come disordered and unstrung. Hence, the fevered lip is tempted to quaff the cup of guilty pleasure, which, in its cooler hour, it would have spurned for guileless relaxa tion.. Having seen, then, another form of temptation which besets the females of the lower ranks of life, we will pass from the fruits of over-work to still another cause of ruin that prevails in our manufacturing towns-the mixture of sexes in factories. In factories certainly great improvement is taking place; but improvement is a comparative term, and effects the most frightful follow the combination of girls and youths, as it is at present managed. The evils of this combination are indeed aggravated by one of the causes of sin just discussed-we mean, over-work; there comes an inordinate love of pleasure, especially of sensual pleasure, where the true law of labor has been transgressed. We were lately told by one before whom the painful fact had been brought, that, out of a large number of factory girls, confirmed last year in one of the largest manufacturing towns of the north, not one had kept her purity. All had fallen; all came as penitents to that holy rite. A large portion of this mischief was laid to the mixture of sexes at time of work, or to the congregating of the young when work ceased. We must remember also, as bearing upon this particular point, that the promiscuous living of the poor in their own homes paves the way to ruin, by loosening true notions of purity and decency in early life: the principle of modesty has been diluted at home, and thus, when the girl grows up, and is thrown with companions of the opposite sex, she has not, so to speak, a fair start; she does not come properly armed for the attack; her modesty has already been lowered, and the bloom of natural feeling has been rubbed off. The dwellings of the poor, whether in town or country, lay the foundation of much sin; and we hail the erection of model lodginghouses as one of the greatest and most practical instruments for the improvement of the morals and modesty of the poor. Mr. Talbot, the secretary of The London Society for the Protection of Young Females," gives us some fearful facts relative to the condition of the dwellings of the poor. We will furnish our readers with a single sample of these facts. "From a paper read by C. Bowles Fripp, Esq., at the statistical section of the meeting of the British Association, it appears that in Bristol there were in 1839, VOL. XVII. NO. II. 18 556 families, each occupying part of a room. one room only. 2,224. close and confined apartments. 2,412. 4,752 children above seven years old sleeping in the same room with their parents. We need not indeed multiply facts of this kind, as even in the best country parishes it is hard to find cottages sufficiently large, or so well arranged, as to accommodate the inmates with due regard to proper separation of sexes. Neither will we speak at large upon the defects of education, the want of schools, the hurried preparation for confirmation, the example of parents, the fascination of attentions from persons of higher rank than themselves; all of which are to be considered when we pass judgment on the fallen daughters of the Church. Enough, we trust, has been shown to dissipate the idea, strongly fixed in many minds, that the mass of erring women go astray out of mere wantonness and love of pleasure; and to prove that there is a host of palliating circumstances that greatly lessen the wilfulness of their sin. We think, too, that what we have said is enough to show there is urgent need for considering and for improving the condition of the whole race of women in the lower ranks of life. There must be some great defects in the social system, where vice can fairly claim for itself so large a number of palliating circumstances; and while we freely confess the need of an expanded ecclesiastical system, to give educational and other direct religious advantages to the poor, yet over-work and over-labor come rather within the scope of civil jurisdiction, guided by a Christian spirit. Now we must not sit down in the bewildered inactivity of despair, as though all these social evils breaking out into so much vice were beyond a remedy. Many remedies may be required, and many may be difficult to procure; but still the improvement of the female population is, at least, to be attempted, even though there may seem small prospects of any considerable success. For ourselves, looking to these two great tempters, poverty and over-work, whether acting alone or in concert, we cannot but be convinced that a vigorous, well-directed, and well-managed system of female emigration stands out at once as the most effectual means of checking these strong enticements to sin. To drain off to some degree the surplus female population, is the work that at once presents itself to our thoughts. We may increase schools, multiply churches, but these will not raise wages nor buy bread. They may help the besieged to hold out longer in time of siege, but this is all; thirteen or fourteen hours of work in a close room cannot be borne without hurt both to soul and body; and we little know the power of hunger in loosening principle, where principle has taken root. We must reduce of such property. The matter should be more looked into; country squires may profitably traverse their estates, and inspect the accommodation which their cottages afford. In such an inspection they will find much to shock them; and, doubtless, many will be moved to lessen the evils which, for want of inquiry, they little suspect to exist. In large towns, so great is the number of friendless and orphan girls who live by the needle, and are condemned to hide themselves in wretched comfortless attics, that we feel, if more cheerful and more comfortable houses could be provided for them after their work, many would be saved from the ways of sin. A model-lodging for needlewomen would, we conceive, be a great boon; and if there were a common hall for breakfast and tea, they might, by their combined resources, have sufficient nourishment as well as fellowship. Such a house placed under rule, and conducted on good principles, might save many a lonely girl from seeking for false excitement, and hurrying from her silent dreary garret to gay scenes of dissipation. We will not venture to do more than allude to the more religious preventives that are now urgently required: more schools, increased pastoral visitation and watchfulness, plainer speaking in our pulpits on the lusts of the flesh, according to Apostolic examples, warmer religious instruction in the schools we raise, longer and more careful preparation for confirmation-these are points which press themselves into our minds, but on which we will not trust ourselves to speak at length. the number, to reduce the temptations of women; and if we treat them as so many "hands," the business-like and mechanical view of the sex, we find, that while we have an excess at home, there is a great demand for these living implements of industry abroad. Our colonies ask for female immigration. The last of the colonization circulars issued by government, furnishes us with the most authentic accounts of the want of women, while so many thousands are pining in England for the very scantiest subsistence. In New Brunswick we are told that “labor, such as the business of the country requires, is both scarce and dear; and that 1000 good and healthy laborers (with their families, equal to 5000 souls) would find employment." Of South Australia it is said, that "young unmarried females, who emigrate to South Australia without friends or relations on board, are, on arriving in the colony, at once removed from the vessel bringing them to a house in Adelaide, where every necessary comfort is in readiness for their reception. They are placed under the immediate control of a matron; and a committee of ladies have benevolently undertaken to assist them in finding suitable employment;" this is proof enough of the demand. In New Zealand we read that "dairy women and While we are thus hopefully busying ourrespectable female servants. were much selves with fair schemes for the prevention of wanted." When we come to wages, we female vice, we feel ourselves drawn back to have evidence of the want, not of needle- the consideration of their state who have women, but of servants. In New South already fallen. Preventive measures may Wales, a plain cook's wages vary from 241. benefit the children that are growing up in to 281. per annum; dairy-maids, from 177. the perilous atmosphere of the lower walks to 251.; housemaids, from 18. to 28. In of life, but there are thousands already sick Van Diemen's Land the same class of ser- in soul, already under the power of sin, alvants varies from 10l. to 25l. per annum; ready leprous and unclean. What is to be and needlewomen in that colony can obtain done for that large mass of women, young in 201. to 301. a year. To a well-governed years, yet deeply steeped in sin? We have system of female emigration we therefore considered the palliating circumstances under look, as the means of raising the price of fe- which so many fall; we have required that male labor here to such a height as to supply these circumstances should be fairly weighed at least the necessaries of life, and to prevent in the measurement of their guilt, under the the exhaustion of the frame by over-work. full impression that the just and candid conAs regards the female population that re-sideration of their case would rouse pity and mains at home, many measures for its improvement present themselves. Increased provision in the dwellings of the poor, better arrangement and subdivision of rooms, are points deeply to be considered by all owners deep compassion; we are sure that these feelings of pitifulness will rise in those who have hitherto too hastily condemned or left the fallen to lie in the pit, as though it were a wilful and self-chosen fall. But if there is cause for compassion, then surely it is not enough for us to sigh over our fallen sisters, at the thought of all the wasted beauty, and youth, and health yielded to purposes most vile and draggled in the dirt. It is not enough to have aching hearts, as amid our own safe houses, with all the privileges of our holy faith, our thoughts turn to those perishing multitudes who have been beaten down by temptations we have never known. Surely Christian pity is not to end in sighs or bitter thoughts; surely, with all this sin and wretchedness, these beginnings of hell in the midst of us, we need vigorous, energetic, self-denying compassion; we need some great and active endeavors to lift up them that are fallen, in the name of Him "who receiveth sinners," to search out with all earnest love the stray sheep caught in the thickets of this evil world and almost dead. The Church must be up and doing in this cause; the members of the Church must hasten to give holy shelter to those who can be fetched back. All that we can see of practical compassion is here and there some dismal house at the outskirts of a town, entitled "a penitentiary," and calculated to receive but a scanty fellowship of penitents. If we put all these penitentiaries together, we find them utterly unequal in magnitude to the evil with which they cope, ill-supported, scraping on from year to year with a sort of consumptive life, and attracting little sympathy or interest. An increase of penitentiaries is loudly called for, as the first step of practical pity. The sentence of utter, final excommunication passed by the world on fallen women, must not be allowed any longer to violate the plain terms of the covenant of grace; mercy must practically be shown, and places of refuge, houses of mercy, supplied for those who are moved to rise up and confess their sins. The Church cannot without peril shrink from taking this cause in hand. It has been pushed aside too long. The subject is not to be dropped by common consent; souls are perishing; a great burden of neglect is on us. A plain duty is plainly put before us. CHARLOTTE CORDAY. SEE PLATE. THERE lived at Caen, in the department of Calvados, a young woman, named Marie Anne Charlotte Corday. She was five-andtwenty years of age. Her father, a decayed gentleman, was still living, but she had left him to reside with an aunt at Caën. This young woman was a grand-daughter of the great dramatist, Pierre Corneille, and the spirit of the grandsire lived in his descendant. Her form was tall and graceful, her features regular and beautiful; but there was mingled with a woman's softness of expression, something of the resolve which marks a manly face. Her complexion was illuminated by the freshness of youth, beauty, and health; her dress was suited to her moderate means; her habits were temperate and simple. Though brought up in a con vent, she was no stranger to the philosophical ideas which were then spreading over France; for even the bars of the convents could not keep out the books which were in vogue. Her early religious impressions. were replaced by the philosophy of Jean Jaques Rousseau; and her exalted imagination was raised to the heroic pitch by the ever-living portraits of Plutarch. She embraced the revolution with ardor; she dreamed, as the wife of Roland had dreamed, of a republic in which simplicity and virtue should reign. But the excesses of the Jacobins had dispelled the pleasing illusion, and the men of the Gironde, who once seemed destined to realize her happy visions, were imprisoned or fugitives. Petion, Louvet, Barbaroux, and other deputies, had come to Caën to stir up the departments of the north, and to combine the elements of resistance to the convention. The reign of terror had already commenced in Paris; the guillotine was receiving its tribute of victims, and the horrid engine was expected to make the tour of France. One name above all others was associated with the guillotine, the name of him who had for years called for heads, and measured his demands only by thousands. The unquiet mind of Charlotte required action; and she meditated a deed of vengeance against the greatest culprit in France. She resolved to go to Paris. She had two interviews with Barbaroux, and she asked and obtained from him a letter of introduction to a member of the convention who could introduce her to the minister of the interior. She pretended that she had a petition to present to the government, in favor of Mademoiselle Forbin, who had been the friend of her youth. Barbaroux gave her a letter to Duperret, one of the 73 deputies of the party of the Gironde. She went to see her father, and told him she was going to England. On the 9th of July, early in the morning, she made up a little packet, which she put under her arm, quitted her aunt's house, and journeyed to Paris in a conveyance, which, as she said, contained some "good Montagnards." She reached Paris on the 11th of July, and went to the Hôtel de Providence, in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, where she slept soundly from five in the afternoon till next morning. She called on Duperret the next day, but could not see him till the evening. She asked him to introduce her to Marat, the minister of the interior; but this was only a pretext. In her letter to Baradoux she said she was sorry that she had called on Duperret, for this very evening, by a decree of the convention, the seals were placed on all the movables of Duperret, as one of the suspected, and her visit put him in danger. Duperret came the next day, and went with her to Marat, but the minister could not see them, and Duperret took leave of her at the door of her hotel. She had learned that Marat did not now go to the convention, for her first design was to kill him there; he was suffering from illness, but still scribbling at home with his wonted unwearied diligence. After leaving Duperret, Charlotte found her way to the Palais Royal, not to admire or to be amused. She looked for a cutler's shop, where she bought a strong knife, with an ebony handle, and concealed it under her neckerchief. She returned to her lodgings, and wrote a letter to Marat, in which she told him that she was from Caën, and could give him important information, and she would be with him at one. She went, but could not see him; upon which she left a second letter, well calculated to sharpen the jealous curiosity of the friend of the people; it was dated the same day: "I wrote to you this morning, Marat; have you received my letter? I cannot believe it, because they refused me your door. I hope you will grant me an interview to-morrow. I repeat it, I am just from Caën; I have to reveal to you secrets of the utmost importance for the safety of the republic. Besides, I am persecuted for the cause of liberty; I am unfortunate, and that is enough to give me a right to your protection. Charlotte Corday." Charlotte said in her letter to Barbaroux, "I confess that I employed a perfidious artifice to induce him to receive me; all means are good in such circumstances." She left her hotel at seven in the evening, and knocked at Marat's door. The woman who kept the door would hardly let her in, and tried to prevent her from going up stairs. The noise brought Marat's mistress out, who refused to admit her into the apartments. A loud altercation ensued, and Marat, who judged, from what was passing, that the visitor was the writer of the two letters, called out to let her in. Marat, wasted with disease, horrid and disgusting to look at, was in his bath, covered with a dirty piece of linen, all but the upper part of his chest and right arm. He was writing on a rough plank, which rested on the bath, a letter of denunciation to the convention. Marat asked about Normandy, and he took down the names of the deputies there, and of the administrators of Calvados, who were at Evreux. He told Charlotte, by way of consolation, that they should all be guillotined. These words decided his fate. drew the knife from her bosom, and with a strong arm plunged it to the hilt in his body. He cried out once, and no more. The water was dyed red; Marat was bathed in his own blood. She From Tait's Magazine. THE EXPEDITION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT TO THE OASIS OF JUPITER AMMON. ONE of the most singular incidents in the history of Alexander the Great is his visit to the temple of Jupiter Ammon. What it was undertaken for everybody knows. Dissatisfied with being reputed the son of Philip, the great leader of the Macedonians resolved to discover for himself a greater father; and fixed, for this purpose, on no less a personage than the Ammon of the Egyptians. In developing a great system of conquest, men have employed different instruments, according to the character of the age in which they lived. Alexander placed much reliance on superstition; and had his lot been cast in earlier times, when the primitive faiths of nations had as yet received no wound from scepticism, there can scarcely be a doubt that not only would the story of his celestial parentage have obtained credit, but he himself would have been raised to the rank of a divinity, and received the adoration of the whole pagan world. But the son of Philip found himself cramped, in the development of his genius, by the sarcastic incredulity of the times. The philosophers had been so long and so successfully engaged in a war with Olympus, that the gods and goddesses, once so ingenuously believed in, had been obliterated almost entirely from the thoughts of men, and come to be regarded as mere poetical creations, pleasant to read about, but nothing else. Alexander, however, determined upon making trial of whether it were possible to revive a decayed superstition. He pretended devoutly to believe in his own divine origin; and, after the battle of Issus, and the conquest of Syria and Egypt, while the whole civilized world was resounding with his name, and illuminated, as it were, by the glory of his victories, he seized on what appeared to him the auspicious moment for consulting the greatest oracle in Africa, in order to impress his troops and subjects generally with that profound reverence for his person which philosophy and the spirit of Grecian politics had rendered it so difficult to inspire. There seems to us to have been yet another motive for Alexander's visit to the Oasis, which none of his historians, ancient or modern, has yet, so far as we are aware, discovered. He knew that a great part of the prosperity of Egypt depended upon commerce; and as his ambition was not purely military, but embraced every form of civilization, he was desirous of laying open the route to the interior of Africa, and probably of extending his dominion over the whole of that continent. But as in antiquity an intense dread of the dangers to be encountered in the desert already prevailed, he wished to make an experimental march through a portion of the wilderness, that, with his own eyes, he might ascertain the real state of the case, and afterwards abandon or carry out his design, according as this attempt should prove fortunate or otherwise. The ancients, though not quite so ignorant as we suppose them, were yet far from being acquainted with the geography of Africa. Unknown regions, as well as unknown powers, are apt to inspire dread; and their imagination consequently peopled the wastes of Lybia with monsters, and chimeras, and invisible influences destructive of human life. Poets do not always invent. They often only give expression to popular opinion. We may judge, therefore, of the degree of awe with which the African wilderness had inspired the civilized natures of those ages by the fabulous horrors which the fancy of poets spread like a cloud over the whole interior. Alexander himself, though the disciple of Aristotle, and nurtured to a certain extent in scepticism, was not altogether proof against the spirit of his age. Incredulity by no means implies the absence of superstition. A man may, by study, uproot from his mind the religious creed of his contemporaries; but, while engaged in this process, may suffer his imagination to be impregnated by other princi |