mons on "The Freedom of Faith,"* with the prefatory essay, in which he undertakes to answer the question proposed above, is the most complete and intelligible exposition yet offered of that new philosophy of Christianity which seems to be emerging from the present chaos of mingled dogmatism and doubt.

Of formal theology very little will be found, however, in this suggestive and inspiring book. Somebody should send it, at once, to Mr. Matthew Arnold; for it is a book of literature rather than of dogma, a book that eschews the method of the system-makers and sets forth Christianity in terms of life, instead of giving us the results of an analysis by which life is destroyed. As literature, these sermons of Mr. Munger's will prove a delight to all who find pleasure in clear, sinewy, musical, picturesque English speech; their art is as exquisite as that of Newman; it is a strong saying, but I do not fear contradiction when I say that there is no more perfect English in any recent volumes of discourses or essays.

It must not be supposed that, in avoiding the method of a formal logic, Mr. Munger has lapsed into loose ness or inconsequence of thought, albeit that criticism is sure to overtake him. A new philosophy often seems no philosophy to those whose thoughts have been run in the molds of one that is older. The explanations which it offers are unintelligible to those who will not occupy its point of view, and they therefore pronounce it misty and incoherent. It is common to hear the most clear and cogent reasonings condemned as loose and inconsistent, simply because they do not consist with the theories of those who condemn them. The man who stands in the fog sees the objects near him with tolerable clearness, but his neighbor, who stands a little way off, appears to him to be enveloped in a mist far denser than that which surrounds him. And when he hears his neighbor speak with some confidence of things visible, he cries: "Nonsense! I can see none of those things! And that man cannot see them. Just look at the density of the fog bank that encompasses him!" This fable teaches a lesson that may as well be learned by those who are always accusing their neighbors of being in a fog. If, therefore, any one should say that Mr. Munger's method lacks coherency, it will not be true. His book gives us, indeed, a theory of the Christian religion broad, self-consistent, and harmonious; a doctrine that glorifies the Scripture from which it is drawn, that spreads the light of its large interpretation over the facts of nature and the events of history, and that finds in the axioms of morality stepping-stones instead of stumbling-blocks.

I wish I had time to tell in this place something more definite about this book. The introductory essay upon the new theology, to which I have referred, is likely to be accepted, by most of those who are regarded as being identified with that phase of modern thought which is so described, as a most judicious and sufficient statement of the lines on which it is moving and the spirit by which it is governed. If it shall be so accepted, both by the confessors and the critics of the new theology, it ought to do something toward steadying the movements of the more rash among the former, and also toward reassuring the more timid * Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

among the latter. “With the noisy, thoughtless shouters for the new because it seems to be new, and with the sullen, obstinate shouters for the old because it is old, these pages," says the author, "have little to do. There is, however," he continues, "a large class of earnest, reflecting minds, who recognize a certain development of doctrine, a transfer of emphasis, a change of temper, a widened habit of thought, a broader research, that justify the use of some term by which to designate it."

This essay, and the volume which it introduces, give to this spirit and tendency a calm and fair expression. The new theology, as Mr. Munger understands it, does not propose to do without clear statements; nor does it part with the historic faith of the church; nor does it reject any of the doctrines that have been regarded as distinctly evangelical, as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Judgment, Retribution, and Salvation by faith, although it explains some of these by a new philosophy; nor is it iconoclastic in its temper; nor does it incline to any breach with the old churches. Its peculiarity, as he interprets it, consists in "claiming for itself a somewhat larger and broader use of the reason than has been accorded to theology"; "it seeks to interpret the Scriptures in a more natural way," and "to replace an excessive individuality by a truer view of the solidarity of the race "; it “recognizes a new relation to natural science"; it "offers a contrast to the old in claiming for itself a wider study of men "; and it consents to the necessity of a restatement of the doctrine of retribution. All this is reasoned with the broadest candor and the nicest discrimination. I should think that the fears of the most anxious defenders of the old theology would be somewhat chastened as they read this temperate, reverent, and spiritually luminous account of what the new theology means to be. Surely the very essence of the gospel is here; no precious element is wanting; and the insight of faith, and the purity of sentiment, and the heroism of purpose that shine from every chapter of this noble book will commend themselves to ingenuous and devout men of all creeds.

Washington Gladden.

American Holidays.

Ir may be difficult to say just why we are not a holiday people, or just why we should be one. But the fact remains. We are not. At least, when we compare that portion of the New World peopled from New England as a center with the Old World in this respect, and on gala days note the agility with which the average American shrivels into slippers and dressing gown behind the morning newspaper, and the corresponding agility with which his transatlantic neighbor glides into his good clothes and goes to church, or takes his family to meet his friend's family at the public resort, or bestirs himself at home to fulfill the strictly social duties of the season.

We are a people of commonplace habits. We have a strong eye for going ahead, and a very suspicious side glance at recreation. We drive things pretty hard. Vacations we are apt to regard as effeminate inventions for clergymen and invalids. Nor do we seem to have much of a genius for using our vaca

tions when we get them. The man who has spent the whole week shut up in a counting-room, lies abed Sunday morning, and gets up late to putter with the furnace or regulate the clocks, or to figure up stray accounts in a ledger which he brought home under his arm the night before, and then takes a nap after dinner, and goes to church with his wife in the evening-what matters it to him that there are millions of cubic feet of oxygen outside for just such lungs as his, and a clean five miles awaiting just such a pair of legs as he has been twisting under a high desk for six days? Or another, a trifle more rational though hardly less prosaic, adopts the role of the sportsman. He looks with scorn upon the domestic ledger-worm and regulator of clocks. He thirsts for Nature. So he packs his ammunition, selects his flies, and starts for the wilderness. Sometimes he takes with him the family photographs, and he has been known even to leave his post-office address behind; but this is purely phenomenal. As a rule, he exhibits a manly and sturdy disregard of all such sentimentality, and declares that it is an essential part of his recreation to forget, for the time being, that he is either a father or a husband. To be sure, it may be no part of his wife's recreation to have him forget it; and she may be as weary as he of the monotony of the " common round" and the sameness of the landscape from the nursery window.

But, to illustrate more broadly, we shall select the typical, unworldly, good, old-fashioned sort of American. As all such are said to spring from New England, we will locate him there, in the neighborhood of Plymouth Rock. He has not many holidays. His ancestors came here, indeed, it would seem, for a perpetual holiday; but they had seen so much Popish abuse of holidays abroad, that they concluded to celebrate none except the Sabbath and Thanksgiving Day. Later on, as things progressed, and the good oldfashioned sort of American found himself possessed of a country, he added the Fourth of July, Washington's Birthday, and, in some quarters, the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. But still he clings to but one day as the annual holiday of the nation; the one religious festival of the people; the holy day par excellence; the only day when, from the White House and from every executive mansion in every sovereign State, there is issued a solemn command for all people to suspend labor, to thank God, and to rejoice. And how is this American holiday uniformly observed? By eating turkey!

Now, in all seriousness, how shall we account for this-in one view amusing, but in another and on the whole grave-aspect of American life? To what causes shall we refer this difference between the New World and the Old; between the mirthful, merrymaking, social genius of other countries, and the somber, severe, and prosaic genius of our own holidays?

The most obvious answer—and one which suggests the whole solution-is furnished by our history, a history written with a pen of iron upon tables of flint. It opens with a chapter of stern discipline; with the toughening and even-we might say-callousing hardships of colonial times; with a people isolated from their fatherland and all its associations, and compelled to bend their energies, on a dreary

coast, with a severe climate, and in a savage wilderness, to the one occupation of wresting a living from the soil and defending their homes from plunder. It has been developed ever since with this birthmark upon its features, this spirit of somber earnestness animating every page.

As a result of these conditions, what we read, written over every point of the prospect, is the one great word business. The average American thinks of little more and cares for nothing less than "business." It is the charmed noun which comes to his awakening intelligence at morn; the " open sesame" which guides his way at noon; the "combination" with which he locks his safe at night. It is his talisman and phylactery, his fetich, his watchword, his countersign, his shibboleth. Ask him what the Creator was engaged with during the first six days, and he will probably answer, in all good faith, “Business." Inquire what he proposes to do with his boy, and he will probably reply: "Put him into business, of course." Indeed, so impressed have we become with the far-reaching power of our word, that we have erected it into a kind of synonym for all worthiness. When a man is in earnest about anything, is sincere, goes to the point, and shows that he means to win his way and succeed, our average American calls attention to it by dryly remarking, "That man means business. "" What would our vocabulary do without the word? It intrudes even where it is least legitimate. It creeps from the market to the studio, the laboratory, the library, and the pulpit. It asserts its influence over art, science, literature, and religion.

In our chase after the Almighty Dollar, the individual is pushed to the utmost. Every faculty must be strained to the point of snapping, and every moment devoted without reserve. And, withal, there is such a sense of uncertainty about every position gained, of half ownership in every object earned, of feverish desire to make assurance doubly sure, to accomplish great results in a moment, to adopt fictitious means, short cuts, risks, speculations, ventures in short, so much brain wear, solicitude, and uneasiness as can leave neither time nor taste for anything but "affairs," and must either wear out the machine prematurely, or, at best, leave it in the end nothing but a machine in the place of a man—an apparatus for working, in the place of a soul for living.

In this condition of affairs it is important for Americans to keep as young as possible by saving as much time as they can for recreation, even at the risk of not grow. ing quite so rich. Let us add a suggestion to American philanthropists: Endow amusements! So far, we fear our social scientists and benevolent benefactors have bestowed their efforts too exclusively upon the hospital and asylum side of society, or, when they have pushed out beyond the limits of hygiene and sanitary regulations, have been too ready to stop with establishing reading-rooms, workingmen's clubs, holly-tree inns, and free lyceum lecture courses. Let us do no less than we are doing for the sick people and the bad people, but-in the name of all that is humane-let us have a larger thought also for the blue people, that neglected class who may have learned how to think, and been "reformed" and "cultured" from head to foot, but who have never learned one accomplishment, indispensable to a liberal education,—how to laugh!

We repeat, then, for the eyes of philanthropists, public benefactors, and social economists-not to mention any readers of a patronizing disposition who may be thinking of making their wills and casting about them for an "object": Endow amusements; back up talent in its efforts to brush off the rust from the jaded and stupid folk; found institutions for the promotion of mirth; establish anti-dyspeptic schools and societies for the suppression of bile; encourage lyceum amusement courses in the towns, and build and support a Théâtre Américain in every city. In short, take this whole matter of cheering the people-just as you have taken the whole matter of moralizing them -out of the hands of private traffic and into the hands of public benevolence.

Charles W. Ward.

Did "Abolition" Abolish?

IN the old days before the war, it used to be a favorite feature of the annual programme of the Boston Abolitionists to use opprobrious language concerning eminent persons lately deceased, out of the pale of their very exclusive communion, especially when such persons were held in peculiar love or veneration. "We are nothing if not critical," Mr. Phillips used to say, in the gayety of his heart, on those occasions, by way of explanation to any whose feelings happened to be incidentally lacerated; adding (with an attitude), "O slavery, slavery, wilt thou not suffer us to bury our dead in silence?" All which used to be received with unbounded delight by the queer people on the platform and with violent indignation by the crowd, thus insuring much talk in the newspapers and a large attendance at the next annual meeting, and promoting the cause of universal liberty.

66

It is pleasant to learn from Mr. Oliver Johnson's open letter in THE CENTURY for May, that the peculiar taste that used to characterize his little party no longer survives in its survivors. He is reluctantly "constrained" by my article, "A Good Fight Finished," to say evil things about my father, "concerning which, in charity to the dead, he would gladly be silent." He does not "protest too much." But for this assurance, it might have been inferred, from the fact that, immediately upon my father's death, he had hastened to say the same things, with such publicity as he could command, and have them sent to the surviving children, that the ancient propensity of his society was not wholly extinct in his bosom. But we recognize with pleasure the mellowing influence of age, so that the very things which only two years ago Mr. Johnson rushed forward to say, with alacrity, over a recent grave, he now repeats reluctantly, being forced thereto by my article of last March.

On the one point on which the controversy mainly turned, between Christian antislavery men and the so-called abolitionists, happily there is controversy no longer. Says Mr. Johnson, in THE CENTURY, concerning his old associates: "Their definition of slavery [slave-holding] was elastic." Exactly so. It was the very accusation that Dr. Bacon used to bring against them, that they loved to operate with an "elastic" definition of the main word. They "resolved, that by slave-holding we mean" slave-holding and something more, but were unable to stick to their

resolutions. The "elastic" word, stretched to cover more than it meant, was always springing back, in spite of them and without their being aware of it, to its proper, current, and habitual meaning. It was through the practice of operating with "elastic definitions," so that their words meant sometimes one thing and sometimes another, that that incapacity of perceiving the scope of their own arguments was generated, which is illustrated anew in Mr. Johnson's confession of an "elastic definition." He supposes that he "confesses and avoids"; but really confesses without avoiding.

The distinct allegations which Mr. Johnson makes against my father's sixty years of blameless, unselfish service to liberty and humanity are briefly disposed of. From his boyhood Dr. Bacon took an ardent and philanthropic interest in the project of a colony of free colored men in Africa that should grow into a nation; and to this enterprise he gave generously of his counsels and his prayers, his scanty means, and his unpaid labors. In the code of morals established at Mr. Garrison's printing-office, this was the blackest of crimes. But there is far less need of apologizing for the hearts that devised and promoted a scheme so full of noble promise than of apologizing for the code which condemned them.

There is no further accusation except this: That during sixty years of consistent devotion to the cause of human rights, there were two occasions on which Dr. Bacon did not make a public address—at least, so far as Mr. Oliver Johnson is informed. How striking the tribute to his memory, that a half-century of hostile scrutiny can find nothing with which to reproach him but two speeches which Mr. Johnson thinks he ought to have made, but which he did not make, so far as Mr. Johnson has learned!

But the public are less concerned, after all, with the biographical question than with the historical one. We want to take precaution against that "fraud upon history" of which Mr. Johnson is apprehensive, and which consists, he thinks, in denying that the characteristic tenets and operations of the knot of Garrison abolitionists had any effective share in delivering the country from slavery.

What were these tenets? I will not state them in my own language, lest I should be again accused of "caricature." It would be unjust to state them in the language, possibly hasty or irresponsible, of a speech or an editorial article. I regret not to have at hand a file of the "Liberator" from which to choose among the annual ethico-political deliverances of Mr. Garrison's society. But I am so happy as to have come, just now, upon an old newspaper slip containing, not the heated discussions, but the calm, statesmanlike results of deliberation, at a county abolitionist meeting in Massachusetts in 1848, from which I transcribe some representative resolutions:

"3. Resolved, That the religion of Essex County, and of the country generally, that expels and excommunicates its members for heresies about infant baptism, while it fellowships as godly Christians the enslavers of infants in the South and the butchers of

infants in Mexico, is a compound of folly and depravity that finds no parallel in the history of the darkest periods of the past.

"4. Resolved, That to sustain such a religion by supporting its priesthood, or attending its Sunday and other performances, or lending it any countenance

more than should be given to gambling-houses or houses of ill-fame, is to rivet faster the chains of the slave, to oppose the progress of truth and humanity, and to encourage an order of things more to be dreaded than open atheism.

"5. Resolved, That the constitution and union of these States were, and still are, a plundering and piratical conspiracy against the rights of man.

"6. Resolved, That any enlightened man who voluntarily supports this government by voting or taking office under it, has no moral principle that would deter him from becoming a pirate on the high seas, whenever a favorable opportunity should present."

I might produce language more violent from the manifestoes of that noisy little party. But we do not want an extreme case, only a typical one.

We may disburden our minds of fears of a "fraud on history." There is no real danger that that court will make any mistake on the question whether slavery was at last abolished by ferocious non-resistants and disunionists, such as wrote these resolutions; or whether the work was done by sober, conscientious, church-going, voting, union-loving, sedition-and-secession-hating "pirates"; was accomplished, as I said last March, "in pursuance of principles which Mr. Garrison abhorred, by measures which he denounced, and under the leadership of men who had been the objects of his incessant and calumnious vituperation."

Leonard Woolsey Bacon.

"When Twilight Comes."

RONDEAU.

WHEN twilight comes and nature stills
The hum that haunts the dales and hills,
Dim shadows deepen and combine,
And Heaven with its crystal wine
The cups of thirsty roses fills.

Blithe birds with music-burdened bills
Hush for a space their tender trills,
And seek their homes in tree and vine
When twilight comes.

Soft melody the silence thrills,
Played by the nymphs along the rills;
And where the dew-kist grasses twine,
The toads and crickets tattoo fine
Drums to the fife of whip-poor-wills,
When twilight comes.

Frank Dempster Sherman.

Silence.

FULL many were the words we said
We neither cared to say,
And many were the hours that fled
While we threw words away.
O lips misused! O time misspent!
Without one word of what we meant?

At last deep silence o'er us fell,
And though at first we sought,
Unwittingly, to break its spell,

Yet was that silence fraught

With meaning more than words can hold, And in that silence all was told.

George A. Hibbard.

He Came to Pay.

(AFTER "THE aged stranger," BY BRET HARTE.) THE editor sat with his head in his hands And his elbows at rest on his knees; He was tired of the ever-increasing demands On his time, and he panted for ease. The clamor for copy was scorned with a sneer, And he sighed in the lowest of tones:

"Wont somebody come with a dollar to cheer
The heart of Emanuel Jones ?"

Just then on the stair-way a footstep was heard
And a rap-a-tap loud at the door,

And the flickering hope that had long been deferred
Blazed up like a beacon once more;

And there entered a man with a cynical smile
That was fringed with a stubble of red,

Who remarked, as he tilted a sorry old tile
To the back of an average head:

"I have come here to pay "- Here the editor cried:
"You're as welcome as flowers in spring!
Sit down in this easy arm-chair by my side
And excuse me awhile till I bring

A lemonade dashed with a little old wine
And a dozen cigars of the best. *

Ah! Here we are! This, I assure you, is fine;
Help yourself, most desirable guest.

The visitor drank with a relish, and smoked
Till his face wore a satisfied glow,

And the editor, beaming with merriment, joked

In a joyous, spontaneous flow;

And then, when the stock of refreshments was gone,
His guest took occasion to say,
In accents distorted somewhat by a yawn,
"My errand up here is to pay –

But the generous scribe, with a wave of the hand,
Put a stop to the speech of his guest,
And brought in a melon, the finest the land
Ever bore on its generous breast;

And the visitor, wearing a singular grin,
Seized the heaviest half of the fruit,

And the juice, as it ran in a stream from his chin,
Washed the mud of the pike from his boot.

Then, mopping his face on a favorite sheet
Which the scribe had laid carefully by,

The visitor lazily rose to his feet

With the dreariest kind of a sigh, And he said, as the editor sought his address In his books to discover his due:

"I came here to pay-my respects to the press And to borrow a dollar of you!'

Parmenas Mix.

The Author of "The Lion and the Lamb."

[EXTRACT from a note from the publisher of "The Lion and the Lamb," an anonymous novel which has achieved a great success, to Henderson Lloyd, the author of the book.]

"Your novel has sold so well that I think it will be of advantage to you to have the authorship known. It need not be directly announced, but might be allowed to leak out in the usual way. This would be a great relief to me, as I am besieged by inquiries." [A note from Mr. Lloyd to his publisher.]

"MY DEAR MR. SPARROW: On no account can I allow myself to be known as the author of 'The Lion and the Lamb.' I would not for the world have the originals of some of the characters know that I had drawn them, and there are other reasons why I wish the authorship of the book kept a profound secret. "I am delighted at the success of the book, and I am very much obliged to you for the handsome check sent so much in advance of the ordinary time of payment." [From a note from Mr. W. R. Dean to his friend Arthur Fread.]

"I have just finished your book, The Lion and the Lamb.' It is a most capital story. My daughter has seized on it, and I have no doubt that she will sit up the greater part of the night to finish it. I knew it to be yours before I had read twenty pages. No one but the author of Calderon's Mount' could have written it. It ought to make your fortune, and I sincerely hope it will."

[From Mr. Fread to Mr. Dean.]

"What an astute fellow you are to find out so soon that I wrote The Lion and the Lamb.' What shall I do with the fortune that it is going to bring me? Will you join me in buying a silver mine in New Mexico? Or do you think it will be better to pur; chase a pretty place near the city, where Mrs. Fread and I can settle down in ease and comfort?"

[From Miss Nellie Ford to her uncle.]

Why, in the name of common sense, dear Uncle Fred, didn't you put your name to 'The Lion and the Lamb? Everybody is reading it, and everybody is just wild over it. Of course, I knew you wrote it as soon as I got to Aunt Margery. I just screamed when she began her conversation with the lay-reader. It was almost word for word as we heard it. If there are to be any new editions, and there must be lots of them, please have your name put to it."

[To Miss Nellie Ford, from her Uncle Fred.]

"MY DEAR NELLIE: There are reasons, and very weighty ones, why I do not wish to announce myself as the author of The Lion and the Lamb,' and you need not, therefore, expect to see my name on any future editions of the book. But I promise you one thing-whatever money I get from it I will divide with you."

[From Miss Nellie Ford to Miss Virginia Webb, Vice-President of the Rockford Archery and Lawn Tennis Club.]

"DEAR JENNIE: What do you think? Uncle Fred wrote "The Lion and the Lamb,' but he has reasons why he does not wish to announce himself as the author. I tell this to you because you like the book so much, and I am dreadfully proud that my uncle wrote it. But you must not say a word of it to anybody. He promised

to divide the profits with me, but he was precious careful not to say he would give me half. I expect I shall get about the one ten-thousandth part, which will buy me several pairs of gloves, if the book sells, as it certainly must. Uncle Fred could not afford to do more than that, for he needs all the money he can get.”

[Extract from private conversations held by Miss Virginia Webb with each member of the Archery and Lawn Tennis Club.]

"Nellie Ford's Uncle Fred wrote The Lion and the Lamb.""

[From a note from Miss Harriet Crenshaw, of New

Upton, to Mrs. Dr. Brown, in the same village.]

"So you told the ladies of the Sewing Society, when my name was mentioned in connection with the authorship of The Lion and the Lamb,' that I could not possibly have written the book. I suppose you have devoted so much time to the reading and study of my serial stories, and shorter tales, that you are perfectly acquainted with my style, and can, therefore, decide whether or not this or that book, published anonymously, is mine. Perhaps you think I cannot write well enough to be the author of 'The Lion and the Lamb.' But there will come a day, Mrs. Brown, when you will be sorry that you rendered yourself so conspicuous by making the statements you have made."

[A remark by Mrs. Dr. Brown to Mrs. French, the minister's wife.]

"I suspect Harriet Crenshaw did write The Lion and the Lamb,' but I'm not going to let her know that I think so, for she is stuck up enough already."

[From Mr. Sparrow, the publisher, to Mr. Henderson Lloyd.]

"I now think it will be well carefully to preserve the secret of the authorship of your book. There is a general impression that Talbot wrote it, and that is helping the sale immensely."

[Remark of Mr. Lloyd on reading the above.] "Confound Talbot ! "

[From a conversation between Mr. Lloyd and a friend at the Folio Club. ]

FRIEND."Look here, Lloyd, how is it that you can afford to put on the style that you've been showhorse? Why, I've been pegging away for twenty ing lately, actually driving out of town with your own years, and haven't been able to keep a horse yet. Have you been making any fortunate literary vent

ures ?"

MR. LLOYD.-(Clapping his friend on the shoul der.) "Don't you know, old boy, that there are other ways of making money, and better ways, too, than by literary ventures? I admit that I have been engaged in a speculation, or something which resembles a speculation, which has turned out very well."

[A remark made by a member of the Folio Club to several other members in the smoking-room.]

"Have you heard about Lloyd, the fellow who writes for the magazines? He is gambling, and going to the dogs as fast as he can.