Contents

A Tour Round the World[551]
The Daffodil[556]
Portrait Collections[556]
Beyond[557]
Sonnet of Petrocchi[557]
Results of the Discovery of America[558]
Songs in Winter[561]
Joys of High Companionship[561]
Egypt for the Egyptians[562]
Rev Charles Haddon Spurgeon[565]
How To Regulate the Fashions[566]
The History and Philosophy of Education
VII. Rome[567]
Renunciation[569]
Old Paintings[570]
The Employments of Heaven[570]
Counsel[573]
The Bible and Nature[573]
John Richard Green[575]
A Tropical River in Florida[576]
The Influence of Wholesome Drink[577]
The Paris Workman[581]
A Prophecy[582]
Tales From Shakspere
The Two Gentlemen of Verona[583]
Constant Change in Words[586]
Archery in Scotland[587]
Tennyson and Mrs Carlyle[588]
Geographical Distribution of Animals[588]
C. L. S. C. Readings For 1883-84[589]
C. L. S. C. Work[590]
C. L. S. C. Songs[590]
Memorial Days at Canton, Pa.[591]
C. L. S. C. Reunion at Cincinnati[591]
Two German Circles[592]
Local Circles[592]
C. L. S. C. Round-Table
Lecture by Bishop Warren on Astronomy[596]
Pacific Coast C. L. S. C. Assembly[597]
Rambles in Dakota and Montana[598]
Coming Chautauqua Days[600]
The Circle of the Sciences[601]
The Chautauqua School of Theology[602]
Editor’s Outlook[603]
Editor’s Note-Book[605]
Editor’s Table[607]
Talk About Books[608]

[A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD.]

By Mrs. JOSEPH COOK.

[Concluded.]

The two weeks’ voyage from Galle to Hong Kong is pleasantly broken by visits to Penang and Singapore. On the fourth day out, mountainous islands appear above the smooth stretch of sea, and late in the afternoon we anchor in the harbor of Penang at the head of the Straits of Malacca. Penang is an island fifteen miles long by eight in width, on which a mountain towers nearly 2,800 feet high. The native town lies on the flat strip of land adjoining the sea, but the bungalows of the European residents nestle on the hill slopes. We go on shore in a Sampan boat, and find the almond-eyed Celestials here in full force, not the gliding, apologetic creatures we see in San Francisco, but a sturdy, independent, self-assertive people, with the industries of the town in their hands. There are some grandees among them, for we see Chinese gentlemen lolling back in luxurious carriages, with Hindu coachmen and footmen. The joss houses are numerous, the roofs of which resemble immense ornate canoes, with sea-monsters at either end, as their forms are outlined against the evening sky. We have only time for a drive through the principal streets. The lights are gleaming out along the shore, and the twilight is fading as we float over the waves to our sea-home, the “Gwalior.” The next day we are in the Straits of Malacca, with picturesque views of Malay villages and tropical vegetation. The temperature, which has been in the nineties, dropped a few degrees as we approached the outlet into the open sea, and, going on deck on the second morning after leaving Penang, the air was still further cooled and freshened by a tropical downpour of rain just as we were passing the wooded islands which lead to the beautiful harbor of Singapore. These clouds, the rain, the temperature, and the deciduous trees make us think of home, and especially as this land-locked harbor might be a Scottish or American lake instead of the outlet of the Straits of Malacca, seventy-nine miles above the equator.

The P. & O. steamers stop for coal at a wharf some three miles from the town, but we had the satisfaction of walking from the steamer to the land without the usual intervention of a small, wave-tossed boat. We engaged a comfortable looking carriage attached to an absurdly diminutive pony, but the driver insisted that it was “good horse, good horse,” and we found that there was a wonderful amount of speed and endurance in the creature. Beautiful specimens of the traveler’s palm outline their huge, fan-like semicircle of leaves against the sky. This growth belongs to the plantain rather than the palm family, and is called the traveler’s palm because it contains a reservoir of water which runs down the grooves of the long stems and is retained at the base, where the incision is made, and the precious fluid, cool and refreshing, flows out. We saw again the acacia flamboyante, that splendid tree with its crown of scarlet blossoms, whose acquaintance we first made in the gardens of the Taj, and which came originally from Rangoon and Sumatra. Here, as in Penang, the Chinese are the chief factors in all the industrial pursuits. The temperature ranges from 80° to 90° the year round, and we were assured by European residents that the eye wearies of constant greenness and longs for the changing seasons of the temperate zone. The evening on our quiet steamer, which is anchored here for the night, reminds us of Lake George. The wooded heights and islands dream under the light of a full moon, while the constellation of the Southern Cross hangs over against Ursa Major. Early the next morning the Malay boys appear on the scene. They are equal to the Somalis for diving, but the charm of novelty is gone, and they do not seem such merry, audacious creatures as those who entertained us at Aden. Boat loads of coral and beautiful shells followed us for some distance, but we soon lost sight of them as we steamed away past the green and sunlit islands into the open sea.

After six days of debilitating moist heat in the China Sea, we were met on our approach to Hong Kong by a sudden change of temperature—a strong, fresh breeze following a heavy shower accompanied by thunder and lightning. Our ship scarcely moved during the night previous to our reaching the coast of China, for it was very dark, and we were entering upon a network of rocky islands. When we went on deck in the morning what a change in all our surroundings! Purple and blue mountains, reminding one in their general form of Scottish heights, yet with that peculiar shade of green which belongs to the hills of Wales, rose out of the sea on every hand—giant peaks of vast, submarine ranges. For twenty-five miles or more before reaching the superb, land-locked harbor of Hong Kong, we threaded our way among these mountainous islands, beautiful in form and color, and lighted up now and then with a sudden sunburst.

Hong Kong is built on an island and belongs to the British. The town extends for some distance along the shore and creeps up the slope of Victoria Peak, which rises to a height of 1,800 feet. The European houses, nestling among the trees, present a very attractive appearance with their double-storied, arched verandas. The magnificent bay resembles one of our inland lakes with mountains rising on all sides, from a few hundred to nearly 2,000 feet high. Here are ships of war, ocean steamers from all ports, trading junks of every shape and color, floating, thatched-roofed homes, where in one boat three generations are often found, and in which birth and death and all the round of human life occurs. Stalwart, sturdy women, with babies strapped on their backs, use as much strength and skill in the management of the boats as the men, and it would be hard to distinguish the sex if it were not for the added burden imposed on the woman. The streets are so steep in Hong Kong that horses are very little used and the vehicles employed are sedan chairs, attached to long bamboo poles, and carried on the shoulders of two, three or four coolies. This open, airy vehicle is an immense improvement over the heavy, funereal palanquin of Calcutta. John Chinaman, with his inevitable pig-tail and fan, his blue, loose garments and immaculate hose was everywhere present, and the odors of sandal wood and dried fish were all pervasive. We went to the curio shops which line the arcades of Queen’s Road and saw lacquered wood and ivory carving to our heart’s content. The Chinese shop-keeper holds himself aloof from the purchaser with true Celestial indifference. You enter his shop and examine his wares. No one accompanies you in your round. If you want to know the price of an article you must seek out the proprietor or clerk and inquire. You feel that the price is “fixed,” and even after three months’ demoralization in India you have not the presumption to ask this lordly Chinaman to take less. A pathetic proof of the chronic home-sickness which seems to possess European residents in the East, and which we ourselves appreciate, is the text engraven on the stone arch of the post-office doorway: “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”

The morning after our arrival in Hong Kong we leave the “Gwalior” which has been a most comfortable, agreeable home to us for the past two weeks, in order to visit Canton. It is a sail of some eight hours up the Pearl River to Canton, and we found ourselves on an American-built steamer not unlike our river boats at home, although not so luxuriously furnished as our floating palaces on the Hudson. However it gave us quite a home-like feeling, which was still further enhanced by the captain being a fellow-countryman and the breakfast bill of fare including waffles, griddle cakes and ice water. Although we are at the antipodes of Boston, we have a strange sense of being nearer home than at any time since leaving England. Sitting at the breakfast table the captain pointed eastward toward the open sea and said, “In that direction you can travel 6,000 miles before reaching land, and the nearest shores are those of America.” Knowing the reputation the Chinese have for being a peaceable race we were somewhat surprised to see that the wheel house was quite an armory of weapons, and that the companion-ways were closed and guarded. Inquiring into the meaning of these war-like demonstrations, we were told that not many years ago the Chinese passengers on one of these river steamers conspired together and, when the captain and the few Europeans were at lunch, they rose, seized the weapons, murdered the whites and took possession of the boat. Since that time unknown passengers, of whom there were on this trip about one thousand, are kept carefully guarded. The scenery was very pretty as we steamed up Pearl River, the banks being visible on either side. The chief characteristics of the view were low rice lands, or paddy fields as they are called here; distant blue mountains, the last spurs of the Himalayas; terraced pagodas of five, seven, or nine stories high, with trees and shrubs growing from the top and sides; bamboos, plantains and deciduous trees, and at one point in our journey was a knoll of pine trees with a carpet of brown sheddings, which reminded us of the spot at Concord where Hawthorne is buried. The most prominent building in Canton and the one which first attracts the attention of a stranger, is the stately, granite Catholic cathedral. It was a hopeful sign to see this imposing Christian edifice with its twin towers looming up above the low-roofed houses and temples of this distinctively Chinese and heathen city. Another noticeable feature among the buildings was eight or ten huge, gray, square towers, which we were told were pawn houses.

We had heard of the boat population of Canton, and here we saw swarming crowds in their floating homes as we neared the wharf. Families not only live in these boats, but they carry on quite a trade in ferrying passengers from one point to another. They are a race by themselves, and are looked down upon with suspicion and unkindness by their brethren of the terra firma. They are considered as aliens of contemptible origin, and are prohibited from intermarrying with landspeople. Before we left the steamer we were met by a decently-dressed Chinese woman who had come on board as a “drummer” for one of the hotels. But a gentlemanly looking Chinese guide who could speak English had already been recommended to us by the captain, and we put ourselves in his hands, to be taken first to the missionary headquarters. We left the densely crowded wharves in sedan chairs, each of us with three bearers, and proceeded through narrow streets, where nearly every one is on foot, apparently with some definite object in view, for they move along, these blue-costumed Celestials, silently and swiftly. Most of those we see belong to the middle or lower classes. Many of them are carrying heavy burdens suspended on a bamboo stick which is slung across the shoulders. The bamboo is as important a growth in China as the palm in India. Almost every article of furniture in a Chinese habitation is made from the bamboo—chairs, tables, screens, bedsteads, bedding, paper, and various kitchen utensils. It is also employed on boats for masts, poles, sails, cables, rigging and caulking. It is used for aqueducts and bridges, and it can be made into a swimming apparatus or life preserver, without which no Chinese merchant will undertake a voyage. The leaves are generally placed around the tea exported from China to Europe. It is also used as an instrument of torture in the bastinado, which is the punishment most frequently inflicted in every part of China, and for almost every species of offence, the number of blows being regulated by the magnitude of the crime. The criminal is held down by one or more coolies, while the chief actor, furnished with a half-bamboo six feet in length and about two inches broad, strikes him on the back part of the thighs. In this degrading punishment the rich and the poor, the prince and the peasant are included. The Emperor Kien Long ordered two of his sons to be bambooed long after they had reached the age of maturity. The Presbyterian Mission occupies pleasant grounds which slope down to the Canton River. There are three substantial brick houses, one of them being occupied by the medical missionary, Dr. Ker, the other by the preacher, Rev. B. F. Henry, and the third by the ladies who have charge of the school, Misses Noyes and Butler. We were received most cordially by Mrs. Henry, who urged us, with such unmistakable earnestness, to stop with them during our twenty-four hours in the city, that we promised to return after making a tour of inspection with our Chinese guide. The chief place of interest shown us was the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, a collection of sitting, life-size statues rudely painted and gilded, hideous or grotesque in expression, and sometimes with bright blue hair and beard! In one of the outer corridors leading to this temple was a group of Chinese youth playing shuttle-cock, their feet taking the place of the battledore. At a Buddhist temple near by we saw several priests going through their genuflexions and prostrations, which reminded us of the ceremonies at Rome. Our guide seemed chiefly anxious to show us the best quarters of the city, and to induce us to buy something at the shops, whereby he himself would doubtless have had a certain commission at our expense.

The next morning we began our peregrinations by visiting Dr. Ker’s hospital before breakfast. This institution is for the benefit of the natives and is undenominational, being supported by the foreign residents of Canton, who number less than an hundred among the million of the Chinese. In contrast with the large, airy wards and the convenient appointments of the hospitals of Europe and America this seemed pitifully mean and poor, but it was neat, and much valuable work has been done here. Many more patients apply than can be accommodated, as it is the only institution of the kind in this great city. Directly after breakfast we found Miss Noyes waiting to take us over the boarding-school for girls and women. This building was planned by Miss Noyes, and its recitation-rooms and dormitories, with accommodations for one hundred boarders, are admirably well arranged. It seemed strange, remembering the Hindu school-girls, with their salaams and musical “Nâmâska, Mem Sahib,” to be received in perfect silence by these Chinese maidens, who all rose to their feet, however, as we entered, and then came forward two by two, paused in front of us, made a deep curtsey, and, instead of shaking hands with us, each clasped her own hand and raised it to her forehead. This operation, repeated in solemn silence, became rather embarrassing to us and we begged the teacher to present our general greeting to the school and to excuse us from these special obeisances.

Coming from the school we found Mr. Henry waiting with three sedan chairs and their bearers in attendance to show us the sights of the city. The Merchants’ Guild consists of a series of buildings fitted up with much elegance and taste and combining a council hall, temple and theater. The rooms have no luxurious upholstery, but the black-wood furniture is highly polished and elaborately carved. The screens are embroidered and painted in the highest style of Chinese art, and there are numerous mirrors which, in the East, is always a sign of wealth. Among the various temples we visited the one which most impressed itself upon us, and where we saw the greatest number of worshipers, was called, very appropriately, the Temple of Horrors. It was a Dante’s “Inferno” put into a hideously realistic form. It is the Chinese conception of the future torments of the wicked, and those who have been guilty of the crimes whose punishment is here portrayed come to expiate their guilt by bribes. The gods these poor heathen worship never inspire in them love, but fear and a dread of impending wrath. The court leading to this temple was filled with vociferous hawkers, and the greatest confusion prevailed. A dentist’s stand was festooned with the teeth of his victims!

From this revolting heathen temple we went to the daily noon service in the Presbyterian chapel. The doors were thrown open on one of the busiest streets of this packed city, and soon a crowd came drifting in out of curiosity. Mr. Henry read and explained passages of scripture for nearly half an hour with great earnestness, and succeeded in attracting the attention of those who at first were simply gazing at us, the visitors, with a stupid stare. The crowd was orderly and quiet. One man was smoking. An open-mouthed boy on the front bench soon fell asleep. There was no deep earnestness in the faces, but we were told that at almost every gathering of this kind, two or three are sufficiently interested to remain after the service and ask questions. One of the chief difficulties in making any religious impression upon the Chinaman comes from his sublime self-complacency. Even the meanest of the people, our chair bearers for instance, look down upon us as “white devils,” and according to their doctrine of transmigration, they believe that we are the re-appearance of those who in a former state of existence were bad Chinamen. No wonder that regarding us with such contempt it is hard for them to accept our religion. The Examination Hall interested us greatly, for here is the real entrance to the aristocracy of China, which has its recruits not from the ranks of the high born and wealthy, but from all classes who have attained excellence and thoroughness in scholarship. Once in three years thousands come here to compete for the second literary degree. They are locked in a great enclosure containing ten thousand cells resembling horse stalls in a country church yard. These cells are six feet long by four feet wide, perfectly bare with a ground floor. Every candidate is expected to write an essay, an original poem, and a portion of the Chinese classics. The strictest watch is kept over the students so that they may not communicate with each other. The same subjects are given to all at daylight and the essays must be handed in the following morning. Out of the 8,000 who competed at the last examination, only 130 passed, and these are booked for promotion in civil offices. They are also required to go to Pekin to compete for the third degree. The streets and the people are, after all, the most entertaining sights in Canton. The dimly-lighted narrow streets make a gay picture, the business signs of long lacquered or gilt boards with the Chinese characters in red or black being hung perpendicularly before the shops. These open shops, with their tempting display of embroideries and ivory carvings, gay lanterns and fans, we gaze into as we pass along in our sedan chairs. Many of the streets have high-sounding names, such as Longevity Lane, Ascending Dragon Street, Great Peace, and Heavenly Peace streets. The names on the signs are not infallible guides to the true character of the proprietor; for instance a most unscrupulously sharp dealer had modestly advertised his abode as “The Home of the Guileless Heart.”

We were to take the afternoon boat to Hong Kong in order to catch the next P. & O. steamer for Yokohama. A dozen or more of our friends came to see us off. It was a pathetic and yet an inspiriting picture to look back upon this little company of our countrymen and women as they stood on the wharf waving their farewells, for they seemed such a feeble folk as compared with the teeming million of this crowded Chinese city, and yet they were there in obedience to that divine command, which Wellington has so aptly called the “marching orders of the church.”

What a rest it was after the excitement and rush of our busy twenty-four hours in Canton to glide with quiet, easy motion, down the Pearl River as the sun was setting. The wooded islands glassed themselves in the still waters. Our stately steamer had as little motion or noise as a phantom ship. We passed native junks on which the bull’s-eye was prominent on either side the bow. The Chinese consider these indispensable to the safety of a ship; their argument being: “No got eye, how can see,” and with these guardians the easy-going mariners give themselves liberty to sleep on watch while the craft is on the qui vive for danger!

Reaching again the harbor of Hong Kong we exchange our roomy, river steamer for more contracted quarters on board the “Sunda,” which is to bear us to Yokohama. Five days tossing on the rough China Sea, which reminds us more of the North Atlantic than anything we have experienced since crossing that turbulent ocean, and we rejoice to hear on the sixth morning out that we are nearing the shores of Japan. Through the courtesy of the first officer we are invited on the bridge, and from this favorable place of outlook we watch our tortuous course through the network of islands which are clothed in all the fresh beauty of spring. Rocky islets and hills, covered with pine forests, and low-growing shrubs lift their green heads out of the sparkling blue waters. Clusters of houses are scattered along the hill slopes, and they harmonize with the landscape in a way that would delight John Burroughs. There may be much Japanese history and legend connected with these heights, but we are ignorant of it all, and to us they rear their heads unsung.

Nagasaki harbor is not unlike Hong Kong, but the town itself does not make so much of an appearance. The Japanese boats resemble somewhat the Venetian gondolas, painted white instead of black. We went on shore in one of these row-boats, and each of us took a jinrikisha, which resembles a Bath chair, or a magnified baby carriage, and is drawn by one or two men, according to the avoirdupois of the occupant. One can best understand Japanese art here in its native surroundings, as one can only thoroughly appreciate Dickens’s characters in London. These Japanese ladies, with their glossy black hair and head ornaments, their almond-shaped eyes, full, pouting lips, and the peculiar contour of the tightly-draped figure, how familiar they look! Yet where have I seen them before? Only on pictured screens and painted fans and embroidered hangings, but here they are, these same quaint creatures in veritable presence. Through many narrow streets, and around sharp corners, and over bridges, and in sight of stony water-courses, and the sun-deluged tender green of the mountain sides, our jinrikisha men rattle us along on our way to the photographer’s, where we find unexpected good fortune in the shape of beautifully colored views. At the chief tortoise-shell emporium of the town we are received as guests rather than purchasers. Our European bow seems an impertinent nod compared with the profound salaams which are bestowed upon us. We are invited to take seats at a large centre-table in a cheerful apartment, which is a combination of parlor and show-room. Straw-colored tea in dainty cups of exquisite porcelain is brought to us. Medals from various exhibitions are shown, but there is no undue eagerness to sell their wares, and when at last we make our selection and offer silver rupees in payment we are blandly informed that they can not accept foreign coin. Although we assure them that the rupee has been weighed in Canton, and they can take it at its exact metal value, yet they are politely inexorable, and we meekly walk away feeling like impostors as well as boors. At three o’clock in the afternoon we are moving out of the harbor, and it is a cheerful omen as we watch the receding shores to be told that the most prominent building on the hill-slope, a large, new structure, is a school-house for Japanese girls, under the auspices of Methodists from our own country.

Soon after sunrise the next morning we enter the straits of Shimonoseki, the narrow entrance to the Inland Sea. We remember that this newly risen sun which is shedding its golden glory on these thousand islands, has just tinged with its farewell rays the elms of New Haven and the encircling heights of Lake George. A member of our party once said to some young Japanese visitors in Boston, “Do you want to see the sun rise on Japan?” and in response to their bewildered acquiescence he took them to a west window and pointed to the sun sinking, with gorgeous pageantry of color, behind the Milton hills. All day long we glide through placid waters, the scene varying with every turn of the wheel. Islands of most fantastic shape rise everywhere. Sometimes an abundant vegetation clothes them from head to foot; again they are not only destitute of clothing but of flesh, and show only a bony framework of jagged rock pierced by grottoes and caves. Along the shores, indented with bays, is a fringe of fishermen’s huts. Range after range of mountains rise back of each other in beautiful outlines varying in color from green to softest blue and faintest grey until the most distant heights melt into the horizon. We pass curious fishing junks with square, puckered sails. In the midst of these foreign looking boats we are surprised to see now and then a trim little schooner, exactly like those we are familiar with at home. We pass one American man-of-war with the national flag flying. It seems a pity that half of our passage through this marvelous Inland Sea must be made in the night, although we have the anticipation of seeing in the morning Fuji-yama, the Peerless Mountain, worshiped by the Japanese as divine. A note from our attentive first officer breaks up our morning nap with the announcement that Fuji is visible and we hasten on deck to see the snowy cone of this youngest mountain in the world lift itself above the clouds into the blue sky. It has the shape of an inverted fan, and from the sea you can trace its outline from base to summit to a height of 14,000 feet. According to Keith Johnston, it was thrown up by some tremendous convulsion, for which this volcanic region is famous, about 300 B. C.

Late in the afternoon our ship dropped anchor off Yokohama, which thirty years ago was an insignificant fishing village. When Commodore Perry appeared with his fleet in this bay, in 1853, the rude inhabitants were filled with wonder at their first sight of a steamer, and when they saw the spark-spangled smoke rising from the stacks at night they were seized with superstitious awe of the foreigners, who they thought had imprisoned volcanoes on their ships! Tokio is the literary center of this part of Japan while Yokohama is commercial, and has not only a modern, but really an American appearance, and in the hotel as well as in the shops we detect the atmosphere of our native land, especially of San Francisco. The English give the tone to society here, as everywhere throughout the East, and class distinctions are more rigorously observed than in the mother island itself. At Yokohama we seemed to meet the blessed spring-time of the temperate zone. The day after our arrival we took jinrikishas and went out into the country-like suburbs of the city. We walked a part of the way through rustling wheat fields, with the Peerless Mountain in sight and the broad blue bay, dotted with ocean steamships from all ports, and white-sailed native junks. It was like a perfect June day at home, and after nearly a month on shipboard the touch of the brown solid earth under our feet was enough to make us shout for joy. The blue violet, the wild strawberry, and even the common dandelion, were here to greet us like old familiar friends. Birds flew past us with happy chirp, but no song. Some critic has said that “Japan is a country of birds without song, flowers without perfume, and poetry without music.” But what were these strange, weird, unearthly, mysterious melodies that came floating down to us from the azure? We stopped our jinrikishas to listen and look. There, above our heads, were half a dozen immense kites, made of bamboo, in the shape of winged dragons and bats, and it was an Æolian attachment that sent down to us this music. The Greek boy sends up his kite at night with a light attached so that it gleams like a star through the darkness, and our patriotic member is somewhat chagrined that the American boy should be surpassed, even in such a juvenility as the kite, by the Greek and Japanese! A pleasant reception by the American residents, especially those engaged in mission work; visits to the temples and native quarters; observation of educational and evangelical work, carried on here by our countrymen and women, filled our week in Yokohama. At the end of that time we took train for Tokio, which is only one hour distant by rail.

Distances are magnificent in this modern, imperial city of Japan. Thirty-six square miles is supposed to be the extent of Tokio, but only sixteen miles of this space are covered with houses, while the rest is given up to parks, gardens, and rice fields. The population is variously estimated from 800,000 to 1,500,000. One of the most interesting places to visit in Tokio is Shiba with its tombs of the Shoguns and Buddhist temples. There we went the morning after our arrival. The approach to the mortuary temples of the Shoguns is by a wide stone-paved avenue bordered on either side by stone lanterns not more than six feet apart and of graceful shape. We have left the bustle, noise and busy life of the streets, and find here a restful stillness broken only by the chirp of the sparrow and the sighing of the wind through grand, old red cedars, called cryptomeria, which have been growing here since the seventeenth century. Leaving our shoes at the threshold of the temples we walked over the highly polished, lacquered floors in our stocking feet. Here before the shrines were gifts of the daimios, bronzes and gold lacquer of priceless value, and we, outside barbarians, were admitted into the holy of holies and allowed to gaze on all this splendor and decoration without a word of remonstrance from the young Buddhist priest in attendance, although previous to the rebellion of 1868, only the reigning Shogun was allowed to enter. The tomb of the Second Shogun is in an octagonal hall richly gilt, eight pillars covered with gilt copper plate supporting the roof. The lion and the tree peony often appear in the carvings, the one representing the king of beasts, the other the king of flowers. The tomb itself stands in the center of the hall and is one of the most magnificent specimens of gold lacquer to be seen in Japan. The stone pedestal takes the form of the lotus, the Buddhistic emblem of purity.

Oh! but how delightful it was to get out under the great blue dome of the sky, and climb the green, sunny slopes under the gigantic, gnarled cedars to the level plateau, where we could look abroad over sea and land and crowded city. The ever present tea house was close at hand, and two Japanese maidens quickly appeared with the pale, fragrant fluid innocent of sugar or milk, served in tiny cups with a cherry blossom floating on the surface. We preferred the tea without the æsthetic accompaniment, and so, with profound bows, this tray was removed to be speedily followed by another. While we were sipping this beverage, which was too insipid to either cheer or inebriate, an old woman, with a quavering voice, sang to us, accompanying herself with a Japanese guitar called the samisen. On our way home we peeped into a Buddhist temple where there was a funeral service in progress. Just within the door was a square pine box with a pole at the top so that it could be carried by the four coolies, who sat outside eating rice cakes, drinking tea, smoking and talking. There was no mourner present, and indeed no person in the temple but the young priest who was going through his perfunctory mumblement. In our ignorance of Japanese customs we thought this small box must contain the remains of a child, but we were told that in this country the dead are arranged in a sitting posture, the head bent between the knees, and therefore the square box takes the place of the long narrow coffin. This box contained the body of a young woman, twenty years of age, whose friends lived too far away to be present at the funeral, so that in this case the body was to be burned and the ashes sent to them, although usually the Japanese bury their dead.

As we rode slowly through the native quarter, looking into the bazaars, we noticed before many of the shops and houses bamboo poles erected, and at the top of the poles were floating out in the breeze inflated paper fishes from two to six feet in length. This is the beginning of the Feast of Flags, which comes on the fifth day of the fifth month, and is the greatest day of all the year for boys. It is really a national celebration of the birthday of all the boys in the kingdom, while the third day of the third month is devoted to the girls, and is called the Feast of Dolls. The fish represented is the carp or salmon, which is able to swim swiftly against the current and to leap over waterfalls, and is supposed to be typical of the youth mounting over all difficulties to success and prosperity. We stopped at a Shinto temple, which was covered by a roof, but it was destitute of all decoration and symbolism, except the round mirror, which has various meanings, one of them being that it is a revealer of the inner character. A man came up to worship while we stood there. He threw a small coin on the mat within the railing, clapped his hands twice, stood for a moment with closed eyes as though in prayer, clapped his hands again, and it was all over.

At the normal school for girls, of which the empress is patroness, the tuition is free, and pupils are here from all parts of Japan. They are supposed to prepare themselves for teachers, although they are not absolutely required to pursue this vocation. The object of the school is probably quite as much to furnish educated wives for the ambitious young men of new Japan. Prof. Mason’s system of music is taught here, and the piano is superceding the Japanese instruments. Drawing is also taught after the western methods. Instruction in needlework is given, both in plain sewing and embroidery. Every girl is taught to cut and make her own garments. There are no patterns used, but it is all done according to mathematical rules, and the cloth is so used that there is no waste in cutting. We saw a little girl not more than ten years old draw an exact diagram on the blackboard of the way a piece of cloth could be cut to make an outer garment. The pupils are also taught how to arrange flowers artistically. Here, as in the nobles’ school, there is a teacher of etiquette, and these maidens, some of them from the interior of the country and from poor homes, are instructed in the manners of polite society. An interesting department of this school is the kindergarten, where both sexes are admitted, and we saw more than a hundred little creatures gathered here with grave faces and long robes, and neither from the dress nor the arrangement of the hair could we tell the boys from the girls. Some twenty of the children, belonging to families of wealth and position, were accompanied by their nurses, who sat at one side. Nearly every child had a wooden tag attached to the belt, on which were written the name and address of the parents. There was one handsome little fellow, whom we called the Prince, with his head as smoothly shaven as a Buddhist priest’s. He wore gorgeous silk robes, and moved through his calisthenic exercises with a very complacent air. The children who were dressed in European fashion were most absurd looking creatures, and we much preferred to see them in their own costume. The Japanese are such a tiny people that, unless they have been abroad long enough to adopt our dress and wear it with ease, they look much better in their own flowing robes, which give grace and dignity to the figure. We heard an amusing story of the costume in which a native Christian appeared before the Presbytery to be ordained as an elder. He was a private citizen, but he wore on this occasion a blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, knee breeches, and high top cavalry boots with spurs, looking as though he was about to engage in some other warfare than spiritual.

The largest and most popular temple of Tokio, Asakusa, is to that city what St. Paul’s is to London, or Notre Dame to Paris. The avenue which leads to the temple is lined on either side with booths, and there are gardens adjoining in which are a variety of shows, waxworks and trained birds, theaters and tea-houses, with swarms of disreputable characters. The Japanese mix up the sacred and secular in a way that is very shocking to our ideas. At one of the side shrines in the temple is a wooden image, contact with which is said to cure disease, and it is pathetic to see how the features have been obliterated and the body worn as smooth as St. Peter’s toe at Rome by the rubbing of thousands of palms of poor human sufferers who have hoped to find healing power in this senseless mass of wood.

Near the temple is a revolving library containing a complete edition of the Buddhist scriptures. The library looks like a huge red lacquer lantern, some twelve feet high, on a black lacquer base and stone lotus-shaped pedestal. The whole structure revolves on a pivot. A ticket over the door explains the use of this peculiar book-case, and reads as follows: “Owing to the voluminousness of the Buddhist scriptures—6,771 volumes—it is impossible for any single individual to read them through; but a degree of merit equal to that accruing to him who should have perused the entire canon will be obtained by those who will cause this library to revolve three times on its axis, and, moreover, long life, prosperity and the avoidance of all misfortunes shall be their reward.” For a small fee the custodian allows you to gain all this merit.

An overland journey to Kioto, Osaka and Kobe, returning by steamer to Yokohama, and from thence a trip to Nikko, and the Chautauquans are ready to embark on the City of Tokio, which is to take them on the long and monotonous voyage across the Pacific. Taking the northerly route we enter at once a belt of penetrating fog, chilling winds and occasional showers, which make the luxurious deck life, which we found so agreeable on the southern seas, quite impracticable. Finding a good collection of books in the ship’s library we still linger in the land of the Rising Sun by reading Griffis and Satow, Miss Bird and Sir Edward Reed. There are only twenty-six saloon passengers, but more than a thousand Chinese are packed away in the steerage, and they swarm on the forward deck during the day, smoking and playing games, but more quiet and peaceable than a quarter of that number of Irishmen would be under similar circumstances. Nineteen days without sight of sail or land and we rejoice to know that the shores of America will soon be visible. San Francisco once reached, the Chautauquans will have put the girdle round the world, for they visited the western coast of America on the famous Sabbath-school excursion, headed by Dr. Vincent, in 1879. By the aid of the captain’s glass and our own opera glasses about four o’clock on a bright, breezy afternoon, we discern in the far eastern horizon a white, rocky island, crowned with a light-house. Soon after another dim hint of land appears to the north, and a little later the main land becomes visible. Just after a glorious sunset we enter the Golden Gate, a crescent moon hanging above the narrow pass. Familiar objects appear—the Cliff House, the Fort—and before we retire the great engines cease their throbbing, the ship drops anchor, and the gleaming lights of San Francisco welcome us home again.

[The end.]

[THE DAFFODIL.]

ADA IDDINGS GALE.

Brave xanthic bloom! Thou springst ’neath leaden skies,

Midst chilly airs and sheeted rains that fall;

E’er yet the robin to his mate doth call,

Thy fearless bloom mocks at Spring’s vagaries.

A prophecy thou art—lifting thy head

With its bright crown—to light forsaken ways.

The sight of thee recalls long vanished days,

When glad I plucked thee from the barren mead.

I pluck thee now, bright one—thinking the while,

Of that far time—when sweet Persephone,

Upon the plains of sunny Sicily

Reflected thine own brightness in her smile.

Thou’rt so allied, fair flow’r, with her sad strait,

I can but chide thee for her darksome fate.

[PORTRAIT COLLECTIONS.]

By WALTER F. TIFFIN.

Were it not that some few other animals seem, in a small degree, to have somewhat of the same faculty, man might be defined a scraping or collecting animal, for there is scarcely an individual of the genus but manifests this peculiarity; some in scraping or collecting for their own subsistence or that of their offspring; many for the gratification of their senses or intellect, irrespective of physical wants of increase or preservation.

I was shown the other day a neat little cabinet, belonging to a great traveler and naturalist, in which were labelled and described nearly four hundred different species or varieties of bugs! George the Fourth collected saddles. The Princess Charlotte, and many besides, collected shells, of which some of the ugliest, being fortunately the rarest, are very valuable. For a very rare one, Rumfius, a collector of old, though stone blind, is said to have given £1000. Tulips were once a favorite subject with collectors, especially in Holland, where the sums given for new or rare roots were enormous. One root once sold for 4600 florins (about £370) together with a new carriage, a pair of grey horses, and a set of harness. Other flowers have since become favorites in succession, as auriculas, picotees, dahlias, and now, roses.

Of collections of pictures of a general character a long list might be made, and there are in England several fine collections of statues, ancient and modern. I don’t know, however, that we have any such enthusiasts, as antiquaries, as a gentleman mentioned by Evelyn, who, being at Rome in 1644, went “to the house of Hippolite Vitellesco (afterwards Bibliothecary of ye Vatican Library) who show’d us one of the best collections of statues in Rome, to which he frequently talks as if they were living, pronouncing now and then orations, sentences, and verses, sometimes kissing and embracing them. He has a head of Brutus, scarred in the face by order of the Senate for killing Julius; this is much esteemed.” Special collections of portraits do not however seem to have met with much favor. One of the earliest collectors in England was William, Earl of Pembroke, of the time of James the First, who was quite famous as a physiognomist, and who formed a special collection of portraits at Wilton. General Fairfax is said to have collected portraits of warriors; and a few others might be named as having added to their own family portraits those of their friends, or of persons whose position or talents rendered them celebrated. But it was reserved for Lord Chancellor Clarendon to form the first important collection of English worthies. When he built his grand house in Piccadilly, he appears to have arranged a gallery of portraits on a well-considered plan. They were limited to those of eminent men of his own country, but not restricted to any particular class. This collection of portraits was already very extensive when Clarendon went into exile, and he was then getting a long list from Evelyn in order to add to it. In a letter to Pepys, and in his “Numismata,” Evelyn enumerates, from memory, nearly a hundred illustrious Englishmen whose portraits he had seen at Clarendon House, and which were afterwards removed to Cornbury in Oxfordshire.

Next to a gallery of portraits in oil, must be reckoned a cabinet of miniatures, and indeed if these are by masters like Oliver and Cooper and Petitôt, they are of equal value, both as portraits and pictures, with the larger works. But now, nearly all the works of these celebrated artists are gathered into collections such as that of the Duke of Buccleugh, whence no collector can hope to charm them, charm he never so wisely. The first large collection of miniatures formed was that of Walpole. Until recently few persons sought for more than family portraits, or those of friends, and Walpole was enabled therefore to form his matchless collection of miniatures with comparative ease and at a comparatively moderate expense. At that time, he says, they were “superior to any other collection whatever,” and particularly as regards the works of Peter and Isaac Oliver, “the best extant, and as perfect as when they came from the hand of the painter.”

To collect all the portraits that have ever been engraved is of course a hopeless task, and there would necessarily be so many important hiatuses, that no one probably now-a-days will enter on the undertaking. Yet it was attempted, and it must have been an exciting occupation, too serious for an amusement or recreation, for the several collectors, who then all ran for the same goal, to outdo and outbid each other in forming their collections. It is astonishing how interesting a collection may be made of portraits of a more limited range. Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, or Lodge’s Memoirs, are more readable than the Biographia Britannica, or Bayle’s Dictionary; and two or three folios of portraits of a particular class, or of a particular era, well arranged and annotated may be made much more amusing, recreative, and interesting than dozens of cabinets filled with a miscellaneous assemblage of portraits of people of all sorts who have lived “everywhen” and everywhere. The collector may himself make a book by collecting some series of portraits, as of statesmen, poets, actors, etc., etc., of some particular period, and placing opposite to each a few salient biographical paragraphs. A few dates should be given, as of birth, death, etc., but no attempt need be made to furnish a full biography. It should be endeavored rather to heighten our interest in the portrait by recalling or recording a few anecdotes, than to attempt to vie with a biographical dictionary. Just as in passing along a gallery of portraits, or noticing those in a great house, we pause not only to criticise the figure, or the complexion and expression of the face, but to remark such and such an event in the life of him or her who is before us. What is wanted in these inscriptions is not a serious biography of the individual, but, besides a few special facts and dates, some short characteristic anecdotes not generally met with in biographies, but to be picked up in “Memoires pour servir”—and similar ana.

Almost the first great or systematic collectors of engraved portraits in England were Evelyn and Pepys; the former having the start. It was not till about 1668 that Pepys began collecting portraits, getting many of Nanteuil, etc., from France, and being helped with the advice of Evelyn, as well as with specimens from his collection. In 1669 he went to France, and doubtless collected there many things (which are now in the Pepysian Library) on the recommendation of his friend, who says in one of his letters at this time, printed by Lord Braybrooke, “They will greatly refresh you in your study, and by your fireside, when you are many years returned.”

Yes, they will indeed refresh you! This is one of the great charms of such reminiscences of travel, that when you come home you are constantly traveling again in looking over sketches, pictures, and books. You see an engraving of the Madonna della Sedia, and away you are at once, quicker than the telegraph, to Florence the Fair, and to that sunny day, when crossing the Arno by the Ponte Vecchio, you first came to the Palazzo Pitti, and, passing by wonders and wonders of art, you stopped at last by the Raffaelle and forgot the world, absorbed by that which is indeed “a joy forever.” In the same way you turn over a folio of portraits. Here are Elizabeth, Leicester, Raleigh, Shakspere, Melville, and Mary of Scots—and you walk about London and Greenwich, and visit the world of three hundred years ago! Or you take up a folio of a later period, where are Charles the Second, Buckingham, Rochester, Grammont, Sedley, Killigrew, York, Clarendon, Dryden, Lely, Castlemaine, Stewart, Nelly, and the Queen—and you are dining at one o’clock with the learned Mr. Evelyn and the wondrous Pepys, talking and telling anecdotes (with a good deal of relish) of the bad goings on of those times, A. D. 1666. Or, whisking out another folio, you rush off to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s and laugh and criticise, mourn and moralize with Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, and Garrick, and think of Hogarth “over the way,” and of Chesterfield, Walpole, the Gunnings, Kitty Clive, Nelly O’Brien, and many more who have, unconsciously to themselves and to us, moved the world a step forward. These are among the charms, the pleasures and advantages of collections of portraits.

[BEYOND.]

By Mrs. EMILY J. BUGBEE.

Oh! depths unknown,

Oh! wide unfathomed seas,

That circle round His throne,

Who dwellest high and lone,

Where noise and tumult cease,

In the eternal peace.

Insatiate, unrepressed,

Our longings still arise,

Our weariness confessed,

Far reaching after rest,

Where the full ocean lies

Beyond the veiling skies.

How scant the store

Of knowledge gathered here;

Small pebbles on the shore,

The soul cries out for more.

Doth God bend down his ear,

Our longing cry to hear?

Nearer to thee,

Great source of life and light,

The child upon our knee,

From pride and doubting free,

Than man, from boasted height

Of intellectual might.

[SONNET OF PETROCCHI.]

Translated by STRONG.

I ask’d of Time, to whom arose this high

Majestic pile, here mouldering in decay?

He answered not, but swifter sped his way

With ceaseless pinions winnowing the sky.

To Fame I turn’d: “Speak thou, whose sons defy

The waste of years, and deathless works essay.”

She heaved a sigh, as one to grief a prey

And silent, downward cast her tearful eye.

Onward I pass’d, but sad and thoughtful grown,

When, stern in aspect o’er the ruin’d shrine

I saw Oblivion stalk from stone to stone.

“Dread power,” I cried, “Tell me whose vast design.”

He check’d my further speech, in sullen tone:

“Whose once it was, I care not; now ’tis mine.”

[RESULTS OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.]

By JOHN LORD, LL.D.

The material consequences of the discovery of America were brilliant and important. They first stimulated the passion for further explorations, and among all the maritime nations of Europe. Hence the voyages of Ojeda, of Nino, of Puiza, of Balboa, of Vespucci, of Cabot, of Raleigh, and various other men of enterprise. They did not rest until they had explored the coasts and rivers of the whole American continent, north and south. The Spaniards took the lead, and, following in their steps, the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and established their factories in the islands of the Indian Ocean. The Dutch and English were animated by the same zeal, until the East and West Indies were known to travelers and merchants. The French missionaries explored the wilds of the North, and sailed down the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. In a few years the grand outlines of North and South America were known to geographical scholars. A new world was opened to the enterprise of Europeans. Then followed the conquest of such parts of America as stimulated the ambition and avarice of the Europeans, especially of Spain, who claimed the quarter part of the American continent. These conquests were atrocious, from the cruelties inflicted on the unsuspecting natives, to whom the country belonged. The discovery of the precious metals in Brazil, Peru, and Mexico, and the repute of their abundance, was the cause of these conquests.

At last followed colonization, not so much with a view of permanent settlement or agricultural improvements, as the desire and hope of getting rich in the mines. Colonization had no dignity until the English settled in Virginia and in New England. Gold was the first stimulus, a fertile country the second, and religious liberty the third. The views of those who colonized Virginia were different from those who landed on Plymouth Rock. But all the colonists doubtless sought to improve their condition; and for two hundred years and more the stream of emigration has flowed toward the West. The poor, the miserable, as well as the intelligent and enterprising in all parts of Europe, have regarded America as a refuge and a home.

We next notice an amazing stimulus to commerce, and the enrichment of Spain by the possession of the new mines of silver and gold. Wealth flowed in a steady stream to Spain, and that country became the richest and most powerful in Europe. The Spanish navy became the greatest in the world, and Spain prospered beyond all precedent.

Another interesting inquiry arises, how far the nations of Europe were really enriched by the rapid accumulation of gold and silver. The search for the precious metals may have stimulated commercial enterprise, but it is not so clear that they added to the substantial wealth of Europe, except so far as they promoted industry. Gold is not wealth; it is the exponent of wealth. Real wealth is in farms, and shops, and ships—in the various channels of industry, in the results of human labor.

So far as the precious metals enter into useful manufactures, or into articles of beauty and taste, they are indeed inherently valuable. Mirrors, plate, jewelry, watches, gilded furniture, the adornments of the person, in an important sense constitute wealth, since all nations value them and will pay for them as they do for corn and oil. So far as they are connected with art, they are valuable in the same sense as statues and pictures on which labor has been expended. There is something useful and even necessary besides food and raiment and houses. The gold which ornamented Solomon’s temple, or the Minerva of Phidias, or the garments of Leo X., had a value. The ring which is a present to brides is a part of a marriage ceremony. The gold watch, which never tarnishes, is more valuable inherently than a pewter one, because it remains beautiful. Then when gold enters into ornaments, deemed indispensable, or into manufactures which are needed, it has an inherent value. It is wealth. But when it is a mere medium of exchange—its chief use—then it has only a conventional value. I mean it does not make a nation rich or poor, since the rarer it is the more it will purchase of the necessities of life. A pound weight of gold in ancient Greece, or in mediæval Europe, would purchase as much wheat as twenty pounds weight would purchase to-day. If the mines of Mexico, or Peru, or California had never been worked, the gold in the civilized world three hundred years ago would have been as valuable for banking purposes, or as an exchange for agricultural products, as twenty times its present quantity, since it would have bought as much as twenty times the quantity would buy to-day. Make diamonds as plenty as crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals, if they were not harder and more beautiful than crystals. Make gold as plenty as silver, it would be worth no more than silver, except for manufacturing purposes. It would be worth no more than silver to bankers and merchants. The vast increase in the production of the precious metals simply increased the value of the commodities for which they were exchanged. A laborer can purchase no more bread with a dollar to-day than he could with five cents three hundred years ago. Five cents were really as much wealth three hundred years ago as a dollar is to-day. Wherein, then, has the increase in the precious metals added to the wealth of the world, if a twentieth part of the gold and silver now in circulation would buy as much land, or furniture, or wheat, or oil, three hundred years ago, as twenty times the quantity of gold and silver would buy to-day? Had no gold or silver mines been discovered in America, the gold and silver would have appreciated in value in proportion to the wear of them. In other words, the scarcer the gold and silver the more the same will purchase of the fruits of human industry. So industry is the wealth, not the gold. It is the cultivated farms and the manufactures, and the buildings, and the internal improvements of a country, which constitute its real wealth, since they represent its industry—the labor of men.

Mines indeed employ the labor of men, but they do not furnish food for the body, or raiment to wear, or houses to live in, or fuel for cooking, or for any purpose whatever of human comfort or necessity—only material for ornament, which I grant is wealth so far as ornament is for the welfare of man. The marbles of ancient Greece are very valuable for the labor expended on them either for architecture or ornament.

Gold and silver were early selected as a useful and convenient article of exchange, like bank notes, and so have inherent value as they supply that necessity, but if a quarter part of the gold and silver in existence would supply that necessity, the remaining three-fourths would be as inherently valueless as the paper on which bank notes are engraved. Value consists in what they represent of the labors and industries of men.

Now Spain ultimately became poor, in spite of the influx of gold and silver from the American mines, because industries of all kinds declined. People were diverted from useful callings by the mighty delusion which gold discoveries created. These discoveries had the same effect on industry, which is the wealth of nations, as the support of standing armies in our day. They diverted men from legitimate callings. The miners had to be supported like soldiers, and the sudden influx of gold and silver, intoxicated men and stimulated speculation. An army of speculators does not enrich a nation, since they rob each other. They earn money to change hands. They do not stimulate industry. They do not create wealth, they simply make it flow from one person to another.

But speculations sometimes create activity in enterprise. They inflame desire for wealth and cause people to make greater exertions. In that sense, the discovery of American mines gave a stimulus to commerce and travel and energy. People rushed to America for gold. Those people had to be fed and clothed. Then farmers and manufacturers followed the gold-hunters. They tilled the soil to feed the mines. The new farms which dotted the region of the gold diggers added to the wealth of the country in which the mines were located. Colonization followed gold-digging. But it was America that became enriched, not the old countries from which the miners came, except so far as the old countries furnished tools and ships and fabrics. Doubtless commerce and manufactures were stimulated. So far the wealth of the world increased. But the men who returned to riot in luxury and idleness did not stimulate enterprise. They made others idle also. The necessity of labor was lost sight of.

And yet if one country became idle, another country may have become industrious. There can be but little question that the discovery of American mines gave commerce and manufactures and agriculture, on the whole, a stimulus. This was particularly seen in England. England grew rich from industry and enterprise, as Spain became poor from idleness and luxury. The silver and gold, diffused through Europe, ultimately found their way into the pockets of Englishmen who made a market of their manufactures. It was not the precious metals which enriched England, but those articles of industry for which the rest of the world parted with their gold and silver. What has made France rich since the revolution? Those innumerable articles of taste and elegance, fabrics for which all Europe parted with its specie, not war, not conquest, not mines. Why, till recently, was Germany so poor?—because it had so little to sell to other nations—because industry was cramped by standing armies and despotic government.

One thing is certain, that the discovery of America opened a new field for industry and enterprise to all the discontented and impoverished and oppressed Europeans who emigrated. At first they emigrated to dig silver and gold. The opening of mines required labor, and miners were obliged to part with their gold for the necessities of life. Thus California, in our day, has become peopled with farmers and merchants and manufacturers as well as miners. Many came to America expecting to find gold and were disappointed and were obliged to turn agriculturists, as in Virginia. Many came to New England from political and religious motives. But all came to better their fortunes. Gradually the United States and Canada became populated from east to west, and from north to south. The surplus population of Europe poured itself into the wilds of America. Generally the emigrants were farmers. With the growth of agricultural industry was developed commerce and manufactures. Thus, materially, the world was immensely benefited. A new continent was opened for industry. No matter what the form of government may be—I might almost say no matter what the morals and religion of the people may be—so long as there is land to occupy, and to be sold cheap, the continent will fill up, and will be as densely populated as Europe or Asia, because the natural advantages are good. The rivers and the lakes will be navigated. The products of the country will be exchanged for European and Asiatic products. Wealth will certainly increase, and increase indefinitely.

There is no calculating the future greatness and wealth of the new world, especially in the United States. There are no bounds to commerce, manufactures, and agricultural products. We can predict with certainty the rise of new cities, villas, palaces, material splendor limited only to the increasing resources and population of the country. Who can tell the number of miles of new railroads yet to be made, the new inventions to abridge human labor? What great empires are destined to rise! What unknown forms of luxury will be found out! What new and magnificent trophies of art and science will gradually be seen! What mechanisms, what material glories are sure to come! This is not speculation. Nothing can retard the growth of America in material wealth and glory. The tower of the new Babel will rise to the clouds, and be seen in all its glory throughout the earth and sea. No Fourth of July orator ever exaggerated the future destinies of America in a material point of view. No “spread eagle” politician ever conceived what is sure to come.

And what then? Grant the most indefinite expansion—the growth of empires whose splendor and wealth and power shall utterly eclipse the glories of the old world. All this is probable. But when we have dwelt on the future material expansion—when we have given wings to imagination, and feel that even imagination can not reach the probable realities, in a material aspect, then our predictions and calculations stop. Beyond material glories we can not count with certainty.

The world has witnessed many powerful empires which have passed away, “leaving scarcely a wreck behind.” What remains of the antediluvian world? Not even a spike of Noah’s Ark, larger and stronger than any modern ship. What remains of Babylon, of Thebes, of Tyre, of Carthage—those great cities of wealth and power? What remains of Roman greatness, even, except in laws and literature, and renovated statues? Remember, there is an undeviating uniformity in the past history of nations. What is the simple story of all the ages?—industry, wealth, corruption, decay and ruin. What conservative power has been strong enough to arrest the ruin of the nations of antiquity? Have not material forces and glories been developed and exhibited, whatever the religion and morals of the fallen nations? Can not a country grow materially to a point under the most adverse influence in a religious and moral point of view? Yet for lack of religion and morals the nations perished, and their Babel towers were buried in the dust. They perished for lack of true conservative forces—at least that is the judgment of historians. Nobody doubts the splendor of the material glories of the ancient nations. The ruins of Baalbec, of Palmyra, of Athens, prove this, to say nothing of history. The material glories of the ancient nations may be surpassed by our modern wonders, but yet all the material glories of the ancient nations passed away.

Now, if this is to be the destiny of America—an unbounded material growth, followed by corruption and ruin, then Columbus has simply extended the realm for men to try material experiments. Make New York a second Carthage, and Boston a second Athens, and Philadelphia a second Antioch, and Washington a second Rome, and we simply repeat the old experiment. Did not the Romans have nearly all we have, materially, except our modern scientific inventions? But has America no higher destiny than to repeat the old experiments, and improve upon them and become rich and powerful? Has she no higher and nobler mission? Can she lay hold of forces that the old world never had, such as will prevent the uniform doom of nations? I maintain that there is no reason that can be urged, based on history and experience, why she should escape the fate of the nations of antiquity, unless new forces arise on this continent, different from what the world has known, and which have a conservative influence. If America has a great mission to declare and to fulfill, she must put forth altogether new forces, and they not material. That alone will save her, and save the world. It is mournful to contemplate even the future material glories of America, if they are not to be preserved—if these are to share the fate of ancient wonders. It is obvious that the real glory of America is to be something entirely different from that of which the ancients boasted. And this is to be to the moral and spiritual, that which the ancients lacked. And this leads me to speak of the moral consequences of the discovery of America—infinitely grander than any material wonders, of which the world has been full, of which nearly every form of paganism has boasted, and which must necessarily perish, everywhere, without new forces to preserve them. In a moral point of view scarcely anything good resulted, at least to Europe, by the discovery of America. It excited the wildest spirit of adventure, the most unscrupulous cupidity, the most demoralizing speculations. It created jealousies and wars. The cruelties and injustices inflicted on the Indians were revolting. Nothing in the annals of the world exceeded the wickednesses of the Spaniards in the conquest of Peru and Mexico. That conquest is the most dismal and least glorious in human history. We see no poetry or heroism or necessity. We read of nothing but crimes. The Jesuits, in their missionary zeal, partly redeemed the cruelties, but they soon imposed a despotic yoke and made their religion pay. Monopolies scandalously increased, and the New World was regarded only as spoil. The tone of moral feeling was lowered everywhere, for the natives were crazed with the hope of sudden accumulation. Spain became enervated and demoralized.

On America itself the demoralization was even more marked. There never was such a state of moral degradation in any Christian country as in South America. Three centuries have passed, and the low state of morals continues. Contrast Mexico and Peru with the United States, morally and intellectually. What seeds of vice did not the Spaniards plant! How the old natives melted away!

And then, to add to the moral evils attending colonization, is the introduction of African slaves, especially in the West Indies and the Southern States. Christendom seems to have lost the seed of morality. Slavery more than counterbalances all other advantages together. It was the stain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not merely slavery but the slave trade increases the horror of the frightful picture. America became associated, in the minds of Europeans, with gold hunting, slavery, and cruelty to Indians. Better that the country remained undiscovered than the introduction of such vices and miseries in the most fertile part of the New World.

I can not see that civilization gained anything, morally, by the discovery of America, until the new settlers were animated by other motives than a desire of sudden wealth. When the country became colonized by men who sought liberty to worship God, men of lofty purposes, willing to undergo sufferings and danger in order to plant the seeds of a higher civilization, then there arose new forms of social and political life. Such men were those who colonized New England. And say what you will, in spite of all the disagreeable side of the Puritan character, it was the Puritans who gave a new impulse to civilization in its higher sense. They founded schools and colleges and churches. They introduced a new form of political life by their town meetings, in which liberty was nurtured, and all social improvements were regulated; it was the autonomy of towns on which the political structure rested. In them was born that true representative government which has gradually spread toward the West. The colonies were embryo states, states afterward to be bound together by a stronger tie than that of a league.

The New England States, since the War of Independence, were the defenders and advocates of a central power. An entirely new political organization gradually was formed, resting equally on such pillars as independent townships and independent states, and these represented by delegates in a national center.

So we believe America was discovered not so much to furnish a field for indefinite material expansion, with European arts and fashions, which would simply assimilate America with the old world, with all its dangers and vices and follies, as to introduce new forms of government, new social institutions, new customs and manners, new experiments in liberty, new religious organizations, new modes to ameliorate the necessary evils of life. It was discovered that men might labor and employ the fruits of industry in a new mode, unfettered by the slaveries which the institutions of Europe imposed. America was a new field to try experiments in government and social life, which could not be tried in other nations without sweeping and dangerous revolutions. And new institutions have arisen which are our pride and boast, and which are the wonder and admiration of Europe. America is the only country under the sun in which there is self-government—a government which purely represents the wisdom of the people, where universal suffrage is not a mockery—and if America has a destiny to fulfill for other nations, she must give them something more valuable than reaping machines, palace cars and horse railroads. She must give, not machinery to abridge labor, but institutions and ideas to expand the mind and elevate the soul—something by which the poor can rise and assert their rights. Unless something is developed here which can not be developed in other countries in the way of new spiritual and intellectual forces which have a conservative influence, then I can not see how America can long continue to be the home and refuge of the poor and miserable of other lands. A new and better spirit must vivify schools and colleges and philanthropic enterprises than that which has prevailed in older nations. Unless something new is born here which has a peculiar power to save, wherein will America ultimately differ from other parts of Christendom? We must have schools in which the heart as well as the brain is educated, and newspapers which aspire to something higher than to fan prejudices and appeal to perverted tastes. Our hope is not in books which treat infidelity under the name of science; not in pulpits which can not be sustained without sensational oratory; not in journals which trade on the religious sentiments of the people; nor Sabbath-school books which are an insult to the human understanding; nor colleges which fit youth merely for making money; nor schools of technology to give an impulse to material interests; nor legislatures controlled by monopolists; nor judges elected by demagogues; nor philanthropic societies to ventilate impractical theories. These will neither renovate nor conserve what is most precious in life. Unless a nation grows morally as well as materially, there is something wrong at the core of society. As I have said, no material expansion will avail if society becomes rotten at the core. America is a glorious boon to civilization, but only as she fulfills a new mission in history—not to become more potent in material forces, but in those spiritual agencies which prevent corruption and decay. An infidel professor calling himself a savant, may tell you that there is nothing certain or great but in the direction of science to utilities, even as he may boast in a philosophy which ignores a creator and takes cognizance only of a creation. As I survey the growing and enormous moral evils which degrade society here as everywhere, in spite of Bunker Hills and Plymouth Rocks, and all the advance in useful mechanisms, I am sometimes tempted to propound inquiries which suggest the old mournful story of the decline and ruin of states and empires. I ask myself “Why will America be an exception to the uniform fate of nations, as history has demonstrated? why should not good institutions be presented here as in all other countries and ages of the world?” When has civilization shown any striking triumph except in inventions to abridge the labor of mankind and make men comfortable and rich? Is there nothing before us then but the triumph of material life, to end as mournfully as the materialism of antiquity? If so, then Christianity is a most dismal failure, is a defeated power, like all other forms of religion which failed to save. But is it a failure? Are we really swinging back to paganism? Is the time to be hailed when all religions will be considered by the philosopher as equally false and equally useful? Is there nothing more cheerful for us to contemplate than what the old pagan philosophy holds out,—man destined to live like brutes or butterflies, and pass away into the infinity of time and space, like inert matter, decomposed, absorbed, and entering into new and everlasting combination? Is America to become like Europe and Asia in all essential elements of life? Has she no other mission than to add to perishable glories? Is she to teach the world nothing new in education, and philanthropy, and government? Are all her struggles in behalf of liberty in vain? Is Christianity to move round her in circles of milliners and upholsterers, and fanaticisms, and dogmatisms, and superstitions?

We all know that Christianity is the only hope of the world. The question is whether America is, or is not, more favorable for its healthy development and application than the other countries of Christendom. We believe that it is. If it is not, then America is only a new field for the spread and triumph of material forces. If it is, we may look forward to such improvements in education, in political institutions, in social life, in religious organizations, in philanthropical enterprise, that the country will be sought by the poor and enslaved classes of Europe, more for its moral and intellectual advantages, than for mines or farms, and the objects of the Puritan settlers will be gained.

“What sought they then afar?

Bright jewels of the mines?

The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?

They sought for faith’s pure shrine.

“Yes, call it holy ground,

Which first their brave feet trod,

They left unstained what there they found,

Freedom to worship God.”

[SONGS IN WINTER.]

By DAVID BUXTON.

[During a gloomy November the singing of a bird was heard daily in Regent’s Park, London; beginning before daylight and continuing until sunset.]

Welcome and glad, this dim November morning,

The lone bird singing from a leafless tree,

Cheering the chilly world ere earliest dawning;—

Nor is its cheery message missed by me.

The bird’s sweet song is but the Father’s teaching;

Gladness and joy He sends for every hour—

Sends both, in answer to true heart’s beseeching,

Whether the sun is bright or tempests lower.

Dark night hath stars; dark cloud its “silver lining;”

Something of sunshine lightens darkest days;

Happy the heart in trust and faith divining

God’s light and leading through life’s dreariest ways.

So would I sing, and sing like thee, till silence

Shall tell that we have passed beyond the flood—

Thou, to sing on in some isle far-distant hence,

I, farther still, at home, in heaven, with God.

[JOYS OF HIGH COMPANIONSHIP.]

By ARTHUR HELPS.

The joys, not merely of high companionship, but of any companionship that is tolerably pleasant, are so great, that a man with whom all other things go ill, can not be classed as an unhappy man, if he has throughout his life much of this pleasant companionship.

The desire for companionship is absolutely universal. Even misanthropy is but the desire for companionship, turned sour. This desire extends throughout creation. It is very noticeable in domestic animals; and could we fathom the causes of their sociability, we should probably have arrived at a solution of several important questions relating to them and to ourselves.

The most fascinating people in the world have, I believe, been simply good companions. Shakspere, as he knew most things, knew this, and has shown that he knew it, in what he has indicated to us of the loves of Brutus and Portia, of Antony and Cleopatra, and of Rosalind and Orlando.

I think it must be admitted that one of the main objects of life is good companionship. “What,” says Emerson, “is the end of all this apparatus of living—what but to get a number of persons who shall be happy in each other’s society, and be seated at the same table?”

The first thing for companionship is, that there should be a good relation between the persons who are to become good companions to each other. It is not well to use a foreign phrase if it can be avoided, but there are foreign phrases which are supremely significant, and utterly untranslatable. I therefore say that those people I have spoken of should be en rapport with one another. This rapport may have its existence in various ways. The relationship of mother and son, of father and daughter, will give it; the love that some people have for children will give it with children; similar bringing up at school or at college may give it; similarity of present pursuits may give it. But before all and above all, that incomprehensible, unfathomable thing called personal liking—that which you feel (or the contrary of which you feel), frequently at first sight—will be sure to give it. We use the phrase “falling in love:” we might perhaps use the phrase “falling in liking” to describe a similar unavoidable precipitancy.

The beginning once made, the basis once laid for this companionship, what are the qualities which tend to make it continuously pleasant?

The first thing is confidence. Now, in using the word confidence, it is not meant to imply that there is an absolute necessity for much confidingness in small things. Wilhelm von Humboldt has expressed an opinion which is worth noting in reference to this subject. “Friendship and love,” he says, “require the deepest and most genuine confidence, but lofty souls do not require the trivial confidences of familiarity.”

The kind of confidence that Humboldt means, and which is required for companionship as well as for friendship and love, puts aside all querulous questions as to whether the companions like one another as much to-day as they did yesterday. Steadfastness is to be assumed. And, also a certain unchangeableness. “He is a wonderfully agreeable person,” said a neighbor of one of the best talkers of the day; “but I have to renew my acquaintance with him every morning.” That good talker can not be held to be a good companion in a high sense of the word. Again, this steadfastness makes allowance for all variations of humor, temperament, and fortune. It prevents one companion from attributing any change that there may be in the other, of manner, of bearing, or of vivacity, to a change in the real relation between the companions. He does not make any of these things personal towards himself. Silence is not supposed to be offence. Hence there is no occasion to make talk, a thing which is fatal to companionship. One reason why some of us enjoy so much the society of animals, is because we need not talk to them if we do not like. And, indeed, with a thoroughly good human companion, you ought to be able to feel as if you were quite alone.

Difference of temperament is no hindrance whatever to companionship. Indeed, the world has generally recognized that fact. We all know that the ardent and the timid, the hopeful and the despondent, the eager and the apathetic, get on very well together. What may not always have been as clearly perceived is, that there are certain diversities of nature, chiefly relating to habits, which produce, not agreeable contrasts, but downright fatal discords. And, in such cases, companionship of a high kind is hopeless.

Let us suppose that the principal requisites for companionship have been attained; first, the basis for it created by personal liking, early association, similarity of pursuits, and the like; secondly, the means of continuing it, such as this confidence that has been spoken of, the absence of contravening tastes, the absence of unreasonable expectation, and the like. Now, for what remain to be considered as the essential requisites for high companionship, we must enter into what is almost purely intellectual. For this high companionship there must be an interest in many things, at least on one side, and on the other a great power of receptivity. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the needfulness of these elements. Look at results. Consider the nature of those men and women whom you have found, if I may use the phrase, to be splendid companions. It is not exactly their knowledge that has made them so; it is their almost universal interest in everything that comes before them. This quality will make even ignorant people extremely good companions to the most instructed persons. It is not, however, the relation of tutor to pupil that is contemplated here. That is certainly not the highest form of companionship. The kind of ignorant person that I mean, if he or she should be one of the companions, is to be intensely receptive and appreciative, and his or her remarks are very dear and very pleasant to the most instructed person. Is not the most valuable part of all knowledge very explicable, and do you not find that you can make your best thoughts intelligible, if you have any clearness of expression, to persons not exactly of your own order, if you will only take the pains to do so?

Ruskin and Whistler.—A good deal of amusement was created by an account that on one occasion a picture of Mr. Whistler’s was publicly produced, and neither judge nor jury could tell which was the top and which the bottom. Whether the legend is true or not we are in no position to say; but it is certainly as true as the coincidence is curious that at the Winter Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water-Colors, 1873-74, a lovely and elaborate architectural drawing by Mr. Ruskin was placed upside down. Thus it remained for a time, until some sharp-sighted visitor discovered the fact. The work was No. 105, “Study of the Colors of Marble in the Apse of the Duomo of Pisa,” and exhibited with “Study of the Colors of Marble in the Base of the Church of St. Anastasia at Verona,” No. 97. There is a third story to a similar effect. When John Martin had finished his well-known “Zadok in Search of the Waters of Oblivion,” which was more than once engraved, he sent for the framemaker’s men to frame it, and having occasion to remain in a room adjoining his studio while they were in the latter room, he was edified by a loud dispute between the men as to which was the top, which the bottom of his picture.

[EGYPT FOR THE EGYPTIANS.]

By Judge G. M. BARBER.

“Egypt for the Egyptians!” was the motto of the national party in their attempted revolution. What is Egypt, and who are the Egyptians? Let history answer. Modern investigations and the translation of hieroglyphics and inscriptions found in tombs carry back the evidences of its existence as a nation at least a thousand years prior to the period fixed by the translators of the Mosaic record for the creation of man. During all these cycles of ages these wonderful people have maintained their existence along the narrow region watered and enriched by the Nile. Neither pestilence nor famine, invasion and subjugation by other peoples, nor internal discord, has supplanted them by other or different races; nor have they been allured to abandon the homes of their ancestors for more fruitful lands or mineral wealth, or commercial advantages. Although in turn they have been conquerors, and held in subjection other lands and other peoples, and have been themselves the conquered and compelled to bear the yoke of people more powerful than themselves, they have remained the same simple agricultural people, among whom have always existed types of squalid poverty and luxurious wealth, self-sacrificing devotion to a religion, and the most wanton lasciviousness: the most deplorable ignorance and the most exalted scientific knowledge and mechanical skill.

Over this interesting country and people Mohammedanism has for several centuries spread its baleful influence, keeping out the light of Christianity and western civilization. During most of the time since 1517 it has been under the dominion of Turkey. In the early part of the eighteenth century the Mamelukes, who constituted the military under Ali Bey, threw off the Turkish yoke and maintained their independence until the invasion by Napoleon in 1798, who conquered it for the French and held it until 1801, when Mehemet Ali became Pasha. After restoring tranquility by a treacherous assassination of five hundred Mamelukes, and the expulsion of the remainder from the country, he turned his arms against Turkey, conquered Syria and a great part of Asia Minor, and was in a fair way to capture Constantinople when the European powers, England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, interfered and compelled him to make peace with the sultan. This was in 1833. In 1839 the sultan sent an army of 80,000 men and a large fleet to retake Ali’s conquests. This army was defeated and the fleet surrendered to Ali and was brought to Alexandria. The powers of Europe again interfered to prevent the overthrow and destruction of the Turkish Empire, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, taking sides with Turkey, while France, under Thiers, favored Ali. England, however, sent a fleet, blockaded Alexandria, bombarded and captured Beyrut and Acre, and compelled Ali to accept peace, dictated by the allies, and to accept the pashalic of Egypt, guaranteed to him and his descendants on condition of his paying one-fourth of his clear revenues to the sultan.

This short history is necessary to understand the relation of Egypt to Turkey, and how the European powers have come to take part in the affairs of Egypt. Mehemet Ali became ruler of Egypt in 1805, under the title of pasha. Finding his ambition to conquer Turkey frustrated by the European powers, he attempted to introduce into the administration of his government European systems and the institutions of western civilization. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Ibrahim, who lived but two months, and was followed by his nephew, Abbas, and after six years reign of Abbas by Saïd, the fourth son of Ali, who had a prosperous reign of nine years and was succeeded in January, 1863, by Ismaïl Pasha, the son of Ibrahim. The policy of modernizing Egypt, inaugurated by Mehemet Ali, was followed by Saïd, although wholly neglected during the unsatisfactory rule of Abbas.

Ismaïl was educated in France, and had imbibed as thoroughly as his grandfather, Mehemet, western ideas, and as fully appreciated the superiority of European civilization over eastern opulence and luxury. His ambition was to accomplish what Mehemet had been prevented from accomplishing by the interference of the European powers—to be independent of Turkey. He seems to have had the idea that he could at once lift Egypt from its condition of semi-barbarism into the civilization of the nineteenth century. The public works which he constructed must have appeared to his simple agricultural people more wonderful than a realization of the stories of the Arabian Nights. He built railroads and telegraphs, constructed harbors and wharfs for the largest vessels, and opened Alexandria to the commerce of the world. He lighted his cities with gas, and supplied them with water by means of aqueducts, constructed canals for irrigation, built bridges, established military schools, and increased his army until it excited the jealousy of Turkey. In addition to all these he paid nearly one-half the cost of constructing the Suez Canal, from which there is scarcely a maritime nation in the world that does not reap greater benefit than Egypt. The expenditures for these improvements not only absorbed his revenues, but involved him in enormous debts. Soon he was unable to pay interest, and at once European capitalists refused to make additional loans, and demanded payment. In his extreme need of money he sold his shares of stock in the Suez Canal, 177,000 shares, to the English government for £4,000,000. Every dollar that could be raised by taxation was taken from the property owners and the poor fellahs; and when he could get no more he resorted to the “Muskabala” policy, which consisted in giving immunity for all time from land taxes on the payment by the owner of an agreed assessment; one of the most short sighted pieces of statesmanship ever devised, to sell immunity to the rich at the expense of the poor. The finances fell into a state of inextricable confusion. Ismaïl had no definite knowledge of his indebtedness or of his resources. In this dilemma he applied to the English government, which sent him two eminent financiers, who investigated his financial condition, and reported the public debt to be £91,000,000, or nearly $500,000,000, and recommended a consolidated loan on bonds at reduced interest. This project was opposed by the other European powers, and it failed. An arrangement was finally agreed upon which satisfied all parties. A comptroller-general of the revenue and a comptroller-general of the debt and audit were to be appointed, one by the English and one by the French governments, who should have entire control of the public revenue, its collection and application to the payment of the expenses of the government and the interest and principal of the public debt. The personal creditors of the khedive also demanded an investigation of his personal indebtedness and resources, and the adoption of measures which should bring his expenditures within his resources, and provide for the payment of his debts. A commission was appointed, of which M. De Lesseps was president, consisting of representatives of France, England, Germany, Austria and Italy.

This commission reported the khedive’s personal indebtedness to be £6,744,000, and that his resources were wholly insufficient to pay his current expenses and the interest, and recommended that he surrender all his private estates to the government, and that it assume his liabilities, and pay him and the members of his family a fixed stipend for their support. This proposition was accepted by Ismaïl in a speech which shows that, with all his faults, he has noble traits of character. As an evidence of his good faith he conveyed all his estates to the government, and received in return an annual allowance for the support of himself and his family. Although Ismaïl was controlled by European influence his administration of public affairs was to some extent influenced by native ministers, the principal and most influential of whom were Nubar, Chérif, Riaz, and Ismaïl Sadyk, Pashas. Messrs. Rivers Wilson, and De Bligniers, as representatives of the English and French governments held portfolios in the ministry, having virtually control of finances.

In the latter part of 1878 the crisis was approaching. All the debts could not be paid in full, and the commissioners decided that the sacrifices should be borne equally by all.

On February 18, 1879, a council of ministers was held at Cairo. As Minister Nubar Pasha and Mr. Rivers Wilson were leaving in a carriage, they were stopped by a crowd of army officers, clamoring for payment of arrears of their salaries. The ministers were grossly insulted, their coachman wounded, and they pursued to Nubar’s private apartments, where they were held prisoners until the khedive came with a regiment of soldiers and dispersed the mob. This affair created intense excitement in London and Paris, where it was believed that the attack on Nubar and Mr. Rivers Wilson was instigated by the khedive as a means to get rid of Nubar as prime minister, for whom he entertained a profound aversion. It will be remembered that he was a Christian, and had the confidence of the European powers, and was appointed at the dictation of the foreign bondholders. He immediately resigned and an apology was made to Mr. Wilson, which he accepted. On the 7th of April, 1879, the culmination of the crisis was precipitated by the khedive and the Egyptians themselves. It seemed to be a last struggle of Egyptians for independence, and was the first real effort to save Egypt for the Egyptians. Ismaïl dismissed his ministry, which had been practically forced upon him by the European powers, and appointed a new one, composed wholly of Egyptians, with Chérif Pasha as prime minister. Wilson and De Bligniers were dismissed, but they refused to surrender their offices and appealed to their governments. It was a rebellion of Egypt against the western powers, and the khedive was supported by all the political and religious influences of the country.

The pashas, the harems, the ulemans, the priests, and the principal land owners combined to support him in his effort to regain his lost power. The last straw was laid on the camel’s back when the new ministry issued a decree on April 22, 1879, virtually suspending payment of all foreign debts. This was followed by a demand from the English and French governments for the abdication of Ismaïl, and on the 25th of June, 1879, he received an order from the Porte to abdicate in favor of his son, Mehemet Tewfik, which he obeyed, and Tewfik was immediately proclaimed khedive, as Tewfik I. Liberal provision was made for Ismaïl and his family in a style commensurate with the dignity of an oriental viceroyalty.

Tewfik formed three successive ministries within four months, the last on September 21, 1879, in which Osman Pasha was made Minister of War. On demand of England Messrs. Baring and De Bligniers were appointed comptrollers-general of finance with unrestricted authority, and an order issued that all subjects of the khedive should be treated alike, the pashas and other officials being required to pay taxes, and in failure to do so their rents were to be seized and their produce sold. The condition of Egypt was now most deplorable. It was at war with Abyssinia and a most disastrous famine prevailed. It is authoritatively reported that in September, October, November and December, 1879, 700,000 people in Egypt were in a starving condition, and that 10,000 actually died from that cause. When we consider that this state of things was brought about by forced collections of taxes to pay interest to European bondholders, and through methods forced upon them for that purpose, we need not be surprised that antipathy should arise to European interference, and that some efforts should be made to relieve this people of those oppressive burdens.

For the purpose of consolidating the public debt, and to form a plan for its liquidation, a commission was established of representatives of the English, French, Italian, Austrian and Egyptian governments. A plan was prepared by this commission and a law drafted to carry it into effect, which was adopted by the ministry, and at once put into operation. It consolidated all debts created before 1880, and provided for the issuing of bonds for the principal, and coupons for the interest, and that no suit could be brought on such debts except as the coupons and bonds should mature, and for an equitable division and appropriation of the income so that current expenses should be paid and the surplus applied to the interest and principal of the debt, and the collection of taxes was fixed to correspond with the ripening of the crops. This was the first step toward bringing order out of chaos. The result surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the government. The fellahs were able to pay their taxes out of their crops and have a surplus. Instead of forced collections the people came voluntarily to the collectors, anxious and able to pay their taxes. Land rose in the market, and the future looked prosperous for Egypt.

The very success which attended the efforts of the foreign commissioners in extricating the country from the quicksands into which it had fallen—creating confidence and bringing in capital from abroad, only hastened the time when the religious national prejudices would be aroused. It was irksome to them to see all the important public offices in the hands of foreigners. The better the new system worked, the more impatient they were to get rid of foreign domination. Add to this the fact that the salaries paid these foreign officials were greater than are paid for like services in any civilized country in the world, and were unheard of in Egypt, and you can see the real cause of the discontent of the people, out of which grew the National party. Their motto became “Egypt for the Egyptians.”

On the 2d of February, 1881, a mutiny broke out in the army. Osman Reski Pasha, minister of war, had become obnoxious to the officers of the army, of whom a great number were unemployed. Osman was accused of promoting Turkish subjects to positions in the army to the exclusion of natives, and of treating the latter with contempt. The colonels of the bodyguard and two other regiments drew up and presented to the khedive a petition for his removal. It came into the hands of Osman, who arrested and placed them in confinement in the citadel. The soldiers of the guard stormed the citadel and released the colonels, who marched with them to the palace and demanded an audience of the khedive. He ordered the insubordinate colonels under arrest, but they refused to obey him. On consultation with his ministers, he finally yielded to their demands, and dismissed Osman. Ahmed Arabi Bey was the leader of this movement, and the most popular of the three colonels. Some years before he had been dismissed from his position by Ismaïl without any good reason, and from that time he determined to devote himself to the work of securing for army officers a fair trial, and of protecting the fellaheen from the tyranny and oppression of government officials. He and his fellow-officers at that time contemplated a rising in favor of popular rights, but were deterred by the belief that they would be overpowered. Arabi was chosen leader, and seven days after the last occurrence he presented a demand for the dismissal of the entire ministry, the formation of a constitution and an increase of the army, and gave notice that the troops would appear before the palace at four o’clock of that day, and wait until the demand was complied with. At the hour appointed, four thousand troops and eighteen pieces of artillery were drawn up before the palace under the command of Arabi. The khedive again yielded, formed a new ministry, and ordered an assembly of notables to be elected by the people to inaugurate a representative system of government. The independence and enthusiasm with which the fellaheen voted for these representatives revealed to the world the fact that liberal political ideas and the nationalistic principles of the popular party had taken deep root in the minds of this ancient race, “which once bore the torch of civilization, but since has tilled the fertile valley of the Nile under the whip of many masters.”

The Chamber of Notables resolved that in the new organization they would control the ministry and the financial affairs and every other department of the government. This was a declaration of war on the policy of foreign supervision, and created consternation among all who were interested in Egyptian securities. Arabi come to the front as Minister of War, and was made a pasha. When the session closed on March 24, 1882, he and his friends were masters of the situation. His next step was to dispose of the Turkish and Circassian officers who stood in the way of his plans. They were charged with conspiracy, tried by a secret court, and sentenced to confinement for life. At this juncture Admiral Seymour, with an English fleet, was sent to Alexandria with the avowed purpose of supporting the khedive. England and France now demanded that Arabi should be dismissed from the ministry and sent out of Egypt, as he was thought to be the principal disturbing element. He however refused to obey the khedive’s order to that effect, and became practically the ruler of Egypt. The army was the willing instrument of his ambition.

The next act in the drama came without warning, and startled the world by its atrocity. On June 11, 1882, a bloody riot occurred in Alexandria, in which about three hundred and eighty Europeans were killed, with a species of brutality known only to the fanatical followers of Mahomet in northern Egypt, and discounted the ferocity of the North American Indians. Arabi was accused of complicity in it, and the fact that he was in Alexandria, near the scene of the massacre, at the head of 6,000 troops, and made no effort to stop the slaughter of women and children which was going on, renders it probable that the accusation is true. However, after five hours delay, he took what appeared to be vigorous measures to stop the slaughter. It was evidently the outburst of the race hatred of Moslem against Christian, and Arabs against Europeans. It was the harvest of blood from the seed sown broadcast by Arabi and the National party in carrying on their plans to secure Egypt for the Egyptians. This massacre was followed by the flight from Egypt of all Europeans and Americans who could get away, as it was apparent it was the beginning of more serious trouble.

It was discovered that Arabi, anticipating interference by England and France, was vigorously building and equipping fortifications about Alexandria, and threatened the destruction of all foreigners, and of the Suez Canal, if interference was attempted. Admiral Seymour ordered him to cease operations on the fortifications. The work proceeded. He thereupon demanded the surrender of the forts within twelve hours or he would open fire.

This bombardment was the first step. The burning of the finest portions of Alexandria, the horrible murders there, the concentration of English forces in Egypt against Arabi, his final defeat and surrender, constitute the story of a war remarkable principally for the great perturbation it caused among the powers of Europe, for the small force on the one side, and on the other for the power, pomp and parade, and the vast stores of material and men. On the part of Arabi and his army, for the justness of their cause in the ostensible purposes of the National party, and on the part of England for the flimsy pretext of acting under authority of the khedive, when the only real excuse was the fact that the Suez Canal is of vital importance for connection with its East Indian possessions, and control of Egypt is necessary for the protection of the canal. Especially is it remarkable in view of the show of force and preparation, for the weakness of the Egyptian army and the feebleness and unskillfulness on the part of Arabi and his generals. We can, however, account for the consternation it created in Europe, when we consider that Mahommedanism covers a larger extent of territory and includes more peoples than all the rest of the world. The religious prejudices of the followers of the prophet have only tolerated the presence of Christians when they could be kept under subjection and in servility. Some point was given to the idea that a religious war was imminent by the fact that the False Prophet was advancing into Soudan toward Southern Egypt. What the outcome of such a war would be was difficult to foresee. It would involve more than three-fourths of the population of the world. And while Western civilization would have the advantage of modern improvements in the art of war, it was not certain it could compete with the Moslem hordes that would swarm from Asia and Africa. It would not only check and greatly set back civilization, but would threaten to overthrow and destroy it. It is not surprising, then, that the powers of Europe hesitated. And from the standpoint of Western civilization England can not be too highly commended for her energy in crushing out in its inception what might have ripened into a war involving such tremendous consequences.

The weakness and unskillfulness exhibited by the leaders of the National party, and their indifference to the fate of their subordinates, show that any sentimentality spent upon them is unmerited, and the collapse of the rebellion upon the first serious disaster, which, from the Egyptian standpoint, was a struggle for life and liberty, shows to what state of servility the descendants of the Pharaohs have been reduced, and how utterly incapable they are of self-government.

The last act in the drama was performed at Cairo on the 25th of December, 1882. The leaders were nominally turned over to the government of the khedive for trial and punishment, charged with the massacre and incendiarism of June 11th, and with rebellion. Nothing awaited them but death by assassination or public execution. In reality the turning them over to the khedive was only a form to keep up the pretext of acting under his authority. In fact the trial was suppressed because of the complications which would have arisen from making public the evidences in the hands of Arabi of the complicity of Turkey in the rebellion. Under the dictation of England a plea of guilty of rebellion only was accepted, and sentence of death in form pronounced upon the seven principal leaders, Arabi, Toulba, Abdelal, Mahmoud Sami, Ali Fehni, Yacoob Sami, and Mahmoud Fehni. At the same time a commutation, by the khedive, was announced to degradation and exile for life, and the place of exile has been fixed in the English colony of Ceylon. The ceremony of degradation was performed at Cairo on Christmas day, and consisted in reading the decree of degradation to the prisoners in the presence of the army, public officers, and a crowd of native Egyptians. Immediately thereafter they were sent to Suez and thence to Ceylon under guard. A liberal provision is made for their support in view of the fact that they are state prisoners. About $10,000 each per year is allowed for their support, so that life in exile is not altogether an unmitigated hardship.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.—Goethe.

[REV. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON.]

By A. A. LIVERMORE, D.D.

It is often said in these days that the power of the pulpit has declined from what it was in the time of our fathers. The press has stolen a march upon the preacher. The lyceum draws better than the meeting-house. The stump speaker has more hearers than the minister. The advocate for reform makes more stir than the Sunday-going parson. The newspaper has got to be the American Bible. The magazine has more readers than the Gospel of Mark, and the Epistle to the Romans.

But this croaking overlooks the fact that our civilization is wider and broader than it used to be fifty or one hundred years ago. It comprehends more interests, strikes the key to more subjects, sweeps into its ever-widening circumference a greater variety of pursuits and influences. The pulpit may be as important as ever and as potent, but relatively other factors have in these latter days come into play,—art, science, philosophy, reform, politics, sociology, and thus have seemingly encroached upon the once almost absolute domain of religious worship and instruction. But it is more in seeming than in reality. Because other powerful auxiliaries have come up alongside of the pulpit to challenge the attention of mankind, and assist in the great enterprise of the upbuilding of humanity, it by no means follows that the peculiar office which the pulpit and the preacher fulfill may not be more needful and more demanded than ever to save the souls of men, and bring the kingdom of God on earth.

It almost however goes without the saying that facts disprove the dismal theory that our civilization is running away from the public administration of religion. We have as mighty preachers in the field to-day on both sides of the water as ever lifted up their voices in Christendom. I need only mention Spurgeon, Beecher, Philips Brooks, Moody, Pere Hyacinth, Bishop Simpson, Prof. Swing, Robert Collyer. And they draw great audiences, produce great effects, convert sinners, edify saints, “hurl back the floods of tyrant wrong” and sin, and bring in the kingdom, as effectually as was ever done by the Chrysostums and Ambroses, the Robert Halls and John Wesleys of the past. God hath not left, and never will leave himself without witness. The eloquence of the spoken word is not yet dead or buried. We have placed at the head of our article one of these great and glorious names, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Baptist preacher in London. He was born in Helvedon, Essex, near London, June 9, 1834. He is now therefore in the forty-eighth year of his age, but how solidly he has packed those years with services to God and man! His origin was in the Congregational body of England. He is a self-taught man, and contrary to what was said of another distinguished self-taught man, that he had a very poor teacher, Mr. Spurgeon had a very good and wise teacher. He became a schoolmaster of others at sixteen, and at eighteen the pastor of a church at Waterbeach. He soon rose to such popularity that he was called to London, where ordinary churches could not contain the crowds that came to hear him. He occupied successively the Baptist Chapel in Southwark, Exeter Hall, Surry Music Hall, and now he preaches in a cathedral-like edifice, called the “Tabernacle,” built for him, where he has an audience of five or six thousand. But like Wesley he is not only a great preacher, but a great organizer and also an affluent writer. On an average he preaches a sermon every day. Ten or more volumes of his sermons have been published in England and reprinted in this country. He has edited the works of some of the old religious classics. He has published lectures to divinity students, tracts for the people, as “John Ploughman’s Pictures,” and “John Ploughman’s Talks with the People.” He is a Calvinist, but not a close communion Baptist. In popularity and wide influence among the masses he stands at the head of the English dissenting pulpit. He has thirty preaching stations in London. He carries on a divinity school, and has educated between three and four hundred young men for the ministry. The expenses of his school are $25,000 a year which he raises himself. He has, according to the testimony of his stewards, appropriated no part of the income of his church to himself for the last three years. He meets the wants of the great middle class of English society. His administration drives at the practical, direct, and pungent application of Christianity to the sins, crimes, and woes of the great capital of the world, and in that world of Great Britain he is a mighty power for good.

The secret of his influence is not far or hard to seek. In the first place, Mr. Spurgeon is built on a large scale in personality and natural endowment. He is John Bull in maximo, a stocky frame, big head, vigorous constitution, a good digester, a deep breather, a massive face, a strong round-about man every way. It is not native to his constitution to be sick, and if he is so it is because of the load, which, like Atlas, he bears on his broad shoulders, of care and duty and preaching, and divinity school, and writing and publishing, and travel, and the superintendence of his thousand and one enterprises to carry forward the cause. He knows how to work himself, and another secret equally important, he knows how to make others work.

Some years ago I heard him preach in his throne of power. It was a sight to behold and never to be forgotten. Thousands of people gathered to hear one man speak. His subject was from Corinthians: “We are ambassadors for Christ.” His tone was kindly, no overbearing, no intellectual pretense or insolence, such as we sometimes see in great men, while his appeal was persuasive and rational. There was a deep and tender tone of sympathy and good will, an evident desire to bring over to his own happy state of trust and love those far from God and Christ, wandering in darkness, in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. A deep stream of piety and devotional ardor flowed through all the services. His language was plain Anglo-Saxon speech, few “dictionary” words, as they are called, and easy to be understood by the common people.

But next to his piety and zealous faith, should be given as instruments of his power, great affluence of illustration. He tips his sentences not unfrequently with a bit of poetic fire. He levies on the Bible imagery largely. He uses, as Jesus did, the common every day’s events and scenes about him to wing his arrows and point his spears. He has no subtleties, mysticisms, speculations, to clog the minds of his hearers. “Jesus and him crucified” is his paramount theme, as it was that of Paul. He is the John Bunyan of the nineteenth century, and long may he guide the “Pilgrims” in their “Progress to the eternal city.”

The same day we heard Spurgeon in the great Tabernacle we heard Dean Stanley in Westminster Abbey. Both had great audiences. Both gathered many strangers from beyond the sea to hear the most distinguished pulpit orators of Great Britain. Dean Stanley gave his eulogy on the Bishop of Winchester, who had been instantly killed by a fall from his horse. It was a memorable occasion, attended by what was most brilliant in rank, in culture, in power and wealth in England, the lords and ladies of the empire. The music transported you to the seventh heaven. The Dean spoke to the learned, refined and powerful, Spurgeon to the common people, “not heard of a mile from home.” The Dean had more learning, culture, taste, and swept a broader circle of thought; Spurgeon more power, bored deeper into the heart and conscience. Stanley was more a literary man and author; Spurgeon a minister and converter of souls. Stanley is a broad churchman, and aims at the progress of Christianity in the dialect of the nineteenth century; Spurgeon lays about him like Talus, with his tremendous flail, to warn people and drive them from the wrath to come, and to administer the average orthodox doctrines without note or comment, or nice speculations. Both are great men, each good for his sphere. Both refute the notion that the Christian pulpit of this age can not match that of any previous age in the power, influence and following of the noted preachers. There were giants of old, and there are giants now.

[HOW TO REGULATE THE FASHIONS.]

From the French of M. AUGUSTIN CHALLAMEL.

When we speak of past fashions, we must always mention sumptuary laws at the same time; that is to say, remedial measures against the excesses of caprice and luxury. As if wisdom could be decreed by law! We know their unsuccessful results. But even at the present day, when difference of rank is no longer marked by difference of dress, we sometimes meet with persons who are indignant with a working woman if she ventures to wear a silk gown or a velvet cape on Sunday.

“No, I can not understand the government not interfering!” exclaimed a charming “great lady” the other day. “Only a week ago I was elbowed by a girl with a gown identically like my own! It is really disgraceful! The rest of the costume did not harmonize with the gown, and the effect was wretched; besides, extravagance and equality in dress are the ruin of scores of working girls. There ought to be a law against it.”

The laws regulating the quality and cost of dress have been tried extensively in the past, and had the lady known the history of past fashions, she would hardly have wished as she did. Far back in the twelfth century sovereigns began to issue sumptuary laws in order to restore respect for the inequality of rank, and to prevent one woman from wearing garments exclusively reserved for another. Philip Augustus raised his voice against fur. Philip the Fair issued prohibitions the wording of which enlightens us considerably in regard to the manners and customs of those times. “No citizen may possess a chariot, nor wear grey fur, nor ermine, nor gold, nor jewels, nor belts, nor pearls. Dukes, counts, and barons, with six thousand livres a year, may have four pair of gowns a year, and no more, and their wives may have as many. No citizen, nor esquire, nor clerk shall burn wax lights.” Baron’s wives, howsoever great, could not wear a gown that cost more than twenty-five cents by the Paris yard; the wives of a lord were restricted to eighteen cents, and of a citizen to sixteen cents and a half. These regulations proceeded probably from the following circumstance: On the occasion of the solemn entrance of the queen into Bruges in 1301, she saw so many women of the middle ranks so gorgeously appareled that she exclaimed, “I thought I was queen, but I see there are hundreds.” Philip evidently thought it time to restrain the license that allowed women of any rank to equal his queen.

Notwithstanding legislative prohibitions, the desire of attracting attention led all women to dress alike. From this resulted a confusion of ranks absolutely incompatible with mediæval ideas. Saint Louis forbade that certain women should wear mantles or gowns with turned-down collars, or with trains or gold belts. But fashion bid defiance to law. The great ladies were not yet protected. More than an hundred years later, in the reign of Francis I., we find the fashion of wearing three gowns, one over the other, resorted to to preserve the distinction in dress. Says a writer of the times: “For one coat that the wife of a citizen wears, the great lady puts on three, one over the other; and letting them all be seen equally, she makes herself known for more than a bourgeoise.”

Even the quality and color of stuffs have been restricted. Henry II. allowed no woman, not a princess, to wear a costume entirely of crimson. The wives of gentlemen might have one part only of their under dress of that color. Maids of honor might wear velvet of any color except crimson. The wealthy classes longed to wear the forbidden material, but the law only allowed them velvet when made into petticoat and sleeves. Working-women were forbidden to wear silk. The complaints became so loud that at last the law-giver was moved with compassion, and allowed bands of gold to be worn on the head, gave permission to the working-women to trim their gowns with borders or linings of silk, and allowed them to wear sleeves of silk—a whole dress of such material was denied. These restrictions were rigorously enforced, and Rousard the poet exclaims:

“Velvet grown too common in France

Resumes, beneath your sway, its former honor;

So that your remonstrance

Has made us see the difference

Between the servant and his lord,

And the coxcomb, silk-bedecked,

Who equalled your princes,

And rich in cloth of silk went glittering

On his way showing off the bravery of his attire.

I have far more indulgence for our fair women,

Who in dresses far too precious

Usurp the rank of the nobles,

But now the long-despised wool

Resumes its former station.”

It did not hold its station, however. Before the century was out Charles IX. resumed the war against fashion and extravagance. He sent out this edict: “We forbid our subjects, whether men, women, or children, to use on their clothes, whether silken or not, any bands of embroidery, stitching, or pipings of silk, gimp, etc., excepting only a border of velvet or silk of the width of a finger, or at the uttermost two borderings, chain-stitchings or back stitchings at the edge of their garments. Nor shall women of any rank wear gold on their heads, except during the first year of her marriage,” etc.

Such a king would find much cause for prohibitory edicts at the present day. And it was not long before kings and courtiers realized that fashion was the most absolute of all sovereigns. In 1680 some one laments that “No longer are our ladies to be distinguished from the women of the people.” Sumptuary laws never filled the demand, nor are they the proper weapons by which to overcome extravagance and folly in dress.

Montaigne writes in 1603 of these attempts to regulate expenses: “The way seems to be quite contrary to the end designed. The true way would be to beget in men a contempt of silks and gold, as vain and frivolous, and useless; whereas, we augment to them the value, and enhance the honors of such things, which is a very absurd mode of creating a disgust. For to enact that none but princes shall eat turbot, shall wear velvet or gold lace, and to interdict these things to the people, what is it but to bring them into greater esteem, and to set every man more agog to eat and wear them? Let kings leave off these ensigns of grandeur, they have enough others besides; these excesses are more excusable in any other than a prince. ’Tis strange how suddenly and with how much ease custom in these different things establishes itself and becomes authority. We had scarce worn cloth a year at court for the mourning of Henry II., but that silks were already grown into such contempt that a man so clad was despised. Let kings but take the lead and begin to leave off this expense, and in a month the business will be done throughout the kingdom without edict or ordinance. We shall all follow.”

[THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION.]

By W. T. HARRIS.