stand among the nations of the earth, put in operation that constitution under which we were born. No, gentlernen! the sons of Virginia in that day needed not that this proud chapter in her history should be read to them. In that day they looked not abroad for topics of exultation and themes of praise. Virginia had not then forgotten to claim the first of men as peculiarly her own. The voice of her Henry still sounded in her ears. The wisdom of her Mason still guided her councils. The rising splendor of her Jefferson still shone for her alone, and along her vallies the last dying echoes of the cannon of York-Town still reverberated. Look where she might, what was there of wisdom and greatness and virtue, in the history of man, to which her own annals might not furnish a parallel? How poor in comparison the boast of Eng-one of the bright stars of our federal constellation, land's poetic moralist,

These things may be foolish; but they were follies for which wise men made allowance. Their existence was taken into the account, and the balance of power was adjusted to them. They thus become an essential element in the constitution itself. They are like the follies and weaknesses and passions of man, which are a part of his nature, and to which God himself conforms and adapts his laws. They are as the centrifugal force in the planetary system, which, duly restrained by a counterpollent energy, preserves the order of the universe, and without which, all must tumble into shapeless ruin.

Is it not then our duty to cherish them? Do we not owe it to ourselves and our children, as well as to our ancestors, to cherish the memory of their virtues, and their noble deeds; to keep fresh in our minds the recollection of all that is glorious in the history of Virginia; to fan the flame of state pride in our hearts; to keep her independence and sovereignty ever present to our thoughts; to habituate ourselves not only to regard her as

but as, in and of herself, A SUN, sole and selfpoised in the firmament of the commonwealth of nations?

"That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own!" Was this an unw holesome and distempered pride? And shall they who cherish these sentiments, Ask your own hearts! Ask the history of Vir- be denounced as hostile to the union of these ginia, while cherishing these hallowed recollec-states? Trust me, gentlemen, it is by these alone tions, her sons, emulous of the example of their that the union itself can be preserved. It is by fathers, secured to her-not by numbers-not by these alone that union can be prevented from dewealth; but by intellectual pre-eminence-by generating into one vast consolidated despotism. moral worth-by magnanimous and self-renoun- There, as over the wide expanse of the Russian cing devotion to the common weal-the first place empire, the genius of arbitrary sway shall brood, in this vast confederacy! until the free spirit of our Anglo-Saxon race shall But, gentlemen, with the wisdom or folly of burst its bonds, and, by forcible disruption, tear

asunder the whole incongruous mass, and cover this continent, like that of Europe, with the ruins of a mighty empire, broken up into kingdoms and states, implacable in mutual hate, embittered by the memory of former ties.

NEW VIEW OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. (CONTINUED.)

I have said, that the distances of the planets from the sun, and the velocity they have in their orbits, must be means now employed. I have also said, that the proascertained from physical data, very different from the gressive motion of the Sun must limit and equalize the

denied, and the reason given, is, "that the different velocities of the planets which has been mathematically ascertained to exist, and about which no one at all acquainted with mathematics will now question, disproves your assertion-and without further proof on your part, the sun cannot be considered a progressive body; and your notion about the equal velocity of the planets must be discarded."

of the solar system, whether the Sun is a stationary Now it is quite immaterial, as it respects my views body, and the planets moving round him in orbits returning into themselves, or he a progressive body, and the planets moving round him in orbits not returning into themselves, as to this particular question. I shall, therefore, proceed at once to show that the planets must have the same velocity, even to a second of time, or their periods would be very different from what they are.

The European mathematicians say, that Mercury performs one period in eighty-seven days twenty-three hours-Venus in 224 days 17 hours. Then, for greater convenience, I will reduce these days or times to hours. Mercury's time will be 2,111 hours, and Venus' 5,393. Now divide the time of Venus by the time of Mercury:

I repeat it, gentlemen; if we would avoid this fearful consummation, we must strive to renew in our minds the same sentiments which once made Virginia glorious, and which made her glory pre-progressive motion of the planets. But this has been cious to her sons. And said I, that this attempt would now be vain? That the spirit of our fathers was no more among us, but gone, with their achievements, to the history of the past? O! gentlemen, can this be so? Can you look thus coldly on that past? Can we, in fancy, summon from the tomb the forms of the mighty dead, and shall not our hearts be kindled, and shall not our spirits burn within us, to emulate those who acted and suffered, that we might be free, honored and prosperous? Where do we find the brave in war, the wise in council, and the eloquent in debate, and Virginia's sons are not among the foremost? Are not the names of Washington and Henry, and Jefferson and Madison, and Marshall and Randolph, all her property? Are not these her jewels; and shall she, unlike the mother of the Gracchi, pine, because others may outshine her in such baubles as mere gold can buy? Can you consent to throw these honors into common stock, and to share your portion in Washington with the French of Louisiana, and the Dutch of New York, and the renegades from every corner of the earth, who swarm their great commercial cities, and call themselves your countrymen and HIS! What fellowship have we with those who change their country with their climate? The Virginian is a Virginian every where. In the wilds of the west, on the sands of Florida, on the shores of the Pacific-every where his heart turns to Virginia-path, and to Venus 81,000, as it is said to have been every where he worships with his face toward the temple of freedom erected here. To us, who remain, it belongs to minister at the altar-to feed the flame-and, if need be, to supply the sacrifice. Do this, and Virginia will again be recognized as the mother of nations; as the guide and exemplar of the states that have sprung from her bosom, and been nourished by her substance. False to herself, and to the honor of the common origin, these will desert and spurn her. True to the memory of the illustrious dead, true to her old renown, her sons, from every realm, shall flock to her as to their tower of strength, and, in her hour of trial, if that hour shall come, shall stand around her, and guard her like a wall of fire.

CONSCIENCE.

Conscience is to the moral nature what common sense is to

2,111) 5,393 (21,171

4,222

1,171

2,111

Here then we have two periods for Mercury and nearly half of another, while Venus makes one. This is very plain, very simple, and very easily understood. But I will now give to Mercury 110,000 miles an hour in his

demonstrated, (and always mathematically, of course,)
to be the real facts, and are so stated in our books, and
so taught in our schools:

Mercury 2,111 hours. Venus 5,393 hours.
110,000 miles.
81,000 miles.
232,210,000
5,393,000
43,144

436,833,000

If we divide the distance Venus moves to make one revolution, by the distance Mercury moves to make one,

the result shows the error of the mathematicians in

giving different velocities to these two bodies.

23,222)000) 436,752 (000 (1,204,532
232,220

204,532

232,220

By giving the velocities to these two planets, according to our mathematical teachers, Mercury would make but one revolution and part of another only, while VeWhereas it is well known that Mer

the intellectual. When it is lost, the victim of vice is a speci- nus makes one. men of moral insanity.-Hesperian.

cury actually makes two revolutions and nearly half of

VOL. IV.-97

from the Sun, nor is Jupiter more than 55,000,000, and that no one planet has a greater velocity in its orbit than another. This can be proved or disproved in the United States. There will certainly be no necessity for us to ask foreign aid.

another while Venus is performing one. Now, what is I have said, the Earth is not more than 5,000,000 of miles true of these two planets, is true of all the others; and whatever may be the real velocity of Mercury, is certainly the real velocity of all the other planets. Give to Venus the velocity given to Mercury, and then their periods correspond, and all is harmony; but give them different velocities, and the results cannot, by any correct mathematical process, by no conceivable arrangement of figures or numbers, be made to correspond and harmonize with the real facts as they exist in this our field of creation.

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Here, also, we find that the number of the revolutions of the Earth, corresponds to a second of time to the real facts, as they exist in relation to these two planets, in the system, as it came from the hands of its Creator. Then what will be the result, if we take the mathematicians for our guide? If we give to the Earth 68,000 miles an hour in her path, she will move in 8,766 hours 596,088,000 miles in making one period; and if we give Jupiter 29,000 miles an hour, he will move in 103,926 hours 3,014,086,000 miles, to complete one of his periods. Then divide the distance run by Jupiter, by the distance run by the Earth:

596,088)000) 3,014,086 (000 (533,646
2,980,440

33,646 596,088

596,088

According to the mathematicians, then, the Earth ought to make but five revolutions and a fraction of another, while Jupiter makes one. Thus it is with all the other planets. Here I might say that the whole of the phenomena which we observe among the planets, proves beyond the reach of the mathematician, the infallibility of the data I here present, and that triangulation is an absolute absurdity when applied to the planetary bodies. The mathematicians are not only in error as to the distances of the planets from the Sun-they are most egregiously so as to the different velocities they have given them in their paths.

I have been latterly advised to submit my views to some of the learned in Europe: but why should I do this?

Are we destitute of common sense in the United States? Are we still in leading strings? It is true I stand somewhat in relation to the Copernican system, as Copernicus himself did in relation to the system of the Egyptian astronomer; but with this difference, he had the ignorance of an unenlightened age to combat ; whereas I am free to think, and in a land where the human mind is unfettered by either religious or political despotism. Then why appeal to foreigners? I

But the four bodies which exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, seem to have excited a very deep interest among the mathematicians of the present age. The phenomena they exhibit to the observers of their positions and motions, are so very different from all the other planets, that some of them agree that their motions, positions, and relative distances, together with the intersection of their orbits, constitutes a state of things entirely "inexplicable upon any known principles of science." Olbers and Brewster suppose these bodies to be fragments of an exploded planet, which occupied that region of space at some period of creation. My view of the solar system embraces this opinionand I think I may safely say, that the electro-magnet theory, which I shall now soon present to the learned, will clear up all difficulties respecting these bodies, by showing mathematically why their orbits must necessarily intersect each other, and why their aphelion and perihelium distances are as necessarily so very diffe rent from each other, and from all the other planets. It is very certain that the principles upon which the mathematicians of the last and preceding century based their system, as projection and gravitation, will never solve the difficulties involved in the phenomena exhibited by these bodies.

MUSINGS OF NAPOLEON.

Some lines appeared several months ago in the Messenger suggested by a painting of Napoleon meditating on the rock of St. Helena. An engraving from the same painting gave rise to the following stanzas:—

For three-score moons, sepulchral isle,

There lived in thee a thinking manLived, though his light, to fade the while, With the first waning moon began.

And who was he, of mighty name?

He wore the earth's imperial wreathA spur of fire, a crest of flame,

And sword that never knew its sheath.

Tomb of the brave! thy rock-bound beach
Received a wreck: no other isle
His equal saw-then thou can'st teach
How rainbow-like is fortune's smile.

What are his thoughts, 'twere vain to say-
That hov'ring sea-fowl cannot speak;
Nor can the clouds that roll all day,
Nor waves that chafe yon island bleak.

But yet he thinks: does Egypt's coast
Its Delta rise, or fruitless sands-
Aboukir's bay-or Turkish host-
Or are his thoughts on other lands?

Perhaps he thinks of that proud steed,

Who scorned, like him, the Alpine chain,
And bore him, with electric speed,
Down to Marengo's purple plain.

His thoughts may mount the Pyrenees,
And range to seats of Moorish power-
Alhambra's groves of orange trees,

Its gates of brass, and marble tower.

Or does he muse of that proud Czar
Who 'mid war's desolating storm,
The green-house burnt, from Gaul afar,
That might have kept his chaplet warm?

Or does he think how kings did try,
To rock his couch on Elba's steeps,
Till trump and drum urg'd on the cry?
Ambition dreams, but never sleeps.

Or does he gaze on Belgium's field,

Where England's rose blush'd crimson deep,
In Gallic blood-where chargers reeled,
And Albion's widows went to weep?
But thought may run in softer moods-

Of France, Rome's king, his empress queenOf lilies, brooks, or olive woods

His old war steed 'mid pastures green;

Or shepherds' crook that rules the glen,
And bugle notes of gondolier,
Of grain reap'd down by rural men,
Or pilgrim songs of muleteer.

Or he may muse on cottage flowers,

That deck some Gallic peasant's home, And vines that curl in summer hours,

Where the proud Seine is wont to roam.

Each hero paints some moral tale,

From Nimrod down to Charles the Swede; Just as he ranks on glory's scale,

From India's floods to classic Tweed.

But many more to paint, 'tis thine,

Than eastern tribes could ever tell, From Balbec's fame to Mecca's shrine,

Or else from Greece to France la belle.

And this shall last to latest time,

E'en when millennial flowers shall grow,
And holy poets weave their rhyme,
By winding Seine or classic Po.

And weary, sea-sick limbs shall leap,

To find yon isle of deep repose, Where rests the man whose sword could sweep From India's strand to Lapland's snows.

From Scottish glens or Palestine,

Shall pilgrims come-or from PeruAnd on the mound of him recline,

Who hither came from Waterloo.

Can herds of deer their huntsman bind?
Can trembling fawn or swift gazelle
Turn from the hills o'er which they wind,

And crush that huntsman's sounding shell?

Retire, great man-muse o'er the past;

Kneel to the King of Sea and Land:

He wove the chain that holds thee fast; Its links are round his viewless hand.

At Waterloo-'tis thus we read

A chapel stands; on that great day Untouched: turn then devotion's beadThis fact might teach all men to prayOr else thy blood-red sun goes down, Nor leaves one charm of soft twilight, No orange bloom, nor olive crown, Nor evening star-but starless night! But I forget (for fancy's spell,

A moment's space had made me dream,) That death hath not yet tolled thy knell, 'Mid ocean's moan and sea-bird's scream.

H.

BENEFITS OF KNOWLEDGE

ON MORALS.

(A continuation of the reply to the author of the essays on "The Influence of Morals.")

BY A NATIVE OF GOOCHLAND, VIRGINIA.

When all was pure and spotless, the earth a paradise, and the character of man unstained, virtue with an unflickering lamp lighted the path of duty. Now all has changed. The feelings and passions of the human bosom are perverted. And whether we view man as a poor outcast in the sandy and parched deserts of Arabia-a wanderer on the inhospitable shores of Kamtschatka-a solitary dweller amidst the splendid ruins of antiquity, or a denizen of some crowded and refined metropolis, we find him with a disposition to feel, think, and to act for himself. All other created things follow their appointed order and unvarying course, with no wandering from their orbits-no variations-no changes. The stars twinkle, and the flowers bud and bloom as they did in the earliest period of time. But man has been passing around the whole cycle of vices, ignorance and change. If now and then the philosophers have been sending forth their oracles of wisdom, as their only means of serving and enlightening their race, and of making the dreary path of man's pilgrimage eloquent with the voice of truth, too many have turned aside from the refreshing streams of knowledge, to quench their depraved thirsts with the muddy and unwholesome waters of ignorance and error.

Man is both an intellectual and a moral being. Gifted with the power of acquiring information of the character and condition of eternal objects, of events and facts, and of turning his thoughts towards the investigation of the influences which shape his own conduct, he can also mark out the connexions which exist between different states of things, and follow them to their conclusions. Minerva came all armed and grown up from Jupiter's brain, and was immediately admitted into the assembly of the gods, and made one of the most faithful counsellors of her father. Unlike the fabulous goddess of wisdom, mortals can only acquire

knowledge by incessant toil and labor. Every blessing | which is calculated to obliterate the sacred image of the is the reward of exertion. Only through labor comes great Creator, that, in his munificence, he had impressed improvement. A thousand precious jewels are scat-upon man? tered around us. There is good in every thing. The earth, and air, and sea, are rich with instructions to those that learn. Much is within the reach of the human intellect, if it will grasp after it. Much that will raise it high above the mouldering clods of earth. All creation, with its thousand marvels, is before us; and it is only for man to lift the veil, if he would be instructed in a steady course of wisdom and of virtue.

Nothing can be seen in our moral capacities and natures, that renders them unfit to be brought under the influence of knowledge. Man occupies a place in a great system of moral government, in which he bears certain relations to a moral governor, and certain others to the beings with whom he is associated. Arising out of this relationship, there are duties for him to perform. He is endowed with powers and feelings, which, if properly directed, will qualify him for his task. The will, however, is perverse and corrupt, and has a controlling power, in many cases, over the feelings and affections. They, too, in their turn, have a powerful and an overwhelming effect upon his determinations and resolutions. And when the affections and feelings are properly cultivated and directed, the will always partakes of their complexion. The appetites and desires, though depraved, can be controlled, and the result will be seen in the conduct. And the only inquiry for us to make is, whether an improvement of the intellectual faculties, and the knowledge which can be received through the powers of sensation and simple intellect, relating either to external objects or to mental phenomena, to our own actions, or to those of others, and the conclusions which are drawn from our observations, by the powers of reason, are calculated to contribute to man's purity as a moral being?

The mind, whether cultivated or not, has a great influence on the feelings. By our intellect we think and we plan. It is ever active and restless; now ranging through the world of realities, then sporting in

But there are some who contend, that the flame of knowledge never blazes up except amidst the ruins of morality and virtue. This cannot be its character. What is knowledge? Is it an instrument by which man is to be enslaved, and his mind is to be brought under the subjection of wild and crude dogmas? Is it the cultivation of sentiments, which are at variance with human happiness? or of principles which run counter to its interests? Does it familiarize the feelings to scenes of vice, and teach the heart to forget the inspira. tions of virtue, or to forego the pleasures of hope? Does it sing the siren's song-enchanting the hapless listener to destruction? No! This is not knowledge. Go to the monuments of true greatness and learn what it is. Read its history in the record of illustrious actions; in the works of philanthropists; in the triumphs of the patriot. It has gone through the world as a mighty conqueror, contending with power and embattled hosts; pulling down long established institutions, overthrowing dynasties, rooting out from the human bosom prejudices and bigotry, loosening the bonds of the oppressed, breaking the wand of despotism, opening a vast and wide field of thought and of intellectual enjoyment, in which thou-one of its own creation. The feelings may prompt us sands have reaped unadulterated happiness, and pre- to act, but every scheme of life must receive the sancpared themselves to benefit their race and their country. tion of the judgment. For what other purposes was The tokens of its greatness are scattered every where. this wonderful machinery of the human mind conThe traces of its glorious march are to be seen on land structed? Was it formed for nothing? Is it possible and on sea. It has bound green and never-fading that the most wonderful, and the most marvellous of wreaths around the brows of Galileo and Newton, all the works of creation, is a useless appendage to the Franklin and Fulton, Locke and Bacon, Howard and economy of eternal wisdom? Every creature has its Wilberforce. One of the fathers of ancient philosophy part to perform. The meanest animalcule fulfils its beautifully represented truth as the body of God, and pre-ordered destiny. The annihilation of a single atom light as his shadow. Knowledge is truth. It is light would violate the laws and disturb the arrangements issuing out of moral and intellectual darkness; a deve of the universe. If it were possible to blot out the lopment of the mysteries of nature, and of the pheno-human intellect, and to efface from man that noble feamena which are continually bewildering the ignorant,ture of his character, which enables him to think, to and leading them into errors. It illuminates the pages reason, and to acquire knowledge, what imagination of religion, and offers to the mind the food which is could picture to itself, the wretched condition to which necessary for the growth, nourishment and health of its the human family would be reduced? Moral and acfaculties. Without it, man, who was made to soar countable beings, with depraved inclinations and unhalamongst the stars, or to rest in the bosom of his God, lowed passions, wandering through the world, like the and to act a noble and exalted part in that great drama maniac, with no torch of reason to illuminate their path in which all created things appear, whether beautiful of duty, no memory to bequeath to them happy recolflower or noxious weed, the machinations of vile insects, lections, no imagination to paint to them a blissful futuor the works of proud and immortal genius, whether rity! The extinction of the light of reason would not the little speck of creation which is encompassed by our alter, in the least, their evil propensities. But the pashorizon, or the numberless worlds which roll far off in sions would be no less restrained. The noblest works the wide expanse of the universe, will grovel in the of our race are, at best, poor and evanescent. They dust, and add no illustration of the goodness and great are heirs of decay and change. The mouldering relies ness of infinite wisdom, to the praises which every other of the tomb are the bitterest mocks of their futility. created being will sing. If it be the duty and province What then would man's noblest achievements be, withof knowledge to refine and expand the faculties, and to out the light of knowledge to guide him? Frailer than give us right conceptions of the works of the physical the withered leaf of autumn before the chasing winds; and moral worlds, what then can be discovered in it frailer than a bubble floating on a rough and boisterous

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