right, and can only legally have place in a state of war;" and yet Mr. Seward maintains that our recognition was wrong. He sometimes, indeed admits, or seems to admit, that it may have been right at last to recognise the South, but that we did it too 8000. But we did not do it till after the President proclaimed the blockade, and when, therefore, it was necessary at once to tell our people abroad what to do. The Southern rebellion became at once of great magnitude, and it had to be dealt with accordingly, both by Mr. Linc In and by the English Government. Something is said about Mr. Adams being expected in London when we made the recognition, and that we ought to have waited for Mr. Adams; but what could Mr. Adams have told us which was material, or which could have altered our policy? When a house is on fire, you do not wait to see the owner's attorney before you put out the flames: so in all cases of imminent danger. It cannot be put in a despatch, but common Americans reason thus. They say, "Mr. Seward was right not to refer the Alabama case to arbitration now; we do not want it settled now; England is at peace, and the Southern States are not yet settled; we prefer to wait till England is at war or in danger, and till all America is tranquil." We fear Mr. Seward means this, though he cannot in decorum say it; that he does not wish to create a sure peace between the countries, but to keep ready a good ground of menace for his own. The style of Mr. Seward's despatches has been praised, but we think very undeservedly. Our great novelist describes a certain footman" as one who by those who had not seen many noblemen, might be thought to give a good idea of nobility." Just so, Mr. Seward's writing is what those who have not read many good books would think good writing. It is tawdry, indistinct, and diffuse, and has a very disagreeable air of vanity all through it. Lord Stanley, on the other hand, writes like a highly educated man of business, who " calls a spade a spade," and does not spoil a good expression by using unnecessary words. "If love be sweet, then bitter death must be; If love be bitter, sweet is death to me." WHY should I not look happy, The world is all so bright? You know, he said he loved me; He told me so last night: He loves me so ! Such words of love he whispered, But half (he said) he told not, He said, to watch and guard me If love will make life happy, And fill it all with light: Then should I not be happy, The world is all so bright? You know, he said he loved me; He told me so last night: He loves me so ! Why should I not look mournful, I've listened for his footstep All through the weary day; But, oh! 'twould not be weary If one word he would say: I love him so ! Sometimes I thought he loved me, 'Twas in the crowd of dancers: I longed so for his coming; Laid on her narrow bed, Clad in a garment white, A cross above her head, She's taking rest to-night. Flowers are scattered round, Her hands crossed o'er her breast; No more shall earthly sound Disturb that quiet rest. Sweet music steals aloft, The chant of holy hymn, Those notes, so low and soft, Steal through that chamber dim. They sing, "The dead are blest! Their work of day by day Has ceased, and now they rest: 'Tis thus in death we pray. THE BIRD AND THE BABY. LET the Baby squall, Ma'am, Children's shrieks and cries. But the other day, Ma'am, As I sometimes do. -out of sight-Ma'am, Scream with all their might, Ma'am, Fancied I heard two. "One against the other, Crying for their mother, Sister strives with brother; Twins," I thought, "are those." But, when I descended, And the row had ended, Of the two I heard, Ma'am, One turned out a bird, Ma'am, 'Tis a fact absurd, Ma'am ; But the truth I tell. Parrot, green and yellow, Like an infant fellow, Trying to outbellow Other baby's yell. Brown should have been there, Ma'am, Babies he can't bear, Ma'am, Parrot's neck he'd swear, Ma'am, Ought to have been wrung. He, now, he's a bear, Ma'am, - Punch. POETRY. Tired, 194. The Sea-side Life, 194. The Crooked Path, 194. Monody on Stray, 204. Evenings at home, 256. NEW BOOKS. AN ESSAY ON MAN. By Alexander Pope. With illustrations and notes, by S. R. Wells. From a Phrenological stand-point. S. R. Wells: New York. OLD SIR DOUGLAS. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. Is just published at this office in separate form. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay Cmmission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second The Complete work "" 20 50 "6 80 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense · of the publishers. From the Contemporary Review. THE ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY TOWARDS SCIENCE. recting profound attention to the power of God as proved by the magnificence of His creation, seeing that the Saviour of the world points, as the special proof of God's love, to His care for the mountain lily, and the falling sparrow, and the raven's callow brood, - is not our education, and especially that of our clergy, distinctly irreligious in neglecting these things, and in elevating the poor words of man, as an instrument of training, unmeasurably above the mighty works of God? And with what results? It would be hardly possible to exaggerate their disastrous importance. Not only do the clergy, who should be the leaders of thought, lose the advantage of assisting in a thousand ways their poorer parishioners, but they find themselves actually inferior in these great fields of knowl Ir cannot be denied, that, with many individual exceptions, a good deal of mutual suspicion exists at present between clergymen and men of science. While Science is threatening to warn the clergy off its premises altogether, with a vigorous denunciation of theological prepossessions, the clergy are too often disposed to look with both fear and anger on the position assumed by their scientific assailants. In fact, they are angry because they are fearful. They cannot exactly estimate the dan-edge to many clerks and artisans in their own ger; and they are not sure whether the congregations, before whom they cannot venture monster which threatens them is a bugbear to speak of them without the danger of raising' or a giant, or whether he may not turn out a contemptuous smile." after all to be a good angel in disguise. But the men of science seem at present to be the more aggressive party of the two. The clergy show signs of being cowed by the asseverations, which are echoed back from every quarter, that the cause of revealed religion is obsolete and hopeless; while the irritation which they sometimes betray springs mainly from the feeling that their order has been made the object of a contemptuous prejudice, which they cannot be convinced that it deserves. Let me pause to observe that I quote the above sentences only as an introduction to what follows. No one can dispute the great advantage of every kind of useful knowledge to the clergy; nor need we discuss the transparent fallacy of depreciating the words of man in contrast with the works of God; as though the excellence of the creature were not the glory of the Creator, to whose gift alone man owes the faculty of expressing noble thoughts in graceful language. It may be worth while to examine what justice there is in the accusations which are currently brought against the clergy on the "This, however," he proceeds, "is the least part of science. Is it true that, as a body, part of the evil. Science has interpenetrated to they are narrow-minded and obstructive be- a wonderful degree the thoughts, the speculayond the average of educated men ? Have tions, nay, even the common literature of the they always led the chorus of unreasoning pathy with it; in many instances are suspicious age, and yet the clergy are wholly out of symremonstrance against every fresh influx of of it; in many more are its bitter and ignorant scientific light? Are they incapable, even opponents. Scarcely has there been an eminent at their best, of defining their position with philosopher, from Roger Bacon down to Comte, anything like the same precision with which scarcely an eminent discoverer, from Galileo men of science can define their own? Have down to Darwin, who has not counted the they reached their highest tide-mark of clergy among his most ruthless opponents. I charity and intelligence, as soon as they challenge denial of the fact. Against astronomy, have repudiated the earlier spirit of perse-logy, against ethnology, against philology against zoology, against chemistry, against geocution, and assented to a few obvious pro- against well-nigh every nascent science in its positions on the truth of science as the gift turn has theological arrogance and self-styled of God, and the certainty that no real con- orthodoxy marshalled their menacing array of tradiction can be established between the misinterpreted or inapplicable fragments of Holy revelations of His Word and the discoveries Writ. Just as of old fops refuted Berkeley of His Works. with a sneer,' "" so now some young ordained B.A. finds it easy to crush Darwin with a text. Is it, I ask, uncommon to hear some ignorant clergyman, who has laboriously scraped into a poll degree, lay down the law as though he held the keys of all knowledge in his hand, and could afford to pity and look down upon those splendid students whose lives have been one long-continued heroism of candour and research? You may say that an opposition of this calibre usually ends in some As there is nothing like a candid friend for telling you the worst of yourself, I will call in a clergyman to furnish the indictment against the clergy : "It is worth while to take the single instance of the use of science to our Clergy. Seeing that the Bible, in page after page (to say nothing of whole books of it), is constantly occupied in di |