this to be said. But Mr. Maurice was glad also that this dismissal was not an official act compromising the Church of England. He was never under any official condemnation. None of the bishops under whom he served even threatened any episcopal action against him. Tait forbade him to resign St. Peter's, Bishop Vere Street, when he wished to do so; the present Bishop of London pressed upon him the appointment of Whitehall preacher. As years advanced, indeed, he found himself treated with a general respect, often deepened into reverence, which caused him some misgivings. II writing. But it put the question on the faith, the eternal God, however incomtrue issue. According to Mr. Maurice's prehensible, has been and is genuinely revealing himself to the spiritual apprehension of his human creatures. ble document for the government of men's Bible is not a law, delivered as an infalli The lives, but a series of records describing successive stages of God's self-revelation. The Bible is a unique volume, because there was a special character attaching to the revelation of the divine nature in Jewish history and in the person of Jesus when the last book of the New TestaChrist. But the revelation did not cease ment was written. It is going on now; and the supremely worthy occupation for the mind of man is to be ever learning more of what God is communicating concerning himself. It is the glory of the spiritual intuitions of the humblest of mankind that they are inspirations of the divine nature. Man is bound to know himself as limited and dependent; but he has no right to disclaim community of view and purpose and will with the eternal God himself. In the other controversy he took the aggressive part. Mr. Mansel, afterwards dean of St. Paul's, delivered a course of Bampton Lectures at Oxford, in which he maintained, for the confounding of unbelievers, that the nature of God is necessarily unknowable to man, and that any reasonings about that nature are futile; but that we have in the Bible a regulative revelation given to us which we must accept for our guidance, and which it will be the worse for us if we do not follow. Mr. Mansel was so able, his knowledge so large and clear, and his argument seemed so to put philosophical infidels surpassed Mr. Maurice in genuiue reverNo believer in its infallibility has ever into a corner, that the lectures were re-ence for the Bible. ceived by the religious world in general honestly and effectively, to claim its supHe was accustomed, with delight and applause. Here, it was thought, were the weapons of the enemy turned against himself. Apologetic divinity, at the best, was distasteful to Mr. Maurice; he thought it injurious to Christianity that it should be continually argu. ing for its right to exist. But such an apology as Mr. Mansel's seemed to him the most utterly destructive assault upon Christianity that he could conceive. It made the whole Bible a delusion and imposture; it turned the Gospel into a law more dead and more deadening than any that St. Paul had in view. in the face to his own special testimony; It was a blow it defended any amount of apparent injustice in God's dealings with men, any views concerning God which were morally intolerable, on the ground that man's spiritual faculties could take no account of the ways of God; it reduced men's higher aspirations to the most mechanical calculation of personal advantage. No wonder that Mr. Maurice's mind took fire, and blazed in indignant protest and defiance and invective against such teaching. His first attack on the Bampton Lectures, "What is Revelation?" was not, as his friends have always admitted, a specimen of calm and cool controversial port for all the doctrines that were dearest to him. He could show, as regards this question of revelation, that every book of the Bible assumed that God was revealing himself to the human spirit, and not merely laying down laws for human life. It cannot be denied that the impeachments of its accuracy made by his torical and scientific criticism were unwelcome to him, and caused him pain. Bishop Colenso's discoveries about the Pentateuch, in particular, were for several reasons the occasion of deep and promonths of his life. All that he wrote unlonged unhappiness, which clouded many der the stress of the Colenso trouble, like his part in the Mansel controversy, bears signs of emotion. What he had to say about the Bible and its relation to modern criticism in its two branches of history and physical science is summed up in his eloquent "Letters on the Claims of the Bible and of Science." the things of man-human relations and He believed that endowments and experience were the media and the sphere of revelation; that non-human facts were by comparison insignificant. be said He gave I think it may that was in the moral sense strictly human - a full unquestioning faith to all and divine in the sacred records. He was almost indifferent about the accuracy of any but the human facts, those which had to do with human hopes and struggles, in the Old Testament as in other books. To make much of arithmetical or local details caused him an impatience which he could not repress. He would always go himself, and make others go if by any means he could, to the heart of the matter. The actual course of history was to him real and sacred. A recognized order and method in the history handed down by any records was a kind of verification of that history apart from adequately demonstrative evidence. It is obvious to object to such a view, that it makes a man's own notions of what is probable and orderly the ground of historical truth. Mr. Maurice never had to learn from critics what could be said against his views; but he was in the habit of thrusting aside many objections. If what he said was true, he trusted to its truth to support it; and he never shrank from speaking vehemently, even paradoxically. A very great exaggeration in numbers about the expedition of Xerxes- if it can be proved - may make me doubt the information, or even the veracity, of Herodotus. It will not make me doubt the truth of a battle of Sala mis, and a battle of Platææ. It will not make me doubt the grand truth that a set of tiny European republics discomfited the great monarchy of Asia. These events are taken out of the region of letters. They do not depend any longer on the credibility of records. They have established themselves in the very existence of humanity. You cannot displace them without destroying that, or remaking it anew, according to some theory and fashion of your own. How far is a judgment like this true and safe? That is one of the pregnant questions which Mr. Maurice constrains those who will listen to him to ask. I will only here put by the side of these sentences of his one or two from M. Renan ("Les Evangiles," p. v.): – Les esprits qui n'aiment que la certitude matérielle ne doivent pas se plaire en de pareilles recherches. Rarement, pour ces périodes reculées, on arrive à pouvoir dire avec précision comment les choses se sont passées Aristote avait raison de dire: "Il n'y a de science que du général." L'histoire ellemême, l'histoire proprement dite, l'histoire se passant en plein jour et fondée sur des documents, échappe-t-elle à cette nécessité? Non certes, nous ne savons exactement le détail de rien; ce qui importe, ce sont les lignes générales, les grand faits résultants et que resteraient vrais quand même tous les details seraient erronés. That such a view leaves men without a definite opinion on a multitude of points of interest, without a conclusive answer to a number of questions that may reasonably be asked, was no argument against it. One who held, as Mr. Maurice did, that the living God was actually teaching mankind, could easily suppose that God trained men through much uncertainty to the knowledge which he thought good for them. On the most disturbing of all the recent discoveries of science, Mr. Maurice writes thus: The new inquiries respecting the antiquity of Man make some people tremble lest the story of Adam in Paradise should be shaken. My own anticipations from those inquiries are altogether hopeful. I know not in what they may issue. But while I have a strong conviction that, whatever way the facts go, they will make that simple story more simple and more intelligible to us, and will strip it of a thousand wilful additions, I have a still stronger conviction that we shall never really regard the Second Adam as Him by whom all things were created, and by whom all things consist-as the true Man, the actual image of the invisible God-till the first Adam occupies quite a different place in our divinity from that which he has occupied for several centuries. Although Mr. Maurice's chief task was to prophesy, in the pulpit and out of it, he had, as I have intimated, some of the honor of a founder, through his connection with several creations to which he supplied the chief inspiration. I refer especially to the co-operative movement in England, to Queen's College, and to the Working Men's College. 66 In the beginning of the co-operative movement Mr. Maurice, to some extent, followed the lead of his devoted friend and sometimes trying adviser, Mr. J. M. Ludlow. But he was inevitably recog nized as the leader and controller of the movement. The days of Christian Socialism" were the days of most hope and activity in his life. He found himself the honored chief of a band of ardent young men, including, besides Mr. Ludlow, Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes. With them working-men of high aspirations were associated; and they all felt the animation of an enthusiastic social effort, which was making a visible impression on the working class and on society in general. Mr. Maurice's views, then denounced as revolutionary and subversive, are moderate enough now. There was nothing of "State-Socialism" in the movement. It was limited to the establishment of voluntary co-operative that Queen's College would be a witness to women of the upper and middle classes in behalf of the noblest ideals of education. associations, and to the preaching of union and fellow-work, rather than competition, as the foundation of the true social system. To the perplexity of some of those who worked with him, but in accordance His aspirations were not less high with with his characteristic faith, Mr. Maurice regard to the Working Men's College. insisted that they were not trying to re- That institution grew out of the co-operaorganize society, but only to discern the tive movement. Whenever Mr. Maurice bases on which the actual society of which spoke about it, or addressed the members they were members was built. He would of it, he dwelt upon the duty and privilege not admit that anything which held men and advantages of true human fellowship together could be other than divine. Per- between the more educated and the less sonal greed of money was no part of the educated, upon the value of knowledge social system; it was that which was in- for its own sake, and upon its use as festing and destroying it. The State, he qualifying men to realize their places and affirmed, was an appointed witness and to fulfil their functions in the social body. security for justice and personal rights; He never concealed his own conviction the Church was essentially communistic. that the knowledge of God lay at the He did not desire that the State should foundation of, and gave unity to, all other become socialistic; he desired that the knowledge. The question how this conChurch should sincerely and practically viction of his could be wrought into the bear witness that all men were brothers, action of the college was the occasion of and that progress was to come through some difficulties, perplexing both to him mutual aid and fellow-work. Christian and to those who worked with him. Socialism was a voice through which much of his most earnest faith found utterance. So far as the co-operative movement failed to proclaim the living God and to affirm the divine constitution of human society, Mr. Maurice had no special delight or hope in it. Queen's College had been associated from the first with the Church of England ; but it was not so with the Working Men's College. In establishing it, Mr. Maurice welcomed the aid of some who did not accept the creed of the Church. It was determined that no acceptance of any creed should be required of either teachers or students. But Mr. Maurice had a yearning desire, and a too sanguine hope, that the acknowledgment of God should in some way through personal influence hold a prominent place in the system of the college. It cannot be denied that he experienced a certain disappointment of this deeply cherished hope. But he took care that there should be no doubt as to his own conviction on this point, and the reverence paid to his name and spirit by all who were associated with him has at least secured that a Bible-class should take the first place in the list of classes of the college. He had always been greatly interested in education; he wrote about it when he was a youth at Cambridge. He after wards warmly advocated the claim of the Church to be, rather than the State, the educator of the people. He held that it was impossible for human beings to be properly educated unless they were taught concerning God, and without the influences of love and hope. He never abandoned these convictions; but as to the organization by which education should or could be given, he waited with characteristic humility on the teaching of experience. When it was suggested to him that an institution should be established, by the action of professors of King's Col It was not only in the pulpit, as I have lege, to qualify governesses for their work, said, that Mr. Maurice was a preacher; and at the same time to offer sound teach- and it was not in the exercise of his posiing to other ladies, he welcomed the sug- tion as a clergyman that he became most gestion and threw himself heartily into the widely known. But, from the time of his scheme. Of this movement, also, he nat-ordination to the end of his life, he was urally became the chairman; and Queen's pouring the treasures of his heart and College looks to him with reverence as its mind into weekly sermons which seemed virtual founder. Here, again, he waged to many of his hearers to have more war against the mercenary spirit. Eager of the divine breath in them, to come competition for prizes was hateful and with more power and light to the inward distressing to him. The pursuit of knowl- spirit, than any which they heard from edge was degraded and corrupted by being other lips. No clergyman ever discharged adopted for the sake of what was to be got his appointed duties with more anxious by it. It was one of his dearest hopes | fidelity. For some thirty-three years, from 1836 to 1869, he was preaching in London; first at Guy's Hospital, then at Lincoln's Inn Chapel, and then at St. Peter's, Vere Street. Towards the end of this time some of his friends believed that it would be an acceptable thing to liberal-minded men throughout the country if the government were to recognize his services by appointing him to a deanery or canonry. A friend who regarded him with reverence and affection, Mr. William Cowper, now Lord Mount Temple, had had the opportunity of recommending him to the crown for the incumbency of St. Peter's. But whether he would even have accepted higher preferment is doubtful. The ideal which he had cherished was one which might al most have seemed to be mocked by preferment. He expressed his own feeling on the matter in a letter to the Bishop of Argyll (June, 1870): I am sure you meant the letter in the Pall Mall most kindly. But may I be permitted to say that the only part of it which gave me real pleasure was the announcement that there is a "Vow registered in heaven" against my promotion? If, as I trust, that is so, I accept it as an answer to prayers which I offered from my inmost heart last autumn, when my friends talked to me about canonries and such things, that I might not be led into temptation by receiving offers which I felt that I ought to refuse. Supposing I could be of any service to the Church, it ought to be much more by enduring something for her an honor of which I am not worthy-than by receiving oliveyards and vineyards from her. The Prime Minister, who represents the lay as well as the clerical feeling of the country, would, I think, be utterly wrong if he promoted me. For there is not a journal, from the Saturday Review to the Record, which does not speak of me as misty or mystical; and there is no charge so odious to every class of Englishmen as that. What party in the Church, high, low, or broad, would not disdain me as its representative? tion on the tribute thus paid to his fa ther's intellectual standing. On going to Cambridge, Mr. Maurice was welcomed with a respect and sympathy for which he was not at all prepared, and which made all his relations with the university gra cious and happy. He was always glad to speak with praise of what he saw at Cam. bridge. His professorship afforded him an opportunity which he much valued, of giving a more definite and complete expression to the thoughts about morality of which his mind had been always full. The published courses of lectures on the conscience and on social morality are the ripe fruits of a method which put forth its early leaves in the old Cambridge undergraduate days. If it is pleasant to those who loved and honored Mr. Maurice to look back to these concluding years of happy labor, they must feel a more solemn joy in the records which his son has been able to give us of the last days. In the closing scenes of his life there was nothing unworthy of the faith and hope and love by which its noble efforts had been sustained. He died as he had lived. And such a man assuredly has not lived in vain. Some definite results, in the form of visible and permanent institutions, Mr. Maurice has bequeathed to the nation which he loved and served. Who shall say what he has left behind him, in the diffused effect of the principles and ideas to which he bore witness? He has, at all events, succeeded in one object of his efforts. No one can say that he has created a party to be added to the existing parties which wage war with one another in the Church of England. This is not to be wondered at, if I have been right in claiming a place for him among the things that a man sent into the world prophets." with a prophetical mission should end as the maker of a party. What he leaves behind him is his testimony, wrought into the life of his contemporaries, and preserved in his writings for the instruction of those who follow him. And such a feeling towards himself as Mr. Maurice It is not in the order of He was to receive, however, in his later years an appointment which he accepted with grateful pleasure, and which gave him congenial and happy employment for the rest of his life. He was greatly surprised when it was suggested to him, in the autumn of 1866, that the official elec-inspired in those who really knew him, tors might not be unwilling to choose him for the professorship of moral philosophy at Cambridge. Having been persuaded to offer himself as a candidate, he was elected almost by acclamation. Colonel time. Maurice dwells with reasonable satisfac one of reverence so profound, so unalloyed, and so tender, is too rare and too heavenly an influence to be counted of no importance in the social movement of our J. LLEWELYN DAVIES. LIFE in a country town is not surcharged with variety or incident, and can scarcely be called even soberly amusing, unless one has a special taste for shop. ping, dawdling, dropping in and out of neighbors' houses, and picking up chitchat at one tea-table to be retailed at another. It must be said for Clinkton that it boasted some advantages over other places of the kind, in the possession of a cathedral and of a river; and the cathedral had produced for the Tufnells Herbert Mildmay, while the river had been the resource of Jem Challoner. He was now, however, debarred from even that, since the season was unpropitious, while the cathedral did as little for him in its way. He refused to enter it, and was wondered at, hinted at, had his reasons demanded, and his remissness held up to view. Did he object to week-day services? If so, he must not say so before Emily, but did he? He let them think he did; he let them think almost anything they chose of him, so long as no one suspected a deeper and tenderer objection. Had he not but the other day sat by Matilda's side in the old church at Seaborough, and had they not listened together to the grave, quaint music, and afterwards knelt side by side, knelt and prayed, and he was not a man - God forgive him - who often prayed, but he had felt something like this, if that woman there, that pure, good, beautiful woman, to whom his soul cleaved, if she might only be his, his to help him to a better life, his to lead him onward and upward, he would-and he had made a vow in his heart, and fancied for the moment it must have been heard and accepted in heaven? To go next with Mary Tufnell? With Mary on the one hand, and Emily or Bertha on the other? He could not do it. So Emily, poor thing, had to go alone, since Bertha gave out distinctly that as it was plain she had to be gooseberry to somebody, she must say she preferred it should be to Jem and Mary; for though Jem was not a lively bird by any means, still he had the pull of Herbert in one way - he was not forever running round to walk on Mary's side, and opening doors for Mary, and buying presents for Mary, asking Mary if she were tired, and all the rest of it. Herbert made a regular dolly of Emily: Bertha never had the umbrella held over her, though it might be that she wore her best hat and Emily her everyday one; she had no nice boxes of goodies slipped into her muff; and she might be on the trudge from morning till night wherever Emily chose to go, without once being asked what she would like or dislike doing. But Jem, Bertha averred, was a good old chap, and drew no such distinctions. Indeed, whatever the party was, it was the same to Challoner. He walked and talked indiscriminately, he never bought anything for anybody, and he carried Bertha's largest parcel in addition to Mary's smallest, without any apparent consciousness as to which was which. In consequence he was a dear; and as he made no parley over whatever he was asked to do, never had an engagement, never sought out an excuse - as he submitted to be dragged from house to house with never a remonstrance, and to be kept waiting at shop or rink with never a murmur - he was presently the best of dears. "And I do say the way that poor Jem is put upon - I shouldn't stand if I was he," cried his stanch protectress Mrs. Tufnell. "It is Jem here and Jem there with all of you, till I declare I am quite ashamed. If it was only Mary now, there would be sense in that. But Bertha harries him here, and Emily harries him there 66 Harries! What to goodness do you mean, mamma?" "You know what I mean well enough." "There's no such word." "You know what I mean well enough; what does the word matter? I says it's a sin and a shame to keep that poor dear standing about in all the cold doorways in this weather, while you girls are amusing yourselves inside "He won't come inside; it is his own fault; he will stop in the doorways." "That's nonsense: that's just him all over; he thinks he'll be in the way. There he was to-day Oh, I saw you all — I saw you, though none of you saw me and there he was half an hour at Smith's door if he was a minute. I went by when you three walked up, and saw you - you, Bertha, and Mary go in, and Jem turn back and lean against the wall outside; |