conscious of the deficiency of a magnetic power to guide him into a safe harbour. The philanthropist on a voyage of discovery, roams from port to port to seek a safe anchorage; his object is to ameliorate the condition of mankind, but he has yet to discover the means how to accomplish it. How envious then is the position of the virtuous, whose reason conducted them through the uncertain steps of the path of life, when they can announce to their fellow beings, the direct road to happiness; with what palpitation will fellow labourers receive the convincing announcement to "be assured that the man who makes others happy, cannot himself be miserable." Need we any other stimulus to comfort the bereaved widow, or to sooth the helpless orphan, than to know that our own happiness depends on their contentment? No! It is therefore easy to contemplate how joyfully the members of our Institution will receive the welcome intelligence that the deputies at Derby devised a plan to ease the destiny of the unfortunate widow and the imbecile infant; who can refrain envying the deputies who participated in this God-like action-how serene and content must they have retired to reflect on their successful day's labour-how grateful will they feel when they find those for whom they have toiled are assisting them in their endeavours? How happy will be our lot, when we are satisfied that our wives and our children will have guardians to protect them when we have paid the debt of nature; how pleasing it is to look into futurity with hopes of happiness; how cheering to the fond attachment of a mate, cherished by our warmest affection, to be conscious of having sympathising bosoms to dry the tears of virtue in distress. What contentment will reign in our Lodges to behold the erection of the temple on the foundation laid at Derby; should we not reap all those benefits, should the expectation of the warmest friend of humanity not be realized, the fault will be our own,-the blame will be attached to ourselves. It will be through our ignorance in not knowing our resources-it will be through our indolence, by not putting our own shoulders to the wheel, if this blessing be now suffered to elude our grasp. Our united efforts are capable to accomplish much, such a numerous body should convince mankind that they do not associate for a mere useless hobby; we should show the world that our objects are worthy the notice of the most humane philanthropist,-that our aim is to ameliorate the condition of mankind, and that from 60 to 70,000 men in the bloom of life, are determined to carry into execution this heavenly design. It is with such feelings we should enlist to support the efforts of the deputies at Derby; we should remember the legislative body of the Order have done their duty; the profits of the Magazine are to be distributed for the RELIEF of the WIDOWS and ORPHANS of SUBSCRIBERS! It is now with us to do our duty; every member in the Order should be called upon to subscribe to that publication, each member should act as if on his individual exertions, depends the existence of the Institution. We should impress on our minds, each member, by subscribing to the Magazine, will realize to the body a clear profit of £2000* per annum, which is to be applied to the relief of the wants of widows and orphans of departed Odd Fellows. As an instructing and an amusing publication, the Magazine is well worth the encouragement of the members; say nothing of the facilities it affords to communicate the progress of Odd Fellowship, and if we add, that the profits arising therefrom, will be distributed among the widows and orphans of our Institution, there is no doubt, but every Odd Fellow will cheerfully become a subscriber. The plan suggested by P. G. M. Powell, each Lodge to appoint a Secretary exclusively to look after the subscribers of the Magazine, has already increased the circulation materially; but when those Secretaries will tell the members, if you become subscribers, we shall have every year £2000. to be distributed among our widows and orphans,-when he tells them the profits of the Magazine will relieve with four shillings per week, two hundred Odd Fellows' widows and orphans each year. When this Secretary tells the members, drink one single glass of beer less every two months, (one fourth of a penny per week) and that will realise an additional sum of £3000. per annum; when he tells them with £5000. you will be able to relieve with four shillings per week, a widow and orphan in every other Lodge in the Unity, who will then stand mute and not enrol himself a subscriber to the Magazine? Who will not cheerfully pay one farthing per : *60,000 members, each taking four Magazines per annum, will amount to 240,000 copies the prime cost of the Magazine is 34d. to leave out the fraction, we will rate them at fourpence, the copy being sold at sixpence each leavs twopence profit, which amounts to £2000. on 24,000 copies. week to partake of the feast in preparation? Where is the man whose heart will not gladden at the thought of being able to accomplish so much good at so little an expense? I will answer, not among the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. I know enough of the benevolent disposition of our members, to libel them with remaining passive, when such an easy and virtuous action is within their grasp. Remember, my friends, NONE but the widows and orphans of SUBSCRIBERS can participate in the benefits of this Fund; be speedy, then, or you may loose the glorious opportunity of contributing to the happiness of helpless thousands yet unborn. I am, respectfully, Apollo Lodge, June, 1836. J. PEISER. YORK CATHEDRAL. (Extracts from an American Traveller.) All I could think of, however, was the Cathedral whose collossal towers had long been in my eye-the far-famed York Minster, as I have called it before, the wish to see which was one of the earliest of my youth-for if any one has a hunger and thirst after such sights, it is an American, who can never appease such a hunger at home. I left the steamer, with my friend, baggage and all, and we rushed towards the tavern that had so much captivated our eyes far down the Ouse. I can describe no such thing as this. I can tell you how long, how wide, and how high-but such an overpowering mountain of rock thus regularly hewn out, thus regularly piled up, thus sculptured and carved, the eye must see for the mind ever to feel the magnitude of the undertaking. The first question in the reveries of the spectator is, who can have put together on this plain such a mountain for a church-it must be the growth of centuries. It must take the wealth of worlds. And then a long train of reflections ariseof the power of the Catholic priest to extort such labor in the darker ages from the rude and poverty-stricken peasant obedient to his control-or, if not from him, from the refined baron or king who feared a god that he did not know. Such a work now it is said, could not be erected without a sum nearly as large as the whole annual expenditure of the government of the twenty-four United States, nor in less than fifty or even one hundred years. The estimated expense of merely repairing it, after the lunatic Martin destroyed all the carved oak wood by setting fire to it in 1829, was nearly 325 thousand dollars. We could not tarry long to look at the outside of the majestic pile, for the view is but a narrow one at its base, huddling around as there do, so many miserable buildings in narrow streets; and our curiosity too was rapidly urging us on onward and inward. The door was opened and I pushed by its guardians. By heavens, it seemed as if it was not made, but as if the very stone had grown up in trees and tracery, with arms inlocked with arches, as if some day or other, upon some rows of mighty oaks then filled with men and kings, a sudden petrifaction had come, and left all as they were for ages-for here are columns resembling trees, images resembling the men of ancient days, and the kings from William the Conqueror, to Henry the Sixth, all in a stone screen, as large as life, carved not as if it were the work of man, but as if they had stood there when they died, with their royal insignia and become stone! I feel as if I had left the land of the living, and was already in the abyss of the dead. Even the echo of my footsteps along the aisle and the vault disturbs me, for I seem to tread on holy ground. There is a sad solemnity overcoming one-an awe that makes him speak in whispers, and tread the pavement with a fear. I moved cautiously along the nave and transept, (the cross aisles of the Cathedral.) I went into the choir and gazed at the lofty organ and its immense pipes. I stared with astonishment at the high stretching windows of stained glass representing I know not how many saints of the Calender-the first I had ever seen. I wandered among the tombs, and the monuments upon them-but this new sensation was soon overthus do we rapidly change-and a new one came upon me. on, The service of the day was about commencing in the Cathedral, and one of the officers delivered us to the care of a guide, who, after we had listened awhile to the sonnds of the organ as they swelled and rolled from aisle to aisle, and from pillar to pillar, renewing yet more warmly all the solemnity such a scene is calculated to inspire, began his operations of guidance. Our guide, though of the Cathedral, was one of those men who have but a single knowledge-a single idea-and this so magnified, so ever effervescing, that he bursts whenever he delivers it. You must admire,' he commenced, you must admire, gentlemen'--with all the gravity of an owl-while I was oppressed with admiration, which from that moment was turned to ridicule-' you must admire,' with a yet louder voice, the more he repeated it,' that incomparable vista of 524 feet in length.' " 'You must admire,' he went on, that majestic window 75 feet high and 32 broad, the grandest object of admiration in the world!' Whew! for this was said with a flourish unequalled even by Mr. Mc Duffie's best, even in his greatest oratorical spasms. And by this time, as my companion was in convulsions of laughter-I assure you I was in no condition to admire any thing at all. But he continued, aroused by the importance of his office, you must admire, gen-tle-men, the amazing solidity of these clustering piers, and the vastness of the span of the arches,' and all this too with a rotundity of enunciation that made me roar outright with laughter. The honest guide believed that the greater the spasms into which he threw himself, the greater would be ours, and so he continued to have these spasmodic oratorical affections till the whole Cathedral was served up in regular order. In the same tone, he gave us the measurement of the organ, which, it appears, has 4500 pipes. One can judge then what glorious musical festivals there are at times, within the walls of the Cathedral, with 600 vocal and instrumental performers as there have been, all at once, and what a crash of choruses this must make, and what melodious long drawn notes of softness through such a space! Our guide took us into many other parts of the Cathedral among the monuments, into the crypt, and showed us the wonderful reflection of the stained windows over its entrance: but I will not weary you with more particulars after I have spoken of the Vestry. There, in this antique room, he showed us a silver Crosier that the Queen Dowager of Charles II. brought from Portugal, then a large ivory vessel called Ulphus' horn, a drinking horn belonging to this Prince, by drinking wine from which before the altar of God, he enfeoffed this church with all his lands and revenues, by which relic the church holds valuable lands to this day. Then he set forth a wooden head, found in the grave of an Archbishop, silver chalices also found in Archbishops' graves, a canopy of state carved over the head of James I. when he visited York, but, which was the most interesting, an antique chair that used to stand within the rails of the altar, in which several of the Saxon kings were crowned, and in which Richard III. and James I. were also crowned, a chair that bears about it all the marks of time, for were it not fastened together by bars of iron, it would have tumbled to pieces long ago. After this display of antique relics, we dismissed our grandiloquent guide, and ascending 273 steps, came to the summit of what is called the Lantern Tower, on which in 1666 a turret of wood was erected to serve as a beacon to alarm the country if the Hollanders or French should attempt a landing. The turret is gone now, and hence we had the whole range of the summit, a view of the grand pile under our feet, the red tiles of the dwellings of York, and a prospect as far as the eye could reach over a plain of highly cultivated country, with tasteful country seats in the distance on the long stretch of the Ouse and Fosse. And then what a rush of history in one's mind, for over this now fertile plain, Briton, Scot, Roman, Saxon, and Norman have shed rivers of blood. Upon almost every spot some man has bit the ground in death. But now a sweet peace reigns over this former scene of desolation. All is as a garden. No hostile Scot threatens to plunder the crops luxuriantly growing. The cattle graze in peace. Man wanders abroad fearless and unawed, with no war armor on, no spear nor arrow in his hand. Such are the fruits of religious civilization. I left the cathedral to look at other things in the city of York,-but all is tame after such a sight. I idled about the ruins ot St. Mary's Abbey, a fabric founded by William Rufus. I moved along the walls and the walks about it. I peeped into the windows of the old churches, of which York is full,-and the old, the narrow, the antique-fashioned lanes of the city; but as this was the first cathedral I was ever in, I could think of nothing else. At eleven o'clock at night, in company with my friend, in the then yet luminous twilight (mark what a contrast in time with ours), we took a survey again of its outward proportions, for a misty light looms up the more even such a prodigious pile. We met the watchman of the cathedral with a lantern in his hand (for a watch has been kept ever since the incendiarism of 1829), just entering the door upon his round. We solicited permission to enter, and he gave it. The dark lantern was kept closed, and the least whisper of ours could be heard all along the arches. My softest footsteps seemed like heavy trampings of some huge beast. I clung to my friend, if not in terror, at least in awe. There was a shivering of horror in the whole frame. We went among the tombs and monuments once more. A little misty twilight entered the stained window. My fancy was wrought up. I thought I saw the feudal lords spring to life, with all their armour on. The mitred bishop, with the crosier, seemed to stand before me, as did his statue. The sculptured images were ghosts. The stony angels seemed to stretch their wings and blow their trumpets with a real life. I never before felt such a terrible illusion, such an awful sense of loneliness. I would not take the watchman's office for a cathedral, and yet I have no fear of grave-yards nor of ghosts-but I fear the antiquity there is here-I dread these hideous forms of sculptured stone. I could not forget the thousand superstitions of the days in which they lived, and which I half believe, philosophy in spite. I went home to a troubled bed, dreaming all night of mitred bishops and ugly barons. COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. THE Cathedral of Cologne is the greatest curiosity in the city, which, though never finished, is said to be one of the finest monuments of ancient German architecture. It is built in the form of a cross. The arches are supported by a quadruple row of sixty-four columns. The two towers which were intended to be 500 feet high, remain unfinished. In one of these towers is the great bell which weighs 25,000 pounds. It requires twelve men to put it in motion, and when it strikes, causes the immense tower to shake. The walls of the choir of the Cathedral are covered with tapestry, the designs of which were taken from several drawings by Rubens. The stone statues of the twelve apostles, clothed in robes embroidered with gold, are beautiful monuments of old German sculpture. The paintings on the windows in the interior of the choir, are well worth attention, though nothing so very remarkable after one has been at York in England. The great show of the Cathedral, however, is, the chapel of the three kings behind the altar, who, it is pretended, worshipped our Saviour. The chapel is of marble, and is of the Ionic order. The lower part of the tomb there, contained the bones of the three kings, whose heads were placed separately in the middle, on the lid of which are these three names now formed by rubies, Caspar, Melchoir, Belthasar. The French robbers of the revolution made sad havoc amid this gorgeous plunder. When the grand chapter of Cologne fled from the storm in terror, they took a great part of the treasures of the cathedral, among which was the famous tomb,-but when it was returned to Cologne, the sculptures were much disfigured,—many of the precious stones, gems and enamels were lost, the superb crowns were wanting, but all has been replaced as well as imitations would permit. I went into the Golden Chamber too, to see the dresses of the priests. Beautiful curiosities here were shown us, but here too, the French robbers had penetrated and despoiled it of its former glory. I sympathised with the indignation of the priest who acted as our guide, and ejaculated his “Mon Dieu," as he threw himself into attitudes, exclaiming against this robbery of the French marauders of the revolution, but I could not help believing that he had practised these attitudes so often, that he had lost all the spirit and all the temper with which he originally began them. Cologne is full of churches, many of which are worth seeing, and many of which I saw, but you shall be bored with no more details of them. Rubens' beautiful picture of the crucifixion of St. Peter, his chef d'œvre, it is said, is in St. Peter's church. The French stole this, and took it to Paris, and while this picture was at the Louvre, a copy of it, the same size, was made by a Prussian student, and this is now exhibited as the original, the former being placed on one side of the frame, and the latter on the other. The ancient convent of the ladies of St. Ursula is remarkable for its relation to the legend of that saint, and 11,000 virgins. All the churches are filled with bones, which are variously disposed in glass cases and frames. Some of these cases contained 24. and others from 90 to 100 sculls. There is one apartment called Goldene kammer (golden chamber) in which are preserved the heads of many of these 11,000 virgins. The French had a revelry in plundering this ancient city, of vases, urns, ancient gods and drawings, from the best painters of every school, -and the churches, convents, and chapels they either destroyed or converted into warehouses, manufactories, or stables for their cavalry,-taking what was valuable and moveable to Paris-then the blazing focus of the treasures of a world, or desecrating what remained at home :-doing this single good in such a week of mischief, that they put to flight 12,000 mendicants, it is said, who had particular stations, which they left as an inheritance to their children. "There go the ships!" There spout and hiss With which the list'ning earth below, Leviathans at play; And heaven's high archway rings. THE TWO FOUNTAINS. I SAW, in yonder silent cave, Two fountains running side by side. The one was Memory's limpid wave, The other cold Oblivion's tide. "Oh Love!" said I, in thoughtless dream, As o'er my lips the Lethe past, "Here in this dark and chilling stream, Be all my pains forgot at last." But who could bear the gloomy blank, And brought the Past all back again : Be all my pains remembered too!" MOORE. |