day, shall lay before the accptance the cheapest plan of clearing out the passage of the harbor of to be performed by the next." Patriotic editor! on local subjects of inter an acknowledgment of a new corn-meal, ground a mill at Honolulu." It the personal comfort of t held in thoughtful remen that "the person, gent kind hearts are of both our absence the other sanctum with a commo will be pleased to receive o edgment." May the edi months hence, this articl newspaper while he loung ous fellow he probably is Some omissions in the rather remarkable. For not a single paragraph trials, or accidents; the marriages, or deaths anno a single scrap of poetry of The foreign news is solely gence concerning the gre and it would seem that th either are singularly barr domestic interest, or tha there are totally devoid concern in any and ever what immediately relates But taking it all in all, Era is a literary curiosity, the press in the Pacific. clearer idea of the growin the splendid future of the than the perusal of a doz would have done. Since we began to wr letter has been published in from on board Her Majesty at sea, July 28. The Pre ship of the English squad which, in conjunction with t ron, is sailing in search of of-war. The combined squ Honolulu last July, and some interesting details conc He says that Honolulu is a of about 15,000 inhabitan thing bears the air of adva and improvement." King I "keeps up his court in the in England: he has his pala ters of departments-Europe decided in favor of annexation; and the treaty to that effect was brought over to San Francisco in the Restless, in time to be despatched to Washington by the steamer of the 1st of August.' It is possible that this statement is substantially correct; and should the presumption of the annexation of the islands to the United States be realized, that power will thereby obtain a splendid and incalculably valuable acquisition. Even apart from the commercial importance of the islands, it is hardly possible to overrate their immense value to any great maritime power. To quote the opinion of Mr. Jarves: "If the ports of this group were closed to neutral commerce, many thousand miles of ocean would have to be traversed before havens possessing the requisite conveniences for recruiting or repairing shipping could be reached. This fact illustrates their great importance in a naval point. Should any one of the great nations seize upon them, it might be considered as holding the key of the North Pacific; for no trade could prosper in their vicinity, or even exist, while a hos tile power, possessing an active and powerful marine, should send forth its cruisers to prey upon the neighboring commerce." Well for us, we may add, that Russia is not in possession of these islands! and all the attributes of royalty. Her majesty the queen is blessed with a daughter called the Princess Victoria, after our own queen, and there are several princes of the royal blood. The chiefs are perfect aristocrats, and boast of their unpolluted descent for many generations. The nobility are very fine well grown men, and the difference of their appearance and that of the lower orders indicates a decided superiority of breeding.' His testimony to the importance and value of Honolulu and the islands generally, is emphatic. "I never saw," says he, "in the Pacific such splendid facilities for obtaining supplies for ships. Of course the arrival of our large squadron (three English and four French ships of war) raised the price of the market considerably-more than double; but every thing can be procured--water in abundance, coal, bullocks much finer than the English, sheep and cattle of all kinds, vegetables, fruits, and almost every thing can be obtained, either produced on the islands, or brought from San Francisco, which is only about ten or twelve days' sail. About 300 whalers come to Honolulu every year to refit, and its central position makes it invaluable. It is a sad pity our government has not possession a more glorious depôt for the spuadron and merchantmen could not be found." This writer alludes to the probability that the United States will ere long obtain possession of the Hawaiian group; and if newspaper statements are to be relied on, there is great likelihood that such will be the case. A New York paper positively states, that the Hawaiian government, some time ago, made overtures to the United States' government to "accept the cession of the islands." A favorable answer was returned, which "was submitted to the council, in which body it was approved by all the members, except Prince Alexander, the heir-apparent, and Paki, a high chief. The majority, however, Without entering into any political considerations, we may safely conclude, that whether the Hawaiian group continues an independent state, or whether it is annexed to some powerful country, a great future is certain to open on the history of these islands. Their trade, and the number of foreign settlers upon their shores, must inevitably increase yearly at an accelerated rate; and no limit can be assigned to their progress in commercial and political importance. At present, the Hawaiian is perhaps the most interesting and promising minor kingdom in the world. From the Eclectic Review. a DR. JOHNSON AS A CHRISTIAN AND WHILE most people in the present day | admit Dr. Johnson's power as a whole, and grant him to be an honest, fearless and warmhearted man, much prejudice exists against his peculiar notions and feelings in reference to Christianity, as well as against his critical character and achievements. We propose trying to set the public mind right, so far as our power extends, upon both these topics. And first, as to his Christianity, it is called "gloomy," "bigoted," morose," superstitious," and so forth. Now, it is singular that no one says that he himself was morose. He was, on the contrary, a "fine old fellow," very irritable, very pompous, and at times very savage; but full of kindness, of jocularity, of sociality, a warm friend, and a pleasant companion, whose great delight was in clubs; in short, as he said himself, a 66 very clubable man." He had, indeed, his gloomy hours; but that these sprang principally from his religion we do not believe. They sprang from his temperament, and from the deep views his intellect took of the miseries of human life. He saw and felt more thoroughly than most, even of wise men, the unsatisfactoriness of earthly enjoyments the emptiness of earthly honors-the shortness of earthly life the insincerity and deceitfulness of the human heart and the reality, the uniform pressure, and the terrible mysteriousness of the woes of the world. He "sate in the centre," and how could he "enjoy bright day"? He spake as he saw. His temperament did, indeed, somewhat discolor his perceptions; but it did not alter or impair them. It was not his fault that made to his view "The sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom." Nor is this estimate altogether untrue, although it be partial. Of course, when a *Boswell's Life of Johnson, together with Tour to the Hebrides. Edited by the Right Honorable John Wilson Croker. London: J. Murray. being so shadowy as tem scales, it is difficult to between the bright and things. But we suspec John Foster arrived, by a tolerably correct conce Happiness exists here of and half-developed bud. often felt, at the very mon ment, to be delusions; ou Life in all cases begins mother's and a child's an the apparent defeat of de want their pleasures; scar its anxieties. Most of ou it may be said, from igno But since our ignorance great must be our misery. our knowledge is increas words of the wise man," knowledge, increaseth sorr per Johnson set himself m against all cant; and one o pecially prevalent, and wi warred, the cant of happi it more accurately in one dignagian words, the cant Many people he found "Optime!"-if we are not be; all is for the best; an backs and deductions are a very comfortable little wo if not exactly as Leibnitz a of all possible worlds"? J phatically, "No; this worl We are not happy. It is, in ure, our own blame; but s fact, account for it as you m from happy; and were he crown of stars, and given th a sceptre, he would continue still. There is only one thi make him even approximativ and that is, the Christian life, and the operation of tha character and principles." was the sum and substance o theological creed. He was - The sun tianity by his profound feeling of human woes, Foster felt far more forcibly than Johnson and of the wants of his own nature and the glories of nature and the beauties of art. heart. He had tried every thing else ;-study, Inferior in learning, in critical acumen, and and found it a weariness, when not a burden in dictatorial power over thought and lanand a woe; fame, and found it the dream of guage, he had a subtler, a more poetical, a a bubble; wine, and found it a raging and more enthusiastic genius; this taught him mocking madness; woman, too, and found to admire nature in all its forms with a her help, indeed, invaluable, but her love, as deeper, although a pensive, admiration. He men are wont to idealize it, a delusion; believed, with trembling, in the universe, on society, and found it a restless arena, fitted. which he saw a shade resting like that of the to excite, but unable to satisfy; and he came morning of the first day of the Deluge. The at last to the conclusion, that there was ocean's voice seemed in his ear a wild wail, as nothing in this world worth living for, but if some maniac-god were imprisoned in its the promise of, and the preparation for, dreary caves, and were proclaiming his eternal another; and that all the lights of science, wrongs to earth and the stars. literature, and philosophy were darkness seemed looking on earth from his lofty car compared to the red hues shed over the with an air of supreme scorn and haughty Judean hills by the parting steps of Christ, reserve, and crying out, "What care I for as the prophecy and promise of his coming that petty planet, and the reptile race my again. He did not, indeed (and here lay his beams have generated in its mud-with their wisdom, and this showed his want of fana-animalcular loves, hatreds, wars, fortunes,and ticism), abandon the use of the pleasures which Providence allotted him, and become an austere anchorite. He continued, and with all his might, too, to try and wring out of all lawful pleasures what good there was in them. But this he did with no expectation of complete or ultimate satisfaction, for that he knew it was not in their power to give, but solely that they might strengthen or amuse him in his progress toward that grand and only fountain of peace and soul-security which rises in another world. It has been often said, that Dr. Johnson, as well as Foster, failed to see life in its beauty, its nice arrangements, its poetry, and its hopeful tendencies. Had this been said to the former, he would have gruffly replied, "All canting absurdity. There is beauty, indeed, in nature, although my dim eyes can not see it very clearly, and although I hate to hear poetasters whining about purling streams and pastoral crooks; but I can admire better than they the solemn magnificence of forests, the outspread expanse and booming thunders of ocean, and the dread glories of the midnight sky. But I know that this is a life compounded of mistakes and miseries, of delusive pleasures and real wretchedness, of vice, terror, and uncertainty, a life which the most of men spend in estrangement from God, and in enmity with one another, and which the best have ever felt to be a weariness and a heavy load, and cried out, We loathe it; we would not live always.' The only real good on earth is virtue, and that is not the result of life, but a communication from on high, and a pledge faiths ?" The moon seemed (as he describes her in a passage of his journal) to be contemplating our world with a melancholy interest, but the interest of one who had long given up the hope of doing any good to man, or of ever seeing him becoming better. And the stars appeared like the fiery spires and watch towers of the walls of hell, surrounding the miseries of earth with an aspect of fixed and far-off indifference. And yet, notwithstanding the gloomy discoloration in which he saw all these objects, he continued to admire them to enthusiasm. He sometimes reminds us of that band of fallen angels whom Milton describes exploring the distant regions of their place of pain, and imbibing a certain deep, though sullen joy, as they pass "O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp." So, Foster, deeming this universe little better than a vast hell, yet admitted it to be a most splendid one-all deluged and shining with a dreadful glory, which at once fascinated and terrified his soul. As his religious views were of a sterner cast than Johnson's, so his views of man and of life were even darker than his. He also fell at times into deep abysses of doubt, from which, in general, Johnson kept free; and, unlike Johnson, he did not seek to snatch his share of the passing pleasures of the world, but held them in a scorn too deep even to taste their flavor as they hurried by. Both, however, seem to have come to the same conclusion on one momentous question-we | gles, trials, temptations, itual sadness, peculiar to is compared to a birth, agony. He is the spec obloquies from men and by invisible enemies; an contented with no other plied in the consciousness brave struggle, and in t life. He is promised "not! blessedness." Finally. his fellows, to contend wi dences, with poverty, and ties of his own temper c may be more pressed by men, and may thus seen than they, notwithstanding welling up within, and t glorious destiny seen hov We have at present two pr view as illustrating the p thus stated. Both belong of the earth, and find the dearer to them than thei But the one has been bles nant temper, an undisturbe visited by few trials, and en flow of health all his life. been as happy as this sta permit; has been troubled or misgivings, and hardly ha fled for a moment. The oth of health less firm, a nerv excitable, a temper more in cation more neglected, and checkered; and has, the the whole, unhappy, morbic excellence is admitted by al he is evidently far from t that blessed peace and cal sessed by the other, and se to reach them till recast in and admitted to a serener re Those entertain very f Christianity who dream tha believed it always operates creates around the believer stant heaven on earth. T think, done much injury to heartened many at the di way, and sent back from the encountered not a few plia wise might have struggled Preachers have dealt too mu while painting the Christ should remember, as Croly face to his sermons, "that manly religion;" that it is t ally that it calls. ("To yo |
