The Chautauquan, November 1883

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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. November, 1883. No. 2.

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.; Rev. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.

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

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

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Contents

[REQUIRED READING]
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4.
NOVEMBER.

[GERMAN HISTORY.]

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

II.

From the time of Julius Cæsar to the fall of the Roman Empire, a period of more than four hundred years, the greater part of the Germans were subject to Roman rule, a rule maintained only by military force. But the struggle against Rome never entirely ceased—and as Roman power gradually declined the Germans seized every opportunity to recover their liberty and in their turn became conquerors. To trace the succession of their vicissitudes during this period would be to give the narrative of a bold, vigorous, war-like people in their rude barbaric condition. We should discover even in those early times those race characteristics of strength, bravery and persistence which became so marked in later centuries; we should recognize in Hermann, the first German leader, the prophecy of the Great Charles who steps upon the scene nearly eight centuries later.

HERMANN, THE FIRST LEADER.

He it was (Hermann Arminius) who, with a power to organize equal to that of William of Orange, bound the German tribes in a secret confederacy, whose object it was to resist and repel the Roman armies. While still himself serving as an officer in the Roman army, he managed to rally the confederated Germans and to attack Varus’s army of forty thousand men—the best Roman legions—as they were marching through the Teutoburger Forest, where, aided by violent storms, the Germans threw the Romans into panic and the fight was changed to a slaughter. When the news of the great German victory reached Rome the aged Augustus trembled with fear; he let his hair and beard grow for months as a sign of trouble, and was often heard to exclaim: “O, Varus, Varus, give me back my legions.” Though Rome, under the able leadership of Germanicus, soon after defeated the Germans, yet she had been taught that the Germans possessed a spirit and a power sufficient to make her tremble for her future supremacy.

Hermann seems to have devoted himself to the creation of a permanent union of the tribes he had commanded. We may guess, but can not assert, that his object was to establish a national organization like that of Rome, and in doing this he must have come into conflict with laws and customs which were considered sacred by the people. But his remaining days were too few for even the beginning of a task which included such an advance in the civilization of the race. We only know that he was waylaid and assassinated by members of his own family in the year 21. He was then 37 years old and had been for thirteen years the leader of his people.[A]

He was undoubtedly the liberator of Germany, having dared to grapple with the Roman power, not in its beginnings, like other kings and commanders, but in the maturity of its strength. He was not always victorious in battle, but in war he was never subdued. He still lives in the songs of the barbarians, unknown to the annals of the Greeks, who only admire that which belongs to themselves—nor celebrated as he deserves by the Romans, who, in praising the olden times, neglect the events of the later years.[B]

GERMAN NATIONALITIES AT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

When we meet the Germans at the close of the third century we are surprised to find that the tribal names which they bore in the time of Hermann have nearly all disappeared, and new names of wider significance have taken their places. Instead of thirty to forty petty tribes, they are now consolidated into four chief nationalities with two or three inferior, but independent branches. Their geographical situation is no longer the same, migrations have taken place, large tracts of territory have changed hands, and many leading families have been overthrown and new ones arisen. Nothing but the constant clash of arms could have wrought such change. As each of these new nationalities plays a prominent part in the following centuries, a short description of them is given:

1. The Alemanni.—The name of this division (Alle Mannen, signifying “all men”) shows that it was composed of fragments of many tribes. The Alemanni first made their appearance along the Main, and gradually pushed southward over the Tithe lands, where the military veterans of Rome had settled, until they occupied the greater part of southwestern Germany, and eastern Switzerland to the Alps. Their descendants occupy the same territory to this day.

2. The Franks.—It is not known whence this name is derived, nor what is its meaning. The Franks are believed to have been formed out of the Sicambrians in Westphalia, a portion of the Chatti and the Batavi in Holland, together with other tribes. We first hear of them on the Lower Rhine, but they soon extended their territory over a great part of Belgium and Westphalia. Their chiefs were already called kings, and their authority was hereditary.

3. The Saxons.—This was one of the small original tribes settled in Holstein. The name “Saxon” is derived from their peculiar weapon, a short sword, called sahs. We find them occupying at the close of the third century nearly all the territory between the Harz Mountains and the North Sea, from the Elbe westward to the Rhine. There appears to have been a natural enmity—no doubt bequeathed from the earlier tribes out of which both grew—between them and the Franks.

4. The Goths.—Their traditions state that they were settled in Sweden before they were found by the Greek navigators on the southern shore of the Baltic in 330 B. C. It is probable that only a portion of the tribe navigated, and that the present Scandinavian race is descended from the remainder. They came in contact with the Romans beyond the mouth of the Danube about the beginning of the third century.[C]

INFLUENCE OF THE ROMANS ON THE GERMANS.

The proximity of the Romans on the Rhine, the Danube, and the Neckar, had by degrees effected alterations in the manners of the Germans. They had become acquainted with many new things, both good and bad. By means of the former they became acquainted with money, and even luxuries. The Romans had planted the vine on the Rhine, and constructed roads, cities, manufactories, theaters, fortresses, temples, and altars. Roman merchants brought their wares to Germany, and fetched thence amber, feathers, furs, slaves, and the very hair of the Germans; for it became the fashion to wear light flaxen wigs, instead of natural hair. Of the cities which the Romans built there are many yet remaining, as Salzburg, Ratisbonne, Augsburg, Basle, Strasburg, Baden, Spires, Worms, Metz, Treves, Cologne, Bonn, etc. But in the interior of Germany, neither the Romans nor their habits and manners had found friends, nor were cities built there according to the Roman style.[D]

INVASION OF THE HUNS—ATTILA.

The fourth century of our era and the first half of the fifth were characterized by the spirit of migration among all the peoples beyond the Rhine. Representatives of every German village and district went to Rome, and each brought back stories of the wealth and luxury that existed there. They had the keen perception and the strength to recognize the increasing weakness of the government, and also to despise the enervation and corruption of its citizens. The German was ambitious and restless as daily he regarded Rome more and more as his prey. The Romans themselves saw the danger of the Empire and lived in apprehension of overwhelming incursions long before they came. In the latter part of the fourth century the great impulse was given to the people of northern and eastern Europe by successive invasions from Asia; and a vast and general movement began among them which resulted in the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and the transfer of the principal arena of history from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the countries in which the great powers of modern Europe afterward grew up. The first impulse to this series of events was given by disturbances and migrations in central Asia, of whose cause hardly anything is known. Long before the Christian era there was a powerful race of Huns in northeastern Asia who became so dangerous to the Chinese that the great wall of China was built as a defense against them (finished B. C. 244).[E]

These Huns, a Mongol race, had migrated from the center of Asia westward three-quarters of a century previously (A. D. 375), carrying death and devastation on their path. They had nothing in common with the peoples of the West, either in facial features or habits of life. Contemporary historians describe them as surpassing by their savagery all that can be imagined. They were of low stature, with broad shoulders, thick-set limbs, flat noses, high cheek-bones, small eyes deeply sunk in the sockets, and yellow complexion. Ammianus Marcellinus compares them, in their monstrous ugliness, to beasts walking on two legs, or the grinning heads clumsily carved on the posts of bridges. They had no beard, because from infancy their faces were hideously scarred by being slashed all over, in order to hinder its growth. Accustomed to lead a wandering life in their native country, these wild hordes traversed the Steppes, or boundless plains which lie between Russia and China, in huge chariots, or on small hardy horses, changing their stations as often as fresh pasture was required for their cattle. Except constrained by necessity, they never entered any kind of house, holding them in horror as so many tombs. They were accustomed from infancy to endure cold, hunger, and thirst. As the great boots they wore deprived them of all facility in marching, they never fought on foot; but the skill with which they managed their horses and threw the javelin, made them more formidable to the Germans than even the disciplined, but less ferocious, legions of Rome.

This was the rude race which, bursting into Europe in the second half of the fourth century, shook the whole barbarian world to its center, and precipitated it upon the Roman Empire. The Goths fled before them, when they passed the Danube, the Vandals when they crossed the Rhine. After a halt of half a century in the center of Europe, the Huns put themselves again in motion.

Attila, the king of this people, constrained all the tribes wandering between the Rhine and the Oural to follow him. For some time he hesitated upon which of the two empires he should carry the wrath of heaven. Deciding upon the West, he passed the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Seine, and marched upon Orleans. The populations fled before him in indescribable terror, for the Scourge of God, as he was called, left not one stone upon another wheresoever he passed. Metz and twenty other cities had been destroyed. Troyes alone had been saved by its bishop, Saint Loup. He wished to seize upon Orleans, the key of the southern provinces; and his innumerable army surrounded the city. Its bishop, St. Aignan, sustained the courage of the inhabitants by promising them a powerful succor. Ætius, in fact, arrived with all the barbarian nations encamped in Gaul, at the expense of which the new invasion was made. Attila for the first time fell back; but in order to choose a battle-field favorable for his cavalry, he halted in the Catalaunian plains near Méry-sur-Seine. There the terrible shock of battle took place. In the first onset the Franks, who formed the vanguard of Ætius, fought with such animosity that 15,000 Huns strewed the plain. But next day, when the great masses on both sides encountered, the bodies of 165,000 combatants were left on that field of carnage. Attila was conquered. The allies, however, not daring to drive the wild Huns to despair, suffered Attila to retreat into Germany (451). In the year following he made amends for his defeat by an invasion of northern Italy, ravaging Aquileia, Milan, and other cities in a frightful manner, but died of an apoplectic stroke (453), soon after his return, and his empire fell with him, but not the terrible remembrance of his name and of his cruelties. The Visigoths, whose king had perished in the fight, and the Franks of Meroveus, had had, with Ætius, the chief honor of that memorable day in the Catalaunian plains. For it had become a question whether Europe should be German or Mongolian, whether the fierce Huns or the Germans should found an empire on the ruins of that which was then crumbling.[F]

FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE—MANNERS AND MORALS OF THE GERMANS IN THIS AGE.

The Western Empire had now but a short time to live. The dastardly emperor Valentinian III., suspicious of the independent position of Ætius, recalled the conqueror of Attila from Gaul, and slew him with his own hand (A. D. 454). He was himself murdered soon after, and his widow, Eudoxia, though forced to marry the assassin, determined to avenge her husband. She invited the Vandals, for this purpose, from Africa across the sea to Rome. This German tribe, still ruled by the aged Genseric, was the only one which possessed a fleet; and by this means the Vandals had already made themselves masters of the great islands of the Mediterranean, of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. The “sea-king” eagerly obeyed the summons (A. D. 455), and now “golden Rome” was given up for fourteen days to his soldiers, and was sacked with such horrors that the name of Vandal has ever since been a proverb for barbarity and destruction. Yet the mediation of Leo the Great, then Bishop of Rome, saved the city from utter ruin. From this time onward the emperors, who followed one another in quick succession, were mere tools of the German generals, and symbols of power before the common people; for the whole imperial army now consisted of the remnants of various German nations, who had sought service for pay. These too, at last, like their kindred in the provinces, demanded lands in Italy, and would have no less than one-third of the soil. When this was refused, Odoacer, at the head of his soldiers—Heruli, Sciri, Turcilingi, and Rugii, who forced their way thither from the Danube—put an end to the very name of the Roman Empire, stripping the boy Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor, of the purple, and ruling alone in Italy, as German general and king. Thus the Western Empire fell by German hands, after they had already wrested from it all its provinces, Africa, Spain, Gaul and Britain. This occurred in the year 476. Ancient history ends with this event; but in the history of the Germans it is merely an episode.

At the time of the great migrations, the German tribes were barbarians, in that they were destitute alike of humanity toward enemies and inferiors, and of scientific culture. Neither the pursuit of learning nor the practice of mercy to the vanquished could seem to them other than unmanly weakness. Their ferocity spread misery and ruin through the whole arena of history, and made the fifth and sixth centuries of our era the crowning epoch in the annals of human suffering; while their active, passionate contempt for learning destroyed the existing monuments of intelligence and habits of inquiry and thought, almost as completely as they swept away the wealth, prosperity, and social organization of the Roman world. Their ablest kings despised clerical accomplishments. Even Theodoric the Great could not write, and his signature was made by a black smear over a form or mould in which his name was cut. Nevertheless these nations were not what we mean by savages. Their originally beautiful and resonant language was already cultivated in poetical forms, in heroic songs. There was intercourse and trade among the several nations. Minstrels, especially, passed from one royal court to another, and the same song which was sung to Theodoric in Ravenna could be heard and understood by the Vandals in Carthage, by Clovis in Paris, and by the Thuringians in their fastnesses. A common language was a strong bond of union among these nations. Messengers, embassies, and letters were sent to and fro between their courts; gifts were exchanged, and marriages and alliances entered into. Thus the nations were informed concerning one another, and recognized their mutual relationship. It was this international intercourse that gave rise to the heroic minstrelsy—a faithful relation of the great deeds of German heroes during the migrations; but the minstrel boldly transforms the order of events, and brings together things which in reality took place at intervals of whole generations. Thus they sing of Hermanric, of Theodoric the Great (Dietrich the Strong, of Berne), and of his faithful knight Hildebrand; then of the fall of the Burgundian kings, of the far-ruling Attila, and of Sigurd, or Siegfried, who was originally a Northern god of spring, but here appears as a youthful hero, faithful and child-like, simple and unsuspicious, yet the mightiest of all—the complete image of the German character.

These wild times of warfare and wandering could not, of course, favorably affect morals and character. They did much to root out of the minds and lives of the people their ancient heathen faith and practices. Their old gods were associated with places, scenes, features of the country and the climate; and, with these out of sight, the gods themselves were easily forgotten. Moreover, the local deities of other places and nations were brought into notice. The people’s religious habits were broken up, their minds confused, and thus they were better prepared than before to embrace the new and universal doctrines of Christianity. But the wanderings had a bad effect on morality in all forms. The upright German was still distinguished by his self-respect from the false, faithless, and cowardly “Welshman,” whose nature had become deformed through years of servitude. But Germans, too, were now often guilty of faithlessness and cruelty; and some tribes grew effeminate and corrupt, especially the Vandals in luxurious Africa. They imitated the style of the conquered in dress, arms, and manner of life; and some adopted their language also. For instance, even Theodoric the Great corresponded in Latin with foreign monarchs; and as early as the sixth and seventh centuries, the Germans recorded their own laws in Latin, the West Goths and Burgundians introducing the practice, which was followed by the Franks, Alemanni, Bavarians, and Langobards. These laws, and the prohibitions they contain, are the best sources of information upon the manners of the time, and especially upon the condition of the lower orders, the peasants, and the slaves. The most frequent cases provided are of bodily injuries, murder, wounds, and mutilations, showing that the warlike disposition had degenerated into cruelty and coarseness. For all these injuries, the weregeld, or ransom, was still a satisfaction. The life of a nobleman, that of a freeman, of a slave, and the members of the body—the eye, ear, nose, and hand—were assessed each at a fixed money valuation, to be paid by the aggressor, if he would not expose himself to the vengeance of the wronged man or his family. But crimes committed by peasants and slaves were punished by death, sometimes at the stake, where freemen might escape by paying a fine. The oaths of parties and witnesses were heard; and they were sustained by the oaths of others, their friends, relations, or partisans, who swore that they were to be believed. If an accused party swore that he was innocent, it was only necessary for him to obtain a sufficient number of compurgators, or jurors, of his own rank to swear that they believed him, in order to secure acquittal. But the number required was much larger for men of low rank than for the nobles; and the freedmen and slaves had no rights of the kind, but were tortured at will to compel them to confess or testify. The slaves were often tried by an ordeal, and were held guilty of any accusation if they could not put their hands into boiling water without harm. For freemen, if no other evidence were accessible, a trial by battle was adopted, as an appeal to God’s judgment. The heathen tribes in Germany proper—the Frisi, Saxons, Thuringians, and Alemanni—lived on in their old ways; yet they too failed to maintain the spotless character assigned them by Tacitus. It was a time of general ferment. The new elements of civilization had brought with them new vices, and the simplicity of earlier days could not survive.[G]

[To be continued.]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Bayard Taylor.

[B] Tacitus.

[C] Bayard Taylor.

[D] Sime.

[E] Lewis.

[F] Sime.

[G] Lewis.

Right well I know that improvement is a duty, and as we see man strives ever after a higher point, at least he seeks some novelty. But beware! for with these feelings Nature has given us also a desire to continue in the old ways, and to take pleasure in that to which we have been accustomed. Every condition of man is good which is natural and in accordance with reason. Man’s desires are boundless, but his wants are few. For his days are short, and his fate bounded by a narrow span. I find no fault with the man who, ever active and restless, crosses every sea and braves the rude extremes of every clime, daring and diligent in pursuit of gain, rejoicing his heart and house by wealth.—Goethe.

[GERMAN LITERATURE.]

Among the Germans, as among all other nations, the earliest literature is poetical. Little is preserved of their ancient poetry, but Tacitus tells us that the Germans of his time had ancient songs relating to Tuisco and Mannus, and to the hero Arminius. It is the opinion of many critics that the stories of “Reynard, the Fox,” and “Isengrim, the Wolf,” may be traced back to these remote times. The legends of the “Nibelungenlied” have many marks of antiquity which would place them in this pre-historic age. The first definite period, however, is:

I. The Early Middle Age.—When the German tribes accepted Christianity, the clergy strove to replace the native poetry by the stories of the gospel. In the fourth century Bishop Ulfilas prepared a clear, faithful and simple translation of the Scriptures, which has since been of value in the study of the Teutonic languages. Charles the Great overpowered the effort the priests had made to check poetry by issuing orders to collect the old German ballads. But few of these treasures of Old High and Low German literature have come down to us. Later the Church still further counteracted the influences of pagan literature by a religious poetry in which the life of Christ was sung in verse. Scholastic learning was also zealously cultivated in the monasteries and schools.

II. The Age of Chivalry.—Under the Hohenstaufen dynasty during the period of Middle High German the country passed through one of the greatest epochs of its literature. The most characteristic outcome of this active era is a series of poetical romances produced in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In these romances the subject of whatever epoch it might be, was treated wholly in the spirit of chivalry, the supreme aim was to furnish an idealized picture of the virtues of knighthood. Wolfram von Eschenbach was one of the most brilliant of these writers; “Parzival,” his chief poem, is purely imaginative. The hero is made to pass from a life of dreams to one of adventure, finally to become lord of the palace of the Holy Grail. Its object is to show the restless spirit of the Middle Ages, which, continually discontent with life, sought a nobler place.

Gottfried, of Strasburg, was a complete contrast to Wolfram and his greatest contemporary. Tristam and Iseult is his theme. Mediæval romance bore its richest fruit in these two poets, and most of their successors imitated either one or the other. To this age belongs the famous epic, the “Nibelungenlied,” in which many ancient ballads have been collected and arranged. “Gudrun” is another epic in which a poet of this period has given form to several old legends. But lyrics as well as romances and epics mark the age of chivalry. The poets of this class were known as minnesänger because their favorite theme was minne or love. Of all the minnesänger the first place belongs to Walther von der Vogelweide. He wrote poems of patriotism as well as on the usual subjects of lyric verse.

To this epoch belong the beginnings of prose in German literature. Latin was the speech of scholars, and prose works were almost uniformly in that language. The “Sachenspiegel” and “Schwabenspiegel,” two collections of local laws, aroused interest among Germans in their language. The preachers, however, were the chief founders of prose style. Dissatisfied with the abuses and mere forms under which genuine spiritual life was crushed, they strove to awaken new and truer ideas of religion. A Franciscan monk, Berthold, and Eckhart are the two to whom most is due.

III. The Later Middle Age.—After the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, chivalry died out in Germany, and with it the incentive to poetry. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, attempts were made to produce poetry by rule. As every trade has its guild, so there was formed a guild of poetry, in which the members made their verses by the “tabulatur,” and were obliged to pass through successive stages up to the “meistersänger.” More important were the efforts at dramatic composition. They were crude representations of scriptural subjects, with which the clergy sought to replace the pagan festivals. Out of these representations grew the “mysteries,” or “miracle plays,” in which there was an endeavor to dramatize sacred subjects. “Shrove Tuesday plays” were dialogues, setting forth some scene of noisy fun, and were the first attempts at comedy.

During the latter part of the fifteenth century there was in Germany, as in other European countries, a great revival of intellectual life. It was due to two things—the re-discovery of Greek literature and the invention of printing. In the universities a broader culture took the place of scholastic studies. Many books found their way to the people, but these were mainly on social questions. The tyranny of princes and abuses of the clergy were the topics for the times, and multitudes of books were written ridiculing princes, priests, nobles, and even the Pope. The greatest of these satires was “Reineke Vos,” by Barkhusen, a printer of Rostock. During this stirring period Maximilian I. was emperor, and attempted to revive the mediæval romance. His success was not great, and in no sense affected popular taste.

IV. The Century of the Reformation.—While the Renaissance brought about a great literary movement in England and France, and an artistic movement in Italy, in Germany the Reformation agitated the nation. Luther was the commanding spirit of the age in literature, as in religion. His greatest achievement was his translation of the Bible. For the first time a literary language was given to the nation. Luther gave to the men of all the countries of Germany a common speech, so that it is to him that the Germans owe the most essential of all the conditions of a national life and literature. Next to Luther stands Ulrich Von Hutten, an accomplished defender of the new culture and of the Reformation. Hans Sachs, the meistersänger of Nuremburg, is now acknowledged to be the chief German poet of the sixteenth century. He wrote more than six thousand poems. His hymn, “Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz,” was soon translated into eight languages. The religious lyrics of this age were of superior worth. Indeed, next to the translation of the Bible, nothing did so much to unite the Protestants. During this century the drama made considerable progress.

V. The Period of Decay.—This period is in many respects the most dismal in German history. During the seventeenth century little poetry of worth was produced. No progress was made in the formation of the drama, and few prose works were written that are now tolerated. The one brilliant thinker of the age was Leibnitz.

VI. The Period of Revival.—With the accession of Frederick the Great, a stronger national life sprung up in Germany, and literature shared the growth. Several causes contributed to the advance of literature; the revival of classical learning, and a knowledge of English literature were chief. Several literary schools grew up. Important as were many of the writers in them, they exercised slight influence on the national mind compared with founders of the German classical literature—Klopstock, Wieland, and Lessing. Klopstock’s fame mainly rests on the “Messiah,” a work now little read, and if defective, yet full of striking and beautiful images. Klopstock’s odes are superior to his dramas, the latter showing knowledge neither of the stage nor of life. His influence upon intellectual life in Germany was very marked.

Wieland was one of the most prolific of writers. “Oberon” is the most pleasing of his poems to modern readers, and by far most famous. “Agathon” is his best prose romance. Although at first a strong pietist, Wieland eventually became a pronounced epicurean. Lessing, the third of these great poets, is the only writer before Goethe that Germans now read sympathetically. As an imaginative writer he was chiefly distinguished in the drama, and his most important dramatic work is “Minna Von Barnhelm.” Superior to his imaginative works were his labors as a thinker. His style ranks with the greatest European writers, and his criticisms are of great value.

VII. The Classical Period.—About 1770 there began in German literary life a curious movement called “Sturm und Drang” (storm and pressure). Almost all young writers were under its influence. Its most prominent quality was discontent with the existing world. The critical guide of the movement was Herder. To him is due the impulse which led to a collection of the songs and ballads of the people. His most important prose work was “Ideas Toward the Philosophy of the History of Humanity.” To Herder belongs the honor of stimulating the genius of Goethe, who holds in German literature the place of Shakspere in English. His extraordinary range of activity is his most wonderful characteristic. Goethe’s first published work placed him among the writers of the “Sturm und Drang” school, as was true of the earlier works of Schiller. The lyrics of Goethe have perhaps the most subtle charm of all his writings, but “Hermann und Dorothea,” “Wilhelm Meister,” “Faust,” etc., are his great productions. Schiller, Goethe’s great rival, divided with him the public attention and interest. Schiller’s literary career began when he was only twenty-two. “The Robbers” and “Don Carlos” are his principal early works. It was in 1794 that Goethe and Schiller began that acquaintance which ripened into one of the most beautiful friendships in the history of literature. They wrote in common on Schiller’s journal “Die Horen,” and many of Schiller’s works were influenced by the larger life of his friend. This is particularly true of his dramas, “Wallenstein,” “Die Jungfrau von Orleans,” “Maria Stuart,” and “Wilhelm Tell.”

In 1781 one of the most important works of German literature was published—Kant’s “Kritik der Reinen Vernunft.” The philosophical systems of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel followed, and excited even greater interest than the writings of the imaginative writers.

Each of the leading writers of the classical period had numerous followers, but the most important band was that which at first grew up around Goethe—the romantic school. The aim of the school was to revive mediævalism—to link daily life to poetry. The writer known as the prophet of the school was Frederick von Hardenburg, generally called Novalis. The critical leaders were Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel. Tieck, Nackenroder, Fouquè, and Schleiermacher were the chief writers.

VIII. The Latest Period.—In 1832, with the death of Goethe, a new era began in German literature. In philosophy the school of Hegel, who wrote during the lifetime of Goethe, has had many enthusiastic adherents; among these were Strauss, Ruge and Feuerbach. Schopenhauer, although he wrote his chief book during the time of Goethe at present stirs deeper interest than any other thinker.

In imaginative literature the greatest writer of the latest period is Heinrich Heine, whose lyrics have attracted general attention. The novel has acquired the same important place in Germany as in England. Among the chief novelists are Freytag, the Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, Paul Heyse, Spielhagen and Reuter.

Everything that regards statesmanship and the interest of the world is in all outward respects of the greatest importance; it creates and destroys in a moment the happiness, even the very existence, of thousands, but when the wave of the moment has rushed past, and the storm has abated, its influence is lost, and even frequently disappears without leaving a trace behind. Many other things that are noiselessly influencing the thoughts and feelings often make far deeper and more lasting impressions on us. Man can for the most part keep himself very independent of all that does not trench on his private life—a very wise arrangement of Providence, since it gives a much greater security to human happiness.—William von Humboldt.

[PHYSICAL SCIENCE.]

II.—THE CIRCULATION OF WATER ON THE LAND.

Although air is continually evaporating water from the surface of the earth, and continually restoring it again by condensation, yet, on the whole and in the course of years, there seems to be no sensible gain or loss of water in our seas, lakes, and rivers; so that the two processes of evaporation and condensation balance each other.

It is evident, however, that the moisture precipitated at any moment from the air is not at once evaporated again. The disappearance of the water is due in part to evaporation, but only in part. A great deal of it goes out of sight in other ways.

The rain which falls upon the sea is the largest part of the whole rainfall of the globe, because the surface of the sea is about three times greater than that of the land. All this rain gradually mingles with the salt water, and can then be no longer recognized. It thus helps to make up for the loss which the sea is always suffering by evaporation. For the sea is the great evaporating surface whence most of the vapor of the atmosphere is derived.

On the other hand, the total amount of rain which falls upon the land of the globe must be enormous. It has been estimated, for example, that about sixty-eight cubic miles of water annually descend as rain even upon the surface of the British Isles, and there are many much more rainy regions. If you inquire about this rain which falls upon the land, you will find that it does not at once disappear, but begins another kind of circulation. Watch what happens during a shower of rain. If the shower is heavy, you will notice little runs of muddy water coursing down the streets or roads, or flowing out of the ridges of the fields. Follow one of the runs. It leads into some drain or brook, that into some larger stream, the stream into a river; and the river, if you follow it far enough, will bring you to the sea. Now think of all the brooks and rivers of the world, where this kind of transport of water is going on, and you will at once see how vast must be the part of the rain which flows off the land into the ocean.

But does the whole of the rain flow off at once into the sea in this way? A good deal of the rain which falls upon the land must sink underground and gather there. You may think that surely the water which disappears in that way must be finally withdrawn from the general circulation which we have been tracing. When it sinks below the surface, how can it ever get up to the surface again?

Yet, if you consider for a little, you will be convinced that whatever becomes of it underneath, it can not be lost. If all the rain which sinks into the ground be forever removed from the surface circulation, you will at once see that the quantity of water upon the earth’s surface must be constantly and visibly diminishing. But no such changes, so far as can be seen, are really taking place. In spite of the rain which disappears into the ground, the circulation of water between the air, the land, and the sea continues without perceptible diminution.

You are driven to conclude, therefore, that there must be some means whereby the water underground is brought back to the surface. This is done by springs, which gush out of the earth, and bring up water to feed the brooks and rivers, whereby it is borne into the sea. Here, then, are two distinct courses which the rainfall takes—one below ground, and one above. It will be most convenient to follow the underground portion first.

A little attention to the soils and rocks which form the surface of a country is enough to show that they differ greatly from each other in hardness, and in texture or grain. Some are quite loose and porous, others are tough and close-grained. They consequently differ much in the quantity of water they allow to pass through them. A bed of sand, for example, is pervious; that is, will let water sink through it freely, because the little grains of sand lie loosely together, touching each other only at some points, so as to leave empty spaces between. The water readily finds its way among these empty spaces. In fact, the sand-bed may become a kind of sponge, quite saturated with the water which has filtered down from the surface. A bed of clay, on the other hand, is impervious; it is made up of very small particles fitting closely to each other, and therefore offering resistance to the passage of water. Wherever such a bed occurs, it hinders the free passage of the water, which, unable to sink through it from above on the way down, or from below on the way up to the surface again, is kept in by the clay, and forced to find another line of escape.

Sandy soils are dry because the rain at once sinks through them; clay soils are wet because they retain the water, and prevent it from freely descending into the earth.

Now the rocks beneath us, besides being in many cases porous in their texture, such as sandstone, are all more or less traversed with cracks—sometimes mere lines, like those of a cracked window-pane, but sometimes wide and open clefts and tunnels. These numerous channels serve as passages for the underground water. Hence, although a rock may be so hard and close-grained that water does not soak through it at all, yet if that rock is plentifully supplied with these cracks, it may allow a large quantity of water to pass through. Limestone, for example, is a very hard rock, through the grains of which water can make but little way; yet it is so full of cracks or “joints,” as they are called, and these joints are often so wide, that they give passage to a great deal of water.

In hilly districts, where the surface of the ground has not been brought under the plow, you will notice that many places are marshy and wet, even when the weather has long been dry. The soil everywhere around has perhaps been baked quite hard by the sun; but these places remain still wet, in spite of the heat. Whence do they get their water? Plainly not directly from the air, for in that case the rest of the ground would also be damp. They get it not from above, but from below. It is oozing out of the ground; and it is this constant outcome of water from below which keeps the ground wet and marshy. In other places you will observe that the water does not merely soak through the ground, but gives rise to a little run of clear water. If you follow such a run up to its source, you will see that it comes gushing out of the ground as a spring.

Springs are the natural outlets for the underground water. But, you ask, why should this water have any outlets, and what makes it rise to the surface?

Let us suppose that a flat layer of some impervious rock, like clay, underlies another layer of a porous material, like sand. The rain which falls on the surface of the ground, and sinks through the upper bed, will be arrested by the lower one, and made either to gather there, or find its escape along the surface of that lower bed. If a hollow or valley should have its bottom below the level of the line along which the water flows, springs will gush out along the sides of the valley. The line of escape may be either the junction between two different kinds of rock, or some of the numerous joints already referred to. Whatever it be, the water can not help flowing onward and downward, as long as there is any passage along which it can find its way; and the rocks underneath are so full of cracks, that it has no difficulty in doing so.

But it must happen that a great deal of the underground water descends far below the level of the valleys, and even below the level of the sea. And yet, though it should descend for several miles, it comes at last to the surface again. To realize clearly how this takes place, let us follow a particular drop of water from the time when it sinks into the earth as rain, to the time when, after a long journey up and down in the bowels of the earth, it once more reaches the surface. It soaks through the soil together with other drops, and joins some feeble trickle, or some more ample flow of water, which works its way through crevices and tunnels of the rocks. It sinks in this way to perhaps a depth of several thousand feet, until it reaches some rock through which it can not readily make further way. Unable to work its way downward, the pent-up water must try to find escape in some other direction. By the pressure from above it is driven through other cracks and passages, winding up and down until at last it comes to the surface again. It breaks out there as a gushing spring.

Rain is water nearly in a state of purity. After journeying up and down underground it comes out again in springs, always more or less mingled with other materials, which it gets from the rocks through which it travels. They are not visible to the eye, for they are held in what is called chemical solution. When you put a few grains of salt or sugar upon a plate, and pour water over them, they are dissolved in the water and disappear. They enter into union with the water. You can not see them, but you can still recognize their presence by the taste which they give to the water which holds them in solution. So water, sinking from the soil downward, dissolves a little of the substance of the subterranean rocks, and carries this dissolved material up to the surface of the ground. One of the important ingredients in the air is carbonic acid gas, and this substance is both abstracted from and supplied to the air by plants and animals. In descending through the atmosphere rain absorbs a little air. As ingredients of the air, a little carbonic acid gas, particles of dust and soot, noxious vapors, minute organisms, and other substances floating in the air, are caught up by the descending rain, which in this way washes the air, and tends to keep it much more wholesome than it would otherwise be.

But rain not merely picks up impurities from the air, it gets a large addition when it reaches the soil.

Armed with the carbonic acid which it gets from the air, and with the larger quantity which it abstracts from the soil, rainwater is prepared to attack rocks, and to eat into them in a way which pure water could not do.

Water containing carbonic acid has a remarkable effect on many rocks, even on some of the very hardest. It dissolves more or less of their substance, and removes it. When it falls, for instance, on chalk or limestone, it almost entirely dissolves and carries away the rock in solution, though still remaining clear and limpid. In countries where chalk or limestone is an abundant rock, this action of water is sometimes singularly shown in the way in which the surface of the ground is worn into hollows. In such districts, too, the springs are always hard; that is, they contain much mineral matter in solution, whereas rainwater and springs which contain little impurity are termed soft.

When a stone building has stood for a few hundred years, the smoothly-dressed face which its walls received from the mason is usually gone. Again, in the burying-ground surrounding a venerable church you see the tombstones more and more mouldered the older they are. This crumbling away of hard stone with the lapse of time is a common familiar fact to you. But have you ever wondered why it should be so? What makes the stone decay, and what purpose is served by the process?

If it seem strange to you to be told that the surface of the earth is crumbling away, you should take every opportunity of verifying the statement. Examine your own district. You will find proofs that, in spite of their apparent steadfastness, even the hardest stones are really crumbling down. In short, wherever rocks are exposed to the air they are liable to decay. Now let us see how this change is brought about.

First of all we must return for a moment to the action of carbonic acid, which has been already described. You remember that rainwater abstracts a little carbonic acid from the air, and that, when it sinks under the earth, it is enabled by means of the acid to eat away some parts of the rocks beneath. The same action takes place with the rain, which rests upon or flows over the surface of the ground. The rainwater dissolves out little by little such portions of the rocks as it can remove. In the case of some rocks, such as limestone, the whole, or almost the whole, of the substance of the rock is carried away in solution. In other kinds, the portion dissolved is the cementing material whereby the mass of the rock was bound together; so that when it is taken away, the rock crumbles into mere earth or sand, which is readily washed away by the rain. Hence one of the causes of the mouldering of stone is the action of the carbonic acid taken up by the rain.

In the second place, the oxygen of the portion of air contained in rainwater helps to decompose rocks. When a piece of iron has been exposed for a time to the weather, in a damp climate, it rusts. This rust is a compound substance, formed by the union of oxygen with iron. What happens to an iron railing or a steel knife, happens also, though not so quickly nor so strongly, to many rocks. They, too, rust by absorbing oxygen. A crust of corroded rock forms on their surface, and, when it is knocked off by the rain, a fresh layer of rock is reached by the ever-present and active oxygen.

In the third place, the surface of many parts of the world is made to crumble down by means of frost. Sometimes during winter, when the cold gets very keen, pipes full of water burst, and jugs filled with water crack from top to bottom. The reason of this lies in the fact that water expands in freezing. Ice requires more space than the water would if it remained fluid. When ice forms within a confined space, it exerts a great pressure on the sides of the vessel, or cavity, which contains it. If these sides are not strong enough to bear the strain to which they are put, they must yield, and therefore they crack.

You have learned how easily rain finds its way through soil. Even the hardest rocks are more or less porous, and take in some water. Hence, when winter comes the ground is full of moisture; not in the soil merely, but in the rocks. And so, as frost sets in, this pervading moisture freezes. Now, precisely the same kind of action takes place with each particle of water, as in the case of the water in the burst water-pipe or the cracked jar. It does not matter whether the water is collected into some hole or crevice, or is diffused between the grains of the rocks and the soil. When it freezes it expands, and in so doing tries to push asunder the walls between which it is confined.

Water freezes not only between the component grains, but in the numerous crevices or joints, as they are called, by which rocks are traversed. You have, perhaps, noticed that on the face of a cliff, or in a quarry, the rock is cut through by lines running more or less in an upright direction, and that by means of these lines the rock is split up by nature, and can be divided by the quarrymen into large four-sided blocks or pillars. These lines, or joints, have been already referred to as passages for water in descending from the surface. You can understand that only a very little water may be admitted at a time into a joint. But by degrees the joint widens a little, and allows more water to enter. Every time the water freezes it tries hard to push asunder the two sides of the joint. After many winters, it is at last able to separate them a little; then more water enters, and more force is exerted in freezing, until at last the block of rock traversed by the joint is completely split up. When this takes place along the face of a cliff, one of the loosened parts may fall and actually roll down to the bottom of the precipice.

In addition to carbonic acid, oxygen, and frost, there are still other influences at work by which the surface of the earth is made to crumble. For example, when, during the day, rocks are highly heated by strong sunshine, and then during night are rapidly cooled by radiation, the alternate expansion and contraction caused by the extremes of temperature loosen the particles of the stone, causing them to crumble away, or even making successive crusts of the stone fall off.

Again, rocks which are at one time well soaked with rain, and at another time are liable to be dried by the sun’s rays and by wind, are apt to crumble away. If then it be true, as it is, that a general wasting of the surface of the land goes on, you may naturally ask why this should be. Out of the crumbled stones all soil is made, and on the formation and renewal of the soil we depend for our daily food.

Take up a handful of soil from any field or garden, and look at it attentively. What is it made of? You see little pieces of crumbling stone, particles of sand and clay, perhaps a few vegetable fibers; and the whole soil has a dark color from the decayed remains of plants and animals diffused through it. Now let us try to learn how these different materials have been brought together.

Every drop of rain which falls upon the land helps to alter the surface. You have followed the chemical action of rain when it dissolves parts of rocks. It is by the constant repetition of the process, drop after drop, and shower after shower, for years together, that the rocks become so wasted and worn. But the rain has also a mechanical action.

Watch what happens when the first pattering drops of a shower begin to fall upon a smooth surface of sand, such as that of a beach. Each drop makes a little dint or impression. It thus forces aside the grains of sand. On sloping ground, where the drops can run together and flow downward, they are able to push or carry the particles of sand or clay along. This is called a mechanical action; while the actual solution of the particles, as you would dissolve sugar or salt, is a chemical action. Each drop of rain may act in either or both of these ways.

Now you will readily see how it is that rain does so much in the destruction of rocks. It not only dissolves out some parts of them, and leaves a crumbling crust on the surface, but it washes away this crust, and thereby exposes a fresh surface to decay. There is in this way a continual pushing along of powdered stone over the earth’s surface. Part of this material accumulates in hollows, and on sloping or level ground; part is swept into the rivers, and carried away into the sea. As the mouldering of the surface of the land is always going on, there is a constant formation of soil. Indeed, if this were not the case, if after a layer of soil had been formed upon the ground, it were to remain there unmoved and unrenewed, the plants would by degrees take out of it all the earthy materials they could, and leave it in a barren or exhausted state. But some of it is being slowly carried away by rain, fresh particles from mouldering rocks are being washed over it by the same agent, while the rock or sub-soil underneath is all the while decaying into soil. The loose stones, too, are continually crumbling down and making new earth. And thus, day by day, the soil is slowly renewed.

Plants, also, help to form and renew the soil. They send their roots among the grains and joints of the stones, and loosen them. Their decaying fibers supply most of the carbonic acid by which these stones are attacked, and furnish also most of the organic matter in the soil. Even the common worms, which you see when you dig up a spadeful of earth, are of great service in mixing the soil and bringing what lies underneath up to the surface.

One part of the rain sinks under the ground, and you have traced its progress there until it comes to the surface again. You have now to trace, in a similar way, the other portion of the rainfall which flows along the surface in brooks and rivers.

You can not readily meet with a better illustration of this subject than that which is furnished by a gently sloping road during a heavy shower of rain. Let us suppose that you know such a road, and that just as the rain is beginning you take up your station at some part where the road has a well-marked descent. At first you notice that each of the large heavy drops of rain makes in the dust, or sand, one of the little dints or rain-prints already described. As the shower gets heavier these rain-prints are effaced, and the road soon streams with water. Now mark in what manner the water moves.

Looking at the road more narrowly, you remark that it is full of little roughnesses—at one place a long rut, at another a projecting stone, with many more inequalities which your eye could not easily detect when the road was dry, but which the water at once discloses. Every little dimple and projection affects the flow of the water. You see how the raindrops gather together into slender streamlets of running water which course along the hollows, and how the jutting stones and pieces of earth seem to turn these streamlets now to one side and now to another.

Toward the top of the slope only feeble runnels of water are to be seen. But further down they become fewer in number, and at the same time larger in size. They unite as they descend; and the larger and swifter streamlets at the foot of the descent are thus made up of a great many smaller ones from the higher parts of the slope.

Why does the water run down the sloping road? why do rivers flow? and why should they always move constantly in the same direction? They do so for the same reason that a stone falls to the ground when it drops out of your hand; because they are under the sway of that attraction toward the center of the earth, to which, as you know, the name of gravity is given. Every drop of rain falls to the earth because it is drawn downward by the force of this attraction. When it reaches the ground it is still, as much as ever, under the same influence; and it flows downward in the readiest channel it can find. Its fall from the clouds to the earth is direct and rapid; its descent from the mountains to the sea, as part of a stream, is often long and slow; but the cause of the movement is the same in either case. The winding to and fro of streams, the rush of rapids, the roar of cataracts, the noiseless flow of the deep sullen currents, are all proofs how paramount is the sway of the law of gravity over the waters of the globe.

Drawn down in this way by the action of gravity, all that portion of the rain which does not sink into the earth must at once begin to move downward along the nearest slopes, and continue flowing until it can get no further. On the surface of the land there are hollows called lakes, which arrest part of the flowing water, just as there are hollows on the road which serve to collect some of the rain. But in most cases they let the water run out at the lower end as fast as it runs in at the upper, and therefore do not serve as permanent resting places for the water. The streams which escape from lakes go on as before, working their way to the seashore. So that the course of all streams is a downward one; and the sea is the great reservoir into which the water of the land is continually pouring.

The brooks and rivers of a country are thus the natural drains, by which the surplus rainfall, not required by the soil or by springs, is led back again into the sea. When we consider the great amount of rain, and the enormous number of brooks in the higher parts of the country, it seems, at first, hardly possible for all these streams to reach the sea without overflowing the lower grounds. But this does not take place; for when two streams unite into one, they do not require a channel twice as broad as either of their single water-courses. On the contrary, such an union gives rise to a stream which is not so broad as either of the two from which it flows. But it becomes swifter and deeper.

Let us return to the illustration of the roadway in rain. Starting from the foot of the slope, you found the streamlets of rain getting smaller and smaller, and when you came to the top there were none at all. If, however, you were to descend the road on the other side of the ridge, you would probably meet with other streamlets coursing down-hill in the opposite direction. At the summit the rain seems to divide, part flowing off to one side, and part to the other.

In the same way, were you to ascend some river from the sea, you would watch it becoming narrower as you traced it inland, and branching more and more into tributary streams, and these again subdividing into almost endless little brooks. But take any of the branches which unite to form the main stream, and trace it upward. You come, in the end, to the first beginnings of a little brook, and going a little further you reach the summit, down the other side of which all the streams are flowing to the opposite quarter. The line which separates two sets of streams in this way is called the water-shed. In England, for example, one series of rivers flows into the Atlantic, another into the North Sea. If you trace upon a map a line separating all the upper streams of the one side from those of the other, that line will mark the water-shed of the country.

But there is one important point where the illustration of the road in rain quite fails. It is only when rain is falling, or immediately after a heavy shower, that the rills are seen upon the road. When the rain ceases the water begins to dry up, till in a short time the road becomes once more firm and dusty. But the brooks and rivers do not cease to flow when the rain ceases to fall. In the heat of summer, when perhaps there has been no rain for many days together, the rivers still roll on, smaller usually than they were in winter, but still with ample flow. What keeps them full? If you remember what you have already been told about underground water, you will answer that rivers are fed by springs as well as by rain.

Though the weather may be rainless, the springs continue to give out their supplies of water, and these keep the rivers going. But if great drought comes, many of the springs, particularly the shallow ones, cease to flow, and the rivers fed by them shrink up or get dry altogether. The great rivers of the globe, such as the Mississippi, drain such vast territories, that any mere local rain or drought makes no sensible difference in their mass of water.

In some parts of the world, however, the rivers are larger in summer and autumn than they are in winter and spring. The Rhine, for instance, begins to rise as the heat of summer increases, and to fall as the cold of winter comes on. This happens because the river has its source among snowy mountains. Snow melts rapidly in summer, and the water which streams from it finds its way into the brooks and rivers, which are thereby greatly swollen. In winter, on the other hand, the snow remains unmelted; the moisture which falls from the air upon the mountains is chiefly snow; and the cold is such as to freeze the brooks. Hence the supplies of water at the sources of these rivers are, in winter, greatly diminished, and the rivers themselves become proportionately smaller.

[To be continued.]

[SUNDAY READINGS.]

Selected by Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[Sunday, November 4.]
MORAL DISTINCTIONS NOT SUFFICIENTLY REGARDED IN SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”—Proverbs xiii:20.

That “a man may be known by the company he keeps,” has passed into a proverb among all nations, thus attesting what has been the universal experience. The fact would seem to be that a man’s associates either find him, or make him like themselves. An acute but severe critic of manners, who was too often led by his disposition and circumstances to sink the philosopher in the satirist, has said: “Nothing is so contagious as example. Never was there any considerable good or ill action, that hath not produced its like. We imitate good ones through emulation; and bad ones through that malignity in our nature, which shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.”

This being the case, or anything like it, all, I think, must agree that moral distinctions are not sufficiently cared for in social intercourse. In forming our intimacies we are sometimes determined by the mere accident of being thrown together; sometimes by a view to connections and social position; sometimes by the fascination of what are called companionable qualities; seldom, I fear, by thoughtful and serious regard to the influence they are likely to have on character. We forget that other attractions, of whatsoever nature, instead of compensating for moral unfitness in a companion, only have the effect to make such unfitness the more to be dreaded.

Let me introduce what I have to say on the importance of paying more regard to moral distinctions in the choice of friends, by a few remarks on what are called, by way of distinction, companionable qualities, and on the early manifestation of a free, sociable, confiding turn of mind. Most parents hail the latter, I believe, as the best of prognostics; and in some respects it is. It certainly makes the child more interesting as a child, and more easily governed; it often passes for precocity of talent; at any rate, men are willing to construe it into evidence of the facility with which he will make his way in the world. The father is proud of such a son; the mother idolizes him. If from any cause he is brought into comparison with a reserved, awkward, and unyielding boy in the neighborhood, they are ready enough to felicitate themselves, and others are ready enough to congratulate them, on the difference. And yet I believe I keep within bounds, when I say that, of the two, there is more than an even chance that the reserved, awkward, and unyielding boy will give his parents less occasion for anxiety and mortification, and become in the end the wiser and better man. The reason is, that if a child from natural facility of disposition is easily won over to good courses, he is also, from the same cause, liable at any time to be seduced from these good courses into bad ones. On the contrary, where a child, from rigor or stubbornness of temper, is peculiarly hard to subdue or manage, there is this hope for a compensation: if by early training, or the experience of life, or a wise foresight of consequences, he is once set right, he is almost sure to keep so.

It is not enough considered, that, in the present constitution of society, men are not in so much danger from want of good dispositions, as from want of firmness and steadiness of purpose. Hence it is that gentle and affectionate minds, more perhaps than any others, stand in need of solid principle and fixed habits of virtue and piety, as a safeguard against the lures and fascinations of the world. A man of a cold, hard, and ungenial nature is comparatively safe so far as the temptations of society go: partly because of this very impracticableness of his nature, and partly because his companionship is not likely to be desired or sought even by the bad: he will be left to himself. The corrupters of innocence in social intercourse single out for their prey men of companionable qualities. Through his companionable qualities the victim is approached, and by his companionable qualities he is betrayed.

Let me not be misunderstood. Companionable qualities are not objected to as such. When they spring from genuine goodness of heart, and are the ornament of an upright life, they are as respectable as they are amiable; and it would be well if Christians and all good men cultivated them more than they do. If we would make virtue and religion to be loved, we must make ourselves to be loved for our virtue and religion; which would be done if we were faithful to carry the gentleness and charity of the gospel into our manners as well as into our morals. Nevertheless, we insist that companionable qualities, when they have no better source than a sociable disposition, or, worse still, an easy temper and loose principles, are full of danger to their possessor, and full of danger to the community; especially where, from any cause, but little regard is paid to moral distinctions in social intercourse. We also say, that in such a state of society the danger will be most imminent to those whom we should naturally be most anxious to save—I mean, persons of a loving and yielding turn of mind.

[Sunday, November 11.]

And this brings me back again to the position taken in the beginning of this discourse. The reason why companionable qualities are attended with so much danger is, that society itself is attended with so much danger; and the reason why society is attended with so much danger is, that social intercourse is not more under the control of moral principles, moral rules, and moral sanctions.

My argument does not make it necessary to exaggerate the evils and dangers of modern society. I am willing to suppose that there have been times when society was much less pure than it is now; and again, that there are places where it is much less pure than it is here; but it does not follow that there are no evils or dangers now and here. On the contrary, it is easy to see that there may be stages in the progressive improvement of society, where the improvement itself will have the effect, not to lessen, but to increase the danger, so far as good men are concerned. In a community where vice abounds, where the public manners are notoriously and grossly corrupt, good men are put on their guard. They will not be injured by such society, for they will have nothing to do with it. A broad line of demarcation is drawn between what is expected from good men, and what is expected from bad men; so that the example of the latter has no effect on the former except to admonish and to warn. But let the work of refinement and reform go on in general society until vice is constrained to wear a decent exterior, until an air of decorum and respectability is thrown over all public meetings and amusements, and one consequence will be that the distinction between Christians and the world will not be so clearly seen, or so carefully observed, as before. The standard of the world, from the very fact that it is brought nearer to the standard of the gospel, will be more frequently confounded with it; Christians will feel at liberty to do whatever the world does, and the danger is, that they will come at length to do it from the same principles.

Besides, are we sure that we have not formed too favorable an opinion of the moral condition of general society—of that general society in the midst of which we are now living, and to the influence of which we are daily and hourly exposed? We should remember that in pronouncing on the character of public opinion and public sentiment, we are very likely to be affected and determined ourselves, not a little, by the fact that we share in that very public opinion and public sentiment which we are called upon to judge. I have no doubt that virtue, in general, is esteemed by the world, or that, other things being equal, a man of integrity will be preferred on account of his integrity. But this is not enough. It shows that the multitude see, and are willing to acknowledge, the dignity and worth of an upright course; but it does not prove them to have that abhorrence for sin, which it is the purpose and the tendency of the gospel to plant in all minds. If they had this settled and rooted abhorrence for sin, which marks the Christian, and without which a man can not be a Christian, they would not prefer virtue to vice, “other things being equal,” but they would do so whether other things were equal or not; they would knowingly keep no terms with vice, however recommended or glossed over by interest or worldly favor, or refined and elegant manners.

Now, I ask whether general society, even as it exists amongst us, will bear this test? Is it not incontestable that very unscrupulous and very dangerous men, if they happen to be men of talents, or men of fashion, or men of peculiarly engaging manners, find but little difficulty in insinuating themselves into what is called good society; nay, are often among those who are most courted and caressed? Some vices, I know, are understood to put one under the social ban; but it is because they offend, not merely against morality and religion, but against taste, against good-breeding, against certain conventions of the world. To be convinced of this it is only necessary to observe that the same, or even a much larger amount of acknowledged criminality, manifested under other forms, is not found to be attended with the same result. The mischiefs of this state of things are felt by all; but especially by those who are growing up in what are generally accounted the most favored walks of life. On entering into society they see men of known profligacy mingling in the best circles, and with the best people, if not indeed on terms of entire sympathy and confidence, at least on those of the utmost possible respect and courtesy. They see all this, and they see it every day; and it is by such flagrant inconsistencies in those they look up to for guidance, more perhaps than by any other one cause, that their own principles and their own faith are undermined. And besides, being thus encouraged and countenanced in associating with dissipated and profligate men in what is called good society, they will be apt to construe it into liberty to associate with them anywhere. At any rate the intimacy is begun. As society is constituted at present, corrupting intimacies are not infrequently begun amidst all the decencies of life, and, it may be, in the presence and under the countenance and sanction of parents and virtuous friends, which are afterward renewed and consummated, and this too by an easy, natural, and almost necessary gradation, amidst scenes of excess—perhaps in the haunts of ignominy and crime.

[Sunday, November 18.]

If one should propose a reform in this respect, I am aware of the difficulties and objections that would stand in his way.

Some would affirm it to be impracticable in the nature of things. They would reason thus: “The circle in which a man visits and moves is made for him, and not by him: at any rate, it is not, and can not be, determined by moral considerations alone. Something depends on education; something on family connections or mere vicinity; something on similarity in tastes and pursuits; something also on equality or approximation in wealth and standing. A poor man, or a man having a bare competency, if he is as virtuous and industrious, is just as respectable as a rich man; but it is plain that he can not pitch his style of living, or his style of hospitality, on the same scale of expense. It is better for both, therefore, that they should visit in different circles.” Perhaps it is; but what then? I am not recommending an amalgamation of the different classes in society. I suppose that such an amalgamation would neither be practicable nor desirable in the existing state of things. All I contend for is, that in every class, open and gross immorality of any kind should exclude a man from reputable company. Will any one say that this is impracticable? Let a man, through untoward events, but not by any fault or neglect of his own, be reduced in his circumstances,—let a man become generally odious, not in consequence of any immorality, but because, perhaps, he has embraced the unpopular side in politics or religion—let a man omit some trifling formality which is construed into a vulgarity, or a personal affront, and people do not appear to find much difficulty in dropping the acquaintance. If, then, it is so easy a thing to drop a man’s acquaintance for other reasons, and for no reason,—from mere prejudice, from mere caprice,—will it still be pretended that it can not be done at the command of duty and religion?

Again, it may be objected that, if you banish a man from general society for his immoralities, you will drive him to despair, and so destroy the only remaining hope of his reformation. What! are you going to keep society corrupt in the vain expectation that a corrupt state of society will help to reform its corrupt members? Besides, I grant that we should have compassion on the guilty; but I also hold that we should have compassion on the innocent too. Would you, therefore, allow a bad man to continue in good society, when the chances are a thousand to one that he will make others as bad as himself, and not more than one to a thousand that he himself will be reclaimed? Moreover, this reasoning is fallacious throughout. By expelling a dissipated and profligate man from good society, instead of destroying all hope of his recovery, you do in fact resort to the only remaining means of reforming one over whom a fear of God, and a sense of character, and the upbraidings of conscience have lost their power. What cares he for principle, or God, or an hereafter? Nothing, therefore, is so likely to encourage and embolden him to go on in his guilty course, as the belief that he will be allowed to do so without the forfeiture of the only thing he does care for, his reputable standing in the world. On the other hand, nothing is so likely to arrest him in these courses, and bring him to serious reflection, as the stern and determined threat of absolute exclusion from good society, if he persists.

Another objection will also be made which has stronger claims on our sympathy and respect. We shall be told that the innocent as well as the guilty will suffer—the guilty man’s friends and connections, who will probably feel the indignity more than he does himself. God forbid that we should needlessly add to the pain of those who are thus connected! But we must remember that the highest form of friendship does not consist in blindly falling in with the feelings of those whom we would serve, but in consulting what will be for their real and permanent good. If, therefore, the course here recommended has been shown to be not only indispensable to public morals, but more likely than any other to reclaim the offender, it is clearly not more a dictate of justice to the community, than of Christian charity to the parties more immediately concerned. Consider, also, how much is asked, when a good man is called upon to open his doors to persons without virtue and without principle. Unless the social circle is presided over by a spirit which will rebuke and frown away immorality, whatever fashionable names and disguises it may wear,—unless your sons and daughters can meet together without being in danger of having their faith disturbed by the jeers of the infidel, or their purity sullied by the breath of the libertine, neither they nor you are safe in the most innocent enjoyments and recreations. Parents at least should take a deep interest in this subject, if they do not wish to see the virtue, which they have reared under the best domestic discipline, blighted and corrupted before their eyes by the temptations to which their children are almost necessarily exposed in general society—a society which they can not escape except by going out of the world, and which they can not partake of without endangering the loss of what is of more value than a thousand worlds.

[Sunday, November 25.]

I have failed altogether in my purpose in this discourse if I have not done something to increase your distrust of mere companionable qualities, when not under the control of moral and religious principle; and also of the moral character and moral influence of general society, as at present constituted. Still you may ask, “If I associate with persons worse than myself, how can it be made out to be more probable that they will drag me down to their level, than that I shall lift them up to mine?” The answer to this question, I hardly need say, depends, in no small measure, on the reason or motive which induces the association. If you mix with the world, not for purposes of pleasure or self-advantage—if you resort to society, not for society as an end, but as a means to a higher end, the improvement of society itself—you do but take up the heavenly mission which Christ began. For not being able to make the distinction, through the hollowness and corruption of their hearts, the Pharisees thought it to be a just ground of accusation against our Lord, that he was willing to be accounted the friend of publicans and sinners. Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, and we can not doubt that the spirit which inspires you will preserve you wherever you may go. It is of such persons that our Lord has said: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means harm you.” Very far am I, therefore, from denying that we may do good in society, as well as incur danger and evil. Even in common friendships frequent occasions will present themselves for mutual service, for mutual counsel and admonition. Let me impress upon you this duty. Perhaps there is not one among you all, who has not at this moment companions on whom he can confer an infinite blessing. If there is a weak place in their characters, if to your knowledge they are contemplating a guilty purpose, if they are on the brink of entering into dangerous connections, by a timely, affectionate, and earnest remonstrance you may save them from ruin. Remember, we shall all be held responsible, not only for the evil which we do ourselves, but for the evil which we might prevent others from doing; it is not enough that we stand; we must endeavor to hold up our friends.

Very different from this, however, is the ordinary commerce of society; and hence its danger. If we mix with the world for the pleasure it affords, we shall be likely to be among the first to be reconciled to the freedom and laxity it allows. The world is not brought up to us, but we sink down to the world; the drop becomes of the consistence and color of the ocean into which it falls; the ocean remains itself unchanged. In the words of an old writer: “Though the well-disposed will remain some good space without corruption, yet time, I know not how, worketh a wound in him, which weakness of ours considered, and easiness of nature, apt to be deceived, looked into, they do best provide for themselves that separate themselves as far as they can from the bad, and draw as nigh to the good, as by any possibility they can attain to.” “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

[POLITICAL ECONOMY.]

By G. M. STEELE, D.D.

II.
PRODUCTION, CONTINUED—CAPITAL—COMBINATION AND DIVISION OF LABOR.

5. We have already seen that an essential to any considerable production is capital. We have seen the nature of capital and how it comes to exist. We have also learned that though capital implies saving, mere saving is not the sole condition of capital; indeed, a narrow penuriousness prevents the rapid accumulation of capital. The man who is accustomed to bring his water from a spring a quarter of a mile from his house instead of digging a well at the cost of a few dollars, or a few days’ work, acts uneconomically. In the long run the bringing of the water from the spring costs him much more than the digging of the well. The man who has extensive grain-fields, and who, for the sake of saving the expense of a reaper, or even a cradle, continues to use the sickle, will find that his saving results in a loss instead of a gain.

A man does not need to be rich in order to be a capitalist. When the savage has invented a bow and arrows he has the rudiments of capital. The laborer who has reserved out of his earnings enough to buy him a set of tools, or a few acres of land, is as really a capitalist as the owner of factories or railroads. Whatever property is used for production is capital.

Capital exists in many forms. It has been generally divided into fixed and circulating, though the limits of these divisions are not very precisely defined. The main difference consists in this, that while certain kinds of capital are used only once in the fulfillment of their purposes, other kinds are used repeatedly. Fuel can be burned but once. An axe may serve for years. Circulating capital is of two kinds:

(1) There are the stock and commodities which are to be consumed in reproduction; (a) the material out of which the new product is to be made, as lumber for cabinet ware, leather for shoes, etc.; (b) food and other provisions for the sustenance of the laborers.

(2) There is the stock of completed commodities on hand and ready for the market. The chairs that are finished and ready for sale in the chair factory are of this character. It is to be observed that the same article may be at one time circulating and at another fixed capital. Thus the chairs just spoken of, while they are in the hands of the manufacturer, or passing through those of the dealers, are circulating capital. It is only when they become fixed in use that their character changes.

Fixed capital consists (1) of all tools, implements, and machinery, used in the trades. Here, too, belong all structures of every sort for productive purposes; (2) all beasts of burden and draft; (3) all improvements of land implied in clearing, fencing, draining, fertilizing, terracing, etc.; (4) all mental acquisitions gained by labor and which give man power for productive results.

Obviously capital, by whomsoever owned, is an advantage to the laborer. But such capital is useless to the owner unless he can unite it with labor. So, too, the ability to labor is of no benefit to the laborer unless he can employ it in connection with capital. Generally the more capital there is in a community, other things being equal, the better it is for the laborer; and the more laborers there are, other things being equal, the better it is for the capitalist. When a factory burns down it may destroy only a small part of the wealth of the owners, and they may not palpably suffer; but it is very likely to deprive the laborers, who are connected with it, of the means of securing their daily sustenance.

There is no natural antagonism of interests between capital and labor, but rather the utmost concord and interdependence. Whatever conflicts arise between the laborers and the capitalists come from the unnatural selfishness and jealousy of the parties concerned.

6. As has been intimated, it is only by application of principles underlying political economy that we come to the conditions of the highest production, or, in other words, find how to satisfy the largest range of desires to the greatest extent at the smallest cost of labor. One of the chief means of effecting this is by the combination and division of labor. Recalling what was said concerning association and individuality, we shall see what principles are involved here, and how naturally they came into operation. As there was seen to be no antagonism between the two latter conceptions when carefully analyzed, so there is none, but rather the opposite, between combination and division of labor. It is true that there are instances where combination may take place without division, as when men unite to effect purposes which one could not accomplish except in much more than the proportionate time; as also in some cases to affect purposes which the individual could not effect in any length of time, such as the moving and placing of heavy timbers and stones, the management of ships and railway trains, etc. But for the most part men divide their labor in the process in order that they may combine the result. This is done in two ways:

(1) Men divide up the work of supplying human wants into different trades and occupations, according to their several tastes and aptitudes. Each man needs nearly the same that every other needs. But while each provides for only one kind of want, he provides more than enough to satisfy his own desire in that particular respect, and contributes the overplus to meet that same want in others. As all others do the same, each is contributing to meet the desires of one and all to each. The shoemaker, the tailor, the carpenter, the cabinet-maker, the blacksmith, the weaver, the paper-maker, the tin-man, the miner, the smelter, the painter, the glazier, etc., are all contributing to supply the farmer’s needs, and the farmer is contributing to all their needs. The wants of all are many times more fully met in this way than if each one should undertake to supply all his own wants.

(2) In some complicated trades the work is divided into a number of processes. There are men who could do every one of these parts; but such men are few, and their labor very costly, because some of the parts require rare skill and talent. What is needed is to organize several grades of laborers, so that the physically strong, the intelligent and skillful may have the work that only they can do; the less strong and skillful may find employment in the lighter and easier parts, and so all grades of ability down to the delicate woman or the little child, and up to the most powerful muscle and most advanced intelligence, can find their place. It is almost incredible how great is the increase of productiveness from the mere economical arrangement of workers. It is said that in so simple a matter as the making of pins, where the work is divided into ten processes and properly distributed, that the production will be two hundred and forty times as much as if each man did the whole work on each pin.

This connects itself with another important condition of large production. I mean the diversification of employment in a community. It is only in such a varied industry that all the varied tastes, aptitudes and abilities of society can find scope and adaptation; and without this, production must fall far short of its possibilities. This, too, is required to develop those differences which constitute individuality, and on which association depends.

There are other conditions of enlarged production, such as are implied in freedom, good government, and the moral character of the community, the influence of each of which will easily suggest itself to thoughtful minds.

III.—CONSUMPTION.

1. Consumption is the destruction of values. Production implies consumption. In general, all material is destroyed in entering into new forms of wealth. Thus, leather must be destroyed in order to the production of shoes. Flour must disappear in the manufacture of bread, and wheat in the making of flour. Every kind of implement, or machine or structure is consumed by use. This consumption is immediate, or by a single use; or it is gradual. The food that we eat and the fuel that we burn are examples of the former; tools, bridges, buildings and aqueducts are examples of the latter. It is accomplished in a few months or years; or is protracted through centuries.

2. Consumption is either voluntary or involuntary. Of the latter kind we have instances in the natural decay of objects, as in wood and vegetables; the rusting of iron, the mildew and the moth-eating of cotton and woolen fabrics, and the wearing away by attrition of gold, silver, and other metals; also the destruction caused by vermin. Much of this may be prevented by the prudent foresight which sound economy enjoins; yet much loss will inevitably take place. A great deal of consumption is accidental. Great destruction is caused by fires, steam-boiler explosions, floods and tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

3. Voluntary consumption is either productive or unproductive. The former is when the material appears in new form and with a higher value, as cloth made into garments and iron into hardware and cutlery. Unproductive consumption occurs, both in the cases before mentioned of natural and accidental consumption, and in cases where gratification of desire is the sole object sought and achieved, as when one eats and drinks simply for the enjoyment, and without reference to the waste of nature or the nourishment of the system.

It is not altogether easy to discriminate between these two kinds of consumption. We readily see the difference between a man’s drinking a quantity of whiskey, not because it will help him in the performance of any duty, but because he likes it, and the scattering of a quantity of seed over the ground in spring. There is no doubt that one act is productive and the other unproductive. But there are cases where the distinction is less clear.

It is not necessarily a case of unproductive consumption when one destroys value for the sake of gratifying some desire. Probably a majority of men eat and drink simply because they desire food and drink, having no thought of any ulterior object. Yet this eating and drinking is absolutely essential to productive labor. The wealth consumed in this way reappears, to a large extent, in the products of human industry.

Still there is much really unproductive consumption; a destruction of value, in the place of which no other value ever appears. There are, for instance, men and women—

* * * “who creep

Into this world to eat and sleep,

And know no reason why they’re born,

But simply to consume the corn.”

Vast quantities of wealth are consumed in riotous living, in greedy and vulgar extravagance, and unmeaning magnificence. There is also much consumption designed to be productive, but failing of its end through misdirection. Large amounts of property are sometimes invested in enterprises which prove failures. This occurs partly from miscalculation or negligence, and partly from a disposition to trust to chances—the gambler’s calculation. In these ways much wealth is consumed with no consequent product.

4. It is not easy to draw the line between the ordinary conveniences of life and its luxuries; nor can it be stated to what extent the latter in any sense of the term are economically allowable. What to one class of persons may be a luxury to another class may be almost a necessity. So what might in one age have been a rare and expensive indulgence, is in a more advanced period among the cheaper and more ordinary commodities. I call special attention to three kinds of consumption:

(1) There is the consumption necessary to life and the performance of productive labor. The word necessary here is used in its liberal rather than its restricted sense. The absolute necessities of human life are very few. It does not even require much to keep a man in working condition. But to keep him where there is a larger kind of living, and where his energies of both body and mind, together with the moral qualities which render him most efficient, are at their best, the consumption must be more generous.

Besides subsistence there must be materials, tools, machines, and a variety of conditions involving the destruction of value. It is desirable to sustain man not as a mere savage, but to give him the largest volume of human life; and the civilized man, it will be admitted, lives a broader life than the savage. We are not to forget that Political Economy aims at the increase of the value of man, more than at the multiplication of material wealth, or the increase of commerce, except as the latter are conditions of the former.

(2) A second kind of consumption is of such articles as minister to bodily enjoyment and meet certain mental appetencies of a lower order. They are not necessary to sustain life, nor to render it more efficient. On the contrary, they often impair the vigor and competence of the person. At the best they simply gratify certain desires without adding anything to the value of the man. To this category belong mere dainty food, gold and jewels, and other ornaments, valued solely because of their showiness and not for any artistic excellence; gay and costly apparel, in which the gayety and the costliness are the main features. These constitute a class of luxuries that are in nearly every sense non-productive. They favorably affect neither the individual nor society, and are for the most part hurtful to both.

(3) But not all consumption, the object of which is to gratify desire, is to be reckoned in this category. There are certain pleasures which ennoble and really enrich those who participate in them. There are desires the gratification of which enlarges the volume of one’s being. They are related not so much to man’s productive capability as to that which is the final cause of all production, and to which all wealth is only a means. The labor, material, implements, and whatever else is consumed in the production of the works or effects of genuine art, result in the most real wealth that exists. By this is meant not merely pictures, statues, books, carved work, tasteful tapestries, and similar objects which can be bought and sold, but also oratorios which you may hear but once; magnificent parks to which you may be admitted, but may never own; great actors and singers whose genius may be exhibited to others, but not possessed by them. It is true that much which properly belongs here may be so consumed as to deserve only a place in the second class; but it may also have those higher and nobler uses which imply production in the best sense.

5. Public consumption is the expenditure of means for society in its aggregate capacity. It has reference principally to the support of those agencies which are implied in the term government. The reasons for the necessity of such expenditures have already been given. The purposes to which such consumption is properly applied may be grouped as follows:

(a) The support and administration of government. This embraces compensation to executive, legislative and judicial officers, and expenditure for public buildings. (b) For works of public convenience. Here are included the paving and lighting of streets, water-works and sewerage. (c) For advancing science and promoting intelligence, by means of exploring expeditions, geological surveys, meteorological and astronomical observations, etc. (d) For the promotion of popular education. (e) For the support of the poor and the relief of the afflicted. (f) For national defense.

6. The general law of economical consumption, both individual and public, is that only so much and such a quality should be consumed as is necessary to effect the purpose designed, whether that be further production or individual gratification. It is nearly the same in the case of labor. In relation to the work to be done, the character, ability and skill of the laborer should be considered.

[READINGS IN ART.]

II.—SCULPTURE: GRECIAN AND ROMAN.

While Egyptian sculpture was losing its individuality, and Assyrian was wearing itself out in excessive ornamentation, there was a new art growing up in the isles and on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The early centuries of its growth are hidden from our knowledge. The remains are so scanty, so imperfect, that it is with difficulty that we trace the influences which were molding the art, and the extent to which it was taking hold of the people. Of this primitive period but one single work of sculpture is preserved.

“At Mycenæ, once perhaps in the days of Homer (850-800? B. C.) the most important city of Greece, there are sculptural works in the remains of two lions over the entrance gate. The height of these is about ten feet, and the width fifteen feet. The stone is a greenish limestone. The holes show where the metal pins held the heads, long since decayed. Fragments as they are, they show an Assyrian rather than an Egyptian influence in the strong marking of the muscles and joints, softened though it is by decay, and in the erect attitude, which denotes action, such as is not seen in Egyptian art of this kind. Of this gate of the lions, which has long been known as the most ancient work of early Greek sculpture, it must be noticed that it is not in the round, but only in high relief. And this is the case with all the earliest works, just as it is with the Assyrian sculptures. They tend to show therefore that the Greek sculptor had not yet learnt to model and carve in the round in marble and stone.”

In the objects found by Cesnola in Cyprus, and consisting of statues and other sculptures, incised gems, and metal work of the hammered-out kind, the resemblance to the art of Assyria is remarkable. Three hundred years later than the “gate of lions” are the reliefs discovered at Xanthus in Lycia. “They belong to the Harpy monument—a pier-shaped memorial, along the upper edge of which is a frieze ornamented in relief.” The archaic is still visible in the figures. The drapery falls in long straight folds, with zigzag edges. There is the stiff, inevitable smile of the Egyptian statue. The figures are in motion, but both feet are set flat on the ground. Though in profile the eyes are shown in full. In spite of these primitive absurdities, and the fact that the subjects represent foreign myths, the statues are Greek.

In the fifth century various art schools were founded. “In Argos lived Argeladas (515-455 B. C.), famous for his bronze statues of gods and Olympic victors, and still more famous for his three great pupils, Phidias, Myron, and Polycleitus. In Sicyon there lived, at the same time, Canachus, the founder of a vital and enduring school. He executed the colossal statue of Apollo at Miletus, and was skilled not only in casting bronze but in the use of gold and ivory and wood carving. Ægina, then a commercial island as yet not subjected, was rendered illustrious by the two masters Callon and Onatas, the latter especially known by several groups of bronze statues and warlike scenes from heroic legends. Lastly, Athens possessed among other artists Hegias, the teacher of Phidias and Critius. But all of these old masters were severe, hard, archaic in their treatment.”

But a period approaches when by a freer, happier treatment of their work the way was led to the highest Athenian sculpture. We can but mention the leading sculptors, Calamis of Athens, Pythagoras of Rhegium, and, greatest of all, Myron of Athens. They do not belong to the epoch of the finest Grecian art, but they were the immediate forerunners.

“Now, for the first time in opposition to the barbarians, the national Hellenic mind rose to the highest consciousness of noble independence and dignity. Athens concentrated within herself, as in a focus, the whole exuberance and many-sidedness of Greek life, and glorified it into beautiful utility. The victory of the old time over the new was effected by the power of Phidias, one of the most wonderful artist minds of all times. He lived in the times of Athens’ greatest prosperity, and to him Pericles gave the task of executing the magnificent works he had planned for adorning the city. Among the famous statues which Phidias wrought in carrying out these plans was that of Athene, the patron goddess of the Athenians. The booty which had been taken at Salamis was set aside for this purpose, and forty-four talents, equal to $589,875 of our money, was spent in adorning the statue. The virgin goddess was standing erect; a golden helmet covered her beautiful and earnest head; a coat of mail, with the head of the Medusa carved in ivory concealed her bosom; and long, flowing, golden drapery enveloped her whole figure—a statue of Niké, six feet high, stood on the outstretched hand of the goddess. The undraped parts were formed of ivory; the eyes of sparkling precious stones; the drapery, hair, and weapons of gold. In it Phidias portrayed for all ages the character of Minerva, the serious goddess of wisdom, the mild protectress of Attica.”

Still more than in this statue the austere maidenliness of the goddess was elevated into noble, intellectual beauty in a figure of Athene placed on the Acropolis by the Lemnians; so much so that an old epigram instituted a comparison with the Aphrodite of Praxiteles of Cnidus, and calls Paris “a mere cow-driver for not giving the apple to Athene.”

The still more famous colossal statue by Phidias, the Zeus at Olympia in Elis, was his last great work. It was made between B. C. 438, the date of the consecration of the Parthenon statue, and B. C. 432, the year of his death, at Elis.

This was a seated statue of ivory and gold, 55 feet high, including the throne. Strabo remarks, that “if the god had risen he would have carried away the roof,” and the height of the interior was about 55 feet; the temple being built on the model of the Parthenon at Athens, which was 64 feet to the point of the pediment.

The statue was seen in its temple by Paulus Æmilius in the second century B. C., who declared the god himself seemed present to him. Epictetus says that “it was considered a misfortune for any one to die without having seen the masterpiece of Phidias.” In the time of Julian the Apostate (A. D. 361-363) “it continued to receive the homage of Greece in spite of every kind of attack which the covert zeal of Constantine had made against polytheism, its temples, and its idols.” This is the last notice we possess giving authentic information of this grand statue. Phidias is said to have executed many other statues: thirteen in bronze from the booty of Marathon, consecrated at Delphi under Cimon—statues of Apollo, Athene, and Miltiades, with those ten heroes who had given their names to the ten Athenian tribes (Eponymi); an Athene for the city of Pellene in gold and ivory; another for the Platæans, of the spoils of Marathon, made of wood gilt, with the head, feet, and hands of Pentelic marble. “These,” M. Rochette says, “may be considered the productions of his youth.”

The great national work of the time, however, was the Parthenon, and the ornamentation was entrusted to Phidias. Not that all the wonderful statues were executed by him alone. He had his pupils and associates. The most famous of these seems to have been Alcamenes, a versatile and imaginative disciple of his master. After him were Agoracritus and Pæonius. There were many others who assisted in the work. The outside of the temple was ornamented with three classes of sculpture: (1) The sculptures of the pediments, being independent statues resting on the cornices. (2) The groups of the metopes, ninety-two in number. These were in high relief. (3) The frieze around the upper border of the cella of the Parthenon contained a representation in low relief of the Panathenaic procession. All these classes of sculpture were in the highest style of the art.

The influence of the sculptures of the Parthenon is seen in many directions in the temple of Apollo at Phigalia, the temple of Niké-Apteros on the Acropolis at Athens, at Halicarnassus, etc.

“The works which are known to have been executed by the sculptors contemporary with Phidias, and by others who formed what is spoken of as ‘the later Athenian school,’ did not approach the great examples of the Parthenon. Sculpture then reached the highest point in the grandest style, whether in the treatment of the statue in the round, or of bas-relief as in the frieze, or alto-relievo as in the metopes. As to the chryselephantine statues of Phidias, it may be concluded without hesitation that though we are compelled to rely upon descriptions only, they must have been works of the great master even more beautiful than the marbles.”

At Argos during the time of Phidias, a somewhat younger school flourished under the leadership of Polycleitus. “The aspiration of Polycleitus was to depict the perfect beauty of the human form in calm repose.” His Amazon and Juno represent best his style; so perfect are all his works in their proportions that the invention of the canon has been assigned to him.

In the works of the later Athenian school, at the head of which were Scopas and Praxiteles, the sublime ideal of Greek art was no longer sustained by any new creations that can be compared with those of the Phidian school; no rivalry with those great masters seemed to be attempted. The severe and grand was beyond the comprehension, or probably uncongenial to the spirit of the age, which inclined toward the poetic, the graceful, the sentimental and romantic. The whole range of the beautiful myths found abundant illustration in forms entirely different from the ancient archaic representations, and in these the fancy of the sculptor was allowed the fullest and freest indulgence. Nymphs, nereids, mænads, and bacchantes occupied the chisel of the sculptor in every form of graceful beauty.

After this epoch, to which so many of the fine statues belong—repetitions in marble of famous originals in bronze—Greek sculpture took another phase in accordance with the social life and the taste of the age, which inclined toward the feeling for display that arose with the domination of the Macedonian power, brought to its height by the conquests and ambition of Alexander the Great. Lysippus, a self-taught sculptor of Sicyon, was the leading artist of his time. He was evidently a student of nature and individual character, as he was the first to become celebrated for his portraits, especially those of Alexander. He departed from the severe and grand style, and in the native conceit of all self-taught men sneered at the art of Polycleitus in the well-known saying recorded of him, “Polycleitus made men as they were, but I make them as they ought to be.” He seems to have been the first great naturalistic sculptor.

Rhodes had unquestionable right to give her name to a school of sculpture, both from the great antiquity of the origin of the culture of the arts in the island, and from the number, more than one hundred, of colossal statues in bronze. The Rhodian school is also distinguished by those remarkable examples of sculpture in marble of large groups of figures—the Toro Farnese and the Laocoon. In these works there is the same feeling for display of artistic accomplishment that has been noticed as characteristic of the Macedonian age, with that effort at the pathetic, especially in the Laocoon, which belongs to the finer style of the later Athenian school as displayed in the works of Scopas and Praxiteles, in the Niobe figures and others.

At Pergamus, another school allied in style to that of Ephesus arose, of which the chief sculptor was Pyromachus, who, according to Pliny, flourished in the 120th Olympiad, B. C. 300-298. A statue of Æsculapius by Pyromachus was a work of some note in the splendid temple at Pergamus, and is to be seen on the coins of that city. It is also conjectured that the well-known Dying Gladiator is a copy of a bronze by Pyromachus. The vigorous naturalistic style of these statues, surpassing anything of preceding schools in the effort at expression, may be taken as characteristic of the school of Pergamus, then completely under Roman influence, and destined to become more so. But all question as to the nature of the sculptures was set at rest by the discovery of many large works in high relief by the German expedition at Pergamus in 1875. These are now in the Museum at Berlin. They are of almost colossal proportions, representing, as Pliny described, the wars of Attalus and the Battles with the Giants. The nude figure is especially marked by the effort to display artistic ability as well as great energy in the action. In these points there is observable a connection with the well-known and very striking example of sculpture of this order—the Fighting Gladiator, or more properly the Warrior of Agasias, who, as is certain from the inscription on his work, was an Ephesian.

The equally renowned statue of the Apollo Belvedere, finely conceived and admirably modeled as it undoubtedly is, bears the stamp of artistic display which removes it from the style of the great classic works of sculpture.

The history of Roman sculpture is soon told. If it have any real roots, they are to be traced in the ancient Etruscan; for all that was really characteristic in it as art is associated with that style, in that intense naturalism which became developed so strikingly in the production of portrait statues and busts, and in those great monumental works in bas-relief which are marked by the same strong feeling for descriptive representation of the most direct and realistic kind, upon their triumphal columns and arches.

As has already been stated, early Roman sculpture, if such it can be called, was entirely the work of Etruscan artists, employed by the wealth of Rome to afford the citizens that display of pomp in their worship of the gods and the triumphs of their warriors which their ambition demanded. All important works were made of colossal size. Some of the early Roman (quasi Etruscan) statues spoken of by the historians are a bronze colossus of Jupiter, an Etruscan bronze colossus of Apollo, eighty feet high, in the Palatine Library of the temple of Augustus. A portrait statue of an orator in the toga, and a chimæra, both of bronze, are in the Florence Museum. Sculpture, from the love of it as a means of expressing the beautiful in the ideal form of the deities or the heroic and the pathetic of humanity, never existed as a growth of Roman civilization. The inclination of the Roman mind was toward social, municipal, and imperial system and ordering; in this direction the Romans were inventors and improvers upon that which they borrowed from the Greeks. But in art they began by hiring, and they ended by debasing the work of the hired.

They took away the bronze statues of Greece as trophies of conquest, covered them with gold, and set them up in the palaces and public places of Rome. They subsidized the sculptors of Greece, who under Roman influence had fallen away from their high traditions; they did nothing for the sake of art, but simply manufactured, as it were, copies and imitations of Greek statues for their own use. Happily we have to be grateful for the fact, though we can not honor the motive. Had it not been for this bestowal of their wealth in the gratification of their taste for luxury and display, many of the renowned statues of ancient Greek art would have been known only by the vague mention of them by Pausanias and Pliny, or the early Christian writers of the Church, or the poetic allusions of the Greek anthologists and the Latin epigrammatists.

The Column of Trajan was the great work of Apollodorus, the favorite architect of the emperor, dedicated A. D. 114. It is 10½ feet in diameter and 127 feet high, made of thirty-four blocks of white marble, twenty-three being in the shaft, nine in the base, which is finely sculptured, and two in the capital and torus. The reliefs at the base are smaller than those toward the top, being two feet high, increasing to nearly four as they approach the summit; this was, of course, to enable the more distant subjects to be seen equally well with the others, a singular illustration of the intensely practical turn of Roman art in its application. There are about 2,500 figures, not counting horses, representing the battles and sieges of the Dacian war. The column of M. Aurelius Antoninus, erected A. D. 174, is similar in height, but the sculptures, although in higher relief, are not so good. They represent the conquest of the Marcomans.

The Augustan age (B. C. 36-A. D. 14), favorable as it was to literature, only contributed to the multiplying of copies of the Greek statues, such as we see in so many instances, some of which are of great excellence, and inestimable as reliable evidence of fine Greek sculpture. These copies were sometimes varied by the sculptor in some immaterial point of detail.

Nero (A. D. 54-68) is said to have adorned his Golden House with no less than 500 statues, brought from Delphi. In the Baths of Titus, still in existence (they were built on the ground of the house and gardens of Mæcenas), many valuable statues have been discovered. The Arch of Titus furnishes an excellent example of bas-relief of that time, in it the golden candlestick and other spoils from the temple of Jerusalem are shown.

Hadrian (A. D. 117-138) encouraged the reproduction of the Greek statues, with great success as regards execution, for his famous villa at Tivoli, and besides these are the statues of his favorite Antinous, which are the most original works of the time. Hadrian’s imperial and liberal promotion of sculpture, gave an immense impetus to the production of statues of every form. All the towns of Greece which he favored made bronze portrait statues of him, which were placed in the temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, and the enclosure round more than half a mile in extent was filled with its many statues.

The learned Varro speaks of Arcesilaus as the sculptor of Venus Genetrix, in the forum of Cæsar, and of a beautiful marble group of Cupids playing with a lioness, some leading her, others beating her with their sandals, others offering her wine to drink from horns.

Under the Antonines arose the outrageous fashion of representing noble Romans and their wives as deities, and this was carried so far that the men are not unfrequently nude as if heroic. The bas-reliefs on the arch of Septimus Severus at Rome, and that which goes by the name of Constantine—though made chiefly of reliefs belonging to one raised in honor of Trajan—show the poor condition of sculpture at that time. The numerous sarcophagi, some made by Greek sculptors for the Roman market, and others by those working at Rome, are other examples of the feeble style of imitators and workmen actuated by no knowledge or feeling of art. Some of these are still to be seen in the collections at Rome, with mythological subjects, the heads being left unfinished, so that the portraits of the family could be carved when required.

The rule of Constantine was, however, far more disastrous to art as the seat of the Empire was removed to Byzantium. Most of the finest statues accumulated in Rome were removed there only to be lost forever in the plundering of wars and the fanatical rage of the Christian iconoclasts. While destroying the statues of the gods, they may have spared those which commemorated agonistic victors; but we may be sure that nearly all the works in metal which the Christians spared were melted down by the barbarous hordes of Gothic invaders, who under Alaric occupied the Morea about A. D. 395.

With this glance at the complete decadence of art and the coming darkness that preceded its revival, we approach the subject of sculpture as connected with the rise of ecclesiastical religious art, which is necessarily reserved for further consideration.

[SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.]

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

I recommend the study of Franklin to all young people; he was a real philanthropist, a wonderful man. It was said that it was honor enough to any one country to have produced such a man as Franklin.—Sydney Smith.

A man who makes a great figure in the learned world; and who would still make a greater figure for benevolence and candor were virtue as much regarded in this declining age as knowledge.—Lord Kaimes.

He was a great experimental philosopher, a consummate politician, and a paragon of common sense.—Edinburgh Review.

He has in no instance exhibited that false dignity by which science is kept aloof from common application; and he has sought rather to make her an useful inmate and servant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an object of admiration in temples and palaces.—Sir Humphrey Davy.

His style has all the vigor, and even conciseness of Swift, without any of his harshness. It is in no degree more flowery, yet both elegant and lively.—Lord Jeffrey.

When he left Passy it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch.—Thomas Jefferson.

Extracts From Poor Richard’s Almanac.

“Love well, whip well.” “The proof of gold is fire; the proof of woman, gold; the proof of man, a woman.” “There is no little enemy.” “Necessity never made a good bargain.” “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” “Deny self for self’s sake.” “Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.” “Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason.” “Sal laughs at everything you say; why? because she has fine teeth.” “An old young man will be a young old man.” “He is no clown that drives the plow, but he that does clownish things.” “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” “Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.” “He that can have patience can have what he will.” “Good wives and good plantations are made by good husbands.” “God heals, the doctor takes the fee.” “The noblest question in the world is, What good may I do in it?” “There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.” “Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?” “Fly pleasures, and they will follow you.” “Hast thou virtue? Acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.” “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage; half shut afterward.” “As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.” “Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.” “Grace thou thy house, and let not that grace thee.” “Let thy child’s first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou will.” “Let thy discontents be thy secrets.” “Happy that nation, fortunate that age, whose history is not diverting.” “There are lazy minds, as well as lazy bodies.” “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, who have not wit enough to be honest.” “Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.”

“Altho’ thy teacher act not as he preaches,

Yet ne’ertheless, if good, do what he teaches;

Good counsel failing men may give, for why?

He that’s aground knows where the shoal doth lie.

My old friend Berryman, oft when alive,

Taught others thrift, himself could never thrive.

Thus like the whetstone, many men are wont

To sharpen others while themselves are blunt.”

Poetry for December, 1834.

“He that for the sake of drink neglects his trade,

And spends each night in taverns till ’tis late,

And rises when the sun is four hours high,

And ne’er regards his starving family,

God in his mercy may do much to save him,

But, woe to the poor wife, whose lot it is to have him.”

An Astronomical Notice.

During the first visible eclipse Saturn is retrograde: for which reason the crabs will go sidelong, and the rope-makers backward. Mercury will have his share in these affairs, and so confound the speech of the people, that when a Pennsylvanian would say panther, he shall say painter. When a New Yorker thinks to say this, he shall say diss, and the people in New England and Cape May will not be able to say cow for their lives, but will be forced to say keow, by a certain involuntary twist in the root of their tongues. No Connecticut man nor Marylander will be able to open his mouth this year but sir shall be the first or last syllable he pronounces, and sometimes both. Brutes shall speak in many places, and there will be about seven and twenty irregular verbs made this year if grammar don’t interpose. Who can help these misfortunes? This year the stone-blind shall see but very little; the deaf shall hear but poorly; and the dumb sha’n’t speak very plain. As to old age, it will be incurable this year, because of the years past. And toward the fall some people will be seized with an unaccountable inclination to roast and eat their own ears: Should this be called madness, doctors? I think not. But the worst disease of all will be a most horrid, dreadful, malignant, catching, perverse, and odious malady, almost epidemical, insomuch that many shall seem mad upon it. I quake for very fear when I think on’t; for I assure you very few shall escape this disease, which is called by the learned Albromazer—Lacko’mony.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

His papers which have been preserved show how he gained the power of writing correctly—always expressing himself with clearness and directness, often with felicity and grace.—George Bancroft.

No one who has not been in England can have an idea of the admiration expressed among all parties for General Washington.—Rufus King, 1797.

* * * The great central figure of that unparalleled group, that “noble army” of chieftains, sages, and patriots, by whom the revolution was accomplished.—Edward Everett.

He had in his composition a calm which gave him in moments of highest excitement the power of self-control, and enabled him to excel in patience.—Bancroft.

Account of the Battle of Trenton.

Headquarters, Morristown, Dec. 27, 1776.

To the President of Congress:

Sir—I have the pleasure of congratulating you upon the success of an enterprise which I had formed against a detachment of the enemy lying in Trenton, and which was executed yesterday morning.

The evening of the twenty-fifth I ordered the troops intended for this service to parade back of McKonkey’s ferry, that they might begin to pass as soon as it grew dark, imagining we should be able to throw them all over, with the necessary artillery, by twelve o’clock, and that we might easily arrive at Trenton by five in the morning, the distance being about nine miles. But the quantity of ice made that night impeded the passage of the boats so much that it was three o’clock before the artillery could all be got over; and near four before the troops took up their line of march.

This made me despair of surprising the town, as I well knew we could not reach it before the day was fairly broke. But as I was certain there was no making a retreat without being discovered, and harassed on re-passing the river, I determined to push on at all events. I formed my detachment into two divisions, one to march by the lower or river road, the other by the upper or Pennington road. As the divisions had nearly the same distance to march, I ordered each of them, immediately upon forcing the out-guards, to push directly into the town, that they might charge the enemy before they had time to form.

The upper division arrived at the enemy’s advanced post exactly at eight o’clock: and in three minutes after I found, from the fire on the lower road, that that division had also got up. The out-guards made but small opposition, though, for their numbers, they behaved very well, keeping up a constant retreating fire from behind houses. We presently saw their main body formed; but from their motions, they seemed undetermined how to act.

Being hard pressed by our troops, who had already got possession of their artillery, they attempted to file off by a road on their right, leading to Princeton. But, perceiving their intention, I threw a body of troops in their way; which immediately checked them. Finding, from our disposition, that they were surrounded, and that they must inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any further resistance, they agreed to lay down their arms. The number that submitted in this manner was twenty-three officers and eight hundred and eighty-six men. Colonel Rahl, the commanding officer, and seven others, were found wounded in the town. I do not exactly know how many they had killed; but I fancy not above twenty or thirty, as they never made any regular stand. Our loss is very trifling indeed—only two officers and one or two privates wounded.

I find that the detachment consisted of the three Hessian regiments of Lanspach, Kniphausen, and Rahl, amounting to about fifteen hundred men, and a troop of British light horse; but immediately upon the beginning of the attack, all those who were not killed or taken pushed directly down toward Bordentown. These would likewise have fallen into our hands could my plan have been completely carried into execution.

General Ewing was to have crossed before day at Trenton ferry, and taken possession of the bridge leading out of town; but the quantity of ice was so great that, though he did every thing in his power to effect it, he could not get over. This difficulty also hindered General Cadwallader from crossing with the Pennsylvania militia from Bristol. He got part of his foot over; but finding it impossible to embark his artillery, he was obliged to desist.

I am fully confident that, could the troops under Generals Ewing and Cadwallader have passed the river, I should have been able, with their assistance, to have driven the enemy from all their posts below Trenton. But the numbers I had with me being inferior to theirs below me, and a strong battalion of light infantry being at Princeton above me, I thought it most prudent to return the same evening with the prisoners and the artillery we had taken. We found no stores of any consequence in the town.

In justice to the officers and men, I must add that their behavior upon this occasion reflects the highest honor upon them. The difficulty of passing the river in a very severe night, and their march through a violent storm of snow and hail, did not in the least abate their ardor; but when they came to the charge each seemed to vie with the other in pressing forward; and were I to give a preference to any particular corps I should do great injustice to the others.

Colonel Baylor, my first aid-de-camp, will have the honor of delivering this to you; and from him you may be made acquainted with many other particulars. His spirited behavior upon every occasion requires me to recommend him to your particular notice.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

G. W.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

As a composition, the Declaration [of Independence] is Mr. Jefferson’s. It is the production of his mind, and the high honor of it belongs to him clearly and absolutely. To say that he performed his great work well would be doing him an injustice. To say that he did excellently well, admirably well, would be inadequate and halting praise. Let us rather say that he so discharged the duty assigned him that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing the title-deed of their liberties devolved upon him.—Daniel Webster.

After Washington and Franklin there is no person who fills so eminent a place among the great men of America as Jefferson.—Lord Brougham.

Washington.

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in a re-adjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man’s value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish; his deportment easy, erect, and noble, the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more completely to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.

THOUGHTS FROM WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

On Books.—It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

Books are the true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter though the prosperous of my time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshhold to sing to me of paradise, and Shakspere to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.

On Labor.—Manual labor is a great good, but only in its just proportions. In excess it does great harm. It is not a good when made the sole work of life. It must be joined with higher means of improvement or it degrades instead of exalting. Man has a various nature which requires a variety of occupation and discipline for its growth. Study, meditation, society, and relaxation should be mixed up with his physical toil. He has intellect, heart, imagination, taste, as well as bones and muscles; and he is grievously wronged when compelled to exclusive drudgery for bodily subsistence.

On Politics.—To govern one’s self (not others) is true glory. To serve through love, not to rule, is Christian greatness. Office is not dignity. The lowest men, because most faithless in principle, most servile to opinion, are to be found in office. I am sorry to say it, but the truth should be spoken, that, at the present moment, political action in this country does little to lift up any who are concerned in it. It stands in opposition to a high morality. Politics, indeed, regarded as the study and pursuit of the true, enduring good of a community, as the application of great unchangeable principles to public affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and action, but politics, in its common sense, or considered as the invention of temporary shifts, as the playing of a subtle game, as the tactics of party for gaining power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of men above another is a paltry and debasing concern.

On Self-Denial.—To deny ourselves is to deny, to withstand, to renounce whatever, within or without, interferes with our conviction of right, or with the will of God. It is to suffer, to make sacrifice, for duty or our principles. The question now offers itself: What constitutes the singular merit of this suffering? Mere suffering, we all know, is not virtue. Evil men often endure pain as well as the good and are evil still. This, and this alone, constitutes the worth and importance of the sacrifice, suffering, which enters into self-denial, that it springs from and manifests moral strength, power over ourselves, force of purpose, or the mind’s resolute determination of itself to duty. It is the proof and result of inward energy. Difficulty, hardship, suffering, sacrifices, are tests and measures of moral force and the great means of its enlargement. To withstand these is the same thing as to put forth power. Self-denial then is the will acting with power in the choice and prosecution of duty. Here we have the distinguishing glory of self-denial, and here we have the essence and distinction of a good and virtuous man.

On Pleasure.—The first means of placing a people beyond the temptations to intemperance is to furnish them with the means of innocent pleasure. By innocent pleasures I mean such as excite moderately; such as produce a cheerful frame of mind, not boisterous mirth; such as refresh, instead of exhausting, the system; such as are chastened by self-respect, and are accompanied with the consciousness that life has a higher end than to be amused. In every community there must be pleasures, relaxations and means of agreeable excitement; and if innocent ones are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Men drink to excess very often to shake off depression, or to satisfy the restless thirst for agreeable excitement, and these motives are excluded in a cheerful community. A gloomy state of society in which there are few innocent recreations, may be expected to abound in drunkenness if opportunities are afforded. The savage drinks to excess because his hours of sobriety are dull and unvaried, because in losing consciousness of his condition and his existence he loses little which he wishes to retain. The laboring classes are most exposed to intemperance, because they have at present few other pleasurable excitements. A man, who, after toil, has resources of blameless recreation is less tempted than other men to seek self-oblivion. He has too many of the pleasures of the man to take up those of the brute.

[End of Required Reading for November.]

[AUTUMN SYMPATHY.]

By E. G. CHARLESWORTH.

The primrose and the violet,