Teach me to live that I may dread

because Elisha would accept no valu- | stand for the structure. Another inable gift? And what has such an teresting mistake gave a little girl some arrangement to do with Gelazi's deter- years ago serious difficulty. 'mination to serve the Lord henceforth? Why, indeed, should Naaman officiously The grave as little as my bed; trouble about Gehazi's religion at all? That should be Elisha's concern, not were the lines that seemed to her to his." It was like the solution of a contain such bad teaching. "Dread tiresome puzzle when one day it dawned the grave!" she thought, "why should upon the writer-years after it should I pray to dread the grave? I do not have dawned upon him, no doubt believe I ought to dread it. As to its that if for "thy servant you read being as little as my bed, of course it 46 I" or 66 me," the whole passage be- will not be larger than my bed, there is comes plain, except, indeed, the use of no reason why it should." Until quite the mules' burden of earth to Naaman lately it never occurred to the middlehimself. This was, no doubt, to build aged woman that the child's interpretaan altar with. Naaman faucied that tion of the lines was all wrong. the Lord, who preferred the waters of It is needless to add further examples Jordan to those of Abana and Pharpar, of the mental indolence which accepts would likewise prefer an altar made of the childish interpretation of a phrase the soil of Israel to any other reared in or word which would have caused no the region of Damascus. A more curi- shadow of difficulty if noted for the first ous, if less excusable, misinterpretation time by the mature intellect. The only from the New Testament is worth re- question of importance to be drawn cording. In St. Mark ii. 3, we are told from the subject is, how far does the that "they come unto him bringing same mental indolence play a part in one sick of the palsy, which was borne the acceptance or rejection of religious of four." Not noticing the spelling of doctrine and truth? We believe that the word "borne," many members of the crude ideas of childish imagination a congregation, we believe, regularly that continue to be ranked as orthodox think of this remark as containing a among grown-up persons are at least as curious fact about the poor man's his- numerous as the crude or utterly false tory, he was born into the world one interpretations that we have mentioned of four. 'No wonder," they fancy, above. The results of such indolence "that he was a cripple! born of four! would obviously be twofold. On the But what an interesting graphic touch! one hand, narrow and unscriptural so like St. Mark! Probably he knew views would gain a hold over the mind the family, and the poor mother! I and influence the character for life bewonder whether she survived?" One fore they could be eradicated (if ever friend assures us that he never discov- they could be eradicated at all); on the ered his mistake in this particular pas- other hand, men would break away insage until he was confronted with it in diguantly from a creed or a religion the Greek during a university examina- based upon doctrines which no sane tion. Among misinterpretations of man ever accepted, under the imprespopular hymns, the first case that will sion that these doctrines, which owe occur to many is that of "The Church's their existence to nothing but the read'One Foundation,” which to most er's own infantine fancy, are the funthoughtless or youthful singers always damental tenets of the creed which they stands as "The Church is One Founda- are expected to accept. We fancy that tion." This might suggest many a those who look around them will see Greek or Latin parallel to the classic both these results at work amongst us mind, but to us the foundation cannot to-day.

66

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MAN AND NATURE.

I.

Time his glass sits nodding by ;
'Twixt its turn and turn a spawn

THE mountains, and the forests, and the Of universes buzz and die,

seas,

Oldest of mourners with pathetic tone,
Have each a natural music, all their own,
Set in accord with human destinies,
Sad, tender, manifold.

sweet

What is more

Than woodland melodies at noon? More

mild

Than dimpled ocean, like a laughing

child

That lisps, and rolls a jewel to our feet, Breathlessly calm? And then, within an hour,

Behold that self-same ocean on the shore Lashes; the forest quakes; with deafening power

The rocks are rent. Then, oh! amid that roar

Like the ephemeris of the dawn.
Turn again the wasted glass!

Kingly crown and warrior's crest
Are not worth the blade of grass

God fashions for the swallow's nest.
Kings must lay gold circlets down

In God's sepulchral ante-rooms,
The wear of Heaven's the thorny brown;
He paves his temples with their tombs ;
O, our towered altitudes !

O, the lustres of our thrones !
What! old Time shall have his moods
Like Cæsars and Napoleons;

Have his towers and conquerors forth,
Till he, weary of the toys,

Awe-struck we sink, we fall upon our Put back Rameses in the earth

knees,

Ye mountains, and ye forests, and ye seas!

II.

And break his Ninevehs and Troys.

Mystery of mysteries!

Some few feet beneath the soil

The mountains, and the forests, and the The ancestral silences;

seas

Have each their music, with our mortal

lot

In sympathy, to soothe, exalt, appease :

And man, too, has his music; has a note Of worldwide sweetness; tender reveries, Dirges of buried blisses unforgot, Rejoicing pæans, glorious symphonies;

But all of them lack something; they have not

The voice once heard in Eden; and the ear,

SWEET after labor, soft and whispering night

Blows on dark fields and fragrant country here:

Here there is sleep, to weary limbs delight; Pleased with rich sound, is as when some The world is far away, the stars are near.

From The Nineteenth Century. THE QUEEN AND LORD PALMERSTON.

appeared incredible of the minister who had succeeded in adding a cubit "EXCELLENT speech of Palmers- not only to his own moral stature, but ton's! What a knack he has of falling to that of the most insignificant of on his feet! I never will believe after | his countrymen. When, after at least this that there is any scrape out of ten years of smouldering, the irritation which his cleverness and good fortune will not extricate him. And I rejoice in his luck most sincerely; for though he now and then trips, he is an excellent minister, and I cannot bear the thought of his being a sacrifice to the spite of other powers." This note, written about 1849, appears in the journal of Lord Macaulay, who may be said to have possessed a genius for commonplace, and whose views about men and things represented the average of English opinion to a degree unachieved by any contemporary writer.

of conscientious colleagues, political foes, and baffled doctrinaires culminated in an attack upon Palmerston in the House of Commons in reference to the treatment of an obscure Greek, the minister held the House spell-bound from the dusk of one day to the dawn of the next, and, in a speech of extraordinary force from a man who never aspired to rhetoric or even eloquence, reached the zenith of his power and fame. He had confounded his enemies. "It has made us all proud of him," said Sir Robert Peel, addressing the House of Commons for the last time, and the eulogy found a ready echo in the hearts of Englishmen scattered all over the world. If he wished to create, as he declared, a belief that a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident in the broad fact of his nationality; that Civis Romanus sum was to be the guarantee of every Briton against injustice and wrong, he succeeded beyond his hopes; and so lofty was the spirit he roused, that when for a moment the people believed their favorite minister to have been false to his own tradition, and to have yielded to the threats of French militaryism, they tore his Conspiracy Bill to shreds, and hurled him unceremoniously from power. In spite, however, of this little accident, Lord Palmerston remained for a quarHe was, one of his lifelong opponents ter of a century the most popular of said of him after his death, English to Englishmen in his own country and the the backboue; and he contrived to most hated abroad. To foreigners genmake Englishmen immeasurably of erally, and the French in particular, he more account in their own eyes, and to was-as De Jarnac called him-the some extent so in those of other na- incarnation of La perfide Albion. Yet tions. Palmerston to his contempora- the keystone of his foreign policy was ries appeared physically a man of a good understanding with France, and commanding height. Lord Lorne it is to the credit of his skill as a forhis biographer-quotes a description eign minister that he was able to of him, which he evidently believes to maintain the French alliance without be true, in which he is represented as for a moment forfeiting the dignity or tall and slim. In point of fact he was independence of England as a portion rather short; but a fact of this kind of the price he paid for it. This

Lord Macaulay saw with the eyes of the majority of his countrymen, only rather more intently and clearly; and this passage contains the secret of Palmerston's hold upon them. First and foremost he was lucky, and there is, in the view of the average Briton, Cato notwithstanding, no more glorious attribute. Secondly, he was known to be an "excellent minister," free from subtleties, and endowed with a plain understanding, after the manner of a well-to-do citizen. Finally, he was believed to be viewed with jealousy and dislike by all foreigners and in constant danger from their intrigues, sufficient in itself to insure him the highest place in the regard of men who still, like their hero Nelson, had been taught in childhood to "hate a Frenchman as they did the devil."

counted for something among the people, who never looked farther than causes of his popularity. His sym- to-morrow, and much preferred not to pathy, openly expressed, for popular think beyond this evening, but who at liberties, his dislike and contempt for the same time was determined to estabpetty tyranny or oppression, counted lish the privilege of an Englishman to for more; while most of all, his cheer- the sidewalk all over the world, while ful courage in the midst of the difficul- men of other nations might step into ties of the Indian Mutiny, and the the gutter-this minister represented disasters of the Crimean winter, his aspirations which had long ago sicknever-failing belief that all would be ened under rounded periods intended well, and his clear-headed appreciation to convince humanity that bread and of what was required, inspired the na- calico summed up their total requiretion with a confidence that so long as ments, and were more than sufficient Palmerston was there, clouds, however for rational happiness. This was the black they might appear, would pres-popular conception of Palmerston when ently disperse. in 1855 he became first minister of the crown.

A final cause, which contributed not a little to the minister's success, lay in the exaggerations and mouthing of the "Manchester school" of politicians, who, having scored heavily in the fight for Free Trade, had got to believe themselves infallible, and their doctrines only a degree if at all less worthy of absolute credence than the Gospels. It had become the fashion with politicians of that school to belittle England, and to obtrude upon the world a cheap cosmopolitanism with an air of superior virtue, extremely galling to men who either in their own person or by the energy and often by the blood of their sons or brothers had helped to expand the empire.

To the queen he had, for many years, appeared in a somewhat different and less ideal light. There were points in his character which she could not fail to respect and admire, but there was much in his methods as well as in his views which was galling at the time both to her proper pride as sovereign and to her dignity as a member of the royal fraternity of Europe. Palmerston had shared the universal admiration excited by the young queen on her accession. He has left on record his agreeable impressions of her first Council. He was also warmly in favor of her marriage with Prince Albert, and volunteered to Stockmar his opinIt was only natural that these men ion that of all possible alliances he -and they formed the large majority chiefly approved the marriage with the - should rally round the minister who | prince. These sentiments were, howappreciated their sacrifices and took ever, in Palmerston mere Platonics, pride in their successes. In politics the and restrained him not at all from law of reaction is well-nigh inexorable, thwarting or from disregarding altoand just as the necessary militaryism gether the ideas of both the queen and of the first fifteen years of the century the prince if they happened to run produced the "Manchester school," so counter to his own. that worthy body of doctrinaires were responsible for the ultroneous rule of Palmerston.

To the prince the character of Palmerston was unsympathetic, and to his speculative mind the positivist minister A minister who kept race-horses and was highly uncongenial. Some men, had at his command a good store of it has been said, think by definition, very blunt vernacular, who could not others by "type." Palmerston never be got to admit that he understood an thought otherwise than by "type," and abstract thought, who always knew to the prince he seemed a statesman of what he wanted and was determined a commonplace order, possessing unto carry it out regardless of the opin-doubtedly the powers of a first-rate ions of others, who conceived his own man, but holding the creed of a secondideas to be superior to those of other rate man. His frivolity appeared un