the fact, that the greater part of the human race, up to this time, had been eternally lost, and boldly assumes the ground, that this amount of sin and suffer5 ing, being the best and most necessary means of the greatest final amount of happiness, was not merely permitted, but distinctly chosen, decreed, and provided for, as essential in the schemes of Infinite farmer, in intervals of plow and hoe, by every woman and girl, at loom, spinningwheel, or wash-tub. New England was one vast sea, surging from depths to heights with thought and discussion on the most insoluble of mysteries. And it is to be added, that no man or woman accepted any theory or speculation simply as theory or speculation: all was profoundly real and vital,- a foundation on 10 Benevolence. He held that this decree which actual life was based with intensest earnestness. The views of human existence which resulted from this course of training were gloomy enough to oppress any heart which 15 did not rise above them by triumphant faith or sink below them by brutish insensibility; for they included every moral problem of natural or revealed religion, divested of all those softening poetries and 20 tender draperies which forms, ceremonies, and rituals had thrown around them in other parts and ages of Christendom. The human race, without exception, coming into existence under God's wrath 25 and curse,' with a nature so fatally disordered, that, although perfect free agents, men were infallibly certain to do nothing to Divine acceptance until regenerated by the supernatural aid of God's Spirit,- this 30 aid being given only to a certain decreed number of the human race, the rest, with enough free agency to make them responsible, but without this indispensable assistance exposed to the malignant assaults of 35 evil spirits versed in every art of temptation, were sure to fall hopelessly into perdition. The standard of what constituted a true regeneration, as presented in such treatises as Edwards on the Affec- 40 tions, and others of the times, made this change to be something so high, disinterested, and superhuman, so removed from all natural and common habits and feelings, that the most earnest and de- 45 voted, whose long life had been a constant travail of endeavor, a tissue of almost unearthly disinterestedness, often lived and died with only a glimmering hope of its attainment. 50 According to any views then entertained of the evidences of a true regeneration, the number of the whole human race who could be supposed as yet to have received this grace was so small that, as to any 55 numerical valuation, it must have been expressed as an infinitesimal. Dr. Hopkins in many places distinctly recognizes not only permitted each individual act of sin, but also took measures to make it certain, though, by an exercise of infinite skill, it accomplished this result without violating human free agency. The preaching of those times was animated by an unflinching consistency which never shrank from carrying an idea to its remotest logical verge. The sufferings of the lost were not kept from view, but proclaimed with a terrible power. Dr. Hopkins boldly asserts, that all the use that God will have for them is to suffer; this is all the end they can answer; therefore all their faculties and their whole capacities will be employed and used for this end. . . . The body can by omnipotence be made capable of suffering the greatest imaginable pain, without producing dissolution, or abating the least degree of life or sensibility. . . . One way in which God will show his power in punishing the wicked will be in strengthening and upholding their bodies and souls in torments which otherwise would be intolerable.' The sermons preached by President Edwards on this subject are so terrific in their refined poetry of torture, that very few persons of quick sensibility could read them through without agony; and it is related, that, when, in those calm and tender tones which never rose to passionate enunciation, he read these discourses, the house was often filled with shrieks and wailings, and that a brother minister once laid hold of his skirts, exclaiming, in an involuntary agony, 'Oh! Mr. Edwards! Mr. Edwards! is God not a God of mercy?' Not that these men were indifferent or insensible to the dread words they spoke; their whole lives and deportment bore thrilling witness to their sincerity. Edwards set apart special days of fasting, in view of the dreadful doom of the lost, in which he was wont to walk the floor, weeping and wringing his hands. Hop If we add to this statement the fact, that it was always proposed to every inquiring soul, as an evidence of regenera- 10 tion, that it should truly and heartily accept all the ways of God thus declared right and lovely, and from the heart submit to Him as the only just and good, it will be seen what materials of tremendous 15 internal conflict and agitation were all the while working in every bosom. Almost all the histories of religious experience of those times relate paroxysms of opposition to God and fierce rebellion, expressed in 20 language which appals the very soul,followed, at length, by mysterious elevations of faith and reactions of confiding love, the result of Divine interposition, which carried the soul far above the 25 region of the intellect, into that of direct spiritual intuition. --- President Edwards records that he was once in this state of enmity,- that the facts of the divine administration seemed horrible 30 to him, and that this opposition by no course of reasoning, but by an inward and sweet sense,' which came to him once when walking alone in the fields, and looking up into the blue sky, he saw the 35 blending of the Divine majesty with a calm, sweet, and almost infinite meekness. The piety which grew up under such a system was, of necessity, energetic, it was the uprousing of the whole energy of the human soul, pierced and wrenched and probed from her lowest depths to her topmost heights with every awful lifeforce possible to existence. He whose faith in God came clear through these 45 terrible tests would be sure never to know greater ones. He might certainly challenge earth or heaven, things present or things to come, to swerve him from this grand allegiance. followed the simple reading of the Bible. They differ from the New Testament as the living embrace of a friend does from his lifeless body, mapped out under the knife of the anatomical demonstrator; — every nerve and muscle is there, but to a sensitive spirit there is the very chill of death in the analysis. All systems that deal with the infinite are, beside, exposed to danger from small, unsuspected admixtures of human error, which become deadly when carried to such vast results. The smallest speck of earth's dust, in the focus of an infinite lens, appears magnified among the heavenly orbs as a frightful monster. Thus it happened, that, while strong spirits walked, palm-crowned, with victorious hymns, along these sublime paths, feebler and more sensitive ones lay along the track, bleeding away in life-long despair. Fearful to them were the shadows that lay over the cradle and the grave. The mother clasped her babe to her bosom, and looked with shuddering to the awful coming trial of free agency, with its terrible responsibilities and risks; and, as she thought of the infinite chances against her beloved, almost wished it might die in infancy. But when the stroke of death came, and some young, thoughtless head was laid suddenly low, who can say what silent anguish of loving hearts sounded the dread depths of eternity with the awful question, Where? In no other time or place of Christendom have so fearful issues been presented to the mind. Some church interposed its protecting shield; the Christian born and baptized child was supposed in some wise rescued from the curse of the fall, and related to the great redemption, to be a member of Christ's family, and, if ever so sinful still in folded in some vague sphere of hope and protection. Augustine solaced the dread anxieties of trembling love by prayers offered for the dead in times when the Church above and on earth presented itself to the eye of the 50 mourner as a great assembly with one accord lifting interceding hands for the parted soul. But it is to be conceded, that these systems, so admirably in relation to the energy, earnestness, and acuteness of their authors, when received as absolute truth, and as a basis of actual life, had, or minds 55 of a certain class, the effect of a slow poison, producing life-habits of morbid action very different from any which ever But the clear logic and intense individualism of New England deepened the problems of the Augustinian faith, while they swept away all those softening provisions so earnestly clasped to the throbbing heart of that great poet of theology. No rite, no form, no paternal relation, no faith or prayer of church, earthly or heavenly, interposed the slightest shield between the trembling spirit and Eternal Justice. The individual entered eternally alone, as if he had no interceding relation in the universe. This, then was the awful dread which was constantly underlying life. This it was which caused the tolling bell in green hollows and lonely dells to be a sound 5 which shook the soul and searched the heart with fearful questions. Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1859. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY (1814-1877) John Lothrop Motley was born near Boston, went to the Round Hill school, Northampton, which was then in charge of Bancroft the historian, entered Harvard College at thirteen, and was graduated four years later. Two years he spent in the German universities of Göttingen and Berlin, then returned at twenty to take up the study of law. Like Longfellow and Lowell, however, he had been called to literature rather than to the law. As a boy he had read eagerly all of Cooper and Sir Walter Scott, and he dreamed of romance. Morton's Hope, 1839, a twovolume historical novel, was the result, and even its failure to win the public,- its deserved failure we realize to-day, did not keep him from writing another, Merry Mount, which was equally unsuccessful. But it was soon recognized that parts of the novels were written with real power, those parts that dealt with historical incidents, and his friends urged him to devote himself wholly to this variety of work. Accordingly at the age of thirty-six he began what was to be his life work. A subject had taken possession of him: the period of the Spanish wars in the Netherlands, and practically for the rest of his life he lived abroad in the archives of Europe collecting his material and turning it successively into the three great histories that bear his name: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, History of the United Netherlands, and John of Barneveld, the last issued in 1874. Twice he dropped his work at the call of his government in 1861 to be ininister to Austria for five years and again in 1869 to be minister to England. The three works written by Motley are the most substantial products America has added to the literature of history. He was one of the last of the American historians who could be considered as a creator of literature, a stylist, a creator of belle lettres. His early love for fiction and his early attempts at the creation of historical romance explain one side of his work his vivid, dramatic narrative. He was peculiarly fitted to make minute biographical studies of the great characters of the epoch he covered. Moreover, he has been surpassed by few historians in ability to treat vast and complicated areas of history. He had broadness of vision, accuracy, thoroughness, and impartiality. It is regrettable that he was not spared to write, as he had planned, the complete history of the Thirty Years' War. THE RELIEF OF LEYDEN 1 5 Meantime, the besieged city was at its last gasp. The burghers had beer in a state of uncertainty for many days; being aware that the fleet had set forth for their relief, but knowing full well the thousand obstacles which it had to surmount. They had guessed its progress by the illumination from the blazing villages; they had 10 heard its salvos of artillery, on its arrival at North Aa; but since then, all had been dark and mournful again, hope and fear, in sickening alternation, distracting every breast. They knew that the wind was 15 unfavorable, and at the dawn of each day every eye was turned wistfully to the vanes of the steeples. So long as the easterly breeze prevailed, they felt, as they anxiously stood on towers and housetops, 20 1 By permission of Harper Brothers. Copyright, 1856. that they must look in vain for the welcome ocean. Yet, while thus patiently waiting, they were literally starving; for even the misery endured at Harlem had not reached that depth and intensity of agony to which Leyden was now reduced. Bread, malt-cake, horse-flesh, had entirely disappeared; dogs, cats, rats, and other vermin, were esteemed luxuries. A small number of cows, kept as long as possible, for their milk, still remained; but a few were killed from day to day, and distributed in minute proportions, hardly sufficient to support life among the famishing population. Starving wretches swarmed daily around the shambles where these cattle were slaughtered, contending for any morsel which might fall, and lapping eagerly the blood as it ran along the pavement; while the hides, chopped and boiled, were greedily devoured. Women and children, all day long, were searching gutters and dunghills for mor- The missives from Valdez, who saw broad-leaved felt hat for silence, and then exclaimed, in language which has been almost literally preserved, 'What would ye, my friends? Why do you murmur 5 that we do not break our vows and surrender the city to the Spaniards? a fate more horrible than the agony which she now endures. I tell you I have made an oath to hold the city, and may God give me strength to keep my oath! I can die but once; whether by your hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent to me, not so that of the city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall starve if not soon relieved; but starvation is preferable to the dishonored death which is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not; my life is at your disposal; here is my sword, plunge it into my breast, and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease your hunger, but expect no surrender, so long as I remain alive.' The words of the stout burgomaster inspired a new courage in the hearts of those who heard him, and a shout of applause and defiance arose from the famishing but enthusiastic crowd. They left the place, after exchanging new vows of fidelity with their magistrate, and again ascended tower and battlement to watch for the coming fleet. From the ramparts they hurled renewed defiance at the enemy. 'Ye call us rat-eaters and dog-eaters,' they cried, and it is true. So long, then, as ye hear dog bark or cat mew within the walls, ye may know that the city holds out. And when all has perished but ourselves, be sure that we will each devour our left arms, retaining our right to defend our women, our liberty, and our religion, against the foreign tyrant. Should God, in his wrath, doom us to destruction, and deny us all relief, even then will we maintain ourselves forever against your entrance. When the last hour has come, with our hands we will set fire to the city and perish, men, women, and children together in the flames, rather than suffer our homes to be polluted and our liberties to be crushed.' Such words of defiance, thundered daily from the battlements, sufficiently informed Valdez as to his chance of conquering the city, either by force or fraud, but at the same time, he felt comparatively relieved by the inactivity of Boisot's fleet, which still lay stranded at North Aa. As well,' shouted the Span |