"For God's sake, Ada, speak to me; I cannot bear this awful silence-say but that you did not mean those dreadful words."

"On him be the guilt-mine be the punishment! I am no child to tremble before imagination's phantom; it is but wasted breath to urge me, Bellis. Here, lay your fingers on my wrist, and if its pulse be but one shadow quickened, hope to move me from my purpose."

She extended her hand, and Bellis shuddered to feel the notices of her pulse-full, calm and equable, as even without one faltering pause or hurried bound. It was a dreadful sight, to see

"Oh, God!" exclaimed he," but this is fearful. Ada, I dare not hear you."

66

Now, shame upon thee!" said Ada, with a cold and scornful tone," the very worm will turn when trampled on, and shall we bear oppression unmoved? Art thou a man? The wild beasts of the wood will rend the hunter in defence of their young. Art thou a father, and wilt thou do less?" "Have you no fear, no feeling? I remember the time you could hardly bear to look on blood, and would have wept to see an insect die. Ada, have you no fear nor feeling?"

"Fear!" she answered, "I have fasted for many hours, and am athirst; give me that knife and I will plunge it in my arm, and drink the gushing life blood! Do you talk to me of fear, and feeling?" She lowered her voice to a low, sad cadence. "I have watched your couch of agony, and heard my child scream for bread; I have borne a father's curse, and been driven homeless and forsaken on the wide, wide world; I have trembled on the verge of prostitution and madness-and do you talk to me of feeling?"

Bellis shuddered, as he replied in a deep, hoarse voice. Aye, Ada, but there is a fear beyond this earth; dare you defy Omnipotence, and break the dread command of Thou shalt do no murder?" "

"Chimeras all!" said she, steadily," this first law of nature and of God is self-defence, every thing that lives obeys its impulse. I have been persecuted and driven to the extremities of human suffering; but now I turn upon my oppressors."

"But have you thought upon this dreadful deed, and does not your purpose falter? Can you bear to behold the tortures of mortal agony? Can you see the stiffening limbs writhing in the last convulsions, and feel the outpoured life blood gush over your murderous hands?"

"It is the general doom," she answered, unmoved, man was born to suffer and to die. What matters it whether the steel, the drug, or worn out nature prepares his everlasting sleep? A few years earlier or later, it is but death that comes at last."

"If the grave were all," murmured Bellis, in terrible emotion, "but oh! Ada, in that world

unnatural energy, and calmly defending so fell a purpose. He dropped her hand with a sob of agony, and as the tears burst from his eyes, exclaimed-" Ada, my unhappy wife! may God forgive me for my guilt! It is I that have made you thus-I that have driven you mad, and changed your gentle nature to ferocity and horror. That little hand shall never be imbued in human blood; mine has been the fatal power to make you thus--mine shall be the horrid deed, and its inevitable punishment."

For a moment the stony deadness of Ada's feelings gave way before this burst of tenderness; a tear burst over her burning eyeballs, and a rising sob heaved her white bosom, but she forced back the emotions with desperate resolve, and locked the fountain of tears within her heart.

"Douglass! my hushand, be not thus moved; why should you lay upon yourself the fault of cruel fate? Of one thing be sure-not in the hour when I became your wife, and hope and joy smiled so fair upon our loves—not in that first flush of soulfelt happiness, were you more dear to me than now! But away with these thoughts, let us speak of death and horror, of blighted hope and murdered joy; let us court images of darkness and dread to nurse our human nature, and rouse the latent fiend within us. See, nature is wrapping round the world her shadowy veil, before it is withdrawn."

"Almighty God!" groaned Bellis, "look not upon this deed! the body--Ada-what?" "The ice is broken on the Delaware, its bright waters will give a lasting sepulture." "But the blood?"

"Shall not accuse us," interrupted the woman, boldly," when all is over, yon strand and this dilapidated hovel shall make a noble hecatomb; accident will bear us out. How easy is it, then. Here, take this passport to the grave; the edge is keen and sure; strike like a man-an injured, desperate man.'

"Oh God, for mercy!"

"Be firm," continued the desperate woman, whose swoln veins, blazing eyes, and wild, supernatural energy, might well have figured the fallen angel enshrined in a form of loveliness. "Remember the lives of yourself, your wife and child, hang upon your arm! Remember that boundless affluence, security, and revenge attend a certain blood-”

"Hark!" interrupted the man, convulsively. "What?" exclaimed Ada, bending her ear to the earth, "do you hear a step?"

"I do-hush!-he comes, he comes-it is his

"You shall not die," exclaimed the Sister of Charity, springing up, with a wild and desperate emotion," found out foul murder ever is, and the foul murderer too; mine was the hand that struck that fiendish blow-mine was the guilt-mine shall be the punishment. You shall not die." The Bishop gazed upon her in paralyzed horbut a firm and unshrinking courage seemed to have superseded the humble timidity of the Nun; years seem to roll back and restore to the wretched woman the daring resolve of other days; but now it was exerted in a righteous

ror;

cause.

"Hear me, holy father, and curse me if you will, that I have veiled beneath this sacred habit so dark and foul a secret. I will not speak of the temptation to that crime, nor urge that madness governed my heart and brain in that dreadful hour-to Him who judgeth, my remorse and horror have been known. That blood sunk in the earth, but vengeance has not slumbered; I lived to see my husband die in tortures of remorse, cursing me for his temptress and ruin. I saw my blessed child sink beneath the curse of blood, and wither like a cankered rose; he died within these arms, and yet I lived; but death was in my heart; you saved me from self-destruction, and strove to whisper of pardon and peace. Father, within that Convent's peaceful walls, the avenger of blood hath pursued me, he hath wrested the crucifix from my lips, and stood between me and the holy altar; he hath haunted the day and the darkness, and now the hour of his retribution is come. To man my life is forfeit, it shall be laid down in expiation of my sin, and may God have mercy on my soul." Few words followed this confession, the manner of the unhappy woman brought conviction of her truth; and so decided and resolute were her words, that all attempts to dissuade her from her purpose, even if justifiable, would have been unavailable. From the moment that her dark secret had passed her lips, she seemed to gather a new existence; the resolution to expiate her sin and save a fellow creature's life, by open confession, appeared to pour a balsam on her bleeding conscience, and give her more glimpse of hope than she had known since the hour of her guilt. Free and full was her accusation of herself, and as some papers belonging to the wretched De Vaux, and several unchanged checks and notes, were still in her possession, no doubt could remain of the fact. To describe the sensation made on the public mind by the knowledge of such atrocity in a character so well known and universally beloved as Sister Ann, is almost impossible; yet compassion prevailed above horror, and when the temptation and the sufferings of the illfated Ada were fully published, there was no heart except her own that did not anxiously hope for a mitigation of the punishment due to murder. Nor may words do justice to the alarm and sorrow of the venerable Superior and the benevolent Sisters of Charity; that sin had laid heavy on the heart of their contrite and lowly associate, they had long suspected; but that it should be the sin of blood, that judgment must be passed and expiation made for it, was a shock most terribly severe; yet they did not forsake her; the hope she had so often

pointed to another was now whispered to herself, nor was it wholly unavailing. Through the depth of her humility, amidst the agony of her remorse, with public shame and punishment before her eyes, Sister Ann, or Ada, as we should more rightly call her, began to feel a peace and pardon descending on her soul-a beam of heavenly hope shining through the darkness of despair; and though these blessed feelings were "few and far between," still they nerved her to support the more frequent bursts of accusing agony. It appeared that at the time when the wretched De Vaux had been with Ada for the last time, that he himself was liable to the law, from an accidental and uncommon discovery made the same day, of extensive forgeries on Mr. Grenville and other merchants of the city; and as it was impossible for him to suspect discovery, his sudden disappearance, and several testimonies given in evidence, left no doubt on the public mind that foul play or accident had caused it. Yet, as he had never mentioned to any where he was going, or what was his business, no suspicion of the perpetrators had ever arisen; but his appearance and valuables were advertised, and it seemed that a distant relation of his had been present during the drunken bout in Baltimore, and instantly recognizing a cyphered seal of De Vaux's, had caused the search, which, after the lapse of five years, brought the fell deed to light.

And now it was the day before the public trial, and expectation, anxiety and sympathy were at the height; a partial examination had taken place, and Ada had taken the place of the suspected man within the town jail. And now it seemed that the mercy of a long suffering God had repaid long years of penitence, of sorrow and prayer, with something of peace-for Ada heard the Bishop speak of one great atonement without feeling herself excluded from its salvation-she heard of the thief upon the cross, of David repenting of his sin, and dared to hope even she might ask for mercy.

The night had come slowly on, and still the venerable Priest of God sat with Ada in her lowly cell; it was perhaps the last night that she would hold an unsentenced life; but so low had suffering reduced her frame, that it was doubtful whether she would survive to expiate the sentence of a broken law. He spoke of hope— hope beyond the grave; of love-love that bore insult, sorrow and death to save mankind; of peace-peace such as the world giveth not, and cannot take away. Suddenly his words were broken by a hurried sound-a sound of many footsteps and confused voices; the next minute the door was opened, and the chief magistrate and officers entered, accompanied by an old man, whom they with difficulty upheld from sinking.

"Ada, my child-my unhappy, injured child! Where is she?" Ada had sprung from her lowly bed, and fell now at her father's feet, laying her head upon the groud in speechless humility.

66

Arise, my child; awake to life and happiness. I come to free thee from guilt and fear-for De Vaux is not dead, but lives!"

As the master painter dropt over the undescribable anguish of the father the veil of con

cealment, so do we leave to imagination a scene past the power of words to pourtray. From the hour when he had bid her leave his presence and see his face no more, he had been a wretched creature; her anguish haunted him with no passing sorrow; and when the extensive villany of De Vaux was discovered, and gave rise to many doubts of false representation and foul play, his torments became unbearably strong. What was his consternation when a few days after, he was summoned to see a stranger with every appearance of mystery, and that stranger proved to be De Vaux himself. The blow struck by a faltering hand had but served to stun him for a time; ere morning dawned recollection had returned, and he had been taken in by colored people, who, wholly ignorant of his name, supposed him to have been hurt in a drunken scuffle. There he had heard that his fraud was discovered and himself a beggar, and with the usual cunning of his character he readily fancied that by holding so shocking a threat above Mr. Grenville's head, he could still dupe him out of money and assistance. In this he instantly succeeded; the conscience stricken father consented to forgive his robbery, and settle a handsome annuity on him as a bribe for silence and immediate departure, and De Vaux had secretly left a city where his <rimes and supposed death were the general subpects of discussion. No tidings or clue could Mr. Crenville ever gain of his hapless child, until five years after, he beheld her name, her guilt and sufferings blazoned in the public prints. To gain immediate evidence of the existence of De Vaux and to proceed with it to Baltimore, was the work but of a few days, and now the father came to free the unfortunate Ada from the crime of blood-guiltiness and the suspended terrors of the law.

"May the ever blessed name of God be praised!" exclaimed the Bishop," the stain of blood is off your heart and hand. Down to the earth and adore Him who in goodness hath chastised you, and in abundant mercy hath brought you peace!"

And Ada, she had stood as one transfixed, while in broken sentences the above was told; when it was done, and the full conviction that the supposed victim to guilt and madness yet lived, rushed over her mind, she made a convulsive motion as of washing her hands, then clasping them above her brow, fell prone upon the earth. They ran to raise her, but the spirit of the suffering creature had already entered into rest. A happy smile played round her livid lips, and seemed the earnest of a blessed hope, that her sins were forgiven and her penitence accepted by a gracious God.

Mr. Grenville survived her not long, and in dying left his large fortune to found that noble asylum, and enlarge that holy order, now so well known by the destitute and diseased; and many a relieved sufferer, many a converted sinner, has since had reason to bless the hour which made the penitent and woworn Ada, a Sister of Charity.

LIFE-Is like the two great rivers of Africa— the Nile and the Niger; we know not where the one begins or the other terminates.

ORIGINAL.

PHILOSOPHY.

To sow those seeds, those principles impart,
That stamp a lustre on the human heart;
To fix the mind, its gifted powers engage,
And waken fancy to adorn the page;
Make virtue bolder, innocence more fair,
Teach folly wisdom, and presumption prayer,
Philosophy her golden thread extends

177

From Man's low being, to his greater ends;
Inspires the mind with what a Newton taught,
What Locke immortalized, and Plato thought;
Yet shows to man that while his power extends,
From nature's being, to her farthest ends;
Sweeps broad creation, yon wide field of air,
And on the wings of numbers visits there;
Though proudly great, or eloquently just,
Can't weigh an atom, or compound a dust;
Can only see, that unities extend

To one great good, the same great general end;
Common alike, intermingled, mix'd,

And God the centre, where they're only fix'd;
In whom they spring, digress, unite, extend,
Life, instinct, cause, first principle and end;
The all existing and in all combine,

The unknown self acting principle of mind;
Effects but seen-nor whence or how they flow,
Is to know all, and all that man can know;
Content in these to legitimately soar,
And feel the immortality he can't explore,

O'er climes extended cast our eyes around,
Admire the cause, and trace the secret bound:
What mighty scenes, what noble structures rise,
Cloud piercing mountains, what delicious skies!
Here towering Alps, there higher Andes grow,
Here blooming nature, there eternal snow;
Regions unknown, from whence no light is brought,
And yet unvisited-only but in thought;

"Tis to the brave, the daring and the bold,
New glories open, and new worlds unfold;
That towering grandeur strikes admiring eyes,
Unfelt by those who hear it with surprise;
Whose coward hearts from dangers learn to flee,
And rest content to hear what others dare to see;

'Tis to the traveller, whose unweary soul,
Melts 'neath the sun, or freezes at the pole;
O'er trackless desarts, beats a pathless way,
Or where he cannot follow, learns to stray;
It is to him, each country and each clime,
From sacred Ganges to Potosi's mine,
From farthest Ind, and Afric's burning sand,
To Australia, and Aleutean land:
Where distant nature teems with other kinds,
From arctic circles, to antarctic climes;
In growing vigour, opening beauties wrought,
Pour all the boundlessness of thought;
Elates, enwraps with pure devotion's fires,
He bows, he bends, man wonders and admires;
Sees the small limits of his infant state,
And all beyond, how mighty, vast and great;
And having ranged the wide creation o'er,
Finds all that's left him, then is, to adore.

J. F. W.

VIEWS OF THE WEST.

From the Saturday Evening Post. STATE OF OHIO.

The first settlement made in this now great state was at Marietta, in April, 1788, by forty-seven adventurers from New England, who went out under the auspices of the Ohio Company, who had purchased of government a million of acres, at the price of twothirds of a dollar per acre. This Company had the choice of the whole domain, but selected the poorest tract in its whole compass. Others soon joined the settlement, and in this wilderness, at least fifteen hundred miles above tide water, ship building was actually carried on to a very considerable extent before the year 1806!

The next settlement was made six miles from Cincinnati, in November, 1788, under the auspices of John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, who was also a large purchaser from government, and who certainly acted more wisely than his son who has since thought proper to devise a lodgment within the centre of the earth! Cincinnati was settled in December following; the streets were laid out during the winters, and their courses marked on the trees, the whole being then a dense and heavy forest. What a wonderful revolution has forty-three years produced, as we shall preseatly show.

The sale of the section in which Cincinnati is laid out was paid for in land warrants, which cost, it is said, only forty-nine dollars! How little anticipation of the immediate future could Symmes have had, when he sold this spot so cheap. He had a splendid fortune in his very grasp, and lost it by a signature, as many have done, and continue to do at the present day. How many among us in Philadelphia are there now who are hewers of wood and writers of paragraphs, whose immediate ancestors sold whole squares of ground, for the price that ten feet of the same would now command!

The first court was held at Cincinnati in 1790. Its increase of population since that period, in round numbers, is thus stated:-in 1795, 500; in 1800, 750; in 1805, 960; in 1810, 2320; in 1813, 4000; in 1815, 6000; in 1818, 9000; in 1820, 10,000; in 1830, 29,000; in 1833, probably 32,000. Well may the reviewer venture to say, that the history of the world does not furnish one other instance of a city built up thus rapidly, without any other agency than that of individual industry and enterprise. It may be looked upon as a phenomenon in the history of population.

We cannot enter into much detail of the settlement of other parts of the state. On the side of the Lake, a lodgment being once made, its rapid improvement immediately followed. How rapid this was, will be seen by the following statement, in round numbers, of the population of the state at different periods. In 1790, 3000; in 1800, 30,000; in 1810, 231,000; in 1820, 581,000; in 1830, 937,000. Thus the population multiplied itself ten times in the first ten years; in the second ten years, seven times; in the third ten years, nearly two and a half times; and in the fourth ten years, nearly thrice. That it will go on rapidly increasing no one can doubt, though it may not probably double itself again under a much longer period than the last.

Without entering into an expose of the laws of this great state, we may mention one feature as curious. Males of the age of 18, and females of the age of 14, who are not nearer of kin than first cousins, are permitted to marry; and if they have attained the ages of 21 and 18, no consent but their own is required to the union. But if disappointed of happiness, a divorce is much more easily obtained than elsewhere. When we add to this, that the excess of free white males in

the state over the females is 31,097-or that there are thirty-one thousand spare husbands, whom, if they do not like on trial, they can perhaps get rid of, we anticipate as soon as the navigation fairly opens that there will be a strong current of emigration from the Eastern States of spinsters!

The State of Ohio covers a surface of 40,000 square miles, of 25,000,000 of acres. About one-fourth of this is yet in the hands of the United States, for sale at one dollar and a quarter per acre. Donations have been made to the legislature, for the furtherance of educa tion, religion, and internal improvement, of 1,763,000 acres, a bountiful provision for all future time, which must continue to render the state great in every respect.

The debt contracted by Ohio for canal purposes amounts to nearly five millions, and the whole length of her navigable canals is four hundred miles. With her great rivers, and Lake Erie added to these, no spot on the face of the globe, of the same extent, contains greater facilities both for internal and external communication. It is curious to see how the credit of Ohio stands the experiment of such a large debt; it is a fact, that her Canal Stock is twenty-nine per cent. above par! and the message of the governor informs us that 100,000 dollars of additional 6 per cent. stock, has recently been disposed of at the rate of 124 dollars cash for 100 dollars. The tolls last year, when the principal canal was unfinished, was 111,000 dol lars; and it is presumable that, without much longer requiring the aid of taxes, the tolls of themselves will, besides paying the entire debt, begin the foundation of a sinking fund.

The taxes in Ohio are very low-say nine mills on the dollar; the highest salary in the state is only 1200 dollars!

STATE OF INDIANA.

The importance and wealth of the western States, is by no means understood by many of the citizens of this republic. Unobtrusive, and not given to puffing, they are silently but surely shaping their course of em pire. We propose in to-days paper, to give an outline of the rise and condition of Indiana, the sister of Ohio, for which purpose we have consulted the best recent authorities, but shall be materially indebted to Flint's Western Geography, new edition, a work which should be a favorite everywhere, and which in fact it is wherever known.

Indiana is in length 250, and in breadth 150 miles, no mean dimensions, when the soil is settled by such hardy and moral citizens as we are about to show is the case. It is divided by nature between prairie and woodland, the latter predominating. The settlers are principally from New England, and we accordingly find there traces of their dialect and manners; the tendency wherever they settle, to rapid increase and prosperity, is nowhere more conspicuous. Other states have enjoyed more notoriety and newspaper description, from being settled by rich planters, &c., but Indiana has been peopled for the most part, by young persons seeking their fortunes, whose progress has been noiseless and unnoticed, though on that account not the less sure and useful. Missouri and Illinois, though so famous in story, have not yet reached a population of 150,000, while Indiana now exceeds 400,000, of whom at least 70,000 are free white male inhabitants over the age of twenty-one years.

The southern, or river Ohio front of the State, is conspicuous for its belt of river hills, bluffs and knobs, having a thousand aspects of grandeur and beauty, sometimes rising more than 300 feet, or twice the height of Christ Church steeple, above the level of the river. In the spring these bluffs are crimsoned with the red bud, whitened with the brilliant blossoms of the dogwood, or rendered verdant with the beautiful