are sometimes moved by the spirit. I am told mad Ranters sing, and preach, and roar as if they were in earnest. I hear that there is even enthusiasm amongst the Mormons; but that matters little. We are very few of us connected with such outre sects, and the exceptions but prove the rule.
But a truce to generalities. Let us give modern instances. Look at Jenkins, the genteel stockbroker. In autumn he may be seen getting into his brougham, which already contains his better-half and the olive-branches that have blessed their mutual loves. This brougham will deposit the Jenkinses, and boxes of luggage innumerable, at the Brighton Railway Terminus, whence it is their intention to start for that crowded and once fashionable watering-place. Jenkins has been dying all the summer of the heat. Why, like the blessed ass as he is, did he stop in town, when for a few shillings he might have been braced and cooled by sea breezes, but because of that monotony which forbids a man consulting nature and common sense. Jenkins only goes out of town when the fashionable world goes; he would not for the life of him leave till the season was over.
Again, does ever the country look lovelier than when the snows of winter reluctantly make way for the first flowers of spring? Is ever the air more balmy or purer than when the young breath of summer, like a tender maiden, kisses timidly the cheek, and winds its way, like a blessing from above, to the weary heart? Does ever the sky look bluer, or the sun more glorious, or the
earth more green, or is ever the melody of birds more musical, than then? and yet at that time the beau monde must resort to town, and London drawing-rooms must emit a polluted air, and late hours must enfeeble, and bright eyes must become dull, and cheeks that might have vied in loveliness with the rose, sallow and pale.
It is a fine thing for a man to get hold of a good cause; one of the finest sights that earth can boast is that of a man or set of men standing up to put into action what they know to be some blessed God-sent truth. A Cromwell mourning the flat Popery of St. Paul’s—a Luther, before principalities and powers, exclaiming, “Here stand I and will not move, so help me God!”—a Howard making a tour of the jails of Europe, and dying alone and neglected on the shores of the Black Sea—a Henry Martyn leaving the cloistered halls of Cambridge, abandoning the golden prospects opening around him, and abandoning what is dearer still, the evils of youth, to preach Christ, and Him crucified, beneath the burning and fatal sun of the East—or a Hebrew maiden, like Jepthah’s daughter, dying for her country or her country’s good,—are sights rare and blessed, and beautiful and divine. All true teachers are the same, and are glorious to behold. For a time no one regards their testimony. The man stands by himself—a reed, but not shaken by the wind—a voice crying in the wilderness—a John the Baptist nursed in the wilds, and away from the deadening spell of the world.
Then comes the influence of the solitary thinker on old fallacies; the young and the enthusiastic rush to his side, the sceptic and the scoffer one by one disappear, and the world is conquered; or if it be not so, if he languishes in jail like Galileo, or wanders on the face of the earth seeking rest and finding none, like our Puritan forefathers; or die, as many an hero has died, as the Christ did, when the power of the Prince of Darkness prevailed, and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain; still there is for him a resurrection, when a coming age will honour his memory, collect his scattered ashes, and build them a fitting tomb. Yet even this kind of heroism has come to be but a monotonous affair.
Now-a-days the thing can be done, and in one way—a meeting at Exeter Hall, a dinner at Freemasons’ tavern, Harker for toast-master, a few vocalists to sing between the pieces, and for chairman a lord by all means; if possible, a royal duke. The truest thing about us is our appetite. Our appreciation of a hero is as our appreciation of a coat; a saviour of a nation and a Soyer we class together, and do justice to both at the same time. We moderns eat where our fathers bled. Our powers we show by the number of bottles of wine we can consume; our devotion is to our dinners; the sword has made way for the carving-knife; our battle is against the ills to which gluttonness and wine-bibbing flesh is heir; the devil that comes to us is the gout; the hell in which we believe and against which we fight is indigestion; our means of grace are blue pill and
black draught. All art and science and lettered lore, all the memories of the past and the hopes of the future—
“All thoughts, all passions, all delights—
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,”
now-a-days, tend to dinner. Our sympathy with the unfortunate females, or the indigent blind, with the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, or with the diffusion of useful knowledge at home—with the Earl of Derby or Mr. Cobden—with Lord John Russell or Mr. Disraeli—with the soldier who has blustered and bullied till the world has taken him for a hero—with the merchant who has bound together in the peaceful pursuits of trade hereditary foes—with the engineer who has won dominion over time and space—with the poet who has sat