has no decease, except in the rare cases of utter extermination by war. There is a perpetuity by continual succession or renewal of the component individualities of a people. As Burke said of the great incorporation of the entire human family: "The whole is never at one time old, or middleaged or young, but in a condition of unchanging constancy moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, renovation, and progression." The most important analogy involved in the comparison is, that all substantial growth of a nation must be as that of an individual, from intrinsic elements; like the germination of a plant from the seed, the accretion of a tree by the assimilating process going on within it from root to leaf, so the evolution in the mature man of the qualities latent in the embryo. Institutions transplanted from one country to another are like the products of forced vegetation which require the continuance of artificial heat. A colony may carry with them the laws and usages of the mother country, and have, to a certain extent, an increment of strength, provided there is liberty of change at their own election as circumstances may make expedient; but it is otherwise when an arbitrary domination is retained by the parens patriæ. The British colonies in North America, particularly those which became afterwards independent, had a vigor of growth which was the natural sequence of the political liberty and personal rights which they were permitted to enjoy, limited though they were in comparison with what are now possessed. The Spanish colonies in Mexico and South America never advanced in national character, for the reason that they remained subject to a government in which they were unrepresented, and when successively those colonies threw off this foreign rule during the Napoleonic war in Spain, it has been found that they have not the elements of self-government so as to insure permanent tranquility and future growth. Still more marked has been the failure of success when a conquering nation, even the superior in civilization, has imposed its laws and customs upon the vanquished people. The Celts that were subdued by the Romans, settled into a degeneracy unmarked by recuperative

force, or further original development.* The Anglo-Saxons resisted the attempt of the Normans to subvert their previously existing laws, and succeeded in maintaining them in a modified form; and there has been wrought out a peculiar system of civil rights and legal forms adapted to the mixed character of the people, which has been, and still is, in progress of improvement.

Government and laws may be changed by superior force; religion, language, diet, and the like, are adhered to with greater tenacity, and may outlast dynasties and successive conquests. This is best illustrated in the Chinese and Hindu races. Hindostan has been under the rule of various conquerors from a remote period, but its ancient religion and social practices still prevail among the people. Mohammedanism has never obtained preponderance. Buddhism, which was more congenial to the contemplative minds of the people, has had, and still retains an influence upon theological opinions, but was never able to break up the brahminical prescription of castes, self-immolation of widows, and other peculiarities. China has been several times conquered by Tartar races, and is now subject to Man-tchou rulers, but the administration of the government has remained substantially unchanged, and so also the customs of the people, with only one remarkable exception, viz., the compulsory shaving of the head, leaving a tail in the Tartar fashion.† In fact the distinctive character of the Chinese is a venera

*It is a question, however, whether it was not a Celtic rather than a Latin stock which was existing in the Western provinces of the empire at the time of the conquest by German tribes-that is to say, whether the character of the people has been Latinized. The Latin was not the language of the common people. It had been introduced in public business, it was the language of the laws; but the administration of the laws, the proceedings in courts, etc., may have been in the vulgar dialect. It was also the language of literature; and there were Roman emigrants in all parts of the empire who would, of course, keep up the use of their native tongue among themselves; but that the original dialects and customs of the Celts were maintained, to some extent, is inferrible from the fact that the remnant of the Britons who were left in Wales were Celtic, not Roman in character-so also those who emigrated to Brittany, in France.

An attempt by the Emperor Paul to change by a decree the dress of the RusBians, and to revive certain old customs of homage to the imperial family, was the immediate cause of his dethronement and death. It is not probable that interference with civil rights of far greater consequence would have had the like result.

tion for all that is ancient, and a tenacity of doing what was done by their ancestors; so that even superstitious rites are observed which they do not believe in, as the invocation to the dragon of rain in time of drought.* This is the explanation of their stationary condition through so many centuries-non-intercourse with other nations has had little to do with it, the adjoining nations were less civilized than themselves. What influence Europeans may have remains to be seen. Roman catholic missionaries, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, made many converts. The Jesuits, who went into China near the close of the seventeenth century, obtained the favor of the government and proselyted largely among the people, but were expelled in 1724 for an alleged attempt to get the sovereignty of the country.† Reasoning from analogy, it may be inferred that had they succeeded in any such attempt, they would not have denationalized China and made it European; but that, like the Tartar conquerors, they would have conformed to the habits of the people and governed in the ancient mode. Papal authority would of course have been acknowledged; but it would have been exercised in mere externals, while the essential principle of the christian faith would have merged-it is likely-in concession to the sensuous habits of the people. And now, when

*Huc says that they do not hesitate to avow that it is a mere mummery, but that it is necessary to observe it because it has always been so done.

Young-tching, the emperor who exiled the missionaries, attributed to them an intermeddling spirit during the life of his father, and entered upon h.s administration with a deep-rooted prejudice against them. There was, however, good sense in his auswer to the petition of the Jesuits against the decree. "The christians whom you make " (that is the Chinese converts), "recognize no authority but you; in times of trouble they would listen to no other now. I know there is nothing to fear at present, but when your ships shall be coming by thousands and tens of thousands then we shall have disturbances." He confined them to Canton, and broke up all the religious organizations in the interior. Under his successor, Kien-Long, the missionaries recovered favor at court; but the suppression of religious orders in Europe interrupted the support of the missions. A new persecution broke out under Kia-King, and many of the religious communities disappeared. Within a recent period the communities have been reorganized, the dispersed christians collected, schools established for the education of boys and girls, and a seminary to prepare young Chinese for the ecclesiastical profession. the time Huc visited China, foreign missionaries were proscribed: they had to go secretly, but native catechists were allowed in each community, who could instruct the people and make converts, but the instruction was of course imperfect.

At

free access to the Chinese by missionaries is admitted, it is still to be tested how far the christian religion in its purity can transmute the character of the people, and effect a civil renovation. Moral principle is represented to be of low degree, venality prevails in public office, falsehood in private dealings, and licentiousness in domestic life. Yet christianity in its early age did work a moral reform in a people that seemed to be beyond the reach of any renovating power. A still greater trial of its power is now to be displayed in its application to a people still more given up to materialism than the Roman.* It is questionable whether facility of intercourse is the best condition for imparting to them the true spirit of christianity. It may be plausibly argued that a people which is utterly without religious ideas, in the proper sense, may need, in the first instance, a method of instruction adapted to their low ideas; that they must be gradually elevated, and that the semi-christian converts will be more susceptible of sound religious impression than those who have had no spiritual experience, and whose habit of life is directed by propensities little superior to animal instincts. It is a more interesting question to us what is the probable future of the existing nationalities of Europe, and of· our own country. According to principles before adverted to, the longevity of a nation may be calculated as well as that of an individual, if we have equal knowledge of all the circumstances that will have a material influence. A new

* It would, perhaps, not be just to say that the Chinese are more licentious than the Romans; but they have less intellectual culture; they are, at all events, destitute of religious ideas, and cannot without difficulty be made to comprehend christian doctrines By perseverance and zeal the Roman catholics made a large number of proselytes; but these appear to have learned little more than mere external rites The report we have of the Chinese in California is more favorable than we should have expected. They are said to be industrious and reliable, but they seem unimpressible by religious truth; and they return to their own country with no other effect from all the efforts of missionaries thau becoming ashamed of their native ceremonies, without, however, becoming more inclined to the christian faith. There is, in fact, an apparent want of spiritual perception. Some of the American missionaries-Williams, Martin, Speer, and others-rate the Chinese intellectual character more favorably than we have stated it. We think, however, that it will be found that education in the proper sense is limited to the higher class, and that even this has been very much advanced by intercourse with foreigners within a recent period; and that the common people have rather imitativeness, or keen instinctive observation of a sensuous kind, than any elevating knowledge or independent thought.

element has, however, been introduced into modern states. Checks are interposed against the violent subversion of one by another, and so likewise against the tendencies to exhaustion of a nation's vital forces by internecine war, or other destructive influences. The Turkish government has had a protraction of its existence by the intervention of England and France, without which it would have been overwhelmed by Russian military force, or broken into fragments by successful domestic insurrections. The smaller states of Europe (Holland, Belgium, Greece and others), are maintained in their independence by the watchful supervision of the great powers, who will not suffer the aggrandizement of any one to the danger of the others, The late revolutionary movement of Prussia, which has broken up a number of the principalities of Germany, and added largely to the territory of that state, and still more to its political power, is as yet too recent to admit of any absolute forecaste of the final result. If the population thus brought under the control of Prussia shall submit without further contest to the change, and if there shall be no serious indication of an aggressive use of the power thus suddenly acquired, there will be merely an alteration in the relative importance of the larger states; but no one of them will still be strong enough to contend single-handed against all the rest. It is, however. by no means clear that the change, which is as yet inchoate, will be allowed to become permanent.

The most remarkable incident of this political roconstruction is, that Austria, which has heretofore wielded the forces of a large empire, whereby it has maintained the leadership of the German states, and a distinguished prestige among the great powers of Europe has been suddenly isolated from its position as a German state, and thrown mainly upon its Sclavonic population as a constituency. Still more marvellous has been the change of its political policy, from arbitrary absolutism to the admission of popular rights to a large extent. Nor has the end yet come. We may reasonably expect a further re-constitution in uniformity with the justifiable claims of the people in the different provinces; and this will have a magnetic attraction,