greater regard to religious character than I have hitherto had. "4th. To avoid such company as has a tendency to unsettle my mind respecting religious opinions.

"5th. To endeavour to preserve a firm reliance on Divine Providence, and to avoid all unreasonable worldly care and anxiety.

"6th. To pray and guard against loving my friends with that ardent attachment, and that implicit reliance upon them, which is incompatible with supreme love to, and trust in, God alone.

"7th. To endeavour to attain a spirit of forgiveness towards my enemies, and to banish from my mind all those feelings of resentment, which are incompatible with the spirit of the gospel." pp. 72, 73.

We copy the account given in the "Additional Notices" of her introduction to the late Mr. Buckminster, and of the intercourse to which it led.

"It was on a visit to Boston, that Miss Adams first saw Mr. Buckminster. He was then at college, and about sixteen years old. Those who knew him will not think her description of him an exaggerated one. 'He had then,' she said, 'the bloom of health on his cheek, and the fire of genius in his eye. I did not know from which world he came, whether from heaven or earth.' Though so young, he entered fully into her character ; and before they parted, he gave her a short, but comprehensive sketch of the state of literature in France and Germany. After he became the Pastor of Brattle-Street Church, he, with Mr. Higginson, and Mr. Shaw, the active founder of the Athenæum, proposed to Miss Adams, who, from an enfeebled constitution, had begun to grow infirm, to remove to Boston; at the same time procuring for her, through the liberal subscription of a few gentlemen, an annuity for life. She had then commenced her ' History of the Jews'; and nothing could have been more favorable to its progress, or to her own ease of mind, than this benevolent arrangement. She could never speak of her benefactors without deep emotion.

"From the Rev. Mr. Buckminster she received the most judicious and extensive assistance. She was in the habit of visiting him in his study, and had his permission to come when she pleased, to sit and read there as long as she pleased, or take any book home and use it like her own. Perhaps people are never perfectly easy with each other, till they feel at liberty to be silent in each other's society. It was stipulated between them, that neither party should be obliged to talk. But her

'Mr. Buckmin

own language will best describe her feelings. ster would sometimes read for hours without speaking. But, occasionally, flashes of genius would break forth in some short observation, or sudden remark, which electrified me. I never could have gone on with my "History," without the use of his library. I was indebted to him for a new interest in life. He introduced me to a valuable circle of friends; and it was through him that I became acquainted with Mrs. Dearborn, whose kindness and attention to me have been unceasing. His character was the perfection of humanity. His intellectual powers were highly cultivated and ennobled. Yet even the astonishing vigor and brightness of his intellect were outdone by the goodness of his heart.

'No thought within his generous mind had birth,

But what he might have owned to heaven and earth.””

pp. 75. – 77. Her correspondents were numerous, and of the highest respectability, among whom particular mention is made of the elder President Adams, Bishop Grégoire, Mr. Cunningham, author of "The World without Souls," Miss Hannah More, and Mrs. Catharine Cappe.

It is often said that the fate of genius is usually cruel. But the assertion is not well founded, and in the life of Miss Adams we have a fair exhibition of the real cause of those sufferings which so often accompany talent. While the imagination predominates over the other faculties, we are unfitted for judicious effort, and rendered doubly susceptible of misery. This is an unhealthy mental state, and is often called genius. Let the judgment be summoned to its duty and be made the ruling mental power, and the path of life at once becomes less rugged, and we ourselves are better armed for conflict with its evils.

ART. I. — Le Visiteur du Pauvre, par M. Degerando, Mcmbre de l'Institut de France. Ouvrage couronné en 1820, par l'Académie de Lyon, et en 1821, par l'Académie Française, qui lui a décerné le Prix fondé par M. de Montyon pour l'Ouvrage le plus utile aux Mœurs. Troisième édition revue et augmentée. A Paris, chez Jules Renouard. 1826. 2 vol. 8vo.

The Visitor of the Poor; translated from the French of the BARON DEGERANDO, by a LADY OF BOSTON. With an Introduction by JOSEPH TUCKERMAN. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, & Wilkins. 1832. 12mo. pp. 211.

WE earnestly commend this book to the attention of our readers. It brings into distinct view a very important class of our social relations, and the duties thence resulting, which it is the tendency of all our sordid and selfish pursuits to set aside. Its object is well described in the following extract from the "Introduction" by the Rev. Dr. Tuckerman, whose delightful province and privilege it is to be emphatically a "Visitor of the Poor" of our city, and who is, on all accounts, entitled to speak with authority on this subject.

"Its design is to awaken, and give excitement to a sense of human relations, wherever sensibility on this great subject is sluggish and inactive; and wisely direct it, where it is either wasting its power in comparatively useless efforts, or is perhaps occasioning evil by the very means by which it intends, and hopes for good. For this end, it proposes to make the great classes of the rich and the poor, of the strong and the

VOL. XIII.-N. S. VOL. VIII. NO. II.

18

feeble, of the wise and the unwise, and of the virtuous and the vicious known to each other. It proposes to bring these classes together, not by confounding the distinctions between them, but by making the virtuous, and wise, and strong, and prospered feel, that by communicating of what they have received, and by acting as the instruments of God's goodness towards those from whom he has made them to differ, they are at once accomplishing the purposes for which he instituted the diversities which we see of human condition; and are most effectually promoting their own, by advancing the virtue and happiness of others." pp. iv, v.

How well this benevolent and truly Christian design is accomplished can only be known from an intimate acquaintance with the book itself. It is a translation of such parts of the French work named at the head of this article, as were considered most applicable to our state of society, and is altogether the best manual in the great duty and art of active charity, in the English language, with which we are acquainted. Few can read it in the spirit in which it ought to be read, without gaining more clear and just and comprehensive views of the differences of condition in human life; of our relative duties, and especially of the claims of the poor; of the marks and evidences of real poverty; of the different classes of the indigent; of the nature and comparative urgency of their wants; of the virtues and infirmities which are peculiar to them; of the duty and methods of improving their moral condition; of the claims of their children upon public and private benevolence; of the best methods of meeting the demands of an enlightened charity; of a wise and efficient distribution of alms; and, in a word, of all those circumstances, taking the term in its widest sense, which are necessary to guide benevolent exertion to the best results, and prevent it from becoming, as is too often the case, a bounty upon improvidence and vice. Nor is this all. None, we think, certainly none who feels his religious responsibility, as he ought to feel it, can come away from a thoughtful perusal of this little volume, without feeling, with new impression, the obligations which rest upon him, be he who he may, to become himself, in his own person, a "Visitor of the Poor." He cannot but perceive that there is a vast amount of good to be done, and of good to be received, which can be done and had upon no other terms, and which, in consequence, he may not innocently forego.

It

This treatise, we repeat it, is eminently practical. deals with life and with the relations of life just as they are; and the conviction is strong upon our minds, as we read, that we are holding communion with a highly intelligent, accomplished, and benevolent man, whose heart is full of his theme, "who is quick to learn, and wise to know," and who is giving us the results of his own experience on a subject on which he has bestowed a long and close attention. There is apparent, throughout, a minuteness of observation, a particularity of remark, an accurate discrimination, a minute knowledge of the subject, a clear perception of the bearings and the consequences of actions, which could only have been gained from a personal intercourse with the poor, and which would entitle the volume to a high place in the estimation of the student of human nature, if this claim were not merged in the transcendently higher claims which entitle it to the regard of the Christian philanthropist.

For the proof of all this, we must refer, as we have said, to the book itself. It is too various in its topics, and, at the same time, too minute in its details, to admit of any extracts which would give a tolerably just idea of the whole.

But we would gladly coöperate in the excellent design of the volume, by devoting a few of our pages to some remarks on certain principles of the great duty of active benevolence, which are of primary importance in themselves, but to which no peculiar prominence could be given in a treatise intended for practical purposes.

The great duty of an active and efficient charity is suggested, indeed is created, by the inequalities or differences in our social condition, viewed in connexion with the fact, that we are all constituted, by a common Father, members of a common family, and all made mutually dependent one upon another. The duty can be understood and felt in its full significance, only by a deep and intimate persuasion of these leading truths. And on this account, as well as on account of the fact that prevailing views and practices, and much of the intercourse of social life, conspire to keep them out of view, we shall offer some remarks in illustration of them. We proceed, then, to inquire, first, What is a philosophical, or rather, for this is the question we are most concerned to determine, what is a truly religious view of the inequalities of life?