The Sun.
London, England, 1825-03-23 00:00:00

FOR THE SUN.

MR. EDITOR—To those who are the least dis-
posed to feel superstitious, it will appear that
the last Northern Expedition sailed under the
most unfavourable auspices. Suicide visited it-
before its departure ; and, if report be true, Cap-
tain PARRY sprained his ankle when he entered
his ship previously to its sailing. The most un-
daunted among the Generals of ancient Rome
would scarcely have ventured on in the teeth of
so many bad omens. Thank heaven, we live in
a more enlightened and a more adventurous arc.
The statesmen and the commanders of the pre-
sent day seek the hope of saccess, not in the
flight of birds, in the quivering of entrails of
slaughtered victims, nor in the appetite of
chickens ; but in the depth of their political
views, in the wisdom of their plans, and in the
penetrating and comprehensive glance, which
embraces at once the present and the future, and
is fully prepared to meet whatever obstacles may
arise, because such obstacles have been anticie
pated, and the means of overcoming them have
been duly combined. We are now too well ac-
quainted with the immeasurable distance that
separates the spiritual from the mere material
world, to believe that, in the common occurrences
of \life, the one can have any very great influence
over the other. I wish, however, to be under-
stood as meaning here, not that influence w hich
is a necessary consequence of the intimate and
incomprehensible union that exist between body
and soul, but merely the occult influence which
was attributed to either of them in the eyes of
darkness and of ignorance. Deep as may be the
gloom of superstition and of ignorance, it must
be gradually, but effectually, dispelled by the
light of knowledge and of philosophy. Yet so
deeply rooted in the human breast is the love for
the marvellous, and so much is man naturally in-
clined towards superstition, that even in our own.
enlightened age many there are who feel more
inclined than they would willingly admit to put
some faith in omens of various description. Yet
this, as indeed every other species of superstition,
certainly betrays no inconsiderable weakness of
intellect,and .constitutes one of the most singular
anomalies in the constitution of the human mind•
How powerful, yet how weak, is the reason of
man? At one time, soaring to an elevation appa-
-1 rently beyond its utmost range; at others, sinking
into a state of degradation, disgraceful even in a
1 brute.

The more deeply we reflect upon this matter.
the more we must be struck by such an apparent
contradiction existing in the very same being-
Man, considered in a general point of view, is at
once the model of all that is great and good, and
of all that is disgraceful and detestable. The ex-
ternal perfect symmetry of his form, the amazing
powers of his mind, deservedly place him high
above all sublunary animals. Gifted With a soul,
endowed with the capacity of producing every
virtue, he may be considered as forming the co"-
nectiag link between heaven and earth—between
the Creator and his creatures. Viewed as I have
just described him, he is indeed a noble animal =
nay, the noblest human imagination can conceive,
as fitted to inhabit our earth. But, alas ! too fre-
quently does his fair form-conceal a soul of the
blackest die; too often are the powers of his
mind employed to minister to his unbridled pas-
sions, or in the perpetration of the most disgusting,
the most reprehensible crimes. He done is po-
sessed of reason, and he alone is criminal With
reflection. It is not, as in the brute, the instinc-
tive impulse of necessity—it is the cool, the re-
flected intention to do harm, that urges him on to
injure, to torture, to destroy his fellow men.

And was it ever so ? Most assuredly not ; for
man is the creature of infinite wisdom and of i►►'
finite goodness. He now displays some signs 01
perfection, because he was created perfect ; he
is too often the slave of violent passions, because
he has fallen from that original state of perfec-
tion. Ile is a mere wreck of what he formerly
was ; a ruin still retaining marks of original
beauty ; but nevertheless disfigured, degraded,
and " fallen, fallen, from its high estate."
This is a melancholy picture, but it is correct.
It is not calculated to flatter our vanity ; but it
may tend to awaken in our hearts the earnest
desire of regaining what we have lost ; what vie
must have lost for ever had not Divine goodness
stepped in to our assistance.

Mr. Editor, the two first sentences of this'
letter were written as an introduction to a slighc
view of Captain LYON'S last work. I was incen-
sibly led away by the train of thought those &EL
sentences naturally awakened, till I have ties'
passed as much as is proper upon the attention
of those, among your readers, who may chance
'peruse these lines, and must therefore postpone ta
a future period, the brief notice I intended t 0
take of the work in question. A. P.

BIRTHS.
On Monday, the 21st inst., at Jheshunt, Herts, Mrs. Cbarl°
Enid fit, of a son.
On Monday; the 21st inst., the lady of James Moody, .E 54"
Hunter-street, Brunswick-square, of a son.

MARRIED.
On Tuesday, at Lewisham Church, the Rev. H. C. Kno%•°f
Laughton, Sussex, to Sophia Martha,. daughter of the We
George Darby, Esq.
Yesterday, at ,Alarylebone Church,. by •the. Rev C.
Rector of Melton-Constable, Warden Sergison; Esq., eldeSt
of the Rev. .Williana .Sergison, of CuOcfield-park, Sussex, t"t•
Editha, second daughter of the late Sir Jacob Henry A stley, ,Q
'
Alehon-Constable, .Norfolk, and of Seatort-Deleval, Nor
0
umberland, Bart., and sister to the Present Baronet.

DIED.
On Sunday, the 20th inst., at Wandsworth, Surrey, charle‘'
the son of 31r. Edmund Read, aged, 24. st
()n the 20th inst., in Earl-street,'Lisscon,grove, Sarahi,
daughter of Mr. John Folder, late of tire Old Jewry.
On the 7th inst., of the small-pox, aged. 22, Mr. John HO "
of Godley Green, near Hyde, Cheshire. Ile was to have beei;
married on the 6th inst., and his funeral was attended by he
who should have been his bride.
On the 13th inst., Henry Walford, Esq., Attorney at I" of
Bicester. Ile had sat down to dinner in his usual state
health, and had scarcely begun to dine ere he ,was seized with
fit and expired. ,He was between 60 and 70 years of age.

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