pens of journalists who sympathize most deeply with the wrongs of Italy. If they and we condemned the great assassin of the 2nd of December, 1851, we must equally condemn any attempt at employing the same weapons in 1858. And more,—a bad weapon becomes a bad cause, but it may inflict mortal injury on a good one. Alas! therefore, for the misguided patriotism which sees not that Heaven never fights with the devil's tools, nor liberty with instruments that ought to be, and are commonly seen, only in a tyrant's hand. We open our political campaign this year with a marked and cheerful activity. The Guildhall Reform Committee are actively bestirring themselves in support of the manifesto of last month in favour of vote by ballot, a rate-payers' suffrage, and short Parliaments. The Religious Liberation Society are vigorously and effectively moving, on the platform and in the press, for entire religious freedom for India; and on the 27th inst. it made an influential and decisive representation on the church-rate controversy, to Lord Palmerston. The India Reform Society and the Peace Society are both giving line upon line' upon Indian administration, and the East India Company is aiding the controversy by giving a chance for an overwhelming defeat on its own platforms. And lastly, the happy royal marriage. We who mourn for Havelock, shall we not rejoice with Victoria? Do not the same bells toll at funerals that ring at weddings? and is not the bell that tolls most softly at the one the same that rings most cheerfully at the other? Oh! ring and ring again, to express a people's joy that the best of English sovereigns is a happy, as well as a successful ruler. As happiness is caused most by love outgoing, we question whether so much happiness was ever felt on any day in the history of this, our own England, as on Monday, January 25th, 1858. We are not ashamed to say, that on that day we took our holiday with the million in St. James's Park, in company with hearty and loyal workmen, clerks, and clergymen. We did our humble and unobserved homage as a grateful subject of the mother Queen; and if we had been one of the privileged few, etiquette would hardly have restrained us from joining the choir in the gorgeous chapel, in singing the new anthem : 'God bless our Prince and Bride! God keep their lands allied! God save the Queen! Clothe them with righteousness, Crown them with happiness, Them with all blessings bless; God save the Queen! Fair fall this hallow'd hour, God save the Queen! Farewell, fair Rose of May! 'God bless thy marriage day,' fair Princess! May you be as true and faithful as your English mother, Victoria; as holy, and as secure in the hearts of your subjects as your great predecessor on the throne which it may be your privilege one day to occupy, the wife of another Frederick, the 'happy Louisa !" 128 TO CORRESPONDENTS. Note to the Article on Milton's History of England in the January Number. We think it will interest our readers as much as it has interested ourselves, to have laid before them the finest passage in English Literature, which Bishop Warburton compares with the one from Milton's History. We quote from the conclusion to Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World.' They will agree with Warburton that there is no finer writing in the English tongue. If the Turner be equal to the Claude, the Claude is equal to the Turner. 'Since the fall of the Roman empire (omitting that of the Germans, which had neither greatness nor continuance), there hath been no state fearful in the East but that of the Turk; nor in the West any prince that hath spread his wings far over his nest but the Spaniard, who, since the time that Ferdinand expelled the Moors out of Granada, have made many attempts to make themselves masters of all Europe. And it is true, that, by the treasures of both Indies and by the many kingdoms which they possess in Europe, they are, at this day, the most powerful. But as the Turk is now counterpoised by the Persian, so, instead of so many millions as have been spent by the English, French, and Netherlands, in a defensive war and in diversions against them, it is easy to demonstrate that, with the charge of two hundred thousand pounds continued but for two years, or three at the most, they may not only be persuaded to live in peace, but all their swellings and overflowing streams may be brought back into their natural channels and old banks. These two nations, I say, are, at this day, the most eminent, and to be regarded-the one seeking to root out the Christian religion altogether, the other the truth and sincere possession thereof; the one to join all Europe to Asia, the other the rest of all Europe to Spain. For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and continuance of this boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add to that which hath been already said, that the kings and princes of the world have always laid before them the actions, but not the ends of those great ones which preceded them. They are always transported with the glory of the one, but they never mind the misery of the other, till they find the experience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God while they enjoy life, or hope it, but they follow the counsel of death upon his first approach. It is He that puts into man all the wisdom of the world without speaking a word, which God, with all the words of his law, promises, or threats, doth infuse. Death, which hateth and destroyeth man, is believed. God which hath made him, and loves him, is always deferred. "I have considered," saith Solomon, "all the works that are under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit;"-but who believes it till death tells it us? It was death which, opening the conscience of Charles the Fifth, made him enjoin his son Philip to restore Navarre; and king Francis, the first of France, to command that justice should be done to the murderers of the Protestants in Merindol and Cabrienes, which, till then, he neglected. It is, therefore, death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects-and humbles them at the instant, makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to hate their fore-passed happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness-and they acknowledge it. O, eloquent, just, and mighty death whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world, and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words: Hic jacet! THE MONTHLY CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR. MARCH, 1858. On the Method of Life. I.-M. G. TO R. B. W. DEAR MR. W.,-It certainly does appear to my mind that our conversation the other evening upon the Method of Life, considered as flexible or inflexible, requires clearing up, and (as I know you like plain speech I will say) especially your own share of it. Starting from the question, whether or not a particular individual was or was not justified in sacrificing domestic affection to go upon a mission, we reached-I should rather say you dragged me and the rest of the company-to the general question of the comparative moral dignity and worth of Force and Tenderness. That soon brought us into a situation in which I thought you set Affection above Duty, just as you carried Thought over the head of Action. From that, passing to Character and Conduct in general, I lost hold of you altogether. What, I would ask, is Duty, and what are the rights of Duty, and what am I to do when Duty calls one way and Affection calls another? of I have often heard you say, you think the Method of Life very much relaxed in these days, but if anything could relax it more, it must surely be a view which tends to exalt mere feeling at the expense obligation. I wish you could favour me with some explanatory words; for I do like to see my way. Vague ideas are my abhorrence. I must draw lines, set stakes, and keep landmarks. In fact, I must have something definite to go upon. Yours very truly, M. G. II.-R. B. W. to M. G. It Dear Mr. G.,-Memorable words are yours at the close of your letter. You must have something definite!' Allow me, with a saddened sense of the profound humour of the case, to say, I wish you may get it from without. But you never, never will, trust me. is true, you have great authority to back you in rejecting anything that seems to you vague. 'If another man,' said Goethe, 'wants me to adopt his opinion, he must state it plainly. I have enough of what is problematic to deal with it in my own mind.' But it was a selfish, pompous, foolish speech of a man whose selfishness led him wrong sometimes, though it kept his eyes so coldly clear that he passes for wise. Who is this that is so tall he will not stoop to take up a vague idea? It is the law of our nature to want something definite,' and to struggle for it, To aim to seize the central fact, the impossible, the true, That which we shall not find on earth, if even in heaven we do,'— but something definite' is like to-morrow, always to come, never here-and Have you not observed in common life that advice always seems to be useless to you? You have to strain your own eyes, looking out into the dark, for a pathway; and yet, when, years afterwards, you look back, you find that the advice was of use your mind wrought with it, in some way, and now you are sorry if you treated it with contempt. It is just the same with the loftiest questions of the Christian life. No man, saint or sage, can give you the keyword that shall solve every problem of duty as it turns up, though he may say that which you may unconsciously use. The most experienced traveller over the land whose rule is claimed by Conscience cannot definitely map out your course for you at any hour of your life. What is more, and what is awful, you cannot do it for yourself, when you most resolutely get outside yourself, and take up a purely critical position. The more you see the less you know. I feel an increasing distrust of all attempts to tabulate conduct. Helps they are, and indispensable— but the last resort of the troubled soul is to some despised vague idea,' which shines out bright and clear in the storm and stress of feeling, and under the eye of God. The map is blurred and blotted with tears of grief and anger for a thousand missings of the wayyou crumple up the useless thing, and construct another by the light of the vague idea' which starts you afresh on your path. I think you will some day, in this world or the next, discover that your allusion to setting Affection above Duty shows that there is confusion in your mind more than in mine. What I say is, that you have not served the necessary apprenticeship either to Love or to Duty to qualify you to adjust their claims. And you confound the 6 two ideas of that which is your duty, and that which is right. But, by your leave, my friend, the things differ-differ infinitely, eternally, differ by the whole length between the divine and the human. You might love a child, a sister, or a friend, with a sublime and beautiful love, a love capable of the utterest self-sacrifice, almost implying an incorporation of the being of the beloved in yours. But is it your duty' to feel such a love towards anybody? No more than it is your duty' to admire with a perfect admiration a sweet flower or a verse in Tennyson. If there were any duty' in the case we should often find ourselves morally bound to love the same things and persons, and to love them equally well,-which were absurd and inconvenient. A man may have neglected or perverted his tastes till he comes to like wrong things or wrong people; but Affection, pure and simple, belongs to the sphere of Right, of the instinctive and divine; not to that of Duty, the voluntary and the human. It is here that the distinction you did not seem to catch between Character and Conduct comes in. Conduct is the sphere of Duty, and there Duty is supreme. 'But Affection is a motive of conduct; and duties must grow out of it?' True; and to co-ordinate the musts and the oughts which spring out of Love and Law, meeting and traversing, and colouring each other in incomputable situations and nuances hour by hour, is the great work we have all to do Now, I say, it needs a certain apprenticeship to the facts of life to qualify you or any one else to dogmatize upon this work of co-ordination. I say no one should presume to do it authoritatively in whom the fountains of the great deep' of his being have not been broken up by the hand of God in his providence. Such an one is liable to make the initial blunder of treating affection as an encroaching courtezan, to be watched and repressed, instead of as a princess, to be honourably entertained at the feast of existence, and trusted to bring a blessing in her hands. A blunder which seldom escapes severe punishment in after life. How many, many excellent, devoted' Christians have I known to live under a perpetual cloud of dissatisfaction with the world (ie. wife, children, friends, business, pleasure, things in general), enjoying every dish of beauty and use under protest, and fancying all the while it was because they needed more celestial diet. 'Vanity of vanities' indeed! What have you done, unhappy that you are, to the gentle guest who was sent to crown your feast with joy? Ah, I see ! -you wanted something definite; you treated her as a prisoner, and she fled, sending in her place the pale, cold image that sits there, and which I suppose you dignify with the name of Affection. This is running into sentiment and apostrophe, and forgetting my correspondent. It is, of course, out of your power and mine, as it is certainly no part of our business, to judge any man who sacrifices the claims of domestic ties for what he thinks before God is his duty. But this much is certain,-that whoever declines the natural responsibilities, be they affectional or other, of any position in which he finds himself, is not the man to advance God's kingdom, whatever his energy, talent, or devotedness to an idea. What I complain of in your |