The Chautauquan, July 1883

[551]

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF
THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. III.             JULY, 1883.              No. 10.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

Superintendent of Instruction, J. H. Vincent, D. D., Plainfield, N. J.

General Secretary, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Office Secretary, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

Counselors, Lyman Abbott, D. D.; J. M. Gibson, D. D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D. D.; W. C. Wilkinson, D. D.

Contents

A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD.

By Mrs. JOSEPH COOK.

The two weeks’ voyage from Galle to Hong Kong is pleasantly broken by visits to Penang and Singapore. On the fourth day out, mountainous islands appear above the smooth stretch of sea, and late in the afternoon we anchor in the harbor of Penang at the head of the Straits of Malacca. Penang is an island fifteen miles long by eight in width, on which a mountain towers nearly 2,800 feet high. The native town lies on the flat strip of land adjoining the sea, but the bungalows of the European residents nestle on the hill slopes. We go on shore in a Sampan boat, and find the almond-eyed Celestials here in full force, not the gliding, apologetic creatures we see in San Francisco, but a sturdy, independent, self-assertive people, with the industries of the town in their hands. There are some grandees among them, for we see Chinese gentlemen lolling back in luxurious carriages, with Hindu coachmen and footmen. The joss houses are numerous, the roofs of which resemble immense ornate canoes, with sea-monsters at either end, as their forms are outlined against the evening sky. We have only time for a drive through the principal streets. The lights are gleaming out along the shore, and the twilight is fading as we float over the waves to our sea-home, the “Gwalior.” The next day we are in the Straits of Malacca, with picturesque views of Malay villages and tropical vegetation. The temperature, which has been in the nineties, dropped a few degrees as we approached the outlet into the open sea, and, going on deck on the second morning after leaving Penang, the air was still further cooled and freshened by a tropical downpour of rain just as we were passing the wooded islands which lead to the beautiful harbor of Singapore. These clouds, the rain, the temperature, and the deciduous trees make us think of home, and especially as this land-locked harbor might be a Scottish or American lake instead of the outlet of the Straits of Malacca, seventy-nine miles above the equator.

The P. & O. steamers stop for coal at a wharf some three miles from the town, but we had the satisfaction of walking from the steamer to the land without the usual intervention of a small, wave-tossed boat. We engaged a comfortable looking carriage attached to an absurdly diminutive pony, but the driver insisted that it was “good horse, good horse,” and we found that there was a wonderful amount of speed and endurance in the creature. Beautiful specimens of the traveler’s palm outline their huge, fan-like semicircle of leaves against the sky. This growth belongs to the plantain rather than the palm family, and is called the traveler’s palm because it contains a reservoir of water which runs down the grooves of the long stems and is retained at the base, where the incision is made, and the precious fluid, cool and refreshing, flows out. We saw again the acacia flamboyante, that splendid tree with its crown of scarlet blossoms, whose acquaintance we first made in the gardens of the Taj, and which came originally from Rangoon and Sumatra. Here, as in Penang, the Chinese are the chief factors in all the industrial pursuits. The temperature ranges from 80° to 90° the year round, and we were assured by European residents that the eye wearies of constant greenness and longs for the changing seasons of the temperate zone. The evening on our quiet steamer, which is anchored here for the night, reminds us of Lake George. The wooded heights and islands dream under the light of a full moon, while the constellation of the Southern Cross hangs over against Ursa Major. Early the next morning the Malay boys appear on the scene. They are equal to the Somalis for diving, but the charm of novelty is gone, and they do not seem such merry, audacious creatures as those who entertained us at Aden. Boat loads of coral and beautiful shells followed us for some distance, but we soon lost sight of them as we steamed away past the green and sunlit islands into the open sea.

After six days of debilitating moist heat in the China Sea, we were met on our approach to Hong Kong by a sudden change of temperature—a strong, fresh breeze following a heavy shower accompanied by thunder and lightning. Our ship scarcely moved during the night previous to our reaching the coast of China, for it was very dark, and we were entering upon a network of rocky islands. When we went on deck in the morning what a change in all our surroundings! Purple and blue mountains, reminding one in their general form of Scottish heights, yet with that peculiar shade of green which belongs to the hills of Wales, rose out of the sea on every hand—giant peaks of vast, submarine ranges. For twenty-five miles or more before reaching the superb, land-locked harbor of Hong Kong, we threaded our way among these mountainous islands, beautiful in form and color, and lighted up now and then with a sudden sunburst.

Hong Kong is built on an island and belongs to the British. The town extends for some distance along the shore and creeps up the slope of Victoria Peak, which rises to a height of 1,800 feet. The European houses, nestling among[552] the trees, present a very attractive appearance with their double-storied, arched verandas. The magnificent bay resembles one of our inland lakes with mountains rising on all sides, from a few hundred to nearly 2,000 feet high. Here are ships of war, ocean steamers from all ports, trading junks of every shape and color, floating, thatched-roofed homes, where in one boat three generations are often found, and in which birth and death and all the round of human life occurs. Stalwart, sturdy women, with babies strapped on their backs, use as much strength and skill in the management of the boats as the men, and it would be hard to distinguish the sex if it were not for the added burden imposed on the woman. The streets are so steep in Hong Kong that horses are very little used and the vehicles employed are sedan chairs, attached to long bamboo poles, and carried on the shoulders of two, three or four coolies. This open, airy vehicle is an immense improvement over the heavy, funereal palanquin of Calcutta. John Chinaman, with his inevitable pig-tail and fan, his blue, loose garments and immaculate hose was everywhere present, and the odors of sandal wood and dried fish were all pervasive. We went to the curio shops which line the arcades of Queen’s Road and saw lacquered wood and ivory carving to our heart’s content. The Chinese shop-keeper holds himself aloof from the purchaser with true Celestial indifference. You enter his shop and examine his wares. No one accompanies you in your round. If you want to know the price of an article you must seek out the proprietor or clerk and inquire. You feel that the price is “fixed,” and even after three months’ demoralization in India you have not the presumption to ask this lordly Chinaman to take less. A pathetic proof of the chronic home-sickness which seems to possess European residents in the East, and which we ourselves appreciate, is the text engraven on the stone arch of the post-office doorway: “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”

The morning after our arrival in Hong Kong we leave the “Gwalior” which has been a most comfortable, agreeable home to us for the past two weeks, in order to visit Canton. It is a sail of some eight hours up the Pearl River to Canton, and we found ourselves on an American-built steamer not unlike our river boats at home, although not so luxuriously furnished as our floating palaces on the Hudson. However it gave us quite a home-like feeling, which was still further enhanced by the captain being a fellow-countryman and the breakfast bill of fare including waffles, griddle cakes and ice water. Although we are at the antipodes of Boston, we have a strange sense of being nearer home than at any time since leaving England. Sitting at the breakfast table the captain pointed eastward toward the open sea and said, “In that direction you can travel 6,000 miles before reaching land, and the nearest shores are those of America.” Knowing the reputation the Chinese have for being a peaceable race we were somewhat surprised to see that the wheel house was quite an armory of weapons, and that the companion-ways were closed and guarded. Inquiring into the meaning of these war-like demonstrations, we were told that not many years ago the Chinese passengers on one of these river steamers conspired together and, when the captain and the few Europeans were at lunch, they rose, seized the weapons, murdered the whites and took possession of the boat. Since that time unknown passengers, of whom there were on this trip about one thousand, are kept carefully guarded. The scenery was very pretty as we steamed up Pearl River, the banks being visible on either side. The chief characteristics of the view were low rice lands, or paddy fields as they are called here; distant blue mountains, the last spurs of the Himalayas; terraced pagodas of five, seven, or nine stories high, with trees and shrubs growing from the top and sides; bamboos, plantains and deciduous trees, and at one point in our journey was a knoll of pine trees with a carpet of brown sheddings, which reminded us of the spot at Concord where Hawthorne is buried. The most prominent building in Canton and the one which first attracts the attention of a stranger, is the stately, granite Catholic cathedral. It was a hopeful sign to see this imposing Christian edifice with its twin towers looming up above the low-roofed houses and temples of this distinctively Chinese and heathen city. Another noticeable feature among the buildings was eight or ten huge, gray, square towers, which we were told were pawn houses.

We had heard of the boat population of Canton, and here we saw swarming crowds in their floating homes as we neared the wharf. Families not only live in these boats, but they carry on quite a trade in ferrying passengers from one point to another. They are a race by themselves, and are looked down upon with suspicion and unkindness by their brethren of the terra firma. They are considered as aliens of contemptible origin, and are prohibited from intermarrying with landspeople. Before we left the steamer we were met by a decently-dressed Chinese woman who had come on board as a “drummer” for one of the hotels. But a gentlemanly looking Chinese guide who could speak English had already been recommended to us by the captain, and we put ourselves in his hands, to be taken first to the missionary headquarters. We left the densely crowded wharves in sedan chairs, each of us with three bearers, and proceeded through narrow streets, where nearly every one is on foot, apparently with some definite object in view, for they move along, these blue-costumed Celestials, silently and swiftly. Most of those we see belong to the middle or lower classes. Many of them are carrying heavy burdens suspended on a bamboo stick which is slung across the shoulders. The bamboo is as important a growth in China as the palm in India. Almost every article of furniture in a Chinese habitation is made from the bamboo—chairs, tables, screens, bedsteads, bedding, paper, and various kitchen utensils. It is also employed on boats for masts, poles, sails, cables, rigging and caulking. It is used for aqueducts and bridges, and it can be made into a swimming apparatus or life preserver, without which no Chinese merchant will undertake a voyage. The leaves are generally placed around the tea exported from China to Europe. It is also used as an instrument of torture in the bastinado, which is the punishment most frequently inflicted in every part of China, and for almost every species of offence, the number of blows being regulated by the magnitude of the crime. The criminal is held down by one or more coolies, while the chief actor, furnished with a half-bamboo six feet in length and about two inches broad, strikes him on the back part of the thighs. In this degrading punishment the rich and the poor, the prince and the peasant are included. The Emperor Kien Long ordered two of his sons to be bambooed long after they had reached the age of maturity. The Presbyterian Mission occupies pleasant grounds which slope down to the Canton River. There are three substantial brick houses, one of them being occupied by the medical missionary, Dr. Ker, the other by the preacher, Rev. B. F. Henry, and the third by the ladies who have charge of the school, Misses Noyes and Butler. We were received most cordially by Mrs. Henry, who urged us, with such unmistakable earnestness, to stop with them during our twenty-four hours in the city, that we promised to return after making a tour of inspection with our Chinese guide. The chief place of interest shown us was the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, a collection of sitting, life-size statues rudely painted and gilded, hideous or grotesque in expression, and sometimes with bright blue hair and beard! In one of the outer corridors leading to this temple was a group of Chinese youth playing shuttle-cock,[553] their feet taking the place of the battledore. At a Buddhist temple near by we saw several priests going through their genuflexions and prostrations, which reminded us of the ceremonies at Rome. Our guide seemed chiefly anxious to show us the best quarters of the city, and to induce us to buy something at the shops, whereby he himself would doubtless have had a certain commission at our expense.

The next morning we began our peregrinations by visiting Dr. Ker’s hospital before breakfast. This institution is for the benefit of the natives and is undenominational, being supported by the foreign residents of Canton, who number less than an hundred among the million of the Chinese. In contrast with the large, airy wards and the convenient appointments of the hospitals of Europe and America this seemed pitifully mean and poor, but it was neat, and much valuable work has been done here. Many more patients apply than can be accommodated, as it is the only institution of the kind in this great city. Directly after breakfast we found Miss Noyes waiting to take us over the boarding-school for girls and women. This building was planned by Miss Noyes, and its recitation-rooms and dormitories, with accommodations for one hundred boarders, are admirably well arranged. It seemed strange, remembering the Hindu school-girls, with their salaams and musical “Nâmâska, Mem Sahib,” to be received in perfect silence by these Chinese maidens, who all rose to their feet, however, as we entered, and then came forward two by two, paused in front of us, made a deep curtsey, and, instead of shaking hands with us, each clasped her own hand and raised it to her forehead. This operation, repeated in solemn silence, became rather embarrassing to us and we begged the teacher to present our general greeting to the school and to excuse us from these special obeisances.

Coming from the school we found Mr. Henry waiting with three sedan chairs and their bearers in attendance to show us the sights of the city. The Merchants’ Guild consists of a series of buildings fitted up with much elegance and taste and combining a council hall, temple and theater. The rooms have no luxurious upholstery, but the black-wood furniture is highly polished and elaborately carved. The screens are embroidered and painted in the highest style of Chinese art, and there are numerous mirrors which, in the East, is always a sign of wealth. Among the various temples we visited the one which most impressed itself upon us, and where we saw the greatest number of worshipers, was called, very appropriately, the Temple of Horrors. It was a Dante’s “Inferno” put into a hideously realistic form. It is the Chinese conception of the future torments of the wicked, and those who have been guilty of the crimes whose punishment is here portrayed come to expiate their guilt by bribes. The gods these poor heathen worship never inspire in them love, but fear and a dread of impending wrath. The court leading to this temple was filled with vociferous hawkers, and the greatest confusion prevailed. A dentist’s stand was festooned with the teeth of his victims!

From this revolting heathen temple we went to the daily noon service in the Presbyterian chapel. The doors were thrown open on one of the busiest streets of this packed city, and soon a crowd came drifting in out of curiosity. Mr. Henry read and explained passages of scripture for nearly half an hour with great earnestness, and succeeded in attracting the attention of those who at first were simply gazing at us, the visitors, with a stupid stare. The crowd was orderly and quiet. One man was smoking. An open-mouthed boy on the front bench soon fell asleep. There was no deep earnestness in the faces, but we were told that at almost every gathering of this kind, two or three are sufficiently interested to remain after the service and ask questions. One of the chief difficulties in making any religious impression upon the Chinaman comes from his sublime self-complacency. Even the meanest of the people, our chair bearers for instance, look down upon us as “white devils,” and according to their doctrine of transmigration, they believe that we are the re-appearance of those who in a former state of existence were bad Chinamen. No wonder that regarding us with such contempt it is hard for them to accept our religion. The Examination Hall interested us greatly, for here is the real entrance to the aristocracy of China, which has its recruits not from the ranks of the high born and wealthy, but from all classes who have attained excellence and thoroughness in scholarship. Once in three years thousands come here to compete for the second literary degree. They are locked in a great enclosure containing ten thousand cells resembling horse stalls in a country church yard. These cells are six feet long by four feet wide, perfectly bare with a ground floor. Every candidate is expected to write an essay, an original poem, and a portion of the Chinese classics. The strictest watch is kept over the students so that they may not communicate with each other. The same subjects are given to all at daylight and the essays must be handed in the following morning. Out of the 8,000 who competed at the last examination, only 130 passed, and these are booked for promotion in civil offices. They are also required to go to Pekin to compete for the third degree. The streets and the people are, after all, the most entertaining sights in Canton. The dimly-lighted narrow streets make a gay picture, the business signs of long lacquered or gilt boards with the Chinese characters in red or black being hung perpendicularly before the shops. These open shops, with their tempting display of embroideries and ivory carvings, gay lanterns and fans, we gaze into as we pass along in our sedan chairs. Many of the streets have high-sounding names, such as Longevity Lane, Ascending Dragon Street, Great Peace, and Heavenly Peace streets. The names on the signs are not infallible guides to the true character of the proprietor; for instance a most unscrupulously sharp dealer had modestly advertised his abode as “The Home of the Guileless Heart.”

We were to take the afternoon boat to Hong Kong in order to catch the next P. & O. steamer for Yokohama. A dozen or more of our friends came to see us off. It was a pathetic and yet an inspiriting picture to look back upon this little company of our countrymen and women as they stood on the wharf waving their farewells, for they seemed such a feeble folk as compared with the teeming million of this crowded Chinese city, and yet they were there in obedience to that divine command, which Wellington has so aptly called the “marching orders of the church.”

What a rest it was after the excitement and rush of our busy twenty-four hours in Canton to glide with quiet, easy motion, down the Pearl River as the sun was setting. The wooded islands glassed themselves in the still waters. Our stately steamer had as little motion or noise as a phantom ship. We passed native junks on which the bull’s-eye was prominent on either side the bow. The Chinese consider these indispensable to the safety of a ship; their argument being: “No got eye, how can see,” and with these guardians the easy-going mariners give themselves liberty to sleep on watch while the craft is on the qui vive for danger!

Reaching again the harbor of Hong Kong we exchange our roomy, river steamer for more contracted quarters on board the “Sunda,” which is to bear us to Yokohama. Five days tossing on the rough China Sea, which reminds us more of the North Atlantic than anything we have experienced since crossing that turbulent ocean, and we rejoice to hear on the sixth morning out that we are nearing the shores of Japan. Through the courtesy of the first officer we are invited on the bridge, and from this favorable place of outlook we watch our tortuous course through the network of islands which are clothed in all the fresh beauty[554] of spring. Rocky islets and hills, covered with pine forests, and low-growing shrubs lift their green heads out of the sparkling blue waters. Clusters of houses are scattered along the hill slopes, and they harmonize with the landscape in a way that would delight John Burroughs. There may be much Japanese history and legend connected with these heights, but we are ignorant of it all, and to us they rear their heads unsung.

Nagasaki harbor is not unlike Hong Kong, but the town itself does not make so much of an appearance. The Japanese boats resemble somewhat the Venetian gondolas, painted white instead of black. We went on shore in one of these row-boats, and each of us took a jinrikisha, which resembles a Bath chair, or a magnified baby carriage, and is drawn by one or two men, according to the avoirdupois of the occupant. One can best understand Japanese art here in its native surroundings, as one can only thoroughly appreciate Dickens’s characters in London. These Japanese ladies, with their glossy black hair and head ornaments, their almond-shaped eyes, full, pouting lips, and the peculiar contour of the tightly-draped figure, how familiar they look! Yet where have I seen them before? Only on pictured screens and painted fans and embroidered hangings, but here they are, these same quaint creatures in veritable presence. Through many narrow streets, and around sharp corners, and over bridges, and in sight of stony water-courses, and the sun-deluged tender green of the mountain sides, our jinrikisha men rattle us along on our way to the photographer’s, where we find unexpected good fortune in the shape of beautifully colored views. At the chief tortoise-shell emporium of the town we are received as guests rather than purchasers. Our European bow seems an impertinent nod compared with the profound salaams which are bestowed upon us. We are invited to take seats at a large centre-table in a cheerful apartment, which is a combination of parlor and show-room. Straw-colored tea in dainty cups of exquisite porcelain is brought to us. Medals from various exhibitions are shown, but there is no undue eagerness to sell their wares, and when at last we make our selection and offer silver rupees in payment we are blandly informed that they can not accept foreign coin. Although we assure them that the rupee has been weighed in Canton, and they can take it at its exact metal value, yet they are politely inexorable, and we meekly walk away feeling like impostors as well as boors. At three o’clock in the afternoon we are moving out of the harbor, and it is a cheerful omen as we watch the receding shores to be told that the most prominent building on the hill-slope, a large, new structure, is a school-house for Japanese girls, under the auspices of Methodists from our own country.

Soon after sunrise the next morning we enter the straits of Shimonoseki, the narrow entrance to the Inland Sea. We remember that this newly risen sun which is shedding its golden glory on these thousand islands, has just tinged with its farewell rays the elms of New Haven and the encircling heights of Lake George. A member of our party once said to some young Japanese visitors in Boston, “Do you want to see the sun rise on Japan?” and in response to their bewildered acquiescence he took them to a west window and pointed to the sun sinking, with gorgeous pageantry of color, behind the Milton hills. All day long we glide through placid waters, the scene varying with every turn of the wheel. Islands of most fantastic shape rise everywhere. Sometimes an abundant vegetation clothes them from head to foot; again they are not only destitute of clothing but of flesh, and show only a bony framework of jagged rock pierced by grottoes and caves. Along the shores, indented with bays, is a fringe of fishermen’s huts. Range after range of mountains rise back of each other in beautiful outlines varying in color from green to softest blue and faintest grey until the most distant heights melt into the horizon. We pass curious fishing junks with square, puckered sails. In the midst of these foreign looking boats we are surprised to see now and then a trim little schooner, exactly like those we are familiar with at home. We pass one American man-of-war with the national flag flying. It seems a pity that half of our passage through this marvelous Inland Sea must be made in the night, although we have the anticipation of seeing in the morning Fuji-yama, the Peerless Mountain, worshiped by the Japanese as divine. A note from our attentive first officer breaks up our morning nap with the announcement that Fuji is visible and we hasten on deck to see the snowy cone of this youngest mountain in the world lift itself above the clouds into the blue sky. It has the shape of an inverted fan, and from the sea you can trace its outline from base to summit to a height of 14,000 feet. According to Keith Johnston, it was thrown up by some tremendous convulsion, for which this volcanic region is famous, about 300 B. C.

Late in the afternoon our ship dropped anchor off Yokohama, which thirty years ago was an insignificant fishing village. When Commodore Perry appeared with his fleet in this bay, in 1853, the rude inhabitants were filled with wonder at their first sight of a steamer, and when they saw the spark-spangled smoke rising from the stacks at night they were seized with superstitious awe of the foreigners, who they thought had imprisoned volcanoes on their ships! Tokio is the literary center of this part of Japan while Yokohama is commercial, and has not only a modern, but really an American appearance, and in the hotel as well as in the shops we detect the atmosphere of our native land, especially of San Francisco. The English give the tone to society here, as everywhere throughout the East, and class distinctions are more rigorously observed than in the mother island itself. At Yokohama we seemed to meet the blessed spring-time of the temperate zone. The day after our arrival we took jinrikishas and went out into the country-like suburbs of the city. We walked a part of the way through rustling wheat fields, with the Peerless Mountain in sight and the broad blue bay, dotted with ocean steamships from all ports, and white-sailed native junks. It was like a perfect June day at home, and after nearly a month on shipboard the touch of the brown solid earth under our feet was enough to make us shout for joy. The blue violet, the wild strawberry, and even the common dandelion, were here to greet us like old familiar friends. Birds flew past us with happy chirp, but no song. Some critic has said that “Japan is a country of birds without song, flowers without perfume, and poetry without music.” But what were these strange, weird, unearthly, mysterious melodies that came floating down to us from the azure? We stopped our jinrikishas to listen and look. There, above our heads, were half a dozen immense kites, made of bamboo, in the shape of winged dragons and bats, and it was an Æolian attachment that sent down to us this music. The Greek boy sends up his kite at night with a light attached so that it gleams like a star through the darkness, and our patriotic member is somewhat chagrined that the American boy should be surpassed, even in such a juvenility as the kite, by the Greek and Japanese! A pleasant reception by the American residents, especially those engaged in mission work; visits to the temples and native quarters; observation of educational and evangelical work, carried on here by our countrymen and women, filled our week in Yokohama. At the end of that time we took train for Tokio, which is only one hour distant by rail.

Distances are magnificent in this modern, imperial city of Japan. Thirty-six square miles is supposed to be the extent of Tokio, but only sixteen miles of this space are covered with houses, while the rest is given up to parks, gardens,[555] and rice fields. The population is variously estimated from 800,000 to 1,500,000. One of the most interesting places to visit in Tokio is Shiba with its tombs of the Shoguns and Buddhist temples. There we went the morning after our arrival. The approach to the mortuary temples of the Shoguns is by a wide stone-paved avenue bordered on either side by stone lanterns not more than six feet apart and of graceful shape. We have left the bustle, noise and busy life of the streets, and find here a restful stillness broken only by the chirp of the sparrow and the sighing of the wind through grand, old red cedars, called cryptomeria, which have been growing here since the seventeenth century. Leaving our shoes at the threshold of the temples we walked over the highly polished, lacquered floors in our stocking feet. Here before the shrines were gifts of the daimios, bronzes and gold lacquer of priceless value, and we, outside barbarians, were admitted into the holy of holies and allowed to gaze on all this splendor and decoration without a word of remonstrance from the young Buddhist priest in attendance, although previous to the rebellion of 1868, only the reigning Shogun was allowed to enter. The tomb of the Second Shogun is in an octagonal hall richly gilt, eight pillars covered with gilt copper plate supporting the roof. The lion and the tree peony often appear in the carvings, the one representing the king of beasts, the other the king of flowers. The tomb itself stands in the center of the hall and is one of the most magnificent specimens of gold lacquer to be seen in Japan. The stone pedestal takes the form of the lotus, the Buddhistic emblem of purity.

Oh! but how delightful it was to get out under the great blue dome of the sky, and climb the green, sunny slopes under the gigantic, gnarled cedars to the level plateau, where we could look abroad over sea and land and crowded city. The ever present tea house was close at hand, and two Japanese maidens quickly appeared with the pale, fragrant fluid innocent of sugar or milk, served in tiny cups with a cherry blossom floating on the surface. We preferred the tea without the æsthetic accompaniment, and so, with profound bows, this tray was removed to be speedily followed by another. While we were sipping this beverage, which was too insipid to either cheer or inebriate, an old woman, with a quavering voice, sang to us, accompanying herself with a Japanese guitar called the samisen. On our way home we peeped into a Buddhist temple where there was a funeral service in progress. Just within the door was a square pine box with a pole at the top so that it could be carried by the four coolies, who sat outside eating rice cakes, drinking tea, smoking and talking. There was no mourner present, and indeed no person in the temple but the young priest who was going through his perfunctory mumblement. In our ignorance of Japanese customs we thought this small box must contain the remains of a child, but we were told that in this country the dead are arranged in a sitting posture, the head bent between the knees, and therefore the square box takes the place of the long narrow coffin. This box contained the body of a young woman, twenty years of age, whose friends lived too far away to be present at the funeral, so that in this case the body was to be burned and the ashes sent to them, although usually the Japanese bury their dead.

As we rode slowly through the native quarter, looking into the bazaars, we noticed before many of the shops and houses bamboo poles erected, and at the top of the poles were floating out in the breeze inflated paper fishes from two to six feet in length. This is the beginning of the Feast of Flags, which comes on the fifth day of the fifth month, and is the greatest day of all the year for boys. It is really a national celebration of the birthday of all the boys in the kingdom, while the third day of the third month is devoted to the girls, and is called the Feast of Dolls. The fish represented is the carp or salmon, which is able to swim swiftly against the current and to leap over waterfalls, and is supposed to be typical of the youth mounting over all difficulties to success and prosperity. We stopped at a Shinto temple, which was covered by a roof, but it was destitute of all decoration and symbolism, except the round mirror, which has various meanings, one of them being that it is a revealer of the inner character. A man came up to worship while we stood there. He threw a small coin on the mat within the railing, clapped his hands twice, stood for a moment with closed eyes as though in prayer, clapped his hands again, and it was all over.

At the normal school for girls, of which the empress is patroness, the tuition is free, and pupils are here from all parts of Japan. They are supposed to prepare themselves for teachers, although they are not absolutely required to pursue this vocation. The object of the school is probably quite as much to furnish educated wives for the ambitious young men of new Japan. Prof. Mason’s system of music is taught here, and the piano is superceding the Japanese instruments. Drawing is also taught after the western methods. Instruction in needlework is given, both in plain sewing and embroidery. Every girl is taught to cut and make her own garments. There are no patterns used, but it is all done according to mathematical rules, and the cloth is so used that there is no waste in cutting. We saw a little girl not more than ten years old draw an exact diagram on the blackboard of the way a piece of cloth could be cut to make an outer garment. The pupils are also taught how to arrange flowers artistically. Here, as in the nobles’ school, there is a teacher of etiquette, and these maidens, some of them from the interior of the country and from poor homes, are instructed in the manners of polite society. An interesting department of this school is the kindergarten, where both sexes are admitted, and we saw more than a hundred little creatures gathered here with grave faces and long robes, and neither from the dress nor the arrangement of the hair could we tell the boys from the girls. Some twenty of the children, belonging to families of wealth and position, were accompanied by their nurses, who sat at one side. Nearly every child had a wooden tag attached to the belt, on which were written the name and address of the parents. There was one handsome little fellow, whom we called the Prince, with his head as smoothly shaven as a Buddhist priest’s. He wore gorgeous silk robes, and moved through his calisthenic exercises with a very complacent air. The children who were dressed in European fashion were most absurd looking creatures, and we much preferred to see them in their own costume. The Japanese are such a tiny people that, unless they have been abroad long enough to adopt our dress and wear it with ease, they look much better in their own flowing robes, which give grace and dignity to the figure. We heard an amusing story of the costume in which a native Christian appeared before the Presbytery to be ordained as an elder. He was a private citizen, but he wore on this occasion a blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, knee breeches, and high top cavalry boots with spurs, looking as though he was about to engage in some other warfare than spiritual.

The largest and most popular temple of Tokio, Asakusa, is to that city what St. Paul’s is to London, or Notre Dame to Paris. The avenue which leads to the temple is lined on either side with booths, and there are gardens adjoining in which are a variety of shows, waxworks and trained birds, theaters and tea-houses, with swarms of disreputable characters. The Japanese mix up the sacred and secular in a way that is very shocking to our ideas. At one of the side shrines in the temple is a wooden image, contact with which is said to cure disease, and it is pathetic to see how the features have been obliterated and the body worn as smooth as[556] St. Peter’s toe at Rome by the rubbing of thousands of palms of poor human sufferers who have hoped to find healing power in this senseless mass of wood.

Near the temple is a revolving library containing a complete edition of the Buddhist scriptures. The library looks like a huge red lacquer lantern, some twelve feet high, on a black lacquer base and stone lotus-shaped pedestal. The whole structure revolves on a pivot. A ticket over the door explains the use of this peculiar book-case, and reads as follows: “Owing to the voluminousness of the Buddhist scriptures—6,771 volumes—it is impossible for any single individual to read them through; but a degree of merit equal to that accruing to him who should have perused the entire canon will be obtained by those who will cause this library to revolve three times on its axis, and, moreover, long life, prosperity and the avoidance of all misfortunes shall be their reward.” For a small fee the custodian allows you to gain all this merit.

An overland journey to Kioto, Osaka and Kobe, returning by steamer to Yokohama, and from thence a trip to Nikko, and the Chautauquans are ready to embark on the City of Tokio, which is to take them on the long and monotonous voyage across the Pacific. Taking the northerly route we enter at once a belt of penetrating fog, chilling winds and occasional showers, which make the luxurious deck life, which we found so agreeable on the southern seas, quite impracticable. Finding a good collection of books in the ship’s library we still linger in the land of the Rising Sun by reading Griffis and Satow, Miss Bird and Sir Edward Reed. There are only twenty-six saloon passengers, but more than a thousand Chinese are packed away in the steerage, and they swarm on the forward deck during the day, smoking and playing games, but more quiet and peaceable than a quarter of that number of Irishmen would be under similar circumstances. Nineteen days without sight of sail or land and we rejoice to know that the shores of America will soon be visible. San Francisco once reached, the Chautauquans will have put the girdle round the world, for they visited the western coast of America on the famous Sabbath-school excursion, headed by Dr. Vincent, in 1879. By the aid of the captain’s glass and our own opera glasses about four o’clock on a bright, breezy afternoon, we discern in the far eastern horizon a white, rocky island, crowned with a light-house. Soon after another dim hint of land appears to the north, and a little later the main land becomes visible. Just after a glorious sunset we enter the Golden Gate, a crescent moon hanging above the narrow pass. Familiar objects appear—the Cliff House, the Fort—and before we retire the great engines cease their throbbing, the ship drops anchor, and the gleaming lights of San Francisco welcome us home again.

THE DAFFODIL.

ADA IDDINGS GALE.

PORTRAIT COLLECTIONS.

By WALTER F. TIFFIN.

Were it not that some few other animals seem, in a small degree, to have somewhat of the same faculty, man might be defined a scraping or collecting animal, for there is scarcely an individual of the genus but manifests this peculiarity; some in scraping or collecting for their own subsistence or that of their offspring; many for the gratification of their senses or intellect, irrespective of physical wants of increase or preservation.

I was shown the other day a neat little cabinet, belonging to a great traveler and naturalist, in which were labelled and described nearly four hundred different species or varieties of bugs! George the Fourth collected saddles. The Princess Charlotte, and many besides, collected shells, of which some of the ugliest, being fortunately the rarest, are very valuable. For a very rare one, Rumfius, a collector of old, though stone blind, is said to have given £1000. Tulips were once a favorite subject with collectors, especially in Holland, where the sums given for new or rare roots were enormous. One root once sold for 4600 florins (about £370) together with a new carriage, a pair of grey horses, and a set of harness. Other flowers have since become favorites in succession, as auriculas, picotees, dahlias, and now, roses.

Of collections of pictures of a general character a long list might be made, and there are in England several fine collections of statues, ancient and modern. I don’t know, however, that we have any such enthusiasts, as antiquaries, as a gentleman mentioned by Evelyn, who, being at Rome in 1644, went “to the house of Hippolite Vitellesco (afterwards Bibliothecary of ye Vatican Library) who show’d us one of the best collections of statues in Rome, to which he frequently talks as if they were living, pronouncing now and then orations, sentences, and verses, sometimes kissing and embracing them. He has a head of Brutus, scarred in the face by order of the Senate for killing Julius; this is much esteemed.” Special collections of portraits do not however seem to have met with much favor. One of the earliest collectors in England was William, Earl of Pembroke, of the time of James the First, who was quite famous as a physiognomist, and who formed a special collection of portraits at Wilton. General Fairfax is said to have collected portraits of warriors; and a few others might be named as having added to their own family portraits those of their friends, or of persons whose position or talents rendered them celebrated. But it was reserved for Lord Chancellor Clarendon to form the first important collection of English worthies. When he built his grand house in Piccadilly, he appears to have arranged a gallery of portraits on a well-considered plan. They were limited to those of eminent men of his own country, but not restricted to any particular class. This collection of portraits was already very extensive when Clarendon went into exile, and he was then getting a long list from Evelyn in order to add to it. In a letter to Pepys, and in his “Numismata,” Evelyn enumerates, from memory, nearly a hundred illustrious Englishmen whose portraits he had seen at Clarendon House, and which were afterwards removed to Cornbury in Oxfordshire.

Next to a gallery of portraits in oil, must be reckoned a cabinet of miniatures, and indeed if these are by masters like Oliver and Cooper and Petitôt, they are of equal value, both as portraits and pictures, with the larger works. But now, nearly all the works of these celebrated artists are gathered into collections such as that of the Duke of Buccleugh, whence no collector can hope to charm them, charm he never so wisely. The first large collection of miniatures[557] formed was that of Walpole. Until recently few persons sought for more than family portraits, or those of friends, and Walpole was enabled therefore to form his matchless collection of miniatures with comparative ease and at a comparatively moderate expense. At that time, he says, they were “superior to any other collection whatever,” and particularly as regards the works of Peter and Isaac Oliver, “the best extant, and as perfect as when they came from the hand of the painter.”

To collect all the portraits that have ever been engraved is of course a hopeless task, and there would necessarily be so many important hiatuses, that no one probably now-a-days will enter on the undertaking. Yet it was attempted, and it must have been an exciting occupation, too serious for an amusement or recreation, for the several collectors, who then all ran for the same goal, to outdo and outbid each other in forming their collections. It is astonishing how interesting a collection may be made of portraits of a more limited range. Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, or Lodge’s Memoirs, are more readable than the Biographia Britannica, or Bayle’s Dictionary; and two or three folios of portraits of a particular class, or of a particular era, well arranged and annotated may be made much more amusing, recreative, and interesting than dozens of cabinets filled with a miscellaneous assemblage of portraits of people of all sorts who have lived “everywhen” and everywhere. The collector may himself make a book by collecting some series of portraits, as of statesmen, poets, actors, etc., etc., of some particular period, and placing opposite to each a few salient biographical paragraphs. A few dates should be given, as of birth, death, etc., but no attempt need be made to furnish a full biography. It should be endeavored rather to heighten our interest in the portrait by recalling or recording a few anecdotes, than to attempt to vie with a biographical dictionary. Just as in passing along a gallery of portraits, or noticing those in a great house, we pause not only to criticise the figure, or the complexion and expression of the face, but to remark such and such an event in the life of him or her who is before us. What is wanted in these inscriptions is not a serious biography of the individual, but, besides a few special facts and dates, some short characteristic anecdotes not generally met with in biographies, but to be picked up in “Memoires pour servir”—and similar ana.

Almost the first great or systematic collectors of engraved portraits in England were Evelyn and Pepys; the former having the start. It was not till about 1668 that Pepys began collecting portraits, getting many of Nanteuil, etc., from France, and being helped with the advice of Evelyn, as well as with specimens from his collection. In 1669 he went to France, and doubtless collected there many things (which are now in the Pepysian Library) on the recommendation of his friend, who says in one of his letters at this time, printed by Lord Braybrooke, “They will greatly refresh you in your study, and by your fireside, when you are many years returned.”

Yes, they will indeed refresh you! This is one of the great charms of such reminiscences of travel, that when you come home you are constantly traveling again in looking over sketches, pictures, and books. You see an engraving of the Madonna della Sedia, and away you are at once, quicker than the telegraph, to Florence the Fair, and to that sunny day, when crossing the Arno by the Ponte Vecchio, you first came to the Palazzo Pitti, and, passing by wonders and wonders of art, you stopped at last by the Raffaelle and forgot the world, absorbed by that which is indeed “a joy forever.” In the same way you turn over a folio of portraits. Here are Elizabeth, Leicester, Raleigh, Shakspere, Melville, and Mary of Scots—and you walk about London and Greenwich, and visit the world of three hundred years ago! Or you take up a folio of a later period, where are Charles the Second, Buckingham, Rochester, Grammont, Sedley, Killigrew, York, Clarendon, Dryden, Lely, Castlemaine, Stewart, Nelly, and the Queen—and you are dining at one o’clock with the learned Mr. Evelyn and the wondrous Pepys, talking and telling anecdotes (with a good deal of relish) of the bad goings on of those times, A. D. 1666. Or, whisking out another folio, you rush off to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s and laugh and criticise, mourn and moralize with Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, and Garrick, and think of Hogarth “over the way,” and of Chesterfield, Walpole, the Gunnings, Kitty Clive, Nelly O’Brien, and many more who have, unconsciously to themselves and to us, moved the world a step forward. These are among the charms, the pleasures and advantages of collections of portraits.

BEYOND.

By Mrs. EMILY J. BUGBEE.

SONNET OF PETROCCHI.

Translated by STRONG.

[558]

RESULTS OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

By JOHN LORD, LL.D.

The material consequences of the discovery of America were brilliant and important. They first stimulated the passion for further explorations, and among all the maritime nations of Europe. Hence the voyages of Ojeda, of Nino, of Puiza, of Balboa, of Vespucci, of Cabot, of Raleigh, and various other men of enterprise. They did not rest until they had explored the coasts and rivers of the whole American continent, north and south. The Spaniards took the lead, and, following in their steps, the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and established their factories in the islands of the Indian Ocean. The Dutch and English were animated by the same zeal, until the East and West Indies were known to travelers and merchants. The French missionaries explored the wilds of the North, and sailed down the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. In a few years the grand outlines of North and South America were known to geographical scholars. A new world was opened to the enterprise of Europeans. Then followed the conquest of such parts of America as stimulated the ambition and avarice of the Europeans, especially of Spain, who claimed the quarter part of the American continent. These conquests were atrocious, from the cruelties inflicted on the unsuspecting natives, to whom the country belonged. The discovery of the precious metals in Brazil, Peru, and Mexico, and the repute of their abundance, was the cause of these conquests.

At last followed colonization, not so much with a view of permanent settlement or agricultural improvements, as the desire and hope of getting rich in the mines. Colonization had no dignity until the English settled in Virginia and in New England. Gold was the first stimulus, a fertile country the second, and religious liberty the third. The views of those who colonized Virginia were different from those who landed on Plymouth Rock. But all the colonists doubtless sought to improve their condition; and for two hundred years and more the stream of emigration has flowed toward the West. The poor, the miserable, as well as the intelligent and enterprising in all parts of Europe, have regarded America as a refuge and a home.

We next notice an amazing stimulus to commerce, and the enrichment of Spain by the possession of the new mines of silver and gold. Wealth flowed in a steady stream to Spain, and that country became the richest and most powerful in Europe. The Spanish navy became the greatest in the world, and Spain prospered beyond all precedent.

Another interesting inquiry arises, how far the nations of Europe were really enriched by the rapid accumulation of gold and silver. The search for the precious metals may have stimulated commercial enterprise, but it is not so clear that they added to the substantial wealth of Europe, except so far as they promoted industry. Gold is not wealth; it is the exponent of wealth. Real wealth is in farms, and shops, and ships—in the various channels of industry, in the results of human labor.

So far as the precious metals enter into useful manufactures, or into articles of beauty and taste, they are indeed inherently valuable. Mirrors, plate, jewelry, watches, gilded furniture, the adornments of the person, in an important sense constitute wealth, since all nations value them and will pay for them as they do for corn and oil. So far as they are connected with art, they are valuable in the same sense as statues and pictures on which labor has been expended. There is something useful and even necessary besides food and raiment and houses. The gold which ornamented Solomon’s temple, or the Minerva of Phidias, or the garments of Leo X., had a value. The ring which is a present to brides is a part of a marriage ceremony. The gold watch, which never tarnishes, is more valuable inherently than a pewter one, because it remains beautiful. Then when gold enters into ornaments, deemed indispensable, or into manufactures which are needed, it has an inherent value. It is wealth. But when it is a mere medium of exchange—its chief use—then it has only a conventional value. I mean it does not make a nation rich or poor, since the rarer it is the more it will purchase of the necessities of life. A pound weight of gold in ancient Greece, or in mediæval Europe, would purchase as much wheat as twenty pounds weight would purchase to-day. If the mines of Mexico, or Peru, or California had never been worked, the gold in the civilized world three hundred years ago would have been as valuable for banking purposes, or as an exchange for agricultural products, as twenty times its present quantity, since it would have bought as much as twenty times the quantity would buy to-day. Make diamonds as plenty as crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals, if they were not harder and more beautiful than crystals. Make gold as plenty as silver, it would be worth no more than silver, except for manufacturing purposes. It would be worth no more than silver to bankers and merchants. The vast increase in the production of the precious metals simply increased the value of the commodities for which they were exchanged. A laborer can purchase no more bread with a dollar to-day than he could with five cents three hundred years ago. Five cents were really as much wealth three hundred years ago as a dollar is to-day. Wherein, then, has the increase in the precious metals added to the wealth of the world, if a twentieth part of the gold and silver now in circulation would buy as much land, or furniture, or wheat, or oil, three hundred years ago, as twenty times the quantity of gold and silver would buy to-day? Had no gold or silver mines been discovered in America, the gold and silver would have appreciated in value in proportion to the wear of them. In other words, the scarcer the gold and silver the more the same will purchase of the fruits of human industry. So industry is the wealth, not the gold. It is the cultivated farms and the manufactures, and the buildings, and the internal improvements of a country, which constitute its real wealth, since they represent its industry—the labor of men.

Mines indeed employ the labor of men, but they do not furnish food for the body, or raiment to wear, or houses to live in, or fuel for cooking, or for any purpose whatever of human comfort or necessity—only material for ornament, which I grant is wealth so far as ornament is for the welfare of man. The marbles of ancient Greece are very valuable for the labor expended on them either for architecture or ornament.

Gold and silver were early selected as a useful and convenient article of exchange, like bank notes, and so have inherent value as they supply that necessity, but if a quarter part of the gold and silver in existence would supply that necessity, the remaining three-fourths would be as inherently valueless as the paper on which bank notes are engraved. Value consists in what they represent of the labors and industries of men.

Now Spain ultimately became poor, in spite of the influx of gold and silver from the American mines, because industries of all kinds declined. People were diverted from useful callings by the mighty delusion which gold discoveries created. These discoveries had the same effect on industry, which is the wealth of nations, as the support of standing armies in our day. They diverted men from legitimate callings. The miners had to be supported like soldiers, and the sudden influx of gold and silver, intoxicated men and stimulated speculation. An army of speculators[559] does not enrich a nation, since they rob each other. They earn money to change hands. They do not stimulate industry. They do not create wealth, they simply make it flow from one person to another.

But speculations sometimes create activity in enterprise. They inflame desire for wealth and cause people to make greater exertions. In that sense, the discovery of American mines gave a stimulus to commerce and travel and energy. People rushed to America for gold. Those people had to be fed and clothed. Then farmers and manufacturers followed the gold-hunters. They tilled the soil to feed the mines. The new farms which dotted the region of the gold diggers added to the wealth of the country in which the mines were located. Colonization followed gold-digging. But it was America that became enriched, not the old countries from which the miners came, except so far as the old countries furnished tools and ships and fabrics. Doubtless commerce and manufactures were stimulated. So far the wealth of the world increased. But the men who returned to riot in luxury and idleness did not stimulate enterprise. They made others idle also. The necessity of labor was lost sight of.

And yet if one country became idle, another country may have become industrious. There can be but little question that the discovery of American mines gave commerce and manufactures and agriculture, on the whole, a stimulus. This was particularly seen in England. England grew rich from industry and enterprise, as Spain became poor from idleness and luxury. The silver and gold, diffused through Europe, ultimately found their way into the pockets of Englishmen who made a market of their manufactures. It was not the precious metals which enriched England, but those articles of industry for which the rest of the world parted with their gold and silver. What has made France rich since the revolution? Those innumerable articles of taste and elegance, fabrics for which all Europe parted with its specie, not war, not conquest, not mines. Why, till recently, was Germany so poor?—because it had so little to sell to other nations—because industry was cramped by standing armies and despotic government.

One thing is certain, that the discovery of America opened a new field for industry and enterprise to all the discontented and impoverished and oppressed Europeans who emigrated. At first they emigrated to dig silver and gold. The opening of mines required labor, and miners were obliged to part with their gold for the necessities of life. Thus California, in our day, has become peopled with farmers and merchants and manufacturers as well as miners. Many came to America expecting to find gold and were disappointed and were obliged to turn agriculturists, as in Virginia. Many came to New England from political and religious motives. But all came to better their fortunes. Gradually the United States and Canada became populated from east to west, and from north to south. The surplus population of Europe poured itself into the wilds of America. Generally the emigrants were farmers. With the growth of agricultural industry was developed commerce and manufactures. Thus, materially, the world was immensely benefited. A new continent was opened for industry. No matter what the form of government may be—I might almost say no matter what the morals and religion of the people may be—so long as there is land to occupy, and to be sold cheap, the continent will fill up, and will be as densely populated as Europe or Asia, because the natural advantages are good. The rivers and the lakes will be navigated. The products of the country will be exchanged for European and Asiatic products. Wealth will certainly increase, and increase indefinitely.

There is no calculating the future greatness and wealth of the new world, especially in the United States. There are no bounds to commerce, manufactures, and agricultural products. We can predict with certainty the rise of new cities, villas, palaces, material splendor limited only to the increasing resources and population of the country. Who can tell the number of miles of new railroads yet to be made, the new inventions to abridge human labor? What great empires are destined to rise! What unknown forms of luxury will be found out! What new and magnificent trophies of art and science will gradually be seen! What mechanisms, what material glories are sure to come! This is not speculation. Nothing can retard the growth of America in material wealth and glory. The tower of the new Babel will rise to the clouds, and be seen in all its glory throughout the earth and sea. No Fourth of July orator ever exaggerated the future destinies of America in a material point of view. No “spread eagle” politician ever conceived what is sure to come.

And what then? Grant the most indefinite expansion—the growth of empires whose splendor and wealth and power shall utterly eclipse the glories of the old world. All this is probable. But when we have dwelt on the future material expansion—when we have given wings to imagination, and feel that even imagination can not reach the probable realities, in a material aspect, then our predictions and calculations stop. Beyond material glories we can not count with certainty.

The world has witnessed many powerful empires which have passed away, “leaving scarcely a wreck behind.” What remains of the antediluvian world? Not even a spike of Noah’s Ark, larger and stronger than any modern ship. What remains of Babylon, of Thebes, of Tyre, of Carthage—those great cities of wealth and power? What remains of Roman greatness, even, except in laws and literature, and renovated statues? Remember, there is an undeviating uniformity in the past history of nations. What is the simple story of all the ages?—industry, wealth, corruption, decay and ruin. What conservative power has been strong enough to arrest the ruin of the nations of antiquity? Have not material forces and glories been developed and exhibited, whatever the religion and morals of the fallen nations? Can not a country grow materially to a point under the most adverse influence in a religious and moral point of view? Yet for lack of religion and morals the nations perished, and their Babel towers were buried in the dust. They perished for lack of true conservative forces—at least that is the judgment of historians. Nobody doubts the splendor of the material glories of the ancient nations. The ruins of Baalbec, of Palmyra, of Athens, prove this, to say nothing of history. The material glories of the ancient nations may be surpassed by our modern wonders, but yet all the material glories of the ancient nations passed away.

Now, if this is to be the destiny of America—an unbounded material growth, followed by corruption and ruin, then Columbus has simply extended the realm for men to try material experiments. Make New York a second Carthage, and Boston a second Athens, and Philadelphia a second Antioch, and Washington a second Rome, and we simply repeat the old experiment. Did not the Romans have nearly all we have, materially, except our modern scientific inventions? But has America no higher destiny than to repeat the old experiments, and improve upon them and become rich and powerful? Has she no higher and nobler mission? Can she lay hold of forces that the old world never had, such as will prevent the uniform doom of nations? I maintain that there is no reason that can be urged, based on history and experience, why she should escape the fate of the nations of antiquity, unless new forces arise on this continent, different from what the world has known, and which have a conservative influence. If America has a great mission to declare and to fulfill, she must put forth altogether[560] new forces, and they not material. That alone will save her, and save the world. It is mournful to contemplate even the future material glories of America, if they are not to be preserved—if these are to share the fate of ancient wonders. It is obvious that the real glory of America is to be something entirely different from that of which the ancients boasted. And this is to be to the moral and spiritual, that which the ancients lacked. And this leads me to speak of the moral consequences of the discovery of America—infinitely grander than any material wonders, of which the world has been full, of which nearly every form of paganism has boasted, and which must necessarily perish, everywhere, without new forces to preserve them. In a moral point of view scarcely anything good resulted, at least to Europe, by the discovery of America. It excited the wildest spirit of adventure, the most unscrupulous cupidity, the most demoralizing speculations. It created jealousies and wars. The cruelties and injustices inflicted on the Indians were revolting. Nothing in the annals of the world exceeded the wickednesses of the Spaniards in the conquest of Peru and Mexico. That conquest is the most dismal and least glorious in human history. We see no poetry or heroism or necessity. We read of nothing but crimes. The Jesuits, in their missionary zeal, partly redeemed the cruelties, but they soon imposed a despotic yoke and made their religion pay. Monopolies scandalously increased, and the New World was regarded only as spoil. The tone of moral feeling was lowered everywhere, for the natives were crazed with the hope of sudden accumulation. Spain became enervated and demoralized.

On America itself the demoralization was even more marked. There never was such a state of moral degradation in any Christian country as in South America. Three centuries have passed, and the low state of morals continues. Contrast Mexico and Peru with the United States, morally and intellectually. What seeds of vice did not the Spaniards plant! How the old natives melted away!

And then, to add to the moral evils attending colonization, is the introduction of African slaves, especially in the West Indies and the Southern States. Christendom seems to have lost the seed of morality. Slavery more than counterbalances all other advantages together. It was the stain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not merely slavery but the slave trade increases the horror of the frightful picture. America became associated, in the minds of Europeans, with gold hunting, slavery, and cruelty to Indians. Better that the country remained undiscovered than the introduction of such vices and miseries in the most fertile part of the New World.

I can not see that civilization gained anything, morally, by the discovery of America, until the new settlers were animated by other motives than a desire of sudden wealth. When the country became colonized by men who sought liberty to worship God, men of lofty purposes, willing to undergo sufferings and danger in order to plant the seeds of a higher civilization, then there arose new forms of social and political life. Such men were those who colonized New England. And say what you will, in spite of all the disagreeable side of the Puritan character, it was the Puritans who gave a new impulse to civilization in its higher sense. They founded schools and colleges and churches. They introduced a new form of political life by their town meetings, in which liberty was nurtured, and all social improvements were regulated; it was the autonomy of towns on which the political structure rested. In them was born that true representative government which has gradually spread toward the West. The colonies were embryo states, states afterward to be bound together by a stronger tie than that of a league.

The New England States, since the War of Independence, were the defenders and advocates of a central power. An entirely new political organization gradually was formed, resting equally on such pillars as independent townships and independent states, and these represented by delegates in a national center.

So we believe America was discovered not so much to furnish a field for indefinite material expansion, with European arts and fashions, which would simply assimilate America with the old world, with all its dangers and vices and follies, as to introduce new forms of government, new social institutions, new customs and manners, new experiments in liberty, new religious organizations, new modes to ameliorate the necessary evils of life. It was discovered that men might labor and employ the fruits of industry in a new mode, unfettered by the slaveries which the institutions of Europe imposed. America was a new field to try experiments in government and social life, which could not be tried in other nations without sweeping and dangerous revolutions. And new institutions have arisen which are our pride and boast, and which are the wonder and admiration of Europe. America is the only country under the sun in which there is self-government—a government which purely represents the wisdom of the people, where universal suffrage is not a mockery—and if America has a destiny to fulfill for other nations, she must give them something more valuable than reaping machines, palace cars and horse railroads. She must give, not machinery to abridge labor, but institutions and ideas to expand the mind and elevate the soul—something by which the poor can rise and assert their rights. Unless something is developed here which can not be developed in other countries in the way of new spiritual and intellectual forces which have a conservative influence, then I can not see how America can long continue to be the home and refuge of the poor and miserable of other lands. A new and better spirit must vivify schools and colleges and philanthropic enterprises than that which has prevailed in older nations. Unless something new is born here which has a peculiar power to save, wherein will America ultimately differ from other parts of Christendom? We must have schools in which the heart as well as the brain is educated, and newspapers which aspire to something higher than to fan prejudices and appeal to perverted tastes. Our hope is not in books which treat infidelity under the name of science; not in pulpits which can not be sustained without sensational oratory; not in journals which trade on the religious sentiments of the people; nor Sabbath-school books which are an insult to the human understanding; nor colleges which fit youth merely for making money; nor schools of technology to give an impulse to material interests; nor legislatures controlled by monopolists; nor judges elected by demagogues; nor philanthropic societies to ventilate impractical theories. These will neither renovate nor conserve what is most precious in life. Unless a nation grows morally as well as materially, there is something wrong at the core of society. As I have said, no material expansion will avail if society becomes rotten at the core. America is a glorious boon to civilization, but only as she fulfills a new mission in history—not to become more potent in material forces, but in those spiritual agencies which prevent corruption and decay. An infidel professor calling himself a savant, may tell you that there is nothing certain or great but in the direction of science to utilities, even as he may boast in a philosophy which ignores a creator and takes cognizance only of a creation. As I survey the growing and enormous moral evils which degrade society here as everywhere, in spite of Bunker Hills and Plymouth Rocks, and all the advance in useful mechanisms, I am sometimes tempted to propound inquiries which suggest the old mournful story of the decline and ruin of states and empires. I ask myself “Why will America[561] be an exception to the uniform fate of nations, as history has demonstrated? why should not good institutions be presented here as in all other countries and ages of the world?” When has civilization shown any striking triumph except in inventions to abridge the labor of mankind and make men comfortable and rich? Is there nothing before us then but the triumph of material life, to end as mournfully as the materialism of antiquity? If so, then Christianity is a most dismal failure, is a defeated power, like all other forms of religion which failed to save. But is it a failure? Are we really swinging back to paganism? Is the time to be hailed when all religions will be considered by the philosopher as equally false and equally useful? Is there nothing more cheerful for us to contemplate than what the old pagan philosophy holds out,—man destined to live like brutes or butterflies, and pass away into the infinity of time and space, like inert matter, decomposed, absorbed, and entering into new and everlasting combination? Is America to become like Europe and Asia in all essential elements of life? Has she no other mission than to add to perishable glories? Is she to teach the world nothing new in education, and philanthropy, and government? Are all her struggles in behalf of liberty in vain? Is Christianity to move round her in circles of milliners and upholsterers, and fanaticisms, and dogmatisms, and superstitions?

We all know that Christianity is the only hope of the world. The question is whether America is, or is not, more favorable for its healthy development and application than the other countries of Christendom. We believe that it is. If it is not, then America is only a new field for the spread and triumph of material forces. If it is, we may look forward to such improvements in education, in political institutions, in social life, in religious organizations, in philanthropical enterprise, that the country will be sought by the poor and enslaved classes of Europe, more for its moral and intellectual advantages, than for mines or farms, and the objects of the Puritan settlers will be gained.

SONGS IN WINTER.

By DAVID BUXTON.

JOYS OF HIGH COMPANIONSHIP.

By ARTHUR HELPS.

The joys, not merely of high companionship, but of any companionship that is tolerably pleasant, are so great, that a man with whom all other things go ill, can not be classed as an unhappy man, if he has throughout his life much of this pleasant companionship.

The desire for companionship is absolutely universal. Even misanthropy is but the desire for companionship, turned sour. This desire extends throughout creation. It is very noticeable in domestic animals; and could we fathom the causes of their sociability, we should probably have arrived at a solution of several important questions relating to them and to ourselves.

The most fascinating people in the world have, I believe, been simply good companions. Shakspere, as he knew most things, knew this, and has shown that he knew it, in what he has indicated to us of the loves of Brutus and Portia, of Antony and Cleopatra, and of Rosalind and Orlando.

I think it must be admitted that one of the main objects of life is good companionship. “What,” says Emerson, “is the end of all this apparatus of living—what but to get a number of persons who shall be happy in each other’s society, and be seated at the same table?”

The first thing for companionship is, that there should be a good relation between the persons who are to become good companions to each other. It is not well to use a foreign phrase if it can be avoided, but there are foreign phrases which are supremely significant, and utterly untranslatable. I therefore say that those people I have spoken of should be en rapport with one another. This rapport may have its existence in various ways. The relationship of mother and son, of father and daughter, will give it; the love that some people have for children will give it with children; similar bringing up at school or at college may give it; similarity of present pursuits may give it. But before all and above all, that incomprehensible, unfathomable thing called personal liking—that which you feel (or the contrary of which you feel), frequently at first sight—will be sure to give it. We use the phrase “falling in love:” we might perhaps use the phrase “falling in liking” to describe a similar unavoidable precipitancy.

The beginning once made, the basis once laid for this companionship, what are the qualities which tend to make it continuously pleasant?

The first thing is confidence. Now, in using the word confidence, it is not meant to imply that there is an absolute necessity for much confidingness in small things. Wilhelm von Humboldt has expressed an opinion which is worth noting in reference to this subject. “Friendship and love,” he says, “require the deepest and most genuine confidence, but lofty souls do not require the trivial confidences of familiarity.”

The kind of confidence that Humboldt means, and which is required for companionship as well as for friendship and love, puts aside all querulous questions as to whether the companions like one another as much to-day as they did yesterday. Steadfastness is to be assumed. And, also a certain unchangeableness. “He is a wonderfully agreeable person,” said a neighbor of one of the best talkers of the day; “but I have to renew my acquaintance with him every morning.” That good talker can not be held to be a good companion in a high sense of the word. Again, this steadfastness makes allowance for all variations of humor, temperament, and fortune. It prevents one companion from attributing any change that there may be in the other, of manner, of bearing, or of vivacity, to a change in the real relation between the companions. He does not make any[562] of these things personal towards himself. Silence is not supposed to be offence. Hence there is no occasion to make talk, a thing which is fatal to companionship. One reason why some of us enjoy so much the society of animals, is because we need not talk to them if we do not like. And, indeed, with a thoroughly good human companion, you ought to be able to feel as if you were quite alone.

Difference of temperament is no hindrance whatever to companionship. Indeed, the world has generally recognized that fact. We all know that the ardent and the timid, the hopeful and the despondent, the eager and the apathetic, get on very well together. What may not always have been as clearly perceived is, that there are certain diversities of nature, chiefly relating to habits, which produce, not agreeable contrasts, but downright fatal discords. And, in such cases, companionship of a high kind is hopeless.

Let us suppose that the principal requisites for companionship have been attained; first, the basis for it created by personal liking, early association, similarity of pursuits, and the like; secondly, the means of continuing it, such as this confidence that has been spoken of, the absence of contravening tastes, the absence of unreasonable expectation, and the like. Now, for what remain to be considered as the essential requisites for high companionship, we must enter into what is almost purely intellectual. For this high companionship there must be an interest in many things, at least on one side, and on the other a great power of receptivity. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the needfulness of these elements. Look at results. Consider the nature of those men and women whom you have found, if I may use the phrase, to be splendid companions. It is not exactly their knowledge that has made them so; it is their almost universal interest in everything that comes before them. This quality will make even ignorant people extremely good companions to the most instructed persons. It is not, however, the relation of tutor to pupil that is contemplated here. That is certainly not the highest form of companionship. The kind of ignorant person that I mean, if he or she should be one of the companions, is to be intensely receptive and appreciative, and his or her remarks are very dear and very pleasant to the most instructed person. Is not the most valuable part of all knowledge very explicable, and do you not find that you can make your best thoughts intelligible, if you have any clearness of expression, to persons not exactly of your own order, if you will only take the pains to do so?

EGYPT FOR THE EGYPTIANS.

By Judge G. M. BARBER.

“Egypt for the Egyptians!” was the motto of the national party in their attempted revolution. What is Egypt, and who are the Egyptians? Let history answer. Modern investigations and the translation of hieroglyphics and inscriptions found in tombs carry back the evidences of its existence as a nation at least a thousand years prior to the period fixed by the translators of the Mosaic record for the creation of man. During all these cycles of ages these wonderful people have maintained their existence along the narrow region watered and enriched by the Nile. Neither pestilence nor famine, invasion and subjugation by other peoples, nor internal discord, has supplanted them by other or different races; nor have they been allured to abandon the homes of their ancestors for more fruitful lands or mineral wealth, or commercial advantages. Although in turn they have been conquerors, and held in subjection other lands and other peoples, and have been themselves the conquered and compelled to bear the yoke of people more powerful than themselves, they have remained the same simple agricultural people, among whom have always existed types of squalid poverty and luxurious wealth, self-sacrificing devotion to a religion, and the most wanton lasciviousness: the most deplorable ignorance and the most exalted scientific knowledge and mechanical skill.

Over this interesting country and people Mohammedanism has for several centuries spread its baleful influence, keeping out the light of Christianity and western civilization. During most of the time since 1517 it has been under the dominion of Turkey. In the early part of the eighteenth century the Mamelukes, who constituted the military under Ali Bey, threw off the Turkish yoke and maintained their independence until the invasion by Napoleon in 1798, who conquered it for the French and held it until 1801, when Mehemet Ali became Pasha. After restoring tranquility by a treacherous assassination of five hundred Mamelukes, and the expulsion of the remainder from the country, he turned his arms against Turkey, conquered Syria and a great part of Asia Minor, and was in a fair way to capture Constantinople when the European powers, England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, interfered and compelled him to make peace with the sultan. This was in 1833. In 1839 the sultan sent an army of 80,000 men and a large fleet to retake Ali’s conquests. This army was defeated and the fleet surrendered to Ali and was brought to Alexandria. The powers of Europe again interfered to prevent the overthrow and destruction of the Turkish Empire, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, taking sides with Turkey, while France, under Thiers, favored Ali. England, however, sent a fleet, blockaded Alexandria, bombarded and captured Beyrut and Acre, and compelled Ali to accept peace, dictated by the allies, and to accept the pashalic of Egypt, guaranteed to him and his descendants on condition of his paying one-fourth of his clear revenues to the sultan.

This short history is necessary to understand the relation of Egypt to Turkey, and how the European powers have come to take part in the affairs of Egypt. Mehemet Ali became ruler of Egypt in 1805, under the title of pasha. Finding his ambition to conquer Turkey frustrated by the European powers, he attempted to introduce into the administration of his government European systems and the institutions of western civilization. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Ibrahim, who lived but two months, and was followed by his nephew, Abbas, and after six years reign of Abbas by Saïd, the fourth son of Ali, who had a prosperous reign of nine years and was succeeded in January, 1863, by[563] Ismaïl Pasha, the son of Ibrahim. The policy of modernizing Egypt, inaugurated by Mehemet Ali, was followed by Saïd, although wholly neglected during the unsatisfactory rule of Abbas.

Ismaïl was educated in France, and had imbibed as thoroughly as his grandfather, Mehemet, western ideas, and as fully appreciated the superiority of European civilization over eastern opulence and luxury. His ambition was to accomplish what Mehemet had been prevented from accomplishing by the interference of the European powers—to be independent of Turkey. He seems to have had the idea that he could at once lift Egypt from its condition of semi-barbarism into the civilization of the nineteenth century. The public works which he constructed must have appeared to his simple agricultural people more wonderful than a realization of the stories of the Arabian Nights. He built railroads and telegraphs, constructed harbors and wharfs for the largest vessels, and opened Alexandria to the commerce of the world. He lighted his cities with gas, and supplied them with water by means of aqueducts, constructed canals for irrigation, built bridges, established military schools, and increased his army until it excited the jealousy of Turkey. In addition to all these he paid nearly one-half the cost of constructing the Suez Canal, from which there is scarcely a maritime nation in the world that does not reap greater benefit than Egypt. The expenditures for these improvements not only absorbed his revenues, but involved him in enormous debts. Soon he was unable to pay interest, and at once European capitalists refused to make additional loans, and demanded payment. In his extreme need of money he sold his shares of stock in the Suez Canal, 177,000 shares, to the English government for £4,000,000. Every dollar that could be raised by taxation was taken from the property owners and the poor fellahs; and when he could get no more he resorted to the “Muskabala” policy, which consisted in giving immunity for all time from land taxes on the payment by the owner of an agreed assessment; one of the most short sighted pieces of statesmanship ever devised, to sell immunity to the rich at the expense of the poor. The finances fell into a state of inextricable confusion. Ismaïl had no definite knowledge of his indebtedness or of his resources. In this dilemma he applied to the English government, which sent him two eminent financiers, who investigated his financial condition, and reported the public debt to be £91,000,000, or nearly $500,000,000, and recommended a consolidated loan on bonds at reduced interest. This project was opposed by the other European powers, and it failed. An arrangement was finally agreed upon which satisfied all parties. A comptroller-general of the revenue and a comptroller-general of the debt and audit were to be appointed, one by the English and one by the French governments, who should have entire control of the public revenue, its collection and application to the payment of the expenses of the government and the interest and principal of the public debt. The personal creditors of the khedive also demanded an investigation of his personal indebtedness and resources, and the adoption of measures which should bring his expenditures within his resources, and provide for the payment of his debts. A commission was appointed, of which M. De Lesseps was president, consisting of representatives of France, England, Germany, Austria and Italy.

This commission reported the khedive’s personal indebtedness to be £6,744,000, and that his resources were wholly insufficient to pay his current expenses and the interest, and recommended that he surrender all his private estates to the government, and that it assume his liabilities, and pay him and the members of his family a fixed stipend for their support. This proposition was accepted by Ismaïl in a speech which shows that, with all his faults, he has noble traits of character. As an evidence of his good faith he conveyed all his estates to the government, and received in return an annual allowance for the support of himself and his family. Although Ismaïl was controlled by European influence his administration of public affairs was to some extent influenced by native ministers, the principal and most influential of whom were Nubar, Chérif, Riaz, and Ismaïl Sadyk, Pashas. Messrs. Rivers Wilson, and De Bligniers, as representatives of the English and French governments held portfolios in the ministry, having virtually control of finances.

In the latter part of 1878 the crisis was approaching. All the debts could not be paid in full, and the commissioners decided that the sacrifices should be borne equally by all.

On February 18, 1879, a council of ministers was held at Cairo. As Minister Nubar Pasha and Mr. Rivers Wilson were leaving in a carriage, they were stopped by a crowd of army officers, clamoring for payment of arrears of their salaries. The ministers were grossly insulted, their coachman wounded, and they pursued to Nubar’s private apartments, where they were held prisoners until the khedive came with a regiment of soldiers and dispersed the mob. This affair created intense excitement in London and Paris, where it was believed that the attack on Nubar and Mr. Rivers Wilson was instigated by the khedive as a means to get rid of Nubar as prime minister, for whom he entertained a profound aversion. It will be remembered that he was a Christian, and had the confidence of the European powers, and was appointed at the dictation of the foreign bondholders. He immediately resigned and an apology was made to Mr. Wilson, which he accepted. On the 7th of April, 1879, the culmination of the crisis was precipitated by the khedive and the Egyptians themselves. It seemed to be a last struggle of Egyptians for independence, and was the first real effort to save Egypt for the Egyptians. Ismaïl dismissed his ministry, which had been practically forced upon him by the European powers, and appointed a new one, composed wholly of Egyptians, with Chérif Pasha as prime minister. Wilson and De Bligniers were dismissed, but they refused to surrender their offices and appealed to their governments. It was a rebellion of Egypt against the western powers, and the khedive was supported by all the political and religious influences of the country.

The pashas, the harems, the ulemans, the priests, and the principal land owners combined to support him in his effort to regain his lost power. The last straw was laid on the camel’s back when the new ministry issued a decree on April 22, 1879, virtually suspending payment of all foreign debts. This was followed by a demand from the English and French governments for the abdication of Ismaïl, and on the 25th of June, 1879, he received an order from the Porte to abdicate in favor of his son, Mehemet Tewfik, which he obeyed, and Tewfik was immediately proclaimed khedive, as Tewfik I. Liberal provision was made for Ismaïl and his family in a style commensurate with the dignity of an oriental viceroyalty.

Tewfik formed three successive ministries within four months, the last on September 21, 1879, in which Osman Pasha was made Minister of War. On demand of England Messrs. Baring and De Bligniers were appointed comptrollers-general of finance with unrestricted authority, and an order issued that all subjects of the khedive should be treated alike, the pashas and other officials being required to pay taxes, and in failure to do so their rents were to be seized and their produce sold. The condition of Egypt was now most deplorable. It was at war with Abyssinia and a most disastrous famine prevailed. It is authoritatively reported that in September, October, November and December, 1879, 700,000 people in Egypt were in a starving condition, and that 10,000 actually died from that cause. When[564] we consider that this state of things was brought about by forced collections of taxes to pay interest to European bondholders, and through methods forced upon them for that purpose, we need not be surprised that antipathy should arise to European interference, and that some efforts should be made to relieve this people of those oppressive burdens.

For the purpose of consolidating the public debt, and to form a plan for its liquidation, a commission was established of representatives of the English, French, Italian, Austrian and Egyptian governments. A plan was prepared by this commission and a law drafted to carry it into effect, which was adopted by the ministry, and at once put into operation. It consolidated all debts created before 1880, and provided for the issuing of bonds for the principal, and coupons for the interest, and that no suit could be brought on such debts except as the coupons and bonds should mature, and for an equitable division and appropriation of the income so that current expenses should be paid and the surplus applied to the interest and principal of the debt, and the collection of taxes was fixed to correspond with the ripening of the crops. This was the first step toward bringing order out of chaos. The result surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the government. The fellahs were able to pay their taxes out of their crops and have a surplus. Instead of forced collections the people came voluntarily to the collectors, anxious and able to pay their taxes. Land rose in the market, and the future looked prosperous for Egypt.

The very success which attended the efforts of the foreign commissioners in extricating the country from the quicksands into which it had fallen—creating confidence and bringing in capital from abroad, only hastened the time when the religious national prejudices would be aroused. It was irksome to them to see all the important public offices in the hands of foreigners. The better the new system worked, the more impatient they were to get rid of foreign domination. Add to this the fact that the salaries paid these foreign officials were greater than are paid for like services in any civilized country in the world, and were unheard of in Egypt, and you can see the real cause of the discontent of the people, out of which grew the National party. Their motto became “Egypt for the Egyptians.”

On the 2d of February, 1881, a mutiny broke out in the army. Osman Reski Pasha, minister of war, had become obnoxious to the officers of the army, of whom a great number were unemployed. Osman was accused of promoting Turkish subjects to positions in the army to the exclusion of natives, and of treating the latter with contempt. The colonels of the bodyguard and two other regiments drew up and presented to the khedive a petition for his removal. It came into the hands of Osman, who arrested and placed them in confinement in the citadel. The soldiers of the guard stormed the citadel and released the colonels, who marched with them to the palace and demanded an audience of the khedive. He ordered the insubordinate colonels under arrest, but they refused to obey him. On consultation with his ministers, he finally yielded to their demands, and dismissed Osman. Ahmed Arabi Bey was the leader of this movement, and the most popular of the three colonels. Some years before he had been dismissed from his position by Ismaïl without any good reason, and from that time he determined to devote himself to the work of securing for army officers a fair trial, and of protecting the fellaheen from the tyranny and oppression of government officials. He and his fellow-officers at that time contemplated a rising in favor of popular rights, but were deterred by the belief that they would be overpowered. Arabi was chosen leader, and seven days after the last occurrence he presented a demand for the dismissal of the entire ministry, the formation of a constitution and an increase of the army, and gave notice that the troops would appear before the palace at four o’clock of that day, and wait until the demand was complied with. At the hour appointed, four thousand troops and eighteen pieces of artillery were drawn up before the palace under the command of Arabi. The khedive again yielded, formed a new ministry, and ordered an assembly of notables to be elected by the people to inaugurate a representative system of government. The independence and enthusiasm with which the fellaheen voted for these representatives revealed to the world the fact that liberal political ideas and the nationalistic principles of the popular party had taken deep root in the minds of this ancient race, “which once bore the torch of civilization, but since has tilled the fertile valley of the Nile under the whip of many masters.”

The Chamber of Notables resolved that in the new organization they would control the ministry and the financial affairs and every other department of the government. This was a declaration of war on the policy of foreign supervision, and created consternation among all who were interested in Egyptian securities. Arabi come to the front as Minister of War, and was made a pasha. When the session closed on March 24, 1882, he and his friends were masters of the situation. His next step was to dispose of the Turkish and Circassian officers who stood in the way of his plans. They were charged with conspiracy, tried by a secret court, and sentenced to confinement for life. At this juncture Admiral Seymour, with an English fleet, was sent to Alexandria with the avowed purpose of supporting the khedive. England and France now demanded that Arabi should be dismissed from the ministry and sent out of Egypt, as he was thought to be the principal disturbing element. He however refused to obey the khedive’s order to that effect, and became practically the ruler of Egypt. The army was the willing instrument of his ambition.

The next act in the drama came without warning, and startled the world by its atrocity. On June 11, 1882, a bloody riot occurred in Alexandria, in which about three hundred and eighty Europeans were killed, with a species of brutality known only to the fanatical followers of Mahomet in northern Egypt, and discounted the ferocity of the North American Indians. Arabi was accused of complicity in it, and the fact that he was in Alexandria, near the scene of the massacre, at the head of 6,000 troops, and made no effort to stop the slaughter of women and children which was going on, renders it probable that the accusation is true. However, after five hours delay, he took what appeared to be vigorous measures to stop the slaughter. It was evidently the outburst of the race hatred of Moslem against Christian, and Arabs against Europeans. It was the harvest of blood from the seed sown broadcast by Arabi and the National party in carrying on their plans to secure Egypt for the Egyptians. This massacre was followed by the flight from Egypt of all Europeans and Americans who could get away, as it was apparent it was the beginning of more serious trouble.

It was discovered that Arabi, anticipating interference by England and France, was vigorously building and equipping fortifications about Alexandria, and threatened the destruction of all foreigners, and of the Suez Canal, if interference was attempted. Admiral Seymour ordered him to cease operations on the fortifications. The work proceeded. He thereupon demanded the surrender of the forts within twelve hours or he would open fire.

This bombardment was the first step. The burning of the finest portions of Alexandria, the horrible murders there, the concentration of English forces in Egypt against Arabi, his final defeat and surrender, constitute the story of a war remarkable principally for the great perturbation it caused among the powers of Europe, for the small force on the one side, and on the other for the power, pomp and parade, and the vast stores of material and men. On the part[565] of Arabi and his army, for the justness of their cause in the ostensible purposes of the National party, and on the part of England for the flimsy pretext of acting under authority of the khedive, when the only real excuse was the fact that the Suez Canal is of vital importance for connection with its East Indian possessions, and control of Egypt is necessary for the protection of the canal. Especially is it remarkable in view of the show of force and preparation, for the weakness of the Egyptian army and the feebleness and unskillfulness on the part of Arabi and his generals. We can, however, account for the consternation it created in Europe, when we consider that Mahommedanism covers a larger extent of territory and includes more peoples than all the rest of the world. The religious prejudices of the followers of the prophet have only tolerated the presence of Christians when they could be kept under subjection and in servility. Some point was given to the idea that a religious war was imminent by the fact that the False Prophet was advancing into Soudan toward Southern Egypt. What the outcome of such a war would be was difficult to foresee. It would involve more than three-fourths of the population of the world. And while Western civilization would have the advantage of modern improvements in the art of war, it was not certain it could compete with the Moslem hordes that would swarm from Asia and Africa. It would not only check and greatly set back civilization, but would threaten to overthrow and destroy it. It is not surprising, then, that the powers of Europe hesitated. And from the standpoint of Western civilization England can not be too highly commended for her energy in crushing out in its inception what might have ripened into a war involving such tremendous consequences.

The weakness and unskillfulness exhibited by the leaders of the National party, and their indifference to the fate of their subordinates, show that any sentimentality spent upon them is unmerited, and the collapse of the rebellion upon the first serious disaster, which, from the Egyptian standpoint, was a struggle for life and liberty, shows to what state of servility the descendants of the Pharaohs have been reduced, and how utterly incapable they are of self-government.

The last act in the drama was performed at Cairo on the 25th of December, 1882. The leaders were nominally turned over to the government of the khedive for trial and punishment, charged with the massacre and incendiarism of June 11th, and with rebellion. Nothing awaited them but death by assassination or public execution. In reality the turning them over to the khedive was only a form to keep up the pretext of acting under his authority. In fact the trial was suppressed because of the complications which would have arisen from making public the evidences in the hands of Arabi of the complicity of Turkey in the rebellion. Under the dictation of England a plea of guilty of rebellion only was accepted, and sentence of death in form pronounced upon the seven principal leaders, Arabi, Toulba, Abdelal, Mahmoud Sami, Ali Fehni, Yacoob Sami, and Mahmoud Fehni. At the same time a commutation, by the khedive, was announced to degradation and exile for life, and the place of exile has been fixed in the English colony of Ceylon. The ceremony of degradation was performed at Cairo on Christmas day, and consisted in reading the decree of degradation to the prisoners in the presence of the army, public officers, and a crowd of native Egyptians. Immediately thereafter they were sent to Suez and thence to Ceylon under guard. A liberal provision is made for their support in view of the fact that they are state prisoners. About $10,000 each per year is allowed for their support, so that life in exile is not altogether an unmitigated hardship.

REV. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON.

By A. A. LIVERMORE, D.D.

It is often said in these days that the power of the pulpit has declined from what it was in the time of our fathers. The press has stolen a march upon the preacher. The lyceum draws better than the meeting-house. The stump speaker has more hearers than the minister. The advocate for reform makes more stir than the Sunday-going parson. The newspaper has got to be the American Bible. The magazine has more readers than the Gospel of Mark, and the Epistle to the Romans.

But this croaking overlooks the fact that our civilization is wider and broader than it used to be fifty or one hundred years ago. It comprehends more interests, strikes the key to more subjects, sweeps into its ever-widening circumference a greater variety of pursuits and influences. The pulpit may be as important as ever and as potent, but relatively other factors have in these latter days come into play,—art, science, philosophy, reform, politics, sociology, and thus have seemingly encroached upon the once almost absolute domain of religious worship and instruction. But it is more in seeming than in reality. Because other powerful auxiliaries have come up alongside of the pulpit to challenge the attention of mankind, and assist in the great enterprise of the upbuilding of humanity, it by no means follows that the peculiar office which the pulpit and the preacher fulfill may not be more needful and more demanded than ever to save the souls of men, and bring the kingdom of God on earth.

It almost however goes without the saying that facts disprove the dismal theory that our civilization is running away from the public administration of religion. We have as mighty preachers in the field to-day on both sides of the water as ever lifted up their voices in Christendom. I need only mention Spurgeon, Beecher, Philips Brooks, Moody, Pere Hyacinth, Bishop Simpson, Prof. Swing, Robert Collyer. And they draw great audiences, produce great effects, convert sinners, edify saints, “hurl back the floods of tyrant wrong” and sin, and bring in the kingdom, as effectually as was ever done by the Chrysostums and Ambroses, the Robert Halls and John Wesleys of the past. God hath not left, and never will leave himself without witness. The eloquence of the spoken word is not yet dead or buried. We have placed at the head of our article one of these great and glorious names, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Baptist preacher in London. He was born in Helvedon, Essex, near London, June 9, 1834. He is now therefore in the forty-eighth year of his age, but how solidly he has packed those years with services to God and man! His origin was in the Congregational body of England. He is a self-taught man, and contrary to what was said of another distinguished self-taught man, that he had a very poor teacher, Mr. Spurgeon had a very good and wise teacher. He became a schoolmaster of others at sixteen, and at eighteen the pastor of a church at Waterbeach. He soon rose to such popularity that he was called to London, where ordinary churches could not contain the crowds that came to hear him. He occupied successively the Baptist Chapel in Southwark, Exeter Hall, Surry Music Hall, and now he preaches in a cathedral-like edifice, called the “Tabernacle,” built for him, where he has an audience of five or six thousand. But like Wesley he is not only a great preacher, but a great organizer and also an affluent writer. On an average he preaches a sermon every day. Ten or more volumes of his sermons have been published in England and reprinted in this country. He has edited the works of some of the old religious classics. He has published lectures to divinity[566] students, tracts for the people, as “John Ploughman’s Pictures,” and “John Ploughman’s Talks with the People.” He is a Calvinist, but not a close communion Baptist. In popularity and wide influence among the masses he stands at the head of the English dissenting pulpit. He has thirty preaching stations in London. He carries on a divinity school, and has educated between three and four hundred young men for the ministry. The expenses of his school are $25,000 a year which he raises himself. He has, according to the testimony of his stewards, appropriated no part of the income of his church to himself for the last three years. He meets the wants of the great middle class of English society. His administration drives at the practical, direct, and pungent application of Christianity to the sins, crimes, and woes of the great capital of the world, and in that world of Great Britain he is a mighty power for good.

The secret of his influence is not far or hard to seek. In the first place, Mr. Spurgeon is built on a large scale in personality and natural endowment. He is John Bull in maximo, a stocky frame, big head, vigorous constitution, a good digester, a deep breather, a massive face, a strong round-about man every way. It is not native to his constitution to be sick, and if he is so it is because of the load, which, like Atlas, he bears on his broad shoulders, of care and duty and preaching, and divinity school, and writing and publishing, and travel, and the superintendence of his thousand and one enterprises to carry forward the cause. He knows how to work himself, and another secret equally important, he knows how to make others work.

Some years ago I heard him preach in his throne of power. It was a sight to behold and never to be forgotten. Thousands of people gathered to hear one man speak. His subject was from Corinthians: “We are ambassadors for Christ.” His tone was kindly, no overbearing, no intellectual pretense or insolence, such as we sometimes see in great men, while his appeal was persuasive and rational. There was a deep and tender tone of sympathy and good will, an evident desire to bring over to his own happy state of trust and love those far from God and Christ, wandering in darkness, in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. A deep stream of piety and devotional ardor flowed through all the services. His language was plain Anglo-Saxon speech, few “dictionary” words, as they are called, and easy to be understood by the common people.

But next to his piety and zealous faith, should be given as instruments of his power, great affluence of illustration. He tips his sentences not unfrequently with a bit of poetic fire. He levies on the Bible imagery largely. He uses, as Jesus did, the common every day’s events and scenes about him to wing his arrows and point his spears. He has no subtleties, mysticisms, speculations, to clog the minds of his hearers. “Jesus and him crucified” is his paramount theme, as it was that of Paul. He is the John Bunyan of the nineteenth century, and long may he guide the “Pilgrims” in their “Progress to the eternal city.”

The same day we heard Spurgeon in the great Tabernacle we heard Dean Stanley in Westminster Abbey. Both had great audiences. Both gathered many strangers from beyond the sea to hear the most distinguished pulpit orators of Great Britain. Dean Stanley gave his eulogy on the Bishop of Winchester, who had been instantly killed by a fall from his horse. It was a memorable occasion, attended by what was most brilliant in rank, in culture, in power and wealth in England, the lords and ladies of the empire. The music transported you to the seventh heaven. The Dean spoke to the learned, refined and powerful, Spurgeon to the common people, “not heard of a mile from home.” The Dean had more learning, culture, taste, and swept a broader circle of thought; Spurgeon more power, bored deeper into the heart and conscience. Stanley was more a literary man and author; Spurgeon a minister and converter of souls. Stanley is a broad churchman, and aims at the progress of Christianity in the dialect of the nineteenth century; Spurgeon lays about him like Talus, with his tremendous flail, to warn people and drive them from the wrath to come, and to administer the average orthodox doctrines without note or comment, or nice speculations. Both are great men, each good for his sphere. Both refute the notion that the Christian pulpit of this age can not match that of any previous age in the power, influence and following of the noted preachers. There were giants of old, and there are giants now.

HOW TO REGULATE THE FASHIONS.

From the French of M. AUGUSTIN CHALLAMEL.

When we speak of past fashions, we must always mention sumptuary laws at the same time; that is to say, remedial measures against the excesses of caprice and luxury. As if wisdom could be decreed by law! We know their unsuccessful results. But even at the present day, when difference of rank is no longer marked by difference of dress, we sometimes meet with persons who are indignant with a working woman if she ventures to wear a silk gown or a velvet cape on Sunday.

“No, I can not understand the government not interfering!” exclaimed a charming “great lady” the other day. “Only a week ago I was elbowed by a girl with a gown identically like my own! It is really disgraceful! The rest of the costume did not harmonize with the gown, and the effect was wretched; besides, extravagance and equality in dress are the ruin of scores of working girls. There ought to be a law against it.”

The laws regulating the quality and cost of dress have been tried extensively in the past, and had the lady known the history of past fashions, she would hardly have wished as she did. Far back in the twelfth century sovereigns began to issue sumptuary laws in order to restore respect for the inequality of rank, and to prevent one woman from wearing garments exclusively reserved for another. Philip Augustus raised his voice against fur. Philip the Fair issued prohibitions the wording of which enlightens us considerably in regard to the manners and customs of those times. “No citizen may possess a chariot, nor wear grey fur, nor ermine, nor gold, nor jewels, nor belts, nor pearls. Dukes, counts, and barons, with six thousand livres a year, may have four pair of gowns a year, and no more, and their wives may have as many. No citizen, nor esquire, nor clerk shall burn wax lights.” Baron’s wives, howsoever great, could not wear a gown that cost more than twenty-five cents by the Paris yard; the wives of a lord were restricted to eighteen cents, and of a citizen to sixteen cents and a half. These regulations proceeded probably from the following circumstance: On the occasion of the solemn entrance of the queen into Bruges in 1301, she saw so many women of the middle ranks so gorgeously appareled that she exclaimed, “I thought I was queen, but I see there are hundreds.” Philip evidently thought it time to restrain the license that allowed women of any rank to equal his queen.

Notwithstanding legislative prohibitions, the desire of attracting attention led all women to dress alike. From this resulted a confusion of ranks absolutely incompatible with mediæval ideas. Saint Louis forbade that certain women should wear mantles or gowns with turned-down collars, or with trains or gold belts. But fashion bid defiance to law. The great ladies were not yet protected. More than an hundred years later, in the reign of Francis I., we find the fashion of wearing three gowns, one over the other, resorted to to preserve[567] the distinction in dress. Says a writer of the times: “For one coat that the wife of a citizen wears, the great lady puts on three, one over the other; and letting them all be seen equally, she makes herself known for more than a bourgeoise.”

Even the quality and color of stuffs have been restricted. Henry II. allowed no woman, not a princess, to wear a costume entirely of crimson. The wives of gentlemen might have one part only of their under dress of that color. Maids of honor might wear velvet of any color except crimson. The wealthy classes longed to wear the forbidden material, but the law only allowed them velvet when made into petticoat and sleeves. Working-women were forbidden to wear silk. The complaints became so loud that at last the law-giver was moved with compassion, and allowed bands of gold to be worn on the head, gave permission to the working-women to trim their gowns with borders or linings of silk, and allowed them to wear sleeves of silk—a whole dress of such material was denied. These restrictions were rigorously enforced, and Rousard the poet exclaims:

It did not hold its station, however. Before the century was out Charles IX. resumed the war against fashion and extravagance. He sent out this edict: “We forbid our subjects, whether men, women, or children, to use on their clothes, whether silken or not, any bands of embroidery, stitching, or pipings of silk, gimp, etc., excepting only a border of velvet or silk of the width of a finger, or at the uttermost two borderings, chain-stitchings or back stitchings at the edge of their garments. Nor shall women of any rank wear gold on their heads, except during the first year of her marriage,” etc.

Such a king would find much cause for prohibitory edicts at the present day. And it was not long before kings and courtiers realized that fashion was the most absolute of all sovereigns. In 1680 some one laments that “No longer are our ladies to be distinguished from the women of the people.” Sumptuary laws never filled the demand, nor are they the proper weapons by which to overcome extravagance and folly in dress.

Montaigne writes in 1603 of these attempts to regulate expenses: “The way seems to be quite contrary to the end designed. The true way would be to beget in men a contempt of silks and gold, as vain and frivolous, and useless; whereas, we augment to them the value, and enhance the honors of such things, which is a very absurd mode of creating a disgust. For to enact that none but princes shall eat turbot, shall wear velvet or gold lace, and to interdict these things to the people, what is it but to bring them into greater esteem, and to set every man more agog to eat and wear them? Let kings leave off these ensigns of grandeur, they have enough others besides; these excesses are more excusable in any other than a prince. ’Tis strange how suddenly and with how much ease custom in these different things establishes itself and becomes authority. We had scarce worn cloth a year at court for the mourning of Henry II., but that silks were already grown into such contempt that a man so clad was despised. Let kings but take the lead and begin to leave off this expense, and in a month the business will be done throughout the kingdom without edict or ordinance. We shall all follow.”

THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION.

By W. T. HARRIS.

VII. ROME.

In these chapters, as I have before stated, my attempt is not so much to show what the schools accomplished in the ancient nations herein discussed, as to show their educative influence upon the world. Each nation has a mission given it to perform. Divine Providence gives to each a special work that is useful to all mankind. The national development is first an education of itself and secondly an education of mankind. This is true, in an especial sense, of the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans. All modern civilization grows from a three-fold root—Roman law, Greek science and art, Hebrew spirituality. Of course I restrict the word “civilization” in the above statement to Christian and Mohammedan nations—Mohammedan nations have more Hebrew and Greek and less Roman in their civilization.

We have given some consideration, already, to the Jewish and Greek educations, and it remains for us here to study the Roman character and achievements.

Let us place before ourselves the conclusion that thoughtful writers on the subject have long since reached: The Roman principle is that of compromise or mutual concession for the sake of the highest good and the safety of the state. A more attractive rendering of this principle would run somewhat as follows: The Roman people learned to distinguish between individual wishes and desires, and the duty owed to the state or political whole, and they were the first to define with great precision the spheres of private and public rights and duties. Then they conquered the world and disciplined all peoples into this recognition of private and public spheres, and destroyed all local patriotism and all local religions. This destruction of local patriotism and religion prepared the way for the coming of Christianity.

According to the general tradition, the origin of Rome was in the collection of a band of outlaws on one of the Seven Hills. The historian, Livy, calls them a colluvies, to express their coming together from different surrounding nations. Here was the border land of the Sabines, Latins, and Etruscans. The robbers must stand by each other as they have a common cause against all surrounding states. Here in the very beginning we have the most important element of the Roman principle. We see a union of different national stocks, different personal habits, different dialects, different social prejudices, and especially different religious ideas. All was difference except the common cause against avenging justice that pursued them. This however was a cause that involved life and death. They band together like robbers and make the safety of the community the chief object, and do not interfere with whatever private customs and usages the members of the league may have.

Here we see at the beginning the principle of toleration of a private or personal sphere for each citizen as contrasted with the sphere of public duty. The citizen is protected in the exercise of his own pleasure in his personal affairs where they are different to the public world, but on the other hand he must unhesitatingly sacrifice all when Rome’s interest demands it. His home and religion are matters that the state does not regulate nor allow neighbors to interfere with. The public concern of all is the safety of Rome. The citizen is in constant training to preserve his two-fold attitude of private and public life. He is always on the watch to control himself from stepping beyond the prescribed boundary and trespassing on the province of others, and he is always jealously defending his own domain from trespass.[568] He is cultivating a consciousness of legality, a consciousness of statutes and regulations which are not in conformity with his own inclination, but necessary for Rome.

Each citizen learns to subordinate his caprice and inclination to the command of the state. This seems so much a matter of course with us that we do not at first see anything strange in the attitude of the Roman citizen. We forget that we have inherited this from Rome, and that it began with Rome and had no existence in other nations. With other people the religious principle and the state were homogeneous. Where the one penetrated the other penetrated. The individual lived in harmony with the state because the political life was all of one piece with the manners, customs, and habits of private life. The religion extended over both public and private spheres of life. Hence there was unity of religion and political duty, without any feeling of distinction existing between the public and private spheres of life.

But the Roman life was the beginning of a much deeper spiritual life. After the individual learns to distinguish and unite these two phases of his life—the public and private—he is a much deeper and stronger man, and is capable of exercising and improving greater personal freedom. He can realize within himself a far deeper spiritual experience and attain to a higher and purer idea of God and the divine life. In fact, after he has been through the Roman national education, he is fitted for a faith in the divine-human nature of God.

When the Roman makes treaties with the surrounding nations he bows to a common will, the will that unites his own national will with the opposing national will of another people. A treaty is a sort of higher public will uniting two national public wills. As opposed to the public will expressed in the treaty, the public will of either nation is a relatively private will. Thus the Romans who are famous for making treaties seem to be occupied with making distinctions between higher and lower will-powers, and realizing the difference between public and private wills at every step and in every degree.

When the treaty is broken, the Roman conceives it necessary to conquer the nation that breaks its faith and compel the vanquished people to submit and pass under the yoke of Roman law. Thus the Roman becomes a conqueror of the world. There being no higher power that can act as umpire between Rome and the nations with whom it makes a treaty, each nation acts as its own judge and is very apt to accuse the other one of broken faith. An appeal to arms results in the justification of the strongest. The vanquished must yield his convictions and submit.

Curtius defines the spirit of the Roman as that of the destruction of national peculiarities. Rome conquers the world and educates all nations into the same state of mind as its own people. The people in Spain and Gaul and Britain, in Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, as well as in Greece, all become like the people of Italy in this respect, and grow to be very considerate of the boundary line between public and private life.

Out of this isolation of the private life grows the great respect for property and ownership which we find in connection with Roman institutions. The public is not one with the private, but distinguished from it by the Roman idea. But the law defines the limits of each and so they do not conflict.

In private property the citizen finds a sphere wherein he can realize his personal freedom. By means of property man satisfies his wants of food, clothing, and shelter. He is able, by means of property, to gratify a higher spiritual want of amusement and culture. He may avail himself of the observation and reflection of his fellow-men and profit by learning their experience. What our fellow-men have learned by error and suffering, as well as by observation and reflection, go to make up the wisdom of the race, which may be collected, preserved and distributed by means of the institution of private property.

Property is thus something that connects the particular individual with the social whole or the human race. In the sphere of ownership the individual is free and self-determined; he makes and unmakes at pleasure. With property he extends the sphere of his private personality and enters into free alliance with other personalities. By bargain and sale of chattels he exercises his own private freedom, not by limiting the freedom of others, but by and through the equal exercise of freedom on the part of those others. Thus by the invention of the institution of property the private freedom of each individual interpenetrates the sphere of the freedom of others without conflicting with it, but in fact reinforcing it, so that each man is freer through the freedom of others. Such is the wonderful significance of this Roman invention of private right of property.

What we see among other nations in Europe and Asia, before the Roman law came in vogue, is not the completed realization of the idea of private property but only the crude first appearance of it. Property under the Romans is as different from property in Persia, or even in Sparta, as commerce is different from piracy. It is the Roman who eliminates the element of external violence by freeing private rights from absorption in public rights. Then the freedom of one individual comes to reinforce that of another instead of limiting and circumscribing it.

It is one thing to be able to see the universal law in the particular facts and phenomena. It is quite another thing to see the universal forms of the will, rules that all individuals may conform their actions to, and by so doing avoid all conflict and collision of wills. These general forms of actions and deeds, when defined in words, become civil laws. The civil laws define the limits and boundaries within which each and all individuals may act without mutual conflict. If these laws are not obeyed one individual act will neutralize another and both will reduce to zero.

The Roman is able to formulate the general will, and he compiles the code of laws that descends to modern nations as one of the three most precious heir-looms. These laws define the forms in which men may act without contradicting each other, the forms by which the individual may accumulate property and realize his personality, and at the same time help, and not hinder, the personal freedom of all others. The Roman invented the forms by which a city, a town, a state may be governed and justice rendered to all, the forms in which a corporation may exist for the accomplishment of undertakings too great or too long continued for the single individual.

Religion in Rome had the two fold character of public and private. The family had its household gods, its Lares and Penates. The city had its tutelary deities, under various forms and names, but all amounting to the same thing, to wit: the expression of the abstract power of the state. The state was the highest divinity that the Roman knew. The gods Jupiter, Quirinus, Janus, etc., all meant the might of Rome. The deification of abstractions was carried out to a degree of superstitious whimsicality that astonishes us. There was conceived a god or goddess for every process of growth and decay and for every instrumentality of the natural or of the spiritual, and there was a divinity that made the bones grow in the child, and a divinity that assisted the flow of the sewers.

The Roman conception of the divine defined it as some invisible power that could be made useful to the individual or the state by some sacrifice or service performed toward it. The Roman therefore made vows to a particular deity when he found himself in an emergency. If the deity gave[569] him success he fulfilled his vow with the greatest punctiliousness, offering a sacrifice, or founding a temple, or establishing some worship, in return for the service obtained. Thus the principle of contract entered the Roman idea of religion.

Contract is the essential legal basis for the transfer of property in such a manner as to secure joint freedom of individuals. Contract in religion as the relation of the individual to God seems the most terrible of all impiety. But the Roman in effect made contracts with his gods, showing the all-powerful hold of the idea of property and legality over the mind of this nation.

In the family there prevailed a form of ancestor worship almost as primitive as we found among the Chinese. All other nations, according to De Coulanges, had ancestor-worship at one time. It would seem that a more spiritual faith superseded it in other nations quite early. The special circumstances of Rome and China encouraged the preservation of family traditions. In China the entire state government is patriarchal, and thus wholly conservative of the principle of the family. In Rome on the other hand the state separates, as public affair, from the family, as a private affair, and carefully defines the limits between itself and the family so as to preserve the latter in the primitive form. Each family worshiped with stated ceremony the male ancestors of the family, the oldest son acting as the priest after the death of his father.

This principle of non-interference with the family customs and a careful guarding of the sacred privacy of the family developed a very noble type of woman. The Roman matrons were sublime examples of heroism, dignity and purity. The mother had much more influence in the education of the Roman youth, than in the education of youth in any other of the ancient nations. On the ninth day the Roman child was enrolled on the citizen’s register. But up to his fifteenth year his education was chiefly at home under the supervision of the mother. He studied reading, writing, and arithmetic, much the same as the boy of other nations. But he committed to memory the laws of the Twelve Tables as carefully as the Hebrew child learned the Ten Commandments. The Roman child was educated to be a soldier, to fight for Rome and to be a supporter of the laws. In his sixteenth year he studied Roman law with some jurist. One may read in Plutarch, or in Shakspere’s Coriolanus, how powerful was the influence of the mother over her son, and how devoted was the mother to Rome. Roman education prepared the world for Christianity, by breaking down national idiosyncrasies and leading up to the idea of the human race—genus humanum.

The system practiced by the Romans after the conquest of a country was to conscript the young men into the army and send their legions to a distant frontier. The young men from Britain might be sent to Spain or Egypt, and those from Illyria and the Danube, to Britain. In the presence of a hostile people, speaking a foreign tongue, the raw conscript found his only safe course to be a faithful adherence to the Roman eagles. He could not revolt with any hope of success. In a few years he had become attached to the Roman cause and cherished it as his second nature; while his relatives and countrymen afar away had also been obliged to obey Roman laws until their customs and usages had also changed to Roman. Thus each conquered nation became a means in turn of subduing every other nation and converting them into Romans.

The Persians had conquered nations and held them in subjection, but they had not attempted to mould the character and institutions of the conquered people, but had left them untrammeled, only requiring them to acknowledge supremacy and pay tribute. After a people recovered independence from Persia, little evidence remained of Persian influence. The Roman institutions, on the other hand, became so firmly rooted among a conquered people that they remained ever after substantially Roman in character.

The Greeks, we saw, were a cheerful people. They made games a religious ceremonial, celebrating the physical beauty of the gods by becoming beautiful themselves. Beautiful bodies and graceful movements seemed to them divine. The gods and goddesses fell in love with beautiful mortals. The Romans on the contrary, were sober and serious, and would not exercise for the sake of developing personal beauty, but only to become good soldiers for Rome. It was shameful in the estimation of the Roman to expose the naked body. Even within the family the utmost care was taken to develop and foster the sense of shame and of decency in the care of the person. The Roman was a haughty spectator at the games, but would not himself condescend to appear as a contestant. He bought slaves or forced his prisoners taken in battle to exhibit their skill in the arena. He delighted in spectacles where death-contests of beasts and men took place, because he felt its symbolic expression of the struggle within his own character, and his sacrifice of self for the state, and of his arbitrary will for the general abstract law. The Roman was sober and thoughtful because his life was occupied in self-restraint. He perpetually watched himself lest he should go beyond the limits fixed between the private and the public spheres of duty.

The result of mingling all nations in the Roman armies brought about a feeling of brotherhood among the soldiers and then among the people. There arose conviction that peculiarities of nation and even of race are accidents that do not affect the substance of a common humanity. The objects of affection for the individual—his native land, his country’s gods, his ties of kindred and friendship, were all ruthlessly broken by the irresistible might of the Roman empire, and for these objects of the heart were substituted only the abstract devotion to the state and devotion to the private right of property. There resulted a deep heart-hunger for a spiritual faith that would give to all an object commensurate with this new idea of the human race. This want was supplied by Christianity.

RENUNCIATION.

By A. C. M.

[570]

OLD PAINTINGS.

By ROBERT KEMPT.

The oldest picture, known at present, painted in oil colors on wood, is preserved in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. According to Beckmann’s “History of Inventions,” it was executed in the year 1297 by a painter named Thomas de Mutuia, or de Muttersdorf, in Bohemia. Two other paintings, in the same gallery, are of the year 1357; one is by Nicholas Wursnser, of Strasburg, the other by Thierry of Prague. It appears, therefore, that painting in oil was known long before the epoch at which that invention is generally fixed; and that it is erroneously ascribed to Hubert Van Eyck and his brother and pupil John Van Eyck, otherwise called John of Bruges, who lived about the end of the fourteenth century, and not the beginning of the fifteenth century, as is commonly supposed. It is pointed out, however, that there is evidence in the books of the Painters’ Company, under the date of the eleventh year of the reign of Edward I. (1283), that oil painting was in use at that time. Vide a communication from Sir Francis Palgrave, in Carter’s “Ancient Sculpture and Paintings in England.” It may be added that the art of wood engraving seems to be older than the invention of printing, to which, perhaps, it gave rise. The names of the first engravers on wood are, however, not known. In the Athenæum for 1845, page 965, is given a fac-simile of a wood engraving bearing date 1418, which was discovered at Malines in 1844, and is now preserved in the public library at Brussels.

Old paintings naturally lead to inquiries about old art schools, one of the most venerable and interesting of which is to be found in the quaint old Devonshire borough of Plympton, England. Here the greatest of English painters, Sir Joshua Reynolds, learnt the first principles of drawing. Here, too, Northcote, his clever and eccentric pupil, acquired his education. This was also the first school of Sir Charles L. Eastlake, P.R.A., and the alma mater of poor Benjamin Haydon. A few months before his tragic death Haydon visited the old grammar school, and wrote his name in pencil on the wall, where it may still be seen:

Nor must it be forgotten that Plympton had the honor of being represented in Parliament by the greatest of English architects, Sir Christopher Wren, who was elected in May, 1685, and was the first architect ever returned to the House of Commons. To return to Reynolds. He was born in the Master’s house adjoining the school, and some rough sketches drawn by him in his youth on the walls of the bed-room in which he first saw the light were to be seen when Haydon and Wilkie visited the house in 1809, but have since been obliterated by some barbarous whitewasher. In 1772 Sir Joshua was elected to the aldermanic gown of his native town, and in the following year he was chosen mayor of the borough. To show his appreciation of what he deemed a high honor, Reynolds presented to the town his own portrait, painted, as it seems, expressly to commemorate his mayoralty. It was placed in the corporation dining-room, but the common council had the effrontery to sell the picture for £150 when Plympton was disfranchised in 1832.

It need hardly be added that Sir Joshua Reynolds’s tomb (adorned by one of Flaxman’s best works) is almost close to that of Sir Christopher Wren in the crypt of St. Paul’s, both in life connected with the little Devonshire town, though by different ties and at different periods of its history, and both resting from their labors in the great temple which Wren built, and which Reynolds sought to adorn with his matchless pencil.

THE EMPLOYMENTS OF HEAVEN.[A]

By Rev. L. T. TOWNSEND, D. D.

The subject for this evening, “The Employments of Heaven,” is in some respects very difficult and, I fear that, to some of you, the discussion will be less satisfactory. The science and philosophy of this subject are chiefly by implication and suggestion. We have, therefore, to depend almost entirely upon written revelation. I am not unmindful of the fact that there are not a few people who say: “Why talk of what the Bible says on this subject? We are not believers in the Bible, and to us there is no more authority in it upon this subject than there is in the Odyssey of Homer, or the Shastas of India.” Yes, I understand you, but, all the same, let us study the book because of the limited light we have upon this subject from other sources, and because it has very much to say respecting this topic, and because such a man as Sir Walter Scott has said: “There is but one book—the Bible.” May we not wisely investigate what the Bible says upon the subject of the hereafter? In discussing this subject, let us guard against the charge of mistaken statement concerning things not revealed, and let us, on the other hand, dwell with a fair degree of fullness upon those points which, through the teaching of the sacred scriptures, have been made known to us.

There is one thought that I would like to mention, because sometimes it is a relief to that skeptical doubt which is common to the human heart. It is this: That the world in which we now live, and the fact that we are alive and in this world, and are conscious, active agents here, are of all others the chief surprises and the chief wonders. And, therefore, the fact of the future world, and of our personal joy and activity in it, should not seem unreasonable. Think of it! Is any greater wonder possible than that we are! Is the wonder greater that we are to be conscious after we are dead, and that we are to be in a place called heaven, than that we are now conscious and here now in a place called this world! How came we first in possession of this personal, wonderful consciousness? This is the thing which is incredible, if anything is incredible. When a human being can say, “I now am,” or as some one admirably put it, “I am here anyhow,” all further wonder ends. To exist at all is a greater mystery than to exist forever.

In unfolding the subject before us, we begin with the revelation variously and repeatedly set forth that, in the future life, there are to be what may not be improperly termed entertainments, and among them will be royal banquets. Feasts it is true, though spiritualized, seem contrary to our ordinary notions of a heavenly life, and seem quite contrary to other biblical revelation. These things seem to involve litter, clatter, rubbish. Still we have to confess that the Bible is quite full and quite clear on this subject. Note, for instance, the following passages: “For I say unto you I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until I drink it new with you in my father’s kingdom.” Elsewhere he has said: “And I appoint unto a kingdom, as my father hath appointed unto me: that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Saith John in Revelation: “He that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches: To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it.”

We may modify these passages by one other, namely: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, or any heat.” It is,[571] therefore, feasting without hunger, and drinking without thirst. But, says some one, “This is all figurative.” Perhaps so, we have not said that it is not figurative; but, if figurative, figurative of what? is a fair question. A figure implies something represented by the figure. If not, there is no figure. Without pressing any one for an immediate answer, we may be allowed to remark that it is not always what one eats that constitutes a feast, not the appetite only, but the soul enjoys the richest festal occasion. This introduction of the kitchen and of kitchen service and utensils into the kingdom of heaven is repugnant to our best thought. Between the spiritual and the carnal, we must, therefore, carefully distinguish. The latest deduction of both physiology and psychology is that smell and taste are the senses most employed, especially that of taste; but as yet there has been made no discovery of what it is that gives us the sense of smell or taste. It is, certainly, not the objects themselves. Here is a rose. I don’t smell the rose but I smell something which comes from that rose through the atmosphere, called the odor or aroma. Science tells us that it is an extra organic substance that we smell. Here is a lump of sugar which I place in my mouth. I do not taste that sugar, but it is an extra organic substance that I taste, and not the sugar itself. The most, therefore, that can be said is not that the rose is sweet, nor that sugar is sweet, but what we call the aroma of the rose and the flavor of the sugar are sweet, and of this aroma and flavor science is as ignorant as a child. Indeed, experiments show that electricity if delicately applied to certain nerves may variously produce the various sensations of taste and smell. Now, take into account this extra organic substance, recognized in every department of modern science, especially when the human organism is spiritualized, then you may lift the spirituality of Heaven as high as you please. You may make it as immaterial as a dream, still there will be abundant opportunity to eat and drink at the Lord’s Table in the kingdom of the Father Infinite and without any kitchen service required. The kitchen is dispensed with, the table spread by hands of angels, spread with this extra organic fruit and food, which are imperishable, which are not literally eaten, but which none the less awaken every pleasureable sensation and emotion of the soul. It is, then, that the spiritual can say to the carnal, “I have meat to eat of which ye know not of.” It will be the fullness of joy with no earthly inconvenience, its very privilege, to wait the fulfillment of Christ’s words. “But I say unto you I will drink no more the fruit of the vine until the day that I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.”

The teaching seems to be, then, that without anything that is gross, without meat or drinks that are perishable, without fragments, yet in company with friends and companions, in company with royal souls, and in company with the Master, there will be fields of spiritual enjoyment that resemble in some respects the most royal and festive occasions of this earth. In other words, royal festival occasions on earth are typical of the royal festal occasions of the kingdom of heaven.

But there is another kind of employment. It is reasonable, as well as scriptural, to suppose that investigations into the various realms of truth will invite our active and restless minds. One of the most prominent characteristics of mankind is its unchangeable curiosity. How intensely interested it is to learn the history of the ruder and early times! How interested in every scrap of intelligence which reaches us from the old dead world! How interested, too, in any light thrown upon the civilization which preceded ours! What would not a man give for an hour with Socrates or Plato! What would he not give to have pictured out vividly before him some incident in the life of Christ! How entrancing it will be in company with our dearest friends to explore the secrets of eternity, the secret of God’s purpose, the divine methods, with ample time, with an all power of intellect, with the doors of knowledge flying wide open. We look, we enter, we contemplate, until the soul is full, and the heart now almost leaps to bathe itself in this infinite ocean of wisdom and knowledge.

Another thought growing out of our general subject, is that of regal service and employment.

It is often represented in the Bible that redeemed men in the kingdom of heaven will be a race of kings. Administration is natural to the best types of humanity. The redeemed, too, by the discipline of life, will be qualified for regal affairs.

“He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” “And I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father has appointed unto me.” “And I saw thrones and the saints of God sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.” “Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?”

It is clear, therefore, according to biblical theology, that God is to share chief glories, not with angels nor archangels. They are only ministering spirits. It is manhood and nothing else that has the grandest coat of arms worn in God’s great empire. Just how, just where, we may not understand, but the fact is clearly revealed that, as the ages go on, the administration of universal affairs will be committed to redeemed men.

But, in addition to princely entertainments, search for truth and royal service, it is clearly revealed that friendly intercourse and association are to be found in the future life. Man, the king, will have kingly associates. Said Socrates, as reported by Plato: “Who would not part with a great deal to purchase a meeting with Xenophon and Homer?”

Charles Lamb wonderingly asks: “Shall I enjoy friendships in heaven, or do all these things go out with my human life?”

No, we cannot believe upon scientific grounds that it is possible for these associations to go out. And upon Bible grounds we are assured that they will be continued and range through the intermediate ages, and then on through the eternal ages of the kingdom of heaven.

“Neither marriage nor giving in marriage, but as the angels of heaven” are words that show that the carnal and the transitory depart, but the heart is none the less tender toward the heart which associates with it: “I shall go to him,” says David, speaking of his dead boy. And Christ says: “Father I will that they also whom thou has given me be with me, where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me.”

So, I think, we may say with perfect confidence that the association of old time friends, of mutual rejoicings and congratulations among old acquaintances, and the pursuit of truth in the same fields and pathways side by side with those whom we have known and loved on earth, are as well assured as any other doctrine in philosophy which has any bearing upon the future life. Those words of the apostle that “We are already surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” are a kind of mighty assurance that those whom we love are already in watching to clasp our hands in their own.

Once more among the clearly revealed entertainments of the kingdom of heaven are those of the service of music. There will be songs and singers in heaven. Indeed, we are informed definitely as to some of the words which are to be employed. Three hymns, at least, are named which are to be sung—“And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous[572] are thy works Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints.”

“And they sang a new song, saying: Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.”

Such are the Scripture representations, and are they not reasonable? Are they not philosophical? Music on earth is wonderful is it not? “Wonderful!” is your common exclamation when listening to some extraordinary singer or player. Yes, music is wonderful; the harmony of sound, the blending of human voices, the chimes of various instruments, are all marvelous pieces of human combination and art, and are thrilling and enchanting when brought near perfection. When, therefore, in this present life, we find ourselves thrilled by music if well rendered, can we doubt what are God’s thoughts respecting it and respecting its use in the universe, for are we not made in his image? Or when the giant winds draw their bows up and down the rough mountain sides, when we hear æolian harps in every tree, and when we hear the little woodland sparrow with throat no bigger than a pipe stem, yet with song enough in it to be heard miles away, when we listen to the many voices and sounds of nature, can we doubt that God thinks of music something as we do? And when a passage is faultlessly rendered by his children can we doubt that he says “well done?” Is not music too wonderful, too full of charm, too soothing to the weary, not to have one of the first places on the platform of our heavenly and eternal entertainment? Allow me in this connection to call attention to another fact, namely, that no class of artists is more willing to recognize the spiritual source of their productions than eminent musical composers. Before their most successful efforts, they confess to have heard their own music, and to have listened, and then given the world what they heard. Every note was old before it was committed to paper, and it seemed to those eminent masters that the notes were heard by the contact of the soul with something invisible. That is, the “Elijah” of Mendelssohn, the “Creation” of Haydn, the “Messiah” of Handel, and the like compositions, came of their own accord, or came as the music comes from the æolian harps, when touched by the unseen fingers of the wind. The slave who was asked “Where did your colored people get those sweet and beautiful melodies?” replied, “God gave them to us,” and, seemingly, that is the only way of accounting for those refrains which have melted the hearts of peasants and of kings. I will not state these matters dogmatically, but our present relation to the invisible world may account for some of those inspirations. Therefore, every good and perfect musical note as well as every good and perfect gift, cometh down from the Father of Light, with whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning. We have divine inspirations and we have divine impressions oftener, no doubt, than we give credit for. I do not know but these musical geniuses have God-given intellects so far reaching, intuitions so acute, that they catch the notes of the rehearsals of paradise when they are celebrating the return of some prodigal whom they see here upon this earth, or the triumphant movements of the Lord Jesus Christ with his retinue. They have certainly heard eternal harmony, and harmony is harmony, be it on earth or in paradise, in time or in eternity. Beethoven, whom some think the greatest and sweetest of all modern musical masters, heard the wild melodies and harmonies of the universe; imitated the hum of insects, the song of birds and the trickling of water rills, long after being afflicted by an impenetrable deafness which prevented the slightest sounds from entering the portals of his ear.

You need not be surprised, therefore, at hearing in the eternal ages notes with which you are perfectly familiar. The sweetest and the most inspiring chords that are now heard are those that will be made there, for the ideal is divine and the divine is eternal, and the eternal must find repeated expression. That marvelous production, “The Messiah” of Handel, which pervades all modern Christian song, is in some of its parts, we may be very confident, the same that will chant the Redeemer’s praise forever. “Old Hundred” and “Coronation” can hardly be dispensed with. I verily believe that very soon after we enter the portals of the heavenly world we shall sing “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” and “All hail the power of Jesus’s name.”

But Revelations still further assures us that the music in the kingdom of heaven is to have remarkable accompaniments. There is the mention of harps, and the mention of trumpets, and the rumble of thunder, all wrought into the music of that world.

At first thought these revelations are bewildering, but, perhaps, the peace jubilee of Boston will illustrate what can be done with ponderous agencies and appliances. The anvil chorus, as you remember, was extremely popular, where the music was played on blacksmith’s anvils with solid hammers, and the artillery accompaniment was even more popular, where music fell from the blazing lips of cannon. The child was awe-struck yet delighted, the man of years was thrilled and said, “Is the kingdom of heaven upon us?” It is a remarkable fact that gas jets and electricity have been utilized, and are now made to play the most beautiful arrangements and harmonies.

Now, such, according to the Bible, are the accompaniments which are to sustain the redeemed when their hearts are almost bursting with the song: “Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.” We are repeatedly assured that the good and pure of the universe from all lands, east and west, north and south, shall be gathered together, and that the voice of a great multitude as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thunderings shall be heard pouring forth their melody with the precision, delicacy and electric touch of a single voice, saying: “Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.”

Where, of all places on this earth, is music the most enchanting? You have listened to it in halls and in churches, you have heard it in city squares and in congregations, and at the evening hour you have heard it on some beautiful sheet of water. My question is doubtless answered. Your ideal is right, for nowhere else is music quite so sweet as by the water side; and it is remarkable that the inspired writer tells us that the golden harps are to stand upon the broad and beautiful, the eternal and delightful sea which extends before the throne of God, and whose surface resembles sparkling and transparent crystals.

The metropolis of heaven, in which and before which, as John tells us, the grand musical entertainments are to be given, is a beautiful and wonderful city. The measurements as given in Revelation make it to be a city of fifteen hundred miles square, a city, therefore, in extent as great as would be one extending from Boston, Massachusetts, to Omaha, Nebraska; from Omaha to Monterey, Mexico; from Monterey to Havana, Cuba, and from Havana back to Boston—a city larger than all the dead cities of the past, and of all the living cities of the present combined; and a city large enough to hold, without any crowding, all the people who ever lived upon this earth; whose atmosphere is so telephonic that the slightest touch upon the most delicate wire of the harp will be perfectly heard in the most distant palace.

Now, who that has any music in his soul (and who has not?) but desires that the service of song shall constitute a part of these heavenly entertainments. After our introduction[573] to that new world, after the reunions, after the formation of new companionships, when we realize that we are safe, and when we realize that we are to sin no more, it seems to me the hearts of God’s children would almost burst, could they not upon the shores of that crystal sea shout and sing the triumphs of redemption.

I will just add the thought that all these entertainments, this kingship, this study, this companionship, this service of song, are to be endless and without weariness. What charms and attractions betimes hover about this idea of the future endless possession and existence! What joy, and, again, what perplexity! Are we to live on, and on, and on, as conscious beings, forever, with no thought of death, or of sickness, or of separation from those we love? This must be confessed, that, according to revelation, it is a duration without shore, without measure, without bound, without a falling leaf, without a setting sun, that is to greet us on the shores of another world. Speak to us, thou endless existence filled with songs, filled with entertainments, filled with friendships, filled with joys,—speak to us, that we may somehow comprehend thee! And there comes back to us a solemn response, saying, “O, mortal, you must experience before you can fully comprehend the magnitude of a future existence.” But, through his infinite mercy, it will be our privilege to sing his praise, to feast at the table of royalty, to enjoy the choicest companionships, to explore the sublime realms of truth, and to hold the sceptre of dominion forever. All this belongs to our privilege, and yet we may imperil our privilege.

COUNSEL.

By ALICE C. JENNINGS.

THE BIBLE AND NATURE.[B]

By Rev. J. B. THOMAS, D.D.

There is noticeable similarity between nature and the Bible, the work and the word. There are countless evidences indicating that they have the same author. No case resting on evidence was ever clearer. You can always detect a master’s style in his creations; certain peculiarities are sure to appear. You can recognize a Rubens in the old galleries by the blonde hair, the pinkish tint of the flesh, and the luxurious stoutness of the physique. So the brush of Murillo and Guido, and every great artist carries its own mark. So one mark is on nature and the Bible. They are done in the same style. In Raphael, the reality of the earthly, and the gracefulness of the heavenly, never fail to be blended in wonderful harmony, apparent always to the practiced eye. His figures are pyramids of strength, transfused with celestial beauty. Nature confirms some of the most important doctrines of the Bible—some that men would rule out, or quietly ignore; but nature comes to their support, as another attraction of the same God, to the same truth. In nature, when spring comes, it is by silent and imperceptible approach, like the dawn of the morning. First, a bluebird’s note on the bare tree tops (no one saw her come), then the song of the robin. It is first the crocus, lifting up her head, and then the tulip and the hyacinth, while a tint, a shade softer, comes in the sky. One by one other birds and flowers appear, and at last, the full tide sets in, and beauty mounts the earth, and balm fills the air. The glory of the seasons is upon us, and the heart is entranced with the wonders of loveliness in the midst of which it moves.

So the Bible: First, the simple promise to Eve, far back in the moral winter of man’s estate, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” This was the lone note of the bluebird, sounding out in the midst of the desolations of a fallen world. It was the first soft tint in the cold sky. By-and-by the promise to Abraham, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” This was the trailing arbutus. At last the definite announcement of a coming Savior to Isaiah, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel [God with us], for he shall save his people from their sins.” This was the blossom of the fig tree which showed that summer was nigh. Thus did revelation come slowly, through ages of delay, till at last in the fulness of time God unsealed his wonders, the star, the wise men, the angelic host, the watching shepherds, the “gloria in excelsis,” the earth breaking forth into singing, the desert places blooming as the rose, and fragrance of spices in all the air. Verily the God of nature and of the Bible is one God, the method of God in nature testifying that it is the same God in the Bible. In nature everything is in the concrete. We have the raw material in bulk there: the gold must be mined and melted; the timber must be cut, and squared with saw and ax; the stones fashioned with hammer and chisel; the land cleared and plowed and dressed. So different is this from the art of man, who puts everything in rows and squares, and introduces order everywhere. Similarly, revelation gives ideas, not forms. It scatters germs of thought, not finished creeds. It throws out great truths, doctrines, principles, not definite rules and completed systems. Everything as in nature must be carefully searched out, reduced and put in order. A casual observer would have no idea of the riches in the Bible, any more than in nature. Here is a doctrine mixed with a duty; there is a precept bound up with a paragraph of history. In[574] one place is a miracle, where you looked for a promise; in another is prophecy, where you had expected law, and so on through. Strange, you say, so many curious things in the Bible, so much that is irreverent, so little system, so wanting in arrangement. But it is just like nature. There is a complete and definite order, a general organic unity runs from the first page to the last. Written by sixty-six different authors, and sixteen hundred years in the composition, it is still one book, one plan. All the parts combine to make the great whole. It must be studied out. Like nature, the Bible is planned to tax the higher faculties of man, to put them to search, and develop and enlarge them by thoughts and endeavors. Little study makes little men. What is lightly acquired is carelessly held. Easy lessons make barren lives. Out of the depths by toil come the great riches of head and heart. Down from the heights after profound thought the larger wisdom is brought. It is the glory of kings to search out a matter, and men become kings only as God puts them to kingly effort and service. This method of God in nature makes princes in science, as men learn to think God’s thoughts after him. This method in the Bible makes strong men. Verily the God of nature is also God of the Bible, and they will stand together, the Word as enduring as the world.

In nature there is no withholding of mysteries, no avoidance of difficulties, because they may disturb some weak faith, trouble somebody. The great God of the universe lets out his power and displays his wisdom, and builds up to his own level, whether anyone can understand or not. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Out of the infinite comes infinite greatness and wisdom, beyond the scope of man. There is a startling boldness in God’s works. In nature contradictions are piled mountains high, no matter whether man can reconcile them or not. Paradoxes abound without regard to how they will strike men; no explanations are vouchsafed; men are not followed up and told why this is, and why that. They have to take it as it comes. In nature, man is placed in the midst of untold wonders and marvels, without a word, and he is left there to grapple with the highest problems, and think them out. God does not “baby” his children, in these things. This is the highest kind of teaching. Man never finds his littleness, and begins to learn, and climb, till he is put on such a stretch. In this is God’s wisdom, as well as his greatness. Just this is God’s method, also, in the Bible. It is the most bold and fearless of books: mysteries utterly inexplicable it sets before you; difficulties the most irreconcilable it plants on every page, with no attempt at solution. God is master and in command; God governs, and not the skeptics or theologians. Prophecies are uttered, miracles are performed upon God’s plans, as is easy for him. Man may believe, or let it alone. As in nature, God can not be less than himself. There is much in nature and in the Bible that man never can think out, but nature is not the less to man because it is so much above him. The very fact helps to lift him; man needs Alps on Alps above him. If the Bible were more easy, contained fewer hard sayings and knotty doctrines, it would show a less wonderful God, it would be a less powerful stimulant and helper to men. Is not the God of nature and the Bible one God—the work confirming the book? In nature there is loveliness and peace, terror and death; what more calm and delightful than a quiet sunset? What more terrible than tornado and tempest? You have seen the fire of lightning, and heard death riding on the blast in the black darkness. There are peaceful vales of earth filled with the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the gentle lullaby of brooks. But are there not cyclones and whirlwinds, lightnings and thunders, that rend and wreck, and devastate—earthquakes that swallow up whole cities—volcanoes which belch liquid fires? In the midst of beauty and loveliness men starve, and burn, and drown, and rot with loathsome disease, and die.

Now there is no question in the world’s best thought, but that God is good, wonderfully good, notwithstanding all these sufferings and sorrows. Turn to the Bible, what love is there! what goodness and patience! what mercy and grace, for every son of man abundantly bestowed! God is not willing that any should perish. He would rather that all should turn and live. But suffering for sin is there, and punishment for guilt. What forked lightnings play against wickedness! what thunders roll for transgression! There is the worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched, the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Heaven is there, with all its bliss, for those who love and obey God, and hell is there with all its bale and blight for those who die unforgiven and unreconciled to God. Because of these things, many throw away the Bible and reproach God, and seek after an easier way; but they can not throw away nature, and the same law and method of government inhere in the very core of nature, and are stamped in all its structure. Where this truth is not read out of God’s word, it is still read every day in nature.

In nature there is a majestic order which is gone through, and then nature has no more to give. There is seed time, and a harvest. Both have their place and office, and if they are improved, well, unspeakably well; if disregarded, bad, unspeakably bad. The Bible offers to man a seed time and a harvest. The sowing neglected there is nothing to take its place. This is the only seed time of the soul; swiftly the summer ends, and the harvest is the end of the world. As nature treats man, so does the Bible; without faith and works, the Bible gives nothing; without ploughing and sowing all the pastures of the prairies would fail to give man anything; nature cuts off a sluggard with a straw; without sowing, man reaches the harvest time and brings in no sheaf. Nature deals squarely: without the seed committed to her, there are weeds in the autumn; nothing but leaves. So with the Bible: it demands our confidence, and asks our service; we must heed its call. Nature is so made as to reward man increasingly, as he rises in intelligence and his wants multiply. When wood was gone for fuel, coal came. When the whale oil gave out, petroleum was at hand. After the paddle came the sail, then the steamship. When the mail carrier was too slow, the rail car appeared, followed by the lightning of the telegraph. Nature has her supplies in waiting, and reveals them more and more through the growing needs of the ages. So of the Bible. Many said the Bible would do for the stiff-necked Jews in Palestine, but it would never suit the practical sense of the Romans and the subtle intellectual taste of the Greeks. It did both. Then it was claimed it would not avail for the barbarians of northern Europe. It was adopted by every European nation. Still it was held that the Bible would not reclaim cannibals and the savages of Africa. It has done for all, lifted all of every class which it has touched, and it has power to carry the race higher and wider till the end of time.

An oriental prince brought a tent to his father in a walnut shell, so runs the legend. The king took it out and began to unfold it. It covered the king and his counselors. It covered the royal household. It covered his generals and the army. It covered the kingdom. It covered the whole world. It was Christianity. God was the father, and the prince was Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord. The God of nature and of the Bible is one God.

[575]

JOHN RICHARD GREEN.

By Rev. H. A. HAWEIS, M.A.

Before the publication of Mr. Green’s “Short History,” 86,000 copies of which have been sold in England alone, Mr. Green, although a voluminous essayist in the Saturday Review, was absolutely unknown by name to the general public. It is not true, as was asserted in a leading journal, that the success of his book surprised his friends. In 1863, the clergyman whom he followed at Holy Trinity, Hoxton, said to me, “I think we have a giant among us in Johnny Green.” “I made up my mind about that,” I replied, “the very first night I saw and spoke to him.” Mr. Freeman, Prof. Stubbs, Dr. Stanley, and, I may say, Archbishop Tait, all knew of his powers before he became famous at a leap, and I venture to say not one of them was surprised at his success. I think he was more surprised himself.

He was filled with a great love of historical study, but was generally diffident about his own work. “I read it over,” he said to me in the old days, when I was favored with copious extracts; “and I write and re-write, and wonder after all whether it is worth much—whether any one else will read it!”

His own standard was so high, his knowledge so great, and his critical friends, Freeman, Stubbs, Brewer, etc., so accomplished, that he was inclined to be generally very modest about his own rank as an historian, and at times even wavered in his general design.

When I first knew Mr. Green, he was revolving a work which should deal, I believe, with the Plantagenet period, illustrate the story of the Great Charter, and the making of the English political constitution. The first fragment he put into my hand in type was Stephen’s Ride to London.

At the instance of Mr. Macmillan, the publisher, he abandoned the magnum opus for a season, and taking, in one wide sweep, the whole of English history, produced that unique and popular narrative which raised him immediately into the very first rank of historians.

I remember his anxiety to bring the book within the reach of the masses, to make it a cheap book, his battle with the publisher on that ground, and his final victory.

This intense sympathy with the people, no doubt, had to do with those innate democratic and republican tendencies in Mr. Green which so alarmed the Quarterly Review, but they were immensely quickened by his many-sided experiences in the East-end of London.

In those Hoxton and Stepney districts, where he was my fellow curate, and my constant friend and companion for two years, he was learning to know the English people. He had read about them in books. In Stepney he rubbed elbows with them. He had a student’s acquaintance with popular movements; but the people are their own best interpreter; and if you want to understand their ways in the past, you can not do better than study our present poor-law guardian, navvy, artisan, East-end weaver, parish Bumble, clerk, publican, and city tradesmen, in the nineteenth-century flesh.

Mr. Green never worked more vigorously at his history than when he was busy reading its turbulent popular movements, and mixed social influences, secular and religious, in the light of mechanics’ institutes, poor-law difficulties, parochial squabbles, and dissenting jealousies. The postponement of his history until the harvest of this precious experience had been fully reaped, gave him that insight into the secret springs of popular enthusiasm, suffering, and achievement which makes his history alive with the heart-beats of our common humanity, instead of mouldy with the smell of moth-eaten MSS. and dead men’s bones.

That slight nervous figure, below the medium height; that tall forehead, with the head prematurely bald; the quick but small eyes, rather close together; the thin mouth, with lips seldom at rest, but often closed tightly as though the teeth were clenched with an odd kind of latent energy beneath them; the slight, almost feminine hands; the little stoop; the quick, alert step; the flashing exuberance of spirits; the sunny smile; the torrent of quick invective, scorn, or badinage, exchanged in a moment for a burst of sympathy or a delightful and prolonged flow of narrative—all this comes back to me, vividly! And what narrative, what anecdote, what glancing wit! What a talker! A man who shrank from society, and yet was so fitted to adorn and instruct every company he approached, from a parochial assembly to a statesman’s reception!

But how enchanting were my walks with him in the Victoria Park, that one outlet of Stepney and Bethnal Green! I never in my life so lost count of time with any one before or since.

Green would live through a period. Two hours on the Venetian Republic, with every conceivable branch of allied history, literature, and politics thrown in, yet willing to listen and gather up at any moment; infinite speculations at other times on theology, philosophy; schemes for the regeneration of mankind; minute plans for the management of our East-end districts; anecdotes of the poor; rarer veins of sentiment and personal criticism.

I have sometimes, after spending the evening with him at my lodgings, walked back to St. Philip’s Parsonage, Stepney, toward midnight, talking; then he has walked back with me in the summer night, talking; and when the dawn broke it has found us belated somewhere in the lonely Mile-end Road, still unexhausted, and still talking.

At such times we have neither of us undressed all night—that was so especially in the cholera times—but I would go back to St. Philip’s and sleep on a sofa till breakfast-time.

In those days we were both feeling our way, through similar experiences, to conclusions of a somewhat different nature; but the memory of many precious hours of soul-communion remains with me, as something sacred and beautiful beyond words. I think at such times we grow in mind and develop in character in days and nights, more than in months and years of slower vitality and lessened intensity.

In 1866 the cholera broke out in the East-end of London. Mr. Green was then Incumbent of St. Philip’s, Stepney, and I had just removed to a curacy at the West-end; but his position at this time was very lonely, and I was glad to go out to be with him whenever I could. I am sorry to say that in the general cholera panic a good many who ought to have remained at their posts forsook them, and this made the work very heavy for people of any means and influence who still felt bound to reside in the affected districts.

Although Mr. Green’s parish did not suffer as heavily as some, yet in some streets the mortality was very great. The dead could hardly be got away quickly enough. The neighbors often refused to touch them. I have known Mr. Green take an active part in sending off the cholera beds for burning, and getting the corpses out of the houses. The only people who seemed willing to help him were the lowest women of the town. These poor girls rallied round the active and public-spirited clergyman; and it was no uncommon thing to see Mr. Green going down the lowest back streets in Stepney, on his way to some infected house, between two[576] women of the town, who had volunteered with him on such sad and perilous service to the dead and dying, as was daily to be done, and was daily being left undone, in those dismal times.—The Contemporary Review.

A TROPICAL RIVER IN FLORIDA.

By S. J. M. EATON, D.D.

This State reaches down toward the tropics. The twenty-ninth parallel of latitude marks the frost line. Below this is the land of perennial flowers and ever ripening fruits. Even before you reach the favored line there are scenes and surroundings that remind you that the winter is past, that the time of the singing of birds is perpetual, and that nature is most prodigal of her gifts in lands nearest the pathway of the sun. In recalling the history of Ponce de Leon, one can not fail of sympathizing with him in his search for the fountain of perpetual youth. That search was not only characteristic of the age in which he lived, but in sympathy with the secret wants and wishes of all the lands and all the ages. Moreover in such a quest as this, Florida of all places seems fittest and best. It was rightly named at the first “The land of flowers.” They bloom in wondrous fragrance on the orange and lemon trees; they expand in gigantic proportions on the banana tree; they break forth in lavish magnificence on the magnolia. And along the rivers and other water courses strange trees and gorgeous shrubs greet the eye, and tell how prodigal nature is in the display of her resources, and with what wonderful magnificence she can clothe the face of the landscape in regions remote from wintry blasts. Even in central Florida, where frosts sometimes come, there is a wealth of trees and flowers and fruits that transforms the whole country into fairy land almost, as the summer sun with its genial heats kisses it into life, beauty, and fragrance.

The Ocklawaha River is one of the delightful features of central Florida. It is wild and weird and novel in all its aspects. One of its branches is the Silver Spring, that is really an anomaly in nature. This branch of the river has its origin in the celebrated fountain known as the “Silver Spring,” and that as a fountain might, from its beauty and purity and liquid clearness, well be mistaken for the fabled one that was the object of the quest of Ponce de Leon. Whether it was ever visited by this romantic knight or not, it is worthy to be the shrine of many a pilgrim in search of the beautiful and the romantic. This wonderful spring gushes forth from the bosom of the earth in volume sufficient to form at once a small river. The steamboats run up and float in the bosom of the spring, which is large enough to float four or five at once without jostling. The water is clear and sparkling, and although seventy-five feet in depth, yet as you gaze down into its recesses every pebble and shell can be seen as plainly as though in the bottom of a small vase. And as the boat rests upon its bosom noiselessly and quietly, you think of the simile of the swan, “floating double—swan and shadow.” This immense volume of water comes up noiselessly, causing scarcely a ripple upon the face of the spring, and floats away as silently amid the shadows, to join the main body of the Ocklawaha. Whence comes this immense reservoir of water? Where is the hidden source that furnishes its mighty volume? Were it not for its crystal purity and sweetness we might imagine it held mysterious communion with the ocean, and drew its vast supply from the bosom of the great deep. The outflow maintains its purity until it joins the main branch of the river, when its association with it causes it to partake of the same character, becoming somewhat muddy, and bearing the dark shadows of the overhanging trees, and thickly strewn with the leaves of aquatic plants that grow luxuriantly along its margin. From the Silver Spring down into the Ocklawaha, and on to its junction with the St. John’s, the channel is narrow and tortuous, running toward every point of the compass, spreading itself out to great widths in some places, in others confined within its narrow channel, but always surrounded with wild and strange scenery. Although in the general the banks are utterly indefinable, as the water runs back to an indefinite distance, yet there is no appearance of aught that would cause malaria. Every here and there a slight avenue opens through which a skiff or canoe might be pushed far out into the forest. The channel itself is so narrow and tortuous that the steamer threads its way with great difficulty. In many places the branches overreach the stream and seem to bar the further progress of the little craft, and render futile all efforts to proceed. In some of the narrow turns a stout boatman is stationed in the bow with a pole to assist in turning the boat when almost a right angle prevents the ordinary working of the machinery in its navigation.

All along this wonderful stream nature reveals her most luxuriant growth of vegetation. Here is the palm, with its strangely contorted trunk and corrugated bark. By its side is the palmetto with fantastic branches, and wide-spreading leaves. Many of the trees send up their gnarled roots in high arches underneath which the water runs at will. Great trailing masses of vines cling to the trees, and weigh down their branches almost to the water, often reaching from one tree to another, making a dense grove, and shutting out the sunlight from the water beneath. Lower down, and clinging to the banks on either side, are all manner of aquatic plants, beautiful in leaf and luxuriant in flower, gleaming often like bright jewels in the soft sunshine. Lilies of various varieties rest in the water, their bright green leaves surrounding their flowers of waxy white and yellow gold as they recline in their cool bath. By their side are plants with arrow-shaped leaves, with white blooms lined with pistils and stamens yellow as virgin gold, and others with flowers of blue, around which gorgeous little humming birds, reflecting the sunlight, and flashing like living jewels, buzz and coquet with the flowers as they extract their luscious sweets for a moment, and then dart off with a flash and disappear. Animated nature is busy adding variety to the scene, from beauty all the way to the beast. Golden beetles, blue-bottle flies, and gilded butterflies in velvet and spangles, float to and fro; water-bugs with varnished wings dart over the surface of the water. Birds of gorgeous plumage arise in the distance and sail up the stream. The oriole with its magnificent feathers of orange and black; the blue jay with its livery of blue and white, and its sharp cutting note, and the great red flamingo, with awkward, ungainly form, its long spindling legs and small snake-like neck, and plumage of red, like an Egyptian sunset, are seen; the former two darting quickly from tree to tree; the latter standing in the water in some sequestered spot, idly dreaming the time away, and apparently indifferent as to whether the earth turns upon its axis or not. Near the bank a water serpent might be seen urging his way with arrowy motion through the water, defiantly thrusting out his tongue with a malice born in Eden, perhaps, or lying in the warm sun on a fragment of bark, not considering it important to move, yet pushing out the same scornful challenge. At times a magnificent specimen of the alligator is seen in the distance sunning himself on a log, but rolling incontinently into the water at the approach of the boat, or the slightest alarm from any cause. The poor saurian who has arrived at years of discretion, has learned from bitter experience that the human sportsman carrying firearms is not to be trusted, in this age of Spencer rifles. He therefore retires in good order at their approach. But nearer at hand the infant alligator has less fear. He can be seen[577] creeping up the bank, careening upon the waves that are thrown up by the motion of the boat, sporting in the shallow water with youthful indifference to danger, and with great stupid eyes and shockingly open countenance, gazing up at the passing visitors. And so the boat glides and twists and forces its way down the current, the branches on either side sweeping its sides and even its upper decks. The entire scene is one of kaleidoscopic beauty and variety, until the mighty St. John’s is reached, and the craft that has done you such good service is safely moored at the wharf at Palatka.

THE INFLUENCE OF WHOLESOME DRINK.

Coffee is the berry of an evergreen tree, which grows to a height of about twenty feet, and which is largely cultivated in Arabia, Ceylon, Jamaica, and the Brazils. The berry is plucked when sufficiently ripe, and carefully stored away. It is principally composed of a sort of hard paste or meal, similar to that of the almond or bean, which is destined by nature to form the earliest nourishment of the young germ contained in the seed. When this meal is exposed to strong heat, it is partly turned into the fragrant flavor, which is familiar to all drinkers of coffee. Hence coffee is always roasted before it is employed in the preparation of beverage. The process is best accomplished by placing the berries in a hollow cylinder of iron, kept turning rapidly round over a clear fire until they put on a light chestnut color, when they require to be cooled quickly by tossing them up into the air. Roasted coffee contains, besides its fragrance, the white nerve food already alluded to in speaking of tea, a remnant of the nutritious meal, unaltered by the roasting, and a slightly astringent matter. Its nature is, therefore, singularly like to that of tea, and its action on the living frame is precisely the same. When drunk in moderation, coffee supports and refreshes the body, and makes the food consumed with it go further than it otherwise would. Coffee is, upon the whole, less astringent than tea; it also contains only half the quantity that tea has, weight for weight, of the active nerve food. Hence it can be taken stronger than tea, and so has more of the other nourishing ingredients in any given bulk. A cup of strong coffee generally holds about the same quantity of the active nerve food as a weak cup of tea.

As with tea, so with coffee; it requires to be prepared differently, accordingly as the object is, to get from it the finest flavor or the greatest amount of nourishment. The most delicious coffee may be made by using a tin vessel, called a percolator, having a false bottom at mid-height, drilled full of fine holes, and a spout coming off from beneath the false bottom. Finely-ground coffee is to be pressed and beaten down firmly upon the false bottom, and then boiling water is to be poured over it through a kind of coarse cullender, so arranged as to break its descent into a boiling shower. The hot water thus gently rained down on the coffee then drains gradually through it, carrying all the finer parts and flavors with it into the vessel beneath, but leaving behind the coarser matters. For the convenience of consumers, coffee is now commonly removed from the roaster at once into a mill driven by steam, and is there ground while still hot. It is then pressed out from the mill directly into tin cases prepared to receive it, these being immediately closed very carefully. By these means the coffee is sent out, ready for use, with all its most excellent qualities clinging about it. Three drachms of ground coffee of this quality are abundantly sufficient to furnish two small cups of a most delicious beverage.

When quantity of nourishment, rather than fineness of flavor, is the thing desired, the ground coffee should be placed in a clean dry pot standing over the fire, and be kept there until thoroughly hot, being stirred constantly, so that it may not burn. About five grains of carbonate of soda should then be added for each ounce of coffee, and boiling water be poured on, the whole being closely covered up and allowed to stand near the fire, without simmering, for some time. When about to be used, it should either be gently poured off into cups, without shaking it, or it should be strained through a linen cloth into another pot. An ounce of coffee employed in this way is sufficient for the preparation of two pints of strong nutritious drink.

A small evergreen tree grows in the West Indies, Mexico, and Peru, which bears a large fruit something like a melon. In this fruit there are a great number of seeds resembling beans. When the fruit is ripe, it is plucked from the tree and split open, and the seeds are picked out and dried in the sun. After these beans have been roasted in an iron cylinder, in the same manner as coffee, they, too, become bitter and fragrant, and are turned into what is known as cocoa. To form cocoa nibs, the husk of the roasted bean is stripped off, and the rest is broken up into coarse fragments. In the preparation of chocolate, the cocoa nibs are ground up and turned into a sort of paste, by admixture with sugar and spices. The unhusked bean is also crushed between heavy rollers, and made into a coarser kind of paste, with starch and sugar, and is then sold in cakes.

Cocoa contains about the same quantity of the nerve-food ingredient as tea, and besides this it also contains a nutritious meal. More than half its weight is, however, made up of a rich oily substance, nearly resembling butter in nature. When cocoa is prepared by stirring the paste up in boiling water, all these several ingredients are present in the drink. It is then as nourishing as the very strongest kind of vegetable food, and scarcely inferior to milk itself. It indeed is richer than milk in one particular; it contains twice as much fuel substance, or butter, and if the nerve-food ingredient be taken into the reckoning, it is scarcely inferior in supporting power. On account of its richness it often disagrees with persons of weak digestion, unless it be prepared in a lighter way, that is, by simply boiling the cocoa nibs in water, and mixing the beverage produced with enough milk to reduce its great excess of oily principle. Cocoa serves at once as an agreeable and refreshing beverage, and as a highly nutritious food for healthy and hard-working people. It has in itself the excellence of milk and tea combined.

The beverages which are also prepared by soaking the seeds of vegetables in hot water, but which are not then drunk until a further change of the nature of partial decay has been produced in them, are of a very unlike character to those which have been hitherto under consideration. Although there are several different kinds of this class, they all stand together under the family name of beer. Now this much must at once be said for these beverages. There is in all of them both flesh-making substance and fuel-substance. The first gives to the liquor its body, and the second confers its sweetness. The barley-corn contains the same kinds of ingredients as the wheat-grain, and by the operation of malting the starch is chiefly turned into sugar. If a gallon of strong ale be boiled over a fire, until all the more watery parts are steamed away, there will be found at the bottom of the vessel rather more than a quarter of a pound of dry remainder. This is flesh-making substance, and sugar, which were originally taken out of the malt. If a gallon of milk were treated in the same way, there would be found nearly a pound of similar dry substance. Strong beer therefore contains about one-third part as much nourishment as an equal quantity of milk. When beer is drunk, its watery parts are at once sucked from the digesting-bag[578] into the supply-pipes, to be poured through the body with the blood; this is how beer quenches the thirst. The thicker portions are pushed on through the sluice-gate of the stomach in a digesting state, and are, in fact, treated in every respect as ordinary food.

Mixed with the thinner parts of beer, which are thus sucked into the supply-pipes, there is, however, an ingredient which is not as unquestionably nourishing as the thicker principles, and which certainly is not as good a thirst-quencher and dissolver as water. Flesh-making substance and fuel-substance, either in the state of starch or sugar, may be kept unchanged any long period of time if thoroughly dry, and shut up from the air. When they are moist and exposed to the air, they directly begin to spoil and decay. In beer, these substances are mixed with a large quantity of water, and are exposed to the air, at least during the brewing. Hence, in beer, both are found in a spoiled and decaying state. In this case, the process of decay is called fermentation, or “puffing up,” because the vapors produced by the decay, froth the sticky liquid in which they are set free. The yeast which rises to the surface of fermenting beer, is decaying and spoiling flesh-making substance. The spoiled fuel-substance (sugar) froths and bubbles away into the air as vapor.

But the fuel-substance (sugar) does not, as it decays, bubble away into vapor all at one leap. It makes a halt for a little while in a half decayed state, and in this half decayed state it has a very spiteful and fiery nature. In that fiery and half-decayed condition it forms what is known as ardent, or burning spirit. Beer always has some, as yet, undecayed and unchanged sugar remaining in it, when it is drunk, but it also always has some half decayed sugar or spirit, and bubbling vapors formed by the progress of decay. It is these ingredients of the beer which give it the fresh and warm qualities for which, as a beverage, it is chiefly esteemed.

The spirituous ingredient of fermented liquors is directly sucked with the water out of the stomach into the supply-pipes of the body, and poured everywhere through them. There is no doubt concerning that fact. Animals have been killed and examined a few minutes after fermented liquor had been placed in their digesting bags, and the ardent spirit has been found in great quantity in their supply-pipes, their hearts, and their nerve-marrows and brains.

But some doubt does yet remain as to what the exact nature of the influence is which the ardent spirit exerts, when it has been introduced into these inner recesses of the living body in small quantity, and as much diluted by admixture with water as it is in most beers. Some persons, whose opinions can not be held to be without weight, believe that diluted spirit is capable of aiding the nourishment of the body—of acting as a sort of food. Others of equal authority are convinced that it can do nothing of the kind.

But however the matter may appear regarding the power of ardent spirit to nourish, no doubt can be entertained of the fact, that it certainly is not a necessary food. There is actually nothing of a material kind in the bodies of human creatures, which is not also present in the frames of the irrational animals. The same kind of structures have to be nourished, and the same kind of bodily powers to be supported in oxen and sheep as in men. But oxen and sheep fatten, and grow strong, and are maintained in health without ever touching so much as a single drop of ardent spirit. There are hundreds of men, too, who preserve their vigor and health up to great ages, without even tasting fermented liquors.

It must also be admitted that there are great numbers of people who use fermented liquors in moderation every day, of whom the same can be said. But it is to be feared that those who are safely moderate in their employment of these treacherous agents, are a really small band compared with those who allow themselves to be continually within the reach of unquestionable danger. In the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, with a population amounting to rather less than thirty millions of individuals, when the numbers were lately reckoned, there were yearly sixty-one millions of gallons of ardent spirit consumed as beer; thirty millions of gallons as spirits; and nearly two millions of gallons as wine.

There is, yet again, another very important point of view from which the habitual moderate use of fermented liquors must be contemplated. A pint of strong beer is in itself no very great thing. Many people swallow it almost at a single draught, and in less than a minute. The trifling act, however, entails one serious consequence when it is performed day by day. A pint of strong beer cannot be bought at a less cost than threepence. Threepence a day, at the end of a year, amounts to £4 11s. 3d. If it be only laid by and made no use of, at the end of sixty years, it amounts, under the same circumstances, to £273. If employed, instead of being laid by, it might be improved at the end of sixty years into a large fortune. Hundreds of men have made thousands of pounds with smaller means.

Money, of course, is of no great value in itself; it is only of value when applied to good service. But herein lies the gist of the matter. Money always can be made good use of. If a young man at the age of eighteen begin to lay by threepence every day, instead of buying a pint of beer with it, and continue to do the same thing for two years, he may purchase with the saving an allowance of £10 a year, to commence at the age of sixty-five years, and to be continued as long as he may thereafter happen to live. If he laid by threepence a day for five years, he could purchase with his savings, at the end of that time, an allowance of ten shillings a week, to commence at the age of sixty-five years. If a young man at eighteen begin to lay by threepence a day, and continue to do the same thing from year to year, he may at once purchase the certainty of being able to leave behind him a little fortune of £300 for his wife or children, or any other relatives who may be dear to and dependent upon him, whenever death puts an end to his earthly labors! Surely no rational and prudent man would ever think even 22,000 pints of profitless beer an equivalent for such a result of his industrious labor. It is by no means too strong an expression to speak of the beer as profitless, for this reason: A gallon of strong beer contains a quarter of a pound of nourishment, bought at the cost of a couple of shillings. Two shillings would purchase more than three pounds of meat and bread! The direct money value of ardent spirits, swallowed every year by the inhabitants of the British isles, exceeds ninety millions of pounds sterling.

Although there may be question and doubt as to the character of the influence this fiery substance exerts, when poured out to the living human frame through the supply pipes, in moderate quantity, and weakened by mixture with a large proportion of water, all question and doubt disappear when its action in greater strength and in larger quantity comes to be considered. An inquiring physician, Dr. Percy, once poured strong ardent spirit into the stomachs of some dogs, to see what would happen to them. The poor animals fell down insensible upon the ground directly, and within a few minutes their breathing had ceased, their hearts had stopped beating, and they were dead. Some of the dogs were opened immediately, and it was then found that their stomachs were quite empty. All the ardent spirit had been sucked out of them in a few short minutes. But where was it gone to? It was gone into the blood, and heart, and brain, and there it was discovered in abundance. It had destroyed life by its deadly power over those delicate inner parts.

[579]

Human beings are instantly killed when they swallow large quantities of strong ardent spirit, exactly in the same way as Dr. Percy’s dogs. A few years ago two French soldiers made a bet as to who could drink the largest quantity of brandy. Each of them swallowed seven pints in a few minutes. Both dropped down insensible on the ground; one was dead before he could be picked up, the other died while they were carrying him to the hospital. A man in London soon after this undertook to drink a quart of gin, also for a wager. He won his bet, but never had an opportunity to receive his winnings. He fell down insensible, and was carried to the hospital, and was a dead body when he was taken in.

There can be no doubt, therefore, what strong ardent spirit, in large quantities, does for the living body. It kills in a moment, as by a stroke. It is a virulent poison, as deadly as prussic acid, and more deadly than arsenic. Even when it is not taken in sufficient abundance to destroy in the most sudden way, it often leads to a slower death. Striking illustrations of this truth are presented continually in every corner of even this civilized land. It has been fully ascertained that not less than one thousand persons die from the direct influence of ardent spirit, in the British isles, every year.

When people do not die directly upon swallowing large quantities of ardent spirit, it is because they take it so gradually that nature has the opportunity of washing the greater portion of it away through the waste-pipes, before any sufficient amount of it has gathered in delicate internal parts for the actual destruction of life. Nature has such a thorough dislike to ardent spirit in the interior of living bodies, that the instant it is introduced into their supply-pipes and chambers, she goes hard to work to drive out the unwelcome intruder. When men have been drinking much fermented liquor, the fumes of ardent spirit are kept pouring out through the waste-pipes that issue by the mouth, the skin, and the kidneys; the fumes can commonly be smelt under such circumstances in the breath.

When fermented liquors are drunk in a gradual way, but yet in such quantity that the ardent spirit collects more rapidly in the blood than it can be got rid of through the waste-pipes, the fiery liquid produces step by step a series of remarkable effects, growing continually more and more grave.

In order that all the actions of the living human body may be properly carried on, three nerve overseers have been appointed to dwell constantly in the frame and look after different departments of its business. One of these has its residence in the brain; that nerve-overseer has charge of the reason, and all that belongs to it. Another resides under the brain, just at the back of the face; that nerve-overseer looks after all that relates to feeling or sense. The third lives in the nerve-marrow of the backbone; that has to see that the breathing and the pumping of the heart go on steadily and constantly. Of these three superintendents the brain-overseer and the sense-overseer are allowed certain hours of repose at night; they are both permitted to take their naps at proper times, because the reason and the sense can alike be dispensed with for short intervals when the creature is put safely to bed, or otherwise out of harm’s way. Not so, however, with the breathing and blood-pumping overseer. The breathing and the blood-movement require to be kept going constantly; they must never cease, even for a short interval, or the creature would die. Hence the nerve-marrow overseer is a watchman as well as an overseer. No sleep is allowed him. He must not even nap at his post. If he do, his neglect and delinquency are immediately discovered by a dreadful consequence. The breathing and blood-flowing, which are his charge, stop, and the living being, served by the breathing and the blood-streams, chokes and faints.

These three nerve-overseers have been fitted to perform their momentous tasks in the entire absence of ardent spirit, and they are so constituted that they cannot perform those tasks when ardent spirit is present in any great amount. Ardent spirit puts them all to sleep. The reason-overseer is overcome the most easily; he is the most given to napping by nature, so he goes to sleep first. If more spirit be then introduced into the blood, the sense-overseer begins to doze also. And if yet more be introduced, the nerve-marrow watchman ceases to be a watchman, and at length sleeps heavily with his companions.

Now, suppose that you, my attentive reader, were in an unlucky moment of weakness to turn aside from your usual course of temperance and sobriety, and to drink fermented liquor until its fiery spirit gathered in your brain, and put your reason-overseer to sleep, what think you would be the consequence? This would be the consequence—you would for the time cease to be a reasonable being. You would probably still walk about the streets, and go hither and thither, and do all sorts of things. But all this you would accomplish, not with a proper and rational knowledge of your actions. Your reason and understanding being fast asleep while you were walking about, you would properly be living in a sort of brutal existence, instead of a human and reasonable one. You would have laid aside the guide who was intended to be your director in your responsible human life, and you would be rashly trusting yourself in a crowd of the most fearful dangers, all your responsibility still upon your shoulders, without the inestimable advantage of the advice and assistance of this experienced director. Like the brutes, you would then find yourself to be easily roused to the fiercest anger, and set upon the worst courses of mischief; you would find yourself readily filled with the most uncontrollable feelings of passion and violence, and liable to be run away with by them at any moment, and caused to do things that a rational creature could not contemplate without the deepest anguish and shame.

There is no lack of proof that human beings do the most brutish things when their reasons and understandings are put to sleep by strong drink, while their sense-overseers and their animal powers still remain active. Every place and every day afford such in wretched abundance. One impressive instance, however, may perhaps be related with advantage. On the night of the 28th of June, 1856, two drunken men, whose names were James and Andrew Bracken, rushed brawling out from a beer shop in one of the suburbs of Manchester. They ran against two inoffensive passengers, and in their blind and brutish rage began beating them; one was knocked down and kicked about the head when on the ground. He was picked up thence a few minutes afterward and carried to the hospital, where it was found his skull had been broken. The poor fellow died in the course of the night.

In the next assize court, at Liverpool, James and Andrew Bracken stood in the dock to be tried for their brutal act. The counsel who defended them said that it was only a drunken row, and there was no murder in the case, because neither of them knew what he was doing. The judge and the jury, on the other hand, decided that this was no excuse, because they ought to have known what they were doing. They had laid aside their reason and become brutal by their own voluntary act, and were therefore responsible for any deed they might perform while in the brutal state. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Andrew Bracken, and the judge passed sentence of death upon him, coupling the sentence with these words: “You did an act, the ordinary consequences of which must have been to kill. It was a cruel and a brutal act, and you did it, wholly reckless of consequences. You have therefore very properly been convicted of wilful murder.” The wretched[580] man was removed from the dock shrieking for mercy, with upraised hands, and exclaiming in heartrending tones, “Oh! mother, mother, that I should be hanged!” No doubt he was very much surprised to find himself a condemned convict and a murderer, and had never intended to be so. He had no spite against his victim, and had probably never even exchanged a word with him. No drunkard, therefore, when about to put his reason to sleep by intoxicating liquor, should ever overlook the fact that he will for the time cease to have control over his actions, and that when that reason awakes, he may find himself like Andrew Bracken, a prisoner and a murderer. Whether he do so or not will depend on no will or determination of his own, but upon the mere series of accidents that will surround him while in his self-inflicted, helpless, and brutal state.

The case of Andrew Bracken, sad and striking as it is, by no means stands alone in the annals of crime. At the assize, held at Lancaster in March, 1854, it was shown that in that single court 380 cases of grave crime had been detected and punished within a very short period, and that of the 380 cases 250, including nine murders, were to be directly traced to the influence of drunkenness.

But if having ceased to be sober, my strong-bodied reader, you did not happen to commit murder, or do any other act of gross violence while in the brutal stage of drunkenness, yet nevertheless went on swallowing more and more of the intoxicating liquid until your sense-overseer was put to sleep as well as your reason-overseer, what do you think would chance to you then? Why, you would have ceased to be dangerous to your neighbors, and have become in a like degree dangerous to yourself. You would no longer have power to commit murder, or to do any other act of cruelty, because you would sink down on the ground a senseless and motionless lump of flesh. You would be what the world calls dead-drunk. But you would not in reality be dead, because the nerve-marrow watchman still continued at his post, and awake. The lump of prostrate flesh would still breathe heavily, and blood would be made to stream sluggishly from its beating heart. In this insensible stage of drunkenness, however, you would have ceased to be able to exercise any care over yourself. In it the drunkard is sunk as much lower than brutal life as the brutes are beneath reasoning life, inasmuch as he ceases to be able to exert the power which all brutes possess of perceiving the threatening danger, and turning aside from its approach.

But yet again, rational reader, let us suppose that when you became for the time a lump of insensible flesh, you had already swallowed so much stupefying spirit, that there was enough to put the nerve-marrow watchman to sleep, as well as the reason- and sense-overseers, before any fair quantity could be cleared away out of the waste-pipes of the body. Under such circumstances breathing would cease, and all heart-beating would stop. You would then be dead-drunk in the full sense of the fearful term. Senseless drunkenness is dangerous to the drunkard himself, not only because he could not get out of the way if danger were to come where he is lying, but also because he of necessity is placed in an insensible state upon the brink of a precipice, from the depth beneath which there could be no return if he once rolled over. Whether he will ever again awaken from his insensibility, or whether his earthly frame shall have already commenced its endless sleep, is a question which will be determined by the accident of a drop or two more, or a drop or two less, of the stupefying spirit having been mixed in with the coursing life-streams. The man who kills a fellow-creature in a fit of drunken violence, commits an act of murder; the man who dies in a fit of drunken insensibility, is guilty of self-slaughter. In its first degree, drunkenness is brutality; in its second degree, it is senseless stupidity, of a lower kind than brutes ever know; in its third degree, it is suicidal death. It will be felt that it is important this matter should be looked fairly in the face, when the statement is made that there are not less than seventy thousand confirmed drunkards known to be living at the present time in England and Wales.

It is now a well-proved and unquestionable fact, that a young man of fair strength and health, who takes to hard drinking at the age of twenty, can only look forward to fifteen years more of life; while a temperate young man, of the same age, may reasonably expect forty-five years more! The habitual drunkard must therefore understand that, amongst other things, he has to pay the heavy penalty of thirty of the best years of existence, for the very questionable indulgence that he buys. The doctor also has a sad account to give of aches, and pains, and fevers, and weakness that have to be borne by the intemperate during the few years’ life they can claim. Whatever may be the true state of the case with the moderate use of fermented liquors, their intemperate use is a fertile source whence men draw disease and suffering. Intemperance is another of the influences whereby men cause sickness and decay to take the place of health and strength. The doctor has likewise, it must be remarked, a tale of his own to tell concerning the beneficial power of fermented liquors, when employed as medicines in certain weakened and already diseased states of the body.

There is one earnest word which has yet to be addressed to those who have satisfied their consciences that they may with propriety indulge their inclination to use fermented liquors in moderation habitually. Have they also satisfied themselves that they can keep to the moderation their consciences allow? Have they taken fairly and sufficiently into consideration their own powers to resist urgent allurements? Have they well weighed the possible influence, in their own case, of the enticements which agreeable flavors and pleasurable exhilaration necessarily bring into operation? Have they sufficiently pondered upon the admitted truth that there scarcely ever yet was a confirmed drunkard who did not begin his vicious career by a very moderate employment of the seductive liquors? If they have done this, then let them still nevertheless go one step further and carefully determine also for their own case, what moderation is, and while doing this, let them never forget that when the thirsty man drinks a pint of table beer, he pours a teaspoonful of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks a pint of strong ale he pours two tablespoonfuls of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks four glasses of strong wine, he pours one glass of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks two glasses of rum, brandy, or gin, he pours from three-quarters of a glass to a glass of ardent spirit into the channels of his supply-pipes.

The habitual drinker of port wine has a more or less strong fancy that his favorite and so-called “generous” beverage fills him with “spirit” and “fire.” This fancy is indeed not without some ground. Government has recently caused a very careful examination to be made of the strength of the port wines that are furnished to the English markets, and the investigation has disclosed the startling and unexpected fact that the weakest of these wines contains 26 per cent.; ordinary specimens of them from 30 to 36 per cent.; choice specimens 40 per cent.; and what are called the finest wines as much as 56 per cent. of proof ardent spirit. The port wine drinker therefore actually receives even more “spirit” and “fire” with his ruby drink than he is himself aware he has bargained for. There are rich flavor and delicious odor, no doubt, in his wine, and so much the greater is his danger. These serve only to conceal a wily enemy who is lurking beneath. A bottle of ruby port wine in the stomach commonly means half a bottle of poisonous fiery spirit in the blood, and heart, and brain.

[581]

THE PARIS WORKMAN.

By R. HEATH.

Like all the inhabitants of Paris, the workmen dwell in houses of five or six stories high. The ground floor is let out in shops, between which the principal staircase is entered by a narrow passage. At the back there is a small court-yard, skirted on one side by a wing from the main building, of from two to three stories high. Each flat of the main building and of its wing is occupied by several tenants, so that such buildings contain on an average 50 different tenants, with as many as from 120 to 150 inhabitants. In one that I have visited there were 47 tenants, the total number of persons in the building at night being 114.

Workmen inhabit all quarters of Paris, the better sort preferring to live at some distance from their work. The northeast of Paris is, however, peculiarly their quarter; the suburb of St. Antoine and that of St. Martin, with the districts known as La Villette and Belleville, are almost entirely inhabited by workmen, and the tradespeople who supply their wants. The neighborhood of the Canal Saint Martin is altogether a different Paris to that usually seen by the visitor. It has more of the cheerless look of our own manufacturing districts; however, the bright sun of Paris, the rows of trees, and the fountains prevent it from looking gloomy or sad.

In this neighborhood lodging is not so dear as in the older parts of the city. In very miserable and dirty streets in the Latin quarter, the workman has to pay as much as thirty dollars a year for a single room; two rooms cost him fifty-six dollars a year; and two rooms and a little place, which he can use as a kitchen, seventy-two dollars a year. This is enormous, and amounts to about twenty per cent. of his income, supposing him to work full time, and not to belong to one of the more skilled trades.

The question of rent is one of the greatest grievances of which Paris workmen have to complain. It keeps them in poverty and anxiety, and, it is alleged, often drives the whole family to moral ruin; the wife selling her honor to obtain means, and the husband giving himself up in despair to drink.

How impossible it is to settle questions which affect the tenderest feelings of humanity by an assertion of the rights of property, the following story strikingly illustrates:

During the siege of Paris the people universally fell into poverty. On its termination a certain landlord, unable to get his rents, determined to eject all the defaulters. He sent an order to his agent to turn them out and sell their goods. One was a widow with two children. Her husband had died of a cold caught in the trenches. In her grief the poor woman had vowed she would never be married again, and as a sort of testimony of the truth of her intention she had had their walnut bedstead sawn in half. When the time came for the expulsion the proprietor arrived, and seeing the best piece of furniture spoiled, upbraided her with ruining his goods.

She found hospitality elsewhere, but the loss of the old home and the household gods turned her brain. The insurrection of the Commune broke out. She was one of the first to rush to the scene and to join the insurgents. She and her children were seen wherever there was peril. She mounted the barricade, and planted the flag of the Commune in the teeth of the besiegers. In one of the last days of the defence her eldest son was separated from her in the struggle, and the youngest was killed at her feet. Frantic, she seized the body of the child, and springing up a barricade, hurled it upon the bayonets of the soldiers, then tearing open her dress she cried wildly, “Kill me! kill me!” She fell over the stones, but was not dead. “Finish her!” cried the young officer in charge.

A workman’s rooms are generally poorly furnished, but clean; the custom being to spend a disproportionate amount of income on food and clothing.

Living does not seem so costly in Paris as in London, yet it is generally thought dear. Nevertheless the workman can not be said to fare badly.

There are various modes and hours of taking meals in Paris, depending chiefly on the nationality; for it must never be forgotten that Paris is a cosmopolitan city, and contains large numbers of workmen of German, Belgian, and Italian origin.

The French mode is for the workman to leave home fasting, taking his first two meals at a restaurant or cabaret near the place where he is working. The second meal is eaten about ten or eleven o’clock in the morning, and consists of a plate of meat and vegetables and half a bottle of wine. Any one walking about Paris at this hour of the day must have observed workmen seated alone or in groups at the little tables outside the restaurants, eating their breakfast.

The variety offered and the prices may be judged from the following bill of fare, exposed in a street peculiarly frequented by workmen:

The workman’s wife has, with her children, an early meal of milked coffee or soup, the children taking with them to school sandwiches of bread and cheese, or something from the previous day’s dinner. The mother takes a similar breakfast in the middle of the day, the whole family looking forward to the third meal, indiscriminately called dinner or supper, as the principal one of the day. This consists of soup, meat, vegetables or salad, cheese or prunes, and fresh fruit according to the season.

Two or three times a week the kettle is put on, and rich soup and boiled beef obtained. Thin soup is made from the water in which the vegetables have been boiled, or with onions, of which the Paris workman is fond. Wine is generally drunk at supper, but when it is very dear a home-made wine is obtained from raisins, or the wife and children drink water in which liquorice root has been steeped.

Nearly every district in Paris has excellent markets, at which all kinds of meat and poultry, vegetables and dairy produce, can be bought at reasonable prices. There are special days in which it is known certain articles will be fresh and abundant.

In addition to the ordinary butchers’ shops, which in Paris are always peculiarly clean and well arranged, there are special shops for the sale of the flesh of horses, asses, and mules. These shops are called horseflesh shops. There is nothing in the least revolting in their appearance, the joints looking like ordinary meat, only a little darker. It strikes the eye at first as strange to see, “Ass, best quality,” but it is a matter of habit.

The economical wife knows all the various pieces of meat which are nourishing, some of which are little heard of in England, such as beef’s stomach, veal’s mouth, sheep’s foot.

Vegetables are always plentiful in Paris, owing to the quantity of market-garden land round the city, and for the same reason there is a constant supply of salads all the year[582] round, but then the Parisians will make a salad of the leaves of the lamb’s lettuce and the dandelion.

Another help in the domestic economy of the workman’s home is the existence of the co-operative stores for the sale of provisions. In 1870 there were three or four hundred such societies in Paris.

The clothing and linen in a workman’s home are said to equal in value his furniture. His own clothing costs him about $24 a year; washing and mending raising the cost by $12; the clothing of his wife and two children would be about $44 more.

The workman’s wife is extremely industrious, rising early and always assiduously engaged in domestic duties, or in some work by which she adds to the income.

Many workmen with small families are able to save sufficient to set their wives up in business as washerwomen, or in a fruit or newspaper stall. Often she undertakes the duties of a housekeeper, i. e., acting as general servant for the first few hours of the day in some family of the middle class. When she thus works she has to send her children to the crib or to the asylum; but this is not frequent, as the families of workmen in Paris are usually very small.

Those who have the largest are generally of German origin, coming from Alsace, Belgium, and countries bordering on the Rhine. That very large families sometimes are found among workmen in Paris is proved by one case where a day laborer, a native of the department of the Haut-Rhin, received a prize of $600 for bringing up a family of fifteen children respectably on a wage of fifty cents a day. In the end he was assisted by his son, who was able to earn as a skilled workman more than his father.

As a rule the workman leaves the management of the children and the spending of the money entirely to his wife. He gives her all the wages on pay-day, and she doles out to him every morning the sum necessary for his meals.

Sometimes she finds a great deficit when this time comes. Then she weeps and upbraids him, while he, confessing his fault, says reproachfully of himself, “One must not deceive when one has five or six children.”

It does not appear to be easy to outwit a French woman. Occasionally a drinking husband will try to hide a piece of money in some out of the way place, as, for instance, the peak of his hat. But his wife ransacks his clothes while he is asleep and finds the missing coin. This position of affairs being well known, the workman who will not be entrapped into drinking, or who, being one of a social gathering, insists on going home early, is chaffed as a man who buttons up his coat with pins.

It is certainly a fact that feminine influence is very powerful in Paris, and that what the mother is the home becomes. Thus while Paris workmen almost universally absent themselves from the churches, and throw all their influence politically against the priests, their children go in crowds to make their first communion, and to this end are placed under the priests for religious instruction.

To see the street in front of a Paris church on Whit Sunday, no one would believe religion was a matter not only of indifference, but of contempt, to the Paris workman. The road seen from a balcony is like an immense field of snow-drops. Hundreds of white-robed children float about among crowds of smiling parents and friends. And yet there is hardly anything in it beyond a domestic rite, something which it is respectable to go through at a certain age.

“I will sell my clothes, but my child shall not be different from others,” says a mother, who, no more than her husband, considers the spiritual aspect of the ceremony.

The domestic affections of the workman, where he has not been demoralized by licentiousness or vice, are strong, and his sense of duty to his relatives unusual. Thus it would seem not at all uncommon for a workman to support his wife’s mother, even when she lives far away. A workman who had done this for some time fell, through the state of public affairs, into such distress as to be obliged to earn his bread by selling journals in the street. After a time he recovered his position; but all through his period of poverty, the mother-in-law was allowed to believe that no change had taken place in his circumstances. Another workman, who had originally been in business as a butcher, partly ruined himself by undertaking the charge of his wife’s family. However, he never forsook the mother-in-law, but when he had a numerous family and only the small and precarious wages of a day laborer, she remained as much part of his family as the children.

The workman is careful of his children. He will fetch his daughter, apprenticed to dressmaking, from her work in the evening, and likes to have his son follow the same business as himself. He respects his own art, and has no desire to see his boy made into a clerk. If his wife is foolish enough to express such a wish he rates her soundly. “Does she want to make a skip-kennel (errand boy) of him because one gets dirty in factory work?”

“Thou knowest,” he concludes, “I always consider what thou sayest, but candidly, thou art unreasonable—wouldst thou then have him die of hunger when he is grown up? To slave at a desk is a miserable business; one ought to have a manual trade, with that a man always has his living at his fingers’ ends. Why! thou hast never said I was too dirty for thee; ah! I should like to see him a clerk. And to think that there are people who pretend that the woman has as much judgment as the man. Yes, yes, thou art a very good sort of a woman, but at bottom thou knowest nothing. Henri shall be a mechanic; the devil may burn me if ever he becomes a scribbling puppet.”—Good Words.

A PROPHECY.

By the Rev. BENJAMIN COPELAND.

[583]

TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

There lived in the city of Verona two young gentlemen, whose names were Valentine and Protheus, between whom a firm and uninterrupted friendship had long subsisted. They pursued their studies together, and their hours of leisure were always passed in each other’s company, except when Protheus visited a lady he was in love with; and these visits, and this passion of Protheus for the fair Julia, were the only topics on which these two friends disagreed: for Valentine, not being himself a lover, was sometimes a little weary of hearing his friend forever talking of his Julia, and then he would laugh at Protheus, and in pleasant terms ridicule the passion of love, and declare that no such idle fancies should ever enter his head, greatly preferring (as he said) the free and happy life he lead, to the anxious hopes and fears of the lover Protheus.

One morning Valentine came to Protheus, to tell him that they must for a time be separated, for that he was going to Milan. Protheus, unwilling to part with his friend, used many arguments to prevail upon Valentine not to leave him; but Valentine said, “Cease to persuade me, my loving Protheus, I will not, like a sluggard, wear out my youth in idleness at home. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. If your affection were not chained to the sweet glances of your honored Julia, I would entreat you to accompany me, to see the wonders of the world abroad; but since you are a lover, love on still, and may your love be prosperous!” They parted with mutual expressions of unalterable friendship. “Sweet Valentine, adieu!” said Protheus; “think on me, when you see some rare object worthy of notice in your travels, and wish me partaker of your happiness.”

Valentine began his journey that same day towards Milan; and when his friend had left him, Protheus sat down to write a letter to Julia, which he gave to her maid Lucetta to deliver to her mistress. Julia loved Protheus as well as he did her, but she was a lady of a noble spirit, and she thought it did not become her maiden dignity too easily to be won; therefore she affected to be insensible of his passion, and gave him much uneasiness in the prosecution of his suit. And when Lucetta offered the letter to Julia, she would not receive it, and chid her maid for taking letters from Protheus, and ordered her to leave the room. But she so much wished to see what was written in the letter, that she soon called in her maid again, and when Lucetta returned, she said, “What o’clock is it?” Lucetta, who knew her mistress more desired to see the letter than to know the time of day, without answering her question, again offered the rejected letter. Julia, angry that her maid should thus take the liberty of seeming to know what she really wanted, tore the letter in pieces, and threw it on the floor, ordering her maid once more out of the room. As Lucetta was retiring, she stopped to pick up the fragments of the torn letter; but Julia, who meant not so to part with them, said, in pretended anger, “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie; you would be fingering them to anger me.”

Julia then began to piece together as well as she could the torn fragments. She first made out these words, “Love-wounded Protheus;” and lamenting over these and such-like loving words, which she made out though they were all torn asunder, or she said, wounded (the expression “Love-wounded Protheus,” giving her that idea), she talked to these kind words, telling them she would lodge them in her bosom as in a bed, till their wounds were healed, and that she would kiss each several piece, to make amends. In this manner she went on talking with a pretty lady-like childishness, till finding herself unable to make out the whole, and vexed at her own ingratitude in destroying such sweet and loving words, as she called them, she wrote a much kinder letter to Protheus than she had ever done before.

Protheus was greatly delighted at receiving this favorable answer to his letter; and while he was reading it, he exclaimed, “Sweet love, sweet lines, sweet life!” In the midst of his raptures he was interrupted by his father. “How now!” said the old gentleman, “what letter are you reading there?” “My lord,” replied Protheus, “it is a letter from my friend Valentine, at Milan.” “Lend me the letter,” said his father; “let me see what news.” “There are no news, my lord,” said Protheus, greatly alarmed, “but that he writes how well beloved he is of the Duke of Milan, who daily graces him with favors; and how he wishes me with him, the partner of his fortune.” “And how stand you affected to his wish?” asked the father. “As one relying on your lordship’s will, and not depending on his friendly wish,” said Protheus.

Now it had happened that Protheus’s father had just been talking with a friend on this very subject: his friend had said, he wondered his lordship suffered his son to spend his youth at home, whilst most men were sending their sons to seek preferment abroad; “some,” said he, “to the wars, to try their fortunes there, and some to discover islands far away, and some to study in foreign universities; and there is his companion Valentine, he is gone to the Duke of Milan’s court. Your son is fit for any of these things, and it will be a great disadvantage to him in his riper age, not to have traveled in his youth.”

Protheus’s father thought the advice of his friend was very good, and upon Protheus telling him that Valentine “wished him with him, the partner of his fortune,” he at once determined to send his son to Milan; and without giving Protheus any reason for this sudden resolution, it being the usual habit of this positive old gentleman to command his son, not reason with him, he said, “My will is the same as Valentine’s wish:” and seeing his son look astonished, he added, “Look not amazed, that I so suddenly resolve you shall spend some time in the Duke of Milan’s court; for what I will I will, and there is an end. To-morrow be in readiness to go. Make no excuses, for I am peremptory.” Protheus knew it was of no use to make objections to his father, who never suffered him to dispute his will; and he blamed himself for telling his father an untruth about Julia’s letter, which had brought upon him the sad necessity of leaving her.

Now that Julia found she was going to lose Protheus for so long a time, she no longer pretended indifference; and they bade each other a mournful farewell with many vows of love and constancy. Protheus and Julia exchanged rings, which they both promised to keep forever in remembrance of each other; and thus, taking a sorrowful leave, Protheus set out on his journey to Milan, the abode of his friend Valentine.

Valentine was in reality what Protheus had feigned to his father, in high favor with the duke of Milan; and another event had happened to him, of which Protheus did not even dream, for Valentine had given up the freedom of which he used so much to boast, and was become as passionate a lover as Protheus. She who had wrought this wondrous change in Valentine, was the lady Silvia, daughter of the duke of Milan, and she also loved him; but they concealed their love from the duke, because although he showed much kindness to Valentine, and invited him every day to his palace, yet he designed to marry his daughter to a young courtier whose name was Thurio. Silvia despised this Thurio, for he had none of the fine sense and excellent qualities of Valentine.

These two rivals, Thurio and Valentine, were one day on a visit to Silvia, and Valentine was entertaining Silvia with[584] turning everything Thurio said into ridicule, when the duke himself entered the room, and told Valentine the welcome news of his friend Protheus’s arrival. Valentine said, “If I had wished a thing, it would have been to have seen him here!” and then he highly praised Protheus to the duke, saying, “My lord, though I have been a truant of my time, yet hath my friend made use and fair advantage of his days, and is complete in person and in mind, in all good grace to grace a gentleman.” “Welcome him then according to his worth,” said the duke; “Silvia, I speak to you, and you, sir Thurio; for Valentine, I need not bid him do so.” They were here interrupted by the entrance of Protheus, and Valentine introduced him to Silvia, saying, “Sweet lady, entertain him to be my fellow servant to your ladyship.”

When Valentine and Protheus had ended their visit, and were alone together, Valentine said, “Now tell me how all does from whence you came? How does your lady, and how thrives your love?” Protheus replied, “My tales of love used to weary you, I know you joy not in a love-discourse.” “Ay, Protheus,” returned Valentine, “but that life is altered now. I have done penance for condemning love. For in revenge of my contempt of Love, Love has chased sleep from my enthralled eyes. O gentle Protheus, Love is a mighty lord, and hath so humbled me, that I confess there is no woe like his correction, and no such joy on earth as in his service. I now like no discourse except it be of love. Now I can break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep, upon the very name of love.”

This acknowledgment of the change which love had made in the disposition of Valentine was a great triumph to his friend Protheus. But “friend” Protheus must be called no longer, for the same all-powerful deity, Love, of whom they were speaking, (yea even while they were talking of the change he had made in Valentine) was working in the heart of Protheus; and he, who had till this time been a pattern of true love and perfect friendship, was now, in one short interview with Silvia, become a false friend and a faithless lover; for at the first sight of Silvia, all his love for Julia vanished away like a dream, nor did his long friendship for Valentine deter him from endeavoring to supplant him in her affections; and although, as it will always be, when people of dispositions naturally good become unjust, he had many scruples, before he determined to forsake Julia, and become the rival of Valentine, yet he at length overcame his sense of duty, and yielded himself up, almost without remorse, to his new unhappy passion.

Valentine imparted to him in confidence the whole history of his love, and how carefully they had concealed it from the duke her father, and told him, that despairing of ever being able to obtain his consent, he had prevailed upon Silvia to leave her father’s palace that night, and go with him to Mantua; then he showed Protheus a ladder of ropes, by help of which he meant to assist Silvia to get out of one of the windows of the palace, after it was dark.

Upon hearing this faithful recital of his friend’s dearest secrets, it is hardly possible to be believed, but so it was, that Protheus resolved to go to the duke and disclose the whole to him. This false friend began his tale with many artful speeches to the duke, such as that by the laws of friendship he ought to conceal what he was going to reveal, but that the gracious favor the duke had shown him, and the duty he owed his grace, urged him to tell that, which else no worldly good should draw from him; he then told all he had heard from Valentine, not omitting the ladder of ropes, and the manner in which Valentine meant to conceal them under a long cloak.

The duke thought Protheus quite a miracle of integrity, in that he preferred telling his friend’s intention rather than he would conceal an unjust action, highly commended him, and promised him not to let Valentine know from whom he had learned this intelligence, but by some artifice to make Valentine betray the secret himself. For this purpose the duke awaited the coming of Valentine in the evening, whom he soon saw hurrying toward the palace, and he perceived somewhat was wrapped within his cloak, which he concluded was the rope ladder.

The duke upon this stopped him, saying, “Whither away so fast, Valentine?” “May it please your grace,” said Valentine, “there is a messenger, that stays to bear my letters to my friends, and I am going to deliver them.” Now this falsehood of Valentine’s had no better success in the event than the untruth Protheus told his father. “Be they of much import,” said the duke. “No more, my lord,” said Valentine, “than to tell my father I am well and happy at your grace’s court.” “Nay, then,” said the duke, “no matter; stay with me awhile. I wish your counsel about some affairs that concern me nearly.” He then told Valentine an artful story, as a prelude to draw his secret from him, saying, that Valentine knew he wished to match his daughter with Thurio, but that she was stubborn and disobedient to his commands, “neither regarding,” said he “that she is my child, nor fearing me as if I were her father. And I may say to thee, that this pride of hers has drawn my love from her. I had thought my age should have been cherished by her child-like duty. I am now resolved to take a wife, and turn her out to whomsoever will take her in. Let her beauty be her wedding-dower, for me and my possessions she esteems not.”

Valentine, wondering where all this would end, made answer. “And what would your grace have me do in all this?” “Why,” said the duke, “the lady I would wish to marry is nice and coy, and does not much esteem my aged eloquence. Besides, the fashion of courtship is much changed since I was young; now I would willingly have you to be my tutor to instruct me how I am to woo.” Valentine gave him a general idea of the modes of courtship then practiced by young men, when they wished to win a fair lady’s love, such as presents, frequent visits, and the like. The duke replied to this, that the lady did not refuse a present which he sent her, and that she was so strictly kept by her father, that no man might have access to her by day. “Why then,” said Valentine, “you must visit her by night.” “By night,” said the artful duke, who was now coming to the drift of his discourse, “her doors are fast locked.”

Valentine then unfortunately proposed that the duke should get into the lady’s chamber at night, by means of a ladder of ropes, saying, he would procure him one fitting for that purpose; and, in conclusion, advised him to conceal this ladder of ropes under such a cloak as that which he now wore. “Lend me your cloak,” said the duke, who had feigned this long story on purpose to have a pretence to get off the cloak; so, upon saying these words, he caught hold of Valentine’s cloak, and throwing it back, he discovered not only the ladder of ropes, but also a letter of Silvia’s which he instantly opened and read; and this letter contained a full account of their intended elopement. The duke, after upbraiding Valentine for his ingratitude in thus returning the favor he had shown him, by endeavoring to steal away his daughter, banished him from the court and city of Milan forever; and Valentine was forced to depart that night, without even seeing Silvia.

While Protheus at Milan was thus injuring Valentine, Julia at Verona was regretting the absence of Protheus, and her regard for him at last so far overcame her sense of propriety, that she resolved to leave Verona, and seek her lover at Milan; and to secure herself from danger on the road, she dressed her maid Lucetta and herself in men’s clothes, and they set out in this disguise, and arrived at Milan soon after Valentine was banished from that city, through the treachery of Protheus.

[585]

Julia entered Milan about noon, and she took up her abode at an inn; and her thoughts being all on her dear Protheus, she entered into conversation with the inn-keeper, or host, as he was called, thinking by that means to learn some news of Protheus. The host was greatly pleased that this handsome young gentleman (as he took her to be), who from his appearance he concluded was of high rank, spoke so familiarly to him; and being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress.

The reason Julia looked so very melancholy was, that she did not well know what Protheus would think of the imprudent step she had taken; for she knew that he had loved her for her noble maiden pride and dignity of character, and she feared she should lower herself in his esteem; and this it was that made her wear a sad and thoughtful countenance.

She gladly accepted the offer of the host to go with him, and hear the music; for she secretly hoped she might meet Protheus by the way. But when she came to the palace whither the host conducted her, a very different effect was produced to what the kind host intended; for there, to her heart’s sorrow, she beheld her lover, the inconstant Protheus, serenading the lady Silvia with music, and addressing discourse of love and admiration to her. And Julia overheard Silvia from a window talk with Protheus, and reproach him for forsaking his own true lady, and for his ingratitude to his friend Valentine; and then Silvia left the window, not choosing to listen to his music and his fine speeches; for she was a faithful lady to her banished Valentine, and abhorred the ungenerous conduct of his false friend Protheus.

Though Julia was in despair at what she had just witnessed, yet did she still love the truant Protheus; and hearing that he had lately parted with a servant, she contrived, with the assistance of her host, the innkeeper, to hire herself to Protheus as a page; and Protheus knew not she was Julia, and he sent her with letters and presents to her rival Silvia, and he even sent by her the very ring she gave him as a parting gift at Verona.

When she went to that lady with the ring, she was most glad to find that Silvia utterly rejected the suit of Protheus; and Julia, or the page Sebastian, as she was called, entered into conversation with Silvia about Protheus’s first love, the forsaken lady Julia. She putting in (as one may say) a good word for herself, said she knew Julia; as well she might, being herself the Julia of whom she spoke: telling how fondly Julia loved her master Protheus, and how his unkind neglect would grieve her. And then she, with a pretty equivocation, went on: “Julia is about my height, and of my complexion, the color of her eyes and hair the same as mine;” and indeed Julia looked a most beautiful youth in her boy’s attire. Silvia was moved to pity this lovely lady, who was so sadly forsaken by the man she loved; and when Julia offered the ring which Protheus had sent, refused it, saying, “The more shame for him that he sends me that ring; I will not take it, for I have often heard him say his Julia gave it to him. I love thee, gentle youth, for pitying her, poor lady! Here is a purse; I give it you for Julia’s sake.” These comfortable words coming from her kind rival’s tongue cheered the drooping heart of the disguised lady.

But to return to the banished Valentine, who scarce knew which way to bend his course, being unwilling to return home to his father a disgraced and banished man. As he was wandering over a lonely forest, not far distant from Milan, where he had left his heart’s dear treasure, the lady Silvia, he was set upon by robbers, who demanded his money. Valentine told them he was a man crossed by adversity, that he was going into banishment, and that he had no money, the clothes he had on being all his riches. The robbers, hearing that he was a distressed man, and being struck with his noble air and manly behavior, told him, if he would live with them and be their chief, or captain, they would put themselves under his command, but if he refused to accept their offer they would kill him. Valentine, who cared little what became of himself, said he would consent to live with them and be their captain, provided they did no outrage on women or poor passengers. Thus the noble Valentine became, like Robin Hood, of whom we read in ballads, a captain of robbers and outlawed banditti; and in this situation he was found by Silvia, and in this manner it came to pass:

Silvia, to avoid a marriage with Thurio, whom her father insisted upon her no longer refusing, came at last to the resolution of following Valentine to Mantua, at which place she had heard her lover had taken refuge; but in this account she was misinformed, for he still lived in the forest among the robbers, bearing the name of their captain, but taking no part in their depredations, and using the authority which they had imposed upon him in no other way than to show compassion to the travelers they robbed. Silvia contrived to effect her escape from her father’s palace in company with a worthy old gentleman, whose name was Eglamour, whom she took along with her for protection on the road. She had to pass through the forest where Valentine and the banditti dwelt; and one of the robbers seized on Silvia, and would also have taken Eglamour, but he escaped.

The robber who had taken Silvia, seeing the terror she was in, bid her not to be alarmed, for that he was only going to carry her to a cave where his captain lived, and that she need not be afraid, for their captain had an honorable mind, and always showed humanity to women. Silvia found little comfort in hearing she was going to be carried as a prisoner before the captain of a lawless banditti. “O Valentine,” she cried, “this I endure for thee!” But as the robber was conveying her to the cave of his captain, he was stopped by Protheus, who, still attended by Julia in the disguise of a page, having heard of the flight of Silvia, had traced her steps to this forest. Protheus now rescued her from the hands of the robber, but scarce had she time to thank him for the service he had done her, before he began to distress her afresh with his love suit; and while he was rudely pressing her to consent to marry him, and his page (the forlorn Julia) was standing beside them in great anxiety of mind, fearing lest the great service which Protheus had just done to Silvia should win her to show him some favor, they were all strangely surprised with the sudden appearance of Valentine, who having heard his robbers had taken a lady prisoner, came to console and relieve her.

Protheus was courting Silvia, and he was so much ashamed of being caught by his friend, that he was all at once seized with penitence and remorse; and he expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was noble and generous, even to a romantic degree, not only forgave and restored him to his former place in his friendship, but in a sudden flight of heroism he said, “I freely do forgive you; and all the interest I have in Silvia, I give it up to you.” Julia, who was standing behind her master as a page, hearing this strange offer, and fearing Protheus would not be able with this new found virtue to refuse Silvia, fainted, and they were all employed in recovering her; else would Silvia have been offended at being thus made over to Protheus, though she could scarcely think that Valentine would long persevere in this over-strained and too generous act of friendship. When Julia recovered from the fainting fit, she said, “I had forgotten, my master ordered me to deliver this ring to Silvia.” Protheus,[586] looking upon the ring, saw that it was the one he gave to Julia, in return for that which he received from her, and which he had sent by the supposed page to Silvia. “How is this?” said he, “this is Julia’s ring; how came you by it, boy?” Julia answered, “Julia herself did give it me, and Julia herself hath brought it hither.”

Protheus, now looking earnestly upon her, plainly perceived that the page Sebastian was no other than the lady Julia herself; and the proof she had given of her constancy and true love so wrought in him, that his love for her returned into his heart, and he took again his own dear lady, and joyfully resigned all pretensions to the lady Silvia to Valentine, who had so well deserved her.

Protheus and Valentine were expressing their happiness in their reconciliation, and in the love of their faithful ladies, when they were surprised with the sight of the Duke of Milan and Thurio, who came there in pursuit of Silvia. Thurio first approached, and attempted to seize Silvia, saying, “Silvia is mine.” Upon this Valentine said to him in a very spirited manner, “Thurio, keep back; if once again you say that Silvia is yours, you shall embrace your death. Here she stands; take but possession of her with a touch! I dare you but to breathe upon my love.” Hearing this threat, Thurio, who was a great coward, drew back, and said he cared not for her, and that none but a fool would fight for a girl who loved him not.

The duke, who was a very brave man himself, said now in great anger, “The more base and degenerate in you to take such means for her as you have done, and leave her on such slight conditions.” Then turning to Valentine, he said, “I do applaud your spirit, Valentine, and think you worthy of an empress’s love. You shall have Silvia, for you have well deserved her.” Valentine then with great humility kissed the duke’s hand, and accepted the noble present which he had made him of his daughter with becoming thankfulness; taking occasion of this joyful minute to entreat the good-humored duke to pardon the thieves with whom he had associated in the forest, assuring him that when reformed and restored to society, there would be found among them many good, and fit for great employment, for the most of them had been banished, like Valentine, for state offences, rather than for any black crimes they had been guilty of. To this the ready duke consented; and now nothing remained but that Protheus, the false friend, was ordained, by way of penance for his love-prompted faults, to be present at the recital of the whole story of his loves and falsehoods before the duke. And the shame of the recital to his awakened conscience was judged sufficient punishment; which being done, the lovers, all four, returned back to Milan, and their nuptials were solemnized in presence of the duke, with high triumphs and feasting.

CONSTANT CHANGE IN WORDS.

By JOHN PEILE, M. A.

Words are subject to an incessant change. Substantives, for example, are the names of things actually existing, or of qualities of those things. When I say an oak, I mean an oak and not a beech; goodness is not badness; and if these things don’t change, how can the names which express them change without causing utter confusion? Perhaps variations so violent as these are not very common, and yet both these changes have occurred in language. The very same word which to the Greeks meant an oak, to the Romans meant a beech, though an oak never yet changed into a beech. Schlecht in German first of all meant “straight.” Now the “straightness” of a visible object, such as a line, is the most obvious metaphor by which to express the moral idea of “straightforwardness” and simplicity of heart and purpose, just as our common word right means originally that which is straight, the Latin rectus. But then simpleness may shade into the folly of the simpleton; and lastly the fool in worldly wisdom may give his name to the fool of whom Solomon spoke; and by some such process as this schlecht in modern German means “bad” only. After seeing this change of nouns, can we wonder that verbs can vary their meaning by imperceptible degrees so much that the first sense would be altogether unrecognizable unless we had the history of the word recorded by its use in successive writers?

Great changes of language are sometimes due to great convulsions in history; as when the Roman civilization was destroyed by nations comparatively uncivilized and the language of the Romans remained modified in different ways in the countries of which they were the lords no longer. Such great changes do not often take place; yet just as surely, though more slowly, a gradual change goes on in the most peaceful times, of which you cannot have a better example than in your own English. “Well,” you say, “surely English has not changed much in the last three hundred years. We can read Shakspere without any difficulty.” That is saying a little too much; we are so familiar with the best parts of Shakspere that perhaps we are hardly conscious of the difference; the words have a well-known sound, and if we are not students of language we may not examine them very carefully. But open your Shakspere almost at random and you will soon find out, if you really consider, how much is now obsolete, how many words have passed out of use or are used in a different sense. I have opened on “Macbeth,” Act. i. Sec. 7, and there I find in Lady Macbeth’s speech:—

Now look at a few of the words here. (1) “Chamberlain,” as we all know, etymologically a man of the chamber; it comes from camera, a chamber, originally a vault; the root of this is cam—to be bent or crooked, which is supposed to be the origin of the name of our most crooked river. The old sense of “chamberlain” has not quite died out of our recollection; yet when we speak of the Lord Chamberlain—the only person to whom the title is now applied—we don’t think of a man whose business it is to guard his king’s sleep when on a journey, or, generally, of a bed-room attendant, but of one whose best known duty is the censorship of plays. (2) “Wassail” is a word which we should expect to find in a historical novel, but not to hear in every-day talk. We feel pretty sure that it has something to do with good cheer, but we may not know that it was originally a drinking of health; that was was the imperative of the verb was “to[587] be,” which we have turned into an auxiliary verb to mark past time; and the last syllable is our word hale—healthy, which we have pretty well restricted to the description of an elderly man, whom we call “hale for his years;” though we are familiar with the word in corrupted form whole, which we have in the Bible, “I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day.” (3) “Convince” has wavered much in sense; we use it now simply for persuading a person, but the primary meaning was “to overpower,” which it has here; in the Bible phrase “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” we have the same special sense of overcoming by testimony, which convincere had in Latin.

So again (4) “Warder,” like “wassail” is a word with which we are familiar from books, but which we should not ourselves use without the appearance of affectation; we should use the equivalent “guard.” We have here a couple of words identical in meaning, just as we have wise and guise, warrant and guarantee, wager and gaze, and others which explain the riddle, such as war and French guerre, warren and French garenne. It is well known that in all these the w marks the Teutonic word introduced alike into England by the Anglo-Saxons and into France by the Franks, which the earlier inhabitants of France were unable to pronounce without letting a g escape before it; and so they produced the second form beginning with gu. Some of these second forms were brought into England by the Normans, and existed there by the side of the English word brought long before; but as there was no distinction in sense, one form generally fell into disuse, only to be revived for a special purpose, as by Sir Walter Scott, to give a mediæval look to his poems.

(5) “Fume” meant smoke or steam. Shakspere used it metaphorically, just as we might speak of a man’s reason being clouded. Such a use of the word may have been familiar at his time, but no such idea would now attach to it; if we use it at all, we do so in the old simple sense, as the “fumes of tobacco,” the same sense which the word bore at Rome and in the far-away India more than twenty centuries ago; while the Greeks turned it, by a different metaphor, to express the steam of passion, and Plato in his famous analysis distinguished the “thumoeides,” the spirited part of the soul, from that part which reasons, and from that part which desires. (6) “Receipt” seems to be used of a place, that place where reason is found, just as we hear of Matthew in the Bible “sitting at the receipt of custom.” (7) “Limbec” has probably died out altogether. It is only the student of the history of the English language who can guess that the word is equivalent to alembic, which meant a still or retort, and so is used here by Shakspere merely in the sense of an empty vessel, that into which anything may be poured. The word is Arabic; it was brought into England with chemical study like alchemy itself, algebra, and many others. Then by degrees people fancied that the a at the beginning of the word was our article, though really the first syllable al is the Arabic article; and thus lembic or limbic was left. The article has often been a thief in England. It has two forms an and a, and meant one, as you may see in the old Scotch form, “ane high and michty lord.” The shortened form a was naturally used before a consonant, but when the word began with n, people did not always see where to divide rightly. Thus a nadder turned into an adder, a napron has become an apron, etc.; on the other hand the eft (ewt) seems to have robbed the article in its turn and become a newt.

Thus we have examined one passage, and have found in its four lines seven words which are either not used now at all or are used in a different sense. Yet, as we said, the passage as a whole sounds simple enough when we read it or hear it on the stage. We must admit then that the English of to-day differs much from Shakspere’s English in the meaning of its words.

ARCHERY IN SCOTLAND.

By ROBERT MACGREGOR.

Though it has often been hastily assumed that the annals of the bow in the northern kingdom would require no more space in the writing than did Olaus Magnus’s famous chapter on the snakes of Iceland, yet this is only true of archery in battle; and it is a curious fact that, though the Scots could never be induced to take to the bow as a military weapon, they became very fond of archery as a pastime, when firearms took the place of bows and arrows as “artilyere,” and there was no further need of statutes forcing the bow into their hands, and forbidding all outdoor amusements that interfered with its practice. It is a curious problem why, in two races so akin as the English and the Lowland Scots, national bent should in this respect take such opposite directions. While the southern yeoman delighted in his long-bow and the sheaf of shafts—“the twelve Scots’ lives” he bore under his girdle—his kinsman foe across the Tweed could never be compelled either by experience or a long series of penal statutes to take to the weapon whose power in skilful hands he had felt on many a bloody field. “Few of thaim was sekyr of archarie,” laments Blind Harry, the minstrel, of Wallace’s followers; and not only was this true of all succeeding Scottish soldiers, but it may be that the same national prejudice can be traced back for centuries before the Blind Minstrel’s time, to the days of the sculptured stones that stud the northeastern districts of Scotland. While on them are many delineations of the hunter aiming his arrow at deer or wild boar, there is only one instance, in all their many scenes of war, in which fighting men are armed with the bow.

When the first James of Scotland returned to his northern kingdom with his “fairest English flower,” Lady Jane Beaufort, he brought back with him from his long captivity a deep impression of the value of the bow. Under the careful instruction of the constable of Pevensey, James had become a fine marksman, and he tried by every means in his power to popularize the exercise at home. He forbade football and other “unprofitable sports;” he ordered every man to shoot at the bow marks near his parish church every Sunday; he chose a bodyguard for himself from among the most skilful archers at the periodical “Wappinshaws;” and in his poem of “Christ’s Kirk on the Green” he published a scathing satire on the clumsiness and inefficiency of his peasantry in archery. What the most energetic of the Stuart kings set his mind to he generally succeeded in; and possibly, if the dagger of “that mischant traitor, Robert Grahame,” had spared his life at Perth, James might have done what so many Scottish kings failed to do; as it was, we see signs of improvement among his people.

The bodyguard that the author of the “King’s Quhair” embodied for himself was the origin of the famous “Royal Company of Archers” that still flourishes vigorously in Edinburgh. So say the present “Bodyguard for Scotland,” though their oldest extant records stop short two centuries and a half of King James’s time.

With James’s assassination at Perth, the new-born zeal for archery seems to have died away; and it is not till we come to the time of James V. that any noteworthy traces of its practice can be found. If we may judge from a story told in Lindsay of Pitscottie’s quaint old chronicle of Scotland, the Commons’ king had some fine archers in his kingdom; for Lindsay tells us how the Scottish marksmen were victorious in what must surely have been the earliest friendly shooting-match between England and Scotland. The occasion of this international match was Henry VIII. sending an embassy with the garter to his nephew, the young King of Scots, in 1534. “In this year,” says Pitscottie,[588] whose spelling we modernize, “came an English ambassador out of England, called Lord William Howard: a bishop and other gentlemen, to the number of three score horse: who were all able wailled [picked] gentlemen for all kinds of pastimes, as shooting, leaping, wrestling, running, and casting of the stone. But they were well essayed in all these before they went home, and that by their own provocation, and they almost ever tint [lost]: while at the last the king’s mother favored the Englishmen, because she was the king of England’s sister; and therefore she took a wager of archery upon the Englishmen’s hands, contrary to the king her son, and any half dozen Scotsmen, either noblemen, gentlemen, or yeomen, that so many Englishmen should shoot against them at ‘rovers,’ ‘butts,’ or ‘prick-bonnet.’ The king hearing of this bonspiel [sporting match] of his mother was well content. So there was laid a hundred crowns, and a tun of wine pandit [staked] on each side. The ground was chosen in St. Andrews. The Scottish archers were three landed gentlemen and three yeomen, to wit: David Wemyss of that ilk, David Arnott of that ilk, and Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee. The yeomen were John Thomson in Leith, Steven Tabroner, and Alexander Baillie, who was a piper. [The Scottish archers] shot wondrous near, and won the wager from the Englishmen; and thereafter went into the town, and made a banquet to the queen and the English ambassador, with the whole two hundred crowns and the two tuns of wine.”

Archery from this time became an established pastime in Scotland, amicably sharing men’s leisure with its old enemies golf and football, while with the ladies it took rank as their chief, if not only, outdoor pastime. Queen Margaret herself might possibly have taken her place with credit beside the six Englishmen she backed in this match against her son; for we are told by Leland and others that Henry’s sister was no mean shot, while her unfortunate grandchild, Mary Queen of Scots, was as fond of archery as was her cousin Elizabeth of England and many another lady of that time.

TENNYSON AND MRS. CARLYLE.

Mrs. Carlyle wrote in 1843: “Pickwick, Bulwer Lytton and Alfred Tennyson—the last is the greatest genius, though the vulgar public have not as yet recognized him as such. He is a very handsome man, and a noble-hearted one, with something of the gipsy in his appearance which, for me, is perfectly charming. One night at private theatricals in being escorted through a long dim passage to a private box, I came on a tall man leant to the wall, with his head touching the ceiling, to all appearance asleep, or resolutely trying it under most unfavorable circumstances. ‘Alfred Tennyson!’ I exclaimed in joyful surprise. ‘Well,’ said he, taking the hand I held out to him, and forgetting to let it go again. ‘I did not know you were in town,’ said I. ‘I should like to know who you are,’ said he; ‘I know that I know you, but I can not tell your name.’ And I had actually to name myself to him. Then he woke up in good earnest, and said he had been meaning to come to Chelsea. ‘But Carlyle is in Scotland,’ I told him with due humility. ‘So I heard from Spedding already, but I asked Spedding, would he go with me to see Mrs. Carlyle? and he said he would.’ Last Sunday I was lying on the sofa, headachey, when a cab drove up. Mr. Strachey? No. Alfred Tennyson alone! Actually, by a superhuman effort of volition he had put himself into a cab, nay, brought himself away from a dinner party, and was there to smoke and talk with me!—by myself—me!”

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS.

By ALFRED NEWTON.

Some facts as to the geographical distribution—whether of plants or animals—have, it is true, been long known, indeed they present themselves on the slightest inquiry. Every one is aware that elephants and tigers do not roam in our woods now-a-days, whatever may have been the case aforetime. Many persons have read that horses were unknown in the New World at the time of its discovery by Europeans, and were subsequently introduced by its Spanish conquerors. Some may even know that humming-birds are not to be found in the Old World, and that (as has been already said) the so-called “marsupial” animals are at the present time, with a few exceptions, confined to Australia, as well as that in that country nothing like vultures or woodpeckers are to be found.

The assemblage of animals which inhabit any portion of the earth’s surface, whether it be land or water, is called its “fauna,” in the same way that the plants of a country are called its “flora.” To be entitled to the former term it is unnecessary that the animals composing the assemblage should not be found anywhere else; it is enough that they occur there and impress upon the district, be it large or small, certain more or less well-marked peculiarities. Nor does it follow because certain kinds of animals are found to inhabit two districts that these two have the same fauna. We have to take the whole assemblage as a whole, and abide by the verdict which the majority of kinds affords us. Now by collecting such facts as those stated in the preceding paragraph, and such facts can be collected by the hundred or the thousand, we are able to get hold of a general idea of the geographical distribution of animals, and when the results of all the knowledge on this subject which we can acquire are brought together, it will appear that the earth may be partitioned into several great zoölogical regions—each separable in subregions, provinces, subprovinces and so on.

America is divided into two regions—the “Nearctic” and the “Neotropical,” which meet in Mexico at about the 22d parallel of north latitude:—

(1) The Nearctic Region (that is the Northern part of the New World) includes the Aleutian Islands, besides Greenland and the Bermudas with all of what is generally called North America.

(2) The Neotropical Region (that is the tropical part of the New World) comprises the West India Islands, the Galapagos, and the whole of South and Central America.

Passing to the Old World, it is separable, as may be seen, into four regions.

(3) The Palæarctic Region (or Northern part of the Old World) including that portion of Africa which lies to the northward of the Great Desert, the Atlantic Islands (Madeiras, Canaries, and Azores), the whole of Europe from Iceland to Greece, besides Asia Minor, Palestine, Persia, probably Afghanistan, the whole of Northern, Central and Eastern Asia, lying to the northward of the Himalaya Mountains and of China proper, as well as Japan.

(4) The Ethiopian Region consists of Africa, excepting Morocco and Algeria (which, as already stated, belong to the preceding region), as well as of Arabia and of course the adjacent islands from those off the Cape Verd to Madagascar and Socotra.

(5) The Indian Region includes possibly Beloochistan, all British India, Burmah, China proper (that is, without Chinese Tartary), Cochin China, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo, and the Philippine Islands.[589]

(6) The Australian Region is very trenchantly divided from the Indian at the Straits of Macassar, and, beginning with the islands of Celebes and Lombok, comprises all the groups between them and Papua or New Guinea, as well as Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and, generally, all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, except those already otherwise appropriated—as Japan, the Aleutian Islands and the Galapagos.

It may be added that though the preceding outlines of geographical distribution were first laid down with reference to the most vagrant class of animals in creation—namely birds—their truth has since been in the main confirmed by nearly all those zoölogists who have studied the subject in reference to particular classes in the knowledge of which they themselves stand preëminent.

Yet it may not be unreasonably expected of these six zoögeographical regions, that they are not all equally distinct, and it is quite possible that future researches may show that their boundaries require some rectification.

The study of the geographical distribution of animals furnishes us with facts of much importance in the history of the earth. For example: It has been stated, and that on the very best authority, that the marine faunas of the two coasts of the Isthmus of Panama, which joins the two continents of North and South America, have but thirty per cent. of species in common. Now what does this show? No doubt the very considerable antiquity of the barrier which exists between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans—for if, in anything like recent times, there had been a break in this barrier, within the tropics where the sea is warm, then assuredly we should have had a very much larger interchange of the species which inhabit its two sides, or perhaps we should even find precisely the same fishes, the same shells, the same crabs and the same corals in the harbor of Colon on the one side and that of Panama on the other. As it is we have corals on the Atlantic coast of the isthmus and on the Pacific none whatever, while, as before said, of the rest of the marine fauna (the fishes especially) not more than thirty per cent. are common to both. It is moreover particularly to be noted that there seems to be no other reason than the one here assigned for this difference. Very many sorts of fishes and of shells which occur on one side so much resemble those found on the other that the distinction between them is only such as can be recognized by expert zoölogists, yet this distinction is constantly to be observed—they form what are called “Representative Species,” that is, one kind of fish or shell on one side is exactly represented by another kind of fish or shell on the other.

But this difference between the marine faunas of the two coasts of the Isthmus of Panama not only proves its long duration as a barrier of dry land, but some other deductions follow naturally enough. It is also tolerably clear that the Gulf Stream must have been running pretty much the same course that it runs now so long as the barrier presented by the Isthmus of Panama has existed. If it were not for that barrier the current would have continued its westerly flow onward to the Pacific Ocean. Now we have seen that the difference between the marine faunas of the two sides of the isthmus proves its long duration. Hence we may fairly conclude that for so long has the Gulf stream been flowing and helping to soften what would otherwise have been the rigorous climate of Ireland and Scotland, thereby materially affecting their fauna.

Everyone knows the old legend of St. Patrick, and how he is said to have banished all noxious reptiles from his favorite island. As a matter of fact only one kind of reptile proper is found in Ireland. This is the viviparous lizard, a harmless little animal which also occurs in Great Britain and generally throughout the continent of Europe. But in England we have besides a second kind of lizard, commonly known as the sand-lizard, and this also is spread over the Continent, where they have in addition, even in Northern France, a third kind, the green lizard, which does not inhabit any part of Great Britain or much less of Ireland. It is therefore a not very unlikely deduction from these facts that the viviparous lizard had made its appearance in this part of the world at an epoch when Ireland was joined to England by dry land, and England was in like manner connected with France, and that that epoch was earlier than the time when the sand-lizard appeared, for if the latter had then occurred it would in all likelihood have spread to Ireland. But if we suppose, and geologists tell us we may do so, St. George’s Channel to have been formed before the English Channel was, then it is plain that a reptile extending its range from the middle of Europe would have been able to get into England, but not into Ireland; and this supposition would account for the limited distribution of the sand-lizard. While again a third reptile, like the green lizard, coming at a subsequent period, after the straits of Dover were formed, would find them before him and be unable to set his foot off the continent.

Thus in whatever way we regard them, the not unreasonable deductions afforded by the facts which a study of the geographical distribution of animals makes known to us are of very great importance. We may of course be wrong in some of our inferences, we very likely shall err, as some of our predecessors have done, but the facts remain whatever construction we put upon them, and, as they go on accumulating, we may be sure that errors by degrees will be swept away, and perhaps the genius of man by this means alone may explain one of the mysteries of creation.

C. L. S. C. READINGS FOR 1883-84.

HISTORY.

Readings in Roman, French, German, and American history in The Chautauquan.

History of Greece, by Timayenis, volume two, parts seventh, eighth, tenth, eleventh. (Students of the Class of 1887, not having read volume one of Timayenis’ History of Greece, will not be required to read volume two, but will take “Chapters from Greek History,” instead of volumes one and two of Timayenis.)

Stories in English History, by the great historians, edited by C. E. Bishop, Esq.

Chautauqua Text-books, No. 16, “Roman History:” No. 21, “American History.”

LITERATURE.

Preparatory Latin Course in English, by Dr. Wilkinson.

“English Literature,” Chautauqua Text-book, No. 22, by Prof. J. H. Gilmore.

Primer of American Literature, by Richardson.

SCIENCE.

How to Get Strong, and How to Stay So, by W. Blaikie.

Readings in Botany, by Dr. J. H. Wythe.

Chautauqua Text-book, No. 22, “Biology.”

Readings in Physical Science, in The Chautauquan.

RELIGION.

Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, by Rev. J. B. Walker.

Sunday Readings in The Chautauquan, selected by Dr. Vincent.

Chautauqua Text-books, No. 18, “Christian Evidences;” No. 39, “Sunday-school Normal Class Work.”

GENERAL.

Biographical Stories, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Price, 15c. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Readings in The Chautauquan about the Arts, Artists, and their Master-pieces; about Commercial Law and Political Economy.

[590]

C. L. S. C. WORK.

By J. H. VINCENT, D. D., Superintendent of Instruction, C. L. S. C.

Before the July Chautauquan reaches members of the C. L. S. C., the envelopes containing memoranda, etc., will have been mailed from the Plainfield office. Any members who do not receive them by that time should write to the office of the C. L. S. C.

Members of the Class of 1883 will notice on the second page of Memoranda 16, over the questions in regard to the White Seal Course, the words, “not for graduates.” This refers to graduates of the Class of 1882 only—not to those who expect to graduate with the Class of 1883. We make this explanation so there may be no misunderstanding, as the reading of the books there mentioned entitles all members of the Class of 1883 to the white seal for their fourth year, 1882-3.

Sunday, July 8, is a Memorial Day. Appointed reading: I Cor., xiii.

Let our students understand that there is no additional fee required for the pure white seal.

One of the lonely ones, cut off from the privileges of local circles, writes us: “I have met with many discouragements since my connection with the C. L. S. C., sickness and pressure of business leaving me barely time to accomplish the work, which I am sure is very poorly done—quite different from what I supposed at the beginning. I have studied alone, with only such help as the books of the course and a few old school books have afforded—with no one interested in the books to talk them over with, and help me fix the events in my memory. I have only one satisfaction: of doing my best under the circumstances.”

The Chautauqua Text-book on English Literature, by Prof. J. H. Gilmore, to be used in 1883-84, is No. 23, instead of No. 22.

July 13 is the C. L. S. C. Commencement Day at Monterey, California. Salutations from thirty-five thousand members to the glorious band on the Pacific Coast!

A cultured lady of Connecticut writes: “I don’t know as excuses are required in the People’s College; however, I think this will be in order: Owing to sickness lasting four months of last year, I have not been able to complete the reading and memoranda until now. I am happy to say that I’ve accomplished this without neglecting the reading of the present year, so I expect to be ready on time with my next memoranda. I am delighted with the course of study, and should feel lost without it now.”

“Where could I purchase a telescope to assist me in the study of astronomy?” Answer: James W. Queen & Co., 924 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, are practical and scientific opticians. They manufacture telescopes. The mention of Bishop Henry W. Warren’s name and that of the C. L. S. C. will insure attention and low prices.

C. L. S. C. SONGS.

HYMN OF GREETING.

Copyright by J. H. Vincent.

BREAK THOU THE BREAD OF LIFE.

Copyright, 1877, by J. H. Vincent.

A member of the Circle suggests that local circles should occasionally hold an evening of song, making use of the “Chautauqua Songs” which have been sent to all members. By doing this in advance of the several Assembly meetings the coming season, they would be prepared to enjoy a general service of song on the C. L. S. C. days.

A lady holding a lucrative position in a Boston printing room writes: “All that the C. L. S. C. has done for me it is impossible to tell. It has helped me to become better acquainted with my Maker and his wonderful works; the history of nations and individuals; created a greater love for solid, instructive reading; better fitted me for teaching in the Sunday-school, and opened avenues for thought,[591] study, and usefulness which, I trust, will make life more successful and useful.”

“Will you please advise me through the columns of The Chautauquan what book to procure to learn at home how to speak and write the English language grammatically?” An excellent practical teacher gives the following answer to the above question: “There is no book warranted to turn out good writers and speakers of the English Language. If the person desiring the information is a foreigner—a Frenchman or a German—we could better answer the question. If he is English, with what knowledge does he begin? If with little knowledge, he should use some elementary book, such as Swinton’s ‘Language Lessons,’ or better, Whitney’s ‘How to Speak and Write Correctly.’ If somewhat advanced, some one standard text-book of the English language, some grammar like Brown’s, would be helpful. But better would be the advice to read some masters of English. Read carefully and critically, and try to reproduce such essays as Irving’s, Hawthorne’s, and Longfellow’s. Johnson said, ‘Give days and nights to the study of Addison if you would attain a style familiar but not coarse, elegant but not ostentatious.’ Bunyan is said to have become master of English from the study of the Bible.”

MEMORIAL DAYS AT CANTON, PA.

On Friday evening, April 28, occurred the memorial exercises of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, in honor of Shakspere, Bryant, Milton, Addison and Longfellow. We have about twenty-five members in our circle, and a limited number of invitations to persons not members were issued, the greater part of whom attended.

The ladies labored hard all day in arranging the rooms, and, as if by magic, changed the appearance from a prayer-meeting room to one of the cosiest and most inviting places you have ever seen. The floors were handsomely carpeted, the walls hung with paintings, and the chairs and round tables grouped about the room in such manner as to give an air of informality that was truly delightful.

The program, as might be expected, was a choice one. Careful preparation, a familiarity with the subject, deep interest in the work, can be truthfully said of the efforts of each, and to write a detailed criticism would be supererogation. It is necessary to state, however, that in responding to the roll-call each member gave a quotation from one of the poets. The entire program was as follows:

PROGRAM.

Then followed exercises in which the guests were invited to join, and for which no special course of study was required. We refer to the refreshments. After all had been served, several toasts were announced and responded to in an able and happy manner.

Rev. S. P. Gates then spoke on the harmony of science and religion, asserting that there is no gulf that separates religion and science, nor any conflict where they stand together.

The chairman then announced that the balance of the evening would be given to social enjoyment, soon after which the members and guests dispersed.

C. L. S. C. REUNION AT CINCINNATI.

One of the most delightful of evenings was spent by about two hundred of the C. L. S. C.’s of Cincinnati and vicinity, on Tuesday evening, May 8. The occasion bringing so many of the members together in gala attire was their fourth annual reunion. On the chancel railing were large and beautiful bouquets of fragrant flowers, and the motto, “Never be Discouraged,” hung in graceful curves across the front of the room.

But the event of the evening was the unexpected visit from Dr. Vincent, who came to see the members of the circle, while passing through the city from the South en route to New York.

When Dr. Vincent appeared on the platform a vigorous Chautauqua salute and expressions of admiration and surprise showed the high esteem and regard in which the Cincinnati circles hold Chautauqua’s chief.

He congratulated the circle upon its good work in the past, and encouraged those present to redouble their efforts for the future. He said he had been traveling for some time, had just left Louisville in the afternoon, and had arrived in Cincinnati only a short time before, and added: “I am really too weary to talk, for I have delivered ten addresses in six days, and am worn out, but the sight of this prosperous association revives me sufficiently to at least leave a suggestion for your reflection after I am gone. One thing I wish to impress upon your minds is the importance of giving expression to your thoughts, either by talking or writing.”

“Americans are great talkers—always making speeches. But is it to any purpose or improvement? Is it not full of verbiage, and too often frivolous? Usually when reunions of ladies take place, does not their conversation drift to commonplace subjects, and do they say anything beneficial or worth remembering or generally proceed much further than the weather and the fashions. But the C. L. S. C.’s propose remedying this, and are succeeding admirably, and when they can not suggest an ennobling topic they keep silent.”

He then told them of some of the treasures Chautauqua had in store for its visitors of ’83, and closed his address wishing the Cincinnati circles every prosperity, and invoking a blessing full of earnestness and affection.

The following is the program of the evening:

PROGRAM.

It was uniformly well rendered, each of the participants being a representative of some one of the local circles. While refreshments were being served the ’82’s held one of[592] their stated meetings, and decided to give a reception to the members of ’83 of Cincinnati and vicinity in September, during the time of the Cincinnati exposition, when the members from a distance will have a favorable time to come and meet other members of the Alumni Association. The ’82’s were distinguished by their badges, and though their meeting was not large in numbers, it was very enthusiastic, ten of those present having passed through the bronze gateway and under the arches on Commencement Day, last August; and many pleasant memories were revived of their class work and Chautauqua.

At the close of their meeting they disbanded and mingled with their friends in the other classes, and all partook of the refreshments which were dispensed most bountifully.

TWO GERMAN CIRCLES.

In connection with our Chautauqua Circle here, Corning, N. Y., we have two German classes in a flourishing condition; both classes were organized and are now being instructed by Miss S. K. Payne, one of the Chautauqua (1882) graduates. The classes in reality form one of Prof. Worman’s German Circles, and are in a measure under his direction, but Miss Payne is our leader, and she fills that position with gratifying success. She leads us not only in our efforts to acquire the language, but she devises so many little plans calculated to stimulate the endeavors of her scholars and invest the meetings with more than usual interest. We meet once a week at her home for recitation and German conversation, and much of the dry, hard rind of the German grammar is smoothed away by the pleasant nature of our meetings. We intersperse our work occasionally with delightful little entertainments at which nothing but German speech or German songs are tolerated. Quite recently we had a German picnic or tea-party, and still more recently we celebrated the Emperor William’s birthday, not because we were particularly fond of the Emperor William, but because he furnished such a purely German topic. We were favored with a German speech from our teacher, we had German recitations and essays, German songs and German toasts, and when we adjourned to the dining-room, we were invited to a repast not so strictly German, but one which the German king himself might have relished. The entertainment which these little tea-parties afford is as instructive as it is amusing, and if other German circles have not already inaugurated similar affairs, we advise them to take steps in this direction at once. Such occasions promote new ideas, teach new words, and give one confidence to express his or her thoughts in German. We subjoin the program of our last entertainment:

DAS PROGRAMM.

LOCAL CIRCLES.

Maine (Lewiston).—The Scott C. L. S. C. was organized last October, under the leadership of Rev. W. S. McIntire, for whom we named our circle. We number twelve. We have taken the course as prescribed in The Chautauquan. We had the benefit of a course of lectures on astronomy this winter, made most interesting by the beautiful views shown us, especially some of the sun spots, which were remarkably fine. One evening our circle visited the observatory at Bates College. There, by the use of the telescope we explored the heavens. We saw the craters on the moon, the belts of Jupiter and his beautiful satellites, and faint stars or nebulæ changed into double or multiple stars of great size and brilliancy. We observed Shakspere’s Day in the usual manner. During the study of “Evangeline” we are beginning our meetings with quotations from Longfellow. The C. L S. C. idea having once taken possession of a person, keeps him spellbound until he finishes the course, and then will not let him go, but draws him into more and more interesting studies, until he would fain spend his life under its beneficent influence.

Massachusetts (Plymouth).—A local circle, called the Pilgrim Rock Circle, was organized here last October, with a membership of ten; we now number thirty. Our meetings, which are fortnightly, are instructive and interesting. We have had one lecture, and an entertainment on the night of Shakspere’s day.

Massachusetts (Boston).—A Chautauqua Circle has been formed by some of the young men of the Warren street M. E. Church. There are thirteen members at present. We have only taken up a part of the studies this winter, but intend to unite with the Central Circle at Chautauqua next fall, and take all the studies of the C. L. S. C. course. We have named our circle the “Highland Inner Circle of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle,” and mean to take advantage of this excellent opportunity for improving our minds.

Massachusetts (Rockland).—We organized a Local Circle last October; have a president, secretary, and committee of three to arrange programs for our meetings which are held twice a month at the homes of members. We have Chautauqua games, readings from The Chautauquan, and usually recite fifty of the questions. We have also had many abstracts on characters in Greek history, and on the lines and houses of English history. We have kept memorial days, had sketches of their characters, and carefully prepared readings from Longfellow and Shakspere on their memorial days.

Massachusetts (Cambridgeport).—Our circle was organized last October, with thirteen members, four gentlemen and nine ladies. We meet on the fourth Wednesday of the month, at the houses of the various members. All have been greatly interested and instructed with the studies of the past year, and most of us have been particularly interested in astronomy. A short time since we spent an evening in practical work with the telescope; we had a good glass, the night was bright and clear, and we were able to get fine views of the Moon, Saturn, Neptune, the nebulæ in Orion, the Bee Hive, and several double stars. I suppose this to be the proper place to make suggestions as to improvements in our circle. One difficulty that we find is the fact that we have no means of knowing who in our community[593] are members of the C. L. S. C. unless they come forward and make themselves known. Our local circle has been looking this matter up, and we find quite a number of members not connected with any local circle, and so unknown to the other members in the city. If every member would connect himself with a local circle, or at least give his name to a circle, would it not serve to bind us together more closely?

Massachusetts (Newbury).—We have a local circle of forty members, twenty of whom do the whole or a part of the reading. Charles J. Rolfe, an earnest member of the class of 1884, did much to interest the community in the C. L. S. C. course. Our first meeting was held on the 7th of October; Mr. Rolfe was unanimously chosen president. Besides the regular studies we try to make the meetings entertaining by means of music, reading, spelling matches, etc.

Connecticut (Thompsonville).—The Thompsonville C. L. S. C. was organized in October last under the direction of Rev. F. S. Barnum, and started with fifteen members. The original members have continued zealous students, and nearly every meeting witnessed accessions until the number has reached more than forty, all of whom testify to the great value as well as interest to them of the winter’s work. A “public” was held at the close of the first two months’ studies, and also a second “public” at the end of studies for January. Essays and addresses made up delightful evenings for the audiences assembled. On the second occasion astronomy alone was the subject, and topics were assigned to ten members of the circle. The ladies read essays, and the gentlemen delivered brief lectures illustrated by diagrams, essays and addresses confined to six minutes. Instrumental and vocal music increased the pleasure of the exercises. Nine members of the local circle have joined the main circle, and others propose to do so. The next year a much larger number propose uniting in the work.

New York (Springville).—The circle in this place was organized in January, 1883, and consists of fifteen members. Our officers are a president and a secretary. We hold our meetings once in two weeks, occasionally oftener, at the homes of the members. We have no regular plan for conducting the meetings, but decide at each meeting the reading to be done before the next, and then we try to review as nearly as possible the work that has been done. Our president also prepares questions on the subjects we are studying, and a portion of each evening is very profitably spent with the questions. We have spent much more than the appointed time on astronomy, but have enjoyed the study so much that we did not wish to lay it aside. We have observed several of the memorial days. We realize more and more the value of the local circle, and find that we take much more interest in the reading than would be possible if each were reading alone.

New York (Naples).—A small circle of six ladies, in the above named place, commenced the course of study last October. We have held meetings every week; each one takes a subject and questions upon it, making us all teachers and all pupils. We have been through “Greek History,” “English History,” and “Astronomy” twice; also took an extra, “Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy,” which we are thoroughly memorizing. The father of one of our circle having made astronomy a life study, has kindly given us much valuable aid. We hope to have many more in our circle another year, feeling the profit and happiness we have obtained has been great.

New Jersey (Jersey City).—Through the efforts of Rev. A. P. Foster, pastor of the First Congregational Church, a circle was organized here last December. The meetings of the circle were held every alternate Tuesday, and were varied to harmonize with the prescribed course of study. Altogether the winter has been made profitable to all concerned, and we hope to make our future meetings still more so. We now number thirty and expect another year to increase materially.

Pennsylvania (New Alexandria).—About the last of November our local circle began its meetings. Although so far behind in our studies, by doing double work we were ready on the first of February to begin the regular course for the month. Our circle is composed of six members, and we were quite pleased to see that Dr. Vincent thinks that is the best number for a local circle. We meet once every two weeks, and our plan is for one of the members to ask the questions published in The Chautauquan, and others to ask questions they have previously prepared on the other branches of study. We read the “Sunday Readings” together. We are greatly interested in this great intellectual movement, and believe that while its present magnitude is very wonderful, the results in the future will be even more so.

District of Columbia (Washington).—Another local circle has been formed in this city, called the “Ideal Circle.” We have eight members in all, and meet once in two weeks, at the houses of the members. We did not commence the course until March, so we have been busily engaged in “reading up,” and have devoted all the time at our meetings to a review of the matter gone over. Our president conducts the review. We hope to begin the next year’s work with all good Chautauquans at the proper time, and so to have opportunity to engage in wider reading and greater research in the subjects furnished by the C. L. S. C. We are enjoying the course, and find it very profitable to know just what to read when we have but a few minutes to spend in reading, and so improve instead of waste the odd moments.

West Virginia (Charleston).—Last September the Charleston local circle was organized with a membership of nine, which soon increased to twenty-five, among whom we number two D.D.’s, the president of the school board, superintendent of city schools, professional men, etc., and a full quota of interesting ladies. Commencing late, we did not get under good headway for several weeks, when we followed the course as laid down in The Chautauquan. At first the program was filled by volunteers, but the necessity of more system was so apparent that we divided ourselves into four classes, each one in its turn providing the entertainment for the evening, thus giving to each class the program once in four weeks. The Chautauqua course has been a source of much pleasure and profit to its members here. Though belonging to the class known locally as literary people, the readings of our circle heretofore had been desultory and unprofitable. Now we have a systematic course of good reading, and feel obligated by a sense of pleasure and duty to do the work we have undertaken. At the future capital of West Virginia ours is the only literary organization. May the C. L. S. C. increase and multiply as the fishes of the Kanawha!

Alabama (Eufaula).—The Eufaula local circle was organized September 7, 1882, and now numbers twenty-seven members. Meetings are held on the first Monday night in each month at the homes of different members, and officers are elected quarterly. It is the first year’s reading in the C. L. S. C. course for all the members except one. Preparatory to our reading “Evangeline” in May, we had a “Longfellow” program at our last meeting, May 7. Of that meeting the Daily Times says: “The Eufaula local circle of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle is in a most[594] flourishing condition. The most interesting and successful meeting that has yet been had was held at Mayor Comer’s on Monday night. An excellent program was carried out and was a pleasant departure from the usual exercises. The members of the circle were quite enthusiastic yesterday; a good sign. A community takes a long step forward when it organizes such a club as this, and we are glad that the Eufaula branch of that greatest of all universities, ‘The Chautauqua University,’ is growing in strength and interest.”

Ohio (Ravenna).—Because we have been silent all the year is no sign that Ravenna does not possess a C. L. S. C. Long ago the grand “Chautauqua Idea” struck us, and our pleasant town already boasts a number of graduates of the class of ’82. Ravenna has four circles, the Methodist C. L. S. C. being organized late in November, 1882, with six members, this number rapidly increasing, and now we have a flourishing circle of eighteen regular members, with six locals. The Chautauquan is the valuable organ of our society, and the many choice gems of reading form a very important part of our program. Besides the regular work, we celebrate all memorial days, Milton’s Day having been observed with select readings, music and biographical sketch. Besides the social enjoyments of these occasions, we derive very much benefit intellectually, and always welcome a memorial day. One remarkably pleasant instance this season was the lecture given here by Rev. J. H. Vincent, upon “That Boy.” After the lecture, upon the very kind invitation of Judge Reed, a brilliant reception was given at his spacious residence, and all Chautauquans were heartily welcomed. To hear the encouraging words of Dr. Vincent and feel the friendly grasp of his hand, gave a new impetus to our work, and to be a Chautauquan had a more powerful significance. Long may the C. L. S. C. flourish.

Ohio (Springfield).—The following is a copy of the program for “Shakspere’s Day,” as followed by our circle:

SPRINGFIELD SEMINARY CIRCLE.

PROGRAM.

Ohio (Bethel).—There are ten in our circle, of whom seven are regular and three local members. Our meetings are held semi-monthly, at the homes of the members. The program consists in reviews, general questions, and half the questions in The Chautauquan. We are not only interested in the reading, but delighted with it. We find that it just meets our wants, and we are thankful that the means of culture are thus placed within our reach.

Indiana (Orland).—Our circle was organized in the fall of 1880. Some members have moved out, and others have been added, so the membership continues about the same—ten—all women, and none are behind in this year’s reading. We meet in the afternoon every week, and have a session of three hours. We make our meetings conversational, each member being expected to ask a question on each paragraph of the lesson under consideration. Number one asks a question, and any in the class who have anything bearing on the subject have liberty to speak of it. Then number two asks her question, providing it has not been asked before, and so on around the class. At the close of each month we have had a special day for review of the month’s work. We had the geological charts, and enjoyed them very much, but our time was limited, so we expect to take it up again during the summer vacation. We have all enjoyed the English history, while some of us know a little of Russian history; and we are sure Dr. Vincent would be very happy could he see the facility with which we forget the dates.

Indiana (Union City).—In October last we organized a circle of about twenty-five members. Probably more than thirty have read the course. Our meetings have generally been at the homes of the members and very pleasant times have we had. Rarely has the attendance fallen below fifteen, and often it has exceeded thirty. Besides the exercises usual to such occasions, we purchased three “Geological Charts” and also had the use for several evenings of an excellent telescope which, though small, enabled us to see distinctly the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, etc. It is agreed by all that the scheme is not only a grand success, but a godsend to those who are glad to read, yet need to have their reading directed. We hope, another year, not only to retain our present membership, but also to enlarge it greatly.

Illinois (Peoria).—The first Chautauqua circle in Peoria, Illinois, was organized by the Rev. C. O. McCulloch, September 20, 1882, and is known as the “Hale Chapel Circle.” It numbers at present eighteen regular and two local members. A growing enthusiasm has pervaded the class, a result largely due to the faithful, earnest spirit manifested by its instructor. In connection with the reading, some very excellent, carefully prepared essays have been presented by members of the class. We will close the year’s work, glad that we have had the privilege of taking so profitable a course of reading.

Illinois (Farmer City).—We organized a local circle last year with a membership of seven. We now number fourteen members, with a local circle in the country, a branch of this, with which we anticipate much pleasure in the exchange of visits. We appoint a class conductor for each evening. We are now quite fairly started in the work of the present year, and esteem it of much value to us as a means of culture and information.

Illinois (Monticello).—Our circle numbers ten. We have determined upon doing the work thoroughly, and have so far done a great deal of reference work, particularly in the Greek history. We meet Thursday evening of each week, and have regular class exercise, usually conducted by the president.

Illinois (Astoria).—Our local circle is small in numbers, there being only a dozen of us, but we are not lacking in enthusiasm. We organized late last fall and began two months behind time, but have almost made up the lost time. The oldest member of our circle is nearly an octogenarian. We have a variety of methods for conducting our meetings—nothing stereotyped. Recently one program was somewhat as follows: Each member responded at roll-call with a brief poem (selected) on the stars; seventy-five questions were asked on “Preparatory Greek Course,” and twenty-five on “Astronomy;” a paper was read on “Plato and his Philosophy,” and last came a “pronouncing contest;” fifty words having been selected by the leader, they were lettered and given to the members in turn to be pronounced. We have a “Chautauqua missionary,” in the shape of Pansy’s “Hall in the Grove,” which we are sending into different homes to awaken enthusiasm, and the result is likely to be a doubling of our numbers next year.

Wisconsin (Whitewater).—We organized our club in October, 1882, shortly after a visit from Rev. A. H. Gillet. We now number twenty-one members, and hold our meetings once in two weeks. A program committee assigns parts to[595] different members, and each topic for study is presented either by means of questions or a paper. We are enjoying the work very much, and feel that we are greatly benefited by it.

Wisconsin (Mauston).—The Delphian class of the C. L. S. C. was organized last January with a membership of thirteen, but the number has since increased to twenty. Shakspere’s day was pleasantly observed by the class. The program consisted of readings, recitations, vocal and instrumental music. The guests, numbering about forty, seemed well pleased with our efforts.

Wisconsin (Milwaukee).—Our circle is the fourth formed in Milwaukee, hence, named “Delta Circle.” We have ten regular and several local members. We meet once a week at the house of one of the members, so that ours is a “parlor” circle. We generally have a leader appointed two weeks ahead, who takes charge of the literary exercises of the evening, topics for special study being generally given out by the leader a week ahead. Questions and informal discussion form a large part of our exercises, and we find our circle to be an inspiration to higher work, and a great mutual help.

The following notice of the celebration of Shakspere’s birthday by this circle is taken from a Milwaukee paper: “The recent gathering at 146 Fifth Street, in response to the invitations sent out by the Delta Circle, C. L. S. C., was a very unique and pleasing affair. The company met to celebrate the 319th anniversary of the birth of William Shakspere. The parlors were appropriately and tastefully decorated with evergreen flowers and smilax. Upon a banner over the large bust of Shakspere was seen “1564-1883.” Each of the fifty persons present was provided with a program printed on satin, the Chautauquan badge, a green leaf and the symbols representative of the society’s name, being hand-painted. The literary exercises consisted of roll-call, to which the members responded with quotations from Shakspere, readings, recitations, and a discussion upon the question, ‘Did Bacon write Shakspere?’ The debaters were very persuasive. The lady on the affirmative, at the close of her argument, veiled Shakspere, and at the close of the negative, the veil, touched by an unseen hand, fell, and Shakspere stood vindicated. The music was very fine, being Shaksperean in character. After the literary program, the company partaking of refreshments, was made merry by the passing of a handsomely decorated birthday cake, containing a small coin, which the happy finder was to invest in Shaksperean literature. The guests departed, wishing many happy returns of the day of immortal Shakspere.”

Michigan (Lisbon).—This is our first year. We commenced with seven members. Our books did not reach us until late, but by increased labor we caught up by the first of January. We now hope to finish the year’s work according to the plan marked out in The Chautauquan. We have one member who lives six miles away, and who rarely fails to meet us at the monthly meetings. Two worthy M.D.’s, who have little time to spare, have taken up the course, and are very enthusiastic. The one the class most “delighteth to honor” is a lady who has nearly rounded her sixty years. She is our questioner. We trust that our Heavenly Father may spare her these many years, that she may be able to finish the course, and to enjoy the fruits of her labor. Another of our members is a mother with poor health. She receives the Chautauqua Idea as a godsend to help her keep pace with the five active, restless minds that are beginning to pour their questions in upon her. It has been a year of profit to each one, and one that we have all enjoyed.

Iowa (Council Bluffs).—The circle is well attended, and has many animated seekers after true culture, and more spirit is manifested in its meetings now than when we first started. We meet every Monday evening, at the pastor’s home. One of our professors here gave a brilliant lecture recently on the subject of “Astronomy,” and Hon. W. J. Armstrong, another eloquent orator, was secured to speak on “London Society.”

Iowa (Clinton).—The Clinton branch of the C. L. S. C. was organized October 16, 1882, with a membership of twenty-five, three being graduates of 1882. Our circle meets every alternate Monday evening, at the homes of members. Our president, Rev. S. H. Weller, D.D., of the Presbyterian Church, conducts the meetings in a very interesting manner. Papers on the lesson have been prepared and read by different members, occupying the time for about half an hour, and followed by a general talk on the same subject. One evening while studying geology all were requested to bring in at the next meeting geological specimens, and tell what they could about them. Several evenings each brought two or three questions on the lesson written on slips of paper, which, after being shook up in a hat, were drawn and answered by the members. The plan we enjoy most is to pass round the circle, each member in turn stating a fact concerning the lesson, until all the principal points are brought out, this being followed by a “round-table talk.” During the first week in April, while we were still studying astronomy, an excursion party, in charge of Dr. Weller, went to Chicago for the purpose of studying the stars by the aid of the large telescope at the observatory there.

Iowa (Panora).—We organized a circle last October with a membership of eleven. We meet every Monday evening, review the lesson as outlined, or in other words talk over the work, every member expressing his views, asking questions, etc. At our last meeting Mrs. Haden treated the circle to lemonade made from lemons grown in her home by the fireside. The discussion that evening was “Lemon Culture in Iowa.”

Iowa (Manchester).—In this modest county seat of less than three thousand people, there is the largest C. L. S. Circle in Iowa. There were seven graduates last summer from here. Some of these are prosecuting the White Seal Course. All of them have been active in one of the three local circles which together number in all some forty-eight, besides a history class which is composed of young people, and is an outgrowth of the C. L. S. C., and the Young People’s Lyceum of the M. E. Church, which may be said to have received its inspiration from the same. We meet in three different classes and all come together on “Memorial Days.” We have tried various plans, but we find a good leader who has the tact to draw the different members out in a conversational style is the most satisfactory and beneficial, and as we have two or three in our class who are happily possessed of this tact, we utilize it to the fullest extent, always to our profit and pleasure.

Missouri (Kansas City).—We have just celebrated Shakspere’s birthday. Kind friends of the circle gave us the benefit of their excellent musical talent, “and all went merry as a marriage bell.” We can not measure the benefit we already have derived from our connection with the “People’s College.” Next year we think our membership will be doubled, making it over one hundred. The possibilities for good that lie within the compass of the C. L. S. C. seem infinite.

Utah (Salt Lake City).—Our circle was organized February 3, the present year. Rather late to take up the course with the class of 1886, but we are working hard and hope that by[596] continuing our studies through the summer months we may be ready to commence with the class next October. We have thirteen regular members. Our meetings are held weekly in the parlor of the M. E. church. They are quite informal. Each member is appointed a committee of one to bring to the circle as much of interest as possible in the way of notes, references, bright thoughts, criticisms, etc., in connection with our studies.

California (San Jose).—Our little city contains about seventy-five Chautauquans. They are divided up into several neighborhood circles, which meet either weekly or semi-monthly. All are in a thrifty condition, and in some there is much enthusiasm. One is called “the University Circle,” not because it aspires to take a full university course, but because it is so fortunate as to have for its meeting place the parlors of the University of the Pacific, an admirable college under the vigorous care of President Stratton, who is also president of our Pacific Coast C. L. S. C. This circle has about twenty members, who have met regularly, read all the required reading, and had the great advantage of being often instructed by various members of the university faculty. Two or three of the members of this circle will be among our graduates at Monterey. All the San Jose circles combine for a monthly meeting, and have enjoyed a series of delightful lectures and papers which ripe scholars might listen to with profit and pleasure. We are all now on the qui vive for Monterey, and expect to have the most enthusiastic meeting that Pacific Grove has yet seen.

C. L. S. C. ROUND-TABLE.[C]

LECTURE BY BISHOP WARREN ON ASTRONOMY.

What pleasures you have in astronomy, what a constant delight! You are reading the poems of the old Greeks written in the skies. They had thoughts about manhood so broad, so heroic, so full of glorious sympathies, that there were no books on earth fit to record them in, no marbles enduring enough to celebrate the remarkable and interesting deeds. So they took the page of the clear heavens, and put one hero there, and some suffering one near by, and the hero marching on to the deliverance of the suffering. The poetry, the pathos, the great deeds, the special sacrifices, all that they could think of, was written in the skies, and they read it nightly and taught it to their children in the open air. They read it as they sailed on the round sea. They kept in their minds the glory and heroism of the race, as it was there portrayed before them.

But the thoughts of the Greeks were mean and poor and small, compared with the thoughts that come to the astronomer of to-day. Then the stars were only little points in the heavens, and now they are greater worlds than we can think. We use them as the machinery of the gymnasium upon which to stretch our minds and invigorate our thought, not only in regard to material distance and greatness and glory, and years without count, but after a little they will become significant of the infinite power and godhead of our father who made all these things. Paul puts it just right, that these things that are seen tell of the eternal power and Godhead, so that people that see these things, and do not believe in him, are even without excuse. Then comes the teachings of the Elder Brother and the infinite Savior teaching something more than his power and Godhead, even of his Fatherhood and loving care for his children.

Do you know the pleasure of reading these heavens, of all the bright eyes signify, perchance, to you, in their nightly gaze upon you? Whenever I look into the heavens above there are friendly faces, there are bright eyes, there are, I may almost say, individuals that I well know, that I can not only call their names, but tell the very substances of which they are made, and rejoice that they look down upon me with a friendly eye. Under the oak at Hebron I hear God’s voice saying to me, as it did to Abraham, “Lift up thine eyes now unto the heavens.” When God wants to make a man great enough to found a nation, to have a special influence on the earth, he takes him out under the open heavens. By the infinite stars Abraham got his faith in an infinite God enlarged enough to trust him in all things.

I think any one who has not known the heavens might complain like Carlyle in his old age, “Why didn’t somebody teach me when I was young the names of the stars and the groupings of the constellations, which I do not half know now, and thereby have lost pleasure for a lifetime?” You can easily teach these things to those about you, to younger brothers and sisters, to children committed to your care as teachers. They will receive such teaching with delight. First teach them the North Star and the Pointers as always directing the gaze toward it. Tell them some stories about the Greek mythology of Theseus. Then tell them a little about finding some of the constellations. Teach them to know where to look for them at various seasons of the year. Then come to the planets. The planet that happens to be plainest in your sky at present is Venus. Tell them how far east it will come among the stars. You can get, in any ordinary almanac, her greatest elongation, the date, the time, and the star to which it goes. Tell one of these children that this star in the sky will journey so far toward the east, and then begin to go back among the stars toward the west. What a thing it will be for you to have a reputation for having the gift of prophecy, and what a thing it will be for you and your reputation when it comes true. Then tell them it will go west and come so close to the sun that by and by you can scarcely see it for the glory and brightness of the setting sun. Meanwhile, perhaps, Mercury will come in sight, and on some favorable night, on rare occasions, you can tell them, “There, you see that star; perhaps you will never see it again in your lives.” Thus you will give them acquaintance with a few stars and get them in the habit of looking up, a blessed thing for individuals in this world to do. They will interest father and mother about it, and that will interest all the rest of them, and it will be an exceeding great delight. Tell them of the few stars in the east just before sunrise, of Jupiter in the east at present. Tell them of the great changes that are going forward in that planet at present. You saw an account of that in the newspapers. But tell them that Jupiter has been so hot and covered with clouds so long that probably we have never seen its surface at all until a few months since, and now that a great floating island of scoria has come up to the surface, and it has been seen there now for nearly two years, and when it came near the sun men were anxious to know if the spot would be seen when it came up on the other side of the sun. They looked for it eagerly, and when they discovered that spot again, it had floated a long way in longitude.

These stars seem to be almost alive, and the thought that great activities are going on in them will exceedingly interest those with whom you have to do.

Then, how easily you can teach your circles the idea of distance. Just draw them in your school rooms where you “schoolma’ams”—the most honorable name in the world except that of mother—are permitted to teach. Draw them, and by this means you will be able to teach these little ones a few fundamental facts, and enlarge yourselves as you strive to grasp these distances. Bring the idea to them how long it[597] would take a locomotive to go from the earth to the sun, three hundred and twenty years, running all the time; how long it would take to go elsewhere. Just stretch these little ones, for minds never give way, however much they may stretch or enlarge, stretch them up to understand these things that God has put before us.

I will represent the size of the sun by this table, and then represent Mercury and Venus with the head of a pin; represent the earth by a small-sized pea, very small, the smallest that grows at the end of the pod; represent Mars with another, and Jupiter with an orange. In an astronomy which I first taught, and the first one I ever studied, too, and it was studied and taught at the same time, there used to be an illustration that I have often used with great profit. Go out on your croquet ground, put down a two-bushel basket, for instance, to represent the sun, then draw at suitable distances the orbits of the different bodies. If you have some little children about the school house, put the liveliest little fellow you have to represent Mercury; then the liveliest girl to represent Venus; you know who will represent the earth; put some little fiery fighter to represent Mars, and explain it; then you can get some least sized brothers to represent the asteroids; some big old grandfather that will go slowly to represent Jupiter, etc. Try to start them. Let Mercury go his round swiftly as possible; let Venus go with queenly dignity, and the earth more slowly. You will get into confusion at first, and you will have a good laugh, but you will give to those young minds some illustration of how the earth revolves around the sun.

Don’t try to teach too much. Begin slowly with a single idea. You know how these lectures were represented with an apple swinging around the sun, sometimes with an elastic string to represent how near the moon came down to it. There are a thousand ways of making this interesting, plain and profitable. As you begin to study these, you find your own mind develops and unfolds in this direction.

I just looked into a book of poetry before coming up here, and almost to my surprise on a single page I found more than a dozen allusions to the stars. Astronomy is making itself felt in literature, is coming to be one of the largest means of expression. We are always lacking means of expressing our thoughts; for our words you philologists know have been mostly taken from material things, and then raised up one degree to represent mental ideas. For instance, we say “hard” of a table, then complain that it is a “hard” thing to bear, bringing it up into the region of mind; and we give words one more uplift for spiritual significance. So that our language is all the time one, two or three degrees below the full significance of that which is in our spiritual perception. Now, astronomy with its vastness, with its might and glory, is coming more and more into literature, so that you want an idea of it, and want to know what is to be understood by the words used. And especially when you come to that highest thought, when the Infinitely Wise condescends to speak in the language of men, and men’s words tremble and break down and can not bear his great thought, then you want to say, “High as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his thoughts and ways above ours.”

How much shall we grasp of his thoughts? As much as we grasp of his symbols. He has filled the Bible all full of his symbols, with the Divine Word full of the things of heaven, that we may know of the greatness and glory and power expressed in some of his great thoughts for the children of men. And we want to rise, grasping them, more and more of them, until “a primrose by the river’s brim, a yellow primrose, is to” us, and something more, and the meanest flower that blows brings thoughts that lie too deep for tears. What shall the heavens mean when we are used to utter God’s thought?

By reason of this I want you to spread the knowledge of the heavens above you just as freely as you possibly can. In Pennsylvania, in a quiet inland town that was supposed to be almost dead, some one with a little enthusiasm proposed to form a star club. It was a club for the study of the stars, and no man was to be admitted thereto except on certain conditions. He could be put on the course of study, he could have his preparatory course, he could gradually come along up, but the excellence of the real membership could not be obtained until he passed this test, until he could go out under the open heavens and call a hundred stars by name. How many here are eligible? A little pains would make it, a little pains along in the early evenings of a month, and then along in the later evenings of a month or two; a few minutes only would give you the ability of calling a hundred stars by name. It makes you feel a little like God, for “He calls all the stars by their names,” in the greatness of his power. And it is good for me to know some of the names that have trembled into the air from divine power and out of divine wisdom; it is good to call over the works of God.

Now, with a little enthusiasm here and there and elsewhere, you can get individuals to know the names of the stars very easily. I see here before me what I do not hesitate to advertise, simply because I have not been requested to do it, the outgrowth of one of our ideas in the “Recreations in Astronomy.” You will remember that there are some dark plates with bright spots, with directions to cut them out, stick them in a box, and put them before a candle. It is a little crude, but that thought has been taken up by Prof. Bailey, and a lantern constructed that is the most perfect invention in this department ever made. [Shows the lantern.]

This round disk is a representation of the northern heavens. It is an exact representation of all the stars in the northern sky. It gives their names, makes them revolve around the heavens, sets them to any hour or minute of the night of any month, in the exact position that they are at that very minute or month in the sky. Here on these other sides are the other portions of the heavens, north and south. It is beyond question the greatest invention in this line that has ever been made. It has the approval of such astronomers as Proctor, Asaph Hall, the men of distinction in the United States, and of such names as carry weight and authority anywhere. This is a Chautauqua invention. (Applause.) It has done more for the study of the heavens and the understanding of uranography than any other invention that has been made.[D]

PACIFIC COAST C. L. S. C. ASSEMBLY.

Members on the Pacific Coast who expect to attend the Monterey Assembly should at once notify J. O. Johnson, Pacific Grove, of the time of their coming and the length of their intended stay, also the kind of accommodations wished by them, whether tents or cottages.

The additional books which have been spoken of in The Chautauquan as reading for the class of ’83, “The Hall in the Grove, etc.,” are not required reading for the Pacific Coast students.

The Monterey Assembly opens July 5, and not June 27, as stated in the circular of last fall.

[598]

RAMBLES IN DAKOTA AND MONTANA.

By W. A. DUNCAN.

But few people in the East have a correct idea of the Red River Valley. For hundreds of miles the land is as level as a floor; for thirty miles on either side of the river there is not even the roll of the prairie, and scarcely a tree or shrub in sight. The railroads shoot from village to village as straight as the flight of an arrow. You would see neither grade nor cut during forty-eight hours of travel.

The choice lands of the valley seem to be on the west side of the river, north from Grafton to the Dominion, and west to the Pembina Mountains, the land growing richer as you approach the mountains. There is but little government land to be obtained near the railroad. Although it has been in the market less than a year, nearly every section is taken, and prices range, according to the locality, from $200 to $4,500 for 160 acres of entirely unimproved land. In some counties many sections are apparently in the hands of speculators and railroad companies, who do nothing toward improving either roads or farms. The surpassing fertility of the soil has given Dakota its reputation. Its richness has never been exaggerated; it is as productive as the valley of the Nile, and it owes its fertility to the same cause. The annual overflow of the Red River, for centuries, has left a deposit that is unrivaled in wheat-producing qualities.

In discussing the future prosperity of the Red River Valley all admit that the control of these floods, by some system of levees, and drainage, is a vital question. The excess of water not only delays seeding but sometimes the harvesting, and it must seriously affect the healthfulness of that section. Water can not stand till it becomes stagnant without producing malaria. Nearly every one will tell you how healthy the people are; yet a prominent physician admitted that there was a great deal of fever, and that he feared there would be more as the country became more populous.

These low lands moreover send out during the hot summer days great swarms of immense mosquitos.

There is no gravel with which to make roads, hence in the spring they are something wonderful to behold; at certain seasons they are impassable. “I have just driven five miles,” said a gentleman, “and every foot of the way the wagon wheels sank to the hubs. There have been no drays in the streets of this city for three weeks. All carting has been done with hand-carts.”

And yet there is no doubt that this is a country with grand possibilities, able to support an immense population, rich in its soil, and worth all it is costing to make it habitable. Pioneer life is not one-half as hard here as it was in the days when New York State was reclaimed from a wilderness; but let no one come here thinking there is nothing to be done but to select a quarter section of land, and in a few months become rich. There is wealth here for those who seek it, but they must seek it with all their hearts.

The most prosperous section of the country, as it appears to a stranger, is on the line of the North Pacific road between Fargo and Bismarck. The foot hills begin at the James River and the grade ascends steadily until a point is reached at least five hundred feet above the valley. From Huron, in the south, to the Turtle Mountains, in the north, and west to the Missouri River, are what may be called the high-lands of Dakota, embracing as fine a rolling prairie land as can be found in the West. There are, however, poor sections; the soil is not so rich and deep as lower down in the valley; yet here 14,000 bushels of oats are said to have been raised from 180 acres, and 400 bushels of potatoes per acre. In the north, at Fort Totten, on Devil’s Lake, small fruits are grown in abundance, all kinds of vegetables and an inferior kind of corn. Yet in Russia apples and cherries are raised in abundance, three hundred miles farther north than Winnipeg. Toward the south, between Huron and the North Pacific Railroad, it is much warmer, and a larger variety of crops can be raised. This whole section has good air, is not flooded every spring, has a fair amount of rain, and produces well under proper cultivation. As a rule the water is poor, alkaline and brackish. At Steele, a bright and thriving county seat, on the Northern Pacific, half-way between Jamestown and Bismarck, soft water has been found.

There are some things about the Devil’s Lake country that seem very odd. As far as the eye can reach there is scarcely a tree or shrub. You may ride across the prairie for a hundred miles and not cross a stream, large or small; the surface is a rolling prairie, and in almost every hollow there is a pond of water; some of these ponds are half a mile across and remain throughout the year; probably the ground is frozen so deep that it can not absorb the water from the melting snow. The same cause prevents the forming of streams as the frozen hollows hold the water. A proper system of drainage, connecting all the ponds, would fill the country with brooks.

It is almost the country of the “midnight sun.” One can see to read without lamp-light till nearly ten o’clock, and again as early as three in the morning. It is said that in summer the evening and morning twilight can be seen at the same time.

The “shacks,” or houses, are strange dwellings for human beings to live in; being merely a board shanty, one story high, often only ten by twelve, with perhaps one small window and a door, the whole cabin covered with black tar-paper, and batten strips nailed over the cracks. Sometimes the home is nothing but a hole dug into the side of a hill, with a door and no window. Some of the houses, and many of the barns, are made of sod cut and laid one upon another, just as we lay brick; occasionally the walls are thicker at the base than at the top, and curve in at the center with graceful lines; in fact some of the sod houses are very pretty, and must be quite warm. We fancied them covered with green grass in summer, and sprinkled with violets and blue forget-me-nots.

Fort Totten and the Indian Reservation are here, and the government is experimenting with an industrial school, trying to Christianize and educate the Indians. It is a success. In answer to questions Major Crampton said, “You can educate and civilize them as well as you can the whites, but you must have patience, and begin with the children. We have a school for girls, and the Sisters of Charity teach them how to sew, cook, and do housework, and we teach the boys how to farm and do general work; then when they want to marry we give them their own home and land in severalty, and you have no idea how happy and prosperous they are. You couldn’t get a civilized girl to go back to the old life, and even the heathen want civilized wives. I make and unmake chiefs. The best men are appointed to all the offices. Old men with two wives are permitted to live with them, but young men are put in prison if they attempt polygamy. We forbid immoral dances.”

Devil’s Lake is sixty miles long and six miles wide; there is no outlet or inlet, and the water is brackish; it abounds with fish. The name of the lake seems to be a misnomer, as there are no evidences of heat in any part of the country, not even enough for comfort. In May it was covered with ice four feet thick. A little warmth would have done no harm. The owners of property in that section are anxious to make it a summer resort, and propose to give hearty assistance[599] to any Chautauqua workers who will open a Sunday-school assembly there.

There is beauty here for the artist. Over there is the white line of the beach, with a forest background, a green slope between. To the left are dim wreaths of smoke, curling cloudward: they come from the “council fires” of the Sioux braves, as they camp on the reservation; they seem to ascend from fires lighted by invisible hands, and around them seem to be gathered the spirits of departed warriors, shadows, hidden from unanointed eyes. To the west the sun is a ball of fire dropping into a sea of ice: sapphire, flame and pearl are mixed with the blue and golden light, and arch toward heaven, tinging forest and hill with celestial splendor. As the orb of day sinks behind the hills, it seems like the path to glory, and but a step—

Montana is entered at the Little Missouri, one hundred miles west of Bismarck. The road to this point runs through an upland prairie, or valley. From Bismarck to Livingston, the gateway to the Park, a distance of six hundred miles, the rain-fall is light, insufficient for general farming. In the summer the grasses dry or cure, and it is claimed they are very nutritious, and much relished by herds. At Miles City, and Billings, canals twenty and thirty miles long are being dug which, when completed, will be used to irrigate the valley. This can never be a great agricultural country without irrigation. Large crops are not raised except on farms that have a natural overflow from some stream or in some exceptionally wet season. But with a water supply under control, there is no reason why this wide, rich valley, may not supply the land with its productions. Let none come here to engage in farming unless they are prepared to supply their crops with abundance of water; there are plenty of streams, or an artesian well can be sunk, which, with an engine or wind-mill, and force-pump, would enable any one to make a fortune. But none need fear to come and engage in herding. Fabulous stories are told of the fortunes made from flocks and herds. The ranches are in the valleys, being used in the winter for the herds, and for the horses in the summer. They are located on the streams, and join the mountain lands in the rear, where the herds and flocks range at large, and fatten without even being fed or cared for.

Sunday is not observed as a holy day. Trains run; building and all kinds of labor continue, and if there is any difference, there is more bustle on the Sabbath than on any other day. At Billings, saloons are open, hurdy-gurdies playing, negroes singing, and drunken dances going on in rooms on the main street of the village.

We visited here the Crow Reservation, and saw among the Indians one of the finest specimens of physical manhood in the world. A Crow warrior, with a physique that Hercules might have envied—straight as an arrow, colored nut-brown; with an eye like that of an eagle, and with the bearing of a Cæsar; one could easily fancy that a second King Philip stood before him. The Crows have a singular burial custom: they wind, with sheets, the bodies of the dead, practising a primitive kind of embalming, and then place them on elevated platforms, or fasten them to the limbs of a tree. At one of their burial places we saw the body of their old chieftain, Blackbow. The table upon which it lay was falling into decay, but the body remained undisturbed. For many a year it had kept a silent watch over the happy hunting-ground of his people.

Here, also, the experiment of industrial schools is being tried. Said the Crow agent, “We are teaching them how to work. I believe one plow is as good as two spelling-books, with these people. We must teach them how to labor, and the dignity of it.” It was through this valley that Custer marched to his death, and many places are named for him.

The whole surface of the country, for hundreds of miles, is covered with petrified trees, snakes, and shells. We saw hundreds of petrified stumps, some of them six feet across.

Citadel Rocks and Pyramid Park, are on the line of the Pacific road, and are wonderful freaks of nature. The latter seems to have been produced by the burning of the coal that underlies the whole country; in fact, in some places, the fires still burning can be seen from the car windows—one fire being near enough to be felt inside the cars.

All along the line antelope are feeding on the hillsides, and in many places those natural communists, the hawk and prairie-dog, can be seen sitting together beside their common home.

The Upper Yellowstone is as lovely a valley as the eye of man ever saw. For one hundred miles east of Livingston the scenery is of wondrous beauty. The slopes of the hills and the mountains turn in graceful curves, mountain against mountain, peak above peak, valley beyond valley, flooding the air and sky with lines of beauty. Some of the mountains are ribbed horizontally, others from base to peak, and all are covered with green verdure, mixed with the brown of last year’s grasses; the fir tree dots the whole with patches of brilliant green, and the beautiful Yellowstone dashes through the valley. Nestled in secluded places are the cabins; grazing on the hillsides are herds of cattle, and here and there the reckless “cow-boy” can be seen dashing across the plains.

At Billings we passed through a heavy snow storm, but as we journeyed westward we felt the warm touch of the Chennock, as it swept down the valley, bringing life and beauty in its gentle touch. Every hilltop is rounded and covered with grasses, and it does not seem possible that on all this round globe there is another valley with such a wealth of graceful curves and delicate colors.

Enthroned at the head of the valley, Livingston sits a very queen; in her right hand the Yellowstone Park, in her left the Bozeman Pass over the Rockies, Emigrant, Crazy, and Baldhead mountains, seemingly but a mile away, though in reality more than fifty, lift their hoary heads fourteen thousand feet toward the heavens, and sparkle in the sunlight like jewels in her crown.

Northern Dakota and Manitoba are very cold countries. In the rural districts the inhabitants do not pretend to have schools in the winter, it is so cold they would not dare to let the children attend. Sometimes during storms men fear to leave their stores at night, and remain in them rather than risk their lives in going home; farmers tie a rope around their bodies, fastening one end to their cabins, when they go out to feed their cattle, and no one leaves home that can avoid it.

But with proper preparation colonies will make no mistake in locating in Dakota or Montana, and the same may be said of individuals. For lack of correct information parties are sometimes deceived. A story is told of a party of German emigrants, who came this spring from across the sea. They had been induced to come by some foreign agent, who had given them a picture of Gladstone, a beautiful little village, and had agreed to locate them there on government lands. Instead of fulfilling his promise he located them several miles away, where there was not a cabin in sight. Said an eye-witness: “It was laughable and sad to see them. Each man had a cut of Gladstone in his hand, and they were all looking for the houses.”

There are rare opportunities to make fortunes; the soil is exceedingly fertile, especially so in Dakota; the cereals grow abundantly, even with the poor farming practiced. Farms and city lots, properly located in thriving towns, are[600] steadily increasing in value, and there are plenty of government lands yet unoccupied, in excellent localities. The Northern Pacific Railroad has any quantity of its very best lands, between Jamestown and Bismarck, yet unsold. One can scarcely make a mistake in settling there, because the land is high and not subject to inundation. There are splendid opportunities in all the country around Bismarck and north, even to the far-famed Turtle Mountains. In all the above-mentioned section success is assured to the patient, hard-working settler. He will have to endure privations; the severe cold of an almost arctic winter; a rude cabin for a dwelling-place; loss of opportunities for education; few churches or Sunday-schools, and a promiscuous population. There are many men and women of culture among the people, but there are also a great many adventurers, as in every new country. But in time all this will change, roads will be worked, schools and churches will be built, cabins will be changed into elegant farm-houses, and society will crystallize as it has done in eastern centers. All this will come after the struggle for existence, which is now going on, is over.

COMING CHAUTAUQUA DAYS.

Quite a scientific season will this of ’83 be, recalling the distinguished programs when Prof. Doremus illuminated them. Now, in addition to the graphic Prof. Edwards, who reappears, there is to be the brilliant course of Prof. W. C. Richards, the bare reading of which is like a menu to a famished intellect. Dr. Newell, of Chicago, and Prof. Young, of Princeton College, also lecture on scientific topics. It is to be a revival in physics.

The lessons in cookery, by Miss Ewing, are a recognition of the growing interest in higher culinary art, an accomplishment considered by some to be the highest of all arts, as it certainly is the most important to mankind. Chautauqua proposes to contribute its share to make this art universal, until it can no longer be said that the chef of a hotel can command a higher salary than the president of a college.

And there will be Prince Bolly presiding either at hotel or spelling-match with equal grace. General Lewis offers the prizes for the best spellers; would it not be a fair return for the best spellers to offer a prize for the best hotel keeper, with the secret certainty, of course, that Mr. Lewis would win it, and so get his reward for services in behalf of correct orthography and good living at Chautauqua?

People at Chautauqua always live high—1,400 feet above the sea. The place is pure atmospherically, aquatically, morally, and intellectually they live in a rarified and quickening medium. The whole effect is elevating, though we never saw a person on the grounds who had “got high.”

Wallace Bruce, the man of Scotch name and lineage, but of all-world culture, will be there and personify the literati of all times and nations. To know Bruce is a liberal education in belles-lettres.

A wit of his time proposed as an epitaph on Congreve, the projector of the rocket (in a double sense) this wicked sentence. “He has gone to the only place where his fireworks can be excelled.” That place might be Chautauqua instead of a worse place, if Congreve had lived till now. The world of Chautauqua will be delighted with pyrotechnics both by day and by night this year. The famous Japanese day fireworks, which have proved such an attraction at Manhattan Beach, Long Branch, and other resorts, will be the sensation at Chautauqua beach. We imagine we can hear the “ohs!” from the “windy suspirations of forced breath” of tens of thousands of spectators.

The program this year fairly glitters with great names, as, Joseph Cook, Talmage, Judge Tourgée, Hon. Will Cumback, and the long list of D.D.’s, collegians and specialists.

The Teachers’ Retreat advances, not retrogrades. Read the program; wonder and admire. The experimental classes of Miss Read should be worth the price of the course to any teacher.

Music is to have another rise in the scale this year. Such a list of soloists and instructors was never before offered at any summer institute of music, and then the grand organ and other accessories!

Froebel is again to be commemorated. It is hoped that some one will be prepared to give a succinct résumé of Froebelism. The question, “What is kindergarten?” is one of the unanswered conundrums of the day.

Prepare to smile—Frank Beard is coming again.

Some one once said he preferred to go sleigh-riding in the summer, when he could enjoy the excursion without freezing to death. Now one can go on a sea voyage without being sea sick, and see the sights of a trip abroad without the cost, expense, and fatigue of foreign travel. It was a brilliant conception, that “Ideal Summer Trip Beyond the Sea.” If it does not prove one of the hits of this season of hits by the Hittites, we do not hit the mark in our guess.

The Museum has proved one of the great attractions at Chautauqua ever since its inception, and the public will be glad to read of the remarkable attractions now to be added to it. Miller fecit, as usual.

“The morning hour” of metaphysics is to be abolished and something more understandable taken up—Hebrew.

But the great day of all, the day of intellectual and spiritual uplifting, is to be the “Commencement Day” of the C. L. S. C. The joy and glory of the last one has not yet ceased to echo “in the chambers of the soul.” It will be a red, white and blue event—a red letter day, at a white heat of fervor, and the blue sky over all. “Oh, who that feels them ever will forget the emotions of those spirit-stirring times!”

Chautauqua has sent its special reporter through all the nations of the world and he will render this year his account. Our voyager and explorer, Cook, was not eaten by the savages like the earlier one; rather, he comes to spread a civilized and civilizing symposium.

Returning Chautauquans will find the grounds much improved. Besides the beautification and edification by private enterprise and taste, visitors will find great changes for the better wrought by the association. The most notable of the many features of this work is to be seen on the lake-front of the Athenæum Hotel. The avenue has been moved down to the lake shore and made a most romantic drive on the beach, and all the additional space is devoted to a sloping lawn. All the disfiguring relics have been removed from the vicinage, and this part of the grounds is as prim and proper as a miss in her new summer gown.

Chautauqua continues to be the cheapest summer resort and summer school in the world. For four dollars the resort is open forty-three days—about nine cents a day. A dollar a week secures the privilege of the lectures, concerts, and all the “pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious” Chautauqua after the Assembly proper begins. Is there anything anywhere like that for cheapness? The highest-priced thing at Chautauqua gives much more and better than can be gotten elsewhere for the same sum. But after all, there is here, what can not be gotten elsewhere for any price, that is the most priceless of all, “The Chautauqua Idea,” its inspiration, uplift, expansion, liberalizing.

Phonography is one of the most remunerative and surest avocations now open to women, and a good opportunity to acquire a knowledge of it from a master is open at Chautauqua under Prof. Bridge.

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THE CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES.

Prof. J. T. Edwards, of Chamberlain Institute, N. Y., is to deliver a course of eight lectures before the C. T. R. at Chautauqua this summer. “Physical Science” is to be the subject of these lectures, the design being to show how all the sciences, botany, zoölogy, etc., are but sectors of one great circle, that one plan underlies all natural phenomena. The lectures will be brilliantly illustrated and will be of peculiar value to teachers. Prof. Edwards has sent us the following outline of his work, which shows that though his theme is extended, yet it is so systematized as to be very simple:

Nature is a unit. E pluribus unum might be taken for its motto; the circle is its emblem; ten thousand radii touch its circumference; every atom bears a relation to its center; everything is connected with everything. It was not a mere fancy that when the Creator made even the little snow-drop, he adjusted it to the gravities of all worlds. Humboldt chose “Cosmos” as the title of his immortal work, and he defined it, “The doctrine of the universe, the system of law, harmony and truth combined within the universe.”

Glance at the copious index. What diversity in the subjects discussed. We wonder how he will be able to fit into beautiful mosaic all these fragments.

A large look at nature sees it one. The spectroscope now tells us that all worlds are but “parts of one stupendous whole.” Matter is ever changing, but never lost. Force is indestructible; a thousand floods ten thousand years ago prepared the earth for habitation. Feeble insects laid the foundations of Paris and London perhaps millions of years before the Romans drove piles into the Thames. Our stove and coal bins are ninety millions of miles away. Nature is full of beautiful dependencies. The animal feeds upon the vegetable, and the latter lives upon the mineral kingdom. The mere physical forces of light, heat and electricity are doubtless directly connected with the noblest activities of organized beings.

Now, one object of this course of lectures is to show things in their connections. Bird’s-eye views are very essential in the study of large landscapes. The poet is not the only “maker.” Most minds prefer the concrete to the abstract—synthesis to analysis. The gem is never so beautiful as in its appropriate setting. The springing bow alone shows us the splendor of each color.

Astronomy, “Mother of the Sciences,” will “teach us our place” among the worlds; will tell of the time when the “morning stars were singing.” Some of the greatest and some of the most devout minds of every age have delighted in this study. Its votaries now, however, are no longer alone on the watch-towers. Observers stand with them, eager to gaze upon the stars, although with less trained vision. Bishop Warren’s delightful book shows us the possibility of being both accurate and interesting. He just supplements “the look” that was given at “The Point” in the days “lang syne,” with a longer and steadier gaze into the heavens.

As Astronomy will show us the infinitely large, Chemistry will bring to us the infinitely small. Here we are in Nature’s laboratory. Listen! We can almost hear the myriad atoms, like unseen battalions in the night, quietly falling into line. It is as if we had penetrated the arcana of Nature. See! Here she mingles her dyes. Hence come the odors, the flavors, the forms of all substances. No wonder the old alchemist hung over his crucible (crux, across—the mark upon the vessel to guard against the geests, ghosts—our gas—which threatened him) until the divining rod fell from his palsied hand. There is a rare fascination in the study. It so closely concerns human welfare. The useful as well as the fine arts, agriculture, manufacturing, and all our domestic life are intimately concerned in its discoveries and progress, and when we have learned how wonderful a thing is a molecule we are prepared to learn of masses of minerals. Mineralogy is less understood than some other of the natural sciences; for a few years past, however, it has pushed forward rapidly. The impetus given to mining, the formation of cabinets, of great mineralogical displays, such as that at Denver the past year, and the mineral treasures of Australia, California, and Colorado have awakened much popular interest. Gold was mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, and the enumeration of precious stones in various parts of the Old Testament, and in Revelation, shows that the ancients were not unacquainted with the more beautiful forms of minerals. It remained, however for our time to show that even the clod beneath our feet, the rock of the mountain, and the ice of the glacier are built with the precision of a marble palace. There is a beautiful simplicity in these combinations. They can all be reduced to six primary forms. This science and the closely allied branch of Crystalography fortunately can be made very pleasing to the eye by means of the helps which we can summon. Thus we are led by gradual steps to consider Geology, or the study of the earth, as to its great features. And what a theme it is! Ocean making! continent building! mountain raising! making of worlds! The story is written in strata by fossils, or in the markings left by some great force in the earth’s crust.

No science has more interest for the artist, the architect, the civil engineer. But perhaps a deeper and more solemn interest attaches to it because of its relations to the all-important truths of Revelation. Fortunately this branch of human knowledge has not been forced to depend upon individual enterprise or love of truth. It has knocked at the halls of legislation; it has been welcomed to the palaces of kings. For lo! it came promising greater riches than were ever dreamed of by Spanish free-booters, and many a State has found through it an El Dorado within its own limits.

Physics, or Natural Philosophy, will next explain to us more fully by illustration and apparatus, the characteristics of those forces which join together the molecules, not less than hold the worlds in harmony. It is an old science, but has clothed itself in new garments. In some directions, as in acoustics and light, it has made very wonderful progress within the memory of the school-boy of to-day. The “Arabian Nights” has few things to tell us so startling as that a man can sit in his office in New York and hold converse with a friend in Chicago.

Never before did man give such good promise of really entering upon his heritage as master in this world, in the spirit of the high destiny that was promised him at his creation.

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Botany comes next. It has been quite the fashion to look upon this study as unworthy the attention of the vigorous masculine mind—“a girl’s study, about posy-beds, the language of flowers, and, at best, fit only for the decoration of a poet’s verse!” And yet it concerns one whole wide realm of nature. It has received little attention in our colleges, scarcely finding a place in the curriculum of study.

It really embraces a number of separate sciences—economic, agricultural, horticultural, medical and fossil botany. Of late a new interest has been awakened in some of these. The climatic relations of forests have become matter of legislative inquiry. Great forestry conventions have been held, and an able report upon the subject has been made by the Commissioner of Agriculture. A gentleman in New York has just made an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars for the best collection of woods in the world. Aside from these utilitarian views of the matter it is enough for us to know that the Great Teacher said: “Consider the lilies,” and often upon Olivet or “by cool Siloam’s shady rill,” seemed to take pleasure in the trees and flowers which his own hand had made.

Zoölogy will show us a comparative view of the animal creation. A whole literature upon this subject has sprung up within a few years. Darwin and Huxley have added many close and admirable observations upon the habits of animals. Numerous books have appeared upon “Mind in Animals,” “Higher Life in Animals,” and kindred topics, until one almost trembles for his rank in the scale of being. Indeed, when royalty weeps over the departure of Jumbo, and lap-dogs and canaries win the first place in the hearts of fair ladies, we may well review our claims as “lords of creation.”

The study of the Creator’s last great work—man, Physiology, comes next in the order of our series. “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” said the sacred writer, and every discovery of the microscope, every analysis of the scalpel, every astute and learned study of eye, ear, heart or brain, but repeats the declaration, “Know thyself,” urged by one of old as a duty, but it is also a high privilege. A knowledge of physiology and hygiene lies at the very foundation of the science of human welfare. We are now claiming it as a mighty missionary agency in the conversion of the heathen. Ah! it is a rare power to know one’s own make-up and limitations, to the end that the free spirit may do its best. Then again, every one must some day stand where this knowledge will be useful to others; and what higher aim have we than to enrich others with our own knowledge? One can be miserly with his ideas as with his money. Helping with useful knowledge is of that giving which does not impoverish.

Doubtless to cover so wide a field we shall have to study carefully the fine “art of leaving out.” Some other things we must surely remember. For example:

1. To pursue the Golconda miner’s method—save the diamonds.

2. Adopt the motto of the great dailies, “condense.”

3. Popularize—if possible strip off the technicalities, and present truth in such a way that busy men and women may readily secure it.

4. Be accurate as far as we go, and help minds to go farther.

5. Encourage to self-help, to observe nature, to study, to experiment. Why be thirsty with the Amazon flowing around us?

6. To use all helps appropriate to each subject, by which ideas may be borne to the mind through that sense best calculated to convey them.

THE CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY.

SECRETARY’S STATEMENT.

Nearly two hundred persons, some in foreign lands, are enrolled as students in the Chautauqua School of Theology. Their distribution in the departments shows that ninety-nine have elected to take practical theology, eighty-nine Greek, and twenty-five Hebrew. The other departments have each a smaller number. Many are taking the studies in two or more departments, and one student is already prepared for his examination.

The undertaking is constantly receiving hearty endorsement in educational and literary centers, where recognition has eminent value and influence.

Leading educators and clergymen are becoming better acquainted both with the needs which have called the Chautauqua School of Theology into being, its grand purposes, its undenominationalism, its evangelical catholicity, and with the remarkable feasibility of its methods.

Doubters have already been forced to admit that the curriculum of the Chautauqua School of Theology affords the untrained preacher who by circumstances was crowded past the doors of college and seminary into the pulpit, his best, if not his only privilege to supply deficiencies.

The qualities of seriousness, earnestness, and conscientious faithfulness, which are inseparable from the true theological student, characterize without exception the students of the Chautauqua School of Theology. It is indeed one special merit of the School that its members come to its curriculum only after ascertaining their real wants, their personal adaptation to technical training, or their special needs; or, it may be, their peculiar disqualifications for the work of the ministry. Hence they possess a clearness of aim and a vigor of purpose which are certain to command success. Necessarily, therefore, the atmosphere of the School work is tonic and healthful.

The eminent theologians, associated with the president, Rev. John H. Vincent, S.T.D., as deans of departments, everywhere inspire confidence in the quality of the training furnished. They have entered upon their peculiarly difficult labors with enthusiasm born of confidence in the possibilities of usefulness preëminently afforded them in the Chautauqua School of Theology.

By a recent arrangement Dr. L. T. Townsend, D.D., who from the beginning has borne like a Hercules the school work, places the burdens of the deanship upon the general secretary, retaining the two departments which he conducts with such distinguished success. His absence in Europe will not interfere with the work in his several classes.

The officers, departments, and deans of the School are as follows: President, Rev. John H. Vincent, S.T.D.; Dean and General Secretary, Rev. Alfred A. Wright, A.M.

DEPARTMENTS.

I. Hebrew: Rev. William R. Harper, Ph.D., Chicago, Ill.

II. Greek: Rev. Alfred A. Wright, A.M., Boston, Mass.

III. Doctrinal Theology: Rev. Alfred A. Wright, A.M.

IV. Practical Theology: Rev. Luther T. Townsend, D.D., Boston, Mass.

V. Christian Science and Philosophy: Rev. Luther T. Townsend, D.D.

VI. Historical Theology: Rev. Philip Schaff, D.D., New York.

VII. Human Nature: Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., New York.

VIII. Literature and Art: Rev. W. Cleaver Wilkinson, D.D., Tarrytown, N. Y.

SPECIAL COURSES.

I. The Relations Between Body and Soul: Prof. James S. Jewell, M.D., Chicago, Ill.

II. Elocution: Prof. John W. Churchill, A.M., Andover, Mass.

III. Industrial Economy and Trade: Rev. John H. Vincent, S.T.D.

IV. Jurisprudence: Judge Edmund H. Bennett, LL.D., Boston, Mass.

For the school curriculum, or for special information, address Rev. John H. Vincent, S.T.D., drawer 75, New Haven, Conn., or Rev. Alfred A. Wright, Boston, Mass.

After June 1, 1883, all moneys from any source due the Chautauqua School of Theology for books, tuition, or on postage account, are to be paid to the general secretary.

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EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

TEN YEARS OF CHAUTAUQUA.

This is the Chautauqua decennial year. Is it possible that it is ten years? So rapid has been the growth, so many and varied the ideas and features added from year to year, that we have not noted the flight of time. Not in the space of a single editorial can be cited the results of the first decade of Chautauqua history. It seems strange to remember that only ten years ago Chautauqua and Chautauqua Lake were comparatively unknown. Of the thousands who now, from north and south, east and west, annually flock hither, few had then even heard of its existence. It is not egotism, but only just to say that the lake owes its now national fame to the present Chautauqua of the lake.

The visitor of ten or even five years ago is struck with the changes in the physical aspect of the local Chautauqua. Then a few rude cottages and tents in the woods with undressed and unkept grounds, now a large village of beautiful summer homes. The unsightly tent has yielded to the one graceful and attractive, and tents and cottages are all ranged in comely streets. Ruts and gullies have been replaced with grades and lawns. Even the old Auditorium which was thought in former days to be without a rival of its kind, though still standing there in honor, has been compelled to yield precedence to the amphitheater of vaster proportions and better appointments. But the list is too long for recital. There is the grand Hotel Athenæum, said to rival any wood structure in the State, and equally superlative in every quality as a home for its guests; there too is the Oriental House, Model of Jerusalem, Hall of Philosophy, Children’s Temple, Tabernacle, and, if you listen a moment, there is sound of hammer and saw as the work of building and improving goes on rapidly as ever.

But if all this is of the local Chautauqua, what of the Chautauqua which is national—nay, more than national? Ten years ago from a very few of the neighboring States was gathered the first Sunday-school Assembly. To-day the methods and ideas of that and subsequent assemblies are being employed and taught by thousands of Sunday-school teachers throughout the Union. Then, the able and eloquent speakers that stood on the platform were heard only within the range of their vocal power, but now the pages of the Assembly Daily Herald catch their thoughts and send them to distances of hundreds and thousands of miles in all directions. The personnel of the Chautauqua platform, excellent as it was in the beginning, has been enhanced each year by others of the most distinguished thinkers, scholars and orators of this country and from beyond the waters.

We do not know how many dreamers there may have been, nor what their dreams, but certainly none of the thousands of enthusiastic visitors to Chautauqua in those days dreamed of the C. L. S. C. with tens of thousands of earnest students, of the School of Languages, Teachers’ Retreat, and School of Theology, with all their characteristics of power and inspiration.

Ten years of Chautauqua! Prolific mother, not alone of the above offspring, but of children resembling herself, and doing similar work at Lakeside, Lake Bluff, South Framingham, at Monterey, on the Pacific slope, at Monteagle, Tenn., and elsewhere. Only ten years! and yet the “Chautauqua Idea” has taken root, and is yielding its fruit of popular education in all the States and in the Territories. Ten years, and the meridian is not yet reached. Ten years are but a beginning in any work so far reaching, so broad in its scope as the work of Chautauqua. What has been done is but the starting point to what will be done. The years to follow have much to reveal in the maturity of the plans and principles now in operation, and of new ones yet to be inaugurated.

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE C. L. S. C.

The C. L. S. C. is becoming a great social power. From the first it has recognized that one of the great needs of the majority of the people is healthy, active companionship; that for such companionship people will undertake tasks for which they have otherwise little taste, and under its stimulus will do much good work. It has recognized that if the social life be kept clean and invigorating, there is no danger of any one sinking into idleness or vice. Its power for good lies in the fact that its method of work contains the very elements which are necessary for a pure, wholesome social life. In the first place it calls people together regularly and insures their intimate acquaintance. One of the great hindrances to cordial social intercourse is that people do not meet frequently and informally, so that they know each other well. We are prone to invest those with whom we have but a passing acquaintance with a dignity or knowledge so superior to our own that we are actually afraid of them. The local circle breaks this up. We learn to know our associates. No less important is it that the members of society take their rank according to merit. No other standard will be used in local circles. The ability to lead is the only quality which will give a member the leadership. The C. L. S. C. is veritably the People’s College, leveling all ranks.

The reason, we may say, for the flatness of social life in the ordinary town, is that the members have, or find, so little to think about. People will not gossip, nor be recklessly extravagant, nor indulge in insipid flirtations if they have wholesome subjects for thought. The course of reading furnishes topics of vigor and interest. The mind is kept active. The tone of the society is changed, because the members are thinking and are experiencing the pleasure of an interchange of ideas and knowledge. Their society life becomes a recreation, instead, as is so often the case, dissipation.

There is, besides, a hearty good fellowship animating the circles generally, which is one of their most promising features. The true college spirit seems to inspire everyone with its life, energy, and enthusiasm.

To what results have these elements led? Thousands of circles have been formed all over the country, meeting for intellectual culture, but bound together by strong friendship and sociability. In themselves these circles are very powerful, but there are numberless offshoots which are intended to develop cordial feeling among the members. Among these are the large reunions, calling together the different classes and circles. Invariably the reports of these affairs show that all the appointments are in taste, and even elegance. Memorial days furnish frequent opportunities for entertainments as pleasant as the reunions. Large numbers of guests are frequently invited, the hall, church, or parlor is decorated, bountiful refreshments are served, and a carefully prepared and spicy program carried out. Numbers of programs, some of them exquisite in design and finish, are sent to us, giving the exercises of various memorial celebrations, and almost every circle reports some charming novelty in entertainments. Nor are these large and ambitious gatherings all. Informal “socials” sometimes take the place of the usual work. The regular study hour is followed by a merry half-hour devoted to games, music, spelling-matches, pronouncing contests, or “visiting.”

All these pleasant features are combined to develop a strong social feeling in every circle. New and better views of our social relations are opened up, and we learn, perhaps for the first time, what good fellowship means. The good which is done is inestimable. Indeed, we do not hesitate to say that the opportunities of the C. L. S. C. for social culture are excelled only by the opportunities it affords for mental culture.

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THE ROEBLINGS.

The slab of black marble in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, which marks the last resting place of the English architect, Sir Christopher Wren, bears the inscription, in Latin, “If you would have his monument, look about you.” In the great Brooklyn bridge, recently opened for travel, people will see for ages the noble monument of those two men of genius—father and son—John Augustus and Washington A. Roebling. The men whose names are inseparably linked with such a work—a work, not for an age, but for the ages—have secured a fame to satisfy any human ambition. In the case of these great engineers we see again the old law illustrated: the world’s good comes from sacrifice. The one sacrificed life, the other health, to the work whose future benefits to mankind are so incalculable.

The elder Roebling was born in Mühlhausen, Prussia, June 12, 1806, and was educated at the polytechnic school in Berlin. He came to this country at the age of twenty-five, and settled near Pittsburgh. He worked for some time as an engineer on certain Pennsylvania canals, and was then engaged for three years in surveying the route of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad through the Alleghenies. In the city of Pittsburgh he established works for the manufacture of wire ropes—which manufacture he introduced into America. The works were afterward removed to Trenton, N. J. It was his aim to bring about the use of wire ropes in the construction of bridges, and in time he was successful. He was the father of suspension bridges in this country. His first work was the suspended aqueduct of the Pennsylvania Canal across the Allegheny River, which was completed in 1845. Soon after this he built the Monongahela suspension bridge at Pittsburgh, and some suspension aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. A much greater work than any of these was the Niagara suspension bridge, the building of which he undertook in 1851, and carried to a successful completion. But this was surpassed by the bridge across the Ohio at Cincinnati, which he completed in 1867. The length of the Niagara bridge is 821 feet, while that at Cincinnati has a clear span of 1,057 feet. It was in the winter of 1853, when, at one time, Mr. Roebling, his wife and son, were detained for several hours, while crossing East River, by the floating ice, that the idea, which certain others had entertained, of a bridge from New York to Brooklyn first took possession of his mind; but it was not until 1865 that steps were taken looking to the practical realization of the idea. Then this engineer prepared plans and estimates for the work, and in time the great structure was under way, whose history is now known and read of all men, and which stands as one of the latest marvels of the nineteenth century. The work was hardly commenced when the life of its author was cut short. In July, 1869, his foot was crushed by a ferry-boat, as he was standing on the pier at Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn, and his death followed in two weeks.

The younger Roebling was born at Saxonburg, Butler County, Pa., May 26, 1837. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute at Troy, in 1857. He early became his father’s assistant in engineering, and came in time to be fully the equal, if not the superior, of his father in his peculiar line of work. He enlisted as a private in the Union Army at the breaking out of the rebellion, and had an honorable career as a soldier, rising to the rank of colonel. After the close of the war he spent some time in Europe, studying the more important works of engineering there. The death of his father left him the work of building the great bridge, of executing his father’s plans. Those plans were greatly modified by himself, and the completed bridge is by no means but the embodiment of the elder Roebling’s conception. In 1872 Colonel Roebling became the victim of the “caisson disease,” so called, and since that time has been an invalid. He is probably an invalid for life. But he continued at the head of the great enterprise, and from his sick-room has directed the work until at length it has been brought to a glorious consummation. He has had in his wife a most faithful and efficient coadjutor in all his work. Mention of her name should not be omitted in the laudations paid to the builders of Brooklyn bridge.

THE CORONATION OF THE CZAR.

After long delay and months of seclusion from his subjects, Alexander III. has been crowned Czar of all the Russias. The coronation ceremonies took place at Moscow, in the Church of the Assumption, in the Kremlin, within whose walls all the Romanoffs have been crowned. Vast concourses of people thronged the streets and crowded the thoroughfares of the city, the Kremlin was packed with a dense mass of humanity, intent on witnessing the imposing ceremonies of the coronation. Princes of every rank and government officials of all degrees were present from all parts of his broad domains to do homage to their master. The crowned heads of Europe sent their representatives to grace the august occasion and to convey their greetings and good wishes to the new-made monarch.

The pageant of the coronation is said to have been the most magnificent spectacle witnessed in Europe in modern times. It is estimated that not less than ten millions of dollars were expended in its preparation. The czar was everywhere received by his subjects with the greatest enthusiasm, seeming to betoken the utmost loyalty and reverence toward their rightful monarch. Nothing occurred to mar the pomp and splendor of the occasion. No bombs were thrown, no mines were exploded, no hostile demonstrations of any kind were made; everything seemed to indicate the return of an era of peace and security in the lately perturbed realm of Russia.

The crown with which the czar was invested is said to be worth not less than three millions of roubles, but it is as heavily ladened with cares as with jewels. No other ruler in Europe to-day has so unenviable a throne or rests under such heavy burdens and responsibilities. His vast domains have no bond of integral unity, save the military power, while in whole provinces the inhabitants are but one remove from barbarism. In addition to this the Nihilistic organization, which pervades all Europe, is strongly intrenched in his kingdom, and may, like a sleeping volcano, burst out in the future, as it has in the recent past, with terrible fury and disastrous results. Its representatives are everywhere; in the towns, cities and country; in the army and palace; among peasants and princes of the realm. Their threats of violence forced the czar into involuntary seclusion, and were the cause of his long delay in assuming the crown.

While the deeds of violence which have characterized the Nihilistic movement can not but be deprecated, they find some palliation in the fact that Russia has been the worst governed country in all Europe. Its czar is an absolute despot, and inasmuch as princes are not usually slow to use all the power placed at their disposal, Russian subjects have for centuries experienced all the ills coincident with an absolute despotism. It is true that serfdom has been abolished, but the tardy justice which accomplished this great work but whetted the appetite of the Russian people for larger liberty, and for the rightful privileges conceded by other European governments to their subjects. Their demands in this direction have been hitherto sternly denied. Every effort for their attainment has been met with the most determined opposition on the part of the government. For even slight political offenses, men are seized, and, with a mere apology of a trial, are condemned, and sentenced to[605] penal servitude in the mines of Siberia. They are compelled to labor there from twelve to eighteen hours per day, at the hardest kind of toil and under the surveillance of brutal overseers. They are furnished but a meager supply of food, and that of an inferior kind. They are exposed to the stern severities of the Siberian winters, with but a scant supply of clothing and little shelter. Within five or six years death usually kindly puts a terminus to the sufferings of the miserable exiles.

It is barbarities like these on the part of the government that has put the sword and the bomb in the hand of the Russian Nihilist. Goaded by opposition and aggravated by the denial of the rights of citizenship, its subjects have resorted to the worst of revolutionary measures to secure the redress of their wrongs and the possession of the rights conceded to the subjects of other European states. It is to be hoped that the new czar may learn from the lessons of the past that the days of despots and autocrats are numbered, and that the nineteenth century of the Christian era is an age when the rights of subjects can not be disregarded, even by crowned heads, with impunity. The only possible way in which Alexander III. can secure the prolonged peace and perpetuity of his kingdom is to adopt a liberal policy toward his subjects, institute measures to redress their many and grievous wrongs, and surrender to the people or their representatives a portion of the power now lodged in his hands, which is by far too great for any monarch to possess, and which renders him alike dangerous to the state and to his subjects.

AMOS K. WARREN.

On the evening of the 9th of June, the well-known Secretary of the Chautauqua Assembly, Mr. A. K. Warren, died at his home in Mayville, N. Y., after an illness of several weeks. Mr. Warren was in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and, since the close of the third Assembly, in 1876, he has had charge of the business at Chautauqua, under the leadership and direction of Mr. Lewis Miller and the Board of Trustees. He grew in favor with the Chautauqua management and the general public from the time he first assumed the duties of his office. It was Mr. Warren that effected the purchase of the one hundred acres of land to add to the original Chautauqua grounds, and with taste and untiring zeal laid out pleasant walks and public parks, continually increasing the convenience and the beauty of the grounds.

Several of the most valued public buildings were erected during these years of his connection with the Assembly—the Children’s Temple and Hall of Philosophy, the Amphitheater and the commodious Hotel Athenæum. He has shown himself to be wise and skillful in executing the plans of President Miller and the Board. His loss will be keenly felt and the position he occupied difficult to fill. In addition to the office he occupied at Chautauqua Mr. Warren has served as sheriff of Chautauqua County, and at one time was manager of the Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western Railroad. In every position he proved himself to be a man of superior executive ability, born to be a leader of men and a manager of great movements. He leaves a widow and one daughter, well provided for by certain property which he owned and by an insurance of seven thousand dollars.

The funeral services were held in Mayville, June 13, at his late residence, being conducted by the Rev. Milton Smith, of Mayville. The Scriptures were read by the Rev. Dr. Flood, and the prayer offered and remarks made by the Rev. Dr. Vincent. Although not a member of the Church, Mr. Warren was a believer in the Christian religion. Were we permitted to break the confidence of the private correspondence which passed between Dr. Vincent and Mr. Warren just before his death, much would be revealed that would be comforting to the friends of the deceased and inspiring to all believers in Christianity.

His death brought together a large number of people, among them many of the Executive Board, who were obliged to call a meeting at once at Mayville in order to reorganize the working forces of the Assembly and supply the place left vacant by Mr. Warren’s death.

Notwithstanding the great loss sustained, it is expected that under the direction of President Miller and the Board, the work of improvement and building will be carried on as usual. The management is so complete that no work will be neglected nor any department be slighted. The grounds are in excellent condition as are also the streets, walks and public buildings, and improvement will constantly go on.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

The Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald will contain full reports of the July and August meetings. The first number will be issued on Saturday, August 4. There will be nineteen numbers in the volume. Price, $1.00; in clubs of five or more, 90 cents. See our combination offer on another page of this magazine.

Some railroad managers are employing the machinery of the Young Men’s Christian Association among their men with good results. Mr. Vanderbilt employs a religious worker on a regular salary to keep open a room and conduct religious services for the benefit of his men in New York. The N. Y., P. & O. R. R., a trunk line to the west, running past Chautauqua, has adopted the same plan in Meadville, Cleveland, and other cities. Railroad men are absent from home a good portion of their time when on duty, and, as strangers in strange places, they are greatly benefited by the religious homes provided by the corporations.

The Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent will deliver the Fourth of July oration at Ocean Grove, and lecture before the Ohio State Teachers’ Association the fifth of July at Chautauqua.

The Hon. James G. Blaine seems to have retired from political life. A Washington correspondent, who evidently has studied his habits, says in a New York paper: “It is with his venture into literature that Mr. Blaine has mostly occupied his mind this spring. He seems suddenly to have discovered the charms of the library and the study, and as he has a literary workshop that is as suggestive and delightful as money can make it, he is drinking the newly-discovered cup to the dregs. His library is on the second floor. Here, after he has breakfasted, he repairs and plunges into his work. Occasional visits to the Congressional Library furnish him with much of the data that he requires for his work, and this is supplemented by correspondence, by his own letters and private records, and, more than all, by a memory that seems to be able to recall all the events of his twenty years of public life as though they were all crowded into yesterday. It is not Mr. Blaine’s intention to make the work in any sense a series of personal reminiscences, but briefly to describe, as a historian, the important public events of the past twenty years. There is a good deal of curiosity already to get hints of how he is doing it; but he keeps his own counsel, and asks advice and hints of no one. He spends five or six hours daily on this work, only quitting his desk in time to take his afternoon drive. He expects to finish the work early in the winter.”

A beautiful satin program of the exercises of Shakspere’s Day, has been sent us by the “Greek Letter Circle,” of Milwaukee. Evidently the artistic as well as the “Literary and Scientific” is being cultivated there.

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The dean of the Chautauqua School of Theology, the Rev. A. A. Wright, of Boston, Mass., is noticed by Dr. Daniel S. Steele, in Zion’s Herald, thus: “It was the boast of Tyndale, before he translated the New Testament into English, that he would enable the very plow-boys to know more about the New Testament than the bishops themselves. The attempt of Bro. Wright is more audacious. He has undertaken to make the plow-boys and kitchen-maids know more of the original New Testament Greek than the professionals themselves, who acquired their knowledge in the slipshod and unscientific methods in vogue only forty years ago. In carrying out his scheme he is constructing a serial lexicon on a novel principle. He selects the most important word and groups under it all its derivatives and compounds in Greek and English, requiring a memorizing of these seed-words. Thus the student’s mind becomes a nursery in which a whole forest of Greek is sprouting.”

In the political arena, young men are coming into position. Governor Pattison, of Pennsylvania, is thirty-three years old, and the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, Mr. Foraker, is thirty-seven.

On Thursday, August 30, the C. L. S. C. alumni in New England will hold a reunion at South Framingham, Mass. This will be during the session of the Framingham Assembly. Preparations are being made by the officers and committees to insure an interesting and profitable gathering. Mr. A. W. Pike is president and Mrs. M. A. F. Adams is secretary of the alumni association. The C. L. S. C. has more than doubled its numbers in New England during the past year, and the history of New England people is that they don’t give up a good institution when they have once taken it to their hearts.

John B. Gough says: “The lecture business is declining, because the people are inclining to music and theatricals.” We presume this is true where the people have nothing but lectures and lectures; under such circumstances it is not a cause for wonder, but if any person will take the pains to read the reports of “Local Circles” published in The Chautauquan the past ten months they will observe how lectures on a wide range of subjects, scientific and historical, philosophical and practical, have been made popular, intermingled as they have been with concerts, reunions, banquets, social life and a variety of entertainments by enterprising organizations.

The symposium on the “Moral Influence of the Drama,” in the June number of the North American Review, is an able discussion of the subject. Dr. Buckley wields a keen lance, but there is a time for all things. The editorial management that brings on this discussion in the summer time, when the theaters are mostly closed, is not likely to do so much toward correcting existing evils as if it had brought on the debate when the theaters are opened in the fall time. The adaptation of truth to an end is wisdom, but the adaptation in this case is to the end of the season, when the evil is done, vapor and effervescence.

We have some sympathy with the idea expressed by a correspondent in a western State, that we should have degrees conferred on the graduates of the C. L. S. C., under certain limitations, and in recognition of certain attainments in literature, history, etc. The degree of the Ph.D. is now conferred by some universities and colleges after the applicant has passed required examinations, though he has never been within the walls of the institution.

Postmaster General Gresham has introduced practical civil service reform into his department. In a recent order he has issued to postmasters, of the second and third classes, he says that the postmaster must be in his office and attend to the business in person; absence from his post, without permission from the Postoffice Department, will be considered sufficient reason for dismissal from the service. This is a wise and timely order, and General Gresham deserves the thanks of the people of the country for inaugurating this reform.

Alaska is sadly in need of a civil government. The lectures of the Presbyterian missionary, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, on the condition of the people of Alaska, delivered at Chautauqua and published in the Assembly Herald and The Chautauquan, created quite a sensation and attracted the attention of thinking Christian people in all parts of the country. There is great need of interposition by the government at Washington. The Presbyterian General Assembly, at a recent session in Saratoga, appointed a committee, with Dr. Howard Crosby as chairman, to visit President Arthur relative to giving the people of Alaska a civil government. Let missionary societies and Christian assemblies petition the powers that be until Alaska is redeemed from her present state, which is little better in some places than barbarism.

The reasons for divorces are only equalled by the devices which parties adopt to secure them. Major Nickerson, of the United States army, sent his wife and daughter to Europe in 1880. The major promised to follow them soon, providing he could secure leave of absence. His wife waited but he did not come. He continued to write her and send money, until about a year ago he began to send his letters and remittances to his daughter. His wife asked an explanation, but he gave her no satisfaction. At last she learned through her mother that he had obtained a divorce and was married again, and that the ground on which the divorce was obtained was desertion. The bare statement of the facts in such a case teach us that our laws, as to granting divorces, are lax and unscriptural, and should be reconstructed in the interests of justice and the safety of the family as an institution against designing men.

The Argentine Republic is doing a great deal of quiet work in education, which might even be an example to us who look upon that far-away land as out of the world. They have in their national college a greater proportion of students than either England or Germany. To obtain the most advanced methods, the government has just obtained eight young women from the normal schools at Winona, Minn., to take charge of the normal schools in the republic.

We learn that Prof. F. H. Bailey, the inventor of the astral lantern, so highly commended by Bishop Warren and others, is now located at Northville, Mich., and that orders for lanterns, or correspondence, should be addressed to him, or to the Michigan School Furnishing Company, at that place. We heartily wish that scores of our local circles might procure one of these invaluable helps to the study of the stars.

The present number of The Chautauquan closes the third volume. In October will be published the first number of the fourth volume. Its place will be supplied during the summer by the Assembly Herald, published during August as a daily. Price, $1.00.

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The article in the present number of The Chautauquan by John Lord, LL.D., is an extract from a lecture delivered at Chautauqua.

The faculty of the Summer Assembly at Pacific Grove, Cal., have determined to make natural history a specialty. The opportunities are unrivaled, for all the wonders of the sea-shore are at their command. In order to obtain specimens of the flora and fauna of the entire coast, they have solicited members to send or bring collections of dried plants, zoölogical specimens, etc.

Curiosity and lack of coolness were the causes of the terrible disaster which marred Decoration Day of 1883, and threw a shadow over the glory of the Brooklyn bridge. To rush to see what is the cause of a crowd, a sudden noise or confusion, is a childish act, and yet there is hardly one in a hundred but will do it. To keep still and cool when the crowd becomes a stampede is almost unknown. How to prevent a panic and how to act in a panic, are questions worthy the study of all intelligent people, and it might not be amiss to teach the principles of coolness and self-restraint to the young.

This month Mrs. Cook brings her party of Chautauquans back to America. They have finished their “Tour Around the World,” and will spend their vacation at home until it is time to start on their “Ideal Summer Trip Beyond the Sea.” We only hope that all those who have enjoyed so much their travels with Mrs. Dickinson and Mrs. Cook, will be able to take the latter trip.

The new cover has been well received by both our subscribers and the press. An exchange says of us: “The Chautauquan, the organ of the Chautauqua Assembly, Chautauqua University, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and other Chautauqua institutions, has made its appearance in a very elegant new dress. It is not only handsome but it contains more really solid, instructive, interesting and valuable matter than any periodical known to us.” A lady from Illinois in expressing her thanks for the improvement, writes: “I like the new dress of The Chautauquan. It is artistic, and is a reminder of what Chautauqua has been, and is, and what she still offers to the world.”

Macnabb’s photographic studio of art, at 813 Broadway, N. Y., is sending out some very finely finished work. They offer special inducements to clubs. The studio is certainly worthy the attention of persons visiting the city and wishing pictures.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

Q. Where can an edition of the New Testament containing the authorized version and new version in parallel columns, be obtained?

A. From Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

Q. From what book can a thorough knowledge of the New Testament Apocrypha be obtained?

A. Any work on the canon will contain more or less on the Apocrypha. Probably the best work is in French, Michael Nicolas’ “Etudes sur les Evangiles Apocryphes.”

Q. Is the sentence, “There is no world under our feet, no radiant clouds, no blazing sun, no silver moon, nor twinkling stars,” correct.

A. “Nor” is correlative to “neither” or “not.” Either the sentence should retain “not” before “stars,” or “neither” should be introduced into the first clause as a negative instead of “no,” so as to correspond with “nor.”

Q. Who is the author of the quotation, “Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad?”

A. Euripides.

Q. Is the aërolite illustrated on page 122 of “Warren’s Astronomy,” the one which fell at Santa Rosa, California, a few years ago?

A. It is.

Q. On page 114 of the “Geology,” does the author intend to class snakes with mammals?

A. He does not.

Q. Was Alexander of Macedon, who, before the battle of Platæa, informed the Greeks of the intention of Mardonius to attack them, their ally?

A. He was not, though secretly friendly to their cause. He had been compelled to submit to the Persians and had accompanied Xerxes to Greece in 480 B. C.

Q. What was the reason that the Almæonidæ were considered sacrilegious by the Greeks?

A. In consequence of the way in which Megacles, one of the family, treated the insurgents under Cylon in 612 B. C., they brought upon themselves the guilt of sacrilege and were banished.

Q. What is the pronunciation of “applique,” as used in embroidery?

A. Ap-pli-kā´.

Q. What poet was born the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte?

A. There were three. Ernest Arndt, a German; Charles de Chenedolle, French; John Frere, an English diplomatist and poet.

Q. What authority is there for spelling the name “Shakespeare,” “Shakspere?”

A. Many of the best authorities consider this spelling preferable.

Q. Who is the author of the line, “It flies and swims a flower in liquid air!” referring to the butterfly?

A. P. Commire, a writer of Latin verse.

Q. What is the meaning of the Roman initials S. P. Q. R.?

A. Senatus Populusque Romanus (The Senate and the Roman people).

Q. Who fixed the date of the birth of Christ?

A. About the middle of the sixth century Dionysius Exigius, a Roman abbot, introduced the method of dating from the birth of Christ. It is conceded that he placed the date four years too late, a fact of no importance in chronology, as all that is necessary is to place the Savior’s birth 4 B. C.

Q. What event in English history is connected with the “Royal Oak?”

A. After the battle of Worcester in 1651, in which Charles II. was defeated by Cromwell, the former was obliged to conceal himself in an oak at Boscobel, to avoid capture.

Q. What was the faith of George Henry Lewis?

A. He was a positivist.

Q. What was his nationality?

A. English.

Q. What is the Chautauqua salute?

A. The waving of white handkerchiefs.

Q. Explain the expression, “balance of power.”

A. The division of land and wealth among nations, which prevents any one being sufficiently stronger than the others to interfere with their independence.

Q. What is the difference between the majority and the plurality of votes?

A. When a candidate receives more than any other candidate, he has a plurality of votes. When more than all others, a majority.

Q. Are the Goths, Scandinavians and Norsemen, the same people?

A. They are not. Scandinavians or Norsemen were the names given to the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. The Goths lived south of the Scandinavians. Although probably of the same origin, they are a distinct people.

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TALK ABOUT BOOKS.

The first essential in a popular work of any kind is clearness. A glance at the contents of Prof. Welsh’s new history of English literature[E] shows that the work is so systematically arranged that one can not fail to understand it. The life of the nation which shaped the literature of each period is graphically and simply described. Each political, national, and social law which helped to form the thoughts and customs of the people, is noticed. The leading writers are discussed under the different heads of biography, writing, style, rank, character, and influence. This tabular method has, by no means, degraded the book into simply a school text-book. It has made it suitable for that and more valuable to the general reader. The style is fresh, never tiresome. The illustrations are so woven into the narrative that an idea of the plan of the book is readily seen, and besides the quotations are admirably chosen. The work has been wrought enthusiastically and conscientiously by a man thoroughly interested in what he was doing. Its reception has been his reward.

The Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle,[F] have completed Mr. Froude’s task of reminiscence editing, and given the curious public ample information about the private life and character of Thomas Carlyle. The task has not been a pleasant one for Mr. Froude, but it has been faithfully and modestly performed. These letters are curiously interesting for many reasons. They are vivacious and sparkling, full of lively character sketches, and reveal the private life of one of the most discussed men of the age. Better than all of these, they introduce us to a woman to whom Arthur Helps once candidly said: “Well, really, you are a model wife,” to whom poor Mazzini could go whenever “in a state of crisis” (as he put it); whom Mills, Jeffrey, Tennyson, and many others, honored for her wit and womanliness. She was a clever woman, and a brave one. None but a clever woman could have written these charming letters, none but a brave one could have endured a husband like Carlyle. She was too loyal to cease loving him, too strong to complain, though many a letter shows her sense of his weakness. Jane Welsh Carlyle will find a permanent place among the famous women of the century for wifely devotion, as well as for being a brilliant letter-writer.

The book is chiefly valuable for its wide range of happily-told anecdotes, and its spicy comments. Here is a picture of Lord Jeffrey and Count D’Orsay, who were calling on her together: “What a difference! The prince of critics and the prince of dandies! How washed out the beautiful dandiacal face looked beside that little clever old man’s! The large blue dandiacal eyes you would say had never contemplated anything more interesting than the reflection of the handsome personage they pertained to in a looking-glass, while the dark penetrating ones of the other had taken notes of most things in God’s universe, even seeing a good way into millstones.” She makes wise and true as well as pointed comments on the wide range of men and society that came under her notice.

Undoubtedly Robert Browning’s “Jocoseria”[G] has been the most read and most thoroughly noticed of any book of poems of the season. It is a simple little volume of but ten poems. The best of them all is the unpretending one beginning:

The most influential book of the present day is undoubtedly the novel. They constitute four-fifths of all the books read. The philosophy of its development has become not only a question of great literary interest, but one of educational and moral interest. Mr. Sydney Lanier, in 1881, delivered a course of twelve lectures before the students of John Hopkins University, on this subject, and they have recently been published in book form,[H] forming a highly interesting and philosophical discussion. His object is to show that the growth in sentiment since the days of the Greeks has been so great that the old forms of literature and art have been inadequate to express our ideas, hence in the last two centuries three things have been developed—Science, Music, and the Novel. He gives most copious illustrations from modern novels to uphold his principles.

Lovers of American poetry and poets will be glad to welcome the recent “Life of William Cullen Bryant.”[I] Soon after Mr. Bryant’s death in 1878 his papers, containing useful materials for a biography of his life, were sent to Mr. Parke Godwin, a gentleman of long connection with the press, in order that he might prepare a memoir of the poet. Mr. Godwin has collected most of Mr. Bryant’s letters, his editorial writings, and the newspaper articles concerning him, until he has been able to lay before his readers a very complete and exact biography. Necessarily the work contains little of intense interest. Bryant’s life was a quiet, laborious one. Fifty years of it were spent in editorial work in which, as the author well says, “the labors consist of a series of incessant blows, of the real influence of which it is hard to judge.” But his career as editor and poet are well treated in a simple, pleasant narrative, which leave one with a profound respect for the upright, just and noble father of American poetry.

In September, 1881, the Presbyterian Church lost one of its most honored ministers by the death of the Rev. Cyrus Dickson, D.D., the Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions. The Presbytery of Baltimore at once arranged to prepare a memorial. The work was committed to the Rev. S. J. M. Eaton, D.D.[J] The biography which Dr. Eaton has produced is a simple story of a devout, self-sacrificing Christian. Such books never fail in their purpose. The story of a life is, after all, the most influential of stories.

One of the best of the many sets of school readers, is the “Globe Readings.”[K] Beginning with the simple primers of two grades there are six readers in which the selections are very carefully graded, followed by a “Book of Golden Deeds,” by Charlotte Yonge; Lamb’s “Tales from Shakspere;” Scott’s “Marmion;” “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and “Lady of the Lake;” Cowper’s “Task,” and Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield.” The series has been carefully edited, and the notes give just the amount of help necessary to young readers.

The “Home College Series”[L] has reached the number of thirty-two. They cover a great range of subjects. History, science, biography, art, house-keeping, penmanship, wise-sayings, political economy and religion, and will be valuable reading for spare moments.

The last issues of the charming “Riverside Literature Series,”[M] are “Biographical Stories” and “True Stories from New England History.”