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Men of the forest, the plain and the river,
Men of the mountain, the flood and the field,
Men, before whose ever-earnest emdeavor,
Forest, and mountains, and torrents must
yield!

These are the Norsemen! the men of the morning!

These are the pure-hearted men of the snow! Hating all wrong with the bitterest scorning, Freemen are they where the evergreens grow.

Hail to the Norsemen! the uncounted numbers!
Hearts framed of iron, and sinews of brass!
Hail to the liberty-tone that out-thunders!
Hail to the Norsemen, as southward they
pass!

Press to the southward, and level the borders!
Nations amazed, view the war that ye wage,
Cure, from the North, for the mad world's dis-

orders!

Hail to the Norsemen! the first in the age'

MRS. STOWE'S LAST STORY.
The Pearl of Orr's Island.

BY MRS. S. M. PERKINS.

The domain of fiction was too long left to unholy hands. The Puritan ancestors of New England carefully guarded their sons and daughters from the influence of novels, or works of fiction. Even Scott and our own Cooper were not read by the young without certain twinges of conscience. But surely there was need of parental discipline and precept, when the young minds were fed by the corrupt literature of Eugene Sue and George Sand. Hence, everything that had not the insignia of truth stamped upon the face of it, was deemed baneful in its influence.

When Jane Eyre appeared, by Miss Bronte, that exciting creation of the genius of as pure a woman as ever toiled and suffered, it was regarded by the church as improper reading for the young. Mrs. Gaskell's charming stories are wafted across the ocean and read by thousands of American readers, and are not now regarded as stolen pleasures. Nor need they be, for they are as fresh and bright as a beautiful morning in May. Who is not happier for having read "Sylvan Holt's Daughter?" Margaret, in her pure, girlish love for Col. Fielding, is a lovely type of womanhood. It is now about ten years since the whole civilized world was suddenly electrified, and rivers of tears were shed over that seemingly inspired book, "Uncle Tom's

Cabin ;" a book which has exerted an untold influence upon the public mind in regard to the sin of slavery. The Northern soldier of to-day girds on his armor with a more earnest purpose, when he remembers the boyish tears he shed over the wrongs of the poor African, while reading that volume.

The success of this work led to the issue of "Sunny Memories of Foreign Travel," "Dred," "Agnes of Sorrento," and lastly of "The Pearl of Orr's Island." These last books all bear the impress of genius, and are more finished, more artistic than the first. Yet when compared with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," they are like the stately, cold, unimpassioned eloquence of Everett, when compared with the heart-searching, soul-burning words of Wendell Phillips. We admire the one-our inmost soul reverences the other.

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The story just finished is less elaborate than Agnes of Sorrento," and bears more resemblance to the author's first great work. It is a tale of the heart, or, as she herself tells us, of "the inner life that cometh not with observation." I have scarcely read a single chapter of this story, with its precious gems of Christian truth, scattered here and there, but I have mentally exclaimed, "Mrs. Stowe is a wonderful woman. She probes the human heart, revealing its hopes and fears, its sorrows and joys, as few writers have power to do. A child of my family says, "I like this story of Mara, it seems so true," and this can be said of the greater part of it, though it has its improbabilities, as will be seen in due time.

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The tale commences with the birth of the little "seven month baby," on the day of its parent's death. It is brought up by its grandparents, a worthy, God-fearing couple, who likewise adopt a boy who was shipwrecked on the Island, and these children become the hero and heroine of the story. Captain Kittridge, a romancing old seaman, ranks next in importance, and finally becomes a very interesting character, giving us more wisdom and better theology than even Mr. Sewell, the clergyman of the parish. The children wander about at their own sweet will, till finally they get into a boat one day and push off from

shore, towards the golden sunset. They
are pursued by sharks, and
by sharks, and Moses
thinks it rare sport to make a dash at them
with the oars.
More romantic a great deal
than probable. They are saved, of course,
just in the nick of the time, by Parson
Sewell, who was out fishing.

Mara is one of these angel-children that invariably die young; a native Christian -for we have no account of her conversion according to the evangelical modus operandi. The only wonder is that she lived so long. She finds material enough to test her faith and patience, and gentle forbearance, in the proud, selfish, imperious boy of Spanish lineage, whom she regards as her especial charge. They buy the children Latin books, and together they recite awhile to Mr. Sewell. But Moses enters his teens, and astonishes them all by his unbelief and waywardness, Our author thus speaks of Moses at this

time:

Mara prays day and night for the boy, and one night she hears a low whistle outside, and then the old stairs creak as Moses steals cautiously down and goes off with three men. She hastily throws on her clothes and follows them unobserved, to see whither they were taking Moses. He is with a gang of smugglers, and her poor little heart is shocked to see him drink and hear him swear. The dawn approaches, and the party disperse, and as cautiously the poor girl follows Moses home, yet with a load of care and anxiety at her heart.

She kneeled down by her little white bed, and thanked God that she had come in safe, and then prayed him to teach her what to do next..

She felt chilly and shivering, and crept into bed, and lay with her great, soft, brown eyes wide open', intently thinking what she should

do.

Should she tell her grandfather? Something instinctively said No; that the first word from him which showed Moses he was detected,

would at once send him off with those wicked men. "He would never, never bear to have this known," she said. Mr. Sewell ?-ah, that One of the most common signs of this period, was worse. She herself shrank from letting in some natures, is the love of contradiction him know what Moses had been doing; she and opposition-a blind desire to go contrary could not bear to lower him so much in his to everything that is commonly received among eyes. He could not make allowances, she the older people. The boy disparages the min- thought. He is good to be sure, but he is so ister, quizzes the deacon, thinks the schoolmas-old and grave, and doesn't know how much ter an ass, and doesn't believe in the Bible, and seems to be rather pleased than otherwise with the shock and flutter that all these announcements create among the peaceably disposed grown people. No respectable hen that ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling came into this state. Was he a boy? an immortal soul? a reasonable human being? or only a handsome goblin sent to torment her?

"What shall we do with him, father?" said she, one Sunday, to Zephaniah, as he stood shaving before the little looking-glass in their bedroom. "He can't be governed like a child, and he won't govern himself like a man. Zephaniah stopped and strapped his razor reflectively.

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"We must cast out anchor and wait for day," he answered. "Prayer is a long rope with a strong hold."

Moses lost all interest in his lessons, often neglecting them for days at a time-accounting for his negligence by excuses which were far from satisfactory. When Mara would expostulate with him about this, he would break out upon her with a fierce irritation. Was he always going to be tied to a girl's apron-string? He was tired of study, and tired of old Sewell, whom he declared an old granny in a white wig, who knew nothing of the world. He wasn't going to college-it was altogether too slow for him-he was going to see life and push

ahead for himself.

Moses has been tempted by these dreadful men; and then perhaps he would tell Miss Emily, and they never would want Moses to come there any more.

"What shall I do?" she said to herself. "I must get somebody to help me or tell me what to do. I can't tell grandmama; it would only make her ill, and she wouldn't know what to do any more than I. Ah, I know what I will do-I'll tell Captain Kittridge; he was always so kind to me; and he has been to sea and seen all sorts of men, and Moses won't care so much perhaps to have him know, because the Captain is such a funny man and don't take everything so seriously. Yes, that's it. I'll go right down to the cove in the morning. God will bring me through, I know he will;" and the little weary head fell back on the pillow asleep. And as she slept, a smile settled over her face, perhaps a reflection from the face of her good angel, who always beholdeth the face of our Father iu heaven.

The interview with Captain Kittridge is as graphic as any of the scenes of "Uncle Tom."

Every reader will enjoy it who has the pleasure of reading it. With trembling lip, and tearful eyes, she tells the lean, ropy old Captain the story of Moses and the smugglers. We cannot forbear giving the reader a specimen of the Captain's consolation to the child :

“Do you think I'd better tell grandpapa ?" said Mara.

"Don't worry your little head, I'll step up and have a talk with Pennel this evening. He knows as well as I that there is times when chaps must be seen to, and no remarks made. Pennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis' Kittridge thinks our boys turned out so well all along of her bringin' up, and I let her think so; keeps her sort o' in spirits, you see. But Lord bless ye, child, there has been times with Job, and Lam, and Pass, and Dass, and Dile, and all on 'em finally, when, I hadn't jest pulled a rope here and turned a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody, they'd a been all gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge none o' their slides; bless you, 'twouldn't been o' no use. I never told them, neirther; but I jest kind o' worked 'em off, you know; and they's all pretty 'spectable men now, as men go, you know; not like Parson Sewell, but good, honest mates and ship masters, kind o' middling people, you know. It takes a good many o' sich to make up the world, d'ye see?"

Moses goes to sea, is absent three years, and then returns to oversee the building of a ship in which he is to go as commander. Mara, a beautiful woman of seventeen, educated and accomplished, still loving Moses better than all the world beside, but skilfully guards her heart from the least expression of it. Moses is uneasy for fear she loves another, and they come to no understanding during the summer that Moses is at home. In the meantime he flirts with Sally Kittridge, Mara's most intimate friend. Sally is a large, handsome girl, a born coquette, who knows very well that Moses loves Mara, but determines that he shall offer his hand and heart to herself, and then she will freely tell him what she thinks of him, and give him a little wholesome advice, and then he may go where he pleases. And the declaration came just as Sally willed it, according to the French proverb, which does bonor to their gallantry-Ce que femme vent, Dieu vent.

But how does our bonnie heroine endure this protracted flirtation? We will quote from the story for this, with the passing remark that Mara seems just here a little too good, almost insipid. It seems unnatural and improbable, for we see no such bon femme among the ladies around us. A little more womanly spirit would seem

more admirable.

So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which constantly ached in her heart when she thought of this. She ought to have foreseen

Of

that it must some time end in this way. course she must have known that Moses would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, instead of a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate friend. Sally was careless and thoughtless, to be sure, but she had a good generous heart at the bottom, and she hoped she would love Moses at least as well as she did, and then she would always live with them, and think of any little things that Sally might forget.

After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a person than herself-so much more bustling and energetic, she would make altogether a better housekeeper, and doubtless a better wife, for Moses.

But then it was so hard that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his sister?-his confidant for all his childhood? - and why should he shut his heart from her now? But then she must guard herself from being jealous -that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal of self-discipline, pushed on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses; and when she came, left them alone together while she busied Herself in hospitable cares. She sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally, which he was sure to improve into protraeted visits; and, in short, no young match-maker ever showed more good will to forward the union of two chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally.

He would feign to have quarrelled with Sally, that he might detect whether Mara would betray some gladness; but she only evinced concern and a desire to make up the difficulty. He would discuss her character and her fitness to make a man happy in matrimony, in the style that young gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great consequence in the creation; and Mara, always cool, and firm, and sensible, would talk with him in the most maternal style possible, and caution him against trifling with her affections. Then again he would be lavish in his praise of Sally's beauty, vivacity, and energy, and Mara would join with the most apparently unaffected delight.

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fully to him, of his love for Mara, and tells him to go home and talk to one who loves him far better than he deserves. He takes her advice, and they come to an understanding at last and are engaged. Moses sails away in pursuit of fortune, and preparations go on at home for the wedding. The union of Moses and Mara is discussed at the rural quiltings, and over the luncheon at Sabbath noon. But death comes in the form of consumption and claims the brideelect. The closing conversations of the invalid are perfect gems of Christian truth and wisdom.

"Oh, Mara," said Moses, "I would give my life if I could take back the past. I have never been worthy of you; never knew your worth; never made you happy. You always lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserved to lose you, but it is none the less bitter."

"Don't say lose. Why must you?" I cannot think of losing you. I know I shall not. God has given you to me. You will come to me and be mine at last. I feel sure of it." "You don't know me," said Moses. "Christ does, though," she said; "and he has promised to care for you. Yes, you will live to see many flowers grow out of my grave. You cannot think so now; but it will be sobelieve me. ""

"Mara," said Moses, "I never lived through such a day as this. It seems as if every moment of my life had been passing before me, and every moment of yours. I have seen how true and loving in thought and word and deed you have been, and I have been doing nothing but take-take. You have given love as the skies give rain, and I have drunk it up like the hot dusty earth.”

Mara knew in her own heart that this was all true, and she was too real to use any of the terms of affected humiliation which many think a kind of spiritual court language. She looked at him and answered, "Moses, I always knew I loved most. It was my nature; God gave it to me, and it was a gift for which I gave him thanks-not a merit. I knew you had a larger wider nature than mine-a wider sphere to live in, and that you could not live in your heart as I did. Mine was all thought and feeling, and the narrow little duties of this little home. Yours went all round the world."

"But oh, Mara-oh, my angel! to think I should lose you when I am just beginning to know your worth. I always had a sort of su perstitious feeling, a sacred presentiment about you, that my spiritual life, if I ever had any, would come through you. It seemed, if there ever was such a thing as God's providence, which some folks believe in, it was leading me to you, and giving you to me. And now, have all dashed-all destroyed-it makes me feel as if all was blind chance; no guiding God; for if he wanted me to be good, he would spare

you.

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Mara lay with her large eyes fixed on the now faded sky. The dusky shadows had dropped

like a black crape veil around her pale face. In a few moments she repeated to herself, as if she were musing upon them, those mysterious words of him who liveth and was dead, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; if it die it bringeth forth

I

much fruit.'

"Moses," she said, "for all I know you have loved me dearly, yet I have felt that in all that was deepest and dearest to me, I was alone. feel most deeply. If I had lived to be your You did not keep near to me or touch me where wife, I cannot say but this distance in our spiritual nature might have widened. You know, what we live with we get used to; it grows an old story. Your love to me might have grown old and worn out. If we lived to gether in the commonplace toils of life, you would see only a poor thread bare wife. I might have lost what little charm I ever had for you: but I feel that if I die this will not be. There is something sacred and beautiful in death; and I may have more power over you when I seem to be gone, than I should have had living."

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Oh, Mara, Mara, don't say that." "Dear Moses, it is so. Think how many lovers marry, and how few lovers are left in middle life; and how few love and reverence living friends as they do the dead. There are only a very few to whom it is given to do that."

We have already quoted largely from the book, and will give only one more ex

tract.

Captain Kittridge attempting to console poor Moses in his first great shock of grief. It is too quaint and original to be omitted.

"Yes, yes, I do know," said Moses; "it's easy to say, but hard to do."

"But law, man, she prays for you; she did years and years ago, when you was a boy and she a girl. You know it tells in the Revelations how the angels has golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints I tell ye, Moses, you ought to get into heaven if no one else does. I expect you are pretty well known among the angels by this time. I tell you what 'tis, Moses, fellers think it a mighty pretty thing to be a-steppin' high, and a-sayin' they don't believe the Bible, and all that ar', so long as the world goes well. This ere old Bible-why it's jest like yer mother; ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the world without her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman a'n't so fashionable as some; but when sickness and sorrow comes, why, there a'n't nothin' else to go back to. Is there now?"

Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the Captain and turned away.

An

Then comes the closing death scene which no one can read without tears. angel flew back to its native heaven, leav ing a whole community more gentle, more loving, more Christ-like for her pure young life and early death. Moses sails away again, a wanderer for four years. Then

he returns, and the tale closes, as do nearly all romances, with a wedding,—at the old brown house of Captain Kittridge, and the bride is none other than Mara's intimate friend, Sally Kittridge.

I take my leave of the story with the wish that its gifted author may long live to write such useful and interesting tales, and when the angels come for her they may find her last hours as peaceful, and happy and victorious, as were those of her heroine in the "PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND,"

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I propose in this article to show that men are accountable for their faith. The idea very generally prevails that they are not accountable. This idea is based upon the fact that they cannot believe what is disproved by facts, nor disbelieve what is demonstrated by facts to be true. The correctness of this we do not question. We readily grant that the decisions of the mind must necessarily be according to its apprehension of the proofs of every subject presented for its consideration. The decisions of the mind under such circumstances are wholly independent of the will; they are irresitibly determined by the evidence which it possesses. But while we

cheerfully admit all this, we are still constrained to maintain that men are accountable for their opinions; that they are biameworthy if they disbelieve the truth when they have had an opportunity to learn its nature, and the proofs by which it is sustained. If this be not the case, I am wholly unable to understand the Scriptures. They uniformly speak of belief as meritorious, and unbelief as sinful, so far as men have an opportunity of knowing the truth. They say, Unto whomsoevev much is given, of him much shall be required.

This is the great idea of revelation relative to human accountability. On this subject it speaks but one language, and that is, that all men are to be judged according to the light which they possess. Hence Paul says, when speaking of the idolatry of the Athenians, And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but пого commandeth all men everywhere to repent. That is, those who had not the light of the gospel were not held accountable to its laws; but now that it has been proclaimed, all who have heard it are accountable to it. In perfect agreement with this idea the unbelief of the people was attributed by the Saviour, not to the insufficiency of truth to convince the judgment, but to the sinfulness of the heart. Thus Mark says, They considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their hearts were hardened. And our Saviour says, Perceive ye not, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? And in the Acts of the Apostles, it is said, Divers were hardened, and believed not. So Christ when he appeared unto the eleven that sat at meat, upbraided them with their hardness of heart and unbelief, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And to the disciples with whom he was walking to Emmaus, he said, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. These instances we give as a sample of the general voice of the Scriptures respecting the blame attached to those who reject revealed truth.

The Scriptures are equally explicit in attaching merit to those who believe. Thus

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