the moment or afterward. Such are the Thugs of | nese, are scarcely any better in either respect. And India, of whom various well-authenticated accounts even among the most enlightened nations, we find have been presented to the public within the last few some odd ideas and practices. It is not assuming years. They are a kind of sect, or set of religionists, at all, but only stating a recognised fact, that there who waylay and kill travellers for the sake of booty. are scores of voters at almost every election, who "There is not a Thug," says Captain Sleeman, "who can not see the least impropriety in selling their votes feels the slightest remorse for the murders which he for a sum of money, and would be prepared to defend may, in the course of his vocation, have perpetrated, the act as one perfectly indifferent in all respects exor assisted in perpetrating. A Thug considers the cept with a regard to their own interest. Classes persons murdered precisely in the light of victims pursue their own interests, not only without the least offered up to the goddess; and he remembers them regard to the interests of other classes, but in open as a priest of Jupiter remembered the oxen, and a defiance of them. We find each profession and set priest of Saturn the children, sacrificed upon their of men looking to some code of its own, which habit altars. He meditates his murders without any mis- places above the decalogue in their estimation. A giving; he perpetrates them without any emotion of lawyer will use every effort to save from conviction pity; and he remembers them without any feeling the wretch who can not be allowed to continue in his of remorse. They trouble not his dreams, nor does career without the greatest danger to society; and a their recollection ever cause him any inquietude in statesman will denounce a minister as a traitor to his darkness, in solitude, or the hour of death." How country and an enemy to the laws, yet be ready next are we to reconcile the rule, in this case, with so minute to protest that he only meant the charge in a large and every way so remarkable an exception? parliamentary sense, and entertains not a thought It is also to be remembered that there has been such injurious to the personal character of his opponent. a thing as a nation of assassins somewhat nearer to On attempting to analyze the various causes which our doors than the Thugs; and that, within Chris-produce aberrations of the natural feelings, we find tendom, religion has often been brought to bear ei-reason to think that the following are the chief: There ther for the prompting of homicide or its justification. is, first, that condition of a feeling which we find in When Louis d'Orleans assassinated Jean Sans Peur utterly savage tribes a state in which it is either so in 1407, Jean Petit, a Norman Cordelier monk and doctor of laws, undertook to justify the act by twelve arguments in honor of the twelve apostles! The Smithfield fires were lighted, and the bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois was rung, for the supposed glory of God. John Knox "spoke merrily" of the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and united himself to the murderers, although of the general character of that preacher there can not be a doubt that it included many noble points. We would have to write volumes instead of paragraphs, if we were to dip deeper into the annals of religious persecution; suffice it, in one word, to say that, from beginning to end, they show the natural feelings of humanity obscured by the predominance of other and depraved feelings.

small in positive endowment, or so ill developed, that it scarcely can be said to exist at all. Hence the African's admiration of fat black females-the unscrupulous destruction of children by some savage tribes-the veneration which many other barbarous nations pay to ugly blocks of wood or stone, as supposing them to be gods. In these cases we only see the blundering of a faculty as weak and aimless as the movements of a newly born animal. There is, next, a condition of a faculty little superior to the above, which is sometimes found in partially civilized nations; for example, the feeble state of conscientiousness among the Chinese. Here we may remark, that because a nation has made some progress, it is not to be supposed that all the mental faculties The aberrations of the religious feeling itself are are, in it, to spring forward into one uniform degree most extraordinary, and such as investigation would of activity. There is not one partially enlightened perhaps never exhaust. The first element of this race which does not show some striking deficiencies. feeling is unquestionably the principle of worship- A great deal of the short-comings which we wonder and to what objects has worship been paid, from the at in certain races are to be attributed to this cause. ugly caricatures of humanity which some Asiatic Next, we behold, in civilized nations, one feeling nations set up as idols, to the Grecian Jupiter and overpowered by another-as the family affections of Apollo, respective emblems of majesty and beauty-the Greeks by public spirit, and their sense of justice from the sacred cow of Egypt to the Lama of Thibet! Worship implies an object presumedly superior to the worshipper; but these objects could never be rationally held superior to those who pay or have paid them reverence. Yet they were or are sincerely, devoutly worshipped. Between the true object, an Almighty Unseen Deity, and these substitutes of ignorance and delusion, what an interval! Yet still there can be no doubt that the veneration of men has been, and is, excited by such objects.

The sense of justice and truth is not less liable to depravation. Of truth, barbarous nations have scarcely a trace; of justice, they have very little. Some semi-enlightened nations, as, for example, the Chi

by an anxiety to cultivate intellectual sharpness. The monstrous practices of Thugs, assassins, and persecutors, are to be explained by a consideration of the blinding effect of erroneous religious views. Absorbed in some delusive notions, these persons come to sink all considerations of justice and humanity, and are willing to commit any species of wickedness that a contemplated greater good may be attained. It is a great though common mistake to speak of such men as unacquainted with mercy; Philip II. of Spain, while conducting his atrocious persecutions in the Netherlands, sent bread and clothing to the people of Brussels suffering under a famine. The feelings are in their case only overcome by an extreme of fanati

cism, against which judgment makes no appeal. | residents there. I had long forgotten that name, and Next, there are many aberrations which arise from stood, as it seemed, for a few moments, until enabled interested and selfish views entertained by a great to recall it. I woke with a vivid recollection of all body of men. In that case, probably, a consideration the minutia connected with the old house-never that the object sought is for the benefit of many others remarkable for anything to me or others and with besides one's self, reconciles many to the error, or is the aspect of its former inhabitants portrayed with what makes it appear passable. Every one, too, feels the liveliest fidelity to my mental view. In all this his share of the responsibility so light, and is so sup- there was nothing extraordinary, merely because ported in his error by multitudes around him, that he everybody has experienced something similar. Yet is encouraged to stand out in the bad cause. Finally, among the phenomena of mind, as acted upon by the peculiar arrangements which society takes, and external circumstances, this faculty of receiving the the effects of laws and institutions, occasion many impression of an indifferent object, retaining it through anomalous moralities, to which custom easily recon- a series of years amid a multitude of after impressions ciles all the parties concerned. -I may say burnt into it, such was the severity of the stamp-and restoring it on demand is most wonderful. It is a part of the mystery of our compound being that makes itself felt; it strikes a chord causing the whole heart to vibrate; it brings home to us the beautiful remarks of Chalmers, that every man has within himself his own peculiar and exclusive world, into the recesses of which the dearest, the most sympathizing friends can not enter.

But while every one of the feelings is thus liable to appear, under various circumstances, dull, dormant, vanquished, or depraved, we are assured that such feelings nevertheless exist, by finding them all acting with vigor in some one or another of the children of men. That there is a feeling for the beautiful, Greece and Italy have amply proved. There is a fundamental feeling to pronounce thieving wrong, because most nations in the least removed from the savage condition pronounce it to be so. There is a feeling to protect the young, because, though some few kill them, the great mass consent in acting quite otherwise. There is a right humanity, because, while a few have been found to act mercilessly, and without remorse, the bulk of mankind are inclined quite the contrary way. All the peculiar morals, then, of which instances have here been given, are only eccentricities, or departures from a right code. The practical good to be deduced from the argument, is its giving us a light to detect the moral fallacies into which custom and prejudice are apt to lead us. It prompts us to look out beyond the narrow circle of local, temporary, and class morals, to see the operation of just principles in the great world. It is a common resource of the unjust and merciless to sneer at all standards of right and wrong, and take refuge from blame in the many examples of the aberrant and depraved. The more clearly that these can be established in their true character, as only exceptions from rules which the Creator has himself written in the human heart, the less influence, it may be presumed, will they have in seducing the easy and weak from the right path.

DREAMING.

How wonderful is this faculty of the mind! I write under the impression of recent experience, having retraced in a dream the beloved haunts of early years, expatiating, as I thought, to one who had never before seen them, on the various objects, mixture of orchard and garden ground. At one spot I paused-it was an old brick house, placed back in a neglected, overgrown shrubbery. That building I have not seen for nearly a quarter of a century, nor has any circumstance brought it to my remembrance. I never visited the inmates, but merely knew their name as

There breathes not a mortal to whom I could unfold the long chain of recollections revived by the single idea of a passing dream. Some would listen, would try to sympathize, but, except by transferring the feeling to their own bosoms, and connecting with it their individual experience, no sympathy could they afford; nor would that be a real participation of my thoughts, but an awakening of their own. There is One to whom the desolate heart can turn with the deep and sweet conviction that He knows all. An awful consideration indeed, when we call to mind the innumerable transgressions that stand recorded together with those scenes and events; but to him who is in Christ Jesus, him to whom there is now no condemnation, being redeemed from the curse of the law, and brought nigh to a reconciled Father, it is thought full of heavenly consolation. The heart knoweth its own bitterness; God is greater than the heart and knoweth all things. If in his wise dispensations he has seen good to crush the flowers, and to suffer many thorns to remain, he knows the sweetness of the former, the keen points of the latter, and weighs in a just balance the burden that he has laid on his child. He does not, like our fellow-man make light of the sorrow, nor, like ourselves, view it in exaggerated proportions; but with the perfection of wisdom, knowledge, and tender compassion, "He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are but dust." It is astonishing with what soothing power a dream may come across a harassed mind, blunting the edge of the present with sweet remembrances of the past. And I should be slow to deny to the God of all consolation the praise due for his mercy. Those who, from a distempered digestion, or otherwise, are habitually oppressed by gloomy and terrific dreams, scruple not to pray against the visitation: why should they whose bosoms are soothed by visions of a very opposite tendency, hesitate to render thanks to the Giver, not only of the staff that supports our pilgrimstep on the heavenward path, but of the little wildflower that flings a breath of momentary fragrance across it?-Charlotte Elizabeth.

even rear themselves "walls and bulwarks" miles | ceptacle of the shell, having a membranous tube and leagues in length, and to a height far exceeding which lines the siphuncle. the space to which our deep-sea plummets ever sound. But what of vegetation, or what of animal life in larger forms exist there, or it may be at a greater depth, we can not know, and it would be vain to conjecture. One of the most singular of these deep sea shells is the nautilus. It has been said that the most mischievous beings in the universe for touching subjects of natural history, are the poets and romancists, who contrive to fling the spirit of fable into almost every object with which they chance to come in contact; they have told a beautiful tale respecting the nautilus, and science has proved it to be partly

true.

When the water is calm, say they, the nautilus rises to the surface, rears its masts, spreads its sails, stretches its oars, and walks the waters really a thing of life; but when the wind beats, and the waves are up, it takes in its sails, lowers its masts, and descends to the regions of tranquillity, where the action of the waves never reaches.

The chambers are internal air-cells, and the creature has the power of filling the siphuncle only with a fluid secreted for the purpose, and of exhausting it, and the difference thus effected in the specific gravity of the animal and its shell enables the nautilus to sink or swim at pleasure. If, therefore, the reader can imagine a cuttle-fish in the outer chamber of the nautilus, with its arms extended, and having a tube connected with the siphunculus, but neither ink-bag, nor bone, these being unnecessary to an animal having the protection and mechanism of a chambered shell, he will have a tolerably correct idea of the recent and fossil nautili. The nautilus is essentially a ground-dwelling animal, feeding on the marine plants which grow at the bottom of the sea. Rumphius states that it creeps into the shell above, and that by means of its tentacula it can make quick progress along the ground. These shells are probably very numerous now; at one period of our world's history they must have been more so. Countless This romantic creation has called forth some of millions are found in the earth in many parts of Engthe most pleasing of our modern rhymes. The beau- land and other countries; and in the Himalaya mountiful mythos was however supposed to be till lately tains, on the northeast of India, they are met with quite untrue; the animal which is found in the shell at nearly four miles above the present level of the sea. is not the nautilus, and much conjecture has arisen Even there they have all the character of shells, in the minds of the observers of nature as to the char- which are never now discovered in any situations acter of the natural owner of the shell. This shell but where it is evident they must have been brought is a dead one, and the animal found in it has really no more connexion with it than that of the sailor with his ship, nay, not so much, because the sailor may have made and can repair the ship. There is only one author who says that he saw the living animal of one species of the nautilus, and as he had 'erred in some other matters, there is reason to suspect he is mistaken in this. The nautilus has within the last few years been made a subject of special theory by geologists. It has been found to abound, with other cephalopoda, in the tertiary strata, thus proving its ancient existence; and those which are found, in the septaria, or indurated argillaceous nodules of the London clay at Highgate, Sheppy, and Bognor, are said to possess considerable beauty, and admit of being cut into sections which display admirably the internal structure of the shell. Dr. Buckland has given a lucid account of the fish, whose shell we are now examining, which we shall condense and render as plain as possible to our readers.

The Sepia, or cuttle-fish of our seas, is of an oblong form, composed of a jelly-like substance, covered with a tough skin. The mouth, which is central, is furnished with horny mandibles much resembling the back of a parrot. The cuttle-fish, it is now known, has the power of secreting a black-colored fluid or ink, which it ejects when pursued, and by thus rendering the water turbid, escapes from its enemies. This fluid is contained in a bag, and enters largely into the composition of Indian ink. This brief description will enable us the better to understand the nautilus; in its shell we have a series of chambers pierced through the middle by a siphunculus or tube which extends to the remotest cell. The animal is of the nature of the sepia, and occupies the outer re

from deep water; the congregated multitudes must have been found in deep water too. These shells have drawn the attention of mankind in every age. The Hindoos considered them as the impressions of the god Vishnu, and worshipped them as holy. Among the Greeks and Egyptians they were the horns of Jupiter Ammon, whence they still retain the name of Ammonites, and they have given rise to several ornaments of the most elegant character.

WISDOM OF THE CREATOR EXEMPLIFIED IN HIS WORKS.-The various orders of vegetables provided in every part of the globe, for the countless forms of animated existence, are eminently illustrative of the provident care of the Creator, and show us how good and how great is the Father of the families of the whole earth. The sluggish cow pastures in the cavity of the valley; the bounding sheep on the declivity of the hill; the scrambling goat browses among the shrubs of the rock; the hen picks up every grain that is scattered and lost in the field; the pigeon, of rapid wing, collects a similar tribute from the refuse of the grove; and the frugal bee turns to account even the small dust on the flower. There is no corner of the earth where the whole vegetable crop may not be reaped. These plants which are rejected by one are a delicacy to another, and even among the finny tribes, contribute to their fatness. The hog devours the horse-tail and henbane; the goat, the thistle and the hemlock. All return in the evening to the habitation of man, with murmurs, with bleatings, with cries of joy, bringing back to him the delicious tributes of innumerable plants, transformed, by a process the most inconceivable, into honey, milk, butter, eggs, and cream.

View of Singapore.