The Chautauquan, February 1884

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The Chautauquan.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. IV. FEBRUARY, 1884. No. 5.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

Superintendent of Instruction—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn.

Counselors—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.

Office Secretary—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

General Secretary—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Contents

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REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4.
FEBRUARY.

GERMAN HISTORY.

By Rev. W. G. WILLIAMS, A.M.

V.

The present and last of this series of readings in German history includes an outline of the historical changes and great events of the period of nearly four hundred years since the Reformation. Though condensed to a very great degree, it furnishes the reader a survey of that important period, and will afford him a helpful basis for his future study of the history of Germany. The reading closes with a selection from the pen of the poet and historian, Schiller, descriptive of the battle of Lutzen, where Gustavus Adolphus, that greatest character and hero of the Thirty Years’ War, met his fate.

SUMMARY OF GERMAN HISTORY FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT TIME.

From the death of Luther, 1546, to the end of the century the struggle continued. Now and then there came a brief pause to the general strife, such as followed the Treaty of Passau, or the Religious Peace of Augsburg, but it was soon renewed by the tyranny or treachery of the Catholic powers, whose hatred of the followers of Luther and of the spirit of protestantism did not abate till Europe had passed through the most terrible and disastrous war of history. This was the thirty years’ war, dating from 1618 to 1648, and involving not only the whole German Empire, but also the principal states of Europe. Seldom, if ever, has there been known such depletion of population and resources. It was finally brought to an end by the peace of Westphalia, when the worn-out and impoverished states subscribed to a treaty which gave comparative toleration in Germany. Under its conditions, in all religious questions Protestants were to have an equal weight with Catholics in the high courts and diet of the empire. The Calvinists were also included with the Lutheran and Reformed creeds in this religious peace. By its termination of the religious wars in Europe the peace of Westphalia forms a great landmark in history.

The seventeenth century, from the thirty years’ war on to its close, might not inappropriately be called the period of pusillanimity in Germany. Public buildings, schools and churches were allowed to stand as ruins while the courts of petty princes were aping the stiff, formal, artificial manners of that of the French monarch, Louis XIV. The latter seeing the weakened state of the empire seized the opportunity to enlarge his own kingdom at the expense of Germany. He laid claim to Brabant and many of the fortresses of the frontier fell into the hands of the French. His ambition was only checked by the intervention of Holland, England and Sweden, and the war terminated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Meanwhile the Turks in alliance with the Hungarians marched with an army of 200,000 up the Danube and encamped around the walls of Vienna. There is good evidence that they were aided and abetted in this invasion by Louis XIV. The Emperor Leopold fled, leaving his capital to its fate. But the little guard of 13,000 men under Count Stahremberg held the fortifications against the invader’s overwhelming force till Duke Charles of Lorraine and the Elector of Saxony with their armies, and still another army of 20,000 Poles under their king John Sobieski came to their relief. The Turkish army was routed and driven into Hungary. All this time Louis, like an eager bird of prey, was watching Germany. Finally, in 1688, two powerful French armies appeared upon the Rhine. The allied states at last saw their imminent danger and rallied to resist and drive back the common foe. Louis resolved to ruin if he could not possess the country; so he adopted a course than which a more wanton and barbarous was never known, even in the annals of savagism. Vines were pulled up, fruit-trees cut down, and villages burned to the ground. Multitudes of defenseless people were slain in cold blood, and 400,000 persons beggared. Germany, aroused at last, now entered with vigor into the war with France, and carried it on till both sides were weary and exhausted. It was concluded by the Treaty of Ryswick.

The eighteenth century dawned, still to witness Germany the arena of war. Indeed from earliest history her soil, especially along the Rhine, had been the battle-ground of Europe. This time it was the war of the Spanish succession, whose tangled episodes and details we can not undertake to follow. It will be remembered by the student of history for its great battle of Blenheim, where the allied armies under the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated and routed the French. Louis XIV. was now old, infirm, and tired of war, and hence consented to a treaty of peace, which was concluded March 7, 1714.

The century now begun witnessed the rise of Prussia out of the German chaos and the wonderful and brilliant career of Frederick the Great. It also saw the stronger and more enlightened reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II. in Austria.

Though the wars never ceased, breaking out again in one quarter while peace was being concluded in another, yet the century as a whole gave prophesy of a coming better state of affairs.

The grandfather of Frederick the Great had founded the university of Halle in 1694, and in 1711 an academy of science was established in Berlin upon a plan drawn up by the philosopher Leibnitz. Frederick William I., father of Frederick the Great, though coarse and brutal in his nature, had the wisdom to see the importance of German education and of breaking off from the established custom of imitating French manners and life. He accordingly established four hundred schools among the people, and by the vigor and economy of his reign contributed to the development of the character and individuality of his people. Frederick the Great and his rival, Maria Theresa, possessed greater elements of personal character and intelligence than their predecessors, and hence gave to their subjects, if not a more liberal form, at least a higher order of government. Contemporary with these was the beginning of that literary bloom which, by the genius of Lessing, Herder, Klopstock, Goethe and Schiller, gave to Germany a glory surpassing all she has ever achieved, either by war or statesmanship.

We have now reached, just before the beginning of the nineteenth century, the time of the French Revolution. It was a time that required great political prudence on the part of the rulers in Germany. Unhappily the successors of Frederick the Great and Joseph II. were incompetent to their responsibilities. That great military genius that rose out of the turmoil and chaos of the revolution in France is soon marching through Germany, and on the 6th of August, 1806, Francis II., the last of the line, laid down his title of “Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation” at the feet of Napoleon. Thus, just a thousand years after Charlemagne the empire of his founding passed away. It had culminated under the Hohenstauffens, and for a long time before its formal burial had existed in tradition rather than in fact. Truly may it be said that Germany was as far as ever from being a nation at the beginning of our century.

From 1806 to 1814 Germany underwent the humiliation of subjection to the power of Napoleon. By a succession of victories, such as Jena and Auerstädt, he cowed the spirit of the German princes and proceeded to construct the famous “Rhine-Bund” which made him protector over a territory embracing fourteen millions of German inhabitants, and imposed upon the states and principalities included conditions the most exacting and disgraceful. Prussia and Austria, which held out at first, were also compelled by force of his victorious armies to yield, and Napoleon dictated terms to all Germany. He marched in triumph into Berlin and Vienna; he changed boundaries, levied troops, prescribed the size of their standing armies at will, and when he set out on his campaign against Alexander of Prussia 200,000 previously conquered Germans marched at his command. Such was the abject state of Germany during those years when it seemed that all Europe must bend before the insatiate conqueror. But in the year 1813 the spirit of liberty began to live again. The revival began, however, not with the princes, but in the breasts of the people. The works of the great German authors were becoming familiar to them and were producing their effect. Klopstock was awakening a pride in the German name and race; Schiller was thrilling the popular heart with his doctrine of resistance to oppression, whilst the songs of Körner and Arndt were inspiring courage and hope. All classes of the people participated in the uprising, and within a few months Prussia had an army of 270,000 soldiers in the field ready to resist the power of France. This was the beginning of the turn in the tide of affairs which led in 1815 to the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo, and gave liberation to Germany.

The remaining history of the present century is that of the Confederation formed in 1815 and lasting till 1866; of the North German Confederation which succeeded the above, and continued to the establishing of the present empire in 1871, as a result of the Franco-Prussian war; and of the new empire to the present time. The confederation of 1815, known as the “Deutscher Bund,” embraced a part of Austria, most of Prussia, the kingdoms of Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony and Hanover, the electorate of Hesse-Cassel, a number of duchies, principalities and free cities; in all thirty-nine states.

When in 1866 the “Bund” was dissolved and the North German Confederation formed, Austria was excluded, and Prussia assumed the headship of the new compact which embraced the states north of the Main. The term Germany, from 1866 to 1871, designated the new Confederation, and the four South German States, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden and Hesse Darmstadt. The four latter had been made independent states, but were united with the North German Confederation by the Zollverein, and by alliances offensive and defensive.

The late war between France and Germany belongs to the history of the present generation. Its great events and changes to Germany are within the memory of many of our readers. It will be longest remembered because of its association with the formation of the present empire. While the siege of Paris was yet in progress (January 1871) the spirit of enthusiasm became so great, and the desire for national unity so strong, that the various sovereign states, as well as the members of the Confederation determined on a revival of the empire. At their joint instance, in the great hall of Louis XIV., at Versailles, King William of Prussia received the imperial crown with the title of German Emperor. Under this new empire the whole German nation, Austria alone excepted, is united more closely than it has been for more than six hundred years, or since the Great Interregnum. It is not too much to say that the last decade has been the brightest and most prosperous in German history. The new empire has made possible and developed a feeling of patriotism which could not exist while the race was divided into fifty or more separate states. It was the complaint of her greatest poet, Goethe, that there was no united Germany to awaken pride and patriotism in the German heart. That condition of things is now done away by the present national government, which, though retaining many of the imperial features of the past, has, at the same time, embodied some of the more liberal governmental ideas of the present age. Such, for instance, is the election by direct universal suffrage and by ballot, of the Reichstag, one of the two legislative councils of the empire. The German name was never more respected and honored throughout the world than it is to-day; not alone for her eminent position among the powers of Europe, but for her high rank in the empires of art, philosophy and science. Her great universities are admired wherever in the world there is appreciation for scholarship, industry and genius. If the present has any right to prophesy it must be that the coming years contain for Germany less of wars and dissension, more of peace, coöperation and unity.

BATTLE OF LUTZEN—DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.

“At last the fateful morning dawned, but an impenetrable fog, which spread over the plain, delayed the attack till noon.… ‘God with us!’ was the war cry of the Swedes; ‘Jesus Maria!’ that of the Imperialists. About eleven the fog began to disperse, and the enemy became visible. At the same moment Lutzen was seen in flames, having been set on fire by command of the duke, to prevent his being outflanked on that side. The charge was now sounded; the cavalry rushed upon the enemy, and the infantry advanced against the trenches.

“Received by a tremendous fire of musketry and heavy artillery, these intrepid battalions maintained the attack with undaunted courage, till the enemy’s musketeers abandoned their posts, the trenches were passed, the battery carried and turned against the enemy. They pressed forward with irresistible impetuosity; the first of the five imperial brigades was immediately routed, the second soon after, and the third put to flight. But here the genius of Wallenstein opposed itself to their progress. With the rapidity of lightning he was on the spot to rally his discomfited troops; and his powerful word was itself sufficient to stop the flight of the fugitives. Supported by three regiments of cavalry, the vanquished brigades, forming anew, faced the enemy, and pressed vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes. A murderous conflict ensued.… In the meantime the king’s right wing, led by himself, had fallen upon the enemy’s left. The first impetuous shock of the heavy Finland cuirassiers dispersed the lightly mounted Poles and Croats, who were posted here, and their disorderly flight spread terror and confusion among the rest of the cavalry. At this moment notice was brought to the king, that his infantry was retreating over the trenches, and also that his left wing, exposed to a severe fire from the enemy’s cannon posted at the windmills, was beginning to give way. With rapid decision he committed to General Horn the pursuit of the enemy’s left, while he flew, at the head of the regiment of Steinback, to repair the disorder of his right wing. His noble charger bore him with the velocity of lightning across the trenches, but the squadrons that followed could not come on with the same speed, and only a few horsemen, among whom was Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenberg, were able to keep up with the king. He rode directly to the place where his infantry were most closely pressed, and while he was reconnoitering the enemy’s line for an exposed point to attack, the shortness of his sight unfortunately led him too close to their ranks. An imperial Gefreyter, remarking that every one respectfully made way for him as he rode along, immediately ordered a musketeer to take aim at him. ‘Fire at him yonder,’ said he, ‘that must be a man of consequence.’ The soldier fired, and the king’s left arm was shattered. At that moment his squadron came hurrying up, and a confused cry of ‘the king bleeds! the king is shot!’ spread terror and consternation through all the ranks. ‘It is nothing, follow me,’ cried the king, collecting his whole strength; but overcome by pain, and nearly fainting, he requested the Duke of Lauenberg, in French, to lead him unobserved out of the tumult. While the duke proceeded toward the right wing with the king, to keep this discouraging sight from the disordered infantry, his majesty received a second shot through the back, which deprived him of his remaining strength. ‘Brother,’ said he, with a dying voice, ‘I have enough! look only to your own life.’ At the same moment he fell from his horse, pierced by several more shots; and abandoned by all his attendants, he breathed his last amidst the plundering bands of the Croats. His charger flying without its rider, and covered with blood, soon made known to the Swedish cavalry the fall of their king. They rushed madly forward to rescue his sacred remains from the hands of the enemy. A murderous conflict ensued over the body, till his mangled remains were buried beneath a heap of slain. Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, gave to the bereaved Swedes a noble leader in his own person; and the spirit of Gustavus led his victorious squadrons anew.

“The sun was setting when the two lines closed. The strife grew hotter as it drew to an end; the last efforts of strength were mutually exerted, and skill and courage did their utmost to repair in these precious moments the fortune of the day. It was in vain; despair endows every one with superhuman strength; no one can conquer, no one will give way. The art of war seemed to exhaust its powers on one side, only to unfold some new and untried masterpiece of skill on the other. Night and darkness at last put an end to the fight, before the fury of the combatants was exhausted; and the contest only ceased, when no one could any longer find an antagonist. Both armies separated, as if by tacit agreement; the trumpets sounded, and each party claiming the victory, quitted the field.”

[End of German History.]

SELECTIONS FROM GERMAN LITERATURE.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

After every deduction has been made he yet stands before us as a colossal figure not unworthy to take his place beside Goethe as the representative of the scientific side of the culture of his country.—Encyclopædia Britannica.

The Cataracts of the Orinoco.

The impression which a scene makes upon us is not so deeply fixed by the peculiarities of the country as by the light, the clear azure or the deep shade of low lying clouds, under which hill and river lie. In the same way descriptions of scenes impress us with more or less force according as they harmonize with our emotions. In our inner susceptible soul the physical world is reflected true and life-like. What gives its peculiar character to a landscape, to the outline of the mountain range which borders the dimly distant horizon, to the darkness of the pine forest, to the mountain stream which rushes madly between overhanging cliffs? They all stand in strange mysterious relations with the inner life of man, and on these relations rest the nobler share of enjoyment which nature affords. Nowhere does she impress us more strongly with consciousness of her greatness; nowhere does she speak more powerfully to us than under the Indian heavens. If I venture here to describe that country may I hope that its peculiar charm will not remain unfelt? The memory of a distant richly-endowed land, the glimpse of a luxuriant, vigorous plant-life refreshes and strengthens the mind as the restless worn spirit finds pleasure in youth and its strength.

Western currents and tropical winds favor the voyage over the peaceful straits which fill up the wide valley between America and western Africa. Before the coast appears one notices that the waves foam and dash over each other. Sailors who were unacquainted with the region would suspect shallows to be near, or fresh water springs, such as are in mid ocean among the Antilles. As the garnet coast of Guiana draws near there appears the wide mouth of a mighty stream. It bursts forth like a shoreless sea and covers the surrounding ocean with fresh water. The name Orinoco which the first discoverers gave to the river, and which owes its origin to a confusion of language, is unknown in the interior of the country, for the uncivilized inhabitants give names to only those objects which might easily be mistaken for others. The Orinoco, the Amazon, the Magdalena are called simply the river, in some cases perhaps, the great river, the great water, when the inhabitants wish to distinguish them from a small stream.

The current which the Orinoco causes between the continent of South America and the island of Trinidad is so powerful that ships which attempt to struggle against it with outspread sails are scarcely able to make any headway. This desolate and dangerous place is called the Gulf of Sorrow; the entrance is the Dragon’s Head. Here lonely cliffs rise tower-like in the raging flood. They mark the old, rocky isthmus which, cut off by the current, once joined the island of Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela.

The appearance of this country first convinced the hardy discoverer, Colon, of the existence of the American continent. Acquainted with nature as he was he concluded that so monstrous a body of fresh water could only be collected by a great number of streams, and that the land which supplied this water must be a continent and not an island. As the followers of Alexander believed the Indus, filled with crocodiles, was a branch of the Nile, so Colon concluded that this new continent was the easterly coast of the far away Asia. The coolness of the evening air, the clearness of the starry firmament, the perfume of the flowers borne on the breeze, all led him to believe that he had approached the garden of Eden, the sacred home of the first human beings. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four streams which are said to flow from Paradise, and to water the plants of the newly-planted earth.

This poetical passage taken from Colon’s diary has a peculiar interest. It shows anew how the fancies of the poet are in the discoverer as in every great human character.

HEINRICH HEINE.

Heine had all the culture of Germany; in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have we got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and nobleness of soul, and character.—Matthew Arnold.

In spite of the bitterness of spirit that pervades all his writings he possessed deep natural affections. His mother survived him, and although almost entirely separated from him for the last twenty-five years, he often introduces her name in his works with expressions of reverence.—Translated by E. A. Bowring.

Heine left a singular will, in which he begged that all religious solemnities be dispensed with at his funeral.… He added that this was not the mere freak of a freethinker, for that he had for the last four years dismissed all the pride with which philosophy had filled him, and felt once more the power of religious truth. He also begged forgiveness for any offence which, in his ignorance he might have given to good manners and good morals.—Translated preface.

To Matilda.

I was, dear lamb, ordained to be

A shepherd here, to watch o’er thee;

I nourished thee with mine own bread,

With water from the fountain head.

And when winter storm roared loudly,

Against my breast I warmed thee proudly;

Then held I thee, encircled well,

Whilst rain in torrents round us fell,

When, through its rocky dark bed pouring,

The torrent with the wolf, was roaring,

Thou fear’dst not, no muscle quivered,

E’en when the highest pine was shivered

By forked flash—within mine arm

Thou slept’st in peace without alarm.

My arm grows weak, and fast draws near

Pale death! My shepherd’s task so dear,

And pastoral care approach their end.

Into thy hands, God, I commend

My staff once more. O do thou guard

My lamb, when I, beneath the sward

Am laid in peace, and suffer ne’er

A thorn to prick her anywhere.

From thorny hedges guard her fleece,

May quagmires ne’er disturb her peace.

May there spring up beneath her feet

An ample crop of pasture sweet,

And let her sleep without alarm,

As erst she slept within mine arm!

I have been wont to bear my head right high,

My temper too is somewhat stern and rough;

Even before a monarch’s cold rebuff

I would not timidly avert mine eye.

Yet mother dear, I’ll tell it openly:

Much as my haughty pride may swell and puff,

I feel submissive and subdued enough,

When thy much cherished, darling form is nigh.

Is it thy spirit that subdues me then,

Thy spirit grasping all things in its ken,

And soaring to the light of heaven again?

By the sad recollection I’m oppress’d

That I have done so much to grieve thy breast,

Which loved me more than all things else, the best.

Prose Extracts From Heine.

The French are the chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have been drawn up in their language; Paris is the New Jerusalem, and the Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from the land of the Philistines.

When Candide came to Eldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing with gold nuggets instead of marbles. This degree of luxury made him imagine that they must be the king’s children, and he was not a little astonished when he found that in Eldorado gold nuggets are of no more value than marbles are with us, and that the school-boys play with them. A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner, when he came to Germany and first read German books. He was perfectly astounded at the wealth of ideas which he found in them; but he soon remarked that ideas in Germany are as plentiful as gold nuggets in Eldorado, and that those writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were in reality only common school-boys.

The Lorelei.

I know not what it may mean to-day

That I am to grief inclined;

There’s a tale of a Siren—an old-world lay—

That I can not get out of my mind.

The air is cool in the twilight gray,

And quietly flows the Rhine;

On the ridge of the cliff, at the close of the day

The rays of the sunset shine.

There sits a maiden, richly dight,

And wonderfully fair;

Her golden bracelet glistens bright

As she combs her golden hair.

And while she combs her locks so bright,

She sings a charming lay;

’Tis sweet, yet hath a marvelous might,

And ’tis echoing far away.

The sailor floats down, in the dusk, on the Rhine

That carol awakens his grief;

He sees on the cliff the last sunbeam shine,

But he sees not the perilous reef.

Ah! soon will the sailor, in bitter despair,

To his foundering skiff be clinging!

And that’s what the beautiful Siren there

Has done with her charming singing.

FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER.

He was an admirable dialectician, and did more than any other writer to promote in Germany a sympathetic study of Plato. Yet there is a touch of Romanticism in the vague, shadowy and mystic language in which he presents the elements of Christian thought and life.—Sime.

Wilhelm Von Humboldt says that Schleiermacher’s speaking far exceeded his power in writing, and that his strength consisted in the “deeply penetrative character of his words, which was free from art, and the persuasive effusion of feeling moving in perfect unison with one of the rarest intellects.”—American Cyclopædia.

Extracts From Schleiermacher.

True Pleasure.—Pleasure is a flower which grows indeed of itself, but only in fruitful gardens and well cultivated fields. Not that we should labor in our minds to gain it; but yet he who has not labored for it, with him it will not grow; whoever has not brought out in his own character something profitable and praiseworthy, it is in vain for him to sow. Even he who understands it best can do nothing better for the pleasure of another than that he should communicate to him what is the foundation of his own. Whosoever does not know how to work up the rough stuff for himself, and thereby make it his own, whosoever does not refine his disposition, has not secured for himself a treasure of thoughts, a many sidedness of relations, a view of the world and human things peculiar to himself—such a man knows not how to seize the proper occasion for pleasure, and the most important is assuredly lost for him. It is not the indolent who finds so much difficulty in filling up the time set aside for repose. Who find vexation and ennui in everything? From whom are we hearing never ending complaints about the poverty and dull uniformity of life? Who are most bitter in their lamentations over the slender powers of men for social intercourse, and over the insufficiency of all measures to obtain joy? But this is only what they deserve; for man cannot reap where he has not sown.

The Esteem of the World.—We all consider what is thought of us by those around us as a substantial good. Trust in our uprightness of character, belief in our abilities, and the desire that arises from this to be more intimately connected with us, and to gain our good opinion, everything of this kind is often a more valuable treasure than great riches. Of this the indolent are quite aware. If men would only believe in their capacity without the necessity of producing anything painstaking and really praiseworthy! If they would only agree to take some other proof of their probity and love of mankind than deeds! If they would only accept some other security for their wisdom than prudent language, good counsel, and a sound judgment on the proper mode of conducting the affairs of life! Instead of rising to a true love of honor, such men creep amidst childish vanities, which try to fix the attention of mankind by pitiful trifles and to glitter by shadowy appearances; instead of attempting to reach something really noble, they rest only on external customs; the mental disposition that arises from this is their virtue, and their governing passion is what they regard as understanding.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.

A young man not understood.—Goethe.

German philosophers have as a rule been utterly indifferent to style, but Schopenhauer’s prose is clear, firm and graceful, and to this fact he owes much of his popularity.—Sime.

Our inductive science ends with the questions—“Whence?” “Wherefore?” We observe facts, and classify them; but then follows a question respecting the substance that lies behind the facts? What do they express? What is the Will of which they are the Representation?—If we were isolated from the world around us, we could not answer the question. But we are not so isolated. We belong to nature, and nature is included in ourselves. We have in ourselves the laws of the world around us. We find in our own bodies the mechanical laws, and those of the organic life manifested in plants and animals. We have the same understanding which we find working around us in the system of nature. If we consisted only of the body and the understanding, we could not distinguish ourselves from nature. If we know what is in ourselves, we know what is in nature. Now what do we find controlling the facts of our own natural life? An impulse which we may call the Will to live. We often use the word Will in a complex sense, as implying both thought and choice; but in its purest, simplest sense, as the word is used here, it means the impulse, or force, which is the cause of a phenomenon. In this sense, there is a Will from which the movements within the earth and upon its surface derive their origin. It works continuously upward from the forms of crystals, through the forms of zoöphytes, mollusca, annelida, insectia, arachnida, crustacea, pisces, reptilia, aves, and mammalia. There is one Will manifested in the growth of all plants and animals. That which we call a purpose when viewed as associated with intellect, is, when regarded most simply, or in itself, a force or impulse—the natural Will of which we are now speaking. It is the Will to live—the mighty impulse by which every creature is impelled to maintain its own existence, and without any care for the existence of others. It is an unconscious Egoism. Nature is apparently a collection of many wills; but all are reducible to one—the Will to live. Its whole life is a never-ending warfare. It is forever at strife with itself; for it asserts itself in one form to deny itself as asserted in other forms. It is everywhere furnished with the means of working out its purpose. Where the Will of the lion is found, we find the powerful limbs, the claws, the teeth necessary for supporting the life to which the animal is urged by his Will. The Will is found associated in man with an understanding; but is not subservient to that understanding. On the contrary, the understanding or intellect is subservient. The Will is the moving power; the understanding is the instrument.

This one Will in nature and in ourselves serves to explain a great part of all the movements of human society. Hence arise the collisions of interest that excite envy, strife, and hatred between individuals or classes. Society differs from an unsocial state of life in the forms imposed by intelligence on egoistic Will, but not in any radical change made in that Will. Thus etiquette is the convenience of egoism, and law is a fixing of boundaries within which egoism may conveniently pursue its objects. The world around us, including what is called the social or civilized world, may seem fair, when it is viewed only as a stage, and without any reference to the tragedy that is acted upon it. But, viewed in its reality, it is an arena for gladiators, or an amphitheater where all who would be at peace have to defend themselves. As Voltaire says, it is with sword in hand that we must live and die. The man who expects to find peace and safety here is like the traveler told of in one of Gracian’s stories, who, entering a district where he hoped to meet his fellow-men, found it peopled only by wolves and bears, while men had escaped to caves in a neighboring forest. The same egoistic Will that manifests itself dimly in the lowest stages of life, and becomes more and more clearly pronounced as we ascend to creatures of higher organization, attains its highest energy in man, and is here modified, but not essentially changed, by a superior intelligence. The insect world is full of slaughter; the sea hides from us frightful scenes of cruel rapacity; the tyrannical and destructive instinct marks the so-called king of birds, and rages in the feline tribes. In human society, some mitigation of this strife takes place as the result of experience and culture. By the use of the understanding, the Will makes laws for itself, so that the natural bellum omnium contra omnes is modified, and leaves to the few victors some opportunities of enjoying the results of their victory. Law is a means of reducing the evils of social strife to their most convenient form, and politics must be regarded in the same way. The strength of all law and government lies in our dread of the anarchic Will, that lies couched behind the barriers of society and is ready to spring forth when they are broken down.

READINGS IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

Abridged from Professor Geikie’s Primer of Physical Geography.

V.—THE SEA.
[Continued.]

The sea is full of life, both of plants and animals. These organisms die, and their remains necessarily get mixed up with the different materials laid down upon the sea floor. So that, beside the mere sand and mud, great numbers of shells, corals, and the harder parts of other sea creatures must be buried there, as generation after generation comes and goes.

It often happens that on parts of the sea bed the remains of some of these animals are so abundant that they themselves form thick and wide-spread deposits. Oysters, for example, grow thickly together; and their shells, mingled with those of other similar creatures, form what are called shell banks. In the Pacific and the Indian Oceans a little animal, called the coral-polyp, secretes a hard limy skeleton from the sea water; and as millions of these polyps grow together, they form great reefs of solid rock, which are sometimes, as in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, hundreds of feet thick and a thousand miles long. It is by means of the growth of these animals that those wonderful rings of coral rock or coral islands are formed in the middle of the ocean. Again, a great part of the bed of the Atlantic Ocean is covered with fine mud, which on examination is found to consist almost wholly of the remains of very minute animals called foraminifera.

Over the bottom of the sea, therefore, great beds of sand and mud, mingled with the remains of plants and animals, are always accumulating. If now this bottom could be raised up above the sea level, even though the sand and mud should get as dry and hard as any rock among the hills, you would be able to say with certainty that they had once been under the sea, because you would find in them the shells and other remains of marine animals. This raising of the sea bottom has often taken place in ancient times. You will find most of the rocks of our hills and valleys to have been originally laid down in the sea, where they were formed out of sand and mud dropped on the sea floor, just as sand and mud are carried out to sea and laid down there now. And in these rocks, not merely near the shore, but far inland, in quarries or ravines, or the sides and even the tops of the hills, you will be able to pick out the skeletons and fragments of the various sea creatures which were living in the old seas.

Since the bottom of the sea forms the great receptacle into which the mouldered remains of the surface of the land are continually carried, it is plain that if this state of things were to go on without modification or hindrance, in the end the whole of the solid land would be worn away, and its remains would be spread out on the sea floor, leaving one vast ocean to roll round the globe.

But there is in nature another force which here comes into play to retard the destruction of the land.

THE INSIDE OF THE EARTH.

It may seem at first as if it were hopeless that man should ever know anything about the earth’s interior. Just think what a huge ball this globe of ours is, and you will see that after all, in living and moving over its surface, we are merely like flies walking over a great hill. All that can be seen from the top of the highest mountain to the bottom of the deepest mine is not more in comparison than the mere varnish on the outside of a school globe. And yet a good deal can be learnt as to what takes place within the earth. Here and there, in different countries, there are places where communication exists between the interior and the surface; and it is from such places that much of our information on this subject is derived. Volcanoes are among the most important of the channels of communication with the interior.

Let us suppose that you were to visit one of these volcanoes just before what is called “an eruption.” As you approach it, you see a conical mountain, seemingly with its top cut off. From this truncated summit a white cloud rises. But it is not quite such a cloud as you would see on a hill top in this country. For as you watch it you notice that it rises out of the top of the mountain, even though there are no clouds to be seen anywhere else. Ascending from the vegetation of the lower grounds, you find the slopes to consist partly of loose stones and ashes, partly of rough black sheets of rock, like the slags of an iron furnace. As you get nearer the top the ground feels hot, and puffs of steam, together with stifling vapors, come out of it here and there. At last you reach the summit, and there what seemed a level top is seen to be in reality a great basin, with steep walls descending into the depths of the mountain. Screening your face as well as possible from the hot gases which almost choke you, you creep to the top of this basin, and look down into it. Far below, at the base of the rough red and yellow cliffs which form its sides, lies a pool of some liquid, glowing with a white heat, though covered for the most part with a black crust like that seen on the outside of the mountain during the ascent. From this fiery pool jets of the red hot liquid are jerked out every now and then, stones and dust are cast up into the air, and fall back again, and clouds of steam ascend from the same source and form the uprising cloud which is seen from a great distance hanging over the mountain.

This caldron-shaped hollow on the summit of the mountain is the crater. The intensely heated liquid in the sputtering boiling pool at its bottom is melted rock or lava. And the fragmentary materials—ashes, dust, cinders, and stones—thrown out, are torn from the hardened sides and bottom of the crater by the violence of the explosions with which the gases and steam escape.

The hot air and steam, and the melted mass at the bottom of the crater, show that there must be some source of intense heat underneath. And as the heat has been coming out for hundreds, or even thousands of years, it must exist there in great abundance.

But it is when the volcano appears in active eruption that the power of this underground heat shows itself most markedly. For a day or two beforehand, the ground around the mountain trembles. At length, in a series of violent explosions, the heart of the volcano is torn open, and perhaps its upper part is blown into the air. Huge clouds of steam roll away up into the air, mingled with fine dust and red hot stones. The heavier stones fall back again into the crater or on the outer slopes of the mountain, but the finer ashes come out in such quantity, as sometimes to darken the sky for many miles round, and to settle down over the surrounding country as a thick covering. Streams of white hot molten lava run down the outside of the mountain, and descend even to the gardens and houses at the base, burning up or overflowing whatever lies in their path. This state of matters continues for days or weeks, until the volcano exhausts itself, and then a time of comparative quiet comes, when only steam, hot vapors, and gases are given off.

About 1800 years ago, there was a mountain near Naples shaped like a volcano, and with a large crater covered with brushwood. No one had ever seen any steam, or ashes, or lava come from it, and the people did not imagine it to be a volcano, like some other mountains in that part of Europe. They had built villages and towns around its base, and their district, from its beauty and soft climate, used to attract wealthy Romans to build villas there. But at last, after hardly any warning, the whole of the higher part of the mountain was blown into the air with terrific explosions. Such showers of fine ashes fell for miles around, that the sky was as dark as midnight. Day and night the ashes and stones descended on the surrounding country; many of the inhabitants were killed, either by stones falling on them, or from suffocation by the dust. When at last the eruption ceased, the district, which had before drawn visitors from all parts of the old world, was found to be a mere desert of grey dust and stone. Towns and villages, vineyards and gardens, were all buried. Of the towns, the two most noted were called Herculaneum and Pompeii. So completely did they disappear, that, although important places at the time, their very sites were forgotten, and only by accident, after the lapse of some fifteen hundred years, were they discovered. Excavations have since that time been carried on, the hardened volcanic accumulations have been removed from the old city, and you can now walk through the streets of Pompeii again, with their roofless dwelling houses and shops, theaters and temples, and mark on the causeway the deep ruts worn by the carriage wheels of the Pompeians eighteen centuries ago. Beyond the walls of the now silent city rises Mount Vesuvius, with its smoking crater, covering one half of the old mountain which was blown up when Pompeii disappeared.

Volcanoes, then, mark the position of some of the holes or orifices, whereby heated materials from the inside of the earth are thrown up to the surface. They occur in all quarters of the globe. In Europe, beside Mount Vesuvius, which has been more or less active since it was formed, Etna, Stromboli, and other smaller volcanoes, occur in the basin of the Mediterranean, while far to the northwest some volcanoes rise amid the snows and glaciers of Iceland. In America a chain of huge volcanoes stretches down the range of mountains which rises from the western margin of the continent. In Asia they are thickly grouped together in Java and some of the surrounding islands, and stretch thence through Japan and the Aleutian Isles, to the extremity of North America. If you trace this distribution upon the map, you will see that the Pacific Ocean is girded all round with volcanoes.

Since these openings into the interior of the earth are so numerous over the surface, we may conclude that this interior is intensely hot. But we have other proofs of this internal heat. In many countries hot springs rise to the surface. Even in England, which is a long way from any active volcano, the water of the wells of Bath is quite warm (120° Fahr.). It is known, too, that in all countries the heat increases as we descend into the earth. The deeper a mine the warmer are the rocks and air at its bottom. If the heat continues to increase in the same proportion, the rocks must be red hot at no great distance beneath us.

It is not merely by volcanoes and hot springs, however, that the internal heat of the earth affects the surface. The solid ground is made to tremble, or is rent asunder, or is upheaved or let down. You have probably heard or read of earthquakes; those shakings of the ground, which, when they are at their worst, crack the ground open, throw down trees and buildings, and bury hundreds or thousands of people in the ruins. Earthquakes are most common in or near those countries where active volcanoes exist. They frequently take place just before a volcanic eruption.

Some parts of the land are slowly rising out of the sea; rocks, which used always to be covered by the tides, come to be wholly beyond their limits; while others, which used never to be seen at all, begin one by one to show their heads above water. On the other hand some tracts are slowly sinking; piers, sea walls, and other old landmarks on the beach, are one after another enveloped by the sea as it encroaches further and higher on the land. These movements, whether in an upward or downward direction, are likewise due in some way to the internal heat.

Now when you reflect upon these various changes you will see that through the agency of this same internal heat land is preserved upon the face of the earth. If rain and frost, rivers, glaciers, and the sea were to go on wearing down the surface of the land continually, without any counterbalancing kind of action, the land would necessarily in the end disappear, and indeed would have disappeared long ago. But owing to the pushing out of some parts of the earth’s surface by the movements of the heated materials inside, portions of the land are raised to a higher level, while parts of the bed of the sea are actually upheaved so as to form land.

This kind of elevation has happened many times in all quarters of the globe. As already mentioned most of our hills and valleys are formed of rocks, which were originally laid down on the bottom of the sea, and have been subsequently raised into land.

This earth of ours is the scene of continual movement and change. The atmosphere which encircles it is continually in motion, diffusing heat, light, and vapor. From the sea and from the waters of the land, vapor is constantly passing into the air, whence, condensed into clouds, rain and snow, it descends again to the earth. All over the surface of the land the water which falls from the sky courses seaward in brooks and rivers, bearing into the great deep the materials which are worn away from the land. Water is thus ceaselessly circulating between the air, the land, and the sea. The sea, too, is never at rest. Its waves gnaw the edges of the land, and its currents sweep round the globe. Into its depths the spoils of the land are borne, there to gather into rocks, out of which new islands and continents will eventually be formed. Lastly, inside the earth is lodged a vast store of heat by which the surface is shaken, rent open, upraised or depressed. Thus, while old land is submerged beneath the sea, new tracts are upheaved, to be clothed with vegetation and peopled with animals, and to form a fitting abode for man himself.

This world is not a living being, like a plant or an animal, and yet you must now see that there is a sense in which we may speak of it as such. The circulation of air and water, the interchange of sea and land; in short the system of endless and continual movement by which the face of the globe is day by day altered and renewed, may well be called the Life of the Earth.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

AM I NOT IN SPORT?
By JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D.
[February 3.]

“As a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man who deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, ‘Am I not in sport?’” Proverbs xxvi, 18:19.

It is incalculable how much pain is inflicted, and how much injury is done, without anything which can properly be called malicious intent, or deliberate wrong. Thus there are those who, like the madman mentioned in Scripture, will cast firebrands, arrows, and death, and then think it a sufficient excuse to say, “Are we not in sport?” Let it be that they are; I think it will not be difficult to show that this will not excuse, or do much to palliate, the conduct in question. I think it will not be difficult to show that men are answerable for the mischiefs they do from mere wantonness or in sport, and that it is wrong-doing of this description which makes up no inconsiderable part of every one’s guilt.

It is to little or no purpose to be able to say that such offences do not originate in conscious malice, for, as has just been intimated, the same is true of a large proportion of acknowledged crimes. It is seldom, very seldom, that men injure one another from hatred, or for the sake of revenge—because they find, or expect to find, any pleasure in the mere consciousness of inflicting pain. Men injure one another from wantonness, or want of consideration; or, more commonly still, because the carrying out of their policy, or their prejudices, or their sport, happens to interfere with the interests and comfort of others, and, though really sorry for this, they are not prepared to give up either their policy or their prejudices, or their sport to spare another’s feelings. Wars are waged and conquests made, mourning and desolation spread through a whole country, in the wantonness of honor, or to gratify an insatiable ambition; but without anything which can properly be called malice, either in the first movers or immediate agents. Men opposed to each other in politics or religion will allow this opposition to go to very unjustifiable lengths, even to the disturbing of the peace of neighborhoods, and the breaking of friendships and family connections; and all this, to be sure, must give rise to a great deal of ill-will and hot blood; but it does not originate in malice, properly so called—in positive malice toward anybody. Likewise a rash and improvident man may bring incalculable mischief on all connected with him, involving them in pecuniary difficulties, or committing and paining them in other ways, and yet be able to allege with perfect truth that he did not mean to do them any harm; that, so far from being actuated by malice, he feels nothing and has felt nothing but the sincerest affection for the very persons whom he has injured, and most affection, perhaps, for those whom he has most injured. But why multiply illustrations? The whole catalogue of the vices of self-indulgence and excess—black and comprehensive as it is—has nothing to do with malicious intent; that is to say, these vices do not find any part of their temptation or gratification in ill-will to others, or in the consciousness of causing misery to others. And yet who, on this account, denies that they are vices, or that they are among the worst of vices?

The moral perplexity existing in some minds on this subject may be traced to two errors: making malice to be the only bad motive by which we can be actuated, and confounding the mere absence of malice with that active principle of benevolence, or love of our neighbor, which Christianity makes to be the foundation and substance of all true social virtue.

How unfounded the first of these assumptions is, appears generally from what has been said; but the same may also be shown on strictly ethical grounds. We must distinguish between what is simply odious, and what is immoral. The malignant passions when acted out by animals are odious, but they are not immoral, because they are not comprehended in that light by the agent. The reason why the malignant passions are immoral in man is that he knows them to be immoral; and accordingly any other passion, which he knows to be immoral, becomes for the same reason alike immoral to him as a principle of conduct. Hence it follows that, though not actuated by malice, we may be by some other motive equally reprehensible in a moral point of view, though not perhaps as odious—by the love of ease, by vanity or pride, by unjust partialities, by inordinate ambition, by avarice or lust—dispositions which have nothing to do with malice, but yet are felt and acknowledged by all to be bad and immoral.

[February 10.]

Moreover, the tendencies of modern civilization are to be considered in this connection. Times of violence are gradually giving place to times of self-indulgence and fraud; and the consequence is that now, where one man is betrayed into vices of malevolence and outrage, twenty are betrayed into those of frivolity, licentiousness, or overreaching. I go further still. Suppose a man actuated by none of these positively bad motives; nay, suppose the injury done to be accidental and wholly unintentional, this will not in all cases justify the deed. The question still arises whether the injury done, supposing it to be wholly unintentional, might not have been foreseen, and ought not to have been foreseen; for, where the well-being of others is concerned, we are bound not only to mean no harm, but to take care to avoid everything which is likely to do harm; and negligence in this respect is itself a crime. So obviously just is this principle, so entirely does it approve itself to the reason and common sense of mankind, that we find it everywhere recognized, in some form or other, in the jurisprudence of civilized countries. “When a workman flings down a stone or piece of timber into the street, and kills a man, this may be either misadventure, manslaughter, or murder, according to the circumstances under which the original act is done. If it were in a country village, where a few passengers are, and he calls out to all people to have a care, it is misadventure only; but if it were in London, or other populous town, where people are continually passing, it is manslaughter, though he gives loud warning; and murder, if he knows of their passing and gives no warning at all, for then it is malice against all mankind.”[A]

Equally groundless is the second of the above mentioned assumptions, to wit: that of confounding the mere absence of malice with the active principle of benevolence itself or that love of our neighbor which Christianity makes to be the foundation and substance of all true social virtue. There is nothing, perhaps, which more essentially distinguishes worldly propriety and legal honesty from Christian virtue than this, that they stop with negatives. They are content with avoiding what is expressly forbidden, not reflecting that this, at the best, only makes men to be not bad; it does not make them to be good. Besides, if we take this ground, if we allege the absence of all anger and resentment, we bar the plea that we were hurried into the act by the impetuosity of our passions—a plea which the experience of a common infirmity has always led men to regard as the strongest extenuating circumstance of wrong-doing. If we have given pain to a fellow creature, it is stating an aggravation of the fault and not an excuse, to say that we did not do it in passion, but in cold blood; and worse still, if we say that we did it in sport. What! find sport in giving pain to others? This may consist, I suppose, with the absence of what is commonly understood by malice; but I utterly deny its compatibility with active Christian benevolence, or with what indeed amounts to the same thing, a kind, generous, and magnanimous nature. Were I in quest of facts to prove the total depravity of man, I should eagerly seize on such as the following: The shouts of heartless merriment sometimes heard to arise from a crowd of idlers collected around a miserable object in the streets; a propensity to turn into ridicule, not merely the faults and affectations of others, but their natural deformities or defects; jesting with sacred things, or practical jests, the consequences of which to one of the parties are of the most serious and painful character; and the pleasure with which men listen to sarcastic remarks though causeless and unprovoked, or to wit the whole point of which consists in its sting. Not that the doctrine of universal and total depravity is actually proved even by such conduct, for happily the conduct itself is not universal; to some it is repugnant from the beginning; and besides, even where it is fallen into, I suppose it is to be referred in a majority of cases to a love of excitement, rather than to a love of evil for its own sake. Still I maintain that the conduct in question, however explained, is incompatible, or at any rate utterly inconsistent, with thoughtful and generous natures.

[A] Blackstone.

[February 17.]

Still, many who would not think entirely to excuse the conduct in question can find palliations for it and extenuating circumstances, some of which it will be well to examine.

In the first place it is said that the sport is not found in the sufferings of the victim, but in the awkward and ludicrous situations and embarrassments into which he is thrown. Now I admit, that, if these awkwardnesses and absurdities could be entirely disconnected with the idea of pain, they might amuse even a good mind; but as they can not be thus disconnected—as all this is known and seen to be the expression of anguish either of body or mind, or to be the consequence of some natural defect or misfortune, or some cruel imposition on weakness or good nature—I affirm as before, that he whose mirth is not checked by this single consideration betrays a want of true benevolence, and even of common humanity. Neither will it help the matter much to say that the pain and mortification are not known, are not seen, or at least are not attended to; that this view of the subject is entirely overlooked, the mind being wholly taken up with its ludicrous aspects. For how comes it that we have so quick a sense to everything ludicrous in the situation and conduct of others, but no sense at all to their sufferings? Our hearts, it would seem, are not as yet steeled against all sympathy in the sufferings and misfortunes of our neighbors, provided we can be made to apprehend and realize them; and this is well; but why so slow to apprehend and realize them? If, though directly before our eyes, the thought of them never occurs to our minds; if we can say, and say with truth, that while we enjoy the sport it never once occurred to us that it was at the expense of another’s feelings, though this fact was all the time staring us in the face—does it not at least betray a degree of indifference or carelessness about the feelings of others, which is only compatible with a cold and selfish temper? Put whatever construction you will, therefore, on this kind of sport, it argues a bad state of the affections; for either its connection with the pain and mortification of others is perceived, and then it is downright cruelty; or it is not perceived, and then it is downright insensibility.

Another ground is sometimes taken. There are those who will say, “We cannot help it. Persons of a constitution less susceptible to the ludicrous, or less quick to observe it, may do differently, but we cannot.” Obviously, however, reasonings of this sort, if intended as a valid excuse, betray a singular and almost hopeless confusion of moral ideas. They cannot help it? Of course they do not mean that they would be affected in the same way by the same thing, under all circumstances and in all states of feeling. Let the coarse jest be at the expense of a parent, or of a sister; or let its tendency be to bring derision on an office, a cause, or a doctrine which we have much at heart; or let it offend beyond a certain point against the conventional usages of what is called good society—and, instead of provoking mirth, it provokes indignation or contempt. All they can mean, therefore, is simply this: Their sense of the ludicrous is so keen, that, when not restrained by some present feeling of justice, humanity, or decorum, it becomes irrepressible. Undoubtedly it does; but this is no more than what might be said of the worst crimes of sensuality and excess. What would you think if a sordid man should plead, that being sordid by nature, and not having any high principle or feeling to restrain him, he cannot help acting sordidly? Does he not know that it is this want of high principle and feeling which constitutes the very essence of his sin? We have shown that to find sport in what gives pain, argues a bad state of the principles and affections. Manifestly, therefore, it is to no purpose to urge as an excuse, that in the existing state of our principles and affections we can not help it; for the existing state of our principles and affections is the very thing which is complained of and condemned.

It may be contended, as a last resort, that this state of mind is consistent, to say the least, with amiable manners, companionable qualities, and good nature. But if herein is meant to be included real kindness of heart, or the highest forms of generosity and nobleness of soul, I deny that it can be. There is no necessity of trying to make it out that men of this stamp are worse than they really are. Unquestionably they can and often do make themselves agreeable and entertaining, especially to those who are not very scrupulous about the occasions of their mirth, and feel no repugnance to join in a laugh which perhaps they would hesitate to raise. Good-natured also they may be, if nothing more is meant by this than the absence of an unaccommodating, morose, and churlish disposition; for there are two sorts of good nature, the good nature of benevolence, and the good nature of ease and indifference. The first will not consist, as we have seen, with wrong-doing from wantonness or in sport; but the last may; yet even when it does, not much credit can accrue from this circumstance. Worthy of all honor is that good nature which springs from genuine kindness and sympathy, or a desire to make and to see everybody happy; but the same can hardly be said of what often passes for good-nature in the world, though it is nothing but the result of an easy temper and loose principles.

[February 24.]

Still, I can not but think that a large majority of those who sometimes look for sport in wrong-doing have enough of humanity and of justice to restrain them, if they could only be made to understand and feel the extent of the injury thus occasioned. Take, for example, jesting with sacred things. Its influence on those who indulge in it is worse than that of infidelity, for it destroys our reverence, and it is harder to recover our reverence, after it has been lost, than our convictions. Nay, it is often worse than that of daring crime; the latter puts us in opposition to religion, but it does not necessarily undermine our respect for it, or the sentiment on which the whole rests. Consider, too, its effect on others. The multitude are apt to mistake what is laughed at by their superiors for what is ridiculous in itself. In France it was not the sober arguments of a knot of misguided atheists, but the scoffs and mockeries and ill-timed pleasantries in which the higher classes generally shared, which destroyed the popular sense of the sanctity of religion; and when this great regulative principle of society was gone, it was not long before the mischief came back, amidst scenes of popular license and desperation, “to plague the inventors.” And so of cruel sports. In reading the Sermon on the Mount, you must have been struck with the fact that, while he who is angry with his brother is only said to be in danger of the judgment, “whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” But, on second thoughts, is this anything more than a simple recognition of what we all know to be true; that hatred does not inflict half so deep or bitter a feeling of wrong as scorn? Much is said about the disorganizing doctrines and theories of the day, but, bad as these are, they are not likely to do so much to exasperate the poor against the rich, and break down the bulwarks of order and law, as the conduct of some among the rich themselves. The time was when the few could trample with indifference on the interests and feelings of the many, and make sport of their complaints with impunity, but that time has passed away.

One word also on those cruel sports where animals, and not men, are the sufferers. Cruelty to animals is essentially the same feeling with cruelty to a fellow-creature, and in some respects it is even more unbecoming. Man is as a god to the inferior races. To abuse the power which this gives us over the helpless beings that Providence has placed at our mercy, is as mean as it is inhuman. If we would listen to the pleadings of what is noble and generous in our natures, it would be as impossible for us needlessly to harm an unoffending animal, as it would be to strike an infant or an idiot. Shame on the craven who quails before his equals, and then goes away and wreaks his unmanly resentments on a creature which he knows can neither retaliate nor speak! Besides, we may suppose that there are orders of beings above us, as well as below us. Look then at our treatment of the lower animals, and then ask yourselves what we should think, if a superior order of beings should mete out to us the same measure. What if in mere wantonness, or to pamper unnatural tastes, they should subject us to every imaginable hardship and wrong? What if they should make a show, a public recreation, of our foolish contests and dying agonies? Nay, more; what if it should come to this, that in their language a man-killer should be called a sportsman by way of distinction?

But I must close. We have it on the authority of the Bible, and we read it in the constitution of man, that there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh.” There will also be ample scope for the legitimate action of caustic wit, so long as there are follies to be shown up, pretenders to be unmasked, and conceit and affectation to be taught to know themselves. But, in the serious strifes of the world, the ultimate advantages of this weapon, though wielded on the right side, are more than dubious. “The Spaniards have lamented,” it has been said, “and I believe truly, that Cervantes’ just and inimitable ridicule of knight-errantry rooted up, with that folly, a great deal of their real honor. And it was apparent that Butler’s fine satire on fanaticism contributed not a little, during the licentious times of Charles II., to bring sober piety into disrepute. The reason is evident; there are many lines of resemblance between truth and its counterfeits; and it is the province of wit only to find out the likenesses in things, and not the talent of the common admirers of it to discover the differences.” At any rate we can shun the rock of small wits who think to make up for poverty of invention by a scurrility and grimace, who think to gain from the venom of the shaft what is wanting in the vigor of the bow. We can imitate the example of those among the great masters of wit in all ages, who have ennobled it by purity of expression and a moral aim; so that, in the end, virtue may not have occasion to blush, or humanity to mourn, for anything we have said or done. Take any other course and we are reminded of the confession which experience wrung from the lips of the wise man: “I said in my heart, go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure; and behold this also is vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad; and of mirth, what doeth it?” “Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.”

COMMERCIAL LAW.

By EDWARD C. REYNOLDS, Esq.

I.—LAW IN GENERAL.

It perhaps would be well for us to take a glance at the origin of the law which we are about to consider in its practical applications. In all our business relations, and in fact in our general conduct, so far as that term would apply to one as a member of a community and a citizen, we are controlled in our action by absolute, and in some instances possibly, by arbitrary regulations or laws, with which perhaps we may be wholly unfamiliar, but which are none the less binding and positive in their exactions because we have neglected to familiarize ourselves with their requirements.

It is a rule of law, that ignorance of it excuses no one. For this reason ignorance is never pleaded in court as an answer to civil or criminal allegations of any sort. This rule presupposes a knowledge of the law on the part of every citizen. While, strictly speaking, this is impossible and in reality but a fiction, any other provision would be fraught with danger. Although, through the observance of this rule, doubtless, hardships are occasioned—as in fact must result from the enforcement of any law, however wise—it is notwithstanding that, a very necessary and strictly proper presumption. Were it to be otherwise, any attempt to enforce obligations against dishonest parties or to punish crime would prove ineffectual, because recourse would always be had to this defense. Thus all law would be a nullity.

There is fortunately a safe rule to be adopted as a guide for our conduct, which in the main, if strictly obeyed, will obviate the seeming hardship. Notwithstanding the fact that all inhibitions do not involve an absolute wrong or right, that all enforcements of law are not with justice, yet if a strict standard of right and honorable dealings characterize individual action and conduct, for those who adopt such a course there is but slight possibility that there is any especial oppression in store.

But wrong doing exists. The remedy is existing law. What is it, which as such we are to obey, and which we may safely designate as the principle of personal protection?

The nucleus of the now voluminous laws of our country was the well established laws, customs and usages of the American colonies of Great Britain, when their independence was secured. At that time the laws of Great Britain had become so generally interwoven into our judicature as well as into our business customs and relations, that the introduction of a wholly new system of laws would have proved disastrous, even if it could have been accomplished.

Since, in part, law is the outgrowth of customs and ways, as we shall see, to have attempted the engrafting of a wholly new system would have been equivalent to an attempt to change at once the habits and characteristics of a people.

The familiarity of the colonists with the then existing law, and its adaptability to the then commercial transactions, made it a desirable nucleus—already for our people, with which they might inaugurate a system of their own.

This, then, was accepted as the common law of the country at that time. But however well adapted the then existing laws may have been to the wants of the people and commerce, ever changing conditions of life and ever increasing business complications rendered additions and new provisions necessary. These changes were made necessary and were fostered by statute law.

Statute law is the result of the deliberations of legislative assemblies. Each state has its own legislature and statute law, as has the national government. The general government being the superior power, its laws must be recognized as superior to state laws, that is, there can be no state law inconsistent with the laws of the national government. The state legislatures and national congress have power to make laws, and whatever is declared by these bodies to be the supreme law of the land, for the government of the individual and the protection of property, providing it does not conflict with the provisions of the national and state constitutions respectively, must be obeyed as such.

This then is statute law: An enactment regarding the rights of persons or property, passed by representatives of the people in legislature assembled.

When a question has arisen concerning which statute law has no provisions, or some regular enactment is so worded that its meaning is doubtful and extremely liable to be misunderstood, to compensate for the lack in the one instance and to interpret properly the intention of the law makers in the other, we resort to the common law, fairly said to be “the accumulated wisdom of centuries.” Analogy will lead us to conclude, and correctly, that this is the conservative element of the system—the origin of which we have previously alluded to in part—to which we would add the customs and usages which have, since our recognition as an independent people, received the sanction of our courts, and to become acquainted with which reference must be made to the published reports of the courts, known as the “U. S. Reports,” “Maine Reports,” etc.

That the common law may remain to a great extent unchangeable, much respect is paid to the decisions of the courts, by others than those by which they were enunciated, for it has ever been deemed better that a precedent be respected, even if it be not the soundest law, than to have what might seem to be better logic at the expense of a varying precedent. Then we conclude, that though legislatures be radical in the change of existing laws, yet in the task of applying or interpreting such laws, so changed, courts are generally very conservative. It will thus be seen that the rights of the people are not liable to be unwarrantably abridged or destroyed by any uncertain movement of a day.

By referring to our national and state constitutions, our readers will see that the powers of both national and state governments are divided into three departments, known as the executive, legislative and judicial, each of which is distinct from the others, although they work in harmony in the enactment and enforcement of the laws. The courts come under the head of that last named, and their duties have been demonstrated to be “to define, declare and apply the laws.”

Of this common and statute law a very essential part is that which is applicable to business, or commercial law, or, as it is generally denominated in the books, the “Law-Merchant.” Much of the law bearing upon this subject is the old common law, with the enlargements consequent upon an increased commercial activity. Here it is that we find many of the customs and usages of merchants gradually merging into recognized law. The three “days of grace” allowed on all commercial paper is but a common illustration of this, similar in origin to many customs in all departments of trade, which might easily be cited, and which were in their inception of very limited significance, but which have continually been receiving a more extended recognition, until we find them clothed with all the insignia of authority.

These customs and usages we shall have occasion to give more extended explanations as we touch upon the several sub-divisions of our topic. There are a few technical words which we shall find it convenient to use. Prof. Greenleaf clearly expresses the reason for this, as follows:

“A great deal of the language of every art or science or profession is technical (indeed, technical means belonging to some art), and is peculiar to it, and may not be understood by those who do not pursue the business to which it belongs. This is as true of the law as of everything else.… A good instance of this is in those words which end in er (or or) and in ee. As for example, promisor or promisee, vendor and vendee, indorser and indorsee. These terminations are derived from the Norman-French, which was for a long time the language of the courts and of the law of England. And it might seem that we had just as good terminations in English, in er and ed, which mean the same thing. But this is not so. Originally they meant the same thing, but they do not now, for both er and ee are applied, in law, to persons, and ed to things, so that we want all three terminations. For example, indorser means the man who indorses; indorsee the man to whom the indorsement is made; but the note itself we say is indorsed. So vendor means the man who sells, vendee the man to whom something is sold, and the thing sold is vended.”

In regard to the phrase “presumption of law,” to which we may have occasion to refer. The significance of this phrase is this: Under certain conditions, without absolute proof of the matter concerning which some conclusion is sought, the law will presume to interpret the intention or acts of persons. For instance, regarding criminal procedure, one is presumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty. Presumptions prevail only when proof is lacking.

CONTRACTS.

A contract has been aptly defined to be “an agreement to do or not to do some particular thing.” It may be verbal or in writing. If the conditions of a contract, whether verbal or written, be expressly stated and agreed upon, it is then termed an expressed contract. If on the other hand there are no well defined and specific agreements regarding the undertaking or the consideration to be paid for its accomplishment, it is called an implied contract.

The conditions of an expressed contract must be strictly complied with, and the parties to it are bound to faithfully observe the same, however onerous may be the burden, while the conditions of an implied contract not being agreed upon specifically, are such as custom may dictate. As an illustration of this: A agrees to pay B two dollars per day for labor. This is expressed, so far as the rate of wages is concerned; but the number of hours that shall be taken to constitute a day’s work is not agreed upon, and must be determined by implication. As a result, the question would be settled by the custom in such matters which obtained in the place where the contract was made. Or, if A engages B to undertake the building of a cottage, with no stipulations regarding the wages to be paid, B when the work is completed can recover for his compensation whatever is proved to be the usual and customary remuneration paid men in the same business and possessed of equal skill. The enforcement of obligations is no less strict when the standing of the contract is implied than when expressed, after determining what the obligations of the parties are.

The elements of a contract are parties, consideration, subject matter, mutual assent and time.

Parties.—Two or more competent persons may make a legal contract. Competent persons, it will be observed. What constitutes competency? Generally, legal age and sound mind; while minority, insanity, idiocy, intoxication and coverture are said to be the conditions of incompetency. With the exception of a few states where females become of age at eighteen, the legal age is twenty-one years. A consideration of the conditions of incompetency will sufficiently explain the requisites of competency negatively. Minors, or those who have not attained legal age, or infants as the law denominates them, are considered incompetent because of inexperience, and a fair presumption that unprincipled parties might take unfair advantage of them, and lead them into business complications which a riper experience would disapprove. The contracts of a minor approved by him when he becomes of age are binding, however; so that it will be observed, such contracts are not absolutely void, only voidable at the discretion of the minor. If an infant makes a transfer of real estate he may, on reaching his majority, compel the purchaser to reconvey the property, by returning to him the purchase money. The law would not permit him to retain the purchase price and compel the re-transfer, because it is not the policy of the law to assist the minor in his fraudulent purposes, but only to protect him from the impositions of those skilled in wicked devices. There are some contracts which an infant can not disclaim, viz.: such as are for necessaries. It is something of a question to determine what are necessaries; but the minor’s fortune and social position must be the guide, for where sufficient food and clothes might be all that would be termed necessaries for one, for another by fortune more favored, “equipage, dress and entertainments” would be considered just as essential.

Unsound Mind.—Insanity, or a mind deranged; idiocy, or the lack of a mind; intoxication, or a mind so beclouded as to be incapable of understandingly judging of the merits of an ordinary business transaction; a mind in any one of these conditions is unsound, and its possessor an incompetent.

Coverture, or marriage, by the common law made woman an incompetent party, and she was thus precluded from legally contracting. By statutory enactments nearly all of the states have changed this, so that a married woman may now do business, contract debts as though unmarried, and also hold property in her own right. The ancient barbarous theory that marriage ought to annul a woman’s right to property in her own name and almost deny her individual existence is nearly a relic, an error almost of the past.

Consideration.—Any consideration is sufficient to sustain a contract, provided it be not illegal, or that which is prohibited by law; immoral, or that which contravenes the moral law; and provided the contract was born of good faith, and not tainted by fraud. A contract into which any element of fraud has entered receives no countenance at the law. However favorable stipulations may seem, a fraudulent intent, proved, will nullify the contract.

The Subject Matter, or that concerning which the contract is made must not be illegal, immoral or impossible. The reasons for this are apparent, since it would controvert the very object of legal rights and public policy if an illegal or immoral undertaking were permitted to enter into a contract as a thing to be done and as a recognized right to be enforced; or, if a stipulation were permitted to stand, which called for the doing of that which is impossible.

Mutual assent is an essential element. “It takes two to make a trade.” There must be an agreement of minds between contracting parties as to what is to be done, and how, and in consideration of what; and this agreement must be at the same time, or to state it in a legal fashion, “minds must meet.”

The time stated for the performance of a contract should be agreed upon. In case it is not, then it must be accomplished within a reasonable time.

What is a reasonable time must be determined by the special circumstances of each individual case. It is with this as with other elements of a contract if not fully understood and agreed upon, the assistance of customs and usages must be invoked to settle the disputed point.

Statute of Frauds.—This is an old English statute, adopted, slightly modified, by the several states. It requires the following contracts to be in writing: For the conveyance of real estate; lease of land for more than one year; in consideration of marriage; to answer for the debt, default or wrongful act of another; not to be performed within one year; for the sale of personal property of a certain value (by most states placed at fifty dollars), unless the sale be by auction, or part of the purchase money be paid, or part of the goods delivered at the time of sale.

It is well that every man should be in a state of moral union with others; he must have one or more men to whom he can communicate the inmost feelings of his being, heart, and the reasons of his conduct; there should be nothing in him which is not known to some one else. That is the true meaning of the divine saying, “It is not good that man should be alone.”—Schleiermacher.

READINGS IN ART.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE.

Greek architecture seems to have emerged from a state of archaic simplicity in the sixth century before the Christian era. All its finest creations were between that date and the death of Alexander the Great in 333 B. C.

In the days of their greatest refinement the Greeks sought rather to adorn their country than their homes. If there were palatial residences, they were more perishable, and have decayed or been destroyed, leaving few remains to tell of their former grandeur. We know their architecture almost exclusively from the ruins of their public buildings, and mostly from temples and mausoleums. The Greek temple was peculiar, and made little or no provision for a congregation of worshipers. The design was largely for external effect. A comparatively small room or cell received the image of the divinity, and another room behind it seems to have served as a treasury for votive offerings. But there were no surrounding chambers, halls or court yards. The temple, though within some precinct, was accessible to all, and, being open to the sun and air, invited the admiration of the passer-by. Its most telling features and best sculpture were on the exterior. The columns and the superstructure which rested on them must have played a very important part in their temple architecture.

There were in Greece three distinct manners, differing mostly in the manner in which the column was treated. These are called “orders;” and are named Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. Each of these presents a different series of proportions, mouldings and ornamentations in the column used, though the main form of the structure is the same in all. The column and its entablature being the most prominent features of the building, have come to be regarded as the index or characteristic, from an inspection of which the order can be recognized, just as a botanist recognizes plants by their flowers.

From a study of the column all the principal characteristics of the different orders are ascertained. The column belonging to any order is, of course, always accompanied by the use throughout the building of the appropriate proportions, mouldings and ornaments belonging to that order.

The Doric temple at Corinth is attributed to the seventh century B. C. This was a massive structure, with short, stumpy columns, and strong mouldings, but presenting the main features of the Doric style in its earliest, rudest form. The most complete Greek Doric temple was the Parthenon—the work of the architect Ictinus. It is selected for our purpose of illustration, because on many accounts the best, and many of our readers have seen the plate representing it. The Parthenon stood on the summit of a lofty rock, within an irregularly shaped enclosure, entered through a noble gateway. The temple itself was of perfectly regular plan, and stood quite free from all dependencies of any sort. It consisted of the cella, or sacred cell, in which stood the statue of the goddess, and behind it the treasury chamber. In both these there were symmetrical columns. A series of columns surrounded the building, and at either end was a portico eight columns wide and two deep. There were two pediments of flat pitch, one at each end. The whole rested on a basement of steps. The building, exclusive of the steps, was 228 feet long by 101 feet wide, and 64 feet high. The columns were 34 feet 3 inches high, and more than 6 feet in diameter at the base. The marble of which this temple was constructed was of the most solid and durable kind, and the workmanship in all the parts that remain shows great skill and care in the execution. The roof was probably of timbers covered with marble tiles; but all traces of the frame work have entirely disappeared, and hence the mode of construction is not known. Nor do authorities agree as to what provision was made for the admission of light. It seems probable that something like the clere-story of a Gothic church was used to light the Parthenon.

This wonderful structure was Doric, and the leading proportions were as follows: The column was 5.56 diameters high. The whole height, including the stylobate or steps, might be divided into nine parts, of which two go to the stylobate, six to the column, and one to the entablature.

The Greek Doric order is without a base; the shaft of the column springs from the top step, and is tapering, not in a straight line, but with a subtle curve, known technically as the entasis of the column. This shaft is channeled usually with twenty shallow channels, the ridges separating one from another being very fine lines.

The Parthenon, like many, if not all Greek buildings, was profusely decorated with colored ornaments, of which nearly every trace has now disappeared, but which must have contributed largely to the beauty of the building as a whole, and must have emphasized and set off its parts.

The most famous Greek building in the Ionic style was the temple of Diana, at Ephesus. This magnificent temple was almost totally destroyed, and the very site was, for centuries, unknown, till the energy and sagacity of an English architect enabled him to discover and dig out the vestiges of the building. Fortunately sufficient traces of the foundation remained to render it possible to make out the plan of the temple completely. From the fragments he was able to restore on paper the general appearance of the famous temple, which must be very nearly, if not absolutely correct. The walls of this temple were entirely surrounded by a double series of columns with a pediment at each end. The whole was of marble and based on a spacious platform of steps.

The Corinthian order, the last to make its appearance, was almost as much Roman as Greek. It resembles the Ionic, but the capitals are different, the columns more slender, and the enrichments more florid.

The plan or floor disposition of a Greek building, always simple, was well arranged for effect, and capable of being understood at once. All confusion, uncertainty or complications were scrupulously avoided. Refined precision, order, symmetry and exactness mark the plan as well as every part of the work.

The construction of the walls of Greek temples rivaled that of the Egyptians in accuracy and beauty of workmanship; though the wall was evidently not the principal thing for effect with the Greek architect, as much of it was overshadowed by lines of columns, which form the main feature of the building.

The Corinthian order is the natural sequel to the Ionic. Had Greek architecture continued till it fell into decadence, this order would have been its badge. As it was, the decadence of Greek art was Roman art, and the Corinthian order was the favorite order of the Romans.

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

The Etruscans, at an early day, inhabited the west coast of Italy, between the rivers Arno and Tiber. At the time of the founding of Rome as a city, they were a civilized people and showed considerable architectural skill, and their arts had a very great influence on Roman art. The remains of several Etruscan towns show that their masonry was of what has been called a Cyclopean character—that is, the stones were of an enormous size. The massive blocks being fitted together with consummate accuracy, much of the masonry endures to the present day. The temples, palaces and dwelling houses which made up the cities so fortified, have all disappeared, and the only structural remains of Etruscan art are tombs—some cut in live rock, and some detached structures. These built of heavy stones and arched securely, still exist as monuments of the science and skill of those early builders. They were acquainted with and extensively used the true radiating arch, composed of wedge-shaped stones. From them the Romans learned to construct arches, and combined the arch with the trabeated or lintel mode which they copied from the Greeks. Hence arose a style distinctively Roman.

The largest Etruscan temple of which any record remains was that of Jupiter Capitolinus, at Rome, one of the most splendid temples of antiquity.

The last of the classical styles of antiquity is the Roman. This seems rather an amalgamation of several other styles than an original, independent creation. It was formed slowly, and is harmonious, though uniting elements widely dissimilar.

The Grecian artist was imaginative and idealistic in the highest degree. He seemed to have an innate genius for art and beauty, and was eager to perpetuate in marble his brightest conceptions of excellence. The stern, practical Roman, realistic in every pore, eager for conquest, was dominated by the idea of bringing all nations under his sway, and of making his city the capital of the world. At first he looked with disdain on the fine arts, in all their forms, and regarded a love for the beautiful, whether in literature or art, as an evidence of effeminacy.

For nearly five hundred years there was very little architectural taste displayed in the buildings at Rome. All public works, as the Appian Way, bridges and aqueducts bore the utilitarian stamp. Their best buildings were of brick or the local stone, and there is little evidence that architecture was studied as a fine art until about 150 B. C.

After the fall of Carthage, and the destruction of Corinth, when Greece became a Roman province—both which events occurred in the year 146 B. C.—Rome became desirous of emulating the older civilization which she had destroyed. She had, by her conquests, immense wealth, and expended much, both privately and publicly, in erecting monuments, many of which, more or less altered, remain to the present day.

The first marble temple in Rome was built by the consul Q. Metellus Macedonicus, who died 115 B. C. From that period Roman architecture showed a wonderful diversity in the objects to which it was applied. Not only tombs, temples, and palaces, but baths, theaters, and amphitheaters, basilicas, aqueducts and triumphal arches were planned and built as elaborately as the temples of the gods.

Under the emperors the architectural display reached its full magnificence. The boast of Augustus, that he found Rome of brick, and left her of marble, expresses in a few words the great feature of his reign, and of that of several of the succeeding emperors.

Though the most destructive of all agencies—hostile invasions, conflagrations, and long ages of neglect—have done their utmost to destroy all vestiges of Imperial Rome, there still remain relics enough to make the city of the Cæsars, after Athens, the richest store of classical architectural antiquities in the world.

BUILDINGS OF THE ROMANS.

The temples in Rome were not, as in Greece and Egypt, the structures on which the architect lavished all the resources of his art and his science. They were, in a general way, copies of Greek originals, and did not equal the models after which they were fashioned, nor greatly honor the metropolis of the world. Few remains of them exist. The Church of Santa Maria Ezizica was once a heathen temple, and after some necessary changes, used for Christian worship. This was tetrastyle, with half columns around it, and of the kind called by Vitruvius pseudo-peripteral. A few fragmentary remains of other temples are found in Rome, but there are much finer specimens in some of the provinces. The best is the Maison Carrée at Nêmes. This was probably erected during the reign of Hadrian. There is a portico in front, while the sides and rear have columns attached. The details of the capitals and entablature are almost pure Greek.

At Baalbec, the ancient Heliopolis in Syria, not far from Damascus, are the ruins of another magnificent, provincial Roman temple. It was built in the time of the Antonines, and must have been of very extensive dimensions. At the western end of an immense court, on an artificial elevation, stand the remains of what is called the Great Temple. This was 290 feet long by 160 feet wide, and had 54 columns supporting its roof, only six of which now remain erect. Their height, including base and capital, is 75 feet, and their diameter at the base 7 feet. They are of the Corinthian order, and above them rises an elaborately moulded entablature, 14 feet in height. The most striking feature of these buildings is the colossal size of the stones used in their construction.

Among the most remarkable public buildings, whether in the mother city, or in the provinces, were the Basilicas, or halls of justice, used also as commercial exchanges. These were generally oblong, covered halls, divided into three or five aisles by rows of columns. At one end was a semi-circular recess, the floor of which was raised considerably above the level of the rest of the floor, and here the presiding magistrate had his seat.

Although the Romans were not particularly interested in dramatic representations, they were passionately fond of shows and games of all kinds. Hence they built many theatres and amphitheatres in all their cities and large towns. The most stupendous fabric of the kind that was ever erected was the Flavian amphitheater or Colosseum, whose ruins attest its pristine magnificence.

“Arches on arches, as if it were that Rome, collecting the chief trophies of her line, would build up all the triumphs in one dome.” It was oblong, 620 feet in length, and 513 feet wide. It was favorably situated between the Esquiline and the Cœlian hills, and admirably planned for the convenience of the vast audiences, estimated at from 50,000 to 80,000. Recent excavations have revealed the communications that existed between the arena and the dens, where the wild animals, slaves, and prisoners were confined. The external façade is composed of four stories, separated by entablatures that run completely round the building, without a break. The three lower stories consist of a series of semi-circular arched openings, eighty in number, separated by piers with attached columns in front of them, the Doric order being used in the lowest story, the Ionic in the second, and the Corinthian in the third.

From these meager facts the reader must imagine the magnificence and grandeur of the Colosseum, or seek for fuller information in works of ancient art. Nothing can give us a more impressive idea of the grandeur and lavish display of Imperial Rome, than the remains of the huge Thermæ or bathing establishments. These belong mostly to the Christian era.

Agrippa built the first, A. D. 10, and thence to 324 A. D., no less than twelve of these vast establishments were erected by different emperors, including Constantine, and bequeathed to the people. The baths of Caracalla and Diocletian are the only ones that remain in any state of preservation, and were probably the finest and most extensive of them all.

There is one ancient building in Rome more impressive than any other—not only because of its better state of preservation, but because of the dignity with which it was designed, the perfection of execution, and the effectiveness of the mode in which the interior is lighted—the Pantheon. It is the finest example of a domed hall that is left. It has the circular form with a diameter of 145 feet, and a height to the top of the dome of 147 feet. The magnificent dome is enriched with boldly recessed panels, and these covered with bronze ornaments.

The domestic architecture of the Romans at an early day was rich, but few traces of it remain. The buildings were of two kinds; the insula, or block of buildings, containing a number of buildings, and the domus, or detached mansion.

Their buildings, in the first centuries rude, came, in time, to have a very decided architectural character. We gather from them that daring, energy, readiness, structural skill, and a not too fastidious taste were characteristics of Roman architects and their works.

BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.

Constantine the Great, who had encouraged the erection of houses of Christian worship in Rome and other parts of Italy, exerted a marked influence on architecture when he removed the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, and called the new capital Constantinople. He rebuilt the city that was almost in ruins, though not deserted. The people were largely of the Greek race, and had Greek ideas of architecture. Hence a new development of the church building differing somewhat from the style of the basilicas soon showed itself.

In Byzantium buildings of most original design sprang up, founded, it is true, on Roman originals, but by no means exact copies of them. The most difficult problems of construction, particularly of roofs, were successfully met and solved.

What course the art ran during the two centuries between the refounding of Byzantium and the building of Santa Sophia, we can only infer from its outcome. But it is certain that to attain the power of designing and erecting so great a work as Santa Sophia, the architects of Constantinople must have greatly modified and improved the Roman practice of building vaults and domes.

The first church dedicated to Santa Sophia by Constantine was burnt early in the reign of Justinian; and, in rebuilding it, his architects succeeded in erecting one of the most famous buildings in the world, and one which is the typical and central embodiment of a distinct and strongly marked, well-defined style. Its distinctive feature is the adoption of the dome in preference to the vault, or timber roof, as the covering of the walls. In this grand edifice, one vast flattish dome dominates the central space. This dome is circular in form and the space over which it is placed is square, the sides of which are occupied by four massive semi-circular arches of 100 feet span each, springing from four vast piers, one at each corner. The triangular spaces in the corners of the square, so enclosed, and the circle or ring resting on it, become portions of the dome, each just sufficient to fit on one corner of the square, and the four uniting at their upper margin, to form a ring. From this ring springs the main dome that rises to a height of 46 feet, and is 107 feet in clear diameter. Externally this church is less interesting, but its interior is of surpassing beauty, and is thus eloquently described by Gilbert Scott: “Simple as is the primary ideal, the actual effect is one of great intricacy, and of continuous gradation of parts from the small arcades up to the stupendous dome which hangs with little apparent support, like a vast bubble, over the centre; or, as Procopius, who witnessed its erection, said, ‘as if suspended by a chain from heaven.’” The type of church of which this magnificent cathedral was the great example, has continued in eastern Christendom to the present day with but little variation. Between Rome and Constantinople, well situated for receiving influences from both those cities, was Ravenna,—and there a series of buildings, all more or less Byzantine, was erected. The most interesting of these is the church of San Vitale. It recalls Santa Sophia, and its structure, sculpture, carving and mosaic decorations are equally characteristic and hardly less famous.

We need only mention one other magnificent specimen of this style of architecture, more within the reach of ordinary travelers, and consequently better known. It can be studied easily by means of almost numberless photographic representations—St. Marks, at Venice. It was built between the years 977 and 1071, it is said, according to a design obtained from Constantinople.

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE.

This term is used to indicate a style of architecture founded on Roman art, which prevailed in Western Europe before the rise of that known as Gothic.

Under this general name, if applied broadly, many closely allied local varieties, as for example, the Lombard, Rhenish, Saxon, and Norman, can be conveniently included. After the removal of the Roman capital to Byzantium, and the incursion of the Northern tribes, the spectacle of Europe was melancholy in the extreme.

Nothing but the church retained any semblance of organized existence; and when, at length, order began to be restored from a chaos of universal ruin, and churches began to be built in Western Europe, the people looked to Rome as their ecclesiastic center.

Where the Romish church had influence, the architecture had the Roman type; and, where the Eastern church prevailed, it adhered closely to the Byzantium models. This style, with local varieties, still obtains in most parts of Europe, and, to some extent, in American church building. An architect of genius and taste may successfully combine different orders; but most who attempt it fail. To succeed well, a good degree of originality is needed.

SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Who, that reads poetry at all, has not read and admired “Snow-Bound?” “That exquisite poem has no prototype in English literature unless Burns’ ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night’ be one, and it will be long, I fear, before it will have a companion piece. Out of materials of the slightest order, really common-place, Mr. Whittier had made a poem that will live, and can no more be rivaled by any winter poetry that may be written hereafter, than ‘Thanatopsis’ can be rivaled as a meditation on the universality of death. The characters of this little idyl are carefully drawn.… Everything is naturally introduced, and the reflections, which are manly and pathetic, are among the finest that Mr. Whittier has ever written. ‘Snow-Bound’ at once authenticated itself as an idyl of New England life and manners.”—(Abridged) R. H. Stoddard.

The Vaudois Teacher.