it seems, is a legal “marriage garment." Law, it is to be presumed, is the bride. Now, considering the number of learned gentlemen admitted to the state of holy matrimony with that parchment-skinned vixen, it strikes us that the parties run a desperate chance of the penalties for bigamy. But who shall fathom the glorious fictions-who shall reconcile the exquisite anomalies even of metaphorical phrases connected with that riddling, hoaxing man-trap-Law?

A word in earnest to conclude with. The progress of society is manifestly towards conformity of costume ; the advancing democratic spirit is to be seen even in the identical cut of a lord's coat with that of his tailor. The time is going by for ranks and professions to be indicated by attire. The doctor no longer sucks his gold-headed cane; the apprentice no longer wears his skull-cap. Let barristers move on with the current. Shooting,” as soon as possible, the rubbish of ancient prejudice and medieval quackery, let us see them dressing themselves as common sense and the ordinary usages of society dictate, and wisely resolving that the appropriate costume for any gentleman who may insist

on sticking to the gown and wig, is to be found in a shaved head and a strait waistcoat.

Angus B. REACH

MORE LIGHT FOR ALL.

"Light! Lord ! more Light !” cried Göethe as he lay
Calmly awaiting the approach of death,
Himself a light, yet with his latest breath
Seeking for light, light of a purer ray:
So we for “Light ! more Light !” should ever pray,
Not merely live to grope about like moles,
But act as creatures having eyes and souls,
And seek a brighter intellectual day.
Oh! let us then, we of the present age,
Strive to make mind triumphant over might,
To realise the wishes of the Sage,
And out of mental darkness call up

“ Light.”
Truth must shine forth, fell wrong, dark error fly,
If“ Light ! more Light !” be still our constant cry.

R. HAYDAY.

THE RUINED CITY: A FRAGMENT,

BY

my own

PART I. I was unfaithful to the truth ;-and what has been my punishment ?-To wander through many lands and many slow-moving ages, and see the effects of crror, and the strivings of the few faithful ones among mankind to overcome the darkness of those wholly ignorant, and the unfaithfulness of those partially illumined. I have seen how one false word has acted through centuries, and brought forth its fruits of battles, confusions, and death. I have seen how the chosen guardians of the lamp of truth have cast a shade over its rays, and left the nations for ages to wander in the gloom. I have seen, indeed, my own error set forth on a large scale, upon the theatre of the world, and I have repented of it, not altogether, I hope, in vain. I have whispered some words of truth in the ears of the people among whom I have sojourned during my long pilgrimage, and my course has not been without some bright days ; for have I not seen even the fruits of actions, apparently lost upon one generation of mankind, springing up in another to cheer me with their fragrance? When I have told all that my pilgrimage has taught me—when I have given to my fellow-men all the lessons which I have learned by marking the

progress of their history-when I have established a claim upon their love, and when I feel and know that they will love me for all I have endured for them—then I may lay my staff aside, close my journal of many centuries, put off my sandals, breathe my blessing upon mankind and take my rest! But onc labour remains for me now to perform. I must tell my story. But I must hasten over the ground, for it is vast, and there are tracts of it as barren as Sahara. I must hasten through the time, for it is long, and sometimes it has flowed by me dreary and wearisome as an arctic night. My reader must prepare for himself wings to pass with me from land to land, and from age to age. But sometimes I shall find rest and refreshment for him, if he will accompany me on the long journey of reviewing my life, in pleasant and quiet

a

places among dear friends, now in heaven, with whom I have sometimes forgotten all my sorrows, and seen nothing of the long winding path that still lay before me. My story will not be all of sorrow and desolation ; for how could that be true? I have

1 walked under cloudy skies, and I have walked in sunshine. I have wandered through deserts, and I have strolled through gardens. I have, .prudently, entitled the narrative I am about to write, “A Fragment ;” for how can I hope to have either courage or time sufficient to tell all that I have seen, heard, known, and suffered? The question is, what part of my story I must tell. Let none imagine that I am writing for fame, or to amuse the minds of the present age.

Fame! I have seen and heard too much of it to care for it. I know a mightier voice than that of public opinion. I know the voice of the Truth sounding through all ages, heard, now and then, by some awe-struck soul, above all the noise and bustle of ephemeral life. Fame! I could cover a ream of paper, closely written, with the names of those whom I have known famous in their day, now forgotten, gone like the down swept by the wind from a thistle four thousand years ago. Fame! I care indeed for the voice of the world ; but it is the world of all past and all coming ages-the whole world !—for the passing breath of that little part that exists just now, it moves me no more than the feeblest, dying, evening breeze stirs the deeplyrooted mountain. Men who would criticise what I write, do so if it amuses you ; but, meanwhile, I am calmly looking into the vast future in which you and all your works will be lost as rain-drops in the ocean.

I write not for the amusement of the people. Literary idler ! turn away to other pages : I have no tales to tell such as you would like to hear. I could, indeed, fill for you a host of volumes with antiquarian curiosities, such as all your poring over old records can never bring to light ; I could tell you stories of the Arabian prophet, the earnest

dark-eyed enthusiast, whom I knew from his boyhood to his death, and other similar rarities ; but I have a greater work to do. The work that is urgent is to give the moral of my existence, and my pen must not forget its pur-, pose amid manifold descriptions of my wanderings in China, India, Palestine, Arabia, and interior Africa. I must mark out narrow limits for myself, and write so that those whose breath is but as a morning vapour,

little while and then vanishes away, may have time to learn, in the compass of a few pages,

To

the lessons produced for their benefit by the experience of many centuries.

Let me give here, in a few words, the purport of all I have to tell; and this will be enough to turn away the mere idler, the amusement secker, from my pages. Know, then, that the Truth is eternal, and must always fulfil itself in the world. But it may be fulfilled by men in two ways ; either willingly and happily, or unwillingly and unhappily. To be its friends or its victims-this is the only choice left to men. go with it, is to be carried along victoriously, far above all time and fate :— to oppose it is to stand in the way of a planet in its irresistible movement ; nay, to stand in the way of the whole living, moving universe, and be crushed to dust! Is this hard to be understood ?-I will make it plain. First, then, would you know what I mean by the Truth? you shall be told without the use of any difficult words. It is that in which the life and well-being of all creatures consists. Shall I tell you more plainly? That happy world of which all prophets have spoken; that world where every man shall know his work, and be permitted to do it, and where every part of the work of humanity shall have its share of honour ; where men shall know how to dwell together, and help each other in the development of all that is good and beautiful—that is the truth towards which the world has been striving on through a thousand errors and delusions; and according to his influence in promoting or hindering that truth, and its reign upon earth, must every man and all his works be judged. Humanity must come to know its own true interest at last, and will pronounce a final and authoritative verdict

upon all its members, as to whether they have been faithful or unfaithful to it.

The light of the past—the light of history—is a prophetic radiance for the future. I have seen so much of the past that I know what will come in the future. What I have first to do is to select such a portion of my past history as shall serve best as a warning to the present. I may be led aside into some digressions of memory which may serve to amuse the reader who will attend to the more serious part of my narrative ; but I shall chiefly confine myself to recollections of those events which appear to be most pregnant with instruction for the

esent times.

“The thing that hath been is the thing that shall be.”

I once lived as the legislator of a great and mighty nation. I was then numbered with the rulers, and counted a man of power

and influence, not a lonely student or a poor obscure wanderer such as I am now. I make my confession at the outset of my tale. I was not true and faithful in the use of the power confided in

my hands. I employed it for the few rather thau for the whole of the people. I acted from motivés of present expediency rather than faith in eternal justice. Even now I seem to hear the sentence pronounced upon me by my opponent, the man for the people, the man for all times, whose name indeed is lost but whose spirit (and that was all he cared for) still lives and works in the world. Said he : “ You have resisted the progress of truth and justice ; you have added to the hardships of humanity, and now all the evil to which I would sentence you is, that you might live to see and feel the consequences of your own false principles, until you repent of them !”

This denunciation has been fulfilled : I, who would not be warned and guided by the light of prophecy, have been converted and made to know eternal truth by the progress of history; and now, as one of the fruits of my repentance, I wish to give to my fellow-men, in these pages, the lessons which I have gained in the severest of schools that of experience. I may give the purport, the aim of my labour, at the outset, and here it is :to teach men to be guided by the kindly light of true prophecy into those truths of which they have hitherto been convinced only by the hard, irresistible facts of history—this has been and is the true aim of every philosopher and philanthropist. I shall explain this sentence fully as I proceed with my story. My political opponent (to whom I may give the name of Constantine) was a man well worthy of remembrance. I always honoured him in my heart though, while he lived on earth, I sometimes joined with others in calling him a dreamer, a visionary, a fool, and all such names as the vagabond pseudo-prophets among the Jews, no doubt, applied to Isaiah. Constantine was the man for all mankind and for all ages :- I was the man of the day.. His rule was rightmine was expediency. He consulted the one eternal interest of universal humanity-I trimmed between the petty interests of a few classes of society. Constantine was great inwardly, and reallyI was great outwardly, but only in show. He had all the world against him, but eternal, unwearying, unconquerable truth on his side ; I had all the seeming world of the so-called great and noble on my side, but everlasting truth and justice were arrayed against me. He acted so as to be found right at the last day (which comes every day, every hour, every moment ; for justice

NO. XIX,YOL. IV.

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