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credit of the exhibition, and the benefit of the fund.

The Crown Princess of Prussia sets a good example to her household, and to Prussian society, in the sanctifying of the Lord's day. When she first went to Berlin, she frequently attended the English services held by the missionary of the London Jews' Society, who has for many years been in the habit of conducting a service for the English residents. As there was no stated clergyman to attend to the spiritual welfare of the poorer members of the English congregation, the Princess exerted herself to get the want supplied. There is now an excellent clergyman, who has service every Sunday at the English Embassy, while the missionary still continues his services in the usual place, in one of the royal palaces which the late worthy King of Prusaia had placed at the disposal of the English residents. While the Crown Princess frequently attends the English chapel, she as frequently, if not more so, attends the German service at the Dom, where the court chaplains, chiefly Dr. Hoffman and Dr. Kögel, preach and conduct the services.

A. A. LOW,

PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

The ECLECTIC has been wont to enrich its pages with biographical sketches and portraits of men eminent in public station, or in the various departments of learning and intellectual effort-in Histo ry, Poetry, Science, Statesmanship, and the Belles-lettres. It has thus borne the honored names of Bancroft, Prescott, and Motley; of Everett, Agassiz, and Washington Irving; of Fenimore Cooper, Morse, Choate, and, Bradis; men of European as well as American reputation. We think it a fitting time to present to its readers some prominent representatives of the great department of American Commerce; once more, and soon, destined to spread her white wings over every sea, under our now gloriously vindicated and universally honored flag. With whom can we more appropriately or obviously begin, than with him whose

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name stands at the head of this article, and whose engraved Portrait forms the Frontispiece of this number of our magazine?

ABIEL ABBOT Low is a native of Salem, Massachusetts; whence in his later youth he removed to our sister city of Brooklyn, with the family of his highly respected father, the late Seth Low. Soon afterwards he emigrated to China; where he entered the well known house of Russell & Co., of Canton; to the head of which he rose some time before the brief period of eight years had expired. On the completion of that term, in 1841, he returned to this country, bringing with him the ample knowledge of and experience in business which he had gained from his foreign residence, and the means for establishing a new mercantile house in this city, which now ranks as the leading American house in the China trade.

We feel constrained to great reserve in speaking at all thus publicly of one, of whose native and intrinsic modesty of disposition we are so well aware. The time-procul, o procul esto!-for any full analysis of his character and career has not indeed come. But there must be reasons for the elevated mercantile and social position which Mr. Low has already attained, which make his success a public treasure, and to our young merchants an encouragement and an inspiration. The success of merit, is a public treasure. It is good for any community to be able to point to examples within itself of men, who without remarkable advantages of birth or education, have not only risen to eminence, but have grown rich without reproach; and by an honest, straightforward, industrious, noble and generous use and improvement of those talents which were the gift of God, have fitted themselves to become-have actually become wise and public-spirited almoners of the wealth and the influence they have secured. Nor can any greater or better inspiration and encouragement be offered to our young men than such examples; holding forth to them a high ideal; illustrating the possibilities within their achievement; and showing in actual being and high relief the beauty, the glory, the grandeur, and the beneficence of a high-toned, high-principled, consistent and Christian business life.

The merchants of this great metropolis have twice called Mr. Low, at the last election by acclamation, to preside over their Chamber of Commerce. This of itself is no small compliment, no empty honor. But it is also a striking confirmation of what, at least a dozen years ago, was declared to us by one of our oldest and most prominent merchants to have been the estimation in which he was even then held, for sound judgment and remarkable foresight, as well as for incorruptible principle, and the highest executive ability. In the grave and often delicate and difficult questions which have come before the Chamber during the recent tremendous crisis of our national, and especially our commercial affairs, all this has been especially and abundantly justified by the words and deeds of its President.

Nor is it only in his chosen path as a

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merchant, that Mr. Low has won the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens and of the community. Like others of our merchant princes, he is the patron and friend of art, of good learning, of popular education, and of wise charities in the city of his residence and of our own community. The institutions of our holy religion find in him a zealous and a consistent supporter; and in the vast demand for patriotic counsel, effort, and bounty, which the great rebellion has made upon the nation, no man has been more faithful or more exemplary. Possessed in full of the truest manliness of deportment, and a large heartedness of spirit which holds him above everything which is mean and small, it were not surprising that in private life he should wear the rare and indescribable charın of blended graciousness and simplicity, which is sure to win the heart.

POETRY.

ECHO.

PAN loquitur.

THE red moon shone upon the summer corn,
The night-wind gently rocked to rest
The lotus-flowers at our feet,

As o'er the ebbing sea of her white breast
I saw love-ripples come and go,
And heard her young heart beat.

The wild-thyme shed abroad its perfume soft,
The violet hung its head for shame,
And blushed the gladiolus flowers,
When with sweet voice she speak my name;
And then, to hide her glowing face,
Shook down her hair in showers.

The amber veil could not her beauty hide;
Her eyes shone through the golden mist
As sunlight through the summer rain;
And her red dewey lips, like coral kissed

By clear and proudly crested waves,
Breath'd forth my name again.

But now no more I see my Echo's face;
For her I search each wooded glade
And grove of olives far and near;
Yet when the rich dew falls upon the blade,
Beneath the oak-trees with ivy tressed
A low sad voice I hear.

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Is it not so with thee, Jeanie ?

Doth not in the blue above Thy sun shine out through the happy drops That fall in thy summer of love?

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And wondered if his glance would fall
On letters carved by him of yore,
In days that he regrets no more-
That I with burning thoughts recall.

The golded Past, that haunts me yet,
Whose faded glory seems to him
Like twilight distance, cold and dim—
Oh, strange it is how men forget!

Yet through those hours my will was strong
To school my heart to stifle pain—
I could not act that farce again!
But night came, though the day was long.

Night came; they went. His farewell tone
Rings in my ear. "Twill be the last!
My heart's fierce ordeal is past;
Beneath the stars I stand alone.

-Temple Bar.

LOVE AND PRIDE.

AND so the door has closed on love,
And closed for me on day,

And I must now take heart and go
Upon my lonely way.
For pride stood in the deadly lists,
A dark, relentless foe,
And stirred the depths of bitterness,
To bid my true love go.
And love lies slain upon the field,
His death-deep wound I see,

But surely his sweet shade will come,
To mock my pride and me;
To mock us in our wild unrest,
And triumph o'er the foe,
That stirred the depths of bitterness,
To bid my true love go.

To whisper, "Could thy pride be slain,
By me in combat true,

The love-light yet might burn again
Within thine eves fond blue.
But I am but a ghostly shade,
And he my mortal foe,

That stirred the depths of bitterness,
To bid thy true love go.”
-London Society.

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Whether a murderer or king,

A parasite or baser thing,

Thou 'dst hope in youth, despair when old, Great joy, and misery untold;

And look'dst as if all seen was old,
And life only a tale re-told,
With eyes of deep inquiry fixed;
Eyes-'tis clay, with fiery essence mixed.

This head once like a blossom rose,
The flower the gardener's skill that shows,
The crown of this our human frame,
Full of all beauty tongue can name.

Where's now the heart, the fount of blood.
The spring of life's pulsating flood-
The heart that, till death's fevers parch,
Beats still its solemn funeral-march?

And where the crystal globes, though small,
Type of the planets, one and all.
Those windows of the human face,
The soul's peculiar dwelling-place?

Was this the head that thoughts conceived,
The hand to execute the deed?
The sinful mouth is passed away,
The workman hand is sodden clay.

The brow, so furrowed with long pain,
Is passed into the earth again,
Swift as the last star fades in fear,
Hearing exulting chanticleer.

No longer runs the branching vein
Where life and heat had once their reign,
Till death's cold torpor froze the flood,
And spread its opiate through the blood.

Could flesh and color e'er enthrone
These dry brown pipes of porous bone-
This skull, the hovel of the mind,
To will, to loosen, and to bind?

"Ungainly scaffold for mere use”. So runs a flippant fool's abuse; Behold the first sketch of the man, The outline of God's mighty plan!

First take a root, and then exclaim: "What! this the rose that poets name 'The king of flowers; let beauty sheath The basement bones, nor look beneath.

"Wait till the crimson life-blood warms,
Clothe first with flesh the ruder forms;
Give me the bloom that pulsing glows,
And paints the cheeks with living rose.

"And let the blue of summer nights
Fill the full eye with shirting lights;
Nor praise this outline of a man,
This bony scaffold's ghastly plan.”

These bones, thou fool, have owned a God,
And felt the death-stroke of his rod;
Love, hate, and joy together filled

An angel from this house of clay, Released by death, has fled away; The fire's gone out, the door 's ajarThis aërolite was once a star.

-Chambers's Journal.

SCIENCE.

Is there an Open Arctic Sea?-Sir Roderick Murchison, who answers this question in the affirmative, gives the following arguments in support of his opinion :-(1.) The fact has been well ascertained by Scoresby and others, that every portion of the floating pack-ice north of Spitzbergen is made up of frozen sea-water only, without a trace of terrestrial icebergs like those which float down Baffin's Bay, or those which, carrying blocks of stone and debris, float northwards from the land around the South Pole. (2.) The northern shores of Siberia tell the same tale; for in their vast expanse the absence of icebergs, or erratic blocks, or anything which could have been derived from great or lofty masses of land, has been well ascertained. (3.) As a geologist, Sir R. Murchison could point out that this absence of erratic blocks in Northern Siberia has existed from that remote glacial period when much larger tracts of Northern Europe were occupied by glaciers than at the present day. (4.) The traveler Middendorf found the extreme northern promontory of Siberia, Taimyr, clad with fir trees, while the immense tract of country to the south of it was destitute of trees, showing a milder climate at the point of Siberia nearest the pole.Vide "Report of Meeting of Geographical Society, April 10th."

The Eruption of Etna.-The fullest details which have yet been published upon the recent operations of this volcano, are given in a memoir laid before the French Academy by M. Fouqué, who watched the eruption from its commencement. The eruption was preceded by an earthquake-shock, which was felt with such intensity at Lavina, near Piedmont, that the people rushed from their houses, and remained in the open air during the night. It first exhibited itself in the form of flames, which were seen rising from the north-east of the mountain at a height of about 1,700 metres above the level of the sea. Up to four in the morning there were a few faint ocillations of the ground. As soon as the earth had opened the lava commenced running with great rapidity, and in two or three days it had covered a surface nearly four miles long, two miles wide, and to a depth of from thirty to sixty feet. The ground upon whith the lava first flowed had an inclination of about four or five degrees. After having traveled over this space and destroyed almost everything in the shape of vegetation in its passage, the current was met by the ancient cone of eruption, known as Mount Stornello. There it divided into two streams; one flowed to the west of the cone, and moved very slowly; the other passed to the east, and was precipitated into a deep and narrow valley of Colla-Vecchio, which lies between Mount Stornello and the chain of Serra-de-la-Boffa. At this height the lava was thrown from a height of 160 feet into the valley

These veins, that once both thought and willed. beneath, forming in this way a veritable cascade

of fire. The valley soon became filled, but the burning stream continued to advance for a distance of about two miles, and was finally arrested by a mass of ancient lava known as Sciarra de la Scorcia Vacca, at a height of about 875 yards. Such was the position of the lava on the 6th of, February last. Since then the eastern stream has been completely arrested. The western one, on the contrary, has continued its progress, and has divided into two narrow currents, both of which lie between Mounts Stornello and Crisimo. The point of separation of these two streams is at a height of 1,444 yards, and is consequently higher than the base of Stornello. The nearest of the two streams to the cone, to which M. Fouqué has given the name of Antonio, continued to flow up to the 21st of February, when it ceased at a height of about 1,130 yards. The other, which he calls Carmello, traveled on till the 25th of February, and ceased at a height of 1,300 yards. Although at the period when M. Fouqué wrote (March 10th), both streams had terminated, they still continued to spread laterally. Vide Comptes Rendes, March 20th.

Are the Flint implements from the Drift Authentic. -A pamphlet has appeared from the pen of Mr. Nicholas Whitley, of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, in which it is attempted to be proved that the so-called flint implements are not the result of human workmanship. The writer's logic, which we can hardly approve of, has been pushed to the most extreme lengths. Although we agree with him in thinking that many of the so-called flint instruments are the result of natural operations, we are far from believing that all are spurious. We subjoin an abstract of Mr. Whitley's arguments:

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(1.) The "implements are all of flint. The tools employed by men of the recognized archæological stone age are made of stones of various kinds, of which there are examples of serpentine, granular greenstone, indurated claystone, trap greenstone, claystone, quartz, syenite, chest, &c. Why, therefore, should the only weapons in the drift deposit be manufactured from flint solely! (2.) The "implements" are all of one classWere they then a race of carpenters? Man is a cooking animal; and if ten thousand axes have been found, surely one seething-pot or drinking-cup ought to have turned up. He needs shelter, but no remnant of his clothing or hut has been found. Almost everywhere where there are chalk flints we find axes, and nothing but axes.

axes.

(3.) There is a gradation in form from the very rough fracture of the flint to the perfect almondshaped implement. Let the most enthusiastic believer in their authenticity examine carefully the one thousand implements in the Abbeville Museum, and he would probably reject two-thirds as bearing no evidence of the work of man. But it would be impossible for him to say where nature ended and art began.

(4.) Some of the implements are admirable illustrations of the form produced by the natural fracture of the egg-shaped flint nodule.

(5.) It is supposed that these weapons were used for cutting down timber and scooping out canoes. But it should be remembered that the gravels in which they are found were formed during a severe Arctic climate, in which no tree

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but a stunted birch could have grown, certainly none large enough to form a canoe.

(6.) Their number. The implements are found by thousands in small areas, and in numbers quite out of proportion to the thinly scattered population that must have (if at all) then existed.-Ide pamphlet published by Longman & Co., 1865.

Ruskin on the Alps.-A series of papers upon the subject of the confirmation of the Alps has appeared in the Geological Magazine. Mr. Ruskin's style, even when applied to his own subject, is frequently unintelligible; the writer appearing, in his effort to be thought original, to exhibit a contempt for everything approaching to clearness and common sense. We may remark that his essays on the Alps, though a little more comprehensible than his "Cestus Papers," in the Art Journal, are at times difficult to understand. However, we commend them to our readers' notice, as, though hardly scientific, they are certainly curious.-Pop. Science Review.

ART.

Art in Coral.-It is the privilege as it is the attribute of Art, that it is able to ennoble and to impart an almost priceless value to materials that intrinsically are worthless, while, on the other hand, even the most precious and the rarest substances acquire from it a worthiness before unknown by them. Common clay becomes infinitely more valuable than gold under the hands of the ceramic artist, and gold itself is taught by the goldsmith to emulate the preciousness of gems.

Coral is one of those natural substances which in themselves are eminent for exquisite beauty of their own; and it also must be grouped with such productions of prolific nature as are eminently qualified to attain to extraordinary excellence through the agency of Art. On more than one occasion we have directed the attention of our readers to the remarkable collections of coral, coral ornaments, and works of Art in coral, formed by Mr. Phillips, of Cockspur Street; and now, once again, the extent, variety, and truly exquisite beauty of Mr. Phillips's present coral collections claim from us fresh notice, and still more emphatic expressions of admiration.

It will be remembered that the coral jewelry exhibited by Mr. Phillips at the International Exhibition of 1862 was not only selected for special commendation by foreign visitors in general, bat in the reports of the French commissioners to their own government, these works in coral, exhibited by Mr. Phillips, constituted the only collection of English jewelry upon which decided commendation was bestowed. And such distinction coming from such a quarter needs no comment. That the praise of the French commissioners (vas not undervalued by the exhibitor himself, is proved by the assiduity, labor, and skill which he has devoted to the sustained improvement of his coral collections; and the result of these efforts, exerted by Mr. Phillips in a department of the goldsmith's art that he has made peculiarly his own, is apparent in the decided superiority of the works that may now be seen at his establishment in Cockspur Street, over even the best of the kindred objects he exhibited in the late exhibition structure at Brompton.

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