AMERICAN FREEDOM-ENGLISH RESTRICTION.

Though America is a confederation of republics, they are in many cases much more amalgamated than the various parts of Great Britain. If a citizen of the United States can make a shoe, he is at liberty to make a shoe anywhere between Lake Ontario and New Orleans: he may sole on the Mississippi, heel on the Missouri, measure Mr. Birkbeck on the Little Wabash, or take (which our best politicians do not find an easy matter) the length of Mr. Monroe's foot on the banks of the Potomac. But wo to the cobbler who, having made Hessian boots for the Alderman of Newcastle, should venture to invest with these coriaceous integuments the leg of a liege subject at York. A yellow ant in a nest of red ants-a butcher's dog in a fox-kennel -a mouse in a bee-hive-all feel the effects of untimely intrusion; but far preferable their fate to that of the misguided artisan who, misled by sixpenny histories of England, and conceiving his country to have been united at the Heptarchy, goes forth from his native town to stitch freely within the sea-girt limits of Albion. Him the mayor, him the alderman, him the recorder, him the quarter sessions, would worry. Him the justices before trial would long to get into the treadmill, and would muchlament that, by a recent act, they could not do so, even with the intruding tradesman's consent; but the moment he was tried, they would push him in with redoubled energy, and leave him to tread himself into a conviction of the barbarous institutions of his corporation-divided country.

In a speech delivered in Taunton, in 1831, he thus ridicules the attempt of the Lords to stop the

PROGRESS OF REFORM.

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824 there set in a great flood upon that town-the tide rose to an incredible height-the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. PartingShe was excellent at a slop or a puddle; but she should not have meddled with a tempest.

ton.

WITTY SAYINGS.

The following are a few among the thousand good things of this gifted man. DEFINITION OF THE POPISH RITUAL.-" Posture and imposture, flexions and genuflexions, bowing to the right, curtseying to the left, and an immense amount of man-millinery."

WHAT EVERY MAN CAN DO.-" Every man fancies he can do three things farm a small property, drive a gig, and write an article for a Review." A GREAT TALKER.-Of a great talker, he once said, "It would improve him if he now and then had a few flashes of silence."

DEAN OF THE FACULTY.-One of the chief titles of distinction in the Scotch law is, "The Dean of the Faculty," and when Sydney Smith, Dean of St. Paul's, first met in company a gentleman bearing that title, he assumed a rererential expression in looking at him, and said, “A most surprising title; for in England the deans have no faculties."

MARRYING A BIG WOMAN.-Some one mentioned that a young Scotchman was about to marry an Irish widow double his age, and of considerable dimensions: -"Going to marry her!" he exclaimed, bursting out laughing; "going to marry her! impossible! you mean a part of her; he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy, but trigamy; the neighborhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her! it is monstrous. You might people a colony with her; or give an assembly with her; or perhaps take your morning's walk round her, always provided there were frequent resting-places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half-way, and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her; in short, you might do any thing with her but marry her."

THE PUSEYITES.-In a letter to Lady Ashburton, he says, "I wish you had witnessed, the other day at St. Paul's, my incredible boldness in attacking the Puseyites. I told them that they made the Christian religion a religion of postures and ceremonies, of circumflexions and genuflexions, of garments and vestures, of ostentation and parade; that they took up tithe of mint and cummin, and neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and the duties of life, and so forth."

DANIEL WEBSTER.-" Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trowsers."

APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.-He once said, "The Bishop of

is so like Judas, that I now firmly believe in the apostolical succession." CANVAS-BACK DUCKS.-"I fully intended going to America; but my parishioners held a meeting, and came to a resolution that they could not trust me with the canvas-back ducks; and I felt they were right, so gave up the project."

ROGERS, THE POET.-"How is Rogers?" "He is not very well." "Why, what is the matter?" "Oh, don't you know he has produced a couplet? When our friend is delivered of a couplet, with infinite labor and pain, he takes to his bed, has straw laid down, the knocker tied up, expects his friends to call and make inquiries, and the answer at the door invariably is, Mr. Rogers and his little couplet are as well as can be expected. When he produces an Alexandrine, he keeps his bed a day longer.”

THOMAS CHALMERS, 1780-1847.

THOMAS CHALMERS, the distinguished Scottish divine, was born at Anstruther, in Fifeshire, on the 17th of March, 1780. In November, 1791, he was enrolled at the University of St. Andrew's, where he prosecuted his literary and theological studies. Two or three years after leaving the university, he obtained the church of Kilmany, in his native county. Here he continued his scientific studies; and, in addition to his parochial labors, he lectured in the different towns on chemistry and other subjects, wrote many pamphlets on the topics of the day, and contributed the article Christianity to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, edited by Sir David Brewster. This was afterwards published separately, under the title of Evidences of the Christian Revelation.

In 1814 he removed to the new church of St. John's in Glasgow, and, while there, rose to be the greatest preacher of the day,-his fame extending not only over Great Britain, but throughout all Europe and America; and no visit to the country was deemed by any one complete unless he had heard Chalmers preach. But he was not content with his distinguished rank in theology; for in 1817 he entered the scientific arena, and published his celebrated Discourses on Astronomy. In 1818 appeared his Commercial Discourses; in 1819, his Occasional Discourses in the Tron Church and St. John's Church; and in 1821, his Civic and Christian Economy of Large Towns.

So far was he from confining his labors to his parochial duties, that he felt it his duty to aid every good cause designed to elevate man. His greatest triumph was in the management of the pauperism of his district of Glasgow. It had thitherto cost about £1400 per annum. Dr. Chalmers proposed that his kirk-session should relieve the city of the collection and expenditure of the whole. The proposal was accepted; and immediately, through his deacons (each of whom could carefully explore his own small district), a thorough investigation was instituted into the circumstances of every pauper. Frauds almost innumerable were detected; lines were drawn between the deserving and the undeserving poor; the idle, the dissolute, and the drunken were often reclaimed; while it was frequently found that a little friendly advice was all that was needed to prevent the honest and industrious from sinking into destitution. In short, the scheme turned out to be more a contrivance to prevent poverty than to relieve it, and the annual cost of the Glasgow pauperism was reduced from £1400 to £280.

After laboring for some years in Glasgow, he was appointed, in 1824, to the professorship of moral philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's. His arrival there gave an impulse to that ancient seminary, which brought back much of the glory of its former days. The next year he was invited to take a chair in the then projected London University, but declined. During the period of his settlement at St. Andrew's, he published his works On Church and College Endowments, on Political Economy, his Bridgewater Treatise, and his Lectures on the Romans. His published works form twenty-five volumes, and they have been widely circulated. In addition to these, he has made many and important contributions to periodical literature.

In 1828 he was removed to the chair of theology in the University of Edinburgh, the highest academical distinction which could be conferred; and

here, undisturbed by any change, he prosecuted his labors for many years, and concentrated upon himself a deeper interest than any other clergyman of the religious world either in Great Britain or America. Then came the memorable year 1843, when a very large and influential number of the clergy and their congregations seceded from the Established Church of Scotland, in defence of their right to have pastors of their own choice, and not such as dukes and lords might thrust upon them at pleasure. Dr. Chalmers led the seceding party, and, consequently, resigned his professorship in the university, a noble instance of the sacrifice of worldly advantage for the cause of truth.

Few scholars had accumulated so many academic honors as Dr. Chalmers. He received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Oxford, and was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Institute of France, honors never before awarded to a Presbyterian divine, and seldom to a Scotsman. In fine, while living, he received all the homage and respect usually accorded to great men when dead, and this mainly because, while living, he was a good man as well as a great man. With him religion was not a mere theory on which he could expatiate with a wondrous grasp of intellect, illustrate with the most vivid imagination, and set before an audience in all the perspicuity and clearness that a complete mastery of his subject could accomplish. It was a living faith, that mingled with all his thoughts, imparted a tone to his language, and moulded his actions; it was realized in his whole course of conduct. His attainments in science, his genius, his life, seemed devoted to one end, to raise his country by the lever of religion.

Dr. Chalmers retired to rest on the evening of Sunday, May 30, 1847, anparently in perfect health, and died calmly during the night, the bedclothes being found undisturbed about his person. The news of his death caused a profound sensation throughout Great Britain and America; for it was felt that one of the brightest lights in the literary and religious world had gone out.1

COMPARATIVE INSIGNIFICANCE OF THIS WORLD.

Though the earth were to be burned up, though the trumpet of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger of the Divinity has inscribed on it were extinguished forever,- -an event so awful to us and to every world in our vicinity, by which so many suns would be extinguished and so many varied scenes of life and population would rush into forgetfulness,-what is it in the high scale of the Almighty's workmanship? A mere shred, which, though scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God one entire scene of greatness and majesty. Though the earth and the heavens were to disappear, there are other worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; and the sky

1 Read Edinburgh Review, lvii. 52; Gentle | 1847, pp. 597, 603, and 887; also, Life, by Rev. man's Magazine, June, 1845, February, 1850, William Hanna, two volumes.

and October, 1850; also, London Athenæum,

which mantles them is garnished with other stars. Is it presumption to say that the moral world extends to these distant and unknown regions? that they are occupied with people? that the charities of home and of neighborhood flourish there? that the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in? that there piety has its temples and its offerings, and the richness of the Divine attributes is there felt and admired by intelligent worshippers?

And what is this world in the immensity which teems with them? and what are they who occupy it? The universe at large would suffer as little in its splendor and variety by the destruction of our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude of a forest would suffer by the fall of a single leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which supports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest accident. A breath of wind tears it from its stem, and it lights on the stream of water which passes underneath. In a moment of time, the life, which we know by the microscope it teems with, is extinguished; and an occurrence so insignificant in the eye of man, and in the scale of his observation, carries in it, to the myriads which people this little leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive as the destruction of a world.

Now, on the grand scale of the universe, we, the occupiers of this ball, which performs its little round among the suns and the systems which astronomy has unfolded,-we may feel the same littleness and the same insecurity. We differ from the leaf only in this circumstance, that it would require the operation of greater elements to destroy us. But these elements exist. The fire which rages within may lift its devouring energy to the surface of our planet, and transform it into one wide and wasting volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter in the bowels of the earth-and it lies within the agency of known substances to accomplish this-may explode it into fragments. The exhalation of noxious air from below may impart a virulence to the air that is around us; it may affect the delicate proportion of its ingredients; and the whole of animated nature may wither and die under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and realize all the terrors which superstition has conceived of it. We cannot anticipate with precision the consequences of an event which every astronomer must know to lie within the limits of chance and probability. It may hurry our globe towards the sun, or drag it to the outer regions of the planetary system, or give it a new axis of revolution, and the effect, which I shall simply announce, without explaining it, would be to change the place of the ocean, and bring another mighty flood upon our islands and continents.