but the dogs of the party and the ass of the doctor were the only quadrupeds that had enlivened the broad surface of the waste beneath. There was now a sudden exhibition of animal life, which changed the scene, as it were by magic, to the very opposite extreme.

A few enormous bison bulls were first observed scouring along the most distant roll of the prairie, and then succeeded long files of single beasts, which, in their turns, were followed by a dark mass of bodies, until the duncoloured herbage of the plain was entirely lost in the deeper hue of their shaggy coats. The herd, as the column spread and thickened, was like the endless flocks of the smaller birds, whose extended flanks are so often seen to heave up out of the abyss of the heavens, until they ap pear as countless as the leaves in those forests, over which they wing their endless flight. Clouds of dust shot up in little columns from the centre of the mass, as some animal more furious than the rest ploughed the plain with his horns, and, from time to time, a deep, hollow bellowing was borne along on the wind, as though a thousand throats vented their plaints in a discordant murmuring.

A long and musing silence reigned in the party, as they gazed on this spectacle of wild and peculiar grandeur. It was at length broken by the trapper, who, having been long accustomed to similar sights, felt less of its influence, or rather felt it in a less thrilling and absorbing manner, than those to whom the scene was more novel.

"There go ten thousand oxen in one drove, without keeper or master, except Him who made them, and gave them these open plains for their pasture! Ay, it is here that man may see the proofs of his wantonness and folly! Can the proudest governor in all the States go into his fields, and slaughter a nobler bullock than is here offered to the meanest hands? and, when he has gotten his sirloin or his steak, can he eat it with as good a relish as he who has sweetened his food with wholesome toil, and earned it according to the law of natur', by honestly mastering that which the Lord hath put before him?"

"If the prairie platter is smoking with a buffaloe's hump, I answer, no," interrupted the luxurious bee-hunter.

"Ay, boy, you have tasted, and you feel the genuine reasoning of the thing. But the herd is heading a little this-a-way, and it behooves us to make ready for their visit. If we hide ourselves, altogether, the horned brutes will break through the place, and trample us beneath their feet, like so many creeping worms; so we will just put the weak ones apart, and take post, as becomes men and hunt ers, in the van.'

As there was but little time to make the necessary arrangements, the whole party set about them in good earnest. Inez and Ellen were placed in the edge of the thicket on the side farthest from the approaching herd. Asinus was posted in the centre, in consideration of his nerves, and then the old man, with his three male companions, divided themselves in such a manner as they thought would enable them to turn the head of the rushing column, should it chance to approach too nigh their position. By the vacillating movements of some fifty or a hundred bulls, that led the advance, it remained questionable, for many moments, what course they intended to pursue. But a tremendous and painful roar, which came from behind the cloud of dust that rose in the centre of the herd, and which was horridly answered by the screams of the carrion birds, that were greedily sailing directly above the flying drove, appeared to give a new impulse to their flight, and at once to remove every symptom of indecision. As if glad to seek the smallest signs of the forest, the whole of the affrighted herd became steady in its direction, rushing in a straight line toward the little cover of bushes, which has already been so often named.

The appearance of danger was now, in reality, of a character to try the stoutest nerves. The flanks of the dark, moving mass, were advanced in such a manner as to make a concave line of the front, and every fierce eye, that was glaring from the shaggy wilderness of hair, in which the entire heads of the males were enveloped, was riveted with mad anxiety on the thicket. It seemed as if each beast strove to outstrip his neighbour in gaining this desired cover, and as thousands in the rear pressed blindly on those in front, there was the appearance of an imminent risk that the leaders of the herd would be precipitated on the

concealed party, in which case the destruction of every one of them was certain. Each of our adventurers felt the danger of his situation in a manner peculiar to his individual character and circumstances.

The old man, who had stood all this while leaning on his rifle, and regarding the movements of the herd with a steady eye, now deemed it time to strike his blow. Levelling his piece at the foremost bull, with an agility that would have done credit to his youth, he fired. The animal received the bullet on the matted hair between his horns, and fell to his knees; but, shaking his head, he instantly arose, the very shock seeming to increase his exertions. There was now no longer time to hesitate. Throwing down his rifle, the trapper stretched forth his arms, and advanced from the cover with naked hands, directly towards the rushing column of the beasts.

The figure of a man, when sustained by the firmness and steadiness that intellect can only impart, rarely fails of commanding respect from all the inferior animals of the creation. The leading bulls recoiled, and, for a single instant, there was a sudden stop to their speed, a dense mass of bodies rolling up in front, until hundreds were seen floundering and tumbling on the plain. Then came another of those hollow bellowings from the rear, and set the herd again in motion. The head of the column, however, divided; the immoveable form of the trapper cutting it, as it were, into two gliding streams of life. Middleton and Paul instantly profited by his example, and extended the feeble barrier by a similar exhibition of their own per

sons.

For a few moments, the new impulse given to the animals in front served to protect the thicket. But, as the body of the herd pressed more and more upon the open line of its defenders, and the dust thickened so as to obscure their persons, there was, at each instant, a renewed danger of the beasts breaking through. It became necessary for the trapper and his companions to become still more and more alert; and they were gradually yielding before the headlong multitude, when a furious bull darted by Mid

dleton, so near as to brush his person, and, at the next instant, swept through the thicket with the velocity of the wind.

"Close, and die for the ground," shouted the old man, ' or a thousand of the devils will be at his heels!"

All their efforts would have proved fruitless, however, against the living torrent, had not Asinus, whose domains had just been so rudely entered, lifted his voice in the midst of the uproar. The most sturdy and furious of the bulls trembled at the alarming and unknown cry, and then each individual brute was seen madly pressing from that very thicket, which, the moment before, he had endeavoured to reach with the same sort of eagerness as that with which the murderer seeks the sanctuary.

As the stream divided, the place became clear; the two dark columns moving obliquely from the copse to unite again at the distance of a mile on its opposite side. The instant the old man saw the sudden effect which the voice of Asinus had produced, he coolly commenced reloading his rifle, indulging, at the same time, in a most heartfelt fit of his silent and peculiar merriment.

The uproar, which attended the passage of the herd, was now gone, or rather it was heard rolling along the prairie, at the distance of a mile. The clouds of dust were already blown away by the wind, and a clear range was left to the eye, in that place where, ten minutes before, there existed such a strange scene of wildness and confusion.

The Character of Jesus.-REV. S. C. THACHER.

WE find in the life of Jesus a union of qualities, which had never before met in any being on this earth. We find imbodied in his example the highest virtues both of active and of contemplative life. We see united in him a devotion to God the most intense, abstracted, unearthly, with a benevolence to man the most active, affectionate and universal. We see qualities meet and harmonize in his char

acter, which are usually thought the most uncongenial. We see a force of character, which difficulties cannot conquer, an energy which calamity cannot relax, a fortitude and constancy which sufferings can neither subdue nor bend from their purpose; connected with the most melting tenderness and sensibility of spirit, the most exquisite susceptibility to every soft and gentle impression. We see in him the rare union of zeal and moderation, of courage and prudence, of compassion and firmness; we see superiority to the world without gloom or severity, or indifference or distaste to its pursuits and enjoyments. In short, there is something in the whole conception and tenor of our Saviour's character so entirely peculiar, something which so realizes the ideal model of the most consummate moral beauty; something so lovely, so gracious, so venerable and commanding, that the boldest infidels have shrunk from it overawed, and, though their cause is otherwise desperate, have yet feared to profane its perfect purity. One of the most eloquent tributes to its sublimity, that was ever uttered, was extorted from the lips of an infidel. "Is there any thing in it," he exclaims, " of the tone of an enthusiast, or of an ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manners; what touching grace in his instructions; what elevation in his maxims; what profound wisdom in his discourses; what presence of mind, what skill and propriety in his answers; what empire over his passions! Where is the man, where is the sage, who knows how to act, to suffer and to die, without weakness and without ostentation? When Plato paints his imaginary just man covered with all the ignominy of crime, and yet worthy of all the honours of virtue, he paints in every feature the character of Christ. What prejudice, what blindness must possess us to compare the son of Soproniscus to the son of Mary! How vast the distance between them. Socrates, dying without pain and without ignominy, easily sustains his character to the last; and; if this gentle death had not honoured his life, we might have doubted whether Socrates, with all his genius, was any thing more than a sophist. The death of Socrates, philosophizing tranquilly with his friends, is the most easy that one could desire; that of Jesus, expiring in torture, insulted, mocked, exe.