The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-04-04 00:00:00

monies melting away like a March snow, almost before
the mansions once tenanted by their frugal owners have
put off their crape. Whether this parental munificence is
commonly requited with a corresponding gratitude, and
men are held in filial honour in proportion to the ingots
they leave, and the time and pains they have taken to
fabricate them, each one must decide for himself. But if
it entered at all into the aims of these parties to establish
a reputation which their fellow-citizens, or even their own
descendants, should cherish as a sacred legacy, a very brief
return to the scenes of their former toils, would probably
satisfy some of them, that they had sadly mistaken the
means for compassing their end. There are men who
havejudged more wisely. The grave has lately dosed
upon one of this class in an Eastern city. A venerable
and successful merchant, he had for many years before
his death left off accumulating, and made it his inflexible
rule to give away the whole of his large surplus income.
Now he was endowing a college professorship ; now found-
ing an academy ; now bestowing a princely benefaction
upon some judicious charity ; and now another upon some
noble religious enterprise. One of his favourite methods
of doing good was to purchase, and put in circulation,
hundreds of copies, or perhaps whole editions, of any use-
ful book which happened to commend itself to his taste
and judgment. And after his death, a memorandum
among his papers was found to contain the names of a
large number of village pastors, whose scanty stipends he
had been in the habit of increasing from year to year.
These are but hints and samples of his life : but they may
suffice to show that he was not a man to be forgotten. It
is something for a private citizen so to live that when he
dies the whole community to which he belonged, and other
distant communities vying with them, shall take up his
name and breathe a blessing upon it. It is for yourselves,
under Providence, to decide (I speak especially to the
wealthy among you), whether your memories shall be
thus embalmed, or handed over to a speedy oblivion. And
in making this observation, I am far from commending it
to you as a becoming object of your ambition, to purchase
a posthumous fame by your charities, I have in view
simply the ordinance of heaven, that " the righteous shall
be held in everlasting remembrance." "The memory of
the just" (and this epithet includes the idea of benevo-
lence) "is blessed." Whether you take the case of a se-
cluded female, who employs her leisure hours, like Dorcas,
in making coats and garments for the poor, or the faithful
missionary who wears himself out in distributing the bread
of life along the lanes and alleys of a city, or the paternal
landlord, who, like the "Man of Ross," puts the impress
of his kindness upon all the homes of his neighbourhood,
and associates his name with every measure which can
augment the common comfort, or the generous capitalist
whose benefactions are a sure reliance to the great reli-
gious charities of his age—it is alike the ordering of Pro-
vidence, that their memories shall be blessed. You may
not aim at this result. Your humility may shrink from
the thought of having your names repeated from one to
another, even by friendly and grateful lips. But you can-
not well avoid this, if you are faithful to your trust, and
employ your property, or a reasonable portion of it, in
doing good. Sooner or later, many will " rise up and call
you blessed." It is meet that it should be so. And the
marvel is, that you do not all perceive how superior in
dignity and worth, in honour and influence, is a scheme
of life regulated by these principles, to one which looks
only or mainly, to indefinite accumulation.
The length to which our extracts have extended,
although they have exhausted the space at our
command, have not by any means exhibited
the extent *and value of the advice and information
conveyed in the pages of the volume, which will
be found an admirable family and counting-house
manual. It deserves and will repay an attentive
and frequent perusal.

The London Quarterly Review, No. 111. London:
Partridge, Oakey, and Co.

The third number of this periodical sustains the
character we recognised in its first and second
publications. It contains well-written articles on
a variety of subjects, all of which are treated with
an apparent candour and ingenuousness. Its lite-
rary status, as well as its literary standard, may
not reach those so readily achieved and so nobly
maintained by the polished literary and political
giant whose patronymic it to some extent assumes ;
but it is a valuable addition to the high-class
periodicals of the day. In the present number we
have an interesting paper on Madagascarlounded on
the papers of the London Missionary Society, in
which we have a succinct and spirited review of
life and manners as they are to be met with in that
island, to which a new interest has lately been
added by the passing of it into the hands of a
native sovereign who is an avowed Christian, thus
affording ground of lively hope to those who rejoice
in the spread of Scripture truth and Christian civi-
lization. The fourth paper is devoted to a brief
but spirited sketch of the rise, progress, and pre-
sent condition of Mormonism, in which the immo-
ralities, blasphemies, and gross delusions of the
Mormon imposture are delineated with skill, and
exposed with effect. After narrating the singular
and rapid increase in the number of adherents to
this impious and demoralising iniquity—demon-
strating its disgusting polygamy—its disregard of
moral obligations, and its fanatical delusions—the
writer says :

MORMONISM AND ITS RESULTS.
Such is Mormonism —" of the earth earthy," a religion
of sensuality and blasphemy. Its steps "go down to
death ; its feet take hold on hell." The rapid spread of
such a plague among our agricultural and commercial
population is a portentous occurrence. In this country
there has been, there will be, no persecution ; but the
surprising growth of the system shows that it is as unsafe
to ignore, as it would be unwise to persecute it. Let us,
depending upon God, use all the weapons that reason and
religion allow, to effect its suppression.
An able and interesting, although somewhat
abstruse article on " Meteorology" follows, in which
many singular facts are adduced in illustration of
the writer's views on various atmospheric phe-
nomena. " Recent Discoveries in Palestine "
afford ample scope for a paper in which topo-
graphical information is blended with ingenious
speculation. The junction of the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans is another subject in which specu-
lation is aided by practical knowledge, and both
are happily combined in elucidating the relative
merits of the several schemes for effecting that
object which, are now before the public. This is
succeeded by an able essay on " Modern Poetry :
its Genius and Tendencies," in which the writer,
viewing the subject from an elevated position,
examines and dispels many of the gross fallacies
by which small men of the present day are made
to look like giants, by men much smaller than
themselves. The paper is ostensibly founded on a
review of the poems of Alexander Smith—a noto-
riety of recent and, we fear, of fungous growth.
The question of the poetical mission is examined
by the reviewer with candour and discrimination ;
and he proves, what there was hardly room to doubt,
that a mistake in estimating that mission may
lead to consequences disastrous to the literature
and civilization of our age. Imbued with this con-
viction, he proceeds with seriousness, more, we
think, than the occasion called for, to show that
Mr. Smith's eulogists—they can scarcely, we fear,
be called his friends—have attempted to deify a
very ordinary son of earth. Speaking of" Walter,"
the hero of Mr. Smith's Life Drama—in which
there is great reason to believe the poet typifies
himself—the reviewer says of Mr. Smith and his
congeners—
Their heroes have not the prestige of acknowledged
genius; they have no grand associations to call up, nor
any fadeless laurels to display upon their brows. Of
course, then, they must approve their claims to the
character in the work where they appear, which must at
once establish the author and the hero. * * * But
we almost despair of conveying to the reader any adequate
idea of the great efforts, and greater sacrifices, they make
in order to obtain the character and praise of genius. It
is clear that they design to give us the quintessence of the
genuine article. Nothing that for a moment can be taken,
by those who hear it read, for simple prose, or recognised as
the thought and language of daily life, is suffered upon
their pages for a moment. It is one unmitigated stream
of genius—we suppose—that scorns all rule, as any river
of spirit will overflow its bounds.
The painful truth of the above remarks is unde-
niable. In ancient days the fabulist told us of
some miserable frogs who puffed and swelled
themboivaT tmtil they burst in
itilridiculousete
atlporttss to
at
look as big as oxen. ucti futile
expansion in our day are not left to the eaurtioria
of the ambitious reptile—his brother" frogs assem-
ble round him, and with all their power of lungs
assist in the inflation. Of the efficiency of this
operation we had recent testimony. in the case of
the young gentleman whose effusions have been
the theme of the reviewer's animadversions.
Having recently been entertained at some convivial
festivities, the encomiastic flow of his elated
friends induced the poet to shadow forth a time
when his health might be toasted not less fre-
quently than that of our beloved Sovereign ! Alas,
alas ! how intoxicating are the fumes of adulation !

Our Friend. A Monthly Miscellany designed for
all classes. London : J. F. Shaw.

We have now before us the three first numbers
of this periodical. It is obviously intended to aid
the movement for the suppression of intemperance ;
and furnishes to the reader a fund of miscellaneous
matter.

Vital Statistics. By R._ Thompson Joppling.

London : King.

This is the first part of a work devoted to the
means of computing a rate of mortality among
persons affected with various diseases. The author
goes into his subject in a methodical manner, and
displays no small amount of ingenuity in his
research.

PEOVINCIA.L " Pllice•"—The Czar has " mustered" a
hundred thousand men.—Preston Gazette. The Sultan
will "pepper" them.—Berunck Guardian. And Eng.
land and France " assault" them.— Worcester Times,