scale; and our own boasts of universal annexation might only call up some sad reminiscences of the olden time, when "the masses" did their thinking through the sophist and the rhetorician, instead of the lecturer and the press. But now let fancy change the scene from the reading room to the ministrations of the Christian temple. To present the contrast in its strongest light, let it be the humblest church, with the humblest worshipers, and the humblest preacher of our great city--some obscure corner which the literary and editorial lights of the age might regard as the last place in which there could be expected any thing original or profound. Yes--the poorest sermon of the poorest preacher in New York could hardly fail to strike the great Roman, and the greater Greek, with an awe which nothing of any other kind in the modern world could ever inspire. What wondrous truths are these, and whence came they! Whence this doctrine of eternal life, so far beyond what we ever dared to think--this preaching of "righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come," so far transcending all the ancient moralists had ever taught! Whence these new and startling words, these superhuman ideas of grace, of prayer, of redemption, of a new and heavenly birth! And then again, the sublimity of that invocation--the heavenly thought, and heavenly harmony, of that song of praise and love! All is redolent of a philosophy to which our most rapt contemplations never ventured to ascend. Even the despised hymn-book may be soberly supposed to fill their souls with an admiration that Dryden and Shakspeare might fail to inspire. How transcendent the conceptions on every page! How far beyond all ancient or modern poetry that is alien to its spirit, or claims no kindred with its celestial origin. Here, indeed is progress. But we must close our sketch. Is the picture overdrawn? Or have we truthfully presented the highest although, in spirit, the least acknowledged aspect of the real superiority of the modern mind--even the humblest modern mind--over the proudest intellects of the ancient world? EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. Between CONGRESS, KOSSUTH, and CHRISTMAS--an alliterative trio of topic--we hardly know where to find the handle of a single other moving hammer of gossip. The hunt for chit-chat is after all a very philosophical employ; and we do not know another _colaborateur_, in the whole editorial fraternity, who has smacked the turbulence of congressional debaters, the enthusiasm of the Hungarian Patrick Henry, and the _cadeaux_ of our _Noel_, with more equanimity and composure than ourselves.