this, and then I can play, or spend the rest of the time any way I like. But," she added, with natural kindliness and courtesy, fearing a possible implication having been conveyed by her last words, "I like this job, too. Hemming handkerchiefs is very easy, and I am sure I am exceedingly obliged to you for such a good thought. I shall always feel as if I owed my beautiful new workbox to you, for helping me to get it, as you have done;" and, ensconcing herself as near her brother as she could, without interfering with his arrangements, Mabel settled to her work, keeping up a brisk conversation the whole time, for whatever she and Archie might be doing, there never was any lack of subjects for both to talk about. The first side of the first handkerchief was finished with great success, though it must be confessed that even at this outset of the enterprise the calculation as to the time consumed in the operation seemed to be at fault some way or other; at all events, ten o'clock struck after Mabel began her work, and eleven had come and past at least ten minutes before she was ready to stroke down the hem and submit it to Archie's interested, if not over critical eyes as an accomplished fact. True, she had frequently glanced at his occupation, and had twice put aside her own on the table, in order to bend down closely over his butterfly, and bring all her powers of imagination and recollection to bear on some knotty points connected with the colouring of certain spots on the upper wings of the insect-spots on which it appeared a deal of the effectiveness of the whole was dependent. What deductions should be made for these interruptions seemed uncertain. Mabel thought ten minutes, because it took some time to readjust her work, put on her thimble, and sit back properly in her chair before starting again; Archie, with a boy's rather slighting estimate of such things, set it down at four or five minutes; but after all it was only to change half an hour into a hour, and, if she worked with any sort of steadiness, she need not fear any further additions to the time.

An hour morning and evening for six days, less than ordinary school time! At the very utmost it was an easy price indeed to pay for such a prize as lay before her, and with a light heart she hastened to fold up her work. Only that Archie had finished, and was going out, Mabel was so fresh that she would willingly have done a finger's length or two more to help on the afternoon task; but the sunshine was very inviting, and the sense of having made a good beginning most exhilarating, and, without any demur, she ran to put away the handkerchief and fetch her hat and gardening gloves. (To be continued.)

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Editor of the CHRISTIAN WORLD MAGAZINE begs respectfully to intimate to voluntary contributors that she will not hold herself responsible for MSS. sent on approval. Unaccepted MSS. of any great length will be returned, provided the name and address of the owner is written on the first or last page, and provided also that the necessary stamps are enclosed for transmission through the post. Authors are recommended to keep copies of verses, short essays, and minor articles generally, since they cannot, under any circumstances, be returned. Miscellaneous contributions are not requested.

THE

CHRISTIAN WORLD MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1873.

LOUIS NAPOLEON:

LIFE LESSONS FOR PLAIN PEOPLE ON COMMON PATHS.

BY HENRY T. ROBJOHNS, B.A.

"THE Empire was dead, the Emperor is dead." It is no uncommon thing for princes to die. But the death of Napoleon III. is one of the potent factors of history. It will doubtless have great issues. in the future of France. The event has therefore filled the eye and thought of the world. It seems, therefore, undesirable to allow it to pass without noting some things, which are almost sure to be suggested either vaguely or more clearly to Christian minds.

On looking back on the career so painfully closed, many are the lessons which shine like beacons set upon darkened road. Many of the most striking are of a political character; they are for princes, statesmen, and peoples. No doubt these will be elsewhere insisted on with adequate resources of political knowledge and with commensurate intellectual force. We propose here to set down lessons of a far different order; those which concern ourselves as ordinary people, having a course to run and a destiny to attain. There are lessons for the great common heart, and for common life, which may just now be well read in the light of a signal example.

In the drawing these lessons-desirable as that may be there is at least one grave difficulty. There is a general and commendable feeling in favour of veiling the faults and sins of those who have passed away in death. With that feeling we are in sympathy;

but we cannot yield entirely to it in the case of those whose life has been lived in the blaze of full publicity. There are two things we cannot do-must not do. We may not pervert or discolour history. The second thing is even more important; we must never seem even to forego that standard of life and duty, furnished to us in the revelation of the will of God, by which all things are to be judged. We may speak so "charitably" of the dead, as to give the impression that the law and the will of God are of no account. Christian men should not fall into this error. 'He that is spiritual judgeth all things." The highest interests of men demand that no word of sympathy for sorrow in high places should compromise principles which we are bound by every tie of duty to maintain. At the same time, should we feel constrained to pass adverse judgments on principles and deeds, we need not intrude upon the prerogative of the Supreme Judge in daring to judge Just as in the case of living men we may condemn systems and actions without venturing to decide a man's position in the esteemn of an Omniscient God, so may we freely speak of that which has been wrong in the past life of the dead, without presuming to say a word which should seem to settle the destiny of a soul. We judge not, that we may not be judged.

men.

I shall only add to these introductory words that I shall assume acquaintance with the outline of this extraordinary career. It is not needful that one should tell the story so admirably told by many of the daily and weekly prints.

The very first thing calling for observation is, that the life had a most unhappy start; and this in several particulars. Louis Napoleon's mother was the daughter of Josephine, wife of the First Napoleon, by a former marriage. Her name was Hortense. She lived at the Tuileries with her mother and her mother's husband, who was dotingly proud and fond of his adopted daughter. At length the time came when the beauty of Hortense, her captivating manners, and her varied powers of mind burst in full splendour on the Parisian world. One of the old nobility, a gallant gentleman, who had become a friend of Napoleon, courted her, and was by her accepted. This was M. de Paulo. M. de Paulo asked the step-father, the great Napoleon, for the hand of the adopted daughter. The answer was exile. It was the interest of Napoleon to give her to his own brother; so that two brothers became the husbands of mother and daughter, Josephine and Hortense. To marry for love without providence or wisdom leads often to great misery. But to marry without love is the ruin of all that is most precious in human life. In about five years and eight months this unhappy pair finally separated, having lived together only four

care.

months in all, and that at three wide intervals. They had parted before Louis Napoleon was born; so that he never knew a father's When the boy was about six years old, and the uncle was out of the way at Elba, the father instituted an action in the law courts of Paris to recover the guardianship of his sons; but the return of Napoleon put an end to that endeavour. Instead, then, of being educated in the quietude of a real home, canopied by the wise and affectionate solicitude of his father, he was from the first exposed to all the adverse influences which attend on the meretricious splendours of imperial life in Paris. Such was the start; it was most unhappy, and the cause of it was the throwing over a possible marriage of sincere affection with a worthy man for a marriage with one with whom Hortense had no compatibility of feeling or habit. This state of things brought the boy under the spell of the influence of the great Napoleon; and this led to the adoption for life of a false model. Admiration of a character leads to habitual contemplation, and contemplation leads to conformity. I cannot imagine anything more influential than a child's earliest impression of that in which noble manhood or womanhood consists. A child is sure at first to take for granted that those about him are all they ought to be. There is no man like his father, no woman like his mother. Children will be almost sure to shape themselves on their earliest models. It is, therefore, of unspeakable moment that there should stand around the very cradle the reflected images of Christ Jesus. Few, if any such, stood around this child in the palace of the Tuileries. Far other were there. And over all shone with lurid light the image of one against whom the verdict of history. has long since gone. Napoleon, the uncle, fascinated the regard of the young Louis. As some children wish to be like father, so this child would be like uncle. The boy was passionately devoted to him. When, in 1814, Napoleon came back from Elba, Louis was six years old; he accompanied the Emperor to the Champ de Mars, and was there presented to the members of the Chamber of Deputies, to the people, and to the army. The scene left a deep impression on his mind. This was on the eve of the departure for Waterloo. After the defeat and disgrace of that memorable field, "it was with Hortense and her two sons that Napoleon spent the last days before he left for St. Helena; and it has always been declared that, young as Louis Napoleon was at the time, he retained throughout his whole life a vivid recollection of the parting scene. with his great uncle, when the Emperor blessed him, and commended him to his mother's care as the future hope of his race." No one could pretend that, so early as that, there was any adequate estimate of Napoleon's character and career.

But from that

epoch this particular star fixed the boy's regard. He came afterwards to know all about the brilliant, and, as it seems to us, criminal, disastrous career of his uncle; and, having no adequate standard of moral judgment, adopted it as a model for himself, so far as that was practicable. "The whole story of the Second Empire reminds us of a mock moon, or a secondary rainbow. As each of these is but the pale reflection of a glory which cannnot forcibly renew itself in perfection, so the Second Empire was engendered by the first, of which it was, after all, but a lame and impotent imitation." It is notorious how the nephew sought conformity to the First Napoleon. It would be possible to draw out many instructive parallels, not only in general policy, like that of playing off parties against each other for selfish ends; like that of ministering to the French passion for glory by foreign wars; but also in particular events. The descent on Boulogne was an attempted imitation of the return from Elba. Even the coup d'état had for original the overthrow of the constitution by General Buonaparte on the 18th Brumaire, 1799, by means scarcely less violent. And, to complete the parallel which might be pursued in great detail, both died in enforced exile. But, what we are particularly pointing out is, how the object of the child's admiration and love became the cherished example of all the later life. The obvious duty for us is that which has been already suggested-to see to it that the first objects of moral regard are worthy and noble. Children will, if we are careless, long before we are aware, adopt, perhaps for life, an ideal, true or false, of what human character and life should be. In this point of view, how infinitely important that upon the youngest mind should break the vision of the only perfect ideal-something of the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ! Let them know something of the true and good among mortal men; but, above all, much of the Truest and the Best.

There was another mistake in this moral imitation. Not only was the object of imitation unworthy, but the imitation itself was slavish. True moral imitation does not consist in a parrot-like echo of either word or deed. Every age brings its own characteristics, its own needs, and demands ever fresh adaptations. It was great folly to attempt, after more than thirty years had rolled away, the revival, in new circumstances, of words and deeds whose day was done. This principle has its applications to the adoption of noble models, and even of the noblest of all. H. W. Beecher says I believe what John Calvin would have believed if he had lived in my time, and seen things as I see them." We are not slavishly to copy the Puritans of the seventeenth or the Reformers of the sixteenth century, but to try and be in our time what these