at the outset with regard to this woman question,' as it has been called. I have no intention to discuss either the rights or the wrongs of women. I think that on this question our relations across the Atlantic have gone a mile beyond the winning-post, and brought discredit and ridicule on that just cause which, here in England, prejudice, custom, ignorance have in a manner crushed and smothered up. It is in this country, beyond all Christian countries, that what has been called, quaintly but expressively, the 'feminine element of society,' considered as a power applicable in many ways to the amelioration of many social evils, has been not only neglected, but absolutely ignored by those who govern us. The woman cries out for the occasion and the means to do well her appointed and permitted work, to perform worthily her share in the natural communion of labor. Because it is denied to her she perishes, and no man layeth it to heart.""

SLAVERY A NEW IDEA.-It would not be contrary to the history of Divine Providence if the great problem of American slavery should, after all, receive a solution which has never been anticipated by agitators on either side of the question. Our new access to China by way of California, and the new changes taking place in that ancient empire, may yet afford us a peaceable relief to the perplexities of the controversy. A writer in the National Intelligencer has advocated the introduction of Chinese laborers at the South, to supply the place of the negro, whose labor, it is said, is unproductive to the planter. The subject has for some time engaged the attention of individuals in the Southern States, and also in Cuba and England. A project was started, says the Boston Journal, some time since, for the introduction of six thousand coolies into Cuba, and English capitalists were to furnish them; but the demand for transports by the British government rendered it difficult to obtain suitable ships for the enterprise. Lately, however, the project has been revived, and a vessel fitted at New-York for China to return to Panama with a load of Chinese laborers, from whence they will be transported to the Atlantic side by the Panama railroad and thence to Cuba.

The writer in the Intelligencer is an advocate for slave labor, and recognizes servitude as a blessing conferred by Heaven upon the inferior races of men. But in regard to the present condition of slavery at the South he makes admissions in accordance with the views of other Southern gentlemen, which from time to time have been expressed, and which conclusively show, that slavery begins to yield to the pressure of public sentiment. He says:

"But African slavery has become more and more unproductive, and has gradually been running out in every section of Northern and Southern America. An agitation, most unjustifiable, it is true, yet not the less effective for evil, has been prevailing for years at home and abroad, which is making the system of African slave labor more and more unpleasant and unproductive in our Southern States.

"It may be that, in the orderings of that Providence which is so much more benign and gentle and beneficent than man to his fellows, a gradual introduction of Asiatic laborers is to take the place of the Africans in our sunny South. Their habits, and the climate and productions of their country, specially fit the Chinese to be hardy and efficient tillers of the soil for Southern planters, and active and intelligent porters for New-Orleans and Charleston merchants."

In conclusion, the writer asks, whether any other New-York shipping merchant has thought of bringing a cargo of coolies to other markets than Cuba?

Once in a while we hear something like primitive Christian sentiments from Catholic prelates; lately the Archbishop of Lyons, Cardinal de Bonold, has rebuked the common vices of the French in an uncompromising manner. In his Pastoral Letter for Lent he declared the cholera was sent as a punishment for the eagerness with which the ladies of Paris run after pleasure, "joining in a certain lascivious dance called polka, suffering every man but their own husbands to clasp them in the waltz, which latter dance may be considered the last sigh of expiring virtue." His Eminence then goes on to say that "the only way to induce the Almighty to sheathe the sword of vengeance, which he has drawn from the scabbard to punish our sins, would be to abstain from all balls, reunions, theaters, and promenades. Then his wrath may be appeased. Let us, therefore, seek no other remedy than this against the epidemic diseases which at this moment are destroying, without mercy, men, plants and animals."

The Pastoral Letter of the cardinal would not have had much effect had not Count Montalembert and Father Ravignan taken up the subject against the Archbishop of Paris, who loudly condemned the sentiments of his colleague, asserting that display at balls, theaters, and promenades kept up the industry of France, and gave labor to the poorer classes.

WIGS-THE PURITANS.-An American correspondent of the London Notes and Queries, represents that our Puritan fathers entertained a very devout abhorrence of periwigs. The fashion of wearing wigs, from its first introduction, was strenuously opposed, especially in Massachusetts; and there were not wanting those who looked upon it as "a sin of the first magnitude." The following notes from the diary of Judge Sewall (Chief Justice of Massachusetts) prove with how jealous eyes the progress of innovation was watched :

"1685, September 15. Three admitted to the Church; two wore periwigs."

"1696. [Rev.] Mr. Sims told me of the assaults he had made on periwigs; seemed to be in good sober sadness."

"1697. Mr. Noyes of Salem wrote a treatise on periwigs, &c."

1704, January. Walley appears in his wig, having cut off his own hair."

"1708, August 20. Mr. Cheever died. The welfare of the province was much upon his heart. He abominated periwigs."

The Society of Friends, at their monthly meeting in Hampton, Mass., December 21, 1721, voted that "ye wearing of extravagant superflues wigges is altogether contrary to truth."

WHAT IS POETRY?-Professor Scherb remarked in a late lecture in the New-York University Chapel, that, many years ago, when a boy, he asked the German poet, Goethe, What is poetry, and how can one become a poet? And he laid his hand upon the boy's heart and told him that poetry was not the exclusive possession of a few strong individuals; it was not a handicraft's knack; it belonged to all men and women who earnestly and with all their heart and soul yearned for it. It was the pure ether; the kernel of life; yea, life itself. And what

was the kernel of life? He repeated from Plato the story of Glaucus, the young and beautiful fisherman whom the sea nymphs carried down to their crystal home to live with them, and how after he had lived there for many years, his body became incrusted with shells and pebbles, so that he was not the same Glaucus that he was before; and Plato went on to say that it was just so with the soul of man, when it fell from its home in heaven down upon this exiled earth. So it was. And faith alone assured us that beneath all these shells and pebbles, these marks and conventional disguises, there was yet a kernel of life. To that, poetry spoke; from that, poetry spoke. In every human soul there was a yearning for something higher than the enjoyments of mankind; a yearning for endless bliss, for infinite happiness. Poetry was the manifestation of the higher life in the human spirit, revealing itself through the medium of the imagination. They were all one and the same; the good, the true, and the beautiful.

MARIOLATRY. The new step forward in heathenism, taken by Rome in the doctrine of the immaculate conception, is having its heathenish results. The following (the italics its own) is an extract from an editorial in the Pittsburgh Catholic:

"The beloved Son, the Man-God, had to pass himself through the valley of the shadow of death;' so had his dearest, his chosen saints; and her example of dying was also needed for us. But her death, if death it can be called, (for it was only a passing away, a languishing into life,) was the easiest, quietest, smoothest passage of any saint whatever; and it is called by the Latin fathers dormitio, or the sleep of the virgin, and by the Greeks koimesis, repose or passage. 'Death,' says Liguori, being the punishment of sin, it would seem that the divine mother, all holy and exempt from every strain, should not be subject to death, nor suffer the same misfortune as the children of Adam, who are infected by the poison of sin. But God, wishing Mary in all things to be like to Jesus, required that as the Son had died, the mother should also die; and because he wished to give to the just an example of the blessed death prepared for them, be decreed that the virgin should die, but by a sweet and happy death."

The Catholic Herald gives its readers the following translation of a Prayer, which has been extensively circulated in France, for the conversion of "heretics." It informs us that "the Bishop of Mende especially recommends it, and attaches to the devout recital of it by the faithful of his diocese an indulgence of forty days."

"I know, O Immaculate Virgin, that thou lovest thy children, and that thou art pleased to yield to their desires. Full of a sweet and tender confidence, I dare to beg a favor of thee, O benign mother. Thou wishest to be importuned; thou lovest to see thy children press around thee. Then, O holy virgin, by that triumph which our devotion has applanded with fervent joy; by that last title, the most glorious that remained for us to claim for thee; by that redoubling of love for our mother, of veneration for our queen, grant to those who have the misfortune not to love thee, to all those who do not pray to thee, O Mary, the grace to know thee, and to embrace the doctrine of thy divine Son. Yes, I conjure thee, O best of mothers, to make them know that thou art the dispensatrix of the treasures of Jesus. Soften his wrath by thy prayers. Thou canst do everything: the compassionate heart of Jesus can refuse thee nothing. Ah, merciful mother, immaculate virgin! deign to look upon our wandering brethren; touch their hearts in order that they may participate in the immense joy which we experience, and that for them, as for us, it may be a foretaste of the ineffable delights of a blessed eternity. Amen."

The first of these extracts will answer those "heretics" who ask how the virgin could die without sin-the cause of death. The second upsets the pretension of intelligent Catholics, heretofore so commonly asserted, viz.: that they only venerate not worship the saints and images. Mary is here certainly made a deity.

A Dr. Davy has recently published a work in England, in which he advocates "fish diet" as the very pabulum of human vigor. "There is," he says, "much nourishment in fish, little less than in butcher's meat, weight for weight; and in effect it may be more nourishing, considering how, from its softer fiber, fish is more easily digested. Moreover, there is, I find in fish, in sea-fish, a substance which does not exist in the flesh of land animals, namely, iodine: a substance which may have a beneficial effect on the health, and tend to prevent the production of scrofulous and tubercular disease, the latter in the form of pulmonary consumption, one of the most cruel and fatal with which civilized society, and the highly-educated and refined, are afflicted. Comparative trials prove that in the majority of fish the proportion of solid matter, that is, the matter which remains after perfect desiccation, or the expulsion of the aqueous part, is little inferior to that of the several kinds of meat, game or poultry. And if we give our attention to classes of peopleclassed as to quality of food they principally subsist on-we find that the ichthyophagous class are especially strong, healthy, and prolific. In no class than that of fishers do we see larger families, handsomer women, or more robust and active men, or a greater exemption from the maladies just alluded to." Owing to the absence of iodine in fresh-water fish and its presence in sea-fish, there can be no doubt but that the latter are more nutritious. It is the iodine in cod-liver oil which renders the oil so efficacious in arresting the progress of consumption.

The survivor of the Brothers Cheeryble of Dickens, Daniel Grant, Esq., of Manchester, died lately.

A LITERARY SCREW.-An English paper says that Sharon Turner, author of the History of the Anglo-Saxons, who received three hundred pounds a year from government, as a literary pension, wrote the third volume of his Sacred History of the World upon paper which did not cost him a farthing. The copy consisted of torn and angular fragments of letters and notes, of covers of periodicals, gray, drab, or green, written in thick round hand, over a small print; of shreds of curling paper, unctuous with pomatum of bear's grease, and of white wrappers, in which his proofs were sent from the printers. The paper, sometimes as thin as a bank note, was written on both sides, and was so sodden with ink, plastered on with a pen worn to a stump, that hours were frequently wasted in discovering on which side of it certain sentences were written. Men condemned to work on it saw their dinner vanished in groaned over it a whole day for tenpence. One illimitable perspective, and first-rate hands poor fellow assured the writer of that paper

The very rare and interesting spectacle of solemnly "crowning" a poet has been witnessed in Madrid the present year. The Spanish poet, Quintana, was taken in procession to the palace of the senate, where he found the queen, the king, the members of the royal family, the ministers, the members of the Royal Academy of History, and a vast number of personages of distinction, assembled to receive him. After the delivery of a speech setting forth the history of his life and works, and the singing of a hymn in his honor, a crown of gold, representing leaves of laurel, was handed to the Queen by the Duke de la Victoria, President of the Council of Ministers; and Her Majesty, amid shouts of applause, placed it on the poet's head, saying, as she did so, that she felt pride and pleasure, in her capacity of the Queen and Spaniard, in honoring a man who had distinguished himself by his genius and patriotism. An ode, written by a lady, and exalting the poet to the skies, was then recited. He was afterward entertained at a banquet, and was then conducted home in a grand procession-the crown of gold being borne in a triumphal car before him.

INSANITY AND IDIOCY.-The Legislature of Massachusetts appointed a commission to report on the condition of the insane and idiotic in the State. They have produced a very interesting document, the outlines of which are given in the Boston Journal:-"There were in the State of Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1854, 2,632 lunatics, and 1,087 idiots-making a total of 3,719 of those persons who need the care and protection of their friends for their support, restoration, and custody. Of the lunatics, 1,522 were paupers, and 1,110 were supported by their own property or by their friends. Of the idiots, 670 were supported by their friends, and 417 by the public treasury. The lunatics comprised 2,007 natives, and 625 foreigners; and there were among the idiots, 1,043 natives, and but 44 foreigners. Of the independent lunatics, 387 are in hospitals, 7 in prisons, and 716 at home. Of the pauper lunatics, 954 are in hospitals or places of custody, and 568 at home. The commissioners state that idiocy and lunacy predominate among the poorer classes of society, where there is less vital force, a lower tone of life, more illhealth, and more weakness, than in the higher classes. In Massachusetts, the pauper class furnishes, in ratio of its numbers, sixty-four times as many cases of insanity as the independent class. About eighty-six per cent. of the pauper lunatics are incurable, and of the independent class seventy per cent. are returned as beyond hope of restoration. Among the lunatics there is a larger proportion of foreigners than of natives. In 1854 the native insane

were as 1 to 445 of the whole native population, and the foreign insane were as 1 to 368 of the whole number of aliens. The State treasury supports eighty-seven per cent. of all the foreign lunatics in Massachusetts, and fiftyseven per cent. of the native lunatics. Without doubt, much insanity is occasioned by intemperance. The printed reports of the hospital in Worcester show that seventy-two per cent. of the cases are produced by religious excitement; seventy of those caused by ill health, fifteen of those occasioned by epilepsy, and only eleven per cent. of those occasioned by the lowest sensuality are cured. The State pays annually more than $146,000 for the support of insane paupers.

A depository for Bibles and other religious books, in various languages, has been opened in the Frank quarter of Constantinople, as a branch of the similar establishment existing in Stamboul. A committee has been appointed to make the necessary arrangements, and a room has been engaged in the main street of Pera, near the British Consulate. In connection with the book-store, it is proposed to provide accommodation for reading a few of the principal English and American newspapers, one or two of the French and Italian journals, and some of the religious and secular periodicals published in Great Britain, America, and on the Continent. Although pecuniary help is expected from one or more of the religious societies at home, whose publications will be offered for sale in this new depository, yet the founding and support of the whole institution must chiefly depend upon local resources.

The latest, and apparently the fairest, estimate of the population of the world, makes it eleven hundred and fifty millions; viz.: Pagans, 676,000,000; Christians, 320,000,000; Mohammedans, 140,000,000, and Jews, 14,000,000. Of Christians, the Church of Rome numbers 170,000,000, the Greek and Eastern Churches, 60,000,000, and Protestants, 90,000,000.

FOOD FOR REFLECTION.-The total number of commitments to the City Prison of New-York during the last year was 30,691; of whom 6,966 were natives, and 23,725 foreigners. The whole number of criminals convicted in the United States was 26,547: native, 12,856; foreign, (about one-fifth of the population,) 13,691.

Mr. M'Gee, editor of the American Celt, (Romanist,) was this spring on a visit to Ireland, and delivered in Cork a lecture on "Society in America," in which he advised such of his countrymen as could live at home, to stay at home. In the course of his remarks he stated that in the United States "the Church (Roman) loses sixty per cent. of the children of Roman Catholic parents."

The Boston Transcript gives the following as the newspaper issues of the three great Atlantic cities: Boston, 113 papers, circulation 54,000,000; New-York, 104 papers, circulation 78,000,000; Philadelphia, 51 papers, circulation 48,000,000. It is observable, if these

figures are correct, that with more than twice the number of papers in Boston, their circulation is not so very much greater than that of the Philadelphia press. "This," says the Boston Register, "may be owing to the fact that we have a larger variety of isms with their 'organs,' and also a larger number of literary weeklies. The disparity between Boston and New-York as to the ratio of the journals to the copies sent out is also note-worthy."

It is singular that the name of God should be spelt with four letters in almost every known language. It is in Latin, Deus; French, Dieu; Greek, Zeus; German, Gott; Scandinavian, Odin; Swedish, Codd; Hebrew, Adon; Syrian, Adad; Persian, Syra; Tartarian, Idga; Spanish, Dias; East India, Esgi, or Zenl; Turkish, Addi; Egyptian, Aumn, or Zeut; Japanese, Zain; Peruvian, Lian; Wallachian, Zene; Etrurian, Chur; Tyrrhenian, Eher; Irish, Dieh; Croatian, Doga; Margarian, Oese; Arabian, Allah; Dalmatian, Rogt.

A curious sect of religionists have arisen in England, called the Disciples. They believe that Christ will appear in 1864; that the Russians will triumph over the Turks, and the Jews over the Russians; the latter event to happen in just ten years' time, when the Jews will become a nation in the Holy Land. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the rest of the righteous Jews of old, with a few elect among Christians, will arise from the dead and live in Palestine; but the heathen and the wicked Jews and Christians will sleep eternally.

ECCLESIOLOGICAL.-We learn from The Churchman that at a meeting of the Ecclesiological Society in this city, held at St. Paul's Chapel, the Rev. Mr. Hopkins read a report on the Cathedral system, proposing certain changes in the social and educational arrangements of the Protestant Episcopalian clergy. We copy from The Churchman:

The

"Every bishop should have his see, which should be the chief city in the diocese over which he presided. Here, of course, was the cathedral, and the proper place for the meetings of conventions, &c. The bishop and clergy (of the cathedral) should live together, eating at the same table, and living a common life. By this means a house would be provided for the country clergy who should visit the bishop, and a closer bond of union and intercourse established between the bishop and his clergy. It might be objected that the clergy generally being married men, this arrangement would not work; but this need not be a very great obstacle; if the clergy must marry, their wives could act as housekeepers. The Eastern Church required that the bishops should be widowers or unmarried men. Scripture says that it is not good for man to be alone, and bishops are no exception to the rule. They, too, need a help-mert for them; and what better help-meet can they have than a band of young unmarried, selfdenying priests and deacons? There should also be schools; a theological training school attached to the cathedral; a boys' school, to furnish choristers, (boys' voices only being proper for Church music,) and to prepare them for the ministry; and a girls' school, to make good clergymen's wives. Then we should have a cathedral like that of St. Basil in the East, with bishops and priests living together in holy harmony. It would also be a real center for the organized and missionary labors of the diocese, and a modified form of itinerancy might be adopted, which would relieve the country clergy, and give the Church health and life. If it should be objected that the dioceses are too large-and they are-let them be broken up. The way has been opened by county convocations, and the

There has been no little discussion in the Protestant Episcopal Church for a year or two on "reforms." Most of the proposed changes look to the combination of more of the ancient usages with more of the modern practical enterprises. The introduction of a sort of laypreaching, like the Methodist "local ministry," has been urged, and also a sort of " itinerancy." It is a striking fact, that while Methodism is imprudently abandoning (in some quarters at least) these usages, other denominations are attempting to adopt them. The only itinerancy now in this city is that of old Trinitythe richest parish in the city. Its three or four preachers minister from church to church every Sabbath.

BRIGHAM YOUNG.-It is said that two large and beautiful houses have been built adjoining that which he occupies now in Salt Lake city, to accommodate his increasing family. He now rejoices in between fifty and sixty wives, and from forty to fifty children. Elder Kimball, one of the Mormon apostles, has between sixty and seventy consorts.

Lenardo Da Vinci, the famous Florentine painter, expired in the arms of Francis the First. His last descendant, a traveling glazier, the present year died in the neighborhood of Roane, from the effects of a fall from the roof of a hot-house he was repairing.

The Boston Transcript has collated quite a curiosity of literature, founded on certain coincidences noticeable in contemplating the names and lives of the first seven Presidents of the United States:Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams, Jackson. First. Four of the seven were from the same State, (Virginia.) Second. Two others bearing the same name (Adams) were from the same State. Third. The remaining one of the seven, (Jackson,) being particularly tenacious of his opinions and ways, came very properly from Tennessee. Fourth. All of them, except one, were sixty-six years of age on retiring from office. Fifth. All these last-mentioned served two terms. Sixth. The one who served one term only, had he served two terms, would also have been sixty-six years of age on retiring. Seventh. Three of the seven died on the fourth day of July, and two of them on the same day and year. Eighth. One only of the seven had a son, and that son was one of the seven Presidents. Ninth. Two of them were of the subcommittee of three that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and these two were they that died on the same day and year, and on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and just a half century from the day of the Declaration. Tenth. The names of three of the seven end in son, yet neither of these transmitted his name to a son. Eleventh. One difference as respects the elder Adams and the younger, (not worth noting on any other occasion,) was that the latter sported a Q in