be well employed on the same theme as once exercised the ingenuity of a heathen fabulist. Our author has availed himself of his own and his readers' classical predilections to illustrate, in the appendix, the truths of his treatise in the form of a dialogue of Lucian. There is much use in diversified presentations of the same truth to minds variously prepossessed. By this consideration we are tempted to put the argument under still another aspect, for the sake of those who may have connected the popular scandal of atheism or profaneness with the name of the philosopher of Samosata. DIALOGUE, AT THE GATE OF A HEBREW CITY, A. D. 50. Samaritan. Alas! for the city of our habitation, for sore is the affliction Jehovah hath dealt unto her. The poor crieth for justice, and is scorned. The rich glory in their oppression, and no one gainsayeth them. on one who regardeth not. : Sadducee. I marvel that thou shouldst persist to call Speakest thou of a just and merciful Ruler while such things come to pass on the earth? - If there had been such an one, there had been no need of judgment, for there had been no injury there could have been no glorying in oppression, for into no man's hand would the power of oppressing be given. Where would be the thunder, if no hurtful vapors were gathered together? Or how should the valleys be overflowed, if the streams of the hills were restrained within their channels? There is none to guide, or overlook, or avenge. Let us, therefore, make our hearts merry, knowing that we cannot help that which is, nor foresee that which shall be. Pharisee. Nay; but it is for the guilt of our people that Jehovah smiteth: and if he shall stay our desolation, it will be for the sake of the ten righteous (of whom his grace hath made me one) whom he hath redeemed from his wrath. Blessed be his name for his wondrous works towards us his chosen ones! Samaritan. Blessed art thou in the light of his countenance! Intercede for us that our plagues may pass away; for they are heavier than we can bear. Pharisee. Rather let his righteous will be done; for it is such as thou that have drawn down his wrath upon our city. Yet will I intercede, forasmuch as I was once as thou. From what wouldst thou be delivered? Samaritan, - From the iniquity of our rulers, and the disputes of them that contest one with another before the judgment-seat. From the plague of war also we would pray to be freed, but that our fields are small, and the harvest scanty, so that the people are more than can be fed. — If we escape from one snare, we fall into another; and thus Jehovah willeth the destruction of his people. Pharisee. I will entreat him that he stretch forth his hand, and save other than the few whom he hath brought nigh unto his footstool. But whence is the smile on the lips of the stranger who hath overheard our discourse? These Nazarenes account themselves wise. Let us hear how he regardeth the calamity of our city. Stranger. Ye two believe that there is a God. Others also have rightly believed this; and, less hardy than thou, O Sadducee, they trembled ! I was nigh thee, O Pharisee, in the synagogue, when a poor man entered whose garments were worn with travel, and soiled with the dust of the way. He bore also no purse, and his scrip was empty. Him thou didst appoint to sit beneath thy feet. — In a while, came one in a purple robe, with a jewelled signet at his breast, and a goodly staff in his hand. Him thou didst rise up to greet, and place in the seat of honor. If thou, who holdest thyself taught of Jehovah concerning his will, thus showest partiality, marvel not that the judges do likewise. Pray for justice, if thou wilt but see that thine own way is equal, and then shall the ways of Jehovah be seen to be equal also. For thee, O Samaritan, I have mourned that thy faith is gone from thee. Samaritan. Gone from me! and even now I besought the prayers of this Pharisee. Yea, five times daily, also, do I pray myself (unworthy as I am!) that our woes may cease. - Stranger. Thy faith is naught, if it lead thee only to prayer. If thou sittest mourning till destruction carry thee away as a flood, shall such a faith save thee? Your woes come by your works, and shall not your redemption come by your works also? Whence come your wars in the field, and your contests within your borders, but from your own fierce passions and evil desires? and how shall they be assuaged unless ye cleanse your hands and purify your hearts? Samaritan. But if we make peace, then famine will for our people are more than can be fed. We ask food and receive not. arise; amiss. -- Stranger. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask As well might ye expect the cold and hungry to receive, because ye say, "be ye warmed, and be ye filled," as because ye only pray. Jehovah fed our fathers in the wilderness with manna rained down from heaven: but he hath long given us fields to till, and bid us rejoice in the harvest. Samaritan. But the harvest is not enough. When all is consumed, our children still cry for bread. He who bade us increase and multiply giveth not food in proportion to the increase. Stranger. Nay: not to you said he "increase and multiply," but to a little flock when all the earth was before them. Tell me, are not the days at hand of which he spake, who was of my kindred in the flesh, but my Master in the things of the spirit? Are not the days nigh when there shall be woe to the daughters of Jerusalem who bear their young whither they go, and when the barren shall be more blessed than she that hath borne seven? Why discern ye not better the times and the seasons? Samaritan. The husbandman hath waited patiently for the early and the latter rain. Shall not we also wait patiently to know the will of the Lord? Stranger. Wait upon Jehovah; but do also the work of Jehovah, under the laws which he hath given, and moved thereunto by thy faith. Hearken! I was with the Prophet when he met one carried out to burial, and raised him up, so that he hath gone to and fro among us since. Let not thy faith be as the young man of Nain when he was indeed fair to look upon, but cold and still, and tending to decay. Let it rather be as the living man who glorifieth God, and showeth loving-kindness unto man. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. PRISON DISCIPLINE.* WHILE, as a nation, we are setting to work in earnest to prepare for ourselves institutions which will, in all probability, lessen the amount of crime within our borders, the greater number of us are little aware how barbarous are those * The Eighth Report of the Committee of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline. 1832. Punishment of Death. A Series of short Articles, &c. 1832, of our regulations which relate to the custody and punishment of criminals. Our ignorance is not the less because we venerate the names of Howard and of Romilly. If this had been enough, their philanthropic successors would not now have had to deplore that the work begun by them has made little progress, in comparison with the time which has elapsed since they set it on foot; and that our treatment of the sinning part of our population is as largely compounded of folly and cruelty, as if our Christianity were no more than a name, and our civilization a false and conceited assumption. As a nation, we have not even arrived at the principle of punishment; we are blind to its objects, and therefore erring in the use of its means. The lowest classes among us look upon punishment as sheer cruelty, inflicted by those who have power, for some unknown purpose of gratification or advantage. Those a little above them regard punishment as vengeance; others, as something connected with crime by an unknown moral necessity; others, more enlightened, see in it a benevolent purpose of preventing more evil by the infliction of less. Few, very few, question whether any right exists to inflict punishment at all, except in as far as punishment is involved in the regulations by which the orderly part of society is secured from aggression. Of all these, the lower classes know most of the facts of the treatment of our criminals; and all that they know is so corroborative of their notions of punishment being either gratuitous cruelty or vengeance, that we must not expect them to improve their conceptions till we have amended our management. In order to bring about this amendment, the comparatively enlightened classes must be more fully informed than they are of the actual state of our criminal policy; and such of them as are practised in tracing institutions to their principles must be loudly called upon to apply their philosophy where it has never yet been applied by more than a few individuals, who, |