that the Reverend Joseph Veale had been accustomed, during the rector's absence, to read prayers, every evening, to the rector's servants, previous to going to bed to the rector's wife. The reverend gentleman threw all the blame upon the lady. "He had endeavoured to the utmost to resist her importunities; but the flesh is weak: she had almost forced him." She, of course, was blamed and abused by all. It is usual. "A woman is always wrong in such cases." I must think there was much to be said in her excuse. She was very young, a mere girl, when she was married to a man for whom she had no regard, having only been slightly acquainted with him for a few weeks; but his situation in life was considered by her parents to be sufficient recommendation. They deliberately persuaded, or forced her (for what choice had she but to obey) to prostitute herself; and yet, if she should leave her evil way of life for some virtuous attachment, she was then, and then only, to be branded with the outcast's mark. I do not know that she did act thus nobly. If she was consciencious in her attachment to the scoundrel Veale, she had not strength of mind to sustain the disgrace of honesty, but, believing the world's false condemnation rather than the integrity of her own nature, sank into the wretchedness of repentant self-loathing. We need not ask what became of her. The better part of the Western people turned their backs upon the man who, there was great reason to believe, had made free with, or, as he would say, had been seduced by, more than one or two of his female parishioners; and who generously refused to give up the letters in his possession, and even threatened to publish them; though she, whom he reviled, had returned all his, when, poor creature! she confessed her depravity to her "husband." I must confess this cowardice seemed to me the most infamous and dastardly part of the business. However, certain ladies of Western, after the trial presented the reverend defendant with a handsome piece of plate, whereon appeared in high relief the Temptation of Joseph, encircled by an appropriate inscription, stating the donors' deep conviction that their beloved shepherd was indeed worthy of his name. I am sorry, for the ladies' sake, that the inscription is not fit to be here repeated. Neither can I give the names of the ladies. The Scriptures do not determine the exact number of the Maries. One, we know, was the abused Magdalen: the others might have borne a better character. Mr. Veale is not removed from the sacred office. It would have been hard to have made an example of him, when a reverend gentleman, who seduced his own daughter, lived many years unmolested in the odour of such sanctity, and at last was only punished by being prohibited from doing any work for the hire which he continued regularly to receive, to his life's end. If he should be turned out of the Establishment, the reverend adulterer intends to start in the dissenting interest, in a New Connexion. He understands that his friends will build him a chapel; and there is no doubt but he would thrive wonderfully. O, human world! are these thy teachers? Why marvel we at the scantiness of thy moral and religious knowledge, at the little fruit of thy expensive education, when such as these can be among thy holiest and law-ordained instructors? What marvel that simplicity is so poorly learned in bishops' palaces; that men are not persuaded by the enforcing of tithes to love one another; that Trade takes license from the dirty trafficking of priests; and that the ignorant world is not more honest or more pure-minded, more Christlike or more respectable, than its teachers of hypocrisy, its sensual and selfish leaders, its legalized scourgers and plunderers, or its Evangelical Preachers? "SOMETHING IS ROTTEN" IN SOCIETY. "It is the habit only that is honest." O world, world! "Canst thou believe thy living is a life? LIFE OF PESTALOZZI. HENRY PESTALOZZI (or Pestaluz) was born at Zurich, in Switzerland, on the 12th of January, 1745. His father, an eminent physician, died when he was quite a child, leaving him to the care of an excellent mother, with a very scanty provision. He used to attend a grammar-school, the dull routine of which failed to call forth his intellectual powers. His feelings were better cultivated by his mother's affection. This unequal treatment prepared for him many a grievous disappointment, from his judgment wanting sufficient clearness to control the intensity of his feelings; though to this perhaps he owed that unabated elasticity which caused him to rise after every downfall, with renovated strength. He was a gentle and almost feminine boy, yet remarkable for his energy and for an irrepressible spirit of indignation at the sight of wrong. The attachment and attentions of an old servant of the family awakened his sympathy and interest for the poorer classes of society, while the memory of his mother's devoted love gave him that opinion of the importance of the mother's duty, which was always so prominent a point with him. When he left school, he went to the more liberal institutions for young men in Zurich; and there his talents began to unfold themselves. He studied for the church, (that reformed by Zuinglius,) but never went further than the delivery of his probationary sermon. Some failure in it made him relinquish his plans altogether; and he now applied to the law. Here he was again stopped. Instead of poring over law-books, he embarked in speculations on the best form of government. He published an essay on the constitution of Sparta, and a translation of some of the orations of Demosthenes, which attracted attention. It was a period of hope and of great men in Switzerland, and a second reformation seemed dawning there. The more Pestalozzi inquired, bringing the actual state of things to the test of principles, the more clearly he perceived how poorly society answered the purposes of its institution; the more was he disgusted with its artificiality, and touched by the misery of its many victims. He was especially struck with the false method and inefficiency of education. He published an essay on the "bearing which education ought to have on our respective callings." The severity of his mental exertions and continued mental conflict, threw him into a dangerous illness. His sufferings ended in a resolution no longer to be distracted by the painful clashing between his theory and his practice. By acting up to the full extent of his notions, he hoped to give himself the inestimable opportunity of putting his views to the test of life. He burned all his papers, and took a dislike to books, which was not removed till nearly the end of his life. He left Zurich and all his pursuits, and apprenticed himself to a farmer named Tschiffeli, in the Canton of Berne. Here, working with the spade and at the plough, he soon recovered his health and serenity. When he had learned his business, he employed the small property which his father had left him, in the purchase of a tract of waste land in the neighbourhood of Lenzburg, in the canton of Berne. He built a house and offices, and named it the Neuhof. He set to work with energy, and brought it into a flourishing condition. His prospects were easy and cheerful; and at this bright epoch of his life he married. His wife was the daughter of one of the wealthiest merchants of Zurich, a young woman to whom nature and education had been equally lavish in the bestowal of accomplishments, and who evinced the nobility of her character in appreciating and uniting herself to a man "in whom there was nothing to love but the kindness of his disposition and his zeal in the cause of humanity," whose virtuous "eccentricities" had already gained him the shoulder-shrugging compassion of the more worldly-wise and less consciencious of his fellow-citizens. Eight years of assiduous labour had brought the Neuhof into a prosperous condition, when Pestalozzi determined to make the experiment, how far it might be practicable by education to raise the lower orders to a condition more consistent with the principles of christianity. He converted his house into an asylum for fifty poor children, whom he clothed, fed, and educated, and whom he chose from the very lowest of the people, or from amongst orphans, to avoid interference. "His views were by no means confined to the establishment of a private charity; his ulterior object was to effect a reform in the popular education of his country." He "wanted to place national education on a more internal and more solid basis." Through some mismanagement, (we believe, financial) his plan failed. He indeed continued it for fifteen years, and in that time rescued from vice and poverty many hundred children; but his affairs went wrong, and he was obliged, almost ruined, to give up his school and his farm. He, who had, to use his own words, "lived as a mendicant, in order to teach mendicants to live like men," was forced for want of the co-operation of his fellow "christians" to hide his head in obscurity and disappointment. His fortitude quite forsook him, and "he was unreasonably angry with the world." Little was it to be marvelled at, that one so constituted, heart-sore and writhing under the scourging of the world's taunts, and the world's worse false condolence, should have evinced but little of the "Philosophy" of Zeno or of the holier resignation and faith of Christ. "Of the cause which lay nearest to his heart, he dared not speak:" a sarcastic hint as to the success of his undertaking would have been the orthodox answer of human charity. "He was obliged to conceal from mankind the love he bore them, and to take it for tender compassion on their part, if they considered him no worse than a lunatic." He had however gained experience in education. He had also published Leonard and Gertrude and Christopher and Eliza, both written to advance his favourite principles; and a series of Essays, called Evening Hours of a Hermit. He also, in 1782, undertook a Swiss weekly Journal, to advocate his views of national improvement. It was continued only for a year. Shortly after he published his Fables, called Figures to my Spellingbook, and several political pamphlets. The first exposition of his system was not published till 1797, under the title of My Researches respecting the Course of Nature in the development of the Human Faculties. The unfortunate scenes of the French Revolution only the more confirmed him in his opinion of the necessity of a reform in all education, and the need of national establishments for that purpose. Switzerland was now revolutionized, and governed by a Directory, in imitation of the French. Legrand, one of the directors, was a friend of Pestalozzi, and, like him, aware how much national regeneration depends on the real education of all classes. Encouraged by Legrand, Pestalozzi laid his views before the government. They were favourably received; he was supplied by government with money to commence; and was engaged in selecting a spot of ground for a school near Zurich, when the French invaded Switzerland. The old democratic cantons refusing to submit to the government forced upon them, a French army burst upon Underwalden, ravaged the country, and laid Stantz, the capital, in ashes. This was in 1798. The Swiss government took the most active remedial measures, and delegated Pestalozzi, placing him in a deserted convent, to collect all the wandering, houseless children that he could around him. The children flocked in by scores. Ample pecuniary means to provide all that was necessary had been given him by the Swiss authorities, but in a country desolated by war it was not easy to procure anything. Pestalozzi and the children (for all shared alike) suffered many privations and much inconvenience. He was surrounded with difficulties. Some of the children were of the "better" classes, too well-born, too well-bred to put up with the inconveniences of the asylum; others, of the poorer classes, were also discontented, and were often removed by their parents; others were depraved and vicious; others diseased. Pestalozzi persevered. In a little time he had set his house in order, winning the love of the children, and so having their confidence and respect, and rendering them loving towards each other. He had neither books nor school apparatus; but his enthusiastic mind supplied their want. When Altorf, the capital of the canton of Schwitz, was laid in ashes, he said to the children" Hundreds of children are now wandering about, homeless as you were last year. Shall we invite twenty of them to come here?" Prompt was their answer : "Oh yes, do invite them!" "But," said he, "I shall not be able to get any more money on that account, and you will have to share your food and clothes with them." Still was there the same joyful answer. He only continued a year at Stantz. It was taken possession of by the Austrians, and the establishment was broken up. Shortly after, however, the chateau of Burgdorf near Berne was granted to him, and he resumed his labour of love. In 1803 the canton of Zurich appointed him member of the Helvetic Consulta, summoned to Paris by Napoleon. On his return, in 1804, his school was transferred to München Buchsee, near to Fellenberg's establishment at Hofwyl. The government of the Canton de Vaud offering him his choice of seven chateaux, he again removed, to a better situation at Yverdun, where, some years after, similar institutions were founded upon his plan. This was the height of his popularity. Commissioners of inquiry were sent by various potentates to Yverdun; he received the compliments of sovereigns. His system was the talk of Germany, and much applauded. But to his child-like heart trifling events were continually the sources of mortification. The most painful of his annoyances was the failure of a favourite plan of forming a school for the poor, distinct from that at Yverdun, which had somehow become a select establishment for the "better" orders. He also desired to qualify certain of the poor, so educated, for instructors of their own class. In this he was thwarted, and disheartened and worn out, the old man retired to Neuhof, to arrange a complete edition of his writings. Thus he employed the remnant of his days, unconquered, though acutely feeling the world's injustice and heedlessness; thus he solaced his neglected age. On the 17th of February, 1827, at the age of eighty-two, the lifemartyred Apostle laid down to rest. Let the educated world, through the long ages of its enlightenment, pay the homage of love and imitation to his glorious memory! FRAGMENTS OF PESTALOZZI. "No, the moral elevation of the people is not a dream: the power that shall effect it, shall be in the keeping of the mother-of the infant-in the impregnable guard of innocence. Let no man say that popular improvement is a dream."Education in the earliest stage of life has almost universally been overlooked. "Our great object is the development of the infant mind—and our great means, THE AGENCY OF MOTHERS. "Has the mother the qualifications requisite for the duties and exercises we would impose upon her? "What I would demand of her is only-A THINKING LOVE. "There is in the child an active power of faith and love.-And this power is not, as other faculties are, in a dormant state, in the infant mind. While all other faculties, whether mental or physical, present the image of utter helplessness, of a weakness, which, in its first attempts at exertion, only leads to pain and disappointment, that same power of faith and love displays an energy, an intensity, which is never surpassed by its most successful efforts, when in full growth. "Every plan of education ought to be based on a consideration of the nature of the child. "The faculties must be so cultivated that no one shall predominate at the expense of another.— "It is recorded that God opened the heavens to one of the patriarchs of old, and showed him a ladder leading to their azure heights. Well, this ladder is let down to every descendant of Adam. Mother! it is tendered to thy child. But he must be taught to climb it. And let him take heed not to attempt it, nor think to scale it, by cold calculations of the head,-nor be compelled to adventure it by the mere impulse of the heart :-but let all these powers combine, and the noblest enterprize will be crowned with success. "All these powers are already bestowed upon him: but thine is the province to assist in calling them forth. Let the ladder leading to heaven be constantly before thine eyes, even the ladder of Faith, on which thou mayest behold ascending and descending the angels of Hope and Love.— "WHOEVER HAS THE WELFARE OF THE RISING GENERATION AT HEART, CANNOT DO BETTER THAN CONSIDER AS HIS HIGHEST OBJECT— THE ÉDUCATION OF MOTHERS." THE POWER OF SOUND. As Conscience, to the centre Of being, smites with irresistible pain; Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled— And then aghast, as at the world Of reason partially let in By concords winding with a sway Terrible for sense and soul! Or, awed, he weeps, struggling to quell dismay. Lodged above the starry pole; Pure modulations flowing from the heart Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty, Truth For terror, joy, or pity, Vast is the compass and the swell of notes: While hovering o'er the moonlight vale. Ye wandering Utterances, has earth no scheme, Powers that survive but in the faintest dream As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear! Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well! By one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, Initiation in that mystery old. The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still Innumerable voices fill With everlasting harmony; The towering headlands, crowned with mist, Their feet among the billows, know That Ocean is a mighty harmonist; Thy pinions, universal Air, Ever waving to and fro, Are delegates of harmony, and bear Strains that support the Seasons in their round; Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound. Wordsworth. |