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ministry of man; and every man, be he conscious of it or not, is its agent, and fulfils some purpose for it, whether he hold a plough or found an empire, whether he be a malefactor or a martyr. That which is stupendous in the visible world has grown by means that are unseen. The spring that feeds the stream, and the stream that feeds the river, are remote and unnoticed in silence and in shadow. Similarly placed are the sources and tributaries which swell those currents that rush through courses of mighty destinies, and gather to the forces of stupendous power. The sword, terrible instrument as it is of human passion, is made to work for good. Even by this, the wrath of man is compelled to serve the purposes of God. But, happily, the lyre is more effective than the sword, and more enduring. The living thought in the living word, and the living word in music, this it was that first charmed men out of barbarism; nor has it lost its power yet, and its power cannot yet be spared. Much of humanity's education has been lyrical. History, at one time, was song; so were laws; so was worship; so was prophecy; so was philosophy and though annals, decrees, prayers, predictions, wisdom, have become independent of verse or chant, yet that which was truth in them comes down even to our own time, and still mingles in the everlasting harmony of life. To assume that we understand the plan of Providence were daring presumption; but to rest in a plan is a necessity of reason, a necessity of faith. The origin, growth, decay, and death of nations coexist with the life, the integrity, and the progress of our race. This is no fortuity. Certainty and simplicity of result come out from the caprices and contrarieties of human freedom. This is no fortuity. The army of our species is, indeed, endless, and we who speculate on its destination are closed up in a division of its ranks. We cannot quit our place to take a stand out of this army and above it, to see whence it has come and whither it is going. Yet, onward as we march, we catch views of Calvary and of other elevations along the path of time; and from these we can take note that we are under guidance, and not without a goal.

Thus wonderful and numberless are the relations of our being. In alluding to past ages, it is common to speak of them as dead, to speak as if we were standing on a grave. This is not true of humanity in the aspects in which we have been contemplating it. The ages are all vital, and over life,

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and not on death, we tread. Humanity is as an inverted pyramid, and every stratum of it, from the point below to its upward surface, is bound each to each by links of living mind. Over this wide surface, and down into the darkest depths, man understands man, wherever he travels or explores. The philosopher rich in all the lore of wisdom is yet a brother, and can feel his fraternal relation, to the savage of Australia. The man of this century is not cut off from the man whose existence can be traced in the profoundest abyss of time. Bring up from that abyss the darkest hieroglyphic, the man of this day pierces into its meaning and finds out its interpretation; bring up the smallest remnant of moulded clay, bring up the most rugged fragment of sculptured brass, at once he says, "The image and superscription are here of a spirit like my own; and though forty centuries lie between us, we are united by our souls." More properly, perhaps, should we find the diversity of our nature, in capacity and condition, symbolized by the creature in the first vision of Ezekiel. With feet to pace the earth, with wings to mount to heaven, with hands beneath the wings to work, fourfold in face, was this creature; and so is humanity. Backward it looks, and forward also, to the actual and the possible. Each face, too, was different, and each we may take to indicate some elevated mental or moral quality: the face of a man, conscience and intelligence; that of a lion, courage; that of an ox, patience; that of an eagle, aspiration. The creature of the prophet's trance was in the centre of wheel within wheel, glistening all around with eyes. So it is with humanity: it is in the centre of circle within circle of eternity and mystery; and though the compass of its own light be only as a speck, it is embosomed in the watchfulness that comprehends immensity and that never sleeps.

The individual, then, is not mechanically, but vitally, related to the whole empire of existence. The farthest star that a man can see is a part of his life; nor is this life of his severed from stars that never will be seen. Day and darkness, the seasons, the elements, vegetation, animal beings, are not mere adjuncts of his existence; they are portions of it. The sentiment of kindred binds the individual man to his family; the social sentiment binds him to the community; the patriotic, to his country; the human, to his race. The moral sentiment binds him to men by duty, and the religious binds him to God by faith. The life of a man is not, like that

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of a brute, in his blood, but in his spirit, and all is the life of a man that he can embrace within the consciousness of his spirit. If a man's spirit had the range of the outward creation by sense, if human history were its memory, if its reason comprehended all known and possible truth, if its imagination were adorned with all that is lovely, if its character had all goodness, this, then, would be the range of its life. Though far from such perfection, yet the actual life of the most bounded consciousness spreads in its relations into unbounded being. Is the time ever to come when humanity shall be in full completeness and harmony? Is the time ever to come when humanity in the individual shall be strong and independent, in the family, wise and gracious, in the state, just and disinterested, in the church, believing, charitable, tolerant, when the savage shall be raised, when the heathen shall be converted, when the grossest shall be civilized, and the worst restored, — when every man, being true to his position, shall be one with his race, and his race, being accordant with its origin and its end, shall be one with God? This may always be but an idea; yet, even as an idea, it has deep and living power. It is a sublime thought. Wherever it is

strong, it kills the narrow self, and is at the bottom of all continued and admirable action. "Worlds," says Fichte,

speaking out of this faith in the infinite, produce worlds. Ages produce ages, which stand in meditation over those that have gone before, and reveal the secret bond of connection which unites causes and consequences within them. Then the grave opens, - not that which men heap together in earth, but the grave of impenetrable darkness, wherewith the first life has surrounded us, and from out of it arises the mighty power of ideas, which sees in a new light the end in the beginning, the perfect in the partial; every wonderful work which springs from faith in the Eternal appears, and the hidden aspirations which are here imprisoned and bound down to earth soar upward on unfettered pinions into a new and purer ether."

As the individual is vitally related to the universe, so is the universe to the individual. All the powers of nature contribute to his wants. They are ministers to the requirements of his body, and to the faculties of his soul. The earth gives him of her fulness; the winds are his servants; the mines are his treasure-places; the mountains are his watch-towers; the clouds refresh him with shade and showers; the sun covers

him with splendor; above his head are the heights of air, and beneath his eye the depths of ocean. All energies are working to support, to educate, to bless him; and not these only, but whatever men have done or suffered, whatever has made the life of ages, whatever has made the life of nations. The whole has been acting for the individual soul. For that patriarchs had visions sent them from the opened heavens. For that prophets beheld a glory to be revealed in distant times. For that Jesus himself appeared in the world, was wounded with many griefs, and bled upon the cruel cross. For that Evangelists have written and Apostles preached. For that philanthropists have worked and lived. For that

, martyrs have endured and died. For that philosophers have meditated, and poets have sung, and wisdom and melody have been born. For that earth is robed in fairness, and heaven is hung with lamps of gladness. For that all governments, all dynasties, all hierarchies, have existed; and that shall be when they shall be no more. When monarchy, with its gorgeous pomp and haughty sway, its solemn power and its towered palaces, shall have melted as a dream,-when democracy, with its din of tongues and turbulence, shall be silent as an infant's sleep, nay, when this huge globe itself shall shake to atoms all that rest upon its surface, as a lion arousing from slumber throws from his mane the dews of the forest, when the sun shall be dark, and even the mighty hosts of stars shall die, that soul, that sacred soul, shall live. That spirit, kindled in the breath of Deity, has a light to burn over the ashes and the graves of worlds, a light of joy and thought for ever, in the consciousness of its immortal being, in the consciousness of its eternal Lord."

Yet glory not, thou proud man! for, in the midst of these sublime realities, thy pride belittles thee. Thou hast not the faith to which things invisible are open; thou hast not the humility to which greatness is revealed. And, thou timid and desponding man, cheer up thy hope, and let thy confidence not fail thee. Think not the distant stars are cold; say not the forces of the universe are against thee; believe not that the course of things below is a relentless fate; for thou canst see the stars, thou canst use the forces; in right, thy will is unconquerable, and by it thou art the maker and the lord of destiny. In thy living consciousness the universe itself has living being, and thou in that art greater than the universe. Anoint thine eyes with holy thought, that the gross

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and fleshly scales may fall from off them. Then, like Gehazi in the mountain at the prayer of Elijah, thou shalt behold that Power for thy good is round about thee; thou shalt discern that thou art embosomed in Protection, - that thou art compassed by the fiery energies of Heaven, that thou art girded and guarded by the Presence and the Majesty of God.

H. G.

G. E. Eliis,

ART. VI.-MACAULAY'S HISTORY.*

MR. MACAULAY follows the example of Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, and Alison, in giving to the public by portions what will be, when completed, a voluminous work. Two volumes of his History, of which six are promised, have appeared in England; the second of them is republished in this country only as this sheet passes through the press. We suppose that he and his predecessors chose this method solely as a matter of convenience. It can hardly be inferred that a writer hopes or intends, by this mode of addressing the literary world, to avail himself of the criticisms upon his earlier volumes for the improvement or modification of those which may follow, or for introducing into the latter any special pleading or defence in behalf of views which, as expressed in the former, may have opened controversies against him. Gibbon and Robertson did, indeed, turn to some good account, as they advanced in their labors, both the encomiums and the censures which were passed upon the first-published portions of their works. The notes in the last half of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not infrequently show that he had felt the effect of criticisms which were so freely uttered on its first portion. He found likewise, as we hope Mr. Macaulay will find, that he had an inadequate idea of the extent to which his undertaking would expand under his pen, and he reached the end of it only when he had filled twice the intended number of volumes. Robertson suspended the publication of his History of America at a critical period, the

*The History of England from the Accession of James II. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. Volume I. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1849. 8vo. pp. 619.