nations, and in all ages. Though we desire to avoid, as far as possible, reiterating statements which the discussions of the late Presidential canvass so often and so forcibly presented, with reference to the avowed purposes and aims of our Northern disloyalists, yet, in order the more fully to realize the importance and probable results of the victory gained, some such repetition seems necessary, though it be brief.

The framers and supporters of that monstrosity of the 19th century, the Chicago Platform, in spite of their loud claims to nationality of purpose, and pretensions to loyalty, virtually announced their readiness to surrender the country into the hands of the men who have so pertinaciously sought its destruction for the last four years. They showed their willingness to complete the work which the slaveholders began, and not only to submit to the terms which the Rebels might dictate, but to assist in rendering the dissolution of the Union permanent. They purposed, instead of being the 'sword of the Republic,' to become the shield of the Rebellion. With a hardy falsehood, that is without parallel in the history of American politics, they placed the responsibility of the war upon the loyal men of the nation, and not to the account of the traitors who forced it upon the country. In a word, to achieve their traitorous and selfish schemes, they would surrender the liberties of twenty millions of true men, of the same race and blood with them, to despots. They would pull down the sacred bulwarks of freedom which our fathers erected, and sink the whole nation, with all its hallowed memories, in the abyss of anarchy. Such was the Opposition, and such their real designs, judging from the avowals of their leaders and their prominent organs, throughout the country. In view, then, of the dangers that imperilled the Republic, and the great questions at issue, the late triumph of the Union Party rises into gigantic proportions, and assumes an unequaled significance in the history of this nation.

In the first place, we have proved that we are a Nation, capable of self-government and self-control. All doubt in the ultimate success of the people to suppress the Rebellion, is at once dissipated. The fatal and selfish doctrines of State-Rights and State-Sovereignty, promulgated by Calhoun, culminating and working out their legitimate results in Jefferson Davis, have received their death blow at the hands of the loyal masses. The question whether our institutions are a chaos, or orderly force, whether there is power in each part to dissolve the whole, or an organic authority, that, though allowing to each part full life, full liberty, yet in itself preserves the sovereignty;

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whether this orderly system can be broken up by some selfish claim of each part, has been tried before the national tribunal. By the most glorious victory of all, the victory of the ballot, noiselessly vindicating the sovereignty of the people, the nation has resolved to be, passing triumphantly the severe test to which it has been approaching for these now many years. We have at last demonstrated to England and the world, the adequacy of a Republican government, regarded as an experiment. From our birth as a nation to the present, Europe has looked on with amazement at this young Republic, progressing and prosperous beyond a parallel. They saw despotism uprooted, oppression overcome, and the growth of a power on this Western continent, under free institutions, which might well excite their jealousy. When, therefore, this struggle for very life began, despotic and aristocratic rulers smiled and jeered, pronouncing this experiment a failure, and Republicanism but a "Bubble," which was speedily to burst. It was declared that our frail bark might do for calm seas and fair skies, but that storms would founder it. It was said that we could not carry a national debt, control our own mobs, or sustain the crisis of civil war; and when our affairs were subjected to a national election, some complication would arise, and our liberty would end.' All these, however, have happened; we have not been found wanting in a single respect, but, with a flexibility and ease unsurpassed by more centralized powers, have met every crisis and every difficulty, until never within our history was our nation as strong as it is to-day.

This Triumph of the Republic has sent a thrill of joy to millions of those upon other continents, struggling upward to a higher humanity and nobler freedom, and the prospects of the common people of the world are advanced degrees further, than before the election. It is being seen very plainly, on the other side of the Atlantic, that we mean to maintain our national life, in its complete integrity, as long as God nerves us with courage to struggle for it. It is being seen more clearly, that the cause of human freedom is being established here, to the overhtrow of despotism, and the weakening of all aristocratic powers. The danger of a reaction in Europe towards strong governments is removed. The friends of popular liberty and reform, have thus gained an overwhelming advantage, in the conflicts they are waging at home. Germany is nearer to national union to-day, than she has been within the century. Italy welcomes and rejoices in the tidings from across the water, takes fresh courage in her manly and heroic struggles for unity and independence, and feels surer of all Italy than ever before. The great mass even of the English people,

whose sympathy has been with the North from the very first, rejoice in our success. It is, at the most, simply amusing to witness the frowns and down-cast looks of the English aristocrats, as they read in their morning papers of the reelection of Abraham Lincoln, and the endorsement of the policy of his administration, by the handsome majority of four hundred thousand on the popular vote; while the genial faces of such men as Bright and Cobden and John Stuart Mill, and a host of others, who have never faltered in their love of liberty, and their confidence in the destiny of this great nation, are lit with a new radiance, as, with a prophetic eye, they view the event as but one great stepping-stone to the complete social and moral emancipation of every oppressed race.

But the predominant feature of the great national victory of November, we cannot pass unnoticed. It was emphatically a triumph of great principles. Kossuth said, some years since, that American politics turned upon policies, not upon principles.' The remark was partially true, then, but wholly inappropriate to the late struggle, which was, one indeed of policies, but underlaid by great principles. It was a struggle between Northern and Southern ideas; between liberty and despotism, religion and crime, light and darkness; between those principles which have made this nation one of the greatest and wisest upon earth, and those principles which have engendered one of the foulest and basest conspiracies the world ever saw. It was this characteristic which clothed it with such determination and fierceness. The dividing party lines were so clearly and unmistakably drawn, that no confusion or misapprehension could arise on that score. The battle was squarely fought, and the victory fairly won.

Since, then, we are still to exist as a nation, by no meaas should we feel that our work is done, or that enemies of the Republic no longer live within its protection. The late election has served to give us a glimpse of ourselves, of the cowardice, the selfishness and ignorance that exist among us, and, we trust, impressed upon the nation the necessity for greater watchfulness and jealousy in guarding its sacred rights. A great task still remains in store for us. Physical forces alone can never restore harmony, or compact warring elements, into a united whole. A vast moral work remains to be done; an enslaved and down trodden race to be emancipated, and elevated to the perfect stature of manhood; the ignorant and corrupt in our very midst are to be elevated to such a moral and social position, that they may, in all propriety, enjoy the fullest rights of citizenship and enter with us into the broadest spirit of nationality. Let us engage in this work

with a strong faith in our destiny. It is this, in connection with the justness of the cause, which has sustained the nation thus far, in every struggle. Let that faith never falter, and a future and destiny shall reward our endurance, more glorious than the eye of the present can foresee.

A. Mc L.

Charles Dickens.

AFTER the death of Sir Walter Scott, the Novel became sadly degenerate. From its grand position as the supplement of history, it became nothing more than the vehicle by which the public received expressions of perverted morals, and evil imaginations. Actual life was no longer its sphere. A strange unnatural world filled with human duties took its place, and Nature vanished before the overdrawn pictures of sentimentalism. Men feared that the list of true English Novelists was ended. But the advanced intelligence of the age made not its demand in vain. A master-brain and a master-hand were awaiting their opportunity. The artistic power of Fielding and the moving humor of Sterne were revived again in Dickens, but with all the finish of the nineteenth century. He became the founder of a new school, whose sphere is actual life. Fielding, the noblest representative of the old school, was eminently an objective writer. His characters were painted as he saw them. Dickens, on the other hand, is a subjective writer. To the element of observation is joined that of experience, and one feels that every character embodies somewhat of the author's own life. "One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin," and it was not long e'er Charles Dickens was taken up into the world's common existence. Without delaying longer to determine his position among authors, let us consider his genius and its character.

A genial sympathy with his fellow man in all stations and conditions of life, but more especially a love for the virtues which flourish among the poor, is the predominant characteristic of Charles Dickens. Mrs. Stowe has beautifully said :- There be soul-artists who go through this world looking among their fellows with reverence, as one looks amid the dust and rubbish of old shops for hidden works of Titian and Leonardo, and finding them, however cracked or torn or cov.

ered over with tawdry daubs of pretenders, immediately recognize the divine original and set themselves to cleanse and restore." Such a soul artist is Charles Dickens. His search is amid the old shops of sin and misery and shame, not for works of human artist, but souls from God's own hand. He seems to have learned the force of that passage of St. Paul:-" Charity covereth a multitude of sins." None are too poor or miserable to receive his sympathy, none lofty enough to escape his sarcasm. Childhood, with its winning way, its sweet simplicity; virtue, strong yet struggling against the temptations of poverty and want, meet in him their ablest champion. This might result from the spirit of the age. Popularity demands some such expression in literature. But with Dickens it is innate. His great heart beats sympathetically with human misery. His heart writes. And when heart speaks, heart answers. Purity and loveliness touch chords that vibrate in every human breast and echo in every life. From this position of charity, eccentricity in character meets a good humored toleration, and though he compel us to laughter, there is in it a mixture of love. There is scarcely one of his humorous characters that does not exhibit, amid the woof of foibles, the silken cords of some christian virtue. It is in sympathy that the satire of Dickens finds its being. Love cannot endure that its object should suffer wrong. And when love comprehends humanity as its object, universal wrong becomes the target of its hate. And so we call Charles Dickens oftentimes a satirist; always, however, a just one. Sympathy has guided the most powerful pens that ever wrote. Without it, poetry is barren, the drama devoid of interest. It is ever the essence of genius. Before it, open gates of love, and with it are realized the brighter joys, of "that city whose builder is Gcd." Some men compel to admiration, others to love. Of the latter class is Charles Dickens.

This characteristic of sympathy in an author gives birth to sincerity; "Sincerity is want of hypocrisy." Yea, it is more! It is true enthusiasm with a purpose. It is one of God's laws that none but truthful expressions shall live. The support of favorite theories, the propagation of new doctrines, and the expression of peculiar beliefsthese may enlist authors from some feeling of paltry interest, but the world turns disgusted from their hollow nothingness to the calm comfort of those writings where shines soul, and is apparent a devoted purpose. Only those shall live whose individuality has formed a place in letters, whose manly voices have been heard above the common chorus, peculiar and pleasing notes which tell of the heart within. So it has been and ever shall be in the world of letters; and un