i-L,/;U:aAk;" 
 
 ■mmmimntimma 
 
CHIPS 
 
 r- 
 
 FROM 
 
 MAISTY BLOCKS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIHU BUEE^ITT, 
 
 AltTltOR OF " TRN-MINfTK TALKS," " Sl'ARKS FROM THK ANVlIi," "a Vi>ICE FROM TIIK 
 
 KORGK," RTC, RTC. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 KOSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLXXVIIT. 
 
145340 
 
 B1 es" 
 
 Entered according to the Act of the Par- 
 llanumt of Canada, in tli»- year on« thousand 
 eight hundred andHeveiity-ei«lit,by the ROSE- 
 BEIFOBD PUBLIBHINO COMPANY, in the OffiCO 
 
 of tUe MiiUstar of Agnculture. 
 
 Kntored according to Act of Congress, In 
 tlie year 1878, ))y F.LIHU Bukeitt, In the 
 Otlice of tho Librarian of CongrcHS, at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
/ 
 
 NOTE FROM MR. BURRITT. 
 
 " Ro.sb-Bblpord PuBLisHisro Company, 
 " Dear Sir8, 
 " I send you a short Preface, which I think you will 
 approve. I never felt a more lively interest in the issue 
 of one of my books than in the publication of this 
 volume. I think it will prove the most useful aid inter- 
 esting that I have produced, because I have made chips 
 from more blocks than ever I laid axe to before. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 "Elihu Burritt." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 fT gives me peculiar pleasure to think that the last 
 book I shall be able to make is to be published in 
 Canada, and that Canada now means a Dominion extend- 
 ing across the continent, fiom Newfoundland to Van- 
 couver's Island, embracing educated populations, who are 
 to produce a literature of their own, which shall bear the 
 impress of the mind of a young and growing nation, as- 
 piring to make its intellectual development as honourably 
 recognized by the world, as its political progress and ma- 
 terial prosperity. The idea of contributing a few pages 
 to that literature, at a time when it is beginning to as- 
 sume such a national imprimatur, is especially interesting 
 to me. For, next to the Mother Country, Canada is 
 most associated with the pleasant memories of extensive 
 travels, and kind and genial hospitalities. Indeed, there 
 is hardly a considerable town or village between Halifax 
 and Georgian Bay which I have not visited, and in which 
 I have not received an attentive and sympathetic hear 
 ing from an intelligent audience. And I greatly enjoy 
 the thought, that many of those who thus listened to my 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 lectures will read this book and find in it a wide and 
 varied development of those lines of reflection which I 
 suggested to them from the platform so many years ago. 
 Indeed, I have never before put forth in one volume talks 
 on so many different topics as they will find in this, which 
 I now especially dedicate to them, and beg them to receive 
 as if written by a native Canadian. I think they will 
 find something in it that will interest their children, for 
 I regard my one-syllable stories, illustrating the law of 
 kindness, as the happiest success I ever achieved in liter- 
 ary composition. Their older children, I hope, may find 
 what I say to them in the Fireside Talks, suggestive and 
 even helpful in the course of their studies at school. The 
 other departments will perhaps suggest to many thought- 
 ful minds new reflections upon subjects of varied im- 
 portance and interest. 
 
 Hoping that the Canadian public will give to this vol- 
 ume, bearing the imprimatur of the Dominion, something 
 of the genial reception I shall ever remember in their 
 personal hospitality, I tender them my best wishes for 
 their prosperity in every interest that can promote the 
 
 well-being of a young nation. 
 
 Elihu Burritt. 
 
 New Britain, Conn., 
 May 4th, 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 THE INTEGRATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE— AMERICAN AND BRITISH DOWN- 
 CASTS—THE THREE ALLIED POWERS — AMERICA'S DEBT OF NATIONAL 
 HONOUR— THE JURY OF THE VICINAGE Page 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 
 
 POWER AND PERIL OF A NATIONAL ILLUSION— COST AND PERIL OF PRECAU- 
 TION- THE EASTERN QUESTION— RUSSIA'S AMBITION AND ITS COMPARA- 
 TIVE RESULTS Page 60 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 FUTURE ELECTION OP PRESIDENTS— THE TWIN DAUGHTERS OP THE HORSE- 
 LEECH ; THEIR GREED AND CRV— THE WARDS OF THE NATION ; THEIR 
 DEBT AND DUE— THE GOVERNMENT'S DEBT TO LAND AND LABOUR — 
 WANT OF PUBLIC SPECIALTY MEN Page 83 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 
 
 UTILIZING WASTE MATERIAL- UTILIZING WASTE POPULATION— OUR NEED OF 
 THE ENGLISH WORKHOUSE — NECESSITY OF REPEOPLINO NEW ENGLAND — 
 THE FETTERED LABOURER THE FALSE LIGHTS OF GREAT NAMES— THE 
 CONTAGIOUS DEMORALIZATION OV SHODDY unvwy , Pag^ 112 
 
• • • 
 
 Vlll - CONTENTS. 
 
 , ' • • ■ '' ' 
 
 CHAPTER V, * , 
 
 FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 
 
 OLD BUBCHELL'S POCKET—A TALK ON THE ALPHABETS— THE FORMATION OF 
 WORDH — WHERE LANGUAGES WERE MADE AND PERFECTED- WORDY LAN- 
 GUAGES—WHAT AUXILIARY VERBS DO FOR I EARNERS— HEAD-SPRINGS OF 
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Pa^e 148 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 
 
 ELEMENTS AND GROWTH OF TALENT— HISTORY AND MISSION OP ARCHITEC- 
 TURE— THE SECTARIAN QUESTION Page 192 
 
 ■■■•.''•..."•.-,■'"'. ' ' '♦ • . , ' .-, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 god's POLYGLOT BIBLES — GOD'S TENEMENT HOUSES — PULPIT BARS AND 
 CHAINS— CHURCH BARS AND BOLTS— LAY WORKERS AND THEIR TRAIN- 
 ING-FUNERAL BARS OF SYMPATHY -THE RULING FASHION IN DEATH— 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER— AMOROUS SENTIMENTALITY OF MO «:RN HYMNS- 
 HEROINES OF ENGLISH PHILANTHROPY — THE ZONE 0* HE WISHING 
 DAY Page 210 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN ON 
 THE LAW OF KINDNESS. 
 
 THE LAW OF LOVE— THE POWER OF LOVE -LOVE FOR HATE- A KIND VOICE 
 —WEALTH IN FRIENDS— BIRD FRIENDS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM— A 
 dog's love FOR A CHILD— THE DUTCH BOOH AND HIS HORSE— A POOR 
 dame's way to pay FOR KIND ACTS— THE RAILW.^ ' BRIDGE-MAN— THK 
 BRAVE MAN AT THE WHEEL -THE BRAVE GIRL AT THE OAR— THE OLD 
 DAME AND HER COAL OF FIRE— THE FRIENDS AND THEIR FAITH— THE 
 MEN OF PEACE AND THEIR STREN^>TH— ONE MAY HAVE IF NOT GIVE 
 LIFE— KIND WORK IN SMALL THINGS- HOW SMALL ACTS TELL ON LIFE 
 —THOUGHTS FOR HOME LIFE Page 259 I 
 
CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 THE INTEGRATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 
 
 FROM AN AMERICAN STANDPOINT. 
 
 THE INTEOBATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE — AMERICAN AND BRITISH DOWN- 
 EASTS — THE THREE ALLIED POWERS — AMERICA'S DEBT OF NATIONAL 
 HONOUR— THE JURY OF THE VICINAGE. 
 
 ^HE homogeneity of the English-speaking race de- 
 }~Jy). clares itself more manifestly in its political instincts 
 than in any other ethnical quality. In going forth 
 to all the habitable latitudes and longitudes of the earth, 
 it illustrates as well as proves this characteiistic. However 
 small the germ of a community it plants on continent or 
 island, in temperate or torrid zone, whether it be a score 
 or a hundred men and women, it tak6s the form of a self- 
 governing commonwealth, just as naturally as if sponta- 
 neously following a political instinct rather than a rea- 
 soned plan of civil life. When a score of such little town- 
 commonwealths have been planted within a circuit of one 
 hundred miles' radius, the same instinct or law draws 
 them into a representative union, called a colony, province, 
 or teiTitory, with a federal government in which each has 
 its share and interest. In the lifetime of a generation 
 half-a-dozen or more of such colonies or provinces are 
 
CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 formed in tlie same section of a continent, numbering in 
 the aggregate several millions of inhabitants. The same 
 instinct, motive, and necessity that led them to the organ- 
 ization of the first village government now operate with 
 equal force to bring these separate and well-compacted 
 commonwealths into a constitutional Confederation, called 
 the United States in one part of America in 1783, and the 
 Canadian Dominion on the other half of the continent a 
 century later. This centripetal attraction grows with the 
 growth and strengthens with the strength of all the mu- 
 nicipal, colonial, and other confederate communities of the 
 English-speaking race all round the globe. They all gra- 
 vitate into larger combinations and to fewer centres of 
 national being. This law, or force, shows itself as strong 
 and as active in the British as in the American branch of 
 the family. If all the British Colonies had been planted 
 on the same continent with the mother-country, however 
 wide its expanse and varied its climates, they would long 
 ago have been integrated with the British Empire, and 
 had each its proportionate representation in the Imperial 
 Parliament. 
 
 Then what stands in the way to prevent this political 
 instinct, or law, from having its free and natural course and 
 consummation ? What prevents the political integration 
 of the Britisii Empire, and the direct representation of all 
 its colonies, provinces, and de})endencies in the Imperial 
 Parliament at London ? The instinct, the interest, the 
 common motive and advantatre are not wanting. Then 
 what opposes, when all these favour and demand the 
 union ? 
 
 This is a question which it is natural for a thoughtful 
 American to ask, but which he is unable to answer. It is 
 a cause of honest wonderment to him that, in the light of 
 the last century's experience, no British statesman answers 
 this question — that the British press and public do not 
 discuss it. This is a period of very significant and in- 
 structive centennials, indicating points of great departure 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 11 
 
 in the past and i'or the futnie. No better time could be 
 chosen for British statesmen and leaders of public opinion 
 in England to consider this very question. And they 
 might reasonably begin at this starting-point of reflection: 
 If each of the thirteen American Colonies, one hundred 
 years ago,hadbeen allowed even two representatives in the 
 Imperial Parliament, what would have become of, or whence 
 would have arisen, the ground-cause of the American 
 Revolution, or " Taxation without Representation ? " Did 
 it pay the English Government and people to shut the 
 door of parliament against the representation of as intel- 
 ligent, virtuous, and loyal Englishmen in America as any 
 that then peopled the home islands of the Empire ? Has 
 the same policy of exclusion, in regard to any colony or 
 province under the British Crown, paid the Home Gov- 
 ernment and people in any decade since 1776, in any form 
 of compensation, in the sense of security, economy, or dig- 
 nity ? If not, then in the light of the past, in the bright- 
 er day of this present, and in the opening dawn of the 
 great future before us, why should they longer be willing 
 to repress and thwart the great political instinct of our 
 common race, to arrest this centripetal law of their politic- 
 al being, and exclude these scores of loyal millions from 
 the full and equal title and right of citizenship and own- 
 ership in a great and integral Empire ? There was a 
 time in the far past when the proudest words a man could 
 utter, on the Danube, the Volga, the Nile, or the Euphra- 
 tes, were ''Romanus civis sum." Paul, a Hebrew of the 
 Hebrews, was glad and proud to say those words of power 
 in the teeth of his Jewish persecutors. Britain's India 
 alone outnumbers in population all the races that yielded 
 obedience to the sceptre of the Ciesars. Why should not 
 any man of those hundreds of millions of subjects of the 
 British Crown be allowed to say, as proudly as Paul spoke 
 those great words before the Roman governor, "Britannicus 
 civis sum" and to say it to as full compass of its meaning 
 and prerogative as any Englishman could express and 
 
12 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 claim in the boast for himself under the shadow of St. 
 Stephen's ? 
 
 To the mind of an American, well read as to the char- 
 acter and history of his race before and since it branched 
 off into two pai-allel nationalities a century ago, every 
 motive, interest, and generous ambition, that should act 
 not only on Great Britain, but on the race it begat, would 
 seem to press for such an Integration of the Empire. 
 Without giving one motive undue rank over another, let 
 us begin with the patriotic sentiment, which is to the po- 
 litical forces of a nation what charity is to the sisterhood 
 of Christian virtues in an individual. Certainly no nation 
 can be great, in its own force or sense of being, at home 
 or abroad, without patriotism, or a love of country that 
 endures to the end, whatevei- that end may be, or what- 
 ever may come this side of it. This noble, inspiring senti- 
 ment, like charity, ^as covered, almost ennobled, a multi- 
 tude of sins in the lives of nations. When we feel the 
 pulse of a nation, and find this sentiment beating faint 
 and slow in its veins, we know it is affected with the 
 heart-disease, and has but little temps ou raison d'etre. 
 But when the sentiment pervades all classes like a com- 
 mon inspiration ; when even the toiling masses, though 
 bending complainingly under heavy burdens and wrong- 
 ful inequalities, can say, with as much pride as a peer of 
 the realm, " England, with all thy faults, I love thee still 
 — aye, better than any other land the sun shines upon ; " 
 when they can sing with the enthusiam of the French 
 peasants, of " La Belle France," or " C'est doux de mourir 
 pour la patrie;" when they can feel their souls lifted and 
 thrilled by the songs of the German Fatherland, or by 
 the " Star-spangled Banner " of the American people ; 
 when we see what this great sentiment is and does for a 
 nation, every possible motive and interest would seem to 
 induce statesmen and governments to cultivate and ex- 
 tend it toevery section and every subject or citizen within 
 their domains. If patriotism, even at its lower valuation, 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 13 
 
 is an active, evei'-available political force, on which a 
 goveinment may count in any emergency, then why 
 .strengthen it- in one subject and weaken it in another ? 
 Why kindle it to a constant heat and glow in the loyal 
 Englishman at home, and starve it down to a taper's 
 light and warmth in an Englishman equally loyal in 
 Canada, Australia, or India ? The purest, noblest pa- 
 triotism i) must live, must grow, by what it feeds upon. If 
 it is the love of country, it must have a country to love — 
 a country <to whose history, character, and c6nstitution it 
 can cling with all the tendrils of its affection, faith, and 
 hope — of which the subject, thus clinging to it, shall be, 
 if not an equal, at least an infinitesimal constituent of its 
 political being ; in which he shall have a political birth- 
 right and portion, as well as the mere right to say, " I was 
 born there." 
 
 Now, others beside intelligent Englishmen, when tra- 
 velling in British North America, in Australia, India, or 
 in the Cape Colony, must and do observe with admiration 
 the loyalty of those distant subjects of the British Crown. 
 Even the great-grand-children of the first settlers called 
 England " //o?ne," just as if that were the surname of the 
 country in which their ancestors were born. They will 
 talk about such and such persons going "home," about the 
 latest " home " news. Indeed, the term is in their mouths 
 so often that an American, French, or German traveller 
 may be at a loss in regard to what they mean by it, until 
 he learns by repetition that " home " is the generic 
 name for old England. What more can one be able or ex- 
 pected to say of a country than to call it " Home," the near- 
 est and dearest name after " Heaven ? " Why should not 
 such a sentiment have the same to feed upon in 
 those distant parts of the Empire as in England itself ? 
 Why should it not be allowed to cling to the motherland 
 by a political tendril, as well as by the fibres of a connnon 
 filial afifection ? It is said, and proved by much experi- 
 ence, that a republic cannot be established without repub- 
 
14 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 licans, nor a monarchy without loyalists ; that even law 
 cannot live and move without a public sentiment to sus- 
 tain it. But can there be room for a question in any ob- 
 servant mind, that the requisite sentiment is ripe and 
 ready, in every country under Queen Victoria's sceptre, 
 for the safe, peaceful, and well-compacted Integration of 
 the British Empire ? 
 
 Well, this condition precedent exists; the sentiment 
 is sufficiently strong and evident. The great vital force 
 necessary for 'the compacting of such an Empire is ready 
 and waiting for its construction. ' Where there is a will 
 there is a way,' says the old proverb, saying it sometimes 
 as an accomplished fact, and sometimes as an unrealized 
 possibility. Why not make a way for this will to become 
 part -and-parcel of one mighty Imperial whole ? To foster, 
 educate, and expand this sentiment of patriotism among 
 all the continental and island populations under the Bri- 
 tish Crown to its fullest, warmest life of loyalty, would 
 be in itself sufficient motive for the integration. But this 
 is only one of the many happy results that would flow 
 from it. The representation of all these colonial popula- 
 tions in the Imperial Parliament would do something 
 more for them than to attach them to the British Crown 
 and Government by a stronger sentiment of loyalty, or by 
 the faith and feeling that they had the same part and in- 
 terest in the Empire as the home counties of England. It 
 would stimulate the growth of cognate sentiments and 
 conditions of equal force and value. The whole outside 
 world knows and appreciates what Great Britain has done 
 to protect, encourage, and help her colonies to develop 
 their resources and to promote their material wellbeing ; 
 what an outfit she has given them in railroads, canals, ir- 
 rigation, telegraphs, and other agencies helpful to their 
 material prosperity. We know what she has done for 
 them in giving them institutions, political, educational, 
 and religious, forms of representative government similar 
 to her own, even to such small and distant dependencies 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 15 
 
 as Cape Breton, Vancouver's Island, and Natal. Perhaps 
 some home Englishman may ask : " What more can we do 
 for these colonies than we have done or are doing ? What 
 does a colonist lack that I possess ? Look at their legis- 
 latures, their universal or easy suffrage, their churches, 
 schools, cheap lands, and small taxes. Who pays for their 
 defence, for the scores of costly warships and scores of 
 regiments for their protection against foreign and domes- 
 tic enemies ? What social, industrial, or political advan- 
 tage or possibility do I claim or enjoy here, in my coun- 
 ty of Devonshire, that a loyal Englishman in Cape Bre- 
 ton or Natal does not possess ? " 
 
 Let us look at the premises assumed in these questions. 
 We will grant them. We will admit that the British 
 subject in Cape Breton or in Prince Edward's Island, with 
 its cheap lands and small taxes, can make for himself as 
 good a material position as his fellow-subject in Devon- 
 shire with the same industry. He can make himself, soci- 
 ally and politically, a better local position, if he has the 
 requisite talent and worth of character. It is much easier 
 for a man to work his way to the first rank of his island 
 society, than for the Devonshire man to reach the second 
 rank of English society. He may rise to the first place 
 in the Colonial Legislature or Council, while the other, 
 with all his talent, wealth, and influence, may not get high- 
 er than the wardenship in a village church. The Cape 
 Bretonian, with the learning to be acquired in his island 
 schools, may rise to a height of intellectual power and elo- 
 quence which would befit the English bar or bench at 
 Westminster, or the pulpit of St. Paul's. — "Very good and 
 true," says the Devonshire Englishman ; " then wherein 
 is not his position equal and even preferable to mine, both 
 in actual experience and prospective pcstibility ?" We 
 will tell you wherein the condition is disproportionately 
 in your favour. The Cape Bretonian by dint of long and 
 earnest study, has become a man of broad and deep learn- 
 ing and of commanding eloquence. " It may be so, but I 
 
16 ■ CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 have never heard of him," you say. True, that is just the 
 matter witli him, and you too. And you will never hear 
 of him, though he should rival Sir John Coleridge &t the 
 har, or the Bishop of Peterborougli in the pulpit. He has 
 all the elements of an illustrious statesman in him, and 
 all the stimulus for their development that the lieutenant- 
 governorship of a small and sparsely -peopled province, 
 whose history and geography are but dimly known to 
 you, can supply. He has in him the latent talent and 
 genius for a great writer, and as much scope, verge, and 
 impulse for a literary reputation as an eagle for lofty 
 flight in a hen-coop. This is one of the differences be- 
 tween you and him. You have risen to the wardenship 
 in your village church, and he to a lieutenant-governor- 
 ship in that distant colony. He has risen to the first so- 
 cial position in that province — you to the middle rank of 
 the middle class in England. But let us apply a political 
 standard to the measurement of your position. What is 
 his against the possibility of yours ? You can vote for 
 the Premier of the Imperial Parliament, the generating 
 heart and head-spring of all the colonial legislatures un- 
 der the sceptre of the Empire. Nay, more — there is no 
 legal or political bar between you and the Premiership it- 
 self. That great position is one of the possibilities that 
 rise before you to stimulate your ambition. But do you 
 prefer a literary reputation ? What a home constituency 
 to inspire your hope and appreciate and reward your 
 genius ! We see and admire what brilliant literature small 
 nations, like Denmark and Sweden, have given to the 
 world ; but what have colonies ever done in this field of 
 intellectual effort and production ? No, sir ; it is all very 
 well for you to talk of the position and possibilities of 
 your fellow-subject in Cape Breton or Natal, but you feel 
 the difference between you and him from the sole of your 
 foot to the crown of your head. Test his sentiment and 
 yours in your own mind. How do you feel towards him 
 politically ? Though he speaks your language, was bom 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 17 
 
 in your country, and calls England " Ho7ne," do you not 
 regard him a,s an outsidfr, and he you as an inmderl 
 What is his feeling towards all the .other Colonies of the 
 Empire ? What is his political relation to them, interest 
 in them, and influence over them, compared with yours, 
 as a constituent of Gladstone or Disraeli, as a home Eng- 
 lishman whose single vote, in a close contest, may elect 
 either of those statesmen ? 
 
 The Integration of the Empire, by even a very smallrepre- 
 sentation of each Colony in the Central Parliament would 
 make every man under the British Crown a head taller 
 in political possibility, and conscious dignity of his rela- 
 tion, not only to a consolidated Empire the ^un never 
 would set upon, but also to the rest of the world. A 
 seat in the Senate of such an Empire would be such a 
 stimulus to a noble ambition as no colonist ever felt be- 
 fore. And the colonial constituency or legislature that 
 elected him to that great position would feel that they 
 elevated themselves in elevating him to fill it. The great 
 prizes and possibilities of a world-girdling Empire would 
 be thrown open to all its millions of loyal subjects, from 
 the Premiership down through all its political, military, 
 naval, ecclesiastical, and literary positions. Its illustri- 
 ous honours and emoluments, patriotic duties and aspira- 
 tions would all be put into one commonwealth of motive 
 and reward, yielding all its prizes to those who should 
 win them in the ennobling competition of true merit and 
 talent. Who could estimate,to the full value of its direct 
 and collateral results, the working of such a competition 
 in every colony that now hugs the centre of its political 
 being as the whole world of its hope, interest, and inspir- 
 ation ? 
 
 But a greater result than any we have noticed would 
 flow from the Integration of the Empire. Nothing so 
 dwarfs a man, and so impoverishes his heart and thoughts, 
 as to shut him up in his own little self, in which there is 
 only room for him to say " / " and " My." The ettect is 
 
18 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 the same on a small isolated colony or community with a 
 government of its own. Its " We " and " Our^' are no mere 
 generous towards other Colonics, widely separated from 
 it by sea or land, than the "7 " and "My" of an isolated in- 
 dividual. Now this leanness of sentiment is the worst 
 result of a ' ong period of isolated independence in a small 
 colony or state. It intensifies their small-minded love of 
 self, and excludes from their thoughts all that does not 
 make for the interests of self, llieir little political en- 
 tity satisfies their ambition. They are loth to unite it to a 
 larger combination, lest some features of its local sover- 
 eignty should be lost. This characteristic of small poli- 
 tical communities has been strikingly illustrated in both 
 branches of our English-speaking family. Indeed, it has 
 been proved as a fact of actual experience, what might be 
 deduced from such a condition of things, that the smaller 
 the independent community the more reluctant it is to 
 relinquish its sovereign self, and become a joint constitu- 
 ent of a great and powerful union. After the war of the 
 American Revolution, in which all the Colonies fought 
 side by side for seven years, when they came to unite in 
 one great Federal Union, the smallest of them stood out 
 against it the longest, unwilling to yield one iota of its 
 local sovereignty for any good or glory it might derive as 
 part of .a great nation. So it has been in the recent Con- 
 federation of the British Provinces in America : the smal- 
 lest stood out against it the longest, under the influence 
 of the same sentiment. Each had lived, moved, and had 
 its being so long in a little self that its own "/ " seemed 
 greater to it than any " We " that it could form with other 
 Colonies. 
 
 Now, there is nothing that so tends to enlarge the 
 heart, life, and thought of a community as to feel that it 
 is the constituent of a great whole ; that " We " is the 
 grandest word a human tongue can utter, when the heart 
 expresses by it its interest in the populations of a conti- 
 nent, its fellow-feeling with the commonwealths of an 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 10 
 
 Eni])irG. See how it has ah-eatly worked in the Confeder- 
 ation of the British Pi'ovinces in America. What fellow- 
 feeling, what common bond of interest, was there between 
 Prince Edward's Island and Vancouver's Island ten years 
 ago ? Had they belonged to different and alien races, 
 they coidd hardly have been farther apart in mutual 
 thought, interest, and sympathy. But now they meet at 
 Ottawa. Now they feel that they belong to one great 
 and growing whole. Now they say " We'' and "Our" with 
 each other, in all the faiths, hopes, progressive capacities, 
 and destiny of a commonwealth spanning the continent. 
 Why, this very sentiment alone pays well for all the effort 
 the Confederation has cost, if it should produce no other re- 
 sult. If this sentiment works so well between Prince 
 Edward's Island and Vancouver's Island, why not give it 
 full play between the North American Dominion and 
 Australia and India, by letting them meet and say " We " 
 in the Imperial Parliament at London, and say it in the 
 full scope and inspiration of the feeling that they belong 
 to a mighty commonwealth, that spans the globe and em- 
 braces whole continents and half the islands of the sea ; 
 that in all the realised wealth of the gi-eatness and glory 
 of its past, in all the hopes and- grand possibilities of its 
 future, they have their co-equal share ; that what that 
 great Empire is yet to be and do for the world shall de- 
 pend upon their loyalty, as well as upon the virtue and 
 patriotism of the Home Islands ? Why not allow Cana- 
 dian, Australian, East Indian, and Caperaan to say "Bri- 
 tannicwi civis sum " to the full prerogative and compass 
 of meaning which such integration should give to it ? 
 
 There is another moral effect which would be realised 
 from this integration. The fellow-feeling and patriotism 
 which would pervade and inspire all the varied popula- 
 tions of the Empire would impart to the Imperial Legis- 
 lature a healthy element of action. This aspect of the sub- 
 ject may be neglected by many who may rdmit its other 
 features as worthy of consideration. For, in the consti- 
 
20 CHIPS PROM MANV HLOCKS. 
 
 tution of all reprosontativo ^ovorninonts, a country was 
 <llvi(i»Ml up into .sevoral hundred littK; W/s-, (!ach called a 
 borougli or electoral district. In the American Union, 
 the man who represented one of these districts was re- 
 quired to be a citizen residing in it, under the admitted 
 or apparent assumption tliat no outsider could fully re- 
 present, defend, and prc-mote its interests. When we 
 come to analyse this assumption, we find it resting on 
 the narrow ground of self — and a small self at best. It 
 seems to imply that the will and interest of a town or 
 district stand, in its estimation, first and foremost among 
 the objects of national legislation ; that its representative 
 is expected and chosen to look to these first, and second- 
 arily to others more remote. This assumption can hardly 
 mean anything less than the claim that each electoral dis- 
 trict may be, and ought to be, the subject of special legis- 
 lation ; that something should be done or left undone for 
 it, in distinction from the general and even weal of all 
 other parts of the country : in other words, that its own 
 little self shall stand out and be held up in all the dignity 
 of " the great / and the little u." This is still the law of 
 Congressional Representation in the United States, and 
 its spirit and object show its origin, or prove that self — 
 first in the individual, then in the town, next in the dis- 
 trict — asserted a claim upon the General Government 
 which could not be understood, represented, and defended 
 by any man in the next town or district, however wise, 
 virtuous, and eloquent. And for nearly a century no 
 congressional district in the United States has been re- 
 presented by a non-resident. 
 
 But Great Britain has built her representative system 
 on a broader basis of political faith and motive in its hun- 
 dreds of constituencies. Each has learned to say " We " 
 first and " / " afterwards, and their " We " means and em- 
 braces the whole nation and its interests. They do not 
 imply by their choice that their town or district has any 
 claim to special, or any part in the general legislation of 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 21 
 
 the country which an ahlu and tiu.sty man at the other 
 side of tlic kingdom may not faitlifully represent and de- 
 fend in Parliament. Thus, for the last hundred years it 
 would probably be found that two-thirds of the constitu- 
 encies of the kingdom have chosen outside men, wherever 
 they could find those who best commanded their confi- 
 dence. They never demanded permanent residence as a 
 ([ualification, or even recommendation, for their choice. 
 They had the three realms for a field of selection, and felt 
 it a duty and an honour to send the best man they could 
 find to Parliament. And when did a constituency ever 
 lose in its special or local interests by such a choice ? If 
 Lord Palmerston had been a native as well as rendent of 
 Tiverton, would he have been expected to do more than he 
 did for that town ? Did John Bright do less for Durham, 
 or Sharman Crawford, of Belfast, less for Rochdale, than 
 each would have done if a native of the town he repre- 
 sented ? 
 
 Here, then, is a broad and generous basis of representa- 
 tion in Great Britain already prepared and available for 
 the Integration of the Empire. The home constituencies 
 have learned to entrust their mind, will, and interest in 
 Imperial legislation to outside men — some of them to 
 Australian Lowe or Childers, or to Nova Scotian Halibur- 
 ton ? Have they lost anything by this confidence ? 
 But when we come to consider the influence of di- 
 rect colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament, 
 one very important fact will supply the proof, that only 
 the great and general interests of the Empire would be- 
 come subjects of this united legislation. For it must be 
 remembered that each of these colonies has a legislature 
 of its own, with sufficient power to look after its own 
 special and local interests, and would have no more occa- 
 sion to bring these specialities into Parliament than one 
 of the States of the American Union has to bring its mat- 
 ters of local interest into Congi'ess. Then each colony, 
 having such a local legislature for its special interests, 
 
22 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 would stand related to the Imperial Government and Par- 
 liament only by the senatorial connection that exists be- 
 tween each American State and the Federal Government 
 and Congress at Washington. Of course a popular repre- 
 sentation in the Imperial Parliament for all these colonies 
 is entirely out of the question. It would be all that each 
 could claim, or need, to be represented by two senators. 
 That is all that the State of New York, with a population 
 of 4,000,000, has in the U. S. Senate ; and Delaware, with 
 less than 100,000, has the same number. Thus 100 repre- 
 sentatives would be all that would be necessary or desir- 
 able to be brought into Parliament from all these scattered 
 domains of the Empire. Leaving behind all the special 
 interests entrusted to their local legislatures. Parliament 
 would be a normal school to them in which to learn to be 
 statesmen of such large and generous perceptions as to take 
 into their daily thought the common weal of one-third of 
 the population of the globe, embracing races of a 
 hundred different tongues. Here representatives from all 
 the great islands of the ocean and from all the earth's con- 
 tinents would meet together at St. Stephens for half the 
 weeks of the year, to study and promote the interests of 
 three hundred millions, who would make up the mighty 
 whole. What scene has the world yet witnessed to com- 
 pare with such a spectacle ! To the political world it 
 would surpass what the CEcumenical Council of five hun- 
 dred Bishops was to the ecclesiastical as a representative 
 body. What it was natural for each Bishop of this great 
 Council to feel in regard to the spiritual empire of the 
 Roman Catholic faith, every colonial senator in the British 
 Parliament would feel, in deeper and broader sentiment, 
 in regard to the Empire he represented in part, though 
 that part were only Manitoba or Natal. If either of the 
 two, or smaller still, he would feel it to be a living mem- 
 ber of the same great political body, beating with the same 
 pulse of political life, and a sharer in all the destiny of 
 greatness and glory which such a ife and such a union 
 could win. 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 23 
 
 There is a question which has undoubtedly suggested 
 itself to many public men in England, in connection with 
 any scheme for giving the Colonies a direct representation 
 in the Imperial Parliament. It is a question that comes 
 up in this form : " What would these representatives from 
 all the ends of the earth know or care about our home 
 matters of interest ? j^ re we to submit these interests to 
 the judgment and decision of such — foreigners, we must 
 call them at first, some of them ex-princes from India, 
 who can hardly speak our language, and who have not yet 
 adopted our religion ? " Perhaps this wide question em- 
 braces all or the most serious difficulties that present 
 themselves to Englishmen of highly intelligent and 
 thoughtful minds. Let us, then, consider their weight 
 and vincibility. 
 
 I First, then, the representatives of England proper would 
 outnumber all the Irish, Scottish, and Colonial members. 
 This fact may be cited only to meet the brute-force possi- 
 bility of a coalition majority against the special interests 
 of England, if such a strange possibility must bo admitted. 
 But what conceivable motive could induce the representa- 
 tives of Newfoundland and New Zealand to enter into a 
 i coalition with East Indian or Irish members against the 
 ; home interests of England ? If they had the animus and 
 '. ability for such coalition strategy, what earthly object 
 i could they gain by it ? If they are to impart truthful 
 I information in regard to the condition, wants, and wishes 
 ; of the Colonies they represent, as the basis of Imperial 
 i legislation in their behalf, could they be enticed into the 
 , fantastic hallucination that a readiness and habit of run- 
 j ning into coalitions would promote their ends ? 
 I But what special institutions or interests has England 
 now, or would have at the integration, that could be aftect- 
 ; ed by this Colonial representation ? She is now elaborat- 
 ing a system for the education of all the children of the 
 realm, even bringing up from the gutters and lairs of 
 poverty and sin the moat reprobate street arabs and gam- 
 
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 ins of her large cities. Well, is it conceivable that the 
 representatives of Colonies like those of North America 
 and Australia, that have made common-school education 
 almost as free and cheap as air, would throw a straw in 
 the way of this home effort to educate all the children of 
 the people ? Let bygones be bygones, but one memory 
 may be revived in this connection. If every Colony calls 
 England " Home" every State and every well-read citizen 
 of the American Union calls her " the mother-country " ; 
 and if he and every loyal colonist ever had cause to blush 
 for their common mother, it was for the reason that she 
 left so many of her home children in the outer darkness 
 of ignorance. Who outside the home islands would be 
 happier and prouder for her success in bringing up those 
 children to the highest level of popular education than 
 the Canadian, Australian, or the American citizen ? 
 
 Well, what other institution, interest, or proposed im- 
 provement, special or advantageous to England, Scotland, or 
 Ireland, could be put at hazard, or in any way obstructed, by 
 this Colonial representation ? The electoral basis has been 
 reduced almost to universal sufferage in the three king- 
 doms, and is likely some day even to reach that level. 
 Very good. Then would representatives of Colonies that 
 have already adopted this basis be likely to obstruct it in 
 England ? Then there is the British Constitution, which 
 is a little world of history and historical precedent in it- 
 self, instead of a written compact, like the Constitution 
 of the United States. Would that be exposed, by colo- 
 nial representation, to any change which the English peo- 
 ple themselves should not propose and initiate ? Would 
 the great estates of the realm lose their relative place or 
 Influence ? Would any of the prerogatives left by pre- 
 scription and precedent to the Crown be annulled or 
 weakened ? Would either House of Parliament be abol- 
 ished, or curtailed in function, dignity, or power ? Would 
 there be any motive or tendency to diminish the rank anti 
 value o^ the great prizes and places now existing in the 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 25 
 
 United Kingdom, and which would be thrown open to 
 competition to all wlio had the ambition to strive for them 
 and the ability to win them, anywhere in the vast Empire 
 after its political integration ? What possible good could 
 accrue to any Colony from any change in the British Con- 
 stitution, or in the estates of the United Kingdom, which 
 the English people themselves should not desire and origi- 
 nate ? 
 
 Next let us come to the complicated and agitating ques- 
 tion of Church and State. Let us suppose this question 
 should not be settled in England at the time of this Im- 
 perial Integration. It may be injudicious e,nd improper 
 in an American to express an opinion in regard to the 
 subject ; but perhaps he ma\'^ take it for granted that the 
 strongest friend of the Established Church believes that 
 the time is coming when it must stand by, or fall from, 
 its connection with the State, by the infallible test of 
 the Divine Founder of the Christian faith — by its fruits, 
 not by its leaves ; not by pretentions or professions it has 
 not realized in its Christian work, life and power for the 
 spiritual well-being of the nation. When that time comes 
 if the Church shall be found to have failed both in fact 
 and faculty of fruitage, most likely the English people 
 alone, and even the best friends of the Church, will desire 
 and effect its release from the State, in the belief that the 
 severance will increase its vitality and vigour. But In- 
 tegration would not and could not pi-ecipitate this event. 
 For when the Empire shall be thus unified, the State 
 Church must be a local institution, special to England 
 alone, over which colonial representation would have no 
 control nor influence, nor any interest or motive to exer- 
 cise either, even if it had the ability. But if t!iey had a 
 desire to meddle with the question, the English members 
 would have the numerical power to retain the connection 
 as long as they thought it best for the well-being of either 
 Church or State. StiU, Disestablishment would tend to 
 give the Episcopal Church a power for expansion it never 
 
 B 
 
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 had ill its own independent spiritual right. It would 
 be put on the same footing- as the Episcopal Church in 
 the United States, where, from Maine to Georgia, and 
 from Texas to the Canadian border, it is one and the 
 same as an ecclesiastical organization, electing its own 
 bishops without leave or license of any civil government. 
 No finger of the State touches its prerogative as an 
 independent religious body. No Crown, Parliament, or 
 no President or Congress meddles with its choice, or 
 touches, with a word or warning look, its faith, wor- 
 ship, or doctrine. Even if there were cause on the 
 part of the English State Church to fear that Integra- 
 tion would hasten Disestablishment, it would find a full 
 compensation for the severance in the new field for its 
 life and power which a consolidated Empire would open 
 up before it. Let it cast its eyes on the position of the 
 Roman Catholic Church in the United States. In no 
 part of the wide world does that Church grow so rapidly, 
 and meet so few restrictions to its free will and expansion, 
 as in the American Union. In no country is it more 
 loyal and devoted to the Pope's spiritual authority. Yet 
 he cannot throw around it a figment of civil powei', nor 
 does it receive, ask, or need an iota of such power from 
 the American Government. Still, all its bishops and 
 archbishops, and its cardinal, are appointed by the Pope, 
 and always in conformity with the wish and interests of 
 the American Catholics. If, then, the Roman Catholic 
 Church is the freest, strongest, and most prosperous and 
 loyal, where it has not a little finger's force of civil au- 
 thority or state patronage, why should the English Church 
 fear to put itself on the same footing, if Integi-ation 
 should actually hasten that consummation ? 
 
 We will only consider one ijiore of the questions in- 
 volved in the proposition we are discussing : that is, the 
 commercial relation and interest. Let us look at this 
 question from a common- sense point of view. We have 
 dwelt upon the intellectual, sentimental, and political 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 27 
 
 impulses and advantages which wonld be gained by two 
 liundred and fifty millions of British colonial subjects by 
 being put on the same political footing as their fellow- 
 subjects in England. Probably no thoughtful home 
 Englishman would doubt that these colonial populations 
 would be gi-eatly benefited in these respects by this 
 political equalisation. But he may ask, " After all, what 
 should we English people at home gain by it ? " This 
 may be answered by another question : " What do you 
 gain now fi'om the North American Colonies or Australia, 
 which you would not if they were independent nations ? 
 What do they contribute directly to the support of the 
 Imperial Government ? Do you try on your Income Tax, 
 or any other tax, upon them ? The whole world knows 
 what you have spent on them in the last fifty yeara : 
 have you got any of it back in this period through any 
 form of taxation? " " But they buy our manufactures," 
 you say. Very true, but would they not buy as many if 
 they were independent States ? Do they not act towards 
 you as if they were ? Do they not impose a duty on the 
 manufactures you send them, just as if they came from 
 a foreign country ? How is it about the old discriminat- 
 ing duty question ? You must remember that, unless you 
 have forgotten Cobden. Did not the English home peo- 
 ple pay, in fifty years, £100,000,000 more for their colon- 
 ial sugars than the same quantity and quality would have 
 cost them if bought in other markets. Have you forgot- 
 ten the old colonial timber-duty ; how home Englishmen, 
 when they were obliged to have Baltic timber for certain 
 purposes, had first to ship it from Norway or Sweden to 
 Canada or Nova-Scotia, unload it into colonial shi[)s, and 
 hire them to bring it to Liverpool, all for colonial vro- 
 tectian? 
 
 Let us glance at the present commercial relations be- 
 tween the mother-country and her Colonies, and appreci- 
 ate their anomalies. To do this adequately, let us put 
 them side by side with the commercial relations between 
 
CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 the American Union and its Tonitorios. These are political 
 communities, in training to be admitted into the Republic 
 as full-organised States, when they have acquired the re- 
 quisite population. Each of them, like a British colony, 
 has a legislature of its own. The Governor of each is 
 also appointed by the Central or Home Government. It 
 has the same right of petition as a British colony, and 
 other faculties of influence to use at Washington in behalf 
 of its interests. Congress engages to defend it against 
 the Indians and other enemies, just as England does in 
 regard to each of her Colonies. Now, then, suppose such 
 an anomalous commercial relation should be suggested 
 between the American Government and one of its Territor- 
 ies as that now existing between England and Canada or 
 Australia. Can an intelligent Englishman believe such a 
 relation could be tolerated six months, without stirring 
 the people of all the old States to indignant emotion ? 
 Suppose that Washington territory, Arizona, or New 
 Mexico should take it into its head to establish a set of 
 custom-houses around its borders, and levy a duty on all 
 productions imported, into it from the States, in order to 
 raise money for making roads, building bridges, and for 
 educational and other purposes. But does not Canada do 
 also to each of the other Colonies what she does to the 
 mother-country ? Does she not impose duties on the 
 colonial produce of the West Indies, just as if it were im- 
 ported from the most favoured foreign country ? 
 
 This, then, is the unnatural, anomalous commercial re- 
 lation existing not only between the home-country and 
 its colonies, but between one colony and another in sev- 
 eral cases. Compress the principle within an area like 
 France, or even the American Union, and we have the 
 old French octroi system in full operation, putting colon- 
 ies for cities, and giving each power to tax all articles 
 brought into it from the others. Now the Integration of 
 the Empire would change all this. It would bring all the 
 Colonies under the British Crown into just that commer- 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 29 
 
 cial relation to it and to each other which now exists be- 
 tween all the States of the American Republic, and be- 
 tween them and the Federal Gevernment. It would 
 abolish the octroi system from one end of the Empire to 
 the other. All the custom-houses from Canada to New 
 Zealand, and from Vancouver's Island to Heligoland, 
 would be Imperial, however the revenues they collected 
 might be distributed. 
 
 These, then, are several of the more important consid- 
 erations which v/ould occur to a thoughtful American 
 mind in favour of unifying the British Empire, after the 
 representative system of the American Union. With all 
 his loyalty to his own country, with all his faith in its 
 great destiny, he knows this glorious future he expects 
 for his nation must be inseparably associated with the 
 future of the mother-country ; that they must and will 
 go over the sea of remaining time, yard-arm to yard- 
 arm, bearing aloft to all other nations and peoples the 
 same flag of civil and religious freedom, vitality, and 
 civilising power. He would say to her at this momen- 
 tous juncture, what Nelson said at Trafalgar : " Anchor ! 
 England, anchor!" Now is the time to anchor these 
 drifting ships of her fleet, that, brought into a new line 
 of battle for universal humanity, they may sail forth 
 abreast to conquests they never won. 
 
 THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH "DOWN-EASTS." 
 
 For fifty years and more the Lower British Provinces 
 had been the most unknown and untravelled section of the 
 continent to the great majority of the American people. 
 Indeed, we had more to do, say, think, and hear in regard 
 to Mexico than to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 
 Those provinces had even been left out in the cold on our 
 
30 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 maps, or attached to them as a kind of appendix, ai=i if 
 not to entirely ignore or overlook their geographical posi- 
 tion and existence. The best-read and best-travelled 
 Americans could tell but little of the location, form, size, 
 and capacities of the country, or of the history and char- 
 acter of the people. The thousands who visit Europe 
 have stopped for one hour at Halifax, and seen the worst 
 or harbour side of that town, and perhaps have thought 
 it pretty much the whole, or, at least, the best, of Nova 
 Scotia. Cod, mackerel, and herring fishers have cast their 
 hooks into every square league of the provincial waters, 
 but the lands they surround or bound had been left hidden 
 in their native fogs or in the deeper mists of imagination. 
 Up to within a year or two we had no points of connec- 
 tion or access for visiting the country. A vast distance 
 of actual or imaginary wilderness intervened between 
 our Down-East and the Down-East of these Lower Bi-itish 
 Provinces. All land-travel between them was barred except 
 by rough staging over tedious rough roads. But a well ap- 
 pointed railway has changed all this, and brought into 
 our near neighbourhood one of the most interesting coun- 
 tries in North America, which, doubtless, will hereafter 
 become an attractive tourist and recreation section for 
 thousands of American travellers. And not one of them 
 could have availed himself of this new facility for visit- 
 ing the country with more pleasure than myself. I had 
 travelled much in the two Canadas, and visited nearly 
 every considerable town and village in the upper Pro- 
 vince, and had long wished to see what kind of countries 
 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were, and what kind of 
 people resided in them. 
 
 When I set out on this journey about the middle of De- 
 cember, I had heard that there was a railroad in operation 
 between Bangor and St. John in New Brunswick, but was 
 unacquainted with the means of travel in the interior of 
 the provinces. However, I started in the belief that they 
 Y^'ould enable me to visit all the principal towns and points 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 31 
 
 of interest. The whole journey was very enjoyable, and, 
 in some respects, more instructive and interesting than if 
 made in summer. I say more instructive to a mind open 
 to the lessons of Nature. And next to the lessons of 
 Holy Writ those which Nature teaches with her illustra- 
 tions I have studied for years with attentive faculties. 
 Perhaps no other living man has been so deeply affected 
 by them as myself Forty years ago a single half-hour's 
 study of physical geography changed the whole course 
 of my life from that time to this. I there read a new 
 gospel in the revelations of Nature, or rather the gospel 
 of the New Testament written in duplicate in the lan- 
 guage of the seasons, soils, climates, and productions of 
 the earth. I have often said that the difference between 
 the island of Great Britain and Labrador, made all the 
 difference in my life and labours for thirty years ; that 
 had it not been for the difference in climate, soil, and pro- 
 duction between these two sections, lying in the same 
 latitude, under the same sun, and washed by the same 
 sea, I should never have gone to Europe, or written or 
 spoken a word on the brotherhood and interdependence of 
 nations. It is for this reason that no one can be more in- 
 terested in the varying productions of different countries, 
 or study the political economy of Nature more atten- 
 tively than myself. This study has brought me to the full 
 conviction and faith of a mathematical fact, that Nature 
 has so provided for a constant commerce not only between 
 sea-divided nations, but between states or provinces of 
 the same country, that there is no section of the earth two 
 hundred miles square that can produce the same articles, 
 in quality or quantity, as the next section of the same 
 size adjoining it on either side. 
 
 The striking proofs and illustrations of this industrial 
 and commercial economy of Nature are to me a special 
 source of instruction and enjoyment when travelling in 
 any direction. And I do not recollect seeing this econ- 
 omy more beautifully illustrated than on my winter's 
 
32 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 journey through Maine, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 
 The first feature of it which I noticed with peculiar in- 
 terest, was the industrial ; or that arrangement which 
 Nature provides for equalizing the conditions of sections 
 of the same country, divided by wide spaces of distance, 
 and varied by wide differences of production. These 
 compensations afford a most instructive study. For in- 
 stance, if she gives to one section a vast area of flat, level, 
 soft, alluvial soil, as to one of our Western prairie States, 
 she gives to it no mountain, nor forest, nor bright, healthy 
 streams of water ; and where she withholds these, she cuts 
 off the supply of paying, continuous labour through the 
 winter. The soft, rich soil of the prairie State is easily 
 and quickly tilled ; its harvests, reaped and threshed by 
 machinery, arc early sent to the market ; then comes a 
 long winter of discontent or compulsory idleness to hired 
 labourers, and they flock to large cities like Chicago or 
 San Francisco, where they spend all their earnings through 
 the past short season, and become frequently a charge upon 
 the charity or care of Young Men s Christian Associa- 
 tions. But in Maine and other New England States we 
 see, and ought to recognise with gratitude, what Nature 
 gives them in exchange for fertile, alluvial soil, and for 
 all the advantages for which we are so apt to envy the 
 West. She gives these States good, healthy work for 
 every month in the year. Indeed, the busiest industries 
 of the year in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are 
 carried on in the winter. The observant traveller must 
 enjoy a winter journey through these States with a pecu- 
 liar relish of satisfaction. He will see their hill-sides, 
 river-sides, and valleys studded with such farm houses as 
 he will find nowhere else on this continent or on any 
 other. He will see the white abodes of country life all 
 radiant with the quiet competence within ; looking as if 
 their very cheeks were rounded out with the plenty that 
 fills cellar, larder, and garret. He will see what will give 
 jiim eq^ual pleasure. He will see often great, white barns, 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 33 
 
 locked arm-in-arm with the house. 'sharing and reflecting 
 its comfort. He will see cattle, sheep, poultry, and swine 
 basking in well-littered and sunny yards, as if, in the 
 languageof the poet, "their lai'ge and lustrouseyes thanked 
 the Lord " for the kind thouglit of them which He had 
 put into their master's heart. He will see how Nature 
 remembered this barn-yard companionship of human life, 
 and provided for it in her gifts to the country. Contrast 
 tlio New England condition of these barn-yard companions 
 with the condition of their kind in Illinois. Nature has 
 given no timber to the prairie State for building barns to 
 house its cattle. If we may say it with reverence, she 
 gave those States their heart's desire and boast in rich 
 soil, but sent leanness into their souls in regard to the 
 dumb animals that serve and enrich them. The harvests 
 which these animals plough for, sow, reap, thresh, and 
 carry to market seldom buy a shelter for them against 
 the cutting breath of a prairie winter. For myself, I can 
 truly say, that I never travelled in any civilized country 
 with such sympathy for farm animals and with such in- 
 dignation at their cruel treatment, as in those fertile 
 States of the West, that boast so much of what they call 
 their natural advantages. To see, as every one may see 
 if he has a heart to look at the spectacle, a herd of cattle 
 standing unsheltered with the mercury at zero and with 
 icicles six inches long hanging from their nose, is a sight 
 tliat takes away the enjoyment of a winter's journey in 
 that section of the country. 
 
 In Maine and New Brunswick especially one will get 
 a new sense of the mission of snow on the earth. Poets 
 have given us their view of it in the aspects that strike 
 the fancy. The sleigh-bells of a hundred winters have 
 set it to the music of social life. Its sanitary work has 
 been dwelt upon in learned disquisitions. But here in 
 these forest States its irdustrial value and power are 
 brought to the front of all other considerations. Here, 
 snow is the only possible roadway to the mountain, forest, 
 
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 and lowland wood. What would all t,ho vast forests of 
 timber be worth without snow ? What would pine 
 lumber cost us per thousand without it ? Snow is the 
 universal railway which Nature lays down every winter 
 for these lumber States, from the foot of every tree in the 
 still backwoods to every sawmill, and every stream and 
 wharf of the country. There it is not only road 
 but it is motive power. The snow of Maine and 
 New Brunswick is equal to half a million of horse-power 
 in the transportation of lumber. That is, it would re- 
 quire half a million more horses than now employed to 
 get this timber from forests to the mills on bare ground, 
 if this were possible. In travelling through these sections 
 one cannot help being impressed with the industrial 
 capacity and value of snow. While there, a warm rain 
 had carried it away, and the very wheels of industiy 
 seemed to stop turning on their axles. The whole com- 
 munity longed, hoped, prayed, and looked for snow as 
 earnestly as the people of other States wish and wait for 
 rain in time of drouth. 
 
 There is one most valuable result of an international 
 railway, or one running across the boundary between two 
 different countries. The grim custom-house, which so di- 
 vides nations, and so taxes them for being independent 
 of each other, has to let down one or two of its top-bars 
 to the iron horse. He cannot stop to parley with the 
 official banditti of restriction, or with trunk and satchel- 
 seaichers, so they only make a pretence of examination, 
 and pass one's baggage with only the ceremony of a chalk 
 mark. The custom-house authorities on the line between 
 us and the British Provinces are particularly gentle and 
 polite in their small duties. And well may they let us 
 pass into our neighbour's territory with the slightest in- 
 spection; for, with our high tariffs and shoddy money, 
 they know that we cannot take with us anything that 
 the provincials can afford to buy. So there is only one 
 article that occasions them question or suspicion. This is 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 35 
 
 fohaccn — the sweetest morsel that the custom-officers of 
 other countries search for in Amencan trunks and carpet- 
 bags, for no other article in the world will bear such a 
 heavy tax. 
 
 For a hundred miles beyond the Maine boundary line, 
 the country is nearly of the same character as that on 
 this side, minus the thrifty towns and villages. For this 
 whole space had remained a kind of thinly-settled wilder- 
 ness until the opening of the railroad from Bangor to 
 St. John. So we meet with no considerable village until 
 we come to the great sea-port of New Brunswick. No 
 city between New Orleans and Halifax presents such a 
 striking and interesting view from the sea as this pro- 
 vincial town. The scenery at the entrance of the harbour 
 is almost equal to that of Quebec, taking away the great 
 fortress. It is situated on the Bay of Fundy at the mouth 
 of the St. John River. The hills on either sido are nearly 
 as bold and high as at Quebec. On these hills the town 
 rises street by street, with its churches crowning I he sum- 
 mit, and presenting an imposing appearance. Just across 
 the narrow bay, which seemingly is not so wide as the 
 Connecticut at Hartford, another city, like a Brooklyn to 
 New York, called Portland, is arising on another hill of 
 equal height. The St. John River here comes into the 
 bay at right angles, spanned just above the junction by a 
 noble suspension bridge, which adds an interesting feature 
 to the general view which the eye grasps at once from 
 the sea. Whatever advantage the Canadas may possess 
 in other respects, these Lower Provinces surpass them in 
 sea-ports open all the year round. The harbour of St. 
 John can never freeze or close in winter. It has in itself 
 an ice-breaker which all the frosts of the North Pole 
 could not resist, — a tide that rises and falls more than 
 twenty feet every day. Few sea-ports in the world are 
 better adapted for shipping at all seasons of the year, and 
 the tonnage owned and sailed by St. John undoubtedly 
 equals that of New York. For many years past it has 
 
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 carried on a great trade in ships, by building and loading 
 them with timber, then taking them to England and 
 selling them with their loading at Liverpool. Its trade 
 with the West Indies and South America is one of the 
 richest sources of prosperity to the'whole province. These 
 countries have to import all their lumber not only for 
 houses but for their productions, which must all be sent 
 away in casks or boxes. Millions of these are sent from 
 Maine and New Brunswick in what are called shooks,or the 
 sides, bottoms, ends, and covers of a box, or the staves 
 and heads of a cask, in a compact shook, to be put to- 
 gether when landed. The number of these packages ex- 
 ported to Cuba alone, for sugar and molasses, is simply 
 prodigious. 
 
 What the gold mines of California and Australia are to 
 those countries, the pine forests of the British Provinces 
 are to them, and more abundant far in enduring produc- 
 tion and value. They are safer, steadier, and more fertile 
 sources of prosperity. A single schooner could bring to 
 New York all the gold ever mined in California. Five 
 thousand men could have gathered it all probably from 
 the diggings. But the mining of lumber in the Canadas 
 and New Bninswick has employed fifty thousand men in 
 the forest diggings of the axe, and hundreds of the largest 
 ships to convey their huge nuggets to the woodless 
 countries of the world. The mills, ships, and men em- 
 ployed in this great, bulky business create a vast amount 
 of collateral enterprise in the building up of towns, and 
 in setting the wheels of other industries in motion. One 
 or two facts will illustrate the extent of this trade. 
 I overheard a man state in conversation that he could 
 turn out 100,000 feet a vi^eek from his mills on the St. 
 John. During last season, a firm in Montreal sent 
 twenty million feet to the United States, and thirty mil- 
 lion to Buenos Ayres, 
 
 The Lower Provinces, or New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 
 Qape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 37 
 
 not only possess all the open Atlantic Sea harbours of the 
 new nation which is to extend from ocean to ocean across 
 the continent, but they produce a vast amount of raw 
 material for exportation. Nova Scotia and Cape Breton 
 are full of the best bituminous coal in the world, and 
 never, since my return from England, have I enjoyed such 
 a luxury of comfort as while sitting by the bright, happy, 
 healthy fires in their open grates. Ho\^ much I coveted 
 the luxury for New England, which ought to enjoy it in 
 all her homes, and would enjoy it were it not locked out 
 of her possession by the iron key of Pennsylvania, which 
 prevents us from using any other coal but her brain blis- 
 tering fuel. During the coal famine which the Pennsyl- 
 vania corporations produced for their own benefit a year 
 or two ago, the doors of the Nova Scotia ports were 
 opened a little, and preparations were made for sending 
 their coal into the States, but the old policy has been 
 restored, and this excellent fuel is excluded from our own 
 use, though it may be laid down at the provincial wharves 
 for $2.50 per ton. 
 
 In going by land from St. John to Halifax, I passed 
 through the centre of Nova Scotia for the whole length 
 of the peninsula, going around the head of the Bay of 
 Fundy. The distance is over 200 miles, and the govern- 
 ment railway passes through a very beautiful and 
 productive country. No western prairie can be more 
 fertile than the section that borders on this remarkable 
 bay, which narrows to a common river's width for many 
 miles at its upper end. A vast section of this prairie land 
 has to be dyked to keep out the high tide, and it is th' .s 
 brought into a high state of cultivation, especially for the 
 production of the finest quality of English grass. Thou- 
 sand upon thousands of stacks of the best hay studded a 
 great expanse of this rich and level country, and its con- 
 veyance home or to ports for exportation makes a great 
 part of the winter work for farmers. This is the great 
 dairy and stock-raising section, and cattle trains to St. 
 
38 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 John's, Halifax, and other large towns, are frequent 
 and heavily laden. 
 
 Although little wheat and Indian corn is raised in these 
 lower Provincee, other crops, equally valuable, make 
 agriculture as profitable as in milder cliniates. Oats and 
 potatoes are here grown to their highest perfection, and 
 in vast quantities for export as well as for home consump- 
 tion. The demand for these productions increases with 
 the growth of population, both in the States and in the 
 Provinces, and this demand stimulates and extends agri- 
 culture and all the businesses and interest connected with 
 it, building up market towns and raising the position of 
 the farming community. 
 
 My journey being in the winter, when the country was 
 covered with snow, of course I could only imagine how it 
 would look in summer when covered with its luxurious 
 vegetation. I was sorry not to be able to visit the section 
 bordering on the eastern shore of the Bay of Fundy, 
 especially that part which Longfellow has immortalized 
 in his Evangeline. His description of Grand Pre, or the 
 Great Prairie, must have been true to the life, and almost 
 equally true in regard to many other parts lying on both 
 sides of the bay. 
 
 Taking the farm lands, forests, mines, fisheries, and 
 ship-yards into account, few States in our Union afford 
 more continuous, steady, and paying employment than 
 these Provinces. This unbroken continuity of industry 
 is one of the best capacities of progress and prosperity 
 that any country can possess. For hardly any condition 
 can be more demoralizing in its tendency than that in 
 which the labour or business of the year must be accom- 
 plished in six or nine months. The rivers of New Bruns- 
 wick are numerous, running through a picturesque and 
 variegated country, full of every species of scenery that 
 delights the eye. They not only serve as thoroughfares and 
 through-carriers for the great lumber and timber traffic, 
 but they offer the best fishing gi-ound in America. They 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 39 
 
 are richer in salmon than even the rivers of Scotland, and 
 are attracting American tourists and sportsmen to their 
 ]»anks in greater numbers from year to year. It is 
 doubtful if any river this side of the Rocky Mountains 
 would afford more picturesque and enjoyable scenery than 
 the St. John, whose head streams extend almost to the 
 St. Lawrence. 
 
 I was surprised to find the railroad system so fully 
 developed in the two Provinces. Indeed the New Bruns- 
 wickers claim that they will soon have more mileage of 
 railway in operation per head of then- population than 
 the people of any State in America or in Europe. Two 
 parallel lines are now in process of construction, both to 
 be carried through to the St. Lawrence, and which will 
 connect Quebec with St. John and Halifax, and render 
 those towns the seaports of Lower Canada in winter. 
 These railways are built, owned, and worked by the 
 Dominion (xovernment, and no one can travel on them 
 without being impressed with many of the enjoyable 
 advantages of the system. They are not worked to pro- 
 duce the dividends which railway companies make the 
 alpha and omega of their lines. There is no starveling or 
 stingy economy in their arrangements in order to yield 
 increa*jed profits to shareholders. They are run for the 
 public good and the public comfort. The stations are 
 large, neat, and well kept. The cars are excellent, and 
 the running is arranged on a fixed principle. The Gov- 
 ernment owns most of the land through which these lines 
 are constructed. They buy the rails at a lower rate than 
 our corporations pay for them, because the iron key of 
 Pennsylvania cannot lock their ports or exact the heavy 
 tribute to that State which she imposes upon the whole 
 American Union. 
 
 I was much interested in a scheme for promoting immi 
 gration adopted in New Brunswick. The Government 
 appreciates the condition of every family of European 
 emigrants on landing. Therefore it not only gives them 
 
40 CHIPS FllOM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 a certain amount of wild or uncultivated land as we do, 
 but it clears six acres for each settler, and builds him a 
 log-house, and furnishes him with provisions, seeds. Sic, 
 as an outfit. The small tax or return it retjuires for this 
 outlay, he is to work out on the ])ublic road next to his 
 allotment. Thus, without a day's delay at the sea-port, 
 he may go dii-ect to the home prepared for him, and find 
 it ready for his reception, and six acres of land ready for 
 planting. This is a very generous and politic system, 
 and must tend to bring into the Province a valuable pop- 
 ulation to increase its wealth of land and labour. 
 
 The present is a very interesting period in the political 
 condition of all the Provinces and communities that are 
 now assuming the coherence and consolidation of a 
 national being. For a hundred years they have lived in 
 a kind of small-minded and selfish isolation, jealous of 
 their little local independence, preferring, like some of our 
 little States after the Revolution, to be a small / rather 
 than a large WE. But now they are entering upon a 
 new condition, full of the stinmlating ambition of a 
 national life. The small personality is merging itself into 
 a nationality that extends from ocean to ocean across 
 the continent. Now Nova Scotia is learning to say we 
 with Vancouver's Island on . \ie Pacific ; to meet in one 
 national parliament at Ottawa, a part of the young empire 
 as far from it as Sweden itself. It is interesting to visit 
 a people in this incipient state of national formation ; to 
 see how the first impulses of patriotism act upon theii' 
 faith, hope, and ambition ; to see how their minds expand 
 to take in a new vista of political being, in which they 
 shall be admitted into the sisterhood of independent 
 nations, and to which no one of them all will give it a 
 prouder and heartier welcome than that Mother Country 
 which will number the new Dominion as the second 
 nationality she has begotten. 
 
 The population of the Provinces is well calculated to 
 develope its resources by an even and steady industry, 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 41 
 
 and to form one of the best communities on this conti- 
 nent. It is composed of the best fundamental elements 
 for the formation of such a community. In the tirst 
 place New Brunswick is the child of Massachusetts, and not 
 her prodigal son or daughter. It was natural and inevit- 
 able that a gi-eat number of men of high social position, 
 of education and influence, at the beginning of the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, should have recoiled at the act and intent 
 of severing their connection with the Mother Country, 
 endeared to them by a thousand years of glorious history. 
 One may easily conceive how the thought of such a sever- 
 ance must have affected the minds of such men ; and how 
 ditticult it must have been for them to repress the utter- 
 ance of the painful sentiments which filled their souls. We 
 know, by the experience of our loyal union men in the 
 South during the civil war, what they must have felt and 
 suffered. And we can easily imagine that their condition 
 after the successful termination of the Revolution was 
 pretty much what the condition of the loyalist in the 
 South would have been if the war of secession had 
 resulted in Southern independence. Whether they found 
 this condition insupportable, or their attachment to the 
 Mother Country to increase at the loss of her colonies, 
 hundreds of them left some of the best homes in New 
 England and emigrated to the almost unexplored wilder- 
 ness of New Brunswick, living in log huts, and subject- 
 ing themselves to all the hardships and privations which 
 the Pilgrim Fathers experienced at Plymouth Rock. St. 
 John was their place of refuge and rendezvous. It was 
 then only a kind of trading post for traffic with the In- 
 dians. Here the loyalists erected their little settlement 
 of huts, and slowly, painfully, and hopefully made it a 
 city of habitation, and moulded the whole Province of 
 New Brunswick by the shaping influence of their charac- 
 ter. They were some of the best educated men of Mass- 
 achusetts, representing many of her oldest families, whose 
 names are now familiar to Beacon Street in Boston. One 
 
 
42 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 of these loyalists owned the grand old mansion wKich 
 Gen. Washington made his headquarters at Cambridge, 
 now the immortalized home of Longfellow. He left it, 
 and all its comforts and luxuries, for a log cabin on the 
 St. John, like many others of similar standing and senti- 
 ment. Indeed, there are but few of the old hereditary 
 families of Boston that are not represented to-day in the 
 first families of St. John and Halifax. Appreciating and 
 even admiring the mistaken sentiment of these self- 
 expatriated men, it was interesting to me to attend service 
 in the first church they built in St. John, to worship with 
 their sons, and join with them in the fellowship of a faith 
 which unites all the English-speaking nations of the 
 earth beyond the severance of revolution, secession, or 
 a-ny of the political convulsions that affect the world. 
 
 I cannot well close these observations without noticing 
 the commercial relations which Nature has provided 
 between New England and these British Provinces. They 
 virtually lie side by side, with a similar seaboard and a 
 similar inland. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia virtually 
 abut upon Maine. When one looks upon the surface of 
 the two sections, they seem alike, covered with the same 
 timber and growing the same crops. The trees, grain, 
 grasses, and roots are the same. The soil of one produces 
 nothing different from or better than the soil of the other. 
 A superficial observer might say, here are two sections of 
 country which Nature has made entirely independent of 
 each other, because she has given to one just what she 
 has given to the other, in variety, quality, and quantity. 
 Thus she has made no provision for any trade between 
 them. This would be the natural inference of a man 
 who only looked at the surface of the two sections. But 
 let him look again. Let him look into their cellars, and 
 he will see a marvellous difference. He will see the 
 elements of a vast commerce between the two sections. 
 He will find in the cellar of the Provinces countless 
 millions of tons of the best coal in the world, while he 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS, 43 
 
 will not find a bushel in the cellar of New England ; coal 
 which would give to New England that gi-eat luxury 
 wliich the people of Old England enjoy in the brightest, 
 healtliiest, happiest fires that ever cheered and blest the 
 homes of any race or age. When New England opens 
 the eyes of her thoughtful mind to see what Nature pro- 
 vided for her in the cellar of her nearest neighbour's 
 country ; what connnercial ties she wove and twisted for 
 them in the very heart-strings of the earth, she will open 
 all her eastern doors to a trade which the iron key of the 
 Keystone State has so long locked out of her reach and 
 enjoyment 
 
 These commei'cial relations prove anew the theory 
 which has made such a deep impression on my life, that 
 there is no section of the earth two hundred miles square 
 that can live independent of the section of the same size 
 adjoining it on the north, south, east, or west; a fact 
 which constitutes the first syllable in the political 
 economy of Nature. 
 
 THE THREE ALLIED POWERS. 
 
 The world has heard and seen much of Allied Powers — 
 of their spirit, motive?, and ends. Their history is pretty 
 well written up, and easily and widely read. Some of 
 these alliances have been very incongruous in their 
 elements and even objects. Most of them, if not all, have 
 been temporary, and those of longest compact have been 
 the most unsuccessful, as may be seen from the experience 
 of " The Holy Alliance." But there are alliances of Great 
 Powers which God has joined together, and which neither 
 man nor any outside coalition may put asunder, which 
 time itself cannot dissolve. It will take much time for 
 the world generally to recognise and accept this fact ; but 
 
44) CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS, 
 
 the public mind of England should now be up to the 
 level of this truth, and be able to receive it and act upon 
 it in all the future that lies before the nation. Surely 
 this must be clear and manifest to all who watch the 
 signs of the times, and heed their evident meaning: 
 
 England, Russia and America are the Three Great 
 Powers which, from their birth. Providence has been 
 training for an everlasting alliance in the greatest work 
 that united nations could accomplish or attempt for the 
 world. For a whole century long the liens of this union 
 have been growing in number, and tauter and stronger, 
 and they can no more be loosed by outside human will or 
 force than " the bands of Orion." For several centuries 
 the Star of Empire has held its way westward from the 
 cradle of the race. But the East and West have now 
 met, and the Star of Christian Empire, in making its 
 tour around the world, now faces eastward again ; and 
 who should follow its light, and secure its conquests for 
 mankind ? Who are the East and West, as the great facts 
 and living forces upon which these victories of civiliza- 
 tion depend ? They are England, Russia and America. 
 These are the Three Great Powers which Providence has 
 allied for this mighty mission for humanity. It is not an 
 alliance of their own free and predeterminate choice. The 
 choice .vas not left for their option. A mind more 
 enlightened than theirs made it for them, and irrepealable. 
 Seeing this revealed by the clearest facts, how can they, 
 why should they, be " disobedient to the heavenly 
 vision ? 
 
 W as there any alternative ? Were there any other 
 Powers in the world which, by geographical position, by 
 history, inherent force of character, and other civilizing 
 capacities, could do the work which Providence has com- 
 mitted to these three great Empires ? What is that 
 work ? To reclaim the largest and most populous con- 
 tinent of the world from the waste of heathenism and 
 the blight of moral darkness ; to lift it up to the light 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 45 
 
 und lovol of Cliristian civilization. A vast enterprise 
 tliis, most truly. If an arid desert is to be irrigated to 
 fertility, where must the water come from ? Certainly 
 from the green land of springs that surrounds it. If 
 (Jenti-al Asia is such a moral desert, and must be irrigated 
 with the water of a new life, what green lands surround it 
 tliat can turn upon it their healthy and fertilizing springs? 
 Can there be two reasonable or truthful answers to that 
 (juestion? England, Russia and America are the only 
 counti'ies surrounding Asia than can supply these springs. 
 Each is fitted with remarkable capacities for its part of 
 the conniion work — by local position, by history, by fun- 
 damental institutions, and civilizing force of character. 
 See how these three Powers are converging toward each 
 othei-, as they bear down in their triangular march 
 upon Asia. 
 
 There is Russia, deploying southward on her march 
 across the continent. Is she not the only power on earth 
 in position to do the work of Christian civilization for 
 the northern half of Asia ? Let us be fair, and appreciate 
 historical facts honestly. Has any other Power, with the 
 same capital of moral force, done more for the empire of 
 civilization in the dark places of the world than she has 
 done in the last century ? Could we put France, Italy, 
 or even Germany in her place, could either of them do 
 more than she is now doing to this great end ? It is not 
 what she was in Peter's day, or in that of Nicholas, that 
 is to guide our opinion, but what she is now and what she 
 is to be in the steady growth of her civilizing power. We 
 see the indices of that growth in the emancipation of her 
 serfs, and in freeing and sending home 10,000 Persian 
 subjects enslaved in Khiva. It is inevitable ; Russia must 
 and will widen her empire and her power southward ; the 
 great work assigned her requires it, and Providence will 
 allow no interpellation of temporary suspicion to interrupt 
 " the order of the day" it has established. 
 
 Let us now turn to England on the south, with more 
 
46 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 than a third of the population of Asia under her rule. 
 We do not see her there as the England of Hastings and 
 Clive, but as the England of to-day and to-morrow. As 
 such we know what she is doing there, and what she has 
 to do, and what she has to do it with. We see her work 
 of moral irrigation going on, and the growths of living 
 green that line the streams in widening belts. We read 
 of the railways and electric telegraphs, of the common 
 schools by the thousand, and other institutions, she is 
 planting over the vast region under her softening and 
 beneficent sway. It is inevitable. She is under the 
 motive necessity of her position. She must, she will 
 widen her empire northward, until there shall be no more 
 Himalayas as the boundary of civilization. The moral 
 forces work slowly in their first terms of action on dark 
 and dense masses of mankind, but they follow the geome- 
 trical order of progression, and at later steps produce 
 results of stupendous importance. By that rule England 
 has been working as long as Russia in Asia. She had the 
 most enlightened, and Russia the most benighted, popu- 
 lation of the continent to work upon. Each is producing 
 its proportionate results for the races divided by the 
 Himalayas. 
 
 Now let us turn to America, and its part and lot in the 
 great work as one of the Allied Powers. America, 
 if Europe's west, is Asia's east, its nearest Pacific neigh- 
 bour. So far as direct and easy contact is concerned, 
 America abuts broadside on to the eastern half of that 
 populous continent. This is the civilizing force of its 
 local position, and by virtue of this local position alone it 
 is more in effective contact with Eastern than Russia is 
 with Northern Asia. Its head springs of civilization are 
 nearer than Russia's, nearer than England's to that side 
 of the continent, and they will grow nearer and nearer in 
 proximity from year to year, for all the centuries to come. 
 For English America and American England, both the 
 Great Republic and the growing Dominion on its north, 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 47 
 
 are peopling the vast areas west of the Mississippi, and 
 west of the Rocky Mountains, duplicating their Atlantic 
 ))oris and commerce on the Pacific coast, anrl planting it 
 from sea to mountain with their most vigorous comm'ini- 
 ties. China and Japan will for evermore be the nearest 
 foreign neighbours to Pacific Am(3rica. This is not theory; 
 it is not a prospective possil)ility merely ; it is an active 
 reality, even now, at the advanced sbige of experience. 
 The steamships that now ply between America's west and 
 Asia's east make more frequent departures and arrivals 
 than those of the Atlantic did between Livei-pool and 
 New York in 184G. They will increase to weekly inter- 
 vals, then to daily, perhaps in the same time that this rate 
 was reached between Europe and the United States. For 
 when the American railway system between the Missis- 
 sippi and the Pacific shall have been developed to its full 
 design and capacity, Europe must share largely in this 
 Pacific commerce. 
 
 But the<e capacities of proximity and commerce are 
 among the minor civilizing forces that fit America as a 
 partner Power with England and Russia in the great 
 work of reclaiming Asia to a Christian civilization. She 
 is bringing to bear upon this work forces of a far higher 
 grade of moral power. She is not now, and never will 
 be, planting American communities in China or Japan, as 
 normal schools of instruction in the life of municipal insti- 
 tutions and self-governing populations. But she is doing 
 more than this, more than she would if she planted and 
 peopled a town of 10,000 Americans every year in those 
 countries. She is taking into her own States Chinese by 
 tens of thousands yearly, to apprentice themselves to her 
 industrial occupations and machinery of laboui", to learn 
 what these and all else that they see, handle, use, hear 
 and enjoy may teach them. This is not the only class of 
 learners that are to carry back and disseminate such in- 
 struction through their native countries. There are hun- 
 dreds of Chinese and Japanese students in American 
 
48 CHirS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 collo^'uH antl scliool.s, fittin*.^ themselves to liccoine teachers 
 at home of a higlier education. Then American instruc- 
 tors in every department of industrial and social science, 
 professors of colleges, noriual and connnon school teachers, 
 political economists, bankers, merchants, railway and 
 telegraph constructors, master mechanics, and other men 
 of the best skill and experience in the arts of enlightened 
 civilization, are doing their best to impait them to the 
 whole Empire of Japan, which is opening its doors widely 
 and gladly to admit them. 
 
 This, then, is the part of the great mission assigned to 
 America as a partner with England and Russia ; and she 
 is not disobedient or blind to the calling of Providence. 
 It is inevitabhi. There is no discharge for her from this 
 task and duty. She must, she will, march with these 
 civilizing forces westward and inward upon Asia from the 
 whole length of its Pacific coast. Now, who can look at 
 these movements and detach one from the other, in its 
 progress and result ? Who can fail to see that these 
 Powers are converging towards each other, and to one 
 great momentous end, in their triangular march upon 
 Asia ? Then, is it not time that the three great Empires 
 thus fitted and called to such an enterprise, and at this 
 moment engaged in it with such small and lessening 
 spaces between them, should recognize the alliance in 
 which Providence has joined them by bonds which they 
 cannot sever ? Is it not time for their statesmen to say 
 what the poet sings : — 
 
 " And howsoever this wild world may roll, 
 " Between your peoples truth and manful peace, 
 * England — Russia — America." 
 
 This enlightened and generous sentiment is what is at 
 this moment most needed to ensoul the policy and atti- 
 tude of the Three Powers toward each other. "Truth 
 and manful peace" should be their watchword and coun- 
 tersign on this grand march for humanity. Truth, not 
 the fitful vagaries of a suspicious imagination. Manful 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 49 
 
 [H-aco -peace that wears tlie liriglit face ot* that nohle 
 manly coura^'e which nations niUHt yet learn, the courage 
 to helieve that what you would not do to another, 
 another would not do to you. " Howsoever this wild 
 W(;rld may roll," this cori'elative and complement of " the 
 golden rule" Englaml, Russia and America must learn and 
 pi'actice on this march. Let no one be offended at the 
 repetition. The day is coming — it is near at hand — 
 when England and Russia must meet broadside on in Asia, 
 just as the United StateH meet Enghvnd in America. 
 They must see what the outside world sees, tliat the day 
 must come on this conv(!rging march eastward when their 
 developing Empires shall meet in the thin and common 
 boundary of a geometrical line. Why should they not 
 thus meet in " manful peace ? " Why should one or both 
 wish a wide or narrow waste of heathenism between 
 them ? Why should there be more need of such a sterile 
 space between them than one of equal width between 
 Russia and Germany ? Does commerce, still affected by 
 the traditions of a policy gone for ever, recoil from this 
 proximity ? Commerce is not a war, but a friendly trade 
 between two countries, as helpful to one as to the other 
 Could Russia, then, injure British India by selling to it 
 and buying of it more than now ? Does political Gov- 
 ernment apprehend the proximity ? The British rule in 
 India is not that of Hastings or Clive. If it is not now 
 all that Indian millions can love, Britain can make it one 
 of the best in the world for them, a Government which 
 they would not exchange for one that any other Power 
 could establish. Can religion shrink from the conter- 
 minous line ? Such a line would only mark the centre of 
 the widest continent, over which the banner of the same 
 Cross would float from the Indian Ocean to the Frozen 
 Sea. 
 
 These are a few thoughts which the view from an 
 America,n standpoint suggests to the English mind. 
 
50 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 AMERICA'S DEBT OF NATIONAL HONOUR. 
 
 Among private gentlemen of fastidious sensibility there are 
 no obligations regarded more sacred than debts of honour. 
 These debts are a self-acting law unto themselves, which 
 defines their character, and prescribes their payment, and 
 enforces it by an authority which no wiitten law of the 
 land confers. Nor do these debts of honour belong merely 
 or mostly to the duelling code. They are obligations 
 founded in the most refined sensibilities of cultivated men, 
 and all the more sacred, exacting and respected because 
 they are out of the jurisdiction and reach of statute law. 
 Nor are they debts of deportment, propriety or etiquette 
 merely, which one gentleman owes to another. They are 
 often money obligations which no legal authority can 
 enforce or recognise as binding upon any individual who 
 assumes them. And chiefly for this reason are they called 
 debts of honour, which even thieves respect as their 
 "higher law," as well as gamblers of the highest social 
 grade, and horse-race and boat-race betters. 
 
 If such individuals can and do manifest such fastidious 
 sensibilitv to obligations which no written laws impose, 
 enforce, or define, or even allow as legitimate, how much 
 more sacred ought great nations to hold their debts of 
 honour to^each other ! And no nation in the wide world 
 has hanging on its reputation for sheer equity an unpaid 
 debt of honour of such sacred obligation as the United 
 States. Even measured by the low code of the card-table 
 and the horse-race, it is a debt which no individual could 
 repudiate without losing caste among men who pretend 
 to be gentlemen. But measured by the moral standards 
 of a nation that prof»3sses to be the living embodiment of 
 justice, law, and equity, and of highbred civilization, it is 
 a debt that touches " the immediate jewel of its soul," and 
 it cannot be left unpaid without a fleck upon that precious 
 treasure. Let us thoughtfully consider the character of 
 this unliquidated obligation. 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 51 
 
 We have heard of " Courts of Honour " established or 
 proposed, not to solve questions of justice and equity, but 
 questions of sensibility between gentlemen of a high sense 
 of honour. Well, while other nations had resorted to no 
 other tribunal than the duellists' code provided for the 
 settlement of their difficulties, the United States and 
 England erected in the very heart of Christendom 
 the sul)limest Court of Equity and Honour the world had 
 ever seen. To that bar, the loftiest one this side the great 
 white throne of Eternal Justice, they brought the aggra- 
 vated and complicated case of controversy between them. 
 None ever submitted to a human tribunal involved more 
 complex questions and difficulties. But the two great 
 Christian Powers who, by taking hold of hands, could 
 make their fingers meet around the globe, laid aside 
 armaments that could have shaken its lands and seas, and 
 stood before the august bar of their own creation in their 
 civil dress, claiming nothing that pure equity and honour, 
 as determined by that tribunal, should not prescribe. It 
 was the grandest spectacle the by-standing nations ever 
 witnessed. It was a new point of departure in the 
 history of the human race, laying doM'^n a line in the 
 chart of a coming civilization for all present and future 
 empires, kingdoms, and republics to follow. How many 
 millions, with shoulders peeled and bent with 'wars past 
 and prospective, looked to the great court at Geneva as if 
 its arbitrament were to emancipate them from their long 
 and cruel bondage to the blood and iron of brute force ! 
 
 The grand court was organized and opened with a bench 
 of judges whose ermine was as spotlessly pure as any 
 that ever sanctified a human tribunal. The most eminent 
 advocates of the two nations stood before them with their 
 briefs. What was to be the scope of their plea ? That 
 was the first question to be discussed and decided. The 
 world, to the extremest frontiers of civilization, heard the 
 discussion and the decision. It heard what was to be 
 excluded from the case and what it was alone to include. 
 
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 An innimierable cloud of witnesses and hearers sur- 
 rounded the court, though so few of them were visible. 
 On their memories is written and legible to-day what the 
 court decided the case should reject and what it should 
 only admit. Half the millions of the civilized world 
 could testify to that point with their sign manual. He 
 who now personates the highest institution and idea of 
 American justice was there, and he knows precisely what 
 the decision was from its first to its last syllable and 
 comma. The distinguished advocate who ])leaded the 
 American case with all the force of his eloquence, and 
 who is now the mouth of the Union to other Powers, was 
 there, and knows fully and minutely what grounds were 
 allowed within the scope of his argument. Our National 
 Government, Congress, and people knew and know that 
 the very name and shadow of claim for consequential 
 damages were excluded from our case; that only the 
 losses of individual sufferers by the Confederate cruisers 
 were to be taken into account and provided for in the 
 award of the tribunal. There was no ambiguity noi- 
 shadow of turning nor possibility for a doubt in this 
 clearly defined agretnient. 
 
 In every possible way by which our Government could 
 acknowledge and assume the duty and office, it accepted 
 the Geneva award solely in trust for the individual 
 sufferers by the Confederate cruisers. By the obligations 
 of this duty and office it was to ascertain who were these 
 sufferers, what were just and equitable claims, and to 
 liquidate them fully and fairly from the money held in 
 sacred trust for this sole purpose. And when every such 
 just and honest claim is thus satisfied, the whole of the 
 intent and compass of the award is accomplished and 
 realized. The trust is exhausted. The trustee has no 
 right in law, equity, or honour to a farthing of the money 
 remaining in his hands. Nothing could be more dishonour- 
 able on his part than the effort to trump up a pretended 
 book account of his own against the truster, and seize the 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. ^ 53 
 
 l)alance loft to satisfy that bogus claim. If our Govern- 
 ment should put into its own treasury a single dollar of 
 the Geneva award against " consequential claims," the act, 
 by the clearest law of honour and equity, would be a down- 
 right theft or embezzlement. It would repudiate the 
 most sacred obligation a nation could give before the 
 world by holding the Geneva Tribunal in contempt, 
 rejecting the basis of its award, and perverting it to a 
 purpose which both parties agreed should be put out of 
 coui-t. ■ 
 
 Then on what other grounds can our Government claim 
 the shadow of a right to retain a dollar of the unexpended 
 award, after all the losses of individuals have been fully 
 satisfied ? If our Government were an individual trustee, 
 some one might say that it could charge a commission on 
 the money it received and distributed, and appropriate 
 the bala,nce left to pay for its own time and expense in 
 administering the trust fund. Perhaps some one, search- 
 ing for a plausible excuse, may point to the great cost of 
 the Geneva Court, and of the Arbitration Court at Wash- 
 ington instituted to obtain and apportion the award. 
 But who paid the bills of cost for these courts ? Did not 
 the whole nation pay them in the very way that it pays 
 the expenses of our own Government, and did not the 
 men who had their ships burnt by the Confederates pay 
 their proportion of the cost of the courts of award and 
 distribution? But suppose a considerable number of 
 astute lawyers could make such a claim on the balance of 
 the award plausible, what patriotic American would be 
 willing that our Government should put in a bill for 
 commission on the money obtained and apportioned, and 
 seize the whole balance in its hands in payment of its fee? 
 How would that sound and look to the outside world ? 
 
 A dead tiy vitiates the apothecary's pot of ointment, 
 however precious it may be. An iron-rust tinge across 
 the face of the most finely-sculptured statue spoils the 
 the work of its artist and the pleasure of its owner. Jf 
 
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 our Government puts a dollar of the Geneva award into 
 its own treasury, on the claim of consequential damages, 
 or of a lawyer's commission as a trustee, it will smutch 
 with a blotch of iron --ust the whitest bar of equity and 
 honour ever erected i. i the history of mankind. What 
 nations would venture to bring their questions before 
 that bar for solution, if they felt themselves exposed to 
 such sharp practice ? Shall our Government be the first 
 to bring contempt or suspicion upon a tribunal which has 
 done such large justice to us and which our new Presi- 
 dent, at the very outset of his administration, has so 
 heartily commended to the confidence of all civilized 
 Powers ? Every American patriot who holds his coun- 
 try's honour as a priceless treasure should feel that he has 
 a deep interest in the answer to be given to this question. 
 That answer is soon to be discussed, just as if other than 
 one alone could be given. There are givings out, now 
 and then, here and there, of intimations how and for what 
 the balance of the Geneva award may be retained and 
 " covered " into the treasury of the trustee, to be appro- 
 priated to some national object. There is imminent 
 danger that our Government may be tempted to find some 
 plausible excuse for this sharp practice. To avert this 
 danger, every man between the two oceans who has his 
 country's honour at heart, and feels what course it should 
 dictate, ought to " cry aloud and spare not," " Send back 
 that money ! " 
 
 THE JURY OF THE VICINAGE. 
 
 A NEW characteristic of this latter-day civilization has 
 been recently developed, which our great men, and all 
 who aspire to a great position and reputation, may well 
 regard with peculiar interest. Lord Bacon submitted his 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 55 
 
 reputation to the verdict of a distant posterity whose 
 judgment would not be biased by the personal prejudices 
 of the men of his own time. Other illustrious candidates 
 for fame have looked to the jury of a coming generation 
 to do them justice. And few of those appealing to such 
 a court have lived to enjoy or know the verdict it ren- 
 dered to them. In no other country is a public man's 
 reputation so long in chancery as in America. If he have 
 reached the highest place in the nation, and filled it faith- 
 fully, the contemporary estimate of his character is only ex 
 'parte. He is only the head and representative of a poli- 
 tical party, generally in power by a small majority. 
 More than any other man, he has to bear the prejudices 
 and antagonisms arrayed against that party, not only 
 while in the Presidential chair, but after he leaves it. He 
 cannot expect to see the true and permanent status of 
 his character determined or recognised by the mind of 
 the nation during his lifetime. Sometimes it requires 
 more than one generation to do justice to him. For an 
 illustration, the verdict as to the character and relative 
 place of Andrew Jackson, is not yet fully made out. It 
 will take two or three decades more to reach a national 
 and permanent estimate. 
 
 But with the new faculties of mind and motion which 
 steam and electricity have created, the old has given 
 place to a new order of things. And in this new order 
 a " jury of the vicinage " has been empanelled to sit en 
 permanence upon public characters and public acts and 
 national policies. And it is a jury that is not affected by 
 local prejudices or interests, but a true verdict finds and 
 renders, unbiased by these influences, so powerful on a 
 lower court. Two American cases have been recently 
 appealed to this great outside jury, with a result which 
 does honour to our whole nation, and which proves that 
 when one of our great men finds his character hanging 
 in the meshes of a partizan court at home, " like the poor 
 man's right in the law," he can " change the venue," and 
 
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 appeal confidently to that great and impartial tribunal 
 that sits for judgment outside his own country. 
 
 First, let us take the case of Seward ; for no American, 
 nor English, nor any other character in modern or ancient 
 history, was ever submitted to the Grand Jury of the 
 outside world with such a verdict as honoured him. He 
 was never President, though he aspired to that position, 
 and sought it too eagerly as some thought. Both political 
 parties recognised his great talents, and the power with 
 which he wielded them in his country's cause during the 
 trying and momentous years of the Civil War. Even his 
 political opponents were constrained to admit that he was 
 a patriotic, as well as broad-minded statesman. But 
 when he stepped down and out of his great office with 
 the marks of an assassin's knife upon him, he was, per- 
 haps, the most unpopular public man in the country. 
 And the unkindest cuts of denunciation came from 
 organs of his own party. In view of these fierce diatribes, 
 and the general sentiment of the country apparently 
 against him, one might have reasonably thought at the 
 time that his public life had been decided by the Ameri- 
 can people as a failure, and that they had pronounced a 
 verdict against him which could never be reversed. 
 
 But there was a great outside Court of Appeal ready 
 and waiting to reverse the hasty verdict of his country- 
 men, and to do full and noble justice to the deposed 
 statesman. Never before in the history of the world did 
 a man bring his character for judgment before such a 
 court. It was literally a tribunal composed of all races, 
 tribes and human tongues. Brahmins and Buddhists, 
 Mohammedans and Pagans, Hindoo, Ceylonese and Egyp- 
 tian peasants, sat on " the jury of the vicinage," and the 
 verdict of the great court of nations was unanimous that 
 he had deserved well of his country, and that his charac- 
 ter was known and honoured in all countries. The grea^ 
 ministers of oriental empires received him with profound 
 veneration, and asked counsel of his wisdom, experience 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 57 
 
 and patriotism to guide them in their public duties. The 
 black and half-naked peasants of India, Ceylon and 
 Egypt seem to have heard of him, and were ready to do 
 him reverence. And all around the globe he carried his 
 country with him. He incarnated himself in it, and im- 
 pressed its image upon every honour he received. All 
 who saw him in those far-off countries, recognised and 
 received him as the living impersonation of his country, 
 of its wisdom, virtue, power and place among the nations. 
 Such was the case he appealed to the Supreme Court of 
 Nations ; such was the verdict he brought back to his 
 home, and which no partisan nor minor tribunal can wer 
 reverse or impair. 
 
 And now we have another great American case going 
 before the jury of the vicinage. Twenty years ago, per- 
 haps, no middle-class man of the same intellectual force 
 and social status was more unlikely to become President 
 of the United States than Ulysses Grant. Before the 
 Civil War he had won no military or civil distinction. 
 Indeed, he appeared to have abandoned the military pro- 
 fession altogether, and to possess no special talent for any 
 other occupation. As a civilian, he had never been ap- 
 pointed to fill any municipal office, not even to serve as 
 a constable, so far as we know. He made all the history 
 that carried him to the Presidency in the Civil War. He 
 won that great distinction in a four years' campaign as a 
 soldier. When chosen to the chief magistracy of the 
 nation, he took the exalted place without the slighest 
 pretension to any previous training or experience to fill it 
 successfully. Holding the great seal of the nation to 
 impress upon every act of national legislation before it 
 could become law, he had never been member of a State 
 assembly or town council. And yet he was expected and 
 required to think and act like a profound and experienced 
 statesman. It is, and always will be, a marvel that he 
 thought and acted as well as he did in the most critical 
 period of the country's history. Undoubtedly, if those 
 
 D 
 
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 who surrounded hiui had permitted him the free play of 
 his own thought, he would have made himself a better 
 President of the whole nation. But greater men than he 
 had yielded to the counsels they had invoked to guide 
 them in the great office he filled. He began to yield to 
 influences he could not resist, and which gradually de- 
 flected his course from the high level he had been 
 expected, and which he seemingly had at first intended, 
 to maintain. Gradually many of the very founders of 
 the great party that put him in power fell away from 
 him, and oi)posed his re-election. Many of the great ma- 
 jority that carried him into his second term soon began to 
 be dissatisfied with certain features of his public character 
 and policy. Some even began to call these habits and 
 tendencies Grantimn, others, Ccesarism. 
 
 So, when he stepped down from his high place and 
 power, in the exciting and perilous complications of a new 
 Presidential election, the roaring and foaming waves of 
 political emotion seemed to bury him and his history out 
 of sight. He appeared to be as unpopular, or as much 
 forgotten by the nation, as Seward when he retired to 
 private life. Small reverence was paid to him as he 
 travelled about the country, and his character and history 
 seemed to find neither judgment nor hearing in the home 
 court of the public mind. But, as in Seward's case, the 
 jury of the vicinage was in session to do him justice. Its 
 verdict, as rendered by the great Anglo-Saxon Empire of 
 the Old World, is complete and unanimous. Never before 
 did England and other Eluropean countries empanel such 
 a jury to sit upon the character and status of a man of 
 another nation ; for it embraced all ranks from the sove- 
 reign on the throne to the operative at the hammer, spin- 
 dle and loom. We have all read their verdict, which no 
 inferior or local court can ever reverse. 
 
 Grant is passing on to other tribunals, at which his 
 character and history will have a hearing and a judgment 
 which will do honour to his country, as well as to himself. 
 
INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS. 69 
 
 For if the honour were divided, his own part would be 
 worthless. It is a high merit of his mind that he sees 
 and feels this. And it will do credit to his country to 
 see and feel it too. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 
 POWER AND PERIL OF A NATIONAL ILLUSION. 
 
 POWKB AND PEUII> OF A NATIONAL ILLUSION— COST AND PEUIL OP PRECAU- 
 TION— THE EASTBKN QUESTION— KUSSIA's AMBITION AND ITS COMPABA- 
 TIVE BE8ULTS. 
 
 ATIONS of great power and renown have shown 
 themselves as much subject to strange idiosyncra- 
 sies or optical delusions of the mind as individual 
 men. The one which stands in the very first rank in 
 Christian civilization has been the greatest victim of these 
 vagaries and hallucinations. England for two hundred 
 years has sacrificed rivers of precious blood, and treasure 
 which arithmetic can hardly measure, to the veriest bug- 
 bear of her imagination. Every war she has waged on the 
 continent of Europe for the past two centuries has been 
 to create or maintain a balance of power, for her own im- 
 agined security, without reference to the wish or well- 
 being of the people of those countries who were to be put 
 in this scale or that to efi'ect the adjustment. Look at the 
 long wars in the reign of William of Orange and Queen 
 Anne, chiefly to put a German prince on the throne of 
 Spain instead of Philip of France. N ot the slightest refer- 
 ence was made by England and her allies to the question 
 which of the two princes the Spanish nation preferred for 
 their king, or which of them would best promote the in- 
 terests of the people. If a French king were allowed to 
 ascend the throne, he would annex or ally Spain to 
 France, and the French power thus increased would be 
 sure to be arrayed against England. But could not France 
 and Spain be as easily and effectively united against Eng- 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 61 
 
 land wlicn separato powers as if thoy were under one 
 sceptre ^ Has she not found this true several times in 
 lier own experience ? Of course the balancc-of-power 
 system, whieli has cost so many years of war and such a 
 (ii'hige of human blood, is of no avail in time of peace. But 
 whatdoes it amount to in war? Has not England proved to 
 tlio world that the balance of power is not in favour of 
 the country that has the largest territory or population, 
 but in favour of the nation which has the largest balance 
 of money in the bank ? It was her money-power that 
 overthrew the first Napoleon, or the allies which it could 
 bi'ing into the field. 
 
 For a century and more, England has victimised herself 
 to this balance-of-power bugbear. For more than one 
 hundred years the American colonies encountered their 
 greatest peril from the wars of the mother-country to up- 
 hold this strange vagary. Her long conflicts with France 
 brought down upon the feeble and scattered settlements 
 of New England the savage raids of the French and In- 
 dians from Canada. The colonists were involved in all 
 the hostilities she led in Europe. They had to put their 
 small towns under watch day and night, against foes by 
 sea as well as land ; against French, Dutch, or Spanish, 
 as well as Indians. At her summons they sent forth 
 their little military contingents to Canada, Nova Scotia 
 and Cuba, where hundreds of them left their bones as a 
 sacrifice to a theory v/hich has cost Christendom more 
 bloodshed and misery than all the other causes of war put 
 together. See what comes out of this national hallucina- 
 tion. Here is the grand old nation whose history, up to 
 within the century just past, was our history in all the 
 glory that it had won. Here is the noble country of our 
 ancestors, that can face any real eventuality — whatever 
 it be or however suddenly it may come — with a courage 
 which commands the admiration of the world. Here is 
 the glorious old mother of the Anglo-Saxon race, and of 
 ail the Engliph-speaking nations yet to be, who never 
 
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 loMt a tinge of the red English blood of her cheek.s at the 
 Indian mutiny, yet who treniblcH and turns pale before 
 the thin spectre of her own imagination ! 
 
 In a long residence in London I have seen or felt fogs 
 that were as the blackness of darkness solidified. But one 
 could partially account for them from the conditions of 
 the atmosphere, and estimate the proportions of coal 
 smoke that made the white fog from the river such a 
 " blanket of the dark " wrapped around the great city. 
 But the cause and suddenness of the ague-shakes of an 
 invasion-panic that seized the public mind you could re- 
 fer to no facts precedent or theories subsequent. There 
 was no smoke nor cloud of unfriendly augury on the hori- 
 zon of Europe to account for the outbreak of one of these 
 panics which I witnessed with wonder. To be sure, a 
 short article had appeared, in a German newspaper I think, 
 showing the lack of fortifications around the English 
 coast to resist a foreign invasion. It is quite possible that 
 this article was " inspired," if not written, by some Eng- 
 lish aspirant to military office and honour ; for the pres- 
 sure upon "the two services," on army and navy, for 
 place and pay would astonish the world if the facts were 
 known. But no more places and pay could be made for 
 the aristocratic and eager applicants without " increased 
 defences " on land and sea, and these could not be voted 
 without stirring the nation to a vehement sense of its 
 danger. So the old machinery was set in motion to this 
 end. First, articles in the organs of " the two services " 
 began to follow each other in quick succession, to show 
 the helpless condition of England in case of foreign inva- 
 sion. Then the great journals of London began to sound 
 the alarm. Finally the military alarmists induced the 
 Duke of Wellington to write a letter confirming these ap- 
 prehensions, and, in his blunt way, stating how much 
 additional moaey it would require " to set England on its 
 legs again," as he expressed it. The fever-and-ague of 
 the panic was now at its height, and some of the utter- 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. G3 
 
 ancoa under its deliriuni 1 well remember. One writer 
 drew up a programme of defence which .shows the violence 
 of the ague-shakes. Assuming that the French would 
 meet with no serious opposition to their landing on the 
 Kent or Sussex coast, he proposed that all the trees lining 
 the road from Dover to London should be cut down and 
 placed across it to delay the march of the invaders. Next, 
 as soon as the landing of the French army was announced, 
 the Queen and Eoyal Family were to be sent off to York 
 for safety. Then, it was almost certain that the French 
 would head straight to Windsor to capture the Queen, 
 and, finding she had flown, would march immediately to 
 secure the second object of their invasion, or the Bank of 
 England. In doing this theij* army would have to pass 
 through the Strand and the narrow Fleet street, and the 
 writer proposed that all the buildings on each side be 
 blown down upon the invaders. This is a sample of the 
 letters that appeared in the public press which produced 
 one of the periodical invasion-panics in England. And 
 all this while not an act or expression on the part of 
 France could be cited as showing any unfriendly purpose 
 or feeling toward England. The whole of this excitement 
 grew out of a groundless and spontaneous suspicion. 
 
 The same suspicion has involved England in this waste- 
 ful and deplorable antagonism to Russia on the Eastern 
 question. This antagonism arrays her against the progress 
 of Christian civilization and allies her to the most para- 
 lyzing despotism in the world. It belies and degrades the 
 great position she claims as the van-leader of free nations 
 and the institutions of freedom. It belies the best in- 
 stincts of her people. Let any great disaster by fire, 
 flood, or pestilence fall upon any city or country on the 
 globe, and whose heart is more quickly and generously 
 moved toward the sufferers, or whose hand brings more 
 liberal succour to them than England's ? What people hate 
 slavery or oppression more than the English ? But see 
 how all these generous sympathies ami impulses are falsi- 
 
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 fied or disappear in the position England assumes toward 
 Russia in her determination to uphold and perpetuate the 
 integrity and independence of the Turkish dominion and 
 despotism. Here is a power that sits like a nightmare on 
 the very bosom of the Old World. All the races and 
 countries beneath it feel th^ deadening chill of its fingers. 
 The Christian population who feel it most cry out, in 
 their despair. " Lord, how long !" They cry to man as 
 well as God ; and Russia, of the same religion and race, 
 endeavours to come to their help. She is the only power 
 in the wide world that ever attempted to help them, or 
 ever showed any sympathy for them. They look to her 
 as their only earthly saviour, and she would save them if 
 not prevented by a power that claims to be the greatest 
 lover and defender of freedom and the rights of man in 
 Europe. Twenty years ago Russia assayed, not to break, 
 but to lighten, the yoke of Turkish despotism, galling and 
 bending the necks of these Christian populations. But 
 England rushed in and let slip the dogs of war against 
 the liberator. Her dogs, and other dogs of equal bay and 
 bite, tore her and chased her back wounded and bleeding 
 to her own country. Well, twenty years more of the same 
 yoke have been borne by these Christian populations ; for 
 the Great Powers, who chased away their deliverer, did 
 nothing to lessen the weight and degradation of their 
 bondage. Again Russia approaches to help them, and 
 again England confronts her with her sharp-bitten dogs 
 of war. To them, in their longing to be free, these Eng- 
 lish dogs are what the slave-holder's trained blood-hounds 
 were at the heels of the slave, running for life and 
 liberty. 
 
 Now, what Christian mind or heart that loves human 
 freedom can dwell upon this position of England without 
 feeling that it is unworthy of her best self, and all she 
 claims to be and do as a leader and defender of civilisa- 
 tion ? What is the argument by which she justifies this 
 position ? Put in her own terms, it is only the language 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 
 
 of that wild and delirious suspicion that breeds her 
 French -invasion panics. It is this: " That if Russia should 
 seize Constantinople, she would pour her Cossack hordes 
 into Western Europe, crush constitutional freedom, and 
 invade and conquer India." I would ask any candid, 
 reasoning mind to analyze the vagaries of this assumption. 
 First, then, in regard to the aggressive capacity of mere 
 location. If Russia has the heart and thought to spring 
 with the bound of a beast of prey upon Western Europe, 
 why should she wait until she has seized Constantinople 
 as a springing-point ? Boys, when competing at a " run- 
 ning-jump," always begin to run a rod or two back of a 
 line at which they are to begin their leap, in order to get 
 the momentum of the race. If Russia would have such a 
 momentum for her bound upon Western Europe and con- 
 stitutional freedom, w^hy should she go a thousand miles 
 to the Bosphorus to run for the leap ? 
 
 COST AND PERIL OF PRECAUTION. " 
 
 To-day there is not a man, woman or child in all these 
 nominallv Christian lands who does not bear on his or 
 her own person the curse of a cowardly precaution — past, 
 present and prospective. See what this policy in the past 
 has put upon the people of England. She spent more 
 than five thousand millions of dollars in her wars with 
 the French Republic and Napoleon. Two-thirds of her 
 national debt to-day are the inheritance of these wars 
 begun on a principle which the whole English people now 
 thoroughly detest. They were from first to last wars of 
 precaution, the sheer offspring of a suspicion that if they 
 were not waged there and then something might happen 
 to England in some distant future, or, as the Duke of 
 Wellington put it, the best place for the defence of Eng- 
 
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 land was on the Spanish Peninsula. Look at the Crimean 
 war. Was not that a mere precautionary measure, to 
 intercept a contingency th'^-t might arise a century hence? 
 Was it not offering the incv^nse of a terrible reality to the 
 mere spectre of an imaginnoion ? Or to head off a Rus- 
 sian protectorate over the Christian populations of 
 Turkey, lest it might alienate them from the despotism 
 that oppresses them, and prepare the way for Russian 
 ascendancy ? What is it that makes the Eastern question 
 so perilous to the peace of Europe and Asia, except the 
 spirit and policy of precaution ? Why has England 
 .spent such rivers of precious blood and millions of 
 treasure, and is willing to double her sacrifice in each, 
 except to prevent Russia from becoming as near a neigh- 
 bour to her in India as she herself is to us on this conti- 
 nent, or as Russia is to Sweden and Prussia in Europe ? 
 
 Look at the experience which the policy of precaution 
 has brought upon France through only six months' trial 
 of the regime of suspicion. She rushed into the war as a 
 " precautionary measure" against the new and increasing 
 strength that Prussia was acquiring from her union with 
 the other Grman states — a union which her precautionary 
 war consolidated and strengthened to a power which pros- 
 trated her in tlie dust. 
 
 This is but a partial glimpse at the policy of pre- 
 caution and its results to the nations that have adopted 
 it in the past. One might reasonably think' that they 
 would have learned to distrust and abandon this policy 
 after such an experience. But look at the present. There 
 was not a year in the great wars with Napoleon, when 
 they involved America in the struggle, that witnessed 
 such an expenditure of treasure as has been imposed upon 
 the people of Christendom in these last twelve months, 
 for preparation for war in time of peace. It is estimated 
 that there are at the present moment 5,000,000 men under 
 arms in these Christian countries ; that they are all 
 straining their capacities to put upon the sea new iron- 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 07 
 
 clads, and new armoured forts upon the land. We are told 
 that Germany is erecting new fortifications all round her 
 borders ; that eighty new forts are to be built around 
 Cologne in the west and nine around Posen in the east. 
 It would appear that nearly a hundred are in process of 
 erection or projected. Says the military report, speaking 
 of the two first-class fortresses on the Upper Danube, 
 " they would be very important centres of attack against 
 Vienna in the event of a new war with Austria," thus 
 plainly indicating their " precautionary" purpose and 
 value. 
 
 Here, then, we have the present development and illus- 
 tration of the policy of precautionary measures for the 
 j)eace and safety of nations. Every regiment of these 
 5,000,000 armed men is put on foot, every iron-clad is put 
 on the sea and every fort on the land for precaution — a 
 policy which, like the dropsy, grows by what it feeds 
 upon. In the light of common sense, experience and 
 pliilosophy, it is the experiment of putting out fire with 
 oil. Here are 5,000,000 men organized in armies, all 
 animated with the military spirit ; all ambitious of dis- 
 tinction in the real business of war, and tired of playing 
 at it in camps and forts and barracks. Here are the great 
 industrial masses borne down under a tax of $1,500,000,- 
 000 a year for the support of these idle b <t restless 
 armies, and weighted with the constant fear of war 
 which these precautionary measures always excite in the 
 public mind. 
 
 Now, then, is it too early or too irrelevant to ask the 
 Democratic party, should they come into power, if they 
 will adopt a new point of depp.rture in regard to this 
 ])reposterou,s armed-peace system which is devouring the 
 nations, and which is now trying to deceive this nation 
 in the new euphemism, " precautionary measures?" 
 
 If the Democratic party comes into power, will they too 
 " give the bluest veins" of this nation to the insatiable 
 horse-leech of the armed-peace system, and let it suck the 
 
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 blood of our industries with its present appetite ? Will 
 they, too, let it grow by what it feeds upon ? Where else 
 in the wide world did it ever gi-ow at such a ratio of 
 rapidity ? Can any other nation show anything like this? 
 — in round numbers, $39,000,000 for army and navy in 
 the two years, 1850 and 1851, and $146,000,000 for both 
 in 1873 and 1874 ! 
 
 If the Democratic party comes into power will they 
 carry this nation into a war with any other on a question 
 of less aggravated difficulty than that we satisfactorily 
 settled by arbitration at Geneva ? Will they, too, go on 
 spending millions on precautionary measures against a 
 less aggravated difficulty ? Did we use or need such 
 measures to insure a satisfactory settlement of our great 
 question at Geneva? Or are we to adopt them only 
 when we have a case of contention with some small power 
 like Spain or Mexico ? 
 
 If the Democratic party comes into power, will they 
 recognise and reverence what is meant by der)ios, not 
 only in this but in every other country ? Will they 
 respect its inalienable rights and its common sensibilities, 
 and remember that they are dealing with peoples as well 
 as governments, and that any treaty or settlement that 
 wounds their self-respect, and which they must endure 
 under a sense of wrong, subjects the power that exacts it 
 to the perpetual burden of a guilty conscience, and to 
 the restless conviction that what is wrong is never 
 settled. 
 
 These are a few of th.e questions which may properly 
 be addressed to the Democratic party while it is now 
 making up its programme of policy in anticipation of its 
 ascendancy to the helm of the American Government. 
 They are questions vital to the policy of reform and 
 retrenchment. They must be honestly, boldly and suc- 
 cessfully grappled with before any sensible relief can be 
 wrought out for this tax-burdened nation. One might as 
 well hope to bail out a water-logged ship with a teaspoon 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 69 
 
 as to attempt to ease the heavy burden now weighing the 
 people of Christendom to the ground without lifting from 
 their necks the leaden load of what Disraeli calls " the 
 bloated armaments" of civilized nations, but which the 
 most recent authority describes in the gentler phrase^ 
 " precautionary measures." 
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 
 
 No people in the world have a stronger and 'more out- 
 spoken sense of independence than the Americans. We 
 are now one hundred years old as a nation, and we in- 
 vited the whole outside world of kingdoms and republics 
 to celebrate with us this centennial birthday. And they 
 accepted the invitation, and came t'^ us bringing the best 
 jewellery of their arts and industries to adorn the celebra- 
 tion. We have shown them, and they have seen and 
 acknowledged, what a great country we own, and what 
 a great people we have become. We have shown them 
 what public schools we have, and what they are doing for 
 the education of the masses of our population, and what 
 a power to this end our newspaper press has acquired. 
 Then there is an ocean space of three thousand miles be- 
 tween us and the nearest country in Europe. We have 
 never had any " entangling alliance " with any European 
 l)ower, nor any national interest or part in the origin, 
 motive, or issue of any conflict or controversy on that 
 continent. Surely if any nation in this wide world ought 
 to be in a condition to take a cosmopolitan view, and 
 form an independent and impartial opinion of European 
 questions, we should be that people. But we fall far 
 short of our great prerogative and duty. The powerful 
 English mind, with its mighty and multitudinous facul- 
 ties of thought, intercepts oui* view of these questions and 
 
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 events. We have bccotno ho accustomed to look at them 
 through the medium which that mind makes for us, that 
 they are all coloured by it, and often exaggerated and dis- 
 torted out of all symmetry and truth. When one looks 
 through a window painted red, blue, or green, he sees the 
 real facts of the landscape in their actual size and loca- 
 tion, but their colour makes them so unreal that he can 
 hardly recognize them as belonging to any prospect lie 
 has ever seen with his naked eye. But when he sees his 
 own face in a globular mirror, he is almost startled at the 
 distortion or disproportion of his features. They are all 
 there, but they make a monster of him, and the idea of 
 wealing such a face out into the world would be horrible 
 to him. 
 
 Now, so far as our secular and religious press indicates 
 it, the American mind looks through the medium of the 
 English mind at this great Eastern question, and accepts 
 as realities all the aspects which that medium presents. 
 Thus this great and independant nation, which, far above 
 all others, should view all the facts involved in this ques- 
 tion from a cosmopolitan point of view, seems to become 
 more English in its conceptions and bias of opinion than 
 the English people themselves. For in England fhere are 
 a considerable and a gi-owing number of thoughtful per- 
 sons who do not believe that Turkey, after four hundred 
 years of probation, has proved her rule essential to the 
 well-being of mankind ; and who think that the world 
 would gain much if that rule were lifted from the bosom 
 of two continents. But are there an equal number of 
 persons in the United States of this opinion ? If so, how 
 and where do they express it ? In what newspapers ? 
 On what platform ? In what pulpit ? So far as Ameri- 
 can opinion has manifested itself, is it not as Palmers tonian 
 English in regard to Russia's history, character, progress, 
 and designs, as any. Tory journal or magazine in Great 
 Britain ? Do not our papers apply the same brute name 
 and the same brutish instincts to Russia, and suspect her 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 71 
 
 of ami charge her with tlie same propensity to prey upon 
 defenceless peoples as the most pronounced English Rus- 
 sophobists do in regard to that Power ? Indeed, are there 
 half-a-dozen papers, or half-a-dozen public speakers in 
 America that acknowledge that Russia has ever done, or 
 ever intends to do, any good and honest work for civiliza- 
 tion in Europe or Asia ? One might infer from the tone 
 of many of our public journals, that Russia had done a 
 great wrong to scores of heathen tribes in Asia by sup- 
 pressing the independence of such a people as the Circas- 
 sians, and by abridging their old hereditary and most 
 highly prized liberty of selling their own children and 
 stealing their neighbours' children for the market. 
 
 We all know what England's point of view is in regard 
 to this Eastern question. She lets the world know very 
 distinctly what it is, and the view she takes from it. 
 Does she pretend that she cares a snap of her fingers for 
 either Mohammedans or Christians within the Turkish 
 dominions in her determination " to uphold the integrity 
 and independence of the Ottoman Empire ? " No ; far 
 from it, she is honest and outspoken in her policy. If 
 Russia's rule at Constantinople would be certain to lift up 
 all the varied populations of that empire to the average 
 level of European civilization, England would oppose with 
 all her might Russia's possession of that capital. And she 
 would do this not on the old balance-of -power principle, 
 for it was assumed that all European nations were equally 
 interested in that principle. She would do it on a worse 
 principle — that one nation may prevent by force another 
 nation from becoming its near neighbour. What is the 
 correlative of this principle ? It is that the pretended 
 law of self-defence would allow a power to expel as well 
 as to repel another from its near neighbourhood. Why is 
 not Russia as dangerous to Prussia or Sweden as she could 
 be at Constantinople to England in India ? Has she been 
 a bad neighbour to either of these States for the last fifty 
 years ? Has she opj. ressed them in any way, or checked 
 
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 their progress in material prosperity oi- civil freedom? 
 She has been for all this period a thousand miles nearer 
 to them than she would be on the Bosphorus to India. If 
 she is such a northern bear and beast of prey, why has 
 she not swallowed up little Sweden before this time ? If 
 she has not had the heart or courage to do this, why are 
 we Americans to entertain the fantasy that if she were at 
 Constantinople she would undertake to swallow up the 
 Indian Empire, with a population three times her own ? 
 When at that capital would she be a mile nearer Calcutta 
 than she is now ? How would she send her forces to 
 India — by the' Suez Canal or under the British guns at 
 Gibraltar ? 
 
 Now these are some of the aspects in which the Ameri- 
 can mind, in justice to itself and the world, ought to view 
 this Eastern question, and to form an independent and 
 impartial opinion upon it. These are some of the facts 
 and bearings we ought to consider. We have made it an 
 axiomatic truth that " governments are made for men and 
 not men for governments," and that when they are not 
 and cannot be made for men, they have neither reason nor 
 right to exist. What kind of people is the Turkish Gov- 
 ernment made for ? It has tried its rule upon Greeks, 
 Servians, Bulgarians, Bosnians, and all kinds and branches 
 of the Slavonic race, and upon as many different races on 
 the other side of the Bosphorus. What has it done for 
 them for the last hundred or any other hundred years ? 
 What is it doing or promising to do for them to-day? 
 Do we need more or longer proof that it is not made for 
 men ? And when it has been thoroughly proved that a 
 government is not made for men, no outside powers can 
 uphold it long in existence. England at the head, or with 
 them, may undertake to guarantee " the integrity and in- 
 dependence of the Ottoman Empire." Perhaps they may, 
 in Lord Derby's words, guarantee it against murder, and 
 even against premeditated suicide. But older and greater 
 powers have died of heart disease, and not one of them at 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 73 
 
 the eve of dissolution ever showed more marked symptoms 
 of that malady than the Turkish dynasty at tliis moment. 
 But when such a government dies because it is not made 
 for men, these do not die with it. There are three times 
 as many Mohammedans under the British rule as under 
 the Ottoman at this moment. Who can say that they 
 lost anything they valued in their religion or civil condi- 
 tion by a change of governments ? What would the 
 Turks, as a people, lose of either if Russia ruled at Con- 
 stantinople, and brought all races and parts of the Empire 
 under Russian law and order ? And what outside nation 
 would derive more material benefit from this change than 
 England herself V What is the commercial value to her 
 of all the regions now withering under Turkish rule ? 
 
 It is rather singular how ditierently various race-cries 
 or aspirations aftect the American mind. We generally 
 sympathize deeply with the aspirations of communities 
 of the same race to unite under one go\ ernment and form 
 one people. There are thousands of native Americans 
 who would say •' Ireland for the Irish." How our whole 
 nation rejoiced at the union of ail the several branches of 
 the Italian race in one consolidated nation, even when 
 some of them had to be brought in by force ! We sym- 
 pathized with both the aim and effort to unite the Ger- 
 mans in a great empire. If the Belgians should think it 
 would be better for them to become part of the French 
 Republic or empire, than to continue as such a small state, 
 and if they should vote by a great majority for it, we 
 should sympathize with the aspiration and action in spite 
 of all balance-of-power theories. Then why is Panslavism 
 any more unnatural, more reprehensible, or more to 
 be feared than these " isms," affinities, or aspirations of 
 other races ? It is natural for Americans as well as other 
 peoples to think that these horrible atrocities perpetrated 
 upon her Christian populations, constitute the crime that 
 should fasten the indignation of the civilized world upon 
 Turkey. But these, fiendish as they are described, are 
 E 
 
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 only occasional paroxysms of her spirit. There is some- 
 thin<^r far worse in the long run of a people's life than 
 these occasional ebullitions of rage. For the most deadly 
 wounds inflicted on a people are such as do not bleed ; 
 for bleeding wounds show life, a,nd can be healed. The 
 slow, malarial disease cf despotism poisons the blood of a 
 people, and they show its symptoms in every aspect of 
 their moral, civil, and industrial life. If Panslavism un- 
 der Russian rule should shut ofl" this poison from the 
 Christian populations of European Turkey, and gradually 
 heal the malady it has caused, who would lose hy the 
 change ? 
 
 There are a considerable number of the old American 
 abolitionists still living, who remember well how deeply 
 they were exercised forty years ago by the position which 
 the American Board for Foreign Missions assumed toward 
 slavery. " There were great searchings of heart for the 
 divisions of Reuben," both at home and abroad, on that 
 question. Few have forgotten the agitation produced by 
 the pro-slavery leaning of that body, and how that a great 
 number of its old supporters came out of it and formed 
 the American Missionary Society as a protest against 
 slavery and all aflilliation with it. There are many of 
 us left who remembei" well the arguments or apologies 
 for slavery urged from the platform, pulpit, and press, 
 which we had to meet from year to year. I heard a New 
 England senator of high standing in Church and State, 
 declare in the United States Senate that American slavery 
 had done more to evangelize and elevate the African race 
 than all the Christian missionaries sent to that continent 
 had ever done to that end. Never was a severer strain 
 put upon the faith of thousands of Christians in this coun- 
 try than this pro-slaverj'^ attitude of churches and religious 
 bodies in all the Northern States. Many fell under the 
 test, and all who stood it through would deeply regret to 
 see the religious public in America subjected or exposed 
 to a similar trial. But it will be well for that public to 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 76 
 
 leniember that the people of this country hate .slavery as 
 lieartily as ever, even if its victims are white instead of 
 black, and are collective populations as well as individ- 
 uals. And there is much reason to fear that this fact is 
 not recognised by a great many Christian people and 
 churches, and that they are drifting into a position on this 
 Eastern question like that of the American Board, and 
 nearly the whole religious public forty years ago in regard 
 to American slavery. For I see in some of the religious 
 as well as secular papers, a disposition to side with 
 Turkey, to deny the number and character of her atroci- 
 ties, or to cancel them by comparing them with cruelties 
 committed by a Christian nation in Ireland, India, or 
 Ashantee. Now it would be natural to expect that the 
 American Dalgettys in the Turkish service, and the 
 American manufacturers who forge, point, and polish bay- 
 onets for the Bashi-Bazouks, should show a leaning toward 
 Turkey, for they are well paid for it. But when we see 
 our religious public leaning in the same direction under a 
 dirt'erent motive, the fact assumes a serious aspect. It is 
 a fact which can only be accounted for from the fear that, 
 if Russia should come to Constantinople, our missionary 
 institutions there might be endangered, just as England 
 fears India would be from the same cause; and as she 
 would prefer to see Constantinople for ever under Mo- 
 hammedan rule than under a Christian power like Russia, 
 so many earnest friends of our Turkish missions may feel 
 the same preference, and thus drift into England's position 
 on this Eastern question. Now in doing this they are in 
 great danger of falling into the old mistake of the Ame.d- 
 ean Board in regard to its attitude toward slavery in this 
 country. Let us find a parallel of the position they are 
 beginning to assume. 
 
 There is a vast upas-tree planted at the centre of the 
 Old World, on the dividing line of two continents. Its 
 deadly branches reach outward 500 miles and more in 
 every direction. Under their poisonous dripping the very 
 
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 stones, the marble toiiiples and monuments of Grecian, 
 Roman, and Hebrew civilization melt to dust. Nature 
 herself is poisoned witli the subtle miasma; the ground is 
 cursed vvitii it, and yields only thorns, thistles, and weeds, 
 as the spontaneous harvest of indolence or hopeless indus- 
 try. The populations of various race and tongue living 
 under this shadow of death, take upon them its pallor, 
 and feel its chill in their veins. But into the crotch of 
 this monstrous tree umch drifting dust has settled, and 
 made a mould of considerable depth. In this a few lovers 
 of goodness and beauty have planted an exotic flower, 
 which has grown luxuriantly to delicious bloom. Its 
 delicate tinting and sweet perfume delight all who stop 
 to see its beauty and breathe its odour. They cry out 
 against the Northern Woodman coming with his axe to 
 cut down the tree. They look and long for some strong 
 arm to strike it from his hand. They invoke such an arm 
 with the pathetic appeal, " Spare that tree ! Spoil not 
 this precious flower ! Its sweetness and beauty are well 
 worth all the little damage which the tree's shade does to 
 the world. It is not so poisonous or unhealthy after all that 
 is said and believed. These sickly complaining ^leoples 
 would be poor and miserable under any ottier tree. 
 Within all the great space it covers there would be just as 
 much squalor, pallor, filth, indolence, and wretchedness 
 under any shade or light. Spare that tree, then, for the 
 flower's sake." 
 
 Now, does not this argument or appeal sound like the 
 sentiments we read in many of our religious papers, or 
 hear uttered from the platform by religious speakers ? 
 Sustinet qui transtulit is the faith engraven (m the seal 
 of Connecticut. Why should not the warmest friends of 
 the Turkish missions cherish the same faith, and believe 
 that He who transplanted this vine will sustain it with- 
 out the branches of a upas-tree on which to train its ten- 
 drils or hang its fruit V _., , 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 7t 
 
 RUSSIA'S AMBITION AND ITS COMI'ARATIVE RESULTS. 
 
 Neither individuals nor nations can achieve a great 
 position in the world without an energetic ambition. The 
 very eminence of the position attained is generally the 
 measure of the force that ambition supplied in either case. 
 In neither is it necessary that this force should be aggres- 
 sive, or injurious to a community or to mankind. Suppose 
 we attribute to national ambition the mighty expansion 
 of the British Em]>ire, who has been injured by the force 
 of that sentiment ? Were it not for the envy of rivals, it 
 would be the unanimous verdict of the world that the 
 great majority of the human race had gained in every 
 interest by this extension of British rule over such vast, 
 varied and detached portions of the globe. Seeing what 
 England has done, and is doing, and preparing to do, for 
 Christian civilization on every continent and island on 
 which she raises her flag, all who love freedom and hate 
 oppression might well wish that she should not only hold 
 what she has, but also bring other legions and races under 
 her rule. No civilized nation has crossed her or barred 
 the way against this expansion of her Empire during the 
 last fifty years. There are still unclaimed continents of 
 barbarism lying in the waste of moral darkness, as it were, 
 waiting for the touch of her regenei-ating hand. Let her 
 march in and take possession, and hang them with the 
 lights and plant them with the institutioiis which have 
 come to such illumination and fruitage in America, Aus- 
 tralia and other portions of her Empire. There is the 
 whole of Africa, with the exception of a short, thin slice 
 on its northern shore, open to her march. Let her do there 
 what she is doing on other continents, and no one will 
 block her way to the peaceful conquest. Let her extend 
 her Indian P^mpiie east and west, if she can without wrong 
 an<l bloodshed, until it absorbs Persia on the one side and 
 Burmah on the other, and no true friend of humanity 
 
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 would deem her ambition injurious to mankind. The 
 civilized world is not afraid of it, in face of all the history 
 of its achievements, though much of that history has been 
 written in human blood. 
 
 Well, Russia has been accused by England of an ambi- 
 tion as guilty and dangerous as that which Brutus suspect- 
 ed in Julius Caesar. What are the grounds of this accusa- 
 tion that rest on historical, established facts ? May not 
 intelligent, fair-minded Americans ask for these facts 
 before they admit this charge ? The leading passages of 
 Russia's history are, or ought to be, familiar to us. We 
 know what she has suffered for European civilization, 
 even if we deny or doubt that she has done anything to 
 promote it. We know that for more than one century she 
 served as a breakwater to stay the inrushing flood of Tartar 
 barbarism from engulfing more western nations. We 
 know that she bent under the rule of that degrading bar- 
 barism so long that when she threw off the yoke, like all 
 peoples that have bent under such bondage for generations, 
 she went to her work with a stoop in the statur of her 
 moral being. She had a, great work to do, the hardest soil 
 on which to work, and the smallest means to work with. 
 She had to push an agricultural population southward and 
 eastward among nomadic, marauding tribes of different 
 races, who swooped down like birds of prey upon all per- 
 manent settlements within reach of their rough-riders. 
 She found herself subjected to the same necessity of de- 
 fensive conquests as England in India, and our Govern- 
 ment in America. But in her long, slow march across the 
 north of Asia to the sea, did she tread down a single germ 
 or seed-grain of civilization ? Her code of laws and ju- 
 dicial rule may have been rude and defective, but has any 
 tribe between the Ural Mountains and the mouth of the 
 Amoor been lowered or injured by their supremacy ? Has 
 she seized upon an acre of lan<l that England claimed for 
 India ? Would England to-day exchange tlie two cities 
 of Delhi and Lucknow for all the acquisitions of Russia 
 north of the Himalayas ? 
 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. W' 
 
 But Russia's ambition was to imperil civilization in 
 Western Europe. That was the standing charge and dan- 
 ger. Let her once get a foothold at Constantinople, and 
 she would march with her overpowering hosts upon her 
 western neighbors and tread down their constitutional 
 governments and subject them to her rule. Who were her 
 nearest neighbours to be first overpowered ? Of course, 
 they were Sweden, Prussia and Austria. But they had 
 lived side by side with Russia in all good neighbourhood 
 and mutual confidence for fifty years and more. In all 
 this time what had they to complain of her ? When 
 Hungary was virtually lost to Austria in 1848, did Russia 
 take an acre of the insurgent country to pay her for restor- 
 ing it to that Empire ? Had she ever laid a finger of 
 violence upon the territory of Prussia or Sweden, or im- 
 posed any restriction upon the scope and play of constitu- 
 tional government in either of those kingdoms ? No ; such 
 a charge was not made when England endeavuored to draw 
 Prussia into the Crimea war, to repel the ambition of Rus- 
 sia, to lighten the intolerable yoke of Turkish des[)otism 
 on the necks of the Christian populations of the Ottoman 
 Empire, that had been groaning in her ears for centuries. 
 Even the peace-loving Victoria, in letters to the King of 
 Prussia, recently published, expresses a genuine indigna- 
 tion that he was so insensible to the peril of Russian am- 
 bition to his kingdom. lier argument seemed to ask, 
 " Why wait for an overt act of hostility on the part of 
 Russia before taking up arms against her ? Why not do 
 what England does in the case — suspect an intention, and 
 go to war on that suspicion ? Grant that Russia has been 
 safe and ne4ghbourly enough to you at Warsaw, how could 
 you rest in peace to see her at Constantinople ? " Such is 
 the argument of this suspicion. There is neithei* fear nor 
 danger that Russia will march against western civilization 
 from Warsaw, Riga or Cronstadt, but once at Constanti- 
 nople, fifteen hundred miles further oft* with a hostile 
 people there to watch and ward, nothing could save the 
 
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 western nations from her overwhelming hosts. Could 
 any vagary be nioi-e insensate than this weak fantasy of 
 suspicion ? 
 
 Yes; this dough-faced goblin of imagination has begotten 
 a fantasy still more wild and deceptive. If Russia is 
 more dangerous to western civilization at (Constantino- 
 ple than at Warsaw or Cronstadt, she is still more peril- 
 ous to England in India on the Bosphorus than she is now, 
 a thousand miles nearer on the Caspian Sea, or on the 
 northern brow of the Himalayas. Once at Constantino- 
 jple, the conquest of India would be both inevitable and 
 easy. So runs the imagination. In the history of the 
 world did a great and powerful nation ever yield to such 
 another fantasy ? Would the subjugation of European 
 Turkey and the acquisition of Constantinople add any 
 lighting forces to her army which Russia could trust for 
 such an invasion ? Even if such an accession were pos- 
 sible, how is she to reach India ? By sea or land ? Is she 
 to march two thousand miles, through Armenia, Persia 
 and Afghanistan, or to send her forces by sea, under the 
 guns of Malta and Gibraltar, or to pass her fleets through 
 the Suez Canal, where a hundred men could strand them 
 all on the bottom in a single day, like as many clams when 
 the tide is out, by cutting away a dozen rods of its bank 
 and flooding the desert with its waters ? But suppose she 
 should run the gauntlet of all these dangers by sea or land , 
 and reach India with all the force she could muster on its 
 borders. What then ? Why, she would meet an Empire 
 second only to China in population, and of twice the 
 strength of China as a h ^hting power. England would be 
 there with her irrosistibio ironclads, and her bravest gen- 
 erals, and such regiments as overwhelmed the Indian 
 mutiny Australia, with a population equal to that of the 
 American colonies in the Revolutionary War, would be by 
 her side, and all the colonies and dependencies of her 
 world-wide Empire would send their contingents to repel 
 thti invasion. Russia knows this, even if her ambition 
 
THE EASTERN QUESTION. 81 
 
 could incline her to risk such an entei-prise. To suppose 
 she would attempt it, is to yield to the senseless vagary of 
 a wild imagination. 
 
 But there is another fantasy that illustrates the force 
 of these suspicions. For many decades it has been the 
 policy of England to blockade Russia within the Black 
 Sea, and to dispute and bar her right of way to the Medi- 
 terranean. For what reason ? Because if admitted to 
 tliat sea, she would make it a " Russian lake." These are 
 the briefest words of the suspicion. Let us compare this 
 vagary with the others of the brood. A Russian lake ! 
 Is there another space of water of equal or of any size on 
 the face of the globe so completely under the domin- 
 ation of one naval power as the Mediterranean under that 
 of England ? To say she is a first-class naval power is to 
 belittle her status. She belongs to no class. She stands 
 alone in her undisputed supremacy, without equal, rival, 
 and almost without a second to her on the sea. But if, 
 with Gibraltar and Malta and her fleets of tremendous 
 ironclads, she fears that Russia would make the Mediter- 
 ranean a Russian lake if admitted to its waters, there are 
 all the navies of France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Turkey, 
 Tunis and Egypt — there are nine-tenths of all the war 
 ships of Europe on that sea to defend it against such j-,n 
 imagined supremacy. Of the three vagaries of suspicion 
 in regard to the aggressions of Russian ambition, this 
 seems to be the most visionary and regretable. For it 
 puts England in a permanent condition of supressed hos- 
 tility to Russia, and excites a widespread sentiment of 
 antipathy throughout the Empire against her, as an enemy 
 that blockades them in time of peace, and robs them of 
 one of the great natural rights of a nation, by barring its 
 way to the only sea worth anything to it during nearly 
 half the year. 
 
 The American public mind is naturally and almost in- 
 evitably one with England in nearly every position she as- 
 sumes in her foreign policy. How intensely we sympa- 
 
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 thized with her in her suppression of the Indian mutiny ! 
 Public sentiment in this country went with her to a great 
 degree in the Crimean war, which all parties in England 
 now regard as a lamentable mistake, for it was natural 
 for us to believe she would only fight for the right against 
 the wrong. But we never sympathized with her in her 
 periodical French invasion panics, for we did not believe 
 that France had given her any cause for such agitating 
 apprehensions. Are we less friendly to her because we 
 cannot see any good reason for her fears of Russian am- 
 bition in regard to her own interests or the progress of 
 civilization ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 
 THE FUTURE ELECTION OF PRESIDENTS. 
 
 FUTURE ELECTION OP PRESIDENTS— THE TWIN DAUGHTERS OF THE HORSE- 
 LEECH ; THEIR GREED AND CRY— THE WARDS OF THE NATION ; THEIR 
 DEBT AND DUE — THE GOVERNMENT'S DEBT TO LAND AND LABOUR — 
 WANT OF PUBLIC SPECIALTY MEN. 
 
 ^HERE could be no better time nor reason than we 
 have now for a thorough discussion of the question, 
 how the people of this great continental nation shall 
 hereafter elect their Presidents. For the crisis and com- 
 plication which now affect them so profoundly illustrate 
 the dangers and difficulties to which they are exposed by 
 the present anomalous system. It would be a curious and 
 really a profitable historical study to ascertain who of the 
 fathers of our republic invented this system, or took the 
 lead in elaborating it to its present capacity of thwarting 
 the expressed will of the nation. Where he or they found 
 in this, or any other country, a practice or suggestion on 
 which this invention was wrought out to such a possibil- 
 ity as now so deeply troubles all the millions between the 
 two oceans, would be an instructive subject of inquiry to 
 a .studious and useful historian. We see now, as we 
 never saw before, the condition of things it may produce. 
 We see that the candidate of either of the two great poli- 
 tical parties of the country may have a majority of two 
 or three hundred thousand votes, of as full and honest a 
 representative character as any others cast, and yet that 
 this great majority may be nullified by what in slang 
 phrase might be called ajluke, or by the manipulation of 
 
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 a ballot-box, or even by some unwitting informality or 
 inadvertency in a small State or (Constituency. 
 
 See what a small incident under the present system 
 might render nugatory a majority of half a million votes 
 and all the political power they represent. Suppose that 
 the electoral vote of Florida, South Carolina, and Loui- 
 siana ohould be declared for Hayes, or enough of it to pro- 
 duce a tie between him and Tilden, while the latter had 
 an unquestionable majority of two hundred thousand 
 popular votes. This majority would be of no avail to 
 him, but a slight informality — we will not say trick — in 
 a small constituency might send him to the White House. 
 For instance, perhaps through a mere inadvertency or 
 non-criminal ignorance, the postmaster in a small village 
 in Vermont or Oregon is appointed a Presidential elector, 
 and his appointment is vitiated by the law that makes 
 any Federal office-holder ineligible as an elector. Sup- 
 pose the law neither provides nor authorizes any other 
 course than to fill the vacancy thus made with one of the 
 electoral candidates who had the largest number of votes 
 next to the disqualified and deposed elector. Of course, 
 the elector put in his place would be a Democrat. Or, 
 changing the case, he would be a Republican. His one 
 vote would constitute a majority in the electoral college. 
 It would be, it is true, only a majority of one, but just as 
 legal and inviolable as a majority of ten or one hundred. 
 Now, is it not evident that cur present system of Presi- 
 dential election may produce this anomaly in the most 
 democratic country in the world? Just think of Tilden 
 or Hayes, with the majority of half a million votes, wrig- 
 gling into the Presidential chair solely through the mis- 
 take of some village postmaster in Vermont or Oregon, or 
 through the ignorance of those who voted for him as an 
 elector ? Is this a fanciful possibility to ascribe to the 
 present system ? No ; it is one of the realities of its 
 working, now agitating the nation, and which must lead 
 to a radical change in principle as well as practice. It 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 86 
 
 would seem impossible that, with our present experience 
 of it before the country , any future President should be 
 elected under the system. 
 
 The question then comes up : What system should be 
 substituted for the present, and yet retain the spirit and 
 genius of our republican institutions ? In the first place, 
 the rights and claims of democi'acy unknown to Greece 
 or Rome, or modern republics in other countries and ages, 
 must be recognised and protected. For democracy in 
 America means something more than the right and power 
 of one compact, consolidated people, like the French na- 
 tion, to choose their own government by thinking and 
 voting as a mass. We have a democracy of States, as well 
 as of individuals, to respect and maintain in any system 
 we may adopt for the election of our President. Now, 
 writers and speakers of both our great political parties 
 argue that we cannot elect a President by a popular vote 
 of the whole mass of the nation, without over-riding the 
 right and part of small States in the choice. It is on that 
 branch of the question that I would submit a few reflec- 
 tions. At the outset, then, we must all admit that our 
 State-right system is a vital and distinctive faculty of 
 American democracy, and distinguishes it from the de- 
 mocracy of any European country. The people-power, 
 which is the Anglo-Saxon for democracy, is in England 
 ahead of ours already in its ability to change or direct the 
 government. It may turn out an Administration in its 
 second or first week of office, and put a new one in its 
 place in a fortnight. Every British voter is at least the 
 fifty-thousandth part of a member of Parliament ; while 
 the American voter is hardly the one-hundred-thousandth 
 part of a member of Congress. Thus, in no other country 
 in the world can the will and opinion of the people so 
 soon and effectually turn the helm of a government as in 
 England, But that is the democracy or people-power of 
 a consolidated nation, not the democracy of individual 
 States, as well as of individual men acting as a mass. 
 
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 Our republic is a union of States, each, to a cei'tain speci- 
 tled extent, a legislative republic in itself. It has a riglit 
 and status as a distinct commonwealth, independent of 
 the number of its population, whether it be a hundred 
 thousand, or a million. More or less, North or South, 
 East or West, they vote and act as a State in federal or 
 national legislation. Can they be dissolved from this re- 
 lation, and resolved into the great mass of the whole 
 population of the Union, and vote with that mass for the 
 President, without weakening the preiogative of the 
 State to which they belong ? In this one election or poli- 
 tical act, can all the votes in the Union be aggregated 
 into one common stock of public opinion, and one vote 
 count no more nor less than any other of the millions 
 cast, without detracting anything from the local sover- 
 eignty which the Constitution recognizes and protects in 
 the smallest State in the republic ? That is the main 
 question at issue. 
 
 No one will dispute that the highest function or prero- 
 gative of democracy is in the exercise of legislative power 
 to make laws, municipal, state and national, by and for 
 the people. Would the smallest State in the Union lose 
 an iota of its legislative power by letting its population 
 vote with the mass of the nation in the choice of Presi- 
 dent ? Cei-tainly not ; for the President, with all the 
 members of his cabinet chosen by himself, does not make 
 laws. He and they merely execute the laws made by the 
 people through the national legislature they alone create. 
 A popular vote for the Presidency, then, would not touch 
 in the slightest degree the legislative power of the small- 
 est State in the Union. We shall find the proof of this 
 fact if we look into the wheel-within-a-wheel of our sys- 
 tem of local democracy. Take any one of our States , for 
 instance. Here is a republican commonwealth complete 
 in its organization. Its president is called a governor, 
 and its cabinet a council. Great or small, the State is di- 
 vided into districts, on the assumption that the people of 
 
NATIONAL gUKSTIONS. 87 
 
 each, however small, may have an interest and a mind of 
 its own to be represented in the legislature. There is the 
 nmnicipal or town district with its representative, who is 
 elected to represent its special interest as well as its opin- 
 ion on the general question of the State. Then there is 
 the larger senatorial district, embracing several towns, 
 that elects its member of the Upper House to the same 
 duty and office. Next we have the Congressional dis- 
 tricts, to represent the mind and interests of a large divi- 
 sion of the State in the National Legislature, as well as to 
 take part in the general business of Congress, because the 
 fact is assumed and respected that one or two counties of 
 a single State may have an opinion and interest of its own to 
 be represented at Washington. Here we ha ve an illustration 
 of the rights enjoyed by the local democracies of a State. 
 Each votes by itself for its representative and senator in 
 the State Legislature, and for its own member of Con- 
 gress, That is, in matters of State or National Legisla- 
 tion each local democracy retains and exercises its own 
 full perogative of action. But when it comes to the elec- 
 tion of a governor, who neither originates nor makes 
 laws, they resolve themselves into the general mass of the 
 people and elect him by popular vote, in which one man's 
 ballot counts no more nor less than any other man's in 
 the issue of the choice. Now, can any one say, with the 
 slightest shadow of reason, that one of these local or divi- 
 sional democracies yields an iota of its perogative by 
 going into this election of the governor by a popular 
 vote? 
 
 Let us now go from this inside to "the outside wheel of 
 our democratic system, and see if any State, however 
 small, could lose an iota of its legislative power and dig- 
 nity by going into the election of a .President by the pop- 
 ular vote. Let us first look at the field of national legis- 
 lation and the part such a State takes in it. Its laws are 
 to affect the well-being of the whole Union. There are 
 only two bodies authorized and able to make these laws: 
 
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 tho House of Roprescntativea and the Senate. One can- 
 not make them witliout the other's concunence. Now, a 
 small State may be entitled to only one member in the 
 House, but it has always two members in the Senate, and 
 without the Senate no act can become law. Thus the 
 Senate Chamber stands athwart all legislation of the 
 Lower House, and none of it which that chamber rejects 
 can have authority or effect. Then, when all the national 
 laws clothed with authority have passed through the 
 Senate, not a judge of the Supreme Court or any Federal 
 Court, to interpret or apply them, can be appointed 
 without the scrutiny and approbation of that body. 
 Thus the Senate is, as it were, the very body-guard of 
 the Constitution and the laws of the nation. Its elective 
 power reaches to every officer and position in the govern- 
 ment except the President and Vice-President. Though 
 the people by States elect these two officials, the Senate 
 has a veto upon every cabinet officer, and without its con- 
 sent no favourite of the President can fill a bureau of the 
 government. Thus the Senate is the only legislative body 
 or power in the nation that can lay its hand upon the 
 Executive Department and determine its character. It 
 is a matter of as great importance to the smallest as to 
 the largest State, that the Union should be represented 
 abroad by men who can maintain its dignity and rights 
 near foreign governments. But the President cannot 
 send a minister or consul to a foreign country without 
 the concurrence and approbation of the Senate. Then 
 what vast interests are involved in the treaty-making 
 power, which governs our relations with other countries, 
 and determines questions of peace or war, which touch 
 to the quick the honour and well being of the nation ! 
 The Senate lays its determining, shaping hand upon this 
 great department of State also, and is the only legisla- 
 tive body through which the people can reach it. 
 
 Now, then, are not all the local democracies of the 
 Union, however small, fully represented in all this concen- 
 
NATIONAL (QUESTIONS. 89 
 
 trie Icgi.slation ? Does not Rhode Island or Delawaiv 
 have as much power tliroiin^h it at VVasliinotoR as New 
 York or Pennsylvania, in plannin;^' the laws, fonninnf the 
 b^xecutivc, the Judieiary, and foreign ministry of the 
 government? If the senatorial power end)raees such a 
 vast sweep of functions, is it not as clear as day that the 
 small States have, and wield, Kfty per cent. mor(^ of that 
 jiowei" than the largest States in the Union ? There are 
 twenty-three States with an aggregate po])ulation of 10,- 
 (S12,()()0, according to the census of 1870, and fifteen with 
 ii total of 27,-295,000. Thus these 11,000,000, in round 
 numbers, of the twenty-three States, have sixteen more 
 senators than the 27,295,000 of the other fifteen ! Divid- 
 ing this senatorial i)ower, Nevada e(pials New York and 
 Colorado Pennsylvania. 
 
 Do not these facts prove that no State, however small, 
 would part with any democratic or legislativ(s power, if, 
 in a single election, once in four years, its population were 
 massed with the whole people of the Union in choosing 
 tlie President by popular vote ? If no such loss could be 
 sustained, then what stands in the way of adopting this 
 only satisfactory system ? Sui'ely it cannot be a difficul- 
 ty in arithmetic, for a presidential candidate would sel- 
 dom receive more votes in a State than the candidate for 
 its governor, and the votes he I'eceives are always satis- 
 factorily counted and verified. But I will not enter upon 
 that branch of the subject, as I only undertook to show 
 that the change to a popular vote would no more detract 
 from the democracy of States than from the democracy 
 of individuals in a nation like France. 
 
 F 
 
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 THE TWIN DAUGHTERS OF THE HORSEIiEECH ; 
 THEIR GREED AND CRY. 
 
 Every nation in Christendom has two daughters of the 
 Horseleech, War, at its jugular vein. The appetite of 
 each for blood g^-ows by that it feeds upon. And as 
 it grows, each cries more hungi^ily from day to day, 
 " Give ! Give ! " And just in proportion as they suck a 
 nation's blood does it give, and give them more and more 
 of it. Some of these victimized nations are already bled 
 till they are pale, weak and staggering with exhaustion. 
 There is Italy, for example. In what should be the flower 
 and prime of her youth as a united nation, she is losing 
 so much blood that she can hardly walk or stand upright. 
 The great goblin, Suspicion, like a winged dragon, to which 
 the one John saw in the Apocalypse was a mere mosquito 
 in size and sting, overshadows all these Christian powers, 
 and screams in their affrighted ears, day and night " Give ! 
 Give to the daughters of the Horseleech ! " And they are 
 not disobedient to the voice of the Beast that blackens 
 the air with its wings and fills it with its vulture screech. 
 See how they give. Last year the twin daughters of the 
 Horseleech, called Army and Navy, sucked, out of the 
 veins of their life and labour, three thousand millions of 
 dollars. This bleeding did, in very deed, draw exhaus- 
 tively upon the very marrow and muscle of their being. 
 It drew upon the sinews of humble and patient labour, 
 upon every drop of sweat, upon every penny earned and 
 every ounce of bread and meat brought into the dwell- 
 ings of the poor. 
 
 But these nations in Europe are all very near neigh- 
 bours. One abuts upon the other in some cases for the 
 whole length of its territory. So the great winged 
 dragon, Suspicion, the Beast to which they give their 
 power, cries to them all, ** Give ! Give to the daughters of 
 the Horseleech ! for the nearer you are to each other as 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 91 
 
 neighbours the more you should suspect and hate each 
 other as pirates or nighwaymen, ready to pounce upon 
 you if off your guard." This comes from near neighbour- 
 hood, according to tlie logic of the Beast. Cloye proxi- 
 mity, it teaches, is the great danger of nations. Against 
 this they must provide at any cost, nor grudge the blood 
 they give to the twin daughters of the Horseleech. The 
 logic is irresistible ; these neighbour nations of Europe 
 listen to the voice of the Beast more obediently than to 
 any voice God ever uttered to mankind. They take five 
 millions of picked men from the plough, hammer, axe and 
 spindle, and marshal them into standing armies to defend 
 one from the other. That is all ; merely to resist an inva- 
 sion which one, of course, is never to provoke by word, 
 or deed, or disposition. 
 
 How blessed this great continental nation of ours 
 should be chat it is separated by three thousand miles of 
 sea from our nearest neighbour power which we could 
 fear ! How fortunate that we are free, by such a space 
 from this fearful proximity which frightens European 
 nations out of their propriety ! Surely the winged 
 draofon that overshadows and affriirhtens them can not 
 stretch its sable wing across the ocean to darken our sky. 
 Pleasant but vain dream ! With all these iruarantees of 
 nature, with all the broad defence of intervening distance, 
 there is not a civilized or barbarous nation in the wide 
 world that yields such cowardly, sei'vile obedience to the 
 Beast, or feeds the appetite of the twin daughters of the 
 Horseleech so rapidly as this American Union ! The 
 simplest facts and figures prove the truth of this state- 
 ment. Let us look at them. 
 
 For fifty years, notwithstanding all the existing events 
 and questions that troubled us within that period, no 
 difhcultyhas "isen between us and any European nation 
 which has not been peaceably and satisfactorily settled 
 by direct negotiation or through the arbitrament of an 
 impartial power. Ihe most burning question ever sub- 
 
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 mitted to such arbitration was brought to the bar of the 
 Geneva Tribunal by England and America in the sight of 
 the admiring world, as the grandest homage ever paid to 
 impartial justice. Both these great powers, as they stood 
 before that great white throne of equity which they had 
 erected, gave assurance in the act that no minor nor major 
 difference between them should ever go to the bloody 
 arbitrament of the sword to stain the bar of reason, 
 religion and humanity which they there and then 
 honoured, and honoured themselves, by their loyalty. 
 The two powers that, by taking hold of hands, can bring 
 their fingers together around the globe, appealed to the 
 other nations, not only by the voice of their great example, 
 but by express invitation, to bring their differences to the 
 same tribunal for solution. Why, then, should the black 
 dragon wing of Sjispicion deepen its shadow over our 
 land in malicious mockery of Geneva ? Why should the 
 twin daughters of the Horseleech suck at the jugular vein 
 of this nation with a new greed, and cry for blood ? 
 What is England going to do to us, or we to her, in the 
 next fifty years, that we can not settle at the tribunal we 
 have jointly erected ? Can any reasoning mind, in either 
 country, imagine a more serious difficulty to arise, between 
 the two than the Alabama question ? Can any question 
 arise between us and France, or Germany, or Russia more 
 incapable of pacific solution than that most irritating and 
 complicated difficulty ? Are we going to put out of the 
 Geneva court these powers should any serious controversy 
 arise between tln^m and us ? 
 
 Well, suppose we cowardly listen to the voice of the 
 Beast, and say that the Geneva tribunal has lost its place 
 and power in the world ; that we will not ask any nation 
 in conflict with us to bring its contention before that 
 court, or go to it again with any cause of our own. Let 
 us say we will take the back track of brute force, and 
 submit our rights, honour and interest hereafter only to 
 the old arbitrament of the word. Let us obey the old 
 
, NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 98 
 
 eioak of Suspicion, and believe that all other nations are 
 devoid of honour and all moral principle and sense of 
 riglit ; that they are pirates or filibusters at heart, and as 
 such we must be armed and on our guard against them. 
 If we believe all this of them, we must concede to them 
 the reasoning faculties and shrewdness of pirates or 
 buccaneers. Well, then, ask ari}' military or naval auth- 
 ority in Christendom if he believes it possible for any 
 single power, or any two powers, of Europe to send across 
 the ocean an army of fifty thousand men to attack us, 
 with the munitions of war which they would need for a 
 single battle on land ? Now, how can a reasoning mind 
 indulge the preposterous fantasy that any European 
 power or coalition would send a force of fifty thousand 
 men to invade or attack this continental nation of forty 
 millions, with its hundred railroads and telegraphs run- 
 ning to the seaboard ? Just think of such an amazing 
 folly ! It would seem almost as an insult to any man's 
 reason to believe he would yield to such a wild fantasy. 
 But perhaps one may say that even a force of fifty 
 thousand men might attack one of our seaboard towns 
 and destroy it, though they might not dare to march ten 
 miles inland. That is, if they did not come for conquest 
 of a single acre, they might come for revenge or retalia- 
 tion. Then for what act on our part ? Does the voice 
 of the Beast mean that we are to give the bluest veins of 
 the nation to the daughters of the Horseleech to guard us 
 against retaliation for injuries or insults we may perpe- 
 trate on other powers ? Is that the meaning of our forts 
 and arsenals, and squadrons of iron-clads ? 
 
 Now, then, in view of all these natural and moral 
 exemptions and defences from the danger of a foreign 
 war, have I said what is not demonstrably true, that no 
 civilized or barbarous nation in the world yields such 
 cowardly obedience to the Beast, Suspicion, as this proud 
 and powerful republic of our love and pride ? It is a 
 hard saying if true, and the truth might be better con- 
 
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 cealed than revealed, some one may say. But has not 
 the truth been concealed long enough, or is not the 
 conscience or the courage of the nation yet strong enough 
 to bear it ? Can we not, by this time, look a few facts 
 and figures in the face ? these, for instance, just submitted 
 to the country by the secretary of the treasury — the 
 official who has to attend to the feeding of the two 
 daughters of the Horseleech, just as the attendants of a 
 menagerie of wild beasts give to the hyenas their food in 
 due season. Look at these figures : 
 
 Army, 1873 $46,325,.308 
 
 "■ 1874 42,313,927 
 
 $•88,639,235 
 
 Navy, 1873 826,2.54,155 
 
 '• 1874 30,932,-587 
 
 ,-; • : , $.57,186,742 
 
 Her3 is the sucking of the two daughters of the Horse- 
 leech for two years: $1 45,825,977. The last ten years 
 have been years of peace, except with several Indian 
 tribes. What practical service has been rendered to the 
 nation for this vast expenditure ? Captain Jack and his 
 Modocs have been subdued, more than a hundred other 
 Indians killed and their wigwams burnt, and an over- 
 thrown government in Louisiana has been restored by 
 federal troops. This is all the army has done for us 
 in the last two years. This kind of work is all 
 we may expect it to do in years to come. Now, as 
 every fighting or roaming Indian within the circumfer- 
 ence of the Union costs us at least $1,000 a year for 
 fighting or watching him, would it not be good policy to 
 give the Dominion of Canada that sum per head for 
 taking them all into its territory and governing and 
 caring for them in its old-fashioned way ? Indians 
 within its orders never go out on the war-path. They 
 do not cost Canada anything for keeping them in order — 
 that is, nothing in the powder and ball line. She has 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. &5 
 
 always had a simple way of her own in dealing with 
 Indians which our government has never learned. Now, 
 if she would only take over to her all our fighting or 
 " non-adscripti " Indians, at the rate of a thousand 
 dollars per head, she would save us $10,000,000 yearly, 
 and we could reduce the distension of one of the 
 daughters of the Horseleech very considerably. 
 
 But if the army has done so much work among the 
 Indians for us in the last two years, what, let me ask in 
 all sincerity and good faith, has the navy accomplished 
 during that period ? What is it to do in peace or war ? 
 It is not to fight the Indians between the Mississippi and 
 the Rocky mountains. That is clear and certain. All 
 honour to that ship that is taking soundings across the 
 Pacilic for a telegraph, and to any other ship employed in 
 scientific discovery. But are any of our war-ships built 
 and manned to chase and drive pirates from our seas ? 
 Has any one read of such an exploit or attempt on their 
 part for th^e last ten years ? Are they to be sea-going 
 tribunals around the world to administer American justice 
 of the Corean order to guilty or suspected offenders, or to 
 any copper-coloured islander who shall bite his thumb at 
 our national flag ? Then, are the captains of these ships 
 the judges, and the marines the juries that are to decide 
 nice questions of international law, to render and execute 
 verdicts with the swift rapidity of drum-head justice ? 
 See how one of these ships vindicated the nation's honour 
 and defended its rights, and elevated the respect of the 
 world for its high moral tone in the case of the Virginius 
 which was driven by a Spanish corvette into a South 
 American port under the protection of our American 
 man-of-war. Every officer, sailor and marine on board 
 that ship knew that the Virginins was a filibuster, try- 
 ing to I'un arms and ammunition into Cuba against the 
 Spanish government. Every reading man in the Union 
 knew this. The Spanish captain had ample proofs of it, 
 he insisted, and he almost begged the American com- 
 
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 iiiander to conduct the Virginian back to an American 
 poit, where he might bring his proof before an American 
 court. He pledged his government to pay all damages 
 assessed for detention ii his evidence should fail to 
 convict the Virginius of its character and crime. But 
 no. Not so had the American captain learned the duty 
 attaching to his position as a defender of his country's 
 justice and honour. He protected the filibuster, and let 
 her escape to commit the crime she meditated, and to 
 involve the two nations in the peril of war. Then how 
 the other daughter of the Horseleech cried, " Give ! Give!" 
 and how obediently the cry was responded to ! Here is 
 the eager answer to it, in dry, official language : 
 
 " The most important operations of the bu-eau occurred during November 
 and December of last year on the occasion of the seizure of the Virginius by 
 a vessel of war of the Spanish navy. It was thought advisable to 
 immediately arm and equip every available ship in the navy then in 
 the ports oi the United States. 1 he complete and rapid armament of so 
 many ships, including iron-clads and the largest frigates, although a heavy 
 task, was nevertheless successfully performed without the omission of a 
 single important detail." 
 
 Thus, with the best or sufficient reason to believe the 
 Virginius was an outlawed buccaneer or filibuster, with 
 all the uncertainties in regard to her capture ; without 
 waiting for the mind and decision of Spain in regard to 
 the case ; without a thought of Geneva and its tribunal, 
 the naval daughter of the Horseleech was pressed closer 
 to the neck of the nation. Indeed it was unable to gorge 
 all the blood offered it. The report says $27,147,857 
 were voted, but the navy only sucked of it $26,254,155. 
 Now, if the American war vessel had led the Virginius 
 back to be tried at an American court, as solicited by the 
 Spanish captain, all this extra blood would have been 
 saved. What, then, is the design and use of the navy in 
 peace ? And what would be its use in war if our own 
 acts p.nd those of another nation should provoke one 'i Is 
 not our continent large enough to fight on, that we must 
 annex both oceans for additional battle grounds ? Sup- 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 97 
 
 pose tlie war were with England. Can any one believe 
 that (she would think of sending' a fleet of iron-cladj^ to 
 blaekade one or two of our ports or all of them to prevent 
 American cotton and corn from getting out to Liverpool ? 
 Certainly she would not attempt to land any of her 
 troops in face of a million of armed men that she might 
 expect to confront them. Then, are our war-ships 
 intended to be mere mobilized forts to supplement our 
 fortifications ? If so, would it not be cheaper and more 
 effective to double the number of land-forts ? What 
 other uses have they in war than to fight single duels 
 with the enemy's ships on the sea ? Would they destroy 
 English commerce on the Atlantic ? Who are the joint- 
 owners of that commerce, and which would be most 
 injured by its destruction ? Can the great West and 
 South afford to be bled at this rate for the mere possi- 
 bility that their commerce with Europe may be annihi- 
 lated by our navy in some future war with England or 
 France ? 
 
 I have said that no civilized or barbarous nation in the 
 world stimulates and feeds the appetite of the twin 
 daughters of the Horseleech so rapidly as our own. A 
 few figures prove the truth of this hard statement : 
 
 Ai-my and Navy for two years. 
 
 1820-1821 $19,042,865 
 
 1830-1831 20,791,540 
 
 1850-1851 ;«,655,408 
 
 1873-1874 145,825,977 
 
 There ! Can any other nation, civilized or barbarous, 
 show such a growth of appetite and its feeding in the 
 two daughters of the Horseleech as that ? Is it not about 
 time for this tax-laden nation to awake to a sense of this 
 steadily increasing blood-letting ? Look at it. The in- 
 terest of what the navy gorged in 1873, at 7 per cent., is 
 more than all the Christian churches in America gave for 
 the preaching of the gospel to the heathen world that 
 year. And this process is to go on, gi'owing with the 
 
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 growth of the nation. John Bright, referring to the 
 system in the House of Commons, spoke of a man who 
 was so crazed by a growing wen on his head, that at last 
 he came to regard the wen as his head and his head as 
 the wen, and to treat them accordingly. So it seems as 
 if our country were becoming subject to the same hallu- 
 cination — to regard the twin daughters of the Horseleech 
 clinging to its veins as vital parts of its own life and being. 
 In face of the growing civilization of the age ; in face of 
 the best humanities of reason and religion ; in the face of 
 the august bar of equity it erected with England at 
 Geneva, it goes on fostering the wen on its head with 
 more and more faith in it as a vital organ of its system. 
 See how it fondles it for the next year with the promise 
 to the army and navy of $60,500,000. Well may every 
 American Christian and patriot ask, " Shall the sword 
 devour forever," not only in war but in peace ? 
 
 THE WARDS OF THE NATION—THEIR DEBT AND 
 
 DUE. 
 
 If any human being in this world could properly adopt 
 and utter the words of the Roman captain to Paul, " With 
 a great sum obtained I this freedom," it is the freedman 
 of this nation. Unlike the Roman, he did not obtain his 
 freedom with a great sum of his own money, but with 
 the great sum of his own wrongs. There was a critical 
 period, when the nation left the outside world in doubt 
 whether all its rivers of precious blood and millions of 
 money added to the overbalancing wrongs of the slave, 
 were to obtain for him this freedom. In all the years of 
 the American re])ublic, it never stood at such another 
 crisis point before the world ; and the world held its 
 breath of sympathy until the vital question should be 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 00 
 
 decided, whether the great struggle were merely to link 
 the sundered States of" the Union together with " blood 
 and iron," wliile the fetters of the slave were left un- 
 severed. For many months, even for more than half this 
 bloody period of our history, this momentous question 
 was left in perilous doubt. Even now, neither the outside 
 world, nor we ourselves, can say, with full assurance of 
 faith, how this question would have been decided, if the 
 war liad only lasted a year. But the decision is an ac- 
 complished and everlasting fact. The whole civilized 
 world has accepted it as such, without questioning whe- 
 ther moral motives, or military necessities, weighed most 
 in the balance of the deed. 
 
 No intelligent man, North or South, can deny, or doubt, 
 that slavery was the single and only cause of the war. 
 It ought to be equally clear and certain that the extinc- 
 tion of slavery was the price we paid for the Union. 
 It is too late now for any one to say we intended, or were 
 willing, to purchase the Union at a less price. So the 
 freedom now conferred on the emancipated millions in 
 the South was " obtained with a great sum ; " including . 
 direct and collateral cost, a sum of nine thousand millions 
 of dollars. But this great sum does not pay the debt due 
 them, and due to the country through them. We owe 
 it to the entire nation, as well as to them, to make their 
 costly freedom an element of prosperity to the great com- 
 monwealth of the Union. We have given them votes in 
 number sufficient to shape the legislation of the States in 
 which they live. As Robert Lowe said, after the i)assage 
 of the last Reform Bill in the British Parliament, we owe 
 it t(^ those States and all the rest, " to educate our masters." 
 The severest imprecation of David upon his enemies was 
 uttered in the words ; " Set thou a fool to reign over them." 
 He must have known from personal observation that such 
 a I'ule was the most degi-ading and ruinous punishment 
 that could be inflicted upon a country, because it ^^mavscu- 
 lated the manhood of the people, debased their moral 
 
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 Hen-sibilitieK, and made them not only tit victim.s, but fit 
 inHtruments, of (general eorruption. The nation is now 
 getting a somewhat clear perception, if not positive ex- 
 ])erience, in some of our Southern States, of what David 
 meant when he invoked such a curse on his worst enemies. 
 And, on the whole, one cannou truly say that it is un- 
 mindful of its duty " to educate our masters " in the South, 
 and to fit them for the intelligent exercise of the grea^ 
 right of sutirage. The institutions and efforts to impart 
 this education to them, prove that the nation is conscious 
 of what it owes to them, to the South, and to the well 
 being of the entire Union. 
 
 But there is an education of most vital importance to 
 the freedmen of the South which they cannot obtain in 
 public schools, mixed or unmixed. It is that branch of 
 education that guides and upholds the first footsteps of 
 human hope, life and labour ; that makes a man think of 
 the morrow and try to make it a little better than to-day ; 
 that leads him to forego a present enjoyment of rest, and 
 even of food and raiment, in order to make some dim and 
 distant future a little more restful, sunny and happy. The 
 working force of hope is the greatest that operates on the 
 human mind, both in regard to this life and the life to 
 come. It is truly the great industrial, moral and spiritual 
 power of the future, for it makes the unseen future a pre- 
 sent and vivid reality. It thinks, feels and works for 
 the future. More than half the thought, anxiety, labour, 
 the toiling and moiling of civilized mankind, is for the 
 future. In the life of every man there is the rainy day, 
 the weak day, for which he nmst provide. But in the 
 brighter visions of hope, there are days which he can 
 make happier than any he has seen, by rising early and 
 toiling late, and by eating the bread of carefulness, and 
 very sparingly of that, for a few of the next years. Then 
 he will labour and save, and stint himself of many enjoy- 
 ments, in order to make a better future for his children 
 than the hard present his father bequeathed to him. 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 101 
 
 Now it was easier for the slave to ac(|uirc by stealth 
 " the three R's" of a rudimental education, than to grasp 
 and work tliis vital force (tf hope to the iinprovetnent of 
 his earthly condition. He had no future to laboiir or care 
 for. His master was to look to all that, and to pi o vide 
 for the rainy days, and last days of his life. He could 
 eai'M or own nothing to make those da3^s more comfortable. 
 Tlie present was all he had. There was no future blotter 
 tlian to-day which his hope could reach. 80, with all 
 l)(!iiigs shorn of a hopeful future, hardly anything better 
 in this world was left him to say tlian " Let us eat and 
 (hiuk, for to-morrow we die." This sentiment and con- 
 dition had been the inheritance of several generations of 
 slaves, until the one just emancipated were born to it as 
 a second nature. This, then, is one of the first and great- 
 est debts we owe them — to give them the full working 
 power of hope ; to break down the barrier that has sev- 
 ered them fi'om the possibilities of the future; to enlighten 
 and encourage their minds to these possibilities ; to show 
 how these may be mastered, one by one, by patient in- 
 dustry and frugality ; by saving a penny, and by earning 
 an extra one to-day, both to be laid by for tiiat future 
 which is to be solely their own, and not a master's, nor 
 the nation's to provide for. 
 
 Well, notwithstanding these millions of freedmen have 
 been so recently admitted to the universal suffrage of 
 hope, they have surprised us all with their readiness and 
 ability to learn and practice its first lessons. The possi- 
 bility of a better to-morrow than to-day, came to them 
 in the first revelations of their changed condition ; and 
 thousands upon thousands of them began to earn and 
 save for the morrow. They were encouraged to earn and 
 save, as they believed, by the whole nation. They had 
 had some notion of what the Freedmen's Bureau was at 
 Washington. Probably, ninety-nine in a hundred of 
 them thought it was a great chest-of-drawers filled with 
 good things for them by the Government. Surely the 
 
102 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 goveinment owned the chest, held the key and unlocked 
 the drawers for them. So it did. They were right. Then 
 came the Freed men's Savings Bank at Washington, close 
 to the President's own house. Did not the Government own 
 that too ? Did it not hold in its great, strong hand every 
 cent dropt into it by any negro man, women or child 
 rescued from slavery ? Did they not all have good rea- 
 son to believe this ? Did not nineteen in twenty of Euro- 
 pean money-men have good reason to believe it ? Cer- 
 tainly. What honest-minded men at home or abroad, 
 could suspect that one of the old dodges of financial 
 rascality was to be perpetrated on these unsuspecting 
 victims of their hope and trust in the good faith of the 
 nation ? How could one of them think for a moment 
 that, when he carried the pennies he had earned and saved 
 to the bank, he was not dropping them into the strong, 
 trusty hand of the Government, but into the greedy palm 
 of a ring of corrupt and irresponsible speculators at 
 Washington ? Not one of these infamously abused vic- 
 tims had the slightest shadow of a reason to suspect that 
 the palm outstretched to receive his pennies was not the 
 nation's hand. The nation, through every responsible 
 representative of its honour, faith and power, knew that 
 he trusted his little all to that hand. 
 
 Now, then, before a just God, and all honourable men, 
 the nation owes it to these swindled victims of their own 
 faith in its honour to pay back to them, out of the public 
 treasury, with fair and honest interest, every cent they 
 deposited in the Freedman's Savings' Bank at Washing- 
 ton. We owe it to them as a debt of pure justice and 
 honour. We owe it to them as a debt due to the entire 
 nation which has expended so man}* millions for them, 
 through the Freedman's Bureau, to set them on their feet 
 on the highroad of freedom. All these millions expended 
 in their behalf, were the nation's investment in their self- 
 standing, self-supporting and self -going citizenship. These 
 patient earnings and savings they put with such trust 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 103 
 
 into the Government's hand, as they believed, were the 
 interest they paid the nation on that investment — the 
 first fruits of their free manhood, the first proofs that 
 they knew what real manhood meant, and might do and 
 be. The cruel villainy that has swindled them out of 
 these hard savings, has defrauded the nation of the in- 
 terest on all the millions it has invested in the recon- 
 struction of the slave into tlie stature and status of a 
 freeman. Nor is this all, nor the worst. Not only all the 
 victimized thousands of these depositors, but all the more 
 numerous thousands who might have been encouraged to 
 save and deposit under a regime of truth and honour, 
 have lost something more valuable and costly than money. 
 They have lost faith in the Government ; for it stood by 
 in silence, and saw a thief's hand, wearing its own signet 
 ring, stretched out to its ignorant and unsuspecting wards, 
 clutching their earnings and spending them in the riotous 
 living of ring speculation. 
 
 This, then, is the immediate and imperative debt of the 
 nation to these cruelly-cheated wards : First, to pay back 
 to them every dollar of their dej)osits. N ext, to strike 
 down every thief s hand that plots for their trust, and to 
 hold out its own for their savings, with the sacred honour 
 of the Government pledged for their safe keeping and 
 redemption. Next to the Almighty's hand in trust, jus- 
 tice, honour and power, should be the hand of the Amer- 
 ican Union to these millions of freedmen in these their 
 tirst feeble steps on the high road of citizenship. It has 
 cost us millions to be generous to them. It will cost us 
 nothing to be just to them, and justice alone will secure 
 to the nation the best fruits of its generosity, 
 
104 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT'S DEBT TO LAND AND LABOUR. 
 
 Nature has also a political economy founded on revealed 
 and eternal laws, which neitlier monarchies nor republics 
 can violate with impunity. " What God has joined toge- 
 ther let no man put asunder," is an injunction of wider 
 sweep than the intimate relationships of human society. 
 The law that joins together man and woman in conjugal 
 life rests on the same basis of necessity as the law that 
 joins together labour and land. In the first days of the 
 creation these were so intimately united in the motive of 
 its very existence, that the only reason then revealed for 
 making man was that he should subdue and till the earth, 
 which was formed and fitted for that express purpose. 
 The two cannot be put asunder by any human policy 
 without incurring the consequences of a violated law in 
 loss and suftering. Nor can they be kept asunder, or 
 their union be prevented, without the penalty that follows 
 the sin of omission. Whoever travels over the wild or 
 thinly -peopled regions of the earth will see what comes of 
 keeping asunder labour and land. And on no other con- 
 tinent can this deplorable consequence be more strikingly 
 seen than on the public domain of this country. 
 
 There is no other country in the world where so much 
 labour and so much land are kept asunder as in the 
 United States. And millions upon millions of our people 
 are deeply feeling the penalty of this violation of the law 
 of God and nature. Until our Government does works 
 meet for repentance of the infraction of this law, no politi- 
 cal or financial reform can lift the nation out of the bog 
 of its present condition. It is in vain for us to expect 
 this condition will emerge to the hard footing and happy 
 sunlight of permanent prosperity unless the Government 
 puts its shoulder to the wheel in a strong, bold measure ; 
 unless it ceases to hold asunder what God and nature 
 have joined together, or the best labour and the best land 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 105 
 
 ever given to a nation. Hunger has sharp teeth, and will 
 not only " eat through stone wallp,," but something harder 
 sfcill. It has more than once eaten through the procus- 
 tean adamant cJ a political ec3iiomy which science had 
 claimed should never yield to the sudden or abnormal 
 necessities of humanity. The basest things of the world 
 upset this heartless code, and broi.e its Mede-and-Persian 
 hasps. The potato did it. That homely and rusty veget- 
 able withdrew its supply of food for a single season, and 
 a nation of 5,000,000 was reduced to sore distress. The 
 regulation type of political economy, that leaves all such 
 emergencies to be met by the spontaneous law of demand 
 and supply, was powerless and unheeded in face of the 
 terrible necessity. The English Government voted 
 5:?40,000,00O for the relief of famine-stricken Ireland. But 
 how was this relief to be administered ? Thi-ough work- 
 houses and poor-houses ? No, but as wages for labour. 
 In spite of the revered decalogue of political economy the 
 State had to furnish laboui* for the starving thousands 
 and pay them every night for their work. See what has 
 happened in this appalling Indian famine, which will cost 
 the Government $300,000,000, besides an amount of indi- 
 vidual contributions unparalleled in the history of the 
 world. How are these millions of Government money 
 dispensed to the sufferers ? As wages for employment 
 })rovided by the State. The claims of labour to sustenance 
 by the sweat of its brow had to be recognized and satisfied 
 by the State, in spite of all the theories of a political 
 economy that would leave labour to take care of itself 
 under all possible conditions. 
 
 If the rights, interests and claims of labour ought to be 
 sacred in the eyes of any human Government, that should 
 be the Government of this country. We shall not be 
 exposed to a potato famine, a cotton famine, or an Indian 
 rice famine. But it seems a sin against nature even that 
 we should have this labour famine upon hundreds of thou- 
 sands of able-bodied men on the verge of starvation, with 
 G 
 
106 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 half a continent unpeopled and uncultivated belonging 
 to the Nation. We may depend upon it that the teeth of 
 hunger in this country are as sharp as in Ireland or India. 
 They will eat through the walls of that political economy 
 which our National Government and State Governments 
 have made so impregnable to labour, and so yielding to 
 capital. Up to the present, both these legislative powers 
 have talked and acted as if they were yielding to a 
 dangerous heresy to loan labour a dollar or provide for it 
 employment, even for the public good. Where it has asked 
 bread, or a chance to earn it, they have given it a stone. 
 But to incorporated capital it has said : " Seek and you 
 shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened to you." And it 
 has sought and knocked, and the Treasury of the Nation 
 and its vast landed estate have been opened wide to 
 satisfy its unscrupulous greed. One hundred and twenty 
 millions of the choicest acres of our public domain have 
 been given to the Pacific railways, and millions upon 
 millions of dollars, in the form of guaranteed bonds, 
 which they are unable or unwilling to pay, either princi- 
 pal or interest. How remarkable that a Government that 
 pretends to any honest perception of justice should have 
 two such opposite codes of economy, one for capital, the 
 other for labour. 
 
 The condition we now deplore will become permanent 
 or periodical unless our Government returns to first prin- 
 ciples, or to the policy which our colonial Legislatures 
 adopted in the early settlement of the country. They did 
 not leave labour and land to drift together by accident. 
 When the four-town Colony of Connecticut granted a 
 township's space of wild land to a company of fifty or 
 sixty proprietors, it was with the express condition that 
 every one of them should build a house upon his allotment, 
 of a prescribed size, and occupy it himself, or provide it 
 with a bona fide tenant within four years or forfeit his 
 holding. What God and nature had joined together, the 
 colony determined should not be kept asunder by specu- 
 
NATIONAL QUESTICHiS. 107 
 
 Intivo capital. Had our National Govcinnient adopted 
 this principle and policy in regard to its vast grants of 
 tlu' public domain to railway companies, we should never 
 have witnessed these gorges of unemployed labour at all 
 ill tlie manufacturing cities of the country. It is impossible 
 to mobilize these myriads of impoverished men waiting 
 tbi- ciiiployment by offering them a homestead of wild land 
 hevoiul the Mississippi. It is offering then, a stone when 
 they ask for bread. It is inviting a wounded man bound 
 to a tree to run for his life. But a new opportunity and 
 motive may now be urged upon our Govei-nment to make 
 a virtue of necessity and rectify this mistake. These 
 Pacific railways are owing it vast sums of money and 
 still asking for more land and guaranteed bonds. They 
 will never pay up these arrearages without some compo- 
 sition that shall lighten their heavy totals. Here, then, 
 is a form of composition which both they and the Govern- 
 ment ought and can afford to accept : 
 
 Let these railway companies plant settlements of a 
 hundred families each on the lands granted them near 
 their lines. Let these, or something like them, be the 
 terms of settlement. For every family or householder 
 they shall convey from the over-crowded centres of labour 
 in the Eastern and middle States and plant on their 
 domain, they shall be credited ^1,000 on their account 
 with the Government. Every settler shall be allotted 
 100 acres of land for his homestead, for which $400 shall 
 be allowed the company. The $000 to be advanced might 
 be thus divided : $300 for the best house of logs or wea- 
 ther-boards which that amount would build ; a horse, 
 harness, cart, plough and smaller farming tools, $200 ; 
 l)r()visions, $50 : transporting family and their household 
 effects, $50. Thus, for a settlement of 100 families, the 
 railway company w^ould receive a credit of $40,000 for 
 10,000 acres of land sold back to the Goverment at $4 per 
 acre. Then it would be allowed $5,000 for conveying the 
 settlers to their location. Besides this, the transportation of 
 
108 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 building matcriaLs, stock, provisions, etc., might be rec- 
 koned in as some pi'ofit to the company. Every settle- 
 ment of 100 families would, therefore, cost the Government 
 $1()(),00() and the company $50,000, in money and $50,000 
 in land, transportation, etc. These " plantations," as the 
 old colonists called them, if gradually located within 
 twenty-five miles of each other, would enhance the value 
 and demand of every acre between them, and thus reim 
 burse to the Government and the conipan}'^ what they 
 cost. . They would make paying local business for the 
 railways near which they were located, and constantly 
 increasing sources of revenue to the National Treasury. 
 They would give to the cold and barren poverty of un- 
 peopled regions the warmth and wealth of permanent and 
 coherent populations. They would make a wilderness, 
 lying in costly silence and idleness, " to blossom as the 
 rose." They would fill it with the merry music of Sabbath 
 bells and of human industry. Nature, itself, would sing 
 for joy at the bans of labour and land, so long kej)t 
 asunder by a policy opposed to the fundamental laws and 
 motives of the creation. 
 
 Such is one way, at least, of paying the old debts of 
 the Pacific Railway Companies, which I would most 
 earnestly commend to the thoughtful consideration of all 
 patriotic minds that are dwelling with anxious solicitude 
 upon the present and prospective conditions of the labour- 
 ing classes in this country. 
 
 WANT OF PUBLIC SPECIALTY MEN. 
 
 At the beginning of our second century as a nation, we 
 find the distinctive evils and dangerous customs and 
 classes of older countries confronting us. We have 
 already nearly as many organizations as England in 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. 109 
 
 action to suppress or check these evils. Our benevolent 
 associations almost equal in number those in that coun- 
 try. But we as yet lack public men, of great power and 
 influential position, who are ready to concentrate all the 
 energies of their moral and intellectual force upon some 
 special field of reform as the mission of their life and 
 labour. In fact, now that slavery is dead, the only two 
 specialtj'-men that are giving themselves each to a specific 
 work, are Henry Bergh and Anthony Comstock. Neither 
 is a man in pulDlic life, oi member of Congress or of a 
 State legislature. But each has shown what a man in 
 private life can do who brings a great heart of hope and 
 faith to a cause, and makes it his mission with an enthu- 
 siastic devotion that never cools nor tires before obloquy 
 and opposition. If such men do not stand at the foun- 
 tain-head of legislation themselves, they reach and move 
 tliose who do, and who can clothe their efforts with the 
 authority and power of law. Nor is the work of Bergh 
 or Comstock localized and confined within the limits of a 
 State. Without the help of Congress, their work is 
 making its influence felt over the w^hole naiion. It may 
 be said, with as much reason as many moral and philo- 
 sophical facts can claim, that every horse, dog and cat 
 between the two oceans has had its very being, rights 
 and relations raised to a higher appreciation by the work 
 of Mr. Bergh and the society of which he is the founder 
 and undaunted champion. See what Anthony Comstock 
 is doing, and what was to be done before he began to 
 detect and arrest the skulking miscreants of corruption 
 who were secretly dropping their leprous distillment 
 into the head-springs of youthful life and public morality. 
 But, although we have so niany fields of effort for re- 
 forms of great exigency and importance open and calling 
 for specific labourers, there is no public man of command- 
 ing influence that has thrown himself into one of them 
 with the earnestness which ensures success. We have 
 had no member of Congress labouring for a reform with 
 
110 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 the impcrtiir]»able and hopeful patienco of Henry Berke- 
 ley, who brought his aniuui] motion into Parlianuint for 
 voting by ballot during the space of nearly thirty con- 
 secutive years. We have had complaints from various 
 fields of labou]' against too many hours of toil and too 
 early years of youthful life tied to the factory loom and 
 spindle, but we have never had a Lord Shaftesbury to 
 throw himself into the gap to unyoke almost infant ago 
 from untimely drudgery and to lighten the burden put 
 upon the peeled shoulders of older men and women. We 
 have had increasing out-breaks of civil war, barring 
 bloodshed, between labour and capital, on railroads, at 
 the mouths of coal mines, and the doors of factories, but 
 no American Mundella has been found to negotiate peace 
 and equity between the two hostile parties. It is doubt- 
 ful if any other sailors in the world are subjected to such 
 cruel treatment as those that sail under the American 
 flag. Nor is it doubtful if any country sends out more 
 unseaworthy or overladen vessels to the perils of the 
 ocean than the United States. But as yet no American 
 Plimsoll has espoused the cause of the sailor, and made 
 the walls of Congress ring with his wrongs. We have 
 been wearied and sickened for years with the exasperating 
 rascalities perpetrated upon the Indians, provoking them 
 to hostilities that ended in their destruction. But, with 
 two hundred years of the sad history of their race to 
 inspire sympathy, no American Las Casas, nor William 
 Penn, has arisen in Congress to be the champion of their 
 cause. 
 
 Even in the department of political and financial 
 economy, which belongs to the province of national legis- 
 lation, no public specialty -man has taken a commanding 
 and recognized position in Congress. It is probable that 
 there are as many free-traders in the United States as 
 there were in England forty years ago. But no Cobden 
 has yet arisen to advocate that policy with a clearness 
 and force of argument which the most irreconcilable 
 
NATIONAL QUESTIONS. Ill 
 
 restrictionist could not resist. So it is with other great 
 refonriH which the progress of an enlightened civilization 
 demands. They lack specialty-men in public life to give 
 to them that concentration of heart and mind and those 
 faculties of influence which Cobden gave to the great 
 movement identified with his name. There were never 
 HO many varied fields of specific labour open to men who 
 would make and leave their mark upon their age and 
 country as at the present day. There was never a time 
 when a generous etibrt in one of these fields would be 
 more highly appreciated, or win a quicker success, or a 
 richer reward of public esteem. Every year some new 
 department of labour for the ])ublic good calls for a leader 
 of the Cobden or John Hovvai'd order of spirit and pur- 
 pose. Here, foi' instance, is the Chinese immigration 
 question, assuming such wide proportions and aspects of 
 interest to the whole country. What a field this opens to 
 a patriotic statesman ! If such a man wants one for the 
 best capacities of his intellect, for the best aspirations of 
 his patriotism, and the best impulses of a great-hearted 
 ambition to be a recognized benefactor of two vast conti- 
 nents, here is a grand opportunity to realize all these 
 results to himself and to the world. We may hope that 
 another Congress will develop public men to be to many 
 of these great questions what Shaftesbury, Cobden, 
 Blight, and Mundella, are to reforms of like importance 
 ia England. . . 
 
CHArXEII IV. 
 
 ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 
 
 UTILIZING WASTE MATERIAL. 
 
 UTILIZINC, WASTE MATERTAI -I'TILIZTNG WASTE POPULATION— OUR NEED OF 
 THE ENOLIHH WORKHOUSE— NECESSITY OF REPEOPLINO NEW ENGLAND — 
 THE FETTERED LABOURER— THE FALSE LIGHTS OP GREAT NAMES— THE 
 CONTAGIOUS DEMORALIZATION OP SHODDY MONEY. 
 
 O one can travel far on this continent, or any other, 
 without being impressed with the vast spaces void 
 of human or intelligent beings to people, subdue, 
 cultivate, and enjoy them. They look like sections con- 
 denmed to exile and solitude, not for any crime of climate 
 or soil, or for unfitness for human habitation. Thoy aie 
 virtually a dead loss to the world in their present condi- 
 tion, and will continue to be so until they are utilized by 
 human life and labour. They are as yet the waste mate- 
 rial of Nature. Then any observant visitor of the large 
 cities and centres of population in this and other countries 
 must be struck with the waste material of humanity they 
 contain, or the thousands living " on the ragged edge " of 
 crime, and the thousands dragged into it by poverty, igno- 
 rance, and misery, and who are a dead weight upon society. 
 Then there are hundreds of able-bodied men shut up for 
 life in prisons for crimes that once would have carried them 
 to the gallows. Here, then, are the waste materials of Na- 
 ture and humanity waiting to be utilized for the good of 
 the world as well as their own. Can it be done with such 
 a result ? Can even the most criminal and degraded 
 class be turned to a good account and made useful to the 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 113 
 
 cDuntry which they now burden with Huch trouble and 
 expense ( Has any country tried an experiment in this 
 direction which has succeeded ( Yes ; England has done 
 it without ex})ecting any such result. Early in the cen- 
 tuiy she shippiul oft' her worst criminals to Botany Bay, 
 tliinkin<,'and intending that they should never trouble her 
 agair. They were worse than worthless to their own 
 country, and dou})tless would have grown worse still had 
 they remained there. But they and their descendants 
 foi'nied the nucleus of the great English-speaking nation 
 of Australia. They became to it what the " F. F. V.'s " 
 claimed to be to Virginia, or, " the first families" of the 
 country. She has men and women enough to-day shut 
 up in her prisons to form several little colonies with a like 
 result in the waste places of Nature, where their descen- 
 dants might rise to the status of an enlightened common- 
 wealth. For instance, suppose she should plant a portion 
 of this waste material of her society near one of the 
 lately-discovered lakes of Central Africa. How soon might 
 not such a penal settlement become the voluntary inhabi- 
 tants of a region which their labour had made to blossom 
 as the rose ! And what a centre of civilization such a 
 connnunity might become to the continent in a single 
 generation ! 
 
 It is interesting to see the result of bringing these waste 
 materials of Nature and humanity into mutual action and 
 reaction upon each other. I once saw an illustration of 
 this principle and economy on that wild, weird mountain 
 desert, Dartmoor, which, large enough for a county, has 
 only the penal establishment on it which Americans and 
 French have a painful reason to remember. It is situated 
 about midway in this cold, silent, misty wild, where few 
 birds have the heart to build their nests or sing their 
 songs. The earth that so chills the sk}'' overhead may be 
 seen here and there between the gray boulders, bat is 
 seemingly too poor to grow anything but moss and stinted 
 shrubs. If any one would see an almost entire work of 
 
114 CniPS FROM MANY DLOCKS. 
 
 cniation \)y Imniaii hamls, hv may find a ^ood Hpeciiueii 
 at this penal settlement. For, yeai" after year, tlu^se 
 pri.soner.s have been led out to this creative work on the 
 Kavage acre.s around them. With i)er8istent and laborious 
 search, they have found earth under the rou^h pavement 
 of granitic boutders. Th(!se they liave blasted or wrenched 
 out of their deep beds and formed into walls of prodigious 
 thickfiess around the fi(jlds tlu^y have thus practically 
 created for luxurious production. Looking at these 
 fields, green or golden with various ci'ops of vegetation, 
 and comparing them with the face of the country around 
 tliem, one may see how the waste and worst materials of 
 Nature and humanity may be utilized for their mutual 
 good. 
 
 Now, few civilized countries have so umch waste mate- 
 rial of Nature and humanity to V)e utilized as the United 
 States. Take the Indians of different tribes and sections, 
 for example. Ever since the first European settlement of 
 the continent they have not only l)een suti'ered, but almost 
 forced, to I'un to waste. To keep or allow tliem to 
 ^ remaii in their savage state has cost the country several 
 hundred millions of dollars. Duiing the Seminole war in 
 Florida, it was estimated that every Indian killed or cap- 
 tured cost $60,000. The expense of killing the Modocs, 
 Sioux, and other Indians, per head, must have eciualled 
 the price of one hundred acres of good farming land, with 
 a comfortable house, a barn, a pair of team-hoi'ses, or 
 mules, and half-a-dozen cows. If every Indian killed by 
 our soldiery had instead been utilized by such an outfit 
 for civilized life, what a reproductive investment it would 
 have been for the nation at large ! But in spite of our 
 forces now in the field against them, there are thousands 
 of Indians between the Mississippi and the Rocky Moun- 
 tains still remaining, and land enough within the same space 
 for a thousand times their number to be utilized. Both, 
 in their present condition, represent the waste material of 
 humanity and Nature. How can they be brought to- 
 
ECONOMKUL AND INDUSTRIAL. I IT) 
 
 f,'cthor to act and react upon each otluT foi- thoir nuitnal 
 Id'Hctit and tlio general ^^jod of tlie country ! The first 
 c;on«lition to this possibility nnist be considered and per- 
 ibnnedat the outset. 
 
 To utilize the Indian for civilized lif(%he must l)e recon- 
 structed not only civilly but physically. He must not only 
 be elevated to a new civil status within the pale of our 
 general government, but he must MC([uire a new physical 
 constitution to tit him for the full exercise and ''njoy- 
 ment of that status. And this physical change nuist bo 
 effected by intermediate stages or pi'ocesses, covering the 
 space of two or three genei'ationti For the truth of the 
 French proverb is illustrated in his condition. If Provi- 
 dence proportions the wool of the sheej) to the force of 
 the wind, it has proportioned the nmscular system of the 
 Indian to his hereditary occupation or condition. His 
 apparent mission, or raison d'etre, like that of the 
 aboriginals of all the continents, has been to keep down 
 beasts of prey for a future race of civilized inhabitants. 
 Fnmi the first he has been a hunter, and his physical 
 structure has been built for running, like the greyhound, 
 and not for bending to hard, continuous labour in tilling 
 land. If any one is curious to prove this physical con- 
 formation to an hereditary occupation, let him compare 
 the nmscular system of a Sioux or Modoc with that of 
 the Cherokee or Chickasaw farmer of the Indian Terri- 
 tory, who has been physically reconstructed in two or 
 thi'ee generations by the very nature of the labour he fol- 
 lows for life and livelihood. Now, to reconstruct the 
 wild Indian hunter for an agriculturist, he must be 
 brought to this transformation hy an intermediate pro- 
 cess. The change is too great for his physical constitu- 
 tion to effect at one step, or even in one generation. He 
 must first be trained in one of easy preliminaries of agri- 
 culture life, which will involve no very sudden and 
 radical change in his muscular faculties and habits. He 
 must become a herdsman, who is half-way between the 
 
116 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 hunter and farmer. Instead of chasing herds of buffalo 
 for their skins, he must lead forth into the wide pastures 
 of Nature herds of cattle and sheep for beef, milk, and 
 wool for his own family and for the market. This occu- 
 pation will afford him scope and play for the greyhound 
 conformation of his muscular svstem. To follow it he 
 must have a fixed habitation as another condition of 
 civilized life. Then he must own land for a homestead, 
 and some of this he must be taught, helped, and stimu- 
 lated to till with his own hands ; and this brings us to 
 the part the general Government should take in utilizing 
 his life for his own and the common good. 
 
 Looking back over the past fifty j'^ears, and estimating 
 how much the policy of the sword has cost the nation in 
 dealing with the Indians, surely we have small reason to 
 haggle over the few thousands of dollars which we 
 should have to expend on the policy of the ploughshare in 
 bringing them within the pale of American civilization 
 and citizenship. In thus utilizing and citizejiizing 
 them, we can well afford to adopt the generous economy 
 of the province of New Brunswick in the encouragement 
 its government extends to emigrants from Europe to set- 
 tle in that country. It offers each and every settler land 
 for a good-sized farm, it builds a comfortable house on it, 
 clears and ploughs six acres near it, furnishes him farm- 
 ing tools, seeds and provisions for six months — all of 
 which he is to pay for gradually in labour on the roads 
 nearest him, and which he most needs. Thus, on his 
 arrival at Halifax or St. John, he may leave the same 
 day for the new home a'-eady prepared and waiting for 
 him. This is all very generous, but how is it to pay the 
 provisional government and people ? one may ask. It pays 
 in the value of a new and permanent population, increas- 
 ing not only the labour and production of the province, 
 but its consumption of home produced and imported arti- 
 cles, thus contributing lai'gely to the public revenue. 
 Now, then, would it not be a paying policy for our Gov- 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 117 
 
 ernment to do the same, or as much, for the wild and 
 roaming Indian, in order to introduce him into the 
 primary condition of civilized life? It will not cost so 
 nmch labour to locate and settle him down to a useful 
 occupation as it does to plant a Scandinavian peasant on 
 a wooded homestead in New Brunswick. To clear off 
 timber and plough the six acres for him requii-es much 
 time and labour. But to build a comfortable cottage or 
 cabin for the Indian, to break up six acres of prairie 
 land and sow it with wheat or plant it with corn, could 
 be done more easily and cheaply. And an outfit of farming 
 tools and provisions for six months, and the expense of 
 an agricultural agent to supervise the settlement, would 
 be the veriest trifle compared with the present cost of 
 the military or sword policy. Then, if it were thought 
 too costly for the Government to give a certain number 
 of cows and sheep outright to the Indians, to start them 
 in the new life of herdsmen or stock-raisers, these might 
 be let to them for a certain percentage of their increase, 
 after a system well known to farmers in old as well as 
 new countries. In a word, it only needs a will to find 
 a way for gathering up the scattered remnants of the 
 wild Indian tribes, and for planting them in fixed cities 
 of habitations or in well-regulated and useful communi 
 ties, and on the footing of citizens, amenable only to our 
 laws, and entitled to their protection. Thus we might 
 say to them and of them what Earl Dufferin said, in the 
 grandest words ever uttered to an Indian subject of the 
 British Crown : " Before your white Mother, before the 
 law, and before God, every one of you stands on the 
 same footing as any man in the British Empire." Be- 
 fore we can thus transform the Indian into a useful citi- 
 zen, we must raise him to the citizen's footing before the 
 law, and give him a voice in making the law. 
 
118 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 UTILIZING WASTE POPULATION. 
 
 There are masses of population in our own country, as 
 well as elsewhere, whose value to themselves and to the 
 general connnunity depends mostly upon their location. 
 Now, population, everywhere and always, shoidd be a 
 valuable portion of a nation's wealth and well-being, and 
 no nation can afford to let masses of its people run to 
 waste and become worthless as an element of prosperity. 
 In ancient times great powers waged wars to capture for- 
 eign populations ami transfer them en vuif^se to their own 
 countries. Thus the kings of Assyria and Babylon car- 
 ried away to their own lands nearly the whole popula- 
 tion of Israel and Judah for the value they would add to 
 their kingdoms, not as slaves, but as subjects, introducing 
 all the arts, industries, and ingenuities of their native 
 countries. In modern times, the same value has been at- 
 tached to populations acquii-ed from abroad. They have 
 always been regarded as among the most fertile sources 
 of our growth and prosperity as a nation, whatever their 
 race or condition. It v, as not their absolute worth on 
 their first arrival that was looked at, but their value after 
 having taken root in our republican so il, and the genera- 
 tions th^^y would produce as native Americans under our 
 republican institutions. We see what hundreds of thou- 
 sands of them have become, and what they are doing to- 
 day in every department of industry. They are not con- 
 fined to manufactories, railways, and mines, but are as 
 widely engaged in agricultural labour. Already nearly 
 half of the farms in New England are owned as well as 
 tilled by Irish and Germans. In many towns their chil- 
 dren make half the attendance at the public schools, and 
 when grown to manhood and womanliood they will be, 
 and look, as completely Americanized as if their great- 
 grandfathers had been born in this country. 
 
 There was never l time when the different countries 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 119 
 
 and sections of country on this continent were more ac- 
 tive in importing and planting populations from abroad 
 within their limits. We see what Brazil is doing on the 
 .soiitii and the British Provinces on the north, in this line 
 of economy. Here is New Brunswick importing and 
 planting a colony of Swedes, furnishing to each family a 
 comfortable log-house, a homestead with six acres of land 
 cleared, provisions for six months, and agricultural tools 
 and seeds. Now, we have many States that need popu- 
 lation as much as New Brunswick, and can afford to do 
 as much to obtain them. There is Virginia, for instance, 
 tliat lias never been half peopled, and yet there is no 
 State in the Union whose natural resources from the sea- 
 coast to the Ohio could supply the raw material for so 
 many industries. But neither Virginia nor any other 
 State needs to go abroad for the population it requires. 
 There are thousands and tens of thousands in our large 
 cities, manufacturing and mining centres who are running 
 to waste in compulsory idleness, and who might be made 
 a source of wealth if transplanted and set out on a new 
 , Hue of life, hope and possibility. But there must be done 
 for then» what New Brunswick is doing to this end for 
 the Swb les. Our government has long offered a home- 
 stead of more than 100 acres in the fertile West to every 
 actual settler. But, and in innumerable cases, it might 
 as well have offered Cleopatra's Needle to a New York 
 cellar tenant, if he would remove it. The offer of such 
 homesteads is almost a mockery to a full million of men 
 and women who know not what home means in any fair 
 sense of enjoyment. 
 
 The question then arises, How can the waste popula- 
 tions of our large cities be utilized and transplanted where 
 they would be useful to the general conujiunity as well 
 as raised to a higher level of moral and social life ? Has 
 any parallel enterprise been ,^et on loot with results that 
 would justify this undertaking There are the Prince 
 Albert, Peabody, and Waterlow j^ j>del Lodging Houses in 
 
120 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 London, which may be cited as proof that such enter- 
 prises for the elevation of tlie poor will [)ay in money as 
 well as in other satisfactions. They are not charitable 
 institutions, but establishments that pay the interest of 
 the money invested in them. Every tenant pays as 
 much as he did for the lodgings he left, but he gets ten- 
 fold the comfort he had in his former cellar or garret. 
 The most squalid and unhealthy; tenements in New York 
 and other large cities pay a higher rate of interest on the 
 money invested than the grandest brown stone mansions 
 of wealth in the fashionable quarters. Whether the 
 tenant begs or steals, he must pay his weekly or monthly 
 rent or be evicted. But whether he occupies a cellar or 
 garret, or the best Model Lodging-house, his tenement does 
 not earn him a farthing by night or day. He must earn 
 his rent-money by his labour elsewhere. And he does 
 this, and earns enough to make the best Peabody Build- 
 ing pay a business profit. 
 
 Thus we see that these Model Lodging-houses are more 
 than self -supporting, even yielding a fair profit to their 
 founders, with all the comforts they furnish for families 
 that come from the unhealthy lairs of garrets and cellars. 
 In view of this success, why would it not be safe for such 
 a State as Virginia, which so much needs population, to 
 try the experiment of Model Homestead Houses, to be let 
 at a small but paying rent to tenants they might attract. 
 The State might well afibrd to do as much for them as 
 New Brunswick does for the Swedes. But on the basis 
 of the Model Lodging-houses it might obtain a large and 
 valuable population, and make the very process of their 
 transplantation pay a business profit. I refer to Virginia, 
 because of its great sections of unpeopled and wooded 
 territory, and because an allotment mostly or entirely 
 CDvered with timber furnishes labour for winter as well 
 as the other seasons. Suppose, then, the State, or a com- 
 pany of sufficient capital, should secure a tract of 10,000 
 or 5,000 acres of this woodland country, and divide it into 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 121 
 
 homesteads, 30 acres to each, and buihl on each a com- 
 fortaUe log-house, clear six acres, and furnish seeds, tools, 
 Hour and bacon for six months, as New Brunswick does 
 for the Swedes. The whole outlay would probably not 
 exceed $500, and an annual rent of $40 would pay a fair 
 interest on the investment. Now ther3 is no tenant of a 
 New York cellar or garret lodging who docs not pay more 
 til an this for it. 
 
 Here, then, not only a home would be opened to the 
 garret-man of the crowded city, but a homestead, yielding 
 continuous labour and comfortable subsistence for life ; 
 where he could i-aise a family decently to take their place 
 among the better chances and opportunities of an im- 
 proving social life and civil community. Why should 
 Virginia or any other State in equal need of population 
 go to Sweden, Germany, or Italy for immigrants when 
 there ar-e so many thousands in our crowded cities who 
 would gladly occupy homes provided for them on this 
 paying basis ? Not one of them can ever attain to one 
 of the homesteads offered by our Government in the far 
 West to those who can afford to go and take them. Not 
 one in a thousand of them could raise money enough 
 to pay his fare thither by railroad or any other road. If 
 he could, how would he be able to build even a cabin on 
 it for a dwelling, to buy tools for farm work, or horses 
 or cattle to plow his land, or food to last him to his first 
 crop ? No ; if these waste populations of our great cities 
 are ever to be utilized, and become of value to the coun- 
 try, and elevated to a higher level of moral life, they 
 must be transplanted by the help of States, or by business 
 companies, on this or a similar basis of paying philan- 
 thropy. 
 
122 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 OUR NEED OF THE ENGLISH WORKHOUSE. 
 
 The experience of the last few years has proved that 
 we not only have the poor always with us, but also " the 
 dangerous classes " of the Old World, and even one 
 unknown to European countries, and which, more than 
 any that burdens them, is inflicting upon us increasing 
 peril and annoyance. For the tramp in England and 
 elsewhere abroad is a solitary vagabond and easily man- 
 aged, but with us he is gregarious and formidable from 
 union with his fellows. They move in bands through 
 the country, though they may deploy as individual skir- 
 mishers upon the community, levying contributions of 
 food and clothing under a menace understood if not 
 expressed. Thousands give to these sturdy and danger- 
 ous beggars, as if commanded to stand and deliver, for 
 they dare not refuse lest they put their own lives and 
 property in peril. And yet, with all this voluntary and 
 compulsory giving, the houses and barns burnt by tramps 
 every year amount to a value that would board them at 
 hotel fare for the same period. 
 
 Undoubtedly, it has been almost a general impression 
 that tramps are only new and temporary birds of passage 
 and prey — that they will pass away and disaj^pear with 
 the exceptional times that produced them. But the wish 
 is the father of this thought,^f or it can find no foundation 
 in experience or reason. The evil has had time and space 
 enough to become chronic. The habit of vagabondage 
 has become settled and strong in thousands who love to 
 live by it without labour. There is enough of incident 
 and adventure in it to make it attractive to them. It is a 
 social life which they enjoy with a satisfaction akin to that 
 which bands of buffalo or bear-hunters experience in the 
 pursuit of their game under difficulties and manifold risks. 
 We often hear of considerable encampments of tramps 
 meeting here and there, as if to cement the order of their 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 123 
 
 brotherhood with fellowHhip often renewed, and to recount 
 explorations, discoveries, adventures, feats of skill and 
 courage, and all the attractive experience of their night- 
 errantry. In England, a few years ago, an interesting 
 book was published under the title of " The Autobio- 
 graphy of a Vagabond," which was widely read. But 
 how tame would this volume be to one which a short- 
 hand reporter present at one of these tramp re-unions, 
 would make out of the stories of their varied adventures, 
 their midnight forays, hair-breadth escapes, and all the 
 incidents of their organized vagabondage ? If such a 
 volume were published and read it would convince the 
 public that the mobilized army of tramps will never dis- 
 band voluntarily for the pursuit of honest industry. 
 
 For the last few years the increasing bands of tramps 
 have urged a raison d'etre which the community could 
 hardly gainsay. They have insisted that the sole reason 
 for the existence of their order was the lack of labour — 
 that they were travelling up and down the country, hunt- 
 ing for some work to do for an honest livelihood. This 
 was a forcible argument which few could repel or refute. 
 Every bodj'' knew^ that there were hundreds of thousands 
 of honest men out of employment and condemned to com- 
 pulsory idleness. One could not find it in his heart to 
 say that a man should neither be allowed to dig nor beg 
 to keep himself from starvation. When every town and 
 village was full of unemployed men ready and anxious to 
 do, cheaply and faithfully, every small incidental job of 
 work that was offered, no person cared to employ a 
 strange tramp even to earn a meal of victuals or a pair of 
 half- worn shoes. It was cheapest and safest to give him 
 one or both, and send him off in the hope that he would 
 never return. But in doing this, you did not refute his 
 one, sole argument. You did not and could not prove 
 that he was not willing to labour for an honest living if 
 he could find work at small wages. You virtually con- 
 ceded the truth and force of his argument, and even 
 recognized the necessity of his manner of life. 
 
124 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 It is quite probable that nine out often of the commu- 
 nity believe that a revival of business and the renewed 
 movement of all the wheels of industry will put an end 
 to the tramps of the country by supplying them with the 
 employment they claim to be hunting for. But the com- 
 munity will find that they are reckoning without their 
 host, in the indulgence of such a belief. If business pros- 
 perity increases to the full extent of the general hope, we 
 shall find that the mobilized army of tramps will not dis- 
 band, or return, or rather resort to industrial life. We 
 shall have to accept the situation, and make provisions 
 for it, as they do in other countries. We cannot shut our 
 eyes to the fact : we have with us already all the classes 
 that vice, poverty and ignorance have made " dangerous " 
 in the Old World, and we must have the Old World insti- 
 tutions to protect society against them. We have nearly 
 all these institutions except one, and that one has become 
 an urgent, outspoken necessity. We must have the English 
 Work-house, with whatever improvements we may add to 
 it. We cannot afford or need one in every half-dozen 
 towns, as in England, but w^e ought to have one in every 
 county in our populous Northern States, or one within 
 twenty-five miles of every town and village. Such an 
 institution is as much needed as a county jail. It should 
 not be a prison or poor-house, neither for criminals nor 
 indigent invalids, or mental incompetents. It should be 
 especially fi.tted for the class of actual or prospective 
 vagrants who claim to beg only because they cannot find 
 work. It should fully meet their case and provide such 
 an amount and variety of out-door and in-door labour, as 
 should not only pay their board but also something ovei' 
 for the poor-house or asylum. If, like a similar class in 
 Japan, they should be sent out by the institution with a 
 suit of clothes and a little mone}-^ as a reward for honest 
 work, it would enhance the merit of the system. 
 
 Such a work-house must be estn.blished in a country 
 town, with plenty of land for sunmier work, and as many 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 125 
 
 mechanical industries as practicable for in-door employ- 
 ment in winter. With such an institution, every town 
 and village could make a clean sweep of tramps, for it 
 could say to every one of the able-bodied vagrants : 
 " There is the workhouse, within a day's walk at the 
 farthest. There you will find plenty of work, and better 
 food and lodging than you can get by begging." This 
 would test the motive of their vagrancy. If they refuse 
 the work-house they nuist accept the prison. " There is 
 no discharge from this war " with voluntary indolence and 
 vagabondage. We must supplement our jails, poor-houses 
 and asylums with this English institution. It must be a 
 county establishment, at least in our most populous States. 
 And there is hardly a county in them all that has not had 
 an amount of property destroyed by tramps equal to the 
 cost of a work-house and three hundred acres of land. 
 The location, erection and working of such an establish- 
 ment are matters of detail which the county would decide 
 for itself. Its authority to found such an institution 
 could be obtained through an easy process of legislation. 
 What county, then, in these Northern States will lead the 
 way, and set the example of introducing the English 
 Work-house, with American improvements ? 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF RE-PEOPLING NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The motives and arguments for re-peopling New-En- 
 gland with its own sons and daughters are becoming 
 more and more pressing and evident. All that is precious 
 in her past, all that is urgent in her present and hopeful 
 in her future combine to make this consummation a moral, 
 economical and political necessity. The moral may be 
 put the first of these considerations, and in the form of a 
 familiar illustration. All our large cities and populous 
 
126 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 towns are becoming fully alive to the necesHity of an 
 abundant supply of pure water for sanitary as well as 
 other purposes. They all have to go to the country for 
 it, some forty, some twenty, and all several miles, not 
 merely for plenty, but purity. They construct costly re- 
 servoirs and aqueducts, and lay down main pipes and a 
 whole subterranean system of arteries and veins for the 
 supply demanded by city life. In all such cities and 
 towns an unfailing and abundant supply of country wa- 
 ter is fully proved to be a vital necessity to the people 
 as a sanitary element. Without it their contrition would 
 be intolerable, and every city a breeding sink: of disease. 
 Well, in these latter years of greedy and reckless specu- 
 lation, the moral waste going on in our large cities proves 
 that they need as many reservoirs and feeders of healthy 
 country charactei- as they do of countrj'^ water for their 
 streets and houses. For a hundred years all our New 
 England cities and centres of population have had a con- 
 tinuous and abundant supply of these moral elements 
 from the small hill and valley towns of the country. If 
 the census of their leading men in every department of 
 influence were given us, it would be found that three- 
 fourths of them came from the small farming towns, 
 where they received the groundwork of their character 
 which they brought with them as a shaping influence on 
 city life and morals. In a word, for a hundred years the 
 country has made the town in New England in its best 
 elements of character. But new and different years are 
 preparing for our moral condition and history. If there 
 be no radical change in the movement of our populations, 
 these country reservoirs of moral character will be soon 
 exhausted. No country in the wide world ever poured 
 more healthy streams into the currents of city life than 
 did once the farm-homes of our New England States. 
 But those homes are changing hands and occupants and 
 character with a lapidity and result which few, perhaps 
 not one in a thousand, have stopped to notice. The at- 
 
ECONOMICAI. AND INDUSTRIAL. 127 
 
 tractions of city residence and ImainesH, or of the congre- 
 ^'ate industries of our manufacturinor centres, have })een 
 steadily drawing away hundreds and thousands of vigor- 
 ous young men born in those homes, and who should in- 
 herit and occupy them and make them what they have 
 been in the best years of New England's history. What is 
 the process that results from this course ? The fathers 
 of these thousands of young men are left alone on these 
 homesteads to carry them on through seed-time and har- 
 vest with the hired help of Irish and Germans. As age 
 comes on them, and their sons being no longer with them 
 to occupy and keep up the old home of their forefathers, 
 they offer their farms for sale to the highest bidder, and 
 retire to some house with a small garden in some village 
 or small city. The highest bidder is almost sure to be an 
 Irishman or German, and he enters into possession of a 
 home which has given to New England a long succession 
 of those families which have had such a part in its his- 
 tory. This is the process now going on in every farming 
 town in New England, and thousands of its old Puritan 
 homes are already occupied by Irish and Germans. Is it 
 not time, then, for thoughtful minds to consider the moral 
 bearings of this transformation on the future character of 
 both city and country life in New England ? 
 
 But the economic aspect of the question is still, if pos- 
 sible, more serious. Can any observant witness of the 
 present condition of things shut his eyes to its tendency 
 and result ? Can anything be more evident than the 
 fact that masters are rapidly decreasing and servants in- 
 creasing in number in every considerable town or manu- 
 facturing village ? Do we not see this process going on 
 at an increased pace before us at all such centres ? There 
 was a time, which many of us can remember, when two 
 or three men trained to the business would put their 
 small capital together and manufacture articles at a profit. 
 But that time is gone forever. Private firms have been 
 swallowed up by large joint-stock companies, against 
 
128 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS 
 
 which no common partnership could stand a day. These 
 great corporations have brought in a kind of ahmnteeism, 
 almost akin to that of Ireland or tlie West-Indies under 
 the old regime. In s<;nie cases nearly all the stockholders 
 or directors live in diii'erent and distant cities, leaving 
 none but an acting manager and two or throe other subor- 
 dinates to carry on the business with a steady and unwa- 
 vering eye to regular dividends. The comi)any is an in- 
 visible, intangible, inaccessible entity, not only to tlie 
 general community around the factory, but to the opera- 
 tives themselves. After having swallowed up all small 
 firms, their appetite for deglutition grows l)y what it 
 feeds upon, and they begin to swallow up each other, or 
 to amalgamate, to increase their power and suppress com- 
 petition. 
 
 Now, then, what chance can any young man see of his 
 ever becoming his own master while living h\B best years 
 under the steam- whistle of such a corporation ? Look at 
 his prospects and possibilities in the present condition of 
 the country. When business is the best, the utmost 
 strain his strength and skill will bear is put upon him in 
 order to house, feed and clothe himself and his family up 
 to that level of comfort which he fee -t constrained as well 
 as ambitious to maintain. Expensive habits grow with 
 the growth of the manufacturing village, and he dares 
 not be singular by close economy. These expenses swal- 
 low up good wages. He lives well, but finds it hard to 
 sa^'e for the day when he can no longer work. The 
 steam-whistle calls him to the factory while it is yet dark 
 on winter mornings. He seldom sees his young children 
 except on Sunday, as they are asleep in their beds when 
 he leaves in the morning and returns at night with his 
 dinner-pail. If by dint of extraordinary economy he can 
 lay by a little at the week's end, it is to build a house 
 for his later years. When built, he gets back the interest 
 of his money in free rent, minus the taxes. That is all. 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 129 
 
 Should the great factory fail, his h«)us(? would not sell for 
 half its cost. Not a thin<,^ he owns earns him a cent when 
 he is asleep or away from his work. And these late years 
 prove how precarious is manufacturing labour, and what 
 immeasurable distress comes upon hundreds of thousands 
 of men in the prime of life when paying labour fails. 
 Even when the journeyman mechanic has full work and 
 wages he must sometimes, while carrying his dinner-pail 
 to the factory, measure the comfort and dignity of his 
 position with what his father and grandfather enjoyed on 
 the old homestead among the hills. But how the contrast 
 iiiust bear upon his manhood when the corporation shuts 
 down its gates, and his work is at an end ! 
 
 I do not know if these reflections will reach a dozen of 
 those for whom they are intended. But if that number 
 of farmers' sons should read them at their fathers' fire- 
 sides, I Would say to them, stay by the old homestea<l. 
 Tjeasure it, till it, beautify and enjoy it. Do not sell or 
 pawn it for a mess of pottage. Do not exchange the 
 ciown of independent manhood for the collar of a corpor- 
 ation, for on no other condition can you leave the farm 
 for the factory. 
 
 To the thousands who have been tempted to make this 
 exchange, and are now looking with downcast eyes and 
 heavy hearts upon wives and children whose bread they 
 can no longer earn for want of work, I would say : Do 
 not go West ; go North, East or South, here in your own 
 New England. Here, within a day's journey, you may 
 lind plenty of farm homesteads of every size and price 
 for your choice, on the easiest terms. And go where you 
 will in the wide world, you will not find the dignity and 
 comfort of farm life on a higher level than in this New 
 England. Nowhere else is the farmer's home so near his 
 neighl)our's, so near the church, so near the school, so near 
 to all the facilities of social and religious fellowship and 
 enjoyment. The ownership of fifty acres on one of these 
 interior hillsides, though the soil be worn and poor, will 
 
130 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 make you what you never can be as a hired workman — 
 your own master, emancipated forever from the factory 
 whistle. That small holding will supply you with work 
 from year to year with no involuntary break of occupa- 
 tion. With the thought, the skill and industry you give 
 to mechanical labour, your little farm will produce all 
 your family need to eat, wear and enjoy. Your face may 
 be browned with the summer sun, but it will look as 
 manly as any tinge or lack of tinge which the gas and 
 grease of the factory may give it. Go back into the coun- 
 tiy and help re-people our New England with its own 
 children. Go back and help to make its character and 
 history what they were — its best boast and the admiration 
 of all our American states. 
 
 THE FETTERED LABOURER. 
 
 The story of Tantalus is so familiar that it is the only 
 one from classic mythology that has added a common 
 word to the English language. To tantalize is to inflict 
 or experience a condition similar to the one he endured. 
 For some offence he was confined in the middle of a lake, 
 but whenever he essayed to drinl^, the water withdrew 
 from the reach of his parched lips, and yet remained so 
 near that it added fire to his burning thirst. There were 
 trees that hung their delicious fruits close to his face, but 
 when he stretched out his hand to pluck them they with- 
 drew beyond the tether of his chain, and mocked him 
 with their sight and flavour. Now, without imputing in- 
 tentional wrong to either side, we have this sad experience 
 reproduced in this great and happy country, as we would 
 fain call it. And it becomes all men of influential minds 
 to consider how the country has drifted into this condi- 
 tion, and how it may escape from it. In the first place, 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 131 
 
 tiien, let us see under what circumstances such a vast 
 amount of American labour became fettered, and to a cer- 
 tain degree subjected to the experience of poor Tantalus. 
 Thirty years ago labour was safely and. happily distri- 
 buted in this country. It was the pre-corporation period 
 of our industrial history. Our manufactures and com- 
 merce were conducted by private finns of two or three 
 individuals well trained for the business, who gave to it 
 the whole concentrated force of their interest, thought, 
 and experience ; who were generally at it first in the 
 morning and last at night, always accessible to their em- 
 ployes, and personally responsible and responsive to them. 
 They depended on their own capital, and were cautious in 
 risking it in hazardous speculations. Under this private 
 firm regime, labour was freely mobilized and equably 
 distributed among all the industrial occupations. The 
 force needed by one of them was not weakened by the 
 demands or attractions of another. Capital and labour 
 moved on hand in hand, in peace and healthy prosperity. 
 But the regime of the incorporated capital, operating in 
 large companies of absentee, invisible, or inaccessible stock- 
 holders, changed all this even condition of industry. In- 
 stead of two or three men with five or ten thousand 
 dollars each entering into co-partnership, a,nd managing a 
 business with three minds and three pairs of earnest eyes 
 fixed upon it, we now had an incorporated company of 
 twenty or thirty shareholders, scattered, it might be, over 
 several States, not one in ten of them having any personal 
 training or experience in a business to be carried on by 
 proxy or by hired managers. These stoclcholders could 
 sell their stock in a coal-mine or a steam-engine factory, 
 to tailors, Jhatters, and fancy -goods dealers, ihus increasing 
 the constituency of the corporation until the president 
 hardly knew who or how many were its members, except 
 on dividend days. Yet, in face of experience and the 
 natural teachings of common sense, they w(3re tempted to 
 yield to the deception which Gladstone denc>unces as " tht? 
 
132 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 folly of investors who deluded themselves with the belief 
 that they could expect, with shareholders in a company, 
 to reap all the profits which before had been earned by 
 trained and experienced manufacturers, who had spent 
 their early lives in the learning and their maturer years 
 in the administration of a comf)Iicated industry." But 
 there were follies more serious attending the system. 
 Incorporated (Companies came in with a rush of adventur- 
 ous speculation. There was plenty of capital, eager and 
 pressing for the investment. Indeed, in many cases there 
 were secret rings formed to take all the stock before it was 
 offered to the public, as the law demanded. The tempta- 
 tion worked to its natural direction and issue. A " grab 
 game " for the business of the country is now played by 
 competing corporations, with almost the positive and vis- 
 ible certainty that the total amount of that business can- 
 . not long sustain them all. Never mind if some of them 
 go to the wall in the race ; so much the better for the 
 rest. Let the hindermost take care of itself. It is not for 
 such a company to estimate how much of its productions 
 the country can take year by year, or how many rivals it 
 has in the field competing for all they can get of the con- 
 sumable amount. 
 
 In every country the tendency of joint-stock companies 
 is to overstock the market with their productions. Take 
 an English case for example — that of the steam-ship com- 
 panies of Liverpool. They have run the same race of 
 reckless competition for business between Europe and 
 America. It is evident that not one of them ever esti- 
 mated the amount of that business, or how many steam- 
 ships it would sustain. But they went on, putting fleet 
 upon fleet on the Atlantic until scarcely half of them 
 could find freight or passengers. It is natural and 
 inevitable that the most highly protected manufacture 
 should be the first to be "run into the ground," to use a 
 popular and expressive phrase. A new company has been 
 recently formed for competing with a powerful corpora- 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 133 
 
 tion which has had virtually the monopoly in the produc- 
 tion of an article favoured with a prohihitoiy duty. It is 
 said that this new company has declared that it will spend 
 $200,000 in competing with its old-establislied rival, while 
 that threatens, by way of retort, that it will put up 
 $1,000,000 as sinews for such a war. What do they mean 
 by throwing down to each other such a gauntlet ? Evi- 
 dently and only that one intends to un<lersell the other in 
 the market until the weaker succumbs. Neither intends 
 to sell at this ruining price after its rival has been driven 
 to the wall. The new company does not expect that its 
 additional production will create a demand for it in the 
 market, nor that the market was not even crowded with 
 a supply before its wheels had turned out a gross of the 
 article. The market can only take in a certain amount of 
 the manufacture yearly, and the production of this amount 
 will only give steady employment and fair wages to a 
 certain amount of labour. But the new company sends 
 out and calls into its establishment several hundred men, 
 women, and children. The race begins : the result is to 
 he soon and certain. If one of the rivals breaks down, 
 all the labour it employed is dismissed to compulsory 
 idleness. If they run on neck and neck the market is 
 soon choked with their aggregate production. Then what? 
 Let us see. 
 
 We must accept the situation. We could not if we 
 would, and we would not if we could, disband these joint- 
 stock companies, and relegate the manufactures of the 
 country to the old private-tirm system. They are not the 
 out-growth of an inflated currency, or inflated speculation, 
 or of any or of all the inflations that spring from shoddy- 
 money. They have been even more numerous and reckless 
 in England on a gold basis, than in this country on legal- 
 tender paper. They are to ha with us hereafter as 
 nnmerous and varied when our paper money is at par 
 with gold. And they will be just as sure to overstock the 
 market periodically, and throw out of employ a vast 
 
134 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 amount of labour for months, perhaps for two or three 
 years at a time. We must anticipate this condition, and 
 provide for it. That condition is now upon the country 
 without any provision against the grievous evils it has 
 produced. The country has long borne and deplored 
 them, if it has not intelligently recognised their cause. 
 Incorporated capital has founded those innumerable con 
 gregate industries which are so attractive to labouring 
 men, who find it so much more congenial to work in the 
 great social companies of a factory or mine than singly on 
 a country farm. This social attraction, in addition to 
 weekly or monthly pay, draws thousands upon thou- 
 sands from the fields of agriculture labour to these great 
 establishments of indoor and congregate occupation. Al- 
 ready it is probable .that fully one-third of the old farms 
 of New England, and perhaps other States, have been 
 abandoned by the sons who should have inherited and 
 tilled them, for factory life. The old homesteads of their 
 ancestors are passing into the hands of foreign-born men 
 of a different race and religion ; and already nearly a third 
 of the churches in which they were baptized have become 
 virtually mission stations, because too few of the farms 
 remain in American hands to support a regular minister. 
 As an illustration of the force of these attractions of fac- 
 tory life, a single case may suffice. Within two minutes' 
 walk of my own door, a strong, sterling young man is 
 living, with his wife and infant child, in a hired attic 
 chamber, having left his father's mansion and 500 acre 
 farm near the Hudson, for a heavy, greasy occupation in 
 a manufacturing establishment, where he can never hope 
 to be master of anything more than his daily wages, if 
 secure of continuous employment. 
 
 Here then we have the chief cause of the condition to 
 which labour has been reduced so long in this country and 
 all other manufacturing countries. The congiegate indus- 
 tries established by incorporated capital have diawn a 
 vast amount of labour from agricultural life and occupation 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 135 
 
 and mansed ifc in manufacturing towns. Hero it fared 
 well, and thought " the morrow would be as this day and 
 much more abundant." But a morrow, that hopeful and 
 contented labour did not look for, came and changed the 
 situation. The Ameiican market became gorged with the 
 production of so many competing wheels. They must 
 stop and did stop — thousands of them. Some turned 
 slowly a few hours daily. Wages fell at first, and then 
 ceased for lack of employment. Then came a gorge in 
 labour which waited month after month for the wheels to 
 turn at their old number and speed ; and while it waited 
 its savings wasted away in compulsory idleness. The 
 savings of the most industrious and frugal could not last 
 long, and as this unemployed labour became penniless, it 
 became fettered, as it were, on the door-stone of the fac- 
 tory that could no longer employ it. It could not move 
 from it except as a suspected tramp. It was in vain to 
 stretch out its imploring arms to either State or Nation 
 for help. Its condition closely resembled the experience 
 of Tantalus. Let us now see what our National Govern- 
 ment has contributed to the Tantalusia of fettered labour. 
 It has provided for it the lake of pure, cold \ ,ter, just 
 beyond the reach of its parched lips. It has planted the 
 banks of the lake with trees whose delicious fruits hang 
 mockingly just beyond the tether of its chain. There is 
 this little difference in the situation. The lake in which 
 Tantalus was fettered had no deep outlet to draw off its 
 waters. No one cut down the fruit trees on its banks. 
 All remained unwasted, and in full sight of the victim. 
 Here the parallel fails. Our Government offerp to fettered 
 labour as many acres as it can till — if it will go to some 
 wild section west of the Mississippi and find land not al- 
 ready given to a railway company. There is the water of 
 the situation, but incorporated capital is fast drawing it 
 oft' to irrigate its fields of speculation. Already the rail- 
 way companies have grabbed the best portion of the 
 public domain, and barred off labour from the intended 
 
136 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 gift of the Nation. Even a RepubK'» must .say W6, even 
 as a king does. Let us liear the best ours can say as to 
 the fettered labour of the country : 
 
 " Tliere is still a great vleal of land betw^een the Missis- 
 sippi and the Rocky Mountains that we h«ave not yet 
 given to railway companies. It is scarcely fifteen hun- 
 dred miles from what you call your own door. Go and 
 hunt up a homestead in these wide regions and it shall be 
 yours. We make you a fi-ee gift of it. You should be 
 grateful for such a generous offer. It is all we can do for 
 you ; it is all you ought to ask. No, we cannot give or 
 lend you any money to help you to reach the offered 
 homestead or to build a hut upon it. Don't tell us about 
 that ; if we gave millions upon millions of the best acres 
 of the public domain to the great railway companies, and 
 indorsed their bonds for millions upon millions of dollars, 
 that has nothing to do with it. These great corporations 
 have rights and interests which we are bound by their 
 connection with us to i-espect and guarantee. Yes ; it is 
 all very well for a monarchical government like England 
 to loan money to individuals foi" draining land and for 
 other purposes ; it is all very well for Canada to pay the 
 passage money for seven thousand Mennonites from 
 Southern Russia to settle in Manitoba, and to loan money 
 to the Icelanders in the same region to help them to make 
 a start in a new life ; but these are paternal Govern- 
 ments, and it would not become the dignity of a Republic 
 like ours to show such paternal sentimentality towards 
 the poorest of our citizens. No, we cannot do that either. 
 We know it is hard, that in these years of stifled industry, 
 millions of dollars, earned and saved by labouring men, 
 women and children, have dropped through the large- 
 meshed scoop-nets of rascally savings banks into the 
 hands of speculating capital, never to be recovered. Yes, 
 we know that England does it ; that she invites all her 
 labouring men, women and children to drop every penny 
 they would save into her broad, strong hand, to hold it 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRUL. 137 
 
 for them. That is paternal and sentimental, and we can- 
 not be either towards you. We cannot guarantee the safe 
 kee[)ing of what you lay aside for a rainy day, any more 
 than we did for the pennies, half-dimes and dimes the 
 poor, ignorant negroes thought they had dropped into our 
 hand, because the Freedmen's Savings Bank stood so near 
 our own door, and mounted our flag. No, that is all we 
 can do for you. There is the land for you in Dakota or 
 New- Mexico. You must get to it as you can, and ask us 
 for nothing more." 
 
 This is substantially the language of our Government, 
 and it describes the part which it contributes to the pre- 
 sent Tantalusia of fettered labour. So we cannot expect 
 either the National Government or a State Government 
 to help mobilize this labour, or to release it from the 
 gorges in which it is waiting for employment. For a State 
 is a Republic, too, and will not be paternal, and it will be 
 in vain for us to ask it to help in the matter. Labour 
 ijjust be mobilized and redistributed till the avenues of 
 incorporated and congregate occupations shall no longer 
 be crowded by thousands waiting in idleness to be em- 
 ployed in them. In a word, the suiplus labour must be 
 drafted off into agriculture, and this must be done by in- 
 dividual effort or by joint-stock companies, and done on a 
 business-paying basis. The land for homesteads should 
 be within thirty-six hours' ride by rail of the labourers 
 who are to occupy them. It should be wooded land, with 
 a few acres already cleared for them, with a log-house 
 eeected already to receive them, and a few months' pro- 
 visions and some agricultural tools and seeds — or just 
 that outfit which New-Brunswick gives to the colony of 
 Swedes which it has induced and enabled to settle in that 
 province. And, if possible, there should be a block of 
 about 2,000 acres of such land, to be divided into at least 
 thirty-acre allotments, so that the settlers should form a 
 compact community of themselves. And these home- 
 steads thus allotted and provisioned, should pay fair rents, 
 I 
 
138 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 and a little additional yearly, as a sinking fund, so that 
 the occupant may own the j)roperty in the end. Where- 
 ever he is, and however poor at the present moment, he 
 pays rent for the lodging he occupies, unless he sleeps in 
 a barn. With a few acres cleared ready to his hand, 
 wooded land is the best for him, for it will furnish em- 
 ployment for him all the year round in cutting timber 
 and preparing increased space for tillage. 
 
 Now, there is no State in the Union that so much 
 needs industrial population as Virginia. There is none so 
 near this surplus unemployed labour that has such great 
 sections of wild or wooded land which should be brought 
 into cultivation. Theie is none with such a variety of 
 climates, soils and natural resources for every kind of 
 occupation. A thousand labourers once on the Baltimore 
 and Ohio Railroads could walk to a section fitted for 
 such a settlement in a single day. Here, then, is a noble 
 field of patriotic and economic enterprise for Virginians of 
 means and elevated motives, who believe all this oi their 
 native State. They can lose nothing by trying one experi- 
 ment in the movement. The process is cheap, expeditious 
 and simple. Let a dozen men, who would give it a fair 
 trial, form a Home Land and Labour Company, and pur- 
 chase, if practicable, 2,000 acres of wooded land, and divide 
 it into thirty-acre allotments. Then let them advertise in 
 the sections so thronged with unemployed labour, for fifty 
 or 100 wood-cutters, at fai^' wages, to clear six acres of 
 each of these allotments Let them include tv^^o or three 
 cai'penters and joiners to direct and assist at the construc- 
 tion of a comfortable log-house for each homestead, and a 
 central building of a suitable size for a chapel and school- 
 house. Give these hired labourers, who have thus pre- 
 pared the allotments for occupation, the first chance and 
 right to occupy and own them, and partly or wholly to 
 provision them for six months with their own wages. 
 Attach a fair value to each homestead thus made ready 
 for its occupant, and to all the tools a,nd provisions ad- 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. l39 
 
 vanced to him, and charge a fair and paying rentage and 
 intere.st upon the amount. Let it be a rigidly business 
 transaction, paying as fair rate of profit on the capital as 
 any of Alderman Waterlow's tenement houses in London. 
 Appoint a resident or visiting agent to supervise the 
 colony, collect rentage, advise and assist in settling any 
 differences, and to act in any requisite way for the corpo- 
 lation. 
 
 How easy and cheap it would be to try an experiment 
 of this small extent I If it succeeded, others on a larger 
 scale would follow, Virginia could take in 100,000 of 
 these unemployed labourers, and pi'ovide such a home- 
 stead for every one of them, and they would be a wealth 
 to her. 
 
 THE FALSE LIGHTS OF GREAT NAMES. 
 
 There is no kind of deception so cruel and fatal as that 
 represented by false lights. The two words bring in- 
 stantly before the .minr" an act and scene that thrill one 
 with horror at the wickedness that man can plan and 
 perpetrate against his fellow-beings. We see in it a 
 meaner animus than in bold, open piracy. We see a rocky 
 shore, with crags jutting out into the sea, like the teeth 
 of a huge steel trap. The night is dark, and the tempest 
 is tossing, many a vessel wrestling with the loud and ser- 
 ried waves, towards some shelter from their fury. We 
 see a man, or being in human shape, stealing out in the 
 darkness, and hoisting a light over some deadly crag or 
 reef, as a lamp to a haven of refuge and safety. We see 
 him and his fellow-harpies crouching and peering with 
 their wolfish eyes at the approaching vessel, which has 
 noticed and obeyed the welcome signal. It has been long 
 at sea, and outridden many storms ; but now it will soon 
 
140 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 he saf(3 from tluj last in a (|uict harbour. There is glad- 
 ness on board from captain to cabin-boy — for a few min- 
 utes. Then comes the crash, the cry, the foaming, roar- 
 ing waves pounding the swept and wrecked vessel on the 
 ragged rocks, a prey for the human vultures that pounce 
 upon the stranded cargo. Dead men tell no tales, and few 
 survivors of such wrecks are to be seen by " the false 
 lights on the shore." 
 
 Now, for some twenty years past, the wreckers who 
 live by stranded fortunes have found that the most out- 
 reaching and seductive lights they could hoist on a lee- 
 shore of ruin are great names, which have come to high 
 reputation among men — the names of statesmen, ambas 
 sadors, members of Parliament, or of Congress — names 
 that seem to stand for, and stand by, an elevated and re- 
 fined sense of honour, purity, honesty and integrity in 
 thought, word and deed. Especially if the light of such 
 names when lifted up could show the tint of religious 
 profession, it became more attractive and more valuable 
 to the wreckers as a decoy. Thus " Christian statesmen," 
 " Christian bankers," " Christian merchants, etc., both in 
 England and America, have been the best lights for de- 
 coying the confidence of the people and their earnings 
 and savings to the enrichment of private firms and large 
 corporations. There was Sir John Paul, for example. 
 What a shining light he was in the religio is world — that 
 is, shining so sharply out of one oide of the dark-lantern of 
 his life — the side turned toward the sea and the vessels on 
 it. What a valiant champion, especially, of Protestantism ! 
 What a chairman for its convocations, and other reli- 
 gious meetings in Exeter Hall ! Godliness, or rather its 
 pretence, was a great gain to him. He thought the latter 
 gave him great promise in this world, and he put it forth 
 in all high places where it would show well. It drew 
 wonderfully in its decoying force. One literary lady not 
 only entrusted to him her fortune, but wrote a good and 
 pious book, dedicating it to him as a " Christian banker," 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTllIAL. 141 
 
 just before she and hundreds of others, decoyed by the 
 same false light, were wrecked on the rocks to which it 
 led them. But he did not go scot-free of punishment, 
 like many wreckers, both English and American. Justice 
 caught him with his dark-lantern in his hand, and shut 
 him up in a felon's prison for life. But hundreds of his 
 kind, in both countries, are walking in the midst of so- 
 ciety, unwhipped and unbranded of justice. 
 
 The experience of the past few years has proved, both 
 in England and America, the imminent peril of great 
 names to the common and honest people. In fact, the 
 greater the names, the greater the danger of disaster to 
 those who trust them. This result is almost fixed by a 
 law of modern society. Look at its working. A bank, 
 a mine, or railroad, is to be taken in hand by a joint stock 
 corporation, and " floated " on paper, or bonds, shares, etc. 
 But paper will not float long alone. There must be actual 
 money invested, and this must be got out of the people 
 somehow, and they will not buy bonds or shares with- 
 out confldence in the enterprise and its managers. What 
 is first needed is the drawing power of great names. 
 Such names are the capital precedent of the concern. 
 Without them no money can be obtained. They must be 
 had for the prospectus at any price, and each is bought 
 cheaply at the prospective value of a certain number of 
 shares. It shall all be made easy to an earl, baronet, or 
 untitled, but popular member of Parliament, if he will 
 only let his name serve on the prospectus as honorary 
 chairman, vice-chairman or director. Of course, he will 
 not he expected to exercise any personal watch or care 
 over the detail of the business, such as looking at the 
 books, or any of that sort of thing. 0, no ; there will be 
 a second, subordinate class of men, who will attend to all 
 these matters. Men with such great names in political 
 or social life are not expected to descend to personal su- 
 pervision of the management of such an enterprise. Often 
 these eminent individuals are only asked to let their 
 
142 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS 
 
 names nerve on the prospectus for a limited period, or un- 
 til the speculation is fairly floated, when one by one they 
 fall off, unnoticed by the common people, who think they 
 are ;still on it, and responsible for their confidence, until 
 they are wrecked on the rocks of ruin by these " false 
 lights on the shore." 
 
 Now, thousands of men and women, including widows 
 and orphans, in England, have been wrecked, and have 
 lost their earnings aud savings for years, by being decoyed 
 to their ruin by tlie deceitful light of great names hoisted 
 over some Imperial Life Insurance Company, Inter-Con- 
 tinental Credit Mobilier, or Consolidated North Ameri- 
 can Petroleum Company, or Mining Association — some 
 enterprise of many-worded appellation, sounding very 
 grand, like a cataract of gold sovereigns. Recently 
 two great names were brought into an English court of 
 justice, and tried for their deception in decoying the con- 
 fidence of share-buyers in sham oil wells in Canada. 
 They merely escaped punishment for the fraud through 
 the plea, which the judge admitted, that they did not 
 really know that the prospectus of the company was false 
 when they signed it ; which meant that the prospectus 
 was a pole prepared and raised by irresponsible subor- 
 dinates, to which the false lights of great names were to 
 be hung, to decoy the confidence and capital of the people. 
 
 The false lights of great names have been made to serve 
 the same ends in this country. They have been as nu- 
 merous, dangerous, and destructive with us, when raised 
 on the prospectus pole of great corporations and of pri- 
 vate firms. And the saddest deception this light ever per- 
 petrated in America has been wrought by a name which, 
 to the four millions just rising out of the mire of slavery, 
 stood next in trusi reverence and strength to the name of 
 the Almighty himself. I will not again undertake to 
 show and prove that the corporation of the Freedmen's 
 Savings' Bank at Washington, did, to all intents and is- 
 sues, raise the light of the great name of this gi'eat na- 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 143 
 
 tion over every negro's cabin in the Southern States. To 
 liis single, unquestioning eye and mind, it was the same 
 lii^dit tliat was raised ever the Freechnen's Bureau ; and 
 liy tliat light, sliining from some national staff, he walked 
 ^.ith liis simple confidence and small savings right into 
 the bog, where he now lies floundering in despair in sight 
 and hearing of the nation, which holds out no hand or 
 h(>})e to him but the shallow promise that he may receive 
 from the salvage, some time next winter, one-fifth of 
 wliat he lost by the wreck of his trust in the government 
 of this great country. 
 
 But counting up the wrecks, small and great, wrought 
 in this country by such false lights, it will be found that 
 those tinted with the roseate sheen of religious profession, 
 have been the most seductive and dangerous, as well 
 as the most numerous. Our great political and social 
 names do not draw with such attractive power as the 
 names of dukes, earls and baronets in England. Even 
 the common English M.P. draws there better than our 
 M.C., and is worth more at the top of a prospectus-pole, 
 to command the confidence and capital of the people. 
 But it is a tribute to the virtue especially of our more 
 religious communities, that the greatest number of indi- 
 vidual or private wreckers have found that godliness is 
 great gain in their trade, and if they could make a good 
 show of it, they would be sure to win the confidence 
 which would be profitable to them in this world. Hence 
 a name widely known for long prayers in widows' houses, 
 in the market places and in other public places and con- 
 vocations, was a strong card to play, and it has been played 
 often in almost every town, great and small, in the coun- 
 try. Such names have had gi'eat power at the head of a 
 savings bank. There, for instance, was Deacon T's Bank, 
 in a neighbouring city. He is a very godly man. See 
 what he gives to iv^reign and domestic missions. What 
 a man of prayer at religious meetings. There is a man 
 we can trust. And he was trusted with the little savings 
 
144 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 of poor men and women far and near. For he was a 
 shining light, and it reached out into distant towns, and 
 widows and orphans there were glad to trust in his hands 
 what they had saved for the rainy day. When the wreck- 
 ing day came, hundreds of little barks and boats were 
 broken on the rock to which the light of his religious 
 name enticed them. Soon the waters closed over these 
 sunken wrecks, and the same kind of decoy light was 
 raised over another bark in the same city. It was a still 
 greater light of religious manifestation. Here was a firm 
 of godly men who would eclipse Sir John Paul in reli- 
 gious zeal, devotion and munificence, and prove them- 
 selves in very deed, against his mere pretence, a living 
 illustration of the " Christian Banker." They would pay 
 semi-annually a liberal interest on all deposits, great or 
 email. Their light shone out far and wide in every 
 direction. It drew depositors in crowds from far and 
 near. It is said they received deposits up to within fif- 
 teen minutes of the crash and fall of their sand-built 
 house ; and the wreck of it yielded a smaller pittance 
 to the depositors than the Southern negroes will get from 
 the wreck of the Freedmen's Savings' Bank at Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 With the experience of the past few years before us, 
 is it not about time that the community should begin to 
 distrust the light of mere names, whatever position, re- 
 putation or pretension are represented by them ? What 
 a ruinous traffic have such names carried on with the con- 
 fidence and interests of thousands in this present year ! 
 How the trade value of names has been " watered," like 
 fancy stocks, then sold out, root and branch, when it had 
 reached the highest figure it could attain ! We see the 
 process in hundreds of growing trading-names for specu- 
 lation. They rise eai'ly and toil late for years, to get the 
 reputation of men of the purest honour and strictest in- 
 tegrity, who may be trusted to any amount of confidence. 
 When they have raised that reputation to the highest 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTBIAL, 145 
 
 point, their card is played out ; they grasp the spoils, and 
 sneak off with them beyond the reach of justice. 
 
 Says the great Master : " By their fruits shall ye know 
 them ; " not by their leaves ; not by their names. The 
 time has come for the sifting of great names. They have 
 had great power in courts of justice, as well as in the 
 wider juries of public opinion. Under the broad phylac- 
 teries of their reputation, iniquities, impurities and scan- 
 dalous acts have been hidden which common names could 
 not conceal. Great names are now on their trial, and 
 however painful the process of justice we may well say : 
 Fiat justitia, mat ccelum. 
 
 THE CONTAGIOUS DEMORALIZATION OF SHODDY 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 No idea is more definite or more fully comprehended 
 than that expressed by the term shoddy. The word was 
 seldom used before the late war, when it was applied to 
 one of those shams and cruel deceits which a war always 
 brings in with its insidious demoralizations. The soldier's 
 coat, melting into a pulp on his back under a cold rain, 
 showed the shoddy in its villanous composition. 
 
 Now, if shoddy were only one of the results of that 
 widely diversified demoralization which war is certain 
 and expected to produce ; if shoddy only entered into the 
 coats and blankets of soldiers in field and camp, it would 
 be a short-lived sham, and the country would be rid of it 
 on the return of peace. But, unfortunately, shoddy is an 
 element which plays but a temporary and comparatively 
 innocent part in the material pretended to be cloth. It 
 enters into the moral texture of society, and almost every 
 (lay we see how much shoddy there was in a character 
 which stood high, bright and fair under the sunshine 
 
146 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 of popular confidence and favour. When the winds blow, 
 the rains fall and the flood beats upon a Credit Mobilier, 
 a Northern Pacific Railroad or a great speculating bank, 
 we see in the pulp of the structure how much of it was 
 shoddy. 
 
 Now, whoever gives fair and honest thought to the 
 collapse of character, corporations and moneyed institu- 
 tions, from Ralston's California Bank to the Freedman's 
 Saving Bank at Washington, must see that shoddy 
 money has been the leading cause of all these dishonest 
 and disastrous speculations. There are certain principles 
 which are mathematically and philosophically true, 
 though imperceptible in their infinitesimal operations. 
 When we are told that a single atom cannot be abstracted 
 from the material world nor a new one added to it, our 
 faith in the fact depends upon our belief in a law which 
 acts unseen on things too minute for our naked eyes. We 
 admit the principle must act in these minutise because it 
 is the logic of a law we see operating on the grandest 
 scale in the whole planetary world. Then it is equally 
 true, and evident as well as logical, that if a government 
 issues a dollar in gold or silver which is so debased by 
 alloy that it does not contain a true dollar's vpJue in it- 
 self, or if it issues a paper promise to pay a dollar which 
 does not represent its ability to pay on demand a true 
 dollar in exchange for the note, that government logically 
 and mathematically adulterates every separate and col- 
 lective value in the country, whether it be invested in 
 land, labour or produce, or in manufactures, commerce or 
 banking. It introduces shoddy not only into the old 
 currency of the country but into every value which 
 money represents and measures. We may not detect the 
 alloy at such an infinitesimal infusion, but it exists and 
 acts by a law as certain of its regime and results as any 
 in the material world. 
 
 An experienced cloth-maker on examining a soldier's 
 coat or blanket could have told us how much shoddy 
 
ECONOMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 147 
 
 there was in a square yard of it. Now, if we cut into the 
 currency of the country and see how much sheer credit 
 or shoddy is in it, we may be perfectly certain that there 
 is not only the same but a larger amount of shoddy in 
 call the business enterprises, in all the reputed values, in all 
 tliat is produced, sold, bought and used in the country. Nor 
 is this the worst of it. This demoralizing element enters 
 iiifco the living character, habits and conduct of men in 
 every position. Were there ever before in the history of 
 this country so many collapses of character in ten years 
 as during the last decade ? Why, if a moral anatomist 
 could cut into the character of a Tweed or a Fisk, he 
 would be able to tell us how much shoddy there was in 
 the currency of the country with as much precision as 
 a woodman would tell the age of a tree he had felled, by 
 counting its rings. 
 
 Who can fail to see the moral result of shoddy money 
 in all the railroad, steamship and canal rings which have 
 played such a game before the nation during the last ten 
 years ? It will require a stout Hercules to throttle these 
 liydras of dishonesty while the mother monster lives to 
 renew the brood. 
 
♦■' J > 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 
 OLD BURCHELL'S POCKET. 
 
 OLD BURCHELL'S POCKET — A TALK ON THE ALPHABETS— THE FORMATION OF 
 WORDS— WHERE LANGUAGES WERE MADE AND PERFECTED— WORDY LAN- 
 GUAGES—WHAT AUXILIARY VERBS DO FOR LEARNERS- HEAD-SPRINGS OF 
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 HE celebrated Oliver Goldsmith thus describes one 
 of the most interesting characters in his " Vicar of 
 Wakefield " :— 
 
 " In general he was fondest of the company of children, whom he used to 
 call harmless little men. He was famous, I found, for singing them ballads, 
 and telling them stories ; and seldom went out without something in his 
 pockets for them— a piece of gingerbread, or a half-penny whistle." 
 
 Now I should like to do the same thing very much in- 
 deed. Here it has been twenty years and more that I 
 have been walking up and down England, talking to 
 all sorts of people on all sorts of subjects ; but I never 
 acted Old Burcheli to the children as I might have done 
 and ought to have done. So it is no wonder if they have 
 not thought so much of my visits as the boys and girls in 
 his day thought of his morning or evening calls. Indeed, 
 never a man had a more enjoyable time with the children 
 than he did ; and he deserved it. He was a nobleman, 
 and a very rich man, and, better yet, a very good man; 
 who went about as if he were very poor, and poor folks 
 loved to have him come into their small houses and talk 
 and sing to their children. And the children who did 
 not know who he was, were all on tiptoe of delight when 
 they saw him staffing it along the green lanes. When ho 
 was still a long way off, they could notice his pockets 
 
PIKESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 149 
 
 rounded out very lai-ge with all sorts of things for them ; 
 for people wore their pockets outside their coats in those 
 days. Then, when he laid off his 'reat cocked hat, and 
 took two of the youngest of them oi his knees, and pulled 
 out a piece of gingerbread for one, a little picture-book 
 for another, and a half -penny whistle for another, and 
 then sang them scraps of nice songs, and told them stories 
 with his kind voice and eyes, they thought and said that 
 there could not be a better kind of man in the world. 
 
 Now, I am very sorry to say, that, before I had begun to 
 think of such a thing, I have awoke up and found myself 
 as old as good Mr. Burchell was when he went about in 
 this way — full old enough to wear a cocked hat like his, 
 and a coat to match it. How much I wish I could wear 
 on the outside of mine a pocket as large as his, and fill it 
 as well for the children ! There was always something so 
 generous and confiding in an outside pocket of the olden 
 time ; then it was so broad and deep, and one could put 
 his hand into it so easily, that it meant well to every- 
 body, and wore an inviting look, like the back-door to a 
 large and warm heart. I am sorry such pockets have 
 gone out of fashion, and that those worn now-a-days are 
 much smaller and more shut up and hidden away from 
 sight. But the largest I have I should dearly like to fill 
 for the children around those English firesides that I have 
 been visiting, one way and another, for these last . twenty 
 years and more. I cannot sing them ballads, as Old Burchell 
 did to his boys and girls ; but perhaps I can tell them a 
 story now and then that may please them ; for I have 
 travelled about the world a little, and seen and heard 
 things in different countries that perhaps they would like 
 to hear about. Besides, I have been, what some call, a 
 hobhy-ridery and for a great many years I was in the sad- 
 dle day and night. Not that I ever rode a dozen miles on 
 the back of a real horse in all my life ; but, as they say, 
 on the back of an idea. I have noticed, in a great many 
 English homes, beautiful little horses of wood, with the 
 
150 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 prettiest manes and tails, all saddled and bridled for 
 children. The feet of these little steeds stand on rockers ; 
 so that a boy or girl, when set upon the saddle, may dash 
 off on a full canter without ever getting to the other end 
 of the room. I sui)pose the little riders of these wooden 
 ponies give them all sorts of pretty names, and try to 
 believe that they are as near flesh and blood as can be ; 
 and they much enjoy their daily gallops. Well, there are 
 many of us, grown-up men, who have such horses, and 
 ride them all our lives, and love them the better for every 
 gallop we take. Now I have ridden half-a-dozen of such 
 ponies in my day, and had a pleasant and kindly name for 
 every one of them. The first was " Temperance," which 
 I rode for many years; then I mounted "Peace" and 
 " Brotherhood," " Ocean Fenny Postage" " Free Labour," 
 and " Emancipation" I scarcely ever went ten miles 
 from home except on the back of these little horses, and, 
 what few ever do, I kept the whole stud of them saddled 
 and bridled for a ride all the while, and mounted the one 
 I thought best suited for the road, when I went out on long 
 journeys. 
 
 Then, too, I have been a great walker as well as rider. 
 Three or four years ago, T bought a sixpenny staff, and 
 footed it all the way from London to John 0' Groat's. Of 
 course, all the children who have begun to go to school, 
 know w:here the last place is. Then, the next year I 
 walked with the same staff from London to Land's End 
 and back. I always walked slowly, and kept my eyes 
 and ears open to see and hear as much as one could do, 
 and tried to remember it all, even the sight and song of 
 the larks that warbled over every meadow from Land s 
 End to John O'Groat's. A man who has ridden and 
 walked in that way must be very stupid, if he did not 
 pick up many pocketfuls of little things ifor the children 
 which they will like to see, hear or have. 
 
 Now this may seem like trying to make children be- 
 lieve that I could open a pocket for them as deep and 
 
* FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 151 
 
 rich in good things as Old BurchcU's was; just to get 
 them around me, as he did, all on tiptoe with the idea of 
 seeing or hearing something nice. Well, I must own that I 
 have been making this long talk about myself merely for 
 this object — to get the first smile and the first " good 
 morning!" from them, when their parents' door is opened 
 to me. It is an old saying, that " you cannot catch old 
 birds with chaft';" I don't wish to catch young ones 
 either with it ; but I want them to give me a fair trial, 
 and begin it with the belief that I really can bring them 
 something from month to month that they may like and 
 enjoy. It will be so much easier for me to do it if they 
 will really believe I can before I try to interest them. It 
 is rather sad for rae to think that I am such a stranger 
 to them ; for when I first came to England, the parents 
 of many of them were boys and girls from six to twelve 
 years of age ; and they came and stood at my knees, and 
 looked up at me with their rosy checks and happy eyes 
 full of curious thoughts, as I told them stories about 
 American children, their pkys and ways, and about other 
 things in that far-off country. Now many of those ten- 
 year old boys and girls are happy fathers and mothers, 
 some of half a-dozen little ones, looking, I will warrant, 
 like their parents at the same age ; and, like them, ready 
 to hear the same stories, or some rather better. For I had 
 not travelled so much then, nor seen much of the world, nor 
 thought so much on difierent matters as I have since. So, 
 really, I not only hope, but believe that I can till a pocket 
 for them monthly, more like Old Burchell's than I could 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 Now all this is merely what a schoolmaster would call 
 a prospectus, telling what he will do if a certain number 
 of children will just come into his school and give him a 
 trial as a teacher. You see, unless he can get them to 
 come in and take the seats at his empty desks, he can do 
 nothing at all with them or for them. He cannot go up 
 and down the streets and lanes with his great black-board 
 
152 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 on liis back, and a long green satchel full of books in 
 his hand, and give lessons to stray boys and girls he may 
 find at play. He must have them all in his school-room, 
 where he may feel at home with them, and they with 
 him. That is why he gets a proHpectus printed and sent 
 around to people's houses; and this is why I have made 
 all this long talk about the " Old Bui-chell's Pocket for 
 the Children," which I intended to fill for them every 
 month. I don't wish to give the whole lot to three or 
 four boys and girls, but should like to have three or four 
 hundred of them, promising " a piece of gingerbread or a 
 half -penny whistle " to every one of them ; and the more 
 the merrier. 
 
 A TALK ON THE ALPHABETS. 
 
 On thinking over what I said at my last visit, I fear I 
 talked too much like a schoolmaster and an old man, and 
 looked grave, and that some of the younger children 
 thought I was trying to get them into a regular school- 
 room, and drill them in dry, hard studies, which they had 
 enough of already. If I did talk in that way, it was all 
 a mistake, and I am sorry for it ; for I doubt if there is a 
 boy in all England, able to read Robinson Crusoe, who is 
 younger than I am in many things I am trying to learn, 
 or who sits daily on a lower bench learning his A, B, C. 
 This is the real fact ; and I hope it will prove to the chil- 
 dren I talk to from month to month that I am not a hard- 
 faced schoolmaster, but a fellow-pupil just beginning to 
 learn the letters by heart which millions of children, not 
 ten years old at this moment, in distant countries, were 
 able to master long ago. Now, I have had a great curi- 
 osity to know what kinds of A, B, C thoy had to commit 
 to memory, so that I could enter into their feelings a little. 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 153 
 
 and see also if they had a harder time of it than English 
 and American children in getting through their alphabets. 
 So I am studying every day, like a six-year old boy, at 
 these alphabets, trying to follow them around the globe. 
 In the last two years I have learned six of them, all be- 
 longing to Africa and Asia, and have now reached India, 
 and hope to travel through China and Japan, and cross 
 over to America from that great island, and see if I can 
 master the queer, strange letters which the Cherokee 
 Indians worked out to put their language in. 
 
 And now, the further I go in the letters which the 
 children of the wide, wide world have to learn, the more 
 1 am filled with wonder at the wisdom and power of the 
 Alphabet. It is the greatest thing that man ever made 
 on earth. Indeed, one might well doubt if man ever made 
 it at all, or made it alone, without the help of a higher 
 mind. Men who travel in Central America, Egypt, and 
 the oldest countries of Asia, tell us of the ruins of cities 
 temples, and monuments so vast in their day that we 
 wonder if they could ever have been built except by 
 giants ten or twenty feet in their shoes, and as strong as 
 elephants. But all the pyramids in Egypt are nothing 
 of man's might and mind compared with the first alpha- 
 bet, which, it is said, was made in that country. The 
 stout, long-lived men who built the tower of Babel might 
 have carried its top to the very clouds if they had, not 
 been stopped ; but when they had finished it to their 
 wish they could not have written its name upon it, for 
 they had not yet learned to make and use letters, like the 
 children of this brighter day. It is sad to think that so 
 many little nations have lived and died in Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, and America, whom we never heard and never 
 shall hear a word about, because they never had an A, B, 
 C, and could not write their names upon the great towers 
 temples, and walls they built, and no one could write 
 them on their grave-stones. 
 
 I sometimes wonder if the most learned men of the. 
 
154 CHIPS FROM MANY JiLOCKS. 
 
 present day have really studied the matter, and seen what 
 a wonder and a power an alphabet is. Let us look into 
 it for a moment, and compare it with something else we 
 know well. Every boy and girl that can walk the carpet 
 or the garden aisle has seen the rainbow, which a poet 
 has called " The bridsje of colours seven." It does not 
 look a yard wide when it spans a cloud in the east ; yet 
 it contains all the distinct colours in the world, and a 
 keen eye can pick them out one by one, for they run up 
 and down the beautiful bow in lines, like a stave of 
 music. Now, did you ever think of what has been done, 
 and can be done, with these seven simple colours, by put- 
 ting one beside the other in ditferent ways 'i I don't say, 
 by what people call blending them, or mixing them, as 
 you would mix milk and water, for really they cannot l)e 
 mixed in that way, any more than seven letters in the 
 alphabet can be melted and poured into a mould like so 
 many bits of melted brass and lead. I mean, simply put- 
 ting these colours side by side in this way and that way, 
 just as you would make a great many whole words out 
 of seven letters by doing the same to them. Many people 
 call this changing of colours, letters, or notes in music, by 
 a long name, or alternation. Now all the flowers that 
 ever breathed on the earth, and all the gaudy plumage of 
 the earth's birds in livery, and all the faces of its inen, 
 and women and children have been tinted by this alter- 
 nition of the seven colours which the first rainbow hung 
 up in its arch in the new firmament. And when the last 
 rainbow shall be drawn around the east, there will not be 
 a flower beneath it, or a star above it, or a human face 
 turned to either of them, which shall not show the com- 
 plexion which its tints gave it. 
 
 Now, take the notes of music ; put them on the staves 
 of a tune-book, and number or letter them. How few 
 they are comparatively. But just think how they also 
 have been and may be alternated ; or, as they say about 
 church-bells, how many changes may be rung or uttered 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 156 
 
 on them. All the human voices that have been heard in 
 the world since the first uttered a sound ; all the voices 
 of church-bells that have spoken in Sunday hours to the na- 
 tions; all the drums that have been beaten, all the trumpets, 
 bugles and fifes that have been blown in the fields or in 
 the camps of soldiers ; all the songs that have been sung 
 in cathedral, church, and chapel, or by the firesides of a 
 million homes ; all the birds of different lands that have 
 warbled in the air or twittered under the eaves, all the 
 lowing cattle and bleating sheep, and buzzing bees and 
 Hies, and the softest whirr of the humming-bird's wing ; 
 — all these have drawn their songs or their utterances 
 from these few musical notes, just as the flowers have 
 drawn their tints from the sevencolours of the rainbow. 
 
 But what are all the changes painted on " the bridge of 
 colours seven," or played upon all the musical notes of the 
 gamut, compared with the changes written out on the 
 twenty-six letters of our alphabet ? Just think of it. 
 There are nearly ninety thousand words in the English 
 language made out of these changes. They have furnished 
 a word for every thought and wish that ever lived in the 
 heart of man or came to his lips in speech ; for every 
 thing that was ever said, done or felt by all the genera- 
 tions of men from Adam down to the last child born into 
 the world. I wish I had power to tell what they have 
 (lone and can do ; but I never had it and never can get it. 
 Every little baby that has opened its blue, bead eyes in 
 its cradle and looked up into its mother's, dropping the 
 light of her love upon its face, has put two or three letters 
 of the alphabet together in a word that had a sweet and 
 beautiful meaning to her, though she could not find it in 
 the dictionary. Then in later years when that child be- 
 gan to put more letters into words, and began to play by 
 day and dream by night, and see strange sights, and hear 
 strange voices in its dreams, it could catch even its mid- 
 night thoughts with the net of the alphabet, and show 
 them to its parents next morning at table, showing them 
 
150 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 the very tracks its mind made on -the hill-sides and in the 
 pleasant valleys of dreamland. 
 
 Some one has said that speech is the rainbow of reason, 
 and he thought he had said a very clever thing ; but 
 there is more in the alphabet than a hundred rainbovv^s. 
 Think what the great kings of speech, the poets, have done 
 with our twenty-six letters. What wonderful flights their 
 minds have made, soaring up, and up, and far off in the 
 great and holy fields where the angels fly, then down again 
 among the coral groves of the broad blue ocean. How 
 their thoughts have dashed and flashed, like humming- 
 birds of lightning, into these heights and depths ! But 
 the lightning cannot do what their thoughts did : its path- 
 way through the heavens almost blinds the eye by its 
 brightness, but in a second it is gone out of sight forever. 
 But the pathway of the poet's thoughts, that fly far higher, 
 deeper, and further than lightning's travel, lasts, brightens 
 and widens for centuries. Think of the track that Mil- 
 ton's thoughts made and left ; what broad, bright paths 
 Tennyson and Browning, and Longfellow, and other living 
 poets have made ! There are already eighty millions of 
 men, women and children on the earth who speak the 
 English tongue. How many of these millions have fol- 
 lowed these paths through all their windings, and traced 
 out the footprints of the poet's mind in a hundred beau- 
 tiful fields, some basking in the bright lands beyond 
 Time's river, in fields all splendid with the morning glor- 
 ies and forget-me-nots of immortality ! And these foot- 
 prints and footpaths will never fade away. In days that 
 are to come, when half the population of the globe shall 
 speak the English language, a thousand will follow those 
 thought-tracks where a hundred seek for them now. But 
 think of this and believe it : All the poets, and all the 
 great kings, lords and priests of human speech, and all 
 the mighty men who have lived upon the earth and said 
 great words, and thought out great thoughts, and done 
 great deeds, would have left us no more footprints than 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 157 
 
 if thoy had walked upon the water, had it not l)een for 
 the alphabet and the words it makes for thoughts and 
 acts. Even the great nations of old, marching on by twos 
 and threes, each with a million feet all keeping step, would 
 not have left a pathway we could have traced had it not 
 been for our tv/enty-six letters. What a work they have 
 done for the world already ! 
 
 If they had done nothing more or else than to put in 
 words that shall live forever all that our Heavenly Father 
 has said and done for mankind in the Bible, it would have 
 been a work worthy all the wisdom and power of His 
 great angels to have invented them if man could not have 
 done it alono. But just consider what the mighty Twenty - 
 six are yet to do when half the population of the earth 
 shall think and speak in English ; when Japanese orators, 
 and Chinese statesmen, and woolly -headed poets of Central 
 Africa, shall write books in it by the tens of thousands ; 
 when Siberian boys and Polynesian girls shall dream, and 
 tell their dreams in it, and wish each other "A merry 
 Christmas " in it, and get Christmas books in it ; when its 
 Sunday hymns shall make the round of the great globe, 
 making a Sabbath-day's journey with the sun from island 
 to island and from continent to continent. But the power 
 of the English alphabet is too high, too deep and wide for 
 me : I cannot reach it in thought, so I give it up. 
 
 But if our English alphabet has been, and is to be, such 
 a power in the world, it is the simplest and easiest one to 
 be learned by children that wa'^ ever made. In the first 
 place, the letters differ from each other more distinctly. 
 There are no two or three of them so alike in form that one 
 almost needs a pair of spectacles to tell them apart, as in 
 the case of many of the alphabets of Asia. Then they 
 always stand separately in a word, with a space between 
 them, and they are always the same in form, though the 
 printers may make them differ in size. So English and 
 American children have an easy time of it in getting them 
 by heart, compared with some children in some parts of 
 
. 158 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 . Africa and Asia. For example, we will take the boy.s and 
 girls of Abyssinia, and see how they have to tax theii' 
 memories, to learn all the letters of the Ethiopic language, 
 in which their books are written. Their alphabet, like 
 ours, contains twenty -six letters, and these are all called 
 consonants, like B, C, D, F, G, H. Well, as no one can 
 pronounce one of these letters without putting an A, E, 
 I, O, or (J, to it, the Abyssinians tack to every one of their 
 twenty-six consonants an arm, foot, nose, or ear, which 
 stands for one of the letters we call by the very odd name 
 of vowels. Thus, every one of these twenty-six conson- 
 ants comes out in seven different shapes or forms, and ail 
 made by putting on an arm here, a shoe here, and short- 
 ening a leg there, and by other changes. Thus there are 
 actually 184 different letters in the Ethiopic Alphabet to 
 commit to memory. I should reall}'' like to know how 
 long the children in that country are in learning their A, 
 B, C, or how long English and American children would 
 be in learning theirs, if B, C, or D, fcc, should come out 
 in seven different sliapes. 
 
 Then there are several other alphabets, which come 
 from the same mother, that have a singular way of scat- 
 tering the vowels through their words. There is the 
 grand old Hebrew, honoured of God above all human 
 tongues, because He guided Moses' finger in writing the 
 Ten Commandments in it on Mount Sinai, and in writing 
 the ffrst books of the Bible in it. Then we have Arabic, 
 with its fine pen-letters, which, when printed, makes the 
 page of a book look like the page of a letter written with a 
 crow-quill. Next is the Syriac, with shorter and plumper 
 letters than the Arabic. Now these three alphabets differ 
 
 • from the Ethiopic in a way that must be rather singular 
 and puzzling to young beginners. Instead of their vowels 
 being tacked to the consonants, they seem to be peppered 
 over them, or under or between them, in little dots or 
 motes, each of which stands for an a, e, i, o, or u. A 
 whole page or line of words peppered in this way, looks 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 159 
 
 rather pretty, but it needs a sharp eye to make out all the 
 letters of each syllable. Now no language in the world 
 can get on without voivels, though the Welsh, Polish and 
 a few others seem to make little account of them. No 
 consonant can go alone. Its very n'^,me shows that it 
 cannot be pronounced without the help of a vowel ; and 
 why the consonants should be made so much of in the 
 grand old language that Abraham, Moses and David spoke; 
 why they should stand up, as large and as proud as life, 
 in the front rank of Hebrew words, while the vowels, 
 which alone gives them yoice, seem to be skulking about, 
 like pigmy slaves, between or under their feet, is a matter 
 for question and curiosity at first sight. But this is the 
 way many of the most useful things in the world are 
 treated. • ^ . : 
 
 There is something very interesting in the life and 
 liistory of the Hebre^v language. All who speak or read 
 it believe in the God of the Bible, and believe Mahomet 
 was an impostor. On the other hand, all the Turks, Arabs 
 and Persians, who use the Arabic letters in making their 
 words, are Mahommedans, and believe that that great de- 
 ceiver was God's Messiah, or Prophet. 
 
 As we travel eastward the alphabets grow more and 
 more puzzling and difficult. Really one cannot help 
 wondering how the children in those hot climates, which 
 make people so sleepy and dull, could ever do more in all 
 their school life than to learn all the letters which they 
 nuist get by heart, as the saying is. There, for example, 
 is the Sanskrit, which some take to be the mother of 
 more languages than any other can boast. It is twice as 
 bad as the Ethiopic in this respect. It has twice as many 
 letters to begin with. Then the letter a follows every 
 consonant, or is pronounced with it, without being written. 
 Thus b is not only pronounced ha, but one unwritten a is 
 part of the word to be formed. For example, bt. make 
 Ijat ; ct. cat, &c. Therefore, two or three consonants can- 
 not follow one after the other and be written out separa- 
 
160 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 tely in a word, as in our 'phrase^ weight, spring, «Sz;c ; for 
 if these consonants were written separately in Sanskrit, 
 we should have paharase, weigahat and saparing. For 
 this reason where two or three consonants come together 
 in that language, they must be written in one cluster or 
 monogram. 
 
 Well, there are more than three hundred of these 
 monograms, as they may really be called, in the Sanskrit, 
 many of them not only standing for three, but for six 
 letters each. There is one that makes all these when 
 picked out by the eye — sh, th, x, ya. And this cluster of 
 letters, perhaps, will only make half, or even one-fourth 
 of a word. Just think of the spelling lessons and reading 
 lessons the children of that country must be drilled in ; 
 what a tangled wilderness of letters and syllables and 
 words they must work their way through befere they 
 can read the Bible or any good book in their language. 
 
 There are about eighty different alphabets in the world, 
 some of which have several different languages written 
 in them ; but I hope and believe that our English letters 
 will carry the day over them all. I have said that there 
 are already about eighty millions of persons in Great 
 Britain, America, Australia, and other countries, who 
 speak the English language. But there are twice as 
 many more who do not speak our language, but who use 
 our alphabet in writing their words. The people of 
 France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Italy use it entirely, 
 and most all the books and newspapers in Holland, Den- 
 mark, Sweden, and Norway are printed in it. If the 
 Gerinans would only exchange their ugly letters for it, 
 we should have nearly all the living literature of the 
 world in our own clear-faced and honest letters. 
 
 Now, I have made a long talk on the A, B, C of different 
 languages. Next time we will look into the way in 
 which words are made and put together in different 
 countries ; and I believe you will think that our English 
 fashion is as much simpler and better than most of them 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 161 
 
 as our letters are plainer and truer than the alphabets 
 they use. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 At my last call, we had a little talk about the letters that 
 people of different countries use for making their words. 
 Perhaps some of our young friends got an idea or two 
 about the different A. B. C's. of the world from that talk 
 which they never thought of before. Well, suppose we 
 have a short one together this time about luords. We 
 saw what a wonderful invention an alphabet is. You have 
 all read of Solomon's Temple, of St. Peter's at Rome, and 
 of St. Paul's in London. I am sure every boy and girl of 
 you has seen pictures of those great buildings. Many of 
 you have seen the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, and I 
 should rather guess that you think that the gi'andest 
 building that ever man made. Now what the stone, tim- 
 ber, iron and glass are to the Crystal Palace, the letters of 
 the alphabet are to the building of a Language. The 
 stone, timber, iron and glass are first made into blocks, 
 beams, arches, braces and panes. Then these are all put 
 in their places, and make the great Palace, which looks in 
 the sun like a crown of diamonds for Nature to wear in 
 her happiest days. Just so letters are made into blocks, 
 beams, arches, braces and panes, called words. Then 
 these are framed together and make a Crystal Palace, 
 more glorious than the one at Sydenham ; and this 
 Palace is called a language. And it is not a shell of 
 a building : it is not merely outside wall, and roof, and 
 tower. Our English word Palace contains a greater 
 number and variety of beautiful things than you can 
 find at Sydenham ; flowers of every tint that hold all 
 their bloom, and breathe out their sweet odours from 
 year to year; flowers that are several hundred years old. 
 
1(12 'CHIPS FROM Many klocks. 
 
 but as frosli and lovely as if they first opened to the 
 sun yesterday. There are plants a thousand years old, 
 full of delicious fragrance; trees older still, without 
 a drjT^ leaf at their topmost bough ; trees of all the centu- 
 ries down to last year's planting, bearing fruit of every 
 flavour. Then there are thousands of birds among these 
 trees, plants and flowers ; birds with golden wings and 
 silver wings, and sweeter voices than the larks ; great 
 strong, glorious wings, that take up children and go soai*- 
 . ing and sailing with them half way to heaven, that they 
 may see the pathways of the angels among the stars, and 
 look down on the clouds. These, and other things with- 
 out number, are found in our old English word Palace ; 
 and they are called b}'- one name, Literature, just as all 
 the beds, carpets, sofas, chairs, mirrors, pictures, and pianos 
 of a grand house are called Furniture. And, what is more 
 wonderful, not only the great building of this word Palace 
 itself, but all it contains^ even the beautiful colouring of 
 the glass, pillars and arches, are all made of our twenty- 
 • six letters ! 
 
 At our last sitting around the table, we spent the whole 
 evening talking over the wonders of the Alphabet. It 
 seemed to us the greatest thing man ever made ; and I 
 even doubted if men ever did make it allalone, without help 
 from higher wisdom. But what shall we say of a whole 
 language ? Did man build the first that was spoken all 
 alone ? If he did it must have taken him more than a 
 thousand years, if he did nothing else, and worked six 
 days a week, and sat up nights besides at making words 
 and framing them into sentences and larger blocks and 
 beams of speech. But, for one, I cannot believe he ever 
 did it or could do it by himself. How could Adam have 
 gone to work to make the language he and his wife spoke 
 and taught to their children? Eve was never a little baby, 
 with blue bead eyes and baby voice, any more than Adam 
 was ever an infant boy of the same size and cradle. 
 The Bible tells us they were made full-grown, or every- 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. J 63 
 
 l)ody thinks it tells us so and believes it. And Adam, it 
 may be, was not a year older than his wife. He had no- 
 body to talk to before she was made, unless it was to 
 liis Creator, and if he talked to Him it must have been in 
 a language that God Himself made — every word of it. If 
 it did not come to him in this way, just fancy what an 
 nwkward, painful CQudition the first husband and wife 
 would have found themselves in when first introduced to 
 each other! Suppose Adam had lived a year or two years 
 all alone before Eve was created and given to him. He 
 would have had no occasion to make or use a word in all 
 that time. He might have learned to shout, whistle and 
 make other noises at the beasts and l)irds ; but as for mak- 
 ing a ivord, or uttering any special sound that had a parti- 
 cular thought in it he wished some creature to understand 
 just as he understood it, such a notion would never have 
 entered his head. Well, fancy them standing face to face 
 for the first time in that condition. His heart and eyes 
 might be brimful of wonder, joy and love, but what kind of 
 sounds, and how many different ones, could he have uttered 
 to make her understand what he felt ? Just think of their 
 walking arm in arm down the garden aisles of Eden, look- 
 ing at the flowers and listening to the birds, without hav- 
 ing a language already made and given to them by their 
 Heavenly Father. How could they manage to give the 
 rose its name, to look together at it, to breathe in its 
 sweet breath, and then to utter a sound, some special ex- 
 clamation, like Bo ! Hi ! Ru ! Le ! and then agree that 
 that one and only sound oy utterance should always mean 
 that one flower and nothing else ! And you must bear in 
 mind that they would have no words already made for 
 coming to this agreement. How many years do you 
 think it would have taken them to give names to all the 
 flowers even in a common cottage garden? Then there 
 would be the birds to name that sang in the trees, and 
 which had feathers as beautiful and as many-coloured as 
 the leaves of the flowers. Then outside of the garden, 
 
164 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 in the fields and forests, were hundreds of beasts of every 
 size and shape ; and these were to have names tiiat 
 should mean something, and not be mere exclamations. 
 The lion must have a name which signified his strent^th 
 and courage ; the great elephant must have a name v/ith 
 a meaning which should fit his great bulk and sagacity ; 
 and the camel one as proper for him ; and so on througli 
 the whole line of four-footed creatures and creeping 
 things. 
 
 And he could never makeup all these different names un- 
 til he had made words to signify the different dispositions, 
 habits, strength, size, colour, skins and voices which these 
 creatures had. So when, as we read in the Bible, God 
 brought all these beasts and birds to Adam, " to see what 
 he would call them," He must have first made and given 
 to him a language, containing thousands of words, every 
 one of them distinct from the other in sound and meaning. 
 
 Therefore if m.an could make an alphabet all alone, I 
 cannot see how he could ever have made a language by 
 himself. He might change one after it was made, and 
 might add to it many new words ; but T am fully convinc- 
 ed that the first one spoken on earth was made and given 
 to the first man by God Himself. 
 
 At my next visit we will talk over the way by which 
 different languages were made. 
 
 WHERE LANGUAGES WERE MADE AND PERFECTED. 
 
 When I first thought of having these short monthly 
 talks with the children, I had no idea of making one on 
 the letters and words of different languages. It was nil 
 an accident that I have done this, for I fully intended to 
 tell them lots of stories about what I have seen or haard 
 on my walks and travels in different countries. But they 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. H>5 
 
 will remember that, in order to make them more at home 
 with me RvS a story-teller than as a school-master, I just 
 mentioned the fact that I was learning the A. B. C's of 
 several different languages, just like any young boy. Then 
 I went on to tell them something about those queer alpha- 
 k'fs ; and then 1 could not stop very well without saying 
 something about luords ; and now I feel that all I have 
 said would be of no use unless I go on further and say 
 something about the making of languages. So 1 fear 
 that the young folks at home will take me for a school- 
 master after all ; and if they do, it will spoil half the 
 pleasure of my monthly visits. But still, I need not for- 
 get that all the children I talk to attend school, or are 
 getting their first lessons in spelling, reading, arithmetic 
 and grammar at home. And there are none so hard to get as 
 grammar lessons, for they are full of strange words, which 
 no one uses when talking about anything else. A man 
 would be laughed at if he should say, " I give you my 
 verb of honour " or, " I signed my noun to that note." 
 Then I should not wonder if half the boys and girls I 
 meet from mcuth to month are beginning to study French 
 and Latin. Some may be already in Greek, with their 
 heads full of conjunctions and declensions, tenses, moods, 
 voices, and all that sort of thing. So I may not be so 
 far out of the way after all, in talking to them about 
 letters, words, and languages. Perhaps I may interest 
 them in rJieii* studies, and give them a helping hand over 
 some ditch or difficulty now and then. 
 
 There are manj- hundreds of different languages in the 
 world, and probably not one quarter of them have ever 
 been put in written words. The good missionaries have 
 set more than a hundred of these strange languages to 
 letters, just as people set poetry to music; and the first 
 and only book printed in them is the Bible. And that is 
 as it should be, for the Bible is to all othei' books what 
 the sun is to the stars ; and when a language has in it the 
 Bible, it will soon kindle up around it many beautiful 
 stars, or books twinkling with paler light. 
 
166 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 Now all the languages of the world that have books 
 printed in them, or their words put in writing, were spoken 
 perhaps for many hundred years before they had an A. B. 
 C. made for them. That was the time w^hen there were 
 no reading lessons nor spelling lessons for children to puz- 
 zle their brains over. Thus a language changed very 
 soon, so that a man who spoke it when a boy could hard- 
 ly understand it when he heard it spoken in his old age 
 at fifty miles from where he was born A French Mis- 
 sionary who was sent out to the Huron Indians in Ameri- 
 ca, in 1G20, says that among some of the tribes there, 
 hardly one village spoke the same language as another ; 
 that even two families of the same village did not speak 
 exactly the ^ame language. This was not all, nor the 
 worst : he states that their languages were changing 
 daily, so that in a few years the same people spoke one 
 altogether different from that which they spoke when 
 young. In Central America matters have been found 
 worse still. The Missionaries have sometimes made a dic- 
 tionary of all the words used by a tribe of Indians, and 
 in ten years their language has so changed that the dic- 
 tionary has been found useless. This came from their 
 wandering about in small squads, with no fixed abode 
 either as a family or as a collection of families. 
 
 I have already told you something about that remark- 
 able language called the Sanskrit, and about its strange 
 letters. Well, these letters are called the Devanagari al- 
 phabet, which means the city of the gods. Sometimes it 
 is called simply Nagari, or city alphabet. There is some- 
 thing very interesting in this name, for the languages of 
 all countries are made in cities, and never in small scat- 
 tered villages in the country. No one can ever guess 
 what the Hebrew language was until Jerusalem became a 
 great and splendid city, with hundreds of learned scribes 
 and doctors of the law. It is doubtful if the most learned 
 scholar of the present day could read a verse in the first 
 chapter of Genesis if it were given to him in the very 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 1(57 
 
 words and handwriting of Moses, So with the grand 
 language of Greece, with all the splendid poetry, philosophy, 
 and eloquent orations which it has given to the world. They 
 had letters and wrote their lano-uao-e in them several hun- 
 Jred years before they had a fixed language. While the 
 Greeks were scattered about in little villages, at wide dis- 
 tances from each other, they had more dialects than ever 
 wore found in the counties of England. Not until Athens 
 had become a great city, full of the most learned 
 men of Greece, was their noble language brought to 
 its perfection, to be changed no more. So it was 
 with the Latin. Before Rome became a renowned 
 city, v;ith its oratoi's, historians, and poets, the language 
 was no more like that of Cicero, Virgil, or Horace, than 
 tlie Lancashire dialect is like the language of Tennyson or 
 Macaulay. It is difficult to get hold of specimens of Lat- 
 in in the day of its infancy, but it is doubtful if any of 
 you, who are now reading Virgil, could make any mean- 
 ing out of them. Many of you may have seen specimens of 
 the language spoken by peasants in different parts of 
 France, and know how unlike the French of Paris it is. 
 It is just so with the English. That is a London or city- 
 made language ; and it was not made what it is now un- 
 til the most learned and cultivated men and women in 
 England had made London theii* home for life. \ou 
 know how titles always " lead the fashions," as it is called. 
 No fashion was ever got up in a country village. London 
 and Paris, with their royal courts and high circles of so- 
 ciety, always set the fashions for the best dresses worn by 
 all the men, women, and children in the country. Just 
 80 do the great cities set the fashion as to language. They 
 do up its toilette to suit the taste of kings, queens, and 
 noble lords and ladies, and people of elegant habits of 
 thought and life. 
 
 So, not only was it necessary to contrive and make 
 letters in which to write and fix the words of a language, 
 hut equally necessary to have large cities in which the 
 
168 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 language thus written should be pruned and trimmed and 
 dressed up nicely for general use. I have said that all 
 the languages of the world were spoken for centuries 
 before letters were made to write their words in. Then 
 it was several hundred years after these letters were first 
 made and written with a quill or reed pen before they 
 were put in type and printed. And through all these 
 centuries there was a great deal of confusion about them. 
 I think I have said that three-fourths of all the books in 
 the world are printed with Roman or English letters, as 
 we generally call them. And there is some reason to 
 believe that our plain, simple, honest alphabet will be the 
 only one used a few centuries hence. Already most of 
 the literary countries have taken this Roman alphabet in 
 writing their languages. First, we have England and 
 both the American continents and all the British colonies 
 over the globe that use our alphabet. Then there is 
 France that turns out millions of newspapers and books 
 in the same letters. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, 
 Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden use them also 
 for their literature. 
 
 Now all these countries took those letters from Rome, 
 as they found them in hundreds of Latin books in prose 
 and poetry, such as Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and Caesar 
 wrote. The Latin language was learned and spoken in 
 these countries by all persons who pretended to any re- 
 spectable education. Latin was the language of all the 
 colleges in England, France, Spain, and other countries in 
 Europe. Teachers and scholars in these different coun- 
 tries read the same Latin books, and all the words of the 
 language were written as their learned authors wrote 
 them. And these teachers and scholars used the same 
 letters in the same way in writing Latin words. But 
 when they came to write English and French words in 
 these very letters, they used them in all sorts of odd ways. 
 One can hardly say which country treated them the 
 worst. The English and French were harder upon them 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 169 
 
 by far than the Italians and Spaniards. In Latin eveiy 
 letter had a chance of being heard in the pronunciation 
 of a word. In Italian, the oldest daughter of the Latin, 
 even justice is done to every letter; and in Spanish, too, 
 they all stand upon a pretty even footing. But in Eng- 
 lish and French some of them are treated most shabbily. 
 A lialf-dozen or more will sometimes be called out to 
 stand shoulder to shoulder in a word, and then only half 
 of them will have any manner of notice taken of them in 
 tlie pronunciation of the word. Just take the word dough, 
 for instance, and see how the last three letters are treated ! 
 They might as well have been left out altogether as to 
 have been put at the end of that word. Not one of the 
 tliree, nor altogether, receive a single lisp of sound when 
 the word is uttered. Then sounds that scholars would 
 have shuddered at in Latin words are given to those so 
 fainiliaj- to us. Think what your Virgil would have said 
 of a Latin word spe] t cough and pronounced cof, or spelt 
 rough and pronounced ruf ! The French are worse still 
 in treating some of the most respectable letters of the 
 Roman alphabet in contemptuous silence. Woe to the 
 hindmost letter in nearly all their words. It is of no 
 manner of consequence, so they never give it any sound 
 or I'berty to speak for itself. See how they treat four 
 good and honest letters in the word aient in the command 
 or request, qiCils aient, " let them have." Here are three 
 letters called voiuels, or vocals, or voices. That is, each 
 has a voice or sound of its own, and no consonant can 
 open its lips without the help of an a, e, i, o, or u. Then 
 besides the a, i, e, there are n, t in the word, and yet all 
 the French make out of the five letters in sound is our 
 simple long a in "pale." What do you think Cicero 
 would have said to that ? 
 
 But treating Roman letters with utter silence is only 
 one of the abuses put upon them in different countries. 
 The Spanish, in many of their words, turn the t into d ; 
 as todo for totits. Now we cannot pronounce Spain, oi 
 
 K 
 
170 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 any other word beginning with s without half- whispering 
 e in making the sound. The Spanish writes out and gives 
 full utterance to this e which we suppress, and makes it 
 a part of a word, as in EspaUa or cstado for status or 
 state. Tlien b is used for v, as Hahana for Havana ; 
 aurihar for arriver, or arrive. They serve c in the same 
 manner, and write (joton for cotton. This different use 
 of the same letters makes two different words of the same 
 thing ; and this is the way that hundreds of words mean- 
 ing just the same idea, are found in different languages, 
 which, from their different spelling, have but little resem- 
 blance to each other. For several hundred years one letter 
 was used for another in England ; as I for J, and U for 
 V ; and words were thus formed that children now would 
 hardly understand, even when they stood for very fami- 
 liar names, as lames, Dauid, &lc. It would be very diffi- 
 cult to find out when our English w first came into use, 
 and how it looked then. Now 11 looks like a double v. 
 One cannot hel{) wondering how those who invented it 
 could give its present sound to two u's. The French and 
 several other languages always use two distinct letters in 
 making the same sound as our w, or gu, as Guillaume 
 for '• William." So you see we have here two different 
 words though meaning just the same thing, only because 
 one uses a different letter from the other. 
 
 But all the abuses put upon the Latin or English let- 
 ters are as nothing compared with the shocking wrongs 
 which the Welsh have inflicted upon them. I sometimes 
 think that the great Csesar, who invaded and conquered 
 Britain, would have treated the Welsh more severely than 
 he did if he could have foreseen how they would treat the 
 Roman letters when they came to use them in writing 
 their queer language. I do not know what kind of Latin 
 books some of you are reading, dictionary in hand. Per- 
 haps you are working your way into Csesar's Commen- 
 taries. If so, what do you think he would have said or 
 looked if one had presented to him a sample of the Welsh 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 171 
 
 langiia<^o written in his own noLle and lioncst lettoi'H, 
 ( v'>vy one of Avhicli has its own distinct sound in Latin ? 
 What, for example, would he have said to these two 
 verses of the 2nd chapter of John ? "A'R trydydd dydd 
 yr oedd priodas yn Cana Galilea ; a mam yr lesu oedd 
 yno." 
 
 Just see what an odd set-out of letters they have put 
 into our thirds or Caesar's tertia, writing it " trydydd !" 
 "And on the third day there was a marriage in Cana of 
 Galilee ; and the mother of Jesus was there." See how 
 they treat that mother. It is niarnin this verse ; but see 
 what it is in the 5th, where slie tells the servants, 
 " Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." "Ei fain ef a 
 ddywedodd wrth y gwasanaethwyr, Beth bynag a ddy- 
 wedo efe wrthych, gwnewch." \'ou see mamfi, or mama, 
 becomes fain in this verse. This is one of the puzzles of 
 this strange language. The same word may begin with 
 an m in one line and an / in another, and changes worse 
 still may happen to it in the course of a page. These 
 changes, and the odd way in which they string conso- 
 nants together, make the Welsh language the strangest 
 that was ever written. I wish some one who speaks and 
 loves it, would find out who first put its words in Eng- 
 lish letters ; whether the men who did it ever read Latin 
 words, and had any idea how the letters were pronounced 
 in them which they jumbled together in such a queer 
 fashion in Welsh words. 
 
 But I have made too long a talk already on this mat- 
 ter. In my next we will look into another part of it, 
 which may be more interesting and useful to you. 
 
172 CHIPS FROM MANf BLOCKS. 
 
 WORDY LANGUAGES. 
 
 In my last talk about some of the languages of Eastern 
 countries which their children had to learn before they 
 could converse with one another, or write to their friends, 
 I spoke of the alphabets made for them to use. But the 
 letters of those countries are very simple and few, and 
 easily got by heart, compared with the words of the lan- 
 guages that use them. It is bad enough to learn three or 
 four hundred different letters, or twenty-six letters, every 
 one of which is changed in a dozen different ways. But 
 just think of the number of changes which some of those 
 languages make in a single word, and what a task it 
 must be for a boy or girl to be able to remember and use 
 them in conversation. I have spoken of the Sanskrit as 
 a language which I wondered how any children* in the 
 world could learn. If you could see its strange letters, 
 you would think it would take all the years between five 
 and twenty-five to learn them. But the way they make 
 and put together their words is stranger still, and you 
 would think, at first sight, that it would take a fullgrown 
 man ten years to learn enough of them to write a decent 
 letter to a friend, or to make a conversation with him five 
 minutes, long. For instance, there is the word hudh, sig- 
 nifying to know. Well, that single word is changed in 
 Tiiore than 1200 different ways by putting different let- 
 ters at one end or the other of it I . Just, think for a mo- 
 ment how you would get on in your compositions, if you 
 had to write the single word know in 1200 different ways, 
 in order to give all the meanings that belong to it ! The 
 whole number of words in the English language falls but 
 a little short of 100,000. Now, then, take only 1,000 
 Sanskrit verbs, which are probably not one-fourth of the 
 number of them that belong to the language, and we 
 nave, out of that thousand verbs, 1,200.000 differently 
 spelt words to be committed to memory ! Remember, 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 173 
 
 these are only the words made out of verbs. But nearly 
 every noun is spelt in fifteen or twenty diflferent ways to 
 signify, what most of you understand, gender, number 
 SLTidlcase. So, 5,000 Sanskrit nouns only will make 100,000 
 differently spelt words, or as many as there are in the 
 whole English language ! Some of you may wonder how 
 so manj?- changes may be played on one word, ps budh 
 for example. I will, therefore, give you a sample of these 
 changes made on that word. Budh, then, is what is 
 called the root from which all these branch-words spring ; 
 then they follow thus : 
 
 Budh, to know ; bodhdmi, I know ; bodheyam, I may 
 know ; bodhdni, let me know ; bobodhmi, I know repeat- 
 edly ; bobudhyam, I may know repeatedly ; bobodhis- 
 hartii, I wish to know ; bodhaycwii, I cause to know. 
 Now, here is a sample of the 1200 words that grow out of 
 the single root budh. Well might all the school-boys 
 and school-girls of England, and Europe, too, rejoice that 
 they have not to learn such a language, before they can 
 read and enjoy books and talk with each other. But I 
 have only given you a small peep at its difficulties. If 
 they squeeze half a dozen letters into a ragged cluster 
 which might be put inside of our O, they also stick half 
 a dozen whole words together till they make a bar of 
 them as long as a stick of candy. And in making this 
 bar they do not put them together butt to butt, so that 
 you can see where one joins the other, but they braid 
 them together like a whip-lash. Here, for example, is 
 one of their language-beams only three words in length : 
 astvagnimahatniyani. To read this word-bar, we must 
 break it up into three lengths in this way, and we will 
 give a Latin word first for each length : astii, " esto," 
 agni, "Agni ;" niahatniyani, " magnitas," or, " Let there 
 be to Agni greatness." So I think you who are begin- 
 ning to study Latin and French, and feel that they are 
 hard enough to learn, will see what harder tasks thous- 
 ands of children in eastern countries must have in learn- 
 ing such languages as the Sanskrit. 
 
174 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 I must next say a little abo"t the Greek, which per- 
 haps scores of you will study some day, if you have not 
 begun to do it already. It is one of the grandest lan- 
 guages ever made and spoken. It grew up to its full 
 power and wealth little by little from the rude speech of 
 men who were as barbarous as any Indian tribes in North 
 America. No one can ever tell how much the world 
 owes to the books written in that language. The New 
 Testament was first written in it, and it is probable that 
 Jesus Christ spoke it on earth, and all his Apostles. The 
 great poets, philosophers, orators, and historians of the 
 old world put their grand thoughts in it ; and doubtless 
 the last generations of men that people the earth will 
 study and read those thoughts in it. Still, though it is 
 easier and simpler than its mother or sister, the Sanskrit, 
 you will find it will give your memories something to do 
 when you come to study it. Its letters are simple, and 
 easily distinguished one from the other ; and there are 
 only twenty -four of them. But the changes it makes in 
 a single word, in order to give its different meanings, are 
 almost as many as the Sanskrit claims. For instance: 
 one of your first exercises, when you come to it, will be to 
 conjugate, as they call it, the verb Tt;7rTw, " I strike." 
 Well, if you take the pains to count up all the changes 
 made in that word to make it show the number, "persons, 
 moods, tenses, and voices which it passes through, and 
 points out, you will find the word spelt in more than 400 
 different ways, without counting the participles. Then 
 there are full twenty participles to that single verb, and 
 every one of them is spelt, on an average, fifteen differ- 
 ent ways, to mark the cases, genders, SLwd numbers which 
 may belong to it. So every regular verb in the Greek 
 language, or every one like Tvttto), is a root which pro- 
 duces a crop of 700 differently-spelt w^ords. Thus, only 
 one thousand regular Greek verbs produce 700,000 words. 
 You have all seen, I am sure, Webster's Great Dictionar_y , 
 which is as large and as heavy as one of the youngest of you 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 175 
 
 can lift. Well, 1000 of these regular Greek verbs would 
 make seven dictionaries as large as Webster's great work. 
 Then a Greek adjective like KaXos, " fair," is changed or 
 spelt in twenty different wajT's to express the different 
 cases, genders, and numbers in which it may be used. 
 Almost every noun is changed as many times ; so tha.t 1000, 
 with an adjective to match every one of them, would 
 make another book nearly as large as Webster's. Indeed, 
 if all the verbs, nouns, and adjectives in the Greek lan- 
 guage were written out in full, in ail their declensions 
 and conjugaiiu'ivs, they vrculd make a library of books. 
 But I do not think they were all ever written out, or 
 even spoken in this way. Then why did the Greeks ever 
 take a fancy to so many words ? you may ask. Why 
 make two or three millions of them, when they did not 
 need and did not use one in a hundred of them ? That 
 is a fair question, and I do not wonder that you ask it. 
 I will try to answer it at my next call ; but we must now 
 say a few words about the Latin, which many of you are 
 learning to read and understand. 
 
 The Latin language was made after the Greek, as the 
 Greek was made probably after the Sanskirt, which per- 
 haps may be called the mother of one, and the grandmother 
 of the other. And there was much improvement in each 
 generation, in the matter of word-making, especially in 
 the Latin over the Greek. Instead of having 700 changes 
 as in the verb Tjttto), we have on.y about 100 in the Latin 
 Amo; and instead of twenty panlciples as in one case, we 
 do not have half a dozen, all counted, in the other. This is 
 a great difference in favour of the Latiii, making it express 
 all the Greek can do with one hundredth part of the words 
 used, or held in reserve for use, in that language. The 
 Italian may be taken for the eldest daughter of the Latin, 
 and has a very strong natural resemblance to its mother. 
 Then the French and Spanish were born a little later, 
 and they all have much the same form as their parent, but 
 in some respects are considerably simplified, so that you 
 
176 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 can get acquainted with them much more easily. In our 
 next conversation we will notice what these said changes 
 for the better were, and how they were made. 
 
 Before I wish you " good night," I must just say a word 
 about a strange language that is spoken in a corner of 
 Europe and Asia. I mean the Turkish. It is truly a 
 strange speech in its shape, as are the people who speak 
 and write it. The Turks, you have read, have been terri- 
 able land-rovers and land-robbers in their day. They 
 stole and nearly destroyed the most interesting countries 
 in the Old. World. They took Jerusalem, the birth-place 
 of the Christia.n religion, and Athens, the birth-place of 
 civilization, and Cairo, and hundreds of other places where 
 great men had lived, besides Constantinople. They plun- 
 dered all these old and famous cities most shockingly, and 
 shamefully abused the people who lived in them. 1 t 
 they also plundered the languages of the countries th( 7 
 overran and subdued, and out of this plunder they mac ; 
 a language for themselves, which is a strange medL y 
 enough. It is something like the houses that some of 
 their barbarous soldiers made out of the ruins of Grecian 
 temples : a piece of delicately sculptured marble is put into 
 the wall beside a dirty brick or a little black boulder from 
 the field. Still, to my mind, it is a wonder how the Turks 
 ever had the genius to make such a language as they use, 
 even with such materials as they had. The way they cut, 
 trim and joint Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and 
 Syriac words in order to build them into their language is 
 truly wonderful. Their letters nearly all belong to the 
 Arabic alphabet ; but their grammar they must have in- 
 vented among themselves. There is one thing they have 
 done, which none of the languages they robbed ever did 
 or can do. No word in Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin was 
 ever made to say so much as many a Turkish word does. 
 Here are a few examples of what meanings these lang- 
 uages can express in single words. Sanskrit : hodhayisJi- 
 iyasthavi, " You two pray you may cause to know." 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 177 
 
 Greek : tuphthesesthon, " You two shall be struck." Latin: 
 amaremini, " You would be loved." Turkish : sevindere' 
 Jnnemek, " To be unable to cause to love one's self." This 
 Turkish verb is only in the infinitive mood, and therefore 
 not so long as it might be, nor meaning all the ideas that 
 might be put into it. By adding a few letters we may 
 lengthen the word, and add all the meaning that it can be 
 made to express ; thus, sevindereJmiemeguimdan, " From 
 my having been unable to cause to love myself." Now 
 there is one Turkish word for you ! I do not think that 
 any other language in the world can show one that ex- 
 presses more meaning, or a greater number of ideas. You 
 see it beats the Sanskrit ; the Sanskrit exceeds the Greek, 
 and the Greek the Latin, in making long words and put- 
 ting long meanings into them. 
 
 It may interest you to see what a short root produces 
 this long Turkish word, and what letters are added to it 
 to give its different meanings. Now the root of the verb 
 in all languages is the imperative mood, second person 
 singular, and not the infinitive mood. Thus in English, 
 love (til ou) is the root, not to love, for the to makes what 
 may be called a verb-noun of " to love," which may be 
 the nominative of a verb just like any other noun; as "to 
 l'.)ve our neighbour is our duty." Thus the root is the 
 shortest form of the verb in all languages. The long 
 Turkish word I have given you comes from the root sev, 
 " love thou." To put this in the infinitive, they add meh, 
 making it sevniek, " to love," To give the verb a causative 
 meaning, they insert dii' between the sev and mek, making 
 it sevdirmek, " to cause to love." Then to convey the idea 
 of inability to do a thing, they insert ehrae immediately 
 after the root, which makes the word sevehmemel', " to be 
 unable to love." To express the negative me is added to 
 the root, as sevmemek, " not to love." To give it the reflec- 
 tive meanings, as is done in Latin and French by .se, or 
 self, they insert in as sevinnnek, " to love oneself." By in- 
 serting ish they form the reciprocal, as sevishmek, " to love 
 
178 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 one another." By inserting the negative me, we have sevish- 
 nnemeh, " not to love one another." Let us now analyze 
 the long word I have given you, sevindirehmemeguimdan: 
 sev, love, in, self, dir, cause, ehme, unable, mek, to, or sign 
 of infinitive ; thus sevindirehmemek. This infinitive is 
 declined like a verbal noun, the k being softened +o g, to 
 which is added the possessive uim, my, then dan is the 
 case-ending equal to from. This completes the word, 
 " From my having been unable to cause to love myself." 
 I'think this example will show you how wonderfully Turk- 
 ish words are made, and what genius it required to con- 
 struct them, to make such a simple root as sev produce so 
 many varied meanings. 
 
 The Hungarian language is even more curious and sin- 
 gular than the Turkish in its construction. Both must 
 have been formed in Northern Asia, but while the Turkish 
 borrowed more than half its words from the Tartar, Per- 
 sian and Arabic, the Hungarian has scarcely a word that 
 resembles one in any other language. Like the Turkish, 
 it gives a wonderful variety of meanings to a verb by 
 adding different letters to the root. As ver, " beat thou," 
 ver-ni " to beat ; " ver-et-ni " to be beaten ;" ver-eget-ni, 
 to beat frequently ; ver-int-ni, to beat a little ' ver-eked- 
 ni, to beat each other ; ver-od-ni, to beat one's self against; 
 ver-het-ni, to bo able to beat ; ver-eget-het-ni, to be able 
 to beat frequently. There are many other meanings 
 given to the verb by the insertion of letters in the same 
 way. Then like the Sanskrit, it has one set of termina- 
 tions for the transitive and another for the intransitive. 
 Sans. : trans, bodhami, I know (him or it) ; intrans. 
 bodhe, I know (that it is, &c.) Hung, trans, tatalons, I 
 find (it) intrans, tatalok, I find (that it is). Thus, in 
 both languages the transitive and intransitive have each 
 its own special conjugation through all the moods, tenses 
 and voices. * . .. 
 
 But it is in the cases of nouns that the Hungarian dif- 
 fers most from other languages. I have taken it for 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 179 
 
 granted that many of the school children I have been 
 talking to have begun to study Latin, and have learnt the 
 names of the cases of nouns, what they mean, and how 
 they are formed. The ending letter or letters of the 
 word stand for some preposition, as, of, in, from, kc. 
 But the Hunp-«rian joins a full-made preposition to the 
 noun, just as we would do if we wrote " house/rom, 
 clnirch/o, riverin, reason/o?', homec/i, taMeupon, -pemvith," 
 fee. Thus, templom&o?, from the church ; A'templom- 
 han, into the church ; as asztalra, on the table ; A' bara- 
 tomhoz, unto my friend ; anyamfo^, to my uncle. In this 
 way all the prepositions are joined to nouns, each mak- 
 ing its own case for it. In forming cases for personal pro- 
 nouns, the preposition is prefixed instead of being joined 
 to the end of the word, and the letters of the pronoun 
 are transposed. Thus, instead of metol, from me, it is 
 written toleia ; nekem, to me, instead of jnenek ; entem, 
 for me, instead of meent ; velem, with me, &c. 
 
 As I have said, the Hungarian is the strangest lang- 
 uage in Europe. It seems to have no family relation to 
 any other, and where it came from and where it was 
 made and first spoken, is a mystery that no one has yet 
 solved. We know that it must have come from Northern 
 Asia, and that the people who spoke it there must have 
 lived near the Tartars, Turks or other tribes of me'r. 
 But they seem never to have borrowed a word from 
 their neighbours, and now speak a language on the Danube 
 which has no resemblance to any other in Europe or 
 Asia. 
 
 I have now endeavoured, as I promised at our last con- 
 versation, to tell you the reason why the Sanskrit, Greek, 
 Latin and other ancient languages made and used so many 
 useless words, and how our good, simple, honest English 
 contrived to say all that those languages ever knew or 
 could ever express in one hundredth part of the words 
 they employed. 
 
180 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 WHAT AUXILIARY VERBS DO FOR LEARNERS. 
 
 In the course of my last talk about some of the langua- 
 ges of Eastern countries, which their children had to 
 learn before they could converse with each other, or write 
 to their schoolmates or friends at a distance, I promised 
 to tell you, the next time I called, why the Sanskrit, 
 Greek and Latin made and used so many words in their 
 languages. For instance, there is the Sanskrit word 
 hhud, " to know," with 1200 changes played upon it by 
 adding letters to one end or the other of the root ; thus 
 making 1200 differently-spelt words, and everyone of 
 them signifying a different idea about Jcnoiuing. There 
 we took the Greek work tutttw, " I strike," which many 
 of you, I dare say, have been sadly perplexed and vexed 
 with conjugating, or in chasing it through all its moods, 
 tenses, voices, numbers, and persons. I suggested that 
 you should count up all the changes made in it, and see 
 if you did not find that it produced 700 differently-spelt 
 words, including its twenty participles with their num- 
 bers, genders, persons, and cases. You will notice that 
 the Greek is not half so ivordy as the Sanskrit, nor the 
 Latin half so wordy as the Greek ; for when you come 
 to your old particular acquaintance, the Latin anio, " I 
 love," you will find that there are hardly 150 changes 
 made in it to express every shade of meaning that one 
 can give to the verb. So you see the Latins did not use 
 one-fourth the number of words that the Greeks made 
 and used to express the same idea. 
 
 Then as we come along down to the Italian, Spanish, 
 French, German, and English, we find that these langua- 
 ges become less and less wordy, according to their age. 
 Now our English language is the youngest in the civilized 
 world, and the noblest, too, to my mind. It ought to be 
 the noblest, the richest and the simplest of all, not only 
 because it is the youngest or latest made, but because it 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 181 
 
 is spoken, road or written by more millions than use any 
 other tongue. Nor is this the only reason : the eighty 
 millions of persons who speak it do not live altogether 
 in one country, as the French mostly do, but half of them 
 live in the western and the other half in the eastern 
 hemisphere, and in all countries and climates of each. 
 Now, if you will go to the Kew Gardens or to Regent's 
 Park, you will see a wonderful variety of trees, plants, 
 shrubs, flowers and grasses, which have been brought 
 from every land on the globe by English botanists and 
 travellers. They have to make a special climate and soil 
 for some of them, or put them in a glass house kept as 
 warm as their native air. Well, just in this way English- 
 men, Americans and Australians, and all the men and 
 women scattered over the face of the globe who speak our 
 language, have transplanted into it words belonging to 
 the languages of those countries in which they have re- 
 sided. When they bring home an article of food or cloth- 
 ing or ornament from India, Australia, Turkey or China, 
 they bring its name with it, and that name is first intro- 
 duced into the society of our old Eii.^;iish words a little 
 suspiciously, as if one said, " Here is a foreigner ! set a 
 mark upon him, and see how he behaves before you let 
 him into the family circle." So at first they set this mark 
 upon him, "sugar," and he wears that for a while ; then 
 they write him sugar, and, improving on acquaintance, 
 he is admitted into full fellowship with our household 
 words as simply sugar, without any ear-marks or dots or 
 black lines to denote his foreign parentage. Cotton, cof- 
 fee, cinnamon, tea, tobacco, &c., are all introduced into 
 our language in the same way. 
 
 Well, although our English language has drawn so 
 many words from other languages and countries, and 
 although it contains more of them than were ever actually 
 written or spoken in any other, yet all you will find in Web- 
 ster's Great Dictionary will not number so many as are 
 made out of 50 Sanskrit, 75 Greek, or 350 Latin regular 
 
182 OHIPH FROM MANY BI.OCKS. 
 
 verbs! Now, why is a!l this ? What is the reason of all this 
 waste of words ? Why should it re([uire a small dicti<m- 
 ary full of Sanskrit or Greek words to describe a fact or 
 an idea which a dozen English words will fully express ? 1 
 promised to tell you the reason why ; and this is part of 
 it : The Sanskrit and Greek make each a candlestick for 
 nearly every word, but Latin is more sparing of its metal. 
 I want to impress this idea on your minds ; so I will re- 
 peat it. The Sanskrit manufactures and uses 1200 dif- 
 ferent candlesticks to burn the single candle Bhud, " to 
 know," in ; the Greeks uses 700 to burn the candle Tvtttu) 
 in; and the Latin about 150 for burning ariio in. Now 
 just see how our young English language manages the 
 matter. It goes to work and makes a couple of dozen or 
 so of plain, homely, honest candlesticks, called auxiliary 
 verbs, or helping verbs, fitted for ten thousand different 
 candles, of all shapes, colours and wicking. See what it 
 does with the Latin word aino, to show all the differently 
 coloured lights that it can possibly be made to give. It onlv 
 alters the word in three or four different ways by slightly 
 trimming it. It takes it first pure and simple, love, and 
 fits it into any one of the auxiliary- verb candlesticks. 
 If you wish its light to shine on to-day, or any thing you 
 teel, do or think to-day, you merely stick it in the socket 
 of the simple name of somebody, or something, or in a 
 word that stands for such a name, generally called a 
 personal pronoun, and you have " I love, thou lovest, 
 he, she, or it loves, we love, you love, they love." Do you 
 wish to have it shine on the past, then you take the 
 very same candlesticks and just trim the candle to loved, 
 and you have " I loved, we loved, they loved," and all you 
 want. Do you wish to throw the light on the future, 
 then you bring out half a dozen simple candlesticks, 
 if there be half a dozen persons among you to use 
 them, and the same candle that shone on to-day 
 now shines on to-morrow without even picking or 
 snuffing its wick : thus, " I shall love, thou shalt love. 
 
FlUESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 183 
 
 he shall love, we shall love, you shall love, they shall 
 love." And these candlesticks are as simple as they can 
 be, as well as few in number. Some are short, like those 
 used for bed candles, such as : / •shall, I can, and 1 have. 
 Then there is another set a little higher, or a two-story 
 stick ; such as : / .shall he, I shall leave, k.c. Then we 
 have the three-story candlesticks, for the mantel-piece or 
 parlour table, such as : / shall have been, I shall have had, 
 fee. Now with a few of these simple candlesticks, such 
 as may all be set in a row on a common kitchen mantel- 
 piece, we may burn all the verb-candles in the English 
 language, w ith really only four slight alterations, as, love^ 
 loves, lovest, loved, loving ; or, hate, hate^, hatest, hated, 
 hathig. Then it comes to this : we burn as many different 
 candles with a dozen candlesticks as the Sanskrit does 
 with 1200, or as the Greek with 600, or the Latin with 
 150. So you see how many words we save in the matter 
 of verbs. 
 
 Let us now see how many thousands of words we also 
 save in the matter, of what are called nouns, or the names 
 of things or persons. Now, the Sanskrit, Greek and Latin 
 do with these as they do with the verbs : as they have a 
 different candlestick for every change in the verb, so they 
 have a different case for every change in the noun. I 
 will take it for granted that all of you attend school, and 
 that all of you have studied the English grammar, at 
 least, and know what case, number and person mean. 
 Well, the Sanskrit has eight different cases and three 
 numbers to every noun, so that their word ndma, or 
 " name," is spelt in sixteen different ways. In Greek 
 there are five cases and three numbers, or the singular, 
 dual and plural, and to fit them all their noun logos, 
 " speech," or " word," is spelt eleven different ways. The 
 Latin has six cases and two numbers, and a noun like sermo 
 is changed eight times. Now these changes are very great 
 in. each of these languages, so that young beginners can 
 hardly tell what the noun was before it was altered to tit 
 
184 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS, 
 
 a case. For instance, in Sanskrit we have ndma in the 
 nominative case, singular, but it is ndmahhyam in the 
 dative case dual, and ndmahhih in the instrumental 
 case plural. So you see the vi^ord is sometimes doubled 
 in length by these changes, and looks like a different 
 thing altogether. Then see how the Greek word Kepsco 
 " horn," is altered in different cases : nominative singulai", 
 Kfpa^ ; genitive singular, Kcparof, ; genitive dual, KeparaoLv. 
 Here are three changes in a Latin noun signifying an ox 
 or cow ; Nominative singular, hos ; accusative singular' 
 bovem ; dative plural, bobus. How unlike are the words 
 bos and bobus ! Suppose all the nouns in the English 
 language changed in that way, what a task it would be 
 to remember thera in all their alterations ? But see how 
 we got rid of all this trouble by a very simple plan. We 
 have noticed how the Sanskrit, Greek and Latin make 
 the candlestick and the candle both one piece in regard 
 to their verbs, while we burn a great number of candles 
 of different sorts, sizes, and colours in one candlestick. 
 So also in regard to their nouns ; the pen and its holder 
 or case is one piece like a quill with its feather end ; 
 while we only have one pen-holder for a dozen different 
 pens. These pen-holders are called prepositions, or little 
 words placed before nouns to signify their condition or 
 case, whatever it may be, without any change at all in 
 their spelling. Here are a few of these noun-holders, or 
 prepositions, and the way we use them : Noun, love ; 
 holder, o/love, to love, in love, by love, /Vom love. Now 
 with about a dozen of these simple noun-holders we can 
 use all the nouns or names of things, ideas and feelings in 
 the English language. In this way we get rid of the 
 necessity of cramming into our memories thousands of 
 words which those had to remember and use who spoke 
 and wrote the Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and other ancient 
 languages. The same is true in regard to adjectives, such 
 as "good, fair, true, cold, white," and the like. The 
 Latin changes bonus, " good," in fourteen different ways. 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 185 
 
 or, to look to, makes fourteen different words of it, in 
 order to show its different cases, genders and numherSj 
 The Greek changes KaAos, "fair" or "• beautiful," in 
 tiventy-three different ways for the same purpose. The 
 Sanskrit makes thirty-three differently-spelt words out 
 of eka " one." Now we say and write good simply when 
 we say good boy or good girls. So you will see what a 
 multitude of words we save in the use of adjectives, when 
 compared with the three languages I have mentioned. 
 
 HEAD-SPRINGS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 At my last call, I said our English language is the 
 youngest, simplest, richest, and best ever made. When I 
 say that it is the youngest, I do not mean that the words 
 in it are young, but that their framework, or the way in 
 which they have been collected from all countries and 
 put together into one grand building, which we called a 
 Word-Palace, is young compared with other languages. 
 You have all read or heard something about " discovering 
 the sources of the Nile ; " how that bold men, for 2000 
 years and more, have tried to find out the lakes or springs 
 which send forth the first streams that make tliat famous 
 river. You have heard about Speke, and Grant, and Dr. 
 Livingstone, and what they did and suffered to find out 
 these head-springs. Well, there have been many Spekes 
 and Grants who have tried to discover the sources of the 
 English language. To do this, they have had to travel 
 much further than from the mouth of the Nile to its 
 highest head-spring. Long before our Saviour came into 
 the world many of our most common woi'ds were spoken, 
 perhaps, in the centre of Asia, by a wild, wandering 
 people called the Qotlis. From Asia they moved west- 
 ward, and overran nearly all Europe. You have read 
 L 
 
186 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 about them in your history -books. They were a terrible, 
 savage sort of people, and spoke a language that sounded 
 to the ears of the polished Romans, according to the Em- 
 peror Julian, " like the wild screeching of birds of prey." 
 They must have come out of Asia, and brought with them 
 most of the words they spoke in Europe, and the candle- 
 sticks and pen-holders in which they used those words, 
 and which we use to this day, as we have noticed. Well, 
 it is a beautiful fact, and I want you all to remember it, 
 that the very fountain-head of the English language is the 
 Gothic Bible. The first time these homely, honest words 
 we use wei'e ever put into letters and written with a pen, 
 was by a good and great man, a Gothic bishop, by name 
 Ulfilas, about 1500 years ago, who first translated the 
 Scriptures into that language. What the lakes that 
 Speke and Grant discovered are to the Nile, this Bible of 
 Ulfilas is to the river of the English language. All rivers 
 have many branches, sometimes called effinents, because 
 they run into the main trunk, not from it. Now, the 
 German, the Dutch, Danish, Swedish and the old Anglo- 
 Saxon are all ouishoots or effluents of the great river of 
 speech that wells out of that old Gothic Bible. I cannot 
 ■ show you what kind of letters the good bishop made or 
 borrowed to write the great and holy words of the Gospel 
 in. The letters of all languages were rather rude and 
 scraggy in his day. But I want to have you begin at 
 this fountain-head of all these five languages and follow 
 the stream down to where we now stand. I hope you 
 all know the Lord's Prayer by heart, so we will take this 
 as Bishop Ulfilas put it in Gothic, and compare it with 
 the same prayer as written in the branch languages we 
 have mentioned. 
 
 Atta unsar thu in himinam, veihnai 
 Father ours thou in heaven, holy be 
 namo thein. Kvimai thiudinassus 
 name thine. Come Kingdom 
 
HRESJDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 187 
 
 theins. Vairthai vilja theins sve in 
 
 thine. Be done will thine so in 
 
 himina jah ana airthai. Hlaif unsarana 
 
 heaven and on earth. Loaf ours 
 
 gif uns himadag. Jah aflet uns 
 
 give us this day. And afflet us 
 
 thatei skulans sijaima svasve jah . 
 
 that debtors are so as and 
 
 veis afletam thaim skulam unsaraim 
 
 we afflet to the debtors our. 
 
 Jah ni briggais uns in fraistubrijai 
 
 And not bring us into temptation, 
 
 ak lausei uns af thamma ubilin 
 
 but loose us from the evil i 
 
 Now you will see, as we go on, that nearly every one of 
 the words in this prayer, which was repeated by Goths 
 nearly a hundred years before the Saxons came to England, 
 may be found in the English language as it was spoken 
 and written in the time of the great poet Chaucer. We 
 will now look at the Lord's prayer as it was written in 
 old Saxon in 700, or about 250 years after Bishop Ulfilas 
 translated it into Gothic. 
 
 Fader uren thu arth iu Theofnas, sio 
 gehalgud Noma thin. To cymeth vie thin ; 
 sic villo thin suse is in Theofne and in 
 Eortha. Rlaf ufevne ofervistlic sel us 
 to daeg. And forgef us scylda urna suae 
 ve forgefon scylgum urum. And ne iulad 
 us in costnunge, ak gefri us from evil. 
 
 Now after the Saxons had lived in England several 
 hundred years, and had divided it up into seven king- 
 doms, the Danes came in and made a great deal of trouble, 
 and finally got the mastery, and set up a Danish King 
 over the whole country. Their language was one of the 
 
188 ; CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 effluents or tributaries to the English, and it also took its 
 rise in the Gothic. Here is the Lord's prayer in the. 
 Danish, as it was written perhaps two or three hundred 
 years after the Saxon I have given. 
 
 Fader vor du som est in himmelen ; 
 Hellig wonde dit naffn. Til Komme dit rige. 
 Bordedin billie, saa paa jorden som hand er 
 i himmelen. Giff oz i dag vort daylige brod 
 00 forlad oz skyld som wi forlade vore skuldener 
 00, leed oz icke in f ristelse. Men f rels oz f ra ont. 
 
 About the same time that the Danes came in great 
 numbers to England, they and the Norwegians sent out 
 expeditions to Iceland, that settled in that northern 
 island, the half-way house on the road to Greenland. 
 These Icelanders became a very intelligent, active read- 
 ing people, and kept the language they carried with them 
 unchanged. Here is the Lord's Prayer as they wrote it, 
 which you can easily compare with the Danish. 
 
 Fader vor thu som ert a himnum, 
 helgest thitt nafn ; tilkome thitt riike ; 
 verde thinn ville, so a jordu sem a himne ; 
 gieff thu OSS i dag vort daglegt braud ; 
 og f orgeifF os vorar skulder, so som vier 
 fiergiefum vorum skuldinautum ; og 
 inleid oss ecke i friesUie, heldr frelso thu 
 OSS fra illu. 
 
 We now come to the Lord's Prayer in English as it 
 was written in 1380, in Chauncey's time, and you will 
 see that it differs about as much from the words you 
 repeat as the Danish differs from the Icelandic. 
 
 Oure Fadir that art in Hevenes, halowid 
 
 be thi name. Thy kingdom come to. Be thi 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 189 
 
 Will doon in erthe as in hevene. Geve to 
 us this dai our breed. And forgive us our 
 dettis, as we forgiven to our dettouris. And 
 lead us not into Temptacionn but deliver us from 
 yvel. 
 
 Now you who have studied Latin and French will 
 notice that all the words in this prayer are from the 
 Gothic stock except two, or deliver and temptation. And 
 the great and good Wycliffe translated it into English 
 several hundred years after the Normans had established 
 their rule and tried to establish their language in Eng- 
 land. So you see the English stuck to their old, homely, 
 honest Saxon, in spite of William the Conqueror, and all 
 the Norman courtiers, nobles, bishops and priests. We 
 will now glance at two or three other branches of that 
 Gothic head-spring of all that are called Teutonic lan- 
 guages. In German it is written thus : 
 
 Unser vater, der du bist in Himmel, 
 geheiliget werd dein Name. Zukomme dein Reich, 
 Dein Wille geschehe, wie in Himmel also auch 
 auf Erden. Unsern taglich brodt gib uns heute. • 
 Und vergib uns unser schuld, als wir 
 vergeben unsern schuldigern. Und fuhre uns 
 niet in versuchung. Soudern erlose uns von. 
 dem bosen. t.' 
 
 Compare this with the same prayer in what is called 
 Low Dutch, as spoken by the people of Holland or Hol- 
 lowland. The specimen given is not one of the earliest, 
 but will serve to show the difference between the two 
 Teutonic dialects. 
 
 Onse vader, die in de hemelin zyn, uwen 
 naam worde gehey light ; uw Koningryk 
 
190 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS, 
 
 Kome : uwe wille geschiede gelyck in den 
 hemel zoo ook op den arden ; ons dagelicks 
 broot geef ons heeden, end vergeeft onse schulden 
 gelyck ook wy vergeeven onsen schuldenaaren ; end 
 enlaat ons neet in versoerking, maer verlost ons van 
 der boosen. 
 
 Here is a specimen of the dialect spoken in early times 
 by the people of Friesland, a country that joins Holland 
 on the north-east. You will notice that their word Haita 
 is nearly the same as the Gothic word for father. 
 
 Ws H lita duu derstu yne hymil, dyn 
 name wird hoi light ; dyn ryck tokome ; 
 dyn wille moet schoen, opt yrtryck as yne 
 hymil. Ws deilix broe jov ws juved ; in 
 verjon ws ws schylden as wy vergoe ws 
 Schyldenis. Tu lied ws noet in 
 versieking : Din fry ws vin it quaed. 
 
 With a specimen of the Swedish, we will close these 
 examples of Teutonic languages, of which the first put in 
 written words was the Gothic. 
 
 Fader war som ast i himmelen, 
 helgadt warde titt namn ; tilkomme titt 
 rike ; ske tin wilje sasom i himmelen, sa ock 
 pa jorden ; gif oss i dag wart dageliga brod : 
 och forlat oss wara skulder, sasom och wi 
 forlade tliem oss skyldige aro ; och inled oss 
 icke i frestelse, utan frals oss ifran ondo. 
 
 I now suspend these long talks on the languages, and 
 their peculiarities of construction. And as the noble 
 English language we speak, and in which more prayers 
 have been said and hymns sung than in any other ever 
 
FIRESIDE TALKS WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN. 191 
 
 spoken, saw its first words written in the Lord's Prayer, 
 I think we do well to close this subject with that beau- 
 tiful petition, which has been t^u,nslated into more than 
 one hundred and fifty of the languages spoken on the 
 earth. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 
 ELEMENTS AND GROWTH OF TALENT. 
 
 ELEMENTS AND GROWTH OF TALENT— HISTORY AND MISSION OF ARCHITEC- 
 TURE — THE SECTARIAN QUESTION. 
 
 ;HE capacities or faculties which enable men to im- 
 press their character deeply and lastingly upon their 
 age, country or their own community, are generally 
 called talents. We hear and read much of men of com- 
 manding talents, of brilliant talents, and such men are 
 held up to our homage and admiration; and, as any 
 taste or appetite grows by what it feeds upon, so, in 
 many cases, such extraordinary talents grow by the very 
 admiration and homage that they win and feed upon. 
 But the most useful men in every community are men 
 of ordinary talents, who have the heart to use them to 
 their best capacity for the common good. The best, 
 purest, happiest communities are made up of men of 
 common talents, who employ them as did the boiTOwers 
 in the Scripture parable, whom our Saviour held up as 
 examples for imitation. In the brightest nights we see, 
 few planets meet our eyes, while the heavens are full of 
 the soft and even light of common stars. 
 
 It is doubtful if the term, talents, was ever ap- 
 plied to intellectual faculties before our Saviour employed 
 it in the parable referred to. It is a term scarcely ever 
 understood and used in its literal meaning. A talent, in 
 Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit, means something lifted in one 
 scale by a certain weight in the other. Materially, it 
 means a weighing of gold, silver or brass. Metaphori- 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 193 
 
 cally it means a certain intellectual force weighed off to a 
 person, which he is, or ought, to make the best use of for 
 his own good and the good of others. This talent is 
 never weighed off to an individual alone, as a solitary 
 allotment. There are always other things put in the 
 same scale with it, to enable the receiver to develop it 
 and use it to the best advantage. What these things are, 
 may be measured by parallels in what is called the physi- 
 cal or natural world. The phenomena of nature are al- 
 ways before us through the whole long year. We are all 
 familiar with them, and they teach us by beautiful and 
 truthful illustrations the system that obtains and rules in 
 the moral world. 
 
 Now, when we speak of nature, we do not mean a soli- 
 tary fact, or merely the existence, the size or solidity of 
 the globe, but we speak of it as that everlasting form or 
 force of vitality which produces the different climates 
 and seasons ; which clothes the earth with beauty ; which 
 fills all its veins with the pulse of happy life ; which 
 covers it with the green glories of spring and the golden 
 glories of summer harvests ; which perfumes it with flow- 
 ers, gives it the music of birds and the music of running 
 streams in the same key of gladness ; which gilds it with 
 gold of the morning dawn, and hangs it at evening with 
 purple drapery of the sunset clouds. All this is nature 
 in its work on the earth we inhabit. And from begin- 
 ning to end it is a work. It is the result of an infinite 
 variety of forces brought to bear upon the surface of our 
 globe. Without these forces this earth of ours would be 
 as cold, barren and bald as a rock — as a desert void of 
 any form of vegetable or animal life. There would be no 
 such" thing as nature in the sense we give to that term. 
 But every one of these forces which give such life and 
 beauty to our earth comes from, or is put in action by, a 
 power ninety millions of mih distant from us. The sun 
 is one of the thousands of God's viceroys through which 
 and by which he governs his material universe to its min- 
 
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 utest detail of life and motion by laws he has cHtabli.shod to 
 act " without variableness or shadow of turning " for evei. 
 The earth which we are so tempted to think the sum and 
 substance of his creation, is only one of the smaller prov- 
 inces which he has placed in the vice-regency of the sun, 
 a solar empire called our planetary system. What wo 
 call nature, in the sense of vitality and action, is only 
 the sun's immediate work for us. It is the sun as God's 
 vicegerent in our physical world, that unfolds the leaf of 
 every tree, tints and perfumes every flower, clothes every 
 field with green or gold ; distils every drop of rain or dew, 
 and gives to us every ray of light and every breath of 
 air. Im a word, our earth lives and moves and has its 
 breath and being, under God, in the sun, just as our spirit- 
 ual nature lives and moves, and has its being in hi.n 
 through his own almighty Son who took and wore our 
 humanity. 
 
 Let us, then, go to this administration of what we call 
 nature for a few plain and instructive parallels to the 
 economy of Divine Providence in fitting every man to be 
 useful and happy in this life, and to make him valuable 
 to the whole community. Take, as only one example, a 
 field of wheat, in which a million of seed-grains have 
 been sown, Now, nature has given to each particular 
 grain a talent for growth and production. And in giving 
 this talent it has weighed off something more than a 
 handful of soil for its rootage. The grain must have 
 something more than mere soil, however soft and rich it 
 may be. And nature, mindful of this necessity, weighs 
 off to it in her generous scales all these other things it 
 needs in order to " put forth the blade, then the ear, and 
 then the full com in the ear." It needs to this end a 
 thousand varying circumstances and influences. It needs 
 light and heat in all their spring and summer gradations. 
 It needs morning air, noon air and night air. It needs 
 darkness as well as light in regular alternations. It needs 
 rain and dew, gases of varying temperature, electricity, 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 105 
 
 and all the chemical processes which solar heat produces 
 in the soil beneath and in the air above it. It is the 
 hai'nionious co-operation of all these elements, influ- 
 ences and opportunities that brings up that grain of 
 wheat through the blade to its golden harvest. This is 
 the way that God through nature bestows a talent for 
 growth on every grain of wheat, on every seed of tree, 
 plant and flower on the face of the earth. This is the 
 way that nature fills her scales when she weighs off her 
 talents to all the individuals and races of her vegetable 
 kingdom. ^ 
 
 Now, no teacher of mankind ever went so frequently to 
 nature for analogies or parallels as Christ himself did to 
 illustrate the laws, facts and forces of the moral and 
 spiritual world. It was from his own lips after referring 
 to these analogies, that the question comes to us : " If 
 God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and 
 to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he 
 clothe you, O ye of little faith." We have seen how the 
 most common grass and grain of the fields are clothed. 
 We have seen the elaborate and careful process by which 
 they are so clothed ; the elements, forces and influences 
 employed in procuring for every plant, tree, leaf and 
 flower its own peculiar garments. Well might the Sa- 
 viour of the world express surprise that any person who 
 believed in him could have so little faith as to think that 
 God had not made as ample provisions for the culture of 
 his moral and spiritual natures as for the well-being 
 iind end of the vegetable creation. But there is reason to 
 fear that nine in ten in every community are men and 
 women of this little faith in the talent which God has 
 given them, and the forces, influences and opportunities 
 which he has given them with that talent to foster, train 
 and develop it, and make it a power for the good of others, 
 and for their own happiness here and hereafter. And I 
 believe that this little faith comes mostly from fixing 
 their eyes upon the smallness of the gi'ain and the hand- 
 
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 ful of soil which they see in the scales at the weighing of 
 providence in their favour. Now this lack of sight and 
 lack of faith are not only unfortunate b':it ungrateful in 
 them, weakening their lives for usefulness, and depriving 
 them of its enjoyment. Providence never weighs off a 
 talent without those forces, influences and opportunities 
 which it needs for its development, any more than nature 
 weighs off" to a grain of wheat a pound of soil without 
 adding to it light and heat, rain and dew, and all the 
 other influences it needs for its gi'owth and fruitage. 
 
 Let us see what is implied in the question of the great 
 Master : " How much more will he clothe you, ye of 
 little faith ? " How much more ? that is the question ; 
 wherein do the parallels fail ? How does God make 
 greater provision for the culture of the human mind and 
 soul than for the culture of the grain and grass of the 
 field ? Here are two or three very essential diff'erences 
 to begin with. The grain of wheat cannot choose or 
 change its soil. It cannot arise out of its place and plant 
 itself on the bald rock, or in the deep, rich soil of a dis- 
 tant field. It cannot choose or change its companions. 
 It must grow up by their side and feed upon their food 
 from the blade to the full corn in the ear. How different 
 is this from the growth of human character ! When a 
 man has received his talent he may go and bury it in the 
 earth, or go and put it under the best influences to stimu- 
 late its development. It may not only grow by what it 
 feeds upon, but it may create or choose its own food. In 
 a practical sense, it may create the forces and influences 
 necessary to its best culture. More than this : it may 
 create its own times and seasons for growth. Thousands of 
 men in different walks oi life have done this very thing. 
 By taking a single step to the right or left, they have put 
 themselves on the line of new opportunities and impulses, 
 which would not have come in their way but for that 
 first step aside from their old track. When a young man 
 steps out into active life, the difference between going 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 197 
 
 into a drinking saloon on one hand and a reading room on 
 the other, the choice of a comrade or the choice of a book, 
 may shape his character for this world and the world to 
 come. Whichever way he resolves to go, he will find the 
 doors of opportunity open before him, one after the other, 
 up to the very gate of heaven, or to the very dungeon of 
 outer darkness, sin and misery. 
 
 I believe that thousands of young men make a practical 
 failure of their lives from their littleness of faith in the 
 talent given them for usefulness. It seems so small to 
 them that they do as the man in the parable did : they 
 tie it up in a napkin or bury it in the earth. Now the 
 author of that parable tells us that a grain of mustard- 
 seed is very small, but that it has a wonderful capacity of 
 growth and expansion. The largest oak that ever grew 
 came from a single acorn, says the cradle-proverb. But 
 another misconception has been, perhaps, more detrimen- 
 tal still to young men when starting in life. They mis- 
 apprehend the meaning of the word talent. They limit 
 it to a single faculty. They regard it as exclusively an 
 intellectual force, pure and simple, an abstract mental gift 
 bestowed as a special gift upon a certain number of men 
 and women, distinguishing them from the rest of the com- 
 munity. Now I have frequently referred to the literal 
 meaning of talent, that not one of those whom these lines 
 may reach will ever hear or read that word without see- 
 ing before his eyes a pair of scales, and the hand that holds 
 them and fills them for him ; in short, that the 
 word talent will suggest only something weighed off 
 to him and others like him ; a weighing of gola, of silver, 
 or of any other value. A talent is any capacity which 
 one may cultivate and use for his own good, and the good 
 of those around him. It may be only a taste for the 
 beautiful in nature and art. It may be only a capacity 
 to appreciate and enjoy what is noble, pure and good in 
 human character. It may be a single, steady thought of 
 the heart fixed upon the attainment of some coveted ob- 
 
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 ject. It may be a hope that fastens its clear and sleepless 
 eyes on some futiirf^ that looks like heaven to it. It may 
 be a faith, a will, or resolute purpose. And whichever of 
 these it may be,, it may create its own intellectual force ; 
 it may open the successive doors of opportunity by vio- 
 lence, to use the term of our Saviour employed in regard 
 to the kingdom of heaven. Every civilized community 
 presents examples of this kind ; examples of men and wo- 
 men who have made the veriest mustard-seed of intellect 
 grow by the sheer force of will to be a great, branching 
 tree, bearing healthy foliage and fruit for the public good. 
 Where one such example finds its way into written his- 
 tory, a thousand live in the memory or character of as 
 many towns and villages in Christendom. One of these 
 examples has made a history which will go down to all 
 coming time. It is that of the blacksmith's apprentice of 
 Antwerp, who fell in love with the beautiful daughter of 
 a distinguished painter, and made her the idol of his hopes 
 and aspirations. What man dare do he would do and 
 dare for her. Set the standard at any height that man 
 might reach, and he would climb to it for her. Her 
 father, wearied with his importunate suit, set up the 
 standard on a height which he believed the young man 
 would never attempt to reach. He was just putting the 
 last touch to one of his master-pieces. Pointing to the can- 
 vas, he said in pride and scorn, " Young man, when you 
 can paint a piece to equal that, you may have my daugh- 
 ter." The young man took him at his word. He went 
 back to his anvil, and from that to his garret day by day, 
 with one gi'eat, brave purpose in his soul. He had no 
 talent nor genius for painting. But the great sentiment 
 aglow in his heart by night and day created both talent 
 and genius. It gave to his eye exquisite perceptions of 
 form, symmetry and beauty. It gave to his hard rough 
 hand, a touch, a sense of delicacy, which a Correggio or a 
 Murillo might envy. Nature took him by the hand and 
 taught him the secrets of her pencil. The love and hand 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 199 
 
 of the artist's daughter were his kingdom of heaven, and 
 the young man took it by violence. And the painting by 
 which he won the heaven of his earthly hope and aspira- 
 tion, is the ])roudest thing that old Antwerp has shown to 
 the world for centuries. 
 
 HISTORY AND MISSION OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 No intellectual taste or force has exerted such a shaping 
 influence upon civilization as architecture. This art 
 o[)ened up and handed down a normal school for all ages 
 and races of mankind, in which their perceptions of beauty 
 and ideals of luxury and happy life were educated from 
 stage to stage of refinement. It is truly the mother of 
 all the other arts, and embraces them all in its own 
 development. It links the ages together more continu- 
 ously than any other human capacit}" or attainment. In 
 links two thousand years long, the chain of its history 
 comes down to the latest and grandest edifice built on 
 earth from the foundation-stone of Cain's little city under 
 the breaking dawn of historic time. Through the flood 
 it comes ; for the waters that covered the earth did not 
 drown a single art or thought worth anything to man, 
 that lived before their deluge. The best antediluvian 
 house Noah carried fresh in his memory ; and in his ark 
 he tested on the flood, and transferred to all mankind to 
 he the first conception and model of the floating architec- 
 ture of the sea. From his day to this, the human race 
 has chronicled its ages and stages of progress in this 
 hand- writing of Tubalcain's iron pens in wood,jbrick, and 
 stone. These have been the most instructive and endur- 
 ing syllables that man has writen upon the earth. Every 
 village or hamlet built for permanent residence has been 
 a paragrapli in his history, translated into every language. 
 
200 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 The migratory tent of skins or cloth had no civilizing 
 power. It did not attach a single human heart to the 
 earth on which it was planted for the night, or week, or 
 month. It put forth no spores nor tendrils of home to 
 localize life and its enjoyments, hopes, and affections to 
 one permanent centre of action and experience. As the 
 rolling stone gathers no moss, so the moving tent could 
 not gather nor leave any of the rime or radiance of civili- 
 zation. It was not until the moi*e intelligent families of 
 mankind began to plant themselves by communities in 
 houses of wood, brick, or stone, which they could not re- 
 move, that home-life and social intercourse and fellow- 
 ship, could put forth those feeble, primitive germs of taste 
 and genius that have been developed into the brilliant 
 culture of the present day. 
 
 The progress of architecture will make one of the most 
 interesting studies in the world to a mind given to his- 
 torical predilections. One does not need to adopt any 
 portion of the Darwinian system, nor to lower the start- 
 ing-point of the human race, in recognising what they 
 owed to the example and instruction of beasts, birds, fish, 
 and inanimate nature in learning all the arts that have 
 come to their present perfection. The inverted bird's 
 nest evidently served as the first suggestion and model of 
 the first conical tent or hut. Caves or holes in the brows 
 of rocky hills or mountains, partially improved by wild 
 beasts, supplied the models for houses of stone. The fish 
 with tail and fins, and fitness of its shape for swift and 
 easy movement in the water, suggested the best fashion- 
 ing and faculties of a vessel with rudder and oars. When 
 the great row-galley was found heavy pulling for men's 
 sinews alone, the eagle or the dove dropt its suggestion 
 into the human mind, and two or three canvas wings were 
 given to the vessel, and the wind was caught aiid tamed 
 and harnessed to it, like a horse broken to the shafts. 
 Now, Darwin " to the contrary notwithstanding," it does 
 not lower the dignity of man's origin nor of the dawn of 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 201 
 
 his intellect, that he learned so much of beasts, birds, and 
 fish. While he had to put his thoughts to the school of 
 instinct, taught by these lower creatures, he was not a 
 whit nearer the ape in his capacity of mental progress 
 than at this hour. If any monkeys existed before the 
 flood, they knew as much then as the best of their race 
 know now. The antediluvian birds built them as perfect 
 houses as their posterity build now. They spoke the 
 same language and sang the same tunes as we hear in our 
 treetops. 
 
 Nor is it any discredit to man's intellect that he had 
 to work slower by reason than his first teacher, the beasts 
 and birds, worked by instinct. He had to adopt their 
 ready-made models by the apposition of thought to 
 thought. It cost him a more strenuous mental exercise 
 still to improve on those models, and to improve on his 
 own improvements, to use the terms common to modern 
 inventions. But slow as was his progress, it was sure and 
 ceaseless. Men have died on the long march of human 
 life, and marked it out into short stages with their graves 
 as mile-stones. But man has never died since Adam was 
 set a living soul on the earth. As a being with such a 
 soul, he has lived from that day to this, and will live as 
 long as the earth exists. The graves of a hundred gener- 
 ations, the wrecks and rubbish of fallen empires, and all 
 the thick-strewn mortalities that choke the pathway of 
 nations, have not broken the continuity of his existence 
 and progress as a being with a living soul in him. If a 
 single individual of the race had lived through all the 
 thousands of years since Adam's death, and if he carried 
 in his mind all that mankind have learned within the 
 space, he could not impart to us any science, art, taste, 
 knowledge, or genius that we do not now possess. The 
 progress of all these faculties of perception and execution 
 has been as continuous as if the earth never took to it-s 
 bosom a human grave. », 
 
 Sacred history is the oldest as well as the most autheu- 
 U 
 
202 CHIPS FEOM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 tic record that we have of the progress of architecture, 
 and of all the other arts. It gives us more detailed ac- 
 count of their development and application than perhlips 
 all other ancient histories put together. It invests each 
 and all with a dignity which no other liistories ascribe to 
 them. It gives them a divine origin or inspiration. It 
 was God who " made coats of skins " for Adam and Eve. 
 It was God who gave to Noah the model of the ark, and 
 every minute detail of its structure, even to pitching it, 
 when finished to make it watertight. It was God who 
 inspired the builders of the tabernacle, and " filled them 
 with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding 
 and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning 
 work, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in 
 cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of timber to 
 work in all manner of workmanship." Here we have tht; 
 earliest and fullest record of the mechanic arts, and of 
 that higher artistry of genius and taste that ministers to 
 our perceptions and enjoyment of beauty. Here they are 
 all put on the same footing of divinity in their inspira- 
 tion. The mechanics or artists had to be " filled with the 
 spirit of God " before they could design and execute these 
 fine works in gold, silver, brass and wood. Neither The 
 Manufacturer and Builder, nor any other magazine 
 devoted to the useful or fine arts, ever described a work to 
 such minute detail of design and material as Moses gives 
 us in the construction of the tabernacle. Nothing can be 
 more evident than the fact, that this work in the wilder- 
 ness did not only include all the progress in these arts made 
 by the human race up to that time, but that it was a long 
 step in advance of that progress ; that it far exceeded, in 
 every conception and execution of beauty, any work ac- 
 complished in Egypt or Assyria, or in any other region of 
 early civilization. 
 
 It is a fact which all thoughtful mechanics and artists 
 should notice with special interest, that the Bible is the 
 only book, of ancient date, that does any justice to the 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 203 
 
 professions, occupations, and genius which they represent. 
 It is full of minute and scientific descriptions of architec- 
 ture and works of art, taste, and genius. Indeed, there 
 is hardly a human life, from Genesis to Revelation given 
 us in such clear, consecutive, and full biography as even 
 the construction of the little tabernacle and ark of the 
 testimony made under the supervision of Moses. It is 
 doubtful if all the literature that Greece devoted to 
 science and art would furnish us with such a list of 
 materials as were wrought into these works by Bezaleel 
 and Aholiab, who were "Jilled with the spirit of God," in 
 producing from them such a master-piece as no Grecian 
 artist ever accomplished in the day of Pericles. While 
 doing honour to all the other arts and occupations, archi- 
 tecture seems to be the specialty of human attainments to 
 the Bible. From beginning to end, it dwells upon its 
 achievements and progress, and shows how God not only 
 admits but claims both as the direct work of his own in- 
 spiration. The making of the first suit of clothes for 
 man ; the building of the ark under Noah ; of the taber- 
 nacle under Moses ; of the temple under Solomon — all 
 these progressive steps in the arts, he teaches man to 
 take, guiding his feet and holding his hand, and giving it 
 skill of touch. No Grecian nor Roman poets ever sung 
 of architecture in such lofty strains, or drew from it such 
 sublime figures for their rhetoric, as Job and John of 
 Patmos, and other old Hebrew seers and saints. If the 
 artists, mechanics, and builders of this country and age 
 would like to see the fullest history of their several arts 
 and trades in the first forty centuries ; or if they would 
 know when and by whom these arts and trades were 
 most highly honoured, they must go to the Bible, where 
 they will find more on both branches of the subject than 
 in any other volume in the world. 
 
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 ; THE SECTARIAN QUESTION. 
 
 There seems to be a remarkable and almost universal 
 misapprehension of the term sectarian, as applied to the 
 educational question between Protestants and Catholics 
 in this country ; and, as a Protestant of very decided con- 
 victions, I would respectfully and deferentially suggest a 
 few thoughts and facts for the consideration of candid men 
 of the same mind. I believe the Protestant faith and 
 cause are strong enough to render it safe, as well as just, 
 to admit certain facts, historical and concurient, which it 
 is not necessary to dispute or to ignore. 
 
 First of these is the fact that all the professed or nomi- 
 nal Christians in the world are divided into two rigidly 
 distinct bodies — Protestant and Catholic, the latter em- 
 bracing the Roman and Greek Churches. Surely this 
 fact must be evident and admitted by all who consider 
 the subject. Then, neither Protestant nor Catholics are, 
 or ought to be, called a sect. They are the two great 
 divisions of the Christian Church, opposed to each other 
 front to front and flank to flank in every c.ause or ques- 
 tion of difference. The whole of Protestantism is as com- 
 pactly opposed to Catholicism as if it had never been 
 sub-divided into various branches, or as if it had been 
 from the beginning one concentrated body, under one 
 single indivisible name, as Lutheran or Calvin. Therefore, 
 neither of these two great bodies or branches of the 
 Christian world can be called a sect in the sense common 
 use gives to that term; nor can any form or cause of 
 antagonism between them be called sectarian, but divi- 
 sional. We cannot fairly put the Catholics on the same 
 footing as one of the many sects of the Protestant division. 
 We cannot offset them against the Methodists, Baptists, 
 Preabyterians, Congregationalists, or Episcopalians. To 
 repeat the military figure, we must place or recognise 
 them centre to centre and flank to flank to the whole 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 205 
 
 Protestant line, whatever flags or names its diversified 
 sections may bear. 
 
 Perhaps the relative positions of these two great divi- 
 sions of the Christian world, may be best illustrated by 
 a parallel in the political history of this country. One 
 hundred years ago there were about three millions of 
 British subjects on this part of the continent, settled in 
 thirteen different sections, called colonies, each with its 
 own distinctive name. For some time they had been 
 complaining bitterly and justly of the usurpations, exac- 
 tions and tyranny of the Mother Country. At last they 
 made common cause against her, and after a seven years' 
 war with her power, they shook off her yoke, and became 
 a free and independent nation. Now, the whole American 
 people in this struggle were arrayed as compactly against 
 the whole of Great Britain as if they had all formed but 
 one State or colony, though in every battle after Bunker 
 Hill, thirteen colonies fought in the ranks, and carried 
 their flags and names into the conflict. The Mother Coun- 
 try recognized no individual sects or colonies in the war, 
 nor did they regard themselves as such in the contest. 
 The antagonism was even, mutual, and unbroken, all along 
 the line. 
 
 Now, this parallel holds good by several striking analo- 
 gies between the present and past relations of Protestants 
 and Catholics. Thirteen sects virtuallv include all the 
 sub-divisions of the Protestant world that have a well- 
 organized status and effective organization. All these are 
 as compactly and unanimously opposed to the whole 
 Catholic Church as the thirteen American colonies were 
 to the Mother Country in the revolution. Their denomi- 
 national flags mean no other difference in the antagonism 
 between the two great divisions, than the regimental flags 
 of different colonies did in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 I think dispassionate minds must recognize the fairness 
 of this analogy. If so, they must admit that any antag- 
 onism or difference between Protestants and Catholics in 
 
20G CHIPS B^ROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 this country, or in any other, is not sectaHan any inon^ 
 than the Revohitionnry War, l)ut divisional in the broad- 
 est sense in which that term is or can be applied to the 
 populations of Christendom. But there is another analogy 
 equally truthful and fair, which it may be well to con- 
 sider at this point of view of history, made and to be 
 made. 
 
 When the thirteen American colonies separated from 
 the Mother Country, they did not so mucli repudiate and 
 reject the British Constitution as the violations, the 
 usurpations, and corruptions and excrescences which it 
 condemned, but which reactionary and corrupt Ministries 
 and Parliaments endeavoured to foist upon it, or compel 
 it to sanction. The Colonies mainly protested against 
 these excrescences and usurpations. When they came to 
 set up a government of their own, they retained and 
 adopted the very bone and marrow of the British Con- 
 stitution, its representative principle, its whole code of 
 common laws — in a word, all its best elements p,nd quali- 
 ties which have made both countries whao they are. Are 
 not these things so ? 
 
 Well, when Protestant England and Germany separated 
 from the great Mother Church, which had contained in 
 itself all the Christian faith, doctrine, and worship that 
 had existed in the world for a thousand years, they did 
 not repudiate and reject its whole consoitution and body 
 of belief. They /protested against the excrescences, cor- 
 ruptions, usurpations, and tyrannies which had grown up 
 into or upon that Constitution through the Dark and 
 Twilight ages. All that was true and vital in it they re- 
 tained and hold to-day. They made its doctrine of the 
 Trinity the very basis of the Protestant faith. They 
 adopted its full belief and teaching in regard to the 
 divinity of Christ, the virtue of His sacrifice, the being 
 and mission of the Holy Spirit — in a word, they accepted 
 and hold to-day all that is contained in the Apostles' 
 Creed of the Catholic Church. They accepted the Gospels 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 207 
 
 and E])istlo8 which it had preserved for fifteen hundred 
 years, just as they found them. Tliey have never doubted 
 its choice and decision in regard to the writings that 
 should compose tlie New Testament. They liave never 
 complained that certain Gospels or Epistles which ought 
 to have been admitted were rejected. They have never 
 charged or evidently suspected that Catholic monks, in 
 making thousands of manuscript copies of the Gospels and 
 Epistles, ever omitted, changed, or interpolated passages, 
 or deviated from the original text in any way. They 
 acce})ted Sunday as the C^hristian Sabbath, which the 
 Catholic Church had established all over Christendom, 
 and many othei- institutions, customs, and teachings of 
 that Church. Are not these things so. and is it unsafe or 
 indiscreet to admit their truth ? 
 
 We niaj^ carry the parallel a little further, and safely. 
 Perverted and corrupted as was the British Government 
 at the American Revolution, was it not the only one in 
 the world that contained the foundation principles of our 
 own to-day ? • More than this : Did not the British Con- 
 stitution generate and direct the political vitality which 
 produced the American Revolution and its result? Did 
 not the colonists on Bunker Hill stand inside of the British 
 Constitution, and erect their breastworks and earthworks 
 and their banners in its defence ? Well, is it not equally 
 true and evident that the Catholic Church had in its con- 
 stitution enough of the vitality of truth to evolve in like 
 manner the Reformation ? Did not that movement come 
 from within it ? Were not Huss, WyclifFe, Luther, Lati- 
 mer and Ridley, clergymen of the Catholic Church, and 
 did they get the light that led them from any outside 
 organization or influence ? Undoubtedly the Reforma- 
 tion was long delayed for lack of the power of the press. 
 It was slow work for Wycliffe to enlighten the masses 
 with his manuscript copies of the New Testament. But 
 when another Catholic invented the printing-press, and 
 some of the best education of Catholic Universities was 
 
208 CHIPS FROM MANY IJLOCKS. 
 
 enli.stcd in its working, the niovoinent progressed with 
 irropr(!.ssil)le force to its gi-and result. 
 
 May we not go a little further still without making un- 
 safe admissions ? May we not accept the teachings of the 
 most authentic history ? It is ti-ue that when a man on 
 his walk to a better country has to wade through morass 
 and mire for many miles, he will drag himself along 
 heavily loaded with the weeds and clay on harder ground. 
 For a thousand years the Catholic Church had to wade 
 thi'ough and carry the dead weight of European paganism 
 and harbarism. This was an exhaustive load for its 
 sj)iritual vitality, and with only costly and few manu- 
 scrii)t books, and small facilities for enlightening the 
 masses of the people, there is no good reason to wonder 
 that its working force of truth was unable to evolve the 
 Refoi-mation before Luther's day. But the Catholic 
 Church has to bear that old burden no longer. Its evol- 
 ving periods will and must follow each other at dimin- 
 ishing spaces between them. It is at this moment slowly 
 evolving a new reformation in what is called " The Old 
 Catholic Movement," which aims at as great a result to 
 the religious world as Luther's programme. The force 
 that produces these revolutions moves slowly at first, but 
 each one it effects give it new power and impulse. The 
 Old Catholic Movement will not be the last. A century 
 hence, even, a new Dr. Dollinger may arise to carry for- 
 ward the whole Catholic Church to a new stage of progress 
 and transformation. Now, with all our strong convictions 
 as Protestants, is it. indiscreet and unsafe to concede to 
 the Catholic Church this self-contained evolving force ? 
 Does not history prove its existence and working ? 
 
 Perhaps I have now gone as far as the most liberal 
 Protestant who follows me may think that either should 
 venture. But should not the concessions already made 
 prepare us to accept a situation which we cannot reject or 
 prevent ? Is it not the fact that there are to-day more 
 Catholic bishops, priests, and churches in these two Amer- 
 
EDUCATIONAL TOPK^S. 209 
 
 icas than them were in the whole world in Luther's day ? 
 Does any one doubt this, then let him consult the .statis- 
 tical record. We cannot abolish the fact by closing our 
 eyes to it. Then must we not accept the situation, pre- 
 sent and to come ? Must we not admit that the Catholic 
 Church is here, and to be here, with every legal ability of 
 growth which our government allows to the Protestant 
 Church — that it is here not as a aect but as a dlvlmov, 
 and that as such we have to deal with it ? Now, as 
 ninety-nine common school teachers out of one hundred 
 in all these Northern States are Protestants, as the litera- 
 ture of all our reading-books, and the very atmosphere of 
 our schools and even their outdoor .sports, are Protestant 
 in their influence, would it not be judicious as well as 
 liberal, to remove all religious bars to the admission of 
 Catholic children ? We ask and require them to yield 
 .some of their .scruples in .sending their children to schools 
 which are effectively Protestant, and which they have 
 considerable reason to expect will influence their young 
 minds. Then we may well and justly make .some conces- 
 sions of the same kind to them. If the Scriptures are to 
 be read in all our schools, what harm would accrue to our 
 Protestant children if selections from the Douai Bible, or 
 from both Bibles, were adopted for the exercises ? 
 
 But I will not enter upon the education question proper. 
 My only object has been to show that the term sectarian 
 cannot be properly applied to it in the sense generally 
 adopted. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 GOD'S POLYGLOT BIBLES. 
 
 GOD'Si POLYGLOT BIBLES — GOD'S TENEMENT HOUSES — PULPIT BARS AND 
 CHAINS— CHURCH BARS AND BOLTS— LAY WORKERS AND THEIR TRAIN- 
 ING—FUNERAL BARS OF SYMPATHY — THE RULING FASHION IN DEATH— 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER—AMOROUS SENTIMENTALITY OF MODERN HYMNS- 
 HEROINES OF ENGLISH PHILANHTUOPY — THE ZONE OF THE WISHING 
 DAY. 
 
 E have been taught from childhood to consider 
 the Bible as literally the book, and the only book 
 of God's revelation to mankind ; as the only book 
 that contains the history of the human race from the 
 beginning of their existence, and also the history of the 
 creation. It seems to me that no intelligent Christian is 
 bound to take this limited view. The whole universe is 
 full of God's polyglot Bibles. Every sun, planet, and 
 satellite is a separate volume, of which every paragraph 
 and line is written by his own hand. It is an illustrated 
 volume, full of grand and beautiful engravings. Not an 
 i is dotted, nor a t crossed, nor a design etched by a 
 human hand. No human writer has added a syllable to 
 a single page in one of the millions of these books written 
 by the fingers of God, not only in tablets of stone, but on 
 all the leaves of rock and strata of soil in the whole 
 circumference of creation. 
 
 These millions of volumes are all written in different 
 alphabets, but in the same prosody and syntax of inter- 
 pretation and meaning. All this infinite library is open 
 to us ; not a book closes its lids against our inspection. 
 When we have learned the letters, and are able to con- 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. -211 
 
 stiue sentences of this literature of God's own hand, he 
 invites us to read it with as devout and lionest faith in its 
 truth and teaching as in any of the inspired Scriptures 
 written by Moses or the prophets. No intelligent and 
 Christian nund need fear any lack of concordance between 
 these physical and moral Scriptures. The Bible is the 
 last crowning volume added to God's library. It sum- 
 marizes the raison d'etre, or the ground- plan and moral 
 motive of the whole universe of his ^creations. It shows 
 us a spiritual world which is to this material universe 
 what the soul is to the human body. It reveals to us the 
 fundamental principles, structure, and laws that govern 
 this spirit world, and make its harmony and happiness, 
 just as God's physical Bibles reveal to us the structure, 
 laws, and principles that exist and govern in each of his 
 material creations, and make and preserve their social 
 fellowship, harmony, peace and order. 
 
 There seems to be nothing more fully evident and clear- 
 ly established than the fact that God has not only intend- 
 ed, but enabled us to read all the Bibles in his library 
 with full and reverent faith in his authorship of them all ; 
 to receive from them one harmonious body of instruction 
 in regard to the whole plan and motive of his creations ; 
 in regard to all the beings that inhabit them ; in regard 
 to their physical and moral constitutions, and to all he 
 has done and is doing for their well-being. Not one of 
 liis books alone can contain all his revelations to man. 
 The Bible does not teach the anatomy of the human sys- 
 tem, the circulation of blood through it, or any of the 
 secrets of its internal structure, functions, and laws of 
 ; physical life. The human body is a book by itself, just 
 like one of the planets. It is a book full of physical truths 
 and revelations written by the finger of God direct. It 
 has its alphabet, its syllaHes, its syntax and prosody. 
 From Adam down to this moment, the language written 
 in bone and muscle, nerve, heart, and vein has been pre- 
 cisely the same in men of every race. Every thorough 
 
212 - CHIPS FllOM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 student of anatomy can read tlic one language of this 
 volume in its original. He sees that every syllable of it 
 is only a translation of the Christian Bible, written in the 
 fleshy tables of the heart, or in the physical ccnstitution 
 of man. He finds the dialogue that was brought down 
 by Moses from the mount written by the same finger in 
 the human system of the fii-st created man. He reads 
 and sees how the body is fitted to the mind, and the mind 
 to the body, in perfect harmony of sensation and action. 
 He sees their laws in one and the same decalogue, but 
 ' written in two difterent languages. These physical and 
 spiritual laws, though wiitten on two tables, perfectly 
 harmonize in their meaning ; so that he might be sure 
 what the moral laws should be if he could only read the 
 physical perfectly. 
 
 So in the next circle of created things. The earth is to 
 the human body what that body is to the soul, and is fitted 
 as harmoniously to both as one of them is to the other. A 
 tree is a round volume, bound in its own bark. Each page 
 from heart to skin registers a year of age and growth. The 
 botanical anatomist may not only read the record of these 
 leaves, but read the whole constitution of the tree, *he 
 laws that govern its vital functions ; may study and un- 
 derstand the system of its veins and arteries, the circula- 
 tion of its white blood, and the whole machinery and 
 process of its nutrition and growth. All this is written 
 by the same finger that he recognizes in man's physical 
 system. The earth itself keeps the record of its history, 
 written in the same way on the tables of its heart. It is 
 a vast volume of leaves, every one bearing a revelation 
 from the hand of the Creator. The record of every leaf 
 is as clear and true as the record of any page in the 
 volume of a tree. The anatomist of the earth can read its 
 vital system as plainly as the vital system of man. Its 
 osteology he understands as perfectly as that of the hu- 
 man system. He can study the functions and movement 
 of its heart, aiieries, and veins with the same ease and 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 213 
 
 instruction. He can see the process of germination, growth 
 and nutrition just as clearly as in a tree or human body. 
 He sees what' makes trees, grass, grain and fruits on the 
 surface of the globe, as plainly as what makes flesh, hair, 
 the pupil of the eye and the finger-nails of man. He 
 reads on every page in this open volume, that if the 
 human race were all incorporated in one living man, con- 
 taining all their bulk, the earth would bear the same re- 
 lation to his body, and be as harmoniously and vitally 
 fitted to it as the body is to the mind or spiritual nature. 
 Here then we have only a few of the millions of Bibles 
 that comprise God's library, all opened for our perusal ; 
 all containing revelations equally true and instructive in 
 their several departments of knowledge. It is not only 
 our privilege, but our duty, to believe that each and all 
 of these millions of volumes bear God's signature and 
 seal, that their records are not only true, but that not a 
 single truth revealed in one is incompatible with a single 
 truth revealed in another. 
 
 GOD'S TENEMENT HOUSES— THEIR AGE, NUMBER 
 
 AND INMATES. 
 
 No one who believes in the existence of the God the 
 Bible reveals, doubts that He was the same in one period 
 of eternity as another ; that He was the same in infinite 
 power, wisdom, and goodness before He created our earth 
 as He is now. But the belief seems to have t«,ken fast 
 hold of the majority of the Christian world that, up to 
 the time of this creation, God spent the whole of antece- 
 dent eternity in perfect inactivity as far as His creative 
 power wcs concerned ; that up to this time His universe 
 was one boundless blank of non-existence; that He had 
 had not buil» a house for any created being; that not a 
 
214 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 sun, star, or planet had shown a point of light in the 
 darkness of universal nothing ; that not a being of flesh 
 and blood in all this lifeless expanse was found to lift up 
 his hands and eyes to an almighty Creator, and say, " Our 
 Father in Heaven," 
 
 Now this belief seems hardly reverent to an almighty 
 Creator. It implies that up to the creation of our solar 
 system He lived alone, filling the boundless solitude of 
 the universe with His own self ; that for all this past 
 eternity He did not exert His creative power, but let it 
 lie inactive ; that He did not care to have the homage and 
 love of happy human beings on their own account or His 
 own ; that none such existed, and that He did not con- 
 struct any habitations for such beings. Then this old 
 belief seems to ascribe a human weakness to the Creator, 
 or a change of mind and purpose. It implies, to speak in 
 human phrase, that He became tired of living alone ; that 
 He resolved to create a race of human beings on whom 
 He would bestow His love and receive theirs in return ; 
 that He carried out this purpose for the first time at the 
 date and in the manner that Moses gives for " the creation 
 of the heavens and the earth," Surely this belief must 
 be founded in a narrow view of His almighty power and 
 of His purpose and plan of creation. It ascribes to Him 
 what we should not regard as wisdom or benevolence in 
 man. It almost charges Him with inactivity, or a disuse 
 of the faculties of His omnipotence. 
 
 Let us now come to another general impression of tlie 
 Christian world which seems to do less honour still to the 
 wisdom, goodness, and power of the Creator. This is a 
 belief which a full faith in the facts which science has 
 brought to light has not weakened even in the minds of 
 enlightened men. Whatever theories have been accepted 
 or rejected in regard to the fixed stars, nearly everybody 
 now believes what accurate science has established in 
 regard to our own .solar system. Our school childrt'n 
 comprehend and fully believe it embraces a certain nuin- 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 215 
 
 l)er of planets, great and small, that revolve around the 
 sun. Astronomy and geometry have absolutely measured 
 these l)odies, and the rate and direction of their move- 
 ments. Science has gone farther still, and shown us by 
 the spectrum analysis the character and proportion of 
 their minerals, in a word, their whole physical constitu- 
 tion. Children can tell us how small is the size of the 
 earth compared with Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel. Yet 
 of all the planets that revolve around our sun, it is prob- 
 able that ninety-nine Christian minds in a hundred feel 
 almost Ijound to believe that our earth alone was created 
 for intelligent human beings and alone peopled by them ; 
 as if all the other bodies were mere make-weights to 
 regulate the motions of our planet in its orbit, or as a 
 ))iilliant coi'tege of honour to grace its triumphal nmrch. 
 Then this belief consequently implies that no heavenly 
 bodies outside our solar system are inhabited by beings 
 who need material habitations ; that even if there be 
 millions of globes in the universe larger than ours, they 
 were only created by God to show His power ; that they 
 are all empty houses, though lighted, warmed, swept, and 
 garnished for the occupation of beings who might rejoice 
 in His love and fatherly care. 
 
 Let us find a parallel to the logic of this common idea. 
 Here is a ten-acre meadow flecked with a million daisies, 
 every one having its yellow orb surrounded by a white 
 ring, like one of the great planets. This orb is peopled 
 by a living multitude of beings of a race which we will 
 call the mitel'ind, which, small as they are, we will sup- 
 pose capable of thought and speech. One of them, given 
 to speculation, creeps out to the white rim of his little 
 world and looks oft" upon the sidereal universe spread out 
 before him, all alight and bespangled with its stars of 
 various size according to their distance. He sees broad 
 milky ways of then\ crossing the field of his vision. He 
 knows that they are all worlds like his own, some much 
 larger even, and equally well made and beautiful. But 
 
216 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 in a most important respect they differ from his own 
 yellow globe. His, he believes, is the . only one of the 
 myriads inhabited l)y mitekind. All the rest are empty 
 worlds. They only exist to do honour to his own, and to 
 show that it is the only one that has any practical object 
 for its creation. Now, would not this idea of a reasoning 
 mite be as logical as the idea of a reasoning man who 
 believes that the earth he inhabits is the only world in 
 the universe peopled with human or intelligent beings, 
 conscious of an almighty Creator and capable of His love 
 and worship ? The reasoning mite knows that all the 
 yellow, white-rimmed orbs of the great expanse before 
 him are daisies like his own habitation. He knows thai 
 the little speck on the outer edge of the field may be as 
 large a globe as his own, and that it is only the interven- 
 ing distance that makes it seem less. The reasoning man 
 knows by the same sense and evidence that the minutest 
 point of light in the sidereal heavens is a material body 
 like the earth on which he dwells ; that if it does not 
 look to him as large as the moon, it is only because 
 it is so much farther from him than that body. Then 
 he knows that not a star has moved an apparent 
 inch from its fixed place in the constellations so 
 familiar to him, such as the Great Bear, Orion, and the 
 Pleiades ; that each is as fixed and stationary as our own 
 sun, and if it has any practical use it must also be as a 
 centre and source of light and heat to smaller bodies 
 revolving around it, or planets like those of our solar 
 system. Admitting all these facts, as an intelligent man 
 does and must, it seems strange that he can believe that 
 the earth is the only habitation of human or intelligent 
 beings among the countless millions of tenement houses 
 that God has built in His boundless universe. 
 
 There is another impression which perhaps a great 
 majority of Christian people think that they are bound to 
 hold as an oithodox faith. It is this, that whatever 
 be the number, magnitude and uses of these countless 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 217 
 
 myriads of heavenly bodies, they were all created simul- 
 taneously, or at the same time. Now there is nothing in 
 Moses's account of the creation, nor anything in the laws 
 and teachings of nature to justify this impression, any 
 more than there is in history that all the cities of habita- 
 tion on the earth were built at the same time. It would 
 seem the dictate of common sense to believe that God 
 built all these tenement houses, to speak humanly, just 
 as they were needed for the tenants he purposed to 
 occupy them. We know that this was the case with our 
 earth — that it was made expressly for mankind, and they 
 were introduced into it as soon as it was fully prepared 
 for their reception. Astronomers tell us that since the 
 birth of Christ more than a dozen fixed stars, all the 
 centres of solar systems, have disappeared, — of course 
 with all the planets that revolved around them. This 
 very year we read of such a fixed star or sun blazing 
 forth suddenly and burning itself out into darkness. Some 
 watchful and watching astronomer discovered the phe- 
 nomenon with his telescope. It was a mere accident that 
 any human being saw it at all. Perhaps in every century 
 since our earth was fitted for human habitation some solar 
 system as large as ours has disappeared from among God's 
 creations, and one equally large has been introduced into 
 their goodly fellowship, and both events have taken place 
 unseen by human eyes. It must soften down the pre- 
 sumption of the man who believes that the house he lives 
 in is the only inhabited one of all the millions that 
 God has built, to be made to feel that it might be burned 
 down to colourless vapour, and yet its blaze would not be 
 seen from the window of the nearest of those tenements 
 he conceives were made to remain empty for ever. 
 
 N 
 
218 (MIIFS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 PULPIT BARS AND CHAINS. 
 
 " Here I have to preach a second sermon an hour and 
 a half after the first, and I cannot stand it." A few days 
 ago I received a letter from one of the most earnest, 
 eloquent, and devoted ministers in Connecticut, with this 
 statement of the manner in which he was chained to the 
 pulpit. Nine in ten of all the ministers in the country, 
 probably, could say the same in regard to their experi- 
 ence, though they resolve and try to " stand it." Truly 
 it is a lieavy burden, and one may well wonder how they 
 manage to stand it. But if they are generous in fellow- 
 feeling, they must sympathize with their congregations 
 of young and old, well and weak, in the burden put upon 
 them. If the ministers are chained to the pulpit twice 
 in a Sunday, with only an hour and a half between the 
 two services or fetterings, several hundred men, women, 
 and children are as relentlessly chained to the pew and 
 obliged to btir the burdens of two sermons with only 
 the same space between them. Indeed, their mental bur- 
 den is the heavier of the two, if they endeavour " to 
 mark and inwardly digest " two sermons in such space, 
 on different texts, and leading to different lines of re- 
 flection. 
 
 It would be well to elicit from intelligent members of 
 such congregations all over the country their frank and 
 honest opinion on this question : " Do you think, from 
 your own experience, that one mind in a thousand can 
 dig through the layer of the last sermon into the first, 
 with the vacuum of only two hours between, and draw 
 up from it any distinct and lasting impression ? " 
 
 The fact is, the religious services on Sunday have been 
 growing at a killing pace both for pastors and people in 
 these latter years, and more and more work is likely to be 
 crowded into the day unless the cry of " halt ! " is put 
 forth and obeyed by common or stipulated consent. 
 
. RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 219 
 
 Under tho pi-esent rule, it is a misnomer to call the day 
 the Sabbath. The idea and duty of rest are eliminated 
 from it entirely, for it is the most exhausting day of the 
 week to the pastor and the most active membei's of his 
 congregation. Let us glance for a moment at this growth 
 of Sunday work, and see by what ratio it has increased 
 upon pulpit and pew. 
 
 About fifty years ago, a new Sunday work was interpo- 
 lated into the religious system of the country. The Sun- 
 day-school was brought in to fill the narrow space betvreen 
 the two sermons. The great duty of teaching the young 
 in religious truth and life was crowded into thj^ small 
 crevice of time. The minister was expected not only to 
 write two sermons a week, and preach them with only 
 ninety minutes' space between them, but also to fill two- 
 thirds of this space in teaching a Bible class, or overlook- 
 ing or addressing the Sunday-school. He was allowed 
 less time for his dinner than the whistle in the shortest 
 days of winter accords to factory operatives. How could 
 such a day's work be called a Sabbath, or a day of rest, to 
 him ? But how much less could it be such to the children! 
 Think how their young feet are fettered to the pew as 
 his are to the pulpit ! Think what comes to them between 
 his "amen!" at twelve and the church bell at half -past 
 one ! With the morning sermon on their minds, they have 
 to go, without a breathing or thinking time of ten minutes, 
 into their classes and be drilled in Scripture and religious 
 instruction till one o'clock. Then they are given half an 
 hour for bread and butter at home or at some corner of 
 the church or chapel. The bell often interrupts them 
 between the cup and the lip and calls them to a second 
 sermon. Is it hard on the minister to preach it ? Let him 
 think of the children. Is it not hard on their wearied 
 minds to hear it, after all that has been put upon them in 
 the three foregoing; hours ? Think of their teachers and 
 their work — of delicate, devoted young women who do • 
 not recover from the fatigue of their Sabbath work until 
 the middle of the week. 
 
220 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 Tliis may well be called a killing pace for pastors and 
 people ; and it is the pace of nine churches in ten in the 
 whole of New England. For in that proportion of them 
 the minister is chained to the pulpit twice on Sunday be- 
 tween half-past ten and half-past two, with a Sabbath- 
 school between, in which he is often cruelly expected to 
 take regular or occasional work, and the young and old to 
 be present and active as learners or teachers; 
 
 But there is another aspect of this excessive Sunday 
 work which is most like\7 o be overlooked. Think what 
 changes in the intellectual level of all our communities, 
 in smaU towns and villages as well as cities, are being pro- 
 duced by our common-school system, which is graduating 
 generation after generation of higher intelligence. Think 
 how much easier it was to write and preach a. sermon up 
 to the level of a rural congregation fifty years ago than it 
 is to produce one to-day which shall satisfy the expecta- 
 tions of its hearers. Every year, in every town in these 
 Northern States, a new class of young men and women go 
 out from the " High School " into the local community 
 who have studied grammar, rhetoric, logic, and the compo- 
 sition of elegant literature. They carry with them not 
 only a taste for reading, but educated perceptions of what 
 is correct in style and delivery. The minister knows and 
 feels this, and what is necessary in his sermon to satisfy 
 hearers constantly increasing in intellectual force and cul- 
 ture. Now let us see how all this bears upon the young 
 minister, and let us sympathize generously with his position 
 and prospects. 
 
 We all know how young men are educated for the min- 
 istry. They are mostly the sons of small farmers or of 
 men of quite moderate means. What an experience of se- 
 vere frugality, economy, and privation of family comforts 
 would be revealed if the story of the education of three- 
 fourths of our ministers were told in all its detail of parental 
 • self-sacrifice, faith, and patience, through all the long stages 
 of their preparation for the pulpit. How many expensive 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 221 
 
 years were between the primary school and the ^ra(Uiating 
 day at college ! With but short breathing space the 
 young man enters upon his theological coui*se. At last 
 the consummation is reached. He comes out of these years 
 of continuous study a candidate for the pulpit, with a con- 
 stitution weakened by the long strain upon his intellectual 
 faculties, and with no practical acquaintance with the 
 average human nature he is to deal with. There are three 
 chances in five that he or his father is in debt several 
 hundred dollars for his education. He cannot atford to 
 wait long for a pulpit, and he accepts one, with perhaps 
 six sermons, which he has written, as it were, at a mark, 
 or with no knowledge of the location, condition and cha- 
 racter of his audience. Composition is a slow and hard 
 work for him of course in his first experience. He knows 
 he is expected to preach two sermons on the Sunday and 
 deliver an address at the Friday evening meeting, besides 
 attending funerals, some of which are sure to come on 
 Sunday in busy times of the year. 
 
 Then what? The young pastor knows what is before 
 him ; the weight of the two-sermon burden he is to carry. 
 He does not say with the middle-life minister I have cited, 
 " I cannot stand it." No ; he is ready for a desperate 
 effort. He will stand it, if life and grace last, for four 
 years or even five. Then he will go to another pulpit for 
 which he will not have to write two sermons if he has to 
 preach them on Sunday. He will do what he can, and 
 his very best, for his first charge while he remams. Still 
 he not only expects but intends that the relation shall not 
 be for life or for many years, for he cannot stand it. Thus 
 it is almost inevitable that, in taking his first charge he 
 should feel towards it as an English farmer does towards 
 a farm leased to him for four years. He will do his best 
 with it during his occupation, but he cannot feel, hope, 
 and work in the sentiment of a permanent relation. Thus 
 the ministers in New England at least are generally the 
 most temporary members of the churches under their 
 
222 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 charge. It is said that some do not oven enter their 
 names upon the list of inem})ership, as tliey may so soon 
 be called to another pulpit. Fou/r years, it is estimated, 
 is the average holding or the same charge by the Congre- 
 gational ministers in Connecticut, and that is probably 
 the averngo all round. 
 
 Now is this a healthy condition of relationship be- 
 tween pastors and people ? If it is not, it may be in a 
 great degree charged to the two-sermon regime which 
 chains the minister twice on Sunday to the pulpit, in 
 most cases with only one hour and a half between ? Is 
 it not high time for Christians of all denominations to 
 give serious thought to a system that produces such re- 
 sults ? Would it not, on the whole, be better for the min- 
 ister to concentrate his thoughts into one impressive ser 
 mon instead of spreading them over two, when only the 
 last is remembered and inwardly digested by his hearers? 
 By doing this he might be unchained from the pulpit to 
 fill the imporant part of his duty and mission as a teacher. 
 And what a burden would be lifted from the congregation, 
 young and old, y this change ! They might all go home 
 to eat their dinners without huny ; have an hour's rest, 
 then all come together, say at three p.m., to meet in 
 classes as a school for the study of the Scriptures, with 
 the pastor at the head. A prayer-meeting in the evening 
 in the chapel, and smaller meetings at different mission 
 posts in town, would till the day better than under the 
 present system. 
 
 CHURCH BARS AND BOLTS. 
 
 It is high time that the Christian community in our 
 larger and smaller cities and towns should face certain 
 facts which the progress of our modem civilization has 
 rendered inevitable as well as evident. It is doubtful 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 223 
 
 if the great religioiis public has as yet opened its eyes to 
 these inoinentoiiH fact-*. The first that should appeal to 
 their most thoughtful consideration is the fact that, in 
 New England even, perhaps the most religious com- 
 munity in America, there is not a town or city contain- 
 ing from ten thousand to one hundred thousand inhabi- 
 tants that has roomage in all its churches for half of its 
 population, even if every pew and aisle were packed 
 full to the last square foot of space. Thus full half the 
 population of such a town are shut out of the house 
 of God for lack of room in them. If any reader be in- 
 clined to doubt the correctness of this statement, let 
 him take the census of his town against the roomage of 
 all its churches of all denominations. 
 
 Here, then, is the front fact in the religious condition of 
 New England, and it must be equally true and evident in 
 all other sections of the country. This is only one of the 
 triple bars of brass across the doors of God's house that 
 close them against half the population of every large 
 town. Religious worship in our costly and elegant 
 churches has become one of the most highly-taxed luxu- 
 ries of a highly-civilized society — a luxury which only 
 well-to-do people can enjoy. 
 
 We will not take a church on the Fifth avenue, in New 
 Vork, but one just built in a growing and ambitious little 
 city in New England. It has cost perhaps a hundred 
 thousand dollars, half of which lies upon the building as 
 a debt secured by mortgage. It will seat perhaps a thous- 
 and persons if it has galleries, or eight hundred if it has 
 not ; and as galleries are old-fashioned and " played out," 
 most likely they are left out of the plan and purpose of 
 the sacred structure. Everything must be in harmony 
 with its graceful proportion and external show, such as 
 costly and elegant upholstery, fresco-work, a pulpit that 
 would have built a country church a century ago, an 
 organ, a salaried quartette, communion service rivalling 
 that of Solomon's Temple, and all the other fashionable 
 
224 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 elegances of a fashionable church. Now, then, what 
 next, to make it a success, last but not least, we will not 
 say as an investment of capital, but as a self-su]^.porting 
 establishment ? Everybody knows what next — a minis- 
 ter of high order of talent and genius, who shall feel that 
 in taking such a pulpit, Atlas-like, he is taking the grand 
 edifice with al) it cost and all it owes upon his shoulders. 
 He must tax all the resources of his learning, talent, genius, 
 and physical ability, and concentrate them all in one con- 
 tinuous drawing force to fill the church, especially with 
 the most intelligent and well-to-do people of the town, 
 who can pay as well as appreciate his power. The value 
 and demand of the pews depend on his sermons, and the 
 more original and brilliant these become, the higher rises 
 the value and cost of every seat. When the church under 
 such talented and devoted ministry culminates in the 
 hoped for success, the cheapest pew in the building will 
 cost the journeyman mechanic and his family, by the 
 year, as much as the rent of a comfortable house and 
 garden before the greenback era. He cannot feed and 
 clothe his family, and rent two houses at the same time. 
 Religious worship in the grand sanctuary is too costly for 
 him. It was not intended or provided for liim and his like. 
 He cannot afford to pay for it ; he is too proud, and, we 
 might add, too manly to take his family into a free or 
 charity seat, even if the church felt able or willing to 
 provide one for him. All the churches in New England 
 fifty years ago had each a negro pew. Perhaps many of 
 them of modeiii structure have each two or three what 
 poor men of a manly spirit regard as poverty pews ; but 
 such men are not likely to occupy them. 
 
 This is brass-bar number two. The third is equally 
 strong, though it may seem smaller and weaker. It may 
 be called the clothes-bar. To make the symmetries and 
 harmonies of a costly and elegant church complete, its 
 worshippers — I beg pardon — the people who worship in 
 it are not only expected but constrained, by a custom 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 225 
 
 they dare not disobey, to dress on the ascending level of 
 the fashion. To do this, under the present tariff on silks 
 and other fashionable goods, costs an anxiety of mind and 
 a desperation of effort to thousands which it has seldom 
 entered into the hearts of the rich or well-to-do to con- 
 ceive. I fear it may be said with truth that if all the 
 thoughts by night and day that exercise a modern congre- 
 gation, in regard to dress in church, were put in one 
 volume of solicitude, it would out-measure in width and 
 depth the current of their thoughts in regard to the dress 
 they shall wear or lack among the spirits of the just 
 made perfect in heaven. This clothes difficulty is a bar 
 which in itself shuts out thousands from the house of 
 God, who will not enter it wearing the badge of an in- 
 ferior social position. There is no country in the world 
 where this bar closes the regular church against such a 
 large proportion of the people as in America, even among 
 our most religious communities. I never was so much 
 impressed by this fact as when asking the wife of an 
 industrious mechanic why she and her husband did not 
 attend some regular place of worship, so that if sickness 
 or affliction came upon them, their condition would be 
 known and alleviated by the aid and sympathy of Chris- 
 tian people. " That is all very *well," she replied, " but 
 the likes of us cannot afford to go to church ourselves. 
 Why, it is all we can possibly do to dress our girl even 
 with her class-mates in Sunday-school." 
 
 I would ask the thoughtful reader of any town of ten 
 thousand or more inhabitants if these are not evident 
 facts. If they are, then do they not prove that at least 
 lialf the population of every such town are shut out of 
 the house of God ; that the pulpit ministiy does not 
 reach them, and never will reach them in our modern 
 churches ? It is utterly impossible for the regular ministry, 
 under the present exactions and burdens put upon them, to 
 l)ring these outside masses under their preaching. This is a 
 work for laymen. This is the broad field for Christian 
 
226 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 labour which they alone can occupy. The earnest, unpro- 
 fessional preaching of common men, in common buildings 
 where the pew difficulty, the clothes difficulty and the 
 social difficulty shall be unseen and unfelt, is the only 
 ministry that can bring the kingdom of heaven and open 
 its doors to these outside thousands. 
 
 LAY WORKERS AND THEIR TRAINING. 
 
 In a recent article I urged upon the serious consideration 
 of thoughtful men the fact, that the pulpit ministry, in 
 all our growing towns, is driftin^^ farther and farther away 
 from the working masses of the people ; that religious wor- 
 bhip in our costly and elegant churches is the luxury of 
 the well-to-do class ; that the Gospel is not and cannot 
 be preached to the poor in such churches ; that there is 
 no room for them in the modern houses erected and dedi 
 cated to the worship of God ; that where there is no room 
 provided for them there cannot be an expectation that 
 they will attend on such worship. And perhaps it would 
 not be going too far to infer that were there is no room 
 nor expectation, there is no honest wish for the poor to 
 listen to the Gospel in such places. Thus we must face 
 this staring fact in the conditions of the most religious 
 communities in this country, that full one half of the 
 population of every considerable town are barred out of 
 our churches, and are now, and forever to be, beyond the 
 reach of the regular pulpit ministry. Then if they are 
 ever to have the Gob^el preached to them, it must be by 
 lay members of the churches, — earnest and well- trained 
 men and women of all denominations. 
 
 If the lay power of Christian workers is to undertake 
 this great work with any hope of success, it must fit itself 
 for tlie field of labour in heart, thought, faith and hope, as 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 227 
 
 well as in numerical force. Every Church must send 
 more labourers into the field, every one of whom must 
 give as much previous thought to what he is going to 
 say to God and man at a prayer-meeting in an out-lying 
 school-house or a private dwelling as he would give to 
 a ten minutes' speech at a political or temperance con- 
 vention. And where there is a heart for the work the 
 demand for workers will create a supply. Does any 
 one ask why the supply is so very small now? The 
 reason for it is the most natural in the world. We have 
 been considering the process by which the poor, even the 
 great masses of our working-men, have been shut out 
 of our churches. Let us now for a moment see the pro- 
 cess by which the speaking power of laymen inside of our 
 largest churches is suppressed or suffered to run to waste 
 for lack of exercise. Will the thoughtful reader refer to 
 his own observation and experience, and see if I am not 
 describing this general process and its result correctly ? 
 
 A season of remarkable religious interest once in five 
 or six years supervenes in some town or village. Many 
 young converts are brought into the fold of the Church, 
 full of the enthusiasm of their first love, peace, and joy. 
 Of course there is no opportunity to express their feelings 
 in the gi-eat congregation on Sunday. The chapel at the 
 evening meetings is crowded with men and women of all 
 ages. The minister is at the desk, all alive and glowing 
 with his best thoughts, and he fills half the hour with 
 them, and they make a deep impression upon all. The 
 deacons and the old " stand-bys " of the Church are all 
 stirred with the spirit within them to earnest, and what 
 is called "able" prayer and exhortation. They are al- 
 ways able and ready to speak and pray after the minister 
 closes his part of the service. They are expected by all 
 present to do so, and they know it. They have trained 
 themselves to it, and it would almost seem impertinent or 
 presumptuous to a young man who has never spoken or 
 piayed in a public meeting, to arise and open his lips be- 
 
228 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 fore his highly educated minister and these old veterans 
 of the Church. But there is another restraining influence, 
 perhaps stronger still, which operates upon him to seal 
 his lips. He is a young man, with a young man's feelings, 
 and there are young women present, one of whom he may 
 have regarded with special interest before his conversion. 
 He has too good reason to believe that a significant smile, 
 whose meaning he knows and dreads, will pass from one 
 to the other if he should stammer, use the wrong word or 
 lack the right one, or make a grammatical mistake in his 
 short prayer or talk. Almost every possible influence is 
 against him, and if he does not open his lips within the 
 first six months after his conversion, there are ninety-nine 
 chances in a hundred that he will never do it. 
 
 Well, the six months of harvest-time are over. The 
 sheaves are garnered in the Church or the revival is 
 past, and is succeeded naturally by a kind of subsidence 
 of religous feeling. A hundred converts have been added 
 to the membership. Things now settle down to the 
 normal level of faith and worship. The week meetings 
 are reduced to the Friday evening chapel exercises. They 
 are conducted on the pre-revival system. The minister 
 leads with the reading of a hymn ; the melodeon plays 
 the tune through ; then we have the voices of the con- 
 gregation in set form ; then follows the prayer, reading 
 of Scriptures, and the address from the pulpit ; then 
 another hymn played and sung on the regulation pattern, 
 and then the meeting is "opened" to the brethren. There 
 is time for three prayers and three talks, with a sing be- 
 tween them, if they are not too long. Look around the 
 company ! Who are the men who make the three prayers 
 and talks ? Who should they be but those best fitted 
 and most expected to perform the service ? Don't you 
 see ? They are our old pre-revival friends, the deacons 
 and the old stand-bys of the Church. Can't they pray 
 and speak well, without lack of right word and without 
 blunder in grammar ? Could others speak better ? Cer- 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 229 
 
 tainly not. Every young Christian present believes this. 
 He would feel himself in the wrong if he did not believe 
 it. What necessity, motive, or impulse can act upon him 
 to induce him to open his lips before his educated minis- 
 ter, before such able men, and especially before a score of 
 young ladies just graduated from the high school, fresh 
 from thorough exercises in grammar, logic, and rhetoric ? 
 No ; though his heart may be full and beating with the 
 pulse of spiritual life, his conscience would almost rebuke 
 him for occupying time which others could so much better 
 fill. So his lips are sealed. There is no place nor duty 
 for him, even in the Friday evening chapel-meeting, ex- 
 cept to hear and get good from what others say and do. 
 
 Thus it is, that if the census of all the Churches in New 
 England were taken, it would be found that they do not 
 average more than four speaking laymen to each Church ; 
 for there is no time nor occasion for more than four to 
 open their lips at one of its week-evening meetings. 
 Their number follows the law of demand and supply. 
 Four are all that are needed at such services, and four 
 generally are forthcoming to meet the demand. So nine- 
 teen in twenty of the ma' members of all the Churches 
 in the country tire not only silent, but virtually silenced 
 Christians all the days of their lives. Besides ^is lack of 
 place and duty for them at regular chapel-meetings, there 
 are thousands upon thousands of young Christians whose 
 lips are sealed against utterances at such times by a kind 
 of over-awing fear of their ministers. How few timid, 
 scantily-educated young men would dare to pray in the 
 presence of Henry Ward' Beecher, or Dr. Storrs, with 
 the large, intellectual congregations that fill their con- 
 ference rooms ? Then, perhaps, an equal number of young 
 Christians are silenced for life in the first months of their 
 religious experience by the fear that their first eflforts 
 will be smiled at derisively by young women, whose 
 good opinion they prize above its worth in regard to such 
 a duty. 
 
230 CHIPS FUOM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 Well, how change all "this ? How recover all this 
 wasted or inactive lay-power, and bring it into vigorous 
 life and action ? We see there is no motive, scope, or 
 impulse for its development and expansion in the church 
 and chapel, in Sunday or Friday evening service. That 
 field has been tried for a hundred years, and has failed to 
 develop or employ this lay-power. The broad, hard, un- 
 cultured field that lies outside the church and its pulpit 
 ministry is the only place where this power can be 
 brought into action. Here it may, and will, giow by 
 what it feeds upon. Here is scope, duty, motive, and re- 
 ward for every man and woman, for every boy and girl, 
 who can utter a word in prayer, exhortation, in hynm or 
 verse of Scripture. Compare the surroundings, the per- 
 sons, and all the other circumstances of a little gathering 
 in a district school-house with those of the regular chapel 
 service. Here are a score of men, women, and children 
 from the homes of the common people in the neighbour- 
 hood. No dress or social distinctions are visible here. 
 No critical or learned presence throws a restrictive shade 
 over those who are to speak and conduct the service. 
 Here every one counts at a value which his or her pre- 
 sence does not pass for in church or chapel. Here our 
 young Christian, who feared to speak aloud in either, now 
 finds a place and duty and reward for his utterances. 
 Here he ventures to " break the ice," to take the first step, 
 which costs more than all the rest, and here he takes the 
 second, unio a continuous stepping in a life of Giristian 
 labour. Here is the only place where the Christian Church 
 can show and enjoy its family character. What would a 
 family circle be if no one spoke but father and sons, if no 
 woman's voice nor child's voice was heard around the 
 table or fireside ? But in the little school-house, or 
 private house-meeting, these gentler voices may be heard 
 in prayer or exhortation. Here they are encouraged to 
 utterance, intimidated by no restrictive presence. Hero 
 the children's voices, repeating aloud texts of Scripture 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 231 
 
 in unoccupied moments in the service, give to it a family 
 circle character, and a kind of interest unknown to the 
 large meeting of the chapel. Here, too, a wanderer, who 
 has lived without God and without hope all his life, can 
 have the Gospel of salvation preached to him within arm's 
 reach, into his very face and eyes, as well as into his ears, 
 — preached to him by one on the level of common life, 
 whose hands are hardened with its labour, whose heart is 
 full of sympathy with its experiences, and who can speak 
 to the heart of the working-man as no other j)reacher can 
 do. Here, too, kind words may be exchanged at the close 
 of the meeting. Every one present may be spoken to, 
 and greetings by hand and voice may pass around, and all 
 be brought within the circle of social sympathy. 
 
 In this great outside field, the young women of the 
 Church may find ample scope for Christian labour. One 
 ol them can do more than half-a-dozen men in calling 
 upon families in the outlying districts, and in inviting 
 them to attend the local meeting. They need never fear 
 rebuff or rudeness from the roughest man whom they 
 speak to with a voice and a look which means a kindly 
 interest in his well-being. Then their voices at the meet- 
 ing makes a music in hymns which is a power for good 
 with such men. In a word, it is this kind of woman- 
 work that is indispensable to every field of lay-labour. 
 
 FUNERAL BARS TO SYMPATHY. 
 
 There are many customs, old as well as new, which bear 
 with increasing weight upon the conditions of Christian 
 life and death. We have recently noticed what manner 
 of bars are put across the doors of the Christian Church, 
 which shut out thousands of poor men and women from 
 its ministrations. All thoughtful persons who have eyes 
 
232 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 to see and ears to hear, and who use both attentively, 
 must be convinced that the church is the greatest centre 
 and source of fashion in every town, great or small ; that 
 it is the only place where a fixed congregation of a thou- 
 sand or five hundred persons can show to each other the 
 latest styles and make a joint display of them to their 
 mutual emulation in matters of dress. No assemblage 
 can be so susceptible of this emulation as a permanent 
 congregation of church-goers, for two or three reasons. In 
 the first place, they are all residents of the same town or 
 village, and generally on speaking terms with each other. 
 Then they constitute the only assemblage that meets in 
 the same place, week in, week out, through the year. In 
 these respects they differ widely from a large company of 
 opera or theatre-goers in our large cities. These are mostly 
 strangers to each other ; many, perhaps, from distant parts 
 of the country. Few of them, it may be, ever met be- 
 fore, and two-thirds of them will never meet again in that 
 building. Thus they do not have the motive to impress 
 each other with a show of dress ^hat operates upon the 
 permanent congregation of a fashionable church.. 
 
 But all this goes without saying, for no observant per- 
 son can fail to recognize this centripetal attraction of 
 fashion to what we dedicate and venerate as the house of 
 God. But if thousands are barred out of the elegant and 
 costly structure by the expensive fashions and customs 
 which attach to it, these follow them with merciless per- 
 sistence to another house from which there is no escape 
 for rich or poor, — the house of the dead. 
 
 The fashionable grave grasps thousands who escape 
 from the fashionable church. It puts upon the labouring 
 classes a burden exceedingly grievous and heavy to be 
 borne, and it is growing more and more heavy from year 
 to year in all our growing towns or smart villages. Do 
 thoughtful Christians think of these things ? Do they 
 ever compare the cost of a sitting in the church or a 
 lying in the gi-ave twenty -five years ago with the cost of 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 233 
 
 the two holdings to-day ? A funeral comes always after 
 a long or short sickness, attended with much expense, as 
 well as painful watch and heart-sinking grief. A wife or 
 son, whose help as well as comfort was so valuable and 
 dear, is taken away. Fashion throws its toils around the 
 mourning husband or father in these uoft moments of his 
 sorrow. Fashion suggests, even prescribes, how much he 
 should expend, and wherein, to befit the measure of his 
 love for the dear one gone, and the depth of his grief for 
 the loss he weeps. Fashion prescribes the style and cost 
 of the coffin, the number of hired hacks for the procession 
 to the grave, the mourning dress for his family, the size 
 and price of the monument. If all the families who have 
 gone to the grave with their 'dear ones, bending under the 
 heavy load which fashion saddled on their sorrow, could 
 or would give united voice to their experience, what a cry 
 would go up in every Christian community against a 
 custom which it noli only tolerates but stimulates ! 
 
 But costly and showy as modern funerals have become 
 for rich and poor, there is a custom prevalent which 
 greatly restricts their effect, not only for the higher les- 
 sons they should teach, but for an expression of sympathy 
 with the bereaved and of esteem for the departed. Now, 
 setting aside all other considerations, it would seem natu- 
 ral and proper that, as the church is the first house, out- 
 side of his father's, to which the child is carried for 
 baptism in infancy, the church should be the last to which 
 the man or woman should be carried on the way to the 
 grave. The Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches 
 recognize this fitness as well as duty to the bereaved and 
 their dead. And the same natural fitness and Christian 
 duty should be recognized and observed by all other de- 
 nominations. 
 
 But let us dwell for a moment on other considerations 
 
 than a mere sense of fitness or propriety. Let us first 
 
 consider a funeral as an expression of esteem for the 
 
 character of the dead and of sympathy with the bereaved. 
 
 O 
 
234 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 Now, if the sentiment of all those acquainted with the 
 deceased could have free and unrestricted manifestation, 
 his funeral would show the full measure of estimation in 
 which he was held while living. And his funeral is the 
 only time or place at which this estimation can be, or is, 
 measured for the good of the community or the comfort of 
 the bereaved. l3uring his sickness, few of those who 
 esteem him expect or are admitted to see him. But at 
 his funeral, no comfort, this side of direct divine consola- 
 tion, is so dear to the mourning family s that which the 
 presence of a large assemblage of sympathizing persons 
 gives to them. Here and now they learn for the first 
 time how the beloved departed was held, even by those 
 they did not know appreciated his character. How many 
 families at that hour, and in remembrance of it have said : 
 " We never knew before we had so many friends ! " But 
 such a manifestation of sentiment is not only precious 
 amd comforting to the bereaved family, but it exerts a 
 healthful influence on the community, showing how a good 
 and useful life is held and rewarded. 
 
 But the custom of funerals at private houses represses 
 this manifestation of sympathy, and dwarfs the fruits it 
 should bear. Such a funeral, under the regime of modern 
 custom, is becoming more and more a select, private party 
 — almost a drawing-room reception. Those who attend it 
 are virtually invited guests. They are ticketed to the 
 mourning hacks pretty much as couples to chairs at a 
 fashionable dinner. Few else feel at liberty to attend. 
 Thus the whole company, though as large as the house 
 will hold, is virtually a select party. Others may and do 
 come to funerals in our smaller cities and towns, and some- 
 times find unoccupied or extemporized seats in the hall or 
 on the door-stones. But a great number of persons who 
 esteemed the deceased, and sympathize with the bereaved, 
 stay away, not only because they are not invited to 
 attend, but because they know they could not get into 
 the house if they went, or in hearing distance of the ser- 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 235 
 
 vict'H. Thus, an an expression of synipatliy, a private 
 house-funeral is a small, compressed manifestation of a 
 sentiment which should and would be a precious consola- 
 tion to the mourning family. 
 
 Then there is anotner consideration which is worth some 
 thought, though few may deem it important. If the 
 disease has been malignant, and even suspected merely of 
 being cantagious, the fear that it has impregnated the 
 house operates to prevent many from attending the fune- 
 ral under the same roof. Those present are there from a 
 sense of duty, and feel themselves exposed to a danger 
 which they are willing to incur on account of their 
 family or social relationship to the bereaved circle. If 
 the funeral were in the church, this feeling would not 
 exist to prevent the attendance of any one inclined to be 
 present. 
 
 But we have reserved the most important consideration 
 to the last. If a large company is ever in a mood of mind 
 to be deeply and easily impressed, it is in the solemn and 
 softening presence of the dead. No minister can ever 
 address a more susceptible audience than the one that 
 ought to be before him, face to face at such an hour. But 
 in a private house, however large, he cannot be face to 
 face with them, and thus he loses half the force and im- 
 pression of his words, even if they are all heard. But not 
 more than half of the company either see or hear him. If 
 the deceased occupied a high social and useful, position ; 
 if his life has been of gi'eat value to the community, now 
 is the time to impress the lessons to be drawn from his 
 character and from the loss the Church, the Society, and 
 its interests have sustained by his death. The greater his 
 worth and the esteem in which he was held, the greater 
 will be the crowd at the funeral. Then what ? Ask any 
 one who has been present on such an occasion. The 
 greater will be the number of those who cannot see the 
 minister or hear a word he utters. They will be folded 
 in a dozen different rooms with doors opening in different 
 
236 CHII»S FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 directions. Many will bo posted by twos and tbreos up 
 the stairs from bottom to top, even into the chambers or 
 passages above. A hundred or more will stand for a 
 weary hour outside of the house, and not being able to 
 hear a voice of prayer or exhortation, many of them will 
 fall back and stay themselves up against the fence. As 
 nothing said within reaches their ears, they extemporize a 
 little subdued conversation on the weather, crops, acci- 
 dents, rumors, politics, and general prospects of business. 
 Now, are not these things so, especially in connection 
 with funerals which one would think ought to be made 
 the most impressive upon all who attend them ? Why 
 place any bars to the expression of sympathy ? Why not 
 give it free course to manifest itself unchecked by a cus- 
 tom better honoured in the breach than in the observance ? 
 Surely no right-minded man could wish that a single per- 
 son should be prevented from paying a last token of 
 the respect which he wished to oflfer. Surely the bereaved 
 family would not feel otherwise than gratified at seeing 
 how many wished to offer such a token of respect for the 
 deceased. Surely the minister must feel that his minis- 
 trations would impress double the number in the church 
 or chapel than they could reach in a private house. Then 
 why not make the church the half-way house between a 
 man's short home on the earth, and his long home in the 
 gi-ave ? 
 
 THE RULING FASHION IN DEATH. 
 
 " ' My young master in London is dead ! ' said Obadiah. A green 
 satin night-gown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured, was the 
 first idea which Obadiah's exclamation brought into Susannah's head."— 
 Sterne. 
 
 What woman, in any position or rank of social life, 
 rich or poor, mistress or maid, has not felt Susannah's 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 237 
 
 " first idea '' irresii^tibly pressed upon her wounded spirit 
 in the first moments of her grief for a loved one just 
 gone ? What woman, weeping in silence under the sha- 
 dow of this great aftiiction, has not felt it deepened and 
 blackened hy the vision of sable millinery, which a pagan 
 fashion prescribes as a public dress for her sorrow ? Pa- 
 gan fashion ? No ; it cannot be charged to a heathen 
 lineage or custom. It is the outcome of our Christian 
 civilization in these latter days of elegant shows and 
 costly pretensions. 
 
 Is there enough of working vitality in the Christian 
 life of this boastful generation to lift these heavy and 
 grievous burdens from the house of God and the house of 
 the dead ? See how they grow upon both, making it 
 more and more costly for a humble Christian to live and 
 to die. Already the church and the cemetery have be- 
 come the two great rival centres of modern fashion, and 
 the undertaker's and milliner's shops well stocked feeders 
 for both. .The church of to-day is the most attractive 
 centre of fashion. It is filled, unlike the opera or theatre, 
 with a permanent, almost unchanging congregation of 
 men, women, and children, mostly known to each other 
 in week-day life, and more susceptible of the desire and 
 tendency to imitate, emulate, and even to provoke, each 
 other to envy in the matter of dress and fashion than is 
 the case with varying and incidental company assembled 
 at a thea,trical performance or place of general amuse- 
 ment. Indeed, it may be said within the truth, that all 
 the varying styles of dress for men, women, and children 
 have more reference to the church as their show-room than 
 to all other places and persons put t(>gether. 
 
 Thus, religious worship in the house of God has become 
 one of the most highly taxed luxuries in every one of 
 our growing and populous towns. Even our smart little 
 villages are ambitious to follow city models, and do not 
 think of building a church under the cost of $50,000 or 
 $00,000. Then, probably, owing half that amount for; it 
 
238 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 at its opening, they must have a mimster of as nearly 
 city grade and salary as possible, whose talent, genius 
 and ardent devotion shall fill the house with the most 
 well-to-do of the village, who can pay as well as appre- 
 ciate such sermons and services. Then the choir must 
 correspond with the pulpit, in a quartette, or at least in a 
 paid organist, tenor, and soprano. The pews must pay it 
 all, and a whole one needed by a journeyman mechanic 
 for himself and family will cost him as much yearly rent 
 as his house and garden before the war ; unless he takes 
 one below the respectable line, and thereby shows every 
 Sunday his lower social position. But suppose, with his 
 wife and three children, he takes a fifty-dollar pew, that 
 is, rents a second house to worship in once a week ; a still 
 heavier tax awaits him. Fashion, with all its quiokly 
 varying and costly church styles, meets him on the thres- 
 hold of the sacred and elegant building. This is the last 
 ounce that breaks or bends the back of his ability. 
 Fashion has got him fast now. By great economy or ad- 
 ditional industry he might stand a fifty-dollar pew, and 
 apparently rank with his better-to-do neighbours. But 
 he cannot bear this straining burden of the pew and keep 
 even with them with the still heavier load of dress to 
 equal their styles. Here he must fall back into the rear. 
 He and his familj^ must wear to church every Sunday, 
 not the " scarlet letter '" of poverty, but an expressive 
 badge of their inferior position. We may blame him for 
 his sensibility, and call it pride, but not meanness. It is 
 a feeling that we cannot dissociate from manliness, which 
 no community can afford to condemn or ignore. Nor can 
 , we less admire and love our country because in no other 
 one on the globe is this sensibility of working men so 
 vivid and so easily touched. It is this sensitiveness, 
 more than all other causes put together, that excludes so 
 many thousands of that class from the churches in our 
 large towns. 
 
KELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 239 
 
 Thus we have the impressive fact before us, that here, 
 even in our religious New England, there is no town of 
 ten thousand inhabitants that has roomage in all its 
 churches for over half its population. Still, they are not 
 filled by the other half. The supply follows the demand, 
 but the demand for such a highly-taxed luxury as reli- 
 gious worship in a costly and elegant church, is not forth' 
 coming, nor is it expected when such churches are built. 
 
 Well, the working-man can, and does, in thousands of 
 cases, refuse to buy a pew or sit in a charity seat. He 
 may, and often does, turn his back upon a fashionable 
 church ; but he cannot turn his back upon a fashionable 
 grave. There is no discharge for him from that condi- 
 tion. He must buy a family pew in the cemetery ; and 
 when his soul is aflow on the flood- tide of its sorrow, the 
 fashion of a modem funeral envelopes it and him with 
 its costly trappings and symbols of grief. His hands are 
 hard with factory toil, but his heart is too soft to measure 
 his means against that debt which others may think he 
 owes to his dead. jWhat if they should say that he 
 thought of money at such an hour ; that he kept back 
 part of what was due to the worth and memory of his dead 
 wife, son, or daughter ! No; the sorrow of his broken spirit 
 is a luxury which he must pay for, to those who witness it. 
 He would not rent a fifty-dollar pew in the church, but 
 he feels that he must now buy a fifty dollar coffin for the 
 dead mother of his children ; then he must hire the re- 
 gulation number of hacks for the real and professional 
 mourners. The undertaker alone can tell him how many 
 hacks should go to a fifty-dollar coffin. Then, although 
 a cheap weed of grief will do for his own hat, he must 
 put his daughters each in an entire mourning dress. 
 
 The funeral is over ; he has complied in full with the 
 unwritten rules of mourning which the city customs 
 of religious sentiment prescribe. He goes back to his 
 «hop or factory and tries to work off* the debt to the doc- 
 tor and undertaker in the course of two years, besides 
 
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 supporting the residue of his family. But when he has 
 paid the last dollar of the two bills, he has not done with 
 the costly fashions of the grave. The memory of the 
 dear one gone grows more and more tender in his heart, as 
 he misses the light of that life on his own. And memory 
 is a costly luxury which must be paid for, especially to the 
 visitors to the cemetery, who never spoke to his wife 
 while living, and have forgotten that she is dead. 
 In a certain sense and aspect, the modem cemetery is a 
 more visible and permanent centre of fashion than the 
 church. The pews of the silent congregation cost more 
 than its sittings. The social status of their holders is 
 marked by more pronounced distinctions. The best pew 
 in a fifty-thousand dollar church will not cost its richest 
 worshipper more than one hundred dollars annual rent. 
 He cannot make a great show of his wealth in his pew 
 with any special upholstery, but he can do it in the cem- 
 etery to the full bent of his ambition. He erects a thou 
 sand or two thousand dollar monument over his family 
 grave. He sets running a competitive race of social dis- 
 tinction among the grave-stones, high and low. Our 
 journeyman mechanic feels that he must yield to the im- 
 pulse. He has paid the doctor and undertaker, and now 
 he must talk with the stone-cutter. He would stand 
 well with public sentiment and custom. He would not 
 be niggard towards a memory so dear to him. He agrees 
 with the stone-cutter that a fifty-dollar monument is 
 cheap enough for a fifty-dollar coflSn and twelve hacks ; 
 so he orders one of that size and price for the grave of his 
 wife. 
 
 Now, are not these things so ? And is there no help 
 for them ? In every one of our cities and citified towns 
 we see how the cost of Christian life and death, of the 
 pew and the grave, is constantly increasing. Said a poor 
 German mother to me, while dwelling upon the loveliness 
 of a daughter she had buried : " We gave her a hundred 
 and sixteen dollar funeral." Said a minister, with a sal- 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. I 241 
 
 aiy of two thousand dollars : " If my wife should die in 
 New York and I should buiy her in Greenwood Cemetery 
 with a funeral befitting my position, measured by public 
 sentiment or custom, it would cripple me for life." Is it 
 not time for thoughtful Christian men and women to come 
 to the rescue of the Christian church and the Christian 
 grave from the thraldom of fashions and customs that 
 put such bars and burdens upon both ? 
 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 
 A PLEA FOR A WRONG ENGLISH WORD. 
 
 In the gi^eat General Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, representing the largest body of Protestant 
 Christians in America, one of the ministers, N. S. Buck- 
 ingham, of Central Pennsylvania, submitted the follow- 
 ing :— 
 
 WhereaSf Our Lord's Pra37er in complete and perfect form is found 
 in record onlj- in one place in the New Testament, namely, Matthew 
 vi : 9-13 ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That this form be substituted, and published in our 
 Book of Discipline, instead of the form now in use. 
 
 Referred to the Committee on Revisals. 
 
 Now, I would deferentially submit a few reflections on 
 the subject of this resolution to the consideration of the 
 mover, and of the committee to which it was referred. 
 
 For eighteen centuries the whole world, now called 
 civilized, has been filled with sharp controversies and 
 antagonisms between different sects of professing Chris- 
 tians over certain tenets of their creeds or forms of wor- 
 sliip. But, in face of all the malignities, martyrdoms, 
 and fiery and bloody persecutions which this theologi- 
 
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 cal warfare inflicted upon so many past ages, there was 
 one seamless garment of Christian faith that the racks 
 of Inquisition could not rend, nor the fires of Smith- 
 field burn, nor Puritan zeal reject nor attenuate. The 
 Lord's Prayer has held its own through all the Armaged- 
 dons of creed warfare, without the loss of one word, jot, 
 or tittle of its meaning, truth or power, as it came 
 first from the lips of Jesus Christ. It is making the 
 grand tour of humanity, and will go down through the 
 last ages of mankind, giving its sublime prerogative of 
 petition to all races and tribes of men. Already it is out- 
 running all human literature. Its glorious and beautiful 
 words out-travel all others, as if the very angel of the 
 everlasting gospel, in his flight, dropped them from his 
 wings upon the lips of men in advance of the rest of his 
 message. For more than a hundred years they were the 
 first and only written words put into a hundred rude 
 languages. They are now the first to be translated into 
 heathen tongues, and they will be the first and foremost 
 to be written in the other surviving speeches of man- 
 kind. 
 
 In one hundred and fifty different languages, the Lord's 
 Prayer, whether translated by Protestant or Catholic, 
 gives the fullest meaning of the original text that the 
 language is able to express. And in the original Greek, 
 and in eveiy other language, except the English, the acts 
 or dispositions which we are to ask the Father to forgive, 
 are described by a word which signifies sins, or transgres- 
 sions, or trespasses. Now in the proposition that a body of 
 American Christians, numbering nearly two million com- 
 municants, shall substitute " debts " for " trespasses" they 
 are to be required to use a word which does not express, 
 nor even suggest, the meaning they wish to convey. 
 There is no other word in the English language more 
 fixed and circumscribed as to its sense than debts. It is a 
 dry, hard term, unsusceptible of any metaphorical signi- 
 ficance or application. Its meaning cannot be varied as 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 243 
 
 it strikes the ear. Everywhere, and always, it signifies 
 what one owes to another, in money or something else. 
 What, then, ^o we owe our Heavenly Father ? Certainly 
 we do not ov. ; him disobedience and ingratitude. Sins 
 against His law and gi'ace are not the debts we owe Him. 
 Then why call them debts ? But perhaps some may affirm 
 that the word may mean duties in this particular place 
 and use ; but this is equally incongruous and irrelevant 
 to the sentiment we wish to express. The meaning of 
 duties is equally circumscribed and unchanged. They 
 are services and sentiments we ought to perform and 
 cherish towards some one. Every well-instructed child 
 knows what are the acts and feelings which we owe as 
 duties to God. Now, both in Matthew and Luke, the 
 Greek word is atfaq, from a-^-q^i, literally, to abdicate, 
 or remit. But who of us can have the heart and face to 
 ask our Heavenly Father to remit the duty of love and 
 service we owe Him ; to release us from the obligation to 
 do His will, and obey His laws ? 
 
 We need not raise any question as to which is the most 
 authentic form of the Lord's Prayer, the one in Matthew 
 or in Luke. One differs from the other in the word used 
 to signify the conduct which we are to ask the Father to 
 forgive. In Matthew it is a^es ra 6<l>€t\^ixaTa, which our 
 English translation renders debts. In Luke we find it 
 d0€s Tas d/>ta/)Tias, a word literally meaning short-comings or 
 delinquencies ; that is, sins of omission. But sins of 
 omission are not debts. It seems to be maintained that 
 Matthew's version is not only the most complete, but 
 most correct, and thab we should, therefore, say " debts," 
 and not " trespasses." To all those who hold this view, I 
 would commend the meaning which many eminent trans- 
 lators have given to the word, or to what it should 
 express. 
 
 And the first translator of the word in discussion is 
 Jesus Christ himself, and in the immediate connection in 
 which it is used. We are to ask the Father to forgive 
 
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 US something we have done or left undone, or both. 
 According to Luke, he calls these sins of commission or 
 of omission a/AapTias; according to Matthew, 6^€tX77/xaTa. 
 Now, immediately after using the latter word, he virtually 
 translates it, and makes it mean all the first expresses. 
 " For," he says, '• if ye forgive not men their TrapaTrTw/xara," 
 lit., falls, delida, delinquencies ; meaning all that is 
 expressed in d/xaprias, except that the latter refers to com- 
 ing short of the mark, and the former to falling on the 
 way to it. Then is it not equally evident that our Saviour 
 intended to make the meaning of o<jit(XrjixaTa include all 
 that TrapairroifxaTa or a/xaprias conveys ? If we turn to 
 Luke's version, we find 6(^u\-qfjiaTa used as the parallel and 
 
 measure of ajUapTias in meaning ; thus, d^cs rjrjiv ra.<i d/xaprta? 
 rjixiav : \ai yapv avTol d(f}L€fjb€v Travrl ocfieiXovrt rj/xiv' Now IS it not 
 
 evident that in this form we are to ask the Father to for- 
 give no greater sins or faults in us than we forgive in 
 others ? Surely we could )iot have the assurance to say 
 to Him : " Forgive us for breaking thy laws, as we forgive 
 those who smile at us." If, therefore, we are to do to 
 others what we ask Him to do to us, then otfiuX-qfiaTa must 
 include, and equal, the meaning of d/xaprtas. Let us see 
 what meaning the best Biblical scholars of Christendom 
 have given to this latter word and to the first. 
 
 Five hundred years before the English language was 
 born, Bishop Ulfilas translated the Scriptures into Gothic, 
 which is thus the literary mother of the whole Teutonic 
 family of tongues. Let us see how he rendered irapairrMfiaTa 
 
 and d/xaprta?. 
 
 Ith jahai ni ajietith mannmn missadedins 'ize, ni thau 
 atta 'izvar afletith missadSdins izvarda. 
 
 Literally : " For if ye shall not let«off to men their 
 misdeeds, neither will your Father let-off (d<^7pei) your 
 misdeeds." 
 
 Latin : Si antem non dimiseritis homlnihus, nee pater 
 vester dimittet peccata vestra. 
 
KELIGIOUS AND MURAL. 245 
 
 Let US now come down a few centuries to more modem 
 languages. 
 
 Italian: Rhnettici i nostri 'peccati — Ma se vol non 
 rimettete agll ttomini i lor faili, il Padre vostro altresi 
 non vi rhnettera i vostri 
 
 Spanish : Perdonanos nuestros pecados — mas si no 
 soltdreis d los hombres sus ofensas, tampoco vuestro Padre 
 OS soltard vuestras ofensas. 
 
 Portuguese : Perdoa-nos os nossos peccados — mas se 
 ndo perdoavdes aos homens, tdo pouco vosso Pal vos 
 perdoard os vossos peccados. 
 
 French : Pardonne-nous nospSchh, comme aussi nous 
 pardonnons d ceux qui nous out offenses. 
 
 German : Vergih uns unsere Silnden — wo ihr aber 
 den menschen ihre Fehler nicht vergebet, so ivird euch euer 
 Vater cure Fehler audi nicht vergeben. 
 
 Danish : — Forlad os vore Synder — men forlade J men- 
 neskene ikke deres Overtrcedelser, skal eders Fader ikke 
 heller forlade eders Overtrcedelser. 
 
 Swedish : Forldt oss vjdra synder — meti om J icke for- 
 Idten mennikomen deras brett, sd skall edar Fader icke 
 heller forldta eder edar brett. 
 
 Icelandic : Fyrirgef oss vorar syndir — En ef tMr ekki 
 fyrirgejith othrum, mun fathir ythar himneskur ekki 
 heldur fyrirgef a ythur ythar misgjorthir. 
 
 Dutch : Vergeef o'ns onze zonden — maar indien gij 
 den mcTischen hunne niisdaden niet vergeeft, zoo zal ook 
 uw Vader uwe misdaden niet vergeven. 
 
 As there is no other language that can give so fully 
 every sense and idea-tint of Greek words as the Sanskrit, 
 let us notice how it renders TrapaTrrw/AaTa and d/uia/jTias, 
 
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 Yathd vayami sarvdn apai'ddhinas kshartKhnhe, tahtd 
 tvamapi 'papanysamakam kshavictava — Yadi yuyam 
 anyesham aparadhan na kshamadhve, tarhi yusmakam 
 janakopi yusmakam aparadhan na kshamishyate. 
 
 Here aparadhan is the exact and full equivalent of 
 afiapTia^, from aparadh, to displease, to offend ; and papani 
 means sins, both in acts and dispositions. 
 
 Now, then, what can be the possible gain in breaking 
 up the uniformity of a petition uttered by so many hun- 
 dreds of millions in a hundred different languages ? Why 
 not obey the injunction of our Saviour, and let our yea 
 be yea, and our nay be nay, in the prayer he has taught 
 us ? Putting aside all the authorities here adduced, I 
 would ask those who urge the change proposed, if they 
 mean anything else or less than trespasses, when they 
 would ask the father to forgive our debts ? If not, then 
 why not let their yea be yea, and use the frank and 
 honest word which expresses what they feel, and what 
 they would say ? Is it because they are only conscious 
 of small defects, which they think fall short of trespasses, 
 that they object to the use of the latter word ? 
 
 These are a few of the reflections and questions that I 
 would commend to their consideration before they adopt 
 a word so wide of their real thought and sentiment. 
 
 AMOROUS SENTIMENTALITY OF MODERN HYMNS. 
 
 I wonder if the elder men and women of our various denom- 
 inational churches have noticed the contrast between the 
 hymns they sung or heard in early life, and some of those 
 which have become so popular in these latter days. It 
 would seem impossible that they should not be struck with 
 the difference between these modern hymns and those of 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 247 
 
 Watts, Wesley, Newton, Addison, Montgomery, and other 
 religious poets, who never made the divine persons, at- 
 tributes or subjects the theme of their songs, except with 
 reverent and chastened imagination, diction and metaphor. 
 They found full and ample scope for their best genius and 
 thoughts in the great fact that " God is a spirit, and they 
 that worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth." They worshipped him as a spirit, and to such wor- 
 ship alone their pure and reverent songs uplifted the 
 souls of those who sang or heard them. Not a figure, 
 metaphor, or parallel, or suggestion, alloyed this devotion 
 with the impure element of a carnal interest. While 
 they incited one to love God with all the capacities of his 
 physical as well as his intellectual and moral being, and 
 sang of a heaven for each of his triune natures, he was to 
 love as the angels love, and have only the angels' heaven 
 for his future being. They gave wings to no carnal de- 
 sire or imagination to ascend to that heaven for an ideal 
 of enjoyment. How reverently they approach the im- 
 maculate and holy humanity of the Son of God, never 
 touching the hem of his purity with the pulse or breath 
 of a sensuous sentiment ! 
 
 Contrast their chaste, devotional hymns, which once 
 were as wings to the spiritual worship of millions, with 
 some of the most modern and popular religious songs now 
 sung and heard in our churches and chapels — songs which, 
 in sensuous phrase, figure and suggestion, outdo the amor- 
 ous sentimentality of the most sensational novels. Indeed, 
 the language, metaphor and style of some of these songs, 
 called religious hymns, cannot have been borrowed from 
 novels, but from a more sensuous source. So many of 
 them are full of the gush of voluptuous sentiment or 
 language, that it might seem to exempt the rest to notice 
 one of their class. But, as it seems to be one of the most 
 popular at our chapel meetings, let us glance at the one 
 that begins' with : 
 
 "Safe in the arms of Jesus, 
 Safe on his gentle breast." 
 
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 Now WO nmsfc confess that there are sensational uovcIh 
 that could suggest the language and sentiment of the first 
 line of this couplet. Some of them may make a romantic 
 girl, crossed, let and hindered in the stnmg current of her 
 passionate attachment, sigh and pray, even in rhyme, to 
 be " safe in the arms " of her lover. But no novel would 
 be so indecent as to make her sing the next line before, or 
 even after marriage. And neither in fiction nor else- 
 where does the most tender and affectionate son sing or 
 sigh to be safe on his father's breast. Such figures of 
 speech are unknown to the sentiments and language of 
 manhood. 
 
 The same oriental metaphor, or measure of sensual en- 
 joyment, is the theme of many other hymns written to 
 aid and elevate our spiritual worship. The four verses of 
 one of these devotional lyrics begin each with 
 
 "There's rest on the booom of Jesus." 
 
 Here we have on again, not near. Even Bonar, the 
 purest and most poetical hymn- writer of the day, does 
 not hesitate to employ these sensuous figures to represent 
 the communion of a converted soul with its Saviour. Ho 
 not only puts those figures into the lips of both men and 
 women, but, with more than Milton's license, into the 
 holy lips of the Son of God himself ; for example : 
 
 " I heard the voice of Jesus say, 
 
 Come unto me and rest ; 
 Lay down thou weary one, lay down 
 
 Thy head upon my breast." 
 
 Now it is evident that this distinguished writer takes his 
 first two lines from Christ's own words while on earth. 
 He did indeed say, " Come unto me " and " I will give 
 you rest." He said this to all that labour and are heavy 
 laden. But did any such language ever come from His 
 lips as the poet makes Him utter in the two last lines of 
 this verse ? Docs this sensuous paraphrase befit the 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 249 
 
 purity and dignity of the gracious invitation ? Indeed, one 
 may have no little cause to wonder how even a Christian 
 poet can think it reverent, and feel at ease, to put his 
 own words, of any kind, into the mouth of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Then another popular hymn seems to make a romantic, 
 love-sick shepherdess ask Christ, as a shepherd with 
 crook and pipe, where He makes His flock to rest at 
 noon, and why He has left her to mourn His absence, and 
 ask other questions which might be addressed by an 
 enamoured maiden to her tardy lover. 
 
 Now I wonder if a considerable number of other minds 
 have noticed this characteristic of modern hymns written 
 especially for our chapels. If many serious and thought- 
 ful persons have noticed this, I wonder if they deem it 
 more helpful to spiritual worship than the hymns they 
 sung or heard in youth ? 
 
 THE HEROINES OF ENGLISH PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 The strongest forces in Nature are the stillest in action 
 and least demonstrative in being. How quiet are all the 
 germinating forces that clothe the earth with beauty and 
 cover and gladden it with golden harvests and all the 
 varied artistry of spring, summer, and autumn! How 
 quiet and invisible is the work of the sunbeams, that per- 
 meate the thick walls of great cathedrals and add inches 
 to their statures under the noontide heat ! How imper- 
 ceptible is the frost that gives to a quart of water con- 
 lined in a bombshell the force of a pound of powder to 
 burst the thick conclave of iron ! These quiet but mighty 
 forces in Nature have their correlatives and co-equals in 
 the moral world. If love is the sum and sun of God's at- 
 tributes, how slowly, gently, and almost imperceptibly it 
 permeates human society, expands and softens human 
 p 
 
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 hearts, quickening their best senHibilitie.s for woi'k of its 
 own kind ! Measured against the forces which press to 
 the front of universal estimation, liow feeble are those se- 
 lected to do these great works of divine inspiration for 
 human good ! Truly the weak things of the world have 
 been chosen to confound the wise and mighty, who 
 thought them weak for lack of insight into the strength 
 of their faith, worked by love. 
 
 The woman-power that is now working in every de- 
 partment of Christian labour in Great Britain illustrates 
 the boundless capacity of those quiet and gentle forces 
 against the strongest holds of sin and misery that can 
 face the light of civilization. These holds, though cased 
 with granite or iron, yield to the permeating process of 
 that power. Nowhere else has that power been deve- 
 loped to such a capacity and variety of action. What it 
 has done and is doing in England is worth more to the 
 masses of mankind than all the pol i tical achievements or 
 programmes that are monopolizing the attention and his- 
 tory of this present living world. The woman-work in 
 England must become the work of every land and race 
 that would overpower the worst evils that afflict its so- 
 ciety. We need it in every town and village in America. 
 Its necessity grows daily in all our larger cities. There 
 are walls of granite, bars of iron, and gates of brass in 
 them all which no other power can penetrate, and loose 
 the victims bound fast by their own appetites and habits. 
 This woman-work in England has produced a literature 
 which ought to be republished and read widely through- 
 out the Union. The volumes that record its history bear 
 no sensational but truthful titles. How many Christian 
 women in America have read in their homes, and in face 
 of the vice and evils they deplore, what Miss Marsh says 
 in her " English Hearts and Hands," or Mrs. Wightmaii'« 
 " Haste to the Rescue " and " Annals of the Rescued ? 
 These books show the spirit, aim, and first fruits of a work 
 which is now enlisting the best sympathies and pei-soiuu 
 
HELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 251 
 
 ilevotion of thou.sands of ladies in England, of refined 
 culture and of high social position. And next to the grace 
 of God in their hearts are the graces of this very culture 
 to fit them for the work ; for it gives their hand, and 
 voice, and eye a touch that the most ignorant, hardened, 
 and vicious cannot resist. Indeed, these combined graces 
 of spiritual, mental, and social culture are the very vital 
 forces that give such power and success to the movement. 
 
 Every reading American man and woman has heard of 
 Florence Nightingale and what she did in the Crimea. 
 Perhaps many of such readers have seen her photograph, 
 and have been sui-prised to notice wha,t a thin, frail, deli- 
 cate creature she is. They have wondered that she could 
 go through such harrowing scenes of human suffering and 
 do such work for its relief. I wish the photographs of 
 other heroines of English philanthropy could be intro- 
 duced into all the albums that grace the centre tables of 
 American wealth and fashion. They would show what 
 weak things of this world have been chosen to ordain the 
 strength of Christian faith against the worst evils of so- 
 ciety. Every one of these workers, so feeble in fiesh and 
 blood,has made a history which would fill a volume, worth 
 a dozen of the best novels of the day. I should like to 
 interest the reader in the unwritten history of one of 
 these workers. 
 
 I had read Mrs. Wightman's " Annals of the Rescued *' 
 with deep interest. It gave the details of her remarkable 
 work among the working-classes in Shrewsbury. While 
 spending a Sunday in Cambridge, I referred to the book 
 and expressed much admiration at the labour it described. 
 My friends told me, to my pleasant surprise, that a work 
 of eq^ml importance was being carried on in a populous 
 suburb of the city by the daughter of one of the college 
 professors, and that she held a meeting that very evening 
 of working men. I hastened to the building and took, a 
 seat by the door, where I could see as well as listen. The 
 scene was one which few congregations ever presented. 
 
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 At the desk of the long school-room sat the young crea- 
 ture, hardly twenty-five years old, a delicate, fragile 
 thing, born and moving in the highest circle of refined 
 society and dressed as if it were before her there, in the 
 rough-faced audience of five hundred working men who 
 filled the house. These she had, as it were, led by the 
 hand out of the very dens and lairs of that low suburban 
 city of poverty, ignorance, and vice. Two by twos and 
 three by threes, she had brought them out of these living 
 graves, where they had been bound and tormented by 
 the worst fiends of that legion of evil spirits which our 
 Saviour drove out of the poor man in Scripture. They 
 could not but follow when that voice so tender and that 
 hand so gentle touched them in their bonds. And here 
 were five hundred of them sitting before her, clothed and 
 in their right mind, looking up meekly into her face, as if 
 it were the face of an angel. And it was to them a better 
 face than any angel ever showed to mankind. Tt was all 
 alight with the glow of tender sympathy with their hu- 
 man conditions, with a sentiment no being could feel who 
 had not tasted the varied draughts of human experience. 
 And, as she stood up and looked into those sun-burnt, 
 hard, swart faces, many of them bearing scars of the vice 
 and misery from which they had been uplifted, she spoke 
 as never Tnan spoke, as never Tnan can speak, as only 
 such a woman's heart and voice and eye could speak. 
 
 I have listened to the most eminent revivalist preachers 
 in America and to many of the most impressive ministers 
 in England ; but I never heard an address more calcu- 
 lated to melt an audience of common men than hers, and 
 I never saw an audience more deeply moved. In diction 
 and argument it was beautiful and powerful, but in fer- 
 vour and pathos it was indescribable. I cannot recall a 
 passage entire ; but one I shall never forget for the touch- 
 ing pathos of its utterance and for the effect it produced 
 on the congregation. She had alluded to the case of 
 Rush, the murderer, who was once so impressed with reli- 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 253 
 
 gious convictions that his stout frame trembled from head 
 to foot under his minister's preaching. But he had put 
 aside these impressions, and turned away into the awful 
 course that brought him to the scaffold. His minister, at 
 its foot, had said to the impenitent criminal : " Farewell 
 forever ! " Havinin^ dwelt upon tho course and end of 
 the raurderer-^once so near the threshold of salvation — 
 she said, Avith the deepest emotion : " I have been think- 
 ing all the w^eek of you, costermongers, and of you, co- 
 prolite diggers, fearing that you might be thrown from 
 your carts or buried under an avalanche of rocks, and 
 that you would be brought to your homes with your 
 bruised and broken limbs. And whom would you send 
 for first ? Why, for me, of course ; and I should go to 
 you, and find your weak, distracted thoughts too feeble 
 and wandering to take hold of God and Christ, and I 
 should bury my face in the bed-clothes and say : "Fare- 
 well forever ! " The best painter, with a thousand strokes 
 of hip pencil, could not portray a more vivid and touching 
 scene than these few simple words pictured before the 
 eyes of those working men, and scores of them filled with 
 tears they could not conceal. The last passage of her 
 address was more affecting still for the voice, feeling, 
 look, and motion of the speaker. Stretching out her thin 
 and trembling hands toward the hundreds who had hung 
 their hearts on her lips, she seemed to throw her whole 
 soul into this utterance, as if it were to be her last to 
 them : " Brothers, come ! Lay your hands in these feeble 
 ones, which have been so often wrung in secret prayer 
 for your salvation, and let us all go home together to our 
 Father's house ! " 
 
 Such hands as those washed the thorn-prints from the 
 brow of the crucified Saviour ; and such hands he is using 
 now to lead up into his great salvation multitudes that 
 have hitherto been left to perish as reprobate and hope- 
 less beyond recovery — beyond the scope and reach of 
 grace itself. Such hands are at this great and holy work 
 
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 day and night. Soft and noiseless, in the dwellings of 
 the poor and fallen they are at work; and, following their 
 leading, dark-faced, stalwart men, who for half a long 
 life's length thought of no God and no Heaven but the 
 appetites that enslaved them and the gin-shop in which 
 they worshipped them, are now entering in pilgrim bands 
 the wicket-gate of a new existence, singing among the 
 sceneries of Christian faith and hope by the way the same 
 old songs that Bunyan's Pilgrim hymned on the road to 
 the Celestial City. 
 
 But the life-work of this delicate young woman was 
 not confined to such fervid and melting eloquence at the 
 desk. It was not the distant Heaven above to which she 
 laboured to lift and lead them. Her sympathy and sleep- 
 less watch for them in these lower walks of life were 
 equally tender and devoted. What she felt and did to 
 this end she thus describes in a letter which I received 
 from her, soon after the meeting referred to, in answer to 
 some expression of admiration at her work : 
 
 ** Of course, it is very exceptional work for a woman 
 to do ; but ray excuse is that our rough Barnwell men 
 could not be got at by ordinary means, and were living 
 without God and without hope, until, in love for my 
 Redeemer, I tried to gather them together. The results 
 are, indeed, wonderful. Many of the vilest are now de- 
 vout men, full of the Holy Ghost ; my especial pride and 
 joy being, I think, ' the Devil of Barnwell,' for such was 
 he called for his outrageous wickedness. He is now in- 
 valuable as a missionary among the worst, never, strange 
 to say, having once swerved from the narrow path that 
 leads to life, after he first started. Still the fact remains 
 of 80 public houses to a population of a little upward of 
 3,000 ; that is to say, a public-house for every forty per- 
 sons, including women and children. So we are deter- 
 mined at once to begin to collect funds for a small Work- 
 ing Men's Hall, which shall afford them society without 
 sin, and re-creation of mind without ruin of soul. For 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 255 
 
 these men have noble stiftf in them when once they get 
 the grace of God in their hearts." 
 
 If ever " Ichovre est orare" is true, it is so with such 
 work and workers This young woman had the greatest 
 repugnance to any publicity given to her efforts. When 
 writing a little book on this woman-work in England, 
 the proceeds of which were to be given to her enterprise, 
 she insisted that I should neither mention her name nor 
 the name of the town in which she was labouring with 
 such devotion and success. Still she could not hide so 
 much light made in darkness under a bushel. It would 
 and did get abroad, little by little. Her appeal for help 
 to private circles was responded to most generously. In- 
 stead of a small hall, a large and elegant building was the 
 result — a veritable working men's club-house, as well as 
 hall — where they could and did enjoy all her heart could 
 wish of " society without sin and recreation of mind 
 without ruin of soul." But she never was permitted to 
 speak in the large hall thus built at her appeal. Her 
 flesh and blood failed her at the moment of this consum- 
 mation. Her voice, so eloquent and inspired, was stifled 
 by disease of the throat. For several years she has been 
 living by the sea, an invalid, plying her pen to do a little 
 of the work her tongue can no longer perform. All the 
 little books she has written in these years of prostration 
 and suffering she has consecrated to the same mission of 
 benevolence. One whom her example led into the same 
 field of effort, in a letter just received, thus refers to her 
 tireless labours of love : " I went with my family to 
 Freshwater ; and there, to my pleasure, found Ellice es- 
 tablished. She was busy writing — slaving for Miss Robin- 
 son ; and was finishing a little story in aid of the Blind 
 School. Her devotion so worked on me that I have been 
 obliged to do a little for Miss Robinson too." And who 
 is Miss Robinson and what is her work ? 
 
 This she is and does. " She herself fights a daily battle 
 with pain and weariness which has few parallels in the 
 
256 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 annals of even sainthood, since she suffers from spinal 
 curvature, that would condemn most women to an invalid 
 couch, and is only enabled to do her active work by the 
 aid of a steel support — a strange armour in which to go 
 forth to such conflict — a war with evils before which the 
 stoutest heart and the strongest frame might alike fail. 
 But to this conflict her whole energies are devoted, and, 
 living after this manner, for such a purpose, it is not 
 likely that she can fail in what she undertakes." No ; 
 it is not likely she can fail, as the young lady thus 
 " obliged to do a little for her " writes and believes. What 
 is it this young lady, upheld on her feet by steel support 
 and fighting such battles with weariness and pain, has 
 undertaken to do ? Only " to establish a Soldiers' Home 
 and Institute at Portsmouth," that great military and 
 naval port, " where there are one thousand beer-shops 
 and gin-palaces offering to the soldiers all the temptations 
 to which he most easily yields, and where there is not a 
 single place to which a decent, sober man can go for in- 
 nocent refreshment and recreation." She only wants 
 $20,000, and as yet only one-ralf of this trifling amount 
 has been collected, says this other girl's appeal for her. 
 Only twenty thousand dollars ! Of course she will get it 
 for her Soldiers' Home, for she is known far and wide as 
 " the soldiers' friend," her doings are recorded in official 
 blue-books, and the daily papers have recently recorded 
 her successful work in the camp at Dartmoor. 
 ' Such is some of the woman- work now going forward 
 in England, and such are many of the workers engaged 
 in it. What a field for both have we not in all our large 
 towns and cities ! 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 257 
 
 THE ZONE OF THE WISHING DAY. 
 
 There are few children in our common schools who do 
 not know what zones mean, and what and how many 
 there are. They describe them on the map or globe. They 
 can tell us how wide is each, and what countries around 
 the earth lie within it, and what kind of weather they 
 have through the year. Some of them, a little more ad- 
 vanced, can tell us what kind of people live in these zones, 
 the languages they speak, the colour of their faces, the 
 names of their largest cities, longest rivers, and highest 
 mountains; Every boy and girl thinks that the North 
 Temperate Zone is the best, broadest belt around the 
 Globe ; that the best people in the world live in it ; that it 
 has the best climate, animals, birds and bees, and the best 
 things that grow out of the ground. Indeed, many 
 children may wonder how good people can live and be 
 happy in the Frigid or Torrid Zone. 
 
 But fev/ children who have studied geography in our 
 schools, and few of their teachers, have ever traced out on 
 the globe they use a broader zone than the Temperate or 
 Torrid, or both put together ; a zone that is not bounded 
 by degrees of latitude, or of heat or cold. This is the 
 Christmas Belt, or the Zone of the Wishing-Day, and it 
 has broadened and broadened through the centitVies since 
 the angels wished the world a Merry Christmas over the 
 manger-cradle of the Christ-Baby, until it now takes in 
 all the earth's zones between the poles. It has broadened 
 slowly but steadily until it is this very year wider than 
 the sun's track of light. For in those cold countries of 
 snow and ice towards the pole, which the sun does not 
 visit in winter, and where there are no mornings for 
 months, in huts half-buried in the earth are heard from 
 hearts warm with parental and filial affection, " 1 wish you 
 a Merry Christmas ! " Not in our tongue is it spoken, 
 but in one the Universal Father understands as well as 
 ours. Perhaps it is in the language of the Alaskan pea- 
 
258 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 sant taught the story of the Christ-Chiid l)y a Russian 
 missionary, or in the rude, rough speech of the Laplander 
 to his little ones in sheepskin jackets, or of the Esquimaux 
 of Greenland, as he sits before his thin breakfast of seal 
 oil. Widening downward to the ot'ier pole, the wishing- 
 zone takes in all climates, countries, races and tongues. 
 In every printed or written language on the globe, " I wish 
 you a Merry Christmas," finds its utterance. That ex- 
 pression or sentiment of good will is making its way into 
 all human speeches. 
 
 If the Christmas morning wish could emit a ray of light, 
 what a Milk3'^-Way of good will would surround and ill- 
 umine the world ! Beginning on the eastern side of Asia, 
 with Siberia, Japan and China, we might see it moving 
 with the hours around the earth, broadening and brighten- 
 ing as they awake the sleeping continents to greet the 
 morning of the joyful wishing-day of mankind. A divine 
 power as well as origin has given this happy day and its 
 memory to humanity. No coalition of human powers or 
 potentates could have brought it into the circles of the 
 year, and all the governments of the world cannot expel 
 it if they should combine their forces to that end. It is 
 safe from the war of hostile creeds, for, with their sharp- 
 est antagonisms, Christmas has become a day of common 
 meaning to them all. The Puritans of New England thought 
 they were* doing God service in their zeal and effort to ex- 
 pel it from the festal days of the year. But they found 
 that prohibitory laws and creeds were powerless against 
 the social forces of human nature when inspired bj'^ the 
 sentiment which made the twenty-fifth of December the 
 great joy-day of all the millions who had read the story 
 of Bethlehem. It is guaranteed to the future of mankind. 
 Its interest will grow with the growth and strengthen 
 with the strength of the Christian world. It is the Chil- 
 dren's Day, and as long as the light and music of their 
 lives are dear to Christian homes, so long will there be 
 " A merry Christmas " in the hearts and on the lips of the 
 nations. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN ON 
 THE LAW OF KINDNESS. 
 
 . THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 THE LAW OF LOVE— THE POWEB OF LOVE —LOVE FOR HATE— A KIND VOICE 
 — WEALTH IN FRIENDS— BIRD FRIENDS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM— A 
 dog's love for a child— THE DUTCH BOOB AND HIS HORSE- -A POOR 
 dame's way TO PAY FOB KIND ACTS— THE EAILWAY BBIDGE-MAN — THE 
 BRAVE MAN AT THE WHEEL— THE BBAVE GIBL AT THE OAB— THE OLD 
 DAME AND HER COAL OF FIRE— THE FRIENDS AND THEIB FAITH— THE 
 MEN OF PEACE AND THEIR STRENGTH— ONE MAY SAVE IF NOT GIVE 
 LIFE— KIND WORK IN SMALL THINGS -HOW SMALL ACTS TELL ON LIFE 
 —THOUGHTS FOB HOME LIFE. 
 
 JjT/g OVE makes its own law, and writes it on the heart 
 ^ jl^i in which it breathes and lives. No book in the 
 world would be so large as to hold all the laws 
 that love would write, if it told us at once all that we 
 should feel, think, say and do for man all the days of our 
 life. The ten laws that God wrote on stone ate fuJl of 
 nots. All of them but one tell us what we shall not do. 
 But when God puts his love in the heart of a man, it 
 writes there with its own pen what he shall do to all who 
 live near him, or whom he deals with or meets. He loves 
 them not for the cause that God tells him he must do so. 
 Good will to them is the breath of his own soul ; and his 
 soul must breathe though it is not told to do so. 
 
 This, then, is the law of love in the heart and life. It 
 is not put in words. It does not tell a man how or when 
 he shall think a kind thought, speak a kind word, or do 
 a kind act, no more than he needs to tell his lungs when 
 to breathe, or his blood when to run or stop in his veins. 
 This law acts of its own self, just as the heart does when 
 it beats or sends the blood to the brain. Quick as thought 
 
260 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 can move, it fills the eye with a sweet light which no law 
 put in cold words could make to shine there. It gives a 
 kind tone to the voice which mere words could not teach 
 the tongue or lips to breathe. It gives to the hand a 
 warmth that the bare blood does not make, and which 
 the man who folds it in his feels all the way to his own 
 heart. i ;• ":? ^ ■■ < , 
 
 So love has its light, its life, and law. Heaven is 
 called a world of light. The best Book says there is no 
 night there ; that the face of God is the sun that fills it 
 with a day that can have no end. Now all the hearts 
 that burn with his love here are lamps that shine with 
 the same light that his face gives out to all who live in 
 heaven. And the earth grows more like heaven the more 
 of such lamps are lit on it. And a child's heart may hold 
 as much of God's love, and make as bright a lamp of its 
 light, as the heart of man in the prime of life. For an old 
 man, if he dies with none of this love in him, dies a child 
 at the dawn of life. He has not lived at all in the best 
 sense. He has lived a mere mole in the ground. 
 
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 ' THE POWER OF LOVE. 
 
 Love has more than light, life, and law. A man may 
 smile with it, and breathe with it in his looks, words and 
 acts ; and it may tell him at all times what and how he 
 should feel, speak and act to prove that he is led by it. 
 All this is true and good. But it is not all, nor the best. 
 Love has a power that breathes out of a good man's 
 heart and life on bad men he meets, and makes their 
 hearts soft like wax in the sun. 
 
 Love has a power to melt down hate ; to turn out of 
 the heart bad thoughts ; to fill the eyes that were cross 
 with a kind light ; to bring true and kind words from lips 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 261 
 
 that have loved to speak guile ; to change a man's life ; 
 to make him a friend of the good. The love that Christ 
 lights up in the soul gives one power to kee|l his own 
 heart ; to put down bad thoughts when they rise up ; to 
 keep his lips, so that they speak no words of spite ; to 
 keep all bad fire out of his eyes ; to keep his voice free 
 from a sharp tone ; and to keep his hand soft and warm 
 with a good will, when things are said and done to him 
 which it is hard to bear. This is the great power of love 
 — to rule a man's own thoughts and life ; to make them 
 bright with sweet light when clouds come up which else 
 would be dark and cold. 
 
 This is the best and first work of love in the heart of 
 a man, — to fill his own life with light and joy and peace. 
 This it is that makes a heaven for him to go to heaven in. 
 And this heaven on earth has God in it, just like the 
 heaven in which His great white throne stands in light. 
 For St. John, the good man who loved to lean on the 
 breast of Christ, as if to make his own heart beat with 
 the same pulse, tells us that he who dwells in love, dwells 
 in God, and God in him. No man had known and felt 
 how true this is so well as John. Love was on his lips 
 all the days of his long life. There was but a small step 
 to him from his heaven on earth to his heaven in the sky. 
 For God and Christ were in both at the same time. 
 
 So the love that Christ gives to a man to live, breathe, 
 and sing in his heart, makes him two heavens of joy and 
 peace ; one to walk, and work, and do good in here on the 
 earth, and one in the sky to rest in, and to see the God he 
 has loved and served face to face in a world that shall 
 have no end. He who has none of the love in his heart 
 that Christ gives, has no God nor heaven in him in this 
 world or in the world to come. How lean, and sad, and 
 dark, and hard must such a life be, though there were to 
 be no life but this on earth ! But how sad to lose two 
 lives that might be so full of peace and joy ! 
 
262 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 LOVE FOR HATE. 
 
 When a man has such a power of love given him as to 
 fill and rule his own heart, he may be like Christ, in a 
 small way at least. Even if he finds it out of his power 
 to love them that hate him and treat him ill, he can pray 
 for them. He can bless them who curse him and show 
 him scorn and spite. He may say what Christ said for 
 them that did worse than all this to Him : "Lay not this 
 sin to their charge, for they know not what ^ey do." 
 No one can say these words in truth, if his heart is not 
 full of the love and life that Christ gives. The thoughts 
 he is born with must be born all new, or his heart will 
 not breathe that prayer, though he may force his lips to 
 speak it. 
 
 Love them that hate you ! Who can do it ? Christ 
 did it ; and He tells us we must do it if we would be like 
 Him. If we are like Him we can do it. But why should 
 we do what it is so hard for us to do ? He tells us why. 
 It will heap coals of fire on the man that hates us ; not 
 to burn his head ; not to give him pain ; but to melt his 
 heart and make him our friend. If we put forth hate for 
 hate, then we make one hate the more in the world. This 
 is the way the world is sown with hates ; and no good 
 man ought to add to the crop. But if we give love for 
 hate, then we burn up with a coal of fire one of the crop, 
 and leave one hate the less in the world. 
 
 This is the work that Christ came to do in the world ; 
 and if we love Him, we must work with Him and for Him, 
 in the same way and to the same end. This is the proof 
 that we love Him. This is not all. It proves that He has 
 given us the power to be and do like Him ; for no one can 
 give love for hate of his own self. If all were put in print 
 that such love has done since Christ came on earth, a 
 houseful of books would not tell us all it has done for 
 the good of men and the joy of God. Think of all the 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 263 
 
 liates it ha.s burnt up ; of all the bad thoughts and lives it 
 has changed. Think of what it has done for the poor, the 
 sick and sad. Think of the tears of grief it has dried 
 up, ard the tears of joy it has brought to the eyes, and 
 the light and hope it has given to the hearts of young and 
 old, in all lands where Christ's name is known, and His 
 law and life are loved. What the sun, with its light and 
 heat, and the rain and dew, are to the earth and all 
 that gi'ows in it, the love that Christ breathes and lives 
 lor man, and gives him to feel and live, is to the world of 
 souls, and to all the peace, and joy, and sweet thoughts 
 and arts of grace that grow up in it. 
 
 A KIND VOICE. ' • 
 
 Light comes to us in the rays of the sun. So the sun 
 must have hands or eyes to give us its light. Life must 
 have a heart and veins to act in. Law must be put in 
 thoughts it writes on the heart to rule the life. Power 
 must have arms, hands and feet to do its work. Love 
 has all these to work with, and it can put more of its 
 light, life, law and power in a kind voice than in a kind 
 eye or hand. 
 
 There is no power of love so hard to get and keep as a 
 kind voice. A kind hand is deaf and dumb. It may 
 be rough in flesh and blood, yet do the work of a soft 
 heart, and do it with a soft touch. But there is no one 
 thing that love so much needs as a sweet voice to tell 
 what it means and feels ; and it is hard to get and keep 
 it in the right tone. One must start in youth, and be on 
 the watch night and day, at work and play, to get and 
 keep a voice that shall speak at all times the thoughts of 
 a kind heart. But this is the time when a sharp voice is 
 most apt to be got. You often hear boys and girls say 
 
264 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 words at play with a quick, sharp tone, as if it were the 
 snap of a whip. When one of thorn gets vexed you will 
 hear a voice that sounds as ii it wore made up of a snarl, 
 a whine and a bark. Such a voice often speaks worse 
 than the heart feels. It shows more ill-will in the tone 
 than in the words. 
 
 It is often in mirth that one gets a voice or tone that 
 is sharp, and sticks to him through life, and stirs up ill- 
 will and grief, and falls like a drop of gall on the sweet 
 joys of home. Such as these get a sharp home voice for 
 use, and keep their best voice for those they meet else -• 
 whore, just as they would save their best cakes and pioF, 
 for guests, and all their sour food for their own board. 
 I would say to all boys and girls, " Use your guest voice 
 at home. Watch it day by day, as a pearl of great price, 
 for it will be worth more to you in days to come than the 
 best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is a joy like a 
 lark's song to a hearth and home. It is to the heart 
 what light is to the eye. It is a light that sings as well 
 as shines. Train it to sweet tones now, and it will keep 
 in tune through life." » 
 
 WEALTH IN FRIENDS. 
 
 Rich and proud men there are who boast of their wealth ; 
 but they live and die poor in what one should most prize. 
 They go through the world, work hard, and scrape up a 
 great heap of gold ; and their lives and their hearts are 
 poor and lean. They have been just all their days, but 
 they have won no love from their own kind, nor of beast 
 or bird, by kind thoughts and acts. Such a man may die 
 with a house full of gold, but with no one to love him, 
 he is not so rich as a dog at his death 
 
 Now, a kind heart, hand, eye and voice will make a man 
 
T.ITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL f'lITLDRRN. 205 
 
 «vho is poor in gold ricli in a wealth that does him more 
 good than gold. These he may have and use day hy day, 
 and they will make him rich in friends ; and the love of 
 true friends is the best wealth, in the world. There is no 
 boy no)' girl so poor wlio may not be rich in this wealth, 
 which mere gold does not buy. A rich man with a lean, 
 cold heart has all sorts of coin in his purse or sti'ong-box. 
 Some are of great, some small worth. But he holds fast 
 to both kinds, and thinks much of them, for they make 
 up his wealth. Now there are all sorts of coins in the 
 wealth that love brings to him who lives it out in his life. 
 The friends he makes in his own kind we may call the 
 gold coins that keep their worth at all times. These 
 he may well count up day by day, and night by niglit. 
 These he may keep all his life long, if he keeps his heart, 
 eye and voice kind to them. He may have his heart and 
 life full of them, and feel rich in them, as a wealth full of 
 light and joy. 
 
 But there are coins in the bank of the heart's wealth 
 
 which though not so large, make up the small change of 
 
 life, and are worth much thought and art to gain. There 
 
 is the love and trust that a kind boy or girl may win from 
 
 beasts that work and live for man, and from birds that 
 
 would sing for him. This love and trust may be made a 
 
 joy to him all his life long, if his heart takes to it. It 
 
 will not cost him more than a few kind words, looks and 
 
 acts day by day, to make a host of such friends, and they 
 
 will make those he has of his own kind more dear to him ; 
 
 more than this, they will help him make more friends 
 
 among men, just as he may buy dimes or large coins of 
 
 gold with cents ; for a kind heart grows on all sides at 
 
 once. If it grows soft and warm to the dog, horse or ox, 
 
 and to all the birds that sing, it will do the same to men 
 
 whom he meets and deals with. So it is true that the 
 
 wealth in friends is not full if it counts not in its bank 
 
 the love and trust of beast and birds. In my next I will 
 
 tell you what friends a kind man made m these things. 
 
 Q 
 
266 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 '.:■■■ BIRD FRIENDS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM. 
 
 There is no man so rich in this world as he who has 
 the most true friends. And it is the heart of a man, or 
 the love that lives and breathes in it, that makes them 
 all, from the good God on his great white throne, to the 
 small birds that sing and chirp in the tree-tops and 
 boughs. All the way down from God to them, love in 
 the heart, voice and eye, has power to make a man all the 
 friends he likes or needs to have. And the least of these 
 are a part of man's best wealth, He may make friends 
 of the wild, free birds that will be a joy to him. He may 
 do this with no cage, and their songs will be more sweet 
 and dear to him when they are free to go and come when 
 they please. 
 
 I once saw a man at his home who was rich in his love 
 for birds, and in their love for him. He lived in the 
 midst Ox a deep grove, full of all kinds of trees. He had 
 no wife nor children in his home. She was dead and they 
 were gone. He was an old man with gray beard, blue 
 and kind eyes, and a voice the birds loved. And this 
 was the way he made them all his friends. While he 
 was at work on his nico walks in the grove, the birds 
 came close to him to pick up the worms in the fresh earth 
 he dug up. At first they kept a rod or two from him ; 
 but they soon found he was a kind man and would 
 not hurt them, but liked to have them near him. They 
 knew this by his kind eye and voice which tell what is 
 in the heart. So day by day their faith in his love grew 
 in them. They came close to the rake. They would hop 
 on top of it to be first at the worm. They would turn 
 up their eyes into his when he spoke to them, as if they 
 said, " He is a kind man ; he loves us ; we need not fear 
 him." 
 
 All the birds of the grove were soon his fast friends, 
 and 0ang their best songs to him. They were on the 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 267 
 
 watch for bini when he rose with the sun. They would 
 fly down from the green tree tops to greet him with their 
 chirp. When he had no more work to do with his rake 
 and hoe on his walks, or when there were no more worms 
 for him to dig up for them, he took out crusts of bread 
 with him, and dropt the crumbs on the ground. Down 
 they would dart on his head and feet to catch them as 
 they fell from his hand. He had a call for them which 
 would bring them to him. when he wished. He showed 
 me how they loved him. He put a crust of bread in his 
 mouth with one end of it out of his lips. Down they 
 came like bees at a flower, and flew oft* with it crumb by 
 crumb. When they thought he slept too long, some of 
 them would fly in and sit on his bed-post and call him 
 up with their chirp. They went with him to church, and 
 while he said his prayers and sung his hymns in it, they 
 sat on their green seats in the trees, and said and sang 
 theirs to the same good God who cv res for them as he 
 does for us. 
 
 Thus the love and trust of birds we^e a joy to him all 
 his life long ; and such love and tru'^t no boy or girl can 
 fail to win with the same kind heart, voice and eye that 
 he had. 
 
 A DOG'S LOVE FOR A CHILD. 
 
 I have told you how a kind heart, voice, eye and hand 
 can make friends and bring more love to life and light 
 in the world. In the day time God hangs but one lamp 
 in the sky, which we call the sun ; but it is so large and 
 bright that it gives all the light the world needs. But 
 in the night He hangs the same sky brim-full of stars, 
 great and small. They, too, are suns like the one that 
 makes the day for us. Each has its ov/n world to light, 
 
268 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. T 
 
 like our sun ; but each has a few rays to spare, and it 
 gives them to us in the night, and we love the light they 
 lend us. 
 
 Now the heart of a man or child, with God's b^^eath of 
 love in it, will not only shine like a small sun on young 
 and old of the same flesh and blood, but will shine at the 
 same time like a star on beasts and birds that God gives 
 us to help us with their strength, or cheer us with songs, 
 or teach us what is true in love. No thing does this last 
 like a dog. No love stands such a test as his. The man 
 who owns him may beat him near to death, but one kind 
 look, one kind word from that wrong man will heal the 
 sting, or cure the bruise. The dog runs to him with all 
 its old love and truth in its eyes. 
 
 When once at the house of a friend in a green, fair 
 land far from this, a man came in and told this of his 
 great dog. 
 
 When it was out on its walks one day, it looked down 
 into the small blue eyes of a child that lay in its crib on 
 wheels near a door. The child smiled at the kind eyes 
 in that black face so near its own, and the dog smiled 
 and wagged his bail, for he knew what the child meant, 
 and the child knew what he meant, though each had no 
 speech in words. From that hour the two were fast 
 friends. Each day that the child was drawn out for air, 
 the great black dog was by its side, proud and glad to 
 guard it from harm. He would watch it by the hour 
 from the far side of the street, while the nurse had it in 
 charge. 
 
 One day the child fell from a great height, and its brains 
 were dashed out on the paved walk. The dog saw it and 
 was the first on the spot, and was as deep in grief as if 
 he had a soul in him like ours, to think and feel. He 
 felt, in his way, as sad as we could feel at such a sight ; 
 for his grief was with no hope. He knew not that there 
 was a life to come in which that child's face should be 
 seen once more. His grief was so great that he could not 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 269 
 
 eat. He would go and lie by the hour on the spot where 
 the child died, and if he could have wept our tears, he 
 would have kept it wet w^ith them night and day. 
 
 The man whose he was, came to ask my friend for some 
 pill or some kind of drink that would make him eat and 
 sleep. 
 
 Such a friend did that child make in a dog with one 
 sweet look out of its small, blue eyes. Was not the love 
 of such a dog worth that look ! Who says no ? 
 
 THE DUTCH BOOR AND HIS HORSE. , 
 
 I KNOW not which a kind man can make his best friend, 
 a dog or a horse. He can make both love and serve him 
 with a faith and trust which should be his joy and pride, 
 as well as his good, to gain. 
 
 When I was a small boy and went to school, too young 
 to read, I heard a thing read of a horse that made both 
 my cheeks wet with hot tears. The man who owned the 
 horse lived at the Cape of Good Hope, and was called a 
 Dutch boor, or a poor man of Dutch blood who was born 
 on the soil of that hot land, and tilled it with the plough 
 and hoe. He was a kind man at heart, though rough in 
 look and speech. He loved his mare and she loved him, 
 and was with him by day and near him by night. She 
 was proud to have him on her back, and would dash 
 through swamps, ponds, and fire, too, if he wished it. 
 
 But one day came that was to prove the faith and love 
 of her stout heart and the soul of the man. A great storm 
 came down on ^the sea. The waves roared and rose as 
 high as the hills. Their white tops foamed with rage at 
 the winds, that smote them with all their might. The 
 clor.ds flapped them with black wings. Night drew near, 
 and it was a scene to make one quake with fear. Bight 
 
270 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 in the midst of all this rage and roar of wind and sea, a 
 great ship, with sails rent and helm gone, came in sight, 
 Tt rode on the high, white waves, straight on a reef of 
 rocks too far from the shore to reach it with a rope. The 
 ship was full of young and old, whose cries for help could 
 be heard, loud as was the voice of the storm. Their boats 
 were gone like the .shells of eggs. There was no wood nor 
 time to build a raft. The waves leaped on the ship like 
 great white wolves bent on their prey. How could one 
 soul of them all be saved ? 
 
 The men on shore could but look on the sad sight. They 
 could give no help. They had no boat nor raft ; and their 
 hearts were sick in them. Then the Dutch boor was seen 
 to draw near at full speed on his horse. Down he came 
 to the beach, nor did he stop thei-^^ one breath of time. 
 He spoke a word to her which si ; knew, and with no 
 touch of whip or spur, she dashed ii and swam the sea to 
 the ship's side with a rope tied to h r tail. She wheeled 
 and stamped her way on the white surge with a row of 
 men to the shore. There she staid but for a breath. At 
 the soft word and touch she knew so well, she turned and 
 once more ploughed through the suige to the ship, and 
 brought back a load of young and old. Once more she 
 stood on the beach, amidst tears of joy that fell from all 
 eyes. She stood there weak, as wet with sweat as with 
 the sea. The night fell down fast on the ship. There 
 were still a few more left on it, and their cries for help 
 came on the wind to the shore. The thoughts that tugged 
 at the brave man's heart will not be known in this world. 
 The cries from the ship pierced it through and through. 
 He could not bear to hear them. He spoke a low, soft 
 word to his horse. He put his hand to her neck, and seemed 
 to ask her if she could do it. She turned her head to him 
 with a look that meant, " If you wish it, I will try." He 
 did wish it, and she tried, to the last pulse of her heart. 
 She walked straight out in the wild sea. All on shore held 
 their breath at the sight. She was weak but brave. Now 
 
JJTTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 271 
 
 and then the white surge buried her head ; then she rose 
 and shook the brine out of her eyes. Foot by foot the 
 neared the ship. Now the last man had caught the rope. 
 Once more she turned her head to the beach. Shouts and 
 prayers came from it to keep up her strength. The tug 
 was for a life she loved more than her own. She broke 
 her veins for it half way 'tween ship and shore. She 
 could lift her feet no more. Her mane lay like black sea- 
 weed on the waves while she tried to catch one more 
 breath. Then, with a groan, she went down with all the 
 load she bore, and a wail went out from the land for the 
 loss of a life that had saved from death near a ship's crew 
 of men. 
 
 Thus dared and died in the sea the brave Dutch boor 
 and his horse. They were, as friends, one in life, one in 
 death ; and both might well have place and rank with the 
 best lives and deaths we read of in books for young or 
 old. 
 
 A POOR DAME'S WAY TO PAY FOR KIND ACTS. 
 
 No man, boy or girl is too poor, too old, or too young 
 to do kind acts. Such acts need not be great and brave, 
 as the world holds the deeds it crowns with praise. It 
 is the heart that one puts in a kind act that God looks 
 at, and which gives it all the worth it has in His sight. 
 
 Some few years since, the wife of a poor man who had 
 long been dead, though poor and old, paid for kind acts 
 done her in a way that I will tell you of. She dwelt in a 
 gap in the wild woods far from a town. Her one child, a 
 girl of twelve years, lived with her, and she fed and 
 clothed both with what she could earn bv hard toil. She 
 kept a large lot of hens, and their eggs she took to a town 
 ten miles from her small hut in the woods. She at first 
 
272 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 walked all the way, for she was too poor to ride on the 
 rail-road train that passed near her. But the man who 
 had charge of it came to know her as she walked by the 
 track to and fro. He was a kind man, and thought he 
 did no wrong to the men who ^wned the road when he 
 gave her a ride to and from the town free of charge. 
 All the men on the train were kind to her, and loved to 
 say a good word to hei'. 
 
 Well, the day came when this poor, old dame could pay, 
 in what was worth far more than gold, for all these kind 
 words, thoughts and acts. 
 
 Once, in the rough month of March, when the deep 
 snows felt the sun and flowed down the high hills in deep 
 and swift streams, and the winds blew, and the floods 
 beat upon the bridge that crossed a deep, black chasm 
 near her house, she heard a loud, long crash in the dead 
 of night. The floods, with their thick block of ice, had 
 crushed it like the shell of an egg. The night was black and 
 wild. The winds blew and the rain fell fast In one half 
 hour the train which had borne her to town once a week, 
 free of charge, would be due at the bridge. The life of 
 the kind man in charge of it, and the lives of all on board, 
 hung, under God, on what she could do in that half hour. 
 She did not waste one breath of time on the thought that 
 came swift to her mind. 
 
 She cut the cords of her one bed, and took the dry posts 
 and side-beams in her arms, and climbed up to the track 
 of the rail-road, a few rods from the steep walls of the 
 bridge that was gone. Her young girl took both their 
 chairs with a pan full of live coals. In quick time the 
 dry wood was in a blaze^ and made a light that could be 
 seen a long way. But the fire would soon go out, and 
 they could not feed its flame with the wet, green wood 
 in reach. The old dame took off her red gown, and put 
 it at the end of a stick, and stuck it up on the track a few 
 rods from the fire, and there she stood with a heart that 
 quaked with fear, 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 273 
 
 She had done all she could. Would it save the train 
 and all on board from a death so full of dread to think of ? 
 She will soon know. Hark ! it comes at full speed. She 
 hears it on the far side of a curve in the road. There ! 
 its great red eye comes in sight, and casts its light on the 
 rails all the way to the red gown on the pole. Sharp it 
 screams like a live thing on the edge of death. It quakes 
 with dread. A cry and shout run from end to end. The 
 men at the brakes bend with all their strength to check 
 the speed. The wheels grind so hard on the rails that 
 they strike fire in the rain and dark. They now turn 
 round more slow. A rod from the blaze of the bed-posts 
 and two chairs, the train comes to a stop. 
 
 On the black edge of that deep chasm, filled with the loud 
 Hood piled high with blocks of ice, the train stops. Then 
 all on board see what a death they have been saved from. 
 First the kind man in charge comes to the front and looks 
 down that chasm. Then he kneels by the still wheels, so 
 near its edge, and sends up his thanks through the rain to 
 God for His grace. The men with hard hands at the 
 brakes come and kneel by his side, and thank God with 
 hearts too full for words. Then all those on board, who 
 had slept up to the verge of that swift death, come and 
 kneel in line, and in a long row they thank God that He 
 has so saved them through the means of the poor old dame 
 and her young girl. 
 
 So you see that, in this case, kind acts paid for all 
 the thought, and for all else they cost. The man in charge 
 of the train, and the men at the brakes judged right when 
 they felt that they did no wrong to those who owned the 
 road when they gave her rides free of charge. Did they 
 not all get their pay for these kind acts ? and does not 
 this case prove that no one is so poor, or so young that 
 he or she may not do such acts in thought, look, word, or 
 deed ? For, sometimes, mere looks, thoughts, or words 
 are acts which take hold of the hearts of men and do them 
 good. 
 
274 ' CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 ' ' THE RAILWAY BRIDGE-MAN. 
 
 In my last talk I told you of the old dame in her hut by 
 the railroad, and how she paid for free rides on the cars. 
 You saw how kind acts paid in their own kind to rich as 
 well as poor men. 
 
 I will now tell you of a poor man who was set to tend 
 a draw-bridge that crossed a wide, deep stream for a rail- 
 road track. Small ships and crafts with sails passed 
 down this stream to the sea. When they came to the 
 bridge this man was to move it round as you would a 
 gate, and let them go through on their way. Well, one 
 day one of them had just gone through when the railroad 
 train came on to the stream at full speed. The scream of 
 the steam-horse was loud and sharp in his ears. He had 
 moved the bridge half way back to its place when he 
 heard such a cry as steam could not make. It was the 
 cry of his boy of four years whom he had let play on the 
 bank of the stream. He had gone too near. His feet 
 slipped, and he fell out of sight in it. Could a man have 
 two cries in his ears at once to pierce his soul like these ? 
 His boy was at death's door, and he could shut that door 
 if he would leave his post. It may be this was all the 
 child he had, and a few more breaths in the deep stream 
 and it would die. Think of that ! He thought of it ; O, 
 how he thought of it in one breath of time ! He thought 
 of it with all a man's heart could hold of love for his 
 child, but he had to think of lives as dear as his boy's was 
 to him. There were scores of such lives close to the door 
 of death, and in that quick death they would plunge if he 
 left his post to save his own child. 
 
 The brave, true man stood true to his post with the 
 two cries in his ears, and deep down in his heart. He 
 brought back the bridge to its place. The train crossed 
 it safe like a bird on its wing. Not one on board knew 
 what his life had cost the poor man. There were scores 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 275 
 
 in those swift cars who had dear young boys at home, 
 and home they went to take them in their arms, and 
 dance them on their knees. Bright-eyed ones they were 
 in such nice clothes as the poor man's dead boy in the 
 stream could not wear. 
 
 The brave and true bridge man went down to it with 
 all the joy and life gone out of his heart. He saw that 
 face so dear to him lie pale and dead in the slime, and 
 those bright curls that once touched his own gray hair 
 with the tint of gold as he held him to his breast now 
 blent with the coarse marsh weeds. He raised him out 
 of the bed of the stream, and pressed the cold form to his 
 breast. He would have been glad to give to him his own 
 life to see him live once more, but he could not do it. 
 The spark had been put out in the stream while the 
 brave, true man stood to his post to save scores of lives 
 as dear to their homes as the one he had lost was to his 
 own. 
 
 They did not ar d could not know how near they were 
 to death, or what their lives had cost him. They flew 
 past at such speed that they could not have seen the dead 
 child in the stream though they had known that it lay 
 there to save them. They did not and couli not thank 
 the poor man for what he had done. In their bright, glad 
 homes they did not and could not know how the light of 
 his was put out for their sakes. 
 
 So the poor man bore back to his small house his dead 
 boy. It was as hard for him to lay that form in the 
 grave as if he had owned half the railroad which he had 
 watched a such cost. But He who could not, or would 
 not save his own life, though He had power to save a 
 world, He knew what the poor man did, and why he did 
 it, and what it cost him to save scores of lives which, all 
 in one sum, might be worth more to the world than the 
 one he gave up to snatch them from death. 
 
 These are acts which are good for boys and girls, for 
 young and old, rich and poor, to read, to think of, and to 
 
276 , CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 love. No tales of war can shew such acts as these ; none 
 so brave, true and good ; none so void of self, so free from 
 the love of praise and fame ; none that God holds as pearls 
 of such worth in the lives of men. 
 
 THE BRAVE MAN AT THE WHEEL. 
 
 I HAVE told of poor men with brave hearts, who did acts 
 full of love to their kind ; acts which cost them their own 
 lives, which they did not count dear to them when they 
 saw lives as dear as theirs nigh to death. 
 
 I must now tell you of a man who did in his way what 
 was done by the Dutch boor and his brave horse to save 
 the lives of men from the jaws of the sea. His name was 
 John Maynard, and he too was a poor man, with a brave 
 heart, and true to his post, though it were in the face of 
 death. His post was at the wheel of a steamboat on one 
 of our great lakes, to guide it in calm and storm. And 
 in both he was true to his work. He came to be known 
 to vast crowds of young and old who felt sure when he 
 was at the wheel, that he knew what was to be done 
 and how to do it if the day was fair or foul. Though 
 rough in look, with coarse hair, and face burnt brown by 
 the sun, his voice, eye and hand were kind to all, and full 
 of love to the young, for the small ones at his own home 
 made the joy of his life. 
 
 Well, one day John came to the test that was to try 
 his soul, and to show the world what it was made of. It 
 was a bright, hot day in June. It had been hot for weeks, 
 and the boat was hot and dry from both its own fires and 
 the sun. They had a large crowd of young and old on 
 board. The land was in sight, and in less than an hour 
 they would be at the port. They had their eyes on it, 
 when a thin stream of smoke was seen to rise from the 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 277 
 
 hold of the .ship. One of the crew was sent down to see 
 where it came from. Soon he came up with a white face, 
 and said in a low voice in the captain's ear, " The boat is 
 on fire !" The men who stood near heard the word, and 
 it passed from end to end of the ship. There were casks 
 of tar and lard in the hold and on deck. The wood of 
 the boat was as dry as it could be ; and it was soon in a 
 fierce, red blaze. All went to work for dear life to keep 
 down the fire, but they could not check it. John stood 
 at the wheel in the black smoke with the last ounce of 
 steam on which the boat would bear. It was but a mile 
 from land. The crowd were now all crouched at the bow, 
 choked with smoke and scorched with the heat. One 
 fourth of an hour more and all those lives would be lost 
 in the jaws of death, if the boat could not reach the shore 
 in less than that time. 
 
 " John ! " cried the captain, " can you hold on a few 
 breaths more ? " John was at the wheel, with its spokes 
 on fire. His face was black and crisp ; his hands were 
 burnt to the bone. His eyes were. blind with smoke. 
 But his brave heart was whole. It was full of thoughts 
 of his wife and " wee ones " at home. But he could think 
 and did think of lives and homes as dear as his own. 
 " Can you hold on, John, just a breath or two more ? " A 
 thick voice came through the fire and smoke from the 
 wheel, "By the help of God, I will!" The lips from 
 which those words came spoke no more on earth. The 
 boat's bow struck the land. As the crowd sprang down 
 on it, the wheel-house fell in with a crash, and ,/ith it 
 fell the black corpse of John, who had stood to the last 
 breath of his life at his post to save the scores of lives 
 now so full of joy on the shore, that through his death 
 they might go back to the bright, glad homes they loved. 
 
 Books, which one would have to count by scores, might 
 be filled with the acts of poor men who have put self out 
 of mind at such hours as John Maynard saw, and who 
 gave their lives to save those from death who could not 
 
278 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 save their own selves. It would be well for the world if 
 more of such books were made and read. They would do 
 the world more good than a store full of the books which 
 are now most read. We need not go to those about war 
 to find brave men. No book of that kind ever told us of 
 a man more brave, or less of self in his heart, than John 
 Maynard or the Dutch Boor. 
 
 THE BRAVE GIRL AT THE OAR. 
 
 I have told the boys and girls who read these short 
 words I write for them, of the thoughts and acts which 
 poor brave men have shown and done for their kind at 
 the risk of their own lives. I must now tell you of a 
 brave girl who did an act which gave her name a place it 
 will not lose in the heart of the world. 
 
 On the coast of that land on the far side of the wide 
 sea from which we came, and whose tongue we speak, 
 there stood a tall house on a high rock, with a great lamp 
 at the top. to light ships and warn them in the night to 
 keep from the shore, lest they should dash on the sharp 
 crags and be lost. In that tall, round, white house, 
 crowned with its lamp, there lived a man, his wife and 
 child, a good, brave girl, with a kind heart for all who 
 risked their lives on the sea. She knew how to trim the 
 great lamp at the top of the house, and she loved to see 
 its bright light shine out far on the wild deep in a night 
 of storm. When the wind made the house rock from top 
 to base, she lay and thought of the poor men tossed on 
 the wLi' 3 waves, and of those they had left in their homes 
 on the land. She had learnt to ply the oar, and to keep 
 stroke with hor father when they went from their rock to 
 the shore to see their friends, or to bring food for their 
 small board. 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 279 
 
 But a night came when she was to use that oar as she 
 had not done in all her life. That night was black with 
 storm. The wind was fierce and loud on the sea, and the 
 sea was full of wrath at the wind, and dashed the high 
 white waves in its face. Both wind and sea grew more 
 fierce and loud in the strife as the dark hours wore on. 
 Oh, how slow they passed to the men on ships who looked 
 and prayed for the light of day ! Now they went up on 
 the white crest of the waves, which seemed to touch the 
 clouds, then they went down to deeps from which they 
 might well fear they should rise no more. In the midst 
 of the great storm, one large ship, with helm gone and 
 sails torn from its masts, went on the black, sharp rocks, 
 a mile from the light-house. In one half -hour the rocks 
 joined the winds and waves in their mad work, and broke 
 the ship in two. The hind part went down with a crash, 
 a groan, and a plunge, and bore with it scores of souls 
 whose shrieks could reach no help of man. The fore pait 
 stuck fast on the rock, as on a great spike. Nine lives 
 were left on it, and the sea, like a starved wolf fierce with 
 taste of blood, sprang at them with a howl. One on the 
 wreck was a wife, with two dead babes drowned in her 
 arms. She held them fast to her breast, as if it would 
 warm them back to life. 
 
 How slow the hours wore on ! Each was as long as a 
 day to the poor men who clung to the wreck and kept 
 watch for the morn. At last its first rays met their eyes, 
 but it was long ere the sun threw the light of dawn on 
 the scene. 
 
 There were three pairs of eyes in the light-house that 
 kept watch for the morn, and three hearts full of the same 
 thoughts for men and ships on the sea. In such a night 
 some of them must go on shore or sink far from the sight 
 of land. The dawn drew up the veil, as it were, inch by 
 inch. Those eyes swept the view with a quick, sharp 
 glance. Yes, there was a wreck in sight when the waves 
 went back to take their leap on it. They could see the 
 
280 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 forms of men on it, and the wife with her dead babes at 
 her heart could be seen through the glass. The storm was 
 as fierce and as loud, and the waves as wild, white, and 
 high as when they drove the ship on the rocks. 
 
 The man who kept the light-house was brave, and had 
 more than once put his life at risk to save those near to 
 death, but he at first shrank from this new test of love for 
 his kind. His brave girl, with a heart more stout than 
 his at such a scene, stood by him. She put her hand on 
 his arm, and said, with a voice and look that made him 
 blush for his first thought of risk, " Father, we must not 
 see them die. I will go with you in the boat." 
 
 The rough-clad man looked at the girl as if proud to die 
 with her in such an act. The wife felt the same. The 
 two were her all on earth, but she helped them to push off" 
 the boat that bore them on the wild sea, whose waves 
 seemed white with wi-ath. She stood and saw it, now lost 
 to the eye in the yeast of foam, now for a breath of time 
 on the crest of a high wave. The brave girl kept stroke 
 with her oar, and her heart grew stout as they rose and 
 sunk. Each time they rose they were more near to the 
 wreck. Soon they could hear the shout of the men on 
 board, and see their hands put forth for help. Yard by 
 yard, rod by rod, the boat drew near to save them, and 
 they could see who were in it. Now it was in reach of 
 the wreck, and as it rose and fell by its side one by one 
 they dropped to its hold. The wife with her two dead 
 babes was brought down safe, and she found in the brave 
 girl what they all saw and felt, one made and sent by God 
 to do a work which his angels of love and help that fly on 
 wings might well be glad to do. 
 
 Now what makes the act of this young girl a pearl of 
 great price in the deeds which the world holds in its best 
 wealth, is the fact that she did not do it for the praise 
 which comes from man. She had no such thought in her 
 heart when she and her father put out on the wild sea on 
 that gray mom. If no one in the world but he and those 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 281 
 
 whom they brought from the wreck were to know what 
 she did, she would have done it with the same joy at the 
 act. But it was known all through the world. The 
 Queen heard of it, and felt that it set a new star in her 
 crown and a new pride in her heart that such souls were 
 found in the poor of her realm. 
 
 Ships have borne her name, and showed it with pride 
 at their prows at the ports of far-off lands. 
 
 Now, my young friends, can all of you, can one of you, 
 tell her name ? If not, ask those who can. 
 
 THE OLD DAME AND HER COAL OF FIRE. 
 
 The Good Book tells how to treat those who wrong us ; 
 how to melt down the hate or scorn in their hearts and 
 make them our fast friends. It is to do good to them ; to 
 give soft words for sharp words, and kind acts for bad 
 acts ; and we are told that such kind thoughts, words, 
 and acts, will bo like coals of fire on the heads of those 
 who treat us ill and hate us. But if such kind acts should 
 not do this, none the less must we keep to them, just as 
 Christ did and told us to do the same, though they should 
 not change the mind of those who wrong us by word or 
 deed. But few men are so hard of heart as to stand out 
 when we give them love for hate, good for bad acts. 
 
 There was once a poor old dame who had her fruit stand 
 near the park in New York, and she stood by it day and 
 night, in cold and heat, all the year round, and lived and 
 fed and clothed her small ones at home out of what she 
 sold at one or two cents at a time. She wore a poor 
 dress, and looked as if her lot was hard in life, and so it 
 was. But she was rich in faith, and her face, though 
 brown and hard; wore a smile, and her voice was not sharp 
 
 R 
 
282 . CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 nor her eyes cross when much tried by bad boys or worse 
 men. 
 
 Well, one night, as she sat by her stand in the cold, a 
 rough man of the sea, the worse for drink, came up with 
 a ship-mate as drunk as he was, and said to him : " Now 
 let us have some fun with this old dame. Just see how I 
 will make her mad and burst with rage." With these 
 words he struck her stand with his foot, and sent it off a 
 rod on to the sidewalk. Her fruit ran this way and that 
 way in the dirt, and was quite bruised and spoiled. The 
 rough man then stood and looked in her face with scorn, 
 to see if he could not make her rage burn and blaze Mke 
 fire. This sight was to be the fun he was to have in the 
 act. She looked at him with no hate in her eyes. She 
 said to him, with a voice soft and low, " My son, may God 
 forgive you as I do !" She did this in her heart ; he saw 
 and felt it in her look and voice, and with both she asked 
 God to do the same. What a change came on and through 
 him. Where now was his fun ? The coal she had put on 
 his head now made him feel its heat. It was not to burn 
 but to melt ; and it did melt him, till his heart was soft 
 and his eyes full of tears. His drink lost its power on 
 him. He came to a new mind, thought, and life. He ran 
 here and there, and picked up her fruit. He took out all 
 the cash he had, and begged her to take it. He begged 
 her to take his arm, and let him guard her back safe to 
 her home ; and as he urged it he said, " Why, I should be 
 more proud to walk home with you than with the most 
 rich belle in New York." 
 
 That was the old dame's coal of fire. She had read of 
 such coals in the Good Book. But if she had not read of 
 them there, if Christ had not said in words that she must 
 give love for hate and good for ill, she would have done 
 what she did, for the cause that His mind was in her and 
 must come out of her in just such acts as she did to the 
 rough man of the sea, who, in his drink thought it fun to 
 wrong her and make her mad with rage. Now it takes a 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 283 
 
 great deal of the mind of Christ to dwell in the heart of 
 man, boy, or girl, to make him or her act as did the old 
 dame in this case ; but all may have it if sought for in 
 truth and faith. And there is no one thing that makes a 
 man so like Christ in power as to have this mind that was 
 in him. Why, with it this old dame, as one might say, 
 put a new heart in a bad man, and, it may be, led him to 
 a new life all his days. . 
 
 THE FRIENDS AND THEIR FAITH. 
 
 There is a sect of men, on both sides of the wide sea, 
 who will not take up arms to light in war, nor hire, nor 
 pay men to do it. For this they have had much to bear. 
 They have been put in jail ; their goods have been sold to 
 pay the fines put on them for their faith in Christ's words, 
 which, they are sure, teach that no one who loves Him, 
 and loves men as he did, can raise the hand to kill one for 
 whom He died. There was once a great war in Ireland, 
 where men of the same race and tongue, and who claimed 
 to have faith in the same God and Christ, fought like wild 
 beasts, slew, burnt, and worked the work of fiends more 
 than of beasts ; for beasts, such as wolves, but kill what 
 they need to eat. 
 
 Well, the Friends in this sad land and time, were in a 
 sad case. They stood there with a fire in front and rear, 
 and it roared and blazed on them as if it would burn them 
 u}). The men of war tried t,o drive them from their faith ; 
 to make them fight, now for this side, now for that. They 
 were as mad as they could be, and did all they could to 
 make the Friends take up arms. They put on them pcom, 
 hate and wrong of all kinds to drag them down from their 
 life of peace and good will to all. But these brave men, 
 of soft words and stout hearts, stood fast and firm to their 
 
284 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 faith. No fire, nor sword, nor door of jail could scare them, 
 for the face of Christ smiled on their souls, and they heard 
 His voice and step by their side, and He helped them to 
 walk with and like Him. He gave them of his power to 
 melt the wrath of theii' foes. And that power was love, 
 and it burnt like a coal of fire on their heads. And this 
 was the way it burnt : 
 
 The two mad sects who were at war could and did slay 
 and burn at their bad will. They made the land red with 
 homes in a blaze, and the sky black with their smoke. 
 But they could not bleed nor burn out the faith the brave 
 Friends had strong and warm in their hearts. These men 
 of kind eye, hand and voice could and did wield arms 
 with an edge too keen for steel swords to match them. 
 These arms were thoughts and acts of love to their foes 
 on each side. When a day or night of blood was done, 
 they would go out with their wine and oil, like him Christ 
 tells us of, and they would bend down, and, with a hand 
 and voice which He had made soft, would raise poor men 
 out of their blood, bind up their wounds, bring them to 
 their own homes, and watch and tend them, and say t^ 
 their sad souls words of cheer. With these arms the Friend 
 fought both night and day, and their foes, on both sides 
 had to yield to a force which their sharp steel swords' 
 could not cope with. They could and did slay with hot 
 wrath men who put their trust in swords, but these who 
 armed their hands with deeds of love, and put their trust 
 in Christ, and walked and talked like Him, had a power 
 which they could not break nor bend. 
 
 So it came to this : When the men of war rushed on a 
 town, their first cry was, ** Spare the Friends ! " and they 
 did spare them, and they were safe in the midst of the fire, 
 in the midst of the hail of lead and streams of blood that 
 fell and fiowed round them. Mad and beast-like as both 
 sides in the strife were, they would as soon have dried up 
 the springs at which they drank day by day, as to have 
 quenched the life of that love which Christ had put in 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 285 
 
 the hearts of these brave men, and which flowed out in 
 such kind deeds, the same to foe as friend. Thus did the 
 Friends in that time of hate, and fire and blood prove in 
 their own case this truth of so much worth, that, " When 
 a man's ways please the Lord, He makes his foes to be at 
 peace with him." 
 
 THE MEN OF PEACE AND THEIR STRENGTH. 
 
 " When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes his foes 
 to be at peace with him." So says the Good Book, which, 
 I hope, all the boys and girls whom I write for have learn- 
 ed to read and love. A nd these words which it says to 
 us have been proved true in the lives of good men in all 
 times. Now, no man's ways please the Lord so well as 
 when he does right, and is good, kind and true to all round 
 him. If he does this, his foes will li)e at peace with 
 him. More than this, he will have no foes at all. I have 
 told you how this was proved in the case of the "Friends" 
 in Ireland. It was the same with Friends in this wide, 
 wild world in the West, where the red man made such 
 long, fierce war on the whites who did not treat them well, 
 and whose ways did not please the Lord for that cause, 
 but who made the red men their foes, and put their trust 
 in the sword. I hope you have all heard of the great and 
 good Penn, and know that one of our large States was 
 called by his name. Well, he was a Friend, who crossed 
 the sea with men of his own faith in God, to build up a 
 State in that faith and love. He and they knew what 
 wild, fierce men held the land he wished to have. He 
 knew what long wars had been waged by them with 
 the whites, who came in years gone by. He knew 
 Tvhat they thought of the whites, and in what fear and 
 hate they held them. But he had full faith that if 
 
286 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 liis ways with these red men .should please the Lord, 
 He would make them live at peace with him. He saw 
 and felt it clear what kind of ways these should be ; 
 that he should be good, true and kind to them ; that 
 he should not cheat them, or take a piece of land from 
 them that he did not pay well for ; that he should make 
 them feel that he was their best friend, whom they 
 could trust at all times. 
 
 Well, the good and wise Penn thought just right. 
 These ways with the red men did please the Lord, and 
 He made them at peace with him and with the Friends 
 who lived in the same State, and held on to the same ways 
 when he had gone to his rest. When white men came 
 who left these ways and put their trust in the sword to 
 put down the red men who rose at their wrongs, the 
 Friends were safe in the midst of fire and blood. Scarce 
 one of them fell, though scores round them were shot 
 down and had their homes burnt to the ground. When 
 there were few whites who lived far back in the land, and 
 feared death hour by hour, day and night, the Friends 
 went out to their work with no guns, nor swords, nor 
 clubs in their hands, with full faith in God that He would 
 shield them. And He did keep them safe from death and 
 fear, for their ways had pleased him, and He made the red 
 men their fast friends. Not one of them lost his life who 
 held to this faith and these ways. There were a few who 
 let go their hold on both, and they were shot. When one 
 of them through fear or lack of faith, took a gun with him, 
 the red man took him to be one of the whites whom 
 they were at war with, and they shot him at first sight. 
 
 The life of Penn and his ways with the wild red men 
 of the land on which he built a great State, are good to 
 read. I should much like to write it all out in full, and 
 make a book of it for the " wee ones " of many homes. 
 But what I have here said may lead them to read more 
 in the large books of what that good m& i was, and did, 
 and taught by his ways that so pleased the Lord. 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 287 
 
 ONE MAY SAVE IF NOT GIVE LIFE. 
 
 All life of man, beast, bird, fly or worm is of God. No 
 one but God can give life. It is his great gift to all 
 things that move and breathe on earth, in the sky or sea. 
 No king nor man of might can breathe a breath of life 
 into a bird, bee or fly. But next to this great work of 
 God a child may do. He may save life, and see and feel 
 the joy it gives to small things that fly, walk or swim. 
 A man who sang sweet songs the world loves, said in one 
 of them, that he would not count his friend the man who 
 would put his foot in scorn or hate on a worm. For the 
 man who does that is most apt to do or say a thing to a 
 friend that shows a lack of kind thought. 
 
 These thoughts lead me to say a word of my own self. 
 I was the fifth son of a poor man who made shoes, and 
 fed and clothed ten boys and girls with his awl and knife. 
 His heart was brimful of kind thought for man and beast. 
 No child in town could be sick two days but that he knew 
 each turn for good or bad in its state. He would go a 
 mile when his day's work was done to ask how it was 
 with a sick babe, and I have seen him weep at the death 
 of one two miles off, as if it were his own. When a storm 
 of wind and rain came on and bent the great trees, he 
 would look out and speak of the men on the sea. In the 
 midst of the night, when the rain fell thick and loud on 
 the roof, he would wake and say with such a sad tone, 
 " It rains on their gi'aves ! " All his life long this thought 
 made him sad, — " It rains on their graves ! " The graves 
 fi.ve scores of years old, as well as the last made in the 
 churchyard in sight of our house. 
 
 His thought for beasts, birds, and all things that 
 breathed with life was just as kind. He would buy a 
 poor old horse on his last legs and keep him till he died 
 of old age, and then mourn at his death as if the beast 
 had a soul in him that God would own and bless on the 
 
288 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 far Hide of ^ho gravo, and the dear old man would dwelJ 
 on the tale the dead horse might tell of him for lack of 
 care and kind deeds. 
 
 In the far end of our home-lot there was the grave of 
 these old worn-out beasts, and he would go to it some- 
 times once a week to look at their bones, as a inan would 
 walk to the graves of dear ones gone. I have seen him 
 scores of times come back with slow steps and bent head, 
 with his heart full of sad thoughts. I can see him now 
 with bare head, black hair dashed with gray, brushed 
 back and stiff from his brow, with his " specs " tied on 
 with green tape for bows, and with his hands clasped at 
 his back. I hear his voice and its tone and sigh as he 
 told where he had been, and how he feared that the white 
 bones would move with life, and each dead horse would 
 speak to him and charge him with hard speech and deed 
 to them. Kind old man ! If they could have spoke they 
 might have called to his mind thoughts and acts for them 
 which he had dropt out of count. 
 
 I was the son of such a man, and fear I learnt of him 
 but a small part of what his life o\ight to have taught 
 me. But I learnt some of his kind thought for beasts, 
 birds and things with small lives which folks are apt to 
 think so cheap. It came to please me much to save one 
 of these small lives on the brink of death, and to see its 
 joy as it raised its wings and flew off to its kind in the 
 air or trees. I thought I had done the next thing to 
 what God does when I saved such a life. I would sit 
 half an hour at a time by a tub at the mill full of that 
 sweet juice that bees so much love. They came in swarms 
 from their hives all bent on a good load to bear home. 
 Soon one would risk too much, and fall in and try in vain 
 to get out. Its wings could not lift it out of the thick 
 juice, and soon it lay still on it, too weak to try once 
 inor6 for life. Then I would put out a straw to it, which 
 it would grasp with its small hands and feet while I raised 
 it out and laid it on a board in the sun. There it soon 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 289 
 
 felt the light and heat. It shook its wings, and l)uzzed 
 with new hope and life, then flew off to its hive like a 
 thing raised from the grave. I felt th^t that small life 
 was as near my own gift as it could be. I had saved it, 
 which was next in worth to what God had done for the 
 bee. 
 
 Such lives soon came to have a new worth to me, and 
 I found that 1 could not take them in the sports which 
 were so dear to me when a boy. I loved to fish and to 
 shoot birds, but one day as I put the barbs of a hook 
 through a live worm, a new thought came to me that such 
 sport as that was not quite the thing, so I dropt the pole 
 in the brook and went home. I still loved to shoot birds, 
 but one day I broke the leg of a blue jay, when he cried 
 with a voice so like a child's, and a score of his mates 
 filled the air with such screams of " Stop thief ! " that I 
 felt like a Cain with hands red with blood I had no right 
 to shed. So I went home a,nd felt that I could not find 
 sport in that sort of thing, and gave it up. 
 
 Now, boys and girls, so full of the joy of their own 
 young lives, are more apt to think less of the lives of birds, 
 bees, and the like, than when they come to full age. Why 
 is this ? I would ask them. How can they find it a joy 
 to put out a life that no one but God can give ? Let 
 them try the thing which I have told them of, and see 
 what will come of it. Let them see how many lives they 
 can save, and see if they will not find a joy in such sport. 
 
 KIND WORK IN SMALL THINGS. 
 
 There is a work each day and a place for small hands 
 and kind hearts to do. Some of these things are so small 
 that men may not think of them. But a good heart shows 
 its best self in small things as they are not done for 
 
290 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 praise, but just as one breathes, or moves and acts as his 
 thought guides him. The best life is made up of all these 
 small things, for they best show the heart that is '^a one, 
 old or young. The boy or girl who will not step on a 
 worm, or kill a bee, wasp or fly in sport, will show the 
 same mind in large things when the time comes to do 
 them. 
 
 Now there is a small thing I wish all boys and girls 
 who live in large towns to do for the good of scores on 
 scores of old and young. I have thought that ten legs 
 are broke each hour of the day in the world by the skins 
 of fruit dropt on the walks. In the night they are not 
 seen, and men slip on them and come down with all their 
 weight and break their legs or arms. To drop the peel of 
 such fruit on the walk is to set a trap for the limbs of 
 those who pass. How much pain this small thing, done 
 in sheer lack of thought, has cost men on both sides of 
 the great sea ! When I see such a peel of fruit on the 
 walk, as I do day by day, I say to myself, " Here is a trap 
 set to catch some one's leg and break it." So I strike it 
 off with my cane, and feel that I have spoilt the bad work 
 it might else do. 
 
 This is a small thing ; but will not all the boys and 
 girls that read this think of it, and do as I do ? Will 
 they not think twice while they eat fruit in the street, 
 and not drop the peel or skin on the walk, but throw it 
 oiF the flags, so that no one may slip and fall on it and 
 break a limb. If those who drop such peels on the walk 
 could see a man fall on them, and see him borne to his bed 
 to lie there in pain for months, they would think when they 
 ate fruit in the streets and not set such traps for the feet 
 of those who pass in a crowd. There is one thing more 
 a boy or girl with a kind heart may do, and it will do 
 them much good, and train them for life to do it. That 
 is when they see a peel or skin of fruit on the walk, to 
 kick it off and see it in the broad street where the wheels 
 will grind it in their ruts. This they can do in the wink 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 291 
 
 of the eye, with one quick stroke of the foot, and each 
 time they do it, their hearts will grow with a kind thought 
 which will shape their lives and make them bless the 
 world with good deeds. 
 
 This some may say is a small thing to teach boys and 
 girls to do, and some may laugh at it ; but there are few 
 things that could so well train them to kind acts day by 
 day. I will think that some of them will set out in life 
 in this course of thought and deed. 
 
 f,' ■-7 ;■•• 
 
 HOW SMALL ACTS TELL ON LIFE. 
 
 Some one has said that life is made up of small acts 
 and things. This is true of most lives. Few are the men 
 in this world who have the chance to do great deeds and 
 get fame from them, but no man has lived in the world 
 whose life did not take shape from small acts done when 
 he was a child. In one sense the man is not so old as 
 the boy, for he is the boy first, and in the soft years when 
 thoughts, words and acts take fast hold of his mind and 
 heart and give this or that course to his life. 
 
 Now, there are small acts that boys and girls may do 
 with no thought of what they mean or to what they tend, 
 but which may give their whole lives a course that wiU 
 take from them much of their worth in the world. I 
 have dwelt much on the thoughts and acts that show a 
 kind heart, and train it to good deeds and make them its 
 chief joy ; but there are acts which a boy or girl may 
 think too small to speak of, but which I wish to guard 
 them from. When I see a man do these things I feel that 
 if he knows what in truth they mean, his heart is not 
 kind, and that his life lacks sun and light ; and I am sad 
 to say that I see now and then men who think they are 
 all right do these things — men who claim to stand in a 
 
292 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCKS. 
 
 high rank, to have been to school all their youth long, to 
 have read books, and to know how men thus read and 
 taught should act. 
 
 Now let me tell you what I have .seen them do, and 
 what I want you to shun all the days of your life. I 
 have seen such men do these things in church. If they 
 did not like what the man of God said from the desk, they 
 would take up a book and read it right in his face and 
 eyes. Or if they thought he spoke too long, to give him 
 a hint that it would be well for him to stop, they would 
 take out their watch and look at it in his sight. Now, 
 to my mind, to do one of these things is just as bad in 
 thought as to rise up and walk out of the house. It is a 
 wrong done to him who speaks, and who tries to speak 
 his best for the good of all. It is a wrong done to him 
 who hears with such a mind. He who goes up to the 
 desk to preach does .so to pay what he owes to the man 
 who hears, to give him his best thoughts for his best good. 
 He tries to pay him that debt. He who sits in the pew 
 comes with a debt on him both to God and man. His 
 debt is to hear from the first to the last word what is said 
 to him from the desk. If he pulls out his watch or looks 
 in a book, holds down his head, or shuts his eyes, as a 
 sign that his ears are shut too, he spurns what he owes to 
 God and man. 
 
 And now I am on this line of thought let me say to 
 all the boys and girls who read these words, there are 
 things which may not seem so wrong as these which you 
 must shun at church. Some folks act as if the church 
 was a jail, in which they must be shut up for an hour 
 and a half, to be out of it as soon as the clock strikes the 
 hour. While they stand to hear God asked to bless them, 
 you may see their hands on the pew door for a rush at 
 the last word, and you will see that those who come in 
 last are first to go out. 
 
 In no land where Christ is preached can this rush out 
 of church be seen as it is in this, we think. He loves so 
 
LITTLE TALKS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. 293 
 
 well. What must He tliink of such acts ! If one hour 
 and a half in God's house on earth tires them so, how can 
 they wish or be fit to spend a life with no end in His 
 house in Heaven ! 
 
 Now, dear boys and girls, will you not think of these 
 things and learn how to shun all these acts and the 
 thoughts that lead to them in God's house ? 
 
 THOUGHTS FOR HOME LIFE. 
 
 I HAVE made now a score of small talks with the boys 
 and girls. I have told them much of the law of love as 
 shown in the acts and lives of those who did not think of 
 self when men stood at the gate of death, or in great need 
 of their help. I have tried to show how all, both young 
 and o]d, ought to feel and act for beasts and birds, as well 
 as for their own kind ; how that kind thoughts aiid acts 
 for things that have no speech but that of their eyes to 
 thank us, are well paid for in the love they show us. 
 When I first began these talks, I meant they should be 
 bright and soft with the law of love in all its paths and 
 proofs, in hope that all the young who read them would 
 let the same law rule their lives, and fill them with joy 
 and make them a joy to all who should know them. 
 
 In my last talk, I spoke of acts which I had seen men 
 do at church, and which I much wished boys and girls to 
 shun, as they were acts that broke the law of love and 
 the law of right. I hope they will keep in mind what I 
 said of such acts and not be led to do the like. Now I 
 wish to speak to them of acts at home which I hope they 
 will shun, though they see them done, day by day, at each 
 meal and hour. They are not wrong things. They show 
 no bad thoughts. The best of men do them, and are not 
 a whit the worse for it at heart. But for all that, I want 
 
294 CHIPS FROM MANY BLOCK?. 
 
 to urge you to shun them, for your own good and for 
 those who think them worse than they are. The first of 
 these small acts is to eat with your knife — to load its sharp 
 end with food and put it in your mouth with an edge on 
 each side for an inch in length. You may think this too 
 small a thing to speak of, but small things make a mark 
 which men are apt to bear with them through life — a 
 mark which tells how they were brought up in youth. 
 Go where you may, if you do this small thing as a guest 
 or host, it will mark you to your hurt in the mind of 
 those who sit near or see you. They will say of you in 
 their thoughts what they will not say in words : " There 
 is a man who wears good clothes ; he may be good and 
 rich, and know much too, but see how he was brought up 
 at home ! He eats with his knife ! " Now, no man, be 
 he good and rich, and well-read m books, can eat with 
 his knife and not have this and more thought and said of 
 him. Dear boys and girls, will you not think of this, 
 and learn now to eat with your fork and not with your 
 knife at home ? If you do not learn to do this at home 
 you will not learn to do it at all ; and you will go out in 
 the world with a mark which good clothes, a rich purse, 
 and a good heart and life will not hide — a mark which 
 will work to your hurt in the minds of those whom you 
 would like to make your friends. 
 
 I had thought to speak of two or three more small 
 things which all boys and girls should learn at home. I 
 wished to ask them not to cool their tea, but to drink it 
 from their cup, thus to shun a way which makes its mark, 
 too, on men as hosts or guests. But I have no more room 
 left for such thoughts. I must now say Good-bye to the 
 boys and girls whom I have talked to for years. Good- 
 bye means "God be with you!" and I mean this in its 
 best sense when I say it. 
 
"A Royal Road to the Study of Literature." 
 
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