LECTURES AND SERMONS.

t

BY THE

REV. WMORLEY PUNSHON, LL.D.

\

TORONTO:

ADAM, STEVENSON & CO
1873-

AC

Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, by ADAM, STEVENSON & Co.,
in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.

HUNTER, ROSE A CO.,

1, ELKCTKOi Yl'KKS AND BOOKBINDERS.
TORONTO.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THERE are times in a man's life when it is not graceful to
withstand external pressure, and when one must risk a
reputation for being wise, to secure a reputation for being kind.
It is, therefore, that, at the request of many friends, I consent
to the publication of these Lectures and Sermons, as a memo-
rial volume.

I have not aimed to alter the form of direct address. I have
thought that possibly the perusal of what multitudes have
heard, may recall the voice that spoke — when the speaker is
far away. Thus not only may the truth remain, but the per-
sonal memory linger ; not only may the oak be a substantial
and helpiul thing, but the invisible dryad be remembered too.

I take pleasure in the thought that, although not native to
the Dominion, I have learned to identify myself as loyally with
its interests as if I were "to the manner born ;" and in the
separation to which duty calls me, I shall cherish an unceasing
attachment to its people and its fortunes still.

.When I consider that here is a land which reaps all the
benefits of monarchy without the caste and cost of monarchy —
a land where there is no degradation in honest toil, and ample
chances for the honest toiler; a land whose educational appli-

ances rival any other, and whose moral principle has not yet
been undermined ; a land which starts its national existence
with a kindling love of freedom, a quickened onset of enquiry,
and a reverent love of truth, and of its highest embodiment,
Religion — I feel that never country began under fairer auspices,
and that if Canada's children be but true to themselves, what-
ever their political destiny may be, they will establish a stable
commonwealth rich in all the virtues which make nations great —
mighty in those irresistible moral forces which make any people
strong. Esto perpetua ! May no Marius ever sit among the
ruins of a promise so fair.

W. MORLEY PUNSHON.

TORONTO, May, 1873.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE, . v

LECTURES :

1. DANIEL IN BABYLON, 3

2. MACAULAY ' 39

3. JOHN BUNYAN, . IOI

4. WESLEY AND HIS TIMES, . . ... 149

5. FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES, . . . 195

6. THE HUGUENOTS, 23$

A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES, . . , 295

SERMONS :

1. KINDNESS TO THE POOR, 309

[Preached before the Members of St. George's Society, in the Metropolitan Church, Toronto.

2. THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL, . 327

3. THE LORD'S SUPPER, 345

4. THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST, . . . 363

THE Publishers embellish the cover of these Lectures with
a miniature outline of the METROPOLITAN W. M. CHURCH,
Toronto, which owes its origin to the earnest labour and elo-
quence of the Rev. Dr. Punshon. It was thought, moreover,
that the design, on this literary memorial, might not inappro-
priately point to the architectural memorial of the author's
residence in Canada. The Steel Portrait appears in deference
to an expressed wish.

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF DANIEL IN BABYLON.

THERE were giants in the earth in those days, for those
old Hebrew prophets were a marvellous race of men. It
is difficult for us to regard them as parts of the ordinary cre-
ation of God. Only in such an age, when Revelation was a
simple thing, and men felt, as they saw the symbol or the vision,
that the Divine was "not far away from any one of them:"
only beneath such a sky, whose sun, as it blasted the desert
into desolation, or greened the olive slope into beauty, was a
perpetual monition both of threatening and of promise : only
among such a people, of deep religious instincts, and impressi-
ble in a high degree, could they have lived, and flourished, and
become the powers they were. They were not soldiers, but when
they rebuked kings, theirs was a courage which the most stal-
wart crusader might have envied. They were not priests, but
never priest spake solemn words with greater seemliness of ut-
terance, nor with diviner power. As we trace their long and
lofty line, and their notable ones crowd upon our memories, we
seem to shrink from any discussion of their characters, as if they
were creatures from the spirit-land. Some such feeling steals
over us, as might have prompted the affrighted Gadarenes, when

3

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

they prayed for the departure of the Saviour, or as might have
burdened the wondering soul of Peter, when in his first vision
of Christ's miraculous power, he said, " Depart from me, for I
am a sinful man, O Lord." They seem to be in the nature of
humanity rather than of it, to be surrounded by conditions, and
to dwell in an existence of their own, with which the rest of the
world can have but a scanty sympathy, or rather a mingled feel-
ing, which is half admiration and half awe. They are not men
so much as distinct individual influences, passive beneath their
swelling inspiration, standing before the Lord, like the light-
nings, which are his messengers, or as the " stormy wind, fulfil-
ling His word."

It is evident that the peculiarities of their office, and their
comparative isolation from the experiences of common human-
ity, prevent us, in the general, from acknowledging their fitness
as examples by which to regulate our own life and conduct.
There is a shrewd impiety in human nature, which has formed
its own estimate of what its patterns ought to be, and which
demands that certain initial conditions shall be rigidly fulfilled.
There must be identity of nature, and there must be similarity
of circumstance. The man must have like passions, and those
passions must have been powerfully tried. Failure in these con-
ditions would at once neutralize the force of the example, even
as a blemish in physical beauty would, to a Greek of the olden
time, have ostracised Apollo from the fellowship of the Gods.

There is none among the brotherhood of the Prophets, who
so thoroughly comes home to us as that Hebrew youth, of the
royal line of Judah, from whose history we are purposing to be
instructed now. He was inspired, but he had a life apart from
his inspiration, and we recognize in it the common elements

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

of which lives are made. Principle and persecution — sorrow
and success — the harp-song of thankfulness and the breeze-like
voice of grief — all the constituents which are shapely in the
formation of character ; we meet with them in his experience,
just as we have felt them in our own. He comes to us, there-
fore, no stranger, but robed in our own humanness. He is no
meteor vision — sweeping out of darkness to play for a brief space
the masque of human living, and then flitting into darkness as
unbroken — he comes eating and drinking, doing common things,
thrilled with common feelings — though those feelings prompt
him to heroic action, and those common things are done in a
majestic way. My object is to teach lessons from the life and
character of Daniel. My chief purpose, I am not ashamed to
avow, is to do my listeners good, and though the platform is
broader than the pulpit, and may be indulged with wider lati-
tude of range and phrase, I should be recreant to my great,
loved life-work, if I were not to strive mainly to make my words
tell upon that future when eternity shall flash upon the doings
of time.

It is affirmed of the religion of Jesus, that it is adapted for
all changes of human condition, and for all varieties of human
character. Clearly, a religion which aims to be universal must
possess this assimilating power, or, in the complexities of the
world, it would be disqualified for the post which it aspires to
fill. The high claims which its advocates assert for Christianity,
have been passed through the crucible of the ages, and have
been verified by the experience of each generation. It is not
hemmed in by parallels of latitude. It is not hindered by any
" wall of partition." It can work its marvels in every clime. It
can translate its comforts into every language. Like its founder,

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

its delight is in the " habitable parts of the earth," and wher-
ever man is, in rich metropolis or in rude savannah, whether
intellect has exalted, or savagery degraded him, there, in the
neighbourhood and in the heart of man, is the chosen sphere
of Christianity, where she works her changes, diffuses her bless-
ings, raises up her witnesses, and proves to every one who em-
braces her his angel of discipline and of life. It may be that
you are thinking, some of you, that your circumstances are ex-
ceptional, that Religion is a thing only for stream-side villages
and quiet hours — not for the realm of business, nor " the tragic
hearts of towns." That is a grave error, my brother. Heaven
is as near the great city as the breezy down. You can preserve
as bright an integrity, you can hold as close a fellowship with
the true and the Divine in the heart of London, the modern
Babylon, as did Daniel in Babylon, the ancient London.

This brings me to my first thought — the earnest piety which
was the foundation-fact of DanieFs consistent life. He was a
religious man. His religion influenced his character, kindled
his heroism, and had largely to do with his success. His reli-
gion, moreover, was not a surface sentiment, traditionally inher-
ited, and therefore loosely held. Opinions have often been
entailed with estates, handed down as reverenced heir-looms
from one generation to another. Men have rallied round a
crimson banner, or shouted lustily for the buff and blue, for no
better reason than that the same colours had sashed and roset-
ted their fathers perhaps for a century of years. In the history
of human opinion it would be curious to enquire how much of
it has been the pride of partisanship, or the inheritance of affec-
tion, how lit,tle of it the force of conviction, and the result of
honest thought and study. But Daniel's was an inwrought

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DANIEL IN BABYLON.

piety, whose seat was in the heart, and it was of that brave sort
which no disaster was able to disturb.

And it was no easy matter to maintain it. Look at him as
he is first introduced to our notice. He was lonely, he was
tempted, he was in peril. Loneliness, temptation, danger,—
these are words which perhaps from painful personal experience,
some of us can understand. Add to these the further condition
of bondage, a word, thank God, whose full meaning a free people
does not understand, and you have some conception of the
position of Daniel, when we first become acquainted with him
in the palace of the King of Babylon.

Moreover, the circumstances of Babylon, at the time when
he was carried there, would necessarily expose his piety to
greater hazards. It is always difficult for a slave to profess a
faith other than the faith of his master. The victory which
Nebuchadnezzar had gained would barb the tongue of the Chal-
dean scoffer with sharper sarcasms against the Hebrew creed.
Babylon was wholly and earnestly given to idolatry. There
Belus was magnificently worshipped. There the soothsayer
wrought his spells, and the astrologer affected to read in the
heavens, as in a sparkling Bible. There the followers of Zoro-
aster lingered, and clung tenaciously to their pure and ancient
error, for of all idolatries fire-worship is at once the most primi-
tive and the most plausible. There the commonest things of life
were linked with idol associations, and consecrated by idol cere-
monies ; so that the conscience of the Hebrew was in momen-
tary danger of attack, and active resistance became the duty of
every day.

But Daniel's piety did not fail, because it was thorough in its
consistency and in its grandeur. It has been a favourite scoff

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

in all ages ever, since the words " Doth Job serve God for
nought ?" fell from the lips of the old original liar, that Christians
are Christians only when no motive tempts them to the con-
trary, and when their policy is on the side of their religion.
Hence, some Chaldean sceptic, or some captive of a Sadducean
spirit, might have flung the gibe at the young enthusiast Hebrew,
" Ah ! there will come a change upon him soon. He has
breathed a Hebrew atmosphere, and been bound by Hebrew
habits. His soul is but the chrysalis, just emerging from the
cocoon of dormant thought and dull devotion. Wait until he
is fledged. Wait until he has preened his wings amid the sun-
shine and the flowers of Babylon. The Jordan is but a sluggish
stream, the Euphrates rolls grandly in its rushing silver. Trans-
late him from the slopes of Olivet to the plains of Shinar. Let
him taste the luxury of Chaldean living, and join in the pomp
of Babylonish worship, you will soon hear of his abandonment
of his former friends, and he will plunge, as eagerly as any, into
the gaieties of the capital." But that scoffer, like most others of
his kindred, would have been grievously mistaken. Did Daniel's
piety fail him ? Was he entangled in the snare of pleasure, or
frightened by the captor's frown ? Knelt he not as fervently in
the palace at Shushan as in the temple at Jerusalem ? Amid
the devotees of Merodach or Bel, his Abdiel-heart went out, as
its manner was, after the one Lord of earth and heaven. Oh,
what are circumstances, I wonder, that they should hinder a
true man, when his heart is set within him to do a right thing ?
Let a man be firmly principled in his religion, he may travel
from the tropics to the poles, it will never catch cold on the
journey. Set him down in the desert, and just as the palm tree
thrusts its roots beneath the envious sand in search of sustenance,

8

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

he will manage somehow to find living water there. Banish him
to the dreariest Patmos you can find, he will get a grand Apoca-
lypse among its barren crags. Thrust him into an inner pri-
son, and make his feet fast in the stocks ; the doxology will
reverberate through the dungeon, making such melody within
its walls of stone that the gaoler shall relapse into a man, and
the prisoners, hearing it, shall dream of freedom and of home.

Young men, you who have any piety at all, what sort is it ?
Is it a hot-house plant, which must be framed and glassed, lest
March, that bold young fellow, should shake the life out of it
in his rough play among the flowers? — or is it a hardy shrub,
which rejoices when the wild winds course along the heather or
howl above the crest of Lebanon ? We need, believe me, the
bravery of godliness to bear true witness for our Master now.
There is opposed to us a manhood of insolence and error.
The breath of the plague is carried on the wings of the wind.
Ours must be a robust piety — which does not get sick soon
in the tainted air. The forces of evil are marshalled in un-
wonted activity — and there are Hers in wait to surprise and
to betray. Ours must be a watchful piety, which is not fright-
ened from its steadfastness by the " noise of the captains and
the shouting." Through the heavy night, and beyond the em-
battled hosts, there glitters the victor's recompense. It must
be ours to press towards it on our patient way, saying to all who
differ from us, " Hinder me not, I mean to wear that crown."

One main cause of Daniel's consistency, which I would fain
commend for your imitation, was this. He made the stand at
once, and resisted on the earliest occasion of encroachment
upon conscience and of requirement to sin. He purposed in
his heart that he "would not defile himself with the king's

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

meat, nor with the portion of wine which he drank." Now, as
a true Hebrew, bound by the rescripts of the Mosaic law, cer-
tain meats were forbidden to him, which other nations ate with-
out scruple. Moreover, the chances are that the bread and the
wine had been idolatrously consecrated, for those old Pagans
were not ashamed, as we are, to pervade the common things of
life with their religion. To Daniel, therefore, these things were
forbidden, forbidden by their ceremonial uncleanness, forbidden
equally by their idolatrous association, and it was his duty to
refuse them.

I see that curl of the lip on the face of that unbeliever, and
as it might hurt him, possibly, if his indignation had not vent,
I will try to help it into words. "A small thing, a very insigni-
ficant occasion for a very supercilious and obstinate display !
What worse would he have been if he had not been so offen-
sively singular? He was not obliged to know that there had
been any connection with idolatry about it. Why obtrude his
old-world sanctimoniousness about such a trifle as this ?" A
trifle ! Yes ! but are not these trifles sometimes among the
mightiest forces in the universe ? A falling apple, a drifting log
of wood, the singing and puffing of a tea-kettle ! Trifles all —
but set the royal mind to work upon them, and what comes of
the trifles then ? From the falling apple, the law of gravitation.
From the drifting log of wood, the discovery of America.
From the smoke and song of the tea-kettle, the hundred-fold
appliances of steam. There are no trifles in the moral universe
of God. Speak me a word to-day; — it shall go ringing on
through the ages. Sin in your heedless youth ; — I will shew
you the characters, long years afterwards, carven on the walls of
"the temple of the body." Hence the good policy as well as

10

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

piety of Daniel. He made the stand at once, and God
honoured it ; and, the foremost champion of the enemy slain,
it was easy to rout the rest. Do I address some one now over
whom the critical moment impends ? You are beset with diffi-
culties so formidable that you shudder as you think of them.
Does wealth allure, or beauty fascinate, or endearment woo, or
authority command you to sin? Does the carnal reason gloss
over the guiltiness, and the deprecating fancy whisper " Is it
not a little one ? " and the roused and vigorous passion strive
with the reluctant will ? Now is the moment, then, on your
part for the most valorous resistance, on my part for the most
affectionate and solemn warning. It is against this beginning
of evil, this first breach upon the sacredness of conscience,
that you must take your stand. It is the first careless drifting
into the current of the rapids which speeds the frail bark into
the whirlpool's wave. Yield to the temptation which now in-
vites you, and it may be that you are lost for ever. Go to that
scene of dissipation, enter that hell of gambling, follow that
" strange woman" to her house, make that fraudulent entry, engage
in that doubtful speculation, make light of that Sabbath and its
blessings — what have you done? You have weakened your
moral nature, you have sharpened the dagger for the assassin
who waits to stab you, and you are accessory, in your measure,
to the murder of your own soul. Brothers, with all a brother's
tenderness, I warn you against a peril which is at once so
threatening and so near. Now, while time and chance are
given, while, in the thickly-peopled air there are spirits which
wait your halting, and other spirits, which wait to give their
ministry to the heirs of salvation — now, let the conflict be de~
cided. Break from the bonds which are already closing around

j i

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

you. Frantic as a bondsman to escape the living hell of slavery
be it yours to hasten your escape from the pursuing evil of sin.
There, close at your heels, is the vengeful and resolute enemy.
Haste ! Flee for your life ! Look not behind you, lest you be
overtaken and destroyed. On — though the feet bleed, and the
veins swell, and the heart-strings quiver. On — spite of wearied
n'mbs, and shuddering memories, and the sobs and pants of
labouring breath. Once get within the gates of the city of
refuge and you are safe, for neither God's love nor man's will
ever, though all the world demand it, give up to his pursuers a
poor fugitive slave.

Having mentioned the piety of Daniel, the Corinthian pillar
of his character, we may glance at some of the acanthus leaves
which twine so gracefully round it.

It will not be amiss if we learn to be as contented, under all
change of circumstance, as Daniel's piety made him. He is
supposed to have been about twenty years old when he was
carried away to Babylon. He was then in the flower of his
youth; at an age when the susceptibilities are the keenest, when
the visions of the former time have not faded from the fancy,
when the future stretches brightly before the view. His con-
nexion with the royal family of Judah might, not unnaturally,
have opened to him the prospect of a life of state and pleasure,
haunted by no pangs of ungratified desire. It was a hard fate
for him to be at once banished from his fatherland and robbed
of his freedom. Every sensibility must have been rudely
shocked, every temporal hope must have been cruelly blighted,
by the transition from the courtly to the menial, and from Jeru-
salem to Babylon. How will Daniel act under these altered
circumstances, which had come upon him from causes which he

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DANIEL IN BABYLON.

could neither control nor remedy? There were three courses
open to him, other than the one he took. He might have re-
signed himself to the dominion of sorrow, have suffered grief
for his bereavement to have paralyzed every energy of his
nature, and have moaned idly and uselessly, as, beneath the
trailing willows, he " wept when " he " remembered Zion." He
might have harboured some sullen purpose of revenge, and
have glared out upon his captors with an eye whose meaning,
being interpreted, was murder. Or he might have abandoned
himself to listless dreaming, indolent in present duty, and
taking no part at all for the fulfilment of his own dreams. But
Daniel was too true and brave a man, and had too reverent a
recognition of the Providence of God to do either the one or
the other. He knew that his duty was to make the best of the
circumstances round him, to create the content, and to exhibit
it, though the conditions which had formerly constrained it were
at hand no longer. Hence, though he was by no means in-
different to his altered fortunes ; though there would often rise
upon his softened fancy the hills and temples of his native land,
he was resigned and useful and happy in Babylon. It may be
that some among yourselves may profitably learn this lesson.
Wearied with hard work, done for the enrichment of other
people, you are disposed to fret against your destiny, and to
rebel against the fortune which has doomed you to be the toiler
and the drudge. Ambition is, in some sort, natural to us all,
and could we borrow for a night a spirit more potent than the
lame demon of Le Sage, and could he unroof for us hearts as
well as houses, there would perhaps be discovered a vast amount
of lurking discontent, poisoning the springs both of usefulness
and of happiness for many. Under the influence of this em-

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DANIEL IN BABYLON.

bittered feeling some rail eloquently at class distinctions in
society, and sigh for an ideal equality with an ardour which the
first hour of a real equality would speedily freeze, while some
drivel into inglorious dreamers, and are always on the look-out,
like the immortal Micawber, for something to " turn up," which
will float them into the possession of a Nabob's fortune, or into
the notoriety of some easily-acquired renown.

I am not sure whether our dispensation of popular lecturing
is altogether guiltless in this matter. Young men, especially,
have been so often exhorted to aspire, to have souls above busi-
ness, to cultivate self-reliance, to aim at a prouder destiny, and
all that sort of thing ; and we have heard so much of the men
who have risen from the ranks to be glorified in the world's
memory — Burns at the plough-tail, and Claude Lorraine in the
pastry-cook's shop, and Chantrey the milk boy, and Sir Isaac
Newton with his cabbages in the Grantham market, and John
Bunyan mending the kettles, and Martin Luther singing in the
.streets for bread — that it is hardly surprising if some who have
listened to these counsels have been now and then excited into
an anti-commercial frenzy ; not, it is hoped, so fiercely as that
silly lad who attempted, happily in vain, to destroy himself, and
left a note for his employer, assigning as the reason of' the rash
act, as the newspapers always call it, that "he was made by
God to be a man, but doomed by man to be a grocer." Well,
if we lecturers have fostered the evil, it should be ours to atone
by the warning exhibition of its peril. I can conceive of
nothing more perilous to all practical success, more destructive
of everything masculine in the character, than the indulgence
in this delirious and unprofitable reverie. The mind once sur-
rendered to its spell has lost all power of self-control, and is

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

passive, like the opium-eater, under the influence of the horrible
narcotic. Real life is discarded as unlikely, and the dream is
arranged with all the accuracy, and very much of the adventure
of a three-volumed novel. A high-born maiden becomes sud-
denly enamoured of the slim youth who serves her with the
silks she rustles in, or, some rich unheard of uncle dies, just at
the critical time, or he turns out to be somebody's son, and by
consequence heir to a fortune or a large-acred landed proprietor,
or he is hurtling an imaginary senate with very imaginary elo-
quence; or, fired with the hope of hymeneal bliss, he is
whirled off with a bride and a fortune (always a fortune) in a
chariot and four ; and so he revels in these impossible heavens,
until, as in the dream of Alnaschar, crash goes the crockery, or
down falls the bale of muslin upon his most bunioned toe, or
an equivocal river of gamboge is too sure prediction of the
annihilation of the basket of eggs. But how unreal and foolish
all this is ! how hurtful to all healthiness of moral sentiment,
and to all industry of patient toil. How nearly akin to the
spirit of the gambler, who has lost all his fortune at hazard and
then risks his last quarter just because it is so small. "But,"
says some indignant youth, " what do you mean ? Are all the
counsels to which we have listened in the former time to go for
nothing ? Are we not to aspire ? Are we to grovel always ?
Are we never to rise above the sphere of society in which we
moved to-day ? " Oh yes ! some of you may, and if the ele-
ments of greatness are in you they will come out, aye, though
an Alp were piled upon them, or though the sepulchre hewn
out of the rock hid them in its heart of stone. But it is no use
hiding the truth ; ninety out of every hundred of you will re-
main as you are. "Grocers" to-day, you will be grocers or

15

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

something like it to the end of the chapter. Well, and what of
that ? Better the meanest honest occupation than to be a das-
tard, or a deceiver, or a drone. Better the weary-footed wan-
derer, who knows not where the morrow's breakfast will be had,
than to be the sordid or unworthy rascal, whirled through the
city in a carriage, built, cushioned, horsed, harnessed, all with
other people's money. God has placed you in a position in
which you can be honest and excel. Do your duty in the pre-
sent, and God will take care of the future. Depend upon it,
the way to rise in life, is neither to repine, and so add to the
troubles of misfortune the sorer troubles of passion and envy,
nor to waste in dreams the plodding energy which would go far
to the accomplishment of the dreamer's wealthiest desire. If
the Passions rule you, there will be a Reign of Terror. If
Imagination be suffered to hold the reins, you will make small
progress, if indeed there be no catastrophe, for though Phaeton
was a very brilliant driver, yet he burnt the world.

Don't aim, then, at any impossible heroisms. Strive rather to
be quiet heroes in your own sphere. Don't live in the cloudland
of some transcendental heaven ; do your best to bring the glory
of a real heaven down, and ray it out upon your fellows in this
work-day world. Don't go out, ascetic and cowardly, from the
fellowships of men. Try to be angels in their houses, that so a
light may linger from you as you leave them, and your voice
may echo in their hearing, " like to the benediction that follows
after prayer." The illumination which celebrates a victory is but
the vulgar light shining through various devices into which men
have twisted very base metal ; and so the commonest things can
be ennobled by the transparency with which they are done.
Seek then to make trade bright with a spotless integrity, and

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DANIEL IN BABYLON.

business lustrous with the beauty of holiness. Whether fortune
smile on you or not, you shall " stand in your lot," and it shall
be a happy one. The contentment of the soul will make the
countenance sunny ; and if you compare your heritage with that
of others who are thought higher in the social scale ; dowered
more richly with the favours of that old goddess who was said
to be both fickle and blind, the comparison will not be a hope-
less one if you can sing in the Poet's stirring words —

" Cleon hath a thousand acres,

Ne'er a one have I ;
Cleon dwelleth in a mansion,—

In a lodging, I.
Cleon hath a dozen fortunes,

Hardly one have I ; —
Yet the poorer of the twain

Is Cleon and not I.

" Cleon, tine, possesseth acres,

But the landscape I ; —
Half the charms to me it yicldcth

Money cannot buy.
Cleon harbours sloth and dulness,

Freshening vigour, I ; —
He in velvet— I in broadcloth —

Richer man am I.

" Cleon is a slave to grandeur,

Free as thought am I ; —
Cleon fees a score of doctors ; —

Need of none have I.
Wealth-surrounded — care-environed,

Cleon fears to die ; —
Death may come, he'll find me ready,

Happier man am 1.

17

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

" Cleon sees no charms in nature,

In a daisy, I ; —
Cleon hears no anthems ringing

In the earth and sky ; —
Nature sings to me for ever,

Earnest listener I,
State for state with all attendants,

Who would change ? Not I. "

The religion of Daniel influenced him further to be courteous
to those by whom he was surrounded. In the early years of his
residence in Babylon, he won "the favour and tender love of
the prince of the eunuchs." His resistance to what he deemed
unworthy subserviency was not rudely nor harshly manifested.
" He requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not
defile himself." He bore himself respectfully, yet without an
atom of servility ; never compromising his fidelity to God, but
neither insolent in his contempt of idolatry, nor forward to with-
hold honour and custom where honour and custom were due.
It will not, perhaps, be amiss to commend him in this matter to
the age in which we live ; and amid many incentives to inde-
pendence, original thought, intolerance of shams and scorners,
and the like, to whisper a word in favour of good manners.
There is so much of outspokenness now-a-days, and it has been so
much and so eloquently enforced that there is some danger lest
in our re-action from servility, we should exhibit the " falsehood
of extremes." Some men fancy themselves extremely clever,
when they are only extremely coarse, and obtrude before all
comers a boorishness which they mistake for bravery. I covet
for you all, the more if you be Christians, the grand old name
of gentleman — manhood and gentleness — inborn and influen-

18

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

cing energy, but with affability and courtesy to temper it. You
have heard of the Nasmyth hammer. It can chip an egg-shell
without breaking it, or can shiver with a stroke the ponderous
bar of iron. We are awed by the wonderful force, but we are
especially attracted by the machinery which holds it in control.
So a rough strength of character will repel even while it attracts
us, but a frank and winning courtesy comes stealing into our
hearts like a sunbeam, and flings an otto of July over the chil-
lest November air.

This courtesy which I recommend you to exhibit is not only
auxiliary to your religion, but a part of it. " The wisdom which
is from above," I leave you to guess where the other wisdom
comes from, is "gentle, and easy to be entreated." "Christ,"
Emerson says, " was a prince in courtesy, as well as in benefi-
cence and wisdom," and a Christian is not more bound to main-
tain his own rights than to be tolerant of the feelings and opin-
ions of others. Even Fashion, at the bottom, (though, as in a
muddy road, the bottom may be a long way down) is based
upon religion, and is a sort of Rabbinical perversion of Chris-
tianity. There is not a usage of cultivated society to-day, which
had not its origin in some real or fancied benevolence. Love
is the essence of religion, and courtesy is but love in society —
the " good Samaritan" genial in the drawing-room, as on the occa-
sion he was self-sacrificing on the highway and in the field. The
golden rule of all the politeness which it is worth A MAN'S while
to seek after, is in the old music-master's counsel to his pupil
when she asked him the secret of performing with expression
and effect — " Cultivate your heart, Miss, cultivate your heart."
There is no reason surely why you should be otherwise than
courteous. Good men are not necessarily abrupt and disagree-

19

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

able. There is no inevitable connection between Christianity
and cynicism. Truth is not a salad, is it ? that you must always
dress it with vinegar. It will be foul shame if some of your
quondam friends should be able, with any truth, to say, " He
was a fine, frank, generous, open-hearted fellow before, he became
a Christian'' as if that had contracted the sympathies, which
only can rightly expand them, as if that had frosted the heart,
under whose warmth alone spring up " all that is of good report
and lovely." Have a care to wipe away this reproach, even if
it has but begun to cleave to you, or, so far as you are concerned,
your religion will be " wounded in the house of her friends."
You should be so firm in your principles that you can afford to
be kind. Let yours be the heroism which can sing even from a
shattered heart,

" Ten thousand deaths in every nerve.
I'd rather suffer than deserve."

Preserve this unfailing kindliness whatever betide; though
you are deafened by the strife of tongues, though, loudest in the
scoff or the slander, you hear the changed tones of your own
familiar one ; though your heart be wrung until its very fibres
start, — yet beseem yourself as becomes God's child, the child
of one who bears with "the unthankful and the evil." You will
find your account in it, and in earnest prayers, and charity which
never faileth, and compassions delicately shewn, and opportun-
ities eagerly embraced for piling up " coals of fire," you may
secure the nobility of revenge.

And not for your own comfort only, but in your work of
Christian witness-bearing, there must be gentleness in the rebuke
and in the testimony, if either of them are to prevail. A bluff

20

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

countryman once strayed into Westminster Hall, and sat, with
edifying patience for two mortal hours, while two lawyers wran-
gled over the merits of a case which was as much Greek to him
as Curran's famous quotation from Juvenal was to the jury of
Dublin shopkeepers. Some bystander, amused at his bewilder-
ment, and amazed at his attention, asked him " which he thought
had the best of it?" His reply was ready — "The little one, to
be sure, because he put the other man in a passion" There was
shrewdness, if not logic, in the answer, and it shews how all
argument is likely to shape itself to the bucolic mind. Believe
me, neither Christianity, nor sound political dogma, nor any
other good thing was ever yet permanently advantaged, either
by the sword of the bigot, or by the tongue of the scold. The
one only elevates the slaughtered into martyrdom, even though
they were in life "lewd fellows of the baser sort •" — the other
rouses resistance, and enlists manliness upon the side of error.
Brothers, in all seriousness I protest against grafting upon our
holy religion a spirit that is truculent and cruel. Speak the
truth, by all means ! Speak it so that no man can mistake the
utterance. Be bold and fearless in your rebuke of error, and
in your keener rebuke of wrong-doing, all Christ's witnesses are
bound to be thus " valiant for the truth ;" but be human, and lov-
ing, and gentle, and brotherly, the while. If you must deliver
the Redeemer's testimony, deliver it with the Redeemer's tears.
Look, straight-eyed and kindly, upon the vilest, as a man ought
to look upon a man, both royal, although the one is wearing,
and the other has pawned, his crown.

The religion of Daniel constrained his fidelity to duty and his
diligent fulfilment of every trust confided to him. It is a grievous
error, but partly from the mistakes of religionists, and partly

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

from the malignity of infidels, it is one which has very
largely obtained, that the interests of the life that now
is are in direct antagonism to the interests of the life that is to
come. You may hear it reiterated from many a Sanhedrim of
worldly self-sufficiency, and from many a Rabbi's supercilious
lips. They will tell you that high moral excellence and deep
religious feeling are inconsistent with shrewd business habits,
and with the effective discharge of the commoner duties of
life ; and that, if a man would serve his God aright, he must
forthwith abandon all hope of temporal advantage, and transfer
his thought exclusively to the inheritance which awaits him in
the sky. There is in this view, as in all prevalent errors, a sub-
stratum of important truth. A Christian will not hesitate to
tell you that he lives in the recognition of Eternity, and there
is that in his glad hope of the future which will smite down his
avarice, and turn away his footsteps from the altar of Mammon,
but he has not forgotten, that as the heir of promise, he in-
herits this world too. The present is his by a truer charter
than that by which the worldling holds it, and his eye may
revel in its beauty, and his ear may listen to its music, and he
may gather up its competence with a thankful heart, while yet
his faith pierces through the cloud, and sees in the wealthier
heaven his treasure and abiding homer

How fine an illustration of diligent and successful industry
we have in the character of Daniel ! He rose rapidly in the
king's favour, and by his administrative ability secured the con-
fidence of four successive monarchs who sat upon the throne of
' Babylon. Darius the Median, who succeeded to the empire
after Belshazzar had been slain, discerned early the excellent
spirit that was in him, promoted him to be chief of the presi-

22

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

dents, to whom the hundred and twenty princes were amenable,
and thought to set him over the whole realm. The duties thus
devolved upon Daniel must have been of the most onerous and
responsible kind. The empire extended southward to the Per-
sian Gulf and northward to Mesopotamia. Naturally fertile, it
had been cultivated to the uttermost. Babylon, the capital, to
which Herodotus assigns dimensions of almost fabulous magni-
tude, had, on the lowest computation, an area twice as large as
that of modern London, and enclosed within its walls a popula-
tion of a million and a quarter souls. How complicated must
have been the problems of government which Daniel was called
upon to solve ! He had to deal, in a foreign language,
with foreign customs, and under different dynasties of kings.
Many of those with whom he had to work were the " wise men
of Babylon," not inconsiderably versed in starry lore and bear-
ing a high reputation among their fellows. He must have
therefore political sagacity and scientific research. His must be
the ruling mind to disentangle a sophistry, and the seer's fore-
sight to perceive the end from the beginning. Then the ad-
ministration of justice formed no small part of his duty. Before
him, as he sat in the gate, appellant and defendant came.
It was his to hear the cause, to weigh the probabilities of
evidence, to adjudicate, to execute the decision. Then, further,
he must make provision for the contingencies which in those
turbulent times were constantly occurring. He must be Argus-
eyed against intestine faction, and against aggressions from
beyond : quick to catch and quiet the murmurs of discontent at
home ; equally quick to scent the battle from afar. On him
also devolved, in the last event, the financial administration of
the realm. He had to get from each reluctant satrap the tribute

23

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

assessed upon his province, to check the accounts of the presi-
dents, and to see, as the tale was told into the treasury, that the
king suffered no damage. Now, when you think of all the
responsibility thus thrust upon one busy man, how he was at
once Finance Minister, Lord Chief Justice, Home and Foreign
Secretary, War Minister, and Premier to boot, you will readily
conceive that Daniel had about enough on his hands, and that
he would require, rightly to discharge his duty, both tact and
energy, and a rigid and conscientious frugality of time.

In the differing play of mind before me, this consideration
may have suggested different thoughts just now. I will imagine
one or two of them, and turn them to profit as we proceed.

There may be perhaps what I will venture to call the nar-
rowly pious thought ; the thought of a mind, evil from the ex-
treme of good; the apprehension of a sensitive spirit, which like
the mollusc of the rock, thrusts out its long antennae at the barest
possibility of danger. " Enough on his hands ! yes ! and far too
much, more than any man ought to have who has two worlds to
think about and provide for. It would be impossible, in this
round of ceaseless secularity, to preserve that recognition of
Eternity, and that preparation for its destinies which it is so need-
ful for man to realize." The apprehension does you honour,
my brother. I won't chide you for it ; there are sadly too few
who are thus jealous for the Lord in the midst of us : but you
need not fear. See him ! He comes out of the presence-
chamber, where he has been having audience of the king.
Whither will he go ? Ah ! he goes to the closet, and the lattice
is reverently opened, and the knees are bent towards the un-
forgotten temple at Jerusalem, and there trembles through the
air the cadence of some Hebrew psalm, followed shortly by

24

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

some fervent strain of prayer. Oh ! there is no fear, while the
track to that chamber is a beaten one, while the memories
of home and temple are so fragrant ; while through the
thrown-back lattice the morning sun shines in upon that silver-
haired statesman on his knees. He who can thus pray, will
neither be faithless to man nor recreant to God. In that
humiliation, and thrice-repeated litany of prayer, he finds his
safety and his strength, and he exhibits for your encouragement
and mine that it is possible to combine, in grandest harmony of
character, fidelity to duty and to God ; and amid the ceaseless-
ness of labour, whether of the hand or of the brain, to keep a
loyal heart within, whose every pulse beats eagerly for heaven.
Then out speaks a frank and manly worldling, knowing little
and caring less about religion, but delighted with Daniel because
he is so clever ; almost worshipping the diplomacy which is as-
tute, and sagacious, and above all successful. " Time for thought
of eternity. No, and why should he ? His deeds are his best
prayers. Surely if ever a man might make his work his wor-
ship, it is he. He is a brave, true man, doing a man's work in
a right manly way. What needs he to pray, except perhaps that
his own valued life may not come to a close too soon." Ah !
so you think that the thought of Eternity must paralyze the
effort of Time. You think that your nature, when a strong
man wears it, may claim its own place among the Gods. You,
to whom prayer is an impertinence, and the acknowledgment of
sin hypocrisy, alas for you that you are not in the secret !
Why, this prayer is the explanation of everything which you
admire in the man. Is he brave ? What makes him so ? Be-
cause the fear of God has filled his heart so full that there is no
room for the fear of man to get in. Does he walk warily on a

25

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

giddy height, which would make weaker brains dizzy ? It is
because he knows that the sky is higher than the mountain, and
cherishes in all his ways the humbled feeling of dependence and
iaith. Is he rigid and conscientious in the discharge of daily
duty ? It is because he has learnt, and recollects, that " every
one of us must give account of himself to God." Go then, and
learn his piety, and humble thyself in thy chamber as he does.
It will teach thee higher views of life than thou hast ever rea-
lized yet. Immortality shall burst upon thee, as America burst
upon Columbus, a new world, flashing with a new heaven, and
thou shalt be shewn that not in stalwart arm nor cunning brain
shall be thy strength, but in quietness, and confidence, and in
" the joy of the Lord."

It may be, though I would fain believe it otherwise, that a
third discordant voice is speaking, the voice of one who hides
beneath a seemly exterior, a scoffing soul. " He a statesman !
what ! that man of psalm and prayer, who cants along about
right, and conscience, and duty, — you will find out differently by-
and-bye. I am greatly mistaken if he does not turn out incom-
petent or wicked ; they will have a hard life who bear office
under him. I hate these saints. Look narrowly into his accounts,
perhaps you will make some discoveries ; there'll be a fine ex-
posure some day of his blundering, and rapacity, and wrong."
It would please you, I dare say to find yourself among the pro-
phets, but happily the answer is at hand. Your ancestors shall
come forward (you are not the first of the line) and with their
own reluctant lips they shall refute your sarcasm. Mark them
how they gather, presidents and princes, and counsellors, and
captains — "vile conspirators all of them, devising mischief
against the beloved of the Lord." Now we shall know the worst*

26

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

you may be sure. If Daniel's administration has been faulty or
fraudulent, all the world will be privy to it now. Malice is on
his track, and it has a keen scent for blemishes. Envy is at
work, and if it cannot see, it will suborn witnesses to swear they
see, spots upon the sun. All his administration is brought into
unfriendly review. Home and Foreign politics, Finance, Jus-
tice, all are straitly canvassed. Well, what is the result ? Come
scoffer, and hear thy fathers speak. " We shall not be able to
find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against
him concerning the law of his God." What? Did we hear
aright ? No occasion of charge against the chief minister of a
great empire, when men are seeking for it with all their hearts !
Was ever such a thing heard in this world ? No failure of fore-
sight ! No lack of sagacity, which they might torture into pre-
meditated wrong ! no personal enrichment ! no solitary nepo-
tism in the distribution of patronage ! This is very marvellous,
and it is very grand. Speak it out again, for it is the noblest
testimony which malice ever bore to virtue. " We shall not be
able to find any occasion against this Daniel !" There he stands,
spotless on the confession of his enemies. It matters not what
becomes of him now, the character — which is the man — has
been adjudged free from stain. Cast him to the lions, if you
like, his faith will stop their mouths. Fling him into the seven-
fold heated furnace, you can't taint his garments with the smell
of fire. Heir of two worlds, he has made good his title of inhe-
ritance for both : — Daniel, faithful among men ! Daniel, the be-
loved of the Lord .

Brothers, if the exhibition of this character has produced the
effect upon you which I fondly hope, you will have learnt some
lessons, which will make all your after-life the brighter. You

27

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

will learn that though there may be, here and there, a favourite
of fortune, who goes up in a balloon to some high position with-
out the trouble of the climbing, the only way for ordinary men
is just to foot it, up the "steep and starry road." You will learn
that Labour is the true alchemist which beats out in patient
transmutation the baser metals into gold. You will learn that
atheistic labour and prayerful idleness are alike disreputable, and
you will brand with equal reprobation the hypocrite who is too
devout to work, and the worldling who is too busy to pray. You
will learn how hollow is the plea of the procrastinator that he
has no time for religion, when the Prime Minister of a hundred
and twenty provinces can retire for prayer three times a day.
Above all you will learn that a reputation, built up by the wise
masonry of years, does not fall at the blast of a scorner's trum-
pet, that God thrones the right at last, in kinglier royalty, because
its coronation is delayed, and that neither earth nor hell can
permanently harm you, if you be "followers of that which is
good."

It needs only that I should remind you that when the interests
of the two worlds came into collision, and there are periods in
every man's life when they will, Daniel dared the danger, rather
than prove faithless to his God. The vile council which met to
compass his ruin laid their scheme cunningly. They knew him
to be faithful, faithful in all respects, and it may be that like
that other famous council of which Milton sings, they were about
to separate in despair without accomplishing their purpose, when
some Belial-spirit suggested that his fidelity to man should be
pitted against his fidelity to God. The scheme succeeded. The
King's consent was hastily gained to the promulgation of a de-
cree, that for thirty days no petition should be offered to God

28

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

or man, save to the King's own majesty, and the men,
Daniel's habit of prayer, exulted as they deemed his ruin sure.

And what has he done, this man, whom they thus conspire to
destroy ? Alas ! for the baseness of human nature, his only
faults are merit and success. It is the same world still. The
times are changed from those of Smithfield and the Lollard's
Tower ; men fear not now the stake and the headsman, but the
spirit which did the martyrs to the death is the spirit of the car-
nal heart to-day.

How will Daniel meet this new peril ? It is inevitable — Da-
rius cannot relent, for " the law of the Medes and Persians
altereth not." Then shall Daniel yield ? shall there be evasion,
compromise, delay ? His manner was to retire, that he might
commune with God undisturbed ; to kneel, in the prostration of
a spirit at once contrite and dependent ; to open his window
towards Jerusalem, that the prayer which Solomon, as if pres-
cient of their exile, invoked at the dedication of the temple,
might be realized and answered. Shall he omit an observance,
or suspend, even for an hour, the constancy of his devotion to
his God ? I think you could answer these questions from what
you already know of the man. He did exactly as he had been
accustomed to do. He did not then, for the first time throw open
his window. If he had done that, he would have been a Phar-
isee. He did not close his window, because, for the first time,
there was danger in opening it. If he had done that, he would
have been a coward. He was neither the one nor the other, but
simply, a brave, good man, who loved life well, but who loved
God better ; and who when a thing was put before him, when
Timidity whispered, "Is it safe?" and Expediency hinted, "Is it
politic?" and Vanity suggested, "Will it be popular ?" took coun-

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

sel of his own true heart, and simply enquired, " Is it right?"
You can see him as on the fated day he retires for his accus-
tomed worship, and with a quickened pulse, for he knows that
his foes are in ambush, he enters his room, and opens his west-
ern window. Now he reads in the law of the Lord — then the
psalm rises, a little tremulous in its earlier notes, but waxing
louder and clearer as the inspiration comes with the strain ;
then the prayer is heard — adoration, confession, supplication,
thanksgiving, just as it had arisen from that chamber through
the seasons of some seventy years. And now the room is filled
with the envious ones, their eyes gleaming with triumph, and
they accuse him fiercely of a violation of the King's decree. He
does not falter, though he might have faltered as he thought of
the cruel death, from which the King laboured vainly until sun-
down to deliver him; though he might have faltered as he
thought of the hungry lions, kept without food on purpose that
they might the more fiercely rush upon their prey ; but he does
not falter ; and rather than betray his conscience goes calmly
down to death, with the decision of the martyr, with the deci-
sion of the martyr's Lord.

Surely this is true heroism. It is not physical daring, such
as beneath some proud impulse will rush upon an enemy's
steel ; it is not reckless valour, sporting with a life which ill-
fortune has blighted, or which despair has made intolerable ; it
is not the passiveness of the stoic, through whose indifferent
heart no tides of feeling flow ; it is the calm courage which re-
flects upon its alternatives, and deliberately chooses to do right ;
it is the determination of Christian principle, whose foot resteth
on the rock, and whose eye pierceth into Heaven.

And now surely the enemies are satisfied. They have com-

30

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

passed the ruin of the Minister, they have wounded the heart
of the King ; they have removed the watchfulness which pre-
vented their extortion, and the power which restrained them
from wrong ; now they will enjoy their triumph ! Yes ! but
only for a night. The wicked do but boast themselves a
moment, and the shrewd observers, who meditate upon their
swift destruction, remember the place where it is written,
" They digged a pit for the righteous, and into the midst of it
they are fallen themselves." Oh vain are all the efforts of slan-
der, permanently to injure the fair fame of a good man ! There
is a cascade in a lovely Swiss valley, which the fierce winds
catch and scatter so soon as it pours over the summit of the
rock, and for a season the continuity of the fall is broken, and
you see nothing but a feathery wreath of apparently helpless
spray; but if you look further down the consistency is re-
covered, and the Staubbach pours its rejoicing waters as if no
breeze had blown at all ; nay, the blast which interrupts it only
fans it into more marvellous loveliness, and makes it a shrine
of beauty where all pilgrim footsteps travel. And so the blasts
of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good man's
head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider fame.
Preserve only a good conscience toward God, and a loving
purpose toward your fellow-men, and you need not wince nor
tremble, though the pack of the spaniel-hearted hound snarl
at your heels —

Never you fear, but go ahead

In self-relying strength ;
What matters it that Malice said,

" We've found it out at length."
Found out ! Found what ? An honest man

Is open as the light,

31

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

So search as keenly as you can,
You'll only find — all right.

Aye ! blot him black with slander's ink,

He stands as white as snow,
You serve him better than you thinlc,

And kinder than you know.
Yes ! be the scandal what you will,

Or whisper what you please ;
You do but fan his glory still

By whistling up a breeze.

I trust there are many of you who are emulous of Daniel's
heroism. The brutality of the olden persecutions has passed
away. Saul does not now make havoc of the Church, nor
Caligula nor Adrian purify it by lustrations of blood, but the
spirit of the oppressor lives, and there is room enough in the
most uneventful life for exemplary religious decision. The exi-
gencies of the present times, regard for your own character and
honour, the absolute requirement of God, all summon you to
this nobleness of religious decision. Resist all temptations to
become recreant to the truth. Remember that the Christian
ought to be like Achilles, who could be wounded only in the
heel, a part of the body which good soldiers do not generally
show. Don't let the question ever be asked about you, " Is
such an one a Christian ? " The very necessity to ask suggests
a negative answer. Some painters in the rude times of art are
said to have put under their works, "This is ahorse!" Of
course ! it was necessary, for no one could possibly recognize
it without being told. But it is a poor sign when either a
work of art or a work of grace needs to be labelled. Who
thought of asking where Moses had been when he came down

32

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

from the mount ? They looked at him, and they saw the
glory. Let your consistency be thus steadfast and pure. If
you know that the " writing is signed" which will throw you
upon the world's cold pity or cruel scorn because you will keep
your conscience inviolate, take heart from the example of
Daniel. Don't shut your lattice-window. Men may ridicule
you, but they will respect you notwithstanding ; and if they do
not, you can afford to do without their good opinion, while God
looks down upon you with complacency, and the light of His
countenance shines, broad and bright, upon your soul.

I have never despaired of the future of the world in which I
live. I leave that to infidelity, with its sad scorn of the im-
mortal and its vaunt of brotherhood with the brutes that perish.
Humanity has been at once ransomed and glorified by Christ,
and though there are still dark omens round us, though " this
dear earth which Jesus trod is wet with tears and blood," yet
there is a power abroad to whose call there is something in
every man responsive, and the glad gospel of peace and bless-
ing shall yet hush the voices of earth's many wailings, and
speak of resurrection amid the silence of its many tombs.

And the work is being done. When I think of the agencies
which are ceaslessly at work to make this bad world better, I
am thankful that I live. From the eminence of the proud To-
day, as from an Alp of clear and searching vision, I have
looked backward on the past and forward on the illimitable
future. I look, and that former time seemeth as a huge pri-
meval forest, rioting in a very luxury of vegetation ; with trees of
giant bole, beneath which serpents brood, and whose branches
arch overhead so thickly that they keep out the sun. But as
I look there is a stir in that forest, for " the feller has come

33

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

up against the trees." All that is prescriptive and all that is
venerable combine to protest against the intrusion. Custom
shudders at the novelty ; Fraud shudders at the sunlight ; Sloth
shudders at the trouble; " grey-bearded Use" leans upon his
staff and wonders where all this will end ; Romance is indig-
nant that any should dare to meddle with the old ; Affection
clinging to some cherished association, with broken voice and
with imploring hands, says, "Woodman, spare that tree." But
as I look the woodman hath no pity, and at every stroke he
destroys the useless, or dislodges the pestilent, or slaughters the
cruel. The vision vanisheth, but again—

" I look, aside the mist has rolled,

The waster seems the builder too ;
Upspringing from the ruined old
I see the new !

" Twas but the ruin of the bad,

The wasting of the wrong and ill ;
Whate'er of good the old time had,
Is living still."

The woodman is there still, but he has thrown his axe aside,
and now drives the ploughshare1 through the stubborn soil, or
delves in the earth as lustily as though he knew that the colours
of Eden were slumbering in the clods, and close upon him
come the planter and the sower, and soon upon the cleared
ground, there is the laugh of harvest, as reapers with their
sickles bright

"Troop, singing, down the mountain-side."

That vision of the present vanisheth, and, yet further away,
there dawns on me the sight of the To-morrow. The wood

34

DANIEL IN BABYLON.

man and his co-workers are dead — all dead ! — but the work
lives on. The seeds of the former time have ripened into a
goodly growth, and there, on the spot where once the swamp
was sluggish, and where once the serpent writhed, lo ! a Para"
disc, wherein is man the loving and the happy, into which
angels wander as of yore, and where the " voice of the Lord
is heard speaking in the cool of the day."

Brother, this vision is no fable. It is for an appointed time,
and it will not tarry. It is nearer for every outworn lie, and
for every trampled fraud, for each scattered truth-seed, and
each kindly speech and deed. Each of us may aid it in its
coming. Children who fling seeds about in sport — Youth in
its prime — Age in its maturity — Manhood in his energy of en-
terprise— Womanhood in her ministry of mercy — all may speed
it onward. In a reverent mingling of Faith and Labour, it is
ours to watch and to work for it. Do not mourn the past, my
brother, it has given place to better times. Do not dread the
coming of the future. It shall dawn in brighter and in safer
glory. Come, and upon the altars of the faith be anointed as
the Daniels of to-day, at once the prophet and the worker —
the brow bright with the shining prophecy, the hands full of
earnest and of holy deeds.

"Thine the needed Truth to speak,
Right the wronged, and raise the weak j
Thine to make earth's desert glad,
In its Eden greenness clad.
Thine to work as well as pray,
Clearing thorny wrongs away,
Plucking up the weeds of sin,
Letting Heaven's warm sunshine in.

35

DANIEL IN BABYLON-

Watching on the hills of Faith,
Listening what the Spirit saith,
Catching gleams of temple-spires
Hearing notes from angel-choirs.
Like the seer of Patmos, gazing
On the glory downward blazing,.
Till, upon earth's grateful sodr
Rests the city of our God."

MACAULAY.

MACAULAY.

I AM in difficulties. There are three pictures vivid to my
mental eye, which will haply illustrate these difficulties
better than any long array of words. The first is that of a
gleaner, by the dim light of the moon, searching painfully
among the unwealthy stubble, in a harvest-field from which the
corn has been reaped, and from which the reapers have with-
drawn. I am that gleaner. About the great man who is
my subject there has been as much said as would suffice for
a long course of lectures, and as much written as would
almost furnish a library. Where is the tongue which has not
been loosened to utter his eulogy? Where is the pen which
has not been swift in his praise? I have, therefore, to deal
with matters which are already treasured as national property.
If I am to furnish for you any but thin and blasted ears, I must
of necessity enrich myself from the full sheaves of others.
The second picture is that of an unfortunate individual, who
has to write an art-criticism upon a celebrated picture, but who
finds himself, with a small physique and with a horror of crowds,
jammed hopelessly into the front rank of the spectators at the
Academy, with the sun dazzling his eyes, and so near to the
picture that he sees little upon the canvas but a vague and

39

MACAU LAY.

shapeless outline of colour. I am that unhappy critic, dazzled
as I look upon my subject— and both you and I are too near
for perfect vision. Macaulayras every one knows, was through
life identified with a political party. Even his literary efforts
were prompted by political impulses, and tinged necessarily
with political hues. It would seem, therefore, that to be accu-
rately judged he must be looked at through the haze of years,
when the strife of passion has subsided, and prepossession and
prejudice have alike faded in the lapse of time. The third pic-
ture is that of a son, keenly affectionate, but of high integrity,
clinging with almost reverent fondness to the memory of a
father, but who has become conscious of one detraction from
that father's excellence, which he may not conscientiously
conceal. I am that mourning son. There are few of you who
hold that marvellous Englishman more dear, or who are more
jealous for the renown which, on his human side, he merits, and
which has made his name a word of pride wherever Anglo-
Saxons wander. If this world were all, I could admire and
worship with the best of you, and no warning accompaniment
should mingle with the music of praise; but I should be
recreant to the duty which I owe to those who listen to me,
and traitorous to my higher stewardship as a minister of Christ,
if I forbore to warn you that, without godliness in the heart and
in the life, the most brilliant career has failed of its allotted
purpose, and there comes a paleness upon the lustre of the
very proudest fame. It is enough. Your discernment per-
ceives my difficulties, and your sympathy will accord me its in-
dulgence while we speak together of the man who was the mar-
vel of other lands, and who occupies no obscure place upon the
bright bead-roll of his own — the rhetorician, the essayist, the

40

MACAU LAY.

poet, the statesman, the historian — Thomas Babington, first
and last Baron Macaulay.

From a middle-class family, in a midland county in England,
was born the man whom England delights to honour. The
place of his birth was Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire, at the
house of his uncle, Mr. Thomas Babington, after whom he was
named ; and the time the month of October, when the century
was not many moons old. His grandfather was a minister of
the Kirk of Scotland, who dwelt quietly in his manse at Card-
ross on the Clyde. His father, after the manner of Scotchmen,
travelled in early life toward the south, that he might find wider
scope for his enterprise and industry than the country of Ma-
callum More could yield. His mother was the daughter of a
bookseller in Bristol, who was a member of the Society of
Friends. Some of his critics, on the "post hoc propter hoc"
principle, have discovered in these two facts the reasons of his
fter severity against Scotchmen and Quakers. When, in these
times, we ask after a man's parentage, it is not that we may
:now by how many removes he is allied to the Plantagenets,
lor how many quarterings he is entitled to grave upon his shield,
states and names are not the only inheritances of children,
icy inherit the qualities by which estates are acquired or
:attered, and by which men carve out names for themselves,
ic prouder because they are self-won. Influences which are
>wn around them in the years of early life are vital, almost
reative in their power, upon the future of their being. You
)k upon a child in the rounded dimples of its happiness, with
wonder in its eyes, and brow across which sun and shadow
chase each other ceaselessly. It is all unconscious of its solemn
stewardship, and of the fine or fatal destiny which it may

MACAU LAY.

achieve ; but you take the thoughts of responsibility and ot
influence into account, and you feel that of all known and terri-
ble forces, short of Omnipotence, the mightiest may slumber in
that cradle, or look wistfully from out those childish eyes. You
look at it again when the possible of the child has developed
into the actual of the man. The life purpose has been chosen,
and there is the steady striving for its accomplishment. The
babe who once slumbered so helplessly has become the village
Hampden, or the cruel Claverhouse ; the dark blasphemer, or
the ready helper of the friendless ; the poet, in his brief felony
of the music of Paradise, or the missionary in his labour to re-
store its lost blessings to mankind. You might almost have pre-
dicted the result, because you knew the influences, subtle but
mighty, which helped to confirm him in the right, or which
helped to warp him to the wrong. And who shall say in the
character of each of us, how much we are indebted to heredi-
tary endowments, to early association, to the philosophy of pa-
rental rule, and to that retinue of circumstances which guarded
us as we emerged from the dreamland of childhood into the
actual experiences of life?

In the character and habits of Macaulay the results of these
influences may be very largely discovered. Those of you who
are familiar with the wicked wit of Sydney Smith will remember
his reference to " the patent Christianity of Clapham ; " and in Sir
James Stephen's inimitable essay, the worthies of the Clapham
sect are portrayed with such fidelity and power that we feel their
presence, and they are familiar to us as the faces of to-day. Let us
look in upon them on a summer's eve some fifty years ago.
We are in the house of Henry Thornton, the wealthy
banker, and for many years the independent representative of

42

MACAULAY.

the faithful constituency of Southwark. The guests assemble
in such numbers that it might almost be a gathering of the
clan. They have disported on the spacious lawn, beneath the
shadow of venerable elms, until the evening warns them
inside, and they are in the oval saloon, projected and deco-
rated, in his brief leisure, by William Pitt, and filled, to
every available inch, with a well-selected library. Take
notice of the company, for men of mark are here. There is
Henry Thornton himself, lord of the innocent and happy revels,
with open brow and searching eye ; with a mind subtle to per-
ceive and bright to harmonize the varied aspects of a question ;
with a tranquil soul, and a calm, judicial, persevering wisdom,
which, if it never rose into heroism, was always ready to coun-
sel and sustain the impulses of the heroism of others. That
slight, agile, restless little man, with a crowd about him, whose
rich voice rolls like music upon charmed listeners, as if he were
a harper who played upon all hearts at his pleasure, can that
be the apostle of the brotherhood ? By what process of com-
pression did the great soul of Wilberforce get into a frame so
slender ? It is the old tale of the genius and the fisherman re-
vived. He is fairly abandoned to-night to the current of his
own joyous fancies ; now contributing to the stream of earnest
talk which murmurs through the room, and now rippling into a
merry laugh, light-hearted as a sportive child. There may be
seen the burly form, and heard the sonorous voice of William
Smith, the active member for Norwich, separated from the rest
in theological beliefs, but linked with them in all human
charities ; who at threescore years and ten could say that he
had no remembrance of an illness, and that though the head of
a numerous family, not a funeral had ever started from his

43

MACAULAY.

<door. Yonder, with an absent air, as if awakened from some
dear dream of prophecy, sits Granmlle Sharp, that man of
chivalrous goodness ; stern to indignation against every form of
wrong-doing, gentle to tenderness towards the individual wrong-
doer. The author of many publications, the patron of many
societies, the exposer of many abuses, there was underlying the
earnest purpose of his life a festive humour which made the
world happy to him, and which gladdened the circle of his
home. His leisure was divided, when he was not called to the
•councils of Clapham, between his barge, his pencil, and his
harp, the latter of which he averred was after the precise pat-
tern of David's ; and strollers through the Temple Gardens in
the early morning might often hear his voice, though broken by
age, singing to it, as in a strange land, and "by the river" of
the modern " Babylon," one of the songs of Zion. In his later
years the study of prophecy absorbed him, and we smile at the
kindly aberrations which devised portable wool-packs to save
the lives at once of exposed soldiers in the Peninsula, and of
starving artizans at home ; which thought that in King Alfred's
law of frankpledge there was a remedy for all the sorrows of
.Sierra Leone, and which mourned over the degeneracy of
statesmen, because Charles Fox, whom he saw at the Foreign
Office, had never so much as heard of Daniel's " Little Horn."
Approaching with a half-impatient look, as if he longed to be
breathing the fresh air in some glen of Needwood Chase, comes
Thomas Gisborne, the sworn friend of Nature, to whom she
whispered all her secrets of bird and stream and tree, and who
loved her with a pure love, less only than that which he felt for
the souls in his homely parish to whom he ministered the Word
,of Life. There, in a group, eagerly conversing together, are the

44

MACAU LAY.

lamented Bowdler, and the elder Stephen, — Charles Grant, then
the reputed autocrat of that Leadenhall Street whose glory has
so recently departed, andjb/in, Lord Tetgnmouth, whose quiet,
gentlemanly face one could better imagine in the chair of the
Bible Society, than ruling in viceregal pomp over the vast em-
pire of India. Summoned up from Cambridge to the gathering
there is Isaac Milner, " of lofty stature, vast girth, and super-
incumbent wig," charged perhaps with some message of affec-
tion from good old John Venn, who then lay quietly waiting
until his change should corne ; and Charles Simeon, redeemed
from all affectations, as he is kindled by the reading of a letter
which has just reached him from the far East, and which bears
the signature of Henry Martyn. Are we mistaken, or did we
discover in the crowd, lighted up with a fine benignity, the
countenance of the accomplished Mackintosh ? And surely
there flitted by us, with characteristic haste, that active, working,
marvellously expressive face which could answer to no other
name than that of Henry Brougham. There is just one more
figure in the corner upon whom we must for a moment lin-
ger, and as we pass towards him that we may get a nearer
vision, look at that group of three ingenuous youths, drinking
in the rich flow of soul with feelings of mingled shyness and
pride. Can you tell their fortunes? The interpreting years
would show them to you — the one dying beloved and honoured
as the Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, the second
living, as the active and eloquent Bishop of Oxford,* and the
the third the future historian of his country, and one of her
most renowned and most lamented sons.

With beetling brows, and figure robust but ungainly, slow of

* Now of Winchester.

45

MACAULAY.

•speech, and with a face which told no tale, described as the
man " whose understanding was proof against sophistry, and
his nerves against fear," and who, though his demeanour was
" inanimate, if not austere, excited among his chosen circle a
faith approaching to superstition, and a love rising to enthu-
siasm."— What was the secret of Zachary Macaulay's power ?
Just this, the consecration of every energy to the one purpose
upon which his life was offered as a living sacrifice — the sweep-
ing from the face of the earth of the wrong and shame of
slavery. An eye-witness of its abominations in Jamaica, a long
resident at Sierra Leone, with the slave-trade "flourishing around
him, he became impressed with the conviction that God had
called him to do battle with this giant sin, and from that
moment he lived apart, lifted above ordinary cares and aims by
the grandeur of this solemn inspiration. For this cause he
laboured without weariness, and wrote with force and vigour.
For this cause he suffered slander patiently, made light of fame
and fortune, wasted health, and died poor. His friends marked
this self-devotion, and respected it. They bowed in homage to
the majesty of goodness. They regarded him almost as a
being of superior order, while so deep was his humility, and so
close his fellowship with God, that it became easy to imagine
that he dwelt habitually in the presence of the shining ones,
and that the glory of the mount upon which his footsteps often
lingered, shone about him as he sojourned among men.

Such were the men who, as leaders of the "Clapham sect,"
as it was called, drew down the wonder of the worldly, and
provoked the scoffing of the proud.

Oh rare and sacred fellowship ! Where is the limner who
will preserve for us these features upon canvas ? Already

46

MACAULAY.

upon our walls we can live with the renowned and the worthy.
We see the great Duke in the midst of his companions-in-arms ;
we are at home with Dr. Johnson and his friends ; we are pre-
sent when John Wesley dies ; we can nod familiarly to a group
of free-traders ; we can recognise noble sheep-breeders and
stalwart yeomen at an agricultural show ; why should our moral
heroes be forgotten ? Who will paint the Clapham sect for us ?
Their own age derided them • let us, their posterity, enthrone
them with double honour. They sowed the seeds of which the
harvest waveth now. It was theirs to commence, amid un-
friendly watchers, those wide schemes of philanthropy which
have made the name of England blessed. Catching the man-
tle of those holy men who in the early part of the last cen-
tury were the apostles of the second Reformation, they had
perhaps a keener sense of the difficulties of evangelism, and a
more practical knowledge of the manners and customs of the
world. Fearlessly as their fathers had testified in attestation of
some vital doctrine, they bore their heroic witness against in-
solent oppression and wrong ; and to them we owe the creation
of that enlightened public opinion which has made the nation a
commonwealth, and the world a neighbourhood, which is so
prolific in its merciful inventions in the times in which we live ;
and which, while it screens the peasant's thatch, protects
the beggar's conscience, and uplifts the poor man's home, is so
world-wide in its magnificence of charity, that it has an ear for
the plaint of the exile, a response to the cry of the Sudra, and
a tear for the sorrows of the slave.

With such healthy and stirring influences surrounding him,
Macaulay passed his childhood; and though in after years he
became the student rather than the worker, — " brought over,"

47

MACAU LAY.

as Mr. Maurice significantly says, "from the party of the saints
to the party of the Whigs," — trie results of the association
stamped themselves upon his character, and we can trace them
in his sturdy independence and consistent love of liberty, in
his rare appreciation of the beauty of moral goodness, and in
the quiet energy of perseverance which urged him to the mas-
tery of every subject he handled, and which stored his mind
so richly that he grew into a living encyclopaedia of knowledge.
The world has recently been enriched with information upon
the subject of Macaulay's childhood, from the letters addressed
to his father by the venerable Hannah More. This remarkable
woman — sprightly at seventy as at twenty-five — was a living
link between the celebrities of two ages, and wielded, from her
retirement at Barley Wood, an influence of which it is scarcely
possible for us to estimate the extent and value. Rich in
recollections of Garrick, Burke, Walpole, and Johnson, she
entered heartily into the schemes and interests of the world of
later times, and many were the eminent names who sought her
counsel, or who prized her correspondence and friendship.
Her interest in the Macaulay family was increased by the fact
that the Selina Mills, whom Zachary Macaulay afterwards mar-
ried, had been under her charge as a pupil, when she and her
sister kept a school in Bristol. From her letters we learn the
impression of extraordinary endowment which the young
Macaulay gave. When he had attained the mature age of
eight, she rejoices "that his classicality has not extinguished his
piety," and adds — "his hymns were really extraordinary for
such a baby." What better illustration can there be of the old
adage that poets are born, not made ! " He lisped in numbers,
and the numbers came." In his twelfth year, when the mo-

MACAU LAY.

mentous question of a public school was debated in the
parental councils, Hannah More gives her judgment in favour
of his being sent to Westminster by day — thus, as she thought,
securing the discipline and avoiding the danger. And in the
same letter she says, " Yours, like Edwin, is no vulgar boy, and
will require attention in proportion to his great superiority of
intellect and quickness of passion. He ought to have compe-
titors. He is like the prince who refused to play with anything
but kings. I never saw any one bad propensity in him ; nothing
except natural frailty and ambition, inseparable, perhaps, from
such talents and so lively an imagination. He appears sincere,
veracious, tender-hearted, and affectionate." It would seem
that private tuition was thought to have the advantage over
public schools, for the Rev. Matthew M. Preston, then of
Shelford, Cambridgeshire, and subsequently of Aspden House,
Herts, was entrusted with the educational guardianship of young
Macaulay. During his residence here, he is described as a
studious, thoughtful boy, rather largely built than otherwise,
with a head which seemed too big for his body, stooping
shoulders, and pallid face ; not renowned either at boating or
cricket, nor any of the other articles in the creed of muscular
Christianity, but incessantly reading or writing or repeating
ballad-poetry by the yard or by the hour. Hannah More says
that during a visit to Barley Wood, he recited all Bishop
Heber's prize poem of " Palestine," and that they had "poetry
for breakfast, dinner, and supper." She laboured hard to
impress him with Sir Henry Saville's notion that poets are the
best writers of all, next to those who have written prose, and
seems to have been terribly afraid lest he should turn out a
poet after all. It was about this period that he wrote an
D 49

MACAU LAY.

epitaph on Henry Martyn, which has been published as his
earliest effort, and which other judges than partial ones will
pronounce excellent, to have been written by a boy of twelve : —

" Here Martyn lies ! in manhood's early bloom,
The Christian hero found a Pagan tomb !
Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won.
Immortal trophies ! not with slaughter red,
Not stained with tears by helpless orphans shed ;
But trophies of the Cross ! In that dear Name,
Through every scene of danger, toil, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to that happy shore,
Where danger, toil, and shame are known no more."

In the fifteenth year of his age, we find the young student,
with characteristic energy, coming out as a church reformer,
assailing the time-honoured prerogative of parish clerks, and
making "heroic exertions" to promote, in the village where he
worshipped, the responses of the congregation at large. The
same period was signalised by the appearance of his first
critical essay, and of his earliest published work — the criticism,
however, ventured only in a letter to Barley Wood, and the
work being neither an epic nor a treatise, but an index to the
thirteenth volume of the Christian Observer. It seems that his
father shared the jealousy of his poetical tendencies which
Hannah More so frequently expressed ; and to curb his
Pegasus, imposed on him the cultivation of prose composition,
in one of its most useful, if not of its most captivating styles.
The letter in which Macaulay talks the critiques, and alludes to
the forthcoming publication, shall tell its own tale, and you
may target or remember, as you please, that the writer was not

5°

MACAU LAY.

yet fifteen. After alluding to the illness of Mr. Henry Thornton,
and to Hannah More's recovery from the effects of an accident
by fire, he says :

" Every eminent writer of poetry, good or bad, has been
publishing within the last month, or is to publish shortly. Lord
Byron's pen is at work over a poem as yet nameless. Lucien
Buonaparte has given the world his * Charlemagne.' Scott has
published his ' Lord of the Isles/ in six cantos — a beautiful and
elegant poem ; and Southey his ' Roderick, the last of the
Goths/ Wordsworth has printed ' The Excursion' (a ponderous
quarto of five hundred pages), being a portion of the intended
poem entitled 'The Recluse.' What the length of this intended
poem is to be, as the Grand Vizier said of the Turkish poet —
1 n'est connu qu'& Dieu et a M. Wordsworth ' — this forerunner,
however, is to say no more, almost as long as it is dull ; not
but that there are many striking and beautiful passages inter-
spersed ; but who would wade through a poem

" Where perhaps one beauty shines
In the dry desert of a thousand lines."

To add to the list, my dear Madam, you will soon see a work
of mine in print. Do not be frightened ; it is only the Index
to the thirteenth volume of the Christian Observer, which I
have had the honour of composing. Index-making, though the
lowest, is not the most useless round in the ladder of literature ;
and I pride myself upon being able to say that there are many
readers of the Christian Observer who could do without Walter
Scott's works, but not without those of

" My dear Madam, your affectionate friend,

" THOMAS B. MACAULAY."

MACAULAY.

From Mr. Preston's roof Macaulay proceeded in due course
to Trinity College, Cambridge, the alma mater of so many
distinguished sons, proud in the past of the fame of those
whose " metis divinio^ first developed itself within her classic
precincts — her Bacon, Newton, Milton, Barrow — as she will be
proud in the future of her later child, who spake of their great-
ness to the world. Such is reported to have been his distaste
for mathematics that he did not compete for honours, but he
twice carried off the Chancellor's medal for prize-poems on the
subjects respectively of " Pompeii," and "Evening;" gained
the Craven scholarship; and in 1822 obtained his Bachelor's
degree. It should not be forgotten, and the mention of it may
hearten into hope again some timid youth who has been dis-
couraged by partial failure, that a third poem, on the inspiring
subject of "Waterloo,'' failed to obtain the prize. In 1825 his
Master's degree was taken, and in the year following he was
called to the bar.

It was during his residence at the University that he started
as an adventurer into that world of letters, which is so stony-
hearted to the friendless and the feeble, but which, once
propitiated or mastered, speeds the vigorous or the fortunate to
the temple of fame. He was happy in the enterprising indi-
vidual who first enlisted his ready pen. There were times when
the publisher was as a grim ogre, who held the writer in his
thrall j and there would be material for many an unwritten
chapter of the " Calamities of Authors," if one could but
recount the affronts put upon needy genius by vulgar but
wealthy pride. They are to be congratulated who find a pub-
lisher with a heart to sympathise and a soul to kindle, as well
as with brows to knit and head to reckon. It was well for

52

MACAULAY.

Macaulay, though his genius would have burst through all
trammels, that he was a genial leader under whose banners he
won his spurs of literary fame. There are few names which
the literature of modern times should hold in dearer remem-
brance than the name of Charles Knight, at once the Mecsenas
of youthful authorship, and a worthy fellow-labourer with the
band whom he gathered around him. He yet lives in the
midst of us, though in the winter of his years. Long may it
be ere Jerrold's apt epitaph be needed, and the last " Good
Knight " be breathed above the turf that wraps his clay !

A goodly band of choice spirits those were, who, under
various names, enriched the pages of " Knight's Quarterly
Magazine." It is not too much to say, however, that though
John Moultrie, Nelson Coleridge, and Winthrop Praed were
among the valued contributors, the great charm of the magazine,
during its brief but brilliant existence, was in the articles
signed " Tristram Merton," which was the literary alias ot
Thomas Macaulay. In these earlier productions of his pen
there are the foreshadowings of his future eminence, the same
flashes of genius, the same antithetical power, the same pro-
digious learning, the same marvellous wealth of illustration,
which so much entrance and surprise us in his later years. His
versatility is amazing. Nothing comes amiss to him : Italian
poets and Athenian orators — the revels of Alcibiades, and the
gallantries of Caesar, the philosophy of history, and the abstruser
questions of political science, — all are discussed with boldness
and fervour by this youth of twenty-four summers ; while those
who read his fragments of a parish law-suit, and a projected
epic, will pronounce him " of an infinite humour ;" and those
who read his " Songs of the Huguenots," and of the " Civil

53

MACAULAY.

War," will recognise the first martial outbursts of the poet-soul
which flung its fiery words upon the world in the "Lays of
Ancient Rome." His old love of the ballad, which had been
a passion in his schoolboy life, was not entirely overborne by his
application to graver studies. Calliope had not yet been sup-
planted by Clio, and he sung the Battle of Naseby, for example,
with a force of rushing words which takes our hearts by storm,
in spite of olden prejudice or political creed, and which, in
what some critics would call a wanton perversion of power,
carries away the most peace-loving amongst us in a momentary
insanity for war :

•' Oh ! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North,
With your hands and your feet and your raiment all red ?
And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout?
And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread ?

" Oh ! evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit,

And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod ;
For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong,
Who sate in the high places and slew the saints of God.

" It was about the noon of a glorious day of June,

That we saw their banners dance and their cuirasses shine ;

And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair,

And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine.

" Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword,

The General rode along us to form us for the fight,
When a murmuring sound broke out, and swelled into a shout,
Among the godless horsemen upon the tyrant's right.

" And hark ! like the roar of the billows on the shore,
The cry of battle rises along their charging line —
For God ! for the Cause ! for the Church ! for the Laws!
For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of the Rhine!

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MACAU LAY.

The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums,

His bravoes of Alsatia and pages of Whitehall;
They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes: — close your
ranks :

For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall.

" Stout Skippon hath a wound : — the centre hath given ground : —

Hark ! hark ! — What means the trampling of horsemen on our rear ?
Whose banner do I see, boys ? 'Tis he, thank God, 'tis he, boys,
Bear up another minute. Brave Oliver is here !

" Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row,

Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes,
Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst,
And at a shock have scattered the forests of his pikes.

" Fast, fast the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide

Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple-Bar.
And he — he turns, he flies, — shame on those cruel eyes
That bore to look on torture, and dared not look on war.

" Fools ! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and

bold,

When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day,
And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chambers in the rocks,
Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey,

" And she of the seven hills shall mourn her children's ills,

And tremble when she thinks on the edge of England's sword ;
And the kings of earth in fear shall shudder when they hear
What the hand of God hath wrought for the Houses and the Word.'

It has been said that a speech delivered by Macaulay, on
the great question which absorbed his father's life, attracted
the notice of Jeffrey, then seeking for young blood wherewith

55

MACAU LAY.

to enrich the pages of the " Edinburgh Review," and that this
was the cause of his introduction into the guild of literature, of
which he became the decus et tutamen. The world is now
familiar with that series of inimitable essays, which were poured
out in rapid and apparently inexhaustible succession, for the
space of twenty years. To criticise them, either in mass or in
detail, is no part of the lecturer's province ; and even to
enumerate them would entail a pilgrimage to many and distant
shrines. As we surrender ourselves to his masterly guidance,
we are fascinated beneath a life-like biography, or enchained
by some sweet spell of travel we pronounce upon canons of
criticism, and solve problems of government with a calm
dogmatism which is troubled by no misgivings ; we range
unquestioned through the Court at Potsdam, mix in Italian
intrigues, and settle Spanish successions ; and, under the robe of
the sagacious Burleigh, peer out upon the presence chamber of
Elizabeth herself. Now, with Clive and Hastings, we tread the
sultry Ind — our path glittering with " barbaric pearl and gold"
— now on bloody Chalgrove we shudder to see Hampden fall,
and anon we gaze upon the glorious dreamer, as he listens
musingly to the dull plash of the water from his cell on Bedford
Bridge. We stand aside, and are awed while Byron raves, and
charmed while Milton sings. Addison condescendingly writes
for us, and Chatham declaims in our presence; Madame
d'Arblay trips lightly along the corridor, and Boswell comes
ushering in his burly idol, and smirking like the showman of a
giant. We watch the process curiously as an unfortunate poet
is impaled amid the scattered Sibyllines of the reviews which
puffed him \ and we hold our breath while the Nemesis descends
to crucify the miscreant Bar6re. In all moods of mind, in all

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MACAU LAY.

varieties of experience, there is something for us of instruction
or of warning. If we pause, it is from astonishment ; if we are
wearied, it is from excess of splendour ; we are in a gorgeous
saloon, from whose walls flash out upon us a long array of
pictures, many of them Pre-Raphaelite in colour ; and we are
so dazzled by the brilliant hues, and by the effective grouping,
that it is long ere we can ask ourselves whether they are true to
nature, or to those deeper convictions which our spirits have
struggled to attain. Criticism, for a season, becomes the vassal
of delight; and we know not whether most to admire the
prodigality of knowledge or the precision of utterance — the
sagacity which foresees, or the fancy which embellishes — the
tolerant temper, or the moral courage.

In these essays Macaulay has written his mental autobiography.
He has done for us in reference to himself what, with all his
brilliancy, he has often failed to do for us in his portraitures of
others. He has shown us the man. He has anatomised his
own nature. As in a glass we may here see him as he is. He
is not the thinker — reverent, hesitating, troubled, but the rare
expositor of the thoughts of elder time. He is not the
discemer of spirits, born to the knowledge of others in the
birth-pangs of his own regeneration, but the omnivorous reader,
familiar with every corner of the book-world, and divining from
the entrails of a folio, as the ancient augurs from the entrails of
a bird. He is not the prophet, but has a shrewdness of insight
which often stimulates the prophet's inspiration. He is not the
philosopher, laying broad and deep the foundations of a new
system, but the illustrator, stringing upon old systems a multitude
of gathered facts ; not dry nor tiresome, but transmuted into
logic or poetry by the fire that burned within him. He is not

57

MACAU LAY.

the mere partisan, save only "in that unconscious disingen-
uousness from which the most upright man when strongly
attached to an opinion is seldom wholly free," but the
discriminating censor, who can deride the love-locks and
fopperies of the Cavalier, and yet admire his chivalrous loyalty ;
who can rejoice in the stern virtues of the Puritan, and yet
laugh at his small scruples and his nasal twang. He is not,
alas ! the Christian apostle, the witness alike amid the gloom of
Gethsemane and on the Mount of Vision ; not for him are either
those agonies or that mountain-baptism ; " he would have feared
to enter into the cloud." He is rather the Hebrew scribe,
astonished at the marvellous works, eager and fluent in recording
them, and yet retaining his earthward leanings, and cherishing
his country's dream of the advent of a temporal Messiah.

The first essay, that on Milton, at once established
Macaulay's fame. In later years, he spoke of it as overloaded
with gaudy and ungraceful ornament, and " as containing
scarcely a paragraph such as his matured judgment approved."
There are many yet, however, with whom its high moral tone,
courage, and healthy freshness of feeling will atone for its
occasional dogmatism, and for the efflorescence of its style.
Who has not glowed to read that description of the Puritan
worthies, " whose palaces were houses not made with hands ;
their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away.
On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they
looked down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich
in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime
language ; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests
by the imposition of a mightier hand ?"

Scarcely less eloquent, though much less known, is the

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MACAU LAY.

description of the influence of the literature of Athens, which
I quote as a fair example of the essayist's early style :

" It is a subject on which I love to forget the accuracy of a
judge in the veneration of a worshipper, and the gratitude of a
child. If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the
force of imagination, the perfect energy and eloquence of
expression, which characterise the great works of Athenian
genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable •
but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have
sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the
human intellect — that from hence were the vast accomplish-
ments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero ; the withering fire of
Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour of
Cervantes ; the comprehension of Bacon ; the wit of Butler ;
the supreme and universal excellence of Shakspeare ? All the
triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in
every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of
Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand
against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason,
there has been her spirit in the midst of them — inspiring,
encouraging, consoling ; by the lonely lamp of Erasmus ; by
the restless bed of Pascal ; in the tribune of Mirabeau ; in the
cell of Galileo ; on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall
estimate her influence on private happiness? Who shall say
how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and
better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to
engage ? — to how many the studies which took their rise from
her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in
sickness, society in solitude ? Her power is indeed manifested
at the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools ot

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MACAU LAY.

philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature
consoles sorrow, or assuages pain, wherever it brings gladness
to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the
dark house and the long sleep, there is exhibited in its noblest
form the immortal influence of Athens. The dervise, in the
Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his comrade the
camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retained the
casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at
one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it
is no exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be
compared with that purification of the intellectual eye which
gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world,
all the hoarded treasures of its primeval dynasties, all the
shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift oi
Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have for more
than twenty centuries been annihilated; her people have
degenerated into timid slaves ; her language into a barbarous
jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive
depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen ; but her
intellectual empire is imperishable. And when those who have
rivalled her greatness shall have shared her fate ; when civil-
ization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant
continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from
England ; when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall
in vain labour to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the
name of our proudest chief — shall hear savage hymns chanted
to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest
temple, and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in
the river of the ten thousand masts — her influence and her
glory will still survive, fresh in eternal youth, ' exempt from

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MACAULAY.

mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle
from which they derived their origin, and over which they
exercise their control."

You will not fail to perceive in the last sentence of this
quotation the first sketch of the celebrated New Zealander,
who has certainly earned the privilege of a free seat on London
Bridge, by the frequency with which he has " pointed a moral
and adorned a tale." In his finished form, and busy at his
melancholy work, he appears in an article on " Ranke's
History of the Popes," to illustrate Macauiays principle of the
perpetuity of the Roman Catholic Church : — " She saw the
commencement of all the governments, and of all the eccle-
siastical establishments that now exist in the world ; and we feel
no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them
all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set
foot in Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when
Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were
still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still
exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New
Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on
a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St.
Paul's," As one reads this oracular announcement, one is
ready to enquire, ' Is it really so ? Is the tide to roll back so
far? Are all the struggles of the ages fruitless? Has the
light streamed into the darkness only that the darkness may not
comprehend it ? The blood of our fathers, shed in the battle
for dear life, that life of the spirit which is costlier far than this
poor life of the body — has it flowed in vain ? ' Ah ! he sees but
events on the level, and the mists of the past dim the eyes that
would penetrate the future. Let us get up higher, higher than

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MACAU LAY.

the plain, higher than the plateau, higher than the table-land,
even on to the summit where Faith rests upon the promises
and awaits patiently their fulfilment ; and in the light of that
clear azure, which is unclouded by the fog or by the shadow,
we shall learn other lessons than these. We shall see one
purpose in the history of the nations, in the preparation of
agencies, in the removal of hindrances, in the subordination,
both of good and evil fortune, to the unfolding of one grand
design. We shall see a profound religious movement awakened,
growing, gathering strength, and preparing in secret for the
ministry which its manhood is to wield. We shall see that
Protestantism has hold of the world's intellectual wealth,
spreads herself among new peoples as a missionary power,
breathes even in Romish countries as a healing and salutary
breath, and is heaving unconsciously in every trampled land
which yearns and groans for freedom. We shall see science
extending her discoveries, and Popery is at variance with
science ; Education diffusing her benefit, and Popery shrinks
from knowledge ; Liberty putting forth her hand that serfs may
touch it, and leap at the touch into freemen, and Popery
cannot harbour the free ; Scripture universally circulated, and
Popery loves not the Bible ; and then, remembering that we
have a sure word of prophecy, we know that its doom is
spoken, and that in God's good time, Popery shall perish —
thrown from the tired world which has writhed beneath its
yoke so long, — perish, from its seven hills, and from its spiritual
wickedness, utterly and for ever, before the Lord, " slain by the
breath of His mouth, and consumed by the brightness of His
coming."

To the wealth of Macaulay in illustration we have already

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MACAULAY.

made reference, and also to the fact that his images are drawn
but rarely from external nature. In books he found the
enchanted cave which required but his "open sesame" to
disclose to him the needed treasure; and in his discursive
reading the highest book was not forgotten. The reader of his
various works will not fail to be struck with his frequent
scriptural allusions ; and if he is in search of a peroration, and
hits upon an image which rings more musically on the ear, or
which lingers longer in the memory than another, it will be
strange if he has not drawn it from that wonderful Bible which
dispenses to all men, and is none the poorer for all the bounties
of its magnificent giving. I select but two brief passages ; the
one from the essay on Lord Bacon, and the other from that on
Southey's Colloquies of Society : " Cowley, who was among the
most ardent, and not among the least discerning followers ot
the new philosophy, has, in one of his finest poems, compared
Bacon to Moses standing on Mount Pisgah. It is to Bacon,
we think, as he appears in the first book of the Novum
Organum, that the comparison applies with peculiar felicity.
There we see the great lawgiver looking round from his lonely
elevation on an infinite expanse, behind him a wilderness
01 dreary sands and bitter waters, in which successive gener-
ations have sojourned, always moving, yet never advancing,
reaping no harvest, and building no abiding city ; before him
a goodly land, a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and
honey ; while the multitude below saw only the flat sterile
desert in which they had so long wandered, bounded on every
side by a near horizon, or diversified only by some deceitful
mirage, he was gazing from a far higher stand on a far lovelier
country, following with his eye the long course of fertilising

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MACAU LAY.

rivers, through ample pastures, and under the bridges of great
capitals, measuring the distances of marts and havens, and
portioning out all those wealthy regions from Dan to Beer-
sheba.;' The other extract represents the evils of the alliance
between Christianity and Power, and commends itself to our
literary taste, even if we suppose that there are two sides to the
shield : "The ark of God was never taken till it was surrounded
by the arms of earthly defenders. In captivity its sanctity was
sufficient to vindicate it from insult, and to lay the hostile fiend
prostrate on the threshold of his own temple. The real security
of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its
exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with
which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every
human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to every
house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the
great mystery of the grave. To such a system it can bring no
addition of dignity or strength, that is part and parcel of the
common law. It is not now for the first time left to rely on the
force of its own evidences, and the attractions of its own
beauty. Its sublime theology confounded the Grecian schools
in the fair conflict of reason with reason. The bravest and
wisest of the Caesars found their arms and their policy
unavailing, when opposed to the weapons that were not carnal,
and the kingdom that was not of this world. The victory
which Porphyry and Diocletian failed to gain, is not, to all
appearance, reserved for any of those who have in this age,
directed their attacks against the last restraint of the powerful,
and the last hope of the wretched. The whole history of
Christianity shows that she is in far greater danger of being
corrupted by the alliance of power, than of being crushed by

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f

MACAU LAY.

its opposition. Those who thrust temporal sovereignty upon
her, treat her as their prototypes treated her Author. They
bow the knee, and spit upon her ; they cry ' Hail !' and smite
her on the cheek ; they put a sceptre in her hand, but it is
a fragile reed ; they crown her, but it is with thorns ; they cover
with purple the wounds which their own hands have inflicted
on her ; and inscribe magnificent titles over the cross on which
they have fixed her to perish in ignominy and pain."

Every reader of the essays must be impressed with the
marvellous versatility of knowledge which they disclose. What
has he not read? is the question which we feel disposed to
ask. Quotations from obscure writers, or from obscure works
of great writers \ multitudinous allusions to ancient classics, or
to modern authors whom his mention has gone far to make
classic — references to some less studied book of Scripture —
names which have driven us to the atlas to make sure of our geo-
graphy— or to the Biographical Gallery to remind us that they
lived • — they crowd upon us so thickly that we are wildered in
the profusion, and there is danger to our physical symmetry
from the enlargement of our bump of wonder. It is said that,
in allusion to this accumulation of knowledge, his associates
rather profanely nicknamed him " Macaulay the Omniscient ;"
and indeed, the fact of his amazing knowledge is beyond
dispute. Then, how did he get it ? Did it come to him by the
direct fiat of heaven, as Adam's, in Paradise ? Did he open
his eyes and find himself the heir of the ages, as those who are
born to fair acres and broad lands ? Did he spring at once,
like Minerva, from the brain of Jupiter, full-armed, a ripe and
furnished scholar ? Or was he just favoured, as others, with a
clear mind and a resolute will — with a high appreciation of

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MACAU LAY.

knowledge, and a keen covetousness to make it his own ? He
had a wonderful memory, that is true; so that each fragment
of his amassed lore seemed to be producible at will. He had
a regal faculty, that also is true ; by which all that he had
gathered goldened into a beauty of its own ; but it was the
persevering industry of labour which brought stores to the
retentive memory, and material to the creative mind. Work,
hard work, the sweat of the brain through many an exhausting
hour, and through many a weary vigil, was the secret after all,
of his success. Many who slumber in nameless graves, or
wander through the tortures of a wasted life, have had memories
as capacious, and faculties as fine as he, but they lacked the
steadiness of purpose, and patient thoughtful labour, which
multiplied the "ten talents" into " ten other talents beside
them." It is the old lesson, voiceful from every life that has a
moral in it — from Bernard Palissy, selling his clothes, and
tearing up his floor to add fuel to the furnace, and wearying his
wife and amusing his neighbours with dreams of his white
enamel, through the unremunerative years ; from Warren
Hastings, lying at seven years old upon the rivulet's bank, and
vowing inwardly that he would regain his patrimonial property,
and dwell in his ancestral halls, and that there should be again
a Hastings of Daylesford ; from William Carey, panting after
the moral conquest of India, whether he sat at the lap-stone o-
his early craft, or wielded the ferule in the village school, or
lectured the village elders when the Sabbath dawned. It is the
old lesson,— a worthy purpose, patient energy for its accom-
plishment, a resoluteness that is undaunted by difficulties, and,
in ordinary circumstances, success. Do you say that you are
not gifted, and that therefore Macaulay is no model to you ?—

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MACAU LAY.

that yours is a lowly sphere or a prosaic occupation, and that
even if you were ambitious to rise, or determined to become
heroic, your unfortunate surroundings would refuse to give you
the occasion ? It is quite possible that you may not have the
affluent fancy, nor the lordly and formative brain. All men
are not thus endowed, and the world will never be reduced
to a level uniformity of mind. The powers and deeds of some
men will be always miracles to other men, even to the end of
time. It is quite possible, too, that the conditions of your life
may be unfavourable, that your daily course may not glow with
poetical incident, nor ripple into opportunities of ostentatious
greatness. But, granted all these disadvantages, it is the part
of true manhood to make its own occasions. The highest
greatness is not that which waits for favourable circumstances,
but that which compels hard fortune to do it service, which
slays the Nemsean lion, and goes on to further conquests,
robed in its tawny hide. The real heroes are the men who
constrain the tribute which men would fain deny them, —

" Men who walk up to Fame as to a friend,
Or their own house, which from the wrongful heir
They have wrested : from the world's hard hand and gripe.
Men who — like Death, all bone, but all unarmed —
Have ta'en the giant world by the throat, and thrown him,
And made him swear to maintain their name and fame
At peril of his life."

There are few of you, perhaps, who could achieve dis-
tinction ; there are none of you who need be satisfied without
an achievement that is infinitely higher. You may make your
lives beautiful and blessed The poorest of you can afford

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MACAULAY.

to be kind; the least gifted amongst you can practise that
loving wisdom which knows the straightest road to human
hearts. You may not be able to thrill senates with your
eloquence, but you may see eyes sparkle and faces grow gladder
when you appear j you may not astonish the listeners by your
acquirements of varied scholarship, but you may dwell in some
spirits, as a presence associated with all that is beautiful and
holy ; you may neither be a magnate nor a millionaire, but
you may have truer honours than of earth, and riches which
wax not old. You may not rise to patrician estate, and come
under that mysterious process by which the churl's blood is
transformed into the nobleman's, but you may ennoble your-
selves in a higher aristocracy than that of belted earl. Use
the opportunities you have ; make the best of your circum-
stances, however unpromising. Give your hearts to God, and
your lives to earnest work and loving purpose, and you can
never live in vain. Men will feel your influence like the scent
of a bank of violets, fragrant with the hidden sweetness of
the spring. Men will miss you when you cease from their
communions, as if a calm, familiar star shot suddenly and
brightly from their vision ; and if there wave not at your funeral
the trappings of the world's gaudy woe, " eyes full of heart-
break" will gaze wistfully adown the path where you have
vanished, and in the long after-time, hearts which you have
helped to make happy will recall your memory with gratitude
and tears.

The union of great acquirements and great rhetorical power
so manifest in Macaulay's mind, could not fail to render
him a desirable acquisition to any political party; and as he
had imbibed, and in some sort inherited, Whig principles, an

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MACAULAY.

opportunity was soon found for his admission into Parliament,
where he appeared in time to join in the discussions on the
first Reform Bill. He was returned, in February, 1830, by the
influence of the Marquis of Lansdowne, for the nomination
borough of Calne. He sat for Calne until the passing of
the Reform Bill, when he was elected one of their first
representatives by the newly created constituency of Leeds. In
1834 he was appointed a Member of Council in India, and
devoted himself to the construction of a new penal code for
that part of her Majesty's dominions. This was his sole
legislative offspring, and, from the best estimate which we can
form from imperfect knowledge, it would seem to have been
exquisite on paper, but useless in working — a brilliant, but
impracticable thing. During his residence in India he continued
on the staff of the " Edinburgh," and contributed some of his
superb criticisms from beneath an Eastern sky. Here, also, it
is probable that he gathered the material and sketched the
plan of those masterly articles which, perhaps, more than most
others, aroused English sympathies for India — the articles on
Warren Hastings and Lord Clive. In May, 183 9, he reappeared
in Parliament, on the elevation to the peerage of Mr. Speaker,
Abercromby, as the representative of Edinburgh. He was
re-elected at the general election of 1841, and twice on
occasion of his accession to office. In 1847, at tne general
election, he failed to obtain his seat, partly, as it is said, from
the brusque manner in which he treated his constituents,
and partly from his consistent support of the enlarged Maynooth
grant, to which many of those who had previously supported
him were conscientiously opposed. The papers were loud in
condemnation of the Edinburgh electors, who were represented

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MACAULAY.

as having disgraced themselves for ever by their rejection of a
man of so much excellent renown. Well, if a representative is
to be chosen for his brilliant parts, or for his fluent speech,
perhaps they did; but if men vote for conscience sake, and
they feel strongly on what they consider a vital question, and
if a representative is to be what his name imports — the faith-
ful reflex of the sentiments of the majority who send him —
one can see nothing in the outcry but unreasoning clamour
I cannot see dishonour either in his sturdy maintenance of un-
popular opinions, or in his constituents' rejection of him be-
cause his sentiments were opposed to their own ; but I can see
much that is honourable to both parties in their reconciliation
after temporary estrangement, — on their part, that they should
honour him by returning him in 1852, unsolicited, at the head
of the poll, — on his part, that he should, with a manly genero-
sity, bury all causes of dissension, and consent to return to
public life, as the representative of a constituency which had
bidden him for a season to retire. There is, indeed, no part
of Macaulay's character in which he shows to more advantage
than in his position as a member of parliament. We may not
always be able to agree with him in sentiment, we may fancy
that we discover the fallacies which lurk beneath the shrewdness
of his logic, we may suffer now and then from the apt sarcasm
which he was not slow to wield ; but we must accord to him
the tribute that his political life was a life of unswerving con-
sistency and of stainless honour. In his lofty scorn of dupli-
city he became, perhaps, sometimes contemptuous, just as in his
calm dogmatism he never seemed to imagine that there were
plausible arguments which might be adduced on both sides of
a question ; but in his freedom from disguise, and abhorrence

MACAULAY.

of corruption, in his refusal to parley when compromise would
have been easy, and in his refusal to be silent when silence
would have wounded his conscience but saved his seat, in the
noble indignation with which he denounced oppression, and in
his independence of all influences which were crafty and con-
temptible, he may fairly be held up as a model English states-
man. Before the Reform Bill, the members for the city usually
subscribed fifty guineas to the Edinburgh races, and shortly after
the election of 1841, Mr. Macaulay was applied to on this be-
half. His reply was a fine specimen of manly decision. " In
the first place," he says, " I am not clear that the object is a
good one. In the next place, I am clear that by giving money
for such an object in obedience to such a summons, I should
completely change the whole character of my connection with
Edinburgh. It has been usual enough for rich families to
keep a hold on corrupt boroughs by defraying the expense of
public amusements. Sometimes it is a ball, sometimes a re-
gatta. The Derby family used to support the Preston races.
The members for Beverley, I believe, find a bull for their con-
stituents to bait. But these were not the conditions on which
I undertook to represent Edinburgh. In return for your gene-
rous confidence I offer faithful parliamentary service, and I offer
nothing else. The call that is now made is one so objection-
able, that I must plainly say I would rather take the Chiltern
Hundreds than comply with it." All honour to the moral
courage which indited that reply. Brothers, let the manly ex-
ample fire you. Carry such heroism into your realms of morals
and of commerce, and into all the social interlacings of your
Hfe; let no possible loss of influence or patronage or gold tempt
you to the doing of that which your judgment and conscience

7*

MACAU LAY.

disapprove. Better a thousand times to be slandered than to
sin; nobler to spend your days in all the bitterness of unheeded
struggle, than become a hollow parasite to gain a hollow friend.
Worthier far to remain poor for ever, the brave and self-respect-
ing heir of the crust and of the spring, than, in another sense
than Shakspeare's, to " coin your heart," and for the " vile
drachmas,'' which are the hire of wrong, " to drop your" gene-
rous "blood."

Macaula/s speeches, published by himself in self-defence
against the dishonest publication of them by other people, bear
the stamp and character of the essay rather than of the oration,
and reveal all the mental qualities of the man— his strong sense
and vast learning, his shrewdness in the selection of his mate-
rials, and his mastery over that sort of reasoning which silences
if it does not convince. They betray also, very largely, the
idiosyncrasy which is, perhaps, his most observable faculty, the
disposition to regard all subjects in the light of the past, and to
treat them historically, rather than from the experience of actual
life. Thus in his speeches on the East India Company's charter,
on the motion of want of confidence in the Melbourne ministry,
on the state of Ireland, on the Factories Bill, on the question
of the exclusion of the Master of the Rolls from parliament, he
ransacks for precedents and illustrations in the histories of
almost every age and clime, while he gives but vague and hesi-
tating solutions on the agitating problems of the day. Hence,
though his last recorded speech is said to have been unrivalled
in the annals of parliamentary oratory for the number of votes
which it won, the impression of his speeches in the general was
not so immediate as it will, perhaps, be lasting. Men were
conscious of a despotism while he spoke, and none wished to

72

MACAU LAY.

be delivered from the sorcery ; but when he ceased the spell
was broken, and they awoke as from a pleasant dream. They
were exciting discussions in which he had to engage, and he
did not wholly escape from the acrimony of party strife. There
are passages in his speeches of that exacerbated bitterness
which has too often made it seem as if our politicians acted
upon the instructions which are said to have been once endorsed
upon the brief of an advocate — " No case, but abuse the plain-
tiff's attorney."

There is one extract from the speeches which I quote with
singular pleasure. It will answer the double purpose of afford-
ing a fair specimen of his clear and earnest style, and of reveal-
ing what, to a resident in India, and one of the most shrewd
and sagacious observers, appeared sound policy in reference to
the method in which that country should be governed. It is
from his speech on Mr. Vernon Smith's motion of censure on
Lord Ellenborough anent the celebrated gates of Somnauth.
" Our duty, as rulers, was to preserve strict neutrality on all
questions merely religious; and I am not aware that we have
ever swerved from strict neutrality for the purpose of making
proselytes to our own faith. But we have, I am sorry to say,
sometimes deviated from the right path in an opposite direction.
Some Englishmen, who have held high office in India, seem to
have thought that the only religion which was not entitled to
toleration and respect was Christianity. They regarded every
Christian missionary with extreme jealousy and disdain; and
they suffered the most atrocious crimes, if enjoined by the Hin-
doo superstition, to be perpetrated in open day. It is lament-
able to think how long after our power was firmly established
in Bengal, we, grossly neglecting the first and plainest duty of

73

MACAU LAY.

the civil magistrate, suffered the practices of infanticide and
suttee to continue unchecked. We decorated the temples of
the false gods. We provided the dancing girls. We gilded
and painted the images to which our ignorant subjects bowed
down. We repaired and embellished the car under the wheels
of which crazy devotees flung themselves at every festival to be
crushed to death. We sent guards of honour to escort pilgrims
to the places of worship. We actually made oblations at the
shrines of idols. All this was considered, and is still consid-
ered, by some prejudiced Anglo-Indians of the old school,
as profound policy. I believe that there never was so
shallow, so senseless a policy. We gained nothing from
it. We lowered ourselves in the eyes of those whom
we meant to flatter. We led them to believe that we attached
no importance to the difference between Christianity and hea-
thenism. Yet how vast that difference is ! I altogether abstain
from alluding to topics which belong to divines; I speak merely
as a politician, anxious for the morality and the temporal well-
being of society; and so speaking, I say that to countenance the
Brahminical idolatry, and to discountenance that religion which
has done so much to promote justice, and mercy, and freedom,
and arts, and sciences, and good government, and domestic
happiness, which has struck off the chains of the slave, which has
mitigated the horrors of war, which has raised women from serv-
ants and playthings into companions and friends, is to commit
high treason against humanity and civilization." I should like to
commend this manly and Christian utterance to our rulers now.
The old traditional policy is yet a favourite sentiment with
many, though it has borne its bitter fruits of bloodshed.
While we thankfully acknowledge an improved state of feeling,

74

MACAU LAY.

and the removal of many restrictions which in former times
hindered the evangelization of India, we must never forget that
at this day, not by a company of traders, but the government
of our beloved Queen, there is in all government schools on
that vast continent, a brand upon the Holy Bible. It may lie up-
on the shelf of the library, but for all purposes of instruction it
is a sealed book. The Koran of the Mussulman is there, the
Shastras of the pagan are there, the Zend Avesta of the Parsee
is there; and their lessons, sanguinary or sensual or silly, are
taught by royal authority, and the teachers endowed by grants
from the royal treasury; but the Book which England acknow-
ledges as the fountain of highest inspiration, and the source of
loftiest morals; from whose pure precepts all sublime ethics are
derived; which gives sanction to government, and majesty to
law; on which senators swear their allegiance, and royalty takes
its coronation oath, — that Book is not only ignored but pro-
scribed, subjected to an Index Expurgatorius as rigid as ever
issued from Rome; branded with this foul dishonour before
scoffing Mussulmen and wondering pagans at the bidding of
state-craft, or spurious charity, or fear. It is time that this
should end. Our holy religion ought not to be thus " wounded
in the house of her" enemies, by the hands of her professed
"friends." An empire which extends " from Cape Comorin to
the eternal snow of the Himalayas," " far to the east of the
Burrampooter and far to the west of the Hydaspes," should not
demean itself before those whom it has conquered by a procla-
mation of national irreligion. We ask for Christianity in India
neither coercive measures nor the boastful activity of govern-
ment proselytism. Those who impute this to the Christians of
England are either ignorant of our motives, or they slander us

75

MACAULAY.

for their own ends. The rags of a political piety but disfigure
the Cross around which they are ostentatiously displayed, and
to bribe a heathen into conformity were as bad as to persecute
him for his adhesion to the faith of his fathers. All we ask of
the government is a fair field; if Alexander would but stand
out of the way, the fair sunshine would stream at once into the
darkness of the Cynic's dwelling; if they will give freedom to
the Bible, it will assert its own supremacy by its own power,
and Britain will escape from the curse which now cleaves to
her like a Nessus' robe — that in a land committed to her trust,
and looking up to her for redress and blessing, she has allowed
the Word upon which rest the dearest hopes of her sons for
eternity, to be forbidden from the Brahman's solicitude, and
trampled beneath the Mollah's scorn.

In the year 1842 Mr. Macaulay appeared in a new character,
by the publication of the " Lays of Ancient Rome." This was
his first venture in acknowledged authorship. It is often not
safe to descend from the bench to the bar. The man who
has long sat in the critic's chair must have condemned so many
criminals that he will find little mercy when he is put upon his
own trial, and has become a suppliant for the favour which he
has been accustomed to grant or refuse. The public were taken ,
by surprise, but surprise quickly yielded to delight. Minos and
Rhadamanthus abdicated their thrones to listen; every pen
flowed in praise of that wonderful book, which united rare cri-
tical sagacity with the poetic faculty and insight; and now,
after the lapse of years, the world retains its enthusiasm, and
refuses to reverse the verdict of its first approval. By one critic,
indeed, whose opinions are entitled to all respect, the ballads!
.are said to be as much below the level of Macaulay, as the<

MACAU LAY.

" Cato" of Addison was below all else which proceeded from
his pen. But there is surely more in them than " rattling and
spirited songs." These are expressions which hardly describe
those minutely accurate details; that gorgeousness of classic
colouring, those exquisite felicities of word; and, above all,
that grand roll of martial inspiration which abounds through-
out their stirring lines. Another critic strangely says that
" none of the characters have the flesh and blood, the action
and passion of human nature." The test of this, I suppose,
should be the effect which they produce upon those who hear
or read them. It has not been an unfrequent charge against
Macaulay that he had no heart, and that he was wanting in that
human sympathy which is so large an element of strength. He
who has no heart of his own cannot reach mine and make it
Feel. There are instincts in the soul of a man which tell him
unerringly when a brother soul is speaking. Let me see a man
in earnest, and his earnestness will kindle mine. I apply
this test in the case of Macaulay. I am told of the greatest
anatomist of the age suspending all speculations about the mas-
todon, and all analyses of the lesser mammalia, beneath the
spell of the sorcerer who drew the rout at Sedgemoor and the
siege of Deny. I see Robert Hall lying on his back at sixty
years of age, to learn the Italian language, that he might verify
Macaulay's description of Dante, and enjoy the " Inferno" and
the " Paradise" in the original. I remember my own emotions
when first introduced to the Essays; the strange, wild heart-
throbs with which I revelled in the description of the Puritans;
and the first article on Bunyan. There is something in all this
more than can be explained by artistic grouping or by the
cHarms of style. The man has convictions and sympathies of

77

MA CAUL AY.

his own, and the very strength of those convictions and sympa-
thies forces an answer from the "like passions" to which he
appeals. It is just so with the poetry. It were easy to criti-
cise it, and perhaps to find in it some shortcomings from the
rules of refined melody, and a ruggedness which the linked
sweetness of the Lakers might not tolerate; but try it in
.actual experiment, sound it in the ears of a Crimean regiment,
and see how it will inspirit them to the field; rehearse it with
earnestness and passion to a company of ardent schoolboys,
at the age when the young imagination has just been thrilled
with its first conscious sense of beauty and of power; and you
shall have the Bard's best guerdon in their kindling cheeks and
gleaming eyes. " The Prophecy of Capys" is perhaps the most
sustained, " Virginia" the most eloquent, and " The Battle of
the Lake Regillus" the one which contains the finest passages;
but I confess to a fondness for " Horatius," my first and early
love, which all the wisdom which ought to have come wit
maturity has not been able to change. Perhaps you will b<
with a few stanzas of it, just to try the effect upon yourselves:

" But the Consul's brow was sad,

And the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,

And darkly at the foe.
* Their van will be upon us

Before the bridge goes down ;
And if they once but win the bridge,

What hope to save the town ? '

"Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate :

* To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.

MACAULAY.

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods ? '

" * Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,

With all the speed ye may ;
I, with two more to help me,

Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand

May well be stopped by three,
Now who will stand on either hand,

And keep the bridge with me ? '

*' Then out spake Spurius Lartius ;
A Ramnian proud was he :

* Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,

And keep the bridge with thee.'
And out spake strong Herminius ;
Of Titian blood was he :

* I will abide on thy left side,

And keep the bridge with thee.7

*« ' Horatius,' quoth the Consul,

* As thou sayest, so let it be.'
And straight against that great array

Forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome's quarrel

Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,

In the brave days of old.

** Then none was for a party ;

Then all were for the state ;
Then the great man helped the poor,

And the poor man loved the great j

79

MACAU LAY.

Then lands were fairly portioned ;

Then spoils were fairly sold :
The Romans were like brothers

In the brave days of old.

* * * *

" But all Etruria's noblest

Felt their hearts sink to see
On the earth the bloody corpses,

In the path the dauntless Three I
And, from the ghastly entrance

Where those bold Romans stood,
All shrank, like boys who unaware.
Ranging the woods to start a hare,
Come to the mouth of the dark lair
Where, growlirfg low, a fierce old bear

Lies amidst bones and blood.

" Was none who would be foremost

To lead such dire attack :
But those behind cried ' Forward ! ?

And those before cried ' Back ! '
And backward now and forward

Wavers the deep array ;
And on the tossing sea of steel
To and fro the standards reel ;
And the victorious trumpet peal

Dies fitfully away.

" But meanwhile axe and lever

Have manfully been plied ;
And now the bridge hangs tottering

Above the boiling tide.
' Come back, come back, Horatius 1 *

Loud cried the Fathers all.
'Back, Lartius! back, Herminius !

Back, ere the ruin fall ! '

80

MACAU LAY,

' Back darted Spurius Lartius ;

Herminius darted back ;
And, as they passed, beneath their feet

They felt the timbers crack.
But when they turned their faces

And on the farther shore
Saw brave Horatius stand alone,

They would have crossed once more.

" But with a crash like thunder

Fell every loosened beam,
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck

Lay right athwart the stream ;
And a long shout of triumph

Rose from the walls of Rome,
As to the highest turret-tops

Was splashed the yellow foam.

"Alone stood brave Horatius,

But constant still in mind ;
Thrice thirty thousand foes before,

And the broad flood behind,
' Down with him ! ' cried false Sextus,

With a smile on his pale face.
'Now yield thee,' cried Lars Porsena,

'Now yield thee to our grace.'

" Round turned he, as not deigning

Those craven ranks to see ;
Nought spake he to Lars Porsena,

To Sextus nought spake he 1
But he saw on Palatinus

The white porch of his home ;
And he spake to the noble river

That rolls by the towers of Rome.

81

MACAULAY.

"'Oh, Tiber! father Tiber !

To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,

Take thou in charge this day ! '
So he spake, and speaking sheathed

The good sword by his side,
And with his harness on his back,

Plunged headlong in the tide.

" No sound of joy or sorrow

Was heard from either bank ;
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,

With parted lips and straining eyes,
Stood gazing where he sank ;

And when above the surges

They saw his crest appear,
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany

Could scarce forbear to cheer,

*****
" Never, I ween, did swimmer,

In such an evil case,
Struggle through such a raging flood

Safe to the landing place ;
But his limbs were borne up bravely

' By the brave heart within,
And our good father Tiber

Bare bravely up his chin.

" ' Curse on him ! ' quoth false S.extus ;

' Will not the villain drown ?
But for this stay, ere close of day

We should have sacked the town.'
' Heaven help him ! ' quoth Lars Porseua.

'And bring him safe to shore ;
For such a gallant feat of arms

Was never seen before.''
82

MACAULAY.

" And now he feels the bottom ;

Now on dry earth he stands ;
Now round him throng the Fathers

To press his gory hands ;
And now, with shouts and clapping,

And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River-gate,

Borne by the joyous crowd.

" They gave him of the corn land,

That was of public right,
As much as two strong oxen

Could plough from morn till uigh:
And they made a molten image,

And set it up on high,
And there it stands unto this day

To witness if I lie.

" And in the nights of winter,

When the cold north winds blow,
And the long howling of the wolves

Is heard amidst the snow ;
When round the lonely cottage

Roars loud the tempest's din,
And the good logs of Algidus

Roar louder yet within —

*' When the oldest cask is opened,

And the largest lamp is lit ;
When the chestnuts glow in the embers.

And the kid turns on the spit ;
When young and old in circle

•Around the firebrands close ;
When the girls are weaving baskets,

And the lads are shaping bows —

83

MACAU LAY.

" When the goodman mends his armour,

And trims his helmet's plume ;
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily

Goes flashing through the loom ;
With weeping and with laughter

Still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge

In the brave days of old."

It is undoubtedly as the historian that Macaulay will be
longest remembered. His work, fragment though it is, possess-
es a sort of dramatic unity, will survive at once flattery and
criticism, and will be shrined among the classics of our litera-
ture in calmer times than ours. It is amusing to read the va-
rious opinions of reviewers, each convinced after the manner of
such literary craftsmen that he is nothing if not critical, and
gloating over some atom of inaccuracy as if he had found hid-
den treasure. I deemed it my duty in the preparation for this
lecture to go through a course of review reading, if haply I
might find confirmation of the sentiments I had entertained,
or some reason to change them ; and while I was delighted
with and proud of the vast and varied talent of the articles,
*he result as to opinion was only to unsettle my own, and
to induce a mental dyspepsia from which I was long to
recover. I was told that it is the History of England — a
history of England — an attempt at history — a mistaken notion
of history — an historiette — an historical picture gallery —
an historical novel. I was informed that it is thorough-
ly impartial, and I was informed that it is thoroughly fac-
tious : one critic tells me that his first object is to tell the
story truly; another, that his first object is picturesque effect.
Some christen him Thucydides, and others Walter Scott. One

84

MACAULAY.

eulogist exalts my confidence by assuring me that " he does
not lie, even for the Whigs ;" and just as I have made up my
mind to trust him thoroughly, I am thrown into terrible be-
wilderment by the averment of another learned Theban, that
" his work is as full of political prejudice as any of his partizan
speeches, and is written with bad taste, bad feeling, and bad
faith." The impression left upon my mind by all this conflict
of testimony is a profound conviction of Macaulay's power.
All the faults which his censors charge upon him reappear in
their own writings, as among the supple courtiers of Macedon
was reproduced the wry neck of Alexander. They charge him
with carelessness, but it is in flippant words. If they call him
vituperative, they become atrabilious. If he is said to exagge-
rate, not a few of them out-Herod him ; and his general im-
partiality may be inferred from the fact, that while his critics
are indignant at the caricatures which they allege that he has
drawn of their own particular idols, they acknowledge the mar-
vellous fidelity of his likenesses of all the world beside. More-
over, for the very modes of their censorship they are indebted
to him. They bend Ulysses' bow. They wield the Douglas
brand. His style is antithetical, and therefore they condemn
him in antitheses. His sentences are peculiar, and they de-
nounce him in his own tricks of phrase. There can be no
greater compliment to any man. The critics catch the conta-
gion of the malady which provokes their surgery. The eagle
is aimed at by the archers, but " he nursed the pinion which
impelled the steel." To say that there are faults in the history '
is but to say that it is a human production, and they lie on the
surface and are patent to the most ordinary observer. That he
was a " good hater " there can be no question ; and Dr. Johr -

85

MACAULAY.

son, the while he would have called him a vile Whig, and a sac-
religious heretic, would have hugged him for the heartiness with
which he lays on his dark shades of colour. That he exagge-
rated rather for effect than for parti zanship, may be alleged with
great show of reason, and they have ground to stand upon who
say that it was his greatest literary sin. There are some move-
ments which he knew not how to estimate, and many complex-
ities of character which he was never born to understand.
Still, if this be not history, there is no history in the world.
Before his entrance histoiy, for the masses of English readers,
was as the marble statue ; he came, and by his genius struck
the statue into life.

We thank him that he has made history readable ; that it is
not in his page the bare recital of facts, names and deeds in-
ventoried as in an auctioneer's catalogue, but a glowing por-
traiture of the growth of a great nation, and of the men who
helped or hindered it. We thank him that he has disposed
for ever of that shallow criticism, that the brilliant is always the
superficial and unworthy, and that in the inestimable value of
his work he has confirmed what the sonorous periods of John
Milton, and the long-resounding eloquence of Jeremy Taylor,
and the fiery passion-tones of Edmund Burke had abundantly
declared before him, that the diamond flashes with a rarer lustre
than the spangle. We thank him for the happy combination
which he has given us of instruction and literary enjoyment, of
massive truth decorated with all the graces of style- We thank
him for the vividness of delineation by which we can see
statesmen like Somers amd Nottingham in their cabinets, mar-
shals like Sarsfield and Luxembourg in the field, and men liko

' 86

MACAU LAY.

Buckingham and Marlborough, who dallied in the council-room
and plotted at the revel.

We thank him for the one epical character which he has left
us — William, the hero of his story, whom he has taxed himself
to the utmost to pourtray — the stadtholder adored in Holland—
the impassive monarch who ' lived apart ' in the kingdom which
he freed and ruled — the audacious spirit of whom no one could
discover the thing that could teach him to fear — the brave sol-
dier who dashed about among musketry and sword-blades as if
he bore a charmed life — the reserved man upon whom " dan-
ger acted like wine, to open his heart and loosen his tongue" —
the veteran who swam through the mud at the Boyne, and re-
trieved the fortunes which the death of Schomberg had caused
to waver — " the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat
of England " at Landen — the acute diplomatist who held his
trust with even-handed wisdom — the faithful friend who, when
he loved once, loved for a lifetime — who kept his heart barred
against the multitude, but gave pass-keys to the chosen ones
so that they might go in and out at pleasure — the stern and
stoical sufferer who wrote, and hunted, and legislated, and de-
vised, while ague shook the hand which held the pen or the
bridle, and fever was burning away the life which animated
the restless brain — the rigid predestinarian, who though he
grieved over noble works unfinished, and plans which could
never become deeds, submitted himself calmly as a child when
the inevitable hour drew nigh. We feel that, if there had been
nothing else, the working out of that one character, its investi-
ture with " newer proportions and with richer colouring," the
grand exhibition which it gives us of the superiority of mind over
matter and circumstance, and native repulsiveness and alien

87

MACAULAY.

habits, is in itself a boon for which the world should speak
him well.

Above all, we thank Macaulay for the English-heartedness
which throbs transparently through his writings, and which was
so marked a characteristic of his life. It may be well said
of him as he said of Pitt, " he loved his country as a Roman
the city of the Seven Hills, as an Athenian the city of the Violet
Crown." Herein is his essential difference from the hero whom
he celebrated, and whom in many things he so closely resem-
bles. William never loved England. She was but an appan-
age of Holland to him. One bluff Dutch burgomaster would
outweigh with him a hundred English squires, and he was never
so happy as when he could escape from the foggy Thames to
the foggier Meuse, or be greeted with a Rhenish welcome by a
people to whom an enthusiasm was as an illness which came
once in a lifetime, and was over. But with Macaulay the love
of country was a passion. How he kindles at each stirring or
plaintive memory in the annals he was so glad to record !
Elizabeth at Tilbury ; the scattering of the fierce and proud
Armada ; the deliverance of the Seven Bishops ; the thrilling
agony and bursting gladness which succeeded each other so
rapidly at the siege of Derry ; the last sleep of Argyle ; Lord
Russell's parting from his heroic wife ; the wrongs of Alice
Lisle ; the prayer upon whose breath fled the spirit of Algernon
Sydney ; they touch his very soul, and he recounts them with a
fervour which becomes contagious until his readers are thrilled
with the same joy or pain.

It is not unfashionable among our popular writers to de-
nounce the England of to-day, and to predict for us in the
future auguries of only sinister omen. There is a school of

88

MACAU LAY.

prophets to whom everything in the present is out of joint ;
who can see nothing around them but selfishness, and nothing
beyond them but the undiscoverable bourn, to whom there is
" cold shade " in an aristocracy, and in the middle classes but
a miserable mammon-worship : and beneath a trampled people
in whom the sordid and the brutal instincts strive from day to
day. Of these extremes of sentiment, meeting on the common
ground of gloomy prophesyings about England, her history, as
Macaulay has told it, is the best possible rebuke. He has
shown us the steps by which, in his own eloquent words, " the
England of the Curfew and the Forest laws, the England of
Crusaders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, outlaws, be-
came the England which we know and love, the classic ground
of liberty and philosophy, the school of all knowledge, the mart
of all trade." He has shown us how, through the slow strug-
gles of years, the component forces of society become equalized
in their present rare and happy adjustment ; how each age has
added to the conquests of its predecessors, by the truer solution
of political problems ; by the readier recognition of human
rights ; by the discovery of richer resources in nature, and of
more magnificent capabilities in man. He has shown us how
in health, in intelligence, in physical comfort, in industrial ap-
pliances, in social and moral culture, the tide of progress has
rolled on without a refluent wave. He has shown us how the
despairs and hopes, the passions and lassitudes of the former
generations have helped our national growth ; how our country
has been rallied by her very defeats, and enriched by her very
wastefulness, and elevated by her disasters to ascendancy ; how
the storms which have howled along her coast have only ribbed
her rocks the more firmly ; and the red rain of her slaughtered

MACAULAY.

sires has but watered the earth for the harvest of their gallant
sons. Oh, if the young men of our time would glow with a
healthy pride of race ; if they would kindle with the inspirations
of patriotism ; if they would find annals wealthier in enduring
lesson, and bright with the radiance of a holier virtue than ever
Rome embraced or Sparta knew, let them read their own land's
history, as traced by the pen of its most fervent recorder ; and
while grateful for the instruction of the past, let its unwavering
progress teach them to be hopeful for the future. What hin-
ders that the growth of England's past should be but th.e type
of the yet rarer splendours of its coming time ? There are many
who wait for her halting, " wizards that peep and that mutter "
in bootless necromancy for her ruin ; but let her be true to
herself and to her stewardship, and her position may be assured
from peril. On the " coign of vantage " to which she has been
lifted, let her take her stand ; let her exhibit to the wondering
nations the glad nuptials between liberty and order ; let her
sons, at once profound in their loyalty and manly in their inde-
pendence, be fired with ambition greater than of glory, and
with covetousness nobler than of gain ; let her exult that
her standard, however remote and rocky the islet over which
it waves, is ever the flag of the freeman ; let her widen with
the ages into still increasing reverence for truth and peace and
God, and " she may stand in her lot until the end of the days,"
and in the long after-time, when the now young world shall
have grown old, and shall be preparing, by reason of its age,
for the action of the last fires, she may still live and flourish,
chartered among the nations as the home of those principles
of right and freedom which shall herald the coming of the Son
of man.

90

MACAU LAY.

The one great defect in Macaulay's life and writings, viewed
from a Christian standpoint, is his negativism, to use no stronger
#ord, on the subject of evangelical religion. Not that he ever
impeaches its sa^redness ; no enemy of religion can claim his
championship : he was at once too refined and too reverent for
infidelity, but he nowhere upholds Divine presence or presi-
dency ; nowhere traces the unity of a purpose higher than the
schemes of men ; nowhere speaks of the precepts of Christian-
ity as if they were Divinely-sanctioned ; nowhere gives to its
cloud of witnesses the adhesion of his honoured name. As we
read his essays or his history, when he lauds the philosophy of
Bacon, or tells of the deliverances of William, we are tempted
to wonder at his serene indifference to those great questions
which sooner or later must present themselves to the mind of
every man. Did it never occur to him that men were deeper
than they seemed, and restless about that future into which he
is so strangely averse to pry ? Did the solemn problems of the
soul, the whence of its origin, the what of its purpose, the
whither of its destiny, never perplex and trouble him ? Had
he no fixed opinion about religion as a reality, that inner and
vital essence which should be " the core of all the creeds ? " or
did he content himself with " the artistic balance of conflicting
forces," and regard Protestantism and Popery alike as mere
schemings of the hour, influences equally valuable in their day
and equally mortal when their work was done ? Did it never
strike him that there was a Providence at work when his hero
was saved from assassination, when the fierce winds scattered
the Armada, when the fetters were broken which Rome had
forged and fastened, when from the struggles of years rose up
the slow and stately growth of English freedom? Did he

MACAULAY.

never breathe a wish for a God to speak the chaos of events
into order, or was he content to leave the mystery as he found
it, deeming " such knowledge too wonderful for man ? " Why
did he always brand vice as an injury or an error? Did he
never feel it to be a sin ? Looking at the present, why always
through the glass of the past, and never by the light of the
future ? Did he never pant after a spiritual insight, nor throb
with a religious faith ? Alas, that on the matters on which these
questions touch, his writings make no sign ! Of course, no one
expected the historian to become a preacher, nor the essayist a
theologian ; but that there should be so studious an avoidance
of those great, deep, awful matters which have to do with the
eternal, and that in a history in which religion, in some phase or
other, was the inspiration of the events which he records, is a fact
which no Christian heart can think of without surprise and sorrow.
It has become fashionable to praise a neutral literature which
prides itself upon its freedom from bias, and upon the broad
line of separation which it draws carefully between things secu-
lar and things sacred ; and there are many who call this liberal-
ity, but there is an old Book whose authority, thank God, is
not yet deposed from the heart of Christian England, which
would brand it with a very different name. That Book tells
us that the fig-tree was blasted, not because it was baneful, but
because it was barren ; and that the bitter curse was denounced
against Meroz, not because she rallied with the forces of the
foe, but because in her criminal indifference she came not up
to the help of the Lord. Amid the stirring and manifold ac-
tivities of the age in which we live, to be neutral in the strife is
to rank with the enemies of the Saviour. There is no greater
foe to the spread of His cause in the world than the placid in-

92

MACAU LAY.

differentism which is too honourable to betray, while it is too
careless or too cowardly to join Him. The rarer the endow-
ments, the deeper the obligation to consecrate them to the
glory of their Giver. That brilliant genius, that indefatigable
industry, that influencing might of speech, that wondrous and
searching faculty of analysis, what might they not have accom-
plished if they had been pledged to the recognition of a higher
purpose than literature, and fearless in their advocacy of the
faith of Christ ! Into the secret history of the inner man, of
course we may not enter ; and we gladly hope, from small but
significant indications which a searcher may discover in his
writings, as well as from intimations, apparently authentic, which
were published shortly after his death, that if there had rested
any cloud on his experience, the Sun of righteousness dispersed
it, and that he anchored his personal hope on that "dear Name"
which his earliest rhymes had sung ; but the regret may not be
suppressed that his transcendant powers were given to any ob-
ject lower than the highest. And when I see two life courses
before me, both ending in Westminster Abbey, for the tardy
gratitude of the nation adjudged to Zachary Macaula/s re-
mains, the honour which it denied to his living reputation ;
when I see the father, poor, slandered, living a life of struggle,
yet secretly but mightily working for the oppressed and the
friendless, and giving all his energies in a bright summer of
consecration unto God ; and when I see the son, rich, gifted,
living a life of success, excellent and envied in everything he
undertook, breathing the odours of a perpetual incense-cloud,
and passing from the memory of an applauding country to the
tomb, but aiming through his public lifetime only at objects
which were "of the earth, earthy," I feel that if there be truth

93

MACAU LAY.

in the Bible, and sanction in the obligations of religion, and
immortality in the destinies of man, " he aimed too low who
aimed beneath the skies ;" that the truer fame is with the pains-
taking and humble Christian worker, and that I had rather have
the amaranth which encircles the father than the laurel which
crowns the forehead of the more gifted and brilliant son.

In 1856 he resigned his seat for Edinburgh, in consequence
of failing health ; and in 1857 literature was honoured with a
peerage in the person of one of the noblest of her sons, and the
peerage was honoured by the accession of Lord Macaulay's
illustrious name. Thenceforward in his retirement at Kensing-
ton he devoted himself to his History, " the business and the
pleasure of his life." The world rejoiced to hope that succes-
sive volumes might yet stimulate its delight and wonder, and
wished for the great writer a long and mellow eventide, which
the night should linger to disturb. But suddenly, with the
parting year, a mightier summons came, and the majestic brain
was tired, and the fluttering heart grew still. Already, as the
months of that fatal year waned on, had the last harvestman
multiplied his sheaves from the ranks of genius and of skill.
There had been mourning in Prussia for Humboldt, and across
the wide Atlantic there had wailed a dirge for Prescott and
Washington Irving ; Brunei and Stephenson had gone down in
quick succession to the grave; men had missed the strange
confessions of De Quincey, and the graceful fancies with which
Leigh Hunt had long delighted them ; Hallam and Stephen
had passed the ivory gates ; but, as in the sad year which
closed upon our national sorrow, it seemed as if the spoiler
had reserved the greatest victim to the last, that he might give
to the vassal world the very proudest token of his power.

94

MACAU LAY,

If Macaulay had an ambition dearer than the rest, it was that
he might lie in " that temple of silence and reconciliation where
the enmities of twenty generations lie buried ; " and the walls
of Westminster Abbey do enclose him "in their tender and
solemn gloom." Not in ostentatious state, nor with the pomp of
sorrow, but with hearty and mourning affection, did rank and
talent, and office and authority, assemble to lay him in the
grave. The pall was over the city on that drear January morn-
ing, and the cold, raw wind wailed mournfully, as if sighing
forth the requiem of the great spirit that was gone ; and amid
saddened friends — some who had shared the sports of his child-
hood, some who had fought with him the battles of political
life — amid warm admirers and generous foes, while the aisles
rang with the cadences of solemn music, and here and there
were sobs and pants of sorrow, they bore him to that quiet
resting-place, where he "waits the adoption, to wit, the re-
demption of the body." Not far from the place of his sepul-
ture are the tablets of Gay, and Rowe, and Thomson, and Gar-
rick, and Goldsmith ; on his right sleeps Isaac Barrow, the
ornament of his own Trinity College ; on his left, no clamour
breaks the slumber of Samuel Johnson ; from a pedestal at the
head of the grave, serene and thoughtful, Addison looks down ;
the coffin, which was said to have been exposed at the time of
the funeral, probably held all that was mortal of Richard Brins-
ley Sheridan ; Campbell gazes pensively across the transept, as
if he felt that the " pleasures of hope" were gone ; while from
opposite sides, Shakspeare, the remembrancer of mortality, re-
minds us from his open scroll that the " great globe itself, and
all that it inhabit, shall dissolve, and, like the baseless fabric of
a vision, leave not a rack behind ;" and Handel, comforting

95

MACAULAY.

us in our night of weeping by the glad hope of immortality,
seems to listen while they chant forth his own magnificent
hymn, " His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth for
evermore." There are strange thoughts and lasting lessons to
be gathered in this old Abbey, and by the side of this latest
grave. From royal sarcophagus, and carven shrine ; from the
rustling of those fading banners, which tell of the knights of the
former time ; yonder where the Chathams and Mansfields re-
pose ; here where the orators and poets lie, comes there not a
voice to us of our frailty, borne into our hearts by the brother-
hood of dust upon which our footsteps tread ? How solemn
the warning ! Oh for grace to learn it !

" Earth's highest glory ends in — ' Here he lies ! '
And 'dust to dust ' concludes her noblest song."

And shall they rise, all these ? Will there be a trumpet blast
so shrill that none of them may refuse to hear it, and the soul,
re-entering its shrine of eminent or common clay, pass upward
to the judgment ? " Many and mighty, but all hushed," shall
they submit with us to the arbitrations of the last assize ? And
in that world is it true that gold is not the currency, and that
rank is not hereditary, and that there is only one name that is
honoured ? Then, if this is the end of all men, let the living
lay it to heart. Solemn and thoughtful, let us search for an
assi red refuge ; childlike and earnest, let us confide in the one
accepted Name ; let us realise the tender and infinite nearness
of God our Father, through Jesus our Surety and our Friend ;
and in hope of a joyful resurrection for ourselves, and for the
marvellous Englishman we mourn, let us sing his dirge in the
words of the truest poet of our time : —

MACAU LAY.

' All is over and done :
Render thanks to the Giver 1
England, for thy son.
Let the bell be tolled.
Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.
Let the bell be tolled

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem rolled,
And a deeper knell in the heart be knolled.
To such a name for ages long
To such a name

Preserve a broad approach of fame,
And ever-ringing avenues of song.

******
Hush ! the dead march wails in the people's ears,
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears ;
The black earth yawns — the mortal disappears j
Ashes to ashes — dust to dust ;
He is gone who seemed so great.
Gone, but nothing can bereave him
Of the force he made his own
Being here, and we believe him
Something far advanced in state,
And that he wears a truer crown
Than any wreath that man can weave him.
But speak no more of his renown,
Lay your earthly fancies down,
And in the solemn temple leave him :
God accept him, Christ receive him."

97

JOHN BUNYAN.

JOHN BUNYAN.

IT were impossible to gaze upon the Pyramids, those vast
sepulchres which rise, colossal, from the Libyan desert,
without solemn feeling. They exist, but where are their build-
ers ? Where is the fulfilment of their large ambition ? Enter
them. In their silent heart there is a sarcophagus with a hand-
ful of dust in it, and this is all that remains to us of a proud
race of kings !

Histories are, in some sort, the pyramids of nations. They
entomb in olden chronicle, or in dim tradition, peoples which
once filled the world with their fame, men who stamped the
form and pressure of their character upon the lives of thousands.
The historic page has no more to say of them than that they lived
and died. " Their acts and all that they did " are compressed
into scantiest record. They are handed down to us, shrivelled
and solitary, only in the letters which spelt out their names. It
is a serious thought, sobering enough to our aspirations after
that kind of immortality, that multitudes of the men of old have
their histories in their epitaphs, and that multitudes more, as
worthy, slumber in nameless graves.

But although the earlier times are wrapt in a cloud of fable ;
though tradition, itself a myth, gropes into mythic darkness ;

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JOHN BUNYAN.

though ^Eneas and Agamemnon are creations rather than men
— made human by the poet's "vision and faculty divine;"
though forgetfulness has overtaken actual heroes, once " con-
tent in arms to cope, each with his fronting foe ;" it is interest-
ing to observe how rapid was the transition from fable to evi-
dence, from the uncertain twilight to the historic day. It was
necessary that it should be so. " The fulness of time" de-
manded it. There was an ever-acting Divinity caring, through
all change, for the sure working of His own purpose. The
legendary must be superseded by the real ; tradition must give
place to history, before the advent of the Blessed One. The
cross must be reared on the loftiest platform, in the midst of the
ages, and in the most inquisitive condition of the human mind.
Hence the atonement has been worked out with grandest pub-
licity. There hangs over the cross the largest cloud of wit-
nesses. Swarthy Cyrenian and proud son of Rome, lettered
Greek and jealous Jew, join hands around the sacrifice of Christ
—its body-guard as an historical fact — fencing it about with
most solemn authentications, and handing it to after ages, a
truth, as well as a life, for all time. In like manner we find
that certain periods of the world — epochs in its social progress —
times of its emerging from chivalric barbarism — times of recon-
struction or of revolution — times of great energy or of nascent
life, seem, as by divine arrangement, to stand forth in sharpest
outline ; long distinguishable after the records of other times
have faded. Such, besides the first age of Christianity, was the
period of the Crusades, of the Reformation, of the Puritans, and
such, to the thinkers of the future, will be the many-coloured
and inexplicable age in which we live. The men of those times
are the men on whom history seizes, who are the studies of the

102

JOHN BUNYAN.

aftertime; men who, though they must yield to the law by
which even the greatest are thrown into somewhat shadowy
perspective, were yet POWERS in their day : men who, weighed
against the world in the balance, caused " a downward tremble "
in the beam. Such times were the years of the seventeenth
century in England. Such a man was JOHN BUNYAN.

Rare times they were, the times of that stirring and romantic
era. How much was crowded into the sixty years of Bunyan's
eventful life ! There were embraced in it the turbulent reign of
the first Charles — the Star-chamber, and the High Commission,
names of hate and shuddering — Laud with his Papistry, and
Strafford with his scheme of Thorough — the long intestine war
— Edgehill, and Naseby, and Marston, memories of sorrowful
renown — a discrowned monarch, a royal trial, and a royal exe-
cution. He saw all, that was venerable and all that was novel
changing places, like the scene-shifting of a drama ; bluff cava-
liers in seclusion and in exile ; douce burghers acting history,
and moulded into men. Then followed the Protectorate of the
many-sided and wondrous Cromwell ; brief years of grandeur
and of progress, during which an Englishman became a power
and a name. Then came the Restoration, with its reaction of
excesses — the absolutism of courtiers and courtezans — the mad-
ness which seized upon the nation when vampyres like Gates
and Dangerfield were gorged with perjury and drunk with blood;
the Act of Uniformity, framed in true succession to take effect
on St. Bartholomew's day, by which, ** at one fell swoop," were
ejected two thousand ministers of Christ's holy gospel; the
Conventicle Act, two years later, which hounded the ejected
ones from the copse and from the glen ; the great plague, fitting
sequel to enactments so foul, when the silenced clergy, gather-

103

JOHN BUNYAN.

ing in pestilence immunity from law, made the Red Cross the
sad badge of their second ordination, and taught the anxious,
and cheered the timid, at the altars from which hirelings had
fled. Then followed the death of the dissolute king — the acces-
sion of James, at once a dissembler and a bigot — the renewal
of the struggle between prerogative and freedom — the wild con-
spiracy of Monmouth — the military cruelties of Kirke and Claver-
house, the butchers of the army, and the judicial cruelties of
Jeffreys, the butcher of the bench — the martyrdoms of Elizabeth
Gaunt, and the gentle Alice Lisle — the glorious acquittal of the
seven bishops — the final eclipse of the house of Stuart, that perfi-
dious, and therefore fated race — and England's last revolution,
binding old alienations in marvellous unity at the foot of a parental
throne. What a rush of history compressed into a less period
than threescore years and ten ! These were indeed times for the
development of character — times for the birth of men.

Arid the men were there — the wit, the poet, the divine,
the hero — as if genius had brought out her jewels, and furnished
them nobly for a nation's need. Then Pym and Hampden
bearded tyranny, and Russell and Sydney dreamed of freedom.
Then Blake secured the empire of ocean, and the chivalric
Falkland fought and fell. In those stirring times Charnock,
and Owen, and Howe, and Henry, and Baxter, wrote, and
preached, and prayed. " Cudwbrth and Henry More were still
living at Cambridge ; South was at Oxford, Prideaux in the close
at Norwich, and Whitby in the close of Salisbury. Sherlock
preached at the Temple, Tillotson at Lincoln's Inn, Burnet at
the Rolls, Stillingfleet at St. Paul's Cathedral, Beveridge at St.
Peter's, Cornhill. Men," to continue the historian's eloquent
description, " who could set forth the majesty and beauty of

104

JOHN BUNYAN.

Christianity with such justness of thought and such energy of
language that the indolent Charles roused himself to listen, and
the fastidious Buckingham forgot to sneer." But twelve years
before the birth of Bunyan, all that was mortal of Shakespeare
had descended to the tomb. Waller still flourished, an easy
and graceful versifier ; Cowley yet presented his " perverse
metaphysics" to the world; Butler, like the parsons in his
own Hudibras,

" Proved his doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks."

Dryden wrote powerful satires arid sorry plays "with long-
resounding march and energy divine;" George Herbert clad his
thoughts in quaint and quiet beauty; and mid the groves of
Chalfont, as if blinded on purpose that the inner eye might be
flooded with the " light which never was on sea or shore," our
greater Milton sang.

In such an era, and with such men for his contemporaries,
John Bunyan ran his course, " a burning and a shining light,"
kindled in a dark place, for the praise and glory of God.

With the main facts of Bunyan's history you are most of you,
I presume, familiar ; though it may be doubted whether there
be not many — his hearty admirers withal, — whose knowledge
of him comprehends but the three salient particulars, that he
was a Bedfordshire tinker, that he was confined in Bedford jail,
and that he wrote the " Pilgrim's Progress." It will not be
necessary, however, to-night, to do more than sketch, succinctly,
the course of his life, endeavouring — Herculean project — to
collate, in a brief page, Ivimey, and Philip, and Southey, and
Offor, and Cheever, and Montgomery, and Macaulay ; a seven-

'05

JOHN BUNYAN.

fold biographical band, who have reasoned about the modern,
as a seven-fold band of cities contended for the birth of the
ancient Homer.

He was born at Elstow, a village near Bedford, in the year
1628. Like many others of the Lord's heroes, he was of
obscure parentage, " of a low and inconsiderable generation,"
and, riot improbably, of gipsy blood. His youth was spent in
excess of riot. There are expressions in his works descriptive
of his manner of life, which cannot be interpreted, as Macaulay
would have it, in a theological sense, nor resolved into morbid
self-upbraidings. He was an adept and a teacher in evil. In
his 1 7th year we find him in the army — " an army where wick-
edness abounded." It is not known accurately on which side
he served, but the description best answers certainly to Rupert's
roystering dragoons. At 20 he married, receiving two books
as his wife's only portion — " The Practice of Piety," and " The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven." By the reading of these
books, and by his wife's converse and example, the Holy Spirit
first wrought upon his soul. He attempted to curb his sinful
propensities, and to work in himself an external reformation. He
formed a habit of church-going, and an attachment almost idol-
atrous to the externalisms of religion. The priest was to him
as the Brahman to the Pariah ; " he could have lain down at his
feet to be trampled on, his name, garb, and work did so intoxicate
and bewitch him." While thus under the thraldom which super-
stition imposes, he indulged all the licence which supersition
claims. He continued a blasphemer and a Sabbath-breaker,
running to the same excess of riot as before. Then followed in
agonizing vicissitude a series of convictions and relapses. He
was arrested, now by the pungency of a powerful sermon, now

1 06

JOHN BUNYAN.

by the reproof of an abandoned woman, and anon by visions in
the night, distinct and terrible. One by one, under the lashes
of the law, " that stern Moses, which knows not how to spare,"
he relinquished his besetting sins — from which he struggled
successfully to free himself while he was yet uninfluenced by the
evangelical motive, and with his heart alienated from the life
of God. New and brighter light flashed upon his spirit from
the conversation of some godly women at Bedford, who spake
of the things of God and of kindred hopes and yearnings "with
much pleasantness of scripture," as they sat together in the sun.
He was instructed more perfectly by " holy Mr. Gifford/' the
Evangelist of his dream, and, in " the comment on the Gala-
tians " of brave old Martin Luther, he found the photograph of
his own sinning and troubled soul. For two years there were
but glimpses of the fitful sunshine dimly seen through a spirit-
storm, perpetual and sad. Temptations of fearful power assailed
and possessed his soul. Then was the time of that fell combat
with Apollyon, of the fiery darts and hideous yells, of the lost
sword and the rejoicing enemy. Then also he passed, distracted
and trembling, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and
a horror of great darkness fell upon him. At length, by the
blest vision of Christ " made of God unto him wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," the glad
deliverance came — the clouds rolled away from his heart and
from his destiny, and he walked in the undimmed and glorious
heaven. From this time his spiritual course was, for the most
part, one of comfort and peace. He became a member of the
Baptist Church under Mr. Gifford's pastorate, and when that
faithful witness ceased his earthly testimony, he engaged in
earnest exhortations to sinners, " as a man in chains speaking

107

JOHN BUNYAN.

to men in chains," and was urged forward, by the concurrent
call of the Spirit and the bride, to the actual ministry of the
gospel. His ministry was heartfelt, and therefore powerful, and
was greatly blessed of God. In 1660 he was indicted "as a
common upholder of unlawful meetings and conventicles," and
by the strong hand of tyranny was thrown into prison ; and
though his wife pleaded so powerfully in his favour as to move
the pity of Sir Matthew Hale, beneath whose ermine throbbed
a God-fearing heart like that which beat beneath the tinker's
doublet, he was kept there for twelve long years. His own
words are, " So being again delivered up to the jailor's hand, I
was had home to prison." Home to prison. Think of that,
young men ! See the bravery of a Christian heart ! There is
no affectation of indifference to suffering — no boastful exhibi-
tion of excited heroism ; but there is the calm of the man " that
has the herb heart's-ease in his bosom."

Home to prison ! And wherefore not ? Home is not the
marble hall, nor the luxurious furniture, nor the cloth of gold.
If home be the kingdom where a man reigns, in his own mo-
narchy over subject hearts — if home be the spot where " fireside
pleasures gambol," where are heard the sunny laugh of the confid-
ing child, or the fond "what ails thee ?" of the watching wife— then
every essential of home was to be found, " except these bonds,"
in that cell on Bedford Bridge. There, in the day-time, is the
heroine wife, at once bracing and soothing his spirit with her
womanly tenderness, and, sitting at his feet, the child — a clasp-
ing tendril — blind and therefore best beloved. There, on the
table, is the " Book of Martyrs," with its records of the men
who were the ancestors of his faith and love ; those old and
heaven patented nobility whose badge of knighthood was the

108

JOHN BUN VAN.

hallowed cross, and whose chariot of triumph was the ascending
flame. There, nearer to his hand, is the Bible, revealing their
secret source of strength ; cheering his own spirit in exceeding
heaviness, and making strong, through faith, for the obedience
which is even unto death. Within him the good conscience bears
bravely up, and he is weaponed by this as by a shield of triple
mail. By his side, all unseen by casual guest or surly warder,
there stands the Heavenly Comforter ; and from overhead, as
if anointing him already with the unction of the recompense,
there rushes the stream of glory.

And now it is nightfall. They have had their evening wor-
ship, and, as in another dungeon, " the prisoners heard them."
The blind child receives the fatherly benediction. The last
good night is said to the dear ones, and Bunyan is alone. His
pen is in his hand and his Bible on the table. A solitary lamp
dimly relieves the darkness. But there is fire in his eye, and
there is passion in his soul " He writes as if joy did make
him write. " He has felt all the fulness of his story. The pen
moves too slowly for the rush of feeling as he graves his own
heart upon the page. There is beating over him a storm of
inspiration. Great thoughts are striking on his brain, and flush-
ing all his cheek. Cloudy arid shapeless in their earliest rise
within his rnind, they darken into the gigantic, or brighten into
the beautiful, until at length he flings them into bold and burn-
ing words. Rare visions rise before him. He is in a dungeon
no longer. He is in the palace Beautiful, with its sights of
renown and songs of melody, with its virgins of comeliness and
of discretion, and with its windows opening for the first kiss of
the sun. His soul swells beyond the measure of its cell. It is
not a rude lamp that glimmers on his table. It is no longer the

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JOHN BUNYAN.

-dark Ouse that rolls its sluggish waters at his feet. His spirit
has no sense of bondage. No iron has entered into his soul.
Chainless and swift, he has soared to the Delectable Mountains
— the light of Heaven is around him — the river is the one, clear
as crystal, which floweth from the throne of God and of the
Lamb — breezes of Paradise blow freshly across it, fanning his
temples and stirring his hair — from the summit of the Hill Clear
he catches rarer splendours — the new Jerusalem sleeps in its
eternal noon — the shining ones are there, each one a crowned
harper unto God — this is the land that is afar off, and THAT is
the king in His beauty ; until the dreamer falls upon his knees
and sobs away his agony of gladness in an ecstasy of prayer and
praise. Now, think of these things— endearing intercourse with
wife and children, the ever fresh and ever comforting Bible, the
tranquil conscience, the regal imaginings of the mind, the faith
which realized them all, and the light of God's approving
face shining, broad and bright, upon the soul, and you will
understand the undying memory which made Bunyan quaintly
write " I was had home to prison." *

In 1672, Richard Carver, a member of the Society of Friends,
who had been mate of the vessel in which King Charles escaped
to France after his defeat at Worcester, and who had carried
the king on his back through the surf and landed him on French
soil, claimed, as his reward, the release of his co-religionists who
crowded the jails throughout the land. After some hesitation,
Charles was shamed into compliance. A cumbrous deed was
prepared, and under the provisions of that deed, which was so
framed as to include sufferers of other persuasions, Bunyan
obtained deliverance, having lain in the prison complete twelve
years.

no

JOHN BUNYAN.

From the time of his release his life flowed evenly on. Escaped
alike from Doubting Castle and from the net of the flatterer, he
dwelt in the Beulah land of ripening piety and hope. The last
act of the strong and gentle spirit brought down on him the
peace-maker's blessing. Fever seized him in London on his
return from an errand of mercy, and after ten days' illness, long
enough for the utterance of a whole treasury of dying sayings,
he calmly fell asleep.

" Mortals cried, ' a man is dead :'
Angels sang ' a child's born ;"'

and in honour of that nativity " all the bells of the celestial city
rang again for joy." From his elevation in heaven his whole
life seems to preach to us his own Pentecostal evangel, " There
is room enough here for body and soul, but not for body, and
soul, and sin."

There are various phases in which Bunyan is presented to us
which are suggestive of interesting remark, or which may tend
to exhibit the wholeness of his character before us, and upon
which, therefore, we may not unprofitably dwell.

As a WRITER he will claim our attention for a while. This
is not the time to enter into any analysis of his various works,
nor of the scope and texture of his mind. That were a task
rather for the critic than the lecturer; and although many
mental anatomists have been already at work upon it, there is
room for the skilful handling of the scalpel still. His fame has
rested so extensively upon his marvellous allegories, that there
is some danger lest his more elaborate works should be depre-
ciated ; but as a theologian he is able and striking, and as a
contributor to theological literature he is a worthy associate of
the brightest Puritan divines. His terse, epigrammatic aphorisms,

in

JOHN BUNYAN.

his array of* "picked and packed words/' the clearness with
which he enunciates, and the power with which he applies the
truth, his intense earnestness, the warm soul that is seen beating
through the transparent page, his vivacious humour, flashing
out from the main body of his argument like lightning from a
summer sky, his deep spirituality, chastening an imagination
princely almost beyond compare — all these combine to claim
for him a high place among that band of masculine thinkers
who were the glory of the Commonwealth, and whose words,
weighty in their original utterance, are sounds which echo still.
The amount of actual good accomplished by his writings it
would be difficult to estimate. No man since the days of the
Apostles has done more to draw the attention of the world to
matters of supremest value, nor painted the beauty of holiness
in more alluring colours, nor spoken to the universal heart in
tenderer sympathy or with more thrilling tone. In how many
readers of the " Grace Abounding " has there been the answer
of the heart to the history. What multitudes are there to whom
"the Jerusalem Sinner Saved" has been as " yonder shining
light " which has led through the wicket gate, and by the house
of the Divine Interpreter, to the blest spot "where was a cross,
with a sepulchre hard by f and at the sight of that cross the
burden has fallen off, and the roll has been secured, and, sealed
and shining, they have gone on to victory and heaven. How
many have revelled in silent rapture in his descriptions of the
" Holy City" until there have floated around them some gleams
of the "jasper light," and they felt an earnest longing to be oft
from earth — that land of craft, and crime, and sorrow — ,

" And wished for wings to flee away,
And mix with that eternal day."

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JOHN BUNYAN.

Oh, to thousands of the pilgrims that have left the city of De-
struction— some valiant and hopeful, others much afraid and
fearing — has Bunyan come in his writings, to soothe the pang
or to prompt the prayer, to scare the doubt or to solve the
problem — a Great-heart guide, brave against manifold ill
favoured ones — a faithful Evangelist, pointing the soul to the
Saviour.

Of the " Pilgrim's Progress " it were superfluous to speak in
praise. It seizes us in childhood with the strong hand of its
power, our manhood surrenders to the spell of its sorcery, and
its grasp upon us relaxes not when " mingles the brown of life
with sober gray," nay, is often strongest amid the weariness ot
waning years. Its scenes are familiar to us as the faces of home.
Its characters live to our perceptions no less than to our under-
standing. We have seen them, conversed with them, realized
their diversities of character and experience for ourselves.
There never was a poem which so thoroughly took possession
of our hearts, and hurried them along upon the stream of
the story. We have an identity of interest with the hero in all
his doubts and dangers. We start with him on pilgrimage ; we
speed with him in eager haste to the Gate ; we gaze with him
on the sights of wonder ; we climb with him the difficult hill ;
the blood rushes to our cheek, warm and proud, as we gird
ourselves for the combat with Apollyon ; it curdles at the heart
again amid the Valley of the Shadow of Death ; we look with
him upon the scoffing multitude from the cage of the town of
Vanity ; we now lie, listless and sad, and now flee, fleet and
happy, from the cell in Doubting Castle ; we walk with him
amid the pleasantness of Beulah ; we ford the river in his com-
pany ; we haar the joy-bells ringing in the city of habitations ;
H

"3

JOHN BUNYAN.

we see and greet the hosts of welcoming angels ; and it is to us
as the gasp of agony with which the drowning come back to life,
when some rude call of earthly concernment arouses us from
our reverie, and we wake, and, behold, it is a dream.

There must be marvellous power in a book that can work
such enchantment, wrought withal with the most perfect self-
unconsciousness on the part of the enchanter himself. " The
joy that made him write" was, in no sense, the prospect of
literary fame. With the true modesty of genius he hesitated long
as to the propriety of publication, and his fellow-prisoners in
the jail were empanelled as a literary jury, upon whose verdict
depended the fate of the story which has thrilled the pulses of
the world. In fact his book fulfilled a necessity of his nature.
He wrote because he must write: the strong thoughts within
him laboured for expression. The " Pilgrim's Progress " was
written without thought of the world. It is just a wealthy mind
rioting in its own riches for its own pleasure ; an earnest soul
painting in the colours of a vivid imagination its olden anguish,
and revelling at the prospect of its future joy. And while the
dreamer thus wrote primarily for himself — a "prison amusement "
at once beguiling and hallowing the hours of a weary bondage
— he found to his delight, and perhaps to his surprise, that his
vision became a household book to thousands ; — worldlings
enraptured with its pictures, with no inkling of the drift of its
story ; Christians pressing it to their hearts as a " song in the
night " of their trouble, or finding in its thrilling pages " a door
of hope " through which they glimpsed the coming of the day.

It has been often remarked that, like the Bible, its great
model, the " Pilgrim's Progress " is, to a religious mind, its own
best interpreter. It is said of a late eminent clergyman and

114

JOHN BUNYAN.

commentator, who published an edition of it with numerous
expository notes, that having freely distributed copies amongst
his parishioners, he sometime afterwards inquired of one ot
them if he had read the " Pilgrim's Progress." " Oh, yes, sir I''
"And do you think you understand it ?" " Yes, sir, I understand
//, and I hope before long I shall understand the notes as well."
One of the most amusing and yet conclusive proofs of the
popularity of this wonderful allegory is to be found in the liber-
ties which have been taken with it in the versions into which
it has been rendered, and in the imitations to which it has
given rise. Mr Offor, in his carefully-edited edition of Bunyan's
works, has enumerated between thirty and forty treatises, mostly
allegorical, whose authors have evidently gathered their inspi-
ration from the tinker of Elstow. The original work has been
subjected to a thousand experiments. It has been done into
an oratorio for the satisfaction of play-goers ; done into verse at
the caprice of rhymesters ; done into elegant English for the
delectation of drawing-rooms ; done into catechisms for the use
of schools. It has been quoted in novels ; quoted in sermons
innumerable ; quoted in Parliamentary orations ; quoted in
plays. It has been put upon the Procrustes' bed of many who
have differed from its sentiments, and has been mutilated or
stretched as it exceeded or fell short of their standard. Thus
there has been a Supralapsarian supplement, in which the
Interpreter is called the Enlightener, and the House Beautiful
is Castle Strength. There has been a Popish edition, with Giant
Pope left out. There has been a Socinian parody, describing
the triumphant voyage, through hell to heaven, of a Captain
.Single-eye and his Unitarian crew; and last, not least note-
worthy, there has been a Tractarian travesty, in which the editor

"5

JOHN BUNYAN.

digs a cleansing well at the wicket-gate, omits Mr. Worldly
Wiseman, ignores the town of Legality, makes no mention of
Mount Sinai, changes the situation of the cross, gives to poor
Christian a double burden, transforms Giant Pope into Giant
Mahometan, Mr. Superstition into Mr. Self-indulgence, and
alters, with careful coquetry towards Rome, every expression
which might be distasteful to the Holy Mother. Most of those
who have published garbled or accommodated editions have
done their work silently, and with some sense of shame ; but
the editor of the last mentioned mutilation dwells with ineffable
complacency upon his deed, and evidently imagines that he has
done something for which the world should speak him well.
He defends his insertions and omissions, which are many, and
which affect important points of doctrine, in a somewhat curious
style. " A reasonable defence," he says, " is found in the follow-
ing consideration : — The author whose works are altered
wished, it is to be assumed, to teach the truth. In the editor's
judgment, the alterations have tended to the more complete
setting forth that truth, that is, to the better accomplishment of
the author's design. If the editor's views of the truth, then, are
correct, he is justified in what he does ; if they are false, he is
to be blamed for originally holding them, but cannot be called
dishonest for making his author speak what he believes that,
with more knowledge, the author would have said." Exquisite
logic ! How would it avail in the mouth of some crafty forger,
at the bar of the Old Bailey ! " I am charged with altering a
cheque, drawn for my benefit, by making ^200 into ^1,200.
I admit it, but a reasonable defence may be found in the follow-
ing consideration. The gentleman whose cheque I altered
wished, it is to be assumed, to benefit me and my family. In

116

!

JOHN BUNYAN.

my judgment, the alteration has tended to the better accom-
plishment of the gentleman's design. If my views in this matter
are correct, I am justified in what I have done ; if they are in-
correct, I may be blamed for originally holding them, but cannot
be called dishonest for doing what, with more knowledge of my
circumstances and his own, the gentleman himself would have
done." Out upon it ! Is there one shade of sentiment, from
the credulousness which gulps the tradition and kisses the relic,
to the negativism of "the everlasting No," which might not lay
the flattering unction to its soul, that " with more knowledge"
Bunyan would have been ranged under its banner. Rejoicing
as I do in substantial oneness of sentiment with the glorious
dreamer, I might yet persuade myself into the belief that, with
more knowledge, he would have become an Evangelical Armi-
nian, and would hardly have classed the election doubters among
the army of Diabolus : but shall I, on this account, foist my
notions into the text of his writings ? or were it not rather an
act from which an honest mind would shrink with lordly scorn ?
I cannot forbear the utterance of an indignant protest against a
practice which appears to me subversive of every canon of
literary morality, and which in this case has passed off, under
the sanction of Bunyan's name, opinions from which he would
have recoiled in indignation, which war against the whole tenor
of his teaching, and which might almost disturb him in his
grave ; and especially is my soul vexed within me that there
should have been flung by any sacrilegious hand, over those
sturdy Protestant shoulders, one solitary rag of Rome.

Though the " Pilgrim's Progress " became immediately popu-
lar, the only book save the Bible on the shelf of many a rustic
dwelling, and though it passed in those early times through

117

JOHN BUNYAN.

twelve editions in the space of thirty years, the " inconsiderable
generation '; of its author long prevented its circulation among
the politer classes of the land. There was no affectation, but
a well-grounded apprehension in Cowper's well-known line :

" Lest so despised a name should move a sneer."

At length, long the darling of the populace, it became the
study of the learned. Critics went down into its treasure-cham-
bers and were astonished at their wealth and beauty. The
initiated ratified the foregone conclusion of the vulgar ; the
tinker's dream became a national classic; and the pontificate
of literature installed it with a blessing and a prayer.

No uninspired work has extorted eulogies from a larger host
of the men of mark and likelihood. That it redeemed into
momentary kindliness a ferocious critic like Swift ; that it sur-
prised, from the lips of Johnson, the confession that he had read it
through and wished it longer ; that Byron's banter spared it, and
that Scott's chivalry was fired by it ; that South ey's analysis, and
Franklin's contemplation, and Mackintosh's elegant research,
and Macaulay's artistic criticism, should have resulted in a sym-
phony to its praise ; that the spacious intellect and poet-heart
of Coleridge revelled with equal gladness in its pages ; that the
scholarly Arnold, chafed by the attritions of the age, and vexed
by the doubt-clouds which darkened upon his gallant soul, lost
his trouble in its company, and looked through it to the Bible,
which he deemed it faithfully to mirror; — all these are testi-
monies that it established its empire over minds themselves
imperial, and constrained their acknowledgment of its kingly
power.

It would, we suspect, be of no account with Bunyan now*

118

JOHN BUNYAN.

that critics conspire to praise him ; that artists, those bending
worshippers of beauty, have drawn sumptuous illustrations from
his works ; or that his statue, the tinker's effigy, standing in no
unworthy companionship with statesmen, and heroes, and men
of high degree, should decorate the British House of Commons.
But if the faithful in glory have earthly sympathies and recog-
nitions still ; if, from the region where they " summer high in
bliss upon the hills of God," they still look down lovingly upon
the world which has missed and mourned them ; if their invio-
late joy may be enhanced from aught below — it might surely
thrill the heart of the dreamer with a deeper ecstacy, that his
Pilgrim yet walks the earth, a faithful witness for Jesus ; that it
has guided thousands of the perplexed, and cheered thou-
sands of the fearing ; arid that it has testified to multitudes, of
many a clime and colour, " in their own tongues, the wonderful
works of God." No book but God's own has been so honoured
to lift up the cross among the far off nations of mankind. The
Italian has read it under the shadow of the Vatican, and the
modern Greek amid the ruins of Athens ; it has blessed the
Armenian trafficker, and it has calmed the fierce Malay ; it has
been carried up the far rivers of Burmah ; and it has drawn
tears from dark eyes in the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon. The
Bechuanas in their wild woods have rejoiced in its simple story;
it has been as the Elim of palms and fountains to the Arab
wayfarer ; it has nerved the Malagasy for a Faithful's martyr-
dom, or for trial of cruel mockings, and tortures more intolera-
ble than death. The Hindoo has yielded to its spell by
Gunga's sacred stream ; and, crowning triumph ! Hebrews have
read it on the slopes of Olivet, or on the banks of Kedron, and
the tender hearted daughters of Salem, descendants of those

119

JOHN BUNYAN.

who wept for the sufferings of Jesus, have " wept" over it " for
themselves and for their children."

Dr. Johnson, in his life of Waller, advances the strange opin-
ion that spiritual subjects are not fit subjects for poetry; and
he dogmatizes, in his usual elephantine style of writing, upon
the alleged reason. He says : " The essence of poetry is inven-
tion ; such invention as, by producing something unexpected,
surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are few, and
being few are universally known ; but few as they are they
can be made no more ; they can receive no grace from novelty
of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression. " Such
an unworthy definition of poetry might answer for an age of
lampooners, when merry quips and conceits passed muster as
sparks from the Heaven-kindled fire. We prefer that of Festus,
brief and full:

" Poets are all who love, who feel great truths
And tell them."

And the greatest truths are those which link us to the invisi-
ble, and show us how to realize its wonders. If, then, there be
within each of us a gladiator soul, ever battling for dear life in
an arena of repression and scorn — a soul possessed with thought,
and passion, and energy invincible, and immortal hope and
yearnings after the far off and the everlasting, which all the
tyranny of the flesh cannot subdue ; if there be another world
which sheds a holy arid romantic light upon every object and
upon every struggle of this, — if by the Word and Spirit divine
there can be opened the soul's inner eye, that sublime faith
which is " the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence
of things not seen " — to the visions of which our nature becomes

120

JOHN BUNYAN.

a treasury of hidden riches, and which instates us in the heirship
of "the powers of the world to come;" — then there can be
poetry in this world only because light from heaven falls on it,
because it is a subtle hieroglyph full of solemn and mystic mean-
ings, because it cradles a magnificent destiny, and is the type
and test of everlasting life. It must be so. All conceptions of •
nature, or of beauty, or of man, from which the spiritual ele-
ment is excluded, can be, at best, but the first sweep of the
finger over the harpstrings, eliciting, it may be, an uncertain
sound, but failing to evoke the soul of harmony which
sleeps in the heart of the chords. Macaulay shall answer
Johnson : " In the latter half of the seventeenth century there
were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty
in a very eminent degree. One of those minds produced the
' Paradise Lost;' the other the * Pilgrim's Progress/" Religious
epics these ! the one painting the lapse and the doom of our
race in all shapes of beauty or of grandeur ; the other borrow-
ing nothing from voluptuous externalisms, dealing only with
the inner man in his struggles and yearnings after God. We
want to see, in this age of ours, more and more of the genius
that is created by piety ; of a literature informed with the spirit
of the Gospel of Christ. Critics have predicted the decay of
poetry with the spread of civilization ; and literary men speak
with diffident hope of its " ultimate recovery from the stagger-
ing blows which science has inflicted ;" and, in truth, if its in-
spiration be all of earth, there may be some ground for fear.
As mere secular knowledge has no antiseptic power, so mere
earthly beauty has no perennial charms. But draw its subjects
from higher sources, let it meddle divinely with eternal things,
and it can never die.

121

JOHN BUNYAN.

" O say not that poesy waxeth old,
That all her legends were long since told !

It is not so ! It is not so !
For while there's a blossom by summer drest,
A sigh for the sad, or a smile for the blest,
Or a changeful thought in the human breast,

There'll be a new string for her lyre, I trow.
Do you say she is poor, in this land of the free ?
Do you call her votaries poor as she ?

It may be so ! It may be so !
Yet hath she a message more high and clear,
From the burning lips of the heaven-taught seer;
From the harp of Zion that charms the ear,

From the choir where the seraph minstrels glow."

Not, of course, that the monotone should be the measure of
every life-song: rather should it flow after Scriptural precept
and precedent, now in " psalms," grand, solemn, stately, the
sonorous burst of the full soul in praise, now in " hymns,"
earnest, hopeful, winning — the lyrics of the heart in its hours of
hope or pensiveness,— and now in " songs" light and hearty—
the roundelay, the ballad, the carol of a spirit full of sunshine,
warbling its melodies out of its own exuberance of joy. Nor,
of course, that literary men should write only on Christian
themes. We would have them illustrate the goodliness of
nature, the inductions of science, the achievements of art.
They should speak to us in the language of the sweet affec-
tions, give soul and sentiment to the harmony of music, and
strike the chords of the resounding lyre. They should take, in
comprehensive and sympathetic survey, all nature and all man.
But they must submit to the baptism of Christianity, and be
leavened with her love divine, ere they can be chroniclers of

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JOHN BUXYAN.

the august espousals, or guests at the happy bridal of the beauti-
ful and true.

Young men, lend your energies to this hallowed consumma-
tion. You are not poets, perhaps, and according to the old
" Poeta nonfit " adage, you are not fit to be. If you have the
" divine afflatus," by all means give it forth ; but if you have
not, do not strain after it to the neglect of nearer and more
practicable things. One would not wish to see a race of Byron-
lings, — things of moustache and turn-down collar, — moody
Manfreds of six feet three, with large loads of fine frenzy and
infinitesimal grains of common sense. And it is woful enough
to meet the weird youth of a later day, with his jargon of " sub-
jective " and " objective," who looms dimly upon us through
the blended smoke of rnist and meerschaum, and who goes
floundering after transcendental nonsense until he is nearly run
over in Cheapside. It is given to very few of us to live ethereal
lives, or to be on familiar terms with thunder. But if you are
not the writers, you are the readers of the age. You have an
appreciation of the beautiful, an awakened intelligence which
pants hard after the true. Terminate, I beseech you, in your
own experience, the sad divorce which has too often existed
between intellect and piety. Take your stand, unswerving,
heroic, by the altar of truth ; and from that altar let neither
sophistry nor ridicule expel you. Let your faith rest with a
child's trust, with a martyr's gripe upon the truth as it is in
Jesus. Then go, humbly but dauntlessly, to work, and you can
make the literature of the time. Impress your individuality
upon others, and in so far as you create a healthier moral sen-
timent and a purer taste, the literature of the future is in your
hands. The literature of any age is but the mirror of its pre-
123

JOHN BUNYAN.

valent tendencies. A healthy appetite will recoil from garbage
and carrion. Pestilent periodicals and a venal press reveal the
depraved moral feeling which they pamper. Work for the
uplifting of that moral feeling, and by the blessing of God upon
the efforts of the fair brotherhood who toil for Him, the dew of
Hermon shall descend upon the hill Parnassus, and there shall
be turned into the fabled Helicon a stream of living waters.
Religion shall be throned in her own queenly beauty, and
literature shall be the corneliest handmaid in her virgin train.

There is no feature more noticeable in Bunyan's character
than the devout earnestness with which he studied the Divine
Word, and the reiser ence which he cherished for it throughout the
whole of his life.

In the time of his agony, when, " a restless wanderer after
rest," he battled with fierce temptation, and was beset with
Antinomian error, he gratefully records, "the Bible was precious
to rne in those days;" and after his deliverance it was his
congenial life-work to exalt its honour and to proclaim its
truths. Is he recommending growth in grace to his hearers ? —
The Word is to be the aliment of their life. " Every grace is
nourished by the Word, and without it there is no thrift in the
soul." Has he announced some fearless exposition of truth ? —
Hark how he disarms opposition and challenges scrutiny !
" Give me a hearing : take me to the Bible, and let me find in
thy heart no favour if thou find me to swerve from the stand-
ard." Is he uplifting the Word above the many inventions of
his fellows ? — Mark the racy homeliness of his assertion : " A
little from God is better than a great deal from men. What is
from men is often tumbled over and over ; things that we
receive at God's hand come to us as things from the minting-

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JOHN BUNYAN.

house. Old truths are always new to us if they come with the
smell of Heaven upon them. " Is his righteous soul vexed with
the indifference of the faithful, or with the impertinences of the
profane? How manfully he proclaims his conviction of a
pressing want of the times ! "There wanteth even in the hearts
of God's people a greater reverence for the Word of God than
to this day appeareth among us ; and this let me say, that want
of reverence for the Word is the ground of all the disorders
that are in the heart, life, conversation, or Christian commu-
nion."

If ever Bunyari saw with a seer's insight, and spoke with a
prophet's inspiration, he has in this last quoted sentence fore-
seen our danger, and uttered a solemn warning for the times in
which we live. There never was an age in which reverence for
the Word needed more impressive inculcation. There never
was an age when there were leagued against it fiercer elements
of antagonism. Not that infidelity proper abounds — the danger
from this source is over. Some rare specimens of this almost
extinct genus do occasionally flounder into sight, like the
ichthyosaurus of some remote period, blurting out their blasphe-
mies from congenial slime ; but men pity their foolishness or
are shocked with their profanity. That infidelity is the most to
be dreaded which moves like the virus of a plague, counterfeit-
ing, by its hectic glow, the flush of health and beauty, unsus-
pected till it has struck the chill to the heart, and the man is
left pulseless of a living faith, and robbed of the rapture of life
— a conscious paralytic who " brokenly lives on." This kind of
scepticism, — a scepticism which apes reverence and affects
candour — which, by its importunity, has almost wearied out
some of the sturdy guardians of the truth — which seems to have

125

JOHN BUNYAN.

talked itself into a prescriptive right, like other mendicants, to
exhibit its sores among the highways of men, — has, it is not to
be denied, done its worst to infect society, and to wither the
energy of religion in multitudes of souls. It may be that some
amongst yourselves have not altogether escaped the contagion.
Could I place the young men of this country in the confessional
to-night, or could their various feelings be detected, as was the
concealed demon at the touch of Ithuriel's spear, I might find
not a few who would tell that stranger doubts had come to them
which they had not forborne to harbour — that distrust had crept
over them — that unbelief was shaping out a systematic residence
in their souls — that they had looked upon infidelity, if not as a
haven of refuge amid the conflicts of warring faiths, at least as a
theatre which gave scope for the ideal riot of fancy, or the actual
riot of sense, in indulgences and excesses far fitter for earth than
heaven ?

And there are, unhappily, many around us, at the antipodes of
sentiment from each other, and yet all after their manner hostile
to the Divine Word, who fan the kindled unbelief, and whose
bold and apparently candid objections are invested to the
unsettled mind with a peculiar charm.

The Jew, with prejudice as inveterate as ever, rejects the
counsel of God against himself, and crushes the Law and the
Prophets beneath a load of rabbinical traditions, the Mishna
and Gemara of his Talmuds. The papist still gives to the
decretals of popes and the edicts of councils co-ordinate autho-
rity with the Scriptures, and locks up those Scriptures from the
masses, as a man should imprison the free air while men perish
from asphyxia around him. The rationalist spirits away the
inspiration of the Bible, or descants upon it as a fascinating

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JOHN BUNYAN.

myth, to be reviewed like any other poem, by ordinary criticism,
or postpones it to the proud reason of Eichhorn and Paulus, or
Strauss and Hegel, or Belsham and Priestley. The mystic
professes to have a supplemental and superior revelation drafted
down into his own heart. Printing furnishes unprecedented
facilities for the transmission of thought, and man's perdition
may be cheapened at the stall of every pedlar. And finally,
some ministers of religion, yielding to the clamour of the times,
have lowered the high tone of Scriptural teaching, and have
studiously avoided the terminology of the Bible. What wonder,
with influences like these, that upon many over whom had
gathered a penumbra of doubt before, there should deepen a
dark and sad eclipse of faith ?

Brothers, nothing will avail to preserve you amid the strife of
tongues but to cherish, as a habit ingrained into the soul — as
an affection enfibred with your deepest heart — continual rever-
ence for the Divine Word. We do not claim your feudal
submission to its sovereignty. It recks not a passive and
unintelligent adhesion. Inquire by all means into the evidences
which authenticate its divinity. Bring keenest intellects to
bear upon it. Try it as gold in the fire. Satisfy yourselves, by
as searching a process as you can, that the Eternal has really
spoken it, and that there looms from it the shadow of a large
immortality ; but do this once for alL Don't be "ever learning,
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth/' Life is
too short to be frittered away in endless considerings and
scanty deeds. There can be no more pitiable state than that
of the eternal doubter, who has bid the ,sad " vale, vale, in
seternum vale," to all the satisfactions of faith, and who is tossed
about with every wind of doctrine — a waif upon the wreckage

127

JOHN BUNYAN.

of a world. Settle your principles early, and then place them
" on the shelf," secure from subsequent assault or displacement.
Then in after years, when some rude infidel argument assails
you, and, busied amid life's activities, you are unable, from the
absorption of your energies otherwhere, to recall the train of
reasoning by which you arrived at your conclusion, you will
say, " I tried this matter before — I threw these doctrines into
the crucible, and they came out pure — the assay was satisfactory
— the principles are on the shelf/' and when the Sanballats
and Tobiahs gather malignantly below, you will ciy with good
Nehemiah, girt with the sword, and wielding the trowel the
while, "I am doing a great work — I cannot come down — why
should the work stop while I come down to you ?'' Oh it will
be to you a source of perennial comfort, that in youth, after
keen investigation of the Bible — the investigation, not of frivo-
lity or prejudice, but of candour, and gravity, and truth-loving,
and prayer — you bowed before it as God's imperishable utter-
ance, and swore your fealty to the monarch-word. Depend upon
it the Bible demands no inquisition, and requires no disguises.
It does not shrink before the light of science, nor crouch
abashed beiore the audit of a scholarly tribunal. Rather does
it seem to say, as it stands before us in its kingliness, all pride
humbled and all profanity silenced in its majestic presence —
Error fleeing at its approach — Superstition cowering beneath
the lightning of its eye, " I will arise, and go forth, for the hour
of my dominion is at hand.'7

As a PREACHER OF THE TRUTH Bunyan had a high reputation
in his day. Sympathy, earnestness, and power, were the great
characteristics of his successful ministry. He preached what he
felt, and his preaching therefore corresponded to the various

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JOHN BUNYAN.

stages of his personal experience. At first, himself in chains,
he thundered out the terrors of the law, like another Baptist,
against rich and poor together; then, happy in believing, he
proclaimed salvation and the blessedness of life by Christ, "as
if an angel stood at his back to encourage him •" and then, with
advancing knowledge, he disclosed the truth in its rounded
harmony — " the whole counsel of God/' Instances of conver-
sion were frequent under his ministry — many churches were
founded by his labours. Dr. Owen assured King Charles that
for the tinker's ability to prate he would gladly barter his own
stores of learning ; and in his annual visit to London, twelve
hundred people would gather, at seven in the morning of a
winter's working day, to hear him. Nor can we wonder that his
ministry should have had "favour both with God and man,"
when we listen to his own statements of the feelings with which
he regarded it. " In my preaching I have really been in pain,
and have, as it were, travailed to bring forth children to God.
If I were fruitless, it mattered not who commended me ; but if
I were fruitful, I cared not who did condemn." " I have
counted as if I had goodly buildings and lordships in those
places where my children were born ; my heart hath been so
wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work that I counted
myself more blessed and honoured of God by this, than if He
had made me the emperor of the Christian world, or the lord of
all the glory of the earth without it." This is what we want
now. We will not despair of the speedy conversion of the
world if you give us an army of ministers who have, burnpd
into their hearts, this passionate love for souls.

There are those, indeed, who tell us that the mission of the
pulpit is fulfilled. They acknowledge that in the former ages —

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JOHN BUNYAN.

in the times of immaturity, when men spelt out the truth in
syllables, it did a noble work. But the world has outgrown it,
they tell us. It is an anachronism now. Men need neither its
light nor its warning. The all-powerful press shall direct them
— from the chair of criticism they shall learn wisdom— the
educational institute shall aid them in heavenward progress —
they shall move upward and onward under the guidance of the
common mind. But the divine institution of the ministry is not
to be thus superseded. It has to do with eternity, and the
matters of eternity are paramount. It has to deal with the most
lasting emotions of our nature — with those deep instincts of
eternal truths which underlie all systems, from which the man
can never utterly divorce himself, and which God himself has
graven on the soul. This opposition to the pulpit, however the
inefficiency of existing agencies may have contributed to it,
however the memories of olden priestcraft may have given it
strength, cannot be explained but as originating in the yet
unconquered enmity of the carnal rnind to God. The teaching
of the political theorizer, of the infidel demagogue, of the bene-
volent idealist — why are they so popular ? The teaching of the
religious instructor — why is it so repulsive to the world ? The
main secret will be found in the fact that the one exalts, the
other reproves, our nature — the one ignores, the other insists
upon, the doctrine of the fall. If you silence the ministry, you
silence the only living agency which, of set purpose, appeals to
the moral sense of man, and brings out the world's conscience in
its answer to moral obligation and to the truths of the Bible.
The minister divides empire over the other faculties. He
may speak to the intellect, but the philosopher will rival him \
he may charm the imagination, but the poet is his master ; he

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JOHN BUNYAN.

may rouse the passions, the mob orator will do it better : but in
his power over conscience he has a government which no man
shares, and, as a czar of many lands, he wields the sceptre over
the master faculty of man. It is absolutely necessary, in this
age of manifold activities and of spiritual pride, that there should
be this ever-speaking witness of man's feebleness and God's
strength. That witness dares not be silent amid the strife of
tongues ; and however the clamour may tell — and it does tell
and ought to tell, upon the time-serving and the indolent, upon
the vapid and the insincere — it is an unanswerable argument for
the mission of the ministry itself, even as the blast which
scatters the acorns roots the oak more firmly in the soil. —
Standing as I do to-night, in connection with an association *
which I dearly love, and which has been so highly honoured as
an instrument of good, I must yet claim for the pulpit the fore-
most place among the agencies for the renovation of the world.
Neither the platform nor the press can supersede it So long
as they work in harmony with its high purpose, and aim at the
elevation of the entire man, it will hail their helpings with glad
heart and free, but God hath set it on the monarchy, and it may
not abdicate its throne.

One great want of the times is a commanding ministry — a
ministry of a piety at once sober and earnest, and of mightiest
moral power. Give us these men, " full oi faith and of the
Holy Ghost," who will proclaim old truths with new energy, not
cumbering them with massive drapery, nor hiding them beneath
piles of rubbish. Give us these men ! men of sound speech, who
will preach the truth as it is in Jesus, riot with faltering tongue
and averted eye, as if the mind blushed at its own credulity —

* The Young Men's Christian Association of London, England.

JOHN BUNYAN.

not distilling it into an essence so subtle and so speedily
decomposed that a chemical analysis alone can detect the faint
odour which tells it has been there — but who will preach it
apostlewise, that is, " first of all," at once a principle shrined
in the heart and a motive mighty in the life — the source of all
morals, and the inspiration of all charity — the sanctifier of every
relationship, and the sweetener of every toil. Give us these
men ! men of dauntless courage, from whom God-fear has
banished man-fear — who will stand unblenched before the pride
of birth, and the pride of rank, and the pride of office, and the
pride of intellect, and the pride of money, and will rebuke their
hypocrisies, and demolish their false confidences, and sweep
away their refuges of lies. Give us these men ! men of sympa
thy, who dare despise none, however vile and crafty, because
the " one blood " appeals for relationship in its sluggish or
fevered flow — by whom the sleeper will not be harshly roused,
and who will mourn over the wanderer, " My brother — ah ! my
brother ! " Give us these men ! men of zeal untiring — whose
hearts of constancy quail not although dull men sneer, and
proud men scorn, and timid men blush, and cautious men
deprecate, and wicked men revile ; who

" Think

What others only dreamed about,, and do
What others did but think, and glory in
What others dared but do."

Give us these men ! in whom Paul would find congenial rea-
soners ; whom the fervent Peter would greet with a welcome
sparkle in the eye ; to whom the gentle John would be attracted
as to twin souls which beat like his own — all lovingly. Give us
these men ! and you need speak no more of the faded greatness

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JOHN BUNYAN.

of the pulpit ; the true God-witnesses shall be reinstated in their
ancient moral sovereignty, and " by manifestation of the truth
shall commend themselves to every man's conscience in the
sight of God."

One main reason of Bunyan's repute among the people was
his thorough humanness. He was no bearded hermit, sarcastic
in his seclusion upon a world which he had forsaken, or which
he never knew. He was no dark ascetic, snarling at his fellows
from some cynical tub, inveighing against pleasures which were
beyond his reach, and which he had toiled in vain to enjoy.
He was a brave, manly, genial, brotherly soul, full of sympathy
with the errors and frailties of men, mingling in the common
grief and in the common cheerfulness of life. See him as he
romps with the children in their noisy mirth, himself as great a
child as they. Listen to him as he spins out of his fertile brain
riddles to be guessed by the pilgrims, such as " keep Old
Honest from nodding." Mark the smile that plays over his
countenance as he jvrites how Ready-to-halt and Much-afraid
footed it right merrily, in dance of joy, for the destniction of
Giant Despair. Observe the ineffable tenderness with which he
describes Feeblemind and Fearing. See in his real life the
wealth of affection which he lavishes upon his sightless child.
Oh ! it is charming — this union of the tender and the faithful in
a master-mind — this outflow of all graceful charities from a
spirit which bares its breast to danger, and which knows not to
blench or quail ! Beautiful are these gushes of sensibility from
a manly soul, — as if from some noble mountain, with granite
heart and crest of cedar, there should issue a crystal rill, bright-
ening the landscape with its dimpled beauty, or flashing archly
beneath the setting sun.

133

JOHN BUNYAN.

Strength and gentleness are thus combined, in grandest har-
mony, only under the humanizing rule of Christianity. We
might expect, under the old stoical morality, to find endurance
and bravery — the perfection of an austere manhood — Roman
virtue and Spartan pride. Under the precepts of a philosophy
which never compromised with human weakness, we do not
wonder at a Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylae, or at a Miltiades
on the plains of Marathon, at a high-souled Epaminondas or a
meditative Nurna, at an Aristides consenting to his own ostra-
cism, or a Brutus pronouncing the death-doom cf his son. They
are the natural efflorescence of such culture and such soil. And,
in truth, there is a hardy endeavour, an heroic self-abandonment,
a capacity for deed and suffering, in some of these brave old
Heathen, that would make many a modern Christian dwindle
into the shadow of a man. But it was reserved for Christianity,
by the inspiration of her faith and love, to exhibit human nature
in its " highest embodied possibility," to show the bravery ot
heroes chastened by the meekness of children — an endurance
more resolute than stoicism ever knew, combined with an all"
embracing tenderness that would " clasp the universe to keep
it warm." In Christianity, and in Christianity alone, can be
discovered character in harmonious wholeness, at once the
" righteous man," high in the practice of all social virtues, stern in
his inflexible adhesion to the utter right, and the "good man,"
who has won for himself a revenue of afiection — at whose name
men's eyes sparkle and their spirits glow as h a sunbeam glinted
in— and for whom some, in their strength of tenderness, would
even dare to die.

It would seem, indeed, to be God's usual method to prepare
men for extensive usefulness by the personal discipline of trial.

134

JOHN BUNYAN.

Hence, when we see Bunyan encompassed by terrible tempta-
tions, and immured in bondage ; Luther in the fortress on the
Wartburg, pining in sore sickness, and battling, in fancy, with
embodied evil; Wesley wandering to Georgia and back, led
through doubt and darkness to the long deferred moment which
ended his " legal years," and then welcomed on his evange-
listic journeys with ovations of misrepresentations and mud ; —
we remember that this protracted suffering is but the curriculum
of heavenly discipline by which they are shriven of self and
pride, and which superadds to the fortitude which bears all, and
to the courage which dares all, the meekness and gentleness of
Christ. You will remember a notable instance of the teaching
of the Master on this matter in the history of the disciples. On
one occasion, misers of that wealth divine which could have
enriched every man of the five thousand, and have been none
the poorer for the sumptuous dole, they exhibited a sad lack of
needful sympathy, and impatiently murmured, " Send the mul-
titudes away.'; Mark the sequel. " Straightway He constrained
His disciples to get into a ship, and go before Him to the other
side, while He sent away the people." They must be sent away
like the multitudes, that they might know what such banish-
ment meant, and feel, by bitter experience, the pangs of an
absent Lord. Stormfully howled the wind on Tiberias' lake
that night ; deep would be the disquietude as the vexed waves
tossed the vessel, and the eyes of the watchers, straining wist-
fully through the darkness, saw no star of hope nor glimpse of
Saviour. But there came blessing to the world out of that storm.
They would be better apostles for that night's anxious vigil ;
more thoroughly human in their sympathy ; better able to pro-
claim to the benighted nations the overcoming might of love,

135

JOHN BUNYAN.

If you look from the Master's teaching to the Master's example,
who fails to remember that for this purpose He became " touched
with the feeling of our infirmity," and was tempted, that He
might succour the tempted — that hunger and thirst, and weari-
ness, and pain came upon Him — that He felt the pangs of
desertion when those whom He trusted forsook Him, and the
pangs of bereavement when those whom He loved had died —
that He sorrowed with human tears over a freshly opened grave,
and feared, with human apprehension, under the shadow of
impending trial ?

Brothers, he must be no fiery recluse who shall preach the
people into a new crusade. The great work of the world's
uplifting now-a-days is not to be wrought by the stern prophet
of wrath, moving amongst men with the austerity as well as
with the inspiration of the wilderness, but by the mild and
earnest seer who comes, like the Son of Man, " eating and
drinking," of genial soul, and blithe companionship, and
divinest pity ; who counsels without haughtiness, and reproves
without scorn ; and who bears about with him the reverent
consciousness that he deals with the majesty of man. Neither
the individual nor the aggregate can be lectured out of vice nor
scolded into virtue. There is a relic of humanness, after all,
lingering in every heart, like a dear gage of affection, stealthily
treasured amid divorce and estrangement, and the far wards
where it is locked up from men can be opened only by the
living sympathy of love. Society is like the prodigal, whom
corrective processes failed to reform, and whom gaol discipline
only tended to harden, and whom enforced exile only rendered
more audacious in his crime, but down whose bronzed cheek
a tear stole in a far off land at some stray thought of home, and

136

JOHN BUNYAN.

whose heart of adamant was broken by the sudden memory of
dead mother's prayer. Let us recognize this truth in all
our endeavours for the benefit of men. It is quite possible to
combine inflexibility of adhesion to the right with forbearing
tenderness towards the wrong-doer. Speak the truth, by all
means, — let it fall upon the hearts of men with all the imparted
energy by which the Spirit gives it power ; but speak the truth
in love, and, perchance, it may subdue them by its winsome
beauty, and prompt their acknowledgment that it is altogether
lovely.

Such a one in his teachings will be equally remote from lax
indifferentism and from cynical theology. He will not dare a
hair's breadth deviation from the Bible ; but he will not graft
upon it his own moroseness, nor mutilate it into his own
deformity. Such an one will not complain that he has no
neighbours. He will find neighbours, aye, even in the heart oi
London. He will be a kind husband and tender father ; but his
hearthstone will not bound his sympathy. He will be a patriot ;
he will be a philanthropist. His love, central in his home and
in his country, will roll its far ripples upon all men. He will
see in the poorest man a brother, and in the worst man a
nature of divine endowment, now sunk in darkness, which he is
to labour to illumine and to save. Such an one will not call
earth a howling wilderness. He will not slander this dear old
world because some six thousand years ago an injury befel it
which disfigured it sadly, and has embittered its subsequent
history. Against that which did the wrong he will cherish
intensest hatred — he will purge it from himself — he will root it
out of others, if he can. He will love the world as a theatre
for the display 01 noble energies, oi rich benevolence, ot manly

'37

JOHN BUNYAN.

strength, of godlike pity ; and he will work in it with an honest
heart and loving purpose, until the finger beckons him into the
wealthier heaven.

Young men, the age of chivalry is not over. The new crusade
has already begun. The weapons are not shaped by mortal
skill, nor is the battle with garments rolled in blood. Strong-
souled, earnest men — knights, of the true Order of Jesus, are
leagued in solemn covenant, and are already in the field.
" Theirs are the red colours, and for a scutcheon they have the
Holy Lamb and Golden Shield.'7 " Good-will to man " is their
inspiring banner-text. " Faith working by love " is broidered
on their housings. Not to prance in the tilt-yard, amidst the
sheen of bright lances and bright eyes, don they their armour.
They have too serious work on hand to flaunt them in a mimic
pageant, or to furnish a holiday review. They have caught the
spirit of their Master. As, with eyes dimmed by their own sym-
pathy, He looked upon the fated Jerusalem, they have learnt
to look upon a fallen but ransomed race. They war for its
rescue from the inexorable bondage of wrong. Ignorance, im-
providence, intemperance, indifference, infidelity ; these are
the giants which they set lance in rest to slay. I would fain,
like another Peter the Hermit, summon you into the ranks of
these loving and valiant heroes. The band will admit you all.
In this, the holier chivalry, the churl's blood is no bar to honour.
The highest distinctions are as open to the peasant's offspring
as to the scion of the Plantagenets and Howards. Go, then,
where glory waits you. The field is the world. Go where the
abjects wander, and gather them into the fold of the sanctuary.
Go to the lazarettos where the moral lepers herd, and tell them
of the healing balm. Go to the haunts of crime, and float a

•38

JOHN BUNYAN.

gospel message upon the feculent air. Go wherever there are
ignorant to be instructed, timid to be cheered, and helpless
to be succoured, and stricken to be blessed, and erring to be
reclaimed. Go wherever faith can see, or hope can breathe, or
love can work, or courage can venture. Go and win the
spurs of your spiritual knighthood there.

" Oh ! who would not a champion be,
In this, the lordlier chivalry?
Uprouse ye now, brave brother band,
With honest heart and working hand.
We are but few, toil-tried, but true,
And hearts beat high to dare and do ;
Oh ! there be those that ache to see
The day-dawn of our victory !
Eyes full of heart-break with us plead,
And watchers weep, and martyrs bleed ;
Work, brothers, work ! Work, hand and brain,
We'll win the Golden Age again,
And love's millennial morn shall rise
In happy hearts and blessed eyes ;
We will, we will, brave champions be,
In this, the lordlier chivalry."

It remains only that we present Bunyan before you as a
CONFESSOR FOR THE TRUTH. One would anticipate that a
character like his would be sustained during the hour of trial,
and that, like Luther, whom in many points he greatly resem-
bled, he would witness a good confession before the enemies
of the Cross of Christ. A warrant was issued for his apprehen-
sion in the dreary month of November. The intention of the
magistrate was whispered about beforehand, and Banyan's
friends, alarmed for his safety, urged him to forego his

JOHN BUNYAN.

announced purpose to preach. Nature pleaded hard for
compliance, and urged the claims of a beloved wife and four
children, one of them blind. Prudence suggested that, escaping
now, he might steal other opportunities for the preaching of the
truth. He took counsel of God in prayer, and then came to
his decision. " If I should now run, and make an escape, it
will be of a very ill savour in the country ; what will my weak
and newly converted brethren think of it ? If God, of His
mercy, should choose me to go upon the forlorn hope, if I
should fly, the world may take occasion at my cowardliness to
blaspheme the Gospel." At Samsell, in Bedfordshire, the
people assembled; there were about forty persons present
Some of the timid sort advised, even then, that the meeting
should be dismissed. Bravely he replied, " No, by no means !
I will not stir, neither will I have the meeting dismissed.
Come, be of good cheer, let us not be daunted ; our cause is
good ! we need not be ashamed of it ; to preach God's word
is so good a work that we shall be well rewarded if we suffer for
that." Accordingly he was cast into prison. After seven weeks
imprisonment the session was held at Bedford, and Bunyan was
arraigned at the bar. This was his sentence : " You must be
had back again to prison, and there lie for three months
following ; then, if you do not submit to go to church to hear
divine service, you must be banished the realm ; and after that,
if you should be found in the realm, without the special
license of the King, you must stretch by the neck for it, I
tell you plainly." So spake the rude and arbitrary Judge
Kelynge, who, like Scroggs and Jeffreys, enjoys the distinction,
rare among English judges, of being in infamy immortal,
Bunyan answered, inspired with Lutheran and Pauline courage,

140

JOHN BUNYAN.

tl I am at a point with you ; if I were out of prison to-day, I
would preach the Gospel again to-morrow, by the help of God."
His spirit blenched not with the lapse of time, though he lay
twelve years in that foul dungeon, the discovery of whose
abominations, a century afterwards, first started John Howard
in his " circumnavigation of charity." Towards the close of
his imprisonment we hear the dauntless beatings of the hero-
heart : " I have determined — the Almighty God being my help
and my shield — yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long,
even until the moss shall grow over my eye-brows, rather than
violate my faith and my principles." Oh, rare John Bunyan !
thy " frail life " has become immortal ; the world will not let
thee die. Thou art shrined in the loving memory of thousands,
while thy judges and persecutors are forgotten, or remembered
only with ridicule and shame. " The righteous shall be in
everlasting remembrance, but the memory of the wicked shall
rot."

Our lot is cast in gentler times than these. No indictments
are preferred against us now for "devilish and pernicious
abstinence from church-going." Felons are not now let loose in
honour of a monarch's coronation, while men of God are hailed
to closer durance. Phcenix-like, out of the ashes of the martyr-
fires, arose religious freedom. The flames of outward persecu-
tion have well nigh forgotten to burn. And yet the offence of
the cross has not ceased. The profession of the Gospel does
not always bring peace, but a sword. Trouble is yet the
heritage " of all that will live godly in Christ Jesus/' and there
is strong need in all of us for the exhibition of the main
element in a confessor's character — nobleness of religious deci-
sion. We must have convictions of duty wrought so strongly

141

JOHN BUNYAN.

into our souls, that neither opposition nor difficulty, nor even
disaster, shall make us falter in the course which we have
intelligently chosen. For lack of these sincere and abiding
convictions many have erred from the faith, and have mani-
fested an instability of character that is truly deplorable.
Many young men have run well for a season — have formed
large plans of usefulness, and have been full of promise in all
that was of good report and lovely ; but a fatal indecision has
blighted, the promise and rendered the plans abortive ; and
their course has reminded us of Emerson's ludicrous account of
the American roads, starting fair and stately, between avenues
of branching pines, but narrowing gradually as they proceed,
and at last ending in a squirrel track, and running up a tree.
It may be questioned, indeed, whether any of us, in this matter,
approximate to the standard. Let us ask ourselves, if we had
lived in the days of the Master, should " we have left all and
followed Him ? " As we look at Him in the garb of a peasant,
and a Nazarene, of ignoble origin and vagrant life, opposed by
all recognized authorities, alone against the world, shocking
every ancient prejudice, and pronouncing the doom of a ritual,
gorgeous in its ceremonial, and enfibred, by the ties of ages,
round the hearts of men, what should we have thought of such
a questionable man ? Should we have dared to have come to
him, even by night, while living, much less to have gone boldly
and begged His body when dead ? Should we have foregone,
for His sake, the chief seats of synagogues, and the uppermost
rooms at feasts, and for the pleasure of His Divine discourse,
have cast ourselves on His fidelity, even for daily bread ? Let
us look into the glass of our own .consciousness, that we may be
humbled and reproved. And, in the present, with the light oi

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JOHN BUNYAN.

His teaching and of His example, how are we living ? Would
it please us that the hidden man of the heart should be unveiled
to our neighbour's scrutiny ? Do we the right always, because
it is the right — without thought of profit — and at the sure risk
of ill ? Do we rejoice to be brought into contact with a man,
that we may put our own manhood to the proof ? Can we
resolve to work ever for the good of this bad world, not bating
from weariness, nor deterred by ingratitude, nor palsied with
fear ? Dare we speak honestly and act bravely, though loss
and shame should follow speech and deed ? Is there in us no
division of activity against itself ; are our thought and action
mutually representative of each other ? In one word, are we
sincere ? Do we serve one Master ? with no reserve of our
endowments ? with every fragment of our influence ? at every
moment of our time ? Oh ! let us search our hearts on this
matter. There is a great deal more of this sincere and decisive
godliness wanted in the world, and you are to furnish it. I
assume, of course, that you are decided for God ; that the
great change has taken place in you, and that you are walking
in the fear of the Lord, and in the comforts of the Holy Ghost
If it be not so with you, seek first, for yourselves, the kingdom
of God. It will be a terrible thing if the " Perdidi diem " of
the regretful Roman should deepen into a " Perdidi vitam "
for you ; or if there be one torturing thought of unforgiven sin,
which, like Poe's raven

" Never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above your chamber door ;
And its eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er it streaming, throws its shadow on the floor ;
And your soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted — Nevermore."

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JOHN BUNYAN.

But I rejoice to know that many of you are already the Lord's,
living in the conscious enjoyment of religion, and anxious to
make the world the better for your presence. To you we make
our appeal. Of you, Christian young men, it is asked that you
cast out of yourselves the false, and the selfish, and the defiling,
and that you be sincere workers for the glory of God and for the
benefit of men. We ask it in the name of Truth, that you may
man her bulwarks and tell her to the generation following. We
ask it in the name of Christianity, that you may join her in her
brave battle with world, and flesh, and devil. We ask it in the
name of Society, that she may not be convulsed by the crimes
of the lawless, nor by the frenzy of the despairing. We ask it
in the name of our common country, bewildered as she is by
the burdens which oppress her, and distracted as she is by the
contentions of her children. We ask it in the name of
Humanity, struggling to deliver herself from a thousand wrongs.
We ask it in the name of multitudes, sharing your own man-
hood, who are passing down to darkness, wailing as they go—
" No man hath cared for my soul." We ask it in the name of
the Redeemer, who has shed for you His own most precious
blood, and who waits, expecting to see of the travail of His
soul.

Wearily have the years passed, I know : wearily to the pale
watcher on the hill who has been so long gazing for the day-
break : wearily to the anxious multitudes who have been waiting
for His tidings below. Often has the cry gone up through the
darkness, " Watcher, what of the night ?" and often has the
disappointing answer come, " It is night still ; here the stars are
clear above me, but they shine afar, and yonder the clouds
lower heavily, and the sad night winds blow.;' But the time

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JOHN BUNYAN.

shall come, and perhaps sooner than we look for it, when the
countenance of that pale watcher shall gather into intenser
expectancy, and when the challenge shall be given, with the
hopefulness of a nearer vision, " Watcher, what of the night ?"
and the answer will come, " The darkness is not so dense as it
was ; there are faint streaks on the horizon's verge ; mist is in the
valleys, but there is a radiance on the distant hill. It comes
nearer — that promise of the day. The clouds roll rapidly away,
and they are fringed with amber and gold. It is, it is the blest
sunlight that I feel around me — MORNING!"

IT IS MORNING!

And, in the light of that morning, thousands of earnest eyes flash
with renewed brightness, for they have longed for the coming of
the day. And, in the light of that morning, things that nestle
in dust and darkness cower and flee away. Morning for the
toilworn artisan ! for oppression and avarice, and gaunt famine,
and poverty are gone, and there is social night no more. Morn-
ing for the meek-eyed student ! for doubt has fled, and sophistry
is silenced, and the clouds of error are lifted from the fair face
of Truth for aye, and there is intellectual night no more.
Morning for the lover of man ! for wrongs are redressed, and
contradictions harmonised, and problems solved, and men
summer in perpetual brotherhood, and there is moral night no
more. Morning for the lover of God ! for the last infidel voice
is hushed, and the last cruelty of superstition perpetrated, and
the last sinner lays his weapons down, and Christ the crucified
becomes Christ the crowned. Morning ! Hark how the earth
rejoices m it, and its many minstrels challenge the harpers of
the sky — " Sing with us, ye heavens ! The morning cometh, the

'45

JOHN BUNYAN.

darkness is past, the shadows flee away, the true light shineth
now." Morning ! Hark how the sympathetic heavens reply,
" Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon with-
draw herself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended !"

IT IS MORNING!

" The planet now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the
morning." And the light climbeth onward, and upward, for
there is a sacred noon beyond. That noon is HEAVEN !

" AND THERE SHALL BE NO NIGHT THERE."

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

THE history of Christianity has not been a continuous
progress. It has had its times of decay and of revival.
Now it has appeared as though all hearts would welcome it —
and as though, like an undisputed king, it had only to proclaim
itself to be received and crowned. Again it has languished from
the affections of a people, and has seemed to live only by
effort and struggle. In the time of the Apostles its march was a
triumph. Ere the last of them fell asleep beneath the purple sky
of Ephesus, it had reached and subdued the most considerable
cities of the world, and everything seemed fair and promising
for the speedy conversion of men. But then came a season of
indifference. Through the dreary ages succeeding, the light
shone more dimly, until, like the torches at a funeral, it shone
only on the mourners for the dead. The Church became formal
and haughty, ambition seized upon the truth, and established
upon its possession a vast ecclesiastical power, and thus the
Popery of Hildebrand overlaid the Christianity of Paul. Then
again came a season of revival. The world was weary for the
light. Morality and faith were languishing together — men's
minds brooded over the state of things, some with a strange
disquiet, some with a stranger hope — the hour was ripe for

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

change, either by amendment or by ruin. From German clois-
ters, amid Alpine heights, from the plains of France, there rose
the simultaneous cry of multitudes of spiritual bondsmen. God
heard and answered, and the Reformation came. Yet again,
as if with the regularity of a law, there came a period of decay.
The zeal of the churches became fitful, their faith loosely held,
the morals of the people dissolute, until there grew a need of
a second Reformation, which should put life into the truth
which had been established by the struggles of the first. All
accounts agree to represent the sad religious state of England
when George the Second succeeded to the throne. The right-
eousness which exalteth a people was hidden in secret places,
and, to the mourning eyes of the few faithful, it seemed as if a
cloud hung darkly over the land, and as if the vials of Divine
wrath were almost full. The literature of the age, which may
be regarded as the index to its prevalent tendencies, was for the
most part corrupt or irreligious. There were exceptions, of
course, for this was the period at which the British classics
started into being, but the design of Steele and Addison, and,
still later, of Johnson, was to counteract the follies and vices
whose desolations they deplored ; and it may be easily conceived
that the moral aspects of society were of no doubtful badness
when Pope's Pantheism and Bolingbroke's Infidelity were
fashionable ; when, according to Dryden, the loose wit of Con-
greve was the only prop of a declining stage ; when the popular
novelists were Smollett and Fielding, and Mrs. Aphia Behn;
and when even divinity could so far forget its sacred calling as
to pen the ribaldries of Swift and Sterne. If you look into the
churches the decline is equally lamentable, and you find, even
among the reputedly orthodox, the looseness of thought which

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too frequently introduces to looseness of life. There had been
hard thinkers and great preachers, men of massive thought and
burning word, both in the established and non-conforming
churches, but the words of the preachers fell powerless, and it
was as though the theology of the writers was embalmed. The
works of Collins and Tindall were more in vogue than those
of Baxter and Howe. Men sat at the feet of Chesterfield
rather than of Tillotson. Whiston lapsed into Arianism at
Cambridge, and Clarke dispensed it at the church of St. James.
Among Dissenters, if the truth was held it was as a sentiment
rather than as a power, and while a large number of the
clergy sought relief from subscription to articles which they had
long disavowed, others drank or dreamed away their lives;
shepherds were profligate or idle, while the hungry sheep
looked up and were not fed.

It would be easy to multiply testimonies that these are not
random shafts from a bow that is drawn at a venture. Butler,
Burnet, Seeker, Leighton, and many others in the Establishment,
Watts, Guyse, Doddridge, and many more among the Non-
conformists, have left their sorrowful witness on record, and
there is everything to assure us that, in Isaac Taylor's forcible
words, " the Anglican Church was a system under which men
had lapsed into heathenism," and that " languishing non-con-
formity was in course to be found nowhere but in books."

There are strange omens in the midst of us to-day — the sneer
and the scoff mingle with the welcomes which are given to
godliness — the truth is still cast into " the place for gold where
they fine it ;" the ravens wander forth from the ark and return
not ; but there is morality in place of shameless vice, and we
breathe a bracing atmosphere instead of tainted air ; and in view

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

of the times of rebuke and trouble to which we have referred,
there is much to make us thankful for present privilege, and
that with all our faults our condition has not fallen so low.

The Rectory of Epwcrth — a small town among the flatlands
of Lincolnshire, where ague is a frequent visitant, and melan-
choly pollard-willows rise, on dreary winter's days, through
levels often lying under water — was held, in the first years of the
last century, by a brave and much enduring man, who, with a
noble wife, like minded, struggled with a small income to rear
and educate a large family. This man was SAMUEL WESLEY.
His own sturdy independence was rooted in him by the like
virtue in his ancestors. Bartholomew Wesley, his grandfather,
was one of the ejected ones at the Restoration. John Wesley,
son of Bartholomew, attained still higher rank in the spiritual
peerage than his father, for he endured repeated imprisonment,
and at length sank into the grave a brave confessor for the
truth he loved so well. Samuel Wesley inherited the strong
soul of his father, with a more robust habit of body. Designed
originally for a Non-conformist minister, he saw reason to
review and change his opinions, and with characteristic decision
he trudged off to Oxford, and entered himself as a poor scholar
at Exeter College. He was known through his University life
as a devout, laborious man, whose leisure was occupied in main-
taining himself by his pen, save when he snatched an hour for
a visit to a poor man's cottage, or to the felons' prison. After
his marriage he accepted a cure in London, and was " passing
rich on thirty pounds a year." A brave fearlessness distin-
guished him through life, and sustained him under the trials to
which, sometimes by his imprudence, sometimes by his fidelity,
he was exposed. For years he had but fifty pounds, and one

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

child additional, per annum. His dedication of a work to
Queen Mary procured for him the Rectory of Epworth, where
he struggled on a nominal salary of two hundred pounds to
sustain the nineteen hostages which he had given to society,
ten of whom grew up to adult years. He eked out his living
by his verses, and his thoughts ran in rhyme so swiftly that his
publisher declares that two hundred couplets were born, on the
average, per day. His searching ministry and his unpopular
politics gave great offence to the rabble of his parish, who vented
their spleen, sometimes by drumming beneath his windows to
the damage of the symmetry of his sermons, and sometimes by
acts of more serious annoyance and cruelty. They broke his
doors, they wounded his cattle, they stole his tithe corn, they
cut off the legs of his house-dog, and, on two several occasions,
they set fire to his house. His friends advised him to remove,
but he said that would be cowardly, and by his fierce crusade
against evil he earned his right to the escalop-shell which was
graven upon his family arms. Arrested at the doors of the
church for a small debt which he could not at the moment
discharge, he remained three months in Lincoln prison ; but there,
like the Vicar of Wakefield, he began to preach to the prisoners,
and wrote to the Archbishop of York that " he expected to
do far more good in his new parish than in the old one." He
had a stubborn will and a firmness which bordered upon obsti-
nacy, and withal a relish for joking, and a rich vein of native
humour. He lived long enough to rejoice in the labours of his
noble sons, to see, with an insight which approaching death had
sharpened, the dawn of a brighter moral day for England; to
testify to his own inward witness of acceptance with God ; to
exult, though in the chastening of strong pain, that he could

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

" thank, love, and bless God for all/' and then the brave heart
broke, and the strong and gentle spirit mounted to Heaven
upon the breath of the communion prayer.

Yet even more largely than to his father, was John Wesley
indebted to " the elect lady " who shared her husband's fortunes,
and gave him heart by the sight of an endurance that was even
more heroic than his own. In all galleries of noble and illustrious
women SUSANNA WESLEY deserves a foremost place. Dr. An-
nesly, her father, was a noted Puritan leader, and his daughter
inherited his spirit and his bravery. At thirteen years of age she
examined for herself the points of difference between Dissenters
and Churchmen, and though familiar with her father's wrongs,
and " rich," as Isaac Taylor says, " in a dowry of non-conform-
ing virtues," she became a zealous Church woman. After her
marriage with Samuel Wesley she was most exemplary in her
discharge of every social and parental duty, and exhibited the
completeness of her character in all sweet sanctities of home.
She bestowed great pains and skill upon the education of her
children, watching over them with a vigilance which never
slumbered, and teaching them with a patience which was never
tired. She was asked, " Why do you tell that boy the same
thing twenty times over ?" " Because nineteen times telling
were not enough," was her common-sense reply. During her
husband's absence she established services for her poor neigh-
bours in the kitchen of the rectory, which so scandalized the
affrighted curate that he sent post haste to apprize the rector
that a conventicle had been set up in his house. In answer to
her husband's remonstrances she calmly stated her reasons for
the step she had taken, and the results which had followed, and
then said, " If you wish me to desist, do not advise, but com-

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

mand me," thus recognizing her conjugal duty, and preserving,
at the same time, her own good conscience towards God. Her
healthful piety enabled her to warn her son sagainst the mys-
ticism towards which they often wavered. Her sagaciousness
saw the good which lurked in the employment of lay agency,
and she urged the early recognition of Thomas Maxfield
and others, foremost of a bright succession of true workers
for the kingdom of God. Her cheerful soul smiled on amidst
various fortune, through years of struggle, almost of hunger —
when sharper sorrows came, — when the rings from her fingers
went to comfort her husband in his prison, — when she bowed
heavily over nine fair children claimed early by the covetous
grave, — when she waded with scorched hands and face through
the fires of her own dwelling, — when she mourned over the
sorrows of her living children with a fiercer pang than had
smitten her at the burial of her dead. Of rare classic beauty,
dignified and graceful, as became her noble blood, one of those
firm but gentle natures which, like sunbeams, shine without an
effort, and leave us genial like themselves ; with a far-seeing
sagacity and with excellent common-sense — a pattern of all
womanly virtues — a lightener of all manly cares, ruling her
household with a quiet power, yet alive to the accomplish-
ments of society, and ready to pass her verdict upon books and
men — faithful in the common things of life, withal an heiress
of the heavenly, and holding daily converse with the place
where she had hid her treasure, she moved on in her course,
a queen uncrowned and saintly —

"Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,
No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In angel instincts ; breathing Paradise ;

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

Interpreter between the gods and men ;
Who looked all native to her place, and yet
On tip-toe seemed to touch upon a sphere
Too great to tread."

Wise in counsel, with a discernment which was almost prophetic,
attracting to herself the reverent love of her children, she lived
for years in the house which John Wesley had provided for her, a
very marvel of green and kindly age, until at length, in an almost
absolute negation of death, she finished her course whispering,
" Children, as soon as I arn released, sing a psalm of praise to
God." Then, leaving a fragrant name and an affluent
inheritance of prayer, she looked calmly upward, and all was still
until the hymn arose in the death-chamber, and Heaven was
the richer for another of those " honourable women " who with
gladness and rejoicing "are to be brought into the palace of
the King.'7

Of such parents was John Wesley born. The world is fami-
liar with his marvellous deliverance from the burning house in
the sixth year of his age. When thirteen years old he was sent
to the Charter House to proceed with the education which had
been commenced beneath the home discipline of his mother.
That discipline had wonderfully prepared him for life at a public
school, so that, though the fagging system was in full operation,
and he had to bear his share of oppression and robbery, he was
neither crushed into the spirit of a slave, nor goaded to be the
despot when his own upper-form days came. The little
Methodist preserved his health by a morning scamper, in which
he thrice made the circuit of the garden, nor would he suffer
any gloom either of spirits or of weather to frighten him from
his trinity of rounds. There was even thus early a combination

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

Df buoyancy and manliness about him which attracted the notice
of his masters, and made the shrewder among them predict that
his life would not be an unnoticed calm. The half-confessed
presentiment of ordination to distinguished service seems to
have been upon him almost unconsciously, and as a student of
Christ Church, and subsequently as a fellow of Lincoln College,
he subordinated everything to the preparation for that future
which as yet he knew not, save in the high hopes which bounded
in his breast, and in the patient watching for the light, as a
sleepless one watcheth for the morning.

Thomas A'Kempis, William Law, and Jeremy Taylor, were
the three writers who, at this period of his history, took the
greatest hold upon his mind. It is needless to dwell in detail
upon the methods in which his convictions of sin prompted him
to seek rest of soul. He toiled painfully through an ascetic
discipline which almost consumed him. He was rigid in the
observance of each rite arid rubric, mapping out every moment
of his time, and accounting for every farthing of his properly as
if with a morbid hope that he might lacerate himself into holi-
ness, or purchase acceptance by a devotion which ceased not
from its prayers. At one time he contemplated flight from the
fellowship of men, and sought a school in some wild Yorkshire
dale as most congenial to the temper of his soul. He went to
Georgia on a bootless journey, where his rigorous interpretation
of the glad tidings brought " not peace but a sword " through-
out the whole colony. He returned to England to discover
that he, who had been labouring for the conversion of the
Indians, was not himself converted, for in those ends of the earth
Moravian cheerfulness had rebuked his severity, and Moravian
simplicity had chided his ritualism, and Moravian resignation

r57

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

had contrasted with his unbelief. And we see, in all these
incidents of his life, parts of the great discipline by which he was
prepared for service, by which he was taught sympathy and
patience and courage — those apostolic graces which his apostle's
life required.

How marvellous are the ways in which God works to fulfil
his plans ! The sower sows his seed, rejoices over the filled
furrows, mourns over that which the birds of the air snatch and
scatter; but those winged wanderers are often, like the ravens
of Elijah, charged to bear food to some famishing prophet, or
to sow the germs of harvests where plough was never driven.
Slight as the thistledown may be the breath of prayer, but God
marks it as it rises to Heaven. Quietly, as the acorn to the
earth, the pleading word may fall, but its influence shall be fruit-
ful and mighty, even as the " oak which looseneth golden leaves
in a kind largess to the soil it grew on." Man, in the ardour
of enterprise, sounds a trumpet to the living, but when God gives
his clarion-call, He gives it in the valley full of bones, and among
the corpses breathes the generous life which springs armed and
eager to the battle. The feeblest agency and the lowliest
worker, the heart which has strange struggles between the
hero's purpose and the coward's fear, with God's help may drive
the aliens before them, and shout in the raptures of victory.
Aye, and when the dank grass waves over the sepulchres of
wearied or slaughtered ones who have died disheartened for the
cause they loved, their spirits may walk the earth in a prophetic
resurrection. Like the Bruce's heart, they may be silent leaders
of armies, and thousands of exulting followers, catching inspira-
tion from their memory, may be proud to follow where their
ashes lead the way.

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

More than 300 years had rolled away since the sky of
Constance reflected the fires by which the initial martyrs of the
Reformation were consumed. The sapient council which offered
Jerome and Huss in sacrifice, and wreaked its puny vengeance
upon Wickliffe's bones, wist not that they were both rooting and
spreading the doctrines they were wishful to destroy. Scarcely
had the council been dissolved when the Bohemian peasantry
arose to avenge their teachers, and to battle for their own
religious freedom. For twenty years, under the brave Count
Ziska, did they maintain the strife with varying fortune, but with
a spirit which never quailed ; and though persecution afterwards
arose, and the Hussites filled the prisons, the truth was
preserved and handed down from the father to the children
as a heritage more precious than of lands or gold.

In the early part of the i8th century one of these Bohemian
confessors, Christian David by name, led a few followers into
Lusatia, where dwellings were built for them upon the domain of
the young Count Zingendorf. Hence arose the establishment of
the Moravian brotherhood, who, starting from Herrnhut, as they
named their settlement, spread their earnest missions into many
a land, won grand gospel triumphs among the most forlorn and
hopeless, and became, in the providence of God, powers for
good to lead into the perception' of a better life some who were
to accomplish yet mightier works than theirs. About a week
after his arrival from Georgia, John Wesley, still striving to
establish his own righteousness, went to a select meeting which
these indefatigable Moravians had established in London. Here
he met with PETER BOHLER, a name never to be forgotten in
connection with Wesley's history, because God chose him to be
the Ananias to his later Paul. Bohler convinced him of his

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

unbelief, pressed home upon him the necessity and happiness of a
living faith in Christ, urged him to immediate reliance, and thus
cleared away the mists which had obscured to hirn the shining
of the sun. At length, on the 24th May, 1738, the hour of
deliverance came. In a meeting in Aldersgate Street, while a lay-
man was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romansr
John Wesley says " I felt my heart strangely warmed \ I felt I
did trust in Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was
given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved
me from the law of sin and death." Thus it is that truth can
never die, that the good which men do lives after them, repro-
ducing itself like multiplying grain. Through the intervening
centuries John Huss becomes an instrument in the conversion
of John Wesley, and the Apostle of the Second Reformation is
quickened from the death of sin through the living words of
the dead Apostle of the First.

Here then we have the starting point of Wesley's labours —
the key to the solution of all his mysteries of toil and triumph.
Consciously reconciled to God, and having peace by faith in
Jesus, he burned to declare the glad tidings which had made
himself so happy. All estimates of -his character will be
unworthy if they do not start from his conversion. All histories
of him will be unsatisfactory if this great fact fails to be
apprehended. The real reason which barbed many a contempora-
neous slander, and guided the pens of such critics as Lavington
and Nightingale, which led Sydney Smith to scoff profanely
at the thing he knew not, which threw a warp over the fine
mind of Southey, so that he understood but dimly the character
he would fain have drawn, is perhaps to be found, not in per-
sonal malignity, not in wilful disingenuousness, but in the simple

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

postulate of Scripture : " The natural man knoweth not the
things of the spirit of God, neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned."

While John Wesley was thus receiving his fitness for his
great mission, his coadjutors were led, by the same Providence,
to the same end. A bright rosy lad, with the blue apron of a
common drawer in an inn, struggling with a confusion of great
thoughts about himself and about his destiny, which he could
neither exclude nor comprehend — a pale servitor of Pembroke
College, choosing the meanest drudgery, wearing the coarsest
serge, eating the homeliest food, and but little of that ; stand-
ing in the biting frost until he had no feeling either in feet or
fingers ; wandering in Christ Church meadows at the gloomy
nightfall ; — trying hard to fast through the whole forty days of
Lent ; — the chosen butt for the ridicule and insult both of town
and gown — these are the glimpses we get of the childhood and
youth of GEORGE WHITEFIELD, who afterwards became an
evangelist such as the world has never known since Peter
the Fisherman witnessed a Pentecost under the first Gospel
sermon. Rescued from his self-righteousness in an illness, and
opening his heart to receive the love of the Saviour, he went
forth to his loved work of preaching, beginning in the church
where he had been baptized and had humbly knelt to receive his
first communion. His directness offended the sinful, and his
earnestness startled the timid, so that church after church was
closed against him, until at length, thinking little of irregularity,
and less of the revival he was beginning to inaugurate, he went
forth into the open air, and proclaimed to listening thousands
the unsearchable riches of Christ. The effects which
followed were extraordinary. As he stood forth, his frank, manly

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

countenance seemed to bespeak a hearing, and when once his
voice was heard, so exquisitely was it toned, and so skilfully
wielded, that high and low were subject to its spell. Add to
this a wealth of eloquent action which made every sentence
dramatic, an earnestness which the heat of holy passion kindled,
and above all a subject which had stirred his strongest convic-
tions, and which bore him as with a torrent's force upon its
stream ; and you will not wonder that with all these advan-
tages, and withal the " demonstration of the Spirit," his should
be a mighty and transforming word. His power of description
must have been marvellous. Men saw the scenes he painted.
They heard the ripple of the Galilean waters. They felt the
awful shadows of the Tabor cloud. They shivered as the fierce
wind swept among the olives, or the pale moon gleamed upon
the paler brow of the sufferer in Gethsemane. They crouched
as if they heard the tramp of nearing demons when he prophe-
sied of doom. Not only were Garrick and Pulteney, themselves
orators, eager listeners to his burning words, but David Hume
hearkened till he forgot to sneer; the philosophic Franklin
acknowledged the sorcery, and emptied his pockets like a
common man ; the artificial Chesterfield yielded for once to an
impulse of real feeling, and sprang forward to arrest the fall of
the blind beggar whom the speaker pictured on the cliff's
extremest verge. Among the rude and turbulent his triumphs
were greater still. " I came to break your head, and you have
broken my heart," said a ruffian, as the brick-bat dropped out
of his nerveless hand. "He preaches like a lion," was the
testimony of one whom he had terrified by some strong appeal.
In single-handed defiance he went into Bartholomew Fair, and
while he spoke the booths were deserted, the acrobats tumbled

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in vain, and the baffled showmen found their occupation
gone. The deaf old woman who had cursed him as he passed
along the street was found presently clambering up the pulpit
stairs that she might not lose a syllable of his sermon. " The
prisoners heard him/' and they wept and trembled. The flow-
ing tears made little rills of cleanliness down the swarth faces
of Kingswood colliers, ruder than the foresters who dwelt in the
old Chase before them. Children hung upon his lips with loving,
earnest eyes ; and perhaps the most touching illustration of
his influence was in the case of a little boy, who sickened after
he had heard him preach, and whose sole cry in the pauses of
his pain was, " Let me go to Mr. Whitefield's God." All descrip-
tion must fail to make us realize his wonderful power, unless
we could transfer the countenance, and fix the flashing eye and
sweeping hand upon the page. And this power was not, as
has been said, "the power of the cambric handkerchief or of
the simulated tears." He could not help being an orator, but
he aimed to be an evangelist, and so great was his success that
he is said in one week to have received 1,000 letters from those
who had been blessed by his ministry. He had no great grasp
of mind, nor was he born to organize or to command. " I hate
to head a party. If I were to raise societies, I should only be
weaving a Penelope's web." These were his words. When he went
to Scotland he was received by the Associate Presbytery, who
were about to elect a Moderator and proceed to business. " What
about?" he asked. They told him it was to set him right on
some matters of church government. He answered that they
might save themselves the trouble, that his time was wanted
for highways and hedges, and that, if the Pope himself would
only lend his pulpit, he would gladly preach the righteousness

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of Christ therein. His work was preaching, and he knew it
The pulpit was his throne, and never monarch filled a regal seat
with kinglier presence. Worn down with labour, the physicians
prescribed a perpetual blister. He says he tried perpetual
preaching and found that it answered as well. When winter
prevented his journeys he mourned like a smitten child — when
spring opened his way he bounded to his beloved labour, glad
as a gazelle upon the hills. His seal had for its device a winged
heart, soaring above the globe, with the motto " Astra pdamusf
and this was emblematic of the business to which he had conse-
crated his life. " I hope to die in the pulpit, or at least soon
after I come out of it. It is your cowardly Christians, who have
borne no witness while they live, whom God honours at the last
I shall die in silence ; my testimony has been given in my life."
Such was his language as, after thirty-four years of labour, he
gathered himself up for what proved a final discourse. For two
hours, though he had recently suffered from the cruel asthma
which destroyed him, he spoke with a pathos and power which he
had never surpassed, to a people who lingered like the hosts on
Carmel, and as if they knew that for another Elijah there awaited
a chariot of fire. The pavement and entrance hall of the house
in which he lodged were thronged with people, who craved a
parting word. Exhausted with his labours he requested another
minister to speak to them, and with the candle in his hand was
ascending the stairs to rest. Suddenly he turned, and, as if with
a sense of opportunity rapidly vanishing, and of moments more
precious than gold, addressed them from the stairway, and
paused not in his labour of love until the candle burned down
into the socket as he held it in his hands. The next morning
he was not In the night the messenger came, and, like his

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Master, he ascended from the summit of the mountain of prayer.
Such was George Whitefield, strangely reviled in his day, but
whom time has amply avenged :

"We need not now beneath well-sounding Greek,
Conceal the name the poet dared not speak. "

His praise is in all the churches and he belongs to them all.
You can no more chain him to a sect than you can tame the
libertine breezes or control the wilful spring. The works that
follow the good man will keep his memory green, and cause his
fame to grow, until world-wide as his benevolence and his
ministry shall be the estimation in which he is held, and ages
yet unborn, as they read the marvel of his life, shall bless God
for this Prince of Preachers, this noblest, grandest embodiment
of the Revelation angel, who " flies through the midst of heaven
having the everlasting Gospel to preach to every nation, and
people and tongue/'

" Let me make the ballads of a people, and I care not who
makes their laws," was a great man's saying. If there be force
in this statement, and it is a just recognition of the marvellous
power of song, CHARLES WESLEY deserves a more extended
notice than our time will allow us to render. Like his brother,
he was below the middle stature, but of stouter build. He was
shortsighted, warm-tempered (for did he not belong to the
"genus irritabile " of the poets?) and had an abrupt and rapid
manner. It is said that his visits at college used to be dreaded
by his exacter brother, for he would stumble against the table,
disarrange the papers, offend against the small proprieties which
neat men covet, arid perhaps ask a dozen questions, and
bounce out of the room before he had heard the answer to any
one of the number. A child of feeling, with a soul formed for

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friendship, and blessed with the endearments of a happy home,
he entered more deeply than most men into the common
grief and cheerfulness of life. With less evenly balanced facul-
ties than his brother, and with a more limited range of vision,
he had a heart which yearned as tenderly over sinners, and an
eloquent tongue which spoke with warmth and freedom of the
things concerning the King. As a linguist he greatly excelled.
He was well acquainted with five languages, had a critical
knowledge of the Scriptures, and was so enamoured of Virgil
that he had the ^Eneid almost by heart This latter accom-
plishment sometimes stood him in good stead. Dr. Johnson
is said to have once silenced an abusive fishwife by calling her
an isosceles and a parallelogram. Charles Wesley defended
himself in Latin against a drunken sea-captain with whom he
sailed from Charleston; and when John Wesley's unhappy
wife had secured the brothers in a room and opened upon them,
like a very Xantippe, the whole battery of her feminine wrath,
Charles Wesley pelted her with Virgil until he obtained for
them respite from clamour and permission to escape. His joy
in the great work of Reformation was ardent and sincere, though
checked often by alarm about irregularity, and by a misgiving
of the consequences whereunto these things might grow. He
neither soared above the times nor looked keenly beyond them,
but, with a uniform inconsistency of which he was hardly
conscious, his mind clung to opinions which his heart prompted
him daily to violate. Hence, though in theory a rigid Church-
man, so much so that he requested he might not be buried
in any but consecrated ground, in practice he was the most
daring innovator of his time. He preached in church hours
without scruple ; was the first, it is believed, to administer the

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Lord's Supper in a Methodist place of worship ; defended lay
preaching when bishops impugned it ; and, in fine, he manifested
through a long course of years, that while his mind reposed in all
the seemliness of ecclesiastical order, the glorious irregularities
which he witnessed and shared commanded the deeper passion
of his soul, and all the activities of his honoured life. He
publicly censured some of his brother's proceedings, but he
would allow no one else to blame him. He declined to write
an epitaph for Hervey's tomb, because he conceived that the
" letters" which were posthumously published did a great wrong
to John Wesley's name, and when Lady Huntingdon attempted
to alienate them, he endorsed her letter with the words, " unan-
swered by John Wesley's brother." Though the brothers were
sometimes opposed in their views of polity, their love for each
other was inviolate, and their influence to some extent mutually
beneficial. If John went often too fast for Charles, Charles not
unfrequently moved considerably too slow for John. Charles
was prudential when John was sanguine, timid when John was
daring, the drag upon the wheel not always put on when the
coach was going down hill — the brake, perhaps of safety, upon
the flying train. The difference between the brothers was once
quaintly illustrated. " Brother John," said Charles, " if the
Lord were to give me wings I'd fly." " Ah ! Brother Charles,"
was John's reply, " if the Lord told me to fly I'd do it, and leave
Him to find the wings." In his later years he resided principally
in London and Bristol, preaching as often as he was able, and
pouring out his soul in song. He lingered until close upon
eighty years of age, though oft "in feebleness extreme," and then,
with a hymn to Christ upon his lips, he sweetly fell asleep. In the
terse obituary which his brother inserted in the " Minutes," Le

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says, " his least praise was his talent for poetry," but it will be by
his incomparable hymns that he will be longest remembered.
Few have left a wealthier legacy than these noble lyrics, which
he has bequeathed to the church and to the world. Entering
into the hearts' deep secrets ; striking every chord of subtlest
and holiest feeling ; giving forth, not echoes from old harp songs,
but melodies of the present, poured from a soul which enacts all
the melodies that it sings ; now plaintive as the breath of
evening, now with a grand roll, like that of the thunder of God ;
expressing every variation in the changing music of life, and
moreover piercing the invisible and standing like a seraph in
the full vision of the throne — seldom has the sacred lyre been
swept by a more skilful hand. It is renown enough to satisfy
the most covetous seeker after fame that he has furnished to
tens of thousands their happiest utterances of religious hope
and joy. His words abide in the memory of multitudes, second
only to the words of inspiration in their charm and power.
They have chased away trouble from the sorrowful, as David
from the melancholy Saul. They have inspired the Christian
warrior as the " Marseillaise " the passions of France, or the
" Ranz des Vaches," the patriotism of the brave Swiss peasantry,
and, greatest triumph,— in cases without number they have
been the Hallelujahs of the dying, who have lingered upon the
notes of the song until they caught the notes of the trumpet
which was " sounding for them upon the other side."

I cannot do more than mention other names which deserve
to be remembered in connection with the great revival : Selina,
COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON, who, in spite of the contempt oi
courtiers, threw the influence of her rank into the movement,
and, by her piety and benevolence, conciliated the esteem of

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the many who derided her enthusiasm. HOWELL HARRIS, the
fervent and successful herald of the Gospel in Wales. JAMES
HERVEY, the pious and the scholarly, whose fancy revelled in
the beauty of the truth, and whose zeal wasted his frail body
till you could almost see the spirit through the veil ; whose gay
style has allured towards godliness many who have been after,
wards charmed by its native loveliness, just as the child, whose
first love of flowers is awakened by the tulip-bed, becomes
enamoured in manhood of the rarer beauty of the algse and the
ferns. JOHN BERRIDGE, the wise and witty Vicar of Everton,
of whom it was said that he thought in proverbs, whose
quaintness attracted the sinners who were slain from his quiver,
and who feathered his arrows so pleasantly that men were
scarcely conscious of their flight until the barb was in their
heart, and they cried with the sore smart of pain. WILLIAM
ROMAINE, who early in life committed the unpardonable offence
of overcrowding St. George's, Hanover Square, and disturbing
the calm devotions of its worshippers by the intrusion of a mob
of vulgar people who had souls ; and who for fifty years bore
sturdy witness which threats could not silence — preaching,
when they put out the lights of the church, by a solitary candle
which he held in his hand. WILLIAM GRIMSHAW, the gallant
West Riding evangelist, — hardy as the heather which grew
upon the moors around him, humble and lowly as the mosses
which peep from out their shadow — a brave trooper in his
Master's service who used to chase men out of the taverns
while they were singing the hymns before the sermon, and
who made such head against the heathenism of his little
parish that his name was a terror to evil-doers long years after
his death. JOHN NEWTON, the tamed lion, transformed from a

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marvel of profanity to a miracle of grace, with the old sailor's
fondness for yarns and the old sailor's shrewdness in telling
them, the kindly adviser of half the godly people in the city—
the sweet correspondent who wrote and warbled by turns his
hymns, setting to music the " cardiphonia " which his letters
traced. JOHN NELSON, whom the clergy of his neighbourhood
contrived to get pressed for a soldier, and who sang hymns in
the dungeon with a chorus of friends outside, — a mason who
shaped many stones for the temple, " polished after the simili-
tude of a palace." THOMAS OLIVERS, one of the "consecrated
cobblers " against whom Sidney Smith would have sneered, but
a poet of no mean order, and who in the tilt of controversy
bore himself so bravely that his adversary lost his temper, and
for once a baronet forgot to be a gentleman. THOMAS COKE,
Wesley's tried friend and counsellor, who belted the globe in
his missionary travel, and at last sank down in death with the
great sea for a sepulchre, as if so mighty a heart could not rest
in a narrower grave. CHARLES SIMEON, moulding the Univer-
sity to an evangelical type, and standing in his commanding
pulpit, like a pharos on a hill, a light for the storm-tossed who
were anxiously making for the land. And last, not least, JOHN
FLETCHER, in many respects the goodliest in the band, so that
" no tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty."
Of fine talents, accurate scholarship, and almost seraphic piety,
his face shining as if, like Moses, he had lingered on the mount
until he had stolen the glory ; keen in irony and powerful in
rebuke, but with a temper which no abuse could ruffle, and a
zeal which no labour could satisfy ; preaching with the death-
dews on his forehead, — exclaiming, as he passed feebly from
the pulpit to the altar, " I am going to throw myself under the

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shadow of the Mercy-seat " — then carried fainting to his bed,
from which he rose only to ascend to his reward. Oh, they
are a bright brotherhood — never country boasted truer hearts
and purer lives. Though the godless deride them, and the
annals of common fame pass them by, their record is on high,
and in the majority of the world, that grand coming time when
it shall "put away childish things," and enter upon its moral
manhood, these will be the names which will be treasured as
its choicest inspirations, and which will stir the pulses of its
holiest pride.

With such helpers did John Wesley enter upon that course
of marvellous labour which continued for half a century almost
without pause, certainly without holiday. With no aim but to
warn the careless and save the lost, never dreaming of personal
enrichment, either of wealth or fame, with no ambition but a
passion for saving souls, with no enthusiasm but a strong faith
in God, and, perhaps, a too ready trust in man, these evangelists
of the later time emulated the first heralds of the Gospel in
toil, in peril, in success. The record of Wesley's labours is
something wonderful, whether you consider their kind, their
number, or the circumstances under which they were done.
Rapid, punctual, earnest, he is the " man of one business "
throughout. One day of his work would furnish some of us
with ample employment for three. One of his weeks would
tell heavily upon the relaxed nerves and feeble throats of his
degenerate sons. At the rate of 15 sermons a week and 5,000
miles a year, done on horseback, when railways were not, and
when roads, uneducated by Macadam, were often feeble com-
promises between swamp and sludge, he manfully journeyed, —
at all hours, in all weathers, riding himself into a fever, and then

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

preaching himself out of it, — now entertained hospitably, now
treated like an angel, and, by consequence, offered no food, —
now hooted in the streets, now honoured by the authorities, but
never faltering in his purpose, whether the learned would bribe
him to silence, or the persecutor snarled at his heels. Outwardly
calm, while his heart burned within him ; with an even temper
held in almost perfect control, with a fine flow of animal spirits
which, he says, he never remembers to have been for a quarter
of an hour below zero; never unemployed, but never in a hurry;
moving everyone around him to activity, but keeping, calm and
lordly, the possession of his own soul, and, above all, smitten
with a high sense of duty whose spell bore him onward through
every discouragement, he had all human conditions of success ;
and when the Divine influence breathed upon his ministry, it is
not wonderful that the startled people heard and wept and
lived. His preaching was not the announcement of novelties ;
the doctrines he taught lay in the formularies of the Church,
and had been enforced by other lips before him ; he was no
iconoclast of ancient institutions, nor did he gain a hearing by
exposure of the errors of others. Man a sinner, all men sin-
ners, exposed to wrath, but embraced in a covenant of mercy ;
another world close at hand, with its unalterable and solemn
issues — so near that men could almost see the gleams of glory or
the forks of flame ; the truth pressed home upon the conscience,
*' You are lost ;" and when that was apprehended, that other
golden sentence, " God is love," presented for the soul's com.
fort, like a sheltering splendour to relieve and scatter the cloud,
These were the burden of the message which he spake, and
he spake it with a prophet's singleness, authority and power.
It is not needed that we should dwell either in analysis or in
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apology upon the physical phenomena which at times waited
upon the word. These phenomena, which have staggered the
philosophers and furnished scoffers with choice material for
derision, were no essential parts of the revival, — were produced
under calm and logical preaching, and, when the subjects of
discourse were rather comforting than terrible, seized upon both
sexes and often upon those who had been bitterest in their
complaint against the scandal, and astonished the preachers
full as much as their critics, leaving them in doubt whether
they were the works of confusion, or whether they were done
by the finger of God. The proof of success, however, was not
in bodily convulsions, but in reclaimed lives. Out of the
inevitable disorder Christianity could recognize its own, and the
result was a revived life in the churches, a large recovery from
among the vilest to Christ, and a moral reformation more
complete and lasting than had ever before been dreamed of.

The spots in which Wesley preached were, in many cases,
highly romantic, and added as secondary causes to the effect ot
his ministry. In quiet rural glens which nestle here and there
in the neighbourhood of large towns ; on green hillsides, with
fair branches of the woodland above, and a lively stream laugh-
ing on its course below ; in the Gwennap Amphitheatre ; on
the fragment of rock at St. Ives, with the great sea in sight, and
the clear swell of the preacher's voice finding a grand accom-
paniment in the low murmur of the waves ; on his father's
tombstone, overhung by the funeral cypress, and with " the
grassy barrows " of the dead around him ; under the spreading
sycamore, screened from the heat of the summer, or sheltered
by the roofless walls of a ruined cathedral while frost was in
the air and the hills still white with snow ; in places like

WESLEY AftD HIS TIMES.

these, as well as in every available building, from the university
church and the large Foundry chapel to the court-house in Aln-
wick and the St. Ives round-house, built of brazen slags, which
he supposes " will last as long as the world," he rejoiced to
preach the Gospel. By the blessing of God upon His word,
the drunkards became sober, the dishonest upright, the
licentious chaste ; " sharp arrows of the mighty " fastened in the
hearts of turbulent and scornful sinners ; and, when the results
were not so marked and decisive, there was a leavening power,
as if there broke upon society the air-waves of a fresher atmos-
phere : and the health, and the beauty, and the manliness
remain as our heritage to-day.

It could hardly be expected that a work like this could be
suffered without hindrance and insult. The prince of this
world had reigned too long in quiet to be dispossessed without
a struggle. Hence the work of the Wesleys and their com-
patriots was subjected to the oddest misunderstandings, assailed
with foulest slanders, and hunted by a persecution as malignant
in its spirit as those of the early church, though the power
of the oppressor was not always equal to his rage. Many among
that species of the clergy, now happily almost extinct, to
whom a full church was an impertinence, and a consistent life a
perpetual rebuke, were the bitterest enemies of the revival. They
instigated, in some cases even headed the mob. They coaxed
or threatened the magistrates. They abused the teachers,
repeHed them and their converts from communion, and punished
them as vagrants for whom the most effectual remedy was the
duck-pond or the pillory. The cold dislike of the gentry
chimed with the coarse passions of the baser sort, until
Methodism became a thing for or against which nearly every man

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took up his parable, and the nation was divided into those whose
delight it was to listen to the earnest preachers and those whose
delight it was to hunt them down. The most absurd ideas had
currency about the men and about their communications. In
Oxford they were the " Bible moths " and the " Godly club."
Some said they were Atheists and allies of the Pretender. In
Cornwall they were called, with some propriety, considering
their sufferings and their valour, the Maccabees. In Ireland,
from the text of one of their preachers, who preached about
the child in swaddling-bands on a Christmas-day morning, they
were christened Swaddlers. One sapient critic thought he had
hit upon the thing exactly when he said they were " Presby-
terian Papists." " The Methodists !" asked an acute Irish
Colonel of Dragoons, " isn't that the new sect which has
risen up whose religion it is to wear long beards and whiskers ? "
(Some of you may, perhaps, imagine that the honest colonel
was for once, like Saul, " among the prophets," and that his
chief mistake was in speaking of the new sect about a century
before its time.) Wesley was said to be a Jesuit, a correspon-
dent of the Pope, in league with France, in the pay of Spain,
and so thorough and deep-rooted was the enmity against them
that, in his own forcible words, they were " forbidden from New-
gate lest they should make men wicked, and from Bedlam lest
they should drive men mad." Nor were ruder assaults wanting.
They were arrested, imprisoned, drafted into the ranks of the
army. Churchwardens and constables panted for the chase
after the Methodists like a leash of eager hounds. The mob
were too glad to gratify their love of disorder and their hate
against religion together, and outrages were perpetrated, now bv
the impulse of passion — now by bands organized for purposes

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

of cruelty, by which many were seriously injured, and others
driven into a martyr's grave.

John Wesley was often in personal danger ; often had he to
confront enraged mobs and suffer personal violence at their
hands. But his faith in God sustained him, and, with a courage
which might shame many of the world's chartered heroes, he
blenched not from his duty and from his work. Meeting with
hard fare and little food during a tour in Cornwall, he congratu-
lates himself that " blackberries are plentiful," and after three
weeks lying upon the floor, in the same county, with the brave
John Nelson beside him, one having an overcoat and the other
" Burkitt's Notes " for a pillow, he cries out in the middle of
the night, " Be of good cheer, the skin is only off one side yet."
Alone with the rabble at Walsall, with torn clothes and bleed-
ing mouth, he subdued a noted prize-fighter by his calmness
and by his words, with his strange escort passed harmless
through the crowd, and records in his journal that at the door
of his lodgings they " parted with much love." Threatened
with being thrown into the river, he says that he was as
collected as if seated in his study, and that his only thought was
that the papers in his pocket would he spoiled. Told that the
mob were coming to pull down the house at Epworth in which
he was preaching, he assured the congregation that if the
report was true they had better make good use of it while it was
still standing. Like Paul, he knew when to stand upon hi$
privilege — " a Roman and uncondemned." A pompous chief
magistrate, big with the small dignities of his office, sent to
discharge him from preaching within the limits of his borough.
" Tell his worship," was Wesley's cool rejoinder, " that as long
as King George gives me leave to preach I shall not ask the

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

Mayor of Shaftesbury." When his moral character was slan-
dered by fierce opponents, from whom better things might have
been hoped, and to whom I grant in this lecture the mercy of
my silence, his faith rose into sublimity. " Brother, when I
gave to God my life, my time, my all, I did not leave my repu-
tation out." When asked how he would spend the intervening
time if he knew that he should die on the morrow, he answered
with the same cheerful calmness, " Just as I intend to spend
them now. I should preach at Gloucester to-night, and at five
o'clock in the morning, ride on to Tewksbury, preach in the
afternoon, and meet the societies in the evening. I should
then repair to Friend Martin's house, who expects to entertain
me, converse and pray with the family as usual, retire to my
room, commend myself to my Heavenly Father, lie down to
rest, and wake up in glory." Surely neither legends of chivalry
nor annals of authentic heroism can surpass the grandeur cf
this simple trust in God. You talk of heroes, large, world
renowned, kingly men, men of colossal fame, who have filled
the great spaces of the world with their names \ men who have
leaped into renown from the corpses of the trampled, or cleaved
their stern way to it through the battle's dust and blood. What
are their claims to his ? Look at his brave life from the time oi
its devotion to the Gospel. See him as he loosens his grasp
upon the things he loved the most, mortifies his desire after
honour, spurns the lust of wealth as only nobler natures can,
foregoes the endearments of social and the delights of cultivated
life. Mark him as, little in stature but great in soul, he stands
calmly amid the mob who burn to kill him, and they are sub-
dued at his glance, as the manly eye can awe the lion into fear.
See him as, in conscious integrity, still as the patient stars, he

L

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bids slander do her worst to defame him, smiles at nearing
danger, holds all hardship light, and regards death but as a
vassal — a vassal without a terror and without a sting ; — and
then tell me whether in that life-long devotion, fearless out-
speaking of the truth, and fervent trust in God, there is not
greatness as lofty as was ever recompensed by glittering orders
or embalmed in minstrel's song.

My time fails me to proceed further with the history on which
I have already lingered too long. On the separation from
Whitefield ; on the dignity with which he offered the costliest
sacrifice to God — the sacrifice of slain affections; on his ill-
judged and unfortunate marriage, three days after which he
makes the significant entry in his journal, " Met the single men
of the society and exhorted them to continue single ;" on his
accurate and varied scholarship, — an accomplished logician, and
one of the first Greek scholars of his time, — on his subsequent
labours prosecuted without intermission through a long course
of years ; on the organization of his societies, and his care for
their purity and extension ; — on ah these matters I must forbear
to dwell. Neither can I do more than mention the gradual
growth of honour which sat upon his forehead like a crown —
how prejudice changed into respect, and " troops of friends "
gave reverence in his kindly age ; how John Howard blessed
his loving words, and under their inspiration went forth to his
prison journeys with greater heart than ever ; how Bishop Lowth
sat at his feet and hoped he might be found there in another
world ; how Samuel Johnson delighted in his conversation, and
was only vexed because he would take his leave just when the
great Moralist had stretched his legs for the luxury of an
intellectual evening ; how Alexander Knox kindled in rapture

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as he recalled the fine old man, " with a child's heart and a
seraph's faith, '; realizing his notion of angelic goodness, and
impressing him with the pang at parting that he " ne'er should
look upon his like again ;" and finally how, in perfect peace,
and leaving a reformed nation and a flourishing church as his
monument, the good John Wesley died : these are tempting
subjects for enlargement, but the inexorable hand moves on.

A brief estimate of some of the more noticeable features of
John Wesley's character must not, however, be omitted. Dur-
ing his life he endured more abuse than any man of his time,
and since his death so many Daniels have "come to judgment"
upon him, that he has been credited with almost every fault and
virtue that can be named. Many failings have been gratuitously
ascribed to him, and some from which I am by no means
concerned to defend him. It is said he was ambitions. He was,
but not with the vulgar lust of po\ver or fame, or gold. His ambi-
tion was a large and lofty thing, a yearning magnanimity, like
that of Moses — a ceaseless self-sacrifice, like that of Paul. It is
said that he was enthusiastic. He was, but his enthusiasm was
neither a wild rant nor a delusive expectation of the end without
the means ; it sprang from a passion to do good, and was
sustained by faith in God, — the results justified him. It is said
that he was arbitrary. In the true sense of the word, he was —
for never man was born who exerted more influence upon other
men ; but he valued and used his power, not for its own sake,
but as a trust His was the legitimate influence of mind and
character ; and was neither got by despot force nor wielded
for despot ends. From the charge of credulity he cannot be
deemed wholly free, but those who consider that the age in
which he lived was an age of scepticism, and that it was neces-

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

sary for the doing of his great work that he should realize the
nearness of the other world, will hardly wonder that he shared,
though in no excess by comparison with others of his time, the
prevalent infirmity of noble minds. That in fifty years he
sometimes erred in judgment ; that he chose not a helpmeet
worthy of him ; that his ideas of the education of children were
severe and impracticable, as proved by the successive failures
of his plans at Kingswood school ; that his continual submis-
sion to what he believed to be the will of God involved him in
inconsistencies which he was not careful to reconcile, and which
gloriously vindicate the disinterestedness of his life; these
things may be admitted, with no other result, on the part of
those who love him, than that they can look without being
dazzled upon a brightness which would otherwise be insuffer-
able. But after you have made all the subtractions which
candour and even honest prejudice demand, the manhood of his
excellence remains, and it is a manhood of loftiest type and
truest soul — human, and therefore leavened with human frailty,
but living as near to Heaven as merely human may :
" Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,

Nor paltered with Eternal God for power ;

Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow,

Through either babbling world of high and low ,

Whose life was work — whose language rife

With rugged maxims hewn from life ;

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke,

All great self-seekers trampling on the right :

Greatest, yet with least pretence,

Foremost-hearted of his time.

Rich in saving common sense,

And, as the greatest only are,

In his simplicity sublime."

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

This simplicity was indeed the great feature of his character, to
which everything else must be referred as to a central motive
power. From the time of his entrance upon his public work
he was a man of one purpose. That purpose absorbed him,
and against that purpose he would not harbour a thought that
was disloyal. If ever man was perfectly devoted to the service
of God it was he. He was a " living sacrifice." The usual
and strong instincts which prevail among men, love of ease,
fame, wealth, were almost trampled out of his soul. Even the
fondest affections were crucified, though he had as warm a heart
as ever beat in the breast of man ; and, at the bidding of the
high purpose which possessed him he could surrender the
dearest friend, and expend the costliest tribute, endure the
keenest pang, and be unmoved under the foulest slander, with
a courage which to us, who dwell in lower regions, seems well
nigh stoical, and which we must breathe the upper air to under-
stand. The secret of this self-control, as of the marvellous
power of his ministry, was in the morning hour, which for many
years he was accustomed to spend in the closet. If in Luther's
prayers was the mystery of the Reformation, in Wesley's prayers
may be found one explanation of the great revival. He could
afford to be calm in human tumult, who had memories of the
lone mountain-top and of the manifested glory. To him it was
a necessity to be in earnest, who had just come from the ford
of Jabbok, where the strange wrestler had striven with him until
the breaking of the day. He could surely calculate upon a
blessing to whom the Lord had pledged it in the secret place of
his pavilion. And it is so still — prayer can preserve any peace
unbroken and any arm in strength. If the pulpit be powerless,
the churches feeble, the truth wounded in the house of her

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

friends, the source of the languor is here. Let the closet fires
be bright and the flame is sure to spread, and, like that which
brave Hugh Latimer saw in the vision of his martyrdom, it shall
never be put out. Give us the men of prayer, and from every
hill of Zton there shall be baptisms of power from on high.

Wesley's indefatigable industry has already been noticed, and
when we consider the object for which he redeemed the time,
his frugal and conscientious use of it cannot be sufficiently
admired. Incessantly travelling, constantly preaching, he
conducted an extensive correspondence, dealt with cases of con-
science, settled family disputes, wrote or abridged 200 volumes,
kept himself abreast of the literature of the times, maintained
his classical studies, and managed the whole concerns of a
society which numbered at his death more than 70,000 souls.
With all this, as he once said, " he had no time to be in a hurry,"
was always ready for a visit of sympathy, for a sight of a fair
landscape or a fine building, for a cheerful evening or part of
one with a friend ; and now and then for recreation, as when he
listened to the oratorios of "Judith" and " Ruth," and " The
Messiah." Do you ask how he managed to have this wealth of
leisure at command ? I answer, by his practice of early rising,
by his methodical habits, and by the patient avarice with which
he hoarded each moment as it flew. Thus he tells us that he
read " History, Philosophy, and Poetry, for the most part, on
horseback." We do not wonder, by the way, that his poor steed
so often stumbled. Detained in Wales because the tide was
over the sands, so that he could not cross them, he tells us : "I
sat down in a little cottage and translated Aldrich's Logic,"
His mind could not fail to be stored so richly when he thus
diligently fed it. If a man will pile up the moments of lite he

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

will be sure to have a pyramid at last. It is hard woik -washing
in the cradle the sand of the gully-stream, but it hath dust of
gold.

Wesley's benevohnct was, perhaps, never surpassed. Beyond
what was absolutely necessary to sustain and clothe him, he
gave all he had in charity. There were no bounds to his gene-
rosity save his means. " Two silver spoons in London and two
silver spoons in Bristol," thus he made his return of plate to the
astonished Commissioners of Excise, " and I shall not buy any
more while "so many around me want bread." He was accustomed
to declare that his own hands should be his executors, and said,
in print, that if he died worth ten pounds, independent of his
books, he would give the world leave to call him a thief and a
robber. Although this was an incautious announcement, made
in the excess of his zeal, yet, as his friends expected, he almost
literally kept his word, for when the silver cord of his great life
was loosed, his chaise and horses and his clothes were about all
that he left behind him, except, as has been quaintly said, " a
good library of books, a well-worn clergyman's gown, a much
abused reputation, and — the Methodist Church."

His charity, in the wider sense, was as remarkable as his bene-
ficence. With a temper naturally quick, as is perhaps inevita-
ble in all lively natures, he was enabled so far to conquer
himself that he bore personal injury not only without anger, but
without apparent emotion, and it was as easy for him as to
breathe. Gathering the materials of his judgment from his own
transparent goodness, he suspected no evil in others, and it was
difficult to make him think that any had intended to deceive
him. Although this trustful spirit exposed him to the schemes
of the designing, it sets forth in beautiful relief the guilelessness

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

of his own blameless life. His moderation in controversy was
remarkable, and was maintained under provocation which
might well have kindled any storm which " ran in the shifting
currents of the blood." On the testimony of one of his
unfriendly critics, " he kept his temper and his ground," and it is
refreshing to find him receiving the sacrament from the hands
of Bishop Lavington, and sitting down to a cosy breakfast with
his old antagonist, Father O'Leary. His catholicity, indeed,
was extraordinary. He had as a keen a scent for goodness as
slanderers have for evil. Even among the nightshade and the
nettles it was hard if he could not discover some fragrant violet
or balm of healing. Hence he speaks of the " strong faith "
mingled with the "gross superstition" of the Church of Rome;
commends and publishes the life of Thomas Firmin, a Unita-
rian, " whose real piety — notwithstanding his erroneous notions
on the Trinity — he says he dares not deny," and " makes no
doubt that Marcus Antoninus, the heathen Emperor of Rome,
shall be of the many who shall come from the east and from
the west and shall sit down in the kingdom of God."

While Wesley thus preached and lived a high state of religious
purity, his freedom from asceticism was a marked and fine
characteristic. There was about him, especially as he grew in
years, a courtesy and grace which made him the charm of social
circles, and which especially attracted the young. He often
selected them as the companions of his walks, and was wont to
give them his blessing and some small trifle of money. Alex-
ander Knox speaks of his " sportive sallies of innocent mirth,
which delighted the young and thoughtless," and when his wit
had play, his conversation would sparkle as when the moon
glances upon the silver sea. He often used his native humour to

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

record his observations on men and things, to silence a trouble-
some opponent, or teach a lesson to some refractory helper.
Thus he records : " Spent an agreeable hour with Dr. S., the
greatest genius in little things that ever fell under my notice.
I really believe, were he seriously to set about it, he could invent
the best mouse-trap that ever was in the world." Again, with a
sly hit at the glorious uncertainties of the law, he says : " To
oblige a friendly gentlewoman I was a witness to her will,
wherein she bequeathed part of her estate to charitable uses,
and part, during his natural life, to her dog Toby. I suppose,
though she should die within the year, her legacy to Toby may
stand good, but that to the poor is void by the statute of
mortmain." He was troubled by a visit from some pretended
prophets, who told him he was to be borrid again, and that they
were to wait till it was done. He politely shewed them into
what he calls a " tolerably cold room," and kept them twelve
hours without food or fire, after which, he says, " they quietly
went away." - One came to him professedly with a warning
from the Lord, that he was living in luxury, and heaping up
treasure upon earth. He told her the Lord knew better, and
that if He had sent her He would have given her a more proper
message. A very weak little man, one of Wesley's helpers,
Michael Fenwick by name, came to him with an imploring
countenance and begged a favour, which was that as Wesley
was revising his journals for the press, and as these journals
would live, Michael might have a place in them, and so stand
some chance of immortality. Wesley promised compliance,
and the entry appeared : " About one preached at Clayworth ; I
think none was unmoved but Michael Fenwick, who fell fast
asleep under an adjoining hay-rick." These are but random

185

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

instances of a wit which ever played across the clear sky of
Wesley's life, like summer lightning, having no fork to wound,
and only seen in the still evening, when the labours of the day
were done.

It marks a great man that he is before his age, and that he
initiates plans upon which after ages can improve. It would be
difficult to name a man more endowed with this prophetic and
forecasting goodness than John Wesley. There is scarcely an
enterprise of the church or an active form of charity, scarcely
an acknowledged good at work amongst us, which he did not
attempt, and often with a success which later times can only strive
to parallel. You talk of a cheap press and its blessings. John
Wesley was the first man to write for the million, and that not
for gain but for the people's benefit. His were the first popular
Grammars, Dictionaries, Histories, Compendiums, and they were
issued not in learned leisure, but in the intervals of the busiest
life of the age. You rejoice in the Tract Society's labours.
Though the " Jubilee Memorial " makes no mention of his
name, he was a diligent writer and systematic distributor half a
century before the Tract Society was born. Do you hail the
Strangers' Friend Society, with its open hand for the friendless
and the alien ? It was of Wesleyan origin. Do you believe in
Ragged Schools ? Wesley's Orphan Houses were the germinant
idea. Do you subscribe to Loan Libraries ? He established
them a hundred years ago. Are you proud of your country as
you see the sick huddling together before the Dispensary gates,
and think that charity has furnished them with the skill and the
medicines which they are too poor to buy ? The first Dispen-
sary that I read of was set up by John Wesley at the Foundry.
And not only in matters of active charity did he thus anticipate

186

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

the future, but in the silent revolutions of opinion. Take his
" Primitive Physic," with which wits make merry, and which is
certainly funny enough to win even Niobe from her tears ; but it
compares very favourably with a treatise published but a little
earlier by the celebrated Robert Boyle ; and the Pharmacopoeia of
the day, which was in constant use among the faculty, contains
offensive and frivolous prescriptions which Wesley disdains to
mention. He was a Temperance advocate when Total Absti-
nence Societies were not. He was a Law Reformer, speaking of
that " foul monster — a Chancery Bill," and declares that he
will " no more encourage that villainous tautology of lawyers,
which is a scandal to the nation at large." He believed in
the marvels of electricity while the sceptic world yet sneered at
Franklin's name. With a far-sighted view of the magnificent
capabilities of India, he spoke of it as " enslaved to a
company of merchants " while Leadenhall Street was still in its
glory. And, finally, when the nation was only half alive to the
evils of slavery — when Lady Huntingdon trafficked in human
nature, when George Whitefield held slaves — John Wesley
roused himself in behalf of the poor trampled bondsmen ;
denounced slavery in general as " the sum of all villanies,"
and American slavery in particular as " the vilest that ever saw
the sun.5'

Looking at these things, who shall say how much of our
present philanthropy and privileges are the results of the
merciful shadow which John Wesley projected upon the coming
age? If you decorate the conqueror with stars, who at the
head of his gallant armies achieves a victory, look upon the
man whose genius drew the plan of the battle, and let his breast
glitter too. If you reward the reaper who gathers amid the

187

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

inspiration of plenty and the voice of singing, put by — of your
justice I claim it — for the sower, who alone, under the grey
wintry sky, went forth for the scattering of the seed.

And now, to sum up the whole, look upon this character, at
first " like the young moon with a ragged edge, still in its
imperfection beautiful," but waxing lovelier and larger, until,
full-orbed and calm, it shines in its completeness before men.
Think of the elements which you suppose necessary to moral
greatness. Fervent piety, strong faith in God, a self-sacrificing
purpose in life, manly daring, womanly tenderness, an industry
which never tires, a benevolence which never says " it is enough,"
an almost perfect control over passion, an almost perfect
abnegation of selfishness, a catholic heart and a world-wide
sympathy, a gentleman's courtesy and a scholar's learning ; — if
these things, combining in an individual, make up an artistic
wholeness of character which the world should reverence, then
look at that little old man with the band and cassock, walking
at a brisk pace down the street, neat in his dress and busy in
his manner, " with aquiline nose and quick bright eye, silver
hair, and clear smooth forehead, and colour fresh as a boy's."
Go, mark him well, for that wholeness of character is his, and his
name is John Wesley, and, in the apt words of one who has
deeply studied him, " a greater, and by the grace of God, a
better man, the world has not known since the days of St. Paul."
f And now for one parting word. It is for us these great men
labour. All the past is ours. Its splendour flashes that we
may not walk in darkness. Its manhood appeals to our own.
The records of its greatness and goodness abide that we may be
inspired by the example, and " quit ourselves like men " in the
common struggles of every day. Brothers, to your duty ! Let

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

your lives show that the heritage has descended into no unworthy
hand. Be not the poor pensioners upon the bounty of the past
Be not the gay spendthrifts of its riches. Be it yours to husband
its resources that you may increase its returns, so that the legacy
you bequeath, enriched by your own personal tribute, may be
wealthier than the portion which you received. "Give me
place for my lever," said a great one of old, "and I will move
the world." We do not lack in our moral machinery either the
fulcrum or the power. Of small account and limited sphere of
action, considered as individuals, most of us may be, but from
each of us there is shed an influence which, by the law of accel-
erated force, will gather intensity as it spreads, and will tell
upon the future as with avalanche power. There is something
grandly terrible in this aspect of it in an assembly like this.
Flung upon life, unable to rid yourselves of life ; compelled,
whether you will or no, to wield the responsibilities of life, like
charged clouds which must discharge their contents either in
the havoc of storms or in the kind weeping of the summer rain,
you must go on, influential every moment, a blast or a blessing
for ever. Oh ! choose the good — choose it from this moment if
you have never chosen it before — renew, if you have already
chosen it, your high and grand consecration. I would fain bind
it upon you by a spell from which you cannot disenchant your-
selves, and under whose power you shall pass to your eternity.
It is done — surely it is done. You will be the Lord's servants ;
and, for His sake, the servants of men.

This is an age of transition, and, in many respects, of surprise
Amidst its endless activities for good and evil, it is difficult
to trace the progress which, in spite of all discouragements,
is constantly going on. But that progress is not the less real

189

WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

because we cannot see it, for that our poor human eyes are
dimmed by the films of sense or blinded by the tears of sorrow.
There is a lesson for us in the recently published experiences of
those intrepid voyagers who, for scientific purposes, have
ventured into the regions of upper air. They tell us that " they
experienced as they ascended a feeling of profound repose ; "
by and by they record " that it was very dark beneath, but light
above, with a clear sky," and " amid the solemn stillness the
only sounds they heard were the striking of a clock and the
sounding of a bell." Oh ! rare and beautiful teaching for us —
tossed about with many fears, depressed by the clouds which
hang over us, and longing for the coming of the day ! The rest
.and hope of the spirit must come with the faith which leaves
this earth behind it. Though to us — the toilers — it is night
still, to Him — the Master who watcheth our labour, and to them
— our fellows whose labour is done — " there is light with a clear
sky." Though to us, down below, there is but the deafening
roar, the shriek of discord, the wail of pain, blent in one jargon
of strange sounds which have no chime ; to them, above in the
high calm silence, there are heard only the striking of the hour
which tells of the sure speed of time, and the voice of the
joy-bells already ringing for the world's great bridal. And it is
always so in respect of the matters which bewilder us and make
our hearts sad. Down below, strange struggles between hope
and fear, problems of existence which baffle our poor wit to
solve, mourning over new-made graves of wise or kind ones
snatched from the midst of us ere yet, to mortal thought, their life's
great work is done. Up above, a throne that is never vacant,
a King who sits assured of an accomplished purpose, and
waiting an expected end, — grand solutions of life which make all

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WESLEY AND HIS TIMES.

Heaven wonder, and stir the spirits of the just made perfect
with new throbs of joy — rest from earth's weariness, and rapture
in the stead of its sorrow — the joining of hands and hearts long
unclasped from each other's welcomes, in the eternal re-union
of the sky.

Down beiow, a sad, mysterious music,

Wailing from the woods and on the shore ;

Burdened with a grand, majestic secret,

Which keeps sweeping from us ever more

Up above, a music that entwineth,

In eternal threads of golden sound,
The great poem of this strange existence,

All whose wondrous meaning hath been fouud.

Down below, the grave within the churchyard,
And the anguish on the young tace pale,

And the watcher, ever as it dusketh,
Rocking to and fro with long, sad wail.

Up above, a crowned and happy spirit,

Like an infant in the eternal years,
Who shall grow in light and love for ever,

Ordered in his place among his peers.

O, the sobbing of the winds of autumn 1

O, the sunset streak of stormy gold !
O, the poor heart, thinking in the churchyard !

Night is coming and the grave is cold.

O, the rest forever, and the rapture !

O, the hand that wipes the tears away !
O, the golden homes beyond the sunset !

O, the God— that watches o'er the clay !

191

FLORENCE

AND SOME NOTABLE FLORENTINES.

FLORENCE

AND SOME NOTABLE FLORENTINES

A GREAT CITY is a great poem, a poem whose story unfolds
*L\. through the ages, and whose characters are striving and
suffering human hearts. Unheard often amid the rattle of its
busy streets there are plaintive undertones of rarest music.
Beneath its outer life there is an inner one, in which Tragedy
and Passion, Pity and Enterprise, Wrong and Sorrow, are the
daily actors. If, moreover, the city has a history, if it has passed
through those sharp transitions which wring the hearts of nations
as they wring the hearts of men ; if it kindle with the memories
of a glorious past, or, amid present sorrow, glows with the
prophecy of a more glorious future, the melody becomes more
audible and strong — the voice has louder tones to soothe or to
inspire ; and a ramble through the streets of such a city, or a
visit to its shrines, becomes at once a profit and a pleasure.

With this intent let me lead you for a while to what, until
lately, was the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy — beautiful
for situation, affluent in annals of the former time ; far renowned
in song ; and let us

" Muse in hope upon the shore

Of golden Arno, as it shoots away
Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four. "

195

FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

There are some pictures, world-wide in their reputation, the
first sight of which disappoints the eye, and it is only by the
study of their various parts that you grow into a perception of
their wondrous beauty. Of such is Florence. Its river is the
" golden Arno " only by a strong poetical license, and its narrow
streets, unfinished churches, and massive, prison-like houses,
look sombre to a stranger after the artistic symmetry of Milan,
and the superb palaces of Genoa. Each day's sojourn, however,
lessens the impression of disappointment, until it is not difficult
to emulate the Tuscan enthusiasm for " Firenze la bella." The
loveliness of Florence does not consist so much in separate
gems as in the exquisite harmony of the whole. If you wish to
see it to perfection, fix upon such a day as Florence owes the
sun, and climbing the hill of Bellosguardo, or past the stages ot
the Via Crucis to the Church of San Miniato, look forth upon
the scene before you. You trace the course of the Arno from
the distant mountains on the right, through the heart of the city,
winding along the fruitful valley toward Pisa. The city is
beneath you, " like a pearl set in emerald." From the midst of it
rises Brunelleschi's dome, high above all the minor spires which
flash back the noontide rays. Hard by is the beautiful campa-
nile lifted by Giotto, " like an unperplexed fine question heaven
ward." The hill behind the city is FiesolS, of which Milton sings :

" The moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fiesote. "

This is where Milton and Galileo met — neither of them then
blind, but both heirs of such darkness as only purges the vision
of the inner eye ; patricians of the nobility of Genius, whose
meeting was grander than of monarchs on some field of the

196

FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

Cloth of Gold. On the extreme right, dimly discernible, is the
sanctuary of Vallombrosa, hidden in its wealth of beach and pine
some twenty miles away. Far to the left is Pistoja, with the
pillar of Catiline, and the majestic Appenines close up the view.
All colours are in the landscape, and all sounds are in the air.
The hills look almost heathery. The sombre olive and funereal
cypress blend with the graceful acacia and the clasping vine.
The hum of insect and the carol of bird chime with the blithe
voices of men, while dome, tower, mountains, the yellow river,
the quaint bridges, spires, palaces, gardens, and the cloudless
heavens overhanging, make up a panorama on which to gaze in
trance of rapture, until the spirit wearies from the exceeding
beauty of the vision.

Florence is said to have sprung out of the ruins of the ancient
Fiesold It is supposed to have been originally the place where
the markets of Fiesol6 were held, the commercial spirit of the
age being not slow to perceive that there were fewer facilities
for barter on the mountain summit than on the fertile plain. In
pursuance of the wise policy of the time, a policy upon which
after ages have been unable to improve, it was speedily colo-
nized from Rome. The dwellings of the traders gathered other
dwellings round them. It was politic to dwell in company, both
for accommodation and for defence. By cultivation, also, the
earth is cleared from many noxious vapours, the air is purified
by the kindling of household fires, and so places formerly
unhealthy become fitted for the habitation of men. In the sixth
century the new city was destroyed by Totila, King of the
Ostrogoths. It remained in ruins for two hundred and fifty
years, when it was rebuilt by Charlemagne. From this time it
grew in numbers and influence ; not rapidly, because of the

197

FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

oppression of its many rulers. Its history for a long series of
years is but a record of the alternate triumphs and misfortunes
of Guelph and Ghibelline, Bianchi and Neri, Cerchi and Donati,
— foolish partisans, who fretted for supremacy during their little
hour, and heeded not that the city languished beneath the
sickness of their perpetual distemper while the great world was
moving on. As we read these stormy Florentine annals, and
remember that those of other nations can furnish parallels, it is
humiliating to think how long great nations linger in the
swaddling-bands and primers of their childhood. The logic of
the fist is a very juvenile branch of study, and is resorted to
only until boys and nations become wise enough for the logic
of the brain.

The history of Florence does not need to be followed until,
about the middle of the fourteenth century, Cosmo de Medici
appeared upon the stage. He was born on the day of St.
Cosmo, in the year 1389. His early years were full of trouble,
and the discipline prepared him for the government. He learned
in captivity and exile the prudence which gained him a fortune,
and which enabled him to wield an influence over a distracted
state, admired both by friends and enemies for his consummate
skill. He was as generous as he was wealthy, and as moderate
as he was powerful. At the head of the state he remembered
that he was one of the people \ a mighty ruler, he had sagacity
.to see that the strength of his power lay in the discretion
with which he used it ; and amid a people so given to change
as to be proverbs of inconstancy, he held his position until a
generation had faded by his side. He encouraged the learned
to make Florence their home, for he had that prescient wisdom
which foretold by how much the glory of letters transcends and

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FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

will survive the glory of war. Some of his sayings are notable,
as indicating a sprightly mind, with some portion of the gift oi
prophecy. The rebels who had been banished gave him to under-
stand that they " were not dreaming." He said he believed it,
for he had " robbed them of their sleep." Rinaldo, his great
rival, to warn him that he must not consider himself secure, sent
him the enigmatical message that " the hen has laid." His only
reply was that " she did ill to lay so far from her nest." After
his own return from banishment he was told by some citizens
that he was injuring the city by driving out of it nobles and
monks. His answer was : " It is better to injure a city than to
ruin it ; two yards of rose-coloured cloth will make a gentleman,
and it requires something more to direct a government than to
play with a string of beads." In his later years he suffered much
from bodily infirmity, and from apprehension lest the glory
would depart from the Florence which he loved so well. As his
illness increased he shut his eyes, as he quaintly said " to get
them in the way of it ;" and so died in the zenith of his power,
leaving a name honoured by princes and people, and justifying
the proud title of the " Father of his Country," which the city
inscribed upon his grave. He was no vulgar or sordid miser oi
authority, but stands out amid Florentine history a " bright par-
ticular star," to trace whose orbit it is worth while to sweep the
heavens. He showed how, amidst perpetual tumult, there can
be empire in one commanding mind, and was the founder oi
that wondrous family of the Medici, who were the good or evil
angels of their city through so many stormful years.

The state of Florence, during the long years in which the
Medici governed her, was in the main peaceful and prosperous.
There were many conspiracies, of course, and the rulers were

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not equally competent, but Florence became a power in Italy
under their ambitious rule. Their memorials are seen every-
where ; in the palaces where they dwelt ; in the magnificent
galleries which they founded and enriched ; in the Mausoleum
which contains their dust, and sets forth their virtues as with a
marble tongue. Arrogant, indeed, is the conception of this
splendid sepulchre. The walls are covered with the richest
Florentine mosaic, the roof of the dome is embellished with
frescoes, and the shrines profusely ornamented with precious
stones. Here are the urns and cenotaphs of six successive
Grand Dukes, whose ashes are in the crypt below. Nowhere
in the world can be seen such pomp of marble piled upon the
grave. These Grand Dukes were inferior, both in address and
excellence, to the citizen princes of the earlier time, of whom
alone we think when we speak of the greatness of the Medici.
Cosmo il Vecchio, of whom I have already spoken, and his
grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, assume proportions of
grandeur which dwarf their lesser kindred.

Of the character of Lorenzo de Medici it is not easy to speak,
so conflicting is the evidence upon which any opinion must
rest His detractors are loud in their censure, his admirers
indiscriminate in their praise. An air of romance attaches to
him and his doings, through whose brilliant cloud one can
hardly see him as he is. Judged by the light of his age, he
must have been one of the Anakim, alike in the faults which
were charged upon him and in the qualities which add lustre
to his name. Born to a noble destiny, he leaped forth to meet
it, -as a war-horse scenteth the battle. Called to power while
yet unripe to wield it, he gathered wisdom from the ready brain,
and hope out of the boy's heart, and by his prudent enthu-

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siasm became the man for the hour. Cautious as the most
practised diplomatist, he had the reckless valour of the most
daring soldier. Crafty in his policy, he was yet steady in his
friendships, and generous, even to prodigality, with his wealth.
Flung upon a rude, iron age, and forced to be a man of war,
he was a munificent patron of letters, revelled in each golden
legend or occult discovery, and peopled his city with the learned
until it became the Etruscan Athens, no unworthy rival of the
" city of the violet crown." Intent upon the aggrandizement of
his family, and dreaded for his overshadowing authority, he
made Florence a city of palaces, her neighbourhood a garden
of delight, so that he seemed to rise only with the rise of the
commonwealth, and was at once trusted by the citizens and
the friend and counsellor of princes of ancient blood. With
consummate address he rescued himself from the jaws of a
conspiracy which had assassinated his brother, and won over, by
his eloquence, the whole city to his side. With like address he
concluded peace with the King of Naples, cajoled the Pope,
courted the clergy, strengthened himself by alliances among the
nobles, obtained diplomatic relations with other states, and had
a son in the Roman Conclave, a Cardinal of Holy Church, not
yet fourteen years old. His public policy was equally sagacious.
Now he endowed a monastery, now he built and garrisoned
a fortress. Now he startled the city by ostentatious conviviality,
now he caused it to wonder by ostentatious devotion. He
mingled freely with the people, but he kept train-bands in
his pay and at his bidding. To-day he opens a University,
to-morrow he will preside at a magnificent banquet. He held
outwardly to the Church, but was an ardent patron of the
philosophy which threatened to uproot it, and commemorated

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All Saints' Day by a festival in honour of Plato, when that
" Attic Moses" furnished at once liturgy and gospel, and received
intellectual homage which was little short of idolatry. In counsel
he was acute, and in execution prompt and resolute. He
delighted equally in the play of wit and the play of children,
and, indeed, seems to have had that union of the stronger and
lighter qualities which are necessary to the full-orbed character
of a man. His incessant anxieties told too early upon his
constitution, and, like, a sword so keen that it cuts through its
scabbard, the fire of his soul consumed the tabernacle in which
it was ordained to burn. In his 44th year, when the preposses-
sions of youth are commonly over and the infirmities of age
are yet afar, when the speed of the spirit is not that of the
breathless, when the eye can look calmly forward, nor be
dazzled by a broad sweep of vision —he was called to sicken
and to die. Leaving Florence for his country-seat at Careggi,
he wasted through some months of suffering, " now comparing
himself to Lot in Sodom, and again to Orpheus leaving his
Eurydice in hell," borne down somewhat by the ingratitude of
the people, burdened somewhat by the memory of sin, and
giving vent to his feelings sometimes in plaintive song — as in
the following stanzas, in which he breathes out his soul's
wistful desire.

" Go, devout soul, enjoy that sacred fire
Which plenteous mercies in the heart inspire ;
Whither the shepherd bids thee haste away,
Hie thee submissive, and his voice obey.

"Or, if awhile thou weepest, and with sighs
Art scattering seed upon a barren soil,
Cherish thy holy madness, it shall rise
In fruit eternal to repay thy toil.

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" The people have devised vain things, but thuu
Sit still ; to Jesus hearken ; let them say
What lists them ; harmless is the tumult now-
At home, in Bethany, thy refuge, stay."

As his illness increased, his physicians administered pearls in
solution, and mixtures of amalgamated jewels, as if to conciliate
that grim warder who is, after all, inaccessible to bribes. He
received the viaticum with all humility on the 8th April, 1492,
confessed to Savonarola, whom he especially desired to attend
him, and shortly afterwards passed away. Many affirmed that
there were portentous omens about the time of his dying, and
that the highest pinnacle of the cathedral was struck with
lightning, as if in token of disasters that were to follow. Shrewd
observers regarded him as the only man who could moderate
the distractions of Italy. He was said to be like the isthmus
which connects the Peloponnesus with the rest of Greece, and
prevents the waves of the ^Egean and Ionian seas from battling
in perpetual storm. Being midway in position, and having both
a reputation for prudence and an arm of power, he was as the
breakwater between the pride of the King of Naples and the
ambition of the Duke of Milan, upon which the rival billows
broke, indignant but harmless as the spray. When he died all
Italy grieved, as though smitten by a common trouble ; while
Florence wept over him with a genuine sorrow, and, despite the
faults of his person and of his family, glories in his memory
still.

There is not a picture nor a statue in Florence, of any
reputation, about which the reading public of the world is not
sufficiently informed. It would be impertinent, therefore, and
an endless task withal, to lead you through the rich galleries oi

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the Uffizi and Pitti palaces. The latter, which is now the palace
of the King, owes its erection to Luca Pitti, a wealthy Floren-
tine, and a great opponent of the Medici family. The Palazzo
Strozzi was formerly the largest and richest in Florence. " I
will build a palace," said Pitti, "large enough to hold the
- Strozzi in its courtyard." Before its completion, however, he
had fallen from his high estate, and it was finished by other
hands. Inferior in extent to the galleries of the Vatican
and the Louvre, those in Florence are probably the richest in
the world. "Here," to quote from one who has entranced
thousands by his eloquent words, " in their beautiful and calm
retreats, the ancient sculptors are immortal ; those illustrious
men of history beside whom its crowned heads and harnessed
warriors shew so poor and small, and are so soon forgotten.
Here the imperishable past of noble minds survives, placid and
equal, when strongholds of assault and defence are overthrown,
when the tyranny of the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale ;
when pride and power are so much cloistered dust."

There is one picture in the Pitti gallery which ought surely
to be in English hands. It is an authentic portrait, painted by
Sir Peter Lely, of Oliver Cromwell. It is said that the sturdy
old Roundhead, heedless for the moment of that Puritan humour
which objected to the imposition of hands, shook the artist
roughly by the shoulder, and threatened him with severe
displeasure if he dared to make the portrait one whit handsomer
than the man. And there it is — the stern, rough face, with a
world of energy latent in the mouth, and gleaming from the
deep-set eyes ; with every blotch and wart upon the counte-
nance which Nature, or hard usage, or scrofula, or excess, had
placed there; a face which requires the jack-boots and the buM

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jerkin ; which seems as if it would be more at home at Naseby
than in St. James' ; and yet a face with such a power in it, that
through seam and scar you can almost see the lordly soul it
shrined. It was a present from the Protector to the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, and as such things are not now, it is a pity
that it should not lend its inspiration to the land which the
King uncrowned did so much to uplift and to save.

On the way from the Arno to the Pitti palace, as the observant,
eye glances right and left with that eager restlessness which
possesses one in a strange city, if the heart underneath the eye
be susceptible, it will perhaps begin to beat quickly, as mine
did, smitten by a sweet surprise. The cause of this emotion
was a small square slab, inserted just above the door of a
decent-looking house in a narrow street, bearing an Italian
inscription, which, being translated, reads thus : "Here wrote and
died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, to the heart of a woman
joined the science of a scholar and the spirit of a poet, and
who made with her golden verse a nuptial ring between Italy
and England. Grateful Florence places this memorial." I could
not help wondering how long it would be before similar tributes
appealed to us from our walls at home. In the nineteenth
century we are but beginning to learn that the pen is mightier than
the sword, and that those who strike the harp of life, and sing
to us its many toned music, leave worthier memories than those
who spill its heart out on the stained sward of some field of
blood. All honour to Florence for her appreciation and her
gratitude, and all honour, too, to the great, true woman who
wept over Cowper's grave, from whose wrung spirit wailed forth
the " Cry of the Children," and who burned into the national
soul the lessons of Aurora Leigh.

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FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

Among the charities of Florence there are two which are
noticeable ; one because it verges on the ridiculous — one
because it approaches the sublime. Close under the shadow of
the church of San Lorenzo there is a unique asylum, endowed
in perpetuity under the will of some spinster of the former time.
It is an asylum for cats. Here foundling cats are taken, and
distressed ones sheltered. Supernumerary cats are saved from
the Arno ; all proper cat courtship is promoted within reason-
able limits ; and aspiring cats, anxious to go out into the world,
are provided with suitable situations, in which, as the advertise-
ments say, " salary is not so much an object as a comfortable
home.'' Oh, poor human nature ! If, sometimes, from our
weaknesses our strongest principles of action are born, as the
oak from the trampled acorn, how often are our best instincts
warped to folly, and our virtues, by their own devious energy,
become objects of derision.

Turn we from this eccentricity of benevolence to look at one
of the noblest charities of Europe. Driving through the Piazza.
of the Duomo, I was met by what seemed to be a funeral
procession. The coffin was borne on the shoulders of men, and
they who bore and they who followed were dressed in long
monastic robes of black, with crape hoods, masks concealing
the face, into which holes were cut for the eyes and mouth.
This was the " Compagna della Misericordia," which has exist-
ed in Florence for upwards of six hundred years. It is said to
have had a moral origin, for it was established from a fund
created by fines for profane swearing, imposed upon themselves
by the porters in the cloth manufactories of the city. Gradually
it assumed vaster proportions, until it grew into a corporation of
honour, and the most distinguished citizens were proud to enrol

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themselves in its band. The city is divided into districts, and
the members, of whom there are some hundreds, are told off for
daily duty with all the discipline of military rule. Their office
is to carry the sick to hospital, the wounded to some place of
refuge, and the dead to burial. One of the bells in the Cam-
panile is called the " Misericordia." It is tolled when their
services are needed, and at the summons of that bell, whether
it be heard at sunrise or on Sabbath ; whether it strike upon the
silence of midnight, or boom solemnly through the hall of
banquet, each member of the brotherhood is bound, forsaking
all other engagement, to obey its bidding. It is not an ecclesi-
astical fraternity, notwithstanding its hideous dress. The Flor-
entines raise the hat, and the military present arms, when the
" Misericordia " passes, and the Grand Duke himself, in the days
when there was such a personage, has been known to leave his
guests at the banquet, and take his turn, perhaps with the
humblest, as a helper in this work of mercy. What an illustra-
tion at once of the sweetness and of the immortality of charity !
Through all change of dynasty, amid the rise and fall of nobles,
while the sky has been dark with troubles and the streets have
been dishonoured with blood, while the tempest has uprooted
governments which seemed so stable, and the fortunes of the
city have been alternately on the crest and in the trough of the
waves, this institution has survived — like a pharos in a stormy
sea, flinging its white light across the waters, though the waves
howled about it in fury, and the "broad shoulders of the hurri-
cane " pressed heavily against its solid form. Oh, it is beauti-
ful to think that wherever Christianity has gone, even in partial
or corrupt manifestation, this human charity, a stranger from
some other world, has found for itself a mission and a home.

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Who shall despair of a world, however fallen, when " one touch
of sorrow can make all men kin." We may not substitute
charity for godliness, but there is room for the Divine love in
the heart which has been touched by the human ; and there is
more than poetry in that exquisite Arabic parable which Leigh
Hunt has crystallized into verse :

" Abou Ben Adhem, may his tribe increase !
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room —
Making it rich, and like a lily in full bloom —
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
" What writest thou ? " The vision raised its head,
And, with a look made all of sweet accord,
Answered : " The names of those who love the Lord.**
"And is mine one ?" said Abou. " Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spake more low,
But cheerly still, and said, " I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo ! Ben Adhem 's name led all the rest."

One of the sacred spots which no stranger in Florence should
omit to visit is the Church of Santa Croce, where are grouped
the cenotaphs of the illustrious dead. In this " temple of silence
and reconciliation," the Westminster Abbey of Florence, lie
or are commemorated some of the greatest names in the history
of the fair city. Alfieri, the sweet poet, Lanzi, the historian of
the arts, Raphael Morghen, the engraver, Aretino, the illus-

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trious scholar, live in company on the walls of this hallowed
shrine. Here also is the monument of Galileo, sturdy Protestant
of the pre-Protestant ages, whose "yet it moves," uttered in the
moment of enforced recantation, startled the conclave who had
condemned him, like thunder out of a clear sky. Boccaccio has
his tablet here, whose " Decameron " is among the classics of
Italy. Here also, by the efforts of an English nobleman, is
perpetuated the memory of Niccolo Machiavelli, who has had
charged upon him, as the tempter, political crimes without
number, — Niccolo Machiavelli, " out of whose surname," says
Macaulay, " we have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of
his Christian name a synonyme for the devil." Here also,
mourned by the three sister arts— Architecture, Sculpture, and
Painting — is the tomb of Michael Angelo, the site said to have
been chosen by himself, that when the doors of the church were
open it might be in sight of the cupola of the cathedral. Here
also the remorseful gratitude of Florence? swelling like the tide
about a stranded wreck, too late, has given to the memory of
Dante a monument, something less than a grave. There is an
inspiration and a solemnity as you tread the marble pavement
beneath, while, all unheeding of the feet which tramp above
them, these great hearts lie still. But Italy has gazed into these
graves somewhat too long. Her prophets have ceased out of the
land ; it is some four hundred years since the last bright-browed
one vanished. Is it therefore that she has ceased to pray ? Is she
so enamoured of her sires' memory that she has no heart to
imitate their example ? She, whose citizens so often clave their
way to freedom, will she ever be content again to be " no nation,
but the poet's pensioner, with alms from every land of song and
dream ?" These men of cunning brain and stalwart arm, foster-

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FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

gods of her glorious former times, can their successors ever be
serfs, or men degenerate and lazy?

" Oil-eaters, with large, live, mobile mouths
Agape for maccaroni. "

Oh ! it were to desecrate the sepulchre only to wail upon its mar-
ble. We dishonour the dead when we entomb our manhood
with theirs. They loom, large and solemn, upon the sky, not to
dwarf our stature, but to show us to what bigness we may grow.
Confessors witness that the holy seed may follow. It is for the
birth of heroes that the martyrs bled, and that the conquering
human angel standeth in the sun. Thermopylae were a rash
impertinence if Sparta be not free. He who swears by Marathon
must fight for Athens, if the leaguers threaten or the Medes
surround. The dead but oped the door through which the living
were to pass to valorous deed, to enterprise, to victory. If we
ourselves would not shame an ancestry that is honoured, we
shall haste forward with their memory to speed us on, that so,
when we have borne our age yet nearer to the paradise it panteth
for, our children may strew violets on our sepulchres, and evoke
from us, as we from our fathers, the inspiration of the immortal
dead.

Modern Florence is not backward in her recognition ot the
memory of DANTE, and this is a name so illustrious that we may
not pass it hastily by. In the narrow Via Ricciarda, a marble
slab over a modern Gothic door tells you, " In this house was
Alighieri born, the Divine poet." In the cathedral is his portrait,
placed there by decree of the Republic in 1465. In the Palazzo
del Podesta, which has an ancient chapel of its own, there is a
fresco by Giotto, which with Vandal barbarism was covered with

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whitewash, nearly two inches thick, and with equally Vandal
indifference was so suffered to remain for years, until English
and American liberality subscribed to reveal it On the south
side of the Piazza del Duomo, a slab let into the pavement is
inscribed, " Sasso di Dante," where he was wont

" to bring his quiet chair out, turned
To Brunelleschi's church, and pour, alone,
The lava of his spirit when it burned,
While some enamoured passer used to wai
A moment in the golden day's decline,
With < Good night, dearest Dante.' "

And in the centre of the Piazza of Santa Croce, on the i2th ol
May, 1865, six hundred years after his birth, and on the spot
where, just before he came into the world, the Florentine republic
was proclaimed, his statue was uncovered amid flaunting of
banners, and salvoes of cannon, and vivas of an enthusiastic
people, by the king of a free Italian kingdom, holding his court
in the Florence which the passionate exile loved so long and so
well. At the time the poet-politician was born, Florence had
become a considerable city. There were 100,000 inhabitants
within its walls. Few cities exerted so imperial a command, and
but for the intestine strifes which distracted it, it might have
climbed to well nigh unapproachable renown. There was much
in the aspect of affairs, in a past of tradition and legend, in a
present of tumult and hope, to fire a youthful imagination with
patriotism and valour. With the romantic love, all free from
passion, which filled him for the Beatrice of his dream and
song, he had no room for meaner attachments, and the young
Guelph partisan rode in the fore front of the battle, and was a
trusted counsellor when victory had purchased peace. So great

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was his reputation for wisdom, even in early life, that he was
nominated to many foreign embassies, and indeed it was during
his absence on one of these that the wheel of fortune turned his
adversaries uppermost, and he was summoned to appear before
the podesta within forty days, and pay a fine of 8,000 livres. The
charge against him was that he had resisted the pacific mission
of the French prince, to which was added an unworthy innuendo
that he had misused the public money. We can fancy the high
souled scorn with which he would treat an accusation like this.
Failing to appear at the summons he was declared a rebel, and
banished from the city for ever. Then began those long and
regretful wanderings which ended only with his life, and which
caused him to lament over the bitterness of the bread which is
eaten at the table of a foreigner, and the weariness of the feet
which travel up a patron's stairs. The celebrated Can Francesca
received him at his court and paid him honour : but the iron
had entered into his soul. It was the fashion to have buffoons
and jesters in the prince's pay, and the more license and auda-
city they exhibited, the greater was the courtier's relish for their
company. The Duke said to Dante, "I wonder that these
buffoons, who are so grossly ignorant, should please us and be
so much beloved, while you, who are reputed to be so learned,
fail to win our love." The reply was bitter and bold : " Your
grace would not wonder if you consider that friendship is always
based upon similarity of disposition." After some years an offer
of recall was made, but on degrading conditions which Dante
indignantly refused, and after the failure of a negotiation on
behalf of Ravenna with the Council of Venice, his mortification
induced an illness of which he died, in the fifty-seventh year of
his age. There were many considerations which hindered the

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early popularity of his works. Men could hardly read poetry
while its most tragic scenes were being enacted around them.
The poet had mingled too sternly in the strifes of the day to be
favourably judged by all. Bigots hated his writings because,
though an orthodox son of the Church, he was not insensible to
her errors. He denounced the sale of pardons and indulgences,
and was an unmistakeable foe to the temporal power of the
Pope. It sounds like an utterance of the after ages when he
represents the Church as one which,

" Mixing two governments that ill assort,
Hath lost her footing, fallen into the mire,
And there herself and burden much defiled."

Moreover, it commonly requires a century to create a classic.

But Dante, in spite of all hindrances, gradually climbed to the

throne. Professorships were established in the Universities of

Italy to expound the " Divina Commedia." The people, who

rarely err on questions of standard reputation, when the matter

submitted to them is one which they understand and teel,

delivered their verdict of approval. The vernacular of modern

Italian was henceforth as Dante had written it ; and Italy rose,

sad with the remorse of ages, and crowned him as the bard of

truth and of religion — the teacher, perhaps the prophet, of

his country's freedom. Political error ! Misuse of funds out o 1

the Treasury ! He scorned to answer these charges, but what

dust of their defilement settles upon Dante now ? The ages

have been empannelled as the jurors, and time has pronounced

him free from sordid stain. Since his death the neglect and exile

of his life have been mourned and atoned. If a man do the

right, and can learn the secret of grandly waiting, he shall have

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a world to witness his acquittal or his triumph by and by. Not
only did powers, civil and ecclesiastical, gather to do honour to
the man whom both had formerly decried, but the memory of
Dante had an ampler atonement still. On the day when the
first charter (afterwards shamelessly withdrawn) was given by the
Grand Duke Leopold, the people, bright with such new hope as
can kindle only in the eyes of freemen, gathered by thousands
to welcome the charter of their liberty. But where was their
trysting-place ? Not on the broad Cacine, dedicate to fashion
and pleasure. Not in front of the palace, laden with recollec-
tions of many an illegitimate Caesar. Not by the Loggia, where
stand superb the masterpieces of stone. None of these were
sacred enough for the solemnity of such an occasion.

" Not there ! The people chose still holier ground ;
The people, who are simple, blind and rough,
Know their own angels, after looking round."

They met by Dante's stone. The earliest charter of the modern
liberties of Tuscany dated from the seat of Tuscany's most
illustrious exile as if, on that spot, hallowed alike by the memo-
ries of his rapture and of his banishment, it was meet that they
should shake hands with Freedom.

Turn we to another shrine. In the Via Ghibellina is the
Palazzo Buonarotte, the house, the veritable home, of MICHAEL
ANGELO. It has been preserved inviolate, and much of the
furniture is as it was in the artist's time. Here, in a snug little
closet, are the table at which he used to write, his inkstand, his
sandals, the sword which he took on his journeys, the crutch-
handled walking-stick which he daily used, notched with strong
iron ferules, to prevent his falling on the slippery pavement ;

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many of his original drawings ; the model for his " David ; " his
sketch for his greatest work, "The Last Judgment;'' his auto-
graph correspondence with Vittoria Colonna ; an early sculp-
ture, chiselled before he was sixteen ; the bronze bust of him, by
John of Bologna, his favourite pupil, which is considered the
most faithful likeness, and which shows the broken nose which
Torrigiani's jealousy gave him ; — all are here, and you can enter
into almost palpable communion with the proud, grand old man,
whom one of his biographers describes as " unique in painting,
unparalleled in sculpture, a perfect architect, an admirable poet,
and a divine lover." He was born at the castle of Caprese, in
Tuscany, of a good family, and his father was greatly chagrined
at his son's attachment to art, for no amount of argument could
teach him the difference between a sculptor and a stone-mason.
The astrologers had cast the nativity of the young Buonarotti,
and had predicted for him great distinction, because at the hour
of his birth the conjunction of Mercury and Venus took place,
and they were received into the house of Jupiter with benign
aspect. After this starry prophecy his father could not brook
the idea of his following a pursuit which he deemed fitted only
for the lowly born. Genius, however, is not always to be
restrained, even by parental authority, so the youth won his
father's reluctant consent that he should be placed in the studio
of Ghirlandajo, that sculpture and painting might contend for
the mastery. Here he devoted himself to art with an assiduity
which soon led him to distance all competitors, and was even
bold enough to correct his master's errors. A tall dignified
stranger one day entered, and scrutinizing the works of the
students, paused before the easel of Michael Angelo. "By
your leave," said he to the master, " I select this vouth for the

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garden of St. Mark. Will it accord with his views ? " " Ay,"
was the significant reply, " think ye the eagle does not ken his
eyrie?" When the stranger left, Buonarotti asked of those near
him who the noble was. " Do you not know ? " they asked, in
astonishment, "it was the Duke, Lorenzo di Medici." " I was
not aware," the proud youth replied, "but henceforward we
shall know each other." The death of Lorenzo, after three
years of friendship, affected the artist so much that he retired to
Caprese, brooding over his loss until he became misanthropical,
but was softened at length by the tender preachings of nature,
and by the wise patience of the healer, time. Pietro di Medici,
Lorenzo's unworthy son and successor, was one of those feeble
princelings whose rank is so much larger than themselves that
their small souls crouch behind it. Though his taste was
corrupt and his manners overbearing, he had just wit enough
to know that a great artist would be an acquisition to his court.
Hence he invited Michael to return, and lodged him in the
same apartments which he had occupied in the time of the
Magnificent. His estimate of his guest, however, may be
gathered from his recorded boast : "I have two extraordinary
persons in my house ; the one a Spanish running footman, who
is so rapid on foot, and so long breathed, that I cannot get
before him when riding at full speed ; and the other is — Michael
Angelo." It was in this character of patron, and perhaps to
humble the genius which was getting somewhat too manly for
the palace serfdom, that on a winter's day, in the Via Larga, he
bade him carve a statue in the snow, and as he watched the
mighty worker at his toil, laughed his paltry laughter from the
palace window. For three days the statue was the admiration
of Florence, so grand and sharp were the proportions ; on the

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fourth, the returning sun left nothing of it but a memory. It is
not easy to divine the motives which bowed the artist-soul to
consent to the humiliation. Perhaps the memory of the dead
father threw a present halo round the meaner son. Perhaps he
was conscious of power, and would impress upon the Floren-
tines that genius is not dependent upon the fittest materials to
create its forms of beauty. Perhaps he flung an eagle gaze into
the future, and "read a wrong into a prophecy." You can
fancy the world of scorn which would gleam through the honest
eye, just lifted from its perishing labour to shoot a glance into
the balcony where the Prince watched the people's enthusiasm.

"I think thy soul said then, I do not need

A princedom and its quarries, after all,
For if I write, paint, carve a word indeed,

On book or board or dust, on floor or wall,
The same is kept of God, who taketh heed

That not a letter of the meaning fall,
Or ere it touch and teach the world's deep heart ;

Outlasting therefore all your lordships, sir !
So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part

To cover up your grave-place, and refer
The proper titles. I live by my Art !

The thought I threw into this snow shall stir
This gazing people when their gaze is done ;

And the tradition of your act and mine,
When all the snow is melted in the sun,

Shall gather up, for unborn men, a sign
Of what is the true princedom ; ay, and none

Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine."

There was a school of virtuosi in Florence who were never
weary of decrying contemporary merit. To their sagacious
criticism it was needful that a work should have the rust of

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years upon it before they would allow it to have any excellence
at all. Michael Angelo taught these gentlemen a practical
lesson. He made a statue of a Sleeping Cupid, which he
stained to represent it as antique, and, having cut off an arm, he
procured its burial in a vineyard, and its discovery in due
course ; and, when all the works of modern artists were pro-
nounced to be trash in the comparison, he quietly produced the
arm, and covered the critics with confusion. Returning to
Florence after a brief sojourn in Rome, he had to contend with
Leonardo da Vinci for the sculptor's palm. The contest was
on this wise. There was a huge block of marble, which had
been embossed by Simon da Fiesol6 for the statue of a giant,
but he had failed in his attempt, and the marble had lain
neglected for years. Leonardo was asked to finish it, but he
declared it to be impossible without additional material, because
it had been irreparably injured. Michael Angelo took hold of
the marble, thus marred in the hands of the designer, and at
his bidding it grew into a colossal statue of David, with a face
of perpetual youth, and the firm, lithe limbs of the athletic shep-
herd boy. Not only did he require no additional marble, but
it is said that he left some of his predecessor's work untouched,
so that it was a common Florentine saying, that Michael Angelo
had raised the dead. Soderini, the chief magistrate, who deemed
himself bound, in his official capacity, to patronize art, and who,
perhaps, imagined that criticism is at once the most enlightened
and the most condescending form of patronage, said, as he
looked at the statue, " The nose is too large." The artist
mounted the scaffold with a chisel in one hand and a little
marble dust in the other, and pretended to work upon the face,
letting the dust fall as if he were. Shortly he turned ubout

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" How is it now ?" "Excellent," was the reply, "you have
given it life." The critic was not undeceived, and Michael
Angelo, with proverbial self-confidence, said that Soderini's was
as good as most criticism.

On the accession of Julius II. to the Papal Chair, Michael
was invited to Rome, and received a commission, unlimited as
to expense, to decorate a mausoleum, so gorgeous that it should
hand down patron and artist to posterity. The design was
approved, and the Pope ordered San Gallo, the architect, to
devise the best means for placing the work in St. Peter's. San
Gallo, struck with the grandeur of the design, represented to
His Holiness that such a monument required a chapel that was
worthy of it, at the same time suggesting that St. Peter's was an
old church, and that any alteration would mar the unity of the
building. The Pope listened and pondered, until the purpose
arose in his mind to rebuild St. Peter's itself ; and this was the
origin of that wonderful edifice, which grew slow and stately
for a hundred and fifty years. What great events from tiniest
causes spring ! What remote and subtle analogies run through
life, like a silent spring through its bed of rock and sand ! It
would startle you to be told that Michael Angelo began the
Reformation; but mark the unbroken chain of causes, and
explain them as you may. The great sculptor designs a monu-
ment. The monument demands a worthy shrine. The exist-
ing buildings are all too poor, so that a new one must be built
on purpose. Money is required to finish the building and to
replenish the exhausted treasury. Indulgences are sold to raise
the money. Tetzel the friar, licensed hawker in this sorry
trade, travels into Saxony to sell them. Martin Luther is
startled, protests, searches, is converted, becomes a witness,

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girds himself for the battle, shakes the world. And so Michael
Angelo began the Reformation.

Upon the later years of this great man we may not longer
dwell. His paintings in the Sistine Chapel establish his fame
as a painter. His conspicuous share in the building of St.
Peter's assures his architectural reputation. His works, as
Master of the Ordnance in Florence, are monuments of his
engineering skill. His sonnets shew a refined and tender soul,
and no small mastery of the art of poetry. Sculptor, painter,
architect, mechanician, poet; unparalleled in some, in others
holding his own against the loftiest ; excellent in all ; living to
enjoy the wealth which his labour had earned ; unable to rid
himself of the flattery for which he cared so little ; the stern-
ness and jealousy of his earlier years mellowing with the deeper
study and the firmer faith ; not unloved, although Venus some-
how dropped out of his horoscope, but receiving the homage of
beautiful and gifted women. What crown could you put upon
a destiny like his, except that " which fadeth not away ? " Add
to his other names the name of Christian, which there is reason
to believe you may lawfully do, and you have one of the highest
styles of men, second only to those whose lives have been a
grand self-sacrifice, or who, after years of unrewarded labour,
have got the glory of the martyr's grave. Michael Angelo lived
through a pilgrimage of ninety years, and then, in his will,
committed his soul to God, his body to the earth, and his
possessions to his nearest relatives, adding that he died in
the faith of Jesus Christ, and in the firm hope of a better life.
His own words will fittingly close this endeavour to recall
and exhibit him :

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Sculpture and painting ! rival arts !

Ye can no longer soothe my breast
'Tis love Divine alone imparts

The promise of a future rest.
On that my steadfast soul relies, —

My trust the Cross, my hope the skies

In the church of San Marco is the pulpit from which SAVON-
AROLA spoke in thunder ; in the adjoining convent is the cell
in which he wrote, and in the Piazza, Gran Duca, the fountain
of Neptune stands upon the spot where his soul went out in fire.
Any notice of Florence would be imperfect which should omit
the reference to this courageous martyr for the truth. Just a
generation after the ashes of John Huss had been given to the
waters of the Rhine, he was born at Ferrara. He was early
steeped in the works of Aristotle and Plato, Dante and Petrarch ;
the masters of Grecian philosophy, the masters of Italian song.
In early life also he entered a Dominican convent. Like many
other men of ardent imagination and austere morals, he was
disappointed in a monastic life. He expected to find absorbing
devotion, Christian fellowship, the real deadness to the world
which the cowl and the cloister simulated. He found only
passions intensified by their professed renunciation, languor in
the chapel, and worldliness in the cell. After a seven years'
novitiate he entered upon priest's orders, and as the brother-
hood of the monastery felt that the reputation of Friar Jerome
reflected honour upon his order, they encouraged his desire to
preach, and he accordingly essayed in the church of San Lorenzo
at Florence. The congregation was numerous, and high in ex-
pectation ; but he delivered his sentiments with ungainly action,
in a shrill, uncultivated voice, hesitatingly, and in meagre style,

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so that in a few days the thousands had dwindled down to
twenty-five, and he vowed for the present to abjure the pulpit,
saying " I could not have moved so much as a chicken ; I had
neither voice, lungs, nor style." He felt, however, that the
Divine gift was in him, and like Demosthenes, he spared no
pains to acquire the power of commanding speech. Hence in
four years more we find him again in Florence, named by
Lorenzo the Magnificent Prior -of San Marco, no longer an
ineffective preacher, but a master of the tribune, and of the
hearts of men. The lecture-room soon became too small for the
multitudes who thronged to hear, so he lectured in the convent
garden. Florence had by this time become both a commercial
and a collegiate city, and it was a motley group which the friar
gathered around him. There were merchants, scholars, priests
and princes. Here might be seen the Bohemian, privileged,
above others, with the euchctristic cup ; there, the cultured but
sceptical adversary of ecclesiastical pride. Here would 'be the
enterprising Lombard, there the zealous Wickliffite, and yonder,
looking askance at the gathering, some wary stranger from
Rome j and as the tall spare form of the monk stood forth,
with the sky for the roof of his cathedral, the rosary for
his chancel, and for his incense the sweet breath of a thousand
flowers ; and as he thundered out his denunciations of the
corruptions of the Papacy, and the godlessness of the new
philosophy into which many of its adherents had recoiled ;
every one felt that a power to control and to command abode
in that emaciated frame.

As superior of the convent he was thrown into a new relation
towards Lorenzo ; this relation became at first an embarrass-
ment and then a cause of quarrel. It is difficult to exonerate

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Savonarola from the charge of ingratitude. His independence
revolted from being the Duke's minion, but the fear of being
so regarded became a morbid one, and induced a studied
discourtesy towards his patron which was as marked as it was
bold and unlovely. San Marco had been built by the Medici, by
them enriched with a costly library, raised by their munificence
to a position of prosperity, and even of grandeur. Savonarola
himself was indebted to Lorenzo for his introduction to Florence,
and for the office which gave him all his power. There was a
respect which would have been graceful, and a courtesy which
he might have paid without compromising his principles by the
breadth of a hair. The monk, however, was haughtier than
the Medici, and, in his scorn of patronage, exhibited the pro-
verbial "falsehood of extremes." It was a custom to pay a
visit to Lorenzo when the new Prior was installed. Savonarola
refused to go. "Who elected me Prior, God, or Lorenzo?"
Of course the monks said God. " Then to God I will give
thanks, and not to mortal man." The Duke, anxious to con-
ciliate, sent some valuable presents. These Savonarola coldly
received and coarsely alluded to : " the good dog will always
bark to defend his master's house, and, if a thief comes, and
tries to quiet him by throwing him a bone or a morsel, the good
dog just picks it up, drops it on one side, falls a barking again,
and bites the thief." Lorenzo was present when Savonarola
spoke these words, and could hardly fail to make the application.
This irritating collision, however, was soon ended by Lorenzo's
untimely death. On his death-bed he gave the most unequivo-
cal mark of confidence by sending for Savonarola in preference
to his own confessor, "for," he said, " I have not found another
religious except him." It is said that in this latest interview

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the monk insisted upon three conditions before he would absolve
the dying man. First — a spiritual one, — that he should exercise
a lively faith ; second — a pecuniary one, — that he should restore
whatever had been acquired by unlawful means ; and third — a
political one, — that he should loose Florence from the Medicean
yoke, and re-establish the republic as of old. Lorenzo promised
the two first, but demurred to the last, shrewd enough to see
that to give such a promise was utterly out of his power ; honest
enough to refuse to disinherit his children of the authority which
the State had conferred upon his family ; and manly enough,
even with the death-dews on his brow, to protest against politi-
cal conditions of salvation, and to shake loose from the intoler-
able tyranny which would gag the departing spirit, and hide
from it, beneath the cloak of a spurious patriotism, the Cross
of an insulted Saviour.

After the death of Lorenzo, Savonarola entered with holy
boldness upon that wider career in which we may follow him
with admiration almost kindling into rapture. A preacher,
famed for eloquence ; a prophet, stern as Ezekiel in the inspired,
or Cassandra in the fabled canon ; a vigorous reformer both in
church and state ; a legislator among distracted counsels ; he
seemed to be possessed with the great idea of destiny, and went
on his course heedless of discord or danger. He knew that it
was impossible to speak as he had spoken without gathering
against himself a rancorous opposition, and the hatred of that
relentless enemy which dogs its victims to the death. " Do
you ask me," he says, " in general what will be the end of the
conflict ? I answer, Victory ! But if you ask me in particular,
then I answer Death. But death is not extinction. Rather it
serves to spread abroad the light." His own mind, though it

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had largely freed itself from errors of morality, was still, and
indeed always, bound by superstitions of doctrine. He stood
among the ages, midway between two great periods, orphan of
the old, prophet of the new, like Noah among the worlds of
God. While behind him was the thick darkness, and before
him the glorious morning, he lived and died in the gloaming,
with dim ideas of truth and power which it was never given him
fully to comprehend. Hence sacramental efficacy and personal
trust in Christ ; reverence for the Scriptures and pretension to
an immediate revelation; the profoundest humility and the
most marvellous fanaticism, alternated from his lips and in his
life.

Under his influence the reformation of morals in the city was
wonderful. Monasteries became pure, the churches crowded.
His was no Ash Wednesday denunciation, following upon a
permitted carnival. The carnival itself was restrained in its
excesses, and religious entertainments were publicly given, to
which the masses of the people thronged. Eight thousand
children were banded into a sort of juvenile republic, and were
called " The Children of Jesus Christ." They attended service
in procession, stood by little portable altars in the streets on
feast-days, soliciting the offerings of the people, and went from
house to house, begging for immodest pictures, and vanities of
apparel or furniture, which were given up to them to be destroyed.
On the last day of Lent there was a grand and general burning.
A pyramid was reared in one of the large squares, the inside of
which was rilled with combustibles, and on the steps of which,
rising to the apex, were the motley vanities which were to be
given to the fire. Latin and Italian poems, music-books, cards,
lutes, pictures, false hair, looking-glasses, wigs, beards, masks,

N*

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chequer-boards, cosmetics and perfumes, all were devoted in this
harmless auto-da-fe. Four captain-boys, each with his torch,
fired a corner when the trumpets gave the signal, the bells rang,
the people shouted, the flames rose and swelled, and in a few
moments luxuries and works of art and imagination, the hair-
dresser's stock-in-trade, the life-labours of the artist and the
poet, were reduced to ashes. The intention of all this was
doubtless good, and if the heart went with the sacrifice, and it
was not a self-righteous complacency in trampling upon pride
with greater pride, it might be a consecration as sublime as the
burning of books at Ephesus ; if otherwise, it was a notable act
notwithstanding ; it is a perpetual testimony of Savonarola's
power.

Meanwhile the breach between the monk and the Papacy
grew wider day by day. Alexander VI., who then filled the
papal chair, perfidious, licentious, venal, covetous, cruel, to a
degree so shameless that he, Borgia of the Borgias, stands on a
bad eminence of his own, was not likely to commend himself
to the Florentine monk's good will. The Pope first silenced
him in the pulpit, but by the interference of the magistrates the
inhibition was withdrawn. The next step was an endeavour to
bribe him. " Give him a red hat, and so make at once a
cardinal and a friend." Savonarola answered from the pulpit
of St. Mark, " I will have no other red hat than that of martyr-
dom, coloured with my own blood." Then came the trial to
get the monk into his power, by the proposal, in a very affec-
tionate letter, of a journey to Rome. His answer was that his
preaching was very useful in Florence, and that he begged to be
excused. After the invitation came a brief, commanding him
to appear in Rome. He answered the letter, but did not obey

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the summons, and, after a few weeks' silence, preached again in
disregard of the Pontiff, saying he was urged to do so by Him
who is prelate of prelates and pope of popes. Attempts were
made to take his life, by stiletto and poison, and ruffian hands
— all of which were frustrated by the Providence of God, and
by the watchfulness and valour of his friends. Invitation, inhi-
bition and brief having failed to subdue the unconquerable spirit,
Alexander proceeded further, and, in the Lent of 1498, fulmi-
nated the Bull of Excommunication. But the monk had got
long past the age at which so very harmless a thing could make
him tremble. Hear his answer : " He who commands a thing
contrary to the law of Christ, is himself excommunicated. On
what side then wilt thou stand ? Shall they be blessed whom
the Pope blesses, although their life is the curse of Christendom,
or shall they be excommunicated whom he excommunicates,
although all the fruits of the Spirit be displayed in their life.
I may have failed in many respects, for I am a sinner, but I
have not failed, inasmuch as I have preached the Gospel of
Christ freely and without fear of man. They threaten, too, that
they will not bury us. That will give me no concern when I
am dead. Fling me into the Arno if you will, my body will be
found in the judgment, and that is enough."

Florence, however, was not equally brave. She had before
her the terrors of interdict, and war, and the possible extinction
of the state, so that her fickle people and her cowardly magis-
trates became the betrayers of the man who had deserved so
well of their city. He was arrested under a safe conduct, after
a night attack upon the convent, and upon his friends in the
streets, which, in its measure, was a minor St. Bartholomew.
Of course the safe conduct was violated. It could not be other-

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wise, when fear and hate combined to make his death a neces-
sity. The closest examination furnished no proof either of
sedition or impiety. Then the torture was applied, until beneath
its agony he was weary of his life. Still there was nothing to crimi-
nate him, until a heartless rogue, Ser Coccone by name, altered
and interpolated one of his written statements, so as to serve
the purpose of his foes. And on this forged confession, brought
about by an artifice which Savonarola disdained to expose, the
iniquitous mockery ended, and he was adjudged to die. The
official record says : " On the said 23rd day of May " (that is,
May, 1498) " Friar Jerome, Friar Dominic, and Friar Silvester
were degraded at 13 of the clock, and then burnt in the Piazza
de Signori." Three platforms were erected in front of the
palace. Savonarola was taken up into the presence of a Bishop,
clad in priestly robes. Then, piece by piece, the vestments
were removed in the presence of the multitude, and the Bishop
pronounced the degradation : " I separate thee from the Church
Militant and from the Church Triumphant." " Nay," said the
intrepid spirit, " from the Church Militant if you please, but not
from the Church Triumphant, that is more than you can do."
He then mounted the pile, uttered but one sentence, "O
Florence, what hast thou done this day ? " Soon there was a
glowing heap of ashes, from whose heart, as if in a fiery chariot,
a man had arisen to the throne of God.

The re-action soon set in. Ere yet the flames of the martyr-
fire were quenched, noble matrons and citizens, faithful to the
last, snatched some of the charred bones as treasures more
precious than gold. By order of the commune the ashes were
thrown into the river, that they might be scattered beyond
recovery. But, as in the case of all such impotent persecution,

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they could not kill the living words nor the immortal memory.
That memory became an inspiration to the Italian people. It
stirred them to a deep-seated anger against both ecclesiastical
and civil oppression. Priests who courted popularity were forced
to emulate Friar Jerome the martyr. Medals were struck in his
honour, and sold under the eye and with the approbation of a
future pope. Poetry embalmed his virtues, and associated him
with freedom and piety ; at this day the friends of religious
liberty inscribe his name upon their banners ; and as his words
of fire " Italia renovabitur " (Italy shall be renewed,) pass monthly
into thousands of Italian homes, they stir every worthy purpose
into life, and at once eloquence and prophecy shrine him in a
remembrance as fragrant and more inspiring than the violets
which for centuries regretful Florence was wont to strew upon
the pavement of his doom.

The present state of Florence, and indeed of all the cities of
the free Italian Kingdom, entails solemn responsibility upon the
witnesses for God. The successive blows which have been
already struck at the Papacy, and the bolder political changes
which are sure to come, have of necessity brought with them
much spiritual unsettlement and indecision. The whole coun-
try is in transition. Popery, as a vital force creative of other
forces, a power from the heart upon the life, has lost its hold.
It survives, a ceremonial, as a tradition, as an engine of political
power, but as a conviction, a faith, an incarnation of the Divine,
it lives no longer. There is fear lest in the fierce rebound from
its discovered vanity, the nation should rush into infidelity
defiant and terrible. Now is the time for Christian work. The
people enquire. There is hunger of heart for knowledge. The
people are filled with strange yearnings. There is hunger of

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heart for rest. The people are elate with the new intemperance
of freedom. Can there be a nobler opportunity or a stronger
need for Catholic-hearted Christianity to satisfy the avarice for
knowledge by the revelation of God and His Christ j to still
the quick trouble by the Gospel's divinest peace ; to tell to the
liberated, even in the fever of their joy, that

" He is the freeman whom the Truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside."

Yes ! Italy shall be renewed. There is an inner truth which
like a sound of power goes ringing through the ages, in Savo-
narola's prophetic word. The light, which was the morning
twilight to him, has climbed higher up the sky, and is broaden-
ing fast into a noon of splendour. Yes ! Italy shall be renewed.
The pure truth shall win its way, in spite of hindrance and
insult, against banded foes, or traitorous or time-serving friends.
The historical prestige of Popery has departed from it. France
will never reproduce a House of Guise, nor Spain a Duke of
Alva. The great wild souls who united a brilliant chivalry with
a prostrate faith, have passed away. No martial Julius or
strong-souled Leo will fill the Papal chair. The world is moving
on. Men's minds march to its progress. The flowers upon
the martyrs' graves will suggest the harvests which their offspring
may gather, till

" They who have strewn the violets reap the corn,

And having reaped and garnered, bring the plough
And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn,
And plant the great Hereafter in the Now."

Meanwhile, let the Anglo-Saxon race see to it that it be not
again enslaved. The onset is steady and determined. Warders

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slumber at ease upon their posts. Traitors play into the enemy's
hands. Already the light is in the eye, and the boast upon the
lips, as if with the assurance of victory. And shall it really be
so ? Discrowned and fugitive in the lands where it has been
accustomed to be honoured, is the error to find shelter and
royalty in lands whose freedom dates from the shivering of her
yoke of old ? With the sun shining in the heavens, are we to
choose the crypt for a dwelling ? With the healing air at hand,
shall we abide in the red-crossed houses where the plague waits
for its prey ? The wizards " peep and mutter/' and croon in
their distempered age — is it among homes of liberty that their
ancient spells are to prevail ? I am no prophet, nor the son of
one, but I know this, if such a day should come it will be in an
oblivion of history and in an eclipse of faith ; it will be from a
fatal indifference or from a spurious charity ; it will be when
Anglo-Saxons shall have sunk into a degenerate manhood, whose
eye kindles with no holy pride as they recall their gallant sires.
Never more than to-day were needed the men of calm and
resolute faith. Brothers, to your knees and to your ranks ! To
your knees in humblest supplication — to your ranks in steadfast
braver}' which no foe can cause to quail. Stand forth in courage
and in gentleness for the Truth which you believe to be allied
to Freedom, and Progress, and God. Be so strong that you are
not afraid to be just. Cherish a tender humanity and a catholic
heart. In your righteous anger against destructive error, show
your manly compassion for the souls which bad systems enslave.
Then take your stand, calm and moveless as the stars, and say
to ultramontane insolence and error : " The advancing tide shall
not be rolled back with our good will. Our civil freedom ! Our
reformed faith ! Our unsealed and open Bible ! These are our

231

FLORENCE AND THE FLORENTINES.

landmarks, and they shall not be taken away. Amid many
divisions these are our points of rallying. We abide here.
Touch not this ark of our covenant We will guard it, we will
possess it, until we die I"

THE HUGUENOTS.

r**

THE HUGUENOTS.

FROM the Reformation, may be dated a new era in the
history of history. As presented to us in the writings of
the older historians, history consisted, for the most part, of
the bare recital of events, unaccompanied by philosophical
reflections, or by any attempt to discover the mutual relations
and tendencies of things. After the Reformation, the adherents
of the rival churches, each from his own standpoint, moralised
upon that wondrous revolution, and upon the circumstances,
political and social, which introduced and attended it. That
which had been chronicle thus became controversy. Writers
not only narrated events, but fringed them with the hues of
their own thought, and impressed upon them the bias of their
own opinions, and as one result of this there sprang up the
Philosophy of History. Men began to think that if the Reform-
ation, and the events connected with it, might be canvassed in
their sources and issues, all national changes, all events upon
the mighty stream of tendency, might be legitimately subjected
to similar criticism. Gradually this survey of the past took a
loftier stand, and spread over a wider range. The causes of the
rise and fall of empires - the elements of national prosperity or

0 235

THE HUGUENOTS.

decline — the obsoleteness or adaptation of various forms of
government — the evidences of growth and transition among
the peoples of mankind, — all in their turn were made matters
of historical inquiry. Thus history, at first narrative and then
polemical, has become, in our day, a record of progress, a
triumphal eulogy of the growth of civilization.

But both writers and readers of history form an unworthy
estimate of its province if they restrict it within such limits.
They only realise its mission who see in its transitions the
successive developments of Providence, ever working, without
pause and without failure, the counsel of the Divine will. It is
not enough, if we would study history aright, that we should
follow in the track of battle, and listen to the wail of the
vanquished and the shouts of conquerors ; it is not enough
that we should philosophically analyse the causes of upheaval
and remodelling ; it is not enough that we regard it as a
school for the study of character, and gaze, with an admiration
that is almost awe, upon the " world's foster-gods," the stal-
wart nobility of mankind ; it is not enough that we should regard
it as a chaos of incident, " a mighty maze, and all without a
plan :" we realise the true ideal of history only when we discover
God in it, shaping its ends for the evolution of His own design,
educing order from its vast confusions, resolving its complica-
tions into one grand and marvellous unity, and making it a
body of completeness and symmetry, with Himself as the
informing soul.

Let this faith be fastened on our spirits, and history becomes
a beautiful study. The world is seen linked to Christ — an
emerald rainbow round about His throne. In His great purpose
its destiny^of glory is secure. There is sure warrant for the

THE HUGUEXOTS.

expectation of that progress of which the poet-watchers have so
hopefully sung \ progress unintermitting, through every disaster
of the past, heralding progress yet diviner in every possibility
of the future. The eye of sense may trace but scanty fore-
shadowings of the brightness ; there may be dark omens in the
aspects of the times — and the wistful glance, strained through
the darkness, may discern but faint traces of the coming of the
day ; but it shall come, and every movement brings it nigher —
for " the Word of the Lord hath spoken it," and that Word
" endureth for ever/'

In our study of the history of France, or, indeed, of any other
nation, we must remember certain peculiarities which, though
apparently of small account, are influential elements in national
progress, and means towards the formation of national character.
Each race, for example, has its distinctive temperament, which
it transmits from generation to generation. The character which
Caesar gave of the Gallic tribes two thousand years ago is, in
its most noticeable features, their character still. "They are
warlike, going always armed, ready on all occasions to decide
their differences by the sword ; a people of great levity, little
inclined to idleness ; hospitable, generous, confiding and sincere."
This transmission of qualities, while it fosters the pride of a
nation, stamps upon it an individuality, and prevents the adop-
tion of any general changes which have no affinity with the
national mind.

In like manner the traditions of a nation are potent influences
in national culture. The memory of its heroes, and of the
battle-fields where their laurels were won ; of its seers of science,
its prophets of highest-mounted mind ; of its philosophers, the
high priests of nature ; of its poets, who have played upon the

237

THE HUGUENOTS.

\ people's heart as upon a harp of many strings ; of its great men,
'who have excited wonder ; of its good men, who have inherited
Hove ; all the old and stirring recollections of the romantic past
which flush the cheek and brighten the eye ; all these are sub-
stantive tributaries to an empire's education, and aid us in
forming our estimate of its career and destiny.

But more potent than either of the causes we have mentioned
are those external agencies which from time to time arise, in the
course of events, to stamp a new form and pressure on the
world. The sacred isolation of the Hebrew commonwealth —
the schools of Greece — the militocracy of Rome — the advent of
the Redeemer — the Mohammedan imposture — feudalism, with
its blended barbarity and blessing — the Crusades — the invention
of Printing — the Reformation, — all these were not only incidents
but POWERS, each of them exerting an appreciable influence
upon the character of the nations of mankind. In tracing the
history of the Huguenots, therefore, we are not merely following
the fortunes of a proscribed people, nor reciting a tale of indi-
vidual suffering — we are depicting the history of France, we are
evolving the subtle cause of that mysterious something which
has been, through a long course of years, an element of national
disquiet, which has alternately impelled the attack of passion
orfurthered the schemes of tyranny, and under which that sunny
and beautiful land has groaned in bondage until now.

The doctrines of the Reformation took early root in France.
The simultaneous appearance of its confessors in different
countries is one amongst the many collateral proofs of its
divine origin. Movements which men originate are local and
centralised, arranged in concert, and gathering ripeness from
correspondence and sympathy. When God works there is no

238

THE HUGUENOTS.

barrier in geographical boundaries, nor in the absence of inter-
course. He drops the truth-seed, and it falls into world-wide-
furrows. When the hour is ripe — full-grown, heroic, and ready: —
there springs forth the MAN. Events had long been preparing;
the way for the mighty change. In the Church, whether through
ignorance or faithlessness, pagan ceremonies had been grafted!
upon the "reasonable service" of the worship; discipline had!
become rather a source of immorality than a guard to holiness ;•,
and the traffic in indulgences had shaken the foundations of every
social and moral bond. Former protests against encroachment
and error, though crushed by the strong hand of power, were
not utterly forgotten. The voices of Claude and Vigilantius.
yet echoed in the hearts of many ; traditions of Albigensian
confessors, and of saints in Vaudois valleys, were in numerous;
homes ; the martyr songs of the Lollard and the Hussite lingered
— strange and solemn music — in the air. By and by, in cotem-
poraneous blessing, came the revival of learning and the invention
of Printing. The common mind, waking from its long, deep
slumber, felt itself hungry after knowledge, and more than three
thousand works were given to appease its appetite in the course
of seventy years. The sixteenth century dawned upon nations
in uneasiness and apprehension. Kings, warriors, statesmen,
scholars, people, all seemed to move in a cloud of fear, or
under a sense of mystery, as if haunted by a presentiment of
change. Everything was hushed into a very agony of pause, as
Nature holds her breath before the crash of the thunder. Men
grew strangely bold and outspoken. Reuchlin vindicated the
claims of science against the barbarous teaching of the times.
Ulrich von Hiitten, who could fight for truth if he had not felt its
power, flung down the gage of battle with all the knightly pride

239

THE HUGUENOTS.

of chivalry. Erasmus, the clear-headed and brilliant coward,
lampooned monks and doctors, until cardinals, and even the
pope himself, joined in the common laughter of the world. All
was ready, — the forerunners had fulfilled their mission, and the
Reformation came.

In 1517, Tetzel, the indulgence-peddler, very unwittingly
forced Luther into the van of the battle, and the ninety-five
propositions were posted on the cathedral at Wittemberg.—
In 1518, Bernardin Samson, another craftsman in the sorry
trade, performed in Switzerland the same kind office for Ulrich
Zwingli ; and in 1521, while Luther was marching to the Diet
of Worms, Lefevre, in a green old age, and Farel, in a generous
youth, proclaimed the new evangel in the streets and temples
of one of the cities of France. The city of Meaux was the first
to receive the new doctrine, and Bri9onnet, its bishop, a sincere
protester against error — though not made of the stern stuff which
goes to the composition of heroes — published and circulated
widely an edition of the four gospels in the French language.
So rapid was the spread of the truth, so notable the amendment
in morals throughout the provinces which were pervaded by it,
so loud were the complaints among the monks and priests of
lessened credit and diminished income, that the dignitaries both
of Church and State became alarmed and anxious ; and, as the
readiest way of putting the testimony to silence, they began to
proscribe and imprison the witnesses.

The doctors of the Sorbonne had already declared Luther's
doctrine to be blasphemous and insolent. " such as should be
answered less by argument than by fire and sword." The parlia-
ment, though EO friend to monkish rule, could not understand
why, when people were satisfied with one form of government,

240

THE HUGUENOTS.

they should want two forms of religion. The court, remembering
that the pope had an army at his back which would have
astonished St. Peter not a little even in his most martial
moments, and wishful to secure the aid of that army in the wars
of Italy, favoured the spirit of persecution. Louisa of Savoy,
queen-regent in the absence of her son, who was then a prisoner
at Madrid, asked the Sorbonne, in 1523, " by what means could
the damnable doctrines of Luther be soonest extirpated from
the most Christian kingdom ; " and the clergy, not to be outdone
in zeal, held councils, at which cardinals and archbishops
presided, in which they accused the reformer of "execrable
conspiracy," exhorted the king " to crush the viper's doctrines,"
and proposed to visit yielding heretics with penance and prison,
and to hand over obstinate ones to the tender mercies of the
public executioner.

This combination of purpose soon resulted in acts of atrocity
and blood. The names of Leclerc, Pavanes, and the illustrious
Louis de Berquin, deserve to be handed down to posterity as
the proto-rnartyrs of the Reformation in France. In 1535 there
was a solemn procession through the streets of Paris. Never had
such a pomp of relics been paraded before the awestruck faith-
ful. The veritable head of St. Louis, a bit of the true Cross, one
of the nails thereof, the real crown of thorns, and the actual
spear-head which had pierced the body of the Saviour — all were
exhibited to an innumerable crowd of people, who swarmed upon
the housetops, and sat perched upon every available balcony
or abutment of stone. The shrine of Ste. Genevi^ve, the patron
saint of Paris, was carried very appropriately by the corporation
of butchers, who had prepared themselves for the occasion by
a fast of several days' duration. Cardinals and archbishops

241

THE HUGUENOTS.

abounded, until the street was radiant with copes, and robes,
and mitres, like a field of the cloth of gold. In the midst of the
procession came the king, bareheaded, as became a dutiful son
of the Church, and carrying a lighted taper, for the blessed sun
was not sufficient, or its light was too pure and kind. High
mass was celebrated, and then came the choicest spectacle of the
raree-show. Six Lutherans were burned. With their tongues cut
out, lest their utterances of dying heroism should palsy the arm
of the hangman or affect the convictions of the crowd, a move-
able gallows was erected, which alternately rose and fell — now
plunging them into the fire, and now withdrawing them for a
brief space from the flame, until, by the slow torture, they were
entirely consumed. Such was the villainous punishment of the
estrapade — a refinement of cruelty which Heliogabalus might
have envied, and which even the Spanish Inquisition had failed
to invent for its Jewish and Saracen martyrdoms. The execu-
tions were purposely delayed until Francis was returning to
the Louvre. He gazed upon his dying subjects, butchered for
no crime, and the eyes of ecclesiastical and courtly tigers
in his train glared with gladness at the sight of Lutheran
agony.

Shortly after came the yet more horrible butcheries of
M^rindol and Cabri&res, by which the Vaudois of Provence, a
whole race of the most estimable and industrious inhabitants of
France, were exterminated because of their religion. Men,
women, and children were slain in indiscriminate massacre, some
in the frenzy of passion, others, more inexcusably, after a show
of trial, and therefore in cold blood. Their cities were razed to
the ground, their country turned into a desert, and the murderers
went to their work of carnage with the priests' baptism on their

242

THE HUGUENOTS.

swords, and were rewarded for its completion by the prayers and
blessings of the clergy.

The usual results of persecution followed. In the fine old
classical fable the dragons' teeth were sown in the field, and the
startling harvest was a host of armed men. It is a natural
tendency of persecution to outwit itself. A voice is hushed for
the while, but, eloquent though it may have been in its life, there
issues from the sepulchre of the slain witness more audible and
influencing oratory. A community is broken up, and companies
of worshippers are scattered in many lands of exile ; but though
there be dispersion of families, unlike the banishment of Babel,
there is no confusion of tongues ; each in his far-off wandering
becomes a centre of truth and blessing, until " their sound has
gone forth through all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world."

There is something in the inner consciousness of a religious
man which assures him that it must be so. You may practise
on a corpse without let or hindrance. Wrap it in grave-clothes,
it will not complain ; perpetrate indignities upon it, it will be
sealed in silence ; let it down into the cold earth, no rebuke will
protest against its burial. But life is a more intractable thing,
With a touch of the old Puritan humour, it abides not the
imposition of hands ; it will move at liberty and speak with
freedom. Cast among barbarous peoples, when men babble in
strange speech around him, the man who has divine life in his
soul will somehow make it felt; the joy of his bounding spirit,
will speak and sparkle through the eye, if it cannot vibrate on
the tongue ; the new song will thrill from the lips, though
there be only the echoes to answer it ; how much more when
there is the neighbourhood of sensitive and impressible men !

243

THE HUGUENOTS.

Hence you will not wonder that it happened to the Reformed
as it happened to the Israelites of old, "the more they were
vexed, the more they multiplied and grew." The progress of the
Reformation during the closing years of the reign of Francis L,

.and during that of his son and successor, Henry II. , was rapid
and continual. Several large provinces declared for the new
doctrines \ and " some of the most considerable cities in the
kingdom, — Bourges, Orleans, Rouen, Lyons, Bordeaux, Toul-

•ouse, Montpellier, and 'the brave* Rochelle, — were peopled
with the Reformed." It was calculated that in a few years they

.amounted to nearly one-sixth of the entire population, and

.almost all classes ranged beneath the Reformation banner.

'The provincial nobles were nearly all secretly inclined to it.
Merchants who travelled into other countries witnessed the
development, under its influence, of industrial progress, and the

• display of the commercial virtues, and brought home impres-
sions in its favour. The people of the tiers-Mat, who had
received a literary education, perceived its intellectual superi-
ority, and on that account were prejudiced to give it welcome.

-" Especially," says Florimond de Remond, a Roman Catholic
writer, with a simplicity that is amusing, but with an ingenuous-
ness that does him credit, — " Especially painters, watchmakers,

.goldsmiths, image-makers, booksellers, printers, and others,
who in their crafts have any nobleness of mind, were most easily
surprised/' There were, indeed, scarcely any classes which
collectively adhered to Rome, except the higher ecclesiastics,
the nobles of the court, and the fanatic and licentious mob of
the good city of Paris. This was the purest and most flourishing
era of the Reformation in France. They of the Religion, as

Uhey were afterwards called, meddled not with the diplomacy of

244

THE HUGUENOTS.

cabinets, with the intrigues of faction, nor with the feuds of the
rival houses of the realm. " Being reviled, they reviled not
again ; being persecuted, they threatened not, but committed
themselves to Him who judgeth righteously ;" and the record of
their constancy and triumph is on high.

The Reformation in France may be considered as having been
fully established at the time of the first Synod. This was held
at Paris in 1559. From this assembly, to which eleven churches
sent deputies, were issued the " Confession of Faith " and the
"Articles of Discipline," which, with little alteration, were handed
down as the doctrinal and ecclesiastical standards of the Pro-
testants of France.

The reign of Henry II. was mainly distinguishable for the
Edict of Chateaubriand, which made heresy a civil as well as
an ecclesiastical offence, and for the massacre of the Rue St.
Jacques, and the arrest and sentence of the celebrated Anne
Dubourg. The martyrdom of this distinguished and pious
councillor, which the king's death by the lance of Montgomery
did not suspend, inspired many with the persuasion that the
faith professed by such a man could not be a bad one, " melted
the students of the colleges into tears ;" and more damage
accrued to Rome from that solitary martyr-pile than from the
labours of a hundred ministers, with all their sermons.

Meanwhile the affairs of the kingdom were daily involved in
more embarrassing complications. The new king, Francis II.,
the husband of the unhappy Mary Stuart, was imbecile in mind,
and had a sickly constitution of body. The factions of the
realm, which had been partially organized in the preceding
reign, practised upon his youth and feebleness, that he might
aid them in their struggles for power. There were at this time

245

THE HUGUENOTS.

three notable factions in the field, and it may be well for a
moment to suspend our interest in the narrative, that the
dramatis persona may appear upon the scene.

The leaders of the various parties were all remarkable men.
The real heads of the Catholic party were the two celebrated
brothers of the house of Guise. Claude de Lorraine, the
ancestor of the family, came to seek his fortune in France " with
a staff in his hand, and one servant behind him ; but his imme-
diate descendants were all in high places, and wielded, some of
them, a more than regal power. Francis, Duke of Guise, the
eldest son, was a skilful and high-spirited soldier, whose trusty
blade had carved its way to renown in many a well-fought field.
He possessed a sort of barbaric generosity, but was irascible,
unscrupulous, and cruel. He pretended to no learning save in
martial tactics, and held his religion as a sort of profitless entail,
which, with his name, he had inherited from his father.
" Look," said he to his brother, after the massacre at Vassy, " at
the titles of these Huguenot books." " No great harm in that,"
replied the clerkly cardinal ; " that is the Bible." " The Bible !"
rejoined the Duke, in extreme surprise ; " how can that be ?
This book was only printed last year, and you say the Bible is
fifteen hundred years old." Knowing little, and caring less,
about religious controversies, a man of ceaseless energy and
ready sword, he was the strong hand which the crafty head of
the cardinal wielded at his will.

His brother, Charles de Lorraine, Cardinal and Archbishop
of Rheims, of courtly address and pleasing elocution, sagacious
in foresight and skilful in intrigue, was the soul of all the
projects which, ostensibly for the honour of the Holy Church,
were really for the advancement of the fortunes of the house of

246

THE HUGUENOTS.

Lorraine. He was a man of no personal valour, but influential
enough to make a jest of his own cowardice. The pope of that
time — for, in spite of presumed infallibility, popes and cardinals
do not always see eye to eye — was uneasy at his ambition, and
was accustomed to call him " the pope on the other side the
mountains ;" and, in fact, it was the dream of his restless life to
see the crown of France upon his brother's brow, and the tiara
of the supreme pontificate encircling his own.

The chiefs of the Politiques, as they were called, the middle
party in the state, who counselled mutual concession and for-
bearance, were the Chancellor THopital and the Constable de
Montmorency. The chancellor was one of those statesmen of
whom France has reason to be proud. A man of stern integrity,
and of high principle, he worked his way through various offices
of trust into one of the highest positions in the Parliament of
Paris. As superintendent of the royal finances, by his good
management of affairs, and by his inflexible resistance to the
rapacity of court favourites, he husbanded the national resources
and replenished the exhausted treasury. Wise in counsel,
tolerant in spirit, and with views broader than his age, he was
the unfailing advocate of religious freedom. For his efforts in
this behalf he was ultimately deprived of his seals, and ran in
danger of being included in the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
So great was his peril that the queen-mother sent a troop of
horse with express orders to save him. When they told him that
those who made out the list of proscription had forgiven him,
"I was not aware," was his sublime reply, "that I had done
anything to merit either death or pardon."

The Constable de Montmorency was a rough-hewn, valiant
knight, rude in speech and blunt in bearing, of an obstinate

247

THE HUGUENOTS.

disposition and of a small soul. He had two articles in his
creed, — the first, that he was the first Christian baron — and the
second, that the kings whom he served were Catholics. From
these he deduced the very substantial corollary that it was his
duty to shew no quarter to heresy, wherever it was found.
Hence it is almost wonderful that he should have allied himself
with the Moderates in counsel, but the Chatillons, the chief
Huguenot family, were his nephews, and he had an old-fashioned
loyalty towards the princes of the blood. The Abb6 Brantome
has transmitted to us the particulars of his extraordinary piety ;
he fasted regularly every Friday, and failed not to repeat his
paternosters every morning and every night. It is said, however,
that he occasionally interjected some matters which were not in
the Rubric. " Go and hang such a man for me ; tie that other
to a tree ; make that one run the gauntlet ; set fire to every-
thing all round for a quarter of a league;" — and then, with
exemplary precision, would begin again just where he had left
off, and finish his aves and credos as if nothing had happened.

The individual whom circumstances rather than merit had
thrown into the position of one of the leaders of the Huguenot
party, was Antoine de Bourbon, the husband of the heroic
Jeanne D' Albert, and, through her, titular King of Navarre.
Indolent and vacillating — a mere waif thrown upon the wave —
a Calvinist preachment or a Romish auto-da-f& were equally in
in his line, and might both rejoice in the honour of his patro-
nising presence. Destitute both of energy and principle, his
character shaped itself to the shifting occurrences of each
successive day, or to the wayward moods of each successive
companion. The purpose of his life, if that may be so called
which attained no deftniteness and resulted in no action, was

248

THE HUGUENOTS.

to exchange his nominal sovereignty for a real one, over any-
country and upon any terms. He was one of those whom the
words of the poet accurately describe :

' ' So fair in show, but, ah ! in act

So overrun with vermin troubles,
The coarse, sharp-corner'd ugly Fact

Of Life collapses all his bubbles ;
Like a clear fountain, his desire

Exults and leaps towards the light ;
In every drop it says ' Aspire,'

Striving for more ideal height ;
And as the fountain, falling thence,

Crawls baffled through the common gutter,
So, from his bravery's eminence,
He shrinks into the present tense,

Unking'd by sensual bread and butter."

To say that he abjured his faith were to do him too much
honour. The pope's legate, the cardinals, the princes of
Lorraine, and the Spanish ambassador, angled for him as for an
enormous gudgeon, and they baited the hook with crowns.
Tunis in Africa was suggested as a somewhat desirable sover-
eignty. Sardinia, which was represented fertile as Arcadia, and
wealthy as Aladdin's cave, might be had on easy terms. Nay,
Scotland dangled from the glittering line, and the poor befooled
hungerer after royalty put up his conscience to perpetual auction,
and, like others of such unworthy traffickers, " did not increase
his wealth by its price." The Reformation owes nothing to
Antoine of Bourbon. By him the selfish and the worldly were
introduced into its claims, and, shorn of its spiritual strength, it
dwindled in after reigns into a politico-religious partisanship, 3-
menial at the levee of ministers, a sycophant in the audienct

249

THE HUGUENOTS.

rooms of kings. Shame on thee, Antoine of Navarre ! renegade
and companion of persecutors ! the likeness of a kingly crown
is decoration enough for a puppet-head like thine. Pass quickly
out of sight ! for we are longing to look upon a MAN.

Behold him ! Of ordinary stature, his limbs well proportioned,
his countenance tranquil, and with a lambent glory resting
on it, as if he had come recently from some Pisgah of divine
-communion — his voice agreeable and kindly, though, like
Moses, slow of speech — his complexion good, betokening purity
amid courtly licentiousness, and temperance in an age of excesses
— his bearing dignified and graceful — a skilful captain, an illus-
trious statesman, magnanimous in good fortune, unruffled in
•disaster — a patriot whom no ingratitude could alienate — a'
believer whose humble piety probed its own failings to the quick,
but flung the mantle of its charity over the errors of others —
Behold a MAN ! That is Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of
France, the military hero of the Reformation, whose only faults
seem to have been excessive virtues — who was irresolute in
battle because too loyal to his king — who was lacking in sag-
acity because, his own heart all transparent, he could scarcely
realise the perfidy of others — Gaspard de Coligny, who lived
a saint — Gaspard de Coligny, who died a martyr. France en-
graves upon her muster-roll of worthies no braver or more
.stainless name.

Whilst the rival leaders were contending for power, another
influence, which all by turns feared and courted, was that of the
-queen-mother, the many-sided Catharine de Medicis. It is
humiliating to our common nature to dwell upon the portraiture
which, if history says sooth, must be drawn of this remarkable
•woman. Her character is a study. Remorseless without cruelty

250

THE HUGUENOTS.

and sensual without passion — -a diplomatist without principle
and a dreamer without faith — a wife without affection and a
mother without feeling — we look in vain for her parallel. She
stands " grand and gloomy in the solitude of her own origin-
ality." See her in her oratory ! Devouter Catholic never told his
beads. See her in the cabinet of Ruggieri the astrologer ! Never
glared fiercer eye into Elfland's glamour and mystery — never
were philter and potion (alas ! not all for healing) mixed
with firmer hand. See her in the council-room ! Royal caprice
yielded to her commanding will ; soldiers faltered beneath her
glance who never cowered from sheen of spears nor blenched
at flashing steel ; and hoary headed statesmen, who had made
politics their study, confessed that she outmatched them in her
cool and crafty wisdom. See her in disaster ! More philoso-
phical resignation never mastered suffering; braver heroism
never bared its breast to storm. Strange contradictions are
presented by her, which the uninitiated cannot possibly unravel.
Power was her early and her lifelong idol, but when within her
grasp she let it pass away, enamoured rather of the intrigue
than of the possession — a mighty huntress, who flung the game
in largess to her followers, finding her own royal satisfactions in
the excitement of the chase. Of scanty sensibilities, and with-
out natural affection, there were times when she laboured to
make young lives happy — episodes in her romantic life during
which the woman's nature leaped into the day. Toiling con-
stantly for the advancement of her sons, she shed no tear at
their departure, and sat intriguing in her cabinet, while an old
blind bishop and two aged domestics were the only mourners
who followed her son Francis to the tomb. Sceptical enough
to disbelieve in immortality, she was prudent enough to provide,

P 251

THE HUGUENOTS.

as she imagined, for any contingency; hence she had her
penances to purchase heaven, and her magic to propitiate hell.
Queenly in her bearing, she graced the masque or revel, smiling
in cosmetics and perfumes — but Vicenza daggers glittered in her
boudoir, and she culled, for those who crossed her schemes,
flowers of most exquisite fragrance, but their odour was death.
Such was Catharine de Medicis, the sceptred sorceress of Italy,
for whom there beats no pulse of tenderness, on whom we gaze
with a sort of constrained and awful admiration, as upon an
embodiment of power, — but power cold, crafty, passionless,
cruel — the power of the serpent, which cannot fail to leave
impressions on the mind, but impressions of basilisk eye, and
iron fang, and deadly gripe, and poisonous trail.

The first false step of the Protestants was the enterprise
known as the conspiracy of Amboise. Exasperated by petty
persecutions, and goaded by the remembrance of their wrongs,
they plotted to expel the Guises from the land, and to restore
the real government to the king. Terrible was the vengeance
which succeeded. Twelve hundred conspirators were put to
death without investigation or trial, until the Loire was choked
with the corpses of those who had been flung into its waters to
drown. The immediate results of this ill-concerted scheme
were to establish the Duke of Guise as lieutenant-general of the
kingdom, with a powerful army at his bidding, and to enable
the cardinal to fulminate an edict against heresy, by which it
might be judged and doomed at an Episcopal tribunal. This
roused the Huguenots to passion, and in some parts of the
provinces to arms.

Then followed the Fontainebleau assembly, at which, in
presence of the king and nobles, Coligny presented the petition

252

THE HUGUENOTS.

of the Reformed, asking for the free performance of Protestant
worship. "Your petition bears no signature," said Francis.
" True, Sire," was the admiral's reply ; " but if you will allow us
to meet for the purpose, I will undertake, in one day, to obtain
fifty thousand signatures in Normandy alone." Such an assertion,
from such lips, was no unholy gasconade, but indicated a
threatening and deep reality of danger. As the result of the
debates which followed, as no one seemed able to grasp the
great idea of liberty of conscience, it was agreed that a national
council should be summoned to determine upon the religious
faith of France. The princes of Lorraine had prepared for this
convocation arguments that were somewhat peculiar. One was
the assassination of the princes of Bourbon ; the other was the
banishment of every one who refused to sign a creed of the
cardinal's devising — " a creed," says Jean de Serres, " that no
man of the religion would have either approved or signed for a
thousand lives.'7 The first of these projects failed from some
touch of humanness or cowardice which arrested the kingly
dagger ; the second failed because a pale horse, in the mean-
while, stood before the palace gate, and the rider passed the
wardens without challenge and summoned the young king to
give account at a higher tribunal. The death of Francis was, in
fact, a revolution. For awhile the court became Calvinist,
feasting in Mid-Lent upon all the delicacies of the season,
making sport of images and indulgences, of the worship of the
saints, and of the authority of the pope. Another intrigue,
however, restored the Guises to power, and their return was
marked by the edict of 1561, which she wed at once the animos-
ity and the caution of the princes of Lorraine. The private
worship of the Huguenots was sanctioned, but their public

253

THE HUGUENOTS.

celebrations were forbidden, and they were promised a national
council to adjust all differences of religion. This council met
in the convent of Poissy, on the 9th of the following September.
The boy-king, Charles IX., sat upon the throne. Six cardinals,
with him of Lorraine at their head, and doctors, whose name
was legion, appeared as the Catholic champions. Twelve
ministers and twenty-two deputies from the Calvinistic churches
were by and by admitted, rather as culprits than as disputants.
The Genevese prized the safety of Calvin so highly that they
required securities for his protection, in the absence of which
the more courtly and eloquent Beza appeared in his stead. The
discussion, like all others, failed utterly of the purpose which it
was intended to effect. A dispute arose about the laws of the
combat, and about the very issue that was put upon its triaL
What were to be the questions of debate? " The whole round
of the doctrines," said the Huguenots. " The authority of the
Church, and the Real Presence in the sacrament," said the
creatures of the cardinal. What was to be the test ? " Holy
Scripture as interpreted by tradition, and by the Fathers and
Councils," said the followers of the Papacy. " Holy Scripture
alone," was the sturdy reply of the Reformed. Who are to
adjudge the victory ? " The civil government," said Beza and
his friends. "The Church authorities," was the Romanist
rejoinder. Why dispute at all when all the conditions of con-
troversy seem so hopelessly involved ? Both parties agree in the
answer — " Not to overcome our antagonists, but to encourage
our friends." We shall not wonder, after this, that the colloquy
at Poissy came to a speedy and resultless conclusion. The
Huguenots were at this time estimated by the chancellor to
amount to one-fourth of the population, and though such calcu-

254

THE HUGUENOTS.

lations are of necessity uncertain, it is evident that they were no
obscure sectaries, but a compact and powerful body, who could
demand privilege in worship and redress from wrong. The
Guises, however, were incessant in their hostility ; and after the
secession of the frivolous Antoine of Navarre, who, with the
proverbial animosity of the renegade, was rancorous in his
hatred of his former friends, they sought aid for the extirpation
of heresy from the forces of Spain, As the Duke of Guise was
marching to Paris in support of this enterprise, he heard the
bells of the little town of Vassy, in the province of Champagne,
summoning the faithful to their prayers. With an oath he
exclaimed, " They shall soon Huguenotize in a very different
manner," and he ordered them to be attacked. Unarmed as
they were, they could only defend themselves with stones. It
is said that one of these stones struck the Duke upon the face,
and that in his anger he let loose upon them all the fury of his
armed retainers. Sixty were left dead upon the spot, and two
hundred more were severely, some mortally, wounded. The
news of this onslaught was carried speedily to Paris, and the
Duke on his entry had a triumphal ovation from the populace,
whom the priests had taught to regard him as the Judas Macca-
bseus of his country — the heaven-sent and heaven-strengthened
defender of their endangered faith. Encouraged by his success
he seized upori the persons of the queen-mother and her son,
and kept them in strict though gentle captivity. Then the whole
land was roused. The butchery of those unarmed worshippers
was the red rain which made the battle-harvest grow. Fearfully
was the slaughter of those slain witnesses avenged ; for from the
massacre at Vassy, and from the seizure of the king, may be
dated the commencement of the sad wars of religion ; and of all

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THE HUGUENOTS.

wars there are none so fierce and so terrible as those of intestine
strife, when fanaticism sounds the clarion and nerves the frantic
hand —

" When rival nations, great in arms,

Great in power, in glory great,
Rush in ranks at war's alarms,

And feel a temporary hate ;
The hostile storms but rage awhile,

And the tired cortest ends ;
But oh I how hard to reconcile

The foes that once were friends."

It is not Qur province to dwell largely upon the sad period
which followed, nor to enter here into the vexed question as to
how far the use of the sword is, under any circumstances,
defensible for the maintenance of religion. War is a terrible
scourge, one of the direst and most appalling of the effects of
sin. There is no more Christianity in the consecration of
banners than there is in the baptism of bells ? They who battle
for the glory of renown, or for the lust of dominion — sin. The
conqueror, who fights for conquest merely, is but a butcher on
a grander scale : and even in the sternest necessity that can
compel to arms, so deceitful is the human heart, so easily can it
mistake pride for patriotism, and baptize the greed of glory with
the inspirations of religion, that we must ever feel that the camp
should not be the chosen school for godliness, and that they
have deepest need to claim a Saviour's intercession who have
to meet their Maker with sword-hilt stained with slaughter,
and with the hands, uplifted in the dying litany, all crimsoned
with a brother's blood. The sentiments of Agrippa d'Aubign£,
a historian of the sixteenth century, (whose name has again
become illustrious in the field of historic literature in the person

256

THE HUGUENOTS.

of Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, his lineal descendant,) are worthy of
being mentioned here. " It is ever worthy of note that, when-
ever the Reformed were put to death under the form of justice,
however unjust and cruel the proceedings, they presented their
necks, and never made use of their hands. But when public
authority and the magistrates, tired of kindling the piles, had
flung the knife into the hands of the mob, and by the tumults
and wholesale massacres of France had deprived justice of her
venerable countenance, and neighbour murdered neighbour by
sound of trumpet and by beat of drum, who could forbid these
unhappy men opposing force to force, and sword to sword, and
catching the contagion of a just resentment from a resentment
destitute of all justice ? Let foreign nations decide which party
has the guilt of civil war branded on its forehead."

Both parties asked for aid from other nations in the struggle.
Spearmen from Spain, and soldiers from Italy, obeyed the sum-
mons of the pontiff to the new crusade ; Germans and English
enrolled for the assistance of the Huguenots ; and the Swiss,
with mercenary impartiality, stood ready for the cause which
had the longest purse and readiest pay. Both sides put forth
manifestoes, both professed to be moved with zeal for the glory
of God, and both swore fealty to their lawful sovereign. At the
commencement of hostilities the Huguenots gained some
advantages, but they wasted their time in useless negotiation
while their adversaries acted with vigour. They laboured, in-
deed, under the misfortune of being led by the Prince de Cond6,
who, though a brave soldier, was of the blood-royal of France,
and might one day, if he did not commit himself too far, be
lieutenant-general of the kingdom. It is a grievous thing, in
a struggle for principle, to be cursed with a half-hearted com-

257

THE HUGUENOTS.

mander. Fancy the sturdy Puritans of our own country led to
battle by some gay Duke of Monmouth, instead of " trusting in
God, and keeping their powder dry" at the bidding of Ireton
and Cromwell !

The death of Antoine of Navarre, who was mortally wounded
at the siege of Rouen, the fall of Marshal St. Andr6 on the field
of Dreux, and the assassination of the Duke of Guise, which to
the soured temper of the homicide seemed but a legitimate act
of reprisal, were the occasions of that suspension of hostilities
which resulted in the hollow treaty of Amboise. It satisfied
neither party, and was at best only an armed truce, during which
frightful enormities were committed on both sides. War speedily
broke out again, and the Catholics triumphed on the plains of
St. Denis, though the Constable de Montmorency, the last of
the triumvirs, died of a wound which he had received upon the
field. Again, during the progress of the conflict, did the
Huguenots appear to prevail ; but again did the matchless
cunning of the queen-mother triumph over the unstable leader,
and he signed the peace of Longjumeau, "which," says Mezerai,
" left his party at the mercy of their enemies, with no other
security than the word of an Italian woman." The treaty never
existed save on paper; the foreign mercenaries were still
retained in the kingdom ; the pulpits resounded with the doc-
trine that no faith should be kept with heretics ; the streets of
the cities were strewed with the corpses of the Huguenots, ten
thousand of whom, in three months of treaty, were barbarously
slain. The officer of the Prince de Cond6, while carrying the
terms of peace, was arrested and beheaded, in defiance of the
king's safe -conduct ; and the prince and the admiral, fleeing
from an enemy whom no ties could restrain nor oaths could

258

THE HUGUENOTS.

bind, flung themselves into the city of Rochelle. Thither came
the heroic Queen of Navarre with an army of four thousand
men ; thither flocked also the most renowned captains of the
party ; so that, at the commencement of the third war of religion
the Huguenots had at command a more considerable force than
ever, and Coligny repeated the aphorism of Themistocles —
" My friends, we should have perished if we had not been
ruined." On the bloody fields of Jarnac and Montcontour,
where the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III., won his first
spurs of fame, their ruin seemed to be complete, for their army
was well nigh exterminated ; and of their leaders, the Prince de
Cond6 and d'Andelot, the brother of Coligny, were slain ; and
the admiral himself was carried, weary and wounded, from the
field. But nothing could daunt the spirit of this brave soldier,
and while the victors were quaffing their nectar of triumph, and
carousing in the flush of victory, he appeared before the gates of
Paris at the head of a still stronger and better disciplined army.
Again peace was concluded, and the Reformed in appearance
obtained more favourable terms. The leaders came to Paris,
and were received with fair show of amity by the king and court;
but it was only a brief interval of repose, soon to be succeeded
by dismay and confusion, for even then the dark Italian and
the fanatic Spaniard were brooding over the fierce tragedy to
follow.

For the honour of humanity let us pass rapidly over the
massacre of St. Bartholomew — that premeditated and most
infamous atrocity. On the 24th August, 1572, at the noon
of night — fit time for deeds of blood — the queen-mother and
her two guilty sons were shivering in all the timidness of
cruelty in the royal chamber. They maintained a sullen

259

THE HUGUENOTS.

silence, for conscience had made cowards of them all. As
they looked out uneasily into the oppressed and solitary
night, a pistol shot was heard. Remorse seized upon the
irresolute monarch, and he issued orders to arrest the tragedy.
It was too late, for the royal tigress at his side, anticipating
that his purpose might waver, had already commanded the
signal, and even as they spoke the bell of St. Germain aux
Auxerrois tolled, heavy and dooming, through the darkness.
Forth issued the courtly butchers to their work of blood. At
the onset the brave old admiral was massacred, and the
Huguenots in the Louvre were despatched by halberdiers,
with the Court ladies looking on. Armed men, shouting
" For God and the king," traversed the streets, and forced
the dwellings of the heretics. Sixty thousand assassins, wield-
ing all the weapons of the brigand and the soldier, ran about
on all sides, murdering, without distinction of sex or age, or
suffering, all of the ill-fated creed ; the air was laden with a
tumult of sounds, in which the roar of arquebus and the crash
of hatchet mingled with blaspheming taunt and dying groan.

" For hideously, 'mid rape and sack,
The murderer's laughter answered back
His prey's convulsive laughter."

The populace, already inflamed by the sight of blood, followed
in the track of slaughter, mutilating the corpses and dragging
them through the kennels in derision. The leaders, the Dukes
of Guise, Nevers and Montpensier, riding fiercely from street to
street, like the demons of the storm, roused the passion into
frenzy by their cries — " Kill, kill ! Blood-letting is good in
August. By the king's command. Death to the Huguenot !
Kill ! " On sped the murder, until city and palace were gorged.

260

THE HUGUENOTS.

Men forgot their manhood, and women their tenderness. In
worse than Circean transformation, the human was turned into-
the brutal, and there prowled about the streets a race of ghouls
and vampires, consumed with an appetite for blood. The roads-
were almost impassable from the corpses of men, women, and
children — a new and appalling barricade ; " The earth was
covered thick with other clay, which her own clay did cover."
Paris became one vast Red Sea, whose blood-waves had no
refluent tide. The sun of that blessed Sabbath shone, with its
clear kind light, upon thousands of dishonoured and desolate
homes ; and the air, which should have been hushed from
sound until the psalm of devotion woke it, carried upon its
startled billows the yells of blasphemers, flushed and drunk
with murder, and the shrieks of parting spirits, like a host of
unburied witnesses, crying from beneath the altar unto God,.
" How long, O Lord, how long ! "

The massacre was renewed in the provinces. For seven long
days Paris was a scene of pillage. Fifteen thousand in the
capital, and one hundred thousand throughout the whole of
France, are supposed to have perished, many by the edge of
the sword, and many more by the protracted perils of flight and
of famine.

Consider all the circumstances of St. Bartholomew's massacre ;,
the confederacy which plotted it in secret ; the complicity
of the king and court ; the snares laid for the feet of the
Huguenots ; the solemn oaths of safety under whose attesta-
tion they were allured to Paris ; the kisses by which, like the
Redeemer whom they honoured, they were betrayed to ruin ;
the dagger of wholesale murder, whetted upon the broken tables-
of the Decalogue, and put by priests and nobles into the hands,

261

THE HUGUENO TS.

of a maddened crowd ; the long continuance of the carnage —
the original as it was of the Reign of Terror ; and, lastly, the
uplifting of red hands in thanksgiving, the ringing of joy-bells
-at Madrid and Rome, and the baptism of all this horrible
butchery by the insulted name of religion ; — and we cannot
avoid the conclusion that nothing in the annals of human
history involves such flagrant violations both of earthly and
heavenly law ; that there is a combination of atrocious elements
about it for which we look elsewhere in vain ; and that it stands,
in unapproachable turpitude, the crime without a shadow and
without a parallel.

We dwell upon the wars of religion and the tragedy of St.
Bartholomew, not to keep alive old animosities, but to induce
our thankfulness that we live in kindlier times ; to inspire a
more reverent appreciation of the priceless heritage of religious
freedom ; and, not least, to impress upon our hearts the truth
that banded armies and battle's stern array are no meet mission-
aries of "the truth as it is in Jesus." Oh, never, we may boldly
say it, never did the cruelties of war, nor the tortures of tyranny,
advance one iota the cause of our holy religion. The Crusader's
lance reclaimed no Saracen from his error. The scimitar of the
Moslem might establish a military domination, but the fear of it
wrought no spiritual change. Covenanters still gathered in the
dark ravine, and raised the perilous psalm, though the sleuth-
hound tracked them through the wild wood, and some, whom
the soldiers of Claverhouse had slaughtered, were missing from
each successive assembly. With the torture and the stake in
prospect the coward lip might falter, and the recreant hand might
sign the recantation, but the heart would be Protestant still.
Christianity is a spiritual kingdom, and no carnal weapons

262

THE HUGUENOTS.

glitter in her armoury. To her zealous but mistaken friends
who would do battle for her she addresses the rebuke of her
Master, " Put up thy sword into its sheath again, for they that
take the sword shall perish with the sword." A beautiful and
healing presence ! she comes to soothe, not to irritate — to-
unite, not to estrange. Oh, believe me, Christianity forges na
fetters for conscience ; she rejoices not, but shudders, at the
stream of blood ! While, on the one hand, it were insult to the
sincerity of faith to proffer boon in requital for devotion ; on the
other, it were felony of the crown-rights of man to " rob even a
beggar of a single motive for his worship ;" and that were an
unworthy espousal which would wed the destiny of heaven
to the intrigues of earth, and " hang the tatters of a political
piety upon the cross of an insulted Saviour."

Alas ! that in our fallen nature there should be such a strange
disposition to make persecution coeval with power. Calvin
raised no voice in the Genevan Council against the sentence
which adjudged Servetus to the stake. The fanatic Roundhead,
in his day of power, searching the baronial hall for hidden cope
and missal, was to the full as brutal and, because he had clearer
light, more criminal than was the roystering cavalier. The
Pilgrim Fathers, men honoured for conscience' sake now as
much as they were despised a century ago, were not long
established in their Goshen home, when, unmindful of their
own sharp discipline, they drove out the Quakers into the
Egypt of the wilderness beyond. The fact is that persecution
generates persecution, the lash and fetters debase as well as
agonise the races of the captive and the slave.

While, however, we admit this tendency, and watch over its
beginnings in ourselves — while we confess that in the sad wars

263

THE HUGUENOTS.

>of religion there were Michelades as well as Dragonades,
Huguenot reprisals as well as Romanist massacres, we ought
not to omit to notice one essential difference which should be
ever kept in mind : When Protestants persecute, they persecute
of their own " malice aforethought," and in direct opposition
to the rescripts of their holy religion — in the other system,
persecution is no exotic growth, but springs, indigenous and
luxuriant, from the system itself. Persecution, in the one case,
is by Protestants, not of Protestantism ; in the other case, it is
not so much by Romanists, as of Popery. I rejoice to believe
that there are multitudes of high-hearted and kindly Roman
Catholics who are men, patriots, aye, and Christians too, in
.spite of their teachings in error. And I am proud of my country
and of my humanity, when, in the breach and in the battle, on
the summit of Barossa or in the trenches at Sebastopol, I see
nationality triumph over ultramontanism, and the inspiration of
patriotism extinguish the narrowness of creed. But if the spirit
of persecution be not in the heart of the Catholic, it is in the
.book of Popery, in the decretal, in the decision of the council,
in the fulmination of the Pope. The Church of Rome can
only save her charity at the expense of her consistency. Let
her erase the "Semper Eadem" which flaunts upon her banner.
There is an antiquated claim of infallibility put forward on
her behalf sometimes, which she had better leave behind her
altogether. But she cannot change. When she erases penal
statutes from her registers, and coercion and treachery from her
creed — when we see her tolerant in the countries where she
lords it in ascendency, as she would fain have us think her in
our own, where, thank God, she yet only struggles for the
.mastery — when she no longer contemplates aggression — when

£64

THE HUGUENOTS.

lady tract distributors are no longer incarcerated, and when
Madiais are free — when papal protection comes not in the form
of grape-shot over Tahitian women — when metallic arguments
are no longer threatened from French corvettes against King
George of Tonga — when all these marvels come to pass (and
when they do, there is hope of the millennium), then, possibly,
we may listen more willingly to the advances of Popery ; but
until then, it is the duty of us all, while careful to preserve our
own charity— wanting neither gags, nor gibbets, nor penalties,
nor prisons, allowing the fullest liberty to hold and to diffuse
opinion, robbing of no civil right, and asking for no penal bond
— to take our stand, as did our brave and pious fathers, by the
altars of our faith, and to cry in the homesteads of our youth,
and in the temples of our God, "All kindness to our Romanist
fellow-subjects, but a barred door to Popery, and No PEACE
WITH ROME."

Horrible as was the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the sub-
sequent celebrations of it were yet more revolting. Rome and
Madrid were intoxicated with joy. Pope Gregory and his
cardinals went to church, amid the jubilee of citizens and
the booming of cannon, to render God thanksgiving for the
destruction of the Church's enemies. A medal was struck to
commemorate the event to the faithful, and a picture of the
massacre embellished the walls of the Vatican. Protestant
Europe was struck with astonishment and horror. Germany
began to hold the name of Frenchman in abhorrence. Geneva
appointed a day of fasting and prayer, which continues to this
day. Knox, in the Scottish pulpit, denounced vengeance for
the deed, with all the boldness of the Hebrew Prophet ; and
when the French ambassador made his appearance at the court

THE HUGUENOTS.

of Queen Elizabeth, she allowed him to pass without a word of
recognition through files of courtiers and ladies clad in the
deepest mourning.

Shortly after these events, Charles IX. miserably died, con-
sumed with agonies of remorse, and, whether from corrosive
sublimate, or from some new and strange malady, with blood
oozing out of every pore of his body. Henry III., his brother
and successor, was a strange medley of valour and effeminacy,
of superstition and licentiousness. His youth of daring was
followed by a voluptuous and feeble manhood. He was crafty,
cowardly, and cruel. One of the chief actors in St. Bartholo-
mew's tragedy, he afterwards caused the assassination of his
confrkre, the Duke of Guise, who was poniarded in the royal
presence-chamber. When revolt was ripe in his provinces, and
treason imperilled his throne, he would break off a council,
assembled on gravest matters, that he might sigh over the ship-
wreck of a cargo of parrots, or deplore in secret the illness of
some favourite ape. The Leaguers hated him, and preached
openly regicide and rebellion. The Huguenots distrusted him,
and Henry of Navarre routed his armies on the field of Coutras.
Gifted with high talents, and of kingly presence, he shrank into
the shadow of a man — a thing of pomatums and essences — the
object of his people's hate and scorn. His reign was a
continual succession of intrigue and conspiracy between all
the parties in the realm ; and, in 1589, he fell by the knife
of Jacques Clement, who was canonised by the Pope for the
murder ; and the Vicar of Christ, seated in full consistory at
Rome, dared the blasphemous avowal that the devotion of this
assassin formed no unworthy comparison with the sacrifice of
the blessed Redeemer.

266

THE HUGUENOTS.

In Henry III. terminated the "bloody and deceitful" race of
Valois, " who did not live out half their days." Francis I. died
unregretted ; Henry II. was killed by the lance of Montgomery ;
Francis II. never came of age ; Charles IX. expired in fearful
torments; Henry III. was murdered by a Dominican friar;
the Duke d'Alen^on fell a victim to intemperance ; Francis
and Henry, successive Dukes of Guise, fell beneath the daggers
of assassins. The heads of the persecutors came not to the grave
in peace. It is not without an intelligible and solemn purpose
that retribution should thus have dogged the heels of tyranny.
Oh, strange and subtle affinity between crime and punishment t
Lacratelle, in his " History of the Wars of Religion," has accu-
mulated the proofs that nearly all the actors in the massacre of
St. Bartholomew suffered early and violent deaths. In the earlier
persecutions of the Reformed, the clergy instigated the cutting
out of the tongues of the victims to stifle their utterances of
dying heroism. See the sad example followed by the frantic
populace against the clergy two hundred and fifty years after-
wards, in the Reign of Terror ! In the time of the Cardinal of
Lorraine, the Loire was choked with common victims ; in the
time of Carrier of Nantes, it ran with noble blood ! Henry, Duke
of Guise, kicked the corpse of Coligny on the day of St. Bartho-
lomew, with the exclamation, " Thou shalt spit no more venom."
Sixteen years passed over, and the monarch of France, spurning
the slain body of this very Duke of Guise, exclaimed, " Now, at
length, I am king." Charles IX., in the frenzy of cowardice, or
in the contagion of slaughter, pointed an arquebus at the flying

Huguenots ; two hundred years after, Mirabeau brought from
the dust of ages that same arquebus, and pointed it at thegthrone

of Louis XVI. Beza spoke truly when he said, " The Church

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THE HUGUENOTS.

is an anvil upon which many a hammer has been broken."
"Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth," and though
" the heathen have raged, and the kings of the earth taken
counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed,"
drifted corpses on the Red Sea shore, Babylon's monarch slain in
his own palace, scattered vessels of a proud Armada, wise men
taken in their own craftiness, the downfall of a fierce oppressor,
the crash of a desolated throne, — all these have proved that
" He that sitteth in the heavens doth laugh, the Lord doth have
them in derision." The bush in the wilderness has been often
set on fire, flames have been kindled on it by countless torches,
flaring in incendiary hands ; but the torches have gone out in
darkness, the incendiaries have perished miserably, and

" The bush itself has mounted higher,
And flourish'd, unconsumed, in fire."

Henry of Navarre succeeded to the throne, but found himself
in the peculiar position of a king who had to conquer his king-
dom. The Leaguers refused allegiance, and set up as king the
old Cardinal of Bourbon, under the name of Charles X. The
Duke of Mayenne had convened the states-general in Paris, and
was ready to be the Catholic champion, and many of the nobles
attached to the party of the court refused to march under a
Huguenot leader. The Protestant captains remained faithful
and were less exacting. The chief of them, the Duke de Bouil-
lon, de Chatillon, the son of Coligny, Agrippa d'Aubign6, La-
noue, the illustrious Duplessis Mornay, and the still more illus-
trious Baron de Rosny, afterwards Duke of Sully, rallied round
him and inspirited his small army of seven thousand men. At
the head of this army, scanty in numbers but sturdy in valour,
and having the new obligation of loyalty added to the old obli-

268

i

THE HUGUENOTS.

gation of religion, Henry joined battle with his adversaries, and
triumphed both at Arques and on the memorable field of Ivry.
A few days before the latter battle, Schomberg, general of the
German auxiliaries, demanded the arrears of payment for his
soldiers. The finances fell short, and the matter was reported
to the king. In the first moment of impatience he said, " They
are no true men who ask for money on the eve of a battle.''
Repenting of his ill-judged rebuke, he hastened, before he went
into action, to offer reparation. " General," said he, in the pre-
sence and hearing of his troops, " I have offended you ; this
battle will perhaps be the last of my life. I know your merit
and your valour ; I pray you pardon and embrace me." Schom-
berg replied, " It is true, Sire, that your Majesty wounded me
the other day ; but to-day you have killed me, for I shall feel
proud to die on this occasion in your service." In the hour of
danger Henry called to mind the instructions of his pious
mother. Raising his eyes to heaven, he invoked God to wit-
ness the justice of his cause. " But, Lord," said he, " if it has
pleased Thee to ordain otherwise, or if Thou seest that I shall be
one of those kings whom Thou givest in thine anger, take from
me my life and crown together, and may my blood be the last
that shall be shed in this quarrel." Then riding through the
ranks cheerful as a lover speeding to his bridal, he thus addressed
his soldiers : " You are Frenchmen, I am your king, and yonder
is the enemy." Pointing to a white plume which he had fastened
in his helmet, " My children/' he said, " look well to your ranks.
If the standards fall, rally round my white plume, it will shew
you the short road to glory. '; Animated by strains like these,
the soldiers fought like heroes the Leaguers were utterly routed,
and the French historians say that this single field of Ivry has

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THE HUGUENOTS.

covered Henry of Navarre with a wreath of immortal fame. It
has indeed immortalized him, though in a manner on which
they would hardly calculate, for it has throned his memory in
the stanzas of Macaulay's undying song :

" Oh, how our hearts were beating when, at the dawn of day,

We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array ;

With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,

And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears.

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land ;

And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand :

And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood,

And good Coligny's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood ;

And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,

To fight for His own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.

The King has come to marshal us, all in his armour drest,
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ;
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing
Down all our line a deafening shout, ' God save our lord the King/
' And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may,
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray ;
Press where ye see my white plume shine amid the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.'
******

A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,

A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest ;

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star, ,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.

Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath turn'd his rein,

D'Aumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish count is slain.

Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale ;

The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail.

270

THE HUGUENOTS.

But we of the religion have borne us best in fight,

And the good Lord of Rosny hath ta'en the cornet white.

Our own true Maximilian the cornet white hath ta'en,

The cornet white with crosses black, the flag of false Lorraine.

Up with it high ; unfurl it wide ; that all the host may know

How God hath humbled the proud house which wrought his Church suck

woe ;

Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their loudest point of war,
Fling the red shreds — a foot-cloth meet for Henry of Navarre.

" Ho ! maidens of Vienna ; Ho ! matrons of Lucerne ;

Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.

Ho ! Philip send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles,

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls.

Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright ;

Ho ! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night :

For our God hath crush'd the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,

And mocked the counsel of the wise and valour of the brave.

Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are,

And glory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre ! "

After this spirit-stirring eulogy it may seem rather an anti-
climax to question whether the cause of the Huguenots has in
the long run been furthered or damaged by the patronage of
Henry of Navarre. Indeed, it was in many respects a grievous
misfortune to the interests of Protestantism in France that it
was allied for so many years to the fortunes of the house of
Bourbon. It was deserted and betrayed by them all. Anthony
of Navarre forsook it in hope of a sovereignty ; his brother,
Louis of Cond6, for the chance of becoming lieutenant-general ;
the younger Cond6, to save his life on St. Bartholomew ;
Henry IV., not content with one apostasy, was recreant twice,

271

THE HUGUENOTS.

first for the preservation of his life, and then for the preservation
of his crown ; and the three following Bourbons " persecuted
this way unto the death." Surely, if they of the Reformed had
been docile scholars, apt to learn the lessons of experience and
wisdom, they would have profited earlier by the admonition " Put
not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is
no help." The abjuration of Protestantism by Henry IV. has
found some earnest and zealous defenders. It is said that by
adhering to the Reformed Church he would have prolonged
war, dismembered France, been a king without a crown and
without a kingdom, abdicated in favour of the Guise, and
delivered up the defenceless Huguenots to the blind fury of the
Leaguers and their party. On the other hand, by returning to
the Romish communion he restored peace, secured toleration,
established an empire, and transmitted a dynasty. With what
reason, say they, in the prospect of such consequences, could
he persist in the maintenance of a creed to which he had only
given, at any time, a traditional and thoughtless adhesion ?
Such apologists are worse than any accusers. Henry of Navarre,
with all his faults, was a truer man than these defenders make
him. He was no hypocrite when he led his gallant troops at
Coutras and at Ivry ; and to suppose that for long years he
conducted one of the deadliest civil wars which France has
ever known without one honest enthusiasm, is to fasten upon
him the brand of a colossal blood-guiltiness for which history
would scarcely find a parallel. Some ascribe his apostasy to a
humane and politic foresight ; others, quite as plausibly, to the
absence of commanding principle, the power of seductive
influences, and a weakness for sensual pleasure. But whether
prompted by godless expediency or by fatal flexibility to the

272

THE HUGUENOTS.

influences of evil, it was a great sin. It deserves sharp and
stern reprobation. Taking the best view of it, it exalted human
sagacity above God's great laws of truth and right, which cannot
be violated with impunity. Taking the worst view of it, it was
an impious blasphemy against all sacred things, — in the strong^
but just words of a modern French historian, " a lie from begin-
ning to end." But honesty is the best policy as well as the
noblest practice ; and it may be questioned fairly whether the
abjuration was not, h la Talleyrand, " worse than a crime — a
blunder ;" whether the political results of it were not fraught as
much with mischief as with blessing. It conciliated the Catholics,
but by presenting religion as a profession which might be changed
like a garment, it tended to sap the foundations of all piety, and
prepared the way for those godless philosophising ideas which
cursed the France of the future with infidelity. It gave the
Huguenots a comparative and mistrusted toleration, but it
robbed them of their severer virtues, and imperilled their con-
sistency by the contagion of its example. It secured to himself
a reign of seventeen years, but they were years of vice and
error, abruptly terminated by the assassin's dagger. It rescued
France from the rivalry of a disputed succession, but it entailed
upon her two centuries of misrule and despotism. It trans-
mitted the crown to seven of his posterity in succession ; but
one was a monkish hypochondriac, one has left an infamous
name, three were deposed by their tumultuous subjects, and one
perished on the scaffold. Louis XIV. seems to be the only
exception to the fatality which, like a weird spirit of disaster,
waited upon the house of Bourbon, and even he — a despot and
a debauchee, a prodigal and a persecutor — entailed ruin, if he
did not surfer it, upon his name and race. So true are the

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THE HUGUENOTS.

maxims of the Holy Book : " A lying tongue is but for a moment,
but the lip of truth shall be established for ever." " The righteous
shall be in everlasting remembrance, but the memory of the
wicked shall rot."

We have said there was in the character of Henry of Navarre
a fatal flexibility to evil influences, and we are inclined to think
that if we regard him as too indolent to rebel against the pres-
sure of present advisers, constant only in fickleness, we shall
explain many of the seeming inconsistencies of his conduct and
of his reign. He seems to have had, mingled with the bravery
and intellect which he undoubtedly possessed, a marvellous duc-
tility, which yielded to well nigh every touch of interest or pas-
sion. He never seems to have said " No," to any one. " My
son," said Jeanne d'Albret, " swear fealty to the cause of the
Reformed." The oath was taken. " My brother," said Charles
IX., " don't bury yourself in the country, come to court."
Henry came. "Don't you think you had better marry Marguerite
of Valois?" No objections. "The mass or the massacre,"
thundered out the assassins on the day of St. Bartholomew.
" Oh, the mass, by all means." " Follow after pleasure," whis-
pered Catharine de Medicis ; " kings and princes are absolved
from too strict adhesion to the marriage vow." Henry too
readily obeyed. " Let us form an alliance," said Henry of
Valois, although he had told the States at Blois that they were
not to believe him, even if he promised with most sacred oaths
that he would spare the heretics. " With all my heart," was
the reply of Navarre. " Become Catholic," shouted the nobles
of the court, "and we will swear allegiance." "Wait a bit,"
was the answer of the king. " Abjure," was the soft whisper
of the all powerful Gabrielle d'Estr^es ; " the pope can annul

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THE HUGUENOTS.

your marriage, and then ours shall be love and gladness."
Henry abjured. " Sire, we look to you for protection," respect-
fully said the Reformed. "Oh, of course; only if I should
seem to favour the Catholics, remember the fatted calf was
killed for the prodigal, and you are the elder son." " Sire, don't
you think it is rather hard upon the Jesuits that they should be
banished from France? May they not come back again?"
" Oh, certainly, if they wish it ; " and they came — and among
them Ravaillac the assassin. Throughout the whole of his life
there is scarcely a recorded instance of his maintenance of an
individual opinion, or of his assertion of a commanding will.
Oh, these men who cannot say " No ; " what mischief they
have wrought in this world ! Their history would be a sad one
if we could only trace it. Advantages thrown away, opportunities
of golden promise slipping by unheeded, fortune squandered,
friends neglected ; one man drawn into difficult controversy,
another involved in ruinous speculation, a third wallowing in
the mire of intemperance, a fourth dragged into the foul hell of
a gaming-house. Gambling, drunkenness, felony, beggary, ruin
both to body and soul, all because men could not say " No."

Believe me, he who can say "No," when to say it is to speak
to his own hurt, has achieved a conquest greater far than he
that taketh a city. Let me exhort you to cultivate this talent for
yourselves. You need not mistake sauciness for strength, and
be rude, and brusque, and self-opinionated in your indepen-
dence. That extreme were as uncomely as the other. But let
it be ours to be self-reliant amid hosts of the vacillating — real in
a generation of triflers — true amongst a multitude of shams ;
when tempted to swerve from principle, sturdy as an oak in its
maintenance ; when solicited by the enticements of sinners, firm

275

THE HUGUENOTS.

as a rock in our denial. I trust that yours may never be the
character which, that you may be the more impressed by it, I
give you in the poet's pleasant verse :

" * He had faults, perhaps had many,

But one fault above them all
Lay like heavy lead upon him,

Tyrant of a patient thrall.
Tyrant seen, confess'd, and hated,
Banish 'd only to recall.'

" ' Oh ! he drank ?' ' His drink was water ! '

1 Gambled ? ' ' No ! he hated play.'
' Then perchance, a tenderer feeling
Led his heart and head astray ? '
' No ! both honour and religion
Kept him in the purer way.'

" ' Then he scorned life's mathematics,

Could not reckon up a score,
Pay his debts, or be persuaded

Two and two were always four ? '
' No ! he was exact as Euclid,

Prompt and punctual — no one more.'

" 'Oh! a miser?' 'No.' 'Too lavish?'

' Worst of guessers, guess again. '
' No ! I'm weary hunting failures.

Was he seen of mortal ken ?
Paragon of marble virtues,

Quite a model man of men ! '

" ' At his birth an evil spirit

Charms and spells around him flung,
And with well concocted malice,

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THE HUGUENOTS.

Laid a curse upon his tongue ;
Curse that daily made him wretched
Earth's most wretched sons among.

" ' He could plead, expound, and argue,

Fire with wit, with wisdom glow ;
But one word for ever failed him,

Source of all his pain and woe :
Luckless man ! he could not say it,

Could not, dare not, answer — No ! ' "

The sole result of advantage immediately flowing from the-
kings's apostacy, was the power which it gave him to promulgate
the celebrated Edict of Nantes, the great charter of the French
Reformation. In the preamble it was acknowledged that God
was adored by all the French people, with unity of intention
though in variety of form ; and it was then declared to be a
perpetual and irrevocable law — the main foundation of union
and tranquillity in the state. The concessions granted by it
were, — i. Full liberty of conscience (in private) to all ; 2. The
public celebration of worship in peaces where it was established
at the time of the passing of the Edict, and in the suburbs of
cities ; 3. That superior lords might hold assemblies within the
precincts of their chateaux, and that gentlemen of lower degree
might admit visitors to the number of thirty to their domestic
worship ; 4. That Protestantism should be no bar to offices of
public trust, nor to participation in the benefactions of charity ;
5. That they should have chartered academies for the education
of their youth ; 6. That they might convene and hold national
synods ; and 7. That they should be allowed a certain number
of cautionary towns, fortified and garrisoned to secure against
infractions of the covenant. This Edict, though as it appears -

277

THE HUGUENOTS.

to us recognising an imperium in imperio^ and as such giving
freedom but in grudging measure, was for eighty-seven years the
rule of right, if not the bulwark of defence, for the Protestants of
France. Those years, after all, were years of distrust and
suspicion, of encroachment on the one hand and of resistance
on the other. The fall of Rochelle, and the edict of pardon in
1629, definitively terminated the religious wars of France, and
the Protestants, excluded from court employment and from the
civil service, lost their temptations to luxury and idleness, and
became the industrial sinews of the state. They farmed the fine
land of the Cevennes and the vineyards of Berri. The wine-
trade of Guienne, the cloths of Caen, the maritime trade on the
seaboard of Normandy; the manufactures in the north-western
provinces, the silks and taffetas of Lyons, and many others
which time would fail us to mention, were almost entirely in their
hands ; and, by the testimony of their enemies, they combined
the highest citizenship with the highest piety, industry, frugality,
integrity — all the commercial virtues hallowed by unbending
conscientiousness, earnest love of religion, and a continual fear
of God.

The Edict of Nantes was revoked on the 226. October, 1685.
The principal causes which led to this suicidal stroke of policy
were the purchased conversions and the Dragonades. Louis
XIV. had a secret fund which he devoted to the conversion of
his Protestant subjects. The average price for a convert was
about six livres per head, and -the abjuration and the receipt,
twin vouchers for the money, were submitted to the king
together. The management of this fund was entrusted to
Pelisson, originally a Huguenot, but who became a convert to
.amend his fortunes, and a converter to advance them. The

278

THE HUGUENOTS.

establishment was conducted upon strictly commercial princi-
ples. It had its branches, correspondents, letters of credit, lists
of prices current, and so forth, like any other mercantile concern.
There is extant a curious letter, perhaps we should say circular,
of Pelisson's, which shews that, amid all his zeal, he had a keen
eye for business, and was not disposed to be imprudent in his
speculations with the consciences of others. "Although," he
says, " you may go as far as a hundred francs, it is not meant
that you are always to go to that extent, as it is necessary to use
the utmost possible economy ; in the first place, to shed this
dew (O blessed baptismal dew !) upon as many as possible ; and.
besides, if we give a hundred francs to people of no consequence^
without any family to follow them, those who are a little above
them, or who bring a number of children after them, will demand
far larger sums." Pelisson's success was so great that Louvois
was stimulated with the like holy ambition, only his converting
agency was not a charge of money, but a charge of dragoons^
Troops were quartered upon Huguenot families, and the soldiers
were allowed every possible license of brutality, short only of
rape and murder. All kinds of threat and indignity were prac-
tised to induce the Protestants to abjure ; the ingenuity of the
soldiers was taxed to devise tortures that were agonising without
being mortal. Whole provinces were reported as being
converted. One of the agents in the Cevennes wrote to the
Chancellor thus : "The number of Protestants in this province
is 240,000. I asked until the 25th of next month for their
entire conversion, but I fixed too distant a date, for I believe
that at the end of this month all will be done." No day passed,
without bringing to the king the news of thousands of conver-
sions ; the court affected to believed that Protestantism in France

279

THE HUGUENOTS.

-was at an end, and the king, willingly deluded, no longer hesi-
tated to strike the last blow. On 22d October 1685, he signed
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The following were the
•chief provisions : The abolition of Protestant worship through-
out the land, under penalty of arrest of body and confiscation
of goods. Ministers were to quit the kingdom in a fortnight,
but if they would be converted they might remain and have an
advance of salary. Protestants schools were closed, and all
children born after the passing of the law were to be baptized
by the priests, and brought up in the communion of Rome. All
refugees were to return to France in four months, and to abjure,
otherwise their property was declared confiscate, under pain of
the galleys for men, and imprisonment for women. Protestants
were forbidden to quit the kingdom, and to carry their fortunes
abroad. All the strict laws concerning relapsing heretics were
confirmed ; and finally, those Protestants who had not changed
their religion might remain in France until it should please God
to enlighten them" This last sentence sounds bravely pious and
liberal, and many of the Protestants began to rejoice that at
least private liberty of conscience remained to them ; but they
soon found that the interpretation of it was, " until the dragoons
should convert them as they had converted whole provinces
before." The provisions of the edict were carried out with
inflexible rigour. The pastors were driven into immediate
banishment, the laity were forbidden tc follow them; but in spite
of prohibitions and perils, in the face of the attainder and of the
galleys, there were few abjurations and many refugees. Some
crossed the frontier sword in hand, others bribed the guards, and
assumed all sorts of disguises ; ladies of quality might be seen
-crawling many weary leagues to escape at once from their per-

280

THE HUGUENOTS.

secutors and their country. Some put out to sea in frail and
open boats, preferring the cruel chances of wind and wave to
the more cruel certainty of their fierce human oppressors ; and
fair women, who had lived all their lives in affluence, and whose
cheeks the air of heaven had never visited too roughly, fled
without food or store, save a little brackish water, or gathered
snow by the road-side, with which the mothers moistened the
parched lips of their babes. Protestant countries received the
refugees with open arms. England, America, Germany, Swit-
zerland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Holland — all
profited by this wholesale proscription of Frenchmen. It is
difficult to estimate the numbers who escaped. Vauban wrote,
a year after the Revocation, that France had lost 100,000
inhabitants, 60,000,000 of francs in specie, 9000 sailors, 12,000
veterans, 600 officers, and her most flourishing branches of
manufacture and trade. Sismondi considers the loss to have
exceeded 300,000 men; and Capefigue, the latest writer on the
subject, and an adversary to the Protestant cause, reports that
at least 225,000 quitted the kingdom. But all are agreed that
the refugees were among the bravest, the most loyal, and the
most industrious in the kingdom, and that they carried with
them the arts by which they had enriched their country, and
abundantly repaid the hospitality which afforded them in other
lands that asylum which was denied them in their own.

So early as the latter half of the sixteenth century thousands
of French fugitives had taken refuge in England from the
persecutions which followed the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
The first French church in London was established in 1550,
and owed its origin to the piety of King Edward VI., and to
the powerful protection of Somerset and Cranmer. Churches

281

THE HUGUENOTS.

were subsequently founded, by successive emigrations, in Can-
terbury, Sandwich, Norwich, Southampton, Glastonbury, Dover,
and several other towns ; so that at the period when the Edict
of Nantes was revoked, there were centres of unity around
which the persecuted ones might rally. It is estimated that
nearly eighty thousand established themselves in this country
during the ten years which preceded or followed the Revocation.
About one-third of them settled in London, especially in the
districts of Long Acre, Seven Dials, and Spitalfields. Scotland
and Ireland received their share of refugees. The quarter in
Edinburgh long known as Picardy, and French Church Street
in Cork, are attestations of their presence there. The French
Protestants were very efficient supporters of William of Orange
in those struggles for principle which drove the last of the
Stuarts from the throne. The revolution in England was effected
without bloodshed ; but in Ireland numbers of the refugees
rallied round the Protestant standard. A refugee, de la Melo
ni&re, was brigadier at the siege of Carrickfergus ; a refugee,
Marshal Schomberg, led the troops at the Battle of the Boyne ;
and when William was established in London, and, breaking off
diplomatic relations, enjoined the French ambassador to quit
within twenty-four hours, by one of those caprices which are
strangely like retribution, a refugee, de 1'Estang, was sent to
notify his dismissal ; and a refugee, St. Leger, received orders
to escort him safely to Dover.

The influence which the refugees exerted upon the trade and
manufactures of the country was more widespread and more
lasting. The commercial classes of England ought, of all
others, to feel grateful to the Protestants of France ; for the
different branches of manufacture which were introduced by

282

THE HUGUENOTS.

them have mainly contributed to make our " merchant princes,
and our traffickers the honourable of the earth." They estab-
lished a factory in Spitalfields, where silks were woven on
looms copied from those of Lyons and of Tours ; they taught
the English to make " brocades, satins, paduasoys, velvets, and
stuffs of mingled silk and cotton." They introduced also the
manufacture of fine linen, of Caudebec hats, of printed calicoes,
of Gobelin tapestry, of sailcloth, and of paper. • Most of these
things had previously been obtained only by importation;
where native manufactories were at work they produced articles
of coarser material and of less elegant design. It has been
ascertained, by calculation, that the manufactures introduced
into this country by these same despised Huguenot traders
deprived France of an annual return of ;£i, 800,000. There
is an old proverb, " Whom the gods would destroy they first
madden ;" and certainly the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
was not only an atrocious wickedness, but an act of unparalleled
folly.

Many of the refugees and their descendants attained honour-
able positions, and well served the country of their adoption in
art, and science, and statesmanship, and jurisprudence, and
literature, and arms. Thomas Savery, a refugee, was the
inventor of a machine for draining marshes, and obtained a
patent for it so long ago as 1698. Dennis Papin, a refugee,
realised, a century before Watt watched the tea-kettle, the great
idea of steam power, and had a notion, which they called " a
pretension " then, of navigating vessels without oars or sails.
Saurin burst into the reputation of his eloquence at the Hague ;
but at the old French church in Threadneedle Street he
" preened his wings of fire." Abbadie discoursed with mild
R 283

THE HUGUENOTS.

and earnest persuasion in the church at Savoy, and then wrote,
with ability and effect, from the deanery of Killaloe. The first
literary newspaper in Ireland was published by the pastor Droz,
a refugee, who, founded a library on College Green, in Dublin.
The physician Desaguli&rs, the disciple and friend of Newton;
Thelluson (Lord Rendlesham), a brave soldier in the Peninsular
War, more distinguished than notorious ; Thelluson, the million-
aire, the eccentric will-maker, more notorious than distinguished;
General Ligonier, who commanded the English army at the
battle of Lawfield ; General Prevost, who distinguished himself
in the American War; General de Blaquiere, a man of high
personal valour and military skill ; Labouch&re, formerly in the
cabinet ; Lord Eversley, who, as Mr. Shaw Lef&vre, was Speaker
of the House of Commons ; Sir John Romilly, the present
Master of the Rolls; Sir Samuel Romilly, his humane and
accomplished father ; Majendie, some time Bishop of Chester;
Saurin, once Attorney-General for Ireland ; Austen Henry
Layard, the excavator of Nineveh,— all these, it is said, are
descendants of the families of the French refugees.

The descendants of the Hugenots long remained as a distinct
people, preserving a nationality of their own, and entertaining
hopes of return, under more favourable auspices, to their
beloved fatherland. In the lapse of years these hopes grew
gradually fainter, and both habit and interest drew them closer
to the country of their shelter and of their adoption. The fierce
wars of the Republic, the crash of the first Revolution, and the
threatened invasion of England by the first Napoleon, severed
the last ties which bound them to their own land, and, their
affinities and sympathies being for the most part English, there
was an almost absolute fusion both of race and name.

THE HUGUENOTS.

One hardly knows, indeed, where to look for a genuine Saxon
now, for the refugee blood circulates beneath many a sturdy
patronymic whose original wearer one might have sworn had
lived in the Heptarchy, or trod the beechen glade in the time
of Eanwolf and Athelstan. Who would suppose for a moment
that there can lurk anything Norman in the colourless names
of White and Black, or in the authoritative names of King and
Masters, or in the juvenile name of Young, or in the stave-and-
barrel-suggesting appellation of Cooper, or in the light and airy
denomination of Bird ? Yet history tells us that these are the
names now borne by those who at the close of the last century
rejoiced in the designations of Leblanc, Lenoir, Loiseau, Le-
jeunes, Le Tonnellier, Lemaitre, Leroy. The fact was, that
when Napoleon threatened to invade England, to which they
owed so much, they felt ashamed of being Frenchmen, and
translated their names into good sturdy Saxon. Thus did these
noble men — faithful witnesses for God, brave upholders of the
supremacy of conscience — enrich the revenues and vindicate
the liberty of the land which had furnished them a home ; and
then, as the last tribute of their gratitude, they merged their
nationality in ours, and became one with us in feeling, in
language, in religion.

Protestantism in France — oppressed by many restrictions,
suffering equally under a parricidal republic and under a
"paternal despotism "—yet lives and struggles on. Though
small in its numerical extent, it does no unworthy work;
though unostentatious in its simple worship, it yet bears no
inglorious witness against apostasy and sin. There is hope for
the future of France — hope in the dim streaks of the morning,
that the day will come — hope in the hoariness of Popery, for it

THE HUGUENOTS.

is dismally stricken in years — hope in the inability of scepticism
and philosophy, falsely so called, to fill a national heart, around
which an unsatisfied desire keeps for ever moaning like the
wind around a ruined cairn — hope, above all, in the unexhausted
power of that Divine Word which, when it has free course, will
be glorified ; and in the sure promise, faithful amid all change,
that " the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms
of our God and His Christ, and He shall reign for ever.3'

And England, what of her? The dear old land, rich in
ancestral memory, and radiant with a younger hope ; the Elim
of palms and fountains in the exile's wilderness — whose soil the
glad slave blesses as he leaps on her shores a freeman : England
— standing like a rock in mid-ocean, and when the tempest
howls elsewhere, receiving only the spent spray of the revolu-
tionary wave ; or as the Ark in the Deluge, the only mission of
the frantic waters being to bear it safely to the Ararat of rest ;
England — great by her gospel heritage, powerful by her Pro-
testant privileges, free by her forefathers' martyrdoms ! What of
her ? Is she to be faithful or traitorous, gifted with increasing
prosperity — or shorn of her strength, and hasting to decay?
The nations of old have successively flourished and faded.
Babylon and Carthage, Macedon and Persia, Greece and Rome
— all in their turn have yielded to the law of decline. Is it of
necessity uniform? Must we shrivel into inanition while
" westward the course of empire takes its way ? " I may be
sanguine, that is an error of enthusiasm ! I may be proud of
my birthland, of all pride that is the least unholy — but both the
patriot's impulse and the seer's inspiration prompt the answer,
No — a thousand times No ! — if only there be fidelity to prin-
ciple, to truth, to God. Not in the national characteristics of

286

THE HUGUENOTS.

reverence and hope — reverence for the struggling past, hope
in the beautiful future ; not in the absence of class antagonisms,
or in the fine community of interest in all things sacred and
free ; not in the true practicalness of the British mind, doing,
not dreaming, ever; not in any or all of these, valuable and
influential as they unquestionably are, put we our trust for the
bright destiny of England. Her history has facts on record
which we would do well to ponder. " One uniform connection"
as Dr. Croly has accurately shewn, " between Romish ascendency
and national disaster — between Romish discountenance and national
renown" To the question of Voltaire then, " Why has England
so long and so successfully maintained her free institutions?"
I would not answer, with Sir James Stephen, " because England
is stiil German," though that may be a very substantial political
reason ; but rather " because England is still Protestant, with
a glad gospel, a pure altar, an unsealed, entire, wide open
Bible/' Let her keep her fidelity and she will keep her
position, and there need be no bounds to the sacred magnifi-
cence of her preservation. For nations, as for individuals, that
which is right is safe. A godless expediency or an unworthy
compromise are sure avenues to national decline. Oh, if we
would retain that influence which, as a nation, we hold in
stewardship from God, there must be no adulterous alliances
between Truth and Error, no conciliations at the expense of
principle, and an utter abhorrence, alike by church and cabinet
and crown, of that corrupt maxim of a corrupt creed, that it is
lawful " to do evil that good may come."

" Do ill that good may come, so Satan spake.
Woe to the land deluded by that lie ;

287

THE HUGUENOTS.

Woe to its rulers, for whose evil sake

The curse of God may now be hovering nigh :

Up, England, and avert it ! boldly break
The spells of sorceress Rome, and cast away

Godless expedience. Say, is it wise,

Or right, or safe, for some chance gains to-day,

To dare the vengeance from to-morrow's skies ?
Be wiser, thou dear land, my native home,

Do always good — do good that good may come.
The path of duty plain before thee lies,
Break, break the spells of the enchantress Rome. "

And now, at the close, let me repeat the sentiment advanced
at the beginning. God is working in the world, and therefore
there shall be progress for ever. God's purpose doth not
languish. Through a past of disaster and struggle, " Truth for
ever on the scaffold, Wrong for ever on the throne," through
centuries of persecution, with oppressors proud and with con-
fessors faithless, amid multitudes apostate and shame-hearted,
with only here and there an Abdiel, brave, but single-handed —
God has been always working, evolving, in His quiet power,
from the seeming the real, from the false the true. Not for
nothing blazed the martyrs' fires — not for nothing toiled brave
sufferers up successive hills of shame. God's purpose doth not
languish. The torture and trial of the past have been the stern
ploughers in His service, who never suspended their husbandry,
and who have " made long their furrows." Into those furrows
the imperishable seed hath fallen. The heedless world hath
trodden it in, tears and blood have watered it, the patient sun
hath warmed and cheered it to its ripening, and it shall be
ready soon. " Say not ye, there are yet four months and then
cometh harvest ! Lift up your eyes," and yonder, upon the

288

THE HUGUENOTS.

crest of the mountain, the lone watcher, the prophet with the
shining forehead, looking out upon God's acres, announces to
the waiting people — " The fields are white unto the harvest ;
thrust in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe." But the Lord
wants reapers. Who of you will go out, sickle in hand, to
meet Him ? The harvest is ripe ; shall it droop in heavy and
neglected masses for want of reapers to gather it in ? To you,
the young, in your enthusiasm — to you, the aged, in your
wisdom — to you, men of enterprise and ardour — to you, heirs
of the rarest endurance, and affection of womanhood — to you,
the rich in the grandeur of your equalising charity — to you, the
poor, in the majesty of your ungrudging labour, the Master
comes and speaks. Does not the whisper thrill you ? " Why
stand ye here all the day idle ?" Up, there's work for you all
— work for the lords of broad acres, work for the kings of two
hands. Ye are born, all of you, to a royal birthright. Scorn
not the poor, thou wealthy — his toil is nobler than thy luxury.
Fret not at the rich, thou poor — his beneficence is comelier
than thy murmuring. Join hands, both of you, rich and -poor
together, as ye toil in the brotherhood of God's great harvest-
field— heirs of a double heritage — thou poor, of thy kingly
labour — thou rich, of thy queenly charity — and let heaven bear
witness to the bridal.

The rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,

And he inherits soft white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old :
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

289

THE HUGUENOTS.

The rich man's son inherits cares, —
The bank may break, the factory b,urn,

A breath may burst his bubble shares ;
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn :
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit ?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit';
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art :
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit ?
A patience learn'd of being poor,

Courage, if sorrow comes, to bear it,
A fellow-feeling that is sure
To make the outcast bless his door :
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

Oh, rich man's son ! there is a toil
That with all others level stands,

Large charity does never soil,
But only whiten soft white hands ;
This is the best crop from thy lands :
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.

Oh, poor man's son ! scorn not thy state,
There is worse weariness than thine

In merely being rich and great ;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,

290

THE HUGUENOTS.

And makes rest fragrant and benign :
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last,

Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By records of a well-fill'd past :
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.

291

A PILGRIMAGE

TO

TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

A PILGRIMAGE

TO

TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

IN an old country, where almost every plain has been a
battle-field, and every hill- top an altar of freedom ; where
castled crag and fairy glen have each a legend of their own ;
where in every journey you light upon a spot which some hero
has glorified, or of which some minstrel has sung — shrines are so
numerous, and so often trodden by pilgrim feet, that they lose
somewhat of their venerableness because they are so accessible
and common. America, too young, by comparison, for history,
and too stirring and real for romance, has but few holy places ;
but these are treasured with a solemn affection in the hearts of
the choicest of her sons. Two days in the month of August,
1869, are days that will live in my memory, as the days on
which I became familiar with places which for many years I
had longed to see — the one the sepulchre of an Apostle — the
other the birthplace of a nation. Leaving Portland (in Maine)
by the Eastern Railway, a ride of some seventy miles along the
Atlantic coast brings the traveller to a small town in the State
of Massachusetts, called Newburyport. There is nothing to
distinguish it from an ordinary New England village ; and as

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

you pass along its narrow streets, not overcrowded with traffic
or passengers, it does not strike you as looking like the scene
of anything stirring or memorable. But come with me, down a
lane somewhat narrower than the rest ; pause before this build-
ing, now two comfortable residences, but in the former time the
parsonage of the old Federal Street Church — with spacious
entrance hall, out of which the fine oak staircase led into the
rooms above. It was here, on the evening of the 2pth of Sep-
tember, 1770, that a blue-eyed evangelist — tall, manly, earnest,
though in feeble health, and older in constitution than in
years — gazed on an eager crowd, who filled the hall and
stretched out on the pavement beyond, craving some loving
message from the lips on which they were wont to hang.
It was on this staircase that he paused; and, as if with
a sense of opportunity that was rapidly vanishing, and moments
that were more precious than gold, gathered up his fast waning
strength and delivered his latest exhortation upon the things of
God. It was in the room above that, on the following night,
amid the pomp of watching stars, the brave spirit wrestled with
its agony ; and it was here that, when the Sabbath sun was just
rising over the neighbouring waters, the chariots of God came,
and GEORGE WH1TEFIELD, the later Elijah, " was not,
for the Lord had taken him." Passing up the lane again, you
enter the church, large and elegant, and so perfectly constructed
that a whisper will travel to its farthest extremity. Near the
altar, a massive marble monument commemorates the great
evangelist. You are then taken behind the pulpit, and the
guide takes a lantern in his hand and lifts up a trap-door. As
it is lifted it is impossible to avoid seeing, and smiling as you
see, what American shrewdness has " calculated " to catch the

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

eye. There is indeed a mathematical exactness in the angle at
which the light is made to fall upon the words, "Please to
remember the sexton." You descend into a crypt and thence
into the vault, where, with two former pastors of the church,
is the open coffin of the Prince of Preachers, in which, all
exposed to view, are his decaying bones. Some years ago the
right arm was stolen and carried to England, but remorse of
conscience, or the dread of popular anger, so scared the anti-
quarian felon that he was moved to make restitution. Hence
it is part of the sexton's lesson to inform you that Whitefield
crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, but his right hand has been
fourteen times across ; and then, when you are sufficiently
astonished, he proceeds to expound the riddle. You can take
the skull into your hand and muse upon this dome of thought,
with its breadth of brow and brain. This handful of dust : is it
all that is left to us of him who to hundreds of thousands was
as the angel in the sun ? I could not gaze into that coffin un-
moved, nor without a multitude of thoughts within me — thoughts
of mortality and hope, thoughts of high emprise and ambition
that were not all unholy. How mighty the work ! How fra-
grant the memory of the great spirit whose dust lies here 1
Beneath his surpassing renown how mean is the glory of " all
great self-seekers, trampling on the right ! " Oh, for a race of
such apostles ! strong-souled and lipped with flame, who shall
preach as he preached, or, if not with equal eloquence, with
equal sincerity and zeal. If, as the great moralist has said,
" Patriotism grows warm upon the plains of Marathon, and
piety is enkindled amid the ruins of lona," surely each pilgrim
to George Whitefield's grave will leave it with a holy purpose,
and breathe over it a self-consecrating prayer.

297

A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

I travel on to the quaint city of Boston, but do not linger in
the American Athens just now, though it has much to stay the
footsteps ; and Cambridge is hard by, and especially Mount
Auburn, that beautiful city of the dead. I leave it at the old
Colony Depot, and pass through a country which presents
few points of interest to a stranger • so I betake myself to
reverie, in which I picture the scene as it once was — unbroken
forest and inhospitable shore, serpents writhing in the swamp
and deer bounding on the hills — an ocean innocent of ships
and a land free of inhabitant, save when some lordly Indian
trapped his game in the wildwood. Then, too, I wander into
speculations as to the subtle causes which affect and determine
the growth of nations and of men, until my reverie is broken by
the announcement of the conductor of the train — " Plymouth !"
I step out of the cars, and realise, though with some difficulty,
that I am in the first settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers. In
these days of fast living and haste to be rich, when even in
America "westward the course of empire takes its way/'
Plymouth has shared the fate of many of the smaller New Eng-
land towns, and is looked down upon somewhat as a laggard
behind the age. Well, it may be so ; but it is all the better
fitted for the memories which it is called to preserve and
•embalm. It enshrines a spirit nobler than the trade spirit, and
a heritage costlier than gold. Plymouth consists of one or two
principal streets, and a number of tributary lanes branching off
into the country and towards the sea. The streets are lined
with neat frame houses, with verandahs to shade from the sun,
up whose trellises creeping plants are climbing. There are a
fine State house and one or two excellent hotels. Rows of
•elms — the arbor domesticus of New England — are planted on

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

either side of the road, and are of such stately growth that the
branches meet in the centre, suggesting poetry while they
contribute shade. It is a meet spot for the dwelling of a quiet
spirit ; such a spot as Izaak Walton would have gloried in ; or
in which, except that he would have missed the church's ivied
tower, George Herbert might have warbled of contentment, or
gazed, enraptured, upon " the lace of Peace's coat.';

Nearest to the railway station, after passing the " Samoset
Hotel," so called after the friendly Indian who welcomed the
pilgrims, we come to the " Pilgrim Hall," a substantial stone
building with a wooden vestibule, built in 1824 by "The Pil-
grim Society," with the laudable object of perpetuating the
memory and gathering the relics of " the forefathers." In front
of the hall is a piece of the veritable " Rock " on which the pil-
grims landed, surrounded by an iron railing, for all the world
like the railing of a tomb. In the iron are cast the names of
the signers of the compact in the cabin of the " Mayflower."
This piece was detached from the main body of the rock as a
sacrifice to Plymouth patriotism.

In 1775, during the excitement which preceded the revolu-
tionary war, the people of the town were anxious to show their
zeal and patriotism ; and, not being under very reasonable
guidance, a mob of them formed the notion of removing the
rock to the town square, and planting a flagstaff by its side
from which the flag of Liberty should wave. So they met, with
screws and levers and shouting, and proceeded to lift the rock,
intending to draw it to its destination in a carriage drawn by
thirty yoke of oxen. Suddenly it burst asunder. Strange and
sinister omen ! There were many Cassandras in the crowd,
'who regarded it as a mute prophecy of separation from the

s 299

A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

mother country — while, possibly, some thoughtful ones deemed
that it illustrated the proverbial separation between fools and
their wits. After long consultation they lowered one part into
its place again, and drew the other to the town square in
triumph. There it remained until, in 1834, it was removed to
its present position in front of the Pilgrim Hall.

Entering the hall we find many genuine relics of the pilgrims,
and many other things which have but little connection with
their history. Near the door are the old oak chairs of Governor
Carver and Elder Brewster — substantial enough once, but,
partly from the lapse of time and partly from the " whittling "
of irreverent relic-hunters, too frail for occupancy now. In
the cabin of the "Mayflower" these old chairs have assisted
at many a " Diet " of heroic faith and patient hope, and long
meditation of the things of God. There is an inlaid dressing-
case belonging to William White, and a deed signed by his son
Peregrine, the child born on board the " Mayflower," who
obtained a grant of two hundred acres of land on the strength
of his petition that he was " the first Englishman born in these
parts," and who lived to the great age of eighty-three. This
deed, signed by Peregrine White, is witnessed by " Miles
Standish," the redoubtable warrior of the pilgrims, whose
exploits contributed, under God, to secure their early and peace-
ful settlement, and whose " courtship " Longfellow has set to
such skilful music. Here also are his last will and testament,
the iron pot in which his stews were cooked, and an enormous
pewter dish on which he was accustomed to have them served,
savouring, from its size, of the " giants " that were " in the
earth in those days." Hard by these lies his sword, on the
back of which is an Arabic inscription, indicating that it was

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

one of those "glittering Damascus blades " which were formerly
held in such special repute. It is not large nor elegant, but
made for work, and has evidently seen and done real service.
Hanging against the wall is a sampler wrought by " Lora," or
as she signs herself, " Lorea" Standish, his daughter — a worthy
specimen of an art known to our mothers, but now gone, with
spinnet and spinning-wheel, into forgetfulness. The sampler
reads thus :

LOREA STANDISH is MY NAME.

Lord, guide my hart that I may doe thy will,
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill
As may conduce to vertue, void of shame,
And I will give the glory to Thy name.

We may not dwell upon a multitude of other relics ; noticing
simply the cap of King Philip, the Indian ; a plate of Governor
Bradford ; a charter signed by Edward Winslow ; Thomas
Clark's pocket-book, a wallet capacious enough to absorb a
score of more degenerate size ; and a copy of the Bishop's
Bible, the treasured property of John Alden, the proxy wooer
of Miles Standish's Priscilla, and the successful one who ran
away with the bride — John Alden, of whom tradition says that
he was the first to leap upon the rock when the pilgrims
landed, and the latest of the band who survived.

But we are all this while detained from the actual spot of
landing, and are impatient to tread, if we may, where first
" they, the true-hearted, came." Passing beneath the elms in
front of the neat court-house and the bank, we turn down a

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

rather steep descent to the left, and are on our way to the Fore-
fathers' Rock. To the right of us is an abrupt ridge, called
Cole's Hill, from which a flight of steps is cut to the rock
beneath. This was the original burying-place of the pilgrims
during the mortality of the first sad winter. The God's Acre
has become man's acre now, for the ridge is covered with
dwellings, and no stone or memorial remains. Formerly this
eminence overhung the beach, and immediately underneath it
was the cove in which the shallop grounded, and the projecting
boulder which received the first tread of freedom. Now the
whole is altered. The rock is eight feet above the water, and
some rods further in shore than the high water mark. It is sup-
posed that the whole neighbourhood has been lifted and filled
up with gravel, to make the road and wharves which commer-
cial enterprise has needed. It is averred, however, and this is
some consolation to our chilled enthusiasm, that it lies immedi-
ately over, if not actually on, the original spot of landing. By
a series of uninterrupted testimony, stretching back to the very
days of the forefathers, the " Rock " is declared to have been
the identical one on which they leaped to shore, so that when
you stand beneath the canopy of Quincy granite, and place
your feet on the piece of rock about two feet square, which is
all that, for fear of the sacrilegious, dare be left exposed, you
may be sure that you stand where have stood the conditores
imperiorum — the founders of empire, to whom Lord Bacon
assigns the highest meed of earthly fame, and who deserve a
higher eulogy than his, because they planted not for dominion
or renown, but for freedom, for conscience, and for God.

From the rock we re-ascend into Leyden street, so called
from the city which afforded the pilgrims shelter for so long,

302

A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

then climb the steep pathway to Burial Hill, 165 feet above the
sea. This is the hill on which the fort was erected, at once a
watch-tower and a stockade. It is high enough to cover the
settlement and to guard against surprise, but not high enough
for isolation from the neighbourhood below. Here, like the
ancient Hebrews, they wrought, armed with sword and trowel,
and up the slopes of this hill they toiled, with exemplary steps,
when the Sabbath summoned them to worship. From this
elevation all the places made sacred by the pilgrims are visible,
Down below, a little to the east, is the harbour where the little
vessel was guided by a skill more prescient than that of the
bewildered pilot at the helm. Far in the distance, indistinctly
seen through the haze, is Cape Cod, the scene of five weeks'
weary waiting. Within the bay, to the south-east, is the
Manomet Ridge, crested with pines, by which the pilot guided
his bark to the place where he wished to land. To the north
is Clarke's Island, where the first Sabbath was spent, and where

" Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea. "

On the north-east is the green hill of Duxbury, where Standish
made his home, and where, linking gloriously ancient heroism
and modern progress, the French Atlantic Cable takes posses-
sion of American soil. Across the Town Brook, to the south,
is Watson's, formerly Strawberry Hill, where Massasoit, the
friendly sachem, appeared with his followers, and where the
treaty was made which was so faithfully observed on both sides.
The place teems with their memories, and to the eye and heart
of those who are in sympathy with their cause, every spot is
hallowed ground. On the hill itself, though a populous city of

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

the dead, we look in vain for the forefathers' graves. It may
be that some of the moss-covered old stones just peeping above
the soil cover the dust of heroes ; but we cannot tell. The
pilgrims died, but "no man knoweth of their sepulchres. "
Haply they are hidden lest superstition should canonize, or
avarice make merchandise of their bones. A column rises to
the memory of Governor Bradford, bearing this inscription:
" Under this stone rest the ashes of William Bradford, a
zealous Puritan and sincere Christian, Governor of Plymouth
Colony from April 1621 to 1657 (the year he died, aged 69),
except five years which he declined." The descendants of the
early settlers are all buried here. It needs only to wander
amongst the tombs to be impressed with the longevity which
prevails in a community established upon Bible laws, and to be
impressed, also, with the quaint Puritanism which would fain
have made Plymouth a Theocracy, extending to the minutest
detail of the ancient pattern, and perpetuated even in the
names. In a ten minutes' ramble I saw upon the gravestones
the following Scripture names, which, I do not doubt, might
have been multiplied by farther search : — Abigail, Bathsheba,
Bethiah, Drusilla, Ebenezer, Elisha, Esther, Experience, Elna-
than, Eunice, Gideon, Heman, Ichabod, Job, Jerusha, Jabez,
Joanna, Lemuel, Lois, Mercy, Miriam, Priscilla, Phcebe,
Patience, Phineas, Rufus, Rebecca, " that virtuous woman,
Ruth," Sylvanus, Seth, Thankful, Zabdiel, Zoeth, Zilpah, Zac-
cheus. But with quaint manners and quaint names these men
had the hero heart and the confessor's faith. Their faith was,
indeed, their strength. Strong in the supremacy of conscience,
in that real earnestness which springs from conviction and
which prompts to enterprise ; far-sighted in political sagacity,

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A PILGRIMAGE TO TWO AMERICAN SHRINES.

because seeing Him that is invisible ; shrewd enough to know
that the truest policy ror the life that now is, is a reverent
recognition of the life *-iat is to come, they were brave in
endurance and patient under trial ; and, never losing sight of
the principle for which they struggled, and of the purpose of
their voyage afar, they " won the wilderness for God."

This age needs to be reminded of them. It is hard, unreal,
materialistic, money-loving. There is corruption in its high
places. It is tainted with the lust of dominion, and denied
with the greed of gain. It were happy for it, and for all of us,
to visit in person, or by proxy, these Massachusetts shrine?,
and to learn from them that Faith is the highest virtue, and
labour for God the most exalted calling; and that, as a
promised recompense of Faith and Labour, " the righteous
shall be in everlasting remembrance, while the memory of the
wicked shall rot."

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

11 If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of
thy gates, in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not
harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother ; but thou
shalt open thine hand wide unto him." — Deut. xv. 7, 8.

" For the poor shall never cease out of the land." — Deut. xv. 1 1.

IT does not need that I should remind you at any length of
the circumstances under which this command was given.
It occurs in that grand valedictory service to which Moses, the
great Jewish lawgiver, summoned the children of Israel, and in
the course of which he repeated the commandments of the law,
and urged upon them to be consistent and faithful in the land
of promise which they were about to inherit. There was a pathos
in his utterances — for he knew that he spoke his latest counsels
to the people who had often tried him, who had often rebelled
against him, but whom he loved with a love stronger than death.
And there was also the deeper pathos of the remembrance that
he, and the few elders who survived, had forfeited their own
entrance into Canaan — and that by the decree of an unchange-
able penalty each silver-haired ancient who had started from
Egypt, and had been concerned in the condemning unbelief,

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

must lay his bones in the wilderness, while the speaker himself
could but gaze in one brief trance of rapture upon the people's
inheritance, and then lie down and die. In this farewell charge,
which comprises the whole Book of Deuteronomy — not only are
motives to obedience pressed upon them with overwhelming
power — but circumstantial directions are given upon all matters
connected with the establishment of their new life. There are
denunciations of idolatry — the one crowning sin which was the
cause of their sacred isolation — and then follow regulations
touching the four great principles of theocratical government :
i. Worship and sacrifice ; 2. The institution of the family, and
its concurrent obligations ; 3. The consecration of time, with
the Sabbath as God's especial portion ; and 4. The consecration
of the substance, and its apportionment to the requirements of
personal and family need — of legitimate business — of the sanc-
tuary— and of the calls of charity. In the last of these comes
the injunction of the text. As if, by provident foresight, God
had ordained the existence of the poor on purpose to be the
check upon the rich man's selfishness, and the outlet for the
rich man's bounty ; it is predicted that they shall " never cease
out of the land ; " and the duty of the now highly favoured in
regard to them, and the specialty of the claim upon the ground
of a common nationality, are both included in the words I have
read. And let no man suppose that the command is of any
less obligation, or that it comes with sanction less divinely
authenticated, because spoken from Hebrew lips, and addressed
to one wayward people's needs. But there is in many respects
-a close analogy between our circumstances and theirs. We are
not newly enlightened, the last trophies of some venturous mis-
sionary's toil, as were many of those to whom the Apostles

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

wrote j if there do linger about us any remnants of our Paganism,
it is because we have cherished them for years, and habit has
made us fond of the badges of our darkness and shame. We
revel in the light which only dawned greyly on the former time ;
we dwell beneath institutions which will begin to cast forth
shadows soon. To us it is fitting that the prophet's lips should
speak; we may be aptly rebuked by the faithfulness of the seer's
warning. The principles enunciated for the guidance of the
Jewish people, so far at any rate as high religious ethics are con-
cerned, are principles which must govern us to-day. This is an
interesting service which has gathered us, a time when in the far
country we evoke the memories of home, those deep-lying and
long lasting instincts which years have no power to stifle, and
which even hard usage and all the buffetings of a pitiless world
cannot utterly destroy. Here we summon our patriotism to
prompt our charity — haggard strangers loom through the sea-
fret, ever coming near to us with their cry of distress and need —
and as they approach us through the parting mists, we find that
they are brethren, heirs with us of glorious history and traditions
which make the blood leap the fleeter through the veins — chil-
dren of the dear island mother from whom our own breath
was drawn, and who sits in sceptred state, shaking her tresses
of freedom to the winds, and girt about in loving embrace by
the arms of the triumphant sea. It is an occasion, therefore,
in some sort, of national concern and sympathy, and those espe-
cially who have named the name of Jesus, and so march under
more sacred banners than that of the old Cappadocian hero,
are bound to be helpful in their measure, that our good may not
be evil spoken of, and that our religion, in one of its comeliest
developments, may come before the observation of men. No

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

great elaboration is necessary to impress upon you the princi-
ples which the text embodies and enforces. The claim is that
of the poor man within thy gates, who never ceases out of the land,
and the claim becomes the stronger because of the peculiar circum-
stance that the poor man is one of thy brethren. Let us illustrate
these thoughts for a brief while. " God has made of one blood
all nations of men, for to dwell upon the face of the whole earth."
This is the announcement of a grand fact, which has never yet
been successfully disproved. " One blood " — there is the dis-
tinct, individual unity of the human race ; one family— though
sundered by climate and language ; one deep underlying iden-
tity, however chequered by the varieties of external condition.
This relates man to man everywhere, makes all the world a
neighbourhood, and founds upon universal affinity a universal
claim. The old Roman could say, with a far-sighted percep-
tion of this great truth : " I am a man ; nothing, therefore, that
is human can be foreign to me," and Christianity has exalted
this sentiment into a perpetual obligation, and stamped it with
the royal seal of heaven. This general law, however, must be
divided into minor modifications, or it will be practically use-
less. It is not intended to contravene nature, but to assist and
regulate its affections ; and if it be the world at large which is
the object of pity, the very magnitude of the area will induce a
mental vagueness which will fritter away the intenseness
•of the feeling. That is a suspicious affection which attaches
itself to nobody in particular, which makes no heart its centre,
which brightens no hearthstone by its light. Its words may be
loud and swelling ; like the blast of March it may sweep noisily
about men's houses and drift the dust about in clouds, but they
are conscious only of discomfort when it blows; they do not

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trust it ; it " passes by them like the idle wind, which they respect
not." Hence all private affections are recognized and hallowed,
and are indeed the source from which all public virtues spring.
They are not inconsistent with the love of the whole race ; they
prepare for it, and lead to it, and scoop out the channels through
which the tributes of its bounty may flow. Who shall sympathize
with oppressed peoples but the patriot-heart which rejoices in
the sacredness of its own roof-tree, and in the security of its own
altars ? Who shall be eloquent for the rights of others but he
who is manly in the assertion of his own ? Who shall succour
breaking hearts, and brighten desolate houses, but the man who
realizes in daily up-welling the unutterable happiness of home ?
These two obligations, therefore, the claim of universal sympa-
thy and the claim of particular relationships, are not incompati-
ble, but fulfil mutually the highest uses of each other. God
has taught in the Scriptures the lesson of a universal brother-
hood, and man must not gainsay the teaching. Shivering in the
ice-bound, or scorching in the tropical regions ; in the lap of
luxury or in the wild hardihood of the primeval forest ; belting
the globe in a tired search for rest, or quieting through life in
the heart of ancestral woods ; gathering all the decencies around
him like a garment, or battling in fierce raid of crime against a
world which has disowned him, there is an inner humanness
which binds me to that man by a primitive and indissoluble
bond. He is my brother, and I cannot dissever the relation-
ship. He is my brother, and I cannot release myself from the
obligation to do him good. I cannot love all men equally ; my
own instincts, and nature's provision, and society's requirements,
and God's commands, all unite in reprobation of that. My
wealth of affection must be in home, children, kindred, country.

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

but my pity must not lock itself in these, my regard must not
compress itself within these limits merely — my pity must go
forth wherever there is human need and human sorrow; my
regard must fasten upon the man, though he has flung from him
the crown of his manhood in anger. I dare not despise himT
because there, in the depths of his fall, as he lies before me
prostrate and dishonoured, there shines, through the filth and
through the sin, that spark of heavenly flame — that young im-
mortal nature which God the Father kindled, over which God
the Spirit yearns with continual desire, and which God the Eter-
nal Son offered his own heart's blood to redeem. Yes — there
is no man now who can rightfully ask the infidel question of
Cain. God has made man his brother's keeper. We are bound
to love our neighbour as ourselves ; and if, in a contracted
Hebrew spirit, you are inclined to press the enquiry, " And who
is my neighbour ? " there comes a full pressure of utterance to
authenticate and enforce the answer, Man. Thy neighbour !
Every one whom penury has grasped or sorrow startled ; every
one whom plague hath smitten or whom curse hath banned ;
every one from whose home the darlings have vanished, and
around whose heart the pall hath been drawn.

" Thy neighbour ! 'Tis the fainting poor

Whose eye with want is dim,
Whom hunger sends from door to door ;
Go, thou, and succour him."

I observe further that the last clause of the text is as true
to-day as in the time of its original utterance, the " poor shall
never cease out of the land;" and although in this new Dominion,
with its large acred wealth of soil, and comparatively scanty
population, you can know nothing of the overgrown pauperism

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

which is at once a fault, a sorrow, and a problem to the rulers of
older states, yet here, as in every age and in every clime, there
are distinctions of society in the world. It must be so from the
nature of things ; it is part of God's benevolent allotment, and
of His original economy. He makes no endless plains, or
uniform mountain ridges. He has stamped His own deep love
of beauty on the undulating woodland, and on the flower-sprent
hill, and on the pleasant varieties of peak, and copse, and stream.
A level creation were not the creation of God, and it is so
with society. It has its inequalities of necessity ; men may fret
against them, but they cannot help themselves. Nothing can
alter the irreversible law, and if by the fury of some revolutionary
deluge, all things were reduced to a drear level of waters to-day,
you may be sure that some aspiring mountain-tops would
struggle through the billows to-morrow. Society could not
cohere as a union of equals ; there must be graduation and
dependence. God hath set the poor in his condition as well as
the rich, for " He that despiseth the poor reproacheth his
Maker ;" and the announcement of the Saviour, " The poor ye
have always with you," is at once the averment of a fact and a
perpetual commendation of them, as Christ's clients, to the help
and succour of His church. In the text, benevolence towards
them is positively enjoined, and enjoined because of their
abiding existence as a class of the community. Hence it has
been well said, " Poverty is the misfortune of some and the
disgrace of more, but it is the inheritance of most." There will
always be those who will need and claim the friendliness of
their fellows above them. Some by native energy, or favouring
circumstances, will raise themselves in the social scale, (and here
are ampler opportunities than most other lands afford,) but the

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

mass will toil OH through a lifetime in the condition in which
they were born, with few reliefs and fewer aspirations, the mouth
demanding and absorbing the ceaseless labour of the hands.
There is that also in the constitution of society which requires
that the class from which the ranks of clamant poverty are
recruited should be always the largest class amongst us. The
pyramid must stand upon its base. The wants of the population,
naturally large, have been increased by the refinements of civili-
zation. The poor are the stalwart purveyors to the necessity,
and to the comfort of life. Who shall say that in seasons of
exigency they have not a claim upon the state they serve, and
upon the charity which is but the justice of others ; some of
whom have risen from their ranks ; some of whom have been
enriched by their toil. Once recognize the relationship, and the
claim will inevitably follow, the sense of service rendered and
obligation created thereby will make that claim more sacred,
and religion, attaching her holiest sanction, lifts the recognition
of the claim into a duty which may not be violated without sin.
" I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." " Whoso seeth his
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion,
how dwelleth the love of God in him?" Nay, Christ himself,
once poor in the travail of His incarnate life, and therefore
touched with the feeling of their infirmities, "adopts them as His
own peculiar care, and pointing to them as they shiver in rags,
or parch from hunger, commends them to His church, that they
may be warmed and fed," adding the benediction which is itself
a Heaven : " Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least
of these, ye have done it unto Me." There are, moreover,
peculiarities in the poor man's lot, of which I may here briefly
remind you, which tend to the enforcement of the claim which

316

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

both Reason and Scripture commend. Think then of the nature
of the occupations in which so many pass their lives. It is true
that there is an inherent dignity in labour. It is not, as some
have erroneously supposed, a penal clause of the original curse.
There was labour, bright, healthful, unfatiguing, in unfallen
Paradise. By sin labour became drudgery — the earth was
restrained from her spontaneous fertility, and the strong arm of
the husbandman was required, not to develop, but to " subdue "
it. But labour in itself is noble, and is necessary for the ripe
unfolding of the highest life. But how many are there to whom
the days pass in dreary monotomy, little to task the intellect, to
engross the affections, or to call into play the finer sensibilities
of the man. It is " Work, work, work, as prisoners work for
crime." The man within the man is degraded by the uninter-
mitting toil ; the task-work is performed, the holidays come but
seldom, and when they do come, he is too listless to enjoy them.
Day after day rolls wearily along, and there is no prospect of
retirement ; a family grows up around him, and the children are
clamorous for bread. Each morning summons him inexorably
to labour ; each evening sets unpitying on his weariness. The
frosts gather upon his head ; the lithe limbs lose their supple-
ness, there is a strange sinking at the heart, but he must work,
until at length infirmity disables him ; then he dies, and there is
his wife exposed to the cold world's buffetings, and his children
to a stranger's charity or an early grave. Think again how the
poor are circumscribed from many ordinary sources of enjoyment.
Though sin has sorely afflicted humanity, there are yet open
many sources of pleasure, and from books, and friends, and
intellectual conversation, and taste, and rambles "among the
flowers, or the woodland, or on the pine-clad hills, or by the

317

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

fringe of the living sea ; as well as from those exercises which
belong to Christian fellowship, benevolence, and enterprise, there
can be realized a rapture which mitigates the curse, and which
leaves no remorse behind. But from many of these the poor are,
by the necessities of their position, debarred. They do not start
fairly with their fellows in the race of intellectual acquirement.
To them, as a rule, the sciences are sealed. It is but rarely that
they can kindle before a great picture, or travel to the spots
renowned in song or story, or be thrilled beneath the spell of a
great Poet's mighty words. Not for them the pleasures of sense,,
the ample board, the convenient dwelling, the gathered friends,
the appliances of comfort with which wealth has carpeted its own
pathway to the Tomb. Their life is a perpetual struggle beneath
the winner and the spender, and unless they are happy at home,
and blessed by the consolations of religion, existence will be a
joyless peril, a weariness which ceaseth not, or, if there be a
respite, it will be one which gives " no blessed leisure for love
or hope, but only time for tears." Think again of the pressure
with which the ordinary ills of life fall upon the poor. There is
no part of the world where the curse has not penetrated. Man
is born to trouble amid Arab hordes, and in Siberian wilds, as
well as in royal courts and teeming cities. The cloud, like the
sun, is no respecter of persons. Everywhere disappointment
tracks the footsteps, and sickness steals into the dwelling, and
Death waiteth at the door. But these ills, common to all men,
fall most heavily upon the poor. They have to bear the penalty
in their condition as well as in their experience. They cannot
purchase the skill of many healers, the comforts which soothe
the sickness, the delicacies which restore the strength. They
cannot afford the time to recover thoroughly, for effort is required

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

to keep ahead of the world, and to the quickened apprehension
there are many visions of the wolf of Hunger glaring in through
the panes of the uncurtained window. Their very maintenance
is dependent upon contingencies which they can neither foresee
nor control. Their prospects in life, their hopes of supply, their
only chance of provision for emergency, are derived from their
labour. That labour is contingent upon the state of trade, upon
the measures of government, upon the yield c f harvest, upon the
price of money. Sometimes upon the caprice of their employers,
sometimes upon the coarse tyranny which they exert over each
other, and sometimes even upon the thoughts, purposes and
quarrels of a people whom they never saw, and from whom they
are separated by a waste of waters upon whose breast they never
cared to sail. If labour fails, bread fails and hearts fail. The
more provident can struggle for a while on the results of their
thrift and care, but if the scarcity be protracted, and if no
friendly succour interpose, you can trace the inevitable progress
downward. The little savings for which the industry of the
past had toiled, and on which the hopes of the future rested,
are frittered away to supply the need which will not wait ; the
•cottage comforts vanish one by one, and there is a sickness at
the heart as they go, for long habit has made them grow up into
familiar friends, until, in extremest desolation, the picture of the
poet is realized :

" A shattered roof — a naked floor,

A table — a broken chair,
And a wall so blank, their shadow they thank

For sometimes falling there."

Then sickness comes — the fever follows hard upon the famine.
The comfort is gone — the strength is gone— the hope is gone.

KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

Death has nothing to do but take possession. They have neither
power nor will to resist him. Not hopeful, but sadly, strangely,
terribly indifferent, they await his approach, and if you tell them
of their danger, they might answer in the words of the strong
and gentle spirit from whom we quoted before :

" But why do you talk of Death,

That plantom of grisly bone,
We hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like our own."

And this is no fancy sketch or fevered dream. There are
homes of your countrymen where the Ruin is in progress
to-day. I enlarge no further but to remind you that there is a
specialty in the case of the poor for whom I plead, in that
they are at once "strangers, and of your brethren " — of the one
Hood, but in a strange land. In many aspects the lot of the
emigrant is a painful one. However, if he attains a position in
a new country, he may become proud of its institutions and
rooted in its soil. The parting from the home of his youth
cannot be without a pang. Even those who come, blithe
venturers for fortune, under the patronage of youth and hope
— own to the first feeling of desolation as they realize the
stranger's loneliness ; and when, as in many cases, the emigration
has been constrained by adversity, and the man must part per-
force from old associations, and friends, and belongings — there
is a cruel wrench of fthe tenderer fibres of the soul ; and if, in
addition to the regretful memories of the past and the sickening
sense of homelessness — there be the forebodings of an uncer-
tain future — and the fear comes creeping over the spirit of
exhausted means and a pining family ; of the Want which is a

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

deadly tempter, and of the Hunger which is a sharp thorn. Oh
that is a condition surely of extremest need, and, I tell you, a
word of kindness in such a strait is welcome as the smile of an
angel, for it may redeem from hopelessness and despair ; and a
helpful hand-grasp, with something in the hand the while, is
worth a hundred-fold its cost, for it may have ransomed for all
future time the most kingly thing on earth, the manhood of a
man, for industry, and society, and God.

I do not know much about the real or mythical personage —
I am unable to determine which — who, alleged to have been
born in some Cappadocian fastness, has been adopted as the
patron saint of England, whatever that may mean. I cannot
separate the fact and the fable. I know not whether or not he
slew the monster who is represented to be transfixed by his
spear,and delivered some fair princess Aja,beautiful exceedingly ?
from durance or from doom, but I know this, that in the heart
of this legend there are underlying symbols of the Christian
warfare in which all who love the Lord Jesus should be valiant
for the truth upon the earth. What is our life-work but to
release, in ourselves and in each other, the maiden graces of the
Christian character, which have been in bondage to the tyrant
of the Fall ? What is the whole work of our Religion but a
warfare with the Dragon — that old and cruel serpent who still
creepeth to empoison and destroy. Sirs, if ye would not shun
the plainest meanings of the symbols under which ye gather,
embody these teachings in your lives. Let your daily experience
shew that you have learned this secret of life, that it is not a
mere provision for the flesh to fulfil the lust thereof — that it is not
an hour of idleness, to be wasted -"in rioting and drunkenness,
in chambering and wantonness, in strife and envying," but that

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

it is a stewardship to be accounted for hereafter— an earnest
gift, full of earnest longings, and tending to earnest ends — some-
thing to be given primarily to Christ, who redeemed it, and for
His sake to be employed for men. Let your Religion be the
base of your character, and there will be a goodly superstructure
of Enterprise and Patriotism and Charity. It is right that on
this occasion you should remember the land of your birth or of
your fathers. The pride of patriotism is a pride that is not
all unholy. Not in vaunting but in thankfulness — not captive
by the rivers of Babylon, but happy in the beneficent outgrowth
of ancient blessings on the soil of a New Dominion, the descen-
dants of the dear old mother-isle gather in this fair Canada the
comeliest of her daughters to recall her advantages, and to be
generous to her fugitive sons. She is worth all our love and
pride. Secure from invasion, prolific in produce — of tiny extent
but of tremendous influence — a speck upon the world's charts
but an emperor in the world's councils — the school of the wise
and the home of the free — her sails whitening all waters, and in
all latitudes her flag flying upon some fringe of coast — girding
the globe with her possessions, and owning archipelagos of isles
— while, as the late National Thanksgiving proved, in the
remotest dependency there throbs the great heart-pulse of home,
"She is the anointed cherub that covereth, and God hath set
her so." But not in these things are her safety and her strength.
They are in her equal laws, and in her national honour, in the
fact that, overcottage and palace alike, the aegis of the constitution
rests, and in that all the machinery of justice is set in motion
to protect the peasant's home if high-born wrong assail it ; and
to guard the beggar's conscience, if he but fancy it aggrieved ;
above all in her adhesion, though imperfectly rendered, to the

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KINDNESS TO THE POOR.

Gospel of Christ, and to the grand principles of morality, and
charity, and godliness, which that Gospel has established among
men. Let her decay from these, let there come corruption in
her high places, the repudiation of national honour — the reign
of encroaching error — the supremacy of a fell infidelity in the
national mind — and her condemnation will not slumber, and,
with her proud forerunners in empire, her greatness will be
forgotten as a cloud. Let her hold to these great principles,
widening through the ages into increasing reverence for Truth,
and Peace, and God, and her greatness shall be assured until
the last fires blot out the sun.

" This England never did, nor ever shall
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue
If England to herself do rest but true."

Dear Brethren, to the duty which awaits you you need not
be further urged. Your countrymen, forced to stranger shores
by blighted hope and ruined fortune. These are our clients.
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it
unto Me." This is our Divinely furnished argument. " Ye
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was
rich, yet, for oursakes He became poor." This is our example.
" She hath done what she could." This is to be the measure of
our giving. "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the
Lord. And look ! what he lendeth, He will pay him again."
This is our surety. " Thou hast been faithful over a few things
I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord." This is our exceeding great reward.

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THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

" Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion ! When God
bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel
shall be glad," — PSALM liii. 6.

THIS is one of those Psalms which were wailed out at
intervals during the time of captivity ; when, though
the hope of deliverance was still inertly cherished, the day
which was to realize it had not yet dawned even upon the
clearest vision. All these Psalms have a plaintive character of
their own, such as might have been expected when all the out-
ward circumstances were untoward, and no joy of home or
freedom quivered in the heart whose fingers swept the strings.
Yet the prisoners were "prisoners of hope." Throughout all
disastrous changes confidence in the brighter future existed
within them, as a principle too firmly established to be shaken
cither by tyrannous exactions or by fleeting years. Brethren,
the centuries have rolled away, each with its own burden of
vicissitude, and with its own record of progress ; but there is a
long captivity which has never once been lifted from one fated
nation, and beneath which it is languishing to-day. The
mournful story which Vespasian's medal tells is the story Of

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THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

the Jewish nation now. The weeper still sits beneath the palm-
tree, the one hand listless alike from music and labour, the
other covering the eyes, whose lids droop heavily ; and she
makes her sad plaint to a world which has too often scorned
her, and to a church which has too often been indifferent to
her claims. In the meet language of ancient prophecy, " Is it
nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Behold, and see if there
be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce
anger." (Lam. i. 12.) It is my purpose — a purpose which I
fear I shall very imperfectly fulfil — to present before you, in
condensed fulness, the condition and the destiny of the once
favoured race of Israel, reminding you :

I. That their salvation is needed ;

II. That their salvation is promised ;

III. That Christians are bound to seek it by personal effort
and prayer.

I. There is nothing which more strongly moves the sym-
pathies of the thoughtful than to behold some impoverished
descendant of an ancient house gazing mournfully upon the
demesne which he once called his own, but which has passed
into the hands of the stranger; or some scion of the De
Courcys and Plantagenets starving in the destitution to which
his spendthrift habits have reduced him. The inspiring asso-
ciations of the past do but deepen the present desolation, and
our pity for his fall is the deeper because of the contrast with
his former heritage of rank and fortune. Here is, not an
individual but a nation, thus homeless and ruined ; a nation
that could once outrival the proudest and most highly privileged.
If it be considered that the antiquity of a family, and the great

328

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

names won by those who have belonged to it, aggravate the
calamity of its fall, then your pity for this prostrate people may
be intenser, because in their case both these conditions exist.
The haughtiest noble who boasts of Norman blood has not an
ancestry half so renowned, or a lineage half so pure, as the
poor Jew pedlar on whose vagrancy he thinks with pity, or
whose sordidness he rebukes with scorn. The Jew had had a
history for long years before the Babylonian empire laid the
foundations of its power ; before a dwelling rose on the Capitoline
hill • before the confederate Greeks assembled beneath the
walls of Troy. While the records of other nations are lost, or
have drivelled into the veriest fable, you have accurate records,
drawn under Divine guidance, of patriarchal customs, and times
when this wondrous people were chosen to be witnesses for
God. When the antiquarian eye glistens before some fragment
of the ancient Babylon, it may be that he gazes on the disinterred
handiwork of some Jewish builder. When the traveller is
wearied with the climbing of the Pyramids, he may remember
that it is not improbable that the Jews piled up their steep stairs
of stone. When the explorer penetrates into the royal tombs
at Thebes, there stares out at him from the walls the very
Hebrew physiognomy which is so familiar in the midst of us
to-day. Hebrew chieftains were brave, and Hebrew shepherds
wealthy, when time itself was young. It will be remembered,
also, that theirs are some of the most illustrious names which
the annals of the world record. Why should they despair of
statesmanship for whom Moses enacted his wise and patient
lawgiving, and in whose veins the blood of Daniel flows ? Why
should not they be brave who are the descendants of Joshua
and of the valiant Maccabeus ? Why scorn them, as if they

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were incapable of genius, when they are of the kindred of
Ezekiel the fiery-eyed, or Isaiah the glorious, or the minstrel-
monarch of Israel ? Who shall say that all their wealth of
wisdom was monopolised by Solomon ; that all their power
of command was translated with Elijah ; that all their marvels
of eloquence ceased with the last words of Paul ? Who will
not weep that they should ever be stubborn and degraded, " of
whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all,
God blessed for ever." But this nation, thus venerable in its
history and rich in its renowned sons, has vanished. It is now
" scattered and peeled," and its children inherit the displeasure
which, as we believe, eighteen hundred years ago their fathers
invoked upon themselves. The prophet promised by Moses
rose up in the midst of them, but they refused to hearken to
his words. The Messiah " came to his own, but his own
received him not." The day of visitation dawned in clearness
and brilliancy, but they trifled or opposed through its noontide
to its twilight, until it set before their eyes. Their own obdu-
racy in the rejection of the Saviour issued in their own rejection
from being the privileged people, and in their exile from the land
where such glorious opportunities had been given.

Just look more largely at each of these thoughts for a
moment. The whole ritual of Jewish service supposes that
there is a living heart in the worshipper ; otherwise there is
nothing in the services to redeem them from formality, or to
distinguish them from any other ceremonies of unmeaning
symbolism. In Levitical times this inspiring heart was the
hope and promise of Messiah : in the times of the Redeemer's
incarnation, it was the belief in the Messiah who had come,
and whose coming had been approved by miracles, announced

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by angels, and attested by divine sanctions of impressiveness
and power. But to the mass of the Jewish people this heart,
this trust, was lacking. To them first were the tidings pro-
claimed— their ancestral rights and the boundlessness of Christ's
compassion alike necessitated that — but they " rejected the
counsel of God against themselves." By consequence the
vitality languished out of their system ; the symbol of God's
presence abode no longer in the temple, and the temple itself
was by and by " razed to its foundation, so that not one stone
was left upon another." How remarkable a fulfilment has there
been of the woes of Hosea's prophecy, " For the children of
Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a
prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and with-
out an ephod, and without teraphim." (Hosea iii. 4.) From
that time there has been no king of the Jews, nor even the rem-
nant of a nation over which he could reign. They have now no
high priest — for their genealogies are lost — and they know no!
who are of the tribe of Levi, and who of the family of Aaron.
Their sacrifice is no longer presented, for the chief rabbi is an
officer unknown to their law, and invested with no mediatorial
authority ; and in burdensome ceremonies they spend the annual
day of expiation, ceremonies which cannot possibly profit them.
The Mishna and Gomara of their Talmuds have so encumbered
the law, that they no longer study it with reverence as their
fathers did ; and though there are reactionary symptoms here
and there, and some are evidently panting after the true light of
the Word, of the mass it may be said with truth, that now, as in
the days when Paul wrote to Corinth, " when Moses is read
the veil is upon their heart." Not a few of them, from this
fatal neglect of God's Word, have relapsed into a species of
u 331

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Deism, and multitudes into a total and eclipsing worldliness,
which renders them practically Atheists in the world. Their
worship is more a bodily than a spiritual service, and there is
mournfully little either of instruction for the mind or of the cul-
tivation of purity for the heart. They cling yet vainly to the
dream of the coming Messiah, but are readier to anticipate their
uplifting from their manifold afflictions and their restoration to
their patrimonial home, than the circumcision of the heart and
the mastery over human passion which we have learnt to be
the highest glories of His kingdom. Alas ! for them. They
have been so often mocked with shadows that it is said they
have a curse for him who shall calculate the time of the
Redeemer's advent Alas ! for them. If they are sincere and
earnest, their consciences are but lashed into accusing activity
to be lulled into a delusive repose. Alas ! for them. To a
crouching fear of death they are all their lifetime subject to
bondage, and at the best have but a glimmering ray with which
to light their pilgrim footsteps in their travel to the dark
unknown. Surely they need the kind offices of Christian com-
passion, and the prayer unceasingly offered that their eyes may
be delivered from their films of blindness, and the " hearts of
the disobedient turned about to the wisdom of the just. "

If you take the other thought — their dispersion into all lands
— their condition will be still more appreciated in its painfulness
and ruin. It is not idly that Jeremiah says, " God hath delivered
them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their
hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all
places whither I shall drive them." (Jer. xxiv. 9). How mar-
vellous their history has been and continues to be in this matter !
They are scattered, but one in the mighty sympathies which

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have defied all the disasters of the years to denationalize them.
There you see them, present everywhere, but having nowhere
their belongings, rising up in the midst of national combinations
— like a strange chemical element which refuses affinity with
everything with which men try to mingle it — always identical,
but always homeless. There never was possibly a more terri-
ble siege, either in ancient or in modern warfare, than the siege
of Jerusalem. The mind sickens over the recital of the com-
bined horrors of the slaughter and the famine, as they are
recorded in the annalist's pages ; but there were darker woes
and fiercer cruelties behind. Decrees of banishment succeeded
the downfall of the city. The first wild attempt at insurrection
was expiated by the destruction of half a million of the remnant
that was left. In the time of Hadrian the heaviest penalties
were threatened upon any Hebrew who remained in Jewry. He
might not oar the blue waters of Tiberias, nor own a rood in the
fertile Sharon, nor, save by stealth, even glance upon the hill of
Zion ; and, cruellest of all, he could not even have in Hebron
the poor comfort of a grave, for

" He must wander witheringly

In other lands to die ;
And where his father's ashes were
His own could never lie.

Throughout succeeding ages, though surrounding governments
ran through all grooves of change, no reversal of the attainder
came upon the disinherited Jew. Jerusalem had been overrun
by sucesssive hordes of strangers. All religions but the purest
had been professed within its walls. All alien tribes could find
shelter and traffic — but it was inexorably barred against the

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entrance of its own children. From the minarets there might
wave the crescent of the Ottoman, or shine the bright lances of
the tameless Arab, or gleam the crucifix of the Papist — the Jew
was still proscribed. Or if now and then there dawned a milder
policy or more merciful times, he lived in his own home by suf-
ferance; and in literal fulfilment of the prophecy, "he had a
trembling heart and failing eyes, and sorrow of mind, and feared
day and night, and had none assurance of his life." (Deut.
xxviii. 65, 66). And now, though they have larger immunities
than before, they are practically in banishment still. They have
no portion in Jerusalem, and scarcely a memorial. They owe
their tolerated presence in the holy city to the protection which
the British flag gives to its own subjects everywhere; or they
have bargained for a foothold, and, to regain this inalienable
birthright, have " purchased the gift of God with money." Not
only are they exiled still from Jerusalem, exiled so thoroughly
that it is computed that at this day there are fewer Jews in
Palestine than in London, but there has been no colonization
among them by which they have become politically consider-
able in any other country, and have gathered to a head of power.
The scattering has been complete and perpetual. This mar-
vellous people have a sort of ubiquity. They live in every
nation of Europe. They swell the tide of emigration, and turn
up, mysterious and shrewd, at the Antipodes. They shiver in
Siberia and Greenland, and scorch in Africa's heart ; they bow
before the simoom of the desert, and lave their wearied limbs in
Gungas' sacred stream. In all countries where they have wan-
dered, persecution and contempt have awaited them. In the
East their sufferings have been multiplied. The lazy Turk
rouses himself to express his momentary anger against the

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Hebrew. Chivalrous France, classic Italy, romantic Spain,
tolerant and thoughtful Germany — all in former days have
treated the Jew with cruelty, and in later times with slander
and with scorn. And in England, free, enlightened, happy,
there are dark historic pages which record the calamities of the
Israelite ; how avarice was rapacious, and chivalry unknightly,
and honour, even royal honour, belied, and the common
laws of right and honesty forgotten where their interests were
concerned ; how Saxon thane and Norman noble alike thrust
them from the courtesies of life ; and how even the swineherd
and the jester dared insult the velvet gaberdine with ribald
oaths and with unseemly scorn. It is but lately that all the
reproach of persecution has been wiped away ; and even now
there are but few of us that have felt as we ought for this peo-
ple, still, after so many ages, branded with their original curse,
still without a prince and without a sacrifice. Think with
Christian sympathy of their political dispersion and of their reli-
gious danger, and I am sure that there will be struck upon your
hearts such a consciousness of needed salvation that you will
cry out in the entreaty of the text, lt Oh that the salvation of
Israel were come out of Zion ! When God bringeth back the
captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be
glad."

II. We come to notice that their salvation is attainable. The
harp is not always to hang idly upon the willows, nor to be
swept by troubled fingers to wild and plaintive music. The
penal curse is to be reversed. The malediction, though it has
hung over the unhappy race for ages, is not eternal.

There are many proofs that a widespread belief of this has
obtained in the Christian Church. When you feel tenderly

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towards this disinherited elder brother of the family, and long
for his reinstatement in the inheritance which he has " sold for
nought," you feel that you have both warrant for your tender
wishes, and hope that they will be realized, in the love and words
of the Father. But what do we mean when we speak of the
salvation of Israel? It is perhaps necessary to explain our
terms, as the Word may be variously understood. We at once
affirm our meaning to be the conversion of the Jewish nation
unto Christ — their "looking upon Him whom they have pierced,"
not in rage as many of them do now ; not in remorse and hope-
lessness, -as in the quick recoil of conviction they might be
tempted to do, — but in contrite and godly sorrow. All other
meanings which may be put upon the Word are lacking if
they include not this first and highest. Some look for political
deliverance — a social elevation beneath whose amenities they
shall be refined into that higher character from which their long
persecutions have debased them. But if you invest them with
all rights of citizenship here — or bring them to their own land
with all the spontaneous gladness of a jubilee — and do not at the
same time change their hearts, the curse which has cleaved to
them in their wanderings would cleave to them equally in the
city of their solemnities — " an abomination of desolation " more
hateful than the Roman Eagle flaunting in " the holy place."
Some look for mental emancipation — an emergence from the
bondage of the Rabbinical law into a sort of free-thinking
liberalism which is cousin-german to absolute infidelity. Some
expect only to see the Hebrews come over to a speculative
adhesion to the Messiahship of Christ, or to a mere nominal
adoption of the Christian name. Brethren, if all we do by our
efforts be but to dislodge the Jew from his ancestral faith j to

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unsettle his cherished ideas, and to supply him with nothing
better, we incur a very alarming responsibility, and accomplish
a very doubtful good. If we persuade to an intellectual assent
only — though we secure silence from the blasphemers and
removal of the prejudice — we are just hiding light in darkness,
and making darkness denser by the sad eclipse. If we are con-
tent with a nominal profession of Christianity, we give premiums
to the crafty and the sordid, and lay ourselves open to the
perpetration of those discreditable frauds upon us which have
already created a. prima facie impression of distrust against a
converted Jew. Nothing will at once fulfil the mission of the
Christian Church, and satisfy her pants of roused desire, but the
real renovation of the Jewish race ; that they may individually
become heirs of the grace of pardon, reconciled to God through
Christ — "having their fruit unto holiness, and the end ever-
lasting life." That this result will be accomplished we do verily
and in truth believe, and that not by special miracle, not by
any process other than that which makes every conversion
miraculous, but by the power of the Holy Ghost, acting in
persuasive might upon their own free power of choice, and
making effectual the appeal of the ministry or the utterance of
the Word. Surely there is no irreversible hindrance in God,
nor invincible stubbornness in Hebrew hearts against the truth.
It is true that the curse has been pleaded in bar of Christian
endeavour to reclaim them — just as it was pleaded in justification
of the accursed system of slavery, but "God hath not cast off his
people whom he foreknew." It is true that the Jews themselves
acknowledge a peculiar hardness about Jewish nature, and that
many others would be inclined to the opinion which Luther
somewhat roughly affirms : "A Jewish heart is hard as a stock,

337

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

as a stone, as iron, as the spirit of evil;" but it is the "stony
out of the flesh " which God has specially promised to remove.
Rooted as are their prejudices they can be rooted out by Gospel
husbandry. It was not only for a witness that Christ's pitying
tenderness enjoined " the beginning at Jerusalem " of the
tidings of great joy ; and as if to shame and silence for ever
Gentile indolence and unbelief, God gave, in the initial cam-
paign of the Apostles, a glorious Pentecostal type of the
conversion of Israel, in the three thousand Jews who were
smitten and saved under Peter's rousing word.

There are many circumstances, moreover, which exalt our
hopes for the conversion of the Jewish people. It is not for
nothing surely, but in fulfilment of some Divine purpose, that
they have preserved their individuality through so many cen-
turies of years, and that the land of theirfathers has been held
in such marvellous abeyance of possession. Interpreting the
future by the past, we may well conclude that His mercy yearns
over them, " though his hand is stretched out still." Mercy hid
herself behind all their sufferings in the former time. Behind
the bondage of Egypt was the education for a magnificent
nationality, and the prestige which came upon them by the
manner of their deliverance and the destruction of their enemies.
Behind the wandering in the wilderness was the training, never
interrupted during the forty years, for the Canaan of inheritance
and rest Behind the Assyrian and the Babylonish captivities
there was purpose to disgust them with idolatry, and to make
their witness to the Divine unity more distinct and impressive.
Some gracious design is manifested in each painful infliction or
seeming abandonment. And why should it not be so now? Is
it not astounding that they should continue to exist ? Aboriginal

338

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

tribes of the forest have died out before advancing civilization.
The Jew has had more persecutions than any of them, but he
lives still. Violence and strife have pursued him unrelentingly.
He has been driven before Pagan lances, and scorched by
Roman faggots, and gashed by Turkish scimitars with cruel
wounds ; all the enginery of torture and all the exactions of
tyranny have been employed to exterminate him — and yet he
lives ! Empires have decayed, and he seems to have risen
from the ruins. Kingdoms have been born, he has assisted
at the birth. Everywhere he wanders on his separate way —
amid the Bourses of Europe, beneath the glare of tropic
suns — amid costly archipelagos of ocean. His distinction
even of suffering is as glorious to him as were the displayed
phylacteries to the Pharisees of old. Amid many tempta-
tions to coalesce — though not the balance only, but the entirety
of temporal motive inclined to persuade him to amalgamate
— though with but little difficulty he might at one time have
united with the Mohammedan power and so have secured
impunity and the chance of revenge, yet through all hazards he
has maintained his separation, exclaiming, with all the fervour
with which men express a passion of their souls : " I am a Jew,
I can never be anything else but a Jew. I may become a
Christian, I can never become a Gentile." Thus wearing his
national reproach as a fallen king his diadem, and faithful to
the traditions of his ancestors even in his altered fortunes, " as
the sun-flower turns to the sun when he sets the same look which
she turned when he rose."

If you add to this consideration that which invests it with a
still greater marvel, namely, that it is computed that there has
not only been preservation of race, but an approximate equality

339

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

in number — and that there are three millions and a-half of Jews
in the world to-day, just as there were when the "chariots
drave heavily" after them, and the Red Sea rolled back at their
glorious leader's signal, — you cannot refuse the conviction that
all this has not been an arbitrary impulse, but a Divine arrange-
ment ; that the Father has tracked the prodigal in all his
wanderings ; and that by and by there shall be the best robe and
the music of the festival because of the " dead that is alive
again, and of the lost that is found."

There are not wanting indications, moreover, in the feeling of
all thoughtful men, of an awakened interest in this great matter
of Israel's salvation. The mind of Christendom is no longer
indifferent. Christians of every name have interred their ancient
prejudices against the Hebrew, and vie with each other to atone
for the criminal apathy of the past by being no longer laggards
nor idlers — but by compassing this cause with the tenderness of
sympathy, with the diligence of faithful labour, and with the
importunity of prayer. Among the Jews themselves there are
strivings and quickenings as of a nascent birth. Many questions
and customs, which the Rabbinism of the ages have enjoined,
have been discarded by their modern intelligence, and there has
been struck in many hearts a chord of earnest feeling which has
led them to the study of the Prophecies, only to be dismayed
by the conclusion that the Messiah has already come. Their
prejudices against Jesus have in many instances been diminished.
There is an eagerness to receive, and an insatiableness to
devour, the New Testament Scriptures, amongst many who a few
years ago would have scorned to touch them as unclean. And
last, not least, many among them have been actually converted,

340

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

and evidence, in consistent living and earnest missionary toilr
that they have "passed from death unto life."

In this review of probabilities I have abstained from the men-
tion of that which forecloses the entire argument, while yet it is
a sure resting-place for Faith — the absolute promise of God. It
is, however, impossible to read many parts of Jeremiah, Ezekiel
and Hosea's prophecies, or to follow the Apostle's argument in
the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, without
resting upon the assurance, as clearly revealed as any part of the
Divine Will, that " if the casting away of them be the reconciling
of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from
the dead." (Rom. xi. 15.)

Yes, Israel shall be saved ! God hath promised it — and it
shall be so. Vain shall be all the efforts of the world and the
devil to hinder it. Through the degeneracy of character, and
through the incrustation of prejudice, through the inveteracy
of habit and through the teeming slaveries of years — the con-
quering word of Jesus shall make its resistless way. In deepest
sorrow for the great wrong they did to the crucified, " the land
shall mourn, every family apart," until, sprinkled with the blood
they shed, they shall rejoice in His purity and healing. And in.
the great day when the multitudes shall gather for the corona-
tion of the Son of Man, there shall be the Jew, eldest born among
the aristocracies ; with an ancestry that dates before parchments ;
" concerning the flesh " of the kindred of the king ; bending the
knee, foremost in the homage, lifting the voice most tuneful in
the praise ; and, with an eagerness that no other can outrival,
bringing forth the royal diadem, " to crown Him Lord of all.*
Brethren, to hasten this consummation all of you may contribute.
The Hebrew people have many claims upon you. They are men,.

THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

and they appeal to you for the common pitifulness of manhood.
They are men in need and in peril, and their sorrows, like the
wounds of the ancient Greeks, are their advocates before you.
Much of our present privilege came to us by their means. Their
bards sang for us, their prophets thrill us yet. The grand
fishermen and tent makers whom they sent forth are inspira-
tions to us at this hour. They kept through a long dark night,
and amid a horde of prowling enemies, the " lively oracles of
God." We have to atone to them for the wrongs of ages.
Children of those who oppressed them, and who killed their
prophets, we should do better than " build their sepulchres," we
should teach them how holily to live, and how hopefully and
triumphantly to die. God has not finally cast them away. Christ
died for them, and intercedes in His royalty for their recovery.
The Spirit strives with them with a power which many of them
are unwilling to acknowledge. Now your duty is before you, to
work and to pray for their salvation, and to let the active bene-
volence testify to the sincerity with which the lips have breathed
the prayer : *' Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of
Zion ! When God bringeth back the captivity of His people,
Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad."

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

" For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the
Lord's death till He come." — I Cor. xi., 26.

THE Apostle Paul sustained to the Corinthian church the
relation of a father to his child. By him the Gospel
had been first preached in the rich and sensual city, — by his
instrumentality the first converts had been won to Christ ; and
with all a father's yearning did he watch over their welfare,
counsel them in their ever recurring perplexities, and guide the
heedless footsteps which were too prone to go astray. To his
fatherly care for their interests we owe the circumstantial
account which he has given us in this chapter, of the institution
of the Lord's Supper, in the celebration of which, among the
Corinthians, certain abuses had crept in. His account of it,
here recorded, is a valuable and welcome revelation. He was
not present in the upper room. He was not among the awe-
stricken company who were thrilled with horror by the
announcement that amongst them was a foul betrayer, and
who, scarce recovered from the shock of such sad tidings, were
invited to join in the tender and prophetic feast ; and yet he
had not been left to the hazard of a traditional knowledge, nor

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

received his impression of the scene from the glowing descrip-
tions of another. He distinctly repudiates the thought that he
'• had either received it, or had been taught it of man," and
expressly states that " he had received it " directly " from the
Lord." So distinguishing was the honour put upon the Apostle
of the Gentiles, and so important the institution itself, that there
was given to him a new revelation — that its Divine paternity
might be placed beyond all cavil, and that it might be authen-
ticated by yet weightier evidence, and more firmly homed^in
the hearts of believers, in the perpetuity of its obligation unto
the end of time.

To the Lord's Supper, then, with its hopes and memories,,
with its delights and duties, standing out as a Divine institu-
tion, solemn and beautiful, our attention is to be directed, and,
as our object is not critical but practical, we shall but briefly
refer :

I. To the nature of a Sacrament ; and more largely

II. To the aspects under which the Sacrament of the Holy
Communion ought to be considered.

The word Sacrament, derived from the Latin, and in use among
the armies of Rome to denote the great military oath by which
they swore allegiance to their country, was used by the early
church to signify any of its ceremonies, especially those that
were figurative and typical. Gradually, however, it became of
more restricted meaning, and in the narrower sense it is com-
monly understood now. In the general definition of a Sacrament,
it may be said to be a sign and seal of a covenant, and to dis-
tinguish it from a ceremony it is further necessary that it should
be expressly of Divine institution. The creative power of the
Papacy has swelled the Sacraments into seven — the less mystery-

346

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

loving genius of Protestant Christianity is content with the two
which are admittedly of Divine appointment — Baptism, by which
we are initiated into the fellowship of the church, and the Lord's
Supper, by which we commemorate the Redeemer's death.

There are various views entertained of the nature of the Holy
Communion, into the discussion of which we cannot largely
enter, and of which we can only hastily remind you. There is
the opinion of the Church of Rome, which believes that after
the act of consecration the bread and wine lose their essence,
and are verily and indeed transmuted into the " body and
blood, soul and divinity, bones and nerves of the Son of God."
We object to this monstrous dogma because, in certain
instances connected with the administration of the Eucharist, it
has led to gross and revolting impiety ; because it brings us back
from the dispensation of the spiritual into the age of material
symbol, which is the church's childhood ; because it is plainly
opposed to the whole scope and genius of Scripture ; and
because, in the quaint words of a German critic, " it creates a
new Christ — a dead Christ by the side of the living one." In
opposition to this theory, and in extreme recoil from its
absurdity, some have deprived the Sacrament of all religious
significance, and have commended it solely on account of the
salutary influence which it may have upon the mind — like
reading of the Scripture, or the act of prayer, or any other duty
of the Christian life. We object, likewise, to this bold and dis-
honouring interpretation, because it is an affectation of inde-
pendence to forms which the Scripture will not sanction ; because
it strips into unworthy bareness an act official and solemn;
because it does injustice to the memory of the Saviour, takes
the beauty from His ordinance, and the heart and force out of

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

His words. There is another view which approximates to the
first mentioned, and is sometimes held conjointly, though it is
likewise affirmed by those who would hesitate to be classed
amongst the adherents of the Church of Rome — that the ele-
ments after consecration have in them an inherent virtue, irre-
spective altogether of the disposition and desire of the person
by whom they are received. Who has not deplored the preva-
lence of this notion among the darkened masses of our land ?
In many instances, though the life has been consumed in sinr
and in neglect of or scoffing against religion, its minister is-
hastily sent for in the mortal sickness ; and, by the giving of
the sacred emblems it is presumed that the enemy is cheated of
his prey, and the spirit charmed into the happiness of the sky.
We need hardly utter our protest against this doctrine of neces-
sary efficacy. We object to it because God makes no uncon-
ditional covenants or promises of blessing ; because, by
inducing indifference or slumber, it has been largely used by
Satan as a device to ruin souls ; because it introduces other
terms of salvation than those which Christ has solemnly de-
clared; and because it transforms a holy rite into the mere trick
of a conjuror, a "lying wonder" of perverse and manipulating
wizardry. Our view of the Supper of our Lord is that there is
in it no virtue of atonement or power to subdue the rebellion
of a sinner, nor even any exclusive conveyance of grace or com-
fort ; but that, rightly and reverently used, it is a blessed means
of grace ; an ordinance in which there couches much spiritual
profit ; and which, perhaps above all others, draws aside the veil
for the faithful, and reveals to the rapt soul already somewhat
of the lustre and ecstacy of Heaven.

II. By one or other of the sacred writers the Sacrament of

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

the Lord's Supper is presented under certain aspects which
unfold to us its design and blessings. They tell us that it is :

i st. A commemorative ordinance. " This do in remembrance
of me.'? It is no uncommon thing in the history of nations
to commemorate events of national importance by expressive
symbolism. Medals are struck to celebrate a victory or to per-
petuate the prowess of a hero. The statues of the wise and of
the valiant are niched in their country's temples — columns rear
their tall heads on the mounds of world famed battle-fields, or
on some holy place of liberty — processions and pageants of high
and solemn festivity transmit from generation to generation the
memory of notable days and deeds. And it is right that it
should be so. We are no friends to the ruthless utilitarianism
that can see no good in these things, and that would shear off
all the trappings from State, and all the pageantry from Power.
They are unsubstantial, and expensive too, sometimes, but they
are expressions of something great and true, and by how much
they are invested with imposing grandeur, by so much is the
likelihood that they will be fastened upon the memory and the
heart. There is hope of a nation when its gratitude lives,
though the exhibitions of that gratitude may be extravagant and
unseemly. If you come from the national to the individual,
how memory clings round some relic of sanctity bestowed on
us by some far off friend, some dear gage of affection ; the gift,

>erhaps in the latest hour, of the precious and sainted dead,
we gaze upon them — mute but eloquent reminders of a past
it has fled for ever, how closely they seem linked with our

;very conception of the giver, and in what an uncounted value
hold them for the giver's sake. Surely then there is a fitness
the institution of the Lord's Supper as a standing memorial,

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THE LOKD'S SUPPEX.

by which the church at large may commemorate the grandest
act, and by which the heart of each individual believer may be
reminded of his dearest friend. You, who have learned to love
the Saviour, will prize His ordinance for the Saviour's sake.
You who rejoice in the salvation purchased by His dying, will
not fail with gratitude and faith to " show the Lord's death
until he come."

The time at which the ordinance was instituted was the time
of the Feast of the Passover. There was a memorable deliver-
ance wrought out for the children of Israel. Think of a land
retiring to slumber under the threat of a terrible destruction ;
some of its dwellers unconscious, some scornful, others appa-
rently heedless, but haunted by a strange misgiving — and in the
dead of night, when all the world was still, hark ! that frantic
wail resounding through the midnight, rising in simultaneous
sorrow from palace, and mansion, and cottage ; rich and poor
brought into closer fellowship by the great leveller, trouble —
echoed far out into the darkness, and amid the glare of torches
and the tramp of hasty feet, each cheek blanched into an ashen
paleness, and on each lip the same dread words of agony.
Gradually the knowledge is gathered that the destruction is a
common one, and that from every dwelling the fondest and
most treasured had departed, for " throughout the whole land
there was not an ' Egyptian' house in which there was not one
dead." Well might there be " a cry in Egypt, such as there
was none like it, nor shall be like it any more." But see in the
land of Goshen, those dwellings whose doorposts are sprinkled
with blood ; dwellings which the proud sons of Egypt would
have scorned to enter, dwellings of menials and slaves, but
within them on that night of disaster there is no bleeding heart

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nor slain beloved one, bat everywhere songs of thanksgiving,
firm reliance and a chastened and solemn joy. God has set
his token upon those dwellings of Israel ; they were the Lord's
well-favoured ones, and as he passed them by the Avenging
Angel smiled. See them thrust out in haste, enriched with the
spoil of their oppressors ; driven into liberty before the blast of
a nation's fear; leaving the land of bondage behind them;
journeying enfranchised and happy from Rameses to Succoth ;
and then pitching their tents as freemen, beyond the lash of
the taskmaster ; and do you wonder that hearts should feel and
voices sing, "It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord."
This was the memory uppermost in the minds of the disciples
when the Saviour " took bread and blessed it, and brake it,
and gave to them ;" and though the veil was on their hearts
just then, so., that they knew not the full significance of the act,
nor comprehended the grandeur of their Master's mission, in
the aftertime, when they had been schooled in the upper room,
and had shared in the Baptism of Pentecost, they would under-
stand it better, and would see, as we see in the light of a per-
fected Revelation, how fitly on the night of the Passover was
instituted the memorial of deliverance from a bondage greater
than Egyptian, and from the deadlier perils of a death that
never dies.

But if the minds of the disciples were filled with thoughts of
the Passover and its great salvation, what were the thoughts of
the Redeemer? He was just entering within the shadow of
His Passion. There stretched out before His conscious eye the
whole course of suffering which He had set himself bravely to
travel. His betrayal, His arrest, the Garden, the Judgment
Hall, the Cross, the Sepulchre, that strange contact with sin,

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

that mysterious curse-bearing which was to His pure soul the
greatest of all possible humiliation — that drear and lonely
moment of desertion by the Father — the most terrible of all
possible endurance, all these were before Him ; and distinct and
near He saw the approach of the sorrow. " It was the same
night on which He was betrayed." It was the last Supper Table.
He gazed with ineffable tenderness upon the disciples whom He
had chosen, and who were so soon to be orphaned of His love.
He knew them, save the betrayer, to be true at heart though
infirm of purpose, and earthly in conception, and dazzled with
high imaginings of a temporal kingdom. " With desire," — then
broke out the strong affection which many waters could not
quench — " With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with
you before I suffer ;" as if He had said, My time is at hand, I
can no longer delay the completion of my solemn purpose. I
have forewarned you of this. I go to my Father and ye see
me no more — yet a little while and I must die. Ye are my
sheep whom I have led, but the sword must awake against the
shepherd, and the sheep must be scattered abroad. This is
the Feast of the Passover. Ye have been remembering its
deliverance, but ye will soon have a tenderer memory. Take,
eat this bread, it is my body, soon to be broken for sinners.
Take, drink this wine, it is " the New Testament in my blood."
Forget me not when ye no longer see me, " This do in remem-
brance of me." Deeply would the words sink into the hearts
of those faithful disciples, and as deeply should they sink into
ours, for the words have come thrilling on, sounding with a
deepening pathos " through the corridors of time." We, too,
must enter into the Saviour's sorrow. For us, if we believe in
Him, He breaks the bread and pours the wine, and when we

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eat and drink we do " show the Lord's death until He come."
His death, not His life, though that was lustrous with a holi-
ness without the shadow of a stain. His death, not His teach-
ing, though that embodied the fulness of a wisdom that was
Divine. His death, not His miracles, though His course was
a march of mercy, and in His track of blessing the world
rejoiced and was glad. His death ! His body, not glorious
but broken ; His blood, not coursing through the veins of a
conqueror, but shed, poured out for man. On the summit of
the Mount of Transfiguration, when the hidden Divinity broke
for a while through its disguise of flesh, and Moses and Elias,
those federal elders of the former time came down in confer-
ence, and the awe-stricken disciples feared the baptism of the
cloud, " they spake of His decease, which He should accom-
plish at Jerusalem." His DEATH ! Still His death ! Grandest
and most consecrating memory both for earth and Heaven.

"See Him set forth before your eyes,
That precious bleeding Sacrifice !
His offer'd benefits embrace,
And freely now be saved by graced'

You are to remember His death ; you are to see your sins, all
loathsome and unsightly, laid upon Him ! Your souls, pol-
luted and impure, washed by Him ! Your doom, accursed and
terrible, reversed by Him ! Your life, present and eternal,
secured by Him / Then " show the Lord's death until He
come."

2. // is a confirmatory ordinance. — It is manifest from the
solemnity of its inauguration, and from the singular reverence
with which it was regarded by the early Christians, that the
Lord's Supper was not intended to be a thing of one generation,

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

but to be a precious and hallowed memorial to the end of time.
So broad and deep was the impression of its perpetual obliga-
ion, that in every age of the Church, alike when it was crushed
by persecution, and when it had degenerated into worldly
alliance and conformity, the continuity of this great festival
sustained no interruption ; it remained in general acknowledg-
ment through all external changes. This perpetuity of the
Sacrament seems to stamp it as a confirming ordinance — con-
firming man's faith in God, confirming God's fidelity to man.

The disciples had long cast in their lot with the Master, and
with leal hearts had followed his fortunes " through evil and
through good report/' but they were more faithlul witnesses
after that night's solemnity than they had ever been before ;
and when their Master walked no longer with them ; and when
their minds recalled Him, as they saw Him last, receding from
their view in his chariot of cloud ; and when, in obedience to
His command, they partook of the ordinance which He had
bequeathed to them, it is no wonder that they should come
away from each successive celebration of the communion of
His body and blood with braver courage, more valiant in His
service, both to dare and to do. And it is so with God's people
still. By thus waiting upon the Lord in His own endeared
ordinance, they renew their exhausted strength, "mount up
as eagles," on the wings of spiritual thought, and " run " on
errands of charity, or "walk" in consistent conduct, "without
weariness or fainting."

The Sacrament confirms the two things which it exhibits —
the atonement and the second advent of the Lord. It links
the humiliation and the royalty, the scornful trial and the
session of judgment, the accomplished part and the assured

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

future, together. The gone and the coming converge in its-
blissful present. It is the Lord's sign on the earth, as the sun
is in the heaven. It is like a pause in eloquent conversation,
which yet is not a pause, because the eye takes up the tale of
the tongue, and " fills with light the interval of sound." It is
the wedlock of the believer's memory and hope : memory which
lingers round the Cross, hope which already revels in the glory
of the throne. It is the "angels' food," which the children of
Israel did eat in the wilderness, again dropping from heaven
for the nourishment of the believer's life. We are now in
circumstances closely similar to theirs. They had a past of
bondage and a future of blessing ; the deliverance from Egypt
to remember, the inheritance of Canaan to anticipate ; and all
through the weary desert journey fell God's sign — the manna.
We have to remember the time when He died for us, and to
expect the time when He shall come to " be admired of" us,
with tens of thousands in His regal train ; and we, too, are
in a desert land, and sickened Hope, and drooping Faith,
have often asked the question, " Can God furnish a table in
the wilderness?" Can He? Yes, He spreads it in His own
banquet hall — a feast of royal dainty and generous welcome —
and He speaks to his disciples in the words of invitation now,
" Come, eat and drink ; eat, my friends ; eat abundantly, oh,
my beloved ! "

For the confirmation of your faith and of your devotedness
God has set up the sacramental sign. Now come with docile
hearts and learn its mystic meanings. It is to confirm your
faith in His death — in its reality that it was not a prolonged
swoon, nor counterfeit of dying, nor simulation of martyrdom
as the crowning cheat of the grand imposture of His life ; but

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

that He died, that His body was broken, and that the water and
the blood issuing from the spear-wound of the Roman soldier
were the signs of life actually departing from its tabernacle. It
is to confirm your faith in His death ; in its vicariousness, that
He was offered, not for His own sins, but for the sins of others
— for the unjust, for the leprous, for the abandoned, for all, for
you. It is to confirm your faith in His death ; in its efficacy as
an accepted atonement, as an oblation which has made it just
for God to pardon you ; as an all-comprising and perpetual
reconciliation, which has made "atone" both earth and heaven,
" to show forth His death until He come." It is to confirm
your faith in the certainty of His coming. He shall come ; the
Church is not for ever orphaned of His presence ; the disciples
need not mourn over a dead Christ ; the weeping Virgin may
*lry her tears, for her son liveth, glorified, exalted, King of
Kings and Lord of Lords. It is to confirm your faith in the
recompense that awaits you at His coming ; all wrongs redressed,
-all mysteries cleared, the prisoning stone rolled away from the
door of every sepulchre ; no flaming sword at the gate of the
new covenant Eden ; all temptation overcome ; sorrows woven
into elements of stronger character ; the image of the earthly
faded, the burning of the fiery trial having purged the features
into the reflected beauty of the King; sin eradicated, Satan
trampled under feet, death destroyed, the glad welcome, the
abundant entrance, the triumphal honours, the everlasting joy !
Of all these, believer, the sacramental sign speaketh ; it sparkles
for thy strengthening with all this fulness of joy.

You are called, those of you who believe in Jesus, to meet
the Saviour in this confirming and witnessing ordinance though
there is no necessary efficacy of conversion about it, do not

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

thou, poor penitent, earnest and sin-hating seeker after mercy,
be discouraged and imagine that its comfort is not for thee.
If thou seekest Jesus, surely He will not send thee empty from
His own table. But for you who have not met with the
Saviour ; who, amid outward decorum, keep your hearts alien
and your habits worldly, there is no grace in the sacrament for
you. It is rather a confirming than a covenanting ordinance.
Like the blessed sun and kindly rain, it will shine and fall upon
the stone, and the stone will remain insensible, because it hath
no hidden principle of life ; but it will foster the growth and
develop the blossom of the flower, because the life is there.
Give yourselves first unto the Saviour. Make your humble
confession of sin and your solemn consecration of service.
" Repent and be converted ;" then the sacrament will be a
precious means of grace ; then, through its influence, " the
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."
You will be strengthened by it for effort or for trial, and your
souls, like so many passion flowers warmed into beauty by the
sun, will exhibit the tender memory of the Saviour's passion,
and thus " show forth His death until he come."

3. // is a covenanting ordinance. The definition of a Sacra-
ment seems to lack completeness, unless it be regarded not
only as a sign but as a seal — a solemn federal act which involves
mutual pledges, of fidelity on the one hand and of blessing on
the other. The expression of the inner dispositions by appro-
priate symbol is by no means of uncommon occurrence in the
Sacred Writings. When the Psalmist speaks of his own deliver-
ances, and, in astonishment at their extent and magnitude, asks
" What shall I render ? " he replies, as the most public and
graceful utterance of his gratitude, " I will take the cup of Sal-

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

vation and call upon the name of the Lord ;" and the next verse
may be regarded as the translation of the symbol into language,
" I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of . all
His people." And your participation of the Holy Communion
must be thus regarded as the fresh act of your espousals, as the
solemn renewal of your covenant ; as your surrender, entire and
unhesitating, to the service of the Lord. It is thus that you
confess Christ and witness of Him to the world. If you eat
and drink without discerning this great purpose, you eat and
drink unworthily ; if you repudiate such purpose, either in
thought or act, you crucify in your measure " the Son of God
afresh, and put Him to an open shame." By your profane use
of the means of grace without the slightest desire for the grace
of the means, it is as if you cut and wounded the Saviour in this
the house of His friends, and sharpened the daggers of your
treachery upon the tables of the violated law. But I am
speaking to those who love the Saviour ; who will rejoice to
confess their discipleship, and to renew their covenant in the
ordinance of bread and wine. Your heart longs to express its
devotion, and throbs with affection and reverence towards the
Lord who has redeemed you, but within you there lurks a not
unnatural fear, and you shrink from involving yourself in the
obligations of a covenant so solemn. That this Holy Sacra-
ment may be for your comfort, and that the cup may be " a cup
of blessing;" remember that there are two parties to the cove-
nant ; and that the Sacrament is the divinely instituted seal of
the fidelity of God's promise to you, just as — in allusion to the
ancient custom of ratifying covenants — the presence of the Lord
under the symbol of "the smoking furnace and the burning
lamp " passed between the portions of the divided sacrifice

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THE LORD'S SUPPER.

which Abraham had offered, that he might know thereby that
he should inherit the land. So the presence of the Lord, not
in the fire, but in the still small voice, comes down in the Sa-
crament for your consolation and mine. Hark ! the Lord
speaks to the Father of the New World as He looks from the
altar of Ararat upon the earth from which the waters had but
recently assuaged, " I do set my bow in the cloud," and it
shall be for a token of the covenant between me and the earth.
You can imagine how the patriarch would impress it on his
children, and they to their posterity in lengthening succession.
And you can fancy how some grey father of a later time, some
pious Hebrew of the next generation, would hush the ailing, and
would soothe the fretful, and would cheer the timid, as he
pointed in the hurricane to the brilliant arch that spanned the
angry cloud. " It will subside by-and-by, there's the rain-
bow ; never mind the blackened Heaven and the howling tem-
pest, there's the rainbow'' Do you tell me that the " skies pour
out water," and the river has burst its banks, and the " foun-
tains of the great deep are broken up," there's the rainbow.
God has set it in the cloud, and for the sake of His plighted
word, of which that is the token and seal, He will say to the
proud waters " Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further."

Brethren, here in the sacrament is the rainbow of the new
and better covenant, the ever renewed pledge of salvation
purchased, and strength imparted, and blessing conferred on
the believing soul. And now, as in your covenant you pay
your vows, time, talent, influence, property, life, all God's, — He,
the Infinite, in boundless condescension stoops to whisper, " My
light, my strength, my grace, my purity, my joy, my Heaven,
all yours." " Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy

359

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes, and His
commandments, and His judgments, to hearken to His voice;
and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar
people, as He hath promised thee." And thus, brethren, in a
mutual covenant of blessing, you do "show forth His death
until He come." ,

The Lord's Supper is the privilege of believers — the banquet
of the servants in the house of the Master whom they confess
and whom they serve.

That same Master has provided a great supper, to which He
has bidden me to invite you all. Come, for all things are now
ready.

That same Master, Jesus, our Immanuel, will receive you if
you come, pleading no worthiness; trusting in no name but
His. And when the probations of earth are over, and the
gospel invitations have ceased, and the typical ordinances are
not necessary, because of the fulness of the vision, you shall sit
down, if faithful unto death, at the Marriage Supper of the
Lamb.

36°

THE TRANSFIGURATION
OF CHRIST.

THE TRANSFIGURATION
OF CHRIST.

"And this voice, which came from Heaven, we heard when we were
with Him in the Holy Mount."— ii. Peter, i. 18.

THE Apostle is writing to the churches at a time when
scoffers had begun to cavil against the truth, and when
a swarm of false teachers had put the faith of believers in peril.
He encourages their endangered confidence by reminding them
of the evidences of Christianity ; evidences of which he had a
right to testify, for he " could not but speak which he had
heard and seen/' One of the chosen witnesses to the Lord's
Transfiguration won early the crown of martyrdom ; but the two
survivors both allude to that wondrous scene, which they used
to strengthen the confidence of others while it had fastened
itself upon their own minds, at once an inner strength and an
indelible memory. Peter speaks of it in the text as the best
possible proof to him that he had not followed a " cunningly
devised fable." John, reverently recognising the Divinity
incarnate, tells us that " the Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only

w 363

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

begotten of the Father, full of -grace and truth." Brethren, I
want you to stand with me upon the Holy Mount this morning :
a spot haunted by such hallowed memories must have a charm
and a lesson of its own. It is in Galilee, so we shall be in the
footsteps of Jesus. It is " apart," so it is suitable for a Sab-
batic ramble. It is high, so our thoughts will rise in sympathy,
and we shall become the heavenlier for our climbing. Let us
enquire :

i st. What are the circumstances.

2nd. What are the purposes of the Transfiguration of Christ?
These will furnish us with ample material, both for thought, and
faith, and love.

The second year of that loving and instructive ministry is
now fast drawing to a close. Already have the miracles been
multiplied, and the faith of the disciples, at first tremulous, has
expressed itself without wavering in the confession of Peter,
the ever ready spokesman of the rest. They are prepared to
believe in Him as the Christ, though they are yet intensely
Jewish in their ambition for a temporal kingdom. It is time
now that their faith should enter upon its higher education,
and that they should be fitted for their work of witness-bearing
by the study of the mystery of suffering. Hence it is with the
first intimation of the coming trouble that the narrative of the
Transfiguration properly begins. " From that time forth began
Jesus to show unto His disciples how that He must go into
Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third
day." About six days " after these sayings," when time had
been given for them to sink deeply into the hearts which had
doubtless been perplexed concerning them, with imaginings

364

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

diverse and sad, Jesus takes Peter and James and John to be
the sharers of His hours of midnight prayer. They wend their
way together to the " high mountain apart," perhaps some
bold hill of the Hermon ridge, where, in the majestic solitude
of night upon the hills, He was accustomed to commune with
his Father. While He prays the fashion of His countenance is
changed. The inner radiance shines through the serge and
sackcloth of His incarnate life ; and for once they " see Him as
He is," — "the brightness of the Father's glory and the express
image of His person,"— and they wonder at the awful grandeur
of the Divinity which the Man of Sorrows possessed, but which
He had veiled even from their vision until now. And see !
there are two forms appearing, whom, by some instinct or
instruction, they know to be Moses and Elias ; the one a dis-
embodied spirit, clothed for the time in some material vehicle ;
the other yet wearing the body of which he had cheated death,
and which had gone to "put on immortality" by another road
than his. They speak, and the disciples listen in a sort of sor-
rowful trance, for the talk is of some " accomplished decease/'
They are startled by the sound, and willingly " slow of
heart to comprehend." And now there encompasses them a
luminous cloud, and from the midst of it an authoritative voice
speaks, attesting the Divine Sonship and Mission of the Master
whom they loved so well. These poor frail mortals faint
beneath the privilege which has so highly favoured them, and
when they recover from their swoon of awe the dazzling vision
has vanished. There are the stars shining in the clear and far
off sky ; the piercing night wind blows keenly upon the hill,
and on its summit there is nothing living but themselves —
themselves and "Jesus only." By and by they descend and

365

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

rejoin their fellows, but it is with a great secret in their hearts,
which they were straightly charged to conceal, except in the
contingency, whose remoteness would seem to them almost as
an everlasting seal, " until the Son of Man be risen from the
dead." This is the great sight which, in the calmness of this
Sabbath morning, when our eyes are not heavy with sleep, we
may turn aside to see ; and with the added light which the inter-
preting years have cast upon its significance, we may learn its
lessons of suggestiveness and wisdom.

" He took Peter and James and John." There seem to
have been distinctions among the Apostolic band, although
the Saviour had said " All ye are brethren." The three whom
we now see in the Holy Mount would appear to have been the
innermost circle round the Lord ; the nearest in intimacy ; the
most favoured in fellowship ; the chosen to testify any special
revelation of His love. Their very names were significant of
the great purpose for which Christ came into the world, that the
"gift or mercy of God," founded upon a "rock" of impreg-
nable strength, should "supplant" all idolatry and error. If
then, the first power of Christ over death is to be displayed in
the weeping household of the ruler of the synagogue, whose
little daughter had faded into the beauty of the tomb, Peter
and James and John must be the only witnesses of her miracu-
lous recovery. If there is to be a revelation of " God manifest
in the flesh " on the Mount, or a mysterious burst of more than
mortal agony in the Garden, the same witnesses must watch until
their eyelids droop and close, wearied with the twin excite-
ments of the joy and sorrow. If great truths are to be pro-
claimed in the hearing of the nations, who so fitting to declare
them as those " first three," He, the Man of Rock, and they,

366

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

the sons of thunder ? If every variety of character is to be
joined in " bearing witness " to the truth, you secure constancy
in the person of the earliest apostolic martyr, fearless and
ardent advocacy in the impetuous Peter, and intelligent affec-
tion in the " disciple whom Jesus loved." There they stand,
those fit and chosen witnesses ; their frames thrilling with a
strange emotion ; their weather-beaten faces shining in the
reflected glory of the transfigured Saviour. Who of us does not
feel his heart within him tremble to their words : " Lord, it is
good for us to be here/'

" And there appeared unto them Moses, and Elias talking
with him." These are the parties summoned to this solemn
mountain conference ; representatives from the invisible world,
whose constituency were " the law and the prophets." Moses
and Elias — the one girt with the awful honours of Sinai, the
other bright with the remembered triumph of Carmel. Moses
and Elias — the one, whose death was hastened on account of
sin, but over whose dying Death had no cause to rejoice, for
he had a God-prepared sepulchre and a divinely ordered funeral;
the other, whom God summoned in such haste that he had no
time to die, and went off to heaven, as kings travel home, with
the " chariots and horsemen of Israel." Moses and Elias —
the viceroys rendering up their commissions of 'delegated
sovereignty because the Monarch is enthroned: the servants
hastening humbly to discharge themselves of their trust in the
presence of the well-reverenced Son.

" Talking with him ;" both in their ancient garb and in their
familiar speech ; treading a planet which they had for ages
ceased to visit ; using voices which for long years had never
•spoken with tongues ; unrecognizable by the Apostles ; not

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

living upon earth ; and yet consciously and happily alive ;
bright strangers from the spirit-world, who had risen to tell the
living that the dead can rise.

And what shall be their theme when they converse together?
these immortals, fresh from the presence of the Holy One.
What heavenly intelligence shall fire their willing lips ? What
newer discovery of harmonious perfection shall animate them
to loftier praises of the Divine? They, newly initiated into
Heaven's secret — the Son of God, who had been the "Wisdom
of God" from the beginning — what shall be the subject of their
solemn midnight converse? Oh marvellous condescension of
the Divine ! Oh wonderful exaltation of the interests of the
human ! They spake of His decease, which "He should accom-
plish at Jerusalem." Their interest centred on that coming
Agony and on that lifted Cross. Their highest topic was the
topic of Redemption. Not on the might and marvel of creation ;
not on the omnipotence which sustained each minute or vaster
organism in its native design ; not on the general adaptedness
and harmony of all things : not even on those heavenly bands
of bright obedient mind, the eldest born of God, did these
shining visitants dwell ; but on the glory which was to suffer
sad eclipse so soon ; on the over-mastering mercy which van-
quished Death for others by the agonies of its own dying ; on
the "grace which stooped so low to succour human woe/' In
blessed sympathy with those who kept their first estate, these
glorified ones desired to look into the fellowship and the
mystery of the Cross. This was their chiefest interest and
their grandest contemplation ; this, which believers on earth
rejoice in with exceeding joy ; this, whose symbol John in
heaven beheld " as in the midst of the throne ; " this, upon

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which, alas ! sinners trample, and " account it an accursed
thing."

" And He was transfigured before them." It has been well
observed that this was not the Transfiguration : the Mount but
showed him as He was — the actual Transfiguration was in the
humiliation of the incarnate life. He, essentially glorious, was
"transfigured" into poverty and shame. But now, lest any
lingering doubt should lurk in the minds of the Apostles,
which might make their future utterances falter, they see His
glory ; they had suspected it before. There was a heavenliness
in His teaching, and a lustre from His miracles, and a brightness
in His spotless life, which, amid the meanness, had betrayed the
God ; but here the inner Divinity shines forth through its
fleshly covering, and the attesting Shechinah comes down in
the encompassing cloud. Well might the mortal spirit live, and
the mortal senses faint, before a revelation like this, while yet
the desire struggles with the awe, and the bewildered Peter
would fain have been busy with the " tabernacles " in which
the illustrious visitors might rest. Who of us, even at this far
distant period endeavouring to contemplate this scene, as he
looks at the Redeemer's form thus lighted up with its own
glory of Godhead, but must declare in the Psalmist's words,
" Grace is poured into Thy lips ;" " Thou art fairer than the
children of men."

But it is time, secondly, that we enquire into the purposes
of the Transfiguration. What were the designs for which it was
arranged, and the lessons which it was intended to impress ?

The first and great design, as we have already intimated, was
the solemn inauguration of Christ as the supreme lawgiver in His
Church. This was the " honour and glory " which He received

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

of the Father, as the Apostle in the context distinctly declares.
The exposition of the whole transaction, then, is in " the voice
from Heaven." After Moses had received his commission
he prophesied of a greater than himself: " The Lord thy God
will raise up to thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren like unto me ; unto Him ye shall hearken," and on
this solemn occasion was the promise fulfilled. If you keep this
idea in mind you will see the fitness of the appearance of Moses
and Elias, rather than any other of the old Testament saints.
They were the representatives of the law and the prophets ; the
two great authorities of the Jewish Church ; the rigid jurists
who upheld, in all its strictness, the rubrical exactitude of the
law. There was strong contention among the early Church,
many of whose members believed that the ceremonial and
moral laws should be of equal force for ever ; and the Apostles,
in the First Council, were called to legislate on matters affecting
the Church's spiritual freedom from the yoke of ancient observ-
ance. Now, unless there had been some formal abrogation of
authority, the laws of Moses, which God had solemnly enjoined,
and to the violation of which He had annexed heavy penalties,
must have continued in force. But only He who anointed the
lawgiver could supersede Him. The same authority which
enacted the law must be the power to revoke its provisions.
This authority was here given — given in the presence of the
man by whose lips the former law was spoken, and of the man
by whom it was championed, when degenerate Israel had for-
gotten it. The voice spake from the cloud for the confirma-
tion of the words of Christ, just as at His baptism it had spoken
in acceptance of His person. The servants were henceforth to
stand aside. They had done their work, and done it well ; but

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

they were not needed now, and on the crest of the mountain
they were to render up their commission to the Son. In the
last chapter of Malachi they appear, Moses and Elias, closing
up the old covenant. In the iyth of Matthew they appear at
the instalment of the new. It is not a little remarkable that
the circumstances attendant upon the giving of the law furnish
almost a parallel to the circumstances of the Transfiguration in
which that early lawgiver was superseded by a higher. Aaron,
and Nadab and Abihu, instead of Peter, James and John ;
Mount Sinai instead of the Mount in Galilee ; the face of
Moses shining with reflected glory instead of the indwelling
brightness radiating from the incarnate Son. With these points
of difference there was the same pomp of legislation, the same
solemnity of utterance, and the same glorious and encompassing
cloud.

The conclusion of the marvellous scene answers to all the
rest, like the last stamp of the signet-ring, sealing and confirm-
ing the whole. When the fainting disciples recovered conscious-
ness and looked around, " they saw no man, save Jesus only."
Moses and Elias had been aforetime the objects of their devout-
est reverence — the recognized teachers whom they felt them-
selves bound to follow. Where are they now? They have
renounced all claims to empire — they retire willingly from the
field. There is but one royal lawgiver. There must be no
division of authority, no admixture of legislative claim. " Jesus
only " reigning in unchallenged and sole lordship over each heart
and mind. Brethren, for us as well as for them was this solemn
instalment given. Christ is the lawgiver to His Church for all
time. Prophets and Apostles — they are valuable to us only as
they repeat the words of Christ. Holy men and confessors !

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

We rejoice in them because they give to us transcripts of Christ
— laws, decretals, confessions, catechisms, creeds — we accept
them only as they are embodiments of the words of Jesus. Let
a thousand rubrics or canons condemn what Christ hath not
condemned, we may snap them as Samson the withes with which
they sought to bind him. Let a thousand enactments enforce
what Christ hath forbidden, and disobedience becomes a Christ-
ian duty, and brave death were preferable to life unworthy and
dishonoured. " Jesus only," — no surrender of personal thought
and freedom ; no binding of the conscience with the scorpion
yoke of a consistory, or at the bidding of a man who " as God
sitteth in the temple of God." " Jesus only ! " Then rejoice,
believers, in your freedom, and in all matters of perplexed me-
ditation "appeal" directly "unto Caesar." Listen submissively
to the faintest syllable from the lips which cannot err. Render
a homage more dutiful and willing than you have ever rendered
yet. Look for ever into this " perfect law of liberty," that you
may be blessed in your deed. Our souls exult to feel and to pro-
claim that there is but one authoritative teacher ; and just as one
fond spot in a landscape, hallowed by some tender or pensive
memory, may fasten the gazer's eye until he is insensible to the
charms of woodland and waterfall, and copse and spire — so we,
waking in bewildered trance and dim memories of shining visi-
tants on the Holy Mount, seek not for accessories and back-
grounds to the picture which fills the soul and fastens the eye —
we see " no man save Jesus only."

We cannot help thinking, however, that the Transfiguration
must be regarded also as the solemn baptism of tJie Saviour into
His priestly and mediatorial office.

The great purpose of the Incarnation, as you are aware, was

*"

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

the offering upon the Cross. They who do not keep this in mind
fall grievously short in their comprehension of the mystery. It is
not enough to explain the Incarnation as designed only for the
spiritual teaching, or for the loving miracles, or the exhibition
of the illustrious and perfect pattern. These were all collateral
and subsidiary. They are not unimportant, any of them. It
is necessary that we should learn God's will from lips that are
authorized to declare it. It is necessary that that will should
be authenticated by signs following. It is necessary that we
should see humanity uniform and consistent in its bright obedi-
ence. But the teaching was glorified by the dying, and the
miracles were the smaller illustrations of that mercy whose
crowning act was the draining of its own heart in sacrifice,
and the obedience was an " obedience unto death." Present
ever before the Saviour's mind was the grand issue to which His
earthly sojourn tended — to make an atonement for the world's
sin. This was "the Father's business" which He had offered,
and was embodied, to do. For the accomplishment of this end
" it behoved Christ to suffer," and there was not a moment of
His incarnate life, whether He taught in synagogues or prayed on
hill-side altars, or rested from His incessant toil in the brief
holidays of Bethany, when this purpose was absent from His
mind. He did not for some time declare it to those who fol-
lowed him. You do not harass a child, while his education is
proceeding, by setting before him the probabilities of orphanage.
His children must be instructed in His doctrines, and trained
for the fulfilment of their mission before they were told. But
the influence of the thought may be traced from His very earliest
years — did not leave Him in the temptation and in the triumph

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

— enstamped itself indelibly on each word of the lip and on
each action of the life.

The inner connection between the first announcement of the
sufferings and the more formal consecration to them on the
summit of this mountain is preserved by St. Luke, who tells us
that it was about " an eight days after these sayings," that is,
six days intervening, one on which the sayings were spoken and
one on which the Transfiguration took place — " about an eight
days after these sayings " that He went up into the Mount to pray.
This was, so to speak, the meridian of his incarnate day. His
sun began after this to go down towards the clouds, which
awaited its setting. The first shadow of His approaching suf-
fering now darkened upon the sky.

It will not be uninteresting to remember the history of the
three heavenly voices of which we read in the lifetime of Jesus.
You will find that they do not speak capriciously — even as to
the moment of their utterance there is an arranged and intel-
ligible plan which they are designed to aid in its working. The
first voice spake at Christ's baptism, when, in fulfilment of the
great design which required Him to be " made like unto" sin-
ners, he was baptized by John in Jordan, not in confession of
sin— but as he himself declared, " to fulfil all righteousness."
There is force in that argument which represents the baptism
of Christ as the closing up of the old covenant — the obedience
to the " baptism of repentance " which John preached, and
which was the last external commandment given by God unto
Israel. But the significance of the act would not be completely
discerned if you exclude the prophetical character — if you do
not recognize that beneath the Divine humility which says " thus
it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," there is a reference

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

to that other baptism, that baptism of agony and blood, about
which Christ declared Himself " straitened until it was accom-
plished." Now it was at this first anointing of the person of
Jesus that the voice from Heaven spake, " This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased/' The last occasion on which
the voice spake was when Christ had entered upon His passion,
and felt already the sharpness of its mental anguish : " Now is-
my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save me from
this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father,
glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven,
saying, " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." Mid-
way between these voices spake the one upon the Holy Mount.
Is it not evident that there was unity of purpose and harmony of
counsel between the Son and the Father? The continued
watchfulness in heaven of the working out on earth of the scheme
of Redemption — the attestation never failing to be given when
it might authenticate the work, or encourage the brave worker
in His trial?

Not only, therefore, do we witness on the Holy Mount the
installation of the royal lawgiver, but of the great high-priest.
It is a grand valedictory service in which He is re-ordained to
duty— as the banners are blessed before the army marches to
the field. And the voice speaks from Heaven as a sovereign,
gives audience to a chosen commander, and cheers him with
the encouragement of royal favour. With what reverence,,
brethren, should we, sinners, look upon the scene ! As we see
Him standing alone upon the mountain — fresh from His ordi-
nation of glory — calm, and kingly in His heaven-imparted
strength ; and then as we see Him, with firm step, treading the
dark avenue which, through desertion, agony, insult, abandon -

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

ment, terminates in His death upon the Cross — surely our dis-
trust should vanish, and in reliance upon such a champion we
should have " joy in believing." Surely our indignation against
the vile sin which made all this suffering necessary should be
roused within us. Surely our hearts should bound with a
fervour of devotion and gratitude which the obedience of a life-
time can only inadequately express. Surely we shall mark His
track and follow in his footsteps, triumphant in the endurance
of our own portion of sorrow, and, quaffing bravely the cup
which He, who drained the bitterest has mingled, go on our
patient way, singing :

" O Lord, my God, do thou thy holy will,

I will lie still.
I will not stir, lest I forsake thine arm,

And break the charm
Which lulls me, clinging to my Father's breast,

To perfect rest."

It hardly comes within our scope to educe the various lessons
which may be taught us in the Holy Mount. Our aim, very
imperfectly fulfilled, has been to elicit the meaning of the great
event before us, if haply some of its thoughts may linger in our
hearts — like chimes heard within doors — softened by the silence
and the comfort in which we sit and hear them, and ringing
on, long after the actual sound has ceased, in the melody of
each remembered tone. We can but suggest how, when we
have recovered from the thrilling consequent upon the glorious
vision, we might learn much of collateral instruction and bless-
ing. Gospel narratives teach truth and scatter fragrance inci-
dentally, as the sick folk were healed " by the shadow of Peter
passing by."

376

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST.

We might learn, for example, the immortality of the soul,
from the real appearance of two men, who had long ceased to
be inhabitants of earth, again revisiting the glimpses of the
moon. We might learn the conscious existence of the spirit
after its separation from the body, that it does not sleep, as some
affirm through dishonoured and inactive ages, but is possessed
of intellectual vigour, and, in the case of the righteous, of a
residence in glory. We might learn that Christ crucified is the
grand theme of contemplation and converse, both to believing
hearts on earth and to the ransomed spirits of the sky ; and our
faith in the one offering which has redeemed us might become,
therefore, more precious than ever. We might learn that God
prepares for coming trial by special manifestations of His favour,
and that though we may " fear" as we " enter into the cloud,"
we shall come out of it with manlier hearts and truer courage.
Those who are not, alas ! partakers of Christ, might learn, and
shudder as they learn, the value of that Divine communion from
which they sinfully exclude themselves, and of that inherit-
ance of glory which they sell for nought or alienate with scorn-
ful hands. Those who have believed, and rejoice in mountain
fellowship with Jesus, might learn that, refreshing as is the diffi-
cult air, bracing as is the steep ascent, rare and elevating as is
the glorious companionship, we must not " build our tabernacles
there." In the valley below there is work for us to do, and we
must hear our Master's voice as He asks us to descend, and
leads us down into the great field of toil and travail and triumph :

" Think not of rest, though dreams be sweet,
Start up and ply your heavenward feet.
Is not God's oath upon your head,
Ne'er to sink back on slothful bed,

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THE TRANSFIGURATION OP CHRIST,

Never again your loins untie,
Nor let your torches waste and die,
Till, when the shadows thickest fall,
Ye hear the Master's midnight call.
He calls you angels — be your strife
To live on earth the angels' life."

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Punshon, William Morley
Lectures and sermons