Time would fail to recount the occurrences of every day life in the manufacturing village, which are fraught with poetic beauty. If the mill be not an enchanted castle nor an Oriental harem, it is the resort of cultivated and sensible females; where virtuous principles and correct habits are formed. Manufactures aim not at exhibiting scenes of distress, choosing rather to lose their poetical character than to deal in romance if such must be the conditions. The light is not indeed transmitted through painted glass into the operatives' rooms, but as it streams through the windows it lingers among flowers, and in passing extracts and diffuses their fragrance. If serenades are not heard beneath the walls, there is the hum of industry within them. If the tramp of the war-horse is not quickened by woman's encouraging voice, the galloping loom is sped on its way by her active hand. If no intrigue gives rise to a story of romance, the tale of scandal is also spared. The poetical effusions and literary articles composed in our manufacturing villages grace the pages of our annuals and magazines, and there might be found correspondents with whom Felicia Hemans or Hannah More would have been proud to hold intercourse.

Such is the poetry of our real, every day, manufacturing life. It is no unnatural fiction; but a substantial reality, daily exhibited before us, calling forth admiration, warming the heart with a true sympathy, and calculated to excite a desire among all beholders to emulate, each in his proper sphere, deeds so worthy, humanity so noble, intellect so cultivated, and devotion so generous and sublime.

We have spoken of the poetry of manufactures as connected with the affections of the heart. We believe the system contains a special adaptedness to develope some of the most beautiful of the sensibilities of our nature. In all these there exists true poetry. We lay no claim for the employment to an exemption from its full share of life's evils-its trials, its temptations, its sorrows and its sufferings. Indeed were it bereft of these, it would be destitute of poetry. For as the soil which is the most deeply impreg nated with the putrefactions of organic life is best adapted to produce perfect botanical specimens, so do scenes where affections

have withered and hearts have bled and tears have distilled and hope has decayed, furnish the vital elements for the true and the beautiful and the touching in poetry. In every walk of life these abound, and connected with them is the vibrating chord of sympathy. Where were the poetry of Gray's Elegy, of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, of Byron's Don Juan, of Cowper's John Gilpin, of Burns and Montgomery throughout, but for the literal transcripts or the vivid glimpses they afford of the heart's bitter agonies? A poetic germ emanates from among manufacturing communities, which we in vain search for elsewhere. And this is wrapped up in their social character. It is the spark which follows the collision of minds in proximity. Not the proximity of citieswhere families which are separated by barely twelve inches of clay and mortar are strangers; but the proximity of villages, where families dwell in congenial brotherhood: not the less compact proximity of the hamlet-where the fellow-feeling degenerates into that morbid energy which a vain curiosity expends upon the details of scandal; but the more active proximity, where the immediate value of an hour exceeds the price of an idle tale, and the monstrous conjectures of envy and jealousy are silenced by the rebukes of cheerful, bustling industry. It establishes new affinities. It opens the congenial currents of the soul. Unlike the sudden impulse of emotion which now overflows with tenderness and anon ebbs to an inaccessible distance, it flows on in an equal tide of noiseless but generous companionship. It is to the social economy what the stage-coach and the "passenger-train" are to the traveller. Mingling all, they yet deal most largely with the raw material of humanity. Over them a punctilious etiquette has not established its supremacy. By those who are there crowded in casual companionship the "noli me tangere" is forgotten for the "pro bono publico." The accommodating spirit of one, the good humored remark of another, the sententious wit of another, and the epigrammatic brevity of yet another knit the party into a hearty cordiality. Thus they travel on pleased with their narrow accommodations, and the expression of sadness is visible and the sigh of regret audible as one after another is withdrawn by arriving at his journey's end. It is thus that the manufacturing occupation, by bringing individuals into contiguity and by unfolding human char

acter, by softening the asperities of tempers, by polishing rudeness and refining grossness, wins our consent to its poetic expression.

It remains to speak briefly of another poetic attribute peculiar to manufactures. This is its magic character. The sentiment of veneration delights in the contemplation of extraordinary human achievement. Oppressed with a sense of its own impotence, it seeks an alliance with the strong. Constitutionally abhorring the finite, it grasps eagerly after the Infinite. Gladly does the human soul read in the performances of those fashioned in its own likeness the presage which responds to its inward sense of power. Hence the pleasure experienced on witnessing life and activity suddenly emerging into new existence. Man feels himself imbued with creative energy, and claims kindred with the Deity. His finger is the wand which transforms the waste place into the fertile field ; his nod, a beck to marshal new hosts into efficient action. At the voice of manufactures how has Christendom had its landscapes enriched with villages and towns of magic creation. A central organ of life, its pulsations are felt to the extremities of the globe. The cotton field smiles at its bidding, and the reaper cuts his harvests with fresh courage. At its demand the earth disgorges fuel from its bowels, nor does it withhold its most valuable ores and minerals. Mankind revive and are gladdened at its presence. The pulse of being beats fuller through its agency. The song of free enjoyment responds to the hum of the spindle.

Thus does the loom become a harp from which is rung out a full chorus of melody. Thus is much of genuine poetry extracted from the dull prose of manufactures.

U.

QUESTIONS AND HINTS.

ARE we not, as Unitarians, saying and doing too little for Unitarianism? Are we not virtually admitting, and often positively asserting, that Unitarianism is of little consequence? Supposing this true in the sense in which we mean it, is it true absolutely, is it true relatively, and is it not sure to be so construed and used as to

make it both false and injurious? Is not Unitarianism the Gospel ? Is it not a doctrine as well as a life, faith as well as works? Is there any danger of its being regarded too much as a doctrine by our own people, or by any? Have our own people ever heard too much doctrine ? Have they heard enough? Do they know enough of their own doctrines? Do they think enough of their importance? Are they able to explain them when questioned, or defend them when assailed? Can they give always a reason of the hope that is in them? Is not this defect in us, as preachers and people, one great cause of our seeming coldness, the actual indifference and inaction of many among us, and the comparative ease with which some are drawn off to other preaching and different doctrines? While it is false that our preaching generally is wanting in earnestness, or closeness, or power, is it not true that it fails to give that clear and full doctrinal statement, or insist upon the value and necessity of sound doctrine with that emphasis, which are needed for conviction, courage, firmness, and faithfulness?—In these questions and hints are we right or wrong? H.

SAINT BERNHARD AND JOHN WESLEY.

At the beginning of the twelfth century the Church of Rome was at the height of its power. Luxury had crept into it, but had not yet done the work of destruction. There was in the heart of the Roman Pontiff the consciousness of unlimited dominion, with the will to exercise his power. The Head of the Church was rather a temporal than a spiritual sovereign.

Yet at this time there was a monk in a French cloister, who was mightier than the chief Bishop of the Church in his splendid palace. The name of Bernhard of Clairvaux was a name before which the false teachers and false doers of the Church trembled; a name which was respected and honored above the greatest. There was one in that retired valley,* who watched while he prayed and

* Clairvaux was a wild, dreary, valley in the bishopric of Langres, in the South of France. It was before called the valley of wormwood (vallis

fasted, who was ever at hand to check corruption in high places and low places,-to combat error, to quiet discontent,-before whom heresy was dumb. As a ruler of the spirits of the flock, as a preserver of its order and discipline, as a controller of its energies, the monk was above the Pontiff. If the one sought to add to the pomp and majesty of the Roman dominion, the other labored to extend the saving influences of the Church, and to raise its spiritual tone. In Bernhard the reformer and conservative were united. He would make the Church pure and peaceful by keeping it above the struggles of States and kings, an arbiter, not a party.

The state of the English Church in the eighteenth century was in many points similar to that of the Papal in Bernhard's time. It was worldly, but powerful. It was more interested in State intrigues than in maintaining its spiritual dignity. It had a very decent exterior; its ministers were respectable, lived well, and did their prescribed duties; the Church was in rather better moral condition than the body of the people, and was suffering, rather than doing harm, by its connexion with the State. Still its health was deceptive; the spirit within was dead or dying, and a reformer was needed to call it into life.

To call John Wesley a reformer, in the common sense of that word, would be giving him a title which he never claimed or desired. Like the Catholic Saint, he would restore, not by destroying, but by holding on and going back to the old landmarks of faith. His was the voice which proclaimed at that time, when worldliness in practice kept pace with indifference in doctrine, the true idea of authority-the power of the simple and sincere minister to give help to his disciples and life to the world. Like a truehearted son, he held that his mother Church was the appointed instrument to bring peace and salvation to those who would partake in these Christian blessings and however schismatic his conduct and teachings might have seemed to those appointed to

absinthialis,) on account of its being the haunt of robbers. After the convent was built it was called "fair valley" (clara vallis.) There are some Latin lines of an old French poet which celebrate its charms, (N. Hacqueville de laudibus Bernardi.) The valley was given for a convent about A. D. 1112, by Count Hugo of Champagne, whose devotion led him to make a pilgrimage to Palestine and to become a Knight Templar. See Neander's Life of Bernhard. Part I. Note 5.