Staunton spectator, and general advertiser. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 183?-1849, 1842-01-27
MISgMLLANYo
r. II e w : z e.
by Elihu Burritt, Fthc. Learned Blacksmith.

There are new Developments Of human
character, which like the light of distant stars,
are yet to visit the eye of man and operate up
on human society. Ever since the image of
the Godhead was first sketched in Eden, Its
great author and angels have been painting
upon it /; men have tried their hands upon it
influences like the incessant breath of heaven,
have left each its line upon the canvass still
the finishing stroke of the pencil will Rot be
accomplished until the last, lingering survivor
softhe wreck ofmatter and the crush ofworlds"
Sis changed in the twinkling of an eye"
The hemisphere of the present age is stud
'tled all over with such pearls '.and platines of
bright gold,'' as never shone before in the
a,eavens of the human soul. In these latter
days, the waves Of time have washed up from
depths that angels never fathomed, "gems Of
purer light serene" than were ever worn be-
fore in The crown of man. We are now but
half way advanced in the new circle of hui
man history. The race is but just emerging
from the long reaching shadows of an iron
age, and coming out into the starlight and sun
light of new influences. If, as we are assu-
red, scores of new stars have taken rank with
the heavenly hosts during the two centuries,
stars brighter than they, have, in the same pc
riod, kindled up new lights in the moral fir
,mament Among these new stars, one, a
little lower than that of Bethlehem, had just
appeared above the horizon. Ii is the Star
of WoMEN's INFLUENCE. Influential woman
is a being of scarcely two centuries: up to
that period, and almost hitherto, her inAucn-
>ces have fallen upon human character and So
cicty, like the feeble rays of rising winters
sun upon polar fields of ice. But her sun is
reaching upward. There is a glorious meri-
dian to which she shall as surely come as to-
morrow's rising sun shall reach his in our ma
tural heavens. What man will be, when she
shall shine upon him then and thence, we
are unable to divine; but we can found an an
ticipation from the influences of her dawning
rays. Her morning light has gilded the Wis
ions OF human sorrow. There has been no
depth of human misery beyond the reach of
her amelorating influence, nor any height of
human happiness which she has not raised
still higher. Whoever has touched at either of
these extremities, or at any of their interve-
ming points, could attest that "neither height
nor depth, nor prlncipalities, nor powers, nor
things present or to come" could divert or
vitiate the accents and anodynes Of her love.
Whether we trace, the lineaments Of her char
acter IN the mild twilight of her morning sun.
or IN the living beams of her risen day, we
ind that she has touched human society like
an angel. 1t would be irrevercnt to her worth
to say, in what walks of life she has walked
most like an angel of light and love; in what
vicissitude, in what joys or sorrows, in what
situations or circumstances, she has most sig-
nalIy discharged the heavenly ninistrations
other mission; what ordeals have best brought
out the radiance of her hidden jewels, what
frutions of earthly bliss, or furnaces of affc-
lions, have best declared the fneness Of hei
gold.
Still, there is scene, which has escaped
'.the vulture's eye" and almost every othel
eye, where she has cast forth her costlies
pearls, and shown such qualities of her native
character as almost merit our alteration. This
scene has been allotted to the drunkord'
rife. How she has filed this most desedr
ate outpost of humanity, will be revealed
when the secrets of human life shall be dis
closed "tc more worlds than thiso Wher
the history Of novels, and of murky garets
shall be given in; when the career of the en-
shaved inebriase shall be told, from the first e