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in families, or apprenticed to trades, we form | SUSANNAH M. PARRISH, Treasurer for the Home for Desourselves into an association, under the name of "The Home for Destitute Colored Children."

Funds were obtained by subscription and donation; a house was procured in Girard Avenue, west of Nineteenth street, at a rent of $12.50 per month, which was furnished, and under the superintendence of a matron and assistant was opened for the reception of children on the 12th of February. Two boys were admitted on the 21st, and two more on the 23d of the same month. Thirty-seven children have been inmates of the institution within the year. Excellent places were procured for eight; one vagrant boy ran away; nineteen are now in the institution; one girl was returned to her mother to place; the remainder were children who, having heard of the home came in for a time, but had to be discharged because of the unwillingness of the parents to have them placed under rules and proper restraint.

titute Colored Children. Second Month, 1855, to Second Month, 1856.

DR.

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BERLIN, 11th Mo. 16th, 1856. Dear Father,-Nearly two months ago I made an excursion from Leipsic to visit the On account of our limited means we chose a homes of Goethe and Schiller, and some spots small house, and have not sought out objects for intimately connected with the history of Luther, our charity. The children have all been brought and I was so much pleased with the trip, that to us, and those applying for them have been I want to give thee some account of it, even at mostly from the country, having heard but inci- this late date. The three towns which I visited, dentally of our location. We believe a wide Erfurt, Weimar and Eisenach, lie on the railroad field is open in which we can labor with advan- running west from Leipsic toward Frankfort. tage for the poor of our colored population. The They are small, and possess but little or no infirst child we placed was released to us by her terest except that of association with three great mother, then in Moyamensing Prison for lar- names. The country in which they lie is part ceny. A crippled father brought us two sons, of the Hungarian forest, still so called, although asking us to place them for him; and one fine the forest has almost entirely disappeared. It boy of eleven years, wept bitter tears as his dir- is finely rolling, and contains extensive and valuty, ragged mother took him from under our able salt-works. It formerly belonged to the care, he desiring better things. Some of the King of Saxony, and constituted the best part little ones are orphans. Two left us by a dying of his dominions, but was taken from him by mother, others brought by friends who sought the allies as a punishment for his obstinate adtheir welfare, but were no longer able to main-herence to the first Napoleon. Part of it now tain them. We have no other than destitute belongs to Prussia, and the rest is made into children in our institution, and have been care- two or three little independent dukedoms, one ful not to receive any where there was other provision for them.

My

of which belongs to Prince Albert's family. Having no acquaintance in Leipsic, I started Our means are limited, our house is small, alone, quite early on the morning of Ninth but we hope to be enabled in time to build, so month 22nd, in the cars for Eisenach. that the benefits of our institution may be pro- only companions were a Turk, who was going perly extended, and we obtain a permanent set- to Manchester as fast as he could travel, with tlement among the charitable institutions of the intention of staying there some years, but Philadelphia. To effect this, we have set aside all subscriptions and donations of and over fifty dollars, as a Building Fund. And have also been endeavoring to obtain an Act of incorporation. A late decision of the court to which our application was made, has rendered it necessary to apply to the Legislature for this, we desiring to be incorporated with provisions similar to those granted to our sister institutions for white children, heretofore incorporated for the same purpose, and the court not having authority to grant the same. MARY JEANES, President.

Attest, ANNA HALLOWELL, Sec. pro tem.
February 6th, 1856.

The

without understanding a word of English. It
was a cool morning, and he gave us a practical
exemplification of Turkish habits, by kicking off
his shoes and doubling up his feet under him,
in tailor fashion, to keep them warm.
only other peculiarity he displayed, was smoking
tremendously strong tobacco, and insisting on
having both windows down. He offered me
some to smoke; I declined, but the other occu-
pant of the car, a German, imprudently ac-
cepted; but finding the weed rather intoxicating
was obliged to throw it away, making many
apologies to the pitying Turk. This German
gentleman was a pleasant looking man of about

fifty, and quite ready to talk, not being discouraged by my blundering conversation. He was going on to Frankfort, but intended to get out at Eisenach and visit the castle of Wirtburg, and I was of course very glad to find that I could visit it in his company. Arrived at Eisenach, we started off together for the old castle, which is perched on a hill not far from the town. The only interesting object that I saw in the town itself, is the palace of the duchess of Orleans, who lives here with her two sons, and concocts plans to reinstate her family on the throne of France. The palace is a fine large building, and seems to offer as comfortable a residence as exiled royalty has a right to expect. The castle of Wirtburg is interesting as the retreat of Luther, where he lay concealed from his enemies for several months, and in addition to other labors, completed part of his translation of the Bible. We were shown into a room, where a number of Germans were drinking coffee and beer, and smoking, to wait for the guide who was to take us over the interesting parts of the building. This part of the castle has been converted into a Cafe, and is a favorite resort of the inhabitants of Eisenach. Our guide led us first to see some restorations, which are being carried on by the duke of Saxe Weimar, and at last took us to the room in which Luther lived and wrote. There were some few relics about the walls-an autograph letter framed and hung up, and the hole in the plaster-wall which relic-hunters have dug, to carry away some of the ink stains. It is related that Luther had many encounters with Satan during his residence in this chamber, and in one of them, after many efforts to get rid of the evil one, he threw his inkstand at him, in proof of which, a great daub of ink was once shown on the wall, but travellers have carried off the plaster piece by piece, so now nothing is to be seen but the hole where the ink once was. There was a stout mug in the room, from which the great Reformer used to quaff his "Bavarian Beer." At 8 in the evening I went back to Erfurt, and next morning started out to visit the Lutheran relics. Here Luther entered the Augustine convent as a monk, and here he first found and studied the Bible, which was then chained to the wall of the convent library. The admirers of Luther in that immediate neighborhood, have converted the old Monastery-building into an asylum and school for poor children, under the name of "Martin's Stift." I was shown into the library where Luther first caught glimpses of that truth which was to startle the luxurious and crafty Pope, in his far-off Roman palace. I believe the room is now occupied as a chapel for the school-children, but it contains many interesting objects that have been deposited by different admirers of the sturdy Reformer. There are portraits of Luther and Melancthon,

by their mutual friend, the painter Cranach, and also by the same hand a likeness of Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony, and patron and friend of Luther. A fine bass-relief on one of the walls, represents Luther expounding his thesis from the door of the church at Wittenberg. There are some fine wood carvings on the organ and reading-desk, all by a lineal descendant of Luther, a cabinet-maker in Erfurt. Strange as it seems, the father of this cabinetmaker had become a Roman Catholic, but, while living at some distance from Erfurt, and very poor, he heard that an asylum for poor children had been established there to the honor of his great ancestor. Accordingly, he wrote to the manager of the institution, requesting him to receive his children, and representing himself as in very needy circumstances. Answer was returned, that his children would be received, if he would allow them to be educated in the Protestant faith; this being a Protestant school, of course nothing else could be thought of. It cost the Reformer many a hard struggle to fight his way from Romanism to Protestantism, but poverty made the path of his descendant much easier; and though not renouncing Roman Catholicism himself, he acceded to the conditions and allowed his children to be taught the Protestant faith. There are two or three of them still living in Erfurt, and one of them, the cabinet-maker, made the ornamental woodwork for the old library. In an adjoining building, is to be seen the room in which Luther lived five years. Its walls were covered by him with scripture sentences, which have been carefully restored and painted afresh on the wall. I saw Luther's ink box, some of his handwriting, and some of the early copies of the Bible. next day I visited the beautiful little town of Weimar where Schiller and Geothe lived, but I will pass over that at present to tell thee of my visit to Wittenberg, as that is in connection with Luther. I visited Wittenberg on my way here from Dresden. In appearance it is not only uninteresting, but displeasing. But for interest it exceeds the others. In Erfurt, the mind of Luther first received religious impressions. He entered the convent and there was shown to him the truth, that was, in the broadest sense of the word, to reform the world. After teaching at the University some five years, he went to Wittenberg, and there, as Professor, his teachings became more widely known. They drew down upon him the wrath of the Pope, he was excommunicated, and retorted by burning the Papal bull in the presence of the Professors and Students of the University. Here he lived many years in friendship with Melancthon and Cranach, and here he and Melancthon with their princely friends, the Electors of Saxony, lie buried. See what a host of associations and images cluster around the

The

THE DIVINE INFLUENCE.

There are two ways of contemplating religious duty. There is a human and a divine side of life. Our hearts are reached by two methods of instruction. The mind grows from itself and is inspired from above. Laboriously we gather in the treasures of knowledge. Spontaneously, too, truth flashes on the soul. We can see how a certain fact of history has taken its place in our memory; we have learned it by diligent study. But, again, we cannot see how another mental result has been attained: we came to it in a moment, without any conscious effort of our own. In every experience, there are these two forms of spiritual activity,-one that we can explain and trace along step by step; another that is quite mysterious, and seems to be marked by no successive periods of time. One point of duty we have carefully considered and fixed by the exercise of reason and conscience. Another point of even higher duty has become as firmly and clearly established, we know not how or when. Now we acquire a truth by the slow and tedious process of learning; again, we arrive at a truth, by the instant action of feeling. Sometimes we know what is right by reasoning, and sometimes without any reasoning at all.

venerable town. The houses of Cranach and Melancthon are interesting; still more so the Church in which Luther preached, and yet still more so, that, to the doors of which he affixed his thesis, with an offer to defend them against all divines. But I was most interested in the room in which he lived, his chair and table, and the little personal relics of him there collected. Peter the Great visited the room and left his autograph over one of the doors. My guide showed me a little ornament that had belonged to Luther's wife, and told me that it was generally said, that Peter the Great, being particularly pleased with it, and desiring to carry away some relic from such a spot, asked for it, and being refused, dashed it to the ground, in a pet, with such violence as to break it; a story of imperial passion which is rather hard to believe. Luther's room looks very rude and uncomfortable, even in comparison with German rooms of the present day. It is lighted by two windows (with little octagonal panes of glass) which look out upon the quiet shady court-yard of the University, which now, at least, and probably then, contained a tree or two to relieve the eye. In the afternoon I walked out about two miles to "Luther's Spring." Formerly there was a grove here Any conclusions that we reach through study, which was Luther's favorite walk. A Cafe is or by the balancing of different arguments, may now built over the spring, and is a pleasant re- be doubted or even disproved; but instantaneous, sort of the Wittenbergers. On the road leading moral decisions, springing mysteriously from our to "Luther's Spring," and just outside the town own quick interior consciousness, assume supreme wall, stands the successor to the famous oak un- and absolute authority, that forbids all quesder which Luther burned the Papal bull. I tion. Without in the least dishonoring laboribelieve the oak belongs to the King of Prussia. ous study or devout meditation; without taking It is a beautiful, flourishing tree, and has the away one motive from toil or prayer; without prospect of a long life before it. The ground furnishing the smallest excuse for a man to relax around it is laid out in garden plats, on the pat- in his moral efforts; without doing any of these, tern of Luther's seal. The graves of Luther-we should never cease to recognize and exalt and Malanethon are marked by small tablets sunk in the floor in the body of the church, a portrait of each hanging on the wall close by.

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Seek holiness rather than consolation. Not that consolation is to be despised, or thought lightly of; but solid and permanent consolation is the result rather than the forerunner of holiness; therefore, he who seeks consolation as a distinct and independent object will miss it. Seek and possess holiness, and consolation (not perhaps often in the form of ecstatic and rapturous joys, but rather of solid and delightful peace,) will follow, as assuredly as warmth follows the dispensation of the rays of the sun. He who is holy must be happy.

Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the further on we go, the more we have to come back.-Bar

row.

the office of inspiration, the soul's spontaneous action, or the agency of God's spirit, in the work of redemption and sanctification. Instead of prescribing rules of human conduct, and pointing out what we can and ought to do, let us look upon the other and divine side of things, to intimate the higher law, and what God does for our religious advancement. We speak of nothing unreal or visionary when we refer to the divine action upon souls. To every human fact in our The true heart learns as much from heaven as it experience, there is a corresponding divine fact. learns from earth. To our consciousness, we are quite as much beings of the invisible as we are of the visible world. We see the physical form, the limbs and features of the body, but not the thoughts and affections of the soul. But are not our unseen qualities quite as real as the seen? Spiritual development depends in some degree upon our own toil and thought; but in a higher degree, it depends upon the inspiration of God. It is true that the spirit of humanity ever struggles upwards; it is also true that the spirit of

God's grace ever descends upon us. The very highest sentiment and emotion ever communicated to our interior life, we instinctively refer to God. More truly can we say God works for us, than that we work for ourselves. There is not a more vital or practical doctrine of pure religion. The theory of human development does not account for a spiritual mind, for a serene faith, like that which filled the heart of Jesus. A doctrine of divine influence, of a holy spirit, proves the possibility of religion, of the soul's communion with heaven. We have power to make ourselves just, upright, moral, but we grow into the calmness of faith only when we surrender ourselves, when we lean back on God, when we feel lost in Him.

We need this doctrine. No man, however prosperous, but sometimes is strongly impressed with a sense of his own inability and weakness. Who has not felt that he could contend no longer in a race where he never yet had won a prize, and where were so many arms stronger than his own? Have not all said, "Unless God works for us, our working is vain ?" Man wants help: he cannot strive long without it; he cannot keep a strong heart without it. He was made for labor, for sacrifice, for endurance; but as truly was he made to be helped in all these conditions. Man would lose heart and strength, in his perpetual and often fruitless striving, if the eye of God were not turned in compassion upon him; if there were hereafter no recompense of fruition. Let me know that my nature is becoming disciplined; that, if I gain nothing outward, I am growing spiritually; if my goods are not increasing, that my soul expands; let me feel that God watches my efforts, and will not allow me to suffer final loss,-then I cannot sink under any disappointment; through all trials and failures I can keep my courage and faith. Let me know that what I am unable to find out in my most diligent searching, is not therefore to remain for ever a mystery, but that God may reveal it to me in some high moment of life; let me know that what I have never succeeded in working out, what I have always been seeking and never been able to accomplish, may yet, through divine aid, be given into my hands in some unexpected hour; let me know and feel that I am to receive help when all my own strivings are vain,-then, as my trust in God can never leave me, so my courage can never fail. I shall believe that what I truly want and am unable to secure by my own strength, will yet come to me as an immediate gift from heaven.

we have earned. Whatever we have acquired by hearty labor, it is right for us to enjoy. But no man ever drew his highest satisfaction from his own successes. The motive that gives the greatest peace of mind must be outside of ourselves; and the farther we carry that motive from self, the truer and deeper is our inward joy. In every highest experience of life, whether it be in happiness or in suffering, we need a point of support from above and beyond the world. I believe that God gives directly all our best thoughts; and our best conclusions about right and duty are not studied and reasoned out, but are formed in a moment, and discerned intuitively; they are the result of divine inspiration. It is the only religious view of things, thus to refer our greatest blessings to God; to find a motive for obedience, far beyond ourselves, in the faith that we are seen and loved of God; that we are helped in our trials; that there can be an inward compensation for every outward loss; that we can be inspired with the truth, which is past our own finding out.

After seeing that we need something more than a doctrine of self-development; that we also need a motive beyond ourselves,-let us look for the evidences of the divine spirit in our human life. What is the highest fact made known by experience and history? Is it not the dealing of providence with man? Is it not the manifest overruling of God in the affairs of the world? Is it not the assertion, from time to time, of an invisible Power in the midst of our earthly life? Who has not felt an influence over his own heart, which he could not account for, and against which it was vain to contend? Who has not seen the interposition of a divine hand arresting and giving a new direction to the established course of events? God perpetually descends upon man, by the action of his spirit. He comes down upon nature, and typifies, in the beautiful objects of this world, something of the glory that invests his invisible kingdom. More immediately and fully he comes down upon the soul, and awakens within us all our deepest affections, all our heavenward aspirings. We see that God rules in the affairs of men; that, in the course of ages, his will is manifested; and out of earthly chaos, He brings a providential order. If there is any thing certain in the conduct of human affairs, it is that man is not sovereign, but subject. We cannot do as we will, but as we must. There are laws, which the strongest mind must obey; there are natural and Again; thus it is that we gain a new motive moral conditions of being which no mortal arm in life and a strictly religious motive. Considera- can set aside or resist. We daily encounter forces tions drawn from self-improvement, never fully which sweep on like the course of destiny and satisfy the heart. There is a joy in the right ex-bear us along like atoms in their resistless current. ercise of our human faculties. There is a dignified happiness in the feeling that we have, at any time, done our best. It is lawful to contemplate with satisfaction, treasures of wealth or learning which

In the presence of certain great laws of the universe,-like gravitation in the natural kingdom, and duty in the moral,-it is foolish as well as vain, to set up our own wishes and our

art thou;

own power. When we talk of our freedom and | My Knitting Work! my Knitting Work! a confidant independence, let us not forget our accountability to God. Man is a subject. It is not the least As smooth and shining on my lap thou liest beside of the divine commandments, which bids us yield Thou knowest some stories of my thoughts, that many to a higher power. may not know,

me now,

As round and round the accustomed path my careful fingers go.

not

I take thee up, and lay thee down, and use thee as I

may,

And not a contradicting word thy burnished lips will

say.

show,

My moralizing Knitting Work! thy threads most aptly
How evenly around life's span our busy threads
should go.
And if a stitch perchance should drop, as life's frail
stitches will,

The best philosophy which the world knew, before the era of Christianity, recognized a descent of the divinity on man and nature. So-Sweet, silent, quiet, Knitting Work! thou interruptest crates did not attribute his wisdom solely to the action and attainment of his own mind. My reverie and pleasant thought, forgetting and forHe got, asserted no theory of self-education. The light that shone within him was reflected from a brighter sun. He possessed a reverential genius; and though he saw "as through a glass darkly," he knew that a power was guiding him greater than himself; that he was but reporting the truth which mysteriously was revealed to his inward consciousness. He nowhere tells us that his philosophy was evolved out of his own mind; that he worked it out by the independent force of his own mental reflections; that it came to him in the natural process of education; but he assumes a loftier and truer position and says that it was inspired, that he drew it down from heaven. Hence this system has always been distinguished from every other of the ancient world. Everywhere it has been called, from its moral superiority and its religious character, the divine philosophy.

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How, if we patient take them up, the work may pros

per still.

PRAISE.

BY C. FRY.

"Oh Lord, I know that in very faithfulness Thou hast afflicted

me."

For what shall I praise Thee, my God and my King!
For what blessings the tribute of gratitude bring?
Shall I praise thee for pleasure, for health, or for ease?
For the spring of delight, or the sunshine of peace?
Shall I praise thee for flowers that bloomed on my
breast,

For joys in perspective or pleasures possessed?
For the spirit that heightened my days of delight,
And the slumbers that sat on my pillow by night?
For this should I praise thee; but, if only for this,
I should leave half untold the donation of bliss.
I thank Thee for sorrow, for sickness, for care:
For the thorns I have gathered, the anguish I bear.
For nights of anxiety, watchings, and tears,
A present of pain, a perspective of fears.

I praise Thee, I bless Thee, my King and my God,
For the good and the evil thy hand hath bestowed.
The flowers were sweet, but their fragrance is flown;
They yielded no fruit, they are withered and gone;
The thorn, it was poignant, but precious to me:
'Twas the message of mercy,—it led me to thee.

AIR AND EXERCISE-ENGLAND VS. AMERICA.

We lately referred to the subject of "Out Door Amusements," in connection with public health. The lords of creation having been duly reminded of the great benefits attached to plenty of air and exercise, with especial reference to athletic sports, we venture to solicit the attention of the gentler sex to a contrast lately drawn between them and their English sisters, as respects the care of physical health.

In the first place we premise, what is universally acknowledged, that the English climate allows of more constant exposure to the air, and consequently of more salubrious exercise, than our own. Notwithstanding its far greater moisture it is so much more uniform in its temperature,

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