It might be then the gracious will divine,

His earliest mass be said at the village shrine.
It was but meet, ingenious piety thought,

When keenest bliss on the light heart e'er smiled

Repentance merges in this dawn of grace,

That there, where first his listening soul had Converts his heart ere he has left the place. caught

Th' inaudible accents of a heavenly call,

There too, and first, his priestly words should
fall;

There too, and first, his grateful being be poured,
In Eucharistic homage to the Lord.

So, solemnly, with pomp and priestly aid,
With lights and incense his first mass was said
Within the precincts of his native church-
The village church, with festooned shaft and
porch.

A thrilling music poured its full-voiced strain,
And pious rapture filled each heart and brain.
The clear ring of his youthful, silver tone
Came sweet and loud when raised in chant alone.
And, hushed, the listening people seemed to hear
The mellowed echo of a voice once dear.

Triumphing angels mark the day of joy
The First Mass day of the pious village boy.

EMOTIONAL RELIGION.

S.

THE chief difficulty the psychologist experiences when attempting to solve the problems of the human mind, arises. out of the complexity of its phenomena

-were man a purely animal or a purely spiritual being, the question would, indeed, be vastly simplified for him. He Would not encounter at every step operations so affected in their origin, progor termination, by other opera

ress

Strange faith possessed these peasants' hearts this tions, and in turn extending their influence still over others, that no Dædalus

day; For, when the mass had progressed half its way, ever built labyrinth more devious in its At the mysterious moment, full of awe, That sees a God obey a creature's law, They foudly deemed Him nearer to their home. For was He not by their son bid to come? So that, with more than wonted trustfulness, They bowed when raised the sacred host to bless. And, too, they bowed, with reverent, simple joy, When swept to bless the hand of the village boy.

Each father heart, exulting on that day,
Poured fervently his wish, that a display
Like this might, in the far-off misty years,
Greet his glad eyes, and moist with happy tears
His aged cheeks, when his own son would shine
In sacerdotal vestments at the shrine.

So the fond mother, while she gazed with joy,
Saw, circled by the incense, her own boy,
The rapture of her hope had scaled the years,
And through the distant time his mass she hears.

Long thro' the village was the pious talk-
In friendly circle and the rural walk-
Full burdened with this day's high festival.
A theme it was of pride and joy to all-
And, too, it did its work of mercy, shown
Unto the hardened rustic, who had gone
A lengthy road, where sin and error lie.

winding, whose mazes were more difficult to tread. And this complexity is not alone a bar to the researches of the philosopher, but favors the progress of error; for, as it rarely happens that error does not contain some germ of truth, so some one or other of the numerous and diversified aspects of the human soul is found reflected in every system of psychology, however crude or rudimentary. And this liability to error, in which there is still a seedling of truth left, is in no instance more strikingly displayed than in the history of religion. It is the very essence of true religion that it should meet every want of human nature, satisfy its longings, clear up its doubts, thaw out its differences, supply motives to the practice of true virtue, and so fill up the whole being that neither body or soul, nor faculty, nor part thereof, be exempt

Half-touched, he views the scene; in vain would from its influence and live not subject to

try

To check the gathering tears, now flowing fast;
Or check the memory's wak'ning of the past-
A past it was blithe, simple, undefiled,

its reign. On the other hand, every false system of religion, though it may deflect from the standard of truth in

most respects, is sure to embody some element of our nature, as it often is small portion of the truth from which it the parent of the most generous imtook birth, and which sustained its pulses, so does it impel us to mischief, growth. For if we inquire into the ori- draw us into the vortex of insanity. gin of the chief varieties of religious sys- The mind brooding long over any theme, tems, we will find that they had their studying it out in season and out of seabirth in a mental peculiarity of their son, soon falls into a morbid condition, founder, by virtue of which he overrated which is a species of madness. The some certain feature of religion and em- majesty and tenderness of the Christian bodied it in his scheme of doctrine un- ceremonial; the grand cathedral, with der an exaggerated form. The remain- massive towers shooting heavenward, der of the system may be a tissue of the very embodiment and essence of absurdities, but its corner-stone is a grace from broad foundation to tapering truth borrowed from the structure of all finial, with fretted vault, rivaling in truth, in which there is no error. Thus, height and expanse the firmament itself, in the early centuries of the Church, echoing ever, with wailing dirge or gushEutyches, violently opposing the heresy ing hymn of praise, the saddening acof Nestorius, who denied the close union cents of the Dies Ira or the jubilant of the divine and human natures in shout of the Te Deum; the rolling inChrist, stood forth the avowed cham- cense, the numberless flashing lights, pion of the orthodox faith, but allowing the gorgeous raiment of bishop, priest his mind to brood morbidly over the or deacon glancing back the hues of doctrine he had espoused he erred by Iris; all these potent agencies, seizing excess of truth, maintaining that both hold of a highly imaginative but ignonatures were so intimately blended as rant population, naturally worked reto constitute but one. And so with the sults which were not then anticipated. other heresiarchs of that time, circum- A fanatic or two, in whom the emotional stances of time and place, or a mor- prevailed over the intellectual, becoming bid condition of mind, inclining them to frenzied, for the time literally demonthe exclusive consideration of some giv- ized, proclaimed that God was to be en tenet, they exaggerated, distorted it, found by inducing in the mind an ecso moulding of it as to make of it a stacy, an exaltation of the faculties, a suitable foundation for their grotesque temporary mania. As physical diseases imaginings and inane doctrines. When spread, so sometimes unhealthy moral the imposing liturgy of the Church, influences diffuse themselves; and it is speaking to the untutored and highly sufficient for one individual in a commususceptible imaginations of the mediæval nity to take this form of religious madEuropeans, had won them to the stand- ness that many of his weaker brethren ard of Christ in this manner, many of become affected thereby. Thus, from them believing that those appeals to the time to time, sects sprang up, who reckemotional nature of man, so effective in oned religious excitement all gain, and their way, were the sole constituents of believed that the gates of heaven would religion, rejected all dogma, all positive yield to the gripe of one possessed. We belief in doctrine, flinging themselves, have but to mention, as instances of this without guide or restraint, into the species of fatuity rapidly spreading, maddened sea of emotion. And here it such men as Peter of Bonis, the Monk may be well to note that the emotional Henry in 1142, Peter Waldo and num

garb of religion is a sufficient cloak, with them, for any species of unreasonableness, why not, then, serve to cover

pitiable sight, and, by inference, what more dangerous to society, than that of staid and sober-minded men, with lustrous eye and flushed countenance, wildly shouting the refrain of a fanatical hymn, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and shrieking the Lord's name. as if he were their mad companion in a Bacchic orgie, and, when all is over, returning to their homes with the pleasant conviction that they have experienced religion, that they have found God? The truth is, unless the anchor of faith, which is belief in the doctrines of Christ, as preached by Him and delivered by Him to His divinely constituted authority for

berless others, of whom religious historians tell us. But most of those men, though yielding to a spirit of fanaticism, did not entirely reject the doctrines of up their immoral tracks? What more the Church; they still left a plank or two of dogma within reach of those who wished to return to the ark of truth and be saved. It was not until the gates were open to the irruption of every species of error by the proclamation of free thought in religion, the sufficing of the Bible as interpreted by reason, that religious enthusiasm ran mad and actually peopled insane asylums. The Lollards, the Convulsionaires, the Wesleyans, the Southcottians, are but a few instances. All these deluded ones rejected matters of belief not having a direct tendency to excite the soul and exalt the mental faculties. As the drunkard seeks in the fatal cup the enjoyment which a well- promulgation and predication unto all toned system, a body free from every unhealthy influence, more certainly guarantees to the man physically sound, so do the votaries of emotional religion seek, in its unhealthy excitement, the spiritual consolation and the hope of eternal happiness which come to the follower of the true religion only through the life-long practice of virtue and a belief in the saving truths of Christ. But it is not alone the ruin it works to the spiritual nature of man which makes emotional religion amenable to the heaviest condemnation, but the imminent danger to public morality with which it is fraught. If men, letting loose the bent of their nature, howl wildly, smite their breasts, roll their eyes in frenzy, fling themselves on the ground, call upon God with blasphemous familiarity, and all in a state of ungovernable fury, why should not these same men, giving rein chew all dogma and cast the foundation to their immoral tendencies, riot and of their creed upon feeling. wallow in unnameable iniquities? The

men, restrains Christians within due bounds, they are no better than the votaries of Bacchus, who, in the early times of Greece, howled their wild dithyrambics, danced, roared and attitudinized, bedaubed with lees of wine and clad in goat-skins. Human nature is so very much the same to-day and yesterday as it was three thousand years ago, that, given the operations of the same causes, the same effects are most likely to follow. Since then modern Governments give license unto all to practice their religion without fear or restraint, a principle most wise and salutary in itself. They should not so far extend that concession as to include systems in conflict with public morals; and there can be little doubt that those which are most to be dreaded in that respect are those emotional forms of religion which es

DELTA.

SIEGE OF LEXINGTON, MO.

SEPTEMBER, 1861.

were thrown up in all directions around the town. During three days the soldiers worked incessantly in the trenches, spurred on by the importance of baffling the enemy and of protecting themselves, and incited by the encouraging words and energetic example of their commander.

AMONG the bravest of the citizen-soldiers who sprang to arms nine years ago, when the news of the surrender of Fort Sumter and of the disastrous retreat from Bull Run had gone forth through- Hardly had these precautions been out the length and breadth of the land, taken for defence than the enemy, thirty were the men of the Irish Brigade of thousand strong, appeared in front of Chicago, and no officer of the late war the works and opened fire upon the little distinguished himself more for gallantry garrison. The Federals possessed but and tenacity of purpose than their com- five pieces of artillery, and a few mormander, Col. Mulligan. tars, which were almost useless, owing to the scarcity of shells; but their artillery did good execution on the enemy's ranks. The sharpshooters of Price's army kept up a constant and destructive fire upon such of the soldiers of the garrison as were in unprotected situa

Day by day the situation of the small but heroic band became more precari

Early in the month of September, 1861, Gen. Sterling Price, of the Confederate Army, having previously encountered the army of Gen. Lyon, at Springfield, proceeded toward the city of Lexington, in the State of Missouri, designing to make it the seat of govern- tions. ment for Governor Claiborne Jackson's traveling Legislature. Information of his purpose reaching ous; their ranks were being rapidly Gen. Fremont's headquarters, Col. Mul-thinned, and some of their best and ligan, who had just arrived in the State, was ordered to march to Lexington, and to defend it at all hazards. After sev eral days of forced marching, the Irish Brigade reached Lexington and formed a junction with Col. Peabody's force, which was retreating before the advance of Price's hordes. In the city they found a few hundred "Home Guards" in charge of the State Funds and Records. The whole force then amounted to 2,500 men, and Col. Mulligan, in vir tue of his seniority, took command.

bravest had fallen under the rifles of the rebels, while the army of the besiegers was being constantly augmented, and the reinforcements, which were ardently looked for, had not as yet come to the succor of the garrison. The messengers which had been sent out for aid had been captured by Price's scouts, and hope had deserted the breasts of all, when the beleaguered soldiers heard of the approach of United States troops.

The opening roar of artillery in the conflict between their friends and their He immediately set about fortifying enemies, could be heard in the town by the place. A college situated on the the expectant watchers; the battle raged outskirts of the town being well adapted fiercely in sight; but, to their chagrin, to sheltering a large body of troops, was the garrison were soon obliged to hear included within the fortifications by the the booming of the cannon in the disconstruction of an extensive redan tance as the relief party retreated. One around it. A large banquette for heavy thousand Iowa troops had been sent to guns was also built, and breastworks their aid, but this handful of men was

assuredly insufficient to be of any service against such and so many enemies. During the siege, Col. Peabody's cavalry frequently sallied forth to repel the attacking party, and to dislodge them from positions advantageous to artillery. The deeds of valor performed on these occasions by the desperate garrison would, if related by a pen worthy of the subject, be found to equal any of the heroic actions of the past.

carried them to the river, thoroughly saturated them and then rolled them up to the very breastworks of Lexington. They were thus enabled to fight behind a defence, and the hot shot of the enemy was unavailing for the burning of the saturated bales.

of

But soon the undaunted men of Mulligan's force were compelled to suffer from an enemy more fierce than the one against which they were battling. The A hospital outside the fortification water which was accessible to the garrihad been assaulted, and, contrary to all son soon gave out, and after several usages of war and humanity, its inmates days' siege the brave soldiers felt all the were slain. Besides, as it afforded am- horrible pangs of thirst. Owing to its ple opportunities for sharpshooters to scarcity they were unable to cook their play upon his men, Col. Mulligan or- victuals, and they lay in the trenches dered a company of the Thirteenth begrimed with the dust and powder and Missouri to retake it; but they, having smoke of a week's weary conflict. Still gone out, were met by a galling fire the garrison did good execution on the from the enemy's riflemen, which made ranks of the enemy, and though but few them seek the shelter of the fort. A de- of their own men dewere laid low, they tachment from the Fourteenth Missouri could see that hundreds of the foe had was then ordered out, but they also fallen before the artillery of the Brigade. shrank from the task. The Montgomery Guard, Captain Gleason, of the Irish Brigade, then undertook to storm the height. Their captain having admonished them of the ignoble failure of the Missourians, and exhorted them to uphold the honor of their name, they went sternly forward, with muskets clasped, to The situation was enough to make the the hazardous task. Emerging from the bravest of men quail. Their sufferings fort they broke into a brisk trot, then were almost unendurable; dreadful huninto a double-quick, then into a run, un- ger and the pangs of thirst assailed til, charging right up the heights, amid them, and the dead bodies of brutes and an enfilading fire from thousands of of men rotted and putrified under the muskets, they, with an Irish hurrah, scorching rays of the sun. Added to drove the enemy at the point of the bay- all these was the terrible knowledge that onet from their position. no aid could reach them in time to save them from their impending doom.

The Confederates were enabled to carry on the siege with great benefit to themselves by adopting a plan similar to that which secured, in 1812, the memorable battle of New Orleans to Gen. Jackson's Army. Having obtained all the hempen bales in the vicinity, they

Several thousand horses and mules within the fortification were very much exposed to the fire of the enemy's guns. Cannon-balls crashed into their midst, and, after several days of conflict, the stench arising from their dead bodies was horrible.

On the morning of the 20th of September, Gen. Price made a demand for the surrender of the town; but Col. Mulligan returned the sententious reply, "If you want us, you must come and take us."