The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5,
November, 1863, by Various

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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863

Author: Various

Release Date: September 30, 2009 [EBook #30141]

Language: English

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  THE

  CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

  DEVOTED TO

  LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.


  VOL. IV.--NOVEMBER, 1863.--No. V.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE DEFENCE AND EVACUATION OF WINCHESTER,

ON THE 15TH OF JUNE, 1863, BY THE UNION FORCES, UNDER COMMAND OF
MAJOR-GENERAL R. H. MILROY.


The history of many important military operations in the present war,
will be recorded most correctly in the proceedings of the Courts of
Inquiry and Courts Martial, which, from time to time, have been or may
be organized to investigate the conduct of the parties responsible for
them. The reports of commanding officers are no doubt often colored, if
not by their own interests and inclinations, at least by their
enthusiasm and partial view of their own purposes; and even the
description of disinterested reporters and eye witnesses may be
distorted and exaggerated, either by their own peculiarities of excited
imagination, or from their imperfect opportunities for observation. But
in cases where numerous witnesses are questioned, and cross examined
under the solemnities of judicial proceeding, each one knowing that
others equally well informed have been or subsequently will be
interrogated on the same points, the probabilities in favor of a
truthful result are very greatly enhanced.

About the middle of June last, the sudden and unexpected irruption of
the rebel army under General Lee into the Shenandoah Valley, surprised
and surrounded a division of our army, commanded by Major-General R. H.
Milroy, and compelled the evacuation of that post, in a manner and under
circumstances which have elicited the severest criticism and censure of
the public press. The commanding officer of these forces was placed in
arrest by the General-in-chief of the army. No charges were made against
him; but he himself demanded a court of inquiry, which was ordered by
the President. That court has recently concluded its labors, and the
testimony taken has been submitted to the President as the
Commander-in-chief of the army, for his examination and decision.

       *       *       *       *       *

Although this particular affair was one of subordinate importance, it
was, nevertheless, somewhat connected with the great invasion of
Pennsylvania by the rebel army last summer; and on that account, as well
as from its own intrinsic interest, it is well worth the brief notice
which we now propose to give it. In the general history of the war, the
minute detail of such operations will necessarily be overlooked; but the
interest of truth requires that the principal features and the actual
result, even in these cases, should be fairly stated, and especially
that the actors should receive impartial judgment at the hands of the
public, with such just censure or applause as may be due to their
conduct. In the tremendous operations of the war now raging around us,
minor events may escape present attention; but no part of the great and
bloody drama can fail to be of importance to the future student of this
momentous period in our national history.

At the time of the occurrences that form the subject of the inquiry
recently instituted, from which we chiefly derive the materials for this
sketch, General Milroy was in the department and under the immediate
command of Major-General R. C. Schenck, whose headquarters were at
Baltimore. The force at Winchester consisted in all of about nine
thousand men, and this body had occupied that position for six months
previous to the evacuation. The particular work assigned to General
Milroy and his command, was to assist in guarding that important link of
communication, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, against the incursions
of a considerable rebel force in the valley, under the notorious leaders
Imboden, Jones, and Jenkins. The forces at Winchester constituted but a
part of those employed in this service. There was, of course, a
considerable body of men at Harper's Ferry, with smaller bodies at
Martinsburg, Romney, and New Creek, all intended to coöperate in the
protection of the railroad.

A question of much interest had been started between General Halleck,
the general-in-chief of the army, and General Schenck, the commander of
the department, as to the best means of disposing the forces on this
road, for its complete security. General Halleck thought the proper mode
was to post his forces immediately on the line of the road, with
blockhouses and other defences for resisting the attacks of the enemy.
General Schenck, on the other hand, insisted upon holding a line some
distance to the south, with a view of watching the enemy, and meeting
his attacks before he reached the immediate vicinity of the road. This
difference of opinion had been the subject of frequent discussion
between these two officers, and gave rise to several telegraphic
communications from General Halleck to General Schenck, which the former
probably intended as orders, but which the latter, in view of their
peculiar phraseology, considered to be merely advisory, and not having
the character of peremptory orders. General Halleck expressed the
decided opinion, if he did not actually command, that the main body of
General Milroy's forces should be withdrawn from Winchester, and a small
force only left as an outpost to watch the enemy. General Schenck, on
the other hand, as he testified before the Court of Inquiry, believed
that any small force left at that point must inevitably be captured; and
he therefore determined to leave the whole garrison until the occasion
should occur for its withdrawal. He therefore gave no order to General
Milroy to evacuate his position until after the telegraphic wire had
been cut, when it was too late to communicate with him. On the contrary,
the last order received from General Schenck, at Winchester, was to hold
the position and await further orders.

The solicitude about the forces at Winchester arose from the anticipated
movements of Lee's rebel army. After the disastrous battle of
Chancellorsville, it soon became the subject of universal apprehension
that the victors in that field would make an attempt upon Washington,
and with that ultimate object would invade Maryland and Pennsylvania. In
the early days of June, the movements of the enemy on the Rappahannock
indicated some aggressive design, though the precise nature of the
enterprise about to be undertaken was unknown to our military
authorities, who waited with much anxiety for its development. A great
raid across the Potomac by Stuart's famous cavalry was anticipated; but
its inception was thought to have been seriously embarrassed, if not
wholly thwarted, by the several attacks of our own forces, especially by
that at Beverly Ford. Still the mysterious movements of the rebel army
perplexed our generals, while a distinct impression prevailed everywhere
that the Confederates were about to advance northward, menacing
Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

While this state of uncertainty mystified the General-in-chief, as he
sat at the centre of his converging lines of telegraphic wires, and
paralyzed the movements of the Army of the Potomac, there began to be an
unusual activity of the rebel forces on the several roads leading
through the passes of the Blue Ridge, in the direction of Harper's Ferry
and Winchester. It was on Friday, the 12th day of June, that the first
indications were seen of the approach of the enemy in force. On that day
a strong reconnoitring party from Winchester was sent out on the
Strasburg road, under command of Colonel Shawl, of the 87th Pennsylvania
Volunteer Infantry. This party consisted of Colonel Shawl's regiment of
infantry, the 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and one section of Battery L,
of the 5th regular artillery; and when its advance was within about two
miles of Middletown, it encountered a superior force of cavalry drawn up
in line of battle. By a well-concerted piece of strategy, the enemy was
lured into pursuit until he fell into an ambush, and received the
effective fire both of our artillery and infantry from a dense wood
within one hundred yards of the road. Repulsed and pursued by our
cavalry, the enemy retreated in confusion, and in this handsome little
affair lost no less than fifty in killed and wounded, and thirty-seven
prisoners. These prisoners all proved to be part of the rebel forces
which had long been in the valley, and thus served to allay all
apprehension of the approach of any part of Lee's army from that
direction.

Another reconnoissance, under Lieutenant-Colonel Moss, of the 12th
Pennsylvania Cavalry, was sent out on the Front Royal road on the same
day. On his return, this officer reported a large force of the enemy,
consisting of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, at Cedarville, twelve
miles from Winchester; but as the accounts of officers present, and of
reliable scouts, were contradictory, and as it did not appear that he
had taken the precautions necessary to enable him to ascertain the
strength and character of the enemy, the report of Lieutenant-Colonel
Moss was discredited. Nevertheless, on Friday night, the pickets around
Winchester were doubled, and strong cavalry patrols were kept out on all
the principal roads. A messenger was also sent to Colonel McReynolds,
who commanded the 3d brigade at Berryville, notifying him that the enemy
was reported to be in force on the Front Royal road, and ordering him to
reconnoitre in that direction, to be in readiness to move, and in case
of serious attack, to fall back on Winchester. It was also arranged that
upon the firing of the four large guns in the fort at Winchester he was
to march immediately to that place. Accordingly, on Saturday morning, at
about 8 o'clock, the enemy was reported to be approaching on the Front
Royal road, and the concerted signal was given for the return of the 3d
brigade, under Colonel McReynolds, to unite with the main forces at
Winchester. Berryville is on the direct road from Winchester to Harper's
Ferry, about twenty miles from the latter place, and ten from the
former. The 3d brigade, under Colonel McReynolds, consisting of his own
regiment, the 1st New York Cavalry, commanded by Major A. W. Adams, the
6th Indiana Infantry, the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, and the Baltimore
battery, Captain Alexander, had been stationed at Berryville, to keep
open the road to Harper's Ferry, and to watch the passes of the Blue
Ridge and the fords of the Shenandoah river in that direction.

When this part of General Milroy's forces was thus ordered to join him
at Winchester, it was not known or suspected that any portion of General
Lee's army was in the valley. The movement was made with a view to
concentrate the command, and to repel an attack from that portion of the
enemy's forces which were known to have been in that vicinity for many
months. It was deemed possible that Stuart's cavalry might have crossed
the Blue Ridge, as had been apprehended, but there was no intention to
abandon the position upon the approach of such an enemy. Indeed it was
believed that, even if Stuart had entered the valley, his advance on
Winchester would prove to be a mere feint to enable the main body of his
forces to cross into Maryland.

Winchester is not a place of any strategic importance; nor is it easily
to be held against a greatly superior force. It is approachable on all
sides by numerous roads, without any difficulty of intercommunication.
But there are some strong positions near the place susceptible of
fortification; and several of these had been very skilfully improved by
General Milroy, during his occupation of the post--not with any view,
however, of attempting to hold it, in case of an attack by overwhelming
numbers, but to resist any sudden concentration of the forces which were
known to be in the valley or likely to invade it. These fortifications
would have successfully resisted Stuart's cavalry, with all the field
artillery he could have brought against them.

On Saturday, the 13th of June, the enemy was encountered early in the
day within a short distance of Winchester; but no enemy appeared in the
direction of the Strasburg road until the afternoon. Our forces held
both roads, but they gradually withdrew, skirmishing, during the day, as
the enemy steadily approached the town. At about 6 o'clock in the
afternoon, a prisoner was captured, who professed to belong to Hay's
Louisiana brigade, of Ewell's rebel corps. From this prisoner was
derived the information that both Ewell and Longstreet, with their
entire forces, fifty thousand strong, were in the immediate vicinity of
Winchester. This report was soon fully confirmed by a deserter, who
shortly afterward entered our lines; and now, for the first time, it was
rendered certain that the command at Winchester was in the immediate
presence of an overwhelming force, probably the advance of Lee's entire
army.

At this time the 3d brigade, under Colonel McReynolds, was on the march
from Berryville to Winchester, in pursuance of the signal, which had
been given early in the morning. The direct road from Berryville to
Winchester was only ten miles; but the appearance of the enemy at
Berryville prevented Colonel McReynolds from taking that route. He
accordingly pursued the Harper's Ferry road for a short distance, then
turning to the left by a circuitous road through Summit Point to
Winchester. His rear guard was attacked by the enemy's cavalry before
leaving Berryville, and also again with greater violence at the Opequan
Creek, between Summit Point and the Martinsburg road. The enemy was
handsomely repulsed in both instances, but particularly in the latter,
when the cavalry, under Major A. W. Adams, and the artillery, commanded
by Captain Alexander, were both brought into action. After a march of
thirty miles, the 3d brigade reached the forts at Winchester about ten
o'clock at night.

After it became known what force was in front of Winchester, early in
the night of Saturday, under cover of the darkness, the men were
withdrawn from the Front Royal and Strasburg roads, and posted in the
southern part of the town, with orders to retire to the forts at two
o'clock in the morning.

It was now apparent that a very large force of the enemy had approached
Winchester, and virtually surrounded it. The Berryville road, the direct
route to Harper's Ferry, was held by them. An attack had been made on
our forces at Bunker Hill, on the Martinsburg road, during the day
(Saturday), and some time in the evening the telegraphic line, which
communicated by that road, was severed. Thus Winchester seemed to be
entirely isolated and cut off from all its communications. Without any
warning whatever, the whole rebel army had eluded the Army of the
Potomac, and had poured over the mountains like an avalanche into the
Shenandoah Valley. General Milroy did not, for a moment, suppose that
this movement could have taken place without the timely knowledge of the
authorities at Washington, and he very naturally supposed he had been
left unadvised and without orders, because of some movement of the Army
of the Potomac, which would soon relieve him from his perilous position.

General Schenck was in expectation of early advice in case of any
movement of Lee's army into the valley. In his testimony he produced
several telegrams to General Halleck inquiring for information on this
subject; but down to Sunday, the 14th, it seems there was no knowledge
of Lee's movements in possession of the commander-in-chief of the army.
On Friday the 12th, General Schenck had telegraphed General Milroy in
these words: '_You will make all the required preparations for
withdrawing, but hold your position in the mean time. Be ready for
movement, but await further orders._' The additional orders had not been
received. The telegraph had been in operation during the greater part of
Saturday, while the enemy was gathering around the post; and when, that
night, the real situation became known, the most obvious conclusion
arising from the circumstances was, that General Schenck had ordered the
place to be held until further orders, for some important reason
connected with the wider plans of the General-in-chief of the army. The
cutting of the telegraphic wire was the only circumstance which cast any
doubt upon this view. But in consultation with some of his officers on
Saturday night, the commanding general, with their concurrence, adopted
the conclusion that his orders prohibited him from leaving Winchester at
that time, even if he could have done so with safety, which was more
than doubtful. He resolved, therefore, to await the events of Sunday,
when the enemy would probably have massed his forces; and if relief
should not come during the day, it would then be more easy to determine
in what manner and by what route it would be possible to escape. This
conclusion was undoubtedly the wisest that could have been adopted. The
most critical military judgment will hardly succeed in finding any
ground of complaint against this decision in that serious emergency.

So passed the night of Saturday. On Sunday morning the contest was
renewed, and kept up with great energy during the whole day, chiefly
within the suburbs of the town of Winchester. In the afternoon a sudden
and unexpected attack was made upon an unfinished earthwork on Flint
Ridge, which, as it commanded the Pughtown and Romney roads, was
occupied by Battery L of the 5th regular artillery, supported by the
110th and part of the 116th Ohio volunteer infantry, all under command
of Colonel Keifer, of the former regiment. A reconnaissance had been
previously ordered in that direction, and had been made or pretended to
be made by part of the 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry, the officer in charge
of the party reporting that there was no enemy on either of those roads
or between the two for a considerable distance from Winchester. Within
two hours after this report was made, an overwhelming force appeared in
that very quarter. The enemy opened on the position with not less than
twenty guns, and precipitated upon it a column of at least ten thousand
men. After a gallant but ineffectual resistance, Colonel Keifer was
enabled to make good his retreat, under cover of the guns from the main
fort, which commanded the position. The guns of Battery L were most
effectively served in this affair, and executed great slaughter in the
ranks of the enemy; but the horses having been nearly all killed, they
were necessarily spiked and abandoned.

Our forces, pressed by the enemy on all sides, were now concentrated
within the fortifications, and the rifle pits immediately in front of
them; and the contest was continued with artillery on both sides until
darkness compelled its cessation. In his report of this affair, General
Milroy, with characteristic ardor at this juncture, says: 'To my regret,
the enemy made no effort to take my position by assault.' It was
probably about this time that the rebel General Ewell is reported with
his glass to have descried General Milroy in the lookout, which had been
constructed some distance up the flagstaff of the main fort, and to have
exclaimed, 'There's that d--d old Milroy, who would stop and fight, if
the d--l himself was after him.'

With the exception of the loss of Battery L, which was wholly
attributable to the imperfect reconnaissance or the false report of
Captain Morgan, who commanded the reconnoitring party, the advantage in
the fighting, both on Saturday and Sunday, had all been with our forces;
and there can be little doubt that the enemy would have suffered
severely in any attempt to take the forts by assault.

But it was now apparent that the only alternatives were an evacuation or
a surrender. A council of war was ordered by the commanding general, and
the three brigade commanders, Brigadier-General Elliott, 1st brigade;
Colonel Ely, of the 18th Connecticut, 2d brigade; and Colonel
McReynolds, of the 1st New York Cavalry, 3d brigade, were called into
consultation. The critical condition of the command was perfectly
understood. In pursuance of orders previously received, which looked to
the early evacuation of the place, most of the stores had been sent
away. The communication with Martinsburg, from which supplies had been
obtained always in a few hours, had been cut off; and it now appeared
that the stock of ammunition had been very nearly expended, and the men
were already on half rations. It was therefore resolved to retreat from
the forts at one o'clock in the morning (of Monday 15th June),
abandoning everything except the horses, and such supply of ammunition
as each man could take upon the march. There was some question as to the
feasibility of taking the field artillery; but as the enemy's pickets
were within two or three hundred yards of the rifle pits, and as the
forts were located on a rocky ridge, which could not well have been
descended by the guns without arousing the enemy, it was finally
determined to spike and leave them.

The fortifications had been constructed on the ridge, extending
northwest from the town; and the guns in position commanded the
Martinsburg road to the extent of their range. Probably on this account
the enemy had not made his appearance in that direction; and this road,
therefore, seemed to offer the only means of escape. The council of war
resolved to march by this road to the point whence diverges a cross road
to Summit Point, and thence by that place to Charlestown and Harper's
Ferry. The three brigades were directed to go out in the order of their
numbers, the 1st New York Cavalry, of the 3d brigade, being placed in
the extreme rear. Notwithstanding the great precautions taken to elude
the enemy immediately in front of the forts, the chief apprehension was
that these forces would follow and harass the column on its retreat.

At two o'clock, on the morning of Monday, June 15th, with the most
perfect silence, and in extreme darkness, the fortifications were
evacuated, and the command of General Milroy commenced its march in the
order and by the route designated. The bold and energetic resistance of
the day previous had led the enemy to expect a renewal of the contest on
Monday morning. Hence he was completely deceived and eluded; and the
head of the retreating column had proceeded four and a half miles from
Winchester, when suddenly, while it was yet quite dark, it encountered
Johnson's division of Ewell's corps, eight or ten thousand strong,
posted at the junction of the roads to Martinsburg and Summit Point. The
commanding general, expecting only an attack from behind, was near the
rear when the firing began. He immediately hastened to the scene of
action, and in riding up to the front, and passing Colonel McReynolds,
some distance ahead of his troops, ordered him to go back and hurry up
his brigade. The forces of the 1st and 2d brigades were at once thrown
into line of battle, the former on the left and parallel with the
Martinsburg road, and the latter at right angles with the road, facing
the woods in which the enemy were posted. The first brigade, by a
gallant charge, succeeded in driving the enemy from their guns; the
second, led by General Milroy in person, was three times repulsed by
greatly superior numbers. Pending these successive charges, during which
General Milroy's horse was shot under him, he awaited the arrival of the
3d brigade, and sent repeated messengers to order it up. His purpose was
only to engage the enemy long enough to enable the whole column to pass
away under cover of the severe blow he had given the enemy in the first
charges of the two brigades engaged. But, unfortunately, the only part
of the 3d brigade which could be found upon the field was the 1st New
York Cavalry, which had been drawn up in line of battle by Major Adams,
without having received any orders from the brigade commander. The rest
of the brigade had gone to the right in the early part of the conflict,
and, with the exception of the 6th Maryland Volunteers, became
disorganized and scattered. Colonel McReynolds himself became separated
from his troops, and reached Harper's Ferry alone, among the first who
arrived.

Thus thwarted in his plans by the failure of the 3d brigade to respond
to the orders given; the commanding general was compelled to continue
the retreat with only the regiments which were yet upon the field.
General Elliotts's forces, being in advance, mostly escaped. Colonel Ely
himself was captured with a considerable number of his men; and the
delay of the 3d brigade, giving the enemy the full advantage of his
superiority in numbers, enabled him to cross the Martinsburg road in
pursuit, and cause the remaining part of the command to separate into
two parts, one of which, under the commanding general, made its way to
Harper's Ferry; and the other, pushed too far to the left, was compelled
to retreat upon Hancock, and thence into Pennsylvania. The first of
these divisions pursued the Martinsburg road beyond the field of battle,
and diverged thence through fields and by-roads to Harper's Ferry. The
3d brigade, with the exception of the 1st New York Cavalry, left the
Martinsburg road before reaching the position of the enemy, and, by
making a detour back toward Winchester, effected its escape to
Charlestown, not, however, without a considerable loss of men captured
by the enemy.

It has been ascertained, from prisoners since taken by our army, that
the rebel force thus encountered at the junction of the Martinsburg and
Summit Point roads, on the morning of the 15th June, had then just
reached this position; and at the time when General Elliott drove the
enemy from their guns, Johnson and his staff were nearly surrounded,
between the 1st and 2d brigades of General Milroy's forces, and were in
imminent danger of being captured. If the 3d brigade had taken part in
the action, in obedience to the orders given, doubtless this important
capture might have been made; and the retreat, which has been pronounced
a disastrous failure, would have been crowned with brilliant success.
Upon such events, often hang the fortunes of men and armies!

But notwithstanding the derangement of plans, and the want of
coöperation in conducting this retreat, the result was by no means so
disastrous as has been generally supposed. Out of 6,900 effective men
who marched from Winchester, a little more than 6,000 escaped the enemy,
and although scattered in different directions, were found to be on duty
when recently the subject was investigated by order of Major-General
Schenck.

Most extravagant representations have been made as to the loss of stores
and ammunition by this evacuation. But the inquiry has established that
a large part of the wagons had been previously sent away in safety, that
very few stores were on hand, and that the ammunition was nearly
exhausted. The horses were all taken on the retreat, and notwithstanding
some confusion and disorder among the teamsters, were mostly saved to
the Government. The guns left in the fortifications, and the empty
wagons, constituted the principal loss; and these, in comparison with
amounts of public property which during the war have been abandoned at
many other places, without comment or complaint, were truly
insignificant.

In estimating this affair, it cannot be fairly characterized as either
disgraceful or particularly disastrous. The movements of Lee's army were
wholly unknown in advance either to General Schenck, or to the
General-in-chief of the army. The little force at Winchester, without
any warning, was called upon to encounter the advance of Lee's army in
overwhelming numbers. Without at first knowing or suspecting the
character of the enemy, General Milroy held this gathering force at bay
and in check for three days; and when finally surrounded and compelled
to cut his way out, did so with a loss of less than one thousand of his
effective men, of which number the killed and wounded were
inconsiderable. It is known from our paroled officers, that during the
investment and retreat, the enemy lost at least three hundred killed,
and seven hundred wounded, while our casualties were not one fourth of
that number.

Lee's army having escaped the army of the Potomac, was on its way to
Pennsylvania. This check and delay of its onward march was important in
its results. It was the first obstacle met by the invading host. It
served to reveal the movements and the concealed purpose of the enemy,
and enabled our army to pursue and counteract his designs. Had there
been no such obstacle, the rebel army would have swept on unopposed into
Maryland, and would have had three, or at least two more days of
unobstructed license to revel in the spoils he sought. He might have
reached Harrisburg, if such was his intention; and, at all events, he
would have plundered and destroyed in a single day, far more than was
lost at Winchester.

In the course of his testimony, General Schenck did not hesitate to say,
that if he had been left to his own judgment in the control of the
forces within his department, he would have concentrated them all at
Winchester, with the view to meet and check the contemplated advance of
Lee's rebel army, until the Army of the Potomac could have come forward
to his relief. Undoubtedly this disposition of his command would have
had a controlling influence on the rebel campaign of last summer, in
Maryland and Pennsylvania. The movements of both armies would have been
materially changed, and the result must have been modified accordingly.
The invasion of the loyal States might have been altogether prevented,
or it might have been rendered even more disastrous. Speculations of
this kind as to movements which could have been made, are not of much
value, inasmuch as they cannot alter the irrevocable past. Military
operations are subject to so many contingencies, that it is impossible
to conjecture with any certainty what results might have followed a
different plan of campaign. Yet there could be no improvement in
military science, and no benefit from disastrous experience, unless the
errors of any particular movement may be pointed out and freely
criticized. If General Schenck's idea had been adopted, and preparation
made at Winchester to meet the advance of Lee's army, the movements of
the Army of the Potomac would have been conformed to that arrangement,
with coöperation between the scattered forces of the Middle Department
and those under command of General Hooker. The campaign would have been
in some measure under our control; whereas, in the actual circumstances,
the enemy passed without opposition, except at Winchester, into Maryland
and Pennsylvania, and selected his own field of operations. It was most
fortunate, though almost fortuitous, so far as our army was concerned,
that it had the good fortune to be posted as it was in the neighborhood
of Gettysburg, with Cemetery Hill as the centre of our line. General
Meade has all the credit and honor of having made the best disposition
of his army, and carried it into the engagement with all the advantages
of that magnificent position. But the selection of the battle ground was
not the result of any strategy on our part. Doubtless the enemy's
ignorance of the topography enabled Meade to occupy the favorable ground
which gave him the great victory in Pennsylvania.

Both Major-Generals Schenck and Milroy are volunteer officers, raised
from civil life to their present high position. The former has
heretofore been mostly known as a politician of the Whig school, long a
member of the national House of Representatives, and therein connected
with the navy rather than the army. He has again been returned to
Congress by his district in Ohio, and it is understood that he will soon
leave his position in the army, carrying his honorable wounds into
another field of service, where his usefulness to his country in this
great crisis will not be diminished.

General Milroy has had the advantage of a military education, and has
had much of that experience and training which are necessary to make an
accomplished soldier. He graduated at the University of Norwich,
Vermont--the same that sent from its academic halls the gallant and
lamented General Lander, who died at an early period of the war.
Whatever may be the character of that institution as a military school,
under the shadow of the great reputation of West Point, it has at least
the merit of having imparted to these two of its graduates an
enthusiastic love for the profession of a soldier, and a perfect
readiness, in a good cause, to meet its privations and dangers. At the
commencement of the Mexican war, General Milroy raised a company in his
native State of Indiana, and commanded it in the field until the
expiration of its term of service. He was even more prompt in
preparation for the present rebellion. Anticipating its occurrence, some
time before its commencement, he undertook the organization of a company
at Rensselaer, Indiana; and, in spite of the ridicule of such an
undertaking, he persevered, and presented his company, one of the first
to respond to the President's earliest call for volunteers. Thus
entering the service as a captain, he has rapidly risen through the
intermediate grades to his present position. He is not yet forty-eight,
though his perfectly white hair would seem to indicate a greater age.
But his red beard and whiskers contrast strongly with the snow on his
head, and, together with a flashing bluish-gray eye, indicate the
energetic and ardent temperament of unconquerable youth. Though not
large in person, he is tall and erect, with a fine, soldierly form. His
address is quick, and nervous to such a degree as to deprive him of even
the ordinary fluency of speech. His want of words to express the
thoughts that evidently burn within him, together with a remarkable
diffidence among strangers, renders him incapable of making an
impression, at first, proportionate to his real merit. He has, however,
always enjoyed great popularity among his men, commanding their entire
confidence, and has never failed to endear himself to his intimate
companions. His heart has been earnestly with the Union, in the work of
its preservation, from the beginning of the war; and whatever may be the
disposition of the authorities toward him, his strong convictions and
his active temperament will hardly permit him to remain idle during the
deadly peril of the nation.




THE TWO SOUTHERN MOTHERS.


  Heard you not the din of battle,
  Cannon's roar, and musket's rattle,
  Clash of sword, and shriek of shell,
  Victor's shot, and vanquished's yell?

  Saw you not yon scene of slaughter,
  Human blood poured out like water;
  Northern valor, Southern pride,
  Stern resolve on either side?

  Cheering on his flagging men,
  Rallying to the charge again,
  Comes a bullet, charged with grief,
  Strikes the brave Confederate chief.

  Down he falls, amid the strife,
  Horses trampling out his life:
  Scarce can his retreating force
  Find and save his mangled corpse.

  Home they bore him to his mother--
  He was all she had--none other:
  Woful mother! who can borrow
  Words to paint her frantic sorrow?

  As she mourned her slaughtered brave,
  Came and spake her aged slave,
  Came, and spake with solemn brow:
  'Missis, we is even, now.

  'I had ten, and you had one;
  Now we're even--all are gone:
  Not one left to bury either--
  Slave and mistress mourn together.

  '_Every one of mine you sold_--
  Now your own lies stark and cold:
  To the just Avenger bow--
  Missis! I forgive you _now_.'

  Thus she spoke, that sable mother;
  Shuddering, quailed and crouched the other.
  Yea! although it tarry long,
  PAYMENT SHALL BE MADE FOR WRONG!




DIARY OF FRANCES KRASINSKA;

OR, LIFE IN POLAND DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.


  Friday, _January 3d_.

My patience, or rather my impatience, has not been exposed to any very
severe trial: I have seen the prince royal twice. He recognized me; how
childish I was to doubt it? Why should I think him less skilful than
myself; and under what dress could I mistake him?

On New Year's day, just as I was writing in my journal, the palatine
came into my room, and said: 'Fanny, you have surpassed my expectations;
you have been perfect in everything; your dress, and still more your
manners, at the ball, have charmed every one; you have pleased
universally, and even persons of the highest rank. I have just returned
from court, where, with the senators and ministers, we presented our
homage to his royal majesty: his royal highness the Duke of Courland
took me aside to tell me that he had never seen anything comparable to
you. 'Were it not for the court etiquette,' added he, 'which forces me
to pass the first day of the year with the king my father, I should go
in person to present my congratulations to Mademoiselle Frances
Krasinska.'

When I heard these words spoken by the prince palatine, I thought my
heart would burst within my bosom. The prince was kind enough to seem as
if he had not noticed my confusion, and left me alone with my joy, my
delirium, my wild fancies.... I was not then mistaken: the prince royal
will come to see me. Yes; the prince palatine told me so; he has never
seen anything comparable to me. This phrase haunts my memory like a
delicious strain of melody.

Dinner was soon after announced. I was gay--out of myself; the princess
scolded me. After dinner we went out to make visits, and found no one at
home: everybody was out, offering the congratulations proper to the
season. Friends and acquaintances met in the street, and all said to one
another: 'I was just going,' or 'I have just been to see you.' The
carriages crossed and jostled one another in the streets, and a halt was
ordered whenever it was possible to recognize friends amid the crowd,
when cards were reciprocally exchanged.

When the night came, the footmen lighted the carriage lamps, and boys
ran before with torches; all these lights, vehicles, and liveries made
up a charming spectacle--so gay and animated! There were a few
accidents, but, God be praised, nothing happened to us. It was late when
we returned, and I was very tired: I soon fell asleep, but my sleep was
no rest. I dreamed, I pondered, and I saw the future.... How many
things, how much weakness, and how much strength may exist in a woman's
teeming brain!

The next day, precisely at twelve o'clock, after having made my toilet
for the day, I went to the reception room, where the princess was
already seated; I had just commenced to work at my embroidery, when a
chamberlain entered hastily, and cried aloud: 'His royal highness the
Duke of Courland.' The princess rose precipitately to receive him in the
antechamber. At first I thought I would retire; but curiosity, or some
feeling, I know not what, overcame my fear, and I remained. He entered,
approached my workstand, and asked after my health. Notwithstanding my
embarrassment, I replied with considerable self-possession. He took a
seat near my frame, and seemed interested in my work. I had so strong a
desire to appear calm that I succeeded in threading a fine needle with
my heavy silk; but God knows how I trembled....

The prince royal praised my skill, and found opportunities of saying
many kind and flattering things to me, although he spoke much more to
the princess than to myself; he remained about half an hour. I now know
that my dress did not change me in his eyes. As he left he told me he
hoped to see me this evening at the ball given by the French ambassador,
Marquis d'Argenson.

Ah! Barbara's wedding was nothing compared to the _fêtes_ in Warsaw:
there was as much luxury and magnificence, but the exquisite grace and
chivalric courtesy here universal were wanting.

The country may try as it will, it is always a mere parody on the city:
in the city, all are nearly alike; all are equally polished, and equally
amiable; no one is permitted to speak tiresome truths; the compliments
are all ready made, and people only differ in their mode of speaking
them. From this general rule I must except the prince royal; his
language has another coloring, and his graceful speeches have an air of
inspiration.

But he could not say much to me at the Marquis d'Argenson's ball. I was
no longer a Virgin of the Sun, and etiquette is much more rigid at a
dress ball than at a fancy ball; besides, all the women near us tried to
hear what he was saying to me, which displeased me exceedingly; such
curiosity is disgusting in persons of high rank.

The princess is in an excellent humor; the prince royal danced only with
her last evening; that is, she is the only lady advanced in years who
had that honor. The prince palatine is kinder than ever; he asks no
questions and offers me no advice. I am awaiting my sister's arrival
with the greatest impatience; how many things I will have to tell her!

It is not yet a week since I left school, and the time seems to me ages
long: so many events and such divers impressions crowd a lifetime into a
few days! New emotions have given birth to a new nature; my dreams as a
young girl have been surpassed, or rather have become a serious reality.


  Sunday, _January 5th_.

Would any one believe it? During the whole of yesterday I thought
neither of balls, nor of fêtes, not even of the prince royal himself: my
mind was exclusively filled with my sister. She came sooner than had
been expected, and was taken ill immediately after her arrival. The
princess was sent for, and hastened to Barbara to remain all day. I
desired to accompany her, but was not permitted. Until midnight I was in
a horrible state of uneasiness; I sent to three churches to have masses
said. Finally, at one o'clock, the princess returned; she told me that
Barbara was doing well, and had given birth to a daughter. This morning
I begged the princess to permit me to visit my sister, but she replied
that I could not do so, as it was not proper for a young girl to visit a
lady in Barbara's situation. There was nothing to be said, and so I must
wait.

The starost called here for a moment; he seemed very, very happy. They
say the little one is charming, red and white, and so plump; she is to
be called Angelica, to please our mother, who is so named. Oh! if I
could only see the dear child! I have all the honor of being an aunt,
without any of the pleasure.

The prince royal sent to congratulate the princess upon the birth of the
little girl, and he was kind enough to inquire after me by the same
messenger.


  Wednesday, _January 8th_.

My sister improves daily, but she does not yet leave her bed. I have
seen the prince royal but once this week; he had gone hunting with the
king; but yesterday he amply indemnified us by making us a visit of at
least an hour. How good he must be! how tenderly he loves his father!
and when he spoke of his mother, his eyes were wet with tears. He seems
excellently well disposed toward the Poles; I do not think, so far as I
can judge, that a more noble and energetic soul could anywhere be found.
All that I had heard of him, all that I had written in my journal, is
the most exact truth. He is even far above all the praises bestowed upon
him; no one could describe the tone of his voice, his smile, or the
expression of his eye, so filled with deep and noble thought; I am not
at all surprised at the empress's predilection for him. He has already
succeeded in winning the attachment of his people in Courland; he is
seen once, and he pleases; again, and he is loved.... I believe that
were the king to die, he would be proclaimed king of Poland.

Ah, well! this prince, so much beloved, has distinguished me highly; I
can no longer doubt that I am pleasing to him; certain words have
confirmed the eloquence of his eyes.... Yes, indeed, I may be quite
sure, since even the prince palatine himself has told me so.

I believe that the princess takes a malicious pleasure in spoiling all
my happiness; she said to-day, at table, with quite an indifferent air,
that the prince royal had already been much pleased with many women, and
that, for him, the last was always the most beautiful.... How childish I
am, to torment myself thus! Am I the only beauty in the world? The
Starostine Wessel, Madame Potocka, and the Princess Sapieha are far more
beautiful than I, and then they understand how to add grace to their
beauty, while I am entirely devoid of the knowledge of any kind of art.
Yet, the prince royal assures me, that is my greatest charm.
Nevertheless, my color seems pale beside the brilliancy of those
ladies; their cheeks are rose tinted, and always rose tinted, while my
color varies according to my emotions. Madame Potocka was charming at
the French ambassador's ball; the prince royal danced with her twice,
and no one could avoid remarking her. But, in truth, what more can I
desire? My whole ambition was to see him, and to be noticed by him
during a few moments; my wishes have been gratified, and yet I long for
more, still more.... The heart has, then, infinite faculties for
ceaseless longing.


  Sunday, _January 12th_.

Now I ought to be completely happy. Last Thursday, at the Prince
Czartoryski's ball, the prince royal danced with me alone. He came the
day before to make us a visit, and yesterday, he sent his aid-de-camp to
invite us to a representation of the Italian opera Semiramide, which is
to take place at the court.

During the whole time of the play, the prince paid attention to no one
but myself. I was presented to the king, who gave me a most gracious
reception; he asked me for my parents, and especially for my mother. The
starost came to announce that the prince had concluded to stand
godfather to his daughter, and that he had chosen me for godmother.... I
will then hold the child at the baptismal font with the prince, and then
I shall be of the same rank with himself. The will of God be done! The
ceremony will take place with great solemnity in the cathedral church of
St. John. Several other baptisms were to have taken place upon the same
day, but they will be postponed through respect for the prince. The
first society of Warsaw will be present at the ceremony; every one will
speak of it, and certainly the _Polish Courier_ will chronicle this
important news. What will Madame Strumle and all the young ladies at the
school say? What will my parents, and all our court at Maleszow say?
What will our little Matthias say?

Oh! that Matthias! How often I think of him! He is responsible for all
my torments, and all my uneasiness; without him, my reason would never
have abandoned me, nor would such wild hopes have sprung up within my
heart.

Scarcely one moment have I been able to rejoice over the approaching
ceremony; the princess has just told me that marriage is forbidden
between persons who have stood together as godfather and godmother at a
baptism; I shuddered as I listened! Great God! what can all this mean? I
no longer know myself. All within my soul is confusion and disorder: my
own thoughts terrify me; I pass alternately from joy to sorrow;
delicious hopes smile upon me, and then I am overwhelmed by a strange
presentiment of coming sorrow. I am in a state of continual agitation: I
tremble, and long to quit the world, and then again feel drawn toward it
by bonds so sweet and so strong....

At least I shall soon once more see my sister. That meeting will afford
me a really happy moment; true consolation is to be found in sweet and
confiding affections. After the ceremony, we will go to my sister's; she
is doing remarkably well; she sits up, but cannot yet leave her room.


  Wednesday, _January 15th_.

The baptism took place yesterday, and I saw my sister. How charming she
is! She has grown paler and somewhat thinner. She is, as she always was,
good like an angel; and she is so happy! The prince royal quite insisted
that my name should be given to the little one, but Barbara would not
agree to that; she said that we owed the preference to our mother's
name. He has, however, obtained a promise from her that her second
daughter shall be named Frances.

The little one is lovely, but red as a crab; she cried during the whole
time of the ceremony: they say that is a good sign, and that she will
probably live to grow up. God grant it, for I love her already. I was
so embarrassed, I had not the least idea how I ought to hold her in the
church. My hands failed me; the prince royal aided me most kindly; how
good he is!

I was as much surprised as pleased at finding myself standing before the
altar at his side, in the presence of so numerous an assemblage, and at
seeing my name inscribed on a great book with his: the prophecies of our
little Matthias will doubtless receive no further fulfilment.

Every one congratulates me upon the honor I have had. The prince royal
has redoubled his kindness to me since the ceremony; his manner is more
familiar; and he calls me now, 'My pretty gossip:' when he speaks of the
child, he says, 'our Angelica.' He has made the most magnificent
presents to her ladyship the starostine and myself; his generosity
toward the poor and my sister's servants was truly regal.

He has promised the starost his interest with the king, to obtain for
him the castellanship of Radom. Alas for me! I can do nothing for my
family; but I have embroidered a dress for Angelica which has cost both
time and labor; the prince royal told me he thought it in the best
taste. I will shortly embroider a cap for the dear little one.

But I am forgetting a piece of news of the greatest importance. Prince
Jerome Radziwill, the standard bearer of Lithuania, is preparing a grand
hunt to amuse the king and the prince royal. He is expending the most
enormous sums to surpass everything of the kind hitherto seen. He has
filled his park with all kinds of game, brought expressly from the
forests of Lithuania. The hunt will begin to-morrow; the weather is
favorable; it is freezing hard, and the sledges will slide over the snow
most charmingly. The prince royal insists upon my being present at this
_fête_. The four beauties of Warsaw will occupy the same sledge, driven
by the prince royal himself. (I must here say that I am one of the four
beauties now in fashion.) We will all wear the same costume, differing
only in color. I have chosen crimson; Madame Potocka, blue; Madame
Sapieha, green; and Miss Wessel, orange. Our velvet dresses will be
trimmed with sable, and our caps will be made of the same material. I am
sorry Barbara cannot see it all; but she has her Angelica, and that is a
happiness worth all the rest.


  Friday, _January 17th_.

I was brought up in a castle with a brilliant court, and I have seen the
royal fêtes at Warsaw; but I never beheld anything comparable to the
Prince Radziwill's hunt. We set out at nine in the morning, amid an
innumerable quantity of sledges and horses; our equipage was the most
splendid, and followed next after the king's. The prince wore a hunting
dress of green velvet. I do not know whether it was his costume which
rendered his appearance so striking, or his bearing which threw such a
charm about his dress; of one thing, however, I am sure, and that is,
that I never saw him look so well.

We first went a considerable distance beyond the church of the Holy
Cross; then we flew down the side of the hill on which Warsaw is built.
In the centre of the plain, near Szulec and Uiazdow (now Lazienki),
Prince Radziwill has had a park made and an iron pavilion built. The
situation is admirable; the building is open upon all sides, and
defended against the wild beasts by bristling points of sharpened iron.
All the furniture is covered with green velvet. The king and the prince
royal took their places within the pavilion, while the guests occupied a
lofty amphitheatre raised without; the little hills to the right and
left were crowded with curious spectators. At some distance from the
pavilion began long avenues, bordered with fine trees.

As soon as all had arrived, and had taken their destined places, the
hunting horns were sounded. The prince's huntsmen let loose eight elks,
three bears, twenty-five wolves, and twenty-three wild boars; dogs
trained for the purpose drove the animals toward the king's pavilion.
The shouts of the huntsmen and the howlings of the animals were
deafening. The king killed three boars with his own hands; the prince
royal killed at least twenty of the creatures, and, not yet content, he
fought a bear with a club, a proof of great strength and skill. I am to
have the bear's skin, the main trophy of the prince's hunt, as a carpet.
These amusements lasted until four in the afternoon; we then had a
collation. We counted eighty-four huntsmen and foresters belonging to
Prince Radziwill; they were all richly dressed. Latin and Polish verses
were distributed among the guests. Everything was charming. Prince
Radziwill desired thus to commemorate the anniversary of the king's
coronation. There will also be a grand ball this evening at Marshal
Bielinski's, to celebrate the same event.


  Sunday, _January 19th_.

The ball was superb. The prince royal was charmingly gay; the king had
given him a star set with diamonds. The supper was splendid, exquisite;
and the enforced abstinence of Friday by no means diminished the luxury
and abundance; there were an infinity of dishes, but not a particle of
meat.

I danced a great deal, and have pains in my feet which cause me much
suffering; but I am sorry that I complained, for I shall now be obliged
to keep my room for ten days to rest. The princess is quite uneasy about
my health. She fears lest so many balls and such late hours should be
injurious to me. In truth, I do not think my cheeks are as rosy as they
were a few weeks ago.

We have received letters from Maleszow; my mother was kind enough to
write to me herself. She begs me to take good care of myself, and, above
all, to act prudently, and beware of heeding vain flatteries. She says:
'Do not become vain or proud through the praises bestowed upon you.
Caprice has more influence upon the world's judgment than either beauty
or merit. If reason is lulled to sleep through the power of such
deceitful murmurs, the happiness of a whole life is in danger, and one
may suddenly fall from a great height, with all one's weight, upon the
earth.'

I hope my good mother's fears will never be realized, and, if my desires
have been too lofty and ambitious, I will in future endeavor to chain
them in the depths of my soul. My mother's letter caused me many tears;
I carry it with me wherever I go, and read it often. God has endowed the
words of parents with the power of going directly to their children's
hearts. Happy the young girl who has never left her father's house!
Notwithstanding all my triumphs, I often regret our castle at Maleszow.


  WARSAW, Wednesday, _January 29th_.

My quarantine is finally ended, but I am sorry to say there have been
four balls during my seclusion. I particularly regret a masked ball,
where I was to have made one in a Scotch quadrille with the three
celebrated beauties. Miss Malachowska took my place, and I was forced to
remain alone, notwithstanding the entreaties of the prince royal and of
many others; but when the princess once says no, there is no use in
attempting to induce her to change her mind, I confess I was really
vexed, but it would have been very ungracious to have let it be
perceived; at my age, one should be reasonable; besides, I ought not to
regret anything, for the prince royal has often been to see me, and has
told me that he approved my resignation and the strength of my
character.

Since the baptism, the distance separating the prince royal, heir
apparent to the throne, from the Starostine Frances Krasinska, has been
gradually decreasing; the prince royal desires me to treat him as my
equal: what precious and inconceivable goodness! The hours he passes
with us are the most delightful that can be imagined; he talks of his
journeys to St. Petersburg, to Vienna, to Courland, and amid the society
surrounding us, he even finds opportunities to say words to me which I
alone can comprehend. The prince royal knows and appreciates all the
intrigues which are mining our unfortunate republic, but, through
respect for his father, he dare not say what he thinks. Great God! If he
should one day be king!

The princess, who eagerly seeks a bad side to the best things, says that
his politeness has no other aim than to make a party for himself, and
when he is master of the crown, he will forget or despise us. I do not
believe this, and repel such a suspicion as the deepest injustice. The
princess would be very glad to see Lubomirski on the throne, but I doubt
exceedingly the possibility of such an event.

The sisters canonesses have a soirée this evening, to which I am
invited. The superior, Miss Komorowska, is a very respectable personage.
Madame Zamoyska, born Zahorowska, was the foundress of this community:
she copied it from that existing at Remiremont, in Lorraine. It serves
as an asylum for young ladies who will not or who cannot marry; they
live there in retirement, but still receive visits. Madame Zamoyska
bought the Marieville, in one of the main streets, on purpose to
establish this community of canonesses. Twelve ladies of the highest
rank are received there, but eight young girls belonging to the lesser
nobility are also admitted.

The last days of the carnival are finally at hand.


  Ash Wednesday, _February 16th_.

After such constant and fatiguing excitement, one grows tired of
pleasure and longs for rest. I am almost glad when I think the carnival
is over. During the past three weeks I have led a purely external life,
absorbed in balls, dress, and visits. One must have tried this mode of
life to know how sad and tiresome it really is. My success, my
happiness, are envied by others, while I long only for solitude, only
for a few quiet moments, in which I may enjoy my own thoughts and
reflections.

Barbara seems to comprehend my sufferings. I see her often, and certain
words which occasionally fall from her lips explain her fears for me.
She sees before me a destiny by no means in harmony with my tastes,
requirements, and faculties; she would wish for me a future such as her
heart and her reason have made for her; she understands life, and has
set me to dreaming of another happiness.... I begin to reflect.... But
how beautiful Madame Potocka looked at the masked ball yesterday
evening! Her dress as a sultana became her astonishingly. Her beauty
shone as a sun above that of all other women; every one admired her, and
all coveted the honor of dancing with her. As for me, I could only dance
one Polonaise; I was attacked by so severe a pain in my foot that I
could not leave my seat, and I was forced to decline the invitations of
the prince royal and of several noblemen. Thank heaven, the carnival is
over!


  Saturday, _February 29th_.

I am going to Sulgostow when I least expected to make such a journey,
and must first write a few hasty lines. The starost and my sister called
yesterday to say farewell. The prince palatine came to my room this
morning, and told me my brother and sister were very anxious I should
accompany them home. 'It is very probable,' he added, 'that your father
and mother will soon join you there.' I always yield implicit obedience
to the will of the palatine, and made no resistance in this case: I will
go. The princess approves highly of my resolution. I will go, since they
desire it; and yet the prince royal is ignorant of my approaching
departure, and there is no one whom I could ask to inform him of it: he
will hear it as one of the ordinary items of every-day news.

If I dared I would ask the princess to say farewell for me, and present
my regrets to him; but I should never have the courage to confide in
her--and, besides, will my departure cause him any pain? Will a single
thought, a single remembrance follow me, when there are so many
beautiful women in Warsaw?... Madame Potocka will still be here.... But
I am called, and must hasten my preparations.


  Sunday, _March 15th_.

I returned to Warsaw two days ago. I do not know how it was, but I
forgot my journal, and was forced to abstain from the consolation of
writing during my absence.

I remained three weeks at Sulgostow. I tell it to my shame, but the time
weighed upon my soul as a lengthened torture. I did not see my parents,
as they are not expected there for four days yet, and the prince
palatine came for me in such haste that we made the journey in one day;
fresh horses awaited us at each stopping place, so that we did not lose
a single moment.

The prince royal came to see us the day after our arrival. He is much
changed; he seems sad or suffering. He gave me to understand that my
departure had given him great pain, and he said with some bitterness,
that one should have some consideration for a friend.... A friend! this
heartfelt word fell from his lips. Oh! how remorseful I felt for having
made this journey! And yet I made it against my own will.

The prince palatine maintains that all is for the best. I must confess I
can see no reason for making me suffer, and for afflicting the prince
royal; but I have made a promise to myself to obey the palatine blindly;
I believe him to be destined to play a large part in all the events of
my life. The princess received me most kindly upon my return.

I have embroidered a cushion for the cathedral, with I.H.S. upon it. I
found all that was needful for my work at Sulgostow, and I was so
diligent that I finished it before my departure. I worked fervently, for
I was accomplishing a secret vow; God alone knows my intention, God
alone can grant my prayers.

The anniversary of Barbara's marriage was celebrated with great pomp at
Sulgostow. How many changes in the space of a year! Before Barbara's
marriage, I was always gay and always happy; that is to say, always
calm. I enjoyed my insignificant liberty; my life was like a cloudless
sky; I experienced none of those moments of bliss which are yet a real
suffering, nor of those hours of torment possessing so strange a charm.


  Thursday, _March 19th_.

The prince royal was as gay and amiable yesterday as during the first
days of our acquaintance. He came in the morning and passed an hour with
us; he could not remain longer, as he was obliged to accompany his
father on a hunting party to the forest of Kapinos: but he returned in
the evening when we least expected him; he came quietly, without any
escort, and with an absence of ceremony, and an air of mystery which
added to the charm of his presence.

The chase was successful, and quite a singular event took place. The
forest of Kapinos borders upon that of Zaborow; the proprietor of the
last-mentioned domain is said to be a gentleman of good family; he gave
the king a splendid reception when his majesty passed through his lands,
and the king promised the gentleman a starosty, as a recompense for his
fidelity, on condition that he would first permit him to kill a bear
upon his territory. Several bears were killed, but the starosty seemed
forgotten; the poor gentleman, always hoping and always disappointed,
killed a bear himself at the last hunt. He dragged it to the king's
feet, and said to him, 'Sire, ursus est, privilegium non est.'

The king laughed heartily at this sally, and promised him solemnly that
he should have the promised starosty.

The prince royal remained two hours with us: he is now freer, and can
leave his father more easily, because his brothers, Albert and Clement,
are in Warsaw. Every one says that Prince Clement is very good and very
pious; he has a decided vocation for the ecclesiastical state, and it is
presumed he will take orders. It is a proof of great wisdom on the
king's part to consecrate one of his sons to God; but it is fortunate
the choice did not fall upon Prince Charles.


  Tuesday, _March, 24th_.

Notwithstanding it is Lent, my days pass quite gayly. The prince royal
comes often to see us; he repeats unceasingly that the court etiquette
weighs upon him; he is glad to be free from it: but to-morrow I am again
to be separated from him. The princess is in the habit of making a
retreat of a week before Easter, in order to prepare for her confession;
all religious ladies do the same, and I must of course accompany the
princess to the convent of the Holy Sacrament.

During a whole week we will see none but priests, we will read only
books of prayer, and work only for the church or for the poor.


  Holy Thursday, _April 2d_.

I have made my confession, and am now prepared to receive the holy
communion. I never remember to have been so calm, or to have felt so
much quiet in my soul. It is an inestimable blessing to be at peace with
God and with one's self. How solemn and how sweet are the ceremonies of
our holy religion! What a happiness to have been brought up in the
knowledge of its mysteries! I have an excellent confessor, the Abbé
Baudoin; he is very popular among the ladies of the court, because he is
a Frenchman. But, popularity aside, he would still be the confessor of
my choice; he is a worthy and a holy man, possessing all the virtues
taught by Christ; one follows his counsels with respect; his views of
religion console and show one the way to heaven without forcing one
entirely to quit the earth. I passed several hours with him, and he knew
how to reach my heart, even while condemning my faults. He caused me to
feel humiliated for my sins, without crushing me, or driving me to
despair; he showed me the futility of all human things, the sadness and
emptiness of all pleasures arising from vanity and self-love.... Indeed,
during a few moments, I thought seriously of consecrating my life
entirely to God, and of becoming a gray nun in the convent under the
Abbé Baudoin's direction.

I was measuring my cell, and counting the number of steps I could take
in my new asylum; I thought my resolution nearly taken, when my maid
entered and began to tell me some trifle concerning the prince royal's
huntsman!... The chain of my holy thoughts was immediately broken, and I
strove in vain to relink it; I could remember but one point, and that
was, that the Abbé Baudoin had told me it was possible to secure one's
salvation even while living in the great world, and that this difficult
struggle, when brought to a victorious conclusion, was as pleasing to
God as that virtue which had never dared the combat.

Why, then, should I throw myself into a world of sacrifices, whose
extent is unknown to me, and perhaps beyond my strength? I will follow
my destiny, while maintaining the purity of my conscience. Yes, I swear
never to commit any action unworthy of the name of Krasinski. If I sin,
alas! it is through too much pride; my desires are placed very high; the
Abbé Baudoin does not blame me; he says that ambition is criminal only
when it leads us from the path of virtue.... What God requires, is a
heart prepared for every sacrifice--a will ready to yield all for His
sake; and I feel that I possess this disposition; I experience an
indefinable quietude, and my soul is comforted. This week has seemed to
me a foretaste of heaven; I have seen no one but the nuns and my
confessor, the sole confidant of my thoughts and feelings, and the time
has passed rapidly and without tedium. To-day I am once more to find
myself in the great world. I am to witness the ceremonies of Holy
Thursday in the castle. I am very curious to see this religious
solemnity.




NOVEMBER.


  Low the leaves lie in the forest; on the damp earth, brown and chill,
  Gather near the evening shadows. Hark! the wind is sorrowing still.
    Vanished are the pine-crowned mountains, hidden in a dusky cloud;
  See the rain, it falleth ever from the wan and dreary sky:
  Rusheth on the swollen streamlet, wildly whirling, foaming by;
    And the branches, leafless waving, in the Fall wind low are bowed.

  See, the golden-rod no longer bends its yellow-plumèd head,
  By the roadside lies it faded--'mid the grasses--pale and dead;
    While alone the stately mullein rears its brown and withered crest.
  Quiet skies of early Autumn mirrors now the lake no more,
  But its waters struggle fiercely, laden storm-clouds flying o'er,
    And the rain it falleth ever, and the wind will never rest.

  Once the hills were clad in scarlet: vanished all their beauty now;
  Perished now the crown of glory that encircled then their brow;
    Low the crimson leaves are lying, and the withered boughs are chill;
  Faded are the purple daisies, and the little pool looks sad,
  Missing now the gentle flowers that once made it bright and glad;
    For the rain it falleth ever, and the wind is never still.

  Closer fall the gloomy shadows, and the forests drearier seem,
  Still the leaden clouds are flying, rusheth wilder yet the stream;
    And the reckless wind is telling now a wild and fearful tale,
  While the trees all listen trembling, and the mullein bows its head,
  And the dusky lake grows angrier, and the dark pool mourns its dead;
    For the rain it falleth ever, and the winds but louder wail.




THE ASSIZES OF JERUSALEM.


There is in the Royal Library at Munich a room called the Cimelian Hall,
in which the manuscripts and works with binding richly ornamented in
gold and precious stones are kept. Many a visitor to this hall has felt
deep interest as his eyes have rested upon an open manuscript, to be
seen through the glass doors of its case, written with inverted strokes
and adorned with various colored initial letters. The interest has risen
on learning that this contains the 'Assizes of Jerusalem,' of which
there are but few manuscripts in existence--one at Venice and several at
Paris. This work is in the old French language, and the frequent
recurrence on the open page of such words as _jurés_, _larcin_, _vol_,
_meurtre_,[1] in connection with the word '_assises_,' leads the visitor
to suppose that this may be a judicial report of remarkable criminal
cases--a kind of 'Pitaval.'[2]

But these yellow leaves contain one of the most important documents
connected with the history of civilization which the night of the middle
ages has given us: it is indeed an invaluable inheritance from that
period--nothing less than the laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem, as
founded by the Crusaders at the end of the eleventh century.

The kingdom of Jerusalem! At the very mention of the name, there seems
to pass over us a breeze from that charmed time when Christendom,
inspired by its faith with heroic zeal, went forth to rescue from insult
and ignominy the tomb of the Redeemer. Who does not feel a kind of
longing after that romantic splendor of the Orient, which impelled the
people of Europe to leave homes and families upon this great enterprise
beyond the sea? Who does not gladly lose himself in contemplating the
traditions of life and deeds, contests and poesy of those chivalrous
times, and dream over again a short portion of that brief but beautiful
dream of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem?

Nor is it merely this feeling of romance which binds us to the law book
of the Crusaders. It has important political and judicial significance.
In the kingdom of Godfrey of Boulogne lived mixed up together, formed
into a kind of variegated checkerwork, people of all lands and languages
of the Occident--French, Italians, Spanish, English, and Germans. The
system of law which united this mixed multitude was indeed the German,
at least in its fundamental and leading forms and features, as this was
before the time when the flourishing of the law school at Bologna had
brought again everywhere into use the Roman law. There is, however, a
perceptible influence of the Roman law in this work, and indeed an
occasional reference to it as an authority. It has, therefore, its
importance to jurists, but its general interest is deeper, disclosing,
as it does, a view of a distant age, and of a land long since covered
with the charm and glory of song.

This manuscript is in the old French tongue, was evidently written by an
Italian hand in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and bears the
title: '_Livres des assises et bons usages dou réaume de Jerusalem._'

'Assize,' primarily means an assembly of several wise men in the court
of a prince for the making of laws; but it comes thence to mean that
which they have determined upon as law, and is so used in the judiciary
of the Christian Orient.

We shall see that the Munich manuscript does not fully make good its
name. It is not in the proper sense a law book, but rather notes in
regard to the judiciary of the kingdom, made by authors of unknown
names. There are internal evidences that the original compilation must
have taken place from 1170 to 1180 of the Christian era, that is, before
the recapture of Jerusalem, and is therefore from the best of sources.
It contains, however, but a single department of the judiciary system of
Jerusalem, and the deficiency must be supplied from the Venetian
manuscript. Still, however, there remains little to desire in regard to
the completeness of the sources from which we learn the contents of
these books of 'Assizes.'

Before passing to a notice of the law book of the Crusaders, it is
necessary to premise a brief statement of the political condition upon
which this system of law was based, since it is only by knowing this
that we can understand the laws.

When the Christian kingdom of Asia was in its bloom, it consisted of
four provinces, viz.: 1, the principality of Antioch; 2, the duchy of
Edessa; 3, the principality of Syria or Jerusalem; and 4, the duchy of
Tripolis. These four formed the kingdom of Jerusalem, of which they were
feudal dependencies. The principality of Jerusalem was the home domain
of the king of Jerusalem, as Hugh Capet, for instance, was duke of
France and king in France.

The kings of Jerusalem, like those of France, surrounded themselves with
four crown officers, viz.: the seneschal, constable, marshal, and
chamberlain, whose authority and influence were the same as those of the
name in Europe.

Each of the above-named divisions was again subdivided into baronies and
greater fiefs, the holders of which were called 'men of the kingdom.'
The lower vassals were designated by the name of 'liegemen.' Among them
were, however, included the immediate servants of the king, ranking with
the class from which higher officials are taken in Europe.

The king executed justice in a court constituted of peers, and called
the high court,[3] and the laws which governed its decisions were called
'assizes of the high court.'[4]

Those barons who held courts and administered justice to their vassals
scattered over the land, of which there were twenty-two in the
principality of Syria, based their decisions also upon these assizes;
they did not, however, sit in their own right as patrimonial judges, but
by royal concession, and the king could at any time he chose preside
over these courts, associating with himself any number of his liegemen
to sit with him.

Besides these noble vassals, called also the 'chivalry of the
kingdom,'[5] there was a very considerable Latin population who held no
fiefs, but still were perfectly free men, and were designated as
citizens.[6] We find in our work no statement of their political
relations; we only know that they had their own law, and that in the
issue of the ordinances for the government of their towns or cities,
they had a right to participate, and were obliged, in case of need in
the land of Jerusalem, to furnish, as were also the clergy, a certain
quota of foot soldiers.

To this Latin population justice was administered by a court of sworn
burghers, presided over in Jerusalem itself by the viscount of the
kingdom, and elsewhere by the viscounts or bailiffs of the several
cities. Of these courts there were thirty-seven in the principality of
Jerusalem. This was called the lower court, or court of the burghers,
and the laws which formed its rule of judgment, 'the assizes of the
burghers' court.'

The jurisdiction of the two above-named courts did not, however, extend
over all subjects, since that of the clerical courts embraced matters
pertaining to the laity, which are now no longer regarded as
ecclesiastical: for instance, the case of husband and wife treating each
other with mutual blows; for it would seem that these connubial feuds
were not quite prevented, either by the gallantry of this time of
chivalry, or by the feeling which had animated the rushing crowds when
they left Europe for the Orient, that they were going to a land elevated
above the range of terrene sins and troubles--perhaps to that they had
heard called heaven.

In the seaports, the Italians and people of Marseilles enjoyed the right
of being tried by judges of their own, and in accordance with the usages
of their own countries; and as if to make this checkerwork quite
complete, the Syrian Christians were allowed trial before the rajis or
presidents of their several towns. In this latter respect a change was
introduced somewhat gradually, which was quite remarkable in view of the
prevalent ideas of the times. Feudalism had tended to concentrate the
power as much as possible in the same hands, without regard to the
difference of matter in question--that is, to divide labor by quantity,
and not by quality. But here we find for the first time a division of
jurisdiction according to the _matter_, and in the later period of the
kingdom, marine and commercial courts were established. The former,
called 'courts of the chain'[7] (from the chain by which the entrance to
the harbor was closed), gave judgment in questions of freight or payment
of sailors' wages, or in any questions which might arise between the
ship-owners and captains. The commercial court,[8] which, in addition to
its own special functions, took the place of the properly Syrian courts,
was constituted of four Syrian and two Frankish judges, under the
presidency of a Frank. This was an important measure, and indicated
great progress in international commercial intercourse, since in other
matters the various nationalities of the kingdom were so strictly
distinguished that the Syrian could not be witness against the Greek, or
the Frank against the Armenian, or the Jacobite against the Nestorian,
etc. In commerce and trade, the assizes held not so strictly in relation
to religion and national descent; for whether Syrian or Greek, Jew or
Samaritan, Nestorian or Saracen, they were still men, as well as the
Franks, and must pay or serve according to judgment rendered, just as in
the burghers' court, and hence it was determined that the court of
commerce should apply the assizes of the burghers' court.

The above is given as the basis upon which the legislation of the
kingdom rested, and now we may best hear the assizes themselves in
regard to the beginnings of this legislation. In the first chapter of
the assizes of the high court, as given us by John of Ibelin, we have
the following:

     'When the holy city of Jerusalem was won from the enemies of the
     cross, and restored to the true men of the Saviour, * * * when the
     princes and barons who conquered it had chosen, as king and lord of
     the kingdom of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Boulogne, * * * who was a man
     of understanding, and anxious to place the said kingdom in a good
     condition, and to have his people and all others who should come
     and go and dwell in the kingdom, guided, kept, ruled, sustained,
     held together, and judged according to justice and reason, he
     chose, upon the advice of the patriarch of the holy city and church
     of Jerusalem, and that of the princes, barons, and wisest men he
     could find, prudent men, whose business it should be to inquire and
     know from the people of various lands there present, what were the
     customs of their respective countries. All that these men could
     ascertain they wrote, or caused to be written, and laid before Duke
     Godfrey, who assembled the patriarch and the other people
     mentioned above, showed them the result, and caused the papers to
     be read to them. With their counsel and acquiescence he took from
     the report what seemed to him good, and made out from the same
     assizes and customs, which should be held, applied, and observed in
     the kingdom of Jerusalem.'

Our author further tells us that both Godfrey himself and the later
kings, in their diets of the kingdom, extended and improved these laws.
The diets were generally held at Acre, at the season of the arrival of
the pilgrims from Europe, as this gave opportunity to ascertain what was
the law of their several homes in relation to the matter in question;
and it is even said that messengers were sent over the sea expressly for
this purpose. William of Tyre, the celebrated chronicler of the time,
has preserved to us an interesting case of this special legislation. He
says that after the conquest of the holy city, and return home of most
of the pilgrims, the danger from the Saracens having become imminent,
many of the newly invested feudal tenants began to desert their fiefs,
upon which Godfrey issued the following assize:

     'Whoever shall hold such deserted fief in possession for one year,
     shall be considered as having gained it by prescriptive right, and
     shall be defended in its possession against the previous owner who
     has deserted it.'

The same William of Tyre tells us of a diet held at Neapolis in Samaria,
in the year 1120, 'at which, in order to banish from the land the
immoralities and crying abuses which had crept into it, there were
issued comprehensive regulations, embraced in twenty-five chapters; and
it seems from the form of the oath of the later kings that Amalrick I
and his son Baldwin IV had undertaken a formal revision of the
legislation.' It is therefore probable that we retain very little of the
system established _immediately_ upon the conquest. If we had no
evidence of revisions and changes, the sad and unquiet times through
which Godfrey had to pass would fully justify this conjecture.

But let us hear what tradition says in regard to the external condition
of these laws:

     'These assizes (vide chap. iv) were written each by itself in large
     Gothic letters. The first letter at the beginning was illuminated
     with gold, and all the rubrics and titles were written separately
     in red, as well all the other assizes as those of the higher and
     those of the burghers' court. Each sheet had the signature and seal
     of the king, the patriarch, and the viscount of Jerusalem, and
     these sheets were called 'Letters of the Sepulchre,'[9] because
     they were kept in a great chest in the Holy Sepulchre. Whenever a
     question arose in court in regard to an assize, making it necessary
     to consult these writings, the chest was opened in the presence of
     nine persons. The king must either be there personally or be
     represented by a crown official, and then two vassals of the king,
     the patriarch of Jerusalem, or in his place the prior of the Holy
     Sepulchre, two canons, the viscount of Jerusalem, and two sworn
     citizens. So the assizes were made--so they were kept.'

These statements have proceeded upon the supposition that this law book
was for the whole kingdom; but history has preserved facts which look to
the conclusion that this was law only for the principality of Syria. But
when we consider that these assizes actually procured for themselves a
recognition beyond the bounds of the kingdom, and that no special law
for the other three grand divisions has ever been found, we shall be
constrained to regard this system of law as that of all the provinces.

The bloom of the Oriental kingdom of Jerusalem was but brief. On the 9th
of October, 1187, Saladin captured the holy city, and the treasures of
the Holy Sepulchre fell into infidel hands. The fate of the _Lettres du
Sepulcre_ in this catastrophe is in dispute. Most think that they were
destroyed by the enemy; some, however, and among them Stephen of
Lusignan, whose work, entitled, 'Chorography and brief General History
of the Island of Cyprus,' which was printed at Bologna in 1573, maintain
that they were saved and carried to Cyprus. It is certain that we no
longer possess the originals; but the authority of these assizes was not
extinguished by that catastrophe, but on the contrary, their sway became
wider with the extension of the Frankish rule.

In this respect the isle of Cyprus is most important. As in the year
1193 this 'sweet land and sweet island' (as the poets of the time called
it) was placed by Richard the Lion-hearted under the government of Guido
of Lusignan, the assizes of Jerusalem went into force immediately as the
law of the new kingdom. This effect was increased by the union of the
two kingdoms which took place soon after, but was unfortunately of brief
duration. Thus was preserved to this law book a flourishing period of
life long after the Christian kingdom in Asia was lost.

Then, when in the year 1204 the Latin empire was established at
Constantinople, the assizes of Jerusalem went into effect there. The
following is an account of this event:

     'As there were many peoples about Constantinople which had not been
     governed by the Roman law, and the situation of the conqueror
     himself required new ordinances, and because indeed the empire
     could not be governed otherwise than by the 'usages and assizes' as
     they are in the Orient, the emperor Baldwin determined to send a
     messenger to the king and patriarch of Jerusalem, praying them to
     send to him a copy of their 'usages and assizes.' When these
     arrived, they were read in the presence of all the barons, and it
     was thereupon resolved to administer minister justice in accordance
     with these, and especially those chapters adapted to times of
     peace.'

Hence there are translations of the assizes to be found in modern Greek,
and the dukes of Athens, princes of Thebes, and other lords of that
region, who appear in Shakspeare's comedies, applied this system of law,
and perhaps many an obscure custom referred to in those plays might be
explained by this fact.

It was especially the customs preserved in the principality of Achaia
which the Venetian government of Negropont subjected to an examination
by twelve citizens, and which, with a few exceptions, particularly in
the parts relating to judicial combats, were sanctioned by the doge
Francesco Foscari.

But the most romantic chapter in the history of the extension of this
law, is the account of its introduction into the Frankish principality
of the Morea. This principality was wrested from the Byzantine empire,
in the year 1213, by William of Champlitte, at the head of a band of
adventurers, and passed by intrigue into the hands of the family Ville
Hardouin. An old chronicler of the times tells us that when the second
prince of this family, Godfrey II, reigned in the Morea, an imperial
squadron landed at Pontikos, carrying the beautiful Agnes, with her
suite of ladies and knights, to James, king of Aragon, to whom her
father had promised her in marriage on receiving from that king the
promise of an auxiliary corps for his army. Godfrey was a man who well
understood human life. He appeared at the port, testified his high
veneration for the princess, and invited her to rest herself from the
voyage in his land. The princess seems not to have regarded this journey
to her unknown bridegroom as very pressing; she accepted the invitation,
and on the second day Godfrey's friends suggested to him that he ought
not to let slip so fine a chance to secure a beautiful wife. His
decision was at once made. He presented himself as suitor to the
princess, and succeeded in convincing her that it would be much better
for her to marry him, whom she had seen and knew, than a man of whom she
knew nothing, who might be crooked, or lame, or otherwise unworthy of
her. She consented to be married at once. Her train of attendants
returned pleased to Constantinople, bearing the tidings to the emperor,
her father, whose rage on receiving this intelligence may be imagined.
There was, however, but one thing to be done--he must bear it with the
best grace he could. The parties met afterward at Larissa. Godfrey
resigned his crown to his father-in-law, received it back again as a
fief from him, and was required to accept the assizes of Jerusalem as
the law by which he should govern it.

This system of law differs from others in this important respect, that
the highest nobility and bravest heroes of the Christian Orient were the
most zealous and successful jurists. We cannot give them a special
notice. The most distinguished was John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa,
Ascalon, and Rama, born about the year 1200. His attempts to restore the
lost _Lettres du Sepulcre_ has succeeded so well that his work has,
until recently, been regarded as identical with those lost books, and
even _now_, when the laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem are spoken of, the
work of John of Ibelin is generally understood to be meant. It was this
very book which the barons of the kingdom of Cyprus, in 1368, when Peter
I, by his arbitrary rule, had subverted justice, set up in a solemn
assembly as the code of the kingdom. In order to make it as like as
possible to the _Lettres du Sepulcre_, it was sealed in the same manner,
placed in a closed chest, and kept in the cathedral of Nicosia, and this
chest was not allowed to be opened except in the presence of the king
and four vassals.

When in the year 1489 the republic of Venice obtained, through Catharine
Cornaro, possession of the isle of Cyprus, the republic bound itself by
a solemn act to observe these assizes. The copy which had been preserved
at Nicosia was subsequently lost by some unknown event, and when in the
mean time the French language had ceased to be the prevailing one, there
was a commission appointed in the year 1531 to make out a new text from
the best manuscripts which could be found. This revision of the assizes
of Jerusalem was translated into Italian, and was still in use in 1571,
making the period during which it was in force almost five centuries.

Having thus traced the external history of this system, we now turn to
its material contents.

No one any longer regards the forming of a system of law as an
independent, arbitrary, or accidental thing. Every such must be a
product and copy of the entire intellectual life of the age, and this
piece of legislation is indeed a true mirror of the Christian world in
Europe at the time; and the outline only rises more sharply, boldly, and
clearly to view, because there is presented to us at the same time so
rare a phenomenon in the march of civilization as the building up of a
state organization, for which there is no foundation in the land where
it is to be established.

The manner in which the spiritual elements fermented and boiled at that
time in the Occident--how the most shocking rudeness and barbarism
throve side by side with the most exalted religious enthusiasm--the
lowest forms of materialism by the side of spiritual
fanaticism--superstition, ignorance, and vile falsehood, side by side
with energy, valor, and generosity--all this is drawn with sharpest
features in the assizes.

The history shows us these men in their frantic cruelty, butchering the
inhabitants of conquered Jerusalem, men, women, and children without
distinction, delighting in their torment, and then, smeared with their
blood, moving in procession to the holy places, singing their Christian
songs of praise, all dissolved in tears of deepest emotion. They had
left Europe in swarms, many so ignorant as not to know whether the holy
land which they sought lay on this earth or in those regions which they
had heard called heaven--so frenzied in their fanaticism as to forget
that they might still have bodily wants, and hence throwing away their
effects, and yet so low in their ideas as only to enjoy physical things.
Such are very much the men for which these laws seem to have been made.
Upon one leaf we read: 'That man is without sentiments of honor, though
he be of highest rank, who, being called to stand as counsel by the
lowest vassal, before a tribunal of justice, declines to do so; for they
are all alike the true followers of Christ;' and by the side of this
that most unchristian of all legal institutions, slavery, assumes a form
so barbarous that the legislator does not blush to place slaves, though
among them were Christians, on the same level with domestic animals.

This same irreconcilable opposition which appears in moral principles,
shows itself again in the political foundation of the assizes.
Originating in the clash of arms, grown up in the contests and
necessities of war, on a soil where nothing but constant war could save
it from annihilation, the system is purely martial--made for conflict
and strife. And still it is but one side which shows this character;
for, in the midst of this precarious existence of the new kingdom, is
seen an elevation of commerce till then unknown--a pursuit of trade for
which feudal ideas had provided no place. As Schiller declared that the
Crusaders laid the foundation of civil liberty in Europe, so we may say
that in the assizes of Jerusalem the narrow views in regard to civil
life, which controlled the west of Europe in the middle ages, were
exploded. Here the idea of the modern state dawned, though of course and
singularly enough, side by side with its absolute antithesis, the feudal
state in its purest form.

In the ancient view, it was natural that any man should rule who had the
power, and incomprehensible that any one should allow himself to be
ruled who could avoid it. Any other than a forced relation to a lord was
nonsense to antiquity, and the moral duty of obedience was unknown.

The idea of voluntary obedience, however, having dawned and become
penetrated with the light of Christianity, formed the first element of
the feudal system. No prescribed series of duties within the cold
enclosure of legal forms bound mutually to each other the lord and his
vassal. They were bound by the all-embracing feeling of fidelity. Hence
the Lombard law of feuds compares the relation to that of husband and
wife.

While on the one hand, in the youth of this institution, the virtues
which spring from reciprocal fidelity and love developed themselves from
this relation--a relation inwardly and mutually binding lord and vassal,
and resulting in holding together all the members of the state--so on
the other hand, where there is no restraint to insolence and arbitrary
despotism, except that found in the mere sense of moral obligation, they
transcend all bounds, and find their natural reaction in the resistance
of the subject, destroying the very idea of a state. In the feudal
system, however, it is not the state which guarantees, secures, and
defends the rights of the individual. Whoever claims protection and
justice is referred to his immediate feudal superior, to whom alone, and
not to the state, as a whole, he owes duty. The state, as a moral
person--as a society--is entirely in the background.

It is one of the rarest phenomena which present themselves in the
Christian laws of the Orient, that in connection with this state-life
based upon pure private right, the modern notion of society should have
had its rise. One of the first appearances of change was in the criminal
law of the assizes. Not that this rose above the spirit of the times,
for it was barbarous in the extreme, impregnated throughout with the
idea of literal retaliation--for instance, whoever secretly buried a
dead body, must be buried alive--and again, it recognized scarcely any
punishment but death and the most horrid mutilations, such as cutting
off of nose, ears, tongue, hands, etc., and cannot, with all the
palliations arising from the necessities of the Crusaders, be regarded
as an improvement upon the preceding.

But among the genuine products of the middle ages, suddenly arose a
principle which has become the basis of modern criminal law, though it
won its first recognition, and that with difficulty, centuries later.

Punishment inflicted upon the guilty was at that time universally
regarded as an atonement due to the injured person, but the assizes
declare: 'Punishment is decreed, not in the interests of the injured,
but in those of the entire state.'

In carrying out this principle, the sufferer from theft, when he might
have taken the thief and voluntarily let him go, was punished by
forfeiture of body and estate to the feudal lord, and the assizes
declare that 'when no one in case of murder appears to make complaint,
the king, or the ruler of the land, or the lady of the city where the
dead was found, shall do so, for the blood of the slain cries to
heaven.'

As before intimated, there are two grand divisions of the assizes. Those
of the high court contain a complete system of feudal law, of which
indeed a fuller view could scarcely be found than the one above named by
John of Ibelin. The feudal law of the Orient was like that of France of
that day, though peculiarities are everywhere to be met with as the
result of the constant state of siege in which Jerusalem was involved;
and hence the fact that the feudal system, which had its birth in war,
and led ever thither again, appears nowhere more clearly and fully than
in these assizes.

Reference has been made to the shortness of the period allowed by the
statute limiting titles and claims. Of the same class is the rule that
when a fief falls to one, he cannot claim it unless he be present in the
land and seek the investiture in his own person. Hence is explained the
oft-repeated maxim of the feudal lawyers of Jerusalem: _A mort ne peut
aucune chose escheir_; which means that in matters of inheritance,
substitution is not valid, and each must derive his claim from the last
holder of the fief--thus restricting the succession of minors, who would
need protection.

In this oriental law there was a peculiarity in regard to granting leave
of absence to vassals. We have seen that the vassal was not allowed to
leave home, lest his services should be lost to the state in a time of
danger. But a journey back to Europe might be necessary, and in this
case the two interests were united by an arrangement called _le
commendement du fief_, by which the vassal gave up his fief to his lord,
who received its income and secured the absent owner against the
provisions of the law limiting the claims of absentees to one year.

Feudal duties were the same in the Orient as in the Occident, since
fidelity is always and everywhere the same thing; but the greater perils
which encompassed the Crusaders led to a more rigid exaction of the
performance of these duties.

In regard to the homage which the feudal tenant performs on entering
into this relation, the assizes say:

     'If a man or woman pay homage to the chief feudal lord of the
     kingdom, they shall, with their folded hands lying in his, say:
     'Sire, I will be your vassal for this fief, and I promise to
     protect and defend you for life and for death.' And the lord shall
     answer: 'And I accept thee with God's faithfulness and my own;' and
     he shall in faithfulness kiss him upon the mouth.'

A special duty in the Orient was to redeem a feudal lord from captivity
among the enemies of the cross, even by pawning or selling one's own
fief or that obtained through a wife. The chief duty, however, even in
this case, was that of military service, and in the Venetian manuscript
is to be found the rule by which this service was to be rendered.

A peculiar case deserves here to be mentioned. It might happen that a
man held tenures from two different lords. This was not in itself
inadmissible, and he had only, in accepting the latter fief, to make a
reservation of his fidelity to an earlier lord. He could then discharge
his duty to one by a substitute, and might even render service to one
against the other. It was only forbidden personally to fight a feudal
lord. John of Ibelin says:

     'In such case the vassal shall appear before his lord, and shall
     say to him, in the presence of his men: 'Sire, I am your man, but
     with reservation of my duty to N. N. This N. N. now comes in arms
     against you, and I regret that I cannot help you, because my lord
     is on the other side, and I cannot bear arms against him, _where
     his body is_; I must, therefore, report myself as _personally_
     serving neither you nor him. I desire my people to serve you
     against him who would rob you, and who now leads the contest
     against you.''

Women to whom a fief or the guardianship of one should fall, could not
of course render military service; but in place of this, they were
obliged to marry--a punishment by most perhaps not deemed severe, except
for the fact that they could not freely choose their own husbands.

John of Ibelin says that 'if a fief fall to a girl of twelve years or
more (if younger, she is to be held under a guardian, according to law),
the feudal lord can summon her to take a husband.' This may be done by
the lord in person, or by his authorized attorney, who thus addresses
the lady: 'My lady, I offer you, in the name of my lord (name given),
three knights (names all given), and call upon you in his name, within
the time of (time specified), to take one of the three whoso names have
been given you.' This may not, after all, be a great hardship, for the
ladies of our time and land are not sure of three candidates to choose
from. These three must of course have been of the lady's own rank, and
have given their own consent to the presentation of their
names--otherwise it would be no offer.

     'If the lady thus warned shall not, within the prescribed time,
     either choose one of the three candidates, or assign for not doing
     so a reason acceptable to the court,'--for instance, that she was
     more than sixty years old would be a valid reason, since if she had
     a husband living, he would not be required to serve after that
     age,--'she shall lose the fief for one year, after which time the
     lord may challenge her again.'

On the other hand, if the lord shall omit to make this demand, the lady
can serve a warning upon him, that he must, within three times fourteen
days, present her three eligible candidates for her choice in marriage,
and if he shall fail to do so, she can then choose for herself. If the
lord had failed, however, because he could not find the men who were
willing to run the risks of this candidacy, it is difficult to perceive
what additional inducements the lady's efforts could furnish.

So much for the law of the chivalry of the kingdom, I now pass to that
of the burghers.

The assizes of the burghers' court offer neither in matter nor in form
so complete a system as that already noticed. On the contrary, it is but
a motley and confused jumble, more like a collection of decisions in
concrete cases than a proper law book. They are, however, exceedingly
rich in interesting matter.

The character of this burgher class, and indeed its very existence, is a
most remarkable phenomenon; for this respectable class, occupying a
position almost on a level with that of the nobility, was several
centuries later in making its appearance in the Occident. The burgher
who struck a nobleman lost his hand, while the nobleman who struck a
burgher lost his horse, and must pay one hundred sols. Later, however,
the burgher could commute his punishment with a fine of one thousand
sols, and must pay one hundred sols as an indemnity, thus making the two
cases nearly equal.

The term burgher has generally been understood to designate the
inhabitant of a city, whose quiet and orderly life was passed in
occupations of trade and industry; but _such_ burghers were surely not
to be found in the kingdom of Jerusalem; for the burghers sprang from
the common people, of which the accounts of the Crusades made the chief
portion of the army of the Crusaders to have consisted; and when we
remember how little respect these showed for the princes in the
army--that they once chose Godfrey Burel out of their own number as
their leader--we shall not be astonished that there arose from this
class of warriors a population who were not to be subjected to a
humiliating position in relation to the chivalry.

A free and vigorous life shows itself in the whole system of law which
governed these burghers. Here we meet, for the first time in the middle
ages, the principles of marine and commercial law, rising above the then
rather limited views of the Roman law on those subjects, which in the
German law books are not mentioned at all. We find among other things
strict personal arrest of delinquent debtors--a very ingenious provision
against fraud--and a settlement of those cases of intervention which
have so troubled our jurists, by an application of the rule, 'The hand
must defend the hand,' as follows:

     'Be it known that if any one lend his horse to another, and the
     latter say to him: 'To-morrow I shall bring your horse back,' and
     being allowed to take the horse away, he is apprehended by another
     person for debt, this creditor may take the borrowed horse for his
     debt.'

The two following laws give us something of an insight into the
condition of the kingdom of the Crusaders, the one in relation to
servants, the other in relation to physicians:

     'When it shall happen that a man or woman hire a man servant or a
     chambermaid, reason requires that the man or woman who hires them
     shall have power to dismiss them at will, because they are bound
     for their wages only so long as they serve. But the servant or maid
     cannot separate themselves from their master or mistress without
     their consent until the termination of the engagement. But when the
     servant or maid thus hired shall wish to go back over the sea,
     reason requires that the man or woman grant them leave, because
     they wish to cross the sea, and they shall pay them according to
     the time of service. * * * When, however, servant or maid shall
     depart _without_ such leave, they break faith and forfeit their
     wages for the whole time of service. And if such servant be found
     with any other person in the kingdom, his or her hand with which
     they made promise to serve and afterward denied God and broke
     faith, shall be pierced through with a red-hot iron.'

Again:

     'When it shall happen that any one hire a servant or chambermaid,
     become angry with him or her, and box their ears, and the latter
     enter complaint to the court, reason requires that the man or woman
     be _not_ subject to judicial proceeding for a simple boxing of the
     servant's ears. But if the man or woman shall excessively beat the
     servant or maid, or cause the same to be done, or shall inflict
     upon them an open wound, and they shall enter complaint of the same
     to the court, law and reason require that the servant or maid
     receive justice the same as against strangers.'

In regard to physicians, the assizes provide as follows:

     'If by any mishap I wound one of my slaves, or the same be wounded
     by any other person, and I call a physician, who agrees with me to
     heal him for a stipulated price, and then says to me on the third
     day, after having well observed the wound, that he can heal it
     without fail, and it come to pass, because he uses the lancet
     unskilfully, or when he should not have used it at all, or because
     when he should have cut the wound or swelling in the top or
     lengthwise he cut it obliquely, and the patient die in consequence;
     or when the slave's wound is in such place as to require warm
     applications, for instance upon the brain or nerves, and the
     physician always makes cold ones; or if my slave have a swelling
     upon a part where emollients should be applied to mollify the sore
     and cause suppuration and discharge, and the physician make always
     warm and dry applications by which the sore is internally inflamed,
     and he die of it; or if the physician do not attend him every day,
     and he die in consequence, reason requires that he pay what the
     slave was justly worth before he fell sick, or what the owner had
     paid for him; for this is right and reasonable, according to the
     assizes of Jerusalem. And the court shall expel that physician from
     the city where he performed such malpractice. But if the physician
     can show before the court that the patient drank wine or ate meat
     which he had forbidden, or did anything else which he should not
     have done at all, or at least not so soon as he did, reason
     requires that, even though the physician could or should have
     treated him differently, he should not be made to pay for him; for
     it is more reasonable to suppose that death followed from the
     patient's doing what was forbidden than in consequence of the
     medical treatment. But if the physician make no prohibition in
     regard to eating or drinking, he must still pay for him, for the
     physician is justly bound, as soon as he sees a patient, to direct
     what he shall eat and what he shall not eat, and if he do not do
     this, and mischance occur, it should come upon him.'

     'And if a physician be guilty of such malpractice in case of a
     Frankish man or woman, reason requires that he should be hanged.'

We can see from this assize that a law sometimes effects the opposite of
that which was intended, and unreasonable provisions oppress the patient
instead of the physician. Amalrick I fell sick, and felt that he needed
an aperient, but the Syrian physicians refused to prescribe such. He
sent for the European physicians, and they also declined to take the
hazard of prescribing. To obtain the prescription there was no
alternative but to issue a royal rescript absolving the physicians
beforehand from the provisions of this assize. In the mean time,
however, the favorable period passed by and the king died.

In regard to marriage--the most important of social institutions--the
provisions of the canon law are mainly reproduced, with the genuine
German practice of joint possession of the property, as expressed in the
passage: _Sachés que nul home n'est si dreit heir au mort come est sa
feme._ ('No one so properly as the wife inherits the property of a
deceased husband.')

Still, however, oriental views left their traces upon this institution.
This appears in the facility with which a man could obtain a divorce
from his wife, and in the jealous strictness in regard to conjugal
infidelity. Vitry says:

     'The pullans'--a name analogous to that of creole in the West
     Indies, given to the descendants of the Crusaders in the
     Orient--'have gone so far in their oriental zeal, that they no
     longer allow their wives to go to church, to processions, or to any
     religious exercises.'

When the council of Neapolis had provided cruel and barbarous
mutilations for persons unfaithful to the marriage vow, King Amalrick
issued the assize that 'the man who should detect his wife in the
commission of such offence, might without guilt kill both parties;' but
he added the very nice distinction, that 'if he killed _one_ party and
spared the _other_, he should, as a murderer, be hanged without grace.'
Perhaps this law may have been a device to save both parties; for a man
would naturally hesitate to undertake a work, failure to _complete_
which would cost him his life.

The last means everywhere for establishing truth was the judicial
combat. There are found, by way of exception, in the assizes of the
burghers' court, cases of the judgment of God by the fire test, in which
the defendant is acquitted of the charges against him, by holding in
his hand, without injury, for a given length of time, a red-hot iron.
Torture was sometimes prescribed, and the so called abrevement (water
test) used. The assize says:

     'If the accused confess the crime charged, he shall be hanged; if
     he do not confess, he shall be drawn to the torture, and kept in
     the water until he shall confess, and shall then be immediately
     hanged. But if he continue three days without confessing or dying
     under torture'--a thing not easily imagined--'he shall be
     imprisoned one year, and then set free.'

The complainant must prove a charge of murder, high treason, or
manslaughter, by single combat with the accused. Women, old men, and
non-combatants might be represented by a so-called champion.

John of Ibelin describes the combat as follows:

     'The knights who engage in the combat for murder or manslaughter
     must fight on foot and without helmet, with heads shorn around,
     being dressed in red military coats, or shirts of red silk falling
     down to the knees, the arms cut off above the elbow, red breeches
     of cloth or silk, and shields higher by half a foot than their
     heads, with two holes of the ordinary size, so that the antagonist
     can be seen through them. Each shall have a lance and two swords,
     one of the latter girded about him, the sheath drawn up to his
     hips, the other fastened to the shield, so that he can have it when
     needed.'

Only three days may intervene between the interchange of pledges and the
combat.

     'When the combatants who shall have mutually pledged themselves to
     the combat present themselves, they must appear on the appointed
     day on foot, between six and nine o'clock in the morning, before
     the palace of the lord, and call him, being clothed and equipped as
     above, having also several shields and swords borne before them, in
     order that, on entering the place of combat, they may select what
     they need.

     'And then the lord shall cause all the weapons to be examined by
     his court, so as to know whether they are in order; and if one
     lance is longer than the other, he shall shorten it, and he shall
     have the two combatants well watched as they go to the place of
     combat, that neither may run away; also that they receive no bodily
     injury or annoyance, and be not insulted or derided; for the lord
     must protect them against all this, since they are in his keeping.
     When they shall have entered the place of combat, the feudal lord
     shall station some of his people to watch the place, and one of
     these shall say, in the presence of the others, to each of the
     combatants: 'Select your weapons which ye desire in order to finish
     the combat.' This they shall do, and the weapons selected shall be
     kept in the place, and the rest carried away. Then shall each
     combatant be made to swear that he carries about his person neither
     talisman, nor charm, nor witchcraft, that he has had no such
     provided for this combat, and that no other person has done this
     with his knowledge, that he has neither given nor promised anything
     to any one to procure the making of talisman, charm, or witchcraft,
     in order to aid himself or damage his antagonist in this contest,
     and that he bears about him no other weapons than those seen by the
     court.

     'Then shall they bring the combatants together upon the place of
     combat, where there shall be a copy of the gospels. The accused
     shall first swear upon his knees with his right hand upon the
     gospels, and shall say: 'As I have not murdered the deceased, so
     help me God and the holy gospel.' The complainant shall say that he
     lies, and that he takes him up as a perjured person, and shall then
     take him by the thumb, and shall swear: 'So let God and his holy
     gospel help me, as the accused murdered the deceased.' And then
     shall the guards station the combatants, one at each end of the
     place, and the proclamation shall be made at all the four corners
     of the field, that no one of whatever rank shall do or say anything
     by which either party can be helped or hindered, and in case any
     one shall do so, his person and goods shall fall to his feudal
     lord. And if the corpse of the murdered person is present, it shall
     be so placed as to be seen over the entire place of combat, and the
     complainant, whether man or woman, in case of being represented by
     a combatant, shall be there bound so as neither to benefit nor
     injure either of the parties by word, or deed, or bearing, and
     shall only pray to God, but not so as to be heard by either
     combatant. * * * And the guard shall so arrange that the sun cannot
     shine more in the face of one than of the other; and one of the
     guards shall then say: 'Shall the command now be given? We have
     made all ready.' And the lord shall answer: 'Let them come
     together.' And they shall let them come together, and shall
     withdraw themselves; and if one fasten upon the other, and they
     wrestle and fall, the guards shall go to the place and as near to
     them as they can, in order to be able to hear in case one shall cry
     for grace; and if one cry and they hear, they shall say to the
     other, 'Cease; it is enough.' And then shall the lord cause the
     conquered party to be taken to the gallows and hanged by the neck'
     (a grace scarcely worth crying for), 'or his corpse, in case he had
     been killed without crying for grace. The weapons of the vanquished
     man and those which the victor threw away belong to the lord.
     Should it appear in the course of the contest that one of the
     parties had other weapons than those which had been seen by the
     court, the guards shall seize him, and the lord shall pronounce
     sentence upon him as a murderer.

     'And if any one, who is no knight, is accused of murder, it shall
     be done as above, only that the combatants shall be armed otherwise
     than as knights.'

If the vanquished man did not fight for himself, but as a substitute,
his lot was subject to some variation; if he fought for a woman, then
not _he_, but the _woman_, was to be hanged; if he fought for a witness
who had been accused of perjury in a civil suit, then the champion was
to be hanged and the perjured man merely lost his right of testifying on
oath; in case of representing any of the principal parties in a criminal
process, a vanquished champion and the person whom he represented were
both to be hanged; and in case of representing a witness in a criminal
case, the _vanquished champion the witness, and the complainant were all
hanged_.

It is easily perceived that in such single combat the judgment of God
was not upon the main question, but upon the question which of the two
had committed perjury. So in case of the application of the single
combat in civil suits, which, however, could take place only when the
amount claimed was at least one mark.

Whoever prosecuted a claim must establish it by at least two witnesses;
and if he brought these, the defendant could not establish the contrary
by better witnesses or documents, but must either submit, or convict the
witnesses of perjury. This was done as follows: When the first witness,
kneeling, had taken the oath, the defendant stepped forward, took hold
of the witness' thumb, and raised him up, declaring him a false and
perjured witness, and that he was ready to maintain this with his life.
Then followed the judicial combat as above.

The procedure was similar when any one would contest a judgment already
rendered. The court itself must be solemnly accused of falsehood; the
complainant must fight with _all_ the associate judges of the court, or
have his tongue cut off as a calumniator. Whoever in such case did not
vanquish _all_ the judges of the court, and that, too, _on the same
day_, must be hanged.

The obvious remark in relation to all the processes above described is,
that unless hanging was much more honorable then than now, however
numerous the capital crimes committed, probably few complaints were
entered, very few witnesses accused of perjury, very few combatants
cried for grace, even in the most desperate struggle, very few judicial
decisions were contested, and very few injured husbands used their right
of punishing the unfaithful wife and her accomplice, since _all parties,
innocent and guilty, stood about equal chances of being hanged at the
end_.

The Crusades furnish the subject of frequent popular disquisitions and,
sketches, but the laws by which the Crusaders lived in their promised
land have rarely, if ever, been popularly sketched in this country. This
brief notice may do something toward supplying this desideratum, and at
the same time toward reconciling the most poetic reader--the greatest
admirer of the institutions of chivalry--to having been born in this
prosaic age, nearly a thousand years later. It may make such persons
feel that even 'the glorious uncertainty of the law' has some advantages
over the judicial processes of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

But I must not close my article, as some in similar cases have done,
without informing the reader to whom he is indebted mainly for it. I
have myself often entered that hall in the Royal Library at Munich, and
looked with interest upon that manuscript of the Assizes of Jerusalem,
but I have never studied it. In the winter of 1858, however, I heard a
course of popular lectures on various subjects, by a number of
distinguished men, before an audience of invited ladies and gentlemen,
at the lecture room of Baron von Liebig's chemical laboratory. One of
these was delivered by Baron de Voelderndorff on the Assizes of
Jerusalem. On opening my box of books, after my return from Europe a few
weeks since, I came across a volume containing the course of lectures to
which I have referred. As my eye rested upon this one, I remembered the
interest with which I had listened to its original delivery, and
resolved that the public should have a chance to feel something of the
same. This article is the fruit of that resolution, and though not
strictly a translation, may still be regarded as little more or less
than such, and the credit given wherever the reader shall deem it due.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Jurors, larceny, theft, murder.

[2] Francis de Pitaval, born at Lyons, in 1673, gave this word to the
judicial literature of Europe, by a work entitled 'Causes célébres et
intêressantes.'

[3] La haute cour.

[4] Assises de la haute cour.

[5] La chevalerie du royaume.

[6] Bourgeois.

[7] Cours de la chaine.

[8] Cour de la fonde,--fonde signifying the place, probably, where
traders came together.

[9] 'Lettres du Sepulcre.'




LETTERS TO PROFESSOR S. F. B. MORSE.


LETTER I.

LOYALTY AND SOVEREIGNTY.

Dear Sir: I address you in your quality of President of the Society for
the Diffusion of Political Knowledge, and with reference to your speech
and your letter to Mr. Crosby, published in the tracts issued by your
Society. I should have done so sooner but that I hoped Mr. Crosby would
himself have taken the matter in hand; and though it is somewhat late in
the day, I venture to recall the public attention to what you have put
forth, both because in a general view it is never too late to expose
error on matters of fundamental importance, and because, in this case,
there are some special reasons why it should be done, arising from your
personal position. If you were a mere hackneyed party politician, I
should not think it worth while to take any public notice of what you
have said.

I should be glad to confine myself strictly to the question of the truth
or error of what you have advanced, apart from its bearings on yourself
personally; but as most of what you have put forth is in the way of
vindicating your loyalty and justifying your conduct at this time, I
shall have to consider also its validity for your purpose. This is a
necessity of the case which I have not made. Before proceeding to your
letter to Mr. Crosby, I shall first consider some matters in your
speech.

In a crisis such as this, when the clutch of the wickedest rebellion the
world ever saw is grappling the throat of the national existence, you
are openly in opposition to the action of the Government, and
apparently in sympathy with the rebels. Yet you claim to be loyal, and
you vindicate your claim in a very remarkable way. Loyalty with you is
fidelity to the sovereign. That sovereign is the people. To that
sovereign you profess to bear true allegiance, and therefore your
loyalty is not to be impeached, however much you may oppose yourself to
the action of the authorities constituted by the sovereign. A singular
sort of loyalty; very much of a piece, some may say, with the religion
of the man who disobeys the bidding of those whom God bids him obey,
because of his profound reverence for the supreme authority of God!

You, of course, deny this. You make the issue that the action of the
constituted authorities is contrary to the will of the sovereign--is, in
fact, the exercise of usurped powers. You propose to appeal directly to
the sovereign for the determination of this issue; that is, you propose
to bring the sovereign to be of the same mind with you, if you can. 'We
mean,' you say, 'to use our rights of free discussion, and to look for
the answer to our appeal to the ballot box.' And you ask, 'Is it
disloyalty to appeal to the sovereign, or to exercise that portion of
the sovereign power which of right belongs to us, as part of the
people?'

Now, there is certainly nothing necessarily disloyal in making and
discussing before the people the issue you make, any more than there is
anything necessarily villanous in a man's availing himself of his
extreme legal rights before the courts: whether it be so in fact or not,
depends on the circumstances, on the spirit, purpose, and effect of the
thing. But there is a great deal of nonsense (pardon me) in calling this
an exercise of _that portion of the sovereign power which of right
belongs to you as part of the people_--nonsense which, if it were merely
nonsense, and as palpable to everybody as it is to those who are
accustomed to correct thinking and accurate expression on the subject,
it would not be worth while to expose; but which, being taken for sound
sense (as it is very likely to be by many of the people among whom you
have undertaken to diffuse political knowledge), becomes very pernicious
nonsense, that ought not to be suffered to pass.

A portion of the sovereign power belonging to you and your associates as
individuals! The sovereignty of the nation split up into fractional
shares--each of you possessing (say) one thirty-millionth part of the
integral unit, and possessing it, of course, exclusively and therefore
separately, if you are to exercise it individually, even in the way of
clubbing your respective shares as you propose! Heard ever any one the
like? Why, you might as well say that each individual in the nation
possesses the entire sovereign power. As well say thirty million whole
sovereigns, as thirty million fractional sovereigns. Equal falsehood,
equal absurdity, either way.

Political sovereignty is as incapable of division as it is of forfeiture
or of alienation. It is the right and power which society--considered as
the state--has to do whatever is necessary to its existence and welfare.
It resides in the whole people as one body politic. It is not an
attribute of individuals. Individual rulers are sometimes called
sovereigns; but they cannot be such in the strict and just sense of the
term. It is simply impossible that any individual should possess in
himself the inherent, indefeasible, inalienable, and inviolable right
and power to govern a nation; and it is no less impossible that you and
your associates, in your separate capacity as individuals, should
possess any 'portion' of it, and therefore none 'of right belongs' to
you.

I do not deny your 'rights of free discussion.' But I deny that they are
sovereign rights, and that the exercise of them is an exercise of
sovereign power. They are individual, personal rights, and that of
itself determines the absurdity of calling them sovereign.

Besides, in point of fact, they are rights which are practically valid
for you only in the will of the sovereign. Whether they are in their
nature primordial or prescriptive rights, makes no difference as to this
point. The will of the sovereign is the only effectual guarantee of the
natural rights of individuals, and the only source of their political
rights. The sovereign recognizes the former, confers the latter, and
secures both. There is not a particle of political right or power
possessed or exercised by any individual in the nation which is not
derived by grant from the sovereign power. A certain number of
individuals in the nation have, for instance, the right of voting at the
primary elections and for the determination of certain questions
submitted to a popular vote. This is a delegated right, granted only to
a certain number of individuals, not as sovereigns or parcel sovereigns,
but as subjects of the state, acting, for certain definite purposes, and
within certain prescribed limits, as agents of the sovereign power.

So with all other political powers exercised in the nation--whether
legislative, judicial, or executive; whether exercised by individuals or
by constituted bodies: all stand in the will of the sovereign power; all
are derived and delegated powers--ministerial, and not imperial.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is easy now to see the pernicious influence which your doctrine about
the sovereign rights of individuals must have upon the unreflecting
masses who accept it as sound sense, and particularly upon those of them
who vote at the primary elections.

In the first place, it generates a false and practically mischievous
notion of their relation to the other constituted authorities of the
state. You are yourself an example in point.

You ask whether it is a mistake or an exaggeration in you to 'say that
presidents, and governors, and all the departments of State or Federal
machinery, are all subordinate to the people?'

It is certainly neither a mistake nor an exaggeration to say so,
provided by the people you understand the whole people, in their
sovereign capacity as one body politic. But it is an egregious mistake,
an absurd and mischievous falsehood, to say so, if by the people be
understood those who vote in the primary elections--whether the
concurring majority of them or all of them. The people who vote are not
_the_ sovereign people. In their capacity of voters they are--in common
with all the other functionaries of the Government--coördinate parts of
the indivisible organism of the State. The legislative, judicial, and
executive functionaries of the Government--constituted directly or
indirectly through the ministerial agency of their votes--when thus
constituted, hold their powers not _from_ the voters, but _through_ them
_from_ the sovereign; and to that sovereign alone are they responsible
for the exercise of them. They are, therefore, not 'subordinate' to the
voters, either in the sense of deriving their powers from them, or in
the sense of being accountable to them, and there is no other sense of
the term that is not futile here. They are subordinate in both these
respects to the sovereign power of the nation; but so, too, are the
voters themselves; and the former no more than the latter.

But those who accept your instructions are not likely so to understand
this. They are not likely to be wiser than their teachers, and cannot
perhaps be so safely trusted with the dangerous edge tools of false
doctrine. You tell them that all Government officials, in all
departments, are subordinate to the sovereign people; and they are sure
to understand it that they, the voters, are the sovereign people, and
that all the constituted authorities are subordinate to them in point
of power--hold their powers from them alone, and are responsible to them
alone--while they themselves hold their powers from themselves, and are
responsible only to themselves. Hence (and you yourself have in this
speech set them the example) we hear them talking of themselves as the
'masters,' and Government officials as their 'servants,' just as though
both alike were not servants of one and the same sovereign master, whose
right and power it is--within the sphere of the state, and for the just
ends of the state--to control every individual in the nation. There is a
world of mischief in the use of such words among the ignorant and
unreflecting, and demagogues well know how to avail themselves of the
power it gives them.

The pernicious tendency of your doctrine about the sovereign power and
sovereign rights of individuals is seen in another and more general
point of view.

Political sovereignty--residing, as we have seen it does, in the whole
people as the state, or as one body politic--is not an absolute
sovereignty. It is limited to the just ends of the state--the
maintenance of social justice and the general security and welfare.
There is no sovereignty to do wrong. The state is so far a moral person
that its sovereignty cannot rightfully be exercised from mere will,
arbitrary caprice, or passion; but only dutifully, in just ways, and for
its proper ends.

But the people whom you teach to consider as themselves individually
possessed of a portion of the sovereign power, and (as they will think)
so far sovereigns, have mostly no other idea of sovereignty than the
absolute right to have their own will and way in any way. Regarding
their political rights as their own, inherent, personal possession and
property, and not as public trusts, they are not likely to feel
themselves limited in the manner of exercising them by any sense of duty
to the state. The stronger this false notion of rights, the feebler the
sense of moral obligation in the exercise of them. Woe to the people to
whom rights are everything and duties nothing, or to whom the standing
for their own rights is the highest and most sacred political duty!
Among such a people, in times of high excitement, springs up a political
fanaticism far less respectable in its origin, and far more dangerous to
the public welfare, than the philanthropic fanaticism which you denounce
in language so nearly bordering on fanatic violence.

I am sorry to have been obliged to insist at such length upon the
simplest elements of political science and the theory of our Government.
But you have made it needful. You have put forth notions radically false
and practically mischievous on fundamental questions; and you have done
it in the way most calculated to impose on the minds of the ignorant and
unthinking--by quietly assuming their truth. One wonders to see you
apparently so unconscious of the utter contradiction between that which
you take for granted and that which, in the general consent of
respectable writers and thinkers, is held to be settled beyond debate.
There is one at least among your associates (if I mistake not) who would
be ashamed to stand godfather to your assumptions in regard to
sovereignty and sovereign rights.

It is important for one who is so fond as you are of making
distinctions, to see to it that they are just and valid. It is of
immense moment that one who builds so much on words should rest his
structure on the solid foundation of a correct and exact conception of
them. Words are often things, and sometimes things of tremendous
consequence, and none more so than those which enter into the grounding
principles, of politics. No theoretical error but works practical
mischief. No one should be more aware of this than he who undertakes the
'diffusion of political knowledge' among the people of this country.
The false notions on sovereignty and sovereign rights which you have put
forth, are precisely the ones to take root and bear evil fruit among the
least instructed and least thoughtful, the most passionate and
unscrupulous of our people. In short, it is among the lowest and worst
elements of our social life--among the sort of persons that swelled the
majorities in the Sixth Ward of Sodom--that you win find your most
numerous disciples and readiest coadjutors in your bad work of opposing
the constituted authorities of the state; and this at a time when every
good man and true patriot should think much more of duties than of
rights, and be more willing to forego personal rights for his country's
good, than by factious assertion of them to weaken the arm of public
power struggling to save the national existence.

I shall go on in another letter to consider your utterances on the
distinction between the Government and the Administration, and your
special pleas for hostility to the constituted authorities.


LETTER II.

GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION--CONSTITUTIONALITY.

Dear Sir: I now proceed to consider your letter to Mr. Crosby, which I
cannot help regarding as fitted to excite sentiments of mortification as
well as grief in the minds of all intelligent men and good patriots who
in time past have known and honored you. What such as have not known or
cared for you will be apt to think, I shall not undertake to say.

One of Mr. Crosby's questions was this: 'What appears to you the
sufficient reason for a Christian citizen to ally himself with others
for the extreme and radical purpose of undermining and paralyzing the
power of the Government at a crisis when unanimity of support is plainly
essential not only to the welfare but to the very life of the nation?'

This is a plain question, and one may well wonder how it was possible
for you to suppose that you were fairly meeting it and effectually
rebutting the charge it implies by raising the distinction you make
between the Government and the Administration. The sense in which Mr.
Crosby used the word Government is perfectly obvious; and if he had a
right to use it in that sense--as he undoubtedly had--it seems to me it
was for you to answer it in its plain meaning; to answer the question he
asked, and not another, which he did not ask. But you preferred to go
into critical analysis and to make sharp distinctions of words. Let us
look at the work you have made of it.

You tell Mr. Crosby that he has 'fallen into the prevalent error of
confounding the Government with the Administration of the Government,'
and that 'they are not the same.' Now, they _are_ the same, when both
words are used to signify the same thing.

You say that 'the word government has, indeed, two meanings.' Webster
gives a round dozen. In its political applications it has four. You add,
'In order to relieve the subject from ambiguity'--though there is in
this case no ambiguity to relieve--'that the ordinary meaning of
government in free countries is that form of fundamental rules and
principles by which a nation or state is governed,' etc. No doubt this
is one of the meanings of the word. No doubt government, considered with
reference to its quality or the manner of its constitution, does often
signify a system of polity, a determinate organization and distribution
of the supreme powers of the state. But this is not its '_ordinary_'
meaning--either in the sense of its being the most correct and proper,
or the most frequent use of the term. The other meaning to which you
refer--that which makes it 'synonymous with the administration of
public affairs'--is equally legitimate, and a great deal more frequent.
The word not only '_sometimes_' has this meaning, but has it, I presume
to say, ten times oftener than it has what you call its 'ordinary
meaning,' and for the sufficient reason that there is occasion to speak
ten times of Government as an actual exercise of the supreme powers
where there is to speak of it once as an abstract system of polity.

But you say that when the word is used in 'a meaning synonymous with
administration of public affairs, then '_the Government_' is
metonymically used for _administration_, and should not be confounded
with the original and true signification of the term _Administration_,
which means the _persons collectively_ who are intrusted with the
execution of the laws, and with the superintendence of public affairs.'

Pardon me, but this strikes me as a singular combination of futilities
and falsities. In the first place, when the word government is used
synonymously with administration, to signify in a general way the
conduct of public affairs, there is nothing 'metonymical' in the case:
one word is not rhetorically put for the other; either word may be
rightfully used to signify the same thing, that is, they are so far
forth simply synonymous terms. In the next place, what in the world do
you mean by saying that the '_original and true_' signification of the
term administration is the _persons collectively_ who are intrusted with
the execution of the laws, and with the superintendence of public
affairs? It is one of the meanings of the word indeed, and so a 'true'
one--though no more true than its other authorized meanings, but it is
not the 'original' one; on the contrary, it is secondary and derived.
And finally, what earthly warrant have you for talking of 'confusion'
being made when the _Government_ is used to signify 'the persons
collectively' by whom public affairs are conducted? It is just as
correct to use the word Government in this sense, as it is to use the
word Administration. Both words are rightfully so used; and you would
here, I suppose, be in no error in saying 'metonymically' used, if you
have a fancy for that epithet: _Administration_ is 'metonymically' _put
for_ the official persons and acts of the persons who have the direction
of national affairs, and _Government_ is just _as often_ 'metonymically'
put for the same persons and acts--and with _equal right_; for it is
authorized by established usage, which is the supreme law of language.
By what right, then, do you assume to limit the term government to
signifying a 'form of fundamental rules and principles,' or at least to
insist that when used synonymously with administration, it shall _not_
be used to signify the 'persons collectively' by whom the affairs of the
nation are conducted; and when Mr. Crosby uses it--as he obviously
does--in that sense, to talk to him of 'error and confusion?' When Lord
Russell spoke the other day in the British Parliament of 'awaiting an
explanation from the American Government' in the matter of the Peterhof,
and when the London _Times_ spoke of 'the Government at Washington being
anxious,' you might as properly have taken them to task for the 'error'
and 'confusion' of talking as if our 'form of fundamental rules and
principles' could give an explanation, or feel disturbed in mind. Mr.
Crosby had a perfect right to use the word in the sense in which he
obviously did use it. He fell, therefore, into no 'error.' He
'confounded' nothing; he did not identify different things, nor
wrongfully put one thing for another.

In short, your distinction between the Government and the Administration
falls away into a sheer, absurd futility. And well if it escape a
harsher judgment; for when you go about to make irrelevant distinctions
in a plain case, where there is none to be made, and tax your
correspondent (no matter in what soft phrase) with errors and
confusions when he was guilty of none--it will go nigh to be thought by
many an unworthy subterfuge, serving no other purpose than the
fallacious one of shifting the question, and misleading dull minds.

Of the same sort is what you further say in support of this futile
distinction. You talk of the Administration being '_utterly destroyed_
without affecting the health of the Government,' of the Government
'remaining intact, unscathed, while the Administration is _swept out of
existence_;' and you say 'every change of Administration, at every
election, exemplifies this great truth'!

By Government, I suppose you here unconsciously mean something different
from what you had before defined as its 'ordinary meaning,' for you
would hardly talk of the 'life' and 'health' of an abstract scheme of
polity, of a set of 'rules and principles.' I take it, therefore, that
you mean, or ought to mean, a living, acting something. Now imagine a
Government without an Administration, with its Administration 'utterly
destroyed,' 'swept out of existence.' How long afterward would it
continue to exist? One day? One hour? One moment? No; the 'life' of a
Government implies the perpetual, uninterrupted exercise of the supreme
powers of the state, and that depends upon the undying official life of
living administrative functionaries; and therefore to say, as you do,
that the Administration is 'utterly destroyed,' 'swept out of
existence,' every time new members are elected to fill the place of
those whose term of office has run out, is an absurd exaggeration of
language, and certainly serves no good purpose, but only affords to
those who are capable of being deceived by it a fallacious show of
support to a distinction which I have proved to be irrelevant and futile
in this case.

It seems to me it is not for you to talk about 'the prejudices and
befogged intellects' of those who are unable to see 'in the light' of
your notable 'explication' that 'opposition to the Administration'--such
as you now make--'is not opposition to the Government.' And your
pretension 'to rally in support of the Government,' and to 'uphold and
strengthen' it, by such opposition, will, I am afraid, be looked upon by
intelligent men and good patriots as absurd and impudent to the last
degree-an outrage, in fact, on language and on common sense.

       *       *       *       *       *

But enough for your verbal distinctions--a great deal too much, indeed,
were it not that if you can put forth such things in good faith, it is
to be presumed that there may be others of easy faith enough, through
disloyal predisposition of feeling, to take them as sound and valid, and
so find comfort in error and an evil course.

To come now to the real merits of the case. You denounce the
Administration, and seek to stir up popular disaffection to it, not for
heartlessness, hesitation, and feebleness in prosecuting the war, but
precisely for whatever of earnestness, promptitude, and energy it
displays--not, in short, for what it does not do, but for what it does
do, in striking down the rebellion. It is vain for you to justify your
conduct by professions of allegiance to the sovereign people and loyalty
to the Government. Why, it is the great will of the sovereign people (to
whom you profess such faithful allegiance) that the Government (to which
you profess such devoted loyalty) should be saved from destruction by
crushing to utter extinction the armed rebellion that seeks its
overthrow. And the Administration--and I may include Congress, since the
action of that body is also the object of your denunciation--is the
organ of the sovereign people, carrying out its sovereign will in all
the acts you denounce. I do not say that the conduct of affairs has been
in all respects satisfactory to the people. There have been too many
things that looked to them like want of heart, want of earnestness,
want of energy, want of wisdom, particularly in the earlier conduct of
the war--too many indications of a disposition, if not to protract the
struggle, yet to make this terrible crisis of the nation a time for
political combinations and contractors' gains. They have seen these
things with grief and stern displeasure. But the acts you denounce meet
their sovereign approval. They are in favor of all earnest and vigorous
measures for subduing the rebels, and for repressing and punishing
traitorous sympathy with them, and treasonable aid and comfort to them.

But you denounce these acts as unconstitutional. To a bare, unsupported
assumption it might be enough to say that the constitutionality of all
these acts has been again and again affirmed by authorities of far
greater weight than yours or mine--by scores of statesmen and judges of
the highest eminence in the land. But I will go a little into the
question.

I assert that it is perfectly constitutional to repress an armed
rebellion by force of arms. It is the sworn duty of the Administration
under the Constitution to do so. And all the acts you condemn come in
one way or another under powers delegated to Congress and to the
Executive. The constitutional right to make war carries with it the
constitutional right to employ all the means sanctioned by the laws of
war. This is the amply sufficient justification of each and every one of
the measures you denounce--the Emancipation Proclamation, the
Confiscation acts, the suspension of _habeas corpus_, and the arrest of
traitorous abettors of the rebels.

As to the _Proclamation_--whether it is to be regarded as in its own
proper effect conferring the _legal_ right to freedom, or whether it is
to be taken simply as a notification to the rebels (and to the slaves
also, so far as it should get to their knowledge) of what the President,
in his supreme military capacity, was about to order and enforce, as our
armies might come into contact with the slaves--is a question not
necessary to determine here. But no intelligent man needs be told that
even in a war with a foreign enemy, with honorable belligerents, it is
always a matter lying rightfully in the discretion of the commander of
an invading army to proclaim and secure the emancipation of slaves; and
in a rebellion like this it is the height of absurdity, or of something
much worse than absurdity, to quarrel with the military policy of
depriving the rebels of the services of loyal men forced to dig trenches
and minister supplies to them. What constitutional right have rebels--in
arms for the overthrow of the Constitution--to be exempted from the
operation of the laws of war? Who but a rebel sympathizer would
challenge it for them?

As to the _Confiscation_ acts--it is enough to say that the Constitution
gives Congress power 'to declare the punishment of treason.'
Confiscation of property--as well as forfeiture of life--is a punishment
attached to this great crime in the practice, I believe, of every
Government that has existed. The rebels confiscate all the property of
men in the South loyal to the Union, on which they can lay their hands;
and their practice can be condemned by us only on the ground that the
crime of rebellion makes all their acts in support of it criminal. But
as you have no word of condemnation for the rebellion, so you have none
for their confiscation acts. You would throw the shield of the
Constitution only over the property of rebels. Loyal men, however, are
of opinion that as the hardship of paying the expenses entailed by this
accursed rebellion must fall somewhere, it is but just it should fall as
far as possible on the rebels, rather than on us. If confiscation of
rebel property chance to bear hard on the innocent children of traitors,
it is no more than what constantly chances in time of domestic peace, in
the pecuniary punishment of crimes far less heinous than treason; and
loyal men see no good reason why the hardship should not fall in part on
the children of traitors, rather than wholly (as in part it must) on our
children.

As to the suspension of the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_:
many foolish and disloyal people, out of the folly and disloyalty of
their hearts, talk as if the thing itself were something wicked and
monstrous; although the Constitution plainly provides that it may be
done, 'when, in cases of rebellion and invasion, the public safety may
require it.' Who is to judge of the necessity, and who is to exercise
the power of suspending it, the Constitution does not declare; and in
the silence of the Constitution and in the absence of any legislation on
the point, the President might well presume that the discretion of
exercising a power constitutionally vested somewhere, and designed to be
exercised in emergencies of public peril, liable to arise when Congress
might not be in session, was left to him. At all events, he took the
responsibility of deciding that the public safety required its exercise.
Congress has since justified his course, and legalized the power in his
hands. The loyal people of the nation approve its action.

And finally, the constitutional right in certain cases to suspend the
ordinary privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_ carries with it, of
course, an equally constitutional right to make what you call 'arbitrary
arrests.' The very object of granting the power to vacate the privilege
of the writ is to enable the Executive to hold in custody such persons
as it may judge the 'public safety requires' the holding of--without its
purpose being frustrated by judicial interference. But the power to
_hold_ in custody is utterly nugatory, if there be no power to _take_
into custody. To suppose that the Constitution grants the one, but
denies the other, is to suppose it self-stultified by contradictory
provisions--and that in a case where the public safety in time of
imminent peril is concerned. The only consistent and sensible view of
the Constitution is, that as the validity of the writ of _habeas corpus_
is the ordinary rule, and its suspension the extraordinary exception--so
the power to make arrests by civil process only is the ordinary rule,
and the power to make arrests by military or executive authority is the
extraordinary exception--both exceptions alike holding 'when, in cases
of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require.' In such cases
the ordinary guarantees of personal liberty are constitutionally made to
give way to the operation of the extraordinary powers demanded by the
necessities of the state. It has always been so in all Governments; and
every Government--unless it suicidally abnegate its highest function and
supremest duty, that of maintaining itself and securing the national
safety--must, in time of rebellion and civil war, possess such powers,
powers to repress and prevent, in the first moment of necessity, what,
if let go on, it might be too late to cure by judicial or any other
process.

The rebels arrest, imprison, or banish those who are disaffected to
their cause. They have a right to do so, provided their rebellion itself
be justifiable; although they have made themselves objects of just
execration and abhorrence by the abominable atrocities of cruelty and
murder they have in thousands of instances perpetrated upon those whom
they knew or suspected to be faithful to the Union. Your sensibilities,
however, are excited only in behalf of the traitors among us, who have
done more, and are doing more, to aid and comfort the public enemy, and
to weaken the military power of the Government, than whole divisions of
rebels in arms. While millions of good patriots stand amazed at the
extraordinary and unparalleled leniency with which the Government has
for the most part dealt with these traitors--that is, _done nothing_
with them--you and your associates are fierce in your denunciations of
its action in the few cases in which it has temporarily arrested them;
and even the requiring of them to take the oath of allegiance as a
condition of release, has been made matter of bitter invective. What but
disloyalty to the national cause, what but sympathy with the rebels, can
prompt such denunciations--made, too, with a view to stir up popular
disaffection to the Government?

To sum up: I have shown that all the acts you denounce are as perfectly
constitutional as they are just and necessary in principle, and
sanctioned by the practice of all Governments.

But even if it were otherwise; even if the framers of the
Constitution--never contemplating the possibility of such a crisis as
the present--had embodied in that instrument no provision of
extraordinary powers for such an exigency--none the less would it be the
duty and the right of Congress and of the Executive to adopt whatever
measures they should judge the public safety to require. What the
Constitution had not granted they would be bound, if necessary, to
assume; and even if the Constitution stood in the way, they would be
bound to go over it in order to save the national existence. It is one
of those cases in which necessity gives sovereign right. It is doubtless
a very illegal thing to blow up people's houses, yet what civic
magistrate, not a fool, would hesitate to do it when nothing else could
arrest the conflagration of a city; and what court of law is there
(outside of _Liliput_, where poor Gulliver was condemned to death for
saving the royal palace by an illegal fire engine) so foolish as to
sustain an action against the magistrate in such a case? What must be
thought, then, of the good sense and loyalty of those who would
interpose the Constitution to prevent the suppression of a gigantic
rebellion, which puts the Constitution, the Government, and the national
existence in imminent peril of destruction? Who, that knows anything
which a man of decent intelligence is bound to know, but knows that
'_the salvation of the republic is the supreme law_?' On this principle
the old Revolutionary Congress went, when, without a particle of
delegated warrant from the several States, it assumed to act for the
whole people as a nation, and, among other things, invested Washington
with nearly dictatorial powers to carry on the war--a principle that
Washington had already before acted on in more than one case of summary
dealing with the Tories of his day. The sovereign sense of the nation
sustained this assumption, and gave it the validity of supreme law. And
I believe the nation would now sustain the Government in the assumption
of any powers necessary to the putting down of the rebellion, even if
ample powers were not already granted in the Constitution.

History has no record of a conspiracy more treasonable, flagitious, and
infamous than that in which this rebellion originated; no record of a
rebellion more foul, more monstrous, more wicked. The great heart of the
nation is filled with just indignation and abhorrence. It understands
and feels that every consideration of national interest and welfare, of
national honor and dignity, of justice, and fidelity to the great trust
received from the fathers of the republic, alike forbid the nation to
consent to its own dismemberment, or to a compromise with rebels in
arms, and a surrender of the great principles involved in the
contest--principles which lie at the foundation not only of our national
Government, but of all government, and all political order. It
understands and feels that the preservation of the national Government,
and of all the sacred interests bound up with it, is a necessity for the
nation, is the one grand paramount obligation now resting upon it. Its
stern determination is to carry on this war, at all costs and all
hazards, so long as there is a rebel in arms. Hundreds of loyal leaders
of the people--statesmen and jurists of the highest eminence, Southern
born as well as Northern born--have said, and only articulated the great
voice of the nation when they have said: '_Constitution or no
Constitution, put down the rebellion, and save the national existence.
Time enough then to inquire whether it was done under the Constitution,
or outside of it, or over it._'

At the same time the people believe that the Constitution gives the
Government ample powers to put down the rebellion, as they have also
given it unlimited resources of men and money. It would not be true to
say that they have always been satisfied with the progress and success
of the Government in the use of these powers and resources. There was
doubtless a time when the public feeling demanded a more clear and
decisive policy, and more vigor in the prosecution of the war. The
people would like to have had the whole military system of the country
revised and made more perfect. They would be better pleased if measures
had been seasonably taken by which we might have had a well-organized
and well-drilled army of reserve, two hundred thousand strong.
Appreciating, however, the circumstances of the country at the opening
of the war, the gigantic magnitude of the rebellion, and the immensity
and complication of the problems pressing on the Administration, they
have on the whole been disposed to be patient and trustful. And as long
as they believe there is an honest, earnest purpose in the
Administration to extinguish the rebellion by force of arms, they will
sustain it. What they would do if ever they should come to the
conviction that the national existence is in peril through incapacity,
selfish personal ambitions or treachery on the part of the
Administration, it is not necessary to predict. The conjuncture is not
likely to arrive. Of one thing, however, you may be sure: the great
loyal body of the nation have no quarrel with Congress or with the
Administration for any of the measures that are the objects of
denunciation by you and your associates, and they hold the men who utter
these denunciations to be worse enemies to their country than the rebels
in arms--morally far worse than the great mass of the misguided
followers of the rebel chiefs.


LETTER III.

SLAVERY.

Dear Sir: A considerable portion of your letter is taken up with a
discussion of the rebel Vice-President Stephen's declaration touching
slavery.

In his speech at Savannah, Mr. Stephens, speaking of the new Government
which the rebels had set up, says: 'Its foundations are laid, its corner
stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the
white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his
natural and moral condition.'

One would think this was clear enough, and that it was doing no
injustice to its substantial purport to say that Mr. Stephens here makes
slavery the corner stone of his new Government. You say, however, that
this is 'an egregious misapprehension,' that '_he has made no such
declaration_.' 'Let us learn' (you go on) 'what he actually did say. His
language is this: 'The foundations of our new Government are laid, its
corner stone rests upon'--what? slavery? no--'upon the _great truth_
that _the negro is not equal to the white man_, that slavery,' which he
then defines to be 'subordination to the superior race, is his natural
and moral condition.''

This is nice! How admirably your _italic_ emphasis upon the first
clause, your intercalated comments, and the slight way of bringing in
the second clause, serves to bring out the full, undivided force of the
whole sentence! What a charming union of acuteness and moral nobleness
it exhibits! Equally admirable for the same qualities is your
distinction between basing a government upon _slavery_ and basing it
upon a _great truth_ about slavery. Mr. Stephens has said that the
corner stone of his new Government rests upon the _great truth_ that
slavery is the natural and moral condition of the negro. He has not,
therefore, said that it rests on _slavery_! And so you think yourself
justified, do you, in your emphatic assertion that 'he has made no such
declaration'? You stand impregnable and triumphant--on the words! You
stick to what is 'nominated in the bond'--the very Shylock of criticism!

But not satisfied with this, you strengthen the case by argument: Mr.
Stephens did not say so, or mean so, because he would have been very
foolish if he had--so must every one be that thinks he did. Mr.
Stephens's 'language' (you say) 'could not be applied to slavery; it
would be a strange misapplication of terms to call slavery a physical,
philosophical, and moral truth.' But irresistible as your logic is, did
you really suppose that the 'plain men' who (according to your motto) in
troubled times like these 'read pamphlets,' were any of them so stupid
as to think that your wonderful distinction amounts to anything? Did you
suppose any man of decent intelligence would fail to see that it makes
no practical difference--since slavery, as an institution, was to be the
inevitable consequence of the _great truth_ about it--and that therefore
Mr. Stephens's declaration amounts substantially to saying that slavery
was to be the corner stone of his new Government; and so your assertion,
that 'he has made no such declaration,' is a paltry verbal quibble,
unworthy of a sensible and fair-minded man.

So of your way of proving that the rebel Government have adopted no such
corner stone. It is like yourself, and unparalleled but by yourself.
First, you allege that even if Mr. Stephens had said so, his individual
assertion is no law for the Government; next, that 'there is not one
word in the Constitution of the Confederacy that gives color to any such
idea as slavery being the corner stone of their Government; on the
contrary, section ix, article i, _clearly repudiates it_.' You did not
quote the article you refer to. Your 'plain men,' when they come to see
it, will perhaps have an opinion on the question why you did not. The
article is as follows: '_The importation of African negroes from any
foreign country other than the slaveholding States of the United States,
in hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall
effectually prevent the same._'

Now did you really think that this article 'clearly repudiates' the idea
of the rebels intending to have slavery for one of their fundamental
institutions, or did you presume on the ignorance or stupidity of those
you have undertaken to instruct in political knowledge? The article
itself contains no such repudiation, nor is there anything to warrant
your inference that such was its purport, and everybody that knows
anything about it, knows that it is a gross misrepresentation of its
real object to say so.

The rebel Constitution was framed by delegates from the seven Lower
Slave States. It was adopted February 8, 1861. Neither Tennessee nor
Virginia nor any of the Border States had then joined the rebel
Confederacy. Most of these States were opposed to the reopening of the
African slave trade from principle and sentiment. The material interests
of Virginia were strongly opposed to it. The staple product of Virginia
was slaves. She lived only by breeding negroes for the market of the
slave-consuming States of the Lower South. To reopen the African slave
trade would destroy the profits of her great staple. The price of
negroes would go down from _one thousand_ dollars to _two hundred_. It
was well known, however, that there had been for several years a clamor
in the Lower States for the repeal of the law of the Union prohibiting
the African slave trade, that the determination to have the trade
reopened '_in the Union or out of the Union_' had been publicly
proclaimed in South Carolina, and that the matter of demanding it from
the Congress of the Union had been before the Legislature of that State,
on the recommendation of the Governor, three or four years before the
breaking out of the rebellion.

Under these circumstances the rebel Constitution was framed. And however
important to the slave-buying interest of its framers and of the people
they assumed to represent, the opening of the African slave trade may
have been felt to be, it was felt to be far more important at that
crisis to secure the accession of Virginia and the Border States to the
rebel cause by prohibiting it. Hence the adoption of the article you
refer to without quoting, and of the next very significant article,
which you neither quote nor refer to: '_Congress shall also have power
to prohibit the importation of slaves from any State not a member of
this Confederacy._' The first of these articles, prohibiting the African
slave trade, is a guarantee to the interests of the slave breeders if
they join the Confederacy; and the second a threat, that if they do not
join it, they may have no benefit from the prohibition in the first. Yet
knowing all this, or bound to know it, you represent the prohibition of
the African slave trade in the rebel Constitution as a 'clear
repudiation' of the idea of slavery being intended to be a fundamental
institution under their Government! Shame on you! It is a thousand miles
away from having any such meaning or purpose; and I confess I am utterly
unable to conceive how any man of decent intelligence could in good
faith make the representation you do. _Suppressio veri, allegatio
falsi._

Besides, what object could you have? You vindicate the doctrine, 'the
great truth,' by which (according to you, as according to Mr. Stephens)
slavery as an institution is justified. You approve of slavery, or, as
Mr. Stephens euphistically terms it, the 'subordination of the negro to
the superior race.' You know that slavery _is_ a fundamental institution
in the rebel scheme. Why then take pains to produce a contrary
impression, by resorting to such futile distinctions, such wretched
quibbles, and such absurd logic? It seems to me nothing but a mania for
verbal distinctions and sophistical special pleas can explain such a
gratuitous self-sacrifice.

Or is it, possibly, that you thought you could persuade your 'plain men
who read pamphlets,' that in virtue of the sweet euphuism,
'subordination to the superior race,' negro slavery at the South was in
some way to be divinely transformed, and, though called slavery, was not
in fact to be slavery after the old former fashion? '_Subordination to
the superior race_'! It certainly merits the praise of Mr. Justice
_Shallow_: 'It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said indeed,
too; ... and it is good, yea, indeed is it: good phrases are surely, and
ever were, very commendable. Very good; a good phrase!'

But _you_ knew it was to be the _same sort of subordination_ that has
always prevailed at the South. What is that? It is a subordination that
is legally determined as follows: 'Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken,
reputed, and adjudged in law to be '_chattels personal_ in the hands of
their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and
assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatever.' (South
Carolina Laws, 2 Brevard's Digest, 229.) 'A slave is one who is in the
full power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him,
dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor. He can do nothing,
possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to his
master.' (Louisiana Civil Code, art. 35.) 'The slave is entirely subject
to the will of his master.' (Idem, art. 173.)

This is the legal condition of the slave--the same in all the
slaveholding States. The laws and decisions resting upon this principle
of chattelhood and absolute ownership and dominion are too numerous to
cite. They may be summed up in the words of Judge Crenshaw (1 Stewart's
Ala. Rep., 320): '_the slave has no civil rights_.' It is matter of
settled law, that he can make no contract; cannot form a legal marriage;
cannot constitute a family--husbands and wives, parents and children,
being liable (except in Louisiana) to be sold apart; cannot protect his
wife's or daughter's chastity against the master's will; has no right of
self-defence, but may be lawfully killed for resisting or striking his
master or (in some States) any white man; has no appeal from his master;
can bring no action; cannot testify in courts; has no right to
education, but teaching him to read and write is penally prohibited.

The laws do not pretend to recognize and protect him as a person, except
against murder and excessive cruelty; and these laws are nullified if
the master take care to kill or torture him apart from the presence of
white witnesses; and even if there be legal witnesses, the murderer or
torturer can seldom be brought to punishment. 'A cruel and unreasonable
battery' on a slave by the master or hirer is _not indictable_. This is
Judge Ruffin's decision. (2 Devereux's N.C. Rep., 265). This decision is
celebrated for the language in which it is announced, and the grounds on
which it is rested.

'_The power of the master_,' says the Judge, '_must be absolute to
render the submission, of the slave perfect_. I most freely confess my
sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any
man can. And as a principle of moral right, every person in his
retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual condition of things it
must be so. There is no remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of
slavery. They cannot be disunited without abrogating at once the rights
of the master, and absolving the slave from his subjection. It
constitutes the curse of slavery to both the bond and the free portion
of our population. But it is _inherent in the relation_ of master and
slave. That there may be particular instances of cruelty and deliberate
barbarity where, in conscience, the law might properly interfere, is
most probable. The difficulty is to determine where _a court_ may
properly begin. Merely in the abstract, it may well be asked which power
of the master accords with right. The answer will probably sweep away
all of them. But we cannot look at the matter in this light. The truth
is we are forbidden to enter on a train of general reasoning on the
subject. _We cannot allow the right of the master to be brought into
discussion in the courts of justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must
be made sensible that there is no appeal from his master, that his power
is, in no instance, usurped, but is conferred by the laws of man, at
least, if not by the laws of God._'

Such is slavery under the slave code. Men are sometimes better and
sometimes worse than their laws. We need not wonder that volumes might
be filled with recitals of cruelties and atrocities of torture, ending,
in many cases, only with the death of the victim. Nor need we wonder at
the more loathsome moral abominations so prevalent in Southern society,
which degrade the whites even more than the blacks--of children begotten
by masters upon the persons of their slave women--begotten in lust and
sold for gain; of beautiful quadroons and octoroons sought and bought
for the base pleasure of their owners; of families, where the lawful
wives and daughters of the master are served by slaves that are their
own uncles, brothers, or sisters, born of slave women, yielding to the
master's lustful will. _Amalgamation is a Southern, not a Northern taste
and practice._ The most abominable case that has recently come to light,
is that of the young slave mother, at New Orleans, of whose children her
own father (a rich rebel) was the father! All these things are
inevitably incident to a state of slavery, and there is no law against
them.

Such is slavery--such is the institution you advocate as divinely
ordered, under the soft phrase, '_subordination to the superior race_'!
And this is the way you speak of those whom you term radical
Abolitionists: 'Look at the dark conclave of conspirators,
freedom-shriekers, Bible-spurners, fierce, implacable, headstrong,
denunciatory, Constitution and Union haters, noisy, factious, breathing
forth threatenings and slaughter against all who venture a difference of
opinion from them, murderous, passionate advocates of imprisonments and
hangings, blood-thirsty,--and if there be any other epithet in the
vocabulary of wickedness, do they not every one fitly designate some
phase of radical Abolitionism?'

I cannot help fancying that it will occur to some that by substituting
_slavery-shriekers_ and _Bible-perverters_ in this sentence, it might at
least equally well describe Northern pro-slavery zealots. At any rate,
your language is the very extravagance of coarse pro-slavery fanaticism.
I have never been of mind with those you term radical Abolitionists; but
it seems to me that of the two fanaticisms, the anti-slavery fanaticism
is the most respectable in principle, less selfish, and more generous in
impulse. I have all my life been disposed to leave the South in
undisturbed possession of its constitutional pound of slavery flesh. But
when the slaveholders showed an inveterate determination not to be
content with that, but to _nationalize_ slavery, to carry it everywhere,
and to make it the great element of political control throughout the
nation, I felt no constitutional obligation to submit. And when the
conspirators, foiled in their designs, rushed into open rebellion, I
made up my mind that slavery had best be destroyed--for only when it is,
will the conditions of true unity between the South and the North begin
to exist--then only will the prosperity and peace of the nation be
established on a permanent basis. This is now the opinion of a great
many of the best and wisest men at the South. I believe that slavery
will be destroyed in the progress and sequel of this war--to the
ultimate incalculable advantage of the South.

One word more: You have seen fit to quote Burke and Milton, for the sake
of a fling at the _clergy_ who venture to discuss the questions of the
day. I do not know how far some of your associates will be disposed to
thank you. Perhaps their being on your side gives them a capacity not
possessed by the others, and exempts them from the application of your
rebuke. I have an impression that the culture and habits of thinking of
the members of the clerical profession do not particularly unfit them
for taking just and sound views on the questions that agitate the public
mind, and that their position--cutting them off from all offices and
emoluments that are the objects of ambition to party politicians--gives
them some special advantages for doing so. For myself, having all my
life been devoted to study and thought on the great principles of social
and moral order, I feel myself as well qualified, at least, to offer an
opinion, as though I had been devoted to the mechanical application of
the principles of physical science.

  C. S. HENRY.




BUCKLE, DRAPER, AND THE LAW OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT.

_FIRST PAPER._


So parallel are the lines of thought in Mr. Buckle's 'History of
Civilization' and Professor Draper's 'Intellectual Development of
Europe,' while they continue within the same limits in discussing the
law of individual and social progress; and so exactly does the latter
work resume the consideration of this law at the point where the English
writer abandoned its further analysis, to commence to apply that which
he had made to the history of various nations, that one might almost
suppose the two authors had undertaken the task conjointly, and divided
the work between them.

It was the purpose of Mr. Buckle, in his introduction, to ascertain the
sources of social, and, incidentally, of individual development--the
fundamental causes of human progression; and subsequently to verify the
principles established, by tracing, in general outlines, the rise and
advance of leading nations under their impulse. The basis upon which he
started in his examination was this: 'That when we perform an action, we
perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that those motives
are the results of some antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were
acquainted with the whole of the antecedents, and with all the laws of
their movements, we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of
their immediate results.'

From this proposition the historian concludes 'that the actions of men,
being determined solely by their antecedents, must, under precisely the
same circumstances, always issue in precisely the same results. And as
all antecedents are either in the mind or out of it, we clearly see that
all the variations in the results--in other words, all the changes of
which history is full, all the vicissitudes of the human race, their
progress or their decay, their happiness or their misery--must be the
fruit of a double action; an action of external phenomena upon the mind,
and another action of the mind upon the phenomena.'

Mr. Buckle gives it as the result of his investigations concerning the
relative influence of these two agencies: That external or physical laws
have been most powerful in the earlier ages of the world, and among the
most ignorant nations; that in proportion as knowledge increases, the
power of this class of agencies diminishes, and that of mental laws
becomes more predominant; that these latter are therefore the great
motor forces of civilization, consisting of two parts, the moral and the
intellectual, of which the latter are vastly superior as instruments of
social advancement, stationary in their effects; finally, as the formal
statement of the laws of human development, he says:

     '1st. That the progress of mankind depends on the success with
     which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to
     which a knowledge of those laws is diffused. 2d. That before such
     investigation can begin, a spirit of scepticism must arise, which,
     at first aiding the investigation, is afterward aided by it. 3d.
     That the discoveries thus made increase the influence of
     intellectual truths, and diminish, relatively, not absolutely, the
     influence of moral truths; moral truths being more stationary than
     intellectual truths, and receiving fewer additions. 4th. That the
     great enemy of this movement, and therefore the great enemy of
     civilization, is the protective spirit--the notion that society
     cannot prosper, unless the affairs of life are watched over and
     protected at nearly every turn by the state and the church; the
     state teaching men what they are to do, and the church teaching
     them what they are to believe.'

In all these points the recent work of Professor Draper coincides with
that of the lamented English writer. The main object of the former is,
however, to discuss a question more basic than those undertaken by the
author of 'Civilization in England,' the consideration of which was by
him formally declined: namely, the question of a predetermined order of
development lying back of all physical and mental phenomena. The opening
sentences of the American book will sufficiently indicate the purpose of
its pages:

     'I intend, in this work, to consider in what manner the advancement
     of Europe in civilization has taken place, to ascertain how far its
     progress has been fortuitous, and how far determined by primordial
     law.

     'Does the procession of nations in time, like the erratic phantasm
     of a dream, go forward without reason or order? Or, is there a
     predetermined, a solemn march, in which all must join, ever moving,
     ever resistlessly advancing, encountering and enduring an
     inevitable succession of events?

     'In a philosophical examination of the intellectual and political
     history of nations, an answer to these questions is to be found.
     * * * Man is the archetype of society. Individual development is the
     model of social progress.'

It will be sufficient for our present purpose to indicate the line of
Dr. Draper's argument, in seeking for a solution to the problem of
progress, and to sum up the conclusions to which he is ultimately led by
his investigations.

In the intellectual infancy of a savage state, man regards all passing
events as depending on the arbitrary volition of a superior but
invisible power. The tendency is necessarily to superstition. After
reason, aided by experience, has led him forth from these delusions as
respects surrounding things, he still clings to his original ideas as
respects objects far removed, believing the stars to be inhabited by
mysterious powers, or to be such themselves. Gradually he emerges from
star worship as he did from fetichism, still venerating and perhaps
exalting into immortal gods the genii whom he once supposed to inhabit
the stars, long after he has ascertained that the latter are without any
perceptible influence on him.

He is exchanging, by ascending degrees, his primitive doctrine of
arbitrary volition for the doctrine of law. As the fall of a stone, the
flowing of a river, and the ordinary operations of nature familiar to
him have been traced to physical causes, to like causes are at last
traced the revolutions of the stars. In events and scenes continually
increasing in greatness and grandeur, he is detecting the dominion of
law. This perception is extended, until at last it embraces all natural
events, until they are seen to be the consequences of physical
conditions, and therefore the results of law.

     'But if we admit that this is the case, from the mote that floats
     in the sunbeam to multiple stars revolving round each other, are we
     willing to carry our principles to their consequences, and
     recognize a like operation of law among living as among lifeless
     things, in the organic as well as the inorganic world? What
     testimony does physiology offer on this point?'

Physiology, in its progress, has passed through the same stages as
physics. Living beings were once considered to be beyond the power of
external influences, the various physiological functions being carried
forward by a feigned immaterial principle, called the vital agent. But
when it was discovered that the heart is constructed upon the recognized
rules of hydraulics; the eye upon the most refined principles of optics;
that the ear was furnished with the means of dealing with the three
characteristics of sound--its tympanum for intensity, its cochlea for
pitch, and its semicircular canals for quality; and that the air,
brought into the great air passages, calling into play atmospheric
pressure, was conveyed upon physical principles into the ultimate cells
of the lungs, and thence to the blood; when these and very many other
like facts were brought into prominence by modern research, it became
necessary to admit that animated beings do not constitute the exception
once supposed, and that organic operations are the result of physical
agencies.

     'If thus, in the recesses of the individual economy, these natural
     agents bear sway, must they not operate in the social economy too?

     'Has the great, shadeless desert nothing to do with the habits of
     the nomade tribes who pitch their tents upon it--the fertile plain
     no connection with flocks and pastoral life--the mountain
     fastnesses with the courage that has so often defended them--the
     sea with habits of adventure? Indeed, do not all our expectations
     of the stability of social institutions rest upon our belief in the
     stability of surrounding physical conditions? From the time of
     Bodin, who nearly three hundred years ago published his work 'De
     Republica,' these principles have been well recognized: that the
     laws of nature cannot be subordinated to the will of man, and that
     government must be adapted to climate. It was these things which
     led to the conclusion that force is best resorted to for northern
     nations, reason for the middle, and superstition for the southern.'

The importance of physical agents and physical laws in the social as
well as in the individual economy, is variously illustrated by Professor
Draper, who points out the essential part they play in several
departments of nature. To the merely mechanical inclination of the
earth's axis of rotation toward the plane of her orbit of revolution
around the sun, we owe the changing seasons and the method of life which
is dependent on these. The alteration of that physical arrangement would
involve a corresponding alteration in the whole life of the globe. So,
again, the possibility of existence upon the earth, in any way, depends
upon conditions altogether of a material kind. It is necessary that our
planet should be at a definite mean distance from the source of light
and heat, the sun; and that the form of her orbit should be almost a
circle, since it is only within a narrow range of temperature, secured
by these conditions, that life can be maintained.

It is through natural agents also that the means of regulation are
secured in the present economy of the globe. Through heat, the
distribution and arrangement of the vegetable tribes are accomplished;
through their mutual relations with the atmospheric air, plants and
animals are interbalanced, and neither permitted to obtain a
superiority. The condensation of carbon from the air and its inclusion
in the strata constitute the chief epoch in the organic life of the
earth giving a possibility for the appearance of the hot-blooded and
more intellectual animal tribes. That event was due to the influence of
the rays of the sun.

Passing from inorganic to organic forms, our author remarks that their
permanence is altogether dependent 'on the invariability of the material
conditions under which they live. Any variation therein, no matter how
insignificant it might be, would be forthwith followed by a
corresponding variation in the form.' At this point we are brought to
the far-famed 'development theory,' which, since the publication of the
'Vestiges of Creation,' has been the scientific battle field of the
naturalists of the world. Professor Draper is, of course, a firm
adherent of this theory. He continues:

     'The present invariability of the world of organization is the
     direct consequence of the physical equilibrium, and so it will
     continue as long as the mean temperature, the annual supply of
     light, the composition of the air, the distribution of water,
     oceanic and atmospheric currents, and other such agencies, remain
     unaltered; but if any one of these, or of a hundred other incidents
     that might be mentioned, should suffer modification, in an instant
     the fanciful doctrine of the immutability of species would be
     brought to its true value. The organic world appears to be in
     repose, because natural influences have reached an equilibrium. A
     marble may remain forever motionless upon a level table; but let
     the surface be a little inclined, and the marble will quickly run
     off. What should we say of him who, contemplating it in its state
     of rest, asserted that it was impossible for it ever to move?

     'When, therefore, we notice such orderly successions, we must not
     at once assign them to a direct intervention, the issue of wise
     predeterminations of a voluntary agent; we must first satisfy
     ourselves how far they are dependent upon mundane or material
     conditions, occurring in a definite and necessary series, ever
     bearing in mind the important principle that an orderly sequence of
     inorganic events necessarily involves an orderly and corresponding
     progression of organic life.

     'To this doctrine of the control of physical agencies over organic
     forms I acknowledge no exceptions, not even in the case of man. The
     varied aspects he presents in different countries are the necessary
     consequences of those influences.'

Whether we advocate the doctrine of the origination of the human race
from a single pair, or from different races at different centres, we
are, in Dr. Draper's judgment, alike driven to the conclusion of the
transitory nature of typical forms, to their transmutations and
extinctions. In the former case, we can only account for diverse races,
having different shades of complexion, different varieties of skull,
etc., by the admission of the paramount control of physical agents, such
as climate and other purely material circumstances; in the latter, we
can only account for the varieties visible among the different races
themselves on similar grounds.

Variations in the aspect of man are best seen when an examination is
made of nations arranged in a northerly and southerly direction, the
differences of climate being much greater in this direction than from
east to west. These variations do not affect complexion, development of
the brain, and, therefore, intellectual power, only. But differences of
manners and customs, that is, differences in the modes of civilization,
must coexist with diversities of climate. An ethnical element is
therefore necessarily of a dependent nature; its durability arises from
its perfect correspondence with the conditions by which it is
surrounded. Whatever can affect that correspondence will touch its life.

With such considerations the author passes from individuals to groups of
men or nations:

     'There is a progress for races of men as well marked as the
     progress of one man. There are thoughts and actions appertaining to
     specific periods in the one case as in the other. Without
     difficulty we affirm of a given act that it appertains to a given
     period. We recognize the noisy sports of boyhood, the business
     application of maturity, the feeble garrulity of old age. We
     express our surprise when we witness actions unsuitable to the
     epoch of life. As it is in this respect in the individual, so it is
     in the nation. The march of individual existence shadows forth the
     march of race existence, being, indeed, its representative on a
     little scale. Groups of men, or nations, are distributed by the
     same accidents, or complete the same cycle as the individual. Some
     scarcely pass beyond infancy; some are destroyed on a sudden; some
     die of mere old age. In this confusion of events, it might seem
     altogether hopeless to disentangle the law which is guiding them
     all, and demonstrate it clearly. Of such groups each may exhibit,
     at the same moment, an advance to a different stage, just as we see
     in the same family the young, the middle aged, and the old. * * *
     In each nation, moreover, the contemporaneously different classes,
     the educated and illiterate, the idle and industrious, the rich and
     poor, the intelligent and superstitious, represent different
     contemporaneous stages of advancement. One may have made a great
     progress, another scarcely have advanced at all. How shall we
     ascertain the real state of the case? Which of these classes shall
     we regard as the truest and most perfect type?'

In order to deal with this problem, and to demonstrate the general
nature of a movement having such diverse components, we must, continues
Professor Draper, select, from a family or a nation, or a family of many
nations, such members or classes or states as most closely represent
respectively its type or have advanced most completely in their career.
In a state the leading or intellectual class is always the true
representative. It has passed gradually through the lower stages, and
has made the greatest advance.

We are next called to notice that individual life is maintained only by
the production and destruction of organic particles, death being
necessarily the condition of life; and that a similar process occurs in
the existence of a nation, in which the individual represents the
organic molecule, whose production, continuance, and death in the
person, answers to the production, continuance, and death of a person in
the state. In the same manner that individuals change through the action
of physical agencies and submit to impressions, so likewise do
aggregates of men constituting nations. 'A national type pursues its way
physically and intellectually through changes and developments answering
to those of the individual, and being represented by infancy, childhood,
youth, manhood, old age, and death, respectively.'

This orderly process may, however, be disturbed by emigration, by blood
admixture, or by other exterior or interior occurrences, which would
involve a corresponding change in the national characteristics and
duration; perhaps result in the rapid and total disappearance of the
community.

For--and this brings us to the last point of analogy which Professor
Draper gives between individual and national life--nations, like
individuals, die. Empires are only sandhills in the hourglass of Time;
they crumble spontaneously away by the process of their own growth.

     'A nation, like a man, hides from itself the contemplation of its
     final day. It occupies itself with expedients for prolonging its
     present state. It frames laws and constitutions under the delusion
     that they will last, forgetting that the condition of life is
     change. Very able modern statesmen consider it to be the grand
     object of their art to keep things as they are, or rather as they
     were. But the human race is not at rest; and bands with which, for
     a moment, it may be restrained, break all the more violently the
     longer they hold. No man can stop the march of destiny. * * * The
     origin, existence, and death of nations depend thus on physical
     influences, which are themselves the result of immutable laws.
     Nations are only transitional forms of humanity. They must undergo
     obliteration as do the transitional forms offered by the animal
     series. There is no more an immortality for an embryo in any one of
     the manifold forms passed through in its progress of development.

     'We must, therefore, no longer regard nations or groups of men as
     offering a permanent picture. Human affairs must be looked upon as
     in continuous movement, not wandering in an arbitrary manner here
     and there, but proceeding in a perfectly definite course. Whatever
     may be the present state, it is altogether transient. All systems
     of civil life are therefore necessarily ephemeral. Time brings new
     conditions; the manner of thought is modified; with thought,
     action. Institutions of all kinds must hence participate in this
     fleeting nature; and, though they may have allied themselves to
     political power, and gathered therefrom the means of coercion,
     their permanency is but little improved thereby; for, sooner or
     later, the population on whom they have been imposed, following the
     external variations, spontaneously outgrows them, and their ruin,
     though it may have been delayed, is none the less certain. For the
     permanency of any such system it is essentially necessary that it
     should include with its own organization a law of change, and not
     of change only, but change in the right direction--the direction in
     which the society interested is about to pass. It is in an
     oversight of this last essential condition that we find an
     explanation of the failure of so many such institutions. Too
     commonly do we believe that the affairs of men are determined by a
     spontaneous action or free will; we keep that overpowering
     influence which really controls them in the background. In
     individual life we also accept a like deception, living in the
     belief that everything we do is determined by the volition of
     ourselves or of those around us; nor is it until the close of our
     days that we discern how great is the illusion, and that we have
     been swimming, playing, and struggling in a stream which, in spite
     of all our voluntary motions, has silently and resistlessly borne
     us to a predetermined shore.'

These lines were written before the commencement of our civil war. The
following sentence, taken from the postscript to the preface, gives
them, at this time, additional significance:

     'When a nation has reached one of the epochs of its life, and is
     preparing itself for another period of progress under new
     conditions; it is well for every thoughtful man interested in its
     prosperity to turn his eyes from the contentions of the present to
     the accomplished facts of the past, and to seek for a solution of
     existing difficulties in the record of what other people in former
     times have done.'

Guided by this law of development, Professor Draper sets out on his task
of investigating the course of European progress. For the purpose of
facilitating this investigation, he divides the intellectual progress of
the nations examined, into five periods: 1, The Age of Credulity; 2, The
Age of Inquiry; 3, The Age of Faith; 4, The Age of Reason; 5, The Age of
Decrepitude; corresponding with the five divisions of individual life,
as previously stated, from infancy to old age. The general line of
examination and its results may be stated by giving the opening
paragraphs of his closing chapter:

     'The object of this book is to impress upon its reader a conviction
     that civilization does not proceed in an arbitrary manner, or by
     chance, but that it passes through a determinate succession of
     stages, and is a development according to law.

     'For this purpose we considered the relations between individual
     and social life, and showed that they are physiologically
     inseparable from one another, and that the course of communities
     bears an unmistakable resemblance to the progress of an individual,
     and that man is the archetype or exemplar of society.

     'We then examined the intellectual history of Greece--a nation
     offering the best and most complete illustration of the life of
     humanity. From the beginning of its mythology in old Indian
     legends, and of its philosophy in Ionia, we saw that it passed
     through phases like those of the individual to its decrepitude and
     death in Alexandria.

     'Then addressing ourselves to the history of Europe, we found that,
     if suitably divided into groups of ages, these groups, compared
     with each other in chronological succession, present a striking
     resemblance to the successive phases of Greek life, and therefore
     to that which Greek life resembles--that is to say, individual
     life.'

Looking at the successive phases of individual life, Professor Draper
finds intellectual advancement to be their chief characteristic. The
anatomist discovers that the human form advances to its highest
perfection through provisions in its nervous structure for intellectual
improvement. In like manner the physiologist ranks the vast series of
animals now inhabiting the earth in the order of their intelligence. The
geologist declares that there has been an orderly improvement in
intellectual power of the beings that have successively inhabited the
earth.

The sciences, therefore, join with history, infers Professor Draper, in
affirming that the great aim of nature is intellectual improvement;
intellectual improvement in the individual, and hence, man being the
archetype of society, intellectual advancement in the race.

     'What, then, is the conclusion inculcated by these doctrines as
     regards the social progress of great communities? It is that all
     political institutions--imperceptibly or visibly, spontaneously or
     purposely--should tend to the improvement and organization of
     national intellect. * * *

     'A great community, aiming to govern itself by intellect rather
     than by coercion, is a spectacle worthy of admiration. * * * Brute
     force holds communities together as an iron nail binds pieces of
     wood by the compression it makes--a compression depending on the
     force with which it has been hammered in. It also holds more
     tenaciously if a little rusted with age. But intelligence binds
     like a screw. The things it has to unite must be carefully adjusted
     to its thread. It must be gently turned, not driven, and so it
     retains the consenting parts firmly together. * * *

     'Forms of government, therefore, are of moment, though not in the
     manner commonly supposed. Their value increases in proportion as
     they permit or encourage the natural tendency for development to be
     satisfied.'

Intellectual freedom should be secured in free countries, adds Dr.
Draper, as completely as the rights of property and personal liberty.
Philosophical opinions and scientific discoveries are entitled to be
judged of by their truth, not by their relation to existing interests.

     'There is no literary crime greater than that of exciting a social,
     and especially a theological odium against ideas that are purely
     scientific, none against which the disapproval of every educated
     man ought to be more strongly expressed. The republic of letters
     owes it to its own dignity to tolerate no longer offences of that
     kind.

     'To an organization of their national intellect, and to giving it a
     political control, the countries of Europe are rapidly advancing.
     They are hastening to satisfy their instinctive tendency. The
     special form in which they will embody their intentions must, of
     course, depend to a great degree on the political forms under which
     they have passed their lives, modified by that approach to
     homogeneousness, which arises from increased intercommunication.'

In an all-important particular, concludes Dr. Draper, the prospect of
Europe is bright. It approaches the last stage of civil life through
Christianity. Universal benevolence cannot fail to yield better fruit
than has been secured in the past. There is a fairer hope for nations
animated by a sincere religious sentiment, who, whatever their political
history may have been, have always agreed in this, that they were
devout, than for a people who, like the Chinese, now passing through the
last stage of civil life in the cheerlessness of Buddhism dedicate
themselves to a selfish pursuit of material advantages, who have lost
all belief in a future, and are living without any God.

       *       *       *       *       *

The large space given to the statement of the purpose and drift of 'The
Intellectual Development of Europe,' will allow only a brief
consideration, in this paper, of the two great points presented by its
author. These are, the question of the relative value of moral and
intellectual truths in the progress of the human race; and the nature of
the law of individual and social development. Both Professor Draper and
Mr. Buckle affirm, and endeavor to support the affirmation with array of
proof, that intellectual truths are more important and more concerned in
the march of society, in the advancement of mankind, than moral ones;
and both conclude that the great object of life, its final achievement,
is intellectual culture and mental unfoldment in the individual and in
the race. To the consideration of these points we will, therefore,
direct our attention.

The social, political, religious, and scientific development of the
world proceeds under the operation of two grand antagonistic principles.
One is the principle of Unity. The other that principle which is the
opposite of unity, which we will call Individuality. The first tends to
bring about coöperation, consolidation, convergence, dependence; the
second to produce separation, isolation, divergence, and independence.
Unity is the principle which tends to order; Individuality to freedom.
The desire of order is the animating sentiment of conservatism. The love
of freedom is the vital essence of progress. Unity is the static, and
Individuality the motic force of human society. Both are inherent in the
nature of things, and equally important as elements of a true social
organization. Unity is allied to the affections, which are synthetic in
their character; Individuality, to the intellect, which is mainly
analytical, critical, and disruptive in its tendency. Unity is
predominant in religion, which is static in its nature; Individuality,
in science, which is primarily disturbing. In the distribution of the
mental faculties, Unity relates to the moral powers, and Individuality
to the intellectual; the former being, as both Mr. Buckle and Professor
Draper have shown, more stationary in their character than the latter.

Unity is represented in social affairs by the institutions of community
which tend to bind the people into a composite whole; Individuality, by
the personal independence which liberates from the conventionalities of
association and creates social freedom. In the religious domain, Unity
is represented by faith, which is allied to the emotional or affectional
nature, and is predominantly concessive, unquestioning, and submissive;
Individuality, by the spirit of inquiry and investigation, which will
only believe after intellectual examination and satisfaction. In
political affairs, Unity is represented by the principle of leadership,
seen, in its one-sided and imperfect form, in despotic or monarchical
rule; Individuality, by the democratic principle of political equality.
In science, the two principles have various analogues in different
departments. In rational mechanics, unity is analogous to statics, and
individuality to dynamics. In astronomy, unity to the centripetal, and
individuality to the centrifugal force. Unity is allied to synthetical,
and individuality to analytical chemistry. It will not be necessary to
specify further analogies. These two principles are everywhere present
throughout the universe; and it is through the mutual play of their
opposite drifts, when rightly adjusted and balanced, that harmony is
secured, as in the revolutions of the planets; while disharmony is the
result, wherever it exists, of an undue preponderance, either of the
tendency to unity, on the one hand, or of that to disunity or
individuality, on the other.

In virtue of this analysis, looking at the question solely from the
stand point of abstract science, we should affirm that moral truth, as
the analogue or representative of the principle of unity, and as the
converging tendency, was exactly the equal and counterpart of
intellectual truth, the analogue of the diverging tendency, represented
by the principle of individuality. To assert the contrary, would be
equivalent to averring that dynamics were more important agencies in
mechanics than statics; that the centrifugal force was more essential to
the harmonious movements of the heavenly bodies than the centripetal,
because the functions of statics and centripetal force are more
stationary in their nature; or that the head was more important than the
heart, which two parts are, in the human organism, the respective
representatives of intellect and affection, the basis of moral power.

The truth, in relation to all these particulars, will appear on closer
examination, if not already shown, to be this: _that the principle of
Unity and the principle of Individuality must everywhere be represented
in proximately equal proportions, in order to effect a just balance of
conditions and to secure practical harmony_. Centralization and freedom
must everywhere coexist, and be equally operative. Conservatism is as
important to society as progress. Conservatism overbalancing progress,
destroys society by stagnation, blotting out the individuality of the
person and moulding men into machine-like uniformity; progress
preponderating over conservatism, destroys the community by disrupting
bands of association before new methods are sufficiently understood, and
giving reins to a liberty whose untutored use can end only in anarchy
and unbridled license. Conservatism and progress, the centripetal and
centrifugal forces of society, each being equally balanced, will result
in a harmonization of social interests that will cause community to move
on its career as evenly as the planet moves in its graceful orbit. So
in every other department, wherever these opposite principles are
equally adjusted by allowing each full play, there results perfect
consonance and peace. Order and freedom in government; unity and liberty
in church; individuality and mutuality in society; these are the
elements, when alike operative, of security and success in their
respective domains, in individual and social life.

To secure the highest state of civilization, it is therefore essential
that there should be an equal activity of the intellectual and of the
moral or (as they may be more appropriately called) the religious
faculties: religion being, in its broadest sense, devotion--arising from
a conscientious feeling of duty or obligation--to that which appears to
the individual as the highest truth; and the faculties which are active
in the exercise of this devotion being the moral or religious ones.
Viewed as a question of abstract science merely, the investigation might
be arrested at this point, with the conclusion that intellectual and
moral agencies were both indispensible to the progress of humanity, and
the right relations of society, and, therefore, equally important
elements of social advancement. Additional proof will be given
incidentally, however, of this general truth, in the consideration of
the special case of the relative value of these agencies in the past
progress of the nations.

It has been said that the development of the world proceeds under the
operation of the antagonistic principles of unity and individuality.
Unity, as a prior idea to individuality, which latter arises from the
disintegration of that which was formerly one--had, historically, a
prior development. The period of its paramount sway in the first grand
division of time stretches from the dawn of history up to about the
twelfth century, or to the beginning of the revival of learning. The
principle of individuality then began to be active, and has guided the
subsequent progress of civilization. At no time, nor in any nation,
however, has either one of these principles been entirely inactive. One
or the other has _preponderated_, and thus given distinct
characteristics to its age. It is to these preponderating drifts that
reference is made in the foregoing division, as specially marking
periods.

The opposite tendencies of unity and individuality, and their successive
development have been somewhat vaguely apprehended by Professor
Draper,--who has not, however, perceived them as _principles_,--and have
furnished him with the periods into which he arbitrarily divides the
progressive epochs of social growth. If we change these divisions into
their proper order--an order singularly disarranged by this author--we
shall have substantially the representative periods in the historical
domain, of unity and individuality. The order in which these eras are
placed in 'The Intellectual Development of Europe' is, 1, Age of
Credulity; 2, Age of Inquiry; 3, Age of Faith; 4, Age of Reason; 5, Age
of Decrepitude. It is evident, however, as partially shown by Mr.
Buckle, that the age of inquiry is uniformly subsequent to the age of
faith, and immediately precedes the age of reason. Comparing this
distribution, moreover, with the one given by Dr. Draper of the five
stages of human existence to which he makes it correspond, we find
childhood given as the age of inquiry, youth of faith, and manhood of
reason. The ages of inquiry and faith should, however, change places, in
order to be congruous. In applying these periods to the history of
Greece, the age of inquiry is made to extend from the rise of philosophy
to the time of Socrates; and the age of faith to comprise the epochs of
Socrates, Plato, and the Skeptics, up to about the time of Aristotle.
But in any such division as Dr. Draper attempts, the age of faith should
precede the rise of philosophical speculation, and the age of inquiry
should include the era of ethical as well as of physical investigation.
In the application to European history a similar error is made. The age
of inquiry is given as the epoch of the rise of Christianity and the
establishment of the papal power; then follow the thousand years of the
age of faith, the age of reason beginning a little before the time of
Galileo. The time given to the age of inquiry should have been included
in the age of faith, while the real European age of inquiry is the era
of the restoration of learning, the development of modern languages, the
invention of printing, and the Reformation, an era which Dr. Draper
discusses in a chapter entitled: 'APPROACH TO THE AGE OF REASON IN
EUROPE. _It is preceded by the Rise of Criticism._' Certainly the epoch
of the rise of criticism, of the Reformation, and of printing, is the
age of inquiry, if any age is entitled to that name.

Changing then the places of the age of inquiry and that of faith, we
shall have, so far as the grand or European division is concerned, the
epochs of credulity and faith, both essentially stationary elements,
included within the stage of the development of the principle of unity;
and those of inquiry and reason, both mainly productive of change,
within the period of the reign of the principle of individuality.
Judging now solely from our knowledge of the nature of these opposite
drifts, what should we expect to discover as the prevalent
characteristics of their respective periods of supremacy? We should
look, during the time in which the principle of unity was developing its
powers, for the predominant manifestation of all those elements of
progress which belong on the side of order, strength, stability,
permanence, conservatism, community of interests, associative effort,
uniformity in political and religious belief, moral activity; for all
those elements, in fine, which tend toward the unification of social
power and interest, and toward progress by coöperation; and we should
expect a corresponding lack of tendencies of an opposite kind. On the
other hand, during the era in which the principle of individuality
predominated, we should be prepared to see a preponderating
manifestation of all those elements which tend to freedom, change,
disintegration of interests, antagonistic or competitive effort,
diversity in political and religious belief, intellectual activity; of
all those drifts, in short, which relate to the individualizing of
social power and interests, and to progress by antagonism; with
corresponding absence of the elements active in the preceding epoch.

Turning now to Dr. Draper's storehouse of historical facts, do we find
our expectations realized or disappointed?

We discover that during the age in which the principle of unity was
dominant, vast, magnificent, opulent empires existed, consolidated,
stable, powerful, orderly; but whose subjects possessed comparatively no
freedom, which resisted all effort at progression, denied to men
political equality, and sought to prevent all desire of change. We see a
religious organization which bound the people in a single faith by a
common creed; which fostered a spirit of brotherly sympathy; kept alive
the fire of holy zeal by pious ministrations; taught the universal
brotherhood of the human race; cultured the emotional nature of its
worshippers; sought to eradicate pauperism, to abolish slavery, and to
inculcate practical humility, treating peasant and king as equals before
God; endeavored to provide for the spiritual and material wants of
mankind; to become the guardian of the weak, the educator of the
ignorant, the rescuer of the vicious, the comforter of the sorrowing,
and the strong hand of protection between selfish or brutal power and
the lowly; which, however, resisted all efforts at intellectual freedom,
shut its ears to the voice of science, strove to repress the rising
desires of the soul and keep it in perpetual bondage and darkness. We
behold, next, a social organization in which, as a general rule, though
with many exceptions, each individual held his fitting place, the
station for which he was best adapted by natural character and training;
in which each rank recognized its obligations of deference toward
superiors, and of guardianship toward inferiors, and fulfilled, in the
main, as they were then understood, the practical duties which these
obligations created; in which the rich and powerful were the social
fathers of the poor and humble, securing them from physical want and
from the snares of designing men; but in which the spirit of
independence was not alive, the dignity of labor was denied, the
development which results from competitive struggles unknown, and
education uncared for.

But the achievements of this stage of individual and social growth,
those which stand out as the illustrious and characteristic features of
the time, were its moral or religious accomplishments. The pages of
history which detail the events of this epoch, are crowded with
relations of heroic devotion to the individual's highest ideal of truth,
not as occasional acts of life, but as the dominating purpose of
existence; of loyalty to men and women of superior powers; of
self-sacrifice for the welfare of others. The sentiments of
Christianity, which appeal mainly to the heart, took fast hold on the
emotional and affectional natures of a simple people not yet developed
in their intellectual faculties. A sense of responsibility for his every
action rested heavily on every person. Men shut themselves in dungeons,
scourged their flesh, lacerated their bodies, inflicted all manner of
torture on their frames, that they might purge away every evil desire,
every wrong propensity, and conquer their material elements into
submission to the spiritual. Deeds of lofty self-abnegation, rarely if
ever known to modern days, were then common. Stern virtue, as virtue was
then understood, was largely prevalent. The habits of life were devout,
reverential, careful of sanctities, solemn and austere. Individuals and
community lived in the constant remembrance of being strictly
accountable for the manner and actions of their lives. A moral and
religious atmosphere pervaded society, such as our modern levity can
little understand. An atmosphere which impregnated every living being
who came within its scope, and hallowed their lives, so that the guiding
and animating spirit of the day, among high and low, rich and poor,
ignorant and learned, was the conscientious desire of thinking, acting,
and living as God wished and as their better natures approved; of being
pure in their purposes and holy in their deeds, as purity and holiness
were then conceived; of subduing and controlling their passions, and in
all ways being devoutly scrupulous that everything they did was
dictated, not by a desire to gratify a selfish impulse nor an ebullition
of feeling, but by a conviction of duty under a sense of eternal
responsibility to God.

The moral and religious grandeur of the age could not avail, however,
for the highest purposes of civilization, in the absence of intellectual
vigor and mental growth. Devotion itself made men bigots. Their love of
God, unaccompanied by right views of human liberty, induced cruel
persecutions. Humanity had no hope in such developments alone, grand as
they were, and a new principle began its career, gradually supplanting
the first. What does our historian give as the facts of civilization
since the century preceding the Reformation, from which time the
tendency to individuality has been predominant?

The great kingdoms and empires of the earlier days melted away under its
influence. The divine right of kings, and the theory that power sprang
from the ruler, gradually yielded to the democratic principle of
political equality and the origination of power in the people. Civil
liberty became the touchstone of good government, instead of
centralization of power and consolidation. General eligibility to
office grew into vogue in the place of the ancient mode, which
practically limited the selection of statesmen and officials to a
privileged class, comprising the largest and most cultured minds of the
nation. Freedom, and consequent diversity, in thought, in speech, and in
action, became paramount considerations to coercion and resulting
uniformity in these respects. The functions of rule were step by step
curtailed until they dwindled theoretically, and, to a large extent, in
the most advanced countries, practically, into two only--the protection
of person and of property. That government is best which governs least,
came to be an axiom of political progress; and the paramount purpose of
civil organization is beginning to be regarded, not, as under the
monarchical sway, the preservation of order, but the liberty of the
people.

In ecclesiastical affairs, we see the integrality of the church
destroyed under the influence of the Protestant principle of private
judgment, one of the first fruits of individuality. We perceive sects
gradually subdividing into sects, until, instead of a unity of religious
sentiment and a sympathy of religious action under the impulse of a
common creed, an innumerable variety of religious denominations came
into existence, each embodying different beliefs in diverse articles of
faith, and refusing Christian fellowship with the others. In this
transition the gain has been great, and the loss has been great. The
human soul has been liberated to the light of intellectual truth, and
emancipated from the bands of ancient superstition. The blessings of
education, culture, mental development, and social expansion, have been
accorded to the people. Gloomy asceticism has yielded to more hopeful
views of life. Dark and depressing theological dogmas have received more
cheerful interpretations; and the design of creation, the nature of man,
and the destiny of humanity are seen in more alluring colors. The
expectations of the future are no longer made terrible by visions of a
dreadful God; but beneficence and goodness smile through all the
purposes of a loving Father.

All this is gain, is strength, is progress. But what shall we say of
that fierce spirit of religious antagonism, which resulted from the
disruption of the unity of the church? Of that decline in power which
can only exist by consolidation of effort in sympathy of spirit? Of the
loss of that capacity through powerful organization to influence men, to
perform vast deeds of benevolence, superintend the spiritual and
material conditions of the indigent, provide for the comfort of the
poor, check the encroachment of the strong on the weak, and hold
community in respectful awe by the force of its moral and religious
sentiments? The cultivation of the intellectual faculties released the
nations from the domination of a narrow-minded spiritual power; but it
caused men to forget, to a great extent, while in the hot pursuit of
knowledge, that moral culture is equally as essential as mental. To the
intellectual gain, during this period of development, we must add a
corresponding moral or religious loss. We miss, in modern life, the
ever-present, all-pervading, conscious sense of high individual
accountability which directed the thoughts, controlled the feelings, and
overshadowed the lives of the children of the former stage of progress.
The activities of intellectual and material existence absorb the energy
of our era, and leave little inclination and less strength for the
cultivation and expansion of the deeper faculties of man's nature. In
all that side of religious progress which comes from the inculcation of
true ideas concerning God, man, human destiny, and human duty; in all
which belongs to the _intellectual_ side of religion, the side which
enhances our knowledge of what should be done, we have far surpassed the
nations and the people of the past. But in all that pertains to the
emotional, the devotional, and especially to the _moral_ side of
religion, we are far behind them. The animating spirit of life, under
the predominating influence of the religious sentiment, was, as we have
seen, a conscientious endeavor to live, in all ways, a life of purity,
of virtue, and of implicit obedience to the highest dictates of truth,
according to the understanding of truth which then prevailed. To do that
which they deemed right, no sacrifice was too great, no labor too
arduous, no suffering too severe. The deep, abiding, earnest,
controlling spirit of the time, shone bright and glorious through all
its ignorance, degradation, and superstition, a warning to our later and
more cultured age, that the triumphs of the intellect are not all that
is requisite for the final achievements of civilization.

The influence of the individualizing tendency is no more perceptible on
the page of history, in political and religious affairs, than in the
relations of social life. The gradual advance in political ideas, as
relating to the liberty of the people, modified the oppressive
trade-caste systems of the older nations, and wholly abolished them in
the more advanced. Competitive industry introduced intelligence and
self-reliance among the people. The doctrine of the equality of men
elevated the spirit of the laborer, and dispersed, to a greater or less
extent, as the doctrine made itself felt, that servile veneration which
the lower classes paid to the higher; the essential dignity of labor is
becoming acknowledged. To all these benefits, there have been,
nevertheless, corresponding losses. Competitive industry has developed
the mental faculties of the people; but has also left the ignorant and
the weak still under the feet of the intelligent and the rich, while the
recognition of the doctrine of social and political equality has
eliminated from the community those distinctive classes who formerly
constituted themselves the supervisors and patrons of the indigent, and
the providers for their material wants. It is for this reason that the
lowest orders of modern society exhibit relatively a condition of
physical misery unknown to the poor of former times. So, while the
inherent and native dignity of manhood has cropped out, under the
impulse of this same idea of the equality of man, reverence for things
to which reverence is due, respect for sanctities of whatever kind,
deference to superior worth in any sphere--these and other virtues which
belong on that side of truth which consists of the recognition of the
inherent _inequality_ of man in mental, moral, and spiritual
characteristics, are rapidly disappearing, giving place to that spirit
of dead-levelism so peculiarly illustrative of the prevalent sentiment
in this country, and so aptly denominated 'Young America.'

It is in the loss of this side of truth, this want of recognition of the
inherent inequality in men, that one of the greatest elements of
national power has disappeared. That individuals differ in their
organization and capacities one from another, and are hence, in this
respect, unequal, is a generally accepted truism. From this inequality
it results that every man has some sphere in which he is superior to all
others, and in regard to the concerns of which he should be the
voluntarily recognized authority. But, except in the departments where
men are entirely ignorant, and hence are forced to acknowledge the
supremacy of others, there is, among the most advanced peoples, scarcely
any recognition, of this great truth of voluntary deference to those who
are entitled to superiority. Persons of only ordinary capacities, who
read the newspaper, but who elsewise have had little time or inclination
for study, boldly argue abstrusest questions concerning military
methods, political economy, theology, or ethics, with students and
thinkers, without the slightest suspicion that they have no _moral_
right to enter into such a dispute, under such circumstances; their
true position being that of learners. It is not wholly from a want of
knowledge that such errors are committed. Men are mainly aware that
_political_ equality does not mean equality of faculties and of
functions. This assumption of a parity which has no existence, arises in
a large measure from a want of moral power; from a lack of that
religious development, so prevalent in the first state of progress,
which made it possible to conquer pride, subdue egotism, cultivate
humility, defer to superiority, and enabled the individual in all ways
to accept cheerfully his proper position in society, and cordially to
recognize that of every other, so far as he understood them. Political
and social equality emancipate mankind from civil slavery, from social
oppression, from the forced domination of assumptive aristocracies, from
the pride of rank; they prohibit any imposition of authority which the
individual does not willingly accept; but they do not lift one iota of
that responsibility which rests upon every human being to honor the
truth wherever or whatever it may be. Truth demands that we recognize
our superiors, in whatever sphere we may find them, and eagerly avail
ourselves of their advantages; that we recognize our inferiors, and give
them, if they will accept, of our store. That we in America are no
longer coerced into the acknowledgement of an assumed superior class,
only renders our obligation of voluntary deference more binding. The
selfishness and recklessness which the principle of individuality has
developed in its course; the disregard of moral duties which it has
engendered, promise only disaster and defeat to our national career,
unless speedily counteracted by a development of the opposite tendency.

Finally, it is in the sphere of intellectual growth, with its resulting
scientific achievement and material prosperity, that we must look for
the greatest results of the period in which the principle of
individuality has preponderated. It is needless to undertake to detail
these here. Every department of human concern has felt their influence,
and advanced under it. Through science, the world in which we live has
been unfolded to our vision; the organism we inhabit made known; the
history of the past revealed; and the destiny of our future forecast. To
science, the offspring of intellectual activity, we owe our increased
facilities for travel; the gradually accumulating comforts of life;
extended commercial advantages; national growth; social amelioration;
increased power over the elements; and rapidly accumulating wealth. To
mental development we owe civil freedom, social culture, and religious
liberty; commerce, invention, arts, education, enterprise. The principle
of individuality still guides the development of our day; science is
discovering new resources; and practical applications are introducing
new elements of prosperity. The stage of unity has done its work; it
gave us great elements of civilization, but not enough. The stage of
individuality, now swiftly advancing to its close, has furnished
magnificent contributions to progress, but could not achieve the highest
point. We are passing into a third era, which shall combine the good
results of each, and ultimate a nobler form of individual and social
life.

Here, then, we may pause in our investigation and ask the conclusion.
Have intellectual truths been more important in the past progress of the
world than moral ones? Let us sum up. We have seen that the early ages
of the world were dominated by the principle of unity; that during its
career the moral agencies preponderated, while the intellectual were
subordinated; that society, under the influence of these agencies,
developed to a higher degree than subsequently certain elements, such as
political order, national stability, religious sympathy, moral
responsibility, associative labor, deference, reverence, and others,
absolutely essential to the highest well-being of a nation; that these
elements, however, in the absence of those of an opposite or
counteracting nature, had a morbid rather than a healthful action, and
kept humanity in darkness and stagnation, being inadequate to all the
requirements of social progress; that a new development then began,
under the impulse of a new and opposite principle, which evolved
precisely those tendencies the want of which had prevented the complete
realization of the highest purposes of national life; such were
intellectual culture, political liberty, social equality, religious
freedom and others; that in the course of the development of these
principles, likewise absolutely necessary to the complete organization
of community, those which had been predominant under the operation of
the drift toward unity, became dormant; so that the results of the
second stage of progression were, practically, the same as those of the
first, namely, the evolution of magnificent principles, which in the
absence of their counterparts had not a healthful action, and were
unavailable for the establishment of the highest civilization; and
finally, we have seen, from the nature of the two principles, that
neither is adequate, alone, to the inauguration of a true social order,
neither to develop the indispensable requisites which belong to its
opposite, but that in every harmonious organization both must be
present, mutually functioning, interblending, and expanding.

This, then, is the answer: The moral agencies have tried to secure the
highest social state without the aid of the intellectual, and have
failed. The intellectual agencies have sought to secure the same object
without the aid of the moral, and have likewise failed. There is no
possibility of establishing the _desideratum_ without the full and
uninterrupted play of the moral faculties; no possibility of
establishing it without the full and uninterrupted play of the
intellectual faculties; both have been equal factors in the history of
the past in an isolated way; both will be equal factors in a blended
harmony in the history of the future. One is humanity's head, and the
other humanity's heart. With the absence of either the nation is not yet
come into its birth; it is still an embryo.

In this exhibition of the nature and tendency of the principles of unity
and individuality, we have also the means of correcting the error into
which Professor Draper has fallen respecting the law of human
development. He, together with Mr. Buckle, has failed to perceive that
the _static_ forces are as important to human growth as the _motic_. He
would reject the fruits of the stage of unity and be satisfied with the
splendid achievements of the intellectual era. Dazzled by the brilliancy
of this later age he is not conscious that in securing the finer results
of our riper civilization, we have left in abeyance the deeper, sterner,
and more religious elements of life. He would urge us onward in our
merely intellectual career, unmindful of the lesson, which the pages of
history logically teach, which the principles we have pointed out
unerringly confirm, that intellectual development, religious liberty,
civil freedom, social equality, unbalanced and unregulated by the
centralization, consolidation, moral force, religious responsibility,
and the tendencies which belong to the principle of unity, push
irresistibly toward disintegration, and end inevitably in political
revolution, national disruption, and social anarchy. Toward that goal
the nations are now steadily setting under the operations of the
tendency to individuality. In the direction which Dr. Draper points for
success and prosperity are only disaster and despair: 'The organization
of the national intellect' has been and will be fruitless, unless
accompanied by the organization of the national moral power. China has
the former in an inferior and stunted way, without the latter, and is
fitly described by the historian as passing cheerlessly through the last
stage of civil life. Had she been less selfish, had she felt deeply the
moral and religious obligation she owed to humanity, China had liberated
the intellectual faculties to a complete freedom under the
sanctification of the moral agencies, and added to that permanence,
which is _one_ of the chief factors of national success, the freedom
which is the other.

The 'predetermined order of development' has not destined the peoples of
the earth to the melancholy fate of China. The climacteric of the
present stage of progress is rapidly approaching, is even now touching
with its finger the startled nations. When it shall have passed, the
world will enter upon the third and final stage of civil progress, in
which the organized power, social order, moral grandeur, religious
unity, and coöperative industry of the past epoch will be allied to the
civil liberty, social equality, intellectual culture, and practical
activity of the present. Under these combined influences humanity will
start upon a new career, whose achievements in literature, in science,
in art, in religion, in practical activities, will make even the vast
accumulations of our modern day seem to the future historian
insignificant accomplishments, 'a school-boy's tale, the wonder of an
hour.'

       *       *       *       *       *

To the American student of history his own country presents, at the
present time, a most mournful and convincing example of the inability of
intellectual agencies to secure national stability or individual
prosperity in the absence of moral strength. Here education has been
general, mental activity great, and literary culture prevalent. Here,
nevertheless, during half a century a giant wrong has held paramount
sway; dominating the sentiment, dictating the policy, controlling the
action of the Government, and, at the same time, bending commercial
interests to its purpose, giving the law to public opinion, and
directing the destiny of the republic. Not to any want of knowledge has
the reign of this tyrant been due. The slaveholding institutions of the
South are mainly sustained by men of high mental development and large
intellectual culture. The statesmen who staked the freedom of a race
against the chance of political honor, were renowned for mental vigor.
The people who turned a deaf ear to the cry of the bondmen, are
celebrated throughout the world for their intelligence.

The weakness of the nation was not intellectual, but moral. The 'selfish
pursuit of material advantages' had conquered, in the slaveowner of the
South, and in the mercantile community of the North, the love of equity
and the desire of right. Political ambition was stronger among the
statesmen of the North, than the instincts of mercy or the sense of
religious responsibility. Love of gain weighed heavier with the people
of the United States than the love of God or of their fellowmen. In vain
the voice of warning has been sounded. In vain has the republic been
urged to love mercy and to do justice. The country lay in a moral
lethargy, from which no gentle means could rouse it, and the dread
thunderbolt of war was launched to smite it into action. Through
humiliation and suffering; amid widows' tears and orphans' grief;
through struggle and privation; by the stern baptism of blood, the
nation is being awakened to its deficiencies, is being called to the
development of higher virtues.

This latest lesson of history is solemn and impressive. Fruitlessly
shall communities teem with material advantages and wealth; in vain
shall peoples increase their industrial resources; futile the
universality of education and the liberalizing results of intellectual
growth; these shall endure but for a season, as the glitter on the
waves, unless the national life is grounded on religious devotion to the
highest truth, and is practically active in securing the social welfare
of the brotherhood of man.




TREASURE-TROVE.


  A day in the heart of summer,
    A sky of that glorious hue
  That dazzles and melts like the ocean,
    In its fathomless, infinite blue!

  The topmost leaves of the maple
    Are stirred by a wondrous song,
  That swells, and dies; then rising,
    Still clearer floats along.

  Oh, where have I heard that music?
    Whence its familiar tone?
  The beauty that thrills it, trembles
    Not in the song alone:

  It dwells in sunsets, that deepen
    In the glory and gloom of night;
  In waters that glance and sparkle,
    In the hush of the lingering light.

  Like the waves of a springing river,
    That from silver fountains wells;
  Higher, and fuller, and sweeter
    That liquid melody swells.

  Oh, the haunting, dim-shadowed expression,
    That sighs on the breathless air!
  If ever a soul were in music,
    A soul is thrilling there!

  That song, with its burden immortal,
    I heard it long ago!
  I know its every cadence,
    That quivers and pulses so:

  I claim it, bird of summer!
    That wondrous song of thine;
  Though thine its tuneful utterance,
    Its melody is mine.

  Then sing till, tranced in rapture,
    The day forgets to wane;
  And the winds of heaven are silent,
    To hear that magic strain.

  Sing till the pain of thy transport
    O'erpowers each dying tone!
  Thou canst not warble a measure
    That is not all mine own.




MATTER AND SPIRIT.


Mr. Editor: In the July number of THE CONTINENTAL, I notice some
editorial remarks upon a portion of my article 'Touching the Soul,'
which appeared in the June number. For these remarks I am under
obligation to you, as pointing out the looseness of my phraseology,
whereby I have failed to convey the idea I intended; for which looseness
the only excuse must be that my mind was occupied more with the thought
than with the expression, and the latter was so absorbed in the former
as to have suffered in consequence. For it seems to me that the
strictures are due to misapprehension of the position assumed.

To commence with the assumed operation of spirit on the material world,
as seen in the action of nature: Does not the theory that the mysterious
productive forces are in their own nature spiritual verge somewhat
closely upon the dogmas of pantheism? What else than this was the belief
of the ancients, which placed a Naiad in every stream and a Dryad in
every tree? Does it not draw still nearer to Shelley's theory of a
'Spirit of Nature,' which was his God, creating, shaping, and pervading
all things? In a word, does not such a theory, in effect, place a god in
every object?

Spirit acts independently of God. And here I would not be misunderstood.
For though God, as the Author of all spiritual being, may be said to be
the indirect cause of all spiritual action, since, if he had not created
it, the action could not have resulted, yet He has created the soul to
act upon its own promptings, and entirely independent of Himself,
holding it, at the same time, to a strict accountability for all the
deeds done in the body. To deny this, is to deny the whole doctrine of
freewill agency, and with it that of all human responsibility, unless we
go to the other and blasphemous extreme of branding with cruelty and
injustice the entire system of revealed religion. In consequence, then,
of this independent action of spirit, we see the soul of man constantly
departing from its normal state, effecting evil as well as good, and
guilty of action for which its Creator can in no wise be held
responsible. And upon this simple fact hangs the whole system of future
rewards and punishments. If now we consider this force which we have
been discussing to be spiritual in its nature, it is not for us to draw
the line between it and the soul of man. Spirit, so far as it touches
our knowledge or experience, is one and the same thing the world over,
differing only in degree of its qualities. If we concede to this force
the status of spirit, we must also concede to it that essential
characteristic or faculty of spirit, _independent action_; and hence the
Creator God could not be said to have any hand whatever in the works of
this spiritual force--in other words, in the creation of any of the
features of the physical world--further than in the original creation of
the spirit which underlies and produces them. But this position is in
direct variance with the teachings of Holy Writ, wherein we are told
that He maketh every flower to bloom, every leaf to grow, and without
Him not even a sparrow falls to the ground. In fact, upon almost every
page of the sacred book is recognized and taught the fact of the direct
intervention of God, not only in human affairs, but also in every work
of nature, however minute and insignificant.

And as another result of this independent action, we should find this
spiritual force, as in the case of the human soul, frequently departing
from its normal state, deviating from the laws which now seem to control
it, and multiplying so-called 'freaks of nature,' abnormal works in the
physical world, calculated to derange the comfort of mankind and render
all things uncertain and insecure. In a word, it would be in the power
of such a force, or combination and opposition of forces, to turn the
earth again to its original chaos. With such a belief, then, we must
assume that God has delegated the care of the material world to other
hands of His own creation, and left the comfort and well-being of
humanity at the mercy of another spirit, no wiser and perhaps not even
so far advanced in the scale of progress as itself.

But it seems to me that the mysterious productive forces of nature can
in no wise be called spiritual. Certainly spirit 'animates, informs, and
shapes the universe,' in the sense that all things are created and all
agencies are kept in operation by an all-powerful God, who is himself
pure Spirit, but in no other sense; for God makes use of certain
principles or laws to accomplish all things in this world of ours. That
unknown force which vivifies the seed and produces the stalk, the blade,
and the ear, which clothes the earth with verdure, and which underlies
and induces all the works of nature, is not a thinking, reasoning
spirit, like that which renders humanity godlike; but a principle--a
law--a mere agency whereby the Almighty effects his designs, which is
wholly controlled by him, dependent upon him for its very existence, and
which in each individual instance ceases to be with the accomplishment
of its end; a principle which humanity cannot comprehend, and with which
human spirit can have no sympathy or connection except as it excites
wonder and admiration. Under this view all the objects of nature are the
products, not of spirit, but of law, which is itself the product of the
one great Creative Spirit whereby all things are. Even if we admit that
so subtle is the connection between the spirit and the law, the law and
the material object, that matter may, after all, be said to be the work
of and acted upon by spirit, yet it will be seen that even in this
instance, spirit does not act directly upon matter, but only through
certain intermediate agencies, of which more anon; while, in the matter
under discussion, the direct action of spirit upon matter is assumed by
the so-called spiritualists.

Again, in regard to the connection of the soul with the organized frame,
nothing is better established than the mutual action and reaction
between the mind and body. A volume of truth is contained in the simple
and hackneyed phrase, _Mens sana in corpore sano_. A diseased frame is
almost invariably accompanied by depression of spirits and a
disinclination, if not an absolute disability for profound thought; and,
on the other hand, a diseased mind soon makes itself manifest to the
outer world in an enfeebled and sickly frame. The merest tyro in
medical science recognizes the fact that in sickness no medicine is so
effective as cheerfulness, hope, and a determined will; while not
unfrequently the direst evil against which the physician has to contend
is despondency. And many other instances might be given of this mutual
action, which are unnecessary in this connection, since the point is
conceded.

Yet, as regards the outer world, it is nevertheless true that the soul
cannot directly perceive material objects, but only through the agency
of the physical senses. In the matter of sight and sound, the atoms of
the elastic medium must first make a material and tangible impression
upon the eye and ear, which impression is conveyed by the nerves to the
brain, where all human knowledge of the mystic process ceases. We only
know that there is an intimate connection between the nerves and the
mind established in the brain--which is the fountain head of
both--whereby the mind receives this subtile impression and thereby
becomes cognizant of the object which is its original cause. The same
thing is true of all the other senses. Destroy now any one of these
bodily senses, and the soul at once becomes dead to all that class of
impressions which before were conveyed through that medium. Destroy the
sight, and the mind can have no cognizance whatever of material objects
save through the sense of touch--for our knowledge of matter through the
senses of hearing, taste, and smell, is one of experience alone, which,
aided by sight and touch, has taught us in the past that where sound,
taste, or odor exist, there must be matter to produce these impressions.
Destroy, then, if it were possible, this sense of touch, and our
absolute perception of objects is entirely lost--the connection between
the outer world and the perceptive faculties of the mind is dissolved
forever. The truth of this position is seen in the fact that in a swoon,
when all the senses are benumbed, the mind is utterly unconscious of its
surroundings.

Again, to go to the other end of the chain--admitting that the force
which resides in the material points and produces the vibration in the
elastic medium is spiritual in its nature, do we not find that this
force never produces an impression upon the senses, and through them
upon the mind, except through the intermediate agency of a material
object? The object itself must exist before the force can act, and hence
arises our confidence in the evidence of our senses. Were it otherwise,
indeed, our whole life would be one of uncertainty, of innumerable
deceptions, a mere wandering about in a mist of delusions worse than
those of a maniac. And if this force could act upon our perceptions
without a material point in which to reside, is it not reasonable to
suppose that it would occasionally so do, and that we should sometimes
perceive effects for which we could find no cause in the material
world--no connection with matter? Yet in the whole range of human
experience no such thing is known. Even the phenomena which we call
optical illusions arise from certain derangements of the atomic
particles of the medium through which the impression is conveyed.

From this course of reasoning two plain deductions arise, either of
which is disastrous to the spiritualistic theory. For if we deny, as I
have done, that this hidden, mysterious force is spiritual in its
nature, we have in all our knowledge and experience no _instance_ of the
direct action of spirit upon matter. While, if we _acknowledge_ that
fact, we have still no instance of spirit so acting upon the medium
through which we receive our physical perceptions as to produce an
impression through the senses upon the mind, without the intervention of
a material point.

Is it reasonable, then, to suppose that in this our age, for the first
time, a single solitary manifestation of this supernatural power should
occur, as claimed by the spiritualists, unaccompanied by any analogous
contemporary or corroborative fact of the same or of a different nature?
To admit this is to admit one of three things: 1st, that both the
physical senses and spiritual constitution of humanity have undergone a
sudden and wonderful change; 2dly, that the Almighty has entirely
altered his mode of communication with mankind; or, 3dly, that the whole
world of spirits has been let loose to wander at will over the universe
and space!

But admitting, as all must do, that there is in each individual human
organism an intimate and mysterious connection, through the nerves and
brain, between the spirit and the senses, the fact that this is the only
known connection, direct or indirect, between matter and spirit, seems
to me to argue that there is no other perceptible one. For, if there
were any such, designed in any way to affect our perceptions, mental,
moral, or physical, would it not, in some one of its phases, have been
made manifest through all the past ages of the world? That such a
connection has never been discovered is proof sufficient that no such
was ever intended by the Supreme Being to affect mankind in any way,
_unless_ we admit that the spiritual and religious necessities of
mankind, and, in fact, the very constitution itself of human spirit, are
entirely different from what they have been in the ages gone by, and
require not only a different pabulum, but also a different mode of
dealing at the hands of the Almighty: in a word, that the very essence
of religion is progressive.

If these positions be correct, the discussion is narrowed down to the
consideration of the relations of the spirit as connected with the
organized frame. And this brings us to another very natural deduction.

Every schoolboy knows the story of the wonderful clock whose inventor
was blinded by the order of his sovereign, that he might not be able to
repeat his work for any rival power; and how, many years afterward, when
the memory of his person had passed away from those who had known him in
his younger days, he groped his way back to the scene of his former
labors, and, guided by a lad to the tower which enclosed the already
famous work of art, under pretence of listening once more to its chimes,
he suddenly, with his scissors, severed a single small wire, and the
wonderful performances were closed forever. No artist thereafter could
be found to restore the work, for none other than the inventor was
acquainted with its mechanism, or could discover the secret of its
operation. And so it remained a silent monument to the ingratitude of a
sovereign and the revenge of a victim of the most barbarous cruelty. And
yet the principle was still there uninjured, and as capable of operation
as ever before, yet forever dead to that complicated mechanism, since
the single connecting rod was severed which bound the idea to its only
means of action--the immaterial to the material--the soul to the body.
The mechanism too was as perfect as ever, in all its constituent parts,
but forever silent and inoperative from lack of connection with the idea
upon which it depended. Side by side lay the principle and its means of
manifestation, separated only by the infinitesimal portion of space
which divided the parts of the broken wire, yet as effectually separated
as if worlds had rolled between them. Unite again these slender
fragments, and both would again spring to life, unimpaired in their
workings, and as brilliant as ever; but without this restoration both
must remain forever dead.

Even such is the connection between the soul and body. A system of
slender wires--more slender by far than the most attenuated thread of
human construction--connects the more than ethereal spirit with the
wonderful mechanism of the human body. And so long as this intimate
connection is maintained intact we have the living, breathing,
reasoning being, the image of his Creator, the most wonderful
manifestation of Almighty power. But once these slender wires are
parted, and the soul separated from the body by death, the relation of
that man's spirit with the material world is dissolved forever. The
senses of the body are the only medium through which the soul can act
upon or receive impressions from the world of matter, and between them
and it, once so intimately associated, there is now a great gulf
fixed--the gulf which separates time from eternity. Henceforth the body,
deprived of the lifegiving principle, its end accomplished, which was
only to serve as a temporary dwelling for the soul in its time of trial
and probation, goes swiftly to decay, and returns to its original dust.
But the soul lives on for another world and a different stage of
existence, entirely free from the trials and sufferings and sorrows of
this. Its mission here is fully accomplished, and it has nothing further
to do with the material. Only that Almighty Power which created it can
restore its association with a perception of matter, and that by
reuniting the broken chord--the silver chord which bound it to its
prison walls of clay. Henceforth it is to deal only with pure spirit and
as pure spirit; it has a nobler destiny before it, and higher and more
glorious objects to employ its powers and engross its emotions and
affections than any that earth can afford; and to maintain that it can
again return and mingle in the affairs of a sordid world is to degrade
it from its new and more glorious eminence--to drag it down from the
sublime, the eternal, and the godlike, to the insignificant, the
ephemeral, and the human.

Yet it is not to be assumed that matter and spirit are _opposed_ to each
other in any other respect than that of constitution--of construction,
if the term is allowable. As in color white and black are the opposite
extremes of a long line of causes and effects, and as one is the
synonyme for utter absence of the other, so, and so only, are matter and
spirit opposite poles to each other; and we frequently use the terms
ethereal, _spiritual_, to denote the strongest contrast to the
substantial, the material. And so, in just the degree in which any
object departs from the substantial and lacks the properties of the
material, do we say that it approaches the spiritual. Yet, even as in
nature we find not only objects, but even forces, of entirely different
and even opposite origin and construction working in perfect harmony, so
matter and spirit may exist together, and work in harmony, though acting
independently of each other, and incapable of producing upon each other
what, for lack of a better word, we may call physical effects.

It was not attempted, in the article referred to, to disprove the
phenomena of spiritualism by the above mode of reasoning, but simply to
deny and disprove the intervention of the supernatural in their
origin--to show, in fact, that disembodied spirit can by no possibility
have anything to do with their production. That the phenomena certainly
exist is not to be denied, and the only question which puzzles the
philosophical mind of the age is whence do they arise. If these
manifestations are due to the tricks of legerdemain, it is certain that
the jugglery is so cunningly devised and skilfully executed as hitherto
to have baffled the detective ingenuity as well as the deep wisdom of
the most profound minds of the age. Philosophy is no nearer the solution
of the question than at the beginning; yet as the process of inquiry
goes on, there is little doubt that the investigation will develop the
little knowledge now possessed, and perhaps bring to light new facts in
regard to the relation between matter and spirit as it exists in the
body. Possibly it may some day, in the far future, be discovered that
these phenomena are due to some at present undiscovered connection
between the mind and will of the medium and the material objects of his
immediate surroundings. At present man's knowledge of the properties and
workings of the spirit within him is infinitesimal in quantity and
degree, and, if this inquiry shall, by making humanity better acquainted
with its immortal part, open new paths of research to human intellect,
and add to the world's comparatively slender stock of knowledge of
spiritual things, or of the natural forces which are constantly working
around and within us, then will spiritualism, with all its errors and
its dangerous tendencies, prove to have been one of the blessings of
this age.

And, in passing, it may be well here to mention an incident, for the
truth of which the writer can vouch, and which may, perhaps, throw some
light upon this vexed question, or give a clue to some earnest searcher
into the cause of this mystery.

A gentleman, being for the first time in his life in the city of
Cincinnati, where he had not a single acquaintance, and having long been
anxious to test this spiritualistic second sight, on the evening of his
arrival muffled himself closely and attended a 'circle.' Summoning the
spirit of a distant relation long deceased, he inquired first into his
name, age, and residence; all of which were given correctly. Not a
little startled with this result, he proceeded with his inquiries, and
elicited the following information in regard to his family, viz.: that
two of his brothers, named George and Henry, died before his own birth;
that of these two George was the elder, but Henry died first. Astounded
at the accuracy of these replies, he waited to hear no more, but at once
left the circle, with his own faith quivering in the balance.

On returning to his home, he related these circumstances to an elder
sister, within whose recollection the birth and death of these children
had occurred. She listened attentively to the close, and then quietly
informed him that both the spirits and himself were in error, for that
Henry was the elder and George died first. As these questions of age and
date were the strongest points made by him in his spiritual
consultation, and the points most relied upon to test the accuracy of
the replies, this revelation at once upset all his doubts and fears, and
restored him again to the faith of his fathers. He himself had always
believed the facts to be as he had heard them from the medium, they
having, by some means, been reversed in his mind in the absence of any
other knowledge in the premises than that derived from hearsay, and that
too long gone by.

Now, in this instance, the mind of the medium was clearly _en rapport_
with that of the inquirer, and hence all the errors of the latter had
been closely followed. The facts were given not as they really were, but
as they existed in the mind of the inquirer. In other words, his mind
was read by the medium as an open book. And while, in this case, this
close copying of error at once precluded the idea of supernatural
agency, the facts are interesting as furnishing a new line of inquiry,
by showing that, in this instance at least--and if in this, why not in
others?--the phenomena of spiritualism were closely allied to those of
clairvoyance and mesmerism, and that the path of investigation into all
these mysteries may be pursued by one and the same course of reasoning.

But whether the cause of these mysteries is to be found in jugglery, in
some subtile connection between mind and matter, in animal magnetism, or
in any other of the thousand new branches of natural or mental science,
it must in the end be found--if found at all--to depend upon purely
natural laws--laws fixed and undeviating in the very constitution of
things, and which would have worked as well a thousand years ago as
to-day. The supernatural is entirely excluded from the investigation,
for that is a world beyond humanity's ken, into which no mortal may
peer. If the world of disembodied spirits have any connection whatever
with these wonderful and mystical phenomena, the question must ever
remain as perplexing and mysterious as it is to-day.

But human intellect is progressive. Age after age brings man nearer to
the comprehension of the myriad wonders that surround him, though he
must ever remain, while fettered to the earth and blinded by the body,
unable to grasp and comprehend the Infinite. And the time will come,
perhaps not in this age, nor even in its successor, when this perplexing
problem shall be solved, and the hidden truths of to-day be as clear as
the noonday sun.

And if not here, then hereafter. Ah! that hereafter! how much of
spiritual knowledge it involves! how much of manifestation of eternal
truth and clearing up of mysteries! Into what a sea of knowledge does
the spirit glide when it departs from the body! Every wave in that
illimitable ocean of space is freighted with wisdom, every sound is the
tone of undying truth, every breath is redolent of divine wisdom. We
wonder now at the wisdom of the sages of our own and of ages gone by--at
the learning, the profundity, the astonishing acquirements of the
Newtons, the Lockes, the Bacons, the Franklins, and the Humboldts. But
when we shall stand, in all the nakedness of pure, unfettered spirit,
within the confines of the spirit land, and gaze with all the clearness
of unveiled spiritual vision upon the wonderful mechanism of the
universe and of the spirit world; when we see--as we shall see--laws and
principles, and even abstract truths, as plainly as we now look upon the
material objects around us; when, indeed, nothing shall be hidden from
our view, and questions which are now too intricate for the wisest minds
to solve, and others which are now too profoundly mysterious for human
intellect to comprehend or even conceive, shall seem as axioms which
need no argument, and which a child can perceive; when, finally, the
mysteries of God himself are revealed to our progressive souls, then how
contemptibly insignificant will appear the learning of the wisest of
earth's sages! how infinitesimal the wisdom of Solomon himself! For to
such knowledge we must and shall attain; knowledge wisely barred from
our attainment in this earthly existence, lest in our presumption we
should rebel against God, and, like Lucifer of old, endeavor to make
ourselves equal to Him who is the Author of our spiritual being. Yet in
every soul is implanted a yearning for this forbidden knowledge, an
undying thirst, which can never be satiated in this life, for but a
single draught of that wisdom and truth which flows like a sea about the
great white throne. And it is this which makes me comprehend how even an
unregenerated soul--and how much more the Christian--can long for that
which we call death, but which is but the initiation into the mysteries
of the Beyond. It is this which, even aside from religious aspirations
and fears, wraps our departure in an awful sublimity. To die that we may
KNOW--to give up the transitory, the perishing, the earthly, that we may
grasp the all-enduring, the imperishable, the divine; to pass from
blindness to far-stretching, unimpeded sight! to be able at a single
glance to count the very stars of heaven, and to see the network of laws
which bind them in their places, and control, not only their motions,
but the minutest particulars of their internal organism; and, above and
greater than all, to comprehend the relation between the soul and its
God. Here is an existence worthy of spirit which is the image of its
God--an existence which will give full scope for the exercise of those
faculties which can only act so feebly here--the only existence for
which any soul should pine. Strange that humanity should so shudder at
the thought of death! And stranger still, that the searcher for wisdom
should not seek it in the preparation for that future life where alone
true wisdom can be gained.

And as for questions such as this which we have been discussing, it is,
after all, enough for us to know that all will some day be revealed;
enough for us to know that there are other duties incumbent upon us,
other interests more vital to our spiritual well-being, than that of
peering into these hidden mysteries, which do not at all concern our
present existence, which do not promote our present or future happiness,
or help us forward on our eternal road.

  EGBERT PHELPS.


REPLY TO THE ABOVE.

MATTER AND SPIRIT.--Our contributor, under this title, has entered upon
a boundless field of speculation, in which we have no thought of
following him to any considerable distance. A metaphysical discussion of
this character would scarcely be appropriate to the pages of THE
CONTINENTAL; and our readers would doubtless find the controversy
uninteresting, if not altogether unprofitable. We, however, cheerfully
insert the paper offered by Lieutenant Phelps, on account of the spirit
of earnest piety and love of truth which seem to pervade it; and we
shall confine ourselves here to the briefest possible comment which will
enable us to make understood our grounds of dissent.

We demur to the suggestion that our ideas, as expressed in the July
number, have necessarily any affinity to 'the dogmas of pantheism.' We
then wrote thus: 'It is spirit only that animates, informs, and shapes
the whole universe. Wherever law prevails (and where does it not?),
there is intelligence, spirit, soul, acting to sustain it, during every
moment of its operation.' Can anyone seriously question the correctness,
and even the entire orthodoxy of this statement? In truth, we do not
understand that our contributor himself denies it absolutely, but only
in a qualified sense, as we shall presently show. Of course, it could be
no other spirit than the Deity, to which our language would be
applicable; and we do not see how it can in any way derogate from His
attributes, to represent him as acting, by an exertion of spiritual
power, to sustain and uphold his creation, during every moment of its
existence.

Nor can we comprehend the pertinence of our contributor's disquisition
on the great question of free will and necessity, as applicable to our
ideas of the relations existing between mind and matter. 'Spirit acts
independently of God,' says he. We might well question the truth of this
assertion; but we may equally well admit it, so far as any inference may
be drawn against the positions we have assumed. The question is not
whether the soul of man is compelled to action according to the law of
its creation, or is permitted by spontaneous choice to follow its own
independent will. This is not point of disagreement; for we have
expressed no opinion on this subject, nor upon any other which involves
it. On the contrary, we took the question to be simply whether there can
be, in the nature of things, any relations of reciprocal influence and
mutual coöperation between mind and matter. If this be not the question
at issue, both our contributor and ourselves are engaged in a fruitless
attempt to enlighten each other. We are well aware that his digression
from the main argument to the disputed question of free will, is made
for the purpose of attempting to show that all spiritual agency must be
like that which he claims for the soul of man--that is to say, it must
have a free will, 'constantly departing from its normal state,' acting
irregularly and according to the freaks of its own spontaneity. And
because there is no such caprice and irregularity in the operation of
the laws of nature, the inference is drawn that they cannot be the
evidences of spiritual power, in the forces which they govern.

Upon this point there seems to be a radical difference of understanding
between our contributor and ourselves. Be it pantheism, or whatever any
one else may choose to call it, we entertain the very simple belief that
the ultimate laws of nature, impressed upon the material world, are
nothing less than the direct power of the Almighty upholding the
universe, and controlling all its operations throughout all time from
the origin of the creation to its end, if it shall have one. We cannot
look upon the system of nature as a piece of machinery, wound up and set
a-going, and destined to run its appointed course, with only an
occasional glance of its Author to interfere with its regular working.
We do not suppose that this constant exercise of power imposes any
burden upon the Author of the creation; nor are we conscious of any
diminution of his glory, or any denial of his absolute personality, when
we consider him as being ever present in all his works, 'animating,
informing, and shaping them,' by the perpetual exertion of his
omnipotent will.

We do not, by any means, understand our contributor as denying the
agency of the Almighty in the establishment of general laws; but his
view of the subject is totally different from ours. If we have not
misconceived his meaning entirely, he considers the laws of nature as
something independent of the operations which they control--a _tertium
quid_ interposed between the creator and his work. God is the author;
law is the active agent; and material changes are the results. Law is
not spirit; and therefore matter is not moved and controlled by spirit.
We entirely disclaim any want of respect for our contributor and his
thoughts; but we must express our surprise that he should resort to this
clumsy and unphilosophical theory, in order to deny the direct agency of
spirit in the operations of nature. Law is not separate and distinct
from the phenomena which it regulates. It is only a rule or principle,
as he himself admits, 'which ceases to be with the accomplishment of its
end.' This rule or principle, which implies intelligence and will, must
be in the mind of the Author, who operates in accordance with it, and
not in the mere matter whose changes it controls. Yet our author
strangely says, 'all the objects of nature are the products, not of
spirit, but of law, which is itself the product of the one great
Creative Spirit whereby all things are.'

But let us admit that this extraordinary theory is sound, and that LAW
is the active agent which controls all physical phenomena. Now this
thing, called LAW, must be either spirit or matter, or a compound of
both. If it be spirit, then it acts upon matter directly; if, on the
contrary, it be itself matter, then spirit acts upon it; and, finally,
if it be a compound of the two, then it affords still stronger evidence
of reciprocal effects, which are decisive of the whole question in
dispute. We are conscious, however, that this reasoning is almost
puerile; for laws are mere abstractions, and not actual entities. They
indicate the mode in which causes produce effects; in other words, they
are signs of the intention and purpose with which the Great Spirit
carries on all his mighty works.

It is hardly necessary, in order to sustain our position, to follow the
steps of our contributor, in his attempted investigation of the mode of
communication between the human soul and the outer world, through the
senses. Many of his ideas might afford ground for interesting comment.
But the point in dispute is too distinct and circumscribed to require
many words for its elucidation. It is sufficient to say that in the
process of perception through sensation, there must be some point of
contact, at which the mind and the material object perceived by it are
brought into the relations of mutual influence. Whenever a material
object is cognized, there is a direct effect of matter upon the mind.
And so, likewise, in every case of voluntary muscular exertion, the
mandate of the will is communicated through the nerves, and the spirit
thus acts directly upon matter. No refinement of theory will avail to
get rid of these obvious facts; for, whatever intermediate agencies may
be imagined by way of explanation, they leave the ultimate truth
indisputable, that in some mysterious way, spirit and matter do
effectually operate upon each other.

We are in no degree committed to the doctrines of modern spiritualism,
and we shall not take issue with our contributor in his vehement protest
against the belief that disembodied spirits ever visit 'the warm
precincts of the cheerful day,' and make themselves known to living
mortals. An orthodox Christian, however, might have some hesitation, in
view of certain passages of Scripture, in utterly denying the
_possibility_ of such phenomena; and every reader of history and student
of philosophy might well exclaim with Tennyson:

                    'Dare I say
    No spirit ever brake the band
    That stays him from the native land
  Where first he walked when wrapped in clay?'

But we are quite as far from having asserted the existence of such
preternatural phenomena, and we shall surely not attempt to establish
facts of which we have no experience whatever. All that we have done has
been merely to question the validity of that curt and summary argument,
which assumes that matter and spirit are incapable of acting upon each
other, and in this way cuts off all investigation.

We were somewhat disappointed and discouraged as we followed our
contributor into that passage in which he seems to think that after
death, the soul of man is removed beyond all knowledge of material
things, and becomes incapable of ever perceiving their existence. It is
true, this is but the logical deduction from his premises; and yet we
felt some emotions of terror--some shrinking from that great and
impassable gulf which he represents as then to be fixed between us and
the objects of our life-long acquaintance--'the gulf which separates
time from eternity.' But we were soon relieved; for in the conclusion of
his article he waxes eloquent upon the higher faculties with which the
soul will doubtless be endowed in its new state of existence, and with
apparent unconsciousness of all inconsistency, assumes the very opposite
of the whole preceding part of his argument. 'But,' he exclaims, 'when
we shall stand in all the nakedness of _pure, unfettered spirit_,' 'and
gaze with all the clearness of unveiled spiritual vision _upon the
wonderful mechanism of the universe_,' etc. We might inquire of our
author how, upon his principles, with merely spiritual vision, we can
expect to behold anything so gross and material as the mechanism of the
universe; but we overlook and forgive the apparent inconsistency--we are
willing ourselves to be vanquished in the argument--for the sake of the
noble idea that we may hereafter 'pass from blindness to far-stretching,
unimpeded sight,' and 'be able at a glance _to count the very stars_,
and to see the network of laws which binds them to their places, and
controls, not only their motions, but the minutest particulars of their
internal organism.' We are thankful, at all events, that, though matter
and spirit may be so far apart in this our mortal state of existence, in
the spiritual world, at least, we shall not lose all memory and
knowledge of the grand material creation, of which we have learned so
little here, but shall still be able, with even clearer vision, to
perceive and comprehend the works of God, and, in the light of a nobler
understanding, to adore the unfathomable wisdom which the Omnipotent
Spirit has displayed in the arrangements of the boundless universe--the
magnificent dwelling place of his creature man.

  F. P. S.




EXTRATERRITORIALITY IN CHINA.[10]


History pays no more than a just tribute to commerce, when she accords
to that agency important civilizing influences; yet it must be admitted
that it has frequently pursued a tortuous course, has often been
unscrupulous in the means that it has employed, and has not always been
reciprocal in its advantages. Like religion, it has been used as an
opening wedge to conquest. As the establishment of a factory in Bengal
prepared the way for the battle of Plassy, so the founding of a mission
in Manilla led to the subjugation of the Philippines. Or as, in our day,
opium breached the walls of China, so the Society of Jesus, by its labor
in Anam, has caused the dismemberment of that empire. British commerce
demanded for its development successive wars. Gallican religion exacts
from each dynasty the employment of the sword as an auxiliary of
propagandism.

These aggressions have been facilitated by the assumption, on the part
of Christian powers, of the exemption of their subjects from local
jurisdiction in Mohammedan and pagan countries. A factory or a mission
is established, which, from the outset, is an _imperium in imperio_, and
becomes a permanent conspiracy which soon finds causes of complaint
against the government of the land in which, without invitation, its
members have become domiciled. Essentially this is filibusterism, more
dangerous because more insidious than an armed invasion; it has caused
nearly all the collisions which have occurred in oriental and occidental
intercourse. If, in the discussions that have arisen on eastern
questions, this consideration of the subject had not been wholly
ignored, the courses pursued by western powers would be even less
defensible than they have been made to appear. No one can arrive at
correct conclusions on questions affecting China, Japan, Siam and other
pagan states without an attentive consideration of the claims which
those weak countries have upon us in view of their being compelled to
join the family of nations, and render themselves amenable to
international law, while they are debarred from the semblance of
reciprocity.

Extraterritoriality originated in the Levant. The mercantile
establishments that sprang up in Western Asia and Northern Africa, as
Moslem power began to wane, partook of a semi-official character; being
recognized as an appendage of the diplomatic corps of that country, it
became the practice to accord to the trading Frank the exemption from
local jurisdiction which was accorded to the official representative of
his country.

This abdication of authority, on the part of those states, has been
effected gradually, and the usurpation on the part of Christian powers
has only been perfected and secured by treaty in our own day. Great
Britain, in her treaty with the emperor of Morocco (1760), agreed that
'if there shall happen any quarrel or dispute between an Englishman and
a Mussulman, by which any of them shall receive detriment, the same
shall be heard and determined by the emperor _alone_.'

In the following year we find the sublime Porte, in a treaty with
Prussia, jealously guarding Turkish interterritorial rights, stipulating
that the Ottoman tribunals should take cognizance of cases arising
between Prussian subjects and those of the Porte. All that the Porte was
then willing to concede, was the presence of the Prussian consul at
such trials, and the privilege of adjudicating in disputes arising
between his countrymen.

In the treaty between France and Algiers (1764), it was agreed that
offences occurring at _sea_, should be tried by the French consul, when
the offender was a Frenchman; and by the dey, when the offender was an
Algerine. And, at the same time, in her treaty with Morocco, France
merely secured the stipulation that 'if a Frenchman should strike a
subject of Morocco, he shall be tried only in presence of his consul,
who shall defend his cause, and he shall be judged impartially.' A
French edict of 1778, in reference to the duties of consuls, alludes to
trials occurring in Constantinople, which clearly admit interterritorial
jurisdiction. The Republic, in 1801, also admitted that right on the
part of Moslem states.

Algiers, in her treaty with Denmark (1792), expressly provides for
jurisdiction over the Danes in her dominion.

Russia negotiated a treaty, in 1783, with the Porte, stipulating only
for the privilege of exercising jurisdiction through her ministers or
consuls, in cases of quarrels between Russians.

Spain was content, in 1784, to secure from Tripoli the presence in a
Tripolitan court of a Spanish consul on the trial of a Spaniard.

Our own country uniformly conceded to Barbary powers entire jurisdiction
over our resident citizens. The treaty with Morocco (1787) reads: 'When
a citizen of the United States kills or wounds a subject of Morocco, or
if a subject of Morocco kills or wounds a citizen of the United States,
the laws of the country are to be followed; equal justice, and the
presence of the consul, being alone stipulated for.' And in the treaty
with Algiers (1816), we merely require that the 'sentence of punishment
of an American citizen shall not be greater, or more severe, than it
would be against a Turk in the same predicament.'

With Tunis there was the same understanding. Again, in the treaty of
1836, with Morocco, no claim is made for jurisdiction by us over our
citizens; the presence of the consul at a trial being deemed a
sufficient guarantee for an equitable trial; showing, that up to that
date Morocco resisted the extraterritorial aggression to which the
Ottoman power had already yielded.

So far as appears from Marten's _Recueil des Traités_, the Sublime Porte
was the first to yield the point, suffering it to go by default,
however, of exempting resident foreigners from local jurisdiction,
rather than by a formal abdication of authority in a treaty. The
earliest admission that we have met with, strange to say, occurs in the
United States' treaty, negotiated with Turkey in 1830. 'If litigation
and disputes should arise between subjects of the Sublime Porte and
citizens of the United States, the parties shall not be heard, nor shall
judgment be pronounced, unless the American dragoman be present.
Citizens of the United States, committing an offence, shall not be
arrested and put to prison by the local authorities, but they shall be
tried by their minister or consul, and punished according to their
offence, following in this respect the _usage_ observed toward other
Franks.'

With Persia, in 1856, we stipulated only that the American consul shall
be present at the tribunal, when Americans are parties in a trial.

Our earliest treaty in Eastern Asia was negotiated in 1833, with Siam,
with which power we agreed, 'that merchants of the United States,
trading in the kingdom of Siam, shall respect and _follow_ the laws and
_customs_ of the country in _all_ points'--conceding not only
interterritoriality to the fullest extent; but making it the duty of
American traders to creep on all fours when in the presence of a high
functionary of that kingdom, and to become orthodox Buddhists!
Inadvertently, no doubt, going farther than Joel Barlow, who thought it
expedient in his treaty with Tripoli (1797) to insert a sort of
disclaimer against Christianity, inserting in the treaty, 'the
Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the
Christian religion,' a sort of offset, in accordance with the fashion of
the period, to the Austrian treaty of nearly the same date, which was
negotiated in the name of the 'Most Holy Trinity.'

As regards Mohammedan countries, it is not likely that grave evils will
soon arise from the exempting of foreigners from local jurisdiction;
there is yet so much vigor in the government of those states, and so
much vindictiveness toward the giaour foreigners there will be deterred
from those practices which render them a terror to the more servile
people of Buddhist countries. But the extension of the principle to
Eastern Asia has been extremely disastrous to the peoples of those
countries, and has not been unattended by inimical reflex influences on
the wrong doers of the West.

To understand the operation of extraterritorial jurisdiction, let us
suppose the principle to be applied to ourselves. A European merchant or
sailor inflicts corporal chastisement on one of our citizens in
Broadway, and the prestige which the foreigner enjoys, precludes
interference on the part of bystanders and police. If the New Yorker
happens to be desirous of obtaining redress, he must first discover and
identify the assailant, and next ascertain his nationality. [A Chinaman,
in like circumstances, would find as much trouble in arriving at the
truth, as if he were to attempt the investigation of the assailant's
pedigree; he knows as little of our nationalities as we do of the forty
tribes of Borneo.] Our persevering citizen succeeds at length in lodging
a complaint at the consulate of the offender. The consul is perhaps a
fellow merchant of the defendant, or head of the firm to which the
offender is consigned. The complainant is accommodated with a blundering
interpreter, and the case is tried according to the foreigner's code,
which, on such occasions, is endowed with more than wonted elasticity.
If, contrary to all probability, the foreigner is convicted, the citizen
has the satisfaction of seeing the foreign assailant placed in
confinement on the consul's premises, or perhaps mulcted to a small
amount; and with this administration of justice, he and his country must
be content. Who does not see that such an abdication of authority on our
part would lead to the perpetration of wrongs that would soon become
unendurable, even if we were first to become a broken spirited people?
And, considering the arrogance and recklessness of many foreigners in
China, and the pusillanimous character of the natives, what can be
expected but contempt and aggression on one side, and mistrust and
finesse on the other? What but a chronic discontent, wholly incompatible
with healthful commerce and peaceful intercourse, can be expected from
such a state of things? Consider further that this occurs among a people
of the highest antiquity, with a history and a civilization of which
they are justly proud; who, in political and moral science, were in
advance of Greece and Rome, at a time when those, whom they now
designate 'barbarians,' really were so. When our ancestors were half
naked savages, the Chinese were a polished literary people. In calling
attention to this subject we do so, not less in the interest of our
oriental clients than in that of our own lands; for our relations with
the empire of China will, with the growth of our power on the Pacific,
assume such importance, that good policy demands that we should avoid
any course likely to render hostile such a large portion of the human
race. Many years ago we deprecated Chinese emigration into California,
on the ground that, as _prolétaires_, they would degrade labor, and
leave that State without its most important element of strength; yet to
the Chinese, in their own country, we would pursue a conciliatory
instead of a domineering course.

Hardly had the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope, when the
Chinese, who had but imperfectly resisted aggression from neighboring
countries, began to suffer annoyance from the 'barbarians from the
Western Ocean.' At an early day the Portuguese established a factory at
the mouth of the river on which Ningpo is situated. The factory became a
colony, and the colony a little state. 'At the origin of colonies,' says
M. Cochin, 'we find in general two men, a filibuster and a missionary.
To go so far, one must have either a devil in his body, or God in his
heart. When to these two men is joined a third--a ruler--all goes on
well; the first subjugates, the second converts, and the third
organizes.' All these went to work in China: as elsewhere, affairs went
on well as regards filibuster, missionary, and ruler. Courts of justice,
hospitals, seminaries, and military posts were established. Natives
joined the colonists in large numbers, adopting the foreign dress,
customs, and religion, without a moment's hesitation. If the Chinese had
been as few in number as the Aztecs, a Portuguese dominion would soon
have arisen in Cathay; but the raids made by the colonists, the slaying
of villagers, the violation and carrying off of women, the cruelty and
robberies of the Christians, became so intolerable that the whole region
was aroused, and the colonists exterminated. From that period Europeans
were rigorously restricted to the port of Canton, and the coast enjoyed
quiet, except interrupted by an occasional buccaneer, until the present
century, when the opium traffic brought violent men to every port.

The Portuguese were not the only sufferers from trespassing upon the
soil of China. Twenty Japanese filibusters were boiled to death in the
streets of Ningpo, by order of an envoy of their country, who then
(1406) happened to be in Peking. All their intercourse with foreigners
seemed to confirm Chinamen in the belief that the barbarians were in
their dispositions like wild beasts, unamenable to reason, and to be
treated accordingly.

With feelings of mutual mistrust and hostility, commerce was long
conducted by Europeans and Chinese at Canton. The question of foreign
exemption from local jurisdiction only came up for discussion in cases
of homicide; but in every instance the Chinese insisted on their right
to punish the murderer. Foreign resistance to the claim was based only
on the unwillingness of the Chinese to distinguish between killing by
accident, in self-defence, or from malice. In the Chinese code such
distinctions exist; but life for life was the inexorable demand when a
native was slain by a foreigner; it was not, however, so much jealousy
of foreign jurisdiction, as a desire of revenge, that actuated them, as
was shown on many occasions. Whenever foreigners tried and executed one
of their number for a murder of a Chinaman, the mandarins and people
were satisfied. It was the practice of the local authorities to make a
representation to the emperor to the effect that such trials and
executions were in obedience to their orders, the foreigners being their
submissive agents. The real difficulties occurred when an accidental or
extenuating homicide took place, or where there was insufficient proof
of the guilt of the accused. The condign punishment of those convicted
did not meet the requirements of the Chinese authorities. They seized,
and held as hostages, countrymen of the murderer, and demanded blood for
blood, seeking not justice but revenge. The object was explicitly
expressed by the emperor Kienlung, in an edict (1749): 'It is incumbent
to have life for life, in order to frighten and repress the foreigner.'

Four years subsequent to the issuing of the edict of Kienlung, the
Canton local government memorialized the emperor to disallow to
foreigners the privilege of appeal, when sentenced to death. Except in
times of insurrection no Chinaman can be executed until his death
warrant is signed by the emperor. In compliance with that memorial,
foreigners, guilty of homicide, were outlawed. It was formally announced
that 'The barbarians are like beasts, and not to be ruled on the same
principles as citizens. Were any to attempt controlling them by the
great maxim of reason, it would tend to nothing but confusion. The
ancient kings well understood this, and accordingly ruled barbarians by
misrule. Therefore, to rule barbarians by misrule is the true way of
ruling them.' It suited the purpose of European residents at Canton to
descant upon the arrogance and inhumanity of the Chinese, as manifested
by proceedings based upon those hostile edicts, while the provocations
which explained and extenuated them were studiously concealed.

Considered apart from the misdemeanors of foreigners, the measures of
the Chinese authorities justified the appeal to arms by the nation,
whose interests were chiefly concerned in commercial dealings with that
empire. The supremacy claimed by the Chinese over all countries
occasioned frequent altercations between the mandarins at Canton and the
English officers who were in charge of the East India Company's factory
in that city. Hostile collisions were, however, comparatively
unfrequent, owing to the authority exercised over all British subjects
by the East India Company, that body having authority to deport any of
their countrymen who acted disorderly. Their proceedings in that way
gave a tone to the entire foreign community, and as intercourse was
restricted to a single port, where the people were jealous, and
mandarins vigilant, murderous affrays did not often take place; yet,
when they did occur, the Chinese were resolute in claiming jurisdiction
in each instance. In cases of assault, pecuniary recompense always
satisfied the complainant; and in business transactions mutual
confidence in each other's integrity rendered official intervention
unnecessary.

Thus, except in cases of homicide, the foreign claim of exemption from
local jurisdiction was tacitly admitted, and no inconvenience followed.
But where life was lost, even when both the murderer and his victim were
foreigners, the right to try and execute the guilty was contended for,
and in some cases admitted. Kienlung's demand of 'life for life' was
always made, an innocent victim being not less acceptable than the real
culprit. On one occasion (1772), when a Chinaman was killed in the
Portuguese settlement of Macao, an Englishman, demanded by the Chinese,
whom the Portuguese admitted to be guiltless, was by them given up, and
by the Chinese strangled, to meet the claim of life for life. No regard
was had for those who by accident caused loss of life. In 1780 a native
was killed by the firing of a salute from an English vessel. The
mandarins decoyed the supercargo and held him as a hostage until the
gunner was delivered up. The innocent cause of the calamity was given up
under a promise from the mandarins that he should have a fair trial, and
that his life should not be endangered. He was immediately strangled. In
1821 an Italian sailor, in the service of an American merchantman, was
the indirect cause of the death of a China boatwoman, who was by the
side of his vessel. Trade was stopped until the poor man was delivered
up; the committee of American merchants, in the examination of the
sailor, protested against its irregularity. In sending the prisoner to
be strangled, they said, 'We are bound to submit to your laws, while in
your waters; be they ever so unjust, we will not resist them.' A
plausible reason for a culpable act. They should have allowed the trade
to stop, and quit the Chinese waters, rather than become parties to the
murder of the Italian.

The abrogation of the monopoly of the East India Company, and the rapid
extension of the illicit traffic in opium, caused a great influx of
foreigners into China, who often forced their way to ports where
intercourse was prohibited; these were among the causes which prepared
the way for the war with Great Britain; but the question which
precipitated that war, was one touching Chinese jurisdiction over
contraband merchandise, smuggled into the empire in defiance of the
efforts of the Chinese authorities to keep it out. Opium, the bane of
their race, was stored up in the foreigners' vessels in Chinese waters.
To obtain possession of the fatal drug, they placed the foreigners in
duresse. The opium war followed, and next the treaty of Nanking, which
secured all that Britain desired, save the legalization of the opium
traffic.

Neither in the treaty of Nanking, nor the supplementary treaty, was the
concession of exemption of British subjects from local Chinese
jurisdiction formally expressed. Security to British subjects was
guaranteed, while the British Government stipulated that they should
keep a ship of war at each port 'to restrain sailors on board the
English merchant vessels, which power the consuls may also avail
themselves of, to keep in order the merchants of Great Britain and her
colonies.'

That the Chinese regarded the principle of extraterritoriality as having
been conceded, was shown by their ready assent to the insertion in the
American treaty of a clause formally abdicating sovereignty to that
extent. Our treaty says: 'Subjects of China, who may be guilty of any
criminal act toward citizens of the United States, shall be arrested and
punished by the Chinese authorities, according to the laws of China; and
citizens of the United States, who may commit any crime in China, shall
be tried and punished by the consul or other public functionary of the
United States.' Provision was made for joint action between American and
Chinese officials in certain cases. It was also stipulated that there
should be no interference by the Chinese in any misunderstanding that
might arise between Americans and people of other foreign countries.

In the third treaty--that negotiated by the French--foreign exemption
from Chinese law was yet more explicitly declared: 'Every Frenchman, who
harbors resentment or ill will toward a Chinese, ought first to inform
the consul thereof, who will again distinctly investigate the matter,
and endeavor to settle it. If a Chinese has a grudge against a
Frenchman, the consul must impartially examine and fully arrange it for
him. But if any dispute should arise, which the consul is unable to
assuage, he will request the Chinese officer to coöperate in arranging
the matter, and having investigated the facts, justly bring the same to
a conclusion. If there is any strife between French and Chinese, or any
fight occurs in which one, two, or more men are wounded, or killed by
firearms, or other weapons, the Chinese will, in such cases, be
apprehended and punished, according to the laws of the Central Empire;
the consul will use means to apprehend the Frenchmen, speedily
investigate the matter, and punish them according to the French law.
France will in future establish laws for their punishment. All other
matters, not distinctly stated in this paragraph, will be arranged
according to this, and greater or lesser crimes committed by the French,
will be judged according to French law.'

China, stunned by the blows so unexpectedly inflicted by the barbarians,
whom she despised and thought herself able to exterminate, made no
resistance to the demands made for extraterritoriality. As a Chinaman
does not hesitate to commit suicide when excited and alarmed, so
Taukwang quietly acquiesced in terms which were fatal to the
independence of his empire. When, subsequently, the English demanded
from the Siamese similar conditions, those people, although feeble and
servile, could not easily be made to brook the degradation. Sir John
Bowring, who negotiated the treaty with that state, says, in his Kingdom
and Prospects of Siam, 'The most difficult part of my negotiation was
the emancipation of British subjects from subjection to Siamese
authority.' Who can wonder? The emancipation of the guests required for
its complement the disfranchisement of the host! The fact that the
Siamese were aware of the nature of the concession affords hope that
they will succeed in averting some of its mischievous consequences.
Subsequently the Siamese made the same concession to Americans, thus
abrogating our former self-stultifying stipulation.

Mr. Urquhart, in his work on Turkey and its Resources, expresses the
opinion that the Ottoman empire and the Barbary States have acted
unwisely in exempting resident Franks from jurisdiction; on which Mr.
Cushing, who negotiated our treaty, remarked, when attorney-general of
the United States: 'It may be unwise for them; but it will be time
enough for them to obtain jurisdiction over Christian foreigners, when
these last can visit Mecca, Damascus, or Fez as safely and freely as
they do Rome and Paris, and when submission to local jurisdiction
becomes reciprocal.' When have Mohammedans or Pagans refused submission
to rulers in Christian lands? As regards China, Christian travellers
enjoy the same immunities there that are accorded to them in Europe or
America--they are safe and free; it is not easy, therefore, to frame a
valid reason for extraterritorial practice in that empire.

No less a jurist than John Quincy Adams, in a lecture on the British war
with China, delivered before the Massachusetts Historical Society
(December, 1841), pronounced the cause of Britain 'righteous.' Mr.
Adams, however, proceeded on the assumption that the real matter at
issue was whether the assumption of Chinese supremacy should be admitted
or not. He regarded the opium question as a mere incident in the
controversy, and entirely overlooked the other question at issue, viz.,
the independence of China.

Let us now observe the operation of the extraterritorial policy. Besides
Canton, four other ports were opened for trade, and the grant is made to
England of full sovereignty of the island of Hongkong, commanding the
entrance of the Pearl or Canton river. If the Chinese had been able to
restrict its concession to the three treaty powers, England, United
States, and France, the baneful consequences might have been easily
controlled, for these countries immediately empowered their consuls to
exercise jurisdiction over their respective countrymen. In one respect,
Congress fully met the demands made upon the country by the position
which we with others had assumed in China. Laws sufficiently stringent
were enacted for the government of our citizens in that empire; but the
consular system, that was inaugurated to meet the new order of things,
was so defective, as to render those laws nearly inoperative. The
salaries attached to these offices being totally inadequate, competent
persons could not be induced to accept appointments; or when accepted,
they were relinquished as soon as the incumbent became fully qualified
by experience for the discharge of consular duties. Having to act as a
magistrate, some knowledge of law was requisite; and having peculiar
diplomatic duties to perform, considerable knowledge of Chinese polity,
history, and customs was needed. The consequence was, as regards
Americans, such a lax administration of justice that our disorderly
countrymen were not subject to due restraint; and as American offenders
easily eluded apprehension, or escaped punishment, lawless British
subjects often found it advantageous to claim to be American citizens,
insomuch as to cause irreparable damage to American character and
influence. When the ports were first opened for trade, no people were
regarded with as much favor as our countrymen; but since that period we
have lost ground, and our influence has been greatly impaired through
those causes.

The British consular system was made a service, its members being fairly
remunerated and induced to make their occupation the profession of their
lives; consequently the Government has at all times competent and
reliable servants. British consuls, moreover, in their magisterial
capacity were a terror to evil doers, the means placed at their disposal
for repressing the unruly were ample; while the American consul, being
unprovided with interpreters, and ignorant of the language, having no
constable or marshal, clerks or assistants of any kind, and having no
place wherein to confine a criminal, often failed to inspire respect.

It was, however, from the subjects of non-treaty powers that China was
destined to suffer most from her concession of extraterritoriality. Men
of every clime and nation claimed exemption from her laws. Vagabonds,
whose government had no consular authority to restrain them, boldly
defied the local authorities, becoming a law unto themselves. Lawless
adventurers from the gold regions of Australia and California personated
those nationalities; and the bewildered Chinese often despaired of
success in distinguishing even the names of the nationalities they were
called to encounter. When discharging consular duties in Ningpo, the
mandarins frequently consulted us, soliciting information on this
subject; they were apprehensive of offending one government or another,
while seeking to afford protection to their own people.

One disastrous result of the war with England was the discovery by the
Chinese of the impotency of their rulers. No sooner had the lawless
among them seen the ease with which a few foreigners dictated terms to
the hitherto formidable mandarins, than they took to the sea as pirates.
In a short space of time the coast became so infested by these
marauders, that Chinese junks dared not put to sea without being under
the convoy of a foreign, square-rigged vessel. A lucrative business soon
sprang up in convoying. A foreign merchantman would sail in company with
a fleet of junks, and by his presence intimidate the Chinese pirate.
Gradually this business was monopolized by the Portuguese; the proximity
of their Chinese possession, Macao, enabled them to fit out lorchas, or
coasting sloops, which, being manned largely by Manilla men, were able
to serve as a cheap and effective navy for the Chinese mercantile
marine. Enjoying exemption from all control, these armed, irresponsible
lorchamen early began to dictate terms to the Chinese mariners, and in a
few months the unfortunate Chinaman was puzzled which to avoid, the
piratical junk or the buccaneering lorcha, the extortions of the latter
being as damaging as the robberies of the former. He was no more at
liberty to decline the protection of a Portuguese convoy, on the terms
which the foreigner saw fit to impose, than to refuse the demands of the
professed pirate.

The Chinese pirates, finding their occupation so much interfered with by
their foreign rivals, turned their attention to the poor fishermen, whom
they mercilessly plundered. Foreign protection was invoked; and the
protection of this important branch of industry was committed to the
unprincipled lorchamen. When junkmen and fishermen discovered that the
extortions of the foreigner were damaging as the exactions of the native
pirate, they tried to make terms with the latter; but it was too late.
It was no longer optional with them to accept or refuse protection.
Black mail was levied upon all with the method and certainty of a
revenue service. This was not effected without violence and bloodshed;
but of this there were none to take cognizance. The outrages were
perpetrated at ports or off coast, where there were no consuls. Hence
anarchy reigned at all points beyond the precincts of the consular
ports.

It is the nature of such a condition of things to extend; and it was not
long before the lawless foreigners, chiefly Portuguese, but with a
mixture of English, Americans, and all other nationalities, carried
their depredations to the villages on the islands and mainland. Robbery
and murder at sea were succeeded by like crimes on land. Whole villages
were reduced to ashes; the men butchered, and the women violated; some
being carried on board the lorchas and held to ransom. Chinese officials
were slain on attempting to resist the corsairs. Much of our surgical
practice in China was due to these piracies and forays.

Adventurers, who could not command a lorcha, fitted up native boats, and
hoisting some foreign flag, carried on like depredations in the
estuaries and rivers. Others went so far as to open offices in the small
towns for the sale of passes, which boats crossing from headland to
headland were compelled to show, in order to escape from greater
exactions when under way. Not a small part of the wrongs thus
perpetrated were by natives attired in foreign habiliments and under
foreign direction. Such was the fear entertained of foreigners, that a
bold and unscrupulous man could do anything with impunity. Take the
following occurrence as an illustration: At the mouth of the Ningpo
river is a small village of salt makers, at which the salt commissioner
stations a deputy. This officer, after having been cruelly beaten, was
driven away by the Portuguese, who issued a proclamation authorizing
their employés to collect the salt gabel in the name of the Portuguese
consul!

It is proper to remark that the transition from the protective to the
piratical character of the lorchas was owing in some measure to the
fatuous procedure of the mandarins themselves toward a formidable body
of pirates, whose submission they purchased by conferring ranks and
emoluments on the chiefs, and by giving employment to the whole fleet,
constituting them guardians of the coast. In transforming the wolves
into shepherds, a change of occupation was not attended by a change of
character. In their new capacity as legalized fleecers, they came into
collision with those of Macao; and what they lost as convoyers, they
aimed to gain as pirates.

A general massacre of the Portuguese at Ningpo, by the Cantonese
pirates, served to mitigate the evil by calling the attention of the
English and Portuguese authorities to the anarchy which drew much of its
support from Hongkong and Macao. The Portuguese were subjected to
greater restraint, and a greater degree of order was thereby secured.

It is not easy to estimate the evil effects upon China of the possession
of Hongkong and of Macao by the Portuguese. They are like corroding
ulcers in her side. Imagine Bermuda and Nassau just off Sandy Hook, with
every conceivable facility for smuggling into the port of New York;
suppose the contraband traffic to be fatal to the health and morals of
our citizens, as well as prejudicial to our revenue, and then
extraterritorial privilege giving immunity to many of the foreigners'
misdeeds; and the difficult position of Chinese authorities will be
partially appreciated.

It was in part a question of jurisdiction that led to the second war
with England--the 'lorcha' war. But for the assumption, on the part of
the British, that the Chinese were in a measure a subjugated people, or
not in possession of full sovereignty, they could not have again invaded
China with any show of reason.

On the breaking out of hostilities there was a general demand, on the
part of all mercantile powers, for the entire and unrestricted opening
of the Chinese empire to all foreigners. At that juncture we felt called
upon to remonstrate against such injustice toward an unoffending
country. In a series of articles, published in the _North China Herald_,
we attempted to show that an unqualified compliance with the demands of
chambers of commerce and the press would be inimical to foreign no less
than to Chinese interests: 'With one voice Christian nations demand the
entire opening of China, and an extension of commercial advantages,
regardless of Chinese rights in the matter. I believe that these rights
cannot be infringed with impunity. China, it is true, must succumb
before a requisite force; but the real difficulties of the aggressors
will only then commence. Let us consider the consequences of an
unconditional compliance with the demands of foreigners. You shall see
the horrid barbarities, which have devastated the coast, reënacted in
the interior. You shall see the adventurers, who shoot down Chinamen
with no more malice or compunction than they shoot a pheasant, go
further and travel faster than consul, merchant, or missionary. Murder,
robbery, rape, and the like, will be common wherever the arm of
authority is unfelt. Up her far-reaching rivers, along her interminable
network of canals, on the surface of her broad lakes, through her every
navigable water-course, China will be infested by desperadoes from all
lands, scattering misery in every valley and throughout the great plain.
Then will follow the assassination of the peaceful traveller; massacres,
foreign intervention, blockades and wars, and the lasting impediments to
commerce and civilization which these disorders engender.'

We proposed, as a check to the evil, a system of passports, limiting the
privilege of travel or residence beyond consular ports to responsible
persons--to those who could give some guarantee that the privilege
should not be abused. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, the allied
plenipotentiaries, accepted the plan, and proposed it to the imperial
commissioners. It is said that the commissioners eagerly seized the
proposition, as, after the capture of Tien-tsin by the allied forces,
they saw that submission was inevitable, yet durst not propose to the
emperor unconditional acquiescence with the conquerors' demands, and
represented the proposed passport system as a condition which they had
imposed upon the barbarians. Thus they were empowered to negotiate the
treaty of Tien-tsin, which averted a battle between that port and
Peking, which neither party felt itself quite ready to commence.

About a dozen additional ports, some in the heart of the empire, are now
open to the foreigner, and extraterritoriality obtains throughout the
vast region subject to the sway of the Son of Heaven--which, with other
corresponding causes, seems to be effecting the dismemberment of that
hoary empire. The regimen to which the oldest of nations is subjected,
is fast placing it in the condition of the 'sick man' of the Bosphorus.

As an evidence of the aggressive character of the foreigner, and of the
desire of rendering extraterritoriality a means of subjugation, examine
the claims set up within the past few months by mercantile interests.
China, having surrendered her right over criminals in her territory, has
been further called on to submit to British consular investigation and
adjudication with the assistance of two assessors (British merchants),
in all cases of seizure and confiscation by her customs authorities,
whenever hardship or injustice is alleged--the custom-house officers to
be cited before the consul to receive his judgment in the case!

Again, there is a foreign as well as a native Shanghai. This settlement,
or city of foreigners, adjacent to Shanghai proper, occupies a
considerable space of territory, and is a place of great wealth. Its
warehouses are palatial, it has beautiful public and private edifices,
and is governed by a municipality chosen by property holders from among
themselves. Its police, streets, piers, race-course, and all the
appurtenances of a city, are admirably arranged. Nowhere, in the whole
empire, is there so much security for life and property; hence natives,
who can afford to hire, from foreigners, houses which have been erected
on this conceded ground, are glad to do so; it has consequently become a
place of resort for well-to-do natives, who thus become exempt from the
extortion of the mandarins. Latterly the Chinese local authorities have
undertaken to impose a tax upon these extraterritorial natives, which
their foreign clients resist, although one of the reasons assigned by
the mandarins, for the levying of taxes on their people residing in the
foreign settlement, is an increase of expenditure consequent on the
employment of the Anglo-Chinese flotilla.

Happily the British Government has refused to enforce the claims of the
merchants, as regards the exemption of their contraband goods from
confiscation; and Sir F. Bruce, the British ambassador, and Mr.
Burlingame, the United States ambassador, have admitted 'that the
so-called foreign settlement of Shanghai is Chinese territory, and that
the fact of Chinese occupying houses, which are the property of
foreigners, does not in any way entitle such foreigners to interfere
with the levying of taxes by Chinese officials.'

No additional evidence need be adduced to show that, in exempting
resident foreigners from criminal and civil jurisdiction, the Chinese
have opened the way for endless complications, for ever-recurring
aggressions. What are the duties of our Government and people with
regard to the Chinese, in view of the position in which those people are
placed? We hold that it is not our duty to abandon the concession, which
thus imperils the existence of the Chinese empire. It is not clear that
if all nations, having intercourse with China, were to agree to renounce
the privilege they have extorted, it would be best to suffer their
people to trust wholly to Chinese tribunals for protection. Cases could
not fail to arise demanding foreign interference, if foreigners were
permitted to go to China at all. And since the re-sealing of the empire
is out of the question, less evil is perhaps likely to accrue, as things
now are, than by a change of policy. There is so little regard for human
life among the Chinese, so much venality at the tribunals of justice,
that foreigners would be endangered in person and property, unless
protected by some extraordinary safeguards, perhaps even to the extent
secured by treaty. Assuming, then, as we do, this jurisdiction in China,
we incur a grave responsibility. It is incumbent on us loyally to fulfil
the obligations that we have assumed; to see that we do not, by a lax
administration of justice, encourage unprincipled men in violating
Chinese law. No new laws are required, but a faithful enforcement of
those already enacted. To accomplish this, we need to amend and improve
our consular system. Consulates in China cannot be rendered efficient
until they are filled by competent men, who shall hold their office
during good behavior, and to whom inducement should be made to spend the
best part of their lives in the service. We cannot, like the English,
hold out the prospect of a retiring pension to one who serves the State
twenty years in that uncongenial climate; but we can refrain from making
those frequent changes which prove so detrimental to every interest
concerned. The consuls should either be acquainted with the Chinese
language, a work for a lifetime, or have an American interpreter. The
practice of having a Chinese linguist is most damaging--the native
linguist being invariably a lying knave, who becomes consul _de facto_,
whom no native can approach without a bribe, which it is supposed goes
in part to the consul. As the points where consuls are needed are
numerous, some of them being where the honorable merchantman from the
United States rarely visits, it may seem that the expense would prove an
insuperable objection to the establishment of a full and efficient
consular system. This objection ought to have no weight. If we are not
prepared to allow the Chinese to exercise jurisdiction over our
wandering citizens, we are bound, at any cost, ourselves to discharge
that duty. And in view of the fact that American officials possess power
of life and death over their fellow citizens, our Government should
appoint a judicial officer, also holding office during good behavior, by
whom all grave cases should be tried. If we cannot afford to be just,
let us economize by abrogating the office of commissioner or ambassador
to Peking. That is an office which, from its emoluments, must always be
given, whichever party may be in power, as a reward for party services
to one who will return or be recalled before he begins to understand his
business. A _chargé des affaires_, with our admiral on the station,
could attend to all needful diplomacy, and thus a saving could be made
and carried to the credit of the consulates.

Further, as by express stipulation we debar the Chinese from
adjudicating in quarrels which may arise between our citizens and the
people of other countries in China, we ought to take measures for the
establishing of a mixed tribunal to exercise jurisdiction in such cases;
and there ought to be an arrangement by which countries which are
properly represented in China might investigate and adjudicate in
offences committed by foreigners not properly represented in that
country: a most dangerous class of persons, who enjoy the privilege of
extraterritoriality, without amenability to any tribunal, and who by
their misconduct place every foreign interest in jeopardy.

As with the advance of Christian civilization, society is more and more
disposed to accord the rights of manhood to men of every race; so, let
us hope, nations will yet be found willing to forego the advantages that
greater power confers, no longer employing that power in oppressing or
subverting weak states.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The second number of a series of articles on Eastern Asia.




REASON, RHYME, AND RHYTHM

CHAPTER VII.--THE ARTIST AND HIS REALM.

The Divine Attributes the base of all true Art.


Aristotle teaches that: 'The object of the poet is not to conceive or
treat the True as it _really_ happened, but as it _should_ have
happened. The essential difference between the poet and historian is not
that the one speaks in verse, the other in prose, for the work of
Herodotus in verse would still be a history; that is, it would still
relate what had _actually_ occurred, while it is the province of a poem
to detail that which _should_ have taken place.' Thus the human soul
exacts in the finite creations of the poet that justice which it ever
divines, but cannot always see, because the end passes beyond its
present vision, in the varying dramas of human destiny written in the
Book of the Infinite God.

Carefully keeping in mind that the end of such divine dramas is not
_here_, we see that, in accordance with the above views of Aristotle,
the _true_ is not that which _really_ occurs, but that which our
feelings and intellect tell us ought to occur. The actually occurring,
the _Real_, has always been confounded with the abstractly _true_, but
they are very different things. Virtue, morality, such as revealed by
Christianity, and confirmed by reason, are certainly _true_; but in
relation to that which is, to the _real_, the _actual_, what man has
ever yet succeeded in realizing the pure, high model set forth in the
Gospel? In accordance with the theory that the _Actual_ is the _true_,
the nature of a saintly hero, a self-abnegating martyr, would not be a
_true_ nature; while the fact is, it alone is true to the purposes of
its creation.

Sophocles, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Fra Angelico, etc., etc., did not
mean by truth in the arts, the pure and simple expression of that which
_really_ is, but the expression of that which is rarely found _in_ the
actual, but is suggested by it. Aquinas makes an acute distinction
between the intellect _passive_, which merely receives impressions from
without, and the intellect _active_, which reasons upon and draws
inferences from them. The senses can only give or know the _individual_;
the active intellect alone conceives the _universal_. Our eyes perceive
a triangle; but as we have this perception in common with the brutes, it
cannot raise us above their level; and to take our rank as
intelligences, as men, we must rise from the mere perception of the
individual triangle to the general idea of triangularity. Thus it is the
power of _generalizing_ which marks us as men; and the senses have in
reality nothing to do with the internal operation; they but receive the
impressions, and convey them to the active intellect. Thus to the
impressions given by the senses of _finite_ things to the passive mind,
the active intellect adds the idea of _infinity_. The eager soul, always
longing for the infinite, the absolute, then seeks to invest all with
that perfection which it divines in the Maker of all; the possibility of
which conception of perfection is added or attached by the Creator to
the Real, as a supersensuous gift to those made in His own image. Such
conceptions live ever firm and fair in the charmed world of the artist,
for his world is the Realm of pure Ideas.

Much may be quoted in proof of this view. Cicero says:

     'When Phidias formed his Jupiter, he had no living model before his
     eyes, but having conceived an idea of perfect beauty in his soul,
     he labored only to imitate it, to produce it in the marble without
     change.'

Raphael says:

     'Having found no model sufficiently beautiful for my Galatea, I
     worked from a certain Idea which I found in my own mind.'

Fra Angelico furnishes a striking example of working from images found
in the soul. He was an artist of very devout character, early devoting
himself and his art to God, saying: Those who work for Christ, must
dwell in Christ. Always, before commencing a picture which was to be
consecrated to the honor of God, he prepared himself with fervent prayer
and meditation, and then began in humble trust that '_it would be put
into his mind what he ought to delineate_;' he would never deviate from
the first idea, for, as he said, '_that_ was the will of God.' This he
said not in presumption, but in faith and simplicity of heart. So he
passed his life in imaging his _own ideas_, which were sent to his meek
soul by no fabled muse, but by that Spirit 'that doth prefer before all
temples the upright heart and pure;' and never before or since was
earthly material worked up into soul, nor earthly forms refined into
spirit, as under the hands of this devout painter. He became sublime
through trusting goodness and humility. It was as if Paradise had opened
upon him--a Paradise of rest and joy, of purity and love, where no
trouble, no guile, no change could enter; and if his celestial
creations lack force, we feel that before these ethereal beings, power
itself would be powerless; his angels are resistless in their soft
serenity; his virgins are pure from all earthly stain; his redeemed
spirits in meek rapture glide into Paradise; his martyrs and confessors
are absorbed in devout ecstasy. Well has he been named IL BEATO E
ANGELICO, whose life was participate with the angels even in this world.
Is it not clear that Fra Angelico had found the Realm of the Artist; the
fair and happy clime of the Ideal?

Our readers must not confound the ideal with the imaginary: the ideal is
rather that which the real requires to invest it with that beauty which
it would have possessed had the spirits of Death and sin never thrown
their dark shadows over God's perfect work. Let not the poet fear the
reproach that his characters are too _ideal_; if harmoniously
constructed, but _true_ in the higher sense, such reproach is praise.

Man rises spontaneously from the perception of the finite beauty of
creatures to the conception of the sovereign beauty of the Creator,
which idea has indeed its first condition in the perception of the
senses; but it passes on until it extends its sphere through all our
faculties, all our moral life, until the distant vision of Absolute
Beauty attracts us from the limited sphere of the senses to the realm of
the ideal. Thus the artist, that he may appease the insatiate thirst for
Absolute Beauty, which ever pursues him, strives to bring down upon
earth the divine but veiled images, which he beholds in that fair clime.

Every work of art implies three acts of the intellect: an act, by which
the artist conceives the pure idea, the soul of his creation; an act, by
which he conceives or invents the form in which he is to incarnate this
idea, the body of his creation; and, lastly, a conception of the
relations between the pure idea and its material form, the rendering of
the body a fit vehicle and indwelling-place for the soul. Three
acts--but an artist of _genius_ produces the three _simultaneously_;
consequently a marvellous life and unity mark all his works: an artist
of mere talent must be contented simply with the production of new
combinations of form, since Genius alone can create artistic soul; while
the assiduous student, without any peculiar natural gift, is capable of
the third act, as it is only an intellectual exercise in which the
scientific principles of art are skilfully applied to given forms.

Artists are frequently considered as deficient in the faculty of Reason,
whereas no one was ever a great artist without possessing it in a high
degree, and mankind are rapidly becoming aware of this fact. It is true
they often jump the middle terms of their syllogisms, and assume
premises to which the world has not yet arrived; but time stamps their
rapid deductions as invincible, for genius dwells in the REALM OF THE
IDEAL: the realm, not of contingent and phenomenal actualities, but of
_eternal truths_. 'For the ideal is destined to transform man and the
world entire into its own image; and in this gradual and successive
transformation consists the whole progressive history of humanity.'

Genius discerns the true and beautiful in itself, in the world of ideas,
in God.

Talent lies on a lower level. It is the power of manifesting to men,
whether by words, sounds, or plastic signs, the ideas already suggested
by genius, or found by the reasoning faculties.

Genius is intuitive and creative--talent, reflective and acute.

Shakespeare was a poet of unequalled genius--Milton, of unrivalled
talent.

Chopin is a composer of profound genius--Mendelssohn, of highly
cultivated talent.

Madame de Stäel was a woman of genius--Miss Edgeworth, one of talent.

Elizabeth Barrett is a poet of genius--Tennyson, of talent.

Genius descends from the Idea to the Form--from the invisible to the
visible: talent mounts from the visible to the invisible.

Genius holds its objects with and by the heart; talent seizes and
masters them through the understanding. Genius creates body, soul, and
fitness; talent combines new forms for the immortal souls already
created by genius.

Taste, in its highest grade, ranks above talent, and stands next to
genius; nay, it is sometimes known as _receptive_ genius. It is the
faculty of recognizing the Beautiful in the world of thought, art, and
nature; in words, tones, forms, and colors. Taste is a higher faculty
than is generally supposed. Genius and Taste are the Eros and Anteros of
art. Without his brother, the first would remain ever a child. Taste is
that innate and God-given faculty which at once perceives and hails as
true, ideas, which it, however, has not the power to discover for
itself. It should be educated and carefully fostered; but no amount of
cultivation will give it where not already in existence, for it is as
truly innate as genius itself.

In its lowest form, it is the comprehension of the scientific principles
of art, and the judging of artistic works in accordance with scientific
rules.

What is known as tact, is a curious social development of the same
faculty. Taste is the child of the mind and soul; tact, of the soul and
heart. Both are incommunicable.

The word taste is frequently misapplied. Thus a man, with what is
blunderingly called a classical taste, is incapable of aught but the
classic; that is to say, he recognizes in a new work that which makes
the charm of an old one, and pronounces it worthy of admiration. Put the
right foot of an Apollo forward, instead of the left, and call it Philip
of Pokanoket, and he will fall into ecstasies over a work at once so
truly national and classic. He would have stood dumb and with an
untouched heart, before the Apollo, fresh from the chisel of the
sculptor. Such men have graduated at Vanity Fair, and are the
old-clothesmen of art.

Thus the men of talent are almost invariably recognized and crowned in
their own days; because they always deal with ideas in a measure already
familiar to the multitude. But, alas for the sensitive child of genius!
The bold explorer of untrodden paths must cut away the underbrush that
others may follow him; he must himself create the taste in the masses,
by which he is afterward to be judged. His bold, daring, and original
conceptions serve only to dazzle, confuse, and blind the multitude; and
as it requires time to understand them, to read their living characters
of glowing light, the laurel wreaths of appreciation and sympathy, which
should have graced his brow and cheered his heart, too often trail their
deathless green in vain luxuriance round the chill marble covering the
early grave of a broken heart. Ah, friends! Genius demands sympathy in
its impassioned creations; loving and laboring for humanity, it exacts
comprehension, at least, in return. Yet how very difficult it is for an
artist to win such comprehension! And, by a strange fatality, the more
original his compositions, the greater the difficulty. He must amuse the
men of the senses; satisfy the precision of the men of the schools; and
succeed in rendering intelligible to the uncultured masses the subtile
links of ethereal connection which chain the finite, the relative of his
compositions, to the Infinite, the Absolute.

For it is a pregnant fact, with regard to the masses, that only so far
as they can be made to _feel_ the connection of things with the
Absolute, can they be induced to appreciate them. For instance, tell
them that the stars attract in the direct ratio of their masses, in
inverse ratio to the squares of the distance, and they may almost fail
to understand you; but tell them, in the words of the Divine Book, so
marvellously adapted to their comprehension, that 'the stars declare
the glory of God,' and you are at once understood. Tell them they ought
to love one another, because 'they are members of the same spiritual
body'--and, although, in this concise statement, you have declared to
them the internal constitution of the moral world, revealed the inner
meaning of the laws of order, of social harmony, of their own destiny,
and of the progress of the race--you may utterly fail in awakening their
interest. But show them a Being who lived for this truth, whose life was
one of sacrifice and abnegation, who died for its manifestation--they
are immediately touched, interested, because you have left the
unsympathetic region of abstract formulas; you have given law a visible,
palpitating, feeling, suffering, and rejoicing Body--you awaken their
love, their gratitude--they adore their godlike Brother, and now _feel_
themselves members of the one spiritual body.

It is this very possibility, on a lower plane, of thus clothing his
thoughts with a visible body, which gives the artist an advantage over
the man of science, who presents the formula of the _law_ with the aid
of the contingent finite idea, but without connecting it with its First
Cause. Confining itself to the limits of the thing examined, science
tries to explain the finite rationale of its being; while art gives its
formula by the aid of a material sign, a form or body, which contains or
suggests both limits of its double existence, viz.: the finite and the
infinite. For the true artist always connects the relative with the
Absolute, the second cause with the First; in the finite he seeks the
Infinite--therefore he finds mystic and hidden truths in essential
harmony with the soul of man. He is always returning to unity. The man
of science, on the contrary, always beginning with the variable and
contingent facts of this world, is often lost in the wildering whirl of
the ever-moving and unceasing variety around him, finding it hard to
link his widely severed facts with the Supreme Unity, which gives to all
its reason for being, its true worth. Variety and Unity--the created and
the Creator!

It is almost universally believed that there is more truth in science
than in poetry--a vulgar error refuted both by reason and common sense.
Poetry, being the expression of the necessary with the Absolute, must,
in consequence, be nearer truth than science, which has, for the most
part, its starting point in contingent, variable, and fugitive facts,
and either succeeds in seizing in an uncertain manner or fails to seize
at all the one Idea imbosomed in such a multitudinous array of facts.
The whole creation is but the visible expression of the laws of our
unseen God: the man of science mounts from the visible fact to the
unseen Idea, while the poet descends from the idea to the fact, thus
humbly imitating the work of creation.

It was man who introduced disorder into the finite: regenerated through
the incarnation of the Divine, he must labor with all his powers to
restore it to its pristine order. He must remodel the physical world by
his industry, and task his intellect in the paths of science, that the
truths of nature may be developed, that the well-being of his body, his
material nature may be properly cared for: by his courage and endurance
he must alleviate all wrongs, and set free the oppressed; he must
elevate his soul and ennoble his heart by a grateful attention to his
religious duties; he must increase and multiply his happy and helpful
relations with his brother men by a faithful and devout culture of the
fine arts.

The Beautiful does not address itself principally _to_ the senses; but,
by its exhibition of eternal laws, _through_ them to the soul, for the
_manifestation of the Divine attributes is the mystic Heart of all true
Beauty_.'

To give an example of the different appeals made by science and by art,
let us open alternately the pages of the poet and savant, let us take
some familiar thing, for instance, a common flower, and see what they
will tell us of its character, relations, and worth. The botanist notes
the distinctions of the flower, that his herbarium may be increased--the
poet, that he may make them vehicles of expression, of emotion. The
savant counts the stamens, numbers the pistils, delineates the leaves,
marks the manner of growth, classifies, affixes a name, and is
satisfied;--the poet studies the whole character of the plant,
considering each of its attributes as a vehicle of expression, an
ethical lesson; he notes its color, he seizes on its lines of grace or
energy, rigidity or repose, remarks the feebleness or vigor, the
serenity or tremulousness of its hues, observes its local habits, its
love or fear of peculiar places, associating it with the features of the
situations it inhabits, and the ministering agencies necessary to its
support. It becomes to him a _living_ creature, with histories written
on its leaves, and passion breathing in its tremulous stems. He
associates and identifies it with the history and emotions of humanity.
Feeling that even these fragile flowers are symbolic of a moral world,
he crowns the bride with white roses, orange buds, or snowy myrtle
wreaths, to typify that innocence and chastity are essential to a love
that is to last as long as life endures. He wreathes the redeemed with
undying amaranth, unfading palms, to symbolize that their meek triumph
is for eternity; while he places in the hands of the angels the
sculptured chalice of the snowy lily, with its breath of incense and
stamens of molten gold, as an imperfect type of the perfect purity,
sweet peace, and glorious golden splendor of the Heavenly City.

The pages of the poets are full of beautiful lessons and tender
illustrations drawn from the fragile flowers. We cite Lowell's lines to
one of our most common flowers:


TO THE DANDELION.

  Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way,
    Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
          First pledge of blithesome May,
    Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
  High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
  An Eldorado in the grass have found,
  Which not the rich earth's ample round
  May match in wealth--thou art more dear to me
  Than all the prouder summer blooms may be.

  Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
    Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
          Nor wrinkled the lean brow
    Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;
  'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now
  To rich and poor alike with lavish hand,
  Though most hearts never understand
  To take it at God's value, but pass by
  The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

  Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
    To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
          The eyes thou givest me
    Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
  Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
  Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment
  In the white Lily's breezy tent,
  His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first
  From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

  Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,--
    Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
          Where, as the breezes pass,
    The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,--
  Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
  Or whiten in the wind,--of waters blue
  That from the distance sparkle through
  Some woodland gap,--and of a sky above
  Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

  My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
    The sight of thee calls back the Robin's song
          Who, from the dark old tree
    Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
  And I, secure in childish piety,
  Listened as if I heard an angel sing
  With news from heaven, which he could bring
  Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
  When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

  How like a prodigal doth nature seem
    When thou, with all thy gold, so common art!
          Thou teachest me to deem
    More sacredly of every human heart,
  Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
  Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
  Did we but pay the love we owe,
  And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
  On all these living pages of God's book.

Wordsworth's 'Daisy' is very beautiful, and full of moral lessons:

  In youth, from rock to rock I went,
  From hill to hill, in discontent
  Of pleasure high and turbulent,
              Most pleased when most uneasy;
  But now my own delights I make,--
  My thirst at every rill can slake,
  And gladly nature's love partake
              Of thee, sweet Daisy!

  When winter decks his few gray hairs,
  Thee in the scanty wreath he wears;
  Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
              That she may sun thee;
  Whole summer fields are thine by right;
  And Autumn, melancholy wight!
  Doth in thy crimson head delight
              When rains are on thee.

  In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
  Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
  If welcome once, thou count'st it gain;
              Thou art not daunted,
  Nor car'st if thou be set at nought:
  And oft alone in nooks remote
  We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
              When such are wanted.

  Be violets in their secret mews
  The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
  Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews
              Her head impearling;
  Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
  Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
  Thou art indeed by many a claim
              The Poet's darling.

  If to a rock from rains he fly,
  Or, some bright day of April sky,
  Imprisoned by hot sunshine, lie
              Near the green holly,
  And wearily at length should fare;
  He needs but look about, and there
  Thou art: a friend at hand, to scare
              His melancholy.

  A hundred times, by rock or bower,
  Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
  Have I derived from thy sweet power
              Some apprehension;
  Some steady love, some brief delight;
  Some memory that had taken flight;
  Some chime of fancy wrong or right,
              Or stray invention.

  If stately passions in me burn,
  And one chance look to thee should turn,
  I drink out of an humbler urn
              A lowlier pleasure;
  The homely sympathy that heeds
  The common life our nature breeds;
  A wisdom fitted to the needs
              Of hearts at leisure.

  Sweet flower! for by that name at last,
  When all my reveries are past,
  I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
              Sweet, silent creature!
  That breath'st with me in sun and air,
  Do thou, as thou wert wont, repair
  My heart with gladness and a share
              Of thy meek nature!

With still deeper poetic feeling has that untutored bard of nature, poor
Burns, written of this little flower:


TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,

_On turning one down with the plough, in April, 1786._

  Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
  Thou's met me in an evil hour;
  For I maun crush amang the stoure
                    Thy slender stem;
  To spare thee now is past my power,
                    Thou bonnie gem!

  Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
  The bonnie Lark, companion meet,
  Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
                    Wi' speckl'd breast,
  When upward springing, blithe, to greet
                    The purpling east.

  Cauld blew the bitter biting north
  Upon thy early, humble birth;
  Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
                    Amid the storm
  Scarce reared above the parent earth
                    Thy tender form.

  The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
  High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield
  But thou, beneath the random bield
                    O' clod or stane,
  Adorns the histie stibble field,
                    Unseen, alane!

  There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
  Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,
  Thou lifts thy unassuming head,
                    In humble guise;
  But now the share uptears thy bed,
                    And low thou lies!

  Such is the fate of artless Maid,
  Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
  By love's simplicity betrayed,
                    And guileless trust,
  Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
                    Low i' the dust.

  Such is the fate of simple Bard,
  On life's rough ocean; luckless starr'd,
  Unskilful he to note the card
                    Of prudent lore,
  Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
                    And whelm him o'er!

  Such fate to suffering worth is given,
  Who long with wants and woes has striven,
  By human pride or cunning driven
                    To mis'ry's brink,
  Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven,
                    He, ruin'd, sink!

  Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
  That fate is thine--no distant date:
  Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
                    Full on thy bloom,
  Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
                    Shall be thy doom!

With our hearts full of love and tender sympathy with the author of this
exquisite poem, let us now look among the botanists for a description of
the Daisy. We will find: 'Perenuius (Daisy, E.W. & P. 21), leaves
obovate, crenate; scape naked, 1 flowered; or, Leucanthemum (Ox-eyed
Daisy), leaves clasping, lanceolate, serrate, cut-toothed at the base;
stem erect, branching.' (See Eaton's Botany.)

All honor to the savant! Untiring in his investigations, ardent in his
researches, the men of the senses are scarcely worthy to untie the
latchet of his shoe, but he is slow in acknowledging the _science of
art_, and apt to look down upon the artist from his throne of power!
Because the artist deals with a different order of truths, unseen and
belonging principally to the world of feeling, the savant rarely does
justice to the intense study requisite for the mastery of the mere form
of art; the long, unrequited, and patient toil requisite for its
practice, or the soaring and loving genius required to fill the form
when mastered with glowing life. All honor to the savant! but let him
not fail to acknowledge the artist-brother at his side, who labors on
for humanity with no hope of learned professorships to crown his career,
nor venerable diplomas to assure him of social honor and position. Let
him not be regarded as an idler by the wayside, nor let 'La Bohème' be
any longer considered as his especial type and insignia! The useful and
the beautiful should stand banded in the closest fellowship, since Truth
must be the soul of both! Honor then the pure artist, while he still
lives, nor keep the laurel only for his tomb!

In order to examine scientifically, the mind is generally forced to
consider its object as deprived of life; indeed, the functions of living
creatures cannot be fully analyzed without being first deprived of life.
Science gives us its subject with the most rigorous exactitude, with the
most scrupulous fidelity; but, alas! often without that magical kindler
of love and sympathy, life. Art gives us its subject with vivid
coloring, motion, palpitating life--often, indeed, by associative moral
symbolism adding a still higher life to simple being, filling it, as in
Burns's lines to the Daisy, with a purer flame.

Science daguerreotypes, art paints its objects. Science is necessarily
abstract, discrete; art necessarily concrete. So true is this, that when
art begins to decline, it manifests a tendency to pass from the concrete
to the discrete, abstract; it becomes self-conscious, reflective,
scientific. Body, form, is mistaken for soul, spirit. A discrete idea
fails to move us, because it gives us only _successively_ the relations
subsisting between it and the First Cause, as its facts must be
isolated, its elements decomposed, and presented to us in an inverse
order to that in which they reveal themselves to the mind in the
spontaneous and natural use of its powers. Science never appeals to our
emotional faculties spontaneously; when it does speak to the heart, it
is because the mind, linking together the successive ideas given by
science, at last seizes upon the UNITY of the whole, supplying by its
own conceptions the voids of science. When the savant possesses the
creative power in a high degree, as did Kepler, he becomes prophet and
artist. The concrete ideas of art appeal immediately to our feelings;
emotions excited by them are spontaneous, because they aim at presenting
their objects in all the splendor of their _living_ light. Only life
produces life; all our emotions and sympathies pertain to the suffering,
the acting, the living--and thus an artistic conception appeals to our
entire being. What psychological analysis of youthful and feminine
loveliness could move us as a Juliet?

Analysis and reflection suppose the suspension of spontaneity, that is,
of the free activity of the soul. Spontaneity and reflection are the two
modes in which the spirit manifests its activity. Spontaneity is the
living power which it possesses of acting without premeditation, without
contingent ideas, of being influenced or determined by some power from
without, the action thus produced blending the two primary elements of
feeling and thought. This is the distinctive mode of woman's being.
Reflection is that operation of the mind by which it turns its gaze in
upon itself, and considers its own operations; it compares, analyzes,
and constructs logical processes of thought. This is as natural to man,
as spontaneity to woman. Now both of these modes are essentially
necessary to the well-being of the individual, the one is the complement
of the other; the cultivation of the one should never be sacrificed to
that of the other. Teach woman to reason; develop spontaneity in man.
But as the whole course of our education is solely addressed to the
reflective faculties, intended chiefly for their culture, how is
spontaneity to be developed? Certainly not through abstract science; for
it, with its formulas, occupied only with contingent and relative ideas,
addressing itself solely to the faculties concerned with the elaboration
of the relative, that is, to the reflective faculties--how can it avail
for the cultivation of spontaneity? It can be cultivated only through
the due direction of the emotional nature; but how is that to be
approached? In the first place through the joys and sorrows, the events
of daily life; a training of such importance that the Great Creator, for
the most part, retains it in His own hands: humanly speaking, only
through the arts, which contain, at the same time, the scientific form
of the finite, and the blissful intuition of the Infinite. As wisdom and
love mark the works of the Creator, so thought and feeling meet in the
creations of the artist, in the arts--but thought alone is concerned
with the formulas of science. Now, if spontaneity be more conducive to
man's happiness than reflection, then poetry, literature, and the arts
are of more importance to him than abstract science. If, in appealing to
spontaneous emotions, they give the legitimate influence to the heart
which it should possess, because under their influence thought and
feeling move in the proper _unity_ of their divinely linked being, then
must pure, creative, loving, and devout art at last take its rank, when
spontaneity shall be regarded as the generatrix of reflection, above the
cold and haughty pile reared by the reflective faculties alone, abstract
science.

The aspirations of man constantly sigh for the limitless; his soul
contains depths which his reason cannot fathom. How rapidly his surging
ideas come and go! What flashes of supernatural light--what fearful
obscurity! Heaven and Hell war in his soul! Strange visions traverse his
intellect, throwing their lurid light into the vague depths of his
heart. His power to love and feel seems boundless--his power to know
almost at zero. What can he predicate even of himself, with his
boundless desires for he knows not what--his fleeting emotions and
insatiable wishes! Ah! if the language of poetry, of music, of the
arts, came not to gift these passing images with external life, to fix
them in the wildered consciousness, they would surge away almost
unmarked, like lovely dreams, scarcely leaving their dim traces in the
memory. For, with the generality of common minds, the actual is death to
the ideal! But art speaks; spontaneity is justified; our inner being, so
vague before, stands revealed before us; the beautiful must be the true,
the chaos of the moral world is dispelled; we were created to _enjoy_
the attributes of God, which, finitely manifested, are Truth and Beauty;
and His light moves over the perturbed chaos of our dim being! What can
abstract science, with its cold and finite language, do for a soul
athirst for an infinite happiness? Nothing, unless its first postulate
be God! Young people, generally, and women, in whom the love of Beauty
is strongly developed, have almost a repulsion to the study of science.
Wherefore? Because it often seems to exile God from His own creation.
Let Him desert Paradise, and it becomes at once a desert. The Infinite
is the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley! Besides, the
reflective reasoning faculties awaken late with those in whom the
intuitive faculties and sensibilities attain an early development. Let
woman not despair. What use will there be for the reflective reason,
when 'we shall know even as we are known,' and the vision in God shall
make the spontaneous bliss of immortality?

The habit of only seeing, only studying, only analyzing the finite, is
very apt to inspire the savant with a peculiar distrust of all
spontaneous emotion. Ceasing to open his heart to that light from the
Absolute, which ought to quicken it into bloom, it learns to dwell only
in the sterile world of abstract formulas. If he could find algebraic
signs for its expression, he would willingly believe in the immortality
of the soul: the characters which he can never learn to comprehend, are
precisely those in which dwell the intuitions of the infinite. He piques
himself upon the precision of his language, not perceiving it has gained
this boasted prim exactitude at the expense of breadth and depth. All
honor to the savant! but let him keep the lamp of spontaneity ever
burning in his soul. By its light the savage and the woman divine God;
without it, he may weigh creation--and 'find Him not!'

Nothing can be more superficial than the intellects of men given over to
formulas. They always imagine they can explore the depths of truth, if
they can succeed in detecting an inch of its surface. When they arrive
at the term of their own ideas, they believe they have exhausted the
absolute. They frequently want feeling, because they have, in some way,
destroyed their own spontaneity--that inexhaustible source of living and
original thought, individualized and yet universal, of ever-thronging
and vivid emotions.

The most spontaneous writer of the present day is a woman; fresh,
rugged, rich, and natural, as the wayside gold of the Dandelion above
described by Lowell--hence her sudden and great popularity with the
people. She feels strongly, and thinks justly, and fears not to say what
the great God gives her. May she continue to pour her 'wayside gold'
through the literary waves of the 'Atlantic'--and still keep the molten
treasure bright and burnished for the service of our altar. Let her not
fly too near the candles of the clergy, and thus sear her Psyche wings.
Need I name Gail Hamilton? Pardon the digression, courteous reader, and
let a woman greet a gifted sister as she passes on.

Let me not be misunderstood in my estimate of the spontaneous and
reflective faculties: they must _combine_ in any man _truly great_. If I
have dwelt on spontaneity, it is because it has not been sufficiently
prized or cultivated. The savant must have the faculties of the artist,
as had Kepler; the artist those of the savant, as had Michael Angelo and
Leonardo da Vinci. Study, reflective power, logical ability, erudition,
are _absolutely_ necessary; but one of their principal functions is to
be able to analyze aright the products of spontaneity; to give the soul
the consciousness and comprehension of the innumerable phenomena which
arise in it, in its varied relations with the world of ideas. The man
who is at the same time _spontaneous_ and _reflective_, is alone
_complete_, be he artist or savant; he lives, yet is able to analyze
life. Of such mental character are indeed all men of true genius,
whether mechanicians, architects, philosophers, savants, or artists.

The truths surging dimly through the universal consciousness, find
interpreters in the men of genius; through them the moral and religious
ideas of an epoch take form, and crystallize themselves in poetry and
the arts--as the laws of the divine geometry are realized in the
crystallizations of minerals. Poetry and the arts may be regarded as the
_sum_ of the absolute truths to the conception of which the masses have
risen at any given period in the life of a people.

Lamartine says:

     'If humanity were forced to lose entirely one of the two orders of
     truth--either all the mathematical or all the moral truths--it
     should not hesitate to sacrifice the mathematical, for though it is
     true if these were lost the world would suffer immense detriment,
     yet if we should lose a single one of the moral truths, where would
     man himself be? Humanity would be decomposed and perish!'

It cannot be denied that art has an incontestable superiority over
science in appealing to _all_, in addressing the masses in the language
they most readily understand, the language of feeling, imagination, and
enthusiasm. It is not intended only for men of culture, of leisure; all
classes are to be benefited by its exalting influence. Men whose lives
are almost entirely absorbed by occupations necessary for the comfort of
their families, can scarcely be contented with the monotonous and
wearisome spectacle of actual every-day life. Their cares are very
exhausting, agitating the heart and mind with harassing emotions; while
the immortal soul thirsts for eternal happiness. Can it be doubted that
such dim, vague, unsatisfied longings are the source of much immorality?
Mechanical operations, business speculations, commercial transactions,
important as they may appear to the utilitarian, are far from responding
to the requirements of the intellect, the imperious exactions of the
heart. Such men pine unconsciously for a draught of higher life, they
grow weary of existence. Literature and the arts may come to their aid,
creating for them an ideal world in the midst of the actual, in the
bosom of which they may find other emotions, interests, and images. They
may open, even in the desert of the most conventional life, an unfailing
spring of ideas and emotions, at which the poor world-wearied spirits
may slake their mental and moral thirst. The wonders of commercial
industry cannot quite chain the minds of men to the material world--it
is certain that the thirst for the ideal ever increases in exact
proportion with the development of the race. The true and high task of
the artist, the poet, is to divine these wants of humanity, to cultivate
these inchoate aspirations for the infinite, to hold its nectar to the
toil-worn, weary lips, to soothe and elevate the restless spirits, to
cultivate, in accordance with the essence of Christianity, this excess
of moral and intellectual being, which the occupations of this weary
earth-life cannot exhaust.

Besides, is it not true that the very character natural to the artist is
peculiarly fitted to exert a beneficial influence on a material and
commercial society? The pursuits of commerce are very apt to engender a
spirit of utter indifference to everything except material well-being--a
spirit of competition and mutual distrust most injurious to the
happiness of society; but the artist is proverbially careless of mere
pecuniary gain, and is always full of trust in his fellow men. In the
various phases of excitement which are constantly agitating society, he
looks only for the manifestation of noble passions and great thoughts.
In the base smiles wreathing so many false lips, he sees but the natural
expression of kindness; when lips vow fidelity, he dreams of an
affection based upon esteem, not upon a passing instinct, a sordid or
sensual interest--he believes in a union of hearts. Breathing everywhere
around him the high enthusiasm of his own truthful and loving soul, he
knows nothing of those perfidious jealousies and bitter enmities which
creep and twist in the shade, always hiding under some fair mask; of
those coarse intellects opposed to every noble impulse, or of that proud
and obstinate egotism which repels every generous emotion of the heart,
because it knows that _feeling_ creates an _equality_ which is wounding
to its haughty estimation of its own supposed merit.

It is certain that the soul was not created for the accumulation of
money, but to enjoy God. It is a free and living power, whose true
condition upon earth is the voluntary fulfilment of duty. It was made
for this by the God of love. Duty, love to God and man, is the Ideal of
human life; and as art and poetry should be the expression of the
highest and most universal ideas of the human race, duty should not only
be the Pole star of the artist's own life, but its chastening purity
should preside over all his conceptions. A profane or unchaste work of
art is a sacrilege against the most High; an insult to those divine
attributes in whose image that artist himself was made, and which he
must constantly struggle to suggest or typify, that the work of his hand
prove not a golden calf, an offence both to God and man. The moral ideal
always advances as we approach it. 'Be ye perfect as I am perfect,' is
the precept of the Master. This is the justification of the poet when he
portrays men in advance of the common level of life. The _moral_
Beautiful is the realization of _Duty_, which the poet should picture in
its most sublime form. He may and should sing of the passions, but _Duty
is the eternal pole star of the soul_! The susceptible heart of the
artist must respect the majesty of virtue. Unless his escutcheon glitter
with the brilliancy of purity, he is not worthy to be one of the
Illustrious Band whose high mission upon earth (with lowly reverence be
it said) is the manifestation of the Divine Attributes. O Holy Banner,
borne through the streets of the Heavenly City by saints and angels,
will the artist suffer thy snowy folds to be dragged through the mire of
crime? Shame to him when he dallies in the Circean Hall of the senses!
Infamy when he wallows in the sty of sensuality!

The effort to apprehend and reproduce the Supernal Loveliness on the
part of souls fittingly constituted so to do, has given to our race all
the marvels, the softening and elevating influences of the Ideal Realm.
The purest, the most exciting, the most intense pleasure is to be found
in the _pure_ contemplation of Beauty. We may indulge in it without
fear--no Hock and soda are required after its safe excitements! In this
contemplation alone do we find it possible to attain that pleasurable
elevation, _that excitement of the soul_, which we recognize as always
dependent upon our introduction into the Realm of the Ideal. This
excitement of the _soul_ is easily distinguished from the excitement of
the _mind_ consequent upon the perception of logical truths, the
satisfaction of the reason; or from passion, the excitement of the
_heart_. The excitement of the _soul_ is strictly and simply the
temporary satisfaction of the human aspiration for the Supernal Beauty;
and is quite independent of the search for finite truths for the
gratification of the _intellect_; or of that of passion, which is the
intoxication of the _heart_. For in regard to passion of the heart, its
home lies too near the senses to be entirely safe, and its tendency may
be to degrade;--while there may be high and useful truths which do not
move the _soul_ in the least.

The arts, then, always occupied with the reproduction of Beauty, gain
their power over the soul of man by reminding him of the Divine
Attributes. His thirst for the beautiful belongs to his immortality, for
it never rests in the appreciation of mere finite beauty, but struggles
wildly to obtain the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of
the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations
among the things and thoughts of time, to attain a portion of that
loveliness whose elements pertain to Eternity alone; and thus, when by
poetry or music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find
ourselves melted into tears, we are not moved through any excess of
pleasure, but through an impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp
_now, wholly, here on earth_, those divine and rapturous joys of which,
through the poem or through the music, we obtain but brief and
indeterminate glimpses:

  'Tears, idle tears, we know not whence they're flowing,
  Tears from the depths of some _divine despair_.'

Tears of the created, the finite, for the Creator, the Infinite!

Every phenomenon of the material world is not a sign of the divine
thought, when considered apart from its relations with other things, as
every isolated word in a language is not, in itself, a sign of our
thought. There is something in the nature of things which constitutes
the visible sign the symbol of the Invisible. To reveal or suggest the
Absolute, it is not sufficient for the artist to combine fortuitously
mere natural phenomena; he must be able to select those in which God has
incarnated His Idea. Where is he to find a guide through this labyrinth
of sounds, forms, tones, and colors?

He must strive to realize the ideas given him by the Creator; he must
surround us here with the memories of our lost Paradise; he must repeat
to us the mysterious words and tones which God confides to his heart in
his lonely walks to the holy temple, in his solitary musings in the dim
forests, or in his prayerful hours under the starlit heavens of the
solemn midnight.

     'With whose beauty (of created things) if they being delighted took
     them to be gods, let them know how much the Lord of them is more
     beautiful than they: _for the first Author of Beauty made all those
     things_.'--_Book of Wisdom._

     'And they shall strengthen the state of the world; and _their
     prayer shall be in the work of their craft_, applying their soul,
     and searching in the law of the Most High.'--_Ecclesiasticus._

Here, then, is the secret--gratitude and love are to be the teachers of
the artist. Naught save love will enable him to read the wondrous runes
of God's creation; nothing but sympathy can catch the strange tones of
mythic music; there is nothing pure, which can be painted, save by the
pure in heart. The foul or blunt feeling will see itself in everything,
and set down blasphemies; it will see Beelzebub in the casting out of
devils; it will find its God of flies in every alabaster box of precious
ointment; in faith and zeal toward God it will not believe; charity it
will regard as lust; compassion as pride; every virtue it will
misinterpret, every faithfulness malign. But the mind of the devout
artist will find its own image wherever it exists; it will seek for what
it loves, and draw it out of dens and caves; it will believe in its
being, often where it cannot see it, and always turn away its eyes from
beholding vanity; it will lie lovingly over all the foul and rough
places of the human heart, as the snow from heaven does over the hard
and broken mountain rocks, following their forms truly, yet catching
light from heaven for them to make them fair--and that must be a steep
and unkindly crag, indeed, which it cannot cover.

The artist must direct his eyes to the spheres of Sovereign Beauty; he
must lend his ears to the harmonies of the Eternal World, that he may be
able to decipher the symbolic signs which manifest the Being of beings,
and recognize the voices which murmur His Name; for in humble reverence,
yet joyful gratitude, it may be said that God Himself is the First,
True, and Last Master of the Artist.

Poetry and the arts have an end, ordained by Providence, with respect to
the extension of _social_ intercourse; a sacred duty to fulfil to
humanity at large. The signs of the times are startling; religions and
governments seem driven by a whirlwind, and it is of vital importance
that everything should be cultivated which has any tendency to bring men
together, to link multiform variety to unity; the national variety to
its distinctive unity; the variety of these distinctive unities, these
national governments of all races and peoples, to one great Unity of
government, freedom, development, justice, and love. There seems to be
but little doubt that our own country is destined to become the _central
heart_ of this marvellous _unity_. Is not the very war, now raging over
her fair fields, a war for Union? A false element allowed to exist in
our code of universal freedom, we mean slavery, like all Satanic
elements, has struggled to bring division, faction, disintegration,
death, in its train. It has convulsed, but awakened our country. Its
reign is almost over; its powers to dissever and destroy are now being
rapidly eliminated from a Constitution whose basic meaning is justice,
equality, and love. The battle is waging in this vast area of freedom,
not for spoil, dominion, vengeance, or ambition, but simply for _Union_
even with our enemies! Liberty, union, life, are parts and portions of
God's own law; slavery, dismemberment, death, belong of old to Lucifer.
Where God and Demon combat, can the strife be doubtful?

We suffer that we may be purified; but a Union broader, juster, and more
beneficent than any the world has yet seen, is to bud, bourgeon, and
bloom from this bloody contest. The rose of love is yet to grow upon
this crimson soil, and brother yet to stand with brother to insure the
union of the world. The glory of our present struggle for the happiness
of humanity, will yet be hailed by every living soul!

This is the unity sung by prophets, felt by poets, and foreshadowed in
the writings of statesmen, historians, and metaphysicians. Industry,
politics, commerce, science, and the arts, are the means which God has
placed at man's disposal to aid him in the accomplishment of this mighty
work. Man is _one_ in the fall of Adam; _one_ in the redemption of
Christ. Individuality and solidarity are but man's variety and unity.

It is certain, however, that a mere combination of commercial interests
does but little for the heart; science, with its exact formulas, is
almost equally powerless; they form together but the bony skeleton of a
lifeless union; poetry and the arts must clothe it with the soft and
clinging flesh, quicken it with the throbbing heart, and warm it with
the loving soul of an all-embracing humanity; and it is, to say the
least, very remarkable how exactly this important task is in keeping
with the nature of the arts, because they alone express the _feelings_,
the _distinctive individualities_ of men and nations, while the sciences
reveal only the 'impersonal' of the intellect. That a man may
demonstrate mathematical problems tells us nothing of his heart; if he
paint a single violet rightly, it tells of truth, sympathy, and love.
Men never leave in their scientific researches the traces of the
different phases of the soul, the _imprint_ of their own _personality_;
the sciences have everywhere the same character, because they contain
discrete and abstract ideas, necessarily the same in all minds.

In the creations of art, on the contrary, _feeling_, the spirit of life,
is added to the pure idea, and this new element of _individual
character_ introduced into the thought is, in its infinite subtlety,
sufficient to produce the immense variety which exists in the poetic and
artistic creations of different men, of different ages, and of different
nations. And the reason of this is very simple; it is because the heart
is the seat of _distinctive personality_. We never _love_ men for what
they _know_; we love them for what they feel and _are_. It is
consequently _feeling_ which is the principle of _union_ among men.

Thus it is through art and literature alone that national
individualities _really_ communicate with each other; it is through them
that what is _characteristic_ in each is made known to all; it is
through them that embittered, long-seated, and deeply-rooted national
prejudices must be dissipated; through them that the fusion of minds,
violently hostile to each other only because of their mutual ignorance
and misconception of character, must eventually be effected. Before the
means of constant intercommunication, daily becoming more rapid and
perfect, shall have compassed the whole earth with their lines of
lightning, before all nations shall be known to one another as
inhabitants of the same city--the artists, through art and literature,
will have confided to the human heart of their brethren their own most
sacred feelings, the hidden beatings of their life-pulse, so that when
the material barriers separating souls shall fall, when steam and iron
shall subdue space and time, men of distant climes will no longer stand
as strangers to one another, but meet with all the enthusiasm of near
and dear friends long since initiated in all the holy and tender secrets
of the home hearth; the due place of affection, honor, and gratitude
ready for all true souls at the sacred fireside of appreciative
fraternal love.

It is remarkable that the art marked and conditioned by the necessity of
the most _perfect unity_, the art almost exclusively intended for the
expression of and appeal to the feelings of the soul, the art without
material model of any kind, and consequently the most ideal and original
of all, in which the pulse of time itself marshals the tones in order,
symmetry, and proportion, coloring them with the joys and woes, hopes
and fears of humanity--should now be undoubtedly entering upon a new era
of far higher and wider development. This fact contains a germ which is
to blossom in the most brilliant bloom; the crowning flower in that
_living unity_, which is, indeed, the '_manifest Destiny_' of our race.

There is certainly something exceedingly remarkable in the unitive
powers of music. In the first place, its present popularization cannot
fail to multiply the relations of men with one another, as each separate
instrument, like an arithmetical figure, has an _absolute_, as well as a
_relative_ value. It may not be sufficient in itself to produce
_harmony_; but when placed in UNION with others, it gains a double or
triple value, according to the part assigned it in a musical Whole. A
single _jar_ in time or tune spoils the entire effect of the marvellous
variety and order, attained in the _utter oneness_ of any good musical
work. The desire to increase the limits of art, to multiply its
delicious emotions, will infallibly lead those who cultivate this
ethereal study to frequent reunions, in order that they may produce the
Beautiful in more fulness, obtain a greater variety of effect and tone,
cradled, as it must ever be in music, in the bosom of the strictest
unity.

Music has its own trinity, composed of Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony.
_Rhythm_ is the pulse of time; the tones register its heart beats and
manifest its soul, its _melody_; _harmony_ is the concurrent sympathy or
antagonism elicited by its annunciation in the invisible realm in which
it moves. Unity is first manifested in the rhythm; then, as the tones
_consecutively_ follow each other, the succeeding one always born and
growing immediately from the one just expiring, in the consequent
_melody_; and lastly, as the tones progress _simultaneously_, hand to
hand, and heart to heart, with the single line or passion of the melody,
conditioned and responding to it in all its varied phases--(the
individual and collective, the soul and its surroundings)--the grand
diapason of harmony rolls on--and the magic _unity_ of music is
complete! Hence, part of its power over men. But like all organic, basic
life-principles, its relations with the human spirit defy analysis. Its
unitive influence cannot be denied, even by those who do not feel its
charm. Let them but consider that no public act of humanity implying the
_primeval unity_ of the race, is considered complete without it, and
they must be convinced that it is pre-eminently the art of social union.
When an entire nation collects as a band of brothers to resist
aggression, to repel invasion, it is music, the unitive art, which
animates them to seek death itself to resist wrongs which would burden
all, its very rhythm keeping in massive _unison_, _together_, the tread
of thousands, causing all hearts to throb in _one_ measure, and so
regulating the most heterogenous masses that they move as it were as
_one_ mighty man. And in all public acknowledgments of our collective
dependence as _one_ race upon the _one_ God, music alone is considered
sufficiently symbolic and tender to express the universal sense of
helplessness, of generic trust in His marvellous mercy.

Music blesses the innocent bride with the first chant of forever
_united_, and consequently holy love. It hallows at the baptismal font
the introduction of the infant into the mystical _oneness_ of the
children of Christ. Even at the grave it softens human sorrow by its
heavenly whisperings of _eternal union_ in the bosom of Infinite love.

France is ever ready to receive Italian, Sclavonic, and German artists
with characteristic and appreciative enthusiasm; and America applauds
with _naïve_ rapture that skill, as yet, alas! foreign to her native
soil.

  'I pant for the music which is divine,
    My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
  Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine;
    Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
  Like an herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
  I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

  'Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound--
    More--oh, more--I am thirsting yet!
  It loosens the serpent which care has bound
    Upon my heart to stifle it;
  The dissolving strain, in every vein,
  Passes into my heart and brain.'

  SHELLEY.

Artists and litterateurs are the true representatives of the countries
in which they live; because they alone reveal to us the secret
throbbings of the great national heart; and the warm and sympathetic
feelings which they excite in foreign climes, are _golden links_ drawing
more closely the ties of mutual understanding and affection, welding
them together in that generous _reciprocal_ esteem and comprehension,
which is destined to _unite_ all climes and tongues.

     'A touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'

The sympathies of life are widening and increasing. Societies are
constantly arising devoting themselves to the solacing of human misery;
eager sympathies are evinced by different countries in the sufferings of
distant lands; ready and substantial aid is gladly tendered in cases of
pestilence and famine; and religious intolerance and bigotry are raving
themselves to rest. Christ is more and creeds are less than of old. The
fact that a free government is now in successful operation, in which
(when one false element, slavery, shall be forever eliminated) the
voluntary annexation of new states and new countries would be but new
ties of strength, with the consentaneous and related facts above
quoted, tend to prove that humanity is entering upon a new era; that it
is not destined to trail its passionate and quivering wings much longer
through the mire of mere materialism; but that newer and higher life is
spreading _simultaneously_ through all its members; that the elevating
love of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, is hourly penetrating it
more deeply; that after its intellect shall have been trained by the
sciences--its force increased by industry, commerce, and
statesmanship--its inmost heart will be developed by the Charities, now,
as with the subtile Greeks, _one_ with the Graces--the arts for the
manifestation of the Beautiful. Everything tends to prove, even the wars
now waging for national entities, that the human race is approaching
that _promised_ phase of civilization, in which _all_ the elements are
to combine in glorious _unity_, sound in witching harmony, and men, full
of love to God and man, are to become living stones in the vast temple
of the redeemed, _one_ through the loving heart of the Brother who died
for them all; _one_ through Him with the Infinite God, since in Him
finite and Infinite are forever _one_!

A few words in the cause of those in advance of their times, and we
attain the close of our first volume.

It is a startling fact, in the history of humanity, that the benefactors
of the race have always been its martyrs and victims; dyeing every
glorious gift which they have won for their brethren in the royal purple
of the kingly blood of their own hearts. Is this, brethren, to last
forever? Shall we never requite the dauntless Columbus, in the wide sea
of Beauty? Of all men living, the artist most requires the boon of
sympathy. The most susceptible of them all, the musician, plunging into
the unseen depths of the time-ocean to wrestle for his gems, feels his
heart die within him, when he sees his fellow men turn coldly away from
the pure and priceless pearls which he has won for them from the stormy
waves and whirlpools of chaotic and compassless sound.

As the artists must be considered as the standard-bearers of that
blissful banner of progress to be effected through the culture of the
_sympathies_ of the race, unrolling that great Oriflamme of humanity, on
which bloom the Heavenly Lilies of that chaste Passion of the Soul--_the
longing for the infinite_--let us acknowledge that we have failed to
render happy the great spirits no longer among us; and let us strive,
for the future, not to chill with our mistrust and coldness, not to
drive into the sickness of despair with our want of intelligent
sympathy, the gifted living, who, as angels of a better covenant, still
lovingly linger among us! Let us strive to learn the lesson set before
us with such tenderness in the following eloquent words of Ruskin,
fitting close as they are to the many which we have already collated and
combined with our work from his glowing pages.

     'He who has once stood beside the grave to look back upon the
     companionship now forever closed, feeling how impotent _there_ are
     the wild love and keen sorrow to give one moment's pleasure to the
     pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed
     spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future
     incur that debt to the _heart_ which can only be discharged to the
     _dust_. But the lessons which men receive as _individuals_, they
     never learn as _nations_. Again and again they have seen their
     _noblest_ descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to
     garland the tombstone when they have not crowned the brow, and to
     pay the honor to the _ashes_ which they had denied to the _spirit_.
     Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult
     and glitter of their busy life, to listen for the few voices and
     watch for the few lamps which God has toned and lighted to charm
     and guide them, that they may not learn their sweetness by their
     silence, nor their light by their decay.'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the highest poet of our own century, has
thus given us the artist's creed of resignation, closing her chant with
his sublime Te Deum:


VOICE OF THE CREATOR.

  ''And, O ye gifted givers, ye
  Who give your liberal hearts to me,
  To make the world this harmony,--

  ''Are ye resigned that they be spent
  To such world's help?' The spirits bent
  Their awful brows, and said--'Content!

  ''We ask no wages--seek no fame!
  Sew us for shroud round face and name,
  God's banner of the oriflamme.

  ''We are content to be so bare
  Before the archers! everywhere
  Our wounds being stroked by heavenly air.

  ''We lay our souls before thy feet,
  That Images of fair and sweet
  Should walk to other men on it.

  ''We are content to feel the step
  Of each pure Image!--let those keep
  To mandragore, who care to sleep:

  ''For though we must have, and have had
  Right reason to be earthly sad--
  THOU POET-GOD, ART GREAT AND GLAD!''

END OF VOLUME FIRST.




THE LIONS OF SCOTLAND.


The 'restoration' mania which now pervades Great Britain, however much
it be declaimed against by certain hypercritical architects, is yet
certain to have at least one favorable result, in preserving to the
future tourist the noblest monuments of the past. The abbeys and castles
and tombs of England and Scotland are now so well cared for, that, ruins
though they be, they will last for centuries. And yet the observant
traveller can note, year by year, little changes, trifling alterations,
which, though without great importance, are not destitute of interest;
for he who has once visited Melrose, will be interested to learn that
even one more stone has fallen from the ruin.

It is intended, in the following pages, to review the present condition,
and state the recent changes in the 'Lions of Scotland,' and
particularly in the localities with which the memories of Burns and
Scott--memories so dear, both to the untravelled and travelled
American--are most closely associated. Of the thousands of visitors who
yearly flock to do mental homage at the tomb of Shakespeare, one out of
every ten is from the United States; and so a large minority of the
tourists in Scotland, and particularly of those most deeply interested
in Scotland's greatest bards, hail from the New World. The conclusion of
the war will probably be the signal for an unusual hegira from America
to Europe; and these notes of the actual condition, in A.D. 1863, of
Scotland's famed shrines, may serve to whet the increasing appetite for
foreign travel.

'Bobby Burns' is buried at Dumfries, a rather dull town, which,
fortunately for the tourist, has no notable church or ruin to be visited
_nolens volens_. The place has, however, a Continental air, caused
principally by the very curious clock tower in the market place; a
quaint spire, in the background, adding to the effect of the
architectural picture.

At one end of the town is St. Michael's church--a huge, square box,
pierced by windows, and guarded by a big sentinel of a bell tower,
surmounted by another quaint spire. The graveyard is one of the oddest
in the kingdom, presenting long rows of huge tombstones, twelve or
fifteen feet high, usually painted of a muddy cream color, each one
serving for an entire family, and recording the trades or professions as
well as the names and ages of the deceased. One of these enormous stones
is in commemoration of the victims of the cholera in 1832.

In one corner of the cemetery is the tasteless mausoleum of Burns--a
circular Grecian temple, the spaces between the pillars glazed, and a
low dome, shaped like an inverted washbowl, clapped on top. The interior
is occupied by Turnerelli's fine marble group of Burns at the plough,
interrupted by the Muse of Poetry. At the foot of this group, and
covering the poet's remains, is the freshly painted slab, bearing these
inscriptions:

  IN MEMORY OF
  ROBERT BURNS,
  WHO DIED THE 21ST OF JULY, 1796,
  IN THE 37TH YEAR OF HIS AGE:

  AND

  MAXWELL BURNS,
  WHO DIED THE 25TH APRIL, 1799,
  AGED 2 YEARS AND 9 MONTHS;

  FRANCIS WALLACE BURNS,
  WHO DIED THE 9TH JULY, 1803,
  AGED 14 YEARS--HIS SONS.

  THE REMAINS OF BURNS,
  REMOVED INTO THE VAULT BELOW
  19TH SEPTEMBER, 1815--AND HIS TWO SONS.

  ALSO THE REMAINS OF
  JEAN ARMOUR,
  RELICT OF THE POET,
  BORN 6TH FEBRUARY, 1765,
  DIED 26TH MARCH, 1834;

  AND ROBERT, HIS ELDEST SON,
  DIED MAY 14, 1857,
  AGED 70 YEARS.

Visitors are allowed to enter the cheerful, if not elegant mausoleum,
though all it contains can be seen through the windows. All the
memorials of Burns, by the way, seem to be of the same tasteless
style--the same wearisome imitation of the antique. The monument at Ayr,
and that on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, are but additional examples.

Before leaving Dumfries, let me allude to a very curious custom,
observed only in St. Michael's church, and even there beginning to fall
into desuetude. The Scotch, who are alike noted for snuff and religious
austerity, are equally devoted to footstools. In many families, where
economy is the rule, one footstool--they are mere little wooden
benches--serves both for the fireside and the kirk. To facilitate
transportation, these benches are provided with little holes perforating
the centre of the seat, large enough to admit the ferule of an umbrella
or cane; and thus, borne aloft on these articles, the little benches are
carried proudly above the shoulders of the bearers, like triumphant
banners. In order to avoid the noise arising from the clatter of these
benches as they are lowered into the pews, the congregation are
accustomed to assemble some time before divine service begins.

A similar custom once prevailed in the cathedral at Glasgow. In 1588 the
kirk session decided that seats in the church would be a great luxury,
and certain ash trees in the churchyard were cut down, and devoted to
the then novel purpose; but ungallantly enough, the women of the
congregation were forbidden to sit on the new seats, and were ordered to
bring stools along with them. Tradition, however, fails to record
whether the Glasgow ladies carried their stools on the tops of
umbrellas, like their sisters of Dumfries.

The grave of Burns owes to its uncouth monument the unsatisfactory
feeling which it inspires in visitors. Alloway kirk is the place where
the remains of the favorite Scottish poet should lie. Instead of
artificial temples, badly copied from a clime and nation with which he
had no sympathy or affinity, the young daisy and the fresh grass should
mark his resting place.

'Alloway's kirk haunted wall' is preserved with such faithful care, that
this year it looks very much the same as it did when Burns knew it. As a
ruin, apart from the interest with which the poet has invested it, it
possesses nothing to attract attention. Two end walls, which once
supported a gable roof, and two low side walls, all without ornament of
any kind--without gothic tracing or oriel wonders--without even
graceful ivy flung over its ruggedness--are all that remain of Alloway,
if we except the old bell, which yet hangs in the little belfry; a sign
board below insulting visitors by requesting them not to throw stones at
it!

The little churchyard of Alloway continues to be a burial place; but the
gravestones seem, in many instances, sadly inconsistent with the
poetical associations of the place. As at Dumfries, the business
occupations of the deceased are mentioned; and we find here the family
tombs of 'Robert Anderson, molecatcher,' of 'James Wallace, blacksmith,'
and the like. David Watt Miller, who was buried here in 1823, was the
last person baptized in the old Alloway kirk--his tombstone recording
the fact. Near the entrance to the graveyard, and opposite the new
gothic edifice which has taken the place of the old kirk, is the slab to
the poet's father and sister, thus inscribed:

  'Sacred to the memory of WILLIAM BURNS, farmer
    in Lochie, who died February 13, 1784, in
    the 63d year of his age.

  Also of ISABELLA, relict of JOHN BELL; his
    youngest daughter, born at Mount Oliphant,
    June 27, 1771; died December 4, 1858, much
    respected and esteemed by a wide circle of
    friends, to whom she endeared herself by her
    life of piety, her mild urbanity of manner, and
    her devotion to the memory of BURNS.'

The reader is aware that Alloway's kirk, the Burns monument, the cottage
where the poet was born, the elaborate temple, erected to his memory,
and Tam O'Shanter's brig, are all within a few rods of each other, at
about two miles' distance from Ayr. The view of the temple, kirk, and
'brig,' from the opposite side of the stream, is worthy of Arcadia. The
temple is familiar from engravings; but the bridge, with its graceful
arch, draped by low-hanging ivy, is far more beautiful. Yet this
exquisite scene is identified with one of Burns's coarsest efforts--one
which, with all its vividness and humor, cannot be read aloud in the
family circle. Fortunately, however, for the poet, his fame by no means
rests on this unequal mixture of the humorous, the beautiful, and the
vulgar; and instead of admiring Tam O'Shanter's bridge itself, it is
much more pleasant to stand upon it, and gaze therefrom at the river
which laves the 'banks and braes o' bonnie Doon'--at the fields
besprinkled with the 'wee, crimsoned-tipped flower'--at the cottages
where once lived the 'auld acquaintance' of 'lang syne,' and where
occurred the scenes of 'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' 'Highland Mary'
has crossed this bridge, and this sanctifies it far more than the
imaginary terrors of Tam O'Shanter.

An hour's railway ride takes the tourist from the land of Burns to the
scenes rendered sacred by the genius of Scott.

Abbotsford, the favorite home, of course is still open to visitors, who
are hurried though it with the most disgusting celerity, by the guide
engaged by the family to 'do'--at a shilling a head--the hospitalities
of the place. The home of Scott retains all the characteristics it did
when he died; but is shown in such a heartless, museum-like manner, that
the visitor need not expect much gratification from the inspection.

A few miles farther up the Tweed is Ashetiel, the former home of Walter
Scott, a place seldom seen by tourists, though here he wrote his finest
poems. Some time ago I was invited to spend a night with a farmer who
resides on the estate. Those who have read Washington Irving's graphic
description of his visit to Abbotsford, will remember Mr. Laidlaw, of
whom he thus writes:

'One of my pleasant rambles with Scott, about the neighborhood of
Abbotsford, was taken in company with Mr. William Laidlaw, the steward
of his estate. This was a gentleman for whom Scott entertained a
particular value. He had been born to a competency, had been well
educated; his mind was richly stored with varied information, and he
was a man of sterling moral worth. Having been reduced by misfortune,
Scott had got him to take charge of his estate. He lived at a small farm
on the hillside above Abbotsford, and was treated by Scott as a
cherished and confidential friend, rather than a dependant.' My worthy
host was the son of this old gentleman, who is still alive and in good
health. Several years ago he emigrated to Australia, where he now
resides, still taking a lively interest in literary affairs, and
reading, though an octogenarian, all the new works, that are regularly
sent to him by his son. The old gentleman was as intimately acquainted
with Hogg as with Scott, and my host remembers both these personages,
though he was but a boy when they died.

Early one September morning Mr. Laidlaw was kind enough to take me about
the grounds of Ashestiel, where 'Sir Walter' (they never add the name of
Scott, in speaking of him here) passed thirteen of the best years of his
life, and where he wrote the greater parts of 'Marmion' and the 'Lay.'
We walked over the dewy fields (romantic but damp), and down to the
banks of the Tweed, where I was shown a large outspreading oak, under
which Sir Walter was wont to sit and frame his ideas into fitting words.
Under this tree, with Tweed rippling at his feet, he spent many an hour
in communion with himself, quietly weaving those strains that have
immortalized him. From this place we passed on to the house
itself--Ashestiel--now the residence of Sir William Johnstone, from
whose family Sir Walter had leased it during the building of Abbotsford.
It is a fine old building; but much altered and improved since it was
occupied by Scott. Lockhart says of this place: 'No more beautiful
situation, for the residence of a poet, could be imagined. The house was
then a small one; but, compared with the cottage of Lasswade, its
accommodations were amply sufficient. The approach was through an
old-fashioned garden, with holly hedges, and broad, green terrace walks.
On one side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine, clothed with
venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen,
on its progress to the Tweed. The river itself is separated from the
high bank, on which the house stands, only by a narrow meadow, of the
richest verdure; while opposite, and all around are the green hills. The
valley there is narrow, and the aspect in every direction is that of
perfect pastoral repose.' This picture still holds good, with the
exception of the 'old-fashioned garden,' which has made way for a new
lawn and carriage road. The proprietor was an intimate friend of Walter
Scott, and an India officer of merit, who has now returned to his old
home, having bidden farewell to the neighing steed and all the pomp and
circumstance of war.

From the house I was conducted to another of Scott's haunts--a little
wooded grassy knoll, still known by the name of 'Wattie's Knowe,' or
'Sheriff's Knowe,' for Scott enjoyed both the familiar title of 'Wattie'
and the official one of 'Sheriff.' It is a lovely spot, this Wattie's
Knowe. The trees are old and gnarled; the grass is overrun with green
moss and graceful fern-leaves, and if you are quite still, you can hear
the murmur of Glenkinnon Burn, as it leaps over its pebbly bed, and
hastens on to the Tweed. Here, between the branching trunks of a huge
elm, Scott had fixed a rustic seat, to which he resorted nearly as often
as to his favorite oak tree on the banks of the Tweed. While he resided
here, Abbotsford was building; and almost daily he would ride over to
superintend its progress.

Melrose is this year guarded with unusual vigilance. Hitherto visitors
have been allowed to pass hours in the ruin, at their leisure, and read
the wizard scene of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' in the very
locality where it is supposed to have occurred. At present, however, a
sable widow, of the most unimpeachable respectability, casts a
melancholy gloom over the place by the dejected yet resigned manner in
which she unlocks the wooden gate and ushers strangers through the nave
and transepts. Her orders, she says, are to allow no one to remain a
moment in the ruin without her superintending presence--which is safe,
but unpoetical.

Dryburgh, the ruin in which is the tomb of Walter Scott, is shown by an
intelligent man who oversees the place. At the foot of Sir Walter's
granite tomb is that recently erected to the memory of 'the son-in-law,
biographer, and friend,' Lockhart. A bronze medallion likeness of the
eminent reviewer adorns the red polished granite of his tomb. The
Erskine family, the Haigs of Bemerside, and the earls of Buchan, are the
only families, besides Sir Walter's ancestors, the Haliburtons, who are
allowed to bury in this ruin. It was of the Haigs that Thomas the
Rhymer, centuries ago, made a prediction to the effect that the line
would never become extinct--a prediction which threatens to fail, as two
maiden ladies now alone represent the family.

That 'proud chapelle,'

  '----where Roslyn's chiefs uncoffined lie,'

has seen some notable changes of late. A few years ago, it contained
only tombs; but the present Earl of Roslyn recently fitted it up for a
divine service, according to the Church of England ritual, though the
altar, the sedilia, the candles, the purple cloths, the painted organ,
and other ecclesiastical decorations suggest an imitation of the Roman
Catholic services, to which the chapel was formerly devoted. The people
in the vicinity, who are all Scotch Presbyterians, do not attend these
services, the select congregation being formed by 'the quality'--the
gentry and nobility, who have their country seats near by.

The readers of 'Marmion' will, of course, remember Norham and Twisell
castles. The former, as seen, from the railways, is a most uninviting
pile of rude masonry, worn and broken by time and decay; but a nearer
inspection reveals many phases of interest. The castle stands on the
summit of a cliff, overhanging the Tweed, yet almost buried in rich
foliage. The outer walls are crumbled away, and overgrown with short
grass, forming a series of green mounds, which mark the graves of feudal
grandeur. The south, east, and west walls of the keep, however, remain
standing, a huge shell or screen of dull red stone, while to the north
stretches a fragment of wall, along which it is easy to scramble to a
point overlooking the Tweed, the village of Norham, and the adjacent
scenery. Pleasant and thrilling it is to lie here on this deserted ruin,
and read that spirited opening canto! With what renewed brilliancy do
those chivalric lines bring back the long-past scenes of other days!

  'Day set on Norham's castled steep,
  And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
      And Cheviot's mountains lone:
  The battled towers, the donjon keep,
  The loophole grates where captives weep,
  The flanking walls that round them sweep,
      In yellow lustre shone.'

And imagination can almost bring to the ear the welcome to Marmion:

  'The guards their morrice pikes advanced,
    The trumpets flourished brave,
  The cannon from the ramparts glanced,
    And thundering welcome gave.
  A blythe salute in martial sort
    The minstrels well might sound,
  For, as Lord Marmion crossed the court,
    He scattered angels round.
  Welcome to Norham, Marmion!
    Stout heart, and noble hand!
  Well dost thou back thy gallant roan,
    Thou flower of English land.'

         *       *       *       *       *

  'They marshall'd him to the castle hall,
    Where the guests stood all aside,
  And loudly flourished the trumpet call,
    And the heralds loudly cried:
  'Room, lordlings, room for Lord Marmion,
    With the crest and helm of gold!
  Full well we know the trophies won
    In the lists at Cottiswold.
  Place, nobles, for the Falcon Knight!
    Room, room, ye gentles gay,
  For him who conquered in the right,
    Marmion of Fontenaye.''

Scott is already becoming old-fashioned, and his poems are not now
sought after, as they were ten years ago; but any one who wishes to
revive all the boyish enthusiasm with which he first read 'Marmion,' has
only to take the book with him to the ruins of Norham and again read the
glowing page!

The village of Norham is a quaint place dominated by the castle, and as
humble nowadays, with its little thatched cottages, as in the times when
the villagers were mere vassals of

    'Sir Hugh, the Heron bold,
  Baron of Twisell, and of Ford,
    And Captain of the Hold.'

A limpid stream runs down the principal street of Norham--a gutter,
which in the sunlight gleams like a band of silver. Village damsels wash
potatoes therein. Among the residents of Norham, by the way, is the
hostess of the principal inn, who was in the train of Joseph Bonaparte,
during his stay in America, living in his household at Bordentown, New
Jersey. She claims to be a personal acquaintance of Napoleon III; but I
have not heard what strange wave of fortune stranded the friend of the
Emperor of the French in the remote and unknown port of Norham.

A curious family romance hangs about Twisell castle, also mentioned in
'Marmion.' The present building, an immense quadrangular edifice, was
begun by Sir Francis Drake, who never had means to finish it. His heirs
tried to complete the castle, which is now the property of a lady over
seventy years old, residing in Edinburgh, who devotes all her spare
means to the work. Indeed, the building of Twisell castle is a
hereditary monomania in the family; but the estate belonging to the
magnificent structure is only forty acres in extent--utterly
insufficient to support such a castle with the household it will
ultimately need. As yet Twisell is a granite shell; no partitions are
put up in the interior. Vast sums of money must be expended before it
can be made tenantable.

But I must forego any allusions to Crichton and Pantallon castles, the
former the place where Marmion was entertained, and the latter the spot
where the bold chief dared

    '----to beard the lion in his den,
  The Douglas in his hall.'

And I must also omit 'Newark's stately tower,' where the last minstrel
sang his lay--and Branksome, the scene of the opening canto--and the
scenery of Lomond and Katrine, rendered famous by the success of the
Lady of the Lake. All these, and many other localities, hallowed by
poesy, can be easily visited by the enthusiastic tourist; but I prefer
to devote my pen and space to the most neglected and most beautiful of
them all--to Lindisfarn, the Holy Isle.

Though really in England, it is yet near enough to the border to be
included among the Lions of Scotland. It lies on the coast, about a
dozen miles south of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the nearest approach to it,
being from the railway station of Beal. Here the visitor will find the
one-horse cart of the postmaster, offering the only conveyance to one of
the most romantic and retired spots in the kingdom.

Holy Island, in circumference about eight miles, lies three miles from
the land; but is only an island at high tide. At other times, the
receding waters leave the sands bare, with the exception of two or three
channels, not more than six inches deep, and afford a passage for
vehicles, marked by a long row of stakes, intended especially to guide
travellers in winter, when the snow falls thickly on the path. In summer
there is always a strong wind blowing over these sands, drying them
from the salt water, forming picturesque patterns along the
ever-changing ground, and dashing a thin veil of sand along the way. Woe
to the unlucky wight who loses his hat in this place! With nothing to
intercept it, the unfortunate headgear is at once taken by the wind and
sent flying over the sandy plain, faster than human foot can run, far
out to the island, and often over it to the sea beyond. The frolicsome
dog, which generally accompanies the postmaster's cart, is the only hope
on which the hatless wretch can then rely; and usually this reliance is
not in vain.

Holy Island contains a population of some 600 souls, mostly fishermen.
Not a tree grows on the island; but at the south end, where a low
village crouches down against the continual sweepings of the stormy
winds, are a few fields, fragrant with clover, and gleaming with
buttercups; and, in one of these fields, scarce a stone's throw from the
beating surf, stand the ruins of Lindisfarn Abbey, one of the earliest
seats of Christianity in Great Britain, and one closely identified with
the traditionary career of St. Cuthbert. The front walls, portions of
the side walls, a diagonal arch richly ornamented, and the chancel
recently repaired to arrest further decay, remain to tell of its former
beauty. The area within the ruins is strewn with sea shells and pebbles,
while about the bases, whence once sprang aloft the clustered pillars of
the nave, grow in rich profusion hardy yellow flowers. The sharp sea
winds have eaten into the stone in many places, reducing it to an
apparent honeycomb. No ripple of gentle streamlet falls on the ear; no
luxuriant foliage offers its pleasant shade; no ivy drapery, stirred by
the summer breeze, floats from the decaying walls; but instead of these
gentle attractions, which Tinter and Bolton and Valle Crucis offer, we
have at Lindisfarn the boom of the ocean surf and the biting freshness
of the keen sea wind.

Scott thus describes Holy Island and Lindisfarn:

  'The tide did now its floodmark gain,
  And girdled in the saint's domain:
  For, with the flow and ebb, its style
  Varied from continent to isle;
  Dryshod, o'er sands, twice every day,
  The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
  Twice every day, the waves efface
  Of staves and sandalled feet the trace.
  As to the port the galley flew,
  Higher and higher rose to view
  The castle, with its battled walls,
  The ancient monastery's halls--
  A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile,
  Placed on the margin of the isle.
  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
  With massive arches broad and round,
  That rose alternate, row on row,
  On ponderous columns, short and low,
    Built ere the art was known,
  By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,
  The arcades of an alley'd walk,
    To emulate in stone.'

The scenes of Sarrow and Ettrick vales, associated with the life and
described in the poetry of the Ettrick shepherd, deserve more attention
from tourists than they usually receive. The single tomb in Ettrick
kirkyard, the site of his birthplace near by, marked by a stone in the
wall, bearing the letters J. H., Poet; Chapelhope, the scene of the
'Brownie o' Bodsbeck,' 'Sweet St. Mary's Lake,' Mount Benger, and the
new monument recently erected on the shores of St. Mary's, representing
the poet seated on a rock, his plaid thrown loosely over his shoulders,
and his shepherd's dog by his side--all these localities cannot fail to
interest those who know James Hogg, either by his works, or by his
character, so powerfully and singularly delineated in the pages of
'Noctes Ambrosianæ.'

Burns, the Ploughman--Scott, the Minstrel--Hogg, the Shepherd! How much
does Scotland owe to the magic of their pens! Without them, her
mountains and lakes and streams would never have known the presence of
that indefatigable, money-spending feature of modern life--the tourist;
for, without them, few indeed would be the Lions of Scotland.




WE TWO.


  We own no houses, no lots, no lands;
    No dainty viands for us are spread;
  By sweat of our brows, and toil of our hands,
    We earn the pittance that buys us bread.
  And yet we live in a grander state,
    Sunbeam and I, than the millionaires
  Who dine off silver or golden plate,
    With liveried lacqueys behind their chairs.

  We have no riches in bonds or stocks;
    No bank books show, our balance to draw;
  Yet we carry a safe-key, that unlocks
    More treasure than Croesus ever saw.
  We wear no velvets, nor satins fine;
    We dress in a very homely way;
  But, ah! what luminous lustres shine
    About Sunbeam's gowns and my hodden gray.

  When we walk together--(we do not ride,
    We are far too poor)--it is very rare
  We are bowed unto from the other side
    Of the street--but not for this do we care.
  We are not lonely; we pass along,
    Sunbeam and I, and you cannot see
  (We can) what tall and beautiful throng
    Of angels we have for company.

  No harp, no dulcimer, no guitar,
    Breaks into singing at Sunbeam's touch;
  But do not think that our evenings are
    Without their music; there is none such
  In the concert halls where the palpitant air
    In musical billows floats and swims;
  Our lives are as psalms, and our foreheads wear
    A calm like the feel of beautiful hymns.

  When cloudy weather obscures our skies,
    And some days darken with drops of rain,
  We have but to look in each other's eyes,
    And all is balmy and bright again.
  Ah! ours is the alchemy that transmutes
    The dregs to elixir, the dross to gold;
  And so we live on Hesperian fruits,
    Sunbeam and I, and never grow old.

  Never grow old: and we live in peace,
    And we love our fellows, and envy none;
  And our hearts are glad at the large increase
    Of plenteous virtue under the sun.
  And the days pass by with their thoughtful tread,
    And the shadows lengthen toward the west;
  But the wane of our young years brings no dread,
    To break our harvest of quiet rest.

  Sunbeam's hair will be streaked with gray,
    And Time will furrow my darling's brow;
  But never can Time's hand take away
    The tender halo that clasps it now.
  So we dwell in wonderful opulence,
    With nothing to hurt us, nor upbraid;
  And my life trembles with reverence,
    And Sunbeam's spirit is not afraid.




PATRIOTISM AND PROVINCIALISM.


In that memorable parliamentary battle between Webster and Hayne, the
broad nationalism of the former stands out in splendid contrast with the
narrow provincialism of the latter. Hayne's theme was small and
sectional--it wanted bulk; hence, he continually intrudes himself in his
subject: the subject is half, and Hayne and Webster the other and more
important half. Webster, on the contrary, is completely absorbed in the
magnitude of his subject; he forgets the very existence of such facts as
Webster and Hayne, and considers only that the destinies of millions
hang upon the great principles he is enunciating. Hayne is burdened with
an inferior sense of personality, and never gets beyond the clouds;
Webster's massive intellect shines out calm and bright as a fixed
star--far beyond the gross atmosphere of personal strife or sectional
antagonism. Hayne looks through a glass dimly, and sees only South
Carolina--a part; Webster, with his grand _coup d'oeil_ sweeps the
horizon, and his eagle glance takes in the entire Union as one perfect,
organic whole. Hayne's logic, granting the premises, was a finished and
splendid piece of mechanism; Webster started from a deeper and broader
vantage-ground of universal principle and intuitive truth, and by one
terrible wrench, of his giant intellect, Hayne's premises fell from
under, and the labored superstructure of his logic went down in one
confused mass of ruin with its foundations.

General Banks, in his late order, welcoming the return of our brave
soldiers from their two years' captivity in Texas, after recounting
their heroic history, gives utterance to the following noble sentiment:
'They refused to substitute the misguided ambition of a vulgar, low-bred
provincialism, for the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism.'

A great truth, like 'a thing of beauty, is a joy forever.' We feel it as
the wine of life in our spiritual organisms, quickening thought,
ennobling our aims, fortifying virtue, and expanding our immortal
statures. Such a truth is contained in that pointed antithesis: 'A
vulgar, low-bred provincialism, and the hallowed hopes of a national
patriotism.'

The human soul, in its process of development, grows from the centre to
the circumference, from a part to the whole, from a unit to the
universe. Its first conception is that of self-consciousness, and its
first emotion that of self-love. As it expands its immortal germs, it
becomes conscious of its relation to objects outside of self; it seeks
new outlets of sympathy in love of parents and kindred--then of
political communities, nations, and races; ever expanding the grand
circle of its sympathies as it grows more and more into a perfect image
of the divine spirit of the universe.

This tendency of the soul to the universal is a sure index of its
highest moral and intellectual culture; it is one of the divine
instincts of our nature, and shines out as God's autograph upon the
great representative minds of all ages. In Marcus Curtius, William Tell,
Garibaldi, and our own loved Washington, it makes the cream of history
and the highest poetry of nations. Its perfect manifestation is seen in
that grandest of all epics, 'Christ on the Cross,' wherein we behold a
most complete absorption of the self of the individual in the universal
self of the race.

There are men with little, narrow souls, that never radiate beyond the
centre of self; they have no conception of pure, fixed, absolute
principles, but are wholly governed by their local surroundings,
provincial prejudices, and the lower instincts of their nature. The
large, liberal mind of the true patriot, however, can never be dwarfed
down to mere sectional standards, but, true to the law of its
attraction, will ever point to the Pole-star of national unity and
national brotherhood.

Universality of soul, in the sense above adverted to, distinguishes the
Anglo-Saxon race as the best government-builders of the world. England,
by her subordination of the sectional to the national, by her reverence
for organic law and national unity, has survived the fiercest shocks of
her civil convulsions, and built upon their ruins a more perfect and
enduring fabric of government. In Southern latitudes, where the
temperament grows mercurial, and the emotional nature predominates, as
in France and the Italian States, governments seem founded on _volcanic
strata_, liable to frequent and radical eruptions. In the hot Huguenot
blood of South Carolina was kindled the first fatal spark that now
threatens to set our entire Union in a blaze of ruin.

The Christian draws nearer to the angels as he forgets self in the love
of God and his kind; and that nation is the most prosperous, happy, and
powerful that subordinates all selfish local interests, all sectional
antagonisms, to the higher law of national unity and brotherhood, that
holds 'the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism' as ever paramount to
the misguided ambition of a vulgar, low-bred provincialism.




LITERARY NOTICES.


     GALA DAYS. By GAIL HAMILTON, Author of 'Country Living and Country
     Thinking.' Ticknor & Fields, Boston. For sale by D. Appleton & Co.,
     New York.

Who will not welcome another book from the pen of Gail Hamilton, nor
name a 'gala day' indeed the one devoted to a perusal of these pleasant
pages? As Americans, we are very proud of Gail Hamilton. We regard her
books as blessings to the community. We know of no familiar essays
comparable to hers; we prefer them greatly to those of Elia. Everything
she touches assumes a sudden interest, no matter how trivial in itself
it may be. She pours sunshine over the pettiest details of every-day
life. We have known and felt all she tells us, lived it as life, and
instantaneously recognize it as truth; but who before has ever recorded
it for us--nay, who could do it for us, save this gifted woman, who
accepts all with a spirit so brave and true? How acute her analysis of
character! Every house has its own Halicarnassus. He is a typal man, as
is shown in the fact that husbands, brothers, sons, and lovers are
constantly called 'Halicarnassus' by the ladies most closely associated
with them. Halicarnassus--tantalizing and antagonistic, slow to work and
ready to jeer, the plague and pest of the home hearth, but at the same
time its pride and joy, true and helpful in all real emergencies, though
full of irritating taunts and desperate indolence. Such books keep our
spirits up in these days of national calamity and domestic losses. Their
charm is indescribable. Their style is sharp and brusque, but telling of
wide culture; keen, but tender; clear as mountain brook, but varied and
full as a river. Gail Hamilton will write of the daily trifles of which
life is made, then boldly grapple with the highest truths; she mounts
from the hut to the skies, and pours the light of heaven on all she
touches by the way. Humor and pathos, fun and earnestness, fiery
indignation and loving charity, detailed truths and bold imaginations
meet in her singularly rich, graphic, natural, and original pages. We
have often heard fault found with them by the artificial, as fault is
always found with things fresh and natural; but for ourselves we would
not willingly lose a single line she has ever written. No affectation,
no cant, no sickly feeling, no weakness, no inflation, no appealing for
petty sympathy, no writing for the sake of seeming fine, does she ever
indulge in. She coins words at will, for she writes from her heart and
is no purist; but we feel them to be appropriate, and requisite to
express the shade of thought in question: we may laugh at them at first,
but so natural and naive are they that we soon find them stealing into
our own vocabulary.

The beneficial effect of such writings upon American women cannot be
overestimated. They act as invigorating tonics, courses of beefsteak and
iron upon the somewhat too fragile loveliness, the exacting and
fastidious fine-ladyism, the morbid helplessness, far too prevalent
among them. Their ideal of womanhood has been wrong, narrow and
contracted, wanting in strength, breadth, and charity. Miss Muloch and
Gail Hamilton, while cherishing the sanctity of womanhood, are giving
broader views, higher aims, truer delicacy, and greater self-reliance to
their plastic sex. Their lessons and examples are bracing as the sea
breeze, and soothing as air fresh from the piny mountain.

Gail Hamilton dares to call things by their right names; humbugs die and
shams perish as her clear, deep eyes gaze upon them. She has the bravery
of virtue, and battles courageously with wrong, selfishness, and
weakness, though we always feel it is a woman's arm that strikes the
blow, and the Halicarnassuses of earth are ready to kneel to receive
it. But that she has explicitly forbidden all intrusion into her
privacy, we would say more about her. Meantime we frankly offer her our
sympathy and humble admiration, our true and leal homage, our grateful
appreciation of her strong, womanly, truthful, pure, and generous
nature. Move on in peace, fair iconoclast of false idols, stripper of
tinsel shrines, bringer of pleasant hours to the quiet home-hearth,
vigorous painter of home tasks and duties; and may Halicarnassus feed
upon your pungent and salty wit, drink the wine of your valiant and
patriotic heart, and bask in the sunshine of your loyal and loving soul
forever and ever!


     OUR OLD HOME: A Series of English Sketches. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
     Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New
     York.

Messrs. Ticknor & Fields are daily doing their countrymen service by
publishing good books, and thus increasing the means for promoting
general and solid culture. To them as well as to the gifted author are
due our thanks for this agreeable volume of truthful and instructive
sketches. It is, in fact, the portfolio of a genuine artist. He tells us
that the picture to have been evolved from a combination of these
faithful outlines is now never to be completed. This is certainly to be
regretted so far as artistic enjoyment is concerned; but, in regard to
exact portrayal of subject matter, sketches are ofttimes more valuable,
because more precise, than the finished work as seen through the haze of
the artist's imagination, wrought upon by the softening influences of
time, distance, and the necessary requirements of beauty in every such
creation.

Americans, until recently, have been prone either to sneer
indiscriminately at everything foreign, or to undervalue their own
country and advantages, and find nothing tolerable which was not the
growth of the eastern shore of the Atlantic. These tendencies are now,
we think, giving place to a calmer impartiality, a broader and more
enlightened spirit of inquiry. Patriotism is no longer a mere matter of
scoff among politicians, self-sacrifice the object of newspaper sneers,
_our country_ a spread-eagle figure for a Fourth-of-July oration.
American men and women now know that in a good cause they can cheerfully
resign fortune, and even bravely send forth to the battle field, or to
the still more fatal hospital, the dearest members of their household;
and they hence feel lifted up above petty scoffs and political or
commercial jealousies. Having proven their continued manhood and
womanhood, they can look their brother men of whatever nation in the
face, quietly yielding precedence where deserved, and as quietly
claiming their own dues. The spirit of Hawthorne's book is strictly in
accordance with this growing feeling. Fanatics, either for or against
England and the English, may find too much praise or too much blame; but
the impartial reader cannot fail to be impressed by the author's
fairness, even by the keen-sighted appreciation of either virtues or
faults resulting from a sincere and long-seated affection.

The chapter on "Outside Glimpses of English Poverty" is written as if
with the heart's blood of the writer; and we may all of us ponder it
well, lest some day its graphic but melancholy outlines may only too
vividly delineate the condition of our own poor. Let it teach every man
of us to strive without ceasing to bridge the wide chasm almost
necessarily dividing rich and poor. Let us untiringly pour into that
chasm love, pity, help, forbearance, our best of constructive thinking,
but last as well as first, love--Christian love--until vice and despair
no longer find excuse in circumstance.

We are glad again to welcome within the ranks of American literature the
author whose "Twice-Told Tales," "Manse Mosses," and "Scarlet Letter" so
thrilled our youthful souls; and we hope the pressure of the times,
weighing heavily upon him as upon all men of imagination who have
outlived their first youth, may ere long be lifted, and his mind
naturally revert to the treatment of mystic themes he of all writers
seems empowered to render dreamily interesting and suggestive.


     METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. By L. AGASSIZ. Boston: Ticknor
     & Fields, 1863. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

This is indeed a valuable work, supplying a want long felt by that class
of intelligent students who, without the time or means to fathom the
depths of natural science, are yet desirous of obtaining accurate and
reliable information regarding its foundation and general principles.
The public are deeply indebted to Professor Agassiz, for it is not every
man of real science who is willing to step into the popular arena, throw
aside (in so far as possible) technicalities, and strive to impart to
the unlearned the valuable results of years of severe study,
observation, and thought. We are happy to see that the illustrious
author enters "an earnest protest against the transmutation theory,
revived of late with so much ability, and so generally received." The
book concludes thus: "I cannot repeat too emphatically that there is not
a single fact in embryology to justify the assumption that the laws of
development, now known to be so precise and definite for every animal,
have ever been less so, or have ever been allowed to run into each
other. The philosopher's stone is no more to be found in the organic
than the inorganic world; and we shall seek as vainly to transform the
lower animal types into the higher ones by any of our theories as did
the alchemists of old to change the baser metals into gold."

The subjects treated are: General Sketch of the Early Progress in
Natural History; Nomenclature and Classification; Categories of
Classification; Classification and Creation; Different Views respecting
Orders; Gradation among Animals; Analogous Types; Family
Characteristics; The Characters of Genera; Species and Breeds; Formation
of Coral Reefs; Age of Coral Reefs, as showing permanence of species;
Homologies; Alternate Generations; The Ovarian Egg; Embryology and
Classification.


     SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES,
     during his Tour in the East, in the Spring of 1862, with Notices of
     some of the Localities visited. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D.,
     Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of
     Oxford; Honorary Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen; Deputy Clerk of
     the Closet; Honorary Chaplain to the Prince of Wales. Published by
     Charles Scribner, 124 Grand street, New York.

These Sermons are dedicated to his Royal Highness Albert Edward, Prince
of Wales, and are published at the request of the Queen of England,
Their interest depends in part on the circumstances and the occasion of
their delivery; in part upon the charm of their own quiet, simple, and
elegant style, their devout and tender spirit. The scenes in which these
discourses were preached are among the most famous and familiar of the
sacred and classical localities, the texts chosen being always in
accordance with them, the sermons illustrating their history and
connecting their glorious Past with the Present of the illustrious
travellers. They were preached on the Nile, at Thebes; in Palestine, at
Jaffa, at Nablus, at Nazareth, at Tiberias; in Syria, at Rasheya, at
Baalbec, at Ehden; on the Mediterranean, &c. Notices are appended of the
spots visited during the tour of the young Prince in the East. We find
in the table of contents: 'The Mosque of Hebron, The Cave of Machpelah,
The Tomb of David at Jerusalem, The Samaritan Passover, The Passover on
Mount Gerizim, The Antiquities of Nablus, Galilee, Cana, Tabor, The Lake
of Genesareth, Safed, Kedesh-Naphtali, The Valley of the Litany, The
Temples of Hermon, Baalbec, Damascus, Beirut, The Cedars of Lebanon,
Arvad; Patmos, its Traditions and connection with the Apocalypse.' These
notices are interesting and graphic. Places into which travellers have
found it impossible to penetrate, were rendered accessible to the heir
of England's crown. The visit to the hitherto inaccessible Sanctuary,
the Mosque of Hebron--the Sanctuary, first Jewish, then Christian, now
Mussulman, which is supposed to cover the Cave of Machpelah, to which
their attention had been directed by the great German geographer,
Ritter, and which has excited in modern times the keenest curiosity--is
full of instruction and interest. Since the time of Prince Edward and
Eleanor, this visit was the first paid by an heir of the crown of
England to these sacred regions. We close our notice with a short
extract from the pages of this pleasant book.

'That long cavalcade, sometimes amounting to one hundred and fifty
persons, of the Prince and his suite, the English servants, the troop of
fifty or a hundred Turkish cavalry, their spears glittering in the sun,
and their red pennons streaming in the air, as they wound their way
through the rocks and thickets, and over the stony ridges of Syria, was
a sight that enlivened even the tamest landscape, and lent a new charm
even to the most beautiful. Most remarkably was this felt on our first
entrance into Palestine, and on our first approach to Jerusalem. The
entrance of the Prince into the Holy Land was almost on the footsteps of
Richard Coeur de Lion, and of Edward I, under the tower of Ramleh, and
in the ruined Cathedral of St. George, at Lydda. Thence we had climbed
the pass of Joshua's victory at Bethhoron, had caught the first glimpse
of Jerusalem from the top of the Mosque of the Prophet Samuel, where
Richard had stood and refused to look on the Holy Sepulchre which he was
not thought worthy to rescue. Then came the full view of the Holy City
from the northern road, the ridge of Scopus--the view immortalized in
Tasso's description of the first advance of the Crusaders. The cavalcade
had now swelled into a strange and motley crowd. The Turkish governor
and his suite--the English consul and the English clergy--groups of
uncouth Jews--Franciscan monks and Greek priests--here and there under
the clumps of trees, groups of children singing hymns--the stragglers at
last becoming a mob--the clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard stones
of that rocky and broken road drowning every other sound--such was the
varied procession, which, barbarous as it was, still seemed to contain
within itself the representatives, or, if one will, the offscourings of
all nations, and thus to combine the impressive, and, at the same time,
the grotesque and melancholy aspect which so peculiarly marks the modern
Jerusalem. Our tents were pitched outside the Damascus Gate, near the
scene of the encampment of Godfrey de Bouillon, and from thence we
explored the city and the neighborhood.'


     FREEDOM AND WAR: Discourses on Topics suggested by the Times. By
     HENRY WARD BEECHER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D.
     Appleton & Co.

We cannot more appropriately present this work to the notice of our
readers, than by quoting from the editor's introduction the following
passage with regard to it: 'The title sufficiently expresses the rule by
which the selection was made. That rule was to choose discourses on
subjects of present interest, and which, at the same time, should, as
far as possible, so handle those subjects as to have a more permanent
value. They have also a certain significance from their order in time.
No other system will be found in the book, except a systematic purpose
always to discuss the subject apparently most important at the time. Its
general method is, to apply the principles of Christianity to the duties
and circumstances of life; to insist on a sound and fearless Christian
morality in whatever men do; and to show the increased importance of
practising that morality in times like these. It is believed that, in
seeking to do this, the discourses are consistent and clear in teaching
God's almighty supremacy and his goodness and wisdom, faith in humanity
and its future, the absolute necessity of national righteousness and of
Christian equality, the substantial truth and excellence of the frame of
government of the United States, the substantial nobility and courage,
justice and perseverance, of the real democracy of the country, and the
certain and ineffable splendor of our future, if only we are true to
ourselves, to humanity, and to God.' Few men have had such ardent and
devoted friends as Henry Ward Beecher; few such bitter and determined
enemies. It were useless to tell his friends of the loyalty, patriotism,
and ability of these remarkable Discourses; we heartily wish his enemies
could be persuaded to peruse them. We believe they would find the writer
far other than they deem him. We think they would find their prejudices
melting away, their dislike growing into admiration, and their own souls
kindling from the fire of his ardent and broad humanity. No man's
opinions have been more constantly misstated, none more generally
miscomprehended, than Mr. Beecher's. A man of large soul, of generous
impulses, he thinks as he feels, and writes as he thinks. His thoughts
are original, his imagination glowing, his sympathies all-embracing, his
creed broad and flowing, his illustrations apt and graphic, his diction
clear and bold, though often careless and sometimes almost grotesquely
familiar;--all that he touches seems poured through his heart, and thus
never fails to reach the heart of his audience. He battles with the sins
and evils of his time, and is perhaps as conservative as truth will
admit.




EDITOR'S TABLE.


NOW AND THEN.

John Letcher, the present rebel Governor of Virginia, has lately
presented himself in rather a new character by recommending in his
message to the legislature of his State, a provision of law to pay for
slaves lost by the war. When he was a member of the House of
Representatives of the United States, he was altogether incapable of
appreciating any public liability to individuals. He was notorious for
the sleepless energy and vigilance with which he opposed all private
claims without regard to their merits. He seemed to set on the principle
that a valid demand against the government could not exist, and that no
man who presented one could be honest.

By the rules of the House of Representatives certain days are set apart
called 'objection days,' when the private calendar is called over, and
all bills not objected to are laid by and passed without debate. Few,
indeed, were the bills which, in Mr. Letcher's day, could stand this
ordeal. On these days he was in his glory; it was then that by the use
of the magic words, 'I object,' he obtained his greatest triumphs.

On one of these occasions, a plain old lady from a distant part of the
country, was in the gallery looking down on the proceedings with intense
anxiety. She was the unfortunate subject of a revolutionary claim, which
had long been pending without result, and by the advice of her friends
she had come all the way to Washington to give her personal exertions to
its prosecution. By dint of untiring energy she had succeeded in having
it passed through the Senate and sent down to the House. It had
successfully run the gauntlet of the House committee, and as the
calendar was now to be called, the simple-hearted old lady thought she
was at the end of her troubles. She watched the proceedings with great
interest, but soon began to show signs of apprehension and alarm at the
movements of Mr. Letcher. The clerk had been engaged for some time in
reading the bills in their order, but not one of them had reached the
conclusion of its reading before the fatal words, 'I object,' were heard
to issue from the seat occupied by Mr. Letcher. Turning uneasily and
hastily to a stranger sitting near, the good old lady with some
petulance inquired, 'who is that bald-headed man that objects to all
these bills?' 'Bald, madam!' replied the gentleman, 'you're quite
mistaken. He's not bald, but his hair hasn't grown any for a great many
years.' 'But who is he,' continued the old lady, 'and what makes him
object to everybody's bill.' With most provoking deliberation, the
gentleman replied to the old lady's impatient queries: 'Madam, that is
John Letcher; he is a Virginia gentleman, of one of the very first
families.' 'But what makes him object, I want to know that.' 'Madam,'
replied the gentleman, 'the peculiarity you mention is connected with a
most extraordinary fact in his history; you would indeed be surprised to
learn it.' 'Do pray tell me what it is, now won't you, sir?' 'He can't
help it, madam; he's obliged to object. It is a necessity imposed upon
him from his birth.' 'La, mister, do pray tell me what it is. I'm dying
to know.' 'Well, madam, you see now, this is objection day; Mr. Letcher
was born on objection day; he objected to being born on that day; but
this objection was unanimously overruled, and he became so enraged, that
he has objected to everything from that day to this.' Just at this
moment, the clerk read in a loud, clear voice: 'Number ----, a bill for
the relief of ----.' The old lady turned away from the stranger as she
heard her own name called, just in time to see Mr. Letcher rise and
utter the inevitable words 'Mr. Chairman, I object.'

The old lady sank back in her seat and covered her face with a red
handkerchief. The stranger gentleman leaned over sympathizingly, and
said in a low voice, 'Madam, the first time his mother attempted to comb
his hair, he objected to having any hair; and now you see the
consequence.'

But the old lady was not to be defeated. She called on Mr. Letcher every
day, from that time till the next objection day; and when her bill was
about to be called, Mr. Letcher took his hat and walked out of the
House. The same gentleman happened to be present; he stepped up to the
old lady and said: 'Madam, Mr. Letcher is now about to take the only
thing he never objected to--he's gone to take a drink.'

The truth is Mr. Letcher objected to seeing the old lady again. She had
promised to visit him daily until her bill passed; and the force of this
objection overcame the other; and so the bill which had been defeated by
an objection, was now passed on account of one.


THE PINE.

    The Pine--the Pine--the mighty Pine--
      The everliving--evergreen;
    That boldly cleaves the broad sunshine,
      Towering high with scornful mien;
  And smileth not in summer's gladness,
  And sigheth not 'mid winter's sadness;
          Shedding no tear
          O'er the dying year,
      But groweth still bright,
        And touched by no sorrow,
      For he feareth no night,
        And hopeth no morrow.

    The proud--the cold--the mountain Pine,
      The tempest driven--tempest torn--
    That grandly o'er the wildwood line
      The forest banner long has borne;
  And he waileth never the waning flower,
  For he knows no death but the storm-cloud's power.
          Could he have grief
          For a passing leaf?
      So strong in his might,
        Touched by no sorrow,
      Fearing no night
        And hoping no morrow.

  _By the Rappahannock_,
  August 7, 1868.


A DAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

It was one of those hot days in summer, when life is rather emotional
than operative, and will lies locked in the ecstasy of sense. For a week
the heat had been incessant, and now at early morning the thermometer
stood at 96 in the shade. We were a party of loungers thrown together by
chance, in a small town of western Maryland, united in nothing but a
desire to escape the heat. The town lay in a little basin scooped out
among circling mountains, which were veiled in almost perpetual
vapors;--but this morning the vapors had parted, wreathing the mountains
in light, delicately tinted circles, and disclosing a clear, glowing
sky. To the east rose Table Rock, a black, frowning bowlder, resting, a
mile and a half up the mountain, on a base so narrow, it seemed a breeze
would rock it into perilous motion; while to the southwest, lay
Fairmount, serene, stately, sloping upward with a symmetry which
architecture might vainly emulate. We determined upon an excursion to
the latter, and mounted our horses for the six-and-a-half miles ride.
The road was macadamized, and worn so firm and level, it reminded me,
constantly, of the stone walks in a granite quarry. Among our party was
a young man just returned from Europe surfeited with scenery and
sight-seeing, but for the rest, we were commonplace Americans, eager to
see everything, and ready to go into ecstasies over everything which we
saw. It was in early July, and the foliage had not yet wilted from its
moist, bright greenness; the atmosphere was a wave of light, and the
earth seemed no longer dust, dross, and atoms of decay, but surcharged
and palpitating with sunshine. A dead calm pervaded the air, not a leaf
fluttered, not a blade bent; nature was in a trance of heat and light.
As we ascended the mountains, we were sensible of a slight motion in the
vapors, and a cool murmur in the trees; it was the first breath of the
mountain air, swelling as we advanced to a spicy, exhilarating breeze.
The sea air is certainly more bracing, but I never experienced anything
so soothing, as that wind wafted from cool mountain recesses. We left
our horses at the inn, and proceeded on foot to the summit. We were on
one of the peaks of the Alleghanies, looking down into a valley, which,
below, had appeared enclosed by mountains, but now disclosed a broad
opening to the south, while eastward ran the Blue Ridge, so wrapped and
sublimated by azure mists, that it seemed a line of cloud mountains
projected against the dazzling sky. As far as the eye could reach, the
valley was a Paradise, so soft and delicate in its exuberant verdure,
that the eye pained by the splendor of sky and air, was soothed without
any cessation of delight; through its midst ran the Potomac, always
limpid, but under this burning sun of a silvery brightness, shaded and
mellowed by the foliage around. The wind, which we found so grateful,
had increased steadily till it blew in strong gusts--a dense cloud
spread over the west--while in the east, the sky faded to a chalky
whiteness, low thunders muttered in the mountains, and faint shudders
crept through the leaves; a line of fire curled up over the cloud, and
in an instant, so vivid and swift were the electric bursts, the air
seemed sheeted in flames. In a long residence on both lake and sea shore
I remember no transition so startling, as this from a loveliness which
was beatific to a tempest which was appalling. But the storm was as
brief as its coming had been sudden, and, as the sun shone out over the
dripping foliage, each leaf and blade reflected bright colors through
its prismatic drops, the distant trees gleaming like sea spray in the
light. As we looked through purple vapors, floating from the purple
heights of shadowy mountains, the window seemed mirroring the sensuous
splendors of an Italian landscape. In descending to the valley, we took
a winding road which led farther up toward the heart of the range. Here
were gorges opening up through the mountains, which baffle all
description, and before which Art must despair. Such grouping! such
luxury! so blended and irradiated with gossamer mists, it seemed easy to
fancy, that in their depths lay hidden the happy fields of Pan. It is in
these mists which harmonize contrasts, in these tremulous motions which
conceal angles and abruptness, that nature defies art; the subtlest art
may suggest, but cannot reproduce them. As we stopped, for a moment, at
the foot of the mountain, and looked up through the fragrant air to the
sunset sky, and forward into the valley, mantling with slumbrous shade,
our young friend from Europe exclaimed, 'I have seen to-day, what I had
never expected to see in America,--mountains as picturesque as those of
Wales, and a sky mellow and brilliant as that of Italy.' For me, I could
not help but feel that in American scenery lies the hope of American
artists, and that the artist to whom Rome is denied, may receive even
fuller inspiration from the sea and skies and heights of his native
land! This was in 1859. There was then no token or presage of that other
July day, when, under the very shadow of these mountains, an army
thrilled with heroic impulse; when men, whose whole lives had been
ignoble, redeemed them by the most sublime daring; and those whose lives
held every promise yielded them with the most patriotic devotion; and
through long sultry hours, men cheerfully endured the tortures of
thirst, of wounds, and of lonely death agonies, sustained by a
prescience of victory. Thus was the scene, which nature had made
enchanting, rendered historic and immortal.

  A. J. S.


ARE YOU FOR THE COUNTRY?

  Then draw and strike
  In nature's right,
  And Freedom's might,
  To break the night
  Of Slavery's blight,
      And make our country free!

  Strike home the blow,
  And bravely show
  The traitor foe
  His blood shall flow
  Beneath the glow
      Of _Freedom's_ victory.

  Let traitors feel
  The Northern steel;
  Nor backward wheel
  Till they shall kneel,
  And _Yankee_ heel
      Shall rest on Tyranny.

  Then on, ye brave!
  Your banner wave
  O'er head of slave,
  And ope the grave
  For rebel knave;--
      _Bring Peace and Unity_.


       *       *       *       *       *


  THE
  Continental Monthly.


The readers of the CONTINENTAL are aware of the important position it
has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the brilliant
array of political and literary talent of the highest order which
supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so
successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with
the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very
certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or
preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of
faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in
the land or it is nothing. That the CONTINENTAL is not the latter is
abundantly evidenced _by what it has done_--by the reflection of its
counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power
of those who are its staunchest supporters.

Though but little more than a year has elapsed since the CONTINENTAL was
first established, it has during that time acquired a strength and a
political significance elevating it to a position far above that
previously occupied by any publication of the kind in America. In proof
of which, assertion we call attention to the following facts:

1. Of its POLITICAL articles republished in pamphlet form, a single one
has had, thus far, a circulation of _one hundred and six thousand_
copies.

2. From its LITERARY department, a single serial novel, "Among the
Pines," has, within a very few months, sold nearly _thirty-five
thousand_ copies. Two other series of its literary articles have also
been republished in book form, while the first portion of a third is
already in press.

No more conclusive facts need be alleged to prove the excellence of the
contributions to the CONTINENTAL, or their _extraordinary popularity_;
and its conductors are determined that it shall not fall behind.
Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand
journals have attributed to it, it will greatly enlarge its circle of
action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle involved in
the great questions of the day. The first minds of the country,
embracing the men most familiar with its diplomacy and most
distinguished for ability, are among its contributors; and it is no mere
"flattering promise of a prospectus" to say that this "magazine for the
times" will employ the first intellect in America, under auspices which
no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.

While the CONTINENTAL will express decided opinions on the great
questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal: much the
larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore, by
tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the CONTINENTAL will be found,
under its new staff of Editors, occupying a position and presenting
attractions never before found in a magazine.


  TERMS TO CLUBS.

  Two copies for one year,         Five dollars.
  Three copies for one year,       Six dollars.
  Six copies for one year,         Eleven dollars.
  Eleven copies for one year,      Twenty dollars.
  Twenty copies for one year,      Thirty-six dollars.

  PAID IN ADVANCE.

  _Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, TO BE PAID BY THE SUBSCRIBER.

  SINGLE COPIES.

  Three dollars a year, IN ADVANCE. _Postage paid by the Publisher._

  JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St., N.Y.,
  PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.

[Illustration: pointing finger] As an inducement to new subscribers, the
Publisher offers the following liberal premiums:

[Illustration: pointing finger] Any person remitting $3, in advance,
will receive the magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus
securing the whole of Mr. KIMBALL'S and Mr. KIRKE'S new serials, which
are alone worth the price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a
subscriber can take the magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the
Pines," or of "Undercurrents of Wall Street," by R. B. KIMBALL, bound in
cloth, or of "Sunshine in Thought," by CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (retail
price, $1 25.) The book to be sent postage paid.

[Illustration: pointing finger] Any person remitting $4 50, will receive
the magazine from its commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864,
thus securing Mr. KIMBALL'S "Was He Successful?" and Mr. KIRKE'S "Among
the Pines," and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 8,000 octave pages of the
best literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own
postage.


       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: THE FINEST FARMING LANDS

WHEAT CORN COTTON FRUITS & VEGETABLES]


    EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!! MAY BE PROCURED At FROM $8 to $12 PER
    ACRE, Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the
    blessings of Civilization.

    1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in
    ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.

    The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the
    beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of
    their Railroad, 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms
    for enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to
    make for themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they
    can call THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:


ILLINOIS.

Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and
a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the
Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of
Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of
climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great
staples, CORN and WHEAT.


CLIMATE.

Nowhere can the industrious farmer secure such immediate results from
his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much
ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the
Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200
miles, is well adapted to Winter.


WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.

Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is
grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets
are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate
vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the
Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch,
and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising
portion of the State.


THE ORDINARY YIELD

of Corn is from 50 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep
and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is
believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for
Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to
which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure
profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and
Chicago and Dunleith (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147 miles
by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are produced
in great abundance.


AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any
other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels,
while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the
crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,
Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,
Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast
aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons
of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.


STOCK RAISING.

In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for
the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,
Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large
fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to
enter with the fairest prospects of like results. DAIRY FARMING also
presents its inducements to many.


CULTIVATION OF COTTON.

_The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing
in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption
on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to
the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young
children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in
the growth and perfection of this plant._


THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD.

Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the
Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the
Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the
road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.


CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS.

There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one
every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient
distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity
may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where
buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.


EDUCATION.

Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by
the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the
schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the
church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the
Great Western Empire.


  PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT--ON LONG CREDIT.

  80 acres at $10 per acre. with interest at 5 per ct. annually on the
    following terms:

  Cash Payment                           $48 00
  Payment in one year                     48 00
     "    in two years                    48 00
     "    in three years                  48 00
     "    in four years                  236 00
     "    in five years                  224 00
     "    in six years                   212 00
     "    in seven years                 200 00

  40 acres at $10 00 per acre;
  Cash payment                           $24 00
  Payment in one year                     24 00
     "    in two years                    24 00
     "    in three years                  24 00
     "    in four years                  118 00
     "    in five years                  112 00
     "    in six years                   106 00
     "    in seven years                 100 00


       *       *       *       *       *


  Number 24. 25 Cents.

THE

CONTINENTAL

MONTHLY.

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

DECEMBER, 1863.

  NEW YORK:
  JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET
  (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).
  HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR-TOUSEY.
  WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.




CONTENTS.--No. XXIV.


  The Nation. By Hugh Miller Thompson,                              601

  Buckle, Draper, and a Science of History. By E. B. Freeland,      610

  Diary of Frances Krasinska,                                       624

  The Sleeping Soldier. By Edward N. Pomeroy,                       632

  My Mission. By Ella Rodman,                                       633

  Letter Writing. By Park Benjamin,                                 648

  The Year. By W. H. Henderson,                                     657

  The Great American Crisis. By Stephen Pearl Andrews,              658

  Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball,                         670

  Dead. By Anna Gray,                                               683

  Reconstruction. By Henry Everett Russell,                         684

  Virginia. By H. T. Tuckerman,                                     690

  She Defines her Position. By Eliza S. Randolph,                   702

  Whiffs from my Meerschaum. By Lieut. R. A. Wolcott,               704

  Literary Notices,                                                 706

  Editor's Table,                                                   711


TERMS TO CLUBS FOR 1864.

  Two copies for one year,                   Five dollars.
  Three copies for one year,                 Six dollars.
  Six copies for one year,                   Eleven dollars.
  Eleven copies for one year,                Twenty dollars.
  Twenty copies for one year,                Thirty-six dollars.

PAID IN ADVANCE.

_Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, TO BE PAID BY THE SUBSCRIBER.

SINGLE COPIES, Three dollars a year, IN ADVANCE. _Postage paid by the
Publisher._


[Illustration: pointing finger] As an inducement to new subscribers,
the Publisher offers the following liberal premiums:

[Illustration: pointing finger] Any person remitting $3, in advance,
will receive the magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus
securing the whole of MR. KIMBALL'S and MR. KIRKE'S new serials, which
are alone worth the price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a
subscriber can take the magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the
Pines," or of "Undercurrents of Wall Street," by R. B. KIMBALL, bound in
cloth, or of "Sunshine in Thought," by CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (retail
price, $1 25), the book to be sent postage paid.

[Illustration: pointing finger] Any person remitting $4 50, will
receive the magazine from its commencement, January, 1862, to January,
1864, thus securing MR. KIMBALL'S "Was He Successful?" and MR. KIRKE'S
"Among the Pines," and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 3,000 octave pages
of the best literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their
own postage.

[Illustration: pointing finger] All Communications, whether
concerning MSS, or on business, should be addressed to

  JOHN F. TROW, Publisher

  50 GREENE STREET, NEW YORK.


ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by JOHN F.
TROW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No.
5, November, 1863, by Various

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