order that the labour may be over. Through- men have changed. The novels of the out the story there is no one to love or sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are even to like, save only Clarissa. The per- now absolutely unreadable by us, and we sonages with whom the reader will become do not think that any abridgment would acquainted are for the most part either make them pleasant to us. Those of the gloomy and tyrannical, or vicious and abom- eighteenth stand their ground with a cerinable. And with Clarissa herself the read- tain amount of life. We have acknowler forms no pleasant acquaintance. She edged that men desire to have Richardson never smiles, and we must admit, indeed, on their shelves, and almost persuade themthat she has little reason for smiling. She selves that they have read "Sir Charles is always among wretches, and from first Grandison." But no force from the outto last we never see what Clarissa would side will draw people back upon them. We have been with pleasant friends around her, do not think much of the admiration of or with a lover whom she loved. Main- Diderot, of Scott, or of Macaulay, as extained misery may please through a short pressed for Richardson. The enthusiasm story; but the world of readers is averse of an individual, let him be who he may, or to being steeped in wretchedness through a the enthusiasm of a certain hour in that inlong series of volumes. dividual's life, is but slender proof of the excellence of anything. If we found that the volumes of Richardson were frequently taken down from our shelves, that the booksellers dealt in them widely, and that the novels were sold at the railway stores for a shilling apiece, we should think more of such evidence than of that of the GovernorGeneral, and Secretary, and Commanderin-chief in India, with their wives and families, as given by Macaulay to Thackeray in

It has not been so much our intention to criticise Richardson's story, which as we have said, is indeed an old tale, as to call in question the conclusion of Mr. Dallas with the view of inquiring whether that which he has done will resuscitate a lost popularity. When Richardson wrote novels were scarce, and of those which were written few were deemed to be fit reading for young and modest women. That "Clarissa" should have been so esteemed some- the drawing-room of the Athenæum. But what astonishes us, as in no novel that we know is a fouler brood of low characters | introduced than in "Clarissa; "- but the moral teaching was supposed to be good, and the book was undoubtedly accepted. As we look back to the literature of past ages we see that the tastes of men and wo-has moved him deeply.

CHILDREN ABROAD.

we will not close these remarks, widely opposed as they are to the views of Mr. Dallas, without again expressing our admiration for the literary zeal of an Editor who has been willing to give so much labour and time to an old tale, simply because it

lake, and I proposed to take the little girl, for [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] whose loneliness I could not help feeling a good SIR, I am reminded by your article on the deal of pity, on the water. She would like very children whom one meets with on the Continent much to go, but she could not leave Minnie. As of an American family whom I met with in a I could not bear to deprive my little friend of pension on the Lake of Geneva, where I spent what was evidently a great pleasure, I asked two days. The party consisted of a girl of about whether Minnie would be good, and having retwelve and two younger children; they had no ceived the elder sister's promise that she would, nurse or servant. The eldest girl was left in I suggested taking her too, though an unknown charge, while the father and mother were, I be- child of five in a boat is rather anxious work. lieve, making a tour in Switzerland for a fort-Minnie was perfectly good, and we returned in night. I did not hear that any express cause had taken them away. The little girl's management of the younger ones was such as many a mother might have envied. The boy and another little boy had been out playing till after dinner was ready, and rushed in while we were at table.

safety.

I have often thought since of the eldest girl. I wonder whether hers is an exceptional case, or whether there are many American children like her. The strange and, to English ideas, preposterous notion of leaving a girl of twelve without One of the young culprits was adjured any elder friend, and without any special recomby his mother several times in persuasive, drawl-mendation to the mistress of the pension, did not ing tones, "Do brush your hair, Tommy, you're surprise me more than the manner of the little not fit to be seen, do go and brush it." When girl herself, gentle, childlike, unassuming to the other appeared his sister said very gently, "You have forgotten to brush your hair, Charlie, you cannot sit down to table so," and Charlie was off to make himself tidy.

In the evening we were going for a row on the

strangers; very gentle yet very decided to the
younger ones; staid and quiet she naturally was,
but there was not a particle of self-conceit, or
presumption, or self-sufficiency in her bearing.—
I am, Sir, &c.,
E. G. T. F.

From The Saturday Review.
NATIONALITY AND RELIGION.

ject it. We say most obstinately, because they reject Christianity while having better opportunities than idolaters, or even than Mahometans, of knowing what Christianity really is. The vast mass of Christians have no sort of ethnical kindred with the first converts of Galilee and Jerusalem. They are the descendants of men who worshipped Zeus, Jupiter, Woden, and the less famous Gods of those lesser nations which seem a sort of appendage to Greeks, Romans, and Teutons. In this case, and in many others, nations have adopted a religion, they have become identified with it, they have made it as it were part of their national being, though it has been first preached to them by men of some other race, and though its tenets have been such as, before the event, they might have been expected to cast aside with disdain.

WE supported, in an article a little time back, the doctrine set forth by Lord Macaulay, Dean Milman, and others, that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was essentially a Teutonic movement. We showed how the reformed doctrines had been accepted by the great bulk of the Teutonic nations of Europe, and by very few besides the Teutonic nations. We argued also that the acceptance of the Reformation by the Teutonic nations, by England above all, was owing to a certain conformity in its doctrines, and still more in the political incidents of those doctrines, with the national character of those nations, and with the circumstances of their former history. To us islanders above all, a system which called for no submission to a foreign Power, Some religions again, and some particular which allowed us to develop our insular forms of the same religion, seem more easifeelings to their fullest growth, was natu- ly to allow the free development of narally acceptable above all others. But we tional life than others. The identification purposely kept ourselves from pointing out, of nationality and religion reached its exfest we should be drawn away too far from treme point among the ancient Hebrews. our proper subject, that this phenomenon, Judaism was, simply and solely, the religion according to which Teuton and Protestant of the Hebrew nation. The Jew was ready are, in modern Europe, names which are all to make proselytes, but such proselytes but interchangeable, is only one example were called on to become Jews. The worof a large class of phenomena of the same shipper of the God of Abraham was to bekind to be remarked in all times and coun- come, as far as adoption could make him, tries of the world. We leave it to divines a son of Abraham. Mahometanism again and philosophers to explain the fact, but is essentially a proselytizing religion: it is the fact itself is beyond doubt, that certain of its very life and being to be so. Now forms of religion do commend themselves Mahometanism does not indeed require men in a special way to men of certain races, to become Arabs, as Judaism requires men that they seem, as it were, better suited to to become Jews; but it seems, when left to their national character and circumstances, itself, to bring all its converts, as far as that they embrace them more readily and may be, to a certain level of national becarry them out with greater zeal. We de- ing. It seems to raise them to a certain sign nothing beyond a plain statement of point, and to keep them from rising above historical facts; and we do not flatter our- à certain point. It seems to stereotype a selves that we are going to put forward certain social and political state as its unanything that is at all new. But a collec-conscious ideal. And, if it has not made tion of facts, however well known, plainly all men Arabs, it has carried the Arabic stated and put into their right relation to language everywhere with it; the speech of one another, is often of great use. It is of the Koran has in some Mahometan countries special use on this sort of subject, on which | displaced the native speech of the people, men's ideas are often greatly confused, led away in many cases by mere misunderstandings of nomenclature and historical geography.

One thing must specially be marked at starting, that the religion which history shows best to suit a particular nation is by no means always the immemorial faith of that nation, or even a faith which has had its origin among that nation. One example, the greatest of all, is enough. Christianity is of Jewish origin, but the Jews are just the people who most obstinately re

and in others it has been largely mingled with it. Comparing again Eastern and Western Europe, it is plain that in the East nationality and religion become identified in a way in which they do not in the West. A French Protestant is still a Frenchman; an English Roman Catholic is still an Englishman; nay, we have found out that even the Jew may, if he chooses, be admitted to civil, political, and social equality with the Christian of either Church. It clearly is not so in the East. Greek, Turk, Jew, Armenian, are words which express reli

gious as well as national differences. In on its chief as something more than a mere fact, the religious difference comes first. If civil ruler, as the temporal chief of Chrisa man changes his religion, he changes his tendom. Except so far as its faith has been nationality. The Orthodox Church and the displaced by Mahometanism, Christianity Greek nation are very far from being co- still includes all those nations which formed extensive expressions; but what makes them part of the Roman Empire at its greatest not co-extensive is that the Orthodox Church extent; all the then heathen nations which contains the Greek nation and several other in the process of serving, conquering, or nations beside it. But if a man of any of dismembering it, came within the range of those nations forsakes his religion, if he its influence; all the heathen nations which ceases to belong to the Orthodox Church, afterwards came within the range of direct he is looked on as forsaking his nationality Roman influence, Imperial or Papal. That as well. Multitudes of Turks are of Greek is to say, it is the religion of Europe, inor Slavonic origin; Constantinople was cluding of course 'European colonies; it is stormed, and the Ottoman Empire was ad- the religion of the small remnant in Roman ministered, by the children of Christian Asia — in Roman Africa there is hardly so parents. But the proselyte to Islam, wheth- much as a remnant - which Mahometan iner voluntary or involuntary, whether the vasions have failed to eat up. Beyond these mature renegade or the Janissary kidnapped limits its extent has always been small and in his childhood, ceased to be Greek, Slave, its existence precarious. Abyssinia stands or whatever he was before; the mere fact alone as an example of an ancient Chrisof proselytism enrolled him among the rul- tian Kingdom surviving in a country which ing caste, and made him, for all practical never formed part of the Empire, and which purposes, a Turk. Even the Oriental Chris- has never been settled by European colotian who forsakes the national form of Chris-nists. We leave divines and philosophers tianity for another greatly weakens, if he to explain the reasons. We only state the does not wholly cast off, the national tie. manifest fact. If the Articles would let us, The United Greek and the United Armenian are Greek and Armenian only in a very secondary sense. So, in the further East, names like Hindoo and Parsee strictly mere names of nations, like English and French have acquired a secondary religious meaning which has quite displaced the national meaning. If a Hindoo or a Parsee embraces Christianity or Mahometanism, no one any longer speaks of him as a Hindoo or a Parsee. In the East then we may say that nationality and religion are absolutely identical. Given a man's nation - his practical nation, not necessarily his ethnological pedigree — and you know his religion. Given his religion, and you very often know his nation; you at least know that he must belong to one out of two or three nations. In the West nationality has had a good deal to do with determining religion, and religion has had something to do with determining nationality. But, in either case, nationality or religion has been simply one element among other elements. The two things have never become identical, as they have in the East.

If we cast our eye over Christendom and its divisions, we shall easily see how exactly they are marked out by certain great national and historical landmarks. Christianity is the religion of the Roman Empire and of those nations which have come, more or less fully, under Roman influences. It was not without a meaning that the Empire in later days took the title of Holy, and looked

we should say that there was something or other in the national character or circumstances of all these nations which did deserve Christian enlightenment "of congruity."

Looking again within the limits of Christendom itself, it is easy to see four very intelligible divisions. First, let us go back four hundred years or thereabouts. We should then see but three. There was first the Western, the Latin Church, with the Roman Pontiff still its real spiritual chief, with the Roman Cæsar at least its nominal temporal chief. Its pale embraced all those nations which had at any time bowed either to the temporal sway of the Western Cæsar or to the spiritual teaching of the、 Western Pontiff. Secondly, there was the Eastern, the Orthodox, Church, the Church of the hardly defunct Roman Empire of the East, and of those European nations which had submitted either to the temporal dominion or to the spiritual teaching of the New Rome. Thirdly, there were the remnants of the ancient national Churches of the East the heretics, as Roman and Byzantine orthodoxy deemed them, of Armenia, Syria, and Eygpt. That is to say, they were the Churches of those nations which had been politically incorporated within the Empire of the Cæsars, but which had never cheerfully accepted either its Greek or its Roman influences. Armenia, the oldest Christian Kingdom, Syria and Egypt, representatives of a civilization and

the Reformation in the West. It will not be a revolt. The utmost in the way of revolt that is likely to happen is for Bulgaria to claim to form an independent national Church as well as Russia and the Greek Kingdom. There is no need to cast off a yoke where no yoke exists. If a reform, doctrinal or other, ever happens in the East, it is as likely to begin at Constantinople as at Athens or at Saint Petersburg. A reform in the West could not begin at Rome, because the leading object of all reform was to cast off the authority of Rome.

Nationality and religion then are in some parts of the world identical; in other parts, though not identical, they greatly influence one another. The ritual, the discipline even the dogmas, which suit one nation do not suit another. Such is plainly the fact, but beyond the statement of the fact we do not presume to go.

From The Saturday Review, 24 Oct.

FRANCE.

a literature older than that of Greece and if it ever happens, be very different from Italy, had never become pupils of their masters. While the rest of the Empire, save here and there a wild mountain tribe, adopted either the Greek or the Latin language, they clave to their own ancient tongues, they moulded Christianity into forms of their own, and they offered no hearty resistance to the Saracen invader. Abyssinia, the spiritual colony of Egypt, the one Christian State wholly beyond the limits of the Empire, of course takes its place along with those nations which never willingly belonged to it. All these three divisions still remain, and, within the range of the last two, nationality and religion are still as identical as ever. But the events of the last three centuries and a half have added a fourth division. That is to say, the Teutonic nations have risen against the spiritual domination of the elder Rome. A curious question now arises. We see that Roman, Byzantine, Oriental, and Teutonic Christianity all exist. Will there ever be such a thing as Slavonic Christianity? The great mass of the Slavonic nations, all at least of the Eastern branch of the race, have stood for ages towards the Eastern Church and Empire in nearly the same THE Spanish Revolution has perhaps relation in which the Teutons have stood done something for the general peace of to the Western Church and Empire. They Europe during the next few months. What have been half conquerors, half disciples. plans, if any, the Emperor Napoleon had Will they ever revolt against the New formed, only those in his confidence can Rome as we have done against the Old? tell. The settled discontent with which the If they ever do, it must be a revolt of a Tuileries regards the state of Germany had different kind. It must be a purely dog- perhaps found vent this last summer in the matic revolt. It is only accidentally that concoction of more than one scheme or the Byzantine Church has anywhere estab- conspiracy against the quiet of the Contilished a dominion against which national nent. Various ideal repartitions of Europe feeling is tempted to kick, as national feel- have been designed in the Imperial Cabinet ing is tempted to kick against the dominion in the course of sixteen years of political of the Roman Church. Some of the na- dreaming, and 1868 has had, like the rest, tions belonging to the Orthodox Church its map, its programme, and possibly its have had, and still have, grievances to Great enterprises complain of at the hands of the Byzantine might have been undertaken again in the Patriarchate. But they are simply local and coming winter if it had not been for the temporary grievances, such grievances as irony of Fortune, which so constantly inthe appointment of Greek Bishops to Bul- terferes with the execution of the vague garian sees and the like. The Eastern purposes of irresolute men. Prussia, at Church never attempted to establish the any rate, is thought to be safe till next year, same sort of universal dominion as the when, unless anything else happens, the Western. The national Churches within French Emperor will again be hard at work its communion have always enjoyed a na- conquering General Moltke upon paper. tional hierarchy and the use of the national All that can be hoped is that something language in divine service. At this mo- may happen again next year, and, as the ment the national Churches of Greece and world is full of surprises, perhaps someRussia are in full spiritual communion with thing will. The Pope may be ill, or M. the mother Church of Constantinople, while Rochefort may be dead, or there will be a they are as independent of her in their in- Great Exhibition somewhere, or a new genternal constitution as the Church of Eng-eral election to the Corps Législatif, or the land is independent of Rome. There may Jesuits may have got into trouble by buybe a Reformation in the East, but it must, ing up all the land in Belgium, or M. Olli

plan of a campaign.