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 Short studes on great sublects. 
 
 3 1924 024 887 949 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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SHOET STUDIES 
 
 r^EEAT SUBJECTS. 
 
 SECOND SEBIB8. 
 
PR 
 
 4706 
 
SHORT STUDIES 
 
 ox 
 
 GREAT SUBJECTS. 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FBOUDE, M. A. 
 
 I^TK FELLOW OF BXKTBB COLUBOB, OZrOBD. 
 
 SBCOtfD SSRISS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND CO., 
 
 1877. 
 
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 1937 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 All the Essays in Uiis volume have already been pub- 
 lished. Two were read at St. Aatiiew's before the students 
 of the University. One was delivered before a scientific 
 society at Plymouth. The paper on the Eastern Question 
 appeared in the "Westminster Review" in October, 1857. 
 The rest have been contributed at various times during the 
 last four years, to " Eraser's Magazine." 
 
 J. A. F. 
 
 May 1, 187L , 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 lASI 
 
 Calvinism 9 
 
 A Bishop op the Twelfth Century 54 
 
 Father Newman on " The Grammar op Assent " . . .86 
 
 CoSDiTION AND PROSPECTS OP PbOTESTAKTISM .... 122 
 
 England and her Colonies 149 
 
 A Fortnight in Kerry. Part. 1 178 
 
 Reciprocal Duties op State and Subject . . . .211 
 
 The Merchant and his Wipe 242 
 
 On Progress 245 
 
 The Colonies once moke 280 
 
 Education 313 
 
 A Fortnight ln Kerry. Part II 344 
 
 England's Wa9 382 
 
 The Eastern Questiojt 410 
 
 Scientific Method applied to Histobt . . • 446 
 
A: 
 
 CALVINISM: 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE STXIDENTS AT ST. ANDREWS, 
 
 March 17, 1871. 
 
 \ 
 
 Religious men, it is sometimes said, express themselves 
 in all m\»ods and all tenses except the present indicative. 
 They tellXus of things that were done in ancient times; 
 They teU \^s of things which will he hereafter, or which 
 might or w^ild have been under certain conditions. Of 
 the actual outward dispensation under which we live at pres- 
 ent, we hear vssry little. The facts of experience are not 
 suflSciently in h£te;mony with ■ the theories of different relig- 
 ious bodies to allow any sect or set of believers to appeal to 
 them with confidence. The age of miracles is past. The 
 world is supposed to go its own way, undisturbed by provi- 
 dential interferences, waiting for some final account to be 
 taken with it hereafter ; while the relations of the Creator 
 with his creatures are confined to special and invisible proc- 
 esses by which individual souls are saved from perdition. 
 
 Acknowledgments of this kind are no more than a tacit 
 confession of the inadequacy of our several opinions to ex- 
 plain the phenomena of our lives. Results which are unap- 
 parent may be unexistent except in imagination. There is 
 no reason to believe that the methods by which the laws of 
 physical nature have been discovered should be inapphca- 
 ble in matters of larger moment, or that the observation of 
 facts by which alone we arrive at scientific conclusions 
 should lead us wrong, or should lead to nothing when we 
 interrogate them on our moral condition. Piety, like wis- 
 dom, consists in the discovery of the rules under which we 
 are actually placed, and in faithfully obeying them. Fidel- 
 ity and insight in the one case are as likely to find their 
 1 
 
10 Oalvinism. 
 
 reward as in the other ; infidelity and blindness -as likely 
 to be answered by failure ; and, in other ages, systems of 
 religion have been vigorous and effective precisely to tl« 
 extent to which they have seen in the existing order of 
 things the hand of a living ruler. 
 
 I may say at once that I am about to travel over sei'ious 
 ground. I shall not trespass on theology, though 1 must 
 go near the frontiers of it. I shall give you the conclusions 
 which I have been led to form upon a series of spiritual 
 phenomena which have appeared successively in different 
 ages of the world,- — which have exercised the most re- 
 markable influence on the character and history of man- 
 kind, and have left their traces nowhere more distinctly 
 than in thia Scotland where we now stand. 
 
 Every one here present must have become famUiar in 
 late years with the change of tone throughout Europe and 
 America on the Bubjeet of Calvinism. After being ac- 
 cepted for two centuries in all Protestant countries as the 
 final account of the relations between man and his Maker, 
 it has come to be regarded by liberal thinkers as a systeitt 
 of belief incredible in itself, dishonoring to its object, and as 
 intolerable as it has been itself intolerant. The Catholics 
 whom it overthrew take courage from the philosophers, and 
 nssaU it on the same ground. To represent man as sent 
 into the world under a curse, as incurably wicked, — wicked 
 by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal de- 
 cree, — as doomed, unless exempted by special grace which 
 he cannot merit, or by any effort of his own obtain, to live 
 in sin while he remains on earth, and to be eternally misei^ 
 able when he leaves it, —to represent him as born unable 
 to keep the commandments, yet as justly liable to everlast- 
 ing punishment for breaking them, is alike repugnant to 
 reason and to conscien'Ce, and turns existence into a hideous 
 nightmare. To deny the freedom of the will is to- make 
 morality impossible. To tell men that they cannot help 
 themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair. 
 To what purpose the, effort to be virtuous when it is an 
 
Calvinism. 11 
 
 eflbrt which is foredoomed to fail, — when those that are 
 riaved are saved by no effort of their own, and confess them- 
 selves the worst of sinners, even when rescued from the 
 penalties of sin ; and those that are lost are lost by an ever- 
 lasting sentence decreed against them before they were 
 bora? How are we to caU the Ruler who laid us under 
 this iron code by the name of Wise, or Just, or Merciful, 
 when we ascribe principles of action to Him which in a hu- 
 man father we should call preposterous and monstrous ? 
 
 Tie discussion of (iiese strange questions has been pur- 
 Bued at all times with inevitable passion, and the crisis 
 uniformly has been a drawn battle. The Arminian has 
 entangled the Calvinist, the Calvinist has entangled the Ar- 
 minian, in a labyrinth of contradictions. The advocate of 
 free will appeals to conscience and instinct, — to an a priori 
 sense of what ought in equity to be. The necessitarian 
 fells back upon the experienced reality of facts. It is true, 
 and no argument can gainsay it, that men are placed in the 
 world unequally favored, both in inward disposition and out- 
 ward circumstances. Some children are born with tempera- 
 ments which make a life of innocence and purity natural and 
 easy to them ; others are born with violent passions, or even 
 with distinct tendencies to evil, inherited from their ances- 
 tors, and seemingly unconquerable, — some are constitu- 
 tionally brave, others are constitutionally cowards, — some 
 are born in religious families, and are carefully educated 
 and watched over ; oiiiers draw their first breath in an at- 
 mosphere of crime, and cease to inhale it only when they 
 pass into their graves. Only a fourth part of mankind are 
 bom Christians. The remainder never hear the name of 
 Christ except as a reproach. The Chinese and the Japanese 
 — we may almost say every weaker race with whom we have 
 come in contact — connect it only with the forced intrusion 
 of strangers whose behavior among them has served ill to 
 recommend their creed. These are facts which no casuistry 
 can explain away. And if we believe at aU that the world 
 is governed by a conscious and intelligent Being, we must 
 
12 Calvinism. 
 
 believe also, however we can reconcile it with cm own 
 ideas, that these anomalies have not arisen by acdden^, but 
 hare been ordered of purpose and design. 
 
 No less noticeable is it that th^ materialistic and the met- 
 aphysical philosophers deny as completely as Calvinism 
 what is popularly called Free WiU. Every effect has its 
 cause. In every action the will is determined by the mo- 
 tive which at the moment is operating most powerftdly 
 upon it. When we do wrong, we are led away by temp- 
 tation. K we overcome our temptation, we overcome it 
 either because we foresee inconvenient consequences, and 
 the certainty of fixture pains is stronger than the present 
 pleasure ; or else because we prefer right to wrong, and 
 our desire for good is greater than our desire for iadnl- 
 gence. It is impossible to conceive a man, when two 
 courses are open to him, choosing that which he least de- 
 sires. He may say that he can do what he dislikes because 
 it is his duty. Precisely so. His desire to do his duty is 
 a stronger motive with him than the attraction of present 
 pleasure. 
 
 Spinoza, from entirely different premises, came to the 
 same conclusion as Mr. MiQ or Mr. Buckle, and can find no 
 better account of the situation of man than in the illustra- 
 tion of St. Paul, " Hath not the potter power over the day, 
 to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor? " 
 
 If Arminianism most commends itself to our feelings, 
 Calvinism is nearer to the facts, however harsh and forbid- 
 ding those facts may seem. 
 
 I have no intention, however, of entangling myself or 
 you in these controversies. As little shall I consider 
 whether men have done wisely in attempting a doctrinal 
 solution of problems, the conditions of which are so imper- 
 fectly known. The moral system of the universe is like a 
 document written in alternate ciphers, which change from 
 line to line. We read a sentence, but at the next our key 
 Ms us ; we see that there is something written there) but 
 
Oalviniam. . 13 
 
 if we guess at it we are guessing in the dark. It seems 
 more faitkM, more becoming, in beings such as we are, to 
 rest in the conviction of our own inadequacy, and confine 
 ourselves to those moral rules for our lives and actions on 
 which, so far as they concern ourselves, we are left in no 
 uncertainty at all. 
 
 At present, at any rate, we are concerned with an aspect 
 of the matter entirely different. I am going to ask you to 
 consider how it came to pass that if Calvinism is indeed the 
 hard and unreasonable creed which modern enlightenment 
 declares it to be, it has possessed such singular attractions 
 in past times for some of the greatest men that ever lived ; 
 and how — being, as we are told, fetal to morality, because 
 it denies free will — the first symptom of its operation, 
 wherever it established itself, was to obliterate the distinc- 
 tion between sins and crimes, and to make the moral law 
 the rule of life for States as well as persons. I shall ask 
 you, again, why, if it be a creed of intellectual servitude, 
 it was able to inspire and sustain the bravest efforts ever 
 made by man to break the yoke of unjust authority. When 
 all else has failed, — when patriotism has covered its face, 
 and human courage has broken down, — when intellect has 
 yielded, as Gibbon says, " with a smile or a sigh," content 
 to philosophize in the closet, and abrqad worship with the 
 vulgar, — when emotion, and sentiment, and tender imagi- 
 native piety have become the handmaids of superstition, 
 and have dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there is 
 any difference between lies and truth, — the slavish form of 
 belief called Calvinism, in one or other of its many forms, 
 has borne ever an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, 
 and has preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint 
 than to bend before violence or melt under enervating temp- 
 tation. 
 
 It is enough to mention the name of William ,the Silent, 
 of Luther, — for on the points of which I am speaking 
 Luther was one with Calvin, — of your own Knox and 
 
14 Calvinism. 
 
 Andrew Melville and the Regent Murray, of CoUgny, of our 
 English Cromwell, of Milton, of John Bunyan. These 
 were men possessed of all the qualities which give nobility 
 and grandeur to human nature, — men whose life was as 
 upright as their intellect was commanding and their public 
 aims untainted with selfishness ; unalterably just where 
 duty required them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a 
 woman ia their hearts ; firank, true, cheerftd, humorous, as 
 unlike sour fenatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and 
 able in some way to sound the key-note to which every brave 
 and faithful heart in Europe instinctively vibrated. 
 
 This is the, problem. Grapes do not grow on bramble- 
 bushes. Illustrious natures do not form themselves upon 
 narrow and cruel theories. Spiritual life is fuU of apparent 
 paradoxes. "When St. Patrick preached the Gospel on 
 Tarah Hill to Leoghaire, the Irish king, the Druids and the 
 wise men of Ireland shook their heads. " Why," asked the 
 king, " does what the cleric preaches seem so dangerous to 
 you ? " " Because," was the remarkable answer, " because 
 he preaches repentance, and the law of repentance is such 
 that a man shall say, ' I may commit a thousand crimes, and 
 if I repent I shall be forgiven, and it will be no worse with 
 me : therefore I will continue to sin.' " The Druids ar- 
 gued logically, but they drew a false inference notwithstand- 
 ing. The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its 
 soundness. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the 
 uniform fruit of a particular mode of opinion, it is childish 
 to argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have 
 been different. 
 
 The question which I have proposed, however, admits of 
 a reasonable answer. I must ask you only to accompany 
 me on a somewhat wide circuit in search of it. 
 
 There seems, in the first place, to lie in all men, in pro- 
 portion to .the strength of their understanding, a conviction 
 that there is in all human things a real order and purpose, 
 notwithstanding the chaos in which at times they seem to be 
 
Calvinism. 15 
 
 involyed. Suffering scattered blindly without remedial pur. 
 pose or retributive propriety, — goad atd evil distributed 
 with the most absolute disregard of moral merit or demerit> 
 — enormous crimes perpetrated with impunity, or vengeance 
 when it comes falling not on the guilty, but the innocent,— 
 
 " Desert a beggar horn, 
 And needy nothing trimmed in jollity," — 
 
 these phenomena present, generation after geiieratioii, the 
 same perplexing and even maddening features ; and with* 
 out an illogical, but none the less a pqative certainty that 
 things are not as they seem, — -that, in gpite of appearance, 
 there is justice at the heart of them, and that, in the wqt\-> 
 ing out of the vast drama, justice will assert somehow and 
 somewhere its sovereign right and power, the bette? sort of 
 persons would find existence altogether unendurable, Thjsi 
 is what the Greeks meant by the 'AviyKti or destiny, which 
 at the bottom is no other than moral Providence, Prome' 
 theus chained on the rock is the counterpart of Job on his 
 dunghill. Torn with unrelaxing agony, the vulture with 
 beak and talons rending at his heart, the Titan still defies 
 the tyrant at whose command he suffers, and, strong in con» 
 scions innocence, appeals to the eternal Mojpa which wUl do 
 him right in the end. The Olympian gods were cruel, jeal- 
 ous, capricious, malignant; but beyond and above the 
 Olympian gods lay the silent, brooding, everlasting fate of 
 which victim and tyrant were alike the instruments, and 
 which at last, far off, after ages of misery it might be, but 
 still before aU was over, would vindicate the sovereignty of 
 justice. Full as it may be of contradictions and perplexi-! 
 ties, this obscure belief lies at the very core of our spiritual 
 nature, and it is called fete, or it is called predestination, aC' 
 cording as it is regarded pantheistically as a necessary con- 
 dition of the universe or as the decree of a self-conscious 
 being. 
 
 Intimately connected with this belief, aad perhaps thei 
 
16 Calvinism. 
 
 fact of which it is the inadequate expression, is the existence 
 in nature of omnipresent organic laws, penetrating the ma- 
 terial world, penetrating the moral world of human life and 
 society, which insist on being obeyed in aU that we do and 
 handle, — which we cannot alter, cannot modify, — which 
 will go with us, and assist and befriend us, if we recognize 
 and comply with them, — which inexorably make them- 
 selves felt in fiiilure and disaster if we neglect or attempt to 
 thwart them. Search where we wiU among created things, 
 far as the microscope will allow the eye to pierce, we find 
 organization everywhere. Large forms resolve themselves 
 into parts, but these parts are but organized out of other 
 parts, down so far as we can see into infinity. When the 
 plant meets with the conditions which agree with it, it 
 thrives ; under unhealthy conditions, it is poisoned and disin- 
 tegrates. It is the same precisely with each one of ourselves, 
 whether as individuals or as aggregated into associations, 
 into families, into nations, into institutions. The remotest 
 fibre of human action, from the policy of empires to the 
 most insignificant trifle over which we waste an idle hour or 
 moment, either moves in harmony with the true law of our 
 being, or is else at discord with it A king or a parliament 
 enacts a law, and we imagine we are creating some new 
 regulation, to encounter unprecedented circumstances. The 
 law itself which applied to these circumstances was enacted 
 from eternity. It has its existence independent of us, and 
 will enforce itself either to reward or punish, as the attitude 
 which we assume towards it is wise or unwise. Oui human 
 laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the 
 eternal laws so far as we can read them, and either succeed 
 and promote our welfare, or fail and bring confusion and 
 disaster, according as the legislator's insight has detected the 
 true principle, or has been distorted by ignorance or self- 
 ishness. 
 
 And these laws are absolute, inflexible, irreversible ; the 
 steady friends of the wise and good, the eternal enemies of 
 
Calvinism. 17 
 
 tbe blockhead and the knave. No Pope can disi>ense with a 
 statute enrolled in the Chancery of Heaven, or popular vote 
 repeal it. The discipline is a stern one, and many a wild 
 endeavor men have made to obtain less hard conditions, or 
 imagme them other than they are. They have conceived 
 the rule of the Almighty to be like the rule of one of them- 
 selves. They have fancied that they could bribe or appease 
 Him, — tempt Him by penance or pious oifering to suspend 
 or turn aside his displeasure. They are asking that his 
 own eternal nature shall become other than it is. One thing 
 only they can do. They for themselves, by changing their 
 ' own courses, can make the law which they have broken 
 thenceforward their friend. Their dispositions and nature 
 will revive and become healthy again when they are no 
 longer in opposition to the will of their Maker, i This is the 
 natural action of what we call repentance. But the pen- 
 alties of the wrongs of the past remain unrepealed. As men 
 have sown they must still reap. The profligate who has 
 ruined his health or fortune may learn before he dies that 
 he has lived as a fool,' and may recover something of his 
 peace of mind as he recovers his understanding ; but no 
 miracle takes away his paralysis, or gives back to his chil- 
 dren the bread of which he has robbed them. He may 
 himself be pardoned, but the consequences of his acts 
 remain. 
 
 Once more: and it is the most awful feature of our 
 condition. The laws of nature are general, and are no re- 
 specters of persons. There has been and there still is a 
 clinging impression that the sufferings of men are the results 
 of their own particular misdeeds, and that no one is or can 
 be punished for the faults of others. I shall not dispute 
 about the word " punishment." " The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes," said the Jewish proverb, " and the children's teeth 
 are set on edge." So said Jewish experience, and Ezekiel 
 answered that these words should no longer be used among 
 them. " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Yes, there is a 
 2 
 
18 Calvinism. 
 
 promise that the soul shall be saved, there is no such prom- 
 ise for the body. Every man is the architect of his own 
 character ; and if to the extent of his opportunities he has 
 lived purely, nobly, and uprightly, the misfortunes v^hich 
 may fall on him through the crimes or errors of other men 
 cannot injure the immortal part of him. But it is no less 
 true that we are made dependent one upon another to a 
 degree which can hardly be exaggerated. The winds and 
 waves are on the side of the best navigator, — the seamsm 
 who best understands them. Place a fool at the helm, and 
 crew and passengers will perish, be they ever so innocent. 
 The Tower of Siloam fell, not for any sins of the eighteen 
 who were crushed by it, but through bad mortar probably, 
 the rotting of a beam, or the uneven setting of the founda- 
 tions. The persons who should have suffered, according to 
 our notion of distributive justice, were the ignorant archi- 
 tects or masons who had done their work amiss. But the 
 guilty had perhaps long been turned to dust. And the law 
 of gravity brought the tower down at its own time, indiffer- 
 ent to the persons who might be under it. 
 
 Now the feature which distinguishes man from other an- 
 imals is that he is able to observe and discover these laws 
 which are of such mighty moment to him, and direct his 
 conduct in conformity with them. The more subtle may 
 be revealed only by complicated experience. The plainer 
 and more obvious — among those especially which are 
 called moral — have been apprehended among the higher 
 races easily and readily. I shall not ask how the knowl- 
 edge of them has been obtained, whether by external reve- 
 lation, or by natural insight, or by some other influence 
 working through human faculties. The fact is all that we 
 are concerned with, that from the earliest times of wliich we 
 have historical knowledge there have always been men who 
 have recognized the distinction between the nobler and baser 
 parts of their being. They have perceived that if they 
 would be men, and not beasts, they must control their ani 
 
Oaloinism. 19 
 
 mal passions, prefer truth to falsehood, courage to coward- 
 ice, justice to violence, and compassion to cruelty. These 
 are the elementary principles of morality, on the recogni- 
 tion of which the welfare and improvement of mankind de- 
 pend, and human history has been little more than a record 
 of the struggle which began at the beginning find will con- 
 tinue to the end between the few who have had ability to 
 see into the truth and loyalty to obey it, and the multitude 
 who by evasion or rebellion have hoped to thrive in spite ' 
 of it. 
 
 Thus we see that in the better sort of men there are two 
 elementary convictions i that there is over all things an un- 
 sleeping, inflexible, all-ordering, just power, and that this 
 power governs the world ty laws which can be seen in their 
 effects, and on the obedience to which, and on nothing else, 
 human welfare depends. 
 
 And now I will suppose some one whose tendencies are 
 naturally healthy, though as yet no special occasion shall 
 have roused him to serious thought, growing up in a civil- 
 ized community where, as usually happens, a compromise 
 has been struck between vice and virtue, where a certain 
 difference between right and wrong is recognized decently 
 on the surface, while b^ow it one half of the people are 
 rushing steadily after the thing called pleasure,' and the 
 other half laboring in drudgery to provide the means of it 
 for the idle. 
 
 Of practical justice in such a community there will be 
 exceedingly little, but as society cannot go along at all 
 without paying morality some outward homage, there will 
 of course be an established religion, — an Olympus, a Val- 
 halla, or some system of a theogony or theology, with tem- 
 ples, priests, liturgies, public confessions in one form or 
 another of the dependence of the things we see upon what 
 is not seen, with certain ideas of duty and penalties imposed 
 for neglect of it. These there will be, and also, as obedi- 
 ence is disagreeable and requires abstinence from various 
 
20 Calvinism. 
 
 indulgences, there 'will be contrivances by which the indul- 
 gences can be secured and no harm come of it. By the side 
 of the moral law there grows up a law of ceremonial observ- 
 ance, to which is attached a notion of superior sanctity and 
 especial obligation. Morality, though not at first disowned, 
 is slighted as. comparatively trivial. Duty in the high sense 
 comes to mean religious duty, that, is to say, the attentive 
 observance of certain forms and ceremonies, and these forms 
 and ceremonies come into collision little or not at all with 
 ordinary life, and ultimately have a tendency to resolve 
 themselves into payments of money. 
 
 Thus rises what is called idolatry. I do not mean by 
 idolatry the mere worship of manufactured images. I mean 
 the separation between practical obligation, and new moons 
 and sabbaths, outward acts of devotion, or formulas of par- 
 ticular opinions. It is a state of things perpetually recur- 
 ring ; for'there is nothing, if it would only act, more agree- 
 able to all parties concerned. Priests find their office 
 magnified and their consequence increased. Laymen can be 
 in favor with God and man, so priests teU them, while their 
 enjoyments or occupations are in no way interfered with. 
 The mischief is that th'e laws of nature remain meanwhile 
 unsuspended ; and all the functions of society become poi- 
 soned through neglect of them. Eeligion, which ought to 
 have been a restraint, becomes a fresh instrument of evil, — 
 to the imaginative and the weak a contemptible superstition, 
 to the educated a mockery, to knaves and hypocrites a doak 
 of iniquity, to all alike — to those who suffer and those who 
 seem to profit by it — a lie so palpable as to be worse than 
 atheism itself. 
 
 There comes a time when all this has to end. The over- 
 indulgence of the few is the over-penury of the many. In- 
 justice begets misery, and misery resentment. Something 
 happens perhaps, — some unusual oppression, or some act 
 of religious mendacity especially glaj-ing. Such a person as 
 I- am supposing asks himself, " What is the meaning of those 
 
Calvinism. 21 
 
 things ? " His eyes are opened. Gradually he discoverg 
 that he is living surrounded with falsehood, drinking lies 
 like water, his conscience polluted, his intellect degraded by 
 the abominations which envelop his existence. At first per- 
 haps he will feel most keenly for himself. He will not sup- 
 pose that he can set to rights a world that is out of joint, 
 but he will himself relinquish his share in what he detests 
 and despises. He withdraws into himself. If what others 
 are doing and saying is obviously wrong, then he has to ask 
 himself what is right, and what is the true purpose of his 
 exif tence. Light breaks more clearly on him. He becomes 
 conscious of impulses towards something purer and higher 
 than he has yet experienced or even imagined. Whence 
 these impulses come he cannot tell. He is too keenly aware 
 of the selfish and cowardly thoughts which rise up to mar 
 and thwart his nobler aspirations to believe that they can 
 possibly be his own. If he conquers his baser nature, he 
 feels'that he is conquering himself. The conqueror and the 
 conquered cannot be the same ; and he therefore concludes, 
 not in vanity, but in profound humiliation and self-abase- 
 ment, that the infinite grace of God and nothing else is res- 
 cuing him from destruction. He is «onverted, as the theo- 
 logians say. He sets his face upon another road from that 
 which he has hitherto travelled, and to which he can never 
 return. It has been no merit of his own. His disposition 
 wUl rather be to exaggerate his own worthlessness, that he 
 may exalt the more what has been done for him, and he 
 resolves thenceforward to enlist himself as a soldier on the 
 side of truth and right, and to have no wislies, no desires, 
 no opinions but what the service of his Master imposes. 
 Like a soldier he abandons his freedom, desiring only like 
 a soldier to act and speak no longer as of himself, but as 
 commissioned from some supreme authority. In such a 
 condition a man becomes magnetic. There are epidemics 
 of nobleness as well as epidemics of disease ; and he infects 
 others with his own enthusiasm. Even in the most corrupt 
 
22 Calvinism. 
 
 ages there are always more persons than we suppose who in 
 their hearts rebel against the prevailing fashions ; one takes 
 courage from another, one supports another ; communities 
 form themselves with higher principles of action and purer 
 intellectual beliefs. As their numbers multiply tliey catch 
 fire with a common idea and a common indignation, and 
 ultimately burst out into open war with the lies and Iniqui- 
 ties that surround them. 
 
 I have been describing a natural process which has re- 
 peated itself many times in human history, and, unless the 
 old opinion that we are more than animated clay, and that 
 our nature has nobler affinities, dies away into a dream, 
 will repeat itself at recurring intervals, so long as our race 
 survives upon the planet, 
 
 I have told you generally what I conceive to be our real 
 position, and the administration under which we live ; and 
 I have indicated how naturally the conviction of the truth 
 would tend to express itself in the moral formulas of 'Cal- 
 vinism. I will now run briefly over the most remarkable 
 of the great historical movements to which I have alluded ; 
 and you will see, in the striking recurrepce of the same pe- 
 culiar mode of thought -and action, an evidence that, if not 
 coinpletely accurate, it must possess some near and close 
 affinity with the real fact. I will take first the example with 
 which we are all most familiar, — that of the chosen people. 
 I must again remind you that I am not talking of theology. 
 I say nothing of what is called technically revelation. I am 
 treating these matters as phenomena of human experience, 
 the lessons of which would be identically the same if no 
 revelation existed. 
 
 The discovery of the key to the hieroglyphics, the exca- 
 vations in the tombs, the investigations carried on by a 
 series of careful, inquirers, from Belzoni to Lepsius, into 
 the antiquities of the Valley of the Nile, interpreting and in 
 turn interpreted by Manetho and Herodotus, have thrown 
 a light in many respects singularly clear upon the condition 
 
Calvinism. 23 
 
 of the first country which, so far as history can tell, suc- 
 ceeded in achieving a state of high civilization. From a 
 period the remoteness of which it is unsafe to conjecture 
 there had been established in Egypt an elaborate and splen- 
 did empire, which, though it had not escaped revolutions, 
 had suffered none which had caused organic changes there. 
 It had strength, wealth, power, coherence, a vigorous mon- 
 archy, dominant and exclusive castes of nobles and priests, 
 and a proletariat of slaves. Its cities, temples, and monu- 
 ments are stUl, in their ruin, the admiration of engineers 
 and the despair of architects. Original intellectual concep- 
 tions inspired its public buildings. Saved by situation, like 
 China, from the intrusion of barbarians, it developed at 
 leisure its own ideas, undisturbed from without ; and when 
 it becomes historically visible to us, it was in the zenith of 
 its glory. The habits of the higher classes were elaborately 
 luxurious, and the vanity and the self-indulgence of the few 
 were made possible — as it is and always must be where 
 vanity and self-indulgence exist — by the oppression and 
 misery of the millions. You can see on the sides of the 
 tombs — for their pride and their pomp followed them even 
 in their graves — the effeminate patrician of the court of 
 the Pharaohs reclining in his gilded gondola, the attendant 
 eunuch waiting upon him with the goblet or plate of fruit, 
 the bevies of languishing damsels fluttering round him 
 in their transparent draperies. Shakespeare's Cleopatra 
 might have sat for the portrait of the Potiphar's wife who 
 tried the virtue of the son of Jacob : — 
 
 " The barge she sate in, like a burnished throne, 
 Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
 The winds were love-sick with them. . . . 
 
 p"or her own person. 
 It beggared all description: fhe did lie 
 In her pavilion — clolh-of-gold of tissue — 
 O'cr-picturing that Venus where wa see 
 , The fancy out-work nature : on each side her 
 
 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
 
24 Calvinism. 
 
 1 With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem 
 
 To glow the delicate cheeki which they did cool. 
 And what they did, undid." 
 
 By the side of all this there was a no- less elaborate relig- 
 ion, — an ecclesiastical hierarchy, — powerful as the saasr- 
 dotalism of Medioeval Europe, with a creed in the middle of 
 it which was a complicated idolatry of the physical forces. 
 
 There are at bottom but two possible religions, — that 
 which rises in the moral nature of man, and which take's 
 shape in moral commandments, and that which grows out 
 of the observation of the material energies which operate 
 in the external universe. The sun at all times has been 
 the central object of this material reverence. The sun was 
 the parent of light ; the sun was the lord of the sky and the 
 lord of the seasons ; at the sun's bidding the earth brought 
 forth her harvests and ripened them to maturity. The suu, 
 too, was beneficent to the good and to the evil, and, like the 
 laws of political economy, drew no harsh distinctions be- 
 tween one person and another. It demanded only that cer- 
 tain work should be done, and smiled equally on the crops 
 of the slave-driver and the garden of the innocent peasant. 
 The moon, when the sun sunk to his night's rest, reigned 
 as his vicegerent, the queen of the revolving heavens, and 
 in her waxing and waning and singular movement among 
 the stars was the perpetual occasion of admiring and ador- 
 ing curiosity. Nature in all her forms was wonderful ; 
 Nature in her beneficent forms was to be loved and wor- 
 shipped ; and being, as Nature is, indifferent to morality, 
 bestowing prosperity on principles which make no demands 
 on chastity or equity, she is, in one form or other, the 
 divinity on whose shrine in all ages the favored sections of 
 Bociety have always gladly paid their homage. Wliere 
 NatiH'e is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self- 
 denial. The object of life is the pursuit of wealth and tlie 
 pleasures which wealth can purchase ; and the rules for our 
 practical guidance are tlie laws, as the economists say, by 
 which wealth can be acquired. 
 
Calvinism. 25 
 
 It IS an excellent creed for those who have the happiness 
 to profit by it, and will have its followers to the end of time. 
 In these later ages it connects itself with the natural sci- 
 ences, progress of the intellect, specious shadows of all kinds 
 whi«h will not interfere with its supreme management of 
 political arrangements. In Egypt, where knowledge was 
 in its rudiments, every natural force, the minutest plant or 
 animal, which influenced human fortunes for good or evU, 
 came in for a niche in the shrine of the temples of the sun 
 and moon. Snakes and crocodiles, dogs, cats, cranes, and 
 beetles were propitiated by sacrifices, by labored ceremoni- 
 als of' laudation ; nothing living was too mean to find a 
 place in the omnivorous devotionalism of the Egyptian 
 dergy. We, in these days, proud as we may be of our intel- 
 lectual advances, need not ridicule popular credulity. Even 
 here in Scotland, not so long ago, wretched old women 
 were supposed to run about the country in the shape of 
 hares. At this very hour the ablest of living natural phi- 
 losophers is looking gravely to the courtships of moths and 
 butterflies to solve the problem of the origin of man, and 
 prove his descent from an African baboon. 
 
 There was, however, in ancient Egypt another article of 
 faith besides nature-worship of transcendent moment, — a 
 belief which had probably descended from earlier and purer 
 ages, and had then originated in the minds of sincere and 
 earnest men, — as a solution of the real problem of human- 
 ity. The inscriptions and paintings in the tombs near 
 Thebes make it perfectly clear that the Egyptians looked 
 forward to a futuce state, — to the judgment-bar of Osiris, 
 where they would each one day stand to give account for 
 their actions. They believed as clearly as we do, and with ' 
 a conviction of a very similar kind, that those who had done 
 good would go to everlasting life, and those who had done 
 evil into eternal perdition. 
 
 Such a belief, if coupled with an accurate perception of 
 vrhat good and evil mean, — with a distinct certainty that 
 
26 Calvinism. 
 
 men will be tried by the moral law, before a perfectly just 
 judge- and tha't no subterfuges will avail, — cannot but exer- 
 cise a most profound and most tremendous influence upon 
 human conduct. And yet our own experience, if nothing 
 else, proves that this belief, when moulded into trsiditional 
 and conventional shapes, may lose its practical power ; nay, 
 without ceasing to be professed, and even sincerely held, 
 may become more mischievous than salutary. And this is 
 owing to the fatal distinction of which I spoke just now, 
 which seems to have an irresistible tendency to shape itself, 
 in civilized societies, between religious and moral duties. 
 With the help of this distinction it becomes possible for a 
 man, as long as he avoids gross sins, to neglect every one 
 of jjis positive obligations, — to be careless, selfish, unscru- 
 pulous, indifferent to everything but his own pleasures, — 
 and to imagine all the time that his condition is perfectly 
 satisfactory, and that he can look forward to what is before 
 him without the slightest uneasiness. All accounts repre- 
 sent the Egyptians as an eminently religious people. No 
 profanity was tolerated there, no skepticism, no insolent dis- 
 obedience to the established priesthood. If a doubt ever 
 crossed the mind of some licentious philosopher as to the 
 entire sacredness of the stainless Apis, if ever a question 
 forced itself on him whether the Lord of heaven and earth 
 could really be incarnated in the stupidest of created beasts, 
 he kept his counsels to himself, if he was not shocked at his 
 own impiety. The priests, who professed supernatural pow- 
 ers, — the priests, who were in communication with the 
 gods themselves, — they possessed the keys of the sacred 
 . mysteries, and what was Philosophy that it should lift its 
 voice against them ? The word of the priest — nine parts 
 
 a charlatan, and one part, perhaps, himself imposed on 
 
 was absolute. He knew the counsels of Osiris, he knew 
 that the question which would be asked at the dread tribu- 
 nal was not whether a man had been just, and true, and 
 merciful, but whether he had believed what he was told to 
 
Calvinism. 27 
 
 believe, and had duly paid the fees to the temple. And so 
 the world went its way, controlled by no dread of retribu- 
 tion ; and on the tomb-frescoes you can see legions of slaves 
 under the lash dragging from the quarries the blocks of 
 granite which were to form the eternal monuments of the 
 Pharaohs' tyranny ; and you read in the earliest authentic 
 history that when there was a fear that the slave-races 
 should multiply so fast as to be dangerous, their babies were 
 flung to the crocodiles. 
 
 One of these slavcrraces rose .at last in revolt. Noticea- 
 bly it did not rise against oppression as such, or directly in 
 consequence of oppression. We hear of no massacre of 
 slave-drivers, no burning of towns or villages, none of the 
 usual accompaniments of peasant insurrections. If Egypt 
 was plagued, it was not by mutinous mobs or incendiaries. 
 Half a million men simply rose up and declared that they 
 could endure no longer the mendacity, the hypocrisy, the 
 vile and incredible rubbish which was offered to them in 
 the sacred name of religion. " Let us go," they said, " into 
 the wilderness, go out of these soft water-meadows and corn- 
 fields, forsake our leeks and our flesh-pots, and take in 
 exchange a life of hardship and wandering, ' that we may 
 worship the God of our fathers.' " Their leader had been 
 trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and among the 
 rocks of Sinai had learnt that it was wind and vanity. 
 The half-obscured traditions of his ancestors awoke to life 
 again, and were rekindled by him in his people. They 
 would bear with lies no longer. They shook the dust of 
 Egypt from their feet, and the prate and falsehood of it from 
 their souls, and they withdrew, with all belonging to them, 
 into the Arabian desert, that they might no longer serve 
 cats, and dogs, and bulls, and beetles, but the Eternal Spirit- 
 who had been pleased to make his existence known to 
 them. They sung no paeans of liberty. They were deliv- 
 ered from the house of bondage, but it was the bondage of 
 mendacity, and they left it only to assume another service. 
 
28 Calvinism. 
 
 The Eternal had taken pity on them. In revealing his tnie 
 nature to them, He had taken them for his children. They 
 we?e not their own, but his, and they laid their lives under 
 commandments which were as close a copy as, with tho 
 knowledge which they possessed, they could make, to the 
 moral laws of the Maker of the .universe. In essentials the 
 Book of the Law was a covenant of practical justice. Re- 
 wards and punishments were alike immediate, both to each 
 separate person and to the collective nation. Retribution 
 in a life to come was dropped out of sight, not denied, but 
 not insisted on. The belief in it had been corrupted to evil, 
 and rather enervated than encouraged the efforts after pres- 
 ent equity. Every man was to reap as he had sown, — 
 here, in the immediate world, — to live under his own vine 
 ancl fig-tree, and thrive or suffer according to his actual de- 
 serts. Religion was not a thing of past or fixture, an account 
 of things that had been, or of things which one day would 
 be again. God was the actual living ruler of real every-day 
 life ; nature-worship was swept away, and in the warmth 
 and passion of conviction they became, as I said, the soldiers 
 of a purer creed. In Palestine, where they found idolatry 
 m a form yet fouler and more cruel than what they had left 
 behind them, they trampled it out as if in inspired abomi- 
 nation of a system of which the fruits were so detestable. 
 They were not perfect, — very far from perfect. An army 
 at best is made of mixed materials, and war, of all ways of 
 making wrong into right, is the harshest ; but they were 
 directed by a noble purpose, and they have left; a mark 
 never to be effaced in the history of the human race. 
 
 The fire died away. " The Israelites," we are told, " min- 
 gled among the heathen and learned their works." Tliey 
 tseased to be missionaries. They hardly and fitfully pre- 
 served the records of the meaning of their own exodus. Eic^ht 
 hundred years Went by, and the flame rekindled in another 
 country. Cities more splendid even than the hundred-gated 
 Thebes itself had risen on the banks of the Euphrates. 
 
Calvinism. 29 
 
 Grand military empires had been founded on war and con- 
 quest. Peace had followed when no enemies were left to 
 conquer ; and with peace had come philosophy, science, 
 agricultural enterprise, magnificent engineering works for 
 the draining and irrigation of the Mesopotamian plains. 
 Temples and palaces towered into the sky. The pomp and 
 luxury of Asia rivaled, and even surpassed, the glories of 
 Egypt ; and by the side of it a second nature-worship, 
 which, if less elaborately absurd, was more deeply detest- 
 able. The foulest vices were consecrated to the service of 
 the gods, and the holiest ceremonies were inoculated with 
 impurity and sensuality. 
 
 The seventh century before the Christian era was distin- 
 guished over the whole East by extraordinary religious 
 revolutions. With the most remarkable of these, that which 
 bears the name of Buddha, I am not hei'e concerned. " 
 Buddhism has been the creed for more than two thousand 
 years of half the human race, but it left unaffected our 
 own western world, and therefore I here pass it by. . 
 
 Simultaneously with Buddha, there appeared another 
 teacher, Zerdusht, or, as the Greeks called him, Zoroaster, 
 among the hardy tribes of the Persian mountains. He 
 taught a creed which, like that of the Israelites, was es- 
 sentially moral and extremely simple. Nature-worship, as 
 I said, knew nothing of morality. When the objects of 
 natural idolatry became personified, and physical phenom- 
 ena were metamorphosed into allegorical mythology, the 
 indifference to morality which was obvious in nature became 
 ascribed, as a matter of course, to gods which were but 
 nature in a personal disguise. Zoroaster, like Moses, saw 
 behind the physical forces into the deeper laws of right and 
 wrong. He supposed himself to discover two antagonist 
 powers contending in the heart of man as well as in the out- 
 ward universe, — a spirit of light and a spirit of darkness, 
 a spirit of truth and a spirit of falsehood, a spirit life-giving 
 and beautiful, a spirit poisonous and deadly. To oue or other 
 
30 Calvinism. 
 
 of these powers man was necessarily in servitude. As tna 
 follower of Ormuzd, he became enrolled in the celestial 
 armies, whose business was to fight against sin and misery, 
 against wrong-doing and impurity, against injustice and lies 
 and baseness of all sorts and kinds ; and every one with a 
 soul in him to prefer good to evil was summoned to the 
 holy wars, which would end at last after ages in the final 
 overthrow of Ahriman. 
 
 The Persians caught rapidly Zoroaster's spirit. Uncor- 
 rupted by luxury, they responded eagerly to a voice which 
 they recognized as speaking truth- to them. They have 
 been called the Puritans of the Old World. Never any 
 people, it is said, hated idolatry as they hated it, and for 
 the simple reason that they hated lies. A Persian lad, 
 Herodotus tells us, was educated in three especial accom- 
 plishments. He was taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak 
 the truth, — that is to say, he was brought up to be brave, 
 active, valiant, and upright. When a man speaks the truth, 
 you may count pretty surely that he possesses most other 
 virtues. Half the vices in the world rise out of cowardice, 
 and one who is afraid of lying is usually afraid of nothing 
 else. Speech is an article of trade in which we are all 
 dealers, and the one beyond all others where we are most 
 bound to provide honest wares : — 
 
 iX^poi fioi Kaxsivos 6/iC3( 'ktdao nv^diaiv 
 
 ic \9' Irspov fiEV keuiJj ivl ijipemv SMo ii eiirp. 
 
 This seems to have been the Persian temperament, and in 
 virtu R of it they were chosen as the instruments — clearly 
 recognized as such by the Prophet Isaiah for one — which 
 were to sweep the earth clean of abominations, which had 
 grown to an intolerable height. Bel bowed down, and 
 Nebo, had to stoop before them. Babylon, the lady of 
 kingdoifis, was laid in the dust, and " her star-gazers, and 
 her astrologers, and her monthly prognosticators " could not 
 save her with all their skill. They and she were borne 
 
Calvinism. 31 
 
 away toguther. Egypt's turn followed. Retribution had 
 been long delayed, but her cup ran over at last. The palm- 
 groves were flung into the river, the temples polluted, the 
 idols mutilated. The precious Apis, for all its godhood, was 
 led w»th a halter before the Persian king, and stabbed in 
 the sight of the world by Persian steel. 
 
 _" Profane ! " exclaimed the priests, as pious persons, on 
 like occasions, have exclaimed a thousand tinfes : " these 
 Puritans have no reverence for holy things." Rather it is 
 because they do reverence things which deserve reverence 
 that they loathe and abhor the counterfeit. What does an 
 ascertained imposture deserve but to be denied, exposed, 
 insulted, trampled under foot, danced upon, if nothing less 
 win serve, tUl the very geese take courage and venture to 
 hiss derision? Are we to wreathe aureoles round the 
 brows of phantasms lest we shock the sensibilities of the 
 idiots who have- believed them to be divine ? Was the 
 Prophet Isaiah so tender in his way of treating such mat- 
 ters ? 
 
 " Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is 
 profitable for nothing ? He heweth him down cedars. He tak- 
 eth the cypress and the oak from the trees of the forest. He 
 burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth 
 flesh. He roasteth roast, and is satisfied : yea, he warmeth him- 
 self, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire : and the 
 residue thereof he maketh a god,' even his graven image : he 
 falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, 
 and saith, Deliver me ; for thou art my god. 
 
 " Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the 
 Lord, for the glory of His majesty when He ariseth to shake ter^ 
 ribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver 
 and gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to 
 the moles and the bats^" 
 
 Again events glide on. Persia runs the usual course. 
 Virtue and truth produced strength, strength dominion, do- 
 minion riches, riches luxury, and luxury weakness and col- 
 lapse, — fatal sequence repeated so often, yet to so httle pur- 
 
32 Calvinism. 
 
 pose. The hardy warrior of the mountains degenerated 
 into a vulgar sybarite. His manliness became eiFeminacy ; 
 his piety a ritual of priests ; himself a liar, a coward, and a 
 slave. The Greeks conquered the Persians, copied their 
 manners, and fell in turn before the Romans. We count 
 little more than 500 years from the fall of Babylon, and the 
 entire known world was lying at the feet of a great military 
 despotism. Coming originally themselves from the East, 
 the classic nations had brought with them also the primse- , 
 val nature-worship of Asia. The Greek imagination had 
 woven the Eastern metaphors into a singular mythology, 
 in which the gods were represented as beings possessing in a 
 splendid degree physical beauty, physical strength, with the 
 kind of awfiilness which belonged to their origin ; the fitful, 
 wanton, changeable, yet also terrible powers of the ele- 
 mental world. Translated into the language of humanity, 
 the actions and adventures thus ascribed to the gods be- 
 came in process of time impossible to be believed. Intel-; 
 lect expanded ; moral sense grew more vigorous, and with 
 it the conviction that if the national traditions were true, 
 man must be more just than his Maker. In ^schylus and 
 Sophocles, in Pindar and Plato, you see conscience asserting 
 its sovereignty over the most sacred beliefs, — instinctive 
 reverence and piety struggling sometimes to express them- 
 selves under the names and forms of the past, sometimes 
 bursting out uncontrollably into indignant abhorrence : — 
 
 'Ejuoi d' uTTOpa yaoTpifiapyov 
 MaKopuv Till' eItteIv : 
 'AtpiaTa/iat , . . 
 Kal mni n xal /Jporfiv (jiplvac 
 iirip Tdv dXai}^ Tidyov 
 SeiatdaX/ievoi ijievdeai nouuKots 
 l^anarCn/Ti fiiSoi. * 
 Xaptaff atrep tinavra rc6;^« 
 T& fieiXtxa SvaToi; 
 tnupipoiaa TijiHv 
 Koi dniarov iiif/naro mmev 
 f/tlievat Tb mATiamc. 
 
Calvinisvi. 33 
 
 • " To me 'twere strange indeed 
 
 To charge the blessed gods with greed. 
 I dare not do it. . . . 
 
 Myths too oft, 
 With quaintly colored lies en wrought, 
 To stray from truth haie mortals brought. 
 And Art, which round all things below 
 A charm of loveliness can tQrow, 
 Has robed the false in honor's hue. 
 And made the unbelievable seem true." 
 
 ■ " AL religions," says Gibbon, " are to the vulgar equally 
 true, to the philosopher equally false, and to the statesman 
 equ.oUy useful:'' thus scornfully summing up the^thfeory of 
 the matter which he found to be held by the politicians of 
 the age which he was describing, and perhaps of his own. 
 jReligion, as a, moral force, died away with the establishment 
 of the Roman Empire, and with it died probity, patriotism,' 
 and human dignity, and aU that men had learnt in nobler 
 ages to honor and to value as good. Order reigned un- 
 broken under the control of the legions. Industry flour- 
 ished, and natural science, and most of the elements of what 
 we now call civilization. Ships covered, the seas. Huge 
 towns adorned the imperial provinces. The manners of 
 men became more artificial, and in a certain sense more 
 humane. Religion was a State establishment, — a decent 
 acknowledgment of a power or powers which, if they existed 
 at all, amused themselves in the depths of space, careless, so 
 their deity was not denied, of the woe or weal of humanity : 
 the living fact, supreme in Church and State, being the 
 wearer of the purple, who, as the practical realization of au- 
 thority, assumed the name as well as the substance. The 
 one god immediately known to man was henceforth the 
 Divus Caesar, whose throne -in the sky was waiting empty 
 for him till his earthly exile was ended, and it pleased him 
 to join or rejoin his kindred divinities. ^ 
 
 It was the era of atheism, — atheism such as this earth 
 never witnessed before or since. You who have read Tac- 
 itus know the practical fruits of it, as they appeared at the 
 3 
 
84 Calvinism. 
 
 heart of the system in the second Babylon, the pioiid city 
 of the seven hills. You will remember how, for the crime 
 of a single slave, the entire household of a Roman patrician, 
 four hundred innocent human beings, were led in chains 
 across the Forum and murdered by what was called law. 
 You will remember the exquisite Nero, who, in his love of 
 art, to throw himself more fully into the genius of Greek 
 tragedy, committed incest with his mother that he might be 
 a second Oedipus, and assassinated her that he might realize 
 the sensations of Orestes. You wUl recall one scene which 
 Tacitus describes, not as exceptional or standing alone, but 
 merely, he says, " quas ut exemplum referam ne saepius 
 eadem prodigentia narranda sit," — the hymeneal night- 
 banquet on Agrippa's lake, graced by the presence of the 
 'wives and daughters of the Roman senators, where anu'dst 
 blazing fireworks and music and cloth-of-gold pavilions and 
 naked prostitutes, the majesty of the Caesars celebrated his 
 nuptials with a boy. 
 
 There, I conceive, was the visible product of material 
 civilization, where there was no fear of God, in the middle 
 of it, — the final outcome of wealth, and prosperity, and art, 
 and culture, raised aloft as a sign for all ages to look upon. 
 
 But it is not to this, nor to the fire of hell which in due 
 time burst out to consume it, that I desire now to draw 
 your attention. I have to point out to you two purifying 
 movements which were at work in the midst of the pollu- 
 tion, one of which came to nothiug and survives only in 
 books, the second a force which was to mould for ages the 
 future history of man. Both require our notice, for both 
 singularly conUined the particular feature which is called 
 the reproach of Calvinism. 
 
 The blackest night is never utterly dark. When man- 
 kind seem most abandoned there are always a seven thou- 
 sand somewhere who have not bowed the knee to the fash- 
 ionable opinions of the hour. Among the great Roman 
 families a certain number remained republican in feeling 
 
Galvinixm. 35 
 
 ind republican in habit. The State religion was as incredi- 
 ble to them as to every one else. They could not persuade 
 themselves that they could discover the will of Heaven in 
 the color of a calf's liver or in the appetite of the sacred 
 chickens ; but they had retained the moral instincts of their 
 citizen ancestors. They knew nothing of God or the gods, 
 but they had something in themselves which made sensual- 
 ity nauseating instead of pleasant to them. They had an 
 austere sense of the meaning of the word " duty." They 
 could distinguish and reverence the nobler possibilities of 
 their nature. They disdained what was base and effemi- 
 nate, and, though religion failed them, they constructed out 
 of philosophy a rule which would serve to live by. Stoi- 
 cism is a not unnatural refuge of thoughtful men in con- 
 fused and skeptical ages. It adheres rigidly to morality. 
 It offers no easy Epicurean explanation of the origin of 
 man, which resolves him into an organization of particles, 
 and dismisses him again into nothingness. It recognizes 
 only that men who are the slaves of their passions are mis- 
 erable and impotent, and insists that personal inclinations 
 shall be subordinated to conscience. It prescribes plainness 
 of life, that the number of our necessities may be as few as 
 possible, and in placing the business of life in intellectual and 
 moral action, it destroys the temptation to sensual gratifi- 
 cations. It teaches a contempt of death so complete that 
 it can be encountered without a flutter of the pulse ; and, 
 while it raises men above the suffering which makes others 
 miserable, generates a proud submissiveness to sorrow 
 which noblest natures feel most keenly, by representing 
 this huge scene and the shows which it presents as the work 
 of some unknown but irresistible force, against which it is 
 vain to struggle and childish to repine. 
 
 As with Calvinism, a theoretic behef in an overruling 
 will or destiny was not only compatible with, but seemed 
 naturally to issue in the control of the animal appetites. 
 The Stoic did not argue that, " As fate governs all things, I 
 
St) Calvinism. 
 
 can do no wrong, and therefore 1 will take njy pleasure ; " 
 but rather, " The moral law within me is the noblest part 
 of my being, and compels me to submit to it," He did not 
 withdraw from the world like the Christian anchorite. He 
 remained at his post in the senate, the Forum, or the army. 
 A Stoic in Marcus Aurelius gave a passing dignity to the 
 dishonored purple. In Tacitus, Stoicism has left an eter- 
 nal evidence how grand a creature man may be, though un- 
 assisted by conscious dependence on external spiritual help, 
 tfcf )ugh steady disdain of what is base, steady reverence for 
 all that deserves to be revered, and inflexible integrity in 
 word and deed. 
 
 But Stoicism could under no circumstances be a regener- 
 ating power in the general world. It was a position only 
 tenable to the educated ; it was without hope and without 
 enthusiasm. From a contempt of the objects which man- 
 kind most desired, the step was short and inevitable to 
 •contempt of mankind thepiselves. Wrapped in mournful 
 seK-dependence, the Stoic could face calnily for himself 
 whatever lot the fates n^ight send : — 
 
 " Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinee." 
 
 But, natural as such a creed might be in a Roman noble 
 under the ^mpife, natural perhaps as it may always be in 
 corrupted ages and amidst disorganized belief, the very 
 Sternness of Stoicism was repellent, It carried no consola- 
 tion to the hearts of the suffering millions, who were in no 
 danger of being led away by luxury, because their whole lives 
 were passed in poverty and wretchedness. It was individ- 
 ual, not missionary. The Stoic declared no active war 
 against corruption. He stood alone, protesting scornfully 
 in silent example against evils which he was widiout power 
 to cui:e. Lik^ Caesar, he folded himself in his mantle. The 
 world inight do its worst. He would keep his own soul un- 
 Rtained. 
 Place beside the Stoics their contemporaries, the Galilean 
 
Oaleinism> ^t 
 
 fisuermen and the tent-maker of Tarsus. 1 am not about 
 to sket«h in a few paragraphs the risfe of Christianity. I 
 mean only to point to the principles on frhich the small 
 knot of men gathered themselves together Who Were about 
 to lay the foundations of a vast spiritual revolution. The 
 guilt and wretchedness in which the world was steeped St. 
 Paul felt as keenly as Tacitus. Like Tacitus, too, he be- 
 lieved that the wild and miserable scene which he beheld 
 was no result of accident, but had been ordained so to be, 
 and was the direct expression of an all-mastering PoWei*. 
 But he saw also that this Power was no blind necessity or 
 iron chain of connected cause and effect, but a perfectly 
 just, perfectly wise being, who governed all things by the 
 everlasting immutable laws of his own nature ; that when 
 these laws were resisted or forgotten they wrought ruin, 
 and confusion, and slavery to death and sin ; that when 
 they were recognized and obeyed, the curse would be taken 
 away, and freedom and manliness come back ' again.. 
 Whence the disobedience had first risen was a problenti 
 which St. Paid solved in a manner not all unlike the Per- 
 sians. There was a rebellious spirit in the universe, pene- 
 trating into men's hearts, and prompting them to disloyalty 
 and revolt. It removed the question a step further i ack 
 without answering it, but the fact was plain as the suh- 
 light. Men had neglected the laws of their Maker. In 
 neglecting them they had brought universal ruin, not on 
 themselves only, but on all society ; and if the world was to 
 be saved from destruction, they must be persuaded or forced 
 back into their allegiance. The law itself had been 6nce 
 more revealed on the hiountains of Palestine, and in the 
 person and example of One who had lived and died to 
 make it known ; and those Who had heard and known Ilitti, 
 being possessed with his spirit, felt themselves com- 
 missioned as a missionary legion to publish the truth to 
 mankind. They were not, like the Israelites or the Per- 
 sians, to fight with the sword, — not even in their own de^ 
 
88 Calvinism. 
 
 fense. The sword can take life, but not give it ; and the 
 command to the Apostles was to sow the invisible seed in 
 the hot-bed of corruption, and feed and foster it, and water 
 it, with the blood, not of others, but themselves. Their 
 own wills, ambitions, hopes, desires, emotions, were 
 swallowed up in the will to which they had surrendered 
 themselves. They were soldiers. It was St. Paul's meta- 
 phor, and no other is so appropriate. They claimed no 
 merit through their calling; they were too conscious of 
 theii own sins to indulge in the poisonous reflection' that 
 they were not as other men. They were summoned out on 
 their allegiance, and armed with the spiritual strength 
 which belongs to the consciousness of a just cause. If they 
 indulged any personal hope, it was only that their weak- 
 nesses would not be remembered against them, — that, hav- 
 ing been chosen for a work in which the victory was as- 
 sured, they would be made themselves worthy of their 
 calling, and, though they might slide, would not be allowed 
 to fall. Many mysteries remained unsolved. Man was as 
 clay in the potter's hand ; one vessel was made to honor 
 and another to dishonor. Why, who could tell ? This only 
 they knew, that they must themselves do no dishonor to 
 the spirit that was in them, — gain others, gain all who 
 would join them for their common purpose, and fight with 
 all their souls against ignorance and sin. 
 
 The fishermen of Gennesaret planted Christianity, and 
 many a winter and many a summer have since rolled over 
 it. ]\Iore than once it has shed its leaves and seemed to 
 be dying, and when the buds burst again the color of the 
 foliage was changed. The theory of- it which is taught to- 
 day in the theological schools of St. Andrew's would have 
 BOuLded strange from the pulpit of your once proud cathe- 
 dral. As the same thought expresses itself in many lan- 
 guages, so spiritual truths assume ever-varying forms. The 
 garment fades, — the moths devour it, — the woven fibres 
 disintegrate and turn to dust. The idea only is immortal, 
 
Calvinism. 39 
 
 and never fades. The hermit who made his cell below the 
 cliff where the cathedral stands, the monkish architect who 
 designed the plan of it, the princes who brought it to per- 
 fection, the Protestants who shattered it into ruin, the 
 preacher of last Sunday at the University church, would 
 have many a quarrel were they to meet now before they 
 would understand each other. But at the bottom of the 
 minds of all the- same thought would be predominant, — 
 that they were soldiers of the Almighty, commissioned to 
 fight with lies and selfishness, and that all alike, they and 
 those against whom they were contending, were in his 
 hands,, to deal with after his own pleasure. 
 
 Again six centuries go by. Christianity becomes the 
 religion of the Roman Empire. The Empire divides, and 
 the Church is divided with it. Europe is overrun by the 
 Northern nations. The power of the Western Cassars 
 breaks in pieces, but the Western Church stands erect, 
 makes its way into the hearts of the conquerors, penetrates 
 the German forests, opens a path into Britain and Ireland. 
 By the noble Gothic nations it is welcomed with passionate 
 enthusiasm. The warriors of Odin are transformed into a 
 Christian chivalry, and the wild Valhalla into a Christian 
 heaven. Fiery, passionate nations are not tamed in a gen- 
 eration or a century, but a new conception of what was 
 praiseworthy and excellent had taken hold of their imagi- 
 nation and the understanding. Bangs, when their day of 
 toil was over, laid down crown and sword, and retired into 
 cloisters, to pass what remained of life to them in prayers 
 and meditations on eternity. The supreme object of rever- 
 ence was no longer the hero of the battle-iield, but the 
 barefoot missionary who was carrying the Gospel among 
 the tribes that were still untaught. So beautiful in their 
 conception of him was the character of one of these wander- 
 ing priests that their stories formed a new mythology. So 
 vast were the real miracles which they were working on 
 men's souls that wonders of a more oidinary sort were 
 
40 Calvinism. 
 
 assigned to them as a matter of course. They raised the 
 dead, they healed the sick, they cast out -devils with a 
 word or with the sign of the cross. Plain facts were too 
 poor for the enthusiasm of German piety ; and noble hu- 
 man figures were exhibited, as it were, in the resplendent 
 light of a painted window, in the effort to do them exagger- 
 ated honor. 
 
 It was pity, for truth only smells sweet forever, and 
 illusions, however innocent, are deadly as the canker-worm. 
 Long cycles had to pass before the fruit of these poison- 
 seeds would ripen. The -practical result "meanwhile was to 
 substitute in the minds of the sovereign races which were 
 to take the lead in the coming era the principles of the 
 moral law for the law of force and the sword. 
 
 The Eastern branch of the divided Church experienced 
 meanwhile a less happy fortune. In the East there was no 
 virgin soil like the great, noble Teutonic peoples. Asia was 
 a worn-out stage, on which drama after drama of history 
 had been played, and played out. Languid luxury only 
 was there, huge aggregation of wealth in particular local- 
 ities, and the no less inevitable shadow attached to luxury 
 by the necessities of things, oppression and misery and 
 squalor. Christianity and the world had come to terms 
 after the established fashion, — the world to be let alone in 
 its pleasures and its sins ; the Church relegated to opinion, 
 with free liberty to split doctrinal hairs to the end of time. 
 The work of the Church's degradation had begun, even 
 before it accepted the tainted hand of Constantine. Al- 
 ready in the third century speculative Christianity had 
 become the fashionable creed of Alexandria, and had pur- 
 chased the favor of patrician congregations, il not by open 
 tolerance of vice, yet by leaving it to grow unresisted. St. 
 Clement details contemptuously the inventory of the boudoir 
 of a fine lady of his flock, the list of essences on her toilet- 
 table, the shoes, sandals, and slippers with which lier dainty 
 feet were decorated in endless variety. Ho describes her 
 
Oalvinigm. 41 
 
 as she ascends the steps of the /Sao-iXucij, to which she was 
 going for what she called her prayers, with a page lifting 
 up her train. He. paints her as she wallis along the street, 
 her petticoats projecting with some horsehair arrangement 
 behind, and the street boys jeering at her as she passes. 
 
 All that Christianity was meant to do in making life 
 simple and habits pure was left undone, while, with a few 
 exceptions, like that of St. Clement himself, the intellectual 
 energy of its bishops and teachers was exhausted in spinning , 
 endless cobwebs of metaphysical theology. Human life at 
 the best is enveloped in darkness ; we know not what we 
 are or whither we are bound. Religion is the light by which 
 we are to see our way along the moral pathways without 
 straying into the brake or the morass. We are not to look 
 at religion itself, but at surrounding things with the help 
 of religion. If we fasten our attention upon the light 
 itself, analyzing it into its component rays, speculating 
 on the union and composition of the substances of which it 
 is composed, not only will it no longer serve us for a guide, 
 but our dazzled senses lose their natural powers ; we should 
 grope our way more safely in conscious blindness. 
 
 "When the light within you is darkness, how great is that 
 darkness I " 
 
 In the place of the old material idolatry we erect a new 
 idolatry of words and phrases. Our duty is no longer to 
 be true, and honest, and brave, and self-denying, and pure, 
 but to be exact in our formulas, to hold accurately some 
 ■ nice and curious proposition, to place damnation in straying 
 a hair's breadth from some symbol which exults in being un- 
 intelligible, and salvation in the skill with which the mind 
 can balance itself on some intellectual tight-rope. 
 
 There is no more instructive phenomenon in history than 
 the ease and rapidity with which the Arabian caliphs lopped 
 off the fairest provinces of the Eastern Empire. When na- 
 tions are easily conquered, we majr be sure that they have 
 first lost their moral self-respecti When their religions, as 
 
42 Calvinism. 
 
 they call them, go down at a breath, those religions hayo 
 become already but bubbles of vapor. The laws of Heaven 
 are long-enduring, but their patience comes to an end at 
 last. Because justice is not executed speedily, men persuade 
 themselves that there is no such thing as justice. But the 
 lame foot, as the Greek proverb said, overtakes the swift 
 one in the end ; and the longer the forbearance, the sharper 
 the retribution when it comes. 
 
 As the Greek theology was one of the most complicated 
 accounts ever offered of the nature of God and his relation 
 to man, so the message of Mahomet, when he first unfolded 
 the green banner, was one of the most simple : There is no 
 god but God ; God is King, and you must and shall obey 
 his will. This was Islam, as it was first offered at the 
 sword's point to people who had lost the power of under- 
 standing any other argument : Your images are wood and 
 stone ; your metaphysics are words without understanding ; 
 the world lies in wickedness and wretchedness because you 
 have forgotten the statutes of your Master, and you shall go 
 back to those ; you shall fulfill the purpose for which you 
 were set to live upon the earth, or you shall not live at all. 
 
 Tremendous inroad upon the liberties of conscience ! 
 What right, it is asked, have those people that you have 
 been calling soldiers of the Almighty to interfere by force 
 with the opinions of others ? Let them leave us alone ; we 
 meddle not with them. Let them, if they please, obey those 
 laws they talk of ; we have other notions of such things; 
 we will obey ours, and let the result judge between us. 
 The result was judging between them. The meek Apostle, 
 with no weapon but his word and his example, and winning 
 victories by himself submitting to be killed, is a fairer object 
 than a fierce Kaled, calling himself the sword of the Al- 
 mighty. But we cannot order for ourselves in what way 
 Ihese things shall be. The caitiff Damascenes to whom 
 Kaled gave the alternative of the Koran or death were men 
 themselves, who had hands to hold a sword with if they had 
 
Calvinism. 43 
 
 heart to use it, or a creed for which they cared to risk their 
 lives. In such a quarrel superior strength and courage are 
 the signs of the presence of a nobler conviction. 
 
 To the question, " What right have you to interfere with 
 us ? " there is but one answer : " We must. These things 
 which we tell you are true ; and in your hearts you know 
 it ; your own cowardice convicts you. The moral laws of 
 your Maker are written in your consciences as well as in 
 ours. K you disobey them, you bring disaster not only on 
 your own wretched selves, but on all around you. It is our 
 common concern, and if you will not submit, in the name 
 of our Master we will compel you.'' 
 
 Any fanatic, it wiU be said, might use the same language. 
 Is not history full of instances of dreamers or impostors, 
 " boasting themselves to be somebody," who for some wild 
 illusion, or for their own ambition, have thrown the world 
 into convulsions ? Is not Mahomet himself a signal — the 
 most signal — illustration of it ? I should say rather that 
 when men have risen in arms for a false cause the event has 
 proved it by the cause coming to nothing. The world is 
 not so constituted that courage, and strength, and endurance, 
 and organization, and success long sustained are to be ob- 
 tained in the service of falsehood. If I could think .that, 
 I should lose the most convincing reason for believing that 
 we are governed by a moral power. The moral laws of our 
 being execute themselves through the instrumentality of 
 men ; and in those great movements which determine the 
 moral condition of many nations through many centuries, 
 the stronger side, it seems to me, has uniformly been the 
 better side, and stronger because it has been better. 
 
 I am not upholding Mahomet as if he had been a perfect 
 man, or the Koran as a second Bible. The crescent was 
 no sun, nor even a complete moon reigning full-orbed in 
 the night heaven. The light, there was in it was but re- 
 flected from the sacred books of the Jews and the Arab 
 traditions. The morality of it was defective. The detailed 
 
44 Calvinism, 
 
 conception of man's duties inferior, far inferior, to what St. 
 Martin and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Augustine were 
 teaching or had taught in Western Europe. Mahometan- 
 ism rapidly degenerated. The first caliphs stood far abOve 
 Saladin. The descent from Saladin to a modern Moslem 
 despot is like a fall over a precipice. All established thinga, 
 nations, constitutions, all established things which have life 
 in them, have also the seeds of death. They grow, they 
 have their day of usefulness, they decay and pass away, 
 " lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 But the light which there was in the Moslem Creed was 
 reaL It taught the omnipotence and omnipresence of one 
 eternal Spirit, the Maker and Ruler of all things, by whose 
 everlasting purpose all things were, and whose will all 
 things must obey ; and this central truth, to which later 
 experience and broader knowledge can add nothing, it has 
 taught so clearly and so simply that in Islam there has been 
 no room for heresy, and scarcely for schism. 
 
 The Koran has been accused of countenancing sensual 
 vice. Rather it bridled and brought within limits a sensu- 
 ality wMch before was unbounded. It forbade and has 
 absolutely extinguished, wherever Islam is professed, the 
 bestial drunkenness which is the disgrace of our Christian 
 English and Scottish towns. Even now, after centuries of 
 decay, the Mussulman probably governs his life by the 
 Koran more accurately than most Christians obey the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount or the Ten Commandments. In our 
 own India, where the Moslem creed retains its relative 
 superiority to the superstitions of the native races, the Mus- 
 sulman is a higher order of being. "Were the English to 
 withdraw, he would retake the sovereignty of the peninsula 
 by natural right, — not because he has larger bones and 
 sinews, but by superiority of intellect and heart ; m other 
 words, because he has a truer faith. 
 
 I said that while Christianity degenerated in die East 
 with extreme rapidity, in the West it retained its firmer 
 
Ualvinism. 45 
 
 characters. It became the vitalizing spirit of a new organ- 
 ization of society. All that we call modern civilization in 
 a sense which deserves the name is the visible expression 
 of the transforming power of the Gospel. 
 
 I said also that by the side of the healthy influences of 
 regeneration there were sown along with it the germs 
 of evil to come. All living ideas, from the necessity oi 
 things, take up into their constitutions whatever forces are 
 already working round them. The most ardent aspirations 
 after truth will not anticipate knowledge, and the errors 
 of the imagination become consecrated as surely as the 
 purest impulses of conscience. So long as the laws of the 
 physical world remain ^ mystery, the action of all uncom- 
 prehended phenomena, the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies, the winds a,nd storms, famines, murrains, and hu- 
 man epidemics, are ascribed to the voluntary interference 
 of supernatural beings. The belief in witches and fairies, 
 in spells and talismans, could not be dispelled by science, 
 for science did not exist. The Church therefore entered 
 into competition with her evil rivals on their own ground. 
 The saint came into the field against the enchanters. The 
 powers of charm and amulets were eclipsed by martyrs' 
 relics, sacr^naents, and holy water. The magician, with the 
 devil at his back, got to yield to the divine powers ini- 
 parted to priests by spiritual descent in the imposition of 
 hands. 
 
 Thus a gigantic system of supernaturalism overspread 
 the entire "Western world. There was no deliberate im- 
 position. The clergy were as ignorant as the people of 
 true relations between natural cause and effect. Their 
 business, so far ^s they were conscious of their purpose, 
 was to contend against the works of the devil. They saw 
 prafiticilly that liey were ^ble to convert men from vio- 
 lence and impurity to pity and self-restrajnt, Their very 
 humility forbade them to attribute such wonderful results 
 to their own teaching. When it was universally believed 
 
46 Calvinism. 
 
 that human beings could make covenants with Satan by 
 Bigning their names in blood, what more natural than that 
 they should assume, for instance, that the sprinkling of 
 water, the inaugurating ceremony of .the purer and better 
 life, should exert a mysterious mechanical mfluence upon 
 the character ? 
 
 If regeneration by baptism, however, with its kindred 
 imaginations, was not true, innocence of intention could not 
 prevent the natural consequences of falsehood. Time went 
 on ; knowledge increased ; doubt stole in, and with doubt 
 the passionate determination to preserve beliefs at all haz- 
 ards which had grown too dear to superstition to be parted 
 with. In the twelfth century the mystery called tran sub- 
 stantiation had come to be regarded with widespread mis- 
 giving. To encounter skepticism, there then arose for the 
 first time what have been called pious frauds. It was not 
 perceived that men who lend themselves consciously to lies, 
 with however excellent an intention, will become eventually 
 deliberate rogues. The clergy doubtless believed that in 
 the consecration of the elements an invisible change was 
 really and truly effected. But to produce an effect on the 
 secular mind the invisible had to be made visible. A gen- 
 eral practice sprung up to pretend that in the breaking of 
 the wafer real blood had gushed out ; real pieces of flesh 
 were found between the fingers. The precious things thus 
 produced were awfully preserved, and with the Pope's 
 blessing were deposited in shrines, for the strengthening of 
 faith and the confutation of the presumptuous unbfeliever. 
 
 When a start has once been made on the road of decep- 
 tion, the after-progress is a rapid one. The desired effect 
 was not produced. Incredulity increased. Imposture ran 
 a race with unbelief in the vain hope of silencing inquiry, 
 and with imposture all genuine love for spiritual or moral 
 truth disappeared. 
 
 You all know to what condition the Catholic Church had 
 sunk at the beginnmg of the sixteenth century. An inso. 
 
Calvinism. 47 
 
 lent hierarchy, with an army of priests behind them, domi- 
 nated every country in Europe. The Church was like a 
 hard nutshell round a shriveled kernel. The priests, in 
 parting with their sincerity, had lost the control over their 
 own appetites, which only sincerity can give. Profligate in 
 theu" own lives, they extended to the laity the same easy 
 latitude which they asserted for their own conduct. Relig- 
 ious duty no longer consisted in leading a virtuous life, but 
 in purchasing immunity for self-indulgence by one of the 
 thousand remedies which Church oflScials were ever ready 
 to dispense at an adequate price. 
 
 The pleasant arrangement came to an end, — a sudden 
 and terrible one. Christianity had not been upon the 
 earth for nothing. The spiritual organization of the 
 Church was corrupt to the core ; but in the general awaken- 
 ing of Europe it was impossible to conceal the contrast be- 
 tween the doctrines taught in the Cathohc pulpits and the 
 ca-eed of which they were the counterfeit. Again and 
 again the gathering indignation sputtered out to be sav- 
 agely repressed. At last it pleased Pope Leo, who wanted 
 money to finish St. Peter's, to send about spiritual hawkers 
 with wares which were called indulgences, — notes to be 
 presented at the gates of purgatory as passports to the 
 easiest places there, — and then Luther spoke, and the 
 whirlwind burst. 
 
 I can but glance at the Reformation in Germany. Lu- 
 ther himself was one of the grandest men that ever lived on 
 earth. Never was any one more loyal to the light that 
 was in him, braver, truer, or wider-minded in the noblest 
 sense of the word. The share of the work which fell to 
 tiiTn Luther accomplished most perfectly. But he was ex- 
 ceptionally fortunate in one way, that in Saxony he had his 
 sovereign on his side, and the enemy, however furious, 
 could not reach him with fleshly weapons, and could but 
 grind his teeth and curse. Other nations who had caught 
 Luther's spirit had to win their liberty on harder terms, 
 
48 Calvinism, 
 
 and the Catholic churchmen were able to add to their other 
 ci'imes the cruelty of fiends. Princes and politicians, who 
 had State reasons for disliking popular outbursts, sulud with 
 uie established spiritual autnorities. Herasy was assailea 
 with hre ana swora. and a spirit narsner tiiau Luther b was 
 needed to steei tue convert's nearts tor tne triais wniob 
 came upon tnera. Lutneramsm, wnen Luttier liimself was 
 gone, and the thing which we in England know as Angli- 
 canism, were inclined to temporizing and half-measures. 
 The Lutheran congregations were but half emancipated 
 from superstition, and shrank from pi'essing the sti-uggle to 
 extremities ; and half-measures meant half-heartedness, con- 
 victions which were but half convictions, and truth with an 
 alloy of falsehood. Half-measures, however, would not 
 quench the bonfires of Philip of Spain, or raise men in 
 France or Scotland who would meet west to crest th« 
 Prmces of tlie House of Lorraine. The Reformers re- 
 quired a position more sharply defined, and a sterner leader, 
 and that leader they found in John Calvin. 
 
 There is no occasion to say much of Calvin's personal 
 history. His name is now associated only with gloom and 
 austerity. Suppose it is true that he rarely laughed. He 
 had none of Luther's genial and sunny humor. Could they 
 have ' exchanged conditions, Luther's temper might have 
 been somewhat grimmer, but he would never have been 
 entirely like Calvin. Nevertheless, for hard times hard men 
 are needed, and intellects which can pierce to tho roots where 
 truth and lies part company. It fares ill with tlie soldiers 
 of religion when " the accursed thing " is in their camp. 
 And this is to be said of Calvin, that so far as the state of 
 knowledge permitted, no eye could have detected more 
 keenly the unsound spots m the received creed of the Church, 
 nor was there reformer in Europe so resolute to excise, 
 
 tear out, and destroy what was distinctly seen to be false, 
 
 80 resolute to establish what was true in its place, and make 
 truth to the last fibre of it the rule of practical life. 
 
Calvinism, 49 
 
 Calvinism as it existed at Geneva, and as it endeavored 
 to be wherever it took root for a century and a half after 
 him, was not a system of opinion, but an attempt to make 
 the will of God as revealed in the Bible an authoritative 
 guide for social as well as personal direction. ' Men wonder 
 why the Calvinists, being so doctrinal, yet seemed to dwell 
 so much and so emphatically on the Old Testament. It was 
 because in the Old Testament they found, or thought they 
 found, a divine example of national government, a distinct 
 indication of the laws which men were ordered to follow, 
 with visible and immediate punishments attached to disobe- 
 dience. At Geneva, as for a time in Scotland, moral sins 
 were treated after the example of the Mosaic law, as crimes 
 to be punished by the magistrate. " Elsewhere," said Knox, 
 speaking of Geneva, " the Word of God is taught as purely, 
 but never anywhere have I seen God obeyed as faith- 
 fully." 1 
 
 If it was a dream, it was at least a noble one. The 
 Csdvinists have been called intolerant. Intolerance of an 
 enemy who is trying to kill you seems to me a pardonable 
 state of mind. It is no easy matter to tolerate lies clearly 
 convicted of being lies under any circumstances ; specially it 
 is not easy to tolerate lies which strut about in the name of 
 religion ; but there is no reason to suppose that the Calvin- 
 ists at the beginning would have thought of meddling with 
 the Chut-ch if they had been themselves let alone. They 
 would have formed communities apart. Like the Israelites 
 whom they wished to resemble, they would have withdrawn 
 into the wilderness, — the Pilgrim Fathers actually did so 
 withdraw into the wilderness of New England, — to worship 
 
 1 In burning witches t'e Calvinists followed their model too exactly; 
 but it is to be remembered ';hat they Yeally believed these poor creatures 
 to have made a compact with Satan. And, as regards mora'ity, it may 
 be doubted whether inviting spirit-rappers to dinner, and allowing them to 
 pretend to consult our dead relations, is very much more innocent. The 
 first method is but excess oi indignation with evil; the second is compla- 
 cent toyiug with it. 
 
 4 
 
50 Calvinum. 
 
 the God of their fathers, axid would have left argument and 
 example to woik their natural effect. Norman Leslie did 
 not kUl Cardinal Beaton down in the castle yonder because 
 he was a Catholic, but because he was a murderer. The 
 Catholics chose to add to their already incredible creed a 
 fresh article, that they were entitled to hang and burn those 
 who differed from them ; and in this quarrel the Calvinists. 
 Bible in hand, appealed to the God of battles. They grew 
 harsher, fiercer, — if you please, more fanatical. It was 
 extremely natural that they should. They dwelt, as pious 
 men are apt to dwell in suffering and sorrow, on the all- 
 disposing power of Providence. Their burden grew lighter 
 as they considered that God had so determined that they 
 must bear it. But they attracted to their ranks almost 
 every man in Western Europe that " hated a lie." They 
 were crushed down, but they rose again. They were 
 splintered and torn, but no power could bend or melt them. 
 They had many faults ; let him that is without sin cast a 
 stone at them. They abhorred as no body of men ever 
 more abhorred all conscious mendacity, all impurity, all 
 moral wrong of every kind so far as they could recognize it. 
 Whatever exists at this moment in England and Scotland of 
 conscientious fear of doing evU is the remnant of the con- 
 victions which were branded by the Calvinists into the peo- 
 ple's hearts. Though they failed to destroy Romanism, 
 though it survives and may survive long as an opinion, they 
 drew its fangs ; they forced it to abandon that detestable 
 principle, that it was entitled to murder those who dissented 
 from it. Nay, it may be said that by having shamed 
 Romanism out of its practical corruption the Calvinists ena- 
 bled it to revive. 
 
 Why, it is asked, were they so dogmatic ? Why could 
 they not be contented to teach men reasonablj and quietly 
 that to be wicked was to be miserable, that in the indul- 
 gence of immoderate passions they would find less happi- 
 ness than in adhering to the rules of justice, o\ yiokling to 
 
Calvinism. 61 
 
 the impulses of more generous emotions ? And, for thia 
 rest, why could they not let fools be fools, and leave opinion 
 free about matters of which neither they nor others could 
 know anything certain at all ? 
 
 I reply that it is not true that goodness is synonymous 
 with happiness. The most perfect being who ever trod the 
 sou of this planet was called the Man of Sorrows. If hap- 
 piness means absence of care and inexperience of painful 
 emotion, the best securities for it are a hard heart and a 
 good digestion. If morality has no better foundation than 
 a tendency to promote happiness, its sanction is but a feeble 
 uncertainty. If it ba recognized as part of the constitution 
 of the world, it carries with it its right to command ; and 
 those who see clearly what it is, will insist on submission 
 to it, and derive authority from the distinctness of their 
 recognition, to enforce submission where their power ex- 
 tends. Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and 
 in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve. Compare the 
 remonstrance of the casual passer-by if a mob of ruffians are 
 misbehaving themselves in the street with the downright 
 energy of the policeman who strikes in fearlessly, one 
 against a dozen, as a minister of the law. There is the 
 same diflPerence through life between the man who has a 
 sure conviction and him whose thoughts never rise beyond 
 a " perhaps." 
 
 Any fanatic may say as much, it is again answered, for 
 the wildest madness. But the elementary principles of 
 morality are not forms of madness. No one pretends that 
 it is uncertain whether truth is better than falsehood, or jus- 
 tice than injustice. Speculation can eat away the sanction, 
 superstition can erect rival .duties, but neither one nor the 
 other pretends to touch the fact that these principles exist, 
 and the very essence and life of all great religious move- 
 ments is the recognition of them as of authority and as part 
 of the eternal framework of things. 
 
 There is, however, it must be allowed, something in what 
 
62 Calvinism. 
 
 these objectors say. The power of Caivimsm has waned. 
 The discipline wliich it once aspired to maintain has fallen 
 slack. Desire for ease and self-indulgence drag forever in 
 quiet times at the heel of noble aspirations, while the shadow 
 struggles to remain and preserve its outline when the sub- 
 stance is passing away. The argumentative and logical 
 side of Calvin's mind has created once more a fatal opportu- 
 nity for a separation between opinion and morality. We 
 have learnt, as we say, to make the best of both worlds, to 
 take political economy for the rule of our conduct, and to 
 relegate religion into the profession of orthodox doctrines. 
 Systems have been invented to explain the inexplicable. 
 Metaphors have been translated into formulas, and para- 
 doxes intelligible to emotion have been thrust upon the 
 acceptance of the reason ; while duty, the loftiest of all sen- 
 sations which we are permitted to experience, has been 
 resolved into the acceptance of a scheme of salvation for the 
 individual human soul. Was it not written long ago, " He 
 that will save his soul shall lose it " ? If we think of relig- 
 ion only as a means of escaping what we call the wrath to 
 come, we shall not escape it ; we are already under it ; we 
 are under the burden of death, for we care only for our- 
 selves. 
 
 This was not the religion of your fathers ; this was not 
 the Calvinism which overthrew spiritual wickedness, and 
 hurled kings from their thrones, and purged England and 
 Scotland, for a time at least, of lies and charlatanry. Cal- 
 vinism was the spirit which rises in revolt against untruth ; 
 the spirit which, as I have shown you, has appeared, and 
 reappeared, and in due time wUl appear again, unless God 
 be a delusion, and man be as the beasts that perish. For it 
 is but the inflashing upon the conscience of the nature and 
 origin of the laws by which mankind are governed, — laws 
 which exist, whether we acknowledge them or whether we 
 deny them, and will have their way, to our weal or woe, 
 according to the attitude in which we please to place ciut- 
 
Calvinism. 53 
 
 selves (owards them, — inherent, like the laws of gravity, in 
 the nature of things, not m&de by us, not to be altered by 
 us, but to be discerned and obeyed by us at our everlasting 
 peril. 
 
 Nay, rather the law of gravity is but a property of mate- 
 rial things, and . matter and all that belongs to it may one 
 day fade away like a cloud and vanish. The moral law is 
 inherent in eternity. " Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
 but my word shall not pass away.'' The law is the expres- 
 sion of the will of the Spirit of the Universe. The spirit in 
 man which corresponds to and perceives the Eternal Spirit 
 is part of its essence, and immortal as it is immortal. The 
 Calvinists called the eye within us the Inspiration of the 
 Almighty. Aristotle could see that it was not of earth, or 
 any creature of space and time : — 
 
 6 yap vovi (he ■'^ays) oiKria ric oS<ra eotKCi' 
 iyyiyvtcQai. Kal oil <p0etpetr6ai. 
 
 Wliat the thing is which we call ourselves we know not. 
 It may be true — I for one care not if it be — that the 
 descent of our mortal bodies may be traced through an 
 ascending series to some glutinous jelly formed on tlie rocks 
 of the primeval ocean. It is nothing to me how the Maker 
 of me has been pleased to construct the organized substance 
 which I call my body. It is rimie, but it is not me. The 
 vovj, the intellectual spirit, being an oua-t'a, — an essence, — 
 we believe to be an imperishable something which has been 
 engendered in us from another source. As Woids worth 
 says : — 
 
 " Our birdi is but a sleep and a forgetting) 
 
 The soul that rises in ut>, our life's star. 
 Hath elsewhere had its setting, 
 
 And Cometh from afar: 
 Kot in entire forgetf'ulness, 
 Kot in utter nakedness, 
 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we coma, 
 
 From heaven, which is bur home." 
 
A BISHOP OF THE TWELFTH 
 CENTURY.^ 
 
 To the ekeptical student of the nineteenth century the 
 ecclesiastical biographies of mediaaval Europe are for the 
 most part unprofitable studies. The writers of them were 
 generally monks. The object for which they were com- 
 posed was either tlie edification of the bretliren of the 
 convent, or the glorifying of its founder or benefactor. 
 The Holy See in considering a claim to canonization dis- 
 regarded the ordinary details of character and conduct. 
 It dwelt exclusively on the exceptional and the wonderful, 
 and the noblest of lives, possessed but little interest for it 
 unless accompanied by evidence of miracles, performed 
 directly by the candidate whUe on earth or by his relics 
 after his departure. Instead of pictures of real men the 
 biographers present us with glorified images of what, in 
 their opinion, the Church heroes ought to have been. St. 
 Cuthbert becomes as legendary as Theseus, and the au- 
 thentic figure is swathed in an embroidered envelope of 
 legends, through which usually no ti'ace of the genuine 
 lineaments is allowed to penetrate. 
 
 It happens howevel-, occasionally, that in tlie midst of 
 the imaginative rubbish which has thus come down to us, 
 we encounter something of a character entirely different 
 We find ourselves in the hands of writers who themselves 
 saw what they describe, who knew as well as we know the 
 
 1 JtfViflnn Vtta S. Hugnnit Hpiampi Linonlnemia. From MSS. in the Bod- 
 leian Library, Oxford, and the Iniperiul Library, Paris. Edited by the Rev. 
 James F. Uiraock, M. A., Hector of Bamburgh, Yorkshire. 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 55 
 
 distinction between truth and falsehood, and who coidd 
 notice and appreciate genuine human qualities. Amidst 
 the obscure forms of mediaeval history we are brought face 
 to face with authentic flesh and blood, and we are able 
 to see in clear sunlight the sort of person who, in those 
 ages, was considered especially admirable, and, alive or 
 dead, was held up to the reverence of mankind. To one 
 of these I propose in the present article to draw some 
 bncf attention. It is the life of St. Hugo of Avalon, a 
 monk of the Grand Chartreuse, who was invited by Henry 
 n. into England, became Bishop of Lincoln, and was the 
 designer, and in part builder, of Lincoln Cathedral. The 
 biographer was his chaplain and constant companion — 
 Brother Adam — a monk like himself, though of another 
 order, who became afterwards Abbot of Ensham ; and 
 having learnt, perhaps from the bishop himself, the detest- 
 ableness of lying, has executed his task with simple and 
 scrupulous fidelity. The readers whose interests he was 
 considering were, as usual, the inmates of convents. He 
 omits, as he himself tells us, many of the outer and more 
 secular incidents of the bishop's life, as unsuited to his 
 audience. We have glimpses of kings, courts, and great 
 councils, with other high matters of national moment. 
 The years which the bishop spent in England were rich in 
 events. There was the conquest of Ireland ; there were 
 Welsh and French wars ; the long struggle of Henry II. 
 and his sons ; and, when Henry passed away, there was the 
 Grand Crusade. Then followed the captivity of Coeur de 
 Lion and the treachery of John ; and Hugo's work, it is 
 easy to see, was not confined to the management of his 
 diocese. On all this, however, Abbot Adam observes en- 
 tire sUencf', not considering our curiosity, but the con- 
 cerns of the souls of his own monks whom he would not 
 distract by too lively representations of the world which 
 they had abandoned. 
 
 The book however, as it stands, is so rare a treasure 
 
66 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 that we will waste no time in describing what it is not. 
 Within its own compass it contains the most vivid picture 
 which has come down to us of England as it then was, and 
 of the first Plantagenet kings. 
 
 Bishop Hugo came into the world in the mountainous 
 country near Grenoble, on the borders of Savoy. Abbot 
 Adam dwells with a certain pride upon his patron's 
 parentage. He tells us indeed, sententiously, that it is 
 better to be noble in morals than to be noble in blood — 
 that to be born undistinguished is a less misfortune than 
 to live so' — but he regards a noble family only as an 
 honorable setting for a nature which was noble in itself. 
 The bishop was one of three children of a Lord of Avalon, 
 and was born in a castle near Pontcharra. His mother 
 died when he was eight years old ; and his father having 
 lost the chief interest which bound him to life, divided 
 his estates between his two other sons, and withdrew with 
 the little one into an adjoining monastery. There was a 
 college attached to it, where the children of many of the 
 neighboring barons were educated. Hugo, however, was 
 from the first designed for a religious life, and mixed little 
 with the other boys. " You, my little fellow," his tutor 
 said to him, " I am bringing up for Christ : you must not 
 learn to play or trifle." The old Lord became a monk. 
 Hugo grew up beside him in the convent, waiting on him 
 as he became infirm, and smoothing the downward road ; 
 and meanwhile learning whatever of knowledge and prac- 
 tical piety his preceptors were able to provide. The life, 
 it is likely, was not wanting in austerity, but the compara- 
 tively easy rule did not satisfy Hugo's aspirations. The 
 theory of " religion," as the conventual system in all its 
 forms was termed, was the conquest of self, the reduction 
 of the entire nature to the control of the better part of it ; 
 and as the seat of self lay in the body, as temptation to do 
 wrong, then as always, lay, directly or indirectly, in the 
 desire for s)me bodily indulgence, or the dread of somo 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 57 
 
 bodily pain, the method pursued was the inuring of the 
 body to the hardest fare, and the producing indifference to 
 cold, hunger, pain, or any other calamity which the chances 
 of life could inflict upon it. Men so trained could play 
 their part in life, whether high or low, with wonderfiil 
 advantage. Wealth had no attraction for them. The 
 world could give them nothing which they had learnt to 
 desire, and take nothing from them which they cared to 
 lose. The orders, however, differed in severity ; and at 
 this time the highest discipline, moral and bodily, was to 
 be found only among the Carthusians. An incidental visit 
 with the prior of his own convent to the Grande Char- 
 treuse, determined Hugo to seek admission into this extraor- 
 dinary society. 
 
 It was no light thing which he was undertaking. The 
 majestic situation of the Grande Chartreuse itself, the 
 loneliness, the seclusion, the atmosphere of sanctity, which 
 hung around it, the mysterious beings who had made their 
 home there, fascinated his imagination. A stern old monk, 
 to whom he first communicated his intention, supposing 
 that he was led away by a passing fancy, looked grimly at 
 his pale face and delicate limbs, and roughly told him that 
 he was a fool. " Young man," the monk said to him, 
 " the men who inhabit these rocks are hard as the rocks 
 themselves. They have no mercy on their own bodies and 
 none on others. The dress will scrape the flesh from your 
 bones. The discipline will tear the bones themselves out 
 of such frail limbs as yours." 
 
 The Carthusians combined in themselves the severities 
 of the hermits and of the regular orders. Each member 
 of the fraternity lived in his solitary cell in the rock, meet- 
 ing his companions only in the chapel, or for instruction, 
 or for the business of the house. They ate no meat. A 
 loaf of bread was given to every brother on Sunday morn- 
 ing at tho refectory door, which was to last him through 
 the week. An occasional mess of gruel was all that was 
 
58 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 allowed in addition. His bedding was a horse-cloth, a pil- 
 low, and a skin. His dress was a horsehair shirt, covered 
 Outside with linen, which was worn night and day, and 
 the white cloak of the order, generally a sheep&kiu, and un- 
 lined ; all else was bare. He was bound by vows of the 
 strictest obedience. The order had business in all parts of 
 the world. Now some captive was to be rescued from the 
 Moors ; now some earl or king had been treading on the 
 Church's privileges ; a brother was chosen to interpose in 
 the name of the Chartreuse : he received his credentials and 
 had to depart on the instant, with no furniture but his stick, 
 to walk, it might be, to the furthest corner of Europe. 
 
 A singular instance of the kind occurs incidentally in the 
 present narrative. A certain brother Einard, who came 
 ultimately to England, had been sent to -Spain, to Granada, 
 to Africa itself. Eeturning through Provence he fell in 
 with some of the Albigenses, who spoke slightingly of the 
 sacraments. The hard Carthusian saw but one course to 
 follow with men he deemed rebels to his Lord. He was the 
 first to urge the crusade which ended in their destruction. 
 He roused the nearest orthodox nobles to arms, and Hugo's 
 biographer tells delightedly how the first invasions were fol- 
 lowed up by others on a larger scale, and " the brute and 
 pestilent race, unworthy of the name of men, were cut away 
 by the toil of the faithful, and by God's mercy destroyed." 
 
 " Pitiless to themselves," as the old monk said, " they 
 had no pity on any other man,'' as Einard afterwards was 
 himself to feel. Even Hugo at times disapproved of their 
 extreme severity. " God," he said, alluding to some cruel 
 action of the society, " God tempers his anger with compas- 
 sion. When he drove Adam frotai Paradise, he at least 
 gave him a coat of skins; man knows not what mercy 
 means." \ 
 
 Einard, after this Albigensian affair, was ordered in the 
 midst of a bitter winter to repair to D^imark. He was a 
 very aged man, — a hundred years old, hjs brother monks 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 59 
 
 belieyed, — broken at any rate with age and toil. He 
 shrank from the journey, he begged to be spared, and when 
 the command was persisted in, he refused obedience. He 
 was instantly expelled. Half-clad, amidst the ice and snow, 
 he wandered from one religious house to another. In all 
 he was refused admission. At last, one bitter, frosty night 
 he appeared penitent at the gate of the Chartreuse, and 
 prayed to be forgiven. The porter was forbidden to open 
 to him till morning, but left the old man to shiver in the 
 enow through the darkness. 
 
 " By my troth, brother," Einard said the next day to him, 
 " had you been a bean last night, between my teeth, they 
 would have chopped you in pieces in spite of me." 
 
 Such were the monks of the Chartreuse, among whom 
 the son of the Avalon noble desired to be enrolled, as the 
 highest favor which could be shown him upon earth. His 
 petition was entertained. He was allowed to enlist in the 
 spiritual army, in which he rapidly distinguished himself; 
 and at the end of twenty years he had acquired a name 
 through France as the ablest member of the world-famed 
 fraternity. 
 
 It was at this time, somewhere about 1174, that Henry 
 II. conceived the notion of introducing the Carthusians into 
 England. In the premature struggle to which he had com- 
 mitted himself with the Church, he had been hopelessly 
 worsted. The constitutions of Clarendon had been torn in 
 pieces. He had himself, of his own accord, done penance 
 at the shrine of the murdered Becket. The haughty sov- 
 ereign of England, as a symbol of the sincerity of his sub- 
 mission, had knelt in the chapter-house of Canterbury, pre- 
 senting voluntarily there his bare shoulders to be flogged by 
 the monks. His humiliation, so far from degrading him, 
 had restored him to the affection of his subjects, and his en- 
 deavor thenceforward was to purify and reinvigorate the 
 proud institution against which he had too rashly matched 
 his strength. 
 
60 A Bishop of the Twelfth CentAfy. 
 
 In pursuance of his policy he had applied to the Char- 
 treuse for assistance, and half a dozen monks, among them 
 brother Einard whose Denmark mission was exchanged for 
 the English, had been sent over and establislied at Witham, 
 a village not far from Frome in Somersetshire. Sufficient 
 pains had not been taken to prepare for their reception. 
 The Carthusians were a solitary order, and required exclu- 
 sive possession of the estates set apart for their use. The 
 Saxon population were still in occupation of their holdings, 
 and being crown tenants, saw themselves threatened with 
 eviction in favor of foreigners. Quarrels had arisen and ill- 
 feeling, and the Carthusians, proud as the proudest of nobles, 
 and considering that in coming to England they were rather 
 conferring favors than receiving them, resented the being 
 compelled to struggle for tenements which they had not 
 sought or desired. The first prior threw up his office and 
 returned to the Chartreuse. The second died immediately 
 after of chagrin and disgust ; and the king, who was then 
 in Normandy, heard to his extreme mortification that the 
 remaining brethren were threatening to take staff in hand 
 and march back to their homes. The Count de Maurienne, 
 to whom he communicated his distress, mentioned Hugo's 
 name to him. It was determined to send for Hugo, and 
 Fitzjoeelyn, Bishop of Bath, with other venerable persons, 
 carried the invitation to the Chartreuse. 
 
 To Hugo himself, meanwhile, as if in preparation for the 
 destiny which was before him, a singular experience was at 
 that moment occurring. He was now about forty years old. 
 It is needless to say that he had duly practiced the usual 
 austerities prescribed by his rule. Whatever discipline 
 could do to kill the carnal nature in him had been carried 
 out to its utmost harshness. He was a man, however, of 
 great physical strength. His flesh was not entirely dead, 
 and he was going where superiority to worldly temptation 
 would be specially required. Just before Fitzjoeelyn ar- 
 rived he was assailed suddenly by emotions so extremely 
 
A. Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 61 
 
 violent that he said he would rather face the pains of 
 Gehenna than encounter them again. His mind was 
 unaffected, but the devil had him at advantage in his sleep 
 He prayed, he floggfed himself, he fasted, he confessed ; still 
 Satan was allowed to buifet him, and though he had no fear 
 for his soul, he thought his body would die in the struggle. 
 One night in particular the agony reached its crisis. He 
 lay tossing on his uneasy pallet, the angel of darkness try- 
 ing with all his allurements to tempt his conscience into 
 acquiescence in evU. An angel from above appeared to 
 enter the cell as a spectator of the conflict. Hugo imagined 
 that he sprung to him, clutched him, and wrestled like Jacob 
 with him to extort a blessing, but could not succeed ; and at 
 last he sank exhausted on the ground. In the sleep or tht> 
 unconsciousness which followed, an aged prior of the Char- 
 treuse, who had admitted him as a boy to the order, had 
 died, and had since been canonized, seemed to lean over him 
 as he lay, and inquired the cause of his distress. He said 
 that he was afflicted to agony by the law of sin that was in 
 his members, and unless some one aided him he would per- 
 ish. The saint drew from his breast what appeared to be a 
 knife, opened his body, drew a fiery mass of something from 
 the bowels, and flung it out of the door. He awoke and 
 found that it was morning, and that he was perfectly cured. 
 
 " Did you never feel a return of these motions of the 
 flesh ? " asked Adam, when Hugo related the story to him. 
 
 "Not neverj" Hugo answered, "but never to a degree 
 that gave me the slightest trouble." 
 
 " I have been particular," wrote Adam afterwards, " to 
 relate this exactly as it happened, a false account of it 
 having gone abroad that it was the Blessed Virgin who 
 appeared instead of the prior," and that Hugo was relieved 
 by an operation of a less honorable kind. 
 
 Visionary nonsense, the impatient reader may say : and 
 had Hugo becobae a dreamer of the cloister, a persecutor 
 like S(. Dominic, or a hysterical fiinatio like Ignatius Loy- 
 
02 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 ola, we might pass it by as a morbid illusion. But there 
 never lived a man to whom the word morbid could be 
 applied with less propriety. In the Hugo of Avalon with 
 whom we are now to become acquainted, we shall see noth- 
 ing but the sunniest cheerfulness, strong masculine sense, 
 inflexible purpose, uprightness in word and deed ; with an 
 ever-flowing stream of genial and buoyant humor. 
 
 In the story of the temptation, therefore, we do but see 
 the final conquest of the selfish nature in him which left his 
 nobler qualities free to act, wherever he might find himself, 
 
 Fitzjocelyn anticipating difficulty, had brought with him 
 the Bishop of Grenoble to support his petition. He was 
 received at first with imiversal clamor. Hugo was the 
 brightest jewel of the order; Hugo could not be parted 
 with for any prince on earth. He himself, entirely happy 
 where he was, anticipated nothing but trouble, but left his 
 superiors to decide for him. At length sense of duty pre- 
 vailed. The brethren felt that he was a shining light, of 
 which the world must not be deprived. The Bishop of 
 Grenoble reminded them that Christ had left heaven and 
 come to earth for sinners' souls, and that his example ought 
 to be imitated. It was arranged that Hugo was to go, and 
 a few weeks later he was at Witham. 
 
 He was welcomed there as an angel from heaven. He 
 found everything in confusion, the few monks living in wat- 
 tled huts in the forest, the village still in possession of its 
 old occupants, and bad blood and discontent on all hands. 
 The first difficulty was to enter upon the lands without 
 wrong to the people, and the history of a large eviction in 
 the twelfth century will not be without its instructiveness 
 even at the present day. One thing Hugo was at once de- 
 cided upon, that the foundation would not flourish if it was 
 bmlt upon injustice. He repaired to Henry, and as a first 
 step induced him to offer the tenants (crown serfs or vil- 
 'eins) either entire enfranchisement or farms of equal value, 
 on ajiy other of the royal manors, to be selected by them- 
 
A Biehop of the Twelfth Century. ?3 
 
 selves. Some chose one, some the other. The next thing 
 was compensation for improvements, houses, farm-buildings, 
 and fences erected by the people at their own expense. 
 The crown, if it resumed possession, must pay for these or 
 wrong would be done. " Unless your majesty satisfy these 
 poor men to the last obol," said Hugo to Henry, " we can- 
 not take possession." 
 
 The king consented, and the people, when the prior car- 
 ried back the news of the arrangement, were satisfied to go. 
 
 But this was not all. Many of them were removing no 
 great distance, and could carry with them the materials of 
 their houses. Hugo resolved that they should keep these 
 things, and again marched off to the court. 
 
 " My lord," said Hugo, " I am but a new comer in your 
 realm, and I have already enriched your majesty with a 
 quantity of cottages and farm steadings.'' 
 
 " Riches I could well have spared," said Henry, laughing. 
 " You have almost made a beggar of me. What am I to 
 do with old huts and rotten timber ? " 
 
 " Perhaps your majesty will give them to me," said 
 Hugo. " It is but a trifle," he added, when the king hesi- 
 tated. " It is my first request, and only a small one." 
 
 " This is a terrible fellow that we have brought among 
 as," laughed the king ; " if he is so powerful with his per- 
 suasions, what will he do if he tries force ? Let it be as he 
 says. We must not drive him to extremities." 
 
 Thus, with the good-will of all parties, and no wrong 
 doiie to any man, the first obstacles were overcome. The 
 villagers went away happy. The monks entered upon their 
 lands amidst prayers and blessings, the king himself being 
 as pleased as any one at his fi^rst experience of the character 
 of Prior Hugo. 
 
 Henry had soon occasion to see more of him. He had 
 promised to build the monks a house and chapel, but be- 
 tween Ireland, and Wales, and Scotland, and his domin- 
 ions in France, and his three mutinous sons, he had many 
 
64. A Bishop o} ttin Twelfth, Century. 
 
 troubles on his hands. Time passed, and the building was 
 not begun, and Hugo's flock grew mutinous onco more ; 
 twice he sent Henry a reminder, twice came back fair 
 words and notliiiig more. The brethren began to hint 
 that the prior was afraid of the powers of this world, and 
 dared not speak plainly ; and one of them. Brother Gerard, 
 an old monk with high blood in his veins, declared that he 
 would himself go and tell Henry some unpleasant truths. 
 Hugo had discovered in his interview with him that the 
 Idng was no ordinary man, " vir sagacis ingenii, et inscrutab- 
 ilis fere animi." He made no opposition, but he proposed 
 to go himself along with this passionate gentleman, and he, 
 Gerard, and the aged Einard, who was mentioned above, 
 went together as a deputation. 
 
 The king received them as " ccelestes angelos," — angels 
 from heaven. He professed the deepest reverence for their 
 characters, and the greatest anxiety to please them, but he 
 said nothing precise and determined, and the fieiy Gerard 
 burst out as he intended. Carthusian monks, it seems, con- 
 sidered themselves entitled to speak to kings on entirely 
 equal terms. " Finish your work or leave it, my lord 
 king," the proud Burgundian said. " It shall no more be 
 any concern to me. You have a pleasant realm here in 
 England, but for myself I prefer to take my leave of ynu 
 and go back to my desert Chartreuse. You give us bread, 
 and you think you are doing a great thing for us. We do 
 not need your bread. It is better for us to return to our 
 Alps. You count money lost which you spend on your 
 soul's health ; keep it then, since you love it so dearly. Or 
 rather, you cannot keep it ; for you must die and let it go 
 to others who will not thank you." 
 
 Hugo tried to check the stream pf words, but Gerard and 
 Einard were both older than he, and refused to be re- 
 strained. 
 
 « Regem videres philosophantem : " the king was appar 
 ently meditating. His face did not alter, nor did he speak 
 a word 1 11 the Carthusian had done. ' 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 66 
 
 "And what do you think, my good fellow," he said at 
 last, after a pause, looking up and turning to Hugo : " will 
 you forsake me too ? " 
 
 " My lord," said Hugo, " I am less desperate than my 
 brothers. You have much work upon your hands, and I 
 can feel for you. When God shall please you will have 
 leisure to attend to us." 
 
 " By my soul," Henry answered, " you are one that I 
 will never part with wliUe I live." 
 
 He sent workmen at once to Witham. Cells and chapel 
 were duly built. The trouble finally passed away, and the 
 Carthusian priory taking root became the English nm-sery 
 ofthe order, which rapidly spread. 
 
 Hugo himself continued there for eleven years, leaving it 
 from time to time on business of the Church, or summoned, 
 as happened more and more frequently, to Henry's pres- 
 ence. The king, who had seen his value, who knew that 
 he could depend upon him to speak the truth, consulted him 
 on the most serious affairs of state, and beginning with 
 respect, became familiarly and ardently attached to him. 
 Witham however remained his home, and he returned to it 
 always as to a retreat of perfect enjoyment. His cell and 
 his dole of weekly bread gave him as entire satisfaction as 
 the most luxuriously furnished villa could afford to one of 
 ourselves ; and long after, when he was called elsewhere, 
 and the cares ofthe great world fell more heavily upon him, 
 he looked to an annual month at Witham for rest of mind 
 and body, and on coming there he would pitch away his 
 grand dress and jump into his sheepskin as we moderns put 
 on our shooting jackets. 
 
 While he remained prior he lived in perfect simplicity 
 and imbroken health of mind and body. The fame of his 
 order spread fast, and with its light the inseparable shadow 
 of superstition. Witham became a place of pilgrimage : 
 miracles were said to be worked by involuntary effluences 
 from its owupants. Then and always Hugo thought little 
 
 5 
 
66 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 of miracles, turned his back on them for the most part, and 
 discouraged them if not as illusions yet as matters of no con- 
 Bequence. St. Paul thought one intelligible sentence con- 
 taining truth in it was better than a hundred in an unknown 
 tongue. The Prior of Witham considered that the only 
 miracle worth speaking of was holiness of life. " Little I," 
 writes Adam (parvulus ego), "observed that he worked 
 many miracles himself, but he paid no attention to them." 
 Thus he lived for eleven years with as much rational hap- 
 piness as, in his opinion, human nature was capable of ex- 
 periencing. "When he lay down upon his horse-rug he slept 
 like a child, undisturbed, save that at intervals, as if he was 
 praying, he muttered a composed Amen. When he awoke 
 he rose and went about his ordinary business : cleaning up 
 dirt, washing dishes, and such like, being his favorite early 
 occupation. 
 
 The Powers, however, — who, according to the Greeks, 
 are jealous of human felicity, — thought proper, in due 
 time, to disturb the Prior of Witham. Towards the end of 
 1183 Walter de Coutances was promoted from the bishop- 
 ric of Lincoln to the archbishopric of Rouen. The see lay 
 vacant for two years and a half, and a successor had now to 
 be provided. A great council was sitting at Ensham on 
 business of the realm ; the king riding over every morning 
 from Woodstock. A deputation of canons from Lincoln 
 came to learn his pleasure for the filling up the vacancy. 
 The canons were directed to make a choice for themselves, 
 and were unable to agree, for the not unnatural reason that 
 each canon considered the fittest person to be himself. 
 Some one (Adam does not mention the name) suggested, 
 as a way out of the difiiculty, the election of Hugo of 
 Witham. The canons being rich, well to do, and of the 
 modern easy-going sort, laughed at the suggestion of the 
 poor Carthusian. They found to their surprise, however, 
 that the king was emphatically of the same opinion, and that 
 Hugo and nobody else was the person that he intended for 
 thptn. 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 67 
 
 The king's pleasure was theirs. They gave their votes, 
 aiid dispatched a deputation over the downs to command the 
 prior's instant presence at Ensham, 
 
 A difficulty rose where it w:as least expected. Not only 
 was the " Nolo episcopari " in Hugo's case a genuine feel- 
 ing, not only .did he regard worldly promotion as a thing 
 not in the least attractive to him ; but, in spite of his regard 
 for Henry, he did not believe that the king was a proper 
 person to nominate the prelates of the Church. He told the 
 canons that the election was void. They must return to 
 their own cathedral, caU the chapter together, invoke the 
 Holy Spirit, put the king of England out of their minds, 
 and consider rather the King of kings ; and so, and not 
 otherwise, proceed with their choice. 
 
 The canons, wide-eyed with so unexpected a reception, 
 retired with their answer. Whether they complied with the 
 spirit of Hugo's direction ma:y perhaps be doubted. They, 
 however, assembled at Lincoln with the proper forms, and 
 repeated the election with the external conditions which he 
 had prescribed. As a last hope of escape he appealed to 
 the Chartreuse, declaring himself unable to accept any office 
 without orders from his superiors ; but the authorities there 
 forbade him to decline ; and a fresh deputation of canons 
 having come for his escort, he mounted his mule with a 
 heavy heart, and set out in their company for "Winchester, 
 where the king was then residing. 
 
 A glimpse of the party we are able to catch upon their 
 Journey. Though it was seven hundred years since, the 
 English September was probably much like what it is at 
 present, and the down country cannot have materially 
 altered. The canons had their palfreys, richly caparisoned 
 with gilt saddle-cloths, and servants, and sumpter horses. 
 The bishop elect strapped his wardrobe, his blanket and 
 sheepskin, at the back of his saddle. He rode in this way 
 resisting remonstrance till close \o "Winchester, when the 
 canons, afraid of the ridicule of the court, slit the leathers 
 
68 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 without his knowing it, and passed his baggage to the ser- 
 vants. 
 
 Consecration and installation duly followed, and it was 
 supposed that Hugo, a humble monk, owing his promotion 
 to the king, would be becomingly grateful ; that he would 
 , become just a bishop like anybody else, complying with 
 established customs, moving in the regular route, and keep- 
 ing the waters smooth. 
 
 All parties were disagreeably, or rather, as it turned out 
 ultimately, agreeably surprised. The first intimation which 
 he gave that he had a will of his own followed instantly 
 upon his admission. Corruption or quasi-corruption had 
 gathered already round ecclesiastical appointments. The 
 Archdeacon of Canterbury put in a claim for consecration 
 fees, things in themselves without meaning or justice, but 
 implying that a bishopric was. a prize, the lucky winner of 
 which was expected to be generous. 
 
 The new prelate held no such estimate of the nature of 
 his appointment; he said he would give as much for his 
 cathedral as he had given for his mitre, and left the archdea- 
 con to his reflections. 
 
 No sooner was he established and had looked about him, 
 than from ' the poor tenants of estates of the see he heard 
 complaints of that most ancient of English grievances, — 
 the game laws. Hugo, who himself touched no meat, was 
 not likely to have cared for the chase. He was informed 
 that venison must be provided for his installation feast. He 
 told his people to take from his park what was necessary, 
 — three hundred stags if they pleased, so little he cared for 
 preserving them ; but neither was he a man to have inter- 
 fered needlessly with the recognized amusements of other 
 people. There must have been a case of real oppression, 
 w he would not have meddled with such things. The 
 offender was no less a person than the head forester of the 
 king himself. Hugo, failing to bring him to reason with 
 mild methods, excommunicated him, and left him to carry 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth (Jentury. 69 
 
 his complaints to Henry. It happened that a rich stsiU waa 
 at the moment vacant at Lincoln. The king wanted it for 
 one of his courtiers, and gaye the bishop an opportunity of 
 redeeming his first offense by asking for it as a favor to him- 
 self. Henry was at Woodstock ; the bishop, at the moment, 
 was at Dorchester, a place in his diocese thirteen miles off. 
 On receiving Henry's letter the bishop bade the messenger 
 carry back for answer that prebendal stalls were not for 
 courtiers but for priests. The king must find other means 
 of rewarding temporal services. Henry, with some experi- 
 ence of the pride of ecclesiastics, was unprepared for so 
 abrupt a message, — Becket himself had been less insolent, 
 — and as he had been personally kind to Ifugo, he was 
 hurt as well as offended. He sent again to desire him to 
 come to Woodstock, and prepared, when he arrived, to show 
 him that he was seriously displeased. Then followed one 
 of the most singular scenes in English history, — a thing 
 veritably true, which oaks still standing in Woodstock Park 
 may have witnessed. As soon as word was brought that 
 the bishop was at the park gate, Henry mounted his horse, 
 rode with his retinue into a glade in the forest, where he 
 alighted, sat down upon the ground with his people, and in 
 this position prepared to receive the criminal. The bishop 
 approached, — no one rose or spoke. He saluted the king ; 
 there Was no answer. Pausing for a moment, he approached, 
 pushed aside gently an earl who was sitting at Henry's side, 
 and himself took his place. Silence still contiimed. At last 
 Henry, looking up, called for a needle and thread ; he had 
 hurt a finger of his left hand. It was wrapped with a strip 
 of linen rag, the end was loose, and he began to sew. The 
 bishop watched him. through a few stitches, and then, with 
 the utmost composure, said to him, — " Quam similis es 
 modo cognatis tuis de Falesia," — " Your highness now re- 
 minds me of your cousins of Falaise." The words sounded 
 innocent enough, — indeed, entirely unmeaning. Alone of 
 the party , Henry understood the allusion ; and, overwhelmed 
 
TO A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 by the astonishing impertinence, he clenched his hands, 
 struggled hard to contain himself, and then rolled on the 
 ground in convulsions of laughter. 
 
 « Did you hear," he said to his people when at last he 
 found words, " did you hear how this wretch insulted us ? 
 The blood of my ancestor the Conqueror, as you know, 
 was none of the purest. His mother was of Falaise, which 
 is famous for its leather work, and when this mocking 
 gentlemen saw me stitching my finger, he said I was show- 
 ing my parentage." 
 
 "My good sir," he continued, turning to Hugo, " what 
 do you mean by excommunicating my head forester, and 
 when I make a small request of you, why is it that you not 
 only do not come to see me, but do not send me so much as 
 a. civil answer ? " 
 
 " I know myself," answered Hugo, gravely, " to be in- 
 debted to your highness for my late promotion. I con- 
 sidered that your highness's soul would be in danger if I 
 was found wanting in the discharge of my duties ; and 
 therefore it was that I used the censures of the Church 
 when I held them necessary, and that I resisted an im- 
 proper attempt on your part upon a stall in my cathedral. 
 To wait on you on such a subject I thought superfluous, 
 . since your highness approves, as a matter of course, of 
 whatever is rightly ordered in your realm." 
 
 What could be done with such a bishop ? No one knew 
 better than Henry the truth of what Hugo was saying, or 
 the worth of such a man to himself He bade Hugo pro- 
 ceed with the forester as he pleased. Hugo had him pub- 
 licly whipped, then absolved him, and gave him his blessing, 
 and found in him ever after a fast and faithful friend. The 
 courtiers asked for no more stalls, and all was well. 
 
 In Church matters in his own diocese he equally took 
 ' his own way. Nothing could be more unlike than Hugo 
 to the canons whom he found in possession ; yet he some- 
 how bent them all to his will, or carried their wills with 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 71 
 
 his own. " Never since I came to the diocese," he said to 
 his chaplain, " have I had. a quarrel with my chapter. It 
 is not that I am easy-going — sum enim revera pipere 
 mordacior: pepper is not more biting than I can be. I 
 often fly out for small causes ; but they take me as they 
 find me. There is not one ^ho distrusts my love for him, 
 nor one by whom I do not believe myself to be loved." 
 
 At table this hardest of monks was the most agreeable 
 of companions. Though no one had practiced abstinence 
 more severe, no one less valued it for its own sake, or had 
 less superstition or foolish sentiment about it. It was, and 
 is, considered sacrilege in the Church of Rome to taste 
 food before saying mass. Hugo, if he saw a priest. who 
 was to officiate exhausted for want of support, and likely to 
 find a difficulty in getting through his work, would order 
 him to eat as a point of duty, and lectured him for want of 
 faith if he affected to be horrified. 
 
 Like all genuine men, the bishop was an object of special 
 attraction to children and animals. The little ones in 
 every house that he entered were always found clinging 
 about his legs. Of the attachment of other creatures to 
 him, there was one very singular instance. About the 
 time of his installation there appeared on the mere at Stow 
 Manor, eight miles from Lincoln, a swan of unusual size, 
 which drove the other male birds from off the water. Ab- 
 bot Adam, who frequently saw the bird, says that he was 
 curiously marked. The bill was saffron , instead of black, 
 with a saffron tint on the plumage of the head and neck ; 
 and the abbot adds, he was as much larger than other 
 swans as a swan is larger than a goose. This bird, on the 
 occasion of the bishop's first visit to the manor, was brought 
 to him to be seen as a curiosity. He was usually unman- 
 ageable and savage ; but the bishop knew the way to his 
 heart ; fed him, and taught him to poke his head into the 
 pockets of his frock to look for'bread crumbs, which he did 
 not fail to find there. Ever after he seemed to know in- 
 
72 A Bishop of the Twelfth Centura/. 
 
 stinctively when the bishop was expected, and flew trumpet- 
 ing up and down the lake, slapping the water with hi» 
 wings ; when the horses approached, he would march out 
 upon the grass to meet them ; strutted at the bishop's side, 
 and would sometimes follow him up-stairs. 
 
 It was a miracle of course •" to the general mind, though 
 explicable enough to those who have observed the physical 
 charm which men who take pains to understand animals 
 are able to exercise over them. 
 
 To relate, or even to sketch. Bishop Hugo's public life 
 in the fourteen years that he was at Lincoln, would be 
 beyond the compass of a magazine article. The materials 
 indeed do not exist : for Abbot Adam's life is but a col- 
 lection of anecdotes ; and out of them it is only possible 
 here to select a few at random. King Henry died two 
 years after the scene at Woodstock ; then came the acces- 
 sion of Coeur de Lion, the Crusade, the king's imprison- 
 ment in Austria, and the conspiracy of John. Glimpses _ 
 can be caught of the bishop in these stormy times quelling 
 insurgent mobs — in Holland, perhaps Holland in Lincoln- 
 shire, with his brother William of Avalon, encountering 
 a military insurrection ; single-handed and unarmed, over- 
 awing a rising at Northampton, when the citizens took 
 possession of the great church, and swords were flashing, 
 and his attendant chaplains fled terrified, and hid themselves 
 behind the altars. 
 
 These things however, glad as we should be to know 
 more of them, the abbot merely hints at, confining himself 
 to subjects more interesting to the convent recluses for 
 whose edification he was writing. 
 
 But in whatever circumstances he lets us see the\)ishop, 
 it is always the same simple, brave, unpretending, wise 
 figure, one to whom Nature had been lavish of her fairest 
 gifts, and whose training, to modern eyes so unpromising, 
 had brought out all that was best in him. 
 
 Amijng the most deadly disorders which at that time pre* 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 73 
 
 vailed in England was leprosy. The wretched creatures 
 afflicted with so loathsome a disease were regarded with a 
 superstitious terror: as the objects in some special way of 
 the wrath of God. They were outlawed from the fellow- 
 ship of mankind, and left to perish in misery. 
 
 The bishop, who had clearer views of the nature and 
 causes of human suffering, established hospitals on his estate 
 for these poor victims of undeserved misery, whose misfor- 
 tunes appeared to him to demand special care and sympathy. 
 To the horror of his attendants, he persisted in visiting 
 them himself; he washed their sores with his own hands, 
 kissed them, prayed over them, and consoled them. 
 
 " Pardon, blessed Jesus," exclaims Adam, " the unhappy 
 soul of him who tells the story ! when I saw my master 
 toui'i those bloated and livid faces; when I saw bim kiss 
 the bleared eyes or eyeless sockets, I shuddered with dis- 
 gust. But Hugo said to me that these afflicted ones were 
 flowers of Paradise, pearls in the coronet of the Eternal 
 King waiting for the coming of their Lord, who in his own 
 time would change their forlorn bodies into the likeness of 
 his own glory." 
 
 He never altered his own monastic habits. He never 
 parted with his hair shirt, or varied from the hardness of 
 the Carthusian rule; but he refused to allow that it pos- 
 sessed any particular sanctity. Men of the world affected 
 regret sometimes to him that they were held by duty to a 
 secular life when they would have preferred to retire into a 
 monastery. The kingdom of God, he used to answer, was 
 not made up of monks and hermits. God, at the, day of 
 judgment, would not ask a man why he had not been a 
 monk, but why he had not been a Christian. Charity in 
 the heart, truth in the tongue, chastity in the body were the 
 virtu 38 which God demanded.: and chastity, to the astonish- 
 ment of his clergy, he insisted, was to be found as well 
 among the married as the unmarried. The wife was as 
 honorable as the virgin. He allowed women (Adam's pen 
 
74 A Bishop of the Twelfth Cmturp. 
 
 trembles as he records it) to sit at his side at dinner ; and 
 had been known to touch and even to embrace them. 
 " Woman," he once said remarkably, " has been admitted to 
 a higher privilege than man. It has not been given to man 
 to be the father of God. To woman it has been given to 
 be God's mother." 
 
 Another curious feature about him was his eagerness to 
 be present, whenever possible, at the burial of the dead. He 
 never allowed any one of his priests to bury a corpse if he 
 were himself within reach. If a man had been good, he 
 said he deserved to be honored. If he had been a sinner, 
 there was the more reason to help him. He would allow 
 nothing to interfere with a duty of this kind ; and in great 
 cities he would spend whole days by the side of graves. At 
 Eouen once he was engaged to dinner with King Richard 
 himself, and kept the king and the court waiting for him 
 while he was busy in the cemetery. A courtier came to 
 fetch him. " The king needn't wait," he only said. " Let 
 him go to dinner in the name of God. Better the king 
 dine without my company, than that I leave my Master's 
 work undone.'' 
 
 Gentle and affectionate as he shows himself in such traits 
 as these, still, as he said, he was pipere mordacior — more 
 bituig than pepper. When there was occasion for anger 
 there was fierce lightning in him ; he was not afi-aid of the 
 highest in the land. 
 
 The cause for which Bjecket died was no less dear to 
 Hugo. On no pretext would he permit innovation on the 
 Church's privileges, and he had many a sharp engagement 
 with the primate, Archbishop Hubert, who was too com- 
 plaisant to the secular power. An instance or two may be 
 taken at random. There was a certain Richard de Wavi-e 
 in his diocese, a younger son of a noble house, who was in 
 deacon's orders, but, the elder brother having died childless, 
 was hoping to relapse into the lay estate. This Richai-d in 
 some one of the many political quarrels of the day brought 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 75 
 
 a charge of treason against Sir Reginald de Argentun, one 
 of the bishop's knights. As he was a clerk in orders the 
 bishop forbade lum to appear as prosecutor in a secular 
 court or cause. Coeur de Lion and Archbishop Hubert 
 ordered him to go on. The bishop suspended him for con- 
 tumacy, the archbishop removed the suspension. The bishop 
 pronounced sentence of excommunication ; the archbishop, 
 as primate and legate, issued letters of absolution, which 
 Richard flourished triumphantly in the bishop's face. 
 
 " If my lord archbishop absolve you a hundred times," 
 was Hugo's answer, " a hundred times I will excommuni- 
 cate you again. Regard my judgment as you will, I hold 
 you bound while you remain impenitent." Death ended 
 the dispute. The wretched Richard was murdered by one 
 of his servants. 
 
 Another analogous exploit throws curious light on the 
 habits of the times. Riding once through St. Alban's he 
 met the sheriff with the posse comitatus escorting a felon to 
 the gallows. The prisoner threw himself before the bishop 
 and claimed protection. The bishop reined in his horse and 
 asked who the man was.. 
 
 " My lord," said the sheriff shor%, " it is no affair of 
 yours ; let us pass and do onr duty." 
 
 " Eh I " then said Hugo. « Blessed be God ; we will see 
 about that ; make over the man to me ; and go back and 
 tell the judges that I have taken him from you."' 
 
 " My lords judges," he said, when they came to remon- 
 strate, " I need not remmd you of the Church's privileges 
 of sanctuary; understand that where the bishop is, the 
 Church is. He who can consecrate the sanctuary carries 
 with him the sacredness of the sanctuary." 
 
 The humiliation of an English king at Becket's tomb had 
 been a lesson too severe and too recent to be forgotten. 
 "We may not dispute with you," the judges replied; "if 
 you choose to let this man go we shall not oppose you, but 
 you must answer for it to the king's highness." 
 
76 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 " So be it," answered Hugo, " you have spoken well. I 
 charge myself with your' prisoner. The responsibility bo 
 mine." 
 
 There was probably something more in the case than 
 appears on the surface. The sanctuary system worked in 
 mitigation of a law which in itself was frightfully cruel, and 
 there may have been good reason why the life of the poor 
 wretch should have been spared. The bishop set him free. 
 It is to be hoped that " he sinned no more.'' 
 
 The common-sense view which the bishop took of mira- 
 cles has been already spoken of, but we may give one or 
 two other illustrations of it. Doubtless, he did not disbe- 
 lieve in the possibility of miracles, but he knew how much 
 imposture passed current under the name, and whether true 
 or false he never missed a chance of checking or affronting 
 superstition. 
 
 Stopping once in a country town on a journey from Paris 
 to Troyes, he invited the parish priest to dine with him. 
 The priest declined, but came in the evening to sit and talk 
 with the chaplains. He was a lean old man, dry and shriv- 
 eled to the bones, and he told them a marvelous story 
 which he bade them report to their master. 
 
 Long ago, he said, when he was first ordained priest, he 
 fell into mortal sin, and without having confessed or done 
 penance he had presumed to officiate at the altar. He was 
 skeptical too, it seemed, a premature Voltairian. " Is it 
 credible," he had said to himself when consecrating the 
 host, " that I, a miserable sinner, can manufacture and 
 handle and eat the body and blood of God ? " Pie was 
 breaking the wafer at the moment; blood ilowed at the 
 fracture — the part which was in his hand became flesh. He 
 dropped it terrified into the chalice, and the wine turned in- 
 stantly into blood. The precious things were preserved. 
 The priest went to Rome, confessed to -the Pope himself, 
 and received absolution. The. faithful now flocked from all 
 parts (?f France to adore the mysterious substances which 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 77 
 
 were to be seen in the parish church ; and the priest trusted 
 that he might be honored on the following day by tlie pres- 
 ence of Bishop Hugo and his retinue. 
 
 The chaplains rushed to the bishop open-mouthed, eager 
 to be allowed to refresh their souls on so divine a spectacle. 
 
 " In the name of God," he said quietly, " let unbelievers 
 go rushing after signs and wonders. What have we to do 
 with such things who partake every day of the heavenly 
 sacrifice ? " He dismissed the priest with his blessing, 
 gi\ing him the benefit of a doubt, though he probably 
 suspected him to be a rogue, and forbade his chaplains 
 most strictly to yield to idle curiosity. 
 
 He was naturally extremely humorous, and humor in 
 such men will show itself sometimes in playing with things, 
 in the sacredness of which they may believe fully notwith- 
 standing. It has been said, indeed, that no one has any 
 real faith if he cannot afford to play with it. 
 
 Among the relics at Fecamp, in Normfindy, was a so- 
 called bone of Mary Magdalene. This precious jewel was 
 kept with jealous care. It was deposited in a case, and 
 within the case was double wrapped in silk. Bishop Hugo 
 was taken to look at it in the presence of a crowd of 
 monks, abbots, and other dignitaries ; mass had been said 
 first as a preparation ; the thing was then taken out of its 
 box and exhibited, so far as it could be seen through its 
 envelope. The bishop asked to look at the bone itself; and 
 no one venturing to touch it, he borrowed a' knife and 
 calmly slit the covering. He took it up, whatever it may 
 have been, gazed at it, raised it to his lips as if to kiss it, 
 and then suddenly with a strong grip of liis teeth bit a 
 morsel out of its side. A shriek of sacrilege rang through 
 the church. Looking round quietly the bishop said, " Just 
 now we were handling in our unworthy fingers the body 
 of the Holy One' of aU. "We passed Him between our 
 teeth and down into our stomach ; why may we not do the 
 like with the members of his saints ? " 
 
T8 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 We have left to the last the most curious of all the 
 stories connected with this singular man. "We have seen 
 him with King Henry ; we wiU now follow him into the 
 presence of Cceur de Lion. 
 
 Richard, it will be remembered, on his return from his 
 captivity, plunged into war with Philip of France, carrying 
 out a quarrel which had commenced in the Holy Land. 
 The king, in distress for money, had played tricks with 
 Church patronage which Hugo had firmly resisted. After- 
 wards an old claim on Lincoln diocese for some annual 
 services was suddenly revived, which had been pretermitted 
 for sixty years. The arrears for all that time were called 
 for and exacted, and the clergy had to raise among them- 
 selves three thousand marks : hard measure of this kind 
 perhaps induced Hugo to look closely into further demands. 
 
 In 1197, when Richard was in Normandy, a pressing 
 message came home from him for supplies. A council was 
 held at Oxford, when Archbishop Hubert, who was Chan- 
 cellor, required each prelate and great nobleman in the 
 king's name to provide three hundred knights at his own 
 cost to serve in the war. The Bishop of London sup- 
 ported the primate. The Bishop of Lincoln followed. 
 Being a stranger, he said, and ignorant on his arrival of 
 English laws, he had made it his business to study them. 
 The see of Lincoln, he was aware, was bound to military 
 service, but it was service in England and not abroad. 
 The demaM of the king was against the liberties which 
 he had sworn to defend, and he would rather die than be- 
 tray them. 
 
 The Bishop of Salisbury, gathering courage from Hugo's 
 resistance, took the same side. The council broke up in 
 confusion, and the archbishop wrote to Richard to say that 
 he was unable to raise the required force, and that the 
 Bishop of Lincoln was the cause. Richard, who, with 
 most noble qualities, had the temper of a fiend, replied 
 instantly with an order to seize and confiscate the property 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 79 
 
 of the rebellious prelates. The Bishop of Salisbury was 
 brought upon his knees, but Hugo, fearless as ever, swore 
 that he would excommunicate any man who dared to 
 execute the king's command ; and as it was known that he 
 would keep his word, the royal officers hesitated to act. 
 The king .wrote a second time, more fiercely, threatening 
 death if they disobeyed; aild the bishop, not wishing to 
 expose them to trouble on his account, determined to go 
 over and encounter the tempest in person. 
 
 At Rouen, on his way to Roche d'Andeli, where Richard 
 was lying, he was encountered by the Earl Marshal and 
 Lord Albemarle, who implored him to send some concilia- 
 tory message by them, as the king was so furious that they 
 feared he might provoke the anger of God by some violent 
 act. 
 
 The bishop declined their assistance. He desired them 
 merely to tell the king that he was coming. They hurried 
 back, and he followed at his leisure. The scene that 
 ensued was even stranger than the interview already de- 
 scribed with Henry in the park at Woodstock. 
 
 Cceur de Lion, when he arrived at Roche d'Andeli, was 
 hearing mass in the church. He was sitting in a great 
 chair at the opening into the choir, with the Bishops of 
 Durham and Ely on either side. Church ceremonials must 
 have been conducted with less stiff propriety than at pres- 
 ent. Hugo advanced calmly and made the usual obeisance. 
 Richard said nothing, but frowned, looked sternly at him 
 for a moment, and turned away. 
 
 " Kiss me, my lord king," said the bishop. It was the 
 ordinary greeting between the sovereign and the spiritual 
 peers. The king averted his face stUl further. 
 
 " Kiss me, my lord," said Hugo again, and ho caught 
 Coeur de Lion by the vest and shook him, Abbot Adam 
 standing shivering behind. 
 
 " Non meruisti — thou has not deserved it," growled 
 Ricliard. 
 
80 A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 "I have deserved it," replied Hugo, and shook him 
 harder. 
 
 Had he shown fear, Coeur de Lion would probably have 
 ta-ampled on him, but who could resist such marvelous 
 audacity ? The kiss was given. The bishop passed up to 
 the altar and became absorbed in the service, Coeur de 
 Lion curiously watching him. 
 
 "V\1ien mass was over there was a formal audience, but 
 the rssult of it was decided already. Hugo declared his 
 loyalty in everything, save what touched his duty to God. 
 The king yielded, and threw the blame of the quarrel on 
 the too complaisant primate. 
 
 Even this was not all. The bishop afterwards requested 
 a private interview. He told Richard solemnly that he 
 was uneasy for his soul, and admonished him, if he had 
 anything on his conscience, to confess it. 
 
 The king said he was conscious of no sin, save of a cer- 
 tain rage against his French enemies. 
 
 " Obey God ! " the bishop said, " and God will humble 
 your enemies for you ; and you for your part take heed 
 you offend not Him or hurt your neighbor. I speak in 
 sadness, but rumor says you are unfaithful to your queen." 
 
 The lion was tamed for the moment. The king acknowl- 
 edged nothing, but restrained his passion, only observing 
 afterwards, " If all bishops were like my lord of Lincoln, not 
 a prince among us could lift his head against them." 
 
 The trouble was not over. Hugo returned to England 
 to find his diocese in confusion. A bailiff of the Earl of 
 Leicester had taken a man out of sanctuary in Lincoln and 
 had hung him. Instant excommunication followed. The 
 bishop compelled every one who had been concerned in the. 
 sacrilege to repair, stripped naked to the waist, to the spot 
 where the body was buried, to dig it up, putrid as it was, and 
 carry it on their shoulders round the town, to halt at each 
 church door to be flogged by the priests belonging to the 
 place, and then with their own hands to rebury the man in 
 the cemetery from which he had been originally carried off. 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Oentury. 81 
 
 Fresh demands for money in another but no less uTegu- 
 lar form followed from the king. There was again a coun- 
 cil in London. The archbishop insisted that Hugo should 
 levy a subsidy upon his clergy. 
 
 " Do you not know, my lord," the primate said, " that the 
 king is as thirsty for money as a man with the dropsy for 
 water? " 
 
 " His majesty may be dropsical for all that I know," 
 Hugo answered, " but I will not be the water for him to 
 swallow." 
 
 Once more he started for Nortnandy, but not a second 
 time to try the effect of his presence on Coeur de Lion. 
 On approaching Angers he was met by Sir Gilbert de Lacy 
 with the news that the Lion-heart was cold. Richard had 
 been struck by an arrow in the trenches at Chaluz. The 
 wound had mortified, and he was dead. He was to be 
 buried at Fontevrault, but the country was in the wildest 
 confusion. The roads were patrolled by banditti, and De 
 Lacy strongly advised the bishop to proceed no further. 
 
 Hugo's estimate of danger was unlike De Lacy's. "J 
 have more fear," he said, " of failing through cowardice ii. 
 my duty to my lord and prince. If the thieves take raj 
 horse and clothes from me, I can walk, and walk the lighteT. 
 If tliey tie me fast I cannot help myself." 
 
 Paying a brief visit to Queen Berengaria, at Beaufort 
 Abbey, on the way, he reached Fontevrault on Palm Sun- 
 day, the day of the funeral, and was in time to pay the last 
 honors *o the sovereign whom he had defied and yet loved 
 so dearly. 
 
 His own time was also nearly out, and this hurried sketch 
 must also haste to its end. One more scene, however, re- 
 mains to be described. , 
 . To Henry and Richard, notwithstanding " their many 
 faults, the bishop was ardently attached. For their sakes, 
 and for his country's, he did what lay in him to influence 
 for good the brother who vras to succeed to the throne. 
 6 
 
82 A Bishop of the Twelfth CerUury. 
 
 At the time of Richard's death, John was with his nephew 
 Arthur in Brittany. That John and not Arthur must take 
 Richard's place the bishop seems to have assumed as una- 
 voidable ; Arthur was but ten years old, and the times were 
 too rough for a regency. John made haste to Fontevrault, 
 receiving on his way the allegiance of many of the barons. 
 After the funeral he made a profusion of promises to the 
 Bishop of Lincoln as to his future conduct. 
 
 The bishop had no liking for John. He knew him to 
 have been paltry, false, and selfish. 
 
 "I trust you mean what you say," he said in reply. 
 " Nostis quia satis aversor mendacium, — you know that I 
 hate lying.'' 
 
 John produced an amulet which he wore round his neck 
 with a chain. That he seemed to think would help him to 
 walk straight. 
 
 The bishop looked at it scornfully. " Do you trust in a 
 senseless stone ? " he said. " Trust in. the living rock in 
 heaven, — the Lord Jesus Christ. Anchor your hopes in 
 Him, and He will direct you." 
 
 On one side of the church at Fontevrault was a celebrated 
 sculpture of the day of judgment. The Judge was on his 
 throne ; on his left were a group of crowned kings led away 
 by devils to be hurled into the smoking pit. Hugo pointed 
 significantly to them. " Understand," he said, " that those 
 men are going into unending torture. Think of it, and let 
 your wisdom teach you the prospects of princes who, while 
 they govern men, are unable to rule themselves, and 
 become slaves in hell through eternity. Fear this, I say, 
 while there is time. The hour will come when it will have 
 been too late." 
 
 John affected to smUe, pointed to the good kings on the 
 other side, and declared with infinite volubility, that he 
 would be found one of those. 
 
 The fool's nature, however, soon showed Itself. Hugo 
 'ook leave of him with a foreboding heart, paid one more 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Oentury. 83 
 
 bright brief visit in the following year to his birthplace in 
 the south, and then returned to England to die. He had 
 held his see but fourteen years, and was no more than sixty- 
 five. His asceticism had not impaired his strength. At his 
 . last visit to the Chartreuse he had distanced all his compan- 
 ions on the steep hill-side, but illness overtook him on his 
 way home. He arrived in London, at his house in the Old 
 Temple, in the middle of September, to feel that he was 
 rapidly dying. Of death itself, it is needless to say, he had 
 no kind of fear. " By the holy nut," he used to say, in his 
 queer way (" Per sanctam nucem,* sic enim vice juramenti 
 ad formationem verbi interdum loquebatur "), " by the holy 
 nut, we should be worse off if we were not allowed to die 
 at all." 
 
 He prepared with his unvarying composure. As his ill- 
 ness increased, and he was confined to his bed, his hair shirt 
 hurt him. Twisting into knots, as he shifted from side to 
 side, it bruised and wounded his skin. The rules of the 
 order would have allowed him to dispense with it, but he 
 could not be induced to let it go ; but he took animal food, 
 which the doctor prescribed as good for him, and quietly 
 and kindly submitted to whatever else was ordered for him. 
 He knew, however, that his life was over, and with constant 
 confession held himself ready for the change. Great peo- 
 ple came' about him. John himself came; but he received 
 him coldly. Archbishop Hubert came once ; he did not 
 care, perhaps, to return a second time. 
 
 The archbishop, sitting by his bed, after the usual condo- 
 lences, suggested that the Bishop of Lincoln might like to 
 use the opportunity to repent of any sharp expressions 
 which he had occasionally been betrayed into using. As 
 the hint was not taken, he referred especially to himself as 
 one of those who had something to complain of. 
 
 " Indeed, your grace," replied Hugo, " there have been 
 passages of words between us, and I have much to regret 
 1 Perhaps for " crucem," as we say " by Gad," to avoid the actual word. 
 
84 A Bisliop of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 in relation to them. It. is not, however, what I have said 
 to your grace, but what I have omitted to say. I have more 
 feared to oifend your grace than to offend my Father in 
 heaven. I have withheld words which I ought to have spo- 
 ken, and I have thus sinned against your grace and desire 
 your forgiveness. Should it please God to spare my life I 
 purpose to amend that fault." 
 
 As his time drew near, he gave directions for the dispo- 
 sition of his body, named the place in Lincoln Cathedral 
 wher3 Le was to be buried, and bade his chaplain make a 
 cross of ashes on the floor of his room, lift him from his bed 
 at the moment of departure, and place him upon it. 
 
 It was a November afternoon. The choristers of St. 
 Paul's were sent for to chant the compline to him for the 
 last time. He gave a sign when they were half through. 
 They lifted him and laid him on the ashes. The choristers 
 sang on, and as they began the Nunc Dimittis he died. 
 
 So parted one of the most beautiful of spirits that was 
 ever incarnated in human clay. Never was man more 
 widely mourned over, or more honored in his death. He 
 was taken down to Lincoln, and the highest and the lowest 
 alike had poured out to meet the body. A company of 
 poor Jews, the offscouring of mankind, for whom rack and 
 gridiron were considered generally too easy couches, came 
 to mourn over one whos.e justice had sheltered even them. 
 , John was at Lincoln at the time, and William of Scot- 
 land with him ; and on the hiU, a mile from the town, two 
 kings, three archbishops, fourteen bishops, a hundred ab- 
 bots, and as many earls and barons, were waiting to receive 
 the sad procession. 
 
 King John and the archbishops took the bier upon their 
 shoulders, and waded knee-deep thi-ough the mud to the 
 cathedral. The King of Scotland stood apart in tears. 
 
 It was no vain pomp or unmeaning ceremony, but the 
 genuine healthful recognition of human worth. The story 
 of Hugo of Lincoln has been too long unknown to us. It 
 
A Bishop of the Twelfth Century. 85 
 
 deserves a place in every biography of English Worthies. 
 It ought to be familiar to every English boy. Such men 
 as he were the true builcjers of our nation's greatness. 
 Like the " weU-tempered mortar" in old English walls, 
 which is hard as the stone itself, their actions and their 
 iJioughts are the cement of our national organization, and 
 bind together yet such parts of it as stiU are allowed to 
 stand. 
 
FATHER NEWMAN ON "THE GRAMMAR 
 
 OF ASSENT." > 
 
 Thirtt years ago, when the tendencies Romewarda of 
 the English High Churchmen were first becoming visible, 
 Dr. Arnold expressed his own opinion of the reasonableness 
 of the movement in the brief sentence, " Believe in the 
 Pope ! I would as soon believe in Jupiter." Whether 
 belief in Jupiter may hereafter become possible time will 
 show. Necromancy has been revived in spirit-rapping. 
 We have converts to Islam among us, and England is the 
 chosen recruiting ground of the Mormon Apostles ; while 
 this book before us is an attempt on the part of one of the 
 ablest of living men to prove that there is no reasonable 
 standing ground between Atheism and submission to the 
 Holy See — submission not outwardly only, or partially, or 
 conditionally, as to an authority which has historical claims 
 upon us, and may possibly or probably deserve our. alle- 
 giance ; but submission complete and entire, the unreserved 
 resignation of our moral and spiritual intelligence. The 
 Church of Rome, and indeed all religious dogmatic systems, 
 are not content with insisting that there is a high proba- 
 bility in their favor. They call themselves mfallible. 
 They demand on our part an absolute certainty that they 
 are right, and although they -disagree among themselves 
 and cannot all be right, and although points on which those 
 competent to form an opinion differ, in all other things, we 
 agree to hold doubtful, they tell us that doubt is a sin, that 
 
 J An Eisay In Aid of a Grnmmar of Assent. By John Henry Newman 
 D. D., of the Oratory. London : Burns, Gates & Co., 1870. 
 
" The Grammar of Assent" 87 
 
 we can be and ought to be entirely certain, that a complete 
 and utter acquiescence which excludes the possibility of 
 mistake is a frame of mind at once possible and philosph- 
 ically just. 
 
 It is this seeming paradox which Dr. Newman under- 
 takes to prove. His book is composed with elaborate art, 
 which is the more striking the more frequently we peruse 
 it. Every line, every word tells, from the opening sentence 
 to the last. 
 
 His object, from the beginning to the end, is to combat 
 and overthrow the position of Locke, that reasonable assent 
 is proportioned to evidence, and in its nature, therefore, 
 admits of degrees. 
 
 He commences with an analysis of the elementary mental 
 processes. He divides " assent " into " notional " and 
 " real." He calls notional " assent " that which we give 
 to general propositions, scientific, literary, or philosophical ; 
 real assent, the conclusions which we form in matters of 
 fact, either in our sensible perceptions, or in the application 
 of principles to details. He professes to show how, from 
 our intellectual constitution, we are unable to rest in proba- 
 bilities, and rightly or wron^y pass on to a sensation of 
 certainty ; how; notwithstanding exceptions which cannot 
 wholly be got over, the conviction that we have hold of the 
 truth is an evidence to us that we have hold of it in reality. 
 Our beliefs are borne in upon our minds, we know not how, 
 directly, indii;pctly, by reason, by experience, by emotion, 
 imagination, and all the countless parts of our complicated 
 ns ure. "We may not be able to analyze the grounds of our 
 faith, but the faith is none the less justifiable. And thus, 
 after being led by the hand through an intricate series of 
 mental phenomena, we are landed in the Catholic religion 
 as the body of truth which completely commends itself to 
 the undistorted intellectual perception. 
 
 The argument is extremely subtle, and often difficult to 
 follow, but the difficulty is in the subject rather than in 
 
88 Father Newman on 
 
 the treatment. Dr. Newman has watched and analyzed 
 the processes of the mind with as much care and minute- 
 ness as Ehrenberg the organization of animalculaa. The 
 knotted and tangled skein is disengaged and combed out 
 till every fibre of it can be taken up separately and exam- 
 ined at leisure ; while all along, hints are let fall from time 
 to time, expressions, seemingly casual, illustrations, or no- 
 tices of emotional peculiarities, every one of which has its 
 purpose, and, to the careful reader, is a sign-post of the 
 road on which he is travelling. 
 
 Yet we never read a book, unless the " Ethics " of Spinoza 
 be an exception, which is less convincing in proportion to 
 its ability. You feel that you are in the hands of a thinker 
 of the very highest powers ; yet they are the powers rather 
 of an intellectual conjuror than of a teacher who com- 
 mands your confidence. You are astonished at the skill 
 which is displayed, and tmable to explain away the results ; 
 but you are conscious all the time that you are played 
 with ; you are perplexed, but you are not attracted ; and 
 unless you bring a Catholic conclusion ready made with 
 you to the study, you certainly will not arrive at it. For it 
 is not a simple acknowledgment that Catholicism may per- 
 haps be true that is required of us, or even that it is prob- 
 ably true, and that a reasonable person might see cause for 
 joining the Roman communion. This is not conviction at 
 all, nor is it related in any way to a religious frame of 
 mind. We are expected rather to feel Catholicism to be 
 absolutely necessary and completely true — true, not as an 
 inference from argument, but as imposed by a spiritual 
 command — true, in a sense which allows no possibility of 
 error, and cannot and ought not to endure contradiction. 
 " The highest opinion of Protestants in religion," he says, 
 "is, generally speaking, assent to a probability, as even 
 Dutler has been understood or misunderstood to teach, and 
 therefore consistent with the toleration of its contradic- 
 tory." The creed, therefore, which we ai'e to accept is the 
 
" The Grammar of Assent." , 89 
 
 Romanism with which we are familiar in history ; perse- 
 cuting from the necessity of the case, for it cannot, where 
 it has the power, permit opposition. No heterodox opinion 
 can be borne with, or be even heard in its own defense. 
 " Since mere argument," Father Newman says elsewhere, 
 is not the measure of assent, no one can be called certaii. 
 of a proposition whose mind does not spontaneously and 
 promptly reject on their first suggestion, as idle, as imper- 
 tinent, as sophistical, any objections which are directed 
 against its truth. No man is certain of a truth who can 
 endure the thought of its contradictory existing or occur- 
 ring, and that not from any set purpose or effort to reject it, 
 but, as I have said, by the spontaneous action of the intel- 
 lect. What is contradictory to it with its appai-atus of 
 argument, fades out of the mind as fast as it enters it. 
 
 We are familiar with this mode of thought, but it is not 
 characteristic of intelligent persons. The Irish magistrate 
 having listened to one side of a question declared himself 
 satisfied ; he had heard enough, he said, and anything 
 fiirther was either superfluous or perplexed his judgment. 
 In a criminal trial, when the facts have been known and 
 discussed beforehand, both judge and jury, from the con- 
 stitution of their minds, .must have formed an opinion on 
 the merits of the case, which must have amounted often to 
 certainty ; but when the prisoner comes before them it 
 becomes their duty to dismiss out of their minds every 
 prepossession which they may have entertained. Instead 
 of rejecting suggestions inconsistent with such preposses- 
 sions they are bound to welcome them, and to look for 
 tl.em, with the most scrupulous impartiality. The man of 
 science is unworthy of his name if he disdains to listen to 
 objections to a favorite theory. It is through a conviction 
 of the inadequacy of all formulas to cover the facts of na- 
 ture, it is by a constant recollection of the fallibility of the 
 best instructt^d intelligence, and by an unintermittent skep- 
 ticism which goes out of its way to look for difficulties, 
 
90 , Father Newman on 
 
 that s lientiflc progress has been made possible. So long 
 as Father Newman's method prevailed in Europe, every 
 branch of practical knowledge was doomed to barrenness. 
 "Why are we to fall back upon it now, in the one depart- 
 ment' in which, according to theologians, error is most 
 dangerous ? 
 
 To give a sketch of his argument. 
 
 We entertain propositions, he tells us, in three ways — 
 we doubt, we draw inferences, and we assent. Doubt is, 
 of course, the opposite of certainty. Inferences being 
 from premises to conclusions are still conditional, for our 
 premises may be incorrect or inadequate. Assent, on the 
 other hand, is in its nature unconditional ; it means that we 
 are quite certain, and know that we cannotbe wrong. 
 
 "We assent notionally when we accept a general propo- 
 sition as undoubtedly true, as that the whole is greater 
 than its part, or that the planets move in ellipses, or again, 
 when we read a book and intellectually go along with its 
 meaning without personally or particularly applying it. 
 We assent really to anything which comes home in detail 
 to our feelings or our senses, and is directly recognized as 
 true by ourselves. Dr. Newman gives a beautiful illus- 
 tration : — ' 
 
 Let us consider, too, how differently young and old are affected 
 by the words of some classic author, such as Homer or Horace. 
 Passages, which to a boy are but rhetorical commonplaces, 
 neither better nor worse than a hundred others which any clever 
 writer might supply, which he gets by heart and thinks very 
 fine, and imitates, as he thinks, successfully, in his own flowing 
 versification, at length come home to him, when long years have 
 passed, and he has had experience of life, and pierce hira as if he 
 had never before known them, with their sad earnestness and 
 vivid exactness. Tlien he comes to understand how it is that 
 Unes, the birth of some chance morning or evening at an Ionian 
 festival, or among the Sabine hills, have lasted generation after 
 generation, for thousands of years, with a power over the mind, 
 and a charm, wliich the current literature of his own day, with 
 all its obvious advantages, is utterly unable to rival. 
 
" The Grammar of Assent." 91 
 
 ITie history, the occupations, the studies of every man 
 provide him with a multitude of assents of this kind. 
 Proverbs become as it were realized when we feel the 
 application of them. Opinions taken up as notions ac-- 
 quire the stamp of certainty, and men are only properly 
 themselves when their thoughts thus acquire stability and 
 they are no longer blown about by gusts of argument. 
 Then only they learn to step out firmly with confidence 
 and self-reliance. 
 
 Assents, Dr. Newman repeats, diifer in kind from in- 
 ferences. "We may infer from observation the probable 
 ^ existence of an intelligent Creator, but we are still far 
 from the conviction which is required for practical service, 
 and life is not long enough for a religion built on specula- 
 tive conclusions. Life is for action. We cannot wait for 
 proof, or we shall never begin to obey. " If we insist on 
 proof for everything we shall never come to action. . . . 
 To act we must assume, and that assumption is faith. . . . 
 If we comnience with scientific knowledge and argument- 
 ative proof, or lay any great stress upon it as the basis of 
 personal Christianity, or attempt to make men moral or 
 religious by libraries and museums, let us in consistency 
 take chemists for our cooks and mineralogists for our 
 masons." 
 
 This is perfectly true as regards individual persons. 
 The clerk in Eastcheap, as Mr. Carlyle says, cannot be for- 
 ever verifying his ready reckoner. Yet the conclusions on 
 which we act are nevertheless resting on producible evidence 
 somewhere, if we cannot each of us produce it ourselves. 
 They are the results of past experience and intellectual 
 thought, which are tested, enlarged, or modified by the 
 practice of successive generations. We accept them confi- 
 dently, not from any internal conviction that they are 
 necessarily true, but from an inference of another kind, 
 thajt if not true they would have been disproved. The be- 
 liever at first hand can always give a reason for the faith 
 
92 Father Newman on 
 
 that is in him. He believes, and he knows why he be- 
 lieves, and he can produce his reasons in a form which 
 shall be convincing to others. The believer at second 
 hand believes in his teacher, and can give a reason for 
 regarding that teacher as an authority. The mason need 
 not himself be a mineralogist, but if the master builder 
 who employs him knows nothing of the properties of 
 stone, his labor will be thrown away. The cook inherits 
 the traditionary rules of his art, but if he introduces 
 novelties in food he must either call in the chemist to ad- 
 vise him or he will try his experiments at the risk of our 
 lives. 
 
 We have not yet reached a point where we differ frpm 
 Father Newman essentially; but we are already on our 
 guard against his method. His aim is to make us acknowl- 
 edge that in common things we feel a certainty dispropor- 
 tioned to the evidence which can be produced to justify it. 
 It appears to us, on the contrary, that Locke's position re- 
 mains unshaken ; that every sound conviction which we 
 have can be traced ultimately to experience,, and that the 
 tenacity with which we hold it is, or ought to be, propor- 
 tioned to the uniformity of that experience. 
 
 From real assents in general we pass to assents in mat- 
 ters of religion. 
 
 " What is a dogma of faith ? " Father Newman asks, 
 " and what is it to believe it ? A dogma is a proposition. 
 It stands for a notion or a thing, and to believe it is to give 
 the assent of the mind to it as standing for one or the other. 
 To give a real assent to it is an act of religion ; to give a 
 notional is a theological act. It is discerned, rested in, and 
 appropriated as a reality by the religious imagination. It 
 is held as a truth by the theological intellect." 
 
 The first of such dogmas or propositions contains " belief 
 m God." Father Newman disclaims necessarily the inten- 
 tion of proving the reasonableness of this belief. He de- 
 nies belief to be the result of argument, and therefore he will 
 
" The Grammar of Assent.'' 93 
 
 not argue. He proposes rather to investigate the mental 
 process which tlie words " I believe in God " imply. Yet 
 he cannot escape from the conditions of human thought ; 
 and while he will not allow belief to be an inference, he ar- 
 gues like anybody else that it follows irresistibly from the 
 phenomena of our nature. Nowhere in the English lan- 
 guage will be found the reasons for believing in a moral 
 power as the supreme ruling force in the universe, drawn 
 out more clearly or more persuasively. There are no gra- 
 tuitous assumptions — no appeals to the imagination. He 
 lays the facts of persona? experience before us : he indicates 
 the conclusion at which they point : and when the conclu- 
 sion is conceded, the obligations of obedience follow. He 
 draws the inference though he will not allow it to be an in- 
 ference. " Inference," he seems to say, " has no power of 
 persuasion and involves no duties." Inference is but a 
 graduated probability, and involves the toleration of an op- 
 posite opinion. But probability, as Butler says, is the 
 guide of our lives, and. may involve duties as completely as 
 certainty. Has a child no duties to his father because it is 
 possible, though infinitely unlikely, that his mother may 
 have been unfaithful to her vows ? 
 
 The argument itself stands thus. "We regret to do injus- 
 tice by compression to its singular lucidity. 
 ■ " Can we," Father Newman asks, " give a real assent to 
 the proposition that there is one God — not an anima 
 mundi merely or an initial force, but God as the word is 
 understood by the Theist and the Christian, a personal 
 God, the Author and Sustainer of all things — the Moral 
 Governor of the world?" He says that we cap, and that 
 we can be certain of it ; that it is a truth which every rea- 
 sonable person is able and ought to acknowledge. He does 
 uot look for what has been called scornfully '' a clock-mak- 
 ing Divinity." The evidences of a contriving intellect in 
 nature, of the adaptation of means to ends, weigh but little 
 with him. There is no morality in the physical constitu- 
 
94 Father Newman on 
 
 tion of things. The elements know nothing of good and 
 evil ; and we can arrive only at a power adequate to the 
 effects which we witness. The water will not rise higher 
 than its source. The created world is finite, and can tell us 
 nothing of an Infinite Creator. The root of religious belief 
 lies in the conscience and in the sense of moral obligation. 
 
 I assume (says Father Newman) that Conscience has a legiti- 
 mate place among our mental acts ; as really so as the action of 
 memory, of reasoning, of imagination, or as the sense of the beau- 
 tiful ; tliat, as there are objects which, when presented to the 
 mind, cause it to feel grief, regret, joy, or desire, so there are 
 things which excite in us approbation or blame, and which we in 
 consequence call right or wrong ; and which, experienced in our- 
 selves, kindle in us the specific sense of pleasure or pain, which 
 goes by the name of a good or bad conscience. This being taken 
 for granted, I shall attempt to show that in this special feeling, 
 which follows on the commission of what we call right and wrong, 
 lie the materials for the real apprehension of a Divine Sovereign 
 and Judge. 
 
 The feeling of conscience being, I repeat, a certain keen sensi- 
 bility, pleasant or painful, — self-approval and hope, or compunc- 
 tion and fear, — attendant on certain of our actions, which in 
 consequence we call right or wrong, is twofold : it is a moral 
 sense, and a sense of duty; a judgment of the reason, and a mag- 
 isterial dictate. 
 
 Conscience, it is evident, does not furnish a rule of right 
 conduct. It has. sometimes been the sanction of crime. 
 Sometimes it is at a loss to decide. Sometimes it gives 
 contradictory answers. Conscience made St. Paul into a 
 persecutor. Conscience has made kings into tyrants, and 
 subjects into rebels. It is not a rule of right conduct, but 
 it is a sanction of right conduct. It assures us that there 
 is such a thing as right, and that when we know what it is 
 we are bound to do it. " Half the world. would be puzzled 
 to know what is meant by the moral sense, but every one 
 knows what is meant by a good or bad conscience. Con- 
 science is ever forcing us on by threats and by promises, that 
 
" TIte Grammar of Assent." 95 
 
 we must follow the right and avoid the wrong : so far it is 
 one and the same in the mind of every one, whatever be its 
 particular errors in particular minds as to the acts which 
 
 it orders to be done or to be avoided It does 
 
 not repose in itself like the sense of beauty It 
 
 vaguely reaches forward to something beyond self, and 
 dimly discerns a sanction higher than self for its decisions, as 
 evidenced in that keen sense of obligation and responsibility 
 which informs them. And hence it is that we are accus- 
 tomed to speak of conscience as a voice, a term which we 
 never should think of applying to the sense of the beautiful : 
 and moreover a voice or the echo of a voice imperative and 
 constraining, like no other dictate in the whole of our ex- 
 perience." 
 
 Now what does this imply ? Father Newman introduces 
 a subtle distinction of which we hesitate to acknowledge the 
 force. Conscience, he says, differs from the intellectual 
 senses, from common sense, "from taste, from sense of 
 expedience, and the like, in being always " emotional." 
 "Affections are correlative with persons, and always in- 
 volve the recognition of a living object towards which they 
 are directed." This is to infer too much ; there is such a 
 thing as love of good for its own sake. But leaving refine- 
 ments and looking at these phenomena as facts of experi- 
 ence, they seem to us to carry Father Newman's main con- 
 clusion with them. The presence of a moral sense in our- 
 selves presumes a moral nature in the power which has 
 called us into existence. It is impossible to conceive, as 
 Mr. Carlyle says, " that these high faculties should have 
 been put into us. by a Being that had none of its own." 
 Father Newman continues : — 
 
 F, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are fright- 
 ened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that 
 there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are 
 ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we 
 feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms 
 
96 Father Newman on 
 
 us on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same 
 sunny serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight 
 which follows on our receiving praise from a father, we certainly 
 hare within us the image of some person, to whom our love and 
 v.eneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom 
 we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in whose 
 anger we are troubled and waste away. These feelings in us are 
 such as require for their exciting cause an intelligent being: we 
 are not affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel shame before 
 a horse or a dog ; we have no remorse or compunction on break- 
 ing mere human law : yet, so it is, conscience excites all these 
 painful emotions, confusion, forebodipg, self-condemnation ; and, 
 on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep peace, a, sense of 
 security, a resignation, and a hope, which there is no sensible, no 
 earthly object to elicit. " The wicked flees, when no one pur- 
 sueth ; " then why does he flee ? whence his terror ? Wlio is it 
 that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of 
 his heart ? If the cause of these emotions does not belong to this 
 visible world, the Object to which his perception is directed must 
 be Supernatural and Divine ; and thus the phenomena of Con- 
 science, as a dictate, avail to impress the imagination with the 
 picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all- 
 seeing, retributive, and is the creative principle of religion, as the 
 moral sense is the principle of ethics. 
 
 As it is here that our acquiescence in Father Newman's 
 reasoning comes to an end, and we henceforth part com- 
 pany with him, we add one more extract on the same sub- 
 ject, an illustration of the growth of religious feeling, from 
 the history of the mind of a child : — 
 
 The child keenly understands that there is a difference be- 
 tween right and wrong ; and when he has done what he believes 
 to be wrong, he is conscious that he is offending One to whom 
 he is amenable, whom he does not see, who sees liim. His mind 
 reaches forward with a strong presentiment to the thought of 
 a Moral Governor, sovereign over him, mindful, and just. It 
 tomes to him like an impulse of nature to entertain it. 
 
 It is my wish to take an ordinary child, but one who is safe 
 from influences destructive of his religious instincts. Supposing 
 hn has offended his parents, he will all alone and without effort, 
 
" Z%,e (grammar of Assent." 97 
 
 as if it were the most natural of acts, place himself in the pres- 
 ence of God, and heg of Him to set him right with them. Let 
 us consider how much is contained in this simple act. First, it 
 involves the impression on his mind of an unseen Being with 
 whom he is in immediate relation, and that relation so familiar 
 (that he can address Him whenever he himself chooses ; next, of 
 One whose good-will towards him he is assured of, and can take 
 for granted, — nay, who loves him better, and is nearer to him, 
 than his parents ; further, of One who can hea-r him, wherever 
 he happens to be, and who can read his thoughts, for his prayer 
 need not be vocal ; lastly, of One who can effect a critical change 
 in the state of feeling of others towards him. That is, we shall 
 ,not be wrong in holding that this child has in his miad the im- 
 age of an Invisible Being, who Exercises a particular providence 
 among us, who is present everywhere, who is heart-readiug, 
 Jieart-changing, ever-accessible, open to impetration. What .a 
 strong and intimate vision of God must he have already attained, 
 if, as I have supposed, an ordinary trouble of mind has the spon- 
 taneous effect of leading him for consolation and aid .to an In- 
 visible Personal Power ! 
 
 Moreover, this image brought before his mental vision is the 
 image of One who by implicit tlu-eat and promise commands cer- 
 tain things which he, the same child, coincidently, by the same 
 .act of his mind approves ; which receives the adhesion of his 
 moral sense and judgment, as right and good. It is the image.of 
 One who is good, inasmuch as enjoining and enforcing what is 
 right and good, and who, in consequence, not only excites in the 
 child hope and fear, . — nay (it may be added), gratitude towards 
 Him, as giving a law and maintaining it by reward and punish- 
 ment, — but kindles in him love towards Him, as giving him a 
 good law, and therefore as being good Himself, for it is the prop- 
 erty of goodness to kindle love, or rather the very object of love 
 is goodness ; and all those distinct elements of the moral law, 
 which the typical child, whom J am supposing, more or less con- 
 sciously loves and approves, — truth, purity, justice, kindness, 
 and the like, — are but shapes and aspects of goodness. And 
 having in his degree a sensibility towards them all, for the sake 
 of them all he is moved to love the Lawgiver who enjoins them 
 upon him. And, as he can contemplate these qualities and their 
 manifestations under the common name of goodness, he is pre- 
 7 
 
98 Father Newman on 
 
 pared to think of them as indivisible, correlative, supplementary 
 of each other in one and the same Personality, so that there ia 
 no aspect of goodness which God is not ; and that the more, be- 
 cause the notion of a perfection embraces all possible excellences, 
 both moral and intellectual, is especially congenial to the mind, 
 and there are in fact intellectual attributes, as well as moral, 
 included in the child's image of God, as above represented. 
 
 Such is the apprehension which even a child may have of Mb 
 Sovereign, Lawgiver, and Judge ; which is possible in the case 
 of children, because, at least, some children possess it, whether 
 others possess it or no ; and which, when it is found in children, 
 is found to act promptly and keenly, by reason of the paucity of 
 their ideas. It is an image of the good God, good in Himself, 
 good relatively to the child, with whatever incompleteness ; an 
 image before it has been reflected on, and before it is recognized 
 by him as a notion. Though he cannot explain or define the 
 word " God," when told to use it, his acts show that to him it is 
 far more than a word. He listens, indeed, with wonder and in- 
 terest to fables or tales ; he has a dim, shadowy sense of what he 
 hears about persons and matters of this world ; but he has that 
 within him which actually vibrates, responds, and gives a deep 
 meaning to the lessons of his first teachers about the will and 
 the providence of God. 
 
 So far, with some differences which are perhaps hut dif- 
 ferences of nomendature, we have gone heartily along with 
 Father Newman. His book is a counterpart to Butler's 
 " Analogy," and as the first part of the " Analogy " has 
 been in these bad times a support to many of us, when the 
 formulas of the established creeds have crumbled away, so 
 we give cordial welcome to this addition to our stock of re- 
 ligious philosophy, which addresses itself to the intellect of 
 the nineteenth century as Butler addressed that of its pre- 
 decessor. But just as with Butler, when we pass from his 
 treatment of the facts of nature to the defense of the dog- 
 matic system of Christianity, we exchange libe philosopher 
 for the special pleader, so Father Newman at the same 
 transition point equally ceases to convince. Assumption 
 takes the place of reasoning. Facts are no longer looked 
 
*' The Grammar of Assent." 99 
 
 in the face, and objections are either ignored altogether oi 
 are caricatured in order to be answered. Hitherto he has 
 been pleading the cause of religion as it has existed in all 
 ages and under countless varieties of form. We are now led 
 across the morasses of technical theology. We spring from 
 tuft to tuft and hummock to hummock. The ground shakes 
 about us, and we are allowed no breathing time to pause, 
 lest it give way under our feet altogether. The promised 
 land lies before us, the land of absolute repose in the decis- 
 ions of the Infallible Church. Once there we may rest for- 
 ever ; and we are swung along towards it, guided, if we 
 may use the word for ' an absolute surrender of reason, by 
 the obscure emotions and half realized perceptions of what 
 is called the imaginative intellect. We leave behind us as 
 misleading the apparatus of faculties which conduct us suc- 
 cessfully through ordinary life. We are told to beheve, 
 and accept it on Father Newman's authority, that we are 
 not after all chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, and that the other 
 side to which he points the way is really solid ground, and 
 not a mere fog-bank. 
 
 There are two roads on which it is possible to travel, 
 after starting from conscience and the acknowledgment of 
 a 'God to whom we owe obedience. There is the theologi- 
 cal road, and there is the road of experience and fact. To 
 those who choose the second of these courses conscience is 
 the sanction of right action ; while experience and .observa- 
 tion show us in what right action consists. The moral laws 
 are inherent in nature like the laws of the material universe, 
 and our business is to discover what they are. K we obey 
 them, it is well with us ; if we disobey them we fail, and 
 ruin ourselves internally in our characters, and sooner or 
 later in our external fortunes. These laws are not arbitra- 
 rily imposed from without, but are interfused in the consii 
 tution of things. Conscience insists that they must oe 
 obeyed, for they form the condition on which society holds 
 together, and in obedience to them lies the essence of all 
 genuine reliffion. 
 
too Father Newman on 
 
 From this point of view the religious history .of mankind 
 is the history of the efforts which men have made to dis- 
 cover the moral law, and enforce it so far as it is known. 
 If we are asked why the moral laws, tieing of so much con- 
 sequence to the well-being of mankind, were not made 
 clear from the beginning, we can but answer that we do 
 ttot know. The fact has been that they have been left to 
 human energy to discover, like the law of gravitation ; our 
 knoTvledge of them has been progressive, like our knowl- 
 edge in every other department of nature ; and religious 
 theories exhibit the same early imperfections, and the same 
 ■gradual advance as astronomy or medicine. 
 
 A second phenomenon is no less apparent on the most 
 cursory as weU as the most careful study of , religious 
 history. To obey the moral law has been always difficult ; 
 to practice particular rites, or to profess particular opinions, 
 is comparatively easy. Religions, therefore, as their initial 
 fervor dies away, have uniformly shown a tendency to 
 stiffen into ceremonial or superstitious observances, or else 
 into theological theories. Duty has been made lo consist 
 in the compliance with particular creeds, or in practices of 
 outward devotion; and a compromise has been thus ar- 
 rived at, by which men have been enabled to believe them- 
 selves religious, without parting from their private self- 
 indulgence. Religion has had two parts: the inward moral 
 and spiritual, the outward ritualistic, or speculative ; and 
 the division between them, and the history of their effects 
 •upon mankind, when one or the other has preponderated, is 
 •the most signal testimony to their real character, and to 
 the relations in which 'they stamd to each other and to the 
 world. Where the moral element has been foremost, 
 where men have been chiefly bent upon contendin'g with 
 ipmctical evil, and making •so much as they can imderstand 
 -of the daw of God the rule of their dealings among ithem- 
 selves, there the Teligion has spread over the earth like 
 'water ibr the purifying the nations. Where the supersti- 
 
" The, Grammar of Assent." ^^ftiTTTii^y 
 
 tioniS or theological element has besn in the ascendant, 
 where charity has bee^n second to orthodoxy, and religion 
 has been an affair of temples and sacrifices and devotional 
 refinements, there as uniformly it has lost its beneficent 
 powers, it has fraternized with the blackest and darkest of 
 human passions, and has carried with it as its shadow, 
 division and hatred and cruelty. The power in the uni- 
 verse, whatever it be, which envies human happiness, has 
 laid hold of conscience and distracted it from its proper 
 function. Instead of looking any more for our duties to 
 our neighbors, we go astray, and quarrel with each other 
 over imaginary speculative theories. "We wonder at the 
 faaMre of Christianity, at the small progress which it has 
 made in _ comparison with the briUiancy of its rise : but if 
 men had shown as much fanaticism in carrying into prac- 
 tice the Sermon on the Mount as in disputing the least of 
 the thousand dogmatic definitions which have superseded 
 the Gospel, we should not be now lamenting with Father 
 Nevnnan that " God's control over the world is so indirect, 
 and His action so obscure." 
 
 The theological tendency, nevertheless, remaius, in pos- 
 session ; opinions are stUl looked upon as the test whether 
 we are on the right road or the wrong : and it is in this 
 direction and not the other that Father Newman would 
 have us travel if our condition is to be mended. 
 
 Devotion must have its objects, he teHs us ; and they 
 must be set before the mind as propositions, with which the 
 intellect must be fed till it is saturated ; the intellect in re- 
 turn will then guarantee that they are true by the tenacity 
 with which it holds these propositions. 
 
 He gives an instance of what he means in the use which 
 he prescribes for the book of Psalms. " The exercise of 
 the affections strengthens our apprehension of the object 
 of them," he says, " and it is impossible tG exaggerate the 
 iufluence exerted on the religious imagination, by a book 
 of devotions so sublime, so penetrating, so fuU of deep in- 
 
102 Father Newman en 
 
 struction as the Psalter." We are to take the Psalter, 
 however, as a whole ; we may not inqaire what part of it is 
 authentic, or whether David, whose acts were of so mixed a 
 character, was always divinely guided in his words. If we 
 take the forty-second Psalm, we must take the hundred- 
 and-ninth ; and those who accept the hundred-and-ninth as 
 the word of God, are already far on their way towards auto- 
 da-fbs and massacres of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 When the mind is thus devotionally pervaded, the Cath- 
 olic theology will be developed by the theological intellect 
 as naturally as geometrical theorems from the elementary 
 axioms and propositions. The difficulty is with the prep- 
 aration of the soil ; and if we find Father Newman un- 
 persuasive, the fault may be simply in ourselves. Persua- 
 siveness implies agreement in first principles between the 
 teacher and the taught. It is possible that we may be 
 color blind, or be without ear to follow the harmony of the 
 theological variations. The Catholic doctriues may carry 
 conviction only to the elect. Those who are chosen to 
 inherit the blessing, may alone have grace to apprehend its 
 conditions. If it be so, we are beyond help ; but we daim 
 for the present to belong to those who believe in God and 
 in the moral laws, and to those, therefore, to whom Father 
 Newman says that his book is addressed. In this character 
 we have a right to speak, and when he fails to convince us, 
 to give reasons for withholding our assent. 
 
 Having chosen his course he commences characteristically 
 with an exulting eulogy on the Athanasian Creed. No 
 one, he seems to admit, can understand what the creed 
 means. "The pure indivisible light," he says, "is seen 
 only by the blessed inhabitants of heaven." The rays 
 come to us on earth, " broken into their constituent colors ; " 
 and when we attempt to combine them " we produce only a 
 dirty white." Each ray, nevertheless, comes direct to- us 
 from above. It can be separately admired and adored for 
 its particular beauty; and, when intelligence fails, faith 
 
" The Grammar of Assent." 103 
 
 steps in. So with the million developments of theological 
 subtlety. Simple-minded people cannot enter into these 
 refinements ; the terminology itself is unintelligible without 
 a special and scientific education. But simple-minded men 
 are not required to understand them. Their duty is merely 
 to feel certain that every proposition laid down by the 
 Church is true, and they are able to do it in virtue of a 
 comprehensive acceptance of the authority of the Church 
 itseli The Church says so and so, and therefore it is in- 
 disputably certain that the truth is so and so. 
 
 The difficulty is removed by the dogma of the Church's infal- 
 libility, and of the consequent duty of " implicit faith " in her 
 word. The " One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church " is an 
 article of the creed, and an article which, inclusive of her infal- 
 libility, all men, high and low, can easily master and accept with 
 a real and operative assent. It stands in the place of all abstruse 
 propositions in a Catholic's mind, for to believe in her woid is 
 virtually to believe in them all. Even what he cannot under- 
 stand, at least he can believe to be true ; and he believes it to 
 be true because he believes in the Church. 
 
 The next question of course is, how we can be certain 
 that the Church is infallible; and to understand this we 
 are carried back once more into the metaphysics of convic- 
 tion. For the infallibility of the Church, or any truth, to 
 produce an animating effect upon us, we must assent to it 
 unconditionally ; and Father Newman has first to prove in 
 general, as against Locke and the inductive philosophy, that 
 a state of undoubting assurance on the abstruse subjects is 
 itself legitimate. 
 
 " Assent," he says, is a distinct act of the mind which de- 
 clares that it is made up. " It resembles the striking of 
 a clock." ... It is an intimation that argument is over, 
 the conclusion accepted, and the possibility of error no 
 longer entertained. Numberless propositions are, in fact, 
 held in this way in ordinary life. Each of us, for instance, 
 holds with undoubting certainty, the proposition that " T 
 
104 Father Newman on 
 
 shall die," or again, that " England is an island." " Tha 
 fact of our death is in tlie future, and therefore in its nature 
 contingent. We may have never ovirselves personally sailed 
 Found England. Yet, in neither case, have we any doubt, 
 or can a person of ordinary intelligence admit that there is 
 room for doubt." 
 
 The appeiil to ordinary intelligence corresponds to the 
 appeal at a later stage of the ai-gument to the religious in- 
 stincts of barbtuous nations. Ordinary intelligence jumps 
 hastily to conclusions. It is as often wrong as right, and 
 the strength witli which it holds a particuli\r opinion may 
 only bo an index of want of thought. The proposition that 
 "I shall die" seems at tlie first blush as indispntjible as 
 that the whole is greater than its part. But those who ac- 
 cept the infiillibiiity of St. Paul believe tliat, at the last 
 trumpet, those that are alive will be caught up into the air 
 Witlioxit dying at all. The last day, tliey are wai-ned, will 
 come like a thief in the night, and tliey ai-e chiu'ged to be 
 on the watch for it. The tliought, therefore, tliat it may 
 come in their time will present itself not as a probability, 
 hut certainly as something not utterly impossible. Ordi- 
 nary intelligence again is similarly absolutely certain that 
 England is an island. The man of science is certain of it 
 too, but in the sense of the word -(thich Father Newman 
 quarrels with. Sudden geographical changes arc exti'cmely 
 rare; but the time has been when England was not an 
 island, and the time may come when it wDl be re-attached 
 to the continent. The Channel is shalloTV, not much deeper 
 anywhere than the towers of Westminster Abbey. Elxten- 
 sive tracts of the globe have been rapidly depressed and 
 rapidly raised again. It is therefore possible, though very 
 unlikely, that there may be, at some point or other in the 
 Gliannel, at any moment, a sudden upheaval. 
 
 " Certainty," Father Newman insists, is the same in 
 kind wherever and by whomsoever it is experienced. The 
 gravely and cautiously formed conclusion of the sciontifio 
 
" The Grammar of Assent." 105 
 
 investigator, and the determinatioH of the school-gii I thart 
 the weather is going to be fine, do not differ from each 
 other so far as they are acts of the mind. And the school- 
 girl has pro tanto an evidence in her conviction that the 
 fact wUl be as she believes. Nay, rather the laborious in- 
 ference hesitatingly held after patient and skeptical exami- 
 nation, Father Newman considers inferior in character, and 
 likelj to be less productive of fruit than assent more impul- 
 BJvel; yieldad. 
 
 In such instances of certitude, the previous labor of coming to 
 a conclusion, and that repose of mind which I have above de- 
 scribed as attendant on an assent to its truth, often counteracts 
 ■whatever of lively sensation the fact thus concluded is in itself 
 adapted to excite ; so that what is gained in depth and exactnesBi 
 of belief is lost as regards freshness and vigor. Hence it is that, 
 literary or scientific men, who may have investigated some diffi- 
 cult point of history, philosophy, or physics, and have come to 
 their own settled conclusion about it, having had a perfect right 
 to form one, are far more disposed to be silent as to their convic- 
 tions, and to let otheirs alone, than partisans on either side of the 
 question, who take it up with less thought and seriousness. And 
 so again, in the religious world, no one seems to look for any 
 great devotion or fervor in controversiaUsts, writers on Christiaii 
 Evidences, theologians, and the like, it being taken for granted, 
 rightly or wrongly, that such men are too intellectual to be spir- 
 itual, and are more occupied with the truth of doctrine than with 
 its reality. If, on the other hand, we would see what the force 
 of simple assent can be, viewed apart from its reflex confirmation, 
 we have but to look at the generous and uncalculating energy of 
 faith as exemplified in the primitive Martyrs, in the youths who 
 defied the pagan tyrant, or the maidens who were silent under his 
 tortures. It is assent, pure and simple, which is the motive 
 cause of great achievements ; it is confidence, growing out of in- 
 stincts rather than arguments, stayed upon a vivid apprehension, 
 and animated by a transcendent logic, more concentrated in will 
 and in deed for the very reason that it has not been subjected to 
 any intellectual development. 
 
 Nothing can be more true than this, as applied to moral 
 
106 Father Newman on 
 
 obligation; nothing more illusory if extended to doctrine 
 or external fact. I may think myself right, but there is 
 BtiU a bridge to be crossed between my thought and the 
 reality. My own experience assures me too painfully of 
 my fallibility. I have experienced equally the fallibility of 
 others. No one can seriously maintain that a consciousness 
 of certitude is an evidence of facts on which I can rely. 
 Yet Father Newman clings to the belief tliat in some sense 
 or other it is a legitimate proof to any man of the truth of 
 any opinion which he peremptorily holds. " It is cliaracter- 
 istic of certitude," he says, " that its object is a truth, a 
 truth as such, -a proposition as true. There are right and 
 wrong convictions ; and certitude is a right conviction ; if it 
 is not right with a consciousness of being right, it is not cer- 
 titude. Now, truth cannot diange: what is once truth is 
 always truth ; and the human mind is made for truth, and so 
 rests in truth, as it cannot rest in falsehood. When tlien it 
 once becomes possessed of a truth, what is to dispossess it ? " 
 
 It is open to Fatlier Newman to distinguish, if he pleases, 
 between certitude and conviction. He may say that we 
 may be convinced of what is false, but only certain of what 
 is true. But this is nothing to the purpose, so long as we 
 have no criterion to distinguish one from the other as an 
 internal impression. Father Newman is' certain that tlie 
 Pope is Vicar of Christ. Luther was no less certain that 
 the Pope was Antichrist. Father Newman believes that 
 the substance of bread is taken away in tlie act of consecra- 
 tion. The Protestant martyrs 'died rather than admit tliat 
 bread could cease to be bread when a priest mumbled a 
 charm over it. Who or what is to decide between these 
 several acts of consciousness, whicli was certitude and which 
 conviction ? 
 
 The Church evidently is the true Deus ex machind. 
 The Church, in virtue of its infallibility, will resolve this 
 and all other diflSculties ; and the infallibility, it seems, ia 
 somehow or other its own witness, and proves itself as Spi- 
 
" The Chrammar of Assent." 107 
 
 noza demonstrated the existence of God. " I form a con- 
 ception," Spinoza says, " of an absolutely perfect being. 
 But existence is a mode of perfection ; a non-existent being 
 is an imperfect being ; and therefore God's existence ia 
 involved in the Idea of Him." Father Newman simUarlj 
 appears to say that the mind is made for truth, and de- 
 mands it as a natural right. Of the elementary truth that 
 the Church is infallible it can be as sm-e as that Victoria is 
 Queen of England ; and this once estabUshed it has aU that 
 it requires. It is true that we have made mistakes; but 
 usum non tollit ahisus. That we have been often wrong 
 does not imply that we may not be right at last. Our fac- 
 culties have a correspondence with truth. They were 
 given to us to lead us into truth, and though they fail many 
 times they may bring us right at last. Once established in 
 certitude we have nothing more to fear, and may defy argu- 
 ment thenceforth. Our past mistakes may after all have 
 been only apparent. We have called ourselves certain, 
 when we had only a strong presumption, an opinion, or an 
 intellectual inference. Or agaia, we may fancy that we 
 have changed our minds when in fact we have not changed 
 our convictions but only developed them ; as a Theist re- 
 mains a Theist though he add to his Theism a faith in reve- 
 lation ; and a Protestant continues to hold the Athanasian 
 Creed though he pass into a Catholic. St. Paul is admitted 
 to be a difficulty ; St. Paul indisputably did once hold that 
 Christianity was an illusion ; but St. Paul is got rid of by 
 being made an exceptional person. *' His conversion, as 
 als 3 his after life, was miraculous." 
 
 Any way, when once possessed of certitude, we cannot 
 lose it. No evidence, however dear, can shake us thence- 
 forward. " Certitude ought to stand all trials or it is not 
 certitude." Its very office is to cherish and maintain its 
 object, and its very lot and duty is to sustain such shocks 
 in maintenance of it without being damaged by them. 
 Father Newman takes an example, and it is an extremoly 
 significant one. 
 
108 Father Newman on 
 
 Lat uf suppose we are told on an unimpeaohabla authority, 
 that a man whom we saw die is now alive again and at his work, 
 as it was his wont to be ; let us suppose we actually see him andi 
 converse with him ; what will become of our certitude of his 
 death ? I do not think we should give it up ; how could we, 
 when we actually saw him die ? At first, indeed, we should be 
 thrown into an astonishment and confusion so great, that the 
 world would seem to reel round us, and we should be ready to 
 give up the use of our senses and of our memory, of our reflec- 
 tive powers, and of our reason, and even to deny our power of 
 thinking, and our existence itself. Such confidence have we in 
 the doctrine that when life goes it never returns. Nor would 
 our bewilderment be less, when the first blow was oVer ;^ but our 
 reason would rally, and with our reason our certitude would come 
 back to us. Whatever came of it, we should never cease to 
 know and to confess to ourselves both of the contrary facts, that 
 we saw him die, and that after dying we saw him alive again. 
 The overpowering strangeness of our experience would have no 
 power to shake our certitude in the facts which created it. 
 
 No better illustration could have been given of the 
 difference between what is called in commendation " a 
 believing mind," and a mmd trained to careful and precis© 
 observation. In such a case as Father Newman supposes, 
 a jury of modern physicians would indisputably conclude 
 that life had never been really extinct, that the symp- 
 toms had been mistaken, and the phenomena of catalepsy 
 had been confounded with the phenomena of death. If 
 catalepsy was impossible, if the man had appeared, for 
 instance, to lose his head on the scaffold, they would 
 assume that there had been a substitution of persons, or 
 that the observers had been taken in by some skillful optical 
 trick. Father Newman may, perhaps, go further and 
 suppose that they had themselves seen the man tied to a 
 gun and blown to pieces beyond' possibility of deception. 
 But a man of science would reply that such a case could 
 not occur. That men once dead do not return to life again 
 has been revealed by an experience too. uniform to allow 
 its opposite to be entertained even as a hypothesis. 
 
" The Grrammar of A&sent.' 109 
 
 Catholic certitude involving the acceptance of miracles, 
 the development of the subject bringg up naturally the 
 famous argument of Hume. Father Newman is more 
 candid in his statement of it than Butler. Butler, perhaps, 
 had not read Hume's Essay, or he could hardly have evaded 
 so completely the point of the objection. Men suppose, 
 Butler says, that there is an antecedent presumption 
 against miracles ; and he answers that there is a strong 
 presumption against half the facts of ordinary experience. 
 There are fifty ways which I may go after I leave my 
 door. The odds are forty-nine to one against my taking 
 any particular way that can be mentioned, yet when a 
 jperson says that he saw me go that way and not another, 
 .his evidence is accepted without difficulty, and the fact is 
 taken to be proved. But this is entirely to leave out of 
 sight the difference between occurrences which are contrary 
 to experience, and therefore improbable in themselves, and 
 occurrences which have no inherent unlikelihood about 
 ihem. That a notorious liar should have perjured himself 
 in a court of justice would excite no surprise in itself, and 
 would be believed on moderate 'evidence! That a notori- 
 ously noble and upright man should have consciously done 
 a base action for a selfish object would be so incredible to 
 us, that scarcely any accumulation of proof would persuade 
 us that it was true. 
 
 Dr. Newman states the argument more justly, though we 
 cannot think he succeeds in meeting it. 
 
 " It is argued by Hume," he says, " against the actual 
 occurrence of the Jewish and Christian miracles, that, 
 whereas 'it is experience only which gives authority to 
 human testimony, and it is the same experience which 
 assures us of the laws of nature,' therefore, 'when these 
 two kinds of experience are contr3,ry ' to each .other, ' we 
 are bound to subtract the one from the other ; ' and, in 
 ■consequence, ainee we have no experience of a violation 
 of natural 'laws, and .much experience of the violation of 
 
110 Father Newman on 
 
 truth, 'we may establish it as a maxim, that ii> human 
 testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and 
 make it a just foundation for any system of religion.' " 
 
 This is Hume's real ai-gument accurately though briefly 
 stated. How does Dr. Newman answer it ? 
 
 " I will accept the general proposition," he says, " but I 
 resist its application. Doubtless, it is abstractedly more 
 likely that men should lie than that the order of nature 
 should be infringed ; but what is abstract reasoning to a 
 question of concrete fact ? To arrive at the fact of any 
 matter, we must eschew generalities, and take things as 
 they stand, with all their circumstances. . . . The question 
 is not about miracles in general, or men in general, but 
 definitely, whether these particular miracles,' ascribed to 
 the particular Peter, James, and John, are more likely to 
 have been than not." 
 
 " More likely to have been than not " is a widely different 
 thing from absolute certainty, and verges on the balancing 
 of probability which elsewhere is so severely disclaimed. 
 But after a man has accepted the general proposition, how 
 in reason can he ask what it has to do with concrete fact ? 
 What else should it have to do with ? It is not an axiom 
 of pure mathematics or a formula made up of symbols. 
 It professes to be and it is a generalization from concrete 
 experience. It calls itself rightly or wrongly an expression 
 of a universal truth, and being such, must therefore govern 
 every particular instance which can be brought under it. 
 Had Hume said simply that miracles were improbable, 
 and that more evidence was required to establish them 
 than to establish ordinary facts, the answer would have 
 been to the purpose ; but the gist of Hume's argument is 
 that no evidence whatever can prove a miracle, and to 
 accept the premise and to refuse its application on the 
 plea that it is an abstract proposition, is to fly in the face 
 of logic and common sense. Catholics, in fact, do not and 
 cannot feel the improbability of miracles. An invisible 
 
" The Crrammar of Asaent."" Ill 
 
 but definite miracle is worked whenever a mass is said. 
 In Catholic countries miracles, real or imaginary, are 
 things of daily occurrence. Under "particular circum- 
 stances " they are more likely to occur than not, and 
 therefore any, even the slightest and most indirect testi- 
 mony is sufficient to make credible any given instance of 
 miracle. 
 
 Prejudices, prepossessions, " trifles light as air,'' irregular 
 emotions, implicit reasons, " such as we feel, but which for 
 some cause or other, because they are too subtle or too cir- 
 cuitous, we cannot put into words so as to satisfy logic," 
 these, and such as these, in matters of religion, are genuine 
 evidences to which, we are told, a reasonable man is ex- 
 pected to defer. Having once passed the hne where evi- 
 dence can be produced and tested, we are at the mercy of 
 imagination, and the reader who has thus committed him- 
 self can now be led forward blindfold through the analytical 
 labyrinth. The intellectual faculties, "looking before and 
 after," are touched as it were by a torpedo. Our criteria 
 of truth leave us. One thing seems as reasonable as 
 another, "We strike our flag and surrender. We " con- 
 sent," as Father Newman advises us, " to take things as 
 they are and resign ourselves to what we find, instead of 
 devising, which cannot be, some sufficient science of reason- 
 ing which may compel certitude in concrete conclusions; 
 to confess that there is no ultimate test of truth besides the 
 testimony borne to the truth by the mind itself; and that 
 this phenomenon, perplexing as we may find it, is a normal 
 and inevitable characteristic of the mental constitution of a 
 being like man on a stage such as the world." 
 
 In this condition we are invite'd to recognize the claims 
 of the Catholic Church upon us. " The Catholic religion," 
 we are told, " is reached by inquirers from all points of the 
 compass, as if it mattered not where a man began so that 
 he had an eye and heart for the truth." Before "the 
 miserable deeds of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries" 
 
112 Father Newman on 
 
 "the •visible Church was the light of the world, conspiciioug 
 as the sun in the heavens. The creed was written on her 
 forehead," in accordance with the text, " Who is she that 
 looks forth at the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, 
 terrible as an army set in array ? " " Clouds have now 
 come over the sky, but what the Church has lost in her 
 appeal to the imagination she has gained in philosophical 
 •cogency by the evidence of her persistent vitality. She is 
 as vigorous in her age as in her youth, and has upon her 
 frimd facie signs of divinity." 
 
 Whether the Church has really gained in philosophical 
 cogency by the Eeformation and its consequences is a 
 matter on which Father Newman has a right to his opin- 
 ion ; but others have also a right to theirs, which wiU 
 probably be different. To ourselves it appears that what 
 vitality she possesses is proportioned to the degree in 
 which she has adopted the principles of her enemies^ that 
 so far as she retains her own she becomes every hour more 
 powerless to act upon them. K it be vitality to have lost 
 her hold on nine tenths of the educated laymen in her own 
 communion ; if it be vitality to have compelled every 
 Catholic Government to take from her the last fibre of 
 secular and civil authority, to deprive her even of her con- 
 trol over education, and relegate her to the domain of mere 
 opinion ; if it be a sign of vigor that her once world-wide 
 ■temporal authority is now liniited to a single state, and 
 supported there by the bayonets of a .stranger,'' then indeed 
 the evidence of her divinity may be said to have gained 
 strength. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
 Church destroyed by sword and fire many hundreds of 
 thousands of men and women in the effort to recover her 
 dominion. She still professes intolerance, and Father 
 Newman himself claims it as her right. Let her lay her 
 hand upon one single heretic and dispose of him, as she 
 used to do, at the stake ; let but one man, now on the occa- 
 i Written in the spring of 1870. 
 
" The Qrammar of Assent." 113 
 
 Bion of this brilliant Council, be publidy burnt in Rome for 
 want of orthodoxyj and who does not know that the whole 
 ecclesiastical fabric would be torn to pieces by the indigna- 
 tion of mankind ? 
 
 Yet to Father Newman the position of the Church is so 
 splendid, she is so visibly the representative of the majesty 
 of God, that she challenges comparison with every other 
 religious institution, and has a claim in the fact of her ex- 
 istence to universal submission. 
 
 He now passes on to show in detail how the Church in 
 her teaching and character corresponds with the demands 
 of our nature. Returning to natural religion, but hence- 
 forward in another relation to it, he appeals to the primi- 
 tive traditions of our race, and to the present beliefs and 
 practices of savage nations for the elementary and instinc- 
 tive principles of devotion. 
 
 The condition of the savage, from the point of view of 
 history, is simple and intelligible. Ignorant of the nature 
 of the forces which surround him, ignorant that the move- 
 ments of the stars, the revolution of the seasons, the phe- 
 nomena of growth and decay, and sickness and health, are 
 the result of agencies constant in their operation and dis- 
 coverable by observation, he attributes them to the capri- 
 cious will of beings like himself, and differing from him 
 only in power. He niakes God or gods after his own im- 
 age, and knowing that he himself is alternately generous 
 and benevolent, and vindictive and passionate, treats his 
 divinities as he is himself treated by his own slaves, regards, 
 them with a combination of love and terror, and prays to 
 them, flatters them, and sacrifices to them, to win their 
 favor to himself, and bribe them to look kindly on his en- 
 terprises. Ill fortune affecting him more keenly than pros- 
 perity, he attributes to them uniformly a disposition of envy, 
 if not of malignity. He concludes that they bear a grudge 
 against human happiness, and must be propitiated if their 
 jealousy is to be appeased. He passes over without atten- 
 8 
 
114 Father Newman on 
 
 tion the ordinary occurrences of life. He dwells on the 
 exceptions. He shudders at the eclipse, the thunder-storm, 
 or the epidemic. He is excited by coincidents and acci- 
 dents. He looks 'for God, not in nature, but in what seem 
 to him to be interferences with nature, and according as 
 they affect his own fortunes, he believes that supernatural 
 beings are watching over him for good or for evil. 
 
 Tendencies which result ■ manifestly from ignorance of 
 natural causes, and yield everywhere before attention to 
 facts, are to Father Newman the first trustworthy exhibi- 
 tion of the spiritual instincts of mankind. The religion of 
 cultivation, the clearer insight which has been obtained by 
 science into the system under which the world is really 
 governed, he sets aside as unworthy of consideration — as 
 beside the question — as a mode of thought developed by 
 intellect alone to the exclusion of conscience. He despises 
 modern ideas on these and kindred matters so entirely that 
 he cannot treat them with the fairness which his argument 
 demands ; for he challenges comparison for the Catholic 
 Church with every rival beUef, and he will not allow it to 
 be compared with the creed which now divides the educated 
 world with her. The savage is his spiritual ancestor, from 
 whom he glories in being the visible descendant. He 
 might as well say that the science of astronomy ought not 
 to be gathered from actual observation of the movements 
 of the heavenly bodies, but should be developed rather from 
 the primitive ideas of the early races, which saw in the stars 
 _ and constellations of stars the monuments of the loves of 
 the gods or the trophies of their wars. 
 
 He dwells with especial satisfaction on the cruel element 
 of most heathen creeds, particularly on the propitiatory 
 sacrifices. He insists on the vindictive character of Divine 
 punishment — vindictive as distinct from corrective — and 
 in his passion for retribution forgets or obliterates justice. 
 That an offense be followed by retaliation is the first 
 necessity to liim. That the criminal himself should be the 
 
" The Q-rammar of Assent." 11{) 
 
 person to suffer is only the second. Civilized nations en- 
 deavor imperfectly to limit the consequences of bad actions 
 to the perpetrators themselves. We consider governments 
 to be good or bad as men receive undSr them the just re- 
 ward of their conduct. Father Newman's sense of equity 
 is satisfied with vicarious penalties ; and as he prefers the 
 fetish of the savage to the philosophy of the man of science, 
 we presume that he would consider the criminal system of 
 China nearer than that of Europe to the general order of 
 Providence. In China, when a murder has been com- 
 mitted, the law demands life for life ; but Chinese justice 
 is satisfied with the punishment of somebody, and the 
 criminal is permitted to find a substitute. Father Newman 
 says : " Since aU human suffering is in its last resolution 
 the punishment of sin, and punishment implies a rule and a 
 rule of justice, he who undergoes the punishment of another 
 in his stead may be said in a certain sense to satisfy the 
 claims of justice towards that other in his own person." 
 We should rather say that when the innocent suffers for the 
 guilty, a second wrong has been added to the first : and 
 although, in the imperfection of human things, justice often 
 misses its mark, and in the confusion and whirl of life the 
 penalties of evil deeds are distributed unequally and un- 
 fairly, the function of human society is to redress these 
 inequalities rather than acquiesce in them and sanction 
 them ; and a government stands high or low in its claim to 
 honor and respect, according as it adjusts punishments to 
 the shoulders on which they legitimately ought to fall. 
 
 Modern ideas on these and similar subjects are here char- 
 acterized, however, as " simply false," " inasmuch as they 
 contradict the primary teaching of nature in the human race, 
 wherever a religion is found and its woi kings can be ascer- 
 tained." Father Newman's views are, in one respect, con- 
 sistent. He admits that these religions, to which he pays so 
 much honor, " in the corrupt state in which they appear in 
 history, are little better than schools of imposture, crueltv. 
 
116 Father Newman on 
 
 and impurity," and inasmuch as he considers that " God ii 
 sanctity, truth, and love, and the three oifenses against hii 
 majesty are impurity, unveracity, and cruelty," the acknowl 
 edgment seriously impairs their value as authorities. Th« 
 Church, however, it must be confessed, has in this respect 
 made good its kindred with them. The monasteries in the 
 sixteenth century were found to be nests of unnatural crime 
 The claims of JJie Holy See were buUt on forged decretals, 
 the Bible was supplanted by legends of saints, and the 
 bloody customs of Dahomey are less atrocious than the Paris 
 frenzy on the day of St. Bartholomew, for which Gregory 
 Xin. ordered a Te Deum. 
 
 If the corrupt early religions are notwithstanding more 
 trustworthy than philosophy, it is but reasonable to main- 
 tain that the Church may have committed the same crimes, 
 and retain in spite of them its divine claims to our admira- 
 tion. 
 
 The dominant Catholic Church (he continues) aimed at the 
 
 benefit of all nations by the spiritual conquest of all ; its 
 
 successes have on the whole been of extreme benefit to the 
 human race. It has imparted an intelligent notion about the 
 Supreme God among millions who would have lived and died in 
 irreligion. It has raised the tone of morality wherever it has 
 come, has abolished great social anomalies and miseries, has 
 raised the female sex to its proper dignity, has protected the 
 poorer classes, has destroyed slavery, encouraged literature and 
 philosophy, and had a principal part in that civilization of the 
 human kind, which with some evils still has on the whole been 
 productive of far greater good. 
 
 This is hardy, to say the least of it. When the Church 
 was in the plenitude of its power, the notion taught by it of 
 the Supreme God was that of a being who looked approv- 
 ingly on an auto-da-fe, who could be bribed to remit the 
 penalties of sin by masses purchased with money ; who, 
 though aU-wise and all-good, could be turned aside from 
 his purpose by the entreaties or remonstrances of the saints. 
 The same notion is still evidently held by Father Newman 
 
" The Crrammar of Assent." 117 
 
 himself, who has submitted to a Church whose voice he re- 
 gards as the voice of the Holy Spirit, yet whose impending 
 decisions he ventures to deprecate and dread. He argues as 
 if the Holy Spirit were about to dictate a decree the effects 
 of which had been imperfectly considered. He tells us that 
 he prays to Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, 
 Chrysostom, and Basil, to avert the great calamity ; and, as 
 if the Supreme Power were indifferent or blind, believes, or 
 affects to believe, " that their intercession would decide the 
 matter." Of all theories ever proposed by inan on the gov- 
 ernment of the universe, this seems to us to be about the 
 maddest.^ 
 
 As for the other achievements which he claims for Ro-, 
 manism, history would say that the abolition of social anom- 
 alies "had commenced with the revolt of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and had progressed side by side with the intellectual 
 movement which he detests and despises. The Spaniards, 
 the most Catholic of nations, were the most ruthless in their 
 conquests, and have been the last to part with their slaves. 
 The extinction of serfdom in England was coincident with 
 the Reformation. The tyranny of the French aristocracy 
 survived unmolested while the Church was predominant, 
 and feU with its fall. As to encouragement of literature, 
 what one distinguished man of letters in the last three cen- 
 turies has owed anything to the patronage of Rome ? 
 
 Father, Newman pays an unwilling compliment to the 
 Reformation in claiming the effects of it for the body to 
 which he belongs. An analogous deference to the modem 
 spirit appears still more singularly in the followjpg ingenious 
 
 Eternity or endlessness is in itself only a, negative idea, 
 though punishment is positive. Its fearful force, as added to 
 punishment, lies in what it is not. It means no change of state, 
 no annihilation, no restoration, but it cannot become a quality of 
 
 1 The allusion is to a letter of Father ItTewman's, published while the 
 Council was sitting in Rome, and before it had decided the " Infallibility." 
 
118 Father Newman on 
 
 punishment any more than a man's living seventy years is a 
 ■ quality of Vfs mind, or enters into the idea of his virtues or tal- 
 ents. If punishment be attended by continuity, or by sense of 
 succession, this must be because it is endless and something more. 
 Such inflictions are an addition to its endlessness, and do not 
 necessarily belong to it because it is endless. As I have already 
 said, the great mystery is not that evil has no end, but that it 
 had a beginning. But I remit the whole subject to the Theolog- 
 ical School. 
 
 The time has been when the fathers of the Church con- 
 ceived that a principal source of the happiness of the blessed 
 would be the contemplation of the torments of the damned. 
 We cannot jump off our shadows, and as little can we es- 
 cape the influence of the society in which we live. Father 
 Newman is as unable as the most tender-hearted liberal to 
 contemplate without horror the never-ending conscious 
 agony of a human soul. 
 
 To draw these remarks to a conclusion. What has been 
 said is from the nature of the case no more than a series of 
 imperfectly connected criticisms. To do justice to a book so 
 closely written and so delicately organized would require a 
 volume as long as itself and a skill equal to its author's. 
 We have been able only to indicate the line of its purpose, 
 and to take objections to the successive positions which are 
 assumed as the argument develops itself. 
 
 The conclusion contains a beautiful sketch of the rise of 
 Christianity, with an analysis of the causes assigned by Gib- 
 bon in explanation of its spread, and an exhibition of their 
 insufficiency. We are not concerned to defend Gibbon, 
 whose reasoning on this subject has always appeared to us 
 singularly unconvincing. Still less do we wish to question 
 the nature of the power which enabled Chi-istianity to dif- 
 fuse itself ; though we mav mean by Christianity something 
 else than Father Newman means, and by the power which 
 enabled it to grow, a spiritual influence working from 
 mind to mind, rather than gn external supernatural force. 
 Father Newman identifies Christianity with the complex doo" 
 
" The Grammar of Assent " 119 
 
 trinal system embodied in the formulas and represented in 
 the constitution of the Catholic Church. We mean by it 
 the code of moral duties which were taught by our Lord 
 upon the Mount, and which, as the type of human perfec- 
 tion, He illustrated in his own character. In so far as the 
 Catholic Church has adhered to the original pattern, in so 
 fer as it has addressed itself to the moral sense, and has 
 aimed rather at making men good than at furnishing their 
 intellects with orthodox formulas, so far it has fulfilled its 
 function of regenerating mankind. Under this aspect the 
 spread of it ceases to be a mystery. The Roman world was 
 sunk in lies, insincere idolatry, and the coarsest and most 
 revolting profligacy. There is something in human nature, 
 in all times and in all countries, which instinctively recoils 
 against such things, something which says that lies are 
 to be abhorred, and that purity is nobler than bestiality ; 
 and when the bad side of things is at its worst the nobler 
 sort of men refuse to put up with it longer. The Roman 
 government offered to the devotion of the empire a Divus 
 Nero or a Divus Domitianus. The image of a peasant of 
 Palestine, a being of stainless integrity, appeared simultane- 
 ously, pointing to a Father in heaven, and requiring men in 
 his name to lead pure and self-sacrificing lives ; and if it be 
 true that man is more than a beast, and that conscious and 
 moral sense are a part of his natural constitution, we re- 
 quire no miracles to explain why millions of men and 
 women with such alternatives before them were found to 
 choose the better part. 
 
 Father Newman thinks it unexampled : if he will study 
 the history of the Reformation he wUl find its exact counter- 
 part among " the miserable deeds " of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The great mass of Christians were to be found in those classes 
 which were of no account in the world, whether on the score of 
 rank or of education. 
 
 We all know this was the case with our Lord and his Apostles. 
 It seems almost irreverent to speak of their temporal employ- 
 
120 Father Newman on 
 
 ments, when we are so simply accustomed to consider them in 
 their spiritual association ; but it is profitable to remind ourselves 
 that our Lord Himself was a sort of smith, and made ploughs 
 and cattle-yokes. Four apostles were fishermen, one a petty tax- 
 collector, two husbandmen, one is said to have been a coachman, . 
 and another a market-gardener. When Peter and John were 
 brought before the Council, they are spoken of as being, in a sec- 
 ular point of view, " illiterate men, and of the lower sort," and 
 thus they are spoken of in a later age by the fathers. 
 
 ITiat their converts were of the same rank as themselves is re- 
 ported, in their favor or to their discredit, by friends and ene- 
 mies, for four centuries. " If a man be educated," says Celsus in 
 mockery, " let him keep clear of us Christians ; we want no men 
 of wisdom, no men of sense. We account all such as evil. No ; 
 but if there be one who is inexperienced, or stupid, or untaught, 
 or a fool, let him come with good heart." " They are weavers," 
 he says elsewhere, " shoemakers, fullers, illiterate, clowns." 
 " Fools, low-born fellows," says Trypho. " The greater part of 
 you," s^ys Csecilius, " are worn with want, cold, toil, and famine ; 
 men collected from the lowest dregs of tlie people ; ignorant, 
 credulous women ; " " unpolished, boors, illiterate, ignorant even 
 of the sordid arts of life ; they do not understand even civil mat- 
 ters, how can they understand divine ? " " They have left their 
 tongs, mallets, and anvils, to preach about the things of heaven," 
 says Libanius. "They deceive women, servants, and slaves," says 
 Julian. The author of Philopatris speaks of them as " poor crear 
 tures, blocks, withered old fellows, men of downcast and pale vis- 
 ages." As to their religion, it had the reputation popularly, 
 according to various fathers, of being an anile superstition, the 
 discovery of old women, a joke, a madness, an infatuation, an 
 absurdity, a fanaticism. 
 
 For Celaus and Julian write the Jesuit Campion, and 
 we have exactly the language which was applied to English 
 Protestantism. Protestantism, like Christianity itself, be- 
 gan from below. The Marian martyrs were nine tenths of 
 them petty tradesmen and mechanics. The Christian broth- 
 ers who first imported Tyndal's New Testament were weav- 
 ers, carpenters, and cobblers ; and the Catholic missionaries 
 who came over in Elizabeth's time to reconquer England, 
 
" The Grammar of Assent." 121 
 
 declared that their only opponents were to be found among 
 the vilest of the people. 
 
 The Catholic religion in the sixteenth century had be- 
 come like the heathen religions in the first. It had forgot- 
 ten moral duty in the development of its theology. The 
 service of God had become a juggler's game ; the only visi- 
 ble fruits of it were tyranny and simony and laciviousness : 
 and the uncorrupted part of Europe rose in indignation and 
 declared that they would remain in it no longer : that God 
 was a Spirit, and those who worshipped Him should worship 
 in spirit and in truth. The Church treated them as the 
 Roman Empire had treated the Church in its infancy. 
 They suffered martyrdom like the early Christians in de- 
 fense of the same principles, and like them they conquered. 
 
 If we are now perplexed and disheartened, if some of us 
 are looking back into Egypt and others are staggering into 
 Atheism, it is because Protestants themselves have struck 
 in turn into the same miserable course. They too have 
 mistaken theology for religion, and strangled themselves in 
 dogmatic formulas. The Catholic turned religion into rit- 
 ual, the Protestant has made it consist in holding particular 
 opinions, and at once has become an idolater like the other. 
 He has grown afraid of intelligence. He has shrunk from 
 facts, and prefers a pious belief to the recognition of obvious 
 truths. He has lost his horror of falsehood, and with it 
 the secret of his strength. But as Christianity was in the 
 beginning, so Protestantism was when it rose in its first 
 revolt. The resources of it were no greater, yet its story 
 was the same. The parallel which Father Newman looks 
 for in vain he wiU find there if he cares to seek for it, and 
 it is fatal to his own theory. 
 
CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF 
 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 In one of the western counties, the writer of this paper 
 was recently present at an evening Evangelical prayer- 
 meeting. The congregation were partly church-goers, 
 partly dissenters of various denominations, united for the 
 time by the still active revivalist excitement. Some were 
 highly educated men and women : farmers, tradesmen, ser- 
 vants, sailors, and fishermen made up the rest: all were 
 representative specimens of Evangelical Christians, pas- 
 sionate doctrinalists, convinced that they, and only they, 
 possessed the " Open Sesame " of heaven, but doing credit 
 to their faith by inoffensive, if not useful lives. One of 
 them, who took a leading part in the proceedings, was a 
 person of large fortune, who was devoting his money, time, 
 and talents to what he called the truth. Another was well- 
 known through two counties as a hard-headed, shrewd, 
 effective man of business ; a stern, but on the whole, and as 
 times went, beneficent despot over many thousands of un- 
 manageable people. 
 
 The services consisted of a series of addresses from 
 ' different speakers, interchanged with extempore prayers, 
 directed rather to the audience than to the Deity. At in- 
 tervals, the congregation sung hymns, and sung them par- 
 ticularly well. The teaching was of the ordinary kind, 
 expressed only with more " than usual distinctness. We 
 were told that the business of each individual man and 
 woman in the world was to save his or her soul ; that we 
 were all sinners together — all equally guilty, hopeless lost, 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 123 
 
 accursed children, unable to stir a finger or do a thing to 
 help ourselves. Happily, we were not required to stir a 
 finger ; rather, we were forbidden to attempt it. An anti- 
 dote had been provided for our sins, and a substitute for 
 our obedience. Everything had been done for us. We 
 had but- to lay hold of the perfect righteousness which had 
 been fulfilled in our behalf. "We had but to put on the 
 vesture provided for our wearing, and our safety was as- 
 sured. The reproaches of conscience were silenced. We 
 were perfectly happy in this world, and certain to be 
 blessed in the next. If, on the other hand, we neglected 
 the offered grace ; if, through carelessness, or intellectual 
 perverseness, or any other cause, we did not apprehend it 
 in the proper manner ; if we tried to please God ourselves 
 by " works of righteousness," the sacrifice would then cease 
 to avail us. It mattered nothing whether, in the common 
 acceptation of the word, we were good or bad ; we were 
 lost all the same, condemned by perfect justice to everlast- 
 ing torture. 
 
 It is, of course, impossible for human creatures to act 
 towards one another on these principles. The man of 
 business on week-days deals with those whom he employs 
 on week-day rules. He gives them work to do, and he 
 expects them to do it. He knows the meaning of good 
 desert as well as of Ul desert. He promises and he threat- 
 ens. He praises and he blames. He will not hear of 
 vicarious labor. He rewards the honest and industrious.- 
 He punishes the lazy and the vicious. He finds society so 
 constructed that it cannot exist unless men treat one an- 
 other as responsible for their actions, and as able to do 
 right as well as wrong. 
 
 And, again, one remembered that the Christian's life 
 on earth used to be represented as a warfare; that the 
 soldier who went into battle considering only how he could 
 save his own life, would do little credit to the cause he was 
 fighting for ; and that there were other things besides and 
 
124 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 before saving their souls which earnest men used to think 
 about. 
 
 The listeners, however, seemed delighted. They were 
 hearing what they had come to hear — what they had heard 
 ), thousand times before, and would hear with equal ardor 
 ft thousand times again — the gospel in a nutshell ; the 
 magic formulas which would cheat the devil of his due. 
 However antiuomian the theory might sound, it was not 
 fcbused by anybody present for purposes of self-indulgence. 
 While they said that it was impossible for men to lead 
 good lives, they were, most of them, contradicting their 
 words by their practice. WhUe they professed to be think- 
 ing only of their personal salvation," they were benevolent, 
 generous, and self-forgetful. People may express them- 
 selves in what formulas they please ; but if they sii jerely 
 believe in God, they try to act uprightly and justly ; and 
 the language of theology, hovering, as it generally does, 
 between extravagance and conventionality, must not be 
 scanned too narrowly. 
 
 There is, indeed, attaching to all propositions, one im- 
 portant condition — that they are either true or false ; and 
 it is noticeable that religious people reveal unconsciously, 
 in their way qf speaking, a misgiving that the ground is 
 insecure under them. "We do not mean, of course, that 
 they knowuQgly maintain what they believe may possibly 
 be a mistake ; but whatever persuasion they belong to, they 
 do not talk about truth, but they talk about the truth ; the 
 truth being the doctrine which, for various reasons, they 
 each prefer. Truth exists independently of them. It is 
 searched for by observation and reason. It is teste^i by 
 evidence. There is a more and a less in the degree to 
 ■which men are able to arrive at it. On the other hand, for 
 the truth the believer has the testimony of his heart. It t 
 suits his spiritual instincts ; it answers his spiritual desires. 
 There is no " perhaps " about it ; no balancing of argument. 
 Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, are each absolutely cer- 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 125 
 
 taiii that they are right. God, it would seem, makes truth ; 
 men make the truth ; which, more or less, approaches to 
 the other, but Is not identical with it. If it were not so, 
 these different bodies, instead of quarreling, would agree. 
 The measure of approximation is the measure of the 
 strength or usefulness of the different systems. Experience 
 is the test. If in virtue of any creed men lead active, 
 upright, self-denying lives, the creed itself is tolerable ; 
 and whatever its rivals may say about it, is not, and cannot 
 be, utterly false. 
 
 It seems, however, as if, the Evangelicals were painfuUy 
 anxious to disclaim any such criterion. When the first 
 address was over, the congregation sung the following 
 singular hymn, one of a collection of which, it appeared 
 from the title-page, that many hundred thousand copies 
 were in circulation : — 
 
 Nothing, either great or Email, 
 
 Nothing, sinners, no ; 
 Jesus did it — did it all 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 
 It is finished, yes, indeed. 
 
 Finished every jot; 
 Sinners, this is all j'ou need, 
 
 Tell me, Is it notV 
 
 When He from his lofty throne 
 
 Stooped to do and die, 
 Eveiything was fully done, 
 
 Hearken to his cry. 
 
 Weary, weary, burdened one, 
 
 Wherefore toil you so ? 
 Cease your doing, all was done 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 
 Till to Jesus' work you cling 
 
 By a simple faith, 
 Doing is a deadly thing, 
 
 Doing ends in death. 
 
 Cast your deadly doing down^ 
 
 Down at Jesus' feet, 
 Stand in Him, in Him alone, 
 
 Gloriously complete. 
 
126 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 And this, we said to ourselves, is Protestantism. To do 
 our duty has become a deadly thing. This is what, after 
 three centuries, the creed of Knox and Luther, of Coligny 
 and Gustavus Adolplius, has come to. The first Reformers 
 were so anxious about what man did, that if they could 
 they would have laid the world under a discipline as severe 
 as that of the Roman Censors. Their modern representa- 
 tives are wiser than their fiithers, and know better what 
 their Maker requires of them. To the question, " What 
 shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " the answer of old was 
 notj " Do nothing,'' but " Keep tlie commandments." It 
 was said by the Apostle from whose passionate metaphors 
 Protestant theology is chiefly constructed, that " the Gen- 
 tiles, who did by nature tlie tilings contained in the law,' 
 were on the road to the right place. But we have cliauged 
 all that. We are left face to face with a creed which tells 
 us that God has created us without the power to keep the 
 commandments, - — that He does not require us to keep 
 them ; yet at the same time that we are infinitely guilty in 
 his eyes for not keeping them, and that we justly deserve 
 to be tortured forever and ever, — to suffer, as we once 
 heard an amiable, excellent clergyman express it, " to suffer 
 the utmost pain which Omnipotence can inflict, and the 
 creature can endure, without annihilation.'' 
 
 The scene of the evening was too soothing at the time 
 for unpleasant reflections on the paradoxes of theology. 
 The earnest attention, the piety, tlie evident warmth of 
 belief, the certainty that those who were so loudly de- 
 nouncing the worth of human endeavor would carry away 
 with them a more ardent desire to do the works of right- 
 eousness, of which they were denying the necessity — these 
 things suggested happier conclusions on the condition of 
 humanity ; when the hearts of men are sound, the Power 
 which made and guides us corrects the follies of our heads. 
 
 Nevertheless, when we are considering the general in- 
 fluence for good or evil of a system or systems, the iutel 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 127 
 
 lectual aspect of them cannot be disregarded. Keligion 
 is, or ought to be, the consecration of the whole man : of 
 his heart, his conduct, his knowledge, and his mind ; of the 
 highest faculties which have been given in trust to him, 
 and the highest acquirements which he has obtained for 
 himself. When the gospel was first made generally known 
 throu^. the Roman Empire, it attracted and absorbed the 
 most gifted and thoughtful men then living. Pagan phi- 
 losophy of the post-Christian era has left no names which 
 will compete on its own ground with those of Origen, 
 TertuUian, and Clement of Alexandria. When the Re- 
 formers broke the spell of superstition in the sixteenth 
 century, their revolt was ascribed by the Catholics to the 
 pride of human reason. Some enchantment must now 
 have passed over Protestantism, or over the minds of those 
 to whom it addresses itself, when science and cultivation 
 are falling off from it as fast as Protestantism fell away 
 from its rival. How has a creed which had once sounded 
 the" spiritual reveille like the blast of the archangel's trum- 
 pet come now to proclaim in passionate childishness the 
 " deadliness " of human duty ? 
 
 The best that every man knows dies with him ; the pari 
 of him which he can leave behind in written words, conveys 
 but half his meaning even to the generation which lies 
 nearest to him, to the men whose minds are under the 
 same influences with his own. Later ages, when they 
 imagine that they are following the thoughts of their 
 forefathers, are reading their own thoughts in expressions 
 which serve to them but as a mirror. The pale shadow 
 called Evangelical religion, clothes itself in the language of 
 Luther and Calvin. Yet what Luther and Calvin meant 
 is not what it means. The Protestantism of the sixteenth 
 century commanded the allegiance of statesmen, soldiers, 
 philosophers, and men of science. Wherever there was a 
 man of powerful intelligence and noble heart, there was a 
 chanrpion of the Reformation ; and the result was a re- 
 
128 Condition and Projects of Protestantism. 
 
 vival, not of internal emotion, but of moral austerity. Thfl 
 passion of Evangelical teachers in every country where 
 the Reformation made its way, was to establish, so far as 
 thf< world would let them, the discipline of Geneva, to 
 m ike men virtuous in spite of themselves, and to treat sins 
 as crimes. The writings of Knox and Latimer are not 
 more distinguished by the emphasis with which they thun- 
 der against injustice and profligacy, than by their all but 
 iotal silence on " schemes of salvation." The Protestant- 
 ism of the nineteenth century has forsaken practice for 
 opinion. It puts opinion first, and practice second ; and in 
 doing so it has parted company with intellect and practical 
 force. It has become the property of the hysterical tem- 
 perament, which confounds extravagance with earnestness ; 
 and even of those most under its influence, an ever-increas- 
 ing number are passing back under the shadow of Cathol- 
 icism, and are taking refuge in the worn-out idolatries 
 from which their fathers set them free. "What is the 
 meaning of so singular a phenomenon ? Religion — Prot- 
 estant as well as Catholic — is ceasing everywhere to 
 control the public life of the State. Government in all 
 countries is becoming sternly secular. The preambles of 
 old acts of Parliament contained usually in formal words a 
 reference to the wiQ of the Almighty. Legislators looked 
 for instruction not to political economy, but to their Bibles. 
 " The will of the Almighty " is now banished to the con- 
 science or the closet. The statesman keeps rigidly to the 
 experienced facts of the world, and will have neither priest 
 nor minister to interpret them for him. Political economy 
 may contradict the Sermon on the Mount, but it is none 
 the less the manual of our political leaders. 
 
 Nor does thought fare better than practice. The phi- 
 losopher takes refuge in a "perhaps," and will not be 
 driven to say things' are certain which wise men cannot 
 agree about. Tfca man of science is supreme In his own 
 domain, and will not permit theologians to interfere with 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 129 
 
 his conclusions. Society, in its actual life, has long been 
 atheistic. The speculative creed begins to show a ten 
 dency to follow in the track of practice. The sovereign of 
 modern literature — the greatest master of modern culture 
 says distinctly : — 
 
 Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt, 
 
 Hat auch Religion; 
 Wer jene Beiden niclit besitzt, 
 
 Der habe Religion. 
 
 On the whole public life of this age, on its politics, on its 
 science, on its huge energetic warfare with, and conquest 
 of, nature, might be written the inscription on the pedestal 
 of the statue of Alexander : — 
 
 Vtiv iir' eiiov TL&efiai, Zdi" m) (5' "OTivpiirov ex^. 
 That this singular estrangement should have taken place 
 in France and Italy is no matter of surprise. The Catholic 
 Church declared war with science when it denounced 
 Galileo, and broke with temporal governments when it 
 claimed a right to depose kings. It is chained to a system 
 of doctrine which half Europe, three centuries ago, de- 
 clared to be incredible, and which has received no further 
 authentication since ; ' while the taint is on it of the enor- 
 mous crimes which it committed or prompted to sustain its 
 failing dominion — crimes which it will not condemn and 
 dares not acknowledge, Tl^e progress which mankind have 
 made throughout the world in the last ten generations 
 has been achieved in spite of a Church which could coexist 
 with moral corruption, but shrunk from intellectual activity, 
 ivhich' fought against reason with fire and sword, and stUl 
 mumbles curses where unable longer to use force. 
 
 But why should the same phenomenon be visible among 
 Protestants ? Protestantisin has no past to be ashamed of. 
 The prosperity of so-called Protestant nations as contrasted 
 with Catholic, is a. favorite argument with Protestant con- 
 troversialists. Protestantism was the creed of Burghley, ot 
 Cromwell, of Bacon, of Newton, of Berkeley. It shattered 
 
130 Condition a7id Prospects of Proteitantism. 
 
 the Spanish Empire ; it fused the United Provinces into a 
 republic, and created in its modern aspect the nationality 
 of Scotland. As a spiritual force there has been nothing 
 equal to it since the growth of Christianity. Why has it, 
 too, lost its power to charm ? Why has the great river 
 which bore upon its breast the destinies of nations sunk 
 away into the sands of modern civilization ? 
 
 The tendency of the changes in progress among us can 
 be dimly seen, although the ultimate outcome gf them is 
 beyond the reach of prudent conjecture. The existing 
 facts of the case become daily plainer. The positive creed 
 has lapsed from a rule of life into a debated opinion. It 
 is no longer heard in our legislature. It is no longer re- 
 spected in our philosophies. Its local spasmodic revivals 
 resemble the convulsive movements of something which is 
 in the agonies of death. Its threats and its promises, how- 
 ever clamorously uttered from the pulpits, are endured with 
 weariness, or with the attention of resentful incredulity. 
 
 Let us follow a little further the curious phrase to which 
 we just now alluded. AH religious bodies call their doc- 
 trine the truth — as distinguished from true. It is particu- 
 larly characteristic of the Evangelicals, who wish to be 
 emphatic, and prefer the warmer expression. The more 
 the words are studied, the more pregnant they appear. 
 Truth is the same in all ages, in all languages, and to all 
 races of men. The two sides of a triangle are greater than 
 the third, in China as well as in England. The Professor 
 of Astronomy at St. Petersburgh has no more doubt about 
 the Newtonian theory than Le Verrier or Mi-. Adams. 
 Hindoo surgeons accept and understand the circulation of 
 the blood as easily as the students at St. Thomas's. Facts 
 once established are facts for all time ; and human beings 
 everywhere can be brought to recognize and admit them, 
 where the evidence is properly before their eyes. There 
 is no need of authority. There is no occasion to say " Be- 
 lieve this, or you will be damned." Truth carries its own 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 131 
 
 witness with it, and an added denunciation would only sng> 
 gest misgivings. 
 
 The conditions under which the propositions of a creed 
 have found acceptance are singularly different : one man 
 sees the force of the evidence for them ; to another the evi- 
 dence is no evidence at all. We are told that the heart 
 must be in the right state, that there must be the gift of 
 the Spirit, prevenient grace, election, conversion, assurance, 
 and one knows not what. The phraseology points in itself 
 to something individual, to special favor bestowed upon this 
 or that particular soul. Yet the phenomena of the world 
 and of history wUl not fit into any silch formula. The doc- 
 trines of the Reformation were not accepted by this person 
 or rejected by that ; but as if by some latent magnetism, 
 they selected throughout Europe the Teutonic races, leaving 
 the Celtic and Latin races, after a brief struggle, to Cathol- 
 icism, and scarcely touching the Sclavonic races at all. 
 England and Scotland became Protestant; but the argu- 
 ments which converted the Saxons failed to touch the Irish. 
 When the war of freedom ended in the Low Countries, the 
 seven Teutonic Provinces were independent and Calvin- 
 istic, while Celtic Belgium remained to Rome and Spain. 
 France, in which Celtic and Frankish elements were com- 
 bined, was convulsed for half a century. The country could 
 not be divided, and the majority carried the day. But it is 
 said the part taken by the great families in the wars of the 
 League was determined by their blood : the Colignys, the 
 Turennes, the Montgomerys, the Rochefoucaulds, aU the 
 leading Huguenots, were of German descent. 
 
 We are not to suppose that there was a second time a se- 
 lection of a peculiar people. No respectable divine has ever 
 held that the Teutonic race, as a race, were favored with a 
 special revelation. Nor has piety, or the peculiar grace of 
 character which religion and only religion bestows, been 
 peculiar to them or their creed. There are saints and sin- 
 ners amoncr Latins as well as Teutons. There are saints 
 
132 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 and sinners among Catholics as well as Protestants. Each 
 only has followed a spiritual type of its own. Something 
 else has been at work besides either divine grace or out- 
 ward evidence of truth, something which, for want of a bet- 
 ter word, we must caU spiritual afiinity. 
 
 Nor is this all. Free thought was once offered to the 
 world in the form of Protestantism, but it was offered once 
 only. Those who refused it then never seem to have had 
 a second opportunity ; and the subsequent rebellions of rea- 
 son against authority have all taken the form of revolution. 
 Protestantism has made no converts to speak of in Europe 
 since the sixteenth century. It shot up in two generations 
 to its full stature, and became an established creed with de- 
 fined boundaries ; and the many millions who in Catholic 
 countries proclaim their indifference to their religion, either 
 by neglect or contempt, do not now swell the congregations 
 of Protestant church or conventicle. Their objections to 
 the Chiftch of Home are objections equally to all forms of 
 dogmatic and doctrinal Christianity. And so it has come 
 about, that the old enemies are becoming friends in the 
 presence of a common foe. Catholics speak tenderly of 
 Protestants as keeping alive a belief in the creeds, and look 
 forward to their return to the sheepfold ; while the old An- 
 tichrist, the Scarlet Woman on the Seven Hills, drunk with 
 the blood of the saints, is now treated by Protestantism as 
 an older sister and a valiant ally in the great warfare with 
 infidelity. The points of difference are forgotten; the 
 points of union are passionately dwelt upon ; and the rem- 
 nants of idolatry which the more ardent English Protestants 
 once abhorred and denounced, are now regarded as having 
 been providentially preserved as a means of making up the 
 quarrel and bringing back the churches into communion. 
 The dread of Popery is gone. The ceremonial system, 
 once execrated as a service of Satan, is regarded as a thing 
 at worst indifferent, perhaps in itself desirable; and even 
 those who are conscious of no tendency to what they stUl 
 
Condition and Prospects of PrcCcstantism 133 
 
 call corruption, are practically forsaking the faith c f their 
 fathers, and reestablishing, so far as they can or dare, those 
 very things which their fathers revolted against. 
 
 These phenomena seem to say that Protestantism, as a 
 body of positive doctrine, was not a discovery or. rediscov- 
 ery of truth — of truth as it exists from eternity, independ- 
 ent of man's conception of it, but something temporary, 
 something which the minds of men who were determined at 
 all costs to have done with idolatry, threw out of themselves 
 as .a makeshift in the confusion — a passionate expression 
 of their conviction that God was a spirit, to be wor- 
 shipped in spirit and in truth, and not with liturgies and 
 formularies. In the desperate struggle for emancipation, 
 theu" emotion took form in vehement and imaginative met- 
 aphors, and these metaphors full of fire and force in an age 
 which was in harmony with them, have become gradually, 
 as times have changed, extravagant, unmeaning, and false. 
 The outpourings of pious enthusiasm are addressed rather 
 to the heart than to the head, and when taken out of their 
 connection and shaped by cold theologians into articles of 
 faith, they cannot stand the test, and fall to pieces. j 
 
 Whence, then, came the original power of Protestant- 
 ism ? What was there about it which once had such ex- 
 traordinary attraction for great and noble-minded men ? , 
 Enthusiasm does not make heroes, if it is enthusiasm for 
 illusion. Some great genuine truth there must have been. . 
 at stake in that tremendous conflagration, or it would have 
 burnt out like a fire of straw. Something indisputably 
 there was which the descendants of the Eeformers have 
 forgotten, and have Igst their strength in forgetting it. In 
 the Protestantism of a Latimer or a Knox there w-ere two 
 constituents. The positive part of it was the affirmation of *!; 
 the elementary truth of all religions, the obligation of obe- '' 
 dience to the law of moral duty ; the second, or negative 
 part, was a firm refusal to believe in lies, or to conceal or 
 disguise their disbelief. AH great spiritual movements 
 
134 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 have started under the same conditions. They have theii" 
 period of youth and vitality, their period of established 
 usefulness, and in turn their period of petrifaction. Creeds, 
 by the very law of their being, stiffen in time into form. 
 Wherever external ceremonial observances are supposed to 
 be in themselves meritorious or efficacious, the weight of 
 the matter is sooner or later cast upon them. To sacrifice 
 our corrupt incjinations is disagreeable and difficult. To 
 sacrifice bulls and goats in one age, to mutter paternosters 
 and go to a priest for absolution in another, is simple and 
 easy. Priests themselves encourage a tendency which gives 
 them consequence and authority. They need not be con- 
 scious rogues, but their convictions go along with theii 
 interests, and they believe easily what they desire that 
 otliers should believe. So the process goeg on, the moral 
 element growing weaker and weaker, and at last dying out 
 altogether. Men lose their horror of sin when a private 
 arrangement with a confessor will clear it away. Religion 
 becomes a contrivance to enable them to live for pleasure, 
 and to lose nothing by it ; a hocus-pocus which God is 
 supposed to have contrived to cheat the devil — a conglom- 
 erate of half truths buried in lies. As soon as this point 
 is reached the catastrophe is not far off. Conscience does 
 not sleep. The better sort of men perceive more or less 
 clearly that they are living upon illusions. They may not 
 see their way to anything better. They may go on for 
 awhile in outward conformity, but sooner or later some- 
 thing occurs to make them speak, some unusually flagrant 
 scandal, or some politically favorable opportunity for a 
 change. A single voice has but to say the fitting word, 
 and it is the voice not of one but of millions. In the hearts 
 of all generous, high-minded persons, there is an instinctive 
 hatred of falsehood : a sense that it is dreadful and horrible, 
 and that they cannot and dare not bear with it They had 
 wanted bread, and they were fed with stones; but the 
 stones will not serve them longer, and they fall back on the 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 135 
 
 original elementary moral certainties which are the natural 
 food of their souls. 
 
 The negative element is usually that which at the begin- 
 ning most occupies them, which consfitutes at once their 
 honor and their peril. The positive element is simple and 
 rapidly summed up ; nor in general does it contain the 
 points for which the battle is being fought. The Re- 
 formers' chief business always is to destroy falsehood, to 
 drag down the temple of imposture where idols hold the 
 place of the Almighty. 
 
 The growth of Christianity at the beginning was pre- 
 cisely this. The early martyrs did not suffer for profess- 
 ing the name of Christ; the Emperor Adrian had no 
 objection to placing Christ in the Pantheon ; but they 
 would not acknowledge the deities of the empire. They 
 refused to call beings divine which were either demons or 
 nothing. The first step in their conversion was the recog- 
 nition that they were living in a lie, and the truth to which 
 they bore witness in their deaths was not the mystery of 
 the Incarnation, but simply that the gods of Greece and 
 Rome were not gods at all. The thoughts of their Master 
 and Saviour hovered before them in their tortures, and took 
 from death its terrors ; but they died, it cannot be too 
 clearly remembered, for a negation. The last confession 
 before the praetor, the words on which their fate depended, 
 were not "We do believe," blit "We do not believe." 
 " We will not, to save our miserable lives, take a lie be- 
 tween our lips, and say we think what we do not think." 
 
 The Reformation was yet more emphatically destructive. 
 The very name Protestant was a declaration of revolt. It 
 commenced with the repudiation of pardons and indul 
 gences, and the theory of the priesthood followed. The 
 clergy professed to be a separate and sacred caste, to 
 possess magical- powers in virtue of their descent from the 
 Apostles, and to be able to work invisible miracles by 
 gestures and cabalistic sentences. The war passed rapidlj 
 
136 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 to the central mystery of the Catholic faith. Heaven did 
 not interfere, so the Church fought for it, and went to work 
 sword in hand to "chastise the innovators. Where thej' 
 could not resist they died ; and if we look over the trials 
 of the Protestant confessors in Holland, France, or Eng- 
 land, we find them condemned, not for their positive doc- 
 trines of election, justification, or irresistible grace — the 
 Church would have let them say what they pleased abort 
 curious paradoxes, which would have added but fresh prop- 
 ositions to the creed, and furnished fresh material for faith 
 — the Church destroyed them for insisting that bread was 
 bread and wine was wine, and that a priest was no more a 
 conjuror than a layman. And then to serious persons like 
 John Frederick, and Coligny, and William the Silent, the 
 question rose, should the Church be allowed to do this? 
 While the debate turned on intricacies of theology, they 
 were uncertain, and were inclined to stand still. These 
 great men did not quarrel with transubstantiation as a 
 mere theological opinion. They were unwiUing to embroil 
 Christendom for words. They would have left opinion 
 free, and allowed the liberty to others which they demanded 
 for themselves. The burnings and massacres forced them 
 into a sterner attitude. When towns began to be sacked, 
 and women ravished and buried alive, and men by tens of 
 thousands hanged, shot, roasted, torn in pieces, and babies 
 tossed upon the pikes of Eomish crusaders, a cause had 
 risen which might well command the sympathies of every 
 brave man : the cause of humanity against theology, the 
 cause of God against the devil. It is idlo to say that the 
 Catholic cruelties of the sixteenth century rose from the 
 spirit of the age. If the plea were true, the Papacy could 
 not be held excused, for the Papacy claims to be inspired 
 by Gfod, and not by the temper of the times. But the age 
 was not cruel till the Church made it so. The Reformers, 
 before they were persecuted, never sought or desired more 
 for themselves than toleration; they demanded merely 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 137 
 
 permission to think and speak their own thoughts. If in 
 isolated cases extreme fanatics followed the atrocious exam- 
 ples of the Catholics, it was because they had not wholly 
 shaken off the spirit of the creed in which they had been 
 bred. But the judicial murders which can be laid to the 
 charge of Protestants are as units where the Church is 
 responsible for thousands. 
 
 On obscure subjects on which certain knowledge is im- 
 possible, it is at once inevitable and desirable that men 
 should have different opinions. Such truth as we can hope 
 to obtain on these matters is advanced and protected by 
 discussion, and theological schools are not to be allowed to 
 compensate by violence for the absence or weakness of ar- 
 gument. That we should not be forced at the sword's point 
 by a, so-called authority to say that we believe what we do 
 not believe, and deny the intelligence which God has given 
 us, — this is what we have a right to demand, and Protest- 
 antism, if the same circutastances return, will again com- 
 mand our allegiance as heartily as ever. But the history of 
 it tells us the secret of its strength as well as of its weak- 
 ness. When the power to persecute was -taken from the 
 Church, when Protestantism became a system of positive 
 opinion, contending for supremacy as soon as it had achieved 
 toleration, when it showed a disposition to revive in Its own 
 favor the methods from which it had suffered, the tide which 
 had carried it to victory ceased to flow. From that time 
 forward it w£>s contending for no great principle. It was 
 contending only for its own formulas, which may or may 
 not be true, but which are not proved to be true ; and, by 
 parallel necessity, the weakness of the two creeds has de- 
 veloped side by side. As Rome ceased to tyrannize from 
 want of power, the positive Protestant lost the noblest of his 
 allies, and lost hold in himself of the real prinoxples for 
 which the battle of the Eeformation had been fought. 
 
 The Reformer of the sixteenth century denied the power 
 of the keys. It was decided that for himself and those who 
 
138 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 went with him, he had a right to say what he thought ; bnl 
 he obtained no right to punish by disabilities or otherwise 
 his neighbor who continued to believe in the keys ; and his 
 own theories of justification were of little moment to those 
 who preferred to remain in suspense on matters beyond 
 comprehension. Luther, on the other hand, might have 
 taught justification by faith if he would have left the priest- 
 hood alone, just as the priests might have gone on teaching 
 their own doctrines as long as they could get a congrega- 
 tion to listen to them, if the Inquisition would have left the 
 Protestants alone. The evil element in Catholicism which 
 made good men so detest it, was not that it held a theory of 
 its own on the relation between God and man, but that it 
 murdered everybody who would not agree with it. The 
 work of the Reformation was done when speculative .opin- 
 ion was declared free. Tjie lay intelligence of the world 
 cares at all times more for justice than theology, and it left 
 the Protestants to fight their own battles with their own 
 arguments, as soon as it had secured them fair play. 
 
 The contrast between the negative and positive principles, 
 — the power of the first and the weakness of the second, — 
 has become increasingly apparent in every successive gen- 
 eration. 
 
 As Ibng as Jesuitism continued powerful in Spain and 
 Austria, — as long as the old regime was maintained in 
 France, and want of orthodoxy in Catholic countries was 
 directly or indirectly treated as a crime, — tlie cause of 
 Protestantism was more or less the cause of liberty. The 
 revolutions at the close of the eighteenth century completed 
 the work of the sixteenth. The last poison fangs of the old 
 serpent were drawn ; it was left a harmless creature, whose 
 crimes were things of the past ; and it became venerable to 
 sentimentalism for its feebleness and its antiquity. Other 
 questions arose to agitate the intellect of the thinking por- 
 tion of mankind, which timid Protestants found as danger- 
 ous to their own speculations as they were dangerous to 
 
Condition and Prosjaeets of Protestantism. 139 
 
 what was left of Romanism. They forgot their ancient 
 abhorrence of falsehood. Propositions which they came into 
 being to deny have become more tolerable to them than a 
 further advance on the road to freedom. They have quar- 
 reled with their best friends. They have ceased to protest ; 
 and on many sides, and in a thousand subtly ways, they are 
 making advances to their old antagonist, and endeavoring to 
 imite their forces with his against "the infidel spirit of the 
 age." 
 
 The sacramental system means something, or it means 
 nothing. It is true, or it is false. The English Evangel- 
 icals used to answer in clear ringing tones for the second 
 alternative. There was no playing with words, no senti- 
 ment, no mystification. They insisted sternly and firmly that 
 liiaterial forms were not and could not be a connecting link 
 between God and the human soul. The EngKsh High 
 Churchman was less decided in his words, but scarcely less 
 so in his practice. He was contented to use the ambiguous 
 formulas which the Reformation left in the liturgy ; but he 
 Qoniined his " celebrations " to four times a year. He re- 
 garded the Anglican ceremonial generally rather as some 
 thing estabhshed by law which it was his business to carry out 
 than as a set of rites to which he attached a meaning. High 
 Churchmen have discovered now that the mystic body in the 
 Eucharist is in the hands as well as the heart of the believer. 
 They pine for more frequent communions as the food of 
 their spiritual existence. They are gliding rapidly into the 
 positive affirmation of the doctrine which Latimer and Rid- 
 ley were executed for denying. The Evangelicals shrink 
 from being behindhand. They have lost confidence in them- 
 selves; they play with mysticism, and admit that things 
 untrue in one sense may be true in another. They are 
 patching their garments from the rags which their fathers 
 cast away, anxious rather to maintain their party than their 
 principles, as the Tories steal the policy of the Radicals to 
 keep their Cabinet in office. 
 
140 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 The predominant feature in the English Reformation 
 was the abridgment of the special prerogatives of the clergy. 
 From a position of almost supremacy, they were reduced 
 into the servants of the State. They were made to feel that 
 the'y were not a separate order, deriving their authority 
 from the Apostles, and raised above the laity by privileges 
 or prerogative or special spiritual powers, but were a 
 part of the general community, with particular duties to 
 perform. And they had learnt their lesson. They aad" 
 come at last, after many vicissitudes, to understand and 
 accept the new order of things. Men now in middle 
 life remember the rector of their childhood as a higher 
 kind of squire, — and often combining the two characters. 
 He was justice of the peace ; he took his share in general 
 local business ; he attended sessions and county meetings ; 
 he farmed his glebe or his estate ; he was to all intents and 
 purposes a well educated country gentleman, with a higher 
 moral standard than the laity round him, fulfilling admira- 
 bly well the obligations of his station, and possessed of all 
 the influence which naturally belonged to it. 
 
 The type is fast changing, and will soon be extinct, — 
 much for the better, as we are told in newspapers and 
 bishops' charges. The clergy of all persuasions attend 
 now exclusively to their spiritual functions. The incumbent 
 
 of is no longer to be seen, like his predecessors, on the 
 
 board of magistrates in the next town. He is reading daily 
 service at his church ; he is at the Convocation House at 
 Westminster ; he is making speeches at a missionary meet- 
 ing, or addressing his diocesan on the enormities of Bishop 
 Colcnso. He wears a long coat and a peculiar waistcoat, 
 and curtails his shirt collars. He cuts his apparel as near 
 as he dares after the Catholic fashion, and aspires to match 
 the priest at his own weapons. He is once more profes- 
 sional. He is one of an order which he hopes to restore to 
 its dignities, and he looks back on the secular parson, who 
 hunted and shot and went to cricket-matches and electioa 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 141 
 
 dinners, as a monster of the dark ages. The secular parson 
 shared the pleasures as well as the occupations of his neigh- 
 bor. He was no better than a layman. The modern clergy 
 prefer the earlier condition, and desire to be once more a 
 priesthood. We hear of few moral scandals among them. 
 They are, as a class, devoted, self-sacrificing, hard-worked 
 men, and, in an age more than ever given up to money- 
 making, they are contented with the wages of an upper ser- 
 vant. But what they lose in secular position they aspire to 
 recover in spiritual authority ; and whatever else we may 
 conjecture about their future, it is quite certain that .they 
 will not long remain members of a Church established and 
 governed by the State. Either they must drop their pre- 
 tensions, or the Established Church will cease to be. They 
 ■ may preach more doctrine than their fathers ; it may be 
 that they preach more truth ; but they know infinitely less 
 of the people under their charge ; and they in turn are less 
 appreciated by their people. There are no longer independ- 
 ent points of contact between men who have no common 
 occupations ; and in town and country, notwithstanding the 
 multiplication of churches, the revival of architecture, the 
 religious newspapers and magazines, and the increased talk 
 about religion everywhere, the practical influence of the 
 clergy diminishes daily, and they know it is so, and know 
 not why it is. 
 
 To those who like ourselves have no expectation of any 
 good coming to us either from politics or science, unless 
 statesmen and philosophers have some kind of faith in God, 
 the outlook is not a happy one. The reaction towards 
 Romanism, Anglo- Catholicism, or whatever it is called, is 
 probably temporary — a mere eddy in the tide. It would 
 not have arisen among us at all, except for the ignorance of 
 modern history, which stUl accompanies our highest educa- 
 tion. The Calvinistic and Lutheran Reformation agreed 
 on one point at least — that the magical power supposed to 
 belong to the clergy had no existence. It treated their 
 
142 Qondition and Prospects of Frotestantism. 
 
 absolution as imposture. It regarded tlieir sacraments, in 
 the form which they had assumed, as mere idolatry, their 
 whole conception of Cliristianity as false from the root. 
 It is now pretended that in England the priest theory was 
 retained in a modified form, and people who hold that 
 theory maintain that the English Church is a groat deal 
 nearer Rome than to the Presbyterians or Continental 
 Protestants. 
 
 It is certain, nevertheless, tliat however politicians for 
 State purposes might choose to adjust the Anglican organ- 
 ization, there would have been no such thing as the lOuglish 
 Eeformation, except for those among us who did not be- 
 lieve in priests at all. 
 
 The first step of the English Parliament was to break the 
 spine of sacerdotal assumption. They allowed its ghost to 
 hover about the service-booli, but on condition that it 
 should never take substantial form again. Nor can Eng- 
 land be separated in any real sense from the reformed 
 States abroad. English, Dutch, French, Germans, fought 
 side by side for tlie liberties of Europe, against an enemy 
 which neither acknowledged nor acknowledges that there is 
 any distinction between them. If England was in any way 
 singled out, it was as the country where the Protestant her- 
 esy had taken strongest and deepest root. Had Protestant- 
 ism been trampled down in Holland and Germany, the 
 apostolic succession of her bishops would not have saved 
 England from the same fate ; and as a feature in the relig- 
 ious history of mankind, the Eeformation everywhere must 
 be considered as one movement. If it was a good thmg, all 
 who broke off from Rome shared the honor ; if it was an 
 evil thing, all were equally guilty. 
 
 Are we then to believe that the Reformation was an evil 
 thing ? Let us have a plain answer. If Dr. Pusey will not 
 tell us, we must appeal to general intelligence. Looking at 
 the deeds that were done in the sixteenth century, and at 
 the men who did them — looking at the cliai-actor of the 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 143 
 
 feaders on both sides, on the conditions of the struggle, and 
 on the spirit in which the battle was fought out — can a 
 doubt, we ask, be fairly entertained on which side the right 
 was lying ? A Catholic who. has been bred up in the atmos- 
 phere of his crfeed, who has learned history from Lingard 
 and Audin, and whose later studies have been controlled by 
 the Index, may entertain an unshaken faith in the immacu- 
 late Church, which can err neither in judgment nor in action. 
 A Howard or a Ker may cling to a cause for which his an- 
 cestors fought and suffered, which is identified with the tra- 
 ditions of his family, which at one time was the cause of the 
 aristocracy against the Revolution. But when educated 
 Protestants turn Romanists or Anglo-Catholics, and profess 
 to hate the Reformation, they imply that they regard Coligny 
 as a rebellious schismatic, and Catherine de Medici and her 
 litter of hyena cubs as on the side of providence and justice ; 
 they take part with a Duke of Alva against William the 
 Silent, with Mary Stuart against Kiiox and Murray. And' 
 such a phenomenon, we repeat, can only be explained by 
 the system of instruction at our English Universities, where 
 we are taught accurately the constitution of Servius TuUius, 
 but where we never hear of the Act of Supremacy, and 
 find it an open question whether Latimer was not a raving 
 fanatic, and Cranmer a sycophant and a scoundrel. 
 
 Let there be no mistake about this, llot only those who 
 are becoming Catholics, but those also who are setting the 
 Church of England upon stilts, and praying for the reunion 
 of Christendom, must equally condemn the Reformation. 
 They regard the Continental Protestant as a schismatic, and 
 his revolt from the Catholic Church as a crime. The An- 
 glo-Catholics palliate the separation of their own Church of 
 England, on the plea merely that it was kept providentially 
 from lapsing into heresy, and they do not care to conceal 
 their contempt and hate for the persons of the Reformers. 
 Yet, all this time, the so-called " horrors of the French Rev- 
 olution " were a mere bagatelle, a mere summer sjiower, by 
 
144 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 the side of the atrocities committed in the name of religion, 
 and with the sanction of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The Jacobin Convention of 1793-94 may serve as a meas- 
 ure to show how mild are the most ferocious of mere human 
 beings when compared to an exasperated priesthood. By 
 the September massacre, by the guillotine, by the fusOlade 
 at Lyons, and by the drownings on the Loire, five thousand 
 men and women at the utmost suflFered a comparatively 
 easy death. Multiply the five thousand by ten, and you do 
 not reach the number of those , who were murdered in 
 France alone in the two months of August and September, 
 1572. Fifty thousand Flemings and Germans are said to 
 have been hanged, burnt, or buried alive under Charles the 
 Fifth. Add to this the long agony of the Netherlands in 
 the revolt from Philip, the Thirty Years' War in Germany, 
 the ever-recurring massacres of the Huguenots, and remem- 
 ber that the Catholic religion alone was at the bottom of all 
 these horrors, that the crusades against the Huguenots 
 especially were solemnly sanctioned by successive popes, 
 and that no word of censure ever issued from the Vatican 
 except in the brief intervals when statesmen and soldiers 
 grew weary of bloodshed, and looked for means to admit the 
 heretics to grace. 
 
 "With this infernal business before men's eyes, it requires 
 no common intellectual courage to believe that God was on 
 ■the side of the people who did such things — to believe that 
 He allowed his cause to be defended by devils — whUe He 
 permitted also good and brave nien, who had originally no 
 sympathy with Protestantism, to be driven into it by the 
 horrible fruits of the old creed. 
 
 If this be true, then indeed, as an Oxford Professor 
 tells us, our human conceptions of justice and goodness 
 are no measure of what those words mean when applied to 
 God. Then indeed we are in worse case than if the throne 
 of heaven was empty, and we had no Lord and father 
 there at all. "I had rather be an atheist," says, Bacon, 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 145 
 
 "than believe in a god who devours his children." The 
 blackest ogre in a negro fetish is a benevolent angel com- 
 pared to a god who can be supposed to have sanctioned 
 the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 It is an old story that men make God after their own 
 image; Their conception of his nature reflects only their 
 own fissions. TMdologic'al fiiry in the sixteenth century 
 ttjiiied huiflan creatures into fiends, and they in turn 
 made God' into a fiend also. The Neo-Catholics of our 
 own day, while they wflj not disclaim the God of Gregory 
 'XIH., have softened the outlines, but have failed to add 
 tb its dignity. ' The diyiiiity 'of the Ilitualistic imagination 
 abandons iKe world and alF its butsliita, cares nothing for 
 ■'the efforts of science to unfold the mysteries of the crea- 
 'tioHi or to'remo'^e the 'ptim'evat, cui'se % the amelioration 
 of the condition of humanity — all these it leaves to the 
 'unconverted man. It tiikes delight in incense, and cere-' 
 ■monies, arid .fine churchefe, sCnd an extended'episcopate, and 
 for the rest is occupied in 'its own world, and in helping 
 priests to worlj; invisible mir^des. The Evangelical, far 
 nobler; than these, yet embarrassed stiU. with his doctrines 
 of reprobation, forms a theory which ' has some lineaments 
 of superhuman beauty, but, unable to rid himself of the 
 sd,f age 'element left behind by Calvin, 'ofiers us a Saviour 
 at once all merfciful aiid without'mercy — a Saviour whose 
 pity'wiil not reject the' darkest sinner from his grace, yet to 
 those whose' perplexed minds dannot accept as absolutely 
 and exhaustively 'true the, " scheme of salvation " deals 
 harder measure flian the Holy Ofiice of Seville. The 
 heretic,' in 'the auto-da-fe, endiAieA but a few moments of 
 agonyl ■ Jrhe Calvinist preacher cpnsigns him without a 
 shudder to an eternity 6i flames. 'Faith is the cry of all 
 theologians. Believe with us and you will bfe saved ; refuse 
 to believe and you are lost. Yet they know nothing of 
 ■what belief means. They dogmatize, but they fail to per- 
 suade ; and they are entangled in the old dilemma which 
 JO 
 
146 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 faith alone can encounter and despise. "Aiit non vult 
 tollere malum aut nequit. Si non vult, non est bonus : si 
 nequit, non est omnipotens." 
 
 In the present alienation of the higher intellect from 
 religion, it is impossible to foresee how soon or from what 
 quarter any better order of things is to be looked for. We 
 spoke of an eddy in the stream, but there are " tides in the 
 affairs of men " which run long and far. The phenomena 
 of spirit-rapping show us that the half-educated multi- 
 tudes in England and America are ready for any super- 
 stition. Scientific culture seems inclined to run after the 
 will-o'-the-wisp of positivism ; and as it is certain that 
 ordinary persons will not live without a belief of some 
 kind, superstition has a fair field before it ; and England, 
 if not Europe -generally, may perhaps witness in the com- 
 ing century some great Catholic revival. It is a possi- 
 bility which the decline of Protestantism compels us to 
 contemplate, and It is more easy to foresee the ultimate 
 result than the means by which its returning influence 
 can be effectually combated. Catholicism has learnt 
 nothing and forgotten nothing. It is tolerant now be- 
 cause its strength is broken. It has been fighting for 
 bare existence, and its demands at present are satisfied 
 with fair play. But let it once have a numerical majority 
 behind it, and it wUl reclaim its old authority. It wiU 
 again insist on controlling all departments of knowledge. 
 The principles on which it persecuted it still professes, 
 and persecution wUl grow again as naturally and neces- 
 sarily as a seed in a congenial soU. Then it will once 
 more come in collision with the secular intelligence which 
 now passes by it with disdain. The sti-uggle ended in 
 blood before ; and it wiU end in blood again, with fui-tlier 
 results not difl[icult to anticipate. 
 
 "We are indulging, perhaps, in visionary fears ; but if 
 experience shows that in the long run reason will prevail, 
 it shows also that reason has a hard fight for it ; and in 
 
Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 147 
 
 the minds even of the most thoughtful rarely holds an 
 imdisputed empire. We expect no good from the theory 
 of human things with which men of intellect at present 
 content themselves. We look for little satisfaction to our 
 souls from sciences which are satisfied with phenomena, 
 or much good to our bodies from social theories of utility 
 — utility meaning the gratification of the five senses in 
 largest measure by the greatest number. We believe that 
 human beings can only live and prosper together on the 
 condition of the recognition of duti/, and duty has no 
 meaning and no sanction except as implying responsibility 
 to a power above and beyond humanity. As long as the 
 moral force bequeathed to us by Christianity remains, the 
 idea of obligation survives in the conscience. The most 
 emancipated philosopher is stiU dominated by its influence, 
 and men continue substantially Christians whUe they be- 
 lieve themselves to be only Benthamites. But the feeble- 
 ness of Protestantism will do its work of disintegration at 
 last, and a social system which has no religion left in it 
 will break down like an uncemented arch. . 
 
 We have no hope from theologians, to whatever school 
 they may belong. They and all belonging to them are 
 given over to their own dreams, and they cling to them with 
 a passion proportionate to the weakness of their arguments. 
 
 There is yet a hope — it is but a faint one — that the 
 laity, who are neither divines nor philosophers, may take 
 the matter into their own hands, as they did at the Refor- 
 mation. If Catholicism can revive, far more may Protest- 
 antism revive, if only it can recover the spirit which gave 
 it birth. Religion may yet be separated from opinion, and 
 brought back to life. For fixed opinions on questions 
 beyond our reach, we may yet exchange the certainties of 
 human duty ; and no longer trusting ourselves to so-called 
 economic laws, which are no more laws than it is a law 
 that an unweeded garden becomes a wilderness of stinging 
 nettles, we may place practical religion once more on the 
 
148 Condition and Prospects of Protestantism. 
 
 throne of society. There may lie before us a fiiture of 
 moral progress whicJ will rival or eclipse our material 
 splendor ; or that material splendor itself may be destined 
 to perish in revolution. Which of those two fates lies now 
 before us depends on the attitude of the English laity 
 towards theological controversy in the present and the next 
 generation. 
 
ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES^ 
 
 DuKiNG the last quarter of a century, nearly four million 
 firitish subjects — English, Irish, and Scots — have become 
 citizens, inore or less prosperous, of the United States of 
 America. We have no present quarrel with the Ameri- 
 cans ; we trust most heartily that we may never be in- 
 volved in any quarrel with them ; but undoubtedly from 
 the day that they became independent of us, they became 
 our rivals. They constitute the one great power whose 
 interests and whose pretensions compete with our own, and 
 in so far as the strength of nations depends on the number 
 of thriving men and women composing them, the United 
 States have been made stronger, the English empire 
 weaker, to the extent of those millions and the children 
 growing of them. The process is stiU continuing. Emi- 
 gration remains the only practical remedy for the evils of 
 Ireland. England and Scotland contain as many people 
 as in the present condition of industry they can hold. The 
 aimual increase of the population has to be drafted off and- 
 disposed of elsewhere, and while the vast proportion of iti 
 continues to be directed on the shores of the Eepublic,i 
 those who leave us, leave us for the most part resenting the 
 indifference with which their loss is regarded. They part 
 from us as from a hard stepmother. They are exiles from^ 
 a country which was the home of their birth ; which they 
 had no desire to leave, but which drives them from her at 
 the alternative of starvation. 
 
 England at the same time possesses dependencies of her 
 
 1 Fraser't Magazine, January, 1870. 
 
150 England and her Colonies. 
 
 own, not less extensive than the United States, not less rich 
 in natural resources, not less able to provide for these 
 expatriated swarms, where they would remain attached 
 to her Crown, where their well-being would be our 'n ell- 
 being, their brains and arms our brains and arms, every 
 acre which they could reclaim from the wUderness so much 
 added to English soU, and themselves and their families 
 fresh additions to our national stability. 
 
 And yet we are told by politicians — by some directly in 
 words, by almost all in the apathy with which they stand 
 by and look on — that the direction of our emigration is of 
 not the slightest consequence to us, that there is no single 
 point in which an emigrant who settles on the Murray or 
 the St. Lawrence, is of more value to us than one who 
 prefers the Mississippi. In either case, if he does well for 
 himself, he becomes a purchaser of English goods, and in 
 this capacity alone is he of use to us. Our interest in him, 
 so far as we acknowledge an interest, is that he should go 
 wherever he can better himself most rapidly, and consume 
 the largest quantity of English calico and hardware in his 
 household. It is even argued that our colonies are a 
 burden to us, and that the sooner they are cut adrift from 
 us the better. They are, or have been, demonstratively 
 loyal. They are proud of their origin, conscious of the 
 value to themselves of being part of a great empire, and 
 willing and eager to find a home for every industrious 
 famUy that we can spare. We answer impatiently that 
 they are welcome to our people if our people choose to go 
 to them, but whether they go to them or to America, 
 whether the colonies themselves remain under our flag or 
 proclaim their Ladependence or attach themselves to some 
 other power, is a matter which concerns themselves en- 
 tirely, and to us of profound indifference. 
 
 Such an attitude of a government towards its subjects 
 is so strange, so unexampled in the history of mankind, 
 that the meaning of it deserves study if only as a political 
 
England and her Colonies. 151 
 
 -..uriosity. The United States has just spent six hundred 
 millions of money and half a million lives in preserving 
 their national unity. The Eussians, when they find a 
 pressure of population in Finland, load their ships of war 
 with as many as desire to emigrate, and give them homes 
 on the Amoor River. English subjects were once so 
 precious in the eyes of our government, that we did not 
 allow them so much as a right to change their allegiance. 
 Whei we look down the emigration tables we find only the 
 Germans who are doing anything in the least resembling 
 what we are doing, and the Germans cannot help them- 
 selves, for they have no colonies. America is not a rival 
 of Germany, and the strengthening of America threatens no 
 interest of any German State. Had Prussia settlements in 
 one hemisphere and France in another, do we suppose the 
 Court of Berlin would see the peasants from the Elbe and 
 the Oder denationalize themselves without an effort to 
 reclaim them ? No intelligent person will believe it. The 
 Spaniards and French indeed parted with tens of thousands 
 of their artisans to England during the wars of religion, 
 but they did not part with them willingly, nor was the 
 result of the experiment such as to tempt a repetition of it. 
 It used to be considered that the first of all duties in an 
 English citizen was his duty to his country. His country 
 in return was bound to preserve and care for him. What 
 change has passed over us, that allegiance can now be 
 shifted at pleasure like a suit of clothes ? Is it from some 
 proud consciousness of superabundant strength? Are our 
 arms so irresistible that we have no longer an enemy to 
 fear? Is our prosperity so overflowing and the continu- 
 ance of it so certain, that we can now let it flow from us 
 elsewhere because we can contain no more ? Our national 
 arrogance will scarcely presume so far. Is it that the 
 great Powers of the world have furled their battle-flags ? 
 Is the parliament of man on the way to be constituted, and 
 is the rivalry of empires- to be confined for the future to 
 
152 England ani i^r.. ^abnief, 
 
 competition in tha arts ^ peace? Never at any period 
 in the world's; history \yas so laygg ajshare of the profitsiof^ 
 industry expended upon armies and arms. Is' it so certain 
 that we shall ^ever be .entangled again in the quarrj^ls^of 
 the Continent,? Let the ..fiiesh engagements answer^ into 
 which we have been cong)elled to enterj guaranteeing the 
 independence of Belgium, ..Let the fresji Black Sea emr 
 barrassment answer, from which jwe ha^je ,barely escaped 
 with honor. Is it. that ,the experience of the results of th^ 
 emigration to America :s9,,fa>; has been so satisfactory as to 
 convince us that we have no occasion to interfere with its 
 direction ? The Irish- in Australia and New Zealand are as 
 well-disposed towards us as ,the- rest of the. c9lonis_ts... The 
 Irish in America, ape :our bitterest finemies. The Irish 
 vote wUl be given unanimously for war with us if at any 
 time any question between tie two countries becomes 
 critical; and, their, presence, in; America,- and -the influence 
 which they are supposed to possess there, is the immediate 
 cause of the present humor of Ireland itself. The millions 
 who fled from the famine carried with them the belief that 
 it wo« England which in one shape or other was the 
 cause of their misery ; that it was England which was 
 driving them from their homes. The land was theirs, and 
 we had taken it from them, and therefore they were starv- 
 ing. It was their belief then. It is their belief now. 
 Nine parts of it may be absurd, but one part is reasonable. 
 "We had superseded Irish law and Irish methods of manage- 
 ment by English law and English methods of management. 
 Landlords holding under our system had allowed the popu- 
 lation to outgrow the legitimate resources of the country, 
 because, while the potato lasted, subdivision increased thei)' 
 rents without cost to themselves, and then when the change 
 came, and the landlords' interests lay the other way, ihey 
 said to their tenants, " There is no room for you here ; you 
 are not iranted ; you are an expense and a trouble to us ; 
 and you must go." Their removal in itself was inevitable. 
 
Unglfimd and 'ftjJJ, Qolpnies. 153 
 
 In maoj^ instances, j)er|haps in, jaQsjIi ths qost of the i-emov^ 
 was paid for them, but,^tliey,id.entiflpd.'t4e .system, under 
 which they suffered with -English tyranny>; and they went 
 away with hate in their hearts and^ curves, on their lips^ 
 Those who went hated us because th^y, were. obliged to go. 
 Those who stayed behind hatg us because -fathers have lost 
 their, sons, and sister? brothers, and, friends have been 
 parted from friends., - Aod..,now we have ;F^ni'anism \ipon 
 usj saying openly we d^e not'.put it down, for America wiU, 
 not allow us. •■■ . .. „ - ■ ., ; , 
 
 , , We did not make .the potato famine. We could^.not ^ght 
 with nature, or alter the irreversible relation between land 
 an^ food. Civilization brings with it always an .ov.ergr9wth 
 of^ people ; for civilization means the policeman, and, tlie 
 policeman means that the ,- natural increase^of populati^ 
 shall not be held in check by murder and fighting and ; rob-; 
 bery. In all ranks.^families have to jlegrn to be s^ejarated., 
 England suffers from it as much as Ireland, and does not 
 complain. This is quite true. But if when the famine 
 came we had said to the Irish peasants, " Through no fault 
 of yours a terrible calamity has fallen upon you ; there are 
 more of you living on the land than the Ifed will support, 
 and we take blame to ourselves, for we ought (or those who 
 by our means are placed above you ought) to have pre- 
 vented the multiphcation of you where the decay of a single 
 root might be your destruction ; when we look back upon 
 our management of Ireland, we cannot acquit ourselves of 
 being responsible for you ; and therefore, as you must go 
 away, we will give you land elsewhere ; we wUl take you 
 there and settle you, and help you to live tiU you can main- 
 tain yourselves," — if we had said this, there would have been 
 at least a consciousness that we had doje our best to soften 
 their misfortunes. The million that we might have sent to 
 Canada or Australia would have drawn after them the mil- 
 lions that have followed. Our colonies would have doubled 
 their population, and there would have been no Irish vot€( 
 
164 Wngland and her Colonies. 
 
 in America for party demagogues to flatter by threats of 
 England, and no Foniaiiism at Jiome. 
 
 We are told that government has no business with emi- 
 gration ; that emigration, lilce wages, prices, and profits, 
 must be left to settle itself, according to laws of nature. 
 Human tilings are as much governed by laws of nature as 
 a farm or a garden, neither loss nor more. If wo cultivate 
 a field, it will yield us corn or green wops. The laws of na- 
 ture will as assuredly overgrow it with docks and nettles if 
 we leave it to govern itself. The settlement of Ulster un- 
 der James I. was an act of government ; yet it was the only 
 measure which ever did good to Ireland. The removal of a 
 million poor creatures to Canada, and the establishment of 
 them there, would have been under present circuinslances 
 considerably more easy. It was a question of money 
 merely. To send them to Canada might have cost, perhaps, 
 as much as the Abyssinian War. Had we feared they might 
 cross the border after all into the States, and had preferred 
 Australia or the Cape for them, it might have cost a little 
 more, and it would have probably turned out on the whole 
 a profitable investment. Trade follows the flag. We con- 
 sider the Americans to be good customers, but they import 
 only ten shillings' worth of our manufactures per liead in 
 proportion to the population. The imports of the Austra- 
 lian colonies arc at the rate of £10 jior head. English caj)- 
 ital is locked up, or flowing away into Continontal loans. 
 The high rate of interest in America is due wholly to the 
 extent of land there, which yields profits so enormous and 
 so certain when reclaimed and cultivated. We have the 
 same resource in no less abundance. We have land, we 
 have capital, we have labor. Yet wo seem to have neither 
 the ability nor the desire to bring them together, and de- 
 velop their results. We are told persistently by a powerful 
 scliool of politicians, that the colonies as colonies are of no 
 use to us, that we can look with entire indifference on their 
 separation fi-om us, and their adoption of any future course 
 which may seem best to themselves. 
 
England and her Colonies. 155 
 
 What is the meaning of so strange a conclusion ? 
 
 Many explanations can be given of it. There is a certain 
 vague cosmopolitanism growing up among us. Palriotism 
 is no longer recognized as the supreme virtue which once it 
 was believed to be. " Prejudice in favor of England," that 
 proud belief in England which made men ready to sacrifice 
 themselves and all belonging to them in the interests of 
 tlioir country, is obsolete and out of fashion. It is not 
 uncommon to hoar Liberal politicians express an opinion, 
 witliout much regret, tliat England has had its day j tliat her 
 fighting (lays nro over ; that, like the old Temeraire, she has 
 nothing now to look for but to be towed into her last rest- 
 ing-place ; tliat a hundred years hence her greatest achieve- 
 ment will be considered to be having given birth to America. 
 A more respectable theory is tliat we are still sullicient for 
 ourselves, that we have enormous resources yet undeveloped 
 at home, if government will but let tlie people alone, and 
 leave trade and manu&cture to take tlieir course. There 
 is iJio overwork of public iium, who catch gladly at an 
 excuse for shaking off unnecessary ti-ouble. And there is 
 the constitution of the Colonial Office, whicli undoubtedly 
 has shown itself incapable of managing effectively our dis- 
 tant depeiideiiejes, tlie chiefs of the colonial as of all other 
 departments being selected not for special acquaintance 
 wltli tlie subject, but for the convenience of politicJsil pai-ties, 
 being changed repeatedly witli clianges of government, and 
 being unable therefore to carry out a consistent policy, or 
 even to gain intelligent insight into tlieir business. Again, 
 there has been an impression tliat in case of war the colo- 
 nies would be an embarrassment to us ; tliat Canada, as long 
 as it is ours, is a possible cause of quai-rel with the United 
 States ; and* tliat if we were quit of it we should be at once 
 ui less danger of war, imd if war amie should be better able 
 to defend ourselves. 
 
 On the whole, howevei", there ai-e two main causes under- 
 lying the rest whicli beyond all others have alienated public 
 
156 England and her Colonies. 
 
 opinion from our colonies generally, and have oxeated that 
 general apathy cf which the attitude of statesmen is but a 
 symbol. 
 
 The first is the position recently assumed towards us by 
 some of the colonies themselves ; the second an opinion de- 
 liberately conceived on the political situation of England and 
 and on the future which we should anticipate and labor for. 
 The colonies no longer answer the purposes for which, 
 when originally founded, we made them useful. When the 
 States of the Union were British provinces, we sent there 
 not so much our surplus population as those whose presence 
 among us was inconvenient, our felons, rebels, and political 
 and religious refugees. As they prospered, we made them 
 profitable to us. They were the chief markets for our Afri- 
 can Negro trade, and we paid no attention to their objec- 
 tions to slavery. "We went on to tax them. They revolted, 
 and were lost to us. We supplied their places. In Canada, 
 Australia, New Zealand, the Cape of Good Hope, and else- 
 where, we possessed ourselves of territories as valuable as 
 those which had separated from us. In these places, or in 
 some of them, so long as they would allow us, we continued 
 to dispose of our convicts. Taught by experience we 
 avoided our past faults — we avoided them, that is, in the 
 identical form for which we had paid so dearly — but so far 
 as we dared we stiU administered their interests for our own 
 convenience. We held their patronage, we disposed of 
 their waste lands, we became involved in endless disputes 
 with them, and this too came to an end. Th,ey refused to 
 be demoralized by our felons ; we submitted and kept them 
 to ourselves. They claimed their lands; we abandoned 
 them. They desired to fill their public offices with their 
 own people ; we parted with what had been an agreeable 
 provision for younger brothers or political partisans. Wq 
 surrendered all the privileges which had been immediately 
 profitable ; and finally, to dose all disputes, we left them to 
 govern themselves in whatever way seemed good to them. 
 
Mngland and her Colonies. 157 
 
 We gave them constitutions on the broadest basis which 
 popular philosophers recommended. We limited our rights 
 over them to the continuance of the titular sovereignty of 
 the Crown, to the nomination of a governor whose powers 
 were controlled by the local legislature ; and we maintained 
 regiments among them to fight their battles when they fell 
 into trouble with their neighbors. The advantage now was 
 all on their side. They became a weight upon the 'English 
 taxpayer. They relieved us of our emigrants, such of them 
 as they could get, but America was ready to take our emi- 
 grants and to ask nothing of us in return. -Their govern- 
 ments, the creation of universal suffrage, einbroiled us in 
 wars, putting us to expense in defense of proceedings which 
 we neither advised nor approved. The Canadians, while 
 they expected us to protect them against the United States, 
 levied duties on English manufactvires for their own reve- 
 nues. Relations such as these could not and cannot con- 
 tinue, and English politicians living from hand to mouth, and 
 courting popularity by anxiety for English pockets, have 
 declined to subsidize the colonies farther, or relieve them of 
 expenses or duties which they can discharge for themselves. 
 We have told the New Zealanders that if they covet the 
 Maoris' lands, they must raise troops of their own to take 
 them. We have said generally that we will not undertake 
 the defense of the colonies except in wars of our own mak- 
 ing, and that if the colonies do not like the ' conditions they 
 are welcome to sever the connection. 
 
 Undoubtedly there is much in this way of putting the 
 case which is prima facie reasonable. The colonies are 
 offended. They declare themselves ardently attached to 
 England. They say they are proud of belonging to us, 
 and they call on England to reciprocate their affection, 
 and they are astonished and hurt at what they regard as 
 an injurious return. Rejected love, they tell us, curdles 
 into enmity. A distinguished Australian reminds us that 
 the Alabama quarrel is even now embittered by a re- 
 
158 England and her Colonies. 
 
 membrance of the tea duties. We ask with wonder what 
 possible resemblance can be found between taxing colonies 
 against their will and leaving them to the absolute disposal 
 of their own fortunes. StUl the colonies are not satisfied. 
 They fail in any way to answer the argument, unless by 
 reproaching us for being blind to what they conceive to be 
 our own interests, but there is a rankling feeling of injus- 
 tice somewhere. They make common cause with one 
 another. Australia takes up the wrongs of New Zealand, 
 and both resent the frankness with which we discuss a 
 probable separation of Canada. If they have to leave us 
 in their present humor they hint that they can no longer be 
 our friends. Afiection cannot subside into indifference. 
 The spretoe injuria formce festers into ill-will. 
 
 When there are differences of this kind, the right is 
 seldom wholly on one side. Taken literally, nothing can 
 be more unlike than our past conduct to America, and 
 our present attitude towards New Zealand. Yet situations 
 never exactly repeat themselves, and the same spirit may 
 exhibit itself in more forms than one. In our present 
 relations with our colonies, as well as in our past, we are 
 charged with considering or having considered nothing 
 but our own immediate interest. It is true that we have 
 never yet acknowledged that the colonies are of more than 
 external moment to us. Till now, and especially since the 
 establishment of Free Trade, there has been room in Eng- 
 land itself for the expansion of the people. The colonies 
 see or think they see that we have gone as far as we can 
 go that way ; they consider themselves infinitely impor- 
 tant to us, and our determined blindness adds point to the 
 offense. We taxed New England, they say, for our own 
 convenience ; for the same reason, and equally unwisely, we 
 are throwing off them. We made use of them, while they 
 left us their patronage and consented to be convict stations ; 
 when we cannot use them any more in this way, we bid 
 them go about their business, although they are English- 
 
JEngland and her Colonies. 159 
 
 men like ourselves, as if Englishmen might be told pru- 
 dently that if they had real or imagined gricYauces we did 
 not want them, and that they were free to change their 
 allegiance. Interest, however, is not the only bond by 
 which nations are held together. Patriotism may be sen- 
 timentalism, but it is a sentimentalism nevertheless which 
 hes at the root of every powerful nationality, and has been 
 the principle of its coherence and its growth. Our practi- 
 cal differences with the colonies would have been found 
 easy to set right had there been a real desire to adjust 
 them, but we have not recognized their attachment to us 
 as of serious consequence. We lost the North American 
 States. The world thought that we were ruined, and we 
 found ourselves as strong as before. We have come to 
 believe that we are sufficient for ourselves, that we can 
 keep our Indian empire and maintain our rank among 
 other nations out of the resources of our own two islands. 
 We imagine that all which our colonists can do for us is to 
 become purchasers of our manufactures, and whether de- 
 pendent or independent they will need equally shirts and 
 blankets, and Sheffield and Birmingham hardware. 
 
 The England of the future, as pictured in the imagina- 
 tion of the sanguine Liberal statesman, is to be the empo- 
 rium of the world's trade, and an enormous workshop for 
 aU mankind. With supplies of the best iron or coal, which 
 if not inexhaustible will last our time and our children's 
 and grandchildren's, with the special aptitude of the 
 English at once for mechanical art and for navigation, we 
 consider that we can defy competition, and multiply indefi- 
 nitely our mills and furnaces and ships. Our great cities 
 are to grow greater ; there is no visible limit to the devel- 
 opment of our manufactures ; we can rely upon them with 
 confidence to supply a population far larger than we have 
 at present. Our exports in 1862 were more than double 
 what we exported in 1842. They may have doubled again 
 twenty years hence, and once more by the end of the 
 
160 England and her Colonies. 
 
 century. Civilization spreads with railroad speed; each 
 year opens new markets to us ; and with the special ad 
 vantages which no other nation combines in equal measure 
 we imagine that we have nothing to fear. Trade may 
 occasionally fluctuate. There may be years when cur 
 prosperity niay seem arrested or even threaten a declihe — 
 but ia all instances such partial checks have been follflwed 
 by- a splendid jebound. The. tide is- still flowing in oht 
 favor, and we jsee no. reascm' to feSr that -English com- 
 merdpl enterprise in,any 'direction whatever is -approaching 
 its limits., Confident in;.ourselves,.we -have thus-' looked 
 with, indifference on;our -dependencies in othet continehtaj 
 or on the opposite side ofi.the globe. If they prefer td 
 aidhere to us we do not prajjose to drive them off. If- they 
 wish to leave us; we are •prepared neither f to resist no^ 
 remouistrate. We make -th6m ; understand that wheihfef 
 they- 'go or §tay they are masters -of their own foi'tunes.' 
 They are : practically self-govepned, aifd with- self-govemi 
 ment they must accept its' responsibilities ; above 'aU things 
 they mjist make no demands on the h.eavUy burdened 
 English taxpayers^ ; 
 
 The first question to be asked about all this is, whether 
 our confidence is. justified ; whether the late rate of in- 
 crease in our trade is really lijiely-ito continue: There are 
 symptoms which suggest, if not * fear, yet at least mis- 
 giving. Success in itrade on so great a scale' depends on- 
 more ithan, natural advantages; it-depends on -the use that 
 is made of them ; it depends bn^our reputation "for honesty ; 
 and English reputation, it is Heedless to say,'is 'not what 
 it used to be. •' The rage to become rich has infected-' aU 
 classes. : Railway • ooinpanies^ banking companies, joint- 
 stock ;tradjng- companies, have, within these fev*^ la«t years, 
 fallen to shameful *reck, dragging thousands bf famflies 
 down to ruin. The investigation into the causes of these 
 failures has brought out transactions which make ordinary 
 people ask whither English honesty has gone. Yet there 
 
England and her Colonies. 161 
 
 has been no adequate punishment of the principal ofienders, 
 nor does any punishment seem likely to be arrived at. 
 The sUk trade is said to be in a bad way, and the fault is 
 laid on the French treaty. It was shown a year or two 
 since, that fifty per cent, of hemp was worked up into 
 English silk. May not this too have had something to do 
 with the decline ? It was proved, in the " Lancet," after a 
 series of elaborate investigations, that the smaller retail 
 trade throughout the country was soaked with falsehood 
 through and through. Scarcely one article was sold in 
 the shops frequented by the poor, which was really the 
 thing which it pretended to be. Last year there was an 
 outcry about adulteration and false weights and measures ; 
 attention was called to the subject in the House of • Com- 
 mons by Lord Eustice Cecil ; and perhaps; of all the 
 moral symptoms of the age, the most significant is the 
 answer which was given on that occasion by the President 
 of the Board of Trade. The poor were and are the chief 
 sufferers by fraud of this kind. Mr. Bright has risen to 
 distinction as the poor man's friend; and those and the 
 analogous complaints, with the general approbation of the 
 great Liberal party, he treated with impatient ridicule. 
 He spoke of adulteration as a, natural consequence of 
 competition. He resisted inquiry. "Adulteration," he 
 said, "arises from the very great, and perhaps inevitable, 
 competition in business, and to a large extent it is pro- 
 moted by the ignorance of customers." He looked for a 
 remedy in education, which would enable the poor to lake 
 care of themselves. The Home Secretary might as well 
 have said that burglary was an inevitable consequence of 
 the institution of property, that it was promoted by the 
 weakness and cowardice of householders, and that he 
 hoped it would be checked by a general possession of 
 revolvers and increasing skill in the use of them. If the 
 Liberal party wiU not admit the parallel, it is because they 
 have lost the power of regarding swindling as a crima 
 
 n 
 
162 Eivglwxk and her Colonies. 
 
 If I buy what professes to be a silk umbrella, and I find 
 myself ia poBsessioif of an umbrella which is two parts 
 hemp, I am as much robbed as if a thief had picked my 
 pocket. I am told that I must take care of myself; that 
 it is not the business of government to save me from 
 makiiig a bad -baj^gain. What is the business of govern- 
 ment? If caveat emptor is to be the rule, then why not 
 caveat viator ? Why the expense of maintaining a police ? 
 Many fine qualities are developed in men — courage, pru- 
 dence, readiness, presence of mind, dexterity, and fore- 
 thought— ^ if they are left to defend for themselves their 
 persons and their purses. Mr. Bright's reply to Lord 
 Etistice Cecil will not have tended to remove the mis- 
 givings; with which foreign purchasers are watching the 
 symptoms of Englisii Commercial morality. 
 
 Once more;^do weisee our way so clearly through the 
 growing perils from the trades' unions ? We are told on all 
 sides that English manufacturers cannot hold their ground 
 against foreign competitors if the unions are to dictate the 
 wages at which the artisans are to work. Our monopoly 
 of trade depends on our powers to undersell the foreigner 
 in his own market ; a very slight margin makes the differ- 
 ence. If the dictation of the unions is allowed to destroy 
 that margin by insisting on an advance with the revival of 
 demand, the manufacturer's profits are eaten up. His oc- 
 cupation passes from him to countries where men and mas- 
 ters can work together on terms more satisfactory to both 
 of them. Has the solution of the problem been found so 
 easy ? Has the faintest ray of light as yet been thrown 
 upon it? The unions and the master employers are in a 
 state of war, either open or at best suspended ; and war is 
 the most wasteftd and ruinous of aU means by which hu- 
 man differences can be adjusted. Every strike is a battle 
 — a battle which determines nothing — in which there is 
 no glory to be gained and no victory to be won which does 
 not widen the breach more irreparably, while the destruc- 
 
England and her Colonies. 163 
 
 tion of pioperty and the resulting ruin and devastation are 
 immediate and incalculable. Where is there a sign that 
 labor and capital are beginning to see their way to a recon- 
 ciliation? Political economy is powerless ; and testates'' 
 man who relies for the stability and progress of England on 
 an indefinite expansion of trade, must either possess an in- 
 sight marvelously deeper than that of common mortals, or 
 must have a faith in economic principles in which, for our 
 part, we are unable to share. 
 
 But let us grant his conclusions. Suppose these diflScul- 
 ties overcome ; suppose Manchester, Liverpool, and Glas- 
 gow swollen tOl they have each a million inhabitants ; sup- 
 pope Lancashire a universal workshop, — a hundred thou- 
 sand chimneys, the church spires of the commercial creed, 
 vomiting their smoke into the new black heaven spread, 
 above them ; Lancashire calico and Yorkshire woolen cloth- 
 ing every bare back in Asia ; the knives and forks of Eu- 
 rope supplied from Sheffield ; and Staffordshire famishing 
 iron for the railways of four continents. Let Sir Samuel 
 Baker convert the interior of Africa into an enormous cot- 
 ton-field, and the NUe become a highway, through which 
 five million bales shall annually make their way into the 
 Mersey. Let London expand to twice its present unwieldy 
 size, its mendicancy and misery be absorbed, and the ware- 
 houses on the Thames become the emporium in which the 
 produce of the world is absorbed and igain dispersed 
 among mankind. Let the most sanguine dream of the most 
 enthusiastic political economist be realized. Let us imag- 
 ine our people so enlightened by education as to understand 
 and act upon the policy of honesty ; harmony be established 
 between employers and employed on an enlightened recog- 
 nition of their mutual interests ; adulteration be thought as 
 wicked as adultery, and the English brand on steel and cal- 
 ico once more accepted as a passport for excellence. Let us 
 make an effort of imagination, and concede that all this may 
 be — well, and what then ? 
 
164 England and Jier Colonies. 
 
 For a certain dass of people, — for the great merchants, 
 great bankers, great shopkeepers, great manufacturers, 
 whose busmess is to make money, whose whole thoughts 
 are set on making money and enjoying the luxuries which 
 money can command, — no doubt it would be a very fine 
 world. Those who are now rich would grow richer ; wealth 
 in the modern sense of it would be enormously increased ; 
 suburban palaces would multiply, and conservatories and 
 gardens, and farther off the parks and pheasant preserves. 
 Land would continue to rise in value, and become more and 
 more the privilege of those who could afford the luxury of 
 owning it. From these classes we hear already a protest 
 against emigration. Keep our people at home, they say, 
 we shall want them when trade revives. There may be no 
 work for them at present. Their wives and little ones may 
 be starving with cold and hunger. They may be roaming 
 the streets in vagrancy, crowding the casual wards, or be- 
 sieging the doors of the poor-houses ; but still keep them, — 
 aU wUl be well by and by. Meantime let the poor-rate rise ; 
 let the small householder in Whitechapel, himself strug- 
 gling manfully for independence on the verge of beggary, 
 pay six shillings in the pound to feed his neighbor who has 
 sunk below the line. The tide will turn ; labor will soon 
 be in demand again. Our profits will come back to us, and 
 the Whitechapel householder may console himself with the 
 certainty that his six shillings will sink again to three. 
 
 But these classes, powerful though they may be, and in 
 Parliament a great deal too powerful, are not the people of 
 England ; they are not a twentieth, they are not a hundreth 
 part of it ; and what sort of future is it to which under the 
 present hypothesis the ninety-nine are to look forward? 
 The greatness of a nation depends upon the men whom it 
 can breed and rear. The prosperity of it depends upon its 
 strength, and if men are sacrificed to money, the money will 
 not be long in following them. How is the farther develop- 
 ment of England along the road on which it has been trav- 
 
England mid her Colonies. 165 
 
 elling at such a rate for the last twenty years likely to af- 
 fect the great mass of the inhabitants of this island ? We 
 ■ have conquered our present position because the English are 
 a race of unusual vigor both of body and mind, — industri- 
 ous, energetic, ingenious, capable of great muscular exer- 
 tion, and remarkable along with it for equally great personal 
 courage. If we are to preserve our place we must preserve 
 the qualities which won it. "Without them all the gold in 
 the planet will not save us. Gold wUl remain only with 
 those who are strong enough to hold it ; and unless these 
 qualities depend on conditions which cannot be calculated, 
 and which therefore need not be considered, the statesman 
 who attends only to what he calls the production of wealth, 
 forgets the most important half of the problem which he has 
 to solve. 
 
 Under the conditions which I have supposed, England 
 would become, still more than it is at present, a country of 
 enormous cities. The industry on which its prosperity is to 
 depend can only be carried on where large masses of peo- 
 ple are congregated together, and the tendency already vis- 
 ible towards a diminution of the agricultural population 
 would become increasingly active. Large estates are fast 
 devouring small estates ; large farms, small farms ; and this 
 process wiU continue. Every economist knows that it must 
 be so. Machinery will supersede human hands. Cattle 
 breeding, as causing less expenditure in wages, will drive out 
 tillage. A single herdsman or a single engineer wiU take 
 the place of ten or twenty of the old farm laborers. Land 
 wiU rise in value. Such laborers as remain may be better 
 paid. Such as are forced into the towns may earn five shil- 
 lings where they now earn three ; but as a class the village 
 populations wiU dwindle away. Even now, while the in- 
 crease has been so great elsewhere, their number remains 
 stationary. The causes now at work will be more and more 
 operative. The people of England will be a town-bred peo- 
 ple. The country will be the luxury of the rich. 
 
166 England and her Colonies. 
 
 Now it is against all experience that any nation can long 
 remain great which does not possess, or having once pos- 
 sessed has lost, a hardy and abundant peasantry. Athens 
 lost her dependencies, and in two generations the sun of 
 Athens had set. The armies which made the strength of 
 the Eoman republic were composed of the small freeholders 
 of Latium and afterwards of Italy. When Rome became 
 an empire, the freeholder disappeared ; the great families 
 bought up the soil and cultivated it with slaves, and the 
 dec^e and fall followed by inevitable consequence. Tyre, 
 Carthage, or if these antiquated precedents ai"e to pass for 
 nothing, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and afterwards the Low 
 Countries, had their periods of commercial splendor. But 
 their greatness was founded on sand. They had wealth, 
 but they had no rank and file of country-bred men to fell 
 back upon, and they sunk as they had risen. In the Amer- 
 ican civil war the enthusiastic clerks and shop-boys from 
 the Eastern cities were blown in pieces by the Virginian 
 riflemen. Had there been no Western farmers to fight the 
 South with men of their own sort, and better than them- 
 selves, the star banner of the Confederacy would stiU be fly- 
 ing over Richmond. The life of cities brings with it cer- 
 tain physical consequences, for which no antidote and no 
 preventive has yet been discovered. When vast numbers 
 of people are crowded together, the air they breathe be- 
 comes impure, the water polluted. The hours of work are 
 unhealthy, occupation passed largely within doors thins the 
 blood and wastes the muscles and creates a craving for drink, 
 which reacts again as poison. The town child rarely sees 
 the sunshine ; and hght, it is well known, is one of the chief 
 feeders of life. What is worse, he rarely or never tastes 
 fresh milk or butter, or even bread which is unbewitcbed. 
 The rate of mortality may not be perceptibly affected. The 
 Bolton operative may live as long as his brother on the 
 moors, but though bred originally perhaps "in the same 
 country home, he has not the same bone and stature, and the 
 
England and her Colonies. 167 
 
 contrast between the children and grandchildren will be in- 
 creasingly marked. Any one who cares to observe a gath- 
 ering of operatives in Leeds or Bradford, and will walk af- 
 terwards through Beverley on a market day, wiU see two 
 groups which, comparing man to man, are like pigmies be- 
 side giants. A hundred laborers from ' the wolds would be 
 a match for a thousand weavers. The tailor confined to his 
 shop-board has been called the ninth part' of a man. There 
 is nothing special in the tailor's work so to fractioni^e him 
 beyond other indoor trades. We shall be breeding up a 
 nation of tailors. In the great engine factories and iron 
 works we see large sinewy men, 'but they ^ are invariably 
 country born. Their children dwindle as if a blight was on 
 them. Artisans and operatives of aU sorts who work in con- 
 finement are so exhausted at the end of their day's labor 
 that the temptations of the drinkrshop iire irresistible. As 
 towns grow, drunkenness grows,: and with drunkenness 
 comes diminished stamina and physical decrepitude. ■ 
 
 The sums spent by English town operatives on 'gin and 
 beer, more than equals a second revenue ; while every 
 shilling swilled away is so much taken from the food and 
 clothes of their children. In the country villages, habits 
 of life are different ; the landlord can use his authority to 
 remove or diminish temptation ; but restraint in towns 'is 
 vnth general consent regarded as ■ impossible ; no parish 
 hoard, no government dares interfere ; education, rel%ion, 
 phUanthropio persuasion, are equally' powerless; and the 
 rate of consumption of intoxicating liquors (usually at 
 present poisonous as well as intoxicating), in proportion to 
 the population, increases every year. The conditions under 
 which the town operative works all encourage a reckless 
 tendency ; many occupations are • themselves deadly, and 
 the cry is for a short life and a nierry one. :■ Employment 
 at best is fitful. The factory hand is generally perhaps 
 earning overflowing wages. Then bad times come, and he 
 works but three days a week, or four, or none. He is im- 
 
168 England and her Colonies. 
 
 provident in his abundance. His hand to mouth existence 
 is unfavorable to the formation of habits of prudence. As 
 a rule, he saves little, and the little is soon gone. The 
 fiirniture goes to the pawnshop, and then comes want and 
 starvation ; and any shilling that he can earn he carries to 
 the gin-palace, where he can forget the hunger-stricken 
 faces which he has left at home. His own fault, it is said ; 
 but when particular tendencies show themselves uniformly 
 iu particular bodies of men, there must be causes at work 
 to account for them. And besides drunkenness there are 
 other vices and other diseases, not peculiar to towns, per- 
 haps, but especially virulent and deadly there, which tend 
 equally to corrupt the blood and weaken the constitution. 
 Every great city becomes a moral cess-pool, iuto which' 
 profligacy has a tendency to drain, and where, being shut 
 out from light, it is amenable to no control. The edu- 
 cated and the wealthy live apart in their own streets and 
 squares. The upper half of the world knows nothing of 
 the imder, nor the under of the upper. In the village the 
 squire and parson at least know what is going on, and can 
 use authority oyer the worst excesses ; where men are 
 gathered in multitudes it is impossible. Disease and de- 
 moralization go hand in hand, undermining and debilitating 
 the physical strength, and over-civilization creates in its 
 own breast the sores which wUl one day kill it. 
 
 I have spoken of the effect of modern city life upon the 
 body ; it would be easy were it likely to be of any service 
 to say more -of its effect upon the mind. In those past 
 generations, when the English character was moulding 
 itself, there was a virtue specially recognized among us, 
 called content. "We were a people who lived much by 
 custom. As the father lived, the son lived ; he was proud 
 of maintaining the traditions and habits of his family, and 
 he remained in the same position of life without aspiring 
 to rise from it. The same family continued in the same 
 farm, neither adding to its acres nor diminishing them. 
 
England and her Colonies. 169 
 
 Shop, factory, and warehouse were handed down with tha 
 same stationary character, yielding constant but moderate 
 profits, to which the habits of life were adjusted. Satisfied 
 with the share of this world's goods which his situation in 
 life assigned to him, the tradesman aspired no higher, 
 endeavoring only, in the words of the antiquated catechism, 
 " to do his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased 
 God to call him." Throughout the country there was an 
 ordered, moderate, and temperate contentedness, energetic 
 — but energetic more in doing well the work that was to 
 be done than in " bettering " this or that person's condition 
 in life. Something of this lingers yet among old-fashioned 
 people in holes and corners of England; but it is alien 
 both to the principles and the temper of the new era. To 
 push on, to climb vigorously on the slippery steps of the 
 social ladder, to raise ourselves one step or more out of the 
 rank of life in which we were born, is now converted into a 
 duty. It is the condition under which each of us plays his 
 proper part as a factor in the general progress. The more 
 commercial prosperity increases, the more universal such a 
 habit of mind becomes. It is the first element of success 
 in the course to which the country seems to be committing 
 itself. There must be no rest, no standing still, no pausing 
 to take breath. The stability of such a system depends, 
 like the boy's top, on the rapidity of its speed. To stop is 
 to faU ; to slacken speed is to be overtaken by our rivals. 
 "We are whirled along in the breathless race of competition. 
 The motion becomes faster and faster, and the man must be 
 unlike anything which the experience of humanity gives us 
 a right to hope for, who can either retain his conscience, or 
 any one of the nobler qualities, in so wUd a career. 
 
 Is such a state of things a wholesome one ? Is it politi- 
 cally safe ? Is it morally tolerable ? Is it not certain for 
 one thing that a competition, of which profit is the first 
 object, will breed dishonesty as carrion breeds worms ? 
 Much of it is certain to continue, unless England collapses 
 
170 England and her Colonies. 
 
 altogether. Nothing but absolute failure will cLeck the 
 growth of manufactures among us ; but is it absolutely 
 necessary that the whole weight of the commonwealth 
 should be thrown upon trade ? Is there no second or 
 steadier basis to be found anywhere ? I cannot myself con- 
 template the indosure of the English nation withia these 
 islands, with an increasing manufacturing population, and 
 not feel a misgiving that we shall fail in securing even those 
 material objects to which our other prospects are to be 
 sacrificed. "We shall not be contented to sink into a second 
 place. A growth of population we must have to keep 
 pace with the nations round us ; and unless we can breed 
 up part of our people in occupations more healthy for 
 mind or body than can be found ' in the coal-pit and work- 
 shop — unless we preserve in sufficient numbers the purity 
 and vigor of our race — if we trust entirely to the expan- 
 sion of towns, we are sacrificing to immediate and mean 
 temptations the stability of the empire which we have 
 inherited. 
 
 If we are to take hostages of the future, we require an 
 agricultural population independent of and beside the 
 towns. "We have no longer land enough in England com- 
 mensurate with our present dimensions, and the land that 
 we have Ues under conditions which only a revolution can 
 again divide among small cultivators. A convulsion which 
 would break up the great estates would destroy the entire 
 constitution. It is not the law of the land, it is not custom, 
 it is not the pride of family, which causes the agglomeration. 
 It is an economic law, which legislation can no more alter 
 than it can alter the law of gravity. 
 
 The problem is a perfectly simple one. Oilier nations, 
 once less powerful or not more powerfiil than ourselves, 
 are growing in strength and numbers, and ive too must 
 grow if we intend to remain on a level with tbem. Here 
 at home we have no room to grow except by the expansion 
 of towns which are already overgrown, which we know not 
 
Ihtglcmd and Jier Colonies. 171 
 
 certainly that we can expand. If we succeed, it can be 
 only under conditions unfavorable and probably destructive 
 to the physical constitution of our people, and our greatness 
 wiU be held by a tenure which in the nature of things must 
 become more and more precarious. 
 
 Is there then no alternative ? Once absolutely our own, 
 and still easily within our reach, are our eastern and 
 western colonies, containing all and more than all that we 
 require. We want land on which to plant English families 
 where they may thrive and multiply without ceasing to be 
 Englishmen. The land lies ready to our hand. The colo- 
 nies contain virgin soil sufficient to employ and feed five 
 times as many people as are now crowded into Great 
 Britain and Ireland. Nothing is needed but arms to culti- 
 vate it, while here, among ourselves, are millions of able- 
 bodied men unwillingly idle, clamoring for work, with their 
 families starving on their hands. What more simple than 
 to bring the men and the land together ? Everything 
 which we could most desire, exactly meeting what is most 
 required, is thrust into our hands, and this particular 
 moment is chosen to teU the colonies that we do not want 
 them, and they may go. The land, we are told impatiently, 
 is no longer ours. A few years ago it was ours, but to 
 save the Colonial Office trouble we made it over to the 
 local governments, and now we have no more rights over it 
 than we have over the prairies of Texas. If it were so, the 
 more shame to politicians who let drop so precious an 
 inheritance. But the colonies, it seems, set more value 
 than we do on the prosperity of the empire. They care 
 little for the profit or pleasure of individual capitalists. 
 They se* their way more clearly perhaps because their 
 judgment is not embarrassed by considerations of ihe 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget. Conscious that 
 their relations with us cannot continue on their present 
 footing, their ambition is to draw closer to us, to be ab- 
 gorbed in a united empire. From them we have no diffi- 
 
1.72 England and her Colonies. 
 
 culty to fear, for in consenting they have everything to 
 gain. They a."e proud. of being English subjects. Every 
 able-bodied workman who lands on tlieir shores is so mucli 
 added to their wealth as woll as ours. If we do not attempt 
 to tlirust paupers and ci'iminals on them, but send laborers 
 and their families adequately provided, they will absorb our 
 people by millions, while in desiring to remain attached to 
 England tliey are consulting England's real interests aa 
 entirely as their own. Each husband and wife as tliey es- 
 tablish themselves will bo a fresh root for the old tree, 
 struck into a new soil. 
 
 And yet statesmen say it is impossible. Wealthy Eng- 
 land cannot do what wretched Ireland was able to do, and 
 transport those whom she can no longer feed to a place 
 where they can feed themselves, and to herself be a support 
 instead of a burden. Impossible ! The legislative union 
 with Scotland was found possible, and there were rather 
 greater difficulties in the way of that than those which 
 obstruct a union with the colonies. The problem then was 
 to reconcile two nations which were hereditary enemies. 
 The problem now is but to reunite the scattered fragments 
 of the same nation, and bridge over the distance wjiich 
 divides them from us. Distance frightens us ; but steam 
 and the telegraph have abolished distance. A Cornish 
 miner and his family can now emigrate to the Burra Burra 
 with greater ease, and at a less expense, tlian a hundred 
 years ago they would make their way to a Lancashire coal- 
 pit. St. George's Channel at the time of the union with 
 Ireland was harder to cross in stormy winter weather than 
 the Atlantic is at present. Before tlie Panama railway 
 was opened, and the road to California lay round Cape 
 Horn, London was as near it as New York ; yet Cmifornia 
 was no less a State in the American Union. England 
 would not hold the place which now belongs to her had 
 there not been statesmen belonging to her capable of harder 
 achievements than reattaching the colonies. It is not true 
 
Mngland and her Colonies. 173 
 
 that we are deterred by the difficulties. If there was the 
 will to do it, if there was any real sense that the interests 
 of the country required it, the difficulties would be found as 
 unsubstantial as the proverbial lions which obstruct the 
 path of the incapable. "We are asked contemptuously how 
 , it is to be done. "We ask in return, do you wish it to be 
 done ? for if you do your other question will answer itself. 
 Neither the terms of the federation, the nature of the Im- 
 perial council, the functions of the local legislatures, the 
 present debts of the colonies, or the apportionment of taxa- 
 tion, would be found problems hard of solution, if the 
 apostles of laissez-faire could believe for once that it was 
 not the last word of political science. 
 
 For emigration, the first step is the only hard one ; to do 
 for England what Ireland did for itself, and at once spread 
 over the colonies the surplus population for whom we can 
 find no employment at home. Once established on a great 
 scale emigration supports itself. Every Irishman who now 
 goes to the United States, has his expenses paid by those 
 who went before him, and who find it their own interest, 
 where there is such large elbow-room, to attract the labor 
 of their Mends. It would cost us money — but so -do wars ; 
 and for a great object we do not shrink from fighting. 
 Let it be once established that an Englishman emigrating 
 to Canada, or the Cape, or Australia, or New Zealand, did 
 not forfeit his nationality, that he was still on English soil 
 as much as if he was in Devonshire or Yorkshire, and 
 would remain an Englishman while the English empire 
 lasted ; and if we spent a quarter of the sums which were 
 sunk in the morasses at Balaclava in sending out and estab- 
 lishing two millions of our people in those colonies, it would 
 contribute more to the essential strength of the country 
 than all the wars in which we have been entangled from 
 Agincourt to "Waterloo. No further subsidies would be 
 needed to feed the stream. Once settled they would mul- 
 tiply and draw their relations after them, and at great 
 
174 England and her Colonies. 
 
 Btations round the globe there would grow up, under condi- 
 tions the most fovorable whicli the hxiraau constitution win 
 desire, fresh nations of Englishmen. So strongly plivood, 
 tind witli numbers gi-owing in geomoti-iciU proportion, tliey 
 would be at once feeding-places of our population, ai\d self- 
 supporting imperial garrisons tJiemselves uncomiuorable. 
 With our roots thus sti-uck so deeply into the oai-th, it is 
 hard to see what dangers, internal or external, we should 
 have cause to fear, or what impediments could tlieu clieck 
 tlie indefinite and magnificent expansion of tlie English 
 Empire. 
 
 There is one more element in tlie question which must 
 not be passed over. These are not days for small Stjvtes : 
 the natural barriers we broken down whicli once divided 
 kingdom from kingdom ; and witli tho interests of nations 
 so much intertwined as they are now bocoming, every one 
 feels tlie benefit of belonging to a first-rate Power. The 
 German States gra\'itate into Prussia, tlie Itjilians into 
 Piedmont. While we are talking of dismembering our 
 empire, the Americans have made enormous saci'ifices to 
 preserve the unity of theirs. If we throw off the colonies, 
 it is at least possible tliat tliey may apply for admittance 
 into the American Union ; * and it is equally possible that 
 the Americans may not refuse them. Canada they already 
 calculate on as a certainty. Why may not the Cape and 
 Australia and New Zealand follow ? An American citizen 
 is a more considerable person in tlie world tliaii a mem- 
 ber of the independent republic of Cape Town or Natal i 
 and should the colonists taJce this view of their interests, 
 and should America encourage them, what kind of fliture 
 would then lie before England ? Our very existence as a 
 nation would soon depend upon the clemency of the Power 
 
 1 Tlie mention of this posaibility lins boon received wltli ridicule in 
 Australia. So much the better; but it ia none tho loss certnin that the 
 English spoalting peoples will drift into a union of some kind. If they do 
 not choose England as tlioir centre, tliey wiU eventually choose America 
 whatever tbey nuiy think about it at present. 
 
Ungland and her Colonies. 175 
 
 which would have finally taken the lead from us among 
 the English-speaking races. If Australia and the Cape 
 were American we could not hold India, except at the 
 Americans' pleasure. Our commerce would be equally 
 at their mercy, and the best prospect for us would be to 
 be one day swept up into the train of the same grand con- 
 federacy. 
 
 It is easy to say that we need not quarrel with America, 
 that her interests are ours, that we mean to cultivate 
 friendly relations with her, with such other commonplaces. 
 From the day that it is confessed that we are no longer 
 equal to a conflict with her, if cause of rupture should un- 
 happily arise, our sun has set : we shall sink as Holland 
 has sunk into a community of harmless' traders, and leave 
 to others the place which once we held and have lost the 
 energy to keep. 
 
 Our people generally are too much occupied with their 
 own concerns to think of matters which do not personally 
 press upon them, and our relations with the colonies have 
 drifted into a condition which it is agreed on all sides 
 must now be modified in one direction or another. States- 
 men who ought to have looked forward have allowed the 
 question to take its own course, tiU. they have brought 
 separation to the edge of consummation. The breaking 
 up of our empire, however, cannot be completed till the 
 country has had an opportunity of declaring its pleasure ; 
 and if the nation is once roused into attention, pricked it 
 may be iato serious thought by the inexorable encroach- 
 ments of the poor-rate, it may yet speak in tones to which 
 the deafest political doctrinaire will be compelled to listen. 
 A very short time will probably see some decision taken 
 for good or evil. Representatives from the colonies are 
 said to be coming here in the spring,' to learn what they 
 
 1 Unfortunately they were not allowed to come. Lord Granville pushed 
 separation one step nearer by throwing cold water on the proposal. Ha 
 said that he did not desire the colonies to leave iis, but he took pains to ex. 
 
176 England and her Colonies. 
 
 are to look to, and the resolutions then arrived at will be 
 of immeasurable moment to their fortunes and to ours. It 
 is no party question ; all ranks, all classes ai-e equally in- 
 terested, maniifactarers in the creation of new markets, 
 land-owners in the expansion of soil which will remove, 
 and which probably alone can remove, the discontent with 
 tlieir increasing monopoly at home. Most of all is it the 
 concern of the working men. Let broad bridges be es- 
 ta'blished into other Englands, and they may exchange 
 brighter homes and brighter prospects for their children 
 for a life which is no life in the foul alleys of London and 
 Glasgow; while by relieving the pressure at home they 
 may end the war between masters and men, and solve 
 Jhe problems of labor which trades unions can only em- 
 bitter. 
 
 That emigration alone can give them permanent relief 
 the working men themselves wUl ultimately find out. "We 
 cannot save the millions of Wsh. That portion of her 
 volumes the sibyl has burnt already. Are we to wait till 
 our own artisans, discovering the hopelessness of the 
 struggle with capital, and exasperated by hunger and 
 neglect, foUow in iliillions also the Irish example, carry 
 their industry where the Irish have carried theirs, and 
 with them the hearts and hopes and sympathies of three 
 quarters of the English nation ? 
 
 Flectere si neqaeo superos, Acheronta movebo I 
 
 If Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville are indifferem, we 
 appeal t6 Mr. Disraeli. This is one of those Imperial 
 concerns which the aristocracy, lifted by fortune above the 
 temptations and necessities of trade, can best afford to 
 weigh with impartiality. They too may find motives of 
 prudence to induce them to turn it over in their minds. 
 There ai-e those who think that if the colonies are cut off, 
 
 hibit hia indifference whether they went or stayed ; and it is this indiffer- 
 ence, so ostentatiously displayed, which is the active cause of alienation. 
 
England and Tier Colonies. 177 
 
 that if the English people understand that they are closed 
 in once for all within the limits of their own island, that 
 fliey have no prospects elsewhere unless they abandon their 
 country and pass under another flag, the years that the 
 present land laws wiU last unmodifled may be counted on 
 the fingers of a single hand, 
 la 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN KERRY. 
 
 "We have heard much of the wrongs of Ireland, the mis- 
 eries of Ireland, the crimes of Ireland ; every cloud has its 
 sunny side ; and, when all is said, Ireland is stiU the most 
 beautiful island in the world, and the Irish themselves, 
 though their temperament is iU-matched with ours, are still 
 among the most interesting of peoples. If the old type of 
 character remains in many of its most immanageable fea- 
 tures, they are no longer the Paddies of our childhood. 
 Wave after wave of convulsion has been rolling over the 
 race for hundreds of years past, distinct eras of social or- 
 ganization, with special elements of good and evil in them. 
 The last of these waves, the great famine of 1846, swept 
 over the country like a destroying torrent, carrying away 
 mUlions of its peasantry, clearing off the out-at-elbows duel- 
 fighting squireens, and paralyzing if it has not extinguished 
 the humor and the fiin which made the boy that carried 
 your game-bag, or fishing-basket the most charming of com- 
 panions. 
 
 The farmer, however seemingly prosperous, carries sad- 
 ness in his eyes and care on his forehead. If he is thriving 
 himself, his family is broken up ; his sons or his brothers 
 are beyond the Atlantic, and his heart was broken in part- 
 ing with them. The evictions which followed the poUito 
 failure have left their marks in a feeling of injustice, of 
 which Fenianism is the fruit and the expression. 
 
 This too, however, is passing away or will pass when the 
 Administration recovers courage to combine firmness with 
 justice ; and meanwhile, in spite of outrages and assassinsc 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry- 179 
 
 tions, every one who has watched the Irish character during 
 the last quarter of a century must have felt that it is fast 
 altering, and altering immensely for the better. " We are 
 all changed," said one of the people to me. " You know 
 yourself the landlords are changed, and we are changed, 
 too, if you would only believe it. We have all learnt our 
 lesson together." Where the beneficial influences have 
 been the strongest, that is to say, where there has been no 
 cruelty and the tenants have been kindly used, there is 
 growing up a life in all parts of Irdand, with more subdued 
 grace about it, more human in its best features, than is to be 
 found in any other part of these islands. I had an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing something of this last summer, under its 
 most favorable aspect. A friend who had taken a place for 
 a season or two in the Kerry mountains, invited me to 
 spend a fortnight with Mm ; and careless of the warnings 
 of acquaintances who feared that I should not come back 
 ahve, I took my place in the Holyhead mail. It was the 
 second week in August. We left London at night. In the 
 morning we were in Kingston Harbor, and a few hours 
 later I was deposited at the railway station at KUlarney. 
 Derreen — so I wiU. caU the house to which I was bound — 
 was stUl nearly forty miles distant. The train was late, 
 but the evening promised well. I put myself in the hands 
 of Spillane, the most accomplished of bugle-players, and the 
 politest of hotel managers ; and, after a hasty dinner, I was 
 soon rattling along beside the lake in a jaunting car, with a 
 promise of being at my journey's end, if not before dark, 
 yet at no unreasonable hour. An exquisite drive of three 
 hours brought me to Kenmare, a town at the head of one 
 of the long fiords running up from the Atlantic, which read- 
 ers of Macaulay will remember as the scene of a brilliant 
 defense made by a small body of Protestant settlers against 
 the Irish insurgents. It was not my first visit to the place. 
 Thirty years before I had passed through it from Glengariff 
 in a long vacation holiday. The Lansdowne Arms was 
 
180 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 still ill its old place ; but the generation which fi'eqiwnted 
 it had passed away. The " boy " who was then driving me 
 called my attention, as I remember, to a group of gen- 
 tlemen at the door. There were two O'Connells, cousins 
 of the Liberator, at that time in the zenith of his glory. 
 There was Morty O'SuUivan, and another whose name I 
 forget. The point about them was that each had killed his 
 man in a duel, and Morty had killed two. He was one of the 
 old fire-eaters, a spare, weU-dressed, refined-looking person, 
 a descendant of the old chiefs of Berehaven, ruling the 
 wreck of his inheritance with an authority scarcely less 
 despotic as far as it extended ; like his ancestors, in perpet- 
 ual feud with his neighbors, and settling his quarrels with 
 them in the field or in the law courts. He had lived — I 
 should say " reigned," for that is still the word — at Der- 
 reen itself. He had screwed his tenants, drunk whiskey 
 enough daUy for ten degenerate mortals, such as now we 
 know them, turned his house into a pig-sty, and been loved 
 and honored throughout the valley. Morty the Good he 
 was called, the king of the golden age of Kerry, and un- 
 happy only in the incapacity of one of his sons, whom he 
 never could teach to handle a pistol like' a gentleman. The 
 young O'SulUvan took kindly to the ways of the family; 
 quarreled with a companion before he was out of his teens, 
 and went out to settle the dispute in legitimate fashion. 
 But Morty augured ill for the result. He ordered the 
 wake beforehand, and was disappointed, it was to be hoped 
 agreeably, when the object of his care was brought home 
 only shot through the foot. 
 
 Morty had been now long in his grave. Litigation had 
 crippled his fortune, and the famine finished*t. His boys 
 were scattered over the world, and his place knew him no 
 more Morty was gone, and the fighting squireai-chy to 
 whict he belonged was gone also, extinct like the dodo ; 
 and in the place of the group which I remembered, one or 
 two harmless clerks belonging to the town stores were 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 181 
 
 lounging at the porch m the summer gloaming, comparing 
 sahnon-flies, or talking about the cricket club which had 
 been set on foot there by some neighboring gentlemen. 
 
 Besides these were a couple of smart-looking boatman, 
 one of whom, after ascertaining who I was, informed me 
 that my friend had sent up his yacht, a smart cutter of 
 twenty tons, and that if I preferred a sail to a longer drive 
 they were ready to take charge of me. The wind was from 
 the east, light but fair, and they believed that it would not 
 drop tUl midnight. But we had still seventeen miles to go. 
 I inquired what would happen if it did drop, and as the an- 
 swer was vague, I determined to stick to my car, and to 
 lose no time, for it was growing dark. My driver declined 
 a change of horses. The smaU, well-bred Irish ear horse 
 does his forty miles a day through the season with only an 
 occasional rest, and seems little the worse for it. Away 
 we went again after a halt of three quarters of an hour, and 
 three minutes brought us to the suspension bridge crossing 
 the head of the fiord, one end of which rests on the penin- 
 sula where the Protestants were besieged. That, too, with 
 its traditions was a thing of the past, and might have fur- 
 nished a text at any other time for its appropriate medi- 
 tations. But the scene was too beautiftd for moraUzing. 
 The pink evening light had faded off the mountains, but 
 the tints which lingered in the western sky were reflected 
 faintly on the glimmering water. The cutter was clearing 
 out of the harbor with her big gaff topsail set, and her bal- 
 loon jib, and as she slid away the men tauntingly hailed my 
 driver, and promised to tell my friends that we were coming. 
 
 The mare received an intimation that she must put her 
 best foot forward ; we struck off to the right on crossing 
 the bridge, and entered a long fir wood which skirts the 
 river, catching glimpses at intervals of the shining water 
 through gaps in the trees. 
 
 By-and-by we emerged into open ground. The road 
 was level, following the line of the bay for eight or nine 
 
182 » A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 miles, and crossing the mouths of valley after valley whera 
 the streams which drain the hUIs run into the sea. It was 
 now dark, so far as a summer night is ever dark. The 
 cutter still kept ahead of us, shimmering ghost-like in the 
 uncertain light. Sometimes we seemed to be gaining on 
 her — then, as a fresh puff of air overtook her, she stole 
 away. At last our ways parted ; she held on towards a 
 headland far down the bay which she was obliged to round 
 before she could enter KilmakiUoge, the harbor on which 
 Derreen is situated. The road, to avoid a long circuit, 
 strikes upwards over a pass in the hiUs, to descend on the 
 other side into the head of the valley. 
 
 The ascent now became tedious ; we had lost the cutter, 
 and were climbing the broken side of an utterly barren 
 mountain. The distant view was hidden by the darkness, 
 and the forms immediately round us had nothing striking 
 about them, beyond a solitary peak which shot up black 
 and gloomy-looking into the sky. Two miles of walking 
 ground made me impatient to be at my jom-ney's end, and 
 I was unprepared for the scene which was immediately 
 about to break upon me. 
 
 We reached the crest at last — rounded a corner of rock, 
 and were at once in another world. The moon had risen, 
 though concealed by the hill which we had been ascend- 
 ing, and burst upon us broad and full as we turned to de- 
 scend. Below us was a long deep vaUey, losing itself to 
 the left in the shadows in the Glengariff mountains ; open- 
 ing to the right in the harbor of Kilmakilloge, which lay 
 out like a looking-glass in the midst of the hills in which 
 it is land-locked. Across, immediately before us, was a 
 gorge, black and narrow, the sides of which, in the imper- 
 fect light, appeared to fall precipitously two thousand feet 
 Beyond, at the head of the harbor, was a second group of 
 mountains, shaped in stiU wilder variety, while the bottom 
 of the valley was traversed by a river divided into long 
 shining pools suggestive of salmon and sea-ti-out, and 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 183 
 
 broken at intervals with cascades, the roar of which swayed 
 up fitfiilly in the night air. 
 
 These glens and precipices had been the retreat of the 
 last Earl of Desmond in the closing summer of his life. 
 The long peninsula shut in between the fiords of Bantry 
 and Kenmare was then covered from end to end with for- 
 est, inaccessible except by water, or penetrated by a few 
 scarce discoverable horse-tracks ; inhabited by wolves, and 
 by men who were almost as wUd, and were human only in 
 the ineffable fidelity with which they concealed and shielded 
 their hunted chief. The enormous trees which lie in the 
 bogs, or the trunks which break on all sides out of the 
 groimd, prove that once these lulls were as thickly wooded 
 as those which have escaped the spoiler, and in their sum- 
 mer livery delight the tourist at Killarney. Now, the 
 single fault of the landscape is its desolation. Sir William 
 Petty, who obtained the assignment of the principality of 
 Kerry on terms as easy as those on which the Colonial 
 Office squandered millions of the best acres in Canada, 
 considered the supply of fiiel to be practically as inex- 
 haustible as we now consider our coal measures. He set 
 up refining works on the shore of the harbor, and tin and 
 copper ore was brought over there, tUl the last available 
 stick had been cut down to smelt it. Nature stiE struggles 
 to repair the ruin, and young oaks and birches sprout of 
 themselves, year after year, out of the soil, but the cattle 
 browse them off as they appear ; and the wolves being de- 
 stroyed which once scared the sheep out of the covers, and 
 gave them time to renew their natural waste, civilization 
 itself continues the work of the destroyer, and dooms the 
 district to perpetual barrenness. Of the forests of oak 
 and arbutus and yew which once clothed the whole 6i 
 Kerry, the woods at KUlamey have alone escaped ; those 
 and some few other scattered spots, which for some specia] 
 reason were spared in the general havoc. 
 
 At one of these, the " domain " as it is called of Derreen, 
 
184 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 I have by this time arrived. Two miles of descent bal- 
 anced the dimb on the other side. "We are again in the 
 midst of trees. Level meadows beside the river are dotted 
 with sleeping cattle ; we have passed a farmhouse or twO) 
 and now a chapel, handsome and new, at a meeting of cross 
 roads. "We turn into a gate ; a gravel drive leads us to 
 where lights are shining behind overhanging branches. 
 The harbor is close below us ; a fouivoared boat is going 
 out for a night's fishing ; the cutter is at this very moment 
 picking up her moorings ; we have not beaten her, but we 
 are not disgraced ourselves. In another minute we are in 
 the broad walk which leads to the house. The night was 
 hot, my friend's party were on the lawn ; some of them 
 had been dining on board a yacht, the lights of which were 
 visible as she lay at anchor, a mUe from the windows. 
 They had come on shore in the yacht's gig, and were 
 standing about reluctant to go in-doors from the unusual 
 loveliness of the evening. 
 
 They proposed a stroU round the grounds, to which I 
 was delighted to consent. The house stood in the middle 
 of a lawn, shut in on all sides by woods, through which, 
 however, openings had been cut in various places, letting 
 in the view of the water. The original building, which 
 had been the residence of Morty and his sons, was little 
 more than a cottage. It had been enlarged by a straggling 
 wing better suited to the habits of modern times. Morty, 
 who had cared little for beauty, had let the trees grow close 
 to the door. He might have shot woodcocks from his win- 
 dow, and I dare say he did; while the close cover had 
 served to shelter and conceal his considerable operations 
 in the smuggling line. This more practical aspect of 
 tilings had been superseded by the sentimental, and by 
 lopping and clearing, full justice had been done to the 
 beauty — I may say, the splendor — of the situation. The 
 harbor of KHmakilloge forms a branch of the Kenmare 
 River, from three to four miles deep, and. pierced on both 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. l8o 
 
 sides by long creeks, divided by wooded promontories. On 
 the largest of these, some ninety acres in extent, the house 
 had been placed. Two acres had been cleared to make a 
 garden. Four or five more formed a field running down 
 to the sea. The rest was as Nature made it, the primeval 
 forest, untouched save for the laurels and rhododendrons 
 which were scattered under the trees where the ground 
 was dry enough to let them grow. Two rivers fell into 
 the harbor at the upper end, one of them that along which 
 I had just been driving ; the other, the larger, emerging out 
 of a broad valley under a bridge, which, with the water 
 behind, showed clear and distinct in the moonlight. All 
 round us rose the wall of mountains, the broken outline 
 being the more striking, because at night the surface details 
 are lost and only the large forms are visible. The sky line 
 on three sides was from two to six mUes distant. On the 
 fiDurth side, towards the mouth of the harbor, it was more 
 remote ; but here, too, the rim of mountains continued to 
 the eye unbroken. The ocean was shut ofi" by the huge 
 backbone of hills which stretches from Macgillicuddy's 
 Reeks to the Atlantic. To all appearance Derreen was 
 cut off from the world as effectually as the xalley of Ras- 
 selas ; and, but for the intrusion of the postman, made evi- 
 dent by my friend's inquiries as to the last division and the 
 white-bait dinner, but for the croquet wires which I stum- 
 bled over on the lawn, we might have seemed divided as 
 utterly from aU coimection with the world and its concerns. 
 We wandered through the woods, and along the walks 
 which followed the shore. The wind was gone : the last 
 breath of it had brought the yacht to her moorings. The 
 water was like a sheet of pale gold, lighted in the shadows 
 by phosphorescent flashes where a seal was chasing a mul- 
 let for his supper. Far off we heard the cries of the fish- 
 ermen as they were laying out their mackerel nets ; a heron 
 or two flew screaming out of some large trees beside the 
 boat-house, resentftd at the intrusion on their night's rest ; 
 
186 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 and from overhead came a rush of wings, and the long wild 
 whistle of the curlew. 
 
 One of the ladies observed that it was like a scene in a 
 play. She was fond of theatres herself; she was a distin- 
 guished artist in that line — or would have been had she 
 been bred to the trade ; and her similes followed her line 
 of thought. It sounded absurd, but I remembered having 
 myself experienced once an exactly similar sensation. I 
 was going up Channel in a steamer. It was precisely such 
 another warm, breathless, moonlight summer night, save 
 that there was a light mist over the water, which prevented 
 us from seeing very clearly objects that were at any dis- 
 tance from us. The watch on the forecastie called out, 
 " A sail ahead ! " We shut off the steam, and passed slowly 
 within a biscuit's throw of an enormous China clipper, 
 with all her canvas set, and every sail drooping flat from 
 the yards. We heard the officers talking on the quarter- 
 deck. The ship's bell struck the hour as we went by. 
 Why the recollections of the familiar sea moonlight of 
 Drury Lane should have rushed over me at such a moment 
 I know not, unless it be that those oidy who are rarely 
 gifted feel natural beauty with real intensity. With the 
 rest of us our high sensations are at best pai'tiy artificial. 
 We make an effort to realize emotions which we imagine 
 that we ought to experience, and are theatrical ourselves in 
 making it. 
 
 A glance out of the window in the morning showed tha 
 I had not overrated the general charm of the situation. 
 The colors were unlike those of any mountain scenery to 
 which I was accustomed elsewhere. The temperature is 
 many degrees higher than that of the Scotch Highlands. 
 The Gulf Stream impinges fuU upon the mouths of its long 
 bays. Every tide carries the flood of warm water forty 
 miles inland, and the vegetation consequently is rarely or 
 never checked by frost even two thousand feet above tha 
 sea-level. Thus the mountains have a greenness altogether 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 187 
 
 peculiar, stretches of grass as ricli as water-meiadows reach- 
 ing between the crags and precipices to the very summits. 
 The rock, chiefly Old Red Sandstone, is purple. The 
 heather, of which there are enormous masses, is in many 
 places waist deep. 
 
 The sky was cloudless, and catching the chance of per- 
 forming my morning's ablutions in salt water, I slipped 
 into the few indispensable garments, and hurried down to 
 the front door. My host's youngest boy, a brown-cheeked 
 creature of siz, who was playing with the dogs on the 
 steps, undertook to pilot me to the bathing-place, a move 
 not wholly disiaterested on his part, as the banks on either 
 side of the walks were covered with wild strawberries and 
 whortleberries. ' Away we went through the woods again, 
 among the gnarled and moss-clothed trunks of oaks hun- 
 dreds of years old, and between huge boulders draped with 
 ferns and London pride, which here grows luxuriantly 
 wild. The walk ended at a jutting promontory of rock, 
 where steps had been cut, leading to the water at a soft 
 spot where a dike of slate had pierced a fault in the sand- 
 stone. The water itself was stainless as the Atlantic. I 
 jumped in carefully, expecting to touch the bottom, yet I 
 could scarcely reach it by diving. I tried to persuade my 
 companion to take a swim upon my back, but he was too 
 wary to be tempted. He was a philosopher, and was 
 speculating on makiMg a fortune put of the copper veins 
 which were shining in the interstices of the slate. Our 
 friend the seal, whom we had seen at supper, seemed dis- 
 posed to join me. A shiny black head popped up from 
 under the surface thirty yards off, and looked me over to 
 see if I was one of his relations ; but after a careftd scrutiny 
 he disHked the looks of me, dropped under and disappeared. 
 The seals once swarmed upon this coast under shelter of 
 popular superstition. "The sowls of thim that were 
 drowned at the flood " were supposed to be enchanted in 
 their bodies, undergoing water purgatory. At times they 
 
188 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 were allowed to drop their skins, and play in human form 
 upon the shore, and the mortal who was bold enough to 
 steal the robe of some fish-maiden whom he could surprise, 
 might win her and keep her for his bride. They are yield- 
 ing slowly before what is called education and civilization.^ 
 and the last of them will soon be a thing of history like the 
 last wolf; but the restriction upon firearms in Ireland still 
 acts as a protection, and a few yet loiter about the quiet 
 nooks where they find themselves unmolested. 
 
 Before I was dressed we heard a sound of oars ; a boat 
 came round the corner, rowed by the men belonging to the 
 cutter. They had been out early to take up the fluke nets 
 and overhaul the lobster pots, and were bringing in what 
 they had caught to the house. A dozen plaice, two or 
 three pairs of large soles, and a turbot twelve pounds 
 weight, made up rather more than an average night's haul, 
 obtained by the rudest of methods. The nets are of fine 
 twine with a large mesh. They are from fifty to a hun- 
 dred fathoms long, five feet deep, and held perpendicularly 
 on the sand at the bottom, by a line of leads, just sufficient 
 to sink them, and a line of small corks to keep them in an 
 upright position. In these the flat fish entangle themselves 
 — such of them as are stupid enough to persevere in 
 endeavoring to push through, and are without the strength, 
 'ike the conger and dog-fish, to break the net, and tear a 
 way for themselves. Huge rents showed where creatures 
 of this kind had escaped capture ; but the holes are easily 
 mended, and so many fish can be taken with so much ease, 
 that the people do not care to improve on their traditionary 
 ways. It is not for want of ingenuity or industry. The 
 Pat of Kerry is either unlike his kindred in the rest of the 
 island, or they are a calumniated race altogether. On 
 KUmakUloge he makes his own boats, he makes his own 
 nets, he twists his own ropes and cables out of the fibre of 
 the bog pine which he digs out of the peat. He wants but 
 a market to change his skiff into a trawler, and to establish 
 « second Brixhatn at the splendid bay of Ballinskelligs. 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 189 
 
 Half a dozen skate were lying on the bottom boards 
 among tlie nobler fish, here used only to be cut up for 
 bait; these, and a monster called an angel shark, begotten 
 long ago, it would appear, from some unlawful concubinage 
 between a dog-fish and a ray. There were three enormous 
 lobsters besides, better in my experience to look at than to 
 eat. On these coasts it seems as if the young vigorous 
 lobsters kiU their own prey without trouble in finding it, 
 and the bait in the wicker pots tempts only the overgrown 
 Tad aged, whose active powers are failing them. 
 
 I was to make the best use of my time, and at breakfast 
 ive talked over our plans for the day. Picnics, mountain 
 walks, antiquarianizing expeditions, fishing, salt or fresh, 
 were alternately proposed. The weather luckily came to 
 the assistance of our irresolution. It was still intensely 
 hot. The rivers were low and clear as crystal, so it was 
 vain to think of the salmon. The boatman reported that 
 the easterly wind was still blowing, but that from the look 
 of the sky, and the breaking of the swell outside the har- 
 bor, they expected a shift in the evening, so we agreed to 
 run down the bay in the yacht as long as the land breeze 
 held, and trust to the promised change to bring us back. 
 The ladies declined to accompany us, the ocean roU and a 
 hot sun being a trying combination even to seasoned 
 stomachs. So my friend and I started alone with the boys, 
 with a packed hamper to be prepared against emergencies. 
 The cutter was large enough for its purpose, and not too 
 large. Though we did not intend to court bad weather, 
 we could encounter it without alarm if it overtook us. "We 
 had a main cabin, with two sofas and a swing table ; a 
 small inner cabin with a single berth, with a kitchen for- 
 ward, where the men slung their hammocks. We slipped 
 our moorings and ran out of the harbor, passing the Cowes 
 schooner, which lay lazily at anchor. Her owner and his 
 party were scattered in her various boats ; some had gone 
 up to Kenmare marketing, some were poUock fishing, 
 
190 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 others were engaged in the so-called amusement of shooting 
 the guillemots and the puffins, which, unused to firearms, 
 sat confidingly on the water to he destroyed — beautiful in 
 their living motion, worse than useless when dead. We 
 flung our half uttered maledictions at the idiots, who were 
 bringing dishonor on the name of sportsmen. For a week 
 after the bay was covered with wounded birds, which were 
 dying slowly from being unable to procure food. 
 
 Before we turned into the main river we passed an island 
 on which was a singular bank of earth, wasting year by 
 year by the action of the tide, and almost gone to nothing : 
 it was the last remains of a moraine, deposited who can guess 
 when, by a glacier which has left its scorings everywhere on 
 the hiU-sides. The people call it Spanish Island, and have 
 a legend that one of the ships of the Armada was wrecked 
 there. It is an unlikely story. No galleon which had 
 doubled the Blaskets would have turned out of its course 
 into the Lenmare River, nor if it had wandered into such a 
 place could easOy have been wrecked there. More likely it 
 was a fishing station at a time when Newfoundland was un- 
 discovered, and fleets came anntially to these seas from Co- 
 rufia and Bilbao, for their bacalao, — their Lenten cod and 
 ling. As many as two hundred Spanish smacks were then 
 sometimes seen together in the harbor at Valencia. 
 
 The breeze freshened as we cleared out of Kilmakilloge. 
 The main bay is here four miles broad, and widens rapidly 
 as it approaches the mouth. "We saw the open Atlantic 
 twenty miles from us, and we met the swell with which we 
 had been threatened, but so long and easy that we rose over 
 the waves, scarcely conscious of motion, and rattled along 
 with a three-quarter breeze and every sail drawing, seven 
 knots through the water. "We were heading straight for 
 Scarriff, a rock eleven hundi-ed feet high, which, though sev- 
 eral miles from the main land, forms the extreme point of 
 the chain which divides Kenmare River from Ballinskelligs 
 Bay. Thousands of sea birds, wheeling and screaming over 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 191 
 
 the water, showed that the great shoals of small fish which 
 frequent these bays in the autumn had already begun to ap- 
 pear. Gannets, towering like falcons, shot down three hun- 
 dred feet sheer, disappeared a moment, and rose with tiny 
 sprats struggling in their beaks. Half a dozen herring hogs 
 were having a pleasant time of it, and besides these, two 
 enormous grampuses were showing their sharp, black fins at 
 intervals, one thirty feet long, the other evidently larger, 
 how much we could not tell, for he never showed his full 
 length, though he roUed near us, and we could judge his di- 
 mensions only from the width across the shoulders. The 
 sprats were ia cruel case. The whales and porpoises hunted 
 them up out of the deep water. The gurnet caught them 
 midway. The sea birds swooped on them as they splashed 
 in terror on the surface. They too had doubtless fattened 
 in their turn on smaller victims. Our boys avenged the 
 shades of some of them on one set at least of their persecu- 
 tors. They threw over their fishing lines, and six or seven 
 big gurnet were flapping ia the basket before we had cleared 
 the edge of the shoal. 
 
 Creeks and bays opened on either side of us, and closed 
 agaia as we ran on. As we neared the mouth of the river 
 we saw the waves breaking fiiriously on a line of rocks some 
 little distance from the north shore. We edged away to- 
 wards them for a nearer view, when it appeared that the 
 rocks formed a natural breakwater to a still cove, a mUe 
 long and half a mile deep, which lay inside. There was a 
 narrow opening at either extremity of the reef. The en- 
 trance looked ugly enough, for the line of foam extended 
 from shore to shore, and black jagged points showed them- 
 selves in the hoUow of the boiling surge, which would have 
 made quick work with us had we grazed them; but my 
 friend knew the soundings to a foot, and as the place was 
 curious he carried me inside. Instantly that we were be- 
 hind the reef we were in still water three fathoms deep, 
 with a clear sandy bottom. We ran along for a quarter of 
 
192 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 a mile, and then found ourselves suddenly in front of one of 
 the wicked-looking castles of which so many ruins are to be 
 seen on the coasts of Cork and Kerry. They were all built 
 in the wild times of the sixteenth century, when the anarchy 
 of the land was extended to the ocean, and swarms of out- 
 lawed English pirates had their nests in these dangerous 
 creeks. They formed alliances with the O'SuUivans and 
 the M'Carties, married their daughters, and shared the plun- 
 der with them which they levied indiscriminately on their 
 own and all other nations. While the kingdom of Kerry 
 retained its privileges under the house of Desmond, the Irish 
 Deputies were unable to meddle with them by land, while 
 no cruiser could have ventured to follow them by water 
 through channels guarded so perilously as that by which we 
 had entered. 
 
 If the walls of that old tower could have spoken, it could 
 have told us many a strange tale, of which every vestige of 
 a legend has now disappeared. We know from contempo- 
 rary records that the pirates were established in these places. 
 The situation of the castle which we were looking at told 
 unmistakably the occupation of its owner. A second deep 
 creek inside the larger one, sheltered by a natural pier, led 
 directly to the door-step. A couple of miles inland there 
 are traces of a stUl earlier stratification of sea rovers, — in 
 one of the largest and most remarkable of the surviving 
 Danish forts. The Danes, too, had been doubtless guided 
 there by the natural advantages of the situation. I would 
 gladly have landed and looked at it, but time pressed. We 
 left the little bay at the far end of the reef, and half an hour 
 later we were rising and falling on the great waves of the 
 open ocean. 
 
 Having been dosed with hard eggs at breakfast I found 
 sickness impossible. They act like waddmg in a gun, keep- 
 ing the charge hard and tight in its place ; and after a qualm 
 or two, my stomach, finding furthes contention would lead 
 to no satisfactory result, was satisfied to leave me to enjoy 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 198 
 
 myself. The mainland ends on the north side at the Lamb 
 Head, so called perhaps because it is one of the most sav- 
 age-looking crags on which stranded ship was ever shattered. 
 Outside it are a series of small islands from a few acres to 
 as many square mUes in extent, divided from each other by 
 deep channels, a quarter or half a mile in width. It is a 
 place to keep clear of in hazy weather. Irish boatmen may 
 be trusted while they can see their landmarks, but my 
 friend told me that he was caught by a fog in this very place 
 the first time that he had ever been near it. He had a chart 
 and a compass, and had turned in as it was night, leaving 
 the tUler to his captain. Luckily he was not asleep. The 
 roar of the breakers becoming louder he went on deck to 
 look about him, and he found that the fellow knew no more 
 of a compass than of a steam engine, and that he was steer- 
 ing dead upon the rocks. To-day, however, we ran in and 
 out with absolute confidence, and we threaded our way to 
 the splendid cliffs 'of Scarriff, the last of the group, which 
 towered up towards the sea a thousand feet out of the wa- 
 ter. On the land side the slope was more gradual ; it was 
 covered with grass and dotted with cattle ; in a hollow we 
 saw the smoke of a solitary house ; we heard a cock crow 
 and the clacking of a hen, and wild, and lonely, and dreary 
 as the island seemed, the people living there are very rea- 
 sonably happy, and have not the slightest wish to leave it. 
 
 From the description given of the scene by Walsingham 
 the historian, Scarriff is not improbably the place where a 
 Cornish knight in the time of the second Richard came to a 
 deserved and terrible end. It was a very bad time in Eng- 
 land. Religion and society were disorganized; and the 
 savage passions of men, released from their natural re- 
 straints, boiled over in lawlessness and crime. Sir John 
 Arundel, a gentleman of some distinction, had gathered 
 together a party of wild youths to make an expedition to 
 Ireland. He was windbound either at Penzance or St. 
 Ives ; and being in uneasy quarters, or the time hanging 
 13 
 
194 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 heavy on his hands, he requested hospitality fioin the ab- 
 bess of a neighboring nunnery. The abbess, horrified at 
 the prospect of entertaining such unruly guests, begged 
 him to excuse her. But neither excuses nor prayers 
 availed. Arundel and his companions took possession of 
 the convent, which they made the scene of unrestrained 
 and frightful debauchery. The sisters were sacrificed to 
 their appetites, and when the weather changed were carried 
 ofi" to the ship and compelled to accompany their violators. 
 As they neared the Irish coast the gale returned in its fiiry. 
 Superstition is the inseparable companion of cowardice and 
 cruelty, and the wretched women were flung overboard to 
 propitiate the demon of the storm. " Approbatum est non 
 esse curse Deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem." If 
 Providence did not interfere to save the honor or the lives 
 of the poor nuns, at least it revenged their fate. The ship 
 drove before the southwester, helpless as a disabled wreck. 
 She was hurled on Scarrifij or possibly on Cape Clear, and 
 was broken instantly to pieces. A handful of half-drowned 
 wretches were saved by the inhabitants to relate their hor- 
 rible tale. Arundel himself, being a powerftil swimmer, had 
 struggled upon the rocks alive, but he was caught by a re- 
 turning wave before he could climb beyond its reach, and 
 whirled away in the boiling foam. 
 
 With us, too, the sea was rising heavily. The wind had 
 shifted to the west as the boatman had foretold, and though 
 as yet there was but little of it, the mercury was falling rap- 
 idly. A dark bank of clouds lay along the seaward 
 horizon, and the huge waves which were rolling home, and 
 flying in long green sheets up the side of the diff, implied 
 that it was blowing heavily outside. My friend had in- 
 tended to take me on to the SkeUigs, two other islands ly- 
 ing ten miles to the northwest of us, on the larger of which 
 are the remains of a church and of three or four beehive 
 houses, which tradition says were once occupied by hermits. 
 The Irish hermits, as we know, located themselves in many 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 195 
 
 strango places round the coast, and may as well have 
 chosen a home for themselves on the SkeHigs as anywhere 
 else. But it is to be noticed also, that even hermits, unless 
 supported like Elijah by the ravens, must have found food 
 somewhere. During the winter communication with the 
 mainland must have been often impossible for weeks to- 
 gether, and as there is scarcely a square yard of grass on 
 the whole place, they could have kept neither sheep nor 
 cattle. Whoever dwelt in those houses must have lived by 
 fishing. The cod fishing round the rocks is the very best 
 on the whole coast ; and remembering how indispensable 
 the dried cod had been made by the fasting rides of the 
 Catholic population of Europe, I cannot help fancying, how- 
 ever unromantic the suggestion may sound, that something 
 more practical than devotion was connected with the com- 
 munity that resided there. We were obliged, however, to 
 abandon all idea of going so far for the present. Could we 
 have reached the islands we could not have landed. The 
 cutter was already pitching so heavily that the top of Scar- 
 rifi", though immediately over us, was occasionally hidden by 
 the waves. K we ventured further we might have found 
 it impossible to recover Kenmare Bay, and might have 
 been obliged to run for Valencia ; so we hauled our wind, 
 went about, and turned our bows homewards. The motion 
 became more easy as we fell off before the roUers. My 
 friend gave up the tiller to one of the men, and we got out 
 our hamper and stretched ourselves on deck to eat our din- 
 ner, for which the tossing, strange to say, had sharpened 
 our appetite. There is no medium at sea. You are either 
 dead sick or ravenous, and we, not excluding the two boys, 
 were the latter. 
 
 Among human pleasures there are few more agreeable 
 than that of the cigar which follows a repast of this kind, 
 the cold chicken and the claret having been disposed ofj 
 when St. Emilion has tasted like the choicest Lafltte, the 
 Bun warm and not too warm, the wind at our backs, and the 
 
196 A FortnigJit in Kerry. 
 
 ■pring cashiona from the cabin tossed about in the confbsion 
 which suits the posture in which we are most at ease. As 
 we lay lazily enjoying ourselves, my host pointed out to me 
 one more of the interesting features of the coast. Round 
 the Lamb Head to the north, facing the islands among 
 which we had been dodging, was another small bay, cut out 
 by the action of the waves, at the bottom of which we saw 
 the water breaking on a white line of sand. Behind the 
 sand two valleys met, the slopes of which were covered 
 prettily with wood ; and among the trees we could see the 
 Bmoke and the slated roof of the once famous Derrynane 
 Abbey. There was the ancestral home of the world-cele- 
 brated Daniel O'Connell, the last of the old Irish. His 
 forefathers, the Connels of Iveragh, like every other family 
 on the coast of Kerry, had gone handsomely into the smug- 
 gling trade. Cargoes of tea and tobacco run on those sands 
 were inclosed in butter casks, and sent over the hills on 
 horses' backs to Cork, to the store of a confederate mer- 
 chant, and thence shipped for London as L"ish produce. 
 On those moors Dan the Great hunted his harriers. Li the 
 halls of that abbey he feasted friend or foe like an ancient 
 chieftain, and entertained visitors from every corner of Eu- 
 rope. All is gone now. The famine which broke O'Con- 
 nell's heart lies like an act of oblivion between the Old 
 Ireland and the New, and his own memory is feding like 
 the memory of the age which he represented. Some few 
 local anecdotes of trifling interest hang about the moun- 
 tains. They say of Dan, as they said of Charles II. : he 
 was the father of his people, and by the powers 'twas a fine 
 family he had of them. But Ireland has ceased to care for 
 him. His fame blazed Uke a straw bonfire, and has left 
 behind it scarce a shovelful of ashes. Never any public 
 man had it in his power to do so much real good for his 
 country, nor was there ever one who accomplished so little. 
 The Lamb Head once more closes in. The wind is fast 
 rising ; the crests of the rollers are beginning to break ; 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 197 
 
 the yacht flies down the slopes, and steers hard as the 
 pursuing wave overtakes and lifts her. Down comes the 
 topsail ; we do not need it now : more than once we have 
 plunged into the wave in front of us, and shipped green 
 water over our bows. The clouds come up, with occasional 
 heavy drops of rain. MacgUlicuddy's Reeks are already 
 , covered ; and on the lower mountains the mist is beginning 
 I to form. It will be a wet night, and the rivers will fish to- 
 morrow. The harbor has been alive with salmon for the 
 last fortnight, waitiiig for a fresh to take them up. "We 
 have still an hour's daylight when we recover the mauth of 
 KUmakUloge, and are in sight of the woods of Derreein 
 again. As we turn into the harbor the wind is broken off 
 by the land. We are almost becalmed, and the yacht drags 
 slowly through the water. Towards evening the whiting 
 pollock take freely, so the lines are laid out again, and we 
 trail a couple of spinners. One is instantly taken. A 
 snwU fellow — three pounds weight — comes in unresist- 
 ingly, and is basketed. A minute after the second line is 
 snatclied out of the hands of my young bathing companion, 
 who had hold of it. One of the boatmen catches it, but is 
 unused to light tackle, and drags as if he was hauling up an 
 anchor. He gathers in a yard or two, and then comes a 
 convulsive struggle. Each side pulls his best. One mo- 
 ment of uncertainty, a plunge and a splash at the end of the 
 line in bur wake, and then all is over ; and we can imagine, 
 without fear of contradiction, that we had hold of a conger 
 eel at least, if not the sea-serpent himself. 
 
 The rain came down as we expected : rain like the 
 torrents of the tropics, such as we rarely see in these 
 islands outside Kerry. The mountains arrest the wet- 
 laden currents as they come in from the Atlantic, con- 
 densing the moisture into masses of cloud, which at once 
 discharge themselves in cataracts. We spend the evening 
 hunting out our fishing-boxes, sorting flies, and trying 
 casting-lines. The sky clears soon after sunrise. The 
 
198 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 keeper has been down early to examine the condition of 
 the water, and is waiting for ns with his report on the rock 
 outside the hall door after breakfast. 
 
 There is no haste. The rivers are still coming down 
 brown and thick, and though the floods run off rapidly 
 there will be no fishing till towards noon. We look about 
 us, and the rock on which we are standing is itself a curi- 
 osity. The surface of it has been ground as smooth as a, 
 table. In the direction of the valley, and crossing the 
 lines of cleavage, it is grooved by the ice-plane which has 
 passed over it. The pebbles brought down from the hills 
 and bedded in the under-surface of the glacier have cut 
 into the stone like chisels, and have left marks which the 
 rain of unnumbered years has failed to erase. Such is the 
 modern theory, which is accepted as absolutely proved be- 
 cause we are at present unable to conceive any other 
 agency by which the effect could have been brought about. 
 Yet the inability to form another hypothesis may arise, it 
 is at least possible, from limitations in ourselves, and at- 
 tends as a matter of course every generally received 
 scientific conjecture. The theory of epicycles was once 
 considered to be proved, because no other explanation 
 could then be offered of the retrogression of the planets ; 
 and when we consider the fate of so many past philoso- 
 phies, accepted in their time as certain, and made the 
 ridicule of later generations, misgivings obtrude them- 
 selves that even the glacier theory a hundred years hence 
 may have gone the way of its predecessors, and that the 
 ice may have beconle as mythical as the footprints of the 
 feiries. 
 
 But the rock has a later and more human interest. 
 The fortunate Englishman to whom at the dose of the 
 seventeenth century these vast estates passed by confisca- 
 tion, was contented to leave the heads of the old families 
 shorn of their independence, but stUl ruling as his repre- 
 sentatives on the scene of their ancient dominions. So 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 199 
 
 matters continued for more than a century. The O's and 
 the Mac's retained their place, even under the penal laws ; 
 and the absentee landlord was contented with his rent 
 and asked no questions. A change came after the Union. 
 The noble OT^ner of iiie Kenmare mountains awoke to the 
 value and perhaps to the responsibilities of his inheritance. 
 He prepared to draw his connection closer with it and to 
 resume the privileges which had been too long spared. 
 Maofinnan Dhu, the black Macfinman, the predecessor of 
 Morty, was then ruling at Derreen. The lord of the soil, 
 to soften the blow which he was about to administer, sent 
 Macfinnan a present of wine, which arrived duly from 
 London in a large hamper. Macfinnan carried it to the 
 top of the rock on which we were standing, called up 
 every Irish curse which hung in song or prose in the 
 recollection of the valley, on the intruding stranger who 
 was robbing the Celt of the land of his fathers. At each 
 imprecation he smashed a bottle on \he stone, and only 
 ceased his litany of vengeance when the last drop had 
 been spilt of his infernal libation. Such is the story on 
 the spot ; true or felse, who can tell ? My host said that 
 in the unusual heat of the summer before last the turf 
 which covers the side of the rock had shrunk a foot or two 
 beyond its usual limits, and that fragments of broken bot- 
 tles were indisputably found there ; but whether they were 
 the remains of Macfinnan's solemnity, or were the more 
 vulgar relics of a later drinking-bout, we are left to our 
 own conjecture. 
 
 But I must introduce my readers to the keeper, who is 
 a prominent person at Derreen. He is a Scot from Aber- 
 deen, by name Jack Harper, descendant it may be of the 
 Harper who called " time " over the witches' caldron, but 
 himself as healthy a piece of humanity as ever stood sii 
 feet in his stockings, or stalked a stag upon the Gram- 
 pians. He was imported as a person not to be influenced 
 by the ways and customs of the country. The agent, 
 
200 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 however, forgot to import a wife along with him. It was 
 not in nature that a handsome yomig fellow of twenty-five 
 should remain the solitary occupant of his lodge, and he 
 soon found an Irish lassie who was not unwilling to share 
 it with him. Jack was a Protestant and obstinate in his 
 way, and declined the chapel ceremonial, but the registrar 
 at Kenmare settled the legal part of the business. The 
 priest arranged the rest with the wife, and a couple of 
 children cliaging to the skirts of Jack's kilt showed in 
 face and figure the double race from which they had 
 sprung: the boy thick-limbed, yellow-haired, with blue 
 eyes, and a strong Scotch accent, which he had caught 
 from his father ; while the girl with dark skin, soft brown 
 curls, and features of refined and exquisite delicacy, showed 
 the blood of the pure Celt of Kerry, unspoilt by infiltra- 
 tion from Dane or Norman. Being alone in his creed in 
 the valley. Jack attends chapel, though holding the pro- 
 ceedings there in some disdain. He does not trouble him- 
 self about confession, but he pays the priest his dues, and 
 the priest in turn he tells me is worth a dozen watchers to 
 him. If his traps are stolen on the mountains, or a salmon 
 is made away with on the spawning beds, he reports his 
 grievances at the chapel, and the curses of the Church ai-e 
 at his service. Religion down here means right and 
 wrong, and materially, perhaps, not much besides. 
 
 But the morning is growing on. I am left in Jack's 
 hands for the day, my host having business elsewhere. He 
 takes charge of rod and landing net, slings a big basket on 
 his back, and whistling his dogs about him, and with a 
 short pipe in his mouth, he leads the way down the drive 
 to the gate. We halt on the bridge of the little river, but 
 a glance at the bridge pool shows that we shall do no good 
 there. The water is still muddy and thick, and not a fish 
 will move in it for two hours at least. We must go to the 
 second river, where the mountain floods are first intercepted 
 by a lake : in this the du-t settles, and leaves the stream 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 201 
 
 that runs out of it to the sea comparatively clear. We 
 have a mile and a half to walk, and I hear on the way 
 what Jack has to tell about the place and people. Before 
 the famine the glen had been densely inhabited, and had 
 suffered terribly in consequence. Ruined cottages in all 
 directions showed where human creatures had once multi- 
 plied like rabbits in a warren. Miles upon mUes of unfin- 
 ished roads, now overgrown with gorse, were monuments 
 of the efforts which had been made to find them in work 
 and food. But the disaster was too great and too sudden 
 and too universal to be so encountered. Himdreds died, 
 and hundreds more were provided with free passages to 
 America, and the vaUey contains but a fourth of its old in- 
 habitants. Its present occupants are now doing well. 
 There are no signs of poverty among them. They are 
 tenants at wiQ, but so secure is the custom of the country 
 that they have no fear of dispossession. An English polit- 
 ical economist had once suggested that they should all be 
 got rid of, and the glen be turned into a deer forest. But 
 the much-abused Irish proprietors are less inhuman than 
 the Scotch, and here at least there is no disposition to out- 
 rage the affection with which the people cling to their 
 homes. There is, however, no wish among them to. return 
 to the old state of things. "When a tenant dies his eldest 
 son succeeds him. The brothers emigrate where friends 
 are waiting for them in America, and they carry with them 
 a hope, not always disappointed, of returning when they 
 have a balance at fiie bank, and can stock a farm in the 
 old country on their own account. 
 
 We pass a singular mound covered with trees at the road- 
 side, with, a secluded field behind it sprinkled over with 
 .hawthorns. The field is the burying-place of the babies 
 that die unbaptized, unconsecrated by the Church, but hal- 
 lowed by sentiment, and treated seemingly with more rev- 
 erence than the neglected graveyard. The mound is circu- 
 lar, with sloping sides twenty feet high, and sixty feet m 
 
202 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 diameter at the top. It is a rath, of which there are ten or 
 twelve in the glen, and many more in odier parts of Kerry, 
 This one has never been opened, being called the Fairy's 
 house, and is protected by superstition ; another like it, at 
 the back of Derreen, has been cleared out, and can be en- 
 tered without difficulty. The outer wall must have been 
 first built of stone. The interior was then divided into nar- 
 row compartments, ten or twelve feet long by five feet 
 broad, each with an air-hole through the wall, and commu- 
 nicating with one another by low but firmly constructed 
 doors. Massive slabs were laid at the top to form a roof, 
 and the whole structure was finally covered in with turf. 
 They were evidently houses of some kind, though when 
 built or by whom is a mystery. Human remains are rarely 
 found in any of them, and whether these chambers were 
 themselves occupied, or whether they were merely the cel- 
 lars of some lighter building of timber and wicker-work 
 raised above them, is a point on which the antiquarians 
 are undecided. Whatever they were, however, they are 
 monuments of some past age of Irish history ; and the 
 stone circles and gigantic pillars, standing wUd and weird in 
 the gorges of the mountains, are perhaps the tombs of the 
 race who lived in them. No one knows at present, for 
 Derreen lies out of the line of tourists. By and by, when 
 the feeling of respect for burial places, however ancient, 
 which still clings to Kerry, has been civilized away, the 
 tombs will be broken into and searched, and then as else- 
 where the curious antiquary will find golden torques and 
 armlets among the crumbling bones of tlie ohiefe of the age 
 of Ossian. 
 
 But here we are at the river ; we have passed, two salt 
 lagoons surrounded with banks of reeds, which are the 
 haunts in winter of innumerable wild-fowl, and even now 
 are dotted over with broods of flappers which have been 
 hatched among the flags. At the top of the ferther of these 
 we cross a bridge where the river enters it, for the wind is 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 203 
 
 coming from the other side and is blowing three quarters of 
 a gale. We follow the bank for half a nule, where the 
 water is broken and shallow, and the salmon pass through 
 without resting. Then turning the angle of a rock, we 
 come to a pool a quarter of a mUe long, terminating in a 
 circular basin eighty yards across, out of which the water 
 plunges through a narrow gorge. 
 
 The pool has been cut through a peat bog, and the 
 greater part of it is twenty feet deep. A broad fringe of 
 water-lilies lines the banks, lea^'ing, however, an available 
 space for throwing a fly upon between them. This is the 
 great resting-place of the fish on their way to the lake and 
 the upper river. The water is high, and almost flowing 
 over on the bog. The wind catches it fairly, tearing along 
 the surface and sweeping up the crisp waves in white 
 douds of spray. The party of strangers who had cards to 
 fish were before us, but they are on the wrong side, trying 
 vainly to send their flies in the face of the southwester, 
 which whirls, their casting-lines back over their heads. 
 They have caught a peal or two, and one of them reports 
 that he was broken by a tremendous fish at the end of the 
 round pool. Jack directs them to a bend higher up, where 
 they wilL find a second pool as good as this one, with a 
 more favorable slant of wind, while I put my rod together 
 and turn over the leaves of my fly-book. Among the mar- 
 vels of art and nature I know nothing equal to a salmon-fly. 
 It resembles no insect, winged or unwinged, which the fish 
 can have seen. A shrimp, perhaps, is the most Uke it, if 
 there are degrees to utter dissimilarity. Yet every river is 
 supposed to have its favorite flies. Size, color, shape, all 
 are peculiar. Here vain tastes prevaU for golden pheasant 
 and blue and crimson paroquet. There the salmon are aj 
 sober as Quakers, and will look at nothing but drabs and 
 browns. Nine parts of this are fancy, but there is still a 
 portion of truth in it. Bold hungry fish wUl take anything 
 in any river ; shy fish wiU undoubtedly rise and splash at a 
 
204 A 'Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 stranger's fly, while ihey will swallow what is offered them 
 by any one who knows their ways. It may be something 
 in the color of the water : it may be something in the color 
 of the banks : experience is too uniform to allow the fact 
 itself to be questioned. Under Jack's direction, I select 
 small flies about the size of green drakes: one a sombre 
 gray, with silver twist about him, a claret hackle, a mallard 
 wing, streaked faintly on the lower side with red and blue. 
 The drop fly is still darker, with purple legs and olive green 
 wings and body. 
 
 We move to the head of the pool and begin to cast in 
 the gravelly shallows, on which the fish lie to feed in a 
 flood, a few yards above the deep water. A white trout or 
 two rise, and presently I am fast in something which excites 
 momentary hopes. The heavy rod bends to the butt. A 
 yard or two of line runs out, but a few seconds show that it 
 is only a large trout which has struck at the fly with his 
 tail, and has been hooked foul. He cannot break me, and 
 I do not care if he escapes, so I bear hard upon him and 
 drag him by main force to the side, where Harper slips the 
 net under his head, and the next moment he is on the bank. 
 Two pounds within an ounce or so, but clean run from the 
 sea, brought up last night's flood, and without a stain of the 
 bog-water on the pure silver of his scales. He has dis- 
 turbed the shallow, so we move a few steps down. 
 
 There is an alder bush on the opposite side, where the 
 strength of the river is running. It is a long cast. The 
 wind is blowing so hard that I can scarcely keep my foot- 
 ing, and the gusts whirl so unsteadily that I cannot hit the 
 exact spot where, if there is a salmon in the neighborhood, 
 he is lying. 
 
 The line flies out straight at last, but I have now 
 thrown a few inches too far ; my tail fly is in the bush, 
 dangling across an overhanging bough. An impatient 
 movement, a jerk, or a straight pull, and I am " hung up," 
 as the phrase is, and delayed for half an hour at least 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 205 
 
 Happily there is a lull in the storm. I shake the point of 
 the rod. The -vibration runs along the line ; the fly drops 
 sdfUy like a leaf upon the water — and as it floats away 
 something turns heavily, and a huge brown back is visible 
 for an instant through a rift in the surface. But the line 
 comes home. He was an old stager, as we could see by 
 his color, no longer ravenous as when fresh from the salt 
 water. He was either lazy and missed the fly, or it was 
 not entirely to his mind. He was not touched, and we 
 drew back to consider. " Over him again while he is an- 
 gry," is the saying in some rivers, and I have known it to 
 answer where the fish feed greedily. But it wiU not do 
 here ; we must give him time ; and we turn again to the 
 fly-book. When a salmon rises at a small fly as if he 
 meant business yet fails to take it, the rule is to try 
 another of the same pattern a size larger. This too, how- 
 ever, just now Jack thinks unfavorably of. The salmon is 
 evidently a very large one, and wUl give us enough to do 
 if we hook him. He therefore, as one precaution, takes 
 off the drop fly lest it catch in the water-lilies. He next 
 puts the knots of the casting-line through a severe Irial ; 
 replaces an unsound joint with a fresh link of gut, and 
 finally produces out of his hat a " hook " — he will not 
 call it a fly — of his own dressing. It is like a particol- 
 ored father-long-legs, a thing which only some frantic 
 specimen of orchid ever seriously approached, a creature 
 whose wings were two strips of the fringe of a peacpck's 
 taa, whose legs descended from blue jay through red to 
 brown, and terminated in a pair of pink trailers two inches 
 long. Jack had found it do, and he believed it would do 
 for me. And so it did. I began to throw again six feet 
 above the bush, for a salmon often shifts his ground after 
 rising. One cast — a second — another trout rises which 
 we receive with an anathema, and drag the fly out of his 
 reach. The fourth throw there is a swirl like the wave 
 which arises under the blade of an oar, a sharp sense of 
 
206 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 hard resistance, a pause, and then a rush for the dear life 
 The wheel shrieks, the line hisses through Ihe rings, and 
 thirty yards down the pool the great fish springs madly six 
 feet into the air. The hook is firm in his upper jaw ; he 
 had not shaken its hold, for the hook had gone into the 
 bone — pretty subject of dehght for a reasonable man, an 
 editor of a magazine, and a would-be philosopher, turned 
 fifty ! The enjoyments of the unreasoning part of us can- 
 not be defended on grounds of reason, and experience 
 shows that men who are all logic and morals, and have 
 nothing of the animal left in them, are poor creatures 
 after all. 
 
 Any way, I defy philosophy with a twenty-pound salmon 
 fast hooked, and a pool right ahead four hundred yards 
 long and half full of water-lilies. " Keep him up the 
 strame," shrieked a Paddy, who, on the screaming of the 
 wheel, had flung down his spade in the turf bog and 
 rushed up to see the sport. " Keep him up the strame, 
 your honor — bloody wars ! you'll lost him else." We 
 were at fault. Jack and I. "We did not understand why 
 down stream was particularly dangerous, and Pat was too 
 eager and too busy swearing to explain himself. Alas, his 
 meaning became soon but too intelligible. I had over- 
 taken the fish on the bank and had wheeled in the Une 
 again, but he was only collecting himself for a fresh rush, 
 and the next minute it seemed as if the bottom had been 
 knocked out of the pool and an opening made into infinity. 
 Bound flew the wheel again ; fifty yards were gone in as 
 mauy seconds, the rod was bending double, and the line 
 pointed straight down ; straight as if there was a lead at 
 the end of it and unlimited space in which to sink. " Ah, 
 didn't I tell ye so ? " said Pat ; " what will we do now ? " 
 Too late Jack remembered that fourteen feet down at the 
 bottom of that pool lay the stem of a fallen oak, below 
 which the water had made a clear channel. The fish had 
 turned under it, and whether he was how up the river or 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 207 
 
 dowu, or where he was, who could tell ? He stopped at 
 last. " Hold him hard," said Jack, hurling off his clothes, 
 and whUe I was speculating whether it would be possible 
 to drag him back the way that he had gone, a pink body 
 flashed from behind me, bounded off the bank with a 
 splendid header, and disappeared. He was under for a 
 quarter of a minute ; when he rose he had the line in his 
 hand between the fish and the tree. 
 
 " All right ! " he sputtered, swimming with the other 
 hand to the bank and scrambling up. " Run the rest of 
 the line off the reel and out through the rings." He had 
 divined by a brilliant instinct, the only remedy for our 
 situation. The thing was done, fast as Pat and I could ply 
 our fingers. The loose end was drawn round the log, and 
 while Jack was humoring the fish with his hand, and danc- 
 ing up and down the bank regardless of proprieties, we had 
 carried it back down the rings, replaced it on the reel^ 
 wound in the slack, and had again command of the situa- 
 tion. 
 
 The salmon had played his best stroke. It had failed 
 him, and he now surrendered like a gentleman. A mean- 
 spirited fish wUl go to the bottom, bury himself in the 
 weeds, and sulk. Ours set his head towards the sea, and 
 saUed down the length of the pool in the open water with- 
 out attempting any more plunges. As his strength failed,' 
 he turned heavily on his back, and allowed himself to be 
 drawn to the shore. The gaff was in his side and he was 
 ours. He was larger tham we had gaessed him. Clean 
 run he would have weighed twenty-five pounds. The fresh 
 water had reduced him to twenty-two, but without soften- 
 ing his muscle or touching his strength. 
 
 The fight had tired us al. If middle age does not im- 
 pair the enjoyment of sport, it makes the appetite for it 
 less voracious, and a little pleases more than a great deal. 
 I delight in a mountain walk when I must work hard for 
 my five brace of grouse. I see no amusement in dawdliag 
 
208 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 over a lowland moor where the packs are as thick as 
 chickens in a poultry-yard. I like better than most things 
 a day with my own dogs in scattered covers, when I know 
 not what may rise, a woodcock, an odd pheasant, a snipe 
 in the out-lying wUlow-bed, and perhaps a mallard or a 
 teal. A hare or two falls in agreeably when the mistress 
 of the house takes an interest in the bag. I detest battues 
 and hot corners, and slaughter for slaughter's sake. I 
 wish every tenant in England had his share in amuse- 
 ments, which in moderation are good for us all, and was 
 allowed to shoot such birds or beasts as were bred on his 
 own farm, any clause in his lease to the contrary notwith- 
 standiag. 
 
 Anyhow I had had enough of salmon fishing for the day. 
 "We gave the rod and the basket to Pat to carry home, the 
 big fish which he was too proud to conceal flapping on his 
 back. Jack and I ate our luncheon and smoked our pipes 
 beside the fall, and Jack, before we went home, undertook 
 to show me the lake. The river followed the bend of the 
 valley. We took a shorter cut over a desolate and bare 
 piece of mountain, and as we crossed the ridge we found 
 ourselves suddenly in the luxuriant softness of a miniature 
 Killarney. The lake was scarcely a mUe in length, but 
 either the woodcutters had been less busy there, or Nature 
 had repaired the havoc that they had made. Half a dozen 
 small islands were scattered on it, covered with arbutus 
 and holly. The rocks on one side fell in grand precipices 
 to the water. At the end was the opening of Glanmore 
 valley, with its masses of forest, its emerald meadows and 
 cooing wood-pigeons, and bright, limpid river reaches. 
 For its size there is no more lovely spot in the south of 
 Ireland than Glanmore. It. winds among the mountains 
 for six miles beyond the lake, closed in at the extremity 
 with the huge mass of Hungry Hill, from the top of whidi 
 you look down upon Berehaven. Here too the idea of 
 sport pursued us — stray deer wandered over now and then 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 209 
 
 from Glengariff — and my companion had stories of 
 mighty bags of woodcocks made sometimes there when the 
 snow was on the hiOs. My eye, however, was rather 
 caught by a singular ruin of modern, unvenerable kind on 
 the largest of the islands. Some chieftain's castle had 
 once stood there, as we could see from the remains of mas- 
 sive walls on the water line : but this had been long de- 
 stroyed, and in the place of it there had been a cottage of 
 some pretensions, which in turn was now roofless. The 
 story of it, so far as Jack could tell me, was this. 
 
 Forty years ago or thereabouts a Major , who had 
 
 difficulties with his creditors, came into these parts to hide 
 himself, built the cottage on the island, and lived there ; and 
 when the bailiffs found him out held them at bay with pis- 
 tol and blunderbuss. The people of the glen provided him 
 with food. The Irish are good friends to any one who is on 
 bad terms with the authorities. Like Goethe's elves — 
 
 Ob er heilig, ob er bose, 
 Jammert sie der Ungliicksmann — 
 
 So here Major fished and shot and laughed at the 
 
 attempts to arrest him. His sin, however, found him out at 
 last. You may break the English laws as you please in 
 Ireland, but there are some laws which you may not break, 
 
 as Major found. In the farmhouse which supplied him 
 
 with his milk and eggs, was a girl who anywhere but in 
 Glanmpre would have been called exceptionally beautiful. 
 
 Major abused the confidence which was placed in him, 
 
 and seduced her. He had to fly for his life. Such is the 
 present legend, as true, perhaps, as much that passes by the 
 
 name of history. Major himself might tell another 
 
 stoty. 
 
 My space has run out. My tale is still half told. The 
 next day was Sunday. The day following was August 20, 
 when Irish grouse-shooting begins. If the reader's patience 
 is unexhausted he shall hear of the scratch-bag we made in 
 a scramble of thirty mUes ; of the weird woman that we 
 14 
 
210 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 saw among the cMs : of the " crass buU," that we fell in 
 with, and the double murder in Coomeengeera. I have 
 to tell him too how the grandson of Macfinnan Dhu was 
 caught red-handed spearing salmon, and how the bloody 
 Saxon had to stand between him and eviction. How we 
 held a land court in the hall at Derreen, and settled a dis- 
 puted inheritance. How we went to the Holy Lake and 
 saw the pilgrimsfrom America there^ and how when mass 
 was over they made a night of it with the whiskey booths 
 and the card-sharpers. How we had another sail upon the 
 river, how we attended a tenant-right meeting at the board 
 of guardians at Kenmare, and how the chairman floored 
 the middle^man there to the delight of all his audience — 
 the chairman, the brightest of companions, the most charm- 
 ing of men of business, the hero of the seal fight in IMr. 
 Trench's " Reahties of Irish Life.'' All this the reader shall 
 hear if his curiosity leads him to wish for it. If he is sick 
 of this light fare and desires more solid pudding, we wiU 
 dress our dishes to his mind, and the rest of my pleasant 
 memories shall abide with myself, woven in bright colors in 
 the web of my life by the fingers of the three sisters — my 
 own, and never to be taken &om me, let the Future bring 
 what fate it will. 
 
RECIPHOCAL DUTIES OF STATE AND 
 SUBJECT. 
 
 The « Pall Mall Gazette," the "Times," and the Libera^ 
 press in general, tell us ^hat the English intending emigrant 
 can earn half a crown in the United, States, where he can 
 earn but a florin in Canada, and that it is therefore senti- 
 mental nonsense to expect or even desire him to, prefer an 
 English colony. The fact, in the first place, is not true. 
 There is a better organ^ation at New York for the recep- 
 tion and distribution of the emigrants, but the wages of 
 labor in Canada are as high as they are in any part of the 
 American continent except California, and the cost of living 
 is less. If, however, the American wages were distinctly 
 higher, it is the first time that the chief duty of man has 
 been proclaimed so nakedly to lie in making money. Ad- 
 miral Maury was offered rank and fortune, if he would take 
 charge of an observatory in Russia. Pes prefers a pittance 
 as a schoolmaster in the crushed and still suffering Cpnfedr 
 ejacy. At the risk of being called sentimental, I declare 
 that I would sooner myself earn reasonable yages in th^ 
 English dominions th^n be a irillionaire in New York ; and 
 the most practical of Yankees could be bribed by nothing 
 that we could offer him to become permanently a British 
 subject. The working men themselves do not appreciate! 
 the kindness of their advocates. The Irish consider it the 
 fault of the English Government that thgy canno| remain 
 at home. Those who go h^te us. Thpse ■jvho stay hate usi. 
 We have four millions of the bitterest enemies, in tl^e Irisl) 
 Aniericans. We have Fenis^nism in Ireland itself, and the 
 
212 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 danger is growing steadily with every fresh shipload which 
 is landed on the shores of the Union. 
 
 The Enghsh and Scotch laborer or artisan has struggled 
 hard hitherto to hold fast his nationality. He has gone to 
 Canada, to the Cape, to, Australia, or to New Zealand. To 
 the States, so far, he has gone sparingly and unwillingly. 
 The tide is changing at last. The hundreds of a few years ago 
 are now becoming thousands, but there is the same resent- 
 ment among them which we see in the Irish. The English 
 workman does not consider that he ought to be enabled to 
 live at home, but he does not Uke to be flung aside as if he 
 was of no value. The State, he thinks, ought to help him 
 to go to one of its own dependencies. He too goes away, bit- 
 ter and savage with the old country; His friends at home are 
 no better pleased. In a few years we may have, we indispu- 
 tably shall have, a million or two of Anglo-American citizens 
 with an equally agreeable disposition to do us aU the harm 
 they can, and the great mass of English working men at 
 home looking to America as their best friend. Yet, in the 
 face of these phenomena, even the Prime Minister holds up 
 the Irish emigration as an example to be imitated, as a 
 splendid proof of the success of the voluntary principle, and 
 as an argument against the interposition of the State. The 
 emigrant believes himself the victim of injurious neglect. 
 His one thought thenceforward is the hope of revenge. He 
 is a citizen of the great rival nationality, and should so 
 frightful a calamity as a war with America overtake us, he 
 may be relied on to do his worst for our humiliation. The 
 situation is so transparent that writers who still insist that 
 the State shall remain passive cannot be blind to it. 
 The feelings or the principles therefore which lie at the bot- 
 tom of their resolution should be acknowledged or at least 
 examined. Either we must assume a determination to 
 avoid war even at the cost of honor, — or there is a beUef 
 that in the present state of the world war is really impossi- 
 ble, — or else it is thought that the State as a State has no 
 
Reeiproeal Duties of State and Subject. 213 
 
 concern with such matters, and is unable in the nature of 
 things to exercise any effective control over them. The 
 distribution of human creatures over the globe must be held 
 to be the work of general laws, with which it is absurd to 
 interfere; these laws may act favorably towards England 
 or they may act unfavorably ; England can as little further 
 them in the one case as it can hinder them in the other. 
 We might wish the climate of these islands to be milder 
 than it is, or drier than it is ; but we do not call on gov- 
 ernment to alter the position of the poles, or raise the tem- 
 perature of the Gulf Stream. 
 
 This is evidently the theory ; but it does not satisfy those 
 who complain. English and Irish working people imagine 
 that they are injured, either because they are not provided 
 with occupation at home,. — a matter equally with which 
 the government declares that it has, nothing to do, — or 
 because they are not assisted to go where work is waiting 
 for them in our own dependencies. They have an impres- 
 sion that the government has duties towards them which 
 the government denies to exist. Their perplexity is in- 
 creased because on these and_ many kindred, subjects they 
 see in other countries their own theories recognized and 
 acted on. They see the same in the past history of their 
 own coimtry. The intellectual progress of the classes who 
 profess the new doctrine has been so rapid that the mass of 
 the people has been unable to keep up with them. It is 
 worth while therefore to analyze the limits of an English 
 Government's duty, as it'is now understood by the repre- 
 sentatives of Liberalism ; and, , if these limits are rightly 
 defined, to point out the unreasonableness of resentment 
 when statesmen decline to transgress them. 
 
 The sentimental relations, as they are scornfully called, 
 between governors and governed can be traced historically. 
 The father brings his children into the world, teaches and 
 trains them, provides for them till they are able to provide 
 for themselves, and receives in return loyal affection and 
 
214 Reciprocal Duties of State and Sviject. 
 
 support in his old age. The family develops into a clan. 
 The elder branch retains priority. The collateral kindred 
 cling together with common interests and under a common 
 leadership. The chief, either hereditary or elective, be- 
 comes the protector of the rest, leads them in battle, fights 
 for them, and legislates for them. His person is made 
 sacred. His remotest dependant give his life cheerfully to 
 save him from harm, with no consciousness of self-sacrifice, 
 but as a matter of simple duty. There is devotion on one 
 side, and benefits received or supposed to be received on the 
 other. The devotion has been, perhaps, often in excess of 
 the benefit ; generosity does not look curiously into the ac- 
 count of debtor and creditor. It is enough that superiors 
 and inferiors are thus bound together under a permanent 
 tie which both sides in some sort recognize, and under 
 those conditions a sentiment of loyalty develops itself of its 
 own accord, which knows no limit either in this world or 
 the next. At present we are told that a man ought to 
 change his nationality for an extra sixpence a day. An old 
 Scotch nurse once came to die, who was the sole depositary 
 of a mysterious secret affecting the descent of property, and 
 touching the good name of the house in which she had lived. 
 A priest urged her to confess, and reminded her of provid- 
 ing for the safety of her soul. " The safety of my soul ! " 
 she said, " and would you put the honor of an auld Scottish 
 family in competition with the soul of a poor creature like 
 me?" 
 
 The dan passes into a nation, but the same idea con- 
 tinues. The chief becomes a sovereign. Tradition and 
 rule of thumb are exchanged for written laws. Society 
 divides, cities spring up, and towns and villages, castles and 
 churches, farmhouses and cottages spread over the country, 
 and the human swarm separates into its countless occupa- 
 tions ; but loyalty to the ruling power loses at first nothing 
 of its tenacity, and to maiutain the lawful king in his place 
 is the first of the subjects* obligations. It mattered little to 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 215 
 
 the material interests of the English nation whether it was 
 ruled over by White Rose or by Red, but it mattered infi- 
 nitely whether the lawful owner of the throne should be de- 
 frauded of his right. Rule and custom could not decide, and 
 there was an appeal to the God of battles. The barons 
 ranged themselves according to their convictions. The ten- 
 ants gave their blood faithfully and devotedly under their 
 lord's leaderships. The acknowledged sovereign in this and 
 all other European countries was the representative of the 
 Almighty. A Claudius could say : 
 
 There is such majesty doth hedge a king 
 That treason dare but peep at what it would. 
 
 The Duke in " Measure for Measure " would have even 
 
 the devil 
 Be sometimes honored for his burning throne. 
 
 Ti'eason was the summoning up of all real and all imag- 
 inable crimes. The most horrible tortures were held the 
 just reward of the unsuccessful conspirator. 
 
 WHle the people were stiU in theory the prince's 
 children, the people supported the prince and the prince in 
 turn protected the people. A Church was maintained to 
 care for their souls ; an organization of public servants to 
 superintend their lives and labor. The State charged itself 
 with the detailed care of the subject, circumscribing his 
 position in life, and defining his rights as well as his duties. 
 It provided or attempted to provide that every one willing 
 :to work should be able to support himself by industry. 
 The meanest child was not neglected. There was some one 
 always who was charged with the duty of oaring for it. 
 Holders of. land had obligations along with their tenures 
 which they were responsible and punishable for neglecting. 
 Their interests were held subordinate to the nation's inter- 
 ests ; and the nation's interest was to have the moral rule 
 of right and wrong observed in all transactions between 
 man and man. That the State was often tyrannical, often 
 
216 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 selfish, often ignorant, mean, and unjist, might be expected 
 from the natm-e of the case. The rulers were but men of 
 limited knowledge, subject to all common temptations, and 
 subject also to special temptations born out of their position 
 of authority. It is now assumed that the harm that they 
 did was incomparably greater than the good ; that nine 
 tenths of the old English legislation was directly mischiev- 
 ous ; that the remaining tenth was innocent only because it 
 was inoperative ; that in depriving men of their independ- 
 ence the government took away from them the natural 
 stimulus to exertion, and made impossible those manly vir- 
 tues which are brought out only in those who are compelled 
 to rely upon themselves. In the restriction of the functions 
 of government it is implied and admitted that the loyalty 
 which was born of them must be eliminated also ; and as 
 the government to the masses of the people represents the 
 unit of the country, there departs with loyalty the kindred 
 'obligation of patriotism. In these free modern times men 
 govern themselves, and therefore their loyalty is to them- 
 selves. The sentimental virtues are treated as mistaken 
 notions of duty, rising out of an unwholesome and exploded 
 condition of society. The State no longer takes chai-ge of 
 the people, and the people, if they are wise, wUl understand 
 that they no longer owe anything to the State. The in- 
 quiry, whether Englishmen may not wish to remain Eng- 
 lishmen even at some sacrifice to themselves, in another 
 part of the world? — whether the offshoots of England 
 might not remain attached to it as a clan to its chief ? — is 
 set aside as out of date, with a smile : and it is only be- 
 cause old-fashioned feelings stUl absurdly linger among 
 such of us as are imperfectly educated in sound politicsd 
 philosophy, that so many false expectations, and so much 
 irrational disappointment, are imported into the discussion 
 of our social diflSculties. The government is now. com- 
 pletely constitutional. It is a government of the people 
 themselves. It no longer resides in a person or a class. It 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 217 
 
 has nothing sacred about it. It is born out of majorities 
 in the House of Commons, and changes with the wavering 
 of opinion. It disclaims abstract considerations of justice, 
 and knows of nothing but expediency. It no longer rules 
 the different classes which compose society, but represents 
 them, and is i something gradually sinking into a nothing, 
 begotten out of the collision of their interests. To the im- 
 agination of masses, meanwhile, it remains what it used to 
 be. Old ideas that it owes duties to them stUl cling to their 
 modes of thinking, and they have not themselves shaken oif 
 the sense of obligation on their own part. They know, for 
 instance, that if they take service in the army or in the 
 police they Tfill fight, and, if necessary, be killed. They 
 imagine vaguely that even in working for a private master 
 they are, in some sense, serving their country. They do 
 not recognize the reception of so much pay as a discharge 
 in full of what society owes them. They are born on Eng- 
 lish soU, as part of the English nation ; and they are hurt- 
 and indignant when England answers that it has nothing 
 to do with them, that they are emancipated, that they are 
 their own masters, and must take the rough side of freedom 
 as well as the smooth. If this be emancipation they did not 
 ask for it, and they do not value it when thrust upon them. 
 I once heard a young athletic navvy say he cared nothing 
 for politics. No reform that he had ever heard of had been 
 of use to him or his. All he thought was that when a poor 
 fellow had worked for a master the best part of his life, the 
 master ought to keep him when he couldn't work any 
 longer. In others words, he wished to return to serfdom. 
 
 What then are the functions of the State as they are now 
 
 understood in England ? And what effects are likely to he 
 
 produced on the character of the people when the tradi- 
 
 ■ tional sentiment has died out, and they understand what it 
 
 really means ? 
 
 Modem English Government has been said to consist in 
 collecting the taxes and spending them. More sympathet 
 
218 Reciprocal Duties of State and SuhjecL 
 
 ically it might be defined as a contrivance to secure the 
 greatest liberty to the greatest number — liberty meaning 
 Hie absence of restraint. We cannot — so liberal opinion 
 says — we cannot combine things which are essentially 
 irreconcilable ; we cannot have efficient administration and 
 personal liberty, and liberty is the best of the two. Ac- 
 cording to this view, an ideal government would interfere 
 in nothing. In an imperfect world we have to be contented 
 with approximations, with a government which reduces 
 its interference to a minimum. We are not to ask if there 
 may not be a distinction of persons, — if the good may not 
 have more liberty than the bad, — if the cheating shop> 
 keeper, for instance, is to be allowed the same freedom in 
 his calling as the honest tradesman. It is replied that 
 distinctions of this kind have been tried, but that they 
 create more evils than they cure. The best condition of 
 things is where all alike have a fair stage and no favor, 
 where every man is permitted to order his life as he pleases, 
 so that he abstains from breaking the criminal law, and 
 where the laws which it shall be criminal to break are as 
 few and as mild as the safety of society will allow. A 
 thousand duties may lie beyond the boundaries inclosed by 
 legal penalties, but it is assumed that the interest of every 
 man "lies in the long run on the side of right, that it will 
 answer better to him to be industrious than idle, honest 
 than dishonest, temperate than vicious. Let every man 
 pursue his private advantage with all the faculties that 
 belong to him, and nature and competition will take care 
 of the rest. The State is thus cleared of responsibilities 
 which it cannot adequately discharge. There is an infinire 
 saving of trouble. The enterprising and the able are stim- 
 ulated to energy by the prospect of certain reward, and 
 every one finds and takes the position in life to which his 
 exertions entitle him and the gifts which he has brought 
 with him into the world. The prudent and the industrious 
 succeed ; the worthless and the profligate reap as thej 
 have sown, and natural justice is fairly distributed to all. 
 
Bedproehl Duties of State and Suhjeet. 219 
 
 Thus the Ertveeping-brush has been applied to the statute- 
 book, and lihe complicated provisions established by our 
 ancestors for our minds and bodies have been either cleared 
 away or at least neutralized by the absence of machinery 
 to make them effective. It used to be held that the State 
 must profess a religion. It was the ihagistrate's business 
 to execute justice and maintaih truth. The State now 
 recognizes that it represents a number of persons of differ- 
 ent opinions in these matters, and therefore the Irish 
 Church is disestablished, and the Anglican prelates are 
 Setting their houses in order. Property in land, once 
 peculiarly the object of legislative supervision, is left to 
 economic law. The parliaments of the Tudors, considering 
 in their way the greatest happiness of the greatest number, 
 charged thetnselveS with the distribution of the produce of 
 the soil. They encouraged the multiplication of yeoihto 
 land peasant proprietors. They attached four acres of land 
 to every poOr man's cottage. They prohibited the in- 
 closures of commons and the agglomeration of farms ; and 
 by reducing the power of landlords to do as they would 
 with their ow'n, they cbrrected the tendency which is now 
 unresisted towards the absorption of the land in a diminish- 
 ing number of bauds. 
 
 The modern theory is that the greater the interest of 
 the landlord in his property the more he is encouraged to 
 develop the resources of it. The national wealth is in- 
 creased by removing the restrictions which limited the 
 landlord's opportunities of increasing his personal wealth. 
 If peculiar circumstances are at this moment coilipelling 
 legislation of a different kind in Ireland, it is adopted as a 
 temporary expedient, a concession to the bacfcwatd con- 
 dition of the Irish people, which a few years of prosperity 
 will render nugatory, and permit to be replaced by the 
 natural system of contract. 
 
 The attitude towards trade is precisely of the same kihd. 
 For several centuries Cr&wn, Council, and Parliament 
 
220 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 watched over every detail of commerce, from the village 
 shop to the great transactions of the chai-tered companies. 
 The development of industry was recognized as of an im- 
 portance all but supreme ; but it was held subsidiary 
 always to the moral welfare of the nation. To repress 
 needless luxury, to prevent capitalists from making for- 
 tunes at the cost of the poor, and to distribute in equitable 
 proportions the profits of industry, were held to be func- 
 tions of the State as completely as to repress burglary and 
 murder. The State made mistakes. It maintained regu- 
 lations which the circumstances of one age had rendered 
 necessary not only when they had ceased to be useful, but 
 when they had become contrivances for defeating the very 
 object for which they had been originally instituted. Eoot 
 and branch these regulations have now been cleared away. 
 Small remnants of them survive as means of revenue, but 
 each year sees restrictive duties disappear, to be replaced 
 by direct taxation. When government interferes with 
 commerce on a large scale, it is to coerce weak nations like 
 the Chinese into the open system, and to forbid them to 
 close their ports, under pretense of morality, against the 
 introduction of drugs with which it has become our interest 
 to poison them. So with the manufacturer and the shop- 
 keeper. Trade inspectors used to be appointed to examine 
 the quality of manufactured articles brought to the docks 
 for export. They were said to be bribed, or to be incapa- 
 ble ; their interference acted as a premium upon smuggling 
 — any way it embarrassed trade, and the inspection dwin- 
 dled to a name. The wardens and officers of the great 
 companies appraised the value of what was sold in shops. 
 Ideas of justice and equity determined prices. Morality, 
 real or imagined, insisted that every article offered for sale 
 was to be the thing which it pretended to be. Bread was 
 to be real bread, and beer the genuine produce of malt and 
 hops. A pound should be a true pound, an ounce a true 
 ounce, the gallon and the quiu-t not shrunk below tlieii 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Su^'ect. 221 
 
 legitimate dimensions by false bottoms. The old English 
 application of the order for good measure running over 
 lingers yet, though no longer to the benefit of the customer, 
 in the extra pounds flung in to make the hundred weight. 
 Such customs and such interferences were found either to 
 work-unwholesomely in themselves, or to be impossible to 
 carry out with tolerable impartiality in the enormous com- 
 phcations of modern commercial life. Luxury, no longer 
 deprecated as an evil, is encouraged as a stimulus to labor. 
 The State has no creed. The State is no longer the 
 guardian of morality. It is bound to the conscientious 
 execution of its own functions, but what those functions 
 are is more than ever uncertain. Personal morahty is the 
 affair of the individual ocul. The increase of drunkenness 
 is deplored as a national misfortune, but the only remedy 
 for it is held to lie in personal self-restraint. Men cannot, 
 we are told, be made virtuous by Act of Parliament. The 
 natural punishment is misery, and if the misery fall on the 
 innocent wife and children it cannot be helped. The wife 
 must be more careful where she marries. The sale of 
 liquors is as legitimate as any other trade. If the liquor 
 sold is poisoned, the buyer must transfer his custom else- 
 where, or abandon his evil habits. A public-house is a 
 place of recreation, like a club. The law knows no dis- 
 tinction of persons. It may not curtail the pleasures of 
 the poor, and leave untouched the pleasures of the rich. 
 In aU trades, drink trade, bread trade, trade in necessaries, 
 and trade in luxuries, the buyer is " his own keeper." If 
 he is cheated he must improve his mind, and learn what he 
 is doing. He is paying the price of knowledge, which, 
 when gained, will make him a wiser man. 
 
 Once more. The paternal theory implied that every 
 English chUd was under the guardianship of the State. 
 The -law, however 01 it was carried out, allowed no wan- 
 dering outcasts, growing up to lie and steal because they 
 had no means of maintaining themselves honestly. The 
 
222 Reciprocal Duides of State and SvJ^ect. 
 
 emancipated stp:eet Arab of modern times was apprenticed 
 either to farmer, sliopkeeper, or artisan, according to his 
 capacity, and those who could not find masters for them- 
 selves were allotted by the machinery of the parochial 
 system. Every other Sunday, or once a month, the clerk, 
 at the dose of the sermon, summoned the parishioners to 
 the vestry. The fathers and grandfathers of the present 
 generation assembled, with the rector in the chair. The 
 case of any orphan or otherwise helpless child was men- 
 tioned, his condition inquired into, the means of his parents 
 (if he had any), whether he was robust or lame or weak 
 or stupid or pi-omising ; and, according to the answer, he 
 was assigned to this or that farmer, cobbler, tailor, carpen- 
 ter, or mason, to be clothed,,fed, and brought up in indus- 
 try. The arrangements for the labor of grown men have 
 been disorganized from a far earlier date ; but under the 
 old constitution their wages were fixed by statute and ad- 
 justed to the price of food, and no able-bodied laborer was 
 allowed to be idle. The masterless rogue found straying 
 without occupation was taken before the nearest magisti-ate 
 and set to labor on the roads, or passed back to the parish 
 to which he belonged. The incorrigible vagabond was 
 sent to gaol and whipped ; forced labor was found for him 
 as long as the condition of England made it possible : later 
 on, he was shipped to the colonies. In a rude way the 
 State endeavored, and always recognized its obligation to 
 provide an opportmiity for every man to earn an honest 
 subsistence. 
 
 This too has passed away. The able-bodifed pauper now 
 presents himself as ready to work, but no work can be 
 found for him. At present, he is not permitted to starve : 
 a bare subsistence is furnished for him at the expense of 
 the community; but how long this will continue — still 
 more how long it is desirable that this shall continue — 
 may reasonably be doubted. If there are more hands 
 than there is work for at home, there is more work than 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Syi)ject. 223 
 
 hands to do it elsewhere : and it may be cheaper as well as 
 otherwise better to effect a combination between the two. 
 
 The state of tMags thus introduced among us has been 
 called anarchy plus the policeman. In the primitive 
 anarchy there \s no law but that of strength and courage. 
 Big bones and large muscles rule, the weak go to the waJl. 
 In the modern anarchy the superiority is with cleverness 
 and energy. Opon violence is not permitted. Cleverness 
 of wit is mastei' now, as strength of body was master then. 
 Of morality there is equally little in both. The time has 
 passed away in which there was an attempt to regulate the 
 rewards and punishments of life by principles of justice. 
 The preamble of a Tudor statute used to speak with ref- 
 erence, real or pretended, of the law of God. The law of 
 God is a thing with which modern politicians now disclaim 
 a concern. If it exist at all, it is left to enforce its own 
 penalties when broken. Crime is not punished as an 
 offense against God, but as prejudicial to society. Towards 
 crime there is an increasing leniency — a disposition to 
 meddle with it to the smallest possible degree — and trea- 
 son, once the darkest of offenses, is becoming a word with- 
 out meaning. 
 
 The theory is carried resolutely out. The Irish agrarian 
 assassin is but protecting his private interests in a rude 
 way, and js not too closely looked after j an Irish riot, or a 
 gathering of Fenians for drill, is an assembly of misguided, 
 but well-meaning politicians. An Irish magistrate, espe- 
 cially if he has the misfortune to be a Protestant, knows 
 well that if he is too zealous in keeping the peace, and an 
 accident happens in the process, the cry will be to hai}g not 
 the rioters but him. If he is to find favor w^Jh the au- 
 thorities, his road to it lies in looking through his fingers, 
 A similar tenderness is creeping up towards murderers and 
 rogues of all kinds. Murder is explained by physical ten- 
 dencies towards homicide. An eminent foreigner, smarting 
 from painfiil experience, said to me the other day that 
 
224 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 burglary was the only well-organized institution whiish 
 England possessed. Armies of professional burglars are 
 perfectly well known to the police — men who make no 
 pretense of having other means of livelihood — yet the 
 police may not meddle with them till they are caught red- 
 handed ; and recently — it is said that things are mended 
 now — penal servitude was an agreeable exchange for a 
 life of ordinary labor. The work was less, the lodging 
 better, the food more abundant and more secure. 
 
 To commercial fraud, even where of a kind stUl within 
 the admitted province of the criminal law, we are yet more 
 tender. Thousands of families may be tempted into ruin 
 by the insincere prospectus of some fair-promising city 
 company. The directors play the safest of games. If 
 they win they stand to become millionaires ; if they fail 
 they lose nothing, for in many instances they have nothing 
 to lose; and when the crash comes they have the sus- 
 picious sympathy of the great houses that surround them. 
 Should they be forced into a court of justice they are 
 secure of a favorable construction of their most doubtful 
 actions, and the wretched shareholder who prosecutes is 
 rebuked for his revengeful feelings, and recommended 
 cynically to become more cautious for the future. 
 
 So far has laissez-faire been carried, that no prudent man 
 will now venture a walk in the London streets unless his 
 will is made, his affairs in order, and a card-case is in his 
 pocket, that his body may be identified. Three hundred 
 people are killed annually in London by cabs and carts, 
 and four times as many are wounded, yet no adequate 
 precautions are taken, and no punishment follows. The 
 chief delinquents are tradesmen's boys, whose advance in 
 life depends on the rapidity with which they execute their 
 commissions. The juries who sit on the inquests are 
 tradesmen who keep carts themselves, and a verdict of 
 accidental death recurs with unerring uniformity. This 
 U a small matter to all but the unfortunate creatures who 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Sv^ect. 225 
 
 are run over, and as in many cases they are paupers em- 
 ployed in street-sweeping, no great interest is likely to be 
 felt in their fate. They are pensioners of the public, and 
 a fortiori cannot daim to be looked after. It is, however, 
 unhappily but one of a hundred instances of the universal 
 indifference of the authorities, and, in one way or another, 
 we all of us have oar share in the common suffering. 
 That we are not neglected entirely, we know from the 
 periodic visits of the tax-collector and the rate-collector. 
 Other evidencea that we are still the State's children we 
 are told that we are not to expect. "We have grown to 
 manhood with the progress of liberty ; we mast now walk 
 alone, and if we slip and tumble we have no one to blame 
 but ourselves. 
 
 The effects of the disintegrating theory are equally 
 visible in the position of England as a member of the 
 European community of nations. The several Powers 
 once formed a general confederacy, held together on 
 general principles, and bound to one another by general 
 obligations. We are sliding out of our position, and no' 
 longer aspire to a voice in European councils. The nation 
 is but a collection of individuals. Each individual is sup- 
 posed to be occupied with his private concerns ; and the 
 aggregate of us are only interested in being let alone. 
 We have in consequence no longer a foreign policy. The 
 balance of power has ceased to trouble us. We have paid 
 dear for our mfeddling in past times; and eight hundred 
 millions of national debt are an unpleasant and enduring 
 reminder of our want of. wisdom j we have bought our 
 experience, and do not mean to repeat our fault. Dynasties 
 may change, frontiers shift, insargent nationalities rise in 
 arms for independence, and succeed or fail. We look on 
 with a certain degree of interest ; sympathy or sentiment 
 inclines us to one party or the othei;, but we do not mean 
 to burn our fingers ; we shut ourselves up in our own 
 island, and look on as upon a scene in a play. We enter 
 
 15 
 
226 Reciprocal Duties 0/ State and Subject. 
 
 into no more Continental obligations, and we hope devoutly 
 that no claims will be made upon us in the name of any 
 which we have inherited. "When occasion rises, as it rose 
 in Denmark, we find a loophole of escape. The weight of 
 English opinion abroad passes now for nothing, for it is 
 known that it will be unsupported by force; and France 
 and Gtermany and Russia arrange their differences among 
 themselves as if Great Britain had ceased to exist. Were 
 other consequences of our present tendencies equally inno- 
 cent there would be little to regret. We do not look back 
 even on the Crimean War with very enthusiastic self-satis- 
 faction. We have nothing to gain from interfering further 
 in European disputes, and we do wisely to keep clear of 
 them. But the fact is as I have described. Our ti-ade is 
 still of consequence to Europe. The exports and imports 
 of individual firms go on merrily as ever, or perhaps 
 wUl, in the better times wliich are expected to return. . As 
 a nation we are nothing ; we are neither loved nor feared ; 
 we are for the present useful, and we are content to remain 
 so, and to pass current on these innocent terms. 
 
 But we pursue this neutral and negative policy, not only 
 towards other nations, but towards our own colonies.. 
 Time was when we believed that our prosperity depended 
 on our power. The maintenance of our commerce was 
 held to be connected with the respect felt for the weight 
 of our arm, and therefore we established English-speaking 
 communities at convenient places all over the world — as 
 stations for our fieets and troops, as nxu-series for fresh off- 
 shoots of our people, as providing us with territory on 
 which to expand, and as special markets for our manufac- 
 tures which would be always open to us. We have 
 changed all that ; we prefer to rely on the natural demand 
 for o\vc productions. The colonies cost us money, and 
 every tax is a burden upon trade. We tell our people at 
 home that every one must take care of himself ; we say to 
 the colonies — the Colonial Office has said so consistently 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 227 
 
 for the last five and twenty years — " You are collections 
 of individuals who left England for your private conven- 
 ience ; you went to Austraha, to New Zealand, to Canada to 
 better your own condition. Better it by all means if you 
 can, but you must do as we do at home, and rely upon 
 yourselves only. You say you are loyal to England. We 
 make no objection to your remaining so if you prefer it, 
 but we do not tax you, and you must not tax us. You are 
 independent, and the sooner you will declare yourselves iii 
 name the free nations which we have virtually made you, 
 the better it wUl be for all parties." When the colonies 
 hesitate to take us at our word we are impatient. When 
 they speak of us as the mother country we repudiate the 
 name. We are impatient especially of the reluctance of 
 Canada to part with us, for Canada we regard as a tempta- 
 tion to America to quarrel with us. Were we clear of 
 Canada, we imagine that war with America would be im- 
 possible, while so long as it continues a part of the empire 
 and is willing to share in its own' defense we feel that we 
 cannot honorably throw it over. When I speak of " we " 
 I do not mean that I have been describing the sentiment 
 of the great body of the English people. I have been 
 describing rather the phase of Liberal opinion which at 
 present has the direction of our affairs, and expresses itself 
 in the leading columns of the principal Liberal journals 
 I mean the opinion on colonial matters which is the exact 
 counterpart of the peculiar policy which is exhibiting itself 
 on all sides in the administration of the fcommonwealth. 
 
 Li every department the same principle is at work ; the 
 one uniform object is to reduce the ftinctions of govern- 
 ment as near to nothing as ingenuity can bring them, or 
 as circumstances will allow ; to leave every one to make 
 his own fortune or to mar it by the light of his own in- 
 genuity. We admit that government must keep the peace. 
 We expect it, with the help of volunteers, to protect the 
 country from invasion. These duties it cannot disown, 
 
228 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 without destroying all reason for its own existence ; but it 
 is extremely unwilling to admit that it possesses others. It 
 is a policy which cannot as yet be carried out completely. 
 There is the Irish land question, and there is also the 
 demand for national education. The present legislation for 
 Ireland, however, is intended, as I said, to be exceptional 
 and temporary; the second is being forced upon the 
 government equally against the grain by the clamors of 
 the poople. Elsewhere education is recognized imiversaUy 
 as the business of the State. In England it is considered 
 the business of the parents, and only because parents unao- 
 countably neglect their duty, the State is compelled to take 
 it up. The recognition of such a fact as this may perhaps 
 be an indication of a turn of the tide. If aU mankind 
 understood the fiill circle of their obligations, and dis- 
 charged them of their own accord, there would then be 
 really no need of governments, and the whole race would 
 relapse into the primitive blessedness of Paradise. The 
 selfishness and wickedness of individuals alone render 
 authority necessary. Neglect in one instance is no more 
 an occasion for interference than neglect in another, and it 
 may be that the opinion is changing, that authority is about 
 to reclaim some other portions of its old domain, which, to 
 use the expressive phrase of the Irish, " have gone back to 
 bog." For the present, however, the exception is made 
 only in the case of children, who, on the face of it, canno't 
 help themselves. When they have mastered their three 
 B's, and can earri their living, they too will be turned 
 adrift like the young nestlings who have learnt the use of 
 their wings and beaks. 
 
 Well, then, what effect is likely to be produced on the 
 individuals who compose an empii-e administered on these 
 principles ? The future was never less transparent than it 
 is at present We are on ihe brink, possiloly, of a new 
 order of things. Nationalities may be about to disappear. 
 A time may be coming when there will be no more Eng< 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 229 
 
 iish, French, Germans, Americans, but only men and 
 women, indiyiduals with their private interests scattered 
 over the globe. As yet, howeyer, outside England there 
 are no symptoms of the approach of any such consumma- 
 tion. Other nations are as self-asserting, ambitious, ag- 
 gressive, imperial as ever ; and if England has any rivalry 
 with them, if England aspires to remain a leading political 
 Power, it may turn out premature to carry out too log- 
 ically a theory so far peculiar to this island. The State no 
 longer acknowledges what were once considered its duties. 
 Are the duties of the subject diminished correspondingly ? 
 Is there any longer a reason why an Englishman should 
 wish to remain an Englishman if he can better his condi- 
 tion by going elsewhere ? Liberal opinion answers frankly 
 that there is none. The Scot of the Border before the 
 union of the crowns might have bettered his condition 
 considerably by taking service with a farmer in Yorkshire. 
 He preferred a dog's life in the Cheviots to beef and bacon 
 with his " auld enemy." The modern English working 
 man is told that if he can earn an extra sixpence a day in 
 the United States it is childish and useless to regret that he 
 should change his nationality ; it is his interest to go to the 
 United States, and he ought to go there. 
 
 Let us carry out this theory to its consequences. What- 
 ever may be the case hereafter, it will not be seriously 
 pretended that war is as yet impossible. A long, persistent, 
 and universal devotion to self-interest — interest meaning 
 money-making — may convert us at last to the views of the 
 Peace Society. We remember the boy at school who cal- 
 culated that an occasional kick hurt him less than a pitched 
 battle, and acted accordingly. English capitalists may come 
 to consider that a dishonorable peace will be less expensive 
 than the shortest war, and will humbly turn their cheek to 
 the sttlter. But we are not yet at that stage of progress. 
 No English statesman would be allowed, if he wished it, to 
 accept an ignominious alternative; and should things ac- 
 
230 Reciprocal Duties of State and Sulject. 
 
 cidentally come to that, how will it then go with us ? War 
 is costly. The sacrifices which it involves must be large, 
 and may be ruinous. We have borne such sacrifices in 
 past times, not with patience only, but with enthusiasm. 
 Will tht) people generally be inclined to bear them again ? 
 We do not count upon the loyalty of the colonies ; we 
 would rather see them declare themselves neutral, and re- 
 lieve us of the trouble of defending them. They have stil] 
 probably sufficient English feeling to cling to our fortunes. 
 They have learnt the new ideas imperfectly and unwillingly, 
 and may prefer to take their chance with us for good or evil. 
 At any rate, however, we expect nothing from them ; we 
 disclaim concern in them, and we do not ask them to concern 
 themselves for us. But at home ? Why at home should 
 there be any mighty effort to maintain a nationality which 
 no longer believes in itself — which declares itself to be 
 nothing more than a congregation of so many millions, la- 
 boring each for nothing but to grow rich; the few succeed- 
 ing, the many, as it always must be, climbing a slippery 
 hill-side, and sliding continually to the bottom ? Why 
 should those millions pay increased taxes ? Why should 
 they even fight ? — for what could conquest take from the 
 mass of them which they care to lose ? Freedom they can 
 find in America by simply going there ; and if interest is 
 to take them there in peace, why may they not go there to 
 avoid the sufferings of war ? why not — except for those 
 traditional ideas of honor and national pride which are 
 called in scorn sentimental ? 
 
 Interest to a sensible man is the measure of his national 
 obligations ! Well, then, to put an extreme case : Sup- 
 pose a hundred and fifty thousand French encamped round 
 London ; what interest have the English field-laborers, me- 
 chanics, and artisans in risking their lives to drive them 
 away ? We refuse, when they are in want, to make an 
 effoii^. to preserve them to our own flag by sending them 
 to our colonies ; we point to the United States as their nat- 
 
Meciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 231 
 
 oral refiige. What stake have they in the English Empire 
 that they should fight for it ? Is it said that so long as they 
 remain in it England is their home ? Men will fight for 
 their home when it is something which they cannot take 
 away with them, when it is a substance that is more than a 
 name, and carries associations with it which have a hold on 
 their affections. But what value, substantial or sentimental, 
 is there to a man in a single room in an alley in London or 
 Manchester, without a yard of English soil owned or ten- 
 anted by himself or any one belonging to him ; where he is 
 uncared for, save for the work that can be got out of him, 
 with foul air to breathe, foul water to drink, adulterated 
 bread to eat,^ and for his sole amusement the drink-shop at 
 the corner, where he is poisoned with drugged beer or the 
 oil of vitriol which gives fervor to his gin ? The working 
 man has no property but his skill, which' he can carry with 
 him, and which will secure him wages wherever he likes to 
 go. Why should he endure inconvenience or danger or in- 
 creased taxation for a country which does nothing for him, 
 and in which he has nothing to lose ? He has been taught 
 that his sole business is to raise himself in life. His own 
 interest is no longer in any sense whatever the interest of 
 his country. What is his country to him ? Should extrem- 
 ity come upon us, we should have to fall back on the old- 
 world ideas of duty, and honor, and patriotism — and duty 
 on one side involves duty on the other. The State cannot 
 demand allegiance in time of danger, when it is loudly in- 
 different to it in prosperity. Or if nations are to be held 
 together for the fiiture by interest, there must be a commu- 
 nity of interest to all. All must gain and all must lose to- 
 gether. There is no maintaining a one-sided, bargain. We 
 must not have the parks and pheasant preserves growing on 
 one side, and the hovel and the garret remaining unchanged 
 on the other. Those who have nothing to lose which de- 
 
 1 Mr. Bright talks of a free breakfast-table ; he says nothing of a pure 
 bi«akfast-table. 
 
232 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 feat can take from them, and to whom success will bring no 
 advantage, will be simple fools if they risk their skins for 
 the sake of the rich who alone have any stake in the residt. 
 If aU interests are indeed personal, if the beginning and the 
 end of each man's business is to better his own condition, 
 the attractive forces which bind together the constituents ot 
 society become repellent forces, and for a bar of steel we 
 have a dust-heap of atoms. 
 
 As- little can interest be depended on as an adequau. in- 
 centive to justice and honesty. It may be true, that in the 
 long run the honest man succeeds better than the dishonest, 
 but there must be a correct idea to begin vdth of what suc- 
 cess means, and a longer run than society can afford for the 
 issue to be visibly decided. The lesson itseK after all is 
 never learnt by the community. The individual rogue is 
 only convinced when he has found the truth of it in his own 
 person. It is by no means the good man at any time who 
 will make most money in this world. In the first place, the 
 good man will never care exclusively for making money ; 
 in the next, he will be infallibly beaten by the selfish, 
 shrewd, unscrupulous man, who, without breaking any writ- 
 ten law, wiU take advantage of any opportunity which may 
 offer itself — on the broad margin of undefined obligation, 
 where law is sUent, and only morality has a voice. Where 
 money is the measure of worth the vrrong persons are 
 always uppermost. Unrestricted competition is held a se- 
 curity for probity in trade. The fair dealer, it is said, who 
 provides good articles at reasonable prices, will beat the 
 rogue who sells soft iron for steel, and hemp for silk, and 
 colored cider for port wine, and colored water for mUk, and 
 cocoanut oU and lard for butter, and shoddy for woolen 
 cloth. The sober banker who is contented with moderate 
 profits, draws away the business at last from the speculator 
 who tempts customers by high interest, pays for it for a few 
 years out of capital, and bolts and leaves them ruined. It 
 may be so. But society has suffered meanwhile from un- 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 233 
 
 detected or unpunished villainy. The life of the honest 
 laborer is a happier and a longer one than the life of the 
 burglar and the pickpocket, but that is no reason why the 
 burglar or the pickpocket should be left to prey upon us 
 without interference. Short rpada to fortune are so attrac- 
 tive, the natural penalties faU so unequally, the chief scoun- 
 drels so often escape altogether, whUe the comparatively 
 innocent are left to suffer, that if we trust to the action of 
 natural laws, there is no fear that the supply wUl fail of 
 sharks and dog-fish to prey to the end upon the harmless 
 members of the commonwealth. There is such a thing as a 
 trade reputation. A house of business, by a long course of 
 honorable dealing, has secured a good name, and a good 
 name is in itself a property, which a change of ownership, a 
 more expensive habit of life, an intention of retiring from 
 business, or setting up as a gentleman, may tempt the owner 
 to realize. It is easily done. Inferior articles are substituted 
 for the good. The profits increase. The name is not im- 
 mediately forfeited ; money for a number of years pours 
 in with accumulated speed. Ultimately the business is de- 
 stroyed, but the rogue has cleared off with his plunder. 
 The concern has lasted his time, and he cares nothing for 
 what comes after him. He has bought an estate, he has 
 lived in luxury with his powdered footmen, his hothouses 
 and his seat in Parliament ; what is it to him ? 
 
 A nation in the same way may realize its reputatiop. 
 The excellence of its manufactures may have given it 
 supremacy in the markets of the world. Competition may 
 have been distanced, and trade driven into channels which 
 cannot be immediately changed. Crowds of aspirants to 
 fortune rush in to share the spoils. They underbid their 
 rivals, and flood the markets with rubbish which the, na- 
 tion's fame is made available to float. The old houses are 
 driven into the same courses to keep their place in the 
 race. There is a period of "unexampled prosperity." 
 Exports and imports rise; there are congratulations on 
 
234 Beciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 the elasticity of the revenue and the infinite extensibility 
 of commerce ; while all the time the foundations have been 
 undermined, the reputation accumulated by centuries of 
 honest work has been realized and squandered by a single 
 •generation. The nation has been but a heedless spend- 
 thrift living upon his capital, and it can only recover its 
 place by patiently, humbly, and painfully going back to ia 
 old-fashioned ways. 
 
 "Whether the depression of trade so much complained of 
 lately in England be due wholly or in part to a cause 
 of this kind, outsiders can conjecture only from their owi\ 
 limited experience, and from such accounts as reach them 
 from consumers at home and abroad. "We observe, how- 
 ever, in the published reports, that whUe other branches 
 of business are still suffering, the trade in shoddy never 
 was more vigorous.-' 
 
 Nature doubtless will apply her remedy. Dishonesty 
 will prove as usual the worst policy, but if England has 
 gone or shall go very far upon that bad road, the conse- 
 quences so far as we are concerned may well be irreparable, 
 and it wUl be small comfort if we serve only to point a 
 moral in the world's future history. It will then be a 
 question whether the fashionable contempt of our fathers 
 has not been folly after all : whether the supervision and 
 control which have be^n flung away as an interference with 
 natural liberty were not and are not as indispensable in 
 transactions of commerce as in the prevention of violent 
 forms of crime ; whether swindling after all is less mis- 
 chievous than burglary or piracy ; whether the selfishness 
 and folly of individuals do not require at all times and 
 under all conditions to be held in hand by intelligence 
 and probity. "We talk of freedom. The old saw of the 
 moralist is as true to-day as it was two thousand years 
 ago. There is no real freedom except in obedience to the 
 laws of the Maker of all things. Just laws are no restraint 
 1 March, 1870. 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 236 
 
 upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires 
 nothing which a just law will interfere with. He is as free 
 under the law as without the law, and he is grateful for its 
 guidance when want of knowledge might lead him wrong. 
 Liberty to the bad man, we haye yet to learn, is of any 
 profit to him or to his neighbors. Against unjust laws, 
 against unwise laws, against the self-interested obstructions 
 of dishonest authority, or the stupid meddling of ignorant 
 authority, it is necessary to protest, and in extremity to 
 rebel ; but it has not yet been proved that because bad 
 laws are mischievous, good laws are unattainable ; that the 
 self-interests of all sons of Adam are to be left to jostle one 
 against another, and that the result, by some wonderfiil 
 arrangement, will turn out harmony. 
 
 " I saw," says the Preacher, " that wisdom excelleth folly, 
 as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes 
 are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness ; and I 
 perceived that one event happeneth to them' all. I said in 
 my heart. As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth to 
 me. Why then was I more wise ? " But the philosopher 
 who was thus perplexed with the inscrutable mystery of 
 the universe, and was driven " to hate life " by the con- 
 fusion and misery around him, was a king who had believed 
 in laissez-faire, who had left justice and righteousness to 
 nature and economic laws. He sums up the catalogue of 
 his achievements : " He had built him houses and vine- 
 yards," "he had planted gardens and orchards and made 
 pools of water," " he had got him servants and maidens and 
 great possessions, and gold and silver, and all the delights 
 of the sons of men.'' This was the grand outcome of all 
 his labors ; and he wondered to find that it was " vanity." 
 " That which was crooked could not be made straight," be- 
 cause he had never tried to straighten it, and preferred to 
 gaze on the evils which were done under the sim in elegant 
 despondency. 
 
 To bring these remarks to a conclusion. I regard the 
 
236 Reciprocal Duties of State and Svijeet. 
 
 present constitution of government or no government in 
 this country, not as the resiilt of deliberate and wise fore- 
 sight, not as an elaborate machine shaped into perfection 
 by the successive efforts of political sagacity, but as a con- 
 dition of things arising from causes historically traceable, 
 very far removed from perfection, made possible only by 
 peculiar external circumstances and no less inevitably 
 transient. The House of Commons broke the power of the 
 Crown. The House of Commons itself is composed of 
 heterogeneous elements which, by degrees, have vTanged 
 themselves into two great sections, — the establahed <ami- 
 lies and those who aspire to be established, the couni-'y 
 party and the town party, the agricultural party and the 
 commercial party, with other lines of division parallel to 
 .these, and nearly coiacident with them, the party of the 
 past and the party of the future, those who believe in 
 established usage and those who believe in change and 
 progress, opposing sentiments combined with opposing 
 interests. The full development of these tendencies was 
 long interfered with by tradition and inherited association. 
 The English, like all great nations, are instinctively con- 
 servative, and fear of change and novelty has been a drag 
 upon the wheel. It is only since the masses were called to 
 a share of the franchise, in the first Reform BUI, that the 
 balance has been established in completeness, which is 
 called government by party, and the responsibility of the 
 virtual head of the State to the House of Commons, and 
 the House of Commons alone. Like many other phe- 
 nomena which have had their day in this world, it is 
 attended by a philosophy which extols it as the most 
 finished form of political organization. The result of it is 
 the paralysis of authority, the limitation of statesmanship 
 to the immediate necessities of the hour, and the sur- 
 rounding the Prime Minister with so many intricacies of 
 situation that he lives in a strait-waistcoat, with handcuffs 
 on his wrists and fetters on his ankles. "Were he a Moses 
 
JReaiproeal Duties of State and Subject. 237 
 
 or a Lycurgus, he can do nothing without a majority at hia 
 back — a majority composed of men who are sent to Par- 
 liament, not for their ability, not for their patriotism or their 
 probity, but because they can be rehed on to defend the 
 interest which they are elected to represent. The minis- 
 ter's first and last care is to avoid offending these persons. 
 He must leave abuses untouched which he would not spare 
 for an hour could he have his way, because this and that 
 member of his party is interested iu maintaining them. 
 Every avenue of practical administration is obstructed. 
 To get the slightest thing effectually done is made so 
 difficult that any excuse is caught at for leaving it undone. 
 The art of a statesman becomes the art of " how not to do 
 it," and there is no wonder that, harassed and tormented, 
 he listens greedily to and learns himself to repeat the. 
 phrases of the prevaUing theory, and has but one answer to 
 every petition, that those who wish anything to be done must 
 do it for themselves. Drunkenness cannot be checked, 
 because it is dangerous to offend the brewers and the pot- 
 house-keepers, who have so large influence in the elections ; 
 and those who are scandalized at the wreck and ruin which 
 the drink trade is causing are treated to a lesson on moral 
 self-restraint. Bakers who adulterate their bread must 
 not be exposed and punished. The bakers, at the next 
 dissolution, will vote as a class for the Opposition candi- 
 date. In the same way aU patronage, all offices of which 
 governments have to dispose, aU honors which they have 
 to distribute, are similarly sacrificed to party, to rigging 
 votes, and wire-pulling majorities. The competitive ex- 
 amination system has been established in the lower 
 branches of the public service, not as a thing good in itself 
 — we shall believe that it is good in itself when merchants 
 and bankers let the board of examiners choose their clerks 
 for them — but as an expedient to rescue some parts of the 
 service from, jobbery, and to save ministers from the ne- 
 cessity of offending their supporters, by refusing requests 
 
238 Reciprocal Duties of State and Sul^ect. 
 
 which they could not in ordinary honesty grant. The 
 establishment of the system is only a confession that the 
 possessors of patronage can no longer exercise it con- 
 scientiously, while the popular voice sings its praises as a 
 triumph of probity and sagacity. The fact and the theory 
 are made to harmonize. Government is inefficient. It 
 changes so frequently that a minister is superseded before 
 he comes to understand his work. He can lay down no 
 principles, for they are liable to be immediately reversed ; 
 but the object is that he should do nothing, and therefore 
 it is well that he should be able to do nothing. A colonial 
 policy is impossible, not because intelligent people do not 
 believe that a closer union with the colonies is not in itself 
 desirable, but because influential capitalists are interested 
 in keeping down the labor market, and they know that 
 such a union would be accompanied with a large and sus- 
 tained emigration. 
 
 Among the infinite resultants from such a condition of 
 things one of the most obvious is the enormous waste of 
 ability. It is tragical to think of such a mind as Mr. Glad- 
 stone's being occupied incessantly with petty thoughts of 
 how he can keep his party together. He must fawn and 
 flatter and make himself common upon platforms,, and 
 give honor where honor is not due, and withhold it where 
 he knows it ought to be bestowed. He stands in the front 
 rank of the nation ; its seeming idol, yet the servant of 
 those who clamor that he is the greatest living man ; yet 
 little less helpless than the meanest of them to do what he 
 knows that their welfare demands, and forced, when called 
 on, to find reasons why such things are better left undone. 
 He is bringing in measures for the improved government 
 of Ireland. He is obliged to say that he expects good from 
 them ; yet every one who understands Ireland is aware that 
 there is but one possible end to the chronic disease of that 
 unhappy country, without which if an angel brought a land 
 law for it from heaven the symptoms would continue una- 
 
Beeiprocal Duties of State and Subject. 239 
 
 bated ; and that -is a just, impartial, and stable administra- 
 tion. So long as parties go in and out and governments 
 live by majorities of votes, the Tory when he is in will court 
 the Protestant land-owner, and the Liberal who wishes to 
 oust him wUl fawn on the Catholic priest, and the wretched 
 peasantry will be fevered with exciting promises, and fed on 
 hopes which must be forever disappointed. 
 
 When Lord Derby came last into office, and it was ru- 
 mored that the ground was to be cut from under Mr. Glad- 
 stone's feet by the introduction of a Reform Bill, I asked 
 some one — I must not indicate him more closely — why the 
 Tories did not keep to their own peculiar province ? Au- 
 thority was everywhere falling to pieces ; why did not they 
 Bay frankly they would try to check, for instance, the dis- 
 honesty of trade, and that if the people wanted reform bUls 
 they must go to those who believed that reform would do 
 them good ? My friend said that they would be immedi- 
 ately thrown out. I agreed ; but I said they would return 
 in a year or two, with every right-minded Englishman at 
 their backs. My friend was being educated. He said it 
 would never do. The Tories had been long out of power, 
 and they wanted patronage. There were House of Com- 
 mons supporters to be made peers, barristers to be made 
 judges, parsons to be made deans and bishops, hungry hang- 
 ers-on to be provided for, or their services could not be 
 counted on for the future. Thei/ must blood the noses of 
 their hounds. 
 
 It was enough. The system of party government had 
 demoralized both sections of the ruling classes with equal 
 completeness. It was and is idle to hope that any good 
 can come to us as a nation while our aff9,irs are managed on 
 the principle of blooding the hounds' noses, though it be 
 construed by aU the newspapers in England into the devel- 
 opment of constitutional liberty. 
 
 Constitutions are made for the country, and not the coun- 
 try for constitutions. Lord Bacon imagined that knowl- 
 
240 Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 
 
 edge could be so formularized as to become mechanical, and 
 that the inequalities of natural ability would be leveled or 
 neutralized. No symptoms of such a change are as yet vis- 
 ible. The man of genius retains his supremacy in science. 
 The intellect of a Stephenson or a Faraday remains a ruling 
 power, which the world obeys and prospers in obeying. As 
 little has society arrived, or can arrive, at a stage when the 
 wisdom of the statesman is no longer needed for control and 
 governance, where the sage and the blockhead, the knave 
 and the honest man, can be trusted to rub on together 
 with equal rights and equal liberties. In human things, 
 as in all else, there is a right way in opposition to a wrong 
 way, which only wisdom can discover, yet in the choice of 
 which, or the rejection of which, success or failure depends ; 
 and the laissez-faire philosophy is but a phase of opinion, 
 a flattering interpretation of transient political phenomena, 
 which could not surtive a single spasm of severe national 
 trial, which would vanish into air before a protracted war, or 
 even before a chronic decay of trade, which might bring on 
 us here in England a repetition of the Irish famine. 
 
 The heart of the nation, however, is still sound as ever. 
 The popular political theories are but as a scum upon its 
 surface, plausible formulas adapted to an accidental state 
 of things, which are passed from mouth to mouth by multi- 
 tudes who have never yet had occasion to think seriously, 
 but which lie merely upon the lips, and have never pene- 
 trated and never will penetrate into the hearts of such a peo- 
 ple as the English. The English are an order-loving people, 
 who detest anarchy in whatever shining dress it may pre- 
 sent itself. They have power at last in their hands. They 
 must learn to make, a wise use of it, and discover means by 
 which it can be made available to their real good, by giving 
 permanence and stability to authority. It is admitted on all 
 Bides that the two parties which divide the country repre- 
 sent each a form of thought which is the complement of the 
 other. Her Majesty's Government is incomplete without 
 
Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject. 241 
 
 her Majesty's Opposition. It may be difficult, but it cannot 
 be impossible, to unite the energies which are now ex- 
 hausted in neutralizing one another, and make available 
 Buch political intelligence as we possess for some more 
 wholesome and enduring administration. The great inter- 
 ests of the Empire must not and cannot remain at the 
 mercy of parliamentary intrigues, or the transient gusts of 
 popular opinion. It is true that there can be no such thing 
 any more as fixity of tenure in high office. That arrange- 
 ment the world has outgrown. But without fixity of ten- 
 ure, without sacrifice of eventual responsibility, there might 
 be a longer and more secure lease of power under which a 
 feir-sighted statesmanship might become again possible, and 
 ministers might use their opportunities and their ability in 
 the true interests of the country, without fear of being driven 
 from their places by the passing gusts of interested or igno> 
 rant impatience. 
 18 
 
THE MERCHANT AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 AN APOLOGUE FOR THE COLONIAL OFFICE. 
 
 " My dear," said a distinguished merchant one day to his 
 wife, " you cost me a great deal of money. "Why do you 
 not cultivate your own estates, and relieve me of the bur- 
 den of you ? " 
 
 The wife was a little hurt at so abrupt an address. Her 
 property was magnificent, but she wanted help to develop 
 its resources. She had often applied to her husband, s»d 
 if he would have put his hand to the work, he might have 
 become the wealthiest man ia. the world. But he sus- 
 pected that after he had laid out his capital and labor she 
 would run away from him, and he would have made a bad 
 speculation. 
 
 His suspicions were groundless. She was heartily at- 
 tached to him, — not an idea of desertion had floated before 
 her imagination for a moment. She exerted herself, how- 
 ever, as he desired : she paid for her dresses, she paid for 
 her carriage and her maid, she even took charge of such 
 of his children as he could not himself provide for, and set 
 *hem up for life. The merchant ought to have been satis- 
 id, but one morning he began again : — 
 
 " My dear, you are now independent. I don't wish you 
 tc leave me, but if you have any such desire yourself, I 
 shall not think of preventing you." 
 
 " Leave you," she said, " leave you ! what are yon talk- 
 ing about ? What have I done to deserve *iiat you should 
 speak to me in this way ? " 
 
The Merchant and Mb Wife. 243 
 
 " Don't misunderstand me,'' he replied. " I have ob- 
 served great unhappiness to arise from compulsory unions. 
 I have taught you to depend upon yourself that you may be 
 your own mistress; you can now stand alone, and your 
 future is in your hands, to go or stay." 
 
 " Are you mad ? " she exclaimed ; " who talks of going ? 
 Why " — and here her voice choked a little — " why should 
 such a word be mentioned between you and me ? " 
 
 " My dear, don't be sentimental," he said. " The only 
 sure 'bond between human creatures is mutual interest. 
 As long as you consider it to be yoiir interest to continue 
 under this roof, I shall be delighted to see you here, and I 
 think I am generous in allowing it. If I were alone, a 
 smaller establishment would suffice for my wants. I could 
 seU my house, dismiss the servants, live in chambers, and 
 dine at the club." 
 
 " My dear husband," she cried, " do not speak such 
 dreadful words ! What family can hold together on such 
 terms as these ? All I have, you well know, is yours ; and 
 surely, with your genius for business and your means, my 
 property — " 
 
 " Don't talk to me of your property," he interrupted im- 
 patiently, " I have many times told you that I will have 
 nothing to do with it. Manage your matters your own 
 way. Do what you like, or go where you wiU. I interfere 
 with you in nothing ; one thing only you must not do, 
 that is, ask me for money. I am not sending you away. 
 I shall be sorry to lose you if you go, but the loss will be 
 more yours than mine, and if you leave me, I shall en- 
 deavor to bear it." 
 
 It was long before the wife could believe him serious. 
 Day after day, however, he repeated the same lesson ■ — at 
 breakfast and at dinner, before they went to sleep at night, 
 and before they rose in the morning. A wise word, the 
 merchant thought, could not be heard too often. 
 
 At last he wearied her. She saw that he had no real 
 
244 The Merchant and his Wife. 
 
 affection for her. She was a high-spirited, handsome 
 woman, and her husband was the only person who seemed 
 indifferent to her attractions. One day when he came 
 home from business, he found she had taken him at his 
 word, and had eloped with another man. 
 
 He professed to be astonished. He declared that he 
 had allowed her her way in everything, and he complained 
 that she had been deeply ungrateful to him. A neighbor, 
 however, to whom he appealed for sympathy, told him that 
 he had been an in&tuated ass. 
 
ON PROGRESS. 
 
 Amidst the varied reflections which the nineteenth cen- 
 tury is in the habit of making on its condition and its pros- 
 pects, there is one common opinion in which all parties 
 coincide — that we live in an era of progress. Earlier 
 ages, however energetic in action, were retrospective in 
 their sentiments. The contrast between a degenerate 
 present and a glorious past was the theme alike of poets, 
 moralists, and statesmen. When the troubled Israelite de- 
 manded of the angel why the old times were better than 
 the new, the angel admitted the fact while rebuking the 
 curiosity of the questioner. "Ask not the cause," he 
 answered. " Thou dost not inquire wisely concerning 
 this." As the hero of Nestor's youth flimg the stone with 
 ease which twelve of the pigmy chiefs before Troy could 
 scarcely lift from the ground, so " the wisdom of our an- 
 cestors " was the received formula for ages with the Eng- 
 lish politician. Problems were fairly deemed insoluble 
 which had baffled his fathers, "who had more wit and 
 wisdom than he." We now know better, or we imagine 
 that we know better, what the past really was. We draw 
 comparisons, but rather to encourage hope than to indulge 
 despondency, or foster a deluding reverence for exploded 
 errors. The order of the ages is inverted. Stone and iron 
 came first. We ourselves may possibly be in the silver 
 stage. An age of gold, if the terms of our existence on 
 this planet permit the contemplation of it as a possibility, 
 lies unrealized in the future. Our lights are before us, and 
 all behind is shadow. In every department of life — in its 
 
246 On Progress. 
 
 business and in its pleasures, in its beliefs and in its tlieo- 
 ries, in its material developments and in its spiritual con- 
 victions — we thank God that we are not like our fathers. 
 And while we admit their merits, making allowance for 
 their disadvantages, we do not bind ourselves in mistaken 
 modesty to our own immeasurable superiority. 
 
 Changes analogous to those which we contemplate with 
 so much satisfaction have been witnessed already in tLo 
 history of other nations. The Roman in the time of the 
 Antonines might have looked back with the same feelings 
 on the last years of the Republic. The civil wars were at 
 an end. From the Danube to the African deserts, from 
 the Euphrates to the Irish Sea, the swords were beaten 
 into ploughshares. The husbandman and the artisan, the 
 manufacturer and the merchant, pursued their trades 
 under the shelter of the eagles, secure from arbitrary vio- 
 lence, and scarcely conscious of their master's rule. Order 
 and law reigned throughout the civilized world. Science 
 was making rapid strides. The philosophers of Alexandria 
 had tabulated the movements of the stars, had ascertained 
 the periods of the planets, and were anticipating by con- 
 jecture the great discoveries of Copernicus. The mud 
 cities of the old world were changed to marble. Greek 
 art, Greek literature, Greek enlightenment, followed in tho 
 track of the legions. The harsher forms of slavery were 
 modified. The bloody sacrifices of the Pagan creeds were 
 suppressed by the law ; the coarser and more sensuous 
 superstitions were superseded by a broader philosophy. 
 The period between the accession of Trajan and the death 
 of Marcus Aurelius has been selected by Gibbon as the 
 time in which the human race had enjoyed more general 
 happiness than they had ever known before, or had known 
 since, up to the date when the historian was meditating 
 on their fortunes. Yet during that very epoch, and in the 
 midst of all that prosperity, the heart of the empire was 
 dying out of it. The austere virtues of the ancient Romans 
 
On Progress. 247 
 
 were perishing with their faults. The principles, the haoits, 
 the convictiohs, which held society together were giving 
 way, one after the other, befr""< luxury and selfishness. 
 The entire organization of the ancient world was on the 
 point of collapsing into a heap of incoherent sand. 
 
 If the merit of human institutions is at all measured by 
 their strength and stability, the increase of -wealth, of pro- 
 duction, of liberal sentiment, or even of knowledge, is not 
 of itself a proof that we are advancing on the right road. 
 The unanimity of the belief therefore that we are advanc- 
 ing at present must be taken as a proof that we discern 
 something else than this in the changes whi( h we are un- 
 dergoing. It would be well, however, if we could define 
 more clearly what we precisely do discern. It would a,t 
 once be a relief to the weaker brethren whose minds occa- 
 sionally misgive them, and it would throw out into distinct 
 ness the convictions which we have at length arrived at on 
 the true constituents of human worth, and the objects 
 towards which human beings ought to direct their energies. 
 "W^e are satisfied that we are going forward. That is to be 
 accepted as no longer needing proof. Let us ascertain or 
 define in what particulars and in what direction we are 
 going forward, and we shall then understand in what im- 
 provement really consists. 
 
 The question ought not to be a difficult one, for we have 
 abundant and varied materials. The. advance is not con- 
 fined to ourselves. France, we have been told any time 
 these twenty years, has been progressing enormously under 
 the beneficent rule of Napoleon HI. Lord Palmerston 
 told us, as a justification of the Crimean "War, that Turkey 
 had made more progress in the two preceding generations 
 than any country in the world. From these instances we 
 might infer that Progress was something mystic and in- 
 visible, like the operation of- the graces said to be conferred 
 in baptism. The distinct idea which was present in Lord 
 Palmerston's mind is difficult to discover. In the hope 
 
.248 On Progress. 
 
 that some enlightened person will dear np an obscurity 
 which exists only perhaps in our own want of perception, 
 I proceed to mention some other instances in which, while 
 I recognize change, I am unable to catch the point of view 
 from which to regard it with unmixed satisfaction. Rous- 
 seau maintained that the primitive state of man was the 
 happiest, that-ciAdlization was corruption, and that human 
 nature deteriorated with the complication of the conditions 
 of its existence. A paradox of that kind may be defended 
 as an entertaining speculation. I am not concerned with 
 any such barren generalities. Accepting social organiza- 
 tion as the school of all that is best in us, I look merely 
 to the alterations which it is undergoing ; and if in some 
 things passing away it seems to me that we are lightly 
 losing what we shall miss when they are gone and cannot 
 easily replace, I shall learn gladly that I am only suffering 
 under the proverbial infirmity of increasing years, and that, 
 like Esdras, I perplex myself to no purpose. 
 
 Let me lightly, then, run over a list of subjects on which 
 the believer in progress will meet me to most advantage. 
 
 I win begin with the condition of the agricultural poor, 
 the relation of the laborer to the soil, and his means of sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 The country squire of the last century, whether he was a 
 Squire Western or a Squire Allworthy, resided for the 
 greater part of his life in the parish where he was bom. 
 The number of freeholders was four times what it is at . 
 present ; plurality of estates was the exception ; the owner 
 of land, like the peasant, was virtually ascriptus ghhm — a 
 practical reality in the middle of the property committed to 
 liim. His habits, if he was vicious, were coarse and brutal 
 — if he was a rational being, were liberal and temperate ; 
 but in either case the luxuries of modern generations were 
 things unknown to him. His furniture was massive and 
 
On Progress. 249 
 
 enduring. His household expenditure, abundant iu quan- 
 tity, provided nothing of the costly delicacies which it is 
 now said that every one expects and every one therefore feels 
 bound to provide. His son at Christchurch was contented 
 with half the allowance which a youth with expectations 
 now holds to be the least on which he can live like a 
 gentleman. His servants were brought up in ihe family 
 as apprentices, and spent their lives under the same roof. 
 His wife and his daughters made their own dresses, darned 
 their own stockings, and hemmed their own handkerchiefs. 
 The milliner was an unknown entity at houses where the 
 milliner's bill has become the unvarying and not the most 
 agreeable element of Christmas. A silk gown lasted a life- 
 time, and the change in fashions was counted rather by gen- 
 erations than by seasons. A London house was unthought 
 of — a family trip to the Continent as unimaginable as an 
 outing to the moon. If the annual migration was some- 
 thing farther than, as in Mr. Primrose's parsonage, from the 
 blue room to the brown, it was limited to the few weeks at 
 the county town. Enjoyments were less varied and less 
 expensive. Home was a word with a real meaning. Home 
 occupations, home pleasures, home associations and relation- 
 ships filled up the round of existence. Nothing else was 
 looked for, because nothing else was attainable. Among 
 other consequences, habits were far less expensive. The 
 squire's income was small as measured by modern ideas. 
 If he was self-indulgent, it was in pleasures which lay at his 
 own door, and his wealth was distributed among those who 
 were born dependent on him. Every family on the estate 
 was known in its particulars, and had claims for considera- 
 tion which the better sort of gentlemen were wUling to rec- 
 ognize. If the poor were neglected, their means of taking 
 care of themselves were immeasurably greater than at pres- 
 ent. The average squire'may have been morally no better 
 than his great-grandson. In many respects he was proba- 
 bly worse. He was ignorant, he drank hard, his language 
 
250 On Progress. 
 
 was not particularly refined, but his private character was 
 comparatively unimportant ; he was controlled in his deal- 
 ings with his people by the traditionary English habits 
 which had held society together for centuries — habits 
 which, though long gradually decaying, have melted en- 
 tirely away only witliin living memories. 
 
 At the end of the sixteenth century an Act passed oblig- 
 ing the landlord to attach four acres of land to every cot- 
 tage on his estate. The Act itself was an indication that 
 the tide was on the turn. The English vUlein, like the serf 
 aU over Europe, had originally rights in the soU, which 
 were only gradually stolen from him. The statute of Eliza- 
 beth was a compromise reserving so much of the old privi- 
 leges as appeared indispensable for a healthy life. 
 
 The four acres shriveled like what had gone before ; but 
 generations had to pass before they had dwindled to noth- 
 ing, and the laborer was inclosed between his four walls to 
 live upon his daily wages. 
 
 Similarly, in most country parishes there were tracts of 
 common land, where every householder could have his flock 
 of sheep, his cow or two, his geese or his pig ; and milk 
 and bacon so produced went into the limbs of his children, 
 and went to form the large English bone and sinew which 
 are now becoming things of tradition. The thicket or the 
 peat bog provided fuel. There were spots where the soil 
 was favorable in which it was broken up for tillage, and the 
 poor families in rotation raised a scanty crop there. It is 
 true that the common land' was wretchedly cultivated. 
 What is every one's property is no one's property. The 
 swamps were left imdrained, the gorse was not stubbed up. 
 The ground that was used for husbandry was racked. An 
 inclosed common taken in hand by a man of capital pro- 
 duces four, five, or six times what it produced before. But 
 the landlord who enters on possession is the only gainer by 
 the change. The cottagers made little out of it, but they 
 made something, and that something to them was the diffpi> 
 
On Progress. 251 
 
 snce between comfort and penury. The indlosed land re- 
 quired some small additional labor. A family or two was 
 added to the population on the estate, but it was a famUy 
 living at the lower level to which all had been reduced. 
 The landlord's rent roll shows a higher figure, or it may be 
 he has only an additional pheasant preserve. The laboring 
 poor have lost the fagot on their hearths, the milk for their 
 children, the slice of meat at their own dinners. 
 
 Even the appropriation of the commons hag not been 
 sufficient without closer paring. When the commons went, 
 there was still the liberal margin of grass on either side 
 of the parish roads, to give pickings to the hobbled sheep 
 or donkey. The landlord, with the right of the strong, 
 which no custom can resist, is now moving forward his 
 fences, taking possession of these ribbons of green, and 
 growing solid crops upon them. The land is turned to 
 better purpose. The national wealth in some inappreciable 
 Way is supposed to have increased, but the only visible 
 benefit is to the lord of the soil, and appears in some added 
 splendor to the furniture of his drawing-room. 
 
 It is said that men are much richer than they were, that 
 luxury is its natural consequence, and is directly beneficial 
 to the community as creating fresh occupations and employ- 
 ing more labor. The relative produce of human industry, 
 however, has not materially increased in proportion to the 
 growth of population. " If riches increase, they are in- 
 creased that eat them." If all the wealth which is now 
 created in -this country was distributed among the workers 
 in the old ratio, the margin which could be spent upon per- 
 sonal self-indulgence would not be very much larger than it 
 used to be. The economists insist that the growth of arti- 
 fi'aal wants among the few is one of the symptoms of civil- 
 ization — is a means provided by nature to spread abroad 
 the superfluities of the great. K the same labor, however, 
 which is now expended in the decorating and furnishing a 
 Belgravian palace was laid out upon the cottages on the 
 
252 On Progress. 
 
 estates of its owner, an equal number of workmen would 
 find employment, an equal fraction of the landlord's income 
 would be divided in wages. For the economist's own pur- 
 pose, the luxury could be dispensed with if the landlord 
 took a different view of the nature of his obligations. 
 Progress and civilization conceal the existence of his obliga- 
 tions, and destroy at the same time the old-fashioned cus- 
 toms which limited the sphere of his free will. The great 
 estates have swallowed the small. The fat ears of corn 
 have eaten up the lean. The same owner holds properties 
 in a dozen counties. He cannot reside upon them all, or 
 make personal acquaiatance with his multiplied dependants. 
 He has several country residences. He lives in London 
 half the year, and most of the rest upon the Contiaent. 
 Inevitably he comes to regard his land as an investment ; 
 his duty to it the development of its producing powers ; the 
 receipt of his rents the essence of the connection ; and his 
 personal interest in it the sport which it wUl provide for 
 himself and his friends. Modem landlords tell us that if 
 the game laws are abolished, they wiU have lost the last 
 temptation to visit their country seats. If this is their view 
 of the matter, the sooner they sell their estates and pass 
 them over to others, to whom life has not yet ceased to be 
 serious, the better it will be for the community. They 
 complain of the growth of democracy and insubordination. 
 The fault is wholly in themselves. They have lost the 
 respect of the people because they have ceased to deserve it. 
 
 II. 
 
 If it be deemed a paradox to maintain that the relation 
 between the owners of land and the peasantry was more 
 satisfactory in the old days than in the present, additional 
 hardiness is required to assert that there has been no 
 marked improvement in the clergy. The bishop, rector, 
 or vicar of the Established Church in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury is a by-word in English ecclesiastical history. The 
 
On Progress. 253 
 
 exceptijnal distinction of a Warburtdn or a "Wilson, a 
 Butler or a Berkeley, points the contrast only more vividly 
 with the worldliness of their hrothers on the bench. The 
 road to honors v^as through political subserviency. The 
 prelates indemnified themselves for their ignominy by the 
 abuse of their patronage, and nepotism and simony were 
 too common to be a reproach. Such at least is the modern 
 conception of these high dignitaries, which instances can be 
 found to justify. In an age less inflated with self-esteem, 
 the nobler specimens would have been taken for the rule, 
 the meaner and baser for the exception. Enough, how- 
 ever, can be ascertained to justify the enemies of the 
 Church in drawing an ugly picture of the condition of the 
 hierarchy. Of the parochial clergy of those times the 
 popular notion is probably derived from Fielding's novels. 
 Parson TruUiber is a ruffian who would scarcely find ad- 
 mittance into a third-rate farmers' club of the present day. 
 Parson Adams, a low life Don Quixote, retains our esteem 
 for his character at the expense of contempt for his under- 
 standing. The best of them appear as hangers-on of the 
 great, admitted to a precarious equality in the house- 
 keeper's room, their social position being something lower 
 than that of the nursery governess in the estabUshment of 
 a vulgar millionaire. 
 
 That such specimens as these were to be found in Eng- 
 land in the last century is no less certain than that in some 
 parts of the country the type may be found stUl- surviving. 
 That they were as much exceptions we take to be equally 
 clear. Those who go for information to novels niay re- 
 member that there was a Yorick as well as a Phutatorius 
 or a Giastripheres. Then, more than now, the cadets of 
 the great houses were promoted, as a* matter of course, to 
 the family livings, and were at least gentlemen. Sydney 
 Smith's great prizes of the Church were as much an object 
 of ambition to men of birth as the high places in the other 
 professions; and between pluralities and sinecures, cathe- 
 
254 On Progress. 
 
 dral prebendaries, and the fortunate possessors of two M 
 more of the larger benefices, held their own in society wii 
 the county families, and lived on equal terms with them. 
 If in some places there was spiritual deadness and slovenli-i 
 ness, in others there was energy and seriousness. Clarissa 
 Harlowe found daily service in the London churches as 
 easily as she could find it now. 
 
 That the average character of the country clergy, how- 
 ever, was signally difierent from what it is at present, is 
 not to be disputed. They wqre Protestants to the back- 
 bone. They knew nothing and cared nothing about the 
 Apostolical Succession. They had no sacerdotal preten- 
 sions ; they made no claims to be essentially distinguished 
 from the laity. Then- official duties sat lightly on them. 
 They read the Sunday services, administered the commun- 
 ion four times a year, preached commonplace sermons, 
 baptized the children, married them when- they grew to 
 maturity, and buried them .when they died ; and for the 
 rest they lived much as other people lived, like country 
 gentlemen of moderate fortune, and, on the whole, setting 
 an example of respectability. The incumbents of benefices 
 over a great part of England were men with small landed 
 properties of their own. They farmed their own glebes. 
 They were magistrates, and attended quarter sessions and 
 petty sessions, and in remote districts, where there were 
 no resident gentry of consequence, were the most effective 
 guardians of the public peace. They affected neither aus- 
 terity nor singularity. They rode, shot, hunted, ate and 
 drank, like other people ; occasionally, when there was no 
 no one else to take the work upon them, they kept the 
 hounds. In dress and habit they were simply a superior 
 class of small country gentlemen ; very far from immacu- 
 late, but, taken altogether, wholesome and solid members 
 of practical English life. It may seem like a purposed 
 afiront to their anxious and pallid successors, dad in 
 sacerdotal uniform, absorbed in their spiritual functionB, 
 
On Progregg. 256 
 
 glorying in their Divine commission, passionate theolo- 
 gians, occupied from week's end to week's end with the 
 souls of their flocks, to contrast them unfavorably with 
 secular parsons who, beyond their mechanical offices, had 
 nothing of the priest to distinguish them ; yet it is no less 
 certain that the rector of the old school stood on sounder 
 terms with his parishioners, and had stronger influence 
 over their conduct. He had more in common with them. 
 He understood them better, and they understood him 
 better. The Establishment was far more deeply rooted in 
 the afiections of the people. The measure of its strength 
 may be found in those very abuses, so much complained 
 of, which, nevertheless, it was able to survive. Th« for- 
 gotten toast of Church and Bjng was a matter of course 
 at every county dinner. The omission of it would have 
 been as much a scandal as the omission of grace. Dis- 
 senters sat quiescent under disabilities which the general 
 sentiment approved. The reviyal of spiritual zeal has been 
 accompanied with a revival of instability. As the clergy 
 have learnt to magnify their ofiice, the laity have become 
 indiflferent or hostUe. 
 
 Many causes may be suggested to explain so singular a 
 phenomenon. It is enough to mention one. The parson 
 of the old school, however ignorant of theology, however 
 outwardly worldly in character, did sincerely and faithfully 
 believe in the truth of the Christian religion ; and the con- 
 gregation which he addressed was troubled with as few 
 doubts as himself. Butler and Berkeley speak alike of 
 the spread of infidelity ; bat it was an infidelity confined 
 to the cultivated classes — to the London wits who read 
 Bolingbroke or Hume's " Essays " or " Candide." To the 
 masses of the English people, to the parishioners who 
 gathered on Sundays into the churches, whose ideas were 
 confined to the round of their common occupations, who 
 never left their own neighborhood, never saw a newspaper 
 or read a book but the Bible and the " Pilgrim's Progress," 
 
256 On Progress. 
 
 the main facts of the Gospel history were as indisputably 
 true as the elementary laws of the universe. That Christ 
 had risen from the dead was as sure as that the sun had 
 risen that morning. That they would themselves rise was 
 as certain as that they would die ; and as positively would 
 one day be called to judgment for the good or ill that they 
 had done in life. It is vain to appeal to their habits as a 
 proof that their faith was unreal. Every one of us who 
 will look candidly into his own conscience can answer that 
 objection. Every one of us, whatever our speculative 
 opinions, knows better than he practices, and recognizes a' 
 better law than he obeys. Belief and practice tend in the 
 long run, and in some degree, to correspond ; but in detail 
 and in particular instances they may be wide asunder as 
 the poles. The most lawless boys at school, and the loosest 
 young men at college, have the keenest horror of intellec- 
 tual skepticism. Then- passions may carry them away ; but 
 they look forward to repenting in the end. Later in life 
 they may take refuge in iofldeUty if they are unable to part 
 with their vices ; but the compatibility of looseness of habit 
 with an unshaken conviction of the general truths of relig- 
 ion is a feature of our nature which history and personal 
 experience alike confirm. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell upon the chauge which has 
 passed over us all during the last forty years. The most 
 ardent ritualist now knows at heart that the ground is hol- 
 low under him. He wrestles with his uncertainties. He 
 conceals his misgivings from his own eyes by the passion 
 with which he flings himself into his work. He recoils, as 
 every generous-minded man must recoil, from the blankness 
 of the prospect which threatens to open before him. To 
 escape the doud which is gathering over the foundations 
 of his faith he busies himself with ai-tificial enthusiasm in 
 the external expressions of it. He buries his head in his 
 vestments. He is vehement upon doctrinal minutite, as if 
 only these were at stake. He clutches at the curtains 
 
On Progress. 257 
 
 of mediaeval theology to hide his eyes from the lightning 
 which is blinding him. His efforts are vain. His own con- 
 victions are midermined in spite of him. What men as 
 able as he is to form an opinion doubt about, by the nature 
 of the case is made doubtful. And neither in himself nor 
 in the congregations whom he adjures so passionately is 
 there any basis of unshaken belief remaining. He is like a 
 man toiling with aU his might to build a palace out of dry 
 sand. Ecclesiastical revivals are going on all over the 
 world, and all from the same cause. The Jew, the Turk> 
 .the Hindoo, the Roman Catholic, the Anglo-Catholic, the 
 Protestant English Dissenter, are striving with all their 
 might to blow into flame the expiring ashes of their hearth 
 fires. They are building synagogues and mosques, building 
 and restoring churches, writing books and tracts ; persuad- 
 ing themselves and others with spasmodic agony that the 
 thing they love is not dead, but sleeping. Only the Ger- 
 mans, only those who have played no tricks with their souls, 
 and have carried out boldly the spirit as well as the letter 
 of the Reformation, are meeting the future with courage 
 and manliness, and retain their faith in the living reality 
 while the outward forms are passing away. 
 
 The education question is part of the Church qiiestion, 
 and we find in looking at it precisely the same phenomena. 
 Education has two aspects. On one side it is the cultiva- 
 tion of man's reason, the development of his spiritual na- 
 ture. It elevates him above the pressure of material inter- 
 ests. It makes him superior to the pleasures and the pains 
 of a world which is but his temporary home, in filling his 
 mind with higher subjects than the occupations of life would 
 themselves provide him with. One man in a mUlon of pe- 
 culiar gifls may be allowed to go no farther, and may spend 
 his time in pursuits merely intellectual. A life of specula- 
 tion to the multitude, however, would be a life of idleness 
 17 
 
258 On J'rogregs. 
 
 and uselessness. They have to maintain themselves ia in- 
 dustrious independence in a world in which it has been 
 said there are but three possible modes of existence, — beg- 
 ging, stealing, and working ; and education means also the 
 equipping a man with means to earn his own living. Every 
 nation which has come to anything considerable has grown 
 by virtue of a vigorous and wholesome education. A na- 
 tion is but the aggregate of the individuals of which it is 
 composed. Where individuals grow up ignorant and inca- 
 pable, the result is anarchy and torpor. Where there has 
 been energy, and organized strength, there is or has been 
 also an effective training of some kind. From a modern 
 platform speech one would infer that before the present 
 generation the schoolmaster had never been thought o^ and 
 that the English of past ages had been left to wander in dark- 
 ness. Were this true, they would have never risen out of 
 chaos. The problem was understood in Old England bet- 
 ter probably than the platform orator understands it, and 
 received a more practical solution than any which on our 
 new principles has yet been arrived at. Five out of six of 
 us have to earn our bread by manual labor, and will have 
 to earn it so to the end of the chapter. Five out of six 
 English children in past generations were in consequence 
 apprenticed to some trade or calling by which that neces- 
 sary feat could be surely accomplished. They learnt in 
 their catechisms and at church that they were responsible to 
 their Maker for the use which they made of their time. 
 They were taught that there was an immortal part of them, 
 the future of which depended on their conduct while they 
 remained on earth. The first condition of a worthy life 
 was to be able to live honestly ; and in the farm or at tha 
 forge, at the cobbler's bench or in the carpenter's yard, they 
 learnt to stand on their own feet, to do good and valuable 
 work for which society would thank and pay them. ■ Thence- 
 forward they could support themselves and those belonging 
 to them without meanness, without cringing, without demor- 
 
On Progrm. 259 
 
 alizing obligation to others, and had laid in rugged self- 
 dependence the only foundation for a firm and upright char- 
 acter. The old English education was the apprentice 
 system. In every parish in England the larger household- 
 ers, the squire and the parson, the farmers, smiths, joiners, 
 shoemakers, were obliged by law to divide among them- 
 selves according to their means the children of the poor 
 who would otherwise grow up unprovided for, and clothe, 
 feed, lodge, and teach them in return for their services till 
 they were old enough to take care of themselves. This 
 was the rule which was acted upon for many centuries. It 
 broke down at last. The burden was found disagreeable j 
 the inroad too heavy upon natural liberty. The gentlemen 
 were the first to decline or evade their obligations. Their 
 business was to take boys and girls for household service. 
 They preferred to have their servants ready made. They 
 did not care to encumber their establishments with awk- 
 ward urchins or untidy slatterns who broke their china, and 
 whom they were unable to dismiss. The farmers and the 
 artjsans objected naturally to bearing the entire charge — 
 they who had sufficient trouble to keep their own heads 
 above water : they had learnt from the gentlemen that their 
 first duties were to themselves, and their ill humor vented 
 itself on the poor little wretches who were flung upon their 
 unwilling hands. The children were ill-used, starved, 
 beaten. In some instances they were kUled. The benevo- 
 lent instincts of the country took up their cause. The ap- 
 prenticeship under its compulsory form passed away amidst 
 universal execrations. The masters were relieved from the 
 jbjigation to educate, the lads themselves from the obUga- 
 '.ion to be educated. They were left to their parents, to 
 their own helplessness, to the chances and casualties of life, 
 to grow up as they could, and drift untaught into whatever 
 occupation they could find. Then first arose the cry for the 
 schoolmaster. The English clergy deserve credit for hav- 
 ing been the first to see the mischief that must follow, and 
 
260 On Progresg. 
 
 to look for a remedy. If these forlorn waifs and stray* 
 could no longer be trained, they covdd not be permitted to 
 become savages. They could learn, at least, to read and 
 write. They could learn to keep themselves clean. They 
 could be broken into habits of decency and obedience, and 
 be taught something of the world into which they were to 
 be flung out to sink or swim. Democracy gave an impulse 
 to the movement. " We must educate our masters," said 
 Mr. Lowe sarcastically. Whether what is now meant by 
 education will make their rule more intelligent remains to 
 be seen. Still the thing is to be done. Children whose par- 
 ents cannot help them are no longer utterly without a friend. 
 The State charges itself with their minds, if not their bod- 
 ies. Henceforward they are to receive such equipment for 
 the battle of life as the schoolmaster can provide. 
 
 It is something, but the event only can prove that it will 
 be as useful as an apprenticeship to a trade, with the Lord's 
 Prayer and the Commandments at its back. The condi- 
 tions on which we have our being in this planet remain un- 
 changed. Intelligent work is as much a necessity as e'^er, 
 and the proportion of us who must set our hands to it is 
 not reduced. Labor is the ine\'itable lot of the majority, 
 and the best education is that which wUl make their labor 
 most productive. I do not imdervalue book knowledge. 
 Under any aspect it is a considerable thing. If the books 
 be well chosen and their contents really mastered, it may 
 be a beautiful thing ; but the stubborn fact will remain, 
 that after the years, be they more or be they less, which 
 have been spent at school, the pupil wiU be launched into 
 life as unable as when he first entered the .school door to 
 earn t, sixpence, possessing neither skill nor knowledge for 
 which any employer in England wiU be willing to hire his 
 services. An enthusiastic clergyman who had meditated 
 long on the unfairness of confining mental culture to the 
 classes who had already so many other advantages, gave his 
 village boys the same education which he had received him- 
 
On Progress, 261 
 
 self. He taught them languages and literature, and moral 
 science, and art and music. He unfitted them for the state 
 of life in which they were born. He was unable to raise 
 them into a better. He sent one of the most promising 
 of them with high recommendations to seek employment in 
 a London banking-house. The lad was asked what he could 
 do. It was found that, allowing for his age, he could pass a 
 fair examination in two or three plays of Shakespeare. 
 
 Talent, it is urged, real talent, crippled hitherto by want 
 of opportunity, wiU be enabled to show itself. It may be so. 
 Keal talent, however, is not the thing which we need be 
 specially anxious about. It can take care of itself If we 
 look down the roll of English worthies in all the great pro- 
 fessions, in church and law, in army and navy, in literature, 
 science and trade, we see at once that the road must have 
 been always open for boys of genius to rise. We have to 
 consider the million, not the units ; the average, not the 
 exceptions. 
 
 It was argued again that by educating boys' minds, and 
 postponing till later their special industrial training, we 
 learn better what each is fit for ; time is left for special fitr 
 nesses to show themselves. We shall make fewer mistakes, 
 and boys will choose the line of life for which nature has 
 qualified them. This may sound plausible, but capacity of 
 a peculiarly special kind is the same as genius, and may be 
 left to find its own place. A Canova or a Faraday makes 
 his way through all impediments into the occupation which 
 belongs to him. Special qualifications, unless they are ot 
 the highest order, do not exist to a degree worth consider- 
 ing. A boy's nature runs naturally into the channel which 
 is dug for it. Teach him to do any one thing, and in doing 
 so you create a capability ; and you create a taste along 
 with it ; his further development will go as far and as wide 
 as his sixength of faculty can reach ; and such varied knowl- 
 edge a*s he may afterwards accumulate wUl grow as about 
 a stem round the one paramount occupation which is the 
 business of his life. 
 
262 On Progreag. 
 
 A sharp lad, with general acquirements, yet unable to 
 turn his hand to one thing more than another, drifts through 
 existence like a leaf blown before the wind. Even if he 
 retains what he has learnt, it is useless to him. The great 
 majority so taught do not retain, and cannot retain, what 
 they learn merely as half-understood propositions, and 
 which they have no chance of testing by practice. Virgil 
 and Sophocles, logic and geometry, with the ordinary uni- 
 versity pass-man, are as much lost to him in twenty years 
 from his degree as if he had never construed a line or 
 Worked a problem. Why should we expect better of the 
 pupil of the middle or lower class, whose education ends with 
 his boyhood ? Why should his memory remain burdened 
 with generalities of popular science, names and dates from 
 history which have never been more than words to him, or 
 the commonplaces of political economy, which, if he attaches 
 any meaning at all to them, he regards as the millionaire's 
 catechism, which he wiU believe when he is a millionaire 
 himself? The knowledge which a man can use is the only 
 real knowledge, the only knowledge which has life and 
 growth in it, and converts itself into practical power. The 
 rest hangs like dust about the brain, or dries like rain-drops 
 off the stones. 
 
 The mind expands, we are told ; larger information gen- 
 erates larger and nobler thoughts. Is it so ? We must 
 look to the facts. General knowledge means general igno- 
 rance, and an ignorance, unfortunately, which is unconscious 
 of itself Quick wits are sharpened up. Young fellows so 
 educated learn that the world is a large place, and contains 
 many pleasant things for those who can get hold of them. 
 Their ideas doubtless are inflated, and with them their ambi- 
 tions and desires. They have gained nothing towards the 
 wholesome gratifying of those desires, while they have 
 gained considerable discontent at the inequalities of what 
 is called fortune. They are the ready-made prey of plausi- 
 ble palaver written or spoken, but they are without means 
 
On Frogress. 263 
 
 of self'help, without seriousness and without stability. They 
 believe easily that the world is out of joint because they, 
 with their little bits of talents, miss the instant recognition 
 which they think their right. Their literature, which the 
 precious art of reading has opened out to them, is the 
 penny newspaper ; their creed, the latest popular chimera 
 which has taken possession of the air. They form the 
 classes which breed like mushrooms in the modern towns, 
 and are at once the scorn and the perplexity of the thought- 
 ful statesman. They are Fenians in Ireland, trades-union- 
 ists in England, rabid partisans of slavery or rabid aboli- 
 tionists in America, socialists and red republicans on the 
 Continent. It is better thai they should have any education 
 than none. The evils caused by a smattering of informa- 
 tion, sounder knowledge may eventually cure. I reftise 
 only to admit that the transition from the old industrial ed- 
 ucation to the modem book education is, for the present or 
 the immediate future, a sign of what can be called progress. 
 Let there be more religion, men say. Education will 
 not do without religion. Along with the secular lessons we 
 must have Bible lessons, and then all will go well. It is 
 perfectly true that a consciousness of moral responsibility, a 
 sense of the obligation of truth and honesty and purity, lies 
 at the bottom of all right action — that without it knowl- 
 edge is useless, that with it everything will fall into its 
 place. But it is with religion as with all else of which I 
 am speaking. Religion can be no more learnt out of books 
 than seamanship, or soldiership, or engineering, or painting, 
 or any practical trade whatsoever. The doing right alone 
 teaches the value or the meaning of right ; the doing it will- 
 ingly, if the will is happily constituted ; the doing it unwill- 
 ingly, or under compulsion, if persuasion fails to convince. 
 The general lesson lies in the commandment once taught 
 with authority by the clergyman ; the application of it in 
 the details of practical life, in the execution of the particu- 
 lar duty which each moment brings with it. The book les- 
 
264 On Progress. 
 
 son, be it Bible lesson, or commentary, or catechism, can at 
 best be nothing more than the communication of historical 
 incidents of which half the educated world have begun to 
 question the truth, or the dogmatic assertion of opinions 
 over which theologians quarrel and will quarrel to the end 
 of time. France has been held up before us for the last 
 twenty years as the leader of civilization, and Paris as the 
 headquarters of it. The one class in this supreme hour of 
 trial for that distracted nation in which there is most hope 
 of good is that into which the ideas of Paris have hitherto 
 failed to penetrate. The French peasant sits as a child at 
 the feet of the priesthood of an exploded idolatry. BQs 
 ignorance of books is absolute ; his superstitions are con- 
 temptible ; but he has retained a practical remembrance 
 that he has a Master in heaven who wiU call him to account 
 for his life. In the cultivation of his garden and vineyard, 
 in the simple round of agricultural toil, he has been saved 
 from the temptation of the prevailing delusions, and has led, 
 for the most part, a thrifty, self-denying, industrious; and 
 useful existence. Keener sarcasm it would be hard to find 
 on the inflated enthusiasm of progress. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Admitting — and we suspect very few of our readers will 
 be inclined to admit — that there is any truth in these 
 criticisms, it wiU. still be said that our shortcomings are on 
 the way to cure themselves. We have but recently roused 
 ourselves from past stagnation, and that a new constitution 
 of things cannot work at once with aU-sided perfection is 
 no more than we might expect. Shortcomings there may 
 be, and our business is to find them out and mend them. 
 The means are now in our hands. The people have at 
 last political power. All interests are now represented in 
 Parliament. All are sure of consideration. Class govern- 
 ment is at an end. Aristocracies, land-owners, established 
 churches, can abuse their privileges no longer. The age 
 
On Progress. 265 
 
 of monopolies is gone. England belongs to herself. "We 
 are at last free. 
 
 It would be well if .there were some definition of freedom 
 which would enable men to see clearly what they mean 
 and do not mean by that vaguest of words. The English 
 Liturgy says that freedom is to be found perfectly in the 
 service of God. " Intellectual emancipation," says Gtoethe, 
 " if it does not give us at the same time control over our- 
 selves is poisonous.'' Undoubtedly the best imaginable 
 state of human things would be one in which everybody 
 thought with perfect correctness and acted perfectly well 
 of his own free will, unconstrained, and even unguided, by 
 external authority. But inasmuch as no such condition as 
 this can be looked for this side of the day of judgment, the 
 question forever arises how far the unwise should be gov- 
 erned by the wise — how far society should be protected 
 against the eccentricities of fools, and fools be protected 
 against themselves. There is a right and a wrong prin- 
 ciple on which each man's Ufe can be organized. There is 
 a right or a wrong in detail at every step which he takes. 
 Much of this he must learn for himself. He must learn to 
 act as he learns to walk. He obtains command of his limbs 
 by freely using them. To hold him up each time that he 
 totters is to deprive him, of his only means of learning how 
 not to fall. There are other things in which it is equally 
 clear that he must not be left to himself. Not only may 
 he not in the exercise of his hberty do what is injurious to 
 others — he must not seriously injure himself. A stumble 
 or a fall is a wholesome lesson to take care, but he is not 
 left to learn by the effects that poison is poison, or getting 
 drunk is brutalizing. He is forbidden to do what wiser 
 men than he know to be destructive to him. If he refuses ■ 
 to believe them, and acts on his own judgment, he is not 
 gaining any salutary instruction — he is simply hurting 
 himself, and has a just ground of complaint ever after 
 against those who ought to have restrained him. As we 
 
266 On Progress. 
 
 *' become our own masters," to use the popular phrasOj we 
 are left more and more to our own guidance, but we are 
 never so entirely masters of ourselves that we are free from 
 restraint altogether. The entire fabric of human existence 
 is woven of the double threads of freedom and authority, 
 which are forever wrestling one against the other. Their 
 legitimate spheres shde insensibly one into the other. The 
 limits of each vary with time, circumstances, and character, 
 and no rigid line can be drawn which neither ought to 
 overpass. There are occupations in which error is the only 
 educator. There are actions which it is right to blame, 
 but not forcibly to check or punish. There are actions 
 again — actions like suicide — which may concern no one 
 but a man's self, yet which nevertheless it may be right 
 forcibly to prevent. Precise rules cannot be laid down 
 which will meet all case". 
 
 The private and personal habits of grown men lie for the 
 most part outside the pale of interference. It is otherwise, 
 however, in the relations of man to society. There, run- 
 ning through every fibre of those relations, is justice and 
 injustice — justice which means the health and life of 
 society, injustice which is poison and death. As a member 
 of society a man parts with his natural rights, and society 
 in turn incurs a debt to him which it is bound to discharge. 
 Where the debt is adequately rendered, where on both 
 sides there is a consciousness of obligation, where rulers 
 and ruled alike understand that more is required of them 
 than attention to their separate interests, and where they 
 discern with clearness in what that " more " consists, there 
 at once is good government, there is supremacy of law — 
 law written ui the statute book, and law written in the 
 statute book of heaven ; and there, and only there, is f ee- 
 dom. 
 
 Das Gesetz soil nur uns Freiheit geben. 
 As m personal morality liberty is self-restraint, and self- 
 Indnlgence is slavery, so political freedom is possiJ)le only 
 
On Progress. 267 
 
 where justice is in the seat of authority, where all orders 
 and degrees work in harmony with the organic laws which 
 man neither made nor can alter — where the unwise are 
 directed by the wise, and those who are trusted with power 
 use it for the common good. 
 
 A country so governed is a free country, be the form of 
 the constitution what it may. A country not so governed 
 is in bondage, be its suffrage never so universal. Where 
 justice is supreme, no subject is forbidden anything which 
 he has a right to do or to desire ; and therefore it is that 
 political changes, revolutions, reforms, transfers of power 
 from one order to another, from kings to aristocracies, 
 from aristocracies to peoples, are in themselves no neces- 
 sary indications of political or moral advance. They mean 
 merely that those in authority are no longer fit to be 
 trusted with exclusive power. They mean that those high 
 persons are either ignorant, and so incapable, or have for- 
 gotten the public good in their own pleasures, ambitions, 
 or superstitions ; that they have ceased to be the represen- 
 tatives of any superior wisdom or deeper moral insight,' 
 and may therefore justly be deprived of privileges which 
 they abuse for their own advantage and for public mischiefr 
 Healthy nations, when justly governed, never demand con- 
 stitutional changes. Men talk of entrusting power to the 
 people as a moral education, as enlarging their self-respect, 
 elevating their imaginations, making them alive to their 
 dignity as human beings. It is well, perhaps, that we 
 should dress up in fine words a phenomenon which is less 
 agreeable in his nakedness. But at the bottom of things 
 the better sort are always loyal to governments which are 
 doing their business well and impartially. They doubt the 
 probability of being themselves Jikely to mend matters, 
 and are thankful to let well alone. The growth of popular 
 constitutions in a country originally governed by an aris- 
 tocracy implies . that the aristocracy is not any more a real 
 aristocracy — that it is alive to its own interests and blind 
 
268 On Progress, 
 
 to oiher people's interests. It does not imply that those 
 others are essentially wiser or better, but only that they 
 understand "where their own shoe pinches ; and that if it 
 be merely a question of interest, they have a right to be 
 considered as well as the class above them. In one sense 
 it may be called an advance, that in the balance of power 
 so introduced particular forms of aggravated injustice may 
 be rendered impossible ; but we are ' brought no nearer to 
 the indispensable thing without which no human society 
 can work healthily or happily — the sovereignty of wisdom 
 over folly — the preeminence of justice and right over 
 greediness and self-seeking. The unjust authority is put 
 away, the right authority is not installed in its place. Peo- 
 ple suppose it a great thing that every English householder 
 should have a share in choosing his governors. Is it that 
 the functions of government being reduced to a cipher, the 
 choice of its administrators may be left to hap-hazard? 
 The crew of a man-of-war understand something of sea- 
 manship ; the rank and file of a regiment are not absolutely 
 without an inkling of the nature of military service ; yet 
 if seamen and soldiers were allowed to choose their own 
 leaders, the fate of fleets and armies so officered would not 
 be hard to predict. Because they are not utterly ignorant 
 of their business, and because they do not court their own 
 destruction, the first use which the best of them would 
 make of such a privilege would be to refuse to act upon it. 
 No one seriously supposes that popular suffrage gives 
 us a wiser Parliament than we used to have. Under the 
 rotten borough system Parliament was notoriously a far 
 better school of statemanship than it is or ever can be 
 where the merits of candidates have first to be recognized 
 by constituencies. The rotten borough system fell, not 
 because it was bad in itself, but because it was abused to 
 maintain injustice — to enrich the aristocracy and the land- 
 owners at the expense of the people. We do not look for 
 a higher morality in the classes whom we have admitted 
 
On Progress. 269 
 
 to power; we expect them only to be sharp enough to 
 understand their own concerns. We insist that each 
 interest shall be represented, and we anticipate from the 
 equipoise the utmost attainable amount of justice. It may 
 be called progress, but it is a public confession of despair 
 of human nature. It is as much as to say, that although 
 wisdom may be higher than folly as far as heaven is above 
 earth, the wise man has no more principle than the fool. 
 Give him power and he will read the moral laws of the 
 universe into a code which will only fill his own pocket, 
 and being no better than the fool, has no more right to be 
 listened to. The entire Civil Service of thi? country, has 
 been opened amidst universal acclamations to public com- 
 petition. Any one who is not superannuated, and has not 
 incurred notorious disgrace, may present himself to the 
 Board of Examiners, and win himself a place in a public 
 department. Everybody knows that if the heads of the 
 departments were honestly to look for the fittest person 
 that they could find to fill a vacant office, they could make 
 better selections than can be made for them under the new 
 method. The alteration means merely that these superior 
 persons will not or cannot use their patronage disinterest- 
 edly, and that of two bad methods of choice the choice by 
 examination is the least mischievous. 
 
 The world calls all this progress. I call it only change ; 
 change which may bring us nearer to a better order of 
 things, as the ploughing up and rooting the weeds out of a 
 fallow is a step towards growing a clean crop of wheat 
 there, but without a symptom at present showing of healthy 
 organic growth. When a block of type from which a book 
 has been printed is broken up into its constituent letters; 
 the letters so disintegrated are called "pi." The pi, a 
 mere chaos, is afterwards sorted and distributed, preparatory 
 to being bmlt up into fresh combinations. A distinguished 
 American friend describes Democracy as " making pi." 
 
 Meanwhile, beside the social confusion, the knowledge 
 
270 On Progrea. 
 
 of outward things and the command of natural forces are 
 progressing really with steps rapid, steady, and indeed 
 gigantic. " Bjiowledge comes " if " wisdom lingers." The 
 man of science discovers ; the mechanist and the engineer 
 appropriate and utilize each invention as it is made ; and 
 thus each day tools are formed or forming, which hereafter, 
 when under moral control, will elevate the material con- 
 dition of the entire human race. The labor which a hun- 
 dred years ago made a single shirt now makes a dozen or 
 a score. Ultimately it is possible that the harder and 
 grossiif foi'sis of work will be done entirely by machinery, 
 and, leisure yt left to the human drudge which may lift 
 him bodily intc another scale of existence. For the present 
 no such effect is visible. The mouths to be fed and the 
 backs to be covered multiply even faster than the means of 
 feeding and clothing them ; and conspicuous as have been 
 the fruits of machinery in the increasing luxuries of the 
 minority, the level of comfort in the families of the labor- 
 ing mUlions has in this country been rather declining than 
 rising. The important results have been so far rather 
 political and social. Watt, Stephenson, and Wheatstone, 
 already and while their discoveries are in their infancy, 
 have altered the relation of every country in the world 
 with its neighbors. The ocean barriers between continents 
 which Nature seemed to have raised for eternal separation 
 have been converted into easily travelled highways ; moun- 
 tain chains are tunneled ; distance, once the most trouble- 
 some of realities, has ceased to exist. The inventions of 
 these three men determined the fate of the revolt of the 
 Slave States. But for them and their work the Northern 
 armies would have crossed the Potomac in mere handfuls, 
 exhausted with enormous marches. The iron roads lent 
 their help. The collected strength of all New England 
 and the West was able to fling itself into' the work ; negro 
 slavery is at an end ; and the Union is not to be split like 
 Europe into a number of independent States, but is to re- 
 
On Progrese. 271 
 
 main a single power, to exercise an influence yet unim- 
 aginable on the future fortunes of mankind. Aided by the 
 same mechanical facilities, Germany obliterates the dividing 
 lines of centuries. The Americans preserved the unity 
 wMch they had. The Germans conquer for themselves a 
 unity which they had not. France interferes, and half a 
 million soldiers are collected and concentrated in a fort- 
 night ; armies, driven in like wedges, open rents and gaps 
 from the Ehiae to Orleans ; and at the end of two months 
 the nation whose military strength was supposed to be the 
 greatest in the world was reeling paralyzed under blows to 
 which these modern contrivances had exposed her. So far 
 we may be satisfied ; but who can foresee the idtimate 
 changes of which these are but the initial symptoms ? 
 Who win be rash enough to say that they will promote 
 necessarily the happiness of mankind ? They are but 
 weapons which may be turned to good or evil, according 
 to the characters of those who best understand how to use 
 them. 
 
 The same causes have created as rapidly a tendency no 
 less momentous towards migration and interfusion, which 
 may one day produce a revolution in the ideas of allegiance 
 and nationality. English, French, Germans, Irish, even 
 Chinese and Hindus, are scattering themselves over the 
 world ; some hona fide in search of new homes, some 
 merely as temporary residents — but any way establishing 
 themselves wherever a living is to be earned in every 
 corner of the globe, careless of the flag under which they 
 have passed. Far the largest part will never return ; they 
 will leave descendants, to whom Uieir connection with the 
 old country wUl be merely matter of history : but the ease 
 with which we can now go from one place to the other will 
 keep alive an intention of returning, though it be never 
 carried out ; and as the numbers of Hiese denizens multi- 
 ply, intricate problems have already risen as to their alle- 
 giance, snd will become more and more complicated. The 
 
272 On Progress. 
 
 English at Hong Kong and Shanghai h.ive no intention 
 of becoming Chinese, but their presence there has shaken 
 the stability of* the Chinese empire, and has cost that coun- 
 try, if the returns are not enormously exaggerated, in the 
 civil wars and rebellions of which they have been the indi- 
 rect occasion, a hundred million hves. 
 
 From the earliest times we trace migrations of nations 
 or the founding of colonies by spirited adventurers ; but 
 never was the process going on at such a rate as now, and 
 never with so little order or organized communion of 
 purpose. No ingenuity could have devised a plan for the 
 dispersion of the superfluous part of the European popu- 
 lations so effective as the natural working of personal 
 impulse, backed by these new facilities. The question 
 still returns, however, To what purpose ? Axe the effects 
 of emigration to be only as the effects of machinery ? Are 
 a few hundred millions to be added to the population of 
 the globe merely that they may make money and spend it? 
 In all the great movements at present visible there is as 
 yet no trace of the working of intellectual or moral ideas — 
 no sign of a conviction that man has more to live for than 
 to labor and eat the fruit of his labor. 
 
 So far, perhaps, the finest result of scientific activity lies 
 in the personal character which devotion of a life to science 
 seems to produce. While almost every other occupation 
 is pursued for the money which can be made out of it, and 
 success is measured by the money result which has been 
 realized — while even artists and men of letters, with here 
 and there a brilliant exception, let the bankers' book be- 
 come more and more the criterion of their being on the 
 right road, the men of science alone seem to value knowl- 
 edge for its own sake, and to be valued in return for the 
 addition which they are able to make to it. A dozen dis- 
 tinguished men might be named who have shown intellect 
 enough to qualify them for the woolsack, or an archbishop's 
 mitre : external rewards of this kind might be thought the 
 
On Progress. 273 
 
 natural recompense for work which produces results so 
 splendid ; but they are quietly and unconsciously indifferent 
 — they are happy in their own occupations, and ask no 
 more ; and that here, and here only, there is real and un- 
 deniable progress is a significant proof that the laws remain 
 unchanged under which true excellence of any kind is at- 
 tainable. 
 
 To conclude. 
 
 The accumulation of wealth, with its daily services at 
 the Stock Exchange and the Bourse, with international 
 exhibitions for its religious festivals, and political economy 
 for its gospel, is progress, if it be progress at all, towards 
 .the wrong place. Baal, the god of the merchants of Tyre, 
 counted four himdred and fifty prophets when there was 
 but one Elijah. Baal was a visible reality. Baal rose in 
 his sun-chariot in the morning, scattered the evil spirits of 
 the night, lightened the heart, quickened the seed in the 
 soil, clothed the hill-side with waving corn, made the gar- 
 dens bright with flowers, and loaded the vineyard with its 
 purple clusters. When Baal turned away his face the 
 earth languished, and dressed herself in her winter mourn- 
 ing robe. Baal was the friend who held at bay the ene- 
 mies of mankind — cold, nakedness, and hunger ; who was 
 kind alike to the evil and the good, to those who wor- 
 shipped him and those who forgot their benefactor. Com- 
 pared to him, what was the being that " hid himself," the 
 name without a form — that was called on, but did not 
 answer — who appeared in visions of the night, terrifying 
 the uneasy sleeper with visions of horror ? Baal was god. 
 The other was but the creation of a frightened imagina- 
 tion — a phantom that had no existence outside the brain 
 of fools and dreamers. Yet in the end Baal could not save 
 Samaria from the Assyrians, any more than progress and 
 " unexampled prosperity " have rescued Paris from Von 
 Moltke. Paris will rise from her fallen state, if rise she 
 does, by a return to the uninviting virtues of harder and 
 18 
 
274 On Progress. 
 
 simpler times. The modern creed bids every man look 
 first to his cash-box. Fact says, that the cash-box must be 
 the second concern — that a man's life consists not in the 
 abundance of things that he possesses. The modern creed 
 says, by the mouth of a President of the Board of Trade, 
 that adulteration is the fruit of competition, and, at worst, 
 venial delinquency. Fact says, that this vile belief has 
 gone like poison into the marrow of the nations. The 
 modern creed looks complacently on luxury as a stimulus 
 to trade. Fact says, that luxury has disorganized society, 
 severed the bonds of good-wiU which unite man to man, 
 and class to class, and generated distrust and hatred. The 
 modern creed looks on impurity with an approbation none 
 the less real that it dares not openly avow it, dreading the 
 darkest sins less than over-population. Fact — which if it 
 cannot otherwise secure a hearing, expresses itself at last 
 in bayonets and bursting shells — declares that if our 
 great mushroom towns cannot clear themselves of pollu- 
 tion, the world will not long endure their presence. 
 
 A serious person, when ke is informed that any particular 
 country is making strides in civilization, will ask two ques- 
 tions. First personally, Are the individual citizens grow- 
 mg more pure in their private habits ? Are they true and 
 just in their dealings ? Is their intelligence, if they are be- 
 coming intelligent, directed towards learning and doing 
 what is right, or are they looking only for more extended 
 pleasures, and for the means of obtaining them ? Are they 
 making progress m what old-fasMoned people used to call 
 the fear of God, or are their personal selves and the indul- 
 gence of their own inclinations the end and aim of their ex- 
 istence ? That is one question, and the other is its counter- 
 part. Each nation has a certain portion of the earth's 
 surface allotted to it, from which the means of its support 
 are being wrung : are the proceeds of labor distributed justly, 
 according to the work which each individual has done ; or 
 does one plough and another reap in virtue of superior 
 strength, superior cleverness, or cunning? 
 
On 'Progress. 275 
 
 T!hese are the criteria of progress. All else is merely 
 nuBleadiing. In a state of nature there is no law but phys- 
 ical force. As society becomes organized, strength is co- 
 erced by greater strength ; arbitrary -violence ds restrained 
 by the policeman;; and the relations between man and man, 
 in some degree, are humanized. That is true improvement. 
 But large thews and sinews are only the rudest of the gifts 
 which enable one man to take advantage of ihis neighbor. 
 Sharpness iDf wit gives no higher title ;to superiority than 
 bigness of muscle and bone. The power to overreach 
 requires restraint as much as the power to rob and kill ; 
 and the progress of civilization depends on the extent of the 
 domain vrhich is reclaimed under the moral law. Nations 
 have been historically great in proportion to their success 
 in this direction. Religion, while it is sound, creates a basis 
 of conviction on which legislation can act; and where the 
 legislator drops the problem, the spiritual teacher takes it 
 up. So long as a religion is believed, and so long as it re- 
 tains a practical direction, the moral idea of right can be 
 made the principle of governmefit. When religion degen- 
 erates into, superstition or doctrinalism, the statesman loses 
 his ground, and laws intended, as it is scornfully said, to 
 make men virtuous by Act of Parliament, either sink into 
 desuetude or are formally abandoned. How far modern 
 Europe has travelled in this direction would be too large an 
 inquiry. Thus much, however, is patent, and, so far as our 
 own country is concerned, is iproudly avowed : Provinces of 
 action once formally occupied by law have been abandoned 
 to anarchy. Statutes which regulated wages, statutes which 
 assessed prices, statutes which interfered with personal lib- 
 erty, in the supposed interests of the commonwealth, have 
 been repealed as mischievous. It is now held that beyond 
 the prevention oi violence and the grossest forms of fraud, 
 government can meddle only forrmischief— that crime only 
 needs repressing, — and that a community prospers best 
 where every one is left to scramble for himself, and find the 
 
276 On Progress. 
 
 place for which his gifts best qualify him. Justice, which 
 was held formerly to be coextensive with human conduct, 
 is limited to the smallest corner of it. The laborer or arti- 
 san has a right only to such wages as he can extort out of 
 the employer. The purchaser who is cheated in a shop 
 must blame his own simplicity, and endeavor to be wiser for 
 the future. 
 
 Habits of obedience, moral convictions inherited from 
 earlier times, have enabled this singular theory to work for 
 a time ; men have submitted to be defrauded rather than 
 quarrel violently with the institutions of their country. 
 There are symptoms, however, which indicate that the 
 period of forbearance is waning. Swindling has grown to 
 a point among us where the political economist preaches 
 patience unsuccessftdly, and Trades-Unionism indicate^ that 
 the higgling of the market is not the last word on the wages 
 question. Government wUl have to take up again its aban- 
 doned functions, and wUl understand that the cause and 
 meaning of its existence is the discovery and enforcement of 
 the elementary rules of right and wrong. Here lies the 
 road of true progress, and nowhere else. It is no. primrose 
 path, — with exhibition flourishes, elasticity of revenue, and 
 shining lists of exports and imports. The upward climb 
 has been ever a steep and thorny one, involving, first of all, 
 the forgetfulness of self, the worship of which, in the creed 
 of the economist, is the mainspring of advance. That the 
 change will come, if not to us in England, yet to our poster- 
 ity somewhere upen the planet, experience forbids us to 
 doubt. The probable manner of it is hopelessly obscure. 
 Men never willingly acknowledge that they have been ab- 
 surdly mistaken. 
 
 An indication of what may possibly happen can be found, 
 perhaps, in a singular phenomenon of the spiritual develop- 
 ment of mankmd which occurred in a far distant age. The 
 feet itself is, at all events, so curious that a passing thought 
 may be useftdly bestowed upon it. 
 
On Progress. 277 
 
 The Egyptians were the first people upon the earth who 
 emerged into what is now called civilization. How they 
 lived, how they were governed during the tens or hundreds 
 of generations which intervened between their earliest and 
 latest monuments, there is little evidence to say. At the 
 date when they become distinctly visible they present the 
 usual features of effete Oriental societies ; the labor execut- 
 ed by slave gangs, and a rich, luxurious minority spending 
 their time in feasting and revelry. Wealth accumulated, 
 art flourished. Enormous engineering works illustrated 
 the talent or ministered to the vanity of the priestly and mil- 
 itary classes. The favored of fortune basked in perpetual 
 sunshine. The millions sweated in the heat un^er the lash 
 of the task-master, and were paid with just so much of the 
 leeks, and onions, and fleshpots, as would continue them in 
 a condition to work. Of these despised wretches some hun- 
 dreds of thousands were enabled by Providence to shake off 
 the yoke, to escape over the Eed Sea into the Arabian des- 
 ert, and there receive from Heaven a code of laws under 
 which they were to be governed in the land where they 
 were to be planted. 
 
 What were those laws ? 
 
 The Egyptians, in the midst of their corruptions, had in- 
 herited the doctrine from their fathers which is considered 
 the foundation of all religion. They believed in a life be- 
 yond the grave — in the judgment bar of Osiris, at which 
 they were to stand on leaving their bodies, and in a future 
 of happiness or misery as they had lived well or Ul upon 
 earth. It was not a speculation of philosophers — it was 
 the popular creed ; and it was held with exactly the same 
 kind of belief with which it has been held by the Western 
 nations since their conversion to Christianity. 
 
 But what was the practical effect of their belief? There 
 is no doctrine, however true, which works mechanically on 
 the soul like a charm. The expectation of a future state 
 may be a motive for the noblest exertion, or it may be an 
 
278 On Progress. 
 
 excuse for acquiescence in evil, and serve to conceal and 
 perpetuate the most enormous iniquities. The magnate of 
 Thebes or Memphis, with his huge estates, his town and 
 country palaces, hia retinue of eunuchs, and his slaves whom 
 he counted by thousands, was able to say to himself, if he 
 thought at aU, " True enough, there are inequalities of for- 
 tune. These serfs of mine have a miserable time of it, but 
 it is only a time after all ; they have immortal souls, poor 
 devils ! and their wretched existence here is but a drop of 
 water in the ocean of their being. They have as good a 
 chance of Paradise as I have — perhaps better. Osiris will 
 set all right hereafter ; and for the present rich and poor 
 are an ordinance of Providence, and there is no occasion to 
 disturb established institutions. For myself, I have drawn 
 a prize in the lottery, and I hope I am grateful. I sub- 
 scribe handsomely to the temple services. I am myself 
 punctual in my religious duties. The priests, who are wiser 
 than I am, pray for me, and they teU me I may set my 
 mind at rest. 
 
 Under this theory of things the Israelites had been 
 ground to powder. They broke away. They too were to 
 become a nation. A revelation of the true Grod was be- 
 stowed on them, from which, as from a fountain, a deeper 
 knowledge of the Divine nature was to flow out over the 
 earth ; and the central thought of it was the realization of 
 the Divine government — not in a vague hereafter, but in 
 the living present. The unpractical prospective justice 
 which had become an excuse for tyranny was superseded by 
 an immediate justice in time. They were to reap the har- 
 vest of their deeds, not in heaven, but on earth. There was 
 no life in the grave whither they were going. The future 
 state was withdi-awn from their sight till the mischief which 
 it had wrought was forgotten. It was not denied, but it 
 was veiled in a doud. It was left to private opinion to 
 hope or to fear ; but it was no longer held out either as an 
 excitement to piety or a terror to evil-doers. The God of 
 
On Progress. 279 
 
 Israel was a living God, and his power was displayed visi- 
 bly and immediately in rewarding the good and punishing 
 the wicked while they remained in the flesh. 
 
 It would be unbecoming to press the parallel, but phe- 
 nomena are showing themselves which indicate that an 
 analogous suspension of belief provoked by the same causes 
 may possibly be awaiting ourselves. The relations between 
 man and man are now supposed to be governed by natural 
 laws which enact themselves independent of considerations 
 of justice. Political economy is erected into a science, and 
 the shock to our moral nature is relieved by reflections that 
 it refers only to earth, and that justice may take effect here- 
 after. Science, however, is an inexorable master. The 
 evidence for a hereafter depends on considerations which 
 science declines to entertain. To piety and conscientious- 
 ness it appears inherently probable ; but to the calm, un- 
 prejudiced student of realities, piety and conscientiousness 
 are insufficient witnesses to matters of fact. The religious 
 passions have made too many mistakes to be accepted as of 
 conclusive authority. Scientific habits of thought, which 
 are more and more controlling us, demand external proofe 
 which are difficult to find. It may be that we require once 
 more to have the living certainties of the Divine government 
 brought home to us more palpably ; that a doctrine which 
 has been the consolation of the heavy-laden for eighteen 
 hundred years may have generated once more a practical 
 infidelity ; and that by natural and intelligent agencies, in 
 the furtherance of the everlasting purposes of our Father 
 in heaven, the belief in a life beyond the grave may again 
 be about to be withdrawn. 
 
THE COLONIES ONCE MORE. 
 
 The storm which has burst over the Contment may clear 
 away as rapidly as it has risen, or it may rage till it has 
 searched out and destroyed every unsound place in the or- 
 ganization of the European nations. Providence or Nature, 
 or whatever the power is which determines the conditions 
 imder which human things are allowed to grow and prosper, 
 uses stm, as it has ever used, fierce surgery of this kind for 
 the correction of wrong-doing ; and if Providence, as Na- 
 poleon scornfully said, is on the side of the strongest battal- 
 ions, it provides also, as Napoleon himself found at Xieipsic, 
 that in the times of these tremendous visitations the strong 
 battalions shall be found in defense of the cause which it 
 intends shall conquer. England for the present lies outside 
 the lines of conflict. Whether she can escape her share of 
 trial depends on causes which she can but faintly control ; 
 and whether at the close of this present summer,' France 
 or Germany lies exhausted, unable to strike another blow, 
 or whether the circle of conflagration is to widen its terrible 
 area till the whole world is again in arms, it behooves us 
 equally to look to ourselves. We have obligations on the 
 Continent which we cannot disdaim without dishonor, and 
 dishonor tamely borne means to England political ruin. 
 
 A nation of thirty millions, inferior in mental and phys- 
 ical capabilities to no other people in the world, moated by 
 the sea, defended by a powerful fleet, and united in them- 
 selves by hearty loyalty to then- country, ought to be in no 
 fear of the strongest force which could be hurled against 
 i August, 1870. 
 
The Colonies once more. 281 
 
 them. But it is on this point of loyalty, of which it has 
 been the fashion of late to speak contemptuously as a sen- 
 timental virtue, that the result of such an attempt would 
 perhaps eventually depend. At this moment, if we were 
 taken by surprise as Prussia has been, and a hostile power 
 could by any means obtain twenty-four hours' command of 
 the Channel, London would inevitably be taken ; but if we 
 are sound at heart; if England is to us all a home which 
 high and low among us are alike determined to defend, as 
 the treasure-house which contains all that we value in life, 
 the loss of London would but nerve us to a more determined 
 struggle, and we might stiU look forward to the last result 
 with confidence. "We might lose fearfully in li^e and prop- 
 erty, but we should keep our honor untarnished, and our 
 great place in the world unshaken. Have we, then, a right 
 to expect a spirit in the great masses of our people which 
 would carry us successfully through such a crisis ? The 
 English are instinctively brave and noble-minded. The 
 traditions of the past are powerful, and there is a prestige 
 attached to the present condition of the British Empire 
 which for a time at least would raise all classes to a level 
 with the demands on their endurance. How long their res- 
 olution would last, what amount and what duration of pri- 
 vations they would be contented to endure, depends, how- 
 ever, on the further question, what interest many of us have 
 in England's stability — what each man would lose which 
 is really precious to him if she fell from her place. 
 
 The attachment of a people to their country depends 
 upon the sense in which it is really and truly their home. 
 Men wiU fight for their homes, because without a home 
 they and their families are turned shelterless adrift; and 
 as the world has been hitherto constituted, they have had 
 no means of finding a new home for themselves elsewhere. 
 And the idea of home is inseparably connected with the 
 possession or permanent occupation of land. Where a 
 man's property is in money, a slip of paper will now trans- 
 
282 The Colonies once more. 
 
 fer it to any part of the world to which he pleases to send 
 it. Where it is in the skill of his hands there is another 
 hemisphere now open to him, where employers, speaking 
 his own language, are eager to secure his services. Land 
 alone he cannot take with him. The fortunes of the pos- 
 sessors of the soil of any country are bound up in the 
 fortunes of the country to which they belong, and thus 
 those nations have always been the most stable in whid 
 the land is most widely divided, or where the largest num 
 ber of people have a personal concern ia it. Interest and 
 natural feeling coincide to produce the same result. Ridi- 
 cule as we please what is now looked upon as sentimental- 
 ism, we cannot escape from our nature. Attachment to 
 locality is part of the human constitution. Those who 
 have been brought up ia particular places have a feeling 
 for them which they cannot transfer. A family which has 
 occupied a farm for one or two years wUl leave it without 
 difficulty. In one or two generations the wrench becomes 
 severely paiaftil. To remove tenants after a half dozen 
 generations is like tearing up a grown tree by the roots. 
 The world is not outgrowing associations of this kind. It 
 never can or wUl outgrow them. The aree et foci, the 
 sense of home and the sacred associations which grow up 
 along with it, are as warm in the new continent as in the 
 old. It is not that every member of a family must remain 
 qn the same spot. The professions and the trades neces- 
 sarily absorb a large proportion of the children as they 
 grow to manhood ; but it is the pride of the New Eng- 
 lander to point to his namesake and kinsman now occupy 
 ing the farm which was first cleared by his Puritan 
 ancestors. The home of the elder branch is stiU the home 
 of the family, and the links of association, and all the pas- 
 sions which are born of it, hold together and bind in one 
 the scattered kindred. 
 
 England was once the peculiar nursery of this kind of 
 sentiment, and thus it was that an Englishman's patriotism 
 
The Colonies once more. 283 
 
 was so peculiarly powerful. It has seemed of late as if all 
 other countries understood it better than we. In France, 
 in Germany, in Eussia, even in Spain and Italy either 
 revolution or the wisdom of the government has divided 
 the land. The great proprietors have been persuaded or 
 induced to seU ; when .persuasion has faOed they have been 
 compelled. The laws of inheritance are so adjusted as to 
 make accumulation of estates, impossible. Two thirds, or, 
 at least, half the population of those countries have their 
 lives and fortunes interlinked inseparably with the soil ; 
 and their fidelity in time of trial is at once rewarded and 
 guaranteed by the possession of it. England; is alone an 
 exception. When serfdom was extinguished in Russia, 
 each serf had a share in his late owner's lands assigned to 
 him as his own. The English villein was released from 
 his bondage with no further compensation, and is now the 
 agricultural laborer -^ the least cared for specimen of hu- 
 manity in any civilized country. In France there, are five 
 million landed propjietors. In England there are but 
 thirty thousand. Such property as the rest of us possess 
 is movable. Thirty thousand fevorites of fortune alone . 
 possess that original hold on English soil which entitles 
 England in return to depend upon them in the day of trial ; 
 and thus it is that to persons who think seriously there 
 appears something precarious in England's greatness, as if 
 with all her wealth and all her power a single disaster 
 might end it. No nation ever suffered a more tremendous 
 humiliation than France in the second occupation of Paris ; 
 a third time she has seen her capital occupied, and her 
 entire social system crumbled into anarchy. But she rallied 
 before, and she wiU unquestionably rally once more. Her 
 population remain rooted in the soil to which they are 
 passionately attached, and their permanent depression is 
 impossible. Forty millions of people can neither he de- 
 stroyed nor removed ; and where the people are, and where 
 the land is their own, their recovery is a matter of but a 
 
284 The Colonies once more. 
 
 few years at most. They may lose men and money, and 
 an outlying province, but that is aU the injury which an 
 external power can inflict on them. With England 't is 
 difficult to feel the same confidence. If the speU of oui 
 insular security be once brpken ; if it be once proved that 
 the Channel is no longer an impassable barrier, and that 
 we are now on a level with the Continent, the circum- 
 stances would be altered which have given us hitherto oui 
 exceptional advantages ; and those of us who can choose a 
 home elsewhere, who have been deprived of everythiig 
 which should specially attach us to English soil — that is 
 to say, niuety-nine families out of every hundred — will 
 have lost all inducement to remain in so unprofitable a 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Let it be said at once that we are not blaming govern- 
 ment OT blaming the laws because the small estates are 
 absorbed into the large. The process of absorption is the 
 result of economic social and moral conditions which can- 
 not be interfered with on a scale large enough to produce 
 a sensible effect without paralyzing the entire system of 
 . our national industry. It is a state of things, however, for 
 which provision was instinctively made in past generations. 
 As Enghsh soil became visibly too strait for its increasing 
 population, not the government, but the English them- 
 selves, by their own courage and energy, secured to the 
 flag enormous slices of the waste places of the newly dis- 
 covered world ; enormous areas of soil in which ten times 
 as many people as are now choking and jostling one 
 another in our lanes and alleys might take root and expand 
 and thrive ; and the question is, whether these spaces may 
 not be utilized ; whether, without rude changes at home, 
 we may not exchange England for an English Empire in 
 which every element shall be combined which can promise 
 security to the whole ? The fairest part of this vast inher- 
 itance was alienated from us by one set of incompetent 
 ministers ; it is now a rival, and may one day be a hoitila 
 
The Colonies once more. 28,'i 
 
 power. The country, not the government, explored and 
 took possession of fresh dominions almost as splendid as 
 what had been lost for them. What is to be done with 
 these, whether they are to remain attached to us, or are to 
 bo affronted or encouraged into separation and what is 
 called independence, is a matter on which government maj' 
 blunder a second time ; the nation itself is alone competent 
 to form and pronounce an opinion. 
 
 We make no apology for returning to a subject which 
 was discussed a few months back when the political sky 
 was comparatively clear ; and the subsequent treatment of 
 which in Parliament makes an appeal to the country itself 
 more than ever necessary. 
 
 It is well known that to a particular school the colonies 
 appear only a burden. Young communities cost money 
 before the resources of a new country can be adequately 
 developed. We are informed that to part with them will 
 be an immediate relief to the English taxpayer, that we 
 can employ our people at home by developing our manu- 
 factures ; and that the government, untroubled with the 
 responsibility of defending our remote and scattered de- 
 pendencies, can provide cheaply, easily, and certainly for 
 our own security at home. The promulgation of these 
 opinions has created much uneasiness in the colonies them- 
 selves, whose own almost universal wish is to remain under 
 the sovereignty of the Queen. At home also to some per- 
 sons they have seemed singularly shallow. Without colo- 
 nies the natural growth of our population must -overflow 
 into foreign countries. The indifference with which we 
 have allowed Irish emigration to drift into America has 
 created an element dangerously hostile to us across the 
 Atlantic, while it has embittered the already alienated feel- 
 ings with which we are regarded in Ireland itself. In our 
 own emigrating artisans, if we allow them passively to be- 
 come parts of another community, we are losing elements 
 of strength which might be of more worth to us than the 
 gold mines of Ballarat. 
 
286 The Colonies once more. 
 
 The present government, however, has been suspected 
 of secretly favoring the views of the separatists. They 
 were several times called on during the session of last year 
 to explain their real views, and the tone which they have 
 taken in their replies indicates at any rate most signally 
 the estimate which they have formed of the political mag- 
 nitude of the question. Lord Granville has again and 
 again repudiated all intention of shaking off the colonies 
 He insists that the policy which he pursues is that which 
 on the whole gives most satisfaction to the colonists them- 
 selves, and tends more than any other which could be pur- 
 sued to secure their attachment. He has said also, and 
 whenever challenged he has repeated, as if with a con- 
 sciousness that he was wronged by the suspicions enter- 
 tained of him, that he admits the duty in case of war of 
 defending the colonies against aggression with the whole 
 force of the empire. The assurance is good in itself, but 
 it is little to the point. No one suspects the government 
 of meditating treason, and it would be nothing less than 
 treason willfully to abandon the protection of any part of 
 her Majesty's dominions. But whereas there are two pos- 
 sible colonial policies — ^ one to regard them as integral 
 parts of the British Empire, as an inheritance of the 
 nation in which the crowded hive at home may have room 
 to expand and strengthen itself, in which English families 
 may receive portions of the land belonging to us in which 
 to take root though circumstances deny it to them at 
 home ; the other, to concentrate ourselves in these islands, 
 to educate the colonies in self-dependence, that at the 
 earliest moment they may themselves sever the links 
 which bind them to us — of these two policies it is believed 
 that the government deliberately prefer the second, and 
 nothing that Lord Granville or any other member of the 
 Cabinet has said upon the subject leads us to suppose that 
 the belief is unfounded. A few words would have sufficed 
 to remove the uneasiness, but those words have not beep 
 spoken. 
 
The Colonies onee more. 287 
 
 Lord Granville is transferred to another department, but 
 it is evident that there is to be no change in the colonial 
 policy. Lord Kimberley's language is identical with his 
 predecessor's. It is quite certain that in the opinion of 
 Mr. Gladstone's Administration the colonies are rather 
 elements of weakness to us than of strength, that they be- 
 long to themselves rather than to us, and that any endeavor 
 on our part to develop their resources or transport the 
 overflow of our people there wUl be wasted effort and 
 money thrown away. 
 
 We say nothing of the withdrawal of the troops. That 
 is an entirely secondary matter. No civilized nation in the 
 world pays so much for its army as we do, and in none is 
 there so miserable a result ; and if there were any chance 
 that our scanty regiments would be maintained in fuE 
 efficiency at home, and would not be allowed to dwindle 
 into skeletons under the blight of our military mismanage- 
 ment, it might be wise to concentrate at the heart of the 
 empire such means of defense as we possess. The self- 
 governed colonies are perfectly capable of taking care of 
 themselves, and they wUl defend to the last each their own 
 portion of the British Empire, if they may be assured that 
 the empirp is to continue to exist. But the entire drift of 
 the action of the Colonial Office points to a desire on our 
 part that as soon as possible they should rid us of aU re- 
 sponsibility for them. Our statesmen avow in their con- 
 duct what in words they are still compelled to disclaim. 
 Our leading colonists are not invited to a share in the 
 established dignities of the empire. They are not made 
 members of the Privy Council. They are not admitted to 
 the Bath, stUl less to the high distinction of the Garter. 
 A new order is created especially as the reward of colonial 
 merit. A difference in its flag is forced upon or allowed 
 to Victoria. The unanimous desire of the Australians for 
 the annexation of the Fiji Islands is refiised ; asif to goad 
 them into separate action on their own account, lest those 
 
288 The Colonies once more. 
 
 islands should be appropriated for a nayal or a peual sta- 
 tion by some other power. When the Dominion of Canada 
 was proclaimed, the government organs declared, with no 
 uncertain voice, that British North America might now be 
 independent when it pleased. The present Governor- 
 Greneral, though he afterwards explained away his words, 
 expressed a distinct wish that the gift of independence 
 might be soon accepted. It is incredible that he would 
 have dared to use such words unless they had been 
 prompted from home. The late Governor, when Lord 
 GranviUe disclaimed any desire to part with Canada, and 
 denied that his policy tended towards separation, said in 
 his place in the House of Lords that it undoubtedly had 
 such a tendency, and for that reason he hoped the govern- 
 ment would persevere. The new knighthood was be- 
 stowed ostentatiously on a Canadian statesman who had 
 avowed publicly his desire that Canada should be annexed 
 to the United States. It was precisely as if Mr. Smith 
 O'Brien had been made a peer when he went to Paris to 
 ask the provisional government to undertake the pro- 
 tection of Ireland. The proposed confederation of the 
 Australian colonies and New Zealand has been treated 
 pointedly as the birth of a new nationality. AIJL this can 
 bear but one interpretation. Such confederations in them- 
 selves may be good things or bad. They need not necessa- 
 rily involve a separation from England, but the separation 
 is what the party at present in power desire to promote, 
 and the purpose is but faintly concealed in a few reluctant 
 and partial concessions to public opinion, the guarantee 
 of a loan to New Zealand, and the delay in the complete 
 evacuation of the Canadian Dominion till the Red River 
 disturbances shall have been composed. 
 
 "We do not believe that such a policy can be approved by 
 the country in general. Were the issue fairly before the 
 people it would be instantly repudiated. The fear is rather 
 that they will look on inattentively, supposing that all is 
 
The Colonies once more. 289 
 
 going well, tiU the mischief is consummated. It will then 
 be past remedy, and the vengeance which will assuredly fall 
 on the authors of it will be a poor compensation for an 
 irreparable disaster. "We choose the present moment, there- 
 fore, when the position of England must be causing seri- 
 ous thought to every one who is capable of underntanding 
 it, to recall attention to a question which appears to us to be 
 one of life or death. 
 
 It has two branches, which have unfortunately been ar- 
 gued apart, thou^, in feet, they cannot be separated : the 
 political relations of the colonies with the mother country, 
 and the possibility or the desirableness of a sustained and 
 methodical emigration supported in part by the State in the 
 general interests of the nation. These two subjects are fac- 
 tors in the same problem, for the only practicable means at 
 present of attachiug the colonies to us is by feeding them 
 intelligently with emigrants, who leave England grateful for 
 the assistance which removes them from our surfeited towns 
 to a situation where they can have a fairer prospect of a 
 healthy and useful existence. No one in his senses proposes 
 to reclaim for the discredited Colonial Office the control over 
 dependencies which the home officials do not care to under- 
 stand, and in the welfare of which they have no genuine in- 
 terest. The object is to create or foster those natural links 
 of affinity between Great Britain and her distant provinces 
 which, to the disgrace of our political sagacity, we have per- 
 mitted to grow unchecked between Ireland and the United 
 States of America. At present, from causes far from hon- 
 ' orable to us, those who emigrate on their own account pre- 
 fer any flag to ours. The natural outflow is to New York, 
 and every family which settles iu the republic carries wifi 
 it enmity to the home from which it has been driven, and 
 leaves the germs of disloyalty behind in its kindred. The 
 hope of those who see these things and dread their conse- 
 quences is to turn the stream, before it becomes too late, to 
 prevent the spread to England and Scotland of the same 
 
 19 
 
290 The Colonies once more. 
 
 process which in Ireland has been so fertile in mischief; to 
 relieve our towns of a plethora of people which is breeding 
 physical and moral disease, and in furnishing our colonies 
 with the supply which they most need, to give them an in- 
 terest in maintaining their connection with us. 
 
 That a great State emigration is in itself possible, possi- 
 ble in the sense that there are no insurmountable obstacles 
 created by the nature of things, and that if carried into 
 effect in union with the colonial governments it would, 
 beyond all other means, tend to bind them to us, even Lord 
 Granville himself would hardly deny. . The extent of our 
 dependencies is so vast, and the wealth waiting to be drawn 
 out there by human industry so enormous, that with propei 
 provisions and preparations they could receive among them 
 at present at least a quarter of a mUlion of our people annu- 
 ally. The number for whom work could be found would 
 increase in geometrical proportion. The Irish who go to 
 the States send for their families ; the English would neces- 
 sarily do the same; and the , strain upon the State, which 
 even at first would be comparatively slight, would in a short 
 time disappear. That the emigration question, therefore, 
 and the political question should have been argued sepa- 
 rately, has been a serious misfortune. It has enabled those 
 who wish to keep things as they are to break the sticks 
 each by itself, to represent emigration to our colonies as of 
 uo special consequence to us because our relations with them 
 are uncertain, and to argue the impossibility of drawing 
 those relations closer from experience of the bad results in 
 the past of the mother country's interference. 
 
 In the early part of last spring a deputation waited on the 
 Prime Minister to represent the distress in the manufactur- 
 ing towns, and to recommend the establishment of an emi- 
 gration system at the cost of the State. The Prime Minis- 
 ter gave a courteous but hesitating answer. He left it to 
 be implied that he was himself in favor of the deputation's 
 object, hut that he must consult the Colonial Minister and 
 
The Colonies onae more. 291 
 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He spoke, perhaps, in 
 some irony, for the opinions of Mr. Lowe and Lord Gran- 
 ville might have been anticipated without difficulty. Lord 
 Carnarvon followed in the House of Lords. There had 
 been an expectation that a subject of so much importance 
 would have been alluded to in the Speech from the Throne, 
 and the absence of it was significantly noticed by Lord 
 Cairns. Lord Cairns, however, left England immediately 
 after. Lord Carnarvon, as an ex- Colonial Minister, took 
 upon himself to represent those who were dissatisfied with 
 Lord Granville's proceedings ; and he had an opportunity 
 of rising above the position of a party leader, and treating 
 the matter on the broadest grounds of statesmanship. Lord 
 Russell, in the preface to an edition of his Speeches, had in- 
 troduced a censure on Lord Granville so emphatic as to im- 
 ply that, if his policy produced its natural result, though he 
 escaped impeachment, he would deserve and receive eternal 
 infamy. Lord Carnarvon, however, confined himself to 
 strictly political criticism. He evaded the larger bearings 
 of the subject. He spoke merely as a member of the Op- 
 position, anxious to avail himself of an opening to attack 
 the government in power. He gave Lord Granville an 
 easy victory, for he had himself in office been no wiser 
 than his antagonist. Lord Salisbury and Lord Derby were 
 silent, and the discussion dropped as an unsuccessful party 
 move. 
 
 A petition, very largely signed, from the working men of 
 the metropolis, was afterwards addressed to the Queen. It 
 spoke the language of unbewitched common sense. It set 
 out that England was overcrowded, that work for the peo- 
 ple was not to be found at home, that they were loyal to the 
 Crown and wished to remain British subjects, and that her 
 Majesty possessed dominions in other parts of the world 
 where there was room and to spare for them. They there- 
 fore besought her Majesty to close her ears to thps? 
 who advised her to part with those dominions, to declare 
 
292 The Colonies once more. 
 
 emphatically that the colonies were iategral parts of the 
 empire, and that tho state would assist those who were 
 ■willing to remove to them. 
 
 This petition was received by the Home Minister in be- 
 half of the Queen, and a reply was returned more than usu- 
 ally characteristic of what Mr. Dickens called the " Circum- 
 locution Office." Sympathy was of course expressed with 
 the distress of the people. The value of emigration was 
 ardently acknowledged. The government, the petitioners 
 were assured, would do everythiag in its power to promote 
 their welfare. There were, however, as Mr. Bruce con- 
 tended, laws of nature which it was hopeless and idle to re- 
 sist. Emigration, like aU other human movements, obeyed 
 tendencies which were paramount and inexorable. Those 
 who left their old homes in search of ne^, selected, necessa- 
 rily, those countries to which access was most easy, where 
 the climate was most favorable, and the land richest and 
 most readily obtained. The United States, he said, pos- 
 sessed advantages in these respects superior to those of the 
 English colonies, and therefore into the United States the 
 maia tide of emigration from these islands must continue 
 to flow. 
 
 That Mr. Bruce's view of these advantages is in itself in- 
 correct, and that other causes operate besides these supposed 
 laws of Nature, may be proved by the increasing pressure 
 of the American popidation upon the border of the districts 
 between Chicago and the Eed Eiver, which are as fertile sis 
 any lands in the world, and which, it is notorious, would, if 
 annexed to the Union, be immediately and densely occupied. 
 The Americans are kept out by the British flag. In them 
 it seems the sense of nationality is something not so wholly 
 unsubstantial. "We are inclined to think, too, that in assum- 
 ing allegiance to be a mere word, and personal interest their 
 solitary principle of action, Mr. Bruce is passing a satirical 
 somment on the character of the English which they have 
 not yet deserved. Political economy, though supreme in 
 
The Ooloniee once more, 293 
 
 the House of Commons, has not so far eatirely SBipersedted 
 more old-feshioned motives ; nor are we as a people so com- 
 pletely different from all other nations in the world, present 
 or past, that it is a matter of indifference to us whether we 
 do or do not become subjects of an alien power. The E.is- 
 sians do not emigrate at all, though their climate is not less 
 severe than that ©f British North America. The sense of 
 home is always strongest in the inhabitants of northern 
 latitudes, and with it the more robust qualities which are 
 developed by their more energetic habits of life. The 
 northern nations of the old world ihave been larger4imbed 
 and stouter hearted than the' children of those effeminate 
 regions where the soil yields its harvest without labor, and 
 warmth generates iadolence ^nd languor. . The fixture of 
 Afmerica it is likely will resemble in this respect the past 
 of Europe, and the hardy race which will hereafter domi- 
 nate in that vast continent will ^probably be the men bred 
 in Uew England and in that Dominion in which Mr. Bruce 
 tells us it is impossible to persuade English emigrants to 
 remain. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, similarly taking up the other side of the 
 matter in the House of Oomimons, stated as a reason why 
 a closer union with the colomes was impossible, that the 
 nearest of them, Canada, was divided from us by Nature, by 
 a waste of rolling water — and that wJiat God had placed 
 asunder it was in vain for man to try to join. The objec- 
 tion can be forgotten when there is a, desire to overlook it. 
 New Zealand is at least as difficult of access from Australia, 
 yet a South Pacific confederation is 'considered not only not 
 as an impossibility, but is recommended as feasible and 
 good. The ocean of which the Prime Minister apeaiks so 
 fearfully is a highway, almost a railway, made ready by 
 Nature to our Jbands. To a nation like the English, whose 
 strength is on the water, whose wealth is in its trade. Na- 
 ture herself could have devised no fairer means of commu- 
 nication. Every fraction of the empire is easily accessible. 
 
294 The Colonies once more. 
 
 and to speak of Canada as necessarily separate from us be- 
 cause the Atlantic intervenes is less reasonable than it 
 wduld have been seventy years ago to make St. George's 
 Channel an objection to the union with Ireland. 
 
 But it was reserved for another minister to speak the last 
 and most instructive words as to the opinion of tte present 
 Cabinet. Mr. Torrens, on the 17th of June, called the air 
 tention of the House of Commons to the want of employ- 
 ment in the great towns, and the increasing distress of the 
 people. He pointed to the effect of voluntary emigration 
 as tending, if left to itself, to strengthen rival nations at the 
 expense of England. He showed that the movement so 
 much to be dreaded had actually commenced ; that the Eng- 
 lish artisans were already following largely the Irish exam- 
 ple, and that of 167,000 working men who had left this 
 country during the past year, 133,000 had become citizens 
 of the United States. He invited the government to assist 
 those among them who were willing to remain Englishmen, 
 stUl to preserve their allegiance. He recommended the 
 establishment of cheap lines of communication with the colo- 
 nies — cheap ships as we had cheap railway trains — and to 
 enable any man who by contributing part of his passage 
 money would give a proof that he was not a pauper, to 
 remove in preference to Australia or to Canada. The adop- 
 tion of such a scheme, he said, would, more than any other 
 measure, attach the colonies to us, while the development of 
 the colonies would as certainly be the surest means of increas- 
 ing English trade. Lord George Hamilton spoke on the 
 same side, but scarcely with the same effectiveness. He in- 
 jured his argument by a side blow at the Ii-ish Land Bill, and 
 a proposition imperial in its conception was degraded into a 
 House of Commons movement intended only to embarrass 
 the government. In so plain a matter, however, it was 
 diiflcult to go very far wrong, and his mam arguments, 
 like those of Mr. Torrens, expressed the convictions of 
 almost every reasonable man. The Piesident of the Poor 
 
The Colonies once more. 295 
 
 Law Board replied ; and his speech will hereafter be looked 
 back upon as we look back upon other strange utter- 
 ances of men whom the tide of politics at critical tirqes has 
 drifted into power. Mr. Goschen insisted that no case had 
 been made out for government interference. The supposed 
 distress had been exaggerated. The people had been suf- 
 fering slightly from one of those accidental fluctuations to 
 which the commerce of the country was periodically liable, 
 but the worst part of the trial was already over. Trade was 
 fast reviving. The prosperity of the working classes was 
 returning, and as an infallible index of improvement he 
 stated, amidst the cheers of the House, that they were con- 
 suming increasing quantities of beer, gin, and tobacco. 
 The popvdation was growing — growing at the rate of 
 300,000 a year — but England was not yet filled, and there 
 was yet ample room for them all. The miUs and mines 
 would find them employment. The great towns would 
 grow bigger. Great Britain tended more and more to be- 
 come the workshop of the world, and the limit, if limit there 
 was, to the capacity for internal expansion was still far off 
 and invisible. Those who wished to emigrate at their own 
 cost were of course at liberty to go, but Mr. Goschen pro- 
 tested against doing violence to the acknowledged principles 
 of political economy by attempting to divert the outflow to 
 one country rather than another. The United States would 
 not like it, and that was sufficient. 
 
 Plainer language of its kind has not been heard in Par- 
 liament within the present century, and the reformed House 
 of Commons illustrated its origin and justified Mr. Lowe's 
 prediction of the effects to be anticipated from an extension 
 . of the suffrage, by the delight with which it listened. 
 
 All was well with the English working man because he 
 was drinking more beer and gin. The government was 
 not at liberty to assist English subjects from one part of 
 the Queen's dominions to another because it might happen 
 to displease a foreign government. The last argument, we 
 
296 The Colonies once more. 
 
 were told afterwards by the Times, " went to the root of 
 the whole difficulty " — truly a l-emarkable confession. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that such arguments as these 
 express the real conviction of men so able as Mr. Gladstone. 
 Mr. Bruce, or even Mr. Goschen. Their off-hand answers 
 may have served the purpose as tricks of defense to parry 
 the attacks upon them, but the true ground of their resolu- 
 tion must be looked for deeper down. They must have con- 
 vinced themselves that it is safe and desirable to allow the 
 multitude of people which is now crowded into this island 
 to become denser than it is — the feverish race for wealth, 
 which is at present the sole motive-power of English indus- 
 try, to grow yet hotter and more absorbing. We are to 
 reap the harvest of manufacture whUe our coal and iron 
 hold out, and to leave the future to care for itself. Mr. 
 Gladstone is not a cynic, stUl less is he in himself a mere 
 worshipper of wealth. With one side of his mind he shares 
 in the old convictions of wise and serious men. He " thinks 
 nobly of the soul." He believes with Plato — at any rate 
 he thinks that he believes — that the first aim of a well- 
 ordered commonwealth should be the moral improvement 
 of the human beings who constitute it. He would admit 
 that the test of a wholesome condition of things in any 
 country is not the balance-sheet, but the character of the 
 people ; that sobriety, prudence, honesty, chastity, fear of 
 God, and a physical existence healthy and happy because 
 natural and good, are better than all the cotton bales from 
 all the mills of Lancashire. We must suppose him, there- 
 fore, to think seriously that the children of an English arti- 
 san, dragged up among the gutters of Sheffield or Spitalflelds 
 amidst gin and beer and their detestable concomitants, have 
 as good a chance of growing up into healthy and worthy 
 manhood as under the free sky of Canada or New Zealand, 
 where the land is to be had for the asking, and waits only 
 the spade to yield its crops. These may be sentimental 
 considerations, but Mr. Gladstone, at any rate, is not insen 
 
The Oolonieh once more. 29T 
 
 Bible to ttem. What can be the arguments, then, which 
 are outweighing them in his mind ? 
 
 It is easy to understand the cheers of the House of 
 Commons. It is a house of rich men. Each Parliament 
 that meets is richer than its predecessor. The present — 
 returned by the enlarged constituency — is the wealthiest 
 which has ever sat in England. To a rich man no country 
 *3aii be more agreeable, no system of things more con- 
 venient or dehghtftd, than that in which we live. Inevi- 
 tably, therefore, aU that is going on will appear to him to 
 be reasonable and just. The noble Lords — I speak of 
 some, not yet, happily, of all — are grown wise in their 
 generation, and acknowledge the excellence of what they 
 once despised. The growth of manufactures has doubled, 
 quintupled, multiplied in some instances a hundredfold the 
 value of their land. Their rents maintain them in splendor 
 undreamt of in earlier generations, which has now become 
 a necessity of existence. They have their half-dozen parks 
 and palaces ; their houses in London, their moors iu Scot- 
 land, their yachts at Cowes. Their sons have their hunters 
 at Melton, their racing stables, their battues. In the dead 
 season of sport they fall back to recruit their manliness 
 with pigeon shooting at Hurlingham. These things have 
 become a second nature to them, in which they live and 
 move and have their being. Their grandfathers cared for 
 the English commonwealth. It is hard to say what some 
 of these high persons care for except idle luxury. To 
 them, therefore, the system most commends itself which 
 most raises the value of their property. The more densely 
 England is peopled the greater grows the value of their 
 acres without labor to themselves, and they well under- 
 stand how to keep at arm's length the inconveniences of 
 the pressure. That such as they, therefore, should look 
 with little favor on emigration is no more than might be 
 expected. StUl less favorably will those regard it who 
 rank next to them, and who aspire to rise into their order 
 
298 The Colonies once more. 
 
 — the great employers of labor. To the manufactureri 
 abundance of labor means cheap labor, and cheap labor ia 
 the secret of their wealth, the condition of their prosperity, 
 the means by which they undersell other nations and com- 
 mand a monopoly of the world's markets. Political 
 economy, the employer's gospel, preaches a relation be- 
 tween themselves and their workmen which means to them 
 the largest opportunity of profit with the smallest recogni- 
 tion of obligation to those upon whose labor they grow 
 rich. Slavery, beyond its moral enormity, was condemned 
 economically as extravagant. The slave born on the plan- 
 tation was maintained while he was too -young to work, at 
 his master's expense. His master had charge of him when 
 he was sick, and in his old age when he could do no more 
 he was fed, clothed, and lodged for the remainder of his 
 days. The daily wages system, besides having the advan- 
 tage of being a free contract, leaves the master at the 
 day's end discharged of further responsibilities. He is 
 bound to his workman only so long as it is his interest to 
 retain him. While trade flourishes and profits are large he 
 gives him fiill employment. When a dead season super- 
 venes he draws in his sails. He lies by till better timea 
 return, and discharges his hands to live upon their savings, 
 or ultimately be supported by the poor-rate till he needs 
 their services again. The State, therefore, in . assisting 
 emigration interferes to rob the rich man of his living. ' 
 " Keep the people at home," said a noble Lord, " we shau 
 want them when trade revives." Poor-rates can be borne 
 with, for those who are themselves little more than paupers 
 share the burden of them. Even trades-unions and strikes 
 can be borne with so long as the men confine themselves 
 to higgling over the wages rate. Hunger will bring them 
 to terms in time. Anythmg but a large emigration, for 
 with emigration wages will rise in earnest, and profits 
 lessen. The man by whose toil the master has prospered 
 has gone where his toil is for himself, where he is taking 
 
The Oolonies once more. 299 
 
 root upon the land, a sturdy member of the commonwealth^ 
 and the home market is relieved of his competition. The 
 nation is richer for the change so long as he remains an 
 English subject, but the capitalist employer loses a per- 
 centage of his profits. 
 
 Thus arguments of all kinds are pressed into the service 
 to blind the working man to his obvious interest, and pre- 
 vent Tiitn from demanding what if he asks for resolutely 
 cannot be refused. He is told that emigration supported 
 by the State wUl lay an additional burden on the already 
 heavy-laden taxpayers ; that we shall be robbing the opera- 
 tives who stay at home of part of their hard-won earnings, 
 and making a present to others of what it is not ours to 
 give. The objection is valid against the poor-rates as they 
 are at present levied. There is something monstrous in 
 compelling the petty shopkeeper, barely able to keep his 
 own head above water, to contribute to the support of the 
 discharged workman from whose labor when employed the 
 shopkeeper drew no penny of advantage. But the advo- 
 cates of State emigration do not contemplate a tax which 
 shall touch the poor. The annual savings of this country 
 are estimated by Lord Overstone at something near a 
 hundred and forty mUlion. Mr. Gladstone points to the 
 fifteen nullions contributed voluntarily by the Irish peas- 
 antry for their own exodus, and asks who can be so 
 sanguine as to dream of any such sum being raised by rate 
 for the emigration of the English working men? The 
 fifteen millions are an index, on one side, of the affectionate 
 feelings of the Irish people. One active member of a 
 family is sent to America by a subscription among the rest. 
 Out of the abundance which he finds there he sets apart a 
 sufficient sum to bring his brothers and sisters after him. 
 This is the fairer aspect of it, but it is not all. Another 
 and a darker passion animates the Celtic peasant to his 
 efforts and his sacrifices, and that is hatred of England — 
 hatred of the country which he charges unjustly with hav- 
 
800 The Colonies once more 
 
 ing been the cause of his misery, hut which may be more 
 fairly challenged for having attempted so little to remove 
 it. The consequences of our long ne^ect of Ireland we 
 have already experienced to our sorrow. The Church Act 
 and the Land Act are the price which we have already had 
 to pay for Fenianism, and they are probably not the last 
 payment. If we allow an English voluntary exodus in the 
 same spirit as the Irish, and directed to the same quarter, 
 a statesman who can look beyond the next five years or 
 ten has cause to tremble at the too certain consequences. 
 Suppose that out of these hundred and forty millions a 
 fourteenth part was taken to divert the stream to Australia 
 and Canada and the Cape, to carry off annually a quarter 
 of a million people, settle them on vacant lands, maintain 
 them for the first year till the first crop was grown; if 
 instead of letting them become so many thousand hostile 
 citizens of the American Republic, we preserved diem as 
 loyal citizens of the British Empire, and secured with it the 
 regard and gratitude of the working millions whom they 
 left at home ; if the masses of the English people were 
 made to see at last that those in power were not wholly 
 fbrgetfol of them ; it would be a not unwise investment if 
 only as an insurance for the rest. What is the use of 
 enormous wealth if we cannot defend it ? and how can we 
 defend it imless the whole nation has an interest in the 
 stability of the country ? 
 
 I shaU be told that the cost will fall on the operatives at 
 last; for capital requires investment. The hundred and 
 forty millions provide fresh labor, and find fresh multitudes 
 in food. It is not wholly so, for more and more of Eng- 
 lish savings goes abroad ia loans to foreign governments, 
 in maintaiuing French and Prussian armies, or finds labw, 
 not for English artisans, but for Russians, Americans, or 
 Turks. But the money that remains at home does not 
 improve the condition of our people who remain upon our 
 hands ; it only multiplies their number. It merely creates 
 
The Colonies once more. 301 
 
 fresh manufactories, fresh workshops, fresh courts and 
 alleys in our huge sweltering towns, and swells iurther the 
 vast and weltering tide of human life in a space already 
 grown too strait for it. Mr. Goschen ridicules the idea of 
 a maximum. Where, he asks, is the line to be drawn ? 
 When can it be said that England is so fuU of men that it 
 can safely hold no more ? The maximum we should say 
 had been reached when the population had passed beyond 
 all rational control ; when, if religion and morals have not 
 grown to be unmeaning words, the population has swoUen 
 into a bulk which is the despair of minister and priest, of 
 the schoolmaster and even the policemen ; when hundreds 
 of thousands are added annually to our numbers, to grow 
 up heathens in a country caUing itself Christian. We 
 should point to that very torrent of drugged beer and 
 poisoned gin, the increased consumption of which the House 
 of Commons seems to regard with such admirable com- 
 placency. Let but a severe war, or any one of the thou- 
 sand calamities which Nature has at its command, cripple or 
 paralyze trade for a few successive years, and lialf our 
 people will be left to immediate starvation, and to the furi- 
 ous passions which hunger will necessarily breed. If 
 statesmen wait for other signs, the signs may come at last in 
 the shape of catastrophes in which it wUl be too late to cry 
 out for a remedy. There is, however, another symptom 
 among us which we commend to the consideration of poli- 
 ticians who have not parted with their senses. 
 
 A few years ago the English public was shocked by the 
 discovery of an institution at Torquay for the murder of 
 babies. A woman named Charlotte Windsor undertook, 
 for certain smaU sums of money, the charge of inconven- 
 ient infants, promising so to provide for them that their 
 parents should be no longer troubled with the burden of 
 their maintenance. The provision was a pillow or a hand- 
 kerchief pressed upon their mouths, and a grave in Torbay 
 or on th* hiU-side. The murderess was detected, but 
 
302 The Colonies once more. 
 
 escaped- execution by a legal subterfuge, anvl the example 
 remained either to deter or encourage further experiments 
 in the same line of business. Two other women were 
 recently brought before the Lambeth Police Court on 
 a charge somewhat similar. Charlotte Windsor was old. 
 Many years had passed since she had " given suck," or seen 
 8. baby smiling on her face. Such restrauit as animal emo- 
 tions can exert no longer served as a check on her calcu- 
 lated ferocity. These women were stOl of an age to be 
 themselves mothers. One of them, the elder, had a child 
 of her own at the breast. Their proceedings, therefore, 
 were of a milder kind, and will save them too from the 
 penalty which the Torquay assassin escaped so nearly. 
 They put advertisements in the newspapers offering a home 
 and a mother's care to any child whose parents desired to 
 part with it ; and for the small sum of five pounds they 
 undertook to bring it up as their own, and educate it for 
 service or a trade. The infants which passed into their 
 hands were not smothered, but were allowed to die for 
 want of nourishment, or were assisted out of the world by 
 laudanum, lime water, or paregoric elixir. When death 
 was evidently near, but before it arrived, they were carried 
 away, the servants in the house being told that they were 
 going back to their friends, and the next thing that was 
 heard was that little dead bodies had been found by the 
 police lying about in baskets or brown paper parcels. 
 
 Much natural horror is expressed at the exposure of so 
 infamous a trade, but the trade itself is a mere bubble on 
 the surface, an indication merely of a pervading poison at 
 work everywhere in the under-current of society. The 
 population of this country increases at the rate of some- 
 thing like a thousand a day. The increase would be nearer 
 two thousand a day if the average mortality among the 
 children of the poor was no greater- than among the more 
 wosperous classes. Vast numbers of the human creatures 
 brought into life in this island die before they are five 
 
The Colonies once more. 808 
 
 years old, who would have survived with adequate food, 
 clothing, shelter, and care. We may be told that it is a 
 law of nature. One pair of magpies would fill the globe 
 in a century if four out of five that are hatched were not 
 starved when they left the nest. Society cannot provide 
 for the issue of improvident marriages or illicit concu- 
 binage. We have more children already on our hands 
 than we know what to do with, and must be grateful that 
 we are relieved of their presence by causes for which we 
 are not responsible. All civilized nations have experienced 
 the same difficulty, and dealt with it as they could. The 
 Greeks and Romans exposed their superfluous babies. 
 The Chinese do the same at present. The English, as a 
 Christian people, leave it to nature. Child-murder remains 
 a crime, but we none the less congratulate ourselves that 
 an abstraction which we can disguise under the name of a 
 law provides a relief for our overburdened system. Natu- 
 ral selection decides who shall live. The robust survive to 
 contribute to the sinews of society. The sickly drop off, 
 and are spared a struggle to which they would have been 
 unequal. 
 
 The enlightened persons who form public opinion in 
 these matters do not usually belong to the classes which 
 suffer, or they might acquiesce in these arrangements with 
 less equanimity. Their children for the most part live, and 
 assist to keep down the averages. We can be wonderfully 
 submissive to laws of nature while others only suffer from, 
 them. When our own shoes piuch we discover that with 
 a little effort the shape can be altered. It is a law of 
 nature that the strong shall prey upon the weak. It is a 
 law of nature that if a house is not drained, the occupants 
 of it shall be in danger of typhus fever. But there are very 
 few laws indeed affecting man which are not conditional, 
 and the chief purpose .of human society is to control the 
 brutal and elemental forces by reason and good sense. If 
 the country cannot afford to rear more than a certain num- 
 
304 The Colonies once more. 
 
 ber of children, means ought to be attempted to prevent 
 them from coming into existence. The infinite wretched- 
 ness produced by the present state of things ought not to 
 pass for nothing. It has become not uncommon in these 
 days to hear of miserable fathers and mothers, unable alike 
 to support their families or see them starve, destroying 
 their children and themselves, and making an end of their 
 troubles thus. Again, if we please, we may call in Provi- 
 dence. The classes which suffer most are toughest-hearted. 
 The poor old Devonshire woman with eight hungry mouths 
 about her, and nine shillings a week to feed them, looks 
 with envy on the Lord's mercy to her neighbors whose 
 babies die in arms, and sighs out, " We never have no 
 luck ; " but this callousness itseK is frightful, and is in itself 
 one of' the causes of the enormous mortality. 
 
 Put it as we will, half the natural increase of the popu- 
 lation of this country is made away with by preventible 
 causes — by causes which are prevented in the more fa- 
 vored classes of society, and might therefore, so far as the 
 nature of things is responsible, be prevented in all. Part 
 of the destruction is caused by positive crime ; part by 
 unavoidable distress ; part, and by far the largest part, by 
 indifference and neglect. Omitting for the present those 
 who are starved and those who are murdered, and confining 
 ourselves to the great bulk of infant mortality, let us ask 
 whether any means exist by which it can be successAiIly 
 encountered. Encountered, I presume it ought to be if 
 possible ; we have not yet wholly outgrown the idea that 
 there is something in human life more sacred than in the 
 lives of animals, and a murrain among the cattle is consid- 
 ered a suflScient subject for an Act of Parliament. Men 
 say'impatiently that the parents are to blame ; if the father 
 spent the money which he wastes at the ginshop in provid- 
 ing better clothes and food for his family, this alone would 
 save half of those who die ; but duty is a matter of con- 
 science, and you cannot make people moral by statut& 
 
The Oolmiea once more. 305 
 
 We commend the consideration to the better thoughts of 
 our governors. Children, however, are the property of 
 the State as well as of their parents. Were it a question 
 of sheep and oxen, we should look about for some other 
 answer. Unhappily, the supply of human creatures is in 
 excess of the demand as English society is now consti- 
 tuted ; and there is no interest, public or private, in keep- 
 ing more babies than necessary alive. The fathers and 
 mothers find them a burden, and statesmen with their 
 hands full of other matters look on unconcerned. The 
 neglect on both sides is monstrous, unnatural, and requires 
 explanation ; and the explanation lies in the organization 
 or disorganization of modern industry; in tendencies at 
 worli alike in town and country, which increase in force in 
 geometrical proportion with the extension of the modern 
 conditions of labor. The artisans ia the great cities, the 
 agricultural laborers driven out of the old-fashioned ham- 
 lets and huddled into villages, are heaped together in 
 masses where wholesome life is impossible. Their wages 
 may be nominally rising, sufficiently, perhaps, to keep pace 
 with the rise of prices, but wages form only a small part 
 of the matter. The agricultural laborer lodges now many 
 mUes from his work. He leaves his home in the early 
 morning, he returns to it late at night. The ground in 
 town has become so enormously valuable that the factory 
 hand and the mechanic can afford but a single room, at the 
 best two. When his day's toil is over he has no tempta- 
 tion to return to the squalid nest which is all that society 
 can allow him, and he finds the beer house and the gin 
 palace a grateful exchange. The wife, obliged herself to 
 work to supply the empty platters, must be absent also 
 many hours from home ; she has, no leisure to attend to her 
 children, and they grow up as they can, to fall a prey to 
 disease and accidents which lie in wait for them at every 
 tarn. 
 A stranger, traveUmg on a railway from end to end of 
 
 20 
 
806 The Colonies once more. 
 
 England, would think that there was no civilized country in 
 the world where there was so much elbow room. He sees 
 enormous extents of pasture land and undulating fallows 
 cultivated to the highest point of productiveness, with only 
 at intervals symptoms of human habitations. He sees the 
 palaces of the noble and the wealthy set in the midst of 
 magnificent parks, studded with forest trees and sheets of 
 ornamental water, or maintained for game preserves and 
 artificial wildernesses. In Scotland he sees whole counties 
 kept as deer forests and grouse moors, that the great of the 
 land may have their six weeks' enjoyment there in the 
 autumn. Room enough and to spare he would naturally 
 think there must be in a land where ground could be de- 
 voted so lavishly to mere amusement. If he is a guest at 
 one of these grand mansions he will be told, as Mr. Go- 
 schen says, that over-population is a dream. He gazes 
 across the broad-reaching lawns, or down the stately 
 avenues. Miles distant he sees the belt of forest which 
 bounds the domain and holds the outer world at bay. His 
 host tells him with pride that from his own coal and iron 
 are made the rails which shall link together the provinces 
 of India, that there is no limit to English production, to 
 English wealth, to English greatness. True enough, there 
 never was in any country such productiveness, never any 
 system which extracted ' larger material results from the 
 loins and smews of human beings, and never any which 
 recognized less obligation to those beings by whose toil all 
 this wealth has been created. 
 
 What would you have ? it is impatiently asked. What 
 ought to be done ? I. should say, at any rate do not let the 
 present condition of things develop further till you have 
 learnt better how to govern it, and how to apportion better 
 the moral and material proceeds of it. Remove as many 
 of the people annually as will make room for the natural 
 increase. You will then have breathing time to look about 
 you, and overtake the confusion which is every day becom- 
 
The Colonies once more. 307 
 
 ing now more intolerable. At best you will succeed but 
 imperfectly in reducing tbe numbers, for as you relieve the 
 pressure at home many of the children who now die will 
 survive. The employer may take heart. When we have 
 done our utmost we shaU make no depletion in the labor 
 market. But the rate at ' which our moral disorders are 
 growing wUl at least be checked. If nothing else, we shall 
 have saved a moiety of infants from a miserable death ; 
 and if England itself is to remain the land of those burning 
 contrasts which are now so appalling, we shall be planting 
 a race of Englishmen elsewhere who may grow up under 
 the happier conditions which belonged to our fathers. 
 The aged oak may decay at the heart, and yet still stand 
 for centuries, when it is fed by healthy juices from its ex- 
 tremities. Two alternatives lie palpably open to us at this 
 moment. Shall there be a British Empire of which the 
 inexhaustible resources shall be made available for the 
 whole commonwealth ? ShaU there be tens of millions of 
 British subjects rooted in different parts of the globe, loyal 
 all to one crown, and loyal to each other, because sharing 
 equally and fairly in the common patrimony ? . Or shall 
 there be an England of rich men in- which the multitude 
 are sacrificed to the luxuries of the few, an England of 
 which the pleasant parks and woodlands are the preserves 
 of the great ; and the millions, the creators of the wealth, 
 swiU and starve amidst dirt and disease and vice and 
 drunkenness and infanticide ? 
 
 Every day makes it more clear that the true objection 
 to emigration, the true cause of aU this feeling so lately 
 broken out among us that England is suificient for itself, 
 and that the colonies are a burden to it, is the interest of 
 the landowners and the employers of labor. The time 
 may come, perhaps may be very near, when their wealth 
 may not be tenable on those terms. If we are put; to the 
 test we shall require all our strength, and it wUl be well 
 for us if we have a nation to fall back upon whose loyalty 
 
808 The Colonies once more. 
 
 we ha\e deserved, and whose tempers we may safely trusti 
 But we cannot have everything. We cannot have patriot* 
 ism in the people, and political economy the sole rule of 
 statesmanship. Money wUl not save us. We cannot buy 
 off invasion as the failing Roman Empire tried to buy off 
 the barbarians. We must rely upon the sentimental 
 virtues, and we must take means to foster those virtues. 
 If we tell the people in the name of our government that 
 they and theirs have no inheritance in the land of their 
 fethers, that the world is a great market where they must 
 higgle for themselves, and make their own bargains, the 
 mill hand or farm laborer wiU be a mere fool if he risk his 
 life or bear taxation for a country which disowns concern 
 in him. 
 
 We are not particularly sanguine that a large imperial 
 policy win receive consideration, at this time especially, 
 when immediate peril seems to be no longer at our doors. 
 Were we even in positive da/iger it is unlikely that the 
 wealthy part of England would consent to a self-denying 
 ordinance which would demand immediate sacrifices ; and 
 yet ten millions would be a cheap investment if it secured 
 the attachment of the colonies, and taught our people that 
 the commonwealth, in the old sense of that most meaning 
 word, was still the care of English statemen. After aU, 
 what are those hundred and forty mUlions of savings ? 
 They are savings from what? The whole of it is the 
 produce of English labor, the earnings of the working men 
 themselves, however directed by intelligence, and assisted 
 by capital. It is no very great thing to ask that a portion 
 of this great sum should be expended in their interests. 
 
 Doubtless, however, a Parliament which Would take this 
 view of the matter would be a Parliament returned by the 
 working men themselves, and the working men, if they 
 take the power into their own hands, will not use it for 
 such a wholesome purpose as emigration. The working 
 men have set far different ends before them. They see 
 
The Colonies once more. 309 
 
 their masters growing in splendor and luxury. They see 
 their own condition unimproved, and under the existing 
 system unimprovable. They see the soil of England be» 
 coming the demesne of an ever-diminishing number oi 
 fortune's favorites, and their cherished idea, it is well 
 known, is a redivision of the land, and their own restora- 
 tion to a share in the general ihheritance. They know 
 that the land laws of England are different from the land 
 laws of any other country ia the world. They do not ask 
 how far the monopoly which they deprecate may be due to 
 causes which legislation did not produce and cannot 
 remedy. They do not inquire what the effect would be of 
 a violent disturbance of landed tenures, or how far they 
 would obtain from a division of the soil the happiness they 
 anticipate. They insist that the land is national property) 
 and they demand that they shall be no longer excluded 
 from their natural inheritance. 
 
 Men possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with. 
 Divide England, Scotland, and Ireland as they will, twd 
 thirds of Our thirty millions could not live on the produce 
 of the land, and an interference with the rights of property 
 would paralyze manufactures and destroy the means of 
 support for the rest. As little can the trades-unions do for 
 the distribution of the profits of labor with their arbitrary 
 restrictions upon work and their wild notions of a dead 
 level of reward, where the idle and incapable shall share 
 alike with the gkUlfrd and industrious. The problem as 
 they approach it is insoluble. They are like chUdren 
 grasping at the moon. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is in these directions that their thoughts 
 &re running, and sooner or later the organization of the 
 unions will be turned upon politics, and upon securing a 
 majority in the House of Commons to carry out these no- 
 tions. The gin and beer are doubtless elements of conser- 
 vatism. The satisfaction of the vulgar politician at the 
 increased consumption of such things is not without reason. 
 
810 The Colonies once more. 
 
 The thriftless vagabond who carries his week's wages on 
 Saturday afternoon to the pothouse, and emerges out of his 
 bestiality on Tuesday morning to earn the materials for a 
 fresh debauch — this dehghtftil being has nothing politically 
 dangerous about him. He will sell his vote to the highest 
 bidder, and look no farther than his quart of half-and-half. 
 The working men, however, as a body, are alive to the dis- 
 grace of their order. Some day or other they may check 
 for themselves what they have vainly petitioned the legis- 
 lature 1^0 assist them in restraining ; and whether or no, the 
 present elements of confusion in English society are suflB.- 
 ciently threatening. If we allow our industrial system to 
 extend in the same manner and at the same rate of increase 
 as hitherto, every feature most fraught with danger must 
 increase along with it. The boundary line between rich 
 and poor will be more and more sharply defined. The 
 number of those who can afford to hold land must diminish 
 as by a law of nature. The wealthy will become more 
 wealthy, the luxurious more luxurious, while there will be 
 an ever enlarging multitude deeply tinctured with mere 
 heathenism, left to shift for themselves, and resentful of the 
 neglect, with the cost of living keeping pace with the ad- 
 vance of wages, and therefore in the presence of an enor- 
 mous accumulation of capital, condemned, apparently for- 
 ever, to the same hopeless condition, and yet with political 
 power in their hands if they care to use it. 
 
 No one who is not wiUftdly blind can suppose that such 
 a state of things can continue. Human society is made pos- 
 sible only by the observance of certain moral conditions ; 
 and tendencies which, if not positively immoral, are yet not 
 positively moral, but material and mechanical, must and 
 will issue at last in a convulsive effort to restore the social 
 equilibrium. 
 
 England, itself, is committed for good or evil to be a 
 great manufacturing country. Let her manulactures cease, 
 and her political greatness is at an end. It is not equally 
 
The Colonies once more. 311 
 
 necessary that they should be extended beyond their pres- 
 , ent limit. It is not equally necessary that the stability of 
 the empire should exclusively depend on them. Providence 
 or bur father's energy has brought splendid territories under 
 the British flag, where fresh communities of us. may spring 
 up dependent on less precarious terms. The milKons to be 
 hereafter added to our numbers may be occupied in the cul- 
 tivation of land, whilst our efforts at home may be turned, 
 for the future, rather to improving the quality of what we 
 produce than multiplyiug the quantity of it,' and to bringing 
 under control the dirt, and ignorance, and disease, and crime 
 which are making our great towns into nurseries of barba- 
 rism. The employers might allay their alarms. The initial 
 loss, if loss there was, would compensate itself in the good 
 will of the employed, and in the improved work in which 
 that gpod-will would show itself. The surest roa,d to devel- 
 opment of trade, it has been proved to demonstration, lies 
 in the development of the colonies. 
 
 Little sanguine as we are, therefore, we conclude, as they 
 say in the House of Commons, with a motion : We invite 
 the Ministry no longer to indulge in indolent satisfaction 
 with the revival of trade, but to look upon it merely as a 
 reprieve, as a breathing time in which they may take pre- 
 cautions against the return of evil days. We invite them to 
 reconsider the political effects of the exodus of the Irish, and 
 to regard it not as an example but as a warning. We in- 
 vite them to reflect that, although our colonies might be 
 considered an embarrassment to us if they were imbedded 
 in continents and accessible only through the territories of 
 other nations, yet that with a water highway to their doors 
 they are so disposed as to contribute to a mercantile State 
 such as ours not weakness but enormous strength ; that the 
 ten millions by whom those colonies are now occupied 
 might become fifty millions, yet the addition be felt only in 
 providing openings for yet vaster numbers ; that the 
 sovereign of this country would be possessed of so many 
 
312 The Colonies once more. 
 
 more devoted and prosperous subjects ; and that by prorid 
 ing this outlet, the only sure measures would have been 
 taken for the improvement of our people at home. 
 
 The terms on which the colonies are to remain attached 
 to us may be left to settle themselves. There is no occa- 
 sion for present change, if it be understood that we have no 
 desire to part with them, and if colonists are admitted freely 
 to such honors and privileges as the State confers on dis- 
 tinguished subjects. Healthy confederations must grow, and 
 cannot be made. The only stable bond of union is matoal 
 good-will. 
 
EDUCATION: 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS AT 
 ST. ANDREW'S, 
 
 Maboh 19, 1869. 
 
 Mt first duty, in the obserrations which I am about to 
 address to you, is to make my personal acknowledgments 
 on the occasion which has brought me to this place. When 
 we begin our work in this world, we value most the appro- 
 bation of those older than ourselves. To be regarded favor- 
 ably by those who have obtained distinction bids us hope 
 that we too, by and by, may come to be distinguished in 
 turn. As we advance in life, we learn the limits of our 
 abilities. Our expectations for the future shrink to modest 
 dimensions. The question with us is no longer what we shall 
 do, but what we have done. We call ourselves to account for 
 the time and talents which we have used or misused, and 
 then it is that the good opinion of those who are coming 
 after us becomes so peculiarly agreeable. If we have been 
 roughly handled by our contemporaries, it flatters our self- 
 conceit to have interested another generation. If we feel 
 that we have before long to pass away, we can dream of a 
 second future for ourselves in the thoughts of those who are 
 about to take their turn upon the stage. 
 
 Therefore it is that no recognition of efforts of mine 
 which I have ever received has given me so much pleasure 
 as my election by you as your Rector ; an honor as spon- 
 tai^ously and generously bestowed by you as it was un- 
 locked for, I may say undreamt of, by me. 
 
314 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 Many years ago, when 1 was first studying the history of 
 the Reformation in Scotland, I read a story of a slave in a 
 French galley who was one morning bending wearily over 
 his oar. The day was breaking, and, rising out of the gray 
 waters, a line of clijQFs was visible, and the white houses of 
 a town and a church tower. The rower was a man unused 
 to such sernce, worn with toil and watching, and likely, it 
 was thought, to die. A companion touched him, pointed to 
 the shore, and asked him if he knew it. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " I know it well. I see the steeple 
 of that place where God opened my mouth in public to his 
 glory ; and I know, how weak soever I now appear, I shall 
 not depart out of this life tiU my tongue glorify his name 
 in the same place." 
 
 Gentlemen, that town was St. Andrew's, that galley slave 
 was John Biiox ; and we know that he came back and did 
 " glorify God " in this place and others to some purpose. 
 
 Well, if anybody had told me, when I was reading about 
 this, that I also should one day come to St. Andrew's and 
 be called on to address the University, I shoidd have lis- 
 tened with more absolute incredulity than Kiiox's comrade 
 listened to that prophecy. 
 
 Yet, inconceivable as it would then have seemed, the un- 
 likely has become fact. I am addressing the successors of 
 that remote generation of students whom Knox, at the end 
 of his life, " called round him," in the yard of this very Col- 
 lege, " and exhorted them," as James MelviUe tells us, " to 
 know God and stand by the good cause, and use their time 
 well." It win be happy for me if I, too, can read a few 
 words to you out of the same lesson-book ; for to make us 
 know our duty and do it, to make us upright in act and true 
 in thought and word, is the aim of all instruction which de- 
 serves the name, the epitome of all purposes for which edu- 
 cation exists. Duty changes, truth expands, one age can- 
 not teach another either the details of its obligations or the 
 matter of its knowledge, but the prindple of obligation ia 
 
■ the University of St. Andrew's. 315 
 
 everlasting. The consciousness of duty, whatever its origin, 
 is to the moral nature of man what life is in the seed-cells 
 of all organized creatures : the condition of its coherence, 
 the elementary force in virtue of which it grows. 
 
 Every one admits this in words. Rather, it has become a 
 cant nowadays to make a parade of noble intentions. But 
 when we pass beyond the verbal proposition our guides fail 
 us, and we are left iu practice to grope our way or guess it 
 as we can. So far as our special occupations go, there is no 
 uncertainty. Are we traders, mechanics, lawyers, doctors ? 
 — we know our work. ■ Our duty is to do it as honestly 
 and as well as we can. When we pass to our larger inter- 
 ests, to those which concern us as men — to what Knox 
 meant " by knowing God and standing by the good cause " 
 — I suppose there has been rarely a time in the history of 
 the world when intelligent people have held more opposite 
 opinions. The Scots to whom Knox was speaking knew well 
 enough. They had their Bibles as the rule of their lives. 
 They had broken down the tyranny of a contemptible super- 
 stition. They were growing up iuto yeomen, farmers, arti- 
 sans, traders, scholars, or ministers, each with the business 
 of his life clearly marked out before him. Their duty was to 
 walk uprightly by the light of the Ten Commandments, and 
 to fight with soul and body against the high-born scoundrel- 
 dom and spiritual sorcery which were combining to make 
 them again into slaves. 
 
 , I will read you a description of the leaders of the great 
 party iu Scotland against whom the Protestants and Knox 
 were contending. I am not going to quote any fierce old 
 Calvinist who wUl be set down as a bigot and a liar. My 
 witness is M. Fontenay, brother of the secretary of Mary 
 Stuart, who was residing here on Mary Stuart's business. 
 The persons of whom he was speaking were the so-called 
 Catholic Lords ; and the occasion was in a letter to her- 
 self:— 
 
 " 'The sirens," wrote this M. Fontenay, " which bewitch 
 
316 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 the lords of this country are money and power. If I preach 
 to them of their duty to their sovereign — if I talk to them 
 of honor, of justice, of virtue, of the illustrious actions of 
 their forefathers, and of the example which they should 
 themselves bequeath to their posterity — they think me a 
 fool. They can talk of these things themselves — talk as 
 well as the best philosophers in Europe. But, when it 
 comes to action, they are like the Athenians, who knew 
 what was good, but would not do it. The misfortune of 
 Scotland is that the noble lords will not look beyond the 
 points of their shoes. They care nothing for the future, 
 and less for the past." 
 
 To free Scotland from the control of an unworthy aris- 
 tocracy, to bid the dead virtues live again, and plant the 
 eternal rules in the consciences of the people — this, as I 
 understand it, was what Knox was working at, and it waa 
 comparatively a simple thing. It was simple, because the 
 difficulty was not to know what to do, but how to do it. 
 It required no special discernment to see into the fitness for 
 government of lords like those described by Fontenay ; or 
 to see the difference as a rule of life between the New Tes- 
 tament and a creed that issued in Jesuitism and the mas^ 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew. The truth was plain as the sun. 
 The thing then wanted was courage ; courage in common 
 men to risk their persons, to venture the high probability 
 that before the work was done they might have their 
 throats cut, or see their houses burnt over their heads. 
 
 Times are changed ; we are still surrounded by temptsi» 
 tions, but they no longer appear in the shape of stake and 
 gallows. They come rather as intellectual perplexities, on 
 the largest and gravest questions which concern us as 
 human creatures; perplexities with regard to which self- 
 interest is perpetually tempting us to be false to our real 
 convictions. The best that we can do for one another is 
 to exchange our thoughts freely ; and that, after all, is but 
 little. Experience is no more transferable in morals than 
 
ihe University of St. Andrew'g. 317 
 
 in art The drawing-master can direct his pupD. generally 
 in the principles of art. He can teach him here and there 
 to avoid familiar stumbling-blocks. But the pupil must 
 himself realize every rule which the master gives him. 
 He must spoil a hundred copy-books before the lesson wUl 
 yield its meaning to him. Action is the real teacher. In- 
 struction does not prevent waste of time or mistakes ; and 
 mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all. In 
 every accomplishment, every mastery of truth, moral, 
 spiritual, or mechanical, -^ 
 
 Necesse est 
 Multa din concreta modU inolescere miris: 
 
 our acquirements must grow into us in marvelous ways — 
 marvelous — as anything connected with man has been, is, 
 and wiE be. 
 
 I have but the doubtful advantage, in speaking to you, 
 of a few more years of life ; and even whether ydars bring 
 wisdom or do not briug it is far from certain. The fact of 
 growing older teaches many of us to respect notions which 
 we once believed to be antiquated. Our intellectual joints 
 stiffen, and our fathers' crutches have attractions for us. 
 You must therefore take the remarks that I am going 
 to make at what appears to you their intrinsic value. 
 Stranger as I am to all of you, and in a relation with yon 
 which is only transient, I can but offer you some few gen- 
 eral conclusions which have forced themselves on me during 
 my own experience, in the hope that you may find them 
 not whoUy useless. And as it is desirable to give form to 
 remarks which might otherwise be desultory, I will follow 
 the train of thought suggested by our presence at this 
 place and the purpose which brings you here. You stand 
 on the margin of the great world, into which you are about 
 to be plunged, to sink or swim. We wiU consider the 
 stock in trade, the moral and mental furniture, with which 
 you will start upon your journey. 
 
 In the first place you are Scots ; you come of a fine 
 
318 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 stock, and much wil] be expected of you. If we except 
 the Athenians and Jews, no people so few in number have 
 scored so deep a mark in the world's history as you have 
 done. No people have a juster right to be proud of their 
 blood. I suppose, if any one of you were asked whether 
 he would prefer to be the son of a Scotch peasant or to 
 be the heir of an Indian rajah with twenty lacs of rupees, 
 he would not hesitate about his answer : we should none 
 of us object to the rupees, but I doubt if the Scot ever 
 breathed who would have sold his birthright for them. 
 Well, then. Noblesse oblige ; all blood is noble here, and a 
 noble life should go along with it. It is not for nothing 
 that you here and we in England come, both of us, of our 
 respective races ; we inherit honorable traditions and mem- 
 ories ; we inherit qualities inherent in our bone and blood, 
 which have been earned for us, no thanks to ourselves, by 
 twenty generations of ancestors ; our fortunes are now 
 linked together for good and evU, never more to be divided ; 
 but when we examine our several contributions to the com- 
 mon stock, the account is more in your favor than ours. 
 
 More than once you saved English Protestantism ; you 
 may have to save it again, for aU that I know, at the rate 
 at which our English parsons are now running. Tou gave 
 us the Stuarts, but you helped us to get rid of them. 
 Even now you are teaching us what, uiiless we saw it 
 before our eyes, no Englishman would believe to be pos- 
 sible, that a member of Parliament can be elected without 
 bribery. For shrewdness of head, thoroughgoing com- 
 pleteness, contempt of compromise, and moral backbone, 
 no set of people were ever started into life more generously 
 provided. Tou did not make these things ; it takes many 
 generations to breed high qualities either of mind or body ; 
 but you have them, they are a fine capital to commence 
 business with, and, as 1 said, Noblesse oblige. 
 
 So much for what you bring with you into the world. 
 And the other part of your equipment is only second in 
 
tTie University of St. Andrew's, 319 
 
 importance to it: I mean your education. There is no 
 occasion to tell a Scotchman to value education. On this, 
 too, you have set us an example which we are beginning to 
 imitate : I only wish our prejudices and jealousies would 
 allow us to imitate it thoroughly. In the form of your 
 education, whether in the parish school or here at the 
 university, there is little to be desired. It is fair all round 
 to poor and rich aliiie. You have broken down, or you 
 never permitted to rise, the enormous barrier of expense 
 which makes the highest education in England a privilege 
 of the wealthy. The subjectTmatter is another thing. 
 Whether the subjects to which, either with you or with us, 
 the precious years of boyhood and youth continue to be 
 given, are the best in themselves, whether they should be 
 altered or added to, and if so, in what direction and to 
 what extent, are questions which all the world is busy 
 with. Education is on everybody's lips. Our own great 
 schools and coUeg-es are in the middle of a revolution, 
 which, like most revolutions, means discontent with what 
 we have, and no clear idea of what we would have. You 
 yourselves cannot here have whoUy escaped the infection, 
 or if you have, you wiQ not escape it long. The causes 
 are not far to seek. On the one hand there is the immense 
 multiplication of the subjects of knowledge, through the 
 progress of science, and the investigation on aU sides into 
 the present and past condition of this planet and its inhab- 
 itants ; on the other, the equally increased range of occupa- 
 tions, among which the working part of mankind are now 
 distributed, and for one or other of which our education is 
 intended to qualify us. It is admitted by every one that we 
 cannot any longer confine ourselves to the learned lan- 
 guages, to the grammar and logic and philosophy which 
 satisfied the seventeenth century. Yet, if we try to pile on 
 the top of these the histories and literatur'es of our own and 
 other nations, with modem languages and sciences, we 
 accumulate a load of matter which the most ardent and 
 industrious student cannot be expected to cope with. 
 
820 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 It may seem presumptuous in a person like myself, un- 
 connected as I have been for many years with any educa- 
 tional body, to obtrude my opinion on these things. Yet 
 outsiders, it is said, sometimes see deeper into a game than 
 those who are engaged in playing it. 
 
 In everything that we do or mean to do, the first condi- 
 tion of success is that we understand clearly the result 
 which we desire to produce. The house-builder does not 
 gather together a mass of bricks and timber and mortar, and 
 trust that somehow a house will shape itself out of its mate- 
 rials. Wheels, springs, screws, and dial-plate will not con- 
 stitute a watch, unless they are shaped and fitted with the 
 proper relations to one another. I have long thought that, 
 to educate successfully, ■ you should first ascertain clearly, 
 with sharp and distinct outline, what you mean by an edu- 
 cated man. 
 
 Now our ancestors, whatever their other shortcomings, 
 understood what they meant perfectly well. In their pri- 
 mary education and in their higher education they knew 
 what they wanted to produce, and they suited their means 
 to their ends. They set out with the principle that every 
 child born iu the world should be taught his duty to God 
 and man. The majority of people had to live, as they 
 always must, by bodUy labor ; therefore every boy was as 
 early as was convenient set to labor. He was not permit- 
 ted to idle about the streets or lanes. He was apprenticed 
 to some honest industry. Either he was sent to a farm, or, 
 if his wits were sharper, he was allotted to the village car- 
 penter, bricklayer, tailor, shoemaker, or whatever it might 
 be. He was instructed in some positive calling by which 
 he could earn his bread and become a profitable member of 
 the commonwealth. Besides this, but not, you will observe, 
 independent of it, you had in Scotland, established by Knox, 
 your parish schools where he was taught to read, and, if he 
 showed special talent that way, he was made a scholar of 
 and trained for the ministry. But neither Knox nor any 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. 321 
 
 one in those days thought of what we call enlarging the 
 mind. A hoy was taught reading that he might read his 
 Bible and learn to fear God, and be ashamed and afraid to 
 do wrong. 
 
 An eminent American was once talking to me of the 
 school system in the United States. The boast and glory 
 of it, in his mind, was that every citizen born had a fair and 
 equal start in life. Every one of them kneW' that he had 
 a chance of becoming President of the Republic, and was 
 spurred to energy by the hope. Here, too, you see, is a 
 distinct object. Young Americans are all educated alike. 
 The aim put before them is to get on. They are like run- 
 ners in a race, set to push and shoulder for the best places ; 
 never to rest contented, but to struggle forward in never 
 ending competition. It has answered its purpose in a new 
 and unsettled country, where the centre of gravity has not 
 yet determined into its place ; but I cannot think that such a 
 system as this can be permanent, or that human society, con- 
 stituted on such a principle, will ultimately be found tolera- 
 ble. For one thing, the prizes of life so looked at are at best, 
 but few and the competitors many. " For myself," said the 
 great Spinoza, " I am certain that the good of human life 
 cannot lie in the possession of things which, for one man to 
 possess, is for the rest to lose, but rather in things which all 
 can possess alike, and where one man's wealth promotes his 
 neighbor's." At any rate, it was not any such notion as 
 this which Kiiox had before him when he instituted your 
 parish schools. We had no parish schools in England for 
 centuries after he was gone, but the object was answered 
 by the Church catechizing and the Sunday-school. Our 
 boys, like yours, were made to understand that they would 
 have to answer for the use that they made of their lives. 
 And, in both countries, they were put in the way of leading 
 useful lives if they would be honest, by industrial training. 
 The essential thing was that every one that was wiUipg to 
 21 
 
S22 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 work should be enabled to maintain himself and his family 
 in honor and independence. 
 
 Pass to the education of a scholar, and you find the same 
 principle otherwise applied. There are two ways of being 
 independent. If you require much, you must produce much. 
 If you produce little, you must require little. Those whose 
 studies added nothing to the material wealth of the world 
 were taught to be content to be poor. They were a burden 
 on others, and the burden was made as light as possible. 
 The thirty thousand students who gathered out of Europe 
 to Paris to listen to Abelard did not travel in carriages, and 
 they brought no portmanteaus with them. They carried 
 their wardrobes on their backs. They walked from Paris 
 to Padua, from Padua to Salamanca, and they begged their 
 way along the roads. The laws against mendicancy in aU 
 countries were suspended in favor of scholars wandering in 
 pursuit of knowledge, and formal licenses were issued to 
 them to ask alms. At home, at his college, the scholar's 
 fare was the hardest, his lodging was the barest. If rich in 
 mind, he was expected to be poor in body ; and so deeply 
 was this theory grafted into English feeling that earls and 
 dukes, when they began to frequent universities, shared the 
 common simplicity. The furniture of a noble earl's room 
 at an English university at present may cost, including the 
 pictures of opera-dancers and race-horses and such like, per- 
 haps five hundred pounds. When the magnificent Earl of 
 Essex was sent to Cambridge, in Elizabetli's time, his guard- 
 ians provided him with a deal table covered with green 
 baize, a truckle bed, half-a-dozen chairs, and a washhand 
 basin. The cost of all, I think, was five pounds. 
 
 You see what was meant. The scholar was held in high 
 honor; but his contributions to the commonwealth were 
 not appreciable in money, and were not rewarded with 
 money. He went without what he could not produce, that 
 he might keep his independence and his self-respect un- 
 harmed. Neither scholarship nor science starved under this 
 
the University of St. Andrew's, 323 
 
 treatment ; more noble souls have been smothered in lux- 
 ury, than were ever killed by hunger. Your Knox was 
 brought up in this way, Buchanan was brought up in this 
 way, Luther was brought up in this way, and Tyndal who 
 translated the Bible, and Milton and Kepler and Spinoza, 
 and your Robert'Burns. Compare Burns, bred behind the 
 plough, and our English Byron ! 
 
 This was the old education, which formed the character 
 of the English and Scotch nations. It is dying away at 
 both extremities, as no longer suited to what is called mod- 
 ern civiUzation. The apprenticeship as a system of instruc- 
 tion is gone. The discipline of poverty — not here as yet, 
 I am happy to think, but in England — is gone also ; and 
 we have got instead what are called enlarged minds. 
 
 I ask a modern march-of-intellect man what education is 
 for ; and he teUs me it is to make educated men. I ask 
 what an educated man is : he tells me it is a man whose in- 
 telligence has been cultivated, who knows something of the 
 world he lives in — the diiFerent races of men, their lan- 
 guages, their histories, and the books that they have writ- 
 ten ; and again, modern science, astronomy, geology, physi- 
 ology, political economy, mathematics, mechanics — every- 
 thing in fact which an educated man ought to know. 
 
 Education, according to this, means instruction in every- 
 thing which human beings have done, thought, or discov- 
 ered ; all history, all languages, aU sciences. 
 
 The demands which intelligent people imagine that they 
 can make on the minds of students in this way are some- 
 thing amazing. I will give you a curious illustration of it. 
 When the competitive examination system was first set on 
 foot, a board of examiners met to draw up their papers of 
 questions. The scale of requirement had first to be settled. 
 Among them a highly distinguished man, who was to ex- 
 amine in English history, announced that, for himself, he 
 meant to set a paper for which Macaulay might possibly get 
 full marks ; and he wished the rest of the examiners to imi- 
 
324 Ediioation: Inaugural Address at 
 
 tate him in the other subjects. I saw the paper which he 
 set. I could myself have answered two questions out of a 
 dozen. And it was gravely expedted that ordinary young 
 men of twenty-one, who were to be examuied also in Greek 
 and Latin, in moral philosophy, in ancient history, in math- 
 ematics, and in two modern languages, were to show a pro- 
 ficiency in each and all of these subjects, which a man of 
 mature age and extraordinary talents, like Macaulay, who 
 had devoted his whole time to that special study, had at- 
 tained only in one of them. 
 
 Under this system teaching becomes cramming ; an enor- 
 mous accumulation of propositions of all sorts and kinds is 
 thrust down the students' throats, to be poured out again, I 
 might say vomited out, into examiners' laps ; and this when 
 it is notorious that the sole condition of making progress in 
 any branch of art or knowledge is to leave on one side every- 
 thing irrelevant to it, and to throw your undivided energy 
 on the special thing you have in hand. 
 
 Our old universities ai"e struggling against these absurdi- 
 ties. Yet, when we look at the work which they on their 
 side are doing, it is scarcely more satisfactory. A young 
 man going to Oxford learns the same things which were 
 taught there two centuries ago ; but, uulike the old scholars, 
 he learns no lessons of poverty along with it. In his three 
 years' course he wUl have tasted luxuries unknown to him 
 at home, and contracted habits of self-indulgence which make 
 subsequent hardships unbearable : while his antiquated 
 knowledge, such as it is, has fallen out of the market ; there 
 is no demand for him ; he is not sustained by the respect of 
 the world, which finds him ignorant of every tiling in which 
 it is interested. He is called educated; yet, if circum- 
 stances throw him on his own resources, he cannot earn a 
 sixpence for himself. An Oxford education fits a man ex- 
 tremely well for the trade of gentleman. I do not know 
 for what other trade it does fit him as at present constituted. 
 More than one man who has taken high honors there, who 
 
the University of St. Andrew^ s. 325 
 
 has learnt faithfully all that the university undertakes to 
 teach him, has been seen in these late years breaking stones 
 upon a road in Australia. That was all which he was 
 found to be fit for when brought in contact with the primary 
 realities of things. 
 
 It has become necessary to alter all this ; but how, and in 
 what direction ? If I go into modern model schools, I find 
 first of all the three R's, about which we are all agreed ; I 
 find next the old Latin and Greek, which the schools must 
 keep to while the universities confine their honors to these ; 
 and then, by way of keeping up with the times, " abridg- 
 ments," " text-books," " elements," or whatever they are 
 called, of a mixed multitude of matters, history, natural his- 
 tory, physiology, chronology, geology, political economy, 
 and I know not what besides ; general knowledge which, in 
 my experience, means knowledge of nothing : stuif arranged 
 admirably for one purpose, and one purpose only — to 
 make a show in examinations. To cram a lad's mind with 
 infinite names of things which he never handled, places he 
 never saw or will see, statements of facts which" he cannot 
 possibly understand, and must remain merely words to him, 
 — this, in my opinion, is like loading his stomach with mar- 
 bles. It is wonderfiil what a quantity of things of this kind 
 a quick boy will commit to memory, how smartly he will 
 answer questions, how he wiU show ofi" in school inspections, 
 and delight the heart of his master. But what has been 
 gained for the boy himself, let him carry this kind of thing 
 as far as he will, if, when he leaves school, he has to make 
 his own living ? Lord Brougham once said he hoped a time 
 would come when every man in England would read Bacon. 
 "WUliam Cobbett, that you may have heard of, said he 
 would be contented if a time came when every man in 
 England would eat bacon. People talk about enlarging the 
 mind. Some years ago I attended a lecture on education 
 in the Free Trade HaU at Manchester. Seven or eight 
 thousand people were present, and among the speakers was 
 
S26 Education: Inaugural Addresi at 
 
 one of the most popular orators of the day. He tstlked in 
 the usual way of the neglect of past generations, the be- 
 nighted peasant, in whose besotted brain even thought was 
 extinct, and whose sole spu-itual instruction was the dull and 
 dubious parson's sermon. Then came the contrasted pic- 
 ture : the broad river of modern discovery flowing through 
 town and hamlet, science shining as an intellectual sun, and 
 knowledge and justice, as her handmaids, redressing the 
 wrongs and healing the miseries of mankind. Then, wrapt 
 with insph-ed frenzy, the musical voice, thrilling with tran- 
 scendent emotion, — "I seem," the orator said, " I seom to 
 hear again the echo of that voice which rolled ove- the 
 primeval chaos, saying, ' Let there be Hght.' " 
 
 As you may see a breeze of wind pass over standing corn 
 and every stalk bends and a long wave sweeps across the 
 field, so all that listening multitude swayed and wavered 
 under the words. Yet, in plain prose, what did this gentle- 
 man definitely mean ? First and foremost, a man has to 
 earn his living, and all the 'ologies will not of tliemselves 
 enable him to earn it. Light ! yes, we want light, but it 
 must be light which will help us to work, and fiind food and 
 clothes and lodging for ourselves. A modern school wUI 
 undoubtedly shai-pen the wits of a clever boy. He will go 
 out into the world with the knowledge that there are a 
 great many good things in it which it will be highly pleas- 
 ant to get hold of; able as yet to do no one thing for which 
 anybody wUI pay him, yet bent on pushing himself forwai'd 
 into the pleasant places somehow. Some intelligent people 
 think that this is a promising state of mind, that an ardent 
 desire to better our position is the most powerful incentive 
 that we can feel to energy and industry. A great political 
 oconomist has defended the existence of a luxuriously-living 
 idle class as supplying a motive for exertion to those who 
 are less highly favored. They are like Olympian gods, con- 
 descending to show themselves in their Empyrean, and say- 
 ing to tlieir worshippers, " Make money, money enough, and 
 
the, University of St. Andrew's. 327 
 
 you and your descendants shall become as we are, and shoot 
 grouse and drink champagne all the days of your lives.'' 
 
 No doubt this would be a highly influential incitement to 
 activity of a sort ; only it must be remembered that there 
 are many sorts of activity, and short, smooth cuts to wealth 
 as well as long hilly roads. In civilized and artificial com- 
 munities there are many ways, where fools have money and 
 rogues want it, of effecting a change of possession. The 
 process is at once an intellectual pleasure, extremely rapid, 
 "and every way more agreeable than dull, mechanical labor. 
 I doubt very much indeed whether the honesty of the coun- 
 try has been improved by the substitution so generally of 
 mental education for industrial ; and the three E's, if no 
 industrial training has gone along with them, are apt, as 
 Miss Nightingale observes, to produce a fourth R of rascal- 
 dom. 
 
 But it is only fair, if I quarrel alike with those who go 
 forward and those who stand still, to offer an opinion of 
 my own. If I call other people's systems absurd, in justice 
 I must give them a system of my own to retort upon. 
 Well, then, to recur once more to my question. Before 
 we begin to build, let us have a plan of the house that we 
 woxdd construct Before we begin to train a boy's mind, I 
 will try to explain what I, for my part, would desire to see 
 done with it. 
 
 I wUl take the lowest scale first. 
 
 I accept without qualification the first principle of our 
 forefathers, that every boy born into the world should be 
 put 'in the way of maintaining himself in honest indepen- 
 dence. No education which does not make this its first 
 aim is worth anything at all. There are but three ways 
 of living, as some one has said ; by working, by begging, 
 or by stealing. Those who do not work, disguise it in 
 whatever pretty language we please, are doing one of the 
 other two. A poor man's child is brought here with no 
 win of his own. We have no right to condemn him to be 
 
328 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 a mendicant or a rogue ; he may fairly demand therefore 
 to be put in the way of earning his bread by labor. The 
 practical necessities must take precedence of the intellec- 
 tual. A tree must be rooted in the soil before it can bear 
 flowers and fruit. A man must learn to stand upright 
 upon his own feet, to respect himself, to be independent 
 of charity or accident. It is on this basis only that any 
 superstructure of intellectual cultivation worth having can 
 possibly be bmlt. The old apprenticeship therefore was, 
 in my opinion, an excellent system, as the world used to 
 be. The Ten Commandments and a handicraft made a 
 good and wholesome equipment to commence life with. 
 Times are changed. The apprentice plan broke down : 
 partly because it was abused for purposes of tyranny ; 
 partly because employers did not care to be burdened with 
 boys whose labor was unprofitable ; partly because it 
 opened no road for exceptional clever lads to rise into 
 higher positions ; they were started in a groove from which 
 they could never afterwards escape. 
 
 Yet the original necessities remain unchanged. The 
 Ten Commandments are as obligatory as ever, and prac- 
 tical abUity, the being able to do something and not merely 
 to answer questions, must still be the backbone of the edu- 
 cation of every boy who has to earn his bread by manual 
 labor. 
 
 Add knowledge afterwards as much as you will, but let 
 it be knowledge which will lead to the doing better each 
 particular work which a boy is practicing ; every fraction 
 of it will thus be useful to him ; and if he has it in him to 
 rise, there is no fear but he will find opportunity. The 
 poet Coleridge once said that every man might have two 
 versions of his Bible ; one the book that he read, the other 
 the trade that he pursued, where he would find perpetual 
 illustrations of every Bible truth in the thoughts which his 
 occupation might open to him. 
 
 I would say, less fancifully, that every honest occupation 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. 329 
 
 to which a man sets his hand would raise him into a 
 philosopher if he mastered all the knowledge that belonged 
 to his craft. 
 
 Every occupation, even the meanest — I don't say the 
 scavenger's or the chimney-sweep's — but every productive 
 occupation which adds anything to the capital of mankind, 
 if followed assiduously with a desire to understand every- 
 thing connected with it, is an ascending stair whose summit 
 is nowhere, and from the successive steps of which the 
 torizon of knowledge perpetually enlarges. Take the 
 lowest and most unskilled labor of all, that of the peasant 
 in the field. The peasant's business is to make the earth 
 grow food ; the elementary rules of his art are the sim- 
 plest, and the rude practice of it the easiest ; yet between 
 the worst agriculture and the best lies agricultural chem- 
 istry, the application of machinery, the laws of the econ- 
 omy of force, and the most curious problems of physiology. 
 Each step of knowledge gained in these things can be 
 immediately appUed and realized. Each point of the 
 science which the laborer masters will make him not only 
 a wiser man but a better workman ; and wUl either lift 
 him, if he is ambitious, to a higher position, or make him 
 more intelligent and more valuable if he remains where he 
 is. If he be one of Lord Brougham's geniuses, he need 
 not go to the Novum Organon ; there is no direction in 
 which his own subject will not lead him, if he cares to fol- 
 low it, to the furthest boundary of thought. Only I insist 
 on this, that information shall go along with practice,' and 
 the man's work become more profitable while he himself 
 becomes wiser. He may then go far, or he may stop 
 short ; but whichever he do, what he has gained will be 
 real gain, and become part and pardel of himself. 
 
 It sounds like mockery to talk thus of the possible 
 prospects of the toU-wom drudge who drags his limbs at 
 the day's end to his straw pallet, sleeps heavily, and wakes 
 only to renew the weary round. I am but comparing two 
 
330 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 systems of education, from each of wliich the expected 
 results may be equally extravagant. I mean only that if 
 there is to be this voice rolling over chaos again, ushering 
 in a miUeniiium, the way of it lies through industrial teach- 
 ing, where the practical underlies the intellectual. The 
 millions must ever be condemned to toil with their hands, 
 or the race wUl cease to exist. The beneficent light, when 
 it comes, wiU be a light which will make labor more pro- 
 ductive by being more scientific ; which will make the 
 humblest drudgery not imworthy of a human being, by 
 making it at the same time an exercise to his mind. 
 
 I spoke of the field laborer. I might have gone through 
 the catalogue of manual craftsmen, blacksmiths, carpenters, 
 bricklayers, tailors, cobblers, fishermen, what you wiU. 
 The same, rule applies to them aU. Detached facts on 
 miscellaneous subjects, as they are taught at a modem 
 school, are like separate letters of endless alphabets. Tou 
 may load the mechanical memory with them till it becomes 
 a marvel of retentiveness. Your young prodigy may 
 amaze examiners, and delight inspectors. His achieve- 
 ments may be emblazoned in blue-books, and furnish 
 matter for flattering reports on the excellence of our edu- 
 cational system ; and all this while you have been feeding 
 him with chips of granite. But arrange your letters into 
 words, and each becomes a thought, a symbol waking in 
 the mind an image of a real thing. Group your words 
 into sentences, and thought is married to thought and pro- 
 duces other thoughts, and the chips of granite become soft 
 bread, wholesome, nutritious, and invigorating. Teach 
 your boys subjects which they can only remember mechan- 
 ically, and you teach them nothing which it is worth their 
 while to know. Teach them facts and principles which 
 they can apply and use in the work of their lives ; an i if 
 the object be to give your clever working lads a chance of 
 rising to become Presidents of the United States, or mil- 
 lionaires with palaces and powdered footmen, the ascent 
 
the University of St. Andrew's, 331 
 
 into those blessed conditions wiU be easier and healthier 
 along the track of an instructed industry, than by the paths 
 which the most keenly sharpened wits would be apt to 
 choose for themselves. 
 
 To pass to the next scale, which more properly concerns 
 us here. As the world requires handicrafts, so it requires 
 those whose work is with the brain, or with brain and 
 hand combined — doctors, lawyers, engiaeers, ministers of 
 religion. Bodies become deranged, affairs become de- 
 ranged, sick souls require their sores to be attended to ; 
 and so arise the learned professions, to one or other of 
 which I presume that most of you whom I am addressing 
 intend to belong. Well, to the education for the profes- 
 sions I would apply the same principle. The student 
 should learn at the university what will enable him to 
 earn his living as soon after he leaves it as possible. I am 
 well aware that a professional education cannot be com- 
 pleted at a university; but it is true also that with every 
 profession there is a theoretic or scientific groundwork 
 which can be learnt nowhere so well, and, if those precious 
 years are wasted on what is useless, wiU never be learnt 
 properly at all. You are going to be a lawyer : you must 
 learu Latin, for you cannot understand the laws of Scot- 
 land without it ; but if you must learn another language, 
 Norman French wiU be more useful to you than Greek, 
 and the Acts of Parliament of Scotland more important 
 reading than livy or Thucydides. Are you to be a doc- 
 tor ? — you must learn Latin too ; but neither Thucydides 
 nor the Acts of Parliament will be of use to you — you 
 must learn chemistry ; and if you intend hereafter to keep 
 on a level with your science, you must learn modern French 
 and German, and learn them thoroughly well, for mistakes 
 n your work are dangerous. 
 
 Are you to be an engineer ? You must work now, when 
 you have time, at mathematics. You will make no progress 
 adthout it. You must work at chemistry ; Jt is the gram- 
 
332 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 mar of all physical sciences, and there is hardly one of the 
 physical sciences with which you may pot require to be 
 acquainted. The world is wide, and Great Britain is a 
 small, crowded island. You may wait long for employment 
 here. Your skUl wiU be welcomed abroad : therefore now 
 also, while you have time, learn French, or German, or 
 Russian, or Chinese. The command of any one of these 
 languages will secure to an English or Scotch engineer 
 instant and unbounded occupation. 
 
 The principle that I advocate is of earth, earthy. I »m 
 quite aware of it. "We are ourselves made of earth ; our 
 work is on the earth; and most of us are commonplace 
 people, who are obliged to make the most of our time. 
 History, poetry, logic, moral philosophy, classical literature, 
 are excellent as ornament. If you care for such things, 
 they may be the amusement of your leisure hereafter ; but 
 they will not help you to stand on your feet and walk 
 alone ; and no one is properly a man till he can do that. 
 You cannot learn everything ; the objects of knowledge 
 have multiplied beyond the powers of the strongest mind to 
 keep pace with them all. You must choose among them, 
 and the only reasonable guide to choice in such matters is 
 utility. The old saying, Non multa sed multum, becomes 
 every day more pressingly true. If we mean to thrive, we 
 must take one line and rigidly and sternly confine our 
 energies to it. Am I told that it will make men into 
 machines ? I answer that no men are machines who are 
 doing good work conscientiously and honestly, with the 
 fear of their Maker before them. And if a doctor or a 
 lawyer has it in him to become a ffreat man, he can ascend 
 through his profession to any height to which his talents 
 are equal. All that is open to the handicraftsman is open 
 to him, only that he starts a great many rounds higher up 
 the ladder. 
 
 What I deplore in our present higher education is the 
 devotion of so much effort and so many precious years to 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. 333 
 
 subjects which have no practical bearing upon life. We 
 had a theory 'at Oxford that our system, however defective 
 in many ways, yet developed in us some especially precious 
 human qualities. Classics and philosophy are called there 
 literse humaniores. They are supposed to have an effect on 
 character, and to be specially adapted for creating ministers 
 of religion. The training of clergymen is, if anything, the 
 special object of Oxford teaching. AH arrangements . are 
 made with a view to. it. The heads of colleges, the resi- 
 dent fellows, tutors, professors, are, with rare exceptions, 
 ecclesiastics themselves. 
 
 WeU, then, if they have hold of the right idea, the effect 
 ought to have been considerable. "We have had thirty 
 years of unexampled clerical activity among us : churches 
 have been doubled ; theological books, magazines, reviews, 
 newspapers, have been poured out by the hundreds of 
 thousands ; while by the side of it there has sprung up 
 an equally astonishing development of moral dishonesty. 
 From the great houses in the city of London to the village 
 grocer, the commercial life of England has been saturated 
 with fraud. So deep has it gone that a strictly honest 
 tradesman can hardly hold his ground against competition. 
 You can no longer trust that any article that you buy is 
 the thing which it pretends to be. We have false weights, 
 false measures, cheating and shoddy everywhere. Yet the 
 clergy have seen all this grow up in absolute indifference ; 
 and the great question which at this moment is agitating 
 the Church of England is the color of the ecclesiastical 
 petticoats. 
 
 Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England, 
 many a dissertation on the mysteries of the faith, on the 
 divine mission . of the clergy, on apostolic succession, on 
 bishops, and justification, and the theory of good works, 
 and verbal inspiration, and the efficacy of the sacraments ; 
 but never, during these thirty wonderful years, never one 
 that I can recollect on common honesty, or those primi- 
 
334 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 tive commandments, Thou shalt not lie, and Thou shalt not 
 steal. 
 
 The late Bishop Blomfleld used to teU a story of his 
 having been once late in life at the University Church at 
 Cambridge, and of having seen a verger there vrhom he 
 remembered vrhen he was himself an undergraduate. The 
 Bishop said he was glad to see him looking so well at such 
 a great age. " yes, my Lord," the fellow said, " I have 
 much to be grateful for. I have heard every sermon which 
 has been preached in this Church for fifty years, and, thank 
 God, I am a Christian still." 
 
 Classical philosophy, classical history and literature, 
 taking, as they do, no hold upon the living hearts and 
 imagination of men in this modern age, leave their work- 
 ing intelligence a prey to wUd imaginations, and make 
 them incapable of really understanding the world in which 
 they live. If the clergy knew as much of the history of 
 England and Scotland as they know about Greece and 
 Rome, if they had been ever taught to open their eyes and 
 see what is actually round them instead of groping among 
 books to find what men did or thought at Alexandria or 
 Constantinople fifteen hundred years ago, they would 
 grapple more effectively vrith the moral pestilence which is 
 poisoning all the air. 
 
 But it was not of this that I came here to speak. What I 
 msist upon is, generally, that in a country like ours, where 
 each child that is born among us finds every acre of land 
 appropriated, a universal " Not yours " set upon the rich 
 things with which he is surrounded, and a government 
 which, unlike those of old Greece or modem China, does 
 not permit superfluous babies to be strangled — such a 
 chUd, I say, since he is required to live, has a right to 
 demand such teaching as shall enable him to live with 
 honesty, and take such a place in society as belongs to the 
 faculties which he has brought with him. It is a right 
 which was recognized in one shape or another by our an- 
 
the Univenity of St. Andrew's. 335 
 
 oestors. It must he recognized now and always, if we are 
 not to become a mutinous rabble. And it ought to be the 
 guiding principle of all education, high and low. We 
 have not to look any longer to this island only. There is 
 on abiding place now for Englishmen and Scots wherever 
 our flag is flying. This narrow Britain, once our only 
 home, has become the breeding-place and nursery of a 
 race which is spreading over the world. Year after year 
 we are swarming as the bees swarm ; and year after year, 
 and I hope more and more, high-minded young men of all 
 ranks will prefer free air and free elbow-room for mind 
 and body to the stool and desk of the dingy office, the ill- 
 paid drudgery of the crowded ranks of the professions, or 
 the hopeless labor of our home farmsteads and workshops. 
 Education always should contemplate this larger sphere 
 and cultivate the capacities which wUl command success 
 there. Britaiu may have yet a future before it grander 
 than its past ; instead of a country standing alone complete 
 in itself, it may become the metropolis of an enormous and 
 coherent empire ; but on this condition only, that her chil- 
 dren, when they leave her shores, shall look back upon her, 
 not — like the poor Irish when they fly to America — as a 
 stepmother who gave them stones for bread, but as a mother 
 to whose care and nurture they shall owe their after pros- 
 perity. Whether this shall be so, whether England has 
 reached its highest point of greatness, and will now descend 
 to a second place among the nations, or whether it has yet 
 before it another era of brighter glory, depends on our- 
 selves, and depends more than anything on the breeding 
 which we give to our children. The boy that is kindly nur- 
 tured, and wisely taught and assisted to make his way in 
 life, does not forget his father and his mother. He is proud 
 of his family, and jealous for th'e honor of the name that he 
 bears. If the million lads that swarm in our towns and 
 villages are so trained that at home or in the colonies they 
 can provide for themselves, without passing first through a 
 
336 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 painM interval of suffering, they wUl be loyal wherever 
 they may be ; good citizens at home, and still Englishmen 
 and Scots on the Canadian lakes or in New Zealand. Our 
 island shores will be stretched till they cover half the globe. 
 It was not so that we colonized America, and we are reap- 
 ing now the reward of our carelessness. We sent America 
 our convicts. We sent America our Pilgrim Fathers, fling- 
 ing them out as worse than felons. We said to the Irish 
 cottier, You are a burden upon the rates ; go find a home 
 elsewhere. Had we offered him a home in the enormous 
 territories that belong to us, we might have sent him to 
 places where he would have been no burden but a blessing. 
 But we bade him carelessly go where he would, and shift 
 as he could for himself; he went with a sense of burning 
 wrong, and he left a festering sore behind him. Injustice 
 and heedlessness have borne their proper "fruits. We have 
 raised up against us a mighty empire to be the rival, it may 
 be the successful rival, of our power. 
 
 Loyalty, love of kindred, love of country, we know not 
 what we are doing when we trifle with feelings the most 
 precious and beautiful that belong to us — most beautiful, 
 most enduring, most hard to be obliterated — yet feelings 
 which, when they are obliterated, cannot change to neutral- 
 ity and cold friendship. Americans stiU, in spite of them- 
 selves, speak of England as home. They tell us they must 
 be our brothers or our enemies, and which of the two they 
 will ultimately be is still uncertain. 
 
 I beg your pardon for this digression ; but there are sub- 
 jects on which we feel sometimes compelled to speak in sea- 
 son and out of it. 
 
 To go back. 
 
 I shall be asked whether, after all, this earning our living, 
 this getting on in the world, ai-e not low objects for human 
 beings to set before themselves. Is not spirit more than 
 matter? Is there no such thing as pure intellectual cul- 
 ture ? " Philosophy," says Novalis, " will bake no bread, 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. 337 
 
 but it gives us our souls ; it gives us heaven ; it gives us 
 knowledge of those grand truths which concern us as im- 
 mortal beings." "Was it not said, " Take no thought what 
 ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall 
 be clothed. Tour Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
 need of these things. Behold the lilies of the field, they 
 toil not, neither do they spia. Yet Solomon in all his 
 glory was not arrayed like one of these." This is not en- 
 tirely a dream ! But such high counsels as these are ad- 
 dressed only to few ; and perhaps fewer stUl have heart to 
 follow them. If you choose the counsels of perfection, 
 count the cost, and understand what they mean. I knew a 
 student once from whose tongue dropped the subUmest of 
 sentiments ; who was never weary of discoursing on beauty 
 and truth and lofty motives ; who seemed to be longing for 
 some gulf to jump into, like the Roman Curtius — some 
 " fine opening for a young man " into which to plunge and 
 devote himself for the benefit of mankind. Yet he was 
 running all the while into debt, squandering the money on 
 idle luxuries which his father was sparing out of a narrow 
 income to give him a college education ; dreaming of mar- 
 tyrdom and unable to sacrifice a single pleasure ! 
 
 The words which I quoted were not spoken to aU the dis- 
 ciples, but to the Apostles who were about to wander over 
 the world as barefoot missionaries. 
 
 High above all occupations which have their beginning 
 and end in the seventy years of mortal life, stand undoubt- 
 edly the unproductive callings which belong to spiritual cul- 
 ture. Only, let not those who say we will devote ourselves 
 to truth, to wisdom, to science, to art, expect to be rewarded 
 with the wages of the other professions. 
 
 University education in England was devoted to spiritual 
 culture, and assumed its present character in consequence ; 
 but, as I told you before, it taught originally the accompany- 
 ing necessary lesson of poverty. The ancient scholar lived, 
 during his course, upon alms — aim; either from living pat- 
 22 
 
338 Education: Inaugural Address at 
 
 rons, or founders and benefactors. But the scale of his 
 allowance provided for no indulgences ; either he learnt 
 something besides his Latin, or he learnt to endure hard- 
 ship. And if a university persists in teaching nothing but 
 what it calls the Humanities, it is bound to insist also on 
 rough clothing, hard beds, and common food. For myself, 
 I admire that ancient rule of the Jews that every man, no 
 matter of what grade or calling, shall learn some handi- 
 craft ; that the man of intellect, while, like St. Paul, he is 
 teaching the world, yet, like St. Paul, may be burdensome 
 to no- one. A man was not considered entitled to live if he 
 could not keep himself from starving. Surely those uni- 
 versity men who had taken honors, breaking stones on an 
 Austi'alian road, were sorry spectacles ; and still more sorry 
 and disgraceful is the outcry coming by every mail from our 
 colonies : " Send us no more of what you call educated 
 men ; send us smiths, masons, carpenters, day laborers ; 
 all of those will thrive, wiU earn their eight, ten, or twelve 
 shillings a day ; but your educated man is a log on our 
 hands ; he loafs in uselessness tUl his means are spent, he 
 then turns billiard-marker, enlists as a soldier, or starves." 
 It hurts no intellect to be able to make a boat or a house, 
 or a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes, or hammer a horse- 
 shoe ; and if you can do either of these, you have nothing to 
 fear from fortune. " I wUl work with my hands, and keep 
 my brain for myself," said some one proudly, when it was 
 proposed to him that he should make a profession of litera- 
 tm-e. Spinoza, the most powerful inteUectual worker that 
 Europe had produced during the last two centuries, waving 
 aside the pensions and legacies that were thrust upon him, 
 chose to mainlaia himself by grinding object-glasses for 
 microscopes and telescopes. 
 
 If a son of mine told me that he wished to devote him- 
 self to inteUectual pursuits, I would act as I should act- 
 if he wished to make an imprudent mai-riage. I would 
 absolutely prohibit him for a time, till the firmness of his 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. 339 
 
 purpose had been tried. If he stood the test, and showed 
 real talent, I would insist that he should in some way make 
 himself independent of the profits of intellectual work for 
 subsistence. Scholars and philosophers were originally 
 clergyman. Nowadays a great many people whose ten- 
 dencies lie in the clerical direction yet for various reasons 
 shrink from the obligations which the office imposes. They 
 take, therefore, to literature, and attempt and expect to 
 make a profession of it. 
 
 Now, without taking a transcendental view of the matter, 
 literature happens to be the only occupation in which the 
 wages are not in proportion to the goodness of the work 
 done. It is not that they are generally small, but the 
 adjustment of them is awry. It is true that in all callings 
 nothing great will be produced if the first object be what 
 you can make by them. To do what you do well should 
 be the first thing, the wages the second ; but except in the 
 instances of which I am speaking, the rewards of a man 
 are in proportion to his skill and industry. The best car- 
 penter receives the highest pay. The better he works, the 
 better for his prospects. The best lawyer, the best doctor, 
 commands most practice and makes the largest fortune. 
 But with literature, a different element is introduced into 
 the problem. The present rule on which authors are paid 
 is by the page and the sheet ; the more words the more 
 pay. It ought to be exactly the reverse. Great poetry, 
 great philosophy, great scientific discovery, every intellect- 
 ual production which has genius, work, and permanence 
 in it, is the fruit of long thought, and patient and painful 
 elaboration. Work of this kind, done hastUy, would be 
 better not done at all. "When completed, it will be small 
 In bulk ; it will address itself for a long time to the few 
 and not to the many. The reward for it will not be meas- 
 urable, and not obtainable in money except after many 
 generations, when the brain out of which it was spim has 
 long returned to its dust. Only by accident is a work of 
 
340 Udueation : Inaugural Address at 
 
 genius immediately popular, in the sense of being widely 
 bought. No collected edition of Shakespeare's plays was 
 demanded in Shakespeare's life. Milton received five 
 pounds for " Paradise Lost." The distilled essence of the 
 thought of Bishop Butler, the greatest prelate that the 
 English '^burch ever produced, fills a moderate-sized 
 octavo YOiL.jie; Spinoza's works, including his surviving 
 letters, fill but three ; and though they have revolutionized 
 the philosophy of Europe, have no attractions for the 
 multitude. A really great man has to create the taste 
 with which he is to be enjoyed. There are splendid ex- 
 ceptions of merit eagerly recognized and early rewarded — 
 our honored English Laureate for instance, Alfred Tenny- 
 son, or your own countryman Thomas Carlyle. Yet even 
 Tennyson waited through ten years of depreciation before 
 poems which are now on every one's lips passed into a 
 second edition. Carlyle, whose transcendent powers were 
 welcomed in their infancy by Goethe, who long years ago 
 was recognized by statesmen and thinkers in both hemi 
 spheres as the most remarkable of living men ; yet, if 
 success be measured by what has been paid him for his 
 services, stands far below your Belgravian novelist. A 
 hundred years hence, perhaps, people at large wUl begin to 
 understand how vast a man has been among them. 
 
 If you make literature a trade to live by, you wiU be 
 tempted always to take your talents to the most profitable 
 market ; and the most profitable market will be no assur- 
 ance to you that you are making a noble or even a worthy 
 use of them. Better a thousand times, if your object is to 
 advance your position in life, that you should choose some 
 other calling of which making money is a legitimate aim, 
 and where your success will vary as the goodness of your 
 work ; better for yourselves, for your consciences, for your 
 own souls, as we use to say, and for the world you live in. 
 
 Therefore, I say, if any of you choose this mode of 
 spending your existence, choose it deliberately, with a full 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. Zil 
 
 knowledge of what you are doing. Reconcile yourselves 
 to the condition of the old scholars. Make up your minds 
 to be poor : care only for what is true and right and good. 
 On those conditions you .may add something real to the 
 intellectual stock of mankind, and mankind in return may 
 perhaps give you bread enough to live upon, though bread 
 extremely thinly spread with butter. 
 
 I have detained you long, but I cannot close without a 
 few more general words. We live in times of change — 
 political change, intellectual change, change of all kinds. 
 You whose minds are active, especially such of yon as give 
 yourselves much to speculation, wiU be drawn inevitably 
 into profoundly interesting yet perplexing questions, of 
 which our fathers and grandfathers knew nothing. Prac- 
 tical men engaged in business take formulas for granted. 
 They cannot be forever running to first principles. They 
 hate to see established opinions disturbed. Opinions, 
 however, will and must be disturbed from time to time. 
 There is no help for it. The minds of ardent and clever 
 students are particularly apt to move fast in these direc- 
 tions ; and thus when they go out into the world, they 
 find themselves exposed to one of two temptations, accord- 
 ing to their temperament: either to lend themselves to 
 what is popular and plausible, to conceal their real con- 
 victions, to take up with what we call in England humbug, 
 to humbug others, or, perhaps, to keep matters still 
 smoother, td humbug themselves ; or else to quarrel vio- 
 lently with things which they imagine to be passing away, 
 and which they consider should be quick in doing it, as 
 having no basis in truth. A young man of ability nowa- 
 days is extremely likely to be tempted into one or other of 
 these lines. The first is the more common on my side of 
 the Tweed ; the harsher and more thoroughgoing, perhaps, 
 on yours. Things are changing, and have to change, but 
 they change very slowly. The established authorities are 
 in possession of the field, and are naturally desirous to 
 
342 Educatwn: Inaugural Address at 
 
 keesp it. And there is no kind of service which they more 
 eagerly reward than the support of clever fellows who have 
 dipped over the edge of latitudinarianism, who profess to 
 have sounded the disturbing currents of the intellectual 
 seas, and discovered that they are accidental or unimpor- 
 tant. 
 
 On the other hand, men who cannot away with this 
 kind of thing are likely to be exasperated into unwise 
 demonstrativeness, to become radicals in politics and radi- 
 cals in thought. Their private disapprobation bursts into 
 open enmity ; and this road too, if they continue long upon 
 it, leads to no healthy conclusions. No one can thrive 
 upon denials : positive truth of some kind is essential as 
 food both for mind and character. Depend upon it that 
 in aU long-established practices or spiritual formulas there 
 has been some living truth ; and if you have not discovered 
 and learnt to respect it, you do not yet understand the 
 questions which you are in a hurry to solve. And again, 
 intellectually impatient people should remember the rules 
 of social courtesy, which forbid us in private to say things, 
 however true, which can give pain to others. These rules, 
 if they do not absolutely forbid us to obtrude opinions 
 which offend those who do not share them, yet require 
 us to pause and consider. Our thoughts and our conduct 
 are our own. "We may say justly to any one, You shall 
 not make me profess to think true what I believe to be 
 false ; you shall not make me do what I do not think just : 
 but there our natural liberty ends. Others have as good 
 a right to their opinion as we have to ours. To any one 
 who holds what are called advanced views on serious sub- 
 jects, I recommend a long suifering reticence and the re- 
 flection that, after aU, he may possibly be wrong. Whether 
 we are Eadicals or Conservatives we require to be often 
 reminded that truth or falsehood, justice or injustice, are no 
 creatures of our own belief. We cannot make true things 
 felse, or false things true, by choosing to think them so 
 
the University of St. Andrew's. 343 
 
 "We cannot vote right into wrong or wrong into right. 
 The eternal truths and rights of things exist, fortunately, 
 independent of our thoughts or wishes, fixed as mathemat- 
 ics, inherent in the nature of man and the world. They 
 are no more to be trifled with than gravitation. If we dis- 
 cover and obey them, it is well with us ; but that is, all we 
 can do. You can no more make a social regulation work 
 well which is not just than you can make water run up 
 hill. 
 
 I tell you therefore, who take up with plausibilities, not 
 to trust your weight too far upon them, and not to condemn 
 others for having misgivings which at the bottom of your 
 own minds, if you look so deep, you wUl find that you share 
 yourselves with them. Tou, who believe that you have 
 hold of newer and wider truths, show it, as you may and 
 must show it, unless you are misled by your own dreams, in 
 leading wider, simpler, and nobler lives. Assert your own 
 fireedom if you will, but assert it modestly and quietly; 
 respecting others as you wish to be respected yourselves. 
 Only and especially I would say this : be honest with your- 
 selves, whatever the temptation ; say nothing to others that 
 you do not think, and play no tricks with your own minds. 
 
 Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in the world, 
 imincerity is the most dangerous. 
 
 Thia above all. To your own selves be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day. 
 Ton cannot then be false ts any man. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN KERRY. 
 
 The sketcli which, beaxs the above title was published in 
 " Fraser's Magazine," at the time when the Irish Land Bill 
 was under discussion in the House of Commons. English 
 prejudice and English ignorance were busy with the reputa- 
 tion of the unfortunate country, and clamorous with despair 
 of its amendment by that or any other measure. I thought 
 that at such a period a record of my own experience in Ire- 
 land might contribute, infinitesimally little, towards setting 
 her condition in a truer light, — towards showing how 
 among the darker features there were redeeming traits of 
 singular interest and attractiveness. Pleased with my own 
 performance and intending to continue it, I trusted that if 
 my friends in Kerry did not approve of all that I said, they 
 would at least recognize my good-will. How great was my 
 surprise to find that I was regarded as an intruder into busi- 
 ness which was none of mine, affecting English airs of inso- 
 lent superiority, and under pretense of patronage turning 
 the county and its inhabitants into ridicule! Struck by 
 the absence of petty vices among the peasantry, their sim- 
 plicity of habit, and the control for good which was exer- 
 cised over them by the priests, I had said rashly that religion 
 in Kerry appeared to me to mean the knowledge of right 
 and wrong, and to mean little besides. What dark insinua- 
 tions the writer never dreamt of may be discovered in an 
 unguarded word ! By " little besides," I had myself intended 
 to imply that no Fenian sermons were to be heard in the 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 345 
 
 chapels there, that no hatred was preached against England 
 or English landlords there, the subjects believed on this side 
 St. George's Channel to be eternally inculcated in Catholic 
 pulpits. Our excellent priest at Tuosist, — I take this op- 
 portunity of apologizing to him, — declared in the county 
 papers that he was cut to the heart ; that he had suffered 
 many wrongs in life, but never one that had afflicted him so 
 deeply as the insinuation that his flock learnt nothing from 
 him but the obligations of morality. He must excuse the 
 English stupidity, the .English preference for the practical 
 results of religion, which betrayed me into forgetfulness of 
 its mysteries. He must forgive me if I repeat and extend 
 aay offense, and insist that the influence of the Irish priest- 
 hood in the restraint of what is commonly called immorality 
 cannot be overestimated. In the last century Ireland was 
 one of the most licentious countries in Europe : at present, 
 in proportion to its population, it is the purest in the world. 
 
 But the reflection on the chapel teaching was the least of 
 my crimes. I had stirred a hornet's nest. In describing 
 the manners of a past generation I had sketched the like- 
 ness of a once notorious character in the neighborhood. To 
 avoid mentioning his real name I looked over a list of Irish 
 chiefs three centuries old, and called him at hazard Morty 
 O'Sullivan. A dozen living Morty O'Sullivans, and the 
 representatives Of a dozen more who were dead, clamorously 
 appropriated my description, whUe they denounced the in- 
 accuracy of its details. 
 
 More seriously, I had used expressions about " the Liber- 
 ator," for which I was called to account by a member of his 
 fomily. " The Liberator," I conceive, made himself the 
 property of the public. I do not think he was a friend to 
 Ireland. If he cast out one devU in carrying Catholic 
 Emancipation, he let loose seven besides, which must be 
 chained again before England and Ireland can work in har- 
 mony. His invectives never spared others, either alive or 
 dead j and I see no cause why I or any one may not ex- 
 
846 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 press our thoughts freely about him. If the anecdotes of 
 his forefathers, which remain among the traditions of the 
 coast, are untrue or exaggerated, I meant no dishonor to the 
 past or present owner of Derrynane. In the days of high 
 duties, English gentlemen who lived on the coast were not 
 particular how they filled their wine cellars ; the restrictions 
 inflicted by English selfishness on Irish trade in the last 
 century erected smuggling into patriotism ; and if the 
 O'Connells on the shore of the Atlantic submitted quietly to 
 the despotism of the officers of the revenue, tamer blood ran 
 in their veins than might have been expected from the char- 
 acter of their famous representative. 
 
 Anyhow I had given mortal offense where I had least 
 thought of offending. I was an instance in my own person 
 of the mistakes which Englishmen seem doomed to make 
 when they meddle, however lightly, with this singular peo- 
 ple. I hesitated to take another step on so dangerous a 
 SOU, especially as (let me drop my disguise and acknowl- 
 edge myself as the tenant of the spot to which I described 
 myself as a visitor) — especially as my lease was unexpired. 
 I had another season before me in the scene of my delin- 
 quency ; and courteous as the Irish uniformly show them- 
 selves to strangers who have' nothing to do with them, they 
 are credited with disagreeable tendencies when they con- 
 sider themselves injured. It was hinted to ine that I should 
 be a brave man if I again ventured into Kerry. 
 
 The storm was renewed in America — files were for- 
 warded to me of the " Irish Republic," in which I was de- 
 nounced as a representative of the hereditary enemies of 
 Ireland. And though I found a friend there — himself an 
 exile, having loved his country not wisely, but too well, 
 who could yet listen patiently to an Englishman who loved 
 her too, but did not love her faults, I held it but prudence 
 to suspend the prosecution of my enterprise till the summer 
 should have again passed, and we birds of passage had 
 migrated to our winter homes. 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 347 
 
 We went back to Derreen in spite of warnings, but our 
 hearts beat uneasily as we approached the charmed neigh- 
 borhood. At Mallow, where we changed carriages, a gi- 
 gantic O'ConneU was sternly pacing the platform. I felt 
 relieved when he passed our luggage without glancing at 
 the address. The clouds on the mountain tops seemed to 
 frown ominously. The first thing that met our eyes at the 
 hotel where we stopped to luncheon was a denunciatory 
 paragi'aph in a local paper. When we arrived at our beau- 
 tiful home a canard reached us that we had been censured, 
 if not denounced, at a neighboring Catholic chapel. The 
 children at the National School, for whom in past years we 
 had provided an occasional holiday entertainment, had been 
 forbidden, it was whispered, to come near us any more. 
 For a few days — such was the effect of a guilty conscience 
 — we imagined the people were less polite to us. The 
 " Good evening kindly " of the peasant coming home from 
 his work, the sure sign of genuine good will, seemed less 
 frequent than silence or an inaudible mutter. Fewer old 
 women than usual brought their sore legs to be mended or 
 pitied, fewer family quarrels were brought to us to arbitrate, 
 interminable disputes about " the grass of a cow " or the in- 
 terpretation of a will where 'a ragged testator had be- 
 queathed an interest in a farm over which he had no more 
 power than over a slice of the moon. 
 
 One day, so active is fancy in the uneasy atmosphere of 
 Ireland, we conceived that we had been " visited." On a 
 misty Sunday afternoon, when the servants about the place 
 had gone to " the dance," and we were alone in the house 
 watching the alternate play of fog and sunlight on the lake, 
 there appeared round • the angle of a rock on the gravel 
 walk before the windows a group of strangers. Going out 
 to inquire their business, I found myself in the presence of 
 ten or twelve men, not one of whose faces I recognized. I 
 asked what they wanted. One of them said they were look- 
 ing at the place, which was obvious without their informa 
 
348 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 tion. I suggested that the grounds were private — they 
 should have asked leave. He replied as I tiiought, with an 
 odd smile, that he saw no occasion for it. And when I 
 insisted that there was occasion, and that if he put it in 
 that way they must go away, the rest looked inquiringly at 
 their leader, as if to ask whether they should make me un- 
 derstand practically that I was not in England. He hesi- 
 tated, and, after a pause, moved off, and his companions fol- 
 lowed. I found afterwards they were boys from beyond the 
 mountains, out holiday-making. They had meant to picnic 
 in the woods, and looking on me as an interloper, had not 
 troubled themselves to remember my existence. My alarms 
 were utterly goundless ; but we had been reading " Realities 
 of Irish Life," and our heads were fuU of chimoeras. 
 
 Something had been amiss, but there was more smoke 
 than fire. Our kind priest, when he understood at last that 
 I had meant him no ill, but had rather intended to compli- 
 ment him, forgave me on the score of " invincible igno- 
 rance." He had vindicated himself before the diocese in the 
 
 " Chronicle," and could now admit that I was no worse 
 
 than a stupid Jolm BuU. We held our feast of reconc'lia- 
 tion, at which he was generously present, with the scl'aol 
 children on the lawn. They leapt, raced, wrestled, jum';,ed 
 in sacks, climbed greasy poles, and the rest of it — a hun- 
 dred stout little fellows with as many of their sisters ; tour 
 out of five of the boys to grow up, thanks to the paternal 
 wisdom of our legislators, into citizens of the United States ; 
 the fiflJi to be a Fenian at home ; the girls to be mothers r^f 
 families on the Ohio or the Missouri, where the Irish race 
 seems intended to close its eventful history and disappear in 
 the American Republic. 
 
 Quit, then, of my self-made difficulties, I might resume 
 my story where I let it fall, and fill in with more discretion 
 the parts of my original canvas whiclx I left untouched. 
 Longer acquaintance with the county, however, presented 
 other matters to me, of fresher, perhaps more serious inte* 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 349 
 
 est. I prefer therefore to wander on in some^ hat desultory 
 £ishion. 
 
 I dropped my thread on the eve of the sportsman's festi- 
 val — the day of sufficient consequence to be marked in 
 almanacs — on which " grouse-shooting commen&es." The 
 momentous event takes place in Ireland on the 20th of Au- 
 gust. All things lag behind in the sister country, and even 
 grouse and partridges do not attain their full size till Eng- 
 land and Scotland have set the example. May Ireland in 
 this department of her business lag behind forever. The 
 spoilt voluptuary of the Northern moors, whose idea of 
 sport is to stand behind a turf bank with a servant to load 
 his guns for him, while an army of gillies drive the grouse 
 in clouds over his head, will find few charms in the Kerry 
 mountains. Cattle graze the lower slopes ; sheep and goats 
 fatten on the soft sweet herbage of the higher ridges, which 
 snow Barely covers or frost checks, and the warm winds 
 from the GuK Stream keep perennially, green. Each family 
 in the valley has its right of pasture on one or other of the 
 ranges for its cows or its flocks, and the boys and girls that 
 watch them disturb the solitudes elsewhere devoted to the 
 sacred bird. Long may it remain so. Long may it be ere 
 Irish landlords follow the precedents of Yorkshire or Suth- 
 erlandshire, and sacrifice their human tenants to a surfeit of 
 amusements. The sportsman that would fill his bag in 
 Kerry must be prepared to walk his twenty miles — keep 
 his head steady among the crags, where if he slip he may 
 fall a thousand feet. He must miss little — kiU his birds 
 clean in places where he can find them ; and, let him do his 
 best, if he spare the hares he will shoot no more than he 
 can carry conveniently on his own shoulders for the supply 
 of the larder at home. He must be content to find the best 
 reward of his toil in the exquisite air, in the most elaborate 
 variety of the most perfect scenery in the world — clifF, cat- 
 aract, and glen — fresh water lake and inland sea — spirit- 
 haunted all of them, with wild tales of Irish history — the 
 
350 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 mountain jewels set in the azure ring of the Atlantic, which 
 circles round three sides of the horizon. 
 
 Sporting thus, and in such scenes, may be censured by 
 the moralist, but it is still exquisite fooling, I at least 
 have not outgrown my taste for it. I must dare Mr. 
 Freeman's ill opinion, and as the time comes round take my 
 turn with the rest. 
 
 Let us suppose, then, a morning late in August in this 
 year of grace 1870. "We set out on foot — myself, the 
 keeper, and a second gun, a guest trained unhappily in 
 more luxurious shooting grounds, who condescends for 
 once to waste a day with me. Carriages, even ponies, 
 cannot help us to our ground over the broken tracks we 
 have to follow. It is still — so still that the cutter floats 
 double at her moorings, yacht and shadow ; while here 
 and there two lines of ripple, meeting at a point, show 
 where a cormorant is following slowly a school of retreat- 
 ing sprats, or a seal, is taking his morning's airing. The 
 path leads for half a mile along the shore, and then strikes 
 up into the valley, which narrows as we advance. A deep 
 river, fringed with marshy meadows, drags slowly down 
 the middle of it to the sea. The lake out of which it runs 
 two miles up is scarcely thirty feet above high-water mark. 
 The ground is gradually sinking, and in a little while — 
 a geologist's little while, in a few thousand years or so — 
 the precipices which wall in the glens wUl dip their bases 
 in salt water. 
 
 The greater part of the valley on either side is raised 
 above reach of floods; and the soil from its situation 
 might be very easily drained, and has been evidently in- 
 habited, and even thickly inhabited, from a very early era. 
 Wild as is the scene at present, we see traces as we ad- 
 vance of three distinct eras of occupation. On the hill side 
 a quarter of a mile from us is a circular mound, flat at the 
 top, with steep scarped grassy sides. It is a rath — one of 
 many which are in the neighborhood — called a fort bj 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 361 
 
 some, but fort it could have never been — rather a human 
 rabbit burrow. Beneath the surface, seven or eight feet 
 down, and excavated where the soil is hardest, run a series 
 of chambers, communicating with each other by holes 
 barely large enough to allow the body to pass through, the 
 arches of both hole and chamber turned so accurately that 
 one would think some animal working by instinct, some 
 missing link, had made them, rather than a Celt with a 
 reason half grown. 
 
 Beside the road stands a circle of gray stones nuie or ten 
 feet high, raised, doubtless, by the hands which burrowed 
 the mounds ; perhaps the burial spot of some famous chief, 
 perhaps a House of Parliament or court of law, perhaps 
 a temple to which ages before the Deluge honest folks 
 plodded morning and evening on Sundays. Farther on, 
 and lately exposed by the abrasion of the peat which had 
 covered and protected it, is a broad slab of old red sand- 
 stone ground smooth by glacier action, and scored over 
 with circles something like a genealogical tree. They are 
 of all sizes, and disposed in all varieties of pattern. Some- 
 times the rings are concentric, two or even three lying one 
 withiu the others. Sometimes single rings, large and 
 small, are clustered into groups. These, too, aye a mystery. 
 Was the stone the starry map of some Drui J ststronomer ? 
 Was it a rude astrolabe — were the circles magical signs — 
 and did here stand the chair of justice of some Brehon, 
 half rogue, half sage, that sat in judgment there on the 
 quarrels of the glen ? Even the rashest antiqnaxians for- 
 bear their conjectures. We know only that we are among 
 the remains of a race which lies far away beyond the 
 horizon of history. 
 
 Below us, aiaong some trees at the side of a water- 
 course, are the fragments of a ruined building, more 
 modern infinitely than the monuments which I have just 
 described, for it is composed of bricks, genuine burnt clay, 
 and mortar. Yet it is stUl old. It has been standing 
 
352 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 certainly not less than two centuries. Looked at closer, 
 it will explain how these valleys and mountain sides, 
 clothed not so long ago, as we can see by the stumps pro- 
 trudiug from the ground, with forests of fir, and birch, 
 and yew, assumed their present aspect of naked desolation. 
 Sloping away from the foot of the wall lies a heap of what 
 looks at first like broken stone, but proves on examina- 
 tion to be slag. "We have before us all that is left of the 
 once fiunous smelting fiirnaces established by Sir "William 
 Petty. The founder of the Lansdowne fanuly secured, m 
 the scramble for Irish land, for some trifling sum, the 
 lordship of this wilderness of mountains. His utilitarian 
 eye discerned the wealth that lay stored in the mass of 
 timber. He shipped cargoes of ore fi'om ."Wales and Corn- 
 wall to the Kenmare River, and stripped the district bare 
 — bare to the very bone of rock — to melt it into metal. 
 "What harm ? The woods were hiding-places for wolves 
 and rapparees, or, worse than both, for Jesuits ; and the 
 lovers of the picturesque had not yet come into being even 
 in England. 
 
 And there is a third record before us of an order of 
 things which, though nearer to us far than the other two, 
 has stiU vanished as they have vanished. Far up the 
 mountain sides and on the sloping meadows are ridges 
 which mark departed cultivation, now fast relapsing into 
 peat. Ditches, too, we can see, where "were once deep 
 and effective drains, overgrown with briar and bush, and 
 choked with reeds and mud. I mentioned in my former 
 paper that these districts, before the potato famine, were 
 densely peopled. One house stands now where a quarter 
 of a century ago there were fom-. The holdings attached 
 to them are thrown together, and subdivision under any 
 pretext is sternly forbidden. Should hard times come 
 again there are thus fewer inhabitants in danger of starva- 
 tion, and those that remain are no longer utterly dependent 
 upon a single root They are so far better off than thei] 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 353 
 
 fiithers that they are above the reach of being overwhelmed 
 by any sudden calamity like that which overtook them 
 before ; but the difference is rather relative than absolute. 
 Their farms are now larger than they care to cultivate, or 
 could cultivate if they wished it, where only spade hus- 
 bandry is possible. They till just so much soil as will 
 provide their own potatoes, and keep alive their cattle 
 through the winter and spring. They make money by 
 their wool, and butter, and pigs ; but they keep their hold- 
 ings as they keep their persons, in rags. Their fences are 
 always broken. Their drains are filled in. The cabins 
 are stUl the common home of aU the live stock, human and 
 animal. Their habits are unchanged, and to all appearance 
 unchangeable. They refuse to acquire a taste for any 
 cleaner or better style of living. The turf bog provides 
 them with fuel, and warmth is the only form of comfort 
 which they value. Thus they have no motive for work 
 when all their .wants are satisfied. They tell you with a 
 shrug that emigration has trebled the price of labor, and 
 that they cannot afford to hire workmen. And thus every- 
 where in the south cultivation recedes with the decrease of 
 population. The country, in its own language, lis .going 
 back to bog. A stream at one place overran the road. 
 In times of flood the ford was impassable ; the cause was 
 simply, that an old drain had been closed by neglect, and 
 the water at the 'same time was drowning and ruining 
 twenty acres of excellent meadow. The tenant of said 
 
 meadow told me he was going to apply to Lord to 
 
 bmld a bridge at the ford. The bridge would cost sixty 
 pounds, while five pounds laid out in labor would dry both 
 road and fields. There is your Kerry farmer ; and lease 
 or no lease. Land Act or no Land Act, such he will remain 
 till he is carried away from the land of his birth and re- 
 leased from its enchantments. While the holdings were 
 small, they had to make the most of them, or they could 
 not live. But no Irish peasant wUl work harder than 
 
354 A Fortnight in Kerry, 
 
 necessity obliges ; and if the soil is to be again adequately 
 tUled by the Celtic race, it will be by subdivision, and not 
 otherwise. I can easily understand the objections of the 
 landlords. The lesson of the famine is too terrible to be 
 foiigotten. Ireland may become more and more a cattle- 
 growing country, or in time Scotch and English laborers 
 may be imported, and the agricultural system be revolu- 
 tionized; but the fact remains, that the valleys in Kerr/ 
 would support, if properly tUled, at least twice their presei t 
 population with ease. 
 
 The grouse are waiting for us, but they must stU] wa:'. : 
 we have a long climb to make before we shaU see them. 
 Although the heather lies thickest on the lower slopes, they 
 prefer the colder altitudes, and the Italian softness of the 
 climate down below does not agree with them. Up, then, 
 we must mount. The ranges for which we are bound are 
 near two thousand feet above the sea ; and as the keeper's 
 wind is better than ours, he tells us a story as we rise. The 
 ascent leads first by a rocky path where the river falls be- 
 side us in a series of cascades, the projecting rocks forming 
 cool dripping caves where ferns of all'varieties, from the tall 
 Osmunda to the shy KiUarney fern, which hides itself in the 
 most sequestered corners, cluster in the transparent gloom. 
 A few hundred feet up we emerge upon a level meadow 
 half a mUe wide and a nule deep, walled in by pi ecipices, 
 with a solitary farm-house at the upper end, which is throw- 
 ing up its thin column of smoke against the cliff at its back. 
 More desolate spot for a human habitation the eye has rarely 
 rested on. In the winter months the occupants of it are cut 
 off utterly &«m intercourse with the outer world. During 
 summer the children descend to the valley school, and the 
 old people to the chapel to mass. From November to 
 March the rain and wind keep them prisoners. 
 
 The river, where it leaves the plateau, leaps over a shelf 
 of rock and falls thirty or forty feet into a rocky pool. It 
 was here, said our guide as wo passed it, that Kathleen Sul 
 
A Forlnigid in Kerry. 356 
 
 livan was murdered. The tale, when he told it, was as 
 singular as it was wUd. The ridge overhanging the glen 
 forms the dividing line between Cork and Kerry. From 
 the crest you look on one side over the Kenmare River, on 
 the other upon Bantry Bay — Berehaven lies at your fget ; 
 and about forty years ago, when the English fleet was an- 
 chored there, a sailor who by some means had become pos- 
 sessed of a bag of sovereigns, secured them in a belt round 
 his waist, deserted from his ship, climbed the crags by a 
 goat track where they are generally considered inaccessible, 
 and descended into this valley. He intended to hide him- 
 self there till the pursuit was over, and then to escape to 
 America. A criminal flying from justice is a sacred per- 
 son in most parts of Ireland. He made his way to the farm- 
 house, where he was offered shelter for the night ; and pre- 
 suming on his character, and perhaps warmed by whiskey, he 
 showed his host the treasure which he had brought with 
 him. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. The 
 sailor fell asleep by the flre. Kathleen, a girl belonging to 
 the farm, who slept in the loft above, was disturbed by a 
 light which glimmered through the chinks in the floor, and 
 looking down she saw her master stand over the sleeping 
 sailor and kill him. The body was carried out and buried. 
 The man's presence there was of course unknown, and no 
 inquiry was made for him. The girl, terrified at the dread- 
 fiil secret of which she had become the unwUling possessor, 
 did not venture to speak. At last in an evil moment for 
 herself, in a quarrel with her master she let faU an incau- 
 tious word, from which he gathered that she knew what he 
 had done. One morning early, when she wpnt out to mUk 
 the cows, he followed her to the top of the waterfall, watched 
 his opportunity, and flung her over. She was killed on the 
 spot. There was an inquest. She was supposed to have 
 fallen' accidentally, and tjie murderer, whom we wUl call 
 O'Brien, was now assured of his safety. He was shrewd 
 m his generation ; quietly and without ostentation he laid 
 
856 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 out the sailor's money. He bought cows and sheep, he 
 grew rich, and all that he did prospered with him. So 
 passed seventeen years. Kathleen was forgotten. The 
 lucky O'Brien was the sovereign of the glen, and the envy 
 of the neighborhood, tiQ justice awoke suddenly from its 
 long sleep. 
 
 As Kathleen had seen him kill the sailor, so there had 
 been an unknown witness to the murder of Kathleen. A 
 stranger had been on the mountains, himself after no good 
 — shearing O'Brien's sheep to steal the wool. He had 
 been on the watch lest he should be himself detected, and 
 from a crag overhanging the fall he had observed aU that 
 took place. He, too, remained sUent, from a consciousness of 
 his own guilt. He went down to Berehaven, where he found 
 employment as a laborer in the copper mines, and there he 
 continued to work, still keeping his secret, till, having grown 
 an elderly man, he one day fell down a shaft : he was badly 
 hurt, and believing himself to be dying, sent for a priest, and 
 in confession told him aU. The priest insisted that he must 
 make his declaration public. A magistrate took his deposi- 
 tion upon oath, and a warrant was issued for O'Brien's arrest. 
 Months elapsed before it could be executed : the murderer 
 was protected by the customs which he had himself broken. 
 By daylight his cabin commanded all the approaches to it ; 
 no one could come within half a mile of it unseen ; the peo- 
 ple in the valley below gave him warning by signals when 
 danger was near, and he escaped into a cave high up among 
 the crags, where he lay concealed till the coast was clear. 
 At last one stormy night,' when the watchers were under 
 cover, and sounds were drowned in the warring of the wind 
 and the waterfalls, a party of police made their way to his 
 door and caught him. He was taJ^en to Tralee, was tried, 
 found guilty, and after i full confession was hanged.* 
 
 1 I have altered the namea. The story is otherwiae true in all ita parts, 
 and in this summer of 1870 had a singular sequel. A man bearing marks 
 9f ill-usage appeared one day at a cabin n«ar Kenmaro, and complained of 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 357 
 
 It is faring with the grouse as with Corporal Trim'g 
 Btory of " The King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles." 
 We cannot get beyond the first sentence for interruptions. 
 No matter, we are near the ground now. While listening 
 to the keeper's tale we have left the valley, and ascended 
 gradually by the sheep walks. We are making for a gap 
 in the ridge which is now immediately above our heads. 
 The aneroid gives us 1,700 feet above the sea level. Five 
 minutes' hand-and-foot climbing, up to our waists in heather, 
 lands up on the top, and we fling ourselves on the grass to 
 recover breath and wet our throats in an ice-cold spring. 
 Even here thpre is no breeze. The sky above us is cloud- 
 lessly blue ; the gorges underneath are filled with a trans- 
 parent haze ; behind us is our own harbor of KUmakiUoge, 
 with the Derreen woods and birch-fringed inlets. We trace 
 the course of the broad river as^t sweeps away to the At- 
 lantic, Scarriff towering at its mouth, and then the Skelligs, 
 and far away Mount Brandon and the Dingle range. An 
 English yacht is drifting up with the tide, her saUs hanging 
 loose without a breath to fill them. Landwards, Carran 
 Tual has a veil of mist upon it. Every other peak through- 
 out the mountain panorama is clear. In front the cliffs fall 
 away to Bantry Bay, which lies stretched at owe feet in sum- 
 mer calm. To the left is Sugar-loaf, keeping watch over 
 the fairy Glengariff. Outside itj covering Bantry itself, is 
 Whiddy Island, where the French fleet came in 1797 — ■ 
 came, tempted by Irish promises, to find despair and de- 
 struction. Across the bay and over the hiUs, and far as we 
 can see, lies the blue girdle of the illimitable ocean, flecked 
 with white spots of sails or crossed by lines of smoke 
 where an Inman or a Cunarder is forming a floating bridge 
 between the Old and the New World. 
 
 having been badly beaten. He was the son of the Berehaven miner. H» 
 bad been in America since the trial, and had but newly returned. O'Brien's 
 son had fallgp in with him, recognized him, knocked him down and kicked 
 him, and had sworn that if he saw him again his life should pay for his 
 father's. 
 
358 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 We have now no more climbing for the day ; we can 
 walk along the high level tUl, if we please, we make the 
 circuit of our bovuids. At any rate, we shall pass round 
 the head of the great valley, and descend ten miles distant. 
 My companion looks in dismay at the wilderness of rocks, 
 and exclaims that he would as soon expect to meet a tiger 
 as a grouse there. He need not despair — he wUl meet a 
 few, and that was as much as we promised him. The red 
 grouse of Kerry differs in all his habits from his brothers 
 in North Britain. He is larger, heavier, and stronger on 
 the wing. The packs break up early ; the birds lie about 
 singly, or in twos and threes, chiefly on shelvps of cliff or 
 in the hoUows between the high hununocks, where the 
 heather is thick and the sheep least disturb them. They 
 are wild ; so, though we let the dogs range, we cannot 
 afford to wait for a point, and must walk well up to them 
 When the grouse rise their flight is like a blackcock's, and 
 if we let them go we shall see no more of them. The 
 sheep and goats have chosen the highest ridges to-day, in 
 the- absurd hope of finding the air cooler there. They are 
 as active as deer. With a fiendish ingenuity they divine 
 the way that we are going, and while they keep steadily 
 a few hundred yards ahead of us, ahead of them we see a 
 continual flutter of brown wings, and mountain hares 
 by dozens cantering leisurely away. It can't be helped. 
 Sheep are of more consequence than sportsmen's pleasure, 
 and meanwhile make the best of keepers. K they prevent 
 the grouse from multiplying, they insure them effectively 
 against being killed down. No matter — we shall get 
 what we want. We separate that we may not talk. We 
 must keep our eyes peeled, as the Americans say, for we 
 know not where or when a bird may rise. A right and 
 left from my friend, as we part, restores his good humor. 
 We press a gossoon who is sheep-watching into our service 
 to carry hares, and shoot whatever we come across. Why 
 tire the reader with particulars ? After three hours it ia 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 359 
 
 luncheon time. We have five brace of grouse, half a 
 dozen hares, and a Snipe or two ; and for Kerry we have 
 done respectably. We lie down in the heather beside a 
 spring which spouts from a rift in the rock, cold as if it 
 ran out of a glacier. Our flasks and sandwich boxes are 
 emptied, the dogs lie curled at our feet, and we smoke our 
 pipes in meditative inertness, gazing over the glorious 
 scene. Go where you will among these hills there is 
 always some fresh surprise. The abruptness with which 
 ■ the gorges fall off conceals their existence till we are close 
 on them. We are sitting now on the rim of Glenarm, a 
 narrow valley scarce a rifle-shot across, with a solitary 
 lake at the bot^m of it sixteen hundred feet down. The 
 lake is a falnous fishing-place, and had been the scene of 
 a quarrel in the beginning of the summer, which, though 
 happily it went no farther than words, is extremely charac- 
 teristic of the country. It may serve to amuse us for a few 
 minutes till our pipes are finished. 
 
 I must premise that in the south of Ireland the priests 
 and the fisheries go iU together. For some unknown rea- 
 son the presence of a priest is supposed to bring ill-luck 
 both to net and rod. 
 
 In a village a mile below the lake is a congregation of 
 Soupers — Protestant converts, so named by the Catholics 
 from the means said to have been used to convince them 
 of their errors. However this might be, there is now a 
 church there, a school, two dozen or more useful Protest- 
 ant families, and an excellent, high-spirited young clergy- 
 man, Irish born and Irish tempered, and one of the most 
 hard-working of men. In this wUd country we depend 
 sometimes for our dinners on what we can catch or shoot 
 P., so let me call the clergyman, is a fisherman after the 
 Apostles' model. One day he had gone with his rod to 
 the lake. His rival the priest, Father T., an athletic 
 yoimg giant well known in the neighborhood, was on 
 another part of it on the same errand. Some boys who 
 
360 A Fortnight in Kerry, 
 
 were fishing also passed' F. and complained of bad sport ; 
 and P., who lives in normal mUitancy with the spiritual 
 opposition, observed that they could expect no better when 
 there was a priest on the lake. 
 
 The boys repeated the words to the father, who was 
 seen shortly after coming up at a swinging trot. 
 
 " What's that you said about me ? " he exclaimed when . 
 he reached P. P. made no answer, but fished on. " What 
 did you say about me ? " reiterated the father more fiercely. 
 
 " I never mentioned your name," replied P., not caring 
 to turn round. " Tou did ! " rejoined the other. " Well, 
 if you wish to have it," said P., " I told them there was 
 neither grace nor luck where a priest caaje." P.'s head 
 scarcely touched T.'s shoulder. The father flourished his 
 blackthorn. " It is lucky for you," he said, " that we are 
 in a land where the law is over us, or Pd break your head 
 across. How dare you speak like that ? " 
 
 " The law over us ! " retorted P. ; " well, it is, and we 
 must bear it. If there was no law, I was brought up 
 where I learnt the use of my hands. But, if it comes to 
 daring, how dared you take five shillings last winter from 
 the fishermen for saying mass on their nets when they 
 were after the herring, and you knoiy as well as I that 
 your mass would bring them neither bad nor good ? " 
 
 How much farther the conversation went, I know not. 
 The most curious part of the matter was to foUow. So far 
 it might be thought each of the parties had got as good as 
 he brought, and neither had much to complain of. P., 
 however, sued his antagonist at the Sessions for ex- 
 citing to commit a breach of the peace. One oif the mag- 
 istrates, I was told, was a Catholic; but, though they 
 dismissed the case, poor Father T., notwithstanding, had to 
 pay the costs of the summons. 
 
 Protestant clergy, it seems, can still have justice in Ire- 
 land, notwithstanding the disestablishment. 
 
 We have loitered long enough over our luncheon, and 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry.' 361 
 
 we must up and away. We still keep along the high 
 ground skirting the head of the valley, and firing, an occa- 
 sional shot. Our moderate game-bag is filled. By four 
 o'clock we are on the range opposite to that on which we 
 ascended in the morning, and, as the crow flies, we are 
 not far from home. The harbor is jiist under us, and the 
 house is just visible among the woods. The sea breeze, the 
 sea turn, or Satan, as the people call it, which always blows 
 from the ocean on summer afternoons, has brought in the 
 English schooner, which lies at anchor half a mile from the 
 bpatr-house. Our shooting is over. The gossoon has taken 
 a short cut, and gone down with the hares. The keeper 
 prepares to follow with the dogs and bag. We have our- 
 selves a choice of ways — either to accompany him down 
 the gently sloping shoulder of the mountain direct to Der- 
 reen, or to make a round by another glen as remarkable as 
 any we had seen. My companion was tired, and selected 
 to go with the keeper. It.stUl wanted three hours of sun- 
 set, and I myself decided for the glen., Here, again, the 
 cliffs were precipitous, falling sheer from below my feet to 
 where the rocks which have been split off by wet and frost, 
 lie pUed in masses under the crags. There was a sort of 
 chimney, however, ■p-here it was possible to descend with 
 safety, and I had a special reason for my choice of way. 
 All the glens are inhabited more or less. In this one there 
 was a cabin, which I could see from the edge on which I 
 was standing, where we had heard the day before that there 
 was a woman lying dangerously ill. Her husband had 
 applied to us for wine or medicine, but though there has 
 been a school in the neighborhood for thirty years, where, 
 besides the three R's they are taught grammar, and geog- 
 raphy, and the principles of mechanics, and natural history, 
 and choice specimens of English coinposition in prose and 
 verse are learnt by rote by pupils who do not understand a 
 word of them, simpler matters of more immediate conse- 
 quence are forgotten. The Irish of the glens do not ^et 
 
362 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 distinguish between a physic-bottle and a charm. Thej 
 would hang castor oU about their necks, and expect as 
 much result as if it was in their stomachs, and would swal- 
 low a paper prescription with as much faith as the drugs 
 which it indicated. They have a contempt for professional 
 doctors, and unbounded belief in amateurs. We cannot 
 escape our responsibilities, but we can venture on nothing 
 without going in person to learn what is the matter, and 
 without seeing our instructions obeyed with our own eyes. 
 The cabiu to which I was going was a mUe distant from 
 any other habitation. It stood on a green bank across a 
 river, and was only accessible over stepping-stones. Not- 
 withstanding the dry weather the filth was ankle-deep be- 
 fore the door. The windows were blocked up with straw, 
 and when I entered I could see nothing until my eyes had 
 grown accustomed to the darkness. Gradually I made out 
 two or three pigs, a spindle half overturned, and a plate or 
 ' two. Human creatures there were none to be seen, old or 
 young, nor sign of them. The place seemed so entirely de- 
 serted that I supposed I had made a mistake. Groping 
 round, however, I found the latch of a second door, and on 
 lifting it found myself in a sort of outhouse more wretched 
 than many an English pig-sty ; and there, on a rude shelf of 
 boards. Uttered over with straw, lay the woman I was in 
 search of. She had been left perfectly alone. Her pulse 
 was scarcely perceptible. She had received the last sacra- 
 ments, and might have died at any moment ; yet of all her 
 family (she had a husband and two grown sons, certainly, 
 — whether she had daughters I do not know) there was not 
 one who cared to watch by her. They were in good cir- 
 cumstances ; they had cows and sheep ; they had a fair- 
 sized farm, and relatives in America who had helped them 
 with money to stock it. When she died she would be de- 
 cently waked. The whiskey would flow freely ; the keen 
 would ring along the valley as if a thousand hearts were 
 breaking. Yet the poor soul could be left tc start upon its 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 363 
 
 last journey with no friendly hand to soothe the parting 
 pain, or loving voice to whisper hope and comfort. I could 
 but feel that the words of Swift, written a century and a 
 half ago of Ireland, were still as applicable as ever : " Who- 
 ever travels in this country, and observes the faces, habits, 
 and dweUings of the natives, will hardly think himself in a 
 land where law, religion, or common humanity is pro- 
 fessed." 
 
 The coming in of a yacht is always an event with us. It 
 rarely happens but there is some one on board that we know 
 or know about. At least they wiU have heard of Derreen, 
 and win -wish to see it ; and living as we do at the end of 
 all things, the sight of fresh faces is specially welcome. On 
 the present occasion we were more than usually fortunate. 
 
 The owner, Mr. , was a distant acquaintance. He had 
 
 an American gentleman on board who was fresh from Grave- 
 lott^ who had stood on that bloody field beside the B3ng of 
 Prussia, and had been obliged, in leaving it, to pick his way 
 for half a mile as he walked, lest he should tread upon the 
 mangled bodies of men. We have supped fiiU of horrors 
 since that day. Death and destruction have become our 
 common food. They have lost the dreadful charm of nov- 
 elty, and we turn sick and weary from the monotonous tale. 
 Here, at least, we need have no more of it. There was, be- 
 sides, a person whose name I had often heard, — Mr. C. 
 
 F , an Irish landlord, whose stern rule had made bitn 
 
 notorious for the crimes which he had provoked, who him- 
 self had borne a charmed life, so many a ball had whistled 
 past bim harmlessly. 
 
 We had a visitor, too, of our own, the Dean of , the 
 
 most accomplished of Irish antiquaries, long second only to 
 Petrie, and by Petrie's death succeeding to his vacant chair. 
 Taking advantage of our company we determined the next 
 day to open one of the large raths which I mentioned above, 
 that we might see if it contained any curiosities. Guarded 
 by superstition, and believed to be inhabited by the good 
 
364 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 people, it had been left untouched tiU thirty years ago, when 
 an adventurous treasure-seeker was reported to have at- 
 tempted an entrance. Attempted, not succeeded. An old 
 man in the neighborhood told us, that being then a rash 
 youth he had himself taken part in the adventure. They 
 had penetrated into the first chamber, where they had found 
 a broken quern ; their way had then been stopped by an 
 iron door, and while struggling to force it they had been 
 encountered by a black apparition resembling a man ; they 
 had fled for their lives : one of them (there were three) had 
 broken his leg, a second had fallen and sprained an ankle, 
 the third lost three of his cows. The neighborhood was up 
 in arms ; it was reared that the whole valley would be ruined. 
 The hole was instantly fiUed in, and the spectre returned to 
 his den. 
 
 Thirty years of rationalism had not been without their 
 effects. There was no open opposition to our project,»but 
 we had great difficulty in procuring workmen. A farmer 
 Was found at last who had spent ten years m America ; 
 another offered himself who was going the next week to 
 America, and believed that the devil, if devil there were, 
 would not follow him to the land of promise ; the Scotch 
 keeper and the gardener made two more ; and to work we 
 went with pickaxe and crowbar. We were obliged to be 
 careful, for the moimd having a supernatural reputation had 
 been used as a burying-ground during the famine. The 
 bodies lay within a few mches of the surface, and the cham- 
 bers which we were in search of were far beneath them : 
 we sank our shaft, however, out of their way at the extreme 
 edge, on the traces of the treasure-seeker, being especially 
 anxious to find the iron door. The first thing was to re- 
 move the stones which had been flung in to block up the 
 entrance ; this took us two hours of hard work: at length 
 eight feet down we came on a hole like the mouth of a fox's 
 earth. TJsually the raths are dry, the situations of them 
 having been selected with a view to natural drainage : here 
 
A fortnight in Kerry. 365 
 
 the wet had penetrated where the soil had been loosened, 
 sad to enter we had to crawl through. deep mud. Alighted 
 candle pushed in at the end of a stick showed that the air 
 was fresh. Clusters of boys were hanging round at a re- 
 spectful distance, who refused to be bribed to make the first 
 venture ; so, disregarding ttie prayers and denunciations of 
 a venerable old patriarch who was looking on in horror, one 
 of our own party crawled in. He reported nothing of any 
 door or other obstacle ; there was a passage open, leading 
 he knew not whither : so we procured a tape to measure 
 the distance and guide us back if we lost our way, and en- 
 tered in single file. After creeping on our stomachs for a 
 few feet in three inches of mud we found ourselves in a cave 
 eight feet long, five feet wide, and four feet and a half or 
 five feet high ; at the end of it was a second hole, through 
 which we could barely squeeze ourselves, leading into a sec- 
 ond cave like the first. Beyond this was another and 
 another, seven in all : aU but the first were dry. 
 
 The floors were covered with the undisturbed dust of 
 centuries. At the far extremity, within a few feet of the 
 opposite edge of the mound, was a rude stone fireplace 
 with traces of ashes. There was no sign of any other 
 opening ; and how a fire could have been lighted in such 
 a position without suffocating every one in the place there 
 was 'nothing to show. On the floor lay the remains of the 
 last dinner that had been eaten there, a few mussel shells 
 and the bones of a sheep's head. That was all. No 
 instrument of any kind, of stone, or wood, or metal. 
 There were marks of the tools which had been used in the 
 excavation, but of the tools themselves, or of the hands in 
 which they were held, not a trace. 
 
 What these places could have been baffles conjecture 
 They were not places of concealment, for the situations of 
 all of them are purposely conspicuous ; as little could they 
 have been forts, for it was but to stop the earths and every 
 creature inside must have been stifled. The Dean teUs us 
 
366 A Fortnight hi Kerry. 
 
 that, like tte present one, they are uniformlj empty. 
 Once, only, a rude crucifix, was found, but this proves little. 
 In the days of persecution, when supernatural terrors were 
 more active than they are now, these strange caves might 
 have served as safe retreats for hunted priests or friars. 
 
 We came out as wise as we had gone in, save that our 
 imaginations could indulge no longer in possible discov- 
 eries. We had only inflicted an incurable wound on the 
 spiritual temperament of the valley. The already waver- 
 ing faith in the supernatural was confirmed into incredulity. 
 We had made a way for skepticism, and another group of 
 pious beliefs was withered. 
 
 As we walked home I had a talk with Mr. F. He had 
 earned his notoriety by the scale on which he had forced up 
 rents, carried out evictions, and brought his vast property 
 mider economic and paying conditions. To make a prop- 
 erty pay in the mountainous parts of Ireland is to drive off 
 the inhabitants and substitute sheep for them. I could not 
 venture to touch on his personal experience ; or the sen- 
 sations of a man who had shot his covers under a guard of 
 policemen, and to whom to take a solitary ride had been 
 as dangerous as to lead a charge of cavalry, might have 
 been curious to inquu-e into. Our conversation turned 
 rather on the social condition of these two islands, with 
 their scanty area of soU and their relatively vast popula- 
 tion. Mr. F.'s theory had at least the merit of boldness. 
 The business and life of the empire, he said, lay in the 
 great cities, where the wear and tear and anxiety of work 
 became daily more exhausting. Our overtaxed constitu- 
 tions required opportunities of escaping the strain dose at 
 hand and readily available. England, Scotland, and Ire- 
 land, therefore, ought to be divided into, on the one hand, 
 swarming centres of industry, densely-crowded hives of 
 people ; and, on the other, wildernesses, solitudes of moim-. 
 tain and forest, where the deer ranged free as on the 
 prairies, and wearied man could recuperate his energies in 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 867 
 
 contact with primitive nature. It was a complete concep- 
 tion expressed without flinching. Artificial solitudes re- 
 quire strict exclusiveness. Itinerant tourist parties disturb 
 game. Remains of picnic parties, fragments of newspapers, 
 and chicken bones, banish the illusions of the picturesque. 
 The happy beings, therefore, who can command an en- 
 trance into these charmed circles must be the very rich 
 and the very few — less than one in a thousand of us — 
 while of these few the brain of a large percentage is never 
 taxed by a severer eifort than the adjustment of a betting 
 book, and their services to the community extend no fur- 
 ther than the diligent use' of their digestive apparatus. 
 The resultant good, therefore, is slightly incommensurate 
 with the cost of production. Mr. F., however, was but 
 stating nakedly the principle on which the Scotch High- 
 lands have been now for some time administered. There 
 may be other Irish proprietors besides my companion who 
 would follow the example if they dared. Were our colo- 
 nies brought closer to us, were the enormous area of fertile 
 soU belonging to England in all parts of the world made 
 accessible by easy and cheap commimication, and some 
 shreds of our enormous income expended ia enabling our 
 people to spread, something might be said in defense of 
 Mr. F.'s position. At aU events, it would not be utterly 
 detestable. 
 
 Our conversation came to an abrupt end. The Dean's 
 lecture upon the raths had led the rest of the party over 
 a wide field of Irish antiquities. "We found the subject 
 more interesting than politics ; and I myself, whose studies 
 happened to have lain in that direction, contributed a story 
 which illustrates curiously the condition of Kerry at the 
 beginning of the last century. The correspondence in 
 which it is contained is preserved in the Eecord Office, 
 where any one who desires further information will find it. 
 
 To the south of Kerry Head, which divides the Bay of 
 Tralee from the mouth of the Shannon, lie the long sanda 
 
3Q8 A fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 of Ballyhige. The Atlantic waves roll heavily on the 
 shallow shore. Blown sand-hills cpvered with grass form 
 a bulwark against the sea, behind which low boggy marshes 
 stretch for mUes. At the north end of the sands, an ele- 
 vation of dry ground, where the modern Castle of Bally- 
 hige has been since erected, there stood in the year 1730 a 
 considerable manor-house, occupied by Mr. Thomas Cros- 
 bie. The famUy of Crosbie was one of the 'most impor- 
 tant ill Kerry. They were descended from John Crosbie, 
 who was made Bishop of Ardfert by Queen Elizabeth. 
 Sir Maurice, the head of the clan, sat in the Irish Par- 
 liament for the county, and was son-in-law of the Earl of 
 Kerry. Thomas Crosbie of Ballyhige represented Dingle, 
 and had married Lady Margaret, sister of the Earl of 
 Barrymore. A third seat in another part of the county 
 was held by a brother or cousin. Arthur Crosbie, Clerk 
 of the Crown for Kerry, who figures in the story which I 
 am about to tell, had a son who married a daughter of 
 Lord Mornington, and was great uncle to Arthur, Duke of 
 Wellington. 
 
 So much for the family connections. Attached to the 
 house at Ballyhige was a linen manufactory, managed by 
 a resident Scotch agent named Moses Dalrymple. The 
 household indicated that Mr. Crosbie was a gentleman of 
 good fortune. There was a house steward, a butler, a 
 coachman, footmen in livery, and a considerable retinue of 
 other servants. 
 
 On October 28, 1730, at five in the morning, a Danish 
 East Lidiaman, which had been driven into the bay, and 
 had failed to weather Kerry Head, came ashore under the 
 house. She was powerfully armed and manned, and was 
 at first taken for a pirate. But the arms were merely for 
 the protection of twelve large chests of silver bullion which 
 they were taking out to the East. Her crew were harm- 
 less, and were anxious only for the safety of their precious 
 cargo. The vessel being strongly built, lield together till 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 369 
 
 the tide went back. The Danes, eighty-eight in all, 
 scrambled half drowned through the surf with the chests, 
 and were looking about for some place of safety to deposit 
 them, when they were set upon by the peasantry of the 
 neighborhood. The commercial policy of England had 
 converted the coast population of Ireland into organized 
 ' gangs of smugglers, and wrecking formed a natural feature 
 in the general lawlessness. 
 
 Mr. Crosbie being a man of character and apparently of 
 conscience, rushed to the rescue. With the help of his ser- 
 vants and his factory hands he drove off the mob, and 
 secured the treasure in his house. Most of the crew went 
 to Dublin, and made their way home. The commander, 
 Captain Heitman, with his son and a few of the seamen, 
 remained in charge of the chests till arrangements could be , 
 made for their removal. Mr. Crosbie, in his report to the 
 government, stated that he had risked his life in saving 
 them. He had caught a cold besides in the raw wet morn- 
 ing air, which had brought on pleurisy, and he not un- 
 naturally presented a heavy claim for salvage. A corre- 
 spondence followed between the Dublin Custom-house and 
 Copenhagen. Months passed on, and the chests remained 
 at Ballyhige, and meanwhile Mr. Crosbie's pleurisy took an 
 unfavorable turn, and he died. 
 
 Now, whether it was that there survived in Kerry some 
 tradition of Palatine rights, under which property cast up 
 by the sea had belonged to the Earls of Desmond and now 
 belonged to nobody in particular, and therefore to every-- 
 body ; or whether, by hesitating about the salvage money, 
 the Danes were supposed to have forfeited their own claims ; 
 or whether, simply, there was a loose idea that chests of sil- 
 ver were chests of silver, and that to neglect windfalls of 
 of that kind was a wUlfiil tempting of Providence ; however 
 it may have been, there grew up on that side of the coimtry, 
 among all classes of people, a very general idea that it would 
 oe well to make their hay while the sun was shining. 
 24 
 
370 A Wortnight in Kerry. 
 
 In the ensuing spring, accordingly, we catch glimpses of 
 scenes of this kind. Four or five miles from BaUyhige 
 there resided the Eeverend Francis Lauder, a justice of the 
 peace and Vicar- General of the Bishop of Limerick. One 
 day in April the Vicar-General's steward, named Ryan, with 
 a farm servant called Keven, were threshing corn in the 
 barn. Some strangers from Tralee lounged in, and Ryan • 
 went out with them, and when he returned told Keven 
 that there was a plot on foot to carry oflf the Danes' money, 
 and asked him to be one of the party. Keven asked what 
 the gentlemen of the county would say. Ryan answered 
 that, except Lord Kerry, who had not been consulted, all 
 the gentlenien had given their consent, the Vicar- General 
 included. " WUl the gentlemen be present ? " Keven in- 
 , quired. " Either they or their servants," was the answer. 
 " There is no fear of them." 
 
 The next question was of Lady Margaret and the family 
 in the house. The servants were all eager, and so was 
 young Master James and another young fellow, a cousin 
 perhaps, Thomas Crosbie, alias Godly. Lady Margaret's 
 views were unknown. She was looked up to in the neigh- 
 borhood. No one would act against her inclination, and it 
 was necessary to sound her. Lady Margaret, it appears, 
 would have preferred to be left in the dark. Banner, the 
 butler, undertook, to speak to her ; he told her that she had 
 only to look through her fingers, and four chests, a third of 
 the spoU, would be left for her use. Lady Margaret seemed 
 to " abhor the thought." She said loudly, " she would al- 
 low no such thing, and would go out in person to prevent it, 
 if she was to lose her life." The butler answered, " It would 
 be worse for her ladyship, unless she allowed it, for she 
 would never get a farthing else." She continued peremp- 
 tory in words, but young " Godly " hinted that she was 
 chiefly angry at having been taken into confidence unneces- 
 sarily. 
 
 Gradually the scheme took shape. One night in May a 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 371 
 
 gang of fifty men stole up through, the sami-hills. One of 
 them slipped in quietly to speak to the butler. The butler 
 went up stairs to consult " Mr. Arthur," the Clerk of the 
 Crown, who was asleep in bed. " Mr. Arthur," being in 
 the commission of the peace as well, replied that " he would 
 not for the world it was done while he was in the house ; 
 when he was away, he did not care what they did." " Mr. 
 Arthur " took himself off, and left the coast clear. 
 
 The preparations were made with the utmost coolness. 
 The Vicar- General's cars and caarts were put in readiness. 
 The house steward at Ballyhige sent the truckles and 
 wheel-barrows to be repaired, as the load would be a heavy 
 one. Captain Heitman and his son slept in the house. 
 The treasure was in a detached turret at the east end, a 
 party of seamen keeping guard over it. The gates being 
 left open by the servants on the morning of June 4, an hour 
 before dawn, another Crosbie alias Godly — David, per- 
 haps Thomas's brother^ came up from the sands with a 
 party of laborers, gentlemen's servants, and Tralee artisans, 
 armed with guns. They made straight for the turret, forced 
 the postern with crowbars, killed two of the sailors, and 
 wounded a third. Captaia Heitman was roused by the 
 noise. The butler and young James Crosbie affected ter- 
 ror, barricaded the door, and prevented him from stirring. 
 The twelve chests were brought out into the yard in the 
 gray of the summer morning, and the spoil was divided; 
 The robbers, true to their word, portioned off Lady Marga- 
 ret's share. Four boxes were hid away for her in the hag- 
 gard under the straw, and were afterwards buried in the 
 garden ; and a part of one was carried off by David Crosbie 
 in a boat to the " Dolphin " sloop, which was waiting m the 
 bay. One or two were taken to Tralee or Limerick. The 
 rest were distributed between the Vicar's cars and carts and 
 taken to his barn, where " the scum," as the rank and file 
 of the party were designated; were paid off with a few hand- 
 fiils of dollars ; and the remainder, on the ensuing day, was 
 
372 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 portioned out among the chief conspirators and the gentle- 
 men who had consented to wink at them. At first, indeed, 
 there was a notion that Lady Margaret's four chests were a 
 sufficient acquittance to the great people concerned, and that 
 the actors in the scene might keep the residue for them- 
 selres. They were given sharply to understand that this 
 would not do. The gentlemen sent to know why they had 
 not their share given to them, adding it would be worse for 
 the robbers if it was not sent. Numbers of persons, it was 
 given in evidence, rode up to the bam with scarcely any 
 appearance of concealment, and filled their hats and their 
 pockets with silver. 
 
 So matters went for a fortnight. The strangest part of 
 the story has yet to be told. Lady Margaret wrote in de- 
 cent agitation to the authorities in Dublin. Captain Heit- 
 man appealed , to the county, but the magistrates were 
 strangely dilatory. There was loud talldng and promising, 
 but no one was arrested, and the affair was treated as an 
 impenetrable mystery. Lord Carteret, whose term of office 
 as Lord-Lieutenant was expired, had returned to England. 
 His successor, tlie Duke of Dorset, had not arrived, and the 
 government was in the hands of Irish Lords Justices. The 
 Lords Justices appeared most anxious. They sent a sharp 
 reprimand to the Kerry magistrates. They directed the 
 Earl of Kerry himself to undertake an instant and severe 
 inquiry. > 
 
 Lord Kerry took up the matter in earnest, with an 
 honorable shame at the figure which the county was mak- 
 ing. Dissatisfied parties among " the scum " were wUling 
 to give evidence when any one could be found to receive it. 
 Prisoners were taken and examined, the butler of Ballyhige 
 and the Vicar-General's steward among them. The whole 
 truth was brought out, and on July 31st Mr. Lingen, the 
 Chief Commissioner of Customs in Dublin, was able to 
 send Lord Kerry his hearty thanks " for the pains he had 
 taken in unravelling such an enormous piece of villainy 
 which was now set in the clearest light." 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 373 
 
 The Danish ingots, however, remained after all too 
 strong for justice. The judges came to Tralee to try the 
 case, but not a single gentleman was placed at the bar. 
 Three or four of the actors were convicted and sentenced 
 to be hanged ; but they were respited by private order. 
 "It was thought hard that the poor rogues should be 
 hanged whUe the principals escaped." If no one was to be 
 punished. Captain Heitman at least expected that the spoils 
 should be restored. The government offered a free par- 
 don to any person who would assist in recovering it. Im- 
 mediately two of the leaders, Ryan, and a man named 
 Lalor, who were in gaol at Tralee, confessed and volun- 
 teered their services ; and these two scoundrels, who ought 
 to have been swinging on the gallows, were at once re- 
 leased by order of the Knight of Kerry, Sir Maurice 
 Crosbie, and the other magistrates. The entire manage- 
 ment of the search was placed in their hands, which they 
 took good care should come to nothing, while they went 
 about the country talking of their exploit with the utmost 
 frankness, and boasting that if it were still to do they would 
 do it again. 
 
 Lord Kerry was furious ; re-arrested Ryan and Lalor, 
 and reported the magistrates to " the Castle." Sharp re- 
 proofs came back, with orders for the two prisoners to be 
 sent instantly to Dublin ; but a fatality hung over the 
 transaction at every step that was taken in it. The judges 
 declared that the assizes being over they had no longer 
 power to command the prisoners'' removal. The magis- 
 trates declined to act. The Kiiight of Kerry protested 
 against "being made instrumental in enthrapping poor 
 creatures who had come in on conditions." The Earl of 
 Kerry seeing how matters were going, began to fear for 
 the consequences to himself. Every one, he said, who had 
 been concerned in unravelling the story was alarmed to see 
 the chief actors in it thus encouraged.. He expected nightly 
 to find his own house burning over his head. 
 
374 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 The Danish Government took up the mattei. Arthur 
 Crosbie was prosecuted, tried in Dublin, and acquitted; 
 the judges saying that there was a want of evidence against 
 him. The Danes complained that the judges conspired to 
 suppress the inquiry, and showed partiality against them 
 to shield the Crosbies. 
 
 The Duke of Newcastle did what he could, but the 
 English Government could act only through the forms of 
 the Irish constitution, and the Crosbies were too strong for 
 him. 
 
 A certain quantity of the bullion was recovered, or was 
 said to be recovered. Nine thousand pounds in plate and 
 money were reported to have been found, and to be lying 
 somewhere in a place of security ; but the " somewhere " 
 was nowhere so far as the Danes were concerned. 
 
 Either the expenses of the inquiry, or some excuse of 
 form rose in the way of every petition which they pre- 
 sented. In July 1734, more than three years after the 
 robbery, Newcastle complained to Lord Dorset " that the 
 master and sailors had not hitherto been able to obtain 
 satisfaction for their loss and damage, nor restitution of 
 the money and plate recovered." He sent the strictest 
 orders that justice should be done without delay. Justice 
 never was done. Nobody was punished. FalstafiP himself 
 had not more objections to " paying back " than the good 
 people of Kerry, and the lawyers of the Four Courts, who 
 were in conspiracy with them. On the 3d of January, 
 1736, the Danish ambassador laid his concluding protest 
 before the English prime minister. 
 
 " Your grace," he said, " has many times expressed to 
 me your own private indignation at this affair. My master 
 now desires me to tell you that if any English vessels hap- 
 pen to be lost on the coast of Denmark the Irish Govern- 
 ment will be to blame for the consequence which will 
 probably befall them." 
 
A Fortwight in Kerry. B75 
 
 Les complices et principaux auteurs de cet inf&me complot 
 Bont aussy connus i votre griice et aux Seigneurs du GouYerne- 
 ment qu'k tout le reste de I'Mande. Dans une affaire aussy 
 odieuse que celle-ci on trouve le moyen par ttiute sorte de four- 
 beries et de chicanes de soustraire k la justice et k la punition 
 m^ritee les gens les plus notoirement impliquez dans le vol de 
 I'argent.i 
 
 I have rambled on incoherently, wishing rather to con- 
 vey an idea of the constituents of daily life as they present 
 themselves to an English stranger in the wUd parts of 
 Ireland than to tell a consecutive story. As I have ob- 
 served little order hitherto, I shall be no less abrupt in the 
 rest of what I have to say, and I shall conclude these 
 sketches by a few words on the long-vexed Irish problem. 
 I have nothing to propose in the way of remedial meas- 
 ures : no measures could be expressed in words which 
 could heal a chronic sore as little now as ever disposed to 
 heal. I speak merely as one who knows something of 
 Ireland, and something of its history. Let it not be sup- 
 posed that the late concessions to Irish agitation have 
 removed as yet the source of disloyalty. They may have 
 been right in themselves — I do not question it; but the 
 wound remains, and wUl remain. The Irish, as a body, 
 are disloyal to the English Grown, and disloyal they will, 
 for some time at least, continue. The Church Bill was the 
 removal of a scandal ; the Land BUI will rescue the poorer 
 tenants from the tyranny of middlemen and adventurers 
 chiefly of their own race ; but the people generally regard 
 these Bills, both of them, as extorted from us by the Clerk- 
 enwell explosion. They do not thank us for them. They 
 rather gather courage to despise us for our fears. Their 
 sympathies on all subjects are in antagonism to ours. If 
 we are entangled in a war, they will rejoice in our defeat ; 
 and they will do their worst or their best, whatever theif 
 worst or best may be, to forward our misfortunes. 
 
 1 The Minister of Denmark to the Duke of Newcastle, January 3, 1736< 
 MS. Eecord Office. 
 
376 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 England had one great opportunity of thoroughly assiini' 
 lating Ireland to herself, and she threw it willfully away 
 The Celts, who had been conquered by the Normans, re- 
 covered their power and part of their lands when England 
 was convulsed by the Wars of the Roses. The great Nor- 
 man families maintained themselves by adopting their man- 
 ners and their cause, and intermarrying with their families. 
 The Tudor princes had to contend with the hostility of the 
 united island, and the struggle for supremacy continued till 
 it closed in the decisive subjugation of the Irish race after 
 the battlis of the Boyne. The Irish party, Celts and Cath- 
 olics, were totally broken ; their leaders went abroad and 
 took service in foreign armies ; the restless spirits were 
 perennially drafted off into the Irish brigade on the Con- 
 tinent ; their lands "were distributed among Scotch and 
 English immigrants ; their creed was proscribed ; and for 
 the first half of the eighteenth century the Celts were of no 
 more account in their own island than the negroes in the 
 Southern States of America before emancipation. The 
 penal laws in the present state oi opinion have become as 
 execrable as slavery : they are mentioned only with shaine 
 and regret : yet the essential injustice in yet more impor- 
 tant matters with which the poor country was trampled 
 upon by England at the time that they were in force was 
 yet more execrable than the penal laws. After a hundred 
 and seventy years of intermittent rebellion, massacre, and 
 confusion, something might be said in favor of severe 
 coercion. It was natural to seek for a perpetual removal 
 of disturbing causes which were ineradicable except by 
 excision. Yet, "if it was found necessai-y to confiscate an 
 entire country, to prohibit the exercise of its religion, to 
 create a new proprietary, to sow the four provinces with 
 colonies of aliens of another race and another creed, the 
 justification of those stern measures was to be looked for 
 only in the most unrelaxed exertions to benefit morally 
 and materially the people who were so cruelly held down 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 371 
 
 — to develop their industry, to teach them a purer faith, 
 to make them feel that the conquei'ors whom they had re- 
 sisted so desperately were, after all, their best and truest 
 friends. At the close of the seventeenth century a third of 
 the population of Ireland were Scots and English, French 
 and Flemings — aU Protestants. They had nine tenths 
 of the land ; they possessed all the skill, knowledge, enter- 
 prise, and capital : they were covering the country with 
 flocks and herds ; they were growing flax on a great scale ; 
 they had established a lucrative foreign trade ; they had 
 founded woolen and linen manufactories which were em- 
 ploying tens of thousands of people ; and by the laws of 
 natural expansion, had they been allowed to grow, they 
 would have absorbed and provided with organized occupa- 
 tion the entire nation. They were sturdy Protestants, as 
 I said — not lukewarm Anglicans misbegotten out of com- 
 promise, but men tried in the fire ; sturdy Calvinists, who 
 held the traditions of the Ironsides. Had such a race as 
 these been allowed fair play, had England only abstained 
 from interfering with them, it is absurd to doubt that the 
 Celts of Ireland, broken down as they were, without 
 leaders, mere helpless, ignorant peasants, would have 
 yielded to the superior intelligence and irresistible influence 
 of their masterrs, as their brothers of the same race yielded 
 in Wales and the Highlands. 
 
 Worried as England had so long been by the Irish diffi- 
 culty, it might have been thought that she would have re- 
 joiced at last to see the troubles there so happily composed, 
 and would have exerted herself to build vigorously upon a 
 foundation which had been laid so fortunately at iast. But 
 the victory had been too complete. The mercantile element 
 in English legislation, — always short-sighted, always mean, 
 always preferring the base profits of individuals, I will not 
 say to duty and high principle, for that is not to be expected, 
 but to patriotism and national interest, — took advantage 
 of Ireland's political weakness to destroy in the germ her 
 
378 A Fortnight in Kerry. 
 
 promise of prosperity. English ship owners took alarm at 
 the growth of Irish commerce, — English mill owners at the 
 dimensions of her woolen fabrics. Possessed as Ireland was 
 of cheap labor and inexhaustible water-power, they found 
 that she could undersell them in the world's markets, and 
 the dread of diminished profits drove them mad with jeal- 
 ousy. The woolen factories were nipped in the bud by pro- 
 hibitive statutes. The industrial immigration was not only 
 checked, but twenty thousand .skilled Protestant artisans 
 already settled in the North moved instantly back across 
 the Channel. Driven from their manufactures, the settlers 
 turned their hands to the growth of raw material and mul- 
 tiplied their sheep. Again they were forbidden to export 
 their wool to any country except England, and in England 
 only to a few selected ports. These are but a few instances 
 of the detailed tyranny by which Irish industry was broken 
 down. The prospects of Ireland were deliberately sacri- 
 ficed to fill the pockets of a few English rich men. In 
 Kerry, Cork, and Galway, and all round the coast, the gen- 
 tlemen were driven into smuggling and consequent lawless- 
 ness as the inevitable result of the repression of their legiti- 
 mate employments, and the wretched natives were forced 
 back upon their potato gardens as their only means of sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 Spiritual matters went the same road. If the Irish 
 Church was not oppressed in the same sense, it was op- 
 pressed in a worse ; for the benefices, high and low, were 
 distributed as patronage to make provision for persons who 
 could not decently be promoted in England. The princi- 
 ple on which the vacant places in the hierarchy were sup- 
 plied is immortalized in the bitter scorn of Dean Swifl;. 
 The English Government, he said, nominated liighly proper 
 persons ; but the reverend gentlemen were waylaid by the 
 highwaymen on Hounslow Heath, who cut their throats, 
 stole their papers, and came over and were inducted in their 
 places. When the Church could hold no more, there were 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry, 379 
 
 the Irish revenues to fall back upon. "Wretched Ireland 
 was compelled to place upon its pension list every scanda- 
 lous blackguard who, in unmentionable or unproducible 
 ways, had laid the Court or Cabinet of St. James's under 
 obligation. 
 
 Thus, hard as it might have seemed to ruin so fair a pros- 
 pect, the English Government succeeded in doing it. The 
 Protestant immigrants were driven back upon the Celts by 
 this ingenious variety of ill-usage, and made common cause 
 with them against a tyranny which had grown intolerable 
 to both. In spite of the government, their mere presence 
 in Ireland had produced astonishing improvement. They 
 had ruled, if not perfectly, yet with intelligence and justice, 
 fer greater than anything which had been known under the 
 dominion of the chiefe. They maintained political order 
 while England was convulsed with rebellion. The popula- 
 tion increased threefold in ninety years. The selling value 
 of the land rose in places twenty and thirty fold. Ireland 
 in 1782 was still in essentials a Protestant Country. Grat- 
 tan's volunteers were Protestants. Even the United Irish- 
 men of 1798 were most of them Protestants ; but they had 
 been driven into revolt by England's unendurable foUy; 
 and, cut off as they were from the source of their strength, 
 their ascendancy inevitably declined. The era of agitation 
 recommenced. The Celts raised their heads again. Their 
 relative numbers multiplied; they became once more the 
 dominant race of the island. The Anglo-Irish authority, 
 established so hardly, became a thing of the past, and the 
 history of the last half-century has been of the recovery, 
 step by step, by the Celtic and Catholic population, of the 
 powers which had seemed gone from them forever. The 
 country has fallen back into the condition in which William 
 found it, and the families of the old blood inevitably have 
 resumed the aspirations which they displayed in the last 
 Parliament of James. 
 
 England deserves what has come upon her ; yet the two 
 
380 A Fortnight in Kerry^ 
 
 islands must remain where Nature placed them. They are 
 tied together like an Hi-matched pair between whom no 
 divorce is possible. Must they continue a thorn in each 
 other's side till doomsday ? Are the temperaments of the 
 races so discordant that the secret of their reconciliation is 
 forever undiscoverable ? 
 
 The present hope is, that by assiduous "justice " — that 
 is, by conceding everything which the Irish please to ask 
 — we shall disarm their enmity and convince them of our 
 good-will. It may be so. There are persons sanguine 
 enough to hope that the Irish wOl be so moderate in what 
 they demand, and the English so liberal in what they will 
 grant, that at last we shall fling ourselves into each other's 
 arms in tears of mutual forgiveness. I do not share that 
 expectation. It is more likely that they will press their 
 importunities tUl we turn "upon them and refuse to yield 
 further. There will be a struggle once more ; and either 
 the emigration to America will increase in volume till it has 
 carried the entire race beyond our reach, or in some shape 
 or other they wOl again have to be coerced into submission. 
 This only is certain, — that the fortunes of the two islands 
 are inseparaibly linked. Ireland can never be independent 
 of England, nor is it likely that a fuller measure of what is 
 called freedom will make Irishmen acquiesce more gra- 
 ciously in their forced connection with us. 
 
 It is said that in a country where liberty and equality 
 were carried out in greatest perfection, a gentleman who 
 had succeeded to the management of an excellent pack of 
 foxhounds considered that he could not do better than ap- 
 ply the popular principle to his new charge. He went one 
 day to the kennel. " My dear hounds," he said, " you have 
 been kept in slavery ^- the finest part of your nature has 
 been destroyed for want of your natural rights — you have 
 been taken out when you wished to stay at home — you 
 have not been consulted either about your victuals or your 
 lodging — you have been sent after foxes when you would 
 
A Fortnight in Kerry. 381 
 
 have preferred hares — you have been treated as if you 
 were mere dogs rather than as rational and responsible be- 
 ings : I am going to alter that — I shall put before you 
 what is right, but I shall leave you to take your own way if 
 you prefer it, and you shall each of you vote every morning 
 exactly what you like to do — you shall be admitted to 
 your birthright of freedom, and you shall decide according 
 to your own ideas how you like to pass your lives.'' The 
 pack, it is needless to say, after worrying all the sheep in 
 the neighborhood, ended by tearing each other to pieces. 
 
 All of us are the better for authority. In schools and 
 colleges, in fleet and army, discipline means success, and 
 anarchy means ruin. The House of Commons has its 
 whips, who might apply their instruments more frequently 
 with nothing but advantage. The Irish have many faults : 
 they have one predominant virtue. There is no race in the 
 world whose character responds more admirably to govern- 
 ment, or suffers more injury from the absence of it. It 
 was an Irishman, who, when some one said, " One man 
 was as good as another," exclaimed, " Aye, and better too." 
 He understands himself, if no else understands him. He is 
 the worst of leaders, but the truest and most loyal of fol- 
 lowers. In the past he was devoted to his chiefs ; in the 
 present his allegiance is waiting for any one who will boldly 
 claim it. Govern him firmly and justly — make him feel 
 that you mean to be his master, not for your sake, but for 
 his, that you may save him from himself, and you need have 
 no more anxiety about him. The wildest village boy that 
 ever flung up his cap for O'Donovan Eossa has but to be 
 caught, laid under discipline, and dressed in policeman's uni- 
 form, to be true as steel. 
 
ENGLAND'S WAE. 
 
 When the last shot had been fired at Waterloo, Great 
 Britain was indisputably the first Power in the world. 
 From that day to this we have run a career, almost without 
 a check, of what has been called unexampled prosperity. 
 Yet at the end of these fifty-fiye years English officers teU 
 us that they can scarcely show their faces at a table d'h6te 
 in Germany without danger of afiront. English opinion is 
 without weight. English power is ridiculed. Our influ- 
 ence in the councils of Europe is a thing of the past. We 
 are told, half officially, that it is time for us to withdraw 
 altogether from the concerns of the Continent ; while, on 
 the other side of the Atlantic, Mr. Emerson calmly inti- 
 mates to an approving audience, that the time is not far off 
 when the Union must throw its protecting shield over us in 
 our approaching decrepitude. We are stUl able to make 
 ourselves hated ; we cannot save ourselves from being de- 
 spised ; and, however we may resent the attitude which the 
 world is assuming towards us, we are painfully aware that 
 we owe our exemption from immediate danger to our geo- 
 graphical position alone, and that if our fleet were acci- 
 dentally disabled, and a well-appointed army of a hundred 
 thousand men were thrown upon our shores, we could offer 
 • no effective resistance. We are perplexed, impatient, irri- 
 tated ; and with perfect justice. We are not conscious of 
 any serious decay in our national character and spirit ; we 
 have not been niggardly in our supplies ; even in our hv 
 mors of extremest economy we vote sums annually for our 
 military service which suffice elsewhere to provide troops in 
 
England's War. 388 
 
 any num'ters of the most admirable efficiency.. There are 
 some among us who conceive that we should catch at the 
 first available opportunity, the first afiront or diplomatic em- 
 broilment to court a quarrel for its own sake, as if the dis- 
 cipline of wax would rouse us out of our lethargy, put life 
 into our languid movements, and enable us to let the nations, 
 know that our arms have not lost their sinew nor our hearts 
 their courage. 
 
 Only a few years ago, when the Exhibition of 1851 was 
 opened in Hyde Park, we were supposed to be standing on 
 the threshold of a new era. Commerce and free trade were 
 to work a revolution which Christianity had tried to pro- 
 duce, and failed. War was to be at an end forever, and the 
 inhabitants of the earth were to compete thenceforward only 
 in the arts of peace. The world smiled kindly on our enthu- 
 siasm, or seemed to share our expectations. When the first 
 unsuccessful cable was laid across the Atlantic, the single 
 message which it bore from Washington to England was 
 " Peace on earth, and good-will towards men." The peace 
 proved a cycle of storms which in one quarter or another 
 have raged since scarcely with intermission, and, though at 
 home our streak of sea has stood our friend, we have borne 
 our share already in the East, and danger may very easily 
 come to seek us at our own doors without our going out of 
 the way to look for it. Many idle wars have been under- 
 taken at one time or another for the sake of national pres- 
 tige ; but the notion of going into such a business for the 
 sake of the moral improvement of our characters would 
 have occurred to no one but an Englishman in the second 
 half of the nineteenth century. If we are suffering from 
 the " long canker of peace," it is to be hoped there are other 
 ways of curing it besides sacrificing hundreds of thousands 
 of our own people, and killing hundreds of thousands of 
 others. 
 
 Before we look for enemies abroad we have enemies to 
 make war upon among ourselves, or we shall gather little 
 
384 Englan^a War. 
 
 honor or profit in any other field of glory. And when 
 our home war is over, when we have tracked out and dis- 
 armed the real sources of our weakness, we shall find per- 
 haps that both our moral health and our prestige abroad 
 will have returned in the process without need of a more 
 desperate remedy. 
 
 We are not respected because we are supposed to be 
 powerless. Why are we powerless? We have money 
 without limit, we have coal and iron, and with them ample 
 command of aU mechanical resources ; and to make use of 
 these things we have thirty millions of men and women in 
 our own islands, and ten millions besides in our colonies, 
 of a race which in times of trial has been found at least 
 equal to any other upon earth. Individuals among us, or 
 voluntary combinations which we form among ourselves 
 for special purposes, do their work punctually and effec- 
 tively. Private English enterprise buUt up our Indian 
 Empire, founded English-speaking communities in every 
 quarter of the globe, realized in steamships, as Emerson 
 says, the fable of bolus's bag, and inclosed the four-and- 
 twenty winds in their boilers ; invented railroads and the 
 telegraph, and in this very crisis of our supposed decadence 
 holds a virtual monopoly of the commerce of mankind. 
 Our time of degeneracy may come. We may founder on 
 the rock on which every other commercial community has 
 made shipwreck before us, and perish in the greediness of 
 money-making. But the evil day has not yet arrived. 
 The poison may be in the skin, but it has not touched the 
 bones.. Individual Englishmen can still do what they un- 
 dertake to do as effectively as when English statesmen 
 ruled the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna; Indi- 
 viduals, unless when they are deliberately dishonest, are as 
 capable as ever they were ; but the business of national 
 defense belongs to the government, and the touch of the 
 Government is like the touch of a torpedo, sending paraly- 
 sis through the nei'ves and veins of every organization * 
 
 1 The Post Office is the single exception. The admirable inanagemen* 
 
Ungland's War. 385 
 
 which it ventures to meddle with. Here is the seat of the 
 disorder, and here, if anywhere, it must be encountered. 
 
 All nations have their idols, the creatures of their own 
 hands, which, having manufactured, they bow down before 
 as gods. The Spanish peasant adores his image of the 
 Virgin. The Englishman adores the British Constitution. 
 It is his ideal of political perfection, and under the shadow 
 of it, when it was once finished, he believed that he would 
 be safe from the malice of his earthly enemies. The 
 origin of the satisfaction in both instances is probably the 
 same. Each is well pleased with a divinity which cannot 
 interfere with him. So far as we are concerned at home, 
 we have taken very good care that the government shall 
 be as powerless as the doU. We are contented to believe 
 that we cannot have both good, government and liberty; 
 and liberty we think the better of the two. 
 
 There are persons who wduld reverse the position en- 
 tirely, and maintain that good government was the essential 
 of liberty — that there was no liberty in any human com- 
 munity without it. That, however, is not the present 
 opinion of the citizens of the British Empire. So far as 
 our domestic administration is concerned, we select, indeed, 
 some conspicuous person to act at the head of each de- 
 partment ; but we usually interpose so many checks upon 
 his activity that he is virtually powerless. Had he 'the 
 strength of a steam engine, unless he had Parliament in a 
 state of excitement at his back, that strength would be 
 exhausted in friction, and would issue in acts soft as the 
 touch of a three-year-old child. 
 
 Nor, indeed, would, it seem wise, according to the prin- 
 ciples on which Ministers are selected for their several 
 posts, to trust them with larger powers than they possess. 
 The Lord Chancellor, indeed, is necessarily the most emi- 
 nent person in the legal profession who can be found 
 
 of the Post Office is an evidence of what government can do in a matter 
 in which the nation cannot afford to be trifled witih. 
 •25 
 
386 England's War. 
 
 among the adherents of the party in power ; but all the 
 remaining seats ia the Cabinet are treated simply as the 
 prizes of the Parliamentary campaign, and are distributed, 
 not only without reference to the special acquaintance with 
 their subjects of the persons who are to occupy them, but 
 with a disregard of all particular qualifications so cynical 
 as to show that the possession of fitness for the work is 
 held a. matter of no consequence whatsoever. In the 
 House of Commons there are some eminent engineers, 
 some eminent merchants and bankers ; but an engineer is 
 not selected for the Board of Works, or a banker for the 
 Exchequer. Cabinets are not composed of distinguished 
 soldiers or sailors, distinguished men of business, or men 
 of science. When a Ministry is formed, the selection lies 
 between peers of great territorial influence, for whom places 
 must be found as the price of their support to the party, 
 and politicians remarkable for readiness of speech, debating 
 power, and dexterity in influencing divisions. The object 
 of the party in ofiice is to secure its working majority in 
 the Lower House ; and this or that prominent person has 
 to be provided for — to be appointed, that is, to the head- 
 ship of some important department of public business, 
 though he may be guUtless of the faintest acquaintance 
 with the work which he undertakes to guide, and though 
 his claim to the situation be merely some Parliamentary 
 service which it is necessary to reward, or the possession 
 of debating abilities which it may be dangerous to drive 
 into opposition. 
 
 Pieced together as the members of the Cabinet are, 
 upon such terms as these, we are not surprised afterwards 
 at any fresh redistribution of seats which may take place 
 in them. We see noble lords and right honorable gen- 
 tlemen shifted from one department to another — a Colonial 
 Minister goes to the War Office or the Foreign Office, an 
 Irish Secretary to the Board of Trade, either as if these 
 high officials had been trained into omniscience and were 
 
EnglanCCs War. 387 
 
 masters of every subject which could be entrusted to thenij 
 or as if they were like the Tulchan bishops in Scotland, 
 stuffed figures, intended to do nothing but draw their 
 salaries and impose on the simplicity of fools, whUe the 
 most singular part of the business is that all this passes as 
 a matter of course. It is one of the outcomes of the most 
 perfect constitution which the world has ever seen, and we 
 are so imreasonable as to expect that public business shall 
 be conducted successfully under a system which would 
 bring a private commercial company to immediate ruin. 
 If Sir WiUiam Armstrong requires a manager at one of 
 his foundries at Newcastle he does not pick out a man who 
 knows nothing of mechanics ; the captain of a Cunarder is 
 at least expected to understand navigation ; but a noble 
 lord may be set to preside over the "War Office who at the 
 date of his appointment did not know the difference be- 
 tween a brigade and a company. In a few months, when 
 his work has become less entirely strange to him, he is re- 
 moved perhaps to the India Office and made supreme ruler 
 of our Eastern Empire. How India may fare under his 
 administration no one cares to ask or think : so long as he 
 can be crammed by a subordinate, and skillfully reply to in- 
 convenient questions in Parliament, he answers every pur- 
 pose which either his chief or his country expects of him. 
 
 The consequence of this method of managing public 
 business is precisely what might be expected ; and now 
 the British public, which looked upon it as natural and 
 reasonable, is oddly surprised at the inevitable result. The 
 state of the army is at present distracting us. We spend 
 fifteen millions annually upon it — more than France spent 
 under the empire, a great deal more than Prussia spends ; 
 and the result is, or was a short time ago, a mob of 
 militia and volunteers, fifty thousand really available 
 troops, and malice says, perhaps with some exaggeration, 
 six batteries of field-guns. What else could we expect? 
 The army indeed is distinguished above all the depart 
 
388 England's War. 
 
 ments by the singularity of its management. The anny 
 has two chiefs — one, selected as other Cabinet Ministers, 
 a civilian, who by the nature of the case can know nothing 
 of his duties ; the other — well, there is no occasion to say 
 anything of the other. But if England requires a real 
 army she need not vote another shilling, but she must 
 abolish once and forever all leaderships of incapable or 
 gilded phantoms : she must look for the ablest soldier that 
 she possesses, who has devoted his life to his professiop. 
 She must not ask him if he can make a speech in Parlia- 
 ment : she should rather insist that he and Parliament 
 should be held as far apart as possible ; she must require 
 only that he understand thoroughly in all its parts and re- 
 quirements the business of war ; and, being satisfied on that 
 point, she must give him authority to carry out what may 
 be necessary without J;he liability of being called to ac- 
 count on every detail by the amateur critics of the House 
 of Commons. She must resolve, or she must allow him to 
 resolve, upon an organized method which has been thought 
 out in all its parts, and when decided on shall be strictly 
 adhered to — not chopped and changed from session to 
 session to suit the budget of the Chancellor of the Excheq- 
 uer, or catch the votes or the applause of the million. 
 
 There would then, it is said, be no responsibility. 
 Rather, responsibility would then for the first time come 
 really into being ; the country would know the person to 
 whom it had distinctly delegated its powers, and could call 
 him to account for the use which he had made of them. 
 She would not displace him when he was doing his work 
 effectively hecause the Prime Minister happened to be de- 
 feated in the House of Commons on some irrelevant ques- 
 tion. She had appointed him to his post to create an eflfec- 
 tive army. If he had provided the army ; if it was there 
 in adequate numbers, with its appointments in sound condi- 
 tion, ready to take the field at home or abroad when Eng- 
 land required its services, she would know that she had the 
 
England's War. 889 
 
 right man in the place, and, having got him, would keep 
 him there. If after time given there was still no army, but 
 only the expenses of an army, with nothing realized but 
 promises, imaginations, and expectations, then she would 
 put him away, punish him if necessary for having abused 
 her confidence, at any rate remove him and put a better 
 man in his place. 
 
 The army just now is our most pressing consideration ; 
 but the War Office is only one department out of many in 
 which organization and authority are alike imperatively de- 
 manded. The present theory of England's duty in the 
 world is that we should attend to our own business, and 
 keep out of our neighbors' way so long as they will keep 
 out of ours. And the notion is that we are a people emi- 
 nently qualified for self-government — that each and all of 
 us separately and collectively have only to be left to our- 
 selves, and the result will be universal harmony. We are 
 supposed to have arrived at that high stage of civilization 
 that we approach the condition of the gregarious animals,' 
 where each individual of the community falls naturally into 
 its place, and contributes automatically or instinctively to 
 the general structure of society. Streams of omnibuses, 
 carts, carriages, and pedestrians pass to and fro at all hours 
 of the day and night along Holborn and the Strand, meet- 
 ing each other, evading each other, passing one another, 
 without aid of the policeman, yet with rare collisions and 
 rarer injury — unless, perhaps, to the few hundred children, 
 old women, and decrepit persons who are annually run over 
 and maimed or killed. Let the traffic be interrupted, how- 
 ever briefly, and the damming back of that enormous human 
 tide would be as if a bank were thrown across the Thames. 
 But there is no confusion and no disorder ; every one goes 
 on his way quietly, and arrives punctual as clockwork at 
 the point at which he is aiming. The steamers go and 
 come through the crowded Pool ; their cargoes *re loaded 
 or unloaded exact to the hour or the minute ; their days of 
 
390 England's War. 
 
 arrival and days of departure from every port in the world 
 are laid down and observed with astonishing precision. 
 Our affairs seem to manage themselves, if only they are not 
 interfered with ; and thus the notion has risen that the 
 functions of government are zero, that it can meddle only 
 for mischief. Such a government as we possess at present; 
 doubtless acts discreetly in keeping its hands off. The in- 
 trusion of it would work nothing but mischief; but if the 
 details, for instance, of the management of the Cunard lino 
 are looked into, there is no lack of authority — rather thera 
 is stringent order and exact obedience, and when supervis- 
 ion slackens there is instant faUure and confusion. Much 
 indeed we are able to do for ourselves, but a juster infer- 
 ence from our managiag capacity would be that there is no 
 people upon earth who value organization more highly, or 
 among whom an intelligent government, in that large de- 
 partment of things which will not manage themselves, could 
 interfere with more ease or with more result. 
 
 Even if we were all honest, great multitudes of human 
 beings cannot congregate together without intricacy of re- 
 lations arising which individuals are unable to cope with, 
 or without breeding positive mischiefs which they have 
 neither leisure nor power to remove. Private persons and 
 private companies look to their own interests. Cholera 
 and cattle plague start up suddenly to teach us that the 
 commonwealth has fiirther interests of its own, which if 
 neglected bring universal ruin. 
 
 But to leave matters of this kind, and confine ourselves 
 to common honesty. The thing which we call self-govern- " 
 ment is driving some of us into considering whether, if 
 life is not to become unendurable, we should not do bet- 
 ter to collect our worldly goods together and move off 
 to some other locality where scoundrelism has a less easy 
 time of it. Past mutinies have been against tyrannical gov- 
 emmentsj but another and more respectable mutiny may 
 break out one day against anarchy and no government at 
 
Migland's War. 391 
 
 all. Every nation secretes its percentage of rascals, and the 
 plea on which authority exists, ou which it levies taxes on 
 the subject, and is itself maintained in honor, is to hold such 
 persons in some kind of check : yet it seems nowadays as 
 if government was unable to recognize the rascal unless he 
 takes the shape of the cutrthroat, a burglar, or a forger, 
 whUe the masters of the art thrive as they never throve be- 
 fore, carry about unblemished reputations, and, instead of 
 finding their necks in the halter or the pillory, pile up enor- 
 mous fortunes, make their way into the House of Commons, 
 and live and die in honor. 
 
 We Londoners are poisoned in the water which we drink, 
 poisoned in the gas with which we light our houses ; we are 
 poisoned in our bread, poisoned in our milk and butter, 
 poisoned in our beer, poisoned in the remedies for which, 
 when these horrible compounds have produced their conse- 
 quences, we, in our simplicity, apply to our druggists ; while 
 the druggists are in turn cheated by the swindling rogues 
 that supply their medicines. "We have escaped, some of us, 
 out of the hands of our grocers, for in despair we have set 
 up establishments of our own. The grocers, we perceive, 
 threaten us with actions for conspiring to defraud them of 
 their honest gains. There was a time when drunkenness 
 was as rare in England as it is now in France or Spain. 
 Eighty millions a year are now spent among us upon wine 
 and spirits and malt liquor, five sixths of it perhaps by the 
 working-men upon stufi" called beer and gin. The artisan 
 or the journeyman, exhausted by the gas-poisoned air with 
 which his lungs are loaded, and shrinking, when his day's 
 work is over, from the stifling chamber which is all that 
 society can afford, as lodging for him and his family, turns 
 aside as he goes home, to the pot-house or the gin-palace. 
 His watered beer is raised to double strength again ' by nux 
 vomica and cocculus indicus, and salted to make his thirst 
 insatiable. His gin is yet some viler mixture — a minimum 
 of pure spirit seasoned with white vitriol and oil of cinna- 
 
892 UnglancTs War. 
 
 mon and cayenne. Drunk, and with empty pockets, he 
 staggers home at last to his ■wife, who must feed and clothe 
 herself and him and his miserable family with the few shil- 
 lings which she can rescue out of his weekly wages. She, 
 too, often enough grows desperate, and takes to drinking 
 also. The result is that half the children born in England 
 die before they are five years old. It is found that the milk 
 supplied to the London workhouses for the pauper children 
 is shamefiilly watered. An honorable member speaks of it 
 in the House of Commons as an " exposure," and calls for 
 inquiry. Mr. Stansfield, speaking for the Ministry, com- 
 plains of " exposure " as too hard a word, and denies that 
 watered milk is adulterated, because wat«r is not a delete- 
 rious substance. It is true that pure TnilTr is to children a 
 necessary of life, and those who are not supplied with it die. 
 Such a death, however, is of course natural, and the parish 
 is relieved of the expense. 
 
 There are laws, we are told., by, which the men who do 
 these things can be punished. .Quid leges sine morihus 
 proficiunt ? or, rather, What are laws good for without a 
 public prosecutor to enforce them ? What can we imfortu- 
 nates hope for when another right honorable gentleman, 
 whose especial business it was to look after trade and com- 
 merce, could speak almost complacently of adulteration as 
 a natural result of competition ? The collectors of our gas 
 rates and water rates laugh in our faces at our feeble re- 
 monstrances. The companies are bound by their charters 
 to filter the water and purify the gas. The collectors teU 
 us it pays better to supply us with the present article. The 
 shareholder prefers ten and twelve per cent, to seven. The 
 brewing interests, the publican interests, the moneyed 
 interests generally, are too powerful in the House of Com- 
 mons for a Minister to dare to ofiend them. The Ministers 
 in general too faithfully represent the body which gives 
 them their being. 
 
 Or, indeed, the fault may be traced higher ; and, when 
 
UnglancCs War. 393 
 
 we see the true source of it, we may well sit down in de- 
 spa,ir. Under no circumstances, perhaps, could there be 
 anything but misgovernment when the supreme authority, 
 legislative and executive, was held by a miscellaneous body 
 of six hundred and fifty gentlemen. 'But the House of 
 Commons at present is a club, to which money is tb.e sure 
 and almost the only passport: the wolves are made the 
 watch-dogs of the sheep ; and the sheep are so fond of being 
 devoured, that there is scarcely a constituency in England 
 which, if offered a choice between St. Paul and Dives, 
 would not return Dives by an overwhelming majority. 
 The voters may themselves be poor ; they may know that 
 they can never be anything except poor ; but the rich man 
 embodies the qualities which they honor at the bottom of 
 their hearts. Great wealth is regarded with the self- 
 surrendering and disinterested devotion which used to be 
 felt for God Almighty. 
 
 But Parliament, however careM to tie the hands of 
 ministers who might interfere with matters inconveniently 
 at home, is less unconfiding or more indifferent in concerns 
 which do not immediately affect the personal interests of 
 its members. The selections for every department are 
 equally independent of considerations of specific qu9,lifica- 
 tions. But the range of action which is permitted either 
 for good or evil varies considerably and momentously. 
 The Home Ofi&ce is practically powerless. The Minister 
 for India, if he chooses, may be almost as absolute as the 
 Mogul whom he succeeds. The House of Commons, when 
 the dominions of the Company were transferred to the 
 Crown, became the sovereign of the Eastern Empire. 
 It received two hundred millions of human beings as its 
 subjects, with fifty miUions of revenue ; yet a debate on the 
 game laws creates ten times more excitement at St. Ste- 
 phen's than the discussion of the most momentous question 
 connected with India. When an Indian matter is brought 
 forward the House subsides at once into apathy, and would 
 
394 England s War. 
 
 endure perhaps with more fortitude to hear that we had 
 abandoued our entire Eastern possessions than that it had 
 been found necessary to suppress Tattersall's or abolish the 
 Derby. Thus as to India the minister is secure from in- 
 terference ; and if the result were only that the fittest 
 person who could be found was sent to Calcutta, and left 
 free to act by his own and his Council's judgment, the in- 
 difference of Parliament would be the surest guarantee for 
 good administration. The government of a conglomera- 
 tion of nations of various creeds, races, and temperaments, 
 agreeing only in a fundamental difference of character and 
 habit of thought from Europeans, can be conducted only 
 with the slightest hope of success by men who have had 
 experience of the Asiatic temperament, and who are on 
 the spot to decide at any moment upon measures which 
 may be immediately necessary. Yet over the head of the 
 Viceroy and Council it has been thought a wise and in- 
 telligent thing to place a minister at home — a noble lord 
 or right honorable gentleman, who three months agcf may 
 have been in the Privy Council, and two months hence may 
 be at the Post Office — whose unacquaintance with the 
 duties of either of these offices may only be equaled by 
 his self-confidence, and who is left practically to himself 
 to do whatever he pleases. The electric telegraph, it was 
 ^aid a few years since, would make us safe in India. Any 
 threatening danger would be instantaneously known, and 
 the army could be instantaneously reinforced. On the 
 other side it is no less true that if we lose India the electric 
 telegraph wiU lose it for us. 
 
 A Cabinet Minister is at present the representative of 
 some temporarily prevailing form of public opinion — 
 opinion formed in England, in the spirit of the philosophy 
 of the hour, formed lightly and hastily, not on funda- 
 mental and circumstantial acquaintance with the facts, but 
 under the influence of the theories or emotions' which hap. 
 pen for the moment to be fashionable. Himself the crea- 
 
England's War. 395 
 
 tore of opinion, he becomes the exponent of it in act. He 
 is doubtless clever. Talent of some kind is to be presumed 
 in any man who has made his way into the first rank of 
 English statesmen. He beUeves in the system out of which 
 he has sprung : he acts boldly and confidently in the spirit 
 with which he personally sympathizes ; and thus the in- 
 structed insight of the Indian Government is liable to be 
 overruled in details at every moment by a statesman ten 
 thousand miles off, to whom India was but lately a name, 
 and their public policy controlled by the half-informed or 
 entirely ignorant crudity of our domestic popular sentiment. 
 At present, in our enthusiasm for self-government, we im- 
 agine that our Eastern subjects are by and by to learn to 
 govern themselves as we do. We are their trustees while 
 they are in their political infancy. Our duty is to train 
 them in our own image, that when they are fit to receive 
 their inheritance we may pass it over into their own hands. 
 The Asiatic, we are persistently told, is the inferior of the 
 European only in the disadvantages with which he has 
 been surrounded. If he be educated, educated as we are 
 educated, lifted gradually into freedom, with his rights and 
 his powers enlarged as he shows himself capable of their 
 exercise, we shall elevate him into an equality with our- 
 selves, and our own mission wiU be' ended. The secret of 
 superiority being intellectual cultivation, we must teach 
 him in schools like our own : as he shows proficiency, we 
 must open out the avenues of power to him — admit him 
 to the privileges and authority of our own civil servants.' 
 The competitive examination system is the idol of modern 
 progress. "We believe ourselves to have found it the most 
 perfect method of sifting out our own best men. The ex- 
 periment, it is true, has been tried among Asiatics in China 
 for a thousand years, and has produced the weakest and 
 most corrupt government which the world has ever seen, 
 But — 
 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay; 
 
396 Ungland's War. 
 
 better the doubtftil aud incomplete experiences of one gen- 
 eration at home than the broad results painted upon history. 
 What is good or determined to be good among ourselves 
 must be good universally ; and therefore, not only has pop- 
 ular opinion, expressing itself through the India Office, de- 
 cided that the Hindoos shall be admitted to share in the gov- 
 ernment of our Eastern Empire, but they shall be admitted 
 by the road of competitive examination. The introduction 
 of them, it is held, will be a guarantee of the excellence of 
 our intentions, — will strengthen our present tenure, and 
 facilitate the transfer when the hour for its accomplishment 
 shall have struck. ■ We dream that we can teach Asiatics to 
 appreciate constitutional liberty, and submit hereafter will- 
 ingly to their intellectual fellow-countrymen whom we are 
 educating to be their future masters. 
 
 Those who have formed their opiaions on the spot, and 
 not in England, teU us -that the cultivated Bengalees, who 
 beat our own students in metaphysics and philosophy and 
 mathematics, would have as much chance of governing India, 
 if the arm that supports them were withdrawn, as a handful 
 of tame sheep of ruling quietly over a nation of lions. A 
 single Sikh horseman would drive a thousand of them with 
 the butt-end of his lance from one end of the Peninsula to 
 the other. Native officials selected by competition, as they 
 can hope for no future when we are gone, so add nothing to 
 our stability while we remain, but are one more superadded 
 source of weakness. The warlike races of India may hate 
 Englishmen, but cannot despise them, for in their own arts 
 we are stronger than they. These weak beings, with the 
 heads of professors and the hearts of hares, they both despise 
 and hate, and hate us with increased intensity for imposing 
 on them the authority of wretches whom they disdain as 
 slaves. Yet it may easily be, — rumor says, we hope un- 
 truly, that the system is already begun, — it may easily be 
 that the Indian Minister, with his sails blown fuU by Eng- 
 lish vapor, not only may persist in admitting these people to 
 
England's War. 397 
 
 high offices of state by the examination method, but may 
 lend them additional and peculiar facilities for distancing 
 competitors from home. 
 
 Our Indian Empire was won by the sword, and by the 
 sword it must be held; and to suppose that we can ever 
 abandon it except in defeat and disgrace is to surrender our- 
 selves willfuUy to the wildest illusion. Dilettante politicians, 
 armed with an authority which they ought never to have 
 possessed, meddling with matters which the modesty of true 
 intelligence would have forbidden them to touch, may tie 
 the hands of the true rulers of that empire, — may be car- 
 rying out their " ideas " to the last consequence, overweight 
 our strength, make our tenure impossible, and compel us to 
 leave the Peninsula to the Mussulmans. If we keep it, we 
 shall keep it by sweeping our brains .clear of dreams, — by 
 giving power to those only who know how to command, and 
 returning to the plain principles which won the empire that 
 we are now«naking the plaything of amateurs. 
 
 "Tou English," said Cteneral Jacob, one of the ablest 
 officers that the Indian service ever produced, " you English 
 imagiae that liberty means the same thing in all parts of 
 the world, and that all mankind equally desire it. You 
 could not make a greater mistake. Liberty with you means 
 that you have a right to govern yourselves, and that it is 
 tyranny to govern you. Liberty with an Asiatic means 
 that he has a right to be governed, and that to make him 
 govern himself is tyranny. K the people of India weri\ 
 your equals, you would not be here, — your mission is to 
 govern them ; and you must govern them well, or they wiU 
 cut your throats." 
 
 Cartloads of sonorous dispatches from the India Office 
 contain less wisdom than this single sentence, which is in- 
 deed the summing up and epitome of our relations with our 
 splendid dependency. For the present the Eight Honora- 
 ble gentlemen wiU have their way ; and when another ca- 
 tastrophe comes, — as come it will, — we shall call in our 
 
398 Midland's War. 
 
 Jacobs to recover us, and then begin again on th.^ same 
 road. 
 
 Stripped of its verbiage, and the fine-sounding phrases by 
 which its true intention is concealed from us, the real mean- 
 ing of the cant about self-government is, that our modern 
 administrators are partly conscious of their own inability to 
 rule, and partly weary of the effort. They will not ac- 
 knowledge their own weakness. The descendants of a once 
 imperial race have accepted and taken to their hearts the 
 economist's theory, that every man's first duty is to attend 
 to his own affairs, — follow, in other words, his own pleas- 
 ure. Philosophical platitudes are made an excuse for apa- 
 thy. A few fine phrases in which no one really believes 
 are admitted as if they were laws of nature, and we drift on 
 under a self-made destjny through imbecility into anarchy 
 and coUapse. 
 
 The same helplessness, disguised behind the same mask 
 of pretending sagacity, discloses itself in the present Colo- 
 nial policy. Twice already in this volume I have spoken 
 of the 80-caUed Colonial Question. If we return to it again, 
 it is because the Colonies are infinitely more important to 
 us than even India, — it is because the entire future of the 
 English Empire depends on our wisely availing ourselves ot 
 the opportunities which those dependencies offer to us. 
 When we consider the increasing populousness of other 
 nations, their imperial energy, and their vast political devel- 
 opment ; when we contrast the enormous area of territory 
 which belongs to Russia, to the United States, or to Ger- 
 many, with the puny dimensions of our own island home,- 
 prejudice itself cannot hide from us that our place as a first- 
 rate power is gone among such rivals unless we can iden- 
 tify the Colonies with ourselves, and multiply the English 
 soil by spreading the English race over them. Our fathers, 
 looking down into coming times, proud of their country and 
 jealous of its greatness, secured at the cannon's mouth the 
 fairest portions of the earth's surface to the English flag. 
 
England's War. 399 
 
 Tliey bequeathed to us an inheritance so magnificent that 
 imagination itself cannot measure the vastness of its capa- 
 bilities. Let the Canadian Dominion, let Australia, the 
 Cape, and New Zealand be occupied by subjects of the Brit- 
 ish Crown — be consolidated by a common cord of patriot- 
 ism, equal members all of them of a splendid empire and 
 alike interested in its grandeur, and the fortunes of England 
 may still be in their infancy, and a second era of glory and 
 power be dawning upon us, to which our past history may 
 be but the faint and insignificant prelude. The yet unex- 
 hausted vigor of our people, with boundless room in which 
 to expand, will reproduce the old English character and the 
 old English strength over an area of a hundred Britains. 
 The United States of America themselves do not possess a 
 more brilliant prospect. 
 
 It is no less certain that if we cannot rise to the height 
 of the occasion, the days of our greatness are numbered. 
 "We must decline in relative strength, decline in purpose 
 and aim, and in the moral temperament which only the con- 
 sciousness of a high national mission confers. 
 
 And yet, notoriously, the permanence of our union with 
 the Colonies is regarded with indifierence by our leading 
 politicians. They refuse, all of them, to look beyond the 
 exigencies of the present moment. They are contented to 
 leave the next generation to solve their own problems, and 
 sink or swim as their skiU. or luck may order, provided 
 only they can lihemselves maintain their own supremacy 
 from year to year by humoring the so-called interests of 
 , the capitalists and manufacturers. The conditions of the 
 situation are so plain that the most willful perversity can- 
 not refuse to see them, yet there is no longer statesmanship 
 or courage among us to encounter and frown down the 
 hostility of paltry selfishness. The men of money are 
 afraid that a closer connection with the Colonies wiU 
 affect the labor market and raise wages. The economist, 
 whose farthest horizon of vision is the next budget, seea 
 
400 Midland's War. 
 
 that the Colonies cost us at present a few hundred thou- 
 sands of pounds annually, and without caring to think what 
 they bring in, cries out that they are a burden on the tax- 
 payers. The working classes have fastened their imagina- 
 tion on the division of the land at home, and regard an in- 
 vitation to remove elsewhere as a snare to lead off their 
 attention. The land-owner, contemptuously indifferent to 
 the danger, sees that the thicker England is peopled the 
 more his estates increase in value ; and thus the interests 
 of the empire are for the present thrust aside. 
 
 The working man wUl wake from his dream. He will 
 discover at last that a hundred acres i^ Canada would be 
 better for him than five at home, evfen if he could succeed 
 in obtaining them. Nor wUl he be contented to swelter on 
 upon intermittent wages, in the poisoned atmosphere of our 
 huge and hideous towns. Hard times wUl come again. 
 The best and manliest of our artisans wUl turn their backs 
 upon us as the Irish have done, and the question will then 
 be whether we shall have soU left to offer them over which 
 our flag is flying, or whether they will not rather be casting 
 in their lot with young and vigorous nations whom we shall 
 have forced away, from the unworthiest of motives, into an 
 independence which they did not desire. 
 
 The administration of the Colonies has fallen very unfor- 
 tunately into the hands of the aristocracy — of the class of 
 persons most unfitted by association and temperament to 
 deal with them successfully. The colonists are men seek- 
 ing their own fortunes, proud, self-dependent, and unaffected 
 by the traditional reverence for rank by which the greatest 
 levellers amon^ us are irresistibly influenced at home. 
 They are jealous of their liberties, conscious of their grow- 
 ing strength, in want of nothing which could induce them 
 to meet these high persons on terms of compromise. While 
 they would bear it, the Colonies were used as sewers to 
 drain off our refuse population ; when they declined to re- 
 ceive our burglars and paupers, they still gave opportunities 
 
UnglancPs War. 401 
 
 of patronage. Cadets of noble families, or men who had 
 laid their " party " under obligations, were quartered on the 
 colonial revenues, or received grants from colonial lands. 
 When this resource dried up also, the Minister for the Col- 
 onies became tired of his thankless office. Unable to rise 
 to an imperial conception of their duties, the noble lords 
 saw no reason for extending to the colonists a share in the 
 honors and prerogatives of the mother country. If they 
 were incorporated in the empire, the democratic element 
 would receive an increase dangerous to their own privi- 
 leges ; and thus the economist's theory was accepted as a 
 welcome expedient. The Colonies were to be left to them- 
 selves to bear their own expenses, and, if they pleased, to 
 assert their independence. No anxiety was felt for a con- 
 nection which was no longer to be utilized to provide for 
 friends and dependants. 
 
 That separation is or has been the' drift of the colo- 
 nial policy of the present ministers there is no occasion to 
 argue. The universal impression which they have created 
 throughout the empire outweighs their own feebly uttered 
 and stammering denials. Had they been sincere in these 
 denials, they would have made haste to clear themselves of 
 suspicion by an unequivocal declaration of their real puiv 
 pose ; and we take leave to say that a policy tending to 
 produce consequences so momentous ought not to have 
 been introduced by a side wind. Lord Granville and Mr, 
 Gladstone were no doubt confident that the course which 
 they were pursuing was a wise one, but they ought to have 
 remembered . that these separatist opinions are of recent 
 growth, lately adopted even by themselves, and diametri- 
 cally contrary to the views held by the men whc\ were the 
 founders and builders-up of England's political greatness. 
 A false step taken in such a matter cannot be recalled ; our 
 Colonies once gone are gone forever; and therefore, before 
 they acted even in the slightest degree on the new conclu- 
 sions at which they had arrived, they were bound to consult 
 
402 England's War. 
 
 the country without evasion or reservation. Tlie disinte- 
 gration of an empire, the reduction of Britain to the ancient 
 limits of her own island shores, is at least a matter of as 
 much consequence as a Reform Bill, or the tlissolution of 
 the Irish Church. The people have not been treated fairly. 
 They have been told that there is no question of separation 
 at all ; that a better mode of management has merely been 
 substituted for a worse ; that the Colonies are wealthy 
 enough to bear their own expenses ; and, as they choose to 
 lay duties on English goods, the English taxpayer is not to 
 be expected to contribute to their defense. This is not an 
 honest statement, either of the case in itself, or of the pur- 
 pose of our late colonial policy. Whatever ministers may 
 think now, it is certain that they did contemplate, and did 
 most ardently desire, that at least Canada should declare 
 herself independent. Young communities have heavy ex- 
 penses thrown upon them iu making roads and railroads 
 and canals to open up their countries for us as weU as for 
 themselves. They cannot raise a revenue except by cus- 
 toms duties ; and, as they direct their whole trade to the 
 mother country, they no doubt cannot help laying taxes 
 upon English produce. But, in proportion to their num- 
 bers, the colonists are the largest consumers of our manu- 
 factures in the world. Successful settlers come home to 
 reside in England, bringing a stream of wealth with them 
 broader and deeper far than the trifling sum which Eng- 
 land has been called on to spend. The outlay of the 
 mother country on the least advanced of her Colonies is but 
 like the sinking capital upon an estate in drains and fences. 
 Canada and Australia, which have long ceased to cost us 
 anything, fifty years hence — or twenty years hence — wUl 
 be helping to bear the burden of the maintenance of the 
 empire, if they are permitted to continue a part of it. 
 
 Busy about their own concerns, the English people are 
 at present indifferent. They take their statesmen at their 
 word, and refuse to believe that they mean mischief. Let 
 
Ungland's War. 403 
 
 the ripe fruit fall, let a single colony " cut the painter," and, 
 if I know anything of the temper of my countrymen, a 
 Btorm wiQ rise from which those who have provoked the 
 catastrophe may well call on the mountains to cover them. 
 
 We look to the Colonies as the immediate refuge for 
 miQions of our countrymen, as offering at once a complete 
 and the only solution for our social difficulties, and as giv- 
 ing us an opportunity of recovering the esteem of the world, 
 which we are so uneasy under the conception of having lost. 
 "We believe that our power is despised ; and, though we 
 hate war, we almost bring ourselves to wish for it that we 
 may redeem our reputation. It is well that we should be 
 prepared for all possibilities. We spend fifteen millions a 
 year on our army, and we have a right to insist that some 
 sort of an army shall be forthcoming. If other nations in- 
 terfere with us while we are about our legitimate business, 
 we must so bear ourselves in the quarrel that they shall be- 
 ware of meddling with us for the future. But if we wish to 
 win back their respect by making war ourselves, there is a 
 campaign which we might open like no other — a campaign 
 against administrative incapacity, against swindling and 
 cheating, against drunkenness and uncleanness, against 
 hunger and squalor and misery ; against the inhuman vices 
 which are bred as in a hotbed in our gigantic cities, against 
 the universal root of the disorders which are preying upon 
 us, the all-pervading, all-devouring love of money. We de- 
 sire wealth and honor and long life. Be it so. There are 
 conditions on which " all these things shall be added to us.'' 
 If we refuse the conditions, and desire these things for them- 
 selves, we shall find ignominy for honor, for long life all- 
 pervading misery, and along with the riches a curse which 
 shall render them forever improfitable to us. The business 
 of government, truly enough, is to watch over the nation's 
 '•' wealth ; " but not wealth in the modern meaning, which in 
 itself betrays how far we have travelled on the down-hUl 
 road ; rather the well-being, the bodily and moral health of 
 
404 Migland'a War. 
 
 the people of which the nation is composed. Admit this 
 (not in words ; every politician, from Mr. Gladstone down- 
 wards, will repeat it in words as glibly as a school-girl re- 
 peats her catechism), accept it as the first principle of action, 
 and the plagues which are consuming us will melt away of 
 themselves. It wiU. no longer be found impossible to make 
 war on drunkenness for fear of offending the brewing inter- 
 est, or swindling for fear of diminishing the profits of trade. 
 "We shall hear no more of impossibilities, for in the pursuit 
 of a noble object nothing is impossible. "We shall cease to 
 watch our export and import list with a feverish anxiety, or 
 exult over an increase of population as increasing our means 
 of midtiplying cheap manufactures. "We shall rather labor 
 to prevent this enormous festering crowd from growing 
 upon our hands. "We shall seek to provide for fiirther ad- 
 ditions to our numbers in countries where a happier and 
 purer life may be possible for them. 
 
 Political economy, we are told, forbids it. "When the 
 Irish landlords woke, under the teaching of the famine, to 
 a consciousness that they had allowed Ireland to become 
 overpeopled, political economy did not forbid them to give 
 free passages to America to hundreds of thousands of starv- 
 ing poor. "We, too, in mere greed of gain, have permitted 
 England to become overpeopled: is it an injustice to ask 
 that out of the huge piles of money which cheap labor has 
 heaped up for us, a small fraction shall be taken to save the 
 families of those who have toUed for us from being swamped 
 in wretchedness ? Mr. Fawcett exclaims that if we open an 
 easy road to the Colonies our best workmen will leave us. 
 Let us hope, rather, that by relieving the ever-growing 
 pressure we may make England more endurable to them. 
 But if it be so, why should we wish them to stay ? Let the 
 Colonies remain attached to us, and wherever our people 
 thrive best they wiU conduce most to the strength of the 
 empire, of which they wiU continue as much subjects as 
 before. If our manufacturing towns were shrunk to half 
 
Unghnd's War. , 405 
 
 their present size, if the floating tide of humanity which 
 surges and eddies round the London suburbs were all gone, 
 if the millions of English and Scotch men and women who 
 are wasting their constitutions and wearing out their souls 
 in fectories and coal mines were growing corn and rearing 
 cattle in Canada and New Zealand, the red color would 
 come back to their cheeks, their shrunken sinews would fill 
 out again, their children, now a drag upon their hands, 
 would be elements of wealth and strength, while here at 
 home the sun would shine again, and "wages would rise to 
 the colonial level, and land would divide of itself, and we 
 should have room to move and breathe. The manufacturers 
 would reap lighter profits ; the laud-owners would find their 
 incomes shrink to the level which safisfied their grandfa* 
 'thers ; the evil sisters, luxury and poverty, would move off 
 hand in hand; but the health and worth of the English 
 nation would be increased a million fold. 
 
 I speak of what cannot be — cannot be at least till in 
 many a long year of painful discipline we have unlearnt 
 the most cherished lessons of modern politics. One thing, 
 however, is possible, and ought immediately to be done. 
 The Colonies will nor take our paupers ; and as we make 
 our beds, we must lie in them ; but we can prevent pau- 
 perism from growing heavier upon our hands. If we 
 send out able-bodied men with their families to settle upon 
 land, we must support them also till their first crops ajs 
 grown. If we advance money for other people's benefit, 
 we expect to be repaid, and cannot see our way to obtain- 
 ing security for it. But there is not the same difficulty in 
 providing for the young. When Mr. Forster's Education 
 BUI is fairly in work, in one shape and another we shaU 
 have more than a million boys and girls at school in these 
 islands, of whom at least a fourth wiU be adrift when their 
 teaching is over, with no definite outlook. Let the State 
 for once resume its old character, and constitute itself the 
 constable of these helpless ones. When the grammatical 
 
406 , England's War. 
 
 part of their teaching is over, let them have a year or two 
 of industrial instruction, and under an understanding with 
 the colonial authorities let them be drafted off where their 
 services are most in demand. The settlers would be de- 
 lighted to receive and clothe and feed them on the condi- 
 tions of the old apprenticeship. If the apprentice system 
 is out of favor, some other system can be easily invented. 
 Welcome in some shape they are certain to be. A con- 
 tinued stream of young, well-taught, unspoilt English na- 
 tures would be the most precious gift which the Colonies 
 could receive from us. 
 
 If the Colonial Office has no answer but the old " impos- 
 sible,'' a word which sounds in our ears like the despairing 
 wash of the waters of Lethe, then, in the name of common 
 sense and humanity, let the Colonial Office be dissolved. 
 Let the noble lord or the honorable gentleman for whom 
 it is necessary to find a seat in the Cabinet be provided 
 with some titular position to which that honor may be - 
 technically attached. Let us have ministers in partibus, 
 with no department to paralyze or mismanage. And for 
 the administration of the Colonies, and the readjustment 
 of England's relation with them, let there be some Coun- 
 cil established where the Colonies as well as the mother 
 country shall be represented, in whose eyes the interests 
 of the empire wUl be of more consequence than the 
 supremacy of party. 
 
 It is not our supposed unreadiness to fight which has 
 lowered, and is still lowering, England's reputation. We 
 have not allowed any occasion to pass by when our honor 
 or our interest distinctly called us to arms — we are dises- 
 teemed because, as a nation, we no longer seem to live for 
 any high and honorable purpose. Communities as well 
 as private persons always set before themselves consciously 
 or unconsciously some supreme aim towards which their 
 energies are bent. Military power, extension of territory, 
 political unity, dynastic aggrandizement, or the main- 
 
England's War. 407 
 
 tenance of some particular religious cresd, have been at 
 various times the all-absorbing objects on which the minds 
 of great nations have been bent ; and as none of these has 
 been entirely good, so none has been entirely discreditable. 
 The noblest object, which all honor and few pursue, is the 
 well-being of the people ; the worst and meanest is that to 
 which we in England are supposed to have devoted our- 
 selves — the mere aggregation of enormous heaps of 
 money, whUe we are careless what becomes of the " hands,'' 
 as we call them, by which all the money is created. 
 
 We have a vast empire — we have infinite land waiting 
 only to be occupied — we have a population larger than we 
 can employ, even on our own theory of the manner in which 
 we would wish to employ them, crowded into lanes and 
 alleys and cellars, seething in drunkenness and pollution ; 
 of the children born in these places the fate of those that 
 die being more blessed a thousand fold than of those who 
 survive. "We'' have or we had a teeming Ireland, from 
 which millions had to be removed to escape starvation ; 
 we let the Irish go to the United States, careless of con- 
 sequences ^o long as the immediate value of the landlord's 
 property was not affected. "We deliberately refuse to carry 
 the overflow of our own people to lands which are crying 
 out to be tilled, where they can live in health and abun- 
 dance, and where the death of a child, instead -of a relief, 
 is a material loss. "We wUl not lift a finger to save our 
 voluntary emigrants to our own Crown, or those who re- 
 main from the drink-shops, or our national good name 
 from the reproach of commercial dishonesty. "We profess 
 a righteous horror of slavery ; but the English farm la- 
 borer who has been rash enough to marry is as much a 
 slave under the lash of hunger as the negro under the 
 whip, and is so much more unhappy than the slave that he 
 has no refiige but the workhouse in sickness and old age. 
 He is told, in insolent irony, that he is a free man, and 
 may go where he pleases. Bather, he may go away if he 
 
408 England's War. 
 
 can ; and those who mock him with the name of freedom, 
 know well that he lies in an enchanted circle of necessity 
 — that he must stay passive under the barest wages which 
 wUl keep life in him and his, under penalty of starvation if 
 he resist or make an effort to eseape. 
 
 This it is which has lowered English credit — that we 
 have grown oblivious of all generous principles, that pa- 
 triotism has become a jest, and that nothing is consid- 
 ered worthy of a serious man's attention but what will 
 put money in his purse. Words travel for in these days of 
 newspapers. When a great capitalist said of emigration 
 during the late stagnation of trade, when millions were 
 starving, " Keep our men at home — we shall want them 
 when trade revives," the world heard of it, and made its 
 comments. English working men, it seems, exist only to 
 fill rich men's pockets. The House of Commons cheered 
 a well-known speaker when, as a crowning argument 
 against assistance to emigrate being granted by the State, 
 he argued that it would displease the Americans. An 
 English politician declares that he is afraid of helping men ' 
 and women in search of employment from one part of the 
 Queen's dominions to another for fear a foreign power 
 might not like it. Parliament approves, and we are sur- 
 prised that we are no longer respected. Wonderful con- 
 sideration for American sensitiveness ! — wonderM new- 
 born consideration, of a kind however which they are so 
 little inclined to appreciate ! Let us take courage. Were 
 we suddenly to show ourselves practically alive to the con- 
 dition of our people, and set apart for the sake of them 
 some small portion of our enormous income, the Americans 
 would forgive us as soon as they had recovered from their 
 astonishment, even if it took the form of sending families to 
 Canada. 
 
 "You will increase taxation," shriek the economists. 
 " Money must be taken from those who have it, and laid out 
 upon those who have not." Be it so. We lay on taxes 
 
England's War. 409 
 
 without scruple for a war, and it is a war which we are ad- 
 vocating. When the interests of the nation require killing 
 and burning and destroying, we are all called on to contrib- 
 ute, and are ridiculed if we complain. In the same interests 
 of the nations we may tax ourselyes for a war on misery and 
 ■vice and over-population. Is it not as honorable to save 
 Ufe as to (destroy, — to rescue millions from wretchedness m 
 to plungn millions into mourning and woe ? 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION.* 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES ON THE BUSSIAM WAR 
 IiOimOH. 1854-1855. 
 
 Sir Hamilton Seymour is a great diplomatist. When 
 we read in the Blue Books the account of his conversations 
 with the Emperor Nicholas, we congratulated ourselves on 
 the dexterous statesman who defended so ably the cause of 
 England and of justice. A monstrous Ahab was coveting 
 the vineyard of another Naboth, and here was a man and 
 an Englishman who could see through his wicked designs, 
 and expose and baffle them. As if in these late days of 
 light and civilization the appropriation of a neighbor's terri- 
 tory by an encroaching power, was an unheard enormity, 
 the country rang with outcries of robbery. Colored maps 
 filled the shop windows, showing the provinces which dur- 
 ing the last century had been torn from Turkey by the 
 Czars : and in an enthusiasm for the cause of right we 
 painted the conflict to ourselves as a war between civiliza- 
 tion and barbarism. The armies of Russia were a second 
 swarm of Vandals and Goths, menacing Europe with a re- 
 turn to mediaeval darkness, and Constantinople was to be 
 the first sacriflced. 
 
 There is a story of an Irishman on his trial for felony 
 
 1 The revival of the Eastern Question tempts me to republish this paper, 
 which was written fifteen years ago. The changes which have talcen place 
 in Europe in consequence of the Crimean War have enormously altered the 
 relative positions of the Great Powers. France, which was then all but 
 omnipotent, lies for the present under an eclipse. I see nothing, however, 
 in those changes which leads me to doubt the general soundness of the prin 
 ciples which the essay advocates, and I leave it as it first appeared. 
 
The Uastern Question. 411 
 
 who brought witnesses to speak for his character. They 
 bore their testimony but too effectively, — the catalogue of 
 the novel virtues which were attributed to him so perplexed 
 his imagination that he cried out in court, " My lord, if I 
 had but known what I was, I would not have done it ! " 
 Something of this sort the Turks must have felt when they 
 foimd themselves treated by the press of Europe as holding 
 the advanced post of civilization, and lauded in cabinets as 
 the representatives of progress. " No nation in the world," 
 said Lord Palmerston, in the House of Commons, " had in 
 the last twenty years made so great advances." True, that 
 the bestiality of social life in Constantinople could be paral- 
 leled only in the worst days of Imperial Rome, — true, that 
 alone in that one spot in Europe the slave-market was open, 
 — true, that the Turkish Pashas fiUed their seraglios with 
 the daughters voluntarily offered by those other champions 
 of freedom, the Circassian chiefs, and that the trade was 
 only checked by Russian cruisers, — true, that Asiatic Tur- 
 key was a wilderness swarming with brigands, that life and 
 property were for the most part insecure a mUe beyond the 
 walls of a town, that the administration of justice was iniq- 
 uity, that if there was honesty anywhere it was among the 
 poor, and' that rank and viUainy ascended in a corresponding 
 ratio. No matter ! It was for the interest of Europe that 
 the Turks should keep the keys of the Dardanelles. It was 
 for the interest of decency that they should seem to deserve 
 ' their position. Ministers therefore imagined excellences for 
 them to supply the lacking reality ; the sympathies of the 
 nation were roused easily for a weak people struggling un- 
 equally for their liberties, and England threw itself into the 
 quarrel with an enthusiasm for justice and right almost re- 
 minding imaginative persons of the days of the early Chris- 
 tians, " who were all of one heart and one mind." 
 
 When the unanimity was analyzed, elements were found 
 uideed in the camposition not exceedingly homogeneous. 
 The Republicans expected that at the first cannon-shot the 
 
412 The JEastem Question. 
 
 spirit of 1848 would revive. Moderate Liberals still re« 
 sented the oppression of Poland. Nicholas had assisted the 
 Austrians to crush Hungary, and those who desired revolu- 
 tion in Germany and Italy, and those who saw in a consti- 
 tutional system like our own the only permanent bulwark 
 against revolution, looked all to St. Petersburg as the strong- 
 hold of despotism, from which Berlin and Vienna, and the 
 petty princes of the smaller states alike derived their inspi- 
 ration. Kossuth had appealed to England in behalf of the 
 " nationalities," and had failed ; but the great body of the 
 middle classes, who would not countenance insurrection, 
 which threatened to become a war against property, were 
 pleased with an opportunity of showing that they would 
 strike for liberty in an orthodox manner ; they believed that 
 if Eussia was seriously weakened, the despotic sovereigns 
 would be compelled to modify their governments. So far 
 the interest was rather political than diplomatic. Formerly 
 we were the champions of Turkey ; but in reality we were 
 fighting for European freedom. 
 
 But, again, there were the statesmen to whom a Russian 
 occupation of Constantinople was the hereditary bugbear. 
 As the restorer of order, as the vindicator of legitimate gov- 
 ernment against revolution, Russia would be tolerated and 
 applauded ; but in possession of the Dardanelles, Russia 
 would command the Mediterranean ; in possession of Tur- 
 key she would stretch her swelling influence to the Indus. 
 The balance of power would be compromised ; our Eastern 
 Empire would be rendered insecure. 
 
 Finally, there were the poets and philosophers who were 
 weary of peace, who believed that the ancient English vir- 
 tues were stagnating, who saw in war (so that it was just, 
 or Could be imagined to be just) a grand instrument of 
 moral regeneration, an electric power which would turn 
 "the snub-nosed rogue" behind the counter into a hero, 
 and "his cheating yard-wand" into a champion's sword. 
 These were the feeUngs which were working in England 
 
The Eastern Question. 413 
 
 beyond the irritation which was provoked by the immediate 
 mission of Prince Menschikoff, and the passage of the Pruth, 
 vague all of them, and irreconcilable, — able for the mo- 
 ment to rouse the nation to enormous effort ; yet containing 
 in their very indefiniteness the seeds of their own ultimate 
 disappoiutment. Every one was looking to uncertain possi- 
 bilities. We knew as little what was really attainable as 
 what we really desired. Finland was to be restored to 
 Sweden, the shores of the Euxiae to the Turks. When 
 Eussia was driven back from the seaboard, when her for« 
 tresses were in ruins, and her fleets destroyed, then only our 
 condescending liberal politicians would consent that she 
 might be spared from annihilation. 
 
 Perhaps the educated statesmen only saw their way with 
 clearness, as they only in any sense can be said to have 
 gained their object. To them the hope of the multitude 
 was the principal alarm, and driyen into this war reluct- 
 antly, they were resolved at least so to manage it that the 
 spirit of revolution should be held from breaking out. Lib- 
 erty in a vague sense was a convenient watchword, but lib- 
 erty in the concrete was anarchy and socialism. In a war 
 of freedom Hungary would have been the ally whom we 
 should have naturally sought, and Austria would have been 
 our natural enemy ; the theatre of the campaign would have 
 been Poland, where Eussia could be wounded to the quick. 
 But freedom was the one especial thing which was not to be 
 fought for, and therefore Hungary was ignored except as a 
 province of the Court of 'Vienna. Austria was courted for 
 an ally with a passion which the most manifest double deal- 
 ing failed to repress. The war was carried to the Crimea, 
 which, if we conquered, we could not continue ourselves to 
 Iiold, which the Tartar population could not defend, and 
 which equally we could not restore to the Sultan. In the 
 obscurity of the objects at which we were aiming, the sol- 
 diers before Sebastopol wrote tibat no one seemed to know 
 for what or for whom we were contending, trusting only 
 
414 The Eastern Question. 
 
 that it was not for the Turks ; while to the rest of the world 
 we presented the extraordinary phenomenon of a free peo- 
 ple in alliance with two despots, and fighting for a third in 
 the supposed cause of liberty. These anomalies at the out- 
 set were invisible in the enthusiastic hopes in which we 
 were indulging ; while the struggle proceeded we were 
 absorbed in the excitement of its details. But now, as we 
 look back from the second year of peace, we are able more 
 calmly to examine our gdins and losses, and see how far our 
 dreams are realized ; how far the better interests of the 
 world have received substantial advantage. 
 
 Before entering on the calculation, however, let it be at 
 once allowed that the war, after the form which the Turkish 
 question assumed in the mission of Prince Menschikoff, had 
 become unavoidable. Although in England there was but 
 little sympathy with the ultra-revolutionists on the Conti- 
 nent, the violent reaction of 1849 created a lively disappoint- 
 ment. When the confusion subsided we had expected that 
 the foreign governments would have settled down into some 
 mUd kind of liberalism. In the place of it we saw the few 
 constitutions which had been painflilly labored together pin- 
 ioned on the points of bayonets. The close of the convul- 
 sions in Hungary formed an especial claim upon us ; the 
 Hungarians having been crushed not in any attempt at es- 
 tablishiQg novel schemes of government, but in defense of 
 their own hereditary laws. By their gallantry the Mag- 
 yars had won their cause against heavy odds, and in the 
 crisis of the victory Russia had stfepped in with overwhelm- 
 ing force, and had given them over, bound hand and foot, to 
 Austrian revenge. Not contented with the success of this 
 injustice, the Courts of St. Petersburg and Vienna demanded 
 the surrender of the patriot leaders who had taken refuge 
 at Constantinople ; and the Sultan (it was the one honest 
 act of his reign) earned our respect by daring their anger, 
 and refusing. On the first hint of the employment of force 
 against him, the English fleet had been ordered to the Dar. 
 
The Eastern Question. 415 
 
 danelles in his support, and had the Northern Powers per- 
 severed, the war would have broken out five years sooner, 
 as different in form from that out of which we have now 
 emerged, as unquestionably it would have been different in 
 its results. The crisis passed away, but the feeling which 
 had been excited remained, and on a fresh spirit of aggres- 
 sion being manifested by Nicholas, the regard which Abdul 
 Medjid had earned by his courage, coupled with a vague 
 dread of Russian preponderance, roused a temper both in 
 France and England which Louis Napoleon's government 
 could not have ventured to defy, and which no living Eng- 
 lish statesman would have been allowed to resist. We 
 might have bowed to the judgment of a Peel or a Welling- 
 ton, — Aberdeen and Gladstone, Cobden and Lord John 
 Russell only shattered their reputations in a useless oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 We accept the war, therefore, as our own work ; nor in 
 general need we quarrel with the conduct of it. Quite 
 possibly it was directed to the objects which were alone 
 obtainable ; or, if obtainable, were alone to be desired. 
 Quite possibly, if we had gone to work in the style which 
 would have pleased Kossuth and Mazzini, we should have 
 let loose a spirit of mere anarchy and desolation. When 
 the circumstances had once arrived at the position which 
 we allowed them to assume, we can allow that the whole 
 business was managed reasonably well ; we fought becaus* 
 we could not avoid fighting ; we made peace at the earliest 
 moment at which a tolerable peace could be exacted. 
 
 Letting the facts, therefore, pass so far as open to n(» 
 just question, we may sum up the results without blaming 
 either ourselves or others if those results shall not appeal 
 as much to our advantage as we might desire. And flrsfi 
 it is quite clear that nothing has been gained for the 
 nationalities or for European liberty. Russia may be 
 weakened, but Austria is stronger than ever, and the petty 
 despots who rest upon her. The Germans believed thai 
 
416 The Eastern Question. 
 
 if the Northern Autocrat could be crippled, the Dukes and 
 Princes would restore the constitutions — but their hopes 
 deceived them: while Lombardy stOl languishes in chains 
 — still looks to the poniard as the only possible deliv- 
 erance.^ Nor again can the enthusiasts be altogether 
 satisfied, who prophesied to themselves a mighty moral 
 regeneration of England from the revival of war. On the 
 one hand the Browns and the Camerons, the Pauls and the 
 Strahans, have shown no symptoms of repentance. Bank- 
 ing accounts continue to be cooked; chicory has not dis- 
 appeared out of our coffee, nor devil's-dust out of our 
 calicoes. The independent electors as little looked for 
 heroes to represent them in April 1857, as in July 1852. 
 That which was crooked is crooked still ; and that which 
 was righteous is" righteous stiU. We saw, also, that the 
 expected regeneration was not so universally needed. The 
 heart of the country rung sound at the first stroke. The 
 young loungers of the barracks and the ball-room endured 
 the first winter in the Crimea with the same courageous 
 simplicity which their fathers showed in the Peninsula. 
 The young Indian officers, who have been accused of caring 
 only for their cigar and their hilliard cues, are showing a 
 quiet gallantry in this present dreadful mutiny which 
 makes our ears tingle with admiration. But as they are 
 acting now they would have sicted ten years ago — the sup- 
 posed degeneracy was but skin deep. Enthusiasm, now as 
 ever, has been mistaken alike in its understanding of the 
 present and its expectations of the future. 
 
 When we turn from dreams to reality, we are on sounder 
 ground. It may be admitted that when the English Gov- 
 ernment declined to enter upon any secret understanding 
 with respect to Turkey, the Emperor Nicholas intended to 
 take the matter into his own hands. To Sir Hamilton 
 
 1 Indirectly the liberation of Italy, the overthrow of the temporal power 
 of the Pope, and the reconatitation of the German Empire, are results of the 
 Crimean War; but it is none the less certain that in England these conse' 
 quences were unforeseen, and at the time were undesired. 
 
The Easttrn Question. 417 
 
 Seymour he disclaimed an intention of a permanent occu 
 pation of Constantinople ; but no doubt he was resolved to 
 interfere more and more in the administration of the 
 Turkish Empire — to convert the Sultan into a helpless 
 dependant, preparatory to ultimate absorption. He was 
 foiled by a coalition which he believed impossible, and 
 himself having been killed by anxiety and disappointment, 
 his successor has been compelled to accept a peace which 
 drives liinn back from the\ Danube. The military resources, 
 which it had cost the labor of generations to accumulate, 
 are for the present crippled, and any attempt at a renewal 
 of the same game has been rendered impossible, perhaps 
 for another quarter of a century. Great nations rally 
 rapidly indeed from military exhaustion. Little more than 
 forty years ago France was a chained captive at the feet 
 of Europe ; her capital twice occupied by invading armies ; 
 her last recruits drawn in vain from her exhausted prov- 
 inces — powerless, prostrate, and crushed. In 1857 she 
 is again the leading power of the world. We must not 
 expect too much from the weakness to which we have re- 
 duced Russia. Nevertheless, we may feel sanguine, that 
 she has received a check which for the present wUl be 
 effective. On the principles on which the balance of power 
 is now maintained, we have achieved a real victory, with 
 which we have a right to be satisfied. "We must not ex- 
 aggerate or expect to maintain all that we have gained. 
 Sebastopol is in ruins, and Eussia is bound by treaty not 
 to rebuild the fortifications, or to reestablish the Euxino 
 fleet. For a certain number of years these stipulations 
 wiU be observed : but from the nature of the case they are, 
 and must be, temporary. Again and again restrictions of 
 this kind have been imposed by the European nations on 
 each other ; but an imvarying experience shows that in the 
 long run powerful governments cannot be coerced in their 
 own dominions, as to the number of cannon which they wUl 
 mount upon their walls, or the number of ships which they 
 27 
 
418 The Eastern, Question. 
 
 will maintahx in their -harbors. Cireumstances ichai^; 
 new dangers rise ; new coalitions are formed ; and, on the 
 watch as vthey always must h" fcr an ^escape from condi- 
 tions galling to their pride, they cannot long be at a loss 
 for an opportunity. Sebastopol, we may assure ourselves, 
 will again resume its armor ; its docks will again be 
 cleared ; again a fleet wall float upon its waters, and when 
 the steppes are crossed by railroads, and when in a few 
 days, without exhaustion, the armies of the empire can 
 be poured into the Crimea, the hazardous experiment of 
 1854 will scarcely he repeated. JJevertheless, we have 
 gained something. The settlement at the Conferences of 
 Paris wUl not be disturbed while the present order of 
 (Europe remains. How long that order will remain is 
 another question. The revolutions of 1848 showed by 
 how frail a tenure it is held i and while on this side of the 
 question the uncertainty is so considerable, collateral con- 
 siderations are, perhaps, of greater importance than the 
 immediate conditions of the Peace. England, in its rela- 
 tions with Russia, must look not to Constantinople only, or 
 the provinces of the Danube, but to Ispahan, to Cabul, to 
 Pekin, perhaps to the banks of the Indus, perhaps to the 
 JEnglish Channel. Let us see, therefore, how, in these 
 mother respects, we stand towards her, and how far her 
 -enmity, which we have preferred to her friendship, is likely 
 ■to be of moment to us. 
 
 The Russians, though our rivals in the East, had in En- 
 rope, tin the outbreak of the war, been our surest allies, 
 ^t the coup d'etat in Paris, it was expected that Louis !Na- 
 poleon might turn against us : an attack upon England is a 
 card of popularity which any French Government may weU 
 be tempted to play. Waterloo is not forgotten by the 
 French army ; even now, in this last week, when " the 
 medal of St. Helena " has been distributed among the sur- 
 'viving soldiers of the imperial campaigns, we may see an 
 evidence that the uncle's exile is not forgotten by the 
 
The. M<ist.ern QuMtiqn^ 418' 
 
 nephew. Rut Louis Napoleon knew,, and we knew, that 
 the first stroke which was aimed at England would be the, 
 signal for the revival of the Holy Alliance, and the, odds, 
 would be too heavy to contend against. Louis Napoleon, 
 has, perhaps, learnt that peace with us is more profitable 
 than the paltry glory which inight be gained in attempts to 
 avenge Waterloo ; but neither he, nor any government by 
 whom he may be superseded or fijUowed, need now enters 
 tain the same alarms ; we shall fight our battle with France 
 Bingle-hai»ded, if we have to fight it at aU- And again, the 
 French may haye no thought of s,trikiug us ; but if they do, 
 we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have surren- 
 dered the friendship of a government which alone in. Eu- 
 rope (if we except our own) is in no danger of an overthrow ; 
 whUe the alliance which we retain with a nation notoriously 
 capricious, — with a ruler whose tenure of power may per- 
 ish as it rose, and whose policy, at best, will hardly survivOi 
 his life, did not recjuire any such sacrifice. When the war 
 broke out we flattered ourselves with a prospect of insur- 
 rections of oppressed serfs, of legions deserting, and pro,^^ 
 inces rising in revolt ; the house of Eomanoff stood firm, 
 through a trial of unexampled severity ; Pole and Musco- 
 vite united in a rivalry of loyalty ; the Georgian levies, were 
 among the most faithftd of the soldiers of Mouravieff. 
 Whether it was from superstition or from cowardice,, — 
 whether from national pride, or gratitude towards a govern- 
 ment which is substantially sound and just, at all events, we 
 have received a proof that the rulers of Russia meed Iss^r 
 nothing from the disloyalty of their, subjects, or the dissatisT 
 faction of the most remote countries which they have re- 
 duced to obedience. ^ much as this wm scarcely be sal(i 
 for the position of our present ally ; and, in courting the 
 friendship of Louisi Napoleon, we have but partially acquired 
 the friendship of France, Engaged as we haye beem iu a 
 good cause, we need not perhaps much concern ourselve.s 
 with such considerations; yet we have learnt many othei 
 
420 The Eastern Question. 
 
 dungs with respect to the Russians which have corrected 
 extravagant impressions, and have taught us, however inev- 
 itable their conduct had made the change, to regret the terms 
 m which we have placed ourselves towards her. Notwith- 
 standing the result of the siege of Sebastopol, they have not 
 suffered in military prestige. We anticipated at the outset 
 far easier work than we found. It was thought a light 
 thing when our fleets first sailed to lay Cronstadt ia ashes, 
 and pound to atoms the plaster defenses of the great arsenal 
 of the Euxiue. The whole power of England and France, 
 supported passively by Austria, and actively by Sardinia 
 and Turkey, succeeded, with their communications secure 
 and rapid, with every advantage for procuring supplies, in 
 partially conquering a single stronghold. It was a great 
 victory, but it was achieved at a cost to England alone of 
 eighty millions of money, and perhaps fifty thousand lives. 
 If any admirer of Russia had foretold beforehand that she 
 would be capable of a defense so desperate, we should have 
 laughed to scorn so extravagant a prophecy. She has shown 
 that on her own ground, even at its extremity, where she is 
 at greatest disadvantage, she has a power of resistance which 
 the strongest nations must respect ; while Mouravieff's army 
 in Georgia, supported (notwithstanding that the communi- 
 cation through the Black Sea was cut off) in so high a de- 
 gree of efficiency, was a proof of the immense efforts of 
 which she was capable. The world has seen that she is 
 weaker than France, England, and Austria united; but 
 neither East nor West expected to find her otherwise. In- 
 disputably, we have learnt to form a better measure of Rus- 
 sia's strength. At the same time, we have been forced to 
 modify materially our conceptions of Russian barbarism. 
 When the Tiger was wrecked at Odessa, her crew, it was 
 thought, would be sent to the mines of Siberia, or would be 
 sold as slaves. Lieutenant Royer found himself treated 
 rather as a guest than as a conquered enemy ; and the Eng- 
 lish prisoners have given but one account of the courtesy 
 
The JSastem Question. 421 
 
 with which they were entertained. The officers who, in 
 the Crimea or elsewhere, came in personal contact with 
 Russians, never speak of them except with regard as gentle- 
 men, and with respect as soldiers. 
 
 We have learnt something of our enemies : we have 
 learnt something, also, of our friends. The cause of Turkey 
 against Russia will hardly again be described as the cause of 
 crvilization against barbarism ; and the progress of which 
 we heard was a progress of rottenness. We went to war 
 for the independence of Turkey. A free sovereign, we 
 said, was not to be dictated to in his own dominions, nor 
 Turkish magistrates to take orders from foreigners. But 
 with all our eloquence we could not alter the facts. The 
 Emperor Nicholas was right : the sick man was truly sick, 
 helpless, incapable. The independent sovereign exists only 
 by the will and for the convenience of the other powers : he 
 has now five masters instead of one, and is at this moment 
 five times more a slave, — five times more under the do- 
 minion of foreign dictation than he would have been if he 
 had submitted to the exactions of Menschikofi". God for- 
 bid that it should be otherwise ! It is the only chance to 
 save him from instant dissolution ; but the power of such 
 support is possible only up to a certain stage of corruption. 
 The end wUl come, and come speedily ; and it is high time 
 for us to consider seriously the very questions which Nicho- 
 las proposed, and come without delay to an understanding 
 on the steps which are to be pursued when the catastrophe 
 is upon us. 
 
 We cannot see as yet what those steps will be ; but there 
 are already no obscure indications of the direction which 
 they will follow. The influence of England at Constanti- 
 nople is less than it was before the war ; the influence of 
 France is immeasurably greater. The French threw ua 
 into shadow at Sebastopol ; and the failure at Kars, glorious 
 as it was, yet was still a feUure, and the discredit of it rests 
 on English arms. 
 
i22 The Eastern Question. 
 
 To us, at least, neither the war nor its consequtnces mil 
 have brought any benefit adequate to our sacrifice. It 
 would be well if it had brought us nothing to the contrary. 
 Others, however, will carry off the prize ; we have to pay 
 the cost, and bear the burden. The Persian war was a di- 
 rect result of the rupture "with Russia 5 and if it be true that, 
 in consequence of the Bengal rebellion, Herat, after all, is 
 not to be surrendered, w'ho can teU into what expense and 
 difficulty this may again plunge us. Commissioner Teh 
 doubtless was not set on to insult us by agents from St. Pe- 
 tersburg ; but -the Russians have had an embassy at Pekin : 
 the Chinese know that the two great "Western Powers with 
 whom they most are brought in contact have been fighting, 
 and they have heard the Russian version of th« issue. They 
 know that the English were beaten at Petropaulowski, — 
 they have heard of the retreat from Castries Bay : they 
 know, or hope, that in defying England they may count on 
 Russia for a friend, and the expectation may well have en- 
 couraged them to give vent to their hatred of us. Lastly, 
 although we should as little expect to find traces of direct 
 Muscovite iatrigue in Bengal as at Canton, yet we should 
 doubt as little that the spent force of lihe struggle in the 
 Euxine was felt upon the Ganges. The mtitiny of the Se- 
 poys we now know to have been long meditated : if they 
 iutended to rise against us, they must have looked forward 
 for years past (our own fears must have taught tbem to do 
 it) to a Russian invasion as their best opportunity; and the 
 knowledge that the masters whom Ihey hated were actually 
 at war with Russia, the accounts of our sufifeiings and dif- 
 ficulties in the Crimea -which were as rife in the Indian press 
 as in our own, may have shown them that we were as liable 
 as the rest of mankind to misfortune, and may have asasted 
 easily to stimulalte their restlessness. Of this, at least, ^we 
 maybe sure, thait if it was understood in the East flhat Rus- 
 sia and England, instead of enemies, were cordial friends, 
 — that they recognized each other's position, and would as 
 
The JEastern Qmstimt. 4^ 
 
 Bist each other m difficultieBj — the imagination of resistattoe 
 or rebellion would be quenched in the certainty of its hope- 
 
 We are able to cope with our difficulties : we shall crush 
 the miserable Bengalese, who have dishonored humanity 
 bjf their ferocity. "We shall exact an expiation for their- 
 crimes, at the tale of which theiir chiMren's children will 
 quake. The Shah of Persia will repent if he 'trifles, with 
 his treaties. The Chinese can be compeUedi to make ten- 
 fold restitution fop the burnt factories at Cantoin. Wo" 
 understand the measure of our power. Yet the sufferings 
 which we have endured, and shall endure before the work 
 IS finished — the punishment which we shall inflict, fajling- 
 unequaUy as it must fall on innocent as well as guilty,, even 
 the crimes themselves which we niust rev^enge — these are 
 no light things, to be dismissed with indifference. Tha 
 eighty millions of money buried in the mud at Balaelav% 
 which have bought so imperfect results for ws, would have 
 covered India with a mesbwork of railways. We are com- 
 pelled to ask whethra", after aU, these results, or others- far 
 better, might not have been arrived at by another road ; orj. 
 if the past was inevitable, whether for the foture some 
 wiser policy may not be devised.? A wiser policy — per- 
 haps we ought to say at once, not the policy of the Peace 
 Society, which might answer reasonably in the millennium,, 
 when all things are to go well of themselves, but which 
 while men are the half-brutes which we find them; isi a 
 dream of imbecility. 
 
 Wien the Crystal Palace was opened in Hyde Park,, all' 
 nations, it was supposed, were meeting there in a new 
 spirit. The race was no longer to be to the strong, but to 
 the skillful and the industrious. Cannon were to be melted 
 into steam-engiDes, and bayonets twisted into, reaping- 
 machines. As we passed under the gleaming aisles,, we 
 were entering the temple of a new era. Enlightened! self- 
 interest was to work a revolution where the Gospel had" 
 
424 The Uastern Question. 
 
 &iled. How has the vain imagination withered ! The 
 answer to the prayer of the Archbishop of Canterbury has 
 come down in the battle whirlwind — distress of nations, 
 and perplexity. The Angel of Justice, to whom alone it is 
 given to introduce order into this planet, is. painted, in one 
 hand with the balance, in the other — not with eloquent 
 persuasion, and reason, and commercial interests, and col- 
 lective wisdom — but with the sword. The voluble lips 
 of the peace prophets are for a time closed. "We have no 
 leisure in these stern days for sentimental folly, which must 
 be content to wait for a fairer occasion. 
 
 Well, then, let us look, at any rate, at the facts as they 
 really are ; and if we commence with a broad sweep, we 
 shall return again upon our subject with a clearer under- 
 standing of its bearings. The Turkish question is part of 
 the Asiatic question; the Asiatic question is part of one 
 which is wide as the world. Turn where we will in Asia, 
 from Constantinople to Pekin, we see everywhere but 
 one phenomenon — a swift and absolute social dissolution. 
 Oriental governments, Oriental society. Oriental religions, 
 are giving way from internal weakness and pressure from 
 without. Of any principle of internal organizing life there 
 is no symptom anywhere. Brahminism, Buddhism, Par- 
 seeism, either linger as shadows or as horrid and hideous 
 superstitions. Mahometanism, which in the sixth century 
 rode over the earth as a purifying power, has corrupted, 
 like the creed which it displaced, retaining nothing of its 
 old self except ferocity and fanaticism. Even China, 
 whose constitution had reached its maturity in the days 
 of Pericles, and has preserved itself unchanged for more 
 than twenty centuries, is failing and disintegrating at last. 
 In a few more years, the ruin will be complete.^ 
 
 So it has been with half of the human race ; with the 
 
 1 The rebellions in China since these words were written, have de- 
 stroyed a third of the enormous population of the empire. A hundred 
 millions of human creatures have lost their lives in a convulsion, of which 
 the war between China and England was the provoking cause. 
 
The Eastern Question. 425 
 
 other half the expansion and growth have been no less 
 marvelous. Four centuries ago, the Mahometans divided 
 the Spanish Peninsula with the princes of Castile and 
 Portugal. The Russians were but one of the unnumbered 
 races who shared the plains of Tartary ; the French hardly 
 defended their independence against England and Bur- 
 gundy; and the English could call their own but half a 
 narrow island, and their number scarcely perhaps exceeded 
 the present population of a first-class Chinese city. The 
 forest tree, if it break down, will become a heap of earth 
 and dust : the single acorn, if it be alive, will expand into 
 the oak ; if necessary, it will people the world with oaks. 
 The Portuguese and the Spaniards spread east and west, 
 and founded empires. The Russians, taking root round 
 Moscow, formed as it were an expanding circle of firm 
 ground in the midst of the surroimding anarchy, and grew 
 and conquered it. The English and French stretched 
 across the Atlantic, and contended for North America ; and 
 the result of this conflict, which neither foresaw, has been 
 the creation of a new power equal in strength to either. 
 They went eastward, and struggled for BKndostan. If 
 there England prevailed, France has been indemnified by 
 another conquest in another continent, and has formed in 
 Northern Africa if not an outlet for her energies, at least a 
 school for her armies. Thus we have all gone forward, 
 sometimes as enemies, always as rivals, yet with ever ac- 
 celerating speed. The Spaniards have fallen out of the 
 race, but their place has been taken by the Americans; 
 and it may now be said that the control of the fiiture for- 
 tunes of the Eastern nations, and the ultimate empire over 
 them, lies between France, Russia, the United States, and 
 ourselves. "We have accused each other of ambition, of 
 aggression ; we have watched one another with anxious 
 jealousy ; we have looked eagerly for the mote in our 
 neighbors' eyes, careless altogether whether the beam was 
 in our own ; or, again, we have talked vaguely of " manifest 
 
426 The Eastern Question. 
 
 destinies," or "designs of Providence." But destiny in 
 these matters is but the natural superiority of moral 
 strength over moral weakness ; and the aggressions, in the 
 long run (as in our own case we can see clearly enough), 
 are the natural and inevitable consequences of the inter- 
 course between civilized nations and barbarians. 
 
 Our merchants open a trade with India; they are re- 
 ceived with welcome, they build factories, accumulate 
 property, and then either they awaken the cupidity of the 
 native rulers, who desire to rob them, or they are injured 
 by the people, and can obtain no redress. They appeal to 
 their own government : there is a display of force — an 
 indemnity is exacted for the past, a piece of ground is de- 
 manded as a guarantee for the future, and a weak power 
 makes promises which it has no intention of observing. 
 Then comes, perhaps, some act of treachery or cruelty ^- 
 a murder, or perhaps a massacre. Sterner punishment is 
 necessary; troops are sent, native rulers are deposed; a 
 force must be maintained for future defense, and the nu- 
 cleus of an empire is commenced. The territories of other 
 princes adjoin our frontiers : we make treaties with them, 
 which their subjects do not observe. There are robberies 
 on the border which must be redressed, and the rulers are 
 too feeble to insist upon it ; or they make coalitions against 
 us which, for our own security, we must break ; or English 
 parties are formed in the native courts, which we naturally 
 encourage. So by degrees the strong power grows, gen- 
 erally with actual justice on its side, never without pretense 
 of justice ; and taking with it as it goes forward strength 
 instead of weakness, order instead of anarchy, it creates its 
 title by the benefits which it conveys. At length the na- 
 tive powers are altogether overshadowed; they court our 
 protection, and are at last absorbed by it, or they attack us 
 desperately, and are overwhelmed. We find ourselves the 
 lords of an empire which our rivals say we have taken by 
 force from its natural owners ; while, in detail, each sepa- 
 
The Eastern Question. 427 
 
 rate step which we have made in advance has been forced 
 upon us by necessity or justice. Such, in outline, is the 
 history of all conquests which have grown, like those of 
 England, out of conunerce. 
 
 The growth of Russia has been different, yet for Russian 
 writers equally easy to justify in detail — equally carrying 
 with it an ultimate justification in its results. It is a weary 
 business to hear English orators declaim on Poland, and 
 foreigners in return pointing scornfully to the centuries of 
 Irish jnisery. We censure others freely : and we ourselves 
 ■do the same thing. But leaving Poland and looking to the 
 East, where our present business lies, the enormous tract 
 now marked on maps as the Russian Empire in Asia was 
 not so long ago the hunting-ground of nomad tribes of 
 hereditary robbers. It is now drilled into quiet and in- 
 dustry — roads cross it, cities rise over it, property and life 
 are secure upon it. The same blessings which England has 
 conferred on India, in smaller degree, perhaps, but the 
 same in* kind, the Government of St. Petersburg has car- 
 ried from the Baltic to Behring's Straits, iconx the White 
 Sea to the banks of the Tigris. Neither our administration 
 nor theirs is perfect; the worst of the two is immeasurably 
 preferable to anarchy. We clamor at the manner in which 
 Hussia has made her conquests. We should remember the 
 proverb of those who live in glass houses : Russia may 
 have "been, if possible, less scrupulous, but the question is 
 merely of degree. Let us compare, for instance, the two 
 latest examples of our several aggressions. 
 
 The Turks, originally mere barbarian conquerors, treated 
 everywhere their Christian subjects as an inferior race. 
 The evidence of Christians was not admitted in courts of 
 justice; their property even by law was scarcely secured 
 fr«m pillage ; as every one who had travelled in Turkey 
 bew, they were the pariahs of society, regarded rather as 
 dc^s than men. Some modification of these iniquities had 
 tieen extorted "by the Czars, and had been conceded io 
 
428 The Mastem Question. 
 
 treaties ; but even the concessions granted had Mien short 
 of what might have been justly demanded ; while such as 
 they were, in the Asiatic provinces at least, they were 
 never enforced. The right was plainly on one side, the 
 wrong was as plainly upon the other. And had Constanti- 
 nople been on the site of Kazan, and Asia Minor on the 
 frontier of Siberia, we should have looked on witii indifler- 
 ence and perhaps with applause,, while an effete but per- 
 secuting race were stripped of their power of doing evil. 
 The situation, which affected little the justice of the quarrel, 
 converted demands which would elsewhere have been rea- 
 sonable into a nefarious aggression. War began, and was 
 called an unjustifiable invasion. The Turkish fleet was 
 attacked in harbor and destroyed ; and Europe rang with 
 the massacre of Sinope. 
 
 Turning to the other picture : a Chinese coasting vessel 
 having on board persons suspected of piracy was at anchor 
 in the Canton river, and carrying, lawfully or unlawfiilly 
 (for the point is disputed), the English flag. She was 
 boafded by the local authorities; the. crew being Chinese 
 subjects, and accused of having committed crimes in the 
 Chinese waters, were seized and carried ashore for trial. 
 There is not a doubt that in any French or American 
 harbor the same course would have been pursued, and 
 would have been allowed as a matter of course. Under 
 circumstances infinitely more open to question, the same 
 English flag was hauled down by the Americans at the 
 consul's house at Greytown, and there no resentment was 
 displayed. The right of a strong power to deal with its 
 own subjects in its own waters by its own laws would be 
 admitted universally without reserve ; but the Chinese are 
 not a strong power, and therefore have not the same rights. 
 We are not quarreling with the necessity of dealing very 
 different measure to Commissioner Yeh from what we 
 should attempt with President Buchanan or Louis Napo- 
 leon, only it must be allowed that it is different. We in- 
 
The Eastern Question. 429 
 
 sist on the right to confer on Chmese subjects the privileges 
 of Englishmen — to interfere by force in the government 
 of a foreign country ; and when our demands are not com- 
 plied with — when the reparation which we demand is not 
 given with the absolute submission which we require, we 
 do not even appeal to the supreme authority — we do not 
 even declare war against the Chinese nation ; but we take 
 the law -into our own hands then and there, and upon the 
 spot : we bombard a city, sacrificing, of course, innumera- 
 ble lives. As the quarrel deepens, we destroy a fleet five 
 times as numerous as that which perished at Sinope. Had 
 the independence of China been of the same moment to 
 the other great powers as the independence of the Porte — 
 had the growth of England in the East been regarded with 
 the same jealousy as the advances of Russia into Turkey, 
 can we flatter ourselves that the voice of Europe, which 
 condemned Menschikoff, would have acquitted Sir John 
 Bowring — that when Sinope was stigmatized as an out- 
 rage against humanity, the bombardment of Canton would 
 have been considered a legitimate act of warfare ? LSt us 
 call things by their true names." Each of these proceed- 
 ings belongs to that dubious class of actions which are 
 provoked by circumstances — actions which those who 
 commit them consider absolutely right, which a pedantical 
 morality shudders at as absqlutely wrong ; and the charac- 
 ter of which impartial judgment will pronounce upon here- 
 after by the ultimate consequences, rather than by the 
 immediate motive. If we say that the possession of Con- 
 stantinople by the Czar is dangerous to Europe, and must 
 not be tolerated, we are speaking like reasonable men. It 
 is true ; and we have a right in our own defense to act on 
 our conviction. If we hold up our hands in pious horror 
 at annexations and aggressions — if we affect to be amazed 
 when a vigorous government interferes with its feeble 
 neighbors, shortens their frontier, and meddles with their 
 administration, we may be speaking id entire conforir.ity 
 
430 Th^ JEqstern Question, 
 
 with the principles which we most of us like to be supposed 
 to act upon ; but such language in the mouths of English' 
 men must seem, nevertheless, tolerably absurd. 
 
 In truth, were the world wide enough for all of us, 
 we should each advance our own way and ftolfiU our own 
 mission, trouliling ourselves little with mutual jealousies. 
 Unhappily we are, or have been, competitors for the same 
 prizes, or we foresee a time when we may become so. The 
 inevitable work of annexation goes forward ; and as we 
 approach more nearly to each other's frontiers, as countries 
 lie at our feet in which we all may claini a share, we watch 
 each other with anxiety and terror. Again and again, in 
 the last twenty years, our animosities on this ground have 
 brought us to the verge of war. The French occupation 
 of Algeria is in itself a good thing. Quiet people can till 
 the ground there without fear of marauding Arabs. Hon- 
 est merchants can trade there without alarm for the pirate's 
 flag ; and yet to us, almost till the recent alliance, it was 
 an object of mere alarba and annoyance. In 1838, a dread 
 of Russia plunged us into the Ul-omened invasion of Af- 
 ghanistan. In 1840, we barely escaped a quarrel with 
 France on the question of Syria and Egypt. The French 
 had not forgotten that they once disputed with us for the 
 Indian peninsula; and French officers trained the Sikh 
 artillery, whose fatal ex;cellence we felt to our cost upon 
 the Sutlej, The Turkish affau- came after; and though 
 the wound is closed, it is not healed, and it cannot heal 
 tUl in some form it is re-opened ; for the sickly days of 
 the Turkish rule are numbered, and wUl not be prolonged 
 by the skillfiilest leech in Downing Street. From the 
 Russian war grew out the Persian ; we could not avoid it ; 
 nor so long as we continue in our present spirit towards 
 each other, is there any end to the long vista of simUar 
 difficulties which open before us. If we would, we cannot 
 stand stUl ; this present war with China has grown out of 
 a shadow — a mere casual accident which may occur any 
 
The Eastern Qaestion. 431 
 
 day. In the Crimea, we had France upon our side, and 
 Russia for our only antagonist ; but times change, and one 
 quarter of the world is not as another — new conibinations 
 may be formed. In China another competitor enters upon 
 the scene who will not stand by and see us play again the 
 same game which we have played in Hinddstan. For the 
 present, both France and the United States may be pleased 
 to see us fight a battle at our own cost by which they wiU 
 profit as weU as we ; but when the work is finished, at our 
 peril we must seek for no advantages, of which we our- 
 selves are to be the monopolists — a single eagle wiU not 
 be allowed to fatten on so rich a carcass as China; and 
 when the present difficulty passes oflEj the Chinese Em- 
 peror, if he is wise, may make his game out of our quarrels. 
 The Russians have their embassy at Pekin. Both Rus- 
 sians and Americans have their fleets in the Chinese 
 waters. And in the common jealousy which England has 
 displayed towards them, they have shown a tendency, as 
 natural as it is marked, to coalesce. The Celestial Em- 
 peror, in his terror of ourselves, may bribe them to become 
 his patrons ; and there, where thQ French have little in- 
 terest and little ability to help us, we may find the tables 
 turned against us by a combination as formidable as that 
 which has crushed Sebastopol. This is no imaginary 
 danger ; with the same measure which we mete it shall be 
 measured to us : and if w5 make it our business, as some 
 of us pretend, to curb the aggression of the Muscovites. — 
 to check the growth of the United States, and quarrel with 
 them for the protectorate of vagabond Indians upon their 
 .frontiers — in self-defense they will retaliate upon us in 
 our own coin, and teach us that if annexation is a crim$^ 
 :the English have no dispensation for the exclusive practice 
 of it. 
 
 But annexation is no crime, when it '19 the substitution 
 .of a just .and vigorous government for a wicked and worA- 
 less one. The arbitrary frontier lines which divide king- 
 
432 The Eattem Question. 
 
 dom &om kingdom have no magic in them which limits the 
 right of interference, and conveys a license to those who 
 live within the boundaries to acknowledge no law but their 
 own wills. The conditions cannot be laid down iu terms 
 and propositions which decide when interference becomes 
 justifiable ; but each separate case contains the principles 
 of its own adjustment. The liberties of the individual are 
 abridged by the interests of the State ; the liberties of each 
 particular State must yield to the common interest of hu- 
 manity ; and the same right may be said to exist in well- 
 ordered nations to coerce vicious and disorderly nations as 
 exists in separate communities to punish individual crimi- 
 nals. This is the true object of war ; and in this spirit, for 
 the most part, after large necessary deductions for the im- 
 perfections of all human things, the empires which wield 
 the present strength of this planet have grown. Ambition, 
 policy, fanaticism, pride of power, and perhaps even baser 
 passions, have had their place in building up the fabric ; 
 but this is for the most part true, that wherever England, 
 France, Russia, and America have set their foot, they have 
 taken vrith them something better than what they have sup- 
 planted, and the further that they can go in the same course 
 the better for mankind. A military mutiny has broken the 
 peace of BGndostan ; but that peace had already lasted for 
 a century, and will return again more firmly assured. 
 Wbo can doubt that the Chinese would lead far happier 
 lives — or if not happier, at least purer and better lives — 
 if they too were under a strong just hand, if their country 
 was opened to commerce, and themselves wheeled into in- 
 tercourse with the rest of the world ? If Asia Minor could 
 be governed as Greorgia is governed, or as the French 
 govern Algeria, the cities with which it once was covered 
 might rise again from their ruins, and the shores of the 
 Archipelago become once more the garden of the world. 
 California, as a Mexican province, was the hunting ground 
 of Indians or the asylum of half-breed cut-throats. Cali 
 
The Eaatem Question, 433 
 
 fomia in ten years had become the cynosure of emigrants, 
 the EI Dorado of the old imagination. In the luxuriance 
 of its growth, evil had sprung up with good. It was the 
 scene of aspiring toU, where the finer culture as yet waited 
 for admission ; yet who will compare the worst errors of 
 the worst governed American State with the degenerate 
 ferocity of New Spain ? — who does not feel that with the 
 Americans in possession of Mexico property would rise to 
 twenty-fold its value, and life would at least be moderately 
 eecure ? — that in Cuba, if slavery remained, the hateful 
 slave-trade would be honorably closed ? 
 
 And it may once for all be assumed, that the human 
 race, whatever Cabinets or Parliaments may think of it, 
 will not be driven from their inevitable course. The work 
 which has begun so largely wUl go forward. The Asiatic 
 independence which survives will narrow down and grow 
 feebler, and at last die. The will and the intellect of the 
 more advanced races wUl rule in due time over that whole 
 continent. The line of kingdoms which divides the em- 
 pires of England and Russia will grow thinner, till their 
 frontiers touch. In spite of Clayton-Bulwer treaties, and 
 Dallas- Clarendon interpretations of them, the United States 
 will stretch their shadow ever further south. Revolution 
 will cease to tear the empire of Montezuma- The falling 
 republics of Central America will not forever be a temp- 
 tation, by their weakness, to the attacks of lawless ruflBans. 
 The valley of the mighty Amazon, which would grow corn 
 enough to feed a thousand million mouths, must fall at 
 length to those who will force it to yield its treasure. The 
 ships which carry the commerce of America into the Pa- 
 cific, carry, too, American justice and American cannon as 
 the preachers of it. The Emperor of Japan supposed that 
 by Divine right, doing as he would with his own, he might 
 close his coimtry against his kind ; that when vessels in 
 distress were driven into his ports he might seize their 
 crews as slaves, or kill them as unlicensed trespassers. Ao 
 
434 The Eagtem Question. 
 
 armed squadron, with the star banner flying, fannd its way 
 into the Japan waters, and his Serene Majesty was in- 
 structed that in Nature's statute-book there is no right con- 
 ferred on any man to act unrighteously, because it is his 
 pleasure ; that in their own time, and by their own means, 
 the Upper Powers will compel him, whether he pleases or 
 not, to bring his customs into conformity with wiser usage. 
 
 The fact must be accepted then. Order wiU triumph 
 jver disorder, industry over idleness, justice over crime. 
 Good wiLL grow when it can by its own merit. It will 
 enforce itself by arms when it cannot otherwise find en- 
 trance. It will be despotic, interfering, dictatorial, aggres- 
 sive. If needful, it wiU obliterate frontiers, invade, depose, 
 annex — with the most entire composure. 
 
 These influences, again, wfll not radiate exclusively from 
 ourselves. There are other centres of civilization besides 
 England, which England cannot annihilate by denying, 
 which it would be wise, therefore, for England to recog- 
 nize and admil. Our fashion, hitherto, has been to justify 
 our own conquests on the ground of their utUity, to con- 
 demn aU others as rapacity and ambition. We abolish 
 without compunction the independence of Oude because 
 its court was feeble and licentious, its government dan- 
 gerous from its worthlessness. When a Turk is the 
 sufferer, and from another hand, we imagine virtues in him 
 which have never approached so much as his dreams, and 
 we call him the victim of lawless aggression. Fact is 
 wiser than we are ; and goes its own way, whether we Kke 
 it or clamor at it. After all necessary allowance for th# 
 uncertainty of human things, the decisive balance of prob 
 ability declares that, in the immediate future, the Greai 
 Powers which, by commerce, conquest, and colonization 
 are brought in contact with the surviving barbarians o 
 semi-civilized nations, wiQ each continue on the same road 
 and the choice remains to them whether their relations tt 
 one another shaU continue also the same relations of mu 
 
The Haatern Question. 435 
 
 tual jealousy, suspicion, and distrust, which they have hith- 
 erto proved, or whether, once for all, they can arrive at 
 some common understanding, no longer closing their eyes 
 or opening them, as it suits their separate convenience, but 
 looking the truth in the face, and submitting to be guided 
 by it. 
 
 Either of these courses is possible. We have seen, how- 
 ever, what the past has already cost us, and the same dan- 
 gers and diflBculties wiQ in the future multiply indefinitely. 
 Asiatic independence will daily become more impossible. 
 Parties will form, or have already formed, in the various 
 courts -^ Russian parties, English parties, French parties. 
 There will be intrigue and faction, and civil war and inva- 
 sion. Pashas and governors will revolt ; and as in Egypt, 
 in 1840, one of us will support the master; another, the 
 rebellious satrap. Other wretched Shah-Soojahs will be 
 thrust upon thrones which they wiU disgrace. Other 
 Akhbar Khans will revenge the insults by treachery and 
 murder. Which of us cares to know the true deserts of 
 the Circassians ? They are opposed to Russia, and there- 
 fore we imagine them to be heroes. Yet what worse 
 abomination have we heard of the Princes of Oude than 
 the willing baseness which feeds the harems of Constanti- 
 nople with the daughters of these patriots of the Caucasus ? 
 We shall call evil good, and good evU; careful only to 
 support whatever will lend itself to our separate cause ; 
 from time to time, as occasion rises, we shall be ourselves 
 dragged into the quarrel; we shall intrigue with one 
 another's subjects, stimulating villains like the Sepoys to 
 rebellion, in the name of liberty. We shall be precipitated 
 one upon the other, tearing each other to pieces for Tur- 
 key, Egypt, Persia, Cabul, or China, each of which will be 
 cursed by the independence which one or other of us may 
 be fighting to inflict upon it — each of which would be in- 
 finitely blessed in lapsing honestly under any one of our 
 separate protectorates. Sometimes, as in the recent strug- 
 
486 The JSaatem Question. 
 
 gle, the balance of power may be on the side of England, 
 but in a conflict where justice will be determined by inter- 
 est, other coalitions will rise on the wheel, and our turn 
 may come to struggle single-handed against a confederacy. 
 Looking to the complications before us, which will not be 
 avoided — looking to the elements of folly and fanaticism, 
 of conceit and vice, of cruelty and treachery, which enter 
 so deeply into the character of Asiatics — w? may feel 
 some certainty that if we allow ourselves to drift any 
 longer as the current of circumstances for the moment 
 flows, the world is entering on one of the most frightful 
 centuries wliioh histojy as yet has chronicled. 
 
 The same event will in the end be arrived at : weary at 
 length of strife, those who survive the conflict will be forced 
 to acquiesce in a peaceful settlement, and after ages will 
 wonder at the perversity which refused to accept tranquillity 
 except at the price of wretchedness. 
 
 But there is time yet to strike into a better path : and 
 little as the present temper of this country promises the 
 adoption of it, we shall hope against hope for a fairer fu^ture. 
 There is an alternative besides drifting with the winds and 
 the waves ; let us imagine for a moment that the last five 
 years have been blotted out, — that Sir Hamilton Seymour 
 is again listening to Nicholas as he descants on the sick 
 man's approaching end, and with another chart wiU attempt 
 a fresh channel. 
 
 " Sire," we wiU suppose him to have replied, " what you 
 say is undoubtedly correct. The Turks, or the upper ranks 
 among them, have lost the virtues of their ancestors, while 
 they have retained their vices. Every symptom which has 
 preceded the dissolution of empires is to be found rife at 
 Constantinople, and they would long ago have been hurled 
 back across the Bosphorus, or have fallen to pieces by in- 
 ternal revolution, had it not suited our convenience to main- 
 tain a feeble people in possession of a position which in your 
 hands would be dangerous. But we admit that so artificial 
 
The Hastern Question. 437 
 
 an existence cannot be sustained forever. The Turkish 
 provinces fall away from them, or crumble into anarchy. 
 The Sultan promises you to prohibit the persecution of the 
 Christians, but he is unable to fulfill his engagements. We 
 are making ourselves responsible for the existence of a gov- 
 ernment which is a curse to its subjects ; and perhaps, as 
 you say, the time is near when it wUl be no longer possible. 
 But while the English Government recognizes fuUy the ne- 
 cessity of preparing for a change, they cannot consent to 
 any private arrangement between your Majesty and them- 
 selves. It may be necessary to abolish the Turks out of 
 Europe, or partition their provinces, or the form may be 
 left, while th% administration is placed in other and better 
 hands. You answer for Austria ; but the French, at least, 
 must be consulted, — we cannot . move without them. It is 
 but just, and prudent as well as just, that every government 
 whose interests are affected by the fall or the maintenance 
 of Turkey, and who have the power to interfere, should have 
 a voice in this matter. 
 
 " But your Highness has opened the question : permit 
 me now to extend it. Turkey is not the only Asiatic king- 
 dom in which you, and we, and France, are interested. 
 Your empire and ours have grown rather through our ne- 
 cessity than our ambition ; but if India was rather forced 
 upon us than sought by us, we cannot afford to lose it ; and 
 as we dreaded Napoleon's menaced invasion from Egypt 
 and Persia, so we have dreaded you. We have been driven, 
 in the supposed necessity of defending ourselves, to meddle 
 in the kingdoms of Central Asia. Our borders ai-e stretch- 
 ing northwards towards you, and yours are reaching down- 
 wards towards us. What is to be done with the kingdoms 
 which lie between us, whose weakness and lawlessness will 
 compel interference, but which we shall fight for at last if 
 we do not understand each other ? In China, too, which 
 seemed so long to defy all change, and to stand aloof in its 
 isolation, we have been forced to meddle ; and we may bo 
 
438 The Eastern Question. 
 
 obliged to meddle there again. In that difficulty the United 
 States wiU claim a voice, and so will yon. Our real inter- 
 ests are all identical. We desire that the Chinese shall en- 
 ter the society of nations ; shall open their ports to our 
 commerce; shall observe their engagements, and respect 
 the laws which regulate the intercourse of the world. But 
 it may be necessary to lay force upon them before they will 
 understand ftilly their true relations towards us. In the 
 last war, we were obliged to take frop them a small fraction 
 of territory. In the next, we shall perhaps ask for more, 
 and then you may take umbrage ; you may be afraid that 
 we intend to found in China a second Hindostan. Our 
 American friends may take the same view ; aijd if there is 
 a prey in the wiud, they may claim a share ia the carcass, 
 and ask for it disagreeably. - 
 
 "And once more (for aU these lines radiate from the 
 same centre, and may be dealt with on the same printaple) : 
 You know how jealous both you and we have been about 
 the French ia Africa ; about the Americans on the Isthmus 
 of Darien and iu Mexico. Of course the French will do 
 better in Algiers than the Moors could do ; and to Mexico 
 itself an American conquest would be an infinite advantage ; 
 but we are all suspicious and afraid of each other. Each 
 fresh accession of empire is an accession of strength ; and 
 strength gained.by one may be used to the disadvantage of 
 the rest Now, is it not possible that, taking this Turkish 
 difficulty as our starting-point, we may arrive in concert at 
 some general principles of conduct which shall be our guide 
 in our relations with one another, when we come in contact 
 with such other countries as it is desirable that we should 
 severally influence ? I do not speak of annexation ; there 
 are many places where we would gladly escape the neces- 
 sity of annexation, if by any other means the desired results 
 of reasonable government could be attained. At present, 
 the half-civilized nations are encouraged by the knowledge 
 of our rivalries. If a pressure is laid on them by any ooe 
 
The Eastern Question. 439 
 
 of the (jreat Powers, they understand that they may look 
 with confidence to the support of the others. Let them be 
 informed that henceforward they shall encourage no such 
 hope ; that when they offend against the laws of ciTilization, 
 the joint pressure of four strong nations will unite to com- 
 pel them into wiser conduct. English officers are sent into 
 Bohkara ; the Khan sees that our hand is far off, and can- 
 not reach him, and they are villainously murdered. If the 
 Khan liad understood that such a crime would have been 
 resented by your Highness, — that he would be treated by 
 you as an offender against the common laws of humanity — 
 the certainty of punishment would have held his hand. In 
 Constantinople, at Teheran, at Khiva, at Cabul, at Pekin, at 
 Japan, let us insist then on the admission of our representa- 
 tives, who shall be instructed to act together in a cordial 
 and generous spirit. If necessary, let the native courts re- 
 vise their laws. If they refdse compliance with our sugges- 
 tions, let them be informed that we shall unite to enforce 
 compliance. If they pretend that they are without power 
 over their own subjects, let them be taught, if desirable, by 
 experience, that the power will be supplied by us. It wUl 
 be enough to insist on a few broad conditions. Intolerance 
 must be, at an end. The missionaries of Christianity must 
 have free course through the world, and free exercise of re- 
 ligion be permitted everywhere, without interference, with- 
 out restriction, without the infliction of disabilities, political 
 and social. Let trade be free, and property secure. Let 
 the ways be opened everywhere to capital and enterprise, 
 and the adventurers from our various countries wiU then 
 carry with them spontaneously the habits and the thoughts 
 which will spare us the necessity of conquest, and create, in 
 a few generations, from within, an insensible revolution, — 
 a civU and spiritual renovation. The jtnoral^ weight of our 
 alliance for such an object will, in most cases, of itself com- 
 pel submission. If it be refused, a fraction of the force 
 which our present suspicions of each other obligS us to 
 
440 The Eastern Question. 
 
 maintam will be adequate to a purpose as much simpler and 
 easier as it is nobler and better, and more worthy of our 
 position among mankind. Such a course promises the best 
 for Asia, and for Turkey as part of it. It may fail ; but 
 the probabilities are in its favor ; and -when the happiness 
 of so large a portion of the hiunan family is at stake, we 
 must do the best which we can for them, and no longer deal 
 with their interests by the uncertain suggestions of emer- 
 gencies as they happen to arise. 
 
 " And again — our mutual relations appear likely to be 
 no less improved. In the first place, a common engage- 
 ment in a great generous purpose will be the best security 
 that we shall keep the peace among ourselves. Govern- 
 ments may change, but a bond of union will remain, not 
 easily broken. We shall study each, other's habits in a 
 larger spirit ; no longer feeling it necessary to our position 
 to magnify iaults and dose our eyes to our respective ex- 
 cellences. 
 
 " Again, the success of the policy which I propose will 
 depend on the liberality and general confidence with which 
 we engage in it. We must abstain jfrom vexatious and 
 impertinent interference with one another on minor mat- 
 ters ; and therefore, should either of us now or hereafter 
 show signs of a desire for separate aggrandizement — if, 
 in a serious matter like the present, when candor and 
 unselfishness can alone lead to a useful result, symptoms 
 should appear of private, unacknowledged objects being 
 sought, — the compact might be so arranged as to secure 
 the union of three powers against the fourth. 
 
 " Again, since it is impossible to foresee the contingen- 
 cies which may arise, and large free action must be left 
 us on our frontiers and wherever we have interests, so if 
 there be a question of declaring war, or of annexing a 
 province, such a step should not be entered on without a 
 conference, or, at least, without separate consultation of 
 the different governments. We are weak men, and apt to 
 
The Eastern Question. 441 
 
 be especially weak when we are plaintiffs, judges, and juries 
 in our own quarrels ; and although on the whole we may 
 desire to act rightly, we have sometimes cause to wish that 
 we had shown greater forbearance, and might have profited 
 by the assistance of an independent opinion. 
 
 " Your Highness and your predecessors doubtless un- 
 derstood better than we did your quarrels with the Turks, 
 and you felt yourselves justified in takiug their conquests 
 in Europe back from them ; but your conduct could be 
 represented by your enemies in more dubious colors. "We 
 ai'e not the persons to throw stones. Tour Highness 
 knows Mr. Cobden, and may have read his pamphlet on 
 " Wars in India." The affair at Eangoon was not as clear 
 as we could wish it ; and the less perhaps that is said of 
 the opium question the better. All these points would 
 have been benefited by freer ventilation ; and although, 
 nevertheless, the Pruth might stiE have been the boundary 
 of the Russian Empire, and England might still have oc- 
 cupied Pegu and brought the Chinese to their senses, the 
 disputes would all have improved in form, and the con- 
 clusions have been more satisfactory. Letting bygones 
 be bygones, let us try for the future the other system. 
 There wUl be less occasion, we may hope, for annexation ; 
 but a cause may arise, it is possible, as a contingency. 
 Constantinople is a ticklish subject. But it might be de- 
 sirable, for instance, that the French should occupy Egypt 
 and Syria. We ourselves may have to take the 'province 
 of Canton. The Japanese may break their engagement 
 with the government at Washington, Or again, we know 
 how Cuba lies at the mouth of the Mississippi,- and we 
 know the influence which in the long run these geographi- 
 cal positions exercise. As things now are, the Americans 
 — if Spain will not sell Cuba ^ may pick a quarrel for it ; 
 or some filibustering expedition like that of Lopez may be 
 fitted out and gain some success there or elsewhere ; and 
 the temptation might become too strong to resist, and then 
 
442 The Hasteni Question. 
 
 we should be all in confusion, and the peace of the world 
 would be broken for a business which ia itself no reason- 
 able person would regret. Let it be agreed among us that 
 these and all other changes, when reaUy reasonable, shall 
 be permitted and encouraged, so that they are eflfected iu a 
 reasonable manner, and all fair objections are feirly can- 
 vassed, considered, and answered. Then there will be less- 
 food provided for captious persons, less material for the 
 mutual reproaches of cabinets, and we shall not be drawn 
 any longer to seek ex. post facto justifications of arbitrary 
 conquests in the advantages which have resulted from 
 them.'' 
 
 In some such language we can conceive Sir Hamilton 
 Seymour to have replied to the Emperor Nicholas, and 
 England to have been richer by eighty^millions of money, 
 and tens of thousands of brave men. Or rather, perhaps, 
 it is too promising a vision, and we can conceive nothing 
 of the kind. It is no place for an ambassador to propound 
 political theories. Russia was disguising a selfish ambition 
 in the midst of designs which were but partially honest, 
 and she required to be chastised. But Russia has bought 
 her lesson, and we too have paid heavily for our mistakes 
 — willful or inevitable. The difficulty is postponed, but it 
 is not overcome ; and although for the present we may rest 
 contented in the Anglo-French alliance, it is idle to conceal 
 from ourselves that it is subject to accident ; that Russia 
 and America are mighty powers, which can neither be ig- 
 nored nor despised — powers which \viU and must exercise 
 a vast influence upon the future condition of the world. 
 A fabric -of policy, as well as of stone and plaster, stands 
 more firmly on four piUars than on two. The past of all 
 of us poorly bears inspection ; it is better for us to bury 
 our recriminations, and endeavor to be wise for the future. 
 
 Suggestions little in harmony with the feelings towards 
 our late enemies in which we have indulged so liberally 
 may seem at first not easily tolerable ; but the hostility of 
 
The Eastern Question. 443 
 
 nations is not as the quarrels of individual persons, and 
 ceases, or ought to cease, when the immediate differences 
 are composed. It were easy to write much on such a 
 subject ; but it is enough for the present to have sketched 
 an outline, and details are beyond our purpose. 
 
 There remains but to consider such objections as may 
 be urged, not by noisy, hysterical persons, who imagine 
 themselves patriots because they can point rhetorical com- 
 monplaces on England's mission, and the destinies of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race, but by those who can be contented to 
 learn from facts, *and to reason upon them calmly. 
 
 And first, it may be said that such a scheme as we have 
 proposed, however «we may hide its character under plausi- 
 ble disguises, is, in fact, an organized conspiracy against 
 the liberties of weak nations who cannot defend themselves. 
 In gigantic imitation of the partition of Poland, you now 
 wish to partition Asia. The true remedy would be, to 
 abstain from plunder ; and you suggest, instead, a quiet 
 divisian of it. We answer, that Asia is now being par- 
 titioned ; year after year, huge segments of it lapse under 
 one or other of our several dominions, and the only means 
 by which the process can be arrested is, to prevent the 
 native princes from indulging any longer in conduct which 
 compels us, whether we desire it or not, to remove br pun- 
 ish them. That a concert of the Great Powers would be 
 a conspiracy is quite true : it would be a conspiracy in the 
 sense in which all society is a conspiracy — a conspiracy 
 in which the better sort of persons lay their strength to- 
 gether to oblige the rest at their peril to submit to order. 
 Neither man nor nation can plead a right to do what is 
 wrong ; let us do right of ourselves, if we are able and 
 willing ; if by any means we are out of the right way, let 
 us be thankful to any beneficent person who will rein us 
 and drag us back into it by force. This is to conspire 
 against license, it is not to conspire against liberty ; nor 
 would liberty, true liberty, be exposed to danger, either in 
 
444 The JEastem Question. 
 
 « 
 Europe or in Asia. In Asia there is none to injure. In 
 Europe, at present, however it may have been in times 
 past, the true enemy of freedom is not Eussia, but Aus- 
 tria ; and neither Austria nor any of the German Powers 
 would claim a voice in questions in which they are in no 
 way concerned. Austrian influence, legitimate and illegit- 
 imate, is confined to Europe,. and cannot extend into other 
 continents. And even in Europe it is happily limited, and 
 need not be enlarged. Austria's best friends would not 
 desire to obtain for her an increase of hatred, by an ex- 
 tension of her detested administration into WaUachia and 
 Moldavia — the only countries among those of which we 
 are speaking in the settlement of whicl^ she might legiti- 
 mately claim to be consulted. 
 
 But secondly, is not such an alliance with such objects 
 impossible ? "Who ever heard or read of a coalition of na- 
 tions, except in self-defense, or else for the perpetration of 
 some iniquity? Yet in this great age, so fertile in new 
 things, it is but one more novelty ; and we will ask another 
 question, — Is it, or is it not, desirable ? If we have a suf- 
 ficient answer here, we wUl not believe in impossibilities. 
 Difficult it may be ; but was there ever a great or good 
 thing achieved which has not been full of difficulty ? And 
 why are men of genius sent among us, except to cope with 
 difficulty and conquer it? Two channels are open into 
 which we may steer : one we know to be full of shoals and 
 breakers; the other, though untried, appears to be deep 
 water. The experiment is worth the attempt The future 
 is dark ; we know not whither it may lead us ; but we fly 
 from an evil too well ascertained, and our intentions we 
 presume to be honest If we fail, the failure can lead to 
 nothing worse than the certainty which, lies before us if we 
 remain passive ; at any moment we can fall back upon Lord 
 Clarendon, and "drift" into war. K we succeed, the 
 statesmen whose names are connected with the diplomatic 
 revolution will take their place among the immortal bene- 
 factors of mankind. 
 
SCIENTIFIC METHOD APPLIED TO 
 HISTORY. 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE DEVONSHIRE ASSOCIATION 
 
 EOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF SCIENCB 
 
 AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — I cannot but congratulate 
 this country, — my own country in which I was born and 
 to which I am proud to belong, — on the formation and the 
 success of this Association. There was a time when Dev- 
 onshire was, to use a modern phrase, the most advanced 
 county in England. During the hundred years which fol- 
 lowed the Reformation, Lancashire and Yorkshire, Durham 
 and Northumberland, were the strongholds of old-fashioned 
 opinions. They were places where everything that was old 
 was consecrated, and new ideas were intolerable. Somer- 
 setshire, Worcestershire, Cornwall, Devonshire, were the 
 chief seats of the staple manufacturers of England. They 
 were progressive, energetic, full of intellectual activity, tak- 
 ing the lead in what was then the great liberal movement 
 of the age. The knights and squires of the North were 
 wrapped up in themselves. They rarely left their own 
 houses. They rarely saw the face of a stranger, unless of 
 some border marauder. The merchants of Plymouth and 
 Dartmouth were colonizing the New World, and opening a 
 trade with every accessible port in the Old. The Haw- 
 kinses, the Drakes, the Davises, the Raleighs, were the 
 founders of the ocean empire of Great Britain; while, 
 on the other hand, — for mental energy is always many- 
 
446 Scientific Method applied to History. 
 
 sided, — Devonshire, in giving birth to Hooker, bestowed 
 the greatest of her theologians on the Church of England. 
 
 Times have somewhat changed. The march of intellect 
 has moved northward. The soil up there, after lying fallow 
 so many centuries, disclosed the reservoirs of force which 
 were stored in the coal measures. The productive capaci- 
 ties of the island shifted . m. the direction where there was 
 most material for them to work with, while Devonshire 
 rested on its laurels. Improved means of communication, 
 — roads, canals, railways, the electric telegraph, — have 
 diminished the importance of the smaller harbors or towns, 
 and thrown the business of the country into a few enormous 
 centres. The agricultural districts have been drained of their 
 more vigorous minds ; while from the same and other 
 causes local peculiarities are tending to disappear. There 
 were once many languages spoken in this island. There 
 are now but three. Even our own Devonshire dialect, 
 which Raleigh used at the court of Elizabeth, is becoming 
 a thing of the past. 
 
 Yet as one person is never quite the same as another per- 
 son, as each has peculiarities proper to himself which consti- 
 tute his individual importance, so I hope the time is far off 
 when the ancient self-administered English counties wUl 
 subside into provinces, — when London will be England in, 
 the sense that Paris is France. English character and 
 Enghsh freedom depend comparatively little on the form 
 which the Constitution assumes at "Westminster. A cen- 
 tralized democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute 
 monarch ; and if the vigor of the nation is to continue un- 
 impaired, each individual, each family, each district, must 
 preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-com- 
 pleteness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own af- 
 fairs, and think its own thoughts. Neither Manchester nor 
 Plymouth are yet entirely London, and I hope never will 
 be. And it is for this reason that I welcome flie formation 
 of societies like the present. They are symptoms that the 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 447 
 
 life is not all concentrated at the heart, — that if we are 
 carried along in the stream of national progress, we do not 
 mean to float passively where the current leads us, and that 
 in the present as in the past we intend to bear an intelligent 
 and active share in the general movement of the age. 
 
 The contribution which I can myself offer on the present 
 occasion is an extremely humble one. You include among 
 your objects the encouragement of literature and art ; but, 
 from the nature of the case, science must hold the first 
 place with you. Science thrives in the sunlight. Able 
 men are engaged upon different departments of knowledge, 
 but they are all dependent on one another ; the geologist, 
 the physiologist, the chemist, each require the help of the 
 other. The astronomer cannot stir without the mathemati- 
 cian and the telescope maker. Not a single branch of 
 inquiry can be pursued successfully alone. You meet, you 
 read papers, you compare notes ; and the discoveries of the 
 spectroscope explain the composition of the stars. 
 
 Literature, on the other hand, is a thing of the closet. 
 The writer of books must take counsel chiefly with him- 
 self: he must look as much within as without; and his 
 work, if it is to be a book at all and not a mere compila- 
 tion, must be in part the creation of his own mind. Even 
 his materials no one else can coUect for him. He must 
 look for them in situ, with aU- their natural surroundings, 
 or tiiey wiU not yield to him their proper significance. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are certain principles common to all 
 pursuits whose object is truth, and not mere amusement. 
 History, the subject with which my own life has been 
 mainly occupied, is concerned as much as science with 
 external facts. Philosophies of history, theories of his- 
 tory, general views of history, are for the most part, as 
 metaphysicians say, evolved out of the inner conscious- 
 ness. History itself depends on exact knowledge, on the 
 same minute, impartial, discriminating observation and 
 analysis of particulars which is equally the basis of science ; 
 
448 Scientific Method applied to Slitory. 
 
 and I have thought that I cannot turn my present oppor- 
 tunity to better account than by sketching the conditions 
 of historical study, and noting the various phases through 
 which it has passed at different periods. 
 
 Historical facts are of two kinds : the veritable outward 
 fact — whatever it was which took place in the order of 
 things — and the account of it which has been brought 
 down to us by more or less competent persons. The first 
 we must set aside altogether. The eternal register of 
 human action is not open to inspection ; we are concerned 
 wholly with the second, which are facts also, though facts 
 different in kind from the other. The business of the 
 historian is not with immediate realities which we can see 
 or handle, but with combinations of reality and human 
 thought which it is his business to analyze and separate 
 into their component parts. So far as he can distinguish 
 successfiiUy he is a historian of truth ; so far as he feils he 
 is the historian of opinion and tradition. 
 
 It is, I believe, a received principle in such sciences as 
 deal with a past condition of things, to explain everything, 
 wherever possible, by the instrumentality of causes which 
 are now in operation. Geologists no longer ascribe the 
 changes which have taken place in the earth's surface, 
 either to the interference of an external power, or to vio- 
 lent elemental convulsions, of which we have no experience. 
 Causes now visibly acting in various parts of the universe 
 wiQ interpret most, if not all, of the phenomena; and to 
 these it is the tendency of science more and more to ascribe 
 them. In the remotest double star which the telescope 
 can divide for us, we see working the same familiar forces 
 which govern the revolutions of the planets of our own 
 system. The spectrum analysis finds the vapors and the 
 metals of earth in the aurora and in the nucleus of a comet. 
 Similarly we have no reason to believe that in 'the past 
 condition of the earth, or of the earth's inhabitants, there 
 were functions energizing of which we have no modern 
 
Scientific Method applied to Mistory. 449 
 
 counterparts. Confused and marvelous stories come down 
 to us from the early periods of what is called history, but 
 we look for the explanation of. them in the mind or imagi- 
 nation of ignorant persons. The key is to be found in 
 tendencies still visible ia children, m uneducated or credu- 
 lous men, or in nations which loiter behiad in civilization 
 in various parts of the world. Nee Deus inter sii is a rule 
 of history as well as of art. The early records of all na- 
 tions are full of portents and marvels ; but we no longer 
 believe those portents to have taken place in actual fact. 
 Language was once held to have been communicated to 
 the original man, perfectly organized and developed. It is 
 now admitted that language grew like every other., art. It 
 had its beginning in a few simple phrases which extended 
 as knowledge was enlarged. The initial process is repeated 
 in the special words and expressions which clever children 
 originate for themselves in every modern nurseiy. 
 
 At the dawn of civilization, when men began to observe 
 and think, they found themselves in possession of various 
 faculties — first, their five senses, and then imagination, 
 fancy, reason, memory. All alike affected their minds with 
 Impressions and emotions. They did not distinguish one 
 from tlie other. They did not know why one idea of 
 which they were conscious should be more true than 
 another. They looked round them in continual surprise, 
 conjecturing fantastic explanations of all that they saw and 
 heard. Their traditions and their theories blended one 
 into another, and their cosmogonies, and their philosophies, 
 and their histories, are all alike imaginative and poetical. 
 The idea of truth of fact as distinguished from subjective 
 conceptions, had not yet beet so much as recognized. It 
 was never perhaps seriously believed as a scientific reality, 
 that the sun was the chariot of Apollo, or that Saturn had 
 devoured his children, or that Siegfried had been bathed in 
 the dragon's blood, or that earthquakes and volcanoes were 
 caused by buried giants who were snorting and tossing in 
 29 
 
450 Scientific Method applied to History. 
 
 their sleep, but also it was not disbelieved. These storiea 
 had not presented themselves to the mind in that aspect. 
 Legends grew as nursery tales grow now. There is rea- 
 son to believe that in their origin the religious theogonies 
 and heroic tales of every nation which has left a record of 
 itself — of Greece and Rome, of India and Persia and 
 Egypt, of Germany and Ireland — are but poetical ac- 
 counts of the first impressions produced upon mankind by 
 the phenomena of day and night, morning and evening, 
 winter and summer. Pluto carries Proserpine to Hades. 
 Her mother complains of the rape, and the gods decide 
 that she shall reside alternately for six months in light and 
 darkness. Proserpine is the genial spirit of warmth and 
 long days and life and productiveness, locked away in win- 
 ter in the subterranean world, and returning to earth with 
 the spring. Seven and twelve are mystical numbers, re- 
 curring continually in all legendary histories. " Seven " 
 refers to the five planets known before the invention of 
 the telescope, and the sun and moon, the seven bodies 
 which seemed to have a proper motion among the stars. 
 " Twelve " came from the twelve moons which made up the 
 year. Meteorological phenomena were personified, passed 
 into narratives of fact, and became the foundation of he- 
 roic poetry — the tale of Troy, or the songs of the Edda. 
 Achilles, and Siegfried, and ICng Arthur are ' historical 
 personages as much as, and no more than, the woods and 
 fountains are the habitation of dryads and water spirits. 
 
 The original historian and the original man of science was 
 alike the poet. Before the art of writing was invented ex- 
 act knowledge was impossible. The poet's business was to 
 throw into beautiful shape the current opinions, traditions, 
 and beliefs; and the gifts required from him were simply 
 memory, imagination, and music. Each celebrated minstrel 
 sang his stories in his own way, adding to them, shaping 
 them, coloring them, as suited his peculiar genius. The 
 Iliad of Homer, the most splendid composition of this kind 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 451 
 
 which exists in the world, is simply a collection of ballads. 
 The tale of Troy was the heroic story of Greece, which 
 every tribe modified or rearranged. 
 
 Whether the facts were truer one way than the other, — 
 whether the troubles at Troy were caused by a quarrel be- 
 tween Achilles and Agamemnon, as the Iliad says, or be- 
 tween Achilles and Ulysses, as we find in the Odyssey, — 
 no one thought of asking, any more than the child asks 
 whether Red Riding Hood is true, or Cinderella. The story 
 in its outline was the property of the race ; to vary the de- 
 tails of it was the recognized custom. When the minstrel 
 touched his lyre in the banquet haU of the chief, the listen- 
 ers were not expecting, like a modern learned society, to 
 have their understandings instructed. They cared nothing 
 for useful knowledge. They looked to be excited and 
 amused ; and if the artist had turned lecturer they would 
 have flung their trenchers at his head. The heroic tales 
 were to them what fiction, recognized as fiction, is to us, — 
 with this difference, that the modern poet or novel writer 
 knows that he is inventing ; the bard handed on the na- 
 tional tradition ; controlled by it only in outline ; untram- 
 meled by adherence to details, yet unconscious of falsehood 
 in varying them. 
 
 Thus we see at once that it is a mistake to ask, with re- 
 spect to primitive myths and legends, whethei the facts are 
 true. There are two kinds of truths. There is the truth of 
 fact, which we require in the man of science and the modern 
 historian. There is the truth of nature and idea, which we 
 demand of the poet and the painter. We may say correctly 
 that the Iliad and the Odyssey are among the truest books 
 that were ever written. Yet Agamemnon and AfchUles may 
 be as unsubstantial as Aladdin or Melusina. We mean no 
 more than that Homer was one of the greatest of artists, and 
 his picture of life in the heroic ages of Greece the most 
 faithftd. 
 
 An imperfect perception of the distinction has often been 
 
452 Soie/ntific Method applied to Hiatwy. 
 
 the cause of singular confusion. The mythological poetry 
 in the East and West alike was the foundation of national 
 religions. Wiile life grew more literal and prosaic, these 
 early legends became consecrated. Poetical truth was made 
 a guarantee for historical truth ; and Pindar and Socrates, 
 who questioned the reality of the strange stories of the 
 Olympian gods, were accused of impiety. The popular 
 opinion unconsciously betrayed the fallacy involved in it ; 
 for whereas historical conclusions in matters of fact are at 
 best but probabilities differing in degree, the faith in the 
 mythological tradition was expected to be complete and un- 
 doubting, extending with equal positiveness to the most mi- 
 nute details. Poetical truths may be accepted absolutely. 
 Historical truths cannot. "We have but to attend to the way 
 in which these traditions rose to see our way through the 
 labyrinth. Facts can be accurately known to us only by 
 the most rigid observation and sustained and scrutioizing 
 skepticism : the emotional and imaginative intellects of the 
 old poets moved freely in their own world of gods and 
 giants and enchanters, conscious of no obligation save to be 
 true in genius and spirit. Mythic history, mythic theology, 
 mythic science, are alike records not of facts but of beliefs. 
 They belong to a time when men had not yet learnt to ana- 
 lyze their convictions, or distinguish between images vividly 
 present in their own minds and an outward reality which 
 might or might not correspond with them. 
 
 From the purely mythic period we pass to the semi- 
 mythic, where we have to do with real persons, but persons 
 seen still through an imaginative halo. 
 
 Every one who has been at an English public school must 
 remember the traditions current of the famous boys of a 
 generation or two past : how one fellow had cleared a rail 
 in the high jump, which he walked under with six inches 
 to spare ; how another had kicked the football dear over 
 the big elm tree ; how a third had leapt the lock in the ca- 
 nal ; and a fourth had fought a bargee twice his own weight, 
 
Scientific Method applied to Eistory. 453 
 
 flung him over th.e bridge-parapets iato the river, and then 
 leaped in after him to save him from being drowned. The 
 boys in question were really at the school, for their names 
 are cut ia the desks or painted on the school walls. But 
 examine closely, and you will find the same story told of 
 half a dozen boys at difigrent schools. Each school has its 
 heroes. The air contains a certaiu number of traditional 
 heroic school exploits, and the boys and the exploits are 
 brought together. We have here the forces at work which 
 created the legends of Theodoric and Charlemagne, of AttUa, 
 or our own Alfred. 
 
 In the same way those who mix with the world hear an- 
 ecdotes of distinguished people, witty sayings, prompt repar- 
 tees, wise political suggestions, acts of special beneficence. 
 The wit, at the beginning, of course was the wit of some- 
 body, — some human lips made the joke or spoke the sar- 
 casm, — in some human heart originated the act of charity ; 
 but so long as these things are trusted to oral tradition, they 
 are treated as conmion property. The same jest is attrib- 
 uted to half a dozen people. One great man is dressed with 
 the trappings of many small ones. There is no intention to 
 deceive ; but memory is treacherous. The good things are 
 recollected easily, while their lawful owner's name is no less 
 easUy forgotten. Conversation distributes them erroneously, 
 but in good faith, according to the imaginative laws of asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 This is the process which buUt up the so-called histories 
 of the early lawgivers, of Solon and Lycurgus and Numa ; 
 of Confucius and Menu ; of Socrates and Pythagoras and 
 Solomon; of every statesman and philosopher who com- 
 mitted his teaching to the memory of his disciples, and left 
 posterity to construct his image after its own pleasure. 
 
 Again, we have aU been familiar' in these late years with 
 the resurrection among us of the Ars magica. Witches 
 and enchanters having been improved from off the earth, 
 a new order of supernaturalism has started up which abeady 
 
454 Scientific Method applied to History. 
 
 counts its adherents by hundreds of thousands. Commeno- 
 ing with Cagliostro and Mesmer, there has appeared a se- 
 ries of persons professing to possess the secret of recondite 
 spiritual forces, which, without strictly understanding, they 
 can command for practical purposes. Clairvoyance and 
 mesmerism provide cures for inveterate and chronic dis- 
 eases. A mysterious fluid streams from the tips of the fin- 
 gers. First men and women are healed. A distinguished 
 political economist operates next on a sick cow, and by and 
 by makes passes over the asparagus beds. Latterly the 
 spirits, or whatever they are, have shown a special fancy 
 for three-legged tables. They make them run round the 
 room, pirouette on a single daw, hop, skip, dance to airs 
 produced by invisible musicians. Finally they use them 
 as the channel through which they communicate the secrets 
 of the other world. 
 
 Probably the entire history of mankind contains no rec- 
 ord of a more hopelessly base and contemptible superstition. 
 Mumbo-jumbo and the African rain-makers appear to me 
 to be respectable in comparison. Yet every one of us must 
 have heard circumstantial accounts of such performances, 
 time and place minutely given, a cloud of witnesses, and the 
 utmost precaution said to have been taken to make decep- 
 tion impossible. It is the story of the witch processes over 
 again. Once possess people with a belief, and never fear 
 that they will find facts enough to confirm it. Never fear 
 that they wiU so tell their stories that the commonest thing 
 shall be made to appear marvelous ; that unusual features 
 shall be preserved and exaggerated, and everything which 
 would suggest a rational explanation shall be dropped out 
 of sight and hearing. 
 
 You have here a parallel with the enormous literature of 
 ecclesiastical miracles, which for fifteen hundred years was 
 poured out in perfect good faith over Europe, and which in 
 some countries continues vigorous to the present hour. The 
 resemblance passes curiously into details. In both instances 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 455 
 
 the necessary quality is faith. Believe, and you wiU see. 
 Disbelieve, and you shall be answered according to the 
 hardness of your hearts. The credulity which interfered 
 with the wonder-working powers of the saints obstructs 
 equally the successful action of the spirit-rapper. All pre- 
 cautions are taken, we are assured by the initiated, to ex- 
 pose fraud or prevent illusion — all but one — the presence 
 of cool-headed, scientifically trained observers. The spirits 
 do not like skeptics, and object to showing off before them. 
 A famous mesmerist once said to me, ia some impatience 
 with my dissent, that I myself possessed the gift, and that 
 I might convince myself of it if I would try the experiment 
 at the first cottage by the roadside where there was a sick 
 person. He checked himself, however, with an after- 
 thought. " Alas ! no," he added, " the faith is wanting." 
 
 When faith is present the mesmeric miracle and the so- 
 called religious miracle approach each other in every fea- 
 ture. A mesmerized handkerchief produces the same effect 
 as a relic at a shrine. . A mesmerized glass of water is as 
 effectual as a glass of holy water. Mr. Home, when the 
 room is sufficiently darkened, rises to the ceiling, and floats 
 in the air. In a work published in Spain in the last cen- 
 tury, under the sanction of the Church, for the instruction 
 of spiritual directors, the elevation of the body ia the air is 
 spoken of as one of the commonest and most notorious 
 symptoms in the spiritual growth of saintly young ladies. 
 The phenomenon seems as familiar to the fathers confess- 
 ors as measles or whooping-cough to an English doctor, and 
 circumstantial rules are laid down for the edifying treatment 
 of such cases. The author of the book was no fool, and 
 shows a great deal of strong common sense. The elevation 
 is spoken of as an undoubted sign of grace — a favorable 
 feature, but by no means one of the highest — compatible 
 with many faults, and likely in the sex most liable to it to 
 create spiritual vanity. The young ladies therefore are 
 told, when they feel themselves getting light, to catch hold 
 
456 Scientific Method applied to History. 
 
 of the nearest post or rail, and keep themselves down ; or 
 if they find the attraction, or whatever it is, acting too 
 strongly upon them, they are to rvm away and lock them- 
 selves into their rooms, and be lifted up where there is no 
 one to admire them. I am not caricaturing. I am translating 
 almost literally from the " Lucerna Mystica.'' Nor ought 
 we to impute bad faith to the compilers of these instruc- 
 tions. I as little believe that Spanish devotees were in the 
 habit of floating in the air as I believe that Mr. Home can 
 float when there is light enough to see what is going on. 
 The idea, I conceive, originated in the visions of Santa 
 Teresa and Saint Francis, who in the delirium of transcen- 
 dental emotion imagined that the accidents of the flesh had 
 no longer power over them. The Spanish artists who illus- 
 trated their lives decorated every church and convent chapel 
 in the Peninsula with pictures of these persons dancing 
 upon vacancy, and the Spanish religious mind became thus 
 saturated with the impression. It was accepted as an ascer- 
 tained fact ; it was generalized into a condition of a high 
 state of enthusiastic love, aud was spoken of and prescribed 
 for as one might prescribe for small-pox or a stomach-ache. 
 
 I mention the thing merely as illustrating the tendencies 
 of the believing mind in dealing with the facts of life, 
 and as explaining the semi-mythical periods of history ; 
 where any eminent person was surrounded from his birth 
 with extraordinary incidents, and the biographies of saints, 
 confessors, martyrs, or national heroes are mere catalogues 
 of miracles. 
 
 You remember Owen Glendower and Hotspur in the 
 play of " Henry the Fourth." Glendower says — 
 
 At my nativity 
 The front of lieaven was full of fiery shapes, 
 Of burning cressets: and at my birth 
 The frame and huge foundation of the earth 
 Shak'd like a coward. 
 Bot. Why, 80 it would have done at the same season, if your mother't 
 eat had but kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born. 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 457 
 
 GItnd. I say, the earth did shake when I was bom. 
 
 Bot. And I say, the earth was not of my mind. 
 If you suppose, as fearing you it shook. 
 
 Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble. 
 
 Sot. 0, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, 
 And not in fear of your nativity. 
 Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth 
 In strange eruptions : oft the teeming earth 
 Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd 
 By the imprisoning of unruly wind 
 Within her womb; which for enlargement striving, 
 Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down 
 Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth, 
 Qur grandam earth, having this distemperature, 
 In passion shook. 
 
 Historical facts can only be verified by the skeptical and 
 the inquiring, and skepticism and inquiry nip like a black 
 frost the eager credulity in which legendary' biographies 
 took their rise. You can watch such stories as they grew 
 in the congenial soil of belief. The great saints of the fifth, 
 sixth, and seventh centuries, who converted Europe to Chris- 
 tianity, were as modest and unpretending as true genuine 
 men always are. They claimed no miraculous powers for 
 themselves. Miracles might have been worked in the days 
 of their fathers. They for their own parts relied on noth- 
 ing but the natural, powers of persuasion and example. 
 Their companions, who knew them personally in life, were 
 only a little more extravagant. Miracles and portents vary 
 in an inverse ratio with the distance of time. St. Patrick 
 is absolutely sUent about his own conjuring performances. 
 He told his followers, perhaps, that he had been moved 
 by his good angel to devote himself to the conversion of 
 Ireland. The angel of metaphor becomes in the next gen- 
 eration an actual seraph. On a rock in the county of 
 Down there is or was a singular mark, representing rudely 
 the outline of a foot. From that rock, where the young 
 ]'atrick was feeding his master's sheep, a writer of the 
 sixth century tells us that the angel Victor sprang back to 
 heaven after delivering his message, and left behind him 
 
458 Scientific Method a/pplied to History. 
 
 the imprinted witness of his august visit. Another hundred 
 years pass, and legends from Hegesippus are imported into 
 the life of the Irish apostle. St. Patrick and the Druid en- 
 chanter contend before King Leogaire on Tara EKll, as 
 Simon Magus and St. Peter contended before the Em- 
 peror Nero. Again, a century, and we are in a world of 
 wonders where every human lineament is lost. St. Patrick, 
 when a boy of twelve, lights a fire with icicles ; when he 
 comes to Ireland he floats thither upon an altar stone which 
 Pope Celestine had blessed for him. He conjures a Welsh 
 marauder into a wolf, makes a goat cry out in the stomach 
 of a thief who had stolen him, and restores dead men to life, 
 not once or twice, but twenty times. The wonders with 
 which the atmosphere is charged gravitate towards the 
 largest concrete figure which is moving in the middle of 
 them, till at last, as Gibbon says, the sixty-six lives of St. 
 Patrick which were extant in the twelfth century must 
 have contained at least as many thousand lies. And yet of 
 conscious lying there was very little, perhaps nothing at all. 
 The biographers wrote in good faith, and were industrious 
 collectors of material, only their notions of probability were 
 radically different from ours. The more marvelous a story, 
 the less credit we give to it ; warned by experience of care- 
 lessness, credulity, and fraud, we disbelieve everything for 
 which we cannot find contemporary evidence, and from the 
 value of that evidence we subtract whatever may be due to 
 prevalent opinion or superstition. To the mediaeval writer 
 the more stupendous the miracle the more likely it was to 
 be true ; he believed everything which he could not prove 
 to be false, and proof was not external testimony, but inher- 
 ent fitness. 
 
 So much for the second period of what is caUed human 
 history. In the first or mythological there is no historical 
 groundwork at all. In the next or heroic we have accounts 
 of real persons, but handed down to us by writers to whom 
 the past was a world of marvels, — whose delight was to 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 459 
 
 dwell upon the mighty works which had been done in the 
 old times — whose object was to elevate into superhuman 
 proportions the figures of the illustrious men ivho had dis- 
 tinguished themselves as apostles or warriors. They thus 
 appear to us like their portraits in stained glass windows, 
 represented rather in a transcendental condition of beati- 
 tude than in the modest and chequered colors of real life. 
 We see them not as they were, but as they appeared to an 
 adoring imagination, and in a costume of which we can only 
 aflSrm with certainty that it was never worn by any child 
 of Adam on this plain, prosaic earth. For facts as facts 
 there is as yet no appreciation ; they are shifted to and 
 fro, dropped out of sight, or magnified, or transferred from 
 owner to owner, — manipulated to suit or decorate a pre- 
 conceived and brilliant idea. We are still in the ■ domain 
 of poetry, where the canons of the art require fidelity to 
 general principles, and allow free play to fancy in details. 
 The virgins of Kaphael are no less beautiful as paintings, 
 no less masterpieces of workmanship, though in no single 
 feature either of face or form or costume they resemble 
 the historical mother of Christ, or even resemble one 
 another. 
 
 At the next stage we pass with the chroniclers into 
 history proper. The chronicler is not a poet like his pre- 
 decessor. He does not shape out consistent pictures with 
 a beginning, a middle, and an end. He is a narrator of 
 events, and he connects them together on a chronological 
 striog. He professes to be relating facts. He is not 
 idealizing, he is not singing the praises of the heroes of 
 the sword or the crosier — he means to be true iu the 
 literal and commonplace sense of that ambiguous word. 
 And yet in his earlier phases, take him in what part of the 
 world we please, — take him in ancient Egypt or Assyria, 
 in Greece or La Eome, or in modern Europe, he is but a 
 step in advance of his predecessor. He is excellent com- 
 pany. He never moralizes, never bores you vrith phUoso- 
 
460 Scientific Method applied to History. 
 
 phy of history or political economy. He never speculates 
 about causes. But, on the other hand, he is uncritical. 
 He takes unsuspectingly the materials which he finds ready 
 to his hand — the national ballads, the romances, and the 
 biographies. He transfers to his pages whatever catches 
 his fancy. The more picturesque an anecdote the more 
 unhesitatingly he writes it down, though in the same pro- 
 portion it is the less likely to be authentic. Romulus and 
 Eemus suckled by the wolf; Curtius jijmping into the 
 gulf; our English Alfred spoiling the cakes; or Bruce 
 watching the leap of the spider, — stories of this kind he 
 relates with the same simplicity with which he records the 
 birth in his own day, in some outlandish village, of a child 
 with two heads, or the appearance of the sea-serpent, or 
 the flying dragon. Thus the chronicle, however charming, 
 is often nothing but poetry taken literally and translated 
 into prose. It grows, however, and improves insensibly 
 with the growth of the nation. Like the drama, it de- 
 velops from poor beginnings into the loftiest art, and be- 
 comes at last perhaps the very best kind of historical 
 writing which has yet been produced. Herodotus and 
 Livy, Froissart, and Hall, and Holinshed, are as great in 
 their own departments as Sophocles, or Terence, or Shake- 
 speare. "We are not yet entirely clear of portents and 
 prodigies. Superstition clings to us as our shadow, and is 
 to be found in the wisest as well as the weakest. The 
 Romans, the most practical people that ever lived — a peo- 
 ple so preeminently effective that they have printed their 
 character indelibly into the constitution of Eui-ope, these 
 Romans, at the very time they were making themselves 
 the world's masters, allowed themselves to be influenced 
 in the most important affairs of state by a want of appetite 
 in the sacred chickens, or the color of the entrails of a calf 
 Take him at his best, man is a great fool. It is likely 
 enough that we ourselves habitually say and practice things 
 which a thousand years hence will seem not a jot less 
 
ScientifiG Method applied to History. 461 
 
 absurd. Cato tells us that the Roman augurs could not 
 look one another in the face without laughing ; and I have 
 heard that bishops in some parts of the world betray some- 
 times analogous misgivings. In able and candid minds, 
 however, stuff o'f this kind is tolerably harmless, and was 
 never more innocent than in the case of the first great 
 historian of Greece. Herodotus was a man of vast natural 
 powers. Inspired by a splendid subject, and born at the 
 most favorable time, he grew to manhood surrounded by 
 the heroes of Marathon, and Salamis, and Platoea. The 
 wonders of Egypt and Assyria were for the first time 
 thrown open to the inspection of strangers. The gloss of 
 novelty was not yet worn off, and the impressions falling 
 fresh on an eager, cultivated, but essentially simple and 
 healthy mind, there were qualities and conditions combined 
 which produced one of the most delightftd books which 
 was ever written. He was an intense patriot ; and he was 
 unvexed with theories, political or moral. His philosophy 
 was like Shakespeare's — a calm, intelligent insight into 
 human things. He had no views of his own which the 
 fortunes of Greece or other countries were to be manipu- 
 lated to illustrate. The world as he saw it was a well-made, 
 altogether promising and interesting world ; and his object 
 was to relate what he had seen and what he had heard and 
 learnt faithfully and accurately. His temperament was 
 rather believing than skeptical ; but he was not idly credu- 
 lous. He can be critical when occasion requires. He 
 distinguishes always between what he had seen vrith his 
 own eyes and what others told him. He uses his judgment 
 freely, and sets his readers on, their guard against uncertain 
 evidence. And there is not a book existing which contains 
 in the same space so much important truth — truth which 
 survives the sharpest test that modern discoveries can 
 apply to it. 
 
 The same may be said in a slightly less degree of Livy 
 and of the best of the late European chroniclers ; you hav« 
 
462 Sdentific Method applied to History. 
 
 the same freshness, the same vivid perceptioa of external 
 life, the same absence of what philosophers call subjectivity 
 — the projection into the narrative of the writer's own 
 personality, his opinions, thoughts, and theories. 
 
 Still, in all of them, however vivid, however vigorous 
 the representation, there is a vein of fiction largely, and 
 perhaps consciously, intermingled. In a modern work of 
 history, when a statesman is introduced as making a 
 speech, the writer at any rate supposes that such a speech 
 was actually made. He has found an account of it some- 
 where either in detail or at least in outline or epitome. 
 The boldest fabricator would not venture to introduce an 
 entire and complete invention. This was not the case with 
 the older authors. Thucydides tells us frankly, that the 
 speeches which he interweaves with his narrative were his 
 own composition. They were intended as dramatic rep- 
 resentations of the opinions of the factions and parties 
 with which Greece was divided, and they were assigned to 
 this person or to that, as he supposed them to be internally 
 suitable. Herodotus had set Thucydides the example, and 
 it was universally followed. No speech given by any old 
 historian can be accepted as literally true unless there is a 
 specific intimation to that effect. Deception was neither 
 practiced nor pretended. It was a convenient method of 
 exhibiting characters and situations, and it was therefore 
 adopted without hesitation or reserve. 
 
 Had the facts of history been like the phenomena of the 
 physical world, — had it been possible to approach the 
 study of human nature with minds unprejudiced by passion 
 or by sentiment, — these venial tendencies to error would 
 have soon corrected themselves. There would have been 
 nothing to gain by misrepresentation, whether willful or un- 
 conscious, and both writers and readers would have learnt 
 to prefer truth to fiction. They were far advanced on the 
 right road, and they had only to follow out completely the 
 method on which they had begim, and imagination would 
 
Scientifia Method applied to History. 463 
 
 have been reduced to its proper function, of apprehending 
 and realizing the varieties of character and circumstances 
 on which the correct delineation of actions and events de- 
 pend. 
 
 Unfortunately nations, like individuals, arrive at a period 
 when they become self-conscious. When the boy becomes 
 a man he forms theories of what he sees going on around 
 him. He watches the action of principles, and he forms 
 principles of his own, by which he tests and condemns those 
 of others. The world does not move to his mind ; he would 
 have it otherwise. He sighs after the old times, or he as- 
 pires after a good time coming, and becomes a revolutionist. 
 He no longer plays his part simply and unconsciously in the 
 scene into which he is thrown ; he reflects and judges, and, 
 to the extent of his ability, makes himself a disturbing force. 
 Nations in the same way, when they reach a certain point 
 of civilization, become, so to say, aware of themselves. 
 EKtherto they have lived by habit. They have moved in 
 grooves, and when they have been troubled by internal con- 
 vulsions, it has been from simple, obvious, and immediate 
 causes. 
 
 But with intellectual expansion, habit serves no longer ; 
 new ideas, new thoughts, new desires, break upon them ; 
 life becomes complicated. Political constitutions are on their 
 trial, and sometimes break down. Parties form represent- 
 ing opposite principles. Some are for popular forms of 
 government, some for aristocratical or monarchical ; some 
 are in favor of change or progress ; some look back wistfully 
 to a golden age in the past, and are for abiding in the old 
 ways. Each sees the history of their country through the 
 haze, no longer of imagination, but of passion ; and when 
 they study its records, it is not to learn, for their minds are 
 made up, but to call up witnesses into the historical court 
 which shall maintain the truth of their particular opinions. 
 
 From Herodotus to Thucydides the transition is from era 
 to era. Herodotus is the sunny, light-hearted, brilliant, in- 
 
464 Scientific Method applied to History. 
 
 telligent boy. He had seen his country rise triumphant out 
 of its desperate struggle with Persia ; he had seen open be- 
 fore Greece apparently a boundless vista of glory and free- 
 dom. When a rare mood of melancholy overtakes him, it 
 is but when he meditates on the universal condition of hu- 
 manity, or the shortness of life, and the transitoriness of 
 earthly things. Two generations had passed away. The 
 mind of Athens had sprung out in the maturity of its pow- 
 ers, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus. It was the age of 
 Sophocles and Aristophanes and Phidias, of Pericles, of 
 Socrates, and the Sophists. In that rugged corner of Hellas 
 there had appeared suddenly a constellation of the most 
 nighly gifted men ever seen together on this planet. Never 
 at any single time had there been concentrated so much in- 
 tellectual activity as in Athens during the seventy years 
 which followed the Persian invasion ; and behind it, after a 
 brief day of splendor, there had ensued a long and desper- 
 ate war, with its train of internal dissensions, political feuds 
 proscription, anarchy, and ruin. 
 
 Thucydides, through whom the history of that extraordi- 
 nary time is chiefly known to us, was on a level with his most 
 highly gifted contemporaries ; but the historian who can 
 look calmly and impartially at the death-struggle of his own 
 country must be more or less than human. The greater his 
 nature the more intensely he must feel, ^eing an aristocrat 
 by temperament, Thucydides saw the causes of the fall of 
 Athens in the license of an unbridled democracy. He never 
 stoops to caricature ; he rarely expresses direct or formal 
 censure. In the dramatic form which he employs he stu- 
 diously labors to be just Yet that very form and the ex- 
 cellence of his art reveals only the more completely his 
 burning contempt for mob government and universal suf- 
 frage. "We should have learnt but one side of the truth, had 
 Lord Clarendon been the only historian of the great Eng- 
 lish Eebellion. We do not see the real Athens of Pericles 
 in the pages of Thucydides or of Plato. We know what 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 465 
 
 Thucydides thought ; but we have not the facts complete 
 before us. "We have only his opinion about the facts. 
 
 From Livy to Tacitus there is a precisely analogous 
 change. Livy wrote^when the civil wars were over, and the 
 Roman world, exhausted by bloodshed and anarchy, was 
 recovering itself under the dictatorship of Augustus. The 
 forms of the Republic were maintained in appearance unim- 
 paired. Liberty, which had been so frightfully abused, 
 seemed rather suspended than lost. The imperial system 
 was acquiesced in as a temporary expedient, under which 
 the wounds could be healed from which the nation was 
 bleeding at every pore. Augustus, studiously simple in his 
 personal habits, concealed the reality of a monarchy under 
 constitutional disguises. Rome breathed once more ; and 
 " the winter of its discontent " was made again into " glori- 
 ous summer." But Roman liberty had destroyed itself by 
 its own excesses. Despotism was the only form of govern- 
 ment which a people enervated by self-indulgence was able 
 to endure ; and despotism produced its natural fruits in lux- 
 ury and tyranny. Emperor followed emperor. Tiberius, 
 Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, succeeded one 
 after another to the purple, and each added a deeper stain to 
 the corruption with which it was soiled. The crimes of the 
 Republic were forgotten in the darker crimes of the Empire, 
 and noble-minded patriots looked back in shame to the aus- 
 tere virtues wjiich had made Rome the sovereign of the 
 world. Thucydides wrote to expose the vices of Democ-' 
 racy ; Tacitus, the historian of the Csesars, to exhibit the 
 hatefulness of Imperialism ; and he too, — in himself one of 
 the truest of men, — has left behind him a record which, 
 orand as it is, cannot be accepted as exhaustive. It is a 
 picture of Rome drawn by the hand of a statesman who de- 
 tested the Csesars too deeply to do them justice. Circum- 
 stances stronger .than the wills and caprices of individual 
 men had made the Empire a necessity. Tacitus paints only 
 the atrocities of it, unrelieved by the fairer results' which, 
 30 
 
466 Scientific Method applied to HiBtory. 
 
 beyond the confines of Italy, made it equally a blessing. 
 The provinces were never perhaps administered more equi- 
 tably than under the infamous Tiberius. To have restored 
 the Eepublic would have redelivered Europe and Asia to 
 fi-esh Mariuses and SyUas, fresh triumvirs, and a fresh pro- 
 scription. 
 
 I have spoken of the classical nations, for the history of 
 Athens under Pericles, and of Rome under the first Caesars, 
 is in fact modern history. The phenomena of every nation 
 which arrives at maturity are analogous, if not identical. 
 Modern Europe, too, lived by habit from the sixth to the 
 sixteenth century. The Italian Republics were exceptions, 
 and in a less degree the great towns of the Low Countries. 
 Commercial communities ripen more rapidly, and antedate 
 the general progress. But, speaking broadly of England 
 and France, Spain and Germany, the feudal system contin- 
 ued essentially unimpaired. The speculative movements 
 which occasionally disturbed the peace of the Church were 
 local, partial, and short-lived. The great masses of the "West- 
 ern nations believed the same creed, practiced the same de- 
 votions, lived generally under similar forms of government. 
 There were wars in abundance and civil convulsions, but 
 the contests were between persons, not between principles ; 
 and the historical writers, therefore, during all those centu- 
 ries preserve a uniform type. They pass from the mythic 
 to the heroic, from the heroic to the chronicle, but the text- 
 ure remains simple throughout. The facts are colored, but 
 colored by the imagination only. There is no introspec- 
 tion, no sick uncertainty, no division of spiritual opinion, or 
 collision of political sentiment. 
 
 The Reformation came, and with it, as its cause or its 
 consequence, a general dissolution of the organization*of 
 medifeval society. The old creeds and the old political con- 
 stitutions decayed side by side, and Europe became a chaos 
 of conflicting speculations, conflicting principles and inter- 
 ests. The imaginative elements — which had converted 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 467 
 
 history into romance — dissolved before the more violent 
 emotions with which the mind of mankind was disturbed ; 
 but one cause of falsification was removed only to give 
 place to another and a worse. Religious differences took 
 the lead in the confusion — first, as being the most intensely 
 absorbing ; and next, because the clergy had the monopoly 
 of culture, and the writing of books fell chiefly into their 
 hands. History became the favorite weapon with -which 
 rival theologians made war on each other. Protestants 
 represented mediaeval Europe as given over to lies and 
 idolatry. Catholics saw in the Church the nursery of 
 learning, the champion of the poor, the protectress of order, 
 justice, and piety. To one party the Rerformation was the 
 struggle of purity and knowledge against barbarous super- 
 stition and brutal ferocity ; to the other, it was the outbreak 
 of anarchy and lawlessness against a paternal and beneficent 
 authority. So wide is the contrast, so different the aspect 
 of th^ same facts as seen from opposite aides, that, even at 
 the present hour, it is enough to know that any particular 
 writer is a Catholic or a Protestant to be assured before- 
 hand of the view which he wUl take of any one of the prom- 
 inent character or Lucidents of that debated period : an 
 Alexander the Sixth, a Philip the Second, a Prince of 
 Orange, a Luther, a Calvin, a Knox, a suppression of the 
 monasteries, or a massacre of St. Bartholomew. A certain 
 school of people talk of a science of history. Men of 
 science, properly so called, will have a poor opinion of our 
 prospects that way till our subject-matter is in a more 
 wholesome condition. To Catholic and Protestant suc- 
 ceeded in England Anglican and Puritan, Cavalier and 
 Koundhead, Tory and "Wliig, Liberal and Conservative ; and 
 one after another they have each made history their pulpit, 
 and preached their sermons out of it, on the respective val- 
 ues of authority and liberty, faith and reason, religion and 
 science, protection and free trade ; with the million minor 
 issues which start up on every side in the application of 
 
468 Scientifio Method applied U History. 
 
 rival principles. Read Macaulay on the condition of the 
 English poor before the last century or two, and you won- 
 der how they lived at all. Read Cobbett, and I may say 
 even Hallam, and you wonder how they endure the contrast 
 between their, past prosperity and their present misery. 
 Sir Archibald Alison, it is said, wrote his thirty volumes to 
 prove that Providence is on the side of the Tories. To M. 
 Limartine, the French Revolution was an effort for the in- 
 auguration of the millennium ; the European coalition, a 
 repetition of the ancient wickedness, when the kings of the 
 eaith stood up, and the rulers took counsel together, and 
 Vergniaud was a hero, and Robespierre the most respecta- 
 ble of mankind. 
 
 In our own age, and with matters passing under our own 
 eyes, it scarcely fares any better. Witness Victor Hugo on 
 Louis Napoleon ; witness Mr. Disraeli on Sir Robert Peel ; , 
 witness " Blackwood's Magazine " on Mr. Disraeli. We are 
 as far as ever from forming impartial judgments, and facts 
 partially stated are not facts at all. Hundreds of books 
 have been written on the working of slavery in the South- 
 ern States of America. Probably the writers of every one 
 of them had formed their conclusions before they looked 
 into the facts, and they saw, or imagined, or believed ex- 
 actly what fell in with their preconceived opinions. 
 
 An Irish Catholic prelate once told me that to his certain 
 knowledge two millions of men, women, and children had 
 died in the great famine of 1846. I asked him if he was 
 not including those who had emigrated. He repeated that 
 over and above the emigration, two millions had actually 
 died ; and, added he, " we might assert that every one of 
 those deaths lay at the door of the English Government." 
 
 I mentioned this to a distinguished lawyer in Dublin, a 
 Protestant. His gray eyes lighted up. He replied : " Did 
 he say two millions now — did he ? Why there were not 
 a thousand died — there were not five hundred." The 
 true number, so far as can be gathered from a comparison 
 
Scientific Method applied to History. 469 
 
 of the census of 1841 with the census of 1851, from the 
 emigration returns, which were carefully made, and from 
 an allowance for the natural rate of increase, was about two 
 hundred thousand. 
 
 So much for historical facts and the value of human tes- 
 timony. Nor are patriots, or politicians, or divines the 
 loosest or the worst manipulators. 
 
 Besides these, and even more troublesome, are the phi- 
 losphers, giving us views of history corresponding to the 
 theories of which so many have sprung up in these late 
 days, purporting to explain the origin and destiny of human 
 cieatures on this planet. There is the philosophy of the 
 German idealists, of which T was once a more ardent 
 student than I have been in later years. Hegel was a su- 
 premely eminent man, to be spoken of with all possible 
 respect. Hegel said, when he was dying, " that after all 
 his efforts there was but one man in Germany who under- 
 stood what he meant," and then added, as a painful after- 
 thought, " and he does not understand me.'' It is a notice- 
 board warning strangers against trespassing on such unin- 
 viting premises ; we live in an age when much that is real 
 is to be learnt, and when the time to learn it is no longer 
 than it used to be. 
 
 Coming nearer home, there is the traditionary and relig- 
 ious philosophy of history, of which the present Prime 
 Minister is the latest and most distinguished exponent ; and 
 the positive or materialistic associated with the name of M, 
 Comte, and more particularly among ourselves with that of 
 Mr. Buckle. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone would have us believe that knowledge of 
 the most sublime kind — knowledge of the most profound 
 moral truths and spiritual mysteries — was divinely im- 
 parted to the first parents of mankind. With knowledge 
 we presume language was given also, for without language 
 ideaa cannot be communicated, or even distinctly impressed 
 on tie mind, — while the history of the different nations 
 
470 Scientific Method applied to Bxstory. 
 
 into which the human race was divided is the history of the 
 many-sided corruptions which those ideas underwent. 
 Grreek mythology is a travesty of the Athanasian Creed ; 
 AjjoUo is a defaced image of the Son of Mary ; and Zeus, 
 Poseidon, and Hades are some relation to the Trinity. If 
 this view is well founded, it is at any rate an instructive 
 commentary on the value of oral tradition for the transmis- 
 sion of spiritual truths. 
 
 The materialistic theory is that human creatures, .what- 
 ever their first heginning, have emerged by extremely slow 
 degrees from the condition of animals. All the knowledge 
 that they possess has been accumulated by experience. 
 Their creeds have been the successive opinions which they 
 have formed on themselves and the phenomena surround- 
 ing them, and they liave developed by natural laws accord- 
 ing to the circumstances .in which they have been placed — 
 soU, climate, local situation, and the thousand other condi- 
 tions which affect the human character. 
 
 But for the present I object to all historical theories. I 
 object to them as calculated to vitiate the observation of 
 facts without which such speculations are not worth the 
 paper on which they are written. I said at the beginning 
 that neither history, nor any other knowledge, could be 
 obtained except by scientific methods. A constructive phi- 
 losophy of it, however, is as yet impossible, and for the 
 present, and for a long time to come, we shall be confined 
 to analysis. First one cause and then another has inter- 
 fered from the beginning of time with a correct and authen- 
 tic chronicling of events and actions. Superstition, hero- 
 worship, ignorance of the laws of probability, religious, 
 political, or speculative prejudice, one or other of these has 
 tended from the beginning to give us distorted pictures. 
 A surface which is perfectly smooth renders back line for 
 line the forms reflected in it ; but what kind of notion 
 should we have of the fuU moon and the stars, if we had 
 seen nothing but the image of them on a lake which was 
 rippled, however faintly, by a breeze ? 
 
Seientific Method applied to History. 471 
 
 Will it ever be otherwise ? Three times, in Greece, in 
 Rome, in modern Europe, the best of the chroniclers have 
 made a near approach to being trustworthy. England, 
 owing to the form which the Reformation assumed among 
 lis, was at the outset less fundamentally disturbed than 
 France or Germany, and the' intellect of the nation ex- 
 panded healthily and uniformly to the end of the century. 
 The supreme excellence of the Elizabethan literature is in 
 its purely objective character ; and the most perfect Eng- 
 lish history which exists is to be found, in my opinion, ia 
 the historical plays of Shakespeare. In these plays, rich as 
 they are in fancy and imagination, the main bearings of the 
 national story are scrupulously adhered to, and, wherever 
 attainable, verbal correctness. Shakespeare's object was to 
 exhibit as faithfully as he possibly could, the exact character 
 of the great actors in the national drama — the circum- 
 stances which surrounded them, and the motives, internal 
 and external, by which they were influenced. To know 
 this is to know all. The reader can form his own theories. 
 E[e may be Yorkist or he may be Lancastrian, rationalist 
 or orthodox, a believer in kings and nobles, or in peoples 
 and the march of intellect, he will find Ms own side of the 
 matter represented more favorably than he could represent 
 it himself. If he admires the shining qualities of courage, 
 energy, address, and noble bearing, he has a hero drawn to 
 his mind in the conqueror at Agincourt. If his sympathies 
 lie with the more retiring qualities of gentleness, humility, 
 and devotion, he has all that he desires in the sainted king 
 who sat upon the hillside watching the carnage of Towtoa 
 Field, wishing that providence had given him instead of a 
 sceptre a shepherd's crook, the sweet shade of the hawthorn 
 bush for the embroidered canopy, and had left him free 
 from mistrust and treason to bring his white hairs to a 
 quiet grave. 
 
 No such directness of insight, no such breadth of sympa- 
 thy has since been applied to the writing of English history. 
 
472 Soiemtific Method applied to History. 
 
 Even Shakespeare himself, perhaps, could not have been 
 the man that he was at any other epoch. And Shake- 
 speare's attitude towards human life will become again at- 
 tainable to us, only when intelligent people can return to 
 an agreement on first principles ; when the common-sense" 
 of the wisest and best among us has superseded the theoriz- 
 ing of factions and parties ; when the few but all-impor- 
 tant truths of our moral condition, which can be certainly 
 known, have become the exclusive rule of our judgments 
 and actions, and the speculative formulas into which we 
 have mapped out the mysterious continents of the spiritual 
 world have been consigned to the place already thronged 
 with the ghosts of like delusions which have had their day 
 and perished. 
 
 THE EMD. 
 
 BIV£RSn>Sf OAUBBIBaE; 
 
 ITSKXOTrPIS AND PKINTXO BT 
 
 a. 0. HOnOHTON jUTD oohpant. 
 
An Important Historical Series. 
 
 Epochs of Modern History. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A., and J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, B.C.L. 
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 HISTORIES of countries are rapidly becoming so numerous that it is almost impossi- 
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 The series will comprise a number of compact, handsomely printed manuals, prepared by 
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