XIII. Life is a mystery, here we are placed All on a level, wherefore vaunt the proud? Have they the genuine form of truth embraced? If not, in what do they excel the crowd Whom the thick-coming shades of error shroud? Oh! not to such vain spirits is it given To dissipate life's overhanging cloud, Or to direct for man the way to heaven! They have too much of earth's all-vitiating leaven. XIV. And strongly waxes now the word of God; Far, and Aherman from his throne is hurl'd. XV. Priestcraft in vain the flaming sword would turn Her narrow laws, despise the bigot's frown, And Tabernacles build for Truth alone! Religion, central sun, pours forth her light O'er all the minor orbs of knowledge thrown; Man, conscious of his intellectual might, Rejects heart-withering creeds, that would o'erpower right. NOTES TO "THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE." P. 153, 1. 1. Now is the spirit from on high pour'd forth On man; and where the dragons lay encaved, Fresh streams of water flow. "For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert." "And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes."—Isaiah, xxxv. 6, 7. 66 may "The imperfection of political institutions," says HUMBOLDT, for ages have converted places where the commerce of the world should be concentred, into deserts; but the time approaches when these obstacles will exist no longer. A vicious administration cannot always struggle against the united interests of men, and civilization will be carried insensibly into those countries, the great destinies of which nature itself proclaims, by the physical configuration of the soil, the immense windings of the rivers, and the proximity of the two seas that bathe the coasts of Europe and Africa." "Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedron doth inhabit; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the tops of the mountains." "Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis, P. 153, 1. 7. Peace smiles where late war's crimson banners waved. "The fruits of the Spirit are peace," &c. "The morality of peaceful times is directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good, of the latter to inflict injuries. The former commands us to succour the oppressed, the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies, the latter to make themselves terrible even to strangers. The rules of morality will not suffer us to promote the dearest interest by falsehood, the maxims of war applaud it when employed in the destruction of others. That a familiarity with such maxims must tend to harden the heart, as well as to pervert the moral sentiments, is too obvious to need illustration. The natural consequence of their prevalence is, an unfeeling and unprincipled ambition, with an idolatry of talents and contempt of virtue; whence the esteem of mankind is turned from the humble, the benevolent, the good, to men who are qualified by a genius fertile in expedients, a courage that is never appalled, and a heart that never pities, to become the destroyers of the earth. While the philanthropist is devising means to mitigate the evils and augment the happiness of the world, a fellow-worker together with God in exploring and giving effect to the benevolent tendencies of nature, the warrior is revolving in the gloomy recesses of his capacious mind plans of future devastation and ruin. Prisons crowded with captives, cities emptied of their inhabitants, fields desolate and waste, are among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood; and if his name is wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity, in the curses and imprecations of those whom his sword has reduced to despair."HALL'S Reflections on War. The mighty BURKE, when with surpassing eloquence he preached up a crusade against republican France, admitted that nothing short of extreme necessity will justify war. "The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity, the rest is crime." -Letter on a Regicide Peace. P. 153, 1. 8. Thought, like an eagle soaring in his prime. "Methinks I see a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see M her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam, purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means."-MILTON's Speech for Unlicensed Printing. P. 153, 1. 13. Out-shining, e'en in grandeur, far-famed Tyre. "The power of the city of Tyre on the Mediterranean and in the West is well known; of this Carthage, Utica, and Cadiz are celebrated monuments. We know that she extended her navigation even to the ocean, and carried her commerce beyond England to the north and the Canaries to the south."-TAV. HERODOTUS says that in his time there was a temple dedicated to Hercules, which was enriched with many magnificent donations, especially with two pillars, the one of finest gold, the other of smaragdus see also PERRY's View of the Levant, page 135. See the splendid and sublime description of Tyre, in EZEKIEL, chap. 27. "Tyre was the centre to which all kinds of goods were conveyed, and from which they were again distributed in the districts where each was demanded. The vast gain thus acquired must have left a constantly increasing surplus of wealth, especially of the most compendious kinds of wealth—the precious metals, in that metropolis of the ancient commercial world."-JACOB on the Precious Metals, vol. i. page 96. P. 154, 1. 1. Her daughters too. In the far-famed days of chivalry the ladies had no real influence, and while their names were passports for every sort of violence on the part of the proud chevaliers, who, self-constituted champions of justice, went about the country inflicting the very wrongs they pretended to avenge; they themselves were deprived even of the ordinary benefits of education, and were shut out from the enjoyment of air and exercise. They were too costly for ordinary use, and while mocked with the semblances of an admiration almost amounting to idolatry, were in |