the best opportunity of seeing her good works, and glorifying her Father in Heaven.

Finally, we do not place our hopes of the progress of the church of Christ upon any of the machinery we see in operation, or upon any of its outward works. It is not from "money given" to "Bible Societies," "Theological Seminaries," "Foreign and Domestic Missions," "Temperance Societies," or from revivals and concerts of Prayer; good and admirable as all these are as means: that we hope a speedy coming of the kingdom of God. But-

When the church shall not only give a part of its money to religious societies, but shall plainly manifest to the world that it is free from a money-getting and money-saving spirit

When those who patronise Bible Societies are as familiar with the practical, soul-subduing, and sanctifying parts of scripture as they now are with the proof-texts of their own party

When Theological Seminaries cease to be put up as forts, from which new school shall batter old school, or Princeton canonnade New-Haven; but shall receive contributions and students from all parties in the church universal

When the sailors from Christendom who carry the foreign missionary to India or the Sandwich Islands, shall teach the natives less vice in a month, than he of virtue in a year

When the domestic missionary has brought matters so far forward, that in any given place those who love to be washed, and those who love to be sprinkled; those who admire a Pope, those who laud Bishops, and those who prefer Presbytersthose who say, I am of Wesley, and I of Calvin, and I of Campbell, &c. shall be so of one heart and soul, as to give occasion to the world about to say, "See, how they love one another!"

When Temperance Societies shall be conducted always in a temperate manner, and Revivals prove revivals of Love, Joy, and Peace; and concerts of Prayer be ever accompanied with visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and Samaritan-like deeds of charity and self-denial

THEN, shall we also believe the day-star is rising in the hearts of mankind; and will pledge ourselves also to write a tract, and name it THE CHURCH Safe.

ED.

ART. 11.-INDIAN'S BRIDE.

[The following poem is from a little volume published by Ed. C. Pinckney, of Baltimore, some years since. It has long seemed to us to be one of the most exquisite poems ever written by an American. The attempts to interest us in Indians, generally, only disgust us, by their false and sentimental view of the Indian character. They make out of the red man a Sir Charles Grandison, or a Romeo. But in the present case there is no such mistake. The true elements of Indian character are seized and idealized; and brought into stronger light by the contrast of the civilized character. We have many poems and novels founded on the very same idea of love between an Indian and a European, but this is the only one I have seen in which the union does not appear unnatural and disgusting. ED.]

Why is that graceful female here
With yon red hunter of the deer!
Of gentle mien and shape, she seems
For civil halls designed,

Yet with the stately savage walks
As she were of his kind.

Look on her leafy diadem,
Enrich'd with many a floral gem
Those simple ornaments, about
Her candid brow, disclose
The loitering s ring's last violet,
And summer's earliest rose;

But not a flower lies breathing there,
Sweet as herself or half as fair.
Exchanging lustre with the sun,
A part of day she strays-
A glancing, living, human smile;
On nature's face she plays.

Can none instruct me what are these
Companions of the lofty trees?

II.

Intent to blend with his her lot

Fate formed her all that he was not,
And, as by mere unlikeness thoughts,
Associate we see,

Their hearts from very difference caught

A perfect sympathy.

The household goddess here to be

Of that one dusky votary,

She left her pallid countrymen,

An earthling most divine,

And sought in this sequestered wood,
A solitary shrine,

Behold them roaming hand in hand,
Like night and sleep along the land;
Observe their movements:-he for her
Restrains his active stride,

While she assumes a bolder gait
To ramble at his side.

Thus even as the steps they frame,
Their souls fast alter to the same.
The one forsakes ferocity,
And momently grows mild;
The other tempers more and more
The artful with the wild.

She humanizes him, and he
Educates her to liberty.

III.

Oh, say not, they must soon be old,
Their limbs prove faint, their breasts feel cold!
I that sylvan pair,

Yet envy

More than my words express,

The singular beauty of their lot,

And seeming happiness.

They have not been reduced to share

The painful feelings of despair:

Their sun declines not in the sky,
Nor are their wishes cast
Like shadows of the afternoon,
Repining towards the past:

With nought to dread, or to repent,
The present yields them full content.
In solitude there is no crime;
Their actions all are free,

And passion lends their way of life
The only dignity.

And how should they have any cares?
Whose interest contends with theirs?

IV.

The world, or all they know of it,

Is theirs: for them the stars are lit;
For them the earth beneath is green,

The heavens above are bright;

For them the moon doth wax and wane,
And decorate the night;

For them the branches of those trees

Wave music in the vernal breeze;

For them upon that dancing spray

The free bird sits and sings,

And glittering insects flit about

Upon delighted wings;

For them that brook, the brakes among

Murmurs its small and drowsy song;

For them the many colored clouds

Their shapes diversify,

And change at once, like smiles and frowns,

The expression of the sky.

For them, and by them, all is gay,

And fresh and beautiful as they;

The images their minds receive,
Their minds assimilate,

To outward forms imparting thus,
The glory of their state.

Could ought be painted otherwise

Than fair seen through her star-bright eyes?
He too, because she fills his sight;

Each object falsely sees;

The pleasure that he has in her,
Makes all things seem to please.
And this is love;-and it is life

They lead-that Indian and his wife.

ART. 12.-WINANDER LAKE AND MOUNTAINS, AND AMBLESIDE FALL.

BY JOHN KEATS.

The Editor is permitted to gratify the readers of the Messenger with the following interesting extracts from a journal kept by the poet, John Keats. It was sent, in letters, to his brother, during a pedestrian tour through parts of England and Scotland, in the year 1818, when he was 22 years old. He died three years afterwards, in Rome.

The poetical writings of this young author are fresh and living in the hearts of the lovers of poetry in this country and Europe. They have the genuine aroma which denotes the immortalizing presence of genius. They have derived no transient popularity from a fashionable dress, or from sentiments conformed to the sickly taste of a weak generation, craving for excitement. Keats' style was formed chiefly by a diligent study of the old English poets, especially of Spenser. It is an entire mistake to call him a follower of Leigh Hunt. He was a follower of no man. In an age which almost idolized Byron, he had the sense to conceive and the independence to express opinions like the following:

Of poesy, that it should be the friend

To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man."

Poems, p. 68, Galignani Edition.

To these just and profound views of the nature of poetry, the critics and amateurs of Great Britain seem to be just awaking out of the charmed sleep into which they had been thrown by the wonderful genius of Byron. The preface to Philip Van Artevelde, contains the clearest statement of the errors of the Byronic school which we have yet seen. There is still wanted a clear and just criticism upon Bryon's poetry, and upon his character, as the basis and fountain of his poetry. Scott's beautiful and generous essay upon Childe Harold, though the best which we have, does not touch the centre of the problem. He who alone did, in our judgment, fully understand the errors and excellencies of the unhappy Poet, has left us without giving such a criticism. We allude to Gothe, who, separated from all English party feeling, and having himself passed through the mazes of error which entangled Byron, has frequently indicated how thoroughly he understood both the bright and dark side of his poetical character. But we are rambling from our subject. We wished to say a word of the prose writings of Keats.

These have not hitherto been published, but it appears to us, from the specimens which we have seen of them, that they are of a higher order of composition than his poems. There is in them a depth and grasp of thought; a logical accuracy of expression; a fulness of intellectual power, and an earnest struggling after truth, which remind us of the prose of Burns. They are only letters, not regular treatises, yet they touch upon the deepest veins of thought, and ascend the highest heaven of contemplation. There is, in one of them, the idea of a system of theology, the basis of which is the pure Christian doctrine of regeneration; which shows a sincere depth of religious sentiment; though he seems by no means satisfied with the outward forms of religion about him. How could he be so? We feel a little proud that we, in this western valley, are the first to publish specimens of these writings; and cannot but mention it as one example among a thousand of our finding in this new country things we should least expect to meet with. Mr. Flint mentions an old lady in Arkansas who was reading Plato in the Greek. Almost as strange is it to meet with the original papers of John Keats, at the Falls of the Ohio. We hope that they will ere long be put into the possession of the public. Our next number will contain a description of the cave of Staffa.

In another part of the present number, we have given a poem