fell from the lips of the speaker. We cannot but hope, on
behalf of our citizens, that Mr. HOOVER may be invited to repeat his
lecture in this city. Surely, its enlarged views, its benign inculcations,
its tender remonstrances, are needed among us; nor will the good seed fall
altogether upon stony ground, nor be utterly choked by the tares that
abound in our field of bustling and busy existence. 'But what,' the reader
may ask, 'is this inner, higher life, concerning which we hear so much in
these latter days?' Let Mr. HOOVER make answer: 'IT is that ethereal,
spiritual nature, which by an incarnation only less mysterious than that
of the SON of GOD, is in present temporary alliance and partnership with
our animal nature; which, itself imperishable and immortal, measures the
cycle of its probation burthened with a dead body. It is that in man which
loves the beautiful and the good, which expands and warms to the breathing
and the voice of love; which, like the child listening to the murmuring
sea-shell, catches the far-off sound of the solemn future, and hears
celestial harmonies in silentest hours. It is that which in infancy
gathers in its first excursion the stuff that infant dreams are made of;
which in childhood makes the welkin ring with joy and laughter, crowns
itself with flowers, and arches life and the world, and all inaccessible
things and places, with airy bridges; which sees angel-forms in flitting
clouds, and in the gorgeous glory of setting suns beholds the vestibule
and drapery of other worlds: which holds communion with flowers as things
of life, and with birds as beautiful and gentle friends; which rebounds
like a liberated bow from the touch of grief to the freedom of joy, and
sees in its own tear-drop a perfect rainbow. To the inner life of man, in
its gradual and successive unfoldings, belong those deep musings of the
heart, which suggested perhaps by trifles light as air, become mighty,
like pent-up fires in a mountain's bosom, and tossing off the
superincumbent pressure, burst forth in a flame of patriotism to unyoke a
nation, or in heroic religious love to bless a world. In the inner life of
man are born and nurtured those deep and intense affections which make a
man willing to die for his country, his faith, and his friends; which
purified, lift him up an angel; which poisoned, burn to hell, and turn him
into a fiend; there rise the fountains of generous sensibility; there dawn
hope and love, and r