hard theology of Scotland than all the rationalistic sermons that were ever preached. Our own Whittier has done and is doing the same thing, in a far holier spirit than Burns, for the inherited beliefs of New England and the country to which New England belongs. Let me sweeten these closing paragraphs of an essay not meaning to hold a word of bitterness with a passage or two from the lay-preacher who is listened to by a larger congregation than any man who speaks from the pulpit. Who will not hear his words with comfort and rejoicing when he speaks of "that larger hope which, secretly cherished from the times of Origen and Duns Scotus to those of Foster and Maurice, has found its fitting utterance in the noblest poem of the age"? It is Tennyson's "In Memoriam" to which he refers, and from which he quotes four verses, of which this is the last : "Behold! we know not anything: I can but trust that good shall fall If some are disposed to think that the progress of civilization and the rapidly growing change of opinion renders unnecessary any further effort to humanize "the Gospel of dread tidings"; if any believe the doctrines of the Longer and Shorter Catechism of the Westminster divines are so far obsolete as to require no further handling; if there are any who think these subjects have lost their interest for living souls ever since they themselves have learned to stay at home on Sundays with their cakes and ale instead of going to meeting,-not such is Mr. Whittier's opinion, as we may infer from his recent beautiful poem, "The Minister's Daughter." It is not science alone that the old Christian pessimism has got to struggle with, but the instincts of childhood, the affections of maternity, the intuitions of poets, the contagious humanity of the philanthropists,-in short, human nature and the advance of civilization. The pulpit has long helped the world, and is still one of the chief defenses against the dangers that threaten society, and it is worthy now, as it always has been in its best representation, of all love and honor. But many of its professed creeds imperatively demand revision, and the pews which call for it must be listened to, or the preacher will by and by find himself speaking to a congregation of bodiless echoes. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. AARON'S ROD IN POLITICS. SIMULTANEOUSLY with the nomination of General Garfield, the Republican party had the good fortune to fall heir to a new idea. Such windfalls are by no means frequent in the political world. As a rule, government is simply an eternal repetend. The problem of yesterday is puzzled over to-day, and comes up for a new solution to-morrow. The life of a nation is, in the main, only an infinite series of attempts to solve the same old problem in some new way. The stock properties of all governments are matters of revenue and administration. Parties are far more frequently divided upon the question of how to do than of what to do. With nations as with individuals, the chief business of existence is to find the means of living. The struggle for daily bread is the great end of government, as well as of the separate existences whose aggregate composes the nation. When to raise money and when to borrow it; what to tax and what to spare; what to buy and what to sell; how to spend and how to save; these are the questions as to which government is most frequently concerned, and differences of opinion in regard to which usually distinguish parties. They are questions of method and detail. Right or wrong does not enter into them as a component. Policy, expediency, a question of profit and loss, is their highest element. Now and then there comes a time when the question that is uppermost in all minds is not "How ?" but "What?"-when the question of method, the mere economy of administration, sinks into insignificance in the presence of some peril which threatens the very fact of existence, or some crisis when that which has been is cast off like an outgrown garment and that which is to be has not yet assumed form and consistency. Such an occasion was the birth-hour of the Republican party. Those who led did not know it, but subsequent events fully demonstrated that the people of the North had arrived at that VOL. CXXXII.-NO. 291. 10 point when they determined to use their power to cripple and destroy slavery. How, they knew not; neither did they care very much about the means to be employed. Like the Pentecostan multitude, they all heard and saw the same thing-all understood that in some way or other the Republican party in its last analysis meant personal liberty. The public mind turned aside from the beaten paths of administration and addressed itself to the higher duty of deciding between a new-born righteousness and an ancient evil. So, too, when armed rebellion stood threatening the nation's life, the struggle between parties instantly became not one concerning the economies of existence, but one of existence at all. Again, at the close of the war, questions of method of administration were dwarfed by the overtopping importance of fixing and establishing the terms and conditions of restoration, or, as we blindly though more wisely termed it, reconstruction. Since those questions have been decided, or at least have taken on the form of legislative enactments, there has been an unremitting attempt to steer our political thought back into the old channels. Politicians and political scolds have agreed in reiterating that we must come back to the good old ways, and fight over again and again the ancient battles of banking, tariff, and currency, currency, banking, and tariff, without any disturbing influences from without. To consider the causes of revolution and counter-revolution, to trace the course of prejudice and caste, to tell the tale of violence, or balance the rights of the citizen over against a petty economy, instead of discussing the rate of interest or the system of banking, is to be "a stirrer up of strife," a "waver of the bloody shirt," a "ranter on dead issues," a party insubordinate, and a pestiferous political nuisance. This is not strange. Politicians do not like to be jostled out of their accustomed ruts. The old issues, the everlasting conundrums, leave the lines of battle undisturbed. They make the conflict of parties as peaceful and regular as a sham battle. The ground is known, the lines are drawn, and the result isalmost immaterial. No one is out of his bearings or beyond his depth. A few dollars, a little hog-cunning, a convenient slander, and the old battle has been won and lost on the same old ground, and by the same perennial parties. A question of principle instead of method is like a bomb-shell in the midst of holiday warfare. It forces an advance over ground that may be full of pitfalls. A leader, by one misstep, may stumble into oblivion. A new political idea, therefore, is rarely adopted by any party until the last day of grace. Then it is that the people get ahead of their leaders. There is an advance along the whole line of a party which has planned only to hold its old works. Ordered to "dress" on some old issue, the people insubordinately "charge" on some new evil. Such times are crises. Old parties must clothe themselves with new ideas, or new ones are sure to arise. Such a time is the present. The Democratic party, ever since the close of the war, has been trying to revivify old issues of form and method. They have sought to draw the veil of absolute forgetfulness over the new departure of 1861, and all that was either causative or resultant of that struggle. They have tried to lash the American people back to the lines of the old "autumn maneuvers," to divert attention from the rights of the citizen and the security of the Republic to matters of trade and discount. Almost by accident, as it would seem, the Republican party gave utterance to a new political thought at Chicago, which is destined, if carried to its logical results, to make the coming quadrenniate of its power no less important and memorable than its first. If neglected, shirked, or trifled with, this administration will simply pass into history as one of those interregnums during which a party held power but did nothing-when "I dare not" waited on "I would," and politicians schemed for future places unmindful of the common weal. This thought which is destined to compel a new departure in politics, is the relation of the general government-the American nation or the American people to the illiterate voters of the several States. The Republican platform of 1880, for the first time in our history, pledges a party to the idea of national action in the direction of public education. The resolution in regard to it is not at all striking in its character, except in the fact that it does embrace this idea. It was evidently drawn with fear and trembling, and may be regarded as a not altogether unsuccessful attempt to make language a means of concealing thought rather than expressing it. Its history may almost be traced in its words. It is self-evidently a hesitant yielding to an irresistible demand. It is the language of the skilled politician, compelled to take a forward step in compliance with a popular sentiment which he dare not ignore. Not to go forward is to risk favor; an inch too far may be ruin to the party whose plan of campaign he is preparing. For years the popular sentiment has been growing. An unshaped, indefinite conviction has sprung up in the public mind that something of the kind is wise and necessary. Members of Congress belonging to this party have introduced tentative measures, designed to feel the public pulse rather than to effect a specific cure. The president of this very convention, with commendable pertinacity, has more than once brought the subject to the attention of his colleagues. The question is one not without difficulty. The national charter is dumb in regard to it. No party has ever gone before to blaze the way, or show its pitfalls and dangers. Four years before, a like committee quietly sat down upon this feeling evidenced by petitions, and sought to be made the basis of a new Southern policy. The President of the Republic, impressed with the need of doing something which had not been done before, during the first three years of his term had not deemed this question worthy of serious consideration, but within a month preceding the sitting of this convention had voiced the popular sentiment in a public address. One of the leading candidates before the convention, a statesman of unusual strength and subtlety, a politician of great sagacity and long experience, had put it forth as one of the first and strongest points of the coming campaign, in a speech of remarkable power, in which, with commendable frankness, he announced his own candidacy for the nomination. It is evident that something must be done. The trend of public thought is unmistakable. The party must say something, but not too much. The draftsman must write as the cautious hunter shot-"so as to hit it if a deer, and miss it if a calf." The demon of State sovereignty rose before him, grim and terrible, stained with the blood of recent warfare, yet potent for defeat. Thus pressed in front and rear, the politician seized his pen, and, with the skill of polished statecraft, wrote: "The work of popular education is one left to the care of the several States, but it is the duty of the national government to aid that to the extent of its constitutional ability. The intelligence of the nation is but the aggregate of the intelligence of the several States; and the destiny of the nation must be guided, not by the genius of any one State, but by the genius of all.” It was well and wisely and skillfully done. The first sentence is one of infinite possibilities. Much or little, anything or nothing, may be the scope of its significance according to the |