indeed, was rather interesting, the head lying in a natural position, with a bishop's c.p on it; it was covered with jewels, especially pale rubies, and was some hundreds of years old. The jewels but poorly supplied the place of life, the jewel of jewels. On the same night we reached Nuremburg, which, in the middle ages, was the centre of the fine arts, and which I was prepared to see very much in decay, though interesting from its quaintness. In the last I was not disappointed, but I was surprised to see it so flourishing and rich; but wherever Protestantism predominates over Catholicism the buildings look tidy and spruce, and the people industrious and cheerful. Catholic saints and heroes; the candles even burn on the altar during the service, which otherwise is like our congregational service, consisting of hymns sung by the people, prayers read by the minister, (but not responded to vocally by the congregation,) and a sermon. I attended an afternoon service in this church. There are among the pictures in it some of Albert Dürer's, and all the pictures and sculpture are good, being by the best Nuremburg artists. Opposite St. Sebaldus is the chapel of St. Maurice, now used as a picture gallery, and opened (as soon as the church service closes on Sunday morning) to the public. The pictures are the finest of the Byzantine school that I have seen. A number of children, evidently of the poorest was opened, and seemed to be deeply interested in the pictures; then came adults, and it was soon full. I was most interested in an Ecce Homo of Dürer's, in which the thorn-crowned Christ seemed to be forgetting his pain in thought, though the flesh evidently was suffer Nuremburg was long a free city, and besides it is in Bavaria, which is not so poor and broken-classes, streamed into the gallery as soon as it hearted a place as Bohemia. Germans are a more industrious people than any Sclavic race, at least so they maintain; but a German can never do justice to the Sclavonian races. There is an antipathy as deep between those races as between the Germans and the Celts. When will they try to understand each other? Al-ing. I wondered what was in the minds of ready the Germans have fructified by the lyrical and musical genius of the Sclavonians. Albert Dürer's statue in bronze and the house where he was born and where he painted, and where, I believe, he died, were the first objects of interest to us, and we saw them within twenty-four hours of our arrival. In his house were many of his pictures, and it is kept in nice order to be seen by strangers, whose fees to the woman who attends are probably her living. Nu In the court yard of the palace, which we visited, is a tree 900 years old, planted by Queen Cunegunde. The castle forms a part of the fortified wall of old Nuremburg, which formerly had three hundred round towers; now there are only one hundred; the four principal ones were planned by Dürer, and built of cut stone. remburg is divided into two parts by the Pegnitz river, over which are eight bridges, some making picturesque scenes. On one side is the church of St. Lawrence, (formerly Catholic,) full of statuary and pictures, the works of native artists of Nuremburg, who made the middle age art so glorious. On its porch is sculptured the last judgment; the painted glass in the church. is very splendid, but the chef d'œuvre of art in it is a stone sanctuary in the form of a spire at the right of the choir, full of little statuettes, and resting on the shoulders of three figures, which represent the artist Adam Krafft and his two principal workmen. In a sepulchral monument in the middle of the church reposes the body of Sophia of Brandenburg. The church of St. Sebaldus, the patron saint of Nuremburg, renowned for his charities, is a Protestant church now, but retains, as do all the Lutheran churches conquered from the Catholics, all the pictures, statues, monuments, &c., of the old! these gazing children as they surveyed this and To the Editors of the Friends' Intelligencer. I herewith transmit for your readers the following beautiful little poem, written by Bernard Barton. The reaching, searching and spirit-stirring character of the lines commend them to our attentive perusal. QUESTIONS. I. What is our being's aim and end?— To tempt our tarriance here?— II. For proudest deeds,-if wanting this,- III. Liv'st thou to heap up treasured store T. "MY FATHER'S AT THE HELM." When foamy cares surround thy bark, And all within is very dark, No star appears to light thy way, And thou art longing for the dayOh, think, dear child of God, that then "A Father's hand is at the belm." And when thy cares like billows come, Dashing against thee, one by one, And thou dost think thy tiny shell Must sink beneath the mountain swellOh, be at peace, for 'tis just then "A Father's hand is at the helm." All gone before have found, like thee, Life has but been a stormy sea; They've had their nights of darkness too, And fears and foes, as well as you; Yet all reached home, to loud proclaim, A Father's band was at the helm." Then banish fear, dear child of God, And kiss the hand that gives the rod; There is a needs-be for thy cross, And thou'lt receive therefrom no loss, For nothing can thy soul o'erwhelmA Father's hand is at the helm." I am afraid that our domestic life will not bear looking into. I fear that our houses will not be found to have unity, and to express the best thought. The household, the calling, the friendships of the citizen are not homogeneous. His house ought to show us his honest opinion of what his well-being consists in when he rests among his kindred, and forgets all affectation, all compliance, and even all exertion of will. He brings home thither whatever commodities and ornaments have for years allured his pursuit, and his character must be seen in them. But what idea predominates in our houses? Thrift first, then convenience and pleasure. Take off all the roofs from street to street, and we shall seldom find the temple of any higher god than Prudence. The progress of domestic living has been in cleanliness, in ventilation, in health, in decorum, in countless means and arts of comfort, in the concentration of all the utilities of every clime in each house. They are arranged for low benefits. The houses of the rich are confectioners' shops, where we get sweetmeats and wine; the houses of the poor are imitations of these to the extent of their ability. With these ends housekeeping is not beautiful; it cheers and raises neither the husband, the wife, nor the child; neither the host, nor the guest: it oppresses women. A house kept to the end of prudence is laborious without joy; a house kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought. If we look at this matter curiously, it becomes dangerous. We need all the force of an idea to lift this load; for the very wealth and mul tiplication of conveniences embarrass us, especially in northern climates. The shortest enumeration of our wants in this rugged climate appalls us by the multitude of things not easy to be done. And if you look at the multitude of particulars, one would say, good housekeeping is impossible. Order is too precious a thing to dwell with men and women. See how, in families where there is both substance and taste, at what expense any favorite punctuality is maintained. If the children, for example, are considered, dressed, dieted, attended, kept in proper company, schooled, and at home fostered by the parents-then does the hospitality of the house suffer. Friends are less carefully bestowed, the daily table less catered. If the hours of meals are punctual, the apart ments are slovenly. If the linens and hangings | revision and reform. Generosity does not conare clean and fine and the furniture good, the sist in giving money or money's worth. These yard, the garden, the fences are neglected. so called goods are only the shadow of good. If all are well attended, then must the master and mistress be studious of particulars at the cost of their own accompli-bments and growth, or persons are treated as things. The difficulties to be overcome must be freely admitted; they are many and great. Nor are they to be disposed of by any criticism or amendment of particulars taken one at a time, but only by the arrangement of the household to a higher end than those to which our dwel lings are usually built and furbished. And is there any calamity more grave, or that more deserves the best good will to remove it than this?-to go from chamber to chamber and see no beauty; to find in the housemates no aim; to hear au endless chatter and blast; to be compelled to criticise; to hear only to dissent and to be disgusted; to find no invitation to what is good in us, and no receptacle for what is wise. This is a great price to pay for sweet bread and warm lodging-being defrauded of affinity, of repose, of heavenly culture, and the inmost presence of beauty. To give money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence-a credit system in which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of a liquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man man. If he is sick, is unable, is meanspirited and odious, it is because there is so much of his nature which is unlawfully withholden from him He should be visited in this his prison with rebuke to the evil demons, with manly encouragement, with no meanspirited offer of condolence because you have not money, or mean offer of money as the utmost benefit, but by your heroism, by your purity, by your faith. You are to bring with you that spirit which is understanding-health and selfhelp. To offer him money in lieu of these is to do him the same wrong as when the bridegroom offers his betrothed virgin a sum of money to release him from his engagements. The great depend on their heart, not on their purse. Genius and Virtue, like diamonds, are best plain set-set in lead, set in poverty. The greatest man in history was the poorest. How was it with the captains and sages of Greece and Rome was made general receiver of Greece to collect the tribute which each state was to furnish against the barbarian. "Poor," says Plutarch, "when he set about it, poorer when he had finished it." How was it with Æmilius and Cato? What kind of house was kept by Paul and John? by Milton and Marvell? by Samuel Johnson and Jean Paul Richter? It is a sufficient accusation of our ways of living, and certainly ought to open our ear to every good-minded reformer, that our idea of domestic well being now needs wealth to exe--with Socrates, with Epaminondas? Aristides cute it. Give me the means, says the wife, and your house shall not annoy your taste nor waste your time. On hearing this, we understand how these Means have come to be so omnipotent on earth. And indeed the love of wealth seems to grow chiefly out of the root of the love of the Beautiful. The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat and wool and household stuff. It is the means I think it plain at first sight that this voice of freedom and benefit. We scorn shifts. We of communities and ages-"Give us wealth, desire the elegancy of munificence. We desire and the good household shall exist"—is vicious, at least to put no stint or limit on our parents, and leaves the whole difficulty untouched. It relatives, guests, or dependents. We desire to is better, certainly, in this form, "Give us play the benefactor and the prince with our your labor, and the household begins." I see townsmen, with the stranger at the gate, with the not how serious labor, the labor of all and bard, or the beauty, with the man or woman of every day, is to be avoided; and many things worth who alights at our door. How can we betoken a revolution of opinion and practice in do this, if the wants of each day imprison us regard to manual labor that may go far to aid in lucrative labors, and constrain us to a con- our practical inquiry. Another age may divide tinual vigilance lest we be betrayed into expense. the manual labor of the world more equally on Give us wealth and the home shall exist. all the members of society, and so make the But that is a very poor solution, a very inglori- labors of a few hours avail to the wants and add ous solution of the problem, and therefore no to the vigor of the man. But the reform that solution. "Give us wealth." You ask too applies to the household must not be partial. much. Few have wealth; but all must have a It must correct the whole system of our social home. Men are not born rich; and in getting living. It must come with plain living and wealth, the man is sacrificed, and often is sacri- high thinking; it must break up caste, and ficed without acquiring wealth at last. Besides, put domestic service on another foundation. that cannot be the right answer; there are objec- It must come in connection with a true accepttions to wealth. Wealth is a shift. The wise ance on the part of each man of his vocation man angles with himself only, and with no-not chosen by his parents or friends, but by meaner bait. Our whole use of wealth needs bis genius, with earnestness and love. Nor is this redress so hopeless as it seems. Certainly, if we begin by reforming particulars of our present system, correcting a few evils and letting the rest stand, we shall soon give up in despair. For our social forms are very far from truth and equity. But the way to set the axe at the root of the tree is to raise our aim. Let us understand, then, that a house should bear witness in all its economy that human culture is the end to which it is built and garnished. It stands there under the sun and moon to ends analogous and not less noble than theirs. It is not for festivity, it is not for sleep; but the pine and the oak shall gladly descend from the mountains to uphold the roof of men as faithful and necessary as themselves; to be the shelter always open to the Good and the True; a hall which shines with sincerity, brows ever tranquil, and a demeanor impossible to disconcert; whose inmates know what they want; who do not ask your house how theirs should be kept. They have aims; they cannot pause for trifles. The diet of the house does not create its order, but knowledge, character, action absorb so much life, and yield so much entertainment, that the refectory has ceased to be curiously studied. With a change of aim has followed a change of the whole scale by which men and things were wont to be measured. Wealth and Poverty are seen for what they are. It begins to be seen that the poor are only they who feel poor, and poverty consists in feeling poor. The rich, as we reckon them, and among them the very rich, in a true scale would be found very indigent and ragged. The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets. Let a man, then, say, My house is here in the country, for the culture of the country-au eating-house and sleeping house for travellers it shall be, but it shall be much more. I pray you, O excellent wife! not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bedchamber made ready at too great a cost. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dollar at any village. But let this stranger see, if he will, in your looks, in your accent and behavior. your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, that which he cannot buy at any price, at any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles and dine sparely and sleep hard in order to behold. Certainly, let the board be spread and let the bed be dressed for the traveller; but let not the emphasis of hospi latity lie in these things. Honor to the house where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is awake and sees the laws of the universe, the soul worships truth and love; honor and courtesy flow into all the deeds. There was never a country in the world which could so easily exhibit this heroism as ours; never anywhere the State has made such efficient provision for popular education, where intellectual entertainment is so within reach of youthful ambition. The poor man's son is educated. There is many a humble house in every city, many in every town, where talent and taste, and sometimes genius, dwell with poverty and labor. Who has not seen, and who can see unmoved, under a humble roof, the eager, blushing boys discharging as they can their household chores, and hastening into the sitting-room to the study of to-morrow's merciless lesson, yet stealing time to read a few pages more of the novel hardly smuggled into the tolerance of father and mother-atoning for the same by some pages of Plutarch, or Goldsmith; the warm sympathy with which they kindle each other in school-yard, or in barn or wood shed, with scraps of poetry or song, with scraps of the last oration, or mimicry of the orator; the youthful criticism, on Sunday, of the sermons; the school declamation faithfully rehearsed at home, sometimes to the fatigue, sometimes to the admiration of sisters; the first solitary joys of literary vanity, when the translation or theme has been completed, sitting alone near the top of the house; the affectionate delight with which they greet the return of each one after the early separations which school or business require; the foresight with which, during such absences, they hive the honey which opportunity offers for the ear and imagination of the others, and the unrestrained glee with which they disburden themselves of their early mental treasures, when the holidays bring them again together. What is the hoop that holds them staunch? It is the iron band of poverty, of necessity, of austerity, which, excluding them from the sensual enjoyments which make other boys too early old, has directed their activity in safe and right channels, and made them, spite of themselves, reverers of the grand, the beautiful, and the good. Ah! short-sighted students of books, of Nature, and of man! too happy could they know their advantages. They pine for freedom from that mild parental yoke; they sigh for fine clothes, for rides, for the theatre, and premature freedom and dissipation which others possess. them, if their wishes were crowned! The angels that dwell with them, and are weaving laurels of life for their youthful brows, are Toil, and Want, and Truth, and Mutual Faith. Woe to "Each moment as it passes is the meetingplace of two eternities" For Friends' Intelligencer. TWELFTH MONTH. Rain during some portion of Rain all or nearly all day,... 1866. 1867. 5 days. 4 days. 1 66 5 แ 11 17 8 31 7 " 1867. crater and many new openings to the air, but it continues to blaze after its ejection. A slight subsi dence of the volcanic motion had taken place, and on Monday, the 9th of December, the mountain remained almost quiescent, its sides being covered to a great extent with snow. A heavy colored smoke issued from what the savans term the "smoke-holes," old and new. Tuesday night, December 10, the eruption was resumed with great force, and a mass of lava, resembling a solid rock, was shot from the crater to a great height, and as seen from this city, rolled down the sides of the great cone after falling. A loud roar, as of artillery, was heard during the entire night. The mountain was veiled in darknnss long after the hour of daybreak the next morning. As the forenoon advanced a strong wind sprung up from the north and dispelled the gloom, and Vesuvius has been witnessed in its fiery daily grandeur since. To-day a perfect river of fire is seen to flow from the mountain, running in a westerly direction. The fiery flood is nearing the town of Cercala. The upheaving of the volcano is attended with shocks resembling those of an earthquake, and loud detonations, as of a battery of heavy guns in full play, are heard. A perfect panic prevails among the inhabitants of all the villages situated in the neighborhood of the foot of the mountain.-The Press. SOLOMON'S TEMPLE EXHUMED.-The London Times publishes an interesting letter in regard to the discoveries at Jerusalem, from which we select the following: "The colossal foundations of the temple wall, which are 'stones of ten cubits and stones of eight cubits,' laid by Solomon or his successors on the throne, are now being laid bare at the enormous depth of 90 feet and more beneath the present surface. The bridge that once spanned the ravine between the palace of Zion and the temple on Moriah 22.47-inch. 30.30 inch. is now proved to have been upward of 150 feet high. It this be, as it seems, the ascent to the House of the Lord which Solomon showed to the Queen of Sheba, we cannot wonder that on seeing it there was no spirit in her. The pinnacle of the temple on which the tempter placed the Saviour has just been uncovered to the base, and is found still to have an elevation of 136 feet. The statement of Josephus is the battlements into the valley he would be giddy, therefore no exaggeration. If any one looked from while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth. Sections of the ancient wall of Ophel have been exhumed, showing that, as Josephus says, it was joined to the southeast angle of the Temple. Aqueducts, cisterns, rock-hewn channels and passages have also been discovered within and around the harem, throwing new light on the buildings, the arrangements, and the services of the Temple. The great work of a complete exploration of ancient Jerusalem is thus fairly and auspiciously commenced. The opportune visit of the Sultan and Grand Vizer to this country, and the representations made to the latter by the Archbishop of York, followed up as they have been by the energy, the wisdom, and tact of Lieutenant Warren and his admirable staff, have smoothed down Moslem prejudice, removed local opposition, and thus brought about opportunities for excavation and exploration such as never occurred before; and besides, large numbers of Arab laborers have been trained to the work, and are eager to be employed; and the exact points for successful exploration are now well known-The Press. $160 00 THE BOSTON JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY says that NAPLES, Jan. 4.—The eruption of Mount Vesuvius, pencil writings may be fixed almost as indelibly as which was described some few days since as becom-ink by passing the moistened tongue over it. ing still more intensely grand, is just now quite breathing slowly over the lines, after writing, ienalarming. The whole of the volcano is in violent ders them much less liable to erasure than when not action, and the flame issues not only from the old subjected to that process. Even |