SKETCHES OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. BY J. B. SYME. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. EVERYTHING in its place, and a place for everything, seems to be a law of natural order, as well as poor Richard's economies. Thomas B. Macaulay, like M. Guizot, was out of his place as a statesman: he is where he ought to be in the closet of the historian. It is true that Mr. Macaulay looked pretty enough in a debate, or on the ministerial benches; but practically he was a perfect partisan, a specious talker about liberty, who was at the same time one of the most passive curs to the whipper-in of British Whiggery, and who earned and won dismissal from every constituency which he represented. As an intellectual man, however, T. B. Macaulay deservedly claims the esteem of his cotemporaries. In literature his position is equally high and independent. Thomas Babington Macaulay is the son of that famous Zachary Macaulay, who, although a slaveholder, delighted to struggle and adorned them with the skill of an artist. It is impossible not to love Macaulay as a writer, for he possesses an exhuberance of spirited sentiment, which might easily impose upon these who did not know him as a politician, as earnestness of principle. In his personal prelections he is free and liberal and sings, "Then none was for a party, Then all were for the State; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great. Then lands were fairly portioned, Then spoils were fairly sold; The Romans were like brothers, In the brave days of old." The Whigs of England once were animate with the classical, republican spirit of old Rome, but in modern days, modern whiggery and toryism are nearly arrived at the point of coincidence. Macaulay theoretically maintains the sentiment of the Whigs of 1793, but we have heard him superciliously tell the working men of Edinburgh that they had no right to the franchise, while at the same time he stigmatised them as Cherokees and savages. The purpose of God, as seen in the with Clarkson and Wilberforce for the freedom of the slave. T. B. Macaulay studied at Trinity College, Cambridge; took tendencies of humanity, has pushed Mr. Macaulay back into his bachelor's degree in 1822, obtained a fellowship at the Octo- his closet, there to sit and look at the stream of history, as it ber competitio open to graduates of Trinity; and, after study-flows on to the universal republic. Neither orators nor partiing law at Lincoln's Inn, he was called to the bar in 1826. It sans can change the current of ages. was in this year that his Essay on Milton, appeared in the "Edinburgh Review," to which celebrated periodical he has since continued to contribute. The career of Macaulay has two aspects; it has been political and literary. In both spheres has he shone with a splendid brilliancy, but in the latter only has he acquired solid fame. As a parliamentarian he has been well paid for his speeches; and no one can give him a higher title as a states man than that of an orator. He was first appointed by the Whig administration one of the commissioners of bankruptcy, and entered parliament as member for Calue in 1822. In 1834 he sat for Leeds, at which period he was appointed secretary to the India Board, but soon after he was named member of the Supreme Council in Calcutta, and proceeded to India to assume his office. In 1838 he returned to England and was elected M. P. for Edinburgh at three several elections. In 1846, the people of Edinburgh, disgusted with his domineering disposition and servile partisanship, refused to elect him again, and chose as his successor, Charles Cowan, a gentleman whose independence and urbanity are only surpassed by his active benevolence. Mr. Macaulay's defeat was exceedingly mortifying to his vanity. His organ of self-esteem is very large, and it is whispered that he would rather have been defeated by Milton's Satan than the good paper manufacturer; by a famous fiend than an obscure saint. He retired into private life immediately after his discomfiture, and the result has been his recent History of England. Macaulay is a poet, essayist and historian, but perhaps his genius may, after all, be termed simply historical. His bold bursts of song are all animated by the historical spirit; the "Battle of the League" is an enthusiastic description of an epi. sode of French history; and his lays of ancient Rome are classical ballads, or illustrations of the "brave days of old" when the woodman left the waters of Auser, and the hunter of the deer, the Cimmian hill, and the herdsmen, the meads of Clitumnus, that they might go and cut the throats of the Romans or have their own throats cut. The "Lays of Ancient Rome" are just illustrations of Livy, and certainly contain more romantic history than poetical tenderness. Macaulay's powers as an essayist, have shone most luminously in literary history; and his highest achievements have been in the descriptive more than in the philosophical branches of criticism. He has travelled over the world of general history, and has anatomised some oi its episodes with the scalpel of an analyzist, Mr. Macaulay is of middling stature, with a receding brow, oval face, and lively, mobile feature. In speaking, his voice is clear, full and sonorous; and his gestures lively and animated. Long may he be spared to write history, and never may he be called upon again to assist in making it. THE "COMING MAN" FOR CANADA.-The following appears in the French republican journal, Le Moniteur. It is a description of the coming man-that individual to whom is to be entrusted the organization of Canada : PROPHECY.-Canada will become free, and will be annexed to the United States in five years. Upper Canada will form one State, Lower Canada, a second, and New-Brunswick a third. Independence of the country will be obtained by means of petitions addressed to the parent country, signed by men of all parties, and among others by 60,000 French Canadians. Lord Elgin will never go back to England. The first Governor of the State of Lower Canada will be a man of middle age, who, just now is living very retired, equally unknowu to all parties. He is a Canadian in heart and feeling. His mother is a Canadian, but his father is of English origin although born in Canada. It is this double character meeting in him, which will cause him to be advanced to the Presidency by the almost unanimous voices of the People. Louis Joseph Papineau will not be one of the first to declare himself in favor of the annexation, although he longs for it with all his heart. His name will be glorious in the future, (dans l'avenir.) All the Canadians will unite to send him as their representative to the Senate in Congress. Believe this, or believe it not, as it suits you; it will turn out the same in the end. ATHENS AND SPARTA.-The ancient philosophers praised the aristocratic constitutions of Sparta ; but really I perfer all the Athenian licentiousness, bad as it really was, to the order of Lacedæmon. What have they done or produced, except some noble instances of self-devotion? They are noble, to be sure; but if a country produces nothing but this readiness in sacrificing one's self, it seems to me somthing very negative. It is easy in this life to sacrifice everything to a single object, as all the human faculties in all their variety and activity nearly, were sacrificed to the single object of mking Sparta a warlike state: but the difficulty is to find out systems in which all the different parts have their proper sphere assigned them. And yet (he added after a pause) Sparta forms after all a beautiful part of the whole picture of favoured Greece.-[Nibubhr. HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION. A CORRESPONDENT of that old and excellent paper, the Knoxville Register, (which wears now the same face it did twenty years ago,) is out in favor of the Homestead Exemption for Tennessee. His argument is a good one-its main points being, that the proposed exemption "would curtail credit to its legitimate bounds;" that it "would have a favorable influence upon agriculture,” now in a deplorable condition in that State; and that it would give greater stability to the population, rendering the people "more domesticated and more attached to the soil." These three points are all important, and either of them supplies the materials for a strong argument in favor of the Exemption proposed. Of the three points, perhaps the last has the most force. In a military age, great States might exist while the tens were freeholders and thousands tenants or slaves. But in an age like the present, when the arts of Peace are held paramount of those of War, a first necessity is the gratification of what we have called the Proprietary instinct. To be contented and stable, and undoubtedly prosperous, men must have Homes, and have them secured to them beyond the caprices of fortune, the risk of business, or the knavery of associates. probable that the two Canadas, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia will swell the list four more, making sixty-seven States. The power and resources of this chain of States would not do to be measured by the present condition even of the present thirty. The commerce of Asia brought to our doors-and the St. Lawrence, whose importance to Canada or Great Britain is trifling, but which would be to us an element of strength and prosperity not inferior to the Mississippi-will make a national wealth and strength with which no other power on the globe can come in competition,-[St. Louis Union. IMPERIAL ORTHODOXY. The Czar having assembled the Russian and Polish Catholic Bishops at St. Petersburg, made them the following speech: "I do not wish for a new religion; a new sort of Catholic creed has been invented abroad, and I desire that it may not be introduced into my empire, because these innovators are the worst agitators, and without faith it is impossible that anything can subsist. The West at this moment offers a fair specimen of what men come to if they have no faith--how great are the follies and absurdities which they commit! Look at Rome; I predicted all that would happen there. Faith has entirely disappeared in the West. The manner in which the Pope has been This is what the Homestead Exemption proposes and can be made to accomplish. We can foresee the most beneficent re-treated is a clear proof that the true faith exists in Russia alone, sults, from its general establishment by the different States of the Union. There are many ways in which it would influence the lives of men favorably; and while it would be thus advantageous to individuals, we can see no particular reasons for believing that it would have any general effects of an adverse nature upon the business interests of the country. Its action, of course, must be made prospective in all cases; and this being so, when it shall be the settled policy and law, it will be a thing always taken into account in trade, and be regarded as are all other contingents. The Exemption, unfortunately, failed in Ohio last year. Its friends must see that a similar fatality does not attend its introduction into the Legislature next year.-[Cincinnati Gazette. MORE UNITED STATES. THE territory not yet formed into States will make forty-six and a half States as large as Pennsylvania. Of these, thirty-five will be north of 36 deg. 30 min.—or free States. Eleven and a-half south of 36 deg. 30 min.-or slave States, supposing the Missouri Compromise line to be adopted. and I hope (making the sign of the Cross,) that this holy faith may be maintained here. I told the late Pope Gregory XVI. things which he had never heard from any body else. The present Pope is a good man, his intentions are excellent, but his principles savor to much of the spirit of the age. The King of Naples is a good Catholic; he had been calumniated to the Pope, and now the Pope is compelled to have recourse to him." Bishop Holowinski replied-" Your Majesty, the Holy Father was obliged to yield to circumstances and the spirit of the age." The Emperor." Very possible; but all these disorders arise from want of faith. I am not a fanatic, but I have firm faith. In the West they have run to two extremes-fanaticism and impiety." Addressing the Polish Bishops, the Czar continued→→→→ "You are the near neighbors of these misguided men; let your example be their guide. If you encounter obsticles, address yourselves to me, I will employ all my power to stem this torrent of impiety and revolt, which is spreading more and more, and threatens even to penetrate into my dominions. A revolutionary spirit is the result of impiety. In the West there is no longer any religious faith, and this evil will increase still more.” Addressing himself to the Metropolitan Bishops, and kissing The United States will then consist of seventy-six sovereign his hand, the Czar concluded by saying-"We have always States. Tyrants, tremble! Should Oregon, California, and New Mexico fly off, and the Rocky Mountains be the division between the United States of the Atlantic and the United States of the Pacific, the Atlantic Union will contain fifty-seven sovereign States; the Pacific Union nineteen gigantic sovereign States. Tyrants, still tremble! These calculations are based upon the recent report of the United States Commissioner of the General Land Office-and take in all the United States territory of every kind not yet formed into States. God save the Union.-Westchester Jef. understood each other, and I trust it will always cantinue so." SERFS IN RUSSIA.-There are 48,000,000 serfs in Russia, of which 20,000,000 belong to the crown, and 26,500,000 to the nobles. These serfs are bought and sold with the land. Some of them are mechanics, but the greater part are farmers. Each serf has as much land as he can cultivate, the use of which he pays for in money or in kind. These rents are very reasonable, and many of the serfs become very rich, for their property is sacredly protected. There is no country in the world where a man can rise so rapidly as in Russia. A lecturer mentioned the case of a man, who has risen from a condition of serfdom to be the owner of 100,000 serfs. In Peter the Great's day, the higher offices in the army were open to the serfs. The above calculation, which is not wide of the accurate truth, shows that at no remote time, probably in a century, there will be a colossal Republican power upon this continent. Our computation would give more to the Pacific. The extent of The dress of the serfs, for the most part, is very rude. They our territory upon the Pacific, from 32 deg. to 49 deg., may be called 1,200 miles. The breadth may be called 800. This last live in a cabin, fifteen or twenty feet square, containing one is supposed under the actual measurement. This gives 960,000 | room, in the center of which is a table, and around the sides is square miles, and will make twenty-four States of 40,000 square a bench, which, being turned over at night, forms their bed miles. New Mexico added would increase the number to about thirty. Suppose Texas to make two and Minesota one, we shall have sixty-three States. But before this consummation, it is This cabin is kept intensely hot by a stove, but the injuriou effect of so great a heat is counteracted by the smoke which produced by shutting off the flue when the wood is charred the kingdom of this earth, by the application of the divine Law of Order to the incoherent, false societies of men. THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. "While the Executive Committee of the American Union of NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1849. Associationists were making arrangements for au organ upon a OUR GOOD NAME. We were as much astonished the other day to find ourselves nominally set in the stocks of the Liberator's Refuge for Oppres sion, as the good deacon was, who having given some clothes away in charity, saw by the morning papers that he, the deacon aforesaid, had been picked up drunk in a gutter and conveyed to the watch house,-his name having been conspicuous on the garments of a luckless loafer. On inquiry we learned, that we had two cousins in this country, the SPIRIT OF THE AGE of Woodstock, Vt., and the SPIRIT OF THE AGE of Pittsburgh, Penn.,—the latter bearing as alias the cognomen, The Weekly Commercial Journal. Whether there are other members of the family in the U, S. A. we have not heard. The most ancient branch however we are told lives over the waters in London. Now as we are unwilling that our clansmen should bear the burden of our sins and have on our part no wish to wear the honors due to them, we must request our friends,-when they quote us, or extract from our pages, which we cordially advise them to do often and freely,—to use the designation "THE (New York) SPIRIT OF THE AGE." better business foundation than the Harbinger, there was offered almost simultaneously, to our friend W. H. CHANNING the editorial control of the Univercælum, and to ourself that of a portion of the Chronotype. These opportunities seemed worth securing to the interests of our cause. Accordingly we can with confidence present these two papers to the friends of Association, of the Guarantee movements, and of Social Reform generally, as their own. They will feel, we doubt not, some parental responsibility for both the bantlings, and will lend their cheerful efforts to increase the circulation of both papers. J. 9. D." Most cordially do we welcome our brother worker, especially such an old backwoodsman, into the wide prairie of Social Reform. The smoke from his log-hut will look very cheering in these as yet somewhat unpeopled regions. Several pioneers have swarmed hither already, and right upon our heels may be heard the tramp of millions. The soil is virgin, the produce will be prolific. Good cheer, God speed to all faithful husbandmen. While we thus heartily congratulate our friend that he has reached once more the wide west of hope with axe and plough reset in working order, and his chest replenished with seed-corn in plenty to scatter, while we gladly present ourselves and summon our readers as helpers at his "raising,” will he allow To our elder kinsmen we can only say, we shall try not to dis- us to demur a little at some of his claims? grace our Good Name. THE CHRONOTYPE, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. W. H. C. 1. He unconsciously is a "squatter" on land where we some two months back set up a fence and sowed choice grain. In plain words, when we agreed in the First No. of the Spirit of the Age p. 10 that "The subscribers to the Harbinger who have paid in advance will receive THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE to the full The following extracts are made from number first of the amount of their subscriptions," we scarcely expected to see Weekly Chronotype: NOTICE TO THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 'HARBINGER. the "A specimen copy of the WEEKLY CHRONOTYPE is sent to subscribers to the Harbinger, so far as we have the list. We may not be able to supply all our old friends this time; but our next week's paper shall be sent to all the names left over. "Our 'Weekly' contains all the leading articles of a Socialistic character, which appear in the 'Daily.' Yet there are some things crowded out. In a short time the paper will be enlarged, so as to take in all. Meanwhile we would refer our old Harbinger readers to the following explanation from our Daily paper of last Tuesday." "THE SPIRIT OF the Age and the CHRONOTYPE.—In our notice of the first named paper yesterday, we neglected to state that it takes the place not only of the Univercælum, but also in ♣ measure of the Harbinger, inasmuch as its editor and many of its writers were connected with that organ. "Our own connection with the Chronotype is also to be regarded as one branch of an arrangement to supply the vacuum felt by many readers since the suspension of the Harbinger. The Spirit of the Age is the other branch, the complement to this. That is weekly,- treating topics from a calm, convenient distance, not too far for sympathy. Ours' is daily, more down in the bustle of the world. (Our own 'Weekly' being but a sheaf or fasces of the Daily reapings or choppings of our Chrono's sickle or bill-hook-hardly Time's scythe-in a week.) The Spirit of the Age is the inspired part, ours the material part of the old paper. That is the religious, this the secular Harbinger. We trust that every old friend of the Harbinger will now take both the Spirit of the Age and the Chronotype, and find them harmonising perfectly with one another, even as it is the very mission of Associationists to reconcile sacred and secular, spiritual and material, faith and works, the Kingdom of Heaven and ALL our old Harbinger readers" entered as bounty land, to return once more to our metaphor. We suggest to our co-worker that there should be a little over-looking of title-deeds here; though where both parties are equally desirous of each others success there can of course be no real difficulty in settling conflicting pretensions. We wish all "our old Harbinger friends" to take the Chronotype, but not to drop us in so doing. II. While we appreciate most kindly the good will of our friend Dwight in exalting us to the skies and congratulate him that he feels his feet firm on solid ground, we can not quite consent to "stay put" in the Seventh Heavens, until after our translation, which we know the Boston Circle will gladly postpone yet awhile. The Spirit of the Age, in its prospectus, in its opening articles, and in every successive number, has most distinctly declared, that its end was to UNITE THE "RELIGIOUS" AND THE "SECULAR." We respect most highly,—no one can more highly,—our brother's practical faculty, which his beautiful idealism often hides to the superficial eye, as rich verdure hides the rock stratum on which the soil that nurtures it reposes; but we assure him, that if he purposes to be more quick in advocacy of (the "material") "works" and the "earth”-side of the Kingdom of Heaven, he must "get up early." We have no notion of being!set soaring in the largest balloon ever yet blown up, or however well equipped with arms and ammunition to storm the strong-holds of oppression-at least not until Venice is taken by Montgolfiers, or the air-ship makes one safe trip and back to Eldorado. No! brother! with generous rivalry we say to you, we fight on foot side by side with you in the forlorn hope. Let him be judged best fellow who first and highest plants the Oriflamme on yonder battlements of old abuse-Now on! III. To sum up :-"The Spirit of the Age" so far from purposing to be "one branch of an arrangement to supply the vacuum felt by many readers of the Harbinger," intends, God willing, to be ALL that the Harbinger was, and something over ; In following numbers, we shall quote freely from the Chrointends, that is, to be even more PRACTICAL while quite as SPI-notype, just to give our readers a bite of its good fruit and RITUAL The Editor confidently appeals to past numbers to tempt them to subscribe. prove that this high aim has from the first been kept in view. Let others judge of his success. The Spirit of the Age will be one organ of the ASSOCIATIONISTS of the U. S. A.; and the Editor, in his function of Corresponding Secretary of the American Union has been awaiting only the return of health to address to that body a series of letters on their position and duties; Might not our friends aid us by publishing in friendly journals the parts of head III. between white lines, and numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. THE MIDDLE CLASS. I. MEDIATION. W. H. C. 2. An exponent of the tendencies of all the Reforms of the "MODERATE Party, Balance of Power," a friend of Order exday to Integral Association by means of GUARANTEE-Movements; claims, "what means all this? Last year were you not of those 3. A teacher of Practical Politics,-of the PEACEFUL TRANSITIONS-wherein true statesmanship consists, in this generation; 4. An expounder by means of translations and original essays of UNITARY SCIENCE, according to its capacity and necessary limits; 5. A herald, so far as light is given of the Religion of DIVINE HUMANITY, which we are assured by the Life of Christ, and the History of Christendom will one day be universal, making Man at-one with Man and with God; who announced a new upheaval of the moral world in the rise of the Working-Class,—and went about prophesying that the establishment of Producers in their just position would bring in a Social Millenium? We told you then that such talk meant Red-Republicanism or nothing, which you denied as an ignorant or wilful slander. Look at France, Germany, Italy; have not events verified our predictions? And now, when every where apparently Socialists and Revolutionists have coalesced, you presume to draw discriminations. Blow either hot or cold. We do not trust you. At least be brave in agrarian insanity. Your watch-word in eighteen forty-eight was "The People," why, in eighteen forty-nine cry "The Middle Class ?" In a word, the Spirit of the Age will aim to show how the "Will of God may be done on EARTH, as it is done in Heaven." The aims and ends of the Chronotype we presume are identical with those of the Spirit of the Age,-the only difference be- "Peace-Policy,' 'Reconciliation,' shouts on the other side s ing that one is a Daily the other a Weekly. If now our friends friend of Liberty, 'none of your milk and water, rose-scented, Parke Godwin and Henry James could apart or together estab-kid-gloved, metaphysical jargon for us. We want our rights, lish a Monthly, as vehicle for elaborate articles, the organization of a Socialist Propaganda would be complete, so far as the press is concerned. For the auxiliary force, headed by the indomitable Tribune, is already numerous and strong throughout the land and swelling every hour. IV. One word in conclusion by way of Appeal to FRIENDS. The Publishers and Editor of the Spirit of the Age are determined to make this paper all and more than its most sanguine supporters hope. We will spare no effort. And just in proportion as our means enable us, we intend to raise every department of it as nigh to perfection as possible. Our ideal is bright before us; our purpose strong-Having once put our hand to this plough we mean to turn a broad, deep furrow. and do not mean to wait till you can talk over the Have-Alls into sharing with us what our hard hands have wrung out of the elements. If you are a real brother of the Workers come under the black, red and gold banner, betokening past oppression, present vengeance, and freedom in the future. There can be no half-way in the warfare. Producers know their power, and mean to take possession of their due share in earthly good. He that is not for us is against us. Wave not your white flag there midway or you may chance to feel the tramp of millions on your mangled body, as we rush to prostrate old Bastiles, Feudal Castles, and every form of hoary wrong. Justice first, and then Peace in welcome; recognition of our Manhood first, then in God's name reconciliation with our would be masters. But now there is no Middle Class, nor middle ground.'" ing, so far as it is desirable for servants of Providence to keep a fixed position. Friends! all we ask of you is to aid in securing for our paper as large a circulation as the momentous interests which it To both parties this is the frank answer. We stand where we advocates, deserve. We wish to bring our subscription list have always stood in relation to the struggle between the Privirapidly up to five thousand, at least. Let each reader then pro-leged and the People-without variableness or shadow of turncure for us twelve, seven, five, assuredly one additional subscriber. Let no friend dream for a moment that by studying and inwardly digesting the food we offer here, he is doing full duty to SOCIAL REFORM. Brethren and sisters! This movement is Providential; it is dear to God and Humanity. See, that you become straightway zealous, faithful sowers and reapers in this wide harvest-field. Circulate our paper amongst your neighbors, and for that end take two copies, one to bind, and one to lend. We proclaimed in the spring of 1848, that the final movement in Christian Civilization had begun,-an entire emancipation of Labor; we proclaim it more loudly now. And would that words of light could be poured into and through us, whereby adequately to picture the blessedness of that era, when justice shall be done by the few to the many. God reserves his richest blessings for the last. As from formless elements come Minerals, and from concreting crystals Vegetables, and from growing, seed Select paragraphs for extracting in friendly journals. Interest all good and wise persons who are accessible in the bearing cells Animals, and from sensative instinct-moved fraggreat topics discussed in our columns. Send us suggestions, communications, news, illustrations, hints in relation to the social state and progress or perils of your communities. In a word put your shoulder to the wheel, with the unflinching resolve that Social Reform SHALL GO. Finally the Editor has only to add, that this is about the Spring Equinox, according to our friend Wilkinson's most felicitous and philosophical moral almanac, as given in the first number. For one he feels his sun returning, which has been terribly low in the horison, he is forced to confess, during this cholera-season. About Christmas-heaven helping-it will be in solstice. God bless us all, brother-socialists. Yours in good hope. w. H. c. ments of spirit, Man, endowed with Unity, aspiring to Unity in will, thought, power; so from rude forms of social combinations Providence evolves God's perfect image in Collective Humanity. Thus far the multitudes have been truly Masses molded by mechanical force; now, heaven be praised, they are to become Organic Bodies, inspired by the Divine life of love, one and universal. With peans of thankful praise we repeat; "The Good Time Coming" has dawned; the day of God-with-us has risen; and though fogs darken its beams for the moment, already through rifts of vapor streams in the radiance of Heaven upon Earth." In the spring of 1848 too we proclaimed, that this movement was not a Revolution but a Reform; that its method was not Destruction but Construction; that its end was not Rejection but Reconciliation. No development of past ages has been untimely, no institution insignificant. Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Democracy, embody radical elements, vital ideas, in Man Universal. Transmuted they must be in the new Society which is forming; but perfected, not mutilated, will they reappear. Loyalty and Liberty are inseparable complements; Honor and Friendship must not be divorced. We never shall know the reality which Priesthood, Kingship, Nobility, Equality have symbolized, till we see these sundered organs symmetrically interworking through Associated Communities and the Confederated Race. Conservatism and Reform to-day might be at one, if with open hearts and willing hands we would become fellow-workers, like dear children, with the Father of all. Utterly gratuitous is the impending conflict throughout Christendom. If prejudice, folly, wilfulness, tame submission to a natural necessity which human reason was meant to rule, bring on the death-fight of Reaction and Revolution, let no man impiously refer that judgment to Divine Will. Its crimes and horrors will be self-imposed. God and his angels are earnest for a Peaceful Transformation of Society. They abhor all else. Shall we welcome their blessed communion, or open once again the blasting Hell of Universal War? So spoke a year and more ago, so still speaks, we are assured, THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. Its word was, yet is, MEDIATION. the Navigation Laws of Great Britain, at one blow sapping her ancient Aristocracy to its foundations by the subtle instrumentality of Free Trade. Such is the Middle Class. No earlier forms of power, nor all combined, can cope with it. Their very function was to pre pare its fitting advent and to ensure its prosperous growth. In turn it exercises Sovereignty; in turn too must it render an account of its Reign. III. ESTIMATE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. To understand aright the trusts and obligations of the Class, which thus throughout Christendom holds the balance of power,-we must consider its relative Position and its inherent Worth. 1. In position the Middle Class is legatee of past success, and guardian of germs of good. Varied experience and learning, disciplines of every kind from handicraft to statesmanship, all manner of hallowing influences from household ethics to national worship, courtesies and conventional customs, maxims of policy and rules of prudence, songs and fables of rude ages, deposited lessons of history, matured institutions, approved precedents, armaments, machinery, capital and credit, belong to it, by in heritance. But this accumulated wealth, spiritual, social, political, is placed in its hands not for luxurious indulgence, but for faithful stewardship. Dependant upon its care, awaiting its gui Grieved by the perversity at once of the People and the Pri- dance, are the younger branches of Nations, from infantile Invileged, it makes its last appeal to the Middle Class. II. WHO ARE the MIDDLE CLASS? It might be difficult to mark limits of distinction so precise as to assign to every person a due place among the Privileged, the People, or the Middle Class. But for present purpose the following definitions will be sufficiently accurate, based as they are upon the chief ground of differences, Property. dustry sick nigh to death with painful dentition, to youthful Reform, rash in its sanguine hope and heroism. The tempta tions, ignorance, helplessness, self-confidence, above all the exuberant talent and spirit of the working classes and the poor, summon it by appeal and promise not to be false to its responsibilities. The shades of by-gone generations warn it neither prodigally to squander nor selfishly to monopolize priceless opportunities, which the forethought, courage, patience, benefi The Privileged are those who live, without labor, on their capi- cence of a lengthened ancestry have bequeathed, for universal tal, whether inherited or self-acquired. use. In a word, the Middle Class is an elder brother charged The People are those who live on wages of labor sufficing for by the Privileged to protect the family estates, and to provide bare subsistence, and the Poor. means of education, till the People come of age. The Middle-Class are those who combine their capital with their labor, whether or not employing hired service. According to these definitions, it is obvious that the MiddleClass embraces a large proportion of the Professional, Commercial, Manufacturing, Mechanical, Agricultural orders throughout Christendom; and that it is undeniably the Ruling Power in this Republic. 2. Is the Middle Class fit for such function; what is it worth? In balancing its weakness and strength, one radical fault, fatally engrafted, rankly bred, stands prominently forth, viz: mercenariness. By money it has gained, by money it holds honor and power, and money is it stimulated to heap together by all tendencies of the times. Bankers and owners of Real Estate are the transition between this Class and the Privi The history of the Middle Class is well known here in the mod-leged; merchants according to the rapidity and sureness of exern world. Slowly organizing through ages of feudal oppression it announced itself as born alive in the war of the Free Cities against the Nobles. Alternately nursed and neglected, petted and beaten, by Kings, Barons, Clergy, it was early trained to sturdy self-dependance; it strengthened its brawny limbs in peaceful toils, and brawling tumults; it sharpened its intellect to shrewd directness, gathering around it a tough hide of prejudice as shield against plausible persuasion and tyraunous abuse; it fed its coarse, yet warm, brave heart, alike with romantic traditions and stern realities; gradually it gained freehold, citizenship, and rose to political power in the English, American and French revolutions; then intermingling with the most refined of higher classes by marriage, intercourse, party manoeuvres, and growing conscious of the influence of wealth, it doffed the garb of an inferior caste, and proudly seated amid lordly domains, and palaces enriched with treasures of art, proclaimed itself as the Monied Aristocracy; finally, admitted, though reluctantly, to peership with the Privileged, it organized and conducted the government, social institutions, commerce and diplomacy of the United States, set the Citizen-King upon the throne of France and drove him thence when he forgot the Bourgeoisie in family intrigues, and as its crowning act has just abolished change rank as peers of bankers and capitalists; tradesmen by strict economy and keen bargains vie with merchants, and wait only for enlarged means to expand retail jobbing into wholesale speculation; mechanics aspire to become master manufacturers; farmer's sons spurn plough and spade for collegiate diplomas, lawyer's offices or the slippery preferments of politics. In every pulse of age and youth is felt the wiry throb of an infectious Gold-Fever. School-boys peddle windfall fruit or berries from the hedge with their own brothers; dying fathers reckon amid prayers per-cent upon investments, relaxing a grasp of purse-strings only when they can no longer keep back without loss a hard-earned property from eager heirs. Competition, cunning, calculating utilitarianism, vigilant rivalry, treacherous espionage, feigned affection, overgrow with webs of wile many an opening flower of friendship, love, filial honor, paternal kindness, taste, enthusiasm, reverence. And parching draughts of worldliness burn up life's green romance and early bloom. Mercenariness tempts the Middle Class to join the party of Reaction. Yet it is a cynical criticism that dwells upon defects. The deformity of the Middle Class is but an incident of excessive toil and stingy nutriment. Beneath bent shoulders, stiffened |