THE ADVANTAGES

OF THE RAILWAY

SYSTEM VERSUS THE OLD SYSTEM
OF TRAVELLING.

Subject proposed by J. Lowe, Esq., Manchester.

To pass from London to Edinburgh in the space of a week was considered marvellous by our forefathers; and to buy a horse at the first city, and sell it at the second, after having escaped all the breakneck hazards from bad roads, highwaymen, &c., was the height of travelling policy. Then came the mighty stage coach, with its sonorous guard and tipsy coachman. With a pile of boxes, and an undistinguishable mass of outsides, it rolled heavily along, exhibiting no signs of conveying animate beings; only when it rattled through the last town, did a yawn from outside, and a grumble Then from inside, announce human beings. suddenly the trumpet peals through the night air; one gallop more, and the coach stops, and all the humbug of lost luggage, angry coach

man, guard, and porter ensues. But it is not so now; the old has become new, and Young England has turned all such things into the ditch. Merrily the steam engine cuts the air, and vies with the wind in swiftness. Smoothly roll the swift revolving wheels, no jolting or jumbling is there; and when you arrive at your journey's end, a little vigilance is all that is required. Every one must be obliging, and you do not get knocked about like a great football, and after all be obliged to pay for imaginary services. But we must not over

praise our system now, for it is ten to one that we will become the laughing stocks of a still younger England. A murderer escaped by a power going a mile a minute, but was apprehended by another going at the rate of ninetyseven thousand miles a second. May not our progeny one day make that power their means of locomotion? and would not they laugh at us if we boasted of our one mile a minute travelling?

DEATH.

Subject proposed by H. B. BINGHAM.

"He who has bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress.
Before decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lives where beauty lingers,
And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there.
And but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, weeps not, wins not, now;
And but for that chill changeless brow,
Yes! but for these, and these alone,
Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power."

BYRON.

THAT is beauty in death: but what is death? The sovereign of the world, wherever his father rules. The servant of man, wherever virtue gains a place. Yes! the rude destroyer must bow the stubborn knee, and acknowledge in half-choked accents his fealty to his Sovereign Lord. Then there is beauty in the triumph of virtue, and the king of terrors assumes the angel of light. Avenging and terrible is his

blast everywhere else; man feels the shock, and, with a reluctant sigh, gasps out his soul for the whirlwind to convey to the reeking jaws of overloaded hell. Amid the trumpet's sound the shriek of death mounts triumphant on the blast. The cannon's roar is drowned in the groans of its hundred victims. The dungeon's walls witness the last ebbing vital drops of the captive. The loud shout of victory is replied to by the deep continued sighs. of those who have felt the sword. The hovel lets out the remnant of a once mighty soul sent to poverty for his pride. must yield. All must yield.

saw his dart sent back by man.

Pride itself

Death never

The warrior

has cursed heaven and earth when he received his mortal wound. The despot has in vain offered his empire for the delay of an hour. The stern eye of the commander has wept when the glaze of death came over it. The miser has turned to phrenzy as his darling gold vanished before his eyes; but what can equal the pain of the sinner when he feels the dart

piercing his soul?

Whither is that soul to go?

To the judgement of justice, to undergo the ordeal of condemnation; for what better can Death is under the power of

he expect? God, and come when it will, it was sent by his Almighty hand. He numbers its victims in a host going to battle; and, therefore, it is a gross assumption of power in man either to take his own life or that of his fellow-creatures. In both he equally ensures the damnation of his own soul. Their own consciences tell the murderers that their doom is fixed, unless the mercy of God draws them back to repentance.

Death is terrible, yet still the bloody victor stalks conqueringly through the world, taking advantage of all evil passions which arise in the breast of man. The course of blood must be stopped, ere Peace can descend, and the Kingdom of Christ arise on earth.