THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL PETER BAYNE, M.A. Now we look upon Christianity not as a power which has sprung up out of the hidden depths of man's nature, but as one which descended from above, when heaven opened itself anew to man's long alienated race; a power which, as both in its origin and its essence it is exalted above all that human nature can create out of its own resources, was designed, to impart to that nature a new life, and to change it in its inmost principles. Nba,xdkb. Hold thou the good : define it well : For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of hell. Tennyson. EDINBURGH: JAMES HOGG. LONDON: R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS. p,u- EDINBURGH: PRINTHD BY J. HOOO. PEEFACE. In the opening paragraphs of his powerful essay on Jonathan Ed- wards, Professor M'Dougall remarks on the too extensive diffusion of the idea that evangelical religion, in its strict, personal form, comports ill with solidity and compass of intellect. In a course of somewhat desultory reading, I was forcibly struck with the preva- lence of this idea in certain departments of our literature; and it oc- curred to me that a statement of the Christian view of the individual character, together with a fair representation of the practical embodi- ment and working of that character in our age, might not be unat- tended with good. It was thus that the composition of the follow- ing chapters had origin. With the first idea certain others became gradually allied, and especially it seemed to me important that the position and worth of Christianity as a social and reforming agency should be, at least in outline, defined. The twofold statement and delineation which I here attempt was the final result. The first and third divisions of the general subject may seem not to bear a due proportion to the second. The disproportion is only apparent: if I may be permitted to speak somewhat pedantically, the relation between the three parts is that of stem, foliage, and fruit. The second part is biographic throughout: and in each of the IV PREFACE. Books into which it is divided, the working of the individual Christian life is intended to be represented. In the first of these, as I would have it specially noted, this life is manifested in the case of persons not extremely remarkable in an intellectual point of view, and who received their belief in the Christian Revelation in the natural way in which an accepted form of religion is trans- mitted from generation to generation, not through argument and unaffected by intellectual doubt: in the second, it is exhibited in the case of minds which will be allowed to belong to a high order, and in which the Christian faith became finally the pillar of cha- racter, only after having been more or less rocked in the wind of doubt. The first may meet the floating notion that Christianity is powerless with the popular mind: the second, that it has lost its grasp on thinkers. In the First Book of the Second Part, I treat also, though not, as I have said, exclusively, of the manifestation of Christianity in social life. In order to unite this endeavour with the general bio- graphic plan of the work, it was necessary that the men selected should be more or less representative of public movements or cha- racteristics. They are so: yet I have not been able to attain here a symmetry to yield me satisfaction. I must beg the reader, how- ever, to remark, that I refer only incidentally to what is strictly the national life, that which one nation has as distinguished from another, and that my object is the general structure of the internal social economy. A man in private life may well enough represent or introduce a phase of this. It was my idea and endeavour to represent the whole life of each individual of whom I spoke. I think that Mr Carlyle has demon- strated, that a biography can be given in the compass of a review article: his essay on Burns I consider, in the full signification of the term, one of the most perfect biographies I ever looked into: and the highest success at which I aimed, in a literary point of view, was the introduction into Christian biography of certain of the methods of him whom I believe to be the greatest biographic writer PREFACE. V that ever lived. My failure has been only not so complete as to hide itself from my own eyes. My relation to Mr Carlyle is twofold. The influence exerted by him upon my style and modes of thought is as powerful as my mind was capable of receiving: yet my dissent from his opinions is thorough and total. I believe that, without a grand rectification, his views must be pernicious in their every influence; when Christianity gives them this rectification, I think they convey important lessons to Christian men and Christian churches. Whether the streams that flow from that fountain are to spread bliss or bale, depends upon whether there can be put into it a branch from the Christian vine: and this, since no better has attempted it, I endeavour to do. Let it not be thought, however, that the following pages contain nothing but argument. Argument, indeed, does not very much abound. I endeavour to let facts speak. In delineating the Chris- tian life, moreover, one can never even approach truthfulness, if he regards only one aspect of character: Christianity, by hypothesis, makes all things new. The book is popular in the sense that I desired its style to be such as would please all readers: but I must beg to state that, in the first part, I endeavour to lay the foundation on the deepest and most stable ground. I have throughout abstained from quotation of book and page. The facts I state in connection with each man of whom I treat, are what might have been embraced in a pretty long review article. I state my obligations to the authors of the several biographic works I have consulted: and it will be no unimportant result, if my essay should lead to a wider and more practical use of the valuable and varied materials afforded by our now rich literature of Christian bio- graphy; from such a reservoir, streams might be led off to water many a particular field, and cause many a particular crop to grow. In my first chapter, and in the first of the Second Part, I speak occasionally with a decision and succinctness which may seem some- what assuming. I must excuse myself by saying, that I have almost VI PREFACE. entirely given results, and that I did not rashly satisfy myself of their soundness. I may mention that, in denning the nature of happiness, I do not mean to assert that the theory of Sir William Hamilton is identical with that of Butler, but only that they can be shown to harmonise. P. B. Edinburgh, January 1st, 1855. CONTENTS. $art I. Statement. Chapter I. The Individua l Lira , ... 1 ,, II. The Social Life, . . . .44 Part M (Exposition ano Illustration. BOOK I. CHRISTIANITY THE BASIS OF SOCIAL LIFE. Chapter I. First Principles, ... 51 II. Howard; and the Rise of Philanthropy, . 85 III. Wilberforce; and the Development of Phi- lanthropy, . . . 149 IV. Budgett: the Christian Freeman, . . 197 V. The Social Problem of the Age; and one or two Hints towards its Solution, . . 240 BOOK II. CHRISTIANITY THE BASIS OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. Chapter I. Introductory: a Few Words on Modern Doubt, 287 Till CONTENTS. P*ge Chapter II. John Foster, . . . .299 III. Thomas Arnold, . . . 365 IV. Thomas Chalmers, . . . 402 Part M. Cutlook. Chapter I. The Positive Philosophy, . . 481 ,, II. Pantheistic Spiritualism, . . . 501 III. General Conclusion, . . . 513 PART I. S&tzttmtttt CHAPTEE I. THE INDIVIDUAL LIFB. In perusing The Tale of Goethe, a piece which is wonder- in 1 even among the works of that supreme literary artist, and which his worthy exponent and interpreter Mr Car- lyle has deemed, no doubt with perfect correctness, a pic- ture, in the colours indeed of fantasy and dream, yet, to the seeing eye, nowise indefinite, of the whole future, attention can scarce fail to be arrested by the destiny there appointed for the Christian Religion. In the Temple of the Future, the little hut of.the fisherman, to which former and darker generations had looked for aid in every great emergency of existence, still found a place. The light of reason, entering in, breathed through it a new life and an immortal beauty. " By virtue of the Lamp locked up in it, the hut had been converted from the inside to the out- side into solid silver. Ere long, too, its form changed; for the noble metal shook aside the accidental shape of planks, posts, and beams, and stretched itself out into a noble case of beaten ornamented workmanship. Thus a fair little temple stood erected in the middle of the large one; or, if you will, an Altar worthy of the Temple." The whole passage of which this forms a part, is perhaps the finest a 2 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. illustration to be found, of a certain widespread and mul- tiform intellectual phenomenon of our time. In the higher walks of modern literature, an attitude is not unfrequently assumed towards Christianity which, in these ages at least, is new. It is concluded by the serene worshipper of reason or of man, that the Christian Religion may now be treated with that polite and complimentary tolerance with which a generous victor treats the distinguished prisoner whose sword he has hung on the side of his tent. We are told that Christianity is the highest thing man has " done," that it is the purest of earthly religions, that it has given voice to the deepest emotions in the human breast. Language, which reaches the gorgeousness, and force, and sweetness of poetry, has been woven into wreaths to crown it; intellect, which, in the width of its domain and the greatness of its might, suggests compari- son with the central power of imperial Rome, has shrined it in a temple, or offered it a vassal throne. And how are Christians bound to receive the haughty condescension of all this praise? They are not left without an example by which to shape their conduct; their fathers taught them how to act, in still more trying circumstances. We have not forgot the ancient offers, tacit or express, which were made to the religion of Jesus, and the wrath which awoke on their rejection. It might have obtained a seat on Olympus, a niche in the Pantheon of the ancient world; it might have sheltered itself under the wide wings, dropping gold and manna, of the Roman eagles. That The Crucified of Judea should be deemed mightier than the Jupiter of the Capitol, that the words of a few fishermen were to be esteemed more worthily than the ancient voice of the Sybil, and the mystic whisperings of a thousand sacred groves; this astonished and incensed the Pagan world, THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 3 this cut to the heart the pride of Rome. But the declara- tion of the smitten Galileans was explicit and unchanging: The gospel of Jesus is everything or nothing ; if true at all, every god and oracle must absolutely vanish before it. Our answer now can be no other than that given of old. Christianity either lives a divine life or dies ; until the concession is made that it is divine, in no qualified sense but to the express intent that it came down from heaven, no approximation is made to what it demands-. It will not enter that temple, arrayed, as it is, in the still artistic beauty of Greece, which Goethe has reared for it ; it either fades utterly, or that temple crumbles into the dust before it. There are but three hypotheses on the subject of the existence of the Divine Being, and our relation to Him, which in our time deserve attention; those of atheism, pantheism, and monotheism. Of the first of these, we do not now speak. The tone of unbelieving tolerance to which we have just referred is used chiefly by the disciples of that great school of pantheism which originated in Germany in last century, and the ramifications of whose influence, more or less disguised and modified, we think we can de- tect very widely in our present literature. Its principal philosophic representative in Germany was Fichte ; its greatest embodiment in our country is in the works of Mr Carlyle. The former of these may be called its originator, although it is our strong impression, from what we know of the Kantian philosophy, and from the fact that Fichte was at first a disciple of Kant, that its original suggestion was found in the self-contained and self-sufficient law, the categorical imperative, of that philosopher. We do not intend to enter upon the exposition of this pantheism. We consider it now in one point of view, in application to one problem ; and we mean to evolve the essential points 4 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. of its solution of this problem, in contrast with that which we purpose briefly to sketch, the solution offered by Chris- tianity. This problem is the formation of individual cha- racter, or rather the procuring for its formation a vital principle and solid basis. Long and careful study of the works of Fichte and Mr Carlyle give us assured confidence in defining the essen- tial starting-point and characteristic of Fichtean pantheism. It is its assertion of the divinity of man. This is of course broad and explicit in the philosophy of Fichte. It is not so clear and definite in the works of Mr Carlyle; that great writer, although giving evidence of a powerful in- fluence from Fichte, having experienced one still more powerful from Goethe, and having clothed his doctrines, not in the statuesque exactitude of philosophic terminology, but in the living language of men. It were, however, we think, difficult to conceive a more perfectly worked out scheme of pantheism, in application to practical life, than that with which Mr Carlyle has furnished us; and its es- sential principle ever is, the glory, the worship, the divinity of man. In our general literature, the principle we have enunciated undergoes modification, and, for the most part, is by no means expressed as pantheism. "We refer to that spirit of self-assertion, which lies so deep in what may be called the religion of literature ; to that widespread ten- dency to regard all reform of the individual man as being an evolution of some hidden nobleness, or an appeal to a perfect internal light or law, together with what may be called the worship of genius, the habit of nourishing all hope on the manifestation of " the divine," by gifted in- dividuals. We care not how this last remarkable charac- teristic of the time be defined; to us its connection with pantheism, and more or less close dependence on the THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. O teaching of that of Germany, seem plain ; but it is enough that we discern in it an influence definably antagonistic to the spirit of Christianity. The great point to be established against pantheism, and that from which all else follows, is the separate ex- istence of a Divine Being. We shall glance at the evi- dence of this in one of its principal departments ; a depart- ment in which, we think, there is important work to be done ; that of conscience. There has appeared, in a recent theological work, what we must be bold to call a singularly shallow and inaccurate criticism of Butler's doctrine of conscience. It has been spoken of as depending on "probable" evidence, and cer- tain problems which it enables us to solve are alluded to as momentous or insuperable difficulties. The former of these assertions seems to us plainly to amount to an abso- lute abandonment of what Butler has done, to a reduction of it to a nonentity or a guess. As Mackintosh distinctly asserts, and as might be shown by overpowering evi- dence, his argument is based on the "unassailable" ground of consciousness ; on that evidence which is the strongest we can obtain. Even the author of the Dissertation, how- ever, has fallen into palpable error, in treating of Butler; and we must quote the following clauses from him, both to expose their inaccuracy, and to indicate wherein consist that definiteness and that precision which the author to whom we first referred desiderates in Butler's masterly demonstra- tion: "The most palpable defect of Butler's scheme is, that it affords no answer to the question, ' What is the distinguishing quality common to all right actions?' If it were answered, ' Their criterion is, that they are approved and commanded by conscience,' the answerer would find that he was involved in a vicious circle; for conscience b THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. itself could be no otherwise defined than as the faculty which approves and commands right actions." Let us hear Butler: " That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action, is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with it, that it is our natural guide;" &c. This is quite sufficient. The supposed circle of Mack- intosh is at once broken. To the question, What is the distinguishing quality common to all right actions? our answer is explicit: The distinguishing quality is, that they are approved and commanded by conscience ; and, we add, the word " right " is that by which, in common speech, the common consciousness recognises them to be thus approved and commanded. To the question, What, then, is con- science? we answer, Not a faculty which approves and com- mands right actions, as if they were right before, and were enforced for some outlying reason, but one which claims a power, whether original or derived, to set apart certain actions, and stamping them with its approval, constitute them right. In one sentence, we think, we can sum up what Butler has done in this all-important matter. His doctrine simply is, that, by the constitution of the human mind, the essential characteristic of conscience is its power su- preme among the faculties, to adjudicate on actions; that the man who calmly interrogates consciousness, finds its declaration explicit, to the effect, that refusal to obey the dictate of conscience is a denial of his nature. Does this imply that man, by obeying conscience, be- comes infallible ? On no conceivable hypothesis. It is right, in a matter of inductive reasoning, to consult the logical faculty, and not the imagination ; a man who sub- THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 7 stitutes the fantastic limning of the latter, beautiful indeed in its place and time, for the substantial chain- work of the former, outrages his nature. But do we therefore say that the understanding errs not in the search for truth ? or do we consider the fact that it does often and grievously fail, an argument for discarding it from its office, and giv- ing the place to some other faculty ? Precisely so is it with conscience. The theory of its legitimate supremacy asserts not that it does not err: but it affirms that, in all circumstances, it is the faculty to decide on duty. We hold this precisely with the same degree of tenacity with which we hold the conviction, that, though reason may err, intellectual scepticism is intellectual suicide: conscience may not be infallible, but rejection of its authority is moral scepticism, that is, moral death. Butler shows the high- est point on which man can stand, in order, with his un- aided powers, to see God ; but can we for a moment allege, that the author of the Analogy did not perceive the fact, that this is but climbing to the top of a ruined tower, and that, though from its head we can see farther than from the plain below, the only hope for man is, that, gazing thence, he may see the dawning of the Sun of Righteousness? The above is, strictly speaking, all that Butler has done. The distinct and verbal testimony he bears to the fact, that conscience naturally refers to God, is in itself of great value; but it is of the nature of a testimony, not a proof; it has all the weight that the deliverance of the individual consciousness of one of the clearest and strongest thinkers that ever lived must be allowed to possess, but this is very far from equivalent to a demonstrative dictum of the uni- versal consciousness. Morality he demonstrated: to god . liness he bore witness. The numerous expressions of agreement with Butler in 8 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. his belief that conscience naturally spoke from God, can- not be considered, more than his own, as constituting any such proof of the point as he offers for the supremacy of the moral faculty. Dr Chalmers, perhaps the ablest of the writers who have thus recorded their assent, does, to an important extent, suggest the mode and indicate the materials of this proof; his reference to the phenomena of remorse and self-complacency is a very valuable hint; and his assertion of the fact that conscience points to the being of God as " with the speed of lightning," shows at least what has to be proved: but even he makes no stated attempt to connect the truth he asserts with the conscious- ness of the race, and thus vindicate for it a place in that fortress whose assailing is the assailing of the possibility of truth. Perhaps the greatest achievement now possible in ethics is, to connect indissolubly with the universal consciousness the fact that the moral faculty speaks by a delegated authority. We shall not pretend here to draw out the demonstra- tion which we believe to be possible. We 6hall merely offer two considerations, without fully unfolding either. We think that the second admits of being shown to be of itself conclusive. I. The human consciousness, as revealing itself in his- tory, has borne witness to the fact, that it is natural for man not to regard the voice of conscience as final. We here point to no particular system of belief: we care not even though the name of the religion was pantheism. We point simply to that one fact, whose exhibition seems co-extensive with history, that the human race has not worshipped itself. There has ever been manifested an irresistible conviction that the phenomena of conscience were knit by a whole system of relations to somewhat beyond and ex- THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. V ternal to the breast; that their meaning and efficacy were thus essentially affected. Did remorse cause the soul to writhe in hidden anguish? The hecatomb was straight- way piled, the altar smoked: some external power, be- lieved capable, in what way soever, of sending forth a gentle wind to calm and cool the troubled spirit, was ap- pealed to. Did a feeling of mild satisfaction breathe through the breast, in the consciousness of duty performed or nobleness evinced ? The present reward was not deemed exhaustive. Before the eye, resting afar, as on the still evening horizon of a troubled day, there beamed out softly the Elysian fields, with their tranquil rivers, on whose banks rested heroes, and their unfading flowers that breathed balm odours through the cloudless air. Every Pagan nation has had its mythology; and each mythology is essentially an attempt of the mind to shape out in visible form the several relations in which it believes itself to be joined with some external but invisible power. In one word, the conception of man as self-complete, as all in all to himself, as his own God, has been in all ages foreign to the mind of the race ; perhaps of no phenomenon could it be more confidently asserted that it is a universal habit of mankind, than of the tendency to associate inter- nal monitions with some great external reality or realities. II. This seems to be a necessary and demonstrable case of the action of the great mental law by which a cause is de- manded for every effect. As if impressed by God with a necessity of bearing testimony to His existence, every- thing within the realm of finitude, from Arcturus and the Pleiades to the tiny moss that clings to the ruined wall, presents itself to us with an irresistible power to compel reference to a cause. If we are to retain faith in mind, we must believe that, in the region of the finite, this urgent 10 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. necessity has a significance. Now, if the voice of the moral faculty is heard by the human soul as final, it is the one phenomenon within the bounds of conception which claims exemption from this law; it alone breaks the bonds of finitude. No such exemption can be pleaded; as surely as a monition of conscience is a phenomenon, so surely does it impel the human mind to seek its cause. The great his- torical fact we noted is thus at once confirmed and ex- plained. It is seen that it was a resistless necessity which in all ages urged the human mind to seek its Deity with- out. We do not hesitate to go further. We think it would admit of being shown that the law here acts in its most express form, and with clearest suggestion of intent. All nature bears the stamp of its Maker; but conscience names His very name. The above proofs, we are well assured, admit of being elaborated into an irrefragable demonstration, that con- sciousness teaches us to refer the commands of the moral faculty to an external authority; and if this is so, it will not be disputed that there is but One authority to which they can be thus referred. We conclude, then, that the doctrine of the delegated nature of conscience is grounded on evidence, of similar nature and like conclusiveness with that of its supremacy among our faculties: godliness is natural to man in the same sense as morality. Pantheism is a theory of God, man, and the universe, which cannot be denied to contain elements of great subli- mity: atheism can say nothing of the world, but that, for the living, it is a workshop, and for the dead a grave, nothing of the soul of man, but that it is the action of organism, and that the possibility of its separate existence is a dream ; but pan- theism, whether delusively or not, and at least in its popular representations, admits a theory of the world which is sub- THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 11 lime, and a theory of man which is exalted. When clothed in the chastened beauty of the language of Fichte, or wrapped in the poetic gorgeousnes of that of Carlyle, these-can scarce fail to awake enthusiasm; and it is when, with express in- tention or not, such writers cast a passing glance of contempt on the apparently dead and rigid universe of one who re- fuses to say that the All is God, that an entrance is apt to be found for those general modes of thought which are of the nature of pantheism. It were well, therefore, to look fairly in the face the express or tacit assumption of the pantheist; to contrast, with all impartiality and calmness, his universe and his God with those of the Christian. Ye make the great All a machine, say the pantheists, a dead piece of very superior mechanism: the tree Igdrasil of the old Norsemen was better than that; to look on the universe as godlike and god, how infinitely better is that? Let us consider. One mighty tide of force filling immen- sity, its waves galaxies and systems, its foam sparkling with worlds, one immeasurable ocean of life, swelling in endless billows through immensity at its own vast, vague will: such is at once the universe and the God of panthe- ism. The pantheist is himself one little conscious drop in the boundless tide, in the all-embracing infinite. In the branching of the stars, this infinite rushes out; in the little flower at your feet, it lives. In all the embodying of human thought in the rearing of nations and polities, in the building of towered cities, in the warring and trading of men it finds a dim garment; in the beauties, and gran- deurs, and terrors of all mythologies the grave look of the Olympian King, the still and stainless beauty of the wood- land Naiad, the bright glance of the son of Latona, the thunder-brows of Thor, the dawn smile of Balder it is more clearly seen ; the beauty which is the soul of art the majesty 12 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. that lives from age to age in the statue of Phidias, the smile that gladdens the eyes of many generations on the perfect lip and in the pure eye of a Madonna by Raphael, is its very self. You may look at it, you may, by effort of thought, endeavour to evolve it within you; but the drop holds no converse with the ocean, the great rolling sea hears not the little ripple on its shore; you can hold no converse or communion with your God; your highest bliss is to cease individually to be, to sink into unconscious everlasting trance. What, now, do we behold, when we turn, with unsandalled foot, to look upon the universe and the God of Christianity? An immensity, to the bounds of which, urge them never so wildly, the steeds of thought shall never pierce, thronged with ordered myriads of worlds, all willed into existence and ever upheld by a Being, of Whom tongue cannot speak or mind conceive, but Who lit the torch of reason, Who hears the voice of man, and Whose attributes are dimly mirrored in the human soul. En- deavour to embrace the universe in thy conception ; let thought take to it the wings of imagination, and imagi- nation open the oceanic eye of contemplation ; view this stupendous illimitable whole. Then conceive God infi- nitely above it; filling it all with His light, as the sun fills with its light the dewdrop; as distinct from it as the sun is from the dewdrop; to Whom the countless worlds of immensity are as the primary particles of water compos- ing the dewdrop are to the sun. Then add this thought: that He, around Whose throne the morning stars for ever sing, to Whom anthems of praise from all the star-choirs of immensity go toning on eternally from galaxy to galaxy, hears the evening hymn of praise in the Christian home, the lowly melody in the Christian heart, the sigh of the kneeling child; and, when the little task of his morning THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 13 sojourn on earth is over, will draw up the Christian, as the sun draws up the dewdrop, to rest on the bosom of Infinite Love. Such is the universe, and such the God of the Christian, in what faint and feeble words we can image the conceptions. Is the universe of pantheism more sub- lime than this? We must, however, pause. We have, in the preceding sentences, not unallowably conformed to those general ideas of God which must float in the general intellect. But, in order to show what Christianity here affords us, we must endeavour to define, with briefness but precision, the ultimate idea of God at which philosophy can arrive. We shall not enter into any proof of the fact, that the human mind cannot conceive the infinite ; that the sphere of thought is limited by the relative, the conditioned. We assume this point; or rather we accept regarding it, as what may now be considered final, Sir William Hamilton's demonstration. We shall agree with the declarations on this subject, which he cites as those of a " pious philo- sophy:" "A God understood would be no God at all;" " To think that God is, as we can think Him to be, is blas- phemy." The general intellect of the race has always sought for, and believed in, supernal power; this grand characteristic may be affirmed of all nations and ages; if some appearance of exception has been presented, it has been by no means of an extent or nature to invalidate the general evidence. This belief, however, has been either instinctive and imperfect or blind: either accepted at the instinctive bidding of those laws which will not permit man to consider phenomena causeless, and finitude final, or the faint echoes, received without question or examina- tion, of an original revelation. The general idea formed in all ages of the Divine has admitted of being analysed 14 THE INDIVIDUAL LIKE. into two components; a personality either human or strictly analogous to that of man, and a supplement of human power, beauty, and wisdom, by more or less skilful bor- rowing from those examples of force, loveliness, or design, which are manifested in nature, and were recognised to transcend human attainment. But, as civilisation ad- vanced, and thought began to appear, the popular concep- tions of divinity were submitted to philosophic examina- tion, and proved to be unsatisfactory. To avoid detailed explanation, we shall say, in general terms, that philosophy, after careful examination, arrived at the conclusion that the origin of the finite could not be found within the region of finitude. The theory that the sun was not alto- gether without a cause, but that it formed the chariot of an ever-youthful god, whose smile was the sunshine that yellowed the corn, whose anger was the drought that occa- sioned famine, that the deep roll of the thunder amid the folds of the black cloud was not self-originating, but was amply accounted for as the rattling of the wheels of the awful Jove, that the beauty of sea-foam, and rainbow, and rosebud, and vine cluster, and bewitching eye, and cheek, and lip, was no sport of accident, no uncaused fantastic play over the face of nature, but the cunning work of a goddess who embodied the beautiful, might hush any half-expressed questioning of the rude popular mind, but could nowise satisfy reason. Even the general intellect, when it at all engaged in reflection, found this first series of answers insufficient ; that sun-god, that Jove, that Venus, the whole magnificent company that sat in thrones over the unstained snow of Olympus, whence came they? There arose theories to account for their origin; if the keen-piercing human mind would not rest contented with this fair vision, if the finite attribute of THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 15 multiplicity pained and impelled it, an older mythology was seen or fancied to emerge, venerable Saturn, and Hy- perion the giant of the sun, and hoary Ocean, and the whole Titan brotherhood ; and, if even this satisfied not, all might be referred to the primal two, Heaven and Earth, or even they might be placed at the foot of an ultimate and im- moveable Fate. At this last stage, the reflections of the popular mind came nearly into coincidence with philosophy. This, as we said, passing beyond polytheistic notions, ar- rived at the original, unconditioned, inscrutable one. This was the critical moment. Was the fact that the Divine could not be comprehended and defined by the human mind to be taken as an evidence of its non-existence, or Avas a Divine, thus inscrutable, to be received? That philosophic intellect which we deem the noblest and most sublime, to which the belief in a God was a necessity, held by the second alternative, whether by accepting, with subtle yet sublime self-deception, the product of imagination for the affirmation of reason, or by devising some new faculty, whose voice was conclusive in the matter, and calling it faith; thus, we may boldly assert, did Plato in Greece, and Fichte in Germany : that phi- losophic intellect which could consent to abandon belief in man's spiritual existence, and in an unseen govern- ment of the world, lapsed into atheism ; this was perhaps the result of the Aristotelian philosophy in ancient times, and has been the avowed goal of the modern positive phi- losophy. And thus we are enabled to shut up for ever the pantheistic theory of God and man, against which we now especially contend, in one dumb negation ; to use again the words of Sir William Hamilton, "the All" evolved by " the scheme of pantheistic omniscience," " at the first exorcism of a rigorous interrogation, relapses into nothing," We are not here required to have recourse to 16 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. inference ; in the work which embodies Fichte's theory of practical things, his Way to the Blessed Life, we find his ultimate expression for the Divine Being to be, " the pure negation of all conceivability associated with infinite and eternal loveableness." We need scarce observe that this loveableness is a condition and conceivability, violating as absolutely as would a thousand attributes and qualities that character of the one being, upon which he so strenuously insists, that it is the absolute, immutable, unconditioned one. Of all that conception of the Divine which, by his aid, and using his colours, we have endeavoured to body forth, we must just say that, by the original axiom of his own philo- sophy, it is annihilated; proved to be either a mere play of imagination, or the common ideas and representations of God, highly coloured and refined. We turn to Christianity. The Bible, by many and ex- plicit declarations, affirms, that God cannot, in essence, be known to man; by no searching can Jehovah be found out unto perfection ; He is the I AM Whom no eye hath seen or can see. But He is not altogether an unknown God: when Paul professed, before the Athenian sages, his ability to reveal to them Him whom they had ignorantly worship- ped, he made no vain boast. Omitting express allusion to the doctrine of the Trinity, we may say that, in a twofold manner, God is thus revealed, and we are enabled to ap- proach unto Him: first, by a divine intimation that man is formed in the image of God; and, second, by the incar- nation of the Godhead in the man Christ Jesus. It is our present object to inquire what is thus obtained, not to adduce the evidence by which Christianity proves itself divinely empowered to afford it: we merely remark, in passing, that, since it came to supply what reason, by hypo- thesis, fails to achieve, to save man, on the one hand, from blank atheism, and, on the other, from blind faith or THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 17 imaginative delusion, it was to be expected that its funda- mental attestation would embrace somewhat out of the sphere of natural law and ordinary induction, in other words, be miraculous. By declaring, with a divine sanc- tion, that man was created in the image of God, Christi- anity at once affords a satisfactory and dignifying ex- planation of what would otherwise have been little more than a pitiable delusion, man's universal tendency to con- ceive of his divinity or divinities, as in the human form ; while it enables us to avail ourselves of every natural manifestation in which pantheism arrays its imaginary God, to set it in its own position in the general system of things, as a means of revealing even the least of the ways of the Christian God, and to gather from it fresh argument to strengthen our faith, or to deepen our adoration. To elicit the whole and precise meaning of the passage re- lating to man's creation in the image of God, a passage which, though profound and mysterious, commends itself irresistibly to the human reason and heart, would exceed our present scope ; only let it be remembered that Chris- tianity altogether avoids those anthropomorphic errors into which every conception formed of God by the unaided human reason must lapse, by proclaiming the fact of the fall, and representing the Divine image in man, although not altogether erased, as yet, to use the words of Calvin, " confused, broken, and defiled." This brings us naturally to the second point we mentioned, which is, indeed, the great central point of Christianity, the revelation of the perfect image of God in Christ Jesus. We still are un- able to conceive the essential Deity: but, if we continue to contemplate the Saviour, we rise to ideas of the mode in which His attributes find manifestation unspeakably more exalted, we mark the outgoings of His wisdom, power, and c 18 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. love, with a clearness inexpressibly greater than can be attained by any observation of the universe, or study of man. The infidelity with which we* are at present con- cerned, has expressed fervent admiration of Jesus: and this fact must at least make it appear reasonable in the eyes of its followers, that Christians discern in Him a holi- ness and beauty transcending those of earth. The might of the ocean and the tempest, the strength of the everlast- ing hills, the silent beaming forth, as in ever renewed miraculous " vision," of the splendour and opulence of sum- mer, the illumination of immensity by worlds, may offer some faint idea of the going forth of the power of Omni- potence: but there is a still more impressive, and as it were present manifestation of supernatural power made to man, when the storm sinks quelled before the eye of Jesus, or the dead comes from the grave at his word. When the heart expands with a love that embraces the whole circle of sentient existence, or even, by the bounteous imagining of poetic sympathy, first breathes an ideal life into flower and tree, and then over them too sheds, with Wordsworth, the smile of glowing tenderness, we may remember that there still linger traces of the Divine image in man, and faintly imagine the streaming forth of that Love which brightens the eyes of the armies of heaven, and gives light and life to the universe; but can any manifestation of human tenderness bring to us such a feeling of God's love, as one tear of Jesus shed over Jerusalem, or one revering look into His eye, when in the hours of mortal agony it overflowed in love and prayer for His murderers? We can attach a true and noble meaning to the words of Fichte when he bids us watch the holy man, because in what he " does, lives, and loves," God is revealed to us ; but we will affirm that any instance of human heroism is alto- THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 19 gether faint and powerless in enabling us to form a con- ception of the holiness of God, when compared with the devotion to His Father's service of Him Whose meat and drink it was to do the will of God, and Who died on the cross to make an atonement for sin. And if, in addition to all this, Christianity told us of a Divine Spirit, whose mysterious but certain influence on the mind enabled it to discern a glory and a beauty in the Saviour incomparably more exalted than could otherwise be distinguished, how truly might we assert that it brought us into a closer near- ness to the Divine, than the most ethereal dreaming of mystic trance, or the most gorgeous imagining of panthe- istic poetry! But not only thus is the God of the Chris- tian a known God, in a sense in which the God of pan- theism never can be; Jesus is not only the second Adam, revealing that Divine image in the human form which was presented by Adam before his fall, but also a Mediator between God and man. Through the Divine Man the Christian can hold converse with the Spirit of the uni- verse. And this brings us directly to the solution offered by Christianity of that problem of the individual life of which we have spoken, and which is expressly treated both by Fichte and Carlyle. Both these writers recognise it as seemly and right, if not in all cases necessary, that, at a certain stage of the personal history, the mind awaken and bestir itself, and struggle as in throes of birth or tumult of departure; that for a time it wrestle with doubt, or cower trembling under the wings of mystery, searching earth and heaven for answers to its questions and satisfaction for its wants; that there be a turning, in baffled and indignant loathing, from the pleasures of sense, as all inadequate either to still 20 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. or satisfy new and irrepressible longings after the good, the true, the beautiful, after God, freedom, immortality. We suppose it is an assertion which will not be counted rash or daring, that our language contains no example of the delineation of mental confusion and dismay, to be compared with Mr Carlyle's description of such a period in Sartor Kesart us. In this time of distraction and unrest, calm thought and manly action are alike suspended; the quiet of the soul is broken; around it seem to hang curtains of thick cloud, streaked with fire, shutting it, in gloomy solitude, from heaven's light above, and the voices of human sympathy around. Fichte and Carlyle profess to tell us how the soul may emerge from this confusion and distress to noble and perfect manhood; how it may once more feel around it the fresh breath of the open sky, and over it the clear smile of heaven ; how the streams of thought may again flow on in melodious harmony, and the wheels of action obey their impulse; how perfect content is to be regained with one's position in the system of things; how all fear and tor- ment are to give place to blessedness; how love is again to suffuse the world, and over every cloud of mystery to be cast a bow of peace. Such a period Christianity likewise recognises the period preceding conversion. It is indeed by no means necessary that in every case there occur this tumultuous crisis of internal life ; one of the above writers declares that the ultimate lesson of manhood may be taught by the mild ministries of domestic wisdom and love, even better than " in collision with the sharp adamant of Fate," and so the change which is wrought in the soul by vital Christi- anity may be silent and gradual as a cloudless dawn, unob- served by any human eye until the new light wraps the whole character, touching all its natural gifts with immortal THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 21 beauty, and turning the cold dews of night into liquid radiance. Yet, in order to define clearly and discriminate boldly the stages in the change, we shall contemplate it in such a case as these authors suppose. We shall conceive one, who has hitherto been a Chris- tian but in name, suddenly pausing and beginning to give earnest heed to the spiritual concerns which he has deemed of trivial importance. We shall suppose him to be affected in a twofold manner: by a sense of personal uneasiness, of what Fichte names " torment," of present self-accusation and prospective alarm ; and by doubt and dismay in consi- deration of the sad uncertainty of human sorrow, and the mysterious and appalling destiny which, as he learns from Christianity, awaits a portion of the human race. The first of these may be indicated by the general name, fear ; the second is an inability to assent to the fact of Divine justice, an inability of which we fully recognise the pos- sible honesty. The first will agitate most strongly minds not of a noble natural temper; the second, we are well assured, is often found to rack with keenest agony men of generous and benignant dispositions. The second may even be absent altogether; but we are disposed to think that the final attainment and rest in this case will be less lofty, and pure, and beautiful, than in the other. Let it be supposed, however, that the mind is in extreme tumult and anguish; we proceed to show how it is that Chris- tianity professes to restore tranquil happiness, and recall healthful activity. Perhaps in no case do the tremulous delicacy and subtle pride of the day come out more strongly than in our modes of regarding all that relates to fear in religious matters ; and perhaps in no other case does the power of Christianity to lay its hand on the heart of the race, and its way of 22 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. coming in contact with life and reality, contrast so boldly with the fine-spun, flattering, but evanescent theories of a haughty philosophy. The history of the world abundantly testifies that a religion altogether dissociated from fear is emasculated and unavailing; the state of Greece in its decline, of Rome under the Caesars, of the Italian repub- lics of the fifteenth century, shows what is that guardian- ship exercised over the national virtues, by a religion which has become a sentiment or a debate, which has laid aside its terrors, and passed into the school of the philo- sopher or the studio of the artist. We at once concede, that in the teaching of Christanity there is, and has always been an element, and a prevailing element, of fear. It is a fact which admits of no disguise, and we must endeavour to account for it. The phenomenon we consider under the name of fear, as characteristic of that state of the individual mind we at present contemplate, has escaped the observation of nei- ther of the authors of whom we have spoken. Fichte does not indeed, so far as we recollect, expressly mention fear; he uses the general term, torment, and regards this as na- ture's monition to leave self and sensuality, and turn to the divine. Torment, with him, is the stirring of the divine principle within, and the expression of its unrest and embar- rassment in the bonds of sense ; but whence it has arisen that this discipline is necessary for the human soul, why the throes of divine birth must agonise us, why the begin- ning is anguish, when joy, which is the companion of per- fection, the guerdon of genius, is the progress and the end, we learn not from his philosophy. Fichte, when his terms are rightly interpreted, defines, with a certain correctness, the office of fear ; of its origin, save perhaps some assertion of necessity, he offers, to our knowledge, no theory. The THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 23 way in which Mr Carlyle, in the ultimate attainment of rest by his wanderer, disposes of fear, is to us one of the most sadly interesting portions of his writings. Drawn by the force of intense human sympathy and fiery insight, into a more intimate knowledge of the actual feelings of the soul than the lofty philosophic enthusiasm of Fichte's speculation enabled him to attain, he seems to indicate the element of a regard to futurity as entering into the anguish which oppresses the awakening and aspir- ing soul. The wanderer attains true manhood by finally triumphing over fear; not only fear of anything on earth, but fear "of Tophet too;" by casting a defiant glance around this universe, and daring any existent power to make him afraid. We are aware of no voice reaching him from heaven, to whisper of pardon and invite to peace; we see no hand stretched out to remove sin or impart purity ; by one tremendous effort of will, he rids himself of terror, and declares that if hell must be dared, it must. Some time after this achievement, he discovers that nature is God, that he himself is part of the Divinity; we might say that, having shown himself brave, he had vindicated his right to his natural birth-right, and might boldly lay claim to his inherent divinity. Now, we shall dis- tinctly admit that there is sublimity in this spectacle of a finite being defying the terrors of Tophet ; we attempt not to deny that there is a grandeur in the aspect of him, who, a few short years ago a weeping infant in his cradle, and in a few more fleeting years to be so still under his green hillock, thus, in the brief path between, hurls indignant scorn at the terrors of infinitude. But was it not such a sublimity which rested on the brow of Moloch, in the glare of hell's battlements? Such a sublimity, methinks, was in the eyes of Eblis, where pride waged eternal con- 24 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. / flict with despair, as he sat on his globe of fire. "Let the world insult our feebleness ; there is no cowardice in capitulating with God." We do not afiirm that Mr Car- lyle intends to put into the mouth of his hero a deli- berate defiance of God; but we have perfect confidence in alleging, that he represents the soul, in the great crisis of individual life, as trusting solely to its own energies for deliverance, the terrors which encompass it as drawing off" at the determined hest of human will, not by Divine per- mission or commandment, the saviour of man, as himself. For the ultimate origin of the discipline of sorrow, we look likewise in vain in the works of Mr Carlyle. When we turn to Christianity, it seems impossible to fail to note an access of clearness, and what we might style an agreement with the general symmetry of nature. We do not now consider the kindred subject of the office assigned to hope in the Christian scheme; we speak now of fear. But it is important that the precise place of each be fixed. If not directly asserted of Christianity, it is certainly a taunt brought against those who, in modern times, have named themselves Christians, that their religion countenances and embraces a selfish theory of morals ; that it aims at render- ing a man virtuous by setting behind him Fear, with a picture of Dante's hell, and before him Hope, with a pic- ture of Milton's heaven. With individual cases we have nothing to do, but, as we proceed, the foul imputation will be seen totally to fall away from Christianity. Whence this torment of self-accusation and alarm, concerning which we have heard so much? It arises, says Christianity, in its strictly personal reference, from a twofold source ; from a 6ense of imperfection, and a con- sciousness of guilt. This last word is not named by Mr Carlyle or Fichte; yet surely history, reason, and con- THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 25 science, authorise us to impute to it a weighty significance. Why is it that in every age man has striven to propitiate his God? What mean those altars whose smoke lies so darkly along human history, the shrieks of those children whom they pass through the fire to Moloch? What spectre is that, which the human eye has always seen setting a crown on the head of Death, a crown of terrors? Most explicitly and conclusively of all, what is the word which reason utters, when compelled, by its very nature, to seek a cause for this torment, whose existence is granted? Are we not, by complicated and overpowering evidence, led to acknowledge the fact, however mysterious, of guilt? We deny not that this result is one of exhaustless melancholy; but, alas! our tears will not wipe out the statutes of the universe; and the man of real fortitude will, of all things, scorn intellectual legerdemain, and refuse to accept no fact. Of a sadness not so profound, but still sad, is the other source of personal anguish recognised at this stage by Christianity. It is this on which Mr Carlyle and Fichte lay stress, but without giving it any explanation, and virtu- ally or expressly regarding it as natural and right. It is the awakening sense in the bosom of man, that he is a stranger here, an exile from a home where a spirit could expatiate; it is the dim agony that comes with returning consciousness, when he begins to perceive the iron grating, and the chain, and the couch of straw, and when the eye which he turns towards the azure is pained and dazzled by the once natural light. Better is this agony, because it is the pain of one returning to consciousness, reason, and health, than any wild dreams of maniac joy; yet it too is unnatural; and we shall deem no theory of man's life as anywise sa- tisfactory, which tells us not how it became necessary, how this imperfection originated, how man came into that dun- 26 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. geon. Without comment or exposition we state, that Christianity affords a simple, natural, and adequate expla- nation, both of the guilt and the imperfection, by its doc- trine of the fall. Of the origin of evil we say not one word. But so profoundly does the theory that man is now in a state of lapse and distemper, seem to us to agree with all that can be gathered from consciousness and history ; so perfectly does it explain the glory of his sadness, and the sadness of his glory ; so definitely does it intimate why the prostrate column and the shattered wall tell of a mind in ruin, while yet the gold, and gems, and ivory that shine amid the fragments hint that it was once an imperial mansion ; so well does it explain the sublime home-sick- ness which has led earth's loftiest sons, despising all that grew on a soil accursed, that pleasure by which sense strove to wile away the faint reminiscences of other scenes, that wealth which but represented the perpetual struggle against death, to go aside from the throng, and seek the joys of spirit and the embrace of truth in lonely thought and contemplation; so satisfactorily does it harmonise the loveliness of the dawn, and the horror of the battle-field, as existing in one world ; that it seems to us worthy to be ranked among profound mysteries that it can at all be called in question. Christianity thus accounts for, and recognises as season- able, the action of fear on the human mind, which is un- able to feel itself at peace with God. How does it remove it? Does it enjoin a calculation of advantage? Does it declare that a certain amount of duty performed on the compulsion of terror will avert danger, or say that it is possible to perform one virtuous action on this compul- sion? We can, in one or two sentences, render a full and conclusive answer. The Christian scheme of morals does THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 27 not recognise as deserving the name of virtue what is pro- duced by any external motive, what has not its root in the heart. This it intimates in a twofold manner: by express declarations; and by the whole nature of that salvation which it offers to man. It explicitly declares that the glory of God is to be in all cases the unconditional motive of action, the deep and all-pervading spring of life. And the whole tenor of its descriptions of that salvation which it proclaims, renders the idea of its morality being pro- duced by external inducement absurd ; it demands a new birth, a new creation, a new life ; upon no action will it set its seal of approbation, unless it is the fruit of the Spirit, and springs from holiness and truth in the inward parts. Scripture being thus clear and decided, it might be well to know to what extent theologians have given colour to the charge that Christianity is thus selfish. The mode in which Christian writers during last century wrote did, to some extent, lend it countenance; the enforcement of virtue by rewards and punishment was, it is probable, too exclusively insisted on; although it has, we think, been somewhat hardly treated, the school of Paley and Butler did tend to give Christianity rather the aspect of a mechanism than of a life, did rather seek for it a place beside a refined Epicureanism, than claim for it its right and natural position, in a more lofty and ethereal region than was ever reached by the sublimest speculation of Platonism. But we have no hesitation in claiming for the Puritan theology a freedom from any such error; and in the conclusion of the second chapter of the first book of Calvin's Institutes, we have his express declaration, that, were there no hell, yet, since the Christian loves and re- veres God as a Father, the dread of offending Him would alone suffice to render him abhorrent of vice. Fear does 28 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. not produce virtue ; the fact that a man restrains himself from sin to avoid the punishment of hell, is no proof that he is converted. Yet fear is not without a function in the system of things. It bears not the wedding garment, and no hand but that of the Divine Spirit, working faith in the Christian, and so enabling him to appropriate that garment, and clothe himself in it, can effect in him that renovation which leads to godly action and spiritual joy; but it goes out into the highways of a blighted and delirious world, and there, like a terrible prophet of the wilderness, who foretells the coming of the mild Redeemer, startles and arouses men. Its office is preliminary, external, awakening; it is the beginning of wisdom. Since, indeed, on this earth, the deep-lying disease which renders it ne- cessary is never altogether removed, its warning voice is never altogether silent; but the humiliating remedy will vanish utterly with the disease of which it is a sign, and by which it became necessary; when the Christian goes to take his place among the angelic choirs, he will be able to join them in a melody that is only love ; and it does not admit of doubt, that every feeling of slavish fear with which any being regards God, is strictly of the nature of sin. By fear, or by whatever means the Spirit of G-od may employ, the soul is brought to lie down in perfect abase- ment before God, to acknowledge its want, its wo, its weakness, and its unreserving consent to receive all from His hand. This is what, in the Christian scheme, cor- responds to the self-annihilation of Goethe and Carlyle; now is the soul brought to that stage of utter desolation and bareness which agrees with the critical stage of the wanderer's trouble. "We cannot doubt that here we are at the point where the essential nature of Christianity is THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 29 revealed; that we come within sight of its great distinctive virtue, humility. Now it is that the sinful finite being, to use the words of Pascal, " makes repeatedly fresh efforts to lower himself to the last abysses of nothingness, whilst he surveys God still in interminably multiplying immen- sities;" this is what Vinet pronounces the end of all Christian preaching, " to cast the sinner trembling at the foot of Mercy." In the melodious, yet heart-wrung wait- ings which float down the stream of ages from the harp of the poet-king of Israel, the feelings of such moments found expression ; such feelings were in the heart of the Pilgrim, when, fleeing from the City of Destruction, and fainting under his burden, he knelt with clasped hands before the Cross; and it was in this same attitude that the New England Puritan, in utter self-abandonment and feeling of the majesty and holiness of God, judged himself worthy of damnation, and had scarce power to pray. It is but the unqualified acknowledgment that man, as he exists in this world, requires the aid of Divine power to raise him to that higher state of being to which he aspires. It is the disrobing of itself by the soul of all the raiment of human virtue; which, however pure and beautiful it may seem to earthly eyes, is not that spiritual glory which will beam more fair in its immortality, when the earth will have faded away, and all that framework of society, which gives occasion and play to the virtue that is between man and man, shall have been gathered in by death, alike its origin and its end. It is the confession that, however the soul of man may wing the atmosphere of earth, it has now no pinions on which to ascend into the sunless serenity of celestial light. And now we must be silent, nor attempt to define the new birth of the spirit. " In what way," says Coleridge, 30 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. " or by what manner of working, God changes a soul from evil to good, how He impregnates the barren rock with priceless gems and gold, is to the human mind an impene- trable mystery in all cases alike." Only this shall we say, that by faith the soul lays hold of and unites itself to Jesus, finding in Him all that for which it has sought; His mys- terious sacrifice sufficient to make atonement for guilt, His righteousness a spotless robe in which it may sit for ever at the banquet of the Almighty King, His name the harmonising of all contradiction, the solving of all doubt, the open secret of the universe. In a passage which he who has once read can hardly have forgotten, so softly pathetic is it, so richly and melo- diously beautiful, Mr Carlyle sets, as it were, to lyric music the joy of the wanderer's heart when he attains final peace. The inheritance of the Christian is likewise peace, though of another nature from that which visited the scathed heart of Teufelsdrockh. This is no reward of proud self- assertion, no rapture of philosophic dream : on the Chris- tian, from the eternal heavens, there now streams down the smile of a living Eye. The emotions which befit his state have, from the olden time, been voiced in a mild anthem, whose divine simplicity and angelic music are beautiful as the morning star, and to which we may imagine the saints of God, in the future eternity, attuning their harps, when memory wanders back to the little earth, and they think of that humility which is the highest glory of the finite. In that anthem the Hebrew minstrel sung of himself as a stricken lamb resting in Jehovah's arms. The peace of the Christian is to feel the circling of those arms, as he lies in the light of that countenance. "We are compelled to be very brief. We can but add a few fragmentary remarks, which we pray readers to regard THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 31 rather as partial indications of what might be said, than as any unfolding of the momentous and inspiring themes to which they relate. We should like to discuss, first, the ethical value of this theory of conversion in that precise point where it contrasts with pantheism; next, the mode in which it tranquillises the mind which is agitated by a sense of the sorrowful mysteries of human destiny, and the dark paths of divine justice; then, the Christian theory of work; and, lastly, the Christian theory of heaven. We can but offer one or two words on each. We accept from the hands of Mr Carlyle and Goethe the far-trumpeted doctrine of self-renunciation; we listen to Fichte, and to the whole of that lofty spiritualistic school of which he may be considered the head, and bear witness to their emphatic and eloquent proclamation of the sin and blasphemy of selfishness : and we boldly assert, that it is in Christian conversion alone that real self-renunciation is attained, that self is actually conquered. Of all that holds of pantheism, of the genius-worship of the day, of the idealistic or emotional religiosity now so common, of all which professes to work in the human bosom a benign and self-conquering revolution by the evolving of any hidden nobleness lying there, or reference to any perfect internal light hitherto obscured, we affirm that it utterly fails to approach the root of the evil. When laid down in the most perfect and plausible philosophic form, these views are thus powerless; and, in application to prac- tical life, the perils which encompass them are obvious and unavoidable. To denounce the sensual life is no great achievement or novelty in ethics; a moderately enlight- ened Epicureanism has always done that. But how can I apply the term self-renunciation to an act which is really and merely the assertion of self, of spiritual self, that is? 32 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. What is this more than the purchase of a lofty and deli- cious pride, by the sacrifice of the garbage of sense? Self, on every such theory, leaves the coarse dwelling of sensual pleasure, but it is only to rear for its own royal abode a palace of gold and cedar. And if the commands of a serene spiritualism may, in the case of the philosopher, repel the advances of sense, who that has ever cast his eye over life can refuse to concede that they would be all un- heeded on that wild arena ; while the absence of any pre- cise definition or applicable test of the spiritual and divine in the individual breast, would leave a broad avenue, the more inviting that it was lined by academic plane-trees, to all manner of delusion, extravagance, and absurdity. This is a delicate, soft-stepping, 6ilken-slippered age, patronising the finer feelings and a high-flown emotional virtue ; vice has cast away its coarse and tattered garment, and, though finding no great difficulty in obtaining admit- tance into good society, must come with sleek visage, in a spruce, modern suit, glittering with what seems real gold ; the religion that languishes in luxurious aspirings or dreams is very widely approved of. But does not an elevated and insidious but fatal pride tend to pervade the moral atmo- sphere of the time ? We will glow in lofty ardour over the page of Fichte, Carlyle, Schiller, or Goethe, but it is a balmy and consoling air which breathes its mild adula- tion through our souls; for is it not our own nobleness which is so gratefully evoked ? We will worship in the Temple of the Universe, with a certain proud homage, like that of the stars, and winds, and oceans; but our lordly knees must not be soiled by getting down into the dust. We will perform with Goethe the great moral act of self- annihilation, and wrap ourselves, with much ado, in the three reverences: but it were strangely bigoted to weep THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 33 like an old Puritan, because we cannot leap from sin our shadow. Christianity, we proclaim, is pervading the age more deeply than ever before ; not now as a constraining and antiquated form, but as an essence and life ; not, indeed, with remarkable definiteness, not troubling itself to answer such minor questions as whether Christ's history is an actual fact, or whether Paul was an inspired preacher or a moral genius troubled with whims, but with a grand expansiveness and philosophic tolerance, sweet to remark; casting a re- spectful and even deferring glance towards its plebeian an- cestor of Judea, in whose steps, however, an enlightened descendant cannot exactly walk. As of old, it remains true that Christianity alone preaches humility, and that this preaching is ever the special offence of the Cross; rather tread the burning marl in pride than receive mercy only from God. But for the fallen finite being, this is the true position towards the Infinite ; from this Christianity cannot swerve. We proceed to our second point. There is a pain which arises from inability to recognise the facts of divine justice, and from human sympathy with that part of mankind which rejects the Christian salvation, and meets the doom foretold. It is a sorrow which we believe never on earth departs entirely from noble minds, and is, perhaps, not intended to depart ; that sympathetic agony which, in virtue of our human unity, we feel with every brother sufferer, whatever his sin, is doubtless designed to be one of our most mighty incentives to spread the gospel and to urge its acceptance. But, if Christianity does not altogether remove this pain, it does more to that end than any other system; if there are clouds in the heavens which not even the telescope of faith can yet resolve into worlds of light, it can open a prospect infinitely more glorious and consoling than presents itself to the unaided eye. If we might conceive any sentence as written over the D 34 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. throne of God, kindling the eyes of the cheruhim, it would surely be this: "God is Love." Christianity came, as it were, with the intimation that such words were inscribed by the hand of Eternal Truth; faith, gazing from the far station of earth, might be unable to decipher the sepa- rate letters, and might see them only as blended into one star-beam, falling through time's night, but even in that beam there was infinite consolation and infinite hope. What does philosophy say of the future of the race ? Either it dismisses, as the vagary of superstition, all idea of the possibility of the future visiting of sin by retribu- tion, and thus leaves unstilled man's instinctive and inde- structible apprehensions, and unaccounted for a dumb yet adamantine array of facts. Christianity at least postpones the difficulty; it refers it to eternity and to God. It be- stows-the sublime privilege of waiting upon the Most High; it permits the weak and wildered creature of finitude to watch the unfolding of the schemes of almighty Wisdom under the eye of almighty Love; and it is not presumptuous to think that one great fountain of that felicity, on which as on an ocean stream the souls of the blessed will eter- nally float, will burst forth in the sudden discovery of the might of that love, and the depth of that wisdom, in the disposal of every fate. When God wipes away all tears from the eyes of His own, He will wipe away, also, those noblest, and perhaps hottest tears that are shed on earth tears over the lost. The Christian theory of work can be expressed in a few words, yet its full exposition and illustration were one of the most sublime pages in sacred poetry. " Faith that worketh by love ; " it is all here. The basis is faith ; we need scarce say it must lie at the root of all action : what- ever truth the age may have forgotten, there is one truth which has been uttered in strains of eloquence, so earnest THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 65 and overpowering, that it bids fair to be for some time re- membered; that a man or nation is mighty in work, pre- cisely as he or it believes. Give a people faith, and though its tribes lie scattered and powerless over its de- sert domain, like the dismembered limbs of a giant, it will gather itself together, and arise and stride forth, along the shaking earth, till every nation trembles at the name of Islam ; give a man faith, and though his heart be narrow and his brain confined, and what he believes an absurdity and dream, he will pass by hundreds of abler men who occasionally doubt, and, trampling them in their gore, will control a fiery nation, and reign in terror, till the name of Robespierre is a trembling and abhorrence over the whole earth. But, if all belief is powerful in action, if even belief in an idea makes a man resistless, of what nature will that work be, whose hidden root only is faith, but all whose bloom and outgoing is love? And thus it is in Chris- tianity. We enter not at all upon discussion of the nature of saving faith ; but this is, at least and beyond doubt, im- plied in it, that the believer is certain that God loves him, that in Christ He is his reconciled Father. For one mo- ment ponder this thought. The man has faith that God loves him; with all the emphasis of that strongest of human words, he lays it to his heart that an affection is in the bosom of the Eternal for him. What will be the instant result, by all we know even of fallen man ? We suspect it is not possible for a human heart alto- gether to resist the attraction even of human love; the blind and selfish affection of passion which impiously arro- gates the name may be scorned and hated, but deep, un- selfish, spiritual love cannot surely be known to exist to- wards us in any bosom without awakening some responsive thrill. Andifitis^possible between man and man, it is assuredhrHm possible between man and God. It is not 36 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. given to the human being to resist the attraction of infinite tenderness, when once faith has seen the eye of God look- ing down upon His accepted child; after long waiting, when at last the balmy drops descend, the fountains must spring. And what is the relief, the joy, the blessedness, of him that loves? Is it not the pouring forth of this love, the urging of it into every channel where it is pos- sible for it to flow ? Yes: and this is the Christian scheme of work ; that he, whose breast swells with the irrepressible love of God, finds duty transmuted actually into its own reward, and every labour but fuel to enable the flame of his joy to go up towards heaven. The psychological verity of this whole scheme is perfect. Why is it that when the heart of the youth or maiden has once been filled with love, when its whole compass has been occupied as with molten gold by affection for some beloved fellow-creature, if this beloved proves false or dies, it is no very uncommon cir- cumstance that madness or death ensue ? Is it not because the outgoing of love is prevented, and instead of issuing forth to wrap its object, instead of welling out in streams of joy, in offices of affection to that object, it must struggle in its fountain, and burn the heart that harbours it ? And may we not, in the face of Stephen, radiant in death, in the triumph-song of Paul when about to be offered, in the ecstatic hymns on the lips of the early martyrs as they went to the stake, find reliable evidence that there may be a love in the human breast for a Father God which will seek, as in an agony, for some channel in which to flow forth? And never can it have to seek in vain: in the inner kingdom of the soul, in the outer kingdom of the world, there is ever work to be done for God, ever some commandment to be fulfilled by which the Christian may prove that he loves his Saviour. Of this last duty and joy as permitted to the Christian, THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 37 we must say one word. It were certainly a strange mis- take, it would indicate an interesting, almost enviable freshness and spring verdure of intellect, to imagine that the refutation of an error would prove its destruction. Even at this day, and in publications by theological pro- fessors; you may find it declared that Calvinism circum- scribes the freedom and' fulness of the offer of redemption. Singular ! If you gather all the human race into one con- gregation, be I the most rigid of intelligent Calvinists, I will put to my lips the trumpet of the gospel; and proclaim that whosoever will may come and drink' of the water of life freely. If you bring me to a hoary sinner, who has defied God for a lifetime, and who 'now shakes with the palsy of death, I will tell him that God yet waits to be gracious, and willeth riot his death. And will my plead- ing with this dying transgressor be the less earnest and hopeful, because I have not to trust to the feeble efficacy of my words, or the grasp of his expiring faculties, but may look and pray for the extension of a Divine arm to seize and rescue his soul ? Because God has not taken me into His confidence, has not unfolded to me the Book of Life, and showed me the names of those chosen before the foundation of the world, will I not deign to be His in- strument, to save whom He pleases? You despatch a thousand vessels from this harbour, yet you know certain of them will be the prey of the tempest. You ship your compass; how does it act? You fix the lightning-rod on the mast; why, and in what precise manner, does it call down the fire of heaven ? Calvinism makes it a duty to proclaim the gospel freely: but, in accordance with the whole analogy of nature, it covers up in mystery God's creative work. In speaking of work, have we not already come to speak of heaven ? We have. By beginning with work, we 38 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. arrived at joy; we shall now, beginning from joy, see whether it will not lead us to work. Butler defines hap- piness to consist in " a faculty's having its proper object." "Pleasure," says Sir William Hamilton, "is the reflex of unimpeded energy." The two expressions explain and agree with each other; the latter, indeed, embraces the former. We doubt not they are substantially true, and would enable us to classify every degree and order of hap- piness from the highest to the lowest; it always remaining true that, however base or diluted might be the joy of activity, and though, relatively, even painful, it might yet be named pleasure, in contrast with the state of compul- sory inactivity: the pleasure of revenge is poor and con- temptible, yet it is a joy compared with its unsatisfied gnawing. And whatever might be the lowest and feeblest form of joy, it cannot admit of question what would be the highest. It would assuredly be the activity of love. We have no sooner uttered the word, than we are at the gate of the Christian heaven. When the heart begins to go out in love to God, heaven has commenced within it, and the certitude of an eternal heaven is found in this, that it is towards an Infinite God that it goes out. Provision is thus made at once for endles3 activity and endless love. There has been much written in our day about the worship of sorrow, and a great truth lies under the words; this truth, freed of its encumbering falsehood, Christianity em- braces ; it speaks of tribulation as that through which we enter into the kingdom of heaven, and gives sorrow the high office of breaking the soul to humility and contrite- ness, that it may kneel at the feet of Jesus. But, if there is any one instinctive utterance of the human soul to which we would accord consent, it is the declaration tliat sorrow, whatever it may subserve, is a blot upon God's universe, is the fang of the snake sin, is the shadow cast by the THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 39 wings of the great dragon that has come up from the bottomless pit to prey on man ; and that, if well interpreted, the .worship of joy is higher than the worship of sorrow. But how completely is all that insinuation about Chris- tianity being allied to a selfish theory of morals now seen to vanish ! The Christian does not serve God for happiness, but God by a sublime necessity has attached happiness to His service. Along the ranks of His army goes the com- mand to rejoice; above it floats the banner of love. Feli- city is the light which rests over it all. From the helmets of the seraphim that light is flashed back in full unclouded blaze; on us of the human race who, as Isaac Taylor says beautifully, " seem to stand almost on the extreme confines of happiness," its first rays are -even now descending. Happiness is the spheral music in which a God, whose name is Love, has ordained that holiness must voice itself; His light, as it sweeps over the ^olean harp of immensity, kindling every dead world into beauty, breaks forth in the Memnonian anthem of joy. And have we no distinctive character to assign to that state and that locality which, in common discourse, receive the special name of heaven ? In the essential character of the happiness of the future heaven, we can point to no change, but in circumstances there is a mighty alteration. Fichte, importunately insisting that a party, which we take to be that of evangelical Christianity, expects a sen- suous heaven, points in triumph to the fact that the eye is by it turned to futurity, when there can be but an ob- jective change; while all that is subjective in heaven's bliss must be enjoyed now or never. The philosopher is doubly at fault: to represent sublunary delights as filling, even to the most joyful, for any considerable time, the im- measurable capacity of joy possessed by man, can be con- sidered merely as a flourish of philosophic poetry ; while, 40 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. had he for a moment reflected, he must have considered it but fair to concede to those against whom he argued, that object and subject are so closely connected, that we must almost conceive ourselves beyond the bounds of fini- tude ere we can conceive their mutual independence. It is true that the difference between the inheritance of the saints on earth and their inheritance in light, is one of circumstances ; it is true, too, that sorrow as well as fear in the Christian bosom is the sign or the result of sin, and that the more faith now drinks of the cup of joy, the more does it obey divine injunction; yet we should deem it mournful indeed, if the gospel did not point the eye of hope to some great outbreaking of light, as to mark a certain stage in the Christian's history. And such there is; and so great is its brightness, that there is a propriety in the habit of appropriating to the ages which succeed it the special name of celestial. Those who desire to form some conception of the peculiar glory of these ages, of which we cannot speak here at length, we would advise to read Butler's sublime sermon on the Love of God, to ponder it deeply, and to follow out its suggestive meaning. Butler there aims at indicating the exhaustless sources of joy which would be found in the contemplation of the divine nature. We can here offer only one or two themes of meditation, supplementary to this central consideration. Let it then be thought what a power there is towards the impeding and shadowing of happiness, in the very fact that this is a world of prevailing sin. "We fight here under the cloud : we can have little hope that we will hear the final shout of victory. And as we go to each charge, do we not see around us the fallen and the dying? Are we not aware that over the whole earth there is always sorrow, and have we not to dim the eye of imagination, and close the gates of sympathy, that we cry not out at the spectacles THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 41 of grief which are ever, in woful pageantry, passing on- wards to the grave? How true is this of Mrs Browning's ! " The fool hath said there is no God, But none, there is no sorrow." Every human heart must throb to that touch of beautiful pathos, in which the author of Festus bodies forth the depth and earnestness of human wo. Among the celes- tial bands an angel is seen in tears; aword of amazement passes along at the sight of an angel weeping; but the wonder is toon explained. " It is the angel of the earth, She is always weeping." While our step is on such a world as earth, we must know the thrills of sympathetic anguish. Surely it will be an unmeasured access of joy when the cloud of sin, smitten by the light of eternity, finally rolls away, and bares the sunless heavens. Consider, again, the joy that may arise in the heavenly ages from the contemplation of the works of God. Even here it cannot be questioned that serene and exquisite enjoyment is obtained by pure and elevated minds in gazing on the greatness and beauty of nature. But the mind now may be compared to a mountain lake, in which, indeed, at times, the silent and beautiful hills, and the calm flowers, and forest foliage, and the clouds touched by the finger of morrt or eve, may glass them- selves, but which is ever and anon ruffled and obscured by the rude tempest. And who can tell how far this en- joyment may be enhanced, when the sympathies are all true and harmonious, and vibrating to the music of love? What mortal man can guess the rapture which fills the eyes of the seraphim as they sweep onward among the stars of God! Lastly, not to multiply instances, can we not even now perceive, that from Christian friendship, as it would exist in heaven, there would result an exhaustless and un- 42 THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. utterable joy. The one complaint that noble minds have against society is, that its vast texture of forms and gra- dations prevents kindred hearts from uniting, thwarts the action of sympathy. Assuredly the highest terrestrial joy is that of perfect friendship ; and how rare, how nearly impossible, is perfect friendship here! '* Are we not form'd, as notes of music are, For one another, though dissimilar?" Yet the harmony that can result from this union in .diver- sity is scarce to be seen on earth. It is no vtgue imagi- nation, but what can be clearly deduced from Scripture and reason, and easily embraced in thought, that from the friendship of the redeemed, knit in perfect sympathy of divine love, will spring a joy which the harps of heaven will scarce have chords to voice. Such considerations as these might be multiplied inde- finitely, and that with strict adherence to truth. The prospect opened up to us is sublime indeed. And if its glory admitted of enhancement, would it not arise from casting a look back upon the stricken and lowly penitent, as he lay in Christian humility, expecting all from the hand of God? Here it is, every way, as in the case of physical science; which, beginning with bare algebraic formula, climbs upwards from system to system, till it is encompassed with the blaze of an inconceivable glory, and the wing of human imagination is seen feebly fluttering far below. We close this Chapter with an allusion to a passage in Fichte's Way to the Blessed Life, which has struck us as very remarkable. After confessing that neither himself nor any other philosopher had ever succeeded in elevating, by popular instruction, those who " either will not or can- not study philosophy systematically, to the comprehension of its fundamental truths," he distinctly allows that THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 43 " Christ's Apostles," and a succession of " very unlearned persons," have possessed this essential knowledge. He discriminates well the scientific and developed knowledge of philosophy from the life-knonJedge of its fundamental truths. But, might it not have occurred to him that per- haps this strange exception might have another meaning and cause than any of whieh he dreamed; that philosophy had, for some special reason, failed to do what the few poor men of Judea accomplished? Might he not have conceived it possible that the gospel of Jesus had actually some wondrous power of getting at the life? If he missed the truth, let us hold by it. We think there is a profound meaning in the following sentences of Neander, used in reference to primitive Christianity : "It belonged, indeed, to the essence of Christianity, that while it could become all things to all men, and adapt itself to the most different and opposite circumstances of human nature, it could condescend even to wholly sensuous modes of comprehend- ing divine things, in order, by the power of a divine life, working from within, gradually to spiritualise them. . . . In this respect, the great saying of the apostle may often have found its application, that the divine treasure was received and for a season preserved in earthen vessels, that the abundant power might be of God, and not of man." Let this be well pondered, and that superiority in Christianity which Fichte acknowledges over his or any other philosopher's teaching, may be explained. Coleridge spake truly when he said that philosophy was in the Pagan night as the fire-fly of the tropics, making itself visible, but not irradiating the darkness. CHAPTER II. THE SOCIAL LIFE. "We open this chapter with the following proposition: Religion is the only stable basis on which a commonwealth can be reared. This, we think, might be demonstrated by clear, unirapassioned, inductive reasoning; we desire to trace in outline one or twO of the main divisions of the proof. The first, and perhaps, all things considered, the most important argument in its support, is to be derived from the analogy of the individual. It is an indisputable fact that the community has, so to speak, a distinct person- ality; that it is not a mere collection of individuals. Yet, we venture to say, that the more careful and pro- tracted our observation of the man and the nation is, and the more profound our reflection upon the phenomena presented by each, the more firm will our assurance be- come that a strict analogy holds between them. So strong is our conviction of this, that Butler's demonstration of the supremacy of conscience in the individual bosom is quite sufficient to satisfy us that the healthful and natural state of the nation is exhibited, only when the national conscience is dominant, when religion prevails. The political Butler has not yet appeared; but a noble task awaits him. He will show how, as the man who listens THE SOCIAL LIFE. 45 to the voice of conscience, who can stand apart from his fellows, and, over all the brawling of the popular wind, hear the still small voice of conscience as supreme on earth, and turn his eye at its monition towards heaven for an approval which will make him independent of human opinion, is he who is most true to his nature ; so the nation which would rightly occupy its position in the world must have aims above all that is sublunary, and hold itself as a nation responsible to God. The second source of argument on this point is the evi- dence of history. More express and conclusive evidence than is derivable from this source, we can scarce conceive. Of many things the historical student may be doubtful, but of this at least he must be sure: That no amount of wealth, no extent of culture, has ever given a nation strength and stability, when the religious element has been in decay. Let it be noted that we now speak of the deve- lopment and power of the religious faculty; we treat not the subordinate, though important question, whether the religion is true or false. And we bid any man consider the whole history of Judea, of Greece, of Rome, of Italy, and we may add of France, and declare, whether the nation is capable of avoiding some one fatal peril or an- other which is not strongly religious. Either foreign sub- jugation, or domestic despotism, or maniac anarchy, has ever overtaken the godless nation; and, in all times, the nation that had a faith, that reverenced an oath, has put a bridle in the teeth of the unbelieving peoples. The only other department of proof to which we can refer is that of the testimony of great individual thinkers. It is interesting to note how, we might say without ex- ception, the great thinkers and workers of all time have agreed in this. Consider the amount and the nature of the 46 THE SOCIAL LIFE. evidence to be derived from that one source, the construc- tion of ancient and modern polities. Every legislator re- quires this as his bower-anchor; every man who attempts to establish a commonwealth or to rule an empire, com- mences with religion. That he was himself an irreligious man or sceptic mattered little. Whether he were a Zoro- aster or Mahomet, or a Ptolemy Lagus or Napoleon, it was the same; the point of the national pyramid, each felt, must point to heaven. And the testimony of thinkers is equally explicit. Plato virtually makes religion the base of his republic; and Mr Carlyle is, in our day, again pro- claiming, in what manner, or with what likelihood of suc- cess, we say not, the same truth. In one of Bacon's Essays, you find his authority and that of Cicero, like one sword with two edges, knit together. The fact is explicitly stated by Montesquieu; and, while the influence of what was or was not named the positive philosophy has here affected in- juriously our last schools of political economy, even they are compelled to lend their indirect suffrage. One of the most healthy thinkers of recent times, Thomas Chalmers, gave the strength of his life to enunciate and enforce the momentous doctrine. Our initial proposition being established, we proceed to inquire in what way, in the internal arrangements of society, a pantheistic theory of things would naturally and logi- cally be embodied: we shall then note briefly the basis on which Christianity places social relations. The works of Mr Carlyle, in one great aspect of them, are a series of endeavours, or rather one great connected endeavour, to bring the state into approximation to that condition in which rank, power, and possession, would be exactly graduated by ability. And this were a result fraught with so many beneficent consequences, that it must THE SOCIAL LIFE. 47 be acknowledged, that the extent to which he has succeeded in striking and infusing his great idea into contemporary literature and the public mind in general, is to be consi- dered a grateful and promising achievement. It is, how- ever, an indubitable fact, that an error in the original axioms on which any system of teaching is based, although in the course of that teaching separate and partial truths may find advocacy or enforcement, will show itself in any attempt to reduce theory to practice, and will most likely, we might perhaps say certainly, neutralise or poison the very truths amid which, erewhile, it lurked in concealment. And thus we conceive it to be with the teaching of Mr Carlyle: it contains invaluable truth, yet in the original fountain was a poison-drop, which will be found, if its streams ever come to irrigate the general fields of life, to kill the plants it was expected to nourish, and leave a sterile waste where men looked for the bloom and the opu- lence of a garden of God. The fundamental axiom of that pantheism of which we recognise Mr Carlyle as the great living advocate, we found to be, that man is divine. The great man is he in whom the divinity is most clearly manifested. This being so, how, we ask, would that graduation proceed of which we have spoken ? It would tend altogether to the exalt- ation of the great man : if such a thing as worship could exist, it would be worship of him: if a theory of govern- ment were to be propounded, it would be that in which his wisdom ruled without let, and his will was absolute. If my fellow is more divine than I, it is right that I bow down to him, it is right that I serve him: and it is no difficult task to show, that the good things of this life will plen- teously result to me from my doing so. In one word, if well traced out, the legitimate social theory of pantheism 48 THE SOCIAL LIFE. would be despotism. In the course of this volume we shall have occasion to mark, in certain important departments of social life, the development of this theory, and to dis- cover whether Mr Carlyle's own ultimate teaching con- firms our view; for the present, we can merely state it without exposing defects or considering advantages. Christianity is able to accept from Mr Carlyle all that is of value in his doctrines, while avoiding those perils with which they would prove unable to contend. It bids me not to bow down to any fellow-mortal ; yet it may en- join my according him all respect consistent with manli- ness: it bids me not to take commands from any absolute will with the servile cringe of the slave ; yet it makes room for hearty and strenuous obedience. All this it does by the recognition of two great doctrines : the absolute sove- reignty of God; and the relative sovereignty, yet absolute equality, of man. It sets the world, so to speak, in a par- ticular point of view, and by so doing makes everything plain; it represents it as the Lord's, as a field, or vineyard, in which He has certain grand objects to accomplish. It shows every man to be a servant: and to every man who is a dutiful servant it dispenses an equality of honour, and in certain grand particulars, nay, in all, though we cannot now stay to make good the point, an equality of reward. To endeavour to define and enumerate the ends which Divine Providence has in view with man in this world, were a rash and impotent attempt. But we certainly know that the great end of all things is the glory of God; that His glory is manifested in the perfection of His crea- tures; and that He, in His benignity, has ordained that an integral part of perfection is joy, that the higher man or nation ascends on that path, the richer are the fruits and the more beautiful the flowers which line the way. THE SOCIAL LIFE. 49 And it is not impossible, with the light of revelation and the voice of history, to discern the grand outline of that method by which God has ordained and commanded man, in slow progress through the centuries, to work out his perfection as a species. On the one hand, he has a freedom from God, which it is his duty to preserve, which he dare not alienate ; on the other, in order to his progress, God has revealed to him, first, by the fact of an experienced necessity, and, second, by the direct sanction of His word, that civil govern' ment, the more or less complete merging of individual freedom in public law, is also a divine ordinance. In the former of these it is implied, that every faculty which God has bestowed upon or committed to the individual perform its full and appropriate work, or reach its perfect and congenial development; that the intellectual powers have a fair sphere for their operation, that the conscience be untrammelled, that the will exercise its legitimate autho- rity over thought and action, and that each capacity of enjoyment be duly gratified. All this we hold to be implied in the perfection of individual freedom; and all this Christianity guarantees in its declaration of the es- sential equality, the blood-unity, of all men, and its com- mand that all work be done, that every faculty operate, with might. In the latter, in the ordinance of civil government, it is implied that every man perform not only his own primary and direct duty, but that he sub- serve the performance of all other duty; that he play, so to speak, into the hand of every other man ; that he make way where he is himself superfluous, that he obey where his service is necessary to the performance of a duty which he is himself incompetent to effect; in one word, that he recognise as right all that graduation of rank according to work done, which nature tends to effect. This is the true 50 THE SOCIAL LIFE. theory of divine right! that the real, the natural power be obeyed. Let it not be imagined that this is a divine sanc- tion of any particular form, or any particular depositary of governing power r Christianity does not change a living body into a mummy or petrifaction, and command men to obey it: it sanctions the power, and if the time has come for this power to be born, the giant child may hear its sanctioning voice in the womb of futurity, and tear its way, amid what throes soever, to life and inheritance. In the darkest and most barbarous times, this social theory of Christianity will be a guiding light ; when civilisation shall be completed, when freedom and law shall have become one, and not till then, it shall have been wrought out. In the following pages, we shall have occasion to trace a few of its gradual developments; and, first of all, we shall consider that defamed agency which yet Isaac Tay- lor scruples not to call the latest impersonation of the spirit of Christianity, Christian Philanthropy. PART II. (Bty&stim anir $Iklnftm. BOOK I. CHRISTIANITY THE BASIS OP SOCIAL LIFE. CHAPTEE I. FIRST PRINCIPLES. OF CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE ORIGIN AND END OP LAW. Proposing, in this book, to glance generally at a few of the characteristic social agencies of our time, it seems to us an orderly and perspicuous method to regard modern Christian philanthropy as a fitting representative of those agencies, and its consideration, for that reason, a meet introduction to their cursory survey. We shall not allege it to be a principal agency in our present and prospective so- cial system. But we do think that, in its treatment, we are brought eye to eye with that problem on which the future of the free nations depends ; and that an inquiry into its fundamental principles, and a survey of its development, lead us by a natural path to the full statement and com- prehension of that problem. With this statement we pur- pose concluding the present division of our subject. We consider, then, in the outset, the essential and fundamental ideas of Christian Philanthropy. 52 FIRST PRINCIPLES. We do not affirm that there is anything positively new in the idea of this philanthropy. It is as old as love. Its history began to be written in the first tear which fell from a human eye, over one whose only claim was pity, and whose only plea was sorrow. But we shall not be required to prove that there is such a thing in our day as " the phi- lanthropic movement:" we may safely allege the fact that simple pity, love for the wretched as such, has become a more formal and recognisable power in our time than here- tofore. Of this we speak. That our conception of Christian Philanthropy may be clearly perceived, and that it may be known at once what we believe to be its true nature, and what we are willing to stand by as its defensible positions, we shall state, in four ca- tegories, what we deem its grand fundamental propositions. I. In the system of human affairs, there is a distinct, traceable, and indispensable function, to be performed by compassion. II. All men are, in a definable sense, equal. All human law is grounded on expediency ; on what is temporal and not eternal. Revenge is foreign to the idea of law. III. It is not a possible case that hatred be the highest and most reasonable feeling with which one human being can regard another. There cannot, upon earth, exist, in the human form, any one whom it is not noble and holy to love. IV. It is impossible, in this world, that the traces of the divine image be absolutely obliterated from the human soul. God has not revealed to man any period at which it is either incumbent on, or lawful for him, to abandon hope and effort that his brother may attain to that higher nature, which is at once the restoration and elevation of humanity. FIRST PRINCIPLES. 53 These categories are closely connected with each other, and a more searching analysis might doubtless afford clearer lines of demarcation ; but, for practical purposes, we think they will serve. The first is the general declaration with which philanthropy, as such, sets out. The second leads us to define its true relation to justice. The third is inti- mately associated with the second, and is the. Christian rule of feeling, as expressed by our Saviour. The fourth indi- cates the rationale of every effort towards reclamation of the criminal or condemned. At its first arising, Philanthropy was hailed with accla- mation. Without hesitation, apparently without question, and almost with universal voice, men affirmed its light to be holy, and its influence, of necessity, benign. Be the cause, however, what it may, we now find matters altered. Philanthropy, it is true, has pervaded the nation, and more is done at the simple cry of compassion than was ever done before ; but it has been assailed with vituperation and con- tempt, scarcely condescending to argue ; while it furnishes every petty novelist and scribbler with subjects of cari- cature, and targets for small arrows that stick because they are viscous with venom not because they are pointed with wit. The chief argumentative assailant of philanthropy is a man whose words must always deserve calm and thorough consideration, whose name alone is a battery Mr Carlyle. Caricaturists and small wits might be left to shift for them- selves, after we had demonstrated, if that proved to be in our power, the value and reasonableness of philanthropy ; but to leave them thus altogether, were to fall into the mis- take of supposing that nothing can injure which has little force, or that men are not in the habit, every day, and scores of times every day, of holding apples so near to their eyes that they shut out the light of the sun. We consider, there- 54 FIRST PRINCIPLES. fore, a few words (and they shall be as few as we can pos- sibly make them) not wholly wasted on the subject of the ridicule to which philanthropy is in our day exposed : they may prove applicable to the sense of the ridiculous as exer- cised on every kind of religious or moral action or emotion. We are by no means among those who utter a sweeping condemnation against all laughter in the serious provinces of human affairs: we consider the sense of the ridiculous extremely valuable in a man and a nation. In every de- partment of art, of literature, and of life, it prunes a fan- tastic or grotesque exuberance, keeping down, to give it in one word, excessive idiosyncrasy. It is, by its nature, in close league with common sense ; it is the mortal foe of bombast, sentimentality, softness, and every sort of pre- tence. We regard the strong sense of the ridiculous in- herited by the English people, as one of the healthiest characteristics. It may at present threaten to degenerate into a universal titter; but, in its native strength and soundness, it preserves us in a fine mean between the French and the Germans; between the " gesticulating na- tion that has a heart, and wears it on its sleeve," and the nation that thinks walls, and holds the empire of the air.* We imagine there is much in our literature at present which might be bettered by a little smart satire: it is a tonic we cannot well do without. And we claim no exemption for philanthropy from the restraining or tempering power of a sound sense of the ridiculous, resulting in manly and discriminating satire. * " Gentlemen, think the wall:" these were the words in which Fichte commenced his philosophic lectures in Jena. However idealistic, we can scarcely conceive a British audience not being touched with a feeling of drollery by the words: the Germans sat like stucco. Let it not be thought from this remark that I intend the faintest disrespect for the majestic genius and noble character of Fichte. / FIRST PRINCIPLES. 55 Assuredly, like every other human thing, it may run into absurdity or excess, and, in particular instances, may fur- nish legitimate objects of caricature. But satire has its laws: as sure and imperative laws as any other species of composition. And in these it certainly is included, both that it must never be absolutely in error, and that it must never be absolutely frivolous. There is a national mirth which comports with earnestness and reve- rence, and is beautiful as the smile of natural and fearless strength ; but there is such a thing as the laughter of na- tional paralysis, and what more ghastly than that? Laughter is noble and profitable ; but not that of the madman when he sets the house on fire, or that of the fool who goes to wedding and funeral with the same mindless grin. Its office is to prune the excrescences that will adhere to the best of human things, to prevent stupidity, pretension, or weak enthusiasm, from attaching their distorting or encumbering insignia to any form of truth. But it becomes at once of malign in- fluence, if its attacks menace the truth itself, if, in cutting away excess of foliage, it draws the vital sap from the tree, if, in curing the squint, it cuts out the eye. Sound satire should clear from all stains the statue of truth ; but it should make men love to gaze on that statue the more. And, since satire is of prevailing influence, since it acts upon the mind with a more subtle insinuation, and often exerts a greater power of unconscious mental modification even than argument, it is of serious importance that this fact be constantly borne in mind. Now, we do think, that in the caricatures we have had of philanthropy, this fundamental law has been infringed. There has been a fatal want of all discrimination of the true from the false ; qualities radically and perennially holy, human in the noblest sense, and dignifying humanity, 56 FIRST PRINCIPLES. have been confounded with their morbid excess, or left to appear altogether absurd and ignoble. One or two words will make this plain. There are three circles in which, in his life on earth, and the discharge of his earthly duties, a man may act. The first is that of self: one must always, by duty and necessity, do more for himself, or in connection with him- self, than for any one else. The second is that of family and friends, of all those who have a claim on one by blood or friendship: within this circle a man must perform certain duties, or he meets universal reprobation and con- tempt. The third is that of humanity in general. We shall not insult our readers by proving to them that this is truly and properly a sphere of human duty; although there are not wanting writings in our day whose tendency seems to indicate it as an insult to suppose one to doubt the reverse: we shall not endeavour to eliminate the fact, which used to be considered as good as settled, that a man is by nature united in mysterious but ennobling bonds with every other man, and that it is not one of the charac- teristics of a high state of humanity, that it be separated into families and coteries, each attending to its own affairs, like so many families of wolves in the pine forest; we shall presume our readers to agree that severance, dis- union, isolation, selfishness, are symptoms of disease in the human race, and that the evolution of the ages, if it tends to any consummation whatever, must tend to their termi- nation. Not only, however, is this sphere noble ; we fear- lessly assert, still without deeming proof necessary, that it is this third sphere where, save in rare instances, noble- ness as such has existence. A man who performs well his duties to himself, who has no higher object than that he may be undisturbed and happy, we 6hall not call noble. FIRST PRINCIPLES. 57 In the second circle, we find many of the loveliest spec- tacles that our earth can show ; the affection of brothers and of sisters, the self-sacrificing nobleness of friendship, the sacred beauty of a mother's love. But, leaving the question of friendship (which, indeed, holds, in its pure form, of the high and the immortal), we cannot hesitate to place domestic feelings and spectacles, as such, among the natural productions of our planet; the loveliest perhaps we have to show, but of a beauty precisely analogous to that of the rose and the fountain, and essentially pertain- ing to time. By neglecting family duties, one becomes less than a man ; by performing them never so well, he comes not to merit applause. Distinctive nobleness com- mences in the third circle. It is when one rises above self and family, and looks abroad on the family of man- kind, that he takes the attitude which in a man is essen- tially great: when he no longer feels around him the little necessities which compel, or the little pleasures which allure, and yet is able to contemplate men as a great brotherhood of immortals, with a gaze analogous to that of Him in whose image he is made ; when he passes beyond what he shares with the lower orders of creation, and soars to those regions where, as an intelligent, God- knowing creature, he may sit among the angels; when he can look on the world through the light of eternity; then it is that he does what it is the distinctive privilege and nobleness of man on this earth to do, what marks him as animated by those emotions to which, under God, humanity owes all it has achieved in time. All this is so plain, and so absolutely certain, that statement embraces proof. "What excuse, then, could be pled for .a satire, which en- dangered this peculiar nobleness of humanity, and perpe- 58 FIRST PRINCIPLES. tually read to man the lesson that he should mind himself, or, at most, his family, or, at very most, some interesting family which he fancied, much as he might rabbits or pigeons? A very superfluous lesson, to be sure! For one man or woman who neglects self or family from ac- tual desire to promote the welfare of the human race, ten thousand, at the very least, neglect the latter for the former. Human indolence and selfishness require no aid from satire to make men ever sink back into their own little circles, into their own little hearts! Go out to your lawn in the evening after a shower, when the earthworms are looking out, and commence to lecture them on the paramount importance of home duties : how it is proper to keep their holes tidy, and attend to the respectable upbringing of their children ; how they have duties enough at their own doors, and it cannot be too earnestly enforced on them that they ought not to look much towards the stars, just beginning to come out, and so very far away: but spare your sweet breath, and aban- don the quite superfluous task of bidding men cultivate selfishness, and withdraw their eyes from looking in love towards the ends of the earth. Holy and beautiful are home duties, and home delights; these may nowise be ne- glected or scorned: but God did not kindle the smile of the winter hearth, or the warmer smile of the true wife, God did not fill home with the musical voices of children, and the thousand " hopes, and fears that kindle hope, an undistinguishable throng," that these should be his all to a man, that no voice should reach him from the outer world. These are a solace after his work, these are rewards of his toil, but these can never furnish him the tasks that mark him distinctively as a man. It is when we widen our sphere of vision and of love, a sphere which will go on FIRST PRINCIPLES. 59 widening to eternity, and not when we contract it, that we become noble and man-like. We turn now to our contemporary satire. Do we not meet, on all hands, with forms of ridicule with quiet sneers, with rude horse-laughter, with elaborate figures, of high broad brows, and breasts calm and cold as marble, and with sign-painter daubs, that are human only in bear- ing human names, but otherwise as dead as spoiled canvass all meant to raise the laugh against a philanthropy that would look abroad ? We desire no stop to be put to the laughter: only let care betaken, lest, while we laugh, our unconscious hearts are robbed of the purest spark of celes- tial fire lingering within. When we look at the delicate and living lines in the stately statue of a St. John, or at the mechanic movements, utterly removed from all possi- bility of sympathy, and to be condemned as abortive and inconceivable by every canon of mere criticism, in a Mrs Jellyby, let us beware lest we recoil too strongly from the finely and almost soundly satirised excess of the one, and from the hideous and unmitigated atrocity of the other, into what is, in the former, however painted, after all but human passion, or into what is offered as the right morality instead of the other, a silly and simpering good-nature, that never looks beyond its own little ring, and such objects as can look well and draw mawkish tears in the pages of a novel. Let it be remembered, also, that, whatever may be the case with morbid idiosyncrasy, it is in general the heat which warms most, that casts its warming influence farthest: the man who loves all men, will have love to embrace his neighbourhood. The cottages of Cardington did not suffer because Howard was visiting the sick-beds on the shores of the Bosphorus! These words cannot be considered uncalled for. Many, we 60 FIRST PRINCIPLES. fear, when their hearts, in the first ardour of youth, were beginning to expand with holy desires, that told of their brotherhood or sisterhood with earth's nobles and standard- bearers, have felt them contract again to the mere every- day feelings of home and neighbourhood, under the influ- cence of such satire as we have been here indicating ; satire which would laugh at Plato as he trod, afar from men, the lone mountains of thought, which would keep David ever at the sheep-fold, and John ever at the net. We turn now from this view of the subject. Philanthropy, we have said, has been attacked by Mr Carlyle. It has been attacked with weapons of argument, and with those of fiercest scorn, declared " a phosphores- cence and unclean," and rejected from among the ageneies to be regarded with hope by those who desire the oom- mon weal. We consider him to have erred; but, well assured as we are that he loves men as only a mighty man can love, we deem anything he may say on the subject worthy of attention, and we controvert his opinions with deliberation and care. By considering the case, too, in the precise light in which he views it, we come directly and conveniently to the heart of the whole question, to the de- termination of the relation borne by philanthropy to justice. This relation we shall endeavour to define with what we can attain of scientific accuracy. With very much of what Mr Carlyle says on the subject of the treatment of criminals, we perfectly agree; much, in- deed, which he alleges can, we think, be shown to be correct and consistent, only when interpreted in accordance with our theory. But the difference between us is decided. Our view of the matter leads us to what seems a satisfactory defence of that philanthropy which Mr Carlyle execrates ; and when we discover his positive conception of the origin of FIRST PRINCIPLES. 61 human law, we ean deliberately and decisively affirm our belief of its incorrectness. We plainly assert, that every man who is punished by any constituted authority on this earth, who is put to death, or who is fined sixpence, can be so treated, reasonably and rightfully, solely because of the "effects," too varied to be noted for the present, of his actions on his fellows and their prospects. Mr Carlyle has these words: "Example, effects upon the public mind, effects upon this and upon that all this is mere appendage and accident." We deliberately think that, to constitute revenge the true theory of justice between man and man, the human being must be at once an atheist and a savage. Mr Carlyle speaks thus: "Revenge, my friends! re- venge, and the natural hatred of scoundrels, and the in- eradicable tendency to revancher one's-self upon them, and pay them what they have merited: this is for evermore intrinsically a correct, and even a divine feeling in the mind of every man." And again, after one of his own burning metaphoric passages, in which a man, in the fury of passion, is represented as reasonably slaying another: " My humane friends, I perceive this same sacred glow of divine wrath, or authentic monition at first-hand from God himself, to be the foundation for all criminal law," &c. We can no longer doubt that Mr Carlyle's theory of law is that of revenge, and this we proceed to question. Let no one imagine, while we do so, that we impute to him all which may be logically extorted from his premises. The explicative word of Mr Carlyle's whole system of belief is " hero-worship:" the immense debt we nationally owe him, and the unsoundness which may, we think, be shown to characterise very much of what he has written, are alike traceable to his view of the individual man, and the relation he bears to his fellows. With his views here, 02 FIRST PRINCIPLES. his theory of human law accords, in perfect philosophic consistency. We must therefore subject to an examination what we understand him to mean by * hero-worship." And we are the more willing to do so at this early stage of our progress, because we deem a conclusive exhibition of inac- curacy in his idea of man sufficient to overthrow all, or almost all, the errors which we shall have to combat in these pages. Mr Carlyle cares little for metaphysical supports for his opinions; he has long listened to the great voices of life and history; but we think his early works afford us the philosophic explanation of his doctrine of hero-worship. On a pantheistic scheme of things, it seems unassailable. God being all, and all being God, and a great man being the highest visible manifestation, and as it were concentra- tion of the universal divine essence, it is right to pay to the latter the homage of an unbounded admiration, to render him the only kind of worship possible to men. But we mean not to assail Mr Carlyle from this point: we likewise turn to the voices of history and the heart. We find him tracing all worship to admiration and reverence for great men ; we find him asserting that the limits are not to be fixed for the veneration with which to regard true heroism in a man. We think the very word " hero- worship" utterly inadmissible under any interpretation; we assert, that no religion ever had its origin in the ad- miration of men. Such the point in dispute; we turn to history. Two great classes may be distinguished among the leaders of mankind ; those who have exercised their influ- ence by power not moral, and those who made an appeal to the moral nature of man. We contend not for hair- breadth distinctions; we point out a difference which one JIRST PRINCIPLES. 63 glance along the centuries will show to be real and broad. By the first class, we mean such men as Napoleon, Caesar, and Alexander; by the second, such men as Mahomet, Zoroaster, and Moses. The former were, viewed as we now regard them, mere embodiments of force; their sol- diers trusted and followed them, because armies were in their hands as thunderbolts. The captain of banditti, whose eye sees farther, and whose arm smites more powerfully, than those of his followers, exercises an influ- ence in kind precisely similar. Anything analogous to worship is foreign to every such case ; a fact rendered palpable and undeniable by the simple reflection, that there is no feeling of an infinite respect, as due to what is infinite, in these or the like instances. A supple-kneed Greek might have knelt to Alexander, " if Alexander wished," but no proclamations could make a Greek believe that Alexander could lay his hand on the lightning, or impart life to an insect. There is, however, another class of great men, with whose influence on their fellows worship has been ever and intimately connected: this we have represented by Mahomet, Zoroaster, and Moses. Here, then, the point at issue comes directly before us. Worship did originate in each of these cases. Whence did it arise? Mark the men in their work, and listen to their words. Mahomet arose and said, "Ye have been worshipping dumb idols, that are no gods: look up to Allah ; there is no god but Allah !" His words were not in vain. Zoroaster arose and said, " Ye have wandered from the truth which your fathers knew and followed; I bring you it back fresh from the fountains of heaven." Men gave ear to him also. Moses came to the children of Israel, and said, " I am hath sent me unto you." They heard the word, and followed him; through the cloven 64 FIRST PRINCIPLES. surges, into the howling wilderness, whithersoever he listed. Whom did men obey and worship in each of these cases? Did they worship Mahomet, when he pointed his finger upwards to Allah ? Did they obey the commandments of Moses, when he gave them the tables where God's hand had traced words under the canopy of cloud and fire? Surely we may say with plainness and certainty, No. It was ever the Sender that was worshipped, not the sent; it was the belief in his alliance with an exterior, an infinite power, which won him his influence. He has brought us fire from heaven ! Such, in all ages, has been the cry of men, as they looked, their eyes radiant with joy and thank- fulness, on the priest or prophet, and ranged themselves under his guidance. The crown and sceptre which men have most highly honoured, and most loyally obeyed, have always been believed to have come down from heaven; men have not worshipped the spirit of a man, or the breath in his nostrils, but the Spirit to whom he turned them. We suppose the rudest Polynesian islander regards with profounder veneration the black, unchiselled, eyeless idol to which he bows down, than the wisest and mightiest chieftain he knows: the one holds of the unseen and the infinite, the other he can look upon, and examine, and compass in his thought; to the one he may look in the day of battle, of the other he will think in the shadow of the thunder-cloud ; the one he will respect and obey, the other alone will he worship. Go into the portrait gallery of the Venetians, and mark there the "victorious Doges painted neither in the toil of battle nor the triumph of return, nor set forth with crowns and curtains of state, but kneeling always crownless, and returning thanks to God for his help, or as priests interceding for the nation in its affliction." That spectacle illustrates well the re- FIRST PRINCIPLES. 65 lative regards of men towards their greatest, and towards their God. But we think we hear some one indignantly exclaim, Why, in the first place, all this is the extreme of triteness ; and, in the second, Mr Carlyle, by his doctrine of hero- worship, means really nothing more. We claim no great originality in this matter, and certainly the truth for which we contend, whatever it wants, is clothed in the majesty ,i age ; we do not suppose even, so strictly in accordance with human instinct do we deem it, that it sounded very strangely in the ears of men, when Moses, bidding them turn from those whose " breath was in their nostrils," was commissioned to write it down, an eternal truth for eternal remembrance, in the Book of Deuteronomy. But, however this may be, and even though our expression of the truth might be sanctioned by Mr Carlyle, we are absolutely assured that it is enough to reverse his whole theory of human affairs. We find it perfectly sufficient to show that the term hero-worship is an absurdity, or worse ; to indi- cate the true significance of those phenomena of universal history which Mr Carlyle has categorised under that term ; and at least to lead to the overthrow of his theory that law originates in revenge. It were difficult to compute the practical importance of the truths to which, under the name of hero-worship, he has directed our attention ; but we must remember the true and pregnant remark of Mack- intosh, that, in the construction of theory, partial truth is equivalent to error ; and while we would not lose one grain of the real gold Mr Carlyle has brought to the treasuries of the world, we would assign to all its own precise place, and no other. We grant that men have honoured men ; we grant that, in every department of human endeavour, the point to be aimed at, for health, prosperity, and ad- 66 FIRST PRINCIPLES. vancement, is to obtain qualified men. But, when Mr Car- lyle associates this fact with worship, we at once declare him to have missed an all-important distinction, which reveals the highest lessons of what he names hero-worship. This distinction is, we grant, very simple. If a city is sur- rounded by armed squadrons and a line of circumvalla- lion, if the townsmen are in terror that no quarter will be given them, but yet, because of a scorching thirst which threatens to kill them by slow torment, are pro- ceeding to open their gates, if then suddenly one of their number discovers, in a spot hitherto un thought of, a well of cool and abundant water; if his fellow-citizens crowd around him, and grasp his hand, and look on him with tears of joy what shall we see in the spectacle? Respect for him, or delight at the discovery of the foun- tain? Entirely the latter. When a man, looking heaven- ward, cries out, I see heaven opened, and the light streams forth lift up your eyes, and see it for yourselves; when men hear, and believe, and bestir themselves, and exclaim, It is even so: we see the light, we feel ourselves being drawn nearer to it, and mayest thou be blessed for showing it to us what shall we see in the spectacle? Shall we regard it as a testimony of man to man, or of man to God? Certainly as the latter. We look with Mr Carlyle along human history; we see men paying the highest honour to their Mahomets and Zoroasters ; we see the character of whole epochs moulded by this honour; we see nations gathering round these, and willing, one would say, to cement for them thrones in their hearts' blood ; and from the whole we learn, not the divinity of man, but the fact that the deep human instinct has in all ages looked for a God. The louder the shouts arise of what Mr Carlyle calls hero- worship, the more definitely and decisively will they pro- FIRST PRINCIPLES. 67 claim to us, that hero worship, in any permissible or de- finable sense, is contradicted by the united voice of huma- nity. The two highest inferences to be drawn from all the great phenomena so magnificently illustrated by Mr Car- lyle under that name, seem to us to be these two: I. In the breast of the human race is a belief in an Infi- nite Being. II. There has been perennially in the heart of man an intense desire to reach a nearer knowledge of God, and a closer intimacy with Him a sublime and inextinguishable yearning towards a divine Father. The first of these propositions is one of nature's strongest arguments for a Deity ; the second is perhaps the strongest, for the fact that the Deity is such a conscious and personal existence as can hold communication with reasoning minds. The first goes to establish monotheism; the second sends a death-stab to the heart of pantheism. "We find ourselves led, then, by the path trodden by Mr Carlyle, to the throne where God sits, King of the universe. We shall endeavour to eliminate a theory of law in consistence with this great truth. If the hero is to be worshipped as a god, the scoundrel is to be hated as a devil; the revenge theory may then be defended: but the fact may be different, if there never was any such thing as strict worship of heroes if hero and scoundrel are the sub- jects of one living God. We desire to make no show of metaphysics here: we write with a practical purpose, and in a popular form; and therefore rest all on an appeal to men as they are repre- sented in history, and as they feel in their hearts. But there is one argument of perhaps a somewhat metaphysical nature, which is extremely simple, and seems to bear very strongly against the theory of revenge; it we adduce in 68 FIRST PRINCIPLES. the outset. It proceeds on the hypothesis that there is an intelligent and almighty Governor of the universe. "We introduce it by a well-known quotation: " Alas ! alas ! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy: How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? 0, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made." "We cannot consider this a mere echo of popular senti- ment on the part of Shakespere : we suspect these words came from depths in the greatest merely human heart that ever beat; we think we see in them one of those thoughts that pierce farthest into eternity. When thinking or speaking of the Infinite Being, we cannot proceed by cal- culation of degrees: absolute purity is stained by a mote as certainly as by a whole atmosphere of hell's darkness. If it is the eternal law of justice that the reasonable being affected with sin be hated, we cannot go. about to say, so much will be hated, so much will be tolerated, and so on. Now, Mr Carlyle will certainly not deny that sin adheres to the whole human race: set on a ground of perfect light, he will allow our species, as a whole, to look black. He sees a brother man commit some atrocious crime : with what he calls a glow of divine wrath, he slays him. It being a divine emotion to hate that being because affected with sin, it must be also divine, in one of absolute holiness, to hate and exterminate every creature so affected, even by the smallest speck that infinite light can reveal. If this is so, how is it that the human race exists ? How is it that God did not lift His foot in anger, and crush our planet into annihilation as a loathsome worm staining the azure of FIRST PRINCIPLES. 69 immensity ? Really there is no answer : if hatred is the highest and holiest emotion with which a man can regard a fellow-creature affected with sin, if this fact is the real foundation of justice, and if an infraction of justice here is an infraction of essential right, there cannot be conceived a reason, we might say a possibility, that a sinful species could subsist in God's world. And is there a living man, or has there ever been a man, who could deliberately consider that his distance from the purity of the Infinitely Holy was less than the distance of his most sinful brother from him ? Is there any of the sons of men, who could deliberately challenge his Maker to cast a stone at him ? If such there be, let him hold to the theory that hatred and revenge are the emotions with which God regards the sinner ; if there is none such, that theory chains the noblest human soul that ever existed on the eternal rock of despair. This preliminary consideration leads us to a distinction which lies at the basis of all that is to follow that, namely, between moral evil and the soul it pollutes. This distinction Mr Carlyle overlooks or ignores, yet on it all depends. God, we most certainly hold, does eternally and infinitely hate sin, and no bounds are to be placed to the hatred with which it is right for men to regard it ; but precisely as " hero-worship" was found not to indicate infinite love and honour as due to men, but as directed towards the foun- tain of light, so the efforts men have made to exterminate the excessively wicked from among them, indicate hatred of their brethren only in a secondary and temporary sense, and point chiefly to the abyss of blackness which their iniquity reveals. The whole moral universe seems to us to be whelmed in a confusion as of returning chaos, if this distinction is not rigidly adhered to. We cannot be required to prove the possibility of draw- 70 FIRST PRINCIPLES. ing this great distinction, or its reality when drawn ; and, convinced that we can appeal to the instincts of men, we intentionally fortify it by no metaphysical arguments. Every man could understand and sympathise with Cole- ridge, when he said he would tolerate men, but for princi- ples he would have no toleration. The peasant Christian sees no mystery in that passage where God is asserted to have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, although the whole Bible testifies His exterminating abhorrence of sin. And have not men ever borne witness to an instinctive feeling of this distinction ? Bad as the world is, there per- haps was never a scaffold erected, and a man put to death upon it, for whom, whatever his crime, certain eyes in the crowd were not filled with the dew of pity. Have not some nations treated the condemned, previously to their execution, with condoling kindness? Or what find we in that spectacle exhibited in Paris, on the autumn evening in 1792, which Mr Carlyle has painted for us as with the brush of Michael Angelo? The Septembriseurs, mad- dened with rage, their arms to the elbow clotted with gore, their whole aspect that of unchained demons, clasped to their breasts, with the audible weeping of irrepressible joy, any one among the prisoners who was pronounced guilt- less and snatched from the jaws of death. Even they Avitnessed to the fact that it is a stern work for man to be the executioner of man. It is the mark of the evil one perceived on a fellow-creature that is hated, not that creature himself. Would to God, men say from their in- most hearts, we could part this evil from you ; but we cannot, and we must expel it from the midst of us ; you must go with it. The tainted spot must be cut out; but while the knife is being whetted, the tear is being shed. Mr Carlyle acknowledges this general fact, but, if well FIRST PRINCIPLES. 71 pondered, we think it goes far to invalidate his theory. To account for it, without recognising the distinction we have stated, will be found difficult. The indulgence of every desire and propensity is, by a recognised psycho- logical law, associated with a pleasurable sensation. When a man kills another in the fury of revenge, he assuredly experiences a momentary relief and gratification. By our distinction, all becomes consistent; the passion is left in the enjoyment of its own pleasure; the pain arises from another source yet to be seen. Let it not be supposed that we allege that revenge per- forms no function in human affairs ; we do believe it to have a function. This we shall presently endeavour to indicate; but we now concede that, even in the precise mode in which Mr Carlyle pictures its exercise, it may, in rare cases, come legitimately into action. " The forked weapon of the skies can send Illumination into deep, dark holds, Which the mild sunbeam hath not power to pierce." "Where the calm voice of law cannot be heard, or its hand cannot strike, then revenge may start forth to assert huma- nity and justice. Keeping steadily in view the distinction between the sinner and his sin, we proceed to exhibit briefly what we deem the real origin and function of human law. We find man, in all ages and circumstances, present two great aspects: that of the individual; and that of the civis, or member of society. We must say one or two words of each. It is not a mere theological dogma, that man is king of this lower world that his relation to his fellows is differ- ent from that he bears to the inferior animals. Is there not a certain mystical sacredness attaching to the life of a man ? 72 FIRST PRINCIPLES. Is there any degree of idiocy or insanity which will turn aside that flaming sword with which conscience pursues the murderer? In the remotest desert, in the depth of the sequestered wood, why is it that he who deliberately slays his fellow feels that he is not unseen ? that, though no human power will ever reach him, there is a tribunal before which he will appear One to whom his brother's blood can cry even from the ground ? Is it not because there is a sense in which all men are equal their differences relative, their equality essential ? And what but this can we under- stand, by the inherent majesty imputed by sages and poets to men ? What but this renders it a glorious thing, how- ever slender my capacities, that I have the gift of a human soul ? Not only is it that the grandeurs and harmonies of nature are disposed for the delight and exaltation of all, not only that " The sun is fix'd, And the infinite magnificence of heaven Fix'd, within reach of every human eye; The sleepless ocean murmurs for all ears; The vernal field infuses fresh delight Into all hearts:" from which sublime truth a metaphysical as well as a poetical argument for essential human brotherhood might perhaps be drawn: the very fact that the human eye has been opened, as no other being's on earth has been, to see the face of the one God, seems a sufficient proof that there remains for man, from every power on earth, an ulti- mate appeal. The destinies of men are bounded, not by time, but by eternity; the human soul is a denizen, not alone of earth, but of the universe : " God's image, sister of the seraphim," if indeed the seraphim can claim a glory equal to that of the soul of man, will always assert a claim to the citizen- FIRST PRINCIPLES. 73 ship of heaven, and a power of appeal to the judgment of God. The right hy which any earthly power can judge and punish man must be delegated. By turning thus for a moment upon man the light of eternity, we find pertaining to him an essential equality ; we think, too, we here discover the source of that inex- tinguishable and resistless passion for freedom which has ever distinguished him in time. Neither is it merely a theological dogma that the human race is in a state of imperfection, and of effort towards some higher condition. It is a historical fact. Call it what you will, account for it as you may, the human race, in its history in time, has been marked by one grand characteristic, unique in this world. That charac- teristic is a visible effort towards some development a progress, or aim at progress. Our species has not the aspect of one who has finished his journey, but of one still proceeding in it; not of one who has cultivated his field, and can sit down to enjoy it, but of one who still sees it untilled and encumbered with rocks; humanity has always shown a brow darkened with care and dissatisfaction, an eye fixed on the distance, a staff in the hand. We need not ask whither it is bound; but, beyond question, it has ever been going; never could it lay itself down to sleep ; never could it build itself an eternal city ; ever its most heroic aspect has been displayed when it aroused itself, and set out anew on its march. But the deepest thinkers have recognised that, along with this characteristic of progress, the human species is distinguished by that also of a remarkable and pre-eminent unity. You cannot individualise man so far as to separate him from his species; in the wolf-child of India, in the maniac of solitary con- finement, you see what man is when separated from man. 74 FIRST PRINCIPLES. In the unity of the species, or its irresistible tendency to- wards unity, originated society. Society arrogated to itself a power which no individual man can claim, the power to touch the human life; this power, we believe, was conferred on it by God, and the form in which He revealed to man that it belonged to him was, the necessity, stern and painful indeed, by which he was driven to exercise it. The perfect development of human unity, the attain- ment of all that man can do or become in a civic capacity, is the aim of civilisation. The machinery of human civi- lisation is vast and various; one of its principal parts is law. Where, then, precisely are wc to look for the origin of law? Surely to the relation between the two entities the indivi- dual, and the society. And if we can find any reason why the society should originate law, we shall probably have discovered that of which we are in quest. We have not far to look : we find it by a glance at individual passion. At what time law commenced we inquire not whether its ori- gin was in any respect supernatural or not, is of no moment at present; but certainly it was when human passions were seen tearing the weak and defenceless, when individual greed, individual lust, individual hate, and, most cruel and perilous of all, individual revenge, ranged like beasts of the forest amid a flock, that Law unbared her " beautiful bold brow," and bade them all cower beneath the eye of reason. Human law arose from no human passion, but from the necessity discerned by men, if they were to abide longer in this world, to have some voice above human passion, with power to control it. That mighty instinct in the human heart which has ever spurned control by an individual brother, required absolutely to be commanded by a power not individual, FIRST PRINCIPLES. 75 which could dare to compel submission. In the very idea of law we find the restraint of the individual: the very object of law is the counteraction of passion ; if any two ideas are precisely antithetic, they are these two, law and passion. Let us, leaving the others, look for a moment at this particular passion of revenge. "We put these questions regarding it, When was it ever felt, save for personal wrongs, to such an extent that it could supply the place of an independent, disinterested voice ? When was it felt for sin, either against God or man, with half the inten- sity with which it has burned for the most insignificant personal injury? "When was its power ever permitted to remain comparatively unchecked, without producing effects of excess which were the mockery of justice ? Revenge was in the eye of Cain when he struck down Abel; re- venge was the Themis of the deadly feud demanding the unintermittent stream of blood from generation to genera- tion for the accident or the mistake; but when revenge ever spoke, save perhaps in the convulsions and spasms of national life, with the voice of reason, we know not. Of all the passions on which Law cast her quelling eye, blind, selfish, murderous revenge was perhaps the most turbulent and unreasonable. We are led to this conclusion : That man, feeling in his bosom a freedom which, like the very breath of the Al- mighty, seemed part of his essential existence, yet saw himself so encumbered by manifold imperfections, so preyed upon by individual passions, that, in his progress onwards, he was compelled, unconsciously or by a voice from heaven, to originate the thing society, and to establish a power which, personating the community, should visit with pu- nishment crimes committed against it : this last power was 76 FIRST PRINCIPLES. law. We have said that it had its root in expediency ; but the sense in which this holds good is important. It was expedient with reference to eternity: as mankind navi- gated the stream of time, a fatal mutiny broke out, and the expedient of law became necessary to make existence pos- sible; in a perfect state of humanity it were impossible; it will vanish when society vanishes, in the restored state of man. But it may, nevertheless, appeal to eternal laws; nay, it may be specially said to rise over the clamour of in- dividual and temporal interests, and endeavour to catch the eternal accents of justice ; its commission is temporal, its code may be eternal. Law is the antithesis of individualism. But, if we did seek its analogue in the individual mind, we should not look for it in revenge: we should find it in the serene pause of reason, when all noises from without are excluded, and the raving passions are stilled within, and the soul asks counsel of pure truth and perfect justice. Does not the universal opinion of mankind, in its un- conscious expression, during all ages, support us in our view of law? If not, whence is it that Justice has ever been figured as of calm, passionless countenance ; no cloud of revenge, no gleam of pity on her brow, and holding in her hand the well-poised balance ? Law does not regard men as such ; it regards them as retarding forces which hinder men in their march through time, and, as such, visits them with punishment. Hatred, love, revenge, pity, every emotion which has reference to the living, sentient being, is foreign to that iron brow ; there must be no quiver- ing in the hand which holds that even balance. The foregoing proof was necessary to enable us to ex- hibit the soundness of philanthropy, as brought forward into more prominent operation among the agencies of FIRST PRINCIPLES. 77 human civilisation, than it had hitherto been, by John Howard. Look again at that calm image of Justice, lifting her serene brow into the still azure. "VVe think that, with strict philosophic truth, a poetic eye, regarding that figure in time, may have seen that it has ever been accompanied by two other figures. On the one hand was Revenge, with instruments of torture, and an eye where blended the fury of hell and the hunger of the grave. She has ever called for more victims and more pain. That she has not cried in vain, let the groans that have come from earth's racks and wheels, earth's crosses and furnaces, bear sad witness. On the other hand was Love, pleading ever against Re- venge, and endeavouring to draw an iron tear from the eye of Justice. Both these figures are foreign to the idea of law. Revenge looks from the fault to the individual, and says, torture and kill him; Love looks from the fault to the individual, and says, pity and save him: Law regards the fault alone. We fully grant that revenge has thus a function in time. Love might conceivably become morbid, might de- generate into a weak sentimentalism, might cease to accept the stern necessity of not sparing the sin, whatever may be the feeling entertained for the sinner. And had it not been for the positive pleasure of revenge, perhaps the sorrow entailed upon men in the punishment of those among them who clog the wheels of progress, had caused its having never been proceeded with: so far, in strict psychological truth, does Mr Carlyle err, when he speaks of the exercise of revenge being painful. Love may go farther than can be allowed it in the present condition of the human race, and then revenge may feel itself crushed and unduly out- raged, and call out for a new fixing of that medium be- 78 FIRST PRINCIPLES. tween extremes, which is all we can yet attempt. Nay, it is quite heyond our intention to deny that this may, in individual instances, have been the case in the philan- thropic movement. Love and revenge, considered thus in their relation to justice, are alike temporal. When men have re-attained their true, original, spiritual life, their work will have been completed ; Justice will then for ever rule, and alone ; but no longer over cowering, struggling, trembling creatures; for, when we look up, the iron brow shall have become gold, and we shall know, by the fadeless smile on the lip, that to eternity Justice and Love are one. Now are we fairly at the point where we can decide upon the claims of philanthropy. Granting that love and re- venge are each and equally foreign to the idea of law, we ask this question : In a state of progress, in a state of ad- vancement from worse to better, shall we proceed towards the enlargement of the province of love, or to that of the province of revenge ? Surely we may answer, without hesitation, that the advancement must be in the direction of love, and that, more and more, revenge will be driven away, as men attain to higher and higher development. When all passions fade away, their function being per- formed, love will also pass away, but only to become one with justice. We shall not hang such a curtain of murky darkness over the future of humanity, as to say that it is not towards love, but towards hatred, not towards mercy, but revenge, that we are advancing. Surely, if there is one instinct in the human heart which is entwined with its essential life, and which wings its proudest aspirations ; if there is one universal faith written in the brightness which, even in its tears, the eye of humanity gathers as it looks towards the far distance; if there is one belief which FIRST PRINCIPLES. 79 pre-eminently stamps earth as the place of hope, it is this that, despite volcanoes and thunderstorms, despite scaffolds and battle-fields, despite death and the grave, love is, by eternal nature and essence, holier than hate, and will ulti- mately prevail against it. Whatever their present mission, revenge and hatred are known by men to belong to a state of disease, to be in their nature, when between reasonable beings, not divine, but diabolic. Go to the poor Bedouin of the desert, and ask what is his idea of justice and of law. There, amid his burning wastes, where he clings on to the skirts of civilisation, scarce able to count on his life for an hour to come, you find in full develop- ment the bare idea of force as what is to be feared, and obeyed, and worshipped. The foot that can crush him like a worm into the sand, the eye that will not relent for tears or groaning these he honours. Is not this the first rude idea of humanity? Must we still learn from the desert wanderer ? Surely, at some point in the revolution of the ages, the soothing, softening, mighty influences of kind- ness were to begin to make themselves more distinctly felt than in the old iron times. It is a universal principle that, strength being secured, the milder every government is, the nearer does it approach to perfection: this holds good in the heart, the family, and the nation. And however philanthropy may as yet struggle amid obstruction and ob- scuration, we shall hail it as a streak, coming beautifully, though as yet faintly and dubiously, over the mist-wreaths of morning, of that mild sunlight whose power will one day replace that of the tempest. The times, we shall hope, had come for philanthropy, and Howard was sent to call it into visible form and working. And, methinks, even although such a dreadful thing has happened as that one or two fewer strokes have been inflicted on the writhing criminal, 80 FIRST PRINCIPLES. than fierce revenge, or even Bedouin j ustice, might de- mand, it is better to have it so, than that we should go back to the days of racks and wheels, of human beings distracted with sorrow, and guiltless creatures dying of jail fever. But this consideration is not required. We calmly rest the cause of philanthropy on these simple truths: that there is a discernible and distinct office performed by pity in our present condition, relating to justice ; and that its function must go on expanding if men advance. Philan- thropy is a weapon from heaven's armoury ; we trust the time has come when we can use it ; if not, the greater our shame, not the worse the weapon. Extremes are always easy ; this is as true as that they are always wrong. A maudlin, morbid pity, refusing the imperative conditions of our existence in time, is the one extreme ; for it we offer no defence it we deem perfectly distinct from true Christian Philanthropy: a savage, un- sparing, execrating denunciation of philanthropy seems to us the other an equally false, and still more easy ex- treme ; against it we here specially strive. The difficulty assuredly is, to discover what is really valuable in philan- thropy, to separate it from dross, and to shape it into a tool for our work, or a weapon for our warfare. What little we have* to propose for the accomplishment of this, we shall de- clare hereafter. For the present, since it is of the idea of philanthropy and not of its developments we treat, we shall conclude with a word or two relating to the essential con- nection of the philanthropy we prize with Christianity, and what it gains from this connection. We have hitherto spoken of love in its human aspect, and appealed merely to human reason and history. But it can in no quarter be deemed unimportant that an idea is approved by a religion, which, name it as you will, is the FIRST PRINCIPLES. 81 highest that ever appeared on earth, and has swayed more intellect than ever any other. Christianity sanctions and embodies philanthropy. The angel that led the choir over the fields of Bethlehem was named Love. Take away love from Christianity, and you have taken away its life: love, not alone to the just and the holy, but to the sinner; to the pale Magdalene, to whom no one but the King of men and of angels will deign to speak, to the poor publican, and the hated leper, and the raving maniac. It was at the voice of Christianity that modern philanthropy awoke, and it is in this alliance that we regard it with hope. Christianity gives us those funda- mental truths of philanthropy, that sin can be hated and the sinner loved, and that love will be the end of all. Say not that this first is a filmy distinction, or that it will blunt the weapons and unnerve the arms that must in time carry on truceless war with evil. If it is a cloud, it is as one of those interposed by kind supernal powers between the breast of Greek or Trojan hero and the mortal stab: it alone shuts our hearts against hatred of our brothers. And think not the second charge valid: all human his- tory is against you. Men have always fought and toiled best when moved by impulses holding of the infinite. It is the banner painted on the clouds under which men will conquer ; it was when, amid the battle-d ust around Antioch, or coming along the slopes of Olivet, the worn crusader caught the gleam of celestial helms advancing to his rescue, that he became irresistible. The ill done us by a poor brother is a paltry motive: who would not rather strain his sinews a little harder, have a few more hot drops on his own brow, than kill the poor creature whom we had got down! We must have a motive, in our war with evil, that will be beyond the sounding and measuring of our 82 FIRST PRINCIPLES. own faculties. This Mr Carlyle knows well; but he finds it in boundless wrath against the individual caitiff; we, by looking heyond time altogether, in a necessity of nature, and the command of God. Sin is an infinite evil ; against it we can strive with unbounded indignation. To put it away from us, we must slay him who is fatally infected, and whose infection will spread: but not towards him are we necessitated to entertain any feeling but love; the whole fervour of our hate is against that snake whose deadly venom has utterly tainted his blood. It is by some mighty distraction in the order of things, by some staining of the " white radiance of eternity," by some disturbance of the everlasting rest, that sin has extended its influence to reasoning human beings. One great effect of this is, that, in time, and by man, the distinction between the sin and the reasoning human being it affects cannot be perfectly preserved. But the infinitude of God's peace will one day envelope the little stream of time, and hush all its frettings and foamings in the calm of its perfect light; and the religion whose aim and end is the attainment of this higher rest by men, does most fitly and with a sublime prominence wear this distinction on its front. " Love thy neighbour as thyself," says Christianity: there is no excep- tion. But does Christianity not bid us war against sin? "We suppose it is unnecessary to quote the whole Bible. Retaining, with Sandy Mackay, the ancient belief in a positive living spirit of evil, we believe also in sinless intelli- gences, superior, for the present at least, to men, and em- ployed on bests of mercy by God. Wandering unseen among us in the performance of their ministries of love, they are untainted by the sin, and untouched by the sorrow of earth. Now, we can conceive no way in which they could have been secured from mere earthly sorrow, from the poignaucy of FIRST PRINCIPLES. 83 sheer ignoble grief that grief which is dependent for its origin on the state, and not the circumstances of the soul save by their distinguishing between the sin and the sinner, and being thus wrapped up in an impenetrable garment of celestial love. Safe in this, they can gaze upon the wan- dering mortal, however black his iniquity, with eyes wherein every gleam of indignation, every dark speck of hatred, every scowl of revenge, is drowned in the softest dew. God has sent them as messengers to a world of sin, but they bear with them the atmosphere of heaven, for within them is the glow, around them is the music, of love. And we affirm that man by Christianity is exalted to a privilege like theirs. Like them, he shares in the universal battle; like them, he wars to the death with sin: but, if he is a Christian, he is like them dowered with an exemption from every emotion that would taint the atmosphere of his own mind. We think we have shown that all we now say is consistent with human instinct; but if nature only points to the distinction, if, like a dumb animal, it merely by its pain indicates a want, Christianity brings out the truth in its clearness, and vindicates a superiority to nature. It is on the mount with Jesus, that we enter the company of heavenly creatures. And with full decision, while with earnest reverence, would we point to Christ Jesus himself as the perfect philanthropist. Let who will deny the compatibility of a Christian hatred of sin with a Christian love of the sinner; let it appear to philosophers and to natural religionists chimerical or weak as it may; the Christian can always respond by merely pointing to Him as He appeared on that day when He looked over Jerusalem. Was there infinite hatred for sin in those words of doom ? Was there infinite love in those tears ? And, to make one allusion to what 84 FIRST PRINCIPLES. we have not space to prove, let who will jeer at the man or the woman who goes into the penitentiary, the prison, the condemned cell, with the Bible, to try to rescue for heaven those whom society must banish from earth: if nature calls that a vain or absurd task, Christianity speaks differently. To every objection of hopelessness, of sen- timentalism, of enthusiasm the Christian can simply answer, There was once a thief to whom the gospel was preached in the mortal agony, and that night he walked with the Preacher in Paradise. We proceed to mark, in the method we have proposed to ourselves in these pages, the emergence of Christian Philanthropy in our era : our task takes the form of bio- graphy. CHAPTEE II. HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. We feel ourselves enabled, and, for that reason, bound, to express a conviction, that there is no fair and adequate, in one word, satisfactory, biography of Howard in the hands of his countrymen, no estimate of his character and work which can or ought to be final. Aiken's work is mainly a lengthened mental analysis, by no means void of value, and written with clearness and spirit ; but it admits of doubt whether Howard was of that order of men, in whose case such analysis can be considered useful or admissible. Brown's life contains a true image of Howard, but it rests there in rude outline, too much as the statue lies in the half-cut block ; the work wants unity, is fatally dull, and is not free from the generic taints of biography, exaggera- tion and daubing. Mr Dickson's book is, in some respects, the best ; and yet, in some others, the worst we have seen on Howard. The account it gives of his journeys is spirited and clear, and no charge of dulness can be brought against its general style. Yet it may be pro- nounced, as a whole, and in one word, wrong. It is set on a false key. It is brisk, sparkling, continually pointed ; if it does not directly share the characteristics of either, it seems to belong to a debatable region between flippancy and bombast; in fatal measure, it wants chasteness and 86 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. repose. Now, we know of no man in whose delineation these general characteristics are so totally out of place, and these wants so plainly irreparable, as in that of How- ard. The great attribute of his nature, the universal aspect of his life, was calmness : he ever reminds one of a solemn hymn, sung, with no instrumental accompaniment, with little musical power, but with the earnest melody of the heart, in an old Hebrew household. Mr Dickson gives his readers a wrong idea of the man : more profoundly wrong than could have arisen from any single mistake (and such, of a serious nature, there are), for it results from the whole tone and manner of the work. A Madonna, in the pure colour and somewhat rigid grace of Francia, stuck round with gumflowers by a Belgian populace ; a Greek statue described by a young American fine writer; such are the anomalies suggested by this life of Howard. There were one or two memoirs published in magazines at the time of his death, but these are now quite unknown. On the whole, we must declare, that the right estimate and proper representation of the founder of Modern Phi- lanthropy have still to be looked for. And at the present moment such are specially required. Since the publication of Mr Carlyle's pamphlets, opinion regarding him has been, we think, of one of two sorts: either it is thought that his true place has at length been fixed, that Mr Carlyle's sneers are reasonable ; or unmeasured and undistinguish- ing indignation has been felt against that writer, and the old rapturous applause of Howard has been prolonged. In neither view of the case can we rest. To submit that applause to a calm examination, and discover where- in, and how far, it is and has been just; to estimate the power of Mr Carlyle's attack, and determine in how far it settles the deserts of its object; and to offer HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 87 a brief, yet essentially adequate representation of the life of Howard in its wholeness, has been our attempt in the following paragraphs. We are perfectly sensible that our effort has but partially succeeded ; we know too well how near to each other are the indispensable requisite, true repose, and the total failure, dulness: our hope is, that we have spoken truth, and truth which requires to be spoken. John Howard was born in London, or its vicinity, about the year 1727; the precise locality and the precise date have been matter of dispute. His mother, of whom we have no information, died in his infancy. His father was a dealer in upholstery wares in London, and realised a considerable fortune. We are somewhat astonished to hear that he had a character for parsimony. We are not, in- deed, furnished with any instances of remarkable closeness or illiberality, and his conduct to his son affords no marks of such. That the allegation, however, had certain grounds in truth, we cannot doubt ; and the circumstance is not a little singular in the father of one, who must be allowed, whether with censure or applause, to have found, from the days of his boyhood, a keen delight in giving. But, what- ever the nature or force of this foible, the character of the elder Howard was, on the whole, worthy and substantial. He was a man of quiet, methodic habits, deeply imbued with religious sentiment ; his views were Calvinistic, and he was a member of a denomination unconnected with the English establishment probably the Independent. He was specially characterised by a rigid observance of the Sabbath. We find in him, indeed, unmistakeable traces of the devout earnestness of an earlier age ; we think it admits of little doubt that his religion was a lingering ray of the light which burned so conspicuously in England in 88 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. the preceding century. While the bacchanal rout of the Restoration made hideous the night of England's departed glory, there were a few, perhaps many, who retired un- noticed into hidden places, to nurse, on household altars, the flame which seemed erewhile about to illumine the world ; and in the next century such could not have alto- gether died away. That deep godliness whose sacred in- fluence, like a resting gleam of soft dewy light, was shed over the whole career of John Howard, accompanied him from his father's house. Were it not somewhat strange, if it proved to have been a dying ray of the old Puritanism which brightened into Modern Philanthropy! The boy Howard made no figure in his classes. He was, beyond question, what is generally known as a dull boy. He never acquired a perfect grammatical knowledge, or a ready command, even of his native language. Yet he does appear, in his early years, to have given indications of a character different from that of ordinary dull boys. His schoolfellows seem to have discerned him, despite his slowness, to possess qualities deserving honourable regard ; they saw that he was unobtrusive, self-respecting, unos- tentatiously but warmly generous. Price, doubtless one of the quickest of boys, and Howard, slow as he was, were drawn towards each other at school, and formed a friend- ship broken only by death. He succeeded, also, and with no conscious effort, in inspiring his older friends and rela- tives with a sense of the general worth, the substantial, reliable value, of his character. He was known to be se- date, serious, discreet ; his word could be depended upon, his sagacity was true ; above all, he was simple, quiet, modest. It being manifest that he had no vocation to letters, his father very sensibly removed him from school, and bound HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 89 him apprentice to Messrs Newnham & Shipley, grocers in the city of London. A premium of 700 was paid with him; he was furnished with separate apartments, and a couple of saddle-horses. We find no mark of parsimony here. In 1 742, his father died, leaving him heir to considerable property, and seven thousand pounds in money. By the provisions of the will, he was not to enter on his inheri- tance ere reaching his twenty- fourth year. But his guar- dians permitted him at once to undertake the principal management of his affairs. As he was still a mere boy, seventeen or eighteen at most, this must be regarded as a decisive proof of the high estimation in which he was held by those who had been in a position to form an opinion of his character. He speedily quitted the establishment in the city ; his apprenticeship was never completed. Not long after his father's death, he travelled for some time on the Continent, and, on his return, went into lodg- ings at Stoke Newington. Here he continued for several years. His existence was quiet, even, in no way remark- able, broken only by visits to the west of England on account of his health. This last was quite unsettled. It is indeed to be borne in mind, in the contemplation of his whole career, that he had to sustain a life- long struggle with ill health, that all the influences, to sour the temper, to close the heart, to dim the intellect, to enfeeble the will, which are included in that one word, bore perpetually upon Howard. His constitution was by no means sound, and had a strong determination towards consumption. In his unnoticed retirement at Stoke Newington, we can easily picture him; his pale, tranquil countenance, marked, per- haps, with somewhat of the weary and oppressed look that comes of constant acquaintance with weakness and pain, 90 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. but unclouded by any repining, and mildly lighted by modest self-respect, by inborn kindness, by deep, habitual piety. He derived some pleasure from a slight intermed- dling with certain of the simplest parts of natural philo- sophy and medical science: of the latter he seems to have obtained a somewhat considerable knowledge. This quiet existence was, after a time, rather interest- ingly and unexpectedly enlivened. Howard, in one set of apartments which he occupied, met with less attention than he deemed his due ; probably it was thought his mild nature could be imposed upon with impunity: he quitted the place. Entering lodgings kept by a widow named Loidore, he found himself waited upon to his absolute satisfaction. In his new abode illness overtook him, or rather his perpetual ill health reached a crisis. Mrs Loidore tended him with all possible kindness, and the result on his part was not only gratitude, but, as we believe, sincere attachment. On his recovery, he offered her his hand. She was above fifty ; he was now about twenty-five. Her health, too, was delicate; but Howard was resolute, and, after of course objecting, she of course consented. The circumstance in- dicates Howard's extreme simplicity of nature, and power to do, in the face of talk and laughter, what he thought right and desirable: it may also be regarded as one proof among many of a naturally affectionate nature: it reveals nothing further. For two or three years, the married pair resided at Stoke Newington, much in the same manner, we presume, as for- merly. Howard had a real, though by no means ardent affection for his wife; it was a sincere and even keen affliction he experienced, when, after the above period, she died. We have glanced lightly over the youthful period of HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 91 Howard's life. We have deemed it right to do so, although there are a few incidents recorded of the period not alto- gether unimportant, their importance being derived solely from the light reflected on them by his subsequent history, and their own aspect being somewhat trivial. The extent of information they afford us regarding him may be summed up by saying, that they show him to have been methodic, gentle, and, above all, considerately kind. He seems certainly never to have allowed the pleasure of making a fellow- creature happier to have escaped him. He was now about twenty-eight years of age. Unbound by any tie to England, he determined again to travel. The excitement arising from the occurrence of the great earthquake at Lisbon was still fresh, and he was attracted to Portugal. He sailed for Lisbon, in a vessel called The Hanover. His voyage, however, was not destined to have a peaceable termination; and the circumstances into which he was about to be thrown, exercised a perceptible influ- ence on his future career. The ship was taken by a French privateer; Howard was made prisoner. The treatment he met with was inhuman. For forty hours he was kept with the other prisoners on board the French vessel, with- out water, and with ** hardly a morsel of food." They were then carried into Brest, and committed to the castle. They were flung into a dungeon; and, after a further period of starvation, "a joint of mutton was at length thrown into the midst of them, which, for want of the ac- commodation of so much as a solitary knife, they were obliged to tear to pieces, and gnaw like dogs." There was nothing in the dungeon to sleep on except some straw, and in such a place, and with such treatment, Howard and his fellow-prisoners remained for nearly a week. He was then removed to Carpaix, and afterwards to Morlaix, where ho 92 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. impressed his jailer with such a favourable opinion of his character, that he was permitted to enjoy an amount of liberty not usually accorded to prisoners in his situation. At Morlaix, Howard had inducement and apology enough for remaining idle, or, at least, for occupying him- self solely in negotiations for his own release, and in gathering up his strength after his hardships. But he did not remain idle, nor did he abandon himself to the above occupations. The sufferings he had witnessed while in- mate of a French prison would not let him rest. He had seen something amiss, something unjust, something which pained his heart as a feeling man ; his English instinct of order and of work was outraged ; there was something to be done; and he set himself to do it. He collected infor- mation respecting the state of English prisoners of war in France. He found that his own treatment was part, and nowise a remarkable part, of a system ; that many hundreds of these prisoners had perished through sheer ill usage, and that thirty-six had been buried in a hole at Dinan in one day. In fact, he discovered that he had come upon an abomination and iniquity on the face of the earth, which, strangely enough, had been permitted to go on unheeded until it had reached this frightful excess. He learned its extent, and departed with his information for England; he was permitted to cross the Channel, on pledging his word to return, if a French officer was not exchanged for him. He secured his own liberation, and at once set to work on behalf of his oppressed countrymen. His representations were effectual: those prisoners of war who were confined in the three prisons which had been the principal scene of the mischief, returned to England in the first cartel ships that arrived. Howard modestly remarks, that perhaps his sufferings on this occasion increased his sympathy with the HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 93 inhabitants of prisons. There is not much to be said of these simple and unimposing circumstances. They merely show that he, on coming into a position to do a piece of work, did it at once, and thoroughly; that his feelings were not of the sentimental sort, which issue in tears or words, but of the silent sort, which issue in deeds; that what had doubtless been seen by many a dapper officer, and perhaps by prisoners not military, in full health and with ample leisure, had not been righted until seen by Howard, sickly and slow of speech. It was nothing great or wonderful that he did: in the circumstances, nine out of ten would have done nothing at all. He was thanked by the commissioners for the relief of sick and wounded seamen; but his real reward was the intense pleasure with which he must have hailed the arrival of those cartel ships, and felt that at least so much of iniquity and cruelty was ended. For the first time in his life, dull Howard was at the top of his class. Abandoning, for the present, all thoughts of foreign travel, Howard now retired to Bedfordshire, where he pos- sessed an estate. This was situated at the village of Car- dington, and had been the scene of his childhood; it was his principal residence during life. We come to contem- plate him in what he himself declared to have been the only period of his life in which he enjoyed real pleasure. Though quiet and unobserved, that pleasure was indeed real, and deep. He had reached the prime of his manhood ; his years were about thirty. His character, in its main features, was matured. He was quiet, circumspect, considerate; he knew himself, and was guarded by a noble modesty from obtruding into any sphere for which he was not fitted by nature; the groundwork of his character was laid in 94 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. method, kindness, and deep, unquestioning godliness. The time had arrived when he was to experience a profound and well-placed affection, and to have it amply returned. Henrietta Leeds was the daughter of Edward Leeds of Croxton in Cambridgeshire; she was about the same age with Howard, and seemed formed by nature precisely for his wife. She resembled him in deep and simple piety; she had drawn up a covenant in which she consigned her- self, for time and eternity, to her Father in heaven, and signed it with her own hand. She resembled him in general simplicity of nature; she had no taste or liking for aught beyond what was plain and neat. Most of all, she resembled him in kindness of disposition; the bestowal of happiness was the source of her keenest joy. Her features were regular; their expression mild, somewhat pensive, and not lacking intelligence: a little gilding from love might make her face seem beautiful. Where she and Howard first met, we know not; but meet they did, and thought it might be advisable to make arrangements to obviate the necessity of future parting. His love was cer- tainly in no sense rapturous. It was sincere and deep, but characteristic ; it retained, at a period when such is usually dispensed with, the noble human faculty of looking before and after. Love has a thousand modes and forms, all of which may be consistent with reality and truth. It may come like the burst of morning light, kindling the whole soul into new life and radiance ; it may grow, inaudibly and unknown, until its roots are found to be through and through the heart, entwined with its every fibre; it is un- real and false only when it is a name for some fqrm of selfishness. Howard's was a quiet, earnest, undemonstra- tive love. He was drawn by a thousand sympathies to Harriet; never did nature say more clearly to man, that HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 95 here was the one who had been created to be his helpmeet ; he heard nature's voice, and loved. But he was quite calm. Pie even looked over the wall of the future into the paradise which he was to enter, and remarked the possibi- lity of difference arising between the happy pair whom he saw walking in the distance. Accordingly, he went to Harriet, and proposed a stipulation that, in case of diver- sity of opinion, his voice should be decisive. Harriet as- sented. They were married in 1758, and took up their residence at Cardington. Here, with the exception of a few years spent at a small property which Howard pur- chased in Hampshire, they continued until the death of Mrs Howard. We cannot but linger for a brief space on the one plea- sant spot in Howard's earthly journey. Ere he met Har- riet, he had turned to the right hand and to the left, scarce knowing or caring whither he went, and dogged always by pain. Not long after her death, he heard the call which made him a name for ever, and which bade him leave the wells and the palm-trees of rest, to take his road along the burning sand of duty. Not only may the spectacle of a truly happy English home be pleasing, but we may gather from the prospect certain hints touching the actual nature and precise value of Howard's character. The pleasures of the new pair were somewhat varied. The embellishment of the house and grounds went so far. This was a business of particular interest with Howard. He built additions to his house, and laid out three acres in pleasure-grounds, erecting an arbour, and cutting and planting according to his simple taste ; the approving smile of Harriet always sped the work. A visit to London, too, was proposed and effected; but the enjoyment obtained was nowise great, for neither was adapted for town life, 96 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. and Harriet in particular longed for the green fields. Natural philosophy, in a very small way, was put under contribution. Then, there was occasional visiting and entertaining of the country gentlemen of Bedfordshire. Howard always exercised a warm and dignified hospitality, and though remarkably abstemious himself, kept ever a good table and excellent wines for his guests. But of all the joys of this Bedfordshire home, by far the principal arose out of the fact that Howard and his wife were both " by nature admirers of happy human faces." Around Cardington, there was soon drawn a circle of such ; gra- dually widening, still brightening, and, by nature's happy law, ever shedding a stronger radiance of reflected joy on the centre whence their own gladness came. Shortly after the marriage, we find Harriet disposing of certain jewels, and putting the price into what they called the charity- purse; its contents went to procure this crowning luxury, happy human faces. Since this pleasure interests us more than any of the others, we must inquire how the money was disposed of. The village of Cardington had been the abode of poverty and wretchedness. Its situation was low and marshy; the inhabitants were unhealthy; ague, that haunts the fen and cowers under the mantle of the mist, especially abounded. Altogether, this little English village had the discontented, uneasy look of a sick child. And the intellectual state of its people corresponded to their physical ; no effort, so far as we learn, had been made to impart to them aught of in- struction. Part of this village was on the estate of John Howard. Unnoticed by any, and not deeming himself noteworthy, but having in his bosom a true, kind heart, and loyally anxious to approve himself to his God, he came to reside upon it with his wife. No bright talents were HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 97 his, and his partner was a simple creature, of mild womanly ways, made to love rather than to think. Yet the fact was, account for it as you will, that, year by year, the village ofCardington showed a brighter face to the morning sun; year by year, the number of damp, unwholesome cottages grew less; year by year, you might see new and different cottages spring up, little kitchen-gardens behind, little flower-gardens before, neat palings fronting the road, roses and creepers looking in at the windows, well-washed, strong-lunged, sunny-faced children frolicking round the doors. These cottages were so placed that they could see the sunlight; the mist and the ague were driven back. Their inhabitants paid an easy rent, sent their children to school, were a contented, orderly, sober people. Cardington be- came " one of the neatest villages in the kingdom." If you asked one of the villagers to what or whom it owed all this, the answer would have been John Howard. Kind-hearted, conscientious, shrewd, and accurate, he had lost no time in acquainting himself with the evils with which he had to contend, and addressing himself to the con- test. The damp, unhealthy cottages on his own estate were by degrees removed, and such as we have described built in their stead ; those not on his own estate, requiring a similar treatment, were purchased. He let the new cottages at an advantageous rate, annexing certain conditions to their occupancy. He became the centre of quite a Patriarchal system. His tenants were, to a certain extent, under his authority; they were removable at will, they were bound over to sobriety and industry, they were required to ab- stain from such amusements as he deemed of immoral tendency, and attendance at public worship was enjoined. Besides the customary ordinances, there was divine service in a cottage set apart for the purpose, the villagers, we 98 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. are told, gladly availing themselves of the additional op- portunity. Schools also were established, not in Car- dington alone, but in the neighbouring hamlets. He ruled a little realm of his own ; a realm which, in the eighteenth century, was very favourably distinguished from the sur- rounding regions; an unmarked patriarchal domain, whose government was, on the whole, beneficent. When we contemplate the phenomenon of Howard's in- fluence at Cardington, we cannot but experience a strong impulse to question the fact of his having been, even in- tellectually, the ordinary, unoriginal man he has been called. It is fair to recollect that he was of that class which, perhaps pre-eminently, does nothing; of that class whose epitaph Mr Carlyle has written in Sartor Re- sartus. His task was not, perhaps, very difficult; but just think of the effect, if every English landlord performed his duty so conscientiously and so well. A biographer of Howard, writing when the present century was well ad- vanced, has recorded that Cardington still retained, among English villages, a look of " order, neatness, and regu- larity." If mere common sense did this, it was common sense under some new motive and guidance; we can only regret that it so rarely follows the higher light of godli- ness. And if Howard's claim to positive applause is slight, what are we to say of his exculpation from the positive sin which, during that century, accumulated so fearfully on the head of certain classes and corporations in England? Different had been the prospect now, had England, in that century, been covered with such schools as Howard's. Surely one may ask, without arrogance, why did not the Church of England accomplish at least so much then? In his own household, there reigned calmness and cheer- ful content. The whole air and aspect of the place was HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 99 such as might have suggested that perfect little picture by Tennyson, " An English home grey twilight pour'd On dewy pastures, dewy trees, Softer than sleep all things in order stored, A haunt of ancient Peace." He lived much in the consideration of Old Testament times and worthies, shaping his life after that of the Hebrew Pa- triarchs. His Bible was to him a treasury of truth, which he never even dreamed exhaustible. As he looked over the brightening scene of his humble endeavours, and the pleasant bowers around his own dwelling, and felt all his tranquil joy represented and consummated in his Harriet, we may imagine those words breathing through his heart " I will be as the dew unto Israel:" as the dew, stealing noiselessly down, in an evening stillness, unseen by any eye, yet refreshing the very heart of nature. Harriet, with all her simplicity, was a perfect wife; she could hear the beat- ing of her husband's heart. Once there was somewhat over from the yearly expenditure. Howard, thinking his wife might derive enjoyment from a trip, proposed that they should spend it in a visit to London. We think Harriet looked quietly into his eyes as she answered, " "What a pretty cottage it would build!" Conceive the smile of silent unspeakable satisfaction, of deep unbound- ed love, that would spread over the placid features of Howard as he heard these words. The part taken by the kind and gentle Harriet in the general dissemination of blessing over Howard's neigh- bourhood was nowise unimportant. In the hour of sick- ness and distress, she was to be seen by the bed or the fireside, supplying little wants, whispering words of con- solation. She also made it a peculiar part of her duty to 100 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. see that the female portion of the community was em- ployed, and supply them with work when threatened with destitution. Thus was Howard, cheered and assisted by his wife, an unassuming, godly English landlord, doing his work, and never imagining that h J was a profitable servant. His tenantry, and specially his domestics, loved him ; although, as we are happy to find, since it is an almost conclusive, and certainly indispensable proof of decision and discri- mination, there was not a perfect absence of murmuring and insinuation against him in the village. He engaged in constant and intimate converse with his dependants, in- teresting himself in their affairs, and giving little pieces of advice. He might be seen entering their cottages, and sitting down to chat and eat an apple. We can figure him, too, as he walked along the road, " With measured footfall, firm and mild," stopping the children he met, giving each of them a half- penny, and imparting the valuable and comprehensive ad- vice, to " be good children, and wash their hands and faces." We can discern, as lie utters the words, a still smile of peace and satisfaction on his really noble English countenance. We must pronounce it such. There was, it is true, no sign of creative power in the eye; there were no lines of deep thought on the brow. But decision, and shrewdness, and intense though governed kindness, were written there. Above all, it was cloudless in its clear- ness. It was the calm, open countenance of a man who could look the world in the face, which was darkened by no stain of guile, or guilt, or self-contempt, and on which, through habitual looking upwards, there was a glow of the mild light of heaven. Isor was it destitute of a cer- HOWARD; AND THE BISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 101 tain reposing strength, a look of complete self-knowledge and self-mastery, gently shaded, as it was, by a deep but manly humility, which told again of the bended knee and the secret walk with God. When we look at Howard's portrait, we cease to wonder that his face was always re- ceived as an unquestionable pledge of perfect honour and substantial character. There was one drop by which the cup of happiness in the home at Cardington might still have been augmented. Howard and his wife had no child. Harriet seems to have been peculiarly adapted to perform the duties of a mother; so gentle, so full of quiet sense, so well able to read a want ere it reached the tongue. At length, after seven years of married life, on Wednesday, the 27th of March, 1765, she had a son. On the ensuing Sabbath, Howard went to church as usual ; all seemed to be doing well. After his return she was suddenly taken ill, and died in his arms. She had just seen her boy, just felt the unuttered happi- ness of a new love, just discerned that a fresh brightness rested on the face of the world, and then she had to close her eyes, and lie down in the silent grave. Howard's feelings, it is scarce requisite for us now to say, were not of the sort which commonly reach the sur- face. There was nothing sudden or impulsive in his na- ture; his very kindness and affection were ever so tem- pered, ever rendered so equable, by consideration, that they might at times wear the mask of austerity. But we cannot doubt that the sorrow he felt for his Harriet reached the innermost deeps of his soul. A light had passed from the " revolving vear;" the flowers which Love may strew in the path of the " stern daughter of the voice of God" for Duty herself strews no flowers had withered away; until he again clasped the hand of Harriet, his enjoyment 102 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. had ceased. He laid her in her grave, and a simple tablet in Cardington Church told the simple truth, that she had " opened her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue was the law of kindness." A good many years afterwards, on the eve of adeparture for the Continent, from whichHoward might never return, he was walking with his son in his grounds, and mentioning some improvements which he had contemplated : " These, however, Jack," he said, " in case I should not come back, you will pursue or not, as you may think proper; but remember, this walk was planted by your mother; and if ever you touch a twig of it, may blessing never rest upon you!" His infant son was now all that was left on earth to Howard. He loved him with the whole force of his nature. Two strong feelings, having reference to this earth, and two alone, were, in the years of his long journeyings, to be found in his bosom: the one was the memory of Harriet, the other the love of his boy. But it is not unimportant to a perfect comprehension of the character of Howard, to know that there was, in his general deportment as husband and father, a gravity, deci- sion, and authority, which wore the aspect of austereness. The founder of philanthropy was as free as ever man from any form of sentimentalism; it was for real affliction, for substantial pain, he felt and acted; a tender, winning, soothing manner was never his. Whatever may be said of modern philanthropists, he certainly was not one whose feelings carried him away, who saw distress and injustice, and, bursting into tears, rushed, half-blinded with his sympathy, to make bad worse. He has been spoken of by some as if he resembled one who, perceiving a child drowning in a reservoir, and being moved to pity by its cries, casts down an embankment to save it, and floods HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 103 a whole country. He was no such man. Since the world began, until he appeared, no one had done so much for the relief of distress, simply as such ; and yet we feel convinced that very few men have lived who could look upon pain with calmer countenance than he. Nineteen men in twenty had been weeping, and either blundering, or leaving the distress alone; Howard remained quite cool, looked at it, measured it, mastered it. For about a year after the death of his wife, he continued to reside at Cardington. Towards the end of the year 1766, we find him visiting Bath; ill health had again, in new extremity, returned upon him. In the spring of the following year, he travelled to Holland, and quickly re- turning home, remained at Cardington until it was time to send his son to school. In the interval, nothing worthy of notice occurred; he pursued his old plans tor the im- provement of his neighbourhood, deriving his principal comfort from his boy. At length it became proper to send his son to school, and Howard prepared again to visit the Continent. Car- dington had now, indeed, become sad to him. He in great measure broke up his establishment there, providing, with his own considerate kindness, for his domestics; these, as we have hinted, and as has been elsewhere remarked, loved him with an affection worthy of the servants of an old patriarch. He departed in the autumn of 1769; his intention was to visit the south of Italy, and probably re- main there for the winter: he went by Calais, the south of France, and Geneva. We come now to what we consider a most important epoch in Howard's life. We have not failed to inform the reader of the pervasion, from a period too early to be pre- cisely fixed, of his whole character, by godliness; and we 104 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. saw how the fact influenced his benevolent exertions in Bedfordshire. We have not yet, however, looked, so to speak, into the heart of Howard's religion; we have only noted it incidentally, and from afar. We proceed to view it more closely; it will be of great importance to ascertain the weight and nature of its influence. We are assured that we have arrived at a period when his spiritual life reached a crisis, which determined, in certain important respects, his future character and career. Since it is ne- cessary to carry readers along with us in our impressions, we turn to our narrative. We have said that Howard had intentions of spending the winter either in the south of Italy or Geneva. On arriving at Turin, he abandoned the project. We learn from his own words that he had been pondering seriously the object and nature of his journey. He accused him- self of mis-spending the "talent" committed to him, of gratifying a mere curiosity with those pecuniary means which might be turned in some way to God's glory, and which were necessarily withdrawn from works of mercy; he thought of the loss of so many English Sabbaths; he thought of "a retrospective view on a death-bed;" he thought also of his " distance from his dear boy." He determined to return. He concludes the memorandum from which we gather these facts in the following words:* "Look forward, oh my soul! How low, how mean, how little, is everything but what has a view to that glorious world of light, life, and love. The preparation of the heart is of God. Prepare the heart, oh God! of thy un- worthy creature, and unto Thee be all the glory, through the boundless ages of eternity." * Howard did not write English grammatically; we alter the spelling and punctuation. HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 105 " This night my trembling soul almost longs to take its flight to see and know the wonders of redeeming love join the triumphant choir ; sin and sorrow fled away, God, my Redeemer, all in all. Oh! happy spirits that are safe in those mansions." He turned homewards, and in February we find him at the Hague. We have here a further record of his spiritual life. We extract it entire. "Hague, Sunday Evening, February 11. " I would record the goodness of God to the un worthiest of his creatures: for some days past, a habitual serious frame, relenting for my sin and folly, applying to the blood of Jesus Christ, solemnly surrendering myself and babe to Him, begging the conduct of His Holy Spirit; I hope, a more tender conscience," evinced " by a greater fear of offending God, a temper more abstracted from this world, more resigned to death or life, thirsting for union and communion with God, as my Lord and my God. Oh! the wonders of redeeming love! Some faint hope," that "even I! through redeeming mercy in the perfect righteous- ness, the full atoning sacrifice, shall ere long be made the monument of the rich, free grace and mercy of God, through the divine Redeemer. Oh, shout my soul! Grace, grace, free, sovereign, rich and unbounded grace! Isot I, not I, an ill-deserving, hell-deserving creature! But, where sin has abounded, I trust grace superabounds. Some hope! what joy in that hope! that nothing shall separate my soul from the love of God in Christ Jesus; and, my soul, as such a frame is thy delight, pray fre- quently and fervently to the Father of spirits, to bless His word, and your retired moments to your serious conduct in life. " Let not, my soul, the interests of a moment engross 106 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. thy thoughts, or be preferred to my eternal interests. Look forward to that glory which will be revealed to those who are faithful to death. My soul, walk thou with God; be faithful; hold on, hold out; and then what words can utter! J. H." "We anxiously desire to avoid presumption here, and would leave every reader to his own judgment and con- clusion in the matter ; but we think we are not altogether unable to trace the workings of Howard's mind through this portion of his history. It seems to us that, on leaving Cardington, his mind had engaged in deep reflection. His boy had gone away from him; his Harriet was sleeping silently, her tender ways to cheer him no more; he looked over his past life, from which the last rays of joy's sunlight were departing; he looked forward to an old age, embittered by perpetual ill health. His mind awoke, in the discipline of sorrow, to a deeper earnestness. He felt, with sterner realisation than heretofore, that the world was a desert, and time a dream ; with a new and tremendous energy his soul rose towards the eternal kingdoms. He looked with earnest scrutiny within, he closed his eye more to all around, and gazed upwards from his knees for the smiling of one countenance upon him. The intensity of his feelings would not comport with the prosecution of his journey to Italy. He mused upon it in the strain we have indicated. He concluded that it was his duty to return home; and, in a state of mind not a little agitated, proceeded in the direction of England. We cannot certainly say whether it had been his immediate intention to return to Carding- ton; he was very fond of Holland, and would, perhaps, at the Hague, be able to enjoy Sabbaths like those of his home. Be this as it may, he did not proceed further than HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 107 the place last named. His mind appears here to have become calmer; we might say, indeed, that the second extract we have made reveals an almost rapturous frame of spirit. It is a detail of God's goodness towards him ; and let it be remarked, that this goodness consists in work wrought in him, in his closer approximation to the require- ments of God's law. The man who can feel ecstatic joy for that, and give God all the glory, has nothing higher to attain to in this world; and on him no essential change will be wrought by passing through the gates of heaven. He again turned southwards. At Lyons we find him writing thus: " Lyons, April 4, 1770. " Repeated instances of the unwearied mercy and good- ness of God: preserved hitherto in health and safety! Blessed be the name of the Lord ! Endeavour, oh my soul ! to cultivate and maintain a thankful, serious, humble and resigned frame and temper of mind. May it be thy chief desire that the honour of God, the spread of the Re- deemer's name and gospel, may be promoted. Oh, consider the everlasting worth of spiritual and divine enjoyments, then thou wilt see the vanity and nothingness of worldly pleasures. Remember, oh my soul ! St Paul, who was de- termined to know nothing in comparison of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. A tenderness of conscience I would ever cultivate; no step would I take without acknowledg- ing God. I hope my present journey, though again into Italy, is no way wrong, rejoicing if in any respect I could bring the least improvement that might be of use to my own country. But, oh my soul, stand in awe, and sin not; daily, fervently pray for restraining grace; remember, if thou desirest the death of the righteous, and thy latter end like his, thy life must be so also. In a little while thy 108 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. course will be run, thy sands finished: a parting farewell * ith my ever dear boy, and then, oh my soul, be weighed in the balance wanting, wanting! but oh, the glorious hope of an interest in the blood and righteousness of my Redeemer and my God ! In the most solemn manner I commit my spirit into thy hand, oh Lord God of my sal- vation ! " My hope in time ! my trust through the boundless ages of eternity! John Howard." The last quotation we deem it necessary to make, is one of very great importance. It commences with a slight re- trospect and self-examination ; it passes into a deliberate dedication of himself and his all to God: Naples, May 27, 1770. " When I left Italy last year, it then appeared most prudent and proper; my return, I hope, is under the best direction, not presumptuous, being left to the folly of a foolish heart. Not having the strongest spirits or consti- tution, my continuing long in Holland or any place lowers my spirits; so I thought returning would be no uneasiness on the review, as sinful and vain diversions are not my ob- ject, but the honour and glory of God my highest ambi- tion. Did I now see it wrong by being the cause of pride, I would go back ; but being deeply sensible it is the pre- sence of God that makes the happiness of every place, so, oh my soul ! keep close to Him in the amiable light of re- deeming love; and amidst the snares thou art particularly exposed to in a country of such wickedness and folly, stand thou in awe, and sin not. Commune with thine own heart ; see what progress thou makest in thy religious journey ! Art thou nearer the heavenly Canaan, the vital flame burning clearer and clearer ? or are the concerns of a mo- HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 109 ment engrossing thy foolish heart ? Stop ; remember thou art a candidate for eternity: daily, fervently pray for wis- dom ; lift up your eyes to the Rock of Ages, and then look down on the glory of this world. A little while, and thy journey will be ended ; be thou faithful unto death. Duty is thine, though the power is God's; pray to Him to give thee a heart to hate sin more, uniting thy heart in his fear. Oh, magnify the Lord, my soul, and, my spirit, rejoice in God my Saviour ! His free grace, unbounded mercy, love unparalleled, goodness unlimited. And oh, this mercy, this love, this goodness exerted for me ! Lord God, why me ? When I consider, and look into my heart, I doubt, I tremble. Such a vile creature; sin, folly, and imperfec- tion in every action ! Oh, dreadful thought ! a body of sin and death I carry about me, ever ready to depart from God ; and with all the dreadful catalogue of sins committed, my heart faints within me, and almost despairs. But yet, oh my soul, why art thou cast down ? why art thou dis- quieted ? Hope in God ! His free grace in Jesus Christ ! Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. Shall I limit the grace of God ? Can I fathom His goodness ? Here, on His sacred day, I, once more in the dust before the Eternal God, acknowledge my sins heinous and aggravated in His sight. I would have the deepest sorrow and contrition of heart, and cast my guilty and polluted soul on thy sove- reign mercy in the Redeemer. Oh, compassionate and divine Redeemer, save me from the dreadful guilt and power of sin, and accept of my solemn, free, and, I trust, unreserved full surrender of my soul, my spirit, my dear child, all I am and have, into thy hands ! Unworthy of thy acceptance! Yet, oh Lord God of mercy, spurn me not from thy presence ; accept of me, vile as I am I hope a repenting, returning prodigal. I glory in my choice, 110 howakd; and the rise of philanthropy. acknowledge my obligations as a servant of the Most High God ; and now may the Eternal God be my refuge, and thou, my soul, faithful to that God that will never leave nor forsake thee ! " Thus, oh my Lord and my God, is humbly bold even a worm to covenant with Thee ! Do Thou ratify and con- firm it, and make me the everlasting monument of Thy unbounded mercy. Amen, amen, amen. Glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever, amen ! " Hoping my heart deceives me not, and trusting in His mercy for restraining and preventing grace, though rejoic- ing in returning what I have received of Him into His hands, yet with fear and trembling I sign my unworthy name. John Howard." Howard was not a man who found any special delight in using his pen; the deep modesty of his nature, the de- ficiency of his education, his consequent want of affluence in expression, and the whole structure of his character as universally recognised, put this beyond dispute. It was only when his heart was very full, and the emotions with which it burned were as mounting lava, that they over- flowed through that channel. We regard the expressions we have found him using simply as pulses of his spiritual life, proceeding as truly from the centre of his spiritual nature as the blood which at fever heat might gush from his heart, from the centre of his physical frame. And consider the earnestness, the stammering, gasping inten- sity, with which they start ruggedly forth ; mark the awe- struck humility with which he bows down before the Infinite God, and, as it were, the mute amazement of gra- titude, which, when the smile of God falls out of heaven HOWARD; AND THE KISE OF PHILANTHROPY. Ill upon his head, forces him to exclaim, " Lord God, why me?" Surely this last is a remarkable passage of feeling. Will it not be with such an emotion that the redeemed of God, when the eternal inheritance, so far surpassing ex- pectation and desert, at last and suddenly bursts upon their sight, shall shrink from asserting their right, and exclaim, "Lord, when did we merit this?" Observe, finally, here, respecting Howard, the completeness of the result, the un- wavering, unexcepting abdication of the throne of the soul to God. We think this was the consummation of the epoch in his spiritual history of which we have spoken. One other remark we must make respecting these docu- ments. In those awful moments, when Howard was alone with God, and his eyes, looking to the Rock of Ages, were so solemnly raised above every concern of time, there was yet one earthly visitant that entered the secret places of his heart: that visitant was his boy. We add no comment. The time was now near when Howard was to find his peculiar work. We think, though with reverence and hesitation, it may be said that he was specially fitted for it by God. Implanted by nature in his bosom, he exhibited from his earliest years a deep and a notably cosmopolitan compassion for the afflicted as such. In early years his nature was stilled, hallowed, and strengthened by religious principle. As he advanced in years, the great truths of Calvinism, or rather that one great truth of Calvinism, The Lord reigneth the Lord, just, sovereign, incompre- hensible, in whose presence no finite being can speak formed a basis, as it were of adamant, for his whole cha- racter. He was sorely tried by physical ailments, and, at the risk of his life, was compelled to pursue rigidly abste- mious habits, being thus also debarred from all the plea- sures of the great world. He was brought soon into actual 112 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. experience of the distresses suffered by the inhabitants of prisons, and his first piece of positive work in the world was the relief of such. His character was next matured, confirmed, and mellowed, in the soft summer light of a quiet English home, where he loved and was loved by a true wife, and where, in such tasks as we have seen, a mild apprenticeship was served to thoroughness and accuracy. He was then suddenly and awfully struck with affliction ; she who was so very beautiful in his eyes, " Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky," was taken away from him. And then, after a little time, came that crisis in his spiritual history which we have en- deavoured to delineate. Whatever were his natural abi- lities, he awoke from that crisis with a moral strength which no force of temptation could overcome, and a calm daunt- lessness which nothing earthly could turn aside. Then he found his work. Howard's history thus seems to suggest the idea that God intended by him to bring prominently before the world some truth not hitherto duly regarded, to accomplish some work not hitherto adequately done: that the time had arrived when some gospel shall we call it the gospel of love? was to be more specially and explicitly unfolded than it had been heretofore. With deliberate and immov- able faith, he himself entertained this belief, and we know not how more fitly or fully to embody our opinion of Howard's part in this work, and our view of the invisible power which guided him therein, than in his own humble, yet, we think, even sublime words, written when it was well-nigh finished: "I am not at all angry with the re- flections that some persons make, as they think to my dis- paragement, because all they say of this kind gives God HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 113 the greater honour; in whose Almighty hand no instru- ment is weak, in whose presence no flesh must glory : hut the whole conduct of this matter must he ascribed to Pro- vidence alone, and God by me intimates to the world, how- ever weak and unworthy I am, that He espouses the cause* and to Him, to Him alone, be all the praise." Returning from the Continent, Howard remained for a certain period at Cardington ; we hear of nothing re- markable in his life for some time. The state of his health in 1772 rendered it advisable to make a tour in the Chan- nel Islands, but he speedily returned to Bedfordshire. Here, in 1773, he was called to the office of sheriff of the county. He considered it his duty to comply with the invitation, and became such. Prudence might have whispered an- other decision. He was a Dissenter, and by becoming sheriff incurred the liability of very severe penalties. We do not suppose that his danger was very great; but it was real. He was not without enemies; and his act put it in the power of any one of them, with profit to himself, to inflict very serious injury on him. It is, besides, the part of pru- dence to guard against possibilities: there was, at least, the possibility that he might suffer. Howard, however, with all his calmness, was too brave to be distinctively prudent. It might astonish some to find this among his adopted maxims " A fearless temper and an open heart are seldom strictly allied to prudence." It is the maxim of a truly brave man. In this affair of the sheriffdom he just kept prudence in its proper place ; when the voice of duty was clear, its mouth was shut. The office of sheriff had been hitherto but a dignifying appendage, its duties mainly those of show. Howard could not regard or treat it thus. He went to his work as usual, * The italics are Howard's. 114 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. quietly, accurately, thoroughly. From time immemorial, abuses had prevailed; safely wrapped in the mantle of custom, they had lived, and moved, and done their mea- sure of evil, unregarded as smoke. The cool, clear eye of Howard, looking straight to the heart of everything, could not but regard them. He had not acted long in the capa- city of sheriff, when his attention was arrested by some- thingwhich struckhim asstrange andanomalous: something which had its existence amid the light of a brilliant and boasted civilisation, but which was fitted rather to cower, snakelike and slimy, in the jungles of darkest barbarism. He fixed his attention upon certain persons who were de- clared not guilty by the voice of their countrymen, who were acquitted of everything laid to their charge, and thus proved to have endured the hard affliction of confinement and temporary disgrace, when their country had nothing whatever to say against them. He saw that these, on their acquittal, did not at once return to their welcoming and con- soling friends; that their chains were not at once struck off, with urgent haste and self-accusing regret: they were positively conveyed back to prison, until they should pay certain fees to functionaries connected with the jail and court. Others, who also might have suffered months of confinement, and against whom, from the non-appearance of their prosecutors, not even a charge was preferred, were similarly treated. Others still, regarding whom the grand jury could not find such evidence of guilt as rendered it reasonable to try them, went the same way: all, without semblance of accusation, were hailed back to prison. This cruel and glaring outrage on justice and feeling was quietly taking its course, and was likely for some time to do so in the County of Bedford, when it fixed the gaze of John Howard. Its days were then numbered. His proceed- HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 115 ings were quick : observation, decision, and action, seem almost to have been united. The abuse was undeniable and indefensible; its mode of cure was by paying, in some other manner, the functionaries interested. The justices of the county were the men to be applied to ; the application was made. A new thing this in the experience of these sedate functionaries ; it was proper to proceed with cau- tion, deliberation, and prudence. The good, formal, drowsy justices looked up through their spectacles, and found it necessary to satisfy their minds by seeing a precedent. Here then, perhaps, the matter would stop, and the jus- tices be troubled in their dozing no further. Howard did not stop. A precedent must be found : he takes horse at once, and proceeds to seek it in the neighbouring counties. In those counties, Howard met on all hands with in- justice and disorder, but found no precedent for his pro- posed remedy. He saw more than he expected, and more than he came to seek. In his own simple words, he " be- held scenes of calamity." Such he could not see without a desire to alleviate ; and a desire with Howard, of neces- sity, became action. Gradually it became plain to him that he had discovered a great work to be done, and that he was the man intended by God to do it. In the perform- ance of this work it was that the rest of his life was spent, and that his name became known and reverenced in every land under heaven. We have three questions to put and to answer respecting it : What was it? By what motives was Howard impelled to undertake it? How did he per- form it? It will be important, also, to consider, as we proceed, whether it had become necessary. What, then, first of all, was this work of Howard's? Having already spoken at large of philanthropy, we shall 116 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. not enter here upon the general subject; to define How- ard's particular part in calling it into existence is easy. Correspondent to, and resulting from, the sad discord- ance and rent in the individual human soul, there has been, in all ages, a great severance in the human family. A part of that family has always been put aside by the rest, and subjected to penal inflictions. Sorrowful, truly, is the aspect thus opened up to us. In the many-cham- bered dwelling framed for them by their Father, men could not live together and at peace. The roof and spires of that dwelling seem to rest in sunshine ; in the higher apartments is the voice of mirth and gladness; lower down the darkness of sorrow begins to thicken; and, beneath all, there have ever been lightless dungeons, from which, through the whole course of human history, have arisen the broken groans of agony, or the lone wailings of despair. By a stern and awful necessity, these dungeons were never empty; men were compelled to chain down their brothers in the darkness, lest, like maniacs, they should plunge their knives in the hearts that pitied them, or, like fiends, bring on all the destruction of Sodom ; never out of the ears of humanity could pass that doleful voice of lamen- tation, crying, like the conscience of the race, "Fallen, fallen, fallen." Respecting these dungeons, and their inhabitants, three methods lay open to those who had been bold to take their fellow-men and fling them in fetters out of their sight. They might look down upon them with the fierce glare of indignation, hate, and "revenge;" they might say, " Caitiffs, we hate you," ye have passed beyond the range of law and of pity, our duty towards you now is to load the whip, and to whet the axe. Or they might adopt a milder, but perhaps still more cruel mode of procedure. HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 117 They might turn them, in sickened horror, from the sight of the anguish whose existence they would forget; they might carefully deafen the walls, and stop up every avenue through which the sounds of wo might ascend ; they might then urge the dance, and laugh, and sing, they might sweep on in the glad pageantry of coronation and victory, they might listen to the chantings of solemn organs, or the light tremblings of bridal music, unsad- dened by any cloud that floated up from below. Mean- while, calamity might be waxing greater and greater there, writing its pale emblems on too many faces ; famine, pes- tilence, torture, and all injustice, might enter unseen; a groan of agony might go up to heaven, yet pass unheard by men on earth. Or, lastly, they might say, Be these tenants of the dungeon what they may, they are the chil- dren of our Father, the creatures of our God; we dare do towards them precisely what He commands, and has rendered necessary. We shall then avoid the fury of the first method, and the cruel cowardice of the second. We shall not, in weak and inhuman indolence, shut our ears to the sounds of human wo; we shall know what the case is, that we may meet its requirements: neither shall we, as avenging demons, pour the lava of wrath and revenge on the heads of our fellow-men: we shall do what law or- dains, and that alone: we shall light the lamp of Justice, and commit it to the hand of Love. Of the first and last of these methods we have already spoken. At the time when floward appeared, the second was widely and sadly prevalent; and the work he did may be briefly but compendiously indicated in these words : He penetrated into the dungeons of the world, and compelled men to hear the voice of the agony beneath their feet. The result of this work was, that a voice of 118 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. pity was heard over the world, saying that cruelty had gone too far, and that the third method must now be attempted. We inquire next, In what light did he regard his work, and what motives impelled him to undertake it ? Touch- ing the first of these points there can be no doubt. Igno- rant as a child of all metaphysical speculation, his simple theory of the world was, that all men were equally devoid of merit before God, and that there is no reason by possi- bility to be alleged why we should not love every member of the human family. This is fully contained in the answer which he gave, after having been long engaged in his work, to one expressing his surprise at his deep love and pity for the depraved: " I consider that, if it had not been for divine grace, I might have been as abandoned as they are." In this sentence is contained, not only an ample exposition and defence of Howard's views as a phi- lanthropist, but also the whole philosophy of Christian Phi- lanthropy. The subordinate motives which urged Howard on his enterprise, and supported him in its achievement, are easily discoverable. It is certain that the precise posi- tion into which he was brought by the death of his wife rendered his home a place of small comfort; his own words expressly testify the fact. It is true, also, that he had travelled much during his life, and that travelling was by no means disagreeable to him, but rather the reverse. But the one grand motive which beyond all others im- pelled him to his work, was a conviction that the voice of God bade him go forth. No man in this world acts on a single or simple motive, and persistent, courageous work extorts the admiration and honour of men, though its motive is not of the noblest. That no lower motive than the simple approbation of God influenced Howard, we HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 119 cannot assert; but we do deliberately think, that, of the sons of men, few, or perhaps none, have acted more purely on the highest motive. " Howard is a beautiful philanthro- pist, eulogised by Burke, and, in most men's minds, a sort of beatified individual. How glorious, having finished off one's affairs in Bedfordshire, or, in fact, finding them very dull, inane, and worthy of being quitted and got away from, to set out on a cruise over the jails, first of Britain, then, finding that answer, over the jails of the habitable globe! 'A voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation of charity ; to collate distresses, to gauge wretchedness, to take the di- mensions of human misery:' really, it is very fine." In what precise manner these words are intended to define or sarcastically point at Howard's impulses in undertaking his work, we care not positively to determine. But it is surely fair to consider them as calculated to convey an impression, that in choosing his work he had at least some thought of the " glorious" aspect it would bear in the eyes of men, how grand it would look, and how much men would talk about it. Now we venture to assert, ap- pealing to bare and unassailable facts, that in few instances recorded in human history, perhaps hardly in any, could such an impression be more profoundly incorrect; that Howard's eye was closed, as scarce ever human eye was closed, to every influence within the atmosphere of earth ; that he looked, with a silent earnestness whose intensity was sublime, for his approbation and reward, into the eye of God. In this highest of all regards we scruple not to name him with the holiest of men, with Moses, Daniel, and John. In answering our third question, How did he perform his work, which must be done at somewhat greater length, light is cast on the former two. We come to look at How- ard in his actual operations. To detail his several journeys 120 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. in Great Britain and on the Continent, is indeed impos- sible here ; nor is the attempt in any respect called for; the main outlines of his work can be sketched, and its general spirit displayed, in a few comprehensive glances. About the close of the year 1773, there might have been seen, on the high-roads of the counties adjoining to Bed- ford, a gentleman on horseback, followed by his servant, travelling at the rate of forty miles a-day. At every town where he rested, he visited the jail. There was no fuss or hurry in his motions, he never lost a moment, he never gave a moment too little to the business in hand, nothing escaped his eye, and there was no spot into which he did not penetrate. He went into places where the noisome and pestilential air compelled him to draw his breath short, where deadly contagion lurked, where phy- sicians refused to follow him; unagitated yet earnest, he measured every dungeon, explored every particular re- specting fare, accommodation, and fees, inquired after the prevalence of disease, with the means adopted for its pre- vention, and learned in every instance the relation which the criminals held to those who superintended and kept the jail. He rested not until he had gone east and west, until he had carried his researches over the jails of Britain and of Europe, until he could credibly declare what was the state of the prisons of the world. That gentleman was John Howard. "Was the scene which discovered it- self to his eye such as confirms the idea that the time had arrived when an offence against God and man was no longer to be endured, and rays of light, as just as benefi- cent, to be cast into dungeons that had long been seen only by Heaven ? A few simple facts, illustrative likewise of Howard's mode of working, shall be our reply. HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 121 He saw prevailing far and wide in England, that pal- pable and cruel injustice which first set him on his jour- neying; men declared guiltless were still laid in the dun- geon. He found that in the same land it was possible for one whose neighbour owed him a paltry sum, to deprive that neighbour of his liberty, and subject himself and his family to everything short of absolute starvation ; nay, to starvation itself, if it wasspread over months instead of days. He found, still under the kindly skies of that free, enlight- ened, and religious country, that it was possible for men to be farmed by a fellow-man, and fed from such a miserable pittance of money, that they must have suffered the per- petual gnawings of hunger. He found dens or holes under ground, of dimensions such as might have held one wild animal, where several human beings were flung, to gasp and groan the night long. In some, the heat and closeness must have been stifling, in some, the floors were wet and the walls dripping, in some, open and reeking sewers poisoned the air; all that is noisome and revolting in gross uncleanness lay bare to his sickened but unflinch- ing gaze. Death, he discovered, had here a realm of his own, where he escaped the eye of justice and humanity. From time immemorial, uncured and uncared for, a viru- lent fever dwelt in those dreary abodes ; it had a character of its own; it was the progeny and it seemed the genius of the place; it was called the jail-fever. There, in dark- ness, famine, and loathsome horrors, it preyed on those victims who were handed over to it, and whose life- strength was broken by shame, sorrow, and despair; like a foul, and cruel, and insatiable vulture, which men per- mitted to tear out the hearts of their brethren, chained in the depths of dungeons. Year by year, its victims were counted by the score and the hundred; many of thei . 122 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. mere debtors, and few of them proved guilty ; a grave and notable fact, slight it who will, if nations are answerable to God for the blood they shed ! Nor was the jail-fever alone ; the small-pox raged fiercely, and the malignity of every other form of disease was heightened; the want of air, the damp vapours, the insufficient food, and other causes, too many to recount, exaggerated every tendency to consumption, rheumatism, palsy, and other nameless ailments. He found that not only the body was delivered over, bound hand and foot, to pestilence and famine, but that every soul which entered those dens seemed actually handed over to the evil power. All the maladies which can infect the mind still partially pure, when villany recounts and gloats over its crimes, finding its only recreation in the exercise, spread their contagion there; while drinking, swearing, gambling, and indecency, were the appropriate accompaniments and aids in the work. The jail-fever was not the worst enemy men en- countered in a prison ! The cases of individual wo which Howard saw, may be imagined, but cannot be detailed; they were such as might have wrung forth tears of blood: pale and haggard faces on which the light had not looked until its glare pained the glazed and hollow eye, spirits broken, hearts hopeless, ghast- ly beings who had, long years ago, left all the paths where comfort encourages, and better prospects smile, however faintly, in the distance, and who now stood fronting mankind with demoniac scowl, in the gaunt defiance of despair; men who, for small debts, after long years died in prison, fathers sustained in their dreary confinement by the families whose main support they had hitherto been, and several of whose younger members dropped at the time significantly into the grave, women lyingdesolate, far from every friendly eye, from HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. 123 every cheering word, and dying of incurable disease; brother mortals driven mad by anguish, whose cries at- tracted the passer by. Such were the sights which, in the course of his various journeys over England and the world, John Howard saw. Had the time come for philan- thropy ? Howard had not been long engaged in his work, ere the report of it reached the Bouse of Commons. The House had been lately concerning itself with such things, and Howard was called to give evidence regarding what he had seen. His answers were deemed clear and satisfac- tory, and he formally received the thanks of the House. One honourable member, however, hearing of his long and expensive circuits, and finding the idea new to him that such things should be done without cash payment, begged to be informed whether he had travelled at his own expense. The man to whom he put the question was no sentimentalist, but that question touched him in his very heart ; indignation, and contempt, and the tears of outraged modesty, seem to have blended with scorn, as he spurned the unconscious compliment of Mammon. In the course of the year 1774, two bills were passed: one abolished the injustice relating to the fees, the other had reference to the health of prisoners. Howard said nothing, but, in his own way, had them both printed at his expense, and sent one to every jailer in the kingdom. About the close of the same year, he was requested to stand candidate for the Borough of Bedford. He acceded to the request, and very narrowly missed his seat. He imputed his failure to government influence; and, however this may have been, we learn from his words on the occa- sion, that he was by no means a man who concerned him- self alone with village politics, or slavishly pursued one 124 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. idea. He had cast his eyes on the awakening motions of the great western giant, and boldly avowed his opposition to part of the policy adopted towards America. He also openly and emphatically declared that, if elected, he would never accept of five shillings of emolument. He felt the loss of his seat somewhat deeply, but, as usual, resigned himself with perfect calmness to the disposal of Providence. Meanwhile, his peculiar work had not been abandoned. In no degree agitated by the result of the election, he set out for Scotland and Ireland, and prosecuted still farther his researches in England. He was just a month at home about the election business ; in noting his method of going about his work here, one hardly sees wherein his " energy" was specially " slow." Having looked with his own eyes into the prisons of England, Scotland, and Ireland, he sat down, in the be- ginning of 1775, in his house at Cardington, to arrange his materials for the press, and offer to the world such sugges- tions as he now felt himself in a position to give. But a thought struck him. There were other prisons in the world besides those of Britain ; on the Continent of Europe might not new miseries be seen, and might not valuable hints be obtained ? The fact was palpable ; but then it delayed the work, and was so tedious. Howard calmly laid aside his papers, got ready his travelling gear, and set out for the Continent. There was " slow " energy here; and of a particularly valuable sort. Howard's first journey in the inspection of Continental prisons lay through France, Holland, part of Flanders, Germany, and Switzerland. His researches were con- ducted in his usual way quietly, quickly, thoroughly; his sense of justice marking every abuse, his sagacity not- ing every excellence. He did not travel so far without HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 125 seeing misery, and here again comfort and hope went along with him into many a dreary dungeon ; but the general glance at Continental prisons afforded revelations which redounded to the unquestionable honour of the Continent, and the shame of Britain. It is true that he did not gain access to the severest form of confinement in France ; his daring attempt to enter the Bastile was foiled ; it is true, likewise, that he did discover traces of torture such as was not known in England. But, in cleanliness, order, and the general characteristic of being cared for, the Continen- tal jails had the clear superiority. In Holland, at that time, to all appearance, the most orderly and internally pros- perous kingdom of Europe, he saw in operation a system of management of criminals, in its main outlines, wise and humane. And the jail-fever existed only in Britain ! On returning from the Continent, he applied himself to the publication of his work on Prisons. His friends Aiken and Price assisted him in arranging his matter and secur- ing literary correctness. The book was printed at War- rington. It was severe winter weather, yet Howard was always up by two in the morning, revising proof-sheets ; at eight, he was at the printing-office, having just dressed for the day and breakfasted ; here he remained till one, when the men went to dinner ; he then retired to his ad- joining lodgings, and taking in his hand some bread and raisins or other dried fruit generally walked for a little in the outskirts of the town, calling probably on a friend. The printers by this time had returned, and proceeding to the printing-office, he continued there until work was over. Still untired, he went then to look over with Aiken the sheets put together by the latter during the day. His supper consisted of a cup of tea or coffee, and he retired to rest at ten or half-past ten. 126 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. The book published by Howard requires no comment. It is a type of his work ; accurate, substantial, valuable, but devoid of everything allied, even most distantly, to adornment. It is rather a book of statistics than anything else, and as such there can be no doubt it was mainly re- garded by himself; the facts of the case were wanted, and these he gave. It was published in 1 777, and additions were made at several subsequent periods. In the course of the same year, by the death of his sister, he inherited 15,000. This addition to the means at his command he resolved to devote entirely to the prosecu- tion of that task which he believed to have been ap- pointed him by God. He knew his son to be amply pro- vided for, even though his patrimonial estate was encroached upon; but this enabled him to leave that estate untouched. Howard did his work not merely without cash payment ; he devoted to it every farthing he could conscientiously expend. For several years now his course does not demand a detailed account. He went on calmly and indefatigably, ever widening the range of his excursions, and ever render- ing more perfect what he had already done. Again and again, he visited the prisons of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; again and again, he swept over the Continent, the speed of his journeys equalled only by the thorough- ness of his work. He had in every respect attained per- fect adaptation to this last. By long and vigorous tem- perance, entire abstinence from animal food and intoxicat- ing liquors, and a constant use of the bath, his early weak- ness of frame seems to have been exchanged for a consider- able hardiness; he inured himself to do without sleep to such an extent, that, on his journeys, one night in three, and that taken sometimes in his carriage, sufficed; so perfectly HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 127 simple was his fare, that lie could, without boasting, pro- fess himself able to subsist wherever men were to be found, wherever the earth yielded bread and water. The tourist in the Highlands of Scotland might have seen him stopping at the cabin by the wayside to obtain a little milk ; among the mountains of Sweden he pushed on, undaunted and tireless, living on sour bread and sour milk; on the bleak plains of Russia, his lean and somewhat sallow face, and small spare figure, might have been marked as he dashed past in his light carriage ; he was on the high-roads of France, in the mountain-gorges of Switzerland, tossing on the Mediterranean or the Adriatic. Never did he tarry, never did he haste, never was he moved from his deliberate and wakeful calmness. No personal duty was neglected. His son he always carefully remembered, having him near him at all needful and proper seasons, and diligently in- quiring after the best instructors and guardians, to whose care to commit him. The little cottages of Cardington were not forgotten. These grew ever more numerous, and their inmates were well remembered ; the work of alleviat- ing the sorrow of the world did not prevent the little drops of comfort, which had gladdened them while their kind landlord dwelt beside, from falling within them still. And wherever Howard was, it was impossible for men not to discern wherein lay the secret of his indefatigable per- severance, his unwavering valour, his perpetual calm. In whatever land he was, and amid what observers soever, he never forgot or hesitated to join in evening prayer with his attendant ; the door was shut, and the master and servant knelt down together as if at home in quiet Cardington. For his own exertions, his one reason was, that he beliived himself doing the will of God ; for the disposal of all events he trusted, with the simplicity of a little child, and the 128 HOWARD: AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. faith of a Hebrew patriarch, to the immediate power of Jehovah. He passes by contending armies ; we mark a shudder going over his frame, but we see him also lift his eye upwards, and comfort himself with the knowledge that God is sitting King over the floods: he enters dungeons where others shrink back from the tainted air ; duty, he says, has sent him there, and Providence can preserve him: he is cast on a bed of pain and languor ; he bows submis- sive to the chastening hand of his Father, or bends his head, and asks wherefore He contendeth with him. Men look upon him with various feelings. The cold, the hard, the cruel, scorn the whole enterprise ; the worshippers of Mammon look on amazed, scarce finding heart to sneer; gradually, from all lands, there begins to rise a sound of approbation and acclaim. Howard hears neither sneers nor acclamations: he listens for the voice which seems to the world to be altogether silent. As our eye follows him during these years, it is im- possible not to discern a remarkable dexterity and adroit- ness in carrying through whatever business presents itself a quick perception of what the case demands a sure sagacity in providing against it a certain ready adapta- tion to circumstances, and swift assumption of the cha- racter necessary for the occasion ; all which it really seems difficult to reconcile with dulness. Let us briefly make good our words. Look at liim, for instance, in that visit to Russia, in which he excited the interest, and was invited to the court of Catharine. Unbroken by the toils and hardships undergone in Sweden, where not even tolerable milk could be ob- tained to put into his unfailing tea, he arrives in the neighbourhood of St Petersburg. Forgetful of nothing, HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. 129 and conscious that his fame now goes before him, and is apt to interfere with his work, he leaves his car- riage in the neighbourhood, and enters the town pri- vately. The empress, however, has marked him, and sends a messenger to invite him to the palace. Here is clearly a call to the highest distinction and applause, to become the observed of all observers, in the smile of one whose smile secures that of all others: if there is observable weakness, even pardonable weakness, in his nature, if the appearance of his work, in the eyes of men, does sensibly affect him, here is a case for the quiet gratification of the hidden feeling, without the likelihood, nay, the possibility, of its ever being called in question. There are positive arguments, too, which seem plausible enough. The em- press may be won to a special interest in prisons, philan- thropy may kindle itself in the court, what unconceived good may shape itself out therefrom is not to be mea- sured. Howard looks at the invitation with his cool, piercing English eye, flashing at once through all plausi- bilities into the heart of the matter ; he feels instinctively that his work is in the dungeon, and not the palace, and that to encircle it with a blaze of publicity will probably interfere with the positive rugged task he has appointed himself: he refuses the invitation. Once in St Petersburg, he is soon at his work. He has heard very much of the humanity of the Russian criminal arrangements, and for one thing, it has been boasted to him that capital punishment is here abolished. His strong instinctive sagacity doubts the fact. But how attain a knowledge of the truth ? All authorities simply give the bland assurance that it is so; the published codes bear witness to the same; how can one get past what is said and seen, to be assured there is no discordance between K 130 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. that and the actual inner fact ? Howard hires a hackney coach, and drives to the house of the man who inflicts the knout. This first precaution is necessary to remove all appearance of heing a stranger. He enters quickly, wear- ing a purpose-like, business-like look, as of one who is in the simple discharge of his duty. The man eyes him with astonishment, and somewhat of fear. Howard ad- dresses him, soothingly but firmly; no evil is intended towards him, he has but to answer, clearly and at once, the questions about to be put. Howard's look is cool and adroit; the Russian is all submission and complaisance: the colloquy commences: "Can you inflict the knout in such a manner as to occasion death in a short time?" "Yes, I can." "In how short a time?" "In a day or two." "Have you ever so inflicted it?" "I have." "Have you lately?" "Yes; the last man who was punished with my hands by the knout died of the punish- ment." " In what manner do you thus render it mortal ?" " By one or more strokes on the sides, which carry off large pieces of flesh." " Do you receive orders thus to inflict the punishment?" " I do." The brief, soldier- like inquiry is completed; not a point has been omitted; Howard is satisfied, and departs. The elaborate cloaking of Russian policy, the infernal cruelty masked under the rliabolic smile, has been penetrated by the simple, plain- looking Englishman, now approaching his sixtieth year. While prosecuting his researches in St Petersburg, overcome by his exertions in Sweden, and affected pro- bably by the climate, Howard is seized with the ague. He has no time to spare; his work waits at Moscow; he procures a light carriage, and sets out. The ague is still on him, but his 6trong spirit shakes it away; he travels it off. The journey to Moscow is five hundred miles; in HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 131 less than five days he is there, his clothes having never been off since starting. He enters Moscow as calmly as if returning from a drive in the suburbs, and is instantly at his work. Such is the old man's way " the dull, solid Howard." Consider, again, that tour in France, when he was for- bidden to pass the frontiers. The interdict is strict. He has seriously offended the French Court by plain truths, and researches not to be baulked. He ponders the cir- cumstances with his usual calmness; duty seems to speak clearly; he resolves to enter France. He assumes the disguise of a physician having formerly acquired some knowledge of medicine adroitly escapes arrest in Paris, and on the streets of Toulon foots it trippingly as a French exquisite. He attains his object, and leaves France by sea. In the face of the French Government he has crossed the country, and made what observations seemed to him good. Whatever may be said of the achievement, it surely does not look like that of the mere shiftless mecha- nical workman. In more private instances, the case was similar. He visits the Justitia hulk. The captain brings him a biscuit as sample of the provisions ; it is as wholesome as could be wished. Howard puts it in his pocket. All ne- cessary information seems to have been obtained, yet he lingers; there is one on board who wishes he would take himself off. He has, in fact, been making observations in his own way ; his eyes are open as well as his ears. He remarks that things have a tawdry, disordered look, that the prisoners are sickly and tattered, that there are several things here which the captain's relation, so frankly given, by no means embraces. Accordingly he waits. At length the messes are weighed out, Howard looking on quite 132 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. calm, but with something of expectation in his face. Here come the biscuits; they are in broken bits, green and mouldy; there is no longer any mystery in the pallid looks of the crew. It is now Howard's turn to speak. Out comes the wholesome satisfactory biscuit, it is held up, be- fore captain and crew, beside the green loathsome frag- ments, and Howard indignantly rebukes the former for his cruelty and falsehood. We can conceive the brightening of the eyes of the crew as they stand by in amazement. If you say Howard was slow and heavy, it might be well to mention how he could have done his work better: if it appeals that he was a quick, indefatigable, effective worker, it might be well, we say once more, to consider to what extent biographic veils of dust and cobwebs may hide the clear strong lines in the face of a man. We do not assert that Howard was a man of very re- markable intellectual power. That in every mental ex- ertion connected with words, that in everything relating to expression of thought or narration of action, he was na- turally devoid of uncommon, perhaps even of ordinary, fa- culty, we at once concede: the only question which ad- mits of discussion is, whether, in that power of action, that faculty of perceiving and doing the thing needful, with closed or stuttering lips, which has been recognised as cha- racteristically English, he was not so far superior to the common run of men, that his title can be vindicated to a really remarkable endowment; whether, with what differ- ence soever, he was not cut from that same hard stratum of the Erzgebirge rock, from which have come the silent Saxon Clives and Wellingtons. He himself estimated his powers very low. " I am the plodder," he said, " who goes about to collect material for men of genius to make use of." And certainly the special honour we claim for Howard HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 133 is not intellectual. " How often," to use again his own humble words, " have we seen that important events have arisen from weak instruments;" perhaps, for once, it was right in the human race to set among its honoured and immortal heroes one whose highest glory was his humility, whose greatest strength was his weakness. Yet we must think it were a difficult thing to prove that he did not possess a high talent of the working order. Thurlow was very much struck with the sagacity he displayed in an interview he had with him ; when clearly set before the eye as they were done, and not as they have been narrated, his actions do not wear any aspect of slowness, dulness, or mere mechanical gyration ; the work he had to do required not high intellectual power, but what it did require he fully displayed. Once only does he seem to have failed, or at least to have abandoned an attempt ere effecting the work proposed: he was appointed supervisor of certain penitentiary establishments which were to be erected, and after a time resigned the post. But here he was at once hampered by interference, and restrained from the work which he deemed specially his own ; perhaps resignation was the most decided, manly, and appropriate course open in the circumstances. What Howard might have been in action, had he, in early life, been placed in a situation to exercise an important influence on his fellow-men, we need not inquire; yet we must urge the question, whether, considering the long-sustained activity, the inevitable observation, the iron decision, the quick adroitness, which a survey of his career displays, it is really a safe assertion that he possessed by nature no power of work, define it as you will, which made him remarkable among men, and would have secured him credit, if not fame, in whatever situation he had been placed. 134 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. Howard's two last journeys to the Continent claim a more particular notice than the others. We must, how- ever, still be brief. When he had been long engaged in the work of in- vestigating the state of prisons, and that task had been approximately accomplished all over Europe, it became apparent to him that yet another service was appointed him. He had looked upon one great portion of the human race, which most men forget and despise as having no claim upon them ; he now turned to look upon another, whose claim upon their brethren is also negative rather than positive, who are held to their hearts solely by the chains of pity ; the sick and diseased of the human family. This other great dumb class was to find an advocate in Howard ; he aspired to perform the twofold angelic office of bringing hope to the prisoner, and healing to the sick. About this time, menacing Europe from the East, lying along its borders like the purple cloud which wraps the Samiel, the destroying pestilence, named by distinction the Plague, seems to have attracted special attention. That slight and sallow man, who had struggled, his life long, with sickness, whose face was as that of a hermit in a wilderness, who was slow of speech, and upon whose head had now fallen the snows of nearly threescore winters, marked that Samiel-cloud from afar. He saw it coming slowly, resistlessly on, strewing its way with pallid corpses, taking the smile from off the faces of the nations. He thought it possible that, by entering its shade, he might learn the secret of its baneful energy, and save some of his fellow-creatures from its power. He thought he heard the voice of his God bidding him go; he looked calmly from his quiet island home towards Asia and the JEge&n, and went. Other diseases were to meet him on the way, HOWARDj AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 135 the lazar-houses of Europe were embraced in his enter- prise, but the great Plague, like the monarch of the bale- ful ho3t, was the ultimate, and gradually the principal foe with which the weak John Howard was to contend. Passing over the previous stages of his journey, we find him, in the summer of 1786, in Constantinople. Here he visited the hospitals and lazarettos, every den and strong- hold of the plague; as he entered, a pain smote him across the forehead, continuing for an hour after he left; his con- ductors drew back in fear, he saw what was oppressing to soul and sense; yet he never flinched, never abandoned that calm, heaven-lit look, which nought on earth could darken or abash, never stopped till his task was done. This once accomplished, he prepared to return to Vienna. But he paused; a thought had struck him he could not proceed. The prison-world he had entered solely as a visiter; in no other capacity was there a possi- bility of his doing so. But was not the case altered here ? Was there not a way of learning the secrets of lazarettos more thorough than that of mere inspection and hearsay ? There was, and Howard saw it. Yet the condition was stern. It was, that he should enter a lazaretto, and, con- fined himself, learn, beyond possibility of deception, the state and feelings of its inmates. The old man delibe- rately accepted the condition, and proceeded to enter a lazaretto. From Constantinople he sailed for Smyrna, chose there a vessel with a foul bill of health, and departed for Venice. On leaving the Morea, where the vessel took in water, they were borne down upon by a Tunisian pirate, and a fight ensued. To the astonishment of the crew, Howard stood by perfectly calm. At length the pirate seemed about to prevail. As a last resort, the Turks loaded their largest cannon to the muzzle with 136 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. nails, spikes, and what destructive missiles could be found. Howard stepped forward, seeing, probably, that the men mismanaged the matter, and coolly pointed the gun on the enemy's deck; the volley burst out, carrying death among their crew, and, as the smoke rolled along the sea, the pirate was seen hoisting sail, and bearing away. The voyage proved long and stormy. For two months Howard was tossed about, alone in wild, dangerous weather ; yet he bore a brave heart through it all: "I well remember," he says, "I had a good night, when, one evening, my cabin-biscuits, &c, were floated with water ; and thinking I should be some hours in drying it up, I went to bed to forget it." Arriving at Venice, he found he had to spend two months in the lazaretto. He was first put into a loath- some room, " without table, chair, or bed," and swarming with vermin. He hired a person to cleanse it, and the operation occupied two days, yet it remained offensive; headache, caused by the tainted air and infected walls, perpetually tormented him. From his first apartment he was, after some time, removed to another as bad as the former. Here, in the division of the apartment where he was to sleep, he was " almost surrounded with water," and found a dry spot on which to fix his bed only by kindling a large fire on the flags. Six days he remained in the new quarter. Once more he was removed, and this time there appeared at least a possibility of improve- ment. His new apartment was indeed unfurnished, filthy, and " as offensive as the sick wards of the worst hospitals." But the water and the vermin seem to have disappeared. The rooms, however, were full of contagion, for they had not been cleaned from time immemorial, and though Howard had them washed again and again with warm HOWAEDj AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 137 water, he found his appetite failing, and that a slow fever was beginning to fasten upon him. But he was on no theatrical mission, and would die at his post only when all remedy absolutely failed him; his stout English heart had never yet fainted; and here, again, we meet the diffi- culties of the theory touching his slow and shiftless dul- ness. With the aid of the English consul, he obtained brushes and lime; his attendant for a consideration assisted him in manufacturing whitewash; despite the prejudices of the observers, he rose up three hours before his guard, and commenced, along with his former assist- ant, to whitewash his apartment. He resolved to lock up his guard if he interfered ; we are almost sorry the man did not, for most certainly Howard would have kept to his determination. He did not, however, and the only result was, that all who passed by looked with astonishment at the whitened and wholesome walls, where so many had been contented to pine and repine, with no attempt at cure. The days in the Venice lazaretto rolled slowly on, wearisome, dismal, unvarying; Howard watched every- thing, knew everything, and felt the weariness he longed to relieve. His faith failed not ; with calm and easy feel- ings, he looked forward to the term of his confinement. But suddenly there came a change: darker clouds than had ever yet cast their shadow over him took their course towards that dreary lazaretto. On the 11th of October, 1786, he received letters from England, with two pieces of information. The one was, that his son was following evil courses, and dashing wildly on in a path, whose end, dimly indicated to the father, must be one of the deepest darkness : the other, that a movement was proceeding in England, under high and promising auspices, for the 138 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. erection of a monument to himself. Not hearing, at first, the worst concerning his son, he wrote home with deep sorrow, yet in hope. The proposal for a monument next required his attention. An English gentleman had for- merly had an interview with Howard at Rome of an hour's length, and the result was an admiration on the part of the former which knew no bounds. On his return to England he had proposed, through the columns of the " Gentleman's Magazine," that a public monument should be erected to one whom he styled, " the most truly glorious of human beings." The widespread and profound ad- miration for Howard which, ere this time, had sunk into the British mind, had thus found vent ; at once the proposal had taken effect, and the movement was headed by certain noblemen. With astonishment it was heard that Howard wrote, absolutely refusing the honour, and alleging that its idea gave him exquisite pain. At first this was thought a graceful mode of acceptance, or at least a struggle of exces- sive modesty, easily to be overborne ; but the fact was soon put beyond dispute. Even after long arguing and urging by intimate and honoured friends, he decidedly and unal- terably refused his consent. From the lazaretto of Venice, he wrote to his friend Mr Smith of Bedford, rehearsing the directions he had given ere quitting Cardington respecting his obsequies ; his words were as follows, we copy them with no alteration, and with no comment : " (a) As to my burial, not to exceed ten pounds. "(b) My tomb to be a plain slip of marble, placed under that of my dear Henrietta's in Cardington Church, with this inscription: " ' John Howard, died , aged . My hope is in Christ.' " Some time after, in grateful and courteous terms, he sig- nified to his well-wishers in England, that his resolution HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 139 was fixed, and that he would accept no public mark of ap- probation whatever. Let this fact be fully and calmly considered ; and let it then be said whether what we have alleged regarding Howard's grand motive in his work, is other than the bare and faintly-expressed truth. For himself he would have no glory. He accept honour from men, who was the weak- est of instruments, and whose highest honour it was that he was worthy to be made an instrument at all in the hand of God ! He stop to be crowned by men, whom the Almighty had honoured with His high command, and permitted to give strength and comfort for Him ! He listen to the applause of the nations, whom his inmost heart knew to be weak and unworthy, and whose most inspiring yet indestructible hope it was, that he might be numbered even among the least in the kingdom of heaven ! The people seemed in loud acclaim to say, Thou hast brought us water out of the rock: Howard, with eager face, and out- stretched hand, and heart pained to the quick, cried out, I have done nothing, I deserve nothing ; God has done all. Released from the lazaretto, and after spending a week in Venice, Howard proceeded by sea to Trieste, and thence to Vienna. During this time, the fever he had averted for a time continued to creep over him, the whole air of the lazaretto having been infected ; it greatly impaired his strength, and the accounts, deepening in sadness, which reached him respecting his son, made his affliction almost too heavy to be borne : " I am reduced by fatigue of body and mind, I have great reason to bless God my resolution does not forsake me in so many solitary hours." It did not forsake him, it remained firm as a rock in vexed surge, it could ever raise its head into the pure light of God's smile ; but human faith has not often been so sorely tried. 140 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. In the letter written from Vienna, from which the above words are taken, he referred in approving terms to the conduct towards his son of several domestics whom he had left at Cardington, expressed his persuasion that it arose out of regard to his mother, and concluded the paragraph in these words : " Who I rejoice is dead." He often thought of Harriet, and we may conceive that now, in his extreme sorrow, the old days would flit past him robed in the still and melancholy light of memory ; that tender and to him beautiful wife seemed to return, to lean over him in his loneliness and sickness of heart ; but he thought of his son, and the tear which started to his own eye was transferred by imagination to that of his Harriet, where perchance he had never seen one before ; then love arose and triumphed over anguish, and he blessed God that his best beloved was lying still. Has art ever surpassed the pathos of these words ? Early in l787,,Howard was again in England, proceeding to make arrangements respecting his son. The latter was a hopeless maniac. He appears to have been of that com- mon class of young men, whom strong passions, weak judgments, and good-natured, silly facility, render a prey to those who combine artfulness with vice. A ser- vant in whom Howard placed absolute confidence be- trayed his trust infamously, allured his charge into evil, and excited in his breast contempt for his father. That father, ever most anxious to provide him the best and safest superintendence and tuition, had sent him to prosecute his education at Edinburgh, where he resided with Dr Black. There it was that prolonged habits of vice fatally impaired his constitution, and after a period he became deranged. In this condition, watched over with all the care and kind- ness which his father's efforts could secure, he lingered for HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 141 a considerable number of years, and died. It was a most touching case; for he seems not to have been without that gleam of nobleness which so often accompanies and adorns a character intellectually by no means strong. In Edin- burgh once, when some one spoke disrespectfully of his father, and basely hinted that his philanthropic expenses might impair the fortunes of his son, young Howard in- dignantly resented the insinuation, and asked how he could ever do so much good with the money as his father. Howard now remained in England for about two years, seeing his son provided for as well as was possible, and preparing the result of his late travels for the press. His religion still continued to deepen and to grow more fer- vent, the feeling of the littleness of his efforts and powers to increase. The few private memoranda that remain of the period breathe an earnest and habitual devotion; there is an occasional flash of clear intellectual insight and moral ardour; but, most of all, they are characterised by humility. " Examples of tremendous wrath will be held up, and what if I should be among these examples." " Be- hold, I am vile, what shall I answer Thee, oh my God; I have no claim on Thy bounty but what springs from the benignity of Thy nature. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Jesus Christ." " A few of God's people that met in an upper room appear, in my eye, greater than all the Roman empire. God kept them." " Where there is most holiness, there is most humility. Never does our understanding shine more than when it is employed in religion. In certain circumstances retire- ment is criminal; with a holy fire I would proceed." " Ease, affluence, and honours, are temptations, which the tcorld holds out but remember, ' the fashion of this world passeth away' on the other hand, fatigue, poverty, suf- 142 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. ferings, and dangers, with an approving conscience. Oh God! my heart is fixed, trusting in Thee! My God! Oh glorious words ! there is a treasure ! in comparison of which all things in this world are dross." England was now for Howard all hung as it were in weeds of mourning. The hope to which he had clung that his son might cheer him in his old age had vanished utterly, or at least the terra when such might be possible could not be fixed. There were probably in this world few sadder hearts at that time than John Howard's. But he had not yet discovered the secret of the plague ; there was still work for mercy to do: it was now perhaps the greatest happiness of which he was capable to go upon that work. And he went; the weary heart to soothe and heal the weary-hearted; one of the saddest men in Eng- land, to meet the plague. On the 27th of September, 1789, he was at Moscow. He seemed now to feel that his end was not far, and we find him engaged in solemn transactions with his God. He brought out that old dedication of himself to his Maker, which we saw him subscribe in the days when his life had first been darkened, and when the terrors of the Almighty, which had rolled like low cloudy masses over his soul, were just being suffused with celestial radiance in the full beaming out of the Sun of Righteousness. Again he owned his entire unworthiness and his entire weakness, again he looked up to the Rock of Ages, again he gave up his soul, spirit, and body, for ever and ever, to God. As we gather, too, from the pages of Brown, he looked again on that covenant which his beloved had made with her Father in heaven: we think we can see the old and weary man gazing over its lines, while a tear steals from his eye, a tear of lonely sadness, yet touched HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. 143 with one gleam of light, from the thought that it will not now be long ere he again meet his Harriet. This was in the September of 1789: it was his last pause on his hard life-journey, his last draught ol living waters from those fountains which divine Love never permits to dry up in the desert of the world: again he arose and went on his way, but now the pearly gates and the golden walls stood before the eye of faith, calm, beautiful, eternal, on the near horizon. In the beginning of January, 1790, he was residing at Kherson, a village on the Dnieper, near the Crimea, still as of old with indefatigable resolution and kindness pur- suing his work. In visiting a young lady dying of a fever the infection seized him, and he soon felt that death was upon him. On his death-bed he was just what we have always known him. We hear the voice of prayer for his son, of inextinguishable pity for the afflicted, and, concern- ing himself, these words, addressed to his friend Admiral Priestman, " Let me beg of you, as you value your old friend, not to suffer any pomp to be used at my funeral, nor any monument, nor monumental inscription whatso- ever, to mark where I am laid : but lay me quietly in the earth, place a sun-dial over my grave, and let me be for- gotten." Thus, with the same calm, saintly smile, so still but so immoveable, which he had worn during life, he passed away. All nations had now heard of Howard, and all nations honoured him: England, in silent pride, placed his statue in St Paul's Cathedral. There he remained unmoved, and his name more and more became a word of love and of admiration in the households of the world. Burke spoke of him in his own burning and majestic terms; 144 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. Foster pointed to him as one cased in an iron mail of resolution such as made him a wonder among the sons of men; Chalmers responded to his nobleness with all the tameless enthusiasm of his royal heart. But in our day a mighty hand has been stretched forth to drag him from his seat among the immortal ones of time: one, of perhaps more wondrous genius, and in some sense of more pene- trating intellectual glance, than either Chalmers, Burke, or Foster, has flung quiet but remorseless scorn on Howard. We mean, of course, Mr Carlyle. We deem it unnecessary to quote his words: those which appear to us to approach nearest to positive misconception and injus- tice we have already set before the reader. They are well known, occurring in his celebrated pamphlet on Model Prisons. We think it can be stated in a word or two what Mr Carlyle has seen, and what, making our ap- peal to readers, we must say he has not seen, in Howard. He has seen regarding him that of which he appears, in all cases, to possess a more vivid perception than any writer of past or present times the intellectual type and calibre. We have had, and still have, our doubts whether a strong case might not be made out in defence even here, if the difference between working and talking talent were accurately defined, and the dulness of biographers taken fully into account. But we care not to urge this con- sideration on behalf of Howard. We claim for him no in- tellectual glory. We concede that, if Mr Carlyle does not impute to him any vulgar motive, of desire to make an appearance, or the like, and we leave readers to judge whether such an impression is, or is not, conveyed by the words we have cited there is nothing which he says con- cerning him demonstrably false: say that his highest talents were "English veracity, solidity, simplicity," be- HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 145 lieve him even to have been (if you can, for we positively cannot) " dull, and even dreary," still, we ask, is his highest praise the words, so severely qualified by the spirit of the context, "the modest noble Howard?" Let any one look along that life, calmly figuring it to himself, pondering it till he knows its real meaning and vital principle, and say, whether there burns not through it, however veiled from the general eye, a sublime, an immortal radiance. Let him say, whether we cannot utter, with peculiar emphasis and veneration, these words, " The holy Howard." It is on this we found his claim to be honoured by men; that he was honoured by God to live nearer to Himself than any but a chosen few of the human race. And is this not a reasonable and equitable claim? Is it for ever to be impossible for a man to be honoured of men unless his intellectual power is great ? Ah! that were surely hard; surely essential equality were thus denied me as a man ; surely I could not so be calmly content under this sun. If our relation to the Infinite is of that nature which Christ has unfolded, it cannot be so. If, from the seraphim who receive the light of the throne on their white robes, to the poor widow who kneels by her hus- band's corpse, and bows her head to the God who has given and taken away, we are but servants of one Master, soldiers of one host, members of one family, it cannot be so. For then the highest honour of the archangel and of the child is, that he does, well and gladly, and giving God the glory, what God bids him do. And methinks it is best even so. We will honour the old soldier, whose name we have never heard, but who at eventide content- edly wound the colours round his heart, and died for the good cause, as much as we honour the Cromwell who led that cause to the pinnacles of the world: ay, and without 146 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. refusing to obey Cromwell either, without losing one atom of the real worth and value of so called " hero-worship." The angel who ministers to a dying beggar may hold himself as highly honoured as he who keeps the gate of heaven. Hence the honour we claim for Howard. Weak he may have been, slightly gifted, if you will: he knew the sound of his Father's voice; he could give his poor life for His sake. He showed to all men how the weakest do their work in God's army; really he did exhibit, with a strange revealing power, how, were men unfallen, every order of intellectual faculty might be employed to its full extent, but with equal merit, that is with none, and with equal reward, that is, the free smiling of God's counte- nance. Despise him who will on earth, in heaven Isaac Newton does not look with scorn on John Howard! Is not the special honouring of intellectual greatness, nay, the special honouring of any human being, an effect of the fall ? Is it not the true attitude of all the finite to look around with love on their brethren, but with un- divided gaze to look upwards to God? It would seem assuredly to be so, and that we now honour our great ones merely because we must fix our poor eyes so steadfastly on them, while, commissioned by God, they lead us onwards towards the eternal light. Howard is almost alone among those whom men have agreed to honour. It is the intellectually mighty, who, by that necessity of our position just glanced at, become best known. Thousands there may be, and there always are, whose whole lives are " faithful prayers," who would, with grateful joy, suffer anything for the sake of Christ. But Howard was separated by God for a work which could not but attract attention ; an arduous and a heroic work, for which the time had fully come in the history of the world. HOWARD ; AND THE RISE OF PHILANTHROPY. 147 For that work he was qualified., and it, with absolute thoroughness, he did. Money was as nothing in his esti- mation in comparison of it ; but he was as far above fame as money, and no danger or toil could daunt him: "cholera doctors," Mr Carlyle compares to him, but he went where hired doctors would not go, and what cholera doctor, what man among men, ever went for two months into solitary confinement, amid infection and all discomfort, if per- chance he might bring thence one drop of balm for the sorrowful? Then consider his humility: ah! surely Howard was one of the men who might have been left on his pedestal. Think how he himself would have met Mr Carlyle's scorn. " It is true," he would have said ; " such I was, if so good ; I was nothing. Go into your great cathedral, and from the midst of your venerated dead cast forth the statue of John Howard ; let a white tablet alone recall my memory, and place it beside that of my Henrietta." Howard never asked his fame ; in his life he would accept no votive wreath : whatever had been said of his followers, regarding him one might have expected silence. In a very extended sense, his fame was unsoli- cited. Not only was himself of slow speech, but his bio- graphers were such as we have said. Yet the inarticulate human instinct discerned that there was around him that beauty of holiness, which, in the eyes of God and of angels, is alone honourable, and which it is well for men to honour, and placed him in the pantheon of the world: that human instinct, we think, was right ; there surely he will remain. Look not for him among the high intellectual thrones, among earth's sages or poets, among earth's kings or con- querors. But yonder, among the few lowly yet im- mortal ones, whose fame has been endorsed in heaven, see John Howard. His image is formed of marble, pure as 148 HOWARD; AND THE RISE OP PHILANTHROPY. the everlasting snow ; away from it, as if desecrating its whiteness, fall all the robes of false adornment in which men have sought to envelope it, away also fall all dimming, defacing, distorting veils of stupid misconception ; and there beams out clearly the face of a simple, humble man, earnest of purpose, celestially calm, and with one tear of inexpressible love on the cheek ; from the heavens comes a viewless hand, encircling the head with a serene and saintly halo, its mild radiance falling over the face, and blending with its speechless human pity; the eye is fixed on the eternal mansions, and the lips seem ever, in humble and tremulous gratitude, to say, "Lord God, why me!" The outline and features of that face Mr Carlyle saw, but that halo, and the fixedness of that heavenward gaze, he seems to us not to have seen. CHAPTEE III. WILBERFORCE; AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. William Wilberforce was born in Hull, in August, 1759. The auspices of his birth were in important re- spects favourable : a first glance reveals no exception or abatement to their happiness. Of a wealthy and ancient family, he opened his eyes on a life-path paved by afflu- ence, and thick-strewn with the flowers of indulgence. Every influence around him was of comfort and kindness; wherever his young eye fell, it met a smile. And his own nature was such as to make him peculiarly susceptive of the delights around. He was, it is true, a tender and deli- cate child, small for his age, and in no respect of promising appearance ; but there was in his heart an irrepressible fountain of kind and guileless vivacity, his voice was of sweet silvery tone, he was gentle and considerate in his ways ; altogether, he was a brisk, mildly-spirited, fascinating little thing, who could centre in himself every ray of kind- ness and comfort, and enhance their personal enjoyment by radiating them out on all around him. All this was well ; perhaps a happier sphere could scarce be imagined: yet we cannot pronounce it in the highest sense auspicious, because there was wanting in it any high presiding in- fluence of character. The boy's eye could rest on no clear, 150 WILBERPORCEj earnest light of godliness, burning in his father's house ; his parents were conventionally excellent people, respect- able, cheerful, hospitable, gay, nothing better or worse. In 1 768, the father of Wilberforce died ; the latter in- herited a rich patrimony, which was afterwards increased. The child, now nine years old, was sent to reside with an uncle, living by turns at Wimbledon and St James's Place. Here he came within the sphere of earnest piety. His aunt was one of those unnoticed witnesses to the inex- tinguishable powerof vitalChristianity, whose light, kindled by the instrumentality of Whitefield, spread a gentle but precious radiance through the spiritual haze of last century. Under her influence, his mind was roused to a new earnest- ness, and turned with great force in a religious direction. At the age of twelve, he wrote such letters on religious subjects as were afterwards deemed by some worthy of publication ; and, though this was wisely prevented, we cannot err in considering the fact a proof that his boyish intellect was brought into earnest and protracted considera- tion of religious truth. This state of matters was abruptly changed. His mother took the alarm. The prospect that her son should become a canting methodist, was appalling. She imme- diately recalled him to Yorkshire, and commenced the pro- cess of erasing every mark of strong individual character, of softening down into mere insipidity and commonplace every trait of personal godliness, which had appeared. He was at once inaugurated in a course of systematic triviality, not to end until it was fatally too late, whose great object was to clothe him in the garb of harmless, respectable frivolity, and leave him at last converted into that aimless worshipper of the hour, that lukewarm trimmer between all in religion, literature, philosophy, and feeling which AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 151 is, either cold or hot, that weathercock of vacant mode, that all-embracing type of the conventional a man of the world. His name threw open to him, on his return from Lon- don, every circle of fashion in Hull. Though still so young, he was introduced into all sorts of gay society. At first his lately-gained principles offered a firm opposition. The loud, half-animal life of the hearty, hospitable magnates of Hull contrasted boldly and unfavourably with the reli- gious earnestness of his aunt's spiritual life. The fashion was to have dinner parties at two and sumptuous suppers at six, the enjoyment having evidently a close and impor- tant connection*with the eating and drinking. Of card- parties, dancing, and theatre-going, there was no end. In all this, he found at first no pleasure; he turned in aversion from the coarse stimulants of sense, and sighed for the pure and lofty region he had left. But he was still a mere boy. The kindness universally showered on him could not be received with indifference by his warm and impressible nature; his was the age when new habits can yet be formed, and the process still result in charm ; worst of all, he per- ceived that his sprightliness and musical powers enabled him already to diffuse joy around him. The man who can fascinate society, is he who of all others is most subject to its fascination : we cannot wonder that the boy Wilberforce soon participated with joyous sympathy in all the merry- making of Hull. "We enter no protest against the healthful gaiety of youth. Even in that we here contemplate, there might, in many cases, have been nothing of present culpability or future injurious tendency. The young exuberant strength of boyhood healthfully and rightly prefers the open field to Jhe close schoolroom, the athletic sport or joyous dance to 152 wilberforce; the demure and measured walk. A strong mental endow- ment will, it is true, in most if not in all cases, evince itself by an element of thoughtfulness in early youth; but it is ever a circumstance of evil omen, boding intellectual disease, when the thoughtfulness of boyhood is of power sufficient to overbear its animal vivacity and sportive strength. One thing, however, is ever to be borne in mind, touching amusement and its connection with educa- tion: it cannot be the whole, but a part; it must derive its zest from being the unstringing of the bow. In the case of Wilberforce, it cannot be doubted that it usurped a place by no means its due a place where its influence was one of almost unmixed evil. And his natural temper and disposition were precisely such as rendered this circum- stance dangerous. His mind was of a sensitive, impulsive, lively cast, taking quickly the hue of its environment, and perhaps originally deficient in self-determining strength. To discipline his restless energy, to concentrate his volatile faculties, a firm though kind, a calm and methodic though genial training was required. Instead of this, he was, from early boyhood, the pet of gay circles, where no serious word was spoken, and found himself reaping most abun- dantly the approbation of his mother, when he flung all earnest thought aside, gave the odds and ends of his time to study, and made it the business of his life to be a dash- ing, lively, engaging member of fashionable society. That which occupied the formal place of instruction, was the tuition of a clerical gentleman who kept an academy. While residing with him, the main part of Wilberforce's education was what intellectual aliment he could gather at the tables of fox-hunting squires and jovial county gentlemen ; and we can conceive the effect upon the now faint religious impressions of the boy, of the spectacle of a AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 153 man, set apart to preach the gospel, whose whole life was a gentlemanly sneer at the spirituality of his office. Ere he proceeded to enter the university, which he did when seventeen years of age, every lingering trace of his early earnestness had been effaced ; he was in that soft plastic state which is incapable of exerting any reaction whatever upon surrounding influences. In all that related to the external qualities of a young man of fashion, his training had been amply successful. His manners were the happy union of sprightliness, ease, and unaffected kindness; his faculties were acute, his sympathy warm and vivacious, his wit ready and genial; he sung with great grace and sweetness. Furnished as he was upon entering the university, it is scarce to be wondered at that his sojourn there was well- nigh vacant of good : it were perhaps more correct to say, that it was fertile in evil. Not that it was contaminated by any taint of downright vice : the nature of Wilberforce was always too healthful, too open, free, and sunny, for that; but that the volatility which naturally characterised him, and whose final triumph, promoted by the studied frivolity of his boyhood, might yet have been averted, was here pampered to fresh luxuriance, and left to spread itself fairly over his mind; that the acquisition of the power of sustained and earnest study was fatally neglected; and that the opportunity of that first introduction to the treasuries of the knowledge of the world, which so generally determines the extent to which these treasuries are afterwards availed of, was lost. At St John's College, Cambridge, he fell among a set of the most pleasant, good-humoured, hearty fellows in the world. He had lots of money, of temper, of brisk- ness, of wit; they had free, jovial ways didn't mind tell- ing a good fellow what were bis good points could study 154 wilberforce; themselves, but could not perceive why a man of fortune should fag could probably tell a good story, give and take a repartee, appreciate a good song, or sing one last of all, and without any question, had the best appetite for good wine and Yorkshire pie. And so Wilberforce, whose natural quickness enabled him to figure to sufficient ad- vantage at examinations, left study to the poor and the dull; enough for him to be the centre of a joyous and boisterous throng, every good thing he said telling capi- tally, every faee around the board raying forth on him smiles and thankful complacency, the hours dancing cheerfully by, and casting no look behind to remind him that they were gone for ever. " The sick in body call for aid; the Bick In mind are covetous of more disease." Those men of St John's College, Cambridge, had all the best feelings towards Wilberforce, and seemed to him his truest friends. If you had spoken of him to any of them, you would have heard nothing but affectionate praise, with possibly just the slightest caustic mixture of contemptuous pity; if, iu their presence, you had called him a fool, or struck him on the face, a score of tongues or arms had moved to defend him. Yet how well had it been for Wil- berforce, had some rough but kind-hearted class-fellow turned upon him, like that class-fellow who saved Paley to British literature, and told him roundly he was a trifling fool; how well for him had his dancing-boots been ex- changed for Johnson's gaping shoes, his Yorkshire pie for Heyne's boiled pease-cods ! With bitter emphasis would he haye agreed to this in latter days, when he looked back on this time with keen anguish, and said, that those who should have 6een to his instruction, acted towards him unlike Christian, or even honest men. But such reflections were AND THE DEVELOPMENT OP PHILANTHROPY. 155 now far. Fanned by soft adulation, his heart told him he was a clever fellow, who would carry all before him ; for the present, he would sing his song, and shuffle the cards, and enjoy all the pleasure he imparted. So it continued until he approached the season of his majority, and it be- came proper to choose a vocation for life. Disinclined to mercantile pursuits, he withdrew from the business of which he was at his majority to have become a partner, and turned to another profession ; one which may be deemed of some importance, that of member of the British House of Commons. To be one of the governing council of the British Empire, to adjudicate on the affairs of that considerable assemblage of millions, to lend a help- ing voice and hand to steer the British monarchy in such an era as ours, that it may ever have its head forward, avoiding collisions, and sunken rocks, and quicksands, may be thought a task of some difficulty and solemnity. The instinct of British honour revolts at the idea of its being made a trade; no salaried members, were your legis- lators for ever confined to a class in consequence ; but there is no such prevailing abhorrenee against its being made an amusement. Accordingly, it is one of what may be styled the hereditary recreations of the British opulent and aristocratic classes; perhaps of a somewhat higher and more imposing order than fox-hunting and grouse- shooting; having, in particular, the advantage of serving as a background to these, giving them a look of relaxa- tion in the eyes of the world, imparting to their enjoy- ment a fine zest, and freeing them of all ennui or monotony. Young Wilberforce, whom we have been observing, and of whose education for this profession we can judge, thought that to be an honourable member would just suit him. He had, indeed, received a good average training for the busi- 156 wilberforce; ness. Quick to acquire, he had secured a fair amount of classical knowledge, and in those vital particulars, suavity of manners, happy fluency of speech, generally engaging deportment, he was surpassed by none ; the old gaieties of Hull, the Olympian suppers of St John's, and an excel- lent musical talent, would probably set him high among young honourable members. Besides, he would spend the last year of his minority in London ; in feasting and addressing a number of Hull freemen who lived there, he might make advances in the stiff" old art of ruling men ; while his evenings would be spent in actual apprenticeship to his business by attending the gallery of tl>e House. All this was done ; the member of the British Parliament deemed himself fully equipped. Immediately on becom- ing of age, Wilberforce was elected by an overwhelming majority for the city of Hull. His seat cost him between 8000 and 9000. Returned by such a constituency, and in such a man- ner, and on terms of personal intimacy with Pitt, who had been a Cambridge acquaintance, and whom he had met in the gallery of the House, Wilberforce found ho- nourable membership a most easy and animated affair. Acting as background, in the way we have indicated, it threw out finely the foreground of fan and frolic, of sport and light joyance, of feast, and dance, and merriment, on which he acted. At all the clubs he was received with the most cheerful welcome; there, with the men in whose hands were, or were soon to be, the destinies of the British nation, he laughed, and chatted, and sung, and gambled. His winnings were once or twice a hundred pounds, and happening, on one occasion, from an unforeseen circum- stance, to keep the bank, he cleared six hundred. But here, as always, on the verge of sheer vice, his better AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 157 nature checked him; what would have stamped a man of radical baseness an irretrievable gambler, pained and shocked Wilberforce: he played no more. There was no abatement of any of the other pleasures. " Fox, Sheridan, Fitzpatrick, and all your leading men," frequented those clubs ; Pitt showed himself there as the wittiest of the witty; altogether, the spectacle presented by British states- men behind the scenes was one of mirth and great exhila- ration. Gay, boisterous, frivolous they were; not devoid of a certain earnestness and business-like expertness when at their work, yet sportive and light of heart, as men whose places were safe, and who, for the rest, had only the matters of a British empire to think of. Wilberforce was by no means a technically inactive member; he pre- sented to the eye of the world an unimpeachable aspect, and kept his own conscience perfectly quiet. Seeming, to himself and others, to be doing his whole duty, he was satisfied and happy. Glancing, with his quick, clear eye, into circle after circle lighting up all faces, by the gentle might of his wit, if not with uncontrollable mirth, yet with soft, comfortable smiles suiting himself, by a tact swift and sudden as magic, to the society or subject of the mo- ment gesticulating and mimicking with rare histrionic art pouring forth, in unbroken stream, a warm and glow- ing eloquence or gliding softly into one of those songs to which his rich mellifluous voice lent such witching charms he was the life and soul of supper parties, the caressed of fashionable circles, the darling of the clubs. The Prince of Wales praised his singing; could human ambition look higher than that? After some more parliamentary work of this nature, Wilberforce flits gaily across the Channel; we find him in the autumn of 1783, with his friends Pitt and Elliot, in 158 wilberforce; the French capital. It is strangely interesting to mark him as he flutters among the Vauxhall luminaries of the old French court; light and frivolous almost as- they, yet with an open eye, and an English shrewdness, which note well the salient points in the dream-like scene. His jot- tings are brief but suggestive: " Supped at Count Don- son's. Round table: all English but Donson. Noailles, Dupont. Queen came after supper. Cards, tric-trac, and backgammon, which Artois, Lauzun, and Chartres, played extremely well." This was that Artois who goes down to a fool's immortality as the inventor or possessor of those " breeches of a kind new in this world," into which, and from which, his four tall lackeys lifted him every morning and evening; and this Chartres, who distinguished himself at tric-trac, became Egalite, and found it more difficult to play another game. Had the curtain of the future been drawn aside for a moment before the eyes of the group, and Philip of Orleans seen himself at that moment when he stopped before his own palace on his way to the guillotine, \^hat astonishment, and trembling, and dismay, would have sunk over that gay company ! He sees La Fayette, too, and styles him " a pleasing, enthusiastical man," surely with happy shrewdness and accuracy. The latter is already a patriot of the most highflown description, quite on the model of Addison's Cato. The ladies of the court try to induce him to join in cards ; but will the classic hero compromise the austere dignity of freedom? The ladies have to glide away in admiring respect, almost in reverence, and the heart of the patriot is strengthened. " The king is so strange a being (of the hog kind), that it is worth going a hundred miles for the sight of him, especially a boar-hunting." This was poor Louis, whose contribution to human knowledge was of so decidedly AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 159 negative a nature; who bore testimony to this one doc- trine, whose worth, however, deserved to be written in blood; that nature, in this world, grants inappreciably little to good intentions. He sees Marie Antoinette fre- quently, and bears witness to the gentle witchery of her manner, queenly dignity blended with feminine kindness. Seen against the darkness which we know lay in the back- ground, all this gaily-tinted picture, of which Wilberforce for a short space formed an appropriate figure, has a strange and fascinating look. " Light mortals, how ye walk your light life-minuet, over bottomless abysses, divided from you by a film!" In the spring of 1784, Wilberforce was elected to repre- sent Yorkshire. His popularity in his native county was extreme ; and when, after the prorogation of Parliament, he went down to spend his birth-day there, and appeared at the races, the whole era of his history which we now con- template may be said to have reached its highest manifes- tation and climax. A running chorus of applauding shouts followed his path; he was the cynosure of all eyes; if vacant stare and noise could make one happy, he were the man. In October, 1784, he left England on a journey to the Continent, in the company of Isaac Milner, brother of the Church historian, and, though unapt to show them, of thoroughly evangelical views. A few serious words which dropped from Milner's lips on the journey, and the effect of a perusal of Doddridge's " Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," did not altogether pass away from the mind of Wilberforce; invisibly, perhaps intermittently, yet inde- structibly, the disturbing influence acted within. On his return to London, he again rushed into the halls of fashion and frivolity; now and then a monition of other things flickered momentarily, like the glance of an angel's eye, 160 wilberforce; across his sphere of vision; but he still continued, with reckless determination, to drain the chalice of wild, un- measured mirth. No change was seen in the external aspect of his life; he frisked about at Almack's, danced till five in the morning, charmed and fascinated as before ; yet the monitory glance was at intervals upon him, the perfect peace of death was broken. In the summer of 1785, he had another Continental tour with Milner. They now conversed more earnestly on the subject of religion, and commenced together the study of the New Testament. The time at length had come from which Wilberforce was to date a new era in his life: the time when he was, whether in delusion or not, to believe himself savingly influenced by the Spirit of the Almighty, and to prepare to walk onwards to eternity under that guidance. The manner of the change now wrought in Wilberforce is of less importance to us than its effects; but we must briefly indicate its general aspect. In our minds the be- lief is deeply seated, that the religious influence by which we saw him impressed in boyhood never totally lost its effect. Like an ineffaceable writing, it lay in his heart during all those years when the desert sands of vanity swept over it, hidden, perhaps forgotten, but imperishably there: it required but a calm hour and a strong skilful hand, putting aside the sand and revealing the golden characters, to bring the soul of Wilberforce to acknow- ledge their sacred authority. On this point, however, we do not insist; it is beyond the reach of positive proof. He did, at all events, now pause in startled earnestness; the fleeting monitions could no longer be put aside. The truths of God's Word first forced an intellectual assent; conscience, after long slumber, then awoke in the AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 161 might of its divine commission, and, like a heavenly mes- senger with a sword of unearthly fire in the hand, defied him to advance another step. His trouble of soul was long and terrible. He asserted in after years that he had never read of mental agonies more acute than his own; and we think it were difficult to over-estimate the weight of this testimony. Yet it was not terror that chiefly dismay- ed him. " It was not so much," these are his own words, " the fear of punishment by which I was affected, as a sense of my great sinfulness in having so long neglected the unspeakable mercies of my God and Saviour." His soul was not altogether a stranger to fear. The finite being who begins to have a fixed assurance that there is not a relation of perfect concord between him and the Infinite One, may well experience a feeling of awe; the man who hears conscience, with iron tongue, proclaiming that sin and misery are as substance and shadow, who has any conception of the deep, drear, moaning affirmative of this, which goes, like a melancholy Arctic wind, over all the centuries of the life of mankind, and who deems it even possible that this Upas root lies too deep in his own bosom to be eradicated by mortal hands, may well be afraid. The instinct of the human race echoes the Scripture words, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." But it was no slavish dread which urged him on. His was no longer the reckless bearing of a man of the world, arising from vacancy of thought or sheer imbecility ; nor did he change his attitude for that of the haughty assertor of himself against the infinitude of power, whose position is surely that of a maniac or demon: but it was the light of celestial holiness burning eternally around the throne of God in the far deeps of heaven, that caught and fixed his eye, it was an awakening consciousness of deep moral wants, that filled his heart with yearning sorrow, it was a 162 wilberforce; conviction that the name Christian had been hitherto, in his case, a mere vague sound or hypocritic deception, that touched him with hallowed shame, and it was dumb amaze- ment at the fact that the most sublime instance of love ever given in this universe had been unknown and unheeded by him, which brought him at last, a weeping suppliant, to the Mount of Calvary. The work he had to accomplish was of stern difficulty. That long course of noisy vanity had as it were deafened and distracted his spiritual nature; fixed thought he found in itself difficult; and now he had to stop and think as with his soul in his hand. Had escape been possible, he would have escaped ; for he put himself at first in a firmly defensive atti- tude, and turned again for a time to the charmers whose spells had hitherto held him. Consider what an outlook was his. By a thousand viewless chains he was bound to the world. Known and adulated in all the clubs and London fashionable circles, rejoicing in a rising fame for eloquence, and having long enjoyed the still more delicious fame of wit, keenly sensitive to every shaft of ridicule and in- tensely relishing applause, the strings of his very heart would be rent if he tore himself away ; while, hardest of all, he saw clearly that friendships, to his tender nature very dear, must either be cast away altogether, or arrange themselves on new sympathies of a comparatively shallow order. But it was to be done ; further he could not go; that flaming sword of God's angel, conscience, barred his way. In deep trouble of mind, he returned to London. He had abandoned the defensive attitude ; he no longer stood as one who could put a good face on the matter, and, as it were, prove to God that all was right ; he had flung away the armour in which he trusted, he had exchanged complacency for bitter repentance, defence or apology for earnest prayer. It was not yet light within, but outward AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 163 duty became plain, and with it he proceeded at once. He wrote to his principal friends, informing them that he was not what he had been ; he withdrew his steps from every haunt of worldly mirth ; despite a rising feeling of shame, he commenced the worship of God as a householder. He brought himself also, after a severe struggle, to introduce himself to John Newton, and thus commenced the forma- tion of a new circle of friendship. At length he began to reap his reward; that peace which has arisen after toil and darkness in so many Christian souls, and which is essentially the same in all ; that peace which came with returning light over the prostrate and trembling soul of Paul, which brought healing to the agonised heart of Luther, which wa3 devoutly treasured alike by Cromwell, Ed wards, and so far different men as Brainerd and M'Cheyne, diffused itself, at last, through the breast of Wilberforce. His testimony was soon decisive, that he had reached a higher and more exquisite joy than he had ever known in the saloons of fashion ; " never so happy in my life, as this whole evening," are words from his diary of the period. His correspondence began to breathe the earnestness of Christian zeal, and the serenity of Christian enjoyment. " The Eastern nations," he writes to his sister, " had their talismans, which were to advertise them of every danger, and guard them from every mischief. Be the love of Christ our talisman." Again, writing on an Easter Sab- bath, " Can my dear sister," he exclaims, " wonder that I call on her to participate in the pleasure I am tasting. I know how you sympathise in the happiness of those you love, and I could not, therefore, forgive myself if I were to keep my raptures to myself, and not invite you to partake of my enjoyment. The day has been delightful. I was out before six, and made the fields my oratory, the sun shining as bright and as warm as at Midsummer. I think my own 164 wilberforce; devotions become more fervent when offered in this way, amidst the general chorus with which all nature seems on such a morning to be swelling the song of praise and thanksgiving." He had now deliberately devoted himself to Christ, and resolved that all his energies should be dedi- cated to His service. We must pause for a moment, to learn accurately the pre- cise position of "Wilberforce at this juncture, to know what Christian conversion had done for him, and to estimate the forces at his command for serving his God and his country. The look he cast over his past life was one of asto- nishment and sorrow; his feelings were as those of a man, who, after a night of intoxication and revelry, is aroused from a drunken morning sleep to brace on his armour and go instantly to meet the foe ; or of one who finds that, while he has slept, a fair wind has been lost, and the tide is gone far backward, and he will never by utmost diligence make now a good voyage. He was twenty-six years of age. His life, since his twelfth year, had been one course of mental dissipation; his intellect, naturally alert, had been abandoned to utter volatility; he stood appalled, and well-nigh powerless. Had his will been roused to a giant energy had he collected all his faculties for one determined struggle had he, calculating that, to attain the mental power and material which a true educa- tion might have at that epoch realised for him, a space of ten or at least five years of stern, unmitigated, silent toil was absolutely required, deliberately given that period to the task, and performed it, it is impossible to say what he might have been, or what work he might have effected. But he made no such grand effort: life was so far advanced, that he did notdare to withdraw his hand for a moment from work ; he does not seem to have even formed the conception of what, as to us issufficientlyplain,wasabsolutelynecessary. AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 165 We do not blame Wilberforce in this matter; but it is requisite for us to be thus explicit, that it may be dis- tinctly understood what it is we conceive him to have been, and what we believe he was not. He can in no sense be regarded as the Christian statesman of our era. The modern Christian statesman, indeed, has not yet appeared. For, by statesman, we cannot be supposed to mean simply member of parliament: we must mean one who exerts so much power in the political world, that the general aspect of affairs is coloured by his influence, the attitude of his country among the kingdoms of the world that which he, at least in a large measure, has appointed. The Christian statesman will be he who can impart to Britain once more the aspect of a great, free, Protestant nation; who, in the nineteenth century, will bring Christianity into politics, and, helming the state with the strong arm of a Cromwell, make it apparent to all nations that he holds his commission, as governor, from God; who will gather round him that deep and ancient sympathy with vital Christianity which does exist in these lands, who will combine it with the science and adapt it to the conditions of the time, and make the flag of England once more not the mere symbol of commercial wealth or military renown, but the standard of Christian c : vilisation, and a beacon to every people that will be free. The ultimate perfection of civilisation is an enlightened and godly freedom. But our words, we fancy some reader conceiving, become visionary express mere vague enthusiasm, or Utopian dreams. Is it really so ? Have we tacitly come to the conclusion and agreement that Christianity, that Protestantism, is to be permitted indeed to exert what power it can in subordinate spheres, but, in its distinc- tive character, is no more to be admitted into the coun- 166 wilberforce; cils of nations ? Have we consented that Britain, when dealing with other kingdoms, shall indeed speak, and with resistless power, as a commercial, a military, a colo- nising nation, but have no word to say as a Christian nation ? It may be so ; but let us perceive clearly what we imply by the concession. We imply that nations, as such, are exempted from the ordinance of glorify- ing God; that, in this important respect, they form an absolute solecism in the universe. For our own part, we cannot believe it; we cannot but be profoundly assured that nations are intended, we say not in what precise way, but at least in their distinctive character, to bear a part in the universal harmony of the universal choir that hymns the Creator's praise; we cannot but believe that something more vital than political morality, more nobly human than desire of national wealth, more lofty even that what is far higher than these, martial honour, must one day again penetrate the senates and privy councils of the world ; it is with sorrow and shame that we regard the fact, that, since the days of Cromwell, there has been no leader of the British nation, no Pitt, no Fox, no Wellington, of whom you can say that, as a statesman, he was Christian. Wilberforce was a Chris- tian member of Parliament; it may even be alleged that he did, to some perceptible extent, introduce Chris- tianity into the councils of Great Britain; but the Christian statesman of the modern epoch he certainly was not. The power of vital godliness did all for Wilberforce that was, perhaps, without a miracle, possible; it did not create within him new powers, it did not convey super- naturally into his mind new and sufficient stores of know- ledge; but it did much, it did more, we may confidently AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 167 say, than any other conceivable power could have done. What that was, we go on to show. Light, frivolous, fascinating, "Wilberforce made a nar- row escape from being a character of a sort which is surely one of the most pitiful human life can show a fashionable wit and jester. How profoundly melancholy is the spectacle of a man, the main tenor of whose life is an empty giggle and crackle of fool's laughter! How ghastly, after it is all past, does the perpetual smirking and smartness of such men as Theodore Hook and Sydney Smith really appear! Wilberforce could vie with these in powers of entertaining and being entertained; his whole training, with one slight exception, tended to foster these powers; and now they had found their sphere, and passed their probation. In politics, his position promised little better. With powers of natural eloquence which drew unmeasured applause from such men as Burke and Pitt, with great quickness of memory, and, to a certain extent, of arrangement, with a judgment naturally clear and strong, and with a heart which would not swerve from the path of a rough genuine English honour, he had certainly reached a conspicuous station as a supporter of Pitt, and could speak a distinct, independent, and valuable word on most subjects; yet he himself records, that his political life was then without unity, that he " wanted first prin- ciples," that his own distinction was his " darling ob- ject." We cannot but agree with him when he says, " The first years that I was in Parliament I did nothing nothing I mean to any good purpose." Both as man and as politician, he was now changed. The flickering light of vacant and aimless mirth faded from his lip and eye, the sacred energy of Christian purpose began to mould and brighten his features; if 168 wilberforce; there was still somewhat of restlessness and unsteadied vehemence in his look, it had one point toward which it always turned, and its natural kindness was gra- dually deepened and sublimed into the holier warmth of Christian love. As a politician, he reached a new inde- pendence and individuality. He could no longer wheel round in the circle of party ; he could no longer, even to a limited extent, take his opinions in the mass from the faction to which he belonged ; he told Pitt he would still support him where he could, but that he was no longer to be a party man, even to the same extent as heretofore. He looked out for a work of his own, for something which he might do as one whose character was in all things pro- fessedly Christian, and who believed that it was as God's servant alone that he could take a share in the govern- ment of Britain. For this work, whatever it might be, he lost no time in preparing himself. He instantly set about the task of concentrating his faculties, and enriching his intellectual stores; he turned to study with an earnestness he had never hitherto known; above all, he commenced the careful and unintermitted study of Holy Writ. This last we agree with his biographers in considering the most important element in his new mental discipline. The power of the Christian Scriptures to engage, to train, and to occupy the intellect, has been attested in express and emphatic terms by such thinkers as Jonathan Edwards and Lessing. Wilberforce did not wait long ere he found his work. It was twofold. On Sunday, the 28th of October, 1 787, he wrote these words in his journal: " God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade, and the reformation of manners." With solemn yet courageous earnestness, he assayed these august achievements; he had already counted the forces AND THE DEVELOPMENT OP PHILANTHROPY. 169 against him in his public and private Christian walk; but after looking them full in the face, this had been his con- clusion : "But then we have God and Christ on our side; we have heavenly armour; the crown is everlasting life, and the struggle how short, compared with the eternity which follows it! Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." It is with Wilberforce, in his connection with those two movements, the first of which resulted in the emancipa- tion of the slaves in the British Colonies, and the second of which developed into what is called Exeter Hall Philan- thropy, that we are mainly concerned. The part, indeed, which he individually bore in each is of comparatively slight importance ; it we can briefly indicate in the outset of our remarks on the respective subjects. But it were well, if such might be possible, to reach a conclusive estimate at once of the value of the great measures of Abolition of the Slave Trade, and Slave Emancipation, and of the part Christianity bore in their attainment ; while the class of kindred phenomena, which we include in the general de- signation of philanthropic efforts for the reformation of manners, are those with which we are at present more par- ticularly engaged. Of the particular method in which Wilberforce led the contest against the Slave Trade, and of the various stages of that contest, we deem it unnecessary to speak. His task cannot be alleged to have been one of a severity de- manding the highest efforts of courage and endurance, or whose performance called forth special heroism. That he did encounter obloquy and scorn, that he did undergo heavy and protracted labour, is certain ; that, from year to year, he stood forth with the calm determination of one who had a great work to do, and who would do it with 170 wilberfokce; English courage, sagacity, and perseverance, is undeni- able ; that, in the whole course of his operations, he earned that substantial applause which is the meed of every man who performs well and completely the duty which he re- gards himself commissioned of God to accomplish, no one can question. But we claim for him no higher honour than this : our opinion here is substantially the same as that of Sir James Stephen. His sphere of exertion, what- ever its inconveniences or occasional troubles, was, on the whole, one of honour and ease ; failure brought no danger or biting disgrace, and, from the civilised world, voices were raised to cheer and applaud him ; it was worthy and honourable to struggle and conquer as he did, but the fact of his having done so, can never be such a testimony to character, as similar exertions were in the case of men who worked in the gleam of half a world's indignation, and, for one stern enemy, had always to look into the eyes of death. It was in 1789 that he delivered his first regular speech on the Slave Trade. Even when we have made allowance for the enthusiasm of the moment, we must conclude that the opinions expressed of this performance by Burke and Bishop Porteous, prove Wilberforce to have been a man of great natural eloquence, and of rich and vigorous mind. " The House, the nation, and Europe," according to Burke, " were under great and serious obligations to the honourable gentleman for having brought forward the subject in a manner the most masterly, impressive, and eloquent. The principles were so well laid down, and supported with so much force and order, that it equalled anything he had heard in modern times, and was not per- haps to be surpassed in the remains of Grecian eloquence." Porteous styles it " one of the ablest and most eloquent AND THE DEVELOPMENT OP PHILANTHROPY. 171 speeches that was ever heard." It lasted three hours. Its effect was to bear the House, with astonishing unanimity, along with the speaker. On the whole, we must regard it a conclusive proof that Wilberforce possessed popular talents of a high order. In 1807, after many a galling disappointment, his efforts were finally crowned with suc- cess. Congratulations poured in upon him from all parts of the world; but while drinking deeply of the joy which rewarded his toil, he abandoned every claim to honour for himself; all pride was swallowed up in thankfulness. " Oh what thanks do I owe the Giver of all good, for bringing me in His gracious Providence to this great cause, which at length, after almost nineteen years' labour, is successful!" These are the words of a true Christian 6oldier: their humility and silent earnestness, amid the applause of millions, are surely beautiful. He lived to see a still greater day. When he retired from political strife, the standard he had so long borne was held aloft by Bux- ton and others; with deep emphasis did he again thank God, when, in 1833, Britain emancipated her slaves. Concerning this whole work of Slave Emancipation, we have now heard the two extremes of opinion. For a time, and a long time, it seemed to be a subject on which men were at last agreed; a universal pasan arose around it, and continued to be chanted on all platforms, in all newspapers, in all schools of rhetoric and poetry. But, after a time, there exhibited itself a disposition to question the advis- ability and intrinsic excellence of the measures, and at length a strong revulsion of feeling has taken place in cer- tain quarters. Mr Carlyle has poured the chalice of his scorn, comparable to molten iron, on Britain's whole deal- ing with the Negroes of her colonies, and, wherever his in- fluence is paramount, a disposition to denounce the pro- 172 wilberforce; ceedings of the advocates of abolition and emancipation manifests itself. The paeans were certainly, we think, struck on too high a key. The stern and numerous difficulties which have since revealed themselves cast no shadow before ; that one grand, all-comprehending difficulty of making men free, im- plying, as it does, such an elevation of nature, such a rais- ing above sensuality, sloth, and foolishness, into industry, self-respect, and wisdom, as only a Divjne hand could at once effect, was not then conceived of; it did not strike men that, if they destroyed Sodom, they might have in its place only a Dead Sea. Yet, after all, we are disposed to say that the plaudits had more reason in them than the denunciations. There is something wholesome and inspir- ing in the sound of human rejoicing over wrong and ini- quity even believed to be overthrown ; but, on the other side, the vituperation, when all is well looked into, turns out to have little more on which to support itself, than the old fact, whose truth we must so often acknowledge and put up with, that human affairs are not ideal, that human in- tellects are indubitably bounded. We shall endeavour to strike the truth between the opposing views. Slave Emancipation, then, of which we consider the abo- lition of the Slave Trade a part, we regard as a great ini- tial measure, which did not exhaust the case, which did not even proceed far with it, which cannot be said to have touched certain of its greatest and most strictly original difficulties, but which cleared the ground for its possible discussion, fixed the imperative conditions of the problem, and laid down the fundamental axioms by which it must be solved. It cleared the atmosphere round the whole subject; its very excess, if such there was, the very fact of its abstaining from any tempering or temporising expe- AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHKOPY. 173 dients, but attempting to break, as by one sledge-hammer blow, the slave-chain that it abhorred, made its teaching of certain great first principles the more emphatic. These may, we think, be briefly recounted; they seem to range themselves under two heads. The first great truth it declared was none other than that of which we have already spoken, and on which we shall not here again enlarge; That an essential equality sub- sists among all the members of the human family. It was the second great assertion by Christian Philanthropy of this fundamental principle: Howard's work in the prisons of the world was the first. Slavery, in its essential nature, is precisely that which puts man individually in the stead of God, as the ulti- mate source of authority regarding a human being. Hence is at once obvious the error of those, who, pointing to the subordination of class to class, and such other arrange- ments of society as restrain and circumvent every man in every sphere, exclaim that slavery cannot be abolished. From the laws of society, in some form or other, we can- not escape; but, whatever their imperfections, we must look at society as originally an ordinance of God, enforced by a necessity of nature, and, with whatever subordinate disadvantages and difficulties, conducing towards the very highest and noblest results for the individual and the race; no man, therefore, is a slave, however hard he toils, however ill he fares, in simply conforming to them. But whatever negatives the action of the powers with which God has gifted a man, and which he holds from Him, is of the na- ture of slavery ; and thus, indeed, every social imperfection ilfcrolving injustice and partiality, is more or less allied to it; when a man is bought and sold as a chattel or animal, the action of those powers may be said to be negatived alto- 174 wilberforce; gether. Thus, too, we see that a man who is vitally a Christian cannot be totally a slave; he is Christ's freed- man ; there is a region in his heart which he deliberately regards as exempt from the control of his earthly master, a point in which, should he command him, he will not obey, but, if it must be, die a freeman. The second lesson which these legislative measures read to the world was this; That Mammon was not the ultimate authority in this question; that, though the pecuniary loss were of indefinite amount, there were other considerations, of justice and humanity, which would overtop them, and that infinitely. It was as if Mammon and Justice had been pitted against each other, with the world for an arena : Mammon pointed to these souls of men, said they repre- sented gold, and declared that the smoke of their torment would blacken the dome of heaven ere he let them from beneath his sway; Justice flung to him twenty millions, and bade him, with a contemptuous smile, relax his hold. By whatever law the questions connected with the Negro race were to be ultimately settled, it was not to be a consideration in the case, how they would realise the greatest pecuniary profit for white men; the general principle was emphatically enounced, that, whatever of wealth or luxury a man may extract from any portion of the earth, by making his fellow-man the tool for its attain- ment, this method is one essentially unjust, and on no con- ceivable hypothesis to be defended. On the whole, then, we must pronounce the value of these measures great, although the present state of our West Indian Colonies is as it is. Of the melancholy as- pect they present, we entertain so profound an idea, tlfct we can hardly trust ourselves to express it. Perhaps, fairly and fully considered, our legislation on subjects AND THE DEVELOPMENT OP PHILANTHROPY. 175 touching these colonies since the measure of 1833, is the most fatuous, contradictory, mean, and feeble, that ever had existence. If it had been the wish of Britain to stul- tify or abjure her own former acts, and if she had desired, by deliberate national hypocrisy, to change the form, but, perhaps, increase the virulence of her cruelty to the Negro race, she could not, by conceivable possibility, have suc- ceeded better than she has. To one fairly beyond the circle of political intrigue and blind interest, who casts an earnest glance over the rela- tion of Britain to her Western Islands since the Emanci- pation Act, the whole matter seems to beam out in per- fect clearness. We have reflected somewhat upon the subject, and shall venture a few suggestions towards de- fining the duty of Britain to tho3e Negroes with whom she is connected. First of all, it is necessary that we have a new Emanci- pation Act. We speak with perfect deliberation. It is necessary for us to emancipate our slaves in Cuba, the Brazils, and America. With a look of magnanimity, jus- tice, and love, Britain unchained her slaves: with a superb generosity, she paid down twenty millions, and washed from her hands the stain of blood. The nations of the earth looked on in admiration; from the four corners of the world came shouts of applause. It seemed indubitable that it had been an act of justice and humanity to the Negro. But the plaudits were premature. If appearances could be trusted, it was not the Negro but herself Britain had spared. She laid down her own whip, but, whether in imbecility or sentimentality, again took it up, loaded it afresh, and put it into the hand of the Spaniard or Ameri- can. There are two ways of keeping a slave; either by feeding and lodging him that he may till your own 176 wilberforce; ground, or paying another certain monies for keeping and working him. Britain emancipated the West Indian slaves: the sugar produce of her colonies declined; she opened or kept open her markets to slave-grown sugar; precisely the quantity of sugar she could not receive from the West Indies, she received from Cuba and the Brazils. What occasioned the diminution of sugar in the British Co- lonies? The diminution of toil bearing on the slave. What enabled the other slave-holding sugar-lands to in- crease their produce, so as to meet the new demand of the British market ? One of two things, or both, exhaust the the possibilities of the case: addition to the number of slaves, or an increase of toil, imposed on slaves already possessed, exactly equivalent to the diminution of work in the British plantations. We are not here, reader, lay- ing down anything difficult or abstruse; we are not even arguing ; we are expressing an absolute common-place ; we defy any man, who has ever read a book or reflected an hour on political economy, to question what we state. By the continual communication of all parts of the commercial world, by an action and reaction inevitable and speedy, when you have any article of commerce for which there is a known and steady demand, the withdrawal of a body of labourers from one field where it is produced will occasion their addition in another field. When Britain set free her Negroes in the West Indies, and still kept open her market to slave-grown sugar, she simply appointed a set of Spanish or Brazilian overseers to starve, to lash, and to murder her slaves. It was by the laws of commerce impossible for her really to emancipate a body of slaves equal in number to those employed in her colonies, to withdraw her con- tingent from the slave-chain of the world, in any but one way by closing her markets to all slave-grown sugar. AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 177 By any other expedient, she simply exchanged one body of slaves for another. The Emancipation Act was noble in intent, fine in example, and beautiful as a proof of na- tional generosity ; but in mitigating the woes of the Negro race, considered as a whole, it was then, and has since been, null, and worse. We appeal to any political economist in the British Empire, whether this conclusion is not a mathe- matical certainty. When we consider the amount of injustice, of useless, senseless, gross injustice, inflicted on our colonies in this business when we think of the state of those glorious islands flung to rot there on the ocean, while Britain, like an insane beldame, cherished elsewhere that for which she ruined them we can say only, in sickness of heart, that it is unspeakable. Mr Carlyle rails at the " Dismal Science ;" but we cannot cease to lament, despite his scorn, that there was not even that faint knowledge of the simplest laws of the commercial system of the world in the public mind of Britain, which would have saved us this humi- liating state of affairs. Let all who desire Slave Emancipation rally to one cry, and demand one measure, The exclusion of slave-grown produce from the British Isles. We have no choice, if we would do anything, beyond this ; keep your market open, and your number of slaves is the same. India may give us cotton ; our own islands, if rightly managed, will give us enough of sugar: but, however we do, there is now blood on our hands blood most cruelly, most inhumanly shed. As matters stand, all our abolition lecturing will not abate the minutest particle of slavery; if we have the na- tional heroism to pass the above measure, we may entertain a good hope of giving slavery its death-blow over the world. Let no one here desecrate the name of Free Trade, by 178 wilberforce; making it a plea for oppression and iniquity. It is not a question either of free trade or protection ; it is simply whether we are to hare slaves or no: we can emancipate them only in one way. But we turn now to the Negroes in our own Indian Colo- nies. Were the great measure passed which we have spe- cified, there would be hope for them ; while matters are as they stand, we can hardly entertain any. The only ad- missible mode of procedure, however, seems simple enough. "While recognised, in an unqualified sense, as our fellow- subjects, Negroes must certainly be taught to imbibe habits of industry worthy of British citizens. It is competent for every government, in a mild but resolute manner, to put in force the ancient rule, that he who does not work shall not eat. As Mr Carlyle says truly, the Negro has no right to run riot in idleness, and live on soil which British valour, at least in one sense, won, without paying a fair price for it: no British subject has such a right, and he can plead no allowable privilege. This is the first step which renders an industrial education practicable. A whole system of such education might gradually arise, and, by a natural, easy, and benign process, a free and indus- trious, a healthful and joyous coloured population might again make these islands like polished and glittering gems on the breast of ocean. And it is our decided opinion that there might, with the best effects, be an importation from Africa of free blacks into the West Indies. Mr Carlyle's argument against this is singular. It proceeds on the hypothesis, that, because something is required to be done in measure, it will be done in hideous and probably impossible excess. Ireland, such is his reasoning, does, or did suffer, from too large a population ; the West Indian Islands suffer from one by AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 179 much too small: therefore, if you introduce more men into the West Indies, you make it a black Ireland. Under which form of the syllogism is this to be ranged? The case is rendered the more absurd by the fact, that, since the project in question has reference solely to Blacks who would voluntarily push their fortune in the West Indies, the great danger would be, that the influx would stop far too soon. The Dismal Science could have given Mr Carlyle a hint here too. But what errors soever we have fallen into since the measure for the emancipation of our West Indian slaves was passed, and how ineffectual soever the ignorance of its framers may have rendered that measure itself, its value as a national act was not lost. To the principles we have stated, it did testify; Britain did, to the best of her know- ledge, free her bondmen; and if it is now found to be an undeniable fact, that her knowledge was so defective that her attempt, instead of being an alleviation of the miseries of the negro race as a whole, was, strictly speaking, the reverse, let us hope the cause of real Slave Emancipation may again meet a response in British generosity, huma- nity, and valour, and again find Christian champions like Clarkson, Buxton, and Wilber force. There has been not a little discussion as to the respective exertions of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others, in the at- tainment of their common object. To this controversy we shall contribute not one word. We saw that Wilberforce accepted, as part of the work appointed him by God, the conduct of the struggle for the abolition, and we saw him, when the Slave Trade was no more, devoutly thanking God for having honoured him to bear his part in the work- But, in what shares soever the trophies of the victory be distributed to individuals, it is just to claim the whole 180 wilberforce; achievement as a triumph of Christianity. Ramsay, whose book, published towards the close of last century, was the prelude to the agitation, was a Christian pastor ; Clark- son and Wilberforce both toiled under the direct com- mission of Christian love. To such an extent, Christianity did colour our national counsels. In the former century, the love of the gospel had shed its mild light in the dun- geon ; it now spoke an emphatic word against slavery, a word which, however little it may have yet availed, will assuredly not die away until that foul stain of shame and guilt is wiped from the brow of humanity. All that was of real value in the measure was its testimony, on the part of the first nation in the world, to justice and love: that testimony was priceless; and it was the might of Chris- tianity which drew it forth. What was defective and neutralising in its provisions was unseen by all; the divine principles which acted in its attainment were perfectly in- dependent of that ; all the world, as well as its Christian movers, thought it was a real emancipation, and not an ex- change. But every noble mind, every heart touched with poetic fire or raised by philosophic ardour, hailed it with instant and exultant applause. Cowper, Coleridge, Byron, Schlegel, Fichte, and a list of such, embracing, with probably not a solitary exception, all the greatness and nobleness of the close of last century and the commencement of this, declared Slave Emancipation to be a high and glorious aim and achievement ; Mr Carlyle was, we think, the very first man of genius and nobleness, both unquestioned, to hint a doubt regarding the fundamental principles which animated Clarkson and Wilberforce. And whatever scorn or gratuitous insulting pity may accompany her path, we accept it as an auspicious omen, that the form in which Christianity has walked forth most prominently in the AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 181 sight of nations in these latter ages has again been that of love ; we will recognise her even by that railing, and know of a certainty that she is about her natural and pecu- liar work, when she brings hope to the prisoner and freedom to the slave. We arrive now at the second portion of that twofold task which Wilberforce believed to be appointed him by God. This was the reformation of manners. The method to be adopted was that of public exposure and philanthropic appeal. The force of Christian love, scattered in countless bosoms in the British Islands, was to become, as it were, con- scious of itself, to gather together and unite: when this was accomplished, it was to turn in concentrated power against evil, in whatever form and place it appeared, either by bringing its influence to bear directly on the legislature, or by local and personal endeavours. His efforts mark the commencement of the second stage of philanthropy ; the fire was to spread wide, and the attempt was to be made to give it form and union. We can here, again, while yielding perfect approbation, bestow but a qualified applause upon Wilberforce, as the leader and representative of what, if you choose, you may call, Exeter Hall Philanthropy. The part he played can be easily comprehended. Wherever there germinated a scheme of benevolence, he cast on it a glance of encourage- ment ; whoever designed, by voluntary efforts on the part of himself and his fellows, to benefit any part of the human race, looked towards Wilberforce, nor looked in vain. But, after all, he was rather the principal worker in philanthropy, than its organising, ordering, compelling chief; for him we still wait. To discern, by far-reaching and unerring glance, the real force and the real perils of this wide- spread benevolence, this many- worded spirit of kindness, 182 wilberfobce; that gathered its assemblies and spoke on its platforms ; to connect it, as a great phenomenon, with the grand charac- teristics of our age ; to be a head to its great throbbing heart, an eye to its hundred, earth-embracing hands, was not given to Wilberforce. Philanthropy, under him, was aptly and expressively emblemed by that motley throng which Sir James Stephen so graphically depicts swarming in the chambers of his house ; a number of living and em- bodied forces, some of whim, some of folly, some of mere maudlin softness, all inclined to do good, and complacently concluding that good intentions would pass for substantial working power. But we by no means allege that it was a slight or profitless work which Wilberforce did. Unless you know how to direct your motive power, you will do no work ; but unless you have your motive power, your are in a still more hopeless case. He, and the right-hearted men who were around him, fanned into a flame which covered Britain that spirit of active love which the holy Howard evoked. To consider the value of this service open to discussion, seems to deny every instinct man feels, every rule by which he acts. If a man says that it is not a consoling, an aus- picious fact, that in a million breasts there is awakened the will, the bare will, to work and war for the diffusion of light over our world, for the social and moral ameliora- tion of men, we know not how to answer him. If a man, contemplating the great temptation which, by necessity of position, assails Britain in these ages, the temptation to circumscribe the blue vault by an iron grating, and beneath it, as in a temple, kneel before the shrine of Mammon, finds no healing, counteracting influence in the spectacle of thousands of British hands stretched out to take Mam- mon's gold and lay it on a higher altar, we cannot assail, as we cannot conceive, his position. If any one does not AND THE DEVELOPMENT OP PHILANTHROPY. 183 perceive that there is an infinite difference, and that a dif- ference of advantage and advance between a nation, sloth- ful and avaricious, that will do and give nothing in the cause of God and humanity, and a nation saying, " I will give, I will act, and if I know not how, I will earnestly hear," we can merely signify dumb astonishment. Had philanthropy hitherto done nothing, its presence in the commonwealth were a blessing as of the early rain ; if it has in certain directions fallen into error, it is both a com- monplace and a fatal mistake to cast away good with evil; an error not committed, save by madmen, in other depart- ments, for you do not cast away your sword for its rust, or your scythe because it is not hung with perfect scientific accuracy. But philanthropy, Exeter Hall Philanthropy, has done much. We cannot consider as nothing, the alleviation of the woes of factory children, the erection of ragged schools, the providing of shelter for the houseless, of food for the starving; we cannot consider it little to have sown the world with Bibles! Since the day when Howard called it forth, as a power distinctly to be seen and felt in human affairs, its progress has been one before which oppression has fallen, its step has startled cruelty and crime. God has honoured it hitherto, and he will bless it still. But however well it may be to express the plain truth, and however lawful to draw encouragement therefrom, it is certainly of more strict practical avail to clear the way for future work, than to rejoice over what has been done. We shall offer a few leading suggestions bearing on the internal and operating mechanism of philanthropy. We shall be very brief, leaving readers to follow out our ideas for themselves. First of all, it must be clearly and definitely understood 184 wilberforce; what this widespread benevolence, in its strict nature, is ; we mean, as an agent for producing actual work. Emotion of every sort, all that portion, so to speak, of the mind which generates action, is simply a force \ whether it does good or evil, depends entirely on how it is directed. Steam lies for ages unknown as a moving power; then for ages it is used merely in mines and coal-pits ; at last it unites all lands by its iron highways, quickening the very pulse of the world, and making man finally victorious over every element. The tenderest pity, the most ardent love r can never be aught but a steam power; you must know precisely how to use it, or it steads you not. Nay, such a thing is plainly possible as that the force should do evil instead of good. In Hannibal's army at Zama, the ele- phants were turned back upon his own troops; it had been better if he had had no elephants. This is a principle which, when stated in terms, no one will deny ; but it is of vital importance, and is very apt to be practically lost sight of. The excellence of a man's sentiment is apt to cast a delusive brightness over his thought; when we listen to one whom we know to be a good man, the fervour of whose spirit delights and inspires, we feel it a thankless and ungrateful task to bring his schemes under the dry light of reason, and tell him that they are naught. Yet, when we come into contact with fact and reality, emotion goes for nothing; good intention is whiffed aside; no music of applause, no gilding of ora- tory, will keep the sinking ship afloat; it settles down like a mere leaky cask. Philanthropists must learn to look deeper than the first aspect of a project, to examine its ulterior bearings, to see how it allies itself with social laws; they must accustom themselves to resist the soft charm of plausible eloquence, to examine the bare truth AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 185 advocated, and to discern and accept this truth when recommended by no eloquence, and scarcely caught from stammering lips. Our second suggestion is this, That philanthropy should clear its eyesight by an acquaintance with that science which has for its object the laws of our social system. We care not how you name this science ; call it sociology, or poli- tical economy, or what you please; we merely say, that since all human affairs are inextricably interwoven, no man can rightfully hold himself entitled to put his hand to any part of the social fabric, without knowing how his act will affect other parts. There are only two possible hypo- theses on which the science of which we speak could be attacked; that there are no laws in economic and social matters, or that they are so profoundly mysterious, that an attempt to know them is prima facie absurd. The first, n% one, we suppose, since the days of Bacon, would main- tain. The second might be urged with some faint show of reason ; but we are convinced it is radically unsound. The freaks of individual will are countless; the soul of man is certainly the one thing, of all we know, which comes nearest to giving us the idea of infinitude; but it is assuredly true, on the other hand, that there are certain great laws which may be discerned acting in man's life from age to age, and that their general action may be traced and depended on. Political economy can be at- tacked by no arguments which do not militate against science in general; and to answer an argument levelled against modern science, would certainly be giving a suffi- cient reason to every reader to close our book. We think a little calm reflection will induce readers to agree, in what is with us a profound conviction, that philanthropy ought more and more to ally itself with social science, and 186 wilberforce; that the happiest results may be looked for from the union. Our last suggestion is perhaps the most important of all: it refers to the precise mode of going to work; to the manner in which agencies are to be made effective. And if we have hitherto ventured to oppose Mr Carlyle, we now turn round and take an arrow from his quiver. In every case where work is to be done, let the whole power of all engaged be brought to bear to this end to get men to do it. The whole might of Mr Carlyle's genius has been bent to the proclamation of one great truth the sumless worth of a man. Every thing else is dead. Constitutions of absolute theoretic perfection, laws of fault- less equity, riches and armies beyond computation, will be of themselves of no avail; men may put fire into these, but these will never fill the place of men. And the opera- tions of the Bible Society have, we believe, given tfce greatest confirmation to Mr Carlyle's words on this point ever furnished in the history of the world, or possibly to be furnished. It has given us one other proof that it is by man God will convert the world; the Bible itself, when alone, has not supplied the want. Here is the difficulty of difficulties. You can get gold by subscription; but a man of real power, of piety, faculty, energy, cannot be subscribed for. It is by the eye cleared and sharpened by long experience he can be recognised; it is by the saga- cious, powerful man, that the man of power is known; imbecility, seated on a mountain of gold, can do nothing here. And yet, till you get your men, nothing is done: if you give your gold to bad or incompetent men, it were belter that you flung it into the Thames. It must be fixed as an axiom in the heart of every philanthropist and phi- lanthropic society, that this is the point of absolute success AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 187 or absolute failure; it must be fairly comprehended, that it cannot be attained by mere examining of reports or any other mechanical process, although, indeed, each of these may contribute its aid; only, never for a moment is it to be forgotten that it must be done. Perhaps the great secret of getting at a practical test and assurance in this matter, lies in the discovery of some readily applicable method of ascertaining the real effects of a man's work in the sphere to which you appoint him. Offices might never be at first given for a permanence; by a continual casting away of the incompetent, the truly competent might gra- dually be found. We suspect this were the only infallible method. We are not blind to its difficulties, but any diffi- culties must be encountered in the only way to life, and for the avoidance of a death the more ghastly for its " affec- tation of life." If all the men employed by philanthropy, in its unnumbered schemes of instruction, were godly, earnest, and able men, what a power for good were then acting in our country and to the ends of the earth ! Then would Mr Carlyle have no word of objection to offer; nay, we believe he would heartily applaud, for we know well his nobleness, and that nothing would delight him so much as to be dazzled by a light of his own kindling. We think these suggestions of capital importance to the future advancement and real success of philanthropy. But they are, as we have here given them, to be looked upon in the light of finger-posts, indicating the way towards comprehensive reform, rather than unfolding the methods of such. Enough for us, if we have thrown out a few hints which may be of practical avail towards consolidating, invigorating, and ultimately extending its operations. If it is, on the hypothesis that it is attainable, and that work can be done by its agency, a noble form of exertion which 188 wilberforce; arises from union, sympathy, and the power of moral suasion, let us recognise a truly effective force in philan- thropy. If pestilent babblers will endeavour to possess our platforms, and to substitute mere ignorance and sen- timentality for knowledge and true manly compassion, let men of real power, by the might of those clear, strong words which an English audience really loves, strike them into harmless silence or benignant shame. If it is a fact, so boldly written on the forehead of our age, that its denial is an absurdity, and so firmly impressed upon our modern forms of life, that its alteration were an attempt to hide the steam-engine, to bury the press, to raze from the annals of man the French Revolution, that the voice of public opinion, whether right or wrong, does now rule Great Britain, let no true, and bold, and earnest man among us disdain to speak into the public ear by those thousand channels which determine the sound of that voice. Let Exeter Hall stand; shut no door where men are wont to assemble to listen to men ; but let every one who listens there scrutinise and judge in the awe of a fearful responsibility, and let every one speak as before God. When one surveys society in our days, and lays to heart how it is guided, he does not fail to learn, that the task of speaking words to a human assemblage just at pre- sent, is as the task of holding the lightnings. The conduct of the opposition to the Slave Trade, and the perpetual promotion and superintendence of philan- thropic operations, were those aspects of the life c/f Wil- berforce which first caught the eye, and stood out most boldly to the public gaze. Yet, perhaps, it is by some- what altering our point cf view that we gain a full and clear comprehension at once of the character in which he really was most serviceable to his country, of the fountain AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 189 whence each separate stream of his activity flowed, and of the highest lesson his walk conveys. Regard him in his sole capacity as a Christian man; look upon him as he moves in the circles of parliamentary ambition, in the full influence of that icy glitter which is the light and the warmth of those high regions. You then see how living Christianity, unassisted by the might of talent, can bear itself in the midst of political excitement and intrigue; you may then judge whether those ancient arms, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, have lost their heavenly temper. You find that, during his whole life, these never fail him. From fashion, and its loud pretence of joy, he turns aside; the atmosphere of faction is too foul for his purified organs; holding by the standard of truth and godliness alone, he be- comes himself a party. In a region unseen by the world, in the stillness of the closet, where only the all-seeing Eye is upon him, he lays open the recesses of his soul, that divine light may penetrate and pervade its every chamber; there, on his knees before God, he laments for secret sins, and pleads for holiness in his inner life; he looks earnestly and with severe honesty within; searching his heart with the Word of God as with a candle, that there may lurk in it no thought or feeling to exalt itself against the Most High. He then goes into Parliament and the world. By the gleam of the gold, it is seen that it has been purified by celestial fire; his light shines before men; they ac- knowledge it to be a steadfast flame, untainted by the dim atmosphere in which it glows, and ever pointed to heaven ; they are compelled to glorify the God whom he serves. He embodies the simple might of goodness; the serene majesty of light. He shows what that politician has won whose political scheme is briefly this, that he will follow 190 wilberforce; the Lord fully, and proves what a rectifying, healing, irra- diating power in human affairs is the awakened and vivid consciousness of immediate relationship to the Creator. He touches every question with the lthuriel spear of Christian truth, and the falsehood in it starts forth as by irresistible compulsion in its own image. And so, where the subject suggests doubt, where soft folds of plausibility are drawn over moral delinquency, or the shifting meteor of expediency offers itself for the pole-star of duty, men turn to Wilberforce ; look on this, they say, with your eye, we believe it has been purified by a light divine. To trace the various phases in which this distinctive godliness manifested itself in his parliamentary career, and to exhibit the various testimonies given to its heavenly virtue by the men with whom he worked, were to detail his actings from his twenty-sixth year. One instance serves for a thousand. We have all heard of the impeachment of Melville. Of his perfect innocence, or partial delinquency, it is not the place to speak. However it was, the case was one of pro- found interest in Parliament, and ministers were extremely anxious to screen him. Wilberforce was doubly drawn to come to a conclusion favourable to him. His heart was naturally of a delicately tender and kindly order, and his old friend Pitt had set his heart on clearing Melville. He examined the matter; but could not suppress the con- sciousness of grave doubts. He listened eagerly to the explanations offered by ministers, when the discussion came on in Parliament ; looking into them with the piercing flash of English shrewdness, quickened by godly earnestness, he saw, or thought he saw, them burned up as grass by lightning: he hesitated not a moment, but rose to his feet. The eye of Pitt was on him, with the pleading AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 191 of affection, and the authority of possessed esteem ; he felt the fascination of its gaze. But he faltered not: he spoke the bold, unmeasured words of Christian honour; he went against ministers, and condemned Melville. His words fell on an attentive house ; the number of votes he influ- enced was named at forty; ministers were defeated. It was felt that in a question of simple integrity, where casuistry had to be eluded, and plausibility swept aside, Wilberforce was the last authority. In the British senate in the nineteenth century, when a point of morality had to be settled, it was not to the man of poor duelling " honour," it was not to the philosophic moralist, it was not to the upright merchant, men looked for a decision : it was to the Christian senator, whose code was his Bible, and who walked, in childlike simplicity, by the old conversion light. Consider the number of opinions represented in that assem- bly, and then estimate the weight and worth of this testi- mony. Thus did Wilberforce, in his station in public affairs, conspicuously manifest to men the fresh and prevailing power of living Christianity, and testify its superiority to every other light. The book which he published was just the same testimony expressed in words. To criticise, however briefly, the "View of Practical Christianity," were now perfectly out of date. It was marked by no peculiar traits of genius, by no originality of thought or style. But it was clear, explicit, warm, and animated; over it all breathed the fervour of love and the earnestness of faith; it was an attempt to urge the pure gospel on the fashionable and worldly, and hold it, to use Milton's superb language, in their faces like a mirror of diamond, that it might dazzle and pierce their misty eyeballs. And man- kind did consent to listen to its pleading; it went round 192 wilberforce; the world: very few books have been so widely popular. It was published in 1797. Respecting the domestic life of Wilberforce, we require to say very little. Biography treats of the influences which mould character, of the influences which character ex- erts; if, in the circle of private life, there is any important element of influence, it must be noted; but, if biography were to regard a man not as before the world but as in his family, it would at onee descend from the office of in- structress to every noble faculty, and accept the miserable function of pampering a small and unmanly curiosity. The domestic life of Wilberforce was of that happy sort which defies long description. It can be but in rare cases that the description of the course of a river, if given mile by mile, is interesting ; even Wordsworth cannot persuade us to trace with him, more than onee, the course of that Dud- don, at whose every winding he has erected a mile-stone in form of a sonnet. The river rose among green craggy mountains ; in its joyful youth, it was the playmate of sun- beams, the dimpling, wavering, sparkling child, that dallied with the zephyrs, or leaped over the precipice, wreathing its snowy neck in rainbows ; as if in the strength of youth and manhood it flowed long through a bounteous and lordly champaign, of cornfield and woodland, resting calmly in the noonday sun, listening to the reaper's song; it widened into a peaceful estuary, its force becoming ever less, and in a silent balmy evening, lost itself in a placid ocean. This is all we wish to know about the river. Much the same is it in such a case as that before us. Wilberforce's boyhood, manhood, and old age, are aptly figured by such a sketch as this, and we desire to know little more about them. At the age of thirty-eight, he married; of the parti- cular circumstances and nature of his affection we are AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 193 unable to speak ; but we know that his was a happy- family, and that a congeniality in the highest tastes bound him in sympathising affection to his wife. In the arm- chair, or at the festal board, he was seen to the greatest advantage. By reading what he has left us, we can evi- dently form no idea of what he was either in Parliament or in his home. He expressly tells us that he did not succeed with his pen ; that the quickening excitement of society, the genial impulse of speech, caused his ideas to start forth in more vivid colours, in quicker and more natural sequence ; and we know that the particular power of both the orator and the wit, partakes so mueh of the nature of a flavour of an undefined and incommunicable essence, that a fame in that sort must always depend well-nigh entirely on testimony. A witticism without the glance that lent it fire, is often the dew-pearl without its gleam, a mere drop of water. But we cannot doubt for a moment that the social powers of Wilberforce were of an extraordinary order. The two qualities whose combi- nation gives probably the most engaging manner possible, are tenderness and quick sympathy ; the instantaneous ap- prehension of what is said, and its reception into the arms of a tender, sympathising interest. Wilberforce had both. His heart was very tender. To go from the country to the town, would affect him to tears. When John Wesley stood up and gave him his blessing, he wept. We have seen how he gave his testimony against Melville : hear now how they afterwards met; we quote Wilberforce's own words : " We did not meet for a long time, and all his con- nections most violently abused me. About a year before he died, we met in the stone passage which leads from the Horse Guards to the Treasury. We came suddenly upon each other, just in the open air, where the light struck upon our o 194 WILBERFORCE; faces. We saw one another, and at first I thought he was passing on, but he stopped and called out, 'Ah, Wilberforce, how do you do ?' and gave me a hearty shake by the hand. I would have given a thousand pounds for that shake." A generous and tender nature, capable of rich enjoyment. But he was also of keen apprehension, and for everything in nature or man he had a glance of sympathy ; provided always it lay in the sunlight, provided it had no guilt or baseness in it. Can we wonder that he was engaging? It is easy to present Wilberforce to the eye of imagina- tion seated in his arm-chair, the centre of a pleased and mirthful throng. Diminutive in size, with features spare and sharp, with vivid, sparkling eye, he does not rest, but has a tendency to jerk and fidget ; his face is piquant, mobile, varying in its lights and shades, like a lake in a sunny breezy April day. An idea is suggested by some one of the company ; a slight twinkle, an instantaneous change of light in his eye, shows he has caught it, and embraced it, and looked round and round it ; he tosses it about, as if from hands full of gold dust, till in a few moments it is wrapped in new light and gilding or he playfully trans- fixes it on the unpoisoned dart of a light, genial banter, shrewd and arch, which finds a way straight to the heart or his face grows solemn, and he utters, unostentatiously but earnestly, a few devout words regarding it Now his face is one free, indefinite, joyful smile now he mimicks some parliamentary orator now he is giving some little, graphic, faintly caustic sketch of character, with a sharp catching smile about his lips and now he listens quietly, a tear in his eye. Sir James Stephen, who doubtless was intimately acquainted with Wilberforce, compares his vivacity to Voltaire's, and sets his tenderness above that of Rousseau : Madame de Stael pronounced him the AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHILANTHROPY. 195 wittiest man in England. But we are convinced that the most entirely satisfactory and expressive idea of his whole manner to be possibly reached, is to be found in these words of Mackintosh, who visited him when advanced in life : " Do you remember Madame de Maintenon's ex- clamation, ' Oli, the misery of having to amuse an old king, qui n'est pas amusable /' Now if I were called to describe Wilberforce in one word, I should say he was the most ' amusable ' man I ever met with in my life. Instead of having to think what subjects will interest him, it is per- fectly impossible to hit on one that does not. I never saw any one who touched life at so many points ; and this is the more remarkable in a man who is supposed to live ab- sorbed in the contemplation of a future state. When he was in the House of Commons, he seemed to have the freshest mind of any man there. There was all the charm of youth about him. And he is quite as remarkable in this bright evening of his days, as when I saw him in his glory many years ago." The concluding years of his life were calm and beauti- ful. He spent them at his country residence of Highwood. More and more his eye turned towards the home he was now nearing; through his vivacity, through his still fresh activity, there shone more and more the softening, mellow- ing light of holiness. He loved to expatiate under the open sky, to watch the dew-drops, to gaze long and with unsated delight upon flowers, the rising gratitude and de- light of his soul flowing forth in the words in which King David voiced similar feelings on the battlements of Zion, three thousand years ago. " Surely," he would say, " flowers are the smiles of God's goodness." In 1832, he passed tranquilly into his rest. Richly gifted by nature, Wilberforce never repaired the 196 WILBERFORCE. waste and dissipation of his faculties in those years when a man ought to be undergoing a serious and methodic edu- cation. The mighty intellectual powers were not his; the strength of far-reaching, penetrating thought, the compre- hensive and ordered memory, the imagination of inevitable eye and creative hand. Unless that perpetual glow of feeling, that free and exuberant fertility of wit, that na- tural power of eloquence and acting, come within the strained limits of a definition of genius, he certainly had none. But in the evening of his days he could look over his life, and recall the hour when he had devoted him- self to his Saviour, and thank God, without hypocrisy, that he had been enabled in measure to perform his vow. His life was not ineffective or dark; it was spent in the noblest manner in which a man can live, in advancing the glory of earth's eternal King, by blessing that creature man whom He has appointed its king in time; and over it there lies divine grace, uniting, harmonising, beautify- ing all, like the bow of God's covenant. In treating our next biographic subject, we are furnished with a fitting opportunity of noting, in certain important and suggestive particulars, the general mode in which the social relations would shape themselves out in a state of Christian freedom. Our glance here becomes wider; we touch upon the vital question of the relation between man and man, as free and equal members of one common- wealth; and we are thus appropriately introduced to our final chapter. CHAPTEE IY. BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. What is that one point in which nature surpasses all novelists and depicters of character, and by their relative approach to which, all such are to be ranked, from Shak- speare downwards? It is the union of variety with con- sistency. To draw the man of one idea is easy : you have just to represent him, in all circumstances however dis- tracting, with his thoughts running in one channel; on all occasions however irrelevant, introducing his favourite topic; and, unseduced by any evils incurred or benefits foregone, spending health and wealth in the indulgence of his propensity. Don Quixote, Mr Shandy, and my beloved Uncle Toby, are models in this sort. To draw the man who is a bundle of inconsistencies is also easy : to attain this, you have simply to pay no attention to what your character, as an individual, either says or does, putting your own opinions, on all subjects, into his mouth, making him act, in all cases, just as the hour suggests, and always exacting from him the heroism to abandon his own individuality, to contradict himself in opinion and action, in order to ad- vance your plot, or bring you out of a difficulty. Now, nature never produces a man whose whole existence is 198 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. simply and solely one idea, although she comes very near it; for the most part her way is to give men a large va- riety of qualities, opinions, powers: the man of absolute in- consistency she never produces at all: her own unattainable skill is shown in the delicate graduation and adjustment of powers, so that they can live at peace in one bosom, and the man is a single personal identity. As she has struck a beautiful harmony in the senses, so that, in their variety, they result in unity, so does she unite variety with unity in the individual character; her men are not single lines, nor does she piece together contradictions ; weakness and strength in action, unless each is fitful, warmth and coldness of heart, clearness and obscurity of intellect, ge- nerosity and niggardliness of disposition, never co-exist. We deem this an important principle both in criticism and biography. Macaulay and Sir James Stephen have noted nature's variety, but we do not remember to have seen the whole truth of her variety in consistency stated. Shylock, cited by Macaulay, shows indeed many passions; but they are of a household; they have all a hellish scowl; hatred, revenge, avarice, fanaticism, darken his brow and eye, but they admit no alien gleam from love, forgiveness, or generosity; he is just such a character as nature would produce, and as he who held the mirror up to nature could paint. So it is in every other case instanced by Mr Macaulay, and so it must always be in nature. To ex- pound fully, and apply the principle, might make a valu- able chapter in criticism. But biography, and not criti- cism, is our present business. The dramatist or novelist, and the biographer, differ in this; the former have for their aim to attain, amid diversity, a natural harmony; the latter has nature's unity given, and his task is to show how its variations cohere and are consistent. When, after budgett: the christian freeman. 199 fair scrutiny, you find a character, in a novel or drama, acting inconsistently, decide that the author is so far in- competent; when you see a man in life acting in a manner which appears to you contradictory, conclude you do not understand him. To our task. About the beginning of this century there was, at the village school of Kimmersden, near Coleford, in Somerset- shire, a boy about ten years of age. He had been born at Wrington, another Somersetshire village, in 1794, of poor shopkeeping people, who seem to have been hard put to it to find a livelihood; for they went from village to village, seeking a sure though humble maintenance, and it was only after many a shift that they opened a little general shop in Coleford. He was in some respects dis- tinguished from his fellows. One day he picked up a horse-shoe, went with it three miles, and got a penny for it. He managed to lay together one or two other pennies, and commenced trading among his school- fellows. Lo- zenges, marbles, and so forth, were his wares. He sold to advantage, and his capital increased. By calculation on the prices charged in the shops, by buying in large and selling in small quantities, by never losing an opportunity or wasting a penny, by watching for bargains and stiffly insisting on adherence to their terms, he laid shilling to shilling, and pound to pound, until, at the age of fifteen, he was master of thirty pounds sterling. The spectacle cannot be called pleasing. A boy, whose feelings should have shared in the exuberance and free generosity of youth, converted into a premature skinflint and save- all; the frosty prudence of life's autumn crisping and kill- ing the young leaflets and budding blossoms of life's spring; a rivulet in the mountains already banked and set to turn a mill; surely the less we hear of such a boy the better budgett: the christian freeman. was he born with a multiplication table in his mouth? This boy's name was Samuel Budgett. A touch of romance is a salutary ingredient in character, in boyhood and youth it is particularly charming; but there is a possibility it may go too far, and a sentimental, tearful child, who is always giving some manifestation of the finer feelings of the heart, borders on the intolerable. There was at this same Kiminersden school (even in vil- lage schools variety of character will come out) a boy who seemed to be somewhat of this sort. When a little money came into his possession, he bought Wesley's Hymns, and of a summer evening you might have seen him walking in the fields, reciting his favourite pieces with intense enjoy- ment. His mother was once dangerously ill, and his father sent him on horseback, in the night, for medical assistance; as he rode back, in the breaking morning, he heard a bird sing in a park by the wayside ; he listened in strange delight, and seemed to receive some tidings from the carol. On reaching home, he went to his sister and gravely informed her that he knew their mother would recover, that God had answered his prayers on her account, and that this had become known to him as he heard a little bird sing in Mells Park that morning. Not one boy in a thousand we speak with deliberation would have marked that bird's song. On another day, you might have observed him coming along a lane on horseback ; as you looked, you saw that he was not thinking of his horse or his way; his eyes had an abstracted look, though animated and filled with tears; the bridle had fallen from his hand, and his horse was quietly eating grass. He was at the mo- ment in reverie; he was dreaming himself a missionary in far lands ; and the tears streamed down his cheeks as he knelt among tropical bushes, under a southern sun, to budgett: the christian freeman. 201 implore blessing on the household he had left at home. Such was the sentimental scholar of Kimmersden. And what was his name ? Samuel Budgett! Nature had framed no contradiction. The boy's heart was tenderly affectionate, his nature keenly sensitive, his sympathies rich, kindly, poetie: but his young eyes had seen nothing but struggling and penury in his father's house; he had learned, by natural shrewdness and happy occasion, the lesson of thrift: he had a brain as clear and inventive as his heart was warm ; by accident or other- wise, the pleasurable exercise of his faculties in that juve- nile trading commenced, and with the relish of a born merchant he followed out the game. The money itself was little more to him than the men are to a born chess- player; its accumulation merely testified that all worked well. The coalescence and relative position of the two sets of qualities were sometimes finely shown ; he wasted no money, yet he lost no time in buying Wesley's Hymns ; he amassed thirty pounds in a few years of boyish trad- ing, but when the sum was complete he gave it all to his parents. Having come finally to the decision to be a merchant, and adopting it as his ambition to raise his family to tole- rably affluent circumstances, he was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to an elder brother, by a former marriage, who had a shop in Kingswood, a village four miles from Bristol. His education, now formally completed, had, in all relating to books, been meagre enough. He had learned to read, write, and to some extent count; no more. In other re- spects, it had been more thorough. He had already, in his boyish mercantile operations, served an apprenticeship to clearness of head, promptitude and firmness in action; his father's house had been a school of rare excellence ; so 202 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. rare, that, on the whole, flinging in Pocklington Academy, and St John's College Oxford, and the Gallery of the House of Commons, into the opposite scale, we do not hesi- tate a moment in pronouncing his education superior to that of Wilberforce. In that house he saw honesty, in- dustry, determination, and godliness; he saw how severe the struggle for existence really is ; he saw how faculties must be worked in order to their effective exercise. Of special importance was that portion of his education which consisted in the influence of his mother's godliness. He was still a child of nine, when he happened one day to saunter past her room; the door was shut, and he heard her voice. She was engaged in prayer, and the subject of her petitions was her family. He heard his own name. His heart was at once touched, and from that moment it turned towards heaven. We deem it a very beautiful family incident. The heart of that mother was probably heavy at the moment, her eyes perhaps filled with tears; yet God heard her, and on herself was bestowed the angelic office of answering her own prayer. Samuel Budgett went to apprenticeship from his father's house, a steady, kindly, radically able, and religious youth. His apprenticeship was not such as to permit his habits of perseverant industry to be broken or to relax. He was at the counter by six in the morning, " and nine, ten, or eleven at night," were the ordinary hours of closing. The toil he underwent was such, that he used to speak of it till the close of his life. He was of small strength, and little for his years; the exertion of the grocer's business was doubtless too much for him. He soon became a favourite with customers, his manner was so unaffectedly kind, his attention so close and uniform. It is interesting also to budgett: the christian freeman. 203 observe the keen thirst for knowledge which he displayed during those years. If he heard a sermon, he treasured it up like a string cf pearls, and adjourned at its close to some sequestered place, to con it over, and lay it up in his inmost heart. What books came in his way he eagerly devoured ; for poetry he showed a keen relish, and com- mitted large portions to memory. He exclaims, almost in anguish, "O wisdom! knowledge! the very expres- sions convey ideas so delightful to my mind, that I am ready to leap out and fly; for why should my ideas always be confined within the narrow compass of our shop walls?" A shop-boy with so genuine and fixed an aspiration after knowledge will scarce fail to find education. The power to act nobly and effectively may exist with little book knowledge: to know living men, to have sat long under the stern but thorough teaching of experience, to have a sympathy open to the unnumbered influences of exhaust- less and ever-healthful nature, may set a man above those who have studied all things at second hand, as seen through other eyes, and represented by feeble human speech. Budgett had the faculty to work well; he was acquiring a thorough knowledge of men and a power to measure them at a glance; he loved the open fields and skies, the summer woods and the river bank, and every smile and frown of the ever changing but ever expressive face of what the ancients well called our Mother Earth. About the time when his apprenticeship closed, in August, 1816, we find him writing thus to a friend : " As it respects my coming to Frome, I thank you for your kind invitation. I have intended going; but I assure you, when it comes to the point, 1 have no inclination to go anywhere; for, if I cannot find happiness at home, it is in vain to seek it anywhere else. I think if I were to come with the deter- 204 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. mination to enjoy the company of my friends, by going to any places of recreation or amusement, though I am very fond of such kind of engagements, particularly where reli- gion and real happiness is the subject of conversation, yet it may tend rather to divert ray mind from God as the source of my happiness, than unite it to him. But for one thing I have long felt an earnest though secret desire; which is, to spend a little time with you and Mr T alone, where no object but God could attract our atten- tion; that we may, by devout conversation, by humble, fervent, faithful prayer, get our souls united to each other, and to God our living Head, by the strongest ties of love and affection." The young man who writes thus from be- hind a grocer's counter, has pretty well supplied the de- fects of his education; in important respects he is edu- cated. The idea of the last sentence is that of the noblest possible friendship; we can look for no fairer spectacle than that of those three friends kneeling before God, that the celestial bond of a common love for Him may knit their hearts. And it is worthy of remark, that the style of our extract is unquestionably good; clear, nervous, direct, and free from any trace of juvenile bravura. The reader will begin to see that our opinion of Samuel Budgett is somewhat high. It is so. We consider him far the ablest man of whom we have yet treated; a cha- racter of uncommon breadth and completeness ; an embodi- ment of English sagacity, intelligence, energy, and piety, as healthful and respectable as any time could show; and conveying, in his life-sermon, many and most important lessons, as the Christian merchant and freeman of the nine- teenth century. After serving for three years with a salary, on the ex- budgett: the christian freeman. 205 piration of his seven years' apprenticeship, Samuel was taken into partnership by his brother. He feels now that he has got a firm footing, that a spot had been found in the world on which he may live and work. He prepares himself for the future accordingly. A pleasant little background of romance suddenly beams out upon us. We find that long ago " very early" he had fallen in love with a certain Miss Smith, of Mid- somer Norton. His little touch of originality had been mani- fested here too; he had ventured to admit hope into his heart to this serious extent; he had dared to permit imagina- tion to paint, in clear hues and with a flush of sunlight over its front, a snug pretty little cottage on his horizon, with one waiting at its threshold who to him seemed heavenly fair; and so, during all his toil in that dismal prosaic shop from morning to night, he could see in the distance that angelic figure smiling him on. We rejoice that we did not express any emotion of pity for him in his affliction; he certainly deserved none. He had now reached that little cottage; from the faint though beautifully-tinted work of a dream, it had changed into solid brick, a decided improvement: he married Miss Smith, and turned to face life with the heart of a man. He was now twenty-five years of age. Let us, for a moment, contemplate the sphere in which Samuel Budgett commences work for himself; what are his prospects, and what his difficulties. His sphere is not imposing ; it is a retail shop in the grocery business, in the village of Kingswood, four miles from Bristol. In the neighbouring villages, and in Bristol, are multitudes of shops in all respects similar; his brother is a respectable, industrious, plodding man, who has prospered hitherto according to his ambition, and dreams not of any change. 206 budgett: the christian freeman. Around all these shops, and around this little shop of Kingswood, lies the world ; each shop represents a man or men, combating on this arena for sustenance and success. There seems but little room for advancement, little scope for talent; one can but buy and sell like one's neighbours, and live as heretofore ; at all events, the field is open and level to all. Mercantile wealth and honour are, indeed, the possible prizes; but that a village shop should ever come into competition with any really great establishment, with those of Bristol, for instance, appears never to have occurred to any one. The little shop of Kingswood re- ceives into its working power Samuel Budgett; his pro- spects are such as one may have in a village grocery; his opponents are just all the grocers, wholesale and retail, who carry on business in these parts, and whom, if he is to advance, he must, however it may pain his feelings, compel to make way. The new partner is found to have ways of his own, which, in this establishment, must be regarded as new- fangled or even officious. His brother casts a glance of indifference, or even dislike, upon his proposals and pro- ceedings; only after a time, and as the commanding talent of Samuel becomes more plain, does he fairly throw the reins into his brother's hands. The latter acts in the way natural to him. It may be briefly characterised thus; he does, with perfect accuracy and thoroughness, what lies to hand, what is ordinary and established in the routine of business, and he has always, besides, a sure and piercing glance ahead and around. Now, we think this is the pre- cise point of difference between the accurate, methodic man, who will conserve all, but make no advancement, and the man who will step onward; both are thorough workers, but the one has no originality, no instinct of im- budgett: the christian freeman. 207 provement, no healthful, intelligent audacity, while the other has. The blundering man, again, the man whose boldness and originality are not so fitly those of manhood as of youth, looks only, or principally, forwards; he de- votes not sufficient time and energy to the ground already won, he will set off in foolish pursuit while a body of the enemy is yet unbroken on the field. The man who will make real progress never neglects the business of the mo- ment, but he looks forward too; he ventures, on the right occasion, in the strength and self-reliance of talent, to break through old sanctioned rules and shape new ones for himself. The truly and healthfully original man is not he who recklessly gambles, appealing from custom to chance, but he who, with a light of his own, holding as little of chance as the prudence of the veriest plodder, appeals from custom to vision. Such a light had Samuel Budgett; in this sense, and to this extent, he was an original man. Now, it is not easy to exhibit this originality of Bud- gett's in action. When once a thing is done, as Columbus and that wonderful Chinese genius who discovered that pigs could be roasted without burning houses knew, its performance, nay its invention, seem the simplest things in the world. If we trace Budgett's career, step by step, we find nothing in the course of his ascent to wealth and influence, which it does not seem certain that we should have done, had we been in the circumstances. Yet it is almost certain we should have done otherwise; and we have this simple way of satisfying ourselves as to the pro- bability that we should viz., by inquiring whether, mutatis mutandis, we are advancing in our own sphere. In every walk of life there are certain minutiae which are visible only to the man of insight, and to be seized only by the 208 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. man of tact, but which are yet the tender, scarce percep- tible filaments leading to fortune's mines. If you know not how to see and seize these in your own department, de- pend upon it, gentle reader, had you been put down, instead of Samuel Budgett, in this shop at Kingswood, you had sold groceries over the counter all the days of your life. Mr Arthur sketches, with much animation and graphic power, the progress of Budgett, as he pushed on, step by step, and won position after position ; but we are unable to follow him. The reader must picture to himself a man of untiring activity who is yet never flurried, of keen and constant sagacity, of tact in dealing with men, of real and abounding affection to his fellows, so that the interest he manifests in their affairs has in it no element of deceit or affectation. He must mark him ever in the van of circum- stance, discerning opportunity from afar, and seizing it with eagle swoop. He must see him gradually diffusing a spirit akin to his own on all who come within the sphere of his influence; incapacity, indolence, and dishonesty, shrinking from his look. He must note specially the skill with which he combines conservation with advance. The customer who is secured is always first to be attended to; all thought of extending the trade is to be postponed to his convenience; the shops which deal with Budgett are seen to be the most prosperous, and no customer is ever lost. To look at the perfect internal working of the busi- ness, one fails to find any suggestion of progress; to mark how it is expanding, one is apt to think extension the one endeavour. Budgett has always his foot on the firm ground, but the light in his eye comes from yon bright gleam still in the distance. One example of his mode of working is as good as a thousand, and only one can we find space to give. budgett: the christian freeman. 209 The business has now branched out in all directions. There are "several establishments" in Bristol; the retail shop is the centre of great warehouses and counting-houses ; at Kingswood there are kept forty-seven draught horses. One night the citizens of Bristol are startled by the red- dening of the whole horizon in the direction of Kingswood Hill; the warehouses of the Messrs Budgett are in flames. The men of Bristol stand gazing as the huge blaze illu- mines the sky ; from all neighbouring quarters there is a flocking of spectators, and a racing of engines. Efforts are vain; the horses, indeed the stables, and the books, are preserved; but warehouses, counting-houses, and the retail shop, are burned to the ground. Samuel Budgett has not, of course, forgotten to insure, yet the pecuniary loss is above three thousand pounds. Here surely is enough to confuse one; without warning, and in a night, the fury of fire consumes your accumulated substance, and puts its volcanic interruption on your arrangements ; your workmen are flung out of their posts, your methods of work are broken up, your whole business-machine is torn limb from limb, and lies scattered in fragments. Now is the hour to prove whether you are a man of self-com- mand and originality ; whether your mind is of that iron order which the sound of battle only clears and animates; whether, when custom, on which, as on a quiet horse, you have hitherto ridden composedly along, suddenly pitches you from its neck and leaves you sprawling, you have courage and power to rise to your feet, and lay your hand on a new steed, and vault on his back, and break him in for yourself. Budgett sees into the whole matter, and comprehends how it is to be managed, precisely as if he had done nothing, his life long, but set things in train after sudden fires. The next morning, every customer 210 budgett: the christian freeman. expecting goods on that day from the Budgetts receives a circular. It states briefly, that there has been a fire on the premises, and that one day is necessary to repair the consequent disarrangement. Just one day; in such length of time, Samuel calculates, the wrath of the fire will have been baulked. And one day is sufficient. He goes swiftly, but with no hurry, into Bristol, hires a new house, sets all hands to work, and the next day sees all customers served. Bristol henceforward becomes head-quarters, and Samuel Budgett, who is now the sole head of the busi- ness, more powerful than ever. This is the true English working talent ; the same quiet, speedy energy you see in Churchill, in Monk, and, in grander combination, in Cromwell; in whatever form it is embodied, there is no standing it; men, nations, nature itself, give way before it. We think we may now allege that Budgett was a man of strong and ready energy, of calm, indomitable spirit, and of extraordinary resource; but this will become still more evident when we contem- plate, at one deliberate glance, his final attainment. It was but an unpromising sphere in which we saw him finally set to work ; a village shop, with a line of donkeys at its door. There he took his post to measure himself with his opponents, to bring his force into the general system of social dynamics. Years have gone by, and the never-failing might of intellectual power has vindicated itself. The force of Budgett's mind has affected the whole region. His warehouses tower proudly, like those of merchant princes ; over all the south-western counties of England his connection extends; over the sea, from distant lands, come vessels with cargoes for him. It is probable that a greater effect was not possible in his department. He was not in the arena of the Rothschilds and Barings, budgett: the christian freeman. 211 and we cannot say how he would have prospered if matched against the great rulers of the Stock Exchange. But in the field where he did contend, he distanced all competition ; without capital, without prestige, in a village in the vicinity of a large town, he built up a business which cast every rival into the shade. And those ware- houses have been built, this magnificent business has been established, with no fortuitous aid from happy conjunctures of circumstance, or timeous openings of the field; it has been by seeing the hitherto invisible, by descrying every trace of occasion, by the constant, imperceptible applica- tion of a clear and tireless intellect, that his triumphs have been won. And now he is a man of wealth and importance ; he has satisfied his youthful ambition. The day was when he sold cheese by the pound across the counter; he now receives goods " by the cargo," and sells them "by the ton;" the day was when it was a serious question whether goods might be conveyed to Doynton and Pucklechurch, a momentous and amazing undertaking to journey once a-month to Frome; he has now a regular staff of efficient travellers, spreading the connection north, south, east, into the very heart of England. M I remember," said an old man, who felt like a Caleb Bal- derstone on the subject " I remember when there were five men and three horses, and I have lived to see three hundred men and one hundred horses." We think it here in place, although what we have to say must be considered with the commentary of all we have yet to relate of Budgett, to look calmly in the face certain objections which have been urged against him on the score of sharp trading. He rose, it has been whis- pered, by elbowing aside his fellows, by grasping, with unbecoming haste and eagerness, what, in natural order, 212 budgett: the christian freeman. would have fallen to other men ; if j ust, he was not gene- rous ; he gave no indulgence, and made no allowance ; he pressed every advantage, and used every opportunity ; he seemed always at a running pace, while sober men walked. We deem it the one really important defect in Mr Arthur's spirited and valuable work on Budgett, that he takes the commonplace, and, as we think, erroneous view of his character here. As his testimony may be considered somewhat partial to Budgett, and as it is well to have an error which you wish to combat stated in its most plausi- ble form, we quote a paragraph from his pages. He has just intimated that the subject of his narrative was " quick to descry an advantage, and resolute to press it;" he pro- ceeds thus: "This . . . formed the chief deduction from the benevolence of his character. In business he was keen deliberately, consistently, methodically keen. He would buy as scarcely any other man could buy ; he would sell as scarcely any other man could sell. He was an athlete on the arena of trade, and rejoiced to bear off the prize. He was a soldier on the battle-field of bargains, and conquered he would not be. His power over the minds of others was immense, his insight into their cha- racter piercing, his address in managing his own case masterly, and, above all, his purpose so inflexible, that no regard to delicacy or to appearances would for a moment beguile him from his object. He would accomplish a first-rate transaction, be the difficulty what it might. That secured, his word was as gold, and generosity was welcome to make any demands on his gains. But in the act of dealing, he would be the aptest tradesman in the trade. To those who only met him in the market, this feature of his character gave an unfavourable impression. They frequently felt themselves pressed and conquered, budgett: the christian freeman. 213 and naturally felt sore. To those who knew all the excel- lence and liberality which lay beneath this hard mercan- tile exterior, it appeared the peculiarity and the defect of an uncommonly worthy man yet still a defect and a peculiarity." If Mr Arthur is wrong here, it is an important error. Whatever you may consider, in forming your judgment of a merchant, his manner of carrying on business is the first and the essential element in your estimate. If a man is found wanting here, all you can say of his other good qualities becomes mere extenuation. If there was any- thing in Budgett's mercantile dealing to be defined " a deduction from his benevolence," it will go hard to prove him really benevolent at all. His radical character is that of English merchant; this, so to speak, is the back- bone of the whole existence of Budgett; if you detect a twist here, or if the spinal marrow is diseased, you will hardly prove your man handsome or sound. Every mouth must be stopped that breathes the slightest insinuation here ; from his mercantile honour every imputation must be brushed aside; and, by mercantile honour, we mean all that thorough gentlemen can rightfully and honourably expect from each other when engaged in trade. For our own part, we think that Budgett's native and power- ful talent is attested in perfect accordance with the require- ment we have just stated; while it is precisely here that he embodies one of those lessons which nature repeats from age to age, and which is, perhaps, peculiarly deserving of study and of enforcement in our day. We must ask, first, what is the general law on this point: how does nature arrange in the matter? In all professions and trades, certain contending forces are brought into play. No man denies that the faculties 214 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. of respective men, their sagacity, their energy, their per- severance, are different. Every profession is, in one im- portant and invariable aspect, a form of exertion of human faculty, an arena of power; and it is all but implied in this, that in every profession there will be degrees of suc- cess and failure. From this last circumstance it will be an inevitable result, that certain persons find themselves surpassed, beaten, thwarted, and that they feel pain in consequence. It is one of the sad consequences of the fall, irremediable save by a reversal of that fall, but, like other such painful phenomena, itself of remedial tendency in the body politic, that every man who rises in any profession must tread a path more or less bedewed by the tears of those he passes on his ascent. The incompetent or indo- lent soldier takes commands from his able and active com- rade who has left the ranks; the able and indefatigable physician absorbs the practice of the dullard or the em- piric; the lawyer, whose logic is as a Damascus sabre, and who wields it like an Arab arm, condemns his heavy- eyed or careless brother to starve. There may be no envy and no hate ; there may be no feeling of indignation and no affixing of blame ; but there will be, at least, the pain of privation, of failure. More peculiarly does this apply to mercantile professsions. Here the precise mode in which talent is brought to bear, is in making money: if you are so much abler than your neighbour, you win so much the more money than he; and, as your relative winnings are drawn from a common store, namely, the purse of the pub- lic, the more you have, the less he gets. Depend upon it, he will in these circumstances feel " sore." It is the producing of this soreness which has been objected to Bud- gett; we deem it a necessary and salutary pain, and con- sider it just and honourable in him to have inflicted it. budgett: the christian freeman. 215 What, we inquire further, are the components of that force which a man brings rightfully into the arena of hia profession, what means is it perfectly honourable in him to use for his own advancement? "We answer simply, its components are twofold it consists of capital andof faculty ; we contend it is his right and duty to use each to the utmost. In some professions, intellectual power constitutes the whole force ; but it is not so in commercial affairs. It is honour- able, as will not be questioned, to lay out at fair interest the money or other capital which is yours. It is precisely as honourable, we contend, to use to its last item of value the faculty which nature has committed to your charge. If you see the gleam of a gold vein where I saw only clay, the reward is justly yours; if you know the ground where corn will grow better than I, your sheaves must be more numerous than mine ; if you have stronger sinew and more perseverance, and choose to toil for hours in the westering sun after I have unyoked my team, you must lay a wider field under seed than I. And no upright or manly feeling in me will permit me to accuse you when you thus work your faculties to the utmost ; the pearls are for him that can dive, the golden apples for him that can climb ; I am no brave man if I bid you bate your energies out of pity or misnamed courtesy, and if you listen to such request, you incur the responsibility of show- ing, at the last, a return on your talents not so great as He will know to be possible, who gave you them to oc- cupy till His coming. Nature, and we use the word to de- signate reverently the method of His working who is nature's power, intends every faculty to be used to the utmost. A man who expects less from his competitors than an unsparing use of all their means, is a coward ; a man who aims at having more than the full use of his own, is a churl. 216 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. There are two positive and conclusive proofs that this is nature's intention, which we shall presently adduce. But, first, we would ask, does not this view of the case accord with the general feeling and sense of men ? Is it not a bitter insult to a man who is on an equal footing with yourself, to temper your powers till they can act without in any way annoying him, to disguise your faculties that he may not feel his weakness ? Is it not recognised, that if one man sees where he can make a bargain honourably and openly where another man is blind, and, instead of availing himself of the opportunity, apprises his neighbour of its whereabouts, he does virtually give the latter a dole? Assuredly, there is a distinction drawn between that profit which results from the dealing of one man with an- other of a purely mercantile nature, and for which no thanks are looked for, however great it may be, and the profit for which one has to thank another, which is a favour and gift in all essential points, however slight. Leaving this, however, we offer these two considerations as demonstrating the fact that nature means and commands men, without asking any questions, and in every depart- ment of affairs, to use their talents to the utmost. The first is, That this is nature's method of spurring on the indolent, and having her work rightly done. Every true man is a whip in nature's hand to scourge on the laggard ; if he works rightly, he must be so. And if there is whipping, there must be feeling. What is it which keeps the human race in progress at all ? what is it which prevents our sitting down by the wayside and falling into a half-sleep, and, finding what will merely suffice for an animal existence, moving onward no more? Is it not just that, at intervals, in the several corps of the army, a strong and determined spirit starts up, who will strike forwards budgett: the christian freeman. 217 with new speed, and, despite the remonstrance of the sloth- ful, animate the whole battalion to new life and energy ? Nature makes you pay for every hour of sleep or plea- sure beyond the number she approves; and he whom she appoints to receive for her the payment, is the man who has worked while you have slept or danced. But, secondly, it is found that nature is here kind also; that, however individuals may smart and grumble, this method subserves most effectually the interests of the majority. Her aim is thoroughness of work and amount of produce ; when these are attained, the interests of the common weal are best consulted. And, to reach this, it is necessary that all the faculty of the community be at work, and to its utmost strain. One man cannot pos- sibly restrain the honourable action of his powers for the sake of the feelings of another, without the loss of a certain amount of that force by which nature carries on her operations, and provides for her children: kindness must blunt no sword or scythe, or it will cause ten to weep instead of one. The idea of charity, we conclude, is alien to the idea of trade ; all that can be demanded, under the name of mer- cantile honour, is simple justice. We are happy to be able to illustrate these remarks, es- pecially the second of our proofs, that nature intends no respect to be shown to individual feeling in mercantile competition, by a glance at the general effect of the suc- cess of Samuel Budgett in the south-west of England. That effect was a general increase in the animation and vigour of his order of commercial operations over the district. The customers caught the spirit of those who had so ably secured their custom ; the firms still able to contend bestirred themselves; there was new activity every- 218 budgett: the christian freeman. where. In one word, nature's work was better done in those quarters than formerly. Mr Arthur appears to be all unconscious of that very important aspect of the ope- rations of the commercial class in every country which we have indicated. He recognises the duty of each man to provide for himself; he recognises the duty of every man to "adapt his services to the general good;" but he does not perceive that, in the thorough performance of this last task, the man may find it impossible to avoid giving pain to certain of his own class. The confusion into which he falls arises from his failing to distinguish the " general interest" of the public, as contrasted with the in- dividual interest of members of the class of merchants. He starts with a condemnation of Budgett for inflicting " soreness" on those with whom he dealt ; but he never says, and his whole book is an affirmation of the opposite, that he did not work as effectually for the public good as was possible. It was his brother merchants alone who suffered ; it was in the market he was harsh ; it was the ex- treme thoroughness of his performance of that task which Mr Arthur accurately defines as the merchant's in the social system, the task of "directly conveying the creatures of God into the hands" of those for whom they are intended, which made him at times obnoxious to those who performed the same task, from whatever cause, not quite so thoroughly. We recognise, in fact, here, the radical strength and stamina of Budgett's character: we point to the circum- stances urged in objection, as conclusive proof that his mind was hale and of strong fibre; that vital Christianity had introduced no softness or incapacity for working to the utmost of his powers into his nature. Mr Arthur in- forms us his aim was unimpeachable honour and his word gold. We know, too, that money was not his object; budgett: the christian freeman. 219 that wealth was a matter for which he cared very little. The proof of this important point is perfect. He did not cling, with miserly tenacity, to business to the last ; he took matters quietly, and strove after no further extension when life was still strong in him. After he had ceased to attend with his old impelling vigour to the affairs of the firm, he heard some one say he wished for more money. " Do you?" he exclaimed; " then I do not* I have quite enough. But if I did wish for more, I should get it." On his death-bed, when his voice was tremulous with the last weakness, he deliberately said, " Riches I have had as much as my heart could desire, but I never felt any pleasure in them for their own sake, only so far as they enabled me to give pleasure to others," &c. ; and we know him to have been a man, out of the market, of a gene- rosity which might be deemed extravagant. His brother merchants did, unquestionably, at times feel themselves disagreeably overborne, did experience an uneasy sensa- tion and call him keen and harsh; it is always unplea- sant to pay tribute, and these men were commanded by nature to pay tribute to Budgett as their king. And why did he, who had no particular desire for money, and an acute feeling of any pain he gave, thus permit himself, we cannot doubt consciously, to pain his brother mer- chants? It was the strong instinct of the born merchant in his heart, the strong instinct of the true man. He could not dishonour his competitors by supposing them incapable of the stern joy of warriors in worthy foemen; he could not rein his steeds that stumbling or laggard hacks might reach the goal before him; he could not, without intense suffering, curb the faculties nature had given him, or turn them from their work. They felt sore, to be sure. Did the sectioners feel sore when they arrived at the camp of 220 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. Sablons, " some minutes" too late, and found that Napoleon had clutched the guns? But was it not right that the quick mind and ready hand should have them? In the market, Budgett knew instinctively that integrity ruled, that charity and favour were alien to the place; had he won counters instead of guineas, he would have acted just in the same way. We can imagine him even having had compunctious touches, but a sterner and healthier feeling overruled pity, and held it firmly in its place. " I'd give the lands of Deloraine Brave Musgrave were alive again;" so said generous William, although he had just explained that, were Musgrave actually alive again, it would be ne- cessary for him, by the rules of Border honour, at once to rekill him. Our whole argument, in defence of Budgett, falls to the ground, if it can be proved that, in his habitual dealing, there was the slightest infraction of equity, the slightest departure from the rules of the game ; but, when we per- ceive that all the pain occasioned to his rivals in the mar- ket can be accounted for in the simple, rational, and pro- bable way we have seen, since we are absolutely certain he had no particular love of money, and since we find his hand to the full as ready to give as to gain, we confidently declare his sharp, or, as we should prefer saying, his thorough dealing in business to have been no deduction from his benevolence, but to have been a testimony of remarkable point and conclusiveness to the general force and ability of his character. To any man that needed a helping hand, we cannot doubt he would have extended one, but if you met him on the field, you were foot to foot and eye to eye opposed, and mercy could come only in the form of con- tempt. Saladin sent Cceur-de-Lion a horse that he might budgett: the christian freeman. 221 fight like a knight, but did he bate his sabre when he met him on the battle-plain? We have thus, then, got, so to speak, the framework of our man ; we find that it is the unflawed iron of integrity, clear insight, and energy; he is a man who can thoroughly work. But we saw that, in his boyhood, there was not only a stern but a gentle aspect of his character ; we may find now that this iron framework of his manhood is wreathed with pleasant verdure and dewy flowers. We have seen him when he had simply to measure his strength; we must survey him now as a master, as a member of society philanthropically desirous of removing its evils, and as a father. Entering the central establishment where, as we have seen, hundreds of men are employed, we find that the whole works with faultless regularity. The genius of English industry seems to have chosen the place as a temple. There is no fuss, little noise ; there is no haste no time for that. The face of every workman shows that he may not linger ; its firm lines at the same time de- clare that he has no wish to do so. Hearty activity, health- ful contented diligence are seen on every hand. The im- mense daily business is timeously transacted, and the hours of evening see the place shut and silent. Samuel Budgett is the mainspring of the whole vast machine. Under the middle size, with strong brows, open forehead, and lower features firm and clearly cut, he may at once be discerned to be a man who can dare and do : his "quick brown eye" glances everywhere, and over- looks nothing ; its light makes the wheels go faster. He speaks a word of encouragement to the active, he sends an electric look to the indolent ; it is plain his autho- 222 bddgett: the christian freeman. rity is unquestionable, and that he retains and uses it with- out an effort. Bungling of no sort, be it from want of power or want of will, can live in his glance ; he can de- tect falsehood lurking in the depths of an eye, and veiling itself in the blandest smile ; he has a tact and ready inven- tion which find a quiet road to every secret ; only perfect thoroughness of work and perfect honesty of heart can stand before him. Yet the kindly and approving is evi- dently his most natural and cherished look; he' speaks many a word of sympathy and kindness ; the respect and perfect deference which wait on his steps are tempered by affection. We find that, as a master, he is, first of all, thorough. His men have a profound knowledge that he is not to be trifled with. The incompetent, the indolent, are discharged. A man must perform what he has taken in hand, or he must go. " Why, sir," said one who had been long in his service, "I do believe as he would get, ay, just twice as much work out o' a man in a week, as another master." This power of infusing a true working spirit into men ex- plains his whole success. Conceive every man he em- ployed working thoroughly, no workman dawdling, no traveller loitering, every customer finding himself punc- tually and perfectly attended to ; everything else becomes then conceivable. He has the gift of knowing men ; for him who would prosper in any sort of practical endeavour, it is the indispensable gift. Upon this thoroughness and penetration it was of course again an attendant, that pain was felt in certain quarters ; rotten branches, ineffec- tive workmen, could not be cut away without crashing and crackling: here, too, we meet that fine confirmatory evi- dence of his real power and energy, that he awakened com- plaints on the part of those in whom these were lacking. budgett: the christian freehan. 223 We learn, next, that he has a warm and honest sym- pathy with his men. It is not the result of their work in the shape of his own profit which gratifies him, so much as the satisfaction and advantage of all who work along with him. We find no niggardliness, no appearance of strain, in his efforts to attain wealth. If he gets more work out of men than other masters, his employed get more from him in the best forms than other men. At the time of his entering partnership, the working hours are from six in the morning to nine at night. This goes against the new partner's grain. "I do not like to see you here," he would say to the employed; " I want to see you at home : we must get done sooner." Dismissal at half-past eight is attempted, and the men are greatly relieved. But this is only a commencement. If there are too few men, more can be added ; if there is trifling, men must go altogether. As the business enlarges, the time shortens, and Samuel does not rest until he sees his men all trooping off cheerily to their families at five or half-past five in the evening. Keep these two parallel attainments in view, when you estimate the generosity and mercantile honour of Budgett. There is, in the establishment, a regular system of fines ; but the head or heads pay most, and the whole goes to a sick fund. There is an annual festival given to the men ; good cheer, athletic games, and a certain amount, we trust moderate, of speech-making, speed the hours ; the Rev. Mr Carvasso, hearing our merchant speak on one such oc- casion, thinks his address of "an extraordinary character," wishes it had been printed, and adds, " Except on that oc- casion, I never beard him come out in a set public address, but the talent then displayed convinced me of the grasp of his mind, and how greatly some had mistaken him." There is a systematic distribution of small rewards from 224 budgett: the christian freeman. week to week ; Budgett stands at a certain outlet to the premises with a pocketful of little packages containing money, and slips one into each man's hand as he passes out ; " One would find he had a present of five shillings, another of three, another of half-a-crown ; " the gift is graduated by respective merit. " Ah, eir," exclaims an old informant, " he was a man as had no pleasure in muckin' up money ; why, sir, he would often in that way give, ay, I believe, twenty pounds on a Friday night well, at any rate, fifteen pounds." Besides this, certain of the employed are made directly to feel their interest in the success of the business. " When a year wound up well, the pleasure was not all with the principals ; several of those whose dili- gence and talent had a share in gaining the result, found that they had also a share in the reward." " One," Mr Arthur goes on to say, " after describing the pains Mr Bud- gett had taken to make him master of his own branch of the business, and how, when satisfied with his fitness, he had devolved upon him important responsibilities, said, with a fine feeling which I should love to see masters generally kindle among those in their employment, ' And he never had a good year, but I was the better for it when stock- taking came.' " But, last and most important of all, Budgett, in his capacity as master, is a religious man a real, earnest Christian. We have not now to ask whether his energy is unimpeded and unrelaxed, whether his powers have their full swing; but it is important to learn of what sort his religion is, and to what extent it pervades his life, that we may know whether it is of a nature to be pronounced effete whether it is, on the one hand, a deistic fashionable assent to Christianity, or, on the other, a cramped fanati- cism or bigotry, not blending in kindly union with the budgett: the christian freeman. 225 general modes of his existence. "We know that in his case Christianity has never been intellectually doubted, and he may therefore be taken as a good example of a thorough English merchant, who still, in the nineteenth century, draws the vital strength of his character from that Chris- tian religion in which he has been born, and which he has unconsciously drunk in. We discover that his religion is of that personal penetrating order which has in all times characterised men who, even among Christians, have been recognised as such in a peculiar sense; of that sort which made Bunyan weep in anguish, and at which the merely respectable person in all ages laughs ; of that sort against which Sydney Smith aimed his melancholy raillery, in un- affected wonderment at its refusing to him the name of Christian minister or Christian man. This determined merchant, whom we have seen pushing on to fortune through the press of vainly opposing rivals, humbles himself daily before God, searches his soul for secret sins, finds cause for keenest sorrow in the turning of God's counte- nance away from him. This Budgett can weep like a child, or like Bunyan, or an old Ironside, for his short- comings. Christianity is to him as fresh as it was to Peter when Christ commanded him to feed His lambs; its salva- tion is to him as clear a reality as to Stephen when he saw heaven opened. And it does blend in the kindliest union with his whole character and actions; he feels that a Christian must be one all in all ; he lives as if in the con- tinual sense of having been made by Christ one of God's priests upon earth. His natural tact and power of winding himself into close conversation, so as to get at men's inmost hearts, are brought into the service of the gospel. In an unostentatious, quiet way he manages to urge its claims on hi3 men, by casual words, by little snatches of conver- 226 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAK. sation, in any moment when he has them alone. Every man in this establishment is perpetually reminded that he is considered by his master an immortal being, and feels that all temporary differences between them are merged in the sublime unities in which Christianity embraces all human relations. Once a man came begging employment of him ; the wife of the former thus related the result: "I shall never forget my husband's feelings when he came in after having seen Mr Budgett for the first time. He wept like a child; indeed, we both wept, for it was so long since anybody had been kind to us. Mr Budgett had been speaking to him like a father; but what affected him most was this when he had signed the agreement, Mr Budgett took him from the counting-house into a small parlour in his own house, and offered up a prayer for him and his family." The young men resident on the premises have separate rooms, for the express end that they may be able to seek God in private. There is daily prayer on the pre- mises: every day, in the morning, the whole concern is, as it were, brought directly under the eye of God His autho- rity over it recognised, and His blessing invoked. And every year at stock-taking, ere Samuel had become sole head, it was observed that the two brothers, when it was ascertained what precise progress had been made, retired into a private room, and there joined together in prayer. It is a Christian mercantile establishment. And what is the result, on the whole? There is the progress we have seen a progress which we can now to some extent understand ; his neighbour tradesmen are heard to " speak as if he rose by magic," and to in- sinuate that "there is some deep mystery in his affairs:" we have some idea of his enchantments. But the progress is not all. There is another circumstance, of which we budgett: the christian freeman. 227 have already let fall certain hints, but which is deserving of special attention. It is the fact that there is diffused, through the whole body of the employed, a loyal zeal for the success of the business that they are united by sym- pathy in a common aim~-that they feel as true mariners for the honour of their ship, as true soldiers for the fame of their regiment. His men, we hear, are " personally attached" to Budgett; they like to work with him and for him; they are proud of what has been done, and proud of having contributed to its achievement. This is a notable fact. With it, as the crown of the whole, we complete our survey of Budgett in the capacity of master. But we cannot at once quit the subject: we think we find here certain lessons clearly legible, and of vital con- cernment, touching what may be called the practical philo- sophy of social life in this our age. It being sufficiently evident that feudal tenures and powers have in our age ceased to exist, and the first gene- ral glance at our social arrangements seeming to reveal "cash-payment" to be the "sole nexus," the universal connecting medium between the classes of society which employ and those which are employed, Mr Carlyle and others have pronounced on the case in contempt, wrath, and lamentation. In a pamphlet recently published by Mr Carlyle, we find the objectionable aspect of the case finely embodied in a high personage who complains to the writer. Being very philanthropic, and anxious, if conscience and common sense permit, to condole with our distressed fel- low-creatures, we must accord a hearing to his complaints. "Drops of compassion tremble on our eyelids," &c: " The Duke of Trumps," says Mr Carlyle, " who some- times does me the honour of a little conversation, owned that the state of his domestic service was by no means 228 budgett: the christian freeman. satisfactory to the human mind. ' Five-and-forty of them,' said his Grace, ' really, I suppose, the cleverest in the market, for there is no limit to the wages: I often think how many quiet families, all down to the basis of society, I have disturbed, in attracting gradually, by higher and higher offers, that set of fellows to me ; and what the use of them is when here! I feed them like aldermen, pay them as if they were sages and heroes. Samuel John- son's wages, at the very last and best, as I have heard you say, were 300 or 500 a-year; and Jellysnob, my butler, who indeed is clever, gets, I believe, more than the high- est of these sums. And, shall I own it to you? In my young days, with one valet, I had more trouble saved me, more help afforded me to live, actually more of my will accomplished, than from these forty-five I now get, or ever shall. It is all a serious comedy what you call a melan- choly sham. Most civil, obsequious, and indeed expert fellows these ; but bid one of them step out of his regulated sphere on your behalf! An iron law presses on us all here on them and on me. In my own house, how much of my will can I have done, dare I propose to have done? Prudence, on my part, is prescribed by a jealous and ridi- culous point-of-honour attitude on theirs. They lie here more like a troop of foreign soldiers that had invaded me, than a body of servants I had hired. At free quarters ; we have strict laws of war established between us ; they make their salutes, and do certain bits of specified work, with many becks and scrapings ; but as to service, properly so called ! I lead the life of a servant, sir; it is I that am a slave ; and often I think of packing the whole brother- hood of them out of doors one good day, and retiring to furnished lodgings, but have never done it yet!' Such was the confession of his Grace." budgett: the christian freeman. 229 " For," adds Mr Carlyle, " indeed, in the long run, it is not possible to buy obedience with money." Your complaint, we must confess, addressing his Grace, is indeed pitiful. Your domestics look upon you mani- festly as a mere dispenser of good things ; they know you have money, and that by a little juggling they can get it out of your hands; they laugh at you in their sleeves; you are among them as the returning lord in Don Juan among the groups that feasted at his expense; in one word, they make a fool of you. Now this is never done, your Grace, unless nature gives material assistance. You per- ceive that the sailors of a seventy -four do not make a fool of their captain ; Budgett's men, we find, made no fool of him ; and do you think that the man to whom you confess would be made a fool of in that style, were he in your place ? He has made something very like an assertion, that you are a "reed shaken in the wind;" he thinks, we used to understand, that your Grace's coat and badges were " torn in a scuffle" somewhere about 1789; we think your resort for consolation a little strange. What does your Grace want ? Would you have your fellow-creatures bow down to your coronet ? They say it is of faded tinsel. Would you have them reverence the face of which you are the " tenth transmitter?" They say, " 0, ju6t look at it; it is uncommonly foolish." Would you like to have the gallows- tree on your lawn, and manacles in a dungeon under your hall? Like enough; but these are precisely what your Grace never shall get; reach forth your hand to them, and see whether a red stream will not flow to wash your parch- ments very white ! Your Grace finds it too much to re- member the duties for which you have hired your servants ; you have no tact or authority to rule men, no dignified self-respecting sympathy to win them ; you fancy it is the 230 budgett: the christian freemait. gold that prevents your being honoured; it is no such thing: the dying Napoleon awed men by the power of his eye when his tongue was already silent, but men of your stamp were never truly obeyed sinee the world began. Not even a gallows would help you ; it is a hopeless case. And we regard it as exactly as it should be; like master, like man. Your affliction administers to us soft delecta- tion ; we should deem it treacherous to our time to pity you. We give you sixpence I The case is simple enough; the phenomenon need not startle us. The old obedience has certainly passed away; and true it is that obedience has never been, and can never be, bought by money. What then? There is a new obedience possible. Thanks to the French Revolution, thanks, whatever its evils, to advancing democracy, that it has struck, as by a universal electric shock, into the heart of humanity, the idea, to be extinguished never again but to work itself more and more into life and de- velopment, that no parchment written by human hand, no gold dug from earthly mine, can give a man a title to obedience. That title must be written with other than human ink, bought with other than earthly gold. It must be written on the brow in lines of strength and thought- fulness, it must be seen on the lip, where earnest self- respect, and habitual self-eommand, and resolution that can die, have displaced vanity, sensuality, and pride; it must glow, with a clear and ethereal fulness as of heaven's sanctioning light, from the unagitated eye, in the calmness of comprehending knowledge, the deliberate energy of jus- tice, the disarming magic of love, the constraining majesty of godliness. As never before, all men are now flung on their individuality; obedience is seen to be a thing beyond the reach of purchase, the possibility of transmission; if budgett: the christian freeman. 231 you can rule men, they will obey you; if you cannot, there is no help. Look into that establishment of Budgett's once more. What tie subsists between him and his men? The only visible tie is of gold ; he pays them certain moneys, and they work for him in return; their right to stay, his right to retain them, are precisely equal. Is he not, then, their master? He can show no patent of nobility unless he has one from " Almighty God ; " he was rocked in no ducal cradle, he wears no feudal coronet, beneath his mansion is no dungeon. Yet is he not a mas- ter? Shall we say that the obedience which waits upon his steps is of degraded quality, or unworthy of the name, because it is expressed in the alacrity of the open and manly forehead, the willing sympathy, unshaded by fear and untainted by sycophancy, of the freeman's kindling eye? Shall we say that the workman no longer renders to his natural and equal master a service and homage, as precious and as sincere as those of the serf who was pre- destined, ere his birth, to follow his chief whithersoever his bare will ordained, because the honeysuckles of his cottage wrap his own inviolable castle, and free-born chil- dren gambol round his knee? That he toils is no disgrace; it is appointed him by no injustice of man, but by the bene- ficent, though stern, decree of nature ; and his evening may be as glad and tranquil when the day's work is over, his sleep as sweet ere he goes forth to labour, his self-respect, his independence, his bold uncowering truthfulness, in one word, his whole inheritance both of duty and reward, as rich in the essential bounties of freedom as those of his mas- ter. Some men must ever ride in the car of civilisation, while others drag it. The old reins by which men were guided have been wrenched from the hands of the drivers; the drivers themselves have, in some places, been rolled in the 232 budgett: the christian freeman. dust, and trampled in their gore; but the fate of the French nobility is not necessarily to be universal; a strong and wise man can yet take the seat, and with new reins the golden chords of love, the viewless chains of sympathy still guide and control men; we see Budgett, a man born in poverty, do so with easy and natural effort. Why look back ? Why not rather charge ourselves than our time? Why perpe- tually gaze with reverted visage on the coffined Past? That lingering red is not the flush of health, that tranquil and smiling slumber is not the repose of gathering energy ; it is the stillness and rigid moulding of death that are on that face; no resurrection ever awoke a buried era: feud- alism in all its aspects its airy and gallant chivalries, its simple devotions, its conventual dreamings with its Du Guesclins, its good Douglases, its kingly Abbot Samsons, its troop of fair ladies riding with golden stirrups to the crusade has passed away to the very spirit and essence, and Democracy lays its iron roads across its grave. Many generations will gaze on the picture of the whole resusci- tated life of the thirteenth century, as it has been painted in a boldness of outline and incomparable richness of colour which must long defy the rounding finger and obscuring breath of time, by Mr Carlyle; yet Abbot Samson had his hand-gyves in his dungeon, and no tongue dared to move in his presence. The man who will rule men in an era of freedom must dispense with these; and though the hero of Past and Present was assuredly born to be a prince and ruler, we cannot but believe that men of his radical type are still extant and even common in England, and why ob- stinately close our eyes to the same power as his, when ex- hibited not in a mediaeval monastery, but in a mercantile establishment of the working era. Of old, you might have obedience of serfs, but you had not freedom. In the mo- BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. 233 dern time, when your masters are incompetent, you have a pretended though ignoble freedom on the part of ser- vants, and no true obedience. Where you have compe- tent masters and governed servants, both are free. Is it reasonable, then, and manly, to whine and whimper over our modern arrangements, as might a delicate-looking Puseyite curate, or to sneer at, and denounce, and turn away from them, as do very different men, instead of recognising it as one great task and duty of our age to reconcile master- ship with freedom, and valiantly setting about it? That Mr Carlyle has written on these matters as he has done, may well excite surprise. We may have utterly miscon- ceived the whole purport and philosophy of his history of the French Revolution, despite of what appears to us perfect clearness, and of what we know to have been en- thusiastic and protracted study ; but, if we have any one decided idea as to the meaning of that book, or of what he says in his essay on Ebenexer Elliott, it is, that one great lesson he would enforce is, that the feudal nobility must either vanish, or show themselves possessed of per- sonal powers to win the respect and affectionate obedience of men. Yet this duke appears to us to furnish an appo- site and express illustration of such words. The world has seen strange things, but it may yet be worth its while to turn aside and contemplate Mr Carlyle in the capacity of apologist for pithless personages still fondly called noble- men. The true point of view from which to discern the essen- tial type and distinguishing characteristics of Budgett is the mercantile ; it is him in his true character you see, when you mark his intense delight as he moves among a group of active working men, animating them by his pre- sence, directing their movements, and thrilled with sym- 234 BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. pathy for honest exertion. But we must briefly glance at the other phases which his character displays: we must see him fairly out of the commercial atmosphere. And what aspect does he present to us? He comes out from the mine where he has been toiling so eagerly with the gold he has so manfully won. Has he the greedy, inhuman look of the miser, the small frostbitten eye of the niggard? He has worked hard, and the result we see in money: the " beaverish" talent he certainly possesses. Has his soul be- come beaverish too? No. He has still the boy's heart which throbbed with joy when he flung his boyish earnings, the thirty pounds which probably appeared to him then a greater sum than any he afterwards possessed, into his mother's- lap. Over the deep mine, far up in the taintless azure, his eye has ever caught the gleam of treasure which might well purge his eyes in the glare of earthly gold. To make money has been his duty; he could not work to the mea- sure of his abilities without that result; but to give is his delight, and his reward. With the same tact which stood him in such good stead among his workmen and custo- mers, he strikes out devices of good ; with his native energy he carries them out. His positive expenditure in philan- thropic objects is fully 2000 a-year. His mansion becomes a centre of beneficent light for the whole district, in every direction the broken mists of ignorance and vice retiring. His heart is as warm, his hand as open, as if he had never known what it was to make a shilling; he shows himself worthy to be a steward of nature, with large gifts com- mitted for disposal to his hand; he scatters bounty where his agency is unseen ; he ever makes charity the hand- maid of industry, never of recklessness or sloth ; the blessed influence of generosity, tempered by justice and governed by strong intelligence, is felt over the district. BTJDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. 235 And now we shall look, for a few moments, into the sanctuary of his home. We saw him take his early love to be his wife, in a little cottage in an English lane. As his other projects have prospered in his hands, his cottage has gradually changed its appearance; he is now in a commo- dious mansion, seated in the midst of broad pleasure- grounds, and commanding a wide prospect of that region which his presence has lighted with new comfort and glad- ness. In his family circle we find him displaying the same traces of original character which we have marked in his procedure elsewhere. His children are admitted to an unwonted intimacy and confidence. " They knew his business affairs intimately, and in every perplexing case he would gather them round him, with their mother and aunt, and take their advice. His standing council was formed of the whole family, even at an age when other fathers would think it cruel and absurd to perplex a child with weighty concerns." We do not remember to have ever met with an instance precisely corresponding to this. And its effects are all benign. He seems to have attained that perfection of domestic rule, where kindness is so governed by sagacity, that severity is banished, yet every good effect of severity won. The sympathy which he meets among his workmen, and which lends an aspect of noble work and noble governance to his whole business esta- blishment, pervades, with a still finer and more tender warmth, the chambers of his home ; his children go hand- in-hand with him in his plans of improvement, the wil- ling instruments in all his philanthropic devices. And he feels that he has their sympathy in higher things than these ; we hear him expressing the conviction that they are all going along with him on the way to heaven. This is the final touch of joy that can gild a Christian 236 budgett; the christian freeman. home, a ray of heaven's own glory coming to blend with, to hallow, to crown the blessings of earth. Be it a delu- sion or not, one would surely wish to "keep so sweet a thing alive:" if it is a fond enthusiastic dream, so perfect is the smile of happiness on the dreaming face, that it were surely kind to let the sleeper slumber on. He believes that all his family will again gather round him on the plains of heaven: that the flowers which now shed fragrance through his life will continue to bloom beside immortal amaranths ; that the voices which are now the music of his being will mingle with the melodies of his eternal home; that the light of those smiles which greet his approach to his threshold, and which now make summer in his heart, will blend with the light that fadeth never. We shall not say that his hopes are vain : his children are his friends, and friendship lives in the spirit-land. Thus, soft, genial, tenderly kind, do we find the hard- trading Budgett, when we contemplate him where kind- ness and tenderness are in place ; depend upon it, were he not a right merchant in the market, he would not be so gentle in the home ; it is only the strong who can thus wrap the paternal rod in flowers. To see him in the mar- ket, one would say there was not one dew-drop of poetry to soften the ruggedness of his nature. Follow him in a walk on his own grounds, and you are apt to think him a soft sort of man, with somewhat of a sentimental turn. For he has still the same open sense for nature's beauty and music that he had when he heard that little bird's morning carol, and felt in his young heart that God had answered his prayer for his mother. There is a certain dewiness, a flowery freshness, over his character, an air of unexhausted, unstrained strength. Three things, at least, nature has united in him, which have been deemed incom- budgett: the christian freeman. 237 patible: thorough working faculty, religion of the sort which weeps for sins invisible to the world, and poetical sympathy. You may see him distancing his competitors in the market, until they whisper that he must work by magic; you may see his cheek wet with tears as he prays to his God ; you may hear him, in gleeful tone, quoting verse after verse of poetry in his fields, while his children romp around. From his early days, too, the strange mer- chant has preached, and with extraordinary power; his connection with the Wesleyan body led him to this. His whole character, last of all, is veiled in humility ; his bearing is that of a truly modest, self-knowing man, who can act with perfect self-reliance, yet take advice, if such may come, from a child. At the age of fifty-four, when it might have been hoped that many years of life were yet before him, Budgett gave symptoms of a fatal malady. Dropsy and heart-complaint showed themselves, and his strength gradually wore away. His death-bed was glorious even among Christian death- beds. And though we would ground no weighty argu- ment upon the closing scenes of Christian men, we cannot regard death-bed experience as of slight importance. Life is assuredly more important than death ; on it would we fix our main attention. Yet it is mere vacant absurdity to deny that fear casts its shade over mankind here below, as they look forward beyond time ; that it is really the king of terrors whose realm is the grave, and that it has been one grand aim of all religions to discrown the spectre. If, moreover, man is only for a moment a denizen of time, if he is yet to be born into eternity, and his life here is of importance only in its relation to his life beyond, it must ever be a moment of supreme interest to men, when the immortal soul is preening her wings for an infinite as- 238 budqett: the christian freeman. cent, when earth is becoming still, and voices out of the distance seem to reach the dying ear, and a strange radi- ance falls across the bourne into the glazing eye. Budgett found his simple Christian faith, laying hold of the sword of the Spirit, strong enough to palsy the arm of the terror- crowned, and strike from it its appalling dart; nay, he found that simple Christian faith of power sufficient to steady his eye in gaze upon the spectre, until his terrors faded away and he became an angel standing at the gates of light. At first he was troubled and cast down; but ere long the victory was complete. We shall simply quote a few of his words, leaving readers to make upon them their own comments ; to judge for themselves, whether they express a selfish joy, or that of one whose delight was in holiness and in God; and to observe the childlike humility that breathes beneath their rapture. His death oeurred in the April of 1851, and these words were uttered by him from the time that his illness began to manifest its fatal power: they suffi- ciently indicate the occasions of their utterance : " I 6ent for you to tell you how happy I am ; not a wave, not a ripple, not a fear, not a shadow of doubt. I didn't think it was possible for man to enjoy so much of God upon earth. I'm filled with God." " I like to hear of the beauties of heaven, but I do not dwell upon them ; no, what I rejoice in is, that Christ will be there. Where He is, there shall I be also. I know that He is in me, and I in Him. I shall see Him as He is. I delight in knowing that." " How our Heavenly Father paves our way down to the tomb ! I seem so happy and comfortable, it seems as if it cannot be for me, as if it must be for somebody else. I don't deserve it." " I have sunk into the arms of Omnipotent Love." BUDGETT: THE CHRISTIAN FREEMAN. 239 " I never asked for joy, I always thought myself un- worthy of it ; but He has given me more than I asked." " I am going the way of all flesh ; but, bless God, I'm ready. I trust in the merits of my Redeemer. I care not when, or where, or how ; glory be to God! " CHAPTER V. THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE; AND ONE OR TWO HINTS TOWARDS ITS SOLUTION. That there is in our time some great difference from other ages, that some Ionian change is in progress, seems hidden from no thinker of the day. De Tocqueville on the one hand and Carlyle on the other proclaim the fact. This process of change was inaugurated by the greatest event of modern times, in itself, indeed, but a re- sult, the first French Revolution. The doctrines of the Encyclopaedia, the infidel or atheistic theories of Voltaire, Diderot, Naigeon, and their followers, had gradually per- vaded French and European society, eating out religion from the heart of nations. Kings and nobles trembled not. This new philosophy of materialism and sensuality seemed to them but a summer cloud, touched with the roseate hues of genius, and distilling a gentle rain, to nourish the flowers of sentiment and foster the growths of science; if there did issue from it a few gleams of distant lightning, these would but clear the air from ennui, and promote a freer respiration. The ancient sentence, " Fear God, and ho- nour the king," had, it was agreed, held sway long enough over the minds of men ; the principalities and powers of earth were perfectly satisfied, and sat smiling in the se- cure content of dotard imbecility, while the Encyclopaedic THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 241 lightning burned out from its place among the beliefs and maxims of men, the former half of the regulating sentence ; Let there be no God, they said, but oh, continue to honour us. At last the storm came, in a burst that shook the globe. The world stood still to listen; even the lone and dis- crowned Jerusalem, sitting amid her graves, became more desolate, for .pilgrims forgot io turn their steps to the East. We know the result. We have marked the path of that light- ning which burned the old French monarchy from the face of the earth, and in whose blasting gleam the brilliance of every crown in the world waxed pale. That wild glare awoke a power that had long slumbered: The people. Leaving Encyclopaedism behind, and lifting its voice in other nations besides France, this great new element in social affairs in its awakening, its attempt to make itself heard, its slow gravitation towards its own place in the system of things has given its distinctive features to our epoch. To deny the fact, that the relations of classes and the modes of social action wear at present among free nations an aspect unknown in the feudal ages, is now impossible. It is simply out of the power of any man to turn the eye of his imagination upon the mediaeval time; to note the tranquillity of its general atmosphere, breathing in dim religious light through the still cathedral aisle and resting round the hoary turret of the feudal castle; to mark how reverently the serf looks up to his master, and with what undoubting devotion the worshipper kneels before the uplifted crucifix ; to observe the Book unchained from its place at the altar, and the venerating wonder with which men gaze upon him who can read; to see one large class sitting aloft, glittering in its badges, in its one hand feudal charters, in its other a feudal sword, on its lip 242 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. a really noble and beautiful smile of chivalrous valour and youthful strength, on its brow all the intelligence of the age, and another large class below, born to bow down be- fore this, to receive food from its hands and instruction from its lips, and yield it in return the instinctive affec- tion of children and the childlike obedience of men not born to the heritage of a will; and then to maintain that the whole order of society has not undergone a universal and upturning alteration. So thorough, so transforming is the change from this era, that a single glance at the picture is sufficient to convince any intelligent, informed, and healthy- minded man that it is gone for ever. The individual or party who proposes any attempt towards its recall is not to be listened to: we do not take up the view of the present time, generally understood as that of Puseyism: we fore- close all pleading on that side of the question, by the simple observation, that we can regard neither with hope nor apprehension what were an absolute anomaly in this world, an unrolling of the scroll of history after it has been once folded up. But there has taken place a much later change than that we here indicate. It is, we think, only in what may be called late years that the ultimate influences of the mighty agency introduced by John Faust into civilisation have begun to become traceable. It is only in these times that its unpredicted power to loosen the tongue of the world, to draw forth the electricity of thought, to turn the pen to a sceptre, and the hereditary diadem to a toy, has been fairly evinced. It is the grand characteristic of our age that thought is more fluent, that men more easily communicate together, than heretofore ; the university of the modtern era can be closed to none, for who is it that cannot learn to read and write, and who that can THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 243 read, and Las the power of using his fingers, may not act upon his fellows? We see around us the rending of ancient associations, the awakening of novel powers; we witness discordance, severance, doubt; the ancient reverences and the ancient unities have mostly passed away; men believe not, without uttering a determined Why; men respect not, without a mandate in nature's handwriting. To us, none of these things are amazing, for we see them to be the na- tural and inevitable birth of freedom and knowledge: the problem they present we will accept and endeavour to solve. We venture to- enunciate what we believe the precise meaning, cause r andtendency,when philosophically weighed, of all these great phenomena. We find these by considera- tion of a profound apophthegm of Goethe's, spoken with re- ference to the individual mind : " Thought widens, but lames; action narrows, but animates." It is well known- how the man of one idea can work; it is well known, too, that in order to do any single work well, you must on it concentrate your efforts. We have no hesitation whatever; and since we cannot here demonstrate the propriety of our proceeding, we must request readers to assure themselves by reflection and investigation that we are right, in applying this individual law to the nation. The army of Islam was victorious, because it poured the lightning of its defiance on the foe as from one blazing eye. Nations rolled away resistlessly to the crusade, because their mighty hearts throbbed with the one idea of saving the sepulchre of the Saviour from the desecration of unbelievers. If you look well into the ancient time, you will find the unity of action on the part of vassals accounted for by the consideration that they had not a sufficient power of thought to doubt; the iron energy of governments, by the fact that there 244 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. had not yet dawned on the world the idea of toleration, and that they were lamed by no freedom or variety of opinion. There are, however, in the individual life, stages which are peculiarly those of doubt. The youth acts cheerfully and with energy, on the belief he has received from his fathers: then he begins to question, to hesitate, to doubt: his arm is at once paralysed, and with many words his -ac- tions become few and undecisive. But he may advance to yet a higher state: this doubt and temporary indecision may be a stage in his progress to calm intelligent man- hood; he may regain his early cheerful and united energy, with hi.s beliefs his own, and the still sky of manhood over him. With Britain, as a nation, we cannot but think that it at present is as with the doubting, examining, question- ing man. With the old relations of force, we have lost much of the old power of action.; pretension and quackery flourish amain. Mr Carlyle tells us that all things have unfixed themselves, and float distractedly in an ocean of talk. It is useless, and it is contrary to truth to say, that his denunciations are altogether uncalled for, that the peril he descries is not real. Let any one look into the state of our law, and the slow success of efforts making for its amendment; let him examine the condition of our trusts, enough, as on good authority appears, of itself to give work, long and difficult, to Reform, had it the hands of Briareus; let him consider the ease with which public nuisance can shelter itself under so-called private right, and the clumsy and inefficient machinery by which any change, demanded it may be by the very health of our towns, can be effected \ let him reflect on the power of corporations to clog the wheels of general progress, and the seeming powerlessnesa of Britain to teach her own children ; then, or rather when he has added from all hands THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 245 to this partial list of our shortcomings, let him decide whether an infusion of energy into the internal economy of our country is not urgently demanded. Nay, if this does not satisfy him, let him pace the Continent of Europe, and see despotism teaching all her children, cleaning, and beautifying, and ordering her streets, offering countless suggestions of order, cheapness, decorum, common sense, to a British observer, and then let him answer. " When," exclaims Mr Carlyle, " shall we have done with all this of British liberty, voluntary principle, dangers of centralisation, and the like? It is really getting too bad. For British liberty, it seems, the people cannot be taught to read. British liberty, shuddering to interfere with the rights of capital, takes six or eight millions of money annually to feed the idle labourer whom it dare not employ. For British liberty we live over poisonous cess-pools, gully-drains, and detestable abominations; and omnipotent London cannot sweep the dirt out of itself. British liberty produces what? Floods of Hansard de- bates every year, and apparently little else at present. If these are the results of British liberty, I, for one, move we should lay it on the shelf a little, and look out for some- thing other and farther. We have achieved British liberty hundreds of years ago; and are fast growing, on the strength of it, one of the most absurd populations the sun, among his great Museum of Absurdities, looks down upon at present." Now we desire specially to have it observed here, that we consider it necessary for no one, in order to comprehend and intelligently judge of the few observations we have to offer in the succeeding paragraphs, to agree fully in all the preceding remarks: let it not even be thought that we pro- nounce the state of Britain decadent: it will not be denied 246 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. that, if more energy could, in perfect combination with freedom, be introdaced into the practical working, external and internal, of our nation, and of free nations in general, it were well. We certainly attach importance to what we have said, and we have not only Mr -Carlyle on our side, but all those thinkers, among whom are to be ranged Fichte and Richter, who designate this a transition era; yet we demand nothing more of the reader, than that he call to mind the commonplace about the inefficiency of freedom as compared with despotism, and yield us a hearing while we offer one or two suggestions towards the practical solution of what we must believe to be the great problem before the free nations at present, The combina- tion of modern freedom, thought, and enlightenment, with the strength and activity of despotism. Omitting 'the consideration of certain views of less importance, we -deem it right to notice two solutions of our problem, proposed, either explicitly or implicitly, by classes of thinkers who recognise the necessity of reach- ing a solution. With each party, we have one important point of argument : from each we differ in matters of vital moment. The first solution is that which, however modified, had its source in the montanism of the first French Revolu- tion, and has ever continued in essential particulars to agree with it; that of liberal, or, more strictly, infidel radi- calism. The one thing which we accept from the French Revolution, and from the party whose view we now .con- sider, is their testimony to human freedom. We will recognise a sublimity in the attempt of the French nation to be free and self-governing.; we will allow it was an apple of celestial hue and fragrance France stretched out her hand to pluck; and if she found it but bitter and THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 247 bloody dust, we shall not the less believe that it proved such, only because the hand with which she grasped it was that of a blaspheming demon. The sun looked down on strange sights in that Revolution tumult; on sights whose signifi- cance can never be exhausted, and in which the eyes of nations will in all time have deep lessons to read. It looked down on a people that turned its gaze on the past, and saw generation after generation trooping dimly down the vista of years from the cavern of vacant Chance, which had the heart to cast its eye on the future, and see all men sinking from the verge of the world into the blank abyss of annihilation, and which, even in the ghastly lone- liness of such a universe as this, standing for one cheerless moment between two vast and eternal graves, could con- trive to be riotous and gay. It looked down on a cathe- dral where men were grimacing in idiot laughter round what they called the goddess of reason. It looked down on a Convention where they were " decreeing " the exist- ence of the Supreme Being; the existence of Him, to whom the whole universe is as a film of breath on the morning air. Perhaps more wonderful still, it looked down upon a nation having, with all this, the name of freedom on its lips, and uttering words which sounded like those of heroic patriots and poets, asserting the equality of man, and declaring that it would rule itself. But it had been most wonderful of all, if it had seen these words made good, if a people denying its immortality and believing the universe to have no moral Sun, knit by no sacred memories to the past and owning no treasure of hope in the future, its spirit stubborned by none of the iron of duty and its appetites calling aloud for pleasure, had been able to be- come free. This it did not behold. That nation first mocked freedom by the mummeries of children, and then made 248 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AOE. its name a loathing over the world by the horror of bloody cruelty. Federation fetes, statues of liberty, endless out- flowing of meaningless mellifluous oratory, and then foam- ing hatred, and the long line of death-tumbrils; the dream that freedom was no-government, and the awaken- ing to find that it was the government of madness; such was the history of the French Revolution. If we accept even from it the imperishable truth that freedom is the inalienable inheritance and ultimate goal of man, we will also read in it this other lesson, that without religion a nation can never be free, but will either go mumming and fooling to plant liberty trees and inaugurate plaster-of- Paris images, or will awaken the Furies of anarchy, and join with them in a dance of death. Never did revolution more completely fail than that of France; and never in this world was there a revolution so profoundly infidel. Its source was the infidelity of Voltaire; the philosophers who supported it were, as a body, infidel; and its poet Shelley, while believing in the immortality of the soul, refused to bow the knee to the Christian God. Soft, and glowing, and streaming from the very heart, that music of Shelley's, one might almost deem, would have charmed the maniac fury from godless freedom, and bent the minds of men to truth's own sway; that temple which he reared to the sound of dulcet melody, and over which rested the glories of one of the princeliest imaginations that ever sublimed enthusiasm or personified thought, would, one might think, have drawn the nations to the worship of a calm and be- nign freedom, whose every word was wisdom and all whose looks were love; but it was not so: the entrancing poetry of Shelley seems to us like an .ZEolean harp, hung out in the tempest of modern democracy, whose soft tremblings, whose plaintive persuasive murmurings, will never attune to har- THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 249 mony that hoarse and wintry blast. To another music than that must the nation march that will be free; to no such gentle melody did the legions of the Republic march to meet Pyrrhus, the Ten Thousand to the field of Marathon; other and inferior gifts God may grant to nations that have utterly forgotten Him, but it would seem that the crowning gift of freedom will be granted only to one in whose heart there is the belief in a God, and which can reverence an oath. Nor i3 it difficult to discern the reason why: whatever may appear in the philosophic diagram, there are passions sleeping in the human breast that, in the open sea of actual life, will always awake, and over- whelm the vessel of freedom, if they are not quelled by one Eye. For this reason, we turn away from infidel radicalism; it aims at an impossibility, it contradicts human history. From irreligious radicalism, which must end either in folly or in anarchy, we turn to Mr Carlyle. We think that an earnest student of his works can discover in them a solution of our problem, though not one which can be pronounced hopeful or flattering. We have already de- fined what we believe to be the theory of government which is philosophically deducible from pantheism, and which, whether deliberately, consciously, and avowedly deduced or not, shapes itself naturally out in the mind of a thinker whose general mode of viewing human affairs is pantheistic. It will be no small confirmation of our state- ment, if we find that it coincides with actual circumstances in the case of one, whose writings, however wrathful and torrent-like, flow from a fountain of love, and who, in the prime of his gigantic energies, turned away from the pleasant places of literature, and the calm inviting fields of abstract speculation, to concentrate his powers upon practical life, 250 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. and the answering of* the great social questions of the day, but the whole tenor of whose thinking is pantheistic. Now, though we find in Mr Carlyle's latest writings what seems to expose him to the objection of looking somewhat too fixedly on the past ; and although we cannot think it im- possible that our time and land might have furnished him with scenes and with men, as well fitted to enforce dra- matically certain of those lessons, sumless we allow in their value, which he has read us in his Past and Pre- sent, as St Edmundsbury and Abbot Samson; yet we think it is but a superficial view of his whole works which does not unveil a deeper truth behind all his applause of the past, and prove that his eye is on the future. His mighty intellect and iron will are drawn, as by the sympathy of brotherhood, towards the giant forces of the olden time ; he invariably speaks of the pre- sent age as feeble and distracted, when contrasted with ages long gone by ; and in the work we have named, he has, by the wizard power of his genius, summoned up, in living distinctness, certain great spectacles and men of the past, that those of the present may hide their heads before them. Yet who has proclaimed with sueh emphasis as he, that the law of all human things is progress, that it is vain to attempt to chain the future under the past? We can- not doubt that it is not his desire or hope that the nine- teenth or twentieth century should become the thirteenth, but only that certain fundamental characteristics should be found in both. It is our anxious wish fairly to repre- sent the essential aspect of that new time, which, though removed by centuries, he still confidently predicts, and which is to be, not the past, but the life and truth of the past, transformed by the spirit and transfigured by the light of the present. THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OP THE AGE. 251 We conceive Mr Carlyle, looking forward into the dis- tance, to contemplate a time characterised as follows: the rubbish of extinct customs has been swept aside, the dust of shattered systems has fallen from the air and sunk harmless into the soil, the discords of quackery and dispu- tation have gone silent, and, alas! the world-tree of the nations, planted of old in Judea, the Igdrasil of modern civilisation, that bloomed into its chivalries, and yielded fair flowerage of literatures and philosophies, and bore its final fruit in the Lutheran Reformation, has fallen utterly, and mouldered as into mocrland .moss; the deep eternal skies of nature, the great laws of duty, of industry, and of hero-worship, have then again emerged, and roofed the world. We cannot err in believing, that more and more the development of his system has tended to the pouring of contempt upon all the modes and agencies of our present social life ; that he has scowled upon popular assemblies, upon free election, upon all forms of public opinion, upon what -is partly the voiee and partly the guide of public opinion, the free press : that more and more clearly his all-embracing word of command, of de- nunciation, of prophecy has been hero-worship; and that, with more and more distinctness and decision, he has pointed at the severance of all men into two great classes, the foolish and the wise, the silently and blindly governed and the silently and irresponsibly governing. He has declared his utter abandonment of faith in the popular un- derstanding, by proposing a step of manifest return, in the appointment of certain senators or privy-councillors by nomination. One of his late works contains an assertion, which, with absolute explicitness, declares him the eternal foe of freedom, which prescribes to it, in conferring or debating with him, but one tone, and that the tone which 252 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. can so well be borrowed from his own works, of implacable defiance, namely, and irreconcilability; which is probably the keenest and most bitter insult that was ever sent to the rude heart of the human race, ever levelled against that great class which has made up, and which for an indefinite number of centuries must continue to make up, the bulk of mankind, and if not a preponderating, at least a large pro- portion of the public voice of every free country; the sad and amazing declaration, that "by any ballot-box Judas will go as far as Jesus." He has sneered at the advantages of liberty and palliated the evils of despotism, pointing to Epictetus and to Paul as showing the independence of the individual character to any such influence. In a word, no one can question the fact, that Mr Carlyle has drawn off altogether from the side of what is meant by radicalism; that his political philosophy, while exterminat- ing enough, has disjoined itself from the popular enlight- enment, the popular science, the popular election, which cluster round that standard. What, then, does he propose, or prophetically proclaim ? What, we ask, are we to find in his unceasing laudation of "might," in the analogies upon which he ventures, surely with a strange boldness, be- tween men and lower animals? What in that circum- stance which we deem of a profound interest and signifi- cance, his known admiration of Frederick the Great, who illustrates to us, with perfect and precise appropriateness, the ultimate development of a pantheistic theory of human government, of whom, whatever is doubtful, this may be considered sure, that the virtual declaration of his reign to his subjects was, All you can demand of me is, that I govern well, if you are happy, it is of no importance whether jour happiness is that of freemen or slaves ? The sum-total and ultimate goal of Mr Carlyle's political thinking, we must THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 253 conclude, has turned out to be what we showed was naturally and philosophically to be expected Despotism. He will not attempt to marry freedom to strength, nor cherish the hope that the race may pass from the unintelligent energy of youth, when force followed authority, and thought had not lamed action, to the free energy of manhood; the multitude are hopelessly foolish, and their highest bliss must be found, in bowing, with instinctive reverence, before an absolute sovereign, their eyes blinded by the glare of his sole and God-like will. All the inventions, all the sciences, all the enlightenment of modern times, may then be brought to clothe and feed them, as his ability renders possible, and as his bounty chooses to dispense ; only they must obey with no question as to the reason. This result does not anywise induce us to retract or modify what we have said of the deep patriotism and love lying in the heart of Mr Carlyle; but no less assured are we that this is the only logical de- duction from his original axioms, and the sole inference that can be drawn from the whole series of his works. Ancient and modern times may, according to him, differ in many things, but in one thing they must agree, that the highest political attainment of mankind is subjection to a wise and heroic but absolute will. Surely there is something sad and disappointing in this prospect opened up by Mr Carlyle for the future. Has all that ancient and heroic struggling after freedom, then, been but the fruit of delusion and frenzy ? Or was our race destined to expend all its heroism in a long, weary battle, and when at last it saw its enemy dead, when at last it did behold Despotism in the swoon of death, with its cruel and bloodshot eyeball at length glazing and becoming all light- less and ghastly, to find it had toiled and bled for a mere bauble, and that its only hope was to resuscitate the con- 254 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. quered monster? Has the path of humanity, over sandy deserts and up flinty mountains, through hurning heats and bitter storms, been to such a promised land as this? A promised land ! We will not accept it, if its vines- were richer than those of Eschol, and it flowed with milk and honey. Decided as is our difference with the radicals of the French Revolution, we have a deeper debate with Mr Carlyle. From whatever quarter it is that we hear the note of disaffection to freedom, we will not consent to hear it. We believe there is a strength of nobleness in the human heart to scorn such prosperity as even perfect de- spotism could bestow; for no humiliating happiness will it sell its birthright of freedom ; men will rather be freemen, ay, and die for freedom, in a rocky gorge of Hellas, or on bare moors in Scotland, than slaves amid the vines f Cam- pania, or on the fragrant banks of Ganges. " Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame; Terse echoes not one beating of their hearts History is but the shadow of their shame Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts, As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, Staining that heaven with obscene imagery Of their own likeness." We think that one great temptation of the age is to dis- trust and abandon Freedom. Her robe has been soiled with blood, her eye has been lit with frenzy, " blasphemy's loud scream" has mingled with her " musie of deliverance;" but she is, for all this, an angel of light, and we must not forego the faith and hope that her features will yet beam forth in their own immortal loveliness. We shall not lift the light from human annals, and silence the songs which have risen from earth's fairest homes and noblest battle- fields; that thrill which the word freedom has ever, sent THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 255 through the heart of nations, has not been altogether meaningless. Upon any correct theory of man, the essen- tial excellence of freedom is demonstrable ; not, certainly, as a present possession, but as a future attainment: it must be the aim of civilisation to educe every faculty of the whole man, spiritual as well as physical, and this can never be done until man, as a civis, as one united indissolubly with his fellows, thinks and wills, as well as works and feeds. At what period a nation may come to be capable of free- dom, it were long to tell ; but this we may say with unfal- tering lip, that the nation which has had freedom won for it by the wisdom and dauntlessness of its sons, covers itself with everlasting infamy if it cannot enter on the possession of its inheritance. To accept Mr Carlyle's view of the future, were to confess ourselves nationally worthy of this contempt; and if we put " British freedom on the shelf," our heroic fathers that have bled for us from Bannockburn to Sedgemoor, will, from their high thrones, look down upon us with indignation and shame. We shall hope there may be found some other solution of our problem than any we have glanced at. But first it may be well to ask, whether it is to be considered easy. "The discipline of slavery is unknown among us." Is there, then, to be no discipline ? Does human freedom mean the dissolution of government? Are the shouts of nations at the name and prospect of liberty to be understood as indi- cating that freedom is easy, that it consists in every man's doing as he likes, that, when a nation has hurled tyranny aside, it has now only to gesticulate round plaster figures, or go in long white-robed procession to plant liberty trees, or amuse itself with any other form of foolery ? No. The sternest task ever attempted by a nation is that of inaugu- rating and supporting freedom. The man who governs 256 THE SOCIAL PROBLE OF THE AGE. his own spirit has been, on supreme authority, pronounced greater than he who takes a city: this man has attained personal freedom. National freedom is simply the govern- ment of its own spirit by a nation. It is the attempt on the part of a people, as on the part of a man, to have a will chainless as that of the wildest libertine, and yet live and work with united energy under wisdom's law. And the toils of Thermopylae, Morgarten, and Naseby, were, we think, slight to this. " Latius regnes avidura domando Spiritual, quam si Libyam remotis Gadibus jungas, et uterque Poenus Serviat uni." There i no free people to which we may not address the lines. It was a sublime ottv, and not an alluring pleasure, whose distant gleam lit the eyes of nations as they looked to liberty ! To attain true freedom seems to us to demand the very last agony of national effort, the severe and final endeavour, by whieh a people at length reaches its throne. Christianity affords us the axioms on which alone a solu- tion can be attempted: taking from irreligious radicalism the truth groped after by it, and accepting at the hands of Mr Carlyle the vitally important lessons he has so power- fully re- proclaimed, avoiding anarchy on the one hand and despotism on the other, it sets the race on a path of unlimited advancement. Christianity pronounces men equal. All the protests which, in the course of human history, have been uttered against the oppression of the poor by the rich, and in behalf of the real native majesty of man, sink into insignificance when compared with that uttered by and embodied in Christianity; there is one grain of truth in that claim which modern democracy, though in crazed, and maundering, and blasphemous tone3, has so often THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 257 put forth, to number the founders of Christianity in its ranks. In express terms, the Christian revelation declares all nations of the earth to be of one blood; it pronounces all men equally the subjects of one King; it makes the value of a soul infinite, and shows no difference between the worth of that of a beggar and that of a prince. Look into the stable at Bethlehem, on that night when crowned sage and humble shepherd knelt by the cradle of that Babe who was their common King; do you not see, in that spec- tacle, the bond of an essential equality uniting all ranks, and making the regal purple and the peasant's russet faint and temporary distinctions? Well might Coleridge say, that the fairest flower he ever saw climbing round a poor man's window, was not so beautiful in his eyes as the Bible which he saw lying within! If all classes forsook the gospel, one might expect the poor, the hard-toiling, the despised, to cling to it. Whatever Christianity may have become in our churches and in our times, the great class of the workers can find in its aspects no excuse for abandoning itself, unless they can show that the churches have re- written the Bible ; unless they can allege that it no longer exhibits the divine Founder of Christianity preaching to the poor, companying with publicans and sinners, bringing into the bosoms of harlots the healing light of divine love; unless they can show that it was the sanctioned usage of apostolic times to honour the rich in the Christian assem- blage ; unless, in one word, they can deny that the gospel holds forth to every man the prospect of being a king and priest to God. But Christianity does not make this truth powerless by leaving it alone. Mr Carlyle, with his glance of light- ning, saw the anarchy or the weakness to which modern freedom was tending ; government he knew to be absolutely s 258 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AOE. necessary. And this government, in some way or other, must he vested in ahle men. He called on the nations to obey their mightiest, to worship them as heroes, and pro- ceeded to scorn and scout the prevalent ideas and hopes of freedom. But Christianity meets this want too. It writes down civil government as an ordinance of God. Not that it sanctions what has been called divine right or any such su- perficial and absurd notion : not that, in any part or passage of the sacred volume, it commands us to honour any one for the blood in his veins; but that it recognises the institution of government as a necessity, and enjoins men loyally to submit to it, and honour the king. Any one form of govern- ment is not appointed: but government is stamped with ap- proval, and by the promulgation of the truth of radical equa- lity, a way is opened up by which freedom may flourish under any political form. How then are we, in every case, to find our rulers? Simply by finding those who are fitted to rule. Is the fact that they are thus fitted the reason of our honour- ing them, and our theory, after all, the same as that of hero- worship? By no means. Their honour is reflected. Their fitness is the indication of the reason why they should be honoured; the reason itself is because God has commis- sioned them; and we are precisely as free in performing the tasks naturally appointed us, as they in performing those for which He has fitted them. Thus, as it embraced the one truth of democracy, Christianity embraces every par- ticle of truth which Mr Carlyle has contributed to human knowledge. All that he has said of the might and value of man, though perhaps demanding supplement and modifi- cation, can on these terms be accepted without endanger- ing human freedom; every power of the hero can be brought to serve the race, and yet honour be done both to God and to man. The greatest will rule because God has THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGTET. 259 given them the kingdom ; and the people shall he willing in the day of His power. A nation were perfectly free and perfectly governed, where the allied truths of equality and subordination were both in full force ; where not only the ablest governed, but where the channels to government were absolutely unobstructed, and every man had the assur- ance that, if he were the ablest, be would be governor. Now it is not by any means our assertion or idea, that Christianity furnishes us with a nostrum by which all the ills of society can be at once cured, its weakness turned to strength, and its powers brought into operation;, the bare fact, that any one, whencesoever he derive his specific, misconceives so far the nature of man and the evo- lution of history, as to imagine that the one is to be perfected and the other brought to a close by a magic word which he can utter, is conclusive evidence of his utter incapacity. It is our conviction that without Christianity no nation can be regenerated; that, unless we proceed upon its theory of man, we always fall into some fatal error; spreading out into the stagnant marsh of weakness and disunion, tumbling in cataract-foam, writhing madly and streaked with blood, into the abyss of anarchy, or gliding into the Dead Sea of Despotism: but earnest thought and practical effort of our own are necessary in addition to all it gives us, calm consi- deration of the difficulties, conditions, and tools of our time, valour to dare and perseverance to do, Baconian induction and Platonic ardour. It is in this spirit and with this con- sciousness that we would offer a few hints towards the solution of that great problem To show Freedom her . hands, to point out how the energy of Despotism may be in her reasoning eye, the power of Despotism in her will- ing arm. It will be much if our words even call attention to this subject, for, in its precise nature, we cannot see that THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OT THE AOE. it has been fairly grappled with; it is time that we began to have an express literature of freedom, that a systematic attempt were made by thinkers to teach the people to gird on the armour of free men. Our meaning will be fully apprehended, as we proceed to do even that little which is here possible. Casting, in the present day, a general glance on a free nation, with the view of discovering how it may best per- form that august task to which, by the fact of its freedom, it is called by God, we think we should find ourselves called u pon to treat of each of the following departments at some considerable length: I. The central government. II. Free association, for philanthropic or reforming pur- poses. III. The relation of ranks. IV. Municipal government. In the brief remarks which follow, we shall confine our- selves entirely to the internal aspects of a free state. Touching the first of the above subjects of discussion, much were to be said. It suggests two questions: How is the governing body to be got together? and, To the discharge of what duties is it competent when assembled? With all its drawbacks, and with full recognition of the dangers to which it is exposed, we have a grounded faith in popular election : we strongly suspect no method was ever devised better adapted for getting the really strong- est man to the top. That the great preacher of the duty of hero-worship, who has expressly asserted that the hero must and shall be worshipped, should have given expres- sion to that utter denial of any power in the mass of a popu- lation to distinguish ability and worth which we have quot- ed, is surely somewhat singular; we thought he regarded THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 261 the instincts of a people as truer than their thoughts, and should have expected that he would have had some reliance upon the half-articulate consciousness of men, who are ever, to use his own phraseology, in contact with fact and re- ality. The philosophy of popular election we take to be, that it aims at stripping a man of all those extrinsic recom- mendations and assisting influences, which he might possess as member of a family or class, and subjecting him to the judgment, while offering him to the choice, of so largeanum- ber of men, that he can be commended to them solely by his individual qualities; and we should wish for no sounder method, by which to discover those men who, as ablest, ought to be set apart to govern their country, than one in which a vast body of electors contrived, either by instinct or education, to separate from those presented to their suf- frages every adventitious circumstance, of birth, wealth, or connections, and asked regarding them simply what were their personal qualities. That we have not approached this, we frankly concede; but we cannot grant that no attempt can be made to reach it. Were it a vain attempt to endeavour to educate the po pulation of a free country to the special duties and func* tions of freemen? It has been little thought of. Much, we cannot doubt, might be done, both to awaken a sens* of duty, and to guide to a selection of men. Unless integrity reigns in the heart of the free elector, we cannot hope for a happy issue to the exercise of his office: we say not that free constituencies or other electing bodies are less marked by integrity, than is the case in any one instance where the number of electors is closely circum- scribed; but none the less is there room for improvement, and a call on all men to promote it. Not only must virtue and ho- nesty, generally considered, be advocated in a free country, 262 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OP THE AGE. but freemen must be aroused to a sense of the nobleness, the responsibility, the sacredness of the distinctive duties of the free. In a brave army, cowardice is reckoned more to be shunned than death: every brave soldier will rather die on his colours than abandon them. Travellers tell us of the Osmanli, that, however reduced they find him, how faded soever the glory of olden days, he yet regards, with a silent pride, the sabre that hangs at his belt, letting no speck stain its brightness, but stinting himself rather than part with a jewel in its sheath: it seems to whisper of the old might of Islam, to tell him that in his veins runs the blood of conquerors, that he has in his heart a treasure dearer than life. Now, methinks, a freeman, with a heart in his breast, should treat an attempt to buy from him his honour, to purchase his free voice, as a true soldier would a charge of cowardice, or a valiant Osmanli a request to sell his sabre for a bit of bread. Every free-born elector of Britain or America possesses the birthright of a sacred duty ; he has one act to perform which is worthy of the greatest, and for the right doing of which it were noble to die. "The honour of a freeman " this, in free nations, should be a formula for the expression of something stronger than death. But, on the other hand, might not the at- tempt at bribery be regarded as standing high in the list of crimes? Is such a thing impossible as high treason to the people, and is it unjust that it should be visited as severely as high treason to the prince? And if the honour of freemen might be cherished, to guard the purity of election, its efficiency might unques- tionably be promoted by the adoption of certain prac- ticable methods, by which the body of electors in free nations might be guided, at least in an important de- gree, in the selection of representatives. It is surely THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 263 somewhat strange, that Mr Carlyle, instead of denouncing popular election in that unqualified and indignant manner, did not think it might be possible to give such directing hints to honest electors, as would aid them in fixing upon the worthiest candidate for their suffrages. Men of all ranks having such an irresistible tendency to bow down to the hero, might it not be possible, to some extent, to point the said hero out? Is it so hard to indicate certain of the particular difficulties and dangers to be encountered by the elector? Would rough common sense, when set on its guard, be apt to be blinded by cajolery or fawning? Were it im- possible to awaken electors to a feeling of the emptiness of mere talk, and train them to a habit of comparing words with actions? Is there not spread widely such a measure of intelligence among our working men, and the general body of our freemen, that they could, especially if urged and instructed, inform themselves of the past life of their pro- posed representative, and judge whether, from his bear- ing in what spheres he has occupied, he has the heart, the head, the arm of a man? Is it altogether hopeless, that they might learn a total indifference to the jingle of the guineas in his purse, and ask neither of what blood he comes, nor what are his possessions, but whether he is a man of ability, uprightness, information, discreet valour and religion, worthy to become a British lawgiver? These are but a few lessons which electors might learn. More we need not add. This would be a wide and important department in a literature of freedom. So much directly bearing on electors; one word on those whom they may elect. The question admits, to say the least, of discussion, whether it is not advisable, in our British Islands, to find a larger body of men from which representatives can be obtained. Here we desire 264 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. to speak with somewhat of caution and hesitancy. Yet it does seem a reasonable idea, that a larger class of British subjects might, beneficially to the commonwealth, have opened up to them a path into the House of Commons. The aristocratic and monied classes alone can enter there. Is it certain that there is not thus excluded an important and available portion of the intellect of the country? The shrewd, energetic, earnest citizen, of the lower order in the middle class, accustomed to think much and work hard, enters not. The bulk of the intellect of the powerful fourth estate must rule without the doors of the Senate House. That a powerfully-minded member of the work- ing class, who knows the feelings and wants of his bre- thren, should ever be admitted, seems to be regarded as an extravagant idea ; yet, can it be doubted that such might prove an abler senator, than the gambler for fame with an abundance of money, or the brisk scion of the nobility, who can drive tandem and is a capital shot? We scout the idea of paying our legislators in gold ; we fear they occa- sionally make us pay for the honour of employing them in even rarer coin. A few evils might arise from making it possible for membership to become a trade ; would there arise a greater number than from continuing to make it a fashionable amusement? We do not regard with any measure of doubt the fact, that governing bodies, of which the members have been or are paid, have proved themselves not one whit less patriotic, and we are inclined to add able, than those where the practice has never been introduced. The question of the functions to which the governing body in a free nation is competent, is one which interests us very deeply. The notions which float in the public mind on this subject are, we think, vague, and not un- frequently erroneous. There is a tendency, fatal in its THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OP THE AGE. 265 consequences, and decried by earnest men, to confound true freedom with laissez /aire; as if liberty meant no rule at all, or as if it even implied any curtailing of the executive; instead of government, effective and indefinitely extended, by the best, with consent of all. National freedom, too, is apt to be confounded with individual liberty, and thus to lose its power. A people may be nationally impotent from fear to meddle with personal rights. The idea is too com- mon, that in a free state the government ought to exer- cise little or no control over private affairs, and that the state is free, in proportion as this is the case. It is for- gotten that the essence of tyranny consists, not in the fact that men obey, but that they do so without knowing and comprehending the reason of their action ; and that the life of freedom consists, not in any exemption from obey- ing, but in obedience after due exercise of that will which God has implanted in men and nations, after assurance ob- tained that submission or active compliance are promotive of the general welfare, and assent asked and accorded. Now, it will of course be seen that we here advocate no particular measures; but we do say that we now oppose a misconcep- tion of the very essence of liberty, one which dooms it to be utterly ineffective for any great national end. The one characteristic of real freedom is, that a nation acts with consent and intelligence; you cannot decide whether a nation is free or enslaved by knowing uhat its government does, you must know how it dues it. The man is as free who commands himself to be bound, with express direc- tions that no attention be paid to any subsequent .-hrieks or implorings, that he may undergo an excruciating operation, as he who sweeps the moorland on his own steed, or gazes over the face of a flashing sea from the deck of his own bounding yacht. We shall illustrate 266 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. these remarks by a modern instance. Every one is aware of the prevalency of what has been named bureaucracy on the Continent; that government, through its officials, exer- cises a superintendence over most private business, settling, it may be, the order in which streets are to be built, the manner in which houses are to be constructed, the establish- ment of every sort of mercantile company, and so on. This circumstance produces a great deal of intermeddling on the part of government functionaries, little annoyances neces- sarily arise, and many arguments are urged against the system; we greatly mistake, if it is not frequently looked upon as an integral portion of Continental despotism, and quite out of accordance with our British freedom. We neither defend nor impugn the system; but we allege that it has no necessary connection either with despotism or liberty. If a nation, acting through men by itself deputed, men who represent the national will, comes to the conclu- sion that the beauty of its cities would be enhanced, by their streets being built according to plans approved by a body of artistically qualified men, it continues a perfectly free state, though no one of its citizens can, at his own whim or caprice, inflict an architectural nuisance upon his fellow-townsmen. If it is discovered by a nation that the malconstruction of private dwellings frequently occasions fire and gives rise to extensive damage, or that the stupi- dity or carelessness of individuals results in the confusion of titles and the multiplication of quarrels and lawsuits, it may most freely appoint bodies of judicious men, archi- tects and lawyers, to inspect plans and titles. And so on. The nation is ever free when itself wills the restraints which on itself it imposes. We do not say it is necessary that it impose such; by no means; but that every such measure is, in strictest accordance with real freedom, open THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 267 for consideration. We do, however, go the length of say- ing, and that with all emphasis and earnestness, that, until freedom takes this positive, and as it were aggressive attitude; until it learns to extend its executive in various directions, and to bring the sifted intellect and the concen- trated will of the nation to look upon with scrutinising glance, and to order with energy and exactness, the various modes and departments of national life, it will never fully unfold its powers. As yet, it has not been fairly pitted against despotism. It has been individual effort in free nations which has been matched against national effort in despotic states. We trust it will one day prove possible, with the perfect preservation of individual freedom, of which more presently, to pitt national effort in free nations against national effort in despotisms, and to demonstrate that the analogy between the nation and the individual here too holds good: that, as the free poet sings more sweetly and more thrillingly than he whose song is heard through a grating; and as three free warriors will hurl back a host of enslaved invaders; so a nation, which freely collects its reason, and gathers its will, and girds up its loins, and exerts itself in all manner of regulating and compelling ac- tion, will in peace tower in calm wisdom, a Pallas among the nations, and in war ride over their necks, as the proud vessel, with all sails set and every spar in order, but with a living will on board, rides over the poor slaves of moon and tem- pest, the wandering billows. It were certainly competent to the British nation, it were consistent with its freedom, nay, it were positively the awakening to vigour and action of its freedom, to have all great public concerns transacted by men better qualified to transact them than private in- dividuals can be hoped to be, by men who, of the whole nation, are best fitted to transact them. Until this com- 268 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. mences on a grand scale, the capacities of a free nation, as distinguished from those of free individuals, will not be unfolded. It appears to us, that it is the general oblivious- ness to this great aspect of freedom, and the kindred phe- nomenon of testiness to all touching of so-called private rights, which have given edge and occasion to such denun- ciations, on the part of Mr Carlyle, as we have quoted. In treating of the central government in a free country, the subject which engages our attention is national free- dom. In turning to the second of those categories under which a discussion of the whole matter seemed to us to ad- mit of being ranged, we are met by the distinct yet related topic of individual freedom. Association for philanthropic or reforming purposes is a necessary phenomenon in a free country ; and of all the questions which present themselves to him who reflects upon the nature and working of free- dom, it might be alleged that no one is of more importance, and perhaps difficulty, than that which bears upon the con- nection and relations of this form of force, for it is none other than a form of force, with that central power, which, strictly, represents the thinking and acting power of a free nation. We believe it to be a prevalent idea, that voluntary asso- ciation ought to do very much, if not all, in a free country; it is to individual enterprise, to the thought and energy of the private subject, attracting and combining into an avail- able force the intellects and energies of his individual fel- low-citizens, that we naturally look for the performance of great undertakings; we look not to government, but to individual co-operation, for water, for gas, for steam con- veyance to the ends of the world, for railways and electric wires to cover our own island. It is our profound convic- tion that we may permit this idea to carry us too far; that the hope of freedom at present is to be placed in a large THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 269 measure in its learning to take up the tools of despotism in a free hand, and to perform great national enterprises, not by the blundering, and in many cases blinded agency of provincial association, but by the disinterested will of what in a perfect state of freedom would certainly be, and even in an imperfect state of freedom we believe generally is, the highest intellect of the nation, its freely elected central power. But we do not at all hesitate in pronouncing volun- tary association a natural, wholesome, and inevitable growth of freedom. It is possible, indeed, that it may be, to a large extent, merely temporal ; and, seeing a grander possibility of attainment ahead, we cannot say we should regret its prov- ing to have been so: it is possible that it may in all its forms mark merely a stage in the life of free nations, a part of a great system of practical education; that it will be only when they awaken to the dangers of indivi- dual association, when they find railway companies ruin- ing themselves and putting the public to inconvenience, water companies bickering and battling in the presence of a thirsty and unwashed township, private corporations perpetuating the causes of disease or preventing the beau- tifying of cities, that they will fully and joyously perceive that it is nowise inconsistent with perfect liberty that the management of railways, and we know not how much else, be ultimately vested in a body of national rulers chosen by themselves. Yet it is impossible, on the one hand, to deny the fact that association has its roots in the soil of liberty, and, on the other, that there may, in any conceivable case, remain a work for it to do. All national freedom is founded on individual; the mind and tongue must first be free ; and this being granted, the necessary origin of association is at once perceived: no man finds it good to be alone; man feels at once more happy and more 270 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. powerful when he acts with his brothers ; and therefore the thought in his head, the wish in his heart, will reach his tongue, in the form of a request or exhortation, addressed to other men, to sympathise with him, or work along with him. Christian philanthropy, of which we have said so much, is but a form of free association; on the hypothesis that Christianity and Christian love exist in a free nation, its rise is unavoidable. In his essay on The Signs of the Times, an essay marked by his usual penetrating intellectual energy, and perhaps remarkable, even among his essays, for the brilliant and musical terseness of its style, Mr Carlyle divides the forces which act in human affairs into the dynamic or individual forces, love, religion, enthusiasm, and so on, and the mechanical, which arise from organisation and union. His distinction and classification we accept as cor- rect, but he has omitted something which to us appears of great importance, to define, namely, the connection be- tween the two provinces of human affairs on which he comments. In the close of his essay, he distinctly recog- nises the soundness and necessity of each set of forces. But has he fully considered how they are connected, how the machinery and the dynamics are related? The con- nection is that of simple, proportional, indissoluble sequence. The machinery arises from the dynamics, the organised and united force results from the individual, by a necessity which we cannot exhibit, because its negation cannot be even conceived. An army of which the soldiers are drilled, marshalled, and then enlisted; a tree that unfolds its leaves, and strikes down its stem, &ndjinally deposits its seed ; these are precisely analogous conceptions to that of a society which has not originated in individual force. Goethe said his opinion was infinitely strengthened by the THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 271 assent of even one. In his aphorism is to be found the sole possible explication of that machinery for the carrying on of various objects, which seems to Mr Carlyle to be in such excess in our time. An individual or dynamic force acts in an individual bosom; it is communicated to another bosom, to a third, to a fourth: these all now have a com- mon bond, a common force ; a society, an organisation, if you will, a machine, is formed. The machinery must always be in a precise ratio to the dynamics. Whence is it, then, that we see so little machinery in the olden time, say in the time of Luther, and so much in our day? For a simple and conclusive reason. Before Luther could at all disseminate his views, he also had, by immoveable necessity, to find and form his machi- nery; men heard his voice, and gathered round him, and he was speedily in the centre of a square with fixed bayonets, powerful for aggression or defence. The effec- tiveness of this square, besides, depended precisely on the amount of the dynamic force in each breast ; the more perfect the individual, the more perfect the machine. But Luther, or any man of Luther's time, had a much harder task to perform in securing his machinery, than any man can have now-a-days. It is, we have seen, the great leading characteristic of our age, that thought is more fluent, that men more easily communicate and draw together, than was ever the case in this world. It is because every dynamic force can now, with extreme facility, gather round it a machinery, that the land is covered with organisations and societies. Had Luther lived now, he had found it a more easy task to spread his doctrines than he did in the six- teenth century, but he could not by any possibility have spread them without gathering round him a living machine of men. If, therefore, desirous of urging a point, we said 272 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE, that Mr Carlyle, in opposing these two provinces of our affairs, in saying we have too much machinery, and too little dynamics, gave expression to a sheer natural im- possibility, we should speak the actual truth ; every human organisation must originate in dynamic, in individual force. The truth, of course, is, that it is in the latter we are always to look for the evil; change the quality of your dynamic force, and all, save some matter of practical de- tail, is done; and we most willingly put this interpreta- tion upon Mr Carlyle's essay, and benefit by his superb en- forcement of the great duty of purifying the nation's heart that the issues of its life may be pure. In those stern old ages, it was a serious matter for a man to gain his ma- chinery ; it was only when he saw, as by the light of a cherub's sword, and felt himself commanded to speak as by a voice from a bush burning yet not consumed, that he would risk his life for his doctrine. In our day, every man, who has a crotchet and a well or not very well hung tongue, can gather his company, can form his asso- ciation, can construct his machine. Would you wonder that the flower which grows in the hothouse has a sicklier look, than that whose roots had to cling to the solid rock in the scowl of the norland blast ? Mr Carlyle looked over the luxuriant field of modern society, and saw the growth of organisations most abundant, in great measure a growth of weeds ; accepting the hard- won conditions of our time, we recognise it as well that plants spring quickly, but would direct all energy to pluck up such weeds, and to ex- amine the seed sown. In the brief glance we took at the development of modern philanthropy, in our chapter on Wilberforce, we offered one or two suggestions, which will be found applicable to the working of free associations in general. We cannot enter THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 273 further upon the subject, inviting and important as it is ; the reader will find it treated, in several of its important aspects, by modern writers on political economy. On the subject of the relation between rank and rank in a free state, we could enlarge to an indefinite extent, but we shall say almost nothing. It is unnecessary to enter on its discussion, so ably and lucidly has it been treated by Mr Mill, Mr Greg, and others. The only relationwhich we can in future hope to see subsist between employer and em- ployed, is that which we have seen uniting Budgett and his men. " We have entered," says Mr Mill, " into a state of civilisation, in which the bond that attaches human beings to one another, must be disinterested admiration and sym- pathy for personal qualities, or gratitude for unselfish ser- vices, and not the emotions of protectors towards depen- dants, or of dependants towards protectors." It seems to us a demonstrable point that this relation is at once possible and noble ; and while we do not by any means disguise from ourselves its difficulty, we can sympathise with no attempt to replace it by another. We think we can detect a two- fold error by which it is impeded. One half of society lauds freedom in name, and even, verbally, evinces a desire that it should be extended to all: while there is either an ignorance of its real character, demands, and difficulties, or an unwillingness to meet them ; a backwardness, above all, to embrace, in all its significance, the essential truth of freedom, that the soul of every man is of equal worth, and, of natural consequence, the hardship or inconvenience of one class, save where special injustice is involved, no more to be deprecated than those of another. When the rich think of the poor, the ruling and enjoying classes of the toiling and obeying, their ideas run mainly, we suspect, on the retaining of these in quiet and content, in comfort, T 274 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. indeed, and it is to be hoped in happiness (for we are very tender-hearted), but in a condition of inferiority ; and if this is the case, it is not to be wondered at that the patro- nised classes may entertain a half suspicion of kindness, as if allied to charity. On the other hand, we think we per- ceive among the working classes, in their yearning towards freedom, an error, if possible, still more pernicious : the idea that this liberty for which they long is a certain worldly good ; a dim, half-conscious notion, that the free are those who sit at a well- furnished table, while the only partially free or enslaved pick up the crumbs; and that the grand object of these last is just to change places. Of the unnumbered errors that went to compound the idea to which the pa- triot Frenchman of 1793 gave the title of freedom, perhaps none was more insulting to the name of liberty and the soul of man, than the conception, ever emerginginthetumult of the time, that freedom meant the procuring of some great accession of eatables and drinkables by the populace ; that it would prove the opening of exhaustless breasts of abundance; thatit was tobe, in greatmeasure, the satisfaction of thestrong but not very sublime human faculty of greed. Now, there was just a particle of truth here, the particle, namely, that in a state of perfect freedom, the physical condition of all classes would be the best possible in the circumstances ; but this is precisely the lowest truth, for the sake of which a man can desire freedom ; and a pre-eminent cause why the stern republican goddess poured such indignant con- tempt upon the worship offered her by the patriots of France, was, that they forgot the high blessings she sheds upon the spirit, and bent before her with the prayer that she would degrade herself to minister first and chiefly to the body. Freedom does not absolutely guarantee physi- cal opulence to any class ; her aim is to fix every man in THE 80CIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 275 his station, and give him there his desert: to enable, on the one hand, the workman to toil with no feeling of in- feriority or self-contempt, in the sense that it is not man and injustice, but God and nature, which ordain his labour and appoint his sphere, and in the deliberate and intelligent belief, that it is, in all respects, physical and spiritual, best for him that the man whom he obeys actually com- mands him, receiving, in respect of severer and more pre- cious work, a higher reward ; and, on the other hand, to take every ray of insulting pride or condescending inso- lence out of the eye of the mafeter, as having no essential superiority over his employed, as deserving a kindly respect but no reverence, as simply doing, in his sphere, that duty which his equal but not equally endowed brother does in his. Whether the precise form of the relation between the industrious classes and those who employ them may, to any considerable extent, and at an approaching time, un- dergo alteration, is a question of no small interest. We do not regard it as a matter open to dispute that the gra- dual superseding of the ancient method, of wages given by a master and work done by a servant, is, in extensive de- partments of our affairs, possible and desirable. We see no effective mode of counteracting that often deprecated tendency of civilisation to concentrate wealth in certain quarters, save by carrying out the principle of co-opera- tion in the manufacturing, and perhaps also the mercan- tile provinces ; this, certainly, is a thoroughly efficient means of that counteraction ; and it were hard to say how there could be pointed out, on the whole, a more perfectly whole- some and promising phenomenon in a state, than that of workmen, by force of thrift, sobriety, education, and sense, becoming their own employers. The achievement here 276 THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF THE AGE. being lofty, the task is again difficult; but we would fain cherish the hope that there is stamina in the British working class ultimately to effect it. Mr Greg has dis- cussed this subject in a truly masterly manner. To tell the working classes that they are perfectly en- lightened and endowed with every manly virtue, that they are, therefore, unjustly treated by the higher ranks, while their country suffers from their not sharing more largely in political rights, is an extremely easy, but signally use- less proceeding. "We look with no forbidding coldness on attempts which may be ma'Qe towards any really valuable extension of those rights; but we deem it gross flattery to our lower classes in general, to say, that they stand remark- ably high in culture and moral worth ; we think the fact d