claims from his children, as the proof of their loyalty and love, that perfect subjection of their own wills to his, of which self-sacrifice he is the Eternal Pattern; and bestows the will and the power only to be guided by himself.* On one occasion Mill, in giving Caroline what she calls "some glimpses of truth through those wonderfully keen quiet eyes," explained to her what in Friends' language would be called his doctrine of the inner light. iour and Redeemer. What kept me at Why [she said to herself] should I thus help to swell the triumph of the infernal powers by tampering with their miserable suggestions of unbelief, and neglecting the amazing gift which Christ has so long been offering me? I know that he is the Redeemer of all such as believe in him, and I will believe, and look for his support in the contest with unbelief. The next morning as I was employed in making some notes of John Stevenson's comments in my journal, the truth came before me with a clearness and consistency and brightness indescribably delightful. The reasonableness of some Christian doctrines which had before especially perplexed me, shone now as clear as noonday; and the thankfulness I felt for the blessed light that was granted was intense.* At this time she was much in the society of John Stuart Mill, to whom "she owed very much." He explained to her brother his views on the doctrine of the atonement, to which we shall by-and by call attention, and probably it was Mill's influence which induced Caroline to modify her belief in that doctrine, which at a later period she thus expressed: — Namely, that the voluntary sacrifice of Christ was not undertaken to appease the wrath of God, but rather to express his infinite love to his creatures, and thus to reconcile them to himself. Every species of sacrifice meets, and is glorified, in him; and he Memoir, vol. i.., pp. 20-25. ↑ Vol. ii., p. 269. Caroline herself thought: The idea of a guiding principle has been held by the best minds in all ages, alike by Socrates and St. Augustine, though under different names. There has ever been a cloud of witnesses to this moral truth, and the sun shining brightly behind them even in the darkest age, and a superhuman light in every one that has been or that is; and in it is there a distinct vision, a glorious reality of safety and happiness.‡ To the end of her life, as is common with Friends, she believed in and claimed for herself and others "the indispensable blessing of an ever-present teacher and guide." After Mill's marriage, which separated him from so many of his friends, the intimacy between Mill and the Fox circle, which had previously lessened, altogether ceased. Caroline's criticisms on his later works and opinions agree with those of Dr. Martineau : No one would believe beforehand [he says of Mill] that a writer so serene and even, not to say cold, could affect the reader with so much sadness. You fall into it without knowing whence it comes. All the lights upon his page are intellectual, coming from a deep reserve of moral gloom.§ letter to Robert Barclay Fox, vol. ii. (appendix) 317- Vol. i, p. 141. It is not clear whether these are Caroline's own opinions, or those of Sterling, recorded and assented to by her. § Miscellanies, vol. ii., p. 70. Again, to another friend : terhood. I am reading [writes Caroline Fox to the correspondent whom we have before mentioned] that terrible book of John Mill's on It must have been delightful to get an exLiberty-so clear, and calm, and cold, he lays perienced sister to assist in the parish work, it on one as a tremendous duty to get oneself but don't let them talk thee into joining a siswell contradicted, and admit always a devil's Woman's work may well be done advocate into the presence of your dearest, without all that ceremony; and, whilst there most sacred truths, as they are apt to grow are wifeless brothers with parishes to look windy and worthless without such tests, if in-after, I think it would be a shame to turn dedeed they can stand the shock of argument at This is very gratuitous advice, for all. He looks you through like a basilisk, thou never gave a hint of such possible change relentless as fate. We knew him well at one of raiment.* time, and owe him very much. I fear his remorseless logic has led him far since then. The book is dedicated to his wife's memory, in a few touching words. He is in many senses isolated, and must sometimes shiver with the cold. And again to the same correspondent: No, my dear, I don't agree with Mill, though I too should be glad to have some of my ugly opinions corrected, however painful the process; but Mill makes me shiver, his blade is so keen and so unhesitating. I think there is much force in his criticism on the mental train ing provided for the community: the battles are fought for us, the objections to received views and the refutation of the same all provided for us, instead of ourselves being strengthened and armed for the combat. Then he greatly complains of our all growing so much alike that individuality is dying out of the land. We are more afraid of singularity than of falsehood or compromise, and this he thinks a very dark symptom of a nation's decay. France, he says, is further gone than we are in this path.* In her late years Caroline appears to have considered Frederick Dennison serter. The deeply religious element in her character was joined with a strong sense and appreciation of humor. It was, perhaps, claimed to have derived from his Quaker "the joviality" which Macaulay forefathers.† She herself speaks of Amelia Opie, an authoress among the Friends, formerly better known than now, as being in "great force, and really jolly." Of this disposition there are many illus. trations in the anecdotes and sayings which she records. She fixes a date, and gives the name of a witness of a wellknown scene: "con January 31, 1840.-L. Dyke was in the church at Torquay last Christmas Day when a modest and conscientious clergyman did duty in the presence of the bishop.§ In reading the communion service he substituted demnation" in the exhortation, "He that eateth or drinketh of this bread or this cup unworthily." "Damnation!" screamed the bishop in a most effective manner, to the undisguished astonishment of the congregation. Of some one, whose initials only are given, we are told : What Maurice "as a leader in the exposition of Fundamental Eternal Truth." Her own Poor J. B., in distressing delirium, having theological position she thus defined: taken in ten hours the morphia intended for I have assumed a name to-day for my reli- forty-eight, he was tearing off his clothes, crygious principles-Quaker Catholicism-hav-ing out, "I'm a glorified spirit, I'm a glorified ing direct spiritual teaching for its distinctive spirit! Take away these filthy rags. dogma, yet recognizing the high worth of all should a glorified spirit do with these filthy said coaxingly, "Why, other forms of faith; a system in the sense of rags?" On this Einclusion, not exclusion; an appreciation of my dear, you wouldn't go to heaven stark On which the attendants who were the universal and various teachings of the naked?" Spirit through the faculties given us, or inde- holding him set off. T pendent of them.t With the ecclesiastical quacks and quackeries of the time she had no sympathy. The following remark of Carlyle to Calvert, in referehce to his dyspeptic ailments, we do not remember to have seen before: " Well, I can't wish Satan any. thing worse than to digest for all eternity Vol. ii., p. 307. If I remember rightly [she writes to her familiar friend] nothing short of the destruction of a world could satisfy Dr. Cumming. Oh! the comfort and blessing of knowing that t"Lord Macaulay was accustomed to say that he our future is in other hands than Dr. Cum- got his joviality' from his mother's family (members ming's; how restful it makes one, and so will-indeed of Quaker origin, he was rather ungrateful in of the Society of Friends). If his power of humor was ing to have the veil closely drawn which separates Now from Then.‡ Vol. ii., p. 270, 271. the use he sometimes put it to." (Trevelyan's Life, vol. i., p. 21.) + Vol. ii., p. 20. The late Bishop Philpotts. Vol. i., p. 102. T Ibid., p. 88. with my stomach. We shouldn't want | eminent men were very stupid at school, Carlyle certainly was not only eminently there.'"* Of Martin Farquhar Tupper, Caroline Caroline labored much among the poor, and she gives some curious instances which will be appreciated by those acquainted with the Cornish poorer class, and which illustrate the depth and exactness of the knowledge gained from the religious teaching so abundantly heaped on theme.g.: "Called on some of the One of them said 'It was quite a frolic my coming to read to them.' What different views some people have of frolics!"§ old women. On another visit to a school: "The good teacher was taking most patient pains with an endlessly stupid little girl, who meekly and respectfully whispered the most heterogeneous answers to the simplest questions. Who did Adam and Eve sin against when they ate the fruit?? Their parents and friends, ma'am.' Were Adam and Eve happy when they left the garden?' 'Holy and happy, ma'am.'"t We have space only for one more extract of this kind: A damsel belonging to Barclay's establishment being here, I thought it right "to try and do her good," so I asked her, after many unsuccessful questions, if she had not heard of the Lord's coming into the world. Why, she said, "I might have done so, but I have forgotten it." "But surely you must have heard your master read about it, and heard of 'Very likely I have," it at school or chapel." said she, placidly, "but it has quite slipped my memory;" and this uttered with a lamblike face and a mild blue eye.‡ 66 Caroline's devotion to benevolent labors shortened her life. For some years Here is another entry which by many she had been subject to attacks of chronic of the straiter sects of our religion would bronchitis, and during the Christmas of be considered profane: "What things 1870, while going her rounds with New wives are! What a spirit of joyous suf-Year's gifts to her poorer neighbors, she fering, confidence, and love was incarnated in Eve! 'Tis a pity they should eat apples." It must be remembered that Friends from the first protested against "being under bondage to the letter" of Scripture, and took broader views on literal inspiration than is common_among To readers of the Westminster Re other evangelical religionists. Reading view, the chief interest of these volumes Scripture lessons in public worship was will be the large portion which refers to considered by older Friends unduly hon-John Stuart Mill. In Caroline Fox's oring "the letter." In a cottage visit (in Norfolk, by the way, not in Cornwall) "a young woman told us that her father was nearly converted, and that a little more teaching would complete the business, adding,' He quite believes that he is lost, which of course is a great consolation to the old man.'" ¶ On finishing her week's work at the Falmouth infant school, she "wrote in the visitors' report-book that as many Vol. i., p. 220. t Ibid., p. 309. Vol. ii., p. 246. § Vol. i., p. 27. Vol. ii., p. 11. Ibid., p. 16. took a cold, which rapidly developed into bronchitis. Her power of rallying, which had previously brought her through many severe attacks, now failed, and she died in her sleep in the early morning of January 12, 1871. memories of him and in his own letters to Barclay Fox, he appears in a far more genial light than in his "Autobiography," or in the recollections of Professor Bain.§ These letters also seem to us to throw a new light upon Mill's religious opinions. We must, however, first speak of Sterling, who in these volumes fills a space as large as or even larger than Mill. Mill, while Sterling was yet living, held a similar opinion of his character and influence to that which he has recorded in his "Autobiography." "Sterling," he | any, will appreciate a remark of Sterwrote, in 1842, to Barclay Fox, "fancies ling's. On an excursion to Glendurgan, himself idle and useless, not considering the lovely abode of one of the Foxes, how wide an effect his letters and conver- Sterling, at one part of the road where sation must produce; and, indeed, the there were a few trees, naïvely exclaimed, mere fact of such a man living and breath." Why, this really reminds one of Ening amongst us has an incalculable in- gland."* fluence."* After Sterling's death, Carlyle, in his usual dyslogistic spirit, passed a more sober judgment on him. "His character was not supremely original; neither was his fate in the world wonderful. What he did was inconsiderable enough; and as to what it lay in him to have done, this was but a problem, now beyond possibility of settlement." He foretells that the two volumes published by Archdeacon Hare "will be held in mem ory by the world, one way or other, till the world has extracted all its benefit from them." That time has, we think, come; Hare's book is long since out of print, and neither in that great public convenience, the railway library of W. H. Smith & Son, nor in one of the best pub. lic libraries possessed by any provincial town, can we find a copy of it. These memories of Sterling, by a friend who had a thorough knowledge of him, zeal for his memory, if not rather a personal affection for him, and ability rightly to estimate and faithfully to represent him, will revive his memory for a time, but in the end will, like the rival biographies by Hare and Carlyle, preach, to use the words of Sir James Stephen, one more unheeded sermon on the text, "Oh, ye candidates for fame, put not your faith in coteries." The friendship between Sterling and Caroline Fox began during his first visit to Falmouth. It increased after he took np his abode there, and continued unabated to the close of his residence in that place. The relation of master and pupil existed between them, and the master's multifariously diversified speculations on theology, philosophy, and literature, are reported with Boswell-like fidelity by his admiring pupil. Caroline first mentions Sterling as a very "literary man with whom her brother had been much pleased, and who was an intimate friend of S. T. Coleridge during the latter part of his life." On first acquaintance she pronounced him to be "a very agreeable man, with a most Lamb-liking for town life." Cornish readers, if so be we have Vol. i., p. 291. Conf. p. 189. Conf. Mill's Autobiography, 152 et seq. Life of Sterling, p. 7. Sterling suggested to Caroline that as she saw many eminent persons, she should make notes of their appearance as well as their conversation. The idea "seeming to her good," she resolved to try her 'prentice hand on him himself, and here is the result: : John Sterling is a man of stature, not roclinging closely round his head, complexion bust, but well-proportioned; hair brown, and very pale, eyes grey, nose beautifully chiselled, mouth very expressive. His face is one expressing remarkable strength, energy, and refinement of character. In argument he commonly listens to his antagonist's sentiments with a smile, less of conscious superiority than of affectionate contempt (if such a combination may be)-I mean what would express, "Poor dear! she knows no better." In argument on deep or serious subjects, however, he ous strength into reasoning and feeling Small looks earnest enough, and throws his ponderchance then for the antagonist who ventures to come to blows! He can make him and his arguments look so small; for, truth to tell, he dearly loves this indomitable strength of his, and I doubt any human power bringing him to an acknowledgment of mistake with the consequent conviction that the opposite party was right. Sterling possesses a quickness and with it a power of originating striking thoughts, delicacy of perception quite feminine, and and making them the foundation of a regular and compact series of consequences and deductions, such as only a man, and a man of extraordinary power of close thinking and clearness of vision, can attain unto. He is singularly uninfluenced by the opinions of others, preferring, on the whole, to run counter to them than make any approach to a compromise.† This brings the man more vividly before us than the labored efforts of Car lyle, or so far as at this distance of time we can remember, anything in Hare's memoir. The subjects of some of the conversations between the master and his pupil are remarkable, considering that the master, though he had been some years mar Vol. i., pp. 102-3, 149. Had Sterling in his mind the lines of the old poet quoted by Camden in the "Britannia"? "Cornwall from England, Tamar's streams divide, Whence with fat salmon all the land's supplied.' Unhappily, the last line is now a mere poetic dream. ↑ Vol. i., p. 241. 82 ried, was still only in his thirty-fourth, | saying, 'When I look at this, I determine Mill, with his later views on the relations of the sexes, would have thought that his friend Sterling was far from the truth. On another occasion, when Sterling and Caroline were joined by Calvert and Anna Maria, the conversation ranged over Napoleon, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, the practices of the Society of Friends, the evils of marriages between persons of differing religious beliefs, the Churches of Rome and England, to Keightly's "History of Rome." Caroline, with a spice of mischief, adds: As we neared home, Bobby (the pony) got his bit out of his mouth, and it was delicious to see the ignorance of common things manifested by our transcendentalists. "You'd better let him go, he'll find his way home," said Sterling, with a laudable knowledge of natural history, and a confused recollection of the instinct of brutes. We, thinking it would go probably to Kergillack, thought it best to lead him. So, Sterling took his forelock, and I his tail, and marched the little kicking beast homeward. "Calvert, just put the bit in his mouth, can't you; it's very easy." Oh, yes, perfectly easy," said Calvert; "do you do it, Sterling?"t The communications between the master and the pupil occasionally took a light er shape, if, indeed, they did not amount to flirtation, supposing such a thing possible between a married clergyman and a female member of the Society of Friends. To us it seems as impossible as did flirtation by a bishop to Sydney Smith. "John Sterling," says the lady, "wrote the following impromptu to me by way of autograph" (of autographs she was a great collector): : What need to write upon your book a name, She narrates, on Sterling's authority, the following reply by him to Carlyle: "Carlyle was as often pouring out the fulness of his indignation at the quackery and speciosity of the times. He wound up by * Vol. i., p. 128. ↑ Ibid., p. 118. ↑ Ibid., p. 115. When Sterling's life came to be written, Hare naturally applied for information to the Foxes, who had heard much and so many of Sterling's later opinions. Caroline notes in her diary the receipt from Hare of a long letter "detailing dif ficulties which we had foreseen, and could well enter into. He seems almost forced order to leave Mill and Carlyle no preto publish more than he could wish, in text for an opposition portrait." + Her opinion of Hare's work was "that it was full of exquisite interest, but of a very mixed kind." § Mill intended to write Sterling's life, and Caroline gave him some cautions as to it. "Clara Mill writes: 'Is Caroline's note a brave note in answer to my cautious entreaties? Publish what you will, and all you can, it can only do him. honor.'" What a life of Sterling by Mill would have been we know from the mention in his "Autobiography," "of that short and transitory phasis of Sterling's life, during which he made the mistake of becoming a clergyman." T According to Hallam, who so told Caroline Fox, the impression produced by Hare's work on those who knew Sterling intimately, was "that it portrayed a mere bookworm, always occupied with some abstruse theological problem, rather than the man they delighted in for his geniality and buoyancy of feeling." ** This feeling was, no doubt, the origin of Carlyle's opposition portrait of Sterling, and of his caricature of Hare's. A pale sickly shadow is presented to us here weltering, bewildered, amid heaps of what call "Hebrew old clothes," wrestling with impotent impetuosity to free itself from the you |