it is fitted to engender, are calculated not merely to lead some persons to form erroneous estimates of the character of the early Protestants and of Protestantism; but even to give mistaken views of the end and aim of Christianity itself. This same word, 'toleration,' it is well known, is one of the party cries of that class of men who arrogate to themselves the titles of 'liberal,' 'disciples of reason,' &c.; terms, by the way, which indicate only less presumption than infallibility.' But without dwelling on this point, we cannot forbear to notice that injustice which the memory of the Reformers almost always receives, at the hands of these impartial, unprejudiced, and ready champions of a cause which is its own best advocate. Because excesses were committed by both parties to the great revolution of the sixteenth century, somewhat similar in kind, but immensely different in degree, the strange inference is drawn, that the motives which urged to those excesses were the same. The persecutions on both sides have, moreover, with a seeming candor, been ascribed solely to the then existing spirit of the age; without thinking that because it was the spirit of the age, and exerted an equal influence upon all, it cannot account for the very different conduct of the parties towards each other; so that it must therefore be assigned not as the cause, though it may be as the nurse, of the spirit of intolerance. If, however, we wished to discover the true origin of that foul temper, which has marred the beauty of Christianity, and made her too often a reproach among mankind, need we go farther than the claims of infallibility' and of' universal dominion', which to this hour are asserted by the church of Rome? Are not these its very elements? Would an a priori argument from these principles, give us any other results than the sternest dogmatism and intolerance? Whatever then of these bad feelings Protestants may have displayed, towards Romanists at least, must be referred to another cause.

We wish not here to extenuate the guilt of Cranmer and of Calvin, for their share in the martyrdoms of Joan Bocher and Servetus, further than sheer justice will allow.* The reputation of John Knox we may safely leave with the historian of Scotland and his biographers; in whose hands it is proof at least against mere assertion. For Luther's character we can only say, that as it is above all reproach, it is not less beyond our praise. Not a

* Servetus was condemned not so much for heresy, as for blasphemy; the most flagrant crime against society, as was thought in that day, and which is still recognized as a penal offense in our statutes. Further all the heretics punished by Protestants, suffered according to civil laws enacted under the papal domination; and as public sentiment generally takes its tone from the laws, they who make the laws are chiefly responsible for the opinions their acts instilled into the minds of those who came after them. The last execution for heresy in England was in the time of James I. and by virtue of an act passed years before against the Lollards.

stain of blood, not a breath of slaughter, tarnishes his fair fame.* But admitting the charge of intolerance against these men and their followers; may not much of what has been called persecution at their hands, have been just? Have they who now so rigorously censure their conduct, no knowledge of that essential element of our being, the principle of resentment, (not revenge,) on which is founded nature's first great law of self-preservation? The Reformers beheld Catholic Europe leagued for their destruction. The church of Rome first drew the sword and lighted the fires of persecution, and it was but the joint dictate of nature and of reason, that the mode and means of defense, should have been in some measure proportioned to those of the offense. What then made Protestants intolerant of the church of Rome? The blood of their brethren crying from the ground. Could they have been men, and yet have remained deaf to all its calls? Could they have preached only peace, and yet have remembered the Vaudois; the disciples of Huss and Wicliff; the thirty years war in Germany, and the massacre of the St. Bartholomew ? which last they saw commemorated by a medal that still fitly graces the walls of the Vatican, bearing the woful legend, "Vgonottorum Strages! In view of all this, the reputation of the early Protestants certainly will not suffer, even though the charge of persecution be admitted to the extent to which Roman Catholics themselves may urge it.

We surely need say no more; even thus much on a trite topic being only called for by a disposition abroad, which seems to indicate a forgetfulness of what we have here briefly presented.. Interests of high moment hang, as we believe, upon a just view of this subject; and we have therefore advanced no opinion which is not well supported by facts. Protestantism and the cause of civil and religious liberty, as the present state of the world declares, are so intimately connected, that our strongest hope of the final triumph of republican principles, lies in our belief, that the doctrines of the Reformation are destined to an universal reception. Viewed in this aspect, our subject is one of deep interest to Americans, in whose keeping the ark of this world's safety has been placed. Our country is the arena on which enlightened controversy is now accomplishing the discovery of those great truths which are gradually moving mankind onward to perfection. Here the principles of every sect and party, in church or state, will, nay, must be, rigidly examined; their merits be approved and their faults condemned. No artifice can here for any length of time shield error from observa

*For Luther's sentiments on toleration, see Scott's Life of Luther, Vol. I, pp. 221, 330, sqq., where there is abundant evidence that he did not think " Arians" or other heretics ought to be put to death; and where the most liberal of this liberal age may learn a wholesome lesson.

tion and rebuke. Neither the authority of great names, nor the sanctity which age may give opinions, can screen them from the searching eye of free inquiry; much less will idle cries about "persecution," and "intolerance," prevent men from exercising their unquestioned right, "et sentire quæ velint, et quæ velint dicere." Truth has nothing to fear from this ordeal; no, not even the prejudice of a partial examiner; it is those opinions only which were conceived and brought forth in darkness, while reason and conscience were asleep, which shrink back, pained by the light of our day. Ορθος.

NIGHT MUSINGS.

THE farewell glow of parting day,
That flushed so late the brow of heaven,
To marble paleness sinks away
Before the cool of youngest even;
"Twas flushed,-like mortal brow, when
roll

The storms of passion o'er the soul;-
"Tis faded-like that brow, when thought
From eve a kindred calm hath caught.

Swift over Twilight's lovely face
Those changing hues each other chase;
Trembles from snowy depths afar
The dawning of her earliest star,
And glows the crescent's subtle horn,
From the expiring sunset born,

And binding night to day,
Where evening hangs on day's retreat,
Where bounds of light and darkness meet,
And each, on heaven's azure-sheet

In the other fades away.

Wan Night upon her vesture's waste
With pen of fire that bow hath traced;
But coloring of darker beams,

As of the sunless hue of dreams,
Hath fully bodied forth that sphere.

The brighter crescent but begun,
And bound beside the bright form there

A quenched and rayless one;
The living with the dead,—
The present with the past,-
The spirit's vital essence wed

To the cold clay in which 'tis cast.

Well were it did the spirit's light,
Like that orb, struggling from its night,
As surely, on its destined way,
Wax brighter to the perfect day.

Deeper hath swelled the evening shade,
And mingled wooded hill and glade ;
And raven-pinioned Night,
In sable mantle dight,
Arousing from her orient deep,
Rides low'ring up the darkened steep,
While Heaven's numerous pageantry,

Light onward her triumphal course,
Those watch-fires, fed unceasingly
From light's own holy source.
Down, down the welkin's slanted side,
Her robe of shade descends,
On the last ebb of eventide
To earth it slowly bends.

Beneath her solemn temple-roof,
Night walks in lone supremacy,
And Darkness weaves his braided woof,
To deck her boundless canopy.
Ye stars! that strew his funeral veil,

Ye are no fleeting, changing race ;—
What are ye? all beyond the pale
Of Death's cold reign, and stern em-
brace?

Are ye immortal? have ye caught
A spark from the creating soul,
And deathless nature? are ye fraught
With life beyond Time's vain control ?

Your present might-your home, the
abyss,

Oh! 'tis enough to gaze on this;
To feel that in the eye's embrace
Lies an eternity of space,

That vision hath no term-no bound
To hem its endless circle round,
But that with which it may converse
Is boundless as the universe.

THE STRANGER LADY.

"I'll ne'er forget that look of thine,
From thy dark eye so brightly flashing:
Its glances pierced this heart of mine

As sunbeams pierce the waves when dashing."

As well by an effort of the will stop the pulsations of my heart! Or that fairy form?

'Twas as it had been chiseled by the hand of Phidias-sylphlike!

Forget that graceful step, light and free as the antelope's? Never!

Or that "pale glorious brow," radiant so with the glow of thought and beauty's sheen? Never! never!

'Twas commencement; day of days.

What is it that redeems commencement from the horrid epithet, bore? 'Tis the ladies. Talk not of music, vocal or instrumental, though it possess all the charms with which poetry has invested it. And who cares for your eloquence and your patriotic peals of declamation at such times, if you take away the ladies? After all, they are the only tolerable things there, except the colloquies, if they have any thing to say about them.

I wish to tell the following incidents just as they occurred to me, and if I succeed in once getting thy cue, doubtless I shall please thee, reader. I had sojourned beneath these classic shades one year only, when that day of days, commencement, came; and with it came a great crowd of fashion, and some beauty, and whatever else is wont to come. Through the dense mass I urged my passage into the gallery, where first I saw the stranger lady. By and by, if I feel romantic and poetical enough, I will try to describe her. At present I can only say, she was just what she should be; that is, she disclosed not one blemish to the eye of a young man, sufficiently romantic and fastidious, if not quite a perfected connoiseur. Never shot brighter glances from any bright eye. There is about the eye-about a woman's eye-something mysterious, and that cannot be described. The chief beauty of the countenance depends upon that strange expression of the eye, through which the soul is always speaking and conveying out the qualities of the mind and heart. There is a kind of communion of the eyes which every one has sometimes felt, and through the eyes formed acquaintances. My acquaintance with the stranger lady began to be of this kind. She also sat in the gallery. Her appearance early attracted my attention. It was strange-I could not account for it, yet every now and then my thoughts and eyes wandered from the busy scene before me to the seat occupied by the stranger. Several times I fancied that she was just turning away her head, as I fixed my gaze upon her. I watched, till once I caught a glimpse of her full, dark eye. An instant, and it encountered mine. A blush mantled my features which I almost, nay quite, fancied was reciprocated. From that moment, I felt an indescribable kind of restraint, a sort of thrill of delight, a mystic spell, and I could not tell wherefore. It was no time to philosophize-those same large, dark, lustrous eyes, fascinating, and irresistible, reading your very heart.

"Morn came and went," and afternoon came also; and we were both again in the gallery, nearer to each other, each looking, blushing, our eyes still better acquainted, but each more embarrassed. As the day, its excitement and interest drew to a close, and the venerable man pronounced a parting blessing upon the graduating