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expenses incurred in the defence of O'Donnell, the alleged murderer of Carey, the keen desire that was evinced for a fair trial. The fact of the treasures which reached the Irish National League from American sources is now a matter of history. Year after year, in good report and in bad, in seasons as dark and perilous as any in the nation's history, the National League in Ireland was maintained and encouraged, and has, indeed, survived by reason of the funds forwarded from America-funds which came from every class, from the Irish navvy and from the Irish banker. In this profuse generosity, a generosity which in America is evidenced by the numberless magnificent churches and splendid edifices erected over the entire land, the Irish-Americans owe much of their social influence and much of their influence as a body politic. Such records, such facts, such traits, contribute to elevate the Irish character in the eyes of the people of the Republic, cause the Irish to be regarded with feelings of admiration and respect, and cause their mother country to be looked at with eyes of kindly sympathy. These facts also show that the Irish form an essential portion of the American population, an essential element of American society; that they owe principally to their own exertions that freedom which they thought denied to them in their native land; that the United States owes much to them, and that she is proud of them. Then we have to bear in mind the Irish influence in America has assumed its great power in an incredibly short period the Irish emigration practically began not more than seventy years ago; from that period it went on steadily; it received a great impulse by the frightful plague in the year 1832; in or about the dread year of the famine of 1847, one-fifth of the entire population fled from this country, and, surely and steadily, the stream of emigration has flowed on. In this short period the progress of the Irish-American has been really marvellous. The influence exerted by the Celtic people on the West, which has developed so quickly and in such a wonderful way, can scarcely be over-estimated. The commerce, the manufactures, the social and political importance of the Republic, are all progressing by leaps and bounds. Her position is fully admitted by every Power. Her opinion can no longer be disregarded.

How much this opinion will be valued in the course of a few years, say, in a quar ter of a century or even less, no one can say. The United States is one of the few Powers that are steadily and rapidly progressing on the highway of commercial prosperity and social advancement. She holds out' every promise of future expansion and greatness, still greater than those of her short past. At present the arbitress, if she so willed it, of the nations and Powers of the New World, she may in time become the arbitress of the fate of the Powers of the Old World. Just now it seems to us that three nations, and three only, have reached the zenith of their power and glory--Britain, Russia, the United States. Some omit the two former from the list, and consider the States alone as the only Power that has not attained the full measure of its strength, and that other nations have passed their zenith, or are doing so. Yet England, the parent of free peoples, can rejoice, has every cause for rejoicing, in the rapid rise of the Western Republic, her eldest child, in a progress than which none more rapid or more splendid has been witnessed since the dawn of history, which will ensure the continuance and future extension of English power, directed for the attainment of an increasing measure of human happiness, for the cultivation of those arts, pursuits, and industries which promote the welfare of all, and for the further diffusion of civilization and freedom, with their attendant blessings, into every clime. To attain this noble and surely practicable object, much will be done if the English more fully recognize and rightly appreciate the power of the Irish-Americans, the influence they exert, the powerful position they have attained. This can be effected by a better understanding, by a juster appreciation, by each of the two peoples of the merits of the other, who, even when erring, "lean to virtue's side." And here we may be permitted to add that due regard inust be had for those feelings of antipathy exhibited by many Irishmen toward England. They were the feelings of men who had been cruelly wronged and insulted; they were the gradual outcome of a long series of years of degradation, of vexations, of impoverishment, and of contumely. And such sentiments, when once generated by a sense of wrong and injustice, and kindled by acts of hardship,

and fostered by bitter recollections, are the most fierce and unquenchable that can spring up in the heart of man. Time alone can efface from the memory a sense of injustice, and patience alone can transform the passion of fierce hatred into sullen indifference or into good will. The effects of these two powerful agents can be much augmented by kindness and mutual confidence, and the effects of these agents are now beginning to be discerned. We have good reasons for believing that if any unforeseen event should occur by which the freedom, the independence, or the rights of the peoples of these kingdoms become menaced, the moral power

and moral influence of Americans would be at our back, and that in the struggle the people of the States of every class, and especially the Irish-Americans, would be our allies and firmest friends. We on our part must see that that alliance, so powerful, so prolific of good, shall never be weakened or impaired by our national prejudice, by our selfishness, or by our supineness; if we do so-and we doubt not but we shall under the guidance of the dictates of conscience, and the influence of common sense-a magnificent future is in store for the people of Great Britain and the Republic of the West.Westminster Review.

THE BEAUTY OF WINTER.

It is much casier to see the beauty of a late than the beauty of an early winter; for the very essence of its beauty consists in the anticipation of the life which lies in reserve beneath frost and snow, and it is much easier to most men to realize this vividly, as the long suspense approaches an end, than it is when it is just beginning. As Mr. Coventry Patmore says of Winter in the volume which he mystically entitles "The Unknown Eros,'

"It is not death, but plenitude of peace;

And the dim cloud that does the world enfold

Hath less the characters of dark and cold
Than warmth and light asleep,
And correspondent breathing seems to keep
With the infant harvest, breathing soft be-

low

Its eider coverlet of snow."

A prophecy of the future is by most of us much more vividly realized when the "dim cloud "" may break and float away at any moment, than it can be when it is just closing round us. For the beauty of winter ccnsists, after all, in the expression of life in reserve which hangs about it. Change the rich purple of the leafless elms, or delicate white of the birches into the shrivelling yellow of a dead tree, and instead of seeing in it the beauty of winter, we see in it only the desolation of decay. It is the evidence of lingering life in November, the promise of budding life in March, that lends so great a beauty to a winter landscape, and the latter feeling is far more really inspiring than the former. It is curious, but certainly true, that there

is a kind of beauty about the promise and hint and hope of life, which does not belong to the fulfilment of that promise; and it is this which makes a winter sun breaking through light wintry clouds, a sun that seems intended only to mock the longing for heat, and to some extent even that for light, suggest aspects of beauty which not even the sun of a bright spring, or of midsummer, or of a glorious autumn can afford. In the former, there is promise but hardly any fulfilment; in the latter, there is too much warmth already felt to admit of that shy foretaste of a radiance still withheld, which lends so much beauty to hidden or unfolded life. Why it is that there is a kind of joy in vivid anticipation which is absent from the fruition, it would be hard to say. But whatever the reason, no one who knows what exquisite beauty there is in the very parsimony of Nature as seen in a winter landscape like those of a few of the bright, keen days of this last week, can doubt that, in proportion as Nature gives more liberally, the lavishness of what she does give is less vividly appreciated. The snowdrop is more eagerly welcomed than the rose, and even the aconite than the snowdrop. It is the earliest violet or primrose that confers the greatest pleasure, those of which Mr. Patmore says,

"Often, in sheltering brakes,

As one from rest disturbed in the first
hour,

Primrose or violet bewildered wakes,
And deems 'tis time to flower."

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Indeed, it is doubtful whether the rich carpets of primroses which brighten the copses a month or two later, fill the mind with as much eager gladness as the single violet or primrose which forestalls the sea son of spring. And even bare winter, though it does not send the thrill through the observer which accompanies the first signal of spring, has an austere beauty which is due entirely to the sense of what it hides and what spring will one day reveal. What Matthew Arnold speaks of as the tender purple spray on copse and briars" owes all its charm to the latency of life in that tender purple spray. If the life were not latent but visible, the charm would be quite different, and somehow not so intense. The delicate tracery of the naked trees has a spell in it which even the tenderest green of early spring cannot quite surpass. And the very chillness of the air, the strict suspense of all visible growth, the pallid blue of the sky, the powdered snow and the vivid grassgreen which peeps from beneath it, the sense of far distance, the glimpses of those long vistas which are never seen again after the leaves have shown themselves, all heighten the feeling of that reserve force in the world around us, that immeasurable and impenetrable secret on the mere surface of which the wintry light glistens, which constitutes the strange freshness of a bright March frost. Probably, too, the stimulant of the keen air, by exciting the nerves, adds considerably to this vividness of appreciation. The only mistake Mr. Patmore makes in the striking passage from which we have quoted, is to speak of winter's "languorous gaze. There may be a languorous gaze in spring and summer and autumn, but in genuine winter, never. Her gaze is keen and bracing, a gaze which chills the passions and fortifies the will.

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What is the explanation of this greater satisfaction,-greater, we mean, in proportion to the amount of the beauty actually visible,-in beauty which is chiefly a promise, than in beauty which is complete and full fledged? We do not, of course, mean to say that there is nearly so much beauty in winter as there is in spring, or so much in spring as there is in summer. But we do mean that the little there is in times of a comparative famine of beauty, that is, in winter, has a higher kind of influence about it than the same

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beauty has in time of wealth, in spring or summer, when there is less promise and more performance. The almost ghostly beauty of the Christmas rose and the snowdrop, like that of a bright winter morning, touches in some way a higher key in our nature than even the lavish beauty of an exquisite midsummer dawn or sunset. For our own parts, we hold that the secret lies in that word "ghostliness;" that we find in the pallor of that early gleam an assurance of its spiritual essence, which we fail to find in the richness, the fragrance, and the many-colored tints of the inore abundant seasons. strange that it should be so, but it is, we think, almost certain that in the prophetic stage we discern much more clearly the spiritual origin of all beauty than we do in the flush of its meridian blaze. Probably this is due to the limitation of the human mind, which is more equal to detecting the significance of that which is single and solitary, than of that which is rich and complex. No doubt, too, there is something in the earliest stage of beauty which less reminds us of decay, than there is in any of the later stages. The beauty of a child is almost all promise for the future; the beauty of a woman is already felt to be passing and so the beauty of the winter is almost all promise for the future; the beauty of the summer, and even of the spring, is already felt to be rapidly approaching the end of its brief span. But there is something more in this ghostly beauty than mere promise. There is in it an appeal to faith which, being one of the most spiritual principles of our nature, is stirred by very faint indications of what is coming, into an energy which it cannot put forth when sight alone is sufficient, and more than sufficient, to exercise and exhaust all our keenest faculties of perception. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed,' is as true of natural as of supernatural phenomena. As Wordsworth said that when he did see Yarrow, he saw it by sight alone," but that a ray of fancy still survived in what he saw, so it is true that when at last spring and summer come, we see them partly by the light of the prophetic vision that we had of them in winter, and not merely by the light of their own day. And it is of the essence of this foretaste of future beauty that it should be felt to be more spiritual than

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not

the immediate and present vision. We cannot foresee without faith as well as memory, without confidence as well as experience and all faith, all confidence, is of the very essence of spirit. That is the reason, we believe, why the parsimony of beauty in winter lends the beauty which there is an additional charm. We are living by faith, and not by sight. But no sooner does the gayety of spring spread itself over the land, than we begin to live in the present, and even to deplore that the present should be so transitory. The

frosty air, the gray-blue skies, the keen wind, the pallid sunlight, the glimpses of white buds in the garden, of purple buds upon the trees, the feathery outlines of which we anticipate the leafy outcome, are all in their way appeals to courage and faith; and courage and faith are, after all, the most spiritual parts of man, and lend a charm to what he sees by their aid which is quite distinct from the charm of rich and overflowing color, or glowing suns and balmy breezes.-Spectator.

THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Ir is a serious question how far one ignorant, like myself, of Hebrew, and having no regular practice in the study and explanation of the text of the Old Testament, is entitled to attempt representations concerning it, which must present more or less the character of advice, to any portion of his fellow-countrymen. It is clear that he can draw no sufficient warrant for such a course from the mere warmth of his desire that such portion of the British public should not lose or relax their hold upon the Book which Christendom regards as an inestimable treasure, and thereby bring upon themselves, as well as others, an inexpressible calamity. But, on the other hand, he has some better pleas to urge. The first is that there is a very large portion of the community whose opportunities of judgment have been materially smaller than his own. The second is that though he is greatly wanting in the valuable quaifications growing out of special study in this field, he has, for more than forty years (believing that change of labor is to a great extent the healthiest form of recreation), devoted the larger part of all such time as he could properly withdraw from political duties to another, and in several respects a similar, field of specialism-namely, the earnest study of prehistoric antiquity and of its documents in regard to the Greek race, whose destinies have been, after those of the Hebrews, the most wonderful in themselves, and the most fertile of results for us, among all the races of mankind. As between this field, which has for its cenNEW SERIES.-VOL. LI., No. 5.

43

tral point the study of Homer, and that of the early Scriptures, which may in the mass be roughly called contemporary with the Homeric period, much light is, and with the progress of research more can hardly fail to be, given and received. Moreover, I have there had the opportunity of perceiving how, among specialists as with other men, there may be fashions of the time and school, which Lord Bacon called idols of the market-place, and currents of prejudice below the surface, which may detract somewhat from the authority which each inquirer may justly claim in his own field, and from their title to impose their conclusions upon mankind. As a judicious artist likes to know the opinion even of one not an expert on his picture, and sometimes derives benefit from it, so in all studies lights may be thrown inward from without; and this in far the largest degree where the special study deals with a subject-matter that has deep root in our nature, and is the source of profoundly interesting controversies for mankind at large. Yet I do not feel sure that these considerations would have led me to make the present attempt were they not capped with another of great importance. It appears to me that we may grant, for argument's sake, to the negative or destructive specialist in the field of the ancient Scriptures all which as a specialist he can by possibility be entitled to ask respecting the age, text, and authorship of the books, and yet may hold firmly, as firmly as of old, to the ideas justly conveyed by the title I have adopted for this paper, and

may invite our fellow-men to stand along with us on "the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture."

These words sound like a challenge. And they are a challenge to some extent, but not in the sense that might be supposed. They are a challenge to accept the Scriptures on the moral and spiritual and historical ground of their characters in themselves, and of the work which they, and the agencies associated with them, have done and are doing in the world. We may, without touching the domain of the critic, contend for them as corresponding by their contents to the idea of a Divine revelation to man. We are entitled to attempt to show that they afford that kind of proof of such a revela tion which is analogous to the known divine operations in other spheres; which binds to conduct; and which in other matters, inasmuch as we are rational beings, we recognize as entitled so to bind

118.

We may legitimately ask whether they do not differ in such a manner from the other documents of prehistoric religions, while they too are precious in various ways, as to make them witnesses and buttresses to the office of Holy Scripture rather than sharers in it, although in their degree they may be this also.

But all these assertions lie within the moral and spiritual precinct. No one of them begs any literary question of Old Testament criticism. They leave absolutely open every issue that has been or can be raised respecting the origin, date, authorship and text of the sacred books, which for the present purpose we do not require even to call sacred. Indeed it may be that this destructive criticisin, if entirely made good, would, in the view of an inquiry really searching, comprehensive, and philosophical, leave as its result not less but greater reason for admiring the hidden modes by which the great Artificer works out His designs. In proportion as the means are feeble, perplexed, and to all appearance confused, is the marvel of the results that stand before our eyes. And the upshot may come to be, that, on this very ground we may have to cry out with the Psalmist absorbed in worshipping admiration, Oh, that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the

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*Ps. cvii. 8.

children of men !" Or "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out." For the memories of men, and the art of writing, and the care of the copyist, and the tablet and the rolls of parchment, are but the secondary or mcchanical means by which the Word has been carried down to us along the river of the ages; and the natural and inherent weakness of these means is but a special tribute to the grandeur and greatness of the end, and of Him that wrought it out.

So, then, these high-sounding words have been placed in the foreground of the present observations, because they convey in a positive and definite manner the conclusion which the observations themselves aim at sustaining, at least in outline, on general grounds of reason, and at enforcing as a great rule of thought and life. They lead upward and onward to the idea that the Scriptures are well called Holy Scriptures; and that, though assailed by camp, by battery, and by mine, they are nevertheless a house builded upon a rock, and that rock impregnable; that the weapon of offence, which shall impair their efficiency for practical purposes, has not yet been forged; that the Sacred Canon, which it took (perhaps) two thousand years from the accumulations of Moses down to the acceptance of the Apocalypse to construct, is like to wear out the storms and the sunshine, and all the wayward aberrations of humanity, not merely for a term as long, but until time shall be no

more.

And yet, upon the very threshold, I embrace, in what I think a substantial sense, one of the great canons of modern criticism, which teaches us that the Scriptures are to be treated like any other book in the trial of their title. The volume which is put into our hands when young under that venerated name, is, like any other volume, put together as a material object by human hands. The many and diversified utterances it contains proceeded from men; and the question, whether through supernatural guidance they were, for this purpose, inore than men, is to be determined, like other disputable questions, by the evidence. The books have been transmitted to us from their formation onward in perishable materials, and from remote dates ; and, until four hundred years ago, by the agency of copyists, as in the case of other literary productions, and presum

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