[SEE ENGRAVING.]

Great men were they of olden time; men with far-reaching and strong, grasping minds—men, too, of discrimination in what they gathered—“teach them selection, not collection,” was the word—and they prepared for us of this distant age monuments to excite admiration and insure awe; monuments which, while they exhibit what man is capable of doing, seem, by the perfection of their form and the adaptation of their parts, to check all spirit of imitation; monuments which denote all variety of mental exercise and all the adaptation of physical powers. It is not alone the chisel of Phidias working out the marble in a thousand forms, more beautiful than the human pattern—it is not alone the pencil of Zeuxis that fixed on canvas the flitting beauties of the field and grove—it is not alone the vast machinery that piled stone upon stone to finish the pyramids. Mind speaking to mind has uttered its powers, and has claimed of the present, wonder for the past; History and Poetry have embalmed the actions of the great, or expressed the devotion of the good, and assured us of the lofty resolves and great deeds of men of other years. The beauty of the ancient mind, however, is to be detected by the uses and adaptation of ordinary incidents—bending them to moral instruction by making them illustrative of some principle—patriotism, religion, social duty and domestic relations, or some deeply hidden power, which sudden emotion, strong impulse, or unexpected dilemma, is to call into action.

Take the following, which is some where extant. We give only the statement of the asserted fact. We have no copy of the narrative.

Leucippe was gathering the small delicate flowers which blossomed over the dampness of a rock that beetled far into the sea, and held its cold brow high above the waves breaking eternally at its base. It was a lovely spot, cool, fragrant, health-giving, and she took with her her little child, the only blessing which had been spared. For one moment the love of the beautiful of nature, the interest of collecting, triumphed over maternal vigilance. She turned, however, from the little harvest of sweets, and saw her boy bending over the edge of the rock, regardless of all danger, hopeful of only a single beautiful flower that blossomed on the very edge of the steep. One word of fear from the mother, one sudden movement toward the child would have disturbed his balance, and he must have toppled down beyond all hope of recovery even of the lifeless form. No time was left for calculation, no good could result from active efforts. With unspeakable anguish the mother saw the danger, with the promptness of woman’s judgment she rejected the ordinary means of safety; with the instincts of a mother’s heart she threw herself gently forward, and bared her bosom to the child, and lured him gently back to nestle on his own home of comfort, and draw life from the sympathetic founts that gushed to his honeyed lips. It was the triumph of nature, and the story seems to have inspired the artist for this month. A beautiful illustration, while the picture itself has suggested a title happily expressive of the idea conveyed in the anecdote, “Nature’s Triumph.”

But such a story, so full of instruction, so pregnant with moral hints, should not be allowed to pass without an improvement, that may make it more and more beneficial. The experiment and the result may be properly styled the triumph of nature, for the deep solicitude of the mother, and especially her prompt expedient, are as much the movement of nature as is the affection in which they originated; and the attraction of the exposed bosom for the exposed child, was as much the gift of nature as was the hidden food which that bosom secreted and stored.

But we love to consider the success of Leucippe as the “Triumph of Affection,” not less than the “Triumph of Nature.” It is both, as it is differently considered; it is either, in many ways regarded.

Would the child, amused as it was with the flowers that jutted out from the rock’s impending edge, and pleased with the species of independence which its movements and new position signified, would the child have been lured by the exhibition of any other bosom than that of its mother? Had a stranger discovered the little adventurer, and being like Leucippe, conscious of the danger of calling aloud, of startling the child by any approach, had she bared her bosom, would not the infant have turned away without interest from the exhibition, and pursued its new occupation of flower gathering? Undoubtedly the unknown, who had from prudence done what affection suggested to Leucippe, would have seen at once that she lacked the attractive power, that there was no sympathy between her and the child. She might have felt all that a woman can feel for the lovely infant of another—thus dangerously situated—but the infant itself would not have been influenced by a corresponding sympathy; it would have lacked that affection necessary to a proper response to the exhibition.

The triumph, then, is one of affection sympathizing with affection; corresponding love answering with miraculous organ, and instructing the great and good of all subsequent times by the promptings of a mother’s instincts, and the sympathies of an infant’s feelings. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.”

I was struck a few months since with the distress that was bearing down an intimate friend, and he made me the confidant of his sorrows, and of their cause. The young offender had forgotten the respect due to his parents; he had forgotten or disregarded the respect which he owed to the beautiful fame which had come down to him unsullied through several generations; family pride, instead of exhibiting itself in supporting the long-descended credit, was visible in a sort of obstinate adherence to some misconceived ideas of self-importance; he was ruining his own health, and was fast approaching the precipice over which his passions, or rather let me say, his passion, would soon hurry him. His father had, at times, severely chid the wayward youth, and the mother had, day by day, warned him of his danger, so that he had by his false estimate of filial duties and parental care, rather been accelerated in his progress toward the line of destruction. A change was suggested in the mode of dealing—his own danger was not pointed out, but his attention was attracted back upon those whom he had loved—and had left; he saw whence he had derived all that delight to childhood, and he turned back to the fountain of affection which had gushed anew; and the birds of prey that had been hovering round the precipice where he hung were disappointed of their quarry. Those, who had wheeled around him with pliant wing and open beak, hopeful of spoil, screamed their disappointment in their filthy eyrie, and confessed their defeat in the triumph of nature and affection.

I know well that the voice of kindness, uttered to the erring, is often disregarded or despised, but less owing to the want of power in the instrument, than in the want of preparation in the object. So much of anger is manifested toward the vicious, that they grow suspicious of every exhibition of feeling in their behalf. You who would lure them back to virtue, must not pause at a single token of kind feeling; repeat the words of consolation; remember that the very fault which you would correct may have brought a part of the obstinacy which you deplore—remove the obstinacy by kindness, and thus open a channel to the source of the fault. He who would reclaim the vicious must lay his account to find the moral system reached in almost all its parts by those faults which by their prominency seem to be the only ones that appeal for remedy; and the failure of one measure must invite to another; if one experiment lacks effect, strengthen it by another; do not work with single means—it is false economy. Leucippe bared both breasts to her wandering infant.

Conjugal affection disturbed by some occurrences which are unbecoming, and yet seem unavoidable, is not to be lessened by argument to prove either party right or wrong. These will, much more readily, create acerbity by wounding pride, than restore the lapsed passion. Affection has little to do with the logic of an argument—little to derive from the temper of discussion. When the evil is evident; when the disturbance is most oppressive, let not the parties imagine that any thing like cool reflection is to be had, or is to be made available; let the woman look back beyond the season of disquietude; let her bare her affections as they were when all was sunshine in the domestic circle; let her appeal to the undisturbed peace of such a scene, and by her conduct show her erring husband that it is possible to make the recollection of early delight stronger than the memory of present bitterness. Men learn this lesson easily, and practice it willingly. They need a teacher—they need precept and example; but they are willing to follow the leadings, and exhibit and rejoice in the triumph of affection. It is so, apparently in the great things of religion. Awful as are the dangers of neglect, it would seem that the terrors of the law are less operative than the persuasions of love. Notwithstanding the momentous question propounded, and the alternative made manifest, it would seem to an ordinary thinker, that the best mode of preventing a course that would incur the terrible penalty, would be to present the consequences of neglect, and to drive by terrible denunciations the erring one from the path that leads down to death. But not so argues the inspired Apostle. “Knowing therefore the terrors of the law,” (how appalling that thought,) “we persuade men,” (how gentle, how enticing, how successful in such a cause becomes “the triumph of affection.”)

Whenever a triumph is to be achieved over evil passions or vicious habits, then the appeal to the affections by the affections must be the means employed. We may check action or delay execution by fear, but we produce no change in the sentiment, no correction of the motive. We may prevent the offending one from injuring others, but we do not by such means lessen his power or his chance of injuring himself.

Oh, how much of destruction, how much of the waste of human feelings, human pride, and glorious self-respect are due to the want of care in attempts to draw offenders from the place of moral danger. Go to the home of wretchedness and vice, and see how promptly the heart responds to the voice of kindness, how one touch of nature awakens the memory of early love, and recalls the hour of peace and virtue, until the heart aches to contemplate the chasm that vice has placed between the future and the terrible present.

Sneer at her who, unable yet to appreciate the consequences of error, treads the path of danger or dallies on the borders to gather flowers that blossom near destruction. Sneer at her and she falls; call her back by the remembrance of home and home joys, by the love of father and friend; recall to her mind the unfailing affection of a mother, and she will turn willingly from her false position, be saved the crime, and only know what the consequences might have been, by marking the fate of those who had none to lure them back.

Our picture it is believed will be suggestive beyond our remarks. It deserves a careful examination; may we not hope that hundreds who gaze at the work of art will take up the moral lesson which it conveys, and resolve that vice shall owe no triumph to their unkindness, and that virtue shall not lose its followers for a want of the evidences of affection in their lives and conduct. It is lessons such as these that make art useful. It is lessons such as these that make the pagans respected—it is the “triumph of nature” over art, and the prevalence of affection over error, that make Christianity beloved. We are happy to make this Magazine the vehicle of moral truth, that takes the best of ancient sentiment and of modern art for its means, and has for its end the cultivation and triumph of purest affection.

C.

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