The Chautauquan, December 1883

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The Chautauquan.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. IV. DECEMBER, 1883. No. 3.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

Superintendent of Instruction—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn.

Counselors—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.

Office Secretary—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

General Secretary—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Contents

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REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4.
DECEMBER.

GERMAN HISTORY.

By Rev. W. G. WILLIAMS, A. M.

III.
THE FRANKS AND MEROVINGIANS.

After the fall of the Western Empire the Franks step into the foreground and show themselves of all the German tribes the most capable of founding a stable government. From the first they were distinguished from the others by their superior military discipline, and by their pride and ambition. They had always been looked upon as formidable warriors. Few of them wore helmets and mail; their breasts and backs were covered only by the shield. From the hips downward they wrapped themselves in close-fitting linen or leather, so as to display each man’s tall, upright form. Their principal weapon was the two-edged battle-axe, which served for throwing as well as striking. They also carried frightful javelins with barbed points. Their own laws describe them as brave warriors, profound in their plans, manly and healthy in body, handsome, bold, impetuous, and hardy. But their enemies, perhaps with some justice, denounced them as the most faithless and cruel of men. The distinguishing ornament of the kings was their hair, which was left uncut, flowing freely over the shoulder. The people were still heathen, untamed and uncivilized, yet in constant intercourse with the Romans in Gaul.[A]

CLOVIS, THE FIRST FRANKISH KING.

The name of Clovis is not alone to be remembered as that of the founder of the kingdom of the Franks, but for the remarkable so-called conversion which he experienced during a hard-fought battle with the Alemanni. While the result was yet in doubt, Clovis, in the face of his army, called upon the new God, Christ, and vowed to serve him, if he would help him now. He was victorious; received instruction from St. Remigius, and was then baptized, with three thousand of his noblest Franks, in the cathedral at Rheims. “Bow thy head in silence, Sigambrian,” said the saint; “worship what thou hast hitherto destroyed; war against what thou hast worshiped.” This was by no means the only instance of wholesale conversions to Christianity in consequence of a victory. The heathen, when defeated by Christians, commonly ascribed the result to the superior strength of the Christian God, and often resolved to seek his protection for themselves. It was the Catholic, not the Arian faith, which Clovis adopted. He was straightway recognized by the Pope as “the most Christian king,” the appointed protector and propagator of the true faith against Arian Germany.

Clovis built up his kingdom with many a deed of blood, but with great vigor. His empire comprised German as well as Roman territory; but struck root firmly in the old native soil, from which it drew ever new strength: and therefore it was that its duration was not merely momentary, like that of the Gothic kingdoms, but it proved the beginning of the monarchy of the Middle Ages, the beginning of a new national life, in which Roman form was animated with fresh German strength. Clovis ruled his wide realm from Paris, a city which had existed even before the days of Cæsar and the Romans in Gaul. He died in Paris at the early age of forty-five.[B]

From Clovis to Karl der Grosse (French, Charlemagne; Latin, Carolus Magnus), a period of two hundred and fifty years, we witness not only the vicissitudes incident to the establishment of a new social and political order upon the ruins of the old, with all the ferocity of manner and barbarity of action to be expected in such an age; but also there is the gradual displacement of the old pagan religions by the newer one called Christianity. It is a period of strifes, of jealousies, and blood. It was toward the last of this period that occurred the memorable battle of Poitiers, between the Franks under Karl, afterward surnamed Martel, and the Saracens, who having crossed from Africa and possessed themselves of entire Spain, next collected a large army, and under command of Abderrahman, Viceroy of the Caliph of Damascus, set out for the conquest of France and Germany, as yet an undivided nationality. Thus the new Christian faith of Europe, still engaged in quelling the last strength of the ancient paganism, was suddenly called upon to meet the newer faith of Mohammed, which had determined to subdue the world.

Not only France, but the Eastern Empire, Italy and England looked to Karl, in this emergency. The Saracens crossed the Pyrenees with 350,000 warriors, accompanied by their wives and children, as if they were sure of victory and meant to possess the land. Karl called the military strength of the whole broad kingdom into the field, collected an army nearly equal in numbers, and finally, in October, 732, the two hosts stood face to face, near the city of Poitiers. It was a struggle almost as grand, and as fraught with important consequences to the world, as that of Aëtius and Attila, nearly 300 years before. Six days were spent in preparations, and on the seventh the battle began. The Saracens attacked with that daring and impetuosity which had gained them so many victories; but, as the old chronicle says, “the Franks, with their strong hearts and powerful bodies, stood like a wall, and hewed down the Arabs with iron hands.” When night fell, 200,000 dead and wounded lay upon the field. Karl made preparations for resuming the battle on the following morning, but he found no enemy. The Saracens had retired during the night, leaving their camps and stores behind them, and their leader, Abderrahman, among the slain. This was the first great check the cause of Islam received, after a series of victories more wonderful than those of Rome. From that day the people bestowed upon Karl the surname of Martel, the Hammer, and as Charles Martel he is best known in history.[C]

CHARACTER OF THE GERMAN CHRISTIANITY AT THIS TIME.

The Christianity of the Germans, and even that of the Roman provinces, for many generations after the date of their “conversion,” was a very different kind of religion from that which is now held by enlightened Christians. Constantine and several of his successors were actually worshiped after death by multitudes of the Christians of those days. The apostolic doctrines were not conceived as a system of belief by the people, nor even by their teachers; the personal sovereignty of Christ as a king and warrior, and the future heaven or hell to be awarded by him, were apprehended as practical truths, but were overlaid with a dense mass of superstitious notions and observances, many of them legacies from heathenism. Above all, the Germans indulged without stint their passion for the wonderful; and the power of Christianity over them depended largely on the supply of miracles and of potent relics which it could furnish them. The workers of miraculous cures were numerous; they were esteemed as the favorites of heaven, and cities and princes contended with one another for their bones. Some of the popes were wise enough to discourage the zeal for miracles; and as late as A. D. 590, Pope Gregory I. wrote to St. Augustine, of England, cautioning him against spiritual pride as a worker of them. But it was not long before the papacy became the great center from which relics of the saints were distributed throughout the Church. The Roman catacombs were ransacked, and bones of saints found in an abundance sufficient to supply Christendom for ages. The Pope’s guaranty of genuineness was final; and this resource contributed immeasurably to increase the wealth and power of the Holy See. The legends of the saints, as circulated and preserved, mainly by tradition, were for centuries the intellectual food of the Church at large; and were filled with idle and monotonous tales of wonderful cures in mind and body, wrought by the holy men and women in their lives, or by their corpses or their tombs. No doubt was entertained, even by the most intelligent, of the truth of these miracles. The modern conception of nature, as the work of a divine will which is unchangeable, and which therefore expresses itself in fixed, uniform laws, was then unknown. The spiritual conception of Christianity, as life by a personal trust in a pure, holy, and loving God, was set forth, indeed, by a few writers and preachers, and was doubtless verified in the experience of many a humble heart; but it was far above the thoughts of the people, or even of the clergy at large. To them no religion was of any value which was not magical in its methods and powers, and a charm to secure good fortune or to avert danger. In short, the Church was one thing, Christianity another; and the priestly ambition of the great organization to rule over men’s lives and estates entirely eclipsed and obscured the spiritual work of the kingdom which is not of this world. Nothing in the early German character is more attractive than the habitual and general chastity of the people, and their reverence for the marriage tie. But the great migrations corrupted them; and the degradation of marriage in the succeeding centuries was promoted and completed by the influence of the Church. Hardly any agency can be traced in history which has wrought greater social and moral evil than the contempt for human love and for the marriage tie, which was sedulously cultivated by the Roman Church from the beginning of the fourth century. Yet, there are indications enough to satisfy us that the doctrines of the New Testament had not lost their power; and that truth, purity, divine charity, and Christian heroism were yet kept alive in many hearts. Thousands of men and women, whose minds and lives were darkened by the teachings and practices of asceticism, monasticism and gross superstitions, still cherished a devout, self-sacrificing love for their unseen Master and Lord and stood ready to die for him. Even the idea of Christian brotherhood was not entirely lost; and the common worship of the same Redeemer by master and slave did much to mitigate the horrors that grew out of their relation.[D]

CHARLES THE GREAT.

The history of Germany may now for half a century be ranged about the central figure, Charles the Great, more commonly called Charlemagne. Indeed, so conspicuous a figure is he that it is impossible for all subsequent history to lose sight of him. The decayed Merovingian scepter when it fell into his hands was swayed with such unprecedented vigor and ability that its old name soon disappeared, and henceforth it is the Carlovingian, and Charles becomes the head and founder of a new dynasty. The first years of his rule are marked by continuous wars of conquest. The brave and savage Saxons resisted him and the Christianity which he championed until compelled by his all-conquering arms to yield. Saxony emerged from his hands subdued and Christian, divided into eight bishopries, studded with new cities and abbeys which proved centers of civilization; and that wild country, until then barbarous and pagan, entered into communion with the rest of the empire.

He next turned his attention to Italy, where his career of victory was uninterrupted. He visited Rome, and, dismounting at a thousand paces from the walls, walked in procession to the church of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, kissing the steps as he ascended in honor of the saints by whom they had been trodden. In the vestibule of the church he was received by the Pope, who embraced him with great affection, the choir chanting the psalm, “Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.” Then they descended into the vaults, and offered up their prayers together at the shrine of St. Peter.[E]

EXTENT OF HIS EMPIRE—HIS CORONATION.

In the course of a reign of forty-five years, Charlemagne extended the limits of his empire beyond the Danube; subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria, conquered and subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula, and successfully encountered the arms of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. His war with the Saxons was of more than thirty years duration, and their final conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood, through what has been considered a mistaken zeal for the propagation of Christianity, by measures which that religion can not be said to sanction or approve. All these wars were very nearly finished in the year 800. Charlemagne then found himself master of France, of Germany, of three-quarters of Italy, and a part of Spain. He had increased by more than a third the extent of territory which his father had left him. These vast possessions were no longer a kingdom, but an empire. He thought he had done enough to be authorized to seat himself on the throne of the West; and, as his father had required at the hands of the Pope his regal crown, so it was from the Pope that he demanded his imperial diadem. He was, therefore, with great ceremony, created Emperor of the West in St. Peter’s, at Rome, by Pope Leo III., on Christmas day 800. It was a great event, for that imperial title which had remained buried under the ruins wrought by the barbarians, was drawn thence by the Roman pontiff, and shown to scattered nations and enemies as a rallying sign.

The crown which he received was destined to be for one thousand and six years the symbol of German unity, whilst the assembled people shouted, “Long life and victory to Carolus Augustus, the great and peace-bringing Roman Emperor, whom God hath crowned!” Thus, 324 years after the imperial dignity had disappeared, it was renewed by Charles. In this coronation act Pope Leo III. had fulfilled a function like St. Remy did in consecrating Clovis. His successors constituted it a privilege, and the pontiffs considered themselves the dispensers of crowns. During the whole of the middle ages the imperial consecration could only be given at Rome, and from the hands of the Holy Father. More than one war arose out of this prerogative.[F]

THE CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHARLEMAGNE—HIS PLACE IN HISTORY.

Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, is the name which history has agreed to give to the founder of the German empire—incorporating the epithet with the name itself. We have recited in outline the facts of his wonderful career, as they are recorded in the meagre records of contemporary historians, and must rely upon the same authentic testimony in attempting to estimate his mind, character, and work. But the Charles of history is one; the Charles of heroic legend and popular fame is another. The former is a powerful conqueror and politic statesman, whom some eminent writers regard as the greatest of all monarchs; the latter is a Christian saint, superhuman in strength, beauty, and wisdom, incapable of defeat in war, of error in judgment, or of infirmity or corruption in his own will. Thus the song of Roland says: “His eyes shone like the morning star; his glance was dazzling as the noonday sun. Terrible to his foes, kind to the poor, victorious in war, merciful to offenders, devoted to God, he was an upright judge, who knew all the laws, and taught them to his people as he learned them from the angels. In short, he bore the sword as God’s own servant.” As Theodoric had been the center of the ancient popular minstrelsy, so Charles the Great became the central figure in that more cultivated heroic poetry, chiefly the work of the clergy, in which were celebrated the deeds of the twelve paladins, with Roland and the fight of Roncesvalles:

“When Charlemain with all his peerage fell

By Fontarabia.”

When we consider the profound impression made on the popular mind by this person, as represented in legend and song, we are almost ready to inquire whether its influence upon later German history was not greater than that of his authentic achievements. But it is true that the entire German race owes to him its first political organization. It was the purpose of his life, which never wavered, to unite all the German tribes under the control of one imperial government and of one Christian Church. In the greater part of this work he succeeded, and thus left the stamp of his mind upon the following centuries, through all the Middle Ages. The national consciousness of the collective German tribes dates from his reign, and it is at the beginning of the ninth century that “the Germans” are first spoken of in contrast with the Roman peoples of the empire, although the national name did not come into general use until four generations later, in the reign of Otto the Great. When Charles mounted the throne, he was twenty-four years of age, in the strength and prime of his youth. His person was huge and strong, combining the presence and muscular power of the heroes of song; so that he found it sport to fight with the gigantic wild bulls in the forest of Ardennes. His passion for labor, war, and danger was that of the adventurous warriors of the great migration. In the momentous affairs of state, he exhibited the want of feeling and the unscrupulousness which have been common to nearly all great warriors; but in daily intercourse with those around him, he had the mildness, cheerfulness, and freshness of spirit which add so much grace to true greatness. These characteristics were those of his people; but that which specially distinguished him was the far-seeing mind, which had caught from ancient Rome the conception of a universal state, and was wise enough, without slavish copying, to adapt this conception to the peculiar requirements of the widely different race he ruled. This lofty intellect appears the more wonderful, that no one can tell how he obtained his mental growth, or who were his instructors; he seems to shine out of the darkness of his age like a sun.

Charlemagne’s active mind gave attention to all matters, great and small. His untiring diligence, and his surprising swiftness in apprehension and decision, enabled him to dispatch an amount of business perhaps never undertaken by another monarch, unless by Frederick II., of Prussia, or by Napoleon Bonaparte. He was simple in his own attire, usually wearing a linen coat, woven at home by the women of his own family, and over it the large, warm Frisian mantle; and he demanded simplicity in his followers, and scoffed at his courtiers when their gorgeous silks and tinsel, brought from the East, were torn to rags in the rough work of the chase. Hunting in his favorite forest of Ardennes was the chief delight and recreation of his court. Next to this, he enjoyed swimming in the warm baths at Aix, which became his favorite residence. At his meals he listened to reading; and even condescended to join the monks, detailed for the purpose, in reading exercises. He founded schools in all the convents, and visited them in person, encouraging the diligent pupils, and reproving the negligent. He also introduced Roman teachers of music, to improve the church-singing of the Franks; while he required that sermons should be preached in the language of the people. Thus he diligently promoted popular education, while he strove to make up by study what he had lost by the neglect of his own culture in youth. He gathered men of learning—poets, historians, and copyists—around him, the most prominent of them being Anglo-Saxons, of whom the wise and pious Alcuin was chief. Even when an old man, he found time, though often only at night, to practice in writing his hand so accustomed to the sword; and having long been familiar with the Latin language, which he tried to diffuse among the people, undertook to learn the Greek also. He highly esteemed his native language, too. He gave German names to the months and the winds; caused a German grammar to be compiled; and took pains to collect the ancient heroic songs of the German minstrels, though his son, in his monkish zeal, destroyed them. He reverenced the clergy highly: granted them tithes throughout the empire, and everywhere watched over the increasing endowments and estates of the Church, in whose possessions at that time both agriculture and morality were better cared for than elsewhere. Most of the bishops and abbots were selected by the king himself.

Charlemagne’s personal character must not be judged by the standards of a time so remote from him as ours. He has been called dissolute; and it is true that he utterly disregarded the marriage tie, when it would limit either his pleasures or his ambition. He married five wives, only to dishonor them. He even encouraged, as it seems, his own daughters to live loose lives at home; refusing to give them in marriage to princes, lest their husbands might become competitors for a share of the kingdom. But he was never controlled by his favorite women, nor did he neglect state business for indulgence. Charlemagne has been censured as cruel; and, indeed, there are few acts recorded in history of more wanton cruelty than his slaughter in cold blood of thousands of Saxons at Verden. Yet this was not done in the exercise of passion or hatred, but as a measure of policy, a means deliberately devised to secure a definite end, in which it was successful. Charlemagne was never cruel upon impulse; but his inclinations were to gentleness and kindness. The key to his character is his unbounded ambition. In the pursuit of power he knew no scruple; the most direct and efficient means were always the right means to him. There is no doubt of his earnest attachment to the Christian Church and to the orthodox doctrines, as he understood them. But this was not associated with an appreciation of Christian morality, or a sense of human brotherhood. His passion for conquest was in large part a fanatical zeal for the propagation of a religion which he regarded as inseparable from his empire.

Charlemagne was held in high honor by foreign nations. The Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid, wielded in the East a power comparable with his own. To Charlemagne he sent a friendly embassy, with precious gifts, and it was reciprocated in the same spirit. The kings of the Normans expressed their respect for him in a similar way. But his own taste esteemed the ring of a good sword more than gold. His person and his private life have been vividly depicted to us by Einhard (Eginhard), a youth educated at his court, to whom, according to legend, the emperor gave one of his daughters for a wife. Charlemagne was tall and strongly formed, measuring from crown to sole seven times the length of his own foot. He had an open brow, very large, quick eyes, an abundance of fine hair, which was white in his last years, and a cheerful countenance.[G]

RESULTS OF HIS WARS AND RULE.

Some writers have sought to represent Charlemagne as a royal sage, a pacific prince, who only took up arms in self-defense. Truth compels a more faithful though less flattering portraiture. He had no invasion to dread. The Saracens were scattered, the Avars (Bavarians) weakened, and the Saxons impotent to carry on any serious war beyond their forests and marshes. If he led the Franks beyond their own frontiers, it was that he had, like so many other monarchs, the ambition of reigning over more nations, and of leaving a high-sounding name to posterity. All that he attempted beyond the Pyrenees proved abortive. It would have been of greater value had he subdued the Bretons, so far as to have made them sooner enter French nationality, instead of contenting himself with a precarious submission. The conquest of the Lombard kingdom profited neither France nor Italy, but only the Pope, whose political position it raised, and whose independence it secured for the future. The country for which those long wars had the happiest result, was that one which had suffered most from them, Germany. Before Charlemagne, Almayne was still Germany—that is to say, a shapeless chaos of pagan or Christian tribes, but all barbarian, enemies of one another, united by no single tie. There were Franks, Saxons, Thuringians, and Bavarians. After him there was a German people, and there will be a kingdom of Germany. It was great glory for him to have created a people—a glory which few conquerors have acquired; for they destroy much more than they found. His reign lasted forty-four years, and may be summed up as an immense and glorious effort to bring under subjection the barbarian world and all that which survived the Roman civilization; to put an end to the chaos born of invasion, and to found a settled state of society in which the authority of the emperor, closely united to that of the Pope, should maintain order alike in Church and State—a very difficult problem, which it was given Charlemagne to solve, but of which all the difficulties did not become apparent until after his death. The work of Charlemagne, in fact, did not last. The name of this powerful though rude genius is not the less surrounded with a lasting glory; and it has remained in the memory of nations with that of three or four other great men who have done, if not always the greatest amount of good, at least have made the most noise in the world. As to Charlemagne, the amount of good accomplished very far surpasses that which was only vain renown and sterile ambition. He created modern Germany; and if that chain of nations, the links of which he had sought to rivet, broke, his great image loomed over the feudal times as the genius of order, continually inviting the dispersed races to emerge from chaos, and seek union and peace under the sway of a strong and renowned chief.

Charlemagne died, January 28, 814, in his seventy-second year, and was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle, in a church which he had built there after his Italian conquests, in the Lombard style. Eginhard, his secretary and friend, who wrote his life, tells us that he was considerably above six feet in height, and well proportioned in all respects, excepting that his neck was somewhat too short and thick. His imperial crown, which is still preserved at Vienna, would fit only the head of a giant. His air was dignified, but at the same time his manners were social. Charlemagne had no fewer than five wives; of his four sons, only one survived him, Louis, the youngest and most incapable, who succeeded him on the imperial throne.[H]

[To be continued.]

[A] Lewis.

[B] Lewis.

[C] Taylor.

[D] Lewis.

[E] Menzies.

[F] Menzies.

[G] Lewis.

[H] Menzies.

EXTRACTS FROM GERMAN LITERATURE.

WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.

As an introduction to a brief extract upon Walther von der Vogelweide, we give Longfellow’s beautiful little poem:

WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.

Vogelweide the Minnesinger,

When he left this world of ours,

Laid his body in the cloister,

Under Würtzburg’s minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,

Gave them all with this behest:

They should feed the birds at noontide

Daily on his place of rest;

Saying, “From these wandering minstrels

I have learned the art of song;

Let me now repay the lessons

They have taught so well and long.”

Thus the bard of love departed;

And, fulfilling his desire,

On his tomb the birds were feasted

By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o’er tower and turret,

In foul weather and in fair,

Day by day, in vaster numbers,

Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches

Overshadowed all the place,

On the pavement, on the tombstone,

On the poet’s sculptured face,

On the cross-bars of each window,

On the lintel of each door,

They renewed the War of Wartburg,

Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols,

Sang their lauds on every side;

And the name their voices uttered

Was the name of Vogelweide.

Till at length the portly abbot

Murmured, “Why this waste of food?

Be it changed to loaves henceforward

For our fasting brotherhood.”

Then in vain o’er tower and turret,

From the walls and woodland nests,

When the minster bells rang noontide,

Gathered the unwelcome guests.

Then in vain, with cries discordant,

Clamorous round the Gothic spire,

Screamed the feathered Minnesingers

For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions

On the cloister’s funeral stones,

And tradition only tells us

Where repose the poet’s bones.

But around the vast cathedral,

By sweet echoes multiplied,

Still the birds repeat the legend,

And the name of Vogelweide.

Walther’s lyrical poems are distinguished from those of most of his contemporaries by a strong impress of sincerity and a wide range of thought.

When he hails the coming of the spring after a long winter, he imitates in the gladness of his heart the carols of the birds, and goes on in melodious verses to speak of the beauty of the lady to whom he dedicates his song, but whom he never names. In the next song the reader, to his surprise, will find the minstrel changed into a satirist, who denounces the political and religious corruptions of his time, rebukes the Pope for his worldly ambition and predicts a speedy ruin of the world. These are not all the notes of the scale on which his songs are constructed. As a specimen of his lighter and more popular style, the following strophe in praise of German women may serve:

In many foreign lands I’ve been

And knights and ladies there have seen;

But here alone I find my rest—

Old Germany is still the best;

Some other lands have pleased me well;

But here—’tis here I choose to dwell.

German men have virtues rare,

And German maids are angels fair.

He rises to a higher strain than this in other lyrics, where he places domestic virtue above external beauty, and speaks of minne in the higher interpretation of the word. “Even where it can not be returned,” he says, “if devoted to one worthy of it, it ennobles a man’s life. His affection for one teaches him to be kind and generous to all.” Walther pleasantly describes himself as by no means good-looking, and censures all praise bestowed on men for their merely exterior advantages. And he is no fanatical worshiper of feminine beauty, affirming that it may sometimes be a thin mask worn over bad passions.

With regard to their moral and social purport the verses of Walther have a considerable historical interest. They show us how insecurely the Church held the faith and loyalty of German men in the thirteenth century.

Walther is bold and violent in his defiance and contempt of the Pope’s usurpation of temporal authority. Referring in one place to a fable commonly believed in his times, he says: “When Constantine gave the spear of temporal power, as well as the spear and the crown to the See of Rome, the angels in heaven lamented, and well they might; for that power is now abused to annoy the emperor and to stir up the princes, his vassals against him.” The poet was as earnest in dissuading the people from contributing money to support the Crusades. “Very little of it,” he says, “will ever find its way into the Holy Land. The Pope is now filling his Italian coffers with our German silver.” This saying seems to have been very popular for a tame moralist who lived in Walther’s time complains that, by making such statements, the poet was perverting the faith of many people. “All his fine verses,” the moralist adds, “will not atone for that bad libel on Rome.” Yet the author of it was quite orthodox in doctrine, and was enthusiastic in his zeal for rescuing the Holy Sepulcher from the Saracens.

Many of his verses express earnestly his love for his native land, and his grief for social and political disorders of his times. He believes that the world is falling a prey to anarchy. “I hear the rushing of the water,” he says, “and I watch the movements of the fish that swim in its depth. I explore the habits of the creatures of this world in the forest and in the field, from the beast of the field down to the insect, and I find that there is nowhere any life that is not vexed by anarchy and strife. Warfare is found everywhere, and yet some order is preserved even among animals; but in my own native land, where the petty princes are lifting themselves up against the emperor, we are hastening on to anarchy.” The course of events proved that he was too true in this prediction. Resignation and despair, rather than any hope of a reconciliation of religion with practical life, characterize other meditative poems. The following is one of the best of this class:

I sat one day upon a stone,

And meditated long, alone,

While resting on my hand my head,

In silence to myself I said:

“How, in these days of care and strife,

Shall I employ my fleeting life?

Three precious jewels I require

To satisfy my heart’s desire:

The first is honor, bright and clear,

The next is wealth, and far more dear,

The third is heaven’s approving smile;”

Then, after I had mused a while

I saw that it was vain to pine

For these three pearls in one small shrine;

To find within one heart a place

For honor, wealth, and heavenly grace;

For how can one in days like these

Heaven and the world together please?

—From “Outlines of German Literature”
—Gostwick and Harrison.

HANS SACHS.

Riches of Poverty.

Why art thou cast down, my heart?

Why trouble, why dost mourn apart,

O’er naught but earthly wealth?

Trust in thy God, be not afraid,

He is thy friend, who all things made!

Dost think thy prayers he doth not heed?

He knows full well what thou dost need;

And heaven and earth are his!

My Father and my God, who still

Is with my soul in every ill.

The rich man in his wealth confides;

But in my God my trust abides.

Laugh as ye will, I hold

This one thing fast, that He hath taught:

Who trusts in God shall want for naught.

Yes, Lord: thou art as rich to-day

As thou hast been, and shall be aye:

I rest on thee alone;

Thy riches to my soul be given,

And ’tis enough for earth and heaven.

The legends of Hans Sachs are all pointed with satire. Readers now-a-days find in them a coarseness which jars their ideas of reverence and refinement, but which in the sixteenth century was in perfect keeping with the popular taste. One of the best of his legends is that of “St. Peter and the Goat.” “We are told that once upon a time St. Peter was perplexed by an apparent prevalence of injustice in the world; and ventured to think that he could arrange matters better if he held the reins of government. He frankly confesses these thoughts to his Master. Meanwhile a peasant girl comes to him and complains that she has to do a hard day’s work, and at the same time to keep in order a frolicsome young goat. ‘Now,’ says the Lord to Peter, ‘you must have pity on this girl, and must take charge of the goat. That will serve as an introduction to your managing the affairs of the universe.’”

The legend goes on:

“The young goat had a playful mind

And never liked to be confined;

The Apostle at a killing pace,

Followed the goat, in a desperate chase;

Over the hills and among the briers

The goat runs on and never tires,

While Peter, behind, on the grassy plain,

Runs on, panting and sighing in vain.

All day, beneath a scorching sun,

The good Apostle had to run

Till evening came; the goat was caught

And safely to the Master brought,

Then, with a smile, to Peter said

The Lord: ‘Well, friend, how have you sped?

If such a task your powers has tried

How could you keep the world so wide?’

Then Peter, with his toil distressed,

His folly, with a sigh, confessed;

‘No, Master, ’tis for me no play

To rule one goat for one short day;

It must be infinitely worse

To regulate the universe.’”

MARTIN LUTHER.

The Book of Psalms.

The heart of man is like a ship out on a wild sea, and driven by storm-winds blowing from all the four quarters of the world; now impelled by fear and care for coming evil, now disturbed by vexation and grief for present misfortune, now urged along by hope and a confidence of future good, now wafted by joy and contentment. These storm-winds of the soul teach us how to speak in good earnest, to open our hearts and to utter their contents. The man actually in want and fear does not express himself quietly, like a man who only talks about fear and want; a heart filled with joy utters itself and sings in a way not to be imitated by one who is all the time in fear; “It does not come from the heart,” men say, when a sorrowful man tries to laugh, or a merry man would weep.… Now of what does this book of Psalms mostly consist but of earnest expressions of the heart’s emotions—the storm-winds, as I have called them? Where are finer expressions of joy than the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving? There you look into the hearts of the saints, as if you looked into a fair and delightful garden, aye, or into heaven itself—and you see how lovely and pleasant flowers are springing up there out of manifold happy and beautiful thoughts of God and all His mercies.… But again, where will you find deeper, more mournful and pitiful words of sorrow than in the Psalms devoted to lamentation? I conclude then that the Psalter is a hand-book for religious men, wherein every one, whatever may be his condition, may find words that will rhyme with it; and Psalms as exactly fitted to suit his wants as if they had been written solely for his benefit.—From the Preface to Luther’s Book of Psalms.

Light in Despondency.

When the sky is black and lowering, when thy path in life is drear,

Upward lift thy steadfast glances, ’mid the maze of sorrow here.

From the beaming Fount of Gladness shall descend a radiance bright,

And the grave shall be a garden, and the house of darkness light,

For the Lord will hear and answer when in faith his people pray;

Whatsoe’er he hath appointed shall but work thee good alway.

E’en thy very hairs are numbered, God commands when one shall fall;

And the Lord is with his people, helping each and blessing all.

Our Defense.

A strong tower is the Lord our God,

To shelter and defend us;

Our shield his arm, our sword his rod

Against our foes befriend us.

That ancient enemy—

His gathering powers we see,

His terror and his toils;

Yet victory with its spoils

Not earth but heaven shall send us!

Though wrestling with the wrath of hell,

No might of man avail us,

Our captain is Immanuel,

And angel comrades hail us!

Still challenge ye his name?

“Christ in the flesh who came”—

The Lord, the Lord of Hosts!

Our cause his succor boasts;

And God shall ne’er fail us!

While mighty truth with us remain,

Hell’s arts shall move us never;

Nor parting friendship, honors, gains,

Our love from Jesus sever:

They leave us when they part

With him a peaceful heart;

And when from dust we rise,

Death yields us as he dies,

The crown of life forever!

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING.

The Parable of “The Three Kings,” from “Nathan the Wise.”

In the oldest times, and in an eastern land,

There lived a man who had a precious ring.

This gem—an opal of a hundred tints—

Had such a virtue as would make the wearer

Who trusted it, beloved by God and man.

What wonder, if the man who had this ring

Preserved it well, and, by his will, declared

It should forever in his house remain?

At last when death came near, he called the son

Whom he loved best, and gave to him the ring,

With one strict charge:—“My son, when you must die,

Let this be given to your own darling child—

The son whom you love best, without regard

To any rights of birth.”—’Twas thus the ring

Was always passed on to the best-beloved.

Sultaùn! you understand me?

Saladin. Yea. Go on!—

Nathan. A father, who, at last possessed this ring

Had three dear sons—all dutiful and true—

All three alike beloved.—But, at one time,

This son, and then another, seemed most dear—

Most worthy of the ring; and it was given,

By promise, first to this son, then to that,

Until it might be claimed by all the three.

At last, when death drew nigh, the father felt

His heart distracted by the doubt to whom

The ring was due. He could not favor one

And leave two sons in grief! How did he act?

He called a goldsmith in, gave him the gem,

And bade him make exactly of that form,

Two other rings, and spare nor cost nor pains

To make all three alike. And this was done

So well, the owner of the first, true ring,

Could find no shade of difference in the three.

And now he called his sons—one at a time—

He gave to each a blessing and a ring—

One of the three—and died—

Saladin. Well, well. Go on.

Nathan. My tale is ended. You may guess the sequel:—

The father dies; immediately each son

Comes forward with his ring, and asks to be

Proclaimed as head and ruler of the house;

All three assert one claim, and show their rings—

All made alike. To find the first—the true—

It was as great a puzzle as for us—

To find the one true faith.

Saladin. Is that, then, all the answer I must have?

Nathan. ’Tis my apology, if I decline

To act as judge, or to select the ring—

The one, true gem, of three all made alike;

All given by one—

Saladin. There! talk no more of “rings.”

The three religions, that, at first, were named,

Are all distinct—aye, down to dress—food—drink—

Nathan. Just so! and yet their claims are all alike,

As founded upon history, on facts

Believed, and handed down from sire to son,

Uniting them in faith. Can we—the Jews—

Distrust the testimony of our race?

Distrust the men who gave us birth, whose love

Did ne’er deceive us; but when we were babes,

Taught us, by means of fables, for our good?

Must you distrust your own true ancestors,

To flatter mine?—or must a Christian doubt

His father’s words, and so agree with ours?—

Saladin. Allah!—the Israelite is speaking truth,

And I am silenced—

Nathan. Let me name the rings

Once more!—The sons at last, in bitter strife,

Appeared before a judge, and each declared

He had the one true gem, given by his father;

All said the same, and all three spoke the truth;

Each, rather than suspect his father’s word,

Accused his brethren of a fraud—.

Saladin. What then?

What sentence could the judge pronounce? Go on.

Nathan. Thus said the judge:—“Go, bring your father here;

Let him come forth! or I dismiss the case.

Must I sit guessing riddles? Must I wait

Till the true ring shall speak out for itself?—

But stay!—’twas said that the authentic gem

Had virtue that could make its wearer loved

By God and man. That shall decide the case.

Tell me who of the three is best beloved

By his two brethren. Silent?—Then the ring

Hath lost its charm!—Each claimant loves himself,

But wins no love. The rings are forgeries;

’Tis plain, the first, authentic gem was lost;

To keep his word with you, and hide his loss,

Your father had these three rings made—these three,

Instead of one—”

Saladin. Well spoken, judge, at last!

Nathan. “But stay,” the judge continued; “hear one word—

The best advice I have to give; then go.—

Let each still trust the ring given by his father!—

It might be, he would show no partial love;

He loved all three, and, therefore, would not give

The ring to one and grieve the other two.

Go, emulate your father’s equal love.

Let each first test his ring and show its power;

But aid it, while you test; be merciful,

Forbearing, kind to all men, and submit

Your will to God. Such virtues shall increase

Whatever powers the rings themselves may have;

When these, among your late posterity,

Have shown their virtue—in some future time,

A thousand thousand years away from now—

Then hither come again!—A wiser man

Than one now sitting here will hear you then,

And will pronounce the sentence.”

Saladin. Allah! Allah!

Nathan. Now, Saladin, art thou that “wiser man?”

Art thou the judge who will, at last, pronounce

The sentence?

[Saladin grasps Nathan’s hand, and holds
to the end of the conversation.

Saladin. I the judge?—I’m dust! I’m nothing!

’Tis Allah!—Nathan, now I understand;

The thousand thousand years have not yet passed;

The judge is not yet come; I must not place

Myself upon his throne! I understand—

Farewell, dear Nathan! Go.—Be still my friend.

READINGS IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

Abridged from Science Primer on Physical Science, by Prof. Geikie.

III.—RIVERS AND GLACIERS.

We have found that the water of the river is largely derived from springs, and that all spring-water contains more or less mineral materials dissolved out of the brooks. Every river, therefore, is carrying not merely water, but large quantities of mineral matters into the sea. It has been calculated, for instance, that the Rhine in one year carries into the North Sea lime enough to make three hundred and thirty-two thousand millions of oyster shells. This chemically-dissolved material is not visible to the eye, and in no way affects the color of the water. At all times of the year, as long as the water flows, this invisible transport of some of the materials of rocks must be going on.

But let us now again watch the same river in flood. The water is no longer clear, but dull and dirty. You ascertained that this discoloration arises from mud and sand suspended in the water. You see that over and above the mineral matter in chemical solution, the river is hurrying seaward with vast quantities of other and visible materials. And thus it is clear that at least one great part of the work of rivers must be to transport the mouldered parts of the land which are carried into them by springs or by rain.

But the rivers, too, help in the general destruction of the surface of the land. Of this you may readily be assured, by looking at the sides or bed of a stream when the water is low. Where the stream flows over hard rock, you find the rock all smoothed and ground away; and the stones lying in the water-course are all more or less rounded and smoothed. When these stones were originally broken by frosts or otherwise, from crags and cliffs, they were sharp-edged, as you can prove by looking at the heaps of blocks lying at the foot of any precipice, or steep bank of rock. But when they fell, or were washed into the river, they began to get rolled and rubbed, until their sharp edges were ground away, and they came to wear the smooth rounded forms which we see in the ordinary gravel.

While the stones are ground down, they, at the same time, grind down the rocks which form the sides and bottom of the river-channel over which they are driven. You can even see in some of the eddies of the stream how the stones are kept moving round until they actually excavate deep round cavities, called pot-holes, in the solid rock.

Now, it is clear that two results must follow from this ceaseless wear and tear of rocks and stones in the channel of a stream. In the first place, a great deal of mud and sand must be produced; and, in the second place, the bed of the river must be ground down so as to become deeper and wider. The sand and mud are added to the other similar material washed into the streams by rain from the mouldering surface of the land. By the deepening and widening of the water-courses, such picturesque features as gorges and ravines are excavated out of the solid rock.

Look, again, at the channel of a river in summer. You see it covered with sheets of gravel in one place, beds of sand in another, while here and there a piece of hard rock sticks up through these different kinds of river-stuff. Note some portion of the loose materials, and you find it to be continually shifting. A patch of gravel or sand may remain for a time, but the little stones and grains of which it is made up are always changing as the water covers and moves them. In fact, the loose materials over which the river flows are somewhat like the river itself. You come back to its banks after many years, and you find the river there still, with the same ripples, and eddies, and gentle murmuring sound. But though the river has been there constantly all the time, its water has been changing every minute, as you can watch it changing still. So, although the channel is always more or less covered with loose materials, these are not always the same. They are perpetually being pushed onward, and others, from higher up the stream, come behind to take their place.

It is not in the bottoms of the rivers, then, that the material worn away from the surface of the land can find any lasting rest. And yet the rivers do get rid of a good deal of this material as they roll along. You have, perhaps, noticed that a river is often bordered with a strip of flat plain, the surface of which is only a few feet above the level of the water. Most of our rivers have such margins, and, indeed, seem each to wind to and fro through a long, level, meadow-like plain. Now this plain is really made up from the finer particles of decomposed rocks which the river has carried along. During floods, the river, swollen and muddy, rises above its banks, and spreads over the low ground on either side. Whenever this takes place, the overflowing water moves more slowly over the flats; and, as its current is thus checked, it can not hold so much mud and sand, but allows some of these materials to settle down to the bottom. In this way the overflowed tracts get a coating of soil laid over them by the river, and when the waters retire this coating adds a little to the height of the plain. The same thing takes place year after year, until by degrees the plain gets so far raised that the river, which all this while is also busy deepening its channel, can not overflow it even at the highest floods. In course of time the river, as it winds from side to side, cuts away slices of the plain and forms a newer one at a lower level. And thus a series of terraces is gradually made, rising step by step above the river.

Still the laying down of its sand and mud by a river to form one or more such river-terraces is, after all, only a temporary disposal of these materials. They are still liable to be carried away, and in truth they are carried off continually as the river eats away its banks.

When the current of a river is checked as it enters the sea or a lake, the feebler flow of the water allows the sand and mud to sink to the bottom. By degrees some portions of the bottom come in this way to be filled up to the surface of the river, and wide flat marshy spaces are formed on either side of the main stream. During floods these spaces are overflowed with muddy water, in the same way as in the case of the valley plains just described, and a coating of mud or sand is laid down on them until they slowly rise above the ordinary level of the river, which winds about among them in endless branching streams. Vegetation springs up on these flat swampy lands; animals, too, find food and shelter there; and thus a new territory is made by the work of the river.

These flat river-formed tracts are called deltas, because the one which was best known to the ancients, that of the Nile, had the shape of the Greek letter Δ (delta). This is the general form which is taken by accumulations at the mouths of rivers; the flat delta gets narrow toward the inland, and broader toward the sea. Some of them are of enormous size; the delta of the Mississippi, for example.

Each delta, then, is made of materials worn from the surface of the land, and brought down by the river. And yet vast though some of these deltas are, they do not show all the materials which have been so worn away. A great deal is carried far out and deposited on the sea-bottom; for the sea is the great basin into which the spoils of the land are continually borne.

Having now followed the course taken by the water which falls on the land as rain, we come to that taken by snow.

On the tops of some of the highest mountains in Britain snow lies for great part of the year. On some of them, indeed, there are shady clefts wherein you may meet with deep snow-wreaths even in the heat of summer.

But in other parts of Europe, where the mountains are more lofty, the peaks and higher shoulders of the hills gleam white all the year with unmelted snow.

Let us see why it is that perpetual snow should occur in such regions, and what part this snow plays in the general machinery of the world.

You have learned that the higher parts of the atmosphere are extremely cold. You know also that in the far north and the far south, around those two opposite parts of the earth’s surface called the Poles, the climate is extremely cold—so cold as to give rise to dreary expanses of ice and snow, where sea and land are frozen, and where the heat of summer is not enough to thaw all the ice and drive away all the snow. Between these two polar tracts of cold, wherever mountains are lofty enough to get into the high parts of the atmosphere where the temperature is usually below the freezing-point, the vapor condensed from the air falls upon them, not as rain, but as snow. Their heads and upper heights are thus covered with perpetual snow. In such high mountainous regions the heat of the summer always melts the snow from the lower hills, though it leaves the higher parts still covered. From year to year it is noticed that there is a line or limit below which the ground gets freed of its snow, and above which the snow remains. This limit is called the snow-line, or the limit of perpetual snow. Its height varies in different parts of the world. It is highest in the warmer regions on either side of the equator, where it reaches to 15,000 feet above the sea. In the cold polar tracts, on the other hand, it approaches the sea-level. In other words, while in the polar tracts the climate is so cold that perpetual snow is found even close to the sea-level, the equatorial regions are so warm that you must climb many thousand feet before you can reach the cold layers of the air where snow can remain all the year.

There is, you see, one striking difference between rain and snow. If rain had been falling for the same length of time, the roads and fields would still have been visible, for each drop of rain, instead of remaining where it fell, would either have sunk into the soil, or have flowed off into the nearest brook. But each snowflake, on the contrary, lies where it falls, unless it happens to be caught up and driven on by the wind to some other spot where it can finally rest. Rain disappears from the ground as soon as it can; snow stays still as long as it can.

You will see at once that this marked difference of behavior must give rise to some equally strong differences in the further procedure of these two kinds of moisture. You have followed the progress of the rain; now let us try to find out what becomes of the snow.

In such a country as ours, where there is no perpetual snow, you can without much difficulty answer this question. Each fall of snow in winter-time remains on the ground as long as the air is not warm enough to melt it. Evaporation, indeed, goes on from the surface of snow and ice, as well as from water: so that a layer of snow would in the end disappear, by being absorbed into the air as vapor, even though none of it had previously been melted into running water. But it is by what we call a thaw that our snow is chiefly dissipated; that is, a rise in the temperature, and a consequent melting of the snow. When the snow melts, it sinks into the soil and flows off into brooks in the same way as rain.

In the regions of perpetual snow the heat of summer can not melt all the snow which falls there in the year. What other way of escape, then, can the frozen moisture find?

You will remember that the surplus rainfall flows off by means of rivers. Now the surplus snow-fall above the snow-line has a similar kind of drainage. It flows off by means of what are called glaciers.

When a considerable depth of snow has accumulated, the pressure upon the lower layers from what lies above them squeezes them into a firm mass. The surface of the ground is usually sloped in some direction, seldom quite flat. And among the high mountains the slopes are often, as you know, very steep. When snow gathers deeply on sloping ground, there comes a time when the force of gravity overcomes the tendency of the pressed snow to remain where it is, and then the snow begins to slide slowly down the slope. From one slope it passes on downward to the next, joined continually by other sliding masses from neighboring slopes until they all unite into one long tongue which creeps slowly down some valley to a point where it melts. This tongue from the snow-fields is the glacier. It really drains these snow-fields of their excess of snow as much as a river drains a district of its excess of water.

But the glacier which comes out of the snow-fields is itself made not of snow, but of ice. The snow, as it slides downward, is pressed together into ice. You have learned that each snowflake is made of little crystals of ice. A mass of snow is thus only a mass of minute crystals of ice with air between. Hence when the snow gets pressed together, the air is squeezed out, and the separated crystals of ice freeze together into a solid mass. You know that you can make a snowball very hard by squeezing it firmly between the hands. The more tightly you press it the harder it gets. You are doing to it just what happens when a glacier is formed out of the eternal snows. You are pressing out the air, and allowing the little particles of ice to freeze to each other and form a compact piece of ice. But you can not squeeze nearly all the air out, consequently the ball, even after all your efforts, is still white from the imprisoned air. Among the snowfields, however, the pressure is immensely greater than yours; the air is more and more pressed out, and at last the snow becomes clear transparent ice.

A glacier, then, is a river, not of water, but of ice, coming down from the snow-fields. It descends sometimes a long way below the snow-line, creeping down very slowly along the valley which it covers from side to side. Its surface all the time is melting during the day in summer, and streams of clear water are gushing along the ice, though, when night comes, these streams freeze. At last it reaches some point in the valley beyond which it can not go, for the warmth of the air there is melting the ice as fast as it advances. So the glacier ends, and from its melting extremity streams of muddy water unite into a foaming river, which bears down the drainage of the snow-fields above.

A river wears down the sides and bottom of its channel, and thus digs out a bed for itself in even the hardest rock, as well as in the softest soil. It sweeps down, too, a vast quantity of mud, sand, and stones from the land to the sea. A glacier performs the same kind of work, but in a very different way.

When stones fall into a river they sink to the bottom, and are pushed along there by the current. When mud enters a river it remains suspended in the water, and is thus carried along. But the ice of a glacier is a solid substance. Stones and mud which fall upon its surface remain there, and are borne onward with the whole mass of the moving glacier. They form long lines of rubbish upon the glacier, and are called moraines. Still the ice often gets broken up into deep cracks, opening into yawning clefts or crevasses, which sometimes receive a good deal of the earth and stones let loose by frost or otherwise from the sides of the valley. In this way loose materials fall to the bottom of the ice, and reach the solid floor of the valley down which the ice is moving; while at the same time similar rubbish tumbles between the edge of the glacier and the side of the valley.

The stones and grains of sand which get jammed between the ice and the rock over which it is moving are made to score and scratch this rock. They form a kind of rough polishing powder, whereby the glacier is continually grinding down the bottom and sides of its channel. If you creep in below the ice, or catch a sight of some part of the side from which the ice has retired a little, you will find the surface of the rock all rubbed away and covered with long scratches made by the sharp points of the stones and sand.

You will now see the reason why the river, which escapes from the end of a glacier, is always muddy. The bottom of the glacier is stuck all over with stones, which are scraping and wearing down the rock underneath. A great deal of fine mud is thus produced, which, carried along by streams of water flowing in channels under the glacier, emerges at the far end in the discolored torrents which there sweep from under the ice.

A glacier is not only busy grinding out a bed for itself through the mountains; it bears on its back down the valley enormous quantities of fallen rock, earth and stones, which have tumbled from the cliffs on either side. In this way blocks of rock as big as a house may be carried for many miles, and dropped where the ice melts. Thousands of tons of loose stones and mud are every year moved on the ice from the far snowy mountains away down into the valleys to which the glaciers reach.

The largest glaciers in the world are those of the polar regions. North Greenland, in truth, lies buried under one great glacier, which pushes long tongues of ice down the valleys and away out to sea. When a glacier advances into the sea, portions of it break off and float away as icebergs. So enormous are the glaciers in these cold tracts that the icebergs derived from them often rise several hundred feet above the waves which beat against their sides. And yet, in all such cases, about seven times more of the ice is immersed under water than the portion, large as it is, which appears above. You can realize how this happens if you take a piece of ice, put it in a tumbler of water, and watch how much of it rises out of the water. Sunk deep in the sea, therefore, the icebergs float to and fro until they melt, sometimes many hundreds of miles away from the glaciers which supplied them.

You will come to learn afterward that, once upon a time, there were glaciers in Britain. You will be able with your own eyes to see rocks which have been ground down and scratched by the ice, and big blocks of rock and piles of loose stones which the ice carried upon its surface. So that, in learning about glaciers, you are not merely learning what takes place in other and distant lands, you are gaining knowledge which you will be able by and by to make good use of, even in your own country.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[December 2.]
FROM THE “CHRISTIAN’S PATTERN.”
By THOMAS À KEMPIS.

“He that followeth me walketh not in darkness, saith the Lord.” These are the words of Christ, by which we are admonished that we ought to imitate his life and manners, if we would be truly enlightened and delivered from all blindness of heart.

Let therefore our chief endeavor be to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ.

What will it avail thee to dispute sublimely of the Trinity, if thou be void of humility, and art thereby displeasing to the Trinity?

Truly, sublime words do not make a man holy and just; but a virtuous life maketh him dear to God.

I had rather feel compunction, than know the definition thereof.

If thou didst know the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, by heart, what would all that profit thee without the love of God?

Vanity of vanities! all is vanity, but to love God and serve him only.

It is therefore vanity to seek after perishing riches.

It is also vanity to seek honors.

It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh, and to labor for that for which thou must afterward suffer grievous punishment.

It is vanity to wish to live long, and to be careless to live well.

It is vanity to mind this present life, and not those things which are to come.

It is vanity to set thy love on that which speedily passeth away, and not to hasten thither, where everlasting joys remain.

All men naturally desire to know; but what availeth knowledge without the fear of God?

Surely an humble husbandman that serveth God is better than a proud philosopher, that, neglecting himself, studies the course of the heavens.

He that knoweth himself is vile in his own eyes, and is not pleased with the praises of men.

If I understood all things in the world, and had not charity, what would that help me in the sight of God, who will judge me according to my deeds.

There are many things, to know which doth little profit the soul.

And he is very unwise, that minds any other things than those that tend to the welfare of his soul.

Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a pure conscience giveth confidence toward God.

The more thou knowest, and the better thou understandest, the more grievously shalt thou be judged, unless thy life be the more holy.

Be not therefore lifted up; but rather let the knowledge given thee make thee afraid.

If thou thinkest that thou knowest much: yet there are many more things which thou knowest not.

Be not over wise, but rather acknowledge thine own ignorance.

The highest and most profitable lesson is, the true knowledge of ourselves.

It is great wisdom to esteem ourselves nothing, and to think always well and highly of others.

We are all frail, but remember, none more frail than thyself.

[December 9.]

It is good that we be sometimes contradicted; and that men think ill of us, and this, although we do not intend well.

For then we more diligently seek God for our inward witness, when outwardly we are contemned by men.

Wherefore a man should settle himself so fully in God, that he need not seek comforts of men.

When a man is afflicted, tempted, or troubled with evil thoughts; then he understandeth better the great need he hath of God.

So long as we live in this world, we can not be without temptation.

Hence it is written in Job, “The life of man is a warfare upon earth.”

Temptations are often very profitable to men, though they be troublesome and grievous; for in them a man is humbled, purified, and instructed.

All the saints have passed through, and profited by, many tribulations, and temptations:

And they that could not bear temptations, became reprobates and fell away.

There is no place so secret, where there are no temptations.

There is no man that is altogether secure from temptations while he liveth.

When one temptation goeth away, another cometh; and we shall ever have something to suffer.

Many seek to fly temptations, and fall more grievously into them.

By flight alone we can not overcome, but by patience and humility we conquer all our enemies.

He that only avoideth them outwardly, and doth not pluck them up by the roots, shall profit little: yea, temptations will soon return unto him, and he shall feel them worse than before.

By patience (through God’s help) thou shalt more easily overcome, than by harsh and disquieting efforts in thy own strength.

Often take counsel in temptations; and deal not roughly with him that is tempted.

The beginning of temptation is inconstancy of mind, and little confidence in God.

For as a ship without a rudder is tossed to and fro with the waves, so the man that is negligent is many ways tempted.

Fire trieth iron, and temptation a just man.

We know not often what we are able to do: but temptations show us what we are.

We must be watchful, especially in the beginning of the temptation; for the enemy is then more easily overcome, if he be not suffered to enter the door of your hearts, but be resisted without the gate at his first knock.

Wherefore one said, “Withstand the beginning: for an after remedy comes too late.”

First, there occurreth to the mind a simple evil thought; then a strong imagination; afterward delight; and lastly consent.

And so by little and little our malicious enemy getteth entrance, while he is not resisted in the beginning.

And the longer one is slack in resisting, the weaker he becomes daily, and the enemy stronger against him.

Some suffer the greatest temptation in the beginning of their conversion; others in the latter end.

Others again are much troubled almost throughout their life.

Some are but slightly tempted, according to the wisdom which weigheth the states of men, and ordereth all things for the good of his elect.

We ought therefore, when we are tempted, so much the more fervently to pray unto God; who surely will give with the temptation, a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it.

Let us therefore humble ourselves under the hand of God, in all temptations and tribulations; for he will exalt the humble in spirit.

In temptations and afflictions a man is proved how much he hath profited.

Neither is it any such great thing if a man be devout and fervent, when he feeleth no affliction; but if in time of adversity he bear himself patiently, there is hope then of great proficiency.

Some are kept from great temptations, and are overcome in small ones; that being humbled, they may never trust themselves in great matters, who are baffled in so small things.

[December 16.]

Turn thine eyes unto thyself, and beware thou judge not the deeds of other men.

In judging others a man laboreth in vain, often erreth, and easily sinneth; but in judging and examining himself, he always laboreth fruitfully.

We often judge of things according as we fancy them: for affection bereaves us easily of a right judgment.

If God were always our desire, we should not be so much troubled when our inclinations were opposed.

But oftentimes something lurks within, which draweth us after it.

Many secretly seek themselves in their actions, but know it not.

They live in peace of mind when things are done according to their will: but if things succeed otherwise than they desire, they are straightway troubled.

Diversity of inclinations and opinions often causes dissensions between religious persons, between friends and countrymen.

An old custom is hardly broken, and no man is willing to be led farther than himself can see.

If thou dost more rely upon thine own reason, than upon Jesus Christ, late, if ever, shalt thou become illuminated.

The outward work without charity, profiteth nothing; but whatsoever is done out of charity, be it ever so little and contemptible in the sight of the world, is wholly fruitful.

For God weigheth more with how much love one worketh, than how much he doeth.

He doth much that loveth much.

He doth much that doth a thing well.

He doth well that serveth his neighbor, and not his own will.

Often it seemeth to be charity, and it is rather carnality; because natural inclinations, self-will, hope of reward, and desire of our own interest, are motives that men are rarely free from.

He that hath true and perfect charity seeketh himself in nothing; but only desireth in all things that God should be exalted.

He envieth none, because he seeketh not his own satisfaction; neither rejoiceth in himself, but chooses God only for his portion.

He attributes nothing that is good to any man, but wholly referreth it unto God, from whom, as from the fountain, all things proceed: in whom finally all the saints rest.

O that he had but one spark of true charity, he would certainly discern that all earthly things are full of vanity!

[December 23.]

When one that was in great anxiety of mind, often wavering between fear and hope, did once humbly prostrate himself in prayer, and said, O, if I knew that I should persevere! he presently heard within him an answer from God which said, If thou didst know it, what wouldst thou do? Do what thou wouldst do then, and thou shalt be safe.

And being herewith comforted and strengthened, he committed himself wholly to the will of God, and his anxiety ceased:

Neither had he any mind to search curiously farther what should befall him; but rather labored to understand what was the perfect and acceptable will of God, for the beginning and accomplishing every good work.

Hope in the Lord, and do good, saith the prophet, and inhabit the land, and thou shalt be fed.

One thing there is that draweth many back from a spiritual progress, and diligent amendment; the horror of the difficulty, or the labor of the combat.

But they improve most in virtue, that endeavor most to overcome those things which are grievous and contrary to them.

For there a man improveth more, and obtaineth greater grace, where he more overcometh himself and mortifieth himself in spirit.

Gather some profit to thy soul wheresoever thou art; so if thou seest or hearest of any good examples, stir up thyself to the imitation thereof.

But if thou seest anything worthy of reproof, beware thou doest not the same.—And if at any time thou hast done it, labor quickly to amend it.

Be mindful of the profession thou hast made, and have always before thine eyes the remembrance of thy Savior crucified.

Thou hast good cause to be ashamed, looking upon the life of Jesus Christ, seeing thou hast as yet no more endeavored to conform thyself unto him, though thou hast walked a long time in the way of God.

A religious person that exerciseth himself seriously and devoutly in the most holy life and passion of our Lord shall there abundantly find whatsoever is necessary and profitable for him; neither shall he need seek any better thing out of Jesus.

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

Come thou O Lord, and dwell within me, giving me light, and love, and liberty. May the spirit of the sweet Christmas Child possess me! May the Star of Bethlehem abide above my dwelling place! May the angels who seek thee be drawn toward me, and surround my path! May their song fill my life. Glory to God in the highest. On earth peace, good will to men.

[December 30.]

This life will soon be at an end; consider therefore how thy affairs stand as to the next.

Man is here to-day; to-morrow he is gone.

When he is out of sight, he is soon forgotten.

Thou shouldst so order thyself in all thy thoughts and all thy actions, as if thou wert to die to-day.

Hadst thou a clear conscience, thou wouldst not fear death.

It were better to avoid sin than to fly death.

If thou art not prepared to-day, how wilt thou be to-morrow?

To-morrow is uncertain, and how knowest thou that thou shalt live till to-morrow?

What availeth to live long, when we are so little the better?

Alas! long life doth not always mend us; but often increased guilt.

O, that we had spent but one day well in this world!

When it is morning, think thou mayst die before night.

When evening comes, dare not to promise thyself the next morning.

Be therefore always in readiness; and so live that death may never take thee unprepared.

Many die suddenly, and when they look not for it; for “in such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh.” Matt. xxiv: 44.

When that last hour shall come, thou wilt have a far different opinion of thy whole life.

How wise and happy is he, that laboreth to be such in his life as he would wish to be found at the hour of his death.

Whilst thou art in health, thou mayst do much good, but when thou art sick, I know not what thou wilt be able to do.

Few by sickness grow better; and they who travel much are seldom sanctified.

Trust not in friends and kindred, neither put off the care of thy soul till hereafter, for man will sooner forget thee than thou art aware of.

If thou art not careful for thyself now, who will be careful for thee hereafter?

The time present is very precious; now are the days of salvation, now is the acceptable time.

But alas! that thou shouldst spend thy time no better here, where thou mightest purchase life eternal. The time will come when thou shalt desire one day or hour to amend in, and I can not say it will be granted thee.

Ah fool! why dost thou think to live long, when thou canst not promise thyself one day!

How many have been deceived, and suddenly snatched away!

How often dost thou hear, such a man is slain, another is drowned, a third has broken his neck with a fall; this man died eating, and that playing?

One perished by fire, another by sword, another of the plague, another was slain by thieves! Thus death is the end of all, and man’s life suddenly passeth away like a shadow.

Who shall remember thee when thou art dead? Do, do now, my beloved, whatsoever thou art able to do: for thou knowest not when thou shalt die, nor yet what shall be after thy death.

Now, while thou hast time, lay up for thyself everlasting riches.

Keep thy heart free, and lifted up to God, because thou hast here no abiding city.

Send thither thy daily prayers, and sighs, and tears, that after death thy spirit may happily pass to the Lord. Amen.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

By G. M. STEELE, D.D.

III.
EXCHANGE.

1. Exchange is the mutual and voluntary transfer of the right of property held by different persons. This implies, (a) the existence of the right of property; (b) that the transfer must be mutual, otherwise there is no exchange; (c) that it be voluntary, otherwise it would be robbery.

2. The principles that form the basis of exchange are the same as those implied in the great law of association and individuality; namely, those which give rise to the combination and division of labor. There is usually some one kind of labor, or at most a few kinds, for which each individual is competent. But the variety of occupations so nearly corresponds with the variety of aptitudes in every well-ordered community, that each may, with little effort, find the calling to which he is suited.

But while each individual is thus limited in his productive capabilities, his claims and wants are nearly limitless. He is in need of a thousand commodities, only a very few of which he can produce. He depends for the remainder of these upon his fellow-men. On the other hand, he can produce a thousand times as much of the few kinds of commodities to which he devotes himself, as he himself needs. These he transfers to his fellow-men, taking in return the surplus of their several products. This is exchange, or commerce. It is implied in the very constitution of man. Association is an imperative condition of humanity.

3. A distinction is sometimes made between commerce and trade—a wise distinction, as it seems to me, though observed by but few writers. The former is the object to be accomplished; the latter is the agency through which it is accomplished. Thus, a farmer has wheat, butter, eggs, poultry, wool, etc., which he wishes to exchange for cloth, sugar, agricultural implements, boots and shoes, and a hundred other articles. He can not go to the several producers of these, carrying his own products to exchange for them, except at immense disadvantage. Hence arises the necessity for the trader, or merchant. Trade and commerce have sometimes been represented as mutually antagonistic. This is true only to a certain extent. The great economical point to be guarded is to have no more traders than are necessary to make the exchanges. When the industrial and commercial conditions of a country are such that the producers and consumers, who are the real exchangers, are placed and kept at a great distance from each other, so that they can not combine with each other except through the agency of a great number of middle-men, the conditions are highly detrimental to the interests of the parties chiefly concerned. Beyond a certain point, the greater the power of trade, the worse it is for commerce. It is nevertheless true that there are certain natural obstacles to direct commerce which can be surmounted only by some kind of intermediate agency; and this makes the trader necessary. In this respect, and to this extent, trade is an aid to commerce. Yet commerce should be as direct as possible. To this end it is desirable that the greatest number of commodities for which productive facilities exist, should be produced in the same community.

4. The general law of exchange is value for value. This will be obvious if we recur to one of our statements concerning the nature of value, namely, that is the quantity of one commodity that may be equitably exchanged for a given quantity of another. It will be still more obvious if we recall the complete definition: value is our estimate of the sacrifice requisite to secure possession of a desired object. Thus, if it require the labor of one day to produce a pair of shoes, and the labor also of a day to produce three bushels of oats, then the rule of exchange would be three bushels of oats for a pair of shoes, because the required labor in the one case is precisely equal to that in the other.

This is the fundamental law, but it is modified in its operation by certain other facts and principles. Chief among these is the law of supply and demand. By supply is meant the quantity of any commodity which is in the market. Demand signifies the quantity which is desired at a given price. The definitions are sometimes erroneously given of supply as the quantity which exists, and demand as the quantity desired. But a man may offer for sale a load of wheat, provided the price is a dollar a bushel, but withdraw it from the market if the price is but ninety cents. A thousand people in a certain town may desire diamond necklaces, but not half a dozen may be able to purchase them. Hence supply is all that is offered in the market; and demand is desire with ability to purchase.

Demand and supply affect prices in this way. Suppose a community has been exclusively using wood for fuel, and their wood can be had at a certain price. After a time a coal mine is discovered in the vicinity, and coal can be furnished much cheaper than wood. This would lessen the demand for wood. As there would be the same amount for sale as before, the seller would be in competition, and the price would fall. So if for any reason before the discovery of the coal the supply of wood had been diminished one half, the demand being the same, the price would rise. Thus we have the general principle that other things being equal, the greater the supply, the less the price; the smaller the supply, the greater the price; the greater the demand, the greater the price; and the smaller the demand, the less the price. In other words, the price varies directly as the demand, and inversely as the supply. In general price varies as the cost of production plus or minus the effect of supply and demand. These principles are affected again in many ways which we can not here explain. Yet the variations are always temporary, and the price or market value always tends to seek the level of cost of production.

5. Trade has been spoken of as an agent of exchange. An instrument also is needed. The primitive method of exchange was by barter. That is, by giving the commodity one produces for that which one desires to possess. But this was early found inconvenient. The man who made shoes and wished to exchange some of them for a coat, would not readily find a coat-maker in want of shoes; or if he should, the latter very likely would not want just so many pairs of shoes as would be equal in value to the coat. All other exchanges might be at a similar disadvantage. What is needed is a commodity which will be a medium of exchange—which every one will be willing to receive for any commodity which he has for sale, and which will command anything which he wishes to buy. Such a commodity is usually the main element in the machinery of exchange, and is what constitutes money.

This instrument in order to meet the want, it is generally believed, must have the following characteristics: 1. Value in the material of which it is made. 2. Uniformity of value throughout the world. 3. Much value in small bulk. 4. Approximate constancy of value. 5. Not readily destructible. 6. Divisibility into small portions which are capable of being reunited. 7. Of universal use. 8. Capable of receiving stamps and marks. Most of these properties are found in gold and silver, if not to such an extent as has been claimed for them, at least so far that they have been the basis of the money of the civilized world.

6. But supplementing in a certain way, and representing these, the instrument of exchange comprises also the large element of credit. This consists chiefly of book accounts, promissory notes, bank notes, government notes, bank deposits, checks, drafts, bills of exchange, stocks and bonds. One of the great agencies in modern commerce by which credit is made effectual as a part of the mechanism of exchange is that of banks. Banks are institutions which serve to abbreviate and facilitate the business of exchange and to extend and render available the credit of the community.

There are four kinds of banks, namely: savings banks, banks of deposit, banks of circulation and issue, and banks of discount. In our modern banking system the last three are generally found in combination, that is, each bank exercises all the functions implied.

A savings bank is an institution in which small sums of money are deposited from time to time as they accumulate in the hands of persons of moderate incomes. The depositors are credited with these amounts, and receive a certain, usually not very large, rate of interest in any case, and an additional amount contingently. The bank loans the money thus deposited in large sums to trustworthy persons who can furnish good security, the rate of interest being somewhat higher than that paid to the depositor.

The benefit of such an institution is two fold. In the first place there are many persons who have small sums of money which they desire to be earning something in some safe place. The amount is too small to be loaned to advantage. Such persons are not likely to know how, even if the sums at their disposal were sufficient, to find the best investment, or to determine concerning the security offered. But put into the hands of men who make this their business, under rules devised by the best financial talent of the community, and who can combine these small sums and invest them to the best advantage, it is made both safe and profitable for the small capitalists.

In the second place there are many persons who wish to unite their labor and skill with capital in some productive enterprise, and having no capital of their own, desire to borrow. They do not know the persons who have money to loan. The savings bank affords them an opportunity and gives them an advantage which they would not otherwise have. It is a benefit first to those who have some surplus, but are unable to loan it to advantage; secondly to those who are in want of capital, but do not know where to find it.

A bank of deposit grows out of the necessities of commerce in a community where much business is transacted. All persons engaged in trade will find from time to time large or smaller accumulations of money in their hands which it is not safe without considerable expense, to keep by them. Hence the custom of depositing these for safe keeping in the bank. Usually no interest is paid as the money may be withdrawn any time at the will of the depositor. It was early found that only a small proportion of these deposits were likely to be withdrawn at any one time; hence a considerable proportion of them could be loaned on short time, and thus the bank would in this way receive compensation for its care, without expense to the depositors. In this way, too, the capital of the community could be kept more fully employed.

But the credit factor in the deposit system soon came to have a much wider scope than is here indicated. Instead of each depositor going to the bank and drawing his money as he needs it, he now gives an order or check on the bank to any man to whom he may have occasion to make a payment. In many cases the receiver of such a check also has deposits at the same bank. In such a case he sends in the check to be deposited with his cash for the day. The amount is debited to the drawer of the check, and credited to the depositor of it, and thus by a simple transfer of credit much business is done without the intervention of any money. This expands into a great and complicated system of exchange between individuals doing business at different banks, by banks in different cities, and by traders in remote nations. Goods are sold in one locality and paid for in the goods of another locality by means of drafts, bills of exchange, etc., meeting and canceling one another, so that very little money is transferred from point to point.

The function of discount and loan, as has been intimated, is in modern banking usually combined with that of deposit, as also that of circulation or issue. When the capital of a bank is paid in by the stockholders, and the officers elected, it is then ready for business under regulations imposed by its charter. There are two ways in which the public is accommodated. First, when a wholesale city merchant sells a bill of goods to a country retail merchant, it is frequently the case that the former makes out his bill, which the latter accepts, promising to pay in thirty, sixty or ninety days. This accepted bill the wholesale merchant carries to his bank, where it is received with his endorsement, and the cash, less the interest for the given time, is paid him or placed to his credit. This is discounting a bill. A loan is sometimes made by a borrower’s giving his own note endorsed by some reliable person, and payable in some brief time as above. Sometimes the note is discounted; at other times the interest is paid when the note is taken up.

The function of circulation is exercised by the issuing of bank-notes to be circulated as money. When a bank is instituted the stockholders are required to pay in their respective shares in metallic or lawful money. But as the borrower would find coin most inconvenient to carry about, the device arose of substituting notes of the bank, payable on demand, thus leaving the specie in the bank. It was further soon observed that only a very small proportion of these notes were likely to be called for at any one time. Hence a large part of the specie could be used for other purposes instead of being kept idle in the vaults. Under the national bank system now in operation the capital of the bank may be largely invested in United States bonds which are retained in the government treasury, but on which the bank draws the usual interest. The bills of the bank are then guaranteed by the government, so that there is never any loss to the holder of the bills, even if the bank fails.

PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.

7. We have space but for a very brief outline of this important question. It is one which has for a long time agitated the public mind, and one on which honest and highly intelligent men widely differ. A protective tariff so called, is a system of duties levied by the government of a country on certain commodities produced in other countries to prevent their coming into unequal competition with similar commodities of domestic production in such a way as to cripple or destroy the industries implied in the latter.

Free trade is opposed to all those duties, the design of which is to afford any advantage to domestic industry. It implies the same freedom between producers in different nations as between those in the same community.

The main arguments in favor of protection are as follows:

(1) It is the only sure defense of new and feeble industries against the unequal competition of those long established in other or older communities. Freedom of competition is admitted as desirable, but it is denied that this exists under the conditions referred to. A community which has long experience, skilled labor, and accumulated capital, possesses great advantages in the contest with a nation destitute of them.

(2) It is urged that a restrictive system gives a steady and uniform market at an expense less than the benefit accruing.

(3) It is also supposed to be essential to societary completeness; that is, to such a diversification of industry as will most profitably meet the diversity of ability and aptitude in the community.

(4) It is thought to be necessary to the highest prosperity of the unprotected interests. Among these agriculture is the most prominent. It is for its advantage that the tax of transportation be saved by having manufacturing communities in the midst of agricultural areas. Also, a community compelled to confine itself to agriculture mainly, must virtually transport its soil, the land constantly diminishing in fertility.

The advocates of free trade, on the other hand, present the following arguments in its favor, and objections against protection:

(1) Free trade is said to be the method of nature.

(2) It is objected that protection violates the right of every man to do what he will with his own.

(3) It is said to be of the nature of a tax on all the other industries for the support of those protected.

(4) It is objected that the restrictive system causes a diminution of exports from the protected country, on the principle that if the latter does not buy of the former, then the former can not pay for the goods of the latter.

(5) Another argument is that “infant industries” under protection never come to maturity.

(6) Finally, the case of the United States is cited as an instance of free trade on a large scale between widely remote sections, with the most satisfactory results.

READINGS IN ART.

III.—MODERN SCULPTURE.

The ten centuries following the second have no sculptural remains of value. The dark ages threw their shadow over art, as over literature and society. No doubt the feeling prevalent in the early Church that the “graven image” might become an idol, hindered the progress of the plastic art quite as much as the general decay that pervaded every form of human undertaking.

In the first half of the thirteenth century lived Nicola Pisano, the founder, one might say, of modern sculpture. Nicola is supposed to have been influenced by his study of the remains of Greek sculpture to be seen at Pisa, his home. Applying the principles of the Greek work to the modern subjects, his sculpture inaugurated the Italian renaissance. Church decoration was the field of labor to which all artists of those centuries betook themselves, and Pisano executed his best work, bas-reliefs, on the façades and pulpits of the churches of Pisa, Siena, and other Italian cities. A marble urn of St. Dominic, now at Bologna, is among his celebrated works. Pisano had many followers, among whom were his son (more famous, however, as an architect), and Andrea Orcagna. The latter belonged to Florence, to whose churches he devoted his genius. His masterpiece in sculpture is the tabernacle of the Virgin in the church of San Michele, at Florence. It is a pyramid-shaped altar in white marble; the profusion of reliefs which cover it represent the life of the Virgin. A little before the time of Orcagna lived Giotto, at one time a leader of artistic activity in Florence. He is known well by his beautiful campanile, or bell-tower, and the bas-reliefs with which it is decorated are his best-known sculptures. The basement story is decorated, and, says a writer, speaking of these ornamentations, “This rich cycle of works represents with perfect clearness, and in simple and truly artistic treatment, the whole progress, from the creation of the first man, through the successful conflict with the forces of nature, up to the climax of a life illumined by learning and art, and secured under the maternal shelter of the Church.”

It was in the fifteenth century that sculpture attained its highest standpoint. Foremost among the artists of this “golden age,” as it has been called, is Lorenzo Ghiberti, the Florentine. The latter was first brought into prominence in 1401, when leading men of Florence offered a prize for the best design for a bronze folding door to be used in the baptistery of San Giovanni. Each artist was allowed a year to complete the test panel, the subject of the design of which was to be the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” and the work was to be a bas-relief. Ghiberti was declared the victor, even by his most famous rivals, Donatello and Brunelleschi. For twenty-one years he labored at his doors, and at the end of that time was entrusted with another. The latter occupied him nearly as long as the first, and was even superior, Michael Angelo declaring it worthy to be the gate of paradise. While busy at the gate of the baptistery, Ghiberti executed three bronze statues of St. John the Baptist, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen, and a bronze sarcophagus of St. Zenobius. Donatello has been mentioned as a rival of Ghiberti in the contest for the door: he deserves mention as one of the most faithful followers of nature during this period. He even carried his naturalism to excess, copying the deformed, the horrible, and the grotesque. There are, however, several fine statues by him in San Michele. Among these are the statues of St. Peter and St. Mark, in niches on the outside, and a fine statue of St. George. The first equestrian statue of modern art was by Donatello, and is at Padua.

Lucca del Robbia lived at the same time, and his name is associated with the beautiful terra-cottas found in such quantities in the churches of Florence. These works are in white, on a pale-blue ground, and were glazed by a process now unknown. The subjects used on them were almost invariably the Madonna and Child. But Robbia did much in marble and bronze. In the Uffizi is to be seen a frieze for the front of an organ, by him. “It represents boys and girls of different ages, dancing, singing, and playing on various musical instruments, and is full of charming simplicity and childlike grace, and rich and varied in action. Some of the figures are almost wholly detached from the background, particularly in the representation of the dance.” There are many more names which might be added to this Tuscan or Florentine school of sculpture. Andrea Verocchio is the only one we will mention, and his strongest influence was exerted as the teacher of that master-artist of the sixteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci.

The works of the fifteenth century are very numerous; they crowd the churches of Rome, Florence, and the neighboring cities. Not only in Tuscany, but in Upper and Lower Italy these artists were employed, and many native artists, imitators of the school, have left sculptures on the tombs and in the churches of Venice, Naples, and Como. The subjects of artistic effort, it will be noticed, are nearly always religious. Lübke says of this period: “It was chiefly devoted to the ornamentation of tomb-monuments and altars, which, with few exceptions, were built up against the wall in the shape of a triumphal arch, and required much plastic decoration in the way of reliefs and detached figures. Pulpits, founts, holy-water basins, singing-galleries, and choir-screens were also adorned with rich carvings. This abundant supply of work necessarily called forth a corresponding amount of skill, and the nature of the subject helped the artistic and realistic taste of the time to express itself. There was a decided effort to attain a correct likeness in portrait-statues of the dead, and in the numerous reliefs there was a tendency to portray the varied scenes of life.”

But a new form of plastic art was to appear in the coming century. To quote from the same author: “Italian plastic art had during the fifteenth century gained a new form from the study of the antique, and had made considerable advances in the unceasing effort after truth and life.… But hitherto, the expression of an often severe and tasteless realism was predominant, and now, under the influence of a profound and repeated study of the antique, an inspiration toward the ideal, the beautiful, and the sublime, was to assert itself; and this gave rise to a higher and freer style.… Plastic art gained a freer and nobler comprehension, a broad, bold treatment of forms, and a style simplified so as to bring out what was fundamental and essential, which might, for a moment, compete with the antique.” Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first in the list of masters of the fifteenth century, but, unfortunately, we have lost his best work. Andrea Contucci, better known as Sansovino, executed many sculptures which are unparalleled in beauty of treatment and form. In the baptistery at Florence is one of the noblest of these—the baptism of Christ. The figures of John the Baptist and Christ are life-like, free, and perfectly developed. There is nothing more interesting among what Sansovino has left than the decorations of the Holy House of Loreto. “Taken as a whole, this work is probably the most important collective creation in the sculpture of this golden age.” There are a great number of reliefs employed in the ornamentation, and the niches are filled by single statues; of the former the Annunciation and the Nativity are the most important.

But by far the ablest of the sculptors was Michael Angelo Buonarroti, of Florence. It was as a sculptor that he chose to regard himself, although, as in the case of so many of the Italian artists, he was both a painter and architect beside. Numerous works attributed to him are in existence. Mythological subjects, as well as religious, are to be seen among them. Thus there are bas-reliefs at Florence representing Hercules in his contest with the centaurs, and a statue of Bacchus in the Uffizi. The colossal marble statue of David in the academy at Florence, is said to have been carved out of a rejected block. The most ambitious undertaking of Michael Angelo was the mausoleum of Pope Julius II. The designs were drawn on a grand scale, and the master had gone to Carrara to get out the marble, when a misunderstanding between him and the Pope stopped the work. It was afterward re-attempted, but never finished. Some of the detached figures intended for the tomb are still seen. Among them the famous Moses, in the church of San Pietro, at Vincolo. Two groups at Florence were executed for the sarcophagi of Giuliano and Lorenzo de Medici. The statues of the princes are seated in niches in the wall: at their feet, on the lids of the coffins, are the groups: on that of the former the design is Day and Night; on the latter Dawn and Evening. We can mention no more of his designs, but will add the fine criticism of a German critic: “If we compare Michael Angelo with those who went before, we see at once that art reached one of those turning-points at which it enters on a new period with an undreamed-of future opening before. His deeply emotional soul was content neither with the contemplative realism of the fifteenth century, which was based on its truth to nature, nor with the quiet, harmonious beauty of contemporaneous masters. Each of his works exists for its own sake only, and here we see a kinship with the antique. But again: each of them is also the product of the stormy inward struggles of a man who is ever aiming at the highest ideal, and untiringly striving after a new expression of his thoughts—a man to whom achievement gave but little satisfaction, so that often he left his works unfinished. Here we see the strongest contrast to antique art. Nearly all his sculptured works are in one sense or another incomplete, and many he had to drop, because under the mighty stress of his ideas, and in his eagerness to liberate from the marble the slumbering soul within, he had made a false stroke and spoiled the block.”

The influence of Michael Angelo was predominant. The productions of almost every sculptor of the times were marked by both his strong and weak points. The Michelangelesque manner, as it has been called, was evident in the sculptures of the following century.

Outside of this Tuscan school there were during the sixteenth century several prominent artists; at Modena, Antonio Begarelli, who worked mainly in terra-cotta, and who left many works in the churches of his native city.

At Padua lived Riccio, who executed a bronze candelabrum which has become famous for both its size and its excessive ornamentation. It was eleven feet in height and laden with innumerable fantastic reliefs and figures mostly taken from mythology. A pupil of Sansovino, Jacopo Tatti, was the leader in Upper Italy. He worked mainly at Venice. The bronze of the sacristy of St. Mark in that city, the choir-screen in the same church, and several figures of evangelists in bronze are among his religious works. In the Doge’s palace are two large statues of Mars and Neptune which are particularly fine. He also did portrait-sculptures of much merit. But during this century art was by no means confined to Italy, though Italy then, as always, took the lead. In the North there was a steady work in the plastic art. The influence of the antique was wanting, and the materials in which the works were executed were different. Wood carving was very popular; invariably much gilding and brilliant coloring was used. The work was mainly on the altars of the churches, on shrines, figures for niches in the church walls and choir stalls. Michael Pacher, of Austria, was eminent in this art; Veit Stoss, of Cracow, and Jörg Syrlin, of Ulm. In nearly all of the old churches of Germany are these highly colored carvings in wood.

But stone was used as extensively, and in a somewhat wider variety of works. Many monuments, the buttresses of churches, lecterns, doors, and choir-piers, were made in stone and decorated in the usual manner by reliefs and figures. Nearly all the German cities boast more or less of stone work in their churches.

The leading artist of the time was Adam Krafft, who worked mainly in Nuremberg. A very fine and powerful work by him is the Seven Stations, as it is called. It represents the repeated fainting of Christ beneath the burden of the cross. The work is done in relief. The face and expression of the Savior is noble and expressive in every case. This work was followed by Christ on the Cross. In 1492 he executed the history of the Passion for a monument on the exterior of St. Sebald’s church.

The monuments of the time are mainly very superior. Among them may be mentioned that of Emperor Henry II. and his consort by Riemenschneider, the marble monument of Bishop Rudolph von Schrenburg in the Würtzburg cathedral, and the marble memorial to the Emperor Frederic III. in Vienna. The celebrated school of metal works of Nuremberg flourished during this period. The best known representatives belonged to the family of Vischer, and in Peter Vischer the most complete artistic development was reached. The earliest work, by Hermann Vischer in 1457, was the bronze baptismal font in Wittenberg. Peter, his son, began his work on the tomb of Archbishop Ernst in Magdeburg cathedral, but his chef d’œuvre was the tomb of St. Sebald in the church of that saint at Nuremberg. Vischer and his five sons were engaged on this for eleven years. The sarcophagus rests on a base elaborately wrought in relief, and the whole is enclosed; the cover is composed of three arched canopies supported on eight slender columns. The base, pillars and canopies are wrought exquisitely; although the ornaments are profuse, yet a perfect simplicity and purity of style is preserved. There are very many other productions attributed to Vischer—a fine relief in the cathedral at Regensborg, several tombs, and, as examples of his treatment of antique designs, an Apollo at Nuremberg, and a relievo of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Berlin Museum.

One of the most magnificent tombs of this period was that of the Emperor Maximilian at Innsbrück; several of its figures were from Peter Vischer’s hands. Twenty-eight colossal bronze statues of the ancestors of the imperial house and of heroes surrounded the monument. Besides these there were a large number of gracefully poised female figures, and twenty-three figures of the patron saint of the House of Austria. The whole was surmounted by a marble cenotaph on which a figure of the Emperor knelt. Several artists were engaged on this monument. The sculptures of this period in other countries are not very prominent. In France there was considerable attention given to plastic art. Many fine choir-screens have been preserved, and some exceedingly rich tombs. Among the latter are the monuments of Louis XII. and his wife (1530), of Francis I. (1552), and of Henry II. (1583), all in the church of St. Denis in Paris. A set of artists who were engaged on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau was known as “the Fontainebleau school.” The leader of this group was Jean Goujon. The sculpture of Spain during this period followed largely the Italian schools. The most lavish treatment is visible in the decorations of the churches, particularly in the altars. The high altar of the cathedral at Toledo is one of the most costly and ornate of its time (about 1500).

“The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked by a decadence of sculpture. Plastic art sought to become striking, rejected everything that could limit her art and gave herself up freely to her longing after what was striking. Henceforth it was decreed that every plastic work must be spirited. The most striking effects must be aimed at in the expression of inward emotion through mien, attitude and position.… Besides the drapery must be arranged in all sorts of ways conducive to effect.… Thus all dignity, simplicity and distinctness in sculpture, all plastic style was lost, and was succeeded by a senseless striving after outward effect and mere decoration.” The best Italian artists of these years were Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), who showed well the perversion of the principles of art, and Alessandro Algardi. The French claimed as their most celebrated masters in the seventeenth century, Pierre Puget, who worked chiefly at Genoa, and François Girardon, both of whom are noted for their exaggerations; in the eighteenth century were Houdon and Pigalle.

Franz Duquesnoy, the Fleming, worked at Rome in the seventeenth century and gained a fine reputation by his life-like figures of children. In Berlin, Andrew Schlüter executed superior works. Among these are the masks of dying warriors carved above the windows of the court of the Arsenal. An equestrian statue of the Great Elector is his best work.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century a revival of sculpture took place; this has been attributed to the efforts of Popes Clement XIV. and Pius VI., to the publications of Winckelmann, and to the unearthing of the treasures of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The first sculptor to initiate works of purer taste was Canova (1757-1822); he came of a race of stone cutters, and while at work at his trade executed the figures which attracted the attention of a Venetian, who educated him for an artist. Canova’s early works were mythological in subject. He had studied sculptures unearthed at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and under their influence executed his “Apollo crowning himself with laurel” and “Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur.” In 1802 Canova was invited by Napoleon to Paris where he executed a colossal statue of the emperor. His figures of women were his most pleasing works. Of the many monuments he executed, the best is that of Christina in the church of the Augustines at Vienna. But few artists escaped the influence of Canova. Among his best known followers were Dannecker, of Stuttgart; Chaudet, a French artist, and Flaxman, an English sculptor.

For a brief outline of the sculptor of the nineteenth century we can do nothing better than quote from Lübke:

The Danish artist, Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), penetrated farther than all these masters into the spirit and the beauty of classical art; and created, with inexhaustible fertility of imagination, and with the noblest feeling for form, an array of works which are conceived with a pure, chaste, and noble appreciation of the Greek spirit. In his celebrated frieze of the triumph of Alexander in the Villa Carlotta, on the lake of Como, the genuine Grecian relief style is revived in all its perfect purity and severity. He also treats with the versatility of genius and with charming simplicity the subjects of ancient mythology, in numerous statues, groups, and smaller reliefs; and even introduces into the domain of Christian representation a novel, beautiful, and dignified treatment, in the sculptures executed by him for the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen. Among his monumental works we may mention the statues of Gutenberg at Mayence, and of Schiller at Stuttgart, the Dying Lion at Lucerne, the equestrian statue of the Elector Maximilian at Munich, and the tombs of the Duke of Leuchtenberg in St. Michael’s Church at Munich, and of Pope Pius VII. in St. Peter’s Church at Rome.

While the wide domain of idealistic sculpture was thus again cultivated with such versatility of inspiration, the Berlin artist, Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850), adopted a more realistic style, especially directed toward lifelike composition and distinct characterization of individual peculiarities. His monument of the Count von der Mark in the Church of Ste. Dorothy in Berlin, the statue of Frederic the Great at Stettin, and, in a less degree, the Blücher monument at Rostock, and that of Luther at Wittenberg, as well as many others, are vigorous protests against the mannerism of the hitherto prevailing tendency, and re-open to sculpture a field which had now been almost lost to her for two hundred years.

Thus a new path was opened to modern sculpture, in pursuing which it has of late years accomplished great results, and which assures to it still greater beauty, and diversity of attainment, if only it hold fast to the principles already secured, and go on with true dignity toward its goal. Even if the world of ideal forms should never again acquire that importance for us which it possessed for the Greeks, nevertheless the daily life of humanity still contains a wealth of exquisite motives, full of beauty and naïveté, which give to the sculptor’s fancy ample incitement to ideal creations. There is, moreover, in the chaste grace and pure dignity of the antique conceptions, an imperishable charm, which appeals to every human sentiment, and secures for all productions conceived in a similar spirit the warm interest of those who delight to refresh themselves with the simple beauty that belongs to every true manifestation of nature. Hence the idealistic style of this art of Greece, as it has been recognized by the present and endowed with new activity, becomes forever the most priceless and precious possession of modern sculpture.

The new-born historic feeling of the several nations demands to-day that their heroes, the defenders of their liberties, the representatives of their intellect, their warriors in the battles both of the sword and of thought, shall be preserved to fame in the true likeness of their actual forms. As a consequence, sculpture is compelled to probe the depths of the individual consciousness; to investigate the characteristics of each individual intellect as expressed in the figure, the physiognomy, and even in the externals of attitude and garb; and even to give utterance to the mysterious life of the soul, as far as it lies within her power. Without losing sight of the great importance which the study of the sculptures of the fifteenth century has upon this tendency, the influence of the antique should not be undervalued; since, without the sense of beauty so secured, a realistic degeneracy and exaggeration would be very sure to follow.

Among the German schools of sculpture of to-day, that of Berlin takes the lead. Frederick Tieck of this school adopted the antique style in a series of admirable productions, and especially in the decorative sculpture designed by him for the theater; while the path which Schadow had taken was followed up nobly and rationally during the long and influential labors of Christian Rauch (1777-1857). This artist’s important position is due less to his wealth of creative ideas than to his delicate feeling for nature, his fine appreciation of the genuine plastic style, and his incomparable care in execution. His importance, however, does not consist merely in his numerous works, but also in the influence he exercised on his large circle of talented scholars. While he shows a true classical beauty in his ideal works, like his victories and his many admirable reliefs, his statues of Prince Blücher, of Generals Bülow and Scharnhorst, his colossal equestrian statue of Frederic the Great at Berlin, his superb statues of Queen Louise, and of Frederic William III. in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg, his bronze statues of Dürer at Nuremberg, of Kant at Königsberg, of King Max I. at Munich, and many others, prove him a sculptor of the first rank for delicate characterization, and life-like suggestiveness of composition. Many excellent scholars have gone from his studio into careers of independent importance and masterly ability; and these form, with their vigorous activity, which is never at a loss for employment in important undertakings, the nucleus of the present school of Berlin.

Among the most conspicuous of the Berlin artists should be reckoned Friedrich Drake, whose reliefs on the statue of Frederic William III. in the Thiergarten at Berlin are full of simple grace. Another of this school is Schievelbein (died in 1867), who showed a great deal of imagination, especially in the composition of reliefs; as in the great frieze representing the destruction of Pompeii, in the new museum, and also in the relief on the bridge at Dirschau.

Ernst Rietschel (1804-61) claims indisputably one of the first places among the sculptors of his century, as regards versatility of endowment, delicate feeling for form, and depth of sentiment. He derived from Rauch his faithful and characteristic representation of life, and his painstaking execution. His double monument of Schiller and Goethe at Weimar, his monument of Lessing in Brunswick (in a still purer and happier style), and the statue of Luther executed for a monument at Worms, are good examples of these traits. In the group of the Virgin with the body of Christ, which he executed for the Friedenskirche near Potsdam, he produced a work full of striking expression, and of the deepest religious feeling; while the subjects of his numerous representations in relief for the pediment of the opera house at Berlin, and the theater and museum at Dresden, represent him with equal dignity and merit in the department of the ideal antique subjects. Ernst Hähnel is a Dresden artist, whose powerful compositions for the Dresden theater and museum are antique in treatment, but who also produced monumental statues, works of the most delicate characterization, such as the Beethoven at Bonn, the Emperor Charles IV. at Prague, and the statues designed for the Dresden Museum, especially the noble Raphael. Recently, also, Schilling has distinguished himself by his ideal groups of the divisions of the day,—Morning, Noon, Evening, Night,—designed for the Brühl Terrace.

In Munich, the talented Ludwig Schwanthaler (1802-48) was the chief representative of a more romantic style, which opened a new field of fresh ideas to modern sculpture. This master, who was endowed with an almost inexhaustible imagination, carried out a great number of extensive works during his short life, in supplying the plastic decorations for most of the buildings erected by King Louis. While these are distinguished by fertility of invention, and an excellent decorative taste, the artist, spurred on to ceaseless labor, and hindered by bodily infirmities, did not succeed in giving his monumental creations that thorough development of form which is an essential of sculpture. It can not be denied, however, that a grand monumental conception is visible in these productions, as is especially proved in the colossal statue of Bavaria in Munich. A numerous school had its origin in this artist’s studio.

In France, sculpture early endeavored to free herself from the rigid rule of the antique, and carried the prevailing effort after dramatic effect, expression and passion, even to an extreme point of realism. Individual artists have kept to a noble and more moderate style; as Bosio, and the admirable sculptors Rude and Duret; but, on the other hand, P. J. David d’Angers (1793-1856) devoted himself, in utter violation of all the severer laws of sculpture, to a violent realism, which, although it is sustained by great talent and a charming facility in composition, deteriorates into a lawless exaggeration in his monumental works. His numerous portrait-busts, on the other hand, are extremely lifelike, and full of genius. The Genoese artist, James Pradier, takes the first rank among those sculptors who especially delight in the representation of sensuous beauty (1792-1852). The talented artist, Barye, who died in 1875, is chief among the sculptors of animals. The sculpture of Belgium follows the same general direction as the French.

Rome forms an important central point in the production of modern sculpture, with her numerous studios, her skill in marble-cutting,—an art handed down to her from ancient times,—and her vast collection of antique works. Here Canova and Thorwaldsen had their studios, which were for many decades the most famous nurseries of modern sculpture. That the antique conception and the idealistic style should acquire especial prominence here lay in the nature of things. Only where the modern social and political life exercises its full powers does sculpture find tasks that call upon her for the characteristic representation of important personages, and the lifelike delineation of historical events.

The English artist, John Gibson, is conspicuous among the sculptors of different nationalities who have made Rome their headquarters, as the representative of a noble classic style. The tendency of the numerous sculptors whom England has recently produced is toward the genre-style, and toward graceful forms in the manner of Canova. Macdonell, an artist of much taste, and Sir Richard Westmacott, also well known by his public works, deserve mention here, as well as R. J. Wyatt, by whom we have some charming representations of subjects chosen from the ancient myths. The United States of America should also be included in this enumeration: for they possess sculptors of decided talent in Randolph Rogers (who designed the bronze gates of the Washington Capitol), Miss Hosmer, and E. D. Palmer, who, though a gifted artist, inclines to an exaggeration of the picturesque. Among the German sculptors in Rome, Martin Wagner, who died in 1860, is worthy of note for his energy of style; and, among those still living, Carl Steinhäuser, now in Carlsruhe, is remarkable for an elevated feeling for form, and depth of sentiment; while J. Kopf shows much delicate grace; and the more recent artist, Ad. Hildebrand, has a rare feeling for nature. Finally, Holland has an excellent sculptor of the idealistic school in Matthias Kessels (1784-1830), who studied under Thorwaldsen.

SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.

DR. HORACE BUSHNELL.

Dr. Bushnell’s mind was one of the rarest. What it was in his books, that it was in private, with certain very piquant and unforgettable flavors added.—Dr. Burton.

I think he had no capacity, with all his eminent powers, for enmity. Goodness and wisdom were the powers that amounted to genius in him by being so great.—Rev. C. A. Bartol.

Wrong Resisted.—As it is said that ferocious animals are disarmed by the eye of man, and will dare no violence if he but steadily look at them, so it is when right looks upon wrong. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you; offer him a bold front, and he runs away. He goes, it may be, uttering threats of rage; but yet he goes.

Great Men.—The great and successful men of history, are, commonly, made such by the great occasions they fill. They are the men who had faith to meet such occasions; and therefore the occasions marked them, called them to come and be what the successes of their faith would make them. The boy is but a shepherd, but he hears from his panic-stricken countrymen of the giant champion of their enemies. A fire seizes him, and he goes down to the army, with nothing but his sling, and his heart of faith, to lay that champion in the dust. Next he is a great military leader, then the king of his country. As with David, so with Nehemiah; as with him, so with Paul, and Luther. A Socrates, a Tully, a Cromwell, a Washington—all the great master-spirits—the founders and law-givers of empires, and defenders of the rights of men, are made by the same law. These did not shrink despairingly within the compass of their poor abilities, but in their heart of faith embraced each one his cause, and went forth under the inspiring force of their call to apprehend that for which they were apprehended.

Family Religion—Why a Failure.—The father prays, in the morning, that his children may grow up in the Lord, and calls it the principal good of their life, that they are to be Christians, living to God and for the world to come. Then he goes out into the field, or shop, or house of trade, and, delving there all day in his gains, keeps praying from morning to night, without knowing it, that his family may be rich. His plans and works, faithfully seconded by an affectionate wife, pull exactly contrary to the pull of his prayers, and to all their common teaching in religion. Their tempers are worldly, and make a worldly atmosphere in the home. Pride, the ambition of show, and social standing, envy to what is above, and jealousy of what is below, follies of dress and fashion, and the more foolish elation, when a son is praised, or a daughter admired in the matter of personal appearance, or, what is no better, a manifest preparing and foretasting of this folly, when the son or daughter is so young as to be more certainly poisoned by the infection of it. Oh, these unspoken, damning prayers! how many they are, and how they fill up all the days! The mornings open with a reverent, fervent-sounding prayer of words; and then the days come after piling up petitions of ends, aims, tempers, passions and works, that ask for anything and everything but what accords with genuine religion. The prayer of the morning is that the son, the daughter—all the sons and daughters—may be Christians; and then the prayers that follow are for anything but that—in fact, for things most contrary to that. Is it any wonder, when we consider this common disagreement between the prayers of the family, and all other concerns, ends, and enjoyments of the common life beside, that so many fine shows of family piety are yet followed by so much of godless, and even reprobate, character in the children?

DR. NOAH PORTER.

How to Read History.

Whately pertinently observes, in his annotations upon Lord Bacon’s “Essay on Studies:” “In reference to the study of history I have elsewhere remarked upon the importance, among the intellectual qualifications for such a study, of a vivid imagination. The practical importance of such an exercise of imagination to a full and clear, and consequently, profitable view of the transactions related in history can hardly be over-estimated.”

To stimulate and aid the imagination in its efforts to reproduce the past, historical plays and poems, and, more recently, historical novels have been abundantly employed. Their usefulness has been the subject of frequent discussion, and of various opinions. It has been forcibly, and perhaps not untruly said, that the majority of the present generation of English readers have learned more of English history from Shakspere and Walter Scott than from the entire library of professed historians. Of course no man would contend that either Shakspere or Scott could be substituted for the usual historical authorities, but only that they may supplement them in certain important particulars. Many other historical plays and novels are invaluable as enabling the reader to enter more fully into the spirit of past times. They are of especial service in helping him to appreciate the feelings and motives of prominent personages, and vividly to reproduce the manners and institutions of another age. It is not often that an historical writer is endowed with the painstaking zeal of the antiquarian, and the creative power of the poet. If we can not have the two gifts in a single writer, we must seek for them apart in the historian and the novelist.

Thackeray’s “Henry Esmond” is an admirable example of a good historical novel, when carefully and conscientiously written by a man of rare gifts and of a rarer honesty. No reader of this tale of the times of Queen Anne could fail to derive from it such impressions of the state of manners and of morals in the higher circles, as well as of the political jealousies and the religious feuds which divided men of all classes, as no formal history could possibly convey—such as even the most abundant and painstaking research into the less accessible resources of historical knowledge would fail to impart to a man of feeble capacity to picture and recombine. The service is not a slight one which is rendered to the world when such a painstaking explorer of historical truth as Thackeray gathers his materials with faithful and laborious research, and weaves them together into so fascinating and instructive a story. But this tale, marvelous as it is for its elaborated truthfulness and picturesque effects, strikingly illustrates the possible dangers and disadvantages to which the historical novel may be abused. Thackeray was not without his prejudices. These, with his desire for producing striking effects, are manifest in the occasional overdrawing of this generally well-balanced representation of one of the most interesting periods of English history. It is notorious that Walter Scott gave very serious offense to multitudes of his admiring readers by some of his portraitures of the representative characters of the great historical parties of Scotland and England. With all the good sense and candor which he had at command, his sympathies were too intense and his prejudices too tenacious to allow him to write otherwise than he did, though he know he should excite the indignation of thousands of his fervid countrymen. Mrs. H. B. Stowe says in the preface to her recent historical romance, “Oldtown Folks:” “I have tried to make my mind as still as a looking-glass or a mountain lake, and thus to give you merely the images reflected therein.” But a fervid and sympathetic nature like hers can no more free itself from a theological or personal bias in representing the New England of the past, over which she has laughed, and wept, and speculated, and struggled all her life, than the “mountain lake” can hold itself in glassy smoothness against the gusts and breezes that sweep upon it from the heights above.

The fact deserves notice that of late professed historians have indulged somewhat freely in romancing, and so in a sense turned their histories into quasi-historical novels, especially when they attempt to give elaborate and eloquent portraitures of the leading personages, in which the most lavish use is made of effective epithets and pointed antitheses. Macaulay, among recent historians, has set the fashion very decidedly in this direction. In his efforts to make history minute, vivid, and effective, he has often described like an impassioned advocate, and painted, like a retained attorney, with the most unsparing expenditure of contrasts and epithets. Carlyle gives sketches, alternately in chalk and charcoal, that exhibit his saints and demons, now in ghastliest white, and then in the most appalling blackness. But though he draws caricatures he draws them with the hand of an artist. Froude, by research, eloquence and audacity combined, attempts to reverse the settled historic judgments of all mankind in respect to characters that had been “damned to everlasting fame.” Bancroft and Motley abound in examples of this tendency to paint historical characters so much to the life that the impression is made that the result is only a painting to which there never was reality.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele—

Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill,

With the whole of that partnership’s stock and good will,

Mix well, and while stirring him o’er as a spell,

The fine old English gentleman, simmer it well,

Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain,

That only the finest and clearest remain;

Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives,

From the warm, lazy sun loitering down through green leaves.

And you’ll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving

A name either English or Yankee—just Irving.—Lowell.

… Washington Irving, one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day.—Sir Walter Scott.

The Style of Mr. Irving is always pleasing.—Macaulay.

Throughout his polished pages no thought shocks by its extravagance, no word offends by vulgarity or affectation.—Edinburgh Review.

A Rainy Sunday in an Inn.

It was a rainy Sunday in the gloomy month of November. I had been detained in the course of a journey by a slight indisposition, from which I was recovering; but I was still feverish, and was obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn; whoever has had the luck to experience one, can alone judge of my situation. The rain pattered against the casements, the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows in quest of something to amuse the eye, but it seemed as if I had been placed completely out of the reach of all amusement. The windows of my bed-room looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting-room commanded a full view of the stable-yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than a stable-yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw that had been kicked about by travelers and stable-boys. In one corner was a stagnant pool of water surrounding an island of muck; there were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, among which was a miserable crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life and spirit, his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a single feather, along which the water trickled from his back; near the cart was a half-dozing cow, chewing the cud, and standing patiently to be rained on, with wreaths of vapor rising from her reeking hide; a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with the rain dripping on it from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered something every now and then between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped backward and forward through the yards in pattens, looking as sulky as the weather itself; everything, in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hard-drinking ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over their liquor.

I sauntered to the window, and stood gazing at the people picking their way to church, with petticoats hoisted mid-leg high, and dripping umbrellas. The bells ceased to toll, and the streets became silent. I then amused myself with watching the daughters of a tradesman opposite, who, being confined to the house for fear of wetting their Sunday finery, played off their charms at the front windows, to fascinate the chance tenants of the inn. They at length were summoned away by a vigilant vinegar-faced mother, and I had nothing further without to amuse me.

The day continued lowering and gloomy; the slovenly, ragged, spongy clouds drifted heavily along; there was no variety even in the rain; it was one dull, continued, monotonous patter, patter, patter, excepting that now and then I was enlivened by the idea of a brisk shower, from the rattling of the drops upon a passing umbrella. It was quite refreshing (if I may be allowed a hackneyed phrase of the day) when in the course of the morning a horn blew, and a stage-coach whirled through the street with outside passengers stuck all over it, cowering under cotton umbrellas, and seethed together, and reeking with the steams of wet box-coats and upper benjamins. The sound brought out from their lurking-places a crew of vagabond boys and vagabond dogs, and the carroty-headed hostler, and that nondescript animal yclept Boots, and all the other vagabond race that infest the purlieus of an inn; but the bustle was transient: the coach again whirled on its way; and boy and dog, and hostler and Boots, all slunk back again to their holes; the street again became silent, and the rain continued to rain on.

The evening gradually wore away. The travelers read the papers two or three times over. Some drew round the fire and told long stories about their horses, about their adventures, their overturns and breakings-down. They discussed the credits of different merchants and different inns, and the two wags told several choice anecdotes of pretty chambermaids and kind landladies. All this passed as they were quietly taking what they called their nightcaps; that is to say, strong glasses of brandy and water or sugar, or some other mixture of the kind; after which they one after another rang for Boots and the chambermaid, and walked off to bed in old shoes cut down into marvelously uncomfortable slippers. There was only one man left,—a short-legged, long-bodied plethoric fellow, with a very large sandy head. He sat by himself with a glass of port wine negus and a spoon, sipping and stirring, and meditating and sipping, until nothing was left but the spoon. He gradually fell asleep bolt upright in his chair, with the empty glass standing before him; and the candle seemed to fall asleep too, for the wick grew long and black, and cabbaged at the end, and dimmed the little light that remained in the chamber. The gloom that now prevailed was contagious. Around hung the shapeless and almost spectral box-coats of departed travelers, long since buried in deep sleep. I only heard the ticking of the clock, with the deep-drawn breathings of the sleeping toper, and the drippings of the rain—drop, drop, drop—from the eaves of the house.

Irving’s Last Interview with Scott.

It was at Sunnyside, on a glorious afternoon in June, 1855, that surrounded by scenery which Irving has best described, he narrated to me (S. Austin Allibone) the following account of his last interview with Scott:

“I was in London when Scott arrived after his attack of paralysis, on his way to the continent in search of health. I received a note from Lockhart, begging me to come and take dinner with Scott and himself the next day. When I entered the room Scott grasped my hand, and looked me steadfastly in the face. ‘Time has dealt gently with you, my friend, since we parted,’ he exclaimed:—he referred to the difference in himself since we had met. At dinner, I could see that Scott’s mind was failing. He was painfully conscious of it himself. He would talk with much animation, and we would listen with the most respectful attention; but there was an effort and an embarrassment in his manner; he knew all was not right. It was very distressing, and we (Irving, Lockhart, and Anne Scott) tried to keep up the conversation between ourselves, that Sir Walter might talk as little as possible. After dinner he took my arm to walk up-stairs, which he did with difficulty. He turned and looked in my face, and said, ‘They need not tell a man his mind is not affected when his body is as much impaired as mine.’ This was my last interview with Scott. I heard afterward that he was better; but I never saw him again.”

Two years later (in 1857), in narrating the same event, Irving told me that as Scott passed up the stairs with him after dinner, he remarked, “Times are sadly changed since we walked up the Eildon hills together.”

JAMES KIRKE PAULDING.

There is no better literary manner than the manner of Mr. Paulding. Certainly no American, and possibly no living writer of England has more of those numerous peculiarities which go to the formation of a happy style.—Edgar A. Poe.

His works are exclusively and eminently natural, and his descriptions of natural scenery are often eminently beautiful.—London Athenæum.

Time a Destroyer.—I saw a temple, reared by the hands of man, standing with its high pinnacle in the distant plain. The streams beat about it; the God of nature hurled his thunderbolts against it; yet it stood firm as adamant. Revelry was in the halls; the gay, the young, the beautiful were there. I returned, and lo! the temple was no more. Its high walls lay scattered in ruin; moss and grass grew rankly there; and, at the midnight hour, the owl’s long cry added to the solitude. The young, the gay, who had reveled there, had passed away. I saw a child rejoicing in his youth, the idol of his mother, and the pride of his father. I returned and the child had become old. Trembling with the weight of years, he stood the last of his generation, a stranger amidst all the desolation around him. I saw an old oak standing in all its pride upon the mountain; the birds were caroling in its boughs. I returned and saw the oak was leafless and sapless; the winds were playing at their pastime through the branches. “Who is the destroyer?” said I to my guardian angel. “It is Time,” said he. When the morning stars sang together for joy over the new-made world, he commenced his course, and when he has destroyed all that is beautiful on the earth, plucked the sun from his sphere, veiled the moon in blood; yea, when he shall have rolled the heavens and the earth away as a scroll, then shall an angel from the throne of God come forth, and, with one foot upon the land, lift up his hand toward heaven, and swear by heaven’s eternal, “time was, but time shall be no more.”

[End of Required Reading for December.]

RETURNING.

By MARY HARRISON.

“The spirit shall return to the God who gave it.”

White clouds upon heaven’s bosom rest,

Begotten of the sunshine’s love,

Now nestled like a fondled dove

Upon a woman’s loving breast.

Heaven feeds her baby clouds, they grow,

Then leave her for their manhood’s life;

And wail and scramble in the strife

Through which all earth-born children go.

They sink and wander in the gloom

Of winding subterranean ways,

And learn the loss of heavenlier days,

By groping through their chosen tomb.

At length, lights gleam along the distant way,

With eager thoughts of childhood, blest,

And hopes of entering into rest,

They leap to airy, sunny day.

Now rivers slave them to the fields

To fill the cattle-troughs with drink,

And dress the rose-boughs on their brink,

And feed the grass the meadow yields.

For friends and good, they look behind,

Then curse the past, and pray to be

Unborn again within the sea,

For birth has been to them unkind.

All scenes have gone! no good has come!

From bank to bank the waters heave

With tides which only mock and grieve,

Despairs of long-lost, hopeless home.

And looking but for lulling sleep,

The last deep solace of the grave,

They leap to meet the leaping wave,

And find their lost home in the deep.

So through his day, blind man has striven,

As vapor-clouds, he came to be,

Drawn from, then wandering to the sea,

Invisible, with God in heaven.

EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO POPULATION.

By ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, D.D.

FACTS ON THE SURFACE.

The records in the Department of Education, in Washington City, show that in the recent slave States of the Union the total school population was, in 1881, 5,814,261. Of these, 3,973,676 were white; 1,840,585 colored children. Counting both races the total school enrollment for 1881 was 3,034,896; of these 2,232,337 were white, 802,559 colored children. Nearly half the white, and more than half the colored school population was, in 1881, out of school. In some of these States the school term is from three to five months; in the cotton States not more than three. Perhaps five months each year is as long a school term as the conditions and needs of the laboring classes in these States will allow.

In 1881 these States expended upon their public schools $13,359,784; except perhaps in one state this money was expended without distinction of race. The races have schools of their own; doctrinaires would mix them by force of law; those who are actually doing the work of education in these States know that this can not be done, and that only harm would come of it, if the experiment were attempted. For neither race would do so well if taught together; the colored children do not desire mixed schools, and the white children will not attend them. In such conditions law is helpless, and force is folly; also ruin.

OTHER FACTS.

The official figures give the numbers; parole evidence is necessary to complete the statement of the case. In 1881 there were, as the Department of Education reports, in the Southern States 17,248 common schools for colored children. With exceptions so few that they are inappreciable in these statements, the teachers in these 17,248 common schools were colored—the large majority being women. The majority of these teachers are pitiably incompetent; some of them are well furnished for their work, and are doing it faithfully and successfully. Nearly all of these colored teachers who are of any use have received their preparation in the various schools for higher instruction established by societies and churches in the Northern States. Some of the best work is done in schools established and carried on by individual devotion—I will not say enterprise. Taking them all together there are nearly one hundred and fifty of these schools, called, as fancy or circumstances prompted or allowed, universities, colleges, institutes, seminaries, normal schools, etc., etc. There is hardly an “academy” among them.

OVER-NAMING.

Many will think me wrong in the opinion I now offer; some of the wisest of the teachers in the real work of teaching negroes will agree with me: it is a misfortune that the names given these schools are so out of proportion to their real work and character. None of them, even in catalogues, go beyond the ordinary college course; many of them do not come up to it; in none of them do more than a very small number complete this course. There is not a university, in any proper sense, among them all. It is not in the spirit of censure that I speak of these things, but of deep interest in the great and necessary work, that the good people engaged in these schools are trying, with rare consecration and in the teeth of a thousand discouragements, to accomplish.

The great names for these schools have done harm. They are misleading to begin with, and that is an evil. It is hard enough to get the indifferent or the antagonistic people to understand the subject of the education of the negroes at best; it is harder when new meanings have to be given to old names in order to state acts. I am of the opinion that the names given to most of these schools have done some harm in the North—whence the money has been drawn to support them. Northern men have sometimes spoken to me on these subjects in language that made it plain that they would have helped more but from a conviction that “schools and not universities are what these poor people need.” Per contra, it may well enough be answered, some have given largely to build “universities” that would not give to establish schools. As to the influence on northern sentiment of the too-great names, those who know that sentiment better than I do can express themselves more definitely. I know that the big names have done harm in the States where the schools are. At this point let me say, I am only stating what I believe to be facts. Comments, inferences, justifications, do not concern me just now.

First, then, the large names have excited prejudice among the white people who did not know what was back of the names. Most of them, for a long time, did not know what the universities and colleges were really trying to do; the majority do not know at this time.

Some of those who did know something thought the whole business a mere sham; for a long time only a few southern white people really knew that faithful, wise and successful teaching was done in these colleges and universities—most of it not being college or university work at all. The few who really knew what good work was being done could over-look the ambitious names—it being a weakness in the South and West, yielded to by not a few, to give great names to small schools for white youth. The wiser and kinder-hearted ones could condone the offense of over-large names in view of their own example.

The big names did as much as anything else to anger the poor whites against all negro education. People who know human nature will understand this statement without explanation: those who do not know human nature will not understand it anyway.

The worst evil, in the long run, of this big naming of schools for the negroes, fell upon the negroes themselves. It aggravated the tendency—very strong among them—to be satisfied with the name of a thing in the lack of the thing itself, and, what is more, not knowing that they can lack the thing when they have the name. Take, for example, “⸺ University,” an admirable school well known to me. Its annual enrollment will average three hundred; its catalogue course reaches from the primary studies through an ordinary college curriculum; one in ten attempts this college course; one in fifty may complete it. The whole three hundred tell their friends: “I was educated in ⸺ University.” It gives them importance. They pass as scholars beyond their merits among their own people. In many of them it breeds injurious conceits—of a sort that makes enemies of those who might be friends, and prejudices with the uninformed—who in all countries are the majority—the whole subject of negro education. It is to be feared that only a few colored students know the difference between “⸺ University” and a real university.

NO SHAM IN THE WORK DONE.

Let me say with emphasis at this point: there is no sham in the work done in these schools. It is genuine, honest, useful work. This is a general statement; there may be, doubtless are, some schools that do not deserve this praise. But the point I wish to make plain to the readers of The Chautauquan is this: if there be sham it is not in the work done, but in the name given the place where it is done. I asked one of the veterans: “Why did you call this school a university?” He answered: “We hoped it would grow to it some day.” How could I blame the hopefulness of those who did the naming? So many of our white schools had been named under the same sort of prophetic impulse.

TRAINING SCHOOLS.

It is those schools backed by the churches and benevolent societies of the North that are doing the most of the work of preparing teachers among the colored people for the colored people. The very best of the more than seventeen thousand colored teachers have learned whatever they know in these schools. Most of the Southern State governments have recognized the necessity of preparing colored teachers, and make annual appropriations to carry on this work. A few States have established schools of their own; generally they make appropriations to some of the best of the schools established by others.

The great and crying need in the work of education among the people is better teachers in their common schools. They can not be prepared in a day or a year; for it takes much money and much time. The training schools are without endowments, and their patrons are unable to pay more than the lowest tuition fees. If these schools—call them universities, colleges, institutes, seminaries—what you will, are to keep going at their present rate, to say nothing of improvement, white people must furnish the money, for the best of reasons; the negroes have not money to do this sort of work. Most of this money will have to come from Northern pockets, if it comes at all. The State of New York is worth more in property returned for taxation than all the Southern States together—leaving out Missouri, counted in the census of 1880 among “Western States.”

THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND

Begins to do its blessed work. This fund is dedicated to the work of “Uplifting the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity, by conferring on them the blessings of Christian education,” and it seeks to accomplish this result by “the training of teachers among the people requiring to be taught.” This fund works through existing institutions; it does not found new schools; there are already more good and deserving schools than it can help. Many times the sum this fund affords could be wisely used.

There is not space in this article to discuss the question, but my opinion may be stated: It is necessary that the United States government should aid the States to make their public schools more efficient. Whatever may be true of other sections, the Southern States, owing to the facts of their history and to conditions now existing, are not able to do the work that is upon them.

As to the sentiment in these States on the subject of negro education, it may be said in brief: The outcry of small village papers does not always even reflect the sentiment of the people, and there are certain facts that indicate that the work of educating the negroes will go on with less and less hindrance. Three such facts I mention in closing this article: (1) The duty and necessity of educating the negro has been recognized by every representative church in the South. (2) This necessity is recognized in the educational system of every Southern State. (3) No man who believes he has any political or educational “future,” any longer opposes, under his proper name, the education of his negro fellow citizens.

Dress changes, but we are not to suppose on that account that the make of the body changes also. Politeness or rudeness, knowledge or ignorance, more or less of a certain degree of guilelessness and simplicity, a serious or playful humor; these are but the outer crust of a man, and may all change; but the heart changes not, and the whole of man is in the heart. One age is ignorant, but the fashion of being learned may come; we are all moved by self-interest, but the fashion of being disinterested will never come. Amidst the countless myriads of creatures born in the space of a hundred years, nature may perhaps produce two or three dozen of rational beings whom she must scatter over the world, and you can readily imagine that they are never found any where in such large numbers as to set the fashion of virtue and uprightness.—Fontenelle.

MAN OF LEARNING, TELL ME SOMETHING.

By MARGARET MEREDITH.

I wonder if men could not be persuaded to alter their style of conversation with girls, to talk to us as they talk to men?

We have a feeling that learned young men are the dullest of talkers; not because they talk weightily; Oh, no! because they talk so lightly, and lightness is not their forte.

A diligent student, a very cormorant, perhaps, of knowledge, dons a white necktie and sallies forth, and resolutely leaves behind for the evening every material he has wherewith to make himself agreeable. He is not witty, he is too busy to be a gossip, he is too little in company to learn an easy jog of commonplace or compliment. So he sits on a sofa, and the girl makes some opening remark, to which he replies with studied interest; and at the pause she magnetically feels that it is best to make a longer remark this time. If she were talking to a lad, she might drift into expressing some of her real ideas, and find profit and pleasure in airing them; but for the amusement of this young savant, by no means. Still, at his next turn to speak, or the next, she has come suggestively near some subject worth talking of; if he were with a man he would instantly plunge in, and in five minutes they would be deep in discussion or description, sharpening their wits by every sentence, fixing what they have read, shaping their crude opinions, thoroughly enjoying each other; and for this they need not be equals in cultivation, nor altogether equals in mind.

Why should it be so different when talking with a woman? There is no reason, but habit. One says, “People dislike to talk shop; the busy scholar wants a rest.” On the contrary, most people, I think, would rather talk shop than anything else. If it is their life interest and their strong point, they have so much more to say. The truth is, they fear that the listener will object, and so “in company” they avoid it. I wager the listener would be delighted.

I do not write so much to those who can get up at will a brilliant flow of mere scintillation. That is a scarce enough article to be valuable. Yet they might use it occasionally on sense as well as on nonsense, and make themselves all the more notably entertaining.

I once knew a grave professional man who was said to be both clever and cultivated, but for me there seemed no possible way to enjoy him. His visits were the most empty occasions. He was “a desirable person to be visited by,” but he was unendurable; though he did not fail to be politely attentive in more ways than one. I was glad he was going away. Just then a mutual friend came on the scene, who had views on this matter. I know she gave him the benefit of them, as well as if she had told me; for such an amazing change I never saw. The passive sitter waked up, the bore became a charming talker, and all because he had taken his own permission to be agreeable in his natural way. I was so sorry when he left town!

That instance of transformation is what inspires my appeal. The thing would seem grounded and settled, incapable of cure, but what one exhortation can accomplish has been proved.

And it is a case in which the butterfly may well spring full-colored from the chrysalis, for the stuff that talk is made of is all there; not repartee, of course, or always brilliant expression for one’s thoughts and facts; but thoughts and facts very simply used make an evening world-wide different from a succession of laboriously-framed sentences carefully intended to be about something in which the man does not take any interest, and the woman sees he does not. Can we wonder that the sand-man has to be struggled with many a time by both parties? Young boys do not blink with sleep under your very eyes; but full-grown men often do, and largely because they insist on pursuing at thirty-five about the same topics of conversation that they used at eighteen.

Don’t you, Mr. Dry-as-dust, want to turn over a new leaf? My opportunities of learning are limited, perhaps, while yours are constant. If I am to spend an hour, or two or three, with you, will not you give me some advantage from your well-furnished store-house? If I do not respond then possibly you may stand excused, and never again run the risk of talking over my head.

But give me one fair trial, and see if we are not “better company” and better friends ever afterward.

HIBERNATION.

By the Rev. J. G. WOOD, M.A.

The hedgehog, like the bat, is carnivorous.

Toward the end of autumn it looks out for some retired spot, a perfectly dry cavity in the ground or in the rock being the favorite resort. Here it gathers together a large quantity of dry moss, leaves, grass, etc., covers itself with them, rolls itself into a ball, and sinks into the hibernating lethargy.

It is rather remarkable that a hibernating animal is much more sensitive to a slight touch than to general handling. If, for example, a single hair of a hibernating bat or a single quill of a hibernating hedgehog be raised, the creature gives a quick start, and takes a few breaths before relapsing into lethargy. Yet a bat may be sunk under water, or have a thermometer tube passed into its stomach, without being awakened.

When a hibernating bat is sunk under water of the same temperature as that of its body, it does not even attempt to breathe. A similar experiment was tried with a hedgehog, and after it had been under water for twenty-one minutes, one tiny bubble of air rose to the surface. I need scarcely say that if the animal had been awake, it would have been drowned in less than a fourth of the time.

For the bat, no food can be found until the warm weather returns, and so the hibernation is unbroken for at least five months. But, though food be almost entirely withdrawn from the hedgehog, some nutriment remains, and therefore the animal is so constituted that it can discover and consume the food which has been provided for it.

This food chiefly consists of snails, which are themselves hibernators, and which during the winter months conceal themselves so effectually that they are seldom detected except by their two great wintry foes, the thrush and the hedgehog.

The hedgehog, not possessing so wide a range of hibernating temperature as the bat, which actually “hibernates” daily for a short time even during the hottest summers, is roused by an hour or two of warm sunshine such as we often experience about February. Awakened by the warmth, the hedgehog unrolls itself, creeps out of its refuge, and trundles (I know no better word to describe its peculiar pace) away in search of food. Taught by instinct, it is sure to come upon one of the strongholds of the snail, eats as many as it needs, returns to its home, and sleeps until awakened in a similar manner.

Then we have the vegetable-eating squirrel, which is a partial hibernator.

During the later weeks of autumn, the squirrel may be seen in the act of making provision for the winter. In the first place it collects a vast store of fallen leaves, moss, twigs, and similar materials, and with them constructs its winter nest.

Squirrels have two distinct kinds of nest, one for the winter and the other for the summer. Both nests are of considerable size, and both are so well concealed that to detect them is a very difficult task. The summer nest is comparatively light in texture, and is placed near the ends of lofty boughs, where it is hidden by the leaves. Moreover, its position renders it almost unassailable, as the branch on which it is built would not even endure the weight of a small boy. In the winter, when the leaves are off the trees, the nests are very conspicuous, and in the New Forest, where I gave some time to watching the habits of the squirrel, they are exceedingly numerous.

In fact, the squirrels of the New Forest swarm in such numbers, and do so much damage to the young twigs of the trees, that many hundreds must be shot annually, just as is the case with rabbits. They are always shot just before hibernating, because, as they put on new robes for the winter, their skins fetch the best prices. Moreover, the animals become fat, as is the case with all hibernators, and so their flesh is in good condition for the table. Squirrel-pie is a well-known luxury in some parts of England, and is far superior to rabbit-pie, as it is free from the peculiar flavor which attaches itself to the rabbit, and to many persons is exceedingly repulsive.

The winter nest is a very large one, containing at least four or five times as much material as would serve for a summer’s nest. Instead of being placed at the end of a bough, it is always set in the hollow caused by the junction of several large branches with the trunk. The exterior is so skilfully formed, that when the tree is viewed from below, even the most practised eyes will often fail to detect the nest, large as it is.

The amount of material which a squirrel employs in this nest is really wonderful. I have taken out of a single nest armful after armful of leaves, until quite a large mound was raised at the foot of the tree, and I should think that there was enough material to fill two large wheelbarrows, even if it were pressed down closely.

I may here mention that the nest of the squirrel is known in some parts of England by the name of “drey,” and in others by that of “cage.” The latter term is employed in the New Forest.

The house being ready, next comes the task of laying up a store of food. This consists chiefly of nuts, which the animal chooses with marvelous sagacity, or rather, instinct. No one ever yet found an unsound or worm-eaten nut in a squirrel’s store. The animal does not rely on a single storehouse, but hides its treasures here and there within easy range of its nest. Many nuts it buries, and owing to this habit, nut-trees are apt to spring up in unexpected places, for, if the weather should be exceptionally severe, the squirrel awakens but seldom from its winter sleep, and so does not need the store which it has hidden. Or, it may die or be killed after it has laid up its food, and so the buried nuts will take root and produce trees.

A remarkable instance of this fact occurred in the grounds of Walton Hall, belonging to the late Charles Waterton.

In former days there had been in the estate an old wooden mill. It had been disused for many years, and at last the only relic of it was the upper millstone which was left on the ground. The reader may be aware that the center of the upper stone is pierced with a tolerably large hole, through which the corn makes its way between the stones.

In the autumn of 1813, some nut-eating, hibernating animal, almost certainly a squirrel, had found this stone, and thought that the hole would make an admirable hiding-place for a nut. For some reason, the nut was never eaten, and consequently began to germinate. Mr. Waterton, who pervaded his grounds at all hours of day and night, detected the green shoot at once when it appeared in the spring of the following year. Foreseeing that the shoot, if it lived long enough to become a tree, would raise the stone from the ground, he had a fence put round it, and gave special orders for its preservation.

His prevision proved to be perfectly correct. In course of years, the little shoot became a large tree twenty-five feet in height, and bearing fine crops of fruit annually, and Mr. Edmund Waterton told me that in his boyhood he had often climbed it for the purpose of procuring nuts. After the stem was large enough to fill the orifice in which it had been planted it lifted the stone, and raised it some eight or nine inches above the ground.

As might be imagined, in the course of years the pressure of the stone destroyed the bark, and stopped the circulation of the sap, so that the tree died. In order to save it from being blown down, the trunk and branches were cut away some feet above the stone. On my last visit to Walton Hall, shortly before Mr. Waterton’s death, the stone was still suspended above the ground, and as a memorial of so remarkable a result of hibernation, I made a careful sketch of it, which was published by Messrs. Macmillan.

It is also noticeable as an example of the slow, silent, and almost irresistible power of vegetation. Even the soft and pulpy mushroom has been known to raise a flat, heavy paving-stone fairly off the ground. Had the mushrooms been allowed to grow, and the paving-stone laid on them, it would have crushed them under its weight. But the vital powers of growth are so tremendous, even when acting upon so feeble a medium, that they performed a feat which would have been thought impossible had it not been witnessed.

In some parts of South America, where the growth of vegetation is surprisingly rapid, there used to be, and may be still, a mode of inflicting capital punishment by the power of vegetation. We all know the sharply-pointed and bayonet-like leaves of certain aloes. The victim was simply fastened to the ground over a spot where an aloe was just starting from the earth, and before a day had gone by, the leaves would grow completely through the body.

I briefly mention these examples in order to show how all nature is linked together, and that the hibernation of animals and the growth of vegetables are parts of one great system.

Owing to the manner in which the squirrel disperses his treasures, we can not tell the amount of the store required by each animal, but in Northern America we find one which gives the needful information. This is the chipping squirrel, chipmunk, so called from its cry. Its scientific name is Tamias Lysteri.

It is a little creature not larger than a two-thirds grown rat, and is very conspicuous on account of the black and yellow stripes which run along its back. Being a creature which leads a subterranean life for the greatest part of its time, it does not possess the bushy tail of the tree-inhabiting squirrels.

Its underground habitation is a most elaborate composition of galleries and chambers, so that there is plenty of space for storage. Audubon once dug up a nest inhabited by four chipping squirrels, and found in it two pecks of acorns, a quart of large nuts, rather more than two quarts of buckwheat, besides about half a pint of grass seeds and ordinary wheat. Considering that the animals would pass the greater portion of the winter months in lethargy, and would only eat at long intervals, the amount of food is really surprising.

In former days, when the red men were supreme and depended solely on hunting for their food, many a tribe has been saved from extermination for want of food in the winter time by digging up the nests of the chipping squirrel, and eating the inhabitants as well as their stores.

In the dormouse we have another instance of hibernation brought into contact with man.

This pretty little creature, which is too familiar to need description, possesses in a great degree the power of becoming fat toward the end of autumn. The ancient Romans were well aware of this fact, and had regular establishments called “gliraria” for the express purpose of fattening dormice for the table.

The dormouse makes a singularly comfortable nest for itself. It is nearly spherical and is composed externally of grass blades woven together in a very ingenious manner. The animal only leaves a small aperture, concealed by grass blades which can be pulled asunder when the inmate enters or leaves the nest, and which resume their position like the folds of a drawn curtain. I once had a remarkably fine specimen of a dormouse nest which was cut out of a hedge. The curtain of grass blades was so admirably formed that it could seldom be detected by any one who did not know the specimen.

Around, but not in this nest, the dormouse places its store of winter food, which is much of the same nature as that of the squirrel, and mostly consists of nuts. For this reason the Germans call the creature by the appropriate name of hazelmaus.

It was made in the fork of a hazel-branch, and was about four feet from the ground, so that the small branches served to strengthen as well as conceal it. The nest was exactly six inches long by three in width, and was made almost entirely of several kinds of grass, the broad-bladed sword-grass being the chief material. Interwoven with the grass-blades were sundry leaves, all hazel and maple, and none of them having been taken from the branch on which the nest was built. It is therefore possible that a dormouse may have placed the nest in Mr. Waterton’s mill-stone. I do not, however, think it probable, because there was no bush near the stone, and, as far as is known, the dormouse always stores its food close to its nest. The squirrel, however, ranges farther afield, and may often be seen in the winter-time digging through the snow, at some distance from its tree, so as to disinter the hidden food.

Another vegetable-eating hibernating rodent is the too well-known hamster (Cricetus frumentarius) of Northern Europe.

It is about a foot in length, but, on account of its numbers, is a most formidable enemy to the agriculturist. Even when seeking its daily food it is terribly destructive to the crops, but its worst raids are made at the end of the autumn, when it provides a store for the winter. For this purpose it excavates a deep and complicated system of burrows, in which it stores a quantity of grain so enormous that after the harvest the farmers are in the habit of digging up the hamster’s burrows and securing their stolen property.

A single hamster carried off sixty pounds of wheat for its winter store, while another had thought that a hundred weight of beans were necessary for its subsistence. The animal wakes very early from its hibernation, sometimes even in February. It does not, however, come out of its burrow at once, but remains beneath the earth until the warm weather has fairly set in.

Now we come to the bears.

I need not say that intertropical bears do not require to hibernate. Moreover of those bears which inhabit the colder climates the adult males seldom, if ever, hibernate, while the young of both sexes are very uncertain in this respect. For example, with the grizzly bear the young males and females are found at large throughout the whole of winter, and the same is the case with the polar bear. With the brown bear of Northern Europe and the black bear of North America the young animals seem to be rather capricious in hibernating.

In all cases, however, when the adult female bear is about to add to the family she prepares for hibernating. With the exception of the polar bear, who is obliged to form a most remarkable habitation, the female chooses a safe retreat long before it is required, and gradually conveys into it a large quantity of leaves, moss, and small branches, so as to make a comfortable bed.

Shortly before hibernating she becomes enormously fat, and the new fur which she puts on is quite half as long again as that of the summer raiment. Hunters, therefore, are naturally anxious to kill the bear just before hibernating.

In the first place, a fully developed winter fur, taken before it has been injured by use, will sell for twice as much money as the fur of the same animal when taken in summer or after hibernating. In the next place, the fat, which is so well-known as “bear’s-grease,” always commands a ready sale. Lastly, as bear’s meat, prepared either by freezing or smoking, forms the greatest part of winter food in many a family, it is a matter of the greatest consequence to have that meat in the best condition.

How valuable it is under such circumstances may be realized by reading the life of the old American hunter, Daniel Boone, and seeing how, when his wife and children were nearly dying of hunger and cold, he forced his way across the half-frozen river, succeeded in killing a bear, and by almost superhuman exertions transported all the meat across the river to his hut.

Supposing that the bear is not interrupted in her work, she retires to the den just before winter, and closes the entrance as well as she can.

In this place of refuge the young are born. They are at first scarcely larger than rats, but increase in size, drawing the whole of their nourishment from their mother, who takes no food during the whole of the winter and early spring. In consequence, when she and her young emerge, the latter are fat and strong, while the mother is but the shadow of her former self. Here again is a wonderful example of the many ways in which God “giveth meat to all flesh.”

When a male or young female hibernates it comes out of its refuge as fat as it was on entering it. The hibernation is so perfect that there is scarcely any waste of tissue, as is the case with the mother bear, whose young practically subsist on the store of fat which she laid up in the autumn.

The polar bear when about to become a mother is obliged to find a very different kind of refuge, as there are neither caves, hollow trees, or branches, and often there is nothing but ice as a resting-place and snow as a covering. So she depends for shelter upon the snow. After selecting a convenient snow-drift, she scrapes a hole in it, and suffers the snow to fall upon her as it will.

In that country, where even the human inhabitants are obliged to make their houses out of snow or perish, she is soon buried under many feet of snow. Her thick fur keeps the snow from contact with the skin, while the heat of her body gradually melts the snow away from around her, so that she lies in a sort of tent.

Now comes the question, ventilation. Were she alone all the time she would need no communication with the external air, as the hibernation would be perfect, and respiration would not be required. But her young, who do not hibernate, must breathe continually from the time of their birth, and she, being disturbed by them, is forced to breathe occasionally.

Now, it is found that when animals are buried under snow their warm breath continually ascends, and makes a passage into the air. The aperture is a very small one, but quite sufficient for the purpose; and even in our Scotch Highlands sheep are enabled to breathe in a similar manner when buried in the terrible snow-drifts, which are apt to overwhelm whole flocks at a time.—London Sunday Magazine.

ZENOBIA.

By ADA IDDINGS GALE.

Midst clash of arms, she comes, and glittering spear,

Bold, bright and beautiful, her flashing eye;

Crowned, gemmed and robed in cloth of Tyrian dye.

Palmyra’s pride, unequaled far or near.

Proudly she moves and with imperious mien

Views with a sweeping glance each column o’er,

While they in rapture kneeling do adore,

And rising, vow allegiance to their queen.

The trumpet’s peal, a thousand helmets shine,

The long ranks into perfect order pass,

And at the command move on. Alas!

That fortune’s star for such should e’er decline,

That pomp of pride, that dreams of regal sway

Should like the mists of morning melt away.

The man of the least mental powers may be perfect if he move within the limits of his own capacities and abilities, but even the noblest advantages become obscured, annulled, and annihilated, when symmetry, that is so indispensable, is broken through. This mischief will still oftener appear in these present times; for who will be able to satisfy the requirements of a present ever calling for more exertion and in the highest state of excitement?—Goethe.

CHARACTER BUILDING.

By JAMES KERR.

Failure in any enterprise often rouses to fresh effort. You fall in order to rise again. You are thrown down that you may rise higher. Failure may thus carry in its bosom a rich harvest of good. In men of spirit, who are not easily cowed, it acts as a spur to exertion. Every time such a man is thrown down, and, like the fabled Titan, touches mother earth, he rises again with renewed strength. Many a great orator has failed ignominiously in his first attempt; but if he has the right stuff in him he is not disheartened. Like the late Lord Beaconsfield, he says indignantly: “The time will come when you will hear me!” He says it, and he keeps his word. We have a similar instance in M. Thiers, the French historian and statesman. When as a young man he made his debut in the Chamber of Deputies, his speech was not a success. He felt that he had failed. On returning home he said to his friends, “I have been beaten; but never mind, I am not cast down, I am making my first essay in arms. Beaten to-day, beaten to-morrow; it is the fate of the soldier and the orator. In the tribune, as under fire, defeat is as useful as a victory. We begin again!” Such was the spirit of the man, such his indomitable resolution; and we all know that his efforts were at last crowned with complete success.

Failure, disappointment, and difficulties to be surmounted, doubtless contribute an element of strength to the character. We thus learn to persevere in a difficult task. Speaking of the failures, delays, and obstacles met with at the siege of Troy, Shakspere puts these words into the mouth of Agamemnon—

“Which are, indeed, naught else

But the protractive trials of the great Jove,

To find persistive constancy in man.”

Trials, misfortunes and difficulties of every kind, if properly met, are a means of discipline. In the struggle with them we are made stronger. They brace the mind, and give it firmness. A disposition naturally gentle requires this tonic to prepare it for the rougher duties of life. Many can say that the disappointments and trials they have met with have given a firmness to their temper which was much needed, and have been of the greatest service to them.

I have never known any one who had difficulties to contend with in his youth, and who wrestled with them successfully, who was not thankful for them later in life. They felt that these difficulties, resisted and overcome, helped to mould their character and make them stronger and better men than they would otherwise have been.

We read in the letters of Thomas Erskine, of Linlathen, as follows: “A friend of mine once repeated to me a sentence which he thought utter nonsense, but to me it seemed to have a meaning. What were rocks made for, my brethren? Even that mariners might avoid them. There was a gain in having avoided rocks, which there would not be if rocks had never existed.”

In the same manner we may say, What was evil made for? Even that we may avoid it. There is a gain in having avoided and resisted evil, which there would not be if evil had never existed.

The trials and troubles of life afford an education to which no other is equal. We have not the finest type of character in the monk and the nun, who lead a life of seclusion far away from the evil of the world. Their virtues are only negative. It is not among those who are shut up within stone walls and jealously guarded, that you obtain the noblest type of character. On the contrary, it is among those who have had to struggle with evil in all its forms in the strife and conflict of life. In this way virtue is strengthened, and a character formed nobler than a life of mere innocence could impart.

It is seen that in those places where there is the greatest amount of vice, there are also to be found many examples of the greatest virtue. It is said that nowhere are there such good people as in London, and the reason assigned is that nowhere are there so many bad people. The Londoner lives in the midst of temptations which have to be avoided and resisted—thus the habit of virtue and of self-control is formed. Those who are good, in spite of manifold temptations to evil, are likely to be very good. Their virtue will be of a more robust type than that of those who are immured in nunneries, and who are kept innocent by temptation being removed out of their way.

There are two ways of dealing with mankind. You may remove them from every temptation, and thus keep them innocent in outward act. Or you may place them in the midst of temptations, trusting to their power of resisting them. You wish, for example, to guard a man from the habit of drunkenness. You shut him up within stone walls, where the very smell of drink is unknown; or you place him in a lonely island, where there is no beverage to be had stronger than pure water.

In this way you get rid of the temptation, but you sacrifice the man. You make of him a nonentity. Others, not less wise, would pursue a different course. They would leave him a free agent in the world, with all its trials and temptations. The probability is he would defend himself from the danger; for, after all, even in the most drink-loving nations, it is only a small proportion of the population that give way to this vice. This latter method has the advantage, instead of sacrificing the man, of improving him. It contributes an element of strength to his character, and trains him to be a brave soldier in the battle of life.

There is much in this avoidance of evil and keeping it in check. It is the great means available for the development of our moral nature. What exercise is to the body, resistance to evil is to the mind.

THE RECREATIONS OF THE PARIS WORKMAN.

By R. HEATH.

The recreations of the better class of Paris workmen wear a character of Arcadian simplicity.

On fêtes, and especially during that of the Republic, which, though nominally confined to the fourteenth of July, continues for several Sundays afterward, there is much dancing and all the ordinary amusements of a fair.

The first day of the week, is, however, only a holiday once a month, for the majority of workmen. On the afternoon of pay-Sunday the workman takes his family outside the barrier for a walk into the country. They have a simple dinner at one of the numerous restaurants in the neighborhood, and wander in the woods, plucking the wild flowers, or find a quiet nook, where one of the party reads aloud. These happy afternoons fill the workman’s heart with joy, and he begins to recall his childhood and to talk of his old home in some distant province. He takes his wine, is joyously excited, but nothing more; the whole family return by train or tram-car, laden with lilac or wild flowers, and are safe in bed by eleven o’clock.

Saturday evening is the favorite time for the theater. The workman prefers the drama, and if the scene is pathetic, is easily moved to tears.

On Sunday afternoon a few visit the Louvre, the Luxembourg, and the Salon, and other picture galleries when open. They are observed to fix their attention mostly on historical scenes, or pictures which touch the feelings; a scene from the Inquisition, a mother weeping over her children, or an inundation, or a famine.

Compared with the German, the Paris workman can hardly be said to possess any musical faculty whatever. The loud and harsh noises to be heard night and day in Paris indicate that the popular ear must be in an almost infantine condition. Cracking their whips with the utmost violence is the ceaseless delight of Parisian drivers, and during the fête and for many days after, the urchins on the street render life unsupportable by constant detonations of gunpowder.

To judge from the way the workmen gather round bookstalls, and the avidity with which the young among them may be seen devouring a book while waiting for the tram, reading must be a real enjoyment to the more intelligent. I have seen a young fellow in a blouse reading a book as he sat astride on the back of a heavy cart-horse. A friend, a lady who has made friends with a family at Belleville, finds them not only to possess a good library, but to be well acquainted with French literature. When a workman is a reader his taste will be good. He will despise novels, especially of the vicious order; his favorite books are histories of the Revolution, such as Lamartine’s “Girondins;” Louis Blanc’s “Dix Ans;” “Histoire de Deux-Décembre,” etc.; and for classics, Voltaire, Rousseau, and perhaps Corneille.

If in the present adult population many may be found with literary and artistic tastes, the workmen of the next generation will be educated men, in the vulgar sense of the word; for it would be difficult to give adequate expression to the fury with which the instruction of the people is pressed forward. All classes combine; the Republicans because they sincerely believe that popular instruction is the great panacea for all the ills of the world; Conservatives, because they hope that it will make the people reasonable; Catholics, because they fear to lose even those who still hold to the church.

Primary instruction is now compulsory and gratuitous. The choice of the school rests with the father or guardian, but he can not neglect to have his child instructed by some one and somewhere. The communal schools are excellent, and the greatest pains taken with the instruction. For the present generation there are multitudes of lecture courses, popular and gratuitous. I have no means of exactly knowing the number, but it is said that there are now in Paris during the season as many as 2,000 courses of lectures of one kind or another. A very great number of these are open to the public.

In a speech made last December at the West London School of Art, Mr. Mundella, M.P., stated that he had recently been in France for the purpose of inquiring into the new system of education, which came into operation on the 1st of October last year, and that while there he had spent some time in trying to ascertain the progress the French were making in giving instruction in art. The Vice-President of the Council declared himself “perfectly astounded by the facts that had come to his knowledge on the subject. He had seen in Paris placards, six feet long, offering gratuitous instruction to every person employed in certain trades who would come and accept it. He found schools of art, which were attended by hundreds and thousands of students, in every part of the country. These schools were supported, not only by government aid, but by the different municipalities out of the local rates and taxes. Thus all the artisans of Paris, and a large number of those in the country, were receiving gratuitous art instruction. The Paris municipality expended £32,000 in this way last year, and that sum will be largely exceeded during the present year. He had brought with him the ‘Paris Budget for Education’ for next year (1883), and he found from it that that city with its population of 1,900,000 would spend on education double the amount that was expended for the education of the four millions who lived in London.”

Why then may we not hope to see many Garfields in the French Republic? The first great difficulty is the strong feeling of caste which exists as powerfully in the workman as in any other class.

M. Poulot has related an amusing instance of the way a young lady of the middle class and her mother turned away from him with a kind of horror when they learnt that he actually worked in a factory, and helped to make the steam engines. But I have met with an instance quite as startling on the other side. Meeting at the house of a mutual friend, an orator, who, a few days before, I had heard deliver a strong philippic against the government, at a meeting mainly composed of workmen, and on a question of interest to them, I asked him to introduce me to one of his friends. He assured me that he only knew them in the meetings, but that he did not know the address of any. Nothing could give a stronger impression of the immense chasm between the working class and those not actually members of it, than to find one of their prominent advocates—a man who, I believe, has been devoted for years to their cause—without a single private friend among working-men.—Good Words.

A RUSSIAN NOVELIST.

By GABRIEL MONOD.

France has just lost an author who, though he never wrote in French, had made France his adopted country, and had been adopted by her as one of her most illustrious novelists—Ivan Tourgénief. From the time when the petty persecution of the Russian government obliged him to leave his native land, he settled in France with his friends the Viardots, paying only short occasional visits to Russia. It was at Bougival, near Paris, that he died on the third of September, of a painful disease from which he had been suffering for more than two years. His works were often translated into French from the manuscript itself, and appeared simultaneously in French and in Russian; and though he depicted Russian types and manners exclusively, his reputation was as great in Paris as at St. Petersburg, and he passed with the general public for a great French writer. He has contributed, more than any one else, to make Russia understood in France, and to create a sympathy between the two nations. Contemporary Russia lives complete in his works. In his “Memoirs of a Russian Nobleman,” or “Recollections of a Sportsman,” he has given expression to the sufferings, the melancholy, the poetry, of the Russian country-folk, and prepared the way for the emancipation of the peasants; in “A Nest of Nobles” he has depicted the monotonous life of the lesser gentry, living on their small fortunes in the heart of Russia; in “Dimitri Roudine,” in “Smoke,” and in “The Vernal Waters,” we find those Russian types which are met with all over Europe—those nomads whose incoherent brains are seething with all sorts of ideas, social, political, and philosophical; those spirits in search of an ideal and a career, whom the narrow and suffocating social life of Russia has turned into idlers and weaklings; those worldlings, with their eccentric or vulgar frivolity; those women, amongst whom we may find all that is most cruel in coquetry and most sublime in self-devotion. Last of all, in “Fathers and Sons,” he has revealed, with a prophetic touch, the first symptoms of that moral malady of Nihilism which is eating at the heart of modern Russia, and in “Virgin Soil” he has given us a faithful and impartial description of the society created by the Nihilistic spirit. Tourgénief is a realist; his personages are real, his pictures are drawn from life, his works are full of true facts; but he is at the same time a true artist, not only in virtue of the power with which he reproduces what he has seen, but because he has the faculty of raising his personages to the dignity of human types of lasting truth and universal significance, and because he describes, not all he sees, but only what strikes the imagination and moves the heart. He is wholesomely objective; he does not describe his heroes, he makes them act and speak; the reader sees and hears and knows them as if they were living people—loves them and is sorry for them—hates and despises them. Tourgénief is one of those novelists who have created the greatest number of living types; he is one of those in whom we find the largest, the most sensitive, the most human heart. He has shown, like Dickens, all that warmth of heart can add to genius.—The Contemporary Review.

A LAY OF A CRACKED FIDDLE.

By FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.

When I was quite a tiny mite,

And life a joyful ditty,

I used to know a poor old wight

Who fiddled through the city.

Alas! it’s thirty years ago—

Time is so quaint and flighty!

And now I’ve mites myself, you know,

And not so very mighty.

And he’s unvexed by flat and sharp;

He’s guessed the awful riddle,

And, haply, got a golden harp

In place of that old fiddle.

And yet, methinks, I see him now—

So clear the memory lingers—

His long grey hair, his puckered brow,

His trembling, grimy fingers,

The comforter that dangled down

Beyond his waist a long way,

The beaver hat with battered crown,

He’d pause to brush—the wrong way,

The brown surtout that still could brag

Its buttons down the middle,

And, crowning all, the greenish bag

That held the sacred fiddle.

Two tunes he played, and only two,

One over, one beginning;

“God Save the Queen’s” collapse we knew

Was “Kitty Clover’s” inning.

How startlingly the bow behaved—

Curveted, jerked, and bounded—

The while our gracious queen was saved,

And knavish tricks confounded!

And oh! the helpless, hopeless woe,

Brimful and running over,

In (very slow) the o—o—oh

Of bothering Kitty Clover!

And so he’d jerk and file and squeak

Like twenty thousand hinges,

While every sympathetic cheek

Was racked with shoots and twinges.

The lawyer left his lease or will,

The workman stopped his hammer,

The druggist ceased to roll the pill,

And ran to calm the clamor.

From doors and windows jingled down

A dancing shower of copper,

Accompanied by many a frown,

And sometimes speech improper.

He gathered up the grudging dole,

And sought a different station,

But always with a bitter soul,

And deep humiliation.

For what though music win you pence,

If praise it fail to win you?

If fees are paid to hurry hence,

And never to continue?

“Bad times for art,” he’d sometimes say

To any youthful scholar;

“They’d rather grub for brass to-day,

Than listen to Apoller.”

And so with quaint, pathetic face,

Aggrieved and disappointed,

The minstrel moved from place to place,

And mourned the times disjointed.

His hat was browner than of yore,

His grizzled head was greyer,

And none had ever cried “Encore,”

Or praised the poor old player.

I came to feel (and was not wrong)—

His day was nearly over—

He’d not be bothered very long

By cruel Kitty Clover.

One day, within a shady square,

Where people lounged or sat round,

He’d played his second woeful air,

And now he took the hat round.

He met with many a gibe and grin,

With coarser disaffection,

The while he tottered out and in,

Receiving the collection.

At length he stopped, with downcast eye,

Beneath a lime tree’s cover,

Where sat a maiden, sweet and shy,

Beside her handsome lover.

Half hidden in her leafy place,

The modest little sitter

Just glanced into the fiddler’s face,

And read his story bitter.

Unskilled in life and worldly ways,

By womanhood’s divining,

She knew the minstrel’s soul for praise

And sympathy was pining.

Herself with all a heart could need,

No dearest dream denied her,

She felt her gentle spirit bleed

For that poor wretch beside her.

She hung her head a little while,

Then, growing somewhat bolder,

She rose, and with a blush and smile,

Just touched the minstrel’s shoulder.

“How charmingly you play,” she said.

“How nice to be so clever!

My friend and I” (her cheeks grew red)

“Could sit entranced for ever.

I’ve taken lessons—all in vain;

My touch is simply hateful.

Oh! if you’d play those tunes again,

I’d be so very grateful.”

He rosined up his rusty bow

(His eyes were brimming over),

Then (o—o—oh!) meandered slow

Through endless “Kitty Clover.”

He’d suffered many a cruel wrong

Amid a sordid nation;

He’d waited wearily and long—

At last the compensation!

What cared he now for snub and sneer

From churlish fools around him?

In those sweet eyes he saw a tear,

And felt that fame had crowned him.

And you, my friends, may laugh or frown,

And still I’ll risk the saying,

That angels stooped from glory down

To hear the fiddler playing.

And he that holds the golden pen,