the Cancan quadrille - what shall we say large amount of the morality, intelligence, of them? The fiddles of course are inno- influence, and general prosperity which cent agents in those cases, where they ac- characterize the Friends as a body; and to company the voice of the gross woman and the same cause he attributes the small the movements of the coarse women. Yet amount of privation amongst them, and the they promote mischief and evil, just as they rarity of the occasions in which they come unmay, as we have suggested, promote piety der the care of the police or the magistracy. and pure love. It may be doubted, indeed, But may not the provision made for educawhether music is, as Johnson said, a com- tion be dependent on some cause which in pletely innocent sensual pleasure. It may itself would account for the absence both have been to Johnson, who had quite a pas- of privation and crime from the Quaker sion for listening to the Scotch bag-pipes body? We think we find such a cause in an instrument, we may venture to think, their affluence, and the reason given for which has seldom stirred in any one feelings that affluence is, that the eclectic character other than indignation and a burning desire which Mr. Tallack claims for Quakerism for universal murder; but it is possible to extends to the circumstances as well as to conceive where music may immediately the disposition of candidates for admission prompt to low desires and actions, even into the sect. We suspect there is a quasiwhere it is orchestral, and aided but slightly admission of something not unlike this, from without by scenery or dancing. Into both in the fact of the paucity of numbers this part of the subject however it is not belonging to it, and in the avowal which we necessary to go. Music is an art which we find at p. 14, that perhaps it is not to be should guard and cherish with caution, re-desired that the Friends should gain many spect, and solicitude. We are almost tempted to write that if you see after the fiddlestrings the heart-strings will take care of themselves. An unmusical man or woman is not only defective and mentally crippled, but is, it is not perhaps too much to say, a dangerous person to deal with. We have Shakespeare's authority for thinking so at least. But then the sirens were musical ladies also, and were not altogether harmless. Comic singers have ears for music, and are as insensible to the degraded nature of their calling as a pickpocket to his pursuit. From The London Review. converts "as mankind is now constituted." "For if," the author continues, "the society were swamped with a mass of converts not prepared to enter fully into the spirit of its communion, the tone of the whole body would be lowered, and possibly its constitution become radically altered. The Quakers are a select and disciplined body, better qualified for influencing outsiders than for uniting with them in perfect communion. They have exercised very great influence on the surrounding world; far more in proportion to their very small number, than any other sect that ever existedthe Jesuits not excepted. But the retention of this beneficial influence is only compatible with their maintenance of the strict discipline and high morality of their body. THE speciality of this book is that it is This would hardly be practicable with any the first work in which the doctrines and considerable accession of persons not preconstitution of Quakerism have been defi-pared for the abstract views and decided nitively and minutely traced mainly to the principles of the Society." It certainly early Baptists, and also that in its pages is to be found, for the first time, a detailed review of the influence exercised by the Friends in the various departments of philanthropy, social progress, political reform, literature, science, and commercial enterprise. It is not without reason that the author boasts of the labours of his sect in these various departments; and when it is remembered that at the present time the total number of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland barely amounts to 15,000, the provision made by them for education is something remarkable. Mr. Tallack traces to it the would not be practicable with the admission of all comers, poor as well as rich. But from this point of view, Quakerism is hardly to be considered a religious sect, but partakes more of the nature of a religious order, which receives into its sodality only such candidates as can pass through the ordeal of a novitiate specially designed to test their possession of those qualities which the order requires in its members. Mr. Tallack says, that the Quaker system is suited only for the more thoughtful and serious of Christians, and for persons with minds disciplined to deep feelings and abGeorge Fox, the Friends, and the Early Bap-erences for individual freedom of religious stract contemplation, and with strong preftists. By William Tallack. London: S. W. Partridge & Co. action. It is not a body with which men in 66 general, or many men, are likely to seek to spiritual vanity and conceit, that there communion. Is not this, rather than edu- must be some reason for the fact that Quacation, the reason why there is an absence kerism numbers so few adherents in these of privation and of crime amongst the islands, and that its numbers are rather Quakers? Is it not also the cause of much, dwindling than increasing. For example, at least, of the influence which they are in Norwich, which forty years ago contained said to exert upon society? How, other- five hundred Friends, there are now barely wise, does it come to pass that the Quakers, thirty. during the last quarter of a century, have Mr. Tallack endeavours to explain this sent their preachers to Hindostan, the Pa- surprising state of things. "It thus apcific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, the pears," he says, "that the Quaker system Cape Colony, the West Indies, California, is an admirable one for developing a small Greenland, Iceland, Russia, the Faroe band of active, independent, philanthropic, Islands, Lapland, Madagascar, Egypt, and spiritual Christians, but fails most deSyria, and the Holy Land, without any ap- cidedly in gathering in the masses of manpreciable accession to their number? Mr. kind. This," he continues, "is now genTallack gives, as an example of the paucity erally admitted by the Friends. One of of converts, the case of Jonathan Grubb, them, an aged minister, lately remarked to an "excellent gentleman," who has for the writer, 'Well, I must confess that if years "laboured assiduously in preaching the evangelization of the great body of the to the poor, especially in the rural districts people had depended upon us, very little of Suffolk, Essex, and Norfolk. His meet- would have been done."" This is a laings have been largely attended, and have mentable confession, after upwards of two also been occasions of much solemnity and centuries of missionary labour. It would tenderness of spirit. They have often been appear," Mr. Tallack continues, "that, in followed up by sympathising private con- aiming at perfection, the Friends have arversations with some of the most impressed rived at many conclusions incompatible with amongst the hearers. Great religious edifi- the actual constitution of imperfect and cation has doubtless ensued in consequence. frail humanity. It is often observed that, But we have not heard of any fresh acces- in the communication of religious instrucsions to the ranks of Quakerism from any tion to the poor, a rough and ready, but or all of those meetings." But when more comparatively uneducated, yet zealous than two centuries ago the Quaker boy, working man is far more effective than a James Parnell, sixteen years of age, calm, refined, and highly-educated speaker. preached to the people of the same eastern Similarly, the very agencies which the counties, he "gathered in hundreds, and Friends deprecate and avoid as imperfect, probably thousands, to the fold of his peo- namely, the one man system,' hearty conple in the very district where Mr. Grubb gregational singing, untrammelled zealous (a man far superior to young Parnell in preaching, outwardly visible sacraments, most Christian virtues) can barely secure settled pastorages and paid ministersone proselyte in several years' ministerial these or other such arrangements are eviactivity." Parnell's success and Grubb's dently and practically essential to the evanfailure, notwithstanding the "solemnity and gelization of the great masses of mankind, tenderness of spirit" observable at his meet-in spite of all the arguments of Quakerism, ings, would lead us to suppose that the terms of admission into the Quaker body are more exacting now than they were two centuries ago. But, once in, the conditions of Quaker life are not repulsive. There are the great educational advantages to those who stand in need of them. There is the fact stated by Mr. Tallack, "that every poor Friend who may be unable to earn a livelihood, usually receives aid from his brother members, to the extent of from £20 to £40 per annum, generally administered privately, exclusive of the money spent upon the education of his offspring." Then the absence of what is known amongst Friends as "the one man system," the right of all to preach if they are moved to do so, even women, is so soothing and indulgent and notwithstanding the admirable results (on a very limited scale) of a system from which the agencies have been almost entirely excluded." This argument is not wholly destitute of force; but, on the other hand, what is to be said of a body which deprecates and avoids agencies which it holds to be essential to the evangelization of the great masses of mankind? We must conclude that it desires to be a select and exclusive body, "a small band of active, independent, philanthropic, and spiritual Christians," well off in point of funds, having little or no poor to speak of, and rather averse to letting them into the fold than otherwise. But where, then, is the merit of its supporting its own poor, or of the large provision it makes for education? thing that is bad, it has no right to boast of the efficacy of its principles. We do not deny that the Friends have been active in many good works; all we maintain is that it would have been surprising had they not been so. We have left ourselves hardly space to speak of Mr. Tallack's "Life of Why does Mr. Tallack reproach the denominations with not having "bestowed upon their poor a small proportion of the systematic and individualizing care experienced by the Friends in such cases"? The comparison is ridiculous. Out of a population of thirty millions, the Friends reckon in their community fifteen thousand. They George Fox," the most important part of are notoriously a wealthy body; and "the his work appearing to us to consist in the pecuniary and educational privileges of false pretensions we have been discussing. membership are so many," says Mr. Tal- It is an interesting sketch, a contribution lack, "that a constant vigilance is requisite to the history which will one day give us a to avoid the reception of candidates for ad- picture of the efforts made in an age of mission who may be prompted by interested abominable licentiousness, by earnest bemotives." Where is the difficulty of such lievers, to awaken consciences which had a body supporting its own poor, or what fallen asleep. Mixed up with those efforts credit is due to its members for keeping there was doubtless a great deal of perclear of the police? The Quakers begin sonal vanity, and Mr. Tallack candidly adby admitting none within their pale who are mits the grave faults of which Fox was not thoughtful and 'serious Christians; men occasionally guilty. But on the whole the who are removed by a greater or less de- tendency was good. It aimed at the revival gree of affluence from the temptations of of religion, which was suffering from the want; men well schooled and disciplined reaction consequent upon the upheaving of in the exterior and interior respectability. the Reformation. And with all its faults it Now if a sect admits into its sodality noth- was not destitute of beneficial results. ing but what is good, and rejects every From Macmillan's Magazine. A SEA-SHELL. Cool lips of shell, sing, Sea-shell, warm and sweet, Of ripples curling on the creamy beach, Of soft waves singing in each other's ear, Tell me of half-formed little broken words, Not now, not now, sweet shell, some other day And seas that sob to birds that scream above; To me thy breathing bears another tone, Of fresh cool currents running under sea, And happy laughter of the sunny spray :Ah! hearest thou the words that are thine own, Know'st thou the message that they bear to me, The things they seem to say? Ah, Sea-shell, it is this-"The soft blue deep, Which thrills with a heart that knows thee and is kind, Sighed for thy sorrow, now it laughs with thee; Love is a secret which man cannot keep; A. C. BRADLEY. From Bentley's Miscellany. THE BRIDE'S DREAM. THE young bride she is dreaming, Ere falsehood broke the spell; Who watches by her side, Oh! if that be her dreaming The young bride she is dreaming! She may speak of other themes, Oh! if those dreams were happy HEADLAND HOME; OR, A SOUL'S PILGRIMAGE. By Madame de Lesdernier. New York: James Miller. YANG-PIH-WE-WING-TZONGA-FOH; OR, MUSINGS OVER A CUP OF TEA. New York: "Evening Mail" Office. JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE: LINDA TRESSEL, by the Author of Nina Balatka. Price 38 cts. PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION AT THIS OFFICE: PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. From Blackwood's Magazine. Hope holds his hands, joy strikes the sounding strings, creeps Love o'er him fluttering shakes his purple wings, How tranquil is the night! how calm and deep And sorrow hides her face, and dark death This sacred silence! Not an olive leaf Is stirring on the slopes; all is asleepAll silent, save the distant drowsy streams That down the hillsides murmur in their dreams. The vast sad sky all breathless broods above, And peace and rest this solemn temple steep. Here let us rest: it is the hour of love, Forgetting human pain and human grief. But see.! half-hidden in the columned shade, Ay, 'tis Orestes! we are not alone. What human place is free from human groan ? Fierce Auster whispers. Yes, even here they Their haunted victim -even this sacred place See the white arm above him seems to wave, And brooding hovers o'er Orestes' head; Into the shade, and every Fury sleeps. And the fierce Furies rest. W. W. S. |