History of Thucydides. Whatever was most original and profound in the great Greek historian has been long ago drawn out in a thousand channels, and so mixed up with the general stream of thought, that we have the essence of his mind in that intellectual element in which we are always floating; whereas the journal of the day opens yet another view of that wondrous reality ever before us, and which, for variety and depth of interest, surpasses anything of which Thucydides could have dreamed.

Defects of the Journals.

The defects of the journals are too obvious to be dwelt upon. They result from the submission of journalists, in a greater degree even than statesmen, to the despotic reaction of public opinion'. We may hope to see this checked, partly as it is from time to time by individual journals choosing to pay the price for independence, partly by a better feeling amongst the community, which will cause men to be ashamed of such mean and petty tyranny as that of discontinuing a journal generally approved of, on account of one or two obnoxious opinions. But the most important view of the journals is, that they form a perfect mechanism, through which every one who has the ear of the public can act upon its moral condition. Let Mr. Macaulay or Mr. Roebuck quarrel with a constituency, by a courageous stand on behalf of some unpopular principle, and the fidelity of the journals will ensure that the empire at large shall have the most perfect means of judging of the

The vulgar stories of venality, as applied to the more important newspapers, would not be more credible than similar stories told of members of parliament, if journalists-too apt to fling convenient missiles-did not countenance them against each other. Upon this subject I may be allowed to say that I never did believe in nor countenance a charge of venality against any journal; nor ever could understand how journalists should fail to see that, in making such charges as they must almost always be made without a scintilla of evidence-they were only casting an unmerited stain on their own profession, already unduly depressed in social estimation by other

causes.

issue.

The whole pleading, in its most eloquent and authentic form, will be brought in contact with every mind into which the truth can penetrate. This it is which may give to the words of such men a more lasting and important effect than those which usually follow the votes of parliament or the

councils of cabinets.

U

CHAPTER IV.

RECONCILIATION OF THE CHURCHES.

"For one believeth that he may eat all things; another, who is weak, eateth herbs.

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

"Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God."

ROMANS xiv. 2, 5, 21, 22.

The Great Want.

GREAT evils, then, do appear to threaten England; a possible invasion, if it be thought one of them, being far from the greatest. Indeed one may easily conceive a condition of society in which, to a mind looking before all things to man's highest welfare, even the calamities of invasion would be accepted as a kind and fatherly chastening, designed as a means of deliverance from the corruption and moral torpor brought on by an all-engrossing pursuit of wealth. May God forbid that so fearful a corrective should ever be required; but it is the way of Divine Providence to make these things dependent upon the acts of men themselves. By some means, wholly inscrutable to the human intellect, the infinitely varied and complex chain of events does come to constitute for each nation and each man a special discipline. Each is made aware that he has trusts confided to him-opportunities opened to him-warnings as distinctly given as if they were spoken in his ear, and in all these cases the great sin is-neglect. For the individual or the nation it is all the same. The nation which

fails to perform its trust, to use its opportunities, to listen to the warnings which it receives, will incur the condemnation of all unfaithful servants. It will be stripped of its authority, cast down from its place of honour, and its name will become a hissing and a byword.

But what should we do that such evils may not come upon us? The remedy is plain-no legislative nostrum-no ingenious device of the socialist projector, for enabling evil hearts to carry out the Divine law-no novel stimulant to make an empty life supportable; no, something homely, old, and familiar, but often tried in individual cases, and always found effectual- PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. This is the subject, the marrow of the whole. Those who have followed thus far will not be surprised to find themselves at this centre. Those who do no more than hastily strike open a leaf, should not judge rashly whether it be well or ill done to touch at all on this highest matter. Above all, let no one who may have joined with interest in the analysis of a difficult problem in economics, think that, that once completed, the rest might have been spared; that the work is good and would have been welcome, but the appendix impertinent; for indeed this is no appendix, but rather that which was designed to be the substance of the work. The economical analysis was no more than the dissecting of a dead body, a task disclosing many beautiful adaptations, but, upon the whole, repulsive, and only to be undertaken in the hope of getting at some life-giving truth.

When one of the graver maladies afflicts the human organization, especially with symptoms unwonted, mysterious, suggesting despair, the cause is to be looked for far in, near the source of life itself. So it is now. If anything be wrong with England, you must look deep into her moral constitution to find out the cause. Her fierce commercial paroxysms are but the symptoms of a deep-lying disease, for which it is in vain to seek a cure in any external applications. In this lies Carlyle's

greatest truth; a negative one, yet most prolific, uttered by him at least as long ago as 1829, namely, that no good will come from merely mechanical alterations. Social machinery will do nothing in such cases. An inward change is what is wanted, if that could only be brought about. For in this great English people it is the functions of the heart that are disturbed, and the brain, unconsciously yet closely sympathizing therewith, wanders and cannot find rest. In a word, our specific malady at this present time, notwithstanding our active but rather noisy philanthropy, must be described as an aversion of the national heart to practical Christianity.

But let none be attracted or repelled by a phrase. These are no catch words. Those whom they might catch are the very parties who, if they read these pages, will be most pained by what is to follow. Sympathy touching the highest themes is amongst the highest of human enjoyments, but it is not to be obtained upon false pretences. It is therefore necessary for the writer of these pages to say, that his own creed would not satisfy any orthodox church in Great Britain. It might possibly satisfy a Neander or a Lücke, and certainly would not have caused the right hand of Christian fellowship to be withheld by Schleiermacher or De Wette; but in England it will appear open to the two very strong though apparently contradictory objections, that it includes too little, and that it includes too much.

Agreement of Comte and Carlyle.

It must be considered highly remarkable that that great fact of a progressive or incipient social decomposition, which is more or less observable in every country in Europe, should have become, some five-and-twenty years ago, the central idea in two great minds, separated from each other by the widest intellectual, moral, and national differences. While France was hoping all things from dynastic changes, and England from par