LESSON LXXXIV.

Domestick Education and Maternal Influence.-MRS. Sigourney.

DOMESTICK education, has great power in the establishment of those habits, which ultimately stamp the character for good or evil. Under its jurisdiction, the Protean forms of selfishness, are best detected and eradicated. It is inseparable from the well-being of woman, that she be disinterested. In the height of youth, and beauty, she may inhale incense as a goddess, but a time will come for nectar, and ambrosia to yield to the food of mortals. Then the essence of her happiness, will be found to consist in imparting it.

If she seek to intrench herself in solitary indifference, her native dependence comes over her, from sources where it is least expected, convincing her that the true excellence of her nature, is to confer rather than to monopolize felicity. When we recollect, that her prescribed sphere mingles with its purest brightness, seasons of deep endurance, anxieties, which no other heart can participate, and sorrows for which earth has no remedy, we would earnestly incite those who gird her for the warfare of life, to confirm habits of fortitude, self-renunciation, and calm reliance on an Invisible Supporter.

We are not willing to dismiss this subject, without indulging a few thoughts on maternal influence. Its agency, in the culture of the affections, those springs which put in motion the human machine, has been long conceded. That it might also, bear directly upon the development of intellect, and the growth of the sterner virtues of manhood, is proved by the obligations of the great Bacon to his studious mother, and the acknowledged indebtedness of Washington, to the decision, to the almost Lacedemonian culture, of his maternal guide.

The immense force of first impressions, is on the side of the mother. An engine of uncomputed power is committed to her hand. If she fix her lever judiciously, though she may not like Archimedes, aspire to move the earth, she may hope to raise one of the habitants of earth to heaven. Her danger will arise from delay in the commencement of her operations, as well as from doing too little, or too much, after she has engaged in the work. As there is a medium in chemistry, between the exhausted receiver, and the compound blow

pipe, so in early education, the inertness which undertakes nothing, and the impatience which attempts all things at once, may be equally indiscreet and fatal.

The mental fountain is unsealed to the eye of a mother, ere it has chosen a channel, or breathed a murmur. She may tinge with sweetness or bitterness, the whole stream of future life. Other teachers have to contend with unhappy combinations of ideas, she rules the simple and plastick elements. Of her, we may say, she hath "entered into the magazines of snow, and seen the treasures of the hail."

In the moral field, she is a privileged labourer. Ere the dews of morning begin to exhale, she is there. She breaks up a soil, which the root of error and the thorns of prejudice have not pre-occupied. She plants germs whose fruit is for eternity. While she feels that she is required to educate not merely a virtuous member of society, but a christian, an angel, a servant of the Most High, how does so holy a charge quicken piety, by teaching the heart its own insufficiency!

The soul of her infant is uncovered before her. She knows that the images, which she enshrines in that unpolluted sanctuary, must rise before her at the bar of doom. Trembling at such tremendous responsibility, she teaches the little being, whose life is her dearest care, of the God who made him; and who can measure the extent of a mother's lessons of piety, unless his hand might remove the veil, which divides terrestial from celestial things?

"When I was a little child," said a good man, "my mother used to bid me kneel beside her, and place her hand upon my head, while she prayed. Ere I was old enough to know her worth, she died, and I was left too much to my own guidance. Like others, I was inclined to evil passions, but often felt myself checked, and as it were, drawn back, by a soft hand upon my head.

I

When a young man, I travelled in foreign lands, and was exposed to many temptations. But when I would have yielded, that same hand was upon my head, and I was saved. seemed to feel its pressure, as in the days of my happy infancy, and sometimes there came with it a voice, in my heart, a voice that must be obeyed-'Oh! do not this wickedness, my son, nor sin against thy God.'"

LESSON LXXXV.

*Weehawken.--ANONYMOUS.

WEEHAWKEN! In thy mountain scenery yet,
All we adore of nature, in her wild
And frolick hour of infancy, is met;

And never has a summer's morning smil'd
Upon a lovelier scene, than the full eye
Of the enthusiast revels on-when high,

Amid thy forest solitudes, he climbs

O'er crags, that proudly tower above the deep,
And knows that sense of danger, which sublimes
The breathless moment-when his daring step
Is on the verge of the cliff, and he can hear
The low dash of the wave with startled ear,

Like the death musick of his coming doom,

And clings to the green turf with desperate force, As the heart clings to life; and when resume The currents in his veins their wonted course, There lingers a deep feeling-like the moan Of wearied ocean, when the storm is gone.

In such an hour he turns, and on his view,

Ocean, and earth, and heaven, burst before him. Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue

Of summer's sky, in beauty bending o'er himThe city bright below; and far away,

Sparkling in golden light, his own romantick bay.

Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement,
And banners floating in the sunny air;

And white sails o'er the calm blue waters bent,
Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there.
In wild reality. When life is old,

And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold

Its

memory of this; nor lives there one

Whose infant breath was drawn, or boyhood days

* Near the city of New York.

Of happiness, were pass'd beneath that sun,
That in his manhood prime can calmly gaze
Upon that bay, or on that mountain stand,
Nor feel the prouder of his native land.

LESSON LXXXVI.

South America in 1825.—N. A. REVIEW.

THE progress of South America, in the career of revolu tion, independence, and liberty, is among the remarkable phenomena of the present age, and supplies a page in the history of man, rich with facts of high and novel import, from which the wise and benevolent may receive equal instruction and pleasure. The enlightened statesman will find his brightest anticipations more than realized, and the friend of human kind will contemplate with delight, a march of improvement in the social, intellectual, and political condition of his race, which no records of previous history have taught him to expect.

A tyranny so shameless in its aggressions on the rights of man, so iniquitous and selfish in its motives, and so desolating in its action, as that whose iron arm was stretched over Spanish America, from the bloody era of the conquest down to the beginning of the present century, has never been known at any period of the world, whether civilized or barbarous. Chateaubriand spoke without metaphor, when he said, that "for every dollar spent in Europe, tears of blood flow in the abysses of the earth in America." That the day should arrive, when such oppression would be resisted, and a just retribution fall on the heads of the oppressors, was to be expected, but that the struggles of the sufferers should be crowned with successes so speedy and permanent, was more than the most sanguine could have ventured to predict, or even hope.

Within the short space of fifteen years, all Spanish America has shaken off the chains of its servitude, and new and independent governments have been established. The countries, which have respectively instituted separate governments of their own, are Mexico, Guatamala, Colombia, Peru, Chili, and Buenos Ayres. Nature seems to have marked out these

divisions, and it is most likely that they will for the present, at least, remain fixed.

Brazil enjoys a sort of anomalous independence, having dissolved its connexion with the old dynasty of Portugal, and set up a government of its own, under a constitution, and the new emperor Don Pedro, who, in his proclamation to the Brazilians, published a year ago, bravely bid defiance to the “Jacobinical and Machiavellian Cortes of Portugal.” This is of course a temporary state of things. The atmosphere of America is not one, which can ever be breathed freely by kings and emperours; crowns will not sit lightly here, and the fate of Iturbide should be a warning to all, who are ambitious of so hazardous a distinction. The experiment of the last fifteen years, which was begun indeed fifty years ago by the United States, has solved to a demonstration, the great problem in politicks, respecting the capability of men, in a given state of society, to govern themselves.

Aloof from the governments of the old world, and too remote to be encumbered and crushed by the officious aid of a Holy Alliance, or a jealous neighbour, the South Americans have fought their way to independence; and, notwithstanding they were just emerging from a state of pupilage and degradation, so feelingly described by Bolivar, in his excellent speech at the opening of the Congress of Cúcuta, they have nevertheless shown themselves adequate to every exigency. Wisdom has prevailed in their deliberations, and they have been firm, prompt, and persevering in action. Reverses have only roused them to new and more vigorous efforts, and experience has taught them lessons, by which they have not disdained to be instructed and guided.

We do not mean to say, that there have not been civil commotions, tumults, and factions, errors of judgment on one part, and want of principle on another, contests of ambition, interest, passion, ignorance; all these have shown themselves perpetually, and in various forms, and it is no wonder that they should; but it may be affirmed, that the spirit of justice, intelligence, and virtue has triumphed, and it must moreover be allowed, that the praise of the triumph is in proportion to the obstacles encountered and overcome. In some of the republicks there will doubtless be further changes, and perhaps civil discords, but the Rubicon is passed, the conflict between despotism and liberty is at an end.

Disputes concerning the safest depositories of power, and the best machinery of government, will arise, constitutions