It is probable that several readable volumes could be compiled from White Mountain letters which have appeared from time to time in this journal, and the present writer distrusts his power to add anything to the many admirable descriptions which have thus been laid before the public. There is one thought which is perhaps worth recording. The traveler often meets persons who seem to have a monomonia for mountains, and whose summer months are passed in exploring their mysteries, and in lingering over the grand and magnificent scenery of the White Hills. There are gentlemen and ladies of education and refinement whose taste for these scenic effects is cultivated to a higher point than that of the amateurs in art, or the wanderers among the paintings and statues of Italy. The genuine lover of nature has here a series of studies which change daily in color and appearance, and even shape; and we do not wonder that there are scores of pedestrians who wend their way to the heart of the mountains every season, in search of new scenes of beauty and grandeur, or that in their eager pursuit they outwalk and astonish the guides. Indeed, to have stood but once on the pinnacle of Mount Washington, looking out upon an almost infinite horizon which embraces rivers, lakes, mountains and cities, is to have fixed upon the imagination a picture more gorgeous and permanent than the genius of art ever conceived.

Traveling down New Hampshire and up through Vermont, as well as in some of the counties of Maine, one meets a class of men, tall, vigorous, brave and energetic, who carry in their hands strength and prosperity.

In these Titans of the mountains, these giants of the forests, we find the representatives of that class which has gone forth and still goes forth to grapple with the wild stubbornness of nature, and by their strength and wisdom plant civilization in barren spots, and nurse the fertility of the soil on the banks of rivers. We see everywhere evidences of energy, will, progress, and good morals-cultivated farms, herds of sheep, cattle, and noble breeds of horses; school houses, churches, colleges and libraries, and the foundations of cities, like Portland, Me., or Burlington, Vt., which in substantial beauty and rich simplicity of architecture, are equal to anything in this country. Here every one seems to be "well to do" in the world, and without display, to have built himself a beautiful home. In fact, nothing charms a judicious and moderate man more than a New England village, or town, like those we have mentioned; nor can better or more intelligent society be found. Those mighty forests in Maine, the towering White Hills of New Hampshire, the sky soaring peaks of the Green Mountains in Vermont, seem to have impressed themselves upon the bold and aspiring New Englander; and we claim that the genuine, uncorrupted, and unabolitionized Yankee holds a very high place among his fellow-countrymen.

THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION.

The spirit which led to the recent acts of conspiracy and vandalism on Staten Island is not peculiar to that latitude; nor are the causes which impel men so to undermine the structure of civilized life and the foundations of law, local or superficial in their character. Rebellion to constituted authority is no longer sporadic and confined to localities, but epidemic, and spread over the whole body-politic; for, rebellion includes not merely overt acts of a treasonable nature, but that spirit of insubordination which is ready to oppose and beat down the law at every convenient, plausible or profitable opportunity. That spirit is the gist of the crime, whatever name or phase it may assume; Lynch-law, anti-rent, incendiary mobs, or vigilance committees.

The fault seems to be a national one, and its root strikes down to the principles upon which human governments are built. A portion of our people, especially that portion which plumes itself upon its radicalism in politics, has formed too low an estimate of the inherent sacredness of our government, and is disposed to allow it no binding force, except that which is derived from expediency. Such regard it, not as a moral power, carrying with it a certain and well defined moral obligation, but as a mere brute or physical force. Rulers, in their view, are merely agents, intrusted with certain powers over life, liberty and property; and society is

debased into a mere contract for mutual

and protection.

peace, security

From

From this barter and sale theory, it results that a man has an implied right to repudiate the law and resist its execution the moment it becomes profitable for him to repudiate or resist; having no high sense of duty to consult, it is merely a question of policy whether he shall break or fulfil the loose and intangible contract he has made with his fellow citizens. his point of view, the whole system of government is a political agency for the protection of life and property, and he estimates its right to command by its power to punish. If he can be disobedient with impunity — if he can escape the fines and penalties, pack a jury, corrupt a judge, or commit certain acts of arson in a county where grand juries are likely to connive at and applaud them-he feels himself at perfect liberty to outrage the law. If a contest, on this basis, ensues between the executors of the law and the violators of the law, the only questions to be decided are, which has the most cunning and skill, or which can bring to bear the greater amount of physical force.

Under such a false and degrading theory, government loses its noblest attribute, the right to command. It no longer appeals to the conscience and religious sentiments of men; is no longer invested with the rights and attributes of command; is no longer a Heavencommissioned, God-ordained institution, constraining cordial and universal obedience; is no longer clothed with the privileges and majesty of the authority it

represents; but, degenerated and robbed of all that would give it efficacy and power, of all element and shadow of divine right, there is no form of folly or wickedness to which it may not be made subservient.

It cannot be denied that very many of our people fall far short of the virtues which go to make up a good citizen, of the principles which underlie the whole structure of the government, and of the examples of obedience and self-restraint presented in the lives of the founders of the republic. There is such a thing as loyalty in friendship, in love, in religion; and it is that which vivifies those relations which we ought to cultivate in those equally important relations which we sustain to the fundamental law of the land. Without this loyalty, gracefully yielding to light and temporary annoyance, manfully bearing up even under severe grievances, but courageously doing them battle in all legal and constitutional methods, sacrificing much of personal comfort and convenience for the public good, and ever mindful of the primary duty of allegiance, which is the highest expression of patriotism, there is no such thing as government, in the genuine sense of the word; the majestic shelter of the law becomes a mere shadow, and all that is wholesome, restraining and conservative in the republic is swept away by the swift surges of license, discord and wild anarchy.