or called degradation in the eyes of the multitude, resorted to base practices, until sin has placed its impress upon their brow, and they feel that nothing can carry them through but unblushing effrontery or yet darker deeds. But while we mourn over these derelictions from integrity and truth, we may hope that they will make men distrust their own unassisted strength, and cause parents to watch more closely over the moral culture of their children.

Let him who is cast down look within himself and beyond himself. Let him not seek his own elevation in this world, nor that of his family, above all things else, but look upward and beyond this vale of tears; and where bitterness now is, will peace and joy soon come. Wealth and prosperity do not alone constitute happiness; the eager soul asks for something more. With truth and faith if he deliver himself into the hands of God, he will acknowledge that "the benefit of affliction consists in this very thing, that it drives back the soul upon itself and its own independent powers.' "And upon the thought of God, the Comforter of the wretched," added Hildegard. "In that thought lies the true power of the soul. The lower the degree of spiritual life, the less can any creature endure the conflict with nature. The plants need nourishment and sunshine in order to be strong and beautiful. The animal in like manner is overpowered by the pressure of want and of an unnatural situation. Only the man grows strong by conflict, and is purified and ennobled by trial; because he thus learns to give his inward life supremacy over his outward. Even the pain which our sins occasion us elevates the soul, if it has power to lead us to God." A-A.

PARALLELS.

AUGUSTINE AND ROUSSEAU.

IT has often occurred to me that the modern school of sentimentalists has great resemblance to those religious enthusiasts who place so much reliance upon the emotions and disparage the reason and will. The apostles of natural impulse are very like the champions of irresistible grace; and the Antinomianism of theology runs parallel with the Antinomianism of romance.

Thus in a theological age and nation Augustine met something of that very impulsiveness of the human heart, which in a more free and poetical age was ministered to by Rousseau. To the enthusiast of Geneva, as well as to the bishop of Hippo, the painter might assign the symbol of the flaming heart. Both have recorded their own lives in volumes of Confessions, and each work has been called by many the most remarkable of books. Both avow the temptations of strong passion. Both had strayed from the path of virtue and peace. Both undertake to prescribe for the diseases of society and to point out the way of safety. The one leads us to seek the grace of God and throw ourselves into the tide of holy emotion, and to merge reason in mystery and will in ecstacy. The other calls us back to nature, glorifies instinct and impulse, and seems sometimes to preach justification by passion, even as the former preached justification by faith.

Augustine is the father of Calvinism, and in no small degree the patron saint of that Antinomianism, or contempt of morality, which is so nearly allied to Calvinism. Rousseau is the father of modern sentimentalism, first and ablest of that school whose influence has been made almost supreme in recent literature by so many poets and romancers-the Byrons and Bulwers of the age.

May benignant Providence save us from both errorists. We look neither to Augustine for our theology, nor to Rousseau for our literature. In our regard for faith let us not disparage works. In our enthusiasm let us remember reason and conscience.

Poetry and Philosophy, different as they appear, often agree in their results, and are said by some to be the diverse workings of the same high reason. In Dante and Swedenborg we have the poet and the philosopher giving their best powers to theological subjects. How different, yet how like! The Divina Commedia of the Florentine in many respects resembles the "Heaven and Hell" of the Swede. Both divide the invisible world into three great departments, both maintain the existence of a realm between the abodes of the blessed and the doomed. Both agree singu

larly in their views of the nature of retribution by connecting future consequences with the very nature of present sins. Lucifer doomed to stand on his head at the bottom of the Inferno, is an emblem of the nature and doom of the evil and falsity, which constitute that inverted state which Swedenborg makes out to be hell.

We should be loth to take our theology from either of these great men. Yet it is interesting to observe the workings of powerful minds upon the great topics of theology. They illustrate on a large scale the tendency to system-making which is so often obtruded upon us on a small scale.

It is a difficult problem to explain the life and teachings of Swedenborg―to reconcile so much scientific knowledge, so much moral wisdom and devout purpose, with such astounding assertions of supernatural vision. May not the poet help us to explain the philosopher? As the poet often has such vivid imaginations as to confound them with realities, may not the philosopher in his vast speculations on the universe form to himself a system of analogies by which he hopes to rise step by step from nature to God, and cherish his thoughts so earnestly that at last speculation masters the whole soul, nay, becomes reality, and the philosopher too is a poet?

s. 0.

THE LATE THOMAS THRUSH OF ENGLAND.

We have forborne from noticing the death of others than clergymen in our pages, from the apprehension that unless we adopted such a rule we should receive such frequent obituary notices, that to publish them all would exceed the space which could be allowed to communications of this kind, while to refuse any would be painful and might seem invidious. Cases may however occur, to render the transgression of any such rule proper, and the present seems to us a case strongly in point. Mr. Thrush was little known in this country, nor indeed was he widely known in England. His Letter to the King upon resigning his commission drew attention to his name, but he outlived the interest which that event awakened in the minds of all but his immediate friends or the

warm supporters of the cause of Peace. We gave some account, in a former number of the Miscellany, of the last work which he published on this subject. Our personal associations with him and our appreciation of his character must be our excuse-if any be needed for introducing in this place an extract from a discourse preached the Sunday after receiving the intelligence of his death.

I have expressed some of the thoughts which arise out of our connexion with friends. They are always with us, and add largely to the happiness of our lives; we should bless God for his goodness in placing us among them. They bestow on us their affectionate or kind regards; we should try to deserve their esteem, and not let their love, blinded by its own partiality, fall on unworthy objects. They come under our influence and must be affected favorably or unfavorably by our familiar habits of speech and conduct; how important is it, for them and for us, that we exert a wholesome influence upon their characters. They may prove snares as well as blessings, tempting us to do wrong instead of encouraging us to walk in ways of righteousness, and turning our thoughts from God instead of leading them to him; we should maintain a wakeful jealousy that we may realize only the benefits of intercourse with those, who with honest intentions may still be the instruments of much mischief. They are partakers of mortality, yet heirs of a spiritual life which cannot decay; we should draw from Christian faith a new element to be infused into our regard for them, which, like the converts iron into steel, may add interest in them, and which shall life of heaven without complaint. So may our friends be indeed our benefactors, and the ties of earthly union become the bonds of everlasting endearment. Oh! the riches of Divine goodness and grace, which have not only provided us with pleasant companions here, but revealed to us scenes of social bliss hereafter. God be thanked for the life that now is, and for the life that is to comefor friends on earth, and friends in heaven!

secret action of the heat that value and permanence to our enable us to yield them to the

Pleasant companionship does he provide for us, even where we least expect to find it. How grateful is it to look back on passages

of our experience, which inspire at once gratitude to the Heavenly Father and confidence in the good will of our fellow-men. One illustration of this I may be permitted to introduce, though it involve some personal narrative. About six years ago I was in Scotland, on the eve of my return to the North of England, where I had been advised to spend several weeks in the neighborhood of some mineral springs, which, though in summer much frequented, were at that season wholly deserted. I was going to a strange and lonely place, as I thought, when I received a letter from one whose name only I had known, inviting me to come immediately to his house, which was on the spot where I intended to reside. I went, and was cordially welcomed, and for some days remained an inmate of his family, till I had made arrangements for a permanent abode. But I was still near him and his door was ever open to my entrance. He was one who had made sacrifices for conscience and for principle beyond what in this age men are often called to make. He had been an officer in the service of his country, and had reached that period of life at which a change of employment is difficult, if not impracticable, when he became convinced of the unlawfulness of war, its opposition to the principles and spirit of the Gospel, and its pernicious effects upon individual and national character. The consequence was a resignation of the commission which he held, with a relinquishment of the half-pay on which he had retired, though by this step he reduced himself and his wife, the cheerful companion of his altered mode of life, to comparatively straitened means of subsistence. By the same study of the Bible by which he was led to alter his views on the subject of war he had been brought to the conviction that the doctrine of the Trinity had no support in Scripture, and he became a Unitarian. In this instance also he avowed his change of opinion, though it drew upon him censure, and separated him from many early friends. When I saw him, he was approaching fourscore, a cripple, unable to move without crutches, living in retirement at Harrogate for the benefit of the waters during that part of the year when his narrow means allowed him to enjoy this advantage, at a distance from every relative or intimate acquaintance excepting his wife, also an invalid, and without a single being in the place who sympathized with him in his religious belief. Yet a more tranquil or cheerful