EDWARD BUTLER 
 

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A CONSIDERATION OF 
 GENTLE WAYS. 
 
A Consideration of Gentle 
 Ways, 
 
 Hnb otber JEssa^s. 
 
 EDWARD BUTLER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " FOR GOOD CONSIDERATION." 
 
 " Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae, lectorem 
 delectando simul atque monendo." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1890. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH : A 
 
 CONSIDERATION OF GENTLE WAYS I 
 
 A LAWYER'S LIBRARY - - 28 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL 44 
 
 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES - 63 
 A WORD WITH DJU. THOMAS FULLER 
 
 ON SUNDRY TOPICS - 87 
 
 ON VEILS 106 
 
 UPON PROXIES - - 124 
 
 POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION 1 37 
 
 UPON SEEING LIFE - - 146 
 
 UPON RED-TAPE - _- 161 
 
 AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY 1 78 
 
 ON PRECONCEPTIONS - - 1 84 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED- 
 MELECH. 
 
 (a consideration of gentle ways.) 
 
 As a reward for faithful prophesying, 
 Jeremiah was thrown into a dungeon 
 and left to starve. But Ebed-Melech, 
 the Ethiopian, a functionary of the 
 court of King Zedekiah, took com- 
 passion on the unhappy martyr to 
 honesty, and Zedekiah caught the 
 infection of pity from his servant. 
 The king told Ebed-Melech to take 
 thirty men with him, and get Jere- 
 miah out of his pestiferous hole. 
 Thirty men seems a large contingent 
 for such a service, but they may have 
 had to overawe those who were 
 
2 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 smarting under Jeremiah's truth- 
 speaking and would gladly have left 
 him to become a fossil. Now, Ebed- 
 Melech was a thoughtful man, with 
 a tender heart and a tender skin, and 
 a serviceable imagination. His first 
 step was to go into the house of the 
 king, under the treasury, and take 
 thence (thence !) " old cast clouts 
 and rotten rags." " Keep a thing 
 seven years, and you will find a use 
 for it," is a valuable maxim. It was 
 given' to those unsavoury fragments 
 of clothing to be of use and comfort 
 to a prophet of the Lord, and their 
 connection with the treasury thus 
 became less obscure. " And Ebed- 
 Melech the Ethiopian said unto 
 Jeremiah, Put now these old cast 
 clouts and rotten rags under thine 
 arm-pits, under the cords. And 
 Jeremiah did so. So they drew up 
 Jeremiah." It was a new illustra- 
 tion of suavi'ter in modo, fortiter in re. 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 3 
 
 We take it as a text for doing firm 
 things in gentle ways. 
 
 It is not always that we can use- 
 fully apply the soft pad. Roughness 
 and painfulness are sometimes an 
 element in our duty. We have heard 
 of a mother who administered chloro- 
 form to her child before whipping 
 him. But we can get no good from 
 a pepper-plaister if there be no pun- 
 gency in the pepper. The discipline 
 of pain cannot yet be dispensed with, 
 and an illuminated conscience can 
 even welcome the disagreeable stimu- 
 lus. " My dear," said a mother to 
 her little one, " what would you do if 
 poor mamma were to die ?" And 
 that profound baby replied : " I fink 
 I s'ould have to thpank myself." 
 
 But, on the other hand, there is 
 distinction needed, as another pro- 
 phet said, " between cattle and 
 
4 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 cattle." Delicately-formed natures 
 may sink under punishment, whether 
 moral or physical, that thick-skinned 
 creatures only feel as a titillation. 
 
 ' ' A kick that scarce would move a horse 
 Might kill a sound divine." 
 
 There are mysteries of the rough 
 usage of sentient creatures, whereof 
 " Providence " tranquilly assumes 
 the sole responsibility. We await 
 the solution, patiently or impatiently 
 according to our several tempera- 
 ments ; but even the most impatient 
 among us cherishes the belief that 
 somewhere under the frown a smile 
 lies hidden, though it lie as much out 
 of cognizance as fragrant essences and 
 aniline dyes in gas-tar. The patri- 
 archs and prophets of the former 
 dispensation stormed at those rough 
 dealings of the Hidden Ruler of earth 
 and heaven with a vigour we dare not 
 imitate, because we have not enough 
 of their sweet, frank child-nature. 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 5 
 
 Sometimes they seem to leave the 
 discord unresolved ; but generally 
 there are a few closing bars through 
 which the spirit's ear is allowed to 
 rest in the harmony of faith, trust, 
 and love. 
 
 William Blake strove with the 
 problem in his little poem of " The 
 Tiger." 
 
 " Tiger, tiger ! burning bright 
 In the forests of the night, 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Framed thy fearful symmetry ? 
 * * * * 
 
 Did He smile. His work to see ? 
 Did He who made the lamb make thee ?" 
 
 But whilst, in quiet recognition of 
 our inability to master the secret of 
 pain as an instrument of love, we 
 most humbly lay it by, to await our 
 attainment of higher powers in an- 
 other condition of existence, it is 
 well, for the solace of our trembling 
 faith, to note how much there is of 
 " the kindness of Ebed-Melech " in 
 
6 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 the Divine dealings with men ; and 
 how much more there would be but 
 for men's follies, which disarrange 
 the Divine intentions in their work- 
 ing. We know how often pain 
 ceases when its warning function can 
 no longer be discharged to any pur- 
 pose. Dr. Livingstone's experietice 
 with the lion supplies an interesting 
 illustration. 
 
 If men lived more pure and peace- 
 ful lives, even the Terror at the end 
 of the way might lose much of its 
 physical loathsomeness and become 
 
 " A death like sleep, 
 A gentle wafting to immortal life." 
 
 Elsewhere in " Paradise Lost," 
 Milton represents Adam dissuading 
 Eve from suicide, by pointing out to 
 her how God mingled unexpected 
 tenderness with His severe penalties : 
 
 ..." Remember with what mild 
 And gracious temper He both heard and judged 
 Without wrath or reviling ; we expected 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 7 
 
 Immediate dissolution, which we thought 
 Was meant by death that day." 
 
 But only sorrows of maternity were 
 appointed for Eve; and for Adam : — 
 
 ..." On me the curse aslope 
 Glanced on the ground ; with labour I must earn 
 My bread ; what harm ? idleness had been worse. 
 My labour will sustain me ; and lest cold 
 Or heat should injure us, His timely care 
 Hath unbesought provided, and His hands 
 Cloth'd us unworthy, pitying while He judg'd. 
 How much more, if we pray Him, will His ear 
 Be open, and His heart to pity incline 1" 
 
 Adam foresees that God will dis- 
 close mitigations and consolations : 
 
 " And what may else be remedy or cure 
 To evils which our own misdeeds have wrought, 
 He will instruct us praying, and of grace 
 Beseeching Him, so we need not fear 
 To pass commodionsly this life, sustain'd 
 By Him with many comforts, till we end 
 In dust, our final rest, and native home." 
 
 Rough usage is sometimes un- 
 avoidable. If there be no old cast 
 clouts and rotten rags at hand, we 
 must haul up the starving prophet 
 the best way we can. And we must 
 
8 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 not use fever-stricken rags to make 
 things easier. " Some save pulling 
 them out of the fire, hating even the 
 garment spotted by the flfesh." " If 
 thy hand offend thee, cut it off and 
 cast it from thee." But evermore, in 
 our work of help to others, we must 
 abide by the example of Ebed- 
 Melech when and where we can. 
 
 Harsh environments, disagreeable 
 circumstances, have their utilities. 
 The sticky stems of some plants, the 
 bristles of others, the bitter wax or 
 the ear, have their defensive value. 
 Would thecrab forego his shell, or the 
 chestnut its rough overcoat ? These 
 things have their human imitations. 
 An ingenious owner of an orchard of 
 sweet apple-trees surrounded it with 
 a fringe of trees bearing a beautiful 
 but bitter fruit. He knew the pre- 
 datory young rascals of the neigh- 
 bourhood would judge the interior by 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 9 
 
 the margin. One important illustra- 
 tion of the service rendered by rough 
 environments is found in our Lord's 
 use of parables and " hard sayings." 
 Clearly they served ' the end of 
 awakening healthy curiosity, stirring 
 up the sluggish mind, rousing up 
 within the sleepy hearers the query, 
 "What?" "Why?" "How?"— the 
 inward questioning which is the 
 morning star of knowledge. 
 
 The kindness of Ebed-Melech is 
 conspicuously seen in modern sur- 
 gery, and the gentle ways now in 
 vogue are not only the comfort, but 
 oftentimes the salvation, of the 
 patient. Even the medicines of the 
 present day bear the Ethiopian's. 
 sign-manual. We who have passed 
 middle-life do not forget the goblets 
 of senna and salts, the disgusting 
 grey powders of our childhood, and 
 compare them with the palatable 
 
10 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 drugs of the present day. And how 
 have the terrors of the dentist's chair 
 been assuaged by nitrous oxide ! 
 Which of us can, on reflection, say 
 that he has been one-fiftieth part as 
 grateful as he should be to Sir James 
 Simpson, and the other discoverers 
 or perfecters of anaesthetics ? If 
 prayers for the dead were of any 
 service, we should make a frequent 
 addition to the bliss of Sir James 
 Simpson, the glorified successor of 
 Ebed-Melech. 
 
 And here let us interject a word of 
 congratulation and hearty thanks to 
 the founder and members of the 
 St. John's Ambulance Association, 
 who commend and teach the blessed 
 art of giving first aid to the wounded, 
 and miijister skilfully to the bruised 
 frame and broken limb, pending the 
 arrival of the surgeon. Many an 
 'agonizing pang has beeii spared, arid 
 many a life saved, by the scientific 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. Ii 
 
 gentleness of this most Christian 
 band of Ebed-Melechites. 
 
 The principles of the St. John's 
 Ambulance Association may well be 
 applied to moral fractures, mental 
 bruises and injuries to the spirit, for 
 the weal of despairing souls and 
 broken hearts. Even in the most 
 degraded there is hidden a delicate 
 membrane of self-respect. The 
 healthy and morally robust can 
 better bear rough usage than the 
 spiritually diseased. A cold douche 
 of sharp rebuke or satire may chill 
 -to death a soul that gentle laving 
 in the warm bath of sympathy might 
 have saved. It is the " old cast 
 clouts " of gentle and hopeful words 
 that enable these sinning but sorrow- 
 ing ones to bear the uplifting from 
 the pit. Unmitigated righteousness 
 of judgment and severe truth-speak- 
 ing, untempered by love, may bring 
 
12 7Ht KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 down on the strayed soul the ava- 
 lanche of its own scorn, and c^smally 
 end the history. 
 
 Of all the illustrations of kindly 
 
 tact in delivering men from a pit, 
 
 none seems to us iiner than the 
 
 native graciousness of the servants 
 
 of that proud leper Naaman. Sunk 
 
 in the cesspool of his loathsome 
 
 disease, and held down there by his 
 
 pride, he would have perished but for 
 
 the skilful love of those who padded 
 
 the ropes of entreaty with the " old 
 
 cast clouts " of praise of his heroism, 
 
 and conquered thus the gravitation 
 
 of his otherwise fatal pride. " My 
 
 father, if the prophet had bid thee do 
 
 some great thing, wouldst thou not 
 
 have done it : how much rather, then, 
 
 when he saith to thee, wash and be 
 
 clean ?" The poor leprous hero 
 
 yielded with this soft padding, and his 
 
 flesh came again as a little child's. 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 13 
 
 Great is the art of finding fault. 
 In the home, in the church, in the 
 office, in public institutions, there is 
 plenty of fault to be found, and there 
 are those whose duty it is to find it. 
 But there are some who find it in the 
 spirit of Ham, and some in the spirit 
 of Shem and Japhet. There are 
 those who rejoice to discover a fault, 
 as a blue-bottle fly rejoices to find a 
 raw place. " Why is your mamma 
 going about the house singing so 
 merrily, my dear ?" " I guess she's 
 found out something new to scold 
 papa about when he comes home." 
 
 How shall we know whether we 
 are in a fit mood to find fault, or 
 whether we ought to stand aside, 
 and keep silence? The gauge of 
 our fitness will often be found in our 
 answer to the question, — Is the fault- 
 finding a pleasure or a sorrow to us ? 
 If the former, let us seal up our 
 mouths, for we have no commission 
 
14 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 to rebuke, and will do more harm 
 than good. Sweetness of spirit, 
 kindness of heart, the Scriptural 
 " charity," is the only safe vehicle 
 for rebuke. There are some waters 
 which are bright, sparkling, and not 
 impure ; but which contain an acid 
 element that takes up the lead from 
 the pipes that bring it to the house, 
 and thus carry poison to the drinkers. 
 Some souls, although overflowing 
 with righteousness, want the " recti- 
 fier " of love as a filter for their 
 rebukes of the erring and the 
 fallen. 
 
 In "finding fault," what is the 
 most effective Ebed-Melechian palli- 
 ative? Beyond question, it lies in 
 first finding matter for praise where 
 it is discoverable at all. The great- 
 hearted and tender-hearted Apostle 
 Paul gives us specimens of this 
 beautiful art. In writing to the 
 Corinthians (i Cor. i. 4), he thanks 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 15 
 
 his God for the grace of God given 
 to them, before (verse 10) he beseeches 
 them that there be no divisions; 
 he writes (iv. 14) not to shame 
 them, but, as his " beloved sons," to 
 warn them ; and in his second letter 
 (2 Cor. ix.) he prefaces his warnings 
 with kindly acknowledgment of the 
 " forwardness of their minds." But 
 there is higher authority than Paul's 
 in this sweet science of fault-find- 
 ing. In the letters to the seven 
 Churches (Rev. ii.), all the Lord's 
 rebukes to the defaulters are invari- 
 ably preceded, where possible, by re- 
 cognition of merit. To one He says : 
 " I know thy works, and thy toil, and 
 thy patience. ... But I have this 
 against thee." And to another : " I 
 know thy works, and thy love, and 
 faith, and ministry, and patience. . . . 
 But I have this against thee." 
 
 Let us cherish the spirit of Ebed- 
 
i6 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 Melech in controversy. There are 
 some controversialists to whom 
 the prehminary query should be 
 addressed: Do you want to wound 
 or to convince ? And we may advise 
 them further to apply sandpaper to 
 their own souls and rub off some of 
 that dreadful " cock-sureness " that 
 armour-plates them all round, to lay 
 down that infallibility which, on 
 episcopal authority, we know is 
 not the prerogative of " even the 
 youngest," and to lay to heart Oliver 
 Cromwell's entreaty to certain city- 
 elders : "I beseech you, think it 
 possible you may be mistaken." 
 
 When by such reflections the con- 
 troversialist is sufficiently subdued to 
 credit his antagonist (a poor, misled, 
 and erring creature, of course) with 
 good intentions and conscientious- 
 ness, he will find himself able to use 
 the padding of gentle words in the 
 application of the strenuous argu- 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. i? 
 
 ments wherewith he proposes to lift 
 up his enemy out of his " horrible 
 pit and miry clay" of theological 
 or political error. 
 
 Let us honour our antagonists as 
 long as they will permit us. We 
 shall not gain them by trying to peel 
 off their self-respect. To credit a 
 man with integrity tends to make 
 him honest. To credit him with 
 intelligence brightens what wits he 
 has. 
 
 Let us try to look through our 
 opponent's spectacles. Granted that 
 he is idiotically feeding on deal shav- 
 ings instead of grass, may it not be 
 that, in the absence of grass' in the 
 scorched fields, the animal has been 
 deceived by its trainer putting green 
 spectacles on him ? 
 
 Harsh words obstruct the progress 
 of reasoning, blunt the keen edge of 
 argument, and dig down into the 
 
 2 
 
i8 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 sensitive soul. Ragged wounds are 
 hard to heal. A legend assures us 
 that a man condemned to decapita- 
 tion had his head severed so neatly 
 by the stroke of a razor-edged 
 scimitar that he would not believe 
 the sentence had been carried out 
 until the executioner offered him a 
 pinch of snuff, and he sneezed his 
 head off. 
 
 Controversy is as beneficial as it is 
 inevitable, for antagonism is a law of 
 life. The contrary ocean currents 
 keep the waters aerated and pure. 
 Centripetal and centrifugal forces are 
 the invisible skeleton of the solar 
 system, the upholding hands of Him 
 " by whom all things consist." 
 
 But we do not hear the grinding 
 of the wheels as the planets whirl in 
 their courses. Watch an engine- 
 driver with his long-spouted can of 
 oil anointing all the bearings of his 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 19 
 
 locomotive as it stands fretting and 
 fuming. His engine is thrilling with 
 energy ; it has a controversy with 
 space and time; but its progress 
 would be retarded, its very life 
 shortened, by the friction which the 
 oil alleviates. The honour we pay to 
 our opponent in the war of words, 
 the credence we give to his con- 
 scientiousness, the love we feel and 
 show, oil the bearings of our argu- 
 ment, and make it at once more 
 effective to the mind and less mis- 
 chievous to the soul. 
 
 Heat in controversy is not to be 
 deprecated if it do not overpass the 
 bounds of that healthy inflammation 
 which contributes to a cure. If it go 
 beyond and get fiery, then let good 
 Ebed-Melech wet his old cast clouts 
 and rags, and make a " compress " 
 of Christian charity and reduce the 
 unholy inflammation. 
 
 It is not in controversy only, but 
 a — 2 
 
20 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 in all relations of life, that the spirit 
 of Ebed-Melech should hover over 
 us. Courtesy — that genuine kind 
 that is not the mere child of the 
 tongue, but nobly born of the heart 
 and cradled in love — is more than an 
 ornamental polish of our lives ; it is 
 the serviceable polish of the steel im- 
 plements of spiritual surgery and 
 carpentry, and scientific research. , 
 Let anyone with a beard try shaving 
 with a rust-bitten razor, and he will 
 scoff no more at polish. 
 
 Courtesy is the give-and-take of 
 the tactical man making his way 
 through a crowd, whilst the rough 
 and irascible man creates the ob- 
 struction which retards him. 
 
 Sir Calidore, in Spenser's " Faery 
 Queene," is a type of courtesy. The 
 poet recognises the true inward 
 fountain of courtesy in self-conquest : 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 21 
 
 " For nothing is more blameful! to a knight 
 That court'sie doth, as well as armes professe, 
 However strong and fortunate in fight, 
 Than the reproach of pride and cruelnesse. 
 In vain he seeketh others to suppress. 
 Who hath not learned himselfe first to subdue. 
 
 " What vertue is so fitting for a knight, 
 Or for a Ladie whom a knight should love. 
 As curtesie ; to beare themselves aright 
 To all of each degree, as doth behove ? 
 For whether they be placed high above 
 Or low beneath, yet ought they well to know 
 Their good ; that none them rightly may reprove 
 Of rudenesse for not yeelding what they owe ; 
 Great skill it is, such duties timely to bestow. 
 Thereto great helpe Dame Nature's selfe doth 
 
 lend; 
 For some so goodly gratious are by kind 
 That every action doth them much commend. 
 And in the eyes of men great liking find ; 
 
 , Which others, that have greater skill in mind, 
 Tho' they enforce themselves, cannot attaine ; 
 For everiething to which one is inclin'd 
 Doth best become, and greatest grace doth 
 gaine." 
 
 Sir Calidore exhibits, throughout 
 the bCiok of which he is the hero, 
 instances of the power of kindly 
 courtesy to achieve victories that are 
 impossible to coarse coercion : 
 
22 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 " His every act and deed that he. did say 
 Was like enchantment, that thro' both the eares 
 And both the eyes did steal the hart away." 
 
 Amongst his other adventures the 
 Champion of Courtesy has the 
 honour and joy of smiting to death 
 the " Blatant Beast," in whom we 
 can recognise the impersonation of 
 discourtesy, roughness, and brutality. 
 In his mouth were ranges of iron 
 teeth, a cavern of barbarities^ 
 
 " And therein were a thousand tongues empight 
 
 (placed), 
 Of sundry kinds and sundry quality. 
 Some were of dogs that barked day and night ; 
 And some of cats that wrawling still did cry, 
 And some of beares that groyn'd continually. 
 And some of tygres that did seem to gren 
 And snar at all that ever passed by. 
 But most of them were tongues of mortal men, 
 Which spake reprochfuUy, not caring where nor 
 
 when." 
 
 Gracious manners make shy people 
 easy, uphold the stumbler, uplift the 
 fallen. Graciousness can so sugar- 
 coat a " No " as to make it taste 
 like " Yes." Have we not sent away 
 an itinerant collector of subscriptions 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 23 
 
 with a happy smile on his face, but 
 with nothing in his hand, save his 
 little book ? We have even achieved 
 that marvel with a hawker of maps. 
 Did we not wield the magic of Ebed- 
 Melech ? These gracious manners 
 are natural in some people, artificial 
 in others ; but where they are natural 
 they have a deep tap-root. Those 
 who delve below the surface of things 
 in society come Xo learn] 
 
 " That God's grace is the only grace, 
 And every grace the gift of God." 
 
 Amongst the varieties of Ebed- 
 Melech's padding let us not forget 
 humour. It is a marvellous emol- 
 lient. From many a thunder-cloud 
 of opposing faces, and cross-currents 
 of angry wills, a happy pleasantry 
 will sometimes draw the lightning 
 harmlessly down, in a tinkling rain 
 of laughter. To see the humorous 
 side of a misfortune of our own, or 
 to enable a friend to see it in his, is 
 
24 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 to catch a refracted sunbeam in a 
 darkened sky. It brings a streak of 
 dawn into the night of despondency. 
 How happily that Scottish Professor 
 neutrahzed a piece of impertinence, 
 when some of his students had modi- 
 fied the announcement that " Pro- 
 fessor ' So and So ' will meet his 
 classes " on such a day, by striking 
 out the c. The Professor did not 
 lose his temper. He struck out the 
 I, and the victory was his. 
 
 The only warning note we would 
 sound is a note on the bugle of 
 Truth. There are some pains so 
 salutary, so necessary, that we ought 
 not to be defended from them. The 
 cry of the destitute, the wail of 
 neglected children, the groan of ihe 
 slave, the sob of the drunkard's wife, 
 the agonized prayer of the oppressed 
 and persecuted — woe be unto us if 
 we defend our ears and our hearts 
 against these. It is well we should 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 25 
 
 listen, and feel, and put our hands to 
 the work of rescue. Some of the 
 details which have to be laid before 
 the public in relation to the barbari- 
 ties practised on children, and the 
 dishonour of women, are foul and 
 offensive. But stand aside, good 
 Ebed-Melech ! you are not wanted 
 just yet. It is needful men and 
 women should be compelled to listen 
 to hateful facts, which are a summons 
 to them to lay aside their ease, and 
 hasten with their help. 
 
 " Am I become your enemy," said 
 Paul, " because I tell you the truth?" 
 The only safe padding for unpleasant 
 but vital truths is love. Many use 
 the padding of falsehood, but that is 
 emphatically " rotten rags," and not 
 from under any " king's treasury," 
 unless it be the treasury of the 
 " prince of' this world." He who 
 refused to drink the lulling myrrh in 
 His last dread agony will uphold us 
 
26 THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 
 
 in preferring the cutting of the words 
 of truth to the cushion of a lie. 
 
 But even painful truths may be so 
 gently imparted as to do their work 
 without useless suffering. The effi- 
 cacy of a medicine is not in exact 
 ratio with its nauseousness. Violence 
 is more frequently a sign of weakness 
 than of strength. It is a very trite 
 saying that the gentlest things are 
 the strongest, and if the world 
 digested all its trite truths, and 
 assimilated them, there would be 
 no occasion to reiterate them so 
 wearisomely ; but nails planted cen- 
 turies ago by Solomon have not even 
 yet been driven to the head, and the 
 fifth chapter of St. Matthew lies 
 mainly in the outside shed of " The 
 World and his Wife," and has not 
 been brought indoors for actual con- 
 sumption. Therefore we have to 
 sing our old song in praise of gentle 
 ways, their divinity, and their power ; 
 
THE KINDNESS OF EBED-MELECH. 27 
 
 and to say once more, What is more 
 gentle and more powerful than a 
 mother's love? And what greater 
 despot is there than the first babe ? 
 It is the gentle dew which is the 
 symbol of the mighty grace of God. 
 It is the soft sunlight which besieges 
 the castle of that fierce warrior, 
 Winter, and makes the forces of 
 General Frost surrender at discre- 
 tion, releasing from his dungeon the 
 captive flower-scents and imprisoned 
 songs. 
 
 Gentle love is the master key of 
 human hearts ; and when, in the 
 course of the mysterious evolution 
 of our spirits, we are elevated by 
 Divine grace to eminences now un- 
 dreamed of in the heavenly world, 
 we shall look humbly towards the 
 throne of Love, and say, "Thy 
 gentleness hath made me great." 
 
A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 
 
 A LIBJRARY of general literature, not 
 purchased by the yard, but gradually 
 and sympathetically gathered by the 
 owner, gives tolerably full and faith- 
 ful testimony to his character, for a 
 man is known by the company he 
 keeps; but a solicitor's library is as 
 taciturn as its owner. At one stroke, 
 therefore, a great part of the interest 
 aroused by a private view of a man.'s 
 library is shorn away. But there is 
 much left. 
 
 Amongst the foundations of a real- 
 property lawyer's learning lies Coke 
 upon Littleton, a mighty folio. Our 
 edition is the 13th, of 1788. The 
 first was issued in 1628. This is one 
 of the books much talked about, but 
 
A LAW YER 'S LIBRAR V. 29 
 
 little read, and by not a few lawyers 
 never seen, A great book, neverthe- 
 less, in every sense of the word. It 
 fills one with respectful awe to see 
 the ancient text of Littleton, treated 
 almost as deferentially, and quite as 
 exhaustively and voluminously, as the 
 text of the Four Gospels is treated 
 by profoundest commentators. 
 
 Coke was an old man when he 
 finished his Institutes, and tenderly 
 bequeathed his magnum opus to the 
 young enthusiasts who, he doubted 
 not, would follow him. Hcbc ego, he 
 says in his title-page, grandcevus posui 
 tihi, candide lector. 
 
 The secularist and agnostic age 
 upon which we have fallen may look 
 with silent reverence at the heading 
 of Sir Edward Coke's Procemium. It 
 is dedicated thus : 
 
 DEO 
 
 Patriae 
 
 tibi. 
 
30 A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 
 
 The tibi is meant for the candidus 
 lector, addressed on the title-page. 
 We trust that individual will see and 
 confess that there did once live a 
 lawyer, for whom a cheap funeral 
 could not be provided by leaving the 
 bedroom window open at night, and 
 deodorizing the room from the smell 
 of sulphur next morningj But the 
 gracious impression thus produced 
 may be, we admit, chastened upon 
 perusal of a little marginal note, 
 suggested by the " old Adam " resi- 
 dent in Coke, as perhaps in other 
 lawyers. It occurs in his mention 
 of the birth, parentage, arms, and 
 worldly position of Littleton. " The 
 dignity," he says, "of this fair de- 
 scended family, De Littleton, has 
 grown up and spread itself abroad 
 by matches made with many other 
 ancient and honourable families, and 
 many worthy and fruitful branches, 
 whose posterity flourish at this day, 
 
A LAW YER 'S LIBRAR Y. 3 1 
 
 and quartereth many fair coats, and 
 enjoyeth* fruitful and opulent in- 
 heritances thereby." 
 
 Coke shared in the overpowering 
 loyalty of the English to their great 
 Queen Elizabeth. He was not de- 
 terred by the fact that his book 
 was concerned with such prosaic 
 topics as estates, fines, recoveries 
 and ejectments j from waving his 
 irrelevant flag and cutting rhetorical 
 capers in honour of the greiat 
 Gloriana. He speaks of "many 
 learned men of old time, all honoured 
 and preferred by that thrice- noble 
 and virtuous Queen Elizabeth of 
 ever-blessed memory. In her reign 
 I learned many things which in these 
 Institutes I have published ; and of 
 this queen I may say that, as the 
 rose is the queen of flowers, and 
 smelleth more sweetly when it is 
 
 * In marg. : "The best kind of quartering of 
 arms," 
 
32 A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 
 
 plucked from the branch, so I may 
 say and justify, that she, by just 
 desert, was the queen of queens, 
 and of kings also, for religion, piety, 
 magnanimity and justice ; who now, 
 by remembrance thereof since Al- 
 mighty God gathered her to Him- 
 self, is of greater honour and renown 
 than when she was living in this 
 world. You cannot question what 
 rose I mean ; for, take the red or the 
 white, she was not only by- royal 
 descent and inherent birthright, but 
 by rosial beauty, the heir to both." 
 What do you think of that, candide 
 lector, for an outburst from the heart 
 of an old and dusty lawyer ? What 
 a juicy old soul he must have been to 
 have retained so much moisture after 
 a protracted sojourn in deserts, in- 
 fested by disseisins, contingent re- 
 mainders, enfeoffments, executory 
 devises, springing uses, and other 
 demons walking through the dry 
 places ! 
 
A LA WYER 'S LIBRAR Y. 33 
 
 One may laqgh at Coke's gallant 
 and impassioned loyalty, but one 
 cannot read without sincere respect 
 the language of natural piety in 
 which, all unconscious of our nine- 
 teenth-century terror of being thought 
 righteous overmuch, he closes his 
 Procemium thus : " Before I entered 
 into any of these parts of our Insti- 
 tutes, I, acknowledging mine own 
 weakness and want of judgment to 
 undertake great works, directed my 
 humble suit and prayer to the Author 
 of all goodness and wisdom ;" and 
 then he quotes a prayer out of " the 
 Wisdom of Solomon." 
 
 We rise, with our candidus lector, 
 into a balloon at the ,edge of the 
 Sahara of real property law — which 
 Coke travels like a camel provided 
 with an assortment of stomachs, and 
 spongy feet suited to the journey— 
 and descend with him on the other 
 side, at the " Epilogus," where we 
 
 3 
 
34 A LA WYER 'S LIBRAS Y. 
 
 take leave of Coke. In this "Epilogus" 
 he quotes the sentence, " Lex plus 
 laudatur, quando ratione probatur ;" 
 on hearing which sentiment, pre- 
 cisely half of all plaintiffs, and half of 
 all defendants, will display noses 
 " tip-tilted as the petal of a flower," 
 and repeat with scornful inflections 
 the word " quando." 
 
 His toil being completed, he in- 
 dulges in metaphor again. He " does 
 not dare that all that is said herein is 
 law," but " safely assumes that there 
 is nothing herein, but may open some 
 windows of the law to let in more 
 light to the student, by diligent 
 search to see the secrets of the 
 law." 
 
 Loyalty and piety, we have seen, 
 had a lodging in the breast of Coke, 
 and that touch about " rosial beauty" 
 leads one to conjecture that the 
 grandcBVUs had not forgotten his 
 gallantry ; but humour is conspicu- 
 
A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 35 
 
 ously absent. We thought we had 
 discovered it in the following sen- 
 tence, but the countenance of the 
 venerable man remained grave under 
 our scrutiny, and we found the 
 humour was our own unwarranted 
 interpretation. If the law is changed, 
 he says the student must inquire the 
 reason^ — " Knowing for certaine that 
 the law is unknowen to him who 
 knoweth not the reason thereof, and 
 that the knowne certaintie of the law is 
 the safety of alL" And he takes leave 
 of the young devotee, who is pre- 
 sumed to have achieved with him 
 the pilgrimage through the ilowerless 
 land ,of real property law, in this 
 fatherly way : ' And for a farewell to 
 our jurisprudent, I wish unto him 
 the gladsome light of jurisprudence, 
 the loveliness of temperance, the 
 stabilitie of fortitude, and the soliditie 
 of justice." 
 
 The author whom Coke, as com- 
 3—2 
 
36 A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 
 
 mentator, embowers in the wealth of 
 legal lore stored up in these " Insti- 
 tutes," carries us back at a bound to 
 very old times. His first edition 
 appeared in 148!!, only six or seven 
 years after Caxton had furnished the 
 wherewithal. He lies buried in a 
 " fair marble tomb " at Worcester 
 Cathedral, with the inscription, cut 
 in his lifetime by his own direction, 
 " Fill Dei miserere met," 
 
 Those were days when writers, 
 even on so dreary a topic as criminal 
 law, could find heart and leisure to 
 devise artistic title-pages. We have 
 before us a black-letter treatise of 
 1623, the title-page of which sets it , 
 forth as: " DE PACE REGIS ET 
 REGNI/ A treatise declaring which 
 be/ the great & general offences of 
 the/ realm * * which being re- 
 formed/ or duely checked/ Florebit 
 pax regis et regni." No doubt the 
 author, Ferdinand Pytton, rubbed 
 
A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 37 
 
 his hands over that well-balanced 
 title-page. 
 
 But we must pass on from these 
 old worthies to the more modern 
 occupants of our shelves. Favourite 
 law-books are like favourite toy-dogs ; 
 they are crammed in each successive 
 edition with fresh food of case-law, 
 and get fatter and fatter. Observing 
 how fat our "Addison on Contracts" 
 had grown in his eighth edition, we 
 took the trouble to compare his 
 breadth of beam with the dimensions 
 of his fifth edition — early manhood, 
 so to speak. In those days he mea- 
 sured only 3f inches across the back. 
 Now he has reached the portliness 
 of 5^ inches. Similarly Woodfall's 
 " Landlord and Tenant," and Dart's 
 " Vendors and Purchasers," have been 
 laying pn fat at a guite surprising 
 rate. 
 
 Do clients ever consider what toil 
 their men of law have to undergo in 
 
38 A LA WYER 'S LIBRAR Y. 
 
 keeping pace with the endless changes 
 of the statute law and vanishing of 
 case-law ? No sooner do we settle 
 down in some fold of law, and be- 
 come accustomed to its nooks and 
 corners, than the trumpet of the 
 reformer sounds, and we have to 
 
 " Rise and twitch our mantle blue'; 
 To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." 
 
 We are like cats ; we hate moving 
 into new houses ; but we are not 
 allowed to have any abiding city 
 anywhere. Ne^y Bankruptcy Acts, 
 Settled Land Acits, Conveyancing 
 and Law of Property Acts, Judica- 
 ture Acts — all call upon us to " for- 
 get the things that are behind," and 
 march abreast of that tireless Wan- 
 dering Jew, the Law-reformer. A 
 good man in a prayer-meeting, suffer- 
 ing his attachment to the words of 
 Scripture to overrun his desires, fer- 
 vently prayed that we might be 
 " ever learning, and never able to come 
 
A LA WYER 'S LIBRAR V. 39 
 
 to the knowledge of the truth." Some 
 of us lawyers feel as if that petition 
 had been fulfilled in our case. 
 
 There are two classes of books 
 that bulk largely in a lawyer's library. 
 First and foremost come " Reports," 
 and secondly " Precedents." 
 
 In roaming through a Surgical 
 Museum, and looking (as long as one 
 can without a desire for brandy and 
 water) at the horrid " Preparations," 
 we are sometimes smitten with the 
 painful thought, How much agony 
 is represented in those quiet glass 
 jars ! And so, as we contemplate 
 the rows of peaceful law-calf, we 
 cannot but extend a momentary 
 tribute of sympathy to the plaintiffs 
 and defendants whose struggles, 
 hopes, fears, doubts, hatreds, now 
 rest quietly, as specimens in our jars 
 of law. To a lawyer, the reports are 
 really interesting reading. They are 
 " truth embodied in a tale." They 
 
40 A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. 
 
 are working models— the principles, 
 on which he daily advises and pro- 
 ceeds, shown in action. He remem- 
 bers his principles more easily as 
 enshrined in the cases of Brown v. 
 Jones, Re Robinson, and In the 
 matter of Thompson's Trusts. May 
 it be some comfort to distressed 
 plaintiffs or defendants to reflect that 
 to them may fall the honour of fur- 
 nishing "leading cases"! Perish all 
 paltry thoughts of costs in the pre- 
 sence of such a possibility! Im- 
 mortality ! Who was Twyne ? Who 
 was Spencer ? Who was Shelley ? 
 We could repeat a long, roll of the 
 noble army of legal martyrs, most of 
 whom would be absolutely wiped out 
 of the memory of man, but for the 
 fact that fortune, or misfortune, 
 drove them into litigation, ^yhereby 
 now, and forever more, they stand 
 ennobled in Smith's or Tudor's 
 " Leading Cases." Oblivion for them is 
 
A LA WYER 'S LIBRAE Y. 4 1 
 
 an obsolete terror, a forgotten danger. 
 A worthy old countrywoman remem- 
 bered with satisfaction that the doctor 
 had said one of her grinders was the 
 hardest tooth he had ever had to pull 
 out in the whole county ; and would 
 she not have rejoiced at -the pain that 
 was the mother of immortality ? We 
 commend the soothing thought to 
 plaintiffs and defendants. 
 
 Books of Precedents must lie close 
 to the lawyer's hand. Bythewood, 
 Davidson and Prideaux are our 
 slaves of the lamp. A precedent or 
 common form is an economy of 
 thought ; but a form is a two-edged 
 knife, apt to wound the unskilful 
 handler. A form of conveyance, 
 mortgage, or will is only a perfectly 
 safe implement in the hands of a 
 man who, if time were given him, 
 could construct it himself from first 
 principles. The forms sold in the 
 shops have often proved snares to 
 
42 A LA WYER '5 LIBRAR Y. 
 
 those who did not know that six- 
 pennyworth of knowledge is a dan- 
 gerous thing. The law, however, is 
 very gentle with the laity who draw 
 up documents, and does its best, at 
 all times, to interpret and to enforce 
 them, according to the maxim quoted 
 with approval in Lilly's " Practical 
 Conveyancer," 1719 : " Benignce sunt 
 interpretationes chartarum propter sim- 
 plicitatem laicorum, ut res magis valeat 
 quam pereat." But the law is some- 
 times hard put to it. The laity may, 
 however, take the comfort of a tu 
 quoque, as they remember how the 
 most eminent of conveyancing 
 lawyers, Lord St. Leonards, left a 
 will, drawn by himself, that could 
 not be interpreted without a Chan- 
 cery suit ; and he was not alone in 
 this ignominy. 
 
 Omniscience is not an attribute of 
 lawyers, but it is one they are bound 
 to cultivate under penalty of crassa 
 
A LA WYES' S LIBRARY. 43 
 
 negligentia. Modern times have de- 
 veloped many new branches of law, 
 and no legal gentleman's library is 
 complete without books on Public 
 Health, Joint Stock Companies, 
 Registration and Election, Mining 
 Law, Railway, Gas and Water Con- 
 solidation, and other minor twigs of 
 the painfully flourishing tree of juris- 
 prudence. Add to these arid topics 
 the ne plus ultra of dreariness. Books 
 of Practice, Rules of the Supreme 
 Court, and cases thereon, and the 
 general reader will not wonder when 
 we assure him that lawyers, at home, 
 are the most voracious of all novel- 
 readers. 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington is reported 
 to have said that the art of war 
 largely consists in correctly guessing 
 "what is on the other side of the 
 hill." We do not know whether he 
 was thinking of the physical confor- 
 mation of the country, in valley and 
 river and plain, or of the number and 
 disposition of the foes concealed by 
 the intervening elevation. Perhaps 
 both. In either sense the saying 
 is applicable to the warfare of life. 
 
 The art of war, then, has some- 
 thing to do with the art of guessing ; 
 and a guess, if a good guess, is more 
 than a guess. We wrestle with lan- 
 guage in so saying, and an explana- 
 tion is needed. The popular notion 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 45 
 
 of a, guess is — a perfectly haphazard 
 solution — a chance pebblestone out 
 of the scrip of possibilities, slung at 
 the problem. Such an utterly ran- 
 dom shot scarcely requires an intel- 
 lectual effort. It is the " pure guess." 
 But the intelligent guess, the guess of 
 effort and insight, the clever guess, is 
 the combination' of acute observation 
 and sagacious, inference — assisted, 
 perhaps, by experience and analogy. 
 The " hills " of life, on the other side 
 of which lies our fate, are frequently 
 composed of the characters, the 
 actions, the behaviour of our fellow- 
 men. If we can tell with reasonable 
 certainty what A, B, or C will do 
 upon considering the circumstances 
 that have arisen, or upon learning 
 what we have done or said, then we 
 can guess " what is on the other side 
 of the hill," and act with decision 
 upon our conjecture. Take an illus- 
 tration : Two men were aware that 
 
46 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 each of them was going to tender for 
 an important contract. They were in 
 a coffee-room together, and each be- 
 lieved, correctly, that the other was 
 meditating his tender, as he sat with 
 letter-paper and blotting-book before 
 him. At last one of them, as if his 
 mind was fully made up, took his 
 pen, rapidly wrote some figures, took 
 the ink off on the blotting-paper, 
 placed the paper in an envelope, 
 directed it, and left the room as if to 
 post it. Directly he had gone, the 
 other stole up to the vacated seat, 
 held the blotting-paper up to the 
 light, made out the figures of the 
 tender, and, with a chuckle at his 
 own ingenuity, forthwith filled up a 
 tender for a slightly lower sum, and 
 duly despatched it. But he did not 
 get the contract, and curiosity at last 
 drove him to ask the other man how 
 it was. " I suppose," was the reply, 
 "that you found out what you 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 47 
 
 thought I had tendered?" "Yes." 
 " You found it Out by spying through 
 the blotting-paper?" "Yes." "I 
 knew you would, and I misled you." 
 
 The successful competitor made a 
 correct guess of "what was on the 
 other side of the hill." 
 
 The Italian game of Mora — the 
 same game as the English " Odd or 
 Even " — finds its fascination in try- 
 ing to probe the workings of your 
 adversary's mind.. Agonizing are the 
 efforts of the guesser to follow the 
 probable surmises which his adver- 
 sary has formed as to the degree of 
 the guesser's penetration. The in- 
 tricacy of the mental operation 
 resembles the bewildering repeated 
 reflections of reflections in two op- 
 posing mirrors. 
 
 The mysterious success of some 
 business men, and the equally mys- 
 terious failure of others as hnoest and 
 industrious and capable as they, de- 
 
48 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 pend on this faculty of correct 
 guessing at "what is on the other 
 side of the hill " — a faculty which, as 
 we have said, resolves itself mainly 
 into observation and inference, aided 
 by experience. Can this be culti- 
 vated ? Unquestionably. No doubt 
 the Red Indian of our childhood was 
 partly a manufactured article from 
 the brain of Mr. Fenimore Cooper 
 and other story- writers ; but we sup- 
 pose he was partly genuine, and that 
 his remarkable dexterity in following 
 up trails was not the invention of the 
 novelist. How did he succeed where 
 the white man would fail ? Simply 
 by trained observation. Observation 
 depends upon voluntary attention, 
 and that depends upon the interest 
 felt in the object. Sometimes there 
 is a portentously rapid natural de- 
 velopment of the faculty of observa- 
 tion, as in the case of falling in love. 
 Conversation without language in the 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 49 
 
 case of disembodied spirits becomes 
 an intelligible and credible theory to 
 those who have passed through that 
 region of romance. 
 
 But the faculty may be cultivated 
 in a more mechanical way, with no 
 intoxicating fragrance in the air. 
 Robert Houdin, the conjurer, used 
 to train his little son by causing him 
 to pass at an ordinary pace before a 
 shop-front full of miscellaneous wares, 
 and then ascertaining how many 
 articles he could specify. By con- 
 stant practice of this kind, remark- 
 able proficiency may be attained in 
 rapid cognition of a promiscuous 
 assemblage of things flashed at once 
 on the retina. And the absence of 
 this power in average persons is what 
 the conjuTer may safely rely on for 
 the success of many of his experi- 
 ments. By some gesture or sound 
 he compels the attention of his ob- 
 servers for a second of time, and in a 
 
 4 
 
50 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 fraction of that second the trick is 
 done. 
 
 Education in rapid and compre- 
 hensive observation would be abso- 
 lutely essential as " standard woi'k," 
 if it were not for the discipline of 
 life outside of school-hours. There 
 is great educational value in many 
 games full of sweet allurement to 
 the faculties. The Kindergarten system 
 takes full advantage of this. There 
 are plentiful and inevitable thorns in 
 the pathway of personal evolution we 
 are called to tread ; it is well, there- 
 fore, to plant flowers, where we can, 
 in the little learner's pathway. 
 
 " What is on the other side of the 
 hill ?" is a question which, when put 
 by children toiling up the mount of 
 knowledge, and the still steeper ascent 
 of moral self-conquest, can receive a 
 full answer, though it be not free 
 from that solemn incertitude which 
 besets the future of us all. We can 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 51 
 
 show them, in the example of adult 
 lives in progress around them, that 
 " on the other side of the hill" is the 
 tableland of manhood ; and on the 
 gently descending slope towards old 
 age there are men doing noble work 
 for their families, their town, their 
 country, their race and generation, 
 with tools like to those the children 
 are fashioning and learning to wield 
 in their classes and in their worthier 
 sorts of games. Dear boy ! let me 
 set you on my shoulder ! See the 
 Black Knight waving his tremendous 
 axe in semicircles of light. Listen to 
 the crash as it falls on the oaken 
 postern of the ruffian's castle, where 
 Ivanhoe and Rebecca are imprisoned ! 
 The flinders ily at the mighty strokes. 
 The brave helmet flinches not under 
 the rain of stones from above. The 
 postern yields. In rush the Black 
 Knight and his followers, and the 
 prisoners are saved. Go back to 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 school, my boy, fired with enthusiasm 
 to become a doughty warrior in the 
 battle of life against the enemies of 
 the life eternal, and learn to handle 
 your battle-axe. 
 
 There is a large element of certainty 
 in the contour of " the other side of 
 the hill ;" but can we make any safe 
 calculations in the uncertain region 
 of the actions, tempers, fortunes, of 
 the other men and women whose 
 lives will press against our own ? 
 We may cast our own horoscope, so 
 far as it is governed by our moral 
 character in early life, our struggles 
 and our conflicts, our victories and 
 defeats ; but the vast ocean of our 
 uncertainty about the doings and 
 failings of the crowd of other souls 
 who will jostle us in our road seems 
 at first glance somewhat terrifying. 
 
 Take an illustration : Here is a 
 trustee, one of three trustees to 
 whose care large funds are com- 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 53 
 
 mitted under settlement or will. He 
 knows his co-trustees are honourable 
 and exact men ; and the understand- 
 ing is that he is to be a passive 
 trustee, ready to act if required, but 
 not bound to trouble himself till 
 called upon to intervene. Years roll 
 on ; one of his co-trustees dies. 
 Another with the best intentions, 
 through mere muddle - headedness, 
 loses a great part of the trust-money. 
 Then rises up a new generation of 
 the beneficiaries, without generosity 
 or memory of the original under- 
 standing. They turn upon the 
 passive trustee and demand accounts, 
 vouchers, proofs, for all the period 
 of the trust, and cast on him the 
 responsibility of every mistake and 
 all the losses. It is easy to get some 
 lawyer, who will take only a dry 
 legal view of the case, to fight it, and 
 then the victim becomes defendant 
 in a Chancery action. He knows 
 
S4 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 with what cold-blooded justice most 
 of our judges investigate the transac- 
 tions of trustees, and very probably, 
 though his conduct may have been 
 high-minded and free from blame 
 before Heaven, he suffers heavy 
 damages and costs, or pays " black- 
 mail " to purchase his manumission. 
 
 Now, when that trustee made the 
 kindly mistake of becoming a trustee 
 at all, could he have conjectured 
 what was on " the other side of the 
 hill " ? Ask him, and he will pos- 
 sibly reply : "I could not have 
 guessed all ; but I might have 
 guessed much — guessed enough to 
 have prevented my accepting the 
 perilous responsibility." 
 
 It is " easy to be wise after, the 
 event ;" but he would not be wrong 
 in making that reply. Let us con- 
 sider what he knew. He knew the 
 Sinaitic rigour of the English law 
 against trustees ; he knew the large 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 55 
 
 proportion of ungrateful souls among 
 every second generation of bene- 
 ficiaries; he knew that for the ma- 
 jority of the human race the power 
 to get money by ungenerous and 
 ungrateful ways gets the mastery of 
 nobler impulses ; and knowing all 
 this, had he not the means of guess- 
 ing what was on " the other side of 
 the hill " ? 
 
 Illustrations in abundance swarm 
 on us when we peruse the advertise- 
 ments in our daily papers : large 
 incomes to be obtained with very 
 slight effort — enormous mineral 
 wealth lavishly offered to the public 
 by projectors bursting with philan- 
 thropy, and only requiring the trifling 
 mark of confidence indicated by 
 applying for shares and paying a 
 deposit — money lent on mere per- 
 sonal security, and so forth. These 
 nets do catch birds ; those webs do 
 entangle flies ; fishes do bite at these 
 
S6 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 baits. And then we have wails from 
 the victims. But did they try, before 
 parting with their money, to guess 
 what was " on the other side of the 
 hill," behind which they fondly 
 thought they saw the sunrise of their 
 fortunes? Did they consider the 
 extreme improbability of anyone in 
 this selfish world being so devoid of 
 relatives and friends as to be com- 
 pelled to spend money in finding 
 recipients for his glittering benefac- 
 tions ? Did they inquire of experts, 
 before they imitated, the Vicar of 
 Wakefield's son and made their final 
 exchange for a " gross of green 
 spectacles " ? They knew that sel- 
 fishness, self-interest, cupidity, were 
 certainly on the other side of the 
 hill, and perhaps they admit they 
 might have made a better guess as to 
 the rest of the prospect. 
 
 How often, in married life, is there 
 occasion to lament that either hus- 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. S; 
 
 band or wife, or both, did not more 
 correctly guess what was on the 
 other side of the hill before the irre- 
 vocable words were exchanged ! 
 There are many aids to good guess- 
 ing — testimony of friends and rela- 
 tives, known hereditary proclivities/ 
 manifest tastes and tendencies. Let 
 us admit that the greatest sagacity 
 cannot always foresee what is likely 
 to happen; but very often bystanders, 
 as they see the pair of lovers mount 
 the hill and disappear on the other 
 side, can hazard a not very wide 
 conjecture as to what will be found 
 there. 
 
 But there is one code, or index, of 
 certainties about what iS "on the 
 other side of the hill " which we 
 have not yet opened — namely, the 
 steadfastness of the moral as well as 
 of the physical law. No one expects 
 that on the other side of a literal 
 hill water will flow Upwards, or the 
 
S8 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 law of gravitation tamely accept any 
 insult, or light be reflected at any 
 other angle than the angle of inci- 
 dence, or sound-waves alter their 
 velocity of vibration, or any other 
 fundamental decree be changed. Yet 
 there are people who seem to believe 
 that on the other side of a meta- 
 phorical hill moral laws will be found 
 entirely changed. Grapes will hang 
 on thorns, and figs adorn thistles. 
 Wild oats are to be sown, and finest 
 wheat reaped. If on " this side of 
 the hill " we firmly attach ourselves 
 to some Divine law or promise, the 
 operation of which will not be ex- 
 hausted on the journey, then we 
 know what is on " the other side of 
 the hill " — namely, the working out 
 of that law, the fulfilment of that 
 promise. 
 
 " Across the border " is a phrase 
 that starts many trains of medita- 
 tion. How many times have we put 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. S9 
 
 our finger on one and another date 
 in the calendar and said : " On that 
 day I shall cross the ridge ; I shall 
 look down into the valley on the 
 other side of the hill, and enter on 
 hitherto untried conditions of life." 
 There is the day when the lad leaves 
 school " for good." One of the first 
 twinges of sentiment that we can 
 recall thrilled us when, in the dim 
 light of seven o'clock on a December 
 morning, we stood on the top of the 
 hill opposite to that on which our 
 .boarding-school stood — the fly toiling 
 up behind with lugga;ge — and made 
 out the obscure outlines of the house, 
 the fir-grove behind, the fish-pond in 
 front, and well-known nooks and 
 lanes that should know us again no 
 more. The last view, in that winter's 
 dawn, was so dim and ghostly, that 
 it was more like memory than 
 vision; and when the sun was up 
 we were far away. To how many 
 
6o THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 
 
 horizon-lines, since our school-days, 
 have we looked onward with the 
 solemnity that befits the termination 
 of an epoch, . boundaries where we 
 should take a farewell — half pitiful, 
 half joyous — of the familiar, and 
 clasp hands falteringly with the un- 
 known ! With what undefined mis- 
 givings, what plaintive music in the 
 soul, as of an ^Eolian harp voiced by 
 melancholy autumn winds, have we 
 left the old and well-known scenes 
 behind us, and gone forth to meet 
 the new ! 
 
 The words " never more " subdue 
 the heart like slow, soft organ-music 
 in the hush of dying day. And yet 
 we must all have noticed that, how- 
 ever great the change of circum- 
 stance might seem as we approached 
 it, no sooner had we actually entered 
 its circle than it began to take upon 
 it a familiar appearance, as a noble 
 father's hall might do to the eyes of 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. 6 1 
 
 a boy stolen from it in babyhood by 
 gipsies. That for which God in- 
 tended and fitted us can never long 
 be strange. We dare say a butterfly, 
 the moment its wings are dry and it 
 has taken a flutter or two, feels as if 
 it had been a butterfly all its life. 
 The ransomed and purified souls 
 that have been long imprisoned in 
 the larva of the body and the chrysalis 
 of the tomb, will flash into a glorious 
 familiarity with their new and splen- 
 did conditions of existence when they 
 rise to meet their noble destiny. 
 
PARABLES 
 
 AND 
 
 APOLOGUES. 
 

 THE OBLIGING SKELETON. 
 
 The difficulties which poverty pre- 
 sents to progress in knowledge may 
 often be overcome by an alert seizure 
 of opportunities. A young man, of 
 whom I have read, furnishes me with 
 an illustration. I do not vouch for 
 the truth of the story ; there is room 
 for hesitation in accepting it as 
 authentic; the lesson it conveys may 
 be received freely. 
 
 This young man was a student of 
 anatomy, but had not access to a real 
 human skeleton. He heard, however, 
 that in a certain churchyard at night, 
 a skeleton was accustomed to appear 
 to such belated travellers as took the 
 churchyard path. This seemed to 
 offer gratuitous instruction to the im- 
 
 5 
 
66 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 pecunious devotee of science. He 
 took a lantern one night and sought 
 the resting-place of the dead, of whom 
 one was so very restless. The skele- 
 ton appeared. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," said the student; 
 " pray be seated on that horizontal 
 stone — or stand, if you prefer it. May 
 I confie a little closer ? Now I can 
 observe. Your skull seems quite per- 
 fect. I note the thorax, formed by 
 the twelve dorsal vertebrae, ribs, and 
 sternum. I think I can see all I 
 want to see of the vertebrae, from 
 cervical to lumbar, without troubling 
 you to turn round. If you would 
 kindly bend down towards me, I 
 could master the relative positions 
 of the frontal bone, parietal and 
 temporal bones, and occipital bone. 
 You lift your right hand to the sky. 
 Very impressive. Please do it again. 
 It enables me to make a study of the 
 humerus, radius, and ulna, and the 
 
THE OBLIGING SKELETON. 67 
 
 movement of the humerus in the 
 glenoid cavity. What ! must you 
 go? Well, I suppose you have an 
 appointment to keep elsewhere. 
 Would it be too much to ask you to 
 be here to-morrow night at the same 
 hour ? I trust that even in your 
 present circumstances of total de- 
 privatipn, you are able to feel some 
 pleasure in being useful. I do not 
 know whereabouts you feel it, but 
 that is a mere detail. Good-night." 
 I am sure it is unnecessary to say 
 that that diligent young man was 
 well rewarded for stopping up late at 
 night, though early hours are the 
 most healthy. Need I assure any of 
 my readers that he rose to a high 
 rank in his profession? and though 
 he lived to have many skeletons of 
 his own (in cupboards), yet he always 
 gratefully remembered the service 
 rendered to him in his youth by this 
 peripatetic inhabitant of the old 
 
 5—2 
 
68 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 churchyard, and it was always 
 understood that these kindly feelings 
 were reciprocated by the midnight 
 wanderer. 
 
 Young men ! seize your oppor- 
 tunities of acquiring knowledge, and 
 let no false delicacy stand in your 
 way. 
 
 r 
 
 A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I AM the Bright Poker. I live in the 
 drawing-room. As I have nothing 
 to do, and do it, and can live with- 
 out working, I may be described els 
 a gentleman. It would be correct 
 to address me as Bright Poker, Esq. 
 I move in the best society. My 
 intimate associates are the Honour- 
 able Mr. Shovel, and the Very 
 Reverend Long Tongs. We are all 
 kept bright at the public expense. 
 The Very Reverend Long Tbngs 
 has a curate, the Reverend Short 
 
A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 69 
 
 Tongs. Mr, Shovel has a servant 
 named Coalscoop, and I have a 
 Working Poker. Curate.. Short 
 Tongs, with Scoop, and my own 
 brisk little factor, do all the work. 
 In revolutionary times, when demo- 
 cratic boys come hoihe from school, 
 we three principals are sometimes 
 rudely set to work ; but the in- 
 decency is speedily rebuked by the 
 feminine head of the household. 
 I have even heard the master of 
 the house jeer at us as ornamental 
 vanities, but I know my status and 
 value better than he does. Why, 
 if you were to banish me, and 
 the Honourable Shovel, and Very 
 Reverend Tongs, think what a 
 dangerous precedent you would set ! 
 I defy you to venture on it ! You 
 daren't. You would shake the 
 foundation of the Constitution. 
 Once establish the principle that 
 those who do the work should have 
 
70 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 the pay, and where are you? Not 
 a vested interest would be safe, and 
 where would Britain be then ? , In 
 realms political and realms ecclesi- 
 astical could you afford to dispense 
 with me and my relations ? Many 
 Christians of the greatest respecta- 
 bility come to put their feet on our 
 fender, who are too superfine to be 
 thrust into the fire of political strife. 
 They share the cooking that is done 
 in the kitchen fire, but they are 
 careful to separate themselves from 
 " agitation " and Working Pokers. 
 How could you aifront their tender 
 and beautiful feelings ? 
 
 There is a point in which I am 
 superior to my human analogues. 
 I am above the meanness of stir- 
 ring the fire exactly at the moment 
 when the company gather round, 
 and the coals are all ready to de- 
 liver a glorious burst of flame, which 
 will call forth rapturous encomiums. 
 
A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 71 
 
 I let the Working Poker do the 
 business to the last, and take the 
 credit. You don't. If an agitation 
 be got up about a burning question, 
 your Bright Pokers hover about, 
 waiting till the question is burning 
 enough to make a grand blaze, and 
 then they come and hustle the 
 Working Pokers, and give a few 
 graceful ornamental flourishes at the 
 coals. At the last great meeting 
 which you hold on any question of 
 the day, you adorn the walls with 
 placards informing the public that 
 the chair will be taken by B. Poker, 
 Esq., and the meeting will be ad- 
 dressed by the Very Reverend L. 
 Tongs, the Honourable Mr. Shovel, 
 and other influential gentlemen. I 
 always know when the hard work 
 is over, and the glory beginning, by 
 seeing these gentry trotting eagerly 
 to the front. 
 
72 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 THE LIVELY NIGHTMARE. 
 
 An ecclesiastical Nightmare was 
 wandering about seeking for the 
 chest of some sleeper who had 
 supped on cold pork. At length it 
 found an ecclesiastical / dignitary 
 who had supped on Wejlsh rabbit, 
 which is equally indigestible. The 
 Nightmare squatted on qim, and he 
 dreamed. He thought that Religion, 
 a celestial maiden, had fled to his 
 palace for refug^r^om^a Vampire- 
 corpse, called! f Nonconformity, which 
 had left its coifin and was prowling 
 about with dreadful intent. At 
 length the sleeper imagined he saw 
 the Vampire scrambling in at his 
 window. He tried to scream, but 
 only produced a feeble little remon- 
 strance like a penny trumpet. Nor 
 could he stir to defend his guest 
 Religion. The horrid Thing drew 
 nearer, and laid its dead hand on 
 
THE LIVELY NIGHTMARE. 73 
 
 his cheek. Then the dreamer howled 
 himself awake, and the Nightmare 
 scuttled oif, quite satisfied. On 
 fully recovering consciousness the 
 terrified victim of indigestion dis- 
 covered that the cold hand laid on 
 his cheek was his own hand, which, 
 by being outside the blankets, had 
 got half frozen, and had materially 
 lightened the labours of the Night- 
 mare. 
 
 Moral : Religion has not been 
 reduced to the humiliation of taking 
 refuge with one body of Christians 
 for protection against the evil designs 
 of other bodies of Christians. Non- 
 conformity is not a Vampire-corpse, 
 but a living, breathing, warm-hearted 
 and warm-handed member of the 
 Christian brotherhood. Spiritual 
 slumber and indigestion are the 
 causes of the dead-cold hand of 
 exclusiveness and pride. 
 
74 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 THE PROUD BROCADE. 
 
 A CERTAIN silk • Brocade Dress of 
 great antiquity was so stiff and 
 rich that it could stand upright of 
 itself, with nobody inside it. This 
 was regarded as conclusive evidence 
 of its great respectability and high 
 family. It therefore strongly ob- 
 jected to be hung up in the same 
 cupboard with gowns and frocks 
 made but yesterday, and it rustled 
 against them in a menacing way. 
 The despised garments remonstrated. 
 
 " It is true," they said, " that we 
 cannot stand up with nobody in- 
 side us ; but, at least, we fit our 
 wearers, we are well-made, and 
 answer all the purposes of dress. 
 If the wearers change in height or 
 breadth they will want new dresses ; 
 the wearer is of more importance 
 than the raiment." 
 
 The Brocade only replied : 
 
THE PROUD BROCADE. 75 
 
 " You are but of yesterday ; I am 
 ancient, and can stand up by my- 
 self." 
 
 Moral : Forms of Church govern- 
 ment and ecclesiastical systems are 
 clothes. Living, Christian souls are 
 the wearers. Spirit first, and body 
 afterwards ; and " to every seed his 
 own body." 
 
 THE SUPERCILIOUS BALLOON. 
 
 A Balloon having been filled with 
 gas, the cords binding it to the 
 earth were loosened, with the usual 
 result. 
 
 " I observe," said the Balloon, as 
 the gas carried it up into the clouds, 
 " that there is a serious defection on 
 the part of the earth ; it is falling 
 away from me." 
 
 Moral : A charge of defection and 
 
76 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 culpable dissent is often the result 
 of flatulent self-conceit on the part 
 of those who make it. 
 
 r 
 
 THE NONCONFORMIST WHALE. 
 
 A Horse and an Ox browsing near 
 the seashore were discussing the 
 momentous question : Who is in- 
 cluded in the True Church of the 
 Mammalia ? 
 
 "There are slight differences of 
 ritual, my dear fellow-quadruped," 
 said the Horse, " between you and 
 me. You chew the cud, and I 
 do not. Still, we are one in the 
 great sacrament of grass and fresh 
 water ; we are branches of the same 
 Church." 
 
 At that moment a Whale was 
 seen blowing in the distance. 
 
 " Look," said the Ox, " at that 
 dissenter. How strange its life and 
 
THE NONCONFORMIST WHALE. 77 
 
 manners ! How hopeless its plight 
 in that waste of salt water, with no 
 feet to rest on solid ground, no 
 participation in grass and fresh 
 watei: — a mere fish." 
 
 And yet, after all, the Whale was 
 as true a Mammal as the Horse and 
 Ox. 
 
 Moral : Ecclesiastical inclusions 
 and exclusions count for very little 
 with those who know. 
 
 THE CONTINUOUS MONKEYS. 
 
 A PARTY of monkeys in an African 
 forest had swung themselves over 
 a stream, in their well-known and 
 ingenious manner, by making a 
 chain of monkeys holding one an- 
 other's tails, of which chain one 
 end was suspended to a high over- 
 hanging branch, and the other end 
 was set a-swinging till it swung over 
 
78 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 the stream and caught a correspond', 
 ing branch on the opposite side ; 
 whereupon the movable end be- 
 came the fixed end, and the living 
 links dropped off one by one on 
 the further shore. Their hearts 
 swelled with pride as they saw a 
 chimpanzee on the shore of their 
 arrival contemplating the process. 
 
 " We arrive here," said they in 
 a dignified tone, "by the principle 
 and method of continuity." 
 
 " So I see," said the chimpanzee. 
 " How do you do ? I hope your 
 tails are no worse. I have been 
 here all the time. I hope you will 
 enjoy yourselves." 
 
 Moral : Historical continuity is 
 interesting, but not important. The 
 great question for Churches is not, 
 " How did you get here ?" but, 
 " Where are you ?" 
 
THE CONCEITED TAP. 79 
 
 THE CONCEITED TAP. 
 
 A Tap which formed the outlet for 
 water that had travelled ten miles 
 in pipes lived next door to an 
 Artesian Well which delivered its 
 fresh and unfailing stream through 
 a Spout. But the Tap declined to 
 be introduced to the Spout. 
 
 " I am connected," it said, " with 
 ten miles of pipe, and one must 
 preserve self-respect ; I do not see 
 why this Spout should be allowed in 
 my parish." 
 
 The Spout was too busy pouring 
 forth its living water to find time for 
 reply. 
 
 Moral ; Those who have discovered 
 the heavenly fountain springing up 
 at their feet are apt to be blind to 
 the advantages of long ecclesiastical 
 conduitsj 
 
8o PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 THE AGGRIEVED KITTEN. 
 
 A Cat had two kittens, which she 
 named Ephraim and Judah. Judah 
 was the elder and stronger ; also the 
 more greedy. Judah would lap up 
 his own saucer of milk, and then 
 lap up Ephraim's, who had none to 
 spare. Ephraim, therefore, " swore " 
 at Judah. The Cat said she trusted 
 a time would come when Ephraim 
 would not eiivy Judah, nor Judah 
 vex Ephraim. Ephraim said, in an 
 aggrieved tone, that he did not envy 
 Judah, but he wanted his share of 
 the milk, and there ought to be 
 equality. Judah replied that he 
 religiously objected to political con- 
 troversy. 
 
 Moral : National funds should be 
 equitably distributed for national 
 purposes, and not appropriated to 
 the aggrandisement of one religious 
 body. 
 
THE BATHING ESTABLISHMENT. 8i 
 
 THE FASHIONABLE BATHING 
 ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 There was on the banks of a river 
 a bathing establishment of great 
 pretensions. A portion of the river 
 was enclosed to form the bath, the 
 stream flowing freely through it, 
 entering and leaving the enclosure 
 through lattice-work. On the land- 
 ward side the establishment pre- 
 sented an imposing Gothic elevation, 
 and the bathing-tickets were issued 
 by most respectable and responsible 
 persons in lawn-sleeves, " clothed 
 in white samite, mystic, wonderful," 
 But there were many lively youths 
 who declined to take the official 
 tickets, and cared not to pass through 
 the Gothic porch and decorated 
 corridors into the orthodox bathing 
 establishment, lit by stained glass 
 windows. In answer to remon- 
 strances, they said they preferred 
 
 6 
 
82 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 the free sun and air, and it was 
 the same water. So they plunged 
 in from the bank outside. 
 
 Moral : A grand bathing establish- 
 ment does not improve the quality 
 of "the river of the water of life." 
 The only important thing is that a 
 man should bathe in the sacred 
 stream. 
 
 r 
 
 THE QUARRELSOME NIGHTCAPS. 
 
 The cap of clouds on the summit 
 of Helvellyn was heard to speak 
 in disrespectful terms of the cap of 
 clouds on the peak of Skiddaw, 
 and Skiddaw returned an angry 
 echo. 
 
 " My children," said a voice out 
 of the blue sky, " I am the Aqueous 
 Vapour ; you, and all the caps on 
 the other peaks, are only my con- 
 
THE QUARRELSOME NIGHTCAPS. 83 
 
 densations, made visible by coming 
 in touch with darth's aspiring rocks. 
 Visible or invisible, you are one with 
 each other in me." 
 
 Moral: The visible differences of 
 the sects belong to their terrestrial 
 relations. Whether they know it 
 or not, they are one with each other 
 in the viewless, but only real, unity 
 of the one true Church in heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 r 
 
 THE VARIEGATED FOUNTAINS. 
 
 The fountains at the Crystal Palace, 
 being turned on for exhibition on a 
 festival-day, began to institute com- 
 parisons and indulge their egotisms. 
 The biggest of all claimed to be the 
 fountain, averring that all the rest 
 were sectarian squirts. The smaller 
 ones replied that their varied forms 
 
 6—2 
 
84 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 added to the beauty of the exhibi- 
 tion, and that all — small and great — 
 were fed from the same/water-tower. 
 
 Moral : Big churches and little 
 churches are suppliec^fromi the same 
 Heavenly Fount, and their diverse 
 forms and modes jare in harmony 
 with the deligfetfiai! variety of God's 
 handiwork throughout creation. 
 
 r 
 
 MASTER SMIJTH. 
 
 In a certain school there were a 
 great many boys belonging to the 
 widely-spread Smith family. Some 
 were written down as Smyth, others 
 as Smythe ; one or two were 
 Smits ; and one Latinized himself as 
 Faber. This Latin fellow was treated 
 with much respect. There was also 
 a Greek fellow, Siderurgos, but he 
 was not reckoned worth a row of 
 pins. The English Smiths, on the 
 
MASTER SMIJTH. 85 
 
 whole, stuck together ; but there was 
 one very big fellow, who was deter- 
 mined to be boss of all his com- 
 patriots, and he distinguished him- 
 self by a "j," and announced that he 
 was THE Smith, and that if any 
 other Smith presumed to claim 
 equality he would lick him. As he 
 was big enough to do it to any one or 
 two of them, he got his own way for 
 a time. When any cake came to the 
 school for "Master Smith," the big 
 Smith said firmly, though ungram- 
 matically, " That's me !" Some- 
 times he would give a little piece 
 to the Smith for whom it was really 
 meant, and sometimes he wouldn't. 
 He would not walk with the other 
 English Smiths to church of a Sun- 
 day, but used to go arm-in-arm with 
 Faber, and very occasionally with 
 Siderurgos. 
 
 But one day the English Smiths 
 banded together, and with one voice 
 
86 PARABLES AND APOLOGUES. 
 
 said to the bumptious one : " Now, 
 look here, big Smijth, we've had 
 enough of this ; if you can't behave 
 decently, and not take our cakes and 
 be as cocky as if you owned a third 
 of creation, we are strong enough to 
 make you." Smijth measured them 
 up with his eyes, and, being quite 
 shrewd enough tp see it was true 
 they could, he said they were his 
 dear brethren, and he would do as 
 they wished. They were much 
 affected by this lovely spirit, but 
 privately instructed the school-porter, 
 on his peril, to see that future parcels 
 were properly distributed to the re- 
 spective Smiths entitled thereto. 
 
 Moral : Left for the intelligent 
 reader to construct for himself. 
 
A WORD WITH DR. THOMAS 
 FULLER ON SUNDRY TOPICS. 
 
 Thomas Fuller, D.D., M.A., Rector 
 of Broad Winsor, Prebend of Salis- 
 bury Cathedral, and ultimately chap- 
 lain to Charles II. (surely a sinecure 
 office !), lived in stormy times, and 
 narrowly escaped shipwreck. In 
 1642 he preached a sermon in 
 Westminster Abbey in espousal of 
 the cause of Charles I., from a text 
 which gives a sufficient clue to the 
 sermon : " Yea, let him take all, so 
 that my lord the king return in 
 peace." Fuller had well-nigh gone 
 to pieces on the rock of that unlucky 
 discourse. About the same time he 
 published his " Holy aild Profane 
 State," our favourite work of his 
 
88 A WORD WITS DR. FULLER. 
 
 pen, and even the most sombre of 
 his antagonists must have felt that so 
 genial a humorist was better outside 
 gaol than inside. He was, however, 
 deprived of his Prebend's office, and 
 suffered a decree of sequestratipn. 
 With the Restoration Fuller's for- 
 tunes were restored, and he was 
 within sight of a bishopric when 
 Death summoned him, and he be- 
 came, in the words of a contem- 
 porary, " fuller's earth." 
 
 Kindly wit and true wisdom are 
 to be found in Fuller's writings, and 
 playing on topics as fresh in our c(ay 
 as his. Of these we propose Ito' 
 give some specimens, with a context 
 of our own. 
 
 RIDICULE 
 
 is a weapon which will always be 
 worn at the side of the literary 
 soldier. Some foes can most easily 
 be thus despatched — ^the children of 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 89 
 
 superstition, ghostly enemies, vapor- 
 ous pretensions, things without sub- 
 stance, but with infinite power to 
 scare the soul, mandates of per- 
 verse fashion, objectionable social 
 customs — yes ! there are armies set 
 in array against our peace of mind that 
 are to be met and conquered by 
 laughter, which clears murky air like 
 a thunderstorm. " The man who 
 would stab a ghost would stick at 
 nothing." Sheathe your contro- 
 versial dagger and try an explosion 
 of humour. See if his ghostship 
 will not wither as if he heard the 
 voice of chanticleer. Punch is not 
 without a mission. May he always 
 use it as well, as purely and hu- 
 manely, as he has generally done 
 throughout his journalistic career ! 
 There are demons for which ridicule 
 is the spear of Ithuriel, the tradi- 
 tional splash of holy water, under 
 which they fizz and writhe and stand 
 
90 A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 
 
 disclosed for what they are. We are 
 too wary to name those demons 
 here, but we have our eye on some 
 of them, and their severe solemnity 
 betrays their knowledge of it. 
 Laughter is the nitric acid that 
 distinguishes the true gold, and all 
 philosophies and doctrines must pass 
 under its baptism, and receive the 
 credentials awarded to a successful 
 passage through its ordeal. No true 
 thing need fear it. Christianity 
 stood this minor trial amongst its 
 fiercer fires i of , martyrdom. For 
 illustration we need only refer to the 
 well-known graffito discovered in a 
 chamber in Rome, occupied in apos- 
 tolic times by the Pretorian Guard. 
 Rudely scratched on the wall is a 
 human figure, extended on a cross, 
 with an ass's head. Underneath is 
 the rudely-drawn figure of a Roman 
 legionary in the attitude of worship, 
 and the inscription, " Alexamenos 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER 91 
 
 worships his god." Unquestionably 
 it was the work of a Roman soldier, 
 testing, by the acid of a jest, the 
 faith of his comrade in a crucified 
 Saviour. 
 
 A man who cannot bear that his 
 opinions should be laughed at would 
 do well to .reconsider them. Con- 
 duct that a giggle can disconcert is 
 not securely mortised into our con- 
 victions. " Blessed is the man who 
 endureth the temptation " of being 
 laughed at. The tree of his faith 
 and life has stood the gale from 
 one quarter of the heavens, at all 
 events — the wind from the bitter 
 sneering east; and he will await 
 the assaults of the other three 
 quarters with the more confidence. 
 These are thoughts for those who 
 have to sustain laughter ; but there 
 are considerations for those who 
 bend its bow and shoot its arrows, 
 as well as for those who stand in 
 
92 A WORD WITS DR. FULLER. 
 
 their polished mail to withstand 
 them. Let not the arrows be 
 poisoned with malice, or barbed 
 with profanity. Even in shooting 
 at scarecrows let us tenderly re- 
 member there are those to whom 
 that scarecrow is a deity, or, at 
 least, an honoured fetich. Now for 
 a word or two from Thomas 
 Fuller : 
 
 " It is good to make a jest, but 
 not to make a trade of jesting. 
 The Earl of Leicester, knowing that 
 Queen Elizabeth was much de- 
 lighted to see a gentleman dance 
 well, brought the master of a 
 dancing-school to dance before her. 
 ' Pish !' said the Queen, ' it is his 
 profession ; I will not see him.' " 
 
 "Jest not with the two-edged 
 sword of God's Word. Will nothing 
 please thee, to wash thy hands in, 
 but the font ?" 
 
 " Wanton jests make fools laugh, 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 93 
 
 and wise men frown. Let us not be 
 naked savages in our talk." 
 
 " Scoff not at the natural defects 
 of any which are not in their power 
 to amend. Oh, it is cruelty to beat 
 a cripple with his own crutches ! 
 Neither flout any for his profes- 
 sion, if horiest, though poor and 
 painful. Mock not a cobbler for his 
 black thumbs." 
 
 OF SELF-PRAISING 
 
 Fuller says some smart things : 
 
 " He whose own worth doth 
 speak need not speak his own 
 worth." 
 
 "Some sail to the port of their 
 own praise by a side wind ; as when 
 they dispraise themselves, stripping 
 themselves naked of what is their 
 due, that the modesty of the beholders 
 may clothe them with it again; or 
 when they flatter another to his 
 
94 A WORD WITH DS. FULLER. 
 
 face, tossing the ball to him, that he 
 may throw it back again to them." 
 
 " He that falls into sin is a man ; 
 that grieves at it is a saint ; that 
 boasteth of it is a devil." 
 
 " Many (who would sooner creep 
 into a scabbard than draw a sword) 
 boast of their robberies to usurp the 
 esteem of valour; whereas first let 
 them be well whipped for their 
 lying ; and, as they like that, let 
 them come afterward and entitle 
 themselves to the gallows.", 
 
 ANGER 
 
 is a topic on which it is worth our 
 while to listen to what any wise 
 man can say. For there are some 
 natures in which it is an excessive 
 element, and some in w'hich it is 
 defective. ' Each class requires the 
 mirror to be held up to it, that the 
 excess or defect may be seen, and < 
 effort made for its redress. 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 95 
 
 Anger is one form or manifesta- 
 tion of the life of the spirit. It is 
 the reaction of the spirit against 
 that which would chill it, and brings 
 the life-blood to the surface. We 
 estimate and value the life accord- 
 ing to the nature of the reaction. 
 The anger proves the man. If there 
 be no reaction the man is torpid, 
 lethargic and moribund. If the re- 
 action be most intense against that 
 which threatens the man's self- 
 interest, the life comes to the 
 window and shows itself; but it is 
 a low type of life, that of the sel- 
 fish man. If, on the contrary, the 
 man scarcely rises in action against 
 threats that touch his pocket, his 
 goods, his self-interest, save to take 
 some cold precautionary movement 
 of prudence, but blazes up when 
 truth and goodness are assailed, 
 when the innocent are maligned, 
 the poor oppressed, or the weak 
 
96 A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 
 
 trampled upon, then, too, we see thi 
 life "in evidence" — a noble life, re 
 senting injustice, cruelty, and wrong 
 One gauge of a man's character wil 
 be found in the answer to the ques 
 tion. What makes him angry' 
 Apply the test to the only perfecth 
 noble character the world has evei 
 seen, " the Son of Man." Whai 
 made Him angry ? Not the coarse 
 taunts, rude gibes, insults and in^ 
 juries, culminating in the murderous 
 hatred of ecclesiastics, and the kiss 
 of Judas. But when the official 
 religion of the time stood between 
 Him and an act of mercy, when the 
 path of His pitying love towards the 
 man with the withered hand was 
 sought to be barred by priests and 
 scribes, with the trumpery canons 
 and rules of their Church, then His 
 anger flamed forth. " He looked 
 round about on them with anger." 
 Fuller says of anger : 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 97 
 
 "Anger is one of the sinews of 
 the soul. He that wants it hath a 
 maimed mind, and, with Jaqob, 
 sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his 
 thigh, must needs halt." 
 
 " Be not mortally angry with any 
 for a venial fault. He will make 
 a strange combustion in the state 
 of his soul, who, at the landing of 
 every cock-boat, sets the beacons 
 on fire." 
 
 "Anger, kept till the next morn- 
 ing, with manna, doth putrefy and 
 corrupt. Save that manna corrupted 
 not at all (and anger most of all), 
 kept the next Sabbath. St. Paul 
 saith, ' Let not the sun go down 
 on your wrath,' to carry news to 
 the antipodes, of thy revengeful 
 nature. Yet let us take the Apostle's 
 meaning, rather than his words — 
 with all possible speed to depose 
 our passion ; not understanding him 
 so literally that we may take leave 
 
98 A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 
 
 to be angry till suaset ; then might 
 our wrath lengthen with the days, 
 and men in Greenland, where day 
 lasts above a quarter of a year, have 
 plentiful scope of revenge. 
 
 " He that keeps anger long in his 
 bosom giveth place to the devil. 
 And why should we make room for 
 him who will crowd in too fast of 
 himself ? Heat of passion makes our 
 souls to chap, and the devil creeps in 
 at the crannies." 
 
 ATHfelSTS. 
 
 "Atheist," and "Infidel," and 
 " Sceptic," like the older " mis- 
 creant " (misbeliever), belong to the 
 class of disfigured words in which the 
 original meaning has suffered from the 
 foul incrustation of human jealousies, 
 pride,, hatred, bigotry, and all un-^ 
 charitableness. They are alniost be- 
 yond purging into fitness for their 
 
A WORD WITh DR. FULLER. 99 
 
 original use. So we describe those 
 who suffer from the grievous misfor- 
 tune of not being able to believe the 
 grandest tidings with which the 
 arches of this world have ever rung, 
 by the term of their own invention — 
 " Agnostics," " the know-nothings," 
 modern representatives of Ignaro, 
 the porter of the castle invaded by 
 the Red Cross Knight, Sir Guyon 
 (Spenser's "Faery Queene"), who, 
 to every question of the exasperated 
 knight, softly and slowly answered, 
 " I do not know." But the old sour 
 and aggressive form of infidelity is 
 not yet dead, and there are unbe- 
 lievers who cannot be fairly and 
 fully described by the gentle nega- 
 tive "Agnostic." They not only 
 trumpet forth their own unbelief in 
 the facts and doctrines of the Gospel, 
 but they assault and besmirch with 
 scornful vituperation those who are 
 happy enough to possess faith, and 
 
 7—2 
 
100 A WORD WITS DR. FULLER. 
 
 indicate by their inflamed temper 
 the secret uneasiness of their con- 
 science. 
 
 It is of such that Fuller writes : 
 " The Atheist takes exception at 
 God's Word. He keeps a register 
 of many difficult places of Scripture, 
 not that he desires satisfaction 
 therein, but delights to puzzle divines 
 therewith. Unnecessary questions 
 out of the Bible are his most neces- 
 sary study ; and he is more curious 
 to know where Lazarus's soul was 
 the four days he lay in the grave, 
 than careful to provide for his own 
 soul when he shall be dead. Thus is 
 it just with God that they who will 
 not feed on the plain meat of His 
 Word should be choked with the 
 bones thereof." 
 
 THE TRUE CHURCH ANTIQUARY. 
 
 Fuller was a firm Churchman. 
 We may, therefore, quote without 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. loi 
 
 offence what he says about ecclesi- 
 astical antiquities. It is an odd 
 thing that, whereas a child is sup- 
 posed to grow in wisdom as it grows 
 in years, the race is supposed (by 
 some) to grow more feeble as it 
 travels farther from its source. 
 " The wisdom of our ancestors " is 
 regarded by not a few with a respect 
 that would satisfy Confucius ; and, 
 in theological controversies, to be 
 able to quote Augustine, Cyprian, 
 Tertullian, Justin, is to make an end 
 of all contention. Why these emi- 
 nent men, who disagreed in many 
 things with one another, should be 
 supposed capable of forming a better 
 judgment than eminent men of our 
 own time is not very obvious. One 
 would think that in the realm of 
 eternal truth, to which the means of 
 access and the prerogatives of every 
 seeking mind are the same in the 
 nineteenth century as in the third, 
 
102 A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 
 
 the date of a man's birth should not 
 be of any paramount importance. 
 It is impossible to avoid the belief 
 that sometimes the learned in dead 
 languages, the travellers in wilds of 
 antiquated speculative theology, are 
 playing off upon us the terrors of a 
 Terra Incognita. We decline to fall 
 on our knees before old crusted port 
 of dateless vintage, or to see super- 
 natural genius in all " old masters." 
 We are sensitively alive to the poetry 
 of the half- buried ' Sphin,x, the 
 crumbling castle, the Druidic circle, 
 the ivy-mantled tower ; but poetry is 
 at home in the twilight. We think 
 we live in a brighter day — brighter in 
 morals and religion as well as in 
 science. Where' religious truth is 
 wrapt up in facts, incarnate in them, 
 inseparable from them, there the all- 
 important thing is to gather the 
 testimony of eye-witnesses of the 
 facts, and to sift and test it by all 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 103 
 
 legitimate means. The facts (in- 
 cluding the words of the actors) 
 being once ascertained, or brought 
 within the scope of those strong 
 probabilities On which all our con- 
 duct has to be built, we are as 
 capable of drawing conclusions as 
 men who lived a thousand or fifteen 
 hundred years ago, perhaps more so. 
 An ancient blunder is not more re- 
 spectable than a brand-new one. 
 " The hoary head is a crown of glory 
 if it be found in the way of righteous- 
 ness ;" but a hoary head or a hoary 
 creed is not venerable merely for its 
 age. 
 
 On this point Fuller has some 
 good sayings : 
 
 "The True Church Antiquary 
 baits at middle antiquity, but lodges 
 not till he comes at that which is 
 ancient indeed ... A Utile skill in 
 antiquity inclines a man to Popery ; 
 but de^ih in that study brings hifli 
 
104 ^ WORD WITH DR. FULLER. 
 
 about again to our religion. A noble- 
 man who had heard of the extreme 
 age of one dwelling not far off, made 
 a journey to visit him; and finding 
 an aged person sitting in the chimney- 
 corner, addressed himself unto him 
 with admiration of his age, till his 
 mistake was rectified : for, ' Oh, sir,' 
 said the young-old man, ' I am not he 
 whom you seek for, but his son ; my 
 father is farther off in the field.' The 
 same error is daily committed by the 
 Romish Church adoring the reverend 
 brow and gray hairs of some ancient 
 ceremony, perchance but of some 
 seven or eight hundred years' stand- 
 ing in the Church ; and they mistake 
 these for their fathers, of far greater 
 age in the primitive times. 
 
 " He (the True Church Antiquary) 
 doth not so adore the ancients as to 
 despise the moderns. Grant them 
 but dwarfs, yet stand they on giants' 
 shoulders, and may see the further. 
 
A WORD WITH DR. FULLER. los 
 
 Sure, as stout champions of truth 
 follow in the rear as ever marched in 
 front. Besides, as one excellently 
 observes, ' Antiquitas saculi juventus 
 mundi.' ' These tim,es are the ancient 
 times, when the world is ancient.' " 
 
 Dressing a shop-window is an art. 
 Whether we have made as good a 
 display as we might of the wares of 
 Thomas Fuller may be open to ques- 
 tion by those who are familiar with 
 the wise old humorist ; but we sub- 
 mit that what we have brought to the 
 front have at least such value as 
 should make passers-by stop, gaze, 
 and finally " enter and look round." 
 
ON VEILS. 
 
 VEILED FACES. 
 
 Walking along the footpath, I met a 
 lady for whom, at the distance of 
 several yards, I felt a sudden pity, 
 which disappeared as we passed each 
 other. She appeared to have a great 
 number of pink pimples on her face, 
 distributed with curious regularity. 
 On coming close to her, I saw that 
 she wore a diaphanous veil, and that 
 these spbts were ornaments on the 
 veil. 
 
 This threw me into a meditation. 
 Many of us wear spotty veils. There 
 is the sea-captain of the old type, 
 who "clothed himself with curses as 
 with a garment," and is pitted all 
 
ON VEILS. 107 
 
 over with his execrations. But the 
 heart of the fruit is often sounder 
 than the rind, and the veil of prepos- 
 terous blasphemies sometimes hides 
 a nature tender to women and 
 children, and gentle to the suffering. 
 Why, O sea-dog, should you array 
 your humanity in so ugly a veil ? 
 Those who contemplate you through 
 that medium attribute the ugly 
 blotches of profanity to your inner- 
 most nature. It is of no avail to say 
 they "mean nothing." Moreover, 
 these poison-patches have a way of 
 working themselves inwardly to the 
 vitals, after the fashion of the shirt of 
 Nessus. 
 
 At the moral antipodes of the old 
 captain is the man of deep feeling, 
 lofty aspiration, and passionate sym- 
 pathies with the noblest destiny pos- 
 sible to man, who veils it all with a 
 gauze of levity, spotted perhaps with 
 unworthy quips and cranks. Why 
 
io8 ON VEILS. 
 
 should we be ashamed of seeming as 
 serious as we really are ? Perhaps 
 it is in indignant protest against 
 those who wear a veil of sanctimoni- 
 ousness, spotted with texts of Scrip- 
 ture, over souls discoloured by lust 
 and lies. But in either case it is 
 affectation, and should be discarded. 
 Hypocritical godlessness is hardly 
 more to be respected than hypo- 
 critical religion. 
 
 VEILED SOULS. 
 
 All souls should wear veils.. And 
 the more fine and delicate the tracery 
 of the soul, the more carefully should 
 the veil be adjusted. The sacerdotal^ 
 injunction to divest the soul of all 
 covering, before the eye of some 
 poor fellow-creature in the confes- 
 sional-box, who there usurps God's 
 prerogative, is a command which, if 
 complied with, humbles the spul for 
 evermore, so that thereafter it cannot 
 
ON VEILS, 109 
 
 walk quite erect, but cowers before 
 the presence, or at the recollection, ot 
 the man who has seen its shame. 
 This injury is the most serious to 
 the finest spirits. There are coarse 
 natures in plenty, to which the turn- 
 ing of themselves inside out seems 
 of no more consequence than to 
 a polype or a glove. If there be a 
 Holy of Holies in the temple of their 
 hearts, they have never discovered 
 it, and they trot anyone who likes 
 through the sacred edifice, from top 
 to bottom, with glee. They have 
 nothing to veil — these raw souls, 
 bundles of spiritual leather just out 
 of the tan-pit — pig-iroh just run from 
 the furnace. But after the Divine 
 Artificer has been at work upon the 
 raw material, shaping it into celestial 
 designs, touching it into beauty, in- 
 scribing the first letters of the " new 
 name, which no man knoweth, save 
 he that receiveth it," then the instinct 
 
no ON VEILS. 
 
 of self-veiling seizes on the spirit, and 
 woe betide it if it recklessly ^hrow 
 the veil aside. Who shall say what 
 melancholy deterioration seizes upon 
 the artist's models whose nude 
 figures are portrayed on the walls 
 of our Royal Academy ? Who shall 
 say at what price of ruinous humilia- , 
 tion of sweet souls the public enjoy 
 the spectacle of the lovely female 
 forms that are there exhibited ? 
 And who shall say what analogous 
 harm comes to the spirit that permits 
 itself to be too minutely inspected 
 and coarsely handled ? 
 
 Cultured and highly organized 
 spirits have many veils. The states- 
 man wears his veils in Parliament; 
 the Judge upon the bench. When 
 statesman or judge goes home, he 
 throws off the outer veil, which, with 
 reminiscence of the Jewish Taber- 
 nacle, we will call the " veil of 
 badgers'-skins." Before his loved 
 
ON VEILS. Ill 
 
 and loving children the " veil of ram- 
 skins " follows, and they look upon the 
 " veil of goat-skins," To the eyes of 
 the wife, equal in age and experience 
 of life, and joined in the sweet con- 
 fidences of married life, the veil of 
 goat-skins is cast aside, and she looks 
 upon the " veil of fine-twined linen." 
 But even to the nearest and dearest 
 eyes there remains that veil — a veil 
 only laid aside in the soul's com- 
 munion with Him who " dwells in 
 its Holy Place." Before those 
 serene and loving, though righteous 
 and holy, eyes of our Maker there 
 should be something beyond the 
 mere cold cognizance bf Omni- 
 science ; there should be the con- 
 sciousness of unveiling, self-contem- 
 plation, in the essential light that 
 allows no haze, adds no tints, and 
 permits no distortion, but shows the 
 soul to itself as God sees it, in a 
 revelation of " the truth, the whole 
 
112 ON VEILS. 
 
 truth, and nothing but the truth, so 
 help me, God," as the old forensic 
 oath runs. Flooded by that uncom- 
 promising brightness, pride, self-con- ' 
 "ceit, the incrustations of flattery and 
 ignorant or insincere praise of men, 
 and all manner of self-deceptions, 
 peel off the soul. It comes forth from 
 that interview with Light and Love, 
 purified, chastened, and humble. 
 
 VEILETD PATHWAYS. 
 
 I remember, in early life, driving 
 into Wharfedale at sunrise one 
 winter's morning. From the heights 
 of Otley Chevin, I looked down into 
 the valley through which my path 
 lay for many miles ; but the eye only 
 rested on a sea of fog, or travelled 
 over it to the distant hills that rose 
 on the other side of the sea, and 
 caught , the early sunbeams. It 
 seemed to me like my life's pathway, 
 which then lay before me, veiled in 
 
ON VEILS. 113 
 
 the mist of my ignorance of its 
 pleasing or painful incidents, appal- 
 ling in its uncertainties, but present- 
 ing two solid facts : a good road at 
 my feet, and the everlasting hills in the 
 distance — two facts linked together 
 by my knowledge that the one led 
 to the other. The mist in lovely 
 Wharfedale was not so intense that 
 I could fail to know the road, or read 
 the directions on the finger-posts, 
 and I descended, wrapped in fog and 
 meditation, into the silent, cold and 
 clinging vapour. 
 
 I believe that young men and 
 young women are not infrequently 
 oppressed by the veiling clouds that 
 persistently trail before them and 
 around them. They desire the veil 
 to be uplifted. They would see 
 " things to come." They flirt with 
 tricky spiritualists, and tamper with 
 planchettes. They concentrate the 
 whole will on the act of vision, peer 
 
 8 
 
114 ON VEILS. 
 
 into the future in the spirit and 
 power of a gimlet or a bradawl, and 
 see nothing. But let them be of 
 good cheer. The road is sound and 
 palpable under their feet ; and from 
 rising grounds of faith they may 
 behold, now and again, the distant 
 sunlit hills of heaven. 
 
 Is it not well that our way should 
 be thus hidden ? Constituted as we 
 are, would not the inevitable troubles 
 and pains of life crowd upon us 
 through the lenses of our telescope 
 of disastrous foresight and crush us ? 
 and would not its pleasures be half 
 drained by imaginary fruition before 
 they were reached ? and would not 
 our moiling in the future demoralize 
 our present? Yes; we may thank 
 God for the veil on life's pathway. 
 Let us not desire the vision of the 
 seer. Seers were ever sorrowful folk. 
 " Take short views," and be thankful 
 you can take no other. The compass 
 
ON VEILS. 115 
 
 points as true in a fog as in the 
 clearest air; and the compass of an 
 honest conscience, instructed out of 
 God's Word, laughs at uncertainty. 
 The road may be steep, may be 
 narrow, as well as mist-veiled, but 
 never doubtful to the man of single 
 mind. We shall come to the brink 
 of the river at last ; and many stories, 
 as true as strange, are told of the 
 sudden radiance, the flashing revela- 
 tion, that bathes the redeemed spirit 
 in the moment of transition to the 
 region " beyond the veil." Mourn- 
 ing friends around the dying bed are 
 startled by a momentary participation 
 in the light that greets the entrance 
 of the spirit into eternal day. 
 
 VEILED FRIENDS AND VEILED 
 
 ENEMIES. 
 
 If Satan occasionally appears as an 
 angel of light, on the other hand, 
 men and women, who are angelically 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 ON VEILS. 
 
 good, do manage now and then 
 to array themselves in habiHments 
 that seem to have been purloined 
 from wardrobes not angelic, and 
 thereby assist the operations of the 
 great Master of the Art of Lying. 
 Satan's wardrobe is by no means 
 limited to the full dress of an angel ; 
 he " plays many parts," and suits his 
 attire to his intended victim. " Inno- 
 cent Gaiety" is a favourite disguise 
 of his, especially with the young ; but. 
 it would be doing great injustice to 
 his skill to suppose him restricted to 
 one or two " make-ups." He can 
 look very attractive as a " Searcher 
 after Truth," and " Pure Science " 
 is a get-up in which he does great 
 execution. The more advanced his 
 intended quarry is in spiritual things, 
 the more intricate and elaborate the 
 deceptions into which he insinuates 
 himself. 
 
 There is a fine imaginative touch 
 
ON VEILS. 117 
 
 in a print of Albert Durer's hung in 
 one of the rooms pf the British 
 Museum. It represents the Tempta- 
 tion. Eve is standing at the foot 
 of the tree. Satan, in the guise of a 
 beautiful serpent, is sliding down the 
 tree, and with polished courtesy is 
 offering to get the apple for Eve, as if 
 he should say, "The apples are beau- 
 tiful, dear madam, are they not? 
 Pray allow me to get one for you !" 
 Satan takes care to well grease the 
 ways down which the vessel that 
 carries a soul can glide to damnation. 
 No courtesy shall be wanting on his 
 part. And this Durer emphasizes, 
 shrewdly depicting a sleek old cat, 
 sitting bunched-up, cat-fashion, as if 
 dozing, but with one eye half open, 
 watching a mouse that plays nearer 
 and nearer. 
 
 Satan himself, of course, is un- 
 adulterated enmity, dnd his friend- 
 ship is absolute falsity. But one 
 
ii8 ON VEILS. 
 
 cannot say that of men and women, 
 who are merely his tools, and who do 
 his work with a dash of goodness of 
 heart, of natural kindliness, bon- 
 homie, and goodwill, which weakens 
 resistance and fascinates the prey. 
 We have, in such a case, intended 
 friendship veiling unintentional en- 
 mity — a very seductive arrangement. 
 It is very kind of my friend to ask 
 me to dine with him : " Come and 
 take pot-luck with me, old fellow !" 
 an invitation enforced by a cheery 
 slap on the back ; but much depends 
 on the cook, after all. 
 
 I have sat at a table where my first 
 mouthful of pbdding included a large 
 piece of broken glass. Its size saved 
 me. And I have, also, personally 
 met with a pudding which disclosed, 
 at the first cut, the remains of two 
 fine cockroaches. Before we accept 
 a proffered meal or a proffered 
 friendship, it is well to have a com- 
 
ON VEILS. 119 
 
 mittee of all the senses — eyes, ears, 
 and nose, or their spiritual counter- 
 parts ; otherwise we may find things 
 as unpleasant as surprising " behind 
 the veil." I sometimes look down 
 the decorous columns of advertise- 
 ments for governesses, nursery-maids, 
 young lady-assistants, and so forth, 
 and wonder what fat spider lies 
 veiled behind this or that cobweb of 
 an advertisement, begemmed >jvith 
 glittering dewdrops of promises. 
 
 The sad stories I thus glance at 
 are, it is needless to say, stories of 
 deliberate ambuscades for souls, and 
 bodies, and purses ; but there is 
 many an unwholesome friendship 
 which is, in its way, sincere and 
 well-meant. Let us remember that, 
 spiritually, no man can give what he 
 has not got ; and when a friendship 
 is offered to us, let us first inquire of 
 what treasures of knowledge and 
 virtue the offerer can ask us to 
 
120 ON VEILS. 
 
 partake. Is it a feast worth sitting 
 down to ? 
 
 A lady had a favourite cat, to 
 which she had given many a tit-bit. 
 One day the grateful animal leaped 
 up on her lap at dinner, and de- 
 posited a fine mouse in her plate. 
 It was kindly done on the cat's part. 
 It was an act of sincere friendship. 
 If a young man receives overtures of 
 close companionship from ever so 
 " good " a " fellow," yet one whose 
 tastes are not those of the noble life, 
 probably ere long the good fellow 
 will, with fraternal love, put a mouSe 
 on his plate, in the shape of ignoble 
 talk, low suggestion, vulgar pastime. 
 It is hidden from him that his friend- 
 ship veils an enmity to his young 
 comrade's spirit. He " means well." 
 But his own nature, his own destiny, 
 the character of his own life, are 
 veiled from him, and therefore from 
 his " friend." 
 
ON VEILS. 121 
 
 Some friendships are unhappily 
 veiled by shyness. Neither likes to 
 be the first to speak. Sensitive 
 hearts fear rebuffs. It is like the 
 case of certain chemical elements, 
 capable of closest combination, but 
 incapable of intimate approach with- 
 out the aid of a medium. Blessed 
 be the electric spark, or other 
 medium, that assists the fore-or- 
 dained union ! The judicious hand 
 of the common friend will not tear off 
 the veil from either moiety of the 
 predestined unity, but will gently lift 
 it aside, and puff at it with little 
 kindly zephyrs ; for shyness is not a 
 sin or a vice, but is nearly allied to 
 humility and modesty. 
 
 Sonie friendships are still more 
 lamentably veiled by slander, scandal, 
 misrepresentation ; met by the an- 
 swering veil of pride, and of the self- 
 withdrawal of wounded love. How 
 shall one teach the pen to write 
 
122 ON VEILS. 
 
 calmly of this pest of social life ? 
 Egyptian frogs and lice, Australian 
 rabbits and thistles, the Hessian fly, 
 the Colorado beetle, and the Arabian 
 locust, all present their, testimonials 
 to me, and ask to be engaged as 
 similitudes of the tattling liar and 
 tale-bearer. The carrion-crow and 
 the bluebottle fly also hand in their 
 credentials. 
 
 It is desperately hard work to tell 
 the simple truth of a story just as 
 you receive it. Do any of my readers 
 doubt that ? Then let them try the 
 Russian game. Let a dozen people 
 sit in a circle ; let one whisper a little 
 narrative to his neighbour, and so let 
 it pass round from ear to ear. Then 
 let the last recipient tell the story 
 aloud as he received it, and, in moSt 
 cases, it will considerably astonish 
 the first narrator. What chance, 
 then, is there for the poor little 
 naked truth, when everyone who 
 
ON VEILS. 123 
 
 passes it on finds Ms reputation as a 
 story-teller enhanced by each little 
 ray of picturesque falsehood he can 
 manage to hang on its shoulders? 
 The gossip is everybody's enemy, 
 and should be boycotted. Many 
 lovely friendships have been sun- 
 dered by some gauzy fabric of 
 false scandal dropped between, and 
 stricken hearts have retreated from 
 one another for ever behind the veils 
 woven of slander for the warp, 
 and hasty credulousness for the 
 weft. One cannot but allude to 
 Coleridge's familiar lines : 
 
 " Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
 But whispering tongues can poison truth. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 
 
 But never either found another 
 To free the hollow heart from paining ; 
 They stood aloof, the sears remaining, 
 Like cliffs which have been rent asunder." 
 
^C»fi«f_>v>^«^-5d#, 
 
 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 Shareholders iii companies can be 
 present at general meetings either 
 personally or by proxy, and the 
 penny proxy stamp contributes its 
 share to the revenue. There are 
 advantages and disadvantages in 
 attending to our duties or our 
 interests by proxy. It is an advan- 
 tage in sickness, or press of busi- 
 ness, or laziness, to sign a paper, 
 and deliver your conscience, your 
 judgment, and your vote to a friend ; 
 it is a disadvantage not to be present 
 yourself to listen to arguments and 
 ioin in discussion. 
 
 The plan of working by proxy is 
 widely adopted beyond the region of 
 commerce and financial concerns. 
 
UPON PROXIES, I2S 
 
 Courting by proxy is not unknown. 
 It has its perils, as Miles Standish 
 discovered when he sent John Alden 
 to woo the fair Puritan Priscilla on 
 his behalf. John Alden chivalrously 
 pleaded for his captain : 
 
 " But as he warmed and glowed in his simple and 
 eloquent language, 
 
 Quite forgetful of self, and full of praise of his 
 rival, 
 
 Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes over- 
 running with laughter, 
 
 Said, in a tremulous voice ; ' Why don't you 
 speak for yourself, John ?' " 
 
 Unquestionably Miles Standish 
 made a mistake in sending the 
 most honourable, but withal most 
 fascinating John Alden on such an 
 errand. If he was too shy to go 
 himself, he might have entrusted 
 Miss ' Standish (if he had a sister) 
 with the overture to his life's oratorio, 
 whilst he plucked up courage for his 
 bass recitative " I love you," and 
 the air " Will you marry me ?" But 
 there are dumb proxies that speak 
 
126 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 very intelligibly to young ladies. 
 The " Language of Flowers " is 
 almost as unintelligible to us as the 
 language of physicians' prescriptions; 
 and as we would not venture (not 
 being chemists) to make up a potion 
 lest we should poison the patient, so 
 we would not construct a posy for 
 an anxious lover. We might do 
 him irreparable mischief by inserting 
 in. his iioral declaration of attach- 
 ment some unlucky blossom, signify- 
 ing that he considered the beloved 
 one to be a shallow-pated iiirt, or 
 something equally uncomplimentary. 
 Inexpert as we are in floral proxies, 
 we should restrict ourselves to a 
 moss-rose bud. That, we believe, is 
 safe ground. But very likely a dex- 
 terous manipulator would be able to 
 express himself in carrots and turnips 
 and cabbages, if other and more 
 elegant vegetable messengers failed 
 him. 
 
UPON PROXIES. 127 
 
 We write in this doubtful strain 
 because we are not convinced of the 
 canonical value of the only printed 
 guide to the language of flowers 
 which we possess. We are under 
 the apprehension that modern floral 
 proxies cannot be trusted to vote and 
 speak in the same way as they did 
 when this booklet was published. 
 But if we might place confidence in 
 its code, we could recommend various 
 mixtures to the lovers. They may 
 send a nosegay of China rose, 
 camellia, and lilac, and thereby will 
 whisper this pretty sentence : " Your 
 gracefulness and unpretending ex- 
 cellence awaken in me the first 
 emotion of love." But consider, O 
 youth, by whose hands you send your 
 missive. Let it be by the hands of 
 ignorance, lest, with knowledge of 
 the floral tongue^ he wickedly insert 
 a blossom of auricula, which will add 
 to the above tender speech the 
 
128 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 affronting insinuation " You paint ;" 
 or the barberry, which says, " You 
 are sour-tempered;" or the scarlet 
 poppy, which charges the recipient 
 with being " fantastically extravagant." 
 Probably you may get no answer to 
 your first floral application. Natur- 
 ally you are in a hurry. Instead of 
 repeating " the mixture as before," 
 we would prescribe a bouquet com- 
 posed of balsam, arum, Christmas 
 rose, peach-blossom, and hemlock.' 
 We are filled with admiration at the 
 task we have set you in getting all 
 those materials together on one day 
 in the year; but if you can, and if 
 the servant at the house of your be- 
 loved does not throw the inelegant 
 posy on the dustheap, you will have 
 uttered in the adored one's ear the 
 following articulate sigh : " I am im- 
 patient and full of ardour; I am 
 your captive ; relieve m}' anxiety, or 
 you will cause my death." 
 
UPON PROXIES. 129 
 
 In ihese days of artificial flowers 
 we suggest a new industry; to wit, 
 the making up of sentimental bou- 
 quets to order. A love-proxy shop 
 is a charming and, as far as we know, 
 a novel suggestion. This is copy- 
 right. Infringers will be requested 
 to furnish the name of their solici- 
 tor. 
 
 Sympathy and pity also have 
 their proxies. After the hearse 
 come the mourners, inextricably 
 mixed up with the pseudo-mourners, 
 who, by a worldly parody of the 
 heavenly beatitude, are prematurely 
 " blessed " and " comforted " by the 
 perception of legacies; and after 
 these creep the train of proxies, the 
 private and empty carriages of 
 Messrs. A, B, C, and the rest. It is 
 not our custom in these days to en- 
 gage mourners to weep and wail with 
 hired lamentations at so much per 
 dozen ; but we cry by means of our 
 
 9 
 
130 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 coachmen and grooms, and with 
 expensive funeral wreaths. There 
 is a grave in Montmartre cemetery, , 
 above which is a votive tablet, the 
 offering of admiring friends, upon 
 which tablet is carved a colossal 
 tear, and the words " Judge how we 
 loved him !"-^a gigantic proxy-tear 
 in stone. 
 
 Religion is a field fertile with de- 
 lights to those who are botanizing 
 for forms of proxy. It produces 
 them as fir-eely as rich garden mould 
 brings forth weeds. Men sing 
 praises to their Maker, and offer 
 prayers, and proclaim the Gospel, 
 and evangelize the heathen, and 
 visit the fatherless and widows in 
 their affliction, and tend the sick, 
 iand feed the hungry, and clothe the 
 naked, without opening their mouths 
 or moving from their pews or chairs ; 
 so admirably complete is the system 
 of proxy- — the lazy Christian's plan 
 
UPON PROXIES. 131 
 
 of campaign in the Holy War. One 
 of the most interesting specimens of 
 proxy-piety that we have met with 
 was given in America, before the 
 Civil War. An old lady bequeathed 
 her two slaves, John and Jane, hus- 
 band and wife, to the trustees of her 
 church, "to be used as far as pos- 
 sible for the glory of God." After 
 meditation and prayer, the church 
 officers sold their legacy by auction, 
 and with the proceeds sent a mis- 
 sionary to China. 
 
 We remember a professional ac- 
 quaintance of ours, a man in middle 
 life when we were young, of whom, 
 in some moment of unusual frank- 
 ness in conversation, we ventured to 
 ask his views on man's destiny, and 
 his own in particular. He replied, 
 with a cheery laugh : " Oh, I am in 
 
 the same boat with old C ," an 
 
 elderly clergyman, whom our friend 
 "sat under." He disclaimed all 
 
 9—2 
 
132 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 creeds, all special religious know- 
 ledge, all responsibility. He held 
 
 the St. J 's ticket, and was a 
 
 spiritual client of " old C ." He 
 
 expected " old C " would do all 
 
 that was needful for him in spiritual 
 things, just as he did for his clients 
 in their legal embarrassments. " Old 
 
 C " held his proxy for the world 
 
 to come. We believe youthful 
 modesty withheld us from pressing 
 the desirability of personal attend- 
 ance to that business, instead of 
 doing it by proxy. 
 
 But Society cannot allow to any 
 man a monotonous proxy-activity in 
 all realms. He must put his hand 
 to some plough. He has a wide 
 choice ; but Society requires him to 
 get to work of some sort, under 
 penalty of contempt if he make 
 default. Some work beads the brow, 
 and knots the muscles ; and some 
 work is only distinguishable by close 
 
UPON PROXIES. 133 
 
 inspection from play. But if a man 
 steadily refuse all personal energetic 
 intervention in the world's toil, he 
 may have it thrust upon him, ac- 
 cording to that expressive variation 
 of a verse in the First Book of 
 Kings : " And he said unto his sons, 
 Saddle me the ass ; and they saddled 
 him /" " England expects every man 
 to do his duty," and not to fall 
 into the error of that lazy fellow, 
 who only resembled England in this, 
 that he expected every man to do his 
 duty. 
 
 We admit that in this matter 
 of vicarious activity, as in all other 
 things, there are two sides. The 
 youthful Beecher challenged his elder 
 brother to show that it was within 
 Divine power to make a sheet of 
 paper with only one side to it. And 
 the other side of our criticism of 
 proxies is discovered in the opera- 
 tions of those gluttons of work who,. 
 
134 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 to the full circumference of their 
 jurisdiction, insist on doing every- 
 thing themselves, and leave to others 
 as little scope and freedom and dis- 
 cretion as they possibly can, damp- 
 ing down original thought and 
 spontaneous activity, overshadowing 
 alii the healthy undergrowth and 
 saplings by the sombre mass of their 
 impervious foliage. But the pulsa- 
 tions and vibrations of the living 
 universe often shake asunder the 
 fiabrics raised by these monopolists, 
 and the wind and sun once more 
 have free course, and are glorified. 
 
 We remember one good lady who 
 was very fond of organizing and ar- 
 ranging, and appointing everything, 
 and everybody. On her death-bed 
 her insatiable generalship looked 
 forward to her funeral. It was her 
 last chance, and being a godly 
 woman, with a conscience at rest 
 as to the destination of her soul. 
 
UPON PROXIES. I3S 
 
 she had a free mind to order matters 
 for her body when the soul should 
 have fled home. She settled the 
 ilumber of mourning-coaches, and 
 who were to fide in each. She 
 settled the funeral lunch, which was 
 ifiainly to consist of cold fowls. She 
 fixed the text the minister was to 
 preach from, and many other miilor 
 details, and doubtless derived con- 
 siderable pleasure from this final 
 exercise of her abilities. It so hap- 
 pened, however, that the funeral day 
 was one of those terrific snowsfSnns 
 that make the year of their occur- 
 rence memorable. The mourners 
 were most of them kept at home ; 
 no one could get out to procure the 
 chickens, and therfe Was a difficulty 
 in getting boiling water. The inter- 
 ment took place with dif&culty, and, 
 if we remember rightly, the minister 
 was too poorly to preacli the pre- 
 scribed sermon. So this preter- 
 
136 UPON PROXIES. 
 
 natural dying activity may have 
 comforted the departing saint, but 
 was of small use to the executors 
 and relatives. If the rest of heaven 
 is to furnish her with the anticipated 
 joy, either she will have to be trans- 
 formed, or that rest will be inces- 
 sant activity, but without fatigue or 
 friction. We hold to the latter 
 alternative, and expect to find her 
 as busy as a bee in some celestial 
 hive among the flowers of Paradise. 
 
S5S^x4ill@ 
 
 POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICA- 
 TION. 
 
 A WORTHY but uncultured lady, 
 whose son had been successfully 
 prosecuting his studies at the Uni- 
 versity, told a friend, with ma- 
 ternal pride, that dear John had just 
 passed his post-mortem examination. 
 A visitor to the British Museum, 
 with leisure to wander quietly 
 among the Egyptian antiquities, will 
 see amongst the mortuary paintings 
 of that serious people representa- 
 tions of post-mortem examinations 
 which excite no levity even in the 
 nineteenth -century observer. But 
 that gratified mother was not told 
 of her blunder, and was therefore 
 not put upon the sombre train of 
 
138 POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. 
 
 thought here indicated, nor do we 
 intend to make any other than a 
 whimsical use of her mistake. 
 
 It would appear, from the extreme 
 prevalence of flattering monumental 
 certificates of good character, that 
 the post-mortem examination for an 
 epitaph is tolerably easy. It is said 
 that a spirit who communicated, 
 through a Medium, with a friend of 
 his terrestrial days, was asked what 
 had pleased him most since his exit. 
 He answered, "The epitaph on my 
 tombstone ; it both amazes and de- 
 lights me." 
 
 It is no marvel that the little girl 
 asked her mother : " Where do they 
 bury the bad people ?" Probably 
 there is an element of " log-rolling " 
 in the hearty adhesion we all show 
 to the maxim, De mortuis nil nisi 
 bonum. There is a whisper from the 
 totab, " Hodie mihi, eras tibi " (To-day 
 for me, to-morrow for thee). 
 
POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. 139 
 
 But the instinct to speak well of 
 the departed, even sometimes with 
 exaggeration of his virtues, has its 
 nobler side. He who has gone can 
 no longer strike back if we strike 
 him. Generous feeling springs to 
 the front, and controls the tongue. 
 It is said of our Lord that one day 
 He passed by the carcase of a dead 
 dog. The Jews, who thronged Him, 
 spurned the melancholy object with 
 their feet. Jesus stood and looked 
 upon it, and said : " How white are 
 its teeth !" It was the nature of that 
 great Heart to detect, iirst of all, 
 the good and beautiful in the ruined 
 natures that came under His eye. 
 And, no doubt, a far-off touch of the 
 same nobility does often mingle in 
 the judgments men pass upon the 
 departed. It is a pity it does not 
 more often occur to the scandal- 
 monger, the tale-bearer, the club- 
 gossip, the purveyor of sensations 
 
140 POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. 
 
 for five o'clock tea — in short, all the 
 mosquitoes of Society — that they are 
 doing what they would be ashamed 
 of under the eye of Azrael, the Angel 
 of Death. 
 
 There are occasional bubblings 
 up of painful truth in epitaphs. 
 Whether the composer of the follow- 
 ing one meant us to draw the obvious 
 moral it conveys, we cannot tell ; 
 but it is a touching unsolved problem 
 of life : " Her conduct was beyond 
 all praise. She engaged in orna- 
 mental working in glass. Also she 
 coniided greatly in others, and died 
 in squalid penury." Such an admir- 
 able but unsuccessful life calls for 
 tears of the largest size. Poor 
 thing ! We see her sweet, amiable 
 face, her mien so far from the shrew 
 as to have lost all shrewdness. 
 We watch her gentle aesthetic joys 
 over her ornamented glass ; we 
 observe with regret the extremely 
 
POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION.- 141 
 
 moderate remuneration she gets, and 
 then we see, steaHng in at the door, 
 the inevitable prospectus-monger ; 
 we: hear of the contracts for a 
 monopoly of green cheese from the 
 moon, and of the patents for pro- 
 curing sunbeams from cucumbers, 
 and we see the innocent little bird 
 trapped, and the epitaph provided. 
 
 Some epitaphs, speaking in the 
 person of the deceased, treat of life 
 as he found it ; some of life as he 
 lived it : some of life as he idealized 
 it. It is not every ilattering epitaph 
 that is consciously false, and there 
 is much to be said for the idealizing 
 epitaph. Why should every soldier 
 in the House of Commons be 
 "gallant," every lawyer "learned," 
 and the deceased be deprived of 
 his appropriate idealization? The 
 common sayings about " a diamond 
 in the rough," " an anggl imprisoned 
 in the marble," are connected with 
 
142 POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. . 
 
 our consciousness, that every life 
 lived in this world had or has its 
 ideal, to which it sometimes ap- 
 proached, from which it often 
 strayed, but which was always 
 present even though obscured; a 
 beautiful thought of a human life, 
 like, and yet unlike, all other lives, 
 sweetly akin but bewitqhingly 
 different. It is this unique ideal 
 that the great portrait-painter studies 
 to discover; it is this which will 
 always make the portrait-painter a 
 necessity, whatever startling advances 
 be made in photography. A good 
 photograph is better than a second- 
 rate oil-painting ; but in the ablest 
 works of Millais, Herkomer, Ouless 
 and others, we find the watchful 
 painter has coaxed into the face of 
 his sitter, and then transferred to 
 the canvas, some disclosure of the 
 ideal of the man before him. We 
 are bidden to see, not the partially 
 
POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. 143 
 
 spoiled lineaments visible to the 
 photographic camera, not the world- 
 wearied and world-stained features, 
 but a touch of the archetypal beauty 
 within, the man as his Maker saw 
 him originally and can restore him ; 
 the man as we may humbly and 
 reverently hope he shall yet be seen 
 by all, in the light of the great 
 coming Morning. 
 
 It seems to us that this line of 
 thought goes far to justify many 
 epitaphs and posthumous eulogiums 
 that have usually only encountered 
 an incredulous or sarcastic smile. 
 When we look upon a picturesque 
 ruin, we are touched with the pathos 
 of its state, with the contrast between 
 past and present. Imagination 
 swiftly restores the abbey tower, 
 the castle walls, and drawbridge, 
 and keep. We hear the organ swell, 
 or the blare of the trumpet, the 
 chants of the monks, or the trampliag 
 
144 POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. 
 
 hoofs of the horses, and the rattling 
 scabbards of their riders. And then, 
 at a voice from the present, the 
 dream hurries away, and once more 
 the sad ruins are before us medi- 
 tating on their days gone by. Many 
 a hfe is, at its close, but a picturesque 
 ruin. And while we gaze, our hearts 
 are moved with pity as we reflect, 
 not, perhaps, on what it was, but on 
 what it might have been. In the 
 ruined abbey or castle imagination 
 rebuilds the actual past ; in the 
 ruined, or imperfectly developed 
 human life, imagination, warmed by 
 " the enthusiasm of humanity," 
 endeavours to restore the ideal ; to 
 paint what might have been ; to 
 display what ought to have been the 
 portraiture of the life that has 
 vanished, its individual and peculiar 
 features, its special type of beauty, 
 that can now be never seen on earth. 
 And imagination's work is lit up by a 
 
POSTHUMOUS GLORIFICATION. 145 
 
 gleam of hope, that probably the 
 ideal may not be wholly lost or " cast 
 as rubbish to the void." So let us 
 indulge in our maxim, De mortuis nil 
 nisi bonum. We may do so to the 
 full limit of our kindly thoughts, and 
 yet, perhaps, if we could look far 
 enough into the mysterious future, 
 might find that we had said De 
 mortuis nil nisi verum. 
 
 10 
 
L<'kJk:V'-¥=)r-jiL' 
 
 ltg.j£EEtz:ja2 
 
 UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 A LITTLE girl was taken, along with 
 the other members of her Sunday- 
 school class, for a day's excursion to 
 the seaside. It was her first sight of 
 the ocean ; and like the hero of 
 Landor's poem, who exclaimed, "Is 
 this the mighty ocean, is this all?" 
 she was disappointed. Being inter- 
 rogated by her teacher as to the 
 cause of her chagrin, she said in an 
 aggrieved tone : " I can't see the 
 tinnamies." " The what ?" replied 
 her teacher ; and then a quotation 
 or two elicited, that in all her 
 repetitions of a certain well-known 
 psalm, the child, not understanding/^ 
 the words she uttered by rote, had 
 changed " the sea, and all that in 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. 147 
 
 them is" into "the sea and all the 
 tinnamies." The glorious breadths of 
 glittering waves did not compen- 
 sate for the absence of those mystic 
 splendours she vaguely expected. 
 
 When a boy leaves school, dons 
 the garments of early manhood, and 
 goes forth enfranchised to " see life," 
 he is apt to look for " all the 
 tinnamies," and to suffer disappoint- 
 ment. He finds that life beyond 
 school has a remarkable, and some- 
 times painful resemblance to life in 
 school ; microcosm expanding into 
 macrocosm, like the toy indiarubber 
 heads, into which you blow, swelling 
 them to a fearsome size, hut in nowise 
 altering the outlines. He finds law, 
 discipline, rewards, punishments, 
 good marks and bad marks, mates, 
 chums, bullies, sneaks. His schoolboy 
 nomenclature is an adequate vocabu- 
 lary for what he needs outside the cir- 
 cumvallation of school-life. Ah ! yes ; 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 the older one grows, the more keen is 
 the sense of being at school still. But 
 as the hair grows gray, and the joints 
 stiffen, and the eyes plead for large 
 prints and more light, the irksome- 
 ness of life's hard lessons is relieved 
 by the message, growing more and 
 more distinct with the accelerating 
 pace of the years, " a little longer, 
 and then home for the holidays." 
 
 What is life, and what do we mean 
 by seeing life ? For all practical 
 purposes, we may say that life is the 
 conscious exercise of faculty : and 
 all such exercise brings joy. We 
 have various kinds of life. Each of 
 us is a hierarchy. We are built in 
 tiers or stories. There is the animal 
 life, the intellectual life, the spiritual 
 life; and there is, or should be, a 
 subordination of the first to the 
 second and the second to the third. 
 
 Now, the animal life is thoroughly 
 respectable in its place and order. 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. 149 
 
 and the connection of its welfare 
 with that of the superior kinds of 
 Hfe is so close that it may in nowise 
 be despised. An organist in a 
 church one day succeeded in playing 
 to everyone's satisfaction, and at the 
 conclusion the organ-blower put his 
 head round the corner and said, 
 "We did very well to-day, didn't 
 we ?' " W& ?" the organist replied 
 with much disdain. The organ- 
 blower retreated into his shell and 
 bided his time. During the next 
 voluntary which the organist had to 
 play, there was a sudden melancholy 
 howl and the wind gave out. " Go 
 on blowing," hissed the organist in 
 an exasperated whisper. The head 
 peered round the corner once more. 
 " Shall it be we, then ?" And so says 
 the neglected body to the pampered 
 mind. As long as we are in the 
 flesh, it is " we " — between flesh and 
 spirit. In order to put mind at its 
 
tso UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 best, we must look to the springs and 
 the wheels and the linch-pins of the 
 body. The animal life has its rights, 
 and if they are not respected the 
 life in the stratum above will suffer. 
 The superior nature is built on the 
 inferior. 
 
 It is not well to try to cheat the 
 body, or to treat it superciliously, or 
 with offensive condescension. We 
 must treat it as a good master treats 
 his servants — cordially, respectfully, 
 sympathetically, yet expectant of 
 faithful service and intolerant of lazi- 
 ness. Mediaeval asceticism robbed 
 the body of its dues, and the body 
 was revenged in sundry ways on the 
 soul ; but- we do not suffer severely 
 from asceticism in these days, and 
 may pass the topic by. We are 
 more in danger of the coach toppling 
 over into the ditch on the other side 
 of the via media, to wit, the ditch of 
 luxuriousness. 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. 151 
 
 In athletic sports and noble games 
 — such, for instance, as our national 
 game of cricket — there is but very 
 moderate danger of exuberant indul- 
 gence. But in other directions the 
 bodily appetites must be very sternly 
 reined in, or they will " bolt " with 
 body and soul along the highway to 
 ruin, and Satan takes care to throw 
 open all the turnpike-gates on that 
 road. It is a familiar truth that 
 self-repression and self-control are 
 necessary even to the good estate of 
 the animal life itself. The gouty 
 alderman has long been an object 
 of derision. Even our house-dogs 
 waddle into their graves if no limit 
 is put to their eating. It is common 
 knowledge amongst us that many of 
 the fearful maladies of our day are 
 due to intemperance, in eating as 
 much as in drinking. And we leave 
 our readers to carry this thought 
 into another region of bodily desire, 
 
152 UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 where, if the temptation be more 
 fierce, the retribution is still more 
 ghastly. 
 
 The special peril of young men 
 lies in their forgetfulness of the in- 
 ferior quality of the animal life, and 
 in their laying upon it a stress it 
 cannot bear, requiring services of 
 perpetual delight it cannot render, 
 until it fails and perishes in the 
 attempt. 
 
 It is piteous to read the lamenta- 
 tions; to witness the tears, and listen 
 to the rending sighs of poets of the 
 flesh who are losing the zest of fleshly 
 pleasure as age chills their blood. 
 The bright colours of their life are 
 fading, its relish is dulled, the rap- 
 ture is passing into insipidity, the 
 fragrance is evaporating, and age is 
 arresting manhood ; oh ! the weep- 
 ing and wailing. Toll the knell over 
 their buried youth ! It is the dreary 
 autumn of life, a time of rotting 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. I S3 
 
 leaves and chilly rains. Let us 
 
 wring our hands, and chant our 
 
 sorrows to sad music in a minor 
 key : 
 
 " Oft am I by the women told, 
 Poor Anacreon, thou grow'st old ! 
 Look, how thy hairs are falling all ; 
 Poor Anacreon, how they fall !" 
 
 What is the explanation of all this 
 tearfulness and dejection ? It is 
 found in this — that an immortal, 
 eternal soul has striven to satisfy 
 itself with the fare provided by the 
 activities and pleasures of the bodily 
 life. Imagine a prince's household, 
 retinue, and great company of guests 
 going many miles into the woods for 
 a picnic, relying on the provisions 
 they would find in some little wood- 
 land inn. They descend upon it, 
 and find a few pounds of bacon, 
 some loaves of bread, and a little 
 beer. It is soon devoured, and the 
 hungry party wail over their mistake. 
 Or, think of a party of cultivated 
 
15+ UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 men, being invited to an entertain- 
 ment of marbles and pegtops and 
 kites. The animal life is a restricted, 
 limited, transient life. It is like thin 
 ice ; skate over it quickly, you find 
 it safe and enjoyable; gather 'upon 
 it in a stationary crowd, it, breaks* 
 and you are soused in a bath of ice- 
 cold disappointment. 
 
 Do not blame the body for its 
 natural inabilities ; do not fret over 
 the joys of youth because they pass 
 away ; youth is but the avenue and 
 staircase of life up which we are to 
 mount to something nobler. Rightly 
 used, in temperate self-control, youth 
 maybe like Jacob's ladder, or, rather, 
 flight of steps, and its delights like 
 the angels going up and down ; but 
 you may not build a house on the 
 steps, and the angels will look sourly 
 upon you if you try to abide there. 
 You must go forward and upward, or 
 be hurled to the bottom, and lie 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. I55 
 
 there bruised and dirty, among the 
 disconsolate poets of the flesh. 
 
 Above the animal life is the intel- 
 lectual; and we breathe a rarer, 
 purer air in these regions. There is 
 a whiff pf immortality in the breeze, 
 a celestial ozone. When young men 
 change I to elderly and then to old, 
 the fire decays on the hearth of the 
 animal life, and your fleshly poet 
 cowers whimpering over the embers; 
 but no such bereavement of joy 
 chills the glow of the active mind. 
 Under white hair, and wrinkled 
 cheeks, with their fixed colour, and 
 crows' feet, and spectacled eyes, the 
 sacred fire of intellectual rapture and 
 enthusiasm may be seen burning 
 with a steady flame independent and 
 defiant of age. Kepler's fury of 
 delight at the verification of the 
 latest of his discovered laws of the 
 solar system sprang up in an old and 
 worn and weary frame. 
 
1 56 UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 But above the highest peak of 
 mental attainment soars the highest 
 life of all, the life of the spirit ; the 
 element in our nature that looks out 
 upon God, not as power and wisdom, 
 but as Holiness, Righteousness, and 
 Love. Super-terrestrial conditions 
 environ the happy soul that knows 
 this life. It rises to " meet the Lord 
 in the air." It " lays hold on eternal 
 life," not in a perplexing conception 
 of a mere endless duration, which 
 fatigues the imagination, but in a 
 perception of deathless quality, a 
 glory symbolized by the diamond and 
 other gems. Here we find ourselves 
 in a realm of imperishable realities, 
 of faculties that know no exhaustion 
 or decay, a ceaseless, tireless activity 
 to which God's own Word vouch- 
 safes the name of life. 
 
 What the world calls "seeing 
 life,"' is generally little more than 
 witnessing and sharing bodily ac- 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. 157 
 
 tivities, the exercises of the first and 
 lowest grade of our threefold life. 
 Often, alas ! it is a mere misnomer, 
 and the experience thus labelled 
 should rather be called " seeing 
 death ;" it is a participation in a 
 sorry spectacle, the absorption of 
 soul by body, and the conflagration 
 of the spirit in the passions of the 
 flesh. What is the "life" which 
 men go to see depicted in certain 
 theatres and halls? It is the triumph 
 of the flesh over the spirit, the syn- 
 cope of the soul. Revenge, Deceit, 
 Adultery, Murder play their part in 
 the disttial story, a veritable dance 
 of Death. Women are shown de- 
 spoiled of all their modesty ; mothers 
 bring their daughters, and fathers 
 their sons, to witness the display, or 
 at least the portrayal, of dishonoured 
 bodies and dying souls. The lesson 
 is well learned, and soon put in 
 practice; the disciple goes forth for 
 
IS8 UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 himself to " see life." It is a masked 
 ball, and he finds, too late, that 
 Corruption has been his partner, and 
 that the taint has struck in upon his 
 soul. He has seen Death instead of 
 Life. 
 
 In the second grade, the intel- 
 lectual, we "see life" indeed. We 
 touch the skirts of God's garment. 
 We have thrills of delight as we see 
 His laws, His harmonies,. His beauty 
 and order, the architectural glory of 
 creation. 
 
 But in the highest grade of life we 
 find truths beyond the power of 
 words to contain or express. The 
 "knowledge of God" is a guest of 
 the soul, which necessarily enters in 
 through " Eye-gate " and Ear-gate " 
 like humbler visitors; but, once 
 within us, it soon reveals its infinite 
 nature. It steps upon the threshold 
 of books, lifts the latch of a printed 
 page ; but, having obtained entrance 
 
UPON SEEING LIFE. 159 
 
 into our house of clay, it works 
 marvellously. Our cottage walls 
 retreat to the horizon ; the ceiling 
 becomes the sky, with stars, and 
 solemn hints of distant universes 
 expressed by scarcely visible films ; 
 we find ourselves in the presence of 
 an overwhelming, but still a calm and 
 sweet mystery, the "knowledge of 
 God." Then, indeed, in the highest 
 sense we begin to "see life." "This 
 is life eternal, that we know the only 
 true God and Jesus Christ whom He 
 hath sent." 
 
 Dante wrestles with language in 
 an effort to set forth this mystery 
 in the last canto of the " Paradise " : 
 
 " Beckoning, smiled the sage, 
 That I should look aloft ; but, ere he bade. 
 Already of myself aloft I looked ; 
 For visual strength, refining more and more, 
 Bore me into the ray authentical 
 Of sov'ran light. Thenceforward, what I saw 
 Was not for words to speak, nor memory's self 
 To stand against such outrage on his skill. 
 As one who from a dream awakened straight 
 All he hath seen forgets, yet still retains 
 
i6o UPON SEEING LIFE. 
 
 Impression of the feeling in his dream. 
 E'en such am I. For all the vision dies 
 As 'twere away ; and yet the sense of sweet 
 That sprang from it still trickles in my heart. 
 
 • * * * * 
 
 O eternal beam, 
 Yield me again some little particle; 
 Of what thou then appeared'st ; give my tongue 
 Power but to leave one sparkle of thy glory 
 Unto the race to come." 
 
 And then the poet tries to describe 
 how, in his vision, he passed on- 
 ward, leaving all created things 
 behind, into the Mystery of the 
 Divine Nature, sustained by the very 
 keenness of the Living Ray ; till, at 
 last, not only was he bereaved of 
 language, but his spirit sank in the 
 intolerable joy : 
 
 " Then vigour failed the tow'ring phantasy ; 
 But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel 
 In even motion, by the love impelled 
 That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars.'' 
 
 Those who behold that vision of 
 " things that eye hath not seen, nor 
 heart of man conceived," do, indeed, 
 " see life." 
 
UPON RED-TAPE. 
 
 The redness of red-tape is itself a 
 specimen of red-tapeism. Why 
 should not a tribe of original lawyers 
 and politicians arise who would 
 " burst the bonds of use and wont " 
 and tie up their bundles in green or 
 blue or yellow? But we pass on 
 from that trivial inquiry to the con- 
 sideration of the essence of red-tape ; 
 and we find it consists in the distri- 
 bution of papers into ticketed parcels, 
 each parcel being a distinct business. 
 So far good. We see the spirit of 
 order at work, and no man of affairs 
 can laugh at the spirit of order. But 
 when the spirit of order, having 
 arranged his bundles, proceeds in a 
 
 II 
 
i62 UPON RED-TAPE. 
 
 carnally lazy way to go to sleep upon 
 them, then we are entitled to begin 
 our gibes. " Order is heaven's first 
 law," and the initial arrangement of 
 papers into bundles and pigeon-holes 
 gives a whiff of celestial air. But 
 it is disgraceful to tie up our souls 
 in the same bundles and put our 
 faculties into pigeon-holes. 
 
 " Freddy, my dear, come and let 
 me see whether you ha'i^e learned 
 your alphabet. What is the first 
 letter ?" 
 
 " A, mamma." 
 
 " And the next ?" 
 
 " I tell you ^yhat, mamma ! Let's 
 call all the others A." 
 , The alpha of business is orderly 
 arrangement. It is a bower adorned 
 with red-tape; but we must not 
 linger there ; beta awaits us, gamma 
 calls us, delta beckons us; we may 
 not rest till we have planted our 
 alpenstock on omega. 
 
UPON RED-TAPE- 163 
 
 " Well begun is half done," says 
 an old motto; but it is only true 
 when the spirit of progress sits on 
 the box-seat of the Well-begim coach. 
 It- is well to disturb the fatuous 
 satisfaction with which we or others 
 contemplate the first step of a right 
 course, the stage of red-tape, the 
 stage of bundles and pigeon-holes. 
 For it is indubitable that reasonable 
 contentment with ourselves upon 
 taking that stage soon passes into 
 somnolence. Some people's con- 
 sciences are like cats ; as soon as 
 they are stroked the right way, they 
 purr and — go to sleep. 
 
 The second form of the disease is 
 a multiplication of the bundle and 
 pigeon-hole system, a dread of free 
 action, and a passion for routine. 
 The elementary cell becomes a cellu- 
 lar structure. Pigeon-holes open out 
 into pigeon-holes, like the " Maze " 
 puzzles that please children, and the 
 
 II—:? 
 
i64 UPON RED-TAPE. 
 
 rules of the game must be observed. 
 To get to the heart of the maze you 
 must find the clue ; and to break 
 through a wall or jump over it is 
 treason. The aged monarch is 
 burned to death whilst the order to 
 pull him out of the fire is passed 
 downward through the inverted hier- 
 archy of servants. 
 
 A luxuriant example of this form 
 of red-tape was exhibited by Captain 
 Vivian to the admiring House of 
 Commons some years ago in Com- 
 mittee on the Army Estimates. The 
 initial fact was the need of a pair of 
 bellows in the Curragh Camp. After 
 a preliminary whetting of the appe- 
 tite of the red-tape dragon by a 
 lengthy correspondence, the opera- 
 tion of getting this pair of bellows 
 proceeded as follows : 
 
 February 12. — War Department 
 gives authority to the local commis- 
 sariat officer to indent [that is, give 
 
UPON RED-TAPE. i6 
 
 an order] on the Royal Engineer 
 department for a pair of bellows. 
 
 Same date. — Local commissariat 
 officer applies to district engineer 
 officer for a pair of bellows. 
 
 Feb. i6.— District engineer officer 
 applies to military store officer at 
 Dublin. 
 
 Feb. ig.— Military store officer in- 
 forms royal engineer officer at Dublin 
 that he can supply the bellows on 
 requisition. 
 
 Feb. 20. — Royal engineer officer 
 at Dublin forwards this information 
 to royal engineer officer at the 
 Curragh. 
 
 Feb. 21. — Local engineer officer at 
 the Curragh informs royal engineer 
 officer at Dublin that he has no form 
 of requisition. 
 
 Feb. 22. — Local engineer officer at 
 the Curragh asks the local commis- 
 sariat officer if the proposed bellows 
 would do. 
 
i66 UPON RED-TAPE. 
 
 Feb. 23. — Local commissariat 
 officer replies " Yes." 
 
 Feb. 24. — Local engineer officer 
 informs local commissariat officer 
 that he must apply to the royal 
 engineer officer, Dublin ; and appli- 
 cation is made accordingly. 
 
 Feb. 26. — Military stores officer at 
 Dublin answers that he will supply 
 the bellows on an order from the 
 War Office. 
 
 Feb. 28. — Local commissariat 
 officer produces authority from the 
 War Office and reads it to local 
 engineer officer. 
 
 March i. — District royal engineer 
 officer declines to have anything to 
 do with a service not brought to his 
 notice through the proper authority ; 
 and local commissariat officer refers 
 matter to commissariat officer in 
 Dublin. 
 
 March 2. — Commissariat officer in 
 Dublin relegates the question to 
 
UPON RED-TAPE. 167 
 
 the deputy quartermaster-general, 
 Dublin. 
 
 March 3. — Deputy quartermaster- 
 general passes on the requisition to 
 quartermaster-general, Horse-guards. 
 
 March 3. — Horse-guards refer to 
 War Office, and War Office refers 
 to commissariat - general - in - chief, 
 London. 
 
 March 10.— Commissariat-general- 
 in-chief asks director of stores to 
 give authority; director of stores 
 states that the commissariat officer 
 should include the bellows in the 
 annual estimate ; and commissariat- 
 general-in-chief writes to the Horse- 
 guards and to the commissariat 
 officer, Dublin. 
 
 March 20. — Commissariat officer 
 at the Curragh writes to know why 
 he does not get his bellows. 
 
 Whether he ever did get them, we 
 do not know ; but it ought to be 
 some satisfaction to him to know 
 
i68 UPON RED-TAPE. 
 
 that his need of a pair of bellows 
 engendered a morbid growth of red- 
 tape, which, for complexity and 
 extent of diseased cellular structure, 
 can hardly be surpassed in the bottles 
 of any surgical museum. It is a 
 beautiful case, and "being a military 
 specimen, it reminds us of that early 
 piece of intricacy set by Gordius, 
 king of Phrygia, to Alexander, and 
 which was so hastily marred by the 
 conqueror's sword. Masterful natures 
 are apt to make short work of red- 
 tape entanglements. 
 
 Another variety of the red-tape 
 disease consists in words, phrases, 
 functions, and ceremonial obser- 
 vances out of which the spirit 
 has fled, or the understanding, or 
 both. Our ordinary social life is 
 largely built on structures of this 
 material, as cities stand on vast 
 thicknesses of chalk composed of 
 the deserted habitations of count- 
 
UPON RED- TAPE. 169 
 
 less myriads of tiny creatures long 
 deceased. Our words are sepul- 
 chres. We cannot name the days of 
 the week, or " consider the heavens," 
 or buy an ounce of spirit of camphor, 
 without treading on the graves of 
 thoughts. But in such cases all the 
 offensiveness of decay is gone, and 
 the gentle wash of the tides of Time 
 during many centuries has converted 
 the products of decay into a pure 
 and beneficent substance. But a 
 nearer approach to the dissolution of 
 thought and the giving up of the 
 ghost by words is not so agree- 
 able. A Hampshire vicar assured 
 his readers some years ago that the 
 well-known marriage service of the 
 Church of England as uttered by his 
 brides and bridegrooms exhibited 
 curious deteriorations. One of the 
 sentences which Edwin has to utter 
 was quite commonly rendered thus : 
 " With my body I thee wash up, and 
 
170 UPON RED-TAPE, 
 
 with all my worldly goods I thee and 
 thou ;" which was matched, and even 
 exceeded by Emma's variations of 
 her part, in promising to take her 
 husband " to 'ave and to 'old from 
 this day fortn'it, for betterer horse, 
 for richerer power, in siggerness else, 
 to love cherries and a bay." 
 
 Edwin and Emma knew they were 
 being married, and that this mar- 
 vellous coil of red-tape was somehow 
 a necessary part of the function ; but 
 the attempt to explain how and why 
 would have smitten them with 
 paralysis. The distorted sentences, 
 texts, hymns, thus repeated by thou- 
 sands of good and simple souls daily 
 would stagger us if statistics could be 
 obtained. 
 
 Child-piety is a beautiful and 
 simple thing, and is often in danger 
 of being throttled by red-tape ; but 
 generally is lissome and buoyant 
 enough to escape. In what sweet 
 
UPON RED-TAPE, 171 
 
 freedom of all meaning the scallop of 
 a child's soul will dance over a sea of 
 words, neither knowing nor caring 
 for the profundities below. We con- 
 fess it more frequently moves us to 
 laughter than to grief, knowing that 
 the real spring of child-piety does 
 not lie in those twilight deeps where 
 swim the solemn shadowy forms of 
 the Fathers, the Divines, the Scho- 
 liasts, and the Commentators. Cap- , 
 tivating specimens might easily be 
 given as illustrations, but collections 
 of them are so frequently going the 
 round of the press that it is scarcely 
 worth while. That it is not children 
 only who are ready to gabble words 
 without meaning, if they are sup- 
 posed to be part of a function, was 
 finely shown by the parish clerk's 
 version of a notice entrusted to him 
 by his minister. The notice was 
 this : " On Sunday next the service 
 in this church will be held in the 
 
172 UPON RED-TAPE. 
 
 afternoon, and on the following Sun- 
 day in the morning, and so on alter- 
 nately until further notice." What 
 really greeted the ears of the congre- 
 gation was this version of the minis- 
 ter's message : " On Sunday next 
 the morning service in this church 
 will be held in the afternoon ; and on 
 the following Sunday the afternoon 
 service will be held in the morning, 
 and so on to all eternity." The 
 children may now make their bow to 
 the parish clerk, and present to him 
 the fool'scap with festoons of red-tape. 
 We conclude with that variety of 
 red-tapeism which consists in the 
 conservation of decrees, orders, cus- 
 toms, ceremonies, from which the 
 rahon d'etre has perished, as the 
 snails out of the dry snail-shells that 
 roll about chalk downs. Even the 
 dog is subject to this complaint, when 
 he turns round three times before 
 lying down, because his ancestors did 
 
UPON RE:D- TAPE. 173 
 
 SO to make a bed in the long prairie- 
 grass. " Leave your stick, sir," said 
 a doorkeeper to a gentleman who 
 was passing into an Exhibition. 
 "But I haven't got a stick," the 
 visitor replied. " Then you must go 
 and buy one ; the orders is as every 
 gentleman is to leave his stick." 
 The well-known instances of the two 
 Russian sentinels are in point here. 
 One stood at the entrance of a pas- 
 sage and cried, " Keep to the left !" 
 The other mounted guard in the 
 middle of a grass-plot. The origin 
 of the first regulation was traced 
 back, through a generation, to an 
 occasion when the right wall of the 
 passage had been painted ; and the 
 second sentinel quite unconsciously 
 commemorated the advent, in a pre- 
 vious century, of an unexpected little 
 snowdrop which charmed the Em- 
 press of that day, and was ordered to 
 be guarded. 
 
1 74 UPON RED- TAPE. 
 
 How stupid people can be if they 
 try was illustrated by a circumstance 
 mentioned to the writer by a super- 
 intendent town missionary. He asked 
 an army chaplain whether he ever 
 spoke to the soldiers privately about 
 their souls. "No." "Why?" "Be- 
 cause a chaplain is an officer, and 
 the rule of the service is that an 
 officer cannot speak to a private 
 soldier except in the presence of a 
 non-commissioned officer." 
 
 What has Nature to teach us about 
 red-tape ? Well, having vilipended 
 red-tape through all the foregoing 
 article, we will admit that it has the 
 merits of its defects. It has its uses. 
 Bonds and freedom, steadfastness 
 and progress, constitute a see-saw 
 which we shall never wholly escape, 
 and which has its analogy in the 
 physical world. Automatic action is 
 Nature's red-tape, and we should 
 creep along very slowly without it. 
 
UPON RED-TAPE. 17S 
 
 A series of voluntary actions result 
 in automatic action, and automatic 
 action is an economy of brain-power. 
 It does occasionally happen that the 
 reason, the final cause, of the action 
 evaporates; but the action, being 
 automatic, is continued. This is 
 Nature's red-tape. But she forth- 
 with sets about the correction of the 
 useless function, as the history of the 
 divergence of species proves. It is 
 reserved for man to perpetuate the 
 absurdities and the costly vagaries of 
 offices, sinecures, dresses, customs, 
 from which all use and meaning have 
 perished as wholly as the pious senti- 
 ment, " God encompasses us," has 
 perished out of the sign of a metro- 
 politan hotel known as the Goat and 
 Compasses. 
 
 It is clearly the duty of Society to 
 return dead things to dust as soon as 
 possible, and not to bury them in oak 
 coffins, resisting the kindly influences 
 
176 UPON RED- TAPE. 
 
 that make for dissolution. Life, we 
 are told, is the sum of the influences 
 that resist dissolution ; there is there- 
 fore some life in red-tape, but' it is 
 not a wholesome life. Where a 
 creed or custom is dead, call in the 
 burying-beetles,\ and let them forth- 
 with undermine it and inter it. It is 
 dreadful that a thing be kept alive by 
 red-tape after it is dead, like that 
 wretched man in Poe's tale who was 
 mesmerized in articulo mortis, and, 
 when at last released, fell into the 
 crumbling relics of a death of long- 
 ago. We do not advocate crema- 
 tion. There are always some devotees 
 whose feelings would be harrowed by 
 the visible smoke and flame ; but do 
 not deliberately obstruct dissolution. 
 " Earth to earth, ashes to ashes." 
 Worthless creatures like subscribers 
 to magazines or newspapers who pro- 
 mise to pay up " next Tuesday week 
 if they are alive," and fail to fulfil 
 
UPON RED-TAPE. 177 
 
 their promise, but are subsequently 
 seen moving about amongst men, 
 must be understood to be guilty of 
 the hateful meanness of walking 
 about after they are dead to save 
 funeral expenses. But all dead things 
 with any sense of self-respect should 
 consent to be buried. 
 
 "iV^ 
 
 12 
 
AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY. 
 
 " You need not be so proud of your 
 long legs," said a short man to a six- 
 footer ; " your legs only reach to the 
 ground, and so do mine." With 
 foot on earth, and face skyward — 
 our basis of present operations, and 
 our future destiny the same (subject, 
 of course, to the solemn decision of 
 our freewill) — there is every reason 
 for exertion and activity, abundant 
 stimulant to enthusiastic hope, and 
 to great joy in living; but little 
 indeed to nourish envy, jealousy, 
 bitter competition, and rivalry. 
 
 The sour spirit which I have 
 pilloried in the last four words, is 
 the product of natures that are 
 " cribbed, cabined, and confined " in 
 
AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY. 179 
 
 wretched, narrow bunks of ignorance, 
 without sufficient light, air, and space. 
 The blue mould of envy will gather 
 on any soul that does not disport 
 itself in the full sunshine, and expand 
 in the broad spaces of the thoughts 
 of God. 
 
 We want largeness. " O Corinth- 
 ians," cried Paul, "our heart is en- 
 larged. Now, for a recompense in 
 like kind, be ye also enlarged," Great 
 peace enfolds the spirit, panting from 
 some arena of competition, when it 
 perceives that all earth's competitive 
 glory is vain-glory, and that the true 
 glory of the spirit of man is its station 
 in God, its motion in God, its pro- 
 gress towards the central light and 
 love which are its home. 
 
 Worldly distinctions have their 
 value, of course. They have a bread- 
 and-butter value, which is not to be 
 scoffed at. They also have a value 
 in the confidence they impart to the 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY. 
 
 wearer — in some cases, but not in all 
 — of his possession of power and 
 faculty. But if they proceed to the 
 further effect of making a man measure 
 his merit against his fellows, and fall 
 to drawing comparisons and contrasts, 
 and revelling in sense of superiority, 
 then the mischief inherent in these 
 distinctions is closing round him, 
 shutting him into a narrow cell of 
 self-adoration, wherein the blessed 
 light of day, which is the heritage of 
 all his race, is exchanged for the wax- 
 tapers he burns before his own shrine. 
 But if even in this sanctum of self- 
 conceit, with his own precious image 
 reflected from innumerable mirrors, 
 and his high qualities testified by the 
 decorations of his shrine — by his 
 certificates, degrees, testimonials, 
 and mystic arrangements of the 
 letters of the alphabet, following 
 after his name like little pages holding 
 up his resplendent train — he still 
 
AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY. i8i 
 
 prays to God, he shall not be left in 
 his cell. Whether the door be quietly 
 opened, and he be gently " led forth 
 into the large place" of man's common 
 heritage and common glory, or 
 whether a wind from the Lord tumble 
 his pretty little palace about his ears, 
 he shall not be left to be suffocated 
 in the choke-damp of his pride ; he 
 shall come forth in God's mercy, to 
 stand in rank with the simple, the 
 poor, the lowly, to rejoice that all are 
 heirs with him of the sole genuine 
 dignity of his race — the capacity of 
 receiving the Spirit of God. 
 
 I would therefore say to young 
 men, and most emphatically to the 
 most generous-hearted amongst them: 
 make not the cardinal mistake of 
 aiming at self-elevation. In these 
 days of whirring wheels, of pushings 
 up and beatings down, of scrambling, 
 jostling, elbowing, and hustling, of 
 fevered competitions, of endless 
 
i82 AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY. 
 
 prize-givings, of honours for the 
 jubilant few, and failure for the 
 dejected many, there is danger of 
 being swept away in the nineteenth 
 century hurricane. The Lord is not 
 in the whirlwind. Your title to 
 celestial peerage, amongst " thrones, 
 principalities, and powers," depends 
 on no rough-and-tumble play on the 
 surface of this planet. Councils, and 
 Examining Boards, and Educational 
 Departments, can neither give it nor 
 withhold it. God offers it. You can 
 either accept or reject it. That is 
 all. 
 
 Believe this : you can give scope 
 for the action, room for the indwell- 
 ing of Deity. Be your equipment of 
 abilities and opportunities, to your 
 thinking, great or small, God has 
 made you, God can use you. Pro- 
 bably you have but a very poor 
 notion of what He can do by you 
 and in you to His glory. He must 
 
AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVY. 183 
 
 first have unlimited submission. He 
 who fed five thousand with five small 
 loaves and two fishes, will be at no 
 loss to work by your slender means ; 
 but the tiny store must be offered to 
 Him. 
 
 "Bring them hither unto Me;" 
 where the King dwells, the rOyal 
 standard waves, and the cottage is a 
 palace. In calmness of mind, and 
 peace of heart, lay yourself: and your 
 abilities before the Lord, a living 
 sacrifice that shall not be rejected ; 
 and dwell for ever in the quiet upper 
 air, looking down, as on things far 
 beneath, upon the angry thunder- 
 clouds of men's vainglorious strife 
 and rivalries. 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 The obstacles placed in the path of 
 every searcher for facts, or truths, or 
 things, by preconceptions and fixed 
 ideas, are often underrated. One or 
 two sharp pangs of experience open 
 the eyes. The writer was called on 
 one day by a client who wanted a 
 certain parcel of deeds ; a thorough 
 search was made in the safe, but 
 they were' not found. The client 
 was politely but confidently assured 
 they were not in the writer's care, 
 and went away perplexed. Shortly 
 afterwards the writer's partner came 
 in, and hearing what had taken place, 
 said : " But we have got the deeds." 
 He went to the safe, and at once 
 laid his hand upon the parcel. What 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 185 
 
 was the explanation ? Simply this : 
 the writer went to the safe with a 
 preconception that he would find the 
 parcel in white cartridge, tied with 
 red tape, whereas it was in brown 
 paper tied with string. He handled 
 every bundle, but this unconscious 
 prejudice blinded him. 
 
 On another occasion it was a client 
 who suffered from the same obscura- 
 tion. A form from the Legacy and 
 Succession Duty Department, bear- 
 ing a £50 stamp was missing ; and 
 as the officials of the Department 
 were hazy about the payment of the 
 money, which had passed through 
 the hands of the writer's firm, it be- 
 came important to find the docu- 
 ment. The client searched, but 
 could not find it. A second search 
 was asked for. It was made, but 
 was also fruitless. At last the writer 
 asked leave for a clerk to go down 
 and assist in the hunt. On his 
 
1 86 ON PRECONCEPTIONS. - 
 
 arrival he was . assured that every 
 nook and corner had been so 
 thoroughly ransacked, that there was 
 now but one possible hiding-place, 
 viz., the safe where that gentleman 
 kept his most secret and important 
 documents. That safe he proceeded 
 to open. The clerk, from a sense of 
 propriety, turned his back on the 
 sanctum of the last hope, and 
 perused the opposite wall. His eye 
 idly rested on a file of common busi- 
 ness receipts and invoices. The 
 shape and size of one arrested him. 
 " Mr. So and So," he cried, " there 
 it is !" " Oh no, no !" " But will 
 you, please^ to oblige me, just look at 
 it." He did so, and there it was, 
 the missing paper, which, but for the 
 accidental consequence of a piece of 
 politeness, might have been missing 
 yet. The client laughed, and said 
 " He was glad it was found, but 
 wished he had found it himself." 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 187 
 
 Naturally, being one of the most 
 fair-minded of men, it irked him, to 
 find that, even in such a trifle, he 
 was liable, like the rest of the human 
 race, to preconceptions and fixed 
 ideas. He had thought it was a 
 smaller piece of paper. 
 
 The knowledge of this common 
 foible of humanity was adroitly 
 utilized by a Frenchman who desired 
 to conceal from the gendarmes a 
 letter of great political importance, 
 compromising a high functionary. 
 He knew that the search would be 
 unsparing, but he also thought, and 
 thought correctly, that their zeal 
 might overshoot the mark. He hid 
 the letter. He was waylaid by 
 (supposed) highwaymen, and robbed. 
 In his absence his house was sud- 
 denly taken possession of, and ex- 
 amined with appalling thoroughness. 
 The boards were taken up, the walls 
 tapped for covert receptacles, the 
 
188 ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 chimneys pried into, and every 
 safe and drawer and box opened. 
 The letter was not found. Where 
 was it? It was in an unsealed 
 envelope of a tradesman's account, 
 staring the gendarmes in the face, in 
 a letter-rack on the dining-room 
 mantelpiece. They were outwitted 
 by their preconceptions. 
 
 An attentive consideration of these 
 illustrations may perhaps tend to 
 make even self-complacent persons a 
 little more guarded in their judg- 
 ments of men, of motives and 
 characters, and of things in general. 
 There was a distinguished man of 
 whom it was cleverly said that " his 
 foible was omniscience." To dis- 
 agree with him — why, it was to dis- 
 agree with the truth ! We admit 
 that a great deal of the heat known 
 as oAium theologicum (and we know 
 no reason why medical men, and 
 politicians, and many others, should 
 
ON PRE CONCEPTIONS. 1 89 
 
 not take their place at the same 
 penitent form as the theologians) 
 arises from sincere zeal for the truth. 
 But the epigrammatist was wrong 
 in saying, " Truth is what a man 
 troweth." Subjective truth and ob- 
 jective truth are not identical ; but 
 the former is ever in candid minds 
 approaching nearer and nearer to the 
 latter. In many realms of know- 
 ledge there are areas where the two 
 are demonstrably identical, as as- 
 tronomical prescience, for example, 
 proves. In other realms — such as 
 that of applied Christianity — the 
 subjective knowledge is obviously 
 growing and extending, but incom- 
 plete. And it is precisely in this 
 region, where the preconceptions of 
 birth and early training, and national 
 predilection, and personal interest, 
 are most balefuUy effective with their 
 croSs-lights and mingling shadows, 
 that men are most intolerant of con- 
 
igo ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 tradictions. One infallible exponent 
 looking at some glorious cloud of 
 moral or religious truth, splendid in 
 its illumination, but not easily de- 
 fined, says like an ecclesiastical 
 Hamlet to his lay Polonius, "Do 
 you see yonder cloud, that's almost 
 in shape of a camel ?" But another 
 Hamlet, of some other school of 
 thought, comes up and says, " Me- 
 thinks it is like a weazel "; and yet 
 another insists it is " like a whale "; 
 and, at the peril of schism, the poor 
 lay Polonius has to adjust himself to 
 each analogy in turn. " Whosoever 
 will be saved," let him declare the 
 splendid vision to be the likeness of 
 " camel "— " weazel " — " whale " — 
 according to the opinion of the man 
 in authority who speaks for the time 
 being. 
 
 There are few minor faults of 
 which a man more briskly resents 
 the imputation, than the fault of 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. igi 
 
 prejudice. Is there a living man 
 with self-knowledge and frankness 
 enough to confess himself a sufferer 
 from that gutta serena in the mind's 
 eye ? But is there a man with abso- 
 lutely unimpeded vision ? 
 
 " My mind to me a kingdom is," 
 and every kingdom contains the op- 
 posing elements known to Britons 
 as " Conservative " and " Liberal." 
 The clash of these hostile atoms is 
 the life of the mind. The one set 
 of instincts shields what has been 
 gained, the other reaches out for 
 new acquisitions. Each has the 
 trick of casting a glamour over its 
 object ; each can lead the mind cap- 
 tive with prepossessions. Each, by 
 the bulk of the very castle in which 
 it is ensconced, throws a shadow 
 over some area of truth. A recogni- 
 tion of the universal human weak- 
 ness is a great gain to every truth- 
 seeker. It gives him a modesty 
 
192 ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 which is quite consistent with self- 
 respect, but saves him from the 
 almost desperate condition of the 
 man who says, " I am willing to be 
 convinced, but I should like to see 
 the man who can convince me." 
 Such a one is victorious in his preju- 
 dices. Are the facts against him ? 
 " So much the worse for facts." Is 
 his doctrine impossible ? " Credo 
 quia im^ossibile " — (I believe it be- 
 cause it is impossible). " Can't be- 
 lieve the impossible ?" cried the 
 white queen (in " Alice through the 
 Looking-glass"), "whyj I have some- 
 times believed as many as six im- 
 possible things before breakfast !" 
 
 The witchery of imagination may 
 be adverted to, in further exposition 
 of preconceptions. The caprices and 
 freaks of this vigorous and vital 
 faculty are endless. Its feats and 
 achievements are glorious ; but its 
 antics are also many. We may ob- 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 193 
 
 serve it for ourselves almost any day, 
 as we move along a crowded street. 
 A figure is seen in the distance. " It 
 is my friend Brown !" Instantly we 
 clothe it with all Brown's peculiari- 
 ties. We "see" Brown. A little 
 nearer approach, and lo ! — " it is not 
 Brown — it is Jones !" Brown dis- 
 appears, and we " see " the whole of 
 Jones — his eyes, nose, mouth, gait, 
 everything. Yet, a little nearer, and 
 it is a total stranger, who may have 
 gone through a similar and reciprocal 
 phantasmagoria, so that each might, 
 like the familiar Irishman, say, " I 
 thought it was you, and you thought 
 it was me, and it was neither of 
 us!" 
 
 This clever servant of ours bounds 
 along in advance of ascertained 
 truth, and plants its preconceptions 
 everywhere. If we know them well 
 to he only the scouts of truth, its 
 couriers-in-advance, well and good. 
 
 13 
 
194 ON PRECONCEPTIONS. . 
 
 But our servant is very apt to try to 
 please its master by inventing facts 
 to suit him. The master wants to 
 prove a man a criminal. Imagina- 
 tion runs ahead, and clothes every 
 bush and crag with proofs, and men 
 in buckram line the walls of the road. 
 In this intoxication of preconceptioji, 
 how easy it is to fall into any trap 
 laid by the schemer, the perjurer 
 and the forger ! and how bitter the 
 shame at the end, when it is seen by 
 the victim of prejudice how it has 
 distorted his vision and misinter- 
 preted what he saw ! What he 
 wished to see, that he saw. Rotten 
 evidence, forged documents, false 
 and fragile testimony are easily 
 frozen together in the ice-palace of 
 imagination, and the structure seems 
 solid enough, till the sun overcomes 
 it. 
 
 If a digression may be pardoned, 
 we may mentipn what we take to be 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 195 
 
 a curious instance of the royal power 
 of imagination, almost approaching 
 inspiration or prophecy. An ac- 
 quaintance of ours, a man of ability 
 and probity, is endowed with a spas- 
 modic faculty of intuition, as curious 
 and uncertain as, apparently, it is 
 useless. It visits him without warn- 
 ing, and up to the present time has 
 achieved nothing beyond the feat of 
 astonishing himself and his friends. 
 The nature of it is this : it will 
 suddenly be borne in upon him that 
 the circumstances in which at the 
 moment he finds himself are quite 
 familiar. That is a not uncommon 
 experience. But his Puck or Ariel 
 does not stop there. He knows 
 what is going to happen and how the 
 circumstances are going to develop. 
 Two instances are sufficient. He 
 
 went to visit a friend, Mrs. , 
 
 in a neighbouring town, and on 
 Sunday accompanied her to church. 
 
 13—2 
 
igfi ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 As soon as he entered, he was con- 
 scious of his visitation. He whispered 
 to his hostess the name of the clergy- 
 njan who was going to preach (and 
 which she did not know, as a stranger 
 was to occupy the pulpit that day), 
 and the hymn that was going to be 
 sung, and further informed her that 
 the text wQuld be " The wages of sin 
 is death." When the preacher got 
 up, and announced the very text, the 
 lady's nerves gave way, and she had 
 to be assisted out of church. To sit 
 any longer by the side of such an 
 uncanny prophet was beyond her 
 power. 
 
 The second instance occurred in 
 a visit to a friend who, like himself, 
 was an old bachelor. On entering, 
 he said at once, " So you are going 
 to be married." The unexpected 
 oracle astounded his friend, who re- 
 plied, " How on earth do you know 
 that? no one knows it but myself. 
 
ON PRECONCEPTIONS. i97 
 
 for I have only just sealed the letter 
 making the offer, and no living soul 
 but myself knows what I have 
 written ?" The only rejoinder of the 
 seer was, " I don't know how I know 
 it ; it came ujpon me that it was so." 
 The writer has often pressed him for 
 an explanation, but has been assured 
 that, thus far, none is forthcoming, 
 and that the seer is as much puzzled 
 with his erratic and useless faculty 
 as anybody else can be. 
 
 This is a digression, but it may 
 serve to emphasize the mysterious 
 power that occupies a high place in 
 the Court of our Soul, being of the 
 Soul's Privy Council. Imagination 
 is the pioneer of truth, but " all is 
 not gold that glitters " in her vision. 
 A calmer faculty must test and try 
 what she has found. She pronounces 
 with hasty judgment on what is on 
 the horizon ; but we must avoid the 
 error and the wrong of condemning 
 
igS ON PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 our brother as heretic, schismatic, 
 quack, or fanatic, because his angle 
 of vision is different and his imagina- 
 tion delivers a different prophecy. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London. 
 
NEW AND CHEAP EDITION. In /caf. 8m., price 
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 FOR GOOD CONSIDERATION. 
 
 By EDWARD BUTLER. 
 
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 me a charming little book with a quaint title, ' For Good 
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 Orators.' I have read it and the whole book with much 
 pleasure. I think it would interest you."— The late Rt. 
 Hon. John Bright. 
 
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 the product of a cultured mind, and one that can amuse as 
 well as edify." — Bookseller. 
 
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 " Full of wise and kindly txmnsA."— Literary World. 
 
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 of logical acumen, spiritual penetration, sanctified common 
 sense, and practical wisdom — a set of rare and gdodly dishes 
 of literary, fare, garnished with the condiments of choice 
 speech, and much of it having a strong, rich, legal flavour, 
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 are perfect models of high and pure thinking as applied to 
 some of the varied spheres and functions of modem life." — 
 Christian. 
 
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