THE epithet narrow-minded, and its synonyms, are terms of great force and repulsiveness, and many a man would shrink from their application as he would from a criminal accusation. With the same class, no terms are more in vogue than high-minded, honorable, spirited, magnanimous and the like; and it seems to be assumed that between the qualities denoted and the principles of religion there is a chasm or a conflict.

These persons cannot comprehend how a religion, which demands humility, meekness, self-abasement, should consist with nobleness and greatness of spirit. It is easy to see that impressions like these are calculated to oppose an almost impassable obstacle to religion in some directions-nor will it be doubted that many, especially among young men, have by this simple consideration been induced to refuse religion a hearing-and the blush of false shame has kindled upon the countenance of many a half-awakened person when he became aware that his seriousness was observed by his companions in folly.

It may be useful to many of the most interesting class of our readers to dispel this hurtful illusion, and to show that the religion of the gospel is designed and eminently adapted to cultivate the style of character which we denominate magnanimous; and that whoever fully submits his heart to the influence of true religion, and follows its leading, must acquire the noble and magnanimous character-must become great in the legitimate and proper sense of that oft-used and oft-abused word, and we shall beg especially the attention of young men to what we are about to offer on the subject.

But what is magnanimity? What are the elements of this everywhere admired, but so little understood quality? It implies and includes, among other things-1. A disposition to undertake great things, regardless of their difficulty. It belongs to minds of this order to modify, create or re-arrange the circumstances of their condition -to be not the slaves, but the lords of their circumstances, and to impress their own image upon the times, and upon the objects within the sphere of their influence, whether its boundaries be narrow or extended. 2. It belongs to the character we are considering to encounter danger with resolution, when some great and noble design can be promoted by it. We see this illustrated in the lives of such men as

Howard and Washington. Their greatness of spirit appeared not in the reckless exposure of their persons to danger and death, but in their calm reckoning that the objects they had in view were of sufficient magnitude and importance to justify any personal evils to which they might be exposed, and in their firm purpose to part with life itself, if that should be called for, in order to the achievement of their end. When war was raging between the Athenians and the Heraclidæ, and the oracle predicted that the nation should conquer whose king died first, Codrus, king of the Athenians, disguised himself, went to the enemy's camp, sought a quarrel with a soldier, and was killed. This, though based upon superstitious belief, was the conduct of a great mind, surrendering the highest private interest for the public good. It was not courting death for its own sake, but as the apparent means of the safety of Athens. 3. Self-restraint and self-control in the proper circumstances enters largely into the character of true greatness. The greatness of Gen. Washington consisted very much in his wonderful self-control. He as often saved his country by not doing impru dent things, as by his most daring and valorous deeds. 4. Perseverance against difficulties and sufferings belongs to true greatness. This also is beautifully illustrated in the life of Washington.

Many a man of far inferior greatness would willingly have entered the deadly breach, but few could endure steadfastly to the end the daily trial of patience. Such endurance is higher evidence and a surer test of greatness than even the surrender of life. Those deaths which a man dies daily, and survives only to die over again, are the most terrible, and demand the most patience. And, lastly, it is characteristic of true greatness to seek fellowship with the great. The story that Alexander the Great carried Homer's Iliad with him in all his journeyings, and slept with it under his pillow, is at least natural and probable. It was natural that the hero should make heroes his companions, that he should commune with their shades as they were made to pass before him in silent and solemn majesty by the magic of Homer. The desire of fellowship with kindred minds is so strong, that, if we cannot find them among actual existences, we create them, and please ourselves with ideal characters agreeing with our own, rather then herd with those,

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with whom we have no common or kindred feelings.

Let us see how these elements of true greatness meet and operate in the Christian character. The Christian attempts great and difficult things. Self-acquaintance is one of these things. The ancients supposed the precept, "Know thyself," descended from heaven. It was a precept worthy of the gods. And if such was the dignity of the injunction, how not less dignified than difficult must we regard the attempt to obey it. Self-knowledge is spoken of in the Bible as exceedingly difficult. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? And all experience shows that no attainment is so difficult as a thorough self-acquaintance. Yet this difficult work every Christian is attempting to perform. He has undertaken to explore, not the frozen regions of the earth, but the frozen and desolate recesses of his own soul. He has commenced tracing, not the sources of the Niger or the Nile, but the sources of those thoughts and feelings, which, instinct with immortality or death, flow from his heart into the daily conduct of life, a work worthy of the greatest mind, whether we regard its difficulty or its utility. We admire the intrepid nobleness of a Belzoni or a Mungo Park-the civilized world applauded their enterprise as honorable and large-minded--and yet, who needs arguments to convince him that it is a greater and more important enterprise thoroughly to explore and know oneself than to measure the pyramids or traverse continents. What are the ruins of matter compared with those of mind? what are cities overwhelmned, and monuments shaken down by the blasts of time, and continents turned to howling wastes, compared with the desolations of one immortal spirit?

But this is not all-the Christian endeavors to govern his own spirit, and we have inspired authority for saying, that he who does this is greater than he who takes a city. And why should it be thought a thing incredible that the government of one's own spirit, while it is one of the most difficult of all undertakings, is at the same time one of the noblest? There is no government so like God's as the government of mind. Mind!-it is that ethereal thing over which the gross machinery of human government hath no power-it is that invisible, ethereal thing, which eludes the touch, the gaze of mortals, and mocks the chains of leagued tyrants-it is that active and deathless thing, whose goings forth are to be for ever, and whose

thoughts like its fittest emblem, the light of heaven, overleap all boundaries, and spread everywhere-it is this, his own immortal spirit, the Christian undertakes to govern. And what, compared with this, is the government of a kingdom? What is that so much coveted distinction of having authority, of saying to one go, and to another come? What is there in all the parade and glitter of regal power, that equals the impressive majesty of a self-governed spirit, whose thoughts and affections, desires and passions, once wild as the tempest or restless as the sea, have been subdued, calmed, disciplined? What a pitiful vocation is that of the heroes of the world, of controlling and driving the mere brute force of unreflecting masses of men-and how princely and dignified his, whose kingdom is within, and whose subjects are his own thoughts and affections?

Observe another mark of greatness in the Christian's chosen fellowship. He selects his companions and friends from the intellectual and moral nobility of the universe. Alexander held fellowship with the heroes of Homer; Cæsar communed with the shade of Alexander-the poet, the painter, the sculptor, study the models of antiquity. The Christian studies David, Daniel, Isaiah, John, Paul, JESUS CHRIST. The moment religion enters the soul of any man, no matter how degraded his associations formerly, you find him immediately possessed of an affinity for the master spirits of the universe; and he who could once delight himself and be at home with the most debased of his species, rises to sit with patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and communes with them as his elect and familiar friends. Nay, not contented yet, he pants after Deity itself, and rests not till like Enoch he walks with God, and has fellowship with the infinite and glorious Father of Spirits. Now what must be the character of a mind of such high and heavenly affinities, that, disdaining the low and mean associations of other men, ascends by a spontaneous and unquenchable preference to the very head and fountain of intellectual excellence. The apostle, speaking of Christians in mass and without exception, says, "We are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly of the first-born, and to God the judge of all." Now, nothing is easier than to interpose a sneer, or intimate a doubt, as if all this intercourse with holy beings and with God, existed only in the imagination of the Christian. And suppose we grant this-nay,

suppose we agree with the shameless atheist, that the God after whom the Christian pants, and the illustrious society of angels and spirits made perfect, have no existence but in the visionary and disordered conceptions of the Christian-still our point is gained. The character of greatness may be fearlessly assigned to the man, who can and does even imagine a scheme of fellowship so exalted and pure. If the Christian have not a divine warrant for his hope, he must have a divine fancy to give birth to such a splendid dream, and a divine purity to people the void realms of light with such resplendent specimens of moral excellence. In a word, if all religion be a fable, a vision of the night, what must be the mind that dreams it, that imagines a system, whose centre is God, and whose loyal subjects, related and endeared

parish, bending their knees before God, and wrestling in prayers full of love and pity, and tender sympathy towards the vast family of man. There are immeasurably higher specimens of true greatness exhibited by many a poor widow who has but two mites in the world to bestow, than were any or all the men to whose names the epithet Great has been ostentatiously affixed. Some, indeed, may or do choose to regard the Christian scheme of benevolence visionary-but, again we say, it is the vision of a noble mind. We may say it was visionary and to no purpose that Leonidas planted himself with his devoted band in the pass of Thermopyla to resist the overwhelming hordes that invaded his country. Yet it was unequalled nobleness of soul that prompted the unavailing sacrifice, and in all lands and gene

hood, dwell in His presence and with each other for ever, amidst the beauties of holiness and the joys of endless progress and develop

ment?

The Christian shows the magnanimity of his principles in choosing a life of usefulness and devotion to the welfare of others. The gospel is a system of practical philanthropy. It is a proclamation of good will to man. It exhibits God as loving him, and it calls upon man to love his fellows, and like God to pity the miserable and the guilty; to live, and labor, and suffer, and, if need be, die for them. This is the spirit of the gospel and of every true follower of the Saviour. A fundamental principle of the gospel is," None of us liveth to himself." Every Christian, whether in elevated or in humble life, in public or in private station, is designedly living for his race. He loves them, feels and prays for them, and according to his opportunity does what he can to bless the world, and make all men better and happier. There is a largeness of view, a boldness of purpose, a vastness of merciful enterprise in the Christian scheme of benevolence never approached before. Men, under the influence of patriotism, have died for their country -or, through natural sympathy, have wept over temporal wretchedness; but only religion expands and nerves the soul to survey a world, and ennobles it to live, and think, and act for the world's salvation. Where, among the great men of ancient times-where, among the mere statesmen or heroes of the earth, are they whose magnanimity and true greatness of soul can bear a moment's comparison with obscure individuals, who may be found in every

fice, finds his bosom glow with sublimer impulses and loftier resolves. And so of the Christian. Even if it should prove that all his plans, and efforts, and prayers avail nothing, still it is noble to launch his bark upon that wild and dreadful sea where human nature is wrecked, and attempt to grasp the perishing from the devouring deep. Pitying the far-off multitudes of guilty and dying men, thinking of their misery, and contriving for their welfare, temporal or eternal, the Christian, even if he should accomplish nothing valuable, shows a generousness of soul resembling His who came to seek and to save that which was lost. But Christian sympathy and effort are not in vain. It was not in vain that the apostles and early Christians went everywhere publishing the gospel. As they sounded it out through the world, provinces, people and kings awoke from the sleep of death, and came from their tombs to the fountain and the altar of the gospel. Christian effort for the world is not unavailing now. There are ransomed spirits now around the throne in heaven, who will for ever witness that the Christian did not pray in vain, even when the far-off heathen were the subjects of his plea with God. And new scenes are constantly opening on earth that attest the efficiency of Christian enterprise. In lands where, but a few years ago, unbroken solitude and darkness reigned, the people are reading in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. Some rays of truth, some beams of the Sabbath, some dawnings of heaven have entered their minds. There are green spots of earth where all was sterile-spots, on which the missionary has wept and labored, scattered everywhere, and

It is so generally a favorite, that we have been induced to present a plate of one of its varieties in the present number of our Magazine; and we take this opportunity to give a brief history of the plant, and to state a few facts concerning

genus in honor of the Swedish botanist, Andrew Dahl, a pupil of the celebrated Linnæus. The propriety of this name has been disputed on account of its similarity to Dalea, a name previously given to a plant of an entirely differ