THE iNEW ENGLANDER. No. LXIX. FEBRUARY, 1860. ARTICLE 1.MR. TENNYSON AND THE IDYLS OF KING ARTHUR. fdyl8 of the King. By ALFRED TENNYSON, D. C. L., Poet Laureate. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. JOHN MILTON, when, at the age of thirty, lie had left Eng- land to perfect, by travel and by experience of foreign lands, the varied education by which he had been training himself for immortality, pluming his wings and meditating flight, had come at last, through France and Northern Italy, along the coast of the blue Mediterranean tp Naples. here he lin- gered among the charming scenes of that Italian landscape, rich in natural beauty and not less rich in historic memories. Ifere he mused over the tomb of Virgil, and as he looked about him or glanced off to seaward, his eyes, as yet not sightless, rested on many an object which bad been made im- mortal by ancient fable or by classic verse. Here too lie was the guest of the noble Manso, himself a man of letters and a poet, but more famous as the friend, protector, and biographer of Tasso, and as the patron of the more recent but less worthy VOL. XVIII. I 2 iJk. Tenmy8on and the Idyl8 of King Arthur. [Feb., poet iMiarini. iDoubtiess, in the weeks that Milton spent surrounded by such scenes and in such companionship, there was much talk and meditation of the poets, ancient and modern, whose names and memory were so associated with the place, and more especially of the tales of chivalry and romance, which lived in the verse of Tasso. Thus it was that the young English poet was led to speak about the ancient tales of British chivalry, and to tell the polite and appreciating Italian the mythic story which, centuries before, the romance writers had begun to fabricate,the story of Arthur and his noble knights,of Arthur and the battles that he fought for Christ and Britain. And here it was, most probably, (as indeed his biographer has suggested,)* that the plan of writing a great epic poem, upon which until now he had meditated vaguely, be- gan to take definite shape in his mind, and to be freely spoken of in his intercourse with his friends. TIe would sing of Arthur and the British kings who fought the Saxons, and would make the valor and the faith of those old warriors to live again in his enduring verse. Such was the plan which he then hoped to accomplish. The hope grew upon him while he stayed in Italy, and, when he was suddenly summon- ed home again, he expresses it distinctly in his parting epistle to IMlanso: Indigenas revocabo in carmina reges, Arturuinque etiam sub terris bella moventem! Aut dicam invicta, sociali fcedere rnen~e Magnanimos heroas. He carried his design with him back to England, and we find him still cherishing it in the elegant elegiac poem which he wrote soon after his return, on hearing of the death of his friend Deodati. In the mythic history of Britain, in the story of the crafty maneuvering of Merlin,of the betrayal of the fair Igrayne, the birth of Arthur and the wars and treachery that followed,was to be found the subject for his promised epic. Only it is noticeable that now, in the gravity of his ma- turing manhood, and chastened by the bereavement which he * See Tolands Life of Milton, (London ed. of 1761,) page 14117. 1860.] ilfr. ]ienfly8Ofl and the Idyls of King Arthur. 3 had suffered, lie chooses this for his subject, not in the hope of a wide immortality of fame, but preferring rather to live in the affectionate and grateful memory of his own countrymen. If only by his poem he may secure to himself a reward like this, he says: ml satis ampla Merces, et mihi grande decus, (sim ignotus in ~vum Turn licet, externo penitusque inglorius orbi.) But the news which hurried Milton back to England, be- fore he had become satisfied with his stay in Naples, was the news of civil discord and commotion which was soon to be followed by civil war and a great revolution; and for years to come, he had euough to do in libertys defense, without planning epics or writing them. When, at last, with a soul strengthened by experience of controversy in matters of reli- gion and of state, disciplined and matured by personal afihic- tion and suffering, he camne to the production of the promised poem, he found that he had all this time been in training for a nobler work than to record the fictitious story of any earthly heroes. He had been occupied too long with matters far sublimer than the wars of Arthur and the adventures of his knights. He could not descend again from the high places from which he had been doing battle for freedom, for purity of faith and order, and for eternal truth. Now that the time had come for him to sing, he sang of mans first disobe- dience, and of the wise counsels and the mighty acts of God; and so the epic of IKing Arthur has remained unwritten until now. It has remained unwritten, but not unattempted. Only a few years after Milton died, Sir Richard Blackmnore, a learned and excellent man, so eminent in the profession of medicine that King William III appointed him his own physician, em- ployed his leisure time in writing a long poem, in which he celebrated the military exploits which are attributed to the early part of Arthurs reign. This production being received with unexpected favor, he followed it speedily with another poem, in twelve books, in which he recorded the tedious series of Arthurs later triumphs. Sir Richard was a man of un 4 AIr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb., commonly religious spirit. His motive in writing was a most excellent one,and he succeeded in showing to a generation whose literary taste had been fearfully corrupted, that a poet could write good verses, and a great many of them, too, with- out polluting them with all the indecencies in which iDryden and his fellows had delighted. He succeeded, also, to some extent, in elevating the taste which had become thus degraded. But in spite of the excellent spirit in which they are written, and although the verses are smooth and polished and rhyme with faultless regularity, the poems are monotonous and heavy. The Arthur whom they celebrate is a mere military hero, although his general character, as far as it appears, is every way respectable; he appears chiefly engaged in battle with opposing armies, and with an occasional dragon; celestial powers array themselves on his behalf against the machina- tions of Lucifer and his fiends, who are contriving continu- ally for his temporal and eternal destruction. Once or twice he is made to personate some Scriptural character. Lucifer, for instance, asks and obtains leave to distress and tempt him, feeling sure that in adversity his integrity of character will be destroyed. But he endures with the patience and constancy of Job. Merlin) the great magician, is represented, contrary to all history and all fable, as having proved false to Arthur and the British cause, and as giving the assistance of his wicked enchautments to the hostile army. Being brought, as Balaam was of old, for the purpose of pronouncing a curse upon the British king and people, lie is forced to bless instead,and does so in a very excellent and Scriptural style, very good in its place, but not what we look for from the wizard of King Arthurs court. But we look in vain through all these succes- sive books for that King Arthur who was the fioure of all knights and kings, who was so brave and yet so gentle, who was so pure and just, who was illustrious not only on the battle- field and at the tournament, but also at the head of all his table round, in council, as a king, a friend, a husband. This last remark is true also, though in a less degree, of the I~rince Arthur whom Spenser introduces as the hero of his Facry Queen. He is not distinctly the Arthur of the old 1860.] AIr. Tenny8on and the Idyl8 of King Arthur. romances. So far as the character of the hero is concerned, he might as well bear any other name. He appears at best but seldom, and the part which he plays in the poem is not a coii- spicuons one. The scenes and persons with which he is con- nected are allegorical and of the poets own invention, and we catch no glimpse of all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights that met at the round table, and whose delight it was to talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot. The Facry Queen has not, indeed, shared the fate of Sir Richard Blackmores epics, and is not banished to the dusty shelves of libraries; but it is because the sweetness of the melody, the beauty of the verse, the pure and high morality of the poetic thought have made it worthy to be always read and loved; and not because it has successfully treated or even attempted to treat the history and character of its nominal hero, King Arthur. It is not at all surprising that a subject which Milton consid- ered worthy of his genius, and which, in some form and to some extent, has been a favorite one with a great many of the English poets, should long ago have attracted the attention of that poet who is, in our day, the greatest living master of English verse. Among the earliest of his poems are traces of his familiarity with the romances and legends that cluster about the almost mythical name of Arthur. It was when lie first began to be known as a poet, that he put in verseand with such exceeding skill as even he himself has rarely sur- passedthe story of the Lady of Shallott, to which we shall have occasion again to refer. Besides this he had given us such a perfect lyric as the Sir Galahad ; and such an ex- quisite little gem of description as the fragment of five stan- zas, in which he paints Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere on one of those Maying parties in which, as old Sir Thotuas NIalory tells us, the queen delighted to ride, bedashed with hearbes and fioures in the best manner and freshest; and 6 Afr. Tennyson and the Jdyls of King Arthur. [Feb., such a complete and vivid picture as that which he hangs in his Palace of Art, and in which he portrays how mythic Uthers deeply-wounded son In some fair space of sloping greens Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, And watched hy weeping queens. And such passages as these, even without the splendid frag- ment of an epic which we find in the Mort dArthur, were sufficient to give evidence of a poetic taste which could appreciate what was beautiful and good in those old fables, and of a poetic power which could mold them anew, expand- ing and adorning them and making them, to countless readers in our time and in times to come, sources of pure and healthful pleasure and of real instruction. They gave evidence, too, that the poet who produced them was casting longing eyes toward the great field of ancient romance, from which these were only single flowers, and encouraged the hope that he was making ready by and by to enter it, in the maturity of his powers, and to bring us forth a noble poem and a worthy one, the poem which Milton might have written, but that he had higher work to do,the poem for which all readers of English poetry have so long been waiting,the epic of King Arthur. We welcome this volume of Idyls, regarding it as the first partial fulfillment of that cherished hope, and trusting that the Laureate is meaning to continue, preflxin~ and adding to them, till he shall have given us a series of poems,idyls, if he chooses to call them so,arranged, as these are, in a sort of chronological order,having, as these have, some thread of con- nection, and so making the story of Arthur more or less com- plete, from the days of his birth by the fair Igrayne, and of his nurture under the cunning superintendence of Merlin, to that magnificent closing scene which Mr. Tennyson has already described to us,when all day long the noise of hattle roared Among the mountains hy the winter sea; Until King Arthurs tahle, man hy man, Had fallen in Lyonness ahout their Lord King Arthur. 1860.] iJfr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. Precisely such an arrangement as this, which, so far, Mr. Tennyson has adopted, would be most accordant with the style of the old romances, as we find them compiled by Sir Thomas Malory. There is no closely connected story, of which the fortunes of the lily maid of Astolat, for instance, are an inseparable part,bnt the several subordinate stories are, to a great extent, complete in themselves, but strung together in some sort of unity by a common attachment to the story of Arthur,something as was that rhyme of Vivien 5 which she likened to the fair pearl-necklace of the Queen.~~ Is it too much to hope that Mr. Tennyson, who has never written better poetry than when he has written upon subjects connected with King Arthur, will give us more of so excellent a sort? Before we pass to a more careful and particular examination of these we ought say somethino~ further about the poems, to b subject of them. Whether there ever was a British King named Arthur has been not only doubted but even positively denied; and whether there ever was or not cannot greatly con- cern us now; for if there was we can positively know but little more about him than the fact of his existence in the earlier part of the sixth century. It is difficult, however, if there was no such real existence, to account for the fact that xve find his name famous in tradition, in fragments of poems, and in the scanty historical records of those days, even centu- ries before the time wheu Geoffrey of Monmouth produced the startling and ingenious fables which were the basis of the romances, in prose and verse, that became so popular in later years. It is difficult to explain, on any other hypothesis, the legends which connect the name of Arthur with so many actual localities in Southern England and in Wales. And it is, certainly,vastly more satisfactory to accept the meagre histori- cal evidence, liable as it may be to suspicion, and to conclude that there really was, in the first half of the sixth century, an Arthur, whose reign was so illustrious above those of the petty kings preceding and succeeding him, and whose cha- racter was so excellent and noble among a people, and at a time when such nobility was uncommon, that his name 8 Mr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb.. endured, in spite of the lack of historians, living from genera- tion to generation between the lips of men. And so his glory grew from age to age, and was made magnificent beyond the truth, till Geoffrey, partly collecting and partly inventing the fabulous history of his life and acts, made a groundwork for all the romances which have come down to us. And thus, too, in later ages, Arthur has come to be considered, even by those who know but little more of him than his name, as the ideal of a king and hero, brave, generous, and chivalric. Such was he, in fact, to the old romancers. Their ideal of a Christian knight and heroic king may have been a low one,although not always quite so low as some modern crit- ics would have us believe it,but that ideal was Arthur, reigning at Camelot among his knights of the round table, and inciting them by precept and example to be perfect in what- ever should become a noble knight. The romances of these old writers are best known to modern readers in the compila- tion which was made so long ago as the year 1470, by Sir Thomas Malory, a knight of the court of Edward the Fourth of England, and his version of them has been the authority which Mr. Tennyson has apparently recognized, so far as he has thought proper to confine himself to them. In regard to La IMlorte dArthure, under which title Sir Thomas Malorys book was published, it is not out of place to say briefly that it seems to have been considered by its author to be chiefly a fictitious romance, but founded upon veracious history; that it was published for the delight and profit of the reader, and for the purpose of perpetuating the fame of a king whose existence had even then begun to be qnestioned. The three volumes appear, at first, to be filled merely with muonoto- nous and somewhat tirseomne descriptions of wars and, tourna- ments, of the adventures of the noble knights of the round table, encountering giants and sometimes dragons, jousting yerpetually with stranger knights, delivering damsels from distress in which uncourteous knights had held them, meeting with rebuffs and disfavor, or with love and goodly cheer, from the damsels to whom they offered their devotion. But through all the monotony and din of these successive adventures, 1860.] Yr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. 9 appear the characters, clearly drawn and memorable for their vividness and power, of the blameless king himself, of Guineverethat is,Winifredhis beautiful but faithless queen, of Lancelot and Tristram, peers in bravery, and bound together in the truest friendship,of the crafty Gawaine, and, above all, of the pure Sir Galahad, who surpassed all others in his worth and glory, and who, with Sir Percivale and Sir Bors, achieved at last the quest of the Sanc Greal. And the sim- plicity and beauty of the old knights narrative, the power of his descriptions, the appreciation which he shows of what is beautiful and noble wherever he finds it, the tinge of the super- natural with which his stories are colored, just enough to make them fascinating, but not euoigh to make them monstrous, all these combine to make the volumes not wearisome but delightful; add to this that they are written in the purest and strongest Saxon style, in such language as we rarely meet with now except in King James~ s version of the Bible. The times of chivalry, and the romances which in those times attained so wide a popularity, have been often and justly condemned as in a high degree immoral and impure. It must be confessed that, to a fearful extent this censure is a well deserved one. We can hardly claim, even for Sir Thomas Malorys book, that it is to be recommended as widely useful for popular reading. It is a mere collection of romances, and as such, of course, is not a book of the highest utility. No doubt the real morality which Malorys picture of chivalry presents to us, is sometimes no morality at all. But it is not true that his ideal is thus low and unworthy, and that it finds its expression in the criminality of a Lancelot, for instance. We can sympa- thize, indeed, with good old Roger Aschams indignation, when he tells us that he knows of a time when Gods Bible was banished the court, and La Morte dArthure received into the Princes chamber. Just so we should be indignant, and should know what to believe of the character of such a court, if it were true in our day that the Bible were cast out and Vanity Fair, for instance, or even Oliver Twist, welcomed in its place. But that good old schoolmaster spoke too hastily, and evidently without knowing whereof lie affirm- 10 AIr. Tenny8on and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb., ed, when he declared that, in that book, they are counted the noblest knights who do kill most men without any quarrel, and commit fowlest adulteries by subtlest shiftes. What shall we say of the whole romance of the quest of the Sauc Greal, if IRoger Aschams statement is correct? And what shall we say about the pure Sir Galahad,beyond all question the strongest, bravest, noblest of the knights of the round table,who sat in the seat perilous, in which no other man might sit and live, and who was kept, by heavenly power, from pride and arrogant presumption, from cruelty and from defilement? How is it, if these tales are all so steeped in licentiousness as some modern critics would have us believe, how is it that we find in them a character so supernaturally lovely, and so bright an example of religious purity, simplicity, and faith, fanciful, it may be, but so fascinating and so ele- vated in its tone that we know not where to look in all English allegory for its superior, unless in the dream of the Elstow tinker? It is something of the spiritual beauty and of the ethereal, almost colorless, purity of this quest of the Sanc Greal, that Mr. Tennyson has made familiar to us in the lyric to which we have had occasion once already to refer. ihis is the sanie Sir Galahad who says and feels My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure ; this is the just and faithful knight of God, doing frequent and perilous battle, and going through much tribulation, but always fighting in a righteous cause, and always aspiring to a heavenly reward. No earthly love is his, although he counts as sweet, indeed, and worthy of all gratitude, the pure love of woman; But all my heart is drawn ahove, My knees are howed in crypt and shrine. He is content with faith in heavenly things of which he some- times has a foretaste here: A maiden kni~,htto me is given Such hope I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. 1860.] ilIr. Tenny8ofl and the Idyl8 of ~Una Arthur. 11 I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams. So living and so diligently following his quest, he at last achieves it, and in great peace and glory, kissing his comrades Percivale and Bors, and commending them to God, he sends a farewell message to his sinful father, the great Sir Lancelot, bidding him, simply and solemnly, to remember this unsta- ble world. And therewith, as Sir Thomas IMlalory simply tells us, in his quaint old English, hee kneeled down before the table and made his praiers; and then sodainely his soule de- parted unto Jesn Christ, and a great mnltitude of angels beare his soule up to heaven, that his two fellowes might behold it. Before we can co~~dem~~, with sweeping and indis- criminate censure, all the old romances of chivalry as being penetrated through and through with immorality, we must forget such stories as the quest of the Sauc Greal, and such characters as Galahad and Percivale and Bors. And we ven- ture to say that, when Sir Thomas Malorys book usurped the place of the Bible, in the Princes chamber, this romance was not a favorite one, nor these the characters that were most read and imitated. We should be glad to show, if it could be done without too great a digression from our plan in these pages, after how excellent a sort this old knight moralizes over the fortunes of the heroes whom he describes in his book, and to illustrate by examples the simple, reverent, and noble spirit in which he wrote. What we have already said is enough to prove that the field of old chivalric romance is not, at least, so wholly vile as some would have us believe it. It was, at any rate, a field into which a soul like Miltons could enter without defile- ment. For, as he himself tells us,* he found, as he read, that the ideals, at least, were noble; and if the real attainments of the characters fell short of them, or were in gloomy contrast with them, he was saddened to be sure, and made indignant, Maisons Life of Milton, Boston edition, i. 239. 12 AIr. ZIienny8on and the Idyl8 of King Arthur. [Feb., but was not polluted. So that, he says, even those books which to many others have been the fuel of wantonness and loose livingI cannot think how unless by Divine indul- genceproved to inc so many incitements to the love aiid steadfast observation of virtue. In this hurried and inadequate view of the age of chivalry, and especially of the times of Arthur, and of the literature - which has depicted to us the manners of that age, it is not difficult to see why it must prove so fascinating to the poet. It appears, in a sort of fantastic way, and to a very limited extent as a golden age. And it is so far distant in the dim past, and so almost unknown to anthentic hi3tory, that the imagination wanders back to it unconstrained, and accepts with ease and wild delight the unreal supernaturalism that fills it. We are willing enough that, as we look back into that far-off horizon of the past, the sky should scent to mingle with the earth; that the powers of heaven and of the air should come into a closer contact with men. That unreasonable love for fanciful impossibilities which is so powerful in the minds of children,and which makes so attractive to them a fairy tale, for instance, or one of those grotesque books which the Germans in our day manufacture for the children of this favored age,exists with no little power among many children of a larger growth, and gives to such fables of the olden time as these of King Arthur and his knights a continual power to charm. Especially is this true of any mind which is in an un- common degree imaginative and poetic. No wonder, then, that Milton, when he was young and had not acquired the sterner and more practical character which his later years brought to him, and when he was lingering at Naples, capti- vated by the soft sky and pleasant landscape, and by the memory of classic days, was led to think of Arthur, and the goodly usage of those antique tymes, In which the sword was servaunt unto right ; whereof, not long befbre, his predecessor, Edmund Spenser, had sung so sweetly. No wonder, too, that Tennyson has turned again and again to the romances of those bygone times, l8~Oj Mr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. 13 which he knows so well how to appreciate, until he has grown into the spirit and even the very language of them, and can remold and polish them and rehearse them to us expanded and adorned in his own melodious verse. It is not, we may well be sure, in any lazy and repining love for a dead past, as if, with it, the age of gold had gone forever by, that he looks thither and delights to linger there. But it is rather because he finds in those old times ideals which may be full of life and beauty, and lessons which may be full of instruction, in that golden year which now is and which is coming all the time; for Mr. Tennyson is not a poet of the past, but of the present and the future. We are now prepared to look more d~ectly ~nd particularly at the four Idyls before us. The t1~~ as of these are founded upon subjects taken from the Morte d Arthur ; but the subject of the first is found in those old Welsh roman- ces, which have been so long locked up from modern readers in a language which seemed to repel all scholars, except some few who cared little or nothing for the idle stories of those for- gotten times. Recently, however, the enthusiasm and dili- gence of an English lady, who married into Wales, has given us, in a most elegant and attractive English translation, these stories of the Mabinogeon; and they prove to be what their title indicated that they were,childrens stories of the times of Arthur and his knights, but with such a power to amuse and fascinate that others beside children might well be de- lighted with them. One of the most conspicuous knights of these romances, though he is one that is nowhere mentioned in the English and Breton legends, is the brave Geraint, and there is, perhaps, no more beautiful and simple womans char- acter, throughout the whole range of the chivalric literature, than the character of Enid. And so, although the story was a long and rambling one, and needed to be told with great skill, lest it should become wearisome, Mr. Tennyson did well to choose it and to give it to us in his fresh and graceful verse. If he can find, among the Welsh stories, more knights as brave and generous as Prince Geraint, and more women as 14 Afir. Tennyson and the Idyls qf King Arthur. [Feb., fair and good as Enid, we wonld gladly have him give them, also, immortality in similar Idyls. If the story of Geraint and Enid is a somewhat queer and fantastic one, the moral of it is very high and noble. Against all slothful and selfish indulgeiic e,against all over indulgence in emotions which of t~hemselves may be most honorable, against all bitter and unfounded jealousy,against all self- wrought perplexity and sorrow that men endure, it speaks with a simple and right manly utterance. Geraint, a knight of the round table, in the quest of an adventure which he had undertaken in behalf of Guinevere the queen, had found -and suddenly had loved, in spite of all her broken fortunes, Enid the fair, the daughter of Earl Yniol. He jousts for her, bravely enough, against her wolfish cousin Edyrn, son of Nudd, who, proud and mean and cruel, failing to win her love, had hated her and had worked the ruin of her fathers housu. him, Geraint, after a wondrous battle, had vanquished, and had sent humbled and sullen to Guinevere, to give to her apology and allegiance for the foul insult which he had done her, and which, indeed, was the very cause of Geraints adventure. Recovering - thus, for Enid and her father, title and lands and fortune, he will not have her dress herself in any other than the faded silk in which at first he found her, when he had heard her singing to herself and guided by the music of her bird-like voice, had come to her exclaiming Here by Gods grace is the one voice for me And in that faded silk she rides with him, abashed and tremb- ling, to the court, and there is welcomed with all honor by the queen, who with her own white hands Arrayed and decked her, as the loveliest, Next after her own self, in all the court. Thus being wedded, for a while Geraint honored and loved with all the power of his great, ardent soul, his fair and guile- less wife, rejoicing greatly in the love that was between the queen and her. But at last, heeding the rumors that were rife about the sin of Guinevere, he gained permission, from the 1860.] lift. Tennyson and the Idyls of Kin~j Arthur. 15 king, to go to his own province, hoping there to keep his wife beyond the reach of any taint or stain of evil influence. And here, absorbed in this one blind affection for her, all other duties are neglected, and all other joys forgotten, so that his very vassals jeer and mock at him as molten down in mere uxoriousness. Weeping to see herself the cause of all th~ great dishonor into which her lord has fallen, and fearing lest that strength and courage which she loved so much should indeed be dying out, and all through her; and yet not venturing to tell him all her sorrow and her fear, for dread lest he, with jealous anger, should suspect and blame her boldness, she sits beside his couch, one early morning, gazing admiringly upon the mighty warrior in his dreams; Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside, And bared the knotted column of his throat, The massive square of his heroic breast, And arms on which the standing muscle sloped, As slopes a wild brook oer a little stone, Running too vehemently to break upon it. Gazing thus admiringly, she sorrowfully reproves herself for lacking in the courage to speak out and counsel him to look to his good name, lest all the sneers and scoffs at him should not be undeserved,and weeping over him exclaims in view of her own cowardice, 0 me, Ifearth at I am no true wife ! By great mischance, Geraint, awaking suddenly, caught these last words, and stung with jealous pain and anger, and almost with despair, at such confession, springs up and girds his harness on, and starts at once upon a wild and des- perate quest of adventure, taking his wife with him, dressed in her meanest dress, even in that old faded silk of hers, which she had reverently treasured. With all the sternness that his love to her,sorrowful indeed, and disappointed and distrust- ful, now, but still earnest,will permit, he bids her ride far on before him, and on no account to speak to him; and so he rides, nursing his bitter anger, tortured with conflicting pas 16 AIr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Artbur. [Feb., sions, and mourning over all his vainly lavished love, while she goes patient, sorrowing too, and not less deeply, but won- dering what has been the unnoticed failing in herself That made him look so cloudy and so cold. It does not take long, in that disordered and much neglected province of Prince Geraints, for them to meet with great adventures; and, in the course of the first day, the prince en- counters no less than six strong, caitiff knights, whom he strikes down with spear and sword, and slays. Herein alone was Enid disobedient,that riding on before and seeing first the threatening danger from those savage knights, she turned back to her lord, met his full frown timidly firm, arid warned him of their presence, not daring to obey him to his harm. Thus for two days, through many perils and through provocations and temptations, Enid endures in meek and patient love, waiting upon her lord, and watching by him when he slept, and weeping over him and growing pale and sorrowful, and wondering wherein she had offended him; until at last Geraint, who had been wounded in a fight with a base company of knights, fell fainting by the roadside, from his horse. The true and faithful wife, not heeding all his sullen, jealous treatment of her, but only mindful how she best may help him and revive him, searches his wound,for, in those days, some skill in medicine and surgery was one of the chiefest accomplishments of high born maidensand binds it up with her own vail. The cruel and brutal earl within whose territories this had happened, noticing, as he rides by, this weeping woman and the wounded knight, and the great war-horse standing mournfully beside them, gives orders that the three be taken to his own rough castle. There at dinner time he finds them all, the knight still seeming senseless, arid his faithful wife refusing to be comforted. At last Earl IDoorm, impatient at the failure of the coarse and savage hospitality which he had proffered to the pale and trembling Enid, seeing that she will not eat, nor drink, nor clothe her- 1860.] ilIr. Tenny8on and the Idyls of King Arthur. 17 self in gay apparel like the gentlewomen of his hall, strode up to her and smote her rudely on the cheek. Then Enid, in her utter helplessness, And since she thought He had not dared to do it Except he surely knew my lord was dead, Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry As of a wild thing taken in a trap, Which sees the trapper coming through the wood. But Prince Geraint, who, thanks to Euids care and watch- fulness, had partially recovered from his swoon, although he had been lying still and silent as if senseless yet, and who had been deeply conscions of his wifes affectionate devotion to him, and of her brave rejection of the brutal politeness of the huge Earl Doorm, had found already that his heart was softening toward her, and had yearned for her forgiveness of his sinful jealousy. And now, nerved by this cruel insult to her, and feeling suddenly his strength renewed, he grasps his sword that lies beside him, springs like a lion at the drunken earl, and smites his head off at a single blow. Panic-stricken at this sudden resurrection of the knight they counted dead, the other men and women fled, yelling as from a spectre, and Geraint, left now alone with Enid, makes to her his remorseful confession of the grievous wrong that he had done her, and declares, Ilenceforward I will rather die than doubt. And so, thenceforth, the current of their mutual life flows with as deep and strong affection as before; but, with this difference, that now it is not ruffled by any whispering breeze of suspicion, nor tossed by any storm of jealousy. Geraint re- sumed his old distinction in the brotherhood of knights, and Enid whom her ladies loved to call Enid the fair, a ~rateful people named Enid the good; and in their balls arose The cry of children, Enids and Geraints Of times to be; nor did he doubt her more, But rested in her fealty, till he crowned A happy life with a fair death, and fell Against the heathen of the northern sea In battle, fighting for the blameless kin~ voL. xviii. 2 18 Yr. Tenny8on and the ldyl.~ of King Arthur. [Feb., Such, briefly, is the story; but before dismissing it, we ought to record the fate of Edyrn, son of Nudd, against whom, long before, Geraint had jousted, at the time when first he saw his bride. This knight, who was a man of great bravery and prowess, but churlish and brutal in his spirit, came to the court of Arthur sullen and humbled by his overthrow, and meaning to be soon rid of life. But coming there, he found that Guinevere forgave him utterly, and saw that all the court, led by the goodly king himself, not hated him, but treated him with noble kindness and with frank generosity. Thus, by and by, the genial warmth of their fine influence stole through the proud and cold reserve in which he had enwrapped himself:, and he was changed from his old wolfish nature. And then he talked with Dubric the high saint, who at that time was the Archbishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk, until the old man that he had been was supplanted by the new and gentle man as which he was hereafter to be known. So Arthur admitted him to the great order of the round table, and he lived honored, and died bravely; for we think it is none other than this hero, whom we find in another ancient legend, under the name of Ider son of Nuth, fighting valiantly against three wicked giants, on the mount of frogs, and falling into a trance as if dead, from the severity of his exertions. Whether he ever recovered from this trance, or not, does not appear; but, at any rate, Arthur, who loved him greatly, founded in his behalf the Abbey of Glastonbury, and instituted no less than twenty-four monks, amply endowed with lands and riches, who should pray continually for his soul. This is the story, and Mr. Tennyson, in telling it, has, in the main, adhered to the old tale in the Mabinogeon. Where he has deviated from it, it has been for the better, and for the purpose of securing a greater simplicity, and of teaching a higher lesson. The character of Edyrn son of Kudd, is almost wholly Mr. Tennysons; and the story of his change, which is told with such uncommon skill, is altogether framed by him. And in his version of the story, the bright, pure character of Enid appears more clearly, teaching with greater power that it is vastly better to be good than fair, and that a true, and 1860.] M~. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. 19 simple, and confiding love is greatly better than a false, tor- menting jealousy. Just in this way has Mr. Tennyson adhered to the romance concerning Merlin, in the second Idyl; not feeling himself bound by it in all minutest details, but preserving the general facts of it, and expanding them or deviating from them at his will. The name of Merlin is inseparable from the legends of the days of Arthur, and is almost as familiar as is the name of the great king hiruselt. He was the prince of all magicians, the mightiest and kindest of all wizards: - the most famous man of all those times, Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, Had huilt the King his havens, ships, and halls, Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens. He, in the days when Arthur was not born, had been the kind and potent friend of [Tther, and had prophesied the valor and the glory of his son. For he it was, who, when in Uthers days there came a fiery meteor, with rays on which there rode a mighty dragon, and when all the land was troubled at it, showed it to be a happy omen of the victories of Uther, and of the conquests and the mighty deeds of Arthur. And thus he caused that cunning workmen should contrive a dragon, all of gold, which, ever after, Uther and his son King Arthur wore upon their helmets or blazoned on their standards in the wars, which was the dragon of the great Pendragonship, and whence the king was called Pendragon, that is, dragons head. To him and to his magic the old romancers attributed the mighty power which brought from Ireland those vast, rough hewn stones which even to this day remain piled up in mysterious grandeur on Salisbury plain. And the tradition which still lingers about that spot, and tells to modern trav- elers how that the devil~~ brought the pile from Ireland, may be, perhaps, received as proof that the same envious rumor which, in Arthurs days, was wont to call him devils son, has even outlived his name and makes him now abso- lutely identical with the Prince of evil. But what makes Merlins character vastly more attractive is that he was not 9 Mr. Tenny8on and the Idyls qf Einq Arthur. [Feb.. merely a magician, but that beside the wizard power of work- ing charms, of metamorphosing himself and others, of convey- ing himself unseen over vast distances in a moments time, he actually possessed a vast amonnt of merely human learning, and a practical wisdom not at all supernatural. He it was who took the little Arthur at his birth, and had him christened by a holy man, and had him carefully nourished by the wife of good Sir Ector. He it was who gave him always good and sensible advice, in boyhood arid iii later manhood when by the accla- ination of the comons he was chosen king. He it was who founded the great order of the round table, counseling Kin~ Arthnr that only those who were the noblest knights should fill the hundred and fifty seats about it, and that in the seat perilous only Sir Galahad, the best knight of the world, should sit. By his advice the table was made round, in token of the roundness of the world; for, as Sir Thomas Mal- ory tells us, by the round table is the world signified by right. For all the world, christen and heathen, resort unto the round table, and when they are choseii to be of the fellowship of the round table, they thinke them more blessed and more in worship than if they had gotten half the world. And thus he secured to Arthurs court the floure of chivalric of the world, which should be bound together in a loving brother- hood and sworn to vows of noble knighthood and entleness, and right. The fact that oftentimes these vows were broken, and that some knights were cruel and revengeful, and un- pure,so that the sage himself can only say of them at best, All biaxe, and many generous and some chaste, was not the fault of Merlin, and does not disprove the noble wisdom of his plan. This is only one instance of the wise and practical policy of Merlin, which was continually displayed in connsel at the council-board, and in stratagem in battle. Similar also was his great skill in all mechanical arts, and in all the sciences. lie was not merely a coarse and vulgar wizard, but a venerable scholar, versed in all wondrous lore of ancient times and foreign lands. But more than all his 1860.1 3fr. Tennypson and tke Jd~yl8 of King Artbtr. learning, his wisdom and his magic power, was that genial soul of his which made him, notwithstanding all his might, a cheerful, sometimes mirthful man, loving the good and always reverencing God. Such, then, was Merlin. And yet, in spite of all his kindly reverent love of truth and goodness, in spite of all his learning and his wisdom, in spite of all his magic and his power to charm, he fell in love with Vivien, or~ as Sir Thomas Malory puts it, he was assoted and fell in a dotaoe on her. b The character which we have described is particularly true of Mr. Tennysons Merlin. Apparently he has glorified the sage a little in order that he may make his fate more tragical and the character of his traitress more hateful. Yivien, in- deed, as we have her in the Idyl, is, to some extent, a char- acter of Mr. Tennysons own making. It is true that, even in Sir Thomas Malorys book, where she appears as one of the damosells of the lake which hight Nimue, she is not very amiable, and certainly she wrought the ruin of the wizard by her coquetry and artfully malicious fascinations. But Merlin is represented as having ardently loved her, even before the time when she began to Practice on him. It does not appear that the damosell kindled the passion intentionally, but only that having found herself assoted on, she used her power till she had learned of him all manner thing that shee (he- sired, and then, because she was ever passing xvery of him, and fame would have beene delivered of him, for she was afraid of him, because he was a divels sonne, and she could not put him away by no meanes,she quietly and heartlessly disposed of him by means of a charm which lie himself had taught her. Afterward she wrought her fascinations on Sir Pelleas, a brave and noble knight, a thousand times too good for her, and married himu with great serenity, while the good Merlin lay hopelessly and pitiably entombed within a great rock,not in a hollow oak, as Mr. Tennyson has given it. For once upon a time it hapned that Merlin shewed to her in a roche where as was a great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, which went under a stone. So by her subtile craft and working, she made Merlin to goc under 22 Ak. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb, that stone to let her wit of the mervailes there, but she wrought so there for him, that he never came out, for all the craft that he could doe. And so she departed and left Merlin. This cool proceeding on the part of this damosell,who, by the way, was the same one who fostered and trained Sir Lancelot in his boyhood, (a fact which may account for some of the subsequent improprieties of that great man,)was calamitous enough not alone for Merlin, and for all the court and kingdom of King Arthur that suffered in his loss, but also for certain laborious spirits whom the wizard, when he went on his last visit to his mistress, had left working on a brazen wall with which he intended to surround the city of Caermarthen. These fiends he strictly enjoined not to cease from work till his return, and as he never to this day has come again to re- lease them from that hard obligation, they may be heard at any time, (so Spenser says,) obeying literally the terrible com- mandment. It is quite safe to go and lay ones ear against the earth over their subterranean workshop, although the listener must never dare to enter that same baleful bowre, for feare the cruel feendes who clash their iron chains and beat their brazen cauldrons, groaning hideously the while, should seize him and devour him. Of Merlin himself we hear never more except that once, many years after his entombment, the good knight Bagdeinagus, riding on a quest of adventures, passed the place where he was buried, and there hee heard him make great mone; wherefore Sir Bagdemagus would have holpen him, and went to the great stone, and it was so heavy that an hundred men might not lift it up. When Merlin wist that he was there, he bad him leave his labour, for all was in vaine, and he might never be holpen but by her that put him there. Alas! poor Merlinvanquished and undone at last by enchantments subtler far than any he could wield,victirn of a serpent-power of charming mightier than his own and which had not his own great noble soul of gentleness and kind- ness behind it,he perished by the much shameful death, as to be put into the earth all quicke, which he himself had well enough foreseen, but yet could not escape. That which makes the story wonderfully true, as well as all the more piti tS6Oj 3Iir. Tennyson and the Idyls of Kinq Arthur. 23 able is the fact that Merlin knew, if only he had opened his eyes and looked, that all the specious virtue of the witch was false and only covered up a soul of wickedness. The mystery of such conquests always is that the captivity of the victim is brought about by arts which he can see through if he will. It is thus clear enough that in the old romance, Yivien was somewhat the same cold, heartless, artful, unprincipled co- quette that she appears in the Idyl. But the expanded char- acter, in all its hatefulness and hideousness, in all its awful guilt, in all the woe and suffering of which it is the malicious or caieless cause, is the production of Mr. Tennysons own genius, building upon the few brief hints of Sir Thomas Malorys story. The poet has done well to draw this picture. We could almost have expected it of the man who has a scorn and hatred for all false, deceitful and unholy love, so cordial as that which is expressed in Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and from the man who could write the passionate and indignant stanzas, Come not when I am dead To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, stanzas so full of keenest anguish, mixed with a pity which, were it not so fine and so forgiving, would be exquisitely scornful. And it seems to us that the picture, as he has drawn it, is almost a perfect one. In some respects it strikingly re- minds us of passages which the greatest of English poets has left us in his Samson Agonistes; but it is better than those, because, in that great poem, Milton only hints incidentally at the method in which Samson,between whose experience and Merlins there is a wonderfully strong resemblauce,was overcome by the great craftiness of a woman; whereas, in Mr. Tennysons Idyl, in words and measure almost Miltonic, all the minutest details of the story are wrought out with extraordi- nary vividness and picturesqueness. The exquisite skill with which the wileful traitress has attired herself for her malicious purpose; the flattering prayers and sighs and amorous re- proaches by which she strives to win from the old sage his dangerous secret; the restless perseverance with which, in varied ways, she follows up the attack; the show of argument, 24 AIr. Tennyi~on and the idyls of JCinq Arthur. [Feb.. the weaknesses of which she femininely covers up with a sort of affectionate petulance; the simple and heart-broken grief with which, a little later, she tries to efface the effect of the loathsome rage and open hate into which she had for a moment betrayed herself; and last, the real terror into which the thunder bolt had thrown her, when she called him dear protector in her fright, Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright, caressing him more fondly than before, and feigniig penitence for faults confessed ; the way in which thus mustering all her wiles With blandishd parlies, feminine assaults, Tongue batteries, she surceased not day nor night, to overcome, in some unguarded and too weary mood, the cau- tions wizard, lIntil he overtalked and overworn had yielded, told her all the charm and slept all this is told with a power and beauty that Mr. Tennyson has rarely equaled, and justifies us in pronouncing this Idyl to be certainly the most artistic in its construction of all the four. Nor is there in all the volume anything more perfect, of the sort, than the scenery of Vivien. The first five verses are, of themselves, a picture so complete and vivid, that it lives before us at this moment as visibly as if upon the canvas of some cunning artist. The thunder storm, which from the first was threatening, is exquisitely managed ,rising slowly, long-imn- pending, filling the world with awful gloom, warning the wizard, by the still solemnity with which it overshadowed him, against a weak compliance with the words and tears of a deceitful woman, threatening with mutteri ngs of vengeance the bad but beautiful enchantress, thickening till the dark wood grew darker towards the storm In silence, while his an~er slowly died Within him, till he let his wisdom go For ease of heart, and finally, as if in sharp and sudden answer to the heaven- 1860.] Mir. Tenny8om and the Idyl8 qf Kinq Arthur. 25 defying prayer of XTivien, bursting with fearful majesty, so that out of heaven a bolt (For now the storm was close above them) struck, Furrowing a giant oak, and javeliniug With darted spikes and splinters of the wood, The dark earth round. Then passionately over the oreat sin and woe which weeping b were to come, it passed away~ and left the ravaged woodland yet once more To peace.77 The power of this description, and the consummate skill with which this natural scenery of the sad story of the poem is managed, are beyond praise. We need not stop to show how true and noble is the great magicians scorn of empty fame, The cackle of the unborn about the grave, nor how sublime is his love for, and humble acceptance of that truer fame which is but ampler means to serve man- kind. Nor do we need to intimate that the great storm of righteous scorn and anger which the poet pours upon the sin- ful wiles of Yivien, applies with awful force to all the wicked coquetry of all lands and times. Surely until human nature becomes better than it is, the lesson of this Idyl will not fail to be a timely one. It was not difficult for those who were familiar with the poems of Mr. Tennyson, to recognize in Elaine, the third of these Idyls, something of the strange story of the Lady of Shallott. In that sweetest of his early poems, he had some- what vaguely shown to us the story of a pure and simple maiden, living alone in fantasy, and dealing only with the far-reflected images of things which came into the clear mirror of her stainless soul, and which hem never ceasing fancy pon- dered on, weaving them all into a magic web of light and shade, of fancied joy and sorrow. An awful doom was on her, if she dared to look beyond the quiet towers of Astolat, and mingle with the real things of life: 26 Aba. Tenny8rn and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb., She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shallott. All had been well, if only, in an evil day for her, the great Sir Lancelot had not passed by upon his way to Camelot. But now, alas! she can no longer be content with images and shadows of this mighty world. In no mere web of fantasy can such a goodly knight as he have place. The curse has come upon her: and she looks forth from Astolat, away off towards the noisy world, with all its din of war and tournament, with all its jealousies and hatreds, with all its sin and sorrow. Hence~ forth her life is real,sadly and sorrowfully real. For lo! she has looked, and lifted up her eyes And loved him with the love which was her doom. She leaves her tower and comes forth nuder a stormy sky and into a bitter cast wind. She glances sorrowfully enough, once more toward Camelot. She sees with awful clearness all her own mischance,her hopeless love, her joyless life, and calmly waits for specdy death,for death which only can contend with and can overcome the mighty love she bears to Lancelot. Despairing of his love she only hopes she may be mourned by him and buried by his pitying hands. And so she floated down to Camelot, telling dumbly her sad name and story, and thus meeting with a royal burial by King Arthurs order. But more than that, her simple prayer was answered; for when the king and all his court caine out to gaze on her, and wonder at her fate, then Lancelot mused a little space; He said, she has a lovely face; God in his mercy send her grace, The Lady of Shallott. Such was the story of the early poem,a story told with wondrous power and poetic skill, but wild and fanciful, and, to a careless reader, seemingly obscure. In this Idyl we have it again,expanded and in detail, and told with great simplicity, but still the same. And yet this later poem does not spoil the 1860.] Air. Temnyson~ and the Idyls of King Arthu,~. 27 earlier one. We confess that we like the lyric better than before, since we have read the Idyl: although we cannot say that it is better than the Idyl. Certainly we would not will- ingly part with either. The story of the fair Elaine, giving us, as it does, the picture of a true, unselfish and absorbing love, comes fitly and most welcome, after the dark sketch of the false and hateful selfish- ness of Yivien. There is something very beautiful and fasci- nating in the character of the lily maid of Astolat,in her unaffected simplicity and in the frank and unsophisticated intensity of her great love for Lancelot. All her days she had lived quietly with her father, old Sir Bernard, and her brothers. She knew little of the world about her, and nothing of the wily ways of ladies of the court. And when a knight of the great bravery and chivalry of Lancelot, so courtly and so gentle in his manners, so noble in his bearing, and so strong and so invincible in aspect, that men said of him always, even if they did not know his name, that he was one of the like- liest knights of the world,when such a knight as he came to the barons place~ of Astolat, it was sure to follow that this maiden ever beheld Sir Launcelot wonderfully; and she cast such a love unto Sir Launcelot that shee could not withdraw her love, wherefore she died. It was no shame to her that she had loved a knight so noble and so valiant, and, she must well believe, so good. Exquisitely simple and touching is her con- versation with Gawaine, when in his search for Lancelot he had come to Astolat and found his well-known shield in Elaines keeping. Sir Thomas IMlalory shall tell the story in his delight- ful style and strong old English. Is that knight that oweth that shield your love? said Sir Gawaine. Yee, truely, said shee, my love he is, God would that I were his love. So God me speede, said Sir Gawaine, faire damosell, yce love the most honourable knight of the world, and the man of most worship. So me thought ever, said the damosell, for never or that time for no knight that ever I saw loved I never none erst. So simple, and so unrestrained, so natural and all absorbing was her love that when at last the tournament was over, and when there was an end to all that tender nursing of 28 Mr. Tenng.son and t,4e Idyls of King Art /wr. [Feb., the wounded hero, in which ever this faire maide Elaine did her diligence and labour night and day unto Sir Launcelot, that there was never child more meeker unto the father, nor wife unto her husband than was that faire maide of Astolat ; and when Lancelot was ready again for jousts and battles, and was about to tahe his leave of the old baron, she thought it not un- maidenly to tell the knight her love, and pray that in his mercy he xvonld suffer her not to die for it. Nor when she finds he cannot help her does she love him less; but always to the end of life, which now cannot be greatly distant, will she purely think upon him, sadly, indeed, but not less lovingly. And when her ghostly father bad her leave such thoughts, she answers, innocently and meekly, that she cannot leave them while she lives and is an earthly woman ; and there- with she humbly prays to the high Father of heaven and to our swete Saviour Jesu Christ, pleading that if she has sinned in loving Lancelot beyond all measure, she has also suffered and is suffering innumerable paines. Thus, hoping that her sin may be forgiven, most piously and lovingly she dies. But even after death she went with a simple and most pitenus appeal to Lancelot, asking humbly that, if he could not love her while she lived, he now would love, at least, her memory. And because she trusted that this last request of hers would be received and granted by the knight, she would go richly clothed, as fitted one with such a love for one she thought so noble; and thus it was that when she came to the kings palace she was clad in cloth of gold, and thus slice lay as though she had smiled. It is not difficult to see the beauty and the value of the poem in which Mr. Tennyson has given us this delightful story. It is a picture of a simple, pure, and maidenly affection, con- trasted with the false and hateful love of Yivien, and the design- ing and selfish witcheries of her coquetry. It is the picture, toc, of a love that meets with no return; but therein does the truth and faithfulness of it only appear the more conspicuous. That the poem means something is as certain as that Mr. Ten- nyson is its author; and what it means, we think, may be ex 1860.] 21r. Tennyson and the Idyls of E~n6 Arthur. 29 pressed in words which Mr. Tennyson intended for another use, but the spirit of which pervades a great ?art of his poetry: I hold it true, what eer befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all. The lesson is that, though the fruit of such a love be sorrow, and that sorrow irrepressible and even unto death, yet, if it brings also patience and a meek and holy resignation,if it be also such as theirs Whose loves in higher love endure, then, out of all this sorrow there may come a selflessness, and holy joy and peace, and such a quiet faith in the hereafter as was in the soul of that pure maid of Astolat when, in her death, shee lay as though she had smiled. We have purposely avoided, in our examination of this third Idyl, any close observation of the character of Lancelot,a character strangely powerful and fascinating, and wonderfully pitiable too, and full of warning,because it seemed better to delay it until we should come to Guinevere, with whom his story is inseperably connected. It was an evil day for Arthur when he married Guinevere, although it was true that men could say of her as of her beautie and fairnesse she is one of the fairest that live. Merlin, his wise and faithful coun- selor, although he advised him that ye take a wife, for a man of your bountie and noblenesse should not be without a wife, and although he recognized the surpassiub beauty ot this daughter of King Leodegrauce, warned the king privily that Guinever was not wholesome for him to take to wife, for he warned him that Lancelot should love her and shee him againe. But finding that Arthurs heart was fully set upomi the match, and having the sagacity to see that there as a mans heart is set he will be loth to return, he forbore to tor- ment him further with his prophecies, but glanced at happier things. It is this hint occurring in the old romances that Mr. Tennyson has seized upon, when he describes the wondrous 30 Jifr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb., vision of a prophetic bard at the time when the great order of the round table was instituted: that night the hard Sang Arthurs glorious wars, and sang the king As well nigh more than man, and railed at those Who called him the false son of Gorlois: For there was no man knew from whence he caine; But after tempest, when the long wave broke All down the thundring shores of Bude and Boss, There came a day as still as heaven and then They found a naked child upon the sands Of wild Dundagil by the Cornish sea; And that was Arthur; and they fostered him Till he by miracle was approven king: And that his grave should be a mystery From all men, like his birth; and could he find A woman in her womanhood as great As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, The twain together well might change the world. But even in the middle of his song He faltered, and his hand fell from the harp, And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fallen But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen ~ 4 We quote the passage not only for its own exquisite beauty, and because it well illustrates some peculiar excellencies of Mr. Tennysons poetry which we will notice presently, but also because it shows how much the merest hint in the roman- ces can suggest to a mind of high poetic genius, like Mr. Ten- nysons. It illustrates, moreover, the style in which he felt at liberty to treat the legends, expanding them and depart- ing from them at his pleasure. In spite, then, of Merlins warning, Arthur in hi~ willful- ness must have his way. And so he marries Guinevere, in great pomp and in the most honourablest wise that could be devised. It was uot long before the prophetic warning of the wizard began to be fulfilled. For when Sir Lancelot arrived in Arthurs court, fresh from the tutelage of Vivien, his beauty of aspect and his bravery attracted the attention of all observers, and among others, of the queen. It further happened, that 1860.] Kr. Ten~ny8on and the Jdyls of King Arthur. 31 on the day when he was admitted by King Arthur to the high order of knighthood, an incident occurred which seems to have been the beginning of the great and guilty love which was, in after days, to make him so notorious. Lancelot him- self shall tell the story, in a conversation which, a long time af- terward, he had with Arthur,only a little while before the in- fidelity of the queen was publicly discovered. That same day yee made mee knight, he says, through my hastinesse, I lost my sword, and my lady yonr queene found it and lapped it in her traine, and gave me my sword when I had neede thereof, or else had I beene shamed among all knights. And therefore, my lord King Arthur, I promised her, at that day, ever to bee her knight in right or in wrong. A fatal promise,not for Lancelot alone, but for the king and all the realm, and fatally fulfilled ! Soon after, in consideration of his wonderful brave- my, he was appointed one of a select number of knights, who were known as the queens knights, whose business it was to be the special protectors of the queen, and without whose attendance Guinevere must never ride abroad. And fostered by these opportunities it was that there grew up between them that passionate and all absorbing attachment, in which they sank their self-respect, their purity, their honor, and at last their reputation. We have little need to trace the history of their crime,to note the constant jealousies and passionate anger of the queen, and the remorseful consciousness of guilt and bitter condemnation of himself which made Sir Lancelot always sorrowfully patient under all her reproaches, and only the more obedient to her slightest wish. All through the romances this story is implied rather than directly told. Like the sad and gloomy background of some varied picture, it lies behind the other legends and is seen continually through them. It gives to the character of Arthur a touching and pathetic beauty, and it makes the story of Elaine the purer and more lovely by the force of contrast. Except for this great sin which fearfully disfigured him through all his manhood, Sir Lancelot might have been almost peerless among Arthurs knights. Even in spite of it he could boast that he had never been overcome in a fair fight, save 32 Mr. Tennyson and the Idyls of Kin~i Arthur. [Feb~, only by the pure Sir Galahad. Never had king a trustier and braver champion in battle and in tournament than Lan- celot was to Arthur. Never had knight a firmer friend and nobler rival in all feats of arms than Lancelot was to Tristram. Never had vanquished foe a conqueror more gentle and more merciful than Lancelot was to those with whom he fought. Never ba(l any wronged or suffering maiden a more prompt and courtly defender than was Lancelot to all who asked his aid. Never had any youthful warrior who was striving for an honorable name, a more generous and sympathizing friend than Lancelot was to Gareth and to many others. And yet, from his first manhood until he had come to full maturity, and was beginning to grow old,for twenty-four dark, troubled years, he was in bondage to this shameful sin. Nor was this bond- age wholly unresisted. Keen and bitter was his self-con- demnation, and when, as was the case sometimes, there was added to it the jealous anger of the doubly faithless queen, it tortured him even to madness. Often he chafed against the chains which bound him, but which he lacked the strength to break. The agony he suffered left its mark even upon his countenance and made him prematurely old. The great and guilty love he bare the queen, In battle with the love he bare his lord, had marred his face and marked it ere his time. Another sinning at such bight, with one, The flower of all the West and all the world, Had been the sleeker for it: but in him His mood was often like a fiend, and rose And drove him into wastes and solitudes For agony, who was yet a living soul. Mournful, indeed, was this long contested battle between his passion and his duty,and yet more mournful the con- tinned victory of passion. The warrior resistless in battle, the knight unmatched in tournaments, was powerless in the conflict with his own fierce selfishness. Flow true it is, and always has been, that he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city. l3ut it was not until all the brotherhood of the round table was dispersed upon the quest of the Sauc Greal,a quest in 1860.] 21& . Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. 33 which there should no knight winne worship but if hee be of worship himselfe, and of good living, and that loveth God, and dreadeth God,that Lancelot found how foul and how radical was his great sinfulness. Then at last he found that he had been more hardy then is the stone, and more bitter then is the wood, and more naked and bare then is the leefe of the fig-tree. Then was he forced to niake remorseful con- fession that hee had loved a queene unmeasurably many yeares, and all the great deeds of armes that I have done, I did the most part for the queenes sake, and for her sake would I doe battaile, were it right or wrong, and never did I battaile all onely for Gods sake, but for to winne worship and to cause mee to bee the better beloved, and little or nought I thanked God of it. It was this very pride of his, using, as it did, wrong warres with vaine-glory, more for the pleasure of the world than to please God,that lay behind his open crime and led him the more readily into it. For, long before, a damosell had had the boldness and good sense to say to him one thing me thinketh that ye lacke, ye that are a knight wiveless, that ye will not love some maiden or gentle- woman ; and Lancelot had replied to bee a wedded man I thinke never to be, for if I were, then should I be bound to tarry with my wife and leave armes, and turnameuts, bat- tells and adventures. It had been well for him if he had listened to this good advice and followed it, and had chosen to be good rather than famous: it was his duty, too, for, as he said himself; I might have been married and I had would, but I never applyed mee to be married. It was not wholly his misfortune that he did not love the maid of Astolat, for instance, but it was, in part, his sin. There are few passages in all the Idyls of higher truth, of nobler thought, and of more touching beauty than those verses in which Arthur kindly and most wisely shows to Lancelot his error: answered Lancelot, Fair she was, my king, Pure as ye ever wish your knights to be. To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, To doubt her purenesss were to want a heart, Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love Could bind him, but free love will not be bound. 3 VOL. XVIII. 34 Mr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Arthur. [Feb., Free love, so bound, were freest, said the king. Let love be free; free love is for the best: And after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle as I know. It was not his misfortune that he sacrificed the joy of pure and wedded love to his exultant love of honor, and that so he fell into his shameless love of Guinevere. It was his sin, as, afterwards, he sorrowfully saw. His story is to us the story of a proud and godless love of gloiy, leading at last to infamy and wretchedness. During the quest of the Sane Greal, it seemed, indeed, that he had left pride and taken him unto humilitie. And yet, again and again, did it become needful that he should receive warning and rebuke for his evil faith and poore beleeve, the which, as was once told him, will make thee to fall into the deepe pit of hell, if thou keepe thee not. lice hath taken upon him, said a goodly hermit, to forsake sinne; and were not that lice is unstable, but by his thought lie is like to turn againe, he should be next to achieve the Sane Greal. But God knoweth well his thought and his unstableness. And so, although at last he came nigh unto the Sane Greal, and saw the great glory and clearnesse which shone round about it, and heard the melody of a voice which sung so sweetly that it seemed no earthly thing, and him thought that the voice said joy and honor be to the Father of heaven, yet lie could not approach to it, nor be fed with it, but was smitten down as by a blast of fire, so that he lay as dead for many days. And when the quest was over, and he had come again to the round table, he forgat the promise and profession that lie made in the quest, and went back again to all his sinful love. This was the state of things when the fair maid Elaine cast such a love unto Sir Launcelot,a love of which lie was unworthy, a love which in his blindness and his willfulness lie cast aside,but a love which took great vengeance on him afterward when, all remorsefully, lie gazed upon that funeral barge that floated down from Astolat, and knew that there was 1860.] 2W. Tenn~18on and tke Jdgl8 Q King Arthur. 35 lying one who loved him with a purity and strength and sim- ple truth which Guinevere could never show to him, and which he could not ever know again. Such is, in part, the history of Lancelot, and such his char- acter,a character of wonderful interest and drawn with great tbrce and spirit. There is a splendor and a nobility about it which make it strangely fascinating, and which, as it seems to us, showing as they do how magnificently good he might have been, make the great blackness of the sin which he committed the more hideous and hateful. It sometimes happens that we find, among military men particularly, instances of character in which the noblest force and courage are combined with great simplicity, and with exquisite tenderness and delicacy of sensibility. Not to mention sQme real instances in history, which will readily occur to the memory of our readers, the character of Colonel Neweome, in recent English fiction, is such an one. And we hazard little in saying that in all our modern fictitious literature there are few characters so beauti- ful and so irresistibly fascinating. Somewhat the same ele- ments of grandeur and of beauty are found in the Lancelot of Sir Thomas Malorys romances and of Mr. Tennysons poems. Of such a man we should have the right to expect that if he ever was a penitent, his sorrow would be very deep and bitter, and his humility most genuine. So was it, in fact, with Lance- lot. For nearly seven years he did great penance for his sins, and suffered such remorse as could not be relieved by any comfort that the bishop, nor Sir Bors, nor none of all his fehlowes could make him. And when at last lie died, there was a wondrous joy of angels over huh, as over one sinner that repenteth, for he had become as had been prophesied a full holy man. He outlived both the king and queen; but after the death of Guinevere he lingered in much pain and weariness of bbdy and of soul, not mourning for tIme loss of his old rejoyceing of sinne, but piously repenting of his own presumption and pride, and of his great ingratitude to God and to his king. And finally, one day his comrades found his carefull body lying lifeless on his bed, and noticed that hee lay as hee had smiled. 36 iJfr. Tennyson and the Idyls of king Arthur. [Feb., The subject of the fourth Idyl is the discovery of this guilty love of Lancelot and Guinevere,the awful remorse and peni- tence of the queen, and the sublime and mighty sorrow of the king. Here, again, Mr. Tennyson has simplified and con- densed the story so that it becomes more manageable for poetry, and perhaps more impressive in its power. We have not space to dwell upon it. We cannot more than mention the exquisite skill with which the incidents of the sad story are arranged, and the scenery of it managed. Nowhere else in the volume is the poetry so passionate, and so sublime as here. Nowhere else in all that Mr. Tennyson has written is there such life, such fire, as lives and burns in the description of the interview of Arthur with his queen. The tone of the preceding Idyls is comparatively quiet, if we except some parts of Vivien : but here is the expression of a passionate emotion far more intense than any words can utter, but which, by some mysterious power, is made to live even in the very sound and rythm of the verse, and to excite in those who read it a wonderfully sorrowful anif pitying sympathy. We cannot forbear to call attention to the power with which the character of Arthur,which until now was somewhat hid- den in the background of the other stories, though we have caught continual glimpses of its majesty,is made to blaze forth suddenly with such a glory and a beauty that it fairly startles one. In a somewhat similar way, the queen, who until now has seemed to be little more than a jealous, sullen, passionate beauty, is made by her repentance to be full of most attractive loveliness. Equally noteworthy and singularly true is the dis- tinction which the poet makes between the queens remorse and her sincere repentance. For when she left the court, and, to the holy house at Almesbury, Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, And heard the spirits of the waste and weald, Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan: And in herself she moaned, Too late, too late, even then, in her despair, she felt a bitter shame, and was all wrapt in black remorse. How men would scorn her,how 1860.] Kr. Tenny8on and the ldyl8 of King Arthur. 37 disgraced she was,how bitterly the realm, on which her sin had brought Red ruin and the breaking up of laws, would hate her,and how all her love of Lancelot was at an end forever,these were the thoughts that filled her mind and crushed her down in tearless and in hopeless misery. But not yet was she penitent. Not even when she tried, a little after- ward, to stifle her remorse and calm her conscience by the thought that she had put upon herself the penance not in thought Not evn in inmost thought to think again The sins that made the past so pleasant to us: And I have sworn never to see him more, To see him more, not even then did she repent, for still she loved him with a guilty love no self-inflicted penance could atone for: and, even in that very act of penance, all her memory went back, in guilty longings and regrets, to those same passionate days which now were come to such a bitter ending. But when the King had come to Ahuesbury, and found her there in her re- morse and shame, and showed her all her sin and all the woe and ruin she had caused, and yet forbore to cast against her the reproaches which she well deserved, and curse her with the curse which she had brought on others; when, with a soul all filled with manly sorrow and with pitying love, he gave to4 her his full and free forgiveness, harder to be borne than any scorn or curse; when he spake to her of true repentance, and of a hope that yet might be fulfilled when this unstable world had passed away; and when, although he loved her still, he would not bring her forth again to fill the throne she had dis- graced, but left her with a pure and tender and most passion- ate and last farewell, and with a silent blessing,then the queen repented. Then, at last, she saw the loveliness of purity and goodness: then her mind and soul were changed, and she loved Lancelot no longer, but dave with all her being unto Arthur. This was something different from penance, and sublimer than remorse. There was hope in it, and faith. Her 38 AIr. Tenny8on and tAe Idyl8 of Rii~g Arthur. [Feb., sorrow was not less, but it was purer. Her shame was not less deep and self-condemning, but it was holier. She fixed her thoughts, now, on that world where all are pure, and on the day when she herself should stand cleansed and forgiven before high God. In such a spirit does she humbly ask to join the sisterhood of nuns,to fast and grieve and pray and labor with them, hoping not for joy, on earth, but only to wear out in almsdeed and in prayer The sombre close of that voluptuous day, Which wrought the ruin of my lord the king. It is impossible to convey, by any analysis or by mere quota. tions, a just impression of the beauty and the power of this great poem. There is a sublimity and a tenderness in it that can be felt, but not described nor wholly explained. The value of the truths which it enforces is not easily to be over- estimated. There are few poets who have set forth more im- pressively the beauty of a true repentance, and the splendor of a true forgiveness. We need only add that in this Idyl, more than in the others, Mr. Tennysons own genius has sup- plied the incidents and details of the story. In all the volume there is nothing fresher and more picturesque and vivid than the episode in which the little novice tells the story of her fathers ride from Lyonness, when the round table was founded, and of the joy and the exultant hope which lived among spirits and men Before the coming of the sinful queen. And the introduction of this episode is only one instance of how much we owe to Mr. Tennyson, beyond what the old legends would have furnished. We have left ourselves but little space to speak of the vol- ume as a whole, and of some peculiar characteristics of the poetry. It will be enough to say, in general, that most of the great excellencies of style, by which the authors former poems are distinguished, are found here also, and some of them in a greater degree than heretofore. There is something of the same terseness of expression and condensation Gf thought that we find in Locksley Hall, for instance. The verse seems cram- 1860.1 Yir. Tenny8on and the Idyls of King Arthur. 39 med with meaning and although unrhymed, is, nevertheless, more musical and easy than the rhymes of almost any other poet would be. The English language will owe munch to Mr. Tennyson for what his poetry has done to restore to it some- thing of the strength and beauty which it had lost or was losing. It is most noticeable that in this volume, even more than in his former ones, lie uses an uncommon nnmber of old Saxon words,such words as give to Miltons verse munch of its strength and of its simple grandeur,and that, on the other hand, he excludes many of the more fashionable and polysyl- labic words of Latin origin. To this peculiarity is to be attribu- ted much of the majestic simplicity which is so observable throughout the Idyls; and also the force of such a verse as the following, in which Geraint imposes on the prostrate Edyrn the conditions of his liberty: These two things shalt thou do or thou shalt die. These, now, are little, stubbed, common, monosyllabic words, but, for that very reason, they are wonderfully strong and most appropriate to such a use. And in his preference for this sort of diction, Mr. Tennyson has rescued from oblivion some valu- able words and made them new again. We cannot instance them, nor can we stop to point out others which he himself has coined for special uses, and which have passed already to a permanent place in the language. It is evident enough that, in his study of the English undefiled in which the roman- ces of Arthur are preserved, he has acquired the style and the vocabulary, as well as the spirit of them. Those critics who object to the formation and use of com- pound words, of such a sort as those which give such vast advantage to the German writers, will find enough to con- demn in this new volume. For our own part, we cannot help believing that this copious source of strength has been too little made available, and that Mr. Tennyson is doing a good work in showing the resources of the English language in this direction,resources not equal to those of the German, but yet not insignificant. But what xve chiefly wish to call attention to, in this review of 40 Mr. Tennyson and the Idgis of Kn-tg Arthur. [Feb., the whole volume, is the exquisite adaptation of the sound and rythm of the verse to the sentiment which it expresses,an adaptation frequently apparent in Mr. Tennysons former poetry, and some admirable instances of which were quoted in a former volume of this journal.* How distinctly, for in- stance, is the voice of many waters vocal in these verses: as one, That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, All through the crash of the near cataract hears The drumming thunder of the huger fall At distance. And so, again, how apt the movement is, when Enid hears The sound of many a heavily-gallopping hoof. So in Vivien, when the wileful witch was dazzled by the livid-flickering fork, And deafened with the stammering cracks and claps That followed. . and ever overhead Bellowed the tempest, and the rotten branch iSnapt in the rushing of the river-rain Above them. Almost perfect, in its way, and illustrative of the same beauty of rythm and sound is the description of the hermits cave in the third Idyl A hermit, who had prayed, labored and prayed, And ever laboring had scooped himself In the white rock a chapel and a hall On massive columns, like a shoredliff cave, And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry; The green light from the meadows underneath Struck up and lived along the milky roofs; And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees And poplars made a noise of falling showers. How vivid is the description of the tournament at Ca- inelot * New Englander, VoL VII, p. 2128. 1860.] 2I& . Tenny8on and the Idyl8 of King Arthur. 41 The trumpets blew; and then did either side, They that assailed, and they that held the lists, Set lance in rest, 8trike spur, suddenly move, Meet in the midst, and there so furiously Shock, that a man far-off might well perceive, If any man that day were left afield, The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms. In Guinevere, perhaps the measure is more perfectly man- aged than in any of the other Idyls, but we cannot do more than merely call attention to such passages as this: A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran, Then on a sudden a cry, the King. She sat Stsff-stricken, listening ; or this, in which the slow, incessant lapse of weary time is represented: The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, The months will add themselves and make the years, The years will roll into the centuries, And mine will ever be a name of scorn.~~ But we must not multiply quotations. The extracts we have given are enough to show the exquisite care and labor with which the verse has been perfected. We would be glad to call attention to the wonderful pictur- esqueness of some of the scenes and incidents; to the peculiar beauty of the images drawn from the sea-shore and the ocean,images which show how carefully the Laureate has studied nature, in his sea-side home on the Isle of Wight; to the startling vividness with which his dreams are told,such dreams as Enids, when she thought herself a dull and faded creature Among her burnished sisters of the pool, or such as Guinevere s, who dreamed An awful dream; for then she seemed to stand On some vast plain before a setting sun, And from the sun there swiftly made at her A ghastly something, and its shadow flew Before it, till it touched her, and she turned when lo! her own, that broadening from her feet, And blackening, swallowed all the land, and in it Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. 42 ]Jfr. Tennyson and the Idyls of King Art4ur. [Feb., We can scarcely forbear, also, to show some specimens of the very quiet and subtle, bnt exqisitely pleasant humor which, now and hen, flashes out upon the surface of the poems,such as sparkles in the sudden anger of Geraint, when all the town seemed mad about the sparrow-hawk, or such as manifests itself in the description of the same knights conduct when he ate the mowers victual up and left them laboring dinnerless. More willingly we shall refrain from searching through the pages which are filled with so much truth and beauty, to find some petty imperfections or some trifling faults. Some such, there doubtless are, but it shall be the privilege of other critics to exhibit them. We are content to love the beauty of the poems and to admire their Power. We are grateful for the truth they teach,for all the pictures of the tine and false, the beautiful and hateful, the good and bad, which they contain. Xnd we rejoice to look continually, as they do, beyond the present, and away from this unstable world,away from wars and tournaments, from witcheries and jealousies, from pride and passion, and from every sin and sorrow,far away To where beyond these voices there is peace! 1860.1 American Legislation. 43 ARTICLE 11.AMERICAN LEGJSLATION.* ILEGISLATION is a comprehensive and practical subject. It has to do with the character and the general welfare of the great political community, and is, therefore, it is believed, worthy of the special attention of educated men. No class in society is too high or too low, too cultivated or too rude, to be beyond its reach; none so isolated or independent, as to be exempt from its influence and power. It creates and it exhibits the char- acter of a community. It forms the habits of society, ad- vances or retards the material interests of all its members, nor is it without its control over public morals, as well as intellect- ual improvement. ~There are few subjects with which it may not deal, and fewer still upon which it does not leave its impress. Nor does its consideration regard only the past. Legislation is not a finished work. Long as human govern- mnent may last, it will continue to affect human happiness, and to associate itself with physical, moral, and intellectual devel- opment. Legislation is itself a science, sadly unstudied, it is true, but still a practical science, behind no other iii its capabilities to promote human happiness. If antiquity can make it ven- erable, it is old as the human race; if names can give it re- spectability, it has commanded the attention of the ablest minds in all civilized nations, and if variety can make it inter- esting, it is multiform as are the creations of human famicy. In a land where law has done so much for the promotion of mental cultivation, it is but a fitting return that educated men should contribute the results of their study to legal im- l)rovement. But the legislation which it is our present design to consider, is of comparatively modern origin. It is only within a few hundred years that the written law of any nation has emanated * The substance of this Article was delivered as an Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, at its last Anniversary, July 2~th, 1859.

1860.1 American Legislation. 43 ARTICLE 11.AMERICAN LEGJSLATION.* ILEGISLATION is a comprehensive and practical subject. It has to do with the character and the general welfare of the great political community, and is, therefore, it is believed, worthy of the special attention of educated men. No class in society is too high or too low, too cultivated or too rude, to be beyond its reach; none so isolated or independent, as to be exempt from its influence and power. It creates and it exhibits the char- acter of a community. It forms the habits of society, ad- vances or retards the material interests of all its members, nor is it without its control over public morals, as well as intellect- ual improvement. ~There are few subjects with which it may not deal, and fewer still upon which it does not leave its impress. Nor does its consideration regard only the past. Legislation is not a finished work. Long as human govern- mnent may last, it will continue to affect human happiness, and to associate itself with physical, moral, and intellectual devel- opment. Legislation is itself a science, sadly unstudied, it is true, but still a practical science, behind no other iii its capabilities to promote human happiness. If antiquity can make it ven- erable, it is old as the human race; if names can give it re- spectability, it has commanded the attention of the ablest minds in all civilized nations, and if variety can make it inter- esting, it is multiform as are the creations of human famicy. In a land where law has done so much for the promotion of mental cultivation, it is but a fitting return that educated men should contribute the results of their study to legal im- l)rovement. But the legislation which it is our present design to consider, is of comparatively modern origin. It is only within a few hundred years that the written law of any nation has emanated * The substance of this Article was delivered as an Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, at its last Anniversary, July 2~th, 1859. 44 American Leg?8latwn. [Feb., from those whose action it was designed to control. In the earlier history of the world, the right to make laws, with very rare exceptions, was vested in the same person whose duty it was to execute them, or in a select class, above the common ranks of the people. The republics of Greece had, it is true, something like popular legislation, but those republics were but cities. The districts governed by them were appendages rather than constituents of the state. The power was in the citizens of the town, and even that was little more than a right to accept or refuse ordinances proposed for their adoption. Such, also, was the Roman constitution at the only periods of its history when the legislative can be said to have been severed from the executive power. The plebiscita were propositions of the executive ratified by a popular assembly, an assembly convened in the Campus Martins, in no sense representing the cities and provinces over which its action was to have the authority of law. Even to this day, in most countries, the executive is the sole legislator. His decrees constitute the only written law of his subjects. The theory of such a government is, of course, a theory of force, or of divine right. It does not assume the consent of the governed. Such legislation, however, is not without its advantages. Being the work of a single mind, it might be expected that it would manifest greater unity of pur- pose and freedom from whatever is complicated and experi- mental. What might thus be expected, we apprehend, finds its realization in the history of those nations where the statute laws have been made by the person who has in charge their execution. But it might also be inferred that such laws would not be well adapted to the social convenience and common necessities of the people, and the inference is undoubtedly found to be in accordance with observation and experience. Making all due allowance for the common propensity to magnify that which is our own, it can hardly be denied that that people are best governed who make their own laws, under suitable restraints against licentiousness; that they enjoy higher facilities for general social development, and better pro- tection to all their personal and relative rights, while, at the 1860.1 American Legi8lation. 4~5 same time, there is an absence of that sense of constraint, which, in despotic governments, is onerous, and which, to a people with a temperament and education like ours, would be unendurable. American legislation is thoroughly popular, representative indeed, yet more expressive of the popular will than any other which the world has ever witnessed. Its forms are not original with us. They came from the mother country. Before the revolution there were legislative assemblies in most of the provinces, closely resembling each other, and all miniature likenesses of the British Parliament. They were composed of two distinct bodies, the separate assent of each being necessary to the enactment of any law. When a successful struggle had finally separated us from the mother country, and it became necessary to frame institutions suited to our altered circumstances, very little change was made in the machinery of the law-making power. Our fathers did not cease to be English, because they resisted English oppression. They loved liberty more than country, but they were not indifferent to the merits of the British constitution. Popular deliberation and assent were, in their view, indispeusa- ble to all wise legislation. But they were not insensible to the attendant dangers. They knew that popular impulse was un- reasoning, that it was liable to yield to excitement, or to the seductions of present apparent expediency. With large coin- prehension they foresaw the possible evils of hasty and im- provident legislation, and they felt that, with the divided re- sponsibility inseparable from it, there was danger to be appre- hended. In their judgment nothing deserved to be enacted as law until it had received careful and repeated consideration. Whoever has studied the history of our national and early state constitutions must have been impressed with the solici- tude which their framers felt to devise suitable checks against the anticipated licentiousness of popular legislation. It was one of the most difficult problems in the construction of our new forms of government. More than one device was adopted, but, if we may judge from an experience of seventy years, not one too many. The framers had seen that the existence of two houses, each acting independently of the other, had proved a 46 American Iegi8latiofl. [Feb., check upon inconsiderate action, and they could devise no better form for the future than that which was furnished to their hands in the organization of the British Parliament. They were aware, indeed, that the existence of two separate bodies in one legislature might sometimes prevent any action, but they thought, and thought wisely, what is now often forgotten, that too much legislation is a greater evil than none,that it is even better to bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of. It is true there was no order of nobility in the land, and the prejudices which, if not engendered, were certainly deepened by the revolutionary strife, rendered the creation of such an order impossible. Nor was there any material out of which to construct it. There was no individual wealth to sustain such a class in the community. The military distinctions, which had grown out of the necessary maintenance of the army, were too unequally distributed. Besides, the successful commanders were citizen soldiers, not bred to arms, but neigh- bors and conipanions of those who had served under them in the ranks. Even in the country from which our people came, with few exceptions, title had not been obtained by militar,y prowess. But the division of the legislature into two distinct bodies was too important not to be preserved. To accomplish it the plan was adopted of requiring the upper house to be chosen by a different constituency, generally larger, and pro- viding that its members shonld hold office for a longer period. In some of the states a higher property qualification was also demanded. The two houses in England are a necessity result- ing from the existence of an order of nobility. The two houses in American legislatures are the offspring of no such necessity, but of an apprehension in the framers of the govern- ment that uncurbed popular legislation would prove unsafe. They threw aronnd the legislatures other restraints. They preserved, in a qualified degree, the prerogative residing in the British crown, to arrest even the joInt action of both houses, conferring upon the executive a preventive, thougb not a legislative authority. They did more. By written con- stitutions they restricted the general legislative power of the 1860.1 American Le~islatiou. 47 community, when acting by their representatives, and pro- hibited any action upon some subjects, and particular action upon others. In this respect American legislation is unlike that of the mother country. There never has been a written organic law which restrained the plenary action of the British Parliament. There are, indeed, old statutes and long standing usages, which, by common consent, have come to be regarded as constitutional, but the limits of legislative action are much more strictly defined in this country than they are in England. With these slight differences, the forms of American legisla- tion are as old as constitutional government. Whatever pecu- liarities it exhibits are due, therefore, to some other causes than its singularity of form. It is obvious, however, from the mode in which the upper houses in our legislatures are constituted, that all cannot have been accomplished that the fiamers of the constitutions hoped to secure. They devised a palliative, not a protection. hay- ing in part, if not wholly, the same constituency, both houses must be the representatives of the same spirit. Almost alike dependent upon the same popular breath, they are found to yield alike to popular impulse, and often to legislate hastily and unwisely. Our legislation is more the work of the people than is that of England; our statutory enactments a more direct reflex of the current popular sentiment. If it be true, as was said of England by mchardson, in 1668, that the law is nothing but the history how our ancestors have man- aged propriety in all ages, American legislation must pre- 6minently be an exponent of American feeling and American impulse. Whatever tends to make an impression upon the common mind,whatever contributes to direct or to character- ize social couduct,must here, more than elsewhere, find expression in the written law. If, now, the inquiry be made what particular influences are most potent in giving direction to legislation in presenting the objects sought to be accomplished by itin restraining its excessesand in giving peculiarity to its action, we answer first, and pre~mineut1y, the power of common usage or custom. In every civil community of long standing, continued usage is 48 American Legi8lation. [Feb., king. Its influence pervades all classes, reaches every dwell- ing, and, in some degree, controls all action. Its throne may be disturbed, but it is sure to reassert its authority, and reduce to obedience its most rebellious subjects. It is a power emi- nently conservative, fearful of innovation, steadfastly arrayed against change. In this land, as in all others, there exists a multitude of social usages, the day of the birth of which no man can tell. They have stolen upon us silently and un- noticed. They have made themselves our constant compan- ions, entered into our daily life, taken part in all our con- cerns. They have identified themselves with all our interests. They are themselves our interests. We should cease to be what we are without them, and their sudden extinction would be to us like translation to another world. They constitute a power which no legislator may ignore, a power ruling within as well as around him. It would be unaccountable, indeed, if legislation, so popular as ours, so direct and immediate an expression of public sentiment, should escape the influence of these usages. Whatever peculiarities they exhibit must find their way into the written law of the land. Our present purpose does not embrace an inquiry into the reasons why that, to which we have beeu long accustomed, should rule as an ever-present power within us. We aim only at presenting the fact, and directing attention to the inten- sity and universality of this power. The usages of society are its habits, and the same reason which accounts for the control of habit over the man, explains the power of usage over a community. To obtain some adequate appreciation of the unavoidable in- fluence which the established usages of society exert over popu- lar legislation, we need but observe how great is the power of that which is usual over the individual man. It not only guides his conduct, but it lies at the foundation of his faith. Such is our mental constitution that frequent repetition of an act or event enforces belief in its continued recurrence. In an extended sense, this is a universal truth, applicable alike to the facts of physical and intellectual nature. With all of us, the common reason for belieS is the knowledge that what we rely upon as 1860.] American Le~i8lation. 49 a fact is in correspondence with what has previously existed. We know that a heavy body will fall toward the center of the earth, if unsupported; we believe that fire will burn, that heat will change ice to water, but we believe only because observation has taught us that such have been their habits heretofore. The same is true in regard to all expected physi- cal phenomena. It is equally true in regard to mental and moral action. Of this the most simple illustrations may be given. We believe that memory will preserve to us the scenes of this daythat the power of reasoning, once acquired, will continuethat attention is essential to perfect understand- ing, but our belief is only another name for a conviction that that which hath been is that which shall be. So in morals, no one doubts that the tendency of a life of indolence and vice is to suffering, or that a course of virtuous action is promotive of happiness, and this undoubting convictiOn is but a deduc- tion from repeated results of past observation. So instinctive is the belief which is caused by that which is usual, or cus- tomary, that we have learned to denominate usages, laws. Thus we speak of the laws of being, of motion and of mind, and mean nothing more than their usages. It would be a curi- ous speculation to enquire how far it would be possible for human reasoning to exist, were it not for this constitutional tendency to yield to that which is usual, the assent of our understanding. Certain it is that without it the limits of knowledge would be narrow indeed, for even our faith in human testimQny has no other foundation. Our experience has taught us that reliance may generally be placed upon assertions of fact by our fellow-men. We therefore repose confidence in them. There is more truth than falsehood in the world. We rest upon this conviction in our individual life, and as members of the community. Upon the same principle human testimony is daily received in our courts of law as a basis for the vindication of social rights, and the re- pression and punishment of wrongs. So, too, we judge that certain motives will influence to certain conduct, or the con- verse, that a given line of conduct indicates certain motives. We do not desire to be understood as asserting that the conclu voL. xviii. 4 50 American Legi8lation. [Feb., sions we draw are always right conclusions; that the faith we adopt is a true faith. I speak now only of the fact that from such evidence we commonly deduce beliefand that as re- gards most of our convictions, especially those which have a practical influence upon life, we can give no other reason for the faith which is in us than that such has been the custom, the conduct, or the belief of others. And what we notice in ourselves, we look for in our fellow- men. The evidence that controls our understanding, we regard as sufficient to control theirs, even in matters of religious faith. We anticipate that the son of a Buddhist will worship iL3udhthat one born and educated in IRome will be a papist that the child of New England parents, reared in the family circle, will be a protestant, not because either has ever exam- ined the evidences which support his faith, but because the usages to which he has been accustomed tend to impose be- lief. We may call such faith prejudice. It is so, but it is an early judgment adapted to the constitution of our nature. It is a part of man himself. Of this Vi8 consuetudini8~ the legis- lative reformer in the faith, the morals or the material in- terests of the community must take account. He must admit that faith thus founded is not entirely without reason, and must anticipate the resistance that reliance upon evidence, the nature of which, in most things, all men regard as satis- factory, is calculated to present. Laws are unmeaning, if not mischievous, which are not adapted to the character and com- mon habits of those intended to be governed by them, and when those common habits of thought, of reasoning, and of belief are carried into a legislative body, they must give tone to its action. While such is the power of usage upon the individual man, it is not less controlling over men in a state of municipal society, and it is even more potential over their legislation. We have nothing now to say of its effect upon national character. It is doubtless true of a nation, as it is of every man, that its customs are true exponents of its character, and that they establish its reputation among mankind. But they do more. They give to it its laws. The great basis upon which the 1860.1 American Legislation. 511 rules of civil conduct of any people rest, is the social usages of that people. In vain would be a search through the inoldering records of the past, for any royal decree or for any parliamentary enact- inent, securing the relative rights which we now enjoy unques- tioned, or enforcing the social obligations which we all ac- knowledge. Some of the domestic relations, indeed, are founded iii nature, and some are of Divine appointment, but most of the rights and duties which grow out of them are such as usage has enjoined. Political privileges are the creatures of written lawmost civil rights, however, have had a different origin. The general principles which regulate the ownership of prop- erty,the privileges attached to ownershipthe evidence upon which title to it depends, the securities which are thrown around its enjoyment, as well as those which environ the per- son and reputation, are not the dictates of superior power, but the commands of common assent, the long practised usages which men have tacitly adopted. Statute law may have re- cognized them, and may have added new sanctions, but it never created them. No human wisdom has ever yet been found adequate to devise a system of rules sufficient for the government of the most simple minded people. No code of laws has ever been framed by a legislature which answered all the necessities of social organization. Not a tithe of our laws had their origin in statutory enactment. They have come down to us from by-gone times, authority only, because they were the practised customs of our fathers. Even our organic lawsour national and state constitutions and many of our statutory enactmentsare but reproductions of older usages, with which their framers were familiar. The British Par- liament, as has been seen, was the model after which the provincial, and subsequently the state legislatures, were form- ed. The concurrent assent of two deliberative bodies, the check upon their action by the chief executive, and most of the forms of legislation, were borrowed. The construction of the judiciary departments, the general distribution of powers between the executive, legislative and judiciary, and very many of the provisions of our bills of rights, are but written 52 American Legi8lation. recognitions of what had been the practised usages of our ancestors through many generationsmany of them usages so old that no history has preserved the date of their birth. Written constitutions are perhaps the most remarkable illus- trations of the controlling power which custom exerts over men as members of a political community. They show that it governs alike theories and practice. Such instruments look to the future more than to the present. Though intended to work practical results, they are in themselves theoretical, plans or schemes for anticipated social action. In them, if anywhere, we might look for a release from the behests of usage, and fQr a free rein given to unrestrained speculation. But such an expectation finds no fulfillment. Even here the usages of the time, the customs of civil society, assert their sway, and demonstrate the universality of their influence. There have been some notable instances of attempts to frame the organic law of a civil community, in disregard of popular usages, all of which resulted in failure. The constitution which John Locke formed for the province of South Carolina was one. If any theorist could have succeeded in such an un- dertaking, it would seem that Locke should not have failed. Deeply read, as he was, in the mysteries of the human mind, an ardent lover of his race, with the history and experience of the civilized world spread out before him, unembarrassed by the dissentient opinions of any associate, he had apparently every requisite for the work which he undertook to perform. But in its execution he omitted one element, the absence of which admits of no compensation. The constitution which he framed, though beautiful in theory, proved unfitted for those for whom it was designed. It ignored their habits of thought and of life, made no account of their social usages, and consequently was found impracticable in operation. It was laid aside. Platos theory of a republic would doubtless have shared the same fate, had it been applied to the government of any nation existing in his age. In the popular mind of most nations a distinction seems to have been made between certain usages regarded as consti- tutional, and others which regulate only common intercourse. The former have been considered as inseparable fromu national 1860.] American Legislation. 63 independent existence,the latter as indispensable to social. domestic and individual happiness. The former have in many instances been subverted, but the latter have proved inerad- icable. Conquest has overthrown constitutions, but it has required the extinction of a people to wipe out their do- mestic usages. Our Saxon ancestors submitted, though re- luctantly, to Korman ascendency, but they adhered with in- flexible tenacity to the usages which they had inherited, and they have sent them down to us, commingled with those of their conquerors, hut still preserved. We shall be enabled to estimate more fully the indestructi- ble nature of these usages adopted by common consent, and the extent of their influence upon legislation, if we notice briefly the assaults which they have successfully resisted. As in all countries they are the recognized rules of civil conduct, so they necessarily precede all legislation. The very consider- ations which give them power tend to make them permanent. Yet every written law assumes that they are inadequate to the necessities of society, or that they are in conflict with the best interests of the people. It aims either at their extinction or modification, or it seeks to superadd still another usage. There is, therefore, a constant struggle for the mastery between the usages of a people and their legislation. A power which can maintain such a conflict, continued through long years, and yet survive unconquered, must possess no common vitality. Whoever shall write the history of the legislation of this country and of England, in which, more than in any others, written law is the work of the people, will have a theme not only rich in materials, but immense in extent. Soon after the English restoration, Whitelocke, in remarking upon the multiplicity of written laws, observed complainingly, now the volume of our statutes is grown or swelled to a great bigness. At that time all the British statutes were em- braced within a single volume. Times have greatly changed since the days of Whitelocke. More is attempted now, by positive legislation, every year, than was the work of centu- ries before the English revolution. Modern sentiment appears to regard legislation as a remedy for all social ills ,as a ne 54 American Ie(p8latiofl. [Feb., ccssary promoter of all true progress. Our statute books are a permanent record of numberless schemes of political and social improvement, and of attempted ameliorations of those laws which have been established by the common sense and common usage of the people. We have a national legisla- ture in annual session. We have more than thirty state legislatures, most of them also convening annually, and all employed in devising new rules for individual conduct. The results of their lal)ors are seen in the numerous volumes of statutes which pour from the press, already too numerous to find space in any private library. It is a noteworthy fact, that legislation begets legislation; that notwithstanding the real and imaginary improvement which has been made in society, and notwithstanding all that written law has at- tempted to accomplish, the work to be done remains mm- diminished. Each legislator addresses himself to a task greater than that which engaged the attention of his predecessors. The body of the statute law grows in magnitude with every year. The work done by one legislature is often undone by its successor, and a new structure raised upon its ruins. All this is under the pretence of improvement. It avows a pur- pose to meliorate the condition of society; to give to the corn- mnunity a better system of laws than their experience has devised, and to change those customs and usages which ne- cessity introduced, and which are the ligaments that bind society together. We would not be understood as asserting that all which is done by our many legislative assemblies is an invasion of the common usages of society. Our political system requires that short lived provision should be made for the maintenance of ~overnment, and that its different departments should be re- minded of their dependence by annual or biennial grants of the means of administering public affairs. These grants, usually called appropriation bills, contribute to swell the statute book. So also much of the attention of our legislative bodies is directed to private objects. Still these are partial innovations upon the general usages of the community. Yot taking them into account, however, there emanate from our 1860.] American Legislation. lawgivers multitudinous enactments of general application, experimental in character, designed to substitute a theoretical future for a practical present. Surely, if positive institutions, if legislative enactment could make any system of domestic law perfect, ours would long ere this have been in a high state of perfection. Surely, if anything could have destroyed those usages which gave early character to our people, and which have been the rules of civil conduct in all our history, the legislation of the last seventy years should have acecoin- plished the work of destruction. But it is the legislation that perishes. The customs of a people cannot die a violent death. Originating in physical necessity, in peculiar location or dan- gers, or in a tried experience of what is convenient and use- ful, they are perpetuated by the same causes which gave theni birth. They are susceptible indeed of modification, they accommodate themselves to advancing civilization; they yield to the plastic hand of science and of religion, yet they maintain more than an e4nal struggle with legislation. It is no uncommon observation that certain legislative acts are in conflict with popular sentiment, or in advance of it. Such laws are not expected to prove enduring. If not soon obliterated from the statute book, they remain there a dead letter, nominally law, but truly powerless,the form without the life. No power, not even that of a despot, can force upon an unwilling people laws subversive of their customs and their faith. The attempt involves a conflict between a rule which is a part of themselves, and an artificial regulation obligatory only because of the mode of its enactment. All the instincts of self-preservation revolt against it. The authors of the code Napoleon, men of no common wis- dom, and men who, while intent upon their great work, kept steadily in view the results of human experience, remarked that no legislator can escape that invisible power, that silent judgment of the people, which tends to correct the mistakes of arbitrary legislation, and to defend the people from the law, and the lawgiver from himself. Attempts to elevate a people in the arts, in science, or in morals, by statutory enactments greatly in advance of their 56 American Legislation. [Feb., usages and general sentiment, have always proved abortive. Such attempts not only fail to accomplish their purpose, but they often induce serious inischiefs. Their tendency is to bring all law into disrepute, to diffuse a spirit of insubordina- tion, and thus endanger the continued existence of orderly society. A law upon the statute book, which cannot be ex- ecuted, is a standing proclamation of license to disorder. There is far less permanency in the legislation of this country than is generally supposed. That silent judgment, of which the authors of the code Napoleon spoke, pronounces its decree upon every act of legislation, and many fail to pass the stern ordeal. Some are forced out of existence, and others submit to modification to render them more consonant with popular sentiment and habits. how few are the statutes in any of our books of laws which have survived unaltered a quarter of a century? Even our constitutions perish in the lifetime of their framers, and constitutions, far less than other laws, inter- fere with the social habits and everyday life of the people. How few, if any, of the old thirteen states have preserved their original constitutions? Some of those who but recently came into the sisterhood have more than once reconstructed their organic law. Change is the characteristic of all that is artifi- cial in our system of government. There is however a snb- stratum of popular usages, which lies deep below all written laws, incapable of being disturbed by any great convulsion. Upon this the lawgiver must build, if he would raise an en- during structure. We have dwelt long upon this part of our sub- ject, because, in our judgment, it is intimately connected with all the other influences which are felt by legislation,itself affected by them and in return qualifying their efficiency. Among those other influences are such as result from the local situation and physical capabilities of the country which our people inhabit. As usages are the fruit of necessity, or of convenience, and earlier usages principally of physical ne- cessity, it is of course to be expected that whatever is novel or unusual in the sitnation of any people, should operate upon their written law. Location directs the nature of their employ- ments, and consequently of their relations to one another. 1860.] American Legi8lation. 57 After all, the legislator has most to do with that which is material. No law can be equally fitted for all material in- terests, and legislation which is not adapted to the circum- stances and employments of those to be affected by it, is Un- meaning and absurd. There must from necessity be national dissimilarity. No one supposes that the laws which would suffice for an agricultural people, would meet all the wants of a manufacturing or a maritime nation. Every art has its peculiar customs, every employment its own necessities. So also the proximity of others, whose interests are diverse, and who are animated by a different spirit, imposes the necessity of peculiar laws. There is very much in our situation, which has contributed to the character we possess, and which has been speaking out in all our past legi~1ation. We are far removed from any of the great powers of the world. Our position is one of security, fortified by distance, against force, and protected even from annoyance. We can hardly be said to have neighbors, or even acquaintances, except those of our own choice. We are at liberty to foster our industry, and advance our interests, in our own way, unchecked by the jealousy or interference of any external power. We need no standing army to repel sudden invasion. There is nothing here to awaken the conviction that any domestic policy we may adopt would be unsafe. Moreover, we have such a domain of unappropriated land as no other nation has ever enjoyed, open to the occupation of all our people, and promising competency, if not wealth, to even moderate industry. All along our history this region has spread its broad acres before the eyes of the landless, in- viting theni to enter and to enjoy. The products of our soil, too, are almost infinitely diversified, adapted to every variety of pursuit. Mines, fisheries, agricul- ture, commerce, and manufactures afford unwonted facilities to successful effort. Apart from all the effect which the phys- ical advantages we possess are suited to produce upon the spirit and character of our people, it is impossible that they should not directly shape much of their legislation. No one would dream that the written law, which would be adapted 58 Americart legislation. [Feb., to ilolland or the British isles, would answer well for our physical condition. It is not difficult to trace in our statute books many effects which have resulted from our remote situation ,our immense landed possessions, and our diversified and peculiar physical interests. We select one. The change which American legislation has made in the law of descent of real estate, is one of its most important achievements. ft is that which, perhaps more than any other, has been far- reaching in its influence upon the spirit, the character, and the general development of our people. It has taken away the privileges of the Norman feud, and the Jewish birthright. It no longer permits the whole land of the father to descend, at his death, to his eldest son. It casts the inheritance upon all the children alike, and makes them all land owners. It thus restrains large accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the manybreaks up the distinctions in families, which grow out of the unequal distribution of propertygives to merit a precedence over birth,and fosters in the community a spirit of self-reliant independence. This great departhre from the law of our EngliTh ancestry has, doubtless, been induced mainly by the fact that land here has always been abundant, that there has been enough for all, and though, within the older states, the influence of the great unappropriated region at the west is now felt but in- directly, yet in those states where there remain unappropri- ated or even unsettled lands, they continue to be a constant subject of legislation. Nor do the effects of physical causes cease with the first legislative action. The abolition of the law of primogeniture prepared the way for other laws promotive of general educa- tion, and awakened a desire for the establishment of schools, common to the children of all. Who can say that without this, free public schools, our glory and our safety, could ever have found a permanent abiding place in this country? Yet another influence that impresses itself upon our written law flows from the comparative shortness of our existence as a distinct people. Two hundred years are a brief period for maturing a nation, especially when its first efforts must be 1860.] American Ieqi8latiOfl. 59 expended in subduing a wilderness for an abode,too brief to give consistency to its policyhardly enough to furnish in- dications of what its ripened manhood will be. Age creates impressions that early youth cannot inspire. We render in- voluntary homage to what has outlived centuries. We esteem it vandalism to destroy it. But there are few things among us which time has rendered sacred. There is little here that challenges our veneration,little to diffuse abroad a conserva- tive spirit. We have no monuments of art, hoary with years, no structures built by the hands of our fathers, which have sur- vived the decay of long ages. We have no laws on our stat- ute books which reach back far beyond the memory of living in en ,no educational institutions which, compared with those of the old world, are not yet in their early youth. We have even no state or national constitntion, which is older than the time to which living niemory extends. We see, among us, none of those physical or social monuments, around which human veneration is wont to cling, and which attach the present to the far past. We are almost in jest when we apply the term old to anything artificial around us. During our short in- dependent existence we have witnessed unexampled improve- ment in the structure of government, in the modification of those laws which regulate social life, and perhaps in moral and religious culture. We have seen the work of many gen- erations condensed into the lifetime of one. It is natural, though it may not be philosophical, to conclnde that futnre advancement may be no less easy than was the past,that as construction was indispensable to our existence as a separate people, and as it has been successful, reconstruction will prove equally safe. We may imagine the consternation which would gather upon all English faces, were the tower of Lon- don, or Westminster Abbey, suddenly destroyed, but the shock would be equally great, were some old statute repealed, which had been a living law since tue days of Henry the Eighth. Time hallows even abuses. The long continued and energetic contest which was needed to effect a small reform in the repre- sentation to the British House of Commons in 1832, illustrates the strength of the attachment which men feel for that which 60 American Legislation. [Feb., nothing but time has rendered venerable. There are no such venerations in this country. There is hardly anything, it would be considered sacrilege to destroy. What may be here- after, (if anything of the present be left undisturbed for a long hereafter,) we can only conjecture from the history of other nations. The present effect of the novelty around us, it is not difficult to perceive. It is certainly not conservative. It has no tendency to give stability to our institutions,none to con- solidate, or even to secure the advances already made. Closely connected with this, and tending to produce similar impressions upon onr legislation, is the fact that we are not a homogeneous people. A large majority, it is true, are of English descent, but there are Scotchmen, Irishmen, Germans, French, Spaniards, Korwegians and others, in the aggregate numbering millions, intermingled with each other, and with the English race. All these have brought with them an at- tachment to the customs and to the legislation of their father- lands. They cherish their pcculiar theories,their ideal of what would constitute the best attainable common good. Ar- dent in their attachment to the free institutions of the coun- try, they take part in its public concerns, and their influence is felt in all our halls of legislation. They are probably more active in the affairs of government, because they enjoy a priv- ilege denied to them in the land of their descent or birth. Society here is in a state of fusion. What it will be when its particles shall have readjusted themselves, it is too soon now to predict. It is easier to tell what it cannot be. It cannot be English. It cannot be German. It cannot have the spirit and character of any other living nation. It is wonderful how much has already been accomplished in blending the different constituencies that make up American society. We are the only people into which flows a never-ebbing tide of foreign immigration. It is diffused through all our borders. But it passes at once into the same crucible, and comes out American. The process, however, cannot be without a disturbing effect upon our legislation. Men of these different nationalities are found in nearly every legislative body. They necessarily take with them their preconceived opinions, and by contact with 1860.1 American Le~yis1ation. 61 others work out results, which are distinctly American. Even if not themselves members, they contribute, in their daily life, to the formation of a public sentiment whi~ch seeks expression in the legislative will. The fact should also be noticed, that the unprecedented pro- gress made during the present age, in invention, and in the application of science to the arts, tends to multiply and to direct legislation. The development of the arts and sciences in modern times has been too rapid, and the consequent changes of social condition have been too sudden, to warrant their being left to the slow process of the growth of compul- sory usage. So long as the advance of society is steady and uniform, it may be assumed that existing usages will accom- modate themselves to whatever changes may take place. Until within quite a recent period, social improvement has been by regular gradations. high civilization has not been the growth of any single age. But, of late, science has become something more than ahstractious. Its tendency is now altogether practical. It is no longer what it was in the dark ages, or even in the days of Bacon. Indeed, the present century is the commencement of a new era. The principles which the scientific investigations of former periods brought to light, are no longer mere toys to amuse an idle hourcuriosi- ties to excite the wonder of the unlearnej. They have become tributary to the convenience of society. Long known principles, as well as more recent discoveries, are valued now just in proportion as they have been made subservient to popular use. The spirit of the age is bold, but utilitarian. It has laid hold of the elements themselves, but only to put them in harness, and compel them to human service. Science has entered the ahodes of all our people, and revolutionized the employments and habits of social lifeit has banished from our dwellings the spinning wheel and loom of the matron, the knitting needle of the spinster, while the sewing machine threatens still larger innovations. Science has invaded the department of agriculture, fertilizing the soil, planting the seed, gathering the crops, and preparing them for use, by other than human handsit has monopolized the whole 62 American Legi8latwn. domain of manufacturesit has entered the realms of corn- merce and trade ;opened new avenues to their successful prosecution, given to theni novel and superior instruments with which to labor, and has rendered the modern merchant as unlike his predecessor as is the cross-legged Turk who sells his wares in the bazaar of an eastern city. Science has also compressed society, has brought its members into closer con- tact with each other, and into nearer neighborhood with other communities. What physical, what social wonders have been wrought by the multiplication of canals, of rail ways, of tele- graphs, and by the introduction of steam navigation! Applied science has, within the last fifty years, regenerated society has diverted labor from its long worn channelshas intro- duced comfort, even luxury, into the homes of povertyhas stimulated the enterprise that had long lain dormanthas generated in the universal mind a consciousness of power, and awakened conceptions of what is attainable, too vivid to admit of inaction. All this has made unwonted demands for legislative inter- ference. It has rendered necessary new rules, suited to the altered circumstances of the people. This sudden expansion of human capabilities, aided by the application of science to the uses of life, found no usages in the community adequate to regulate the new complications both in the physical and moral condition of the people which it introduced. Trade found itself; in many particulars, without law. Convenience had established no rules for what had no existence, and selfish- ness and all evil passions were not slow to avail themselves of new facilities for their indulgence. Here was a great and a new work for legislation. Here was a necessity to be sup- plieda vacuum to be filled. To enable the legislator to meet wisely this new order of things, required no common knowl- ege of the transition state of society, no small amount of j udg- muent to plan, and of prudence to foresee the effect of legisla- tive action. The attempt has been made. Modern legislation has been largely engaged in regulating the new duties and rights which the application of science to the purposes of common life has caused to spring into being. Many of our statutes re American Legi8lation. 63 late to canals and railways, to telegraphs and manufactories, to hours of labor, to the duties of the employer, and to the rights of the employed. It is probable that such statutes will become more numerous as the effect of this influx of mechan- ical improvements becomes more manifest in common life. It is true that the effect upon legislation, which practical science has wrought, has been, thus far, rather to substitute a new sub- ject matter, than to introduce a changed spirit into our law, but there can be no great physical changes which do not work corresponding changes in the mind and heart of the coinmu- nity. It is not difficult to perceive that this cause must be pecu- liarly effective upon American legislation. The benefits of mechanical improvements are more generally diffused in this country than they are in any other nation. There is in all classes a greater readiness to avail themselves of anything which is labor-saving or labor-doing. No decided improve- ment can long be confined to a single neighborhood. Even patent laws, with all their authority, are too weak to prevent constant infringement. An improved churn or plough in- vented this year in Connecticut, will next year be in use in Oregon. There are few villages or neighborhoods in which there is not a steam engine, and fewer still unvisited by the products of some labor saving process. Our whole population is familiar with many of the achievements of the age. It is incredible that all this should not give birth to common ideas of a possible improved state of society, and greatly stimulate the popular mind to increased activity. And in such a system as ours, where all written law is but the outspeaking of the common sense, it is equally incredible that such ideas should not find expression in the statute book. We do not intend to dwell upon the power of party spirit or legislation, or upon the consequences which follow that pecu- liar division of parties, that which now exists, and always has existed, in this country; or upon that increasing and inordi- nate desire to become rich without labor, now so prevalent and so corrupting. Each of these is worthy of attentive considera- tion, and one of them, at least, is fitted to excite apprehen 64 American Legi8lation. [Feb., sion for the future. Our limits will allow us to refer, very briefly, to but one other of those influences which reach our written law. The age in which we live is an age of extravagant mental and moral speculation. Whatever causes may have combined to give to it this characteristic, the fact is undeniable. And the speculation which formerly expended itself in theories, now aims at putting them into practice. At no other period has organized society been the subject of so much day dreaming. In not a few minds conceptions of social improvement and illusory theories of a reorganized state of society, far more conducive to human happiness than is its present structure, are but daily bread. There are no schemes of reform so wild as to find no partisans. There are no established relations of life too sacred to be beyond the reach of projected modification. Even marriage, the foundation of all society, is, in the appre- hension of many, not what it should be, but requires the ameliorating hand of human legislation. The relative posi- tion of the sexes demands readjustment. The expressed wisdom of the past is, in the judgment of such theorists, but folly, and even the book of inspiration is trustworthy only so far as it can be tortured into accordance with their principles. Such enthusiasts would be harmless, were it not for the sublime energy with which their schemes are prosecuted. Moderation seenis to have been expunged from their cata- logue of virtues. Disheartened by no failure, they make it rather a reason for wilder extravagance. They substitute denunciation for argument, and agitation for conviction. There is a still larger class in the community, not so deeply infected, who are yet dissatisfied with the existing order of things,who regard the government and laws as radically defective, and who are not slow to believe that their own visions of right and policy are essential to the highest social development. They are doubtless true reformers in spirit, patriots and philanthropists. But they are not wise reform- ers. They undervalue present good, and overlook its cost. They forget that, though a rule may not have been the best conceivable at its origin, society may have accommodated 1860.] American Legielation. 65 itself to it, and that it cannot now be eradicated, without leav- ing a wound. Failing to consider that all members of the commnnity are not equally enlightened, and that both mental and moral reform must, in the natnre of things, precede posi- tive human law, they look to no other means of securing their projected reforms, than the coercive power of statutory enact- ment. It must be admitted that men of these and kindred views have deeply engraven their spirit upon modern legisla- tion. Probably few persons become members of either our state or national assemblies, who are entirely without the impression that there are evils in existing law, which it is their mission to remove. Associated with this is a frequent ambi- tion to connect their own names with some public measure. To the ill considered experiments to which such impressions and this ambition prompt, many of the evils of our present legislation are to be attributed. From the view which we have submitted of the influences which find their way into all legislative bodies, especially into those which reflect the popular sense, the transition is easy to the faults and imperfections which American legislation exhibits. We have already alluded to home, and have reserved to ourselves only time to mention a few others. The intelligent observer must be impressed with the conviction that American legislation is excessive. The most artificial state of society is not the best. That community is most prosperous, as well as most free, which is permitted to pursue its course of industry, untrammeled by any rules other than those which are neces- sary for its protection and harmony. The prescription of any new rule of action, necessarily produces temporary friction in the iuachinery of society, and instead of promoting immediate harmony, tends to foster litigation. Skillful legislation will therefore be sparing. Its province is not to construct, but to develop.. The lawgiver should be an assistant, not a despot. As society advances, new complications will arise. Legislation should disembarrass them, and prevent their continuing obsta- cles to further improvement. When an old custom has lost its vitality and become an useless form, it may be exscinded When forms are needed for the application of acknowleged voL. xvITb 66 American Legislation. principles, it is the province of legislation to supply them. When crime assumes new phases, or overleaps existing barri- ers, the lawgiver should provide for its repression. When an additional stimulus is needed to whatever is useful or noble, it should be supplied. Whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil. He that is familiar with the labors of judicial tribu- nals must have observed how immensely the complications of society are multiplied by modern legislation, and how numer- ous are the disturbances to which it gives rise. There is emi- nent wisdom in the old saying, few rules and those inflexi- ble. How wide has been the departure from this maxim, in these days, the size of our statute books will show. Nor is it alone in its excesses, that legislation needs reform, It is not sufficiently intelligent. There is very much in the material of which legislators, in this country, are made, that tends to inconsiderate and ill advised action. We have said that legislation is a science, and yet, by most of those who frame it, it has never been made the subject of study. In England, there is, what is called, a political education. There is a pro. fession of statesmanship. Not a few devote their lives to the attainment of a knowledge of national history, not merely of the biographies of eminent men which fill so large a place in all written history, but of the whole course of executive and legislative proceeding. To them political economy is not a sealed volume. They illuminate themselves with the lights of past experience. They observe the growth of legal princi- ples, and mark the effect upon society of each new develop- ment. Nor are they ignorant of the existing state of the law, of its defects, and of the mischiefs, if any, which need a remedy. Knowing alike the law and the facts which require legislative interposition, they are not insensible to the derange- ment which even a slight alteration may cause in a great system of rules for municipal conduct, and they are able to foresee it. Such men are cautions. When they enter Parlia- ment, if they bring with them integrity, they bring safety. We have no such class of men in this country. Here men are born legislators. While there is a general appreciation of the value and the necessity of a preparatory education for a theo 1860.] American ]ieaislation. 67 logianfor a medical practitionerfor one whose province it is to administer the laws, or even for an artist, its importance to the lawgiver is not practically felt. Yet in his relation to the welfare of society he is behind no one, unless it be the teacher of religion. We cannot but think that in this American scholars are in fault. Here is a department of science which they overlook. Too often themselves indisposed to enter a legislative body, they do not devote to the true principles of useful legislation that thought which their importance to the general welfare demands, and consequently they have little influence with those who are active agents in making the laws. Cultivated intellect and thorough knowledge do not contribute their share to the municipal regulation of the community. It is doubtless due to the general intelligence of our people, that our written law is not more crude than it is. But were it made a subject of general study; did legislation, equally with other sciences, command the devotion of educated men, we should be deliv- ered from a multitude of evils. We should not, often, as now, find in our statute books an enactment working widely differ- ent effects from those which its framers anticipatedderang- ing what no one ever desired to disturb, and imposing the necessity of other legislation to remove mischiefs introduced by itself. We should no more be subjected to the trial of illusory theories, and ill digested experiments, so many of which now end in failure, and during their continuance work social disaster. We should have a clearer expression of the legislative sense, with a consequent diminution of the necessity to resort to courts of law, and a decrease of the number of cases of individual hardship. In this age of wonderful mental activity, when science isin a state of rapid progressionin this utilitarian age, when uni- versal knowledge pays her tribute to the common wealit should not be that the science of legislation alone is regarded as unworthy of the study of educated men. Young ambition is often eager to assume its duties and to share its honors. It would be a nobler ambition to aspire to fitness to discharge its duties well. Denorntnational Oolleges. ARTICLE 111.DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Society for Prom~otir~q 6~llegiate and Theological Education at the West. Address on the Jifutual Co~peration of D~fl?erent Denornina- twns, & n the support of Okristic~n C~olleges. WE owe our readers an apology for the phrase which we have placed at the head of this Article. We confess it is not exactly classical. The word denominational is of recent American origin; and we remember the time when the com- bination of this word with Colleges would have seemed harsh, if not quite unintelligible. But changes in ideas and institu- tions compel changes in words; and Americans are not neces- sarily to be charged with relapsing into barbarism, if they do make changes in the English language, corresponding to the novel ideas and social combinations, which have originated on this side of the Atlantic. Diversity of religious denomination has increased so rapidly within the last quarter of a century, and has become so im- portant an element in American society, that there is an im- perative necessity of an adj ective expressive of it. The word sectarian might be supposed to meet this want; but it always implies more or less of censure, and for that reason men are not fond of applying it to themselves and their party. They are apt to flatter themselves that though much attached to the religions denomination to which they belong, they are still not sectarians. They feel, therefore, the need of a word which will describe zeal for a denomination, as they like to call it, without any implication of a narrow and sectarian spirit. For this purpose, evidently, the word denomina- tional was coined, and has obtained currency; and we shall profit nothing by protesting against its use, for it meets a widely felt want.

Denorntnational Oolleges. ARTICLE 111.DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Society for Prom~otir~q 6~llegiate and Theological Education at the West. Address on the Jifutual Co~peration of D~fl?erent Denornina- twns, & n the support of Okristic~n C~olleges. WE owe our readers an apology for the phrase which we have placed at the head of this Article. We confess it is not exactly classical. The word denominational is of recent American origin; and we remember the time when the com- bination of this word with Colleges would have seemed harsh, if not quite unintelligible. But changes in ideas and institu- tions compel changes in words; and Americans are not neces- sarily to be charged with relapsing into barbarism, if they do make changes in the English language, corresponding to the novel ideas and social combinations, which have originated on this side of the Atlantic. Diversity of religious denomination has increased so rapidly within the last quarter of a century, and has become so im- portant an element in American society, that there is an im- perative necessity of an adj ective expressive of it. The word sectarian might be supposed to meet this want; but it always implies more or less of censure, and for that reason men are not fond of applying it to themselves and their party. They are apt to flatter themselves that though much attached to the religions denomination to which they belong, they are still not sectarians. They feel, therefore, the need of a word which will describe zeal for a denomination, as they like to call it, without any implication of a narrow and sectarian spirit. For this purpose, evidently, the word denomina- tional was coined, and has obtained currency; and we shall profit nothing by protesting against its use, for it meets a widely felt want. 1860.1 Denominational (iollege8. 69 The phrase, Denominational Colleges ,is also the product of comparatively recent changes in the minds of the Ameri- can people. It is within the memory of men yet not far from the meridian of life, that the thought had scarcely been enter- tained by any mind that a College should be in any sense the representative of a sect, or that such Colleges as Princeton, and Columbia, and Yale, were not suitable for the education of any American youth, whatever might be the religions views of his parents. But it is supposed the world is growing wiser. Many now regard it as an established law of society, that no College can flourish unless its very life is intertwined with that of some religious denomination; and that conversely no denomination, or, as persons entertaining such views, would generally prefer to say, no church, can be expected to prosper without a system of Colleges forming a part of its organic life. The process by which these ideas have taken possession of the popular mind is quite marvelous. They are not the re- sult of any new light which has been thrown upon the subject by discussion, or by discovery, or by the experience of educa- tors. They are the direct products of that multiplication of sects, and that vast increase of the sectarian spirit which have so strangely characterized the last half century of our history. Men full of zeal for their religious denomination, and ambitious of its aggrandizement, have discovered that Colleges are in- struments of power, and have therefore eagerly seized upon them, and sought to wield them with as much efficiency as possible, for denominational purposes. Furor arma minis trat. It seems to us, therefore, quite time to pause in our career, and inquire whither all this is tending. What is to be the result of an order of things which is new, we say, not within the memory of our fathers, but of ourselves; which has been inaugurated with the rashness and hot haste of sectarian zeal, rather than with the considerateness and sober reflection which the magnitude of the interests involved clearly calls for; and which is already, with an arrogance not very pardonable, representing itself as the normal condition of society, and not 70 Denominational Colleges. [Feb., unlikely to spurn any questionings of ours as radical and revolutionary. Such an inquiry into the tendency of Denominational Col- leges we purpose now to institute. We have referred, at the head of this Article, to two very unpretending pamphlets. But unpretending as they are, they afford a proper text for introducing this subject to our readers. In the year 1844, the Society for Promoting Collegiate and Theological Edu- cation at the West, was organized for the purpose of render- ing needed aid to infant Seminaries of learning in the West, till provisions could be made for their permanent endowment. Its resources have been chiefly derived from collections in Congregational and New School Presbyterian Churches in the New England and Middle States. Its principles are wholly unsectarian and c& iperative. But within these last few years it has experienced constantly increasing difficulties in the per- formance of its noble work, from this new and growing rage for Denominational Colleges. In the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Society, and the accompanying Address, drawn up by a Committee, of which, that veteran in the cause of co6perative benevolence, Absalom Peters, D. D., was the Chairman, the prominent points of the subject are presented with clearness and force. Whoever will read these documents will find the question argued from a practical rather than a theoretical stand-point, and by minds that have seen and felt the magnitude of the obstacles which this zeal for Denomina- tional Colleges throws in the way of large-hearted Christian men, who are endeavoring to lay the foundations of liberal learning along our Western frontier. There are three forms under which the denominational ele- ment in Colleges is sometimes exhibited, to each of which we must give some attention, in order to present the subject fairly to our readers. That form which would always be pre- ferred, were the denominational spirit free to obey its own impulses, is to subject the Colleges to the control 0f the organic system of the denomination itself, to the General Association, the Synod, the Convention, or the Presbytery. As there are many among us, at the present time, who cannot 18~3Oj L)enomincttional College8. ,fl be made to feel that their churches are not living in criminal disobedience to the Saviours command, Go teach all na- tions, however earnestly the individual members of the same are engaged in the missionary work both at home and in for- eign parts, unless the missionaries sent out, and the funds con- tributed, are under the direct control of the ecclesiastical ma- chinery of their own denomination; so there are many who cannot believe that they have any provision for the liberal education of their sons, unless their Colleges are a part of their ecclesiastical system, controlled by their Presbytery, their Synod, or their Convention. They can feel safe in send- ing their sons to such Colleges. But if they must send them to Institutions not thus controlled, they are apprehensive that some unfair advantage will be taken of them, to turn them away from the faith of their fathers. Hence their zeal for Denominational Colleges. This is certainly a novel order of things, and we believe it will be transient; but thousands are rushing into it with just as much confidence as they would do if it had the sanction of centuries of experience. It is perhaps not easy to say which are the most unfit to exercise control over our higher seminaries of learning, our political or our ecclesiastical bodies; though we should be willing to grant the bad pr& iminence, in this particular, to the former. And yet the unfitness of both is largely due to the same causes. They are alike bodies constituted for other ends than the management of literary institutions; and those pri- mary ends for which they exist will always be paramount in their proceedings, and reduce all other interests which they may attempt to embrace and take care of, to a subordinate position. If Colleges are controlled by political bodies, they will be rendered subservient to the views and interests of what- ever political faction may happen to be in the ascendency. In that case, the hope of their being conducted with a sober, steady, and enlightened regard to the interests of liberal learn- ing, is wild and chimerical. The man who indulges such an expectation has surely not read human nature successfully. He has need to be reminded that the stream cannot rise higher than the fountain. He who thinks that Yale College could 72 Denominational Uolleges. [Fee., have been raised to her present position of world-wide useful- ness and renown, under the control of the political bodies of the State of Connecticut, must surely have studied Politics or Colleges, or both, to very little purpose. And the very same objection holds good against subjecting Colleges to the control of bodies constituted for ecclesiastical purposes. There is the same natural tendency of ecclesiastical bodies to make the interests of their denomination paramount, in all matters to which they apply themselves, as in political bodies to make the interests of party paramount. And if the management of Colleges is committed to them, it may be expected that the interests, real or supposed, of a religious de- nomination, will be made to override the interests of learning. Our inference in this case is quite as obvious and quite as inevitable as in the case of political bodies; and we know but one way in which it is possible to break its force. It may perhaps be denied that any real or supposed interests of a re- ligious sect having a College under its control, can come in competition with the ends for which such a seminary of learn- ing ought to be conducted. Such a denial would rather indi- cate an amiable good natured confidence in our fellow men, than a knowledge of the actual state of things amid which we live. An important chair of instruction, for example, is to be filled. Is it then entirely certain, is it even probable, that the interests of sect, or what is much more accordaut with the reality of things, sectarian passions, and an enlightened regard to the interests of learning will point towards the same candi- date for the place? Is there no reason to fear that a regard for denominational interests will lead to the appointment of an inferior man, who is right denominationally, in preference to a superior man who cannot be exactly squared to that rule? Is it so perfectly easy to fill a vacant Presidency, in any one of our Western Colleges, with a man fully adequate to such a station, that we can afford to insist that the candidate shall be of some certain, precise shade of opinion in respect to Pres- byterian or Congregational notions of the Church? Or can it be quite consistent with the best interests of learning, to insist 1860] Denominational Colleqe8. 73 that the place shall only be filled by a man who is a good Meth- odist, or by one who is all right on the immersion ques- tion? Would it have been wise to exclude Timothy Dwight from the Presidency of Yale College because in his notions of church government he was not quite a Congregationalist? The simple truth is, that ther6 is a narrowness and a little- ness in managing the affairs of an Institution professedly con- secrated to liberal learning, in such a spirit, which must ex- pose our Colleges, and the denominations which control them, to the contempt of all liberal-minded men. This very cause is degrading our Colleges in all parts of our country, but more especially in the West and South. It is constantly tending to fill their chairs of instruction with men of very indifferent qualifications, who are placed there, not because they were ever believed to be the fittest men for the place, but because it was thought they might do, and they were of the right de- nominational stripe. We affirm that such an order of things is the legitimate fruit of subjecting our Colleges to the control of the ecclesiastical powers of the several denominations. It is precisely the result which comes by a necessity of human nature, from such a sys- tem. And we predict that if this system becomes general in the West, as seems now to be threatened, and is persisted in, the long future of our Western Colleges will be as ilhiberal as it should be liberal, and as insignificant as it should be digni- fied and respectable. But this is not the whole of the unfitness of ecclesiastical bodies to conduct the affairs of a College. They are the most unstable portion of American society,the most likely to be rent asunder by internal convulsions. This is not an acci- dental circumstance, but results from the very nature of the case. All our ecclesiastical systems in this country are at- tempts to maintain a government without any power of forci- bly compelling obedience. And yet they are governments which are continually in contact with the deepest and most sacred convictions, the most energetic emotions, and the most stirring passions of the human heart. They are thus con- stantly awakening into life and energy, powers which they 74 I)enornina~ional College8. [Feb., are unable to control. They may and do legislate and com- mand, but have no means whatever of compelling obedience. They may adjudicate, but they have no executive arm clothed with authority to compel submission to their sentence. They are precisely in the condition in which one of our State Gov- ernments would be, if, with its Legislature and Judiciary con- stituted as at present, it were deprived of the right forcibly to compel obedience to its laws, and submission to the decis- ions of its courts. It would not be long, in such a State, be- fore rival legislatures, rival courts, and rival executive officers, would be exercising their functions on the same territory, and in presence of each other; and, in process of time, they would become as numerous as the separate ecclesiastical systems of our country; and they would be multiplied by exactly the same process. This is the inevitable condition of all ecclesiastical govern- ments, wherever liberty of conscience is fully recognized and established. We do not affirm that ecclesiastical governments so conditioned are bad; we do not affirm that they may not accomplish useful and important ends. But we do affirm that they cannot be stable. They must be constantly liable to the rise of minorities, whose views and feelings are in irreconcil- able conflict with those of the ruling majority; and whenever this does happen, convulsion and disruption must and do ensue. To this liability all the great ecclesiastical systems of this country are constantly exposed. Our Colleges, on the other hand, are, and of right ought to be, among the most permanent of our institutions,as perma- nent as our monntains,as perpetual as the springs which gush out among our hills. Why, then, subject them to the management of bodies so unstable ?unstable in their very nature, as all our ecclesiastical bodies must be. If any one calls in question the soundness of these views, we appear to indubitable facts in confirmation of them. Let such a doubter call to mind the earthquake which shook the great Presbyterian Church, from 1830 to 1838, and which finally divided that great body into two parts, each having the same constitution and the same name. Let him call to mind 1860.] Denominational Colleges. T5 the more recent agitations which have appeared in that por- tion of the divided Church known as the New School, on the slavery question, and carried still further the process of dis- ruption. Let him predict, if he can, the results of the already widely extended agitations of the same body, in relation to denominational Home and Foreign Missions. Let him fore- cast the future of the Old School Presbyterian Church, amid the commotions with which slavery is rocking this great nation. The adherents of that ecclesiastical system, since the great convulsion of 18378, have perhaps flattered themselves that they have a ship strong and steady enough to outride the storm without rocking. So thought the projectors of the Great East- ern. But the first smart gale which she encountered had well nigh driven her upon the rocks, in spite of all her anchors and engines. Enough of tempest is looming up in the coming his- tory of this country, to test the stability of Old School Presbyterianism. Let not her pilots be too sanguine. In proof of the same instability of our ecclesiastical sys- tems, let us also look at the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mason and Dixons Line, like some great backbone crossing the continent, long ago divided it towards the North and towards the South. And yet agitation ceases not: frag- ment after fragment is dissevered, and fresh convulsions are still rising up to view from the opening future. We repeat it, that we do not affirm that systems of which such things are true may not be good, but we can hardly suppose that their best friends are as well satisfied as they would desire to be, of their stability. To all this, however, it may be objected, that these convul- sions have not, as yet, produced any very disastrous conse- quences to the Colleges under the control of the ecclesiastical systems, in which they have occurred. So far as this is true, it is because this zeal for the denominational control of Col- leges is more recent~ than the most disastrous of these con- vulsions, and is a product of that intensity of the~denomina- tional spirit which they have occasioned. Had Beloit, Wa- bash, Illinois, and Marietta Colleges been placed under the 7(3 J)enorn~national (}ollege8. [Ieb., supervision of the Synods within which they are respectively located, previous to the great disruption of 183T8, is it probable that they would have come off unharmed from that catastrophe? If Webster College, in the State of Missouri, had been placed, at its organization, under the direction of the New School Presbyterian Synod of that State, would it now find its ecclesiastical mother in good condition to afford it nourishment, protection, and guardianship? The Church is indeed destined to perpetuity. It will be as lasting as the Mediatorial reign of Christ. But no wise man can discern any signs of permanency in our ecclesiastical sys- tems. Those artificial arrangements which man has devised for centralizing a government over the Church, and marking the boundaries and perpetuating the divisions of rival Chris- tian sects, sustain no vital relation to the life of the Church; they are confessedly mans work. Who will pretend for a moment that they are not? And, like all the other works of man, they are transient and perishable like their author. Even while they last, they are as changeable as the drifting sands of the desert. Why, then, subject our seminaries of learning to the neces- sity of sharing their ever variable and un~ertain fortunes? As our Colleges grow out of great permanent and distinct wants of society, why not allow them to stand on their own independent basis? Standing there, they encounter fewer popular passions, and are exposed to fewer causes of comumo- tion and convulsion than any other portion of the body politic. They ought to be,witlx wise management they may be,the most permanent social structures on earth, the Christian Church only excepted. Why, then, should we insist on unit- ing the permanent with the transient? Why should we unite their destinies to the ever changeful and uncertain fortunes of political and ecclesiastical systems? To Congregationalists there is another consideration, which ought to be perfectly decisive against all such arrangements. They are utterly at variance with the spirit and tendency of the Congregational system, and cannot be adopted in a Con- gregational community, without producing an ecclesiastical 1860.1 Denominational Colleges. 77 revolution. We do not purpose to enlarge on this point; it cannot fail to be obvious to every thoughtful man who has studied Congregationalism. What would have been the con- dition of the Churches of Connecticut, and of Yale College, if; during the conflicts of the last forty years, the General Asso- ciation of that State had possessed the power to reappoint, at stated intervals, the Trustees of that great seminary of learn- ing; or even to fill the vacancies which might from time to time occur in their number? Such an arrangement must have immensely increased the violence of those agitations which have been experienced; it must have seriously endangered, if not utterly destroyed, the ecclesiastical nnity of her Churches, and invested the General Association with a relative impor- tance in her ecclesiastical system, at variance with its princi- ples, and dangerous to the independency of the Churches. The College itself must have been exposed to agitations and rude shocks, most detrimental to its usefulness and dangerous to its permanency. In short, does any thoughtful man believe that Yale College could have been forty years ago placed un- der the guardianship of the General Association of Connecti- cut, without producing a revolution which would have been felt in the most disastrous consequences in every school district of the State? But such an arrangement will work no better elsewhere in connection with that ecclesiastical polity than in Connecticut. It can work nothing but mischief anywhere. The Congrega- tionalists of one Western Territory have already founded a College, giving the power of appointing its Trustees to the General Association; and in one new Western State there are serious questionings about doing the same thing. It is to be hoped these brethren will reconsider this matter, and abandon a principle likely to work much mischief if adhered to. There is, however, little danger that this method of control- ling literary institutions will be extensively adopted by Con- gregationalists. The logic of their system is too obviously against it. But a Northwestern Convention of Congregation- alists, a few years ago, extemporized a plan for subjecting an institution of learning to the organic control of the Cougrega [Feb., 78 Denominational College8. tional Churches, without giving any appointing power to the existing ecclesiastical bodies. It proposes to lodge the power of appointing to the Board of Trust, which directs the affairs of the institution, iu a Triennial Convention or Council, to be composed of all the Congregational ministers, and one delegate from each of the Congregational Churches of a contiguous group of States, for the benefit of which the seminary is especially intended. This is a novel idea, the working of which has not yet been tested by experiment. But it seems to us liable to great, perhaps fatal, objections. If the Convention should, as it ought, confine itself strictly to the one object for which it exists, there would be danger that after the novelty of the thing was over, few churches would be represented, and few ministers would incur the expense necessary to attend it. The appointing power might thus fall into the hands of a handful of men living in the vicinity of the Institution, and a power of control designed to be denominational, would in practice be only local; and, therefore, secure very little either of the confidence or sym- pathy of the churches. But we should suppose the danger much greater in another direction; that a great Convention(and that would be a great Convention indeed, which should embrace one minister and one lay delegate from each of the Congregational churches in eight Northwestern States)we say that a great Convention gathered from all the churches of a vast region, would not, when assembled, confine itself to the simple business of ap- pointing Trustees, for which alone it was called together, but would become a great Triennial deliberative Assembly, for discussing and resolving upon all the questions supposed to be of importance to the interests of religion and the peace and prosperity of the churches. Such a Triennial Assembly, en- trusted with the high and permanent function of exercising control and supervision over a great Institution of learning, is a power hitherto unknown to the Congregational Polity, the influence of which is likely to be important, and, we fear, disastrous. It does not require prophetic power to foresee, that such an experiment is attended with much danger to the peace 1860.] Denominational Colleges. 79 of the Churches, and even to their independency, as well as as to the prosperity of the Institution. Let us not flatter ourselves that the times of agitation and conflict are yet over, even in Congregational Churches. And in the midst of such conflicts as those which the New England Churches have experienced in the last forty years, the meet- ing of a great Convention, like that which assembled in Chi- cago in 1858, could not fail to produce a commotion, which would be disastrous to the harmony of the Churches and highly prejudicial to the interests of the Institutions, over which it should exercise a guardianship. Nothing is so dis- tressing to children as the quarrels of their parents, and such distresses would in that case be sure to come upon the Semi- nary. It seems to us that such an arrangement is likely to pro- duce all the bad consequences which we have hinted at, as likely to follow from placing Yale College under the coutrol of the General Association of Connecticut, and even worse on account of the vastness and heterogeneous character of the Convention. We should also fear that the appointing power would be exercised by an Assembly so vast, and hastily convened and transient in duration, with very little deliberation or wisdom. It should be borne in mind that the Convention assembled in Chicago in 1858, numbered some four hundred members; that a full representation of the constituency would at that time have brought together a Convention of not munch short of five times that number, and that if the constituency main- tains its present ratio of increase for a generation to come, it is not probable that there will then be a public building in Chicago, which can accommodate the sittings of the Con- vention. For such a body to become fully aware of the qualifi- cations which are necessary in the Trustees of a great Semi- nary of learning, and fully informed of the fitness of the men they vote for, is quite impossible. We are not speaking of the working of that system in times of harmony and repose, but in times when the Churches are under the excitements of controversy and conflict. In such times we think the scenes 80 Derwmincttional Colleges. [Feb., of the annual meetings of the Nassau street Tract Society might be reproduced in Chicago, with aggravations. We do not believe, therefore, that any thoughtful man considers this novel idea as a solution of the difficulty: it will be well indeed for the Churches of the great Northwest, if it does not prove to be the very worst form of denoinina- tionalism, in its relation to Seminaries of learning. We do not predict; we cannot refrain from suggesting; time must determine. In view of these and like considerations, we think it will be conceded, that there are great and perhaps fatal objections against subjecting Colleges to the direct organic control of the various denominations. But it may still be claimed that there are other ways in which we may have denominational Colleges, without encountering the difficulties which have been alluded to. Let us then examine the other methods which have been proposed and to some extent attempted in practice. The College may be placed nuder the direction of a self- perpetuating Board of Trust, composed, however, of men who are attached to a single denomination, and regarded as under bonds to conduct the Institution in the interest of that denomination, and to perpetuate the Board of Trust in the same line of succession. We cheerfully admit that this form of denominationalism partially avoids some of the objections which we have thus far urged. A College so constituted will be exposed to much less danger from those internal commotions to which all ecclesiastical systems are more or less liable, and may for that reason be expected to enjoy a much calmer and more peaceful existence. But still, as it is regarded as the property of the denomination, it cannot altogether escape the storms. The organic powers of the denomination will claim to speak in the name of the denomination, and in its behalf to dic- tate measures to the guardians of the College, and will have it in their power not a little to disturb the tranquillity of the halls of learning, and weaken the hold of the Institu- tiou on public confidence. Neither the Faculty nor the Trustees of such an Institution, can be fully independent in 1860.1 Denorninationcd College8. 81 their offices; they can only enjoy peace by doing the behests of the sect with great promptness and submissiveness. In so far as the denominational control of an Institution can be successfully exerted under this form, it has no less tendency to illiberality and narrowness, than the method of direct ec- clesiastical control. It tends to confine all appointments within the limits of a single denomination, and forbids the Trustees to place the fittest men in the chairs of instruction, unless they are right on all denominational issues. We do not assert that a Board of Trust, so pledged, would not sometimes make ap- pointments outside the denomination. But such cases would be rare and exceptional, and not at all inconsistent with the general tendency of which we speak. And we affirm, without fear of successful contradiction, that men qualified in the high and proper sense of that wordqualified intellectually, mor- ally, and religiouslyto fill the various departments of instruc- tion in our Colleges, are not so abundant, especially men whose services can be had at the present miserably low salaries of College Professors, that our Boards of Trust can afford to apply such tests to candidates otherwise eminently fitted for the places which are to be filled. And if they persist in applying them, they will not fail to belittle, and degrade their Colleges. In prouf of the soundness of this view, we appeal to facts which are patent to every observing man. There is yet a third form in which it is conceivable that we should have Denominational Colleges; and it is a form which is not without its advocates and its experiments. It is to unite two or more denominations in the support and control of the same College, but to divide it between them by a definite un- derstanding that each denomination is to be entitled to a cer- tain number of seats in the Board of Tru~st, and to certain chairs of instruction. This plan does seem to offer the advan- tage of uniting more than one denomination in the support of the same Institution. And yet it is for experience to deter- mine how far it will accomplish even this. We should fear that it might result in depriving it of the hearty sympathy and support of either. But however that may be, it as truly im- bues the Institution with the spirit of sect as the methods be VOL. xviii. 6 82 Denominational 6~lleges. [Feb., fore considered. It elevates minor denominational peculiari- ties into tests of fitness for the highest and most dignified sta- tions: it tends to fill our most important chairs of instruction with men of inferior talents and attainments, because they are supposed to be right in the matter of denomination, and there- by to impair the efficiency of the Institution in the dischaige of its appropriate function. And by whom are the instructors of an Institution, un- der such auspices, to be appointed? By the respective de- nominations in partnership, acting through their organic bod- ies? Then we fall back upon all the consequences of a direct ecclesiastical control. And we should be apprehensive, too, that in such a case little regard would be had for those quali- fications which make the true educator, and that the Faculty of such a College would be made up on both sides, or on all sides, of ardent sectarians, who could never harmonize with each other. Snch an Institution would, we suspect, achieve very little for the cause of liberal learning. But, on the contrary, are the instructors to be appointed by a Board of Trust, held under bonds to give a certain number of places to each of the denominations in partnership? What guaranty, then, has either denomination that such men will be appointed as will be acceptable to the denomination, and in the j udgment of their brethren fitted to take care of its in- terests in the Institution? In such an order of things we should expect to hear the Trustees charged with appointing men as representatives of this or that denomination, who are not the genuine article, belonging to the denomination only in name and position, and not true to its principles and interests. Whether there are any facts now before the public to j ustify such an expectation, we leave to well informed readers to judge. In truth, we aVe inclined to regard this as the worst of the three forms of Denominationalism to which we have referred. Sure we are, that it is the most likely to produce alienations among brethren, and heart-burnings in the com- munity, and to prove in practice utterly impracticable. We believe the obstacles supposed to lie in the way of the mdi- vidual codperation of Chiistians in all good works, though 1860.1 Denominational College8. 83 connected with different denominations, to be more imaginary than real; and so far as they are real, we believe they ought to be regarded as contrary to the spirit of Christ, and discred- itable to the Christian name. But we do not believe that dif- ferent denominations, a8 8ocieties, a8 corporat2ons, can codpe- rate. Christian co6peration is individual, not corporate. If, then, American Protestantism cannot devise a better platform for a Seminary of learning than either of those we have thus far spoken of, we must conclude that the prospects of liberal learning among us are rather gloomy. Indeed, the considerations thus far presented do show this, if nothing else, that the difficulties to be encountered in laying satisfactory foundations for Institutions of learning among the heteroge- neous elements of our Western States, and amid the jar- ring passions, the conflicting views, the rival interests of so many sects, must be great and appalling. We are persuaded, also, that a practical acquaintance with that problem would greatly increase the depth and solemnity of that conviction. Still we do not believe the case hopeless. A better platform is possible, and the present is the time when all enlightened good men should take their place upon it. It is not new; our fathers erected it amid the primeval forests of New England.. It is not untried; it has been subjected to the test of experi- ment for generations, and that noble galaxy of New England Colleges is the result. With such an experiment, we are satis- fied. Let those who are moved to test some new model, pay the cost of the experiment; we are not inclined to share it with them. We do not mean that the New England Colleges are perfect; the age of perfect social institntions is, we appre~ hend, far off in the future. But the New England Colleges are manifesting, in every year of their history, a sober, con- servative tenacity in adhering to the good which has beem attained, combined with a ready capability of all needed changes and improvements. Nobly have they done their work in the past; nobly are they doing it now; and nobly will they adapt themselves to coming exigencies. We deny that these Colleges are in any proper sense De~ nominational. They are for the most part controlled by inde~ [Feb., 84 Denominational College8. pendent Boards of Trust, owing no obligations, expressed or implied, to any denomination or ecclesiastical power. They are under obligations to founders, to society, and to God, to perform their sacred trust (hri8to et Eccle8iw, for Christ and the Church universal; to consecrate the Institutions under their care to sound learning and Evangelical Faith, and to noth- ing else. It is not important, it is not relevant, even, to in- quire whether a candidate for a chair of instruction in Yale College believes in the Congregational, or the Presbyterian theory of the Church. If the venerable Corporation of that Institution were to descend to such folly, we should expect the spirit of the sainted Dwight to haunt their dreams. Such a constitution, and only such, do we demand for the Colleges which Christian liberality is founding in the new States of the West. Does any one suggest that this will do very well for New England, but will not do for the West? We think we have shown how well those things are likely to do, and are doing, which it is proposed to substitute for this, at the West. And what reason is there to suppose that this plan will not work well at the West? Is it suggested that the denomi- national spirit is so much more prevalent at the West than in New England, that more regard must be had to it in constitu- ting our Colleges? We reply, that the effort to satisfy the spirit of sect in laying the foundations of liberal learning, seems to us not unlike the attempt to satisfy the drunkards and the rum sellers in the constitution of a Temperance Society. If it is meant that the enormous prevalence of the spirit of sect in the West is a very formidable obstacle to the success of In- stitutions of liberal learning, we surely do not need to be told that. But if it is meant that the spirit of sect can suggest any modification of this broad New England plat- form, which enlightened friends of learning can afford to adopt, we have yet to be convinced of the truth of the proposition. There is, indeed, one condition on which, were it fulfilled, we should be compelled to admit that unsectarian Colleges in the West are impossible. If it shall prove true that this same spirit of sect, this esprit du eo~ps, as it has been 1860.] Denominational Colleges. 85 called by way of euphemism, is so strong as to overcome the moral integrity of good men, so that when intrusted with the management of literary Institutions, founded on this co~5pera- tive and liberal basis, they will betray their trust, merge the guardian of liberal learning in the sectarian, and employ their influence and their corporate votes to usurp the control of the Institution in behalf of their sect; if, we say, the spirit of sect is strong enough to induce men thus to vio- late their faith and their moral integrity, then, indeed, should we despair of undenominational Colleges. But then, it seems to us, we must equally despair of the Church itself. The salt has lost its savor. But we have faith in the moral integrity of Christian nien, and believe that if such crimes are sometimes attempted, or even committed, their recurrence will be 9nly at long intervals of tinie. And those usurpations which for a time seeni successful, will be only temporary, and the perpetra- tors of them will meet with merited rebuke from an en- lightened and Christian public opinion. The Trustees of a College will be found, on the whole and in the long course of events, to desire its prosperity; and they cannot help seeing and feeling the necessity of bringing it into sympathy with the most enlightened, influential and religious portion of the community around it. A little knot of Congregational- ists in the midst of a numerous, enlightened, and wealthy Presbyterian community, or a little knot of Presbyterians in tl)e midst of a similar Congregational community, will hardly succeed in permanently keeping an exclusive denominational control of a Seminary of learning thus unrighteously usurped. We think that in relation to questions of this sort good people IJIace too little confidence in one another, and too little in an overruling Providence, and in coming generations. We are confident that in a long course of years the great currents of Providence will be found to favor Colleges on a liberal and co6perative basis, rather than those on a Denomi- national basis. There are two causes now discernible, which will in a great degree compel us to place our reliance on the former, rather than on the latter. 86 Denominationctl Colleges. [Feb., One of them, is the tendency of sect, if allowed to exert its influence on the question, to reduce all our Colleges to feeble- ness and starvation, by multiplying them beyond the demands and necessities of the community. The inconveniencies and evils resulting in this country from attempting to erect many Colleges when there is room for but one, are felt and ac- knowledged by all men who are well informed on this subject. Two causes are chiefly influential in producing this state of thingslocal interests and passions, and the zeal of sect. These causes operate in all parts of our country, and have produced in all more or less of inconvenience and feebleness. But they act with far greater power in the new States of the West, than in the New England and Middle States. If now it could be shown that by means of a sectarian centralization it is possible in a good degree to overcome the localizing influence of mens private interests and passions, and secure a broader co6p- eration, we might be willing to accept of Denominational Colleges as the less of two evils, and seize on the ambition of sect, as the most effective weapon with which to combat in- dividual selfishness. But even this poor advantage cannot be fairly claimed for sect. To such an extent has that localization which is characteristic of everything American, pervaded all our Protestant denominations, that in relation to the subject under consideration they will be found quite destitute of any centralizing power, and even co6perating with all those local and private interests and passions which found Colleges when they are needed for no other purpose than to swell the price of town lots and farms adjacent. Men wishing to secure a profit- able outcome of a speculation in real estate, if left to them- selves would hardly be able to make a plausible show of a College without costing them more than it would pay. But some Denominational interest is at hand, and an appeal to that will be likely to be successful. The feeling is that within each section of very moderate extent, each denomination should have its College, and each therefkre allies itself with the local interests of some flourishing village, for the purpose of se- curing it. Sect consents to help out the speculation, and speculation agrees to aid the sect, and a College is the result, 1860.1 Denominational Colleges. 87 which is detrimental rather than beneficial to the real inter- ests of learning. Thus Colleges are multiplied to an indefinite extent, without the slightest regard to the real wants of the community, or its ability to support them. It is difficult to say, in this insane rage for College building, which is most selfish and reckless of the real interests which alone ought to be consulted, the spirit of sect, or the ~pirit of speculation. There is a phrase at the West, that people are running a thing into the ground. If anything is in danger of being run into the ground, it is College building at the West. There is but one remedy for all this. The very spirit and principle of Denominationalism must be abjured in our Col- leges. We must found them upon a broad and comprehen- sive platform of Evangelic Faith. We mnst co6perate in sustaining them as Christians, and not as Sectarians. We must cherish them not as belonging to our sect, but to Christ and the Church universal. We must esteem them precious, not as the instruments of aggrandizing our Denomination, but as blessings to our country, to mankind, and to the distant future. We think it requires no prophetic power to predict, that if any truly noble Institutions of liberal learning are to be reared up in the West, and stand there in strength and beauty in distant generations and ages, this only is the foundation on which they are to be reared. The spirit of sect, if it is to be consulted in the premises, will only multiply feeble and starveling enterprises, to destroy one another by their mutual rivalships. If any man believes that any one of our Western States can thoroughly found and efficiently sustain all the Colleges, which sect originates, supply them with the requisite endowments and instruments of instruction, and sustain in them Faculties composed of men who by vigorous and varied talent, large and generous culture, are qualified for their high position, especially that it can furnish to each of them a re- spectable number of students, affording fit employment for men of such talents and attainments; if any muan, we say, believes this, or does not see that such multiplication of Colleges renders it nearly impossible to raise any one of all the number to this truly dignified position for generations to 88 Denwminational Collegvs. [Feb., come, that man has, it seems to us, studied the subject to very little purpose. And he who does not see that the spirit of sect in all its influence on our College building enterprises, increases and aggravates this evil to an unlimited extent, has been still more unsuccessful in his observations. If we are ever to succeed in founding Colleges in the West worthy of the name, we must first learn that the spirit of sect, though followed by thousands as an infallible oracle, is in truth the most dangerous adviser we can consult. Another cause which is operating extensively, and greatly favors the founding of Colleges on a broad undenominational basis, is, a growing conviction in a multitude of the most enlarged, liberal, and religious minds, of the superior wisdom and trustworthiness of institutions built on such a basis. The increased development and activity of the spirit of sect within these last few years, is a wonderful and even a startling phe- nomenon. But he who supposes that this movement has borne along with it the entire mass of the religious mind of the nation, is greatly deceived. In most or all our religious de- nominations there are many who are shocked at it, ~nd look on with disgust and aversion. They are not ready, either with hand or purse, to co~5perate with the denominational enter- prises which it originates. Especially when it is proposed to denominationalize seminaries of liberal learning, and make colleges and universities the haudmaids of sect, they will co~5perate, if at all, languidly and feebly. Indeed, this denoin- inational revival will be found to be rather in the ecclesiastical powers and persons of the time, than in the great mass of good Christian people. And when those people are appealed to in behalf of a College founded on the broad Christian basis for which we contend, they will respond to the appeal with far greater liberality and cheerfulness, than to any enterprise which should bear the image and superscription even of their own sect. It would be easier, at the present time, to raise a suffi- cient endowment for a seminary of learning on such a basis, than for one committed to, and controlled by, any sect what- ever. Especially is this true throughout the whole extent of Or- 1860.1 Denomir& ationcd Oolle~es. 89 thodox Congregationalisin. Congregationalists are sometimes of late seized with this mania for denominational Colleges. We regret this; for it is a disease from which, according to the laws of their constitution, they ought to be exempt. And yet we sympathize with them; they have some apology for it: they have been rudely treated by their partners in some coL~p- erative enterprises. But we think they mistake both the rein- edy for the evil, and the spirit of their Congregational brethren. The true remedy of the evil is not to endorse and sanction that very denominational exclusiveness and littleness by which their rights have been wrested from them, and to add to the number of denominational Colleges, by organizing others in the inter- est of Congregationalism; but to give their countenance, sup- port, and strength, to those Colleges which are true to co6per- ative Christian principles, and to frown on all others, in whatever denomination found. They mistake, too, the principles and tastes of the great Congregational brotherhood. We have misread our brethren of that connexion, or they will co6perate in Colleges on the basis we have advocated, much more cheerfully and efficiently than in those pledged to any denominationeven their own. They stand with their fathers. They would consecrate the College, 6hristo et ecelesie, and neither they nor their fathers have yet dreamed that eccle8ia means Congregation- alism. Whatever may be true in other denominations, Con gregationahists are under no necessity of shriveling themselves within the narrow limits of sect, for the sake of humoring the prej udices of their masses. If Congregational ministers and leaders xviii act on universal Christian principles, the Con- gregational brotherhood will sustain them. We think we do not speak without the book; and we hope that that spirit of co6perative charity which we know widely pervades the Congregational brotherhood, xviii be found to be not less abundant in other denominations also. 90 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., ARTICLE IV.TIIE REOPENING OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. An abstract of the evidence delivered before a Select Committee of the flovse of Commons, in the years 1790 and 1791, on the art of the petitioners for the abolition of the Slave Trade. American Reform Tract and Book Society. Cin- cinnati. 1855. Africa and the American flag. By Commander ANDREW H. FOOTE, LT. S. Navy, Lieut. commanding U. S. Brig Perry, on the coast of Africa, A. ID. 18501851. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1854. Address of the lion. JEFFERSON DAvIs, before the Democratic State Convention, in the City of Jackson, Afiiss., fitly 6th, 1859. New York Tribune. llfodern Reform Examined, or the Union of North and South on the subject of Slavery. By JOSEPH C. STILES. Philadel- phia: Lippincott & Co. 1857. Livingstones Travels and Researches in South Africa. New York: IIarper & Brothers. 1858. Barths Discoveries in North and 6entral Africa. Harper & Brothers. 1858. The Independent. New York. SLIGHT observation convinces the more intelligent that there are two antagonistic principles now at work in hnman society, two kinds of leaven permeating the body politic of the world. One is freedom, the other is bondage. The one is equal rights, the other is oppression. The two are here in the land of the American Revolution, in the land of the Pilgrims and Pu- ritans. Their forces, like two great armies, are moving toward each other; they dispute a common territory, and a pitched

90 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., ARTICLE IV.TIIE REOPENING OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. An abstract of the evidence delivered before a Select Committee of the flovse of Commons, in the years 1790 and 1791, on the art of the petitioners for the abolition of the Slave Trade. American Reform Tract and Book Society. Cin- cinnati. 1855. Africa and the American flag. By Commander ANDREW H. FOOTE, LT. S. Navy, Lieut. commanding U. S. Brig Perry, on the coast of Africa, A. ID. 18501851. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1854. Address of the lion. JEFFERSON DAvIs, before the Democratic State Convention, in the City of Jackson, Afiiss., fitly 6th, 1859. New York Tribune. llfodern Reform Examined, or the Union of North and South on the subject of Slavery. By JOSEPH C. STILES. Philadel- phia: Lippincott & Co. 1857. Livingstones Travels and Researches in South Africa. New York: IIarper & Brothers. 1858. Barths Discoveries in North and 6entral Africa. Harper & Brothers. 1858. The Independent. New York. SLIGHT observation convinces the more intelligent that there are two antagonistic principles now at work in hnman society, two kinds of leaven permeating the body politic of the world. One is freedom, the other is bondage. The one is equal rights, the other is oppression. The two are here in the land of the American Revolution, in the land of the Pilgrims and Pu- ritans. Their forces, like two great armies, are moving toward each other; they dispute a common territory, and a pitched 1860.11 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 91 battle, or a series of battles, must be added to the encounters already experienced, until one or the other of these two irreconcilable principles is completely and forever victorious. A new march on one side is now commencing. Whether we may interpret it as a sign of weakness and of partial defeat in past conflicts, or of courage and hope under the flush of sup- posed victory, it is a movement which must be met. It will be pressed to an engagement. And the issue will not leave both sides with their former advantages. We refer to the revi- val of the African slave trade. It is already reopened, or, if never closed, has received a prodigious increase. That which had been doomed to death under the ban of piracy has found a resurrection. Not indeed as yet with the consent of na- tional law, but despite law. And the fear is that rulers and other men are viewing the transgressions as thongh the isolated statutes were, or would become, only a dead letter. This traffic winked at will reinstate itself in successful and exten- sive operation, as sure as two continents stand and an ocean rolls between. Once inaugurated in full career, terrible must be the conflict that can afterward destroy it. But we may speak in advance of the queries of some of our readers. Is the slave trade reopened? Is there danger that the laws against it may be repealed or become dead ? Others may say, Is the slave trade certainly wrong? Is it actu- ally contrary to justice and a violation of human rights ? Or, Is it so enormously wrong as some represent? May it not be a mixture of good and evil, with so much of the for- mer as to make the traffic tolerable? Ought it not to be respect- ed as the chief act in a train of great and conspicuous mission- ary events ?~ These are questions that should be met. Is the slave trade reopened or of late largely augmented ? The attempt has been made to cast so much doubt over this inquiry as to give substantially a negative reply. But if we had not a single fact of detected illegal trade of this character, the evident state of public opinion at the South would at least suggest an affirmative. Why all this fever there upon that subject, if no slaves have recently been landed in the southern states from a foreign country? Are not the appetites of many 92 The Reopening of the Africaa Slave Trade. [Eel)., for this traffic already whetted by the taste? Are they all so law-abiding in the south as rigidly to observe all enactments that they pronounce unconstitutional? Have they suffered the most profitable of all kinds of commerce to go untouched, while affirming that the prohibition of it is an oppression on themselves? Their state of society prepares us to learn that they have already opeued their ports to slavers. The easy course of judges and juries with the Wanderer, allow- ing the guilty to go unpunished, violating their solemn trusts under the laws of the land, nearly compels us to believe that this is not an isolated case, and must be followed by a throng. When some two or three years since it began to be prophesied by a few that an attempt would be made to reopen the slave trade, and that by the next Presidential election it would be a prominent topic of discussion and per- haps a plank in the platform of one of the political parties, it was regarded by most as a silly prophesy, and the men who uttered the prediction were held up to derision as fanatical alarmists. Already the facts are that vessels engaged in the slave trade have been captured, other vessels equipped for the trade have been seized by the United States Marshals, and these are enough to show that many more have escaped detec- tion and successfully prosecuted their voyages. The most reliable evidence we have in the case is in effect that at least upwards of twenty slave-ships have safely landed their car- goes on the coast of the Southern states during a few months past. Distinguished political men of the country, not of anti- slavery sentiments, freely admit this. The Richmond (Texas) Reporter, of late date, contains the following advertisement: FOR SALEFour hundred likely AFRICAN NEGROES, lately landed upon the coast of Texas. Said negroes will he sold upon the most reasonable terms. One-third down; the remainder in one and two years, with 8 per cent, interest. For further information inquire of C. K. C., Houston, or L. R. G., Galveston. This advertisement shows a fact in the trade itself, and being so openly published becomes only an evident index of many similar cases. It is proved that the ship Wanderer~~ brought her cargo of slaves directly from Africa, and landed it 1860.] The Reopening of the Afriean~ Slave Trade. 93 in Georgia. A late number of the Memphi8 Avalanche, a south- ern newspaper, has the following: Three of the sia native Africans brought here a few days since, were sold yesterday at the mart of Mr. West, and brought respectively, $750, $740, and $515. The latter sum was paid for a boy about fifteen years old, who seemed to possess more intelligence than any of the others. These negroes are a part of the cargo of the yacht Wanderer, landed some months since. According to the most recent information, cargoes of slaves are now frequently being landed along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans papers announce the sailing of vessels for Africa, and contain accounts of the latest arrivals of Congo negroes. Advertisements offer three hundred dollars a head for every thousand negroes from Africa landed on the southern coast of the IJuited States. An eminent and long tried missionary of the A merican Board affirms that there cannot be less than one hundred American vessels n~w on the African coast waiting to be freighted with slaves, and that at least sixty or seventy of these are destined for the American shores. Other missionaries now on the western coast of Africa write to their friends in this country that the slave trade there has greatly increased during the last twelve months. Rev. Messrs. Bushnell and Walker of the Gaboon mission agree in tile statement that all the missionaries on the coast of Africa from the whole Christian world are not equal in number to the slave ships from the port of New Y rk alone that yearly visit that coast for slaves. One city furnishes more slave ships for Africa than all Christendom does mission- aries! These men say that they have seen and conversed with citizens of the United States in tile Gaboon country who openly stated that their business there was to prosecute the slave trade. But tile state of public sentiment at the south is still more ominous of evil than all the facts and testimonies concerning the present existence of the slave traffic between Africa and the United States. This species of commerce is at the present moment, and has been for months, gaining favor at the south. Many of the most enthusiastic and energetic men and politi 94 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., clans there are its friends. Many of these intend to secure the full resumption of the slave trade, either by the acqui- escence of our country in the violation of the laws against it, or by the abolition of those laws. It is to be made, and is now made, a political question at the South. Candidates for high offices are to be tested as to their slave orthodoxy on this subject. They must in some way favor this commerce, now deemed so essential to the highest prosperity of a large part of the Southern states, or receive the opposition of the most deter- mined and fearless politicians of the whole South. There is no probability that they would long be satisfied with the quiet permission to prosecute the trade while a statute existed against th em. Why should not those who have a iDred Scott decision obtain also the voice of the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing the prohibition of the slave trade by our national laws unconstitutional? Our readers are aware that there is now in full operation at the South an African Labor-supply Association, of which the Hon. J. B. D. iDe Bow is president. Mr. DeBow openly declares that one object of the Association is to effect, at the earliest possible moment, the abolition of the national laws prohibit- ing the slave trade. The Hon. W. L. Yancey, writing for the press from Mont- gomery, Alabama, after some introductory remarks, says: Further reflection has but confirmed me in the opinion then expressed, that the Federal laws prohibiting the African slave trade, and punishing it as piracy, are unconstitutional, and are at war with the fundamental policy of the South, and, therefore, ought to be repealed. I am further satisfied that the agitation of this question is beneficial. It has already served to develop (not to create) much unsoundness in our midst upon the question of slavery; and one of the advantages of discussion would be to correct these erroneous views, and to warn our people of those among us who are radically unsound upon the principles which underlie that institution. It is wisdom to ascertain wherein we are weak, that we may fortify our position upon that point, and use extra vigilance. Until within the last twenty-five or thirty years, there had prevailed an un- broken calm in the South upon the moral aspect of the slavery question. Taking its rise in the wild and reckless radicalism of the Red Republican French school, the opinion had rooted itself in Virginia, and thence had spread over the whole Southand was taught in its religionthat slavery was morally wrong, was 1860.] The ]?eopening of the African Slave Trade. 95 founded in kidnapping, and conducted in cruelty; and it was defended solely upon the ground that it was impracticable to get rid of it. It was in the midst of this unhealthy state of the public mind that the Federal laws, declaring the African slave trade to be piracy, were enacted For one, I am unwilling to see continued on the statute book the semi- abolition lawshut desire to see the subject of slavery taken from the grasp of the General Governmentand that Government only be allowed to act upon it to protect it. Whether the African slave-trade shall be carried on should not depend on that Government, but upon the will of each slave-holding state. To that tribunal alone should the question be submitted: and by the decision of that tribunal alone should the Southern people abide. Yours, respectfully, W. L. YANCEY. Notice the distinct avowal that the Federal laws prohib- iting the African slave trade are unconstitutional, at war with the fundamental policy of the South ; that the subject of slavery and the slave trade should be taken from the grasp of the General Governmentthe Government be allowed only to protect it, and that the slave trade should depend solely on the will of each slave-holding state. The Hon. Jefferson Davis, the most polished, able, and influential man at the South, in his late address at Jackson, Miss., uttered the following: If considerations of public safety or interest warranted the termination of the [slave] trade, they could not justify the Government in branding as infamous the source from which the chief part of our laboring population was derived. It is this feature of the law which makes it offensive to us, and stimulates us to strive for its repeal- He is sensitive under the existence of our treaty with Great Britain, by which we are obligated to keep a squadron on the African coast for the suppression of the slave trade. Relative to this he says: My friend, Senator Clay of Alabama, (l~is services entitle him to the friendship of the South,) as Chairman of the Committee of Comnierce, instituted, at the last session of Congress, an inquiry into the facts connected with the maintenance of our squadron on the coast of Africa, and I hope his energy and ability may lead to the amendment of a treaty which has been productive only of evil. Who does not see that when that squadron is with- 96 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., drawn all Federal laws against the African slave trade are abrogated or dead! Mr. Davis argrees with Mr. Yancey that he would much prefer to leave the subject of the importa- tion of African slaves to the states respectively, which of course would be the fullest reopening of the slave trade. He thinks that there will be no need of importing slaves from Africa into Mississippi ; but for such a sentiment, Let no one, however, he says, suppose that this indicates any coin- cidence of opinion with those who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of the trade. This conclusion in relation to Mississippi, is based upon my view of her present condition, not upon any general theory. For in- stance, it is not supposed to be applicable to Texas, to New Mexico, or to any future acquisitions to be made south of the IRio Grande. All of these countries, which can only be devel- oped by slave labor in some of its forms, and which, with a sufficient supply of African slaves, would be made tributary to the great mission of the United States to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to establish peace and free trade with all mankind. Mr. Daviss conceptions of the augmentation of the slave trade are rather large, when he calmly figures for a supply of slaves from that source enough to fill up all the states that are yet to be carved out from Texas and New Mexico, and the future acquisitions to be made south of the Rio Grande. Truly, the Am erican squadron on the coast of Africa will have to be withdrawn! Mr. Davis is very gentlemanly belligerent against that feature of the national law prohibiting the slave trade which declares it to be piracy. But he very well knows that the slave trade is a system of robbery practised on the bodies and souls of an unoffending people, which results directly in the death of many of their number, and therefore should be regarded as piracy. On an American slaver recently captured, one hundred and forty died and were thrown overboard during the voyage from the coast of Africa to Cuba. He also well knows that after long years of experiment and discussion in Congress and out, it was finally the almost unanimous conclusion of Congress and the country, that the slave trade was so strongly intrenched in 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 97 human selfishness that it could never be destroyed without the penalty of piracy. And to-day millions mourn, and mu- lions rejoice, that even this penalty is not enough for its object. But while Messrs. De Bow, Yancey and Davis do not openly advocate prosecuting the slave trade in defiance of law, we very well know what sonic of their satellites will do. The law adj udged unconstitutional, very many in the south will by no means wait for another Died Scott decision to be pronounced. Accordingly we have such examples as this. Mr. L. W. Spratt of Charleston, in an address at a recQnt reception given him in Savannah, spoke as follows: But it is said we may not stoop to a measure forbidden by the law. It is not for us, so vested with the trusts of a great destiny, to scruple at the neces- sary means to its attainment. Situated as we are, we cannot abrogate the law; and must we then fore0o our destiny for want of the legal means to its achieve- ment. The audience that heard this, we are told, was enthusi- astic, large and appreciative. The whole address was pronounced replete with an elevated tone of truth and logic. Who can doubt that such heroes are already enjoying the profits of the slave trade, and live in expectation of still further ~dvantaoe~ Let no one suppose that this opposition to the existing laws aga~inst the slave trade is confined to a few individuals. The Savannah (Ga.) News publishes the proceedings of a meeting of a large and respectable portion of the citizens of Ware and the adjoining counties, assembled in the court house in Wares- boro, on the evening of the 21st of September, to hear Colonel William B. Gaulden deliver an address on the reopening of the African slave trade. At the concThsion of his speech he offered the following preamble and resolution, which were adopted by the meeting: In consequence of the hi~h price of labor the ajicultural interests of the South are in a languishing condition. Therefore, resolved, That in order to obtain the requisite supply, all laws, State and Federal, forbiddiug the slave trade, ought to he repealed. The Sea (~oa8t Democrat, Miss., learns from good authori VOL. XVIII. 7 08 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., ty, that a cargo of African slaves is expected in the ship I8land Harbor the latter part of the present month. They xviii, if they arrive safe, be landed without any attempt at secrecy; the consignees trusting to the sentiment predominant in Mississippi as to the necessity of increasing the number of laborers for a triumphant acquittal, in the event of a govern- inent prosecution. The Soathern Uitizen, a leading paper in the interests of the slaveholders at the South, and representing the sentiments of a large l)ortion of the people there, indulges in the follow- ing. We copy it both as an indication of Southern sentiment on this subject, and by way of helping the New York Tract Society to a polished mirror into which they would do well to look. The Citizen says: The Tract Society in New York, as we have already recorded, being whole somely mindful of the profits of Southern trade, lately refused to embody in the scheme of its publications a system of tracts against slavery, or even against the African slave trade. Not that the members approve of the institution or of the tradenot that they feel anything less than righteous abhorrence for Southern life and conversation and mans property in man, and traffic in human flesh, etc. etc. ; but only that they consider it politic (tIe~ey, a Christian society, insti- tuted for the promotion of religion and virtue) to let that particular class of sins go unscathedto rail furiously against all sorts of sins except only that sin; for in fact that sin pays. Now we wish Southern readers to fully appreciate the value of this forbearance. Even those journals in the North which approved the action (or non-action) of the Tract Society, took care to let us know that it was not be- cause any member of that Society North approved of slavery or the slave trade. Ex-Governor Adams, of South Carolina, in a letter read on the occasion of a dinner given to Senator Chesnut, lays down the three following propositions as undeniable truths: First, that the acts of Congress against the slave trade are a brand upon us, and ought to be repealed. Second, that if slavery is right, the traffic in slaves ought not to be confined by degrees of latitude and longitude. And third, that if it is right to hold in servitude the slaves we now have, it is right to procure as many more as our necessities require. We have deemed it best to give thns much evidence con- cerning the slave trade party at the South, in order to show 1860.] TAe Reopening of tke African Slaze Trade. 99 that it is by no means insignificant, and Ihat it has already assumed a formidable bearing, being most fully determined to make this a political question and to try their strength in the legislative, judicial and even executive departments of the government. When this ~)arty shall need a demon- stration of strength at the North it will have it. They have hitherto never failed to find as many friends as they have needed in the Northern states. Witness the Fugitive Slave Law, the Nebraska Act and the Kansas history. This party at the South is on the increase, and the increase is well accounted for. On Southern ground they have by far the best of the argu- ment. Indeed, with the general Southern principles there is no possibility of standing against them. For, admit the right of one man to hold another as a slave, and you cannot success- fully deny the right of traffic in slaves. The right of property implies the right of sale and purchase. And further if the right of traffic in this species of property exists among the citizens of a state, and among the various slave states, then who can tell how it is that it is justly esteem- ed piracy when the trade is simply changed so as to be be- tween citizens of America and citizens or hunters in Africa? Mr. McIRae, a Mississippian, says, I am in favor of re- opening the trade in slaves with Africa. I see no difference, morally, socially, or politically, in buying a slave in Africa, the original source of our supplyq and buying one in the home-market of our slave-holding states. This man is logical and consistent. As to any right to slaves born in America essehtially dif- ferent from that to those born in Africa it does not exist. The fir8t right to slaves is founded in robbery, and all other rights are necessarily traceable to the same. If a horse is stolen its progeny cannot lawfully be owned by the thief, or by any one who purchases or inherits the thiefs right, though he be a thousand persons removed from the original robber. The system of slaverythe holding of a fellow man as prop- ertyis a system of robbery. Masters who are really slave- holders, in this sense, in heart, are every hour guilty of rob- bing parents of their children, and parents and children of 100 like Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., themselves. Whoso justifies real slavery may in perfect con- sistency j ustify the slave trafficnay, he is very inconsistent if he does not justify it, and whoso justifies that in America, or anywhere, may consistently justify the resumption of the slave trade between Africa and America. Hence it is that on Southern principles the slave trade party have all the advan- tage of argument and are rapidly gaining gronnd. No pro- slavery men can sta.nd against them. He who attempts it will destroy himself. And all who oppose the slave trade have a further business, or they drive themselves backward. They must oppose slavery itself. l3ut it may be that we have some readers who doubt whether the slave trade is actually wrong, and a gross abomination, if properly conducted; that is, on the principles of the highest humanity consistent with the trade itself. The African slave trade, then, consists in going with vessels to the African coast, and there, or in the interior, purchasing or stealing men, women and children, binding them in fetters, stowing them away in secure holds of the ship, and then sail- ing to a port of some slave land, and disposing of the victims as commodities or property in the market. The slaves are gathered from various sources in their native land, and dis- posed of, not as colonists in some one locality, but by being scattered abroad at the will of their purchasers in the slave land to which they are brought. They are not persuaded vol- untarily to leave their original homes as emigrants for a for- eign clime, with the bright pictmes of a sunny land and of golden gains or comforts before them; they are taken away by compulsion, at the option of the conqueror or purchaser, and borne away to involuntary servitude in the strange coun- try of their enemies. Their toils there are not with the hope of enjoying the comforts and gains of their industry and la- bor; nothing is before them but to serve a master for his profit, and at his caprice or will. The day of their deliv- erance from bondage will be the day of their death. But is it in human beings, even the most lost arid degraded, to desire such a heritage? Do the native Africans run to the 1800.] The Reopewing of the African Slave Trade. 101 embrace of slave traders, and crowd their vessels for America or other slave marts? Whom do they esteem as nearest to loving them as himself,the slave trader, or the missionaiv ? It is notorious that in the full tide of the traffic, the hundreds or thousands of petty tribes in Western Africa are engaged to a wide extent in warfare with each other to supply the material of the slave trade. With slave traders visiting their coast, and creating a vastly greater demand for slaves than exists there for any other articles of commnerce, the cupidity of the native tribes, especially of the chiefs, suffers high excitement, and the demand is met. There is no other way to accomplish it but by kidnapping or warfare. None are found ready to volunteer to be sold for the market in far off slave lands. Parents there will not sell their children into slavery, and the trade cannot depend on that mode for victims. iDr. Living- stone says that he has never known in Africa an instance of a parent selling his own offspring. But he and other tray- eleis and missionaries in that country tell us of nmnmerous instances where warfare was originated and carried forward with the sole object of obtaining slaves for the home or foreign market; chiefly for the latter. The most of their warfare is solely for this object. The wars, says Dr. Livingstone. in the center of the country, where no slave trade existed, have seldom been about anything else but cattle. I have heard of but one war having occurred from another cause. Speaking of the half-caste slave-dealers, lie says, The usual course which the slave traders adopt is to take a part in the polit- ical affairs of each tribe, and, siding with the strongest, get well paid by captures made from the weaker party. In another place, speaking of the trade, carried on by some of the natives, of slaves for old guns, he says of the slaves, These are not their own children, but captives of the black races they had conquered. The wars for this purpose extend more or less for thousands of miles along the western coast and far into the interior. Sometimes those having slaves for sale drive them in chain-gangs to the market; but generally, the slave traders resident there, travel into the country, visiting the various tribes in their reach, and purchase the war-cap- tO2 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., tives, and often the members of tribes whose chiefs have devoted them, on some pretext, to slavery. Dr. Livingstone, in speaking of one chief, who may stand as the representative of many, says: I suspect that offenses of the slightest char- acter, among the poor, are made the pretext for selling them or their children to the Mambari. Again, he mentions this characteristic incident: Two children of seven or eight years old, went out to collect firewood, a short distance from their parents home, which was a quarter of a mile from the village, and were kidnapped; the distracted parents could find no trace of them. Another of his descriptive sentences is: The frequent kidnapping from outlying hamlets explains the stockades we saw around them; the parents have no redress. The kidnappers can sell them [the stolen children] by night. Describing another tribe, he says, The demand for domestic servants must be met by forays on tribes which have good supplies of cattle ; the cattle being afterward exchanged for slaves. In mentioning the fact that a Bechuana chief would not sell any of his people, nor a Bechuana man his child, he says, Hence the necessity for a foray to seize children. If we turn now to the testimony of Mr. Barth, given in his Discoveries in North and Central Africa, we shall find a substantial agreement with that of Dr. Livingstone. The only difference relates to the difference in circumstances and tribes in the two sections of the continent visited. A single sentence of his is indicative on this point. In th~ regions of Central Africa there exists not one and the same stock, as in South Africa, but the greatest diversity of tribes, or rather, nations, prevails, with idioms entirely (listiuct. It appears that while Dr. Livingstone found but limited evidence of slave hunting, and warfare for slaves, except for the foreign slave trade, Mr. Barth found more for the home trade and domestic slavery, although a great amount for the foreign trade also. The testimony of such an able and learned man, and observing and skillful traveler, who ventured into and explored regions hitherto untrodden by civilized man, must be regarde dbyall candid persons as of very great weight on this subject. Some of our readers may need the statement that Mr. Barth 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Tfade. 103 went out to Africa as the companion of Mr. iRichardson, who was sent upon that expedition by the British government. Mr. Barth is a German, and previous to this expedition was a lec- turer at the University at Berlin. He states in the preface to his first volume, that One of the principal objects which Her Britannic Majestys government had always in view in these African expeditions, was, the abolition of the slave trade that this was zealously advocated by Mr. iRichard- son, and, lie trusts, was zealously carried out by himself when- ever it was in his power to do so. But Mi. Richardson early caine to his death. This greatly frustrated the plans of the expedition ; and Mr. Barth says, that in his further prosecu- tion of the undertaking, although it was his endeavor to do all in his power for the abolition of the slave trade, yet, after mature reflection, he was induced to place himself under the protection of an expeditionary army, whose object it was to subdue another tribe, and eventually to carry away a laige proportion of the conquered into slavery. Speaking of the objects of his mission relative to the slave trade, and of bis accompanying this warring, slave hunting expedition, he says: Hence, it was necessary that I should become acquainted with the real state of these most important features of African society, in order to speak clearly about them; for, with what authority could I expatiate on the horrors and the destruction accompanying such an expedition, if I were not speaking as an eye witness ?Yol. i, p. 13. We select a few passages from his work, which give his opinion and the result of his investigations in no unmeaning language. In a passage on some diversities between Central and South Africa, lie says of the former: The great arid momentous struggle between Islamism and Paganism is here continually going on, causing every day the most painful and affecting results while the mi8eries ari8ing from1 slavery and the slave trade are here revealed in their most repulsive features.Yol. i, p. 16. In estimating, therefore, the miseries of these slave hunts, we ought not only to take into account the prisoners led into slavery, and the fnlJ grown men who are slaugh- tered, but also the famine and distress consequent upon 104 The Reopenimy of the African & ave L ade. [Feb., these cxpeditions.Yol. ii, p. 394. There can be no doubt that the most horrible topic connected with slavery is slave huntino In an account of one of his interviews with the vizier of Bornu, he gives the following: From this point of our discourse, there was an easy transition to that of the abo- lition of slavery; and here my late lamented friend, Mr. Oxrerweg, [one of his companions,] made a most eloquent speech on this important question. The vizier could not bring forward any other argument in his defense, than that the slave trade furnished them with the means of buying muskets and, lamentable as it is, this is certainly the correct view ot the subject; for even on the west coast, the slave trade originated in the cnpidity of the natives, in purchasing the arms of Euro- peans. Such is the history of civilization ! If the poor natives of Africa had never become acquainted with this destructive implement of European ingenuity, the slave tr de would iiever have reached those gigantic proportions which it has attained; for, at first, the natives of Africa wanted fire-arms, as the surest means of securing their in dependence of; and superiority over, their neighbors ; but in the further course of affairs, these instruments of destruction became necessary, because they enabled them to hunt down less favored tribes, and, with a supply of slaves so obtained, to procure for themselves those luxuries of European civilization with which they had likewise become acquainted. This is the great debt which the Euro- pean owes to the African,that after having caused, or at least increased this nefarious system, on his first bringing the natives of those regions into contact with his state of civiliza- tion, which has had scarcely any but a demoralizing effect, he ought now also to make them acquainted with the beneficial effects of that state of society. Entering therefore into the vicxvsof our hosts, I told them that their country produced many other things which they might cx h ange for fire-arms, without being forced to lay waste the whole of the neighboring countries, and to bring misery and distress on so many thou- sands.Yol. ii, pp. 3267. Messrs. Parth and Livingstone speak of cruelties which have come under their observation in bleedin~ Africa the last few 1860.] f/ike Reopening oj the African Slave Trade. 105 years. But it should be remembered that the slave traffic from Africa to other countries, for about half a century past, has been under such check as to be comparatively suppressed. If you compare the testimony of these travelers with that given before the British parliament, in the day of the great discussion there, in regard to the foreign slave trade, you will find, that though a great evil still, while carried ou stealthily and against the law of the most civilized nations, yet its cruel- ties bear but a slight comparison with the horrors of the slave traffic at its full hight, when it was pecuniarily the most profitable commerce of several of the leading nations of the globe. And in considering the question of the reopening of the slave trade in this country, we need in fairness to ask, what was the slave trade, before being put under the ban of national law? Some of the items of its wickedness were as follows Going back to the first step of the traffic, we find that enor- mous iniquities were committed by the native Africans u~pon each other, in order to procure slaves for the traders who came from European and American lands. It was then often the case, that villages would go out against each other in strife, and after the conflict the victors would sell the conquered to the slave traders, and thus whole towns would be broken up. Companies of men would often go out and lie in wait near populous villages, and as the inhabitants came straggling out OH various errands, would seize and bear them away to the slave ships. There were four different modes of procuring slaves: by the grand pillage, the lesser pillage, by kidnapping individu- als, or obtaining them in consequence of crimes they had corn- nutted. The grand pillage was this. A body of a kings sol- diers, from three hundred to three thousand, would attack and set fire to some village, and then seize the inhabitants as best they could. The lesser pillage was when a smaller number of soldiers would lie in wait about a town, and seize individuals, or small companies, as they issued. Private individuals, not the kings soldiers, engaged in this mode of kidnapping. Captain Wilson said that slaves were either procured by intes 106 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., tine wars, or kings breaking up villages, or crime, real or imputed, or kidnapping. Free persons were often seized for. some pretended or real crime, and after the form of trial, which might be only mockery, were sold to the traders, and the money pocketed by those who arrested and judged them. It is declared to have been no uncommon thing to impute crime falsely, for the sake of selling the persons so accused. All sorts of stratagems and deceit were employed to~ decoy and seize the unwary, to sell them in the slave market. Children were often found among the slaves that had been brought down to the coast for sale, who had been kidnapped hundreds of miles away in the interior, and whose parents never knew their fate, except that they supposed them stolen away for the slave mart. Harmless women, wives and mothers, were often among the captives, stolen and forced away from their fami- lies, with no opportunity to utter one farewell to companions and children. The natives were often deceived into voluntary service, under the promise of good pay, and then seized and sold to the slave traders. The marauding parties generally went out at night, and were armed with bows and arrows, guns, pistols, sabres, and long lances. In some parts, the chiefs of tribes were accustomed to use the most degrading and dis- gusting means, to seduce persons into the crime of adultery, for the purpose of then arresting them, and selling theni as slaves, or causing them each to pay the price of a slave. Another mode of decoy was, by placing fetiches,-pieces of wood, of old pitchers, kettles, and the like,things to which superstition required attention,by placing these in paths and other frequented spots, where through accident they might be touched or slightly moved, which was regarded as a crime. Then for this crime, the offender was obliged to pay the price of a slave, or, if unable, as generally with the natives, to be sold to the slave traders. Indeed, all the arts worthy of the fiends of hell xv ere practiced by the Africans upon each other, to satiate the craving maw of the slave trade. Warfare of every kind caine to be so much carried on in Africa, for the purpose of obtaining victims for the slave ship, that the very word signifying war, in the African language, came to mean 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Z& ade. 107 nothing more, in general, than the system of marauding for the purpose of getting slaves. All these and other iniquities practiced by the natives upon each other, might well be ex- pected, when the lawfulness of the slave trade is declared, or its practice allowed. But again, this enormous wickedness was not shared by the na- tives alone. The Americans and Europeans engaged in the slave trade, whether there upon the ground, or luxuriously enjoying its fruits at home, had the greater sin. The traders visiting Af rica held out inducements to the natives to practice all these abominations to procure slaves. Nearly all the valuables that the natives could obtain caine through the traders in exchange for slaves. No trade for the legitimate articles of commerce in the country was encouraged, or scarcely thought of. The slave trade was the great source of profit. Every kind of industry and vice was devoted to this. The foreign traders offered incitements to the natives, and whetted their appetites for gain by setting a bounty on their seizing and enslaving their brethren. When war existed between England and France, and the ships of those nations were temporarily drawn off from the slave trade, then slaves were not taken, and internal wars among the na- tives ceased in the parts which the traders of those nations formerly visited, showing that the responsibility of the slave trade was chiefly with the traders and those sustainiimg them. It was customary for traders to bribe one tribe to attack and seize another, to furnish them slaves. Arms and ammunition were often put into their hands to make their marauding suc- cessful. They often advanced goods to the chiefs, to stimulate them to such wholesale robbery and warfare. And when Americans or Europeans of confessed superior intelligence to the Africans, thus encouraged and hurried them on to such bloody cruelties, the moral effect upon the natives, as well as physical, was truly horrible. Sonie of the traders went so far as to make the natives drunk, and when in that condition, to purchase choice slaves of them, and even to buy their wives, whom they would not have sold if sober, and whom they afterward sought in vain to redeem. Traders sometimes sup- plied txvo opposing kings, at war with each other, with arms 108 i/ike Reopening cf the African Slave Trade. and military stores, to procure slaves, thus making the strife more extensive and profitable for their object. The European traders themselves would embrace opportunities to kidnap persons and make them slaves, and sometimes would entice free natives on board their ships, and then set sail before they could get upon land, and carrying the deceived and entrapped people to foreign ports, sell them into slavery. Such attempts to kidnap free persons sometimes led to resentment on the part of the natives, which the traders punished by adding the cruelties of bloodshed to all the rest. Another view of these iniquities is obtained by considering the sufferings to xvhi ch the slave traffic subjected its victims. It was in testimony by Dr. Trotter, before the British parlia- ment, as follows: On being brought on board, they show some signs of extreme distress or despair, from a feeling of their sitnation, and regret at being torn from their friends and connections; many retain those impressions for a long time; in proof of which, the slaves on board his ship being often heard in the night making a howling, in elancholy noise, ex- pressive of extreme anguish, he repeatedly ordered the woman who had been his interpreter, to inquire into the cause. She discovered it to be owing to their having dreamed they were in their own country again, and finding them selves, when awake, in the hold of a dave s/dp. This exquisite sensibility was particularly observable among the women, many of whom, on snch occasions, he found in hysteric fits. This evidence was confirmed by other commanders of slave ships. Instances were known where, in their anguish, they even committed suicide. On board the ships the nien were linked two and two to- gether, by the hands and feet, and thus kept until they arrived at the port of destination. Durino the da y, from about nine A. M. to four P. M., they were usually allowed to be on deck, and for their further security, the shackles of each pair were fastened to a ring-bolt attached to the deck. The remaining part of the time they were kept in narrow, filthy, and ill- ventilated apartments below, where they were obliged to lie down nearly as closely as possible, and where numbers of them ISGO.] like Reoyening of the African Slave ]i~ade. 109 died. They were fed two coarse and scanty meals a day, and allowed each one pint of water to drink. While on deck for exercise they were obliged to jump or dance. If unwilling, they were whipped until they would. They were also com- pelled to sing. But their songs were those of sorrow, bemoan- lug their wretched condition, and wailing that they should never return to their homes. Some of them, in good health on going to the hold of the ship at night, were found dead in the morning. Sometimes of two chained together, one would be found in the morning dead, while the other was living. Some of them would refuse food, with the design of starving themselves to death. Dr. Trotter testifies of one man, who, out of revenge, bad been charged with witchcraft, and sold with his family, that he attempted to cut his throat. The Doctor sewed up the wounds. At night the man pulled out the threads, and made further attempts to tear open the wound with his finger-nails. He died in a few days, of starvation. Some slaves would throw themselves overboard, with the idea that they should be able to get back to their native country, or intending to perish. A missionary informs us of a recent case of this kind, on the African coast, where numbers were drowned. Some~ times insurrections arose among them, and on being inquired of as to the reason, they would reply, What business have you to carry us from our country? We have wives and chil- dren, with whom we want to be. The number of deaths of slaves on board the ships was sometimes one fifth the whole number, sometimes one haiti Their sickness was caused in part by their crowded condition, but mostly by grief for be- ing carried away from their country and friends. It has been contended that this mortality might be avoided, by more commodious apartments on the voyage, but all that can never heal the brokemi heart of its sorrow, which often of itself pro- duces disease. The slave trade must of necessity, by its nature, be a deadly business. We might consider the cruelties of the slave trade, in its effects upon the slaves, after they are bought and sold in a slave land. Seldom Imaving been born and bred slaves, the spirit of freedom in them is not broken. They have a deep 110 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., sense of the injustice they bear. They are not accustomed to slave labor. They are in a strange land. Compulsion is the great resort of the slave driver. Slavery knows no persuasion. Accordingly, the testimony before the British Parliament show- ed that the sufferings of such slaves are very great. We might profitably consider the sad effects of the slave traffic on the seamen, and all engaged in it. It is an attested fact, that it is a very unhealthy and fatal employment for sea- nien; that large numbers of them soon perish. The diseases of the slaves carry diseases to them. But its effects upon the morals of the seamen are far more deplorable. First, it makes cruel tyrants in general of the officers of the ships, and this results in great cruelties to the seamen. Then the seamen themselves grow vicious, stone-hearted, bar- barons, and cruel, excepting in some cases where they have been forced into the service,being first made drunk, then brought into debt, and then obliged to sail in a slaver, or suffer imprisonment for the debt. Whoever reads the life of the IRev. John Newton, once a sailor, and in the slave trade, can- not fail to be impressed with the callonsing, barbarous effects of the slave traffic upon him. No instrumentality, it would seem, could have saved him, but the covenant prayers and instructions of his godly mother, who died before lie was four years of age. But it is time to inquire after the sublime missionary movement of the slave trade. In Dr. Stiless Modern Re- form Examined, we have the following: The obligation of fraternal cooperation on the part of the North, is suggested by the very nature of that grand missionary plan inaugurated by an overruling Providence in connection with the introduction of Africans into the South.p. S. The italicising is his; he therefore means something emphatic. Make the most natu- ral record of this transaction from the beginning, and the simple history is neither more nor less than a lucid plan, a statement of the successive steps, peradventure of the most philosophical and sublime missionary movement under heav- en.p. 185. ~ The second historical fact records their trans 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 111 portation from Africa. What does this accomplish? A most important and primary part of the work of their evangeli- zation.pp. 185, 186. The fourth historical fact incor- porates them into our population in the relation of slaves to masters. And what a speaking movement is this ?p. 186. Dr. Stiles also quotes, p. 310, from a letter of Rev. E. J. Pierce, of the Gaboon Mission, published in the New York Observer, February, 1856, as follows: I think at times, my companion [Rev. J. Best] and myself are ready to exclaim: Would that all Africa were at the South. Would that villages and tribes of these poor people could be induced to emigrate to our Southern country, and be placed under the influences which the slaves enjoy. My brother thinks that he would rather run the risk of a good or bad master, and be a slave at the South, than to be as one of these heathen people. He refers, when he thus speaks, both to his temporal and eternal welfare. This letter was written as a congratulation and help for the book entitled The South.side View of Slavery. It should be noticed that Dr. Stiles and Missionary Pierce do not exactly agree. The Missionary does not quite go in for the slave trade as one step in the grand missionary plan. Not he! He has seen too much of it! He only wishes that these poor people could be induced to emigrate to our South- em country, and be placed under the influences which the slaves enjoy. He is, alas, so recreant to the divine institu- tion that he does not even wish that these poor people might be slaves. He only wants them to be under the (good?) influences which the slaves enjoy. This Mission- arys testimony can hardly be adduced in favor of the slave trade as one ftct of the sublime missionary movement. But his companion, it may be, goes a little further. He thinks that he would sooner run the risk of a good or bad master, and be a slave at the South, than to be as one of these heathen people. Yet he, too, keeps clear of the slave trade as a fact of the sublime missionary movement. He only thinks that he might prefer to be a slave and run his risk as to the kind of a master, rather than be one of the lowest, most degraded, most heathenish of all Gods rational creatures he has yet l)ecome acquainted with. Grave in- 112 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., sinnations! Heterodoxy on slavery! Missionary Best, if lie yet lives, and ever comes to America again, had better keep out of the South, or else expuigate Dr. Stiless book. He should know that in that part of the country it is deemed highly fanatical and incendiary to insinuate that slavery, even the worst of it, is not infinitely better than African heathenism. Really, we begin to have a brotherly feeling for Missionary Best. He reminds us of Paul, If thou may- est be free, use it rather. It is well for Dr. Stiless book that lie put that missionary letter at the very end. Few at the South probably have ever read up to it. But now as to iDr. Stiless grand missionary plan, per- ad venture the most philosophical and sublime missionary movement under heaven. 1-fe either means something by it, or nothing. We assume it is the former. If so, then he means that the African slave trade, by bringing the ancestors of the present four millions of slaves of this country to this continent, was one part of a grand missionary movement for the salva- tion of themselves and their race. And he also means that their being made and kept slaves here, is another part of that plan. Indeed, he says, The second historical fact (of the successive steps) records their transportation from Africa. lie uses a very unassuming, mild term for the slave trade, transportation, but we see what he means. And again, lie says, The fourth historical fact incorporates them into our population in the relation of slaves to masters. We wonder he should itahicise slaves, and further, that lie did not use the milder and equivocal word servants, in stead. How- ever, Dr. Stihms nieans to be honest, though deceived. The fourth fact, their being made slaves, we cannot di- rectly discuss. We have now to do with the second, their transportation,the Afiican slave trade. This slave corn- nierce between Africa and the United States and Territories, is one department, we should say the Foreign department, of the grand missionary plan. We suppose Dr. Stiles means that this was Gods niissionary plan, not mans. For he calls it a stupendous schenme of Providence ! And ex- claims concermiing it, p, 192, 1860.] The Reopening of t/ie African Slave Trade. 113 How all things have been sacrificed to this; all things made tributary to this! For the salvation of men how willing God was to employ the cruel wrath of human covetousness to inaugurate the great movement. Now, when we speak of the origin of the American Board, or of Foreign Missions in this country or in England, or of Home Missions, and refer the plan to human agency as of noble and grand intent and execution, we mean that the plan, movement and means were adopted as methods and in- strumentalities well adapted to their end, and worthy to be chosen for that object. Does Dr. Stiles also mean that in this stupendous scheme of Providence the Lord chose the African slave trade, and slavery, as worthy instrumentalities for carrying forward His plan of salvation? And does he give glory to God for His wisdom and preference of so excel- lent means as the slave trade and slavery, to save Africa? Then let him be consistent and give some honor to men too for choosing the same, and for now practicing them, provided only that they seem to be guided by a purpose in sympathy with Africas salvation. Let him condemn no one for having ever engaged in slavery or the slave trade, not even a single soul of all the slave pirates of the last century xvho sold their cargoes in America, not even Ghezo, the monster sav- age slave-king of Dahomey, for he sold his slaves to traders from Christian slave countries; let him blame no one of them all except for failure to have as good a motive as they ought, and only for that failure. Dr. Stiles calls upon us to ponder this stupendous scheme of Providence, the divine election of the slave trade and slavery, the second, and the fourth historical facts of the successive steps peradventure of the most philo- sophical and sublime missionary movement under heaven. But if you praise God for the choice of slavery and the slave trade, do not blame men for the same choice; only blame them because they are wanting in good motives, no muatter what their iniquities. If only they have a motive to do good by doing evil that good may come, praise them. Praise men for all the pious frauds they have committed under heaven! Praise the IRomish Church for all her assumptions of divine preroga- 8 114 like J?eppening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., tives, for her oppressions, her persecutions, her murders of heretics; unless, indeed, it can be shown that she has not deceived herself, in all these abominations, into the persuasion that she was doing God service. But these conclusions are too much even for Dr. Stiles. Though he calls on us to study out this bold missionary movement of heaven upon earth, this selection of the slave trade and slavery for that spiritual achievement, the religious good of the heathen, yet, when he comes to the case of man, he shrinks from the legitimate deductions of his own philos- ophy. He does, after all, denominate slavery and the slave trade as qnans wickedness ; he does speak of mans outrageous cruelty in making slaves; (Is not that incendia- rism?) he does say that against the original institution of slavery, violence could not be too decided, and that in many of its present aspects hostility against it is still justi- fiable. Now, for our own part, we are not going to ponder a stupendous scheme of Providence and admire it, and praise its Author, when the same thing in man we call wickedness, and pronounce it outrageous cruelty. We hope we have another way to worship and honor God. And what is wickedness and outrageous cruelty~ in man, we are not going to entitle historical facts of the successive steps peradventure of the most philosophical and sublime missionary movement under heaven. When we do that, we will raise a p~ean of glory to Jndas for his higher sublime missionary movement in helping forward the tragedy of the cross, though we detract somewhat from his praise, on account of a defect in his motives. Why does not Dr. Stiles call on us to ponder the stupendous scheme of Providence, and see that spiritual achievement, the religious good of mankind, in Gods employment of all the hatred, and lies, and murderous intents of the Scribes and Pharisees, re- sulting finally in the death of His Sonin order to accom- plish the Atonement? Does Dr. Stiles preach in that way? It strikes us as going one step further than the Scriptures. We have heard of Gods causing the wrath of man to praise him, and restraining the remainder; we have heard of his 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 115 doing good despite of evil; but we do not find in the Bible that he has concocted iniquity and set men upon it as a sublime missionary movement for their salvation. Christs atoning death would have been just as dear to us if he had accomplished it by a second, or the first agony in the Garden, rather than while suffering under the trait- orous act of Judas, and the murderous hatred of unbe- lieving Jews. Surely, Dr. Stiless argument is to no pur- pose, unless he wishes to treat slavery and the slave trade with leniency and charity because they are historical facts of the sublime missionary movement. But we have no re- spect or patience with sin for any such reason, nor do we be- lieve God has. He declares that it is that aboiuinable thing which he hates. To close our mouths and refuse to rebuke the guilty supporters of slavery and the slave trade, would be to enter into a conspiracy with those who are responsible for much of mans outrageous cruelty in making slaves. Will Dr. Stiles ask us to do that? And yet he does, by his course of reasoning. But will he say that he means, only, that notwithstanding these great iniquities God has given salvation to some of the viethus of the slave trade, and to some of their descendants? Why, then, has he not said it, and not set himself to an ex- altation of slavery and the slave commerce? In his preaching of the Gospel does he exalt sin and call it a stupendous scheme of Providence on acconnt of its potency in afford- ing the opportunity to man to be saved by Christs Atone- ment? Poor Angels, then! For what shall they praise God? Does he expend any of his oratorical genius in exalting the oppressions of the Established Church of England which drove the Pilgrims and Puritans to the Kew England shore? Does he commend to our respect and affection the exorbitant and un- natural demands of the mother country, in consequence of which at length the freedom of the American Colonies was declared and u~aintained? But we are not questioning Dr. Stiles alone. He is the rep- resentative of a class. Mrs. E. J. Tracy, writing to The Memphis Appeal from buy Springs, Miss., having seen some negroes going to meeting on Sunday, says: As with the ra 116 ike Reopening of tke African Slave Trade. [Feb., pidity of thought I glance from such a scene to benighted Africa, sunk in moral degradation, over whose millions of human souls the darkness of heathenism folds her sombre wings in rayless night, my heart swells with gratitude to the Great Father of all for the institution of American slavery. Then she may thank God for sin, for without sin there would have been no Redeemer from sin. Is it, indeed, better to sin and then by mercy and great sacrifice be saved from it, than never to sin at all, but always be holy as the sinless angels? For which ought she to thank God, for mans wickedness and outrageous cruelty in making slaves, or that God, de- spite slavery and all sin, has saved some of the African race and will save niore? Is it not high insult to God to thank him for that which he affirms on oath that he hates? Men and women should beware! One form of the unpardonable sin may lie in this direction. In his work on Slavery, Dr. Smith says: The number of Africans who have died in the communion of the Methodist and Baptist Churches to the pres- ent time, and who, therefore, we may assume were Christianized by their resi- dence in this country, exceeds the whole number of all the heathen who have been Christianized by the missionary labors of all the Protestant denominations of Christendom since the days of Luther. What if it were true? Which has been the Saviour, slave- ry, or Jesus Christ? Some men have already made slavery their idol. They are robbing God in giving honor and love to it. We have not yet learned whether iDr. Smith has a book on the great benefits accruing from the Devils fall and Adams original sin, or on the immensely greater number saved since than before Judass betrayal of his Master, and the final culmination of Jewish hatred and spite against Christ Jesus! We wonder whether he has made a mathematical calculation of the superior advantages for the salvation of men which have grown out of the persecution of Christians, and the denial of their freedom, which early led to the settle- ment of this country by many colonies of the true church. Can he tell us how many more are converted in consequence of that iniquity than would have been without it? Does he call us to ponder that oppression as one part of a stupen- dous scheme of Providence, and one of the successive 1860 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 117 steps of a philosophical and sublime missionary move- mont ? We should like to know whether he has become the disciple of iMiohaminedanism because it is not so bad as Pa- ganism, or whether he has adopted the Romish Church be- cause more within her pale have been saved (tiwugh de8pite all that makes her IRomanism) than would have been saved without her existence? The author of the South Side has the fbllowing cheerful view of the subject: Such have been the marvelous acts of Divine grace to the Africans, in bringing, through the cu- pidity and sinfulness of men, to this country, and saving a great multitude of them, that it requires neither strong faith nor fancy to suppose that this work might still go on, in the form of interchange of the blacks between Africa and the Southern States. The South has learned to be, and is fitted to be, the protector and friend of the Africans. ( South Side View of Slavery, p. 118.) Dr. Adamss South Side was written some years since, but we suppose his conception of this pleasant interchange of the blacks between Africa and the Southern States must be exemplified in a recent case, intelligence of which has just come to hand. NEW YORK, Dec. 21.Advices from Liberia, Africa, to latter part of Septem- ber, report a new and most extraordinary phase of the slave trade. The Rebecca, a Baltimore clipper, commanded by Capt. Carter, arrived there in July last, with forty-two colored emigrants from New Orleans, liberated from the McDonough estate. She was nnder charter from the Colonization Society, but having landed the free blacks, she moved off to the Southwest coast, and took in a full cargo of slaves, with which freight she is now bound home. This, then, is the way to operate: set the Colonization So- ciety fully a going, in chartering vessels and carrying to Africa liberated slaves of this country, that have in themselves and their ancestors a long tmume enjoyed the protection and friend- ship of the South, in the fullest play of the chattel principle and all the slave code enactments, and then foment quarrels and wars among the native Africans, help forward the diffi- culties by grants of whiskey, firearms, & c., buy up all the prisoners and impress on board the slave ships as many other African negi-o es as possible, and so keep the transportation 118 The Reopenin~jj of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., ships the most economically employed by carrying liberated slaves one way, to 6vangelize Africa, and benighted Africans the other way, to receive the protection and friendship of the slaveholders and traffickers of our own country. Since learning of this recent transaction, we begin to suspect that Dr. Adamss book is having a wider influence than we had heretofore supposed. We have only one or two doubts in onr conception of this interchange. If hereafter the difficulties of obtaining war prisoners in Africa, to supply the American market, should become great, would it be allowable to rob the American colored emigrants in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other such places, of their children, and bring them over in the middle passage, to the protection of American slavery? And if Africa should ever become fully evangelized, ought the interchange still to go on? If not, what would the lan- guishing South do to obtain the requisite supply of laborers? But this is not all. We cannot leave this snbject without calling attention to slavery, and especially now to the slave trade, as a stupendous barrier in the way of the salvation of Africa and of man. had we space we would debate the question, how much slavery in this land has impeded its evangelization since the first cargo was landed in the Ameri- can colonies. Who needs to be told that an institution which denies the very doctrines that brought this nation, as such, into existence; that gives the lie to the reality of human rights; that proclaims that all men are not of one blood, and so takes its stand against Holy Writ; slavery, that breaks up the family relations, and abrogates marital and parental rights; that aids in the prostitution of the pure and virtuous to the most vile purposes; that denies the printed page of the Word of God to four millions of our fellow-men, and shuts them away from the ordinary and their rightful means of human knowledge ; slavery, the most high-handed and extensive system of fraud and robbery ever known in a world of sin- ners for six thousand years, wresting alike from the weak and the strong the hard earnings of honest hands, and by violence, and all the barricaded powers of law, wrenching bOO.] The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 119 away the rights of millions to themselves; who needs to be told that such an institution is a mighty barrier in the way of the Gospel, wherever it is preached or heard, and that the more the supporters of such a sum of all villanies profess religion, to a wide extent, the more infidels they make? The kingdom of God can never come until this sys- tem of iniquity is dead. True religion cannot foster injustice, nor prosper under it, though it may sometimes exist despite of it. Bartholomew de las Casas, a Spaniard, Bishop of Clii- assa, first brought African slavery into America. To save the Indians he much loved from their sufferings and toils in the Spanish mines, he prevailed on his monarch to substitute Africans in their place. This very inception of slavery in America was injustice, and in~jastice has leen its life from that hour to this. The missionaries iii Africa testify that the greatest obstacle to the success of the Gospel in that country is the slave trade, arid that the existence of slavery, as practiced in this country, conspires with the slave traffic there to hinder their work. Messrs. Bushnell and Walker say, that so much is America joined to the commerce in slaves, in the minds of the natives of Africa, that they look with suspicion and fear upon Ameri- cans, as necessarily slave traders. Commander Foote, in con- nection with comments on the highly beneficial effects of the squadrons of England, France, and the United States, on the African coast, in suppressing the slave trade, remarks Mis- sions and the slave trade have an inverse ratio between them as to their progress. When the one dwindles, the other grows.p. 216. Rev. Dr. Perkins, the justly distinguished Kestorian mission- ary, says, I hold that American slavery is the greatest hu- man obstacle to the spread and triumph of Christianity that exists at the present period. I hold that our beloved native country is in most imminent peril, from the fearful system of American slavery, of falling into deep national disgrace, of calling down upon itself the signal judgments of heaven, and thus of blighting for a long period the fairest and the highest hopes of a suffering world. And the recent long delayed 120 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., action of the Prudential Committee of the American Board, sanctioned by the Board itself, in dropping the Choctaw Missions for their continued adhesion to slavery, has no doubt been hastened or emphasized by the fact that the mis- sionaries of that Board, all over the world, feel that any re- sponsible connection with slavery, of the society sending them ont, is a greater burden than they can bear, and a greater damage to the salvation of men than the cause of Christ ought one moment longer to suffer. Further, the immense evils and desolation to Africa herself, aside from the warfare upon missions, resulting from the slave traffic, pronounce the ntter condemnation of slavery ten thou- sand times. Senator Davis complains that the Act of Con- gress, making the slave trade piracy, has destroyed a lucrative trade for ivory, oil, and gold-dust, which our mer- chants had long conducted with the inhabitants of the coast, and transferred it to our commercial rivals, the British. Let Mr. Davis look to Africa, and with some love for his neighbor, as well as for himself, consider what the slave commerce has done for her trade and all other interests. Commander Foote says, that legitin~ate trade (in Africa) becomes inconsistent with slavery, and hostile to it ! The gold, ivory, dye-stuffs, and pepper, were procured on the coast, and were from exhaustible sources. They were obtained in the roaming expeditions con- nected with slave-hunting. The great vegetable productions of the country, constituting heavy cargoes, have bnt lately come into the course of commerce. These require more in- dustry with the hands, and a settled life. The squadrons were necessary to protect (legitimate) commerce against the piracy of the slaver afloat, and the ravages of the slaver on shore. The cultivation of the ground renders human labor and life of higher value. This diminishes the number of victims for the slave trade, and the number of human sacrifices made in religious worship. The cultivation and civilization of the people ensne.pp. 217, 89, 93. Will Mr. Davis be will- ing to suffer, for the present, a little diminution in the profits of trade with Africa, for these most valuable ends of humanity! Mr. Foote further says: Wherever the slave trade or its 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 121 effects penetrated, there of course peace vanished, and pros- perity became impossible. This evil affected not only the coast, but spread warfare to rob the country of its inhabitants, far into the interior regions.p. 90. Mr. Barth quotes from the Journal of Mr. iRichardson as follows: From all reports, there is an immense traffic of slaves that way exchanged against American goods, which are driving out of the markets all the merchan- dise of the North. Indeed, it now appears, that all this part of Africa is put un- der contribution to supply tl~e South A~nerican market with slaves.Barth, vol. i, p. 517. The Rev. T. J. Bowen, after spending six years in traveling in Africa, in speaking of the apprenticeship system of the French, whereby they carry away many of the negroes to their colonies, says: Africans will not leave their country except by force ;~) and adds, that in the efforts to get laborers from there, from two to four are destroyed for every one who reaches a plantation in America. In one journey of sixty miles I counted no less than eighteen towns and villages which had been laid in ruins to supply the slave markets. He him- self saw a battle made by a slave-catching army, where twelve hundred and nine were left dead on the field, and he thinks as many more were killed next day. An American missionary, Mr. Bowman, in a recent narra- tive, says: I have counted the sites of eighteen desolated towns within a distance of sixty miles, between Badagry and Abeokutathe legitimate result of the slave trade. The whole Yoruba country is full of depopulated towns, some of which were even larger than Abeokuta is at present. Of all the places visited by the Landers, only Ishukki, Jzbobo, Ikishi, and a few villages remain. Ijenna was de- stroyed a few weeks after my arrival in the country. Other and still larger towns have lately fallen. At one of these, callod Oke Oddan, the Dahomey army killed or captured twenty thousand people, on which occasion the King presented Do- mings, the slaver, with six hundred slaves. The whole number of people de- stroyed in this section of country within the last fifty years, cannot be less than five hundred thousand. We should like to ask Dr. Stiles whether he thinks tile Lord has been pleased with all this, or similar outrageous cruelty in making slaves, in order that He might bring the heathen 122 The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. [Feb., to this country, sustain them in this country, and subject them to the Christian influence of this country.p. 196. If not, why does he make any apology for it? Why ask us to give it respect, as one event in a stupendous scheme of Provi- dence, in a grand missionary plan ? We would ask Mrs. Tracy, whether, in view of all these abominations, her heart still swells with gratitude to the Great Father of all, for the institution of American slavery? Such then is the slave trade, as it has been and to a wide extent is now; such in all its horrors of hunting victims, and of the Middle Passage to the poor stolen ones, and of anarchy, and desolation, and fear to the bereaved ones left; such is the slave traffic to the work of missions and the civiliza- tion and Christianization of peeled, torn, bleeding Africa, and to the salvation of men among evangelized and unevangelized of all earths inhabitants ! And is all the bitter condemning past not enough? Shall the land of freedom [!] reopen the accursed commerce? Shall she multiply, and freight, and sail her ships away to doomed Africa for more and larger cargoes of human flesh and human souls? Shall America thus in disgust flout before Heaven the very principles which gave her stand- ing among the nations of the earth? Shall she abolish her laws against this infernal trade, or scorn them to the death, and while barbarians, or half-civilized nations, vote the slave trade an outrageous cruelty~~ and close all their commerce against it, shall America, prostitute-like, sweep out into it again, and fill up with slaves her present slave states full to the brim, and then her New Mexico, and her future acqui- sitions yet to be made south of the IRio Grande ? Alas, is this Americas destiny! Will she fall, and waste amid the wreck of empires, as she must, if this is to be her career of wickedness! If the slave-trade is right and is to be reopened, then all the counter movements should be given up. Shall the slave trade, now swept from a thousand miles of the African coast through the agency of Liberia and Sierra Leone, be all restored? Where peace, the cultivation of the soil, and the beginning of 1860.] The Reopening of the African Slave Trade. 123 civilization have just arisen, as a shining sun upon the dark- ened earth, in consequence of the treaties made by England for the suppression of the slave trade with some one score and a half or more of African kings and chiefs, shall all go back again, and humanity scream for agony at the sight? Shall Liberia and Sierra Leone, that have so long, as Commander Foote and many others testify, exerted a noble redeeming in- fluence on the surrounding tribes, and that have been to so many victims rescued from captured slavers, the opening doors to civilization and finally to their long-lost homes, shall Liberia and Sierra Leone be whelmed beneath the waves? Says the well known traveler Barth, once more: With the abolition of the slave trade all along the northern and southern coast of Africa, slaves will cease to be brought down to the coast, and in this way a great deal of the mischief and misery necessarily resulting from this inhuman traffic will be cut off.Yol. i, pp. 12, 13. But instead of its abolition, what if we open the sluiceways wider, even to their utmost capacity? Speaking of the evils of domestic slavery in Africa, he says, But the abolition of the foreign slave trade would be the beginning of a better system.Vol. ii, p. 327. Now what system of degradation and woe will fallen human beings at last create there, if slavery and the slave trade are finally to swing forth into full and lasting career! He says again, The slave trade at present is, in fact, abolished on the North Coast.p. 327. And shall the weak and half civilized powers on the north of Africa be left to point before the world the finger of scorn and shame at the United States for keeping the we8term coast open still and evermore to the horrors of the slave trade? When the En- glish pressed the king of Dahomey to sign a treaty abolish- ing the slave trade, he plead to be excused, and said, No other trade is known to my people Who will pay my troops? Who will buy arms and clothes for them? Who will buy dresses for my wives? Who will give me supplies of cowries, rum, gunpowder, and cloth, for my annual customs?~ . . . The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory 124 The Reopening of the 4frican Slave Trade. [Feb., and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories, and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.Foote, pp. 82, 83. And now shall the treaties with slave kings prohibiting the slave trade, or the slave trade itself, be abolished? Shall slave commerce be fully opened once more, and the kings of Dahomey, and Ashantee, and the Gallinas, and all the rest, generation after generation, go, licensed by the civilized world, go, unbridled, to their only business, the slave trade, and men celebrate with songs their victories over their victims, and mothers lull their babes to sleep with notes of triumph over fellow beings reduced to slavery ? For txvo hundred years and more, from the beginning of the African slave trade, Africa had remained stationary or been degenerating in her barbarism, until the partial suppres- sion of the slave commerce, and the opening of missionary labors inaugurated a more promnisin~ era. And now that the United States and Spainamiable partners !inay have the fe- licitous profits of slavery, is the slave trade to be kept on its course, and Africa to be held to her heathenish doointo her fate as the play-ground of robbers and murderers,while mu- lions on millions of human souls, yet unborn, shall be borne into mournful, suffering slave life and out of it, onward through generations unpredicted and unnumbered by man! God forbid! 1860.1 Professor Tayler Lewis. 125 ARTICLE V.PROFESSOR LEWISS NEW WORK, THE DI VINE HUMAN IN THE SCRIPTURES. like Divine Human in the Scriptures. By TAYLER LEWIS, Union College. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. Tuis volume, which we are informed in the preface is intro- ductory to a more complete and full discussion of the figurative language of the Bible, is designed to present the views of Prof. Lewis upon the inspiration and authority of the Divine Word. The author is widely known among the scholars of our country for his familiar and profound acquaintance with the languages and the philosophy of classical antiquity, and for the deep in- terest and the unusual success with which he has prosecuted his inquiries into the habits of thought, and the religious convic- tions of those early ages. His publication of Plato against the Atheists disclosed the depth and extent of his researches into the religious ideas of antiquity, as well as the ability with which he applied the philosophical conceptions of that era to the subsequent forms of skepticism. IJis connuents upon the Book of Job showed how successfully he had entered into the vague but real beliefs of that remote period in regard to death and a future life. More especially, however, should we refer to his Six Days of Creation, as elucidating the breadth of his investigations into the early conceptions of the Hebrew mind in regard to the creation, and the important ideas which in the Bible cluster round the narratix~e of that great event. That work, in consequence of some sharp allusions to modern science and some of its advocates, provoked opposition, and drew upon itself a severity of criticism that prevented its reach- ing in public estimation the position which, in our opinion, it unquestionably deserves, as a profound, useful, and satisfactory discussion of that great subject. It affords us real pleasure to welcome him again into sub- stantially the same field of thought and argument; and to in-

1860.1 Professor Tayler Lewis. 125 ARTICLE V.PROFESSOR LEWISS NEW WORK, THE DI VINE HUMAN IN THE SCRIPTURES. like Divine Human in the Scriptures. By TAYLER LEWIS, Union College. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. Tuis volume, which we are informed in the preface is intro- ductory to a more complete and full discussion of the figurative language of the Bible, is designed to present the views of Prof. Lewis upon the inspiration and authority of the Divine Word. The author is widely known among the scholars of our country for his familiar and profound acquaintance with the languages and the philosophy of classical antiquity, and for the deep in- terest and the unusual success with which he has prosecuted his inquiries into the habits of thought, and the religious convic- tions of those early ages. His publication of Plato against the Atheists disclosed the depth and extent of his researches into the religious ideas of antiquity, as well as the ability with which he applied the philosophical conceptions of that era to the subsequent forms of skepticism. IJis connuents upon the Book of Job showed how successfully he had entered into the vague but real beliefs of that remote period in regard to death and a future life. More especially, however, should we refer to his Six Days of Creation, as elucidating the breadth of his investigations into the early conceptions of the Hebrew mind in regard to the creation, and the important ideas which in the Bible cluster round the narratix~e of that great event. That work, in consequence of some sharp allusions to modern science and some of its advocates, provoked opposition, and drew upon itself a severity of criticism that prevented its reach- ing in public estimation the position which, in our opinion, it unquestionably deserves, as a profound, useful, and satisfactory discussion of that great subject. It affords us real pleasure to welcome him again into sub- stantially the same field of thought and argument; and to in- 126 The Divine Human in the Scriptures. [Feb., troduce to the notice of our readers his suggestive and valu- able work upon the inspiration of the Scriptures. The aim of Professor Lewis to vindicate the claims of the Bible, leads him to present his views, first, Qf the nature of in- spiration, and next, of some evidences which may be offered for the inspired character of the sacred volume. In respect to the nature of inspiration he maintains a posi- tion which is substantially identical with that which prevails throughout New England. The whole Bible he believes to be inspiredto possess a character of absolute truth in all that it really afflrms,through a ceaseless supervision and impulse of the iDivine Spirit, guiding the writers of the Biblical books. The title of the workThe Divine humanindicates the idea which he wishes to presentGod speaking through the conceptions, emotions, and language of men; a true and real union of the mind of God with the human mind in the Scrip- tures. This conception is strongly distinguished from both of the two theories which are current among the different classes of religious thinkers. One of these, holding a theory of plenary inspiration, seems to deny all true action of the human agents of Gods revelation, and holds all their language to be directly suggested of God, for the expression of absolute truth. The peculiarities of individual writers are ignored and denied the habits of thought of each individual pass for nothing; expressions and conceptions are not selected by the free work- ing of the inspired mind in its own accustomed ways, as most natural and appropriate to it, but are suggested by the Infinite Wisdom as absolutely conveying the truth. All the language of the Scripture is inspired in precisely the same sense and way; and all individual peculiarities are lost in the mechanical utterance by the writer, of conceptions not his own. The other class holds up to view the human element, and regards inspiration as the quickening and elevating of a devout soul to high views of truth, and to ennobling conceptions of duty, which it is then left to express in its own way, by its own accustomed imagery and machinery of thought. These two views seem to possess between them the elements of a more comprehensive and complete inspiration than either 1860j Profes8or Tayler Lew%s. 127 of them exclusively maintains; and this combination of the two opposite schemes forms the system of Prof. Lewis. He regards the former as defective in some important respects. It is no true inspiration of the man. The words he utters are not his own; the figures of speech which he employs do not express the analogies and images nuder which he is led to view the truth. He is no otherwise inspired than a bird might be, which should be impelled to utter, without understanding, the articulate sounds of human speech. Though defective in this respect, however, it saves the great and fundamental concep- tion which lies at the bottom of all inspiration; it authenti- cates the message as a real communication of truth from God to men. The latter view, on the other hand, while it main- tains a real inspiration of the man, is no inspiration of his work; and leaves his message to his fellow men without any attesta- tion of its accuracy. His description of the vision in which heaven stood open before him, and even his record of ob- served facts, are prejudiced by all the inaccuracies of his own defective understanding, and his own imperfect recollection. Professor Lewis regards inspiration as embodying a concur- rent agency of God and man, in the preparation of that record of truth which should be given to the world as the guide of its faith. The inspired writer is indeed lifted up to behold realities and conceive truths, to which human power could never attain; but he is not left to his own multiplied errors in the utterance of them. A Divine supervision secures the truthfulness of all his utterances, and makes his communica- tion to mankind a reliable and authentic transcript of the Di- vine wisdom and the Divine will. Up to this point the conception of inspiration which we have described will probably receive the approval of all discrimni- nating and devout readers. But our author carries it to even a higher point, to which all may not be quite ready to follow him. He regards the Divine agency as not terminating in such a supervision as shall secure the real accuracy of the message of God, but as itself actively selecting and guiding the expression of it. Not only are the figures of speech which are employed for the expression of emotion all of Divine suggestion, but the language in all its particulars is equally 128 The Divine Human in the Scriptures. [Feb., selected and adjusted with Divine aid and care. All, there- fore, carries with it the authority of a Divine sanction. Every mode of representing God through the analogy of human pas- sions and conceptions, is itself sanctioned as embodying the very wisdom of heaven, and as conveying the truth in the highest mode in which the Infinite can express itself by finite forms, or the human mind receive intimation of the Divine. This view Prof. Lewis defends with great vigor and beauty through several chapters of his work, maintaining that we need not fear to admit the anthropopathism of the scheme, since every manifestation of the Infinite in the finite must of necessity possess this character, and the objection, if carried out, would render a revelation impossible. While we should feel some hesitation in adopting the strong language in which he clothes his doctrine, we cannot be insensible to the vigor of his defense of it. lie fearlessly carries lip the argument to its highest plane, and contends very instructively for the possibil- ity of a revelation of the Infinite to man, however such a rev- elation must take place through finite forms of thought and speech. The discussion is exceedingly suggestive, and brings up many points which will greatly stimulate and expand the views of his readers, impart new confidence to their faith in inspiration, aud increased conviction of the radical weakness of the skeptical theory which rejects it. From this portion of the treatise, which is presented at some length, Prof. Lewis passes to an argument in behalf of the authentic and inspired character of the Scriptures. The transition is made through several chapters of great beauty and power upon the enduring vitality of the Word of God in all ages and against all forms of assaultand upon its univer- sal character as adapted for all nations and races of men. This he regards as the great problem of which it is neces- sary for every skeptical theory to give an account. It is easy to assign the origin of the Bible to fraud or to fanaticism; but this only brings up at once the greater difficulty how any local and transient impulses of this kind could have given birth to a system so marvelously enduring, so wondrously adapted to mankind, and so lofty in its moral inculcations as to satisfy all the demands, and surpass all the achieve- 1860.1 P~ofeseor .7ayler Lew~s. 129 ments, of mans moral nature under the most favorable circum- stances. This course of argument leads to a formal conside- ration of the theories which have been offered to account for the origin of the Bible; and here the author enters upon what we regard as the most valuable portion of his work, a discussion of the various hypotheses of the skeptical world to account for that wondrous fact, the Bible. These are all reducible, he observes, to three suppositions, one of which must express the truth. The sacred books must be either: I. Wholly true, an authentic and reliable history written upon adequate data; or, II. Wholly false, and consciously fraudulent; or, III. Honestly mistakena compilation from legend and tradition having a certain basis of truth, but destitute of all historic accuracy. The third of these general suppositions does not clearly dis- tinguish the two forms of skepticism which have played the greatest part in its modern developmentthe rationalistic and the mythical. It is, indeed, difficult for any one to do this completely; for the theory of mythus, which makes the bib- lical fact to be wholly a birth of fancy, itself implies a nucleus of fact round which the myths ~re to crystallize. In order for the Hebrew fancy to shape its myths and legends, there must have been a man whose character and history awoke the conviction that he must be the Messiah diem, around him, it is possible that many of the supposed attributes of the Messiah might cluster. TIme fancy of his Jewish followers might attribute to him such works and such experience as became the predicted Pmince of Israel. Hence the theory which assigns a late origin, and a mythical charac- ter, to the Gospels, proceeds on the same basis of fact as that which maintains an origin contemporaneous with the events, and regards those events, when supernatural, as the mistakes and exaggerations of credulous eye witnesses. Both these theories are in fact discussed, and the falsity of their funda VOL. XVIII. 9 130 The Divine Human in the ~Scripture8. [Feb., mental postulates most ably shown, in the argument which Prof. Lewis presents. Between the first and second of the three theories above described,it is now generally conceded that there can be no question. There is no such thing as willful fraud in the Bible. The hypothesis that these books were written with any selfish or sinister aim, is no longer even pretended. This was long a favorite theory of infidelity; and its advocates wasted much labor in vain attempts to show that the Gospels were devised for the purpose of elevating the authors to power, and accom- plishing thus the ambitious and covetous ends of most unscru- pulous and wicked men. The impossibility of sustaining this view has long been felt and acknowledged. That out of such low and base aims should come such wealth and profusion of the finest and most dignified forms of character which the earth ever sawthat the very authors of this hypocrisy should have borne them- selves more bravely and heroically in the face of persecution, more generously in the deepest poverty, than the noblest of other menthat they should have so surpassed in their in- structions the highest conceptions which philosophy could reach, insomuch that both theoretically and in practice the science of morals should have taken in their hands a form of holiness which has invested it with a loftiness and glory otherwise unknown among menall this were inexplicable and incredible. That mere vulgar and sordid fraud should give a new impulse more powerful than anynay, than all that had preceded it, to the moral and spiritual life of the world, infidelity itself has not the hardihood to ~naintain this. The theory has, therefore, been frankly given up, and the advo- cates of unbelief have had recourse to one which seems at first sight far more plausible, as it is far less offensive. In this more recent view, it is contended that the evangelical authors were not the fraudulent knaves which infidelity has reproachfully suggested. No; they were earnest and honest men who really intended to preserve a truthful record of a great and precious history. They did not invent such a con- ception as that of Christ; there was really such a person. A man of extraordinary dignity of characterof singular force 1860.1 P~rofrssor fJayler Lewis. 131 of willof high and earnest enthusiasmof rare moral dis- cernment,did really appear in their day. His exalted characteristics impressed themselves most powerfully on the public mind of his age. his striking sayings were observed and recorded. The remarkable incidents of his career were written and perpetuated by enthusiastic disciples, whose admi- ration and attachment exaggerated, multiplied, and transformed all. He saw a pretended case of lameness, a ling mendicant whose pretence of suffering and weakness he at once discerned, and with a kick of honest indignation and contempt bade him get up and walk. The detected impostor obeyed and shrunk away; and the astonished disciples accounted it a very miracle. Here this theory of exaggeration and credulity seems to blend into another. The effort to explain the miracles of the Bible by such influences as supposed all the writers to be mere idiotsthe shepherds to have mistaken a man with a lantern for an angel in the heavensand the evangelist to have written the account of the changing of water into wine under the influence of a somewhat free use of time latter fluid the serious aim to do this became labored, and at length ridiculous. Then a fresh aspect of credibility was given to unbelief by the hypothesis of a late origin of the Gospels; and the miracles were attributed to the glowing fancy of the Hebrew mind, excited by the appearance of what seemed the long expected Messiah. The early origin of the Gospels was denied; they were supposed to have originated in a poetic disposition to attribute to Jesus all that the national conception demanded that the Messiah should he. In the course of one or two generations which elapsed before the Bible was writ- ten, this ardent imagination had done its work, obscured the simple beauty of the life of Jesus, and converted a warm appreciation of his greatness and worth into a degrading super- stition. This theory, a diligent and learned criticism has recently endeavored to substitute, both for the more gross and offensive one which accounts the Bible a fraud, and for the still less defensible one which considers it a stupidity. The more re 132 The Divine llumctn in the Scripture& . [Feb., fined and scholarly unbelief, which shrank from these coarse imputations, found, in the reckless criticism of the Tubingen School, an effectual and satisfactory substitute. Rationalists, and skeptics, of all diverse classes, sent up their gratulations over Strausss life of Christ, in which infidelity, divested of much of its grossness, and clothed in the garb of philosophical and critical science, was enabled to assail on new grounds the faith which had proved so impregnable upon the old. The theory which accounts the Gospels and the Bible a late and fortuitous aggregate of legends, instead of a collection of original and authentic narratives, has been the subject of much recent debate. Even before it had formally been proposed as a complete theory, it had been in effect defeated in advance. Much of the argument which, like that of the Hor~ Paulin~, had elucidated the astonishing consistency of the biblical writings, bore with great directness and force upon the new theory. The intellectual condition, too, of the age in which the New Testament appeared, was soon shown to be as hostile as that of our own could be, to such an undiscriminating aggregation of myths and legends. It was an age of high cultivation, with models of elegance that delighted the learned, and with orderly histories and biographies which were familiar even to the common mind. The historical testimony, too, so carefully collected and digested by the great scholars of a century or two ago, to the existence of the books of the New Testament at a very early dateevidence which all our re- search into antiquity increasingly confirmsrenders the later unbelief as indefensible as the former. On all grounds, then, of argument, the theory is fatally assailed; and nowhere is it able to maintain itself as anything more than a daring and plausible speculation. Several, however, of these methods of argument are, by the recondite character of the inquiries involved in them, almost confined to the learned, and little likely to be appreciated by the mass of the readers to whom the theory itself appeals. For them, it is desirable that the discussion should be carried into ether departments of thought than those of scholastic learning, and elaborate criticism of authorities. Some vigor- 1860.] Professor liagler Lewis. 133 ous appeal is requisite to the common sense of thoughtful mento the calm and clear judgment of mankind, upon the nature of the theory itself, and the essential character of the books thus criticised. Especially does the public need argu- ment which shall bring to view the spiritual worth of the Bible; and test this skeptical scheme by the light which the moral elevation and practical power of the Word of God cast upon it. This want Prof. Lewis has endeavored to supply. He has constructed an argument which makes its appeal to the intelli- gence and the judgment of every one who is willing to think on this great subject; and has set forth one aspect of the evi- dence which possesses great power. The theory of which we first spoke, which considers the Bible an imposture, he dismisses as unworthy of serious notice. No earnest and candid mind can find any plausible, much less any satisfactory ground, for adopting that. The other view re- mains to be examinedthat which holds the Bible to be a col- lection of legends and mythical fancies, which the wondering credulity of later days has honestly taken for truth, and with pious reverence wrought into their present shape. This hypothesis admits not only the general honesty of the biblical writers, bnt their integrity of purpose in this particular work. They were indeed more than simply homiestthey were devout believers in all the marvels which they recorded; and the record itself is the decisive expression and evidence of the state of mind in which it was written. They wrote, in so far as their writings involve any assertions of factsnot only with no intention of falsehood but with extreme simplicity of mind in devout adoration of Gods own presence and immediate powerwith a subdued spirit of awe and wonder which magnified and exaggerated ordinary events, but which would not for the world have falsified themand with a devotion to the spiritual interests ~f men unsurpassed and unequaled in any other body of men that the world ever saw. Thus much the theory concedes. The prophcts and evangelists who have left us these volumes, believed, with the utmost sincerity of faith, all that they have here recorded. The very fact that they saw 134 The Divine Human in the Scriptures. [Feb., the hand of God in all around them, and felt the impulse of his spirit within themin their own conception of the matter assures us of the simple hearted truthfulness in all that they wrote. Now, out of this concession of the honesty of the biblical writers, Prof. Lewis draws an argument for the reality of those supernatural facts which they record. In their own view such phenomena, it is conceded, took place; subjectively, the supernatural was real; but if so, then the very nature of their writings shows that there must have been an objective supernatural also. The one is impossible without the other. The proof of this position he finds in the remarkably exact and specific character of the language in which all these phenomena of the supernatural are habitually described in the Bible. They are detailed with the utmost minuteness of narration. The time and manner of their occurrence are dis- tinctly marked. The attending circumstances are fully de- scribed. Now in the legendary style, to which the Bible is by this hypothesis of its late origin assigned, all this detail of events is impossible. The very nature of the theory supposes that the specific character of the events has been lost in the course of years. The legend has been floating about in the oral communications of admiring disciples till, in the frequent transmission of it from one to another, the minute features of the event have been lost. This isdndeed the real and indisput- able character of all the legends with which the Bible is corn- pared. The Scandinavian legends do not give day and date for the visit of Thor to the land of the Jdtuns; nor do the adven- tures of Heracles or Prometheus come within the definite and settled chronology of Greece. The very nature of such mythic narratives repels every attempt at historic accuracy of narra- tive. They are due only to the imaginations of men. They are, in all the circumstances which make them remarkable, the work of excited fancy dwelling upon and transforming utterly, facts which were not otherwise astonishing. It is es- sential to the honest belief of the marvel that its accompany- mg details of reality should be left out of view. The Argo- nautic expedition has none of that minute accuracy which the 1860.1 Professor Tagler Lewis. 135 chronicle of an eye witness would have possessed. It took place in no definite relation with ascertained historical events. The siege of Troy has no chronological era, nor any definite characteristics of reality in its detail. Some basis of fact there probably was for each of these legends; but the imag- ination which has given them their drapery, makes no pre- tence of clothing them with the characteristics of authentic and precise history. We see at a glance that it were impossible that it should be otherwise. No such historical accuracy of detail is con- sistent with the wonder-making and imaginative fancy which e imagination, in order has given shape to these leoends Th to invest them with this aspect of the marvelous and super- natural, must have scope, must not be confined within the exact limits of fact. The writer could no more work within such limits of precise verity than a poet could carry on his poem if he had to describe the process, and prove the possibility, of making his hero invisible, by scientific methods. Hence in all such legendary efforts there is an entire forgetfulness, if not a deliberate avoidance, of the historical style. Such events did not take place in any precise year of a well known reign. The moment you come down to such details, the marvel, the wonder out of which the myth grows, is at an end. Now the events of the biblical narratives are given to us in an unparalleled combination of astonishing and supernatural occurrences, with minute accuracy of detail; and in the fullest chronological sequence with ascertained histoyical events. Errors in chronological reckoning of time there may be, though even these do not greatly mislead us; but the whole detail of history is there. Instead of the dim and misty aspect which is characteristic of the mythical and legendary style, we have precise announcements of the period of each great event, and an evident intention in the writer to fix it to the most deter minate period which the then existing methods of computation would allow. The visions which the prophet saw were in the reigns of such and such kings of Israel and of Judah. Habit- nally these writers refer not incidentally alone, but deliberately, and of distinct purpose, to the epochs by which their writings may be identified; and give the full detail, in historical and 136 like Divine HU?nctn ~n the & riptare8. [Feb., chronological form, of almost every one of the miracles which they so reverently record. These details of time and circumstance furnish to Prof. Lewis a ground of argument which has not before been sug- gested. He shows that they are utterly inconsistent with the theory of a late and legendary origin. Such details could never have been traditionally handed down. They are at variance irreconcilably, with any theory of such transmission that we can intelligibly form. The sacred books must either have been, therefore, the work of the writers whose names they bear, of authors contemporary with the events which they describe, and writing, with definite knowledge of these par- ticulars, or else these seeming marks of anthenticity were deliberately forged. Such specific records of events do not belong to the mythical and legendary style. No man at a period remote from the events themselves, sitting down to gather the floating rumors which his wondering fancy invests with an awful and supernatural character, could either seek, or find, the historic details which are here so abundantly given. If the narrative were then due to a period so mate- rially subsequent to the events themselves as to allow the requisite scope for the myth o-poietic fancy to exalt and exag- gerate common events into miracles, and ordinary men into prodigies of wisdom and sanctity, their whole character would of necessity be different. Everything would be vague and in- definite, and so in some keeping with the mystery and dis- tortion of the events themselves. Hence, the only alternative lies between the anthenticity of biblical narratives, and their forgery. Any honest and credulous exaggeration is out of the question, amid so many details which must either be ab- solutely true, or else a designed effort to simulate truth. The hypothesis of myth and legend is excluded as altogether mad- missible. As an illustration of the method of this argument we extract one or two paragraphs upon this statistical character of the Scriptures: In the very beginning of Genesis, in the very frontispiece you may say of the whole Scriptures, we find this statistical character. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called 1860.] Profe8sor Tctyler Lewis. 137 his name Seth; and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years and he died. . . . There is the same character, though carried to a still further degree of graphic minuteness, in the account of the Deluge. We have the exact year, the month, the day of the month, when the great rain commenced upon the earth, and Noah went into the Ark. Were ever the Pictorial and the Statistical combined in so life-like a description. After quoting and commenting upon the whole narrative of this great event, and referring to the same peculiarity in the account of the subsiding flood, the author continues: And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry; and on the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. How can any serious soul fail to be struck with this strange combination of the minutely familiar and the inexpressibly sublime? To think of a mans delib. erately sitting down thus consciously to forge all this numerical exactness, and yet preserving that other awful feature, so inconsistent with the meanness and littleness of known and intended lying! For such, if it be not strictly true, must have been the character of this account when first written, unless thus filled in by our supposed compilers. A willful forger, earlier or later, could not have so described it; he must have betrayed the untruthfulness of his position. A mere wonder-making traditionist could not have given us the story in a manner so dif- ferent from that of the early Greek logographer, or Hindoo mythopceist; the legendary would have manifested itself; for that art of fictitious writing, which alone could have kept back its untruthful aspect, was not invented until ages af- ter, and has only in the latest times arrived at perfection. Yet nothing in the most modern times, whether fictitious or real, could surpass it in this air of sim- ple verity. We cannot avoid being struck with the unpretending calmness, the simple majesty, the utter absence of the swelling, the pretentious, the wonder- showing, in a narrative that relates such marvels. This careful and acute examination of the supernatural events of sacred history, Prof. Lewis carries through a great portion of the Bible, appealing with conclusive force to the candid student of the word of God. He shows that these writings bear, unmistakably, an aspect of entire opposition to the demands of any such theory. While the mythopoietic fancy delights in the wonder, dwells upon and exaggerates the extraordinary fact, the biblical writers seem almost oblivious of the marvel, in their anxiety to impress the moral lesson of which it was the vehicle to them. They write to give all the prominence possible riot to the grotesque workings of an unre- strained fancy, nor to the impulses of a merely superstitions 138 The Divine Human in the Scriptures. [Feb., awe, but to lessons of truth, of wisdom, and of duty, of which the most astonishing miracles were but the subordinate cir- cumstances. For this end they give all those precise details of the remarkable history which may serve to authenticate it, and thus to secure its acceptance among men; but they avoid all idle declamation upon the physical wonders which they recount. There is no effort at labored description. Simple, natural touches there are, which are full of life, but no pomp of narration. On the contrary, it is evident that the writers of the Scriptures regarded the miracles which they narrate as of wholly inferior moment, and spend but a brief phrase of explanation, or a modest line of description, upon the most signal prodigies which it ever fell to the lot of men to record. Even the intensest sentiment of nationality, the strongest im- pulses of patriotic pride, are checked and rebuked into utter silence, in recounting such wonders as the plagues of Egypt, the Exodus, the journey through the wilderness, guided by that pillar of cloud and lire which was the token of Gods pe- culiar presence, the capture of Jericho, the conquest of Canaan, and the whole series of astonishing events which have been in every subsequent age the study and the wonder of mankind. In all these narratives, the character of the description is ever the same, simple, brief, and subdued; while all the real interest and effort of the writer are bestoxved upon the spiritual truths which he has to disclose, the duties which he is to enforce, and, above all, the God of holiness and majesty, whom it is his grandest privilege and obligation to reveal to men. The rationalistic view derives very much of its credibility- perhaps we might say with truth, the whole of its credibility from its denial, or at least, its oversight, of this important characteristic. Reckless and superficial writers have chosen to confound the evangelists and prophets with those poets and fabulists of antiquity from whom they were separated by the widest distinctions. The superstitious imagination and the poetic fancy of the latter class, have been confounded with the profound wisdom and the literal fact of the former. Worse than this,though this seems a difference which naught but willful blindness could overlook,the moral purity and spirit- ual elevation of Gods messengers have been placed on a level 1860.1 Profe8eor fliayler Lewis. 139 with the idolatries and impurities of the most degrading su- perstitions. When a writei of this class has succeeded in ig- noring all the characteristic and important facts of the biblical history, it is no wonder that he feels prepared to account for the production of the Bible by the ordinary agencies of super- stition. Overlooking the authentic character of the biblical style, disregarding the caution, simplicity, and love of truth, which are so conspicuous in the inspired writers, it is easy for him to maintain that they were fond of seeing miracles, and expected to see them; that miracles, when an anticipated Mes- siah appeared, were a thing of course. See with what easy confidence a writer of this class can approach the subject, and in all the assurance which self-esteem can entertain of the profoundness of its own insight, dispose, without investigation, of the grandest subject of human concern, and settle, by his mere dictum, a question which the noblest intellects have pon- dered and discussed with anxious concern. We quote from ilarwood, one of the English followers and expounders of Strauss Miracles in the life and work of the Messiah! it was a thing of course. It was all settled long before nny Messiah was born to them. Any Hebrew man could have sketched a life of the Christ, so far as making it miraculous went. It was all in type before ever Jesus of Nazareth came into the world. They knew he was to be a propheta child of promise. That meant that he would be born out of the course of nature,pre-announced by messengers from the sky, or otherwise, miraculously before birth, like other prophets and other children of promise,Isaac, and Samson, and Samuel. He was to be the Son of David; that meant that he would come out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was. Like Moses, he would feed his people miraculously in a desert, and walk dry- shod throu~h the sea, or on the sea. Like Elisha, he would cleanse the lepers and raise the dead: Like Elishas master, he would ascend visibly to heaven. All these things, and many more like them, were settled points before ever Christ came.* Now, every devout reader of the Scriptures must feel that this flippant assumption that the evangelical writers were a set of superstitious bigots, gaping after the miraculous, and finding it, of course, as a servant girl does ghosts, because she was looking for them, is at variance with all the most marked characteristics of the Divine word. The state of mind which * Lectures on German Anti-Supernaturalism. 140 The Divine llu2nan in the & ripture8. could offer such an explanation of the miracles of the Gospels, can be none other than the very profound of ignorance. Com- pare with it the simple and honest caution with which miracles were judged by the devout minds of that age. If ever there was a man in whom mere expectation and wonder could breed the easy faith of his own miraculous power, or in whose behalf such power would be likely to be claimed by admiring disci- ples, it was John the Baptist. Himself the object of a promise which had come down through the ages, and had incorporated itself into the life of his nation,the child of celestial vision and divine announcement,the very name he bore given him by an angel of God,reared in obscurity, in the deserts, and nurtured upon these marvels from his youth,of a fervid and enthusiastic disposition for such things to work upon,iru- pelled to declare himself to Israel as the forerunner of the Messiah,received with solemn reverence and awe-inspiring hope, by the multitudes who crowded to his baptism,if ever there was a man among the chosen messengers of heaven, in whom the preparation of great antecedents, and the ex- pectation of mighty things to come, could beget the convic- tion of a divine authority, this were he. Yet with what a cautious exactness of fact does the Evangelist record of him the general report of the Jews who came to Jesus, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were true. And many believed on him there. Prof. Lewiss application of this method of reasoning is developed through a series of comments, upon the miraculous phenomena of the New Testament which possess very great beauty. The clearness with which lie conceives the rational- istic theory, and the vividness of imagination with which he portrays it, give a charm to many of his passages. Nowhere is that theory presented with greater distinctness or with superior force, in the writings even of its advocates ; while its essential inadequacy to furnish satisfactory explanation of the facts of the Gospels becomes only the more obvious and hope- less with every new illustration of it. Take, for instance, the following argumnent upon the miraculous announcement of the Saviours birth. 141 1860.] P~iofessor ]iayler Lewis. There were Shepherds watching their flocks by night, and discoursing with each other about certain strange rumors that then filled the whole hill country of Judea. They had heard the story of Zachariali. They knew the universal expectation in regard to the Son of David, and the universal feeling that his advent was near at hand. Their views of him may have been very erroneous, but their hearts were full of the expected glory. It is strange that they saw a light in the heavens? Call it fancy if you will, an excited imagi- nation; we are only arguing here for the subjective truthfulness of the narrative. Is it strange that they heard voices in the air around and above them? Say if you will that their awed feelings, and their wondrously elated hopes, shaped those sounds into the glorious words that are recorded. Here is the great, the real wonder. It is the spiritual marvel that throws in the background the physical strangeness. We believe in the miracle, on the ground of the doctrine conveyed; we find it easy to give credence to an outward supernatural as attested by the sublimity of such a message. It is nothing so stran~e that shepherds should see lights in the heaven, that they should hear voices in the air; but such voices, such words, arranged in such a sentence that has not yet ceased, and never will cease, to vibrate on the heart of humanity Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to all peoplc,Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good ill toward men. . . . . What was there in the common thought of those shepherds, in their culture, in their associations, that should have so shaped the vision, and brought out upon the airy undulations the sublimest col- location of words the world had ever heard, that message of Divine peace so far beyond what philosophy had ever conceived, or poetry had ever dreamed? It drives us to the outward supernatural as the easier explanation of the mystery. Why should there not have been a light from heaven, and a voice from heaven, when such a truth was uttered. The appeal which this passage makes must be felt to be powerful by every thoughtful mind. Whether we regard this event as the exaggeration of a fact, as having some basis of reality more or less remarkable, or as a purely mythical and poetical conception, the same difficulty presents itself. here was a company of shepherds watching their flocksor it may be, only the idea of such a thing in the fancy of credulous and superstitious disciplesthey heard a heavenly voice and received celestial communicationsan announcement of the birth of a Prince and Saviour xvas made to themthey saw heaven opened, and caught a glimpse of its glories; nay, they heard its sublime worship, and caught the strain in which a multitude of the heavenly host were pouring forth their praises before the throne of God. And what was the song which in fancy they heard, or in this conception of men as ignorant as themselves, were supposed to hear? Was it an utterance of 142 like Divine iluman in the Scripture8. [Feb., some one of the narrow superstitions which such minds would be sure to deem appropriate to such an event? Was it some trib- ute to their national pride? Some sanction of their narrow and fanatical forms of thought? To such things as these their fancy, either then or later, might indeed have prompted; but any- thing like this it was not. On the contrary we have here a sentiment which angels might well utter, and God himself might stoop to hear; a hymn of .praise and joy before which all after ages have stood in reverent wonder and awe, deeming that they too almost caught glimpses of celestial glory, and heard the very music of heaven, in the strain of unequaled loftiness and sweetness which sounds in those simple words; a strain not only above all fanaticism, but above all philoso- phy. And what is it that this sublime song, which not even the worship of Heaven could surpass, ushers into our world? Some trivial event exalted by the excited expectation of un- reflecting minds into an unreal importance soon to pass away? Nay, it was, indeed, the very life of the world that then and there was born; that without which human history in every age since is a mere delusion, and which alone gives dignity this day to anything in human society, or the human soul. It will be long before the world can imagine that such fancies as these can give adequate account of the fact that it has now in its bosom so much of heaven. It would afford us pleasure, did our limits allow, to present more ample illustration of the reasoning of Prof. Lewis, but these specimens must suffice. We must refer our readers to the work itself for the full presentation of his views. They will find it rich in suggestions which bear with great force upon the argument in behalf of the authentic and reliable character of the Christian Scriptures. His deep sense of the moral sublimity of the Bible, and of its immeasurable value to mankind, renders him keenly alive to the insufficiency of every attempt to account for its origin by the common agen- cies of delusion and error in our world. These convictions seem to be strengthened in him by his familiarity with those moral and metaphysical systems of antiquity, which, in even 1860 1 Profes8or Tayler Lewis. 143 their highest and noblest forms display so much of the weak- ness and impotence of the mind, when endeavoring by its own penetration to enter into that within the vail. He has seized with great clearness and force that which is the only vindication of the miracles of the Bible. They do in very deed herald a communication from God to man; they authen- ticate the very voice of our eternal Creator and Judge. They present a moral system infinitely superior to any conception of mans highest wisdom. They import into our poor humanity the very life and power of God. The whole argument for the supernatural in the Gospels has its foundation here. If there is indeed in these writings of apostles and evangelists so much of Gods own holiness and glory, so much more than man could have imagined of Divine compassion and love,if their fundamental conception of tIme GospelGod in the flesh, to suffer and sympathize with man, to restore him to blessedness by restoring him to holiness, to reconcile his pardon with the demands of a glorious and holy law,is in sober truth at an infinite remove from mans loftiest conceptions of duty and l)lessedness without the Bible, and is known and felt to be so the more, with every accession to the worlds intelligence and refinement,if these things are real, then indeed there may well have been miracles. No sublime aecompaniments which might authenticate such a communication could well be want- ing. Our senses may indeed affirm the orderly progress of natural events on all the common occasions of life; but if heaven has indeed so stooped to earth as to impart something of its own dignity, and blessedness, and purity to man, then every argument against the credibility of miracles is at an end. Nay, miracles become the most credible of events in such a case; such as reason would expect to find, and such as philos- ophy must rejoice to accept. There can be no real contradic- tion of our knowledge, even though the senses should be con- founded by a departure from all the commonly observed sequences of events. Nor need we be anxious when we are remninded of the fact that alleged miracles of similar kinds have attended the birth of all the worlds systems of supersti- tion. It is indeed so; but the analogy fails in its grandest 144 The Divine Human in the Scriptures. [Feb~, point,in a point so great as to be decisive of the whole con- troversy. Other systems have been attended with pretended miracles, but all that those systems taught was a pretense also. They were false, gross, impure, superstitions; and we know, with the most assured certainty, that no voice of God could have revealed those delusions, no interposing hand of the Al- mighty could have given attestation of their truth. But the miracles of Christianity authenticate to man a system of pro- foundest wisdom, of sublimest truth, of duties and destinies which no revelation that we can imagine God to make, could by any possibility surpass. Here we reach up to the Infinite, and find even that awful glory brought iuto fellowship with ourselves. If we find that which these miracles attest, to be the very life of God in the soul of man, they shall not be incredi- ble to the child which learns in them to see the hand, and hear the voice, of the Eternal Father. There are, of course, some portions of Prof. Lewiss work by which we are less favorably impressed. Such, for exam- ple, is that in which he suggests that our Lords walking upon the sea may have been a habitual thing,the outward and harmonious expression of an inward state of spiritual ex- altation. We love, on the contrary, to view the miracles of our Saviour as definite attestations to men of His Divine au- thority, and as never exerted save for purposes of the highest benevolence and wisdom. But these passages are unimportant, compared with the great body of his suggestions. The instruc- tive character of this work will secure for the author the thanks of many, and will lead them to expect with high inter- est his subsequent discussions of the Bible 1860.] like .Alinister8 W~oinru,i. 145 ARTICLE VI.TIIE MINISTERS WOOING: FROM THE DR. DRYASDUST POINT OF VIEW. S like Alini8ters Wooing. By ILIARRIET BEECHEE STOWE. New York: Derby & Jackson. WE have no occasion to make any portion of the public acquainted with this book. Already hundreds of thousands are more familiar with it than they are with Paradise Lost or with Hamlet. Already the names of the leading personages in the story are household words in each of the two great nations that 5j)eak our mother tongue. In the Ministers Wooing Mrs. Stowe has attempted a more difficult task than in either of those former works which have made her famous. Uncle Toms Cabin, and iDred are stories of to-day, dealing exclusively with the facts and problems of the passing abe, and portraying only the features of American society as it now is. The scene of those two stories is, indeed, chiefly in regions known to the author less by personal observa- tion than by the report of others; but, to a mind like hers, the distance of a thousand miles in space within the limits of our common country, is nothing in comparison with the distance of two-thirds of a century in time. Historical fiction, deal- ing with historic persons, and portraying manners and a state of society that have passed away, is a very different thing from the fiction, sentimental or satirical, which only holds up the mirror to the authors own contemporaries, and seeks to catch the manners living as they rise. Both alike must have their chief interest in their representation of that human nature which is common to all ages. Both alike must charm by touching the springs of human sympathy in the readers consciousness. Both alike must be true to nature. But the historic fiction, while true to nature and to human sentiments and sympathies, must also be true to history. We do not propose to mark precisely the bounds of that voL. xviii. 10

1860.] like .Alinister8 W~oinru,i. 145 ARTICLE VI.TIIE MINISTERS WOOING: FROM THE DR. DRYASDUST POINT OF VIEW. S like Alini8ters Wooing. By ILIARRIET BEECHEE STOWE. New York: Derby & Jackson. WE have no occasion to make any portion of the public acquainted with this book. Already hundreds of thousands are more familiar with it than they are with Paradise Lost or with Hamlet. Already the names of the leading personages in the story are household words in each of the two great nations that 5j)eak our mother tongue. In the Ministers Wooing Mrs. Stowe has attempted a more difficult task than in either of those former works which have made her famous. Uncle Toms Cabin, and iDred are stories of to-day, dealing exclusively with the facts and problems of the passing abe, and portraying only the features of American society as it now is. The scene of those two stories is, indeed, chiefly in regions known to the author less by personal observa- tion than by the report of others; but, to a mind like hers, the distance of a thousand miles in space within the limits of our common country, is nothing in comparison with the distance of two-thirds of a century in time. Historical fiction, deal- ing with historic persons, and portraying manners and a state of society that have passed away, is a very different thing from the fiction, sentimental or satirical, which only holds up the mirror to the authors own contemporaries, and seeks to catch the manners living as they rise. Both alike must have their chief interest in their representation of that human nature which is common to all ages. Both alike must charm by touching the springs of human sympathy in the readers consciousness. Both alike must be true to nature. But the historic fiction, while true to nature and to human sentiments and sympathies, must also be true to history. We do not propose to mark precisely the bounds of that voL. xviii. 10 146 The iIfimi8ters Wooing. [Feb., poetic license which is allowed to the writers of fiction. Yet we may safely lay down two rules which every such writer should respect, and which no author can violate, deliber- ately or unintentionally, without incurring the imputation of ignorance, or of carelessness, or else of indolence or want of ingenuity in the construction of the story. Our rules are these, 1. The facts of history must not be contradicted. 2. The personages of history must not be misrepresented. In both these rules it is assumed that the illustration of his. tory is one aim of historic fiction, or at least one duty of the writer who incorporates into his fiction materials that belong to history. This is the difference between a properly historic novel or romance and one that deals with merely mythical stories and personages. What rules should restrain or guide the imagination of one who takes King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table for his theme, or who transfers himself and his readers to the reign of some fabulous British king before the days of Julius C~sar, we will not undertake to say, for such works rest on no historic basis; they borrow nothing from history and owe to history nothing in return. But when Walter Scott writes Ivanhoe, he becomes in some sort a his- toriau as well as a writer of fiction, and he puts himself under certain obvious responsibilities in respect to historic truth and fairness. He undertakes to represent not the England of the Commonwealth, nor the England of the Reformation, nor the England of the Heptarchy, but the England of the Crusades, that romantic and half barbarous England in which the lion- hearted Richard reigned. When he writes Peveril of the Peak he undertakes to represent not England as it now is, nor the Englishmen that live in this nineteenth century, but Eng- land as it was in the years immediately following the restora- tion of the Stuarts, and Englishmen as they were when John Milton was an old blind traitor who owed his safety only to his obscurity. The Ministers Wooing is a historical novel. It intioduces three historical peisonages under their well known names, Samuel hopkins, Ezra Stiles, and Aaron Burr. The scene, instead of being laid at sonic locality not found upon the map, 1860.1 The A1inister.~ TVooing. 147 is laid at Newport, Rhode Island. The time or date of the story, as announced by the advertisements of the publishers, is sixty years ago, or, as defined by internal indications, is when General Washington was at the head of the Federal Government, (frotn 1789 to 1797,) and more exactly when Aaron Burr was a Senator of the United States, (from 1791 to to 179Y.) We are compelled to assume that the events at Newport, great and ~mal1, which make up the story of the Ministers Wooing, are dated somewhere in the last ten years of the eighteenth century. The allusion in one passage (pp. 198, [99) to John Adamss being a minister at the Court of St. James, as a contemporaneous fact, is only one of the ana- chronisms in which the author, using her poetic license, has ventured to indulge. Our readers will allow us to refresh their memory a little by recapitulating the essential points of the story, as connected with the facts of history. Dr. Hopkins, the corypheus among the New-divinity theologians of New England in his time, hasbeen, for an indefinite number of years, the Pastor in one of the two Congregational churches of Newport. He is now a venerable bachelor, old enough to have written his System of Divinity, which he is endeavoring to publish by subscription, and yet young enough to be not much more than forty. p. 182. His home has long been under the roof of a widow Scudder, whose daughter, Mary, has grown up under his eyes, and is the only additional inmate of the dwelling, except the hired men who cultivate the widows farm. There is a tender attachment between Mary Scudder and a young man, James Marvyn, a model sailor, who has come to be the second officer of a vessel and goes upon a three years voyage at the begin- ning of the story. Mrs. Scudder, observing the simple Doctors half parental interest in her daughter, indulges an ambitious motherly hope that his growing affection for Mary may ulti- mately lead him to think of a nearer and tenderer relation to one so worthy of him,which accordingly comes to pass in the progress of events. At the date of these occurrences, as the story runs, Newport was thriving by the African slave trade. Not only were the merchants of that place emnp~oying 148 71w Afini8ters Wooing. [Feb., their ships, at that late day, in carrying negroes on the mid- dle passage from Guinea to the southern ports of the United States; but with a remarkable lack of mercantile shrewdness, they were bringing slaves from Africa to Newport, and there selling them to southern customers. pp. 153, 155. Just at this time the simple-minded pastor, having long meditated on the slave trade and on slavery, and having signalized himself by his endeavors to instruct and Christianize the blacks of the place, comes to the conclusion that the enslaving of those people and the trade that brings them from Africa, are wrong; and finding in his former blindness and the comparative dumb- ness which he has heretofore maintained on this subject, much wherewith to reproach himself, (p. 159,) he determines to relieve his conscience by speaking out. He makes his first experiment in a private conference with a wealthy member of his own church, a zealously Ilopkinsian slave-trader, who accepts with high-flying zeal the most paradoxical deductions from the doctrine and duty of disinterested benevolence, but revolts instantaneously and violently from the proposal to give up his African trade for the sake of Gods glory which con- sists in the highest happiness of the universe. On the same day, he makes a second experiment with better success; and at his suggestion Mr. Zebedee Marvyn, the father of Janies, emancipates his two African servants, Candace and her hus- band Cato. In the course of the same week there is a large wedding party at the house of one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic families in the place. There all the historic per- sonages of the story meet, Hopkins, Stiles, and Burr; for Dr. Stiles is still the pac3tor of the Second Congregational church; and Colonel Burr, of the United States Senate, happens to be in Newport, just at this time, busy in some political in- trigue. At that gay and brilliant party it is whispered about that Dr. Hopkins has denounced the slave trade, and will preach against it on the next Sunday. Consequently his dilapidated old meeting house is filled for once with a polite and fashionable congregation, who are indignant at the strange doctrine. The story goes forward a year, and then there comes the news that the ship in which James Marvyn sailed from 186O~] The Abn~8ters Wooing. 149 Newport has been lost with all on board save the one who like one of Jobs messengers was left to bring the tidings home. Again the story goes forward, and, after a few months, the broken-hearted Mary, throngh the mediation of her mother, has consented to become the wife of Dr. Hopkins. But just as preparations for the wedding are almost finished, James, who has been saved from the wreck of his ship by one of the many chances that are always at the service of a poet or a novelist, comes home alive and hearty, and not only so but rich. The old theologian, in the true spirit of disinter- ested benevolence, being informed of what in his unobservant simplicity he has never suspected, namely, that James is to Mary the object of a tenderer and more passionate affection than she could ever feel toward her revered and paternal pastor, makes, voluntarily and heroically, the sacrifice of his brightest hopes for this world, and gives Mary to her lover. Then we are informed that in time, the Doctor himself, though of conrse well stricken in years, married a woman of a fair countenance, and that sons and daughters grew np .around him. In time, too, his System of Divinity was published, and proved a success not only in public acceptance and esteem, but even in a temporal view, bringing to him at last a modest competence. To the last of a very long life, he was ever saying and doing what he saw to be eternally right, without the slightest consultation with worldly expedi- ency or earthly gain, nor did his words cease to work in New England till the evils he opposed were finally done away. We have no intention of pronouncing or implying any judg- ment on the plot of the Ministers Wooing, considered nierely as a story. Nor is it our purpose to inquire how far the per- sonages of the story, considered as creations of the authors mind, are true to human nature, and to the peculiar de- velopment of human nature nuder the religious and social influences of Puritan New England. Indeed, we are too late for such an inquiry. On that point, the verdict of all who know anything about New England life as it was some forty years ago, is already declared. It is also our pnrpose to avoid entirely, at present, the question which has been raised, in some minds, about the theological relations and tendencies of 150 The ilfiniders Wooing. [Feb., the work. That matter comes fairly within our jurisdiction, but if we should enter upon it nowundertaking to decide vhether the doubts and opinions which purport to come from James Marvyn, or from his mother, or from Candace, or from Madame de Frontigna c, and which deviate from the standards of Calvinism, are to be regarded as the opinions and teachings of Mrs. Stowe; and if so, whether she should not be held equally responsible for the sayings of Simeon Brown, the slave-merchantwe should find no space fbr anything else within the limits of the present Article. What we have in hand at present, is simply the relation of this book to the truth of history. We begin, then, with the hero of the story, Samuel hop- kins. Undoubtedly, one leading object of the book is to pre- sent the honest and simple father of llopkinsian Calvinism, truly and favorably, though in a picturesque and poetical way, to the million readers of this generation who have little knowl- edge of the man or of his doctrines, and to whom there is no charm in his reasonings high, of fate, free-will, foreknowl- edge, and the nature of virtue. Hopkins was made classical, many years ago, by the late Dr. Channing, who, in a discourse at Newport, gave his personal reminiscences of the venerable man. His autobiography, first edited and illustrated by Dr. West of Stockbridge, (1805,) was afterwards supplemented (1830) by the iRev. John Ferguson, now lately deceased in a venerable age, who was in his early youth a member of the church under the pastorate of Hopkins ;again. somewhat later, (1843,) by Dr. William Patten, who had been for seven- teen years contemporary with him in the ministry at New- port ;and finally by Professor Park, in the exquisitely elabo- rate Memoir which he prefixed to the collected edition of Hopkinss works, issued by the Congregational Board of Publi- cation. The pastors of the New England churches, and as many as are interested in the history of theological specula- tion, have it in their power to know, if they will, who Dr. Hopkins was, when he lived, and where, and what he was in all his individuality. But of all this the multitude of readers will know nothing save what Mrs. Stowe has been pleased to 18~3O.] The ~Mini8ters Wooing. 151 tell them. To the multitude, the material facts in the life, history, and character of Dr. Hopkins, will be just those which are set down in th.e Ministers Wooing. It is a fair question, then, whether that which in this volume purports to be the history and portraiture of Hopkins, is consistent with historic facts? By the multitude of readers it will be regarded as veritable history, or, at least, as not inconsistent with veritable history, that Hopkins lived a bachelor, with almost no thought of mar- riage, till he had passed the noon of life; and that then, as he was beginning to be an elderly man, he fell in love with his landladys daughter, full twenty years younger than hhnself, and, having obtained her consent, was at last disappointed by the return of a younger, handsomer, and to a girls fancy every way more interesting lover, who had been supposed to be dead. But the historic fact is that at the date of this story, in the last decade of the eighteenth century, the venerable theo- logian of Newport, Ol.d Sincerity, (for that was the 8obri- quet by which he was familiarly known among his towns- men,) had been married more than forty years. lie had been the father of eight children and the grandfather of perhaps twenty. It is true that, while he was yet a young man, he was twice disappointed in affection. The first time, he appears to have been simply jilted; or, as Dr. Park tells us, a matrimonial engagement which he had formed at North- ampton, was broken off in a way honorable but afflictive to himself. The second time, not long after his settlement as pastor at Great Barrington, Mass., he naid his addresses, says Dr. l~atten, as quoted by Professor Park, to a young woman interesting in her appearance and manners, and of a bright intellect, who was rather a belle in the place,that place being his own parish. She favored his suit, and so far as appeared, there was a muntual attachment, and the time of their marriage was not far distant. But a former lover, who had been absent some time, returned, with the design of re- newing his attentions, and, by indirect or explicit manifesta- tions of it, excited in her the expectation of an offer to be his wife. These intimations engaged her affection; and when 152 The lliinisters Wooing. [Feb., he made known to her his disappointment and his desire, she frankly disclosed the truth to Mr. Hopkins, and assured him that however much she respected and esteemed him, she could not fulfill her engagement to him from the heart. This, he said, was a trial, a very great trial, but as she had not designed to deceive him in the encouragement she had given him, he could part with her in friendship. In this incident of the good mans youthful days (for after both his disappoint- ments, he was happily married to Joanna Ingersoll, one of his own parishioners, when he had not yet passed three months beyond his twenty-sixth birth-day) we have the whole ground- plan, as it were, of the Ministers Wooing. But Mrs. Stowe has seen fit to transfer this incident, not only from a rude frontier settlement among the mountains of Berkshire to the more fashionable society of what had lately been the second city in New Englandbut from the youth of Hopkins to a time when the shadow on the dial had already begun to tell him that the evening was at hand. In order to this she has been under the necessity of imputing to him the eccentricity (happily rare among New England pastors) of living almost to old age without the dignity of having a home and house- hold of his own, and without any of those domestic ties which are so strong a bond of sympathy between a pastor and the families of his flock. And not only so, but she has been con- strained to put him in a position which seems to us quite in- consistent with the gravity and dignity of his character as he stands in history. It is an awkward thing, no doubt, for a young man to be disappointed in an engagement of marriage, and particularly so when the young woman who had won his affection, and who thought she loved him, has made the dis- covery that her heart is given irrevocably to another; but the awkwardness is much greater when a grave and studious divine, on the shady side of forty, having never before had any but the remotest thought of matrimony, falls in love with a pretty girl of half his years, and having obtained her con- sent to become the ministers wife, loses her at the fast moment because an earlier but younger lover, and a much more suita- ble match for her, steps in and carries off the prize. No 1860.1 The ililinisters Wooing. 153 matter how beautifully the old gentleman may behave under his disappointmentno matter how exemplary may be his disinterestedness and his submission to the Divine Provi- dencethe situation is anything but dignified. At least there will be smiles, and suppressed if not audible laughter, and some people will say to themselves, and perhaps to each other, The old fool ! Served him right ! lie might have known better than to think of making love to that young girl ! A young skater in years and knowledge young may naturally, at his first attempt, find his feet gliding from. under him, and himself brought suddenly to a sitting position on the ice, without much loss of dignity, but when Mr. Pick- wick, with his gravity and his rotund corporosity, makes the same first experiment with the same result, who can refrain from laughter? A graver injustice to Dr. Hopkins as a historical personage, is the representation that for a long time, while he was a pastor in Newport, he was silent in regard to the wickedness of the slave trade and of enslaving Africans. He is made to confess this in the story, p. 144. I have for a long time holden my peace,may the Lord forgive me !but I believe the time is coming when I must utter my voice. I cannot go down to the wharves or among the shipping, without these poor dumb creatures look at me so that I am ashamed,as if they asked me, what I, a Christian minister, was doing, that I did not come to their help. I must testify. The historic fact is, the good man had testified long before that time. TIe did not wait till Thomas Clarksons pamphlet against the slave trade had begun to be read by his parishioners,as in this story (p. 173,) lie is reported to have done,before beginning to testify from the pulpit and from the press. In the very first year after his installation at Newport, (April 11, 1770,) about a quarter of a century earlier than the date given in the story, he assailed the slave trade from his pulpit. Only six years laterand it must be remembered that in those days, before the age of steam, discussion and agitation did not move as fast as they move nowhe addressed the public at large, and the owners of slaves in particular, against the slavery of 154 [[he I~n24er8 W~oin~~. [Feb., the Africans, in a closely and earnestly argumentative pam- phlet, which was reprinted ten years afterward (1786) by the New York Manumission Society, John Jay, at that time Sec- retary of State for foreign affairs, being President of the society, and such men as James Duane, iRobert H. Livingston, and Alexander Hamilton being active members. His argu- mentation with Dr. Bellamy, resulting in the instant emnanci- pation of Bellamys negro man,a historic incident which Mrs. Stowe has nsed legitimately and most effectively in what is perhaps the most admirable passage of her book,was probably while the massive materials of that pamphlet had not yet been thoroughly forged and hammered into their final shape. Strange would it have been, and entirely inconsistent with the character of the man, if he had gone through those political and ethical discussions which, after agitating the whole country, summed up the conclusion in the Declaration of Independence, and had not committed himself in the most outspoken manner against African slavery. Strai~ge, indeed, would it have been if in those days such a mind as his had riot seen and testified, long before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the wrongfulness of holding in abject bondage men who have never forfeited their liberty. The position of Dr. Stiles in the story, is, of course, much less conspicuous than that of Dr. Hopkins. Indeed Stiles is introduced only incidentally, and for the sake of setting him in contrast with his neighbor. All, whose impressions of what he was are derived from this book, must regard him as the type and forerunnerfor so he is represented by the author with her inimitable skill of word paintingof our modern orthodox divines, who in the name of Christ and of the Gos- pel, think to vindicate slavery by maintaining that it is a ful- filling of the prophecies and a dispensation for giving the light of the Gospel to the Africans. Such a representation does great in~justice to the memory of that venerable man. lie was not only an enthusiastic scholar and a Christian patriot, but a zealous philanthropist. From a date prior to the settlement of Hopkins at Newport, his declared opinion was in opposition to the slave trade. Hopkins and Stiles were 155 like Jifinisters Tfboinq. both slaveholders in their earlier years. The former, while he was pastor at Great Barrington, owned a slave and sold him again, without perceiving that there was anything wrong in the transaction though afterwards he repented, and out of his poverty gave to his favorite project of a mission to Africa, the hundred dollars which he had obtained, in the days of his ignorance, by the sale of a human being. Stiles, on the other hand, never sold his slave. The story of how lie bought his black servant, and of what the consequences were, still lives in tradition, though we do not remember to have seen it in print, He was settled at Newport in 1755, and was married about two years afterwards. Not long after the commence- ment of his housekeeping, as the story goes, one of his parish- ioners, who was fitting out a vessel for the Guinea trade, kindly proposed to him that he should send a venture~ in that vessel and purchase a boy at no other expense than the prime cost in Africa. The simple-hearted pastor accepted the offer with due thankfulness, and a small keg of New England rum was put on board as his venture in the voyage. In due time the ship returned, and in the cargo was a little black- ainoor, who was taken into the ministers household in the capacity of a servant of all work, and who, his original and heathen name having been lost, received the name of New- port, or, as he was sometimes called for shortness, Newp. lie was a naturally intelligent and tractable boy, arid soon became affectionately attached to his new home, to his master, and to the family. After he had learned to express his thoughts in English, it happened one day that his kind master, passing through the kitchen, found him sitting there alone, arid in tears. What is the matter, Newport? What are you crying for? The poor boys answer was that he was thinking of his mother and father from whom he had been stolen. Like a shaft of lightning, that answer went through the soul of Ezra Stiles. What had he done! Thenceforwaid he needed no ar- gument to convince him that the slave trade is wrong. From that moment he felt that he owed to the poor boy Newport a debt that never could be paid. Yet Newport was not at that time formally emancipated. He continued in the family for The lfinisters Wooing. years afterwards, a slave in law but free in fact, and the writer of this Article has heard him tell, in his old age, with honest pride, how Madam Stiles, when she was dying, committed the Doctor and the children to his faithful care. It was not till the ninth of June, 1778, after twenty-one years of service, that Newport was formally emancipated, at Portsmouth, in New hampshire. Dr. Stiles arid his family having been driven from their home in consequence of the occupation of the town of Newport by the British, had found a temporary residence in Portsmouth; and it was from that place that he was called to the presidency of Yale Callege. In settling his affairs for his removal to New Haven, he executed a legal emancipation of the honest African who had been to him so long the best of servants, and who, having experienced the grace of the Gospel, had become to him no more a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved. Newport had never asked for his freedom. His master acted only from a deep conviction of the injustice and barbarity~ of the slave trade; and the deed of manumission was, therefore, his pro- test against negro slavery. But the tie between Newport Freeman and the family of which he had been so long a mem- ber, was too strong to be sundered by that change in his legal condition. After a while lie followed the family from Ports- mouth to New Haven, and entered as a freeman into the ser- vice of his old master. The death of President Stiles, in 1795, and the consequent dissolution of the family, did not sunder the tie between him and the survivors. For more than thirty years after the family had ceased to be represented in New Haven, old Newport continued to be the object of affectionate care on the part of the children and grandchildren of Dr~ Stiles. Some of them were accustomed to make him a yearly visitfor the sake of attending personally to his wants and pay- ing some little installment on the old debt that never could be fully paid. It is recorded of Dr. Stiles that not long before his death he was walking one Sabbath day, from the college chapel to his house, after celebrating the Lords Supper, and happening to observe just before him his humble friend who was returning from the same service, he said, in his own pecu The 1Jfini~ter8 TY~oiug. 157 liar way, There is Newportif he dies as he lives, I would rather be Newport than Aurengze be. When Hopkins, after having served a quarter of a century at Great Barrington, and having become the most conspic- uous doctor of the new Calvinism which was already beginning to be called by his name, was installed in the First Congrega- tional Church at Newport, Stiles, who was six years younger than he, and five years after him in college graduation, had been fifteen years pastor of the Second Church. As the two churches, though accepting the same form of government and holding the same general system of Christian doctrines, seem to have been unlike in their special relations to the re- ligious movements and agitations of that age, so the two pastors were of different schools in theology, though both were essentially orthodox, or, as the modern word is, evan- gelical. They were very different in their literary tastes and their intellectual habits; very different in respect to polish of manners and familiarity with cultivated society; very different in respect to versatility of thought and breadth of view, and in respect to catholicity of religious sympathy; but it would not be easy to determine which of them was more completely without guile. Unlike as they were, they soon became friends. Stiles was, at first, and indeed, always, jealous of his new neighbors ultra-Calvinism; but he soon learned to honor the greatness and transparent honesty and goodness of the man; and to the reader of his diary it is evident that while he never ceased to repudiate the extreme conclusions of Hopkinss inflexible logic, his own theolog- ical views, and his religions affections too, were gradually, though perhaps unconsciously, modified and improved by his familiar intercourse with the leader of the ~ New iDivinitv. The two pastors frequently exchauged pulpits, and Stiles was an almost constant attendant at the weekly lecture preached hy Dr. Hopkins. It is said, no doubt truly, that Hopkins won the confidence of the negroes in Newport by his assiduous attention to them in his ministry. But it would be unjust to infer, as the reader of the Ministers Wooing might infer, that Stiles was wanting in this respect. In this, as in other 158 The ]Jfinisters Wooing. [Feb., good works, he was hopkinss co-laborer. His Literary iDi- ary* that invaluable repository of all sorts (f thingswas commenced only fifteen months before the installation of Hop- kins. In the record of those fifteen months we find such en- tries as these. February 19,1770. In the evening [preached to a meeting of negroes. Jno. xvii 3 That was a Monday evening, and the text was, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Again, March 4, I preached, A. lvi., Matt. xviii, 49, 50. [The words are, And he stretched forth his h~nds toward his disciples and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister, and mother. how beautiful a preparation for the transaction next recorded.] Baptized and admitted three negroes com- municants: and administered the Lords Supper to fifty-four communicants, having admitted ten since last sacrament. P. M. Isai. xxx, 11, and baptized two children, negroes. Let this suffice to show that in the matter of attention to the negroes, and sympathy with them, Hopkins was as likely to learn of Stiles, as Stiles was to learn of Hopkins. Be that as it may, there was a strong bond of union between them. It was not much to either of them that they were both natives of New Haven county, both graduates of Yale College, both Congre- gationalists in a colony and in a town where Congregational- ism was greatly in the minority. Nor was it much that a near kinsman of one had been the colleague tutor, and the intimate friend of the other.t It was not much that both were studious men; for in their studies they had little sym- pathy. The one with his Hebrew and his Syriac, with his Rabbinical commentaries and his Arabic, with his re- searches among the Fathers and his zeal for scientific ob- servation and discovery,and the other, with his narrow * The Diary, with other Stiles MSS., is preserved in the Library of Yale College. ~ Samuel hopkins, D. D., of Hadley, was the cousin of the great theologian, and letters still extant show the early friendship between bin~ and Dr. Stiles. 1860.] like Jlbni8tere Wooing. 159 range of reading, his passion for argument and controversy, his hard metaphysics, his sharp distinctions, his paradox- ical conclusions,were, intellectually, wide as the poles asunder. Their dogmatic differences on the questions between the old Divinity and the New, would have made them antago- nists, had they not been men of kindred zeal for Christ, for truth, for progress, for their country, and for freedom. Just three years after the installation of Hopkins, he com- municated to Dr. Stiles his scheme for a mission to Africa. Among the negro communicants in his church, there were two whom he proposed to educate for that service, and then to send forth, if means could be provided. At first Stiles seems to have been a little suspicious of what might be a plan to propagate the New Divinity among the heathen ;though he was far enough from the opinion of his friend and correspond- ent, Dr. Chauncey of Boston, who thought that the negroes had better continue in paganism than embrace Mr. Hop- kinss scheme. But soon afterward we find the mercurial enthusiasm of Stiles, and the graver earnestness of Hopkins, united in zeal for the African mission, like mingling flames in sacrifice. Tn August, 1773, a circular subscribed by both of them was sent abroad, soliciting for their enterprise the charity and prayers of all who are desirous to promote the kingdom of God on earth in the salvation of sinners. That circular contained, among other arguments, a suggestion which shows, plainly enough, that the iniquity of the slave trade, and the inhumanity and cruelty of enslaving our fellow men, were already acknowledged and deeply felt not only by the authors of the circular but by those to whom they made their appeal. And it is humbly proposed to those who are convinced of the iniquity of the slave trade, and are sensible of the great inhumanity and cruelty of enslaving so many thousands of our fellow men every year, with all the dreadful and horrid attendants, and are ready to bear testimony against it in all proper ways, and do their utmost to put a stop to it, whether they have not a good opportunity of doing this by cheerfully contributing according to their ability, to promote the mission proposed, and whether this is not the best compensation we are able to make the poor Africans, for the injuries they are constantly receiving by this unrighteous practice and all its attendants.Parks .2lfemoir of Hopkins, p. 132. 160 The Jibfli8ters Thooinq. [Feb., This appeal was sent forth three years prior to the Declara- tion of Independence. Yet the Ministers Wooing leads care- less readers to believe that, twenty years after thisafter the war of independenceafter the establishment of the Federal Constitutionwhen Washington was President and Aaron Burr a Senator of the United StatesEzra Stiles had no sym- pathy with the honest and outspoken zeal of Samuel Hopkins, but, like some modern theologians, regarded slavery as a Divine arrangement for giving the Gospel to the Africans. At the date which the author compels us to give to her story, Dr. Stiles had ceased for twenty years to be a resident of Newport; and having been the President of the Connecticut Society for the abolition of slavery, was dead or dying at a venerable age. If we judge correctly, the reason of the great anachronism in the story, is found in the introduction of Aaron Burr, as one of the dramatis per8ona~. Colonel Burr, of the United States Senate that brilliant and fascinating man in his full blown popularitycould not, by any violence of imagination, be carried back to the days before the revolution; but Hop- kins and Stiles, being less known to the million readers of light literature, might be more easily dislocated from their historical position. We do not propose to inquire whether the introduction of that particular personage is advantageous or otherwise to the story; nor whether the portraiture of Burr in this story, if it be considered as a creation of the authors genius, is true to human nature. The only question for us is whether her representation of that personage is in accordance with the truth of history. Nay, we will not enter on any critical examination even of this question. Let it suffice for us to say that in our opinion the comparatively favorable coloring in which the author has given her portraiture of that ineffably bad man, is by far, in respect to moral and religious influence, the most exceptionable thing in the whole book She has evidently been studying Partons Life of Burr; and not understanding that authors naive unconsciousness of the distinction between good and evil, she has likewise failed to understand the hero of his melodrama. Indeed, there is the 1860.1 f/ike .Min~i8tere TFooing. 161 best apology for her not understanding her material in a case like this. We doubt whether it is possible for a pure and true woman to form the conception of a wickedness so base as that of Aaron Burr. But the violation of historic truth in the anachronism which was committed for the sake of making Burr a conspicuous figure, is not merely that Hopkins and Stiles are removed from their proper place in history. The basis of the whole story that on which the chief interest, aside from the love adven- tures, restsis the representation that at the date of the events narrated, after the establishment of the Federal Constitution, when Aaron Burr was in the Senate of the United States, no definite opposition to slavery had begun to manifest itself in the pulpits or among the religious people of New England. Ill informed and unthinking readers of the Ministers Wooing will of course believe that, as lately as the year 1795, there existed in New England a general indifference and insensi- bility to the cruelties of the slave trade, and that for a Congre- gational pastor to preach upon that theme was an unheard of act of moral couragesomewhat as if some pastor in Rich- mond, the Rev. Doctor Reed for example, should now preach against.the Virginia slave trade. Such a representation is un- just to the pastors, to the churches and to the people of those states as they then were. We impute no intentional injustice to the author. We only regret that, in forming the plan of her historical fiction,.she did not more adequately consider the facts of the history which she had to deal with. What are the facts? Prior to the revolution, the slave trade between Africa and these colonies was a great interest of British commerce. The right of prohibiting the importation of slaves, or of putting any restraint upon it, was jealously denied to the colonial legislatures so far as they were under the control of the impe- rial government in the mother country. From about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the inhumanity of the slave trade and the injustice of slavery had been discussed from time to time, in Pennsylvania among the Quakers, and in Massachusetts by divines like Cotton Mather, and judge8 VOL. XVIII. 11 162 The Jlliini8ters TFooing. [Feb., like Samuel Sewall.* In the very first year of that century, the town of Boston had instructed its representatives to pro- pose in the colonial legislature a prospective abolition of negro slavery. But at that early period, there were no such means as in more recent times, for acting on the public mind, or for organizing and concentrating public opinion. In the then existing condition of society, the progress of thought was necessarily slow. The ancient doctrine, that captives taken in lawful war are of course slaves, the la~vful property of the captora doctrine as old and as universal as the adjustment of international controversies by warhad been modified in the international law of Christendom by the idea that Christ- ians ought not to enslave each other, but the law of war between Christian and heathen nations remained unchanged. As iii wars among the Indians, so in wars between Indians and the English colonists, at that day, those who, by the fortune of war, fell into the hands of the enemy were not prisoners merely, but captives, and therefore slaves; for, as enemies in arms, they were supposed to have forfeited their right to life, and the slavery to which they were reduced was only a commuta- tion of punishment, as a murderer is sometimes sent to the penitentiary for life instead of being hanged. Slaves imported from Africa were held as slaves not because they were black, but because they were presumed to have been lawfully re- duced to slavery nuder the laws of war. But by degrees the subject came to be better understood among thoughtful and conscientious men. Especially in the discussions which pre- ceded the separation of these colonies from Great Britain, doctrines wholly inconsistent with the practice of enslaving innocent human beings, began to be firmly established in an intelligent popular conviction. The idea that the right to life and the right to liberty are equally inalienable and equally sacredrights of which no human being can be justly de- prived except in punishment of his own crime against the * Mathers Essays to do good, is one of the books from which the New York American Tract Society has expurgated the sentiment of opposition to slavery. Sewalls pamphlet was entitled The Selling of Joseph. The Afiini8ter8 Wooing. 1(33 state that inflicts the punishmenttook a deep hold on think- ing and serious minds. Years before the Declaration of Inde- pendence~ the injustice of slavery and the inhumanity of the slave trade had been proclaimed in sermons from the pulpit and published in pamphlets from the press. Perhaps the majority of the New England pastors, like hopkins and Stiles, were or had been owners of slaves, but in the progress of the discussion concerning human rightsa discussion that was felt to be ethical and religious as well as politicalthey did not shrink from making the obvious application of their principles to the question of negro slavery. We have seen no evidence that at any time there was anything like a controversy among the pastors or in the churches, on that question. Hopkins, indeed, says, in a letter to Granville Sharp, that when he first preached on the subject, he was, so far as he then knew, almost alone in his opposition to the slave trade and the slavery of the Africans. But he was always prone to think himself almost alone, like the prophet in the desert who said, I only am left ; and yet he is constrained to acknowledge that he had better success than he expected, and that most of his hearers were convinced that it was a very wrong and wicked practice. He says that the course which he took made him enemies in the town, but he says nothing of any opposition in his own parish, and Prof. Park makes out only that one wealthy family left his congregation in disgust at his preaching on that subject. What pastor was there in New England five and twenty years ago, who did not lose more than that by preaching for the Temperance Reformation? Dr. Hopkinss first publication against slavery, ~he iDia- logue printed at Norwich, early in 1770, had been preceded by the publication of a sermon which his intimate friend Dr. Hart of Preston, (now Griswold,) in Connecticut, had preached to the corporation of freemen in Farmington, his native town, at their autumnal town meeting in 1774. But Harts doctrine could not be considered altogether new or unpopular among patriotic Americans, for at the time when he preached it and published it, the Continental Con- gress in Philadelphia was taking the first step towards in 104 f/ike .Minister8 Wooing. [Feb., dependence by framing the Articles which were to be the basis of an American Association pledged to a commer- cial non-intercourse with Great Britain; and in one of those articles the slave trade was denounced, and an entire absti- nence from it and from all trade with those who were con- cerned in it was provided for. To this Hopkins refers, when he says to the same Congress, eighteen months afterwards, in the dedication of his Dialogue on slavery, You have had the honor and the happiness of leading these colonies to resolve to stop the slave trade. The sentiment of Rhode Island at that time is manifest in the fact, mentioned in the same pamphlet, that the legislature of that colony had already prohibited the importation of slaves. What the popular feeling was in all the colonies from New Hampshire to North Carolina, is evi- dent from those memorable words which Jefferson incorpo- rated in the original draught of the Declaration of Independ- ence, and which, as Jefferson himself testifies, were struck out by the Congress in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves.~~* At the date of the Declaration of Independence, or within ten years afterwards, the importation of slaves was strictly prohibited in all the states save Georgia and the Caro * In these days of wide apostasy from the principles held and professed by the great men of our revolution, those words, written by Jefferson and reported to the Congress by Franklin, Sherman, John Adams, and Robert R. Livingstone, cannot be too often repeated. He [the King of Great Britain] has waged cruel war against human nature itself violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into captivity in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transporta- tion thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHaIsTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of dis- tinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. 1860.] The ~Minietere Wooing. 165 linas, and even in North Carolina it was discouraged by a heavy duty laid expressly for that purpose. Yet, notwith- standing these historic facts, wbich have great ethical as well as political importance, the Ministers Wooing is teaching tens of thousands to believe that so lately as the year 1795, cargoes of slaves, direct from Africa, were imported into Rhode Island.* But the greatness of the anachronism and the injustice which it does to the state of Rhode Island and to New England, are not fairly represented till we remember that long before the date of the story, not only had the importation of slaves been prohibited, but the abolition of slavery itself had been ordained by legislative power, or incorporated into the funda- mental law, in all the New England States, Rhode Island not excepted. Nay, in Rhode Island, especially, the popular senti- ment of opposition to slavery was, from the earliest agitation of the subject, clear and strong. Laws providing for the abo- lition of slavery were enacted by Connecticut and Rhode Island almost simultaneously, in 1784. But from the first national census, taken in 1790, it appears that while the black and colored persons in Rhode Island were at that time more than 6 per cent. of the entire population, and the same class in Connecticut were less than 3 per cent., more than three- fourths of the former were already free, while of the latter almost one half were still counted as slaves. The strength of Quaker influence in Rhode Island, together with the original * After the peace of F753, and especially after the establishment of the Federal Constitution, the importation of slaves into South Carolina and Georgia became a great and lucrative business, and so continued until the year isos, when the power of Congress over that importation became complete. T~uring all that period, the slave trade was carried on by Northern men and in vessels that sailed from Northern ports. Newburyport in Massachusetts, and Bristol and Newport in Rhode Island, shared in the infamy, but Newport most of all. All that while the slave trade and slavery were under the ban of public opinion, but the states which had abolished slavery could, not, by any state legislation, effectually restrain their own citizens from participation in the carrying trade between the coast of Guinea and the ports of South Carolina and Georgia. Even when the power of Congress over the slave trade had come to maturity and had been exercised in stringent prohibition, some of the same men, it is believed, continued to pursue the nefarious business, as merchants in New York now do in evasion of laws which cannot be openly defied. 166 The 7$finister8 Wooing. [Feb., genius of the colony, (inspired, from the first, more than any other New England community, with a passion for abstract and absolute liberty,) had co~iperated with the early efforts of Hopkins to bring aboutthis result. We impute to the gifted author of the work before us no in- tentional injustice. Nor will we venture to say that the liber- ties she has taken both with the facts and with the personages of history may not be vindicated by the example of other illustrious writers in the department of historic fiction. But we cannot refrain from expressing our regret that the charmed readers of the Ministers Wooing, unless they happen to be fresh in their recollection of our civil and religious history, are so sure to receive erroneous impressions not only in regard to the personal character of such men as Hopkins and Stiles, but also in regard to a more important matter. The reader who assumes that Mrs. Stowe has not changed the facts of history into fable, but has only taken them as the firm material which she was to illustrate and adorn from the resources of her crea- tive mind,will of course believe that the same atrocious here- sies about slavery, which are now current in every part of the country, and which utter themselves so insolently in high places of influence, were equally current and equally insolent seventy years ago. Such a belief is not only false but unjust and mis- chievous. Such a belief whosoever may entertain it, and from whatsoever source it may be derived, strengthens the hands of those who, with base and wicked purposes, are continually representing thatnot the modern patronage of slavery in the dishonored names of democracy and the Union, and in the profaned name of evangelical Christianity but the modern opposition to slavery ou political, moral, and religions princi- plesis a novelty. Had the author of this book attempted only to illustrate history, incorporating facts and dates into her fiction without changeas a naturalist from a few bones recon- structs the entire skeleton of an extinct animalor as an artist from a half buried ruin and a half intelligible description, produces a restoration of some temple or palace that perished long agoshe might have imposed upon herself a far more arduous task, but the work, accomplished, would have been a far higher achievement. 1860.] Hamiltons Iiitetaphysics. 167 ARTICLE VII.SIR WILLIAM HAMILTONS LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. Lectures on Jtleta}2hysics and Logic. By Sir WILLIAM HAMIL- TON, Bart. Edited by the Rev. HENRY L. MANSEL, B. ID., Oxford, and JOHN VEITCH, M. A., Edinburgh. In two Volumes. Vol. I, Metaphysics. Boston: Gould & Lin- coln. 1859. pp. 718. THE Metaphysics of hamilton is the crowning glory of Scotch philosophy. It fills up much that was wanting, and corrects much that was wrong; adorning it, moreover, with the refinements of scholarship. Nor do we regard this latter cir- cumstance of small moment. Intimate acquaintance with the great masters of the world of thought, in case it does not over- power, polishes the mind, and imparts a certain grace of man- ner to all that it does. The precise influence of a university education upon the tone of thinking cannot be completely expressed, because language has not words to describe all the minute and insensible effects which come from the daily con- tact of many minds engaged in liberal studies; yet it exists, and its presence is everywhere felt. So it is in that larger university of scholars where the great original thinkers and polishers of thought meet together. There is an inexpressi- ble charm in the writings of such men. Hamilton was one of them; and he was both scholar and teacher. He had mastered Aristotle and Plato without being mastered; he had stood beside the great schoolmen as their peers; he was at home with Descartes and Leibnitz, with Kant and Schelling and Hegel, with the whole family of the great continental think- ers, and that as one of the household. It is this kind of scholar- ship which gives the peculiar charm and polish to the writings before us. They abound in the best thoughts of the great masters of thought through the successive ages of men translated, indeed, but in the footnotes often appearing in the

1860.] Hamiltons Iiitetaphysics. 167 ARTICLE VII.SIR WILLIAM HAMILTONS LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. Lectures on Jtleta}2hysics and Logic. By Sir WILLIAM HAMIL- TON, Bart. Edited by the Rev. HENRY L. MANSEL, B. ID., Oxford, and JOHN VEITCH, M. A., Edinburgh. In two Volumes. Vol. I, Metaphysics. Boston: Gould & Lin- coln. 1859. pp. 718. THE Metaphysics of hamilton is the crowning glory of Scotch philosophy. It fills up much that was wanting, and corrects much that was wrong; adorning it, moreover, with the refinements of scholarship. Nor do we regard this latter cir- cumstance of small moment. Intimate acquaintance with the great masters of the world of thought, in case it does not over- power, polishes the mind, and imparts a certain grace of man- ner to all that it does. The precise influence of a university education upon the tone of thinking cannot be completely expressed, because language has not words to describe all the minute and insensible effects which come from the daily con- tact of many minds engaged in liberal studies; yet it exists, and its presence is everywhere felt. So it is in that larger university of scholars where the great original thinkers and polishers of thought meet together. There is an inexpressi- ble charm in the writings of such men. Hamilton was one of them; and he was both scholar and teacher. He had mastered Aristotle and Plato without being mastered; he had stood beside the great schoolmen as their peers; he was at home with Descartes and Leibnitz, with Kant and Schelling and Hegel, with the whole family of the great continental think- ers, and that as one of the household. It is this kind of scholar- ship which gives the peculiar charm and polish to the writings before us. They abound in the best thoughts of the great masters of thought through the successive ages of men translated, indeed, but in the footnotes often appearing in the 168 Hamiltons .Metaphysics. [Feb., original choice expressions. Such thoughts have a double value; they are like notes which, though above suspicion in themselves, are endorsed by the best of names. We exclude, however, from these remarks the long passages translated from modern French and German philosophers. These were intro- duced on other grounds. They embrace the easier parts of particular subjects, the principles of which had been thought out and stated by ifamilton himself. It seems as if he grew weary of the drudgery of going through with the details, and as a relief took them from others, though it should be said that these extracts are characterized by great accuracy of thought, and precision of style. Hamiltons own style is pr& minently good. It expresses the most subtle distinctions and the most evanescent shades of thought with a clearness that makes one think better of the English language, and less regret the loss to philosophy of the wonderful capacities of the Greek. On the whole, we think it the best style in which Scotch philosophy has yet appeared. We acknowlege the inimitable and indescribable charm of flume, but still his style was rather popular than philosoph- ical, and certainly lacked precision. We acknowlege, too, the perspicuity of Reid, but then we remember those short, con- tracted sentences and curt clauses, which check the career of the mind, and make it halt and stumble. Bcsidea, Dr. Reid always had an eye in writing on David Ilume. It is amusing to notice at what remote distances he lays his trainhow con- tinually he shapes the expression of his propositions so as to meet some position of that philosopher. The young student finds it difficult at the first perusal to understand much that lie reads, and when he does is somewhat indignant at what he considers the trick that has been played upon him. Dr. Reid was a controversialist, and this circumstance has affected, if not the structure of the sentence, the manner of statement, and style of thought, so that, while individual sentences are clear, the impression of the whole is somewhat obscure, although, we need not add that in this great controversy with the philosophical sceptic of the times, he showed a most original mind, and brought out to consciousness and enforced 1860.] Hamiltons .Afetc{pkysics. 169 many fundamental truths. Dugald Stewart was flattered in his day with the praise of having expressed the crabbed truths of philosophy in classical English. That doubtless was what he aimed at. His English came from the school of Dr. Blair, and does indeed possess all its merit. Mr. Stewart uses no vulgar words; he will go far out of his way to avoid repeating the same thought in the same words; and has a horror of calling things by their right names. The result is, that without being tautological, without being even overloaded with epithets, his style is cumbersome from the excess of circumlocution, and readers grow impatient of sonorous sen- tences which for the words employed are so empty of thought. We place Hamilton, then, with respect to philosophical lan- guage, above Stewart, or Reid, or even Hume, of course above all other Scotch philosophers, although we see in him what we would call the Scotch predilection for long words of Latin origin, and used in a Latin sense. We go further, and, taking into view the additional circumstance that its pages are adorned with the finely expressed thoughts of so many great thinkers, pronounce this work, notwithstanding its title of Metaphysics, one of the most interesting books of the day, even for reading, to say nothing of its value as a study. We said above, that Hamilton had added the refinements of scholarship to Scotch philosophy. It may be thought we have not done justice in this to his predecessors. Hume was a great reader. He studied, as we learn from his biogra- pher, the Latin and Greek classics to a considerable extent; he was acquainted with the philosophical writings of his own and the preceding age; yet he was not deeply versed in the philosophical works of ancient or medkeval times. Nor can it be said that Reids Analysis of Aristotles Logic, which pre- sents the most show of learning of anything iu his works, gives him a title to the name of scholar in the sense we are now using the term, if, indeed, it does not make the contrary impression. Reid had that which is far better than all scholar- shipa genuine philosophical genius, but he did not have scholarship and genius bothand this is what belongs to Hamiltou. It is not necessary to speak of Stewart in this 170 Ha?nilton8 Aletaphysics. [Feb., connection, for, though his acquaintance with philosophical writings was more extensive than that of Dr. IReid, still his learning was comparatively limited. The pretensions of Thomas Brown have been sufficiently exposed by Hamilton himself. We can give no analysis of these lectures. We can only touch upon a few topics, selecting such as may be most char- acteristic. And the first two lectures, which are upon the utility of philosophy, present one of the most interesting points in Hamiltons views of the mind, and one which he has dwelt upon in various writings; we mean the worth of intel- lectual activityof mental energyconsidered in itself. The utility of any branch of knowledge is either absolute or relative, aceording as the science is viewed in its direct effects upon the mind, or in its relation to other studies. The absolute utility of a studyand it is only the absolute utility of philos- ophy that is treated ofis either subjective or objective. It is subjective, when the study disciplines the mind, the knowing subject ; it is objective, when it furnishes the mind with truths, objects of knowledge. We have thus before us intellectual culture, or discipline of the faculties, and knowledge, or the possession of truths. At this point we introduce our author speaking in his own name. He maintains that considered as ends and relation to each other, the knowledge of truths is subordinate to the cultivation of the knowing mind. The questionIs Truth, or is the Mental Exercise in the pursuit of truth, the superior end ?this is perhaps the most curious theoretical, and certainly the most important practical, problem in the whole compass of philosophy. For, according to the solution at which we arrive, must we accord the higher or the lower rank to certain great departments of study; and, what is of more import- ance, the character of its solution, as it determines the aim, regulates from first to last the method, which an enlightened science of education must adopt. But, however curious and important, this question has never, in so far as I am aware, been regularly discussed. Nay, what is still more remarkable, the errone- ous alternative has been very generally assumed as true. The consequence of this has been, that sciences of far inferior, have been elevated above sciences of far superior, utility; while education has been systematically distorted,L~~though truth and nature have occasionally burst the shackles which a perverse theory had im- posed. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious. At first sight, it seems even absurd to doubt that truth is more valuable than its pursuit; for is this not to say that the end is less important than the mean ?and on this superficial view is the 1860.] Hamiltons ]1Ietc~physics. 171 prevalent misapprehension founded. A slight consideration will, however, expose the fallacy. Knowledge is either practical or speculative. In practical knowledge it is evident that truth is not the ultimate end; for, in that case, knowledge is, ex hy- pothe8i, for the sake of application. The knowledge of a moral, of a political, of a religious truth, is of value only as it affords the preliminary or condition of its exercise. In speculative knowledge, on the other hand, there may indeed, at first sight, seem greater difficulty; but further reflection will prove that speculative truth is only pursued, and is only held of value, for the sake of intellectual activity: Sordet cognita veritas is a shrewd aphorism of Scneca. A truth, once known, falls into comparative insignificance. It is now prized, less on its own account than as opening up new ways to new activity, new suspense, new hopes, new dis- coveries, new selfgratulation. Every votary of science is willfully ignorant of a thousand established facts,of a thousand which he might make his own more easily than he could attempt the discovery of even one. But it is not knowl- edgeit is not truththat he principally seeks; he seeks the exercise of his fac- ulties and feelings: and, as in following after the one he exerts a greater amount of pleasurable energy than in taking formal possession of the thousand, he disdains the certainty of the many, and prefers the chances of the one. Ac- cordingly, the sciences always studied with keenest interest are those in a state of progress and uncertainty; absolute certainty and absolute completion would be the paralysis of any study; and the last worst calamity that could befall man, as he is at present constituted, would be that full and final possession of speculative truth, which he now vainly anticipates as the consummation of his intellectual happiness. Qunsivit ccelo lucem ingemuitque reperta. But what is true of science is true, indeed, of all human activity. in life, as the great Pascal observes, we always believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we ever seek is agitation. When Pyrrhus proposed to subdue a part of the world, and then to enjoy rest among his friends, he believed that what he sought was possession, not pursuit; and Alexander assuredly did not foresee that the conquest of one world would only leave him to weep for another world to conquer. It is ever the contest that pleases us, and not the victory. Thus it is in play; thus it is in hunting; thus it is in the search of truth ; thus it is in life. The past does not interest, the present does not satisfy; the future alone is the object which engages us. (Nullo votorum line beati) Victuros agimus semper,nec vivimus unquam. Man never is, but always to be, blest. The question, I said, has never been regularly diseussed,probably because it lay in too narrow a compass; but no philosopher appears to have ever seriously pro- posed it to himself, who did not resolve it in contradiction to the ordinary opinion. A contradiction of this opinion is even involved in the very term Philosophy, and the man who first declared that he was not a or possessor, but a 1bi\dcro15a~, or seeker of truth, at once enounced the true end of human speculation, and em- 172 Hctmilton8 ilfetctphysics. [Feb., bodied it in a significant name. Under the same conviction Plato defines man the hunter of truth, for science is a chase, and in a chase the pursuit is always of greater value than the game. Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim At objects in an airy hight; But all the pleasure of the game Is afar off to vicw the flight. The intellect, says Aristotle, in one passage, is perfected, not by knowledge, but by activity; and in another, The arts and sciences are powers, but every power exists only for the sake of action; the end of philosophy, therefore, is not knowledge, but the energy conversant about knowledge. Descending to the schoolmen The intellect, says Aquinas, commences in operation, and in op- eration it ends; and Scotus even declares that a mans knowledge is measured by the amount of his mental activity tautum scit homo, quantum operator. The profoundest thinkers of modern times have emphatically testified to the same great principle. If, says Mallebranche, I held truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly, in order that I might again pursue and capture it. Did the Almighty, says Lessing, holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one I might prefer,in all hu- mility, but without hesitation, I should request Search after Tiuth. Truth, says Von Muller, is the property of God; the pursuit of truth is what belongs to man; and Jenn Paul Richter: It is not the goal, but the course, which makes us happy. But there would be no end of similar quotations. But if speculative truth itself be only valuable as a mean of intellectual activity, those studies which determine the faculties to a more vigorous exertion, will, in every liberal sense, be better entitled, absolutely, to the name of useful, than those which, with a greater complement of more certain facts, awaken them to a less intense, and consequently to a less improving exercise. On this ground I would rest one of the preuminent utilities of mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest objects of our theoretical and moral interest ;that every (natu- ral) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced from the philosophy of mind, will be at once admitted. But I do not at present found the importance on the paramount dig- nity of the pursuit. It is as the best gymnastic of the mind,as a mean, princi- pally, and almost exclusively, conducive to the ~dghest education of our noblest powers, that I would vindicate to these speculatAons the necessity which has too frequently been denied them. By no other intellectual application is the mind thus reflected on itselg and its faculties aroused to such independent, vigorous, unwonted, and continued energy; by none therefore, are its best capacities so variously and intensely evolved. By turning, says Burke, the soul inward on itself, its forces are concentred, and are fitted for greater and stronger flights of science; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our game, the chase is certainly of service.~ pp. flb The above topic shadows forth a prominent doctrine of these lectures. Without going so far as Descartes, who made Ac- tivity the essence itself of the soul, hamilton regards it as an 1860.] llctmiltons 2letaphysics. 173 essential property. Essence and activity admit not of explana- tion: Essence, because no explanation can carry us beyond the simple conception that it is that which acts; Activity, because no explanation can make clearer a simple act of which we are conscious. We begin our knowledge with the consciousness of an activity, and in that consciousness recognize by a law of thought somewhat that is the subject of such activity. But not only does the soul first reveal itself to us in its activity, it continues to live in our knowledge only so far forth as we are conscious that it acts; but not only does it thus continue in ac- tivity,as far as we know it never ceases to act. It would seem, therefore, that action especially characterizes the soul; that it is an essential property. The mind was made for action, and its life is in its activity. This doctrine, besides its practical bearings, gives us a high idea of the soul itself. For with the conception of activity, pure, incessant, and unchecked, we identify the most distinct conception we form of the Divine Mind, and just in prop5rtion as we conceive of the soul as in- cessantly active, and this activity as emancipated from checks and hindrances, do we distinguish it from and elevate it above the material creation. We said that as far as we know, the soul is incessantly ac- tive. We may state this with more precision. This unbroken consciousness of activity does not exclude the fact that there are states of passivity of which we are unconscious. We are conscious only as we act; we act only as we put forth exertion in some definite way; we put forth action in determinate ways only as we pass from one state to another. In this change from state to state, we may be conscious of diminishing activ- ity till consciousness ceases, or we may be conscious of com- mencing activity, but we are not conscious of that state of passivity into which it sinks, or that from which it arises. We are never conscious of non-action or passivity, though passivity may be implied in what we are conscious of. Indeed, as Ham- ilton says, there is no operation of the mind that is purely active; no affection which is purely passive. In every mental modification, action and passion are the two necessary elements or factors of which it is composed. But passivity is only known 174 llamiUons llfetaphysics. [Feb., as the concomitant of that activity which is made known through consciousness, and the question is whether under this condition of concomitant passivity, the mind is consciously active with- out interruption. Beginning the life of the soul with its con- scious activity, finding this quality to be an essential property of its being, we have a right to assume that this activity is ever unbroken, unless we find causes adequate to inter- rupt the action. The only states which may furnish these causes are sleep and somnambulism. We now turn to our au- thor for some remarks upon this topic. The general problem in regard to the ceaseless activity of the mind has been one agitated from very ancient times, but it has also been one on which philosophers hare pronounced less on grounds of experience than of theory. Plato and the Platonists were unanimous in maintaining the continual energy of intellect. The opinion of Aristotle appears doubtful, and passages may be quoted from his works in favor of either alternative. The Aristotelians, in general, were opposed, but a considerable number were favorable, to the Platonic doctrine. This doctrine was adopted by cicero and St. Augustin. Nunquam animus, says the former, cogitatione et motu vacuus esse potest. Ad quid menti, says the latter, pr~eceptum est, ut se ipsam cognoscat, nisi ut semper vivat, et semper sit in actu. The question, however, obtained its principal importance in the philosophy of Descartes. That philosopher made the essence, the very existence of the soul to consist in actual thought, under which he included even the desires and feel- ings; and thought he defined all of which we are conscious. The assertion, there- fore, of Descartes, that the mind always thinks, is, in his employment of language, tantamount to the assertion that the mind is always conscious. p. 218. Hamilton also quotes a long passage from IMI. Jonifroy, on the same side, of which, however, we can give only a part of the conclusion; viz, that in sleep the senses are torpid, but that the mind wakes ; that the mind possesses the power of awakening the senses, its own activity overcoming their tor- por. To this we cannot forbear to add the two remarkable cases of the postman of Halle, and of Oporin us, mentioned in the discussion. The postman was in the habit of going daily to a post town about eight miles distant from Ilalle. A considerable part of his way lay across a district of unenclosed champaign meadow-land, and in walking over this smooth surface the postman was genernily asleep. But at the termination of this part of his road, there was a narrow foot bridge over a stream, and to reach this bridge it was necessary to ascend some broken steps. Now, it was ascertained as completely as any fact of the kind could be,the observers were shrewd, and the object of observation was a man 1860.] llalniltons .Alietapl48w8. 1Th of undoubted probity,I say it was completely ascertained: 1st, That the post- man was asleep in passing over this level course; 2d, That he held on his way in this state without deflection towards the bridge; and 3d, That before arriving at the bridge, he awoke. But this case is not only deserving of all credit from the positive testimony by which it is vouched; it is also credible as only one of a class of analogous cases which it may be adduced as representing. This case, besides showing that the mind must be active though the body is asleep, shows also that certain bodily functions may be dormant, while others are alert. The locomotive faculty was here in exercise, while the senses were in slumber. This suggests to me another example of the same phenomenon. It is found in a story told by Erasmus in one of his letters, concerning his learned friend Oporinus, the cele. brated professor and printer of Basle. Oporinus was on a journey with a book. seller; and, on their road, they had fallen in with a manusbript. Tired with their days traveling,traveling was then almost exclusively performed on horseback, they came at nightfall to their inn. They were, however, curious to ascertain the contents of their manuscript, and Oporinus undertook the task of reading it aloud. This he continued for some time, when the bookseller found it necessary to put a question concerning a word which he had not rightly understood. It was now discovered that Oporinus was asleep, and being awakened by his companion, he found that he had no recollection of what for a considerable time he had been reading. Most of you, I daresay, have known or heard of similar occurrences, and I do not quote the anecdote as anything remarkable, But, still, it is a case concurring with a thousand others to prove, 1st, That one bodily sense or func. tion may be asleep while another is awake; and, 2d, That the mind may be in a certain state of activity during sleep, and no memory of that activity remain after the sleep has ceased. The first is evident; for Oporinus,while reading, must have had his eyes and the muscles of his tongue and fauces awake, though his ears and other senses were asleep; and the second is no less so, for the act of read- ing supposed a very complex series of mental energies. I may notice, by the way, that physiologists have observed, that our bodily senses and powers do not fall asleep simultaneously, but in a certain succession. We all know that the first symptom of slumber is the relaxation of the eyelids; whereas, hearing continues alert for a season after the power of vision has been dormant. In the case last alluded to, this order was, however, violated; and the sight was forcibly kept awake while the hearing had lapsed into torpidity. In the case of sleep, therefore, so far is it from being proved that the mind is at any moment unconscious, that the result of observation would incline us to the opposite conclusion. pp. 233, 234. The mind, in this view of it, is something different in kind from the instruments it uses. The senses need restrecruit from labor. They cannot be used without the alternation of rest and activity. But it does not appear that the mind itself has need of sleep. It is true, the mind often acts laboriously, often grows weary, often is unable to act, yet it labors and grows weary, and ceases to act, only because the organs of 176 Ilctrnilton.s .Metcphysic8. [Feb., sense through which it acts are weary, and need recruiting; in itself it is unwearied and awake. Its activity is only checked and hampered, not destroyed, by its connection with the body; it even shows its independent existence by its partial emanci- pation from the slavery of sense. Matter nowhere so nearly identifies itself with mind as in the bodily organism; but even here we see the two distinguished by all the difference there is between incessant activity and a necessary alternation of ac- tion and rest. With this view of the activity of mind should be conjoined Hamiltons view of pleasure as the concomitant of activity. This view is the same as that of Aristotle, and Aristotles doc- trine is thus stated by Hamilton: Pleasure is maintained by Aristotle to be the concomitant of energy,of perfect en- ergy, whether of the functions of Sense or Intellect; and per- fect energy he describes as that which proceeds from a power in health and vigor, and exercised upon an object relatively excellent, that is, suited to call forth the power into unimpeded activity. Pleasure, though the result,the concomitant of perfect action, he distinguishes from the perfect action itself. It is not the action, it is not the perfection, though it be conse- quent on action, and a necessary efflorescence of its perfection. Pleasure is thus defined by Aristotle to be the concomitant of the unimpeded energy of a natural power, faculty, or acquired habit. Activity is pleasure. This doctrine our author states at the very opening of his lectures, and we can do no better than to give his summary of it. Human perfection and hu- man happiness coincide, and thus constitute, in reality, but a single end. For as, on the one hand, the perfection of full development of a power is in proportion to its capacity of free, vigorous, and continued action, so, on the other, all pleas- ure is the concomitant of activity; its degree being in pro- portion as that activity is spontaneously intense, its prolonga~ tion in proportion as that activity is spontaneously continued; whereas, pain arises either from a faculty being restrained in, its spontaneous tendency to action, or from being urged to a degree, or to a continuance, of energy beyond the limit t~ which it of itself freely tends. 1860.] hamiltons Jifetaphysics. To promote our perfection is thus to promote our happi- nes.s ; for to cultivate fully and harmoniously our various fac- ulties, is simply to enable them by exercise, to energize longer and stronger without painful effort; that is, to afford us a larger amount of a higher quality of enjoyment. This view of the incessant and pleasurable activity of mind, meeting us at the beginning of our inquiries, awakens expect- ation, and spreads a charm over the whole of philosophy. Let us conceive of the mind, endowed as it is by the act of creation with the attribute of unfailing activity, putting forth its energies in all directions, intellectual, moral, religious, of which it is capable; let us conceive of it, though checked and hindered by sense, yet maintaining the mastery, and by its energies contr oiling the body and converting its organs into obedient instruments of service; let us follow these activities as they ripen into habits, and pursue them in their now steady and pleasurable courses through all the objects of knowledge; let us represent to ourselves the enjoyment which accom- panies the mind through its higher and now easier flights, in the consciousness of new and growing power; and, moreover, add to all this that the perfection of the mind in activity and happiness lies in the ultimate emancipation of the soul from sense, and thence pass, in imagination, to its unimpeded life and action in its state of immortal vigor ;we shall then have some proper idea, though still inadequate, of the exalted sphere of the human mind, and of the worth of that science which has this mind for the object of its investigations. We turn now to the objects proposed for consideration in the Science of Mind. These objects are threefold: 1, PILE- NoMENA; 2, LAws; and, 3, INFERENcEs, oi I~E5ULT5. iLlaniil- ton remarks that the whole of philosophy is the answer to these three questions: What are the facts or phenomena to be observed? What are the laws which regulate these facts, or under which these phenomena appear? What are the real results, not immediately manifested, which these facts or phenomena warrant us in drawing ? We subjoin a tabular view of the distribution of philosophy proposed by Hamilton: von. xviii. 12 178 Ham~iltons Iii et~pky8ics. [Feb., FactsPhenomenology, .~ Fee ings. ~ Empyrical Psychology. Conative Powers, (Will and Desire.) 0 (CognitionsLogic. ~ LawsNomology, ~ FeelingsAesthetic. Moral Philos Of ~ Inferential Psychology. Immortality of the Soul, & c. o ~ Rational Psychology. Conative Powers1 Political ophy, Philosophy. .~ ResultsOntology, 5 Being of God. this scheme of philosophy, however, Hamilton discusses only a part. There is no formal discussion of nomology, or ontology, and of phenomenology, or psychology, as we will hereafter call it, there is nothing on the conative powers, and very little on the feelings, although what there is is valn- able. It is only the cognitive faculties that are fully discussed. The most important topic in this department of philosophy is consciousness, for it lies at the basis of all certainty in knowledge: and here Hamilton has performed a good service. He has not only corrected errors in the views of Reid and Stewart, but has given to the whole subject a precise, philo- sophical investigation which has brought new truth to light. We know, and we knoware certainthat we know. The mind is of such a nature that in putting forth an energy, whether a cognition, or feeling, or act of will, it knows itself as thus energizing, and that not by a new act but in the en- ergizing itself. This is an ultimate fact. We can resolve it into nothing of which we are more certain, and all attempts at explanation end in an accumulation of various expressions for the same thing. Indeed, we cannot even doubt the assertion, for unless we know our mental acts,are certain in each case that we actwe do not know that we doubt. We content ourselves then with simply saying that the mind is self-know- ing; unlike a machine that moves without knowing that it moves, the mind both knows, and in the act of knowledge is conscious that it knows. Bnt it is all important to observe that the self-knowledge is the same with the act of knowledge ;knowing, and knowing that we know are comprehended in the self-same 1860.1 ilamiltons .Mietaphy8i es. 179 act. For this assertion we have no other proof than the act itself. It is possible, however, to demonstrate the absurdity of the alternative. The expression in language for this ulti- mate and simple act is, I know that I know, and the alter- native just referred to, is, that these expressions denote two distinct acts; that first in the order of nature, we know, feel, desire, and will, and then by a distinct act of cognition come to the kowledge, that we know, feel, desire, and will. But this is absurd. For, suppose that we put forth, say, an act cognizant of ~an external object. Now, by supposition we know not this act as existent, till we put forth a second act cognizant of it as an object of knowledge lying in the mind. Suppose we put forth this second act. This, too, is an act of cognition as really as the first, differing only in this that the object of it is a mental state instead of something external. This, however, is an immaterial difference. We are account- ing for the knowledge of the existence of cognitions, not for the distinctions of cognitions as made by different objects. The second act, therefore, is a cognition as well as the first. This being so, we know not that we have put forth this second act of cognitionand therefore do not as yet know of the existence of the first actuntil we put forth a third act, cognizant of the second as its object, nor do we know this third till we have put forth a fourth, and so on forever. Indeed, it is self-evident that the mind cannot legin to know, unless the first act of knowledge can be known in itself. Hence, the supposition of a faculty, through which we know our cognitions, feelings, de- sires, and volitions, and without which we could not know them, excludes the very possibility of knowledge. We said above that knowing and knowing that we know are comprehended in one and the same indivisible act. But it may be asked whether the propositions, I know, and I know that I know, are not distinct, and express mental acts which are distinct? This is a fair question, and the answer will show more clearly the precise nature of an act of consciousness. What, then, is knowledge? In order to knowledge, there must be that which knows, and that which is knowablea subject and an object of knowledge. These are the necessary 180 JlamiUort8 lhifietaphy8ics. conditions of knowledge. But more is needed,the mind must bring the objects of knowledge within its own sphere, and it is only by this means that things knowable become things known. The act by which the mind brings any object within its sphere, is knowledge. And this is as far as ex- planation can go. What it is to bring an object within the sphere of the mind, or into relation to the mind, must be left to every one to learn for himself, as he finds it in his own ex- perience. Knowledge, in this view of it, has two character- istics which pertain to the present discussion. First, it is a simple, indivisible act. We have already said that the propo- sition, I know that I know, is a simple act. So, also, is the proposition, I know. We will illustrate both by an exam- ple. Thus, the proposition, I see the inkstand, although it is composed of three parts, 11 see the inkstand, and although the mind can attend to each one of these apart from the others, expresses still only one mental energy. For the act of seeing is not a general act; it occurs only as it occurs on some individual occasion, and with relation to an individual object, so that the seeing is the seeing the object, in this case, the inkstand. The proposition, I see the inkstand, in thought resolves into parts that which in the reality is indivisi- blein this case, the person seeing the inkstand, the person and the act he is performing being of course inseparable. Indeed, the office of thinking is to separate in thought the unities, the objects, which become known to the mind. The act of~ seeing the inkstand, thenthe knowledgeis a single indivi~ible act. What is true in this case is universally true. Secondly, knowledge is a relation. It is related to the mind which puts forth the act, and to the object which the act cognizesit is the intermediating act between subject and object. Relation is incapable ef definition, not, however, because it is difficult to be understood, but because it is so easy to be understood that there is nothing clearer by which to elucidate it. It always implies that which is referred, and that to which reference is made, and that which is referred may stand in relation to two or more objects of reference at the same time. In the present case, we can conceive of a 1860.1 Hamiltons Metaykysics. is mind as existing without action, and of an object as existing without being known by the mind. If now we conceive of the mind as putting forth an act cognizing that objectthe knowledge stands in a two-fold relation to the mind that knows, and to the object that is known. Now these two relations of the same act may be of very unequal importance at differ- ent times and on different occasions. If we question whether the act of seeing the object has been actually put forth, we askare you ~ure that you see the inkstand, and the reply is, I know that I see itI am conscious of seeing it. But, on the other hand, we may ask what is it you seeour minds may dwell on the object of sightand the reply is, I see the inkstand. And what is true in this case is true universally. Hence, we see that the propositions, I know, and I know that I know, while referring to the same act of knowledge, express different relations of that act. Now the doubt which draws attention to the pointare you sure that you are thinking, knowing, exerting energies as well as the doubt which suggests the inquiryare you sure that the act which you put forth actually cognizes an object and what that object isthese doubts are both philosophical. They have arisen from the process of investigation, and in the progress of inquiry it has been found convenient to have a name for knowledge in these relations of it. Every act of knowledge in respect to the certainty of the act, or the reality of that which is knownis an act of consciousness, and every act of conscionsness is an act of knowledge. Hence, con- sciousness is co-extensive with the totality of mental states and acts. Or, if we choose to regard it as a faculty, it is the mind itself asserting the certainty of its own acts, and th~ reality of its own knowledge. It is well known that Hamiltons doctrine of consciousness differs, at least in one important respect, from the doctrine of Reid aad Stewart. Reids view may be thus stated. We may discriminate in thought an act or state of mind from the ob- ject about which it is concerned. Now, Reid assigns to con- sciousness the office of knowing these acts and states, and to other faculties the office of knowing the objects of these states 182 Hamiltons Metctphysics. [Feb., and acts. Thus, he says, I am conscious of perception, but not of the object I perceive; I am conscious of memory, but not of the object I remember. This raises the important question, Can the mind be conscious of an act cognizant of an object, without being conscious of the object cognized? Can it be conscious of knowing, without knowing what it kuows? We have answered this in general in previous remarks. Knowledge is a simple, indivisible act. It exists only as it grasps an object. We cannot, therefore, be conscious of an act of knowledge, without at the same time knowing the object with respect to which that knowledge exists. Knowledge is a relation, the two terms of which are,the mind that knows, and the object known; and we cannot know one term of a relation, without at the same time knowing the other. Ham- ilton examines IReids views as applied to the several faculties. Reid says, We are conscious of the imagination of a Centaur but not of the Centaur imagined. But, says Hamilton, nothing can be more evident than that the object and the act of imagination are identical. Thus, the Centaur imagined and the act imagining it are one and indivisible. What is the act of imagining a Centaur but the Centaur imaged, or the image of the Centaur? What is the image of the Centaur, but the act of imagining it? The Centaur is both the object and the act of imagination; it is the same thing viewed in different relations. So, too, with regard to memory, iReid says that we are con- scious of the act of remembering, but not of the thing remem- bered. Memory, according to him, is an immediate knowledge of the past, while consciousness is an immediate knowledge of the present. Here there is immediate knowledge of which we are not conscious. Hamiltons reply brings out one of the most prominent distinctions in his philosophy,the distinction between immediate knowledge and mediate knowledge, or be- lief and inference. TIe first shows what immediate knowledge is, and then demonstrates that an immediate knowledge of the past is impossible. What, then, is immediate knowledge? For a thing to be known immediately, it must be known apart from the intervention or medium of anything else,must, therefore, be known in itself, in those qualities through which 1860.] Hamiltons illetapkysws. 183 it manifests its existence. But if it can be known immediately only as it is known in itself, then must it be actually in ex- istence and actually in immediate relation to our faculties of knowledge. It follows, of course, that there can be no un- mediate knowledge of the past, the idea of which itself ex- cludes the possibility of actual existence. Such is immediate knowledge in relation to the object known. how is it with respect to the cognitive act? Every act, and consequently every act of knowledge exists only as it now exists; and as it exists only in the now, it can be cognizant only of a now ex- istent object. The author then applies these remarks to the memory; and here we quote at length for the sake of the valuable truths which the quotation will set forth. Memory is an act,an act of knowledge; it can, therefore, be cognizant only of a now-existent object. But the object known in memory is, ex hypothesi, past; consequently, we are reduced to the dilemma, either of refusing a past ob- ject to be known in memory at all, or of admitting it to be only mediately known, in and through a present object. That the latter alternative is the true, it will re- quire a very few explanatory words to convince you. What are the contents of an act of memory? An act of memory is merely a present state of mind, which we are conscious of, not as absolute, but as relative to, and representing, another state of mind, and accompanied with the belief that the state of mind, as now represented, has actually been. I remember an event I saw,the landing of George IV at Leith. This remembrance is only a consciousness of certain imag- inations, involving the conviction that these imaginations now represent ideally what I formerly really experienced. All that is immediately known in the act of memory is the present mental modification; that is, the representation and con- comitant belief. Beyond this mental modification, we know nothing: and this mental modification is not only known to consciousness, but only exists in and by consciousness. Of any past object, real or ideal, the mind knows and can know nothing, for ex hypothesi, no such object now exists; or if it be said to know such an object, it can only be said to know it mediately, as represented in the present mental modification. Properly speaking, however, we know only the actual and present, and all real knowledge is an immediate knowledge. What is said to be mediately known, is, in truth, not known to be, but only believed to be; for its existence is only an inference resting on the belief, that the mental modification truly represents what is in itself beyond the sphere of knowledge. What is im- mediately known must be; for what is immediately known is supposed to be known as existing. The denial of the existence, and of the existence within the sphere of consciousness, involves, therefore, a denial of the immediate knowledge of an object. We may, accordingly, doubt the reality of any object of mediate knowl- edge, without denying the reality of the immediate knowledge on which the mediate knowledge rests. In memory, for instance, we cannot deny tho existence 184 HwrniUon8 illetaphy8ics. [Feb., of the present representation and belief, for their existence is the consciousness of their existence itself. To donbt their existence, therefore, is for us to doubt the existence of our consciousness. But as this doubt itself exists only through consciousness, it would, consequently, annihilate itself. But, though in memory we must admit the reality of the representation and belieg as facts of conscious- ness, we may doubt, we may deny, that the representation and belief are true. We may assert that they represent what never was, and that all beyond their pres- ent mental existence is a delusion. This, however, could not be the case if our knowledge of the past were immediate. So far, therefore, is memory from being an immediate knowledge of the past, that it is at best only a mediate knowledge of the past; while, in philosophical propriety, it is not a knowledge of the pest et all, but a knowledge of the present and a belief of the pest. But in whatever terms we may choose to designate the contents of memory, it is manifest that these contents are all within the sphere of consciousness. pp. 162, 153. Hamilton next considers IReids position, that in perception we are conscious of the act of perception, but not of the tiling perceived; and following the same strain of remark as just mentioned, comes to the conclusion that the consciousness of the act necessitates the consciousness of the object. But we can not follow tile discussion further. We sum up the whole case. Dr. Reid, in separating the acts of cognition from tile objects of cognition, and assigning our knowledge of the former to consciousness, and of the latter to other faculties, such as perception, memory, and imagination, has, in tIme first place, disjoined in philosophy what is one and inseparable in nature. For, in being conscious of an act, we are necessarily conscious of the object known in the act. Still, since we can separate in thought what is inseparable in reality, there could be no objection to sucil separation, provided the necessities of philosophical inquiry required it. But, in the secoild place, n.ot oniy is there no necessity for thus sundering tile unity of our cognitions, hut the procedure works great harm to the interests of a true philosophy. Questions as to the certainty of our knowledge could only arise from philo- sophical inquiry, and it was philosophy that, in answering tilese questions, brought out and marked the distinction between I know, and I know that I know. It did this to point out distinctly tile certainty of our knowledge, and for this purpose fixed upon the word the most expressive of certaintycon- sciousness. When we say we are conscious of knowing, we 1860.1 Hamiltons Nieta~physics. 185 mean we are sure of it. Now IReid, in signalizing the cer- tainty of onr acts of cognition, viewed merely as modifications of mind, by appropriating to them alone the faculty of con- sciousness, has thrown some doubt on the reality of the objects of knowledge. On the contrary, the doctrine of Hamilton gives assurance of the certainty of all our immediate knowl- edge, and that in accordance with the facts in the case. Let philosophy, then, start with this :The mind knows, has knowledge, and knows that it knows. The mind knows, and it is this knowledge, and this knowledge alone, which consti- tutes the materials of philosophy. It knows that it knows: it is sure of the reality of what it knows. The knowledge of which it is the author, is a real thing. Philosophy, in order to have an existence, must take its materials from the mind, and must rely upon the sole authority of the mind for the real- ity of that which it takes. Let consciousness stand for the mind viewed as putting forth acts of knowledge, and as authenticating those acts. Consciousness, then, in this sense, furnishes the facts with which philosophy has to do, and au- thenticates their reality, and it would be selfdestruction in philosophy to deny or doubt the testimony of consciousness. ifaving illustrated the natnre and office of consciousness, our author proceeds to lay down the laws which regulate the legitimacy of its applications. This is a new field of inquiry, and here, in our opinion, Hamilton has won some of his great- est triumphs. But, though the lectures these inves- tigations (the 15th and 16th) are among the most interesting in the volume, we are obliged to waive any further attention to them. having shown the laws and anthority of consciousness, our author illustrates the whole topic by examining three of the most general facts of consciousness. The first is the duality of consciousness, by which is meant the fact that in the sim- plest act of perception, I am conscious of myself as the per- ceiving subject, and of an external reality as the object per- ceived; (Lecture 16.) The second general fact is implied in the question, Are we always consciously active ? (Lect. 17,) and the third, in the qnestion, Is the mind ever unconsciously 186 Hamilton8 3fetaphysies. [Feb., modified ? (Lectures 18 and 19,) and with this our author con- cludes the general discussion of consciousness,a discussion, we venture to say, the most profound the subject has ever re- cei~edand here we are obliged to end our criticism. It so happened that we did not read the Article on Hamil- ton in the North British, till just as we had finished our own. We are led by some things in that Article to dwell for a mo- ment upon a distinction which Hamilton makes in knowledge, a distinction, the neglect of which alone gives plausibility to the charge of inconsistency which the critic brings against him. The distinction which we refer to, is the distinction between in~medictte and rn1ediate knowledge. An object, in order to be known immediately, must be known, as we have already said, in the phenomena by which its existence is manifested; but in order to be thus known, it must be in actual existence and must stand in immediate relation to the knowing mind, Op- posed to objects in actual existence and in immediate relation to the mind, are such objects as are removed in time or space from the sphere of the minds present activity.. Now, it is of the objects of the former class alone that we have immediate knowledge. It is of these objects alone that we are conscious. It is the consciousness of that which is in actual and immedi- ate relation to the mind, which constitutes immediate knowl- edge, and which alone, perhaps, should be called knowledge. But we may believe in the past; we may infer the absent and remote, though we are unCOn8CiOU8 of them. We may know, using the word know in a lower sense, that of which we are not conscious, through that of which we are conscious. Now, Hamilton inclines to hold, or perhaps we should say, does hold, that we know only the actual and present, and all real knowl- edge is an immediate knowledge. What is said to be medi- ately known is, in truth, not Jenowm to be, but only believed to be. We cannot forbear adding an illustration. I call up an image of the High Ohureh. Now, it is manifest that I am conseiozt~, or immediately cognizant of all that is known as an act or modification of my mind, and, consequently, of the modification or act which constitutes the mental image of the 1860.] Hamiltons ilfetaphysics. 187 cathedral. But, as in this operation it is evident that I am consetous, or immediately cognizant of the cathedral, as imaged in my mind; so it is equally manifest that I am not conscious, or immediately cognizant, of the cathedral, as existing. But still, I am said to know it; it is even called the object of my thought. I can, however, only know it mediatelyonly through the mental image which represents it to consciousness; and it can only be styled the object of thought, inasmuch as a refer- ence to it is necessarily involved in the act of representation. (See pp. 313317.) Hence, in his view, we are conscious, not of all that we may be said to know, but of that only of which we have immediate knowledge. The distinction between what we know, and what we believe and infer, is fundamental in Hamiltons philosophy, and, as we think, must be in all true philosophy; and he has carried it through his lectures with rigid accuracy of thought. It is a pity that the English lan- guage has no single words to distinguish knowledge in the highest sense from beliefs and inferences, but we have to use the combination of immediate and mediate knowl- edge. Of course the qualifying words are frequently omit- ted, but in general, Hamilton uses the words knowledge, and to know, in their highest sense. It is, also, to be re- gretted that Hamilton has not taken pains to express more decisively his opinion as to the trustworthiness and value of beliefs and inferences. It does not follow that because we have not immediate knowledge of objects, that the knowledge we do have is not to be trusted to and acted upon. And, it should be remembered, that while the distinction between knowledge, and belief or inference, is all-important in philoso- phy, it is not of course of equal importance in practice. Ham- ilton himself, in a letter to Mr. Henry Calderwood, written in 18~4, has pointed out this distinction. We quote: In gen- eral, I do not think you have taken sufficiently into account the following circumstances: 1st, that the Infinite which I contemplate is considered only as in thought; the Infinite be- yond thought being, it may be, an object of belieS but not of knowledge. 2d, That the sphere of our belief is much more extensive 188 HainiUon8 ilfetapliysics. [Feb., than the sphere of our knowledge; and therefore, when I deny that the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that by ns it is, must, and ought to be, believed. We turn now to the writer in the Koith British Review. In examining the question, whether we are always con- sciously active, Hamilton refers to somnambnlism, in which state there must be, he says, consciousness, and an exalted consciousness, and yet, on coming out of this condition, we have no remembrance of anything that occurred in it. We do not remember that of which we were conscious. Hence, says the critic, consciousness is possible without memory ; yet, Hamiltons doctrine is, that memory itself presupposes consciousness. I3nt it is not denied that the act of conscious- ness in the state of somnambulism is accompanied by memory as really as in the state of wakefulness. The assertion is, that the whole process, the act of consciousness with every thing connected with it, is forgotten. Following upon this doctrine of the unbroken conscous activity of mind, is the apparently contradictory doctrine, that mind exerts energies, and is the subject of modifications of neither of which is it conscious. But mental activity, of which we are conscious, does not exclude the possibility of energies and activities of which we are not conscious. But if not thus contradictory, the doctrine, according to the critic, is inconsistent with another and leading principle of ilainil- tons philosophy; namely, that consciousness comprehends all the modificationsall the phenomena, of the thinking sub- ject. This inconsistency on the surface of it is so patent that we may be sure a solution of the difficulty is not far to be sought. We are conscious of mental states viewed as mere phenomue~a. In case these states are about objects standing in immediate relation to the mind and in actual existence, we are also conscious of these objects. In case they are about objects removed in any way from the sphere of consciousness, we cannot be conscious of the objects themselves, hut only of the belief that they exist. Now, in regard to mental energies and states which do not come into cousciQusness, hut which for any reason we may believe to exist, we may use the same language; 1860.] HarniUon8 ]lLetapl48tcs. 189 we are not conscious of them as objects of belief, though we are of the belief itself. In other words, there are mental states out of the sphere of consciousness as really as within it, and we have only to suppose that in referring to the phenomena of consciousness, Hamilton did not think it necessary to point out this very obvious distinctIon. Whether his doctrine of latent states and agencies is true or not, is an other question; it certainly is not inconsistent with his other teachings. We have only a remark more. The writer in the Korth British IReview says, Were his pages adorned with the elo- quence of Cousin, or even the brilliancy of inferior philoso- phers, there would be little to desire,that is, in point of style. The admirable precision of tIme French philosophical style may perhaps endure the eloquence of Cousin, and bril- liancy may make up for an inferior philosophy in the view of those who care little for philosophy, but how any one who is capable of being benefited by such a philosophy as Hamilton has unfolded, should be dissatisfied with the absence of elo- quence and brilliancy from these lectum-es, is, to us, very re- markable. When we consider the vigorous and manly style in which they are written, and the choice passages which a varied scholarship has brought together from the greatest thinkers and writers of the world, we have hardly patience with the suggestion that they need to be adorned with the orna- ments of a brilliant rhetoric. 190 Prof. Hun tington8 Sermons. [Feb., ARTICLE VIII.PROFESSOR HUNTINGTONS NEW VOLUME OF SERMONS. ~hristian Believing and Living. SERMONS by F. D. HuNT- INGTON~ ~D. D. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1860. PP. 528. THE Christian public have already heard with pleasure of this second volume of Sermons from the pen of the University Preacher in Harvard College. Our readers, whether they have seen it as yet or not, are prepared to welcome it, and anticipate our commendations. It is a book which, as it falls from the press, falls into hands outstretched to receive it, and which will be sought for with avidity by diverse classes, and through communions the most unlike. It has a two-fold claim upon our attention. It belongs to that class of Sermons, which have done so much to redeem this department of litera- ture from the contempt into which it had fallen, and we are constrained to add, deservedly. Instead of being abstract dis- cussions, the outgrowth of artificial modes of thinking, address- ed to tastes as artificial, sermons bearing no marks of human authorship, and as suited to the ninth as to the nineteenth century, without father, without mother, without descent, they are, what all popular sermons are, and what we hold a Christian sermon ought to be, earnest utterances of the thought of the time, phases of life, discourses inseparable from the man who speaks, the people who hear, and the epoch in the unfold- ing kingdom of Christian truth, when just such thoughts and experiences mark the stage of human progress. A true ser- mon is a fact, not a speculation; the preacher himself believes and therefore speaks, and speaks what other men need and wait for, or in their blindness deny; and the sermon conse- quently has an historic meaning and place. The History of the christian Religion and Church might be traced back to the Apostles and the person of our Lord himself, by means of such facts, had they been preserved to us; not an event, essen- tial to an understanding of the development of the kingdom

190 Prof. Hun tington8 Sermons. [Feb., ARTICLE VIII.PROFESSOR HUNTINGTONS NEW VOLUME OF SERMONS. ~hristian Believing and Living. SERMONS by F. D. HuNT- INGTON~ ~D. D. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1860. PP. 528. THE Christian public have already heard with pleasure of this second volume of Sermons from the pen of the University Preacher in Harvard College. Our readers, whether they have seen it as yet or not, are prepared to welcome it, and anticipate our commendations. It is a book which, as it falls from the press, falls into hands outstretched to receive it, and which will be sought for with avidity by diverse classes, and through communions the most unlike. It has a two-fold claim upon our attention. It belongs to that class of Sermons, which have done so much to redeem this department of litera- ture from the contempt into which it had fallen, and we are constrained to add, deservedly. Instead of being abstract dis- cussions, the outgrowth of artificial modes of thinking, address- ed to tastes as artificial, sermons bearing no marks of human authorship, and as suited to the ninth as to the nineteenth century, without father, without mother, without descent, they are, what all popular sermons are, and what we hold a Christian sermon ought to be, earnest utterances of the thought of the time, phases of life, discourses inseparable from the man who speaks, the people who hear, and the epoch in the unfold- ing kingdom of Christian truth, when just such thoughts and experiences mark the stage of human progress. A true ser- mon is a fact, not a speculation; the preacher himself believes and therefore speaks, and speaks what other men need and wait for, or in their blindness deny; and the sermon conse- quently has an historic meaning and place. The History of the christian Religion and Church might be traced back to the Apostles and the person of our Lord himself, by means of such facts, had they been preserved to us; not an event, essen- tial to an understanding of the development of the kingdom 1860.11 Christian Believing and Living. 191 of God on earth, but would have a witness for itself in these utterances; they are the breathings of that life, which the Spirit of God has conducted through human hearts, and they have grown emphatic and eloquent by the attempt to suppress or control them. There is little matter of surprise, therefore, in the present popularity and permanent value of a good sermon; not that all popular sermons are good, any more than all notoriety is fame, not that we reverence the maxim vox populi, vox dei, as vulgarly interpreted; still we are disposed to acquiesce in the fate of sermons that fell still-born from the press; they did not so much die, as failed to be. The type of many an old fashioned New England sermon, is an ab- stract and often metaphysical discussion of some universal proposition, prefaced by just enough of exegesis to connect it with the text by way of inference or suggestion, similitude or contrast, and followed by applications so generic and vague, as to suggest the suspicion that the preacher spoke before duel- ists watching for personalities, or in fear of being served with process for libel. Whoever will take the pains to look through the old Election Sermons, in which the clergy of New England discoursed before the law makers, will observe in regard to most of them how little they contain of historic matter, or even allusion, how, with some marked exceptions, the preachers touched their hearers, or their times, at scarcely a single point of sensibility, even though they were speaking at the most interesting and important junctures of our colonial history, when were sown the seeds which are still bearing fruit in church and state, when legislatures and the people were alike occupied with discussing some organic principle of civil right or ecclesiastical order, and a living utterance from the pulpit would have been to us in our times, if not to them in theirs, like a light shining in a dark place. Souths sermons are not less interesting and full of life to-day, than they were when spoken two centuries ago; and as historical monuments they are increasingly valuable. The contrast between them and many sermons of that date, preached in New England, is most striking, even more so in respect of matter, than of style, and in the last respect it is hard to realize that the men spoke the 192 Prof. Huntingtons Sermons. same mother English, and were formed by the same authors. We are far from holding up South as a model in temper, or impartiality; we believe that our Puritan fathers, on both sides of the waters, were infinitely his superiors in Christian integ- rity and self-denying faithfulness to God and posterity. But as a sermonizer, he is to be honored even by those whom he misrepresented and who differ from him the most, for he preached as a living man to living men; his sermons need no prefixes of date, for they are inseparable from the times, with whose history they are identified. While South was preaching thus, and therefore preaches still, the New England minister was busying himself about Israel of old, and Egypt and the Wilderness of Sin, and applying the lessons of Gods eternal truth so obscurely to the Israel whom he led forth out of another house of bondage, and settled in a new land of prom- ise, that for us at this distance it is impossible to glean from those discourses when, or for what the preacher spoke, and dead as they are now in their antiqnarian sleep, we can scarcely believe they are any more so than when spoken. It was not so with the first generation of Puritan preach- ers; they were practical and home-thrusting men, history- makers, studying the word of God and proclaiming it for the express purpose of laying foundations in church and state. When Cotton, in the First Church, Boston, estab- lished any great truth out of the word of God, so earnest was his ministry, and so earnest the fbunders of that Christian commonwealth, that the truth, thus established, at once made its appearance in the legislation of the infant colony. But the intense life, in which New England began, was quickly follow- ed by formalism and death; no one can study our early annals without being struck with the differences between the first planters and the second generation, in culture, liberality, free- dom from prejudice, and thorough sincerity; the difference to say the least was equally great between the ministers. A dead scholasticism came in the place of a living ministry, and it has had a long reign; but it is, we trust, passing away, although we are not ignorant of the hold it still has upon our pulpits. There are many barrels of sermons now, well filled, nay, and turned over, from all of which it would be impossible to learn 1860.] chri8tiam Believing and Living. 193 whether the preacher were a married man, or bachelor, and preached to a sea-faring or agricultural people. We have heard of a venerable pastor, along the Sound, who met his people after one of those terrible steamboat disasters, which thrilled the country with horror, and although his own congre- oation came together bowed down in participation with the general distress, he neither alluded to it in sermon or prayer. l3ut such cases are rare now, and will be still rarer hereafter; we have indeed other besetments: we sometimes fear lest the pulpit be perverted from its sacred nses, and while degrading the public taste, be itself degraded and lose the respect which it retained notwithstanding its comparative powerlessness; our pulpits have come down architecturally nearer the pews, and sometimes morally below them, but we do not expect to see them, though made of marble, occupied again by a petri- fied minister. These remarks, however, have drawn us aside from our in- tended track of tbonght. Dr. Huntingtons sermons are vital and vitalizing, and like Bushnells and Robertsons, will ele- vate the character and increase the usefulness of the pulpit; and they have another attraction,to literary they add a theo- logical interest. Nay, and more than this, it is gtill theology in the concrete, historical and personal; it is the portraying of the process by which he has been led out of the Unitarian- ism of his early ministry into a distinct and positive Trinita- rianism. His previous publication, & r?non8 to the People, was indeed Evangelical in the strict sense of the term, and contained an emphatic declaration of belief in the Deity of Christ, and by its whole spirit counnended itself to general con- fidence and acceptance. But the present volume witnesses to a progress in the authors mind, by the freeness with which he adopts the phraseology of our orthodox standards and symbols. The word Trinity has not the merit of being a Scriptural one, and for a time Dr. Huntington refrained from using it, while he taught the doctrine substantially for which the word stood as a representative. He seems to have found himself constrained to accept the term out of loyalty to the truth it expessed. VOL. xviii. 13 194 Prof. fluntingtons Sermons. [Feb., The terni Trinity, he writes, is not applied to the doc- trine in the Bible; but is a definite and just description of what the Bible teaches; and there is no reason why it should not be adopted and used. It is sanctioned by the venerable and hallowed custom of Christian centuries, and of innumera- ble hosts of confessors, sages, and saints. There is an especial reason for using it, if from its omission the inference should be anywhere drawn that the truth itself, which the term conveys, is denied. Calvin said he was willing that the name Trinity should be buried and forgot, if only this could be the ac- cepted faith of all,that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each distinguished by a peculiar property, are one God. Equally willing ought we to be to take and assert that name, if thereby we may render to this acceptance of faith any more unam- biguous or unreserved honor.p. 357. The above is an extract from the twentieth sermon, around which the chief interest of tIme volume, theologically at least, gathers. It is founded upon our Lords words, Matt. xxviii, 19, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; and is entitled, Life, Salvation and Comfort for Man in the Divine Trinity. It is a precise statement of the or- thodox and church doctrine of the Holy Trinity; we know not where we can find a better; and it cannot fail to be accepta- ble and strengthening to all classes of believers in this central doctrine of the Evangelical system. We should hope it will also be considered with candor and kindness by those from whose faith he has separated himself and which he opposes, for the sermon is not more distinguished by the explicitness and emphasis of its Trinitarianism, than by the justice and charity it breathes toward the advocates of Unitarianism. We cite the following passage, as beautifully blending the affirma- tion of this cherished doctrine of the Christian Catholic Church, with an affectionate and tender spirit toward those who deny it. Let the solemn and tender spirit of that parting scene where the doctrine was announced with such august authority he given to our unworthy attempt to reaffirm it! It ought to he the last of all subjects to he handled in a hard, technical, jejune, or merely dogmatic treatment. Still less should the sharp, fierce temper of dialectical ambition or partisan controversy intrude to cmbittcr the Christian Believing and Livina. 195 discussion. How different might have been the result, for the interests of a true theology and an undefiled relic,ion, if; in their arguments and expostulations for their Masters divinity, believers had always remembered the gentleness of his example! May that Lord of perfect love breathe a better inflnence over the studies, reasonings, and persuasions of those who seek to behold and publish his glory! No apprehension, however clear or deep, of the great reality of the Three-in-one can justify a defense with the unhallowed weapons of pride, de- nunciation, or dogmatism. We must remember there is also a threefold unity of the complete human goodness, as of the being of our God, and that of this charity is the perfect bond. If we break it, earnestness may plead in extenua- tion for us, but it never expunnes the wrong. And with charity let us try to keep humility ;try to keep it the more, since one of the plainest offices of the special mystery of faith before us is to require and preserve this lowliness of the Christian mind. Where the arrogant, self-asserting intellect has to veil its face, presumption in jndgment may well lie stilL If in all the circle of sacred themes there is one where both the dryness of scholastic speculation and the acerbity of polemics should be laid aside, where the method should be spiritual, the tone devout, and all the thoughts penetrated and tempered with the fragancy of holy affections, it surely is this.* It may furnish an aid to this catholicity, as it certainly is an impressive testi- mony to the doctrine itself; that the Christian world has been so generally agreed in it. Truth is not determined by majorities; and yet it would be contrary to the laws of our constitution not to be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform, and sacred as that which is rendered by the common belief of Christian history and the Christian countries to the truth of the Trinity. There is something ex- tremely painful, not to say irreverent, towards the Providence which has watched and led the true Christian Israel, in presuming that a tenet so emphatically and gladly received in all the ages and regions of Christendom as almost literally to meet the terms of the test of Vincentius,believed always, every- where, and by all,tis unfounded in revelation and truth. Such a cOnclusion puts an aspect of uncertainty over the mind of the Church scarcely consistent with any tolerable confidence in that great promise of the Master, that he would be with his own all days. We travel abroad through these converted lands, over the round world. We enter, at the call of the Sabbath morning light, the place of assembled worshipers: let it be the newly-planted conventicle on the edge of the Western forest, or the missionary station at the extremity of the Eastern con- tinent; let it be the collection of northern mountaineers, or the dwellers in southern valleys; let it be in the plain village meeting-house, or in the magni- ficent cathedrals of the old cities; let it be the crowded congregation of the metropolis, or the two or three that meet in faith in upper chambers, or in log- huts, or under palm-trees; let it be groups in dark and by-way alleys, com- panies of rescued va rants, victims of persecution in caves of the rocks and hi- ding-places of the hills; let it be regenerate bands gathered to pray in any of the islands of the ocean, or thankful circles of believers confessing their dependence * So that we may rather experience the power of these mysteries of the Trinity in the heart than speak about them in lofty words. TwasraN. Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. 196 Prof. Hantingtons Sermoms. [Feb., and beseeching pardon on ships decks in the midst of the ocean. So we pass over the outstretched countries of both hemispheres it is well-nigh certain, so certain that the rare and scattered exceptions drop out of the broad and gen- eral conclusion,that the lowly petitions, the fervent supplications, the hearty confessions the eager thanksgivings, or the grand peals of choral adoration, which our ears shall hear will end in the uplifting ascription to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the one ever-living and almighty God of all the earth. This is the voice of the unhesitating praise that embraces and hallows the globe. Or we stand still, and look backward, to see what teaching it has been that has achieved all the great results that we glory in, as constitutina our Christian civilization; and we find that in simple, historical fact, this very doc- trine appears in immediate and significant connection with nearly all. It is this or at least that system of which this is a characteristic and inseparable element, which has reverently reared the majestic and humbler temples, has piled up the vast cruciform structures by the hands of generations which crumbled one after another as the slow toil proceeded, has written the ancient creeds and modern confessions, has prayed the earlier and later litanies, has sung the glories and misereres of exultant or penitent millions, has lifted the sweet hymns of East and West, has organized missions and sent forth their messengers, has called councils and subdued nations to the cross, has conserved the order and reformed the abuses of imperfect administrations, and has presided over the learning, the philosophy, and the poetry in the literature of the Christian centuries. Throughout all these diversities of sacred operation, this old and vital truth, reaffirmed, hardly questioned, if omitted soon resumed again, kept clear and confident, has wrought, has builded, has preserved. And then, if we enter into the private experiences, the griefs, and strifes, and sorrows of the unnumbered multitudes that have been born in pain, and died in the midst of tears, it is this truth which has kept its vigils by the weary processions of sufferers, and consoled them. All this is the undeniable report of facts. That there have been some, in different places, lim- i