illustrate the creed will never establish it in the hearts of men. They will not consent, for some special greatness, to whitewash all sorts of crimes. One may feel that there was a great soul in Mirabeau, and yet not be blind to, nor hesitate to shriek at, his scandalous profligacy. For my own part I think Cromwell was a hero, and yet that his heroism did not warrant, ought not to conceal, but is permanently stained by, his cruelty and his falsehood. No, if we wait for the heroes, we shall do nothing. If we choose them for ourselves, it will happen, as

of him who said this being of old date, and not less strong now when all the world feels the same, I will take the liberty of expressing my conviction, that no doctrine was ever uttered more likely to do harm, at a time when the confused and anarchical state of opinion renders so many young men doubtful upon all points except this, that "pleasure is pleasant." An intellect so subtle and moral perceptions so refined and just as those of Mr. Thackeray, ought to have saved him from being caught by so poor a fallacy. No man ever did love Fielding or anybody else the more on account of his vices. What we do love is the genial and generous heart, and that diffuses its charm over the sensualities, but can derive no attraction from them or from any other selfish accompaniment. We do love Fielding, and in spite of his vices, better than a starched and sour precisian; but if the time which he wasted, and the genius which he impaired by debauchery, had been applied to higher aims, the love would have been all the deeper. Schiller is not less loveable for the purity of his life, or because literature had for him the sanctity of a religion. Shelley would not have been more attractive for greater likeness to Byron; and Collingwood would not have been adored as he was by every one who came near him, if, besides the heroism of Nelson, he had had the other qualities which make Nelson's private history so painful. There is, perhaps, no one whose case shows the power of pleasant vices to strip off gradually every quality which is really a cause of love so strikingly as Sheridan's. In spite of his genius and his irresistible personal fascinations, the joyous and honoured manhood was followed by the sad and disgraced old age. Men are not left to bailiffs on their death-beds without a cause, and the cause in his case was something not loveable. No accurate analysis will ever make out a selfish habit which inspires love. It is only after-dinner logic which lets pass the notion that a few vices must be thrown into the composition of a character to give it zest and flavour. Far truer upon the subject of licentious self-indulgence is Burns, who is, indeed, as great as he is depicted in one of Carlyle's greatest Essays,

"But och it hardens a' within,

And petrifies the feeling."

I hope, or rather I feel sure, that Mr. Thackeray will forgive me. An error of his must be highly contagious, and the moralist, with all that he can do, has to limp after such a law-breaker with a sadly halting foot.

it did in the old paganism, that the idol will reflect the weaknesses of the worshipper.

Something better than either.

But happily there is no need to wait. The choice is already made. It was made by a higher than human wisdom, when more than eighteen hundred years ago a DIVINE LIFE was exhibited in a human form, and mingled for ever with the general life of humanity. Then was laid the only foundation for all human reforms and all human hopes. That is what I believe. I am not ashamed to wear what have been called those "Hebrew old clothes." I believe that they never will grow old. But the proof? The proof lies in the fact, patent to every eye, that this, and this only, has been the regenerating influence in the history of the world. Except this, the Greeks had everything: philosophy, poetry, history, eloquence, art— and all could not avert decay. If decay is now to be averted, this Christian faith alone can do it. It is this which is doing the saving work, so far as it is done, even now. While philanthropists are planning in their easy chairs-while philosophers are speculating, economists calculating, and statesmen making laws those true ministers of Christ, who show his spirit in their lives, whether they be or be not marked out by formal ordination, are actually, in the abodes of poverty and ignorance and sorrow, carrying on that process of individual personal communication, without which nothing effectual is accomplished for the moral redemption of mankind.

Practical Argument for Christianity.

In the original design of the present work, it was intended that an attempt should be made to exhibit the position in which Christianity now stands in reference to the latest forms of scepticism both in England and in Germany. That design, to be adequately executed, would, indeed, have required a scholarship

But, in truth, this is not a
The proof, which, as Paley

to which in the present case no pretension exists; but such a piece of work, even in the brief and popular form which was contemplated, was found to be too large for combination with what the reader has before him. critical, but a practical question. said, clenches the matter, must always be that practical one which touches not the head but the heart. Put the critics and commentators on the shelf, and study the Christian evidences in the lives of Oberlin, and Neff, and Howard, and Mrs. Fry; or, if picked specimens do not seem fair, go into the Sunday school, where neither fame nor philosophy comes in to confuse the result. In a word, find out and examine what persons they are, who, upon any large scale, exhibit practical energy and self-denial in the cause of humanity.

The Practical Argument not for Sects.

Numbers would heartily concur in this practical conclusion, who will recoil and fly off to all points of the compass from the inference to which it inevitably leads. That inference is, that this argument, decisive as it is in behalf of Christianity, is worthless in support of the exclusive pretensions of any one church. It will not make out the case of the Church of Rome against the Church of England, nor of the Church of England against the Church of Rome, nor serve in the least degree to sustain any one of the forms of Dissenting infallibility. It follows that Christianity must be looked at, not as some one sect would have it, but as the world actually has had it. The warfare against it has been moved off to new ground. The old bulwarks are built up in a quarter where the contest no longer rages. That work of defence which was carried on before by isolated and mutually hostile champions, will no longer avail if it cannot be conducted on some principle of combination. The basis of any successful defence against the modern scepticism must be the conception of Christianity in its historical integrity. It did not dive under ground, as has been sometimes supposed, for ten

centuries, nor abandon for that long period the great active life of Europe to take refuge in the caves and hiding-places of the Paulicians and Albigenses. It was there throughout, blended always with more or less of human error and weakness, but still alive and potent in Hildebrand himself as certainly as in Luther. One cannot survey the churches of Great Britain at the present day without seeing that those works which are the fruits and the proofs of faith do in fact proceed from all of them. This is no reason why any one church should yield what it believes to be truth, or accept what it believes to be error, but it is a reason why all the criminations and malignities of controversy should be at once and for ever abandoned. Externally, and in their exclusive aspect, all the churches, are repulsive. Internally and in their Christian aspect, all are beautiful'. Let every man be held disqualified for sectarian controversy, until all that is angry and impure and selfish in his nature has been purged away. Let the desire for reform be everywhere turned within, and then that inner beauty of the churches would all come out, and the whole visible front of Christianity would become radiant like the ranks of the celestial host, by which in the great English epic the power of Evil is overthrown!

Fraternization with Popery.

There are many, very many, ready to join in a larger and more comprehensive principle of Christian fellowship than we have been accustomed to, provided it be strictly and exclusively Protestant. But to fraternize with Popery, or acknowledge it for Christianity-no, never!

1 What an event that was which occurred a few years ago at Liverpool. A Roman Catholic priest, and a Unitarian missionary, two religious pariahs, were the only visitors of a poor fever-stricken family. One of the family died, and the neighbours in terror avoided the body. The pestilential corpse was put into the coffin by the priest and the missionary, acting together like brothers in that work of charity. God chose to seal in his own way the bond of brotherhood between them, for both took the fever and shortly after died.

This question of Popery is just now of great importance. It is important in a religious sense, and no less in a political sense. To dispose of the lower question first. It appears to me that the Anti-Papal agitation and legislation have placed the integrity of this empire in at least as much danger as it ever has been in, since that remote period when a handful of Norman knights effected the conquest of Ireland. I apprehend no revival of the repeal cry, and still less any such absurdity as another Irish rebellion. Ireland is too crushed and depopulated, and worn out with chronic misery, to be anything but passive in the presence of a superior force. Lord Palmerston has great confidence in the loyal zeal with which the Irish peasantry would turn out to repel a foreign invader. That opinion is honourable to him; but considering how much more of his time has been spent amongst the English nobility than amongst the Irish peasantry, it is scarcely a solid ground for legislation. What a peasantry so wretched have to fight for, it would be difficult to show. At all events, the contingency is not one to be overlooked, that if a foreign army of any force could once be landed on the Irish soil, its reception might be different from what it would be in Kent or Devonshire. Such an event might render it necessary to line the whole western coast of England and Scotland with defences as strong as can ever be required on the south. Some will think these remarks imprudent. They may be so. But the case is a desperate one, and requires a desperate remedy.

Effect of the Anti-Papal Bill.

In view of these possibilities it is to be observed that, with a few most honourable exceptions, the chief public men of England did, not long ago, combine their efforts to place Ireland exactly in that state of just irritation which an enemy of British connection would most desire. Lord John Russell is a man eminently deserving of respect. England is deeply indebted to him, but Ireland has not equal cause to be grateful.