tempt to answer historical inquiry or critical investigation with a moral sniff, nor would he "hop with airy and fastidious levity over proofs and arguments and perch upon assertion to call it conclusion." He has told us himself: "I express myself with caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason; which is indeed the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself; or to be misunderstood to assert that a supposed revelation cannot be proved false, from internal characters.'

But it was to men uncritical, unhistorical, with no desire to discuss the questions raised by him fairly, or indeed at all, men who chose to regard inquiries as to the truth or falsehood of certain forms and practices of religion, and certain books about it, as an irreverent and almost blasphemous attack upon that which is the centre of religion itself, that Mr. Arnold addressed his theological writings. He proposed to examine closely the nature and claims of the popular Christianity which, as he thought, had obscured and supplanted the pure and simple religion of our Lord; and to test by reason and experience some of the popular beliefs, the popular creeds and doctrines, which claim popular assent on the ground of divine authority. He saw plainly that it was difficult, if not impossible, to apply the Butlerian method to the forms of modern doubt; that science makes it more difficult every day to hold to forms of belief essentially unscientific. He saw in the adamantine, undeviating, relentless horrible cruelty of nature, not only towards vast masses of men and women, but to the blameless creatures of earth and sea and sky, an entire inconsistency with what we are told in the Bible of the Bible's God. He had read probably with the awe and dismay which it cannot but inspire, that tremendous passage in Cardinal New. man's "Apologia," in which he paints the condition of the whole world to the observer of it, as one which must fill him with unspeakable distress. The passage is so grand that at the risk of undue length it must be quoted.

The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full of "lamentations, and mourning, and woe."

To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the

impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and inflicts hope and without God in the world"—all upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is absolutely beyond human solution.

What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? I can only answer, that either there is no Creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense discarded from His presence.

This is but a portion of the whole; and yet perhaps it does not go beyond the solemn words of St. Paul, hardly rendered in their full force even in the noble words of our old translation, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." The great apostle and the great living writer both for themselves solved the awful mystery in the same way and almost in the same words; but it is not to every one that "faith's transcendent dower" has been vouchsafed in such abundant measure; and any fair man will probably not deny that the mode in which it is customary to present religion now from the pulpit and the platform does not solve the mystery, does not recognize the facts, does not give rest or satisfaction to reverent and intelligent men not seeking doubts, but whom doubts have reached, to whom inquiry seems a duty and proof a need, and who have accepted, not only as self-evident truth, but as a principle of conduct, the great saying that things are what they are and not other things; why, therefore, should we desire to be deceived? Surely the travesty of Christianity which surrounds us, the severance of doctrine from practice, of creed from conduct, the substitution even in precept of outward ceremony for softening of the temper and bly never before so complete between purifying of the heart, the divorce probagood works and definite belief, the reproduction with curious fidelity of the state of things in which it was "an agreed point amongst all people of discernment that Christianity is at length discovered

to be fictitious;" the blindness of the clergy and of religious men to the fact that the edifice which is so fair and seems so strong is undermined in all directions; the awful consequences which would follow from an open revolt against religion which the bigotry of Churchmen is but too likely to bring about, thoughts of these things might well lead a man of lofty character and keen mind to try to point out to his contemporaries what was the Christian verity which in his judgment fable and superstition had joined together to conceal, and piercing through, or tearing off, the human incrustations of so many centuries, to display once more the divine kernel of unspeakably precious truth which lies hid beneath them.

This was certainly Mr. Arnold's desire and aim. It would be too much to say that he entirely succeeded. When one thinks of the gigantic strength of the forces, which with easy gallantry he assailed, the wonder rather is that he did so much. His method of warfare was his own, and it was in vain to suggest to him to try another. Probably he was right; his literary instinct told him where his strength lay; and he could not have put his whole power into any weapons but his own. He was a man himself of spotless life, of religious feeling, a constant student of our Bible; knowing as few men do know the Greek Testament, the Vulgate, the "Imitatio," Bishop Wilson, and many other such books; one at whose hands goodness and good men always had the highest and most appreciating honor. But he rejoiced in banter and pleasantry, and he thought, no doubt, that he could best expose what he regarded as the fables and absurdities of the popular religion by laughing at them. He did laugh at them; and hence arose against him a cry of irreverence, for which it is impossible to say that he gave no cause, but which in its intensity (ferocity would be hardly too too strong a word) arose really from misunderstanding in some men, and from causes less creditable in others.

Ridiculum acri

centre of Christianity, to the person and teaching of our Lord there was never in his language, there was never in his mind the faintest trace of irreverence. The time will come, if it has not come already, when it will be seen that his influence has been on the whole for good, and that there is in the minds of many men a profounder appreciation of the Hebrew Scriptures, a deeper and more reverent belief in our Lord than if he had never written.

It is easy for men behind the shield of anonymity to launch poisoned darts at Mr. Arnold, to accuse him of "levity," and "profanity," and to sneer at his "impertinences." The license is the price we pay for the liberty of the press. If their lives (and as they are anonymous and unknown this may be said without personality), if their lives are within a hundred degrees of the purity, the loftiness, the unvarying and wonderful nobility of Mr. Arnold's, at least their writings show a total unacquaintance with the principles of the religion of which they assume themselves to be the unsolicited defenders. If, again, there be men of thought and learning who can accept without hesitation the whole of Christianity as popularly taught (and many clever men maintain that the whole thing, from Genesis to the Revelation, stands or falls together), men to whom the fall, the flood, the life and still more the deathbed of "the man after God's own heart" ("God the same yesterday, to-day, and forever"), Elijah and Elisha, the curse and the blessing pronounced by the same authority on the same man for the same act,to whom these and a hundred more things like them create no difficulty, let them thank God with all their hearts that he has heard their prayers and blessed their lives. But let them not dare to judge or to condemn other men, as much in earnest as themselves; who seek after truth as simply and as purely; whom "honest doubt" assails not always quite without success; who do sincerely try to prove all things that they may hold fast that which is good; who desire to give a reason for hard to give after the lapse of twenty centheir faith, but who find that reason very

the whole conception of heaven and earth by science, which is as much a revelation from God as any other; men who pray for faith which is not granted them in full measure, for light which does not come unclouded, for certainty they cannot attain to. We must all, men of faith, and men of doubt, stand or fall at last by the ear

nestness and sincerity with which we have striven to see God's will and to do our duty.

Few souls ever passed away with more hope of acceptance, few lives more unstained have been led from childhood to old age, few men have ever gone into "that silent void where if there are no smiles there are no tears, and where if hearts do not beat they cannot be broken,' leaving behind them such passionate regrets, such daily, hourly desire for communion which the grave forbids, for friendship which death has ended. Struck down in the very fulness of his powers, his brain teeming with beautiful thoughts and noble conceptions, actually engaged to furnish works which would have enriched the language, widened our sympathies, and enlarged our knowledge, without a trace of age upon him, lighthearted as a boy, serious, faithful, and affectionate as a man of years, he passed from us in a moment, never to be forgotten by his friends, to be remembered for many a long year by all that is best and greatest amongst his countrymen. It is useless, it is impossible, to try to cast the balance. No verdict on such a man can be impartial pronounced by a friend, no friend would wish it to be. "If there be any place for the spirits of the just, if, as the wise declare, great souls are not extinguished with the body, then rest in peace; and lift up your friends and kinsfolk from weak regret and unmanly lamentation, to gaze upon your virtues, for which shedding of tears and beating of the breast are no fit mourning. Rather let us honor you by reverence, by present eulogy, nay, if our poor nature will supply the power, by making ourselves your copies. This is the real honor, this the religious duty of those who are bound to him by the closest ties. Let us always bear in mind all deeds, all words of his, let us always dwell upon and make our own the history and the picture not of his person but of his mind. Not because I would object to busts or statues of marble or of bronze, but inasmuch as men's faces and their portraits are but weak and fleeting things, while the image of the soul abides forever, we can ourselves retain and reproduce the image of the life he led without the aid of any artist, his colors, or his carving. For all in him that we follow with wonder and with love · remains and will remain forever in the minds of men, through the endless flow of ages, as a portion of the past.'

Some such words as these (frail echoes indeed of his large utterance), one of the

From Longman's Magazine. ONLY A JOKE.

HE made the last correction in the margin of the long galley of proof, folded it, thrust it into a stamped and directed envelope, then stood up, stretched his arms and expanded his chest, in the manner of a man coming out of a heated room into the fresh, clear air. Suddenly his eye lighted on a little packet of manuscripts lying on the table; he pounced upon it almost fiercely, fluttered the leaves, then tore it savagely across and threw it on to the fire. The fire was dull, and scorched and blackened the sheets without burning them, so he caught up a bent and battered poker and, pressing them down into the red glow, held them there until they burst into a flame, lighting up the dark corners of the room which had been only half rendered visible by the light of the green-shaded lamp.

The

It was one of those rooms which the advertisement columns of the daily papers call "bed and sitting room, suitable for a single gentleman of quiet habits." "single gentleman" must be a person of simple and singular tastes if he really finds this kind of room "suitable "" to anything but his pocket. The chairs are funereal horsehair, the seat of the "easy one being invariably an inclined and slippery plane. The ornainents are always an inkless papier-maché inkstand in the middle of the red-and-black table-cover, and two Parian figures on the mantelpiece covered with gilt eruptions and preserved under glass shades.

Sebastian Lundy had made the best of his room. The Parian ornaments and inkstand had disappeared into a cupboard; the black-and-red table-cloth had given place to a green baize one, on which

a practicable inkpot and a heap of papers were now set forth; the mantelpiece was used as a book-shelf, and so was the top of the chest of drawers. They were a mixed lot, those books: mostly divinity of the evangelical kind, with here and there a volume of poetry. Only a few of them were new, and these stood all together at one end of the mantelpiece. They were "Literature and Dogma," "God and the Bible," Greg's "Creed of Christendom," a translation of the "Critique of Pure Reason," and "Middlemarch."

When the manuscript had faded away into a grey ash, Sebastian stirred the fire into a blaze, and threw himself into an old and broken American armchair which stood in front of the fire. He clasped his hands behind the back of his head and wrinkled his forehead in a puzzled meditation. He was one of those men of whom people say that they "look old," implying thereby that their looks do not speak truly. He had thick, straightish eyebrows, and large, grey, weary-looking eyes, a thin, rather ragged, black moustache and small, black whiskers, with a clean-shaven chin which never looked clean-shaven. He was long and bony, with the sort of bodily angles which soon make new clothes look old. The fire burned through, and fell in with a hollow little crash. He rose and took down "Middlemarch," sat down by the lamp, and with elbows on the table began to read. He had not turned one page before a confident tap at the door made him look up. There was a shade of annoyance on his face, but it faded before he opened the door and yielded his hand to the lighthearted hand-shake of the tapper.

"Studious as usual! I'm afraid I'm interrupting you, Lundy."

"Not at all, not at all. Come in, Fisher. I'm glad to see somebody."

"Why, what's the matter? Down in the dumps, eh? Indigestion or love, which is it? Eh?"

He had seated himself in the slippery armchair, and thrown one fat leg over the other. He was a stout, well-looking person, with a high color and a pleasant face. "Don't chaff, there's a good fellow," said Lundy; "I don't feel very gay tonight."

Fisher had come into the room with a genial and jolly air, but, as the other spoke, his whole expression changed. It became at once serious and sympathetic. "I'm awfully sorry, old chap. What is

it?"

"To the Editor of the Church and People."

"Why! what nonsense! You don't mean that! What are you going to do then?"

Lundy walked restlessly up and down the room.

"That's just the question," he said. Fisher stood up and leaned against the mantelpiece, and looked at the other with a gravely kind expression.

"The fact is," Lundy went on, "I feel such a wicked hypocrite. How can I go on writing what I have ceased really to believe?

"Oh, my dear fellow, but I thought

you

"Yes, but I don't see these things quite as I did."

29 Well, but even then

'Yes, I know what you're going to say that journalists should have no con science, and that may be true in politics, but it isn't in religion."

'Well, but, dear me, how long has this been going on?"

"A great deal longer than it would have gone on with an honest man. It's no use, Fisher; I can't bear it any longer."

The other shrugged his shoulders, and drew his hand along the backs of Matthew Arnold, Greg, and Kant.

"That's what comes of reading these, I suppose. I told you so; you should have taken my advice. As soon as a man begins muddling himself about "subject " and "object" it's all over with him. I never think myself."

"It's no use. It's too late. You see I've done it. I can't go back and be the same as if I'd read nothing but the Methodist Times."

It was Fisher's turn to pace the room. "It's a pity, Lundy, it's a pity. Nothing pays so well as religion nowadays. And you have quite a special gift that way, they say.'"

"Good heavens, Fisher! looked straight in the other's eyes. wouldn't wish me

66

No, no, no, of course not." Fisher became explanatory. "I only meant that it was lucky for the people who can believe what they were brought up to believe.

You don't suppose I should wish you to do anything you thought wrong," he ended, unconsciously quoting Joseph Surface.

There was silence for a minute or two. Lundy mechanically filled his pipe, and the other as automatically struck a match and offered it to him.

"Well, but what are you going to do?" he repeated, when the same match had served for his own cigar.

"I tell you I don't know. Sweep a crossing, I should think."

Why don't you try fiction?" asked Fisher, as who should say, "Why don't you try cod liver oil?"

Well, do you know”. -a ghost of a blush appeared between Lundy's thin whiskers "I've thought of that; I've got a trick of noticing, and I believe I could do it."

"Well," he said presently, "I did have an idea of a story the other day, but I don't know that I've thought it out properly. It would want a lot of filling in." Lundy looked up expectant. Fisher knit his brows, hummed, ha'd, and after a preparatory cough or two began his narrative. It was a tale of love and jealousy, not of a very striking or original kind, but somewhat ingeniously worked out; for the average novel-reader it would have been as commonplace as cabbage, and the finale as easily discernible from the beginning as St. Paul's Cathedral from the bottom of Ludgate Hill. But before it was half told Lundy was as interested as a child of eight in a fairy tale, or a mem ber of the Society for Psychical Research in a legend of a haunted house. When the end was reached-it ended at an altar and with wedding bells-he threw himself back in his chair, his cheeks flushed, his eyes shining.

Bravo," he said, "that's splendid! You ought to throw up the Racehorse and write nothing but fiction; but I don't like the end, it ought to end differently."

Fisher's face quite fell at the criticism. "Differently, why?" he asked; "how else would you have it?"

"Well, you know," Lundy spoke slowly, "in real life things don't end happily generally."

Oh, but they do in novels - real life be hanged!" exclaimed the other. remark which proved that he had at least one of the qualifications of a successful novelist.

"Are you quite sure you'll never use that plot?"

"Not I!" with unmistakable sincerity. "Well, then, do you mind if I do?" "Of course I don't mind, my dear fellow; but, really, it's hardly in an em. barrassment of apparent modesty — "it's not quite I'm sure you'll think of something better. Besides, you're in the blues to-night; you'll think better of your religious work to-morrow. Shall I post this for you?"

He took up the envelope.

'Yes, I suppose it must go in now, but it's the last. Going? Well, good-bye. Thank you so much for your plot."

"Oh! I'm glad if it amused you. Good. night, old man. I'll look you up directly. I come back."