statesmen referred to ever resounded in the Capitol long before the "Liberator" opened its batteries, the controversy was foreseen and predicted. Washington warned his countrymen of the danger of sectional divisions. Jefferson foreshadowed the judgment to fall, and Andrew Jackson announced a quarter of a century beforehand that the next pretext of revolution would be slavery.

OLIVER W. HOLMES.

Note 55.

WARREN HASTINGS.

WITH all Hastings' faults, and they were neither few nor small, only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of this illustrious accused statesman should have mingled with the dust of his illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot, probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughEven then his young mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling. He had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of a Rich

men.

elieu. He had patronized learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave, in the fulness of age, in peace, after so many troubles; in honor, after so much obloquy.

Those who look upon his character without favor or malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the State, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either.

COMMUNISM.

MACAULAY.

Note 56.

(Abridged.)

ONE thing greatly needed now and always, is less fear of ruffians. Have you ever observed how often burglars get the worst of it in a struggle, with every advantage on their side except the courage that goes with a good conscience? The brutal mob which surged down Broadway in the summer of 1863, was swept from the pavement in less than ten minutes by a squad of resolute policemen using their clubs. only. The German army at Austerlitz had muscle enough; at Sedan, brain enough. But institutions that are not subverted may be rudely shaken or radically changed. In the

last analysis it will be found that Cæsar was Rome's escape from Communism: the rich were being plundered by the poor. They lifted up their voices in wild alarm, and the avenging eagles hastened across the Rubicon. History may easily be persuaded to repeat her retributions. Communism is in the air. Section is poisoned against section, class against class, interest against interest. Farmer, manufacturer, and merchant, natural friends, are being told they are natural enemies.

What is Communism? There is no mystery about it. It is simply the absorption of the individual in the community, the citizen in the State. The individual as such has no rights, the community has absorbed them all. What the community ordains must be done or endured. Not relations only, but employments, everything must be determined by the State. The State undertakes to do everything: owns all the lands, the houses, railways, factories, banks, vessels. There is no more any private property or private business. No one shall even braid for himself a palm-leaf hat, or cobble his own shoes. All freedom has perished. The citizen is nothing: the State is all; and in a Republic, that all may be barely a majority of one, and that one carried drunk to the polls. One drunken voter may thus be master of us all. It is a monstrous doctrine. But we have got something more to do than howl it down. It is a philosophy and must be argued down.*

First of all, we must make it plain that the State is for the citizen, not the citizen for the State: society for the individual, not the individual for society. Personality is august. The humblest of us has rights, which all the rest of us, banded together, may not dare to touch. I have a right to my life; and society, without my consent, shall not take it away, till it has been forfeited by crime. I have a right to my liberty; and society shall not enslave me. I have a right to my property, whether earned or inherited; and society shall not use it against my wishes without ap

This selection may end here.

praisal and indemnity. The final end of society is not itself, but the individual. What will Germany be good for when a plain, godly peasant like Martin Luther of Eisleben is no longer possible? What shall we be good for when Paine's "Age of Reason" has supplanted Butler's "Analogy"? Society, of course, has its sphere, its prerogatives, its authority. It may command me to assist the policeman in arresting a murderer. It may send me to battle. Society is under bonds to defend us all in defending itself, and I am a party to the contract. Society may build its roads and bridges; but when it crosses my meadow or hurts my business it must settle with me for the damage. Not to do so is Communism.

The Persians have a proverb that, when the orphan cries, the throne of the Almighty rocks from side to side. The Persians are Mohammedans, and perhaps they are too religious. It may be the theists all are mistaken. Possibly there is no throne to rock, and no Almighty Person anywhere above us. But in history I think I find an Almighty Something whose Day of Judgment is always rising and never sets; and I think I hear the sound of mills whose. grinding is exceeding fine.

ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK.

A MESSAGE.

Note 57.

It was Spring in the great city-every gaunt and withered tree

Felt the shaping and the stir at heart of leafy prophecy; All the wide-spread umber branches took a tender tint of green,

And the chattering brown-backed sparrow lost his pert, pugnacious mien

In a dream of mate and nestlings shaded by a verdant

screen.

It was Spring-the grim ailanthus, with its snaky arms awry, Held out meagre tufts and bunches to the sun's persistency : Every little square of greensward, railed in from the dusty

way,

Sent its straggling forces upward, blade and spear in bright array,

While the migratory organs Offenbach and Handel play.

Through the heart of the vast Babel, where the tides of being pour,

From his labor in the evening came the sturdy stevedore, Towering like a son of Anak, of a coarse, ungainly mold; Yet the hands begrimed and blackened in the hardened fingers hold

A dandelion blossom, shining like a disk of gold.

Wayside flower! with thy plucking did remembrance gently lay

Her hand upon the tomb of youth and roll the stone away? Did he see a barefoot urchin wander singing up the lane, Carving from the pliant willow whistles to prolong the strain,

While the browsing cows, slow driven, chime their bells in low refrain ?

Did his home rise up before him, and his child, all loving glee,

Hands and arms in eager motion for the golden mystery? Or the fragile, pallid mother, seeing in that starry eye God's eternal fadeless garden, God's wide sunshine and His sky,

Hers through painless, endless ages, bright'ning through immensity?

None may know-the busy workings of the brain remain untold,

But the loving deed-the outgrowth-brings us lessons manifold.