hallelujahs while their lost darlings were being driven into the flames, where is the theologian who would not rejoice to hope so with him, or who would be willing to tell his wife or his daughter that he did not?

The real, vital division of the religious part of our Protestant communities is into Christian optimists and Christian pessimists. The Christian optimist in his fullest development is characterized by a cheerful countenance, a voice in the major key, an undisguised enjoyment of earthly comforts, and a short confession of faith. His theory of the universe is progress; his idea of God is that he is a Father with all the true paternal attributes, of man that he is destined to come into harmony with the key-note of divine order, of this earth that it is a training-school for a better sphere of existence. The Christian pessimist in his most typical manifestation is apt to wear a solemn aspect, to speak, especially from the pulpit, in the minor key, to undervalue the lesser enjoyments of life, to insist on a more extended list of articles of belief. His theory of the universe recognizes this corner of it as a moral ruin; his idea of the Creator is that of a ruler whose pardoning power is subject to the veto of what is called "justice"; his notion of man is that he is born a natural hater of God and goodness, and that his natural destiny is eternal misery. The line dividing these two great classes zigzags its way through the religious community, sometimes following denominational layers and cleavages, sometimes going, like a geological fracture, through many different strata. The natural antagonists of the religious pessimists are the men of science, especially the evolutionists, and the poets. It was but a conditioned prophecy, yet we cannot doubt what was in Milton's mind when he sang, in one of the divinest of his strains, that

"Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day."

And Nature, always fair if we will allow her time enough, after giving mankind the inspired tinker who painted the Christian's life as that of a hunted animal, "never long at ease," desponding, despairing, on the verge of self-murder,-painted it with an originality, a vividness, a power and a sweetness, too, that rank him with the great authors of all time,-kind Nature, after this gift, sent as his counterpoise the inspired plowman, whose songs have done more to humanize the

hard theology of Scotland than all the rationalistic sermons that were ever preached. Our own Whittier has done and is doing the same thing, in a far holier spirit than Burns, for the inherited beliefs of New England and the country to which New England belongs. Let me sweeten these closing paragraphs of an essay not meaning to hold a word of bitterness with a passage or two from the lay-preacher who is listened to by a larger congregation than any man who speaks from the pulpit. Who will not hear his words with comfort and rejoicing when he speaks of "that larger hope which, secretly cherished from the times of Origen and Duns Scotus to those of Foster and Maurice, has found its fitting utterance in the noblest poem of the age"?

It is Tennyson's "In Memoriam" to which he refers, and from which he quotes four verses, of which this is the last:

"Behold! we know not anything:

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last,-far off,-at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring."

If some are disposed to think that the progress of civilization and the rapidly growing change of opinion renders unnecessary any further effort to humanize "the Gospel of dread tidings"; if any believe the doctrines of the Longer and Shorter Catechism of the Westminster divines are so far obsolete as to require no further handling; if there are any who think these subjects have lost their interest for living souls ever since they themselves have learned to stay at home on Sundays with their cakes and ale instead of going to meeting,-not such is Mr. Whittier's opinion, as we may infer from his recent beautiful poem, "The Minister's Daughter." It is not science alone that the old Christian pessimism has got to struggle with, but the instincts of childhood, the affections of maternity, the intuitions of poets, the contagious humanity of the philanthropists,-in short, human nature and the advance of civilization. The pulpit has long helped the world, and is still one of the chief defenses against the dangers that threaten society, and it is worthy now, as it always has been in its best representation, of all love and honor. But many of its professed creeds imperatively demand revision, and the pews which call for it must be listened to, or the preacher will by and by find himself speaking to a congregation of bodiless echoes.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

AARON'S ROD IN POLITICS.

SIMULTANEOUSLY with the nomination of General Garfield, the Republican party had the good fortune to fall heir to a new idea. Such windfalls are by no means frequent in the political world. As a rule, government is simply an eternal repetend. The problem of yesterday is puzzled over to-day, and comes up for a new solution to-morrow. The life of a nation is, in the main, only an infinite series of attempts to solve the same old problem in some new way. The stock properties of all governments are matters of revenue and administration. Parties are far more frequently divided upon the question of how to do than of what to do. With nations as with individuals, the chief business of existence is to find the means of living. The struggle for daily bread is the great end of government, as well as of the separate existences whose aggregate composes the nation. When to raise money and when to borrow it; what to tax and what to spare; what to buy and what to sell; how to spend and how to save; these are the questions as to which government is most frequently concerned, and differences of opinion in regard to which usually distinguish parties. They are questions of method and detail. Right or wrong does not enter into them as a component. Policy, expediency, a question of profit and loss, is their highest element.

Now and then there comes a time when the question that is uppermost in all minds is not "How?" but "What?"-when the question of method, the mere economy of administration, sinks into insignificance in the presence of some peril which threatens the very fact of existence, or some crisis when that which has been is cast off like an outgrown garment and that which is to be has not yet assumed form and consistency.

Such an occasion was the birth-hour of the Republican party. Those who led did not know it, but subsequent events fully demonstrated that the people of the North had arrived at that VOL. CXXXII.-NO. 291. 10

point when they determined to use their power to cripple and destroy slavery. How, they knew not; neither did they care very much about the means to be employed. Like the Pentecostan multitude, they all heard and saw the same thing-all understood that in some way or other the Republican party in its last analysis meant personal liberty. The public mind turned aside from the beaten paths of administration and addressed itself to the higher duty of deciding between a new-born righteousness and an ancient evil.

So, too, when armed rebellion stood threatening the nation's life, the struggle between parties instantly became not one concerning the economies of existence, but one of existence at all. Again, at the close of the war, questions of method of administration were dwarfed by the overtopping importance of fixing and establishing the terms and conditions of restoration, or, as we blindly though more wisely termed it, reconstruction.

Since those questions have been decided, or at least have taken on the form of legislative enactments, there has been an unremitting attempt to steer our political thought back into the old channels. Politicians and political scolds have agreed in reiterating that we must come back to the good old ways, and fight over again and again the ancient battles of banking, tariff, and currency, currency, banking, and tariff, without any disturbing influences from without. To consider the causes of revolution and counter-revolution, to trace the course of prejudice and caste, to tell the tale of violence, or balance the rights of the citizen over against a petty economy, instead of discussing the rate of interest or the system of banking, is to be "a stirrer up of strife," a "waver of the bloody shirt," a "ranter on dead issues," a party insubordinate, and a pestiferous political nuisance. This is not strange. Politicians do not like to be jostled out of their accustomed ruts. The old issues, the everlasting conundrums, leave the lines of battle undisturbed. They make the conflict of parties as peaceful and regular as a sham battle. The ground is known, the lines are drawn, and the result isalmost immaterial. No one is out of his bearings or beyond his depth. A few dollars, a little hog-cunning, a convenient slander, and the old battle has been won and lost on the same old ground, and by the same perennial parties. A question of principle instead of method is like a bomb-shell in the midst of holiday warfare. It forces an advance over ground that may be full of

pitfalls. A leader, by one misstep, may stumble into oblivion. A new political idea, therefore, is rarely adopted by any party until the last day of grace. Then it is that the people get ahead of their leaders. There is an advance along the whole line of a party which has planned only to hold its old works. Ordered to "dress" on some old issue, the people insubordinately "charge" on some new evil. Such times are crises. Old parties must clothe themselves with new ideas, or new ones are sure to arise. Such a time is the present. The Democratic party, ever since the close of the war, has been trying to revivify old issues of form and method. They have sought to draw the veil of absolute forgetfulness over the new departure of 1861, and all that was either causative or resultant of that struggle. They have tried to lash the American people back to the lines of the old "autumn maneuvers," to divert attention from the rights of the citizen and the security of the Republic to matters of trade and discount.

Almost by accident, as it would seem, the Republican party gave utterance to a new political thought at Chicago, which is destined, if carried to its logical results, to make the coming quadrenniate of its power no less important and memorable than its first. If neglected, shirked, or trifled with, this administration will simply pass into history as one of those interregnums during which a party held power but did nothing-when "I dare not" waited on "I would," and politicians schemed for future places unmindful of the common weal. This thought which is destined to compel a new departure in politics, is the relation of the general government-the American nation or the American people-to the illiterate voters of the several States.

The Republican platform of 1880, for the first time in our history, pledges a party to the idea of national action in the direction of public education. The resolution in regard to it is not at all striking in its character, except in the fact that it does embrace this idea. It was evidently drawn with fear and trembling, and may be regarded as a not altogether unsuccessful attempt to make language a means of concealing thought rather than expressing it. Its history may almost be traced in its words. It is self-evidently a hesitant yielding to an irresistible demand. It is the language of the skilled politician, compelled to take a forward step in compliance with a popular sentiment which he dare not ignore. Not to go forward is to risk favor;