. . . '. ' : ' :
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 TJX 
 
 presented to the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY 
 
 MR. JOHN C. ROSE 
 
 donor
 
 JIM uNi . 
 
 UN*VRS1TY Cf CAL.ro*NIA, SAN DtKSQ 
 IA JQUA, CAUFORNU 
 
 TURNING-POINTS 
 
 IN LIFE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. FREDERICK ARNOLD, B.A. 
 
 _/ L/ 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE.
 
 TO 
 
 HENRY WILMOTT, ESQ. 
 
 OF HATHERLEY LAWN, CHELTENHAM. 
 
 MY DEAR WILMOTT, I ask your acceptance of this little 
 work in the recollection of many pleasant hours spent at 
 Hatherley Lawn, and of the kindness, sympathy, friendship, 
 and hospitality accorded to me there. You will, I am sure, 
 overlook its many imperfections in its attempt to promote 
 those supreme objects which are dear to the hearts of all 
 Christian people. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 FREDERICK ARNOLD.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 General Aspect of the Subject. Confessions on Retrospects of Life. Moral 
 Laws of Human Life. Turning-points in Life are not Arbitrary. To a 
 large extent they are determined by the Force of Antecedent Events ; 
 so-called Fortuitous Events are only such in a Limited Sense. The 
 Doctrine of Providence in the Incidents of Life. Turning-points in 
 Literature and Science. The Moral and Religious Aspect of the Sub- 
 ject Page 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HABIT. 
 
 Habit really determines the Character of the Leading Events of Life. No 
 Chance is useful to the Man who is unable to avail himself of the Chance. 
 The Habits of Youth tinge all Subsequent History. The Laws of 
 Habit. Inherited and Transmitted Habit. Atavism. The Tyranny of 
 Habit. The Substitute of Habit 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CRITICAL MOMENTS IN LIFE. 
 
 Turning-points which are " Moments" in Life, and Points of Departure 
 for a New Phase of Existence. A Sudden Choice is often a Foregone 
 Conclusion. Some Examples in Art ; in Education. Bishop Cotton 
 and the two Newmans. What is called " Luck" is often simply the Re- 
 sult of Skill and Energy. Supreme Moral and Spiritual Moments in 
 Life. The Recollection of Special Days in Life. An important Ten 
 Minutes ; the Story of General Beckwith 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 
 
 The University Career a Special Epoch to a large Proportion of Culti- 
 vated Men. This will be increasingly the case in the Progress of Uni- 
 yersity Extension. Different Views of University Careers. Doubtful
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 Destinies of College Dons. The Differences between Oxford and 
 Cambridge. Mr. Maurice, Mr. Kingsley, and M. Taine. The Univer- 
 sities should bring home Education to the Poorest. The Connection 
 between Common Education and University Education . . Page 69 
 
 CHAPTER v. 
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 
 
 Survey of the Professions. For most of them Conduct is required rather 
 than Cleverness. The Church and the Dissenting Ministry. The Bar, its 
 Delays and its Chances. Morality of Advocacy. St. Augustine's Opin- 
 ion. The Medical Profession. The Scholastic Profession. The Civil 
 Service. Army and Navy. People with Leisure. Philanthropy. 
 Edward Denison. The Need of Divine Guidance .... 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 
 
 How Men obtain Livings. Anecdotes of Chancellors. The Process of 
 Institution. Letter of an Old Clergyman to a Young Man thinking of 
 Entering the Church 116 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 The Argument for Arranged Marriages. Case of Bishop Hall. Schlegel's 
 Philosophy of the Subject. Restraint of Marriage. The Language of 
 St. Paul on Marriage. Jeremy Taylor. Too much Stress laid upon Pe- 
 cuniary Considerations and too little on more important Considerations. 
 Gothe's Marriage ; Hugh Miller's ; Henry Venn Elliott's. Lord 
 Aberdeen on Marriage. Bishop Dupanloup on Marriage . . 128 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TRAVEL. 
 
 Foreign Travel often a Turning-point in Life. Salutary Effects of Travel. 
 On doing at Rome as the Romans do. The Effect of Association. 
 The Effect of Feeling. English Travel. The Religious Use of 
 Travel . 145 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 
 
 On Honest Hard Work. Literary Life. Early Efforts. The Struggles of 
 Great Painters. Michael Angelo. The late Mr. Maclise. The Youth 
 of Pascal. Moments of Scientific History. Newton's Uncertainty re-
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 specting the Doctrine of Gravitation. Sir Charles Bell. Goodsir, the 
 Anatomist. Pall Mall Gazette quoted. Sketch of the late Professor 
 Henslow. Henslow at Buckingham Palace. His Death. Sketch of 
 Mr. Brunei. Schlegel on Faith as determining Discovery . Page 162 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 
 
 Historical Roll of our Great Lawyers. Sir William Grant Lord Stowell. 
 Pemberton Leigh. Lord Redesdale. Character of English Law. 
 Sketch of the Career of Lord Tenterden. Turning-points in his Life. 
 Judge Buller. The Lessons of a Representative Career like Lord Ten- 
 terden's 191 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 
 
 Greatness of English Commerce. The Consecration of Trade. The The- 
 ory of making the Best of Both Worlds. The Brothers Cheeryble. 
 Jonas Hanway. Joshua Watson. William Cotton . . . 209 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 How we see Men Rise. The Rise is not to be accounted for by mere 
 Luck. Rise through the Knowledge of Foreign Languages. How God 
 helps those who help themselves. The Founders of the Houses of 
 Normanby, Lansdowne, and Belper. The Happiness of Striving. Con- 
 cerning Men who have striven in a Good Cause. The Clapham Set. 
 The Necessity of Patience. The Misfortunes of Prosperous Men ; Pitt, 
 Sir Walter Scott, Campbell, Alexander Dumas, Voltaire. The Epitaphs 
 of the Hallam Family 225 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 STATESMEN. 
 
 Great Statesmen create the Turning-points of History. Turning-points in 
 the Lives of Pitt and Fox. Possible Retribution on Pitt and Dundas. 
 Earl Russell's Opinions. Sketch of Sir George Cornewall Lewis. The 
 Story of the Fall of Clarendon 252 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 Decisive Battles from Marathon to Waterloo. The Franco- Prussian War. 
 Discovery of America probably caused by Observation of a Flock of
 
 vlii CONTENTS. 
 
 Parrots. The Ifs of History. Possible Fortunes of Mary Queen of 
 Scots. The Monotony of History. The Education of the World. The 
 First Napoleon. The Historical Parallels of 1814 and 1870. The Story 
 of the Capture and Escape of Marlborough .... Page 278 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FORCE OF ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Digression on the Slang Term of " Going to the Bad." Vast Number of 
 Instances in which Young Men are ruined by their own Misconduct. 
 Cases of Unavoidable Misfortune. People ruined by Prosperity. The 
 Hopes of the Hopeless. Remedial Character of Suffering . . 300 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Men consciously or unconsciously construct Theories of Life. They fall 
 back on a Moral Basis for their Actions. The Fundamental Question 
 of Belief or Unbelief. Citations from Mr. Palgrave and Professor 
 Shairp. Theory of Mr. Huxley. Theory of Mr. Matthew Arnold. The 
 Philosophy of Gothe and Shakespeare. Tennyson's " Palace of Art." 
 Human Conduct at the Probable End of the World. The Con- 
 fessions of Novelists respecting their Ideal of Life. The Doctrine of 
 Providence in Life. Bishop Coplestone and Principal Shairp . 309 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 Defect in Popular Theological Teaching respecting Philosophy of Life. 
 The Plan of Life. The Writings of Bishop Dupanloup. Men should 
 select a Special Vocation. The Ars Vivendi .... 326 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LIFE, A SCHOOL OF FACULTIES TO BE TRAINED. 
 
 Life is to be regarded as a State of Education. Human Life probably the 
 Ground- work of Eternal Life. Beauty and Meaning of Human Life . 335 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 
 
 Patience the Test of Life. It is Constant, Equable, Impartial. Well- 
 doing in respect to Children, the Poor, and the Duties of Life. Love, 
 Faith, Hope. The Supreme Turning-point o'f Life . . . 350
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory Thoughts. 
 
 ANY one who has arrived at that era of his own history in 
 which Memory more than Hope governs the horizon of human 
 life who analyzes the motives and muses on the events of 
 his own life-story, and who learns to watch with intense hu- 
 man interest that drama of life which day by day is unfolding 
 in all the relationships that surround him will, I think, under- 
 stand the title of this work, and the line of thought indicated 
 by the phrase. There are, unquestionably, "turning-points" 
 both in the history of the race and in the history of the indi- 
 vidual. Such are the great battles, the great revolutions, the 
 great discoveries of history. Each art, each science, has its 
 "turning-points" its moments. Such are evermore to be 
 found in the lives of individuals. These turning-points are 
 not mere accidents. They have generally a moral significance, 
 and are fraught with special lessons. 
 
 In what men regard as mere chance-work there is often or- 
 der and design. What we call a " turning-point" is simply an 
 occasion which sums up and brings to a result previous train- 
 ing. Accidental circumstances are nothing except to men who 
 have been trained to take advantage of them. For instance, 
 Erskine made himself famous when the chance came to him 
 of making a great forensic display, but unless he had trained 
 himself for the chance, the chance would only have made him 
 
 A2
 
 I0 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ridiculous. A great occasion is worth to a man exactly what 
 his antecedents have enabled him to make of it. 
 
 Next, the realm of the fortuitous is also the domain of Prov- 
 idence. The subject is Difficult enough, but some principles 
 seem perfectly clear : that the universe is not bereft of the fa- 
 therhood of God ; that as the child is trained and directed 
 aright by its father, so, with the education of the individual, the 
 education of the world is progressively carried on. The world 
 is given to man that he may conquer and subdue it ; the world 
 is the appointed theatre for the exercise of his intelligence and 
 his energies. We may expect that the providence of God will 
 interpose at critical conjunctures to favor the ends which he de- 
 signed. That general training which is afforded to the facul- 
 ties with which we are endowed seems subordinated through 
 the events of life to a law within the law, to a life beyond the 
 life. 
 
 Every life as it unrolls has its turning-points its critical mo- 
 ments. Among these turning-points there is often one that 
 constitutes the crisis of being. School, college, business, 
 friendship, love, accidents, deaths, may all prove such to us. 
 None the less are our schemes, our chances, or our mistakes 
 and disappointments. There comes also a great spiritual crisis 
 to which ordinary life is related, either as the preparation or 
 the result. In looking at the governing facts of individual hu- 
 man history there are certain distinctions which require to be 
 carefully drawn. We may see that in the moral world there 
 are laws as certain as the laws of the material world. We see 
 that courage, energy, enterprise, good faith, kindness, are truly 
 fertile with results and with rewards. These indicate the or- 
 dinary modes by which our turning-points in life are affected. 
 Beyond this there is the vague, vast chapter of incident, that 
 seems capricious, but is probably an ordered plan. Taking a 
 larger field of vision, we see that this present life can not be
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 
 
 understood without reference to supernatural facts and an- 
 other life. Those who have achieved the most for our race, 
 or have struggled to attain the loftiest ideal of character for 
 themselves, have often fallen in the conflict. Their story is 
 taken up and finished in the life beyond. The banner of hu- 
 manity, soiled and torn here, will be planted in triumph on a 
 happier shore. 
 
 Let me endeavor, at greater length, to work out this line of 
 discussion. 
 
 A man must have some self-knowledge, some self-insight, 
 before he can dispassionately review his own history. A 
 man can not see his blunders while he is playing his game ; 
 but when the game is very nearly over he can see little else 
 except his blunders. And yet he may have played a very 
 fair game after all. And it is a truth in military science that 
 no battle is fought without blunders, and the goodness of gen- 
 eralship practically consists in the comparative fewness of 
 blunders. It is very touching to see such renowned states- 
 men as Earl Russell and the late Sir James Graham men 
 who zealously contended during their political career for the 
 absolute indefeasibiliry of their conduct as the shadows 
 darken, confess candidly the number and greatness of their 
 blunders. And if calm, meditative introspection is rare, it is 
 something still more difficult to understand others, to do just- 
 ice to them, to "put yourself in his place," to forget rivalries 
 and feuds in sympathy and appreciation. Really to do so is 
 a mixed moral and intellectual achievement of a somewhat 
 high order. ' There are certain stages of growth before a man 
 can do this. First of all, man has the sense of novelty, the 
 desire, ever unsatisfied, to see, or hear, or do something fresh. 
 Then intelligent admiration succeeds the mere sense of won- 
 der. Men desire to have a knowledge of the laws that per- 
 vade the world of matter and the world of mind around them.
 
 12 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 Then comes, higher still, I think, in the scale, the faculty that 
 interests man in the human interests that surround him. On 
 the intellectual side this faculty enables him to grasp by men- 
 tal acts the shifting panorama of history and the poetry and 
 passion of life, and on the moral side it gives him sympathy 
 and gumption, and the desire to act justly, charitably, and 
 purely with the practical wish to do all the good he can in 
 all the ways he can to all the people he can. 
 
 Besides this conscious feeling of having blundered, and the 
 wholesome humility such a feeling should inspire, there will 
 ensue on any such retrospect the feeling that there have been 
 great " turning-points in life." Some of these blunders will 
 certainly be connected with some of these turning-points, and 
 some of these turning-points will connect themselves with the 
 very reverse of blunders, that is, with what has been best and 
 worthiest in our imperfect lives. But many of them will be 
 odd, strange, inexplicable. After eliminating all that can be 
 explained as the legitimate results of certain practical lines 
 of conduct, it is still remarkable how large a realm in human 
 life is occupied by what is simply and absolutely fortuitous. 
 And this presence of chance can not really be a matter of 
 chance. So far from that, it is, I believe, part of the constitu- 
 tion of things under which we live. Just as we live in an or- 
 der of nature, where the seasons succeed each other, not in 
 mere arithmetical order, but in all sweet variety, so events do 
 not succeed each other according to a clearly defined system 
 of causation, but with a liability to the constant recurrence of 
 what is accidental and fortuitous. Probably all the phenom- 
 ena of human life, as of nature, are referable to law ; but still 
 it would be wearisome work to us, constituted as we are, to 
 watch all the unvaried sequences of order. Instead of that 
 we only dimly see the vague skirts, the vast shadowy forms of 
 such laws, and most things below the skies remain as uncer-
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 
 
 tain, uncertified, transitory as the skies themselves. And this 
 weird, fortuitous realm is doubtless ordered for the best, and 
 is no mystery to the great Lawgiver, although his laws are in- 
 explicable to us, and are to us as confused as the rush and 
 roar of complicated machinery when first from the sweet South 
 we enter the grim establishments of those masterful Northern 
 manufacturers. 
 
 As I have been speaking of the fortuitous, let us mark off 
 clearly a set of cases peculiarly likely to be confounded with 
 it. A man finds a watch upon the ground. This was Paley's 
 famous illustration, which has a regular pedigree in the his- 
 tory of literature. To employ this used-up ideological watch 
 once more, it is by no means a fortuitous event, whether the 
 man seeks to restore the watch to its owner or forthwith ap- 
 propriates the same. To one man the watch will be an over- 
 mastering temptation, and he will pocket it ; to another the 
 watch will be destitute of the least power of exciting tempta- 
 tion, and he would immediately deposit it with the town crier. 
 The result, in either case, is simply the result of a man's dis- 
 position, character, and antecedent history. The same sort 
 of thing happens under much more difficult and complicated 
 circumstances. A man makes a certain decision, and in af- 
 ter-life he is spoken of as having made such a very wise or 
 unwise decision ; or it is said that in a certain emergency he 
 acted with such vigor, or promptness, or justness, or the re- 
 verse. Now what I wish to deny altogether is the apparently 
 fortuitous character of such transactions. The whole pre- 
 vious life, so to speak, had been a preparation for that partic- 
 ular minute of momentous action. It was a sum, duly cast 
 up, giving the result in particular figures. The practical force 
 of these considerations is evident. A man is dismissed his 
 ship for drunkenness. It seems a sharp penalty. Yes, but 
 the intoxication was not a fortuitous event. There must have
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 been a crescendo series of ungentlemanly acts culminating in 
 this punishable misdemeanor. A woman runs away with her 
 groom ; but what a progressive debasement of heart and mind 
 there must have been before all culture and gentle associa- 
 tions are forgotten ! A man is convicted of a criminal of- 
 fense at the bar of some tribunal. There are a crowd of wit- 
 nesses to character. He has not a witness who would have 
 thought him capable of such an act. Yet his mind had been 
 familiarized with such acts, and probably his practice with 
 acts only just evading the character of transgression against 
 positive law. It often happens, also, that extenuating circum- 
 stances are, in truth, aggravating circumstances. And this 
 may suggest a consideration on the character of scruples. 
 Bishop Temple has a sermon on the subject, and when I 
 read it and also when I heard it preached by one of his ad- 
 mirers as his own I thought the treatment very unsatisfac- 
 tory. Scruples are often tedious, tiresome things, mere mat- 
 ters of anise and cummin. And yet, though their absolute 
 importance may be little, to some minds their relative im- 
 portance is very great. Scruples are often the advanced out- 
 posts of conscience. Sometimes they are outposts which com- 
 mand the citadel. When the outposts fall, one by one, there 
 is often no use at all in defending the city. The lines are 
 drawn round it, and it must fall. Which things are an alle- 
 gory. As consequences have their antecedents, so apparent- 
 ly fortuitous acts have their anterior order. 
 
 When, therefore, I speak of turning-points in life, I mean, 
 first, those events which undoubtedly have a fortuitous char- 
 acter, though this is perhaps more apparent that real ; and 
 next, those events which, though they may seem fortuitous, 
 are distinctly nothing of the sort ; and thirdly, thoses stages 
 and crises in individual history when a man, nolens volens, is 
 obliged to take his line, and when not to take a line is the
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 
 
 most distinct line of all, i.e., whether a man will get married, 
 or take to a profession, or practically decides that he will not 
 marry and will not take to a profession. In human history, 
 from time to time, these turning-points emerge. Men tell us 
 so, and we see it. We all know how Shakespeare says that 
 there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, 
 leads on to fortune. That turning of the tide is frequently 
 dramatic or even tragic enough. So we have heard of per- 
 sons cut off by the tide and left stranded on some rock out at 
 sea. The hungry, crawling foam reaches the feet, the knees, 
 the loins, the breast, the lips. There is the death-agony of 
 apprehension. Then suddenly the water recedes. It is the 
 turn of the tide. The romance is told of such unlooked-for 
 safety, but those erect no tablets who perish. We sometimes 
 see something analogous to this in life. Once nothing suc- 
 ceeded, but now every thing turns to gold. Once they drew 
 all blanks, now the prizes are all before them. As the Yan- 
 kee parson said, " So mote it be." 
 
 Sometimes circumstances purely fortuitous have colored 
 and influenced a whole lifetime. I have met with two in- 
 stances of this in my recent reading. The other day I was 
 within a magnificent library a library that belonged to one 
 of the greatest scholars that England has ever known. I 
 took down a tall thick folio, bound in vellum such books 
 with such coverings its owner loved and opened the volume 
 of Justin Martyr which contained the dialogue with Trypho. 
 I read that remarkable passage in which Justin recounts to 
 his chance companions the truest and strangest of all pas- 
 sages of his history. One day he had been musing on the 
 sea-shore, when he was accosted by an aged and benevolent 
 stranger, who ventured to ask him the nature of his medita- 
 tions. Justin explained to him how he was musing on the 
 philosophers ; but his new-found companion asked him wheth-
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFR. 
 
 er he knew aught about the prophets. Then ensued the con- 
 versation which determined the tenor and complexion of all 
 Justin's future life. Perhaps some of us may have had such 
 rare seasons of converse with gifted minds, which have been 
 as an open sesame to open up whole realms of thought and 
 truth which otherwise might have eluded our sphere of ob- 
 servation. I noticed the other instance in Mrs. Gordon's in- 
 teresting little book respecting her illustrious father, Sir Da- 
 vid Brewster. On the very threshold of his great scientific 
 researches his sight began to fail him. He had every reason 
 to fear that his eyes must go ; and in his case most earthly 
 good would have failed with his failing vision. Then some 
 one told him that, for such cases, the great surgeon, Sir Ben- 
 jamin Brodie, recommended a particular prescription. It 
 was a very simple one, common snuff being the chief ingre- 
 dient. He took it, and was completely cured. Years after 
 Sir David met Sir Benjamin ; but Sir Benjamin was sur- 
 prised at the matter, and said the prescription was none of 
 his. 
 
 Now let us take some illustrations from life ; and truly 
 that was a true saying, that though arguments are pillars, yet 
 illustrations are the windows that let in the light. 
 
 There is no doubt but the moment in which, at a family 
 conclave, there is a choice of school or college is a very im- 
 portant turning-point of life. It is remarkable on how slight 
 a hinge the choice turns what a slight impulse settles the 
 question. Unfortunately the matter is often settled the wrong 
 way. There are some boys for whom the public school is 
 the very thing. It is especially the thing for those boys who 
 are adapted by nature for our English public life. It de- 
 velops the mind ; it forms the manners ; it carries the boy 
 successfully on in his work ; it surrounds him with friends 
 who often form a phalanx around him on whose shoulders
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 
 
 he is carried onward to prosperity and eminence. But, on 
 the other hand, there are boys who are peculiarly fitted for 
 home education, or the gentlest training abroad. They have 
 delicate flowers of character and feeling which would blossom 
 in the shade, but are withered in the glare of sunshine. Cow- 
 per's misery at Westminster has been often reproduced in his 
 sensitiveness, if not in his genius. I have a hearty love of 
 Eton and Etonians. But take some obtuse youth of eighteen, 
 who has never received the individual separate attention which 
 he has required who has been slowly shuffled through class 
 after class without attaining to its level of attainment on 
 whom the distinctive advantages of the place have been al- 
 most altogether thrown away, and he has gained, I grant you, 
 good manners that is the never -failing acquisition which 
 Eton always gives her sons but otherwise the early years of 
 his life have been almost irretrievably wasted. He is just 
 the sort of man on whom careful, patient training would have 
 wrought every thing that could be wrought on a poor limited 
 nature ; but now if he can get into the army or smuggled into 
 a family living, it is the only use to which he is susceptible 
 of being put. 
 
 Similarly as to college. A man goes to a certain college 
 because his father was there before him, or because his uncle 
 had a fellowship there, or because some paltry scholarship is 
 attached to his native county. But a knowing Cambridge tu- 
 tor would say, "That is just the man for Trinity," or a know- 
 ing Oxford tutor, "That is just the man for Christ Church, or 
 just the man for Baliol." Why should you send a hard-read- 
 ing man to Exeter, or an indolent, dressy man to Baliol? 
 Why should a gentleman be sent to the drinking, smoking set 
 of a " fast," which means a slow college ? and why should not 
 some wavering natures be developed into something better by 
 the best collegiate influences ? All over the world the square
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 peg goes into the round hole, and vice versd. There is some- 
 thing very odd about men at small colleges, but as the Trin- 
 ity man said, according to Mr. Lesiie Stephen, " They, too, 
 are God's creatures." , A man will go to his little college 
 where you might live in a university town for a dozen years 
 without knowing it and like it, and stand up for it, and con- 
 sider it the epitome of the world, as some Oxonians stand up 
 for Christ Church or Baliol, and Cantabs for Trinity and St. 
 John's. 
 
 Let us now look at some instances of " turning-points" in 
 our social life around us. In professional life we often find 
 anecdotes of success that are very good, and, what can not al- 
 ways be said of good stories, very well guaranteed. There 
 was a London curate sitting one day in his -vestry, very much 
 after the manner of his order. These London curates are 
 sometimes a sort of relieving officers. They often sit an hour 
 a day in the vestry, distributing dispensary tickets or orders for 
 soup and flannel, or writing down the names of poor people 
 who may be in some dire distress, and on whom they intend 
 to call. If you want to have a five minutes' chat with this 
 sort of parson, you know when and where to find him. There 
 came a tap at a certain vestry door, and the curate shouted 
 his " come in," with full belief that there was another Irish 
 pauper. A gentleman came in, who asked after" the aristo- 
 cratic and well-known rector. The curate explained that his 
 rector was out of town, but that he himself would be very 
 pleased to do any thing he could for him. The gentleman 
 hummed and hesitated, but at last explained his business. It 
 so happened that he was the patron of a valuable living which 
 had just fallen in, and knowing nothing about clergymen, he 
 had called to ask the rector whether he knew any one on 
 whom the presentation would be fittingly bestowed. The cu- 
 rate was no fool. A turning-point had come. He saw he
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 
 
 had a chance, and he took it. He said there was an individ- 
 ual, whom modesty prevented him from naming, who was ad- 
 mirably qualified for a good living. The ingenuous shame- 
 facedness was overcome, and the curate gave ample evidence 
 that he had worked long and arduously. He dropped into a 
 very good living, rather to the disgust of the rector, who would 
 have liked better to have given it to some of his own belong- 
 ings. I remember another lucky hit. It was that of a clergy- 
 man meeting with a lord chancellor. The chancellor was 
 not Lord Hatherley, but it was a predecessor of his in no very 
 remote degree. The parson he was a tutor at one of the 
 Oxford colleges was a very early riser, and so was the lord 
 chancellor. It so happened that they were visiting together 
 at the same country-house. They met one fresh early morn- 
 ing in the library when all the rest of the world was drowned 
 in sleep. This similarity led to a long conversation, in which 
 other similarities of taste and feeling were developed. The 
 result was that the lord chancellor gave him a capital living. 
 There is a great difference among lord chancellors. Such a 
 chancellor as Lord Westbury did not care for his small Church 
 patronage, and brought in a bill which enabled him to get rid 
 of it. Other chancellors, however, are truly " grasping" about 
 it, if one may use that unpleasant term. The fact is, chancel- 
 lors ought not to be allowed to hold ecclesiastical patronage. 
 Livings are not the proper prizes to be given away in recol- 
 lection of electioneering contests or sharp legal businesses. 
 
 The readers of those somewhat mendacious volumes, Lord 
 Campbell's " Lives of the Lord Chancellors," will recollect the 
 sudden, unexpected turns by which great lawyers have trod to 
 fame and fortune. I often think of a great advocate rising up 
 to take advantage of his first chance, and feeling as if his 
 wife and children were tugging at his robe and exhorting him 
 to do his best. Then nearly every doctor in good practice
 
 20 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 has his story of days when he had no practice at all, and of 
 the lucky incidents which brought him into the notice which 
 he deserved. Much may be said of various other pursuits in 
 life. I once knew a man who got into Parliament through the 
 simple accident of meeting a man on the steps of the Carlton 
 Club. This man said that he was going to try for a borough 
 on the great Buff interest, and he wanted another man, a Buff, 
 like himself, but a better talker, to try along with him, and he 
 would stand all the expenses. The two Buffs were duly re- 
 turned. If you believe Dr. Johnson's definition of genius I 
 don't that it is great natural ability accidentally turned into 
 a particular direction, then every career of great intellectual 
 eminence has been accidentally determined by the stress of 
 some turning-point in life. A lucky incident determined the 
 career of that great prelate and acute thinker, Bishop Herbert 
 Marsh. If you don't know much about Bishop Marsh, just 
 turn to that volume of the British Museum library where his 
 works are enrolled ; or, better still, in that learned mass of an- 
 notation with which Mr. Mayor has supplemented the publi- 
 cation of the Baker MS. on St. John's College. Herbert 
 Marsh wrote German with the force and facility of a native. 
 He published in that language, in 1800, "The History of the 
 Politics of Great Britain and France . . . containing a Nar- 
 rative of the Attempt made by the British Government to re- 
 store Peace." This history was based on authentic documents, 
 which showed that the French, and not the British, were the 
 authors of the war. Its publication did our country a signal 
 service at the time. You will still find many ignorant writers 
 who insist that Pitt's glorious continental wars were quite a 
 mistake, and altogether unnecessary. I would only advise 
 them to go to their books and study the materials of authentic 
 history. Pitt sent for Marsh, and gave him some five hundred 
 a year until he should give him a bishopric. Another illus-
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 2 I 
 
 trious Englishman owed his fortune to that evil genius of Eu- 
 rope, Napoleon. When that monster of selfishness and cruel- 
 ty was caged in the Bellerophon, and the vessel lay in Plym- 
 outh Sound, at the latter end of that memorable July oh, 
 what a midsummer was that for our England ! a young paint- 
 er took boat day by day, and hovered about the vessel for ev- 
 ery glimpse of the captive. Every evening, about six, Napo- 
 leon used to appear on the gangway and make his bow to the 
 thousands who came out to see him. There is some reason 
 to believe that Napoleon divined and approved of the artist's 
 intention. So Charles Eastlake made a good portrait, and 
 from it constructed a large painting of the emperor, for which 
 the gentlemen of Plymouth gave him a thousand pounds, and 
 sent him to Rome, and made the fortune of the future Presi- 
 dent of the Royal Academy. 
 
 Marriage is unquestionably as decided a turning-point in 
 human destiny as can be. It is, however, a turning-point 
 which, least of all, should be left to mere blind chance. Yet 
 mere blind chance often rules the result. Every body now 
 recollects how Lord Byron staked on a toss-up whether he 
 should make his offer to Miss Milbanke or not. Mr. Grant 
 asserts that there is an English duke now living, who wrote 
 the following letter, when marquis, to a friend with whom he 
 had agreed to inspect some carriages in Long Acre: "'It 
 will not be necessary to meet me to-morrow, to go to Long 
 Acre to look for a carriage. From a remark made by the 
 duke [his father] to-day, I fancy I am going to be married.' 
 Not only had the marquis left his father to choose a bride for 
 him and to make the other necessary matrimonial arrange- 
 ments, but when the intimation was made to him by the duke 
 that the future marchioness had been fixed on, he seemed to 
 view the whole affair as if it had been one which did not con- 
 cern him in the least." I should hope that sensible men do
 
 22 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 not often leave the choice of a wife to be determined in this 
 indeterminate way. Nor yet, I hope, for the matter of that, 
 the choice of a profession more especially if that profession 
 is the Church. I see that a set of gentlemen are now trying, 
 vehemently, to release "themselves from the shackles of their 
 ordination vows, and to a certain extent have done so. They 
 say, in effect, that they were young ; that they were inexperi- 
 enced ; that they have seen what they have liked better ; that 
 they ought to have the liberty of another choice. I offer no 
 opinion on this reasoning. But it is worth while to point out 
 that every one of these considerations would equally apply to 
 a claim to be released from marriage. Milton set forth the 
 whole claim in his " Tetrachordon." Yet this is a length to 
 which any legislature would decline to go. 
 
 Every now and then, in history, or in the history of litera- 
 ture and science, we find some striking historical instance of 
 turning-points in life. On such ground we see how a scandal 
 about a bracelet, or the prohibition of a banquet, wrought a 
 revolution and precipitated a dynasty. Look at literary or 
 scientific biography. Think of Crabbe timorously calling on 
 Edmund Burke, and inducing him to look at his poetry. I 
 have no doubt but Burke was very busy. But with lightning 
 glance he looked over the lines, and satisfied himself that real 
 genius was there. When Crabbe left the statesman he was 
 a made man. Burke, ever generous and enlightened, had 
 made up his mind to take care of him. Or look at Faraday. 
 He was only a poor bookseller's poor boy, working hard and 
 honestly, but disliking his employment and inspired with a 
 pure thirst for knowledge. He had managed, somehow or 
 other, to hear the great chemist, Humphrey Davy, at the Roy- 
 al Institution ; and, with trembling solicitude, he sends him a 
 fair copy of the notes which he had made of his lectures. The 
 result is that Michael Faraday receives an appointment at the
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 
 
 Royal Institution, and lays the foundation of his splendid and 
 beneficent career. Looking back to the past, that was a great 
 moment in the life of Columbus, when, resting on a sultry day 
 beneath the fierce Spanish sun, he asked for a drink of cold 
 water at a convent-door. The prior entered into a conversa- 
 tion with him, and struck by his appearance, and afterward 
 by the magnificent simplicity of his ideas gave him the in- 
 troductions he so sorely needed ; and thus Columbus gave to 
 Castile and Aragon a new world. 
 
 And greater than any merely national event of outward 
 honor or importance, a more wondrous turning-point in life is 
 that when some great thought, some great discovery, has first 
 loomed distinctly before the mind. One of Mr. Hugh Mac- 
 millan's admirable works reminds us of such a " moment." 
 Seventeen years ago, late one afternoon, a hunter, led by the 
 chase, came to a secluded spot in a forest on a slope, four 
 thousand feet high, of the range of the Sierra Nevada. There, 
 to his astonishment, he beheld vast dark-red trunks of trees 
 rising for three or four hundred feet in the air, dwarfing all 
 the surrounding forest, whose tops were still aglow in the sun- 
 set when darkness had fallen on all meaner growths. Thus 
 was discovered the Wellingtonea gigantea of California, the 
 most splendid addition of this generation to natural history.* 
 You may walk, you may even ride on horseback through the 
 trunk of a fallen tree. Those alive are between two and three 
 thousand years old, and those prostrate may have lain for 
 thousands of years and have been thousands of years old 
 when they fell. The huntsman who first beheld them has- 
 tened away, as one enchanted, to tell the marvelous story, 
 and was not believed until repeated visits and measurements 
 
 * The Americans don't like their great tree being called the Welling- 
 tonea, and so they call it the Washingtonea ; arborists now give it the 
 purely scientific appellation of Sequoia gigantea.
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 had been made. There is an eminent American writer who 
 considers that there are two moments which stand pre-emi- 
 nent in the intellectual history of our race. One of them was 
 when Galileo for the first time looked through the first tele- 
 scope, and the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter 
 whispered to him the idea of myriad space peopled with myr- 
 iads of worlds like our own. A second such " moment" was 
 when a large quantity of fossil bones and shells was placed 
 before the aged Buffon for inspection. To his amazement, he 
 found that these remains corresponded with no known re- 
 mains of living creatures of the earth. In a moment there 
 came before the old man's mind the vast idea of infinite time, 
 peopled with other creations than our o\vn. " Filled with 
 awe, the old man, then over eighty years of age, published his 
 discovery. In a kind of sacred frenzy, he spoke of the mag- 
 nificence of the prospect, and prophesied of the future glories 
 of the new science, which he was, alas! too old to pursue." 
 Only the other day we had a splendid scientific generaliza- 
 tion, which Mr. Charles Kingsley thinks will work a new era 
 in bio-geology. Dr. Carpenter, in his " Report of the Dredg- 
 ing Operations of the Lightning" says that "The globeig- 
 erina mud is not merely a chalk formation, but a continua- 
 tion of the chalk formation ; so that we may be said to be still 
 living in the age of chalk." Yes, layer by layer, the live atom- 
 ies are laying the floorings of a new continent, which we shall 
 not see. It is a sublime thought. Perhaps still more inter- 
 esting are his discoveries of abundance of active life far down 
 in depths where all the philosophers had considered that life 
 was impossible, thus checking the seemingly most final and 
 authoritative decisions of science. Well, the philosopher may 
 take a lesson, may take to heart the first and humblest lesson 
 of science, to look on all opinions as in solution, all hypothe- 
 ses as tentative ; and if some of our scientific luminaries be-
 
 INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS. 25 
 
 i 
 
 come a little more modest and a little less dogmatic, it will 
 be a wonderful era in their own lives and a special blessing 
 to the meetings of the British Association. 
 
 Then accidents are turning-points, which may bring you to 
 a sudden pause to a dead wall. There are many accidents, 
 fatal accidents, which, humanly speaking, might be avoided 
 by taking things quietly. For instance, I almost wish we had 
 a statistical account of the number of people who have dropped 
 down dead through running to catch the train. I saw in a pro- 
 vincial paper the other day a very queer account of a man 
 attending his own inquest. A coroner's jury had been sum- 
 moned to hold an inquiry respecting the end of some deceased 
 person. One of the jurymen so summoned was rather late. 
 He and his fellow-jurors were to meet at a public-house. 
 From the door of the hostel they watched him hastening very 
 fast, and presently running. Suddenly he dropped. They 
 hastened to him, but found that life was altogether extinct. 
 The coroner, a shrewd, busy man, suggested that as they were 
 all there it would be as well if they empaneled another jury- 
 man, and held both inquests at the same sitting. This was 
 done ; and within an hour or two of the poor fellow's proceed- 
 ing to attend the inquest, an inquest was held upon himself. 
 
 Then as to the morality of our theme. It was an old Greek 
 sophist, Prodicus by name, one of a body whom we think, de- 
 spite Mr. Grote, to be justly enough abused, who gave us 
 Xenophon tells the story that beautiful fable of the Choice 
 of Hercules, which has been repeated in many forms and in 
 many languages. It has been beautifully reproduced by Mr. 
 Tennyson, when lone CEnone tells " many-fountained" Ida of 
 the choice of Paris, when he turned away from Athene* with 
 her wisdom to Aphrodite' with her love. Pythagoras took the 
 letter Y as the symbol of human life : 
 
 " Et tibi, quae Samios diduxit litera ramos." PERSIUS. 
 B
 
 26 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 The stem of the letter denoted that part of human life during 
 which character is still unformed ; the right-hand branch, the 
 finer of the two, represents the path of virtue, the other that 
 of vice. As one of .the commentators says, " The fancy took 
 mightily with the ancients." There is a clearly defined turn- 
 ing-point in life for you ! Of such turning-points as I have 
 here lightly touched upon, I shall in my other pages endeavor 
 to give some sort of rationale. My thesis is that most of them 
 are to be eliminated from the catalogue of the contingent and 
 the accidental, as being the legitimate effect and product of 
 character ; and, next, admitting the existence of what is for- 
 tuitous, I argue that the presence of chance is not a matter 
 of chance, but designed by the great Artist who builds up in- 
 dividual life, and weaves it into the common warp and woof 
 of all human life around us. 
 
 Once more, to quote some words of the late Dean Alford's, 
 novissima verba as they proved: "There are moments that 
 are worth more than years. We can not help it : there is no 
 proportion between spaces of time in importance nor in value. 
 A sick man may have the unwearied attendance of his physi- 
 cian for weeks, and then may perish in a minute because he 
 is not by. A stray un-thought-of five minutes may contain 
 the event of a life. And this all-important moment, this mo- 
 ment disproportionate to all other moments, who can tell when 
 it will be upon us ? What a lesson to have our resources for 
 meeting it available and at hand ! "
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Some Considerations on Habits. 
 
 WHEN we speak of turning-points in life, probably the first 
 notion suggested is that of something merely fortuitous and 
 accidental some sort of sparkling incident which is the piv- 
 ot of a romance. There are such incidents certainly ; one 
 should neither deny their existence nor exaggerate their im- 
 portance. But of such incidents habit makes the most essen- 
 tial part. Given the most favorable set of circumstances, they 
 are really nothing unless there is a disposition established, a 
 training accomplished, which will enable you to turn them to 
 account. 
 
 Youth, that loves adventure, always looks forward with ea- 
 ger interest to opening the great campaign of life in London. 
 There is a sense in which the streets are paved with gold or 
 even with costlier things. As the laureate says : 
 
 " Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, 
 Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field ; 
 And at night along the dusky highway, near and nearer drawn, 
 Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn ; 
 And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 
 Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men." 
 
 In London, indeed, more than any where else, habit is the 
 ground-work on which all the chequered incidents of life are 
 displayed. 
 
 For example, take the stock incident of the feeble novelist. 
 A young lady's horse runs away with her. It is in danger of
 
 28 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 leaping a cliff or of rushing down the line while the express 
 rushes after it. Such an incident would be obviously thrown 
 away upon a hero who was not used to horses, and who had 
 not acquired a steady eye and hand, and habits of coolness 
 and courage. There is a noble house which traces back all 
 its prosperous fortunes to the incident of a 'prentice lad 
 plunging into the Thames to recover his fair young mistress. 
 He married her and became partner in the business of his 
 master. There must at least have been a useful habit of 
 swimming before he could plunge into the river. And unless 
 there were those good habits which the merchants of London 
 so highly prize, he would not have gone into the business, or 
 if he had gone, would have done nothing at it. 
 
 It is very interesting to read of a great advocate awaiting 
 patiently for his chance. It comes at last, and he fancied 
 that wife and children were tugging at his robe and exhorting 
 him for their sakes to do his best. Then the full, brilliant 
 speech is made. Or hear the famous argument of plain John 
 Scott, afterward Lord Eldon, in the leading case of " Akroyd 
 v. Smithson." An attorney whispers the homely but heart- 
 cheering words, "Young man, your bread and butter is made," 
 and, indeed, the young man has started straight and fair for 
 the Great Seal. 
 
 Such incidents do not happen so very unfrequently after all. 
 The man and the hour approach. 'The man is equal to the 
 occasion ; but often, perhaps oftener, the man is unequal to it. 
 What would have been the use of the chance coming to men 
 who are unequal to the chance? There are barristers who, 
 if such a chance came to them, would simply have to sit down 
 and tell the sitting judge, truly enough, that they could not 
 get on without their leader. The lawyer who rises to con- 
 duct a difficult case in his leader's absence, the surgeon or 
 doctor that has a sudden chance presented to him, must have
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 
 
 29 
 
 had a long preparatory training before he could skillfully avail 
 himself of any sort of emergency. These are occasions for 
 the exhibition of ability, and are powerless to create the abil- 
 ity itself. So even in what appear to be fortuitous events the 
 element of chance does not very much prevail. Good men, 
 by a natural gravitation, come to the front, and accident, or 
 want of accident, only temporarily retards or repels them. 
 
 So when a man looks forward to his chances in life, his 
 great business is to prepare himself for those chances. 
 
 Now, habit is the subtlest and strongest of all agencies. It 
 is a second nature, or rather the mould into which nature is 
 thrown. All the foundation of character must be laid in the 
 very earliest days. It is almost awful to think at how early 
 an age, humanly speaking, the destinies of young children are 
 shaped and framed by their habits ; how their future is in 
 their own hands ; how, in Wordsworth's phrase, the boy is fa- 
 ther to the man. I believe some American author holds that 
 habits are formed by the age of twelve a curious theory, 
 which has nevertheless a basis of truth. 
 
 Childhood is the secret laboratory where all manner of hid- 
 den processes are being evolved for development and perfec- 
 tion hereafter. In Robert Browning's fine poem of " Laza- 
 rus," the intense importance of the actions of the young is 
 shadowed forth. Lazarus restored from the dead can view 
 his child in illness or danger, being altogether unperturbed. 
 But he is in a very agony of sorrow and alarm if he notices 
 any outburst of sin or selfishness. There is a very instructive 
 lesson for the young to be learned from the Memoirs of Hugh 
 Miller. I remember, many years ago, hearing an account of 
 a gentleman who, journeying in a steamer, saw an unwonted 
 degree of attention bestowed on a mason who was sitting on 
 the right hand of the captain, and in whose favor other people 
 seemed slighted. When he learned that it was Hugh Miller,
 
 30 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 and who Hugh Miller was, he perfectly acquiesced in the ar- 
 rangement. But Hugh Miller never had any business to be 
 a stone-mason. When he was a child he obstinately refused 
 to learn, and played truant for weeks together. He became 
 a distinguished man, not by reason of being a stone-mason, 
 but in spite of it. We are told that, during his hard work in 
 the quarry and under the shed, his robust constitution was 
 shaken, and the seeds of ineradicable disease were sown in 
 his frame. He himself says that the obscurity and hardship 
 of his working life were a " punishment for his early careless- 
 ness." Perhaps the dark catastrophe which terminated his 
 life might be traced to the foolishness of his boyhood. His 
 biographer, Mr. Bayne, truly remarks : " To check the lawless- 
 ness natural to man, to break self-will to the yoke, to change 
 the faculties from a confused barbarian herd or horde (heer 
 of the old German tribes) into a disciplined or exercised com- 
 pany (exerdtus of the Romans), must ever be an essential part 
 of the training of youth. Educated human nature is more 
 natural than uneducated." 
 
 Look back on those old school days days as potent in 
 their influence as in their associations and recollections. 
 There is no point that requires nicer discrimination than the 
 line of early life to be marked out for a boy : whether, for in- 
 stance, he should go to a public school or only to a small 
 school, or should be brought up at home. I believe that the 
 masters of our great public schools can discern much more 
 clearly than parents how certain boys ought to be held dis- 
 qualified for public-school life, although it is by no means 
 very clear on the surface why this should be the case. There 
 is the boy of weak health, who is quite unfitted to rough it, 
 even under the improved condition of things at public schools. 
 We can not, as was done in Spartan days, subject all to the 
 same conditions, and let the strong live and the weak die.
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 3I 
 
 Again, there is the boy who is morally weak, who has little 
 bone or sinew in his character, easily led, unable to resist 
 temptation, almost inviting outrage and oppression. Once 
 more, there is the dull boy, always gravitating to the bottom 
 of his class, who in a mechanical way is pushed through the 
 routine of a school without ever mastering any real knowl- 
 edge. A clever boy gets on well at a public school, and re- 
 ceives every care and encouragement, while the stupid boy 
 ordinarily goes to the wall. Schoolmasters do not even yet 
 sufficiently realize the fact that the true test of the excellence 
 of a school is not so much the turning out of some brilliant 
 scholars as maintaining a high general average. 
 
 There are no days more important than school-days. Then 
 the strongest habits are fixed. Then the firmest friendships 
 are contracted. The permanent character of a man is per- 
 haps more truly shadowed forth in school-days than in col- 
 lege-days. In later life a man is much more like what he 
 was at school than what he was at college. Then line upon 
 line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, becomes 
 the rule of life. 
 
 I remember very well my first view of Liverpool across the 
 Mersey. From the green country side, across the broad tidal 
 river, I looked upon the magnificent great town which has 
 arisen upon the marshes over which the lorn liver once 
 croaked and flew. Far up in the sky appeared a cloud, like 
 a dense pall a cloud of smoke and fog all the lifelong day 
 overspreading the heavens. Of course this would belong 
 also to London and all great towns, but I was never more 
 struck with it than those many years ago at Liverpool. When 
 I journeyed about the great town, moved about the streets 
 and docks and halls of Liverpool, the consciousness of the 
 pall in which we were wrapped wore off; after a fashion we 
 felt the sun and the breezes, and now in the populous city
 
 32 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 pent we thought little how from the green river-side the as- 
 pect of the big town had seemed so cloudy and unwholesome. 
 Even so from the green river-side of childhood we look for- 
 ward with eager expectation to the crowded thoroughfares of 
 life; we detect in those early generous days the gloom and 
 worldliness of things, but unconsciously we pass into the 
 cloud, and the pall is over us as over others. Ah, happy 
 those who on the lawns and uplands lay in fresh stores of 
 vigor and health, who can at times seek once more for the 
 freshness of those fields and streams, and can look forward 
 to renew in age the Elysium of youth in the happiest sense, 
 the second childhood, which has the love most free from fear, 
 the obedience most removed from restraint ! 
 
 The law of habit is that general habits are formed by par- 
 ticular acts. I have seen a mighty river, on whose bosom a 
 whole navy might repose, at its well-head on the moors. 
 You might then easily step across the infant stream. So that 
 irresistible force of habit which, when ingrained, gains an in- 
 domitable power, is at the commencement a force easily ca- 
 pable of being measured and guided. The habit is created 
 by the repetition of innumerable little acts. The object and 
 the main anxiety of life must be to watch and direct aright 
 this great motive force of life. It is said in the words of In- 
 finite Truth that he who despises small things shall perish by 
 little and little. We are told that line must be upon line, 
 precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. So too we 
 are told that he who is faithful in that which is greatest is 
 also faithful in that which is least. 
 
 As we stand in some vast manufactory in the North, we 
 perhaps wonder, amid the whirring of wheels and the clang 
 of machinery, at the ease and adroitness with which even 
 young children can perform their allotted part. They nimbly 
 move with the wheels, and deftly handle the threads. It is
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 33 
 
 easy to notice the readiness and unconsciousness with which 
 they get through their work. Now this is in accordance with 
 the second nature of habit. This is in exact accordance with 
 the laws of habit. We acquire a habit, and even forget how 
 we acquired it. The more perfectly we have acquired a hab- 
 it, the more unconsciously we obey it. And it is easy to see 
 in the nature of things why this should be the case. If we 
 had to deliberate on each action, the day would not suffice 
 for its duties. So it is that habit supplies promptness and 
 celerity. We could not inform each detail of conduct with 
 its philosophy, reason out each act as it occurs. Neverthe- 
 less, where the habit is fixed on solid ground, we ought to be 
 able to analyze the act, to refer the act to the habit, and the 
 habit to the law. As Dean Howson says, " There is a bless- 
 edness for those who have learned the unconscious habit of 
 joyous obedience ; who serve God without effort and without 
 reluctance ; who rise, as the sun rises, to travel the appointed 
 journey, and who sleep as those who have been guided all 
 day long in the way of peace." 
 
 If we endeavored to carry out the motto approfondissez, get 
 to the bottom of the subject, the consideration of habits would 
 lead us into a curious vein of inquiry. Nearly all the philos- 
 ophers have had their discussions on "habits." They define 
 habit as a facility in doing a thing and an inclination to do it. 
 Habits may be formed not only by acts, but by refraining from 
 acts. Indolence is a habit formed by neglecting to do what 
 ought to be done. Voluntary acts become involuntary, cases 
 of volitional acts pass into automatic. Aristotle points out 
 that there is positive pain in resisting a formed habit. The 
 moralists discuss habits objectively, as generic and specific ; 
 and subjectively, as active and passive. With a little puzzling 
 out, the reader will find out easily the meaning of the classifi- 
 cation. Then they are very anxious to guard against the mis- 
 
 B 2
 
 34 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 chievous delusion that the power of evil habit is giving way 
 when they are not doing any thing which, in accordance with 
 the law of habit, would strengthen it. Probably there is only 
 a pause of exhaustion or repletion, or the removal of the 
 means of gratifying them, or the exchange of one bad habit 
 for a cognate one. They have also discussed whether habit 
 is limited to living beings. Is not the acclimatization of 
 plants a resemblance of habit ? Do we not see the same 
 thing in the docility of animals, which, according to modern 
 teaching, are removed from us by so light and variable a line. 
 The connection between habit and instinct, and the connec- 
 tion between habit and association, are very interesting and 
 important questions. Another very important question is, 
 how far we are influenced by the habits of our forefathers, or 
 may influence the habits of our descendants. It is a very 
 important consideration how far by our own habits we may 
 be affecting other moral and physical life. This subject is 
 called Atavism. There are, for instance, various orders of 
 disease which in fifty per cent, of the cases are of an inher- 
 ited character. And what is Atavism? perhaps you ask. 
 Briefly it may be answered that Atavism is a tendency on the 
 part of offspring to revert to some more or less remote ances- 
 tral type. The subject belongs to that great general subject 
 of inheritance on which Mr. Darwin has written so much, and 
 on which other writers in following him have had so much to 
 say. In his work on "Animals and Plants under Domestica- 
 tion" there are an immense number of instances of reversion. 
 Mr. Darwin takes his instances from pansies and roses, from 
 silk-worms, from hybrids, from pigs and pigeons, from men 
 and dogs. Let us look at the nobler human subject. Mr. 
 Darwin speaks of the strong likeness through the line of the 
 Austrian emperors, and quotes Niebuhr's remarks on the old 
 Roman families. There are some curious medical facts re-
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 
 
 35 
 
 lating to the subject. Thus, in cases of hereditary illness, 
 children will fall ill about the same age as their fathers did ; 
 in nine cases out of ten, Mr. Paget says, it will be a little ear- 
 lier. These are very unpleasant facts in relation to Atavism. 
 It is all very well that one should recall the features of an il- 
 lustrious ancestor. When Lord Shaftesbury stood lately at 
 an exhibition below the portrait of his ancestor the likeness 
 was most remarkable ; he might have stepped down from the 
 canvas. There used to be a man about London who was 
 supposed to be a lineal descendant of James the Second, and 
 who certainly looked much more like a cavalier of the seven- 
 teenth century than belonging to these modern days. More- 
 over, Mr. Gallon in his well-known book has shown us how 
 cleverness is inherited, and that it is the tendency of genius 
 to reappear. This is the agreeable side of Atavism. We 
 have mentioned the other side indicated by sagacious medi- 
 cal theory, that the physician should look closely to the child 
 at the period when any grave heritable disease attacked the 
 parent. Thus inexplicable neuralgic affections have attacked 
 parents and children although we may fairly hope that in 
 these days neuralgia is becoming strictly amenable to medi- 
 cal science. Blindness is sadly hereditary : in one case thir- 
 ty-seven members of a race. Another family suffered from 
 ferocious headaches which always ceased at a certain age. 
 
 A great many important practical questions turn on this 
 subject of Atavism. For instance, there is the important 
 practical question, which cousins seem in such a hurry to an- 
 swer in the affirmative, whether cousins ought to marry. An- 
 other very important question is, whether consumptives ought 
 to marry. Dr. Charles J. B.Williams says that he has so " ad- 
 vised many a consumptive, and in numerous instances the re- 
 sults have been happy." He also very truly says and the 
 saying illustrates the proverbial selfishness of. love that the
 
 36 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 objection that children may inherit the consumptive tendency 
 is an objection more valid with physicians and friends than 
 with the consumptives whose affections are engaged. In ref- 
 erence to inherited disease, very strange is the fact that we 
 may see one member of a family surviving in good health to 
 a good old age, while all the other members of the family fall 
 victims to consumption or some other form of inherited dis- 
 ease ; a fact which indicates, among other things, how chaotic 
 and problematical is the real knowledge of chest diseases. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer has an ingenious argument on the 
 subject of Atavism. He discusses the subject of our appre- 
 ciation of scenery, which he is not content to refer simply to 
 the tastes or associations of an individual man himself. He 
 goes beyond this to "certain deeper, but now vague, combina- 
 tions of states, that were organized in the race during barba- 
 rous times, when its pleasurable activities were among the 
 mountains, woods, and waters. Out of these excitations, some 
 of them actual, but most of them nascent, is composed the 
 emotion which a fine landscape produces in us." If I under- 
 stand Mr. Spencer's theory, to which Professor Tyndall gives 
 his adhesion, we have here a new phase of the doctrine of 
 Atavism. Just as Mr. Darwin seized from Mr. Woolner that 
 little protuberance of the ear which he imagines identifies us 
 with our simian ancestry, so Mr. Spencer thinks that he de- 
 tects in our love of scenery involving adventures the traces of 
 our barbaric descent. In this way the race in its progress ab- 
 sorbs and contains in itself the characteristics of the different 
 generations. 
 
 But there is another aspect of Atavism, necessarily untouch- 
 ed by physiologists, on which I should desire to say a few 
 words. There is the curious subject of the recurrence of mor- 
 al characteristics, where the mental and moral characteristics 
 of men dormant for generations singularly wake up in their
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABI7S. 37 
 
 descendants. There are some fine lines in George Eliot's 
 " Spanish Gipsy" which bring out the subject, and poetry is 
 here as true as physiology : 
 
 " I read a record deeper than the skin. 
 What ! Shall the trick of nostril and oflips 
 Descend through generations, and the soul 
 That moves within our frame like God in worlds 
 Convulsing, urging, melting, withering 
 Imprint no record, leave no documents 
 Of her great history ? Shall men bequeath 
 The fancies of their palates to their sons, 
 And shall the shudder of restraining awe, 
 The slow-wept tears of contrite memory, 
 Faith's prayerful labor, and the food divine 
 Of fasts ecstatic shall these pass away, 
 Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly ? 
 Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain, 
 And God-enshrining symbols leave no trace 
 Of tremors reverent ? That maiden's blood 
 Is as unchristian as the leopard's." 
 
 Just as you may transmit peculiarities of hair, eye, and lip, 
 you may also transmit a sceptical, or meditative, or irritable 
 tendency. Not only the trick of nostril and lip, but the medi- 
 tative or devotional vein is transmitted to posterity. There 
 is many a parent who grieves over his own errors reproduced ; 
 but a grandfather often takes more notice of a child's ways 
 even than his father, and may, perhaps, according to the prin- 
 ciple of Atavism, often see his own ways reproduced. And 
 now a further principle comes into play, a moral law of a very 
 peculiar character. 
 
 We often notice how there are certain faults which we call 
 "family failings" that seem transmitted from generation to 
 generation. Sometimes fiery passion seems inherent in a 
 line, sometimes covetousness or untruth ; again and again 
 there is some ugly phase of human nature produced of the
 
 38 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 same type. And now look at another set of correlated in- 
 stances. Do you ever notice how some particular kind of 
 misfortunes dogs certain families ? Sometimes it is childless- 
 ness ; there is never more than one son in a family, or title 
 and estates never come by direct succession. Sometimes 
 the children are all early swept away by death. Sometimes 
 there is chronic struggle and poverty ; sometimes chronic 
 disease. It seems impossible to connect any special form of 
 moral evil with any special form of misfortune, in such de- 
 scent. What, for instance, has the childlessness of people got 
 to do with their covetousness ? Yet if we admit the theory 
 of the moral government of the universe, it is by no means 
 inconceivable that in a wonderful .way this kind of sorrow 
 may be penalty and corrective for this kind of moral evil. 
 We may be powerless to trace the connection, but still a sub- 
 tle connection may exist. There certainly seems a kind of 
 Atavism in the moral government of the world ; the good 
 and evil of a family manifesting itself to distant generations, 
 and when the same kind of evil is exhibited, the same kind 
 of penalty revives. The subject is obscure and difficult, but 
 we seem dimly to discern the outlines of a moral law. 
 
 It is not at all uncommon to find men shielding themselves 
 behind their habits, and referring these habits to the mode of 
 bringing up in their youth. There is, however, a kind of fa- 
 talism in this argument ; it is the plea of necessity. It is a 
 plea which, in early years, and to a certain extent, has great 
 force. But the time comes when reason and conscience 
 should become more potent influences than the suggestions 
 of the instinct of habit. It may be granted that those whose 
 careless or unguarded youth has been spent in the slavery of 
 evil habits start heavily weighted in the race of life. For such 
 persons there is a doubly hard self-conquest to be attained be- 
 fore any other true conquest is possible.
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 39 
 
 There are optimist views and pessimist views of life, both 
 of which are probably equally remote from the truth. Per- 
 haps a man starts in life heavily weighted with some griev- 
 ance. Through his own carelessness, or that of some one 
 else, he broke his leg, and evermore any running that he can 
 make in a race is that of a lame man. It seems absurd to 
 take an optimist point of view, and to say that the best thing 
 possible for the man was that his leg should be broken. It 
 is equally absurd to be always groaning as you shoulder the 
 crutch. Here are the given circumstances, and you have to 
 make the best of them. Nature, with her countless adapta- 
 tions, perhaps makes some exquisite atonement for that which 
 seemed marred and wasted. I think we may all venture to 
 be optimists, not in the sense that every thing is for the best 
 which appears to me to be hardly religious or rational 
 but in the sense that we may make the best of every thing. 
 The Christian is told that all things will work together for his 
 good ; but he is not told that better things would not have 
 worked for a higher good. 
 
 It is sad indeed to watch the moral wreck that is exhibited 
 by some wretched victim who is vanquished by the dominant 
 power of some evil habit. Aristotle has traced the progress 
 of the man who has no self-control to the state of the man 
 whom no remedies can amend.* At times there seems so 
 much that is winning and estimable about some man of whom 
 we are told that he is the helpless slave of some vice or hide- 
 ous passion. The details of such an unfortunate state of mind 
 at times appear to be not unlike those of demoniacal posses- 
 sion, and to suggest the possibility that there may be still those 
 possessed like the Gadarenes of old. Thucydides tells us that 
 at the time of the plague of Athens other diseases disappeared, 
 or, if any existed, they ran into the prevalent type of illness.
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 So the man who has some master vice often shows a singular 
 freedom from other viciousness and moral obliquity, and ex- 
 hibits a remarkable grace and attractiveness. He will charm 
 us by his amiability and intellectual powers, and then suddenly 
 we shall see a sudden and awful revelation of depravity. He 
 is like a lunatic who is able to simulate sanity ; who on many 
 points will baffle the acuteness of counsel, and finally will ex- 
 hibit some frightful delusion. Often the helpless victim en- 
 deavors to struggle against the coils of that evil habit, against 
 which all his better nature unavailingly protests. How sad 
 and plaintive is the language of a true genius, the victim of a 
 dominant vice, speaking of the Magdalene ! 
 
 " She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair 
 She wiped the feet she was so blest to touch. 
 
 And He wiped off the railing of despair 
 
 From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. 
 
 I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears, 
 
 Make me a humble thing of love and tears." 
 
 That is a frightful "turning-point" in the life of a man or 
 woman when the evil habit, after many struggles, asserts its 
 supremacy. That is an infinitely blessed " moment" when 
 once more there is the rising tide of good habit. The moral 
 disease of the soul often requires much of the skillful diagnosis 
 and careful treatment of a bodily disease. The only sane 
 way of overpowering and eradicating evil habits is the encour- 
 agement of good habits and a systematic perseverance in them. 
 There is a divine science in those things. Cease to do evil ; 
 learn to do well. Here is both the negative and the positive 
 side of well-doing. It is much to abstain from the act of sin ; 
 that its opportunity should recur, and that no advantage should 
 be taken of it ; that the temptation should be encountered and 
 mastered. It is much, too, that the opposite tendencies should 
 be encouraged, that the good habits should be constituted
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HABITS. 41 
 
 whose nature is to conflict with and destroy the opposite vices. 
 It is often good that the sickly soul should be placed under 
 entirely new conditions, where it shall be sheltered from bane- 
 ful influences, and be brought within salutary influences. 
 There was a man of high position who attributed all his pros- 
 perity and health to a sentence of penal servitude which he 
 once underwent. He was a man of extravagant, intemperate 
 habits, who had stabbed some one in a fit of drunken fury. 
 Imprisonment and hard labor debarred him from temptation, 
 and encouraged the formation of regular habits. Physical and 
 moral health returned once more. On his release he came 
 into a large property, married well, and became an active mag- 
 istrate. It is now, we believe, an accepted observation, that it 
 is the long sentences, and not the short sentences, of penal 
 servitude that really promote the reformation of offenders 
 against the law. 
 
 There is always the danger of a relapse. There is an in- 
 evitable reaction on the cessation of a system of discipline. It 
 is as when the unclean spirit has gone out of the house of a 
 human soul and left it swept and garnished. But the strength- 
 ened, purified soul will be able to resist. A medical analogy 
 will help us here. Physicians will tell us that in the gradual 
 amelioration of symptoms the constitutional vigor will be re- 
 newed, and the chronic disease thrown off. So after being in 
 the school of ceasing to do evil and learning to do well, it may 
 be found that when the temptation recurs it is altogether in- 
 operative to tempt. 
 
 The diseased soul can not find a true remedy in itself. 
 Elsewhere must be sought the physician and the balm. There 
 is no more important "turning-point" in life than when the 
 insidious advance of an evil habit is noted, and we flee to 
 God for help. Such seasons involve the deeper issues of the 
 soul, which are more important than any external event. The
 
 42 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 young and ardent may in airy imagination construct vision- 
 ary scenes of those decisive events which shall be the turn- 
 ing-points of their lives, and accomplish for them the fulfill- 
 ment of their day-dreams. Such events may appear, or, more 
 probably, they may not. It is in the steady formation of fa- 
 vorable habits alone that we can form any moral certitude 
 that something analogous may occur. These will assure that 
 when the opportunity arises it will be grasped and turned to 
 the best advantage, or that the good habits in their slow, un- 
 felt persistence have reaped all the solid good, and more than 
 could be gained by any merely fortuitous occurrence.
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Critical " Moments' of Life. 
 
 THERE occur from time to time in human life signal mo- 
 ments, which become the landmarks of its history. These 
 are indeed the momentous moments of life. They come upon 
 us unawares. The air is charged with no sense of oppression 
 and awe. There is no visible sign to the most observant or 
 to the most superstitious. The "moment" itself often comes 
 in the most ordinary and common-place guise. It is perhaps 
 only a call, a letter, an interview, a sudden suggestion, a few 
 minutes' talk at a railway-station, and with a suddenness and 
 abruptness one section of life is clasped, and an entirely new 
 page of its ledger opened up. " Do you remember writing 
 me a letter one day, giving M.'s proposition ?" said a man to 
 me the other day. " It was the turning-point of my life. 
 When your proposal came I had also a proposition to go to 
 Scotland. I made my election, and it colored all my life." 
 In the interesting biography of Mr. Barham lately published, 
 it is mentioned that he was going along St. Paul's Church- 
 yard when he met a friend with a letter in his hand. The 
 letter was to invite a clergyman from the country to come up 
 and stand for a minor canonry at St. Paul's. It occurred to 
 him that Mr. Barham would do just as well, and accordingly 
 the great humorist settled down into a metropolitan wit and 
 diner-out. I hardly know whether he was exactly at home in 
 his vocation as a clergyman, but he and Sidney Smith togeth- 
 er were the cheerful influences of the chapter, and probably
 
 44 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 in a better position there than in a pastoral charge. Smith 
 alternated his tremendous spirits with deep fits of depression, 
 and there is hardly any more melancholy story than of the 
 carelessness which ultimately destroyed Barham's life. There 
 was a short young fellow studying in the reading-room of the 
 British Museum. It hardly seemed that he had any higher 
 chance in life than to become usher in a commercial school, 
 and perhaps in course of time win his way to have a commer- 
 cial school of his own. He attracted the attention of a gen- 
 tleman who was reading there, who sent him to Oxford, and 
 after taking his degree he soon made his thousand a year. 
 I am sorry to say that to him, as to many a clever fellow, the 
 success was ruinous in the issue. I remember hearing of a 
 man who, while hunting about for a pair of horses, encoun- 
 tered an old college friend in a state of great seediness and 
 dejection. He was a poor curate who did not care to stay in 
 England, and wanted some post abroad. He was told of a 
 trifling chaplaincy in a remote place on the Continent. It 
 seemed as if he was cutting himself off from every avenue to 
 professional advancement at home. But the English embas- 
 sador, it so happened, came to this little town, and was so 
 charmed with the temporary chaplain that he succeeded in 
 getting him high preferment in England. 
 
 It is here that the great importance of the subject of habit 
 indicates itself. The crucial moment comes. It comes as a 
 matter of chance, and it appears to be as a matter of chance 
 how it shall be treated. But it is not really so. Habit has 
 established an instinct of the mind. The soul, when a sud- 
 den demand is made upon it for a decision, instinctively 
 throws itself back upon its past experience, and answers the 
 demand in precise accordance with the habits of its essential 
 life. For many years the life has been unconsciously shap- 
 ing and training itself toward the solution of some problem
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 
 
 45 
 
 which presents itself at the last. We should all be anxious 
 to utilize to the utmost such a moment of fate. 
 
 This is eloquently put in a young girl's marvelous story of 
 "Jane Eyre:" "The more solitary, the more friendless, the 
 more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I 
 will keep the law given by God, sanctioned by man. I will 
 hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and 
 not mad as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the 
 times when there is no temptation ; they are for such mo- 
 ments as this, when body and soul rise against their rigor. 
 Stringent as they are ; inviolate shall they be. If at my in- 
 dividual convenience I might break them, what would be their 
 worth? They have a worth, so I have always believed; and 
 if I can not believe it now, it is because I am insane quite 
 insane ; with my veins running fire, and my heart beating 
 faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, 
 foregone determinations, are all that I have at this hour to 
 stand by : there I plant my foot." 
 
 But here is the intense importance of the habit. The pres- 
 ent is the only time, and the golden time. Each action of 
 life ought to be susceptible of being referred to a principle 
 and a rationale, and so when the momentous moment arrives 
 it comes not on us unawares, " but at a convenient season." 
 
 " Stay, stay the present instant, 
 Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings ! 
 O let it not elude thy grasp, but like 
 The good old patriarch upon record 
 Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee !" 
 
 Then it is a distinct moment in life when first one meets 
 with some friends, whose intercourse probably colors all sub- 
 sequent history. The readers and writers of novels appear 
 to look upon love-making as the great event in human his- 
 tory, but probably the friendships which a man makes with
 
 46 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 men form a more enduring influence. There is a time in 
 the days of youth when the mind is full of active, fermenting 
 thought, and seems to wait for the impregnating moment that 
 shall fertilize it. To the boy fresh from school, whose mind 
 is full of the active or intellectual pursuits of life, the moment 
 when he is drawn into intimacy with some man eminent in 
 that line to which his special interest is being drawn, is al- 
 most a supreme moment in life. The youth has had a natu- 
 ral taste for art, and he has been thrown into intimacy with 
 an artist. He has had a love of letters, and for the first time 
 some friend guides his taste, and the riches of a great library 
 are put at his disposal. He has had a natural taste for me- 
 chanical contrivance, and some engineer sees and likes him, 
 and explains to him the principles of his craft. Such friend- 
 ships as develop natural tastes, and lead into new fields of 
 knowledge, form in their commencement real crises and turn- 
 ing-points of life. So Lord Shelburne said of a visit to the 
 aged Malesherbes : " I have traveled much, but I have never 
 been so influenced by personal contact with any man ; and 
 if ever I accomplish any good in the course of my life, I am 
 certain that the recollection of M. de Malesherbes will ani- 
 mate my soul." " I always remembered," said Flaxman, 
 "Romney's notice of my boyish years and productions with 
 gratitude ; I shall feel the benefit of his acquaintance." 
 
 Then, early intellectual moments in life, I imagine, imprint 
 themselves as strongly upon the memory as any events of the 
 outer life. We have spoken of the irrepressible delight with 
 which the boy or girl produces a poem, or what seems to 
 them as such, and there is a sense of a new power. But so 
 it is when the same young hero first discovers that he can 
 swim, or can draw, or can stand up and make a speech. 
 Who is there who can not recollect the wild delight with 
 which he first read the " Arabian Nights" or " Robinson Cru-
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 
 
 47 
 
 soe," or his maturer years in which he first read the pictur- 
 esque pages of Macaulay, devoured the works of Scott or 
 Dickens, or was inoculated with the epidemic enthusiasm for 
 Tennyson ! No doubt it has often been the reading of some 
 particular book which has determined a man to be an artist, 
 a traveler, or a student of nature. I remember as a young 
 man there were three books which the University of Oxford 
 put into our hands as young students, which were calculated 
 to do us very real service. I am afraid that I did not make 
 as much use as I might have done of them, but doubtless they 
 did me a great service, and I shall always feel grateful to the 
 Kind Mother who directed my attention to them. I can very 
 well understand how, when Dr. Arnold was hesitating whether 
 he should send his son to Cambridge or Oxford, " dear old 
 ' Tottle' " settled the day. He could not bear that his son 
 should not have the advantage of the course of philosophy at 
 Oxford. I was not very much impressed with the little I read 
 of Aristotle. In those days we did nothing much beyond the 
 " Ethics," but the first time I read the " Republic" of Plato 
 through, especially with the advantage, not altogether un- 
 mixed, of Mr. Jowett's lectures, quite a new world of thought 
 broke in upon me. The other two works were those of au- 
 thors of our own, who are universally known and quoted the 
 " Analogy" of Butler, and the " Novum Organon" of Bacon. 
 If the University of Oxford teaches a man nothing else, it at 
 least teaches him how to read a book carefully and thorough- 
 ly. Let me also say it delights me to pay this parting tribute 
 to the memory of a wise and excellent man that reading 
 through the first two volumes of Alford's Greek Testament 
 was a wonderful help and a good introduction to " Biblical 
 Criticism" to those of us who took orders after his work was 
 completed. " I remember," says an Oxford alter ego, " the few 
 striking events of an ordinary life seeing a great fire, being
 
 48 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 nearly drowned in the Rhine, nearly lost on hills, catching a 
 fever, thrown out of a carriage, seeing the queen, and so on 
 but hardly any events have been more vivid than the reading 
 of the Oxford class-books for ' Greats.' " 
 
 Many instances might be given of the contact of mind with 
 mind, of the fertile results that have come to pass when some 
 receptive has been brought into contact with some fertilizing 
 mind. Perhaps there was no man who exercised a more as- 
 tonishing influence on young people than Dr. Arnold. Thus 
 we read in a recent " Life of Bishop Cotton," the Metropolitan 
 of India, how he came to Rugby as an Assistant Master, and 
 he is described in " Tom Brown's School Days" as the " model 
 young master." The biographer says, " The influences of this 
 appointment on his after life were incalculable. First among 
 these must be counted the impression produced upon him by 
 the character and teaching of his great chief. It is not too 
 much to say that there was none of all the direct pupils of Dr. 
 Arnold on whom so deep and exclusive a mark of their mas- 
 ter's mind was produced as on Cotton. ... In later years, in 
 many instances, its particular effects were more or less rudely 
 effaced either by the impulses of their own growing thoughts, 
 or by the disturbing attractions of other men and other schools 
 of thought." This by the way truly indicates what there was 
 of decline in Arnold's influence. But Cotton came into con- 
 tact with him after his mind had been already formed, and yet 
 before he had been swayed by any other commanding influ- 
 ence. Mr. Francis William Newman, in his " Phases of Faith," 
 gives a very interesting account of the various people whom 
 he met, and who aided him in the formation of his opinions. 
 Mr. Newman went out to Bagdad, apparently with the inten- 
 tion of converting the heathen, but in the result the heathen 
 nearer home converted him. Dr. Arnold did not influence 
 him, and his influence over Newman's mind declined. He
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 
 
 49 
 
 thus gives an account of the incident which really seems to 
 have been a turning-point to him : "When we were at Aleppo, 
 I one day got into religious discourse with a Mohammedan 
 carpenter, which left on me a lasting impression. Among 
 other matters, I was peculiarly desirous of disabusing him of 
 the current notion of his people, that our Gospels are spurious 
 narratives of late dates. I found great difficulty of expres- 
 sion ; but the man listened to me with much attention, and I 
 was encouraged to exert myself. He waited patiently till I 
 had done, and then spoke to the following effect : ' I will tell 
 you, sir, how the case stands. God has given to you English 
 a great many good gifts. You make fine ships, and sharp 
 penknives, and good cloth and cottons ; and you have rich 
 nobles and brave soldiers ; and you write and print many 
 learned books (dictionaries and grammars) ; all this is of God. 
 But there is one thing that God has withheld from you and re- 
 vealed to us, and that is a knowledge of the true religion, by 
 which one may be saved.' When he thus ignored my argu- 
 ment (which was probably quite unintelligible to him), and 
 delivered his simple protest, I was silenced, and at the same 
 time amused. But the more I thought it over, the more in- 
 struction I saw in the case. His position toward me was ex- 
 actly that of a humble Christian toward an unbelieving phi- 
 losopher : nay, that of the early apostles or Jewish prophets 
 toward the proud, cultivated, worldly-wise, and powerful hea- 
 then." 
 
 It is very interesting to compare the experience of such a 
 man as Francis Newman with that of such a man as his 
 brother, John Henry Newman. We extract a passage from 
 the famous " Apology." We see here a turning-point in indi- 
 vidual life, and, more than that, in the religious history of the 
 century. 
 
 " Especially, when I was left to myself, the thought came 
 
 C
 
 5 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 upon me that deliverance is wrought, not by the many, but b> 
 the few ; not by bodies, but by persons. Now it was, I think, 
 that I repeated to myself the words which had ever been dear 
 to me from my school-days, ' Exoriare aliquis !' Now, too, 
 that Southey's beautiful poem of ' Thalaba,' for which I had 
 an immense liking, came forcibly to my mind, I began to think 
 that I had a mission. There are sentences of my letters to 
 my friends to this effect, if they are not destroyed. When we 
 took leave of Monsignore Wiseman, he had courteously ex- 
 pressed a wish that we might make a second visit to Rome. 
 I said, with great gravity, 'We have a work to do in England.' 
 I went down at once to Sicily, and the presentiment grew 
 stronger. I struck into the middle of the island, and fell ill 
 of a fever at Leonforte. My servant thought that I was dy- 
 ing, and begged for my last directions. I gave them as he 
 wished, but I said, ' I shall not die.' I repeated, ' I shall not 
 die, for I have not sinned against light ; I have not sinned 
 against light.' I have never been able to make out at all 
 what I meant. 
 
 " I got to Castro Giovanni, and was laid up there for nearly 
 three weeks. Toward the end of May I set off for Palermo, 
 taking three days for the journey. Before starting from my 
 inn on the morning of May 26th or 27th, I sat down on my bed, 
 and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my 
 nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer, ' I have a 
 work to do in England.' 
 
 " I was aching to get home ; yet for want of a vessel I was 
 kept at Palermo nearly three weeks. I began to visit the 
 churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I did not 
 attend any services. I knew nothing of the presence of the 
 Blessed Sacrament there. At last I got off in an orange-boat 
 bound for Marseilles. We were becalmed a whole week in 
 the Straits of Bonafacio. Then it was I wrote the lines ' Lead.
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS'" OF LIFE. 51 
 
 Kindly Light,' which have since become well known. I was 
 writing verses the whole time of my passage. At length I 
 got to Marseilles, and set off for England. The fatigue of 
 traveling was too much for me, and I was laid up for several 
 days at Lyons. At last I got off again, and did not stop night 
 or day till I reached England and my mother's house. My 
 brother had arrived from Persia only a few hours before. 
 This was on Tuesday. The following Sunday, July i4th, Mr. 
 Keble preached the assize sermon in the University pulpit. 
 It was published under the title of ' National Apostasy.' I 
 have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the re- 
 ligious movement of 1833." 
 
 Of a sudden turning-point in a man's destiny we may find 
 an example in the " Life of Bishop Cotton." His whole course 
 of life was changed very suddenly. When the news came to 
 England of the death of Bishop Wilson, soon after the Muti- 
 ny, his great friend, Dr. Tait, determined if possible to secure 
 the appointment for Dr. Cotton, the head-master of Marlbor- 
 ough. "The Bishop of London, with all the energy of his 
 character, pressed Cotton's merits on the Government of that 
 day, but. partly from an apprehension lest his modesty should 
 throw some obstacle in the way, without consulting Cotton 
 himself. Meanwhile, from causes unnecessary here to men- 
 tion, the hope of accomplishing this object had faded away, 
 and the subject was dropped, until the bishop was suddenly 
 informed that if Cotton would take the post it was still at his 
 disposal. There was not a moment of time to be lost. A 
 change of Government had just taken place, and Mr. Vernon 
 Smith, now Lord Lyveden, who was then the Secretary of 
 State for India, was holding the post only till a new Ministry 
 could be formed. The bishop telegraphed the offer to Marl- 
 borough. It was like a thunderbolt to Cotton in the midst 
 of his peaceful labors. The telegram dropped from his hands,
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 and he rushed from the school to his house, and thence hur- 
 ried to London. ... It was one of those decisive cases in 
 which the mere decision is enough to shake the minds of 
 most. Perhaps in Cotton's case an outside spectator would 
 have been startled and even disappointed to observe how 
 slightly he seemed to be agitated. The calm, disinterested 
 view which on all occasions he would take of his own charac- 
 ter and position, as of a third person, enabled him in all sim- 
 plicity to accept the estimate of others concerning himself, 
 and to acquiesce in a change in many ways so alien to his 
 habits and feelings. On the following day he saw the Indian 
 Minister, whose brief words dwelt in his memory as contain- 
 ing in a short compass the extent of his opportunities and re- 
 sponsibilities : ' I believe that in appointing you I have done 
 the best for the interests of India, the Church of England, and 
 of Christianity.' These words long dwelt in Cotton's mind. 
 He kept them before him as what his episcopate should be, 
 and we may now fairly say that it was an estimate which his 
 episcopate did not disappoint. 1 ' A friend has just told me 
 that, taking coffee one day at a coffee-house in Ceylon, two 
 men entered the room and joined him in the meal. They 
 were dressed as laymen, and proved very pleasant compan- 
 ions. He happened to mention that the Metropolitan of In- 
 dia was expected in the diocese of Colombo, and then one of 
 them introduced himself to him as the Bishop of Calcutta. 
 It was a strange, out-of-the-way meeting-place. My friend, a 
 missionary and Cotton was not always popular with mis- 
 sionaries thought him a wise and good man. 
 
 The story of Cotton's remarkable death will be remember- 
 ed. The bishop's body was never recovered after he had lost 
 his footing on the float and had been precipitated into the 
 river. Yet I know of an officer who lost a signet ring in the 
 same stream. He immediately affixed a pole to mark the
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 53 
 
 spot, employed a diver, and recovered the ring. One would 
 have thought a human body would have been more easily re- 
 coverable. It is singular that on the morning of the day on 
 which he perished he had been consecrating a cemetery, and 
 had said " that departed souls suffered no injury if their bod- 
 ies were left in a desert place, or on a field of battle, or in 
 any other way were unable to receive the rites of burial." 
 
 I think there are very few people and the fact is suffi- 
 ciently remarkable who can look back upon their lives with- 
 out seeing that there has been some time or other in which 
 they have incurred the peril of a sudden, violent death. There 
 is a curious story told of a man who came on the field of bat- 
 tle. The Duke of Wellington remonstrated with him, and 
 the gentleman replied that his Grace was in the same peril. 
 "Yes," said the duke, "but I am doing my duty." It was 
 just at this moment that a ball struck the unfortunate man 
 dead. We seem to be taught by such instances that there is 
 "a time to be born and a time to die," and that while change 
 and chance happen to all men, there are laws in these changes 
 and chances, not indeed clearly visible at times indeed ap- 
 pearing to act with odd caprice but in the great emergen- 
 cies of life manifesting an influence overruled for good. 
 
 Many curious instances of individual good fortune might 
 be given. Some time ago there was a paragraph in the news- 
 papers, which I believe was correct, stating that an old lady, 
 childless and friendless, suddenly made up her mind to leave 
 a large property to the children of some chemist or green- 
 grocer at whose shop she had always received great civility. 
 It is worth noting that civility has always had luck as an ally. 
 There is the story told of some gentleman who, on a battle- 
 field, happening to bow with much grace to some officer who 
 addressed him, a cannon-ball just went through his hair, and 
 took of? the head of the other one. The officer, when he saw
 
 54 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 his marvelous escape, justly observed that a man never lost 
 by politeness. Another curious story of luck on a battle- 
 field is, I believe, perfectly authentic. A ball passed straight 
 through a man's body, and the man recovered.* Thus much 
 is not unparalleled, but there was something more, highly cu- 
 rious and lucky. The man was consumptive, and had formed 
 tubercles. The ball carried away the tubercles, and the man 
 recovered, not only from the wound, but from the consump- 
 tion. 
 
 I myself knew a man who had been a poor Cornish miner, 
 and, like so many of his class, had been forced to emigrate. 
 He was long in Peru, but all his attempts to get on seemed 
 utterly to fail. At last, when he was about to give up in de- 
 spair, he suddenly came upon a vein of the purest silver. 
 He returned to the west country, where he purchased one of 
 its largest and best estates. He took me over his magnifi- 
 cent grounds, and told me what he had been able to do for 
 good causes dear to his heart. His income had been returned 
 for that year at sixty thousand pounds. I was told of a cu- 
 rious gleam of romance in this man's life. He had been en- 
 gaged to a poor girl before he emigrated, and on his return 
 he dressed himself in his old working clothes and went to the 
 
 * It might be thought that there is nothing more capricious than the 
 billet of a bullet, but even this chance has a calculable element Mr. Gal- 
 ton (" Hereditary Genius") says : The chance of a man being struck by 
 accidental shots is in proportion to his sectional area that is, to his shad- 
 ow on a neighboring wall, cast by a distant light, or to his height multi- 
 plied into his natural breadth. However, it is equally easy, and more con- 
 venient, to calculate from the better-known data of his height and weight. 
 One man differs from another in being more or less tall, and more or less 
 thick-set. It is unnecessary to consider depth (of chest, for example) as 
 well as width, for the two go together. Let h a man's height, w = his 
 weight, b = his average breadth, taken in any direction we please, but it 
 must be in the same direction for all. Then his weight, w, varies as h & 3 , 
 and his sectional area varies as h i>, or as V h X /; ", or as V h w.
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 
 
 55 
 
 poor cottage, where he found his old love unchanged and wel- 
 coming him back. It was a glad surprise next day. 
 
 There once lived a man in the west of England the story 
 is well known there who took a thousand shares in a mine, 
 and never had to pay more than a pound apiece for them ; 
 and on those shares he lived sumptuously, and out of the in- 
 come of those shares he bought an estate for a hundred thou- 
 sand pounds, and, finally, he sold those shares for half-a-mill- 
 ion of money. There is a man in Berkshire who has got a 
 park with a walled frontage of seven miles, and he tells of a 
 beautiful little operation which made a nice little addition to 
 his fortune. He was in Australia when the first discoveries 
 of gold were made. The miners brought in their nuggets, 
 and took them to the local banks. The bankers were a little 
 nervous about the business, uncertain about the quality of the 
 gold, and waiting to see its character established. This man 
 had a taste for natural sciences, and knew something about 
 metallurgy. He tried each test, solid and fluid, satisfied him- 
 self of the quality of the gold, and then, with all the money he 
 had or could borrow, he bought as much gold as might be, 
 and showed a profit of a hundred thousand pounds in the 
 course of a day or two. It is to be observed here that what 
 we call luck is resolvable very often into what is really ob- 
 servation and knowledge, and a happy tact in applying them 
 when a sudden opportunity arises. The late Joseph Hume 
 was a happy instance of this. He went out to India, and 
 while he was still a young man he accumulated a consider- 
 able fortune. He saw that hardly any about him knew the 
 native languages, so he applied himself to the hard work of 
 mastering them, and turned the knowledge to most profitable 
 account. On one occasion, when all the gunpowder had 
 failed the British army, he succeeded in scraping together a 
 large amount of the necessary materials, and manufactured it
 
 5 6 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 for our troops. When he returned to England he canvassed 
 with so much ability and earnestness for a seat in the East 
 India Directorate, that he might carry out his scheme of re- 
 form, that, though he failed to get the vote of a certain large 
 proprietor of stock, he won his daughter's heart, and made a 
 prosperous marriage. Marriage is, after all, the luckiest bit 
 of luck when it is all it should be. When Henry Baring, the 
 late Lord Ashburton, traveled in America not merely dilet- 
 tante traveling, but, like Lord Milton in our days, piercing into 
 untraveled wilds, meeting only a stray, enthusiastic naturalist, 
 like Audubon he made his marriage with Miss Bingham, and 
 so consolidated the American business of the great house of 
 Baring. In an international point of view this was a happy 
 marriage, for in after years it gave him a peculiar facility for 
 concluding the great Ashburton treaty. When young Thesi- 
 ger gave up the trade of midshipman, I dare say some kind 
 friends pronounced him a failure ; but no one would say that 
 of Lord Chancellor Chelmsford. There was another man 
 who became a British peer through circumstances full of luck 
 for the country, but which he doubtless always considered of 
 direst unluck to himself. A quiet, happy country gentleman 
 was Mr. Graham, with abundant means and healthful tastes, a 
 handsome estate and handsome wife. There is a tale of his 
 prowess related about his wife. They were at Edinburgh, 
 and were going to a great ball, when, to her infinite annoy- 
 ance, she found that she had left her jewel-case behind her. 
 The distance was sixty or seventy miles, and it was not many 
 hours before the ball was to come off. Graham took a fleet 
 horse, and at the top of his speed rode away homeward in 
 search of the jewel-case. He did his ride of a hundred and 
 fifty miles in marvelously short time, and the ornaments were 
 in time for the ball. When the wife, for whose comfort and 
 pleasure he had so chivalrously acted, died, Mr. Graham
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 57 
 
 inconsolable. To alleviate his deep-seated melancholy he 
 joined the army as a volunteer. Then commenced his splen- 
 did career as a soldier, in which he proved himself one of the 
 most efficient and gallant of Wellington's lieutenants, and 
 fought his way to pension and peerage. Such was the turn- 
 ing-point in the history of the late Lord Lynedoch. 
 
 There are some cases where in a critical conjuncture of cir- 
 cumstances there almost seems a direct intervention. Some 
 instances might be given from the long and curious list of 
 tales about enlistment in the army. Thus we have a curious 
 story about Mr. Wickham, the father of the eminent diploma- 
 tist. He was determined to be a soldier, but his grandfather 
 could not endure the idea. He ran away and enlisted in the 
 service of Piedmont. He was one day standing sentinel at 
 the gate of Alexandria, when two men of rank whom he had 
 known presented themselves with their passports. For the 
 sake of the joke young Wickham could not resist giving them 
 a military salute. One of them, Sir Charles Cotton, immedi- 
 ately recognized him, and stayed the whole day in Alexandria 
 for the sole purpose of engaging him to write to friends, and 
 with great difficulty persuaded the young man to do so. His 
 grandfather gave way, and procured him a commission in the 
 Guards, and the man who might have perished as a common 
 soldier in foreign service became an honored and active mag- 
 istrate and country gentleman, and the father of one of the 
 most useful of our public servants. Still more remarkable 
 was the case of Coleridge, who, having enlisted as a common 
 soldier, wrote some lines in Latin which drew the attention of 
 his superior officer, who procured his release. Sometimes 
 the "intervention" assumes a character which hardly any 
 one would shrink from terming strictly providential. Thus 
 at the commencement of Washington's military career, a sol- 
 dier in the enemy's army was on the point of picking him off 
 
 C2
 
 58 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 when he was totally unaware of his danger. Thrice he raised 
 his finger to the trigger, and thrice by an uncontrollable im- 
 pulse he forbore to fire. There was a remarkable retributive 
 kind of Providence in the case of Sir John Hawkins, the fa- 
 mous seaman in the days of great Elizabeth. He it was who, 
 in an evil day for the English race, first inaugurated the slave- 
 trade. It is a remarkable fact that Sir John's own son was 
 taken prisoner by a Barbary corsair, and he died broken- 
 hearted through grief. 
 
 Similarly in matters relating to the inner life. There are 
 certain books which to certain men have proved a spiritual 
 and mental crisis. Thus one hears of a man having his whole 
 course of life altered through reading Scott's " Force of Truth." 
 In religious biography we frequently meet instances in which 
 the perusal of some volume has been a turning-point in life. 
 In the lives of quiet thinkers, men who pass apparently un- 
 eventful lives, that are almost barren for biographical pur- 
 poses, the leading events of their history are the sudden 
 thoughts that strike them ; the books they read which open- 
 ed up avenues of intellectual interest, and conducted them 
 into lines of separate investigation. The "moment" may 
 have passed unnoticed by the world, and they may have a dif- 
 ficulty in fixing it for themselves, but it may be a crisis of 
 spiritual and intellectual history the best kind of history 
 after all. 
 
 There are moments, too, which are those of supreme import 
 moments of keen temptation, unhappy doubt, intense sor- 
 row moments when men have gone as in very agony out of 
 themselves to the Eternal Throne of God, seeking for a teach- 
 ing, a help, a consolation that this earth would be powerless 
 to afford. Then there has been some solemn moment in 
 which a deep, grave resolve has been made, in which the res- 
 olution has been steadily formed to make some great act of
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS'" OF LIFE. 
 
 59 
 
 self-denial ; to abandon some evil habit ; to conquer some 
 overmastering temptation. The recollection of such a mo- 
 ment is potent to the last ; such a moment is a true landmark 
 in any human history, and has served to shape and develop 
 the powers of the soul. In the moral life there frequently 
 comes some moment which is the very centre of a life's his- 
 tory. A temptation has gradually been exerting its fascinat- 
 ing influence over a man's mind, and the temptation is ob- 
 taining an increasing force. The soul has long resisted, but 
 the resistance shows a diminishing strength. The hour comes 
 when the power of the temptation and the power of the resist- 
 ance seem closely balanced. We are now reminded of the 
 picture of the Devil playing at chess with a man for his soul. 
 Then, by some mighty impulse, the soul makes election, al- 
 though how that election was determined we can not say. 
 All possible interests hang perchance upon the balance of a 
 moment. Perhaps the leap into the abyss was then made; 
 perhaps by a strong convulsive effort the man tore himself 
 from the side of the precipice, and found himself safe on the 
 spacious table-lands. This is that turning-point of the habits 
 of which I have spoken. In the one case there was hence- 
 forth a gradual deterioration who is there who knows Lon- 
 don well who can not count up such mournful instances ? 
 and in the other case, the man has burst away from the en- 
 circling chains, and has felt that he has been able to climb 
 out of lonely hell. 
 
 And not only are there such terrific moments of conflict, 
 but there are quiet, happy spots of life, on which the mind's 
 eye may rest evermore with freshness and relief green past- 
 ures and waters of comfort, to use that simple, touching em- 
 blem with which the King of Israel recalled his boyhood's 
 shepherd life. The Caliph in the story scored up eleven hap- 
 py days. I wonder whether that eleven was in excess or in
 
 60 TUR.Vl.Vu rOINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 deficiency of the average. Such days of perfect bliss are al- 
 together abnormal, and after a time we simply cease to ex- 
 pect them. The purple light of youth, the gay hues of ro- 
 mance and splendid possibilities die off into the light of com- 
 mon day. We know what life has to give, and what it can 
 not give. We cease to expect from travel or variety or ad- 
 venture any thing that in any perceptible degree will mate- 
 rially move and influence us. To some men the acquisition 
 of knowledge and ideas to others, their advance in material 
 prosperity to others, the gradual purifying and strengthen- 
 ing of the inner life becomes the great field wherein their 
 powers and aspirations are to be exercised. But in the gray 
 light of the long colorless afternoon it may delight at times to 
 turn anew to the earlier pages of life, and recall those pas- 
 sages which gave emotions of delight and surprise those 
 moments which summed up eras in the past, and proved 
 starting-points for the future. It is a blessed provision of 
 our nature that the mind forgets its sorrow and remembers its 
 joy. Though the iron may enter into the soul, yet nature will 
 heal those wounds, save for the memorial scar ; and though 
 the pillars of our hopes be shattered, yet around those broken 
 bases there gather the wild flowers and the clinging moss 
 which veil deformity with beauty. 
 
 I wonder whether a man might be allowed to quote him- 
 self. Thus it was some ten years ago that I wrote down some 
 memorial thought or moments in life, calling them the " Sun- 
 day Evening," referring to those quiet, sacred hours which any 
 man desiring to be wise would fain secure for himself, and 
 which often bring him into musing recollection of the past, 
 and surely also of clear anticipations for the future. 
 
 " May I not, with a glad mind, thank God for many happy 
 evenings which for their outward charm, and their relation to 
 the inward, sacred history of the soul and mind, are to me as
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 61 
 
 memorable as any most striking exterior event of life ? That 
 evening when through deepening twilight I passed on through 
 Rydal and Grasmere that glorious evening on Loch Katrine, 
 when the rich gold of sunset mingled with the rich gold of 
 autumn leaves, in the walk past Ellen's Isle that evening, 
 solitary and eventful, when from the casement of the chateau 
 where I dwelt I gazed on the broad Rhine and the vine-clad 
 heights that evening when I first sailed the still waters of 
 Lugano, or that when at midnight I looked upon solemn 
 Maggiore, or that when, having sailed down the lake of Como, 
 I came near and first beheld the noble Cathedral of Milan 
 that evening when, having wished the Superior of the hospice 
 of the Simplon farewell, past crag and waterfall and piny for- 
 est I descended the precipitous pass that evening when with 
 kindly friends I floated past Venetian palaces, beneath skies 
 of rare, pale loveliness reflected on the Adriatic waters ! I re- 
 member, and evermore will remember all these, and as a miser 
 counts over jewels and gold in vacant hours, in the ' sessions 
 of sweet, silent thought' I surround myself with the imagery 
 of these unforgotten things. But there are memories more 
 precious still, and these are connected with English soil, and 
 the English Sunday evening. 
 
 " Let me too, then, have my hour of reveries, and let me 
 now summon to memory two pure recollections of the Sunday 
 evening. One shall be of summer in the country, and one of 
 winter in our great city. 
 
 "It is a country district, where the wild moorland is in 
 some parts crowded by the dense population which our man- 
 ufacturing genius has evoked ; where the scenery once was 
 beautiful, and where strange gleams of beauty still interrupt 
 the sordid and common-place features of the landscape, by 
 walk, by shaded brook, by tufted heights, by an expanse of 
 fair water. The church, around which the roses in profusion
 
 G_> TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 cluster, and before which stretches the smooth, green, level 
 sward, sanctifies and adorns the landscape. The late sum- 
 mer sun is slowly westering ; softly through the oriel windows 
 the rays fall on the kneeling villagers, and fling a saint-like 
 glory on some dear head. The cadence of a noble voice is 
 heard in silvery tones, ' Lighten our darkness, we beseech 
 thee, O Lord ;' and then the simple hymn, perchance, in 
 which our large, and as yet unbroken, household circle join. 
 Such is the memorial imagery of simple country days, before 
 later years brought a wider knowledge and a sadder wisdom. 
 And now a glance at another Sunday evening, in the new 
 London life. I am in the precincts of the mighty Abbey. I 
 leave my friends, with whom I had been conversing, in the 
 venerable close ; and, threading my way through the quiet 
 cloisters, I pass through a side door, and suddenly a won- 
 drous scene reveals itself to me. Jets of foliated gas emerge 
 from the antique pillars, thousands throng the vast nave, the 
 crash of massive music breaks forth, which resounds to the 
 dim, unlighted recesses of the far east of. the Minster. It is 
 one of the earliest Sunday evening services in Westminster 
 Abbey, that new feature in the ever-young life of the Church 
 of England. You remember it, too, but perhaps you can not 
 have such associations with it as I have. And so it is that 
 on these Sunday evenings both retrospect and anticipation 
 are busy. We think of our lost friends, of those who were 
 once the most familiar forms in our daily life, who have now 
 passed away, living now in other lands, and beneath other 
 stars ; perchance, ' by the long wash of Australian seas ;' or 
 severed from us by inconstancy or falsehood or misfortune, 
 or even a kinder separation by the cold hand that has si- 
 lenced the lip, and laid the finger on the eyelid, but has not 
 left us without a hope. As Lord Herbert of Cherbury says 
 the brother of that great saint and poet, George Herbert in
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 63 
 
 lines, the first example of that peculiar metre which ' In Me- 
 moriam' has rendered so familiar : 
 
 ' These eyes again thine eyes shall see, 
 And hands again thine hands enfold, 
 And all chaste pleasures to be told, 
 Shall with us everlasting be.' 
 
 " That company of the loved and lost which was at first so 
 sparse, a two or three how the numbers increase, how the 
 voices swell ! Like the sand in the hour-glass, they hurry 
 into the vacant space ; they leave us, our sweet friends ; they 
 no longer are on our muster-roll ; as silent shadows they steal 
 off into yonder ghostly camp. That hour is coming to us, my 
 friends. Like a pilgrim, we every night pitch our tent a day's 
 march nearer home. We know it well. For the last time we 
 shall listen to those sweet vesper chimes, and for the last time 
 watch the soft splendor of that setting sun. And then for us, 
 in years which we shall not see, some kindly friend in melan- 
 choly musing some such hour as this will have for us, per- 
 chance, that sorrowful recollection which we ourselves extend 
 to those who have 'gone before.' 
 
 " Does this musing appear melancholy and regretful ? Not 
 altogether such, I trust, for, in very truth, the musings of Sun- 
 day evening have their lessons of calm and hope and conso- 
 lation. They should teach us to look back upon the past 
 without regret, and forward to the future without a sigh. If 
 our dead friends can still think and feel for us, at such an 
 hour as this their eternal regards may be fixed on us. If 
 there are ministering spirits who in angelic mission attend on 
 us, at such an hour we may listen to their heavenly whisper- 
 ings. The Eternal Spirit that strives with men, and would 
 fain make their lives and deaths blissful, is tenderly plead- 
 ing with the poor, erring human spirit that still clings to the 
 broken links of perishable things.
 
 64 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 " It is now the Ave hour of the Sunday evening. Such is 
 the hour to listen to the voice of God ; read some glorious 
 page in which the burning hope of better things translates 
 sorrow into serenity. Such is the hour of prayer ; pray for 
 your native land and for those you love, pray for forgiveness 
 and for strength, pray for resolution to live a calm and Chris- 
 tian life, pray for those who have your sorrows without your 
 hopes. And now to rehearse the last scene of all, by sink- 
 ing into silence and forgetfulness. Yet for a moment pause. 
 Withdraw the curtain, and view the large night looming in its 
 wintry sky over this great London. See how the multitudi- 
 nous stars come out, army upon army of the great hosts of 
 heaven, and remember how the music of the herald angels of 
 Bethlehem is still lingering upon our ears. May not our last 
 thoughts be of the ' many mansions' of our Father's house, 
 of which eternal truth has assured us, and promised to seek- 
 ers in them a home ?" 
 
 Bishop Latimer used to interrupt a discourse by saying, 
 " And now I'll tell you a fable." I will conclude this chap- 
 ter by telling a story of an Important Ten Minutes, which 
 possesses the advantage of being quite true. 
 
 Piccadilly was at its liveliest and busiest. The continuous 
 London roar rolled steadily on. Carriages, horsemen, vehi- 
 cles of all sorts hurried past. By Apsley House, at the en- 
 trance to Hyde Park, the crush of carriages was especially 
 great. Various glances were thrown at the historic mansion 
 of " the duke," as all called his Grace of Wellington, as if 
 there was no other, and never would be any other duke than 
 that duke. I imagine in that popular notion people were tol- 
 erably right. I am speaking of the days when the duke was 
 still living and at the summit of his popularity. Many, I say,
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 65 
 
 were the glances at those iron-clad shutters which the duke 
 found it necessary to employ at the riotous times of the Re- 
 form Bill, and which he grimly retained as a lasting memento 
 of popular favor. Among the pedestrians there was one whose 
 especial business it was that morning to call upon the Duke 
 of Wellington. He will enter Apsley House as a well-known 
 and honored visitant. With very good reason will he be re- 
 ceived as such, for Colonel Beckwith has long served under 
 the duke, and is an old Peninsular officer. He is disabled 
 now we see that he has lost a leg. Very proud, indeed, may 
 he be of that honorable loss. The limb was left at Waterloo, 
 where the soldier had bravely fought for our English hearts 
 and homes. 
 
 The colonel was shown into the library of Apsley House, 
 and sat down. The duke was very much engaged, but would 
 see him presently. Could he wait ten minutes? Colonel 
 Beckwith resigned himself to the delay, and waited for some 
 ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. On those few minutes 
 depended the multiplied events of many years. The colonel, 
 in after-life, used often to speak of that brief space of time as 
 the turning crisis of his existence. 
 
 Perhaps Colonel Beckwith had heard of a certain remark- 
 able saying of Napoleon's, and, as an old soldier, had prob- 
 ably seen it realized. " Although a battle may last a whole 
 day," Napoleon used to say, " there were generally some ten 
 minutes in which the fate of the engagement was practically 
 decided." How often this is seen in life ! In the course of 
 a few minutes some thought is conceived, some deed commit- 
 ted, which tinges the color of the whole remainder of an ex- 
 istence. So it was to be now. 
 
 Before I proceed with the narrative I must stay to give one 
 fact respecting the antecedent history of this honored soldier. 
 Without knowing it we should be at a loss to understand the 
 circumstances that ensued.
 
 66 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 Colonel Beckwith was a truly religious man. He kept close 
 to his religion with soldierly simplicity and good faith. Aftei 
 the great field of Waterloo he had stayed in an invalided state 
 at Brussels, a maimed and disabled man. Then it was that 
 he read the Bible. He read it earnestly and diligently. Ah, 
 how many of us require to be laid upon a bed of languor be- 
 fore we will patiently give heed to those sacred pages ! Gen- 
 eral Beckwith for he reached that rank must have blessed 
 this time, for it was then that he was brought to God. 
 
 How should Colonel Beckwith spend the ten minutes dur- 
 ing which he was to wait for the great duke ? 
 
 We have already said that he was in the library. It was, 
 therefore, a natural step that he should walk up to the book- 
 shelves. His eye carelessly wandered over the titles of the 
 volumes. He put out his hand and took the first that offered. 
 It was Gilly's " Waldenses." For ten minutes or more he was 
 absorbed in the contents. Then a servant entered the library 
 and announced that the duke would see him in the sitting- 
 room. The illustrious chief and his distinguished subaltern 
 then engaged in conversation, and shortly afterward General 
 Beckwith took his leave. 
 
 The remembrance of what he had read during that ten min- 
 utes spent in the library haunted him. At least he accurately 
 remembered the title of the volume, and could procure it at 
 his bookseller's. He did so. Who was the author ? A dig- 
 nitary of the Church of England, the Very Rev. Dr. Gilly, 
 Dean of Durham. He was so greatly excited that from read- 
 ing this book he proceeded to read every other book connect- 
 ed with the subject. For this purpose he ransacked every 
 library he knew. Finally, was it not possible to become ac- 
 quainted with Dr. Gilly, the author of that remarkable book 
 which he had devoured so ardently in the library of Apsley 
 House ? Certainly it was. There was no one whom the kind
 
 CRITICAL "MOMENTS" OF LIFE. 67 
 
 dean would be better pleased to see than an old Waterloo 
 soldier who wished to speak to him on his favorite subject. 
 They became great allies, and were both alike ever deeply in- 
 terested in the Waldenses. 
 
 Another thought now occurred to him. Why should he not 
 cross the sea and the mountains, and go and see the Walden- 
 ses for himself; see for himself that beautiful scenery, and by 
 this means conceive fully in his mind his impressions of that 
 strange history ? He was a man without any ties. The great 
 wars were all over now. Europe was forever safe from Na- 
 poleon, and the soldier's occupation was gone. His time and 
 his means were entirely his own. He was unmarried, and, 
 we believe, without near relatives. 
 
 Accordingly, in the summer of 1827, he made his first visit. 
 He was rather hampered with some engagements on this oc- 
 casion, and made only a hurried stay of three or four days. 
 Next year, however, he went again, and stayed three months ; 
 the year following, six months. By-and-by he permanently 
 established himself at Torre. 
 
 Closely as General Beckwith was connected with the Wal- 
 denses, he became still more identified with them. He took 
 a wife from among the daughters of the people. He was then 
 well stricken in years, and it might have been questioned how 
 far the Alpine maiden would suit the aged English gentleman 
 and soldier ; but, to use the words of old Isaac Walton, " the 
 Eternal Lover of mankind made them happy in each other's 
 mutual affection and compliance." She was a village maid 
 of humble origin, but well educated as education was account- 
 ed there, and he lived very happily with her during the re- 
 maining eleven years of his life. In these latter days he had 
 a love for the sea that equaled his love for the mountains. He 
 was fully aware of the important sanitary truth, how beneficial
 
 68 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 is a timely change of air and residence. The sea-side resi- 
 dence which he selected was Calais. He went there so reg- 
 ularly and stayed ao long that it was even thought the coasts 
 of fair France were estranging him from the valleys of Pied- 
 mont. We know not how far this may have been the case, 
 but it is certain that in his last illness his affection for his Al- 
 pine home was in all the fullness of its strength. He knew 
 that he was dying, and his hope was that he might die among 
 the people. In extreme weakness he turned southward and 
 crossed the Alps, that he might lay his bones in beloved Torre. 
 
 At Torre, then, he gradually declined and died, amid the 
 tears and blessings of an affectionate and grateful population. 
 He left this world, July igth, 1862. He lies buried in the 
 church-yard of Torre, and for generations to come his tomb 
 will be pointed out to the passing traveler. Some great En- 
 glishmen are lastingly identified with the Vaudois Protestants. 
 Oliver Cromwell sent through his Latin secretary, John Milton, 
 that famous dispatch which expostulated on their behalf with 
 the Duke of Savoy. 
 
 King William the Third, in a treaty with Savoy, inserted 
 terms which greatly ameliorated their condition. But even 
 more than the memory of the great Protector, even more than 
 the memory of the great Protestant deliverer, will the memory 
 of General Beckwith be cherished in these valleys. 
 
 Assuredly his is the record of a great, simple, beneficent 
 life ! And all this came to pass, as he often used to say, from 
 the short time that he spent in looking over a book in the li- 
 brary of Apsley House while waiting to see the great duke ! 
 Certainly that was an important ten minutes !
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 69 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 University Careers. 
 
 I ADD a few words especially on the subject of university 
 careers, inasmuch as the university is to an immense number 
 of men essentially a great turning-point in life, and because, 
 when different schemes for university extension are developed 
 and bear fruit, the universities will become more than ever 
 national institutions, and centres of intellectual life for the na- 
 tion at large. I am hardly sanguine enough to believe that 
 the time will ever return when, as in the days of Occam, some 
 thirty thousand students will troop from all parts of the coun- 
 try to Oxford as the gateway of all knowledge. It is impos- 
 sible to doubt that our universities are now in a transition 
 state. This is symbolized by the demolition and reconstruc- 
 tion of the collegiate edifices themselves during the last de- 
 cade ; by the new examinations that have been instituted ; by 
 the constitution, in either university, of the new class of un- 
 attached students ; by schemes for making the universities 
 schools for special study on the arts and sciences. If we 
 could look into the Oxford or the Cambridge of the future, 
 the eyes of the old university man, already sorely dazzled by 
 changes outward and inward even now existing, might be- 
 hold, not without infinite trepidation, an expansion and met- 
 amorphosis of which his past experience could hardly suggest 
 any idea. Any discussion of university life must relate chief- 
 ly to the historic aspect of the subject, and it may be that, 
 with a proverbial slowness, we may linger long before the
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 transition is accomplished ; but a transition is in store for us, 
 and we may hope that it will be for the best. 
 
 In speaking of university careers, a great deal depends on 
 the conception which we may form of academical success. 
 Differences of opinion depend mainly on a single point, name- 
 ly, whether a successful college career is regarded as a means 
 to an end, or as an end in itself. The notion of a successful 
 university career usually implies a first-class and a fellowship ; 
 and, as this involves a modestly substantial income and a not 
 undistinguished social position, such a career is looked upon 
 as a good thing, worthy to be sought for its own sake. With 
 many persons, on the other hand, a college career, however 
 brilliant, is only regarded as a step toward ulterior objects. 
 The real aim is in the direction of the church, parliament, or 
 the bar, and a successful career at college is looked upon as 
 a significant omen of the real success of after-life. There are 
 many distinguished men now living, whose names are familiar 
 enough to those who habitually handle the " University Calen- 
 dar," who have amply justified any prognostics that might be 
 drawn from early eminence. Christ Church has, pre-eminent- 
 ly, been the foster-parent of such men ; that ancient founda- 
 tion having given to the world a long line of illustrious states- 
 men, who have entered the House of Commons with a brill- 
 iant prestige for scholarship and ability. High university hon- 
 ors comprise, however, so many advantages of a lucrative kind 
 that they excite a keen competition for them among those 
 with whom they are a natural object of desire. One result is 
 that men enter the university at a somewhat later age than 
 was formerly the case ; they bring up a larger stock of knowl- 
 edge than they once used to do, and the standard of the hon- 
 or-examination is proportionately raised. It was once possi- 
 ble for the same Cambridge man to obtain the highest place 
 both in mathematics and classics ; but we think it was the
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 
 
 late Baron Alderson, who was one of the very few remarka- 
 ble men thus distinguished, who used to say that the system 
 of examination is now so far extended that it is impossible for 
 any human being to repeat this particular kind of success. 
 Men at present run for the great university prizes under a 
 regular training system, as complete and as scientific as any 
 other system of prize competition. There is now established 
 a regular migration from the Scottish to the English universi- 
 ties. Men who have actually taken a master-of-arts degree 
 at Edinburgh or Glasgow take the position of undergraduates 
 who have only just discarded their jackets. Those who know 
 any thing of Baliol College, Oxford, or of St. Peter's College, 
 Cambridge, are aware of the great extent to which this kind 
 of thing is carried. Some hardship seems involved, by this 
 system, on younger competitors ; but then older men pay a 
 penalty in being proportionately late starters in the great 
 business of life. However, they often consider that they have 
 satisfactorily performed that business if they have obtained 
 that academical success which will guarantee them a modest, 
 permanent competence. 
 
 The competition for educational honors and advantages, 
 which has ordinarily been supposed, with justice, to commence 
 at the university, in accordance with modern notions of com- 
 petition, has been pushed back to a still earlier age. The ad- 
 vantages are so questionable that it is to be hoped that the 
 system will not receive any further extension. Great pecuni- 
 ary advantages are now attainable by mere children at our 
 great public schools. A very juvenile youngster may save his 
 father many hundred pounds by gaining a place on the foun- 
 dation of Eton or Winchester. While this is the case, we can 
 not but fear that forcing establishments will gain in parental 
 estimation, and many a young head and heart will be weighed 
 down by a burden of too early thought and care. We ques-
 
 72 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 tion, also, if there is much real wisdom in playing a long game 
 instead of a short game. The prematurely clever child, who 
 is extraordinarily successful at school, will probably be only 
 an ordinary man, with no special success at college. In the 
 same way, the extraordinarily clever man at college in many 
 instances will subsequently shade off into a very insignificant 
 kind of being for the rest of his life. Among the crowds of 
 young men in the fast-fleeting generations of the university, 
 there are many who, by their force of ability, seconded by 
 only moderate application, achieve the very highest degree of 
 college success, and repeat that success, on a still broader 
 scale, in the world. But, beyond these instances, it appears 
 perfectly possible to crowd into a few years the intellectual 
 labors of many years, and to impoverish and exhaust the men- 
 tal soil by a system of unfairly high farming. Men are con- 
 stantly met with who sweep the universities of all the prizes 
 which it is in the power of those great corporations to bestow, 
 and who find that their subsequent career can bear no kind 
 of comparison with that brilliant early success. They have 
 lost the fresh spring of youthful elasticity, the early ardor of 
 intellectual exertion. The mind that has long run in a scho- 
 lastic groove acquires a kind of mental immobility, and will 
 not easily adapt itself to the untried career of an active pro- 
 fessional life. Even zealous attempts to achieve something 
 of the kind often prove real failures, and the college don who 
 has tried to renew college success in politics or at the bar 
 frequently falls back once more on the common-room or the 
 combination-room, and takes his share in college tuition and 
 the emoluments of college offices. But the university career 
 which, after all, is confined within the limits of the university, 
 is not, perhaps, such an enviable kind of success that it should 
 be constantly held up to the admiration and imitation of all 
 those who are starting on the race of life.
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 
 
 73 
 
 Of course, here as elsewhere, we have to arbitrate between 
 different orders of men, and different kinds of successes. It 
 is a great success when a man has won his way to the head- 
 ship of his college, with a clear prospective eye to bishopric 
 or deanery. It is no less a success when the poor scholar, aft- 
 er wading through difficult waters, has obtained a college fel- 
 lowship, and with grateful, contented mind waits for his col- 
 lege living. His horizon may be narrow and bounded, but it 
 is, at least, satisfactorily filled. Still, the college career, which 
 is limited and bounded by college objects, is often fraught 
 with melancholy considerations. A merely merchantile ele- 
 ment is often introduced, which can not be wholly deprived 
 of a despicable character. We can hardly sympathize with 
 young men -who are always eagerly calculating the value of 
 scholarships and fellowships, and subordinate eveiy study 
 to the question whether it will pay. Things are often bad 
 enough at Oxford, but at Cambridge an essentially ignoble 
 system is pursued to a most deleterious extent. It is often 
 the fault of parents, who tell their sons that they must look to 
 the university as the main source of the present and future 
 subsistence. We have heard the case of a father who made 
 his two sons handsome allowances, with the understanding 
 that, after they took their degrees, they should entirely main- 
 tain themselves. We feel sure that nearly all our readers can 
 recall similar instances. In this particular case, one of the 
 sons went mad ; the other, with broken health, won a fellow- 
 ship, and, naturally, was on bad terms with his father ever aft- 
 erward. The training system at Cambridge is carried to as 
 high a degree of perfection as any system of trainer and jockey 
 can be carried. The Johnian stables are particularly cele- 
 brated. Every particular of diet, rest, and exercise is sedu- 
 lously attended to. The reading man will look with the ut- 
 most abhorrence upon the feeding man, simply because the 
 
 D
 
 74 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 feeding will interfere with the reading. He will also look 
 with the utmost contempt upon the man who dabbles in liter- 
 ature, or indulges in oratorical flights at the Union. He has 
 no notion of indulging in any kind of intellectual pursuit 
 which may, in the* least degree, divert his brain from the lu- 
 crative objects on which it is fixed. He tramples down re- 
 morselessly any flowers of imagination of poetry which may 
 appear in the fresh dawn of intellectual life. The success 
 aimed at is, at last, achieved ; we, of course, pass over the 
 very many cases in which success has been all but achieved, 
 and grievous disappointment has been the result. The victo- 
 rious student, in due time, subsides into a college don, who, in 
 his own kind of way, is the most spoiled and pampered of 
 men. But it is a condition of things in which an advance is 
 not easily made, and where the first flush wears off into a dull 
 kind of day. The undergraduate may admire the awful state 
 of the don, but the don must often envy the elasticity and 
 freshness of the undergraduate. Year by year the resident 
 don finds the list of his friends narrowing within an ever nar- 
 rowing circle. He may enjoy travel and society, but there is 
 the corroding recollection that he is linked to his college po- 
 sition, and if that is abandoned, he will have to begin life 
 over again. The men whose injudicious oratory and litera- 
 ture he despised, in the meantime are, perhaps, obtaining 
 name and position in public life. Very often the don takes 
 a college living, when it is no secret that he has but scanty 
 sympathy with the sacred work to which he is devoting him- 
 self. 
 
 It is a common thing that, when such a man has attained 
 all that the university can give him, he is seized with an ex- 
 aggerated and morbid desire to get married. It must be 
 owned that there is much in his surroundings to encourage 
 this excessive tendency toward connubiality. All material
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 75 
 
 wants are amply satisfied. The fellows live and rule like 
 petty kings. Every day the high table is sumptuously spread 
 for them, without any effort on their part; and costly refec- 
 tions, from buttery and kitchen, are ready at any moment. 
 The fellow lives in comparative luxury and idleness ; he is 
 surrounded with pictures and poetry and art; he is often 
 sensitive, susceptible, and imaginative to the highest degree. 
 We have very rarely known a fellow of a college who was not 
 more or less anxious to get married. Generally, also, these 
 fellows are in the predicament of waiting for dead men's shoes, 
 eagerly expecting the lapse of the college living which will en- 
 able them to marry. At the present time, the wonderful era 
 has arrived when fellows of college are allowed to marry. 
 This innovation was looked upon by the old school as being 
 of the most alarming kind ; and, certainly, there is something 
 revolutionary in the spectacle of the venerated college grass- 
 plat being converted into a croquet-ground by the wives of 
 the fellows and their feminine belongings. Still, hitherto 
 such fellowships have almost entirely, or entirely, been held 
 by those who are professors, or whose services have been 
 found to be absolutely necessary in carrying out the work of 
 college tuition ; and it is not at all probable that such a per- 
 mission will be generally accorded to fellows. One effect of 
 such regulations would be that there would be fewer vacan- 
 cies in fellowships, and the chances of a successful university 
 career would be materially abridged. From this enforced 
 celibacy, or other causes, fellows of colleges are often restless, 
 disappointed men ; and, truly, the grand university success 
 often turns out to be not much better than a failure and a 
 mistake. 
 
 Still, after allowing for all these drawbacks, there is a worse 
 kind of university career. There are university careers which 
 fatally progress backward. A university man can exemplify,
 
 76 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 to any extent, the art of sinking. For many natures the uni- 
 versity is a fiery crucible, which searches out destructively 
 worthlessness and vice. It is a trial for a young man to find 
 himself suddenly ^in unlimited credit at the wine-merchant's 
 and confectioner's, and with full power to gratify any baneful 
 thought of self-indulgence with which he is familiar. The de- 
 fenses which surround him are, ordinarily, very slight. The 
 college tutor, who is sometimes depicted as watching over his 
 morals and endeavoring to exercise on his behalf a legitimate 
 influence for good, is a being who is not ordinarily to be dis- 
 covered in real life. The undergraduate is generally left to 
 the brotherly agency of the proctor and his bull-dogs. If a 
 man is viciously disposed, the descent to Avernus is as easy 
 as possible for him. A little social or home influence would 
 be a good thing for him, but general society is limited at Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge, and only a small minority of men make 
 their way to it. As it is, the man whose career is of a down- 
 ward tendency speedily familiarizes himself with the best pro- 
 vincial imitations of metropolitan vice. This kind of career 
 need not be dwelt upon, for it has been often described by 
 that numerous tribe, the writers of university stories, and, un- 
 happily, is only too familiar in ordinary experience. We have 
 already said something on this sad subject. There are very 
 few families who, in the ramifications of relationship and con- 
 nections, can not count up a few black sheep. The Oxford 
 credit system has much to answer for, but it has still some 
 good points. It sometimes supplies a poor scholar with ab- 
 solute necessaries, for which he was unable to pay at the time, 
 and without which he could scarcely have passed through col- 
 lege. It is also to be said, to the ultimate credit both of 
 graduate honesty and the sleuth-hound vigilance of trades- 
 men, that, comparatively speaking, only few bad debts are 
 made at Oxford and Cambridge. There is a whole army of
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 
 
 77 
 
 lawyers, agents, and collectors, a column whose insidious ad- 
 vances are screened from observation till the moment of at- 
 tack. We question, however, if mere indebtedness is the gen- 
 eral cause of the social tragedy of a downward college career. 
 That must generally be an enormous profligacy and folly at 
 college when, subsequently, a crooked career can by no means 
 be made straight, nor recover itself through honest exertion 
 and the help of friends. That must be an almost unmixed 
 process of deterioration which, as the goal of a career, leaves 
 a university man, as is sometimes the case, in the position of 
 a billiard-marker or driver of a hansom cab. 
 
 It might be imagined that men who have really achieved a 
 career at the university, and won its substantial honors, would 
 be in the best possible position for winning further distinc- 
 tion. They have gained the vantage-ground from which they 
 may best advance, and are furnished with the instruments 
 with which they may best compete. They have attained so 
 much that they are full of hope, and there is so much to be 
 attained that they should be full of effort. An assured, mod- 
 erate provision, with a really good chance of obtaining still 
 better things, has been defined as the happiest position in it- 
 self, and furnishing the best incentive for exertion. Theoret- 
 ically, this may be the case, but, practically, it is not found to 
 work so. We do not, in any degree, desire to speak disparag- 
 ingly of fellowships. It must, also, be specially remembered 
 that the system of flinging the Oriel fellowships open to the 
 world proved the inauguration of better days for Oxford, and 
 was of the greatest " moment" to the university. Still, the 
 competition is so keen, the strain so heavy and protracted, 
 that men too often sacrifice the present for the future, and 
 forget that a university career is not the only, nor yet the 
 best, chance in life. Any university career, also, however ap- 
 parently successful, is only maimed and incomplete that does
 
 TURNING-POINTS L\ LIFE. 
 
 not include a fair share of the social advantages of the uni- 
 versity. It is the glory of Oxford and Cambridge that they 
 not only make scholars, but that they make gentlemen and 
 make men. Every man should seek to avail himself of the 
 intellectual culture of the university ; and there are now so 
 many avenues to distinction that he must, indeed, be a dull- 
 ard who despairs of making any appearance in any class-list. 
 But it is something also to " catch the blossom of the flying 
 terms ;" something to make the friends and build up the char- 
 acter which are to stand a man in good stead in his after-life. 
 We do not stay to dwell much on this aspect of matters, but 
 he who has done thus much, and, while studying, can afford 
 to look with equanimity on material success, whether it comes 
 or goes, has really hit the golden mean, and pursued the kind 
 of career which, if not the most distinguished, is, at least, the 
 happiest and most salutary. 
 
 There is no subject more frequently debated than the com- 
 parative merits of the two universities, and none where the 
 chance of unanimity is so doubtful or hopeless. The Oxford 
 or Cambridge man who is susceptible of being argued into 
 the conviction that the sister university is superior to his own 
 alma mater is as rare as the knight of romance who, while 
 championing the peerless beauty of his love, might avow that 
 he was prepared to give an enlightened consideration to the 
 possibly superior charms of some other competitor for the title 
 of Queen of Beauty. It is right to argue and contend, but 
 there is disloyalty or treason in the very thought that the ar- 
 gument can have more than one conclusion. It generally 
 ends with the dogmatic statement that the arguer is positive 
 that he is in the right, and an offer to back either the light 
 blue or the dark blue, as the case may be, to any conceivable 
 extent, for the next boat-race. There are a few persons, not 
 many the late Mr. Maurice furnished us with a remarkable
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 
 
 79 
 
 example who have studied at both universities, and may be 
 supposed to possess better materials for forming a judgment, 
 and a certain degree of impartiality. But even with these the 
 tide of personal associations, from the influence of which the 
 most philosophical are rarely able to extricate themselves, 
 sets decidedly in a particular direction. And, indeed, as soon 
 as we have gone at all thoroughly into the discussion, we per- 
 ceive that other reasons besides an affectionate spirit of par- 
 tisanship render a decision exceedingly difficult. For our- 
 selves, we confess to our inability to strike a clear balance ; 
 but though we can not hope to settle the general question, 
 there are many points on which it is quite easy to arbitrate, 
 that may satisfy a man, not, indeed, as to which is the best 
 university, considered on the absolute merits, but which is the 
 best for him. It is to be regretted that a considerable num- 
 ber of men go up to the university without much careful con- 
 sideration of this preliminary question. The matter ought to 
 be settled on more definite grounds than that your father or 
 uncle was there before you, or that your favorite school-fellow 
 has gone to such a college. It is not unusual to meet with 
 an Oxford man whose friends tell him that he ought to have 
 gone to Cambridge, nor yet with the Cambridge man who will 
 admit that, from all he has since learned, he believes that Ox- 
 ford would have been the preferable university for him. In 
 selecting a university, as in the more important matter of 
 choosing a profession, there should be a due measure of in- 
 quiry and deliberation. 
 
 In very many cases, indeed, the incipient undergraduate fol- 
 lows a probably safe tradition. There is a legal and histor- 
 ical connection between some great schools and some great 
 colleges, and there is also an undefined, but, at the same time, 
 very strong connection between Eton and Christ Church, 
 which has become illustrious through the many great states-
 
 8o TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 men educated on the two foundations. But if a man does not 
 feel to employ the language of the bidding prayer " in pri- 
 vate duty bound" to resort to a particular college, he is then 
 open to considerations on the general question. These con- 
 siderations chiefly have respect to the nature of his training 
 and the character of his mind. If, for instance, he is mathe- 
 matically inclined, and desires that his mathematical powers 
 should bring him reputation and profit, it is clear that Cam- 
 bridge is the place for him, and Oxford is not. There are 
 mathematical class-lists at Oxford in which, no doubt, men 
 of remarkable attainments have been placed. But mathe- 
 matical honors at Oxford have not the same ascertained and 
 precise value as at Cambridge. A man may be a first-class 
 in mathematics at Oxford, and be as good a mathematician 
 as a senior wrangler, and yet he would gain hardly any thing 
 of the credit and advantage which the senior wrangler achieves. 
 There is no difficulty in speaking on the subject of mathe- 
 matical honors, but when we go further we become conscious 
 of considerable difficulties. This has been such a revolution- 
 ary era at the universities that if a man has left Oxford only 
 a few years he finds it difficult to speak with certainty of the 
 comparative value of its academic distinctions. We confess 
 we feel great sympathy with the elders who maintain as un- 
 challengeable the value of the old Oxford first, before it was 
 broken up into the first and second public examinations. The 
 result has been the deterioration of exact scholarship at Ox- 
 ford, but, at the same time, the lending an impulse to the high- 
 er and more difficult subjects, which demand a close acquaint- 
 ance with the ancient historians and philosophers, and the 
 cognate literature. The first result of this was that most pub- 
 lic schoolmen chiefly confined their attention to the modera- 
 tions examination. It is now, however, unceasingly felt that 
 the second public examination answers most, upon the whole,
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 8 1 
 
 to the old first-class, and has a greater substantive value ; and 
 that men who devote themselves exclusively to languages are 
 hardly sufficiently rewarded by the intermediate honors of 
 moderations. It is also to be noted, that at Oxford a man 
 may attain the highest classical honors, either in moderations 
 or in the final examination, without writing a single line either 
 of Greek or Latin verse. We suppose that it would be im- 
 possible for a Cambridge man to obtain even a low second- 
 class without a considerable mastery of this accomplishment. 
 The old saying used to be, that Cambridge excelled in mathe- 
 matics, and Oxford in classics. It may still be claimed that 
 Oxford classmen have the thorough and accurate knowledge 
 of the books which they bring up, which, though it may at 
 times be reached at Cambridge, has probably never been sur- 
 passed. But we believe that there can be scarcely any doubt 
 but the palm of verbal scholarship in England now rather rests 
 with the Cambridge classical tripos than with any Oxford 
 class-list. If these facts are so, the general result seems to be, 
 that if a man is born with an instinct for writing Greek iam- 
 bics or Latin elegiacs, or has developed remarkable taste in 
 the direction of the " Cratylus," he will find the best field for 
 classics in the examination for the tripos. But then, again, it 
 is claimed on behalf of Oxford that she advances toward a 
 point which is far beyond the contemplation of the Cambridge 
 system. Having satisfied herself that the candidates possess 
 a thorough and critical knowledge of the languages, she pro- 
 ceeds to give chief attention to the subject-matter of the books, 
 and to mental science. It may almost be said that Oxford 
 has here taken the place of Cambridge. The original Cam- 
 bridge wrangling, which has given its name to the mathemat- 
 ical examination, has altogether disappeared from Cambridge, 
 but is reproduced very exactly at Oxford. Men may no lon- 
 ger discuss and reason and dispute at Cambridge, unless, in- 
 
 D 2
 
 82 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 deed, for a degree of divinity ; but there is a very remarkable 
 tincture of all this in the Oxford final examination. The an- 
 cient historians bring up the whole subject of history ; the an- 
 cient philosophers, the subjects of ethical and metaphysical 
 science. Nor is this knowledge of a wordy and barren kind. 
 It is true that the Oxford student has studied for himself the 
 " Organon" of Aristotle, but he has also the " Novum Orga- 
 non" at his fingers' end, and is as well read in Comte and Mill 
 as the most zealous reader of the Westminster. Thus, while 
 insisting upon a high order of scholarship for her superior 
 classes, the Oxford system especially encourages thought, re- 
 search, originality, fosters the historical and philosophical spir- 
 it, and exercises the highest mental powers, rather than makes 
 any extraordinary demand upon the memory and upon mere 
 acuteness. In this way the old Cambridge wrangling element 
 is a constant force at Oxford, not absent from the schools, and 
 always pervading society. Oxford is the scene of incessant 
 discussion, the place of ventilation for all new ideas. The 
 old proverb, much quoted lately, is true enough, that any sub- 
 ject ardently debated at Oxford will be discussed all over the 
 kingdom in the course of a few months. It is noticeable, as 
 symptomatic of this, that the volume of " Reform Essays" is 
 mainly by Oxford men, with only a slight admixture of Cam- 
 bridge men ; and, very possibly, a larger and better volume by 
 other men holding other views might be easily put forth. 
 Cambridge has, doubtless, many cultivated men who take a 
 vivid interest in intellectual discussion ; but this is quite apart 
 from the university system, while at Oxford it is in perfect 
 accordance with it. The establishment of the School of Law 
 and Modern History, an institution peculiar to Oxford, has 
 also done good service in fostering a spirit of historical in- 
 quiry, and bringing Oxford into accordance with the exigen- 
 cies of modern education. It is noticeable that Christ Church,
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 83 
 
 beyond any other college, has been honorably distinguished 
 in the historical class-lists. Perhaps we should not be wrong 
 in saying that Cambridge will best supply us with schoolmas- 
 ters, and Oxford with statesmen. For systematical labor, crit- 
 ical accuracy, sheer work, and more remunerative honors, we 
 believe that an obvious supremacy rests with Cambridge. But 
 for a wider and deeper training, for the real education and de- 
 velopment of the higher faculties, for the more genuine tinct- 
 ure of all that is implied by the expression Litercz Humanio- 
 res, there is reason for believing that the palm belongs to the 
 elder university. 
 
 In the friendly comparison between Oxford and Cambridge 
 a number of smaller matters arise, most of which would be 
 chiefly worth noticing for the sake of the comparison, although 
 their aggregate value would be not inconsiderable. Thus the 
 Oxford freshmen must at once occupy rooms in college, and 
 only at a late period they go into lodgings. On the other 
 hand, the Cambridge freshman goes into lodgings, and subse- 
 quently obtains college rooms. The Cambridge man puts 
 the plain name, but the Oxford man is in this, and other re- 
 spects, a little more stately. The Cambridge don is general- 
 ly exceedingly donnish ; the Oxford don is exceedingly frank 
 and familiar to the younger men with whom he is brought in 
 contact. At Cambridge there is an odious expression con- 
 stantly on the lips of reading men, which least becomes young 
 men and votaries of knowledge, whether each course of read- 
 ing will pay. The expression is well known at Oxford, but 
 by no means prevails to the same extent. We like the Ox- 
 ford plan of grouping the names of men in the same class al- 
 phabetically better than the graduated Cambridge system, as 
 more generous in itself and lessening the unavoidable draw- 
 backs that attend emulation and competition. Mr. Kingsley 
 has,, with some rancor, insisted that Cambridge men have a
 
 84 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 chivalry of their own toward women, in which Oxford men 
 are painfully deficient. It would be interesting to ascertain 
 on what actual facts Mr. Kingsley bases his conclusion ; we 
 have not ourselves found that circumstances point in this di- 
 rection. One fact sliould be noted which is very much in fa- 
 vor of the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge every 
 other man you meet is a reading man, at Oxford barely one 
 man in four deserves that title. This state of things is great- 
 ly to be regretted, because the university curriculum at Ox- 
 ford, apart from honors, does not give much work for any 
 man of average intelligence, and there are so many avenues 
 of distinction that most men should do something in the 
 schools. Coming to the practical matter of expenditure, the 
 expense of tutors is about a third more at Oxford than at 
 Cambridge, and on a rough calculation the Oxford expenses 
 are perhaps a third more than the Cambridge expenses. 
 There are separate items in which Oxford is the less expen- 
 sive of the two ; thus the rooms are perhaps better, with the 
 rent lower ; but matters, on the whole, are somewhat on a 
 more expensive scale. A man very often goes to Cambridge 
 to make money, when he goes to Oxford to spend money. 
 The debate will certainly be extended into a comparison of 
 the scenic beauty which belongs to the respective localities. 
 There is something absolutely unapproachable in the extreme 
 beauty of the " backs" of colleges when the Cam steals be- 
 tween frequent arches and groves and lawns, beneath the 
 shadows of venerable edifices. Neither is there any Oxford 
 chapel which is the equal of King's College Chapel. Never- 
 theless, the view of Oxford, with its multiplicity of stately 
 buildings, amid waters and gardens, fully realizes Words- 
 worth's epithet of " overpowering." The city is altogether on 
 a wider and grander scale, and the girdle of surrounding coun- 
 try possesses a greater degree of interest. If from this we
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 85 
 
 proceed to examine the muster-rolls of illustrious names, the 
 two universities will poll man for man with much rapidity ; 
 but the great names of Bacon and Newton, Milton and Jer- 
 emy Taylor, invest Cambridge with peculiarly majestic asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 It is impossible that any comparison can give us an un- 
 doubted result, because the terms have no common denomi- 
 nator. A man may easily decide which university is the best 
 for him, but he will find it impossible to decide which uni- 
 versity is best in itself. If England only possessed one, her 
 educational system would show great drawbacks ; but, in the 
 diversities of the two, each supplements the other, and affords 
 the nutriment that is best suited for particular orders of mind 
 and variety of circumstance. One of the most thoughtful and 
 accurate of modern observers, M. Taine, in his " Histoire de la 
 Littdrature Anglaise," has words respecting Oxford which ap- 
 ply equally to Cambridge the truth of which we trust we 
 shall never forfeit that it affords "traces of the practical 
 good sense which has accomplished revolutions without com- 
 mitting ravages ; which, while improving every thing, has de- 
 stroyed nothing; which has preserved its trees as its consti- 
 tution, pruning out the old branches without felling the trunk, 
 and now, alone among the nations, enjoys not only the pres- 
 ent but the past." 
 
 But now there threaten to come upon Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge a mighty battalion of men who have hitherto been seen 
 only in casual detachments. This is the army of poor schol- 
 ars. We rejoice to believe that their advent has now really 
 been heralded. When a system of national education has 
 been thoroughly organized, we may hope that the district 
 schools will draught off their best scholars, and the endowed 
 schools will, as a matter of course, send their best scholars to 
 the universities. We hope there will be a golden academical
 
 86 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 age, in which insufficiency of means will never prevent a 
 bright, good youth from going to college. The tendency of 
 poor men at present is to go to Cambridge. At Cambridge 
 the colleges are very rich, while the university itself is poor ; 
 while the University of Oxford is very rich, while the colleges 
 are not so rich as those of Cambridge. If Mr. Rogers's cal- 
 culations are correct, the University of Oxford will before long 
 be enormously wealthy, and vast funds may be utilized for the 
 purposes of education. At Cambridge a considerable number 
 of men receive through college emoluments a large measure 
 of help in their course, and, indeed, often obtain what may be 
 called an academical subsistence. An immense sum is yearly 
 given away, bestowed with the most scrupulous fairness. In- 
 deed, any man by very shining ability and attainments may 
 make good his footing at either university through the open 
 scholarships. But beyond these there are many men of great 
 powers of mind who nevertheless could not hope to be suc- 
 cessful in a college competition, through not having enjoyed 
 the thorough training which public schools or skillful labor 
 have given to their antagonists. Many of the best men at 
 Oxford have obtained very poor degrees. And beyond these 
 there is the great want felt in the Church of young men to 
 take holy orders, for whom scholarship and ability are not so 
 requisite as devotedness of character and special adaptability 
 for their work. It is here that such an institution as Keble 
 College especially finds its place, in meeting an acknowledged 
 need, and filling a vacant niche in the university system. The 
 system of unattached students also meets this need, and in a 
 somewhat wider way. For it meets the wants not only of 
 young men who purpose to take orders, but of all those who 
 in any way desire to train and equip themselves for intellect- 
 ual life. It may be said that such students lose the advant- 
 ages of associating with other young men of the university.
 
 UNIVERSITY CAREERS. 87 
 
 The loss is certainly not entirely on their side. It would be 
 well for the indolent and luxurious section of our universities 
 to be brought into close contact with a plainer living, a great- 
 er industry, and a more robust understanding than their own. 
 The loss of Oxford society might be a sensible loss, but it 
 might be more than compensated by habits of frugality, self- 
 denial, and foresight, and the acquisition of sterling qualities 
 which might adorn a larger society hereafter. 
 
 We therefore look forward to an immense development of 
 our university system. In the administration of vast funds it 
 will be hoped that the founders' intentions of encouraging 
 probity, industry, and religion will receive distinct attention, 
 instead of competition being strictly limited to a place in the 
 examination. We may trust that the universities will duly 
 exhibit and duly foster the best young intellectual life of the 
 country. The immense appliances of professoriates, libraries, 
 and museums might be utilized for special ends. There can 
 be no reason why there should not be great medical schools 
 at Oxford and Cambridge, as much as at the sister universities 
 of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Perhaps it is not too much to 
 hope that men taking orders should proceed on the Pauline 
 principle of learning a trade, and should at the medical school 
 qualify themselves to act as physicians for the body as well 
 as physicians for the soul. We are sure that no man has 
 ever yet gone to the university, or, at least, has truly used it, 
 without feeling that to go there was indeed a moment, an era, 
 a turning-point in his life, and desiring the extension of such 
 blessings to the largest possible number of his countrymen, 
 unless he indeed belong to those against whom the reproach 
 was divinely given, that they had the key of knowledge, that 
 they entered not in themselves, and that those who were en- 
 tering in they hindered. 
 
 That is a real moment in life when first at Cambridge a
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 man has gazed on the stately line of colleges nearer him, or 
 has paced the Broad Walk of Oxford to the marge of the " lil- 
 ied Cherwell," and the matchless tower of Magdalen. He 
 who has worshiped in the gorgeous fanes, or studied in the 
 antique libraries of either university, or has first listened or 
 studied under the great leaders of modern thought and schol- 
 arship in their lecture-rooms, or has joined in the actual intel- 
 lectual stir and strife of the place, or has formed here a first 
 high tone of tastes and companionship, or has realized the 
 ennobling memories and associations which surround him, 
 will not fail to look back on his sojourn as days among the 
 most momentous of all days, and, thinking of the university, 
 will breathe a prayer as for the Zion of one's youth, that peace 
 may be within her walls, and prosperity within her palaces.
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 89 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On the Choice of a Profession. 
 
 THE question of the choice of a profession is intensely im- 
 portant, and the choice is a veritable turning-point. It ought 
 carefully to be kept in view for years in advance. Life is 
 very like a battle or a game of chess, and there ought to be 
 some plan of the campaign. These are especially days in 
 which a man must make up his mind to be something. Men 
 will go to the army or to the bar if only that they may be able 
 to give the world some account of themselves. Those few 
 men who do not enter a profession belong to a class which 
 has the leisure and independence conferred by the possession 
 of means and position, a class which has great duties im- 
 posed on it, and is so a profession in itself. A wise parent 
 will watch his child carefully to see what his bias or tendency 
 may be. Dr. Johnson has defined genius as strong natural 
 talent accidentally directed in a particular direction. To say 
 the least, this definition is not exhaustive. Great natural abil- 
 ity will doubtless enable a man to excel in almost any direc- 
 tion, but genius more ordinarily supposes a combination of 
 abilities in a special direction. I believe a great deal is done 
 in a child's education if you can discover a bias, and give 
 shape and direction to it. Of course the preferences of youth 
 are often imaginary, and are often subjected to revision. Still 
 it is a great thing to get a lad to feel a distinct preference for 
 any pursuit, to map out, even in outline, any thing like a chart 
 of the future. It is pre-eminently the misfortune of the pres-
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ent day that so many young men are devoid of enthusiasm 
 and have no object in life. 
 
 Let, however, a few words be said here which may assuage 
 some anxious thoughts. I do not think that it really matters 
 whether a young fellow has shining abilities or not. Of course 
 there are some branches of life for which a man should have 
 strong abilities and a strong bias, if he would indulge with 
 fairness any high expectations of success. Such is author- 
 ship as a profession, or the artist's calling. The most money- 
 getting departments of human life are those in which shining 
 ability is not so much required as probity and common-sense. 
 In most departments of life we have nothing more to expect 
 than the manful performance of duty and its competent dis- 
 charge. If a boy is not clever, this is a hint from nature to 
 the parents not to assign him a path of life where superlative 
 excellence is required with a view to success, but to find him 
 an avocation amid the 
 
 "Girdles of the middle mountain, happy realms of fruit and flower ; 
 Distant from ignoble weakness, distant from the height of power." 
 At the same time it is exceedingly difficult for parents to de- 
 cide rightly on the question of the capacity of their children. 
 Much misery is caused when a father thinks his son a fool 
 and does not hesitate to tell him so. Again, if a son is found 
 not to be doing well in any particular walk of life, that is sim- 
 ply a sign that there is some other walk in life in which he 
 will probably do exceedingly well. There is the story of a 
 father who found that his son was a great failure as a mid- 
 shipman. He immediately concluded that he would do very 
 well as a lawyer, and as a lawyer he rose to the top of his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Let us now rapidly review a man's chances in a profession. 
 Take first of all the Church, a profession which lies outside 
 other professions, which is sometimes entered from the highest
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. gi 
 
 \ 
 
 motives alone, sometimes from very low motives, and some- 
 times from mixed motives. A few words may here be added 
 to what we have already said on the subject. There are those 
 (the Sunt qui phrase which we so often have to use) who en- 
 ter the Church because there is some valuable old ancestral 
 living in store. The modern form of this abuse is that a wor- 
 thy parent invests his savings for a son in a chancellor's liv- 
 ing, which on the whole yields a very fair return as an invest- 
 ment, to which the young man succeeds in due course, after 
 the process of waiting for a dead man's slippers. Then there 
 are many young men who are easily persuaded or persuade 
 themselves to enter Church as a fitting conclusion to a colle- 
 giate career. To a man who has taken his degree the Church 
 is a profession easier of access than any other, and, unlike 
 any other, yields immediately a modest income and a good 
 social status. 
 
 The existence of a sordid element is a reproach and weak- 
 ness of the Church. It is to be hoped that something in 
 time may be done to remedy such a state of affairs : the rem- 
 edy must chiefly be sought in the increased sense of respons- 
 ibility among patrons and young men, and perhaps in some 
 enactment that only curates of seven years' standing should 
 be appointed to livings of a certain amount of value and pop- 
 ulation. Only a feeling of simple regard and reverence can 
 exist for those who, urged by the loftiest motives irrespective 
 of earthly considerations, devote themselves to their heavenly 
 Master's work. And, taking human nature as it is, we will 
 not think harshly of any who adopt this line of life, if only 
 amid their mixed motives we recognize a humble and hearty 
 desire to do good in the cause and service of Christ. Still 
 it is of the utmost importance that the worldly aspect of the 
 Church should be put clearly and honestly before those who 
 from their inexperience are no judges of the position of life
 
 92 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 and the worldly chances of the minister of religion. Of those 
 chances, unless in the case of a family living, or of command- 
 ing influence, very little can be said. If a man has a fervent 
 desire for the ministry, let any father be very careful before 
 he dares to interpose obstacles. But it is the father's duty 
 clearly to put before his son that secular view of the matter 
 which the son from his inexperience might be incompetent to 
 understand. 
 
 He will tell him, therefore, that his average pay as a curate 
 will be a hundred a year, or one pound eighteen and fivepence 
 a week. He will also explain to him that his length of serv- 
 ice in the Church will for many years be of no use, and will 
 afterward operate as a disqualification. He will tell him that 
 any preferment might just as well come in his first year as his 
 fifteenth, or that it may not come at all. He will explain that 
 the more earnestly and singly a man applies to his work, the 
 less likely is he to make friends, to move about in the world, 
 to form a literary or scholastic connection. It is quite true 
 that eloquent and clever men may possibly make their way to 
 the front, and obtain recognition and reward. But it is a lot- 
 tery even with them, and the average hard-working curate has 
 barely a chance. His bishop will probably be willing to do 
 something for him, but the patronage of a bishop is very lim- 
 ited compared to the number of claimants. The endowments, 
 provided at a time when the country was poor and the popu- 
 lation thin, are utterly inadequate to a time when the country 
 is populous and enormously wealthy. It might therefore be 
 thought that the obligations devolved by the Bible upon each 
 generation of Christians toward each generation of ministers 
 would be recognized, and that voluntary efforts would make 
 up for the inadequate endowments of poor incumbents and 
 the non-existent endowments of poorer curates. It would 
 have to be explained, however, that though this may be the
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 
 
 93 
 
 case in some instances, there is not enough liberality and 
 Christian obedience in the laity of the English Church to cre- 
 ate any regular system of the kind, and that the scheme of a 
 sustentation fund is unknown to the English Church. More- 
 over, the curate, as bred in gentle ways and unversed in the 
 affairs of the world, will especially have to guard against the 
 temptation to marriage and the meshes of debt. 
 
 One remedy for this state of things would be that the pub- 
 lit patronage of the country now vested in the premier and 
 the lord chancellor should not be left to their individual ca- 
 prices, but be administered according to intelligible princi- 
 ples. Another and larger remedy would be that the area of 
 work in which the clergy may occupy themselves should be 
 indefinitely enlarged. There appears to be no valid objec- 
 tion why the clergy should not practice as doctors or sur- 
 geons. It is to be hoped that some corporate action will be 
 taken in the matter, that some clerical school of medicine will 
 be established. I also see no reason why those curates of 
 the Establishment who may not be fit for intellectual work, 01 
 may not be able to find a market for it, should not enter into 
 some kind of business. The apostle St. Paul was a tent- 
 maker. I believe there is still a great deal of business done 
 in tent-making, and should we be involved in war by-and-by, 
 to purge us from our sins, there will doubtless be a great 
 deal more. There should be some clerical tent-making com- 
 pany formed. It is better for clergymen to be employed in 
 any sort of way than to cause scandal by running in debt. 
 
 I do not see that the Dissenting clergy, with all their boasts 
 of the voluntary system, are really any better. At least we 
 hear very great complaints, not ill-founded, of narrow income, 
 and it has been the business of a whole class of able writers 
 to acquaint us with the short-comings of the Dissenting minis- 
 terial position. The contrast seems to fail in the very point
 
 94 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 where it might seem most telling. It is true that an able man 
 in full work, who might be receiving four or five hundred a 
 year among the Dissenters, might only be getting a quarter 
 of that in the Establishment. But the Dissenting Boanerges 
 when he becomes old has probably only a very limited retire- 
 ment allowance, while the Anglican, who has worked hard on 
 a scanty remuneration most of his days, may in the evening 
 of life find these conditions reversed a good living and a 
 very moderate population. 
 
 Let us now look at other businesses and professions. In 
 nearly all of them the words of the poet are true " All the 
 gates are thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow." 
 Take the bar. A man of real ability may have very long to 
 wait, and the waiting process is a very costly one. It can 
 hardly be done without a modest independent income by any 
 one who would obey the great legal injunction, " to bear the 
 port and carriage of a gentleman." Persevere, read hard, at- 
 tend the courts, stick close when not in attendance on them to 
 your chambers ; don't even shrink from familiarizing yourself 
 with the business of an attorney's office so an " old stager" 
 would say to a beginner and you will at least deserve success, 
 and in all probability you will attain it. Still I am afraid that 
 to deserve success and to attain it are hardly synonymous 
 terms. In all professions there is a vast mass of educated 
 mediocrity that can do its work very respectably, but in every 
 department positive excellence and pre-eminence is required, 
 and this is exceedingly rare. Law is a luxury of civilization, 
 and people who have a taste for luxuries like the most fashion- 
 able and the best. 
 
 We confess to a tender feeling one of peculiar sympathy 
 and appreciation for briefless barristers. So far as we can 
 see, they are quite as clever, and a great deal more amiable 
 and amusing, than barristers with endless briefs. The general
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 
 
 95 
 
 notion is that our briefless friend is a man of genius and cult- 
 ure, waiting for the chance which laggard fortune is so slow 
 in giving him. If he only had the chance, it would be the 
 Archimedes lever which would enable him to move the legal 
 world, and grasp the seals. It rather militates against this 
 idea that many briefless barristers are such of set purpose, 
 and would be infinitely dismayed if briefs, and the chance of 
 legal greatness, were thrust upon them. They have gone to 
 the bar as the most gentlemanly of professions, and as giving 
 them a kind of status which it is worth while acquiring. In 
 England we have a prejudice in favor of a man's having a 
 definite profession ; and, unless his name is a guarantee for 
 wealth or territory, we credit the idle man with being more or 
 less of a vagabond. The status of a barrister is an " undeni- 
 able" one, neither is it particularly expensive, especially if the 
 sham is acknowledged from the first, and there is no pretense 
 of reading in a pleader's room. Again, many men become 
 barristers who do not care to practice, but desire to qualify 
 themselves for dropping into something good. Briefless bar- 
 risters help to swell the class of waiters upon Providence 
 those who open their mouths, shut their eyes, and see what 
 may be sent them. There are always a number of good things 
 going, for which a barrister is often the only legally qualified 
 candidate magistracies, and so on not only at home, but, 
 to an extensive degree, in the colonies as well. We have 
 known men, appointed to high judicial office in the colonies, 
 whose legal library hardly extended beyond the " Comic Black- 
 stone." It may be interesting to mention that they proved 
 admirable judges, their decisions being always characterized 
 by sound equity and strong common - sense. Indeed, our 
 pleasant and gentlemanly friends, the briefless barristers, are 
 a most deserving class, and we hardly know that good things 
 could be better bestowed elsewhere. Many briefless barris-
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ters have no care or sympathy for the work of the bar, and 
 many regard their membership as a step-stone to something 
 more congenial. They would not mind being made judges at 
 once, but they dislike the drudgery of the long initiation as 
 working counsel. It is impossible not to appreciate their 
 high-minded regret that, in this country, judicial appointments 
 are not bestowed irrespectively of thesa merely professional 
 considerations. 
 
 Still, briefless barristers mainly consist of those who would 
 like briefs well enough if they could only get them. There 
 are those who have never had a chance, and those who have 
 had their chance and lost it. In the present day it is the most 
 difficult thing in the world for a barrister to get a fair chance. 
 A man is supposed to be doing all that he can if he assidu- 
 ously attends the criminal courts, and waits his turn, which is 
 supposed to come round in due course, of getting a brief for a 
 prosecution. It is, indeed, in the criminal courts that most 
 barristers make their first start, if, indeed, they succeed in be- 
 ing placed. But it is very hard to get up a criminal business ; 
 and, after all, it is rather a dirty kind of business. You have, 
 besides, to know people whom you would rather cut, and be 
 civil where you would rather snub. We have met extremely 
 intelligent men who have argued, with much plausibility, that 
 criminal business is the most important business at the bar ; 
 that it is better, per se, to plead for life and liberty than mere- 
 ly for property. But it is practically found that there is a 
 frightful sameness in criminal business, that greed and passion 
 have always the same kind of debasing story to tell, and that 
 you can hardly get beyond the range of a certain monotonous 
 vulgarity of crime. Moreover, a man's mind frequently revolts 
 against the work to which it is put. A counsel, for instance, 
 clearly sees that his garroting client deserves to be hanged 
 or flogged; and it can be very little satisfaction to his mind
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 
 
 97 
 
 that he has got him off his hanging or his flogging. The brief- 
 lessness of some barristers is, probably, due to their scruples 
 or their disgust. A man of refined culture and a fastidious 
 tone of mind finds himself utterly unable to brow-beat witness- 
 es, or drag himself down to the level of a British jury. Some- 
 times the brieflessness is due to a less creditable cause. He 
 has to own to himself that he is really not up to his work. 
 He may be able keenly to detect a brother counsel's mistakes 
 in the handling of a witness, or in the points which he puts to 
 a jury ; but when he is himself called upon to address a court, 
 he finds that he has to use armor which he has not proved. 
 He finds that he has not got the art of public speaking, and 
 the oration, which seemed so neat and satisfactory when he 
 composed it in his chamber, is lame and impotent when he 
 has to bring it out. He then bitterly regrets that he never 
 joined the "Union" at his university, and that he always 
 looked with contempt on the little contemporary clubs for 
 mutual discussion. For the want of a mere knack, which 
 might have been acquired with ease and pleasure in younger 
 days, many an able man subsides into a chamber counsel who 
 might have made for himself a great public reputation. It is 
 not encouraging to a young barrister, in his first essay, if a 
 learned judge, after listening for a few minutes, opens the even- 
 ing paper, and composes himself to the latest intelligence. 
 Our judges are, of course, beyond the slightest whisper of par- 
 tiality. Still, it is a great thing to be known to the presiding 
 judge personally or by reputation, and it greatly affects the 
 reputation in which a counsel is held by solicitors whether he 
 is heard by the court with marked deference and attention or 
 is hardly listened to at all. 
 
 A few years ago there was such a rapid series of elevations 
 in the law courts that it has been popularly said in the pro- 
 fession that business to the extent of thirty thousand or forty 
 
 E
 
 98 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 thousand a year has been set free in the courts, to be disposed 
 of among men who, save for those elevations, would not have 
 had it. It is also popularly said that at present there is a 
 great dearth of commanding talent on some of the circuits, 
 and there was never a better opening for a first-rate man than 
 at the present time. At the first blush all this sounds very 
 well for our briefless friend, but, on examination, it is mere 
 mirage. A man of first-rate powers will certainly succeed, 
 but the man whose abilities are merely good has no such 
 pleasing certainty. And the man of first-rate powers has to 
 prove that he possesses such. No one will give him credit 
 for it, and no one will help him to prove it. He has, per- 
 haps, many years to wait for his opening ; then the business 
 will come in at a rush. He takes the tide, and goes on to 
 fortune ; the fat ears will make amends for the lean ears. To 
 such a man the opening is every thing, but to such a man the 
 opening may very possibly never come. There are tales on 
 record Lord Campbell has several such in his "Lives of the 
 Chancellors" which give us a romance of a forum. The 
 leader is absent, and the junior counsel gloriously wins the 
 cause. A man rises to address the jury quite unknown, and 
 leaves the court immortalized. A good-natured attorney gen- 
 erously marks some young man of promise, and gives him an 
 important brief. We may observe that the last kind of in- 
 stance is becoming almost an impossibility. A solicitor, in a 
 case which is at all important, knows that it is perilous work 
 to intrust a brief to an unknown genius. With characteristic 
 caution he has to rely upon talent that is proved, rather than 
 on talent which has to assert itself. He has also interests of 
 his own to serve, and will not concern himself with the inter- 
 ests of one who is an outsider to his circle. In cases involv- 
 ing property, he is obliged to avail himself of the highest tal- 
 ent which he can command, for his clients will insist on this,
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 99 
 
 and it will be to their advantage, and ultimately to his own, 
 that this should be the case. Otherwise, a solicitor will natu- 
 rally give his business to his own friends and connections. 
 
 This brings us to another prevailing cause of brieflessness. 
 To a considerable extent legal business is becoming a monop- 
 oly in the hands of a class. Formerly a great social distinc- 
 tion existed between barristers and solicitors, but absolutely 
 no such distinction now exists. It was thought in the highest 
 degree indecorous for a solicitor to make advances to a bar- 
 rister ; it was as bad as a modest maiden making advances to 
 a bachelor. The fledgeling barristers sat in modest awe, pal- 
 pitating for a proposal. To vary the image, the legal houris 
 wondered to whom the sultan of a solicitor would throw the 
 handkerchief. Theoretically, at least, and to a great extent 
 practically, this high etiquette is maintained. In the mean- 
 time, however, the friends of barristers bring heavy pressure 
 to bear upon solicitors in the matter of the disposal of their 
 briefs. In the meantime, also, solicitors have reduced their 
 patronage to a special system of their own. A legal firm, 
 with a lucrative business, sends the son or relative of some 
 leading member to the bar, and is able, in the legitimate 
 course of business, even though his abilities are mediocre, to 
 put a good professional income in his way. One of the most 
 approved methods for a barrister to get into practice is to 
 marry into the family of a solicitor. This kind of arrange- 
 ment is now fully recognized. The lawyer may not be able 
 to give his son-in-law a sum of money, but he can promise 
 him business to the extent of .500 a year ; that is, he pays 
 him in kind receives him on what are called terms of reci- 
 procity. It is not at all a bad way for getting on at the bar 
 to marry a solicitor's daughter. 
 
 But let us see how all this works for our briefless friend. 
 He can not marry the daughter of the only influential solic-
 
 100 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 itor he knows, even although he is to be paid for it. He has 
 no legal connection. He has simply entered a most honor- 
 able and ancient profession, relying on his character, culture, 
 and ability. At first he is greatly impressed with the owl-like 
 wisdom of the wig and gown. There is a pleasing excitement 
 and variety in going circuit, in joining a brilliant mess, in gath- 
 ering up the wit and stories of the court. He probably sees 
 something of local society, and hopes that he will some day 
 distinguish himself in the eyes that rain down sweet influence. 
 He perhaps owns to himself, after a time, that there is a de- 
 pressing monotony in that average fifty-pound note which go- 
 ing circuit costs him. Once it was thought a great thing to 
 attend sessions by way of making business, but sessions are 
 not now for barristers what they once were. Once it was held 
 that a barrister might get business by affecting to be busy by 
 having a blue bag filled with papers, and many books and 
 documents to consult ; but this is now esteemed a baseless le- 
 gend. Perhaps he becometh cynical. He thinks that Buzfuz 
 (Sergeant) talked " utter bosh" in opening Mrs. Bardell's case ; 
 that Jones, Q.C., did not do half as well as he could have 
 done in cross-examining that tough witness ; and even that 
 Starling (CJ.) got rather muddled in the issue which he left 
 to the jury. Perhaps he thinks that its "dogged that does 
 it," and elects a Westminister court to which he will regularly 
 attend. He beguiles much time by taking portraits, profile 
 and full face, of such men as Buzfuz (Sergeant), Jones, Q.C., 
 and Starling (C.J.). Finally, he perhaps betakes himself to 
 literature, or to some other downward path that leads to pro- 
 fessional perdition. In Mr. Burgon's interesting life of Tytler, 
 the historian, we find that, being the son of a well-known judge, 
 he had a considerable practice at the Scotch criminal bar ; 
 but when the writers found that he was becoming known as 
 an author, his practice quite forsook him. The late Mr. Just-
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. ioi 
 
 ice Talfourd was a successful barrister and successful author, 
 and save the mark a poet. Such a phenomenon is ab- 
 normal enough, and recalls the black swan, or rather the aloe, 
 that blossoms but once in a hundred years. 
 
 We confess that we think our old friends Mr. Briefless and 
 Mr. Dunup have been rather hardly dealt by. Every man 
 ought to have a fair chance, and we can not see that they 
 have had theirs. But we will forget the case of individuals 
 in the larger consideration which brieflessness opens up. 
 Two considerations occur to us which may be very concisely 
 stated. If the bar degenerates into a class-profession which 
 hardly gives independent men a chance, then there is a dan- 
 ger that independent men will not go to the bar, and that it 
 will seriously fall off in efficiency and its general standard. 
 Secondly, solicitors should consider that every man is a debt- 
 or to his profession, and should not only seek their own ends, 
 but do what they can to promote the efficiency of the legal 
 profession an end which they will promote if they give un- 
 known men a chance. To the briefless themselves there are 
 certainly not wanting topics of consolation. They see a great 
 deal of life and character. They have abundant space of 
 time for meditation. They have the fairest opportunity for 
 exercising that finest of virtues, patience. They have gener- 
 ally some means of their own health, hope, fine tastes, en- 
 ergy, and culture. In the season of fruition they will perhaps 
 desiderate the period of hope ; in the season of oppressive 
 business, the period of leisure. Leisure is, after all, the main 
 boon and prize of life, and those who can use it well, though 
 they may be briefless, will not, in the long run and in the best 
 sense, be unsuccessful. 
 
 The success may come at last, but before the success may 
 come there are some preliminary questions to be settled. 
 The question of the morality of advocacy is one which, to a
 
 102 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 young man at that decisive turning-point of life which consists 
 in choosing a profession, is often full of embarrassment. I 
 have known of instances in which men who might have had 
 good chances at the bar have held aloof from moral consider- 
 ations. It was bad enough that on the legal cab-stand they 
 should be at the beck and call of each hirer. It was bad 
 enough that the energies of an immortal soul should be frit- 
 tered away on such questions as whether a railway company 
 should be liable for the lost goods of a passenger who had 
 not duly registered them, or whether Jem Stubbs's destroying 
 his wife's head by knocking it too much about with a poker 
 was murder or manslaughter. It may be observed that, in the 
 latter case, the verdict will probably be manslaughter, and the 
 judge, in all probability, will pass a lenient sentence. Our 
 judges appear to have a truly British respect for property, as 
 compared with the person with life and limb. Mr. Trollope 
 is, of course, the great advocate against advocacy. It cer- 
 tainly seems intolerable that, when a man is plainly on the 
 facts guilty of an atrocious murder, and the barrister leans to 
 the belief that, on the whole, he would rather hang such a 
 scoundrel than leave him unhanged, that the same barrister 
 should be obliged to expend all his ability and ingenuity in 
 getting him off. Practically, a barrister has no choice ; he 
 must take any case that is offered to him or he will lose 
 business, although I believe that once or twice barristers have 
 refused briefs in favor of criminals whom they abhorred. It 
 is thus that St. Augustine writes of the matter : " And I re- 
 solved in thy sight, not tumultuously to tear, but gently to 
 withdraw, the service of my tongue from the marts of lip-la- 
 bor ; that the young, no students in thy law, nor in thy peace, 
 but in lying dotages, and lip-skirmishes, should no longer buy 
 at my mouth arms for their madness. And (very seasonably) 
 it now wanted very few days unto the vacation of the Vintage,
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 103 
 
 and I resolved to endure them, then in a regular way to take 
 my leave, and, having been purchased by thee, no more re- 
 turn for sale." There was a higher tone in the Roman fo- 
 rum than there is in our own. Cicero would refuse to defend 
 a man of whose innocence he was not convinced. The an- 
 swer to such reasoning is that the barrister is one component 
 part of a complex machinery, the object of which is to elicit 
 the truth. He does not feel called upon, as Cicero felt, to 
 avow his belief in the innocence of his client Indeed, such 
 a course would be deemed to be in the worst taste. He is 
 testing the worth of other statements ; he is making his own 
 statements ; he is suggesting the theory that may probably be 
 the right one. He is an active agent in bringing about a 
 right decision, and in promoting the cause of justice. The 
 general reasoning in favor of modern advocacy, of which this 
 is a specimen, can hardly be asserted to be other than as a 
 whole irrefragable. Still I can imagine, despite any amount 
 of such special pleading, that a high-minded barrister will feel 
 some qualms when he knows, for instance, that he has been 
 the means of crushing and oppressing a poor widow. Still, 
 some of the best practice of the bar consists in chamber prac- 
 tice, in equity, and in the common law cases, in which astute- 
 ness and learning may be carefully exercised. The bar is the 
 avenue to the bench, and no one has a purer fame or does 
 his country better service than the wise and upright judge. 
 
 Probably, of the entire income made by the practice of the 
 law, only about ten per cent, goes to the barristers. On the 
 other hand, all the distinctions of the profession belong to 
 them. Of the solicitors, there is of course a class of whom 
 every one thinks with deserved contempt and dislike. Prob- 
 ably this pettifogging class is both a small and a diminishing 
 one. It has been my happiness to know lawyers who have 
 been an ornament to their order, and raise one's opinion of
 
 104 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 human nature. I have known lawyers who have made a point 
 of never allowing a case to go into court if it can possibly be 
 helped, who never undertake a case of the substantial justice 
 of which they are not convinced, and who really make no 
 charge at all for a great deal of their correspondence and ad- 
 vice. It is satisfactory to know that such men have often im- 
 mense practice, and make correspondingly large incomes. It 
 is delightful to see that there is a real moral progress in the 
 profession, and thus a plain, straightforward, simple way of 
 doing business. Few men see more of the range and variety 
 of human life than solicitors, and it is happy for them if they 
 can pass through their perilous ordeal with a sound heart 
 and an untainted mind. 
 
 There is no profession for which a man can have a heartier 
 liking than for the medical profession. For while it may be 
 said in the rough that the law feeds and battens upon the 
 vices and passions of humanity, the medical profession pur- 
 sues a godlike, beneficent mission in administering to our 
 diseases and unhappiness. We may now and then hear of a 
 medical man who evidently makes lucre his chief object, and 
 acts severely toward the poor, but as a rule the medical man 
 constantly relinquishes his just and hardly earned gains, and 
 in many a household is an angel of help and consolation. It 
 is a matter of regret that medicine is not a profession in which 
 a man has a clear field and no favor. The man who wishes 
 to be a consulting physician must wait long and spend much 
 money, and drive about in a carriage to enable him to keep 
 one. It is to be hoped that medical education and medical 
 degrees will be put upon a better footing than has for some 
 time been the case. It is lamentable to think of the young 
 men who, by a process of cram, can pass their examinations, 
 and forthwith obtain a license to kill, slay, and destroy. At 
 the same time it is satisfactory to know that the profession
 
 OA r THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 105 
 
 abounds with able and deserving men, and that they contrive 
 to do well in the long run. They do not make fortunes, but 
 they get good incomes. Even the poorest man can struggle to 
 the front. He walks the hospital to some purpose becomes 
 house surgeon ; perhaps he is only an apothecary, but collects 
 a connection and sinks the shop ; perhaps he is assistant to 
 a practitioner, obtains some public appointment, and gets into 
 general practice. Perhaps there are as really good men in 
 the provinces or in the East End of London as among the fa- 
 mous or titled physicians of the West End. Of all the profes- 
 sions that a man can practice, setting aside the ministerial 
 which may be considered the most important, but in which 
 we can rarely trace visible results there is none more glori- 
 ous or elevating than the medical profession. 
 
 The scholastic profession alone could enter very closely into 
 the comparison. This is a great and noble profession, which 
 will probably receive a far larger development than it has 
 hitherto attained. We are now only commencing a broad 
 national education. The time will come when, with the com- 
 mon schools and the public schools and the colleges, educa- 
 tion will be extended and cheapened at the universities and 
 throughout the country. By-and-by we shall have a vast army 
 of a hundred thousand schoolmasters for our state schools. 
 At present our national schools are exceedingly good ; our 
 public schools exceedingly good ; but the intermediate schools 
 have been good, bad, and indifferent, without any means of 
 testing their real efficiency. Much improvement has been ef- 
 fected, but we may look forward to an organized, scientific 
 system of education, which may carry on our land at an accel- 
 erated progress to the van of the nations. 
 
 Every kind of education, scientific, technical, linguistic, as 
 well as the old lines, will be more and more developed, as it 
 is understood that we must add the German Geist to our Brit- 
 
 2
 
 106 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ish stock. To teach fitly is as rare a gift as any endowment 
 of eloquence or art. The scholastic profession will rise every 
 where in social esteem and importance. Even now the aver- 
 age head-master of a great public school is at least as import- 
 ant as an average bishop. The responsibility of forming the 
 character and foreshadowing the history of those committed 
 to one's care is exceedingly great, and the honor should be 
 correspondingly great. 
 
 The scholastic profession is now a regular business, of 
 which the clergy have the largest part. The class-lists at the 
 universities, especially perhaps at Cambridge, furnish the cri- 
 terion by which the public mainly judge of the capacity of 
 masters. Such a criterion, however, simply shows the capac- 
 ity of a man for imbibing knowledge, and is not in itself a 
 proof of his capacity to impart it. A good degree enables a 
 man at once to obtain a lucrative mastership, and, as he gains 
 experience, he goes on to the greater prizes of the profession. 
 A good degree has thus a large monetary value. A senior 
 wrangler or a senior classic ought to make his place on the 
 list worth some ten thousand pounds to him, and a place only 
 a little below his would have a not much inferior value. A 
 good schoolmaster will show that he is fit not only to instruct, 
 but to educate, to develop the character as well as the intel- 
 lect of boys, treading in the steps of an Arnold or a Bradley. 
 
 We come now to the government appointments that are ob- 
 tained by competitive examinations. The first example of 
 these was the Indian civil service, and this service still offers 
 the chief prizes in this direction. There is nowhere in the em- 
 pire a nobler career open to a man, a career where the possi- 
 bilities are so splendid as in India. To a man of good char- 
 acter and temperate habits, living in India is cheap and not 
 unwholesome. The examination for the civil service is ex-
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 
 
 107 
 
 ceedingly broad and fair, one of great compass and variety. A 
 man may make almost any intellectual pursuit,, almost any 
 scrap of knowledge, available for this examination. If he has 
 not had the advantage of a university education and good 
 honors in classics and mathematics, still, if he thoroughly un- 
 derstands the language, literature, and history of his country, 
 and other intellectual pursuits, his chance is good. 
 
 In 1870 a wide revolution was effected in every department 
 of the civil service of the crown. The nomination system was 
 almost entirely swept away, and the system of competitive ex- 
 aminations was substituted. The Order of Council issued at 
 Balmoral threw open the whole vast civil patronage of En- 
 gland, and added a very sensible proviso that every appoint- 
 ment should be probationary for six months, and liable to be 
 canceled through any unfitness of the person appointed. This 
 order will probably lend a vast impetus to the educational 
 progress of the country, and is, indeed, the proper appendix 
 to our recent legislation on education. Perhaps an exagger- 
 ated value has been popularly assigned to government ap- 
 pointments, and when they are open instead of close there 
 may not be such a lively appreciation of them. The service 
 of the government is hardly so profitable as the service of the 
 people. At the commencement and the end of a career a 
 man perhaps obtains a distinct advantage, but a man in the 
 full flush of energy and work has hardly sufficiently free ex* 
 pansion for his powers, and has lost the chances which active 
 life affords him. 
 
 In any review of the professions, the army and navy should 
 be considered, and the dangers and exigencies of the country 
 will doubtless give an increased importance to the two arms 
 of the service. No commissions are purchasable in the artil- 
 lery, and it is to be hoped that this example will every where 
 be followed. It is a regrettable circumstance that neither in
 
 I0 8 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 the army nor in the navy can a man very easily subsist upon 
 his pay. The position of the poor officer is in much analogous 
 to that of the poor curate. He may see a younger man pro- 
 moted over his head when all the merit is on his own side. 
 It may be reasonably expected that before long every effort 
 will be made to render the two arms more popular through- 
 out the country, and to give them the substantial rewards they 
 merit. The worth of the new arrangements has yet to be 
 tested. 
 
 It would be interesting to make a survey of the various pur- 
 suits of trade and commerce, and it may be observed gener- 
 ally that, of those which deal with the luxuries of society, the 
 work of the artist and architect and author, while in some 
 Cases they give gain and name, in many others they afford 
 only a scanty and precarious subsistence. The businesses 
 that deal with the actual wants of society, the eating and 
 drinking and clothing, the home and travel, while they often 
 yield enormous profits, are also more equable and permanent 
 in their returns. There is sometimes a great deal of foolish 
 pride generated in a comparison of professions and trades, 
 which fosters the conventionality, the exclusiveness, the feel- 
 ings of caste and class. There is much in this that is igno- 
 ble, that is narrow and narrowing ; something, too, that is in- 
 human and unchristian. As Christians we have all innumer- 
 able points of contact and sympathy ; the points in which 
 men differ are as nothing to the points in which they agree. 
 It makes very little difference what parts in life we are called 
 upon to play, but it makes all the difference whether we act 
 them well, simply, and nobly. To use an old similitude, it is 
 not asked in any dramatic performance who played the king, 
 or who the hero or the peasant ; the only question is whether 
 the character is played well or not. The noblest kind of fame 
 is open to the lowliest ; to quote the solemn music of Lycidas :
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 109 
 
 " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
 Nor in the glittering foil 
 Set off to the world; nor in broad rumor lies, 
 But lives and grows aloft in those pure eyes 
 
 And perfect witness of all-judging Jove. 
 As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
 Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 
 
 Of course there is a very large class of people who have no 
 call to enter a profession. To use a current expression, a 
 man says that " he has had a father before him." The exist- 
 ence of such a class is a great element in the strength and or- 
 nament of a state. There is a great deal of work to be done 
 in a country for which only in a very limited way there is any 
 distinct class of workmen. For instance, in statesmanship, 
 that is of necessity a very limited class that can afford to fol- 
 low politics as a profession. Our statesmen must be mainly 
 recruited from a class who are quite independent of its pos- 
 sible rewards. Again, take literature. We have a large class 
 of literary men who find literature as regular, though hardly 
 as gainful a calling as any other. In journalism it is abso- 
 lutely necessary that there should be such a class. It forms 
 now a distinct profession, to which the best men give their 
 best energies. If the case were otherwise, our newspapers 
 would not lead the entire newspaper press of the world. But 
 literature, pure and simple, ought not to be considered a pro- 
 fession, and it must be a matter of regret that it is often so 
 spoken of. Every man who has original ideas of his own, or 
 a valuable experience of his own, is free of the company of 
 authors, and can make his entry into their ranks. It is for 
 the good of national literature that men should enter the ranks 
 of literature who are not obliged to earn bread for the day 
 that is passing over them, and who have the leisure and means 
 that will enable them to think out thoroughly their ideas, and, 
 if necessary, observe the Horatian rule of keeping their com-
 
 no TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 positions for years, and can calmly endure the neglect of the 
 public in the faith that time will give them the recognition 
 they deserve. So Bacon dedicated his works to Prince Pos- 
 terity, and Swift inscribed one of his books to the generation 
 after the next. The existence of an independent and cultured 
 class who, liberated from the ordinary incentives to exertion, 
 are able to devote themselves to the investigation of any kind 
 of truth, is an immense gain to a nation and a nation's litera- 
 ture. Similarly in regard to works of philanthropy. Chris- 
 tian men, beyond the ordinary consecration of all their work 
 to God, generally strive in some direct way to serve in some 
 special work, such as the visitation of the poor or the instruc- 
 tion of the ignorant. Still the great work of philanthropy, in 
 its complex organization, might languish if it were left to the 
 surplus energies of hard-working men. Here, again, the im- 
 mense importance of a leisurely and educated class is seen. 
 Such a class ought to stand in the van of society. In politics 
 it should stand in advance of professed politicians, as emanci- 
 pated from temptations, liberated from the swaying power of 
 many conflicting interests. In society it should be a great 
 motive power in mitigating the effect of mere vulgar wealth, 
 in giving a due pre-eminence to mind and character. 
 
 A very fine example of this class may be found in the late 
 Edward Denison, who made great sacrifices, and devoted him- 
 self solely to the improvement and elevation of the working- 
 classes. There are living men who might be similarly men- 
 tioned, but we must remember that it is not lawful to sacrifice 
 to heroes before sunset. Yet such men as Mr. Peabody and 
 Lord Shaftesbury may be named as among the most conspic- 
 uous instances. The Memoir of Mr. Denison was at first 
 privately printed, like those of Lords Kingsdown, Broughton, 
 and Chichester, but has since been published. Writing before 
 the publication, we fell back on a paper in the Saturday Re-
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 1 1 1 
 
 view to help us with our illustration of the philanthropic life. 
 It is written in the best style of that variously hued periodical : 
 "Born at Salisbury in 1840, he was son of the then bishop 
 of that diocese, and nephew of the speaker of the House of 
 Commons. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, he was 
 prevented from achieving equal university distinctions to those 
 of his father and three uncles by ill-health resulting from over- 
 training for the boat-races of his school-days. This ill-health 
 clave to him more or less throughout the rest of his career, as 
 may be surmised from the fact that he wrote many of his let- 
 ters from Madeira, Italy, the South of France, Bournemouth, 
 and other places visited in quest of stronger lungs and con- 
 stitution. But every where the bent of his mind was toward 
 a study of the condition and habits of the poor, and from 1862 
 to 1870, when he died, the work of his life seems to have been 
 theoretical and experimental devotion to the amelioration, on 
 sound principles, of the classes which come within the range 
 of the poor-laws. With this end in view he went to Stepney 
 to cope personally with the great East End distress, taking up 
 his quarters for the best part of a year at Philpot Street, Mile 
 End Road, and building and endowing a school there for the 
 teaching of ragged children, while he himself lectured to work- 
 ing-class adults. He offered himself in 1868 for the borough 
 of Newark, and, having been elected after a contest in which 
 he distinguished himself by the candor and independence of 
 his hustings speeches, sat as its member for a brief year, and 
 drew the attention of thoughtful minds within and without the 
 House by an able maiden-speech on Mr. Corrance's motion 
 relative to pauperism (May 10, 1869). But the labors of the 
 session precipitated his removal from a field of usefulness in 
 which he made social questions his specialty. He had to 
 leave England once more in quest of health, and after a visit 
 to Guernsey, and the relinquishment of a projected visit to the
 
 H2 TURNIXG-POINTS LV LIFE. 
 
 United States, each planned with an eye to the absorbing pur- 
 pose of his life, he finally repaired to Melbourne in a sailing 
 ship, where, as the voyage had injured his health instead of 
 improving it, he died (January 26, 1870) within a fortnight 
 after landing. 
 
 " A mere summary, however, can not do justice to such a 
 man's life and acts, much less to the animating principle of 
 them, and to the carefully ripened and well-stored mind which 
 avoided the visionary and grasped the practical in all that it 
 attempted. The letters themselves must be studied for an 
 insight into that mind and the work it did. Though here and 
 there a fear is expressed lest it might be thought so, there 
 was nothing narrow or timid, certainly nothing indicative of 
 worship of expediency, in the character of Edward Denison's 
 mind. Well-trained and taught, it shrank from violent changes 
 and hasty choices. He held aloof, with instinctive caution, 
 from divers schemes and associations as to which he was not 
 satisfied about the wisdom of the promoters. ' I am ready,' 
 he writes, in one place, 'to dig in the vineyard, but I don't 
 feel bound to imitate every vagary of my fellow- laborers.' 
 And one can understand why such a man, when solicited to 
 join the Church Union, declined on the ground that ' he 
 already belonged to the best possible union that body 
 which is the blessed company of all faithful people.' Wheth- 
 er in religion or politics or social science, he looked wistfully 
 for the practical element, and where he suspected a lack of 
 this he hung aloof, and risked the charge of lukewarmness 
 rather than go blindfold with a clique putting undue trust in 
 legislation for moral improvement, or commit himself to the 
 dogmas of extreme partisans. Yet there was nothing halting 
 in his rule of life. ' Real life,' he writes, 'is not dinner parties 
 or small talk, nor even croquet and dancing.' Literature and 
 study were with him means to an end ; they were the cultiva-
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 113 
 
 tion of his gifts with a view to enhancing his capacity to bene- 
 fit his fellow-creatures. And so, in the course of elementary 
 Bible teaching which he gave single-handed to a roomful of 
 dock-laborers at the East End, and in which he used illustra- 
 tions from human nature, natural religion, and secular history, 
 we can not doubt that his reading reproduced itself with good 
 effect. ' If John Baptist had stood up in a half-empty syna- 
 gogue, and had said, I wish the publicans and harlots would 
 come here, because then I would teach them to repent, how 
 many would he have been likely to baptize ? And if Christ 
 had limited his teaching in the same way, what chance would 
 there have been, think you, of founding Christianity ?' But, 
 having made the proffer, he did not fret about its acceptance 
 or non-acceptance. ' No man may deliver his brother, he can 
 but throw him a plank.' Meanwhile his personal self-abne- 
 gation stands out undesignedly on the face of his letters. If 
 he dilates, in January, on the delights of skating, it leads him 
 to remark that he would give up the pleasures of frost a thou- 
 sand times rather than enjoy them 'poisoned by the misery of 
 so many of our brethren.' 'I have come to this,' he writes in 
 the September of 1867, ' that a walk along Piccadilly is a most 
 exhilarating treat. I don't enjoy it above once in ten days, 
 but therefore with double zest.' 
 
 " So minded, Edward Denison could not but carry out 
 heartily that which his hand found to do. Convinced that 
 the bad condition of the population at the East End was due 
 chiefly to ' the total absence of residents of a better class, and 
 to the dead level of labor,' convinced, too, that ' the mere pres- 
 ence of a gentleman known to be on the alert to keep local 
 authorities up to their work is inestimable,' he took up his 
 quarters in a district the precise locality of which one of his 
 letters describes with a humorous topographical accuracy, and 
 which was simply the antipodes of fashionable or even busi-
 
 114 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ness London. There he set himself to wrestle wkh pauperism 
 by setting his face against bread and meat and money doles, 
 and by combining with others to deal radically with a few 
 cases of aggravated, distress ; while he coped with irreligion 
 and indifference by throwing himself into the work of a lay 
 evangelist, and becoming the animating spirit of a working- 
 men's club of the better sort, and an active, hopeful teacher 
 of boys and adults as occasion required. Clearly convinced 
 from the first that indiscriminate charity is mischievous, and 
 that giving money only undoes the work of the new poor-law, 
 he read and thought and traveled, whenever he did travel, 
 with an eye to make assurance doubly sure. 
 
 " In an early letter he justifies lamentation over those who 
 die with their part unfinished, and the first portion of their 
 career broken off, as it were, with a ragged edge. A curious 
 anticipation of his own cutting short ! We may deem that, in 
 the eye of Providence, the hour was not ripe ; or such inten- 
 sity of purpose, with so holy an end in view, would surely have 
 been allowed to achieve, in a lengthened term of usefulness, 
 the solution of the great problem of these latter days. That 
 the end is not yet must be the secret of so sharp and prema- 
 ture a removal." 
 
 It must be allowed that the choice of a profession is one 
 of the most important turning-points in life. If a man deter- 
 mines not to enter a profession, such a determination is prob- 
 ably a more decisive turning-point than any other. The best 
 practical advice perhaps is that the bias and tendency of a 
 boy should be understood, and the object in life early defined, 
 to which he can work up. Nothing is more to be deprecated 
 than the aimless, desultory way in which so many young men 
 are unfortunately brought up ; and nothing gives the character 
 so much strength and energy as a definite object. That is a
 
 ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 115 
 
 time of very great perplexity to young men when their path in 
 life is obscure, and they doubt whither they shall turn. The 
 way is often indicated to them by their self-knowledge, their 
 knowledge of their own ability or inability, and by the open- 
 ings which Providence seems to indicate to them. Well for 
 them if they can realize the words of the sacred poet in choos- 
 ing their path in life words which they will, perhaps, often 
 repeat while making their toilsome march through the careful 
 years : 
 
 " Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home ; 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 
 Guide Thou my steps ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me. 
 
 " I was not always thus, nor prayed that Thou 
 
 Shouldst lead me on. 
 I loved to see and choose my path, but now 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 
 I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, 
 Pride ruled my will ; remember not past years. 
 
 " So long Thy love has spared me, sure it will 
 
 Still lead me on, 
 O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 
 The night be gone. 
 
 And with the morn those angel faces smile 
 That I have loved long since, and lost awhile,"
 
 Il6 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Taking Holy Orders. 
 
 WHEN some men speak of " taking a living," Mrs. Glasse's 
 suggestion about cooking a hare that we should first catch it 
 may probably occur to the clerical reader. How to catch 
 the living is, indeed, the anxious problem of the curate-mind. 
 That mind is fully convinced that promotion does not come 
 either from the east or from the west. The common notion 
 of preferment is that of Sydney Smith, that it is all a lottery, 
 where you may draw a prize, or, much more probably, a blank. 
 But ecclesiastical preferment is not, as a matter of fact, a mere 
 system of haphazard. Things work very much here as else- 
 where in a groove. It is not an uncommon thing to meet 
 with a man who has refused a dozen or half-a-dozen livings. 
 It is not an uncommon thing, either, to meet with a curate 
 who has never known the pleasant excitement of such a prop- 
 osition. That depends whether you are on the groove or off 
 the groove, whether you are really on the line or have been 
 shunted to some siding. However, when the living is really 
 obtained, and the much-deserving ecclesiastic is admitted into 
 the comfortable circle of those who obtain the temporalities 
 of the Church, he becomes a person of enlarged social import- 
 ance, and as such is liable to be subjected to a microscopical 
 investigation by the philosophical sociologist, whose kind has 
 been so largely developed of recent date. 
 
 A few preliminary words may, however, be said on the sub- 
 ject of getting a living. Livings are generally disposed of
 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 117 
 
 on so regular a system that only an inconsiderable proportion 
 come under the definition of blanks or prizes. The family- 
 living goes to some member of the family. The college-liv- 
 ing goes to some fellow of the college. The chapter-living 
 goes to some member of the chapter or his nominee. It may 
 so happen that the younger son may rebel against the ecclesi- 
 astical arrangement ; or that the fellows are all so cozy and 
 comfortable that they do not care to move ; or that the living 
 in question may be beneath the serious attention of cathedral 
 dignitaries, and thus even the benefices may wander heaven- 
 directed to some poor parson. It is to be said, to the great 
 credit of the bishops, that their patronage is generally admin- 
 istered on fair and intelligible principles. Some may favor the 
 High Church, some the Low Church, and of one or two it is 
 said that, with rigid impartiality, they bestow their patronage 
 alternately. But it is commonly asserted in clerical circles 
 that the man who has no interest in the Church does best to 
 settle himself down quietly to some curacy for a great number 
 of years, at the end of which his bishop may probably do 
 something for him, or, at all events, if the bishop does not, 
 no body else will. The curate who clings doggedly to his 
 curacy for a great number of years is a great pet with bish- 
 ops, but we are not at all certain that it might not have been 
 better for the curate, and better for his people, that they should 
 have had more change. Wesley's two-year system, now en- 
 larged to three years, though an exaggeration, is an important 
 and useful regulation. When the living comes, the success is 
 often a source of congratulation and enjoyment. The curate 
 reads with rapture a letter from his bishop, offering him the 
 living of Marsh-cum-Bogland, with every expression of person- 
 al confidence and esteem. But when it is discovered that 
 Marsh-cum-Bogland is worth sixty five pounds a year, and has 
 no house, the ardor of gratitude insensibly cools. It is never-
 
 n8 TURNING POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 theless very remarkable how even very small livings are ea- 
 gerly sought for by dozens who have some modest patrimony 
 of their own. We observed that when a patron of a small 
 living lately advertised for an incumbent, he had hundreds of 
 answers. When a chancellor's living becomes vacant, there 
 are generally hundreds of applications, and his secretary of 
 presentations must always be involved in voluminous corre- 
 spondence. Some chancellors delight in the exercise of pat- 
 ronage, while others consider it the greatest of bores. But 
 we imagine that the experience of most keepers of the great 
 seal would show that they are not allowed to exercise it un- 
 molested. Lord Eldon, we know, was greatly importuned by 
 Queen Charlotte in the disposition of his patronage, and such 
 royal influence is by no means out of date at the present time. 
 Of course, political considerations frequently determine Church 
 patronage ; and, in the absence of any definite principles of 
 promotion by desert, this system acts nearly as well as any 
 other could. The minister himself Lord Palmerston was a 
 case in point is sometimes so hampered by party considera- 
 tions that he is unable to attend to his personal predilections. 
 If a lord-lieutenant or a county member reports that it is ab- 
 solutely necessary for his party in a certain part of his coun- 
 try that some vacancy should be filled up in a particular man- 
 ner, the minister has to give way. We remember the case 
 of a distinguished Oxford divine, who brought a Whig chan- 
 cellor a very vehement demand from the lord-lieutenant of a 
 county that he should be preferred to a vacant benefice. 
 The chancellor came in his robes of office from the bench to 
 his private room to see the applicant. He swore like a cab- 
 man when he read the letter, and gave the trembling clergy- 
 man the living with curses which an Ernulphus might envy. 
 
 We know a man with a very important position quite unable 
 to trace how the unknown path of preferment opened up to
 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 
 
 119 
 
 him. One of our ablest bishops on the bench came to his 
 position by mere accident. An important position, which 
 generally led to a mitre, became vacant. It was offered to an 
 aged clergyman, who said he was too old to accept it, but ad- 
 vised the premier to go to an obscure church in the neighbor- 
 hood, where he might hear a really able man. This clergy- 
 man subsequently obtained the great preferment, which led 
 afterward, in due course, to a bishopric. We have known of 
 instances in which the patron, after service, has stepped into 
 the vestry and offered preferment to the officiating clergyman. 
 We trust that the mention of this circumstance will inspire pa- 
 trons and preachers with a noble emulation. These anec- 
 dotes, however, are by no means of a uniformly pleasing type. 
 A very worthy clergyman of my acquaintance, in bad health 
 and with scanty means, received a communication one day 
 from a prime minister to the effect that a very valuable living 
 in the balmy Devonshire climate had been bestowed upon 
 him. He was full of happiness ; the preferment which he 
 had been led to expect was come at last, and for him meant 
 health, ease, and competence. A few weeks afterward he re- 
 ceived another letter from the premier saying it was all a mis- 
 take, and that this living was bestowed elsewhere. It is hard- 
 ly too much to say that the shock of the disappointment caused 
 his death. 
 
 We will suppose that a patron has chosen his man. The 
 proper thing for the patron to do is to have the deeds drawn 
 up by his own solicitor, send an invitation to his clerical 
 friend, and crown the evening by a pleasant surprise. This 
 kind of ecclesiastical etiquette is highly appreciated in clerical 
 circles. The expenses of induction to Church preferment are 
 very great, and not unfrequently absorb the first year's income. 
 It was mentioned the other day, at a public meeting in Cam- 
 bridge, that the Bishop of Worcester, in appointing two clergy-
 
 120 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 men to livings, sent each of them a fifty-pound note toward 
 the expenses. Then the clergyman informs the bishop's sec- 
 retary of his nomination, with a view to institution. In some 
 dioceses the clergyman is called upon to submit to an exami- 
 nation. This is a word of horror to the bucolic parson, whose 
 mind has been greatly running into turnips. It is, indeed, 
 rather severe to require a gray-haired man, who has long 
 ceased to fret himself about the Articles, to submit to an ex- 
 amination by a young man who is comparatively fresh from 
 the cram of a university. The examination, however, is now 
 becoming a great rarity, and ought to be prized accordingly 
 by the examinee. On an appointed day the promoted clergy- 
 man has to attend at the bishop's palace to receive institu- 
 tion.* The palace may be near at hand, or he may have to 
 traverse a considerable section of the map of England before 
 he gets there. Hospitality is an episcopal virtue, and the 
 traveling ecclesiastic may confidently rely on a substantial 
 lunch. Still, there are variations in hospitality. Some bish- 
 ops are charming hosts, and an early lunch with such a one 
 is a thing to be remembered. One or two of them do not 
 " show" at the lunch, and, to some minds, thus fail in the chief 
 requisite of a genuine hospitality. Then a variety of oaths 
 is taken. Inter alia, the incumbent swears that he will do his 
 " utmost endeavor to disclose and make known to Her Maj- 
 esty, her heirs, and successors, all treasons and traitorous 
 conspiracies that may be formed against her or them." When 
 these objurgations are complete, a mystic ceremony is trans- 
 acted. A parchment is produced, with a huge seal attached ; 
 the clergyman kneels on a stool, holding the seal in his hand, 
 while the bishop reads aloud the legal document which gives 
 
 * The Bishop of Lichfield, or one of his coadjutors, inducts the new in- 
 cumbent into his parish church in the presence of the congregation an 
 example deserving general imitation.
 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 12 i 
 
 institution. The business of the day is over, with the import- 
 ant exception of the payment of fees in the muniment-room. 
 Two other ceremonies are requisite before things are com- 
 plete. The incumbent, when inducted into the living, is left 
 alone in the church to toll the bell, and has to read aloud the 
 Articles in the church, and declare his unfeigned consent to 
 them. The incoming incumbent receives the income of the 
 benefice from the very day of the decease, or cession, of his 
 predecessor, excepting the statutable stipend of the curate, 
 or the clergyman who has officiated at the instance of the 
 church-warden during the interregnum. He has, probably, 
 also to receive a sum of money, either large or small, from 
 the estate of his predecessor, on the score of dilapidations. 
 
 The social position to be occupied by a man who has just 
 taken a living is important and peculiar. He is coming to a 
 place where, in all human probability, he will spend the re- 
 mainder of his days, where his sayings and doings will be 
 carefully scrutinized, and where his earliest proceedings will 
 go forth to make or mar the happiness and usefulness of his 
 career. He will have to secure the good opinion of the gen- 
 try, who will come up from places far and wide to call upon 
 him ; of the poor cottagers, who will eagerly expect his visits 
 and his help ; and of the watchful, jealous tradesmen, who will 
 gossip about his expenditure, and be critical about his ser- 
 mons. To this last class a slight is worse than heresy, and 
 impecuniosity is a deadly sin. Still, a great deal of generous 
 allowance and consideration will be shown him, which he will 
 do well to conciliate and preserve. Such a man has a life- 
 long work to do for God, and he has need of the qualities 
 which will wear well. In a large town a popular preacher 
 may fill a church ; but in the country, preaching is altogether 
 subordinate to practice. Whatever else he may be, he must 
 be just, truthful, courteous, and modest. A well-managed 
 
 F
 
 I22 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 parish will be dependent on a well-ordered household. When 
 a man has once thoroughly conciliated the esteem of his pa- 
 rishioners, it is wonderful what he may venture to say and do 
 among them ; hardly a censorious voice will be heard so long 
 as it is felt that he is thoroughly in earnest, and omits no duty. 
 It is by such clergymen, thoroughly in earnest, and shirking 
 no duty, that the great work of education, charity, religion, 
 and civilization, is mainly carried on throughout the country. 
 They ordinarily live remote, obscure, and noiseless lives, with- 
 out the power or the will to attract any large measure of pub- 
 lic attention to themselves ; but none the less they do a great 
 work, by gentle teaching and eloquent example, reclaiming 
 many a moral wilderness, so that it " blossoms as the rose." 
 
 We add a clerical letter, written or supposed to be written 
 by a clergyman long in orders to a young man at college, who 
 is deliberating whether he shall enter the Church : 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I thank you for your kind and affec- 
 tionate letter. I see that in your case the time has arrived, 
 as to all of us, of taking some great resolve and acting upon 
 it. You ask me, as a faithful counselor, to give you my ad- 
 vice about taking holy orders, to decide as I would decide 
 myself, were I in your place. I would not shrink from under- 
 taking much troublesome responsibility in order to serve you, 
 but there are some things which it is impossible for one man 
 to depute to another. I can not even advise you. I can only 
 lay before you certain facts which may assist you in coming 
 to a conclusion that is to say, you may have, honestly enough, 
 my own experience, and I hope it may be of use to you. 
 
 " At the same time, do not let this experience of mine weigh 
 with you too far. It may seem to you sombre, perhaps unduly 
 sombre, and that a per contra remains to be stated. This 1 
 am very far from denying. I am one of those whom the world 
 calls disappointed men ; but at the same time I do not see
 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 123 
 
 how I could have been able to avoid those disappointments. 
 I am a shunted man. A hapless parliamentary train is shunted 
 on to a side-cutting that the express, fast and splendid, may 
 dash forward. I was a passenger in the parliamentary. I 
 was shunted to the side-cutting. The likeness would be 
 more accurate if you could suppose the parliamentary was 
 permanently brought to a stand, that train after train, casting 
 upon it a pitying glance, hurried forward triumphantly to a 
 prosperous journey's end. If I had entered the army I might 
 have had a chance of being immortalized by Mr. Kinglake. 
 If I had joined the bar, I might have done as well as those 
 of my contemporaries who have succeeded remarkably well. 
 If I had pushed my way in polities and literature, I might 
 have attained to some amount of income and some amount 
 of distinction. But I took orders. I came down to the north 
 of England, among a large and ignorant population. I am 
 afraid I was not best suited to them. I could only handle a 
 delicate penknife, whereas they required a second Whitefield, 
 who could wield a theological battle-axe. Still, what work 
 there was to be done, I honestly tried to do. I am afraid that 
 my preaching, then and still, was, to a high degree, inoperative. 
 y^ physique is poor and my voice thin. I am a slave to my 
 manuscript, and in writing my manuscript I am a slave to my 
 education. I have not that practical ability which would en- 
 able me to become every thing that I ought to my lowly con- 
 gregation. I constantly find myself adopting lines of thought 
 and falling into modes of expression unsuited to my people. 
 I consider this an error of a very grave kind; and, please 
 God, I will yet work myself free from it. Still I have done or 
 striven to do all that I could, and much that was originally 
 against the grain. I attend my schools regularly ; I visit my 
 sick assiduously. Mine is not a model parish, and I have no 
 showy, magnificent results ; but when I go among the sick,
 
 124 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 the poverty-stricken, and the aged, I find, with a secret joy 
 which I would not exchange for a mitre, that my instructions 
 and consolations have not been ineffectual. 
 
 " The population of my first parish was about sixteen thou- 
 sand souls. The press of work was enormous, and it was 
 work which an earnest man might multiply indefinitely, even 
 to a destroying extent. First of all, the lighter accomplish- 
 ments of life had fled my music and my love of sketching 
 scenery. Secondly, my correspondence with lettered and in- 
 fluential friends ceased, friends by whose means I might have 
 hoped to have gained some elevation in the world. Thirdly, 
 I was obliged to terminate my historical and general studies ; 
 I strove hard to retain them, giving up the scanty hours which 
 after severe labor would fittingly have been devoted to relaxa- 
 tion. I finally sacrificed even these, confining myself strictly 
 to the literature of my profession. I think I was mistaken in 
 this, and of late years I have endeavored to retrace my steps. 
 All phases of that active thought which characterizes our 
 modern days ought to be familiar to that servant of God who 
 desires fully to do his Master's work in his generation. For 
 some time I let this go, for the less important of important 
 things must at times be sacrificed. Consider, my friend, that 
 my tired, thin hand had to write every word of the two ser- 
 mons which I prepared weekly for my people. You may well 
 believe that in such a population a large amount of active 
 visitation was required ; however, there were schools and 
 other parish machinery to be diligently worked. I wondered 
 at the days in which I found time hang heavy on my hands, 
 and at those who repeat such language. Were the days thirty 
 hours long, and our faculties could cope with such an exten- 
 sion, it would be little enough for the work which the hand 
 can find to do. After serving as an obscure and hard-working 
 curate for a number of years, the largest and poorest part of
 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 
 
 '25 
 
 the parish was marked off as a separate district under Sir 
 Robert Peel's Act. The bishop himself offered me the ap- 
 pointment, which I at once accepted. In a worldly point of 
 view I perhaps scarcely did well to do so. Service was at 
 first celebrated in a licensed school-room, and it was with in- 
 finite difficulty that a church was finally built. Since then a 
 parsonage-house has been erected. If my narrative is not an 
 encouraging one, multitudes of my brethren would furnish you 
 with one still less so. Multitudes do not attain even the 
 scanty preferment which I have obtained, for I assure you 
 that my net income is a hundred and sixty pounds a year. 
 
 " Perhaps, with the hopes natural to a young man just about 
 to enter a great profession, you indulge yourself in a very dif- 
 ferent picture. Some West End church rises perchance before 
 your view, with much architectural beauty, with an eminently 
 pleasing ritual, and thronged with cultured, intelligent and ap- 
 proving listeners. Perhaps you will wed a pretty, clever, and 
 well-dowered wife ; perhaps some lordly pew-holder will give 
 you a living. We have all heard of such cases. It may prob- 
 ably be yours. Still more probably it may not. If such a lot 
 would really be the best for you, I wish it for you with all my 
 soul. But such a position is perhaps not the most useful in 
 the Church, nor yet the most useful to a man's own self. I 
 am clear that no man has a right to enter the ministry reckon- 
 ing on such. You must consider that you are launching on a 
 wide sea, and sailing under sealed orders. Those orders, 
 which are to settle your destination, are at the time of sailing 
 quite unknown to you. You must enter your profession ready 
 to do your work wherever your work is found for you. 
 
 " Now, my dear friend, are you prepared for all this ? Chief- 
 ly, in the language of our prayer-book, do you trust that you 
 are moved by the Holy Spirit to undertake this ministry ? I 
 do not mean by this to ask you whether you think you have
 
 126 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 any afflatus or special mission or supernatural call. This 
 grave question is not to be settled by any mere emotionalism. 
 If you have prepared yourself for hard work and possible sac- 
 rifice ; if you feel that your education and past life may most 
 fittingly be subordinated to this purpose ; if the hand of Provi- 
 dence and the course of events guide you to this path ; if you 
 deliberately think that in this way your life may be most hap- 
 pily and beneficially spent ; if you have made this a matter 
 of earnest prayer to God, and confided it in humble faith to 
 him ; if, in proportion as you incline to the affirmative, you 
 find your mind calm, settled, and resolved, and so far as you 
 decline, restless and dissatisfied ; then, in my judgment, the 
 judgment of a weak, erring man howbeit, your path to the min- 
 istry seems clear, and I pray God to guide you into it, and to 
 bless you in it. 
 
 " I could add much more in the way of setting before you 
 the drawbacks and discomforts which attend a curate's life. 
 But not willingly would I disparage that blessed and sacred 
 service in which I am engaged. Rather let me remind my- 
 self that there are some favorable points which I ought lastly 
 to set before you. Remember that your ministerial work 
 tends immediately and directly to your own good. The ser- 
 mons you address to others you preach first of all to your own 
 self. The warnings and consolations you address to others 
 are, chief of all, warnings and consolations to yourself. You 
 may pretty well choose your own times and occasions for 
 working, and are in some measure released from the ordinary 
 shackles that bind ordinary men. Your studies are those 
 which in the highest degree benefit and interest the intellect 
 and the spirit. Neither should I omit to mention the positive 
 worldly advantages which accrue to you. You have an income 
 assured to you, small indeed, but not smaller than is gained 
 by the commencing barrister and physician. You have a
 
 TAKING HOLY ORDERS. 
 
 127 
 
 status in society which, if not valued by the mammon-hunt- 
 ers, is yet recognized and honored by the better portion of 
 the community. If the income is narrow, it is quite possible 
 and quite allowable that you should add to it by pupils or lit- 
 erature. If a Paul worked with his hands to give himself a 
 subsistence, assuredly you may resort to similar avocations in 
 order that you may provide things honest, and be able to give 
 to him that needeth. But in the hands of an earnest man lit- 
 erature and education cease to be secular. 
 
 " Adieu, my friend, and in the best sense of the word it is 
 indeed a Dieu. I do indeed commend you to him. May he 
 guide and direct you ! I have written you a long letter, I 
 find. The Saturday Review, says that people no longer send 
 letters ; they only send messages. I am at least an excep- 
 tional instance. But I should infinitely prefer to talk matters 
 over with you. Can not you come down this spring ? Even 
 in this manufacturing part of the world spring looks beautiful. 
 Stray violets and primroses are found in haggard localities 
 where you would hardly look for them. Streams veiled by the 
 factory smoke, and where the poisoned fishes die, grow limpid 
 as you trace them to their source, and you get those glimpses 
 of pastoral beauties which delighted the tourists before money- 
 making drove them away. You will be delighted with my cu- 
 rate, for the Additional Curates' Aid Society gives me one. 
 He is fresh from his Greek, and also full of zeal for his work. 
 
 " Ever affectionately yours, C. E. L."
 
 128 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Marriage. 
 
 I DO not see why I should not include marriage among the 
 turning-points of life, as, indeed, it is one of the most import- 
 ant of all. I am afraid, perhaps, that I am encroaching upon 
 the domains of the novelists, who have appropriated this lit- 
 erary region very much to themselves. Perhaps young peo- 
 ple, too, would hardly care to listen to any matter-of-fact dis- 
 cussion on concerns where they arrogate to themselves the 
 right of doing pretty well as they please. But the subject 
 naturally belongs to my programme, and I proceed to discuss 
 it. I really think, too, that it is a matter that eminently re- 
 quires discussion. It is lamentable to see how many boys 
 and girls become engaged and marry without any serious 
 thought; how silly people will only treat the subject with 
 smiles and giggles, and how fathers and mothers avoid giving 
 counsel and advice to their children on such matters. 
 
 It was the well-known remark of some celebrated man that, 
 if marriages were simply ordered and adjusted by judicial au- 
 thority, they would prove just as happy as they are now. I 
 read the other day, in " A Clergyman's Diary of the Seven- 
 teenth Century," reprinted by an archaeological society, a very 
 sensible letter from the rector of a parish, who makes a due 
 offer of his niece in marriage to the son of a neighboring cler- 
 gyman, and doubts not but the young girl will prove obedient 
 to his wishes. Something, perhaps, is to be said in favor of 
 such a scheme. There are certainly some people in the world
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 129 
 
 who can not be trusted to make marriages for themselves, and 
 for them it is perhaps quite as well that such things should be 
 settled for them. 
 
 As an example of this plan, which Dr. Johnson recommend- 
 ed, we take good Bishop Hall's experience when he was set- 
 tled " in the sweet and civil county of Suffolk :" 
 
 " The uncouth solitariness of my life, and the extreme in- 
 commodity of my single housekeeping, drew my thoughts aft- 
 er two years to condescend to the necessity of the married 
 state, which God no less strangely provided for me ; for, walk- 
 ing from the church on Monday in the Whitsun week with a 
 grave and reverend minister, Mr. Grandidge, I saw a comely 
 and modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house 
 where we were invited to a wedding-dinner, and inquiring of 
 that worthy friend whether he knew her, ' Yes,' quoth he, ' I 
 know her well, and have bespoken her for your wife.' When 
 I further demanded an account of that answer, he told me she 
 was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, 
 Mr. George Winniffe, of Bretenham ; that, out of an opinion 
 had of the fitness of that match for me, he had already treated 
 with her father of it, whom he found very apt to entertain it, 
 advising me not to neglect the opportunity, and not conceal- 
 ing the just praises of the modesty, piety, and good disposition 
 and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly presence. 
 I listened to the motion as sent from God ; and at last, upon 
 due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the company of 
 that helpmeet for the space of forty-nine years." 
 
 Schlegel, in his "Philosophy of Life," has some fertile 
 thoughts on the subject : 
 
 " Lastly, we will now consider that other instinct in our na-^ 
 ture, which, even as the strongest, most requires moral regu- 
 lation and treatment. By all noble natures among civilized 
 nations in their best and purest times, this instinct has, by
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 means of various moral relations, been spontaneously associ- 
 ated with a higher element. And indeed, taken simply as in- 
 clination, it possesses some degree of affinity therewith. Such 
 a strong inclination and hearty love, elevated to the bonds of 
 fidelity, receives thereby a solemn consecration, and is even 
 by the divine dispensation regarded as a sanctuary. And it 
 is in truth the moral sanctuary of earthly existence, on which 
 God's first and earliest blessing still rests. It is, moreover, 
 the foundation on which is built the happiness and the moral 
 welfare of races and nations. This soul-connecting link of 
 love, which constitutes the family union, is the source from 
 which emanate the strong and beautiful ties of a mother's love, 
 of filial duty, and of fraternal affection between brethren and 
 kindred, which together make up the invisible soul, and, as it 
 were, the inner vital fluid of the nerves of human society. 
 And here, too, the great family problem of education must be 
 taken into account, and by education I mean the whole moral 
 training of the rising generation. 
 
 "For however numerous and excellent maybe the institu- 
 tions founded by the state o 1 conducted by private individu- 
 als, for special branches and objects, or for particular classes 
 and ages, still, on the whole, education must be regarded as 
 pre-eminently the business and duty of the family. For it is 
 in the family that education commences, and there also it 
 terminates and concludes at the moment when the young 
 man, mature of mind and years, and the grown-up maiden, 
 leave the paternal roof to found a new family of their own. 
 In seasons of danger, and of wide-spread and stalking corrup- 
 tion, men are wont to feel but often, alas ! too late how en- 
 tirely the whole frame both of human and political society 
 rests on this foundation of the family union. Not merely by 
 the phenomena of our own times, but by the examples of the 
 most civilized nations of antiquity may this truth be historic-
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 ally proved, and numerous passages can be adduced from 
 their great historians in confirmation of it. In all times, and 
 in all places, a moral revolution within the domestic circle 
 has preceded the public outbreaks of general anarchy, which 
 have thrown whole nations into confusion, and undermined 
 the best-ordered and wisely constituted states. When all the 
 principal joists of a building have started, and all its stays 
 and fastenings, from the roof to the foundation, have become 
 loose, then will the first storm of accident easily demolish the 
 whole structure, or the first spark set the dry and rotten edi- 
 fice in flames." 
 
 The world in general looks simply to the question of the 
 prudence or improvidence of marriage, and whether the young 
 people can afford to marry. Some time ago there was a very 
 hot discussion on the three-hundred-a-year question, and lately 
 a London firm has given notice to its employe's that any clerk 
 marrying on a less salary than a hundred and fifty pounds a 
 year thereby loses his situation. It may be questioned wheth- 
 er such a rule is not arbitrary and unjust, possibly illegal. 
 Our law rightly condemns any thing that acts in restraint of 
 marriage. We may see in France the full effect of subordi- 
 nating marriage and offspring to mere considerations of con- 
 venience. The population is a stationary population. It 
 either increases very slightly or slightly falls back. The mor- 
 al life of the nation has been seriously affected by its theory 
 of marriage. When the war of 1870 broke out, France and 
 Germany were almost exactly balanced in population. After 
 the lapse of a certain number of years, according to ordinary 
 calculations, the population of Germany will be double that 
 of France. It is not the policy of any state to restrict mar- 
 riage, nor yet of any society to tacitly prohibit it. But young 
 men who marry without adequate means should have the prob- 
 able facts of future life put very strongly before them. To
 
 132 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 such a one his nearest friend would have a right to say, "If 
 you declare that you really wish to get married on the broad 
 ground that you are a man, and that your rights as a man 
 underlie the rights of society, and that you have succeeded 
 in bringing about that view of the case in the mind of anoth- 
 er, I will not dispute your right to do so. But you can not 
 play fast and loose with society. You can not say that you 
 will not think of society when you marry without an adequate 
 income, and yet, when you marry, fall into all kinds of diffi- 
 culties, because your income is insufficient. If you are pre- 
 pared to live very plainly, to forego luxuries, to do without 
 servants, to work hard and unremittingly, to abandon the in- 
 terchange of social civilities, to emigrate, if need be, to the 
 backwoods of Canada, to face manfully every unknown chance 
 of hard life which an impecunious marriage may bring with 
 it, then I think that you have a fair right to marry, but re- 
 member what is written in the bond." I am bound to say 
 that when people have taken this clear, sensible view of the 
 subject, and have acted accordingly, although they may have 
 very hard lives at first, yet, in the long run, they make up for 
 an unfavorable start, and do just as well, or perhaps a little 
 better, than others. 
 
 But the material view of marriage is altogether inferior to 
 the moral view. Where the unhappiness of married life is 
 in one instance due to limited means, in a dozen instances it 
 is due to other causes. English people in general exaggerate 
 the money difficulty, and underrate the moral difficulty. The 
 great consideration which a man has to face is not whether 
 his choice will bring poverty, but whether it has been a right 
 choice at all. Happiness in married life is not very much af- 
 fected by outward circumstances. Charles Dickens, in his 
 " David Copperfield," dwells on the fact that " there is no in- 
 compatibility like that of mind and purpose." This is a sub-
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 ject on which the New Testament speaks very plainly. 
 " How can two walk together unless they are agreed ?" St. 
 Paul asks how the wife can have any security that she will 
 save her husband, or how the husband can have any security 
 that he will save his wife. As the passage stands in our En- 
 glish version, Cor. vii. 16, it is probably a mistranslation, the 
 real paraphrase being, " Do not insist on a reluctant union ; 
 for thou knowest not whether there is such a prospect of con- 
 verting thy heathen partner as to make such a union desira- 
 ble." The Church has generally taken the passage in the re- 
 ceived sense : " and it is perhaps not too much to say," says 
 Dean Stanley, " that this passage thus interpreted had a direct 
 influence on the marriage of Clotilda with Clovis, and Bertha 
 with Ethelbert, and consequently on the subsequent conver- 
 sion of the two great kingdoms of England and France to the 
 Christian faith. Hence although this particular interpreta- 
 tion is erroneous, and may well give way to that which turns 
 it into a solemn warning against the gambling spirit which in- 
 trudes itself even into the most solemn matters, yet the prin- 
 ciple on which the old interpretation is founded is sufficiently 
 expressed in the fourteenth verse, which distinctly lays down 
 the rule that domestic union can reconcile the greatest differ- 
 ences of religious belief." 
 
 An immense amount of unhappiness is found in married 
 life. No religious person can have any true basis of happi- 
 ness unless the partner is religious. There may be the 
 deepest happiness between married people whose lives beat 
 harmoniously to the impulse of the same great principles. I 
 believe also that there may be a great amount of happiness 
 between people who are not, as are called, believers, when 
 their minds and tastes are in harmony, and they belong to 
 the same order of life. Unequal marriages are almost uni- 
 formly unhappy. For a religious person to be yoked with
 
 134 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 one who is decidedly irreligious can only be provocative of 
 the keenest misery. 
 
 It is misery for which there is not the slightest palliation, 
 especially for the woman. When we hear of trouble and un- 
 happiness in married life, the usual thing said is that there 
 are faults on both sides. Both being human, that can be well 
 believed. But in looking closely at the history of such cases 
 we can generally see that the fault lies originally or princi- 
 pally in one direction or another. Self-will, self-indulgence, 
 the despising of knowledge and reproof, often make up the 
 unamiable and unchristian character that is incompatible with 
 happiness. 
 
 I remember very well a poor man coming to me one day to 
 give me a recital of his sorrows, and to ask my advice. It was 
 a sad business. He had been married many years, and his 
 married life was that of chronic misery. He was in a very 
 bad state of health, and I have no doubt but mental misery 
 had conduced to it. His wife had been an evil angel to him. 
 She had neglected him in his illness, she had encouraged her 
 children in bad ways, she had poisoned their minds against 
 him, had run up bills, had got drunk, had ruined his good 
 name and his business, had committed every iniquity except 
 that last injury which would give him a legal title to redress. 
 He came to ask me whether he was not justified in separating 
 from her, and taking lodgings apart by himself. It was not a 
 question that I liked to have put to me, and I hardly knew 
 how to answer or refrain from answering. If the woman 
 would only leave him instead of his leaving the woman, the 
 matter would be easy. St. Paul says that a brother or sister 
 is not in bondage in such cases, and John Wesley has given 
 us a famous precedent, non dimisi, non revocabo. At last I 
 thought I saw my way. If his health really required, say for 
 the sake of quiet and good nursing, that he should leave his
 
 MARRIAGE. 135 
 
 wife, I thought that he would be justified in so doing. But I 
 told him that he must be very careful not to leave his wife 
 simply through any want of good temper or forbearance on 
 his part, and that he should examine himself very carefully 
 whether his own conduct might not give her very just grounds 
 of offense. From all that I had been able to learn of the 
 history of the case, the rights of this question lay entirely on 
 the side of the husband. I comforted the poor man as well 
 as I might, and he went back to his home. He never left his 
 bad wife, however. He was too ill to bear any removal. He 
 languished day by day ; his evil angel remaining in the poor 
 house they had, and few could have divined that life-to-death 
 antagonism between them. He died of consumption. Death 
 was the only physician for his disease according to the old 
 Greek proverb, /^ovoe tarpog QavaroQ. That "happy issue out 
 of all their afflictions," of which the Church prayer speaks, as 
 a rule, simply means death. 
 
 It is this the irrevocable nature of the marriage tie, the 
 consciousness that nothing but death, which it were almost 
 murder to wish for, or sin that is worse than death, can dis- 
 solve that tie which, far more than any pecuniary considera 1 - 
 tions, should make men pause long and considerately before 
 they marry. The whole shape and color of life are determined 
 by this transaction. They surround a man with a network of 
 circumstances which subjugates him, unless in the case of a 
 lofty ideal or a determined character. Jeremy Taylor's fa- 
 mous apologue will be remembered : " The stags in the Greek 
 epigram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow upon the 
 mountains, came down to the brooks of the valleys, hoping to 
 thaw their joints with the waters of the stream ; but there the 
 frost overtook them, and bound them fast in ice, till the young 
 herdsmen took them in their strange snare. It is the unhappy 
 chance of men, finding many inconveniences on the mountains
 
 ! 3 6 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 of single life, they descend into the valleys of marriage to re- 
 fresh their troubles ; and there they enter into fetters, and are 
 bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or a woman's pee- 
 vishness." Surely a smile must have passed over the lips of 
 some of his hearers as they listened to this quaint imagery. 
 A still more ungallant simile may be found. There was a 
 saintly bishop who in one of his sermons likened matrimony 
 to a man putting his hand into a bag of serpents, in the hope 
 that he might draw out an eel. That was certainly a very un- 
 pleasing similitude. It is most probable that the ladies might 
 be able to put matters in a juster and more impartial light. 
 There are several historical characters who are supposed to 
 have their matrimonial wrongs strongly established. Such 
 was Job with his wife, and Socrates with his Xanthippe, and 
 Richard Hooker rocking the cradle, and John Wesley having 
 his whiskers pulled. Leaving the ancient precedents alone, 
 I am of opinion that Mrs. Richard Hooker and Mrs. John 
 Wesley might still have a strong case of their own to put. 
 But whichever side we adopt in such quarrels, the fact of the 
 intense unhappiness of the internecine quarrel of a lifetime 
 can not be exaggerated. Hooker might still write his books, 
 or Wesley preach his sermons, but for most men the useful- 
 ness as well as the happiness of life might be irretrievably 
 marred. 
 
 Isaak Walton, after his quaint fashion, finds a consolation 
 for his " good Richard" in the thought that " affliction is a 
 divine diet." That may be so, but still the carnal mind will 
 feel that it is not a diet to which it takes naturally. Such diet 
 becomes still more unpalatable when it is considered that it 
 comes not in any ordinary course of God's providence, but 
 simply in consequence of stupidity or self-will. It is quite 
 true that even such untoward events may be graciously over- 
 ruled to work out good; much good that is plainly visible,
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 137 
 
 much good that may be dimly surmised or hoped for. Still, 
 though much good may be attained, it is possible and likely 
 that a still higher good may be lost ; and it is a sad and sorrow- 
 ful thing when a man or woman is forced to confess that the 
 best good of earth has been recklessly thrown away, and that 
 the only hopes of happiness must be placed beyond the grave. 
 Neither, on the simply prudential grounds, is the pecuniary 
 question the one that is really fundamental. The question of 
 health and constitution is deeply important. A little conver- 
 sation with the officers of an insurance company would be 
 highly beneficial to many people who are rushing into matri- 
 mony without a thought of consequences. It is important to 
 know that there is no constitutional taint; and even when 
 such a taint has been very slight, right-minded persons have 
 thought it best to abstain from marriage. No man has a right 
 to bring children into the world condemned to a life of disease 
 and a premature death. Moreover, the question of family and 
 connections are, I will not say overpowering considerations to 
 determine the character of a marriage, but still matters of a 
 deep importance. A just-minded man will be careful of the 
 interests of his children yet unborn. For the same reason a 
 man ought to be very careful what kind of mother he is about 
 to give his children. The nature of their family connection 
 will be of the highest importance to the children of a marriage. 
 Is she one likely to pray for them, to instruct them, to give 
 them generous and liberal ideas, to give them the training that 
 shall be elevated, graceful, and religious, to make them regard 
 their parents with intensest love and gratitude? Then the 
 family history of an individual is worthy of the deepest atten- 
 tion. It is a common saying, involving a very large amount 
 of truth, that it takes three generations to make a gentleman. 
 The people who know how to make money, and the people 
 who know how to spend money, are very different kind of
 
 138 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 people. A turbid stream may run refined in time, but we do 
 not care for it much during the clearing process. It is re- 
 markable how both bodily and mental peculiarities are trans- 
 mitted. You may look at this matter either in a philosophical 
 point of view or in a practical point of view. Mr. Darwin will 
 instruct you in the first, and George Eliot in the second ; but, 
 in fact, each style flows into the other. One or two curious 
 points may be said to have occurred in relation to marriage, 
 or rather to non-marriage. It belongs to that subject of the 
 relations between the sexes on which it is difficult to touch, 
 but which one hardly acts wisely in leaving untouched. As a 
 rule, whenever we see some very sensational case in the news- 
 papers, involving some atrocious cruelty or murder, we may 
 be quite sure that immorality lies at the root of the matter. 
 There is a family relationship among all the vices, and it 
 would really appear that cruelty and lust are especially con- 
 nected. Again and again, in those hideous criminal reports 
 that reflect the ugly side of our boasted modern civilization, we 
 see how sensuality has paved the way for the abyss of crime. 
 It is not at all uncommon that the victim of one passion 
 becomes slain by another, and the awful amount of infanti- 
 cide in England shows how unhallowed feelings easily lend 
 themselves to the most cruel and unnatural crimes. It is in- 
 finitely better that a man should marry, even if he has to face 
 hard labor and many deprivations, rather than add to the sum 
 of misery that saddens and pollutes modern life. A very re- 
 markable instance is that of Rush the murderer, in the noto- 
 rious Jermyn case. The murderer was convicted chiefly on 
 the testimony of a woman named Emily Sandford, who had 
 consented to live with him under the most solemn promise of 
 marriage. In passing sentence upon the murderer, Lord 
 Cranworth, then Baron Rolfe, reminded the wretched man 
 that the policy of the law closed a wife's lips against her hus-
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 '39 
 
 band, and that if he had kept his solemn promise he would 
 probably not have been convicted, in default of her testimony. 
 We are sorry, even for a moment, to couple the illustrious 
 name of Gothe with the obscure English murderer. But even 
 Gothe may supply us with a moral. The biographers of Gothe 
 generally follow his career by tracking him from one love af- 
 fair to another. In these matters he appears to have been a 
 little heartless, or what modern society would consider rascally. 
 " She is perfect," he says of his Katchen, " and her only fault 
 is that she loves me." As Mr. G. H. Lewes says, "He teased 
 her with trifles and idle suspicions ; was jealous without cause, 
 convinced without reason ; plagued her with fantastic quarrels, 
 till at last her endurance was exhausted, and her love was 
 washed away in tears." Mr. Lewes eloquently pleads for his 
 great favorite. He ingeniously says: "Genius has an orbit of 
 its own. Its orbit is not necessarily eccentric, although it 
 must often appear so, because its sweep is wide. Sometimes 
 it disregards domestic duties and minor morals in obeying the 
 law of its own movement. Hence genius and morality are not 
 always synonymous." The special pleading of the philosopher 
 is certainly amusing. Gothe missed infinitely much, and per- 
 haps marred the perfection of his genius by his unmanliness. 
 The ties which he refused to form in manhood with the high- 
 souled Frederika, in advanced life he formed with an ignorant 
 and intemperate person. We are told of the "turning-point" 
 of marriage in Gothe's case. One morning he was accosted 
 in the park of Weimar by a young, bright-eyed girl, who, with 
 many reverences, presented a petition to him. He fell in love 
 with her, but with characteristic selfishness he dreaded mar- 
 riage. He took her to his house, he himself regarding this 
 as a kind of morganatic marriage, but the world at large as 
 a scandalous liaison. Many years afterward, when he was 
 not far from sixty, he formally married. He lived with her
 
 140 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 twenty-eight years, and he keenly regretted her loss. He 
 would have been happier and better if he had married her at 
 once ; happier still if he had been true to Christine. Most 
 men of the world are acquainted with various instances in 
 which selfish men have placed weak r loving women in a posi- 
 tion unutterably false and debasing for many years, and have 
 tardily found it best to enter into the union which years before 
 it would have been for their interest and happiness to have 
 completed. It is doubtless in the issue infinitely worse for 
 those who have never made any reparation. Those who in 
 any degree have watched the course of human life know the 
 infinite tragedy and unhappiness attributable to the immoral 
 neglect of marriage. 
 
 The pretty story of "John Halifax, Gentleman," gives us an 
 account how a young lady honored with her love the honest 
 young tanner. He knew nothing of his family, but through 
 an old inscription in a book he believed he was a gentleman 
 by birth, and, what was much more important, he always 
 showed himself a gentleman in the details and all the aims of 
 his life. A very similar story is told of Hugh Miller, the stone- 
 mason of Cromarty. In his " Schools and Schoolmasters," he 
 describes how he first met Lydia Frazer, his future wife. She 
 " came hurriedly tripping down the garden walk, very pretty, 
 her complexion rather that of a fair child than a grown wom- 
 an." The Mackenzies considered themselves superior to the 
 Millers, and the mother required that the intimacy should be 
 broken off. The mother removed the interdict, but marriage 
 was to be considered out of the question. The matter ended, 
 as might be expected, and forms one of the prettiest stories of 
 modern biography. 
 
 The love passages in the life of Dr. Hamilton are very in- 
 teresting. I remember meeting him at Dartmoor one summer 
 a year or two before he died. I had attended the service held
 
 MARRIAGE. 141 
 
 in the prison, where the worthy chaplain preached on the text 
 " Take no thought for the morrow" to some five hundred gen- 
 tlemen in yellow, who wished nothing better than that they 
 should be allowed to take thought. Near to me in the gal- 
 lery was a man with a grave, sweet, serious face, who attracted 
 my attention, and this was Dr. Hamilton. I was presently in- 
 troduced to him, and we had some lunch together, and I found 
 him a charming companion. Looking at his " Life" the other 
 day, I found some excellent love-letters. It ought to be said 
 that he was the settled minister of a Presbyterian congregation 
 before he wrote such letters, and his " Annie" must have been 
 a very sensible girl to have accepted such preaching love-let- 
 ters. It seems that he was engaged to his affianced when she 
 was very young, and with the understanding that the marriage 
 was not to take place for a considerable time. Dr. Hamilton 
 writes to \i\sfiancee: 
 
 " I am glad you are so fond of work, and that you have a 
 taste for music. The only other thing about which I am anx- 
 ious is your information. The world is full of accomplished 
 and ignorant women, who can dance, and draw, and embroid- 
 er, but whose company is far more irksome than the solitary 
 confinement of Pentonville prison. If you have, what you can 
 so easily get, a well-furnished mind (by adding diligently to 
 the knowledge you have already attained), you will possess 
 what few of your lady sisters have. Two hours of solid read- 
 ing daily, in which I would gladly be a sharer on the days I 
 am at Willenhall, would be a goodly acquisition in the course 
 of a year " Yesterday I went back to the same li- 
 brary, and borrowed the last volume, and in reading it was 
 surprised and happy to find that the name of the lady to whom 
 he owed nearly " all the real happiness of his life" was Annie. 
 She was a remarkable person, and theirs was a more remark- 
 able love. It is likely that we, too, who have to wait some
 
 142 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 time for our completed happiness on earth, may again have to 
 wait a little while the one in the absence of the other for 
 our completed happiness in heaven. To take another in- 
 stance, when Lady Romilly died, poor Sir Samuel had no com- 
 forter to go to. His heart broke, and in the frenzy of his 
 grief he destroyed himself. 
 
 So in Mr. Elliott's " Life" of Lord Haddo, afterward fifth 
 Earl of Aberdeen, we have the speech which he made on the 
 occasion of his daughter's marriage : " Probably there are 
 many fathers present who know what a parent's feelings are 
 in parting with a beloved daughter ; and that, joyful as the oc- 
 casion is, it is not without saddening, or at least softening in- 
 fluences. The religious strain in which Lord Kintore spoke, 
 and the kind manner in which you received his remarks, em- 
 boldens me to ask for your prayers at the approaching mar- 
 riage celebration, that the young couple about to be united 
 may not only be fellow-helpers in the journey of life, but may 
 mutually promote each other's eternal salvation. I have the 
 happiness to know that my future son-in-law is not ashamed to 
 confess his desire to live for something better than the world 
 can bestow, and that my daughter and her intended husband 
 do not hesitate to avow on this their wedding-day their inten- 
 tion of devoting themselves, and all they have, to the service of 
 the Lord Jesus. Thus is theirs the certainty that when their 
 earthly union shall be terminated by death, they will be able 
 (whichever be the survivor) to look forward to a reunion in 
 Christ's heavenly kingdom for all eternity." 
 
 It is a beautiful and instructive love-story which we read in 
 the " Memoirs" of Henry Venn Elliott, of Brighton. He asked 
 her father for " a jewel, which, though unworthy in himself, he 
 would wear most delicately, and treasure as his life." Mr. 
 Elliott's own letters tell the story, and there is hardly any pret- 
 tier story in any book of fiction than that gradually revealed 
 by these religious letters.
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 " I have made my proposals to Julia Marshall, and am ac- 
 cepted by the parents, if Julia consents. She will see me, and 
 then decide. It was a bold step I took. But my mind was 
 so agitated, since hope sprang up, that I have never had a 
 day's quiet or a night's usual rest since. I believe I am fol- 
 lowing my Lord's gracious guiding. If ever I committed my 
 way to him, it was in this instance. He only knows how it 
 will end. It has altogether been a wonderful story." 
 
 " Rejoice with me," he says. " Julia has accepted me. A 
 few hours after I wrote my dejected letter to my beloved 
 mother, I had a walk of two hours with my Julia, and instead 
 of keeping me in long suspense and probation, she generously 
 plighted her precious heart in exchange for mine. How joy- 
 ful was I ! and my heart at this moment overflows with thank- 
 fulness to God, who has led me by the right way to the right 
 person." 
 
 " Deeply as I have loved Julia, and highly as I valued her, 
 I find every day fresh and fresh reason to bless God, who has 
 provided for me such a treasure. And her sentiments are so 
 just, so holy, so pure, so gentle ; all her behavior is so mod- 
 est and winning ; her heart so confiding and affectionate ; her 
 manner so delicate and lady-like ; her mind so richly furnished, 
 and so finely constituted in its original powers, that I find in 
 her nothing to be changed, and every thing to be loved. She 
 is, I do assure you, an exquisite creature ; advanced from the 
 rudiments in which she appeared at Brighton to a mature per- 
 fection, not only of Christian character, but also of manners 
 and influence, which prove her to be most richly qualified to 
 adorn the station which is to be hers, and to superintend all 
 the female departments of my church. I am, I confess, in 
 danger of making an idol of her, but I pray day by day that 
 my love and perpetual complacency in her, in all she says, in all 
 she does, in all she appears, may be submitted and conse-
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 crated to the Lord. He gave me this most precious gift, and 
 I strive to carry it to him, and to beseech him that I may 
 really possess it as his gift, as a bond of deeper gratitude 
 and love to the Giver, and as a rich talent to be used in his 
 service. Already we have begun some religious work, and 
 every morning we read the Scriptures together. ' Bless the 
 Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless his holy 
 name.' " 
 
 To these extracts I will venture to add one from Bishop 
 Dupanloup's wise little book " La Femme studieuse :" " C'est 
 d'avance et des les premiers jours de leur manage, que de jeunes 
 epoux doivent mediter de concert un plan de vie, plan large 
 et seVieux, embrassant 1'ensemble : les devoirs mutuels, la car- 
 ribre, la position du chef de famille dans son pays, les enfants, 
 leur avenir ; les relations sociales ; la vie prive'e ; 1'age mur ; 
 enfin la vieillesse et la mort ; 1'existence, en un mot, dans ses 
 grandes phases. Et c'est avec ces grandes lignes que tous 
 leurs actes, tout d'abord et des'le commencement, doivent 
 etre mis en accord. De cette fagon seulement une femme 
 pourra assurer la bonte' et 1'unitd de sa vie, et eViter les tristes 
 disaccords qui se font dans une existence abandonnde a 1'aven- 
 ture, entre la jeune femme et la femme en cheveux blancs. 
 Tandis qu'au contraire, si la vie est bien ordonne'e, il peut y 
 avoir un accord merveilleux entre les ages diffe'rents que Dieu 
 fait passer sur sa tete, et qu'elle doit successivement traverser, 
 rdpandant le charme et le bien autour d'elle."
 
 TRA VEL. 
 
 '45 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Travel. 
 
 TRAVEL brings its special " moments." It is much when 
 one who has lived for years in a narrow circle first leaves the 
 limits of early life and passes to a different sphere and to 
 wider interests. What a moment is that of first foreign trav- 
 el ! What a moment to many first to behold the sea! though, 
 like Gebir, one may have murmured, 
 
 " Is this the mighty ocean ? is this all ?" 
 
 But first to leave the old shores of Albion, and to sail across 
 the waters to new scenes, which almost seemed to present, as 
 it were, the life of another planet ; first to see the low-lying 
 shore of Holland, with the wind-mills and the boundless past- 
 ures, or " the palms and temples of the South !" Most people 
 who visit Jerusalem, first see it with the feelings which Tasso 
 so eloquently ascribes to the army of the first Crusaders. 
 Very often a keen intellectual expansion is afforded by foreign 
 travel. After Lord Macaulay had lived in India we believe 
 he had meditated returning there again at the last there 
 was a greater richness and expansiveness in his style. After 
 Burke had thoroughly worked through and elaborated Indian 
 subjects, his gorgeous rhetoric flowered to the uttermost. It 
 may indeed be said that some knowledge and familiarity with 
 Oriental subjects is absolutely necessary for any completeness 
 of mental vision. Otherwise only one hemisphere of life and 
 thought is visible to us. 
 
 This is the broadest aspect. But the subject of travel may 
 
 G
 
 146 TURNING-1OINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 be brought within very narrow limits, expanding or diminish- 
 ing with each man's experience. 
 
 There is no doubt that home and foreign travel, and, in- 
 deed, change of any kind, is one of the most beneficial agen- 
 cies that can be brought to bear on our moral and physical 
 well-being. Sir Henry Holland, in one of his medical essays, 
 very strongly advocates change of scene and air in the case 
 of a supposed patient. If he can not travel he had better go 
 from one room to another, and if he can not leave his ro<>m 
 the furniture of the room had better be changed. When all 
 medical art has failed, the simple rational proceeding of f\ lit- 
 tle travel has wrought wonders. The world is diseased and 
 out of joint, and in one sense we are all valetudinarians. 
 Perhaps no man is very long free from distempered fancies 
 and worrying thoughts, and, to use Baconian language rough- 
 ly, his private den is soon invaded by unpleasing idols. A 
 man ordinarily finds that he is able to cast away much worry 
 and fret by an easy walk into the clear sunshine and liberal 
 air. Travel is an extension of this. Before the welcome 
 train has borne you across country to the next station, the 
 cares and anxieties which seemed so oppressive shrink to 
 their petty local and provincial measure. The eye is pleased 
 by shifting changes, the mind animated by the variety of ob- 
 jects, and, without minutely analyzing the cause, in most cases 
 a good result is easily perceivable. It is to be carefully ob- 
 served that a due measure and proportion should be main- 
 tained in reference to rest and travel. There is many a med- 
 icine an over-dose of which produces the very effects which it 
 was intended to obviate. One who is always traveling loses 
 the capacity of the enjoyment of travel. The ever-varying 
 apartment which receives him night after night becomes as 
 monotonous as the familiar four walls and a ceiling of which 
 he had been tired, and each fresh landscape is beheld with the
 
 TRA VEL. 
 
 147 
 
 satiety of one who is growing very weary with his inspection 
 of a gallery of pictures. The most welcome change is that 
 of rest and permanence, and the most brilliant flash of travel 
 that which lands us at home again. 
 
 Human unity is made up of pairs of contradictions. Man- 
 kind, according to a phrase which Coleridge borrowed from 
 the German, are made up of Aristotelians and Platonists, and, 
 according to Mr. Gladstone, of dog-lovers and dog-haters. 
 These contradictions may be multiplied to any extent, and the 
 traveling and the non-traveling will hold as good as any oth- 
 er. There are many who, according to the saying, never feel 
 at home except when they are abroad. Their eye is not sat- 
 isfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. They are almost 
 Cain-like ; they wander like the Wandering Jew. They have 
 tasted of travel, and the taste has left an unsatiable lust of lo- 
 comotion. They have 
 
 " Become a name 
 
 For always roaming with an hungry heart .... 
 Yet all experience an arch were thro' 
 Gleams that untraveled world." 
 
 Now, you will find many persons who have a very horror 
 of traveling. For them a distant horizon has no charm of 
 meaning. The instinct of adhesiveness is strong upon them. 
 Only for the briefest flight can they exalt their minds beyond 
 petty and local interests. It is chiefly those who make it their 
 business to know something of the ways and thoughts of the 
 extreme poor who see this phase of incurious and inert life. 
 I have very repeatedly met this : notably, I remember, on the 
 south coast of Cornwall, where again and again the nearest 
 market-town was the extreme limit on the west, and all the 
 east was gloriously terminated at Plymouth. There were the 
 flammantia mania mundi. All beyond was void or limbo. 
 Now, while remembering that the instinct of travel should
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 work within due limitations, and that there are worse forms 
 of absenteeism than the common notion of it presents, to 
 those who believe that the cultivation of our intellectual pow- 
 ers is only second -in importance to moral obligations, this 
 travel itself becomes little else than a moral obligation bind- 
 ing on the non-traveling part of the community. 
 
 And if this seems hard on the non-travelers, I am sure that 
 this duty, like every other, is quite possible of fulfillment. Any 
 home-staying person may easily make experiment of this. 
 Let any such person make his home the centre of a circle, no 
 radius of which shall extend beyond the manageable limits of 
 a day's expedition. I am sure that he will soon be able to 
 draw up a list of interesting localities, for hardly a square mile 
 of our crowded historic England is free from such. Nothing 
 is more commonly observed and each such instance implies 
 a real reproach than that strangers will often come many 
 miles to view what an inhabitant has never made any effort to 
 examine. Many a man who now leads a mere vegetable life 
 might find a constant source of interest and change in trying 
 to make his survey of an interesting neighborhood accurate 
 and exhaustive. If we employ this little talent aright, a larger 
 talent will, doubtless, be confided to us. This brings us to 
 the comparative question of home or continental travel. Now 
 home travel is almost the instinct of duty and patriotism. 
 Some amount of home travel is absolutely necessary in order 
 to enable us to comprehend this England of ours aright. We 
 are not yet arrived at that utterly stereotyped condition of so- 
 ciety to which certain cosmopolitans think that we are come. 
 .Still there are many angular, or rather very triangular, differ- 
 ences between Lancashire, Kent, and Cornwall. The people 
 of the Orkney Isles and the people of the Scilly Isles are, I 
 believe, very much like each other, but many shades of differ- 
 ence lie between the two extremes. There are very many
 
 TRA VEL. 
 
 149 
 
 country people who consider that London is situated in par- 
 tibus, and that going into the shires is like going beyond seas. 
 There is a more thorough change of scene in foreign travel, 
 and more things worth seeing abroad than at home. Yet it 
 seems obviously designed that an Englishman should, for the 
 main part, reside in England. Those lessons of catholicity 
 and toleration which are certainly among the best religious 
 lessons which we may derive from foreign travel, may assured- 
 ly also be learned in the narrowest circuit we have indicated. 
 If a distinguished French scholar has ventured to write his 
 Journey round his Room, an Englishman may also derive great 
 profit from any journey round his parish, if he is at pains to 
 comprehend and appreciate other classes other than his own 
 class, other forms of worship other than his own form. Still 
 the wider the circle of travel, the more ample will be the range 
 of observation and induction. It is the privilege of a Howard 
 to make all travel strictly subservient to Christian philanthro- 
 py. We can not all be Howards, albeit Christian philanthro- 
 py is never beyond the reach of any traveler ; yet we may 
 smooth our angles, remove our prejudices, make ourselves 
 wiser and more charitable by using candid eyes, and thus pro- 
 mote peace and good-will. Travel will constantly enable us 
 to observe the real defects of our own system of things, and 
 to detect the improvements which can be easily ingrafted. 
 As this world is the appointed theatre for man's energies and 
 capabilities of improvement, every positive and material good 
 has a divine sanction and a heavenly meaning. If we were 
 seeking to deal with the subject in a formal and exhaustive 
 way, we might trace many instances in which travel has been 
 the appointed agency for mitigating the sorrows and multiply- 
 ing the blessings of humanity. 
 
 There is a curious proverb relating to travel, the meaning 
 of which ought to be cleared up, to the effect that at Rome \ve
 
 l-o TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ought to do as the Romans do. The words are adopted in a 
 restricted sense by persons of pronounced " Anglican" views, 
 who, when in Roman Catholic countries, make a point of at- 
 tending the Roman' Catholic service. Abroad, the doors of 
 churches and cathedrals always stand open, which in our land 
 fear for the security of books and plate will not permit, and in 
 a moment we may escape from the glare of the streets and 
 the concourse of the crowd into the dim, cool, quiet aisle, and, 
 should we see much that we disapprove, may yet breathe our 
 prayer that those feeling after God may find him, who is not 
 far from any one of us, and for ourselves that we may be sound 
 in faith and sound in the rule of life. The proverb has, more- 
 over, another sense and a very mischievous one. One both 
 of the blessings and the banes of travel is that it sets us free 
 from ordinary restraints. A certain pressure and constraint 
 is upon every man in his usual home. Inasmuch as this con- 
 ventionality is always encompassing us, and thereby the fluent 
 lines of character threaten to harden into a rigid immobility, 
 it is well that such restraint should at times be removed, if only 
 that we may ascertain whether ours is a service which is per- 
 fect freedom. But many of the mass plead the proverb as an 
 excuse for a license and irregularity which public opinion 
 would not permit them in their own country. There are spe- 
 cial reasons at the present time, beyond those which always 
 remain strong and abiding reasons, why an English traveler 
 at Rome, or whatever Rome stands for, should be an English- 
 man and not a Roman. It is well, indeed, that the English- 
 man should lose his insularity and angularity ; but he should 
 always be keenly alive to his character of patriot and Chris- 
 tian. There is a great deal of foreign suspicion and dislike 
 toward the English, which, to a great degree, they have earned 
 by their own bad manners and evil communications. A Prus- 
 sian entirely declines to believe that at the present time the
 
 TRAVEL. 151 
 
 Briton is " the lord of human kind f he thinks, indeed, that he 
 is just as good as the Briton ; indeed that, barring the conceit 
 and the insufferable overestimate of material wealth, he is, 
 with his needle-gun, several degrees better. We have a na- 
 tional character which of late years has been fast going down 
 in the estimation of foreign nations, but which every English- 
 man will use his endeavors to maintain at its just standard. 
 The present condition of religion on the Continent must also 
 deepen our impressions relative to the religious aspect of trav- 
 el. There is every where a shivering, such as the prophet 
 saw in vision, of the breath of life animating the dry bones. 
 The Southern nations at last appear to be working their way 
 out in the direction of a religious reformation. Three centu- 
 ries ago the boon was offered them, and not without great sor- 
 row and struggle it was rejected, and now once more, as if in 
 sibylline leaves, the offer is renewed. May this, indeed, even 
 here, prove " leaves for the healing of the nations !" As en- 
 lightened and religious Englishmen may still continue to think 
 that they, with others, are repositaries and guardians of the 
 highest truths, so it must devolve upon them by all wise and 
 kindly means to hand onward to distant countries and centu- 
 ries the torch of truth kindled from afar, but kept alive at their 
 own altars. They will best do this, not, indeed, by proselytiz- 
 ing, not by seeking to impress their own local and temporary 
 accidents of position on others, not by seeking an exact re- 
 production of their own ecclesiastical system on the part of 
 foreign Churches, but by the manifestation of sympathy, good- 
 ness, and toleration, by well-considered material assistance, by 
 exemplifying a true catholicity and a real communion, and by 
 setting an example of practical stainlessness and beneficence. 
 In this way our travels may aid the wonderful order of events 
 in the present age, and the reflex influence must inevitably be 
 full of use and happiness to ourselves and our own land.
 
 152 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 For instance, the Church of England work now going on at 
 Seville is of a very curious and interesting kind. It appears to 
 indicate that the grave Spaniards who are leaving their own 
 Church nevertheless give a distinct preference to the episcopal 
 and liturgical system of the Church of England, compared 
 with that severer Presbyterian type more generally adopted by 
 Reformed Churches on the Continent. The English consular 
 chaplain at Seville lately gave, at one of those drawing-room 
 meetings which are common during the London season, an 
 account of the full introduction of the machinery of a well- 
 worked English parish into that magnificent historic city. 
 There are day-schools, Sunday-schools, mission-houses, Bible- 
 classes ; and a large church, seating many hundreds, and quite 
 full, has been rented for performing our service in the Span- 
 ish language. The chaplain really appears to have shown 
 some of that statesmanlike skill and ability which in mission 
 work has been almost monopolized by Romanist ecclesiastics. 
 As much as possible he keeps the foreign English element 
 out of sight from the sensitive Spaniards, and employs Span- 
 ish agents in his Church work. It may be said, indeed, that 
 Presbyterianism is entirely unsuited to the genius of Italy and 
 Spain. The tendency of the anti-papal movement in these 
 countries is toward mere negation ; the bare, repellant Puritan 
 system does not suit the Southern nature. The Church of 
 England offers many points of sympathy and contact in her 
 regenerated services to the historical forms of religion in the 
 South of Europe, and Seville is giving proof of the idea often 
 expressed, that a spontaneous reformation in the South would 
 most probably result in a system closely akin to the Anglican 
 system. 
 
 Let us next narrow the subject into more special consider- 
 ations. In a religious sense the primary view of traveling is 
 that we are enabled thereby to read God's handwriting in
 
 TRA VEL. 
 
 153 
 
 nature. That volume of nature, indeed, lies every where out- 
 spread before us. But traveling enables us to turn over so 
 many more leaves of that volume. There is something almost 
 awful in the familiarity which many pure-hearted and able 
 men have attained with nature, whereby they are able at 
 sight to read off her splendid page, and to come nigher to 
 the secret of the Almighty, by deciphering that revelation of 
 himself which he has given in the world that he has created 
 a revelation invisible, inaudible, to those who see with eyes 
 that see not, and hear with ears that hear not. Our thought 
 evermore should be with that "Almighty Artist who paints 
 every spring new landscapes on the earth, and every evening 
 new ones in the sky, whose sculptures are the melting clouds 
 and the everlasting hills, and whose harp of countless strings 
 includes each note from the harebell's tinkle to the organic 
 roll of ocean's thunder." These words are from a Presby- 
 terian clergyman, and I would parallel with them that most 
 famous and beautiful sentence from John Henry Newman: 
 " Every breath of air, and ray of light and heat, every beauti- 
 ful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the 
 waving of the robes of those whose faces see God in heaven." 
 The religious delight of scenery is a gift reserved for the pure 
 in heart. To them all nature is like Memnon's harp, which, 
 met by the rising sun, was recognized by all to give forth 
 musical sounds, but to the initiated alone did the sounds re- 
 solve themselves into -an intelligible hymn 
 " I see a hand you can not see, 
 I hear a voice you can not hear." 
 
 The intellectual enjoyment of travel depends very much 
 upon our sense of beauty and our susceptibility of being in- 
 fluenced by the laws of association. The sense of the beauty 
 of scenery requires cultivation, and may be infinitely height- 
 ened and improved. With this sense the most ordinary aspect 
 
 G 2
 
 154 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE, 
 
 of nature has become vested with a poetical beauty denied to 
 the grandest scenery. No one has done for the Himalayas 
 what Mr. Tennyson has done for the fenny country of Lincoln- 
 shire. In this way, too, a very quiet and subdued landscape 
 will give some men a sense of beauty and enjoyment denied 
 to rich vulgarians, who " do" all the choicest scenes of Europe 
 in their own carriages. 
 
 One meets with astonishing instances of utter insensibility 
 on the part of traveling people on their travels. I have seen 
 Oxford men smoking in the cabin of a steamer as they passed 
 the finest scenery on the Rhine, and men fast asleep in the 
 cabin as they passed the finest scenery on the Dart. The 
 mention of the Rhine and the Dart recalls a curious anecdote 
 which a distinguished friend once told me, which may well 
 suggest questions both on self-deception and on the philos- 
 ophy of travel. It is well known that in the west country 
 the Dart is called the English Rhine. My friend met a Prus- 
 sian gentleman on board the Dart steamer. The Prussian 
 told him that he had heard the Dart called the English Rhine, 
 and that he was now viewing the Dart in order to judge of the 
 truth of the comparison. My friend happened to remark that 
 of course he knew the Rhine very well. "Not in the least," 
 was the reply ; he " had only passed it once on the railway at 
 Cologne." But being a German, and knowing all about the 
 character of the people, their history and literature, he could 
 evolve the idea of the Rhine out of his own consciousness. 
 Given the history and the literature, the idea of the local 
 scenery could always be evolved out of one's own internal 
 being. " For instance," said the metaphysical German, " I 
 have never been to Switzerland, yet I am perfectly acquainted 
 with Swiss scenery." I am afraid his judgment would not be 
 worth much on the mooted point respecting the Dart. One 
 envies the facility with which an immense amount of traveling
 
 TRA VEL. 
 
 155 
 
 can be done without the inconvenient drawback of traveling 
 expenses. It is a bold idea to supersede locomotion by the 
 internal consciousness. 
 
 But though history and literature will not enable us thus to 
 evolve scenery with perfect accuracy, it is quite impossible to 
 enjoy scenery without literature and history. For the historian 
 himself traveling is the absolutely necessary complement to 
 study. What military historian can describe a battle without 
 examining the field ? Does not Mr. Froude pass a good deal 
 of time at Simancas, and, of course, also inspect the localities 
 which he describes? Did not Macaulay stay patiently in 
 Devonshire to understand Sedgmoor, in Londonderry to com- 
 prehend its siege, in Scotland if only to give that famous de- 
 scription of Glencoe ? Mr. Freeman diligently works up his 
 battle-fields. And, without being an historian, an intelligent 
 traveler will be constantly clearing up points of history to 
 his own satisfaction, and will probably be able to contribute 
 crumbs of valuable information to the elucidation of great 
 subjects. There are many quarters where every trifle of ac- 
 curate information is thankfully received. Great writers would 
 not be able to produce great books, or great orators to make 
 great speeches, without a measure of the assistance and co- 
 operation of humbler men in supplying materials. A large 
 part of the religious influence of travel must mainly consist in 
 the fact that travel is an instrument of knowledge. I know 
 that the tree of knowledge, even as it proved in Eden, is some- 
 times as a tree of death, and its fruit as ashes to the taste. 
 She is not the first, nor yet the second. Love, faith, duty, all 
 transcend even the mighty claims that belong to her. But to 
 grow in knowledge is a religious obligation; the wise man 
 well said " that the soul be without knowledge is not good." 
 Ignorance is one of the ugliest forms of sin. I wonder that 
 so many practical Christians can sleep quietly in their beds
 
 156 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 when they know that they are so absorbed in business that 
 year glides after year without any perceptible addition to the 
 stock of their knowledge and ideas. A wise man when he 
 travels will utterly fa.il to look upon travel as a mere pleasur- 
 able change. He will regard it as a precious and compara- 
 tively rare means of intellectual culture. He will confess to 
 himself that, after all, his seeing is but the seeing " through a 
 glass darkly ;" but he is not without the presentiment that it 
 will be good for him to be learning till the last day of his life, 
 and that in some mysterious way the larger sum of his knowl- 
 edge here is connected with richer fruitage of knowledge here- 
 after. 
 
 Knowledge, then, will make travel of more enjoyment, and 
 travel will make knowledge of closer accuracy and higher use. 
 We bring to an object much more than the object brings to 
 us. Knowledge holds the key of all the associations. To the 
 men who know, " the burial-places of memory yield up their 
 dead." This also gives what I would almost call a rarer and 
 safer element of delight than the balm of the air or the beauty 
 of the scene. For the mind tinges every object with the hue 
 of its own mood. The man who is sorrowful or remorseful, 
 despondent or despairing, will only momentarily be lulled by 
 the symphonies and choric voices of nature. Rather her great 
 glory will be withering and crushing, and the beauty of the 
 summer sunset will be simply heart-breaking. I fully sym- 
 pathize with that frank, pure glee of a poet whom I can not 
 unlearn to love and admire : 
 
 " I care not, Fortune, what you me deny : 
 
 You can not rob me of free Nature's grace ; 
 You can not shut the windows of the sky, 
 Through which Aurora shows her blooming face." 
 
 But the time comes when nature only gives us hard, scien- 
 tific facts, unrelieved by much of free grace ; and as for poor
 
 TRA VEL. 
 
 '57 
 
 Aurora, she is among the dim, discrowned deities of a dis- 
 carded mythology. But the intellectual pleasures of travel 
 are free from this kind of incertitude. When once the intel- 
 lectual pleasure is aroused, when once the mental exertion is 
 made, by the very fact the previous feelings are effectually dis- 
 placed. When the mountain and lake shed poetic inspira- 
 tion it is because the peculiar genius of the mountain and 
 lake is comprehended. What is the river of Palestine, or the 
 river of Egypt, or the river of Germany, apart from that " in- 
 spiration" which belongs to each? It is a pure intellectual 
 pleasure to see some chantry or monument in an old cathe- 
 dral, where memory supplies comment and inspiration ; to 
 visit rocks and woods associated with immortal pages of lit- 
 erature and the memories of great men ; to examine the cities 
 and plains where the great historical battles and sieges of 
 European history have occurred ; to know thoroughly the 
 royal palaces and baronial castles with which history's state- 
 liest page is occupied, together with the humble village, or the 
 mean abode, rural or urban, where some art or science had its 
 rise, or which cradled the childhood of a nation's most illus- 
 trious son. Properly to understand the Low Countries requires 
 a special preparation. The wealth of association in Italy, 
 classical, mediaeval, and modern, is so great that the best-in- 
 formed travelers will despair of overtaking it in its entirety ; 
 but every approximate step toward real knowledge will indef- 
 initely help us toward deriving an intellectual, and therefore 
 religious, good from travel. A Christian man will also have 
 a special pleasure in visiting places associated with religious 
 history. In his case the association, and that alone, prompts 
 the feeling which prompts the visit. A chance passenger 
 near Salisbury sees nothing at a little adjacent village in that 
 curiously small church just opposite the rectory, incrusted 
 with moss and ivy, and the little church-yard overgrown with
 
 I 5 8 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 weeds, especially since, close at hand, there is the new and 
 stately church, which can so worthily supply the wants of the 
 vicinity. But George Herbert used to preach in that little 
 church of Bemerton preached the sermons which the public 
 orator of Cambridge would preach so eloquently, and offered 
 those very prayers, before and after service, which honest 
 Izaak Walton has preserved for us and this other church is 
 a memorial to him, and without this little church might not 
 have been. There is a smaller church yet, which is saying 
 much it must be the smallest, or nearly the smallest, in En- 
 gland at Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight; and "within the 
 sounding of the wave" there is a grave-yard monument where 
 a raised cross at times flings a shadow on the tomb. But we 
 recognize it as the grave of William Adams, the sweet-natured 
 scholar who wrote the " Shadow of the Cross," and was the 
 most accomplished master of modern allegory. That church 
 of Hursley in Hampshire, with its spire so conspicuous for 
 miles, over upland and down, would arrest the attention of 
 any beholder by its completeness and richness of restoration ; 
 but for those who knew and loved the author of the " Chris- 
 tian Year," in that and other books, it will have a depth and 
 tenderness of association, in connection with their own holiest 
 experiences, which the material beauty of the fabric by itself 
 would be powerless to evoke. In every great scene of the 
 world's history there is something to stir the breath and 
 quicken the heart ; we feel, to use Dr. Johnson's famous lan- 
 guage, when visiting lona, that it is impossible to pass un- 
 moved ; there is something which elevates our piety and pa- 
 triotism ; we are advanced in the dignity of thinking beings. 
 Indeed, when we visit the scenes associated with a good man's 
 orbed and completed course, we are surely quickened with a 
 sense of our own unworthiness and insufficiency ; we may de- 
 rive from his memory some recollections that may lessen sor-
 
 TRAVEL. 159 
 
 row, and may quicken effort, and may exalt faith; we are 
 thankful for those who have departed this life in his faith and 
 fear, and cherish the trembling hope that we, too, may be 
 found " in the blessed company of all faithful people." 
 
 Madame de Stae'l used to say that traveling was one of the 
 saddest pleasures of life. I think there is a great deal of 
 truth in this phrase. Every traveler at times answer's Gold, 
 smith's description : " Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow." 
 There was no one in his age who traveled more, or whose 
 travels have been more famous, than St. Paul. Yet in a great 
 degree it must have been a sorrowful matter, apart from his 
 special difficulties as an apostle, and from those "perils," 
 most of which have been eliminated from modern life. He 
 was a most affectionate-hearted man, and in various ways he 
 must have been constantly wounded in his affection. He 
 formed no tie which he was not speedily compelled to sever. 
 He would come to a city and make strangers friends, and 
 then soon he would leave his friends and sojourn among 
 strangers. Now something of this kind must happen to 
 one who travels. He must at times linger in spots where 
 his feeling is that it is good to be, and that here he would 
 fain set up his tabernacle. Almost unexpectedly he has 
 alighted on that very corner of the world which in all its be- 
 longings and surroundings seems to suit him best. He meets 
 the most charming people he has ever known ; he finds him- 
 self taking a growing interest in the history and politics of the 
 district, and irresistibly drawn toward the land-owner or the 
 cure; that rounded bay, with the castle on the cliff, and the 
 orchard in the hollow, and the light-house far away at sea, ex- 
 actly suit his sense of proportion and beauty. He would soon 
 be a botanist in those woods, and a zoologist among those 
 rocks at low water. There are some men who find it impos- 
 sible to leave, without some touch of sorrow, any place where
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 they have resided for some little time, and whose moral ten- 
 tacles adhere most strongly to any surface that may be pre- 
 sented to them. Even the most indifferent men find on some 
 rare occasion that they have found that very spot of earth 
 which, to the best of their own self-knowledge, would suit them 
 best. But a necessity is on them, and they must be moving 
 on. They are due at some other place. They have formed 
 a definite arrangement, from which there seems no fair way 
 of escape. They can hardly hope that any change will im- 
 prove their lot for the better; they would willingly compro- 
 mise for things as they are ; they will be glad even if they 
 can henceforth obtain an enduring approximation to that 
 sense of contentment and calm and peace of mind which for 
 these happy days have wrapped them as with a mantle, and 
 guarded them as with a shield. But their destiny is upon 
 them, and they are unable to extricate themselves. 
 
 Perhaps such persons require a grave lesson to be taught 
 them. Their disposition is such that they would most will- 
 ingly linger among the fading bowers of earth, oblivious that 
 those bowers must fade, and so forgetful of those only happy 
 isles, those only amaranthine gardens, where an immortal soul 
 may find an enduring home. Therefore it is that they find 
 no sure rest for the sole of their feet, and some marring ele- 
 ment is allowed to be mixed up with what otherwise would be 
 a rounded and happy life. Our tendrils cling so easily and 
 naturally to earth, that we need to be often reminded that we 
 are but strangers and pilgrims here, and, amid all traveling, to 
 realize that great travel of all, in which we seek an abiding 
 city. As a man moves from land to land, and observes 
 " cities of men, nations, and governments," he may, perhaps, 
 better learn to realize that he is but a traveler between two 
 eternities. 
 
 And it may even be that whatever is most exalted and
 
 TRAVEL. IOI 
 
 good in travel may be continued to us in a future state of 
 existence. I remember hearing of some good man who had 
 never seen the Alps, but said that he intended to take them 
 on his way up to heaven. Those who, chained down to home 
 by the invisible links of a thousand duties, have never been 
 able to see God's handicraft of the mountains and his won- 
 ders of the deep, may yet behold a loftier Chimborazo, a more 
 sublime Andes, and contemplate the unspeakable beauty of 
 the hyaline of heaven. As upon a serene night the stars 
 come out, army upon army, and the very dust of stars, beyond 
 the ken of distant vision, seems, as the sand upon the sea- 
 shore, innumerable, we begin to comprehend the boundless 
 possibilities of knowledge for those who are thought worthy 
 to attain to the first resurrection. Then one can almost de- 
 spise the littleness of this poor, slight planet, and almost wel- 
 come death, that throws open the gates of infinite space. In 
 the fathomless riches of eternity it will seem but as the occu- 
 pation of one of the deep unclouded days of heaven to take 
 leave of friends, for some five hundred years, to make the tour 
 of Jupiter's satellites, or examine into the condition of the 
 whilom earth. But I come to a point where speculation is 
 lost in awe and mysteries, and where human analogies may 
 cease to shadow forth,- even ever so dimly, the heavenly real- 
 ities. Here, then, I pause.
 
 1 62 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Literature, Science, and Art. 
 
 I SUPPOSE we are all believers in the boundless power of 
 steady, persevering work. " Never despair," wrote Edmund 
 Burke to his friend, "the high-souled and generous" Wick- 
 ham ; "but if you do, work in despair." As Matthew Arnold 
 
 says : 
 
 "And tasks in hours of insight willed, 
 In hours of gloom can be fulfilled." 
 
 si sic omnia ! Why should not Matthew Arnold give us 
 noble poetry, instead of attacking worthy dissenters, and as- 
 saulting the very foundations even of natural religion ? And, 
 as the laureate says : 
 
 " But well I know 
 
 That unto him that works and feels he works 
 This same New Year is ever at the door." 
 
 And to make one more quotation : " Even in the meanest 
 sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind 
 of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work." 
 
 1 am not one of those who would recommend to any young 
 man the deliberate choice of literature as a profession. In 
 fact I greatly object to the idea of literature as a profession. 
 Journalism may, and according to modern exigencies must be, 
 a profession, but literature ought to lie open to all ranks and 
 orders of society. There are many patent reasons why we can 
 give very few encouraging words to those who would adopt 
 letters as a distinct path in life. It is, as Bacon said, a good
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 163 
 
 staff, but a sorry crutch. It is a good thing to help a man, but 
 a bad thing whereon to rest. It is not the most remunerative, 
 and per se it is not the most useful of avocations. Then there 
 is a very common and a very fatal confusion of thought be- 
 tween the desire and the ability to pursue a literary career. 
 Then the competition is enormous. Most editors of maga- 
 zines will say that they could fill their periodicals years in ad- 
 vance with very fair, printable matter that is sent in to them. 
 Then there is a good deal of social disadvantage about litera- 
 ture, and though bookish people will think well of a litterateur, 
 to be one is hardly a recommendation to society at large. 
 
 Still there is another side of the case which has to be stated, 
 and which is more fraught with encouragement. There is an 
 enormous amount of " copy " to be produced every morning, 
 every week, every month, every quarter, every year, and there 
 must be an army of writers to produce it. There is no reason 
 why a man of fair culture and intelligence should not find some 
 sort of service in that army. In the first ranks of literature 
 stand the great geniuses of the world, who are on an intellect- 
 ual platform infinitely exalted above their fellows. But there 
 is also an immense literary field which may be occupied by 
 the rank and file. A man of culture, observation, intelligence, 
 with a power of clear thought and fluent expression, ought to 
 be able to find something to do. Poeta nascitur, orator Jit, is a 
 saying which may be adopted into the statement that while 
 the genius must be born, a man may make himself a fairly 
 good writer. If he has leisure and independence, if he has 
 patience and industry, if he can afford to bide his time, let him 
 persevere, and the chances are that his perseverance will be 
 rewarded by results. And though one would be very sorry to 
 induce any man deliberately to embrace this as a profession, 
 yet to clergymen of insufficient income, to briefless barristers, 
 to all who amid the rise of prices are condemned to fixed in-
 
 1 64 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 comes, it is very allowable to try and do something in letters, 
 and creditable workmanship will find its way at last. 
 
 Success may be late in coming, but sometimes when it 
 comes it makes amends for much previous failure. Sometimes 
 decided genius has to wait as long as cultivated mediocrity. 
 It is good, perhaps, that it should have to wait, for those 
 who have obtained instantaneous recognition have not always 
 found it for their good. Byron awoke one morning and found 
 himself famous, but the fame helped to spoil him and slay 
 him. Burns had his triumphant winter in Edinburgh, but that 
 " triumphant winter" was a great misfortune. As a rule, too, 
 the fashionable favorite is soon discrowned. He can not do 
 better for the world than die early if he has pleased the world 
 when young. Many instances might be given where men have 
 published again and again, with very limited success or no 
 success at all, but feeling that they have had something to 
 say, they have gone on saying it, and ultimately they have 
 succeeded. Perhaps the delay was good for them. To others 
 the delay has been fatal the frost has killed. Humanly speak- 
 ing, Keats might have lived if he had had the success of Ten- 
 nyson, but the Quarterly killed him, as it afterward tried to 
 kill Tennyson, and the Edinburgh to kill Wordsworth. 
 " Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, 
 Should let itself be snuffed out by an article." 
 
 But now the Quarterly has recanted, and Jeffrey is dragged 
 in triumph at the chariot-wheel of Wordsworth. 
 
 And yet how slow has the progress of some of our greatest 
 men been ! How exceedingly slow and grudging was the 
 recognition accorded to Wordsworth! Some of our most 
 popular works of fiction have been refused by publisher after 
 publisher. Charlotte Bronte with difficulty made her way. 
 Thackeray had "Vanity Fair" returned upon his hands. 
 Sometimes what appears to be a lucky chance will intervene.
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 165 
 
 Johnson's life might furnish one continued allegory of perse- 
 verance against difficulties. 
 
 Similarly take art. What a moment is that when the boy 
 or girl sits down and makes some first intellectual effort ! 
 The child has read poetry, enjoyed and appreciated it, never- 
 theless with the thought that it is something foreign, and al- 
 together far off from its own sphere. He sits down ; some 
 thought is stirring in the heart, some impulse twittering in the 
 brain ; some melodious lines flow forth ; he discovers that he 
 too has the gift of musical expression. Or he has watched 
 nature long, and with a suddenness of surprise, perhaps when 
 stretched on the ground watching the colors of the foliage, or 
 the lignes larges of the landscape, finds that he has the. faculty 
 of drawing from nature, and of reproducing those colors. 
 What a pretty story is that which Vasari tells of Michael 
 Angelo ! how " it chanced that when Domenico was painting 
 the great Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, he one day went 
 out, and Michael Angelo then set himself to draw the scaf- 
 folding, with some trestles, the various utensils of the art, and 
 some of those young men who were then working there. Do- 
 menico, having returned, and seen the drawing of Michael 
 Angelo, exclaimed, ' This boy knows more than I do,' stand- 
 ing in amaze at the originality and novelty of manner which 
 the judgment imparted to him by Heaven had enabled a mere 
 child to exhibit." West said that a kiss from his mother made 
 him a painter. Something very similar is told of Maclise, the 
 great painter, whose recent loss we deplore. 
 
 In the autumn of 1825, Sir Walter Scott made a hasty tour 
 of Ireland, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart and Miss 
 Edgeworth. Among other places, he stayed a short time at 
 Cork, and, while there, he visited the establishment of Mr. 
 Bolster, an eminent bookseller. The presence of the illustri- 
 ous author attracted crowds of literary persons there. Mac-
 
 1 66 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 lise, then a mere boy, conceived the idea of making a sketch 
 of Sir Walter, and, having placed himself unobserved in a part 
 of the shop which afforded him an admirable opportunity, he 
 made, in a few minutes, three outline sketches, each in a dif- 
 ferent position. He brought them home, and, having selected 
 one which he considered the best, worked at it the whole 
 night, and next morning brought to Bolster a highly finished 
 pen-and-ink drawing handled with all the elaborate minute- 
 ness of a line engraving. Bolster placed it in a conspicuous 
 part of his shop, and Sir Walter with his friends having again 
 called during the day, it attracted his attention when he en- 
 tered. He was struck with the exquisite finish and fidelity of 
 the drawing, and at once inquired the name of the artist who 
 had executed it. Maclise, who was standing in a remote part 
 of the shop, was brought forward and introduced to Sir W'alter. 
 The great author took him kindly by the hand, and expressed 
 his astonishment that a mere boy could have achieved such a 
 work, and predicted that he would yet distinguish himself. 
 Sir Walter then asked for a pen, and wrote with his own hand 
 " Walter Scott" at the foot of the sketch. This little sketch 
 of Sir Walter Scott created such a sensation among art critics 
 and the public that Maclise, not without great reluctance and 
 diffidence on his part, was induced by his friends to open an 
 atelier in Patrick Street. 
 
 It is related of Barry, that when a mere boy he performed a 
 journey from Cork to Dublin on foot, with his first picture 
 the Conversion of the Pagans by St. Patrick. It was placed 
 in a remote corner of one of the exhibition rooms, where it 
 was unlikely that any eye would rest upon it. It did not, 
 however, escape the observation of the great Edmund Burke. 
 He inquired of the secretary the name of the painter. " I 
 don't know," said that gentleman, "but it was brought here 
 by that little boy," pointing to Barry, who was modestly stand-
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 
 
 ing near his work. " Where did you get this picture, my 
 boy ?" said Burke ; " who painted it ?" " It is mine !" said 
 the boy ; " I painted it." " Oh, that is impossible !" said 
 Burke, glancing at the poorly clad youth. It is needless to 
 add how well Burke befriended him, and lifted him into fame. 
 
 This discovery of power takes place in the intellectual de- 
 velopment of each life. I remember hearing a person who 
 had a very remarkable voice describe how first the conscious- 
 ness of the " gift" arose. Her mother had taken her to hear 
 some celebrated singer, and the young girl, when she returned 
 home, imagined that her voice reached as high a note as the 
 celebrated singer's. It was even so, and a course of training 
 soon developed the glorious gift. 
 
 We will now proceed to consider some turning-points in the 
 history of science and scientific men. Our first example, 
 Blaise Pascal, belongs to the provinces both of literature and 
 science. 
 
 The name of Blaise Pascal is one of the purest and loftiest 
 of the great names of France, or, we should rather say, of the 
 human race. He lived during the time of the revolution in 
 England, in which time a corrupt religion and a polluted 
 court were paving the way for a far more terrible revolution 
 in France. He was born at Clermont, in Auvergne. From 
 his earliest years the child Blaise exhibited a precocity which 
 was extraordinary, and even unnatural in one so young, and 
 which his father had the good sense to check and discourage. 
 He would never permit him to be overtasked, and always set 
 him lessons which the child would perceive at once were 
 within the limits of his capacity. He would not allow him to 
 begin Latin till he was twelve years old, but nevertheless his 
 father would talk to him about the principles of language, 
 which the marvelous boy easily comprehended, and was fully 
 acquainted with the nature of grammar before he began to
 
 !68 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 learn a language. When he was only twelve years old an in- 
 cident happened which fully showed the bent of his mind. 
 He noticed, as nearly every other child does, that glass when 
 struck gave forth a long vibrating sound, but that when once 
 the hand was laid upon the glass the sound ceased. The little 
 philosopher was determined to find out the reason of this, and 
 puzzled over it and tried a number of experiments, and at 
 last produced almost a regular little treatise upon the subject. 
 His father was fond of making scientific experiments, which 
 the boy used to watch with the utmost delight, and was never 
 satisfied unless he understood the reason of every thing. 
 Nevertheless, the wise parent thought that at his tender years 
 the exact sciences might prove too severe a study for him, 
 and said that he should learn Latin first and mathematics aft- 
 erward. Blaise was very curious about this forbidden pur- 
 suit. At least he might ask his father what mathematics were. 
 Something was said about geometry. " Geometry," curtly an- 
 swered his father, " is the science which teaches the method 
 of making exact figures, and of finding out the proportions they 
 bear to each other." And having given this definition, he told 
 him not to think or talk any more about it. Innate genius, 
 however, will always find its way. If he must do his Latin in 
 school-hours, he certainly may amuse himself as he likes in 
 his play-hours. In his acute little brain the child puzzled 
 over what his father had said. He sat down in a large room, 
 all alone, with a piece of charcoal, and tried to draw exact 
 circles and triangles, and to find out in what relations they 
 could stand to each other. So carefully were scientific books 
 kept out of his sight, that he was not acquainted with any 
 technical terms. The circle he called a round, and the straight 
 line he called a bar. Things went on thus for some time ; 
 the child was mastering, or rather discovering for himself those 
 mathematical elements which all other boys learn from books
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 
 
 with an infinite deal of trouble. One day his father entered 
 the room where his son was so engaged, and so intent upon 
 his investigations that he was not aware of his father's pres- 
 ence. His father asked him what he was doing. The son 
 answered that he was trying to make out such and such a 
 thing, mentioning the mathematical truth enunciated in the 
 thirty-second proposition of the first book of Euclid. " And 
 what made you think of that?" said his father. "My having 
 found out this," was the answer; and then he mentioned an 
 earlier truth in Euclid. And so the boy Blaise went gradually 
 backward, till he came to the definitions and axioms out of 
 which all geometry is elaborated. The happy father was 
 transported with joy at this proof of his son's genius, but 
 without saying a word left the house that he might consult 
 with a friend what had best be done. It was agreed that no 
 irksome restraint should be placed upon his mathematical 
 studies, and a Euclid was given to him that he might amuse 
 himself with it in his play hours. 
 
 As might have been expected, his progress in science was 
 truly marvelous. When he was only sixteen years old he 
 produced a tractate on Conic Sections, which Descartes, the 
 greatest philosopher of his age, read with admiration, and 
 could scarcely believe that it had been written by one so young. 
 At nineteen he invented the celebrated arithmetical machine ; 
 and at six-and-twenty he had completed those brilliant experi- 
 ments on the weight of the atmosphere which will always as- 
 sociate his name with Torricelli and Boyle. These experi- 
 ments and his mathematical works made him be regarded as 
 one of the greatest philosophers of the age. 
 
 Several very interesting moments in the life of Pascal may 
 be mentioned in connection with his intellectual and spiritual 
 history. One day, when he was visiting his sister Jacqueline, 
 a sermon -bell was heard to toll. His sister went into the 
 
 H
 
 I yo TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 church, and her brother also stole into it by another door. It 
 so happened that the subject of the preacher's discourse was 
 the commencement of the Christian life. He showed how 
 well - disposed persons, by merely entangling themselves in 
 worldly ties, put obstacles in the way of their salvation, and 
 so run as to miss the prize of their heavenly calling. Pascal 
 thought this teaching exactly met his own case, and took it to 
 himself as a warning sent by God. He had also had another 
 and a more terrible warning, in a narrow escape from a fright- 
 ful death. One day he was going in a carriage with four horses 
 to Neuilly. Several of his friends were with him : it was a 
 holiday, and there was to be a gay promenade upon the bridge. 
 The bridge was very lofty, and a portion of it was unprotected 
 by any parapet. At this part of the bridge the two leaders 
 became restive, took the bit in their teeth, and, dashing aside, 
 plunged over the bridge into the Seine. Providentially, the 
 traces snapped, and the carriage was left firm, standing upon 
 the very edge. The feeble form of Pascal was ill adapted to 
 stand such a shock. He immediately fainted, and it was some 
 time before he revived. The event itself made a deep and 
 lasting impression upon his mind. In one respect this was 
 curiously manifested. He would be haunted with the idea 
 that danger was frequently threatening him on the left side 
 the side nearest to the danger on this occasion that there 
 lay a deep chasm in this direction. Pascal seems to allude 
 to this in a passage where he is speaking of the imagination, 
 and the vanity of man in his subjection to it. He says : "The 
 greatest philosopher in the world, on a plank wider than the 
 pathway which he takes up in his ordinary walk, if there should 
 be a precipice beneath, although his reason convinces him of 
 his safety, will be entirely overcome by his imagination. Many 
 could not even endure the thought of walking across such a 
 plank without blanching and agitation."
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 171 
 
 Once Pascal had a remarkable conversation with a number 
 of his friends on the plan of a certain work which he intended 
 to write. He gave the name of his undertaking, opened his 
 plans, and explained the order and connection which he in- 
 tended to pursue. Those who heard this conversation, and 
 who were some of the most competent judges in Europe, said 
 they never heard a more beautiful address, or one more pow- 
 erful, affecting, and convincing. Pascal was two or three 
 hours in explaining his design, and the listeners formed the 
 most exalted idea of what such a work would be. Afterward 
 several of them put together a sketch of this conversation, and 
 one of them published a short account. He intended that 
 this work should be a great apology for revealed religion. It 
 was to set forth the fundamental principles of religion, to prove 
 the existence of God, and show the evidences of Christianity. 
 To accomplish this work he asked ten years of health and 
 leisure. Such a work was never produced, but after his death 
 a variety of papers were found which showed that he had been 
 working with a view to it. These detached fragments of a 
 vast design have come down to us under the title of the 
 " Thoughts (Pense'es) of Pascal." It seems that the great 
 writer did not even use a commonplace book, but when, after 
 deep meditation, some startling thought occurred to him, he 
 would jot it down on any chance piece of paper, the back of 
 an old letter or any other scrap. These he would tie up in 
 bundles, or string them together on a file, perhaps waiting for 
 the season of good health, which never came. " It is a won- 
 der that the 'Pensees of Pascal' have come down to us at all. 
 Never, surely, was so precious a freight committed to so crazy 
 a bark." 
 
 Curious points of "moments" in scientific history constantly 
 recur. There is an odd story connected with the discovery 
 of the stocking-frame to which Manchester owes so much. It
 
 172 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 is said that one Master William Lee, a parson of the sixteenth 
 century, being enamored of a lady, found to his mortification 
 that she gave much more attention to her knitting than to his 
 conversation ; in revenge for which he determined to pro- 
 duce an instrument which should do away with the necessity 
 of working by hand. In this he succeeded, but became so 
 absorbed in his invention that he is supposed to have quite 
 forgotten the lady. The invention was important enough, but 
 the inventor's end was sad. Queen Elizabeth would only give 
 him a patent for silk stockings, so he carried his invention 
 abroad, where he died of a broken heart. Sir William Thom- 
 son, in his recent address at Edinburgh, discussed a wonderful 
 epoch in the life of Sir Isaac Newton. Newton had satisfied 
 himself that a force, following the same law of variation with 
 the inverse square of the distance, urges the moon toward the 
 earth. He found reason, however, to doubt his conclusions. 
 He compared the magnitude of the force on the moon with 
 the theoretic force of gravitation on a heavy body of equal 
 mass at the earth's surface, and he saw a great discrepancy, 
 which induced him to keep back his discovery for many years. 
 He heard one day a paper upon geodesic measurements read 
 by Picard before the Royal Society, which pointed out to his 
 mind a serious error in the preconceived estimate of the earth's 
 radius. This induced him to think that his conclusions had 
 been probably, after all, correct. We are told that on going 
 home to resume his calculations he felt so agitated that he 
 handed over to a friend the work of arithmetical calculation. 
 The result was the verification of the law in the instance of 
 the moon's orbit. Some of Sir William Thomson's own dis- 
 coveries in electrical science, such as of the galvanometer, 
 are probably all scientific epochs, although it may be too ear- 
 ly to determine the exact value of them. There is something 
 very interesting in looking at the last days of eminent men of
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 
 
 science how they look forward to perfecting the science of 
 earth in the science of Heaven. In Smeaton of the Eddy- 
 stone's last illness, a very bright moon shone full into his sick- 
 room. Fixing his eyes upon it, he said, " How often have I 
 looked up to it with inquiry and wonder, and thought of the 
 period when I shall have the vast and privileged views of a 
 hereafter, and all will be comprehension and pleasure !" 
 
 There are some " moments" of especial interest in the ca- 
 reer of Sir Charles Bell. The greatest of these was unques- 
 tionably the promulgation of his discoveries in the nervous 
 system. These, with the discoveries of Dr. Marshall Hall in 
 the same direction, have been the greatest achievements of 
 our age in this branch of medical investigation. It is claimed 
 by his editor, on the great authority of Miiller, the physiologist, 
 that his discoveries are as important as that of the circulation 
 of the blood. His wife tells us how he placed sheets of pa- 
 per one over the other to show how the nerves increased in 
 complexity by every superadded function, until, from the first 
 necessary or original act, they came to the grand object of 
 man's perfection in voice and expression. An account of his 
 discoveries in the nervous system is now contained in the 
 later editions of his Bridgewater Treatise. The writing of this 
 treatise, " On the Hand," was another epoch in Bell's career. 
 The result was that his mind was thoroughly saturated with 
 the argument for design. It overflowed in his conversations, 
 his letters, his addresses to the British Association. Once he 
 said that he should like to show men of science how God Al- 
 mighty made ropes and arches, and other things which they 
 attempted to do. In " The Hand" he concludes : " Reasons 
 accumulate at every step for a higher estimate of the living 
 soul, and give us assurance that its condition is the final ob- 
 ject and end of all this machinery and of their successive rev- 
 olutions." We doubt not but Sir Charles Bell would have
 
 174 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 added that there were at least two other epochs in his life of 
 tremendous importance to himself the time when he got 
 married and the time when he commenced fly-fishing. The 
 wife was the sister of his brother's wife, and it is touching to 
 see how intensely he lived in the affections of the family group 
 around him. We would willingly have some more of his let- 
 ters to his wife both before and after marriage. "I see a 
 God in every thing, my love," he writes to his fiancee ; "it is 
 the habit of my mind. Do you think I could have been em- 
 ployed as I have been without contemplating the Architect ? 
 There I am an enthusiast." He took to fly-fishing because 
 he felt his intense need of the country ; and when he was in 
 the country he felt the need of some object to occupy his 
 mind. Thus he gleefully writes : " I have got an order for 
 Lord Cowper's water at Panshanger, which is a. sweet valley 
 with a pretty running water. The trout are as large as young 
 salmon, and give me great sport. These English parks are, 
 as you well know, the great ornaments of England. They 
 afford solitude and picturesque beauties. We make our tem- 
 porary home in some adjoining village inn. These inns have 
 every comfort in a small way. Without these little expeditions 
 I am quite certain that I could not live in London." Sir 
 Charles had found out at least one simple secret of happiness. 
 We can very well understand how, when he had written any 
 thing particularly good in his book " On the Hand," it was 
 after a day's quiet fishing. "That varying darkness of the 
 brown rushing waters, the pools, the rocks, the fantastic trees 
 go round the world, you shall not see these unless you have 
 a fishing-rod in your hand." It is curious in looking through 
 the biographies of Bell, that by M. Ame'dee Pichot, and the 
 autobiography supplied by his own letters, to see how at these 
 quiet resting-places he made one step after another in his in- 
 tellectual advance.
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 175 
 
 Let us look at a companion picture, at the life of Goodsir 
 the anatomist, abridging our account from that magnificent 
 work of Dr. Lonsdale's, the " Life and Remains of Goodsir." 
 We especially look at his later days. 
 
 " To avoid visitors he went to bed at 8:30 P.M., and rose 
 before 5 A.M. ; in this way he got five hours' work done be- 
 fore Edinburgh had breakfasted. He lived in rigid simplic- 
 ity, and did nearly every thing for himself; the sofa of the 
 day became his bed of the night, so that he slept amid his 
 papers and special preparations, and could dress or turn to 
 work at any time without the fear of intruding domestics. 
 
 " He was in the habit of receiving letters from every man 
 of note in anatomy and the natural sciences in Europe. He 
 was viewed in an amiable light by all of them, and not a few 
 showed him cordial friendship, if not the most confidential in- 
 timacy. Considering his reluctance to the epistolary form of 
 writing for he was a much worse example than Talleyrand 
 in the way of putting off his replies from day to day and 
 month to month his correspondence is strikingly curious, as 
 coming from all sorts and conditions of men e. g., Canongate 
 artisans, country surgeons, English and Irish naturalists, and 
 Scotch noblemen. 
 
 " One writes of him : ' His public teachings proved the worth 
 of his religious principles ; notwithstanding my previous knowl- 
 edge of him, it needed the involuntary utterances of a death- 
 bed to show me all the simplicity of mind and godly sincerity 
 of heart with which those principles had been fostered. As 
 he had been an interpreter of God's works, he had been also 
 a diligent student of his revealed Word, and a truly humble 
 Christian.' 
 
 " When the pleasure of meeting his class was denied him, 
 he often spoke of his pupils ; and, as he had conscientiously 
 labored to advance their studies, persuaded himself that some
 
 176 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 of them would live to interpret his oral teachings and extend 
 the knowledge of his philosophical views to another genera- 
 tion. The anticipation that his finished labors would stand 
 the test of time, and that his outlined work would be filled up 
 and colored by those he had taught and indoctrinated so well, 
 were like pleasant breathings, if not anaesthetic repose, to the 
 Goodsir couch, and could not fail to lend a halo to the hopes 
 of a reputation beyond the grave. 
 
 " As evidences of his philosophic, religious and speculative 
 leanings to the very last, he had placed on a table beside his 
 bed a large folio copy of Sir Isaac Newton's works, in five 
 volumes, the Bible, and a work on Crystallography, with a tray 
 of models to illustrate the intended publication of his views 
 of organic form on a triangular basis that magnum opus of 
 his latter-day ideal life. 
 
 " The youthful companions John Goodsir and Edward 
 Forbes who had sat on the same benches as students, and 
 had fraternized so well in natural-history research, and strug- 
 gled up the arduous steep of science to professional eminence 
 and European fame, came to breathe their last under the same 
 roof. And as if the ties of life and love were to find a fitting 
 response in death, the remains of John Goodsir are interred 
 next to the grave of Edward Forbes, in the Dean Cemetery 
 of Edinburgh. A granite obelisk marks the grave. The Rev. 
 J. T. Goodsir has had the spiral curved line engraved on one 
 side of the obelisk, to exemplify the feeling pervading the pro- 
 fessor's mind on the subject of organic growth the spiral be- 
 ing symbolic of the law of the vital force, developed in Good- 
 sir's lectures. 
 
 " A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette says : ' Since the days 
 of John Hunter, no greater master of anatomical science, no 
 keener investigator of phenomena, no more comprehensive 
 grasper of generalizations, no clearer or more effective expos-
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 177 
 
 itor ever dedicated himself to the great subject of anatomy, 
 human and comparative, than John Goodsir. . . .' The only 
 regret will be that he has left so few records of his discoveries 
 and conclusions ; that in the keenness of his pursuit after 
 scientific truth he left himself so little time to gather up and 
 embody in a lasting form his numerous incidental felicities 
 of investigation and doctrine. But enough, and more than 
 enough, will always remain to prove the brightness of his in- 
 telligence, the justness of his reasoning, and the philosophic 
 comprehensiveness of his generalizations. ... No subject, 
 however remotely connected with his favorite one, but was 
 perfectly known to him. When, in 1854, he suddenly under- 
 took the task of lecturing on natural history for his deceased 
 friend Edward Forbes, he was found a master, at every point, 
 in the science which was only accessory to his own. 
 
 " ' It is indeed impossible to estimate aright the loss which 
 scientific knowledge and academic education sustain through 
 such a death as his. Let us hope that the generous contagion 
 of his teaching and the lustre of his example will arouse in 
 some worthy disciple the masculine enthusiasm, the noble 
 candor, and the chivalrous self-devotion which are buried in 
 the too early grave of John Goodsir.' 
 
 " His anatomical lectures constituted a great fact in his his- 
 tory both as a man and a teacher. No one in Britain seems 
 to have taken so wide a field for survey, or marshaled so 
 many facts for anatomical tabulation and synthesis. Good- 
 sir's place on the historical tablet should be measured not 
 only by his published writings, but by his museum creation 
 and work, and his professional teachings of thousands of men, 
 and through them the germinating ideas he has scattered 
 broadcast over the world of medicine. He not only taught 
 in his own way, but inspired others by his teachings. He not 
 only gave the anatomical data or the facts, but illuminated 
 
 H 2
 
 I7 8 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 these facts by various lights and interpretations, as if reveal- 
 ing fresh facets on the crystal, and therefrom educing a fresh 
 polarization. 
 
 " There was no moderation in Goodsir's working, and not 
 even the relaxation which change of pursuit favors to a cer- 
 tain extent. It was daily, dogged, downright labor ; he used 
 his body as if it were a machine, and his brain as if nervous 
 matter could be supplied as readily as English coal to a fur- 
 nace. He exhibited in his own person what is aptly desig- 
 nated the wear and tear of life, with every nerve in full ten- 
 sion as if for concert pitch. Scores of friends advised him, 
 personally and by letter, to spare his energies ; but Goodsir, 
 prepared to ' shun delights and live laborious days,' took no 
 heed of the morrow of life ; now and onward and forever re- 
 flected his belief. He seemed buoyed up with a passionate 
 fervor that would brook no delay and no temporizing with its 
 aim and purpose. Incessant work, continued for a series of 
 years, led to the usual result impaired health, functional dis- 
 turbance, and pathological change. To escape from the dis- 
 secting-rooms to the quiet of country life, and ' to babble of 
 green fields ' is the great desideratum of every anatomist, and 
 no men enjoy their holidays more thoroughly ; but Goodsir 
 scarcely ever realized what relaxation was. When he spent 
 a summer abroad, it was not by the banks of Lago Maggiore, 
 or sipping the waters of Brunnen, but in the museums of Ber- 
 lin and Vienna. On his return from a Continental trip, when 
 asked by a friend how he enjoyed his autumnal holidays, 
 Goodsir, with great truth and simple-mindedness, replied, 
 ' Oh ! very much indeed. I spent six hours a day in the mu- 
 seums with Miiller, Hyrtl, or Kolliker.' Change and fancy 
 soon palled on the Goodsir fancy ; there was nothing so 
 tempting to him as the investigation of organisms, nothing 
 so captivating as the paths of discovery in natural history."
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 179 
 
 As an example of the life of a man of science we will take 
 one who is not, indeed, of the very highest order in science, 
 but one eminently known in his day, and whose life was fruit- 
 ful in results Professor Henslow. 
 
 Endowed with great practical ability and earnestness of 
 purpose, when placed amid ordinary duties, he achieved an 
 extraordinary degree of success. As a public teacher in his 
 university he succeeded in rendering popular an unattractive 
 pursuit, and as a clergyman amid an ignorant and debased 
 population he was enabled to inform his people with a meas- 
 ure of intellectual and religious light. At Cambridge Mr. 
 Henslow took a fair place among the wranglers, and during 
 his undergraduate course was noted for his devotion to natu- 
 ral science, which led, a year after his inception, to his being 
 elected professor of mineralogy. He so distinguished him- 
 self by his lucid and vivid style as to become one of the very 
 best lecturers of the day. As a naturalist he visited the Isle 
 of Wight, the Isle of Man, Anglesea, and other places, and 
 thoroughly explored Cambridgeshire ; and his biographer re- 
 lates with enthusiasm that he was so fortunate as to discover 
 some fresh-water bivalve shells which had previously been ig- 
 norantly confounded with the young of the common Cyclas 
 cornea, one of which has immortalized his name by receiving 
 the title of Henslowiana. Three years later he was made 
 professor of botany. Here the practical bent of his mind 
 soon usefully manifested itself. A worthless botanical gar- 
 den was extended and brought to a state of the highest effi- 
 ciency, and a neglected museum became a very perfect and 
 valuable collection. His lecture-room soon began to fill in a 
 very gratifying manner. In the summer-time he and his pu- 
 pils would fill a coach-and-four and make an incursion upon 
 some obscure village in the Fens, where their boxes and im- 
 plements excited great astonishment in the bucolic mind.
 
 l8o TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 About his thirtieth year he married and was ordained. Once 
 a week he threw open his house to undergraduate friends and 
 others a step peculiarly beneficial, as a little general society 
 is a great desideratum for young men in a university town. 
 His character at this time is thus very favorably sketched by 
 his distinguished pupil, Mr. Darwin : " Nothing could be more 
 simple, cordial, and unpretending than the encouragement 
 which he afforded to all young naturalists. I soon became 
 intimate with him, for he had a remarkable power of making 
 the young feel completely at ease with him ; though we were 
 all awe-struck at the amount of his knowledge. Before I saw 
 him, I heard one young man sum up his attainments by sim- 
 ply saying that he knew every thing. When I reflect how 
 immediately we felt at perfect ease with a man older and in 
 every way so immensely our superior, I think it was as much 
 owing to the transparent sincerity of his character as to his 
 kindness of heart ; and, perhaps, even still more to a highly 
 remarkable absence in him of all self-consciousness." 
 
 Probably as a reward for his political services, he was pro- 
 moted by the crown to the valuable living of Hitcham, in 
 Suffolk, worth upward of ^"1000 a year. The parish was a 
 large one, and he came to the wise conclusion that he had 
 better give up the university and attend to it exclusively. 
 His new sphere was indeed one which could give ample play 
 to his perseverance, courage, and healthy energies. For his 
 parish was a moral waste. The villagers were sunk to the 
 lowest depths of moral and physical debasement. The parish 
 church was empty, and the parish rates enormous. The peo- 
 ple were wanting in the most common decencies and the most 
 elementary knowledge idle, immoral, criminal, to the last de- 
 gree. To improve this wretched state of things was the new 
 rector's earnest endeavor, in which he received very scanty 
 help, for the farmers, only one remove above their laborers,
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. jgi 
 
 opposed him with ignorant and unreasoning stolidity. His 
 first effort was to arouse their dormant intellectual faculties. 
 He determined to conciliate them by amusements. He got 
 up a cricket-club and gave them an exhibition of fireworks. 
 He wrote and published a set of " Letters to the Farmers of 
 Suffolk," in which his scientific knowledge proved of much 
 practical use. He earnestly espoused the allotment system, 
 or establishment of a Spade Tenantry. And in his own parish 
 he carried out the system in spite of a most formidable oppo- 
 sition on the part of the farmers, his principal parishioners. 
 He introduced the study of botany into the village school, and 
 any child might be promoted into the botanical class who 
 could spell such portentous words as " dicotyledons," " angio- 
 spermous," "thalamifloral." This teaching of botany as an 
 educational measure was taken up by the Committee of Coun- 
 cil on Education, and botany has since been taught in other 
 schools, and an inspector of schools reports very favorably of 
 the Hitcham plan. Another means by which Professor Hens- 
 low sought to arouse the dormant intelligence of his people 
 was by a Recreation Fund, and annual visits to remarkable 
 places, among which was a visit to the Great Exhibition of 
 1851, and another to Cambridge, which was planned and man. 
 aged with especial solicitude. He spoke of a special occasion 
 for prayer shortly previous to his getting the crown living of 
 Hitcham. It had been under consideration whether he should 
 not be appointed to the See of Norwich, the bishopric of which 
 was then vacant, instead of to any lower preferment in the 
 Church. On hearing this, of which he had certain informa- 
 tion from a friend, he retired into his chamber, and fervently, 
 on his knees, prayed for some time that he might never be 
 called to any such high office, for the duties of which he felt 
 himself quite unfit, and that he might not be tempted to ac- 
 cept it if offered to him. When he found afterward that he
 
 182 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 was to have the living of Hitcham and not the bishopric, he 
 thanked God for the issue, and regarded it as an answer to 
 his prayers. 
 
 Mr. Henslow's reputation as a lecturer stood so high that 
 he was requested by the late lamented Prince Consort to lec- 
 ture before the junior branches of the royal family at Buck- 
 ingham Palace, and we are told that " the same simple lan- 
 guage and engaging demeanor that had proved irresistible in 
 the village won over his royal audience to fixed attention and 
 eager desire for instruction." He attended the meeting of 
 the British Association at Oxford in 1860, where he was chair- 
 man of the Natural History Section, and was very useful as 
 moderator in the exciting debates that took place respecting 
 Dr. Darwin's book. "Though I have always expressed the 
 greatest respect for my friend's opinions," he wrote on one oc- 
 casion, " I have told himself that I can not assent to his specu- 
 lations without seeing stronger proofs than he has yet pro- 
 duced." He would object to all scientific schemes that would 
 not allow for the interposition of the Almighty. In his last 
 days he was very much interested about the subject of the 
 Celtic Drift. In the autumn of 1860 he went to France to 
 examine the celebrated gravel-pits at Amiens and Abbeville, 
 and wrote several letters in the Athentzum, arguing against the 
 supposed great antiquity of these remains. He became, how- 
 ever, very unsettled in his opinions on this point, and at the 
 time of his last illness was preparing to lay his conclusions 
 before the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and it is believed 
 that he had convinced himself of a date not so far back as 
 some geologists suppose, but long antecedent to that usually 
 attributed to man's existence on the earth. 
 
 The account of his death is very remarkable : "No sooner 
 was he told on Good Friday that he could not live than he 
 evinced from that moment an utter indifference to his fate.
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 183 
 
 He immediately rose superior to all further desire for life, all 
 fear of death, and all shrinking from what he had to go through 
 before death would release him. In the face of inevitably in- 
 creasing sufferings, he set himself to watch the successive 
 symptoms of approaching dissolution, all of which he desired 
 should be communicated to him by his medical attendants, 
 with whom he discussed them as a philosopher, and without 
 the most distant references to himself as being the subject 
 of them. . . . During his whole illness he was a model of 
 patience and resignation to the Divine will. He prayed that 
 not a murmur might escape his lips. He expressed the most 
 sincere gratitude to the Almighty for his mercies to himself, 
 and placed his entire trust in the Saviour, with absolute 
 renunciation of all personal merit. He observed, ' What a 
 blessed thing it is to be a Christian, and a blessed thing for a 
 Christian to die !' He said he had not before his eyes, to his 
 utter astonishment, that fear of death which he thought he 
 should have. He placed his soul in the hands of a righteous 
 Creator." 
 
 With this might be paralleled the language of William 
 Hunter, the celebrated anatomist, in his last moments to his 
 friend Dr. Combe : " If I had strength enough to hold a pen, I 
 would write how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die." 
 
 There are few lives that are more interesting and better re- 
 pay the reading than Brunei's. There was, indeed, a kind of 
 ill-luck about his undertakings. The atmospheric railway was 
 a great failure. The broad gauge has succumbed in the battle 
 of the gauges. The Great Britain was stranded, and ruined 
 the company. The Great Eastern had a difficulty in being 
 launched, and a succession of misfortunes. But these failures 
 were magnificent failures great in themselves and prophetic 
 of better things to come. The Great Eastern is associated 
 with the cable between Great Britain and America, and the
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 cable between France and America. The Great Britain is 
 now one of the fastest vessels on the Australian line. The 
 day for atmospheric railways is yet to come. Brunei's failures 
 are in things the tendency of which is to come right at last. 
 
 Brunei illustrates the doctrine of Atavism, the doctrine of 
 Mr. Galton in reference to hereditary genius. The work by 
 which he is chiefly known is the Thames Tunnel, and that fa- 
 mous shield by which the works were advanced beneath the 
 river's bed. In that work young Isambard bore a conspicu- 
 ous part ; his father said that his " vigilance and constant at- 
 tendance were of great service." Of the last ten days, young 
 Brunei passed seven in the tunnel, allowing himself only three 
 and two-thirds' hours of sleep. One day he sat down with 
 nine friends to a dinner under the Thames. At this time he 
 was only twenty-one, and his father was intensely pleased by 
 the ability and presence of mind which he displayed. At this 
 time, however, the works were discontinued for seven years, 
 owing to irruptions of the river. Sir Isambard, who survived 
 to his eighty-first year, was permitted to witness the extraordi- 
 nary success of his son. In the same way the great Stephen- 
 son witnessed the wonderful ability and success of his son, 
 Robert Stephenson, the engineer. 
 
 Those who wish to understand the magnificent genius of 
 Brunei should take a journey toward the Land's End. There 
 is no railway line that possesses greater scenic magnificence 
 than that through South Devon and Cornwall. We will take 
 no notice of those dismantled edifices which recall the sad 
 fortunes of the atmospheric railway. Observe how magnifi- 
 cently the railway sweeps the coast line, piercing through the 
 projecting headlands in a series of tunnels. It comes be- 
 tween the sea and the pretty little town of Dawlish, gracefully 
 supported on an Egyptian bridge. There is a story of a mis- 
 anthropic gentleman near Dawlish who took a house on the
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 185 
 
 very edge of the sea in order that he might be saved from all 
 commerce with human kind, but Brunei came with his re- 
 morseless railway and drove him to despair and death. I be- 
 lieve the ornamentation of the line was Brunei's. It was what 
 he especially delighted in, and he made his own home mar- 
 velously beautiful. Even the color of the railway carriages 
 was a point to which he sedulously attended. A few miles 
 from Teignmouth, on the road between Teignmouth and Tor- 
 quay, is the lovely combe of Watcombe, so familiar to all tour- 
 ists of the neighborhood, where Brunei had purchased an es- 
 tate, and had designed there to erect a mansion, and there to 
 spend the evening of his days. The line soon skirts the edge 
 of Dartmoor. Few who have passed it can ever forget the 
 lovely viaduct at Ivybridge. The slender line of masonry 
 seems to span aerial space, in the vista delicate and thin, 
 while the Erne through its wooded gorge flows down from the 
 moorland, through the railway arches, to the sea. As soon as 
 we leave Plymouth we have again the stupendous marvel of 
 the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash. Many years before its 
 erection Brunei had investigated the spot, and thought that 
 the estuary of the Tamar was much too broad for any such 
 undertaking. But time had expanded the daring inventive- 
 ness of his genius, and had enabled him to accomplish his 
 ambitious designs. The chief part of this great work is the 
 centre pier, which is out of sight to the public, but the main 
 feature of interest to professional men. Here they found a 
 rock which admitted of masonry being laid under a cylinder 
 provided with pneumatic apparatus, although the work was 
 hindered by the necessity of having to cut through a bed of 
 oysters, and staunching a fountain that burst from the subma- 
 rine rock. The centre pier of this famous bridge marks the 
 highest point of Brunei's achievements, though, perhaps, not 
 of his conceptions. It was opened by the Prince Consort,
 
 j86 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 but he was himself absent from the scene through ill-health. 
 He was permitted to make subsequently his first and last vis- 
 it to his completed work. The Cornish line from the great 
 bridge westward affords continual examples of Brunei's favor- 
 ite timber viaducts and bridges. Through a long succession 
 of valleys the railway seems to bound from height to height 
 on these apparently frail structures, which the great architect 
 constructed so securely, and yet with comparatively little ex- 
 pense. Cornwall is famous for its picturesque scenery, but 
 the railway which traverses the peninsula and makes it so 
 accessible is one of the most remarkable features of the 
 scene. 
 
 It is remarkable that Brunei's great fame primarily arose 
 from want of success. One of his first efforts was to enter 
 into the competition of designs for the Clifton Suspension 
 Bridge. Telford, the first engineer of the day, was called in 
 as judge, and decided against him and all the other candi- 
 dates ; he thought that Brunei's span was longer than could 
 be employed with safety. Telford was asked to send in a 
 plan of his own, but his ultimate plan embraced lofty towers, 
 for which there was not sufficient money. Eventually Brunei 
 was made architect. On one occasion he nearly lost his life. 
 He was crossing the river in a basket slung from an iron bar, 
 and the basket stuck fast ; he was obliged to perform the dan- 
 gerous feat of climbing from the basket to the bar before he 
 could be released. In a few years the funds were all exhaust- 
 ed, and it was necessary that the works should be left incom- 
 plete. A spell of ill-luck seemed to hang about the bridge. 
 Though Brunei took the deepest interest in it, he never saw 
 it completed. Not till after his death was the bridge finished, 
 partly as a monument to his memory, and partly as wiping 
 away a slur on the engineering ability of the country. But 
 the fact is that this unsuccessful bridge had proved the archi
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 187 
 
 tect of the great engineer's fortune. The competition for the 
 Clifton Bridge gave him his first start. His son says, " all his 
 subsequent success was traced by him to this victory, which 
 he fought hard for, and gained only by persevering struggles." 
 His reputation made him the first engineer of the Great West- 
 ern Railway, often working for twenty hours a day. One of 
 his assistants, indeed, calls this period " the turning-point of 
 his life." " His vigor both of body and mind were in their 
 perfection. His powers were continually called forth by the 
 obstacles he had to overcome ; and the result of his examina- 
 tions in the committee -rooms placed him in the very first 
 rank of his profession for talents and knowledge." The fol- 
 lowing was a very remarkable " moment" in his career, which 
 led to an immense extension of ocean steam navigation. 
 There was one night a business meeting, at Radley's Hotel, 
 of the directors of the Great Western Railway. Some one 
 spoke of the enormous length, as it then appeared, of the rail- 
 way from London to Bristol. Brunei exclaimed, "Why not 
 make it longer, and have a steamboat to go from Bristol to 
 New York, and call it the Great Western ? " The remark was 
 received as an excellent joke, but at night Mr. Brunei talked 
 it over with one of the directors. This led to the Great West- 
 ern, and then to the Great Britain and Great Eastern. It 
 was a daring achievement to build a vast ship of iron, and to 
 fit her with a screw propeller. Brunei was the main instru- 
 ment of introducing the screw propeller into the mercantile 
 navy, and of securing its adoption in our fleets. 
 
 Personally Brunei was a very interesting and remarkable 
 character. The odd incident of his swallowing the half-sover- 
 eign, which put his life in danger, created a feeling of warm 
 personal interest in him. His sweet temper and sound judg- 
 ment secured him many attached friends. His industry was 
 prodigious, and he had a remarkable faculty of going without
 
 !88 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 sleep for many hours. But, like so many men whom we have 
 had to speak of, he seems to have materially damaged his 
 health by his strenuous, unresting employments. Humanly 
 speaking, his life iriight have been lengthened many years 
 save for his intense appetite for work. The difficulties attend- 
 ing the launch of the Great Eastern perhaps injured his health 
 more than any thing else. He had intended to go round with 
 the ship to Weymouth, but the day before he was seized with 
 paralysis. 
 
 On looking back on the careers of men distinguished in 
 art, literature, and science, there are a few considerations to 
 be added. We see at once that it is not by any special event 
 or turning-point in life, but by the whole tenor and work of 
 life, that the value of such men's lives must be estimated. It 
 was the saying of the old Greek tragedian to call no one hap- 
 py before the day of his death. The saying doubtless in- 
 volves a fallacy, as the difference of one day to all the days 
 of one's life can not be of overwhelming importance : one 
 happy day added to disastrous days, or one disastrous day 
 added to happy days can not materially vary the general com- 
 plexion of human existence. At the same time, no day is so 
 far a decisive turning-point in life that it can altogether influ- 
 ence existence as a whole. The day yields its happy chance, 
 or it may altogether refuse to yield it, or may even render it 
 disastrously. But it is the tendency of a well-ordered, careful 
 life to reduce the domain of chance to a minimum. Let the 
 scientific man diligently pass his life according to the Baconian 
 ideal, " in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and 
 profitable inventions and discoveries, and we may be quite 
 sure that it is simply a matter of time when such a man makes 
 his mark. The lessons taught by our survey are the simple 
 lessons of thoughtfulness, activity, and perseverance. Any 
 moment of success in life, however brilliant, passes away and
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. 189 
 
 leaves life to its ordinary current. The course of the stream 
 is left unaffected by the occasional eddy. The poet says 
 
 " Use gave me fame, 
 
 And fame again increasing gave me use." 
 
 After all, use is the great thing, far transcending the fame. 
 The keenest delights, after all, such men would tell us, are in 
 the exercise of one's faculties and powers, the feeling that 
 their lives are well laid out to the highest purposes. The de- 
 light of the artist in his work is something more than its 
 praises or its prizes. It is in the power of every one of us to 
 have the keenest pleasure of high endeavors. Those who can 
 not command success may at least deserve it. Let no man 
 think that his efforts are such that some brilliant day will 
 come which will crown them in the sight of men. Let no man 
 think that any happy chance will do for him what he is quite 
 unable to do for himself. The solid happiness will be in the 
 sense of use, and in the highest sense the great wages will be 
 
 "The glory of going on and not to die." 
 
 There are a few wise words of SchlegePs with which we 
 may not unfitly close this chapter. Schlegel says : " In ex- 
 perimental science, the order between faith and knowledge is 
 exactly the same. In actual life, every great enterprise be- 
 gins with and takes its first step in faith. In faith Columbus, 
 compass in hand, and firmly relying on its revelations, trav- 
 ersed, in his frail bark, the wide waters of an unknown ocean. 
 In this faith he discovered a new world, and thereby opened a 
 new era in the history of science and of man. For all his in- 
 quiries, all his thirst and search after information, all his think- 
 ing, guessing, and supposing, did not as yet amount to a com- 
 plete knowledge by such means he could not succeed in 
 working out a full conviction, either for himself or for others. 
 It was the given fact, the unquestionable proof of actual ex- 
 perience, that first exalted his bold conception into true and
 
 190 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 perfect certainty. In a greater or less degree, this is the course 
 by which all the great discoveries in science have been made, 
 passing by a slow but still advancing process of thought from 
 facts up to knowledge. And the same character of faith is 
 stamped on every great and decisive act, every important 
 event in the history of individuals and of nations." We thus 
 see that it is faith which makes and determines so many of 
 the great turning-points in life.
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 191 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Successful Lawyers. 
 
 IT is a happy circumstance in English history that we might, 
 among successful lawyers, enumerate many of the brightest 
 examples of probity, industry, and piety. The forensic roll 
 includes many brilliant lives, fertile in memorable incident 
 and in lessons of the highest import. We think of such judges 
 as the upright and pious Hale, the learned and patriotic Sel- 
 den. Such a judge was the truly pious and amiable Chief- 
 Justice Wilton. Look at what we may call the modern roll 
 of those who have been in succession lord chief-justices of 
 England Mansfield, Kenyon, Ellenborough, Tenterden, Den- 
 man, Campbell and each name suggests passages of history 
 and life from which much instruction has been drawn and 
 might yet be derived. The roll of our chancellors, from the 
 pious and high-minded man who now holds that position 
 downward, includes many memorable and beneficent names.* 
 There are other great lawyers, whose names are not so well 
 known to the general reader, in whom the highest departments 
 of law expand into statesmanship such as Lord Redesdale, 
 Sir William Grant, and Lord Stowell. There is something 
 eminently instructive in such a career as that of Sir William 
 Grant. He was a Canadian ex- attorney-general, who was 
 long without a brief at the English bar, until Pitt sent to con- 
 fer with him about the affairs of Canada. This was the turn- 
 
 * In Foss's " Judges of England" there is an interesting memoir of the 
 last lord chancellor, Lord Hatherley, in part from materials supplied by 
 himself.
 
 192 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ing-point for Grant. The premier gave him a seat in Parlia- 
 ment, and, although hardly known at the bar, caused him to 
 receive a silk gown. He showed himself a great lawyer but 
 far above that, he was a great parliamentary orator. It has 
 been said by Lord Brougham that, with the exception of Mr. 
 Pitt, perhaps no man had ever greater sway in the House than 
 Grant. By the consent of the whole bar he seems to have 
 attained the highest point of judicial eloquence. " The charm 
 of it was indescribable ; its effect on the hearers was that 
 which Milton describes when he paints Adam listening to the 
 angel after the angel had ceased to speak." 
 
 Another great lawyer, whose tone of mind is very similar to 
 Sir William Grant's, was Lord Stowell. His fame has been 
 somewhat overshadowed by that of his still greater brother, 
 Lord Eldon. But the fame of Lord Stowell is certainly more 
 cosmopolitan, and will probably be more lasting. He is one 
 of the great founders of international law. If you take up 
 such a text-book on public law as "Wheaton's Elements of 
 International Law" it was Jeremy Bentham who coined the 
 felicitous phrase it will be seen how often his decisions are 
 quoted. During the long French war Lord Stowell adminis- 
 tered and in part created our civil law, showing perfect im- 
 partiality to Englishmen and foreigners, and English justice 
 became as famous throughout Europe as English victory. 
 Such are the great judges, who, although not well known to 
 general readers, are the men who largely fix the estimate in 
 which England is held by that foreign opinion which, accord- 
 ing to that fine saying of Burke's which Madame de Stael so 
 often repeated, anticipates the verdict of posterity. It is re- 
 markable that Lord Stowell always looked back on old days 
 at Oxford as the happiest of his life, and an old Oxford Cal- 
 endar was to him, from its associations, as touching as any 
 volume of poetry could be.
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 193 
 
 Only a few years ago there died one of our most successful 
 lawyers, Pemberton Leigh, Baron Kingsdown. He has left 
 behind him a privately printed work, most of which was al- 
 lowed to appear in one of the leading reviews, giving an ac- 
 count of his " Recollections" in Parliament and at the bar. 
 He retired from both at the age of fifty. He refused to be 
 solicitor-general ; he refused to be lord chancellor. His name 
 was little heard of by the general public. He simply detest- 
 ed popularity ; but for twenty years he was one of the great- 
 est judges of the final Court of Appeal. A peerage for he 
 never took pay was the only reward which he ever accepted 
 from the country. He gives a touching picture of the pov- 
 erty and hard work of his early life, but he adds : " It was the 
 severe preparation for the subsequent harvest. I learned to 
 consider indefatigable labor as the indispensable condition of 
 success ; pecuniary independence as essential alike to virtue 
 and happiness, and no sacrifice too great to avoid the misery 
 of debt." Mr. Pemberton Leigh obtained a large practice, 
 and carried in the House of Commons several useful reforms. 
 The following is the account of his feelings when he won his 
 first election : " I shall never forget the night in which, after 
 so much excitement, I found myself a member of Parliament. 
 I threw myself upon my knees, and earnestly prayed to the 
 Source of all strength that I might be enabled to perform 
 faithfully and successfully the duties which belong to that po- 
 sition." At the death of his distant kinsman, Sir Robert Leigh, 
 he became possessed, under very remarkable circumstances, 
 of a property of many thousands a year. At the age of fifty 
 he resolved to retire, and commence the life of a country gen- 
 tleman. " I provided myself with microscopes, telescopes, 
 painting implements, a chest of turner's tools, and I know not 
 how many other resources against ennui, none of which I ever 
 used ; and, after the lapse of seventeen years, I can safely say 
 
 I
 
 194 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 that I never had one hour hang heavy on me, nor felt any 
 thing but regret at being called upon to forsake my solitude 
 in order to attend the sittings of the judicial committee." We 
 are informed that'Lord Kingsdown was warmly attached to 
 the Church of England, and more than one parish church was 
 built or restored at his expense. 
 
 Or again, we might take some eminent lawyers who, having 
 attained the highest distinctions at the English bar, became 
 each of them lord chancellor of Ireland. To mention one, 
 such was Mitford, the brother of the historian of Greece. He 
 was one of those few great lawyers whose parliamentary runs 
 parallel with their forensic fame one of that class of lawyers, 
 not very numerous, who have obtained large business by writ- 
 ing a law-book. The legal attitude he took up in Parliament 
 reflected on him the highest honor. There was nothing about 
 him, and there never is in the best lawyers, merely technical 
 and litigious. He implored the House of Commons, on their 
 prosecution of Hastings, to adhere to two principles, " never 
 to bring forward a fact that was matter of calumny to the ac- 
 cused, and never to inflame the passions of those who are to 
 decide as judges." The share which he took in legislation 
 was of a calm, judicial, and impartial kind. The House of 
 Commons did itself the honor of electing him speaker. But 
 Mitford frankly said, at the same time, that the bar was his 
 profession, and that it was in his profession that he looked for 
 promotion. He subsequently became Lord Redesdale and 
 Chancellor of Ireland. After his return from Ireland he was 
 for many years one of the most useful and efficient members 
 of the House of Lords. His son, the chairman of committees, 
 has maintained the same character for ability and integrity. 
 It is such men as these who redeem the profession of the bar 
 from the reproaches so often brought against it, and enable 
 us to realize that great idea of law which Hooker has so nobly
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 
 
 195 
 
 expressed: "Of Law there can be no less acknowledged that 
 her seat is the bosom of God, and her voice the harmony of 
 the universe. All things in heaven and earth do her homage, 
 the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not ex- 
 empted from her power. Both angels and men, and all crea- 
 tures of what condition soever, though each in different sort 
 and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admire her as being 
 the mother of their peace and joy." 
 
 King George the Third, on an occasion when Mr. Justice 
 Park was present, said of him : " It is wonderful to think that 
 this little head contains the whole law of England." " Not 
 so, sire," replied the judge, "it but contains the knowledge 
 where the law may be found." 
 
 An acute lawyer has remarked that Sergeant Wilde, after- 
 ward Lord Truro, who began life as a solicitor, and who was, 
 probably for forty years, concerned in nearly every important 
 commercial case in the city of London, either on one side or 
 the other, must have been at the making of a great part of the 
 commercial law. For in this country the law is built up by 
 numerous decisions, which daily increase the fabric, and, as 
 Junius well remarked, "What yesterday was fact, to-day is 
 doctrine." The readiness with which the prodigious memory 
 and powerful brain of Sergeant Wilde enabled him to recall 
 the facts and doctrines laid down in all the leading cases of 
 nearly half a century was sufficient to strike with amazement 
 a person of ordinary powers. Sir John Campbell, when at- 
 torney-general, brought to the discharge of his important du- 
 ties not only advantages similar to those of Sergeant Wilde, 
 but, from having been a reporter, and having written out so 
 many of the leading cases, had so completely impressed them 
 on his mind that he could quote to younger men, to whose in- 
 quiries he was always accessible, not only the names of the 
 principal cases in every branch of the common law, but also
 
 196 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 the names of the reports, the volumes, and even the pages in 
 which they were to be found. . . . Sergeant Wilde, at Guild- 
 hall, has often been concerned in six cases in one day, and 
 has stated the names of persons, dates, and sums of money in 
 each case, from memory, without referring to his brief or any 
 other written memorandum. 
 
 It would be easy to select many legal biographies rich with 
 incident and instruction. As a story of perseverance and 
 success there is none that exceeds in interest the career of 
 Lord Tenderden, who, to many great titles, was, as his biog- 
 rapher says, especially entitled to be called " the humble and 
 the just." 
 
 We will now take in detail the exemplary life of this great 
 lawyer, Lord Chief-Justice Tenderden. It will illustrate the 
 turning-points of a great lawyer's progress. Just opposite the 
 magnificent west portal of Canterbury Cathedral, at the cor- 
 ner of a narrow street, there was once a barber's shop. It has 
 now disappeared to make room for the house of the architect 
 to the cathedral. It had in front of it the long traditionary 
 barber's pole of several colors. It was only a poor, mean- 
 looking tenement, having blocks in the window partly bare 
 and partly covered with wigs, a sign over the door with the 
 shopman's name, and with the announcement that shaving 
 cost a penny, hair-cutting two-pence, and that the hair could 
 be fashionably dressed on reasonable terms. It is still local- 
 ly recollected that there was a stationer's shop attached to 
 this one. The barber's shop was kept by a worthy hair-dress- 
 er of the name of Abbott. He was a tall, erect, primitive- 
 looking man, with a large club pigtail, who might often be 
 seen going about with his instruments of business under his 
 arm, attended by his son Charles, " a decent, grave, primitive- 
 looking youth." That child afterward commemorated his 
 prudent father and his pious mother. Living beneath the
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 
 
 197 
 
 very shadow of the great cathedral, the humble family learned 
 to love it, and to prize its blessings. There is reason to be- 
 lieve that they constantly attended the cathedral services. 
 The clergy were very kind to the worthy man, who was, indeed, 
 hair-dresser to the entire chapter, and who made it his boast 
 that, on no less than three occasions, he had attended the 
 archbishop himself on the occasion of triennial visitations. 
 
 All through the career of his son Charles, who became one 
 of the most illustrious magistrates that the English bench has 
 ever known, we see the advantages of the endowments for 
 education provided by pious, charitable men in past ages ; we 
 see, too, the good effected by good men in the case of a poor, 
 deserving scholar ; and we may trace, too, the kindly guidings 
 of Providence in his behalf. The King's School, at Canter- 
 bury, gave the small tradesman's child an education as thor- 
 ough and complete as could be given to the son of the richest 
 noble. The head-master was a profound scholar, with the 
 rare gift of being able to impart his abundant knowledge. 
 He eagerly sought for signs of ability and attention among his 
 pupils, and helped and encouraged them with all his might. 
 His attention was soon drawn to the cleverness and good con- 
 duct of young Abbott. In course of time the lad turned out 
 Latin verse which the head-master declared was as good as 
 any that could be produced at Winchester or Eton. His 
 school fellows afterward described him as a grave, silent boy, 
 very well behaved, always studious and fond of reading, even 
 in his play-hours. He made very few mistakes in his lessons, 
 always striving to be accurate and equably industrious. 
 
 At fourteen he was a great hungry boy, and, however well 
 he was getting on at school, his parents thought that it was 
 high time he should be earning his own living. At this time 
 the place of a singing-boy became vacant in the cathedral. 
 Old Abbott thought that his son, with his good character and
 
 198 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 his father's good character, and his own lively parts, would 
 stand a good chance. The members of the chapter were no 
 doubt willing and anxious to oblige their worthy hair-dresser, 
 but they had chiefly to consider the efficiency of their musical 
 services. It was found that Abbott's voice was husky, but 
 there was another boy with an excellent voice, who very prop- 
 erly received the appointment. Many years after, Charles 
 Abbott became a nobleman and chief-justice of England. 
 While going circuit with another judge he came to that famil- 
 iar Cathedral of Canterbury. The chief-justice pointed out 
 a singing-man in the choir. " Behold, brother Richardson," 
 said he, " that is the only human being I ever envied. When 
 at school in this town we were candidates together for a chor- 
 ister's place ; he obtained it, and if I had gained my wish he 
 might have been accompanying you as chief-justice, and point- 
 ing me out as his old school-fellow the singing-man." 
 
 So Charles Abbott was not to be a chorister, and accord- 
 ingly he continued for a further space at the King's School. 
 It is hardly necessary to say that he became captain of the 
 school. When Charles was seventeen his father thought it 
 absolutely necessary that he should earn his own bread. Let 
 him be apprenticed to the paternal business, and keep a shop 
 as his father did before him. This idea was a great shock to 
 the kind head-master. He thought that his most promising 
 pupil ought to go to college, and that the Canterbury people 
 ought to help in sending him there. In a quiet way a sum 
 of money was collected in the old city for the purpose of his 
 outfit, and the trustees of the school granted him a small ex- 
 hibition which was then vacant. This still was insufficient, 
 and it is said that an indenture binding Charles Abbott to the 
 shaving-business was actually sealed, signed, and delivered, 
 when the trustees, apparently stretching a point in his favor, 
 came to the conclusion that they had power to increase the
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 
 
 199 
 
 exhibition from the funds of the school. They voted a sum 
 that would be a sparing academical subsistence for a young 
 man for the three years preceding his degree. In after years, 
 when he had become a great judge, he was himself one of 
 the trustees. At a business meeting of the body, among the 
 agenda of the day there was an application from an Oxford 
 exhibitioner from the school for an increase of his allowance. 
 The secretary declared that, after a diligent search for preced- 
 ents, he could only discover one which had happened many 
 years before. " That student was myself," said the learned 
 judge ; and he immediately supplied the required sum from 
 his own private purse. 
 
 The barber's son was now an undergraduate of Oxford. 
 He entered at Corpus Christi College, where he soon obtained 
 a classical scholarship. We find him writing to a friend : " I 
 have received two letters from my dearest mother, in which 
 she gives me an account how sincerely all my friends at Can- 
 terbury have congratulated her on my success, and friends so 
 much superior to our humble condition that she says, ' such a 
 universal joy as appeared on the occasion I believe hardly ever 
 happened in a town left by a tradesman's son.' Who would 
 not undergo any labor to give pleasure to such parents ! . . . 
 But a little while past to be a scholar of Corpus was the height 
 of my ambition ; that summit is, thank Heaven, gained, when 
 another and another appears still in view. In a word, I shall 
 not rest easy till I have ascended the rostrum in the theatre." 
 There was then no class-list at Oxford, and the highest uni- 
 versity distinction was to gain the chancellor's medal and re- 
 cite a prize composition from the rostrum of the Sheldonian 
 theatre. The subject for the Latin poem open to undergrad- 
 uates was the then recent glorious defense of -Gibraltar 
 " Calpe Obsessa" was the subject. He failed, but his poem, 
 when returned to him, bore an encouraging phrase which in-
 
 200 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 dicated that it had been second best. The man who obtained 
 it was Mr. W. L. Bowles, who afterward became a useful clergy- 
 man and a not undistinguished poet. Forty years afterward, 
 when a judge on crfcuit, he met Mr. Bowles at Salisbury, and 
 with that unfailing memory which university men have for old 
 college days, the judge recalled their old competition, grace- 
 fully saying that the rule had been preserved that the best 
 man ought to win : " detur digniori" was the familiar Latin 
 phrase. 
 
 The subjects of the prize poems then, as now, were chosen 
 from striking contemporary events. Lunardi's balloon voyages 
 were at this time exciting the greatest attention and astonish- 
 ment. It was little thought that this invention could be util- 
 ized to the great extent which we have lately seen in France ; 
 but then, as now, the idea was entertained that the balloon 
 would be found susceptible of guidance in any given direc- 
 tion, and would promote rapid intercourse between different 
 nations. The balloon, " Globus Aerostoticus," was the sub- 
 ject of the prize poem. Abbott obtained it, and accordingly 
 mounted the rostrum victoriously. Next year he obtained an- 
 other chancellor's medal with a remarkable essay on the Use 
 and Abuse of Satire. But in the midst of this success his 
 happiness was overshadowed by the death of his father. His 
 mother kept on the shop opposite Canterbury Cathedral, and 
 sold perfumery. He was willing to go out to Virginia as 
 tutor if fifty pounds a year might be settled on his mother for 
 life. " This," he wrote, " with the little left her by my father, 
 would afford her a comfortable subsistence without the fatigue 
 of business, which she is becoming very unable to bear." This 
 condition failing, Abbott gave up the idea of going to America. 
 
 It was well for him that he did not. He had now achieved 
 a great university reputation. Many private pupils came to 
 him. After he had taken his degree he was made fellow oi
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 201 
 
 his college, and became junior tutor. He dressed and lived 
 plainly, and it was thought remarkable that he never rode on 
 horseback. Once he told a friend with an air of triumph, 
 " My father was too poor ever to keep a horse, and I was too 
 proud ever to earn sixpence by holding the horse of another." 
 About this time it was Abbott's intention to take holy orders. 
 But it so happened that he was asked to become tutor to a son 
 of that famous lawyer, Mr. Justice Buller, and was thrown into 
 close intimacy with the great judge, as he often spent some 
 time at the country-seat in Devonshire. Buller was one of 
 the greatest of English judges. It has been said that as 
 Burke's name in the Senate, so is Buller's in Westminster 
 Hall. There are some curious points in Buller's personal 
 history. He married at the early age of seventeen, and was 
 made a judge at the unprecedented early age of thirty-two. 
 He also died at a comparatively early age. Lord Mansfield 
 had soon perceived his extraordinary ability, and procured 
 him promotion. What Lord Mansfield had done for Buller, 
 that Buller in turn did for the future Lord Tenderden. He 
 clearly discerned the great intellectual strength that charac- 
 terized his son's tutor, and urged him to go to the bar. It is 
 said that he furnished Abbott with funds to enable him to do 
 so, and as this seems to have been Judge Buller's kind way 
 with several young men of promise, it is not unlikely that he 
 did so. The sagacious judge also recommended him to go 
 to a lawyer's office for some months, to acquire a knowledge 
 of the practical details of law. He soon gained this requisite 
 knowledge, and also formed a valuable legal connection. 
 Moreover, he managed to muster up a hundred guineas to 
 become a pupil of George Wood, whom Lord Campbell calls 
 the " Great Master of Special Pleading." At the end of a 
 year Wood told him that he had taught him all he could. 
 We are told that he worked night and day in his small cham- 
 
 I 2
 
 202 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 bers in Brick Court. He determined to practice as a special 
 pleader below the bar, until he could take his call with every 
 prospect of success. 
 
 For seven years lie kept a sort of legal shop, and the shop 
 kept him. He gave all his friends to understand that he was 
 ready to draw declarations, pleas, replications, and demurrers 
 with the utmost dispatch, and on most reasonable terms. He 
 kept a small boy as clerk, at ten shillings a week. Modest, 
 learned, industrious, he was always to be found in his cham- 
 bers fulfilling his promises to the letter, and never losing a 
 friend. His door was always open, his opinion always safe, 
 his services ever prompt. He made a considerable income 
 as a special pleader, but he determined that he would push on 
 to the bar. He received his call at the Inner Temple, and 
 went the Oxford Circuit. He at once rose to a large business. 
 He was not like some barristers, a great advocate, nor, like 
 others, a skillful cross -examiner. But the solicitors liked 
 him; the judges listened to him with respect ; he was of the 
 greatest help to a leader, he showed himself skillful and saga- 
 cious, and his law was thorough and deep. He was never an 
 advocate in any real sense of the term, but he was a great 
 lawyer and a great judge. He acquired a great and special 
 reputation as a commercial lawyer, and published a book, 
 which was much wanted, on " Merchants' Ships and Seamen." 
 The MS. of this book still remains, written, we are informed, 
 in a beautifully neat, clear hand. In England his book is be- 
 coming superseded by the new Merchant Shipping Acts, but 
 in America it continues to be the standard work on the sub- 
 ject. That old cathedral connection seemed still to cling to 
 him, and to bring him prosperity. He was known to be a 
 good ecclesiastical lawyer and sound churchman, and Lord 
 Campbell, who knew him well, says that he had a general re- 
 tainer from most of the prelates and deans and chapters.
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 
 
 203 
 
 When his business became considerable, he ventured to mar- 
 ry. The father of the young lady, a country gentleman, called 
 at his chambers, and asked him how he hoped to maintain 
 his future wife. He answered, " By the books in this room, 
 and two pupils in the next." They lived for years very hap- 
 pily in a little house in Bloomsbury Square. We are told 
 that his was a cheerful and pious household. Some very 
 touching and affectionate letters to his wife are on record, and 
 the following playful lines : 
 
 " In the noise of the bar and crowds of the hall, 
 
 Tho' destined still longer to move, 
 Let my thoughts wander home and my memory recall 
 The dear pleasures of beauty and love. 
 
 " The soft looks of my girl, the sweet voice of my boy, 
 
 Their antics, their hobbies, their sports ; 
 How the houses he builds her quick fingers destroy, 
 And with kisses his pardon she courts. 
 
 " With eyes full of tenderness, pleasure, and pride, 
 
 The fond mother sits watching their play, 
 Or turns, if I look not, my dullness to chide, 
 And invites me, like them, to be gay. 
 
 " She invites to be gay, and I yield to her voice, 
 
 And my toils and my sorrows forget ; 
 In her beauty, her sweetness, her kindness rejoice, 
 And hallow the day that we met. 
 
 " Full bright were her charms in the bloom of her life, 
 
 When I walked down the church by her side, 
 And, five years passed over, I now find the wife 
 More lovely and fair than the bride." 
 
 After a long and prosperous career at the bar, his health 
 showed symptoms of decline. He saw reason to fear that his 
 eyesight was failing him. He longed for the comparative rest 
 and ease of the judicial bench. But he was disappointed. No 
 promotion came. When a vacancy arose, he was passed over.
 
 204 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 He was determined to retire from the bar, and his only diffi- 
 culty was whether he should take up his abode at Oxford or 
 Canterbury. He had just resolved upon Oxford when one of 
 the judges of the Common Pleas, Mr. John Heath for Heath 
 had always steadily refused to be knighted died, as he always 
 said he would, " in harness," at the age of eighty. Charles 
 Abbott was made judge, and, taking the degree of sergeant-at- 
 law, as was then usual, he assumed armorial bearings, with 
 the motto which so well described his simple, industrious life 
 "Labore." 
 
 He was now judge. His youthful vision of going to his 
 native town in ermine and scarlet was to be fulfilled. He 
 saw at once that he should much more greatly enjoy being 
 judge than counsel. The search for truth, he said, was much 
 more pleasant than the search for arguments. He was in a 
 very short time removed from the Common Pleas to what was 
 then the much more laborious work of the Queen's Bench. 
 This was in 1816. Lord Ellenborough then presided over the 
 King's Bench, and the other puisne judges besides Abbott 
 were those great lawyers Holroyd and Bayley. Before two 
 years had passed, it became quite clear to Westminster Hall 
 that one of the greatest common-law judges had risen on the 
 bench. In 1818 Lord Ellenborough was struck down by pa- 
 ralysis. It became a matter of the keenest interest who should 
 become the new chief-justice of England. After some delay 
 and many conjectures, it became known that Mr. Justice Abbott 
 was to preside as chief over the court where he had been 
 puisne judge. And now the full lustre of Abbott's extraordi- 
 nary character became fully apparent. He was the most acute 
 and upright of magistrates. His court became what lawyers 
 call an exceedingly "strong" court. Lord Campbell glows 
 with enthusiasm as he describes that time. " Before such men 
 there was no pretense for being lengthy or importunate. Every
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 
 
 205 
 
 point made by counsel was understood in a moment; the ap- 
 plication of every authority was understood at a glance ; the 
 counsel saw when he might sit down, his case being safe, and 
 when he might sit down, all chance of success for his client 
 being at an end. During that golden age law and reason pre- 
 vailed. The result was confidently anticipated by the know- 
 ing before the argument began, and the judgment was approved 
 by all who heard it pronounced, including the vanquished 
 party. Before such a tribunal the advocate becomes dearer 
 to himself by preserving his own esteem. I do not believe 
 that so much important business was ever done so rapidly and 
 so well before any other court that ever sat in any age or 
 country. The principal merit is no doubt due to Abbott, and 
 no one could have played his part so well." 
 
 Nine years after his elevation to the office of chief-justice, 
 Abbott was raised to the peerage. Mr. Canning wrote to him 
 in 1827: "As in the approaching law promotions, more than 
 one peerage will be conferred by His Majesty, it has occurred 
 to Mr. Canning, as due to Lord Chief-Justice Abbott, to his 
 lordship's eminent services, and to the dignity of the court 
 over which he presides, that an opportunity should be afforded 
 to the Lord Chief-Justice to express his wish (if he entertains 
 it) for a similar honor." He was accordingly raised to the 
 peerage by the title of Tenterden, with which place, as a 
 Kentish man, he had many associations. Latimer's quaint 
 sermon will be recollected by many of our readers, in which 
 he connects the Goodwin Sands with Tenterden steeple. 
 That was a great day at Westminster Hall when the whole 
 bar of England wished to do the chief-justice honor, on the 
 occasion of his taking his seat in the House of Lords. "We 
 all stood under the bar," says Lord Campbell ; " such a serried 
 conglomeration of wigs never was seen before or since." Next 
 day Lord Tenterden threw down a note to the attorney-
 
 206 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 general, which was handed through all rows of the bar, say- 
 ing how the kindness of their attendance had gone to his 
 heart. He was not able to attend the House of Lords much, 
 as his time was greatly absorbed by his judicial duties. He 
 made, however, at least one great speech, of which the then 
 Bishop of Rochester said that it was most impressive and con- 
 vincing. He also effected some useful legislation in promot- 
 ing law reforms. After the passing of the Reform Bill he 
 never sat again in the House of Peers. 
 
 Lord Tenterden's health was now altogether failing. He 
 amused himself by studying botany and composing Latin 
 verse. He wrote a very pretty Latin poem on " The Lily of 
 the Valley," and Latinized much of the "Lady of the Lake." 
 He beautifully concludes a Latin poem on the " Conservatory" 
 by expressing the hope that it might be allowed him to soothe 
 his cares by the strains of poetic story, and in weary age to 
 gather the same flowers that he gathered in his youth. In 
 company he was always courteous, and among his intimate 
 friends he took pleasure in referring to the days of his youth. 
 This great judge is known to have possessed one remarkable 
 defect, that of an irritable temper. But it was beautiful to see 
 how he conquered this defect by principle, or rather by Chris- 
 tian grace. The very defect that might have injured him 
 served to adorn his character. " It was singular with what 
 effect he fought against this," says Lord Campbell, " and how 
 he mastered the rebellious part of his nature. Indeed, it was 
 a study to observe this battle, or rather victory, for the conflict 
 was too successful to be apparent on many occasions. He 
 directed the jury in every particular, as if no irritation had 
 ever passed over his mind in the course of the cause. It was 
 therefore an edifying sight to observe Lord Tenterden, whose 
 temper had been visibly affected during the trial, addressing 
 himself to the points of the cause with the same perfect calm-
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS. 207 
 
 ness and indifference with which a mathematician pursues the 
 investigation of an abstract truth." Judge Talfourd says of 
 him: "The chief judicial virtue of his mind was that of impar- 
 tiality ; not mere independence of external influences, but the 
 general absence of tendency in the mind itself to take a part 
 or receive a bias." To us this appears to be the ne plus ultra 
 of a judge. 
 
 Such a career as that of Lord Tenterden is a boon to En- 
 gland. It shows the fairness and impartiality of public life. It 
 indicates how in England the highest positions are open to 
 the lowliest. It shows how bravely honors may be won, and 
 how meekly they may be borne. 
 
 Lord Tenterden died at the post of duty. There had been 
 an important trial, and the chief-justice presided for the first 
 two days, but on the evening of the second day he went home 
 ill. It was found to be fever, which baffled all the efforts of 
 such eminent men as Sir Henry Halford, Dr. Holland, and Sir 
 Benjamin Brodie. It was an instance, like the later instances 
 of Wightman and Talfourd, of a man dying at his post. In 
 his last moments he imagined that he was summing up a case, 
 and died after uttering the words, " And now, gentlemen of 
 the jury, you will consider of your verdict." His monument, 
 which bears an epitaph written by himself, may be seen at the 
 Foundling Hospital, of which he was a governor. That epi- 
 taph sums up the moral of his life. He tells us how he was 
 born of the lowliest parents, who were yet pious and prudent, 
 and that the reader might learn by his example how much 
 among Englishmen honorable labor may achieve, with the 
 favor of Heaven. His son adds the words, 
 
 " Haec de conscripsit 
 Vir summus idemque omnium modestissimus." 
 
 Lord Campbell speaks with the highest honor of the good 
 son who thus completed the epitaph. His grandson, too, has
 
 20 8 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE, 
 
 added fresh lustre to the name of Tenterden by his services 
 on the Commission which crossed the Channel to negotiate 
 the Treaty of Washington, and at the Court of Arbitration 
 which sat at Geneva services which have been duly recog- 
 nized by the crown, and are the earnest of a career worthy of 
 the name of Tenterden.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 2 og 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Christian Merchant. 
 
 STANDING in that central space of the city which is the 
 very heart of London's heart, amid the multitudinous tumult 
 of those who are " citizens of no mean city," it was not with- 
 out emotion that I read the legend over the greatest Exchange 
 in the world " The earth is the Lord's and the fullness there- 
 of; the compass of the world and they that dwell therein." 
 The legend is indeed worthy of a city " whose merchants are 
 princes and whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth." 
 The inspired words lend to trade its consecration. It is the 
 acknowledgment that the teeming produce of the earth and 
 seas, the treasures of the forest and the mine, all the yield 
 and increase within Arctic and Antarctic circle, are the Lord's, 
 and that he freely outspreads them for the use of his people, 
 to provide them both with the splendors and conveniences 
 of life, to promote human intercourse and brotherhood, and to 
 make material blessings the types, accompaniments, and ma- 
 chinery to dispense even higher blessings than these. It 
 seems to me that, in olden times, the good merchants of Lon- 
 don city have intelligibly felt all this, and laid it to heart. We 
 know, too, that the line of like-minded, true successors has 
 never failed. I feel this when I stand on one of the London 
 bridges and look back on the space occupied by what is called 
 the city. How grandly looms the vast cathedral dome, giv- 
 ing to that vast congeries of streets and houses its unity and 
 central point ! How, within the narrow limits of the city
 
 2io TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 which, when examined, are far from being extensive rises the 
 forest of spires and towers grouped around the cathedral 
 mother-church ! Look at the history of that cathedral, of 
 those many churches, of the great civic companies, of the vast 
 municipal charities, and you will comprehend the liberal-hand- 
 ed, disinterested character of the Christian merchant, such as 
 was Gresham and many of Gresham's compatriots. I think 
 of Barzillai, that man of very great substance, so true to God 
 and loyal to David, and of Araunah, who " as a king gave unto 
 the king." At times we read sorrowfully of many blots upon 
 London's fair civic shield, and quiet people, content with food 
 and raiment, wonder at the maddening thirst for wealth ; but 
 the recollections of such men as Thornton and Henry Hoare 
 are fresh upon us, and we rejoice that Christian England has 
 still many a Christian merchant. 
 
 There is something, also, that is stately and noble about the 
 merchants. They carry their rank on their thoughtful fore- 
 heads, and in their gesture and bearing. Recall their portraits 
 by Vandyke and Titian, in the burgomasters of Amsterdam 
 and the merchant princes of Venice. Such were veritable 
 statesmen and Christians, with a large eye for the rising in- 
 terests of fair republics, with a large eye for the still greater 
 cause of God's truth in the earth. I love to think of the Ve- 
 netian merchant, now counting up his bales from the Indies 
 and his spice-boxes from Surinam, now discoursing with his 
 brother merchants on the Rialto, or walking with Eastern 
 strangers clad in their ample flowing garbs on the Piazzetta, 
 and anon entertaining high questions of war and peace and 
 government ; or, amid the trophies of art and skill, gathering 
 beauty and genius and valor to the music and feast within 
 the illumination of some sea-girt marble palace. Amid the 
 merchants of Holland the genius of commerce was developed 
 side by side with the desperate love of endangered liberty and
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 21 1 
 
 heroic devotion to persecuted truth. Thus have I deeply feit 
 in moving about the water-streets of Venice and Amsterdam, 
 and thus, also, on the silent highway which is really London's 
 greatest street. I know that in the dingy resorts of commerce 
 are also men who will endure hardships and bear arms if nec- 
 essary ; even as of old, in perilous times, they largely gave of 
 their substance, and were willing to undergo for their country 
 the ordeal of battle. I know that they have an equal devo- 
 tion for science and literature and art as the great Italian 
 merchant princes of the Middle Ages ; and, best of all, I know 
 how the love of God is shed abroad in many hearts, keeping 
 within due limits that adverse love of money, and prompting 
 to many good deeds of love, in Christ, toward man. 
 
 A work was published some years ago by a distinguished 
 minister of religion, the Rev. William Arthur, entitled " The 
 Successful Merchant." It is exceedingly well written, and 
 the subject of the biography, Mr. William Budgett, of Bristol, 
 was an eminently Christian man, with a very decided idiosyn- 
 crasy of his own, and possessed the characteristics of a true 
 merchant in having both a genius for getting and a genius for 
 giving. The work recalls Dr. Binney's celebrated little book, 
 " Is it possible to make the best of both worlds ?" Granting 
 that in a most important sense this inquiry may be answered 
 in the affirmative, I must also add, that for myself I feel an in- 
 stinctive objection to the terms of the question. I will not now 
 go into my reasons ; if my readers think with me, I believe 
 that those reasons will not be slow in suggesting themselves. 
 Now Mr. Budgett was one who sought to make the best of 
 both worlds, and, upon the whole, I think he actually did so ; 
 yet, even in reading his biography, where things are naturally 
 put in their fairest light, I think I see that he fell into some 
 mistakes by trying to make the very most of this world. I 
 hold that his plan of selling some articles at cost price, or
 
 212 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 even below cost price, with the intention that customers should 
 be attracted to his store in the belief that all other things 
 were equally cheap, was un merchant-like. It ought to be re- 
 membered, perhaps, that Mr. Budgett was for many years a 
 small retail dealer, and that it was in the latter half of his life 
 that his transactions achieved that magnitude which made 
 him a great merchant. Mr. Budgett exhibited in himself, and 
 demanded from others, an amount of energetic endeavor which 
 was abnormal and unhealthy. A man's ordinary work must 
 be done in an ordinary way, and extraordinary efforts should 
 be reserved, for special occasions. He was intensely ener- 
 getic, and his eye and voice rebuked any one in his employ 
 who was not exhibiting a similar degree of energy. In the 
 words of his biographer : " The Successful Merchant had lived 
 too fast. His master energy, which had crushed so many dif- 
 ficulties, had been doing its work on his own frame, which 
 soon became a witness that over-activity is not to be indulged 
 without shattering a man at last." I am sure that there is a 
 great deal too much of this trying to make the best of both 
 worlds. Mr. Budgett did himself a great deal of harm, and 
 must have done a great deal of harm to others, unless they 
 made up at other times for the pressure which he occasionally 
 put upon them. I point out these drawbacks, and with this 
 measure of exception Mr. Arthur's " Successful Merchant" 
 might very well be called the " Christian Merchant." It is 
 very instructive, and Mr. Budgett had a natural nobleness and 
 an abounding charity which go very far toward carrying out 
 the idea of the highest type of this character. 
 
 A distinction is generally drawn between the merchant and 
 the retailer. The ancient Greek looked upon retailing with 
 intense dislike, and even with contempt and loathing. Napo- 
 leon, with the same heathenish feeling, spoke of us as a nation 
 of shop-keepers. It is sometimes said that Napoleon failed to
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 
 
 213 
 
 distinguish between the merchant and the shop-keeper ; but, 
 looking fully into the matter, I think that this distinction might 
 be reduced to so small a point of difference that it can hardly 
 hold. Yet there are very mournful facts which affix a stigma 
 upon retail business from which merchant business is com- 
 paratively free. Mr. Hughes once spoke to his constituents, 
 with the honest freedom which so well became him, of the 
 amount of fraudulent dealing with customers that prevailed in 
 Lambeth ; and I saw a newspaper paragraph the other day to 
 the effect that, in the district of Newington alone, upward of 
 a hundred tradesmen had been fined for the false weight and 
 the false measure. Yet the false weight and the false measure 
 are abominations to the Lord ! Their use is, indeed, to elim- 
 inate Christianity from trade, and also to eliminate such trades- 
 people from Christ's kingdom. The true merchant loves the 
 measure shaken together and pressed down and running over. 
 It is immaterial to ask whether to the merchant or to the re- 
 tailer is to be attributed the adulterated lime-juice which de- 
 stroys the poor mariners on long voyages, the imposition about 
 stores which did so much mischief to our brave soldiers in the 
 Crimea, the cheats in connection with the preserved meats 
 that starved the heroic explorers who shared Sir John Frank- 
 lin's last and fatal expedition. This is the exhibition of what- 
 ever is vilest in the most fraudulent petty trader. Adultera- 
 tion is the curse of English trade. I once knew a really Chris- 
 tian person who told me that he had given up trade for a 
 much less independent position in life from the sheer impos- 
 sibility of making a livelihood without resorting to customary 
 dishonest shifts. Yet I can not but hope that, in many direc- 
 tions, this experiment is being made patiently and fairly, and 
 with better results. I can not believe that there is any posi- 
 tion of life where the grace of God and the providence of God 
 are not sufficient. The temptation of the retailer is ten times
 
 214 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 more urgent than that of the merchant, and is incessant and 
 unvarying ; and so much greater, therefore, is the honor and 
 reward of one who holds fast to his integrity toward Heaven 
 and toward man, and who carries into the lowliest details of 
 the humblest business the great moral and religious qualities 
 which make up the Christian merchant. 
 
 I will now take up a few examples of the Christian merchant, 
 using the word in a large sense, leaving to another paper or 
 another pen farther remarks on our humbler merchant. And, 
 first, who is not familiar with the glorious character of the 
 brothers Cheeryble in " Nicholas Nickleby ?" and who was 
 not delighted when Mr. Dickens stated that these were not 
 imaginary characters, but people in real life ? I have been 
 given to understand that a certain Manchester firm was delin- 
 eated. Surely Scott must have often met, in the great Scottish 
 cities, with the double of his Baillie Nicol Jarvie ! I will, how- 
 ever, take three modern examples of the Christian merchant 
 respectively of the last century, the last generation, and the 
 last few years. Any one of these would afford ample scope 
 for a separate chapter, but I will gather up 'the salient points 
 which I desire to present, and the reader will find elsewhere 
 fuller information. 
 
 The character of Jonas Hanway, as a philanthropist, was so 
 widely known and appreciated in the latter part of his life, 
 that his remarkable career as a merchant will incur some risk 
 of being overlooked. Some parts of his career have been 
 well brought out by Mr. Smiles, in his " Self-Help," but not, 
 perhaps, the Christian aspect sufficiently. Mr. Hanway en- 
 gaged in the Russian trade, and made a daring attempt to 
 open up a Persian trade by the Volga and the Caspian. In 
 later life he had a curious device on his carriage. It repre- 
 sented a man dressed in a Persian habit, just landed in a 
 storm on a rough coast, leaning on his sword in a calm, re-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 215 
 
 signed attitude. In the background was depicted a boat 
 tossed about by billows, and in the foreground an armorial 
 shield, leaning against a tree, with the motto, " Never despair." 
 This represented an incident in his own career on the Caspian 
 Sea ; and his published travels abound with records of similar 
 striking interest. Having made a moderate fortune at St. 
 Petersburg, he determined to retire and spend the rest of his 
 life in his own country. Hanway always retained an adequate 
 idea of the noble profession to which he had once belonged. 
 It is related of him that " he was sometimes seduced into an 
 eulogium on the usefulness of the merchant, a character for 
 which he entertained great reverence."* He keenly enjoyed 
 the pleasures of his hardly earned retirement. His biographer 
 quaintly says : " He partook willingly of the joys of the table, 
 and that felicity of conversation which a moderate application 
 to the bottle excites among men of parts." Yet he would re- 
 tire if the mirth became boisterous, and was known to say : 
 " My companions were too merry to be happy, or to let me be 
 happy, so I left them." He commenced a career of incessant 
 benevolence, which is very rarely paralleled, but to which Lord 
 Shaftesbury's active work presents a close approximation. 
 There was hardly any religious or charitable object, or any 
 object which required public spirit, in which he was not large- 
 ly concerned. To his exertions we, in some measure, owe the 
 proper paving and lighting of the London streets, and he was 
 the first Englishman who, at any risk of stares, had the moral 
 courage to carry an umbrella. But his exertions and liberal- 
 ity were mainly devoted to charitable and religious causes. 
 We have need of a Hanway now ! for we are told that he ex 
 plored the miserable and unhealthy habitations of the parish 
 poor, and exposed his lungs to the pestilential air of the work- 
 
 * " Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Jonas Hanway, Esq.," etc., 
 by John Pugh. London, 1787.
 
 2 i6 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 house sick-wards, procuring a complete account of the inter- 
 nal management of every work-house in London and its neigh- 
 borhood. Nor was this all. He took strenuous means, to a 
 large extent successfully, to check the frightful mortality among 
 the infants of the London parish poor. He founded the Ma- 
 rine Society and a Magdalen Asylum ; he was one of the first 
 who looked after the interests of English and African blacks, 
 in the case of the negroes and chimney-sweepers' boys, and 
 promoted, by every means in his power, the new movement of 
 establishing Sunday-schools. A complete examination of his 
 career of benevolence would almost embrace the statistics of 
 Christian effort during the period of his floruit. Such were 
 the beneficent occupations to which this Christian merchant 
 devoted the long mellow evening of his days. His character- 
 istic cheerfulness was never better exhibited than in his last 
 hours, when his case was hopeless ; his last recorded word 
 was " Christ." 
 
 When Jonas Hanway died, Joshua Watson was a lad of fif- 
 teen. He had just left a school in the city designed for mer- 
 chants' sons, where they learned book-keeping, exchange, and 
 foreign languages, and had gone into his father's counting-house. 
 His father, a son of one of the statesmen of the Lake coun- 
 try, had his place of business, as a wine-merchant, on Tower 
 Hill, and afterward at 16 Mincing Lane. Joshua was first his 
 father's assiduous assistant and afterward his partner. When 
 the father had retired, he was sought out and requested to be- 
 come a partner in a similar house in Mark Lane. Here he 
 made a fortune, principally through government contracts, 
 which enabled him to retire. It is to be regretted that the 
 editor of his interesting biography* has given us such scanty 
 details of his mercantile career. Yet the biography is ex- 
 
 * " Memoirs of Joshua Watson," by Archdeacon Churton. Second 
 edition. London : Parkers, 1863.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 217 
 
 ceedingly valuable. There is hardly a page, and we have 
 looked into all the pages, from which interesting extracts 
 might not be culled. Mr. Watson was a rigid Churchman, 
 and, 'to state our impression candidly, there was something 
 strait and sectarian in the tone of his Churchman ship. He 
 lived on terms of the closest intimacy and affection with the 
 highest Church dignitaries, reminding us of honest Isaak Wal- 
 ton, to whom, in several respects, he bears a resemblance, in 
 his love of the Church of England, his intimacies with bishops, 
 his honest business ways, his simplicity, and his goodness. 
 When the great crash of 1825 happened, Joshua Watson felt 
 the effects severely, and was crippled for life. People felt for 
 Watson who did not feel much for the rest, for they knew 
 that the blow which had fallen directly upon him had fallen 
 indirectly upon the charities of which he was such a munifi- 
 cent supporter. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Manners- 
 Sutton) sent for him, and, with faltering voice and suffused 
 eyes, begged to be allowed to do any thing in the world for 
 him. "Judge," said the archbishop on one occasion to Mr. 
 Baron Park, " I tell you I could not love that man more were 
 he my own son." Blomfield, Bishop of London, wrote to him 
 to use all the money he had at his banker's, and telling him 
 to pledge his credit as far as it would go. Watson did not 
 avail himself of either offer, but we may well envy the feelings 
 with which the Christian merchant would receive such proofs 
 of affection and esteem. We need scarcely wonder that Joshua 
 Watson was enthusiastic about bishops. On one occasion he 
 wrote to the Bishop of Durham (Van Mildert) : " How little 
 do those who would fain make more equitable distribution of 
 the revenues of the Church know of the manner in which its 
 largest revenues are expended ! Would to God, without of- 
 fense to Christian humility, the plain, unvarnished tale might 
 be fairly told in the ears of all the people !" We admit this 
 
 K
 
 2i8 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 testimony with great pleasure, but we are still on the side of 
 those who advocate " a more equitable distribution of the rev- 
 enues of the Church." Admitting that the exceptions are nu- 
 merous and splendid, we strongly suspect that the " plain, un- 
 varnished tale" would, upon the whole, tell a very different 
 story to what Watson considered it might. Watson might 
 speak, indeed, with authority in the case of Van Mildert, the 
 most munificent of the prince-bishops of Durham. We can 
 not resist the pleasure of saying a few words about Van Mil- 
 dert Watson had known him from a very early time. Van 
 Mildert used to lodge with him in Mincing Lane when he 
 came to town, and subsequently the two friends kept house 
 together in Great George Street, Westminster. Van Mildert, 
 a poor, ardent student, having taken the living of Farningham, 
 fell into heavy pecuniary difficulties in consequence of being 
 obliged to rebuild his house. Joshua Watson, with other 
 friends, took the whole of the responsibility upon themselves. 
 Van Mildert writes a touching letter on the subject : " The 
 feeling is, in some respects, a very painful one, and occasions 
 a frequent depression of spirits which I am unable to over- 
 come. There is a pleasure, an exquisite one, in having such 
 friends ; but the wound given to the spirit of independence, 
 by being obliged to make such a use of them, is not easily 
 healed. It has been my misfortune to be more or less embar- 
 rassed ever since I have been a beneficed man, and every ad- 
 ditional benefice has brought its additional burdens, and made 
 me more embarrassed than before. So that, in spite of all 
 the friendly helps I have met with, I still am, and to all ap- 
 pearance ever shall be, a necessitous man." It is delightful 
 to know that this poor, struggling clergyman eventually be- 
 came perhaps the richest prelate on the bench, and the Uni- 
 versity of Durham, and a thousand private instances, bear 
 testimony to his spirit of incessant charity. Van Mildert
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 
 
 219 
 
 went far to prove Joshua Watson's theory. So did that most 
 munificent giver, Bishop Blomfield. When giving munificent- 
 ly to Joshua Watson's darling charity, the Clergy Orphan 
 School, Bishop Blomfield said that he was not disinterested, 
 for he expected his own children would have to come to it. 
 We have not far to go, however, before we see a very different 
 state of things. In this biography we find mention of the 
 great liberality of Bishop Monk. Let any praise that is fairly 
 due be fully conceded. Yet this bishop left a quarter of a 
 million behind him, derived from the revenues of his see. 
 We altogether deny that there was any thing apostolical in 
 this. 
 
 Bishop Blomfield, on the occasion of Watson's death, said : 
 " I use the word venerated as most truly describing the senti- 
 ment with which I regarded Mr. Joshua Watson. He was the 
 most remarkable instance I have ever personally known of a 
 Christian man devoting all the faculties with which God had 
 endowed him, and a very large portion of the means, which 
 are more valuable in the world's estimate, though not in his, 
 to the promotion of God's glory in his Church." Unquestion- 
 ably it was this liberal, expansive bearing of the merchant, 
 when added to the graces of the Christian character, which 
 made Watson one of the pillars of the great Church societies 
 for so many years. In a position of great social eminence, he 
 always looked back on the old trading-days. " He often called 
 for us," writes a relative, "on his way into London; and one 
 day he showed us the house which had once been his in Minc- 
 ing Lane, now part of the Commercial Sale-rooms. The very 
 counting-house and desk which he used to occupy alone re- 
 mained unaltered, and there we accompanied him to receive a 
 dividend. Another day we accompanied him to King's Col- 
 lege to see the distribution of prizes to the medical students 
 by the archbishop. The bishops of London and Lichfield, Sir
 
 220 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 R. H. Inglis, and Mr. Gladstone were also there. My uncle sat 
 by Mr. Gladstone, and had much talk with him." There used 
 to be the most brilliant meetings at his house in Park Street. 
 We omit the imposing list of Churchmen, which our readers 
 will take for granted. " Of the legal profession, besides his 
 friends Park and Richardson, were Chief-Justice Tindal, the 
 venerable Judge Burton, Judges Patteson and Coleridge, and 
 Sir William Page Wood. From the medical school there were 
 the Heberdens, Barnsby Cooper, Dr. Thomas Watson, and one 
 to be remembered alike as a Christian philanthropist and able 
 physician, Dr. Thomas Todd. There was admission within 
 the threshold to many whose names were distinguished in 
 science, such as Dr. Whewell, Professor Sedgwick, and Charles 
 Lyell, the geologist. The poets Wordsworth and Southey were 
 here to be heard of when they came to London ; and here 
 were to be met some of the most eminent sons of art, as Sir 
 Francis Chantrey, and Lough, Copley Fielding, and George 
 Robson." The force of goodness and force of character had 
 gathered friends around the retired Christian merchant such 
 as are denied to vulgar rank and wealth. Joshua Watson 
 survived to an advanced age, living latterly in comparative 
 retirement, waxing riper and riper in the Divine life, becom- 
 ing more and more like a little child, until he was translated 
 home ; " it might be said of him before his translation, he had 
 this testimony, that he pleased God." 
 
 On the 5th of last December, there died, at Leytonstone, a 
 very eminent example of the Christian merchant. We make 
 a few notes from an interesting " In Memoriam" article which 
 subsequently appeared.* William Cotton was a man who had 
 the very highest name in the city of London, a man of astute 
 character in business, but remarkable even beyond his remark- 
 able commercial position for his charm of natural character 
 * Guardian of Dec. 27, 1866.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 2 2l 
 
 and his Christian liberality. He was one of a family of ten, 
 and circumstances not permitting him to take holy orders, he 
 entered the firm of Huddart and Co., where he subsequently 
 became one of the principal partners. He did his business 
 strenuously. He had a positive genius for engineering, and 
 was a friend of James Watt. He was associated with those 
 who first sent a steamship to sea; and he visited our great 
 manufacturing towns to see how power-loom weaving might be 
 adapted to the heavier fabric of navy canvas. He did away 
 with the pestilent system in the East End of London of paying 
 the mechanics by orders on publicans on Saturday nights, and 
 substituted Thursday evening payments instead. The source 
 of information to which we have alluded says : 
 
 "In the year 1821 on the introduction of Mr. Harman he 
 was first elected a director of the Bank of England. This posi- 
 tion he occupied for forty-five years, only retiring in March last 
 because the state of his health then prevented his attending 
 at the time of election. Many reforms and alterations in that 
 great establishment were due to his own sagacity and knowl- 
 edge of the true principles of finance, and also to his clear 
 perception of the character and power of those who were 
 working with him or under him. The years of his chief labor 
 there were 1843-45, during which he filled the post of govern- 
 or, at the time when the present Bank Charter was framed 
 by the late Sir Robert Peel. The latter found in William Cot- 
 ton a clear and honest adviser, decided in his own views, with 
 no personal interest to serve, and unsparing in his labor. In 
 order that this great measure might be carried to a successful 
 issue, the governor of the bank, William Cotton, was constant- 
 ly in attendance under the gallery of the House of Commons 
 (not being himself a member of the House), in order that Sir 
 Robert Peel might be able to consult him on any doubtful 
 point. Often, too, in the middle of night a messenger would
 
 222 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 come to Walwood asking for further information. And as Sir 
 Robert was happy in the character of the governor, to whose 
 lot it fell to conduct the negotiation on behalf of the bank, so 
 was his estimation of the great minister's character deep and 
 sincere, and none more truly lamented his untimely death. 
 His fellow-directors of the bank conferred on him the unprec- 
 edented honor of a third election as governor, in order that 
 he might carry out to its conclusion that work which had been 
 begun under his auspices. It was at this period also that the 
 mechanical bent of his mind showed itself in full power. The 
 necessity of weighing all the gold coinage of the kingdom, 
 much of which had become light through use, made him con- 
 ceive the possibility of doing this by an automaton weighing- 
 machine. The result was the present self-acting weighing- 
 machine, far exceeding, not only in rapidity, but in accuracy, 
 the steadiest and most practiced hand, and it is still at work 
 at the bank, at the mint, and in many local establishments, 
 just as it was at first designed by the governor of the bank. 
 It was exhibited at the Exhibition of 1851, and of it one of the 
 profoundest reasoners of our day declared that it seemed to 
 him the perfection of mechanical ingenuity that the machine 
 itself seemed almost to think during the pause which ensued 
 between the reception of the sovereign into the scale and its 
 delivery into its appropriate place, either as a light or full- 
 weight coin. The machine has been appropriately named 
 'The Governor.'" 
 
 But Cotton's brightest achievements were beyond these. 
 He devoted himself earnestly to the practical Christian work 
 of the London hospitals. The London Hospital, St. Thomas's, 
 Guy's, and King's, all owed something to his strenuous efforts. 
 The same was the case with churches and schools. The great 
 Church societies, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Na'
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT. 223 
 
 tional, found him, as they found Joshua Watson, a very pillar 
 of strength. As a gentleman of country estate, he served as 
 sheriff of the county and chairman of quarter sessions. From 
 the time of his first entering business he made a resolution, 
 which he faithfully kept, of devoting one-tenth of his profits to 
 pious and charitable purposes. God blessed his servant in 
 this. His gains were large, and his commission fund, as he 
 called it, was large correspondingly. "There was no exulta- 
 tion in what he had accomplished during a long life, but re- 
 gret that he had not done more; no trust in his own good 
 deeds or boundless charities, but earnest faith in the merits of 
 his Saviour." He survived to his eightieth year, as his father 
 had done before him. 
 
 Several common characteristics will be noted in these ex- 
 amples of the Christian merchant. Each worked strenuously 
 and successfully at his business ; each had the moderation 
 and good sense to retire after a competent fortune was gained, 
 while he had still an unblunted capacity for knowledge and 
 enjoyment, and secured a breathing-time of repose before he 
 was called away ; each purified and elevated the society in 
 which he moved, and reflected honor on the calling which re- 
 flected honor upon him ; each devoted energy and wealth to 
 the good of his fellow-creatures and the glory of God. Such 
 men carried the peculiar sense, earnestness, and insight of 
 their calling into the larger matters that included it, and went 
 far beyond. They looked upon their immortal existence as a 
 whole, and not alone upon its earthly and temporary part. 
 They were not influenced by narrow considerations of mere 
 profit and loss, but regarded their example to children and 
 friends, the testimony of an approving conscience, the sweet- 
 ness of a good and honored name, the ratification of their 
 deeds by a righteous Judge at the last. They savingly solved 
 that greatest problem of loss and gain how far it would profit
 
 224 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul. With 
 all their gettings they got understanding, and valued wisdom 
 as being in worth beyond rubies. They sought diligently in 
 their calling for goodly pearls, and they found the Pearl of 
 Great Price, and held all worldly things as dross compared to 
 that, their best and only abiding treasure.
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 225 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Rising Men. 
 
 I THINK nothing is more pleasant than to see a good man 
 really rising in the world. Slowly but surely they seem to 
 find their way to the front at last. " Slow rises worth by pov- 
 erty depressed," wrote old Johnson, whose personal history 
 barbed the line. One day I went to visit the shop of a worthy 
 apothecary to which I was wont to resort. The apothecary 
 had disappeared. He rigorously confined himself to his pri- 
 vate residence, where he saw his patients, and, though the shop 
 was his, he declined to pass its portals. Or to go a grade 
 higher in the profession, I remember a struggling surgeon, 
 who managed to struggle on, certainly, which is saying some- 
 thing in these hard competition times, but that was all. I 
 visited him the other day after the lapse of years. A carriage 
 and pair were standing at the door, and I soon found that he 
 was overwhelmed with work of a highly remunerative kind ; 
 and, although I am sure that, as is the nature of " the beloved 
 physician," no case of necessity or poverty would appeal to 
 him in vain, yet he had given up all the lower work of his pro- 
 fession, and no professional work would be undertaken which, 
 in the exclusive sense, would not "pay." The other night I 
 went to see an old college friend. He told me with a par- 
 donable glee that he had been walking down Whitehall with a 
 cabinet minister. The point might seem a trivial one, but to 
 him it represented a great social success. And when I called 
 on my friend at his office and saw the people with whom he 
 
 Kz
 
 226 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 was surrounded, and found that I had to wait in his ante- 
 room, I began fully to understand that my friend was a rising 
 man. Very glad am I to find that my friend, the young solic- 
 itor, has put on another clerk, has joined a good club, and no 
 longer lives in chambers, but has a box in the country. He 
 gets back as a bird to its bird-cage at nightfall. Very glad am 
 I to see that my friend the merchant stays at home after break- 
 fast half an hour later, and drives down in a brougham to his 
 place of business. When I visit at their houses they tell me 
 when it is time to go out and make " some filthy lucre," and 
 announce their intention of retiring as soon as they have made 
 " a little pile." 
 
 There are some men who, so to speak, are bound to get on. 
 When they have planted their feet on the first rung of a ladder 
 they must needs mount. A solicitor-general in the course of 
 nature should become lord chancellor or a chief at least. 
 When a counsel has shown that he has some specific gift in 
 some particular class of cases, say patents or election business, 
 or winning the hearts of juries, he must rise. When a man 
 has been private chaplain to a bishop, or head-master of a 
 school, or a regius professor, he is on the groove of advance- 
 ment. The Saturday Review said of the late Dr. Longley that 
 he was a safe card, and the Government played him again and 
 again ! As a Westminster boy he was called " the rose among 
 thorns," and he passed on from bishopric to bishopric with 
 universal appreciation. Canon Melvill, who died the other 
 day, was an example of a man who in orderly sequence passed 
 from grade to grade in the minor ranges of his profession, 
 being a man, however, who would have done honor to the 
 highest. There was a time when Canon Melvill was the most 
 remarkable man of his profession. All who aspired to be 
 orators crowded to hear him, and I have even heard that mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons endeavored to transplant'his
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 227 
 
 peculiar style. A schoolboy at Christ's Hospital, a sizar at St. 
 John's, he became not only a fellow of Peterhouse, but one of 
 the most remarkable influences of Cambridge, an influence 
 which continued to expand and bless when removed to the 
 wider circle of London. Of late years popular preaching has 
 very much declined in the popular estimation. People to 
 whom it was once almost the sole intellectual stimulus, as well 
 as religious, now study the daily papers, and find many op- 
 portunities for cultivating the pleasures of the mind. Perhaps 
 religion benefits by the change. The deepest needs of the 
 soul will still seek satisfaction, but religious instruction will 
 not now be so much confounded with the rhetoric of merely 
 popular oratory. In religion, as in many other departments 
 of human life, there will be room to treat a great subject intel- 
 lectually, and to bring it into connection with all the lines of 
 thought that move contemporary lives and opinions, and con- 
 stitute what is sometimes vaguely called " the spirit of the 
 age." There will not fail a succession of men competent to 
 deal with such subjects, or a succession of disciples to take a 
 living interest in them. But that class of rising men who may 
 be described as popular preachers, who attracted immense 
 audiences, and rose through their gift, will now probably have 
 a much more limited sphere. The biographies of eminent 
 preachers will be fewer and less varied. Any apparent loss 
 that may result would probably be compensated in other ways. 
 It has often been said that there are some persons who 
 have a natural tendency to rise, and others to fall. If you 
 take two men and put them down in precisely similar circum- 
 stances in the streets of London, it has often been said that in 
 a short time one will be in obscurity and distress, and the 
 other will be prosperous and famous. A man will, perhaps 
 say that it is all luck, like the late emperor of the French at 
 Wilhelmshohe, that he has been "betrayed by fortune." But,
 
 22 8 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 without denying that disturbing and confusing element of 
 chance, we must nevertheless reduce it within much smaller 
 limits than is ordinarily supposed, and resolve it into a ques- 
 tion of man's faculties and a proper use of them. You must 
 first supply a man with tools, and then test his capacity to 
 use them. I heard of a young fellow of fortune who was anx- 
 ious to become an engineer. He found, however, that the 
 great engineering establishment which he considered the best, 
 or at least the best for his purposes, refused to receive any 
 apprentices, even with the largest premium. Our would-be 
 engineer was resolved not to be disappointed. He sought for 
 employment in the yard as a common workman, and was en- 
 gaged at a pound a week. He dressed and fared as a com- 
 mon workman, and was always among the first, at five or six 
 in the morning, when the gates were opened. In this way he 
 obtained a very complete notion of the business. 
 
 I read, the other day, an interesting address by a lawyer to 
 his brethren in the law,* which shows the kind of means by 
 which rising men rise : 
 
 " A knowledge of foreign languages is a most useful branch 
 of knowledge for an attorney. When I was young this knowl- 
 edge was little esteemed, and it was only here and there that 
 a parent of unusual foresight sent his son to France or Ger- 
 many for education. In these cases, too, the son was usually 
 destined for manufacturing, commercial, or mercantile pur- 
 suits. Fifty years ago a knowledge of foreign languages was 
 rare in our profession, and Mr. Lavie, a London solicitor, who 
 had been sent to France when young to recover his health, 
 made a large practice and a large fortune principally by his 
 knowledge, of French. This knowledge is not now scarce, 
 and a solicitor of my acquaintance in London speaks both 
 German and French with the same ease and fluency with 
 * The late Mr. Glynn, of Newcastle.
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 229 
 
 which he speaks English. This has brought him practice, 
 and in some actions which he has had to prosecute in the 
 French courts he has actually gone over to France, and by 
 the 'comity of nations,' which has more weight in France 
 than in England, he has been permitted to argue his cases 
 and conduct his evidence, vivd, voce, in the French court. 
 
 " People may call an attorney an attorney, as we call a dog 
 a dog, but there are as many kinds of the one animal as there 
 are of the other. An old solicitor in Newcastle, in a debate at 
 the meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New- 
 castle, declared that if he found a clerk of his reading a novel 
 he would discharge the culprit on the spot. Now can this 
 plan of treatment be considered as judicious ? An attorney 
 who knows nothing but law is at a disadvantage with another 
 who knows the world. Let us, by all means, get as much 
 of history, biography, voyages, and travels as we can : proc- 
 esses of manufacture, ingenious inventions, marvelous works 
 of man say, knowledge of places and things. Don't let us 
 follow the example of Sir Arthur Hazlewood, a young Scots- 
 man of old family, invented by Sir Walter Scott, who went to 
 the bar, but rinding, in an action by a tallow-chandler, that he 
 was expected to defile his mouth with filthy terms of trade, 
 threw up his brief, and left the profession in disgust. Both 
 in patent laws and in many others you will find terms of 
 trade, of manufactures, or of seamanship most useful knowl- 
 edge. But of all useful knowledge, knowledge of men, of hu- 
 man nature knowledge of the world, as it is called is the 
 most useful of all." 
 
 The same writer gives an example of the way in which le- 
 gal gentlemen contrive to rise : 
 
 " The advice given by a very old London attorney to a friend 
 of mine, on leaving the London Agency Office to come to 
 Newcastle, was sound, though strange ' Don't sit too much
 
 230 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 in your office; walk about, and let the people see you.' Ad- 
 vertising is not supposed to be followed by our profession, 
 but here, within certain reasonable limits, is a short and sim- 
 ple way of advertising. A client is not likely to employ an 
 attorney whom he never saw, and the highest praise bestowed 
 by a London attorney upon his partner, in my hearing, was 
 this : ' He never goes round the corner but he brings in a 
 client.' ' There are ten people who can do business, for one 
 who can get business,' was the remark to me of a London at- 
 torney, of fourscore years and five ; and I lay before you the 
 results of experience longer than my own, that you may not 
 make the mistake into which so many young attorneys fall at 
 their start in life, that they are not to move, but let people 
 come to them. In theory yes; but in practice you must 
 meet business half way." 
 
 It has often been said that God helps those who help them- 
 selves. Nothing succeeds like success, and it often happens 
 that those who, by their own exertions, have reached the 
 highest pinnacle of success have received extraordinary favors 
 from Dame Fortune when they have been securely placed be- 
 yond her power. We take an excerpt from the unpublished 
 autobiography of Lord Kingsdown : 
 
 " In 1830 an event happened which has decided the courp" 
 of my subsequent life. Sir Robert Leigh, who had retiree 
 from Parliament in 1820, and had amassed, by prudence ana 
 frugality, a very large property in addition to his patrimonial 
 estate, though he had been always fond of Mr. and Mrs. Cooke, 
 had kept up no intercourse with the rest of the family, and, in- 
 deed, had apparently an aversion to them. The family estates 
 had been settled by his father, in default of issue of his own 
 body, on the issue of his own brother (my grandfather), and 
 would have been divided, therefore (if the limitation had taken 
 effect), among his five daughters, of whom my mother was the
 
 RISING MEN. 231 
 
 eldest. This settlement had greatly annoyed Sir Robert, and 
 indisposed him toward those who had the chance of benefiting 
 by it. In 1828 or 1829 he quarrejed with the rector of Wigan, 
 who claimed tithes of the Hindley Hall estate, which Sir Rob- 
 ert insisted was covered by a farm modus. The rector filed 
 a bill in Chancery, and set down his cause at the Rolls. Sir 
 Robert endeavored to retain Bickersteth, and was very angry 
 when he found that he was retained on the other side. Still 
 greater was Sir Robert's annoyance when he was told I was 
 next in business in court, and that he must engage me. He 
 submitted, however, though I believe with a very bad grace; 
 said I was a mere boy, and, in short, considered his case as 
 sacrificed. When his attorney, Mr. Gaskell, who was a perfect 
 stranger to me, came to consultation, I observed that I be- 
 lieved I had some interest, or might have some interest in the 
 estate; when he informed me that the entail had been found 
 faulty, and that Sir Robert had barred the remainder after the 
 limitations to his own issue and his brother and their issue 
 male. This did not much disturb me. On looking into the 
 evidence I found that there was a fatal blot in our case. In 
 order to maintain a farm modus it was necessary to state pre- 
 cisely what lands were covered by it, and if any were improp- 
 erly included or improperly omitted, the modus was held to 
 be ill laid, and a decree went against the defendant. On 
 looking at an old map of the estate I found that a small piece 
 of land taken in from Pennington Green some fifty years be- 
 fore was included in our answer as part of the ancient farm. 
 The only chance for us was that the blot might not be hit." 
 Lord Kingsdown proceeds to tell how he fared in the suit, 
 and eventually succeeded to his kinsman's immense posses- 
 sions. 
 
 We will, for our next instances, take the fortunes of the 
 founder of the house of Phipps, and the founder of the house
 
 232 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 of Petty, which have culminated, respectively, in the marquis- 
 ates of Normanby and Lansdowne. They are remarkable in- 
 stances of industrial success, combined with a very fair pro- 
 portion of luck. Not altogether dissimilar would be the for- 
 tunes of the house of Strutt, which appropriately culminated 
 in the peerage of Belper. 
 
 The founder of the house of Phipps, " this our Phipps," as 
 his biographer calls him, was born in an obscure part of New 
 England, the son of a gunsmith, who rejoiced in twenty-five 
 other children besides the future great man. From his ear- 
 liest days we are told that he had an unaccountable impulse 
 on his mind hinting to him that he was born for great matters. 
 He was, indeed, always noted for one mark of real greatness 
 a greatness independent of material success namely, that 
 he was of "a most incomparable generosity." Yet at twenty- 
 three he was only a working carpenter, who, having the good 
 luck to marry a well-to-do young widow, was able to set up in 
 business on his own account. He assured his incredulous 
 wife that on some far-distant prosperous day "he should be 
 owner of a fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Bos- 
 ton ; and that, it may be, this would not be all that the prov- 
 idence of God would bring him to." His first speculations, 
 however, despite his presage of good, turned out to be alto- 
 gether of a disastrous character. In the course of his busi- 
 ness of ship-building he heard a rumor that somewhere off the 
 Bahamas there was a wreck that contained a mighty treasure. 
 From ship-building he had turned sailor, and now, with a gen- 
 uine adventurous spirit, he went to England to see if he could 
 find any encouragement at Whitehall for his scheme of recov- 
 ering the wreck. After much waiting, he was at last furnish- 
 ed with a vessel, and sailed forth upon his adventurous quest. 
 But precious things do not reveal themselves all at once to 
 the seekers. His sailors rose in mutiny against him, and when
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 233 
 
 he had replaced them by a new set, these proved so unsafe 
 that he thought it best to return to England; yet before he 
 did so, being off Hispaniola, he contrived, " by the policy of 
 his address," to worm out of a very old man some further in- 
 formation about the lost treasure-ship. When he returned to 
 the Court of England, of course the old story of incredulity, 
 delay, and disappointment was once more repeated. The 
 Duke of Albemarle, however, with one or two others, charmed 
 with his conversation and address, were willing to run a risk ; 
 and so he was enabled to "set sail for the fishing-ground 
 which had been so well baited half a hundred years before." 
 He had with him a tender, and when he got to Port de la 
 Plata, with infinite pains he fashioned out of a cotton-tree a 
 canoe, or "periaga," which would carry eight or ten oars. 
 His device was that the "periaga" should explore the dan- 
 gerous shoals which would rise within two or three feet of the 
 surface of the water, and yet were so steep that a vessel strik- 
 ing against them would sink down countless fathoms deep 
 into the ocean. These shoals were known by the emphatic 
 title of the Boilers. 
 
 " One day the men were out in the 'periaga,' peering about, 
 as they had done on many a fruitless day before. One of 
 them, gazing down into the depths of the clear water, saw the 
 marine plant called the sea-feather wafting out of a rock, and 
 desired one of the Indian divers to pluck it up, that they might 
 not return altogether empty-handed. The diver brought up 
 the feather, and he also brought them back a marvelous story. 
 He said that close by the rock where he found the sea-feather 
 there were numbers of great guns lying about. The men were 
 utterly astonished, and told the Indian to dive again. This 
 time he brought up a large lump of silver, worth some hundred 
 pounds. They now fixed a buoy to mark the spot, and rowed 
 back to the ship. They kept their discovery secret for a
 
 234 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 time, putting aside " the sow of silver" in the cabin until the 
 captain should notice it. " At last he saw it. Seeing it, he 
 cried out with some agony, ' Why, what is this ? Whence comes 
 this ?' And then, with changed countenances, they told him 
 how and where they got it. ' Then,' said he, ' thanks be to 
 God, we are made !' " 
 
 He might, indeed, well say so. That " fair brick house in 
 the Green Lane " was assured to him. They took up thirty- 
 two tons of silver. Over the silver had grown a crust like 
 lime-stone, several inches, which they had to break through 
 with instruments, " when whole bushels of rusty pieces of 
 eight would come tumbling out." Moreover, they found great 
 quantities of gold, pearls, and precious stones. The value of 
 the whole was close on three-hundred thousand pounds. And 
 now dreadful apprehensions seized upon the mind of " this 
 our Phipps," at last so lucky. He was afraid lest the sailors 
 should rise in mutiny and take the treasure for themselves. 
 He made all sorts of vows, " if the Lord would carry him safe 
 home to England with what he had now given him to suck of 
 the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the 
 sands." He came home safely, and the Duke of Albemarle, 
 to whom the lion's share of the spoil fell, certainly had his 
 " fling of luck." Phipps's share was sixteen thousand pounds ; 
 and the duke, with much gallantry, presented him with a gold 
 cup for his wife, worth a thousand pounds. The king con- 
 ferred on him the honor of knighthood. So great was now 
 his reputation for courage and ability that James II. would 
 willingly have retained him in England; but his heart was 
 set upon that " fair green house," and, with the title of High 
 Sheriff of New England, he returned home to set about con- 
 structing it. On his way home he again revisited the scene 
 of the wreck, and made some very handsome pickings there. 
 
 The career of Sir William Phipps henceforth becomes his-
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 235 
 
 torical. On his return home he caused himself to be christ- 
 ened, being then thirty-nine. " I have divers times," he said, 
 " been in danger of my life, and I have been brought to see 
 that I owe my life to Him that has given a life so often to me." 
 It is to be regretted that much of his religion henceforth con- 
 sisted in burning harmless old ladies whom, as high sheriff, 
 he considered to be guilty of witchcraft. His ruling idea 
 henceforth was the conquest of Canada ; and though the arm- 
 ament which he conducted against the French was unsuc- 
 cessful, yet he paved the way for its eventual subjugation. 
 His intense devotion to his wife, who bore him no children, is 
 a touchingly beautiful feature in his character. He died at 
 the comparatively early age of forty-five. Before his death 
 we find him brought into connection with one Constantine 
 Phipps. This gentleman was, most probably, his nephew, 
 through one of his one-and-twenty brothers. To him also he 
 probably bequeathed the bulk of his fortune. This Constan- 
 tine Phipps was a distinguished lawyer, and became lord 
 chancellor of Ireland; he is noted for his having returned to 
 his practice at the bar after he lost the seals. His son mar- 
 ried the heiress of the third Earl of Anglesea ; and the son 
 of this son was raised to the peerage of Ireland under the 
 title of Mulgrave. Afterward the title became Viscount Nor- 
 manby and Earl of Mulgrave; and its last possessor, who, 
 with all his imputed failings, was a most able and accomplish- 
 ed man, became Marquis of Normanby. But the honest, hard- 
 faring man the lucky finder of the treasures in the Spanish 
 seas is justly regarded as the founder of the house of Phipps, 
 of courtier fame. 
 
 The founder of the house of Petty has told us much of his 
 history in that curious autobiographic document, his will. 
 His father was a clothier, and " also did die his own clothes." 
 As a boy, the illustrious Petty had a passion for knowledge, 

 
 236 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 and for making and accumulating money. He talks of - l get- 
 ting up mathematics" and " getting up money" as being very 
 much the same kind of thing. Even as a lad, when he went 
 to Normandy in a vessel, he played the merchant, and made a 
 matter of sixty pounds. He then spent several years on the 
 Continent, and, it seems, exhausted his funds. He told 
 Aubrey that in Paris he lived for a week or two on two or 
 three pennyworth of walnuts. Later he went to Oxford, and 
 was also admitted a member of the College of Physicians. 
 He tells us, also, that he was admitted a member of " several 
 Clubs of the Virtuous." The expression is curious enough as 
 a description of a club, but what Petty meant was the Virtuosi. 
 As a physician he performed his famous cure of Ann Green. 
 This woman had been hung, and after execution had been 
 suspended for half an hour, and finally her friends had rolled 
 her about and stamped on her before she should come to the 
 knife of the dissector. Petty succeeded in resuscitating her, 
 and she lived for many years. But his famous pecuniary 
 achievements were made in the settlement of Ireland, after 
 the suppression of the Rebellion, in 1641. Petty was then 
 physician to the army. He perceived that this was a great 
 opportunity of making a fortune. He procured a contract for 
 the " admeasurement" of forfeited lands. He made thirteen 
 thousand pounds by the contract, and then purchased from 
 the soldiers, at low rates, those forfeited lands of which they 
 had debentures. He must have made very lucky bargains, 
 for Aubrey says that these lands were worth eighteen thou- 
 sand a year to him. These enormous gains occasioned much 
 envy and ill-feeling. One of Oliver Cromwell's knights chal- 
 lenged him ; but Petty said that he was a near-sighted man, 
 and, if they fought, they must fight with carpenters' adzes, in 
 a dark cellar. The Restoration saved him. Although he had 
 been a warm Cromwellite, he dexterously contrived that he
 
 RISING MEN. 237 
 
 should be regarded as a devoted adherent of the new Govern- 
 ment. He was made surveyor-general of Ireland, and all his 
 territorial possessions were secured to him by the Act of Set- 
 tlement. The survey which he made of Ireland was a great 
 national service. From Mount Mongarto, in Kerry, his eye 
 could sweep over fifty thousand acres, all his own. Not con- 
 tent with this, he busied himself about mines, fisheries, iron- 
 works, and the timber trade. Petty was clever in all kinds of 
 ways, and had a remarkable inventive faculty; he had the 
 manners of a courtier and the versatility of an actor; but he 
 made money with a kind of intuition of genius. Pepys has a 
 mention of him : " ist February, 1684. Thence to Whitehall ; 
 where, in the duke's chamber, the king came and stayed an 
 hour or two, laughing at Sir W. Petty, who was then about his 
 boat, and at Gresham College in general ; at which poor 
 Petty was, I perceived, at some loss ; but did argue discreetly, 
 and bear the unreasonable follies of the king's objections, and 
 other bystanders, with great discretion ; and offered to take 
 odds against the king's best boat ; but the king would not 
 lay, but cried him down with words only." Petty married a 
 lady whom Aubrey describes as " very beautiful, brown, with 
 glorious eyes." He died in Piccadilly. His widow was made 
 Baroness of Shelburne in her own right ; her youngest son 
 became Earl of Shelburne. Besides his property in England, 
 he owned a hundred and thirty-five square miles of land in 
 Ireland. All his children died before him, so he left his vast 
 estates to his nephew, the Hon. John Fitzmaurice, who assumed 
 the name of Petty, and was made a British peer, under the title 
 of Baron Wycombe. A grandson of this nobleman was the 
 late celebrated marquis, whose social gatherings at Bowood 
 and Berkeley Square were so remarkable, and who is under- 
 stood to have refused the dukedom of Kerry. 
 
 The real founder of the Belper peerage was Jedediah Strutt.
 
 238 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 His father was a country yeoman, and the Derbyshire legend 
 goes that Jedediah, as a mere child, used to construct minia- 
 ture waterfalls on the little stream that glided through his fa- 
 ther's fields. He, too, was lucky in his marriage, although the 
 luck is not at first sight very obvious. His wife's family all 
 belonged to the hosiery trade, and the young man's thoughts 
 were thus directed into a channel in which he was enabled to 
 do justice to his remarkable inventive faculty. He constructed 
 a curious and complicated machine, the parent of the lace- 
 frame, for the manufacture of ribbed stockings, and removed 
 to Derby, where he worked his invention under a patent. 
 Here another stroke of luck happened to him. A certain in- 
 dividual of the name of Arkwright, who had the notion that 
 he had devised a cotton-spinning invention, applied to Mr. 
 Strutt and his partner for capital to carry it into effect. The 
 great scientific sagacity of Jedediah Strutt at once detected 
 the extraordinary importance of the invention. A partnership 
 was speedily arranged ; and in that most pleasant village of 
 Cromford, close by the lovely scenery of the Matlock, the first 
 cotton-spinning mill was erected. Soon afterward Mr. Strutt's 
 own invention was applied to the weaving of calicoes. Thus 
 that great manufacture was cradled in Derbyshire which be- 
 came so fruitful a source of modern industrial prosperity. He 
 had four splendid mills at Belper, where he fixed his residence, 
 the Cromford property, where they have a magnificent seat, 
 eventually accruing to the Arkwrights. For three generations 
 the family of the Strutts, widely ramifying throughout the 
 country, were the chief manufacturing powers and great social 
 influence in Derbyshire. They have also been largely noted 
 for their munificence and public spirit. Their splendid liber- 
 ality in the promotion of useful public objects, and especially 
 in attending to the comfort and well-being of their work-peo- 
 ple, is one of the most useful and brilliant examples of the
 
 RISING MEM 239 
 
 sympathy that ought to exist between the gentry and the 
 ouvriere class. The great industrial success of the Strutts has 
 always been joined with a thorough love of literature and the 
 arts. We find Thomas Moore, the poet, when residing in Der- 
 byshire, thus mentioning the Strutts in the year 1813 : "There 
 are three brothers of them, and they are supposed to have a 
 million of money pretty equally divided between them. They 
 have fine families of daughters, and are fond of literature, 
 music, and all those elegances which their riches enable them 
 so amply to indulge themselves with. ... I like the Strutts 
 exceedingly ; and it is not the least part of my gratification to 
 find a very pretty girl of sixteen reading the sixth book of 
 Virgil, and not at all spoilt by it. This is Joseph Strutt's eldest 
 girl a classic, and a poetess into the bargain. Indeed, they 
 have quite a nest of young poets in that family. I do not 
 think I wrote half so well when I was their age. Then they 
 have fine piano-fortes, magnificent organs, splendid houses, 
 most excellent white soup ; so that I passed my time very 
 agreeably among them, and Bessy came away loaded with 
 presents." 
 
 There are, however, better instances of rising men than 
 those who have acquired riches and honor for themselves. It 
 is perhaps, after all, not a very truthful or elevating view of 
 human life to represent that a man by energy and ability may 
 rise beyond his fellows and win some of the great prizes of 
 life. If there are prosperous elements that lead one way, 
 there are adverse circumstances that impel in the other direc- 
 tion. Many of those who strive to rise meet with utter failure 
 in case their ambition is frustrated, but those who desire most 
 of all simply to do their duty to God and man can never meet 
 with absolute failure, but will, after all, gain substantial suc- 
 cess. There is a very sensible man who says, writing from 
 his own experience : " The very act of struggling is in itself a
 
 240 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. . 
 
 species of enjoyment ; and every hope that crosses the mind, 
 every high resolve, every generous sentiment, every lofty aspi- 
 ration nay, every brave despair is a gleam of happiness that 
 flings its illumination upon the darkest destiny. All these are 
 as essentially a portion of human life as the palpable events 
 that serve as landmarks to the history ; and all these would 
 have to be computed before we could fairly judge of the pre- 
 vailing character of the career." Nothing is more interesting 
 than looking at the history of insignificant minorities of men 
 who, few in number but strong in conviction, have ultimately 
 carried the suffrages of the better part of the community, and 
 have proved benefactors to the world. Such men are in the 
 best sense rising men, and their prosperous cause is not a 
 selfish one. A magnificent example of such a group is to be 
 found in what Sir James Stephen called the Clapham set, and 
 of which Mr. Colquhoun has written in the " Contemporaries 
 of Wilberforce." The story of Wilberforce himself is one that 
 might be fitly rehearsed by some new writer to each genera- 
 tion of Englishmen. 
 
 And what a remarkable set of men they were, who thorough- 
 ly leavened the Church of England, and greatly changed the 
 face of society and our English world ! Nothing is more won- 
 derful than the freshness, strength, and originality which dis- 
 tinguished this great party of the so-called Evangelicals. They 
 present lives of intense interest, and even love-stories and 
 gleams of romance. First of all, we have the elder Milner, 
 who, from the drudgery of the loom, pushed on to be senior 
 wrangler and head of Queen's College, and who brought into 
 the traveling carriage which Wilberforce shared with him that 
 copy of Doddridge's " Rise and Progress" which, under God, 
 so materially changed the lives of both. Then we have New- 
 ton, to whom Wilberforce resorted for aid and advice in his 
 renewed life. Among all my friends, I now know only one
 
 KISfNG MEN. 
 
 241 
 
 who attended the breakfasts Newton used to give where he 
 was listened to as an almost inspired oracle, and if he only 
 coughed, an anxious inquiry ran round the circle as to wheth- 
 er the cough had covered some precious utterance and who 
 would watch him in the pulpit of St. Mary Woolnooth, as he 
 would ask his man-servant where he had left off, and would 
 be told that it was something about the Lord Jesus Christ 
 Then we have that extraordinary young man, John Bowdler, 
 who, in some respects, reminds me of Henry Kirke White, 
 and in some respects even of Pascal. He broke down his 
 health by extraordinary intellectual toil, evidencing both a 
 strength and versatility of mind that were most remarkable. 
 He formed a deep attachment to a young lady, which, on ac- 
 count of his unsettled prospects, was long discouraged by his 
 friends, and at last, upon the eve of marriage, he was found in 
 his chamber with a blood-vessel burst in his lungs. The puri- 
 ty and elevation of his character had won him the deep love 
 of the pure and high-minded men with whom he associated. 
 "O sit anim amea cum Bowdlero!" was the heart-felt exclama- 
 tion of Wilberforce. A set of men were associated with Wil- 
 berforce whom Mr. Colquhoun calls the Cabinet Council. 
 Among these was Stephen, the master in chancery, who mar- 
 ried Wilberforce's sister, father of the historian, working thor- 
 oughly in dry, uncongenial duties, yet full of energy and impet- 
 uosity in stirring up Wilberforce and his friends to good works, 
 and delighting to get away from Chancery Lane to the woods 
 and lawns of the country. It is pleasant to find a shrewd 
 Londoner, like Stephen, writing: "The country is that where 
 I learn what is good for myself. I love the country ; I love 
 its natural, innocent joys ; I love its natural, instructive sor- 
 rows. . . . Oh, what a delicious oratory is a beech-wood on 
 a calm, hot day ! Not a leaf stirring ; not a sound ; a sacred 
 kind of shady light, with here and there a straggling sunbeam, 
 
 L
 
 242 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 like a gleam of providential direction for the dark concerns 
 of life." But the chief rural figure among these men was that 
 of Thomas Gisborne, the clergyman. He used to live in the 
 most retired and woody part of Needham Forest, amid oaks, 
 flowering gorse, and chestnut -trees, keeping open house for 
 his tired friends when they wanted to exchange London for 
 country scenes and country air. He would tell them about 
 every bird, flower, and insect which he saw, and take them 
 into the cottages of the forest ; or, in winter, he would come 
 up to Palace Yard, Battersea Rise, or Kensington Gore, 
 where he would be dazed by the throng of faces, the tumult 
 of voices, but would give his safe and sound advice, and be 
 glad once more to betake himself to his glades. 
 
 The two Thorntons, John and Henry, are very interesting 
 men. The elder was the one who allowed Newton a consid- 
 erable annual sum for charitable uses while he was at Olney, 
 and whose great relaxation it was to carry pious Churchmen 
 and Non-conformists about in his carriage, taking care that 
 they had plenty of pipes and tobacco if they wanted such. 
 Churchmen and Non-conformists drew closer together in those 
 days, when the fashionable hatred was directed against the 
 so-called Methodism of the Evangelicals. Colquhoun justly 
 says : " When the waters are out, inequalities vanish ; when 
 the waters subside, hillocks reappear, and disputants plant 
 their feet on these, and count them great heights." Henry 
 Thornton, the son, with his father's wide beneficence, had 
 one of the finest and best-balanced minds of the set. For 
 thirty years he was member for Southwark, and never spent a 
 guinea in a bribe. His seat was often in peril the forest of 
 black hands was frequently against him on nomination day ; 
 but, when defeat seemed imminent, all good men to whom his 
 Christian example was dear, all sensible men who rejoiced in 
 the character for independence and good sense maintained
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 243 
 
 by the member for Southwark, rallied round him. When his 
 children rejoiced at seeing the long triumphal procession, he 
 said, " I had rather have a shake of the hand from good old 
 John Newton than the cheers of all that foolish mob, who 
 praise me, they don't know why." He gave it as his deliber- 
 ate opinion that wealth was " extremely mean, except for the 
 sake of the beneficent uses to which it is convertible." It was 
 the example of Wilberforce that had won over Henry Thornton 
 to better things ; he had observed that Wilberforce, in his 
 crowded, active life, always kept a morning hour inviolate, and 
 his Sundays holy. Most interesting is the account of Thorn- 
 ton's associates, who used to meet at Clapham, in the Oval 
 Library which Pitt planned, looking out on the lawn, in what 
 was then only a village, but which the long arms of London 
 have now reached and clasped to herself Among the young 
 men were the promising young lawyer, Copley, young Stephen, 
 and the boy from Mr. Preston's academy, Thomas Babington 
 Macaulay, the son of the stern Scotchman who almost founded 
 Sierra Leone, and the relative and namesake of the Leicester- 
 shire squire, Thomas Babington, the descendant of Crusaders, 
 and a warrior in the mighty modern crusade against slavery 
 and all other evils. Then, again, there were such noblemen 
 as Lords Bexley, Sidmouth, and Teignmouth. Then, again, 
 there was the delicate, pensive form of Mrs. Grant, of whom 
 poor Bowdler said that " she was so soft, so gentle, so un- 
 wearied, surely she was sent into the world to comfort the 
 sick and sorrowful;" and, hardly less remarkable, Mrs. Henry 
 Thornton herself. Of Mrs. Grant, Mr. Colquhoun says, " Mar- 
 ried in India, having passed in that tropical climate many of 
 her most impressible years, a character naturally gentle seemed 
 to have been mellowed into special tenderness under those 
 Eastern suns ; so that when she left India and passed into 
 our colder and sterner society, she brought into her manners,
 
 244 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 looks, and sentiments something of that sensitive delicacy 
 which belongs to plants nursed into luxuriant growth under 
 the heat of Southern suns. The voice soft and low, the man- 
 ner quiet and retiring, the dress itself, the veil thrown over 
 the head, and falling down in folds over the figure, was all in 
 keeping with that veiled modesty and gentle purity." 
 
 When the Thorntons died the wife so soon after the hus- 
 band Robert Harry Inglis and his young wife, being child- 
 less, with rare disinterestedness and courage, took charge of 
 their young family of nine children. How well this duty was 
 discharged is evidenced, among other facts, by this, that when 
 the " elder son, arriving at man's estate, was qualified, both by 
 ability and fortune, to take up an independent position in the 
 house which his father owned, he, voluntarily declining that 
 post, preferred for twelve years to live, with filial duty, as a son 
 in the house where he might have ruled as a master." Sir 
 Robert, by a kind of magic, gathered around him every man 
 who had made himself conspicuous in active life or in intel- 
 lectual pursuits. Even Macaulay, who differed from him./0/<? 
 ccelo, heard him with reverence, and gave him the homage of 
 a son. For many years he was one of the most familiar fig- 
 ures of the House of Commons, coming down night after 
 night, with the unfailing rose in his button-hole a rose, how- 
 ever, never gathered by himself in the country, for he was one 
 of the most inveterate of Londoners, but constantly sent him 
 by those who knew and loved the man. He traveled abroad 
 regularly, enchanting the foreigners by his simple, grand man- 
 ners, and supposed at times to be an English duke. He was 
 the personification of happiness and courtesy. He was thor- 
 oughly well educated, with that peculiar and most valuable 
 education which results from intimacy with distinguished men. 
 To talk with Guizot, Hallam, Palgrave, Macaulay, Southey, 
 Croker, Lockhart, about history and literature ; to Whewell,
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 245 
 
 Owen, Sabine, Murchison, about science; to Stamford Raffles, 
 Basil Hall, Sir John Franklin, Dr. Wolff, about travels ; to 
 Chantrey, Lawrence, Wilkie, about art : this was surely an 
 education better than Christ Church gave him, and he proved 
 himself highly educated, so as to hold his own with such men, 
 and to prove one of the most serviceable of the trustees of the 
 British Museum. 
 
 This cluster of names forms a very hagiology for the pres- 
 ent generation of the Low Church clergy. Their sayings 
 and doings are a veritable acta sanctorum. Men have caught 
 their fleeting examples and crystallized them into abiding 
 shapes. Their lines of speech and action have been reduced 
 to formulas, and even to shibboleths, and have been made 
 binding on their successors. Now this stiffness and strict- 
 ness are quite contradictory to the frank, free, joyous spirit of 
 these great men. Moreover, the accidental features have 
 been confounded with the essential. Platform oratory is con- 
 sidered the great exponent of Exeter Hall views ; but Wilber- 
 force himself regarded this with distrust, and looked upon it 
 as a shadow and drawback and necessary evil. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is right to imitate a good thing, although, of 
 course, an imitation must always come behind the original. 
 What one would desire to point out is the peculiar influence 
 which such men as Wilberforce, Thornton, and Inglis acquired 
 in the House. At first they were disliked, avoided, scoffed at ; 
 belonging to neither party, they were sure to reprove and un- 
 certain to support. Nevertheless, these men attained to be a 
 power in the country. Thus important decisions hung on 
 their voice and influence. The minister of the day would ad- 
 dress to them appeals not to make up their minds until they 
 had heard the government side of the question. Men knew 
 that in one quarter of the House, at least, there was an unpur- 
 chasable integrity. We want men at the present time who
 
 246 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 will forget the dreams of selfish ambition and inglorious ease, 
 who will be true to the voice of duty, and who will have that 
 heart-felt patriotism, that heart-felt religion which, when united, 
 will do our land the good she so sorely needs, and alone con- 
 fer a pure and lasting fame. 
 
 On every side we see slow waiting, and the necessity of pa- 
 tience. Johnson wrote : " Slow rises worth by poverty de- 
 pressed," and he himself was the best illustration of his apo- 
 thegm. There seems to have been no conscious point in his 
 career at which the drudge of the booksellers became the dic- 
 tator of the literary world. It was learning, hard work, and 
 good sense, well-nigh sublimated to genius, which made him 
 victorious, and if there was any definite moment of victory 
 as perhaps there was it has not been recorded for us. The 
 same story is told over and over again in the annals of litera- 
 ture, science, and art. We have all heard of the provocations 
 of Palissy, the potter. Such a life as that of Stephenson, the 
 engineer, shows us the gradual triumph of genius. He was 
 over forty before he secured a position which afforded him the 
 modest competence of a hundred pounds a year. He inau- 
 gurated and carried out the whole railway system, in spite of 
 the organized opposition of the whole stupidity of the country. 
 The readers of Mr. Smiles's " Lives of the Engineers" will re- 
 member other instances of the class to which Stephenson be- 
 longed. Such is the renowned Telford, the son of the small 
 East Lothian farmer, who became the architect of three great 
 London bridges, of the Plymouth Breakwater, and the London 
 and East India Docks. Such, again, was Rennie, the roman- 
 tic dreamer of Eskdale, a poet and a friend of poets, whose 
 moral beauty of life is as remarkable as the list of the great 
 bridges and canals by which he developed the resources of 
 the country. Such, again, to take another French instance, 
 was D'Alembert. Being exposed and abandoned by his moth-
 
 RISIA r G MEN. 
 
 er, the lady novelist De Tencer, in a public market, he was 
 placed by the authorities as a foundling at a glazier's shop. 
 He showed an extraordinary love and aptitude for learning, 
 but he was baffled and discouraged at every step. They ridi- 
 culed his pursuits at home ; at school they dissuaded him from 
 mathematics, in which department his powers were of the 
 highest order; and, what was almost worst of all, whenever he 
 persuaded himself that he had done something original, he in- 
 variably found that others had found out the same thing be- 
 fore him. Such ability could not possibly be repressed. At 
 twenty-four he was a member of the Academy, and henceforth 
 his career was plain. Then his brilliant but unnatural mother 
 is said to have claimed her son. D' Alembert replied, " You 
 are only my step-mother : the glazier's wife is my mother." 
 
 We have spoken of brilliant successes in these high intel- 
 lectual walks of life, and have seen that they do not so much 
 depend upon great gifts, or the opportunity of their exhibition, 
 as on a fixed purpose and a rule of life. There is a real dan- 
 ger, perhaps, in allowing the mind to dwell upon pictures of 
 human success. Those who are striving form a far too glow- 
 ing conception of the prosperity of those who have attained. 
 If we look at the lives of the most successful men, gain is 
 chequered by disaster and loss, and, according to the common 
 image, the fruit clutched so eagerly becomes as Dead Sea 
 ashes to the taste. An eloquent writer once wrote a religious 
 work on " the Mirage of Life." Those who dream of worldly 
 success, those who attain to such success, often find that the 
 real object of their search has eluded their grasp ; and their 
 very successes only serve to point a moral and adorn a tale 
 to point a moral on the vanity of human wishes, and to tell 
 the tale of glory saddened by sorrows and reverses. 
 
 " How do these events," wrote at the time Mr. Wilberforce, 
 the friend of Pitt " How do these events tend to illustrate the
 
 248 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 vanity of worldly greatness ! Poor Pitt, I almost believe, died 
 of a broken heart. A broken heart ! What ! was he like Ot- 
 way or Collins or Chatterton, who had not so much as a need- 
 ful complement of food to sustain their bodies, while the con- 
 sciousness of unrewarded talents and mortified pride pressed 
 them within, and ate out their very souls ? Was he even like 
 Suwaroff, another most useful example, basely deserted and 
 driven into exile by the sovereign he had so long served? 
 No; he was the highest in power and estimation in the whole 
 kingdom the favorite, I believe, on the whole, both of king 
 and people. Yes ; this man who died of a broken heart was 
 first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer." 
 
 Or look at the language of Sir Walter Scott in reference to 
 his leaving Abbotsford : " When I think," he writes at a time 
 when leaving Abbotsford, apparently for ever " When I think 
 what this place now is, with what it has been, not long ago, I 
 think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all my 
 family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed man." At an- 
 other time he writes : " Death has closed the dark avenue of 
 love and friendship. I look at them through the grated door 
 of a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who once 
 were dear to me, and with no other wish than that it may open 
 for me at no distant period." Not long after he writes in this 
 strain : " Some new object of complaint comes every moment. 
 Sicknesses come thicker and thicker; friends are fewer and 
 fewer. The recollection of youth, health, and powers of activ- 
 ity, neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. 
 The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all." 
 Such was the confession of one who had drunk so largely of 
 the world's cup of enjoyment. Oh, how emphatically does it 
 warn those whose hearts are still set upon similar vanities ! 
 
 Or compare the language of the poet Campbell : "I am 
 alone in the world. My wife and the child of my hopes are
 
 RISING MEN. 249 
 
 dead. My only surviving child is confined to a living tomb" 
 (he was the inmate of a lunatic asylum). " My old friends, 
 brothers and sisters, are dead all but one, and she too is dy- 
 ing. My last hopes are blighted. As for fame, it is a bubble 
 that must soon burst. Earned for others, shared for others, 
 it was sweet ; but, at my age, to my own solitary experience it 
 is bitter. Left in my chamber alone with myself, is it wonder- 
 ful my philosophy at times takes fright that I rush into com- 
 pany, resort to that which blunts, but heals no pang ; and 
 then, sick of the world, and dissatisfied with myself, shrink 
 back into solitude ?" 
 
 Perhaps few literary contrasts are sharper than that pre- 
 sented by the first great success of Alexander Dumas, at the 
 Palais Royal, albeit that success was of a questionable kind. 
 The Due d'Orleans (Louis Philippe) was there, accompanied 
 by twenty or thirty princes and princesses. Completely un- 
 known before the representation of his " Henri Trois," he was 
 next day the most famous man in Paris. As soon as his suc- 
 cess was assured, and he had received the congratulations of his 
 friends, he hurried off to see his sick mother. "How many envy 
 me this evening," he writes, " who little thought that I passed 
 the night on a mattress by the bedside of my dying mother !" 
 
 Of Voltaire, it is none other than the friendly Marmontel 
 who says : " To him the greatest of blessings repose was 
 unknown. It is true that at last envy appeared tired of the 
 pursuit, and began to spare him on the brink of the grave. 
 On his return to Paris, after a long exile, he enjoyed his re- 
 nown, and felt the enthusiasm of a whole people grateful for 
 the pleasures he had afforded them. The weak and last effort 
 he made to amuse them, 'Irene,' was applauded, as 'Zaire' 
 had been ; and this representation, at which he was crowned, 
 was for him the most delightful triumph. But at what moment 
 did this tardy consolation, the recompense of so much work- 
 
 L2
 
 250 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ing, reach him ? The next day I saw him in his bed. ' Well,' 
 said I, ' are you at last satiated with glory ?' ' Ah, my good 
 friend,' he replied, ' you talk to me of glory, and I am dying 
 in frightful torture.' " 
 
 As an example of a literary family, eminent for sorrow as 
 well as intellectual greatness, look at the memorials of the won- 
 derful Hallam. Not so much to be pitied were those that died 
 young as was the father who witnessed the premature depart- 
 ure of so much goodness and promise. Look first at the in- 
 scription on his tablet at St. Paul's, which was probably written 
 by Macaulay. " Henry Hallam, the historian of the Middle 
 Ages, of the Constitution of his country, and of the literature 
 of Europe. This monument is raised by many friends, who, 
 regarding the soundness of his learning, the simple elegance 
 of his style, his manly and capacious intellect, the fearless 
 honesty of his judgment, and the moral dignity of his life, de- 
 sire to perpetuate his memory within these sacred walls, as of 
 one who has best illustrated the English language, the English 
 character, and the English name." 
 
 This is the inscription to the memory of Arthur Henry, aet. 
 23, the subject of Tennyson's "In Memoriam." His epitaph 
 at Clevedon is as follows : " And now, in this obscure and soli- 
 tary church, repose the mortal remains of one too early lost 
 for public fame, but already distinguished among his contem- 
 poraries for the brightness of his genius, the depth of his un- 
 derstanding, the nobleness of his disposition, the fervor of his 
 piety, and the purity of his life. Vale dulcissime, desideratis*- 
 sime. Requiescat in pace usque ad tubam." 
 
 Here are the epitaphs on two other children : " Eleanor 
 Hallam, d. aet. 21. Her afflicted parents, bending under this 
 second bereavement, record here that loveliness of temper and 
 that heavenly minded piety which are lost to them, but are 
 gone to their own reward."
 
 RISING MEN. 
 
 251 
 
 " Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, d. set. 26. In whose clear and 
 vivid understanding, sweetness of disposition, and purity of 
 life, an image of his elder brother was before the eyes of those 
 who had most loved him. Distinguished, like him, by early 
 reputation, and by the affection of many friends, he was, like 
 him, also cut off by a short illness in a foreign land." 
 
 We need not add any thing to these touching epitaphs. 
 They tell, indeed, the touching story of the vanity and glory 
 of genius and success, but they tell us also of that blessed 
 hope that alone solves the enigma of life, and brings consola- 
 tion to all its sorrows and disappointments.
 
 252 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Statesmen. 
 
 A LARGE subject in connection with history and life opens 
 up in reference to statesmen and statesmanship. Their lives 
 are fraught with larger influence and meaning than the lives 
 of other men ; they connect the broad events and tendencies 
 of history with the details of individual life. Many of the 
 most stirring pages of history, and all its milder and more 
 graceful passages, belong to the lives of the great men who 
 have lived and made history. There is a curious theory that 
 distinguished statesmen are but the " outcome" of their time, 
 and the real history of a country must be sought in the masses 
 of the people. There may be some measure of truth in this 
 assertion which has been overlooked by some regular histori- 
 ans, but the world is pretty well agreed that the great men 
 who have stamped their mark upon an era have shaped the 
 destinies of their country, and have invisibly influenced the 
 course of subsequent ages. 
 
 Dr. Johnson intercalated a well-known passage in Gold- 
 smith's "Traveller," commencing with the lines, 
 " How small of all that human hearts endure, 
 
 That part which kings or laws can cause or cure !" 
 There is in these lines that general amount of truth and error 
 which is ordinarily found in such universal propositions. 
 
 In the Georgian era it can hardly be said of any English 
 statesmen that he caused or cured many human ills, except in 
 some very remote way. There are, however, times in the his-
 
 STA TESMEN. 
 
 253 
 
 tory of all nations when good or bad legislation has been 
 fraught with far-reaching consequences. Some moments in 
 the lives of statesmen have really been the deepest moments? 
 of national history. The hour when a line of thought and 1 
 observation has conducted a statesman's mind to some course 
 of practical action beyond battle or treaty is a landmark in a 
 people's history. No events loom larger in Athenian story 
 than the Constitution of Solon or the Constitution of Cleis- 
 thenes. To use Dr. Arnold's phrase, we draw no distinction 
 between ancient and modern history, except that ancient his- 
 tory is, in a sense, much more truly modern than much which 
 we call modern history. That is indeed a happy destiny " To 
 scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, and read his history in a 
 nation's eyes." At the same time there is an infinite amount 
 of truth in Johnson's lines. Nothing is more important than 
 that people should understand what statesmen are and what 
 they are not able to do. Individual life is the ultimate fact in 
 all politics. The great men of any era are unable to confer 
 upon a man the master}' over his passions and the harmonious 
 development of his complex nature. They can only put him 
 under general conditions favorable for his progress. They 
 can not enlighten his conscience, soothe his grief, or take 
 away his poverty. They can provide him with a sphere for 
 the exercise of his powers, but they can only do this in pro- 
 portion as "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control" can 
 make him fit for political life. The great defect of all revolu- 
 tions has been that people have sought from governments 
 what governments can not give, but what they might have 
 found in themselves. The lives of statesmen may demonstrate 
 conclusively the comparative narrowness of the limits in which 
 they must work. They show, also, the comparative unimport- 
 ance of the forms of institutions, but the supreme importance 
 of the brightness, spirit, and purity that should animate them.
 
 254 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 The statesmen who really shine brightest in history are those 
 who have developed both the resources and the spirit of a 
 nation, who have attended to material interests, but have not 
 allowed material interests to dwarf the patriotism and intelli- 
 gence of the people. The lives of statesmen have always been 
 a source of the deepest interest, through the knowledge that 
 their lives have influenced so many lives, that they, through 
 their action on their country, are brought not remotely into 
 direct connection with ourselves. We follow them, animated 
 and interested, through the successive steps by which they at- 
 tained to power, and peruse the great speeches by which they 
 astonished and delighted senates. It would, by the way, be 
 an amusing subject to write an essay on the perorations of 
 speeches. Amid these enunciations of the largest aspirations 
 of statesmen, you might find almost every example of gorgeous 
 rhetoric and ill-starred vaticination. What minister ever yet 
 brought in a bill relating to Ireland, repealing, amending, or 
 promulgating laws, without drawing a vision of an Utopian age 
 which was to follow the passing of his proposed legislation ? 
 The Irish peroration is the most striking specimen of its class. 
 There is something almost exciting as we turn to the gladia- 
 torial encounters of the arena of the senate. Of all kinds of 
 glory, military glory is the promptest and the most fraught 
 with results, but next to that come the cheers of a great ora- 
 tion and a triumphant division. Yet it must be owned that 
 when we come to look into the lives of statesmen there is gen- 
 erally very much of disappointment. " See, my son," said Oxes- 
 tierna, "by how little wisdom we are governed." Sometimes 
 we see instances of astonishing littleness in great people. 
 Thus the Duke of Wellington was violently opposed to Russia 
 because he had violent quarrels with the Lievens, and thought 
 himself not civilly treated at St. Petersburg. Similarly M. 
 Guizot is accredited with an unfriendly feeling toward En-
 
 STA TESMEN. 
 
 255 
 
 gland, because in England there had been a lack of personal 
 attention to him.* Very often, also, there is a certain narrow- 
 ness in the views and feelings of statesmen. Accustomed to 
 deal with men in the aggregate, they are deficient in sympathy 
 with individual life, and are content with political combina- 
 tions instead of looking into the deeper tendencies of a nation. 
 Thus the great experiment of ruling France by a parliamentary 
 government under Louis Philippe lead to the capital error of 
 absolute reliance on the majority of a chamber. Again, states- 
 men have been tempted to look upon religion simply as a 
 means of government, instead of perceiving that religious 
 questions underlie all others, and are more important than 
 any. It is a reproach that may continually be leveled against 
 statesmen that they are slow to discern the signs of the times. 
 The parliament that met just before the breaking out of the 
 Franco-Prussian war was congratulated in the speech from the 
 throne on the quietness and amity of nations. When Lord 
 Granville assumed the reins of the foreign office he was told 
 that never before had there been such a lull in the affairs of 
 Europe. 
 
 If we looked, then, at the great turning-points in the lives 
 of statesmen, we should take both a larger and a more limited 
 view. In the larger view we should take those events which 
 have, in influencing a statesman's mind, also influenced the 
 destiny of his country. Such a time has been that when Hyde 
 renounced his connection with the Roundheads, or Burke with 
 the Jacobins. The gradual growth of opinion in the mind of 
 the late Sir Robert Peel led first to his acceptance of the 
 Catholic claims, and next to his abandonment of protection. 
 The more limited view concerns the occasions which deter- 
 mined a man's connection with a party or his advance in 
 office, as when Mr. Canning sided with the Liberals, or Mr. 
 * Lord Balling's " Life of Lord Palmerston."
 
 256 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 Canning's great pupil, Mr. Gladstone, definitely broke with the 
 Tory party, among whom he had been brought up. Of course, 
 there is no sharp line of demarcation between these two classes 
 of instances. It does not follow that because a statesman 
 has overthrown any system, therefore the system was a wrong 
 one ; we only see that the application of principles must vary 
 with the conditions. The principle of protection might be 
 right in one stage of a nation's history, but under altered cir- 
 cumstances it might be best to resort to a system of free trade. 
 Under one state of society an aristocratic government might 
 be best; in another, a truly representative system might be 
 best ; and when intelligence is more widely diffused, represen- 
 tation may be broadly based upon a national suffrage. Nei- 
 ther the statesman who has founded a system nor a statesman 
 who has abolished a system is deserving of unlimited pane- 
 gyric or condemnation. They have each done best for the 
 times in which they lived. The rival schools have simply ex- 
 hibited the oscillations of the pendulum. At times it may be 
 best to create a system, at times to destroy, at times to recon- 
 struct. This has been the lesson taught by the history of 
 monarchy in England. The monarch's power, raised almost 
 to despotism by the Tudors, was destroyed, and raised again 
 under the Stuarts, and reconstructed in the Revolution. I" 
 the conflicts of statesmen we see the clear exhibition of polit : 
 ical truth. Some one truly said of a debate in the House of 
 Commons, that no one speech gave the entire truth, but that 
 the entire truth is to be gathered from all the speeches. We 
 mention such considerations, because in a country like En- 
 gland it is most important to moderate the acrimony of dis- 
 cussion, and that we should understand that men of all parties 
 work truly toward the common wealth. The study of the lives 
 of statesmen is one of the best means of attaining to political 
 knowledge, all-important in countries with such constitutions
 
 STATESMEN. 357 
 
 as our own. They have a special nobleness, pathos, and im- 
 portance of their own, and their individual history shadows 
 off by imperceptible degrees into national history. 
 
 Obliged to resort to a principle of selection, we look at some 
 points in the lives of those two illustrious statesmen, Pitt and 
 Fox, who are so closely and immediately connected with our 
 own current history. It oddly happened that in early youth 
 the two were brought together. It so happened that one day 
 Lady Holland said to her husband, " I have been this morn- 
 ing with Lady Hester Pitt, and there is little William Pitt, not 
 eight years old, and really the cleverest child I ever saw, and 
 brought up so strictly and so proper in his behavior that, 
 mark my words, that little boy will be a thorn in Charles's side 
 as long as he lives."* Pitt's first speech in the House of Com- 
 mons at once established his parliamentary reputation. Never, 
 said Bishop Tomline, were higher expectations formed of any 
 person upon his first coming into parliament, and never were 
 expectations more completely fulfilled. The thought of the 
 great Chatham was in each man's mind, and so paved the 
 way to success. As soon as Pitt sat down, Fox, with gener- 
 ous warmth, hurried up to wish him joy of his success.! " He 
 is not a chip of the old block," said Burke ; " he is the old 
 block itself." There came an important moment when Pitt 
 called on Fox to give him Lord Shelburne's invitation to re- 
 enter with his friends the service of the crown. Bishop Tom- 
 line says, " This was, I believe, the last time Mr. Pitt was in 
 a private room with Mr. Fox, and from this period may be 
 dated that political hostility which continued through the re- 
 mainder of their lives." 
 
 That was a great moment when the king sent for Pitt as 
 the only man who could make head against Fox, and resolved 
 
 * " Fox Correspondence," edited by Lord Russell. Vol. I. 
 t Lord Stanhope's " Pitt."
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 to govern through his means. The youngster accepted the 
 post of premier. "Without one moment's faltering, he re- 
 sponded to the call." On the afternoon of the very same day 
 on which that call was made, young Pepper Arden rose in his 
 place and moved for a new writ for the borough of Appleby, 
 " in the room of the Right Honorable William Pitt, who since 
 his election has accepted the office of First Lord of the Treas- 
 ury and Chancellor of the Exchequer." There was immedi- 
 ately a burst of loud and general laughter. It was not alto- 
 gether unlike the moment when Mr. Disraeli sat down amid 
 the derision of the House, saying that the time would come 
 when they would hear him. Nevertheless, he formed his Cab- 
 inet, his majority increased, the influence of Fox declined, and 
 at the age of twenty-four the heaven-born minister commenced 
 his long dictatorship. 
 
 There was a very touching passage in the life of Pitt given 
 by Lord Stanhope, the one love of his lifetime for Eleanor 
 Eden. Mr. Pitt avows to Lord Auckland his love for his 
 daughter, and Lord Auckland as candidly avows that his 
 love might have been fully appreciated. But the mighty 
 premier of England we might almost say her uncrowned 
 monarch could not marry because he was not a man of for- 
 tune. The young people, like multitudes of young people, 
 could not marry because there was an insufficiency of means. 
 There would be no provision for the young lady in the pos- 
 sible case of her being left a widow. Pitt owns to her father 
 that he was not in circumstances in which he could make his 
 daughter an offer of marriage. Lord Auckland replies that 
 he was aware in general of the circumstances of pecuniary 
 debt and difficulty in which Mr. Pitt was involved. The 
 premier desired that all the blame, if any, should be borne 
 by himself. And so the matter terminated. 
 
 Two points may be mentioned in the career of Pitt which
 
 STATESMEN. 
 
 259 
 
 had a great effect, humanly speaking, in bringing about its 
 termination. The first of these rests on probable grounds. 
 It seems to have been the condemnation of Lord Melville, 
 the sting being that the condemnation was brought about 
 by Mr. Wilberforce, whose known probity determined so 
 many wavering opinions. Pitt watched his friend with in- 
 tense interest, knowing the mighty results which the member 
 for Yorkshire could insure. " It required no little effort to 
 resist the fascination of that penetrating eye." The second 
 Lord Malmesbury (Lord Fitzharris) says that the numbers on 
 the vote being equal, " the speaker, Abbott (after looking as 
 white as a sheet and pausing for ten minutes), gave the cast- 
 ing vote against us. Pitt immediately put on the little cocked 
 hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the 
 evening, and jammed it deeply over his forehead, and I dis- 
 tinctly saw the tears trickling down his cheeks." The noto- 
 rious Colonel Wardle said that men wanted to see "how 
 Billy looked after it." Colonel Legard, in a letter to Wilber- 
 force, said, " I believe that the delinquency of Lord Melville 
 and the desertion of some of his oldest friends inflicted a 
 wound upon his mind which it never recovered, and contrib- 
 uted to his premature death." Mr. Wilberforce docketed the 
 letter with the statement, " It did not injure Pitt's health." 
 
 It is very remarkable that the condemnation of Lord Mel- 
 ville, and the grief and disappointment of Pitt, appear to have 
 been a kind of just retribution for the part which they took 
 against Warren Hastings. It seems that both of them had a 
 great jealousy against Warren Hastings, fearing lest he should 
 obtain a seat in the Board of Control, and distribute the valu- 
 able patronage according to the king's personal views. Mr. 
 Storer tells Mr. Eden, afterward Lord Auckland,* " Mr. Dun- 
 das said before several persons the other day, with that gener- 
 * " Auckland Correspondence," Vol. I., p. 472.
 
 260 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ous frankness which is his characteristic, that the Opposition 
 had done his job for him they had knocked up Mr. Hastings's 
 pretensions to the Board of Control, and had ruined the Ben- 
 gal squad." If Pitt and Dundas had joined in the impeach- 
 ment of Hastings from a selfish political motive, they certainly 
 experienced a just retribution, which might serve as a beacon 
 and example in any annals of statesmanship. 
 
 But the blow which most certainly destroyed Pitt was the 
 battle of Austerlitz. This is called by Lord Stanhope's father 
 " the immediate cause of his death." There came on him the 
 care-worn and unhappy aspect which Wilberforce called " the 
 Austerlitz look." On his return from Bath, as he passed along 
 the passage of his Putney villa, he saw a map of Europe, and 
 mournfully said, " Roll up that map ; it will not be wanted 
 these ten years." Only suppose that he could have known 
 that the distinguished Indian officer whom he met hardly two 
 months before at Lord Camden's table one Arthur Wellesley 
 was destined to pluck out the eyes of the French eagle, and 
 to chain it to a rock. 
 
 Fox got into parliament before he was twenty-one, and 
 had made some good speeches, but none of them with the 
 success that had attended Pitt's first effort. King George 
 early took a dislike to him. " That young man has so strong- 
 ly cast off every principle of common honor and honesty, 
 that he must become as contemptible as he is odious." Put- 
 ting out of account his first junior lordship at the Admiralty, 
 Fox was not quite twenty months in office altogether. It 
 must be owned that in England statesmanship was a very 
 poorly remunerated profession. Fox, with his immorality, 
 gambling, and drunkenness, was scarcely fitted to sway a na- 
 tion where character counts for at least as much as clever- 
 ness. Walpole tells a strange story, which Lord Holland rec- 
 ognizes, of an impostor calling herself the Hon. Mrs. Grieve,
 
 STATESMEN. 261 
 
 who undertook to get him a young West Indian heiress as 
 his wife, with a fortune of eighty thousand pounds. He ulti- 
 mately married his mistress, Mrs. Armistead, and had not the 
 generosity to own that she was his wife. Lord Russell has 
 some terrible words on Fox : " His life had from his youth 
 been one of indulged passion and loose morality." The de- 
 tection of Fox's illness was made by Lord Lauderdale. Fox 
 had gone to Cheltenham, no one suspecting that he had any 
 serious complaint; but Lord Lauderdale, whose father had 
 died of the dropsy, first called the attention of Fox's friends 
 to the swelling of his legs and the falling off about his neck 
 and chest. 
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis indicates what he considers was 
 the great turning-point in the life of Fox. "We believe that 
 Fox's decision to separate himself from Lord Shelburne was 
 the turning-point of his political life, and exercised an enor- 
 mous influence upon the subsequent course of events." The 
 way in which Fox deserted Lord Shelburne, on an imputation 
 of insincerity, and formed a coalition with Lord North, is a re- 
 markable chapter in politics. As Mr. Disraeli says, " England 
 does not love coalitions, and henceforth he continues in hope- 
 less opposition to Pitt." 
 
 Fox, a middle-aged man, growing old, has left his vices, or 
 his vices have left him. He is enjoying his luxurious retire- 
 ment at St. Ann's Hill, and gratifying that passionate love of 
 Greek literature which appears to be innate in the higher or- 
 der of English statesmen. Fox's death, which happened rath- 
 er suddenly, is represented as a kind of euthanasia. " Read 
 me," said the dying man, " the Eighth Book of Virgil." His 
 last words were, " Liz," meaning his wife, and " I die happy." 
 Lord Russell concludes his chapter with Lord Holland's re- 
 mark : " If a consciousness of being beloved and almost 
 adored by all who approached him, could minister consolation
 
 262 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 in the hour of death, no man could with more reason or pro- 
 priety have closed his career with the exclamation of " I die 
 happy," for no man ever deserved or obtained that consolation 
 more certainly than Mr. Fox." Perhaps, however, we might 
 desire a consolation even firmer and better than this. 
 
 I can not think that Lord Russell's estimate of Pitt is alto- 
 gether impartial or even just. Lord Russell never for a mo- 
 ment loses the politician in his attempt to be biographer and 
 historian. He entirely disapproves of Pitt's first war with 
 France, which saddled us with the main burden of the nation- 
 al debt, as altogether unnecessary. He does not, however, 
 appear to me to do justice to the point of view in which the 
 majority of the nation looked on the matter; neither can I be- 
 lieve that Pitt was fighting without any defined views of the 
 object of the contest. He is entirely in favor of that second 
 war, after the rupture of Amiens, in part of which Fox was 
 foreign secretary. Lord Russell does not appear to be very 
 consistent in his opinion of the conduct and character of Na- 
 poleon. He can hardly mean both the one and the other of 
 the following sentences : 
 
 " It was not possible, surely, for " He (Napoleon) meant to be un- 
 the First Consul to show, by experi- disputed master of the continent of 
 ence, his inclination and love of Europe, to change the disposition 
 peace, while he was forced by his of territories and the form of gov- 
 enemies to carry on war with all the ernment of various countries at his 
 vigor he could command." Page pleasure, and to impose silence on 
 200. all who might feel alarmed or in- 
 
 dignant at the violence of his acts 
 and the insolence of his language." 
 Page 264. 
 
 Lord Russell thinks that King George made a master of 
 kingcraft, and yet sneers at him because he refused Fox as 
 his minister before the death of Pitt, and accepted him after- 
 ward. But this very ability to discern the signs of the times,
 
 STATESMEN. 263 
 
 and not to aim at impossibilities, is the very difference between 
 our Stuart and Hanoverian princes. We have the manifesta- 
 tion of great contempt for the royal understanding. Certain- 
 ly it was nothing better than that of the average merchant 
 and squire and rector. But average merchants, rectors, and 
 squires make up a considerable section of the state, and it was 
 as well that they should have so potent a voice as the king's 
 in the councils of their country. "The national heart still 
 beats true to George III.," truly said Mr. Thackeray. With 
 all his drawbacks and thick-headedness, he was honest, he 
 was pure, he was self-denying, he was religious, and, thank 
 God, these are qualities which the great mass of Englishmen 
 will always appreciate. 
 
 Fox's death was a euthanasia. Pitt's, certainly, was not ; 
 he died a miserable man. " My country, how I leave my coun- 
 try !" were his last words, extorted by his grief for Austerlitz. 
 It is, we believe, a fact, that a visitor, calling at his Putney 
 villa, found it deserted by his hireling servants, and passed 
 through one deserted room after another, till he came to the 
 chamber where the statesman was lying dead. When last 
 thoughts came with his last illness, he was not happy, and he 
 was not prepared. His friend, the Bishop of Lincoln, would 
 have administered the sacrament, but Pitt said he had not 
 strength to go through with it. He said that "he had, as he 
 feared was the case with many others, neglected prayer too 
 much to allow him to hope it could be very efficacious now." 
 Yet he was enabled to pray earnestly, and to look back with 
 some satisfaction on his innocency of life. He said : " I throw 
 myself entirely upon the mercy of God, through the merits of 
 Christ." 
 
 " It has been the misfortune of many great statesmen that 
 they have regarded religion simply as a social organization, or 
 as an instrument of government, or as an important element
 
 264 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 of public opinion. It is impossible that Virgilian cadences 
 should effectually soothe a dying-bed. At the last, as in the 
 case of Pitt, one must fall back upon principles that ought to 
 have been tested and proved, and not now to be learned for 
 the first time. We could not wish that the death-bed of such 
 a one should be other than troubled and disturbed, nor yet 
 could any last words better become any of us than those of 
 poor Pitt : ' I throw myself entirely upon the mercy of God, 
 through the merits of Christ.' " 
 
 We will now glance at the fortunes of a fallen statesman. 
 We will seek a view of Lord Clarendon's inner life, with which 
 the public is not very familiar, and which must mainly be 
 sought for in his minor writings. 
 
 There are very few men who, in so large a manner as Lord 
 Clarendon, have both lived history and written history. To a 
 great degree, our knowledge of the times during which he lived 
 is derived from his own immortal writings. During those times 
 there are few names which emerge more frequently, or with 
 broader influence, than his own. In the momentous period 
 of the Long Parliament his influence is first seen on the side 
 of the people, and then on the side of the crown. He was 
 the leader of his party in the House of Commons ; he was 
 lord chancellor in the House of Lords ; for many years he 
 was prime minister of England ; he became the grandfather 
 of two English sovereigns. There has been no other English 
 subject on whom such an accumulation of honors has thus 
 rested. For many years his career was singularly chequered, 
 exhibiting various efforts and faults, but at the same time great 
 endurance and great virtues; and through good report and 
 evil report, through good estate and evil estate, he clung close 
 to the faith and hope of a Christian man. At last came his 
 extraordinary elevation, and from that giddy eminence as ex-
 
 STATESMEN. 265 
 
 traordinary a fall. In exile, in poverty, in obloquy, closed that 
 long and eventful career, so imperishably bound up with En- 
 glish history and English literature. His last days, though 
 his saddest, were his happiest and his best ; his fall proved to 
 be a rising again, and he learned to look upon banishment as 
 a season of rest, as a quiet pause, as a solemn audit of the past, 
 before his active, crowded career came to an end on earth. It 
 would be foreign to our purpose to enter into any details of 
 this period's political events. We take up the personal his- 
 tory of Lord Clarendon at the time when he became a con- 
 spicuous actor in the stirring events of his times. He had 
 been known as a great lawyer ; he now appeared in the char- 
 acter of a great statesman. Wherever a liberty was to be as- 
 serted, a wrong to be redressed, an inquiry to be instituted, a 
 tyrannical institution to be abolished, a grievous criminal to 
 be exposed, Edward Hyde was among the first and foremost 
 on the popular side. But after a time, rightly or wrongly, he 
 became firmly convinced that this side was pushing things 
 too far, and to an extent which neither his conscience nor rea- 
 son approved. He threw the whole weight of his influence 
 into the declining side of the royalists, and withdrew to York 
 to be in attendance on the king. He does not appear to have 
 been very popular among the party whom he thus joined. 
 Though he went over to the court, he carried thither the stern, 
 rigid virtues of a republican, which rarely, indeed, find much 
 favor among courtiers ; an intrepidity in speaking unwelcome 
 truth, a strict justice and moderation, a high-minded, incor- 
 ruptible spirit. He was of great use to his party in the paper 
 war that preceded actual hostilities ; but when the military 
 operations commenced, Hyde ceased for a time to appear in 
 a prominent position. 
 
 Perceiving that the times in which he lived were perhaps 
 the most memorable in the whole course of English history, 
 
 M
 
 -56 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 he had commenced, while yet in Scilly, the " History of the 
 Great Rebellion," a work disfigured, indeed, by inaccuracies, 
 by personal feelings, and political partisanship, but of com- 
 manding merits which have made it classic. He continued 
 it in Jersey. He was in the island for about two years, " and 
 enjoyed," as he was wont to say, " the greatest tranquillity of 
 mind imaginable." After a time, first one of his friends was 
 obliged to leave him, and then the other. Sir George Carteret 
 then received him into Elizabeth Castle. Here he built him- 
 self a lodging of two or three rooms, and over the door of his 
 lodging he set up his arms with a Latin inscription : " Bene 
 vixit qui latuit" (He has lived well who has escaped notice). 
 " And he always took pleasure in relating with what great 
 tranquillity of spirit he spent his time here, among his books, 
 which he got from Paris, and his papers, between which he sel- 
 dom spent less than ten hours in the day." King Charles him- 
 self sent him a variety of materials for his work. When the 
 Prince of Wales left France, Hyde received directions from 
 the king and queen to be in attendance upon them. The 
 happy seclusion of Jersey was at once abandoned for a life 
 of wandering and privation. The ship in which he sailed to 
 Holland was seized by a privateer, and he was robbed of a 
 sum of money which he could ill afford to lose. By-and-by 
 Charles II. sent him on an unsatisfactory embassy to Madrid. 
 Here Hyde, who always writes of himself as " the chancellor" 
 for he had received the empty office of chancellor of the 
 exchequer at the mimic court of Charles studied the coun- 
 try and language, and commenced his "Devotions on the 
 Psalms." On his return he took up his abode at Antwerp, as 
 embassador. Charles, after the battle of Worcester, having 
 escaped to Paris, required his services there ; and he resided 
 at Paris and elsewhere, in close attendance on hie wandering 
 and unfortunate sovereign. From the Clarendob papers we
 
 STATESMEN. 
 
 can see the straits to which he was reduced, and the manner 
 in which he bore them. " I do not know that any man is yet 
 dead for want of bread, which really I wonder at. Five or six 
 of us eat together one meal a day, for a pistole a week ; but 
 all of us owe for God knows how many weeks to the poor 
 woman that feeds us." " At this time I have neither clothes 
 nor fire to preserve me from the sharpness of the season." " I 
 am so cold that I am scarce able to hold my pen, and have 
 not three sous in the world to buy a fagot." "I have not 
 been master of a crown these many months, am cold for want 
 of clothes and fire, and owe for all the meat I have eaten these 
 three months, and to a poor woman who is no longer able to 
 trust ; and my poor family at Antwerp (which breaks my heart) 
 is in as sad a state as I am." " Keep up your spirits, and 
 take heed of sinking under that burden you never kneeled to 
 take up. Our innocence begets our cheerfulness ; and that 
 again will be a means to secure the other. Whoever grows 
 too weary and impatient of the condition he is in will too im- 
 patiently project to get out of it ; and that, by degrees, will 
 shake or baffle or delude his innocence. We have no reason 
 to blush for the poverty which is not brought upon us by our 
 own faults. As long as it pleases God to give us health 
 (which, I thank him, I have in a great measure), I shall think 
 he intends me to outlive all these sufferings ; and when he 
 sends sickness, I shall (I hope with the same submission) be- 
 lieve that he intends to remove me from greater calamities." 
 " I have no other counsel to give you than, by the grace of 
 God, I mean to follow myself, which is to submit to God's 
 pleasure and judgment upon me, and to starve, really and lit- 
 erally, with the comfort of having endeavored to avoid it by 
 all honest means, and rather to bear it than do any thing con- 
 trary to my duty." 
 
 The evil days seemed over at last: in 1660 came the Res-
 
 268 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 toration. Hitherto his title had only been an empty mock- 
 ery ; it now became a splendid reality. And yet this period 
 of grandeur and greatness to which we now approach in Hyde's 
 career is the least pleasing in the retrospect. He had nobly 
 withstood the effects of adversity ; he by no means endured 
 with equal success the influence of prosperity. The prosper- 
 ity was as magnificent as his adversity had been protracted 
 and deep. And now painful blots upon his character began 
 to appear, which had hitherto escaped the notice of others, 
 and perhaps his own, and which, perhaps, required the fierce 
 heat of prosperity for their manifestation. He appears to have 
 been greedy of power and grasping of gain. The sumptuous 
 pile of Clarendon House, which he was raising for himself, 
 betrayed an ostentatious magnificence. Sometimes he ap- 
 pears to have erred in departing from strict veracity. In 
 some measure he must have forfeited his own dignity and 
 self-respect. He himself, in the long days of banishment and 
 old age, confessed to himself how much he had erred, and 
 how greatly he had forgotten higher things in this season 
 of brilliant sunshine. He confessed that those prosperous 
 days contrasted ill with the calmness and happiness of his 
 days of loneliness and want. If he had been content to take 
 a full share in the wickedness of those wicked times, his lofty 
 position might have been safe. Thank God, he was preserved 
 from that. 
 
 Old Pepys has, in his " Diary," two or three passages that 
 mark the decline and fall of Clarendon. Pepys has given the 
 graphic account of the circumstances of Clarendon's departure 
 from his final interview with the king, on which Mr. Ward's 
 celebrated painting, "The Fall of Clarendon," is founded. 
 The courtiers, when they saw him, used to tell the king that 
 his "schoolmaster" was coming. They used to mimic the 
 chancellor for the royal amusement. We are told that the in-
 
 STATESMEN. 269 
 
 famous Duke of Buckingham was peculiarly successful in imi- 
 tating " the stately walk of that solemn personage." The king 
 at first feebly reproved, and then delighted at this buffoonery 
 at the expense of his old and faithful servant. Clarendon 
 now seriously crossed the royal path. At last Charles sent 
 the earl a message recommending him immediately to resign 
 the great seal. In reply the falling minister requested an au- 
 dience. The king could not with any decency refuse this, 
 and appointed him to come on a certain day after breakfast. 
 The day of the appointed interview was known to all the court- 
 iers. The event, of course, excited the highest interest. A 
 private conversation of two hours ensued. As they came forth 
 from the conference, the courtiers eagerly watched the expres- 
 sion of both their countenances. They thought that both faces 
 looked "very thoughtful." Pepys says that the king's infa- 
 mous paramour " ran out into her aviary, and stood blessing 
 herself at the old man's going away ; and several of the gal- 
 lants of Whitehall (of which there were many staying to see 
 the chancellor's return) did talk to her in her bird-cage." 
 Clarendon, in his " Life," has an allusion to the dissolute crew 
 who were waiting about, eagerly hoping for his disgrace. For 
 some days the king took no further steps. The courtiers were 
 greatly alarmed at this. With ceaseless importunities they 
 taunted him on his subserviency to " a cunning old lawyer, 
 and nearly lectured him out of his wits." Then the king 
 yielded, and sent a secretary of state with a warrant under the 
 sign-manual to demand the great seal. When the secretary 
 returned with this coveted ensign of office, a base courtier 
 clasped his majesty's knees, exclaiming, " Sir, you are now a 
 king." 
 
 Assuredly there was a great fall here ; but still Clarendon's 
 enemies were not satisfied. Perhaps they dreaded his future 
 return to power. They determined to prevent this they
 
 270 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 thirsted for his blood they brought against him an impeach- 
 ment for high-treason. The late Lord Chancellor Campbell 
 has characterized the articles of the impeachment as " prepos- 
 terously vague and absurd." There seemed little chance of 
 a conviction against him. The king was anxious that he 
 should leave the country : this would be enough to satisfy his 
 enemies. Very unwillingly, but in obedience to the king's 
 wish, which he had always treated with almost absolute sub- 
 mission, Clarendon withdrew beyond the seas. His enemies 
 seized upon this as an occasion against him. They passed a 
 bill through parliament banishing him forever, and making 
 his return an act of high-treason. The days which followed 
 are generally looked upon as the most sombre in Clarendon's 
 career ; but those who take a more solemn view of life, and 
 chiefly regard a man's highest interests, will turn away with 
 relief from the thronged galleries of Whitehall, and the rising 
 glories of Clarendon House, to Montpellier, to Moulins, and 
 to Rouen. 
 
 With a well-nigh broken heart and enfeebled form he be- 
 took himself to France. The French government treated him 
 alternately with harshness and consideration, according to the 
 variations of their political relations with the English govern- 
 ment. After many chequered days he settled himself for a 
 time at Montpellier. Here he finished his little work on the 
 Psalms. He has prefaced this by a letter to his children, from 
 which we make some quotations, as giving in the best form 
 the state of mind to which his fall had brought him : 
 
 " My children, you have undergone so great a share with 
 me in all the inconveniences and afflictions of my banish- 
 ment, that it is but justice to assign you a share likewise of 
 whatsoever I have gotten by them ; and I do confess to you 
 I found so great a serenity and tranquillity of mind in com- 
 posing these considerations and reflections upon the Psalms
 
 STATESMEN. 271 
 
 of David, that I am willing to believe that the reading them 
 may administer some kind of relief and ease to you in any 
 trouble or adversity to which you may be exposed. In all 
 times somewhat extraordinary hath been thought to be con- 
 tained therein for the instruction, encouragement, and refor- 
 mation of mankind, and for the rendering our lives more ac- 
 ceptable to God Almighty. ... I began to exercise myself 
 in these meditations in the time of a former banishment, when, 
 to the public calamities with which the king and the kingdom 
 were afflicted, and to my own particular, my forced absence 
 for so many years from your dear mother and from you, the 
 nature of that employment I had from the king, and the scene 
 upon which that employment was to be acted, added very 
 much to the melancholique of the condition I was in. ... It 
 pleased God, by a chain of miracles, at last to bring that to 
 pass which all the world thought impossible to be done. . . . 
 And in this miraculous restoration and prosperity I had my 
 full share, which I enjoyed many years, in an envious propor- 
 tion of the king's favor and good opinion, which I had endeav- 
 ored to preserve by all the industry and fidelity a servant so 
 obliged ought to perform ; having (God knows) never any 
 thing before my eyes or in my purposes but the king's honor 
 and happiness. ... I have too much cause to believe -and 
 confess that, though, to the utmost of my power, and accord- 
 ing to the understanding God hath given me, which no doubt 
 hath many defects, I have not failed in the performance of my 
 duty to the king and to the country, I have abundantly failed 
 in my duty to my God, and not enough remembered his par- 
 ticular saving blessings and deliverances of myself and family 
 in the time of my adversity and banishment, nor the vows and 
 promises I then made to him ; and for that reason he hath 
 exposed me to new troubles and reproaches for crimes I am 
 in no degree guilty of, and condemned me to a new banish-
 
 272 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 nient in my age, when I am not able to struggle with those 
 difficulties that encompass me. I am sure I discontinued this 
 heavenly exercise upon the Psalms themselves and the whole 
 body of the Scriptures ; and God, in his great mercy, awaken- 
 ed me out of the lethargy I was in, by reproaches I least ap- 
 prehended, and a judgment I least expected or suspected, and 
 drove me out of that sunshine that dazzled me, withdrew the 
 king's favor from me, out of that crowd of business that stifled 
 all other thoughts, and condemned me to such a solitariness 
 and desertion as must reduce my giddy and wandering soul 
 to some recollection and steadiness." He learned to speak 
 of his banishment as his " third and most blessed recess, in 
 which God vouchsafed to exercise many of his mercies toward 
 him." Three such "recesses or acquiesces" he used to reck- 
 on up in his life. The first of these was when he was living 
 in Jersey; the second, when he was embassador at Madrid; 
 the third was his final banishment. He used to say that, of 
 the infinite blessings which God had vouchsafed to bestow 
 upon him from his cradle, he used to esteem himself so hap- 
 py in none as in these : " In every one of which God had given 
 him grace and opportunity to make full reflections upon his 
 actions and his observations, upon what he had done himself 
 and what he had seen others do and suffer; to repair the 
 breaches in his own mind, and to fortify himself with new res- 
 olutions against future encounters in an entire resignation 
 of all his thoughts and purposes into the disposal of God Al- 
 mighty, and in a firm confidence of his protection and deliv- 
 erance in all the difficulties he should be obliged to contend 
 with ; toward the obtaining whereof he resumed those vows 
 and promises of integrity and hearty endeavors which are the 
 only means to procure the continuance of that protection and 
 deliverance." 
 
 Yet, as the years rolled on, the old man earnestly desired
 
 STATESMEN. 273 
 
 "once more to see his native country " before he went hence to 
 be no more seen." To the last the fond hope was always be- 
 fore him that he might yet be restored to something of his old 
 position. He removed to Rouen, that he might at least have 
 the melancholy satisfaction of being so much nearer to En- 
 glish soil. He sent a petition to the unfeeling king that he 
 might be allowed to die among his children. " Seven years," 
 he pleaded, " was a time prescribed and limited by God him- 
 self for the expiations of some of his greatest judgments ; and 
 it is full that time since I have, with all possible humility, sus- 
 tained the insupportable weight of the king's displeasure. 
 Since it will not be in any one's power long to prevent me 
 from dying, methinks the desiring a place to die in should not 
 be thought a great presumption." 
 
 It was not so to be. The worthless monarch did not even 
 vouchsafe a word of answer to this pathetic appeal. Rouen 
 was to prove the last scene of his wanderings. He died there 
 one winter day, in the cold, friendless winter of his life, at the 
 age of sixty-five. 
 
 The moral of the fall of Clarendon is this the moral to 
 how many a sad narrative of a statesman's broken hopes and 
 broken heart ! 
 
 " It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence 
 in man." 
 
 " It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence 
 in princes." 
 
 Descending the stream of politics still farther, we take a 
 glance at Sir George Cornewall Lewis, whose recent " Life 
 and Letters" give us a view of some aspects of the statesman- 
 ship of our own days. 
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis was one of those great states- 
 men which Christ Church within the century has given to the 
 
 M 2
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 country. His success as a scholar and a thinker always ran" 
 parallel with his success as an administrator and as a parlia- 
 mentary speaker. He owed his success as much to his moral 
 as to his intellectual faculties. No chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer ever inspired city men with a greater degree of con- 
 fidence. His brief, straightforward, inornate addresses were 
 received with a degree of favor hardly accorded to the most 
 scenic budgets of Mr. Gladstone, or the most brilliant orations 
 of Mr. Disraeli. The utmost confidence was felt in his sim- 
 plicity and good faith, and at the same time it was fully under- 
 stood that his conclusions were the results of anxious inquiry 
 and sound reasoning. But at the same time it would hardly 
 be thought that he was the man to meet safely a great finan- 
 cial crisis, and although it is probable that, had he lived lon- 
 ger, he might have been the premier of a Whig administra- 
 tion, yet possibly he would have been little more than the 
 bond of union to join together stronger spirits. The same 
 characteristics belonged to the literary as to the political life 
 of Sir George Lewis, and even in a greater degree. He was 
 happier as the editor of the Edinburgh Review than as the 
 chancellor of the exchequer. Indeed, the former employment 
 was much more to his taste than the latter. In the field of 
 criticism, particularly in the field of negative criticism, he was 
 pre-eminent. His, in an especial way, was Bacon's lumen sic- 
 cum. He pulled down even the ruins of those historical struct- 
 ures which Niebuhr had left. He was little more than de- 
 structive, was in no degree synthetic, and had more "light" 
 than " sweetness." Those who are acquainted with Dr. New- 
 man's late remarkable work, " Essays toward a Grammar of 
 Assent," and can conceive a direct contradiction to its every 
 page, will be able to form an idea of Sir George's governing 
 mental characteristics. The result is that he was not much 
 better than an iconoclast, and has not left we had almost
 
 STATESMEN. 275 
 
 said was incapable of leaving any durable monument to pos- 
 terity. 
 
 There are many points of interest presented by the political 
 and intellectual history of Sir George Lewis. Most of his let- 
 ters were written at a time when letter-writing was still an art, 
 and postage was so expensive that people were anxious to 
 gain the value of the money. They are, therefore, written 
 with a fullness which, we are afraid, will be wanting to the let- 
 ters of the next generation of statesmen and authors. He 
 speaks with certain severity of some of his contemporaries, 
 but perhaps not more severely than the truth would warrant ; 
 yet it is easy to see, on the surface of the letters, that, though 
 endued with a common -sense which amounted to positive 
 genius, he made several egregious blunders in his reasoning. 
 For instance, through the unhopefulness of his nature he ex- 
 pected nothing but disappointments in the expedition to the 
 Crimea, and, through his inability to sympathize with forms of 
 genius not akin to his own, he could see little that was likely 
 to be permanently popular in the works of Dickens or Macau^ 
 lay. In his own mind he gave literature a distinct preference 
 over politics. The meeting of parliament is " that abomina- 
 ble meeting of parliament." After he had lost his seat it was 
 with difficulty that he consented to re-enter the House once 
 more, and with regret that he became a cabinet minister. 
 The main interest of his letters lies in their touches of con- 
 temporary politics and literature, which will be a help toward 
 the construction of the history of the period to which they re- 
 late. When he succeeded the present premier as chancellor 
 of the exchequer, he writes to say that Mr. Gladstone had been 
 very kind to him, and helped him very much. He was very 
 severe on Macaulay's article on Bacon : " His remarks on an- 
 cient philosophy are, for the most part, shallow and ignorant 
 in the extreme. . . . There is generally a want .of sound-
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ness and coherency, and a puerile and almost girlish affecta- 
 tion of tinsel ornament, which, coming from a man of nearly 
 forty, convince me that Macaulay will never be any thing 
 more than a rhetorician." There is much substantial justice 
 in this criticism, but at the same time we see that Sir George 
 was totally incapable of appreciating an order of mind with 
 which he had nothing in common. Lewis had not a spark 
 of Macaulay's genuine brilliancy, and the result is that thou- 
 sands have read Macaulay where only a reader here and there 
 knows of the " Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Pol- 
 itics," and the " Enquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman 
 History." His latest and perhaps his best book was a col- 
 lection of articles in the Edinburgh Review on the Adminis- 
 trations of Great Britain from 1783 to 1830. We find the 
 statement in one of the letters that Macaulay reckoned on 
 thirteen volumes of his history. " It is too long, and overdone 
 with details," writes Lewis ; and we may add, that if Macau- 
 lay really designed to bring down his history to "a period 
 within the memory of men now living," as he stated, the rate 
 of progress would have required not thirteen, but at least thir- 
 ty volumes. 
 
 Here are some of his judgments on his contemporaries. 
 Of Mr. Disraeli he says : " Disraeli, though a hard hitter in at- 
 tack, failed as an exponent of a measure or a system of poli- 
 cy." Of Sir Robert Peel : " I can not say that I prized his 
 judgment very highly, nor do I think that as a guide in public 
 affairs, when he had ceased to be an administrator, he was of 
 great value. He did not see far before him he was not ready 
 in applying theory to practice he did not foresee the coming 
 storm. Peel's death will exercise a great influence upon the 
 Peelite body. Graham is a great sufferer by the change, as 
 he had constantly stood by Peel when his other friends went 
 different ways. Upon Gladstone it will have the effect of
 
 STA TESMEN. 
 
 277 
 
 removing a weight from a spring." Here, again, is perhaps 
 the most damaging sentence that has ever been written con- 
 cerning the modern House of Commons, with which we may 
 conclude this chapter. It is much to be regretted that Sir 
 George did not draw the obvious exception of men actuated 
 by Christian principle, and apparently does not perceive that 
 Christian principle will alone save a popular legislature from 
 the evil of selfish personal objects. 
 
 " I have written a long letter to Tocqueville, to explain to 
 him that the present state of politics is dangerous to nothing, 
 except the morality of public men. I have shown him how 
 this danger equally besets both sides of the House how pub- 
 lic morality is equally promoted by finding excuses for sup- 
 porting men who abandon their principles, and for not sup- 
 porting men who act upon their principles, the motive in both 
 cases being purely personal."
 
 TURNIXG-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 On Turning-Points in National History. 
 
 ANOTHER aspect of turning-points in life is that of those in 
 the history of nations. This must be glanced at briefly. Na- 
 tional life and individual life are closely connected. The in- 
 dividual is the state seen through a magnifying lens. The 
 state is the individual seen through the diminishing lens. To 
 use the Platonic image, what we read in the one case in small 
 characters we read in the other case in large characters. 
 
 There is a well-known book which speaks of such turning- 
 points as the " Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," an ar- 
 bitrary enumeration indeed, but still, taking the uncertain for 
 a certain number, indicating the tremendous issues dependent 
 on such decisive turning-points. 
 
 For instance, what a moment was that when at Marathon 
 the Medes and Persians, with their cimeters and lunar spears, 
 broke before the Athenians, and were driven back into the 
 marshes ! Then Asia precipitated itself upon Europe, and 
 the civilization of the West was for the moment trembling in 
 the balance. 
 
 What a moment was that, nigh twenty-three centuries later, 
 when the English had turned the French at Waterloo, and the 
 Duke anxiously waited for Blucher that he might reap the 
 fruits of victory ! Again, let us look at that mighty historical 
 drama which has been unrolled during the Franco-Prussian 
 war. Did ever high-handed violence meet with so rapid and 
 overwhelming a retribution ? What a moment was that when,
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 279 
 
 in the Cabinet of the Tuileries, Napoleon the Third, overper- 
 suaded by his wife and the Due de Grammont, and deceived 
 by Lebceuf, returned to the council and declared that they 
 must ask for further securities ! One would almost have 
 thought that a thunderbolt would have fallen from the clear 
 sky. I see that the Count de la Chapelle says very frankly 
 that the whole nation was enthusiastically bent on war, and 
 makes them all accomplices together. In a historical point 
 of view, Napoleon seemed right, but in the moral point of 
 view he was wrong, and in the long run the moral element 
 beats the political element. 
 
 Some of the battles discussed might be open to criticism, 
 on the ground that they did not really determine a nation's 
 fate. The unprosperous issue of the Sicilian expedition, as 
 Dr. Arnold points out, hindered the expansion of Greece in 
 the Western world, and reserved for Latin institutions the su- 
 premacy which might have belonged to Hellenic culture. It 
 was in the East, and not in the West, that the destiny of the 
 Greek race was to accomplish itself. The Athenian power 
 survived the disasters of Syracuse, but it fell in a moment of 
 carelessness, through characteristic Athenian faults, at the 
 fateful Goat's River. Mr. Hallam says of a certain battle 
 that " it may justly be reckoned among those few battles of 
 which a contrary event would have essentially varied the 
 drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes." 
 
 Lord Dalling (Sir Henry Bulwer), in his recent " Life of 
 Lord Palmerston," thinks that he discerns a great moment in 
 modern politics. This was when Mr. Huskisson was ejected 
 by the Duke of Wellington from his Cabinet. This led to the 
 appointment of Mr. Fitzgerald ; this led to the vacancy for 
 Clare: this led to the election of Mr. O'Connell ; this led to 
 the agitation for the Catholic claims ; this led to the first Re- 
 form ; this led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the second
 
 2 go TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 Reform. By these means has been accomplished a silent but 
 thorough revolution in England. The generalization, how- 
 ever, is perhaps a little too rapid. 
 
 The discovery of America is referred to by Humboldt as a 
 "wonderful concatenation of trivial circumstances," which 
 undeniably exercised an influence on the course of the world's 
 destiny. " These circumstances are," Washington Irving has 
 justly observed, "that if Columbus had resisted the counsel 
 of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and continued to steer westward, 
 he would have entered the Gulf Stream, and been borne to 
 Florida, and from thence probably to Cape Hatteras and Vir- 
 ginia a circumstance of incalculable importance, since it 
 might have been the means of giving to the United States of 
 North America a Catholic Spanish population in the place of 
 the Protestant English one by which those regions were sub- 
 sequently colonized. " It seems to me like an inspiration," 
 said Pinzon to the admiral, " that my heart dictates to me 
 that we ought to steer in a different direction." It was on 
 the strength of this circumstance that, in the celebrated law- 
 suit which Pinzon carried on against the heirs of Columbus 
 between 1513 and 1515, he maintained that the discovery of 
 America was alone due to him. This inspiration, Pinzon 
 owed, as related by an old sailor at the same trial, to the flight 
 of a flock of parrots, which he had observed in the evening fly- 
 ing toward the southwest, in order, as he might well have con- 
 jectured, to roost on trees on the land. Never has a flight 
 of birds been attended with more important results" 
 
 We will here take some astute observations from the Sat- 
 urday Review, as illustrating a somewhat different view of the 
 question : 
 
 " If something had happened which didn't happen, what would 
 have happened afterward ? is a kind of speculation which is now 
 much in fashion. Of course, no one can answer positively the
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 281 
 
 above inquiry ; yet, in looking back upon the course of his- 
 tory, it is impossible not to dwell for a moment upon some of the 
 most important crises, and to remark how small a difference 
 might have made an incalculable change. We know the usual 
 sayings about the decisive battles of the world. If Themis- 
 tocles had lost the battle of Salamis, if Asdrubal had won the 
 battle of the Metaurus, if Charles Martel had been beaten by 
 the Saracens, would not the subsequent history of Europe and 
 the world have been altered, and a great many fine philosoph- 
 ical theories have been destroyed before their birth ? It is im- 
 possible here to discuss so large a question as the frequency 
 with which those historical crises occur, in which the merest 
 trifle may turn the balance, or to inquire whether they ever oc- 
 cur at all. But we may notice shortly two or three conditions 
 of the argument which are frequently overlooked, and which 
 make most of these discussions eminently unsatisfactory. 
 Thus, for example, the believers in decisive battles very sel- 
 dom take the trouble to argue the real difficulty of the ques- 
 tion. The defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig, or perhaps at Wa- 
 terloo, it has been said, changed the history of Europe. It 
 may be so ; but the fact that a particular battle was the most 
 crushing or the final blow which he received does not even 
 tend to prove that a different result would have been equally 
 decisive the other way. On the contrary, a victory might proba- 
 bly have been the next worse thing to a defeat. The battles in 
 which the Saracens or the Hungarians received the final check 
 to their advance are in the same way reckoned as decisive 
 of victory. But, to make this out, we should have to prove that 
 which is at first opposed to all probability that, in the event of 
 a victory, they could have permanently held their conquests ; 
 and afterward that, if they had not held them, they would not 
 have been absorbed by the conquered population. When Ca- 
 nute rebuked his courtiers, he happened to select a time at
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 which the tide was rising. If, by a little management, they 
 had induced him to give the order just as the tide turned, they 
 might perhaps have persuaded him that his order was the 
 cause of the change. A good many historical heroes seem to 
 have been Canutes, who issued their commands precisely at 
 the turn of the tide ; and historical writers have been crying 
 out ever since that, if it had not been for this marvelous Ca- 
 nute, the tide would have swelled until the whole country had 
 been engulfed. The analogy is of course imperfect ; for the 
 historical tide is really affected in some degree by the hero 
 who opposes its progress at the proper moment, only he has a 
 wonderful advantage if he happens to strike at the fortunate 
 epoch. 
 
 " The absurdity of a series of ' ifs' has also been thus shown. 
 ' If this did not happen, then something else must have hap- 
 pened, and the whole course of subsequent events must have 
 been altered.' It is one of those far-fetched explanations 
 which we can produce at will to account for any phenomenon. 
 We might say, for instance, that the prophet Jonah was the cause 
 of American slavery. If he had not preached, Nineveh would 
 not have repented ; if Nineveh had not repented, it would have 
 been overthrown. Who knows the consequences ? The whole 
 course of empire would have been changed, and America 
 might still be a forest. 
 
 " Mr. Phillimore, in his ' History of England in the Reign 
 of George III.,' describes the difficulty of writing modern his- 
 tory, and laments that in modern times we have no Herodotus 
 nor Thucydides, no Livy nor Tacitus. He says that if these 
 Greek and Roman historians lived in our day if they saw 
 this, and if they saw that if they were acquainted with In- 
 dia if they were acquainted with America and if they 
 knew a great number of other things besides the result, the 
 grand result, the astonishing result would be that they would
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 283 
 
 have known more than they knew, and would have told us 
 more. 
 
 "In Whitaker's 'Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots,' that 
 curious writer thus speculates in the true spirit of this paper. 
 When dependence was made on Elizabeth's dying without is- 
 sue, the Countess of Shrewsbury had her son purposely re- 
 siding in London, with two good and able horses continually 
 ready, to give the earliest intelligence of the sick Elizabeth's 
 death to the imprisoned Mary. On this the historian ob- 
 serves, ' And had this not improbable event actually taken 
 place, what a different aspect would our history have assumed 
 from what it wears at present! Mary would have been car- 
 ried from a prison to a throne. Her wise conduct in prison 
 would have been applauded by all. From Tutbury, from 
 Sheffield, from Chatsworth, she would have been said to have 
 touched with a gentle and masterly hand the springs that act- 
 uated all the nation, against the death of her tyrannical cous- 
 in,' etc. So ductile is history in the hands of man ! And so 
 peculiarly does it bend to the force of success, and warp with 
 the warmth of prosperity ! 
 
 " ' If Mary had lived a little longer, or Elizabeth died sooner,' 
 says Mr. Mill, ' the Reformation would have been crushed in 
 England.' People who believe in a steady development of 
 human thought are naturally unwilling to allow that the spread 
 of new ideas may be arrested or made possible by the acci- 
 dent of a single woman's life ; for, on the same principles, we 
 can have no certainty that in a few years hence we may not 
 all be Roman Catholics or Mormons or followers of Comte. 
 
 " It is always a question among military writers how far 
 the pause of Hannibal was compulsory a question not likely 
 to be solved unless Pompeii yields us further literary treas- 
 ures. As far as one can decide, at such a distance of time 
 and of scene, it seems all but certain that the rapid advance
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 of Hannibal on Rome after the battle of Cannae, that of Henry 
 of Navarre on Paris after the battle of Ivry, or that of Charles 
 Stuart on London after penetrating as far as Derby, would have 
 changed the course of human history." 
 
 Without a religious reference, either history or science be- 
 comes dreary or unintelligible. Take history. From a mere- 
 ly secular point of view it is a study that is unutterably sad 
 and dreary. It is like the bitter record of the prophet lam- 
 entation, mourning, and woe. That nation is happy that has 
 not a history, for history is the record of the tragedy and 
 crimes of a nation's life. It creeps on from point to point of 
 the same monotony of events, from siege to siege, from battle 
 to battle, from treaty to treaty. It is the perpetual story of 
 the monuments of Nineveh, where we see the long lines of 
 captives led away into exile. It is the ever-renewed legend 
 of Judcea Capta, of the medal that shows the discrowned one 
 beneath the palm-tree. It is the imagery of the arch whereon 
 is depicted lamentation, mourning and woe. But when we 
 bring the divine life into such things the case altogether al- 
 ters. Those generations of the past are the strata by which 
 we attain to a higher level. We discern that "through the 
 ages one increasing purpose runs." God has been guiding the 
 human race through the tangled course of its destinies. It is 
 very striking to observe how so remarkable a writer as Mr. 
 Wallace, who, indeed, elaborated Darwinism before Darwin, 
 has broken away from his own theory of natural selection to 
 admit that a Providence has directed the process : " A supe- 
 rior intelligence has guided the development of man in a defi- 
 nite direction and for a special purpose, just as man guides 
 the development of many animal and vegetable forms." What 
 is true of nature is also true of history. The great idea of the 
 education of the world, suggested by Pascal, and elaborated 
 by Bishop Temple, is in the main a true one. The world, in
 
 .NATIONAL HISTORY. 285 
 
 its corporate existence, is carried on in the course of improve- 
 ment, and each generation starts from the vantage-ground of 
 that which has been gained by its ancestry. Of the lives that 
 momentarily fall, like rain-drops into the earth, none are lost 
 or wasted. The broken purposes that fail on earth are car- 
 ried out hereafter, and the worn, shattered banner of human- 
 ity, torn and drooping here, is planted again hereafter upon a 
 happier shore. 
 
 We may take some instances of historical parallels suggest- 
 ed by the late war. The first of the philosophical historians 
 noted the tendency of history to repeat itself in cycles. There 
 are several periods of military history which present strong 
 points of resemblance to the Prussian invasion of France. 
 These are especially the invasion of 1793-4, and the invasion 
 of 1814. At one point in the invasion of 1794, things seemed 
 more hopeless for France than they did so lately after all the 
 disastrous fighting between Metz and Verdun. In this cam- 
 paign, the invaders, though at first prosperous, could not avail 
 themselves of their prosperity through their want of vigor and 
 of unity. The events of history give us an extraordinary num- 
 ber of duplicates. On October 13, 1793, the Germans attacked 
 the lines of Wissembourg, and took possession of the place. 
 The French general was obliged to fall back upon Haguenau, 
 and so make a considerable sacrifice of territory. The Ger- 
 mans then, as lately, possessed an extraordinary preponder- 
 ance of troops and resources, and the French were in the 
 worst possible plight at the time. But in the earlier wars 
 they were tardy, irresolute, inactive, and committing an ex- 
 traordinary number of fatuous blunders. At one period of 
 the campaign the Allies were within a hundred and fifty miles 
 of Paris. The French army was in deep dejection, the capi- 
 tal in dismay, and the republican authorities were betaking 
 themselves to flight. But the Germans never ventured to
 
 286 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 march upon Paris, and the great opportunity of concluding 
 the war was lost. If they had advanced, England would prob- 
 ably have been saved six hundred millions of public debt. 
 But the Committee of Public Salvation, however remorseless- 
 ly cruel with their myriad assassinations, were energetic and 
 patriotic men, and did not despair of the state. Even the vile 
 Barere used thrilling language to arouse the defenders : "Lib- 
 erty has become the creditor of every citizen; some owe it 
 their industry ; others their fortune ; some their counsels ; 
 other their arms ; all their lives. The Republic is a besieged 
 city; all its territory must become a vast camp." Nothing 
 illustrates the difference between the two periods as the con 
 duct of the Germans at Wissembourg in 1793, and their con- 
 duct at Wissembourg and Woerth in 1870. The original 
 achievement of 1793 was very great, but a historian of the 
 Convention says, " Such was the tardiness of the Allies that 
 the French lost only one thousand men in this general rout, 
 which, if duly improved, might have occasioned the loss of 
 their whole army. This important success, which once more 
 opened the territory of the Republic to a victorious enemy, 
 led to no results." But in this age men do not linger, but 
 strike at the heart, on the maxim frappez vite et frappcz forte. 
 Never before or after has France been in a worse state than 
 when she hurled back the invasion of 1794. 
 
 While the Allies were languid, France was aroused. A levy 
 of 1,200,000 men was ordered, and in an incredibly short time 
 were fairly disciplined. Above all, France was about to yield 
 an extraordinary crop of military genius. There was one 
 young officer of engineers, the founder of an empire, who was 
 then saving Toulon from the British invader. There were 
 more than a dozen men in the lowest orders of life who might 
 be said to be carrying in their empty knapsacks a field-mar- 
 shal's baton. For the immediate emergency there was the
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 287 
 
 great Carnot, the head of the military department. " Carnot," 
 said Napoleon, " has organized victory." He was the Von 
 Moltke of the campaign of 1793-4, but on the side of the de- 
 fense and not on the side of the attack. Carnot held the 
 view which condemns the cold shade of the aristocracy, as 
 Sir William Napier said, under which our soldiers fight. " He 
 deemed it impossible that an army commanded by officers 
 chosen exclusively from a limited class of society could long 
 maintain a contest with one led by those chosen with discern- 
 ment from inferior ranks." Carnot, like Jomini, wrote several 
 treatises on scientific warfare, the one best known being that 
 in opposition to the views of that great military genius, Vau- 
 ban. It relates to the siege question. It was the assertion 
 of Vauban that the means of defense in sieges were inferior 
 to those of attack, and that the hour of the fall of every for- 
 tress might be calculated with mathematical certainty. Car- 
 not, on the other hand, maintained that the means of defense 
 in fortified towns may be made equal or superior to those of 
 attack. His greatest improvement was the substitution of 
 earthworks for masonry. While Carnot was developing a mil- 
 itary genius almost possessing his mathematical accuracy, the 
 Allies obstinately preserved the old " system of positions." 
 The French were enabled to stem the tide of invasion and 
 then roll back the waves upon their foes. The Allies were 
 delayed by fortresses, which they were not content to " mask," 
 but stayed to besiege, and this gave France time to complete 
 her immense armaments which almost realized her dream of 
 xmiversal empire. It was a saying of the Archduke Charles, 
 that the military superiority of France arises from the chain 
 of fortresses with which it is surrounded, whereby it is enabled, 
 with equal facility, to throw delays in the way of an invasion 
 of its own, and to find a solid base for an irruption into its 
 neighbor's territories ; and that the want of such a barrier on
 
 288 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 the right bank of the Rhine is the principal defect in the sys- 
 tem of German defense. By the recent war these conditions 
 have been almost reversed. The German defenses had been 
 organized, and the Germans have been able to pierce through 
 the chain of fortresses which protected the imperial frontiers 
 of France, and have since appropriated them. 
 
 We now turn to the invasion of 1814, which, in a still great- 
 er degree than 1794-5, abounds with historical parallels. 
 France had been drained of men and arms by the fatal ex- 
 pedition to Russia, by the battle of Dresden, which was the 
 last pitched battle which Napoleon won, and that awful field 
 of Leipzig, where the charm of his invincibility was again 
 rudely broken, and Germany, in resurrection from his despot- 
 ism, forever broke off his yoke. All Europe was now in arms 
 against France, and then, even more than at the present time, 
 there were political elements hardly less destructive to empire 
 and dynasty at work in Paris. The First Napoleon rejoiced 
 to leave Paris with its festering passions, to make himself 
 once more at home with his soldiers. The Allies, despite 
 their enormous preponderance of forces, would willingly shrink 
 from meeting Napoleon himself. Even the Duke of Welling- 
 ton thought his presence substantially equal to an addition of 
 forty thousand men to the amount of an army. Paris had 
 then none of those fortifications with which M. Thiers has 
 since surrounded her. There was only an octroi, which the 
 emperor directed should be strengthened with palisades and 
 artillery. When, on January 25, 1814, Napoleon reached Cha- 
 lons, to withstand the flood of invasion, his generals hoped 
 that he was being followed by supports of troops. He coolly 
 told them " No," and proceeded to encourage them by unfold- 
 ing the boldness and profundity of his plans. The campaign 
 which he then fought is full of remarkable instances of a mil- 
 itary genius which never shone brighter, but he could not
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY, 289 
 
 achieve impossibilities. The enormous disciplined masses 
 passing into France could not fail to overwhelm him eventu- 
 ally. Three great armies were prepared to act against him, 
 with enormous reserves behind in all more than a million 
 of men. The Allies hardly ventured on any movement in 
 the presence of Napoleon except in overwhelming masses. 
 Though he suffered a defeat from Blucher through force of 
 numbers, he had still such hope in his destiny that he even 
 withdrew from Caulaincourt his carte blanche of making peace. 
 He thought he could give his enemy on the wide plains of 
 Champagne the same stunning blows which he had so often 
 given them on the plains of Italy. To affect the political con- 
 dition of Paris, he resorted, as his manner was, to illimitable 
 lying, in which he was certainly not without imitators at the 
 last great crisis. He held a review, and gave in the Moniteur 
 next morning the numbers five times the amount of the truth. 
 When Blucher won the battle of La Rothiere, the rough Prus- 
 sian eagerly struck off with his knife the necks of champagne 
 bottles, and all with him vehemently drank the toast " Nach 
 Paris" (to Paris). Nappleon fell back toward the interior: 
 his plan was to concentrate his forces. By forced marches 
 and incredible impetuosity he first threw himself on one army 
 and then on another of the invaders, winning victory after vic- 
 tory. He thus won the brilliant fields of Montmirail, Nangis, 
 and Montereau. On this last he gaily said : " Don't fear, my 
 friends. The bullet is not cast that will kill me." Blucher 
 found that it was not so easy, after all, to get to Paris. The 
 Allies even offered an armistice, and were prepared for peace 
 on the conditions which Caulaincourt had proposed in his 
 name. But Napoleon had not as a politician the foresight 
 which he possessed as a general. He did not perceive that 
 his very victories were those of the kind which made King 
 Pyrrhus exclaim, "One more such victory, and I am undone." 
 
 N
 
 290 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 His triumphs would not now produce final effects. The re- 
 sistless might of Europe was setting in upon him, and he could 
 not achieve miracles. It was in vain he sent to Paris artil- 
 lery, flags, and thousands of prisoners. The end must come. 
 Still that marvelous campaign will always be studied, both 
 in the popular pages of Thiers and Alison, and also in works 
 written for military students. Step by step we are reminded 
 of the recent war. On advancing toward the capital of France 
 en the northeast or by the east, we arrive at the borders of a 
 basin, of which Paris is the centre, and toward which the 
 Marne and the Seine flow, forming an angle, whose sides unite 
 at the common apex, Paris. Between the line of the Marne 
 and Seine is the intermediate line of the Aube. It was be- 
 tween those lines that Napoleon showed his genius as a strate- 
 gist and a general. The Allies justly considered that a march 
 from the Vosges to Paris was the hardest part of the war. In 
 the midst of his successes he might repeatedly have made 
 peace on honorable terms, but he was deluded by his own 
 hopes and wishes, and the victories which he won. He failed, 
 also, to appreciate the fickleness of the capital and the reality 
 of the Bourbon reaction. Success forsook him, when he could 
 least spare a reverse, at Laon ; but, though he fell back, in re- 
 treat he succeeded in retaking Rheims, the last city he ever 
 took, and where he held his last review. He now felt bitterly 
 his enormous error in leaving vast forces in frontier fortresses 
 while he wanted troops so sorely to shield the very heart of 
 the empire. There is nothing more glorious in French annals 
 than that battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, where twenty thousand 
 French opposed during a whole day ninety thousand Russians 
 and Austrians the last battle which he fought in this cam- 
 paign. But he wanted more men. He determined to ad- 
 vance from the Aube to the Marne, in the direction of Metz, 
 where he might be joined by the garrisons of Metz, Luxem-
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 291 
 
 burg, Thionville, Verdun, and Strasburg. He accordingly 
 went back so far as St. Dizier, where he halted. It was Count 
 Pozzo di Borgo who persuaded the Emperor Alexander that 
 it was best for him to advance on Paris, even at the risk of 
 Napoleon attacking him in the rear with an army of a hun- 
 dred thousand men. He calculated on the political effects 
 of a march on Paris. By his march to the frontier, Napoleon, 
 in the failure of his calculations, as happened in the event, 
 was as much isolating himself as if he had been shut up like 
 Bazaine in Metz. 
 
 In the March of 1814 the one subject of conversation at 
 Paris was that of the defenses of the capital against the in- 
 vader. Napoleon had made two great mistakes Paris was 
 unprovided with fortifications ; Paris was unprovided with 
 muskets. Thus it is that M.Thiers speaks: "An enemy ad- 
 vancing along the right bank of the Seine must of necessity 
 encounter the half-circle of heights that surrounds Paris from 
 Vincennes to Passy, and which incloses the most populous and 
 richest part of the city. From the confluence of the Marne and 
 the Seine, near Charenton, to Passy and Auteuil, Paris is encir- 
 cled by a chain of heights, sometimes extending en plateau, as at 
 Romainville, sometimes saillant, as at Montmartre, and these 
 offered a most valuable means of resistance, even before a 
 patriot king had covered these positions with impregnable 
 fortifications !" So far M. Thiers. But we must ask : What 
 became of the patriot king ? what became of the impregnable 
 fortifications? The small army, indeed, fought bravely at 
 Montmartre and Belleville (M. Thiers's " Battle of Paris"), 
 but as soon as the first bomb had fallen in the city it capitu- 
 lated. There is no scene more striking in history than when 
 the news of this great calamity came to Napoleon. He had 
 a powerful army, he could have saved Paris if she had held 
 out, he might yet reappear there and make the capital the
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 tomb of the invaders. But the political situation was too 
 strong for him ; his own marshals put extreme pressure upon 
 him, and said the army had no more blood to spill; and he 
 himself admitted that "abdication was the idea of the hour." 
 Even while signing the act of abdication he declared he could 
 still beat them. One consolation, such as it was, he had: 
 " England has done me much harm, undoubtedly ; but I have 
 left a poisoned arrow in her side. It is I who augmented that 
 national debt that will press on future generations, and will 
 become an unceasingly oppressive if not overwhelming burden 
 to her." We think that it was on the night of the very day 
 when he spoke of poisoning England that the emperor took 
 poison himself, but ineffectually. He exclaimed : " How dif- 
 ficult death is here, and how easy on the field of battle ! Ah ! 
 why did I not die at Arcis-sur-Aube ?" 
 
 I do not know what may be my reader's private opinion of 
 the Great Duke of Marlborough. Some of them may agree 
 with Sir Archibald Alison in looking upon him as the great 
 hero ; others, with Lord Macaulay, in regarding him as the 
 great villain of history. But all agree in regarding him as a 
 great man, who humbled the pride of France, who raised the 
 fame of England, and who was a mighty instrument in bring- 
 ing about great events. God " maketh even the wrath of man 
 to praise him;" and though there may have been little to 
 please him in Marlborough's life, yet that life might be none 
 the less directed by his providence. In thinking over the ear- 
 lier career of the great duke, some sets of circumstances ap- 
 pear to be so providential that, as illustrations of " the hand 
 of God in history," I think it well to put them down. 
 
 About the year 1670 that may be taken as a convenient 
 date for the period the power of France overshadowed all 
 Christendom. Louis XIV., a selfish, cruel, bigoted voluptua-
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 293 
 
 ry, was the absolute tyrant of the country. His neighbors 
 dreaded his encroachments, and in the open field had found 
 reason to tremble at his power. One country alone might 
 have entered the lists against France, either as a single oppo- 
 nent or as the soul of an alliance. This was England En- 
 gland, that in old historic wars had so often overthrown the 
 chivalry of France, and, only twelve years before, under the 
 lion-hearted Protector, had revived the fame of her ancient 
 prowess. But a weak, sinful, guilty man, Charles II., was then 
 king of England, and found in his brother of France a con- 
 genial spirit. He joined with Louis in a wicked conspiracy 
 against the civil and religious liberties of the world. A secret 
 treaty, of a character truly infamous, was concluded in 1670, 
 at Dover, by which, practically, Charles sold England into 'the 
 hands of the king of France. For a stipulated sum of money 
 he really became the vassal of Louis. Nor was this all. The 
 king of France was then engaged in a war against the Prot- 
 estant Dutch, whom he hated with peculiar rancor. England, 
 at the time of the great Queen Elizabeth, had been of the 
 most essential assistance to Holland, in establishing and fos- 
 tering her liberties and her religion. Charles was now pre- 
 pared to join with Louis in crushing both. He covenanted 
 to send him some troops to assist in the subjugation of Hol- 
 land. 
 
 There was in those days at the court of London a soldier 
 of fortune named Churchill. He was descended of a good 
 stock on his mother's side from the renowned sea-captain 
 Drake. He was a man of great ability, of great daring, of 
 surpassing personal beauty. He had gone out some time be- 
 fore, under the notorious Colonel Kirke, to the African fortress 
 of Tangier, a place which had lately come into the possession 
 of the English through the king's marriage with Catherine of 
 Braganza. He was now in London, and, as we should say in
 
 294 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 modern parlance, quite the rage. He stole away the hearts 
 of all the court beauties. Among the rest, the king's chief 
 favorite, the Countess of Castlemain, was in love with him, 
 and made him the present of a little fortune. King Charles 
 was violently jealous of his good-looking subject, as far as his 
 easy, languid nature was susceptible of violent jealousy. He 
 thought it best to get rid of Churchill by giving him a com- 
 pany of horse to serve in the French army against Holland. 
 
 Churchill was very popular among the French. He went 
 by the name of "the handsome Englishman." The war went 
 disastrously for the Dutch, and that brave, industrious people 
 was reduced to the utmost despair. Churchill distinguished 
 himself greatly so greatly, indeed, that King Louis XIV. 
 publicly thanked him at the head of his army, and promised 
 to use his influence to procure him promotion. According to 
 all human calculation, France was now, and was long likely 
 to be, at the head of the world. This alliance with the king 
 of England, this presence of the English troops on the French 
 side, were not the least proofs of it. And yet these very facts 
 were now developing circumstances which hereafter should tell 
 with deadly effect against the French. The English army, 
 from the insularity of their country, had not had much ex- 
 perience in general warfare ; but they were now thoroughly 
 drilled in the Continental system. Churchill obtained the 
 best military education in the world. He learned fortification 
 through the famous engineer Vauban, and the science of war 
 from those most famous generals, Condd and Turenne : arts 
 of siege and arts of warfare which he afterward turned against 
 his teachers on many memorable occasions. 
 
 Now is not all this very remarkable, say providential, that a 
 worthless king, for the sake of a worthless minion, should send 
 the most soldierly genius in England to learn the dread trade 
 of war in the best military school in the world ? that France.
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 295 
 
 who in the insolence of success employed these English sol- 
 diers, should thus be training an army which should hereafter 
 reduce her to the verge of ruin and despair? that Marlborough 
 should learn from the marshals of France those lessons which 
 enabled him afterward to bring them to defeat and disgrace? 
 that King Louis of France should himself personally obtain 
 the promotion of the man who proved to be his deadliest ene- 
 my, and put him on the high road to great military rank, which 
 was eventually the means of covering his own gray hairs with 
 well-merited shame and disappointment? 
 
 Let us now pass over a term of thirty years. We come to 
 the scene of Marlborough's most famous triumphs, and an oc- 
 casion of a great peril and deliverance. That dashing Captain 
 Churchill has become the great Earl of Marlborough. On 
 various occasions, in various critical campaigns, he has proved 
 his great genius. This he has done in the civil wars of En- 
 gland, and in the Low Countries. The Grand Alliance has 
 now been formed, to curb the towering ambition of Louis. 
 Marlborough is the generalissimo of the army. The cam- 
 paign of the first year of the war has just been fought ; it was 
 a year unmarked by any such victory as those which afterward 
 ensued Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet but, 
 nevertheless, Marlborough's success had been brilliant; he 
 had taken several important places ; especially, he had cap- 
 tured the city of Lie'ge. The campaign was now over ; all 
 hostilities were suspended by the winter. The army had 
 gone into winter quarters. 
 
 Marlborough set out from Flanders to proceed to the 
 Hague. Some Dutch commissioners were in his company. 
 He resolved to do part of his journey by water, and embark- 
 ed on the Meuse. The Meuse is an affluent of the Rhine, 
 and retains many of the beauties of the parent stream. Al- 
 though the livery of winter was on land and stream, the river
 
 296 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 was still navigable, and its banks presented much of that emi- 
 nently pleasing scenery which at the present day delights 
 multitudes of tourists. The boat preserved an easy, prosper- 
 ous course. Every thing around was as peaceful as if there 
 was a general pacification, instead of universal war. The 
 many-sided Marlborough must have enjoyed this peaceful 
 change. Perhaps he anticipated the wide field now open for 
 his genius and ambition, exulting in the success which he had 
 just attained, and looking forward to plans of future victory. 
 
 If such were his meditations, they were destined to be rude- 
 ly interrupted. A band of marauding Frenchmen, in the love 
 of adventure or desire of plunder, were just at this time mak- 
 ing a daring incursion on the banks of the Meuse. They saw 
 the boat, and from its size and equipment judged that it might 
 be a prize of unusual value. Passengers and boatmen in- 
 cluded, the whole crew were quite incapable of competing 
 with the superior number of Frenchmen. The French soon 
 perceived and used their opportunity; the crew were sur- 
 rounded, the boat seized, and all were made prisoners. 
 
 Yes, there was no doubt at all about the humiliating fact ; 
 the great Earl of Marlborough, the generalissimo of the allied 
 armies, was a prisoner in the hands of the French. Not at 
 the close of some late-contested field, in honorable defeat by 
 the fair, open foe, was the great commander taken captive, but 
 thus ingloriously by a band of mere marauders. It was not 
 for him to wield the thunderbolts of war. Immured in some 
 strong fortress, he would perhaps drag on his days as a dis- 
 honored prisoner, while others fought the campaigns and won 
 the battles of the day. 
 
 The French dealt with their prize in sharp, business-like 
 fashion ; they overhauled the boat to look for any valuables 
 it might contain. To their extreme satisfaction the search 
 proved exceedingly, abundantly productive. Valuable plate,
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 297 
 
 rich furs and coverings, a round sum of money, handsome 
 wearing apparel formed their lucky booty. They then turned 
 round to investigate their prisoners ; it was just possible that 
 they might be persons of rank, very well worth the capturing. 
 If they had only known it, there was one prisoner there worth 
 that boatful of gold, yea, that boatful of gold told ten times 
 over ay, and if the king of France with prescient eye could 
 have read the future, he would have promoted the captain of 
 the band to the third place in the kingdom if he had brought 
 Marlborough as a prisoner to Versailles. If this had only 
 been the case, the fate of the war and the history of Europe 
 might have been different. 
 
 The Dutchmen were overhauled solid, robust, substantial 
 men. Not much was to be made out of them. The French- 
 men must have perceived that Marlborough was treated with 
 high consideration, but his real rank did not transpire. Even 
 the intrepid spirit of Marlborough must have quailed in this 
 moment of consternation and danger. Just at this crisis his 
 servant noiselessly came behind him, and slipped a piece of 
 paper into his hand. 
 
 With his usual presence of mind, Marlborough did nothing 
 to betray the incident ; but he found an opportunity to take a 
 quick glance at the paper. 
 
 It was an old passport a passport which had been made 
 many years ago a passport which belonged to himself. It 
 was made out to him under the name of General Churchill. 
 
 His captors came to examine him. He exhibited the pass- 
 port ; the title of Marlborough did not appear there. If it 
 had, he would have been seized at once, with the utmost joy 
 and delight; but his captors, ignorant and unlearned men, 
 though the name of Marlborough was then ringing in all ears, 
 did not recognize the former appellation. To them the pass- 
 port was a mere credential of respectability.
 
 298 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 What should they do with the prisoners? This was now 
 an object of consultation. Perhaps the dark thought occurred 
 to them that they had better put them to death. This is 
 what would have been done immediately in ancient times. 
 Happily, Christianity, even in the worst wars, has mitigated 
 materially the ferocious spirit of warfare. Should they take 
 their prisoners to France ? There were serious difficulties in 
 the way. It would not be easy to carry away their prisoners 
 as well as their booty. Besides, the country might be aroused, 
 and they might be compelled to abandon both. After all, their 
 booty had been very satisfactory. Besides, these poor people 
 had lost all their property. Ultimately they determined to do 
 them no further harm, but let them proceed on their journey. 
 
 With what a feeling of relief Marlborough must have 
 watched their vanishing forms ! In due season he arrived in 
 safety at the Hague. He was greeted with the utmost enthu- 
 siasm. That enthusiasm was redoubled when his narrow es- 
 cape from captivity became known. And now all Marlbor- 
 ough's previous successes were thrown into the shade by the 
 wonderful victories which have made Marlborough a house- 
 hold name in England for all time. So greatly was that name 
 dreaded by the foe that the French nurses long hushed their 
 children to sleep by telling them that Marlborough was com- 
 ing. Napoleon counted him the first of modern generals ; 
 and when setting out on his Russian campaign he whistled 
 the air, " Marlbrook s'en va t'en guerre," a romantic remem- 
 brance of the renown of the great captain. 
 
 The great Schlegel does not hesitate to speak of turning- 
 points in a man's life where the Spirit of the Living God has 
 interposed ; and there is a crisis not only for individuals, but 
 for nations, and for the world. In some deeply moving catas- 
 trophe of a man's life it makes a distinct and speaking mnni-
 
 NATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 299 
 
 festation of itself, working in him a total change of his feelings 
 and sentiments. But the Spirit's flaming sword of judgment 
 may be turned not only upon individuals, but also upon whole 
 nations and ages, to divert them from error and unbelief, and 
 to lead them back to truth. Lastly, it may also be directed 
 toward the whole world and the whole human race.
 
 300 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Force of Adverse Circumstances. 
 
 HITHERTO we have chiefly dwelt on the bright side of hu- 
 man endeavor, but there is also a dark side to be stated. There 
 are those who have turned the corner and gone down hill ; who 
 have come to the turning-point and have taken the wrong turn- 
 ing ; who have come to the spot where the two roads parted 
 off, and have stood a little while and gone a little way, and 
 have come back and pondered, and have then definitely made 
 up their minds in the wrong direction. Let us consider this 
 a little. 
 
 I suppose that there is no expression more commonly used 
 among young men than "going to the bad." Now it may be 
 well to inquire what this "going to the bad" may happen to 
 mean. 
 
 In the first place, the number of men who, born under fair 
 stars and with fair prospects, nevertheless " go to the bad," is 
 awful, is simply incalculable. It is a subject which suggests 
 many sad reflections. It is one which belongs to every man's 
 experience, and, the wider the experience, the more decisive 
 becomes the observation of failure and downfall. Thackeray 
 used to dwell upon the doctrine that there was a skeleton in 
 every closet. If he meant that each man had some dark se- 
 crets in his mind which he dared not reveal, I think he was 
 wrong in that impression. It was a libelous hit at human na- 
 ture. Such a position would be intolerable to a Christian man 
 and a gentleman. Depend upon it, he has opened the door
 
 FORCE OF ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 301 
 
 and window of his closet, and has exorcised the ghost. But if 
 it is meant that there is some mauvais sujet in each family, 
 some member, perhaps deeply beloved, who has altogether 
 gone wrong, then I suspect that the saying is true. It is said, 
 for instance, by our teetotal friends let us hope that they have 
 put a pardonable spice of exaggeration into the matter that 
 there is no single family but has a drunkard in it. 
 
 Let us look at cases in which people break down. 
 
 I suppose most of us know the " agony" column in the Lon- 
 don Times. I don't suppose that people invent hints of agoniz- 
 ing stories for the mere sake of spending seven shillings on an 
 advertisement. What touching hints of family history do we 
 find there ! How often the intimation, clear or veiled, that 
 some one has " gone astray !" That is the pretty uniform tenor 
 of a large proportion of these very curious advertisements. 
 
 We hear a great deal of people who emerge from the work- 
 ing-class which, indeed, is not a class, but the stuff and staple 
 from which all classes are formed and a bracing, healthful, 
 cheering reading it is, though perhaps a little misleading to 
 many hopeful aspirants, yet telling us how poor men, by ener- 
 gy, skill, and character, have attained fame and fortune. It is 
 always exhilarating to read records of progress. But the wheel 
 of life revolves. There is both upward and downward. If 
 there are men who emerge from the masses and win their way 
 upward, there are also men who lose their position, gravitate 
 downward, and are lost in the masses. 
 
 Let a man run over the list of his school-fellows, and he will 
 find that a considerable proportion of them have been ruined 
 for life. 
 
 At college we often hear of a man "going to the bad." It 
 is the most mournful bit of college slang I know. To some 
 it only means that a man has taken a very low class instead of 
 a high class, or has been plucked instead of taking any class
 
 302 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 at all. Or perhaps it means that a man has accumulated a 
 great deal of debt, which his friends have much difficulty in dis- 
 charging, or which -has become a great incubus upon himself. 
 There is no doubt but these are serious things in themselves, 
 and the precursors to things still more serious. But university 
 men who burn the candle at both ends little imagine the 
 smoke and sputtering with which the darkness comes on. 
 Gunning, in his " Reminiscences of Cambridge," speaks of 
 several cases within his experience. Once a gentleman, called 
 out at dinner to see a poor wretch lying senseless in a cart, 
 recognized the wreck of a university man who had been one 
 of the most courted and brilliant members of the best society 
 of his day. You ask after such a man, and you find he left 
 college one night suddenly, and long years passed before he 
 turned up as usher in the vulgarest of commercial schools. An- 
 other has left hopelessly in debt, and has been unable to take 
 a degree. Another has been refused his college testimonials, 
 and consequently can not take a family-living. His relations 
 allow him a pound a week, on the strength of which he degen- 
 erates into a useless vagabond. Another enlisted in the Line, 
 and went out as a common soldier to India. Another is in 
 the police force. Another is driving a hansom. Another is 
 in the fire brigade. Another emigrated to America, working 
 his way behind the mast The other day a cabman touched 
 his hat to a gentleman, who recognized in him an old school- 
 fellow. I do not cite these cases as being altogether unfortu- 
 nate. Doubtless each shows a great fall off from a university 
 career, but still there was decent bread honestly earned. But 
 there are many worse cases than these. A man starving in a 
 garret at Islington ; a man turned bush-ranger in Australia ; 
 a man dying in a work-house ; a man convicted at the bar of 
 the Old Bailey, and so on, are instances of that most serious 
 tragedy that may underlie the slang saying of "going to the
 
 FORCE OF ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 33 
 
 bad." A very common form of a man "going to the bad" is 
 that he drinks himself to death, or is cut off by disease which 
 is his own fault. A man, to use another slang expression, may 
 sow his wild oats, but he is never sure when he has finished 
 reaping them. 
 
 All such persons had their turning-points. You might trace 
 up the evil to its genesis. A critical moment came to them 
 unknown, when they had to choose between the right hand 
 and the left, and the choice, apparently arbitrary, was most 
 probably led up irresistibly by antecedent events to a foregone 
 conclusion. 
 
 Take another set of cases, where the moral obliquity is not 
 equally apparent. All of a sudden a man is arrested suddenly 
 by some great misfortune. It is not in reality any fault of his. 
 The blow comes with a crushing force, and is not, in many 
 cases, without a very serious and sometimes a deleterious effect 
 upon his character. 
 
 A bank suddenly fails. One man loses his whole fortune. 
 Another has a mere nothing, and he loses that nothing. 
 
 Mr. Reade in one of his novels makes a man lose his money 
 at a bank. He then turns atheist, and burns the family Bible. 
 
 Even a sorer trial than the loss of fortune is the indifference 
 and neglect with which the world, or mere summer friends, 
 "flies of estate and sunshine," view such misfortunes. 
 
 I knew a man once who had possessed a considerable for- 
 tune and some literary reputation. By some fell stroke he 
 lost the whole of his property by a stroke sudden, fatal, and 
 irretrievable. He went round to his friends to try and get some 
 help. Among others he went to the late Lord Macaulay, then 
 Mr. Macaulay. He came at an inopportune moment. Macau- 
 lay had just lost his seat for Edinburgh, and, refusing to sit for 
 any other constituency, he resigned office, and some five thou- 
 sand a year with it. The Whigs were at that time firmly in
 
 34 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 office, and he was abandoning a large income apparently in- 
 sured for years. He received my poor friend with the great- 
 est kindness, and handed him thirty pounds, adding, if I re- 
 member aright, many kind words and promises of further as- 
 sistance. The poor man dwelt greatly on Macaulay's cheering 
 kindness. He told me, apparently in accordance with some 
 scientific vagary, that he made dinner the single meal of the 
 twenty-four hours. I know some people have had the idea, 
 and acted upon it, not unprosperously, but the sickening 
 thought occurs to me that perhaps it was want or forced econ- 
 omy that made my poor friend adopt the theory. His only 
 means of support was the giving lessons in German. He was 
 called in to give lessons to some family, that of a great digni- 
 tary, who had known him on equal terms in his days of afflu- 
 ence. The callousness, the uninterested and matter-of-course 
 way in which they took his misfortunes above all, the manner 
 in which they abandoned their cordiality toward an old friend 
 for an indifference toward a new language-master, weighed 
 heavily upon his spirits. One day the luckless German master 
 committed suicide by cutting his throat. 
 
 In such cases it can hardly be broadly asserted that a man 
 has by his own misconduct gone utterly the wrong way. 
 There has been some staggering blow of adversity, and his 
 nature has reeled and sunk beneath it. Some splendid stroke 
 of prosperity might have had an equally disastrous effect. A 
 man told me once that, having come into an unexpected leg- 
 acy, he had no sleep in consequence for eleven nights. I 
 think that people who speak of such prolonged sleeplessness 
 unconsciously exaggerate, and do not allow for some surrep- 
 titious winks : life, without any sleep at all, could hardly be 
 sustained beyond a few days. Once I traveled in a railway 
 carriage in the north of France, and met a madman in charge 
 of his keepers. They told me that the unhappy man had
 
 FORCE OF ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES. 305 
 
 suddenly come into a large fortune, and had lost his reason. 
 Dr. Forbes Winslow has a striking anecdote in that striking 
 and most remarkable work on the " Obscurer Diseases of the 
 Mind." A man on the Stock Exchange one day made ten 
 thousand pounds. His brain was turned in a moment. He 
 commenced saying " Ten thousand pounds ! ten thousand 
 pounds !" and went on saying it, with incredible rapidity, 
 through many weary months of madness. One is very sorry 
 to refer madness to a sufferer's own fault, but a sounder moral 
 sense, undebased by excessive love of money, might have 
 averted such a catastrophe. 
 
 There is only one way of meeting such misfortunes as may 
 assuredly come to us. So to speak, we live in the trembling 
 valleys, such as those below the slopes of Etna, and are liable 
 to the fiery irruption. 
 
 There is only one way of meeting the instances where men 
 break down, or come to grief in consequence of some sudden 
 stroke of fortune or misfortune the two opposing poles, arc- 
 tic and antarctic, on which one is equally liable to be wrecked. 
 A man's philosophy will not suffice. It would conduct us ei- 
 ther to Epicureanism or Stoicism. The one is an organized 
 selfishness, that would turn wealth to basest uses ; the other, 
 a pride and inhuman disdain of outward circumstances that 
 in an extreme case would take refuge from sorrow in suicide. 
 It is only the ballasted mind which, self-poised, would be un- 
 swayed by veering currents. However far back removed the 
 stages of the radical defect may be, the matter narrows itself 
 at last to the want of that religious sense which determines 
 the relative proportion of things. Where the overwhelming 
 thought of a future life is present, it absorbs minor cares and 
 elevates ordinary motives. Neither is it any answer to say 
 that men who profess to be actuated by such motives often 
 practically forget them. I have somewhere read of a man
 
 306 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 who day by day was approaching some vast mountain, wheth- 
 er Alp, or Andes, or Himalayan. The vast snowy height 
 above him, however, governed all the horizon, and dominated 
 all other natural phenomena. It might be that any casual 
 employment or chain of thought caused a brief forgetful ness. 
 It might be that the interposition of a hand's breadth before 
 the eyes served to blot out the mountain from the view. But 
 there was no confusion of thought between the relative pro- 
 portions of the hand's breadth and of the mountain. Even 
 so in life, when the great aspiration of immortality is firmly 
 grasped, mere human things sink into a comparative insignifi- 
 cance. There will be little of permanent elation or perma- 
 nent depression. The inequalities on the earth's surface are 
 as nothing when we are simply considering the magnitude of 
 the earth. 
 
 There is always a consolation for those who may look back 
 sorrowfully on life, and think, as Mr. Dickens made one of his 
 characters say, " that it is all a muddle !" and, as one man sor- 
 rowfully said toward the end of his life, that " his youth was a 
 blunder, his manhood a struggle, and his old age a regret." 
 The blunder, the struggle, and the regret may have formed 
 part of the discipline of life. It would have been ill indeed 
 for a man to be able to assert that his youth was triumph, his 
 manhood rest, and his old age comfort and complacency. All 
 men need through errors to attain to truth, through struggles 
 to victory, through regrets to that sorrow which is a very 
 source of life, that repentance which is not to be repented of. 
 Men must rise in an ever-ascending scale, like that ladder of 
 St. Augustine, by which men, through stepping-stones of their 
 dead selves, rise to higher things, or those steps of Alciphron, 
 the Epicurean, which crumbled away into nothingness as fast 
 as each footfall left them. Our very mistakes in life may be 
 overruled for a higher end, and our very tears water spiritual
 
 FORCE OF ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES. 307 
 
 growth that may be rich with immortal foliage and fruit. It 
 is not, after all, what a man may have been, but what a man 
 is, which makes his true happiness and fixes his real state. 
 If only we are saved at last, if only we escape safe to shore, 
 it matters little though we are only rescued in clinging to 
 spars and broken pieces of the ship. When one views the mis- 
 eries of humanity, where perhaps some single act has ruined 
 a whole life, and has brought a misery that seems incommen- 
 surate to the offense, there is only one way in which consola- 
 tion can be found. This sharp suffering may be remedial, 
 and indeed essential for life. The image that comforts one 
 most is that suggested by surgery. You see a surgeon about 
 to perform some operation which we know will inflict pain, 
 and perhaps be perilous to life. The instruments look so 
 cold and keen and bright, and there seems something almost 
 cruel about the surgeon as with calm nerve and decision he 
 proceeds to operate. But his course is dictated by skill and 
 wisdom, and frequently enough by the purest benevolence. 
 This is just the same way that we may believe God deals with 
 us. Having endowed his creatures with free will, we may say 
 that a state of sin follows at once on the power of free voli- 
 tion. And all the sorrow of life is but the Divine Master's 
 hand cutting away the diseased portions of our nature, that 
 we may live and not die. The force of adverse circumstances 
 is one of the weapons in the divine arsenal whereby our self- 
 discipline is accomplished, and we are brought out of our- 
 selves by the sorrow that comes not from the ground, and the 
 trouble that comes not from the dust, into simple dependence 
 on a supernatural power. 
 
 "You thought, by efforts of your own, 
 To take at last each jarring tone 
 Out of your life, till all should meet 
 In one majestic music sweet ;
 
 308 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 And deemed that in your own heart's ground 
 
 The root of good was to be found ; 
 
 And that by careful watering, 
 
 And earnest tendance, we might bring 
 
 The bud, the blossom, and the fruit 
 
 To grow and flourish from that root ; 
 
 You deemed you needed nothing more 
 
 Than skill and courage to explore 
 
 Deep down enough in your own heart 
 
 To where the well-head lay apart, 
 
 Which must the springs of being feed, 
 
 And that these fountains did not need 
 
 The soil that choked them moved away, 
 
 To bubble in the open day. 
 
 But thanks to heaven it is not so ; 
 
 That root a richer soil doth know 
 
 Than our poor hearts could e'er supply : 
 
 That stream is from a source more high ; 
 
 From God it came, to God returns, 
 
 Not nourished from our scanty urns, 
 
 But fed from his unfailing river, 
 
 Which runs, and will run on forever."* 
 
 There is somewhere on our coast a fountain within high- 
 water mark on the sea-shore. Twice a day the tide spreads 
 over it, and the pure, sweet water is defiled and spoiled by 
 the salt, bitter wave. But the tide goes down, and the fount- 
 ain washes itself clear from the defilement. As that troubled 
 sea goes down once more the fountain gushes pure and sweet 
 beneath the pure, sweet heavens. This is the emblem of a 
 life that is in daily conflict with the world and with adverse 
 circumstances. Again and again it is overpowered by those 
 perplexed circumstances and tumultuous voices, but these all 
 subside, and the soul is left alone with God. 
 * Archbishop Trench.
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 309 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Theories of Life. 
 
 EVERY man is, in some sort of way, a philosopher. As he 
 accumulates the facts of experience he begins to generalize 
 from them. A man more and more perceives the immense 
 importance of intention as determining the moral quality of 
 actions. Somehow a man finds the necessity of clinging to 
 some moral support. In cases of failure he will at least try 
 to have the consolation that he acted for the best. Very prob- 
 ably the man turns an optimist, believing that every thing has 
 really been for the best ; or even if he turns pessimist, deter- 
 minately believing that every thing has happened for the worst, 
 he is still constructing some kind of philosophy for himself. 
 
 Of course many men can only philosophize these philos- 
 ophies in a very crude kind of way. Many, on the other side, 
 do so in a very elaborate and complicated manner. But 
 whether men distinctly formulate their views or not, they cer- 
 tainly do make out some kind of theory of life for themselves. 
 Here is our life, and the question is, " What shall we do with 
 it ?" In such an inquiry every thing depends on what theory 
 of life we may adopt. There are various theories of life be- 
 fore the world. Approfondissez go to the bottom of things 
 is a motto that has a wide predominance at the present 
 day. Men are not so well content as they used to be with 
 being practical atheists, but in an age of general discussion 
 and information they seek some basis of argument that may 
 give color to and explain their lives. The question that un-
 
 310 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 derlies the whole matter is whether we believe in a Living 
 God, and, supposing we believe in him, whether we regard 
 him as a Loving Father, loving and caring for his children, or 
 whether we regard him simply as the impersonation of the 
 causes which are at work in the material universe, " looking 
 with sober satisfaction upon the successful expansion of the 
 original seed which commenced the formation of the vast ma- 
 terial organism." 
 
 A man, therefore, must arrive at some solid view of human 
 life. He must not be one of those who are ever learning and 
 yet never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Until 
 the central idea of life is adjusted, we shall be unable to find 
 a balanced and well-ordered life. A man will, indeed, be 
 ever proceeding in knowledge, and from time to time he will 
 have to put his added experience and ideas into definite rela- 
 tion with his belief. Some people form their opinions dog- 
 matically, and then, as they say, lay them on the shelf. Oth- 
 ers always hold their opinions " in solution," prepared to mod- 
 ify or reject them on any advent of further light. An opinion 
 permanently laid upon the shelf, or, on the other hand, one 
 only retained in a settled state of unsettledness, seems equally 
 removed from an intelligent holding of it. A man will, above 
 all things, hold the love of truth. He will reverence truth as 
 he does his conscience. But having sought carefully for it, 
 and attained it, not as a matter of opinion, but from all the 
 best thought and experience, he will seek to be settled and 
 grounded. Above all, he will know that, with the safeguard 
 of a pure, unselfish, and laborious life, he can not wander far 
 from it. He will know, indeed, that there may be an inaccu- 
 racy and incompleteness in his views which time alone can 
 clarify and extend ; and in his own mind he will be constant- 
 ly adjusting the relations of things new to things old. He will 
 also constantly hold the supreme majesty of truth, and wel-
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 311 
 
 come every fact, however opposed to his dearest beliefs, which 
 is brought home by irrefragable argument or fact. But he 
 .holds firmly to his belief, since he has sought to build upon a 
 rock, and has so built up the edifice of his faith from deep 
 waters and amid many storms ; and he feels pretty certain 
 that no difficulties will represent that investigation and thought 
 with which former difficulties have been overcome. What Philip 
 van Artevelde says is especially true of religion : 
 
 " All my life long 
 
 I have beheld with most respect the man 
 Who knew himself and knew the ways before him, 
 And from among them chose considerately, 
 And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind 
 Pursued his purpose." 
 
 The great tendency of the present day is in the direction 
 of physical science. We observe, we note, we examine and 
 cross-examine facts, and from phenomena we attain to law. 
 For a time we seem bound up and delivered over to dead, 
 impersonal, pitiless laws. The world seems as some vast 
 manufactory, in which we hear incessantly the clash and 
 whirring of a complex machinery. But we come to learn 
 that the Lawgiver is behind his laws, and that, paradoxical as 
 it may sound, while he hides himself behind them, he also re- 
 veals himself through them. For these laws, too, 'are "ema- 
 nations of the all-beauteous mind." In a sense they shadow 
 forth the Divinity that contrived them. Moreover, we learn 
 the limitations of these- laws ; that there are other facts, the 
 facts of mind and conscience, as certain as any material facts, 
 though unamenable to physical law. As Mr. Palgrave strik- 
 ingly says : 
 
 " To matter or to force 
 
 The All is not confined ; 
 Beside the law of things 
 
 Is set the law of mind ;
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 One speaks in rock and star, 
 
 And one within the brain, 
 In unison at times, 
 
 And then apart again ; 
 And both in one have brought us hither, 
 That we may know our whence and whither. 
 
 " The sequences of law 
 
 We learn through mind alone ; 
 'Tis only through the Soul 
 
 That aught we know is known : 
 With equal voice she tells 
 
 Of what we touch and see 
 Within these bounds of life 
 
 And of a life to be ; 
 
 Proclaiming one who brought us hither, 
 And holds the keys of whence and whither." 
 
 Or as Principal Shairp* acutely puts it : " One thing often 
 said before must be repeated. This supposed necessity to 
 rest in the perception of ordered phenomena is no necessity 
 at all, but an artificial and arbitrarily imposed limitation, 
 against which thought left to its natural action rebels. It is 
 impossible for any reflective mind, not dominated by a sys- 
 tem, to regard the ordered array of physical forces, and to rest 
 satisfied with this order, without going on to ask whence it 
 came, what placed it there. Thought can not be kept back, 
 when it sees arrangement, from asking what is the arranging 
 power ; when it sees existence, from inquiring how it came to 
 exist ; and the question is a natural and legitimate one, in 
 spite of all that phenomenalism may say against it, and it 
 will not cease to be asked while there are reasoning men to 
 ask it." 
 
 * I must in this chapter express my obligations to Principal Shairp's 
 admirable little book. " Culture and Religion," which I would venture very 
 strongly to recommend.
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 
 
 313 
 
 Men will, either consciously or unconsciously, philosophize 
 on life ; and there is no greater " moment" than when a man 
 resolutely takes up some system of life, and determines to 
 abide by it. Here is Professor Huxley's famous view : " That 
 man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so 
 trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his 
 will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that as a 
 mechanism it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, 
 logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth 
 working order ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to 
 any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the 
 anchors of the mind ; whose mind is stored with a knowledge 
 of the great and fundamental truths of Nature, and of the laws 
 of her operations ; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life 
 and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a 
 vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience ; who has 
 learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or art ; to hate 
 all vileness, and to respect others as himself." This is a no- 
 ble passage, regarded as an eloquent exposition of a merely 
 scientific theory of culture. But it is concerned merely with 
 the phenomena of life. We are to take all the facts of life ; 
 we are to look at human life as a game, as Professor Huxley 
 goes on to explain, in which we are to seek to win for our- 
 selves. Man is to be " the servant of a tender conscience ;" 
 but we are at a loss to see how, under such a system, a tender 
 conscience is to be framed. God is reduced to an automaton, 
 a mere personification of dead law. Such a system, if consist- 
 ent with itself, would abjure the moral elements ; but, by the 
 introduction of high-sounding moral phrases, we have to see 
 how far it is consistent. The whole merit of life is made to 
 consist in winning a merely human game. But how does it 
 apply to those who have been liberated from merely secular 
 aims ; those who have been content to sacrifice all the ordi- 
 
 O
 
 314 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 nary aims of life, who have been content to labor and suffer 
 and die, if knowledge can be extended, if society can be puri- 
 fied, if the limits of the kingdom of Christ can be enlarged ? 
 Would the true heroes of the world ever have done any thing 
 on this view of life ? Some men lay the greatest stress upon 
 culture that new and somewhat artificial word on which so 
 much is built up by our philosophical culturists, of whom, 
 perhaps, Mr. Matthew Arnold is the greatest exponent since 
 Gothe. But it is important to have a clear idea of what is 
 really meant by culture. " Culture," says Principal Shairp, 
 " is not a product of mere study. Learning may be got from 
 books, but not culture. It is a mere living process, and re- 
 quires that the student shall at times close his books, leave his 
 solitary room, and mingle with his fellow-men. He must seek 
 the intercourse of living hearts as well as of dead books 
 especially the companionship of those of his own contempora- 
 ries whose minds and characters are fitted to instruct, elevate, 
 and sweeten his own. Another thing required is the disci- 
 pline which must be carried on by each man in himself; the 
 learning of self-control, the forming of habits, the effort to 
 overcome what is evil, and to strengthen what is good in his 
 own nature. But to enumerate all the means of culture would 
 be impossible, seeing they are wide as the world, and the proc- 
 ess begins with the cradle, and we may well believe does not 
 end with the grave." This eloquent writer goes on to argne : 
 " Start from the manward pole, and go along the line honest- 
 ly and thoroughly, and you land in the divine one. Start 
 from the divine pole, and carry out all that it implies, and 
 you land in the manward pole, or the perfection of humanity. 
 Ideally considered, then, culture must culminate in religion, 
 and religion in culture." But most men find it difficult to rec- 
 oncile the two, and reconcile the claims of culture and religion. 
 But if we refuse to limit culture by any narrow definition, if
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 
 
 we refuse to confine culture within the limits of positivism, 
 and make it embrace the nature of man in its totality, then 
 culture must rise to some better idea of culture than that en- 
 tertained by the culturists. 
 
 Of these, Gothe would probably be considered the chief. 
 He endeavored to confine culture entirely within the limits of 
 human development. There is probably nothing contrary to 
 this, even in the second part of " Faust," although the Ger- 
 mans have imported into Gothe, as they have imported into 
 Shakespeare, very much of what Gothe or Shakespeare must 
 have been altogether unconscious. Gothe was a many-sided 
 man, and it is impossible to contemplate without wonder all 
 that he did in the development of his nature in so many va- 
 ried relations. But the career was not a satisfactory one, and 
 a darkness seems to rest upon it at the last. His purely self- 
 ish system was not one which traveled beyond the precincts 
 of sense. The philosophy of Shakespeare, if he may be said to 
 have held a philosophy, was like Comte's, like Gothe's, like 
 Bacon's, in its natural system, entirely limited to the facts of 
 this life, ignoring those higher spiritual facts, which, though im- 
 measurable, imponderable, invisible, are as true as any of the 
 objective facts of nature. 
 
 I can not but think that Mr. Tennyson's fine poem of the 
 " Palace of Art" portrays the soul that has built up its rest in 
 every thing that can administer gratification to the senses and 
 the intellect, but has found all this utterly break down in a 
 moment of supreme trial. When the fool in the parable says, 
 " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years," I do 
 not understand by these goods that which relates merely to 
 the eating, drinking, and making merry. The expression is 
 used of the soul that trusts to its own powers and its own re- 
 sources, trusts to that which is altogether external to the love 
 and will of God.
 
 316 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 The Soul abides in the wide, royal palace, lavished with 
 every thing of literature and art, of all that the "supreme 
 Caucasian mind" can invent or suggest, and filled with con- 
 tempt for humbler men. 
 
 " O all things fair to sate my various eyes ! 
 
 shapes and hues that please me well ! 
 
 silent faces of the great and wise, 
 My gods with whom I dwell ! 
 
 " O God-like isolation which art mine, 
 
 1 can but count thee perfect gain ; 
 
 What time I watch the darkening droves of swine 
 That range on yonder plain ! 
 
 " Then of the moral instinct she would prate, 
 
 And of the rising from the dead, 
 As hers by right of full-accomplished fate, 
 And at the last she said : 
 
 " I take possession of man's mind and deed ; 
 I care not what the sects may brawl ; 
 
 1 sit as God, holding no form of creed, 
 But contemplating all." 
 
 The downfall of that Soul is then set forth by the poet in 
 the finest vein of human parabolic preaching. 
 
 I can very well understand how to many the pursuit of knowl- 
 edge is indeed every thing. And the poet beautifully shows 
 how knowledge may be gloriously used after the soul has 
 gained the supreme good : 
 
 " Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 
 
 So lightly, beautifully built : 
 Perchance I may return with others there, 
 When I have purged my guilt." 
 
 I read the other day of a great man beginning to learn 
 German after his fortieth year. When Robert Hall, aged and 
 racked with pain, read Macaulay's first essay, he set to work
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 317 
 
 at Italian in order to judge of the parallel drawn between Mil- 
 ton and Dante. I remember hearing of some Americans who 
 imagined, in a moment of preternatural acuteness, that the 
 judgment-day was at hand. They concluded, however, that 
 the judgment-day could not find them better employed than 
 lighting their candles and going to their proper business. A 
 similar story is related of the most saintly of English judges.* 
 A man might be profitably employed to the last day of his life 
 in gathering up new facts in science or new conclusions. It 
 is sometimes said that the next world finds us very much as 
 this world leaves us. The remark is perhaps truer than might 
 be supposed. Our stock of ideas and knowledge now may 
 have some direct relation to that which we may start with 
 hereafter. 
 
 But besides anti-Christian philosophical systems, there are 
 practical plans and theories of life which, without rising to the 
 dignity of being in any degree philosophical, do largely domi- 
 
 * "In the year 1666 an opinion did run through the nation that the end 
 of the world would come that year. This had spread mightily among 
 the people ; and Judge Hale going that year the Western Circuit, it hap- 
 pened that as he was on the bench at the assizes, a most terrible storm fell 
 out very unexpectedly, accompanied with such flashes of lightning and claps 
 of thunder that the like will hardly fall out in an age : upon which a whis- 
 per or a rumor ran through the crowd, that now was the world to end and 
 the day of judgment to begin ; and on this there followed a general con- 
 sternation in the whole assembly, and all men forgot the business they were 
 met about, and betook themselves to their prayers. This, added to the 
 horror raised by the storm, looked very dismally, insomuch that my inform- 
 ant, a man of no ordinary resolution and firmness of mind, confessed it 
 made a great impression upon himself. But he told me that he did observe 
 the judge not a whit affected, and was going on with the business of the 
 court in his ordinary manner ; from which he made this conclusion that 
 his thoughts were so well fixed, that he believed if the world had been 
 really to end, it would have given him no considerable disturbance." Life 
 of Sir Matthew Hale.
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE, 
 
 nate in the minds of many. There is no common denomina- 
 tor that can measure the immense difference between human 
 minds. While one man's nature is entirely occupied in the 
 cultivation of the intellectual faculties and the eradication of 
 moral evil, another man's soul is wrapped up in dreams of 
 pride, selfishness, and wealth One man's whole nature is 
 deeply moved and troubled because he can not understand 
 the origin of evil or the dealings of Providence, and another 
 man's soul is troubled by no deeper emotions than those re- 
 lating to the rise or fall of stock. We can not but think that 
 in the ordinary novel one finds the expression of vulgar theo- 
 ries of life. It is easy to see of some French novelists that 
 their imagination can invent no higher state of life than lots 
 of pleasure, money, and wine, and to roll under some gor- 
 geously laden table in the small hours of the morning. 
 
 Moreover, there is a point of view from which the most or- 
 dinary novel has its moral and psychological interest. If it 
 tells us little else, it tells us a great deal about its author. It 
 reveals to us many both of the most common and the most 
 curious workings of the human mind. For the fortunes of 
 the hero or the actors we have little sympathy. The hero 
 may stop, or not, the runaway horse, with its lovely but sense- 
 less burden ; the unjust will may stand or be critically over- 
 thrown as the judge is about to sum up ; the villain may 
 leave, or may not leave, a full confession of his guilt ; so far 
 as we ourselves are personally concerned, the narrative may 
 quite fail to excite our flagging interest. But it is really worth 
 while to examine the particular kind of mind which has pro- 
 duced a particular kind of novel. By use we may learn to 
 discriminate between the real character of the novelist and 
 the mere veneering of language. The novelist really answers 
 a great many interrogatories which we might feel inclined to 
 put to him. He truly goes into the confessional, whispers
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 319 
 
 every fact of his history, unbares the cogitations of his soul. 
 There are not many novels from which we may not, more or 
 less, disentangle an autobiographical element. Only, as in the 
 case of the confessional, though it may be interesting at first, 
 there is a terrible sameness about it afterward. The charac- 
 ter of this self-inculpating evidence is, however, mainly of a 
 negative kind. We detect the want of earnestness and sim- 
 plicity of feeling. We see the want of real discrimination of 
 character, of true delicacy of mind. We see how thin and 
 worthless and conventional is the whole estimate of life and 
 character. We notice the absence of any broad sympathies, 
 of any high aims, of any heart-felt religious motives. Most of 
 all, we see what are the ordinary aspirations of essentially vul- 
 gar people. They reveal to us their day-dreams and reveries. 
 We see their discontent, with the duties and the work they 
 have to do, and their sighings after the boundless wealth and 
 enjoyment which will really be their ruin. They permit us to 
 observe what would be the Elysium of their souls. There was 
 a merchant who wished for no better heaven than the world, 
 with the addition of a good many more thousands in the funds. 
 It is a heathenish notion that of the Turk or Indian, who be- 
 lieves that the next world will be the heightened sensual pleas- 
 ures of this life which the novel-writer too often shares with 
 the candid mercantile man we have cited. Nor is this all. 
 The enervating scenes of luxury, and the suggestions of pas- 
 sion and voluptuousness, which are so invariable in sensation- 
 al fiction, are, most probably, the reflex of the author's mind. 
 It is quite possible that a woman may write sensational novels, 
 as a mere branch of useful industry, while she spends most of 
 her leisure time in cutting bread and butter for her children. 
 But, generally, the world is right, in spite of indignant protests, 
 in conceiving that some sort of relationship subsists between 
 a writer and his works. It is not an agreeable idea that we
 
 320 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 derive from being favored with glimpses into these polluted 
 chambers of imagination. 
 
 Of course we are-very far from saying that the facile habit 
 of novel composition has lost its value and compensation for 
 many minds. Only too often it is the favorite occupation of 
 the mannish woman or the womanish man. But on many 
 minds it must act beneficially, as a gentle stimulant or a gen- 
 tle sedative. To many it affords a natural outlet to over- 
 charged feelings, to tender reminiscences, to the desire to vin- 
 dicate uncomprehended characters and careers. Many na- 
 tures expand into fiction as naturally as the earth into flowers 
 or the birds into song. But in many cases it affords only an 
 ugly exhibition of a false ideal of life. It would be a good 
 plan, after people have written their novels, and have richly 
 reaped occupation and pleasure from the pursuit, to commit 
 the pages to the flames, 
 
 " And watch with an unfaltering eye 
 Their darling visions till they die." 
 
 There is one other subject of supreme importance which 
 fitly belongs to this chapter, on which we can not dwell, but 
 which we would not leave without a mention, although a men- 
 tion altogether disproportioned to the real value of the sub- 
 ject. This is the question of a particular Providence presid- 
 ing in the events of human life. On this point we shall con- 
 tent ourselves with reproducing the views of one who may al- 
 most be said to have solved this great enigma. 
 
 There is the difficulty of reconciling the belief in a superin- 
 tending Providence with that of the free will and free agen- 
 cy of man, which question leads to the mysterious difficulty 
 concerning the origin of evil. Dr. Coplestone, the late Bishop 
 of Llandaff, regards the events of this life as subject to the 
 control of Divine Providence, but he will not allow the belief 
 of this controlling power to be contradictory to the belief of
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 
 
 321 
 
 the freedom of human actions. He says, in his work on " Ne- 
 cessity and Predestination :" " It does not follow that because 
 we believe this power to be exercised, therefore it is exercised 
 to the exclusion of all other influence. And again, it may be 
 (to speak in a manner adapted to human conceptions and hu- 
 man experience), it may be kept in reserve to act upon occa- 
 sions : it may form the plan and the outline, and delegate the 
 subordinate parts to minor agents ; it may, for the purpose of 
 exercising the fidelity and zeal of those agents, one while keep 
 itself out of sight ; or at another, to animate their exertions, 
 let them perceive its presence ; or, to check their folly and 
 presumption, make them feel their dependence, and frustrate 
 their endeavors ; it may, supposing these agents to have a will 
 of their own, incline that will to act conformably to their duty, 
 by making that duty appear easy and agreeable, by removing 
 obstacles and terrors, and placing attractive objects in their 
 way ; or, if the will be stubborn, it may make it feel the ill 
 consequences of that stubbornness, and it may contrive that 
 its perverseness shall defeat its own purpose, and forward 
 some other purpose which is kind and beneficial ; it may make 
 the misconduct of one instrumental to his own correction, or 
 to the improvement and fidelity of the rest, by showing, in or- 
 dinary cases of disobedience, the evils he brings upon himself, 
 or, in cases of extreme depravity, the utter abandonment and 
 ruin to which the delinquent is left." 
 
 He proceeds to say : " Does any part of such a scheme 
 either detract from the notion of a Supreme Intelligence plan- 
 ning, governing, guiding, and accomplishing the whole ; or 
 can such a conception in the mind of man, of the scheme of 
 Divine Providence, tend to relax his energy, to discourage his 
 industry, to impair the distinctions of right and wrong, or 
 weaken the principle of duty and obedience ?" 
 
 It has been truly said that we can not help feeling, and this 
 
 02
 
 322 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 we collect to be Dr. Coplestone's opinion, that as God deals 
 with us, so in effect we are ; and that nothing can be more ab- 
 surd and presumptuous than to deduce the nature and condi- 
 tion of man from any speculation about the attributes of God ; 
 or to begin with determining what God is, in order to decide 
 upon our predicament in his creation. 
 
 Bishop Coplestone says : " Now if we consider how small a 
 part of God's works, both in extent and in duration, our facul- 
 ties can embrace, and, further, how intimately and variously 
 connected all the parts of those works are, plainly indicating 
 one scheme, of which the remotest parts have numerous and 
 complicated relations with each other, so that much of what 
 we see is essential to what we do not see, and to suppose one 
 without the other would be a contradiction in terms as literal, 
 though not so palpable, as a circle with unequal radii when, 
 I say, all our inquiries into nature only tend to impress upon 
 our minds this wonderful concatenation ; and when, again, a 
 scheme perfectly analogous to this has been traced in the 
 moral world, insomuch that in the history of mankind there is 
 no one event, however trivial, but may have intimate and es- 
 sential connections with all other events, however grand and 
 important ; and these connections may run out into all possi- 
 ble combinations, and multiply to all infinity ; when, I say, 
 we reflect on all this, he must, indeed, be a rash and vain rea- 
 soner who does not admit the probability that all his own per- 
 plexities arise from imperfect acquaintance with the objects 
 of his speculation ; and that where facts militate against his 
 reasonings, some impossible condition was involved in his own 
 expectations, something destructive of the very essence of that 
 thing which was the main object of his thoughts. 
 
 "And thus we may conclude with regard to all questions 
 in which the infinite power of God is represented as being ir- 
 reconcilable with something that either is, or is alleged to be
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 323 
 
 that unless an actual contradiction can be pointed out in 
 the terms of the proposition, no difficulties can justify a denial 
 of its possibility and, on the other hand, that many of those 
 things which fill us with difficulty to account for are necessary 
 conditions to other things, the existence of which we assume, 
 and could not without involving a contradiction have been 
 otherwise. So that what we first thought to be impossibilities, 
 turn out to be only difficulties ; and, on the other hand, many 
 of the difficulties which perplex us in the scheme of Providence 
 are such that the removal of them, keeping other things as 
 they are, would be an impossibility" 
 
 Similarly, that amiable metaphysician, Abraham Tucker, 
 says : " A universal Providence, disposing all events without 
 exception, leaves no room for freedom ; but there is such Prov- 
 idence, therefore no freedom ; or, on the other side, there is a 
 freedom of the will, therefore no such Providence. Thus, both 
 parties lay down the same major, without which they would 
 make no scruple to admit the minor assumed by their antag- 
 onist. But the most sober and considerate part of mankind, 
 induced by the strong evidences both of freedom and Provi- 
 dence, have forborne to pronounce them incompatible, the only 
 obstacle against the reception of either ; yet look upon their 
 consistency as one of those mysteries which we are forced to 
 admit, though we can not explain." 
 
 The question has been thus summed up : " It is indeed im- 
 possible not to feel, with Dr. Coplestone and the author of 
 the 'Analogy,' that a state of probation 'is almost included 
 under the idea of God's moral government of the world, and 
 that the notion of a righteous judgment hereafter implies some 
 sort of temptation to do what is wrong. Such, too, is the nat- 
 ural government of God. We find ourselves placed in a bal- 
 ance between right and wrong, with a power of choice, and an 
 anticipation of the consequences of that choice. Present fru
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 ition and succeeding pain, present forbearance and conse- 
 quent enjoyment, mark out to us plainly a sort of conditional 
 covenant which God has made with us in respect to our pas- 
 sage through this temporal state; and that which constitutes 
 our trial in our temporal capacity does also constitute it in our 
 religious capacity : the description of the one .will be a de- 
 scription of the other, if only what we call temporal interest 
 in the one place we call future in another, and substitute vir- 
 tue for prudence in speaking of the trial for a future liie. 
 Thus our trials of difficulties and dangers, in our temporal and 
 religious capacities, are evidently analogous and correspond- 
 ent. Why we are involved in hazards which our Almighty 
 Parent foresees will end, in some cases, in our confusion and 
 misery ; or why any sort of danger or hazard should be im- 
 posed on mortals ; why evil is permitted to reign in the world ; 
 how all this is to be reconciled with the character of infinite 
 mercy : these are matters which Dr. Coplestone does not pre- 
 tend to tell us, but leaves them as difficulties of speculation, 
 so to remain till we are furnished with higher degrees of in- 
 telligence than it is the lot of our present nature to enjoy. We 
 have no business with the speculation at all; we can know 
 nothing of God but in his relations to man, and those relations 
 he practically points out, and positively reveals ; and there 
 our inquiries must rest, or terminate in disappointment and 
 confusion." 
 
 We will take one more citation it shall be from Principal 
 Shairp on the practical bearing of the question : 
 
 " To be thus perfectly single-hearted and candid is, I know, 
 a most difficult attainment. Entire candor and honesty re- 
 garding ourselves, instead of being the first, is one of the last 
 and highest attainments of a perfectly fashioned character. 
 But though this is true, it is also the beginning of all well-do- 
 ing : without some measure of it, even though weak and un-
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE. 325 
 
 steady, no good thing can begin. We must be honest with 
 ourselves, desire to know the truth about ourselves ; desire, 
 however faintly, to be better than we are, or there is no bet- 
 tering possible for us. But if this desire is in us, it is the germ 
 out of which all good may come. The first honest acting out 
 of this desire will be to face conscience, as I said, to walk ac- 
 cording to the light we have, to do the immediate thing we 
 know to be right, and then more light will follow. 
 
 " We shall desire to get beyond mere notional religion, and 
 to lay a living hold on living truth. And the way to do this 
 is to take our common thoughts of right and wrong into the 
 light of God, and connect them with him, and act them out in 
 the conviction that they come straight from him. One of the 
 first results of such an effort to act up to conscience will be 
 the conviction that there is in us something essentially wrong 
 inwardly, which, of ourselves, we are quite unable to set right; 
 that to do this is a task to which our own internal resources 
 are wholly inadequate ; and the more honestly the attempt is 
 made, the more entirely will a man feel that the powers of res- 
 toration he needs must lie out of himself, above himself. Of 
 such powers no tidings reach him from any quarter of the uni- 
 verse, save only from the Revelation that is in Christ."
 
 326 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Philosophy of Life. 
 
 IT is perfectly possible to construct a scheme of the social 
 philosophy of life. Something of the nature of such a plan 
 might be almost gathered from the preceding pages. Men 
 practically either adopt a religious theory or a secular theory 
 of life. Now, after the theory has been adopted, there is room 
 for a great deal of tact in the management of the details of 
 human life. You may make the best of it or you may make 
 the worst of it ; or you may, to an indefinite extent, spoil and 
 curtail it. The one great business of human life is attained 
 when the soul has been led to conscious affiance in its Maker 
 through the work of the Redeemer. But the business of life 
 is not concluded then. Any school of religion that can so re- 
 gard life is essentially defective. Rather, it is only just be- 
 gun. The goal is reached that shall be our starting-point. In 
 ordinary theological language it is said that henceforth the 
 life of the believer must be one of holiness, that he must grow 
 in grace and in knowledge, and that he lives now that his life 
 may be a process of sanctification to his spirit. That also 
 must be accepted as substantial truth. But there is a further 
 truth beyond this that must be accepted and explained, and 
 the want of it has been the cause of much narrowness and in- 
 tolerance. God has placed us on this earth, and amid the re- 
 lationships of life, in order that we may grow in the love and 
 knowledge of his works as of himself, and also of man, his 
 greatest and dearest work of all.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 327 
 
 Thus every province of knowledge may become informed 
 with a religious motive, and be made subsidiary to divine life. 
 The two hemispheres of knowledge are those which relate to 
 nature and to man. In studying nature we obtain glimpses 
 of the Divine Mind. Each fact is part of the divine order. 
 If the Almighty has been pleased to exhibit his exquisite skill 
 and wisdom in the construction of organic forms, it may be 
 reverently said that in the investigation and reconstruction of 
 such forms we are walking in his steps. If we believe that in 
 history or in contemporary life we see the development of his 
 moral laws and the superintendence of his providence, the ob- 
 servation and investigation of such history is an intellectual 
 pursuit which becomes glorified in the light of religion. The 
 acquisition of intellectual truth becomes part of religious duty. 
 
 " The plan of life !" says an illustrious French writer " here 
 is the great fact ! the greatest of all ! 
 
 " Who can thoroughly understand all that it means, and all 
 that it could put into existence, were it lived as it ought to be 
 lived ? Certain it is that life is a serious thing, that should be 
 governed neither by caprice nor thrown away on chance. 
 
 " Life is long, and in its many succeeding ages and phases 
 brings in its train many duties, and with the duties the highest 
 responsibilities. 
 
 " Life is often rugged ; it is not always young and joyous. 
 Soon come trials, struggles, labors, and contrarieties of every 
 kind. These are the real foundations of life. Amusement 
 and pleasure are never more than the brilliant and deceitful 
 surface. 
 
 " During the inexperience of youth life flies gaily on like a 
 pleasant adventure, without care, without any foresight, with- 
 out any plan. This we understand, deplore." 
 
 There are few books more interesting and important in this 
 respect than the wise writings of the Bishop of Orleans, Mgr.
 
 328 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 Dupanloup. His book, " La Femme studieuse," might almost 
 equally suit Frenchmen and Englishmen. He has a keen eye 
 for the frivolities of society, for the indolence, stupidity, and 
 mistakes of average life, and, above all, he has a decided spe- 
 cialty for the weaknesses of the unoccupied female mind. 
 " La vie ! elle n'est un jeu ni une fiction pour personne ; 
 et c'est vous surtout, femmes du monde, qui apprenez cela 
 vite par vos mecomptes et vos douleurs ! Mais croyez-en 
 mon experience : une vie bien gouverne'e, un temps utilement 
 employe, previendrait bien des tristesses, ou aiderait a les sup- 
 porter." He quotes Madame Swetchine's remark, " que la 
 pie'te' seule ne me suffit pas, s'il ne s'y joint le rayon lumineux 
 d'intelligence." The bishop holds that the education of the 
 seventeenth century, " r'eflechir, comparer, raisonner juste" more 
 truly attained the aim of education than can be found in mod- 
 ern education. He makes a noble plea for the intellectual 
 culture of women. He forcibly insists, in the first place, that 
 a woman should perform all her ordinary duties and he might 
 have added that some of these duties, such as cookery, have 
 an intellectual character but that when she has done her 
 best for her husband, her children, and her family, when she 
 has wisely attended to her household accounts and all the de- 
 tails of domestic management, she has then leisure hours 
 which she should employ in study and literature. He echoes 
 Fdnelon's old-fashioned advice, which is not so inappropriate 
 as might be thought that in the first place they should learn 
 to read and write correctly. He says that if Moliere had lived 
 longer he would have regretted having attacked des precieuses, 
 des femmes savantes, when he contrasted them with the kind of 
 women turned out by a later generation. It is very urgent 
 on women to be careful what they read : " I ask all Christian 
 women to disdain in their reading whatever is crude and me- 
 diocre, and to read nothing in their leisure hours but the best
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 329 
 
 books. I ask them above every thing to repel far from them 
 whatever is evil and pernicious. Conscience itself makes it 
 an imperious duty not to touch any unhealthy book, by which 
 they would lose their delicacy of spirit or purity of soul. 
 Through their vivacity of animation and intelligence, strong 
 reading will, with astonishing ease, develop virtues, or the con- 
 verse lead to inevitable and lamentable weaknesses." The 
 good bishop gives a list of books, which might, perhaps, be 
 enlarged, which is well worthy of consultation. He goes care- 
 fully into detail, and thinks that ladies may claim some fresh 
 morning hours before lunch peculiarly their own. " L'usage 
 accorde ge'ne'ralement aux femmes le libre emploi de leurs 
 matine'es, c'est-a-dire des heures qui s'ecoulent depuis leur le- 
 ver jusqu'au dejeuner, lequel il convient, afin de se laisser plus 
 de temps, de renvoyer assez tard, a onze heures au plus tot, si 
 cela depend d'elles. Elles ne sont pas tenues de paraitre au 
 salon k ces premiers moments de la journe'e ; elles doivent 
 done garder soigneusement cette liberte', et la consacrer au 
 travail serieux, re'servant la simple lecture, le dessin, la mu- 
 sique, la correspondance, pour les heures de Papres-midi. Le 
 matin done, apres les exercices pieux, qu'il ne faut jamais 
 omettre, apres un coup d'ceil attentif donne' au manage, aux 
 enfants, a la maison, a toutes ces choses qui sont facilement 
 re'gle'es, si la veille elles ont eti pr'evues et ordonnees: ce qu'il 
 faut, c'est de se manager quelques heures, deux ou trois, s'il est 
 possible, pour son travail a soi, ses e'tudes favorites, et une fois 
 ces heures fixe'es, y tenir fortement. Sinon, sans cesser, se 
 pre'sentera un pre'texte ou un autre pour les entamer et les 
 sacrifier. Je 1'ai dit pour les hommes, et je le redis ici: toute 
 femme qui ne se mdnagera pas le matin ces quelques heures 
 sacre'es, se laissera ne'cessairement envahir, distraire, e'parpil- 
 ler, et elle ne fera jamais rien." 
 
 Much the same thing may be said about the leading serious
 
 330 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 practical aims of life. At the outset there seems a very prod- 
 igality of life. We aim at so many things that the sum of 
 them is infinitely beyond the scope of the threescore years 
 and ten, even if such are granted to us. Most men of letters 
 have had ideas, or have even sketched out plans of writing 
 and study which would last them three times the length of a 
 lifetime. All men of any education know that there are at 
 least some half-dozen objects on which they might concentrate 
 their powers, which would profitably exercise heart and mind 
 or any special gifts. But it becomes necessary for them to 
 make an election. If there is any solidity of character, they 
 will desire to make some especial vocation their own. They 
 will desire to intermeddle with all knowledge, but on that 
 golden circlet of their sympathies and tastes there must be 
 worn the fixed jewel of their especial gift and calling. They 
 will carefully choose this lot in life. In a large degree it will 
 be decided by the antecedents of connection and education, 
 and also upon a large, deliberate survey of the field of human 
 life and endeavor. And when the choice has been made, it 
 will be persevered in until the signal of retreat or retirement 
 is given, with a steadfast view to the development of one's 
 own character and powers, the good of man, and the glory of 
 God. This will quicken a man in his business, and make him 
 do his work with all his might. It is true that it will add a 
 more solemn tinge to life, but it will also give a brighter aspect 
 to death. It opens a bright and ever broadening horizon, 
 flushed with unutterable brightness, and radiant with glorious 
 forms. 
 
 Taking a retrospect of life, we perceive that the whole dif- 
 ference lies between fruitful and unfruitful lives. Not those 
 who have little to do, who may imagine themselves exempted 
 by affluence from work, but those whose energies are fully 
 taxed may have the brightest hopes of harvest. The finer-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 331 
 
 tempered natures feel the tacit appeal which ease of circum- 
 stances makes to their sense of generosity and duty ; and in 
 England, perhaps, none work harder than those who, from a 
 secular point of view, have no need to work at all. It makes 
 very little difference what part we play in life, but it makes all 
 the difference how the part is played. In a drama, few ask 
 who played the king or who the peasant; the inquiry is, who 
 played the part, though lowliest, the best. 
 
 The great demand on each human life is for fruit. The 
 whole earth, with its exquisite balance and proportion of laws, 
 is constructed for the production of fruit. The great philos- 
 ophy of our age, so crowned with magnificent results, is the 
 philosophy of fruit. However valuable an element the beauty 
 of a thing may be, yet fruitfulness and use are the great ob- 
 jects whose attainment is sought. The difference between 
 one life and another in this respect is often absolutely im- 
 measurable in degree. In the case of most people, few are 
 those who consider themselves bound by the teaching of 
 Christianity. Most men perform their modest percentage of 
 charity with that comfortable feeling of prudence and security 
 with which men may pay their five pounds a year to cover some 
 five thousand pounds' worth of property. The analogy, how- 
 ever, fails in one most important particular. The chance is 
 only very remote that a man's house will be destroyed; but 
 it is an absolute certainty that the mortal house of this taber- 
 nacle will be taken down, and no system of insurance would 
 provide against the risk. It is easy to understand that there 
 are men who have deliberately ignored the existence of any 
 supernatural element in life, but the phenomenon is odd 
 enough among people who profess to adjust their manage- 
 ment of life on a religious basis. 
 
 There is no doubt, then, that life may be made, if not ex- 
 actly joyous, at least exceedingly comfortable, to those who do
 
 332 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 not expect much from it, and at the same time get all they 
 can. There is an art of life an ars vivendi in avoiding the 
 rough corners, in keeping clear of misery and sorrow, in eating 
 and drinking luxuriously within the limits which do not injure 
 health, in steeling the mind against emotion, which has been 
 brought to its highest perfection amid the civilization of our 
 nineteenth century. Yet it is easy to see, even on mere intel- 
 lectual grounds, how in gaining these lower ends some higher 
 ends are sacrificed. "Grief," says Schubert, "sharpens the 
 understanding and strengthens the soul, whereas joy seldom 
 troubles itself about the former, and makes the latter either 
 effeminate or frivolous." A class that venerates mere comfort 
 must be sordid and low-minded. It is no part of our philos- 
 ophy to deprecate the comforts, conveniences, and pleasures 
 of life. But a wise man will take them at their worth, will use 
 them without using them to the full, and remember the uncer- 
 tainty of the tenure by which they are held. He will enter 
 into the meaning of one who spoke of knowing how to want 
 and to be full, how to abound and to suffer need. There is a 
 forcible Yorkshire saying about men who do not know how to 
 " carry corn," that is, how to bear prosperity. I believe as 
 much happiness and prosperity are given to Christian men as 
 they are able to bear. It is withdrawn when they abuse it, 
 and is not given where it might be abused. I am speaking 
 of those who look upon life as in a sense ordered for them, 
 and view existence in relation to a future existence. As for 
 those whose horizon is limited entirely to this life, they are 
 doubtless permitted to get the most of it, seeing that they 
 voluntarily abdicate their best chances of the next. 
 
 Those who are wiser, and who are content to take the sharp 
 lessons of the school of adversity, will find their happiness 
 therein. Certainly adversity is not joyous, but grievous ; but 
 it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 333 
 
 are exercised thereby. There is something very significant 
 in the use of this word exercised. It implies that the affliction 
 should be continuous, and not momentary. Directly any care 
 or sorrow happens to us, it is the passionate desire of the 
 heart, it is the earnest prayer of the mind, that the affliction 
 should be removed at once. Let but this sharp stroke be re- 
 moved, let this keen suspense, this bitter remorse pass away. 
 But this is not the divine plan. We have to be exercised 
 thereby. There is a work to be done, and it has to be done 
 thoroughly. The ground has to be broken up, and harrowed 
 and furrowed, and this work, as all great work, has to be done 
 gradually. The stake in the flesh is not removed ; the destiny 
 of life is not altered. Compensation may arise to restore the 
 balance ; strength is given to sustain the burden. But we are 
 to be exercised by the trouble. It has to seek and search 
 each nook and cranny of our characters. It is, to use a med- 
 ical expression, to precipitate, to bring to the surface that men- 
 tal or spiritual disease which may be poisoning our being. It 
 is a wonderful thing how the long discipline of life gradually 
 accomplishes its mission. The ground is prepared, and the 
 rains and the sunshine visit it ; the seed grows secretly. It is 
 often difficult to see in what way any special discipline of life 
 is related to the effect which the discipline is intended to 
 produce. But somehow, as the time wears on, we see that 
 great results have been achieved. We perceive that some 
 crisis of spiritual life, which is the truest crisis of the life of 
 all, has been safely tided over. Somehow the life is not al- 
 lowed to drain away into the morass of worldliness, but is 
 somehow lifted up into clearer light and to the serene heavens. 
 To the soul that can rest on what is infinitely higher than it- 
 self, that can rise above the cares and sorrows of human life, 
 and rest with faith and assurance upon the Fatherhood of God, 
 life must be disarmed of its cares and terrors. They are not
 
 334 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 afraid of evil tidings. They look upon the fortuitous as some- 
 thing that, at least, can not harm them, as embracing nothing 
 that is not ordained, or permitted by the providence of God. 
 As Jeremy Taylor says : "We are in the world like men play- 
 ing at tables : the choice is not in our power, but to play it is ; 
 and when it is fallen, we must manage it as we can, and let 
 nothing trouble us ; but when we do a base action, or speak 
 like a fool, or think wickedly these things God hath put 
 into our powers ; but concerning those things which are 
 wholly in the choice of another, they can not fall under our 
 deliberation, and, therefore, neither are they fit for our pas- 
 sions." And as he again says : " Let us choose God, and let 
 God choose for us." And so in our Collect, we pray, "that 
 among all the changes and chances of this mortal life our 
 hearts may there be fixed where alone true joys are to be 
 found." 
 
 That our nature should instinctively desire a future life is 
 in itself no mean proof that there is a future life in store for 
 us. This is the argument for immortality drawn from the con- 
 stitution of man. The present faculties which we possess, the 
 emotions, intelligence, will, of the human soul, seem to argue 
 that these faculties shall have a full scope hereafter. The 
 love of truth now will be the love of truth evermore. Those 
 who love and those who know will be ever as the angels that 
 know and the angels that burn. We may believe that the 
 mental and the moral habits of this life adumbrate in some 
 kind of way the faculties of a future life. The habit of thought- 
 fulness, of exact observation, of the wise employment of time, 
 of feeling and affection, will, under altered conditions, as we 
 may well believe, continue with us hereafter. Possibly the 
 wider and ampler a man's experience may be in this world, 
 the richer and more varied the fruitage in another state of 
 existence.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 335 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 That Life is a School of Faculties to be Trained. 
 
 So, after glancing at so many departments of human life, 
 we come back to that thought that underlies so many of our 
 sketches, as to what is the value and the meaning of life. We 
 have seen that there is such a thing as a theory of human life 
 to be established, and a certain philosophy in ordering it in 
 all its details in accordance with the theory. There is some- 
 thing to be added supplemental to these considerations, the 
 view that flows naturally from what we have said : That life 
 is a school of faculties to be trained. It is such a thought as 
 this which is full of comfort and meaning, which gives some 
 kind of coherency to the multitudinous details of life, impart- 
 ing simplicity to what is complex, and unity to what is mani- 
 fold. If there were not some such thought as this, there 
 would be an insufferable weariness and satiety in human life. 
 I have heard of the case of a man who committed suicide, and 
 left in a letter his reason for the act that he was perfectly tired 
 of dressing and undressing day after day. There was a great 
 surgeon who made his fortune and retired to a beautiful estate 
 which he had purchased. As he looked upon his glorious 
 trees, he murmured that one day he would assuredly hang 
 himself from the branches of one of them. There was a great 
 duke who had the most charming of villas on the shore of the 
 Thames. As he looked on the living stream brimming the 
 green turf, he could only say, "Oh! that wearisome river, will 
 it never cease flowing ?" 
 
 Without indorsing any of those views which one might call
 
 336 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 anthropomorphic respecting a future state, I might venture 
 to put broadly the propositions that the things of this world 
 are closely related to the things that shall be hereafter; that 
 the other world finds us much as this world leaves us; that 
 the stock of experience, knowledge, and ideas which we ac- 
 cumulate here has a direct connection with that knowledge 
 upon knowledge, that glory upon glory, to which we look here- 
 after. Ordinarily a Christian man comprehends the sphere of 
 duty and belief; he understands and discharges what he calls 
 his religious duties. Perhaps he is able to take a wide and 
 wise view of his duties, and to see that his religion ought to 
 have an hourly influence upon the details of his life. But he 
 might advance a stage beyond that, and see that there is a 
 divine meaning, a divine training, even in the most secular 
 and trivial of his daily engagements. Of course, much more 
 is this apparent in those higher aspects of human life which 
 of themselves assert their solemn meaning. In a vast number 
 of instances a man leaves human life exactly at the time when 
 he might consider himself best fitted to make the most of it. 
 Often it is, when a man has accumulated his greatest experi- 
 ence, when passion and prejudice have passed away, when 
 character is exalted and refined, when splendid possibilities 
 appear within the grasp, that some casual incident, a mere 
 stumbling footfall, or chance infection, or some mechanical 
 derangement of our marvelous organization, superinduces 
 death. We undertake to say, as death approaches more 
 nearly, the soul seems more vehemently to assert its energies, 
 and all spiritual faculties appear keener, fresher, and brighter. 
 And so we can easily understand how one poet looks forward 
 to a higher destiny beyond life for the loved, lost friend of his 
 youth, and believes 
 
 " Whate'er thy hands are set to do, 
 Is wrought with tumult of acclaim."
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 337 
 
 Very often amid the discipline and cares of life it becomes 
 the impatient desire of the soul to be relieved from the strug- 
 gle, and the mind's eye dwells on imaged scenes of quietude 
 and repose. We grow impatient of our burden, and we long 
 to be rid of it. But if we consider human life to be a disci- 
 pline and a school of our faculties, we shall not dare to avoid 
 the lessons or to abridge the time that is granted us for learn- 
 ing them. There is a drill of our faculties, painful, monoto- 
 nous, and perpetual, which nevertheless is necessary in making 
 us good soldiers and servants. It is only practice that makes 
 perfect. Every one who has attended to the culture of the 
 moral nature knows what repeated efforts are necessary to 
 extirpate the evil instincts and tendencies of our nature, and 
 to implant the habits which are for the health of mind and 
 body. We are told of afflictions, that they yield the peaceable 
 fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. Now 
 most of-us, as we have before said, when we feel the slightest 
 touch of affliction, immediately make it the most earnest de- 
 sire that we may be relieved from it altogether. But this re- 
 lief, we have seen, would exclude the notion of a man's being 
 fxerdsed by his trouble. Life is the development of man's 
 intellectual nature. That is too limited a definition by far. 
 That object might be defined as the balanced, harmonious de- 
 velopment of all the various factors of man's nature. It 
 would include the growth of natural feeling in the various re- 
 lationships of life. It would imply some experience in the 
 conflicts, sorrows, and repentances of the soul. It would in- 
 dicate the exercise of a skilled and disciplined moral sense. 
 That would indeed be a dwarfed and stunted nature that is 
 developed on the intellectual side alone to the cost of the feel- 
 ing and the conscience. There is greater equality probably 
 than we imagine in human life. Those who are stationary or 
 
 P
 
 338 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 slow in mental growth may receive an ample compensation in 
 the advancement of other faculties. 
 
 We believe, then, that the world is one great school in which 
 the scholars of time learn lessons for eternity. Mr. Thack- 
 eray, in one of the happiest and most pathetic of his touches, 
 makes Thomas Newcome in his last wanderings recall his 
 Carthusian days, and answer, " Adsum," as he stood in the 
 presence of The Master. Mr. Kingsley says that the great re- 
 ward of having done work well is having more work to do ; 
 " this is the true and heroical rest which only is worthy of 
 gentlemen and sons of God." The laureate, in his poem of 
 " Wages," asks for Virtue, " Give her the glory of going on 
 and not to die." This is simply the human imaginative way 
 of putting the divine truth that those who have wrought well 
 here shall be the possessors of many talents, and the rulers 
 over many cities. It implies that work done here bears a 
 relation to more glorious work hereafter, and that all the 
 powers of the soul will find limitless scope in the aeons of eter- 
 nity. 
 
 Such an estimate surely lends an ennobling and attractive 
 aspect to human life. It transfigures and glorifies the whole 
 course of it. It lends " the consecration and the poet's dream" 
 to the hard, dry facts of human life. The merchant, amid the 
 multiplicity of his engagements and avocations, may think 
 that he is forming and disciplining some special faculty which 
 it has been given him to cultivate, and which may be devel- 
 oped hereafter. The humblest laborer who tills the soil may, 
 in the same way, cultivate the garden of his own soul, and may 
 believe that he is sowing seed that will yield fruit a hundred- 
 fold. Such a theory shows that, not in retirement and separa- 
 tion from the world, but in the energies and activities of life 
 are the true means of man's highest culture to be found. It 
 will not deprive life of its happiness or its innocent gayety, but
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 339 
 
 will rather give the settled sunshine of a heart which is firmly 
 based on that serene, deep love. Here, then, we have the ex- 
 pression of the belief that human gifts and faculties, here 
 vouchsafed, are the embryo and blossom of what shall be fully 
 developed hereafter. We may, perhaps, believe this of great 
 men and even of men in the great occasions of their lives. 
 But the same truth belongs to the most ordinary details of the 
 most commonplace life. Take the common trials, struggles, 
 efforts, checks, disappointments of human existence. At first 
 sight they are so very small that they seem even contempti- 
 ble, yet we own their power to disturb serenity and even to 
 embitter life. They shape and train and develop the soul. 
 Take such a text as this, " God is strong and patient, and God 
 is provoked every day." Now we believe that it is the object 
 of religion to renew in us the faded image of God, and to make 
 us "perfect, as our Father in Heaven is perfect." According 
 to our nature we have to learn to be strong and patient, and 
 to bear provocations. And this training of life, in its care 
 and worry and multitudinous details, is probably that very 
 training which will make us strong and patient, and tolerant 
 of evil and provocation. These are divine elements, which, 
 doubtless, maybe essential toward the happiness of future life, 
 and may be seeds which shall germinate in immortal fruits. 
 
 Perhaps, however, there is a very large portion of humanity 
 to whom such considerations hardly apply. It may be said 
 generally, that while some men act from sense, others act from 
 feeling. I can not but think, also, that the emotions are di- 
 vinely given to men as guides of action. Those who have 
 not the skill to weave a chain of argument may yet be able, 
 by the sure instinct of cultivated feeling, to arrive at a correct 
 conclusion. This is pre-eminently the case with woman, whose 
 instinctive feeling flies straight to the point which reason only 
 reaches by a circuitous process. It is true that feeling may
 
 340 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 often lead us astray, but perhaps not oftener than defective 
 reasoning conducts us into equal blunders. 
 
 But there is a kind of social philosophy that applies to us 
 all alike. This is the vivre savoir in its true sense, the ars 
 vivcndi, the art of life, the making the most of life. Men con- 
 struct some kind of philosophy for themselves. They find the 
 necessity of reposing upon some moral idea as the basis of 
 their lives, and referring the details of life to governing princi- 
 ples. I think it was Gothe who said that a man ought, every 
 day, to read a fine book, see a noble picture, and look at a 
 beautiful person. I have no doubt but Gothe, when thus 
 agreeably occupied, felt pleasure in referring the details of 
 daily life to the principle of esthetic culture. Few men care 
 to live at random, and spend their days without a plan. 
 
 The first thing for all men is to arrange the principles of 
 action, and to form the basis of life. When this is attained, I 
 think there is a never-ending education going on for us, in the 
 way in which we spend our time wisely and happily, act right- 
 ly in the manifold relationships of life, progress in the harmo- 
 nious culture and balance of life, attain to that proportion of 
 happiness which may be best for us, and share fully in the 
 blessings and progress of the world in which we live. 
 
 According to any true scheme of social philosophy, it is first 
 of all necessary, while traveling through this world, to have an 
 assured, good hope of the future life. There is a touching 
 proverbial expression about a warm nest on a rotten bough. 
 It is frequently applied to men of life incomes, to the clergy- 
 man or officer whose benefice or annuity fails with him. The 
 broken bough is suddenly precipitated upon the ground, the 
 nest is despoiled, and the younglings scattered. But the im- 
 age holds good for a much larger proportion of human life 
 than might be expected. Any man who lives careless and at 
 ease in his possessions might find that suddenly, perchance in
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 341 
 
 a single night, for him those possessions are gone, and his 
 soul is required of him. Now there is a way in which making 
 the most of both worlds may be impossible for a man. This 
 world, though so urgent and immediate, is by far the lesser 
 object as compared with the next. It is often surely, we 
 should say, it is invariably necessary that many sacrifices 
 should be made in insuring some great object. Now so it is 
 in the lives of Christian men. They are not forbidden to en- 
 joy all that which God has given them richly to enjoy; but 
 their object is to attain to a far more exceeding and eternal 
 weight of glory. So they consciously forbid themselves, as 
 they find that there is virtually forbidden to them much that 
 they would desire to have. It may even please God to lay 
 upon them great trials, troubles, and deprivations to insure 
 this great object, just as the soldier must undergo great hard- 
 ships before he can win the city, and the statesman do hard 
 work before he can attain to the glory of power. Make up 
 the mind clearly as to what is the greatest object of all to be 
 secured, and in comparison be content to let every thing else 
 in the world go as soon as this object is attained. No lot in 
 this world will come amiss if only life's great end be achieved. 
 At the same time there is an immense amount of avoidable 
 stupidity and unhappiness in this world. There is always 
 abundant opportunity for the exercise of prudence and skill 
 in the planning out of the arrangements of our daily life, and 
 its business and occupations. Some people are absurdly as- 
 cetic, and miss much of the happiness and the enjoyment that 
 might be theirs. This error is certainly not very widely ex- 
 tended, and men more generally fall into the opposite error. 
 Still there is a frightful amount of self-inflicted misery in the 
 world. The ages of superstition, of course, give the most fla- 
 grant examples of this, and although we may admit that noth- 
 ing short of stern, high purpose could have rebuked the sur-
 
 342 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 rounding wickedness and worldliness in those times, which 
 some people call " the Dark Ages," and others the " Ages of 
 Faith," yet such austerities have been mainly based upon re- 
 ligious error. Our loving Father in Heaven wishes his chil- 
 dren to be happy, to be happy throughout eternity, and to be 
 happy through their earthly life, so far as such happiness may 
 safely be vouchsafed to them. It is commonly said that, after 
 all, happiness and unhappiness are very evenly distributed. 
 This may be true ; and yet, after all, it is also true that there 
 are many persons whose serene blue sky seems hardly marred 
 by a cloud. It may be possible for us all to attain peace and 
 sunlight within our own breasts. 
 
 By every man there is work to be done. The rule is inflex- 
 ible. Most people are obliged to work by the necessities of 
 their position ; and if there are any who seem absolved by 
 this necessity, such persons are really placed in the van of 
 progress ; their work is, as it were, really left to their honor by 
 the Great Task-master. It is the better for them if they truly 
 work, it is infinitely the worse for them if they do not. For 
 work alone insures health, or gives any true enjoyment. With- 
 out occupation the whole nature lags ; it makes no progress, 
 it attains no true value or dignity. 
 
 Nothing is more productive of happiness to a man than that 
 he should be in harmony with his work, that he should have 
 the faculty of work, and be able to feel that he can do it 
 thoroughly and well. Of course it is part of the very idea of 
 work that it should involve labor and weariness. A man 
 needs fully to reconcile his mind to this, so that he may work 
 on with patience and perseverance. There are various help- 
 ful considerations that might well occur to him. To most 
 men their very livelihood and subsistence depend upon work ; 
 if they will not work, neither will they eat. But there is a 
 higher than this compulsory ground. The worker feels that
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 343 
 
 in his way he is carrying on the order of the world. Without 
 work the world would have been a wilderness, or into a wil- 
 derness would speedily return. There is no work without its 
 use. I believe that in the long run every scrap of labor tells. 
 No labor is labor in vain. It is a thought full of incitement 
 and encouragement that we too are of use in the world, that 
 we are co-operant toward good. The consideration also arises, 
 that while we thus work both for our own subsistence and for 
 a moral end, our labor returns in blessings to ourselves. We 
 are adding to our own culture, we are promoting our own de- 
 velopment. Any man who works benefits himself, chiefly and 
 foremost, beyond any one else. The earnest preacher who 
 preaches to others preaches most of all to himself. The pub- 
 lic writer who appears to teach others, has chiefly been bring- 
 ing together facts and ideas for himself. Above all, there is 
 the supreme satisfaction of knowing that in work we are ful- 
 filling the will of God. He condescends to employ us as fel- 
 low-laborers with himself. He has made work a law to him- 
 self, and he has assigned it as a law to us. The highest title 
 which he vouchsafes to any man is that of a good and faithful 
 servant. Such thoughts will never make hard work other 
 than hard work ; but they will save us from lassitude ; they 
 will cause perseverance, cheerfulness, and hope. There is 
 much social wisdom constantly required. There is the regu- 
 lation of our time, the adjustment of the hours of rest and la- 
 bor. Then so many questions occur of engagements, amuse- 
 ment', friendship, acquaintance, the rich and poor, reading, 
 travel, society ; the whole of which constitutes, in point of 
 fact, a protracted kind of education. Then matters of daily 
 life afford employment to the whole complex nature of man, 
 and afford countless opportunities of exercising the judgment. 
 It is so easy to fall into error on the right hand and on the 
 left hand ; in point of fact we commit numberless errors, and
 
 344 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 it is only by incessant practice in the art of life that we make 
 any approach toward wisdom. Of course a man must have 
 fixity of purpose and resoluteness of character. But even 
 these degenerate so easily into weaknesses. For instance, a 
 man lays down rules of conduct, and he is wise in so doing. 
 But instead of making his rules his servants, he is often an 
 abject slave to his inflexible rules. All sorts of present harm 
 happen in order that no precedent may be set for possible 
 harm in the future. Then a man may work hard and yet 
 work unwisely. A man will saunter and dawdle, looking at 
 his work for a long time before he seriously takes it in hand, 
 and at last finishing with a rush, in which he has hardly been 
 able to do himself justice. There is the morning for the 
 morning's work, and the work can not be huddled up in the 
 uncertain twilight. I think that every body must feel how im- 
 mense is the temptation to fritter away a morning, and how 
 keenly the lost morning is regretted. The post brings the let- 
 ters that are fraught with so many interests and cares ; the 
 people call who know that you are sure to be at home in the 
 morning; the newspapers come in, lately so crowded with 
 their appalling and enchaining narratives. It requires con- 
 siderable adroitness and determination, when you have attend- 
 ed to the more pressing demands which these things present, 
 to grapple with the hardest points in the best hours, and re- 
 serve lighter employment for lighter hours. On the other 
 hand, a man may be so engrossed with his work that he may 
 be unable to give any attention to the most important matters 
 that may be suddenly brought before him. It is a grand item 
 of the art of life to be able to seize opportunities. A man 
 should have the insight to seize any occasion that may pre- 
 sent itself. 
 
 There are countless points of life in which a Christian casu- 
 istry must be exercised. It is in the building up of Christian
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 345 
 
 character and conduct that our main work will lie. The in- 
 flexible rule is, that one should adhere to Christian principle. 
 Sometimes the prudential maxims of the world come into con- 
 flict with a higher Christian philosophy. For instance, those 
 who hold the favorite theory that the world is an oyster, which 
 they must open for themselves, generally select all their ac- 
 quaintance with a rigid view to their utility to themselves. 
 They will not know any one below themselves in the social 
 scale. They will not cultivate any intimacy with a poor or 
 uninfluential man of their own standing. It is nothing to 
 them that they are told to mind not high things, but conde- 
 scend to those of low estate. Similarly take the subject of 
 promises. Nearly every man has at times made some kind 
 of indiscreet promise. Some men, indeed, seem to make a 
 practice of large promises, from the performance of which 
 they exonerate themselves. The habit of such easy promis- 
 ing is one of the greatest meanness. The promiser has the 
 gratification of at once discounting a large amount of grati- 
 tude : he has the pleasure of giving pleasure ; he creates at 
 the moment a very warm feeling of appreciation toward him- 
 self. But he incurs the responsibility of creating a legitimate 
 expectation which he does not satisfy, and generally incurs 
 the contempt and indignation of the person he has deluded. 
 If a man has made an unwise promise on the spur of the mo- 
 ment, or in a fit of thoughtless generosity, he should redeem it 
 to the full extent of his power. He knows that if he swears 
 to his neighbor, he should perform it although it be to his own 
 injury. It is perhaps not paying too high a price if he learns 
 to be more guarded and moderate in his language, and to rise 
 superior to the cheap gratification of a moment. Again, all 
 insincerity of speech should be specially guarded against. 
 Nothing is more easily detected, or brings a readier return of 
 indifference and dislike than such insincerity. The words 
 
 P2
 
 346 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 that are duly weighed will always be treasured and counted up. 
 We fall back more and more on the simplicity of the " yea, 
 yea," and " nay, nay." 
 
 It is so difficult in life to strike the golden mean, and in 
 this golden mean the true wisdom of life so often consists. 
 There is the incentive to labor, and there is the desire for 
 rest, and we have to steer between the two ; between giving 
 too much or too little thought to our worldly interest ; between 
 shrinking altogether from amusement and becoming too ad- 
 dicted to it ; between shunning and courting society ; between 
 neglecting books for observation and reflection, or neglecting 
 observation and reflection for mere reading, and so on through 
 many pairs of contrasts. All this shows us the extreme frailty 
 and feebleness of man, his liability to commit blunders and to 
 fall. But all this time a kind of education is going on for and 
 in him. His powers of volition are in incessant exercise. 
 Again and again he has to make his election between this 
 course and that. By-and-by this power of choice is so con- 
 stantly exercised that the mind acts instinctively, and the 
 right course is taken, or at least those cautious steps which, 
 if wrong, may be easily retraced. When once the habits of 
 scrutiny into our actions, of self-examination of the details of 
 our lives, of referring each transaction to the principle in- 
 volved, are distinctly formed, then comes that other habit of 
 decision, and decision according to a right judgment. 
 
 Innumerable are the little hints that might be given about 
 the practical details which belong to the science of life ; for 
 instance, the use of stray minutes in the course of the day, 
 especially in the bright morning hours, can be turned to the 
 highest account. The Chancellor D'Aguesseau said, " Here 
 are the books that I have composed during the daily five 
 minutes that Madame D'Aguesseau has kept me waiting for 
 dinner during twenty years." A similar statement has been
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 347 
 
 made of the composition of one of the most important theolog- 
 ical works of the age. Then, again, the character of the morn- 
 ing's work and the morning is the essence of the day de- 
 pends on the character of the evening before. If you have 
 sat up very late, or if you have had a bad night, you will 
 hardly be up to the mark for the severe duties of the day. 
 Mere duties of routine can be generally managed, even if it 
 be with some drag upon the mind ; but in intellectual pur- 
 suits a man can hardly venture to do this : he dare not injure 
 the quality of his work. Under these circumstances, a man 
 suits his work to the conditions of his mental and physical 
 health. If he can not follow his first line, he falls back upon 
 his second ; and if he can not follow his second line, he falls 
 back upon his third. If a man can not compose, he can make 
 his notes and abstracts; and if he can not make notes and ab- 
 stracts, he can go on with his reading. It is better to do it 
 quietly and determinately ; and a man who tries, even under 
 unfavorable circumstances, adheres to the line of duty. 
 
 Sometimes a sudden light seems to break upon the soul. 
 The whole landscape of life seems lighted up. We see clearly 
 the paths which we should take, and the high duties for which 
 we should brace ourselves. Then we impose upon ourselves 
 the tasks that are necessary to fulfill our path and destiny in 
 life. But this rare, fine light dies away. Indeed, the clouds 
 soon gather where the sunshine had shone brightest. The 
 season of depression succeeds the season of exaltation. Then 
 is it that, like Wordsworth's " Happy Warrior," who 
 
 " Through the heat of conflict keeps the law 
 In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw." 
 
 With which we may compare Ben Jonson's lines : 
 
 "A valiant man 
 
 Ought not to undergo or tempt a danger, 
 But worthily and by selected ways ;
 
 348 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 He undertakes with reason, not by chance ; 
 
 His valor is the salt to his other virtues : 
 
 They are all unseasoned without it. The waiting-maids, 
 
 Or the concomitants of it, are his patience, 
 
 His magnanimity, his confidence, 
 
 His constancy, security, and quiet. 
 
 He can assure himself against all rumor, 
 
 Despairs of nothing, laughs at contumelies, 
 
 As knowing himself advanced in a height 
 
 Where injury can not reach him, nor aspersion 
 
 Touch him with soil." 
 
 To some people there are times when almost a paralysis 
 falls upon the powers of volition. The mind is unnerved for 
 decision, and incompetent to strike out independent lines of 
 action. In such a time of gloom we fall back upon the stead- 
 fast resolve of a happier time. We adhere to the lines we had 
 marked out for ourselves in the happier moments when our 
 intellectual and spiritual vision was unclouded. As Burke 
 said, " Never despair ; and, if you do, work in despair." 
 
 It is a "many-chambered" school, that in which God trains. 
 None are excluded from it ; all are welcome. It has room 
 for all gifts, all circumstances, all conditions. It makes allow- 
 ance for defects and shortcomings which are ruin in this world. 
 Trained in this school many have reached a high place who 
 have had no "tincture of letters." Most of us must have 
 known some, especially in the humbler places of society, who 
 had not any of this world's learning, had never heard even 
 the names of the greatest poets and philosophers, yet who, 
 without help from these, had been led by some secret way, up 
 to the serenest, most beautiful heights of character. It is, 
 indeed, a many-chambered school. These were led through 
 some of its chambers to their end ; we are being led through 
 others. To those who, like ourselves, have large opportunities 
 of culture placed within their reach, these are the instruments
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 349 
 
 of the divine discipline. It is part of that discipline to put 
 large opportunities in men's hands, and to leave it to them- 
 selves whether they will use or neglect them. There shall be 
 no compulsion to make us turn them to account. Occasions 
 of learning and self-improvement come, stay with us for a 
 while, then pass, and the wheels of time shall not be reversed 
 to bring them back once they are gone. If we neglect them, 
 we shall be permanent losers for this life. We can not say 
 how much we may be losers hereafter. But if we do what we 
 can to use them while they are granted, we shall have learned 
 one lesson of the heavenly discipline, and shall be better pre- 
 pared for the others, whether of action or endurance, which 
 are yet to come.
 
 35 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Patient Continuance in Well-doing. 
 
 ADHERING to the practical character of these pages, let us 
 lastly inquire what principle may be defined as the mainstay 
 of life, and which best sets forth the raison d'etre, the object 
 and aim of existence. In that inspired language which we 
 have learned to recognize and reverence as the authoritative 
 utterances of God, we are told of those who make it their lofty 
 aim to seek for glory, honor, and immortality. Human life 
 has its whole work and meaning as connected with such a 
 prize as that. The heart and intellect of man can conceive 
 of nothing higher. The method and means are defined to us 
 as "patient continuance in well-doing." And perhaps it is 
 not without a feeling of disappointment that we come to the 
 examination and analysis of such a phrase. The aim is so 
 splendid as contrasted with the plain, prosaic, homely charac- 
 ter of the means. It is no sudden act of devotedness, no 
 height of faith, no deed of heroism, no great intellectual pow- 
 er, that can achieve this object, but something that almost im- 
 plies repetition and monotony, that taxes the energies, sub- 
 mission, and endurance of a lifetime, the "patient continuance 
 in well-doing." 
 
 That homely virtue of patience is thus brought into its full- 
 est relief. There seems to be two reasons why such promi- 
 nence should be given to patience in the Christian scheme. 
 The first is, that it is uniform in its requirements ; the sec- 
 ond, that it is impartial in its application. Life may be pop-
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 
 
 351 
 
 ularly said to be decided by its turning-point ; that turning- 
 point is the result of an epoch, and its issue the symbol of a 
 character. If any great event in a man's life is to be settled 
 by his patience, that habit of patience must be successfully 
 built up through time and experience. And often at a critical 
 moment the patience is found to give way : the habit has not 
 been securely built up, and breaks down at the application of 
 a severe test. Then, slowly and sorrowfully, we have to begin 
 all over again. We have to seek the point of departure, though 
 with dimness and weakness. Patience is a test that with equa- 
 ble pressure applies to the whole period of life. It is the mor- 
 al discipline which we can never abdicate for an hour. It is 
 a divine accomplishment in which we may be always students. 
 And while patience is a test designed to last till the end of 
 life, it is also one that is found always to act with extreme im- 
 partiality. It is one that applies with perfect equality to all 
 sorts and conditions of men. The refined and the educated 
 and the thoughtful have advantages by this test over those 
 who in character and inclination are the very opposite. It 
 may even be said that patience is a heavier trial for the more 
 refined and intellectual nature ; but then, again, such natures 
 are better able, through long discipline, to sustain the trial. 
 The most exalted characters have an added mellowness and 
 beauty in its exhibition. Indeed, this virtue illustrates the es- 
 sential connection between truth and goodness, between the 
 moral and intellectual life. Patience is the instrument by 
 which all prolonged intellectual efforts are conducted, the in- 
 separable co-efficient of intellectual power. 
 
 We believe that this " patience" is to be exercised in a spe- 
 cial and particular direction in "well-doing." Dr. Arnold 
 used to say " that no student would continue long in a healthy 
 religious state unless his heart was kept tender by mingling 
 with children, or by frequent intercourse with the poor and
 
 35 2 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 suffering." Most people of a religious turn of mind will in- 
 dorse the truth of this remark. Whenever they have tried to 
 do good in this way,,they have found that it rebounds to their 
 own good. Clergymen may teach others, but they know that 
 it is at the bedside of the sick that they learn the highest les- 
 sons for themselves. It is here that mercy is twice blessed ; 
 that a man's kindness returns into his own bosom. Nothing 
 is a greater mistake on the part of intellectual people than to 
 suppose that their main work in life is the cultivation of the 
 intellect. As much might a man suppose that constitutional 
 vigor lies in the brawny development of an athletic arm, or in 
 the hypertrophy of an over-exerted and over-nourished heart. 
 The true development of a man consists in the balanced, har- 
 monious development of all his powers. His physical and 
 mental powers must keep even pace, and there must be the 
 diligent culture of the moral feelings. We sometimes meet 
 with men who have a mind, indeed, but hardly body or soul. 
 True manhood consists not in mere intellect, for then Satan 
 would be altogether superior to us ; nor yet in physical pow- 
 er, for then the very beasts of the field would surpass us ; but 
 in approximation to the nature of the Christ, who was Perfect 
 God and also Perfect Man. In the especial directions indi- 
 cated by Dr. Arnold, those true good works of well-doing, the 
 visiting of the sick, and the mingling with little children, we 
 find an ample field for the development of tenderness, sym- 
 pathy, and charity. The sick-bed of others brings before us 
 both memories and anticipations. It reminds us of those 
 terms of weakness and insecurity which are the conditions on 
 which we hold human life. It brings back to us the recollec- 
 tion of hours of waiting and watching and hoping and de- 
 spairing It significantly points, in the hushed footfall and the 
 darkened lights, to the silence and suffering and resignation 
 which we must one day make our own. It is in these sad re-
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 353 
 
 treats that we learn some of the kindest and costliest lessons 
 of humanity. We do but render what we hope to receive j 
 hanc veniam petimusque damusque virissim. We learn a true 
 sympathy with affliction. We learn patience and watchful- 
 ness. We learn to bear and forbear. We are often also per- 
 mitted to see how mind and faith preserve a victorious suprem- 
 acy over lassitude and disease, and how the veil between the 
 human and the disembodied states becomes almost translu- 
 cent. The purified spirit can almost live in heaven before it 
 leaves earth. There is no one who can truly mingle with lit- 
 tle children without unsealing new founts of tenderness and 
 mystery. When God makes men fathers, by one more pre- 
 cious means he is carrying on the education of the world. He 
 teaches us by the children as much as he teaches the children 
 by us. Perhaps only the childless or those who have lost a 
 child can quite appreciate the full meaning and beauty of such 
 lessons. We discern how it is necessary that we should be- 
 come as little children. We begin to understand how their 
 love and faith and weakness and dependence and tenderness 
 should symbolize our dependence on the Father of Spirits. 
 It is through loving tendance on the sick and children that 
 our sympathies and loving interests continue fresh and green, 
 and are not withered in the fierce noontides of life. In that 
 patience which we seek to show them is the foresight of their 
 wants ; in tender dealings with their weakness and ignorance 
 and inexperience, in the constant guidance and instruction 
 they require, are seen dimly shadowed forth the compassion 
 and patience of God toward us, the children of larger growth. 
 We have spoken of " well-doing " as exhibited in these two 
 forms of beneficence. But every form of beneficence is cov- 
 ered by the expression. The special characteristic of the 
 Christian is that he is zealous for good works. The well-do- 
 ing includes the doing well in every department of life, the
 
 354 
 
 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 looking forward to the anticipation of the final "well done." 
 The only way by which we can possibly accomplish the highest 
 arts of life, attain to its highest meaning, is by drawing our 
 strength and inspirations from the highest source. Through 
 any more secular system, through any " enlightened self-inter- 
 est," we should infallibly break down. In all well-doing we 
 have to consider that we get by losing, and lose by getting. 
 We must rise altogether from the region of self. Newman 
 speaks of " a remarkable law of ethics which is well known to 
 all who have given their minds to the subject, i.e., all virtue 
 and goodness tend to make men powerful in this world ; but 
 they who aim at the power have not the virtue." Again : 
 "Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it its truest and 
 highest pleasures ; but they who cultivate it for the pleasure 
 sake are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleas- 
 ure, because they never can have the virtue." The saying is 
 of wider import in practical life than might perhaps be thought. 
 In ordinary, average, respectable English life, many people 
 strive to be virtuous and good, not for the sake of virtue and 
 goodness, but on account of the pressure of public opinion 
 brought to bear upon them. Men live in the full glare of a mu- 
 tually destructive criticism. They accommodate their actions 
 to a certain semblance and standard. They may gain influ- 
 ence, but may not attain to virtue ; they may gain the respect 
 of others, but hardly their own respect. The man who does 
 well in deference to the current opinion of his class, the stand- 
 ard of conduct among his friends, must always be haunted by 
 the unhappy suspicion of hypocrisy, and must be liable to fall 
 back into the very contrary of his professions whenever the 
 exterior pressure is withdrawn. Let the incubus be removed, 
 and there is a rebound of the spring ; the character reverts to 
 its natural type. But to desire to do well because our life is 
 linked with the divine life, and we seek to be the children of
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 355 
 
 our Father in heaven, must be a well-spring of joy, and source 
 of the purest delight. " From Me is thy fruit found !" " All 
 my fresh springs shall be in Thee !" 
 
 The well-doing can only be accomplished by the divine, 
 energizing power of Love. Love, the imperishable, the inde- 
 structible, ennobling, purifying, " the very bond of peace and 
 of all virtue." This must be the principle in the heart, which 
 is abhorrent to every form of evil and injustice, and ever seeks 
 the highest good of all. Or rather, let us say, that the glori- 
 ous Three Faith, Hope, and Charity must assist ; but Love 
 shall hereafter be all in all one God, one Lord, one Life. " I 
 venture to assert," says Schlegel, " that the human conscious- 
 ness, which otherwise ends in itself, is entirely a prey to dis- 
 cord, and beset with irreconcilable contraries, is by Faith, 
 Hope, and Love, relieved from this dissension, is raised from 
 its innate law of an erring and dead thought, and of an abso- 
 lute will which is no less dead, and will bring mankind grad- 
 ually to a perfect state of union and harmony." We have 
 spoken of Love as the great motive power ; let us also speak 
 of Faith and Hope. 
 
 By this faith I understand a simple, objective faith in God 
 and his revealed truth, belief in the objective truth of religion. 
 Our idea is that man's thought and consciousness, and any 
 system, must be based on the external facts of revelation, 
 which are preternaturally revealed to us. There must be a 
 firm belief in the living Fatherhood of God. The soul that 
 finds no rest in itself, .must come to rest in God as its source 
 and centre, to believe^the Heavenly Father's declaration, " I 
 have loved thee with -an everlasting love ;" that before ever 
 the world was formed, God's infinite love contemplated his 
 creatures, and loved them, and rejoiced in them. To it God 
 will be no mere abstraction, but a living, loving, personal be- 
 ing. Our weak erring wills will be submitted to the Divine
 
 356 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 will, and in that submission the discords of life will be hushed. 
 Our faith will rest in God our Saviour, on the finished work 
 of Jesus, and the righteousness which he both imputes and 
 imparts, on his sympathy with us as the Divine Friend and 
 Brother, on his helping us and pleading for us as our Medi- 
 ator and Intercessor. It will include a humble, firm reliance 
 on the help of a Divine Spirit We shall learn to look be- 
 yond this world for real enlightenment and comfort. Not 
 from scenes of earth, but from the golden gates of heaven 
 must come those salutary airs which shall purify, revive, and 
 invigorate the soul. That blessed Spirit is the source of 
 peace, the very focus and centre of the soul ; by it our dark- 
 ness is illuminated, and the soul is restored after the likeness 
 of the moral image of the Creator. 
 
 True, living faith is the reception into the soul of God's 
 eternal truth, bringing it into harmony with itself, and into 
 unity with God. Even in this world Faith is the greatest 
 force in life, leading us to rely on human testimony, and to 
 trust in the recorded facts of experimental science, and in the 
 divine plan this is made the great agency of human happiness 
 and salvation. 
 
 The third great force of the soul is Hope, the " better hope," 
 as it is pathetically described. We have spoken of the illu- 
 sions and disappointments of life. It is sad to speak and to 
 think of them. But we may believe that there is no hope of 
 youth, however ardent, no illusion of life, however brilliant, 
 that shall not receive an infinite accomplishment in the infi- 
 nite future. We are told that " the parched ground shall be- 
 come a pool;" according to the true meaning, "the mirage 
 shall become the lake;" the illusions shall be accomplish- 
 ments, appearances realities. The heart of man is so consti- 
 tuted that it is full of a divine despair and a noble longing. 
 " In this noble hope is longing, that marvelous flower of the
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 357 
 
 soul, expanded Into its perfect and boldest point." Still is 
 the eye unsatisfied with seeing and the ear with hearing, and 
 we have those vague dreams of happiness which our human 
 experience may sternly assure us can never be satisfied on 
 earth. Evermore the're is unrest and dissatisfaction, and a 
 yearning, a longing, an aspiration for something that eludes 
 our reach and lies beyond the region of our life. 
 
 " The desire of the moth for the star, 
 
 Of the day for the morrow ; 
 The devotion to something afar 
 From the sphere of our sorrow." 
 
 Now to divine hope we look for the realization of whatever 
 is true and good in the dreams of the soul. And we are sure 
 that this hope will not fail us, for it rests upon an anchor sure 
 and steadfast even upon God ; " round our incompleteness 
 his completeness, round our restlessness his rest." In him lies 
 our better hope, the hope of that blessed state where pain and 
 disease and error and misconception, and the sense of sin and 
 want will be removed ; the " better hope" that even all these 
 things, by some divine alchemy, shall be overruled for good 
 the blessed hope of eternal life.* 
 
 The time comes when, perhaps, we are tempted to grow 
 weary and faint in our minds. The fresh morning yields to 
 the hot, white light of the long dull afternoon of life. There 
 seems a monotony about existence. We find that we are 
 compassed about with petty cares, and the routine of com- 
 
 * Schlegel, in speaking of the relation of knowledge to belief, has these 
 words on the relation of faith and love to knowledge : " The free spirit of 
 knowledge can not look down on its own height and pay no regard either 
 to faith or love. In the depths of sensuous observation, amid all the rich 
 treasures of physical and historical science, it can not move as sovereign 
 without being first invested with the luxurious garment of pure faith and 
 love. Otherwise, it does only hasten from one error to another, to fall 
 from the first abyss into a second and still deeper one."
 
 358 TURNING-POINTS IN LIFE. 
 
 monplace duties. We do not see that our work is prosperous, 
 or that we are making any real or wide impression where we 
 would most desire to do so. Life seems hardly worth the 
 having. It is dull, emotionless, stereotyped, uninteresting. 
 Such are the complaints which one hears ; and, indeed, it is 
 not uncommon to hear men of elevated minds, and of happy 
 external circumstances, declare that they would not continue 
 life at their own option, and, indeed, if the power of choice had 
 been given them, they would have elected never to have been 
 born. It is here that the true science of life comes into play. 
 It was never meant that the glorious existence conferred upon 
 us should be barren of interest and devoid of sympathy. That 
 this should be the case would augur something strangely amiss 
 both in heart and mind. The play of thought and feeling 
 ought to be fountain-like and fresh. There is always friend, 
 child, or kinsman to own our love, and in the Christian heart 
 love is wider than these, and can even take in the loneliness 
 of the most estranged and degraded and most distant, and ex- 
 pand beyond the barriers of one's own land and age. By the 
 skillful management of life we are able to take more and more 
 out of it, we are able to alternate rest and activity, recreation 
 and work. We are able to add new objects of intellectual in- 
 terest ; to win " fresh woods and pastures new ;" to attain and 
 retain the hearing ear and the seeing eye. We may believe 
 also that the effort of moral and religious progress is truly ger- 
 minant, that we may learn and act down to the last day of our 
 lives, and whatever we learn and act here, in some sort of way 
 will have a relation to the fruition of a future life. 
 
 Then there comes the supreme turning-point of all, the 
 transition between life and death, or rather between life and 
 life this dim, shadowy, incomplete life, and that which has the 
 fullness of joy and pleasure for evermore. In one sense, all 
 life is but a preparation for this great turning-point, and it is
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 
 
 359 
 
 obvious that the turning-point is determined by the whole an- 
 tecedent life. The whole life, not only the religious part of 
 life if, indeed, any part of human life can be separated from a 
 religious aspect has gone toward the issues of that supreme 
 event. We may so prepare for a crisis that when it comes it 
 shall be determined in the foreseen direction. So to speak, 
 we go into training for it. I remember a man who had just 
 accomplished a matter very dear to his heart in the ascent of 
 Monte Rosa. He had steadily prepared for it. When the 
 day for the effort came, it was really no effort for him. The 
 feat, now no uncommon one, was without difficulty and with- 
 out danger. Which things are an allegory. Night after night 
 we die and are born again. It has been truly said that he 
 who lies down in his bed as in his grave, will one day lie down 
 in his grave as in his bed. W T e may so prepare that the time 
 shall not come unawares, but whenever it may happen it shall 
 be at " a convenient season." 
 As Dean Milman said : 
 
 " It little matters at what hour o' the day 
 The righteous falls asleep. Death can not come 
 To him untimely who has learned to die. 
 The less of this brief life the more of heaven ; 
 The shorter time the longer immortality." 
 
 That great change comes, and for such a one as that it 
 shall be a happy one, yea, the happiest turning-point of all. 
 The soul, refusing the lower aims of life, has thirsted for 
 glory, honor, and immortality ; and by that living faith in a 
 Saviour which consists in following his law of love, the law 
 of the patient continuance in well-doing, has been brought 
 through the changes and chances of existence, and has gained 
 that boon beyond all boons, eternal life.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABBOTSFORD, 248. 
 
 Alderson, Baron, 71. 
 
 Alford, Dean, 26, 47. 
 
 Alison, Sir A., 290, 292. 
 
 Aristotle on. habit, 33, 39. 
 
 Arkwright, the inventor, 238. 
 
 Arnold, Dr., on the Ethics of Aristotle, 47 ; 
 his influence, 48 ; on ancient and modern 
 history, 253 ; on children and the poor, 352. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 162, 314. 
 
 "Ars vivendi" 340. 
 
 Art, "moments" in, 165. 
 
 Atavism, doctrine of, 36. 
 
 Aubrey, quoted, 236. 
 
 Auckland correspondence, 258. 
 
 Audubon, 56. 
 
 Augustine, St., on advocacy, 102 ; ladder of, 
 306. 
 
 Austerlitz, battle of, 260. 
 
 BACON, Lord, 47, 162. 
 
 Bar, the, and profession, 94. 
 
 Baring, Henry, marriage of, 56. 
 
 Barristers, Briefless, 94. 
 
 Barry, James, the painter, 166. 
 
 Beckwith, General, story of, 64. 
 
 Bell, Sir Charles, on the argument from de- 
 sign, 173 ; his love of fishing, 174. 
 
 Bemerton, George Herbert at, 158. 
 
 Blomfield, bishop, quoted, 219. 
 
 Bonchurch, tomb of W. Adams at, 158. 
 
 Bowdler, John, 241. 
 
 Bowles, W. L., the poet, 200. 
 
 Brewster, Sir David, anecdote of recovery of 
 eyesight, 16. 
 
 Brodie, Sir Benjamin, 207. 
 
 Bronte, Charlotte, quoted, 45 ; difficulties of, 
 164. 
 
 Q 
 
 Browning, Robert, his poem of " Lazarus," 
 
 29. 
 
 Brunei, I. K., 183. 
 Budgett, Mr., "The Successful Merchant," 
 
 211. 
 
 Buffon, 24. 
 
 Buller, Mr. Justice, points in his history, 
 
 2OI. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 162, 166, 257. 
 Burns, 164. 
 Butler, Bishop, 47. 
 Byron, Lord, 21, 164. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, peculiarities of system, 73 ; 
 wrangling, 81 ; compared with Oxford, 78. 
 
 Campbell, Lord, his " Lives," 19, 98, 205, 206. 
 
 Campbell, the poet, 248. 
 
 Canning, Mr., 205. 
 
 Carpenter, Dr., dredging operations of, 24. 
 
 Chancellor, Lord, Church patronage of, 118. 
 
 Chelmsford, Lord, 56. 
 
 Cicero, 103. 
 
 Circumstances, force of, 300. 
 
 Civil Service as a profession, 107. 
 
 Clevedon, epitaphs of Hallam family at, 250. 
 251. 
 
 Clifton Suspension Bridge, 186. 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley, quoted, 40. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 57. 
 
 Colquhoun, Mr., on "Contemporaries of 
 Wilberforce," 240. 
 
 Columbus, 23. 
 
 Coplestone, Bishop, o Necessity and Pre- 
 destination, 320. 
 
 Cornish miner, story of, 51. 
 
 Cornish railway, 186. 
 
 Cotton, Bishop, 48, 51. 
 
 Cotton, William, sketch of, 220.
 
 362 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cowper, William, 17. 
 
 Crabbe, 22. 
 
 Cranworth, Lord (Baron Rolfe), 138. 
 
 Culture and the " Culturists," 314. 
 
 D'ALBMBERT, story of, 246. 
 
 Calling, Lord, on M. Guizot, 235 ; on Mr. 
 Huskisson, 279. 
 
 Dart, scenery of the, and Rhine, 154. 
 
 Darwin, Mr., on Atavism, 34. 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphrey, at the Royal Institu- 
 tion, 22. 
 
 Decisive battles, 278. 
 
 Denison, Edward, sketch of, no. 
 
 Descartes and Pascal, 169. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, quoted, 1 32, 306 ; his Broth- 
 ers Cheeryble, 214. 
 
 Discipline of life, 335. 
 
 Dissenting Ministry, 93. 
 
 Dumas, Alexander, anecdotes of, 249. 
 
 Dupanloup, Bishop, on married life, 144 ; on 
 the plan of life % 328 ; " La Femme studi- 
 euse," 142. 
 
 EASTLAKB, Sir Charles, sketching portrait 
 
 of Napoleon, 21. 
 
 Eldon, Lord, John Scott, 28, 118. 
 Eliot, George, "Spanish Gipsy" quoted, 37, 
 
 132- 
 Elliott, Henry Venn, his marriage, 142. 
 
 FARADAY'S introduction to the Royal Insti- 
 tution, 22. 
 
 Fe'nelon, 328. 
 
 Flaxman's recollections of Romney, 46. 
 Forbes, Edward, the naturalist, 176. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, events in life of, 260 ; 
 his death, 261. 
 
 France, invasion of, in 1794 and 1870, 285- 
 292. 
 
 Freeman, Mr. E. A., 155. 
 
 Froude, Mr. J. A., 155. 
 
 GALILEO, first view of phases of Venus, 24. 
 Gallon's " Hereditary Genius" quoted, 54, 
 
 note; 184. 
 George the Third on English law, 195. 
 
 Gilly, Dean, on the Waldenses, 66. 
 
 Gisborne, Rev. T., home at Needham, 242. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., 147, 220. 
 
 Goodsir, John, the anatomist, sketch of, 175. 
 
 Gothe, 139, 315. 
 
 Grant, Sir W., 191. 
 
 Granville, Earl, 255. 
 
 Grief, discipline of, 337. 
 
 Grote, George, on the Sophists, 25. 
 
 Guardian quoted, 220. 
 
 Guizot, supposed feeling of, toward England, 
 
 254- 
 Gunning, Reminiscences of Cambridge, 302. 
 
 HABITS, considerations on, 27. 
 
 Haddo, Lord (Earl of Aberdeen), 14*. 
 
 Hale, Bishop, quoted, 129. 
 
 Hale, Sir M., anecdote of, 317. 
 
 Hall, Dr. Marshall, discoveries in nervous 
 system, 173. 
 
 Hallam, F. H., 251. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, 250. 
 
 Hamilton, Dr. James, 140. 
 
 Hanway, Jonas, 214. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, intrigues against, ,59. 
 
 Hatherley, Lord, 191. 
 
 Hawkins, Sir John, 58. 
 
 Henslow, Professor, his discoveries in botany, 
 179; Darwin's character of, 180; among 
 agricultural laborers, 181 ; objections to 
 Darwin's theories, 182 ; death, 182. 
 
 Herbert, George, 158. 
 
 Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury, quoted, 62. 
 
 Holland, Sir Henry, on travel, 146. 
 
 Hooker and his wife, 136 ; saying of, 195. 
 
 Howson, Dean, on obedience, 33. 
 
 Hume, Joseph, story of life of, 55. 
 
 Hursley, Church at, 158. 
 
 Huxley, Professor, 313. 
 
 Hyde, Edward (Lord Clarendon), sketch of, 
 264 ; extracts from correspondence of, 270. 
 
 "Irs" of history, 279. 
 
 Inglis, Sir Robert Harry, 244. 
 
 lona, 158. 
 
 Isaiah, text from, 40. 
 
 I vybridge, viaduct at, 185.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 363 
 
 JEFFREY on Wordsworth, 164. 
 Johnson, Dr., on genius, 89 ; at lona, 158. 
 Jonson, Ben, "Valiant Man," 347. 
 Jowett, Professor, 47. 
 
 Justin Martyr, " Dialogue with Trypho," 
 15- 
 
 KEATS, 164. 
 
 Keble College, 86. 
 
 Keble, Rev. J., 51, 147, 320. 
 
 Kingsdown, Lord (Pemberton Leigh), 193, 
 
 230. 
 Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 24, 83, 338. 
 
 LATTMER, Bishop, habit of story-telling, 64. 
 Lee, Master William, and his invention, 172. 
 Lewes, Mr. G. H., on Gothe, 139. 
 Lewis, Sir G. C., on "turning-point" in 
 
 Fox's career, 261 ; sketch of, 273. 
 Lichfield, Bishop of (Selwyn), 120, note. 
 Liverpool from the Mersey, 31. 
 Longley, Archbishop, 226. 
 Lugano, evening at, 61. 
 Lunardi's balloon, 200. 
 Lynedoch, Lord, story of, 56. 
 
 MACAULAY, Lord, 47, i4S '55. *44i 275 > an ~ 
 
 ecdote of, 303. 
 Maclise, story of, 165. 
 Macmillan, Rev. Hugh, writings of, 23. 
 Malesherbes, 46. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, incident in life of, 
 
 292. 
 Marsh, Herbert, Bishop of Peterborough, 
 
 20. 
 
 Maurice, Rev. J. D. F., 78. 
 
 Melvill, Canon, 226. 
 
 Melville, Lord, condemnation of, 259. 
 
 Miller, Hugh, memoirs of, 29; his marriage, 
 140. 
 
 Milmnn, Dean, 359. 
 
 Milner, President of Queen's College, Cam- 
 bridge, 240. 
 
 Milton, 22, 68 ; " Lycidas" quoted, 109. 
 
 Mitford (first Lord Redesdale), 194. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 238. 
 
 M tiller, the physiologist, 173. 
 
 NAPOLEON I., 21, 212, 285-292. 
 
 Napoleon III., 227, 279. 
 
 Newman, F. A., at Bagdad, 48 ; conversation 
 with a Mohammedan at Aleppo, 49. 
 
 Newman, J. H., citation from the "Apolo- 
 gia, 49, 153 ; law in ethics, 354. 
 
 Newton, Rev. John, 240. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 172. 
 
 Novel Writers, confessions of, 318. 
 
 OCCAM, days of, at Oxford, 69. 
 
 Orders, taking holy, 116. 
 
 Oriel College, fellowships at, 77. 
 
 Oxestierna, saying of, 254. 
 
 Oxford compared with Cambridge, 78 ; class 
 lists, So ; school of law and modern histo- 
 ry, 82 ; view of, 83. 
 
 PAGET, Sir James, 35. 
 
 Paley's teleological watch, 13. 
 
 Palgrave, Mr. F. T., quoted, 311. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette quoted, 176. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 118. 
 
 Parallels, historical, 285. 
 
 Pascal Blaise, sketch of, 167 ; his accident at 
 
 Neuilly, 170; remarkable conversation of, 
 
 171. 
 
 Patience, plan of the Christian life, 350. 
 Paul, St., a tent-maker, 93 ; on marriage, 133 ; 
 
 as a traveler, 139. 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 221, 255. 
 Penal servitude, long sentences of, 41. 
 Pepys quoted, 237, 268. 
 Perorations of speeches, 254. 
 Persius quoted, 25. 
 Petty, Sir W., sketch of, 235. 
 Philippe, King Louis, 255. 
 Philosophy of life, 326. 
 Phipps, Sir W., sketch of, 231. 
 Pitt, William, Wilberforce on, 247 ; entrance 
 
 on public life, 257; possible retribution 
 
 on, 260 ; meets Sir Arthur Wellesley, 260 ; 
 
 death of, 263. 
 
 Prodicus's fable of Hercules, 25. 
 Profession, choice of, 89; Comparison of 
 
 professions, 90. 
 Providence, theories of, 101.
 
 3 6 4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 RENNIE, the engineer, 246. 
 
 Komilly, Sir Samuel, 142. 
 
 Romney, the painter, 46. 
 
 Rush, the murderer, 138. 
 
 Russell, Earl, on Pitt and Fox, 257, 262. 
 
 Saturday Review quoted, 1 10, 226. 
 
 Schlegel on marriage, 129; on connection 
 between faith and knowledge, 189 ; on turn- 
 ing-points in history, 298. 
 
 Schubert, sayings of, 332. 
 
 Scott, Thomas, "Force of Truth," 58. 
 
 Sequoia, giganiea, 23. 
 
 Seville, religious reformation in, 152. 
 
 Shairp, Principal, " Culture and Religion," 
 312; quoted, 324. 
 
 Smeaton's last illness, 173. 
 
 Smith, Sidney, his fits of depression, 44. 
 
 Spencer, Mr. Herbert, on Atavism, 36. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, 159. 
 
 Stanley, Dean, quoted, 133, 
 
 Stephen (Master in Chancery), 241. 
 
 Stowell, Lord (William Scott), 191. 
 
 Strutt, Jedediah, sketch of, 237. 
 
 TAINE, M., quoted, 85. 
 
 Talfourd, Mr. Justice, 100, 207. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, Apologue on Marriage, 135 ; 
 on Providence, 334. 
 
 Taylor, Sir Henry, quoted, 311. 
 
 Telford, the engineer, 186, 246. 
 
 Temple, Bishop, on scruples, 14; on educa- 
 tion of the world, 286. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, on first view of London, 
 27; on travel, 147; lines from, 147; Lin- 
 colnshire scenery, 154; on work, 162; on 
 fame and use, 189; his "Palace of Art," 
 316; "Wages," 338. 
 
 Tenterden,firstLord(Charles Abbott), sketch 
 of, 196. 
 
 Thackeray, 164, 263, 338. 
 
 Thiers, M., 288, 291. 
 
 Thomson, "Castle of Indolence" quoted, 
 156. 
 
 Thomson, Sir William, discoveries in elec- 
 tricity, 172. 
 
 Thorntons, the two, 244. 
 
 Travel, 145. 
 
 Trench, Archbishop, quoted, 307. 
 
 Truro, Lord (Sergeant Wilde), 195. 
 
 Tucker, Abraham, on Providence, 323. 
 
 Tyndall, Professor, 36. 
 
 Tytler, Patrick Fraser, 100. 
 
 UNIVERSITIES, Scottish, 71. 
 University careers, 69 ; funds, 86 ; extension, 
 87. 
 
 VAN MILDERT, Bishop, 217. 
 
 Vasari, 165. 
 
 Vauban, 294. 
 
 Voltaire, last days of, 249. 
 
 WALDENSBS of Piedmont, 67. 
 
 Wallace, Mr., the naturalist, quoted, 284. 
 
 Walton, Izaak, 136, 158, 217. 
 
 Ward, E. M., painting by, 268. 
 
 Washington, incident in life of, 58. 
 
 Watson, Joshua, sketch of, 216. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 53, 64. 
 
 West, the painter, anecdote of, 165. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, 62. 
 
 Wickham, the diplomatist, 57. 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 247. 
 
 Winslow, Dr. Forbes, on mental disease, 305. 
 
 Wissembourg, battles of, in 1793 and 1870, 
 
 285. 
 
 Woolner, on a protuberance of the ear, 36. 
 Worcester, Bishop of (Philpott), 120. 
 Wordsworth, William, 84, 164, 347. 
 
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