our nature is subjected, and only deserves visible things upon the heart, seems to us to be treated as a man hiding from him- strictly true. The Positivist recognizes, self. Mr. Leslie Stephen, secularist as but rationalizes it, explains it away, in he is, admitted this, as we ourselves, we fact, as due to ideals which, when we come believe, pointed out, when reviewing his to look at them closely, disclose nothing book on "The Basis of Ethics;" and as but an "infinite sigh of the human heart," Mr. Goldwin Smith, in the very striking as one of the earliest pantheists termed article published in the December Con- "God;" and no one can long continue to temporary, has eloquently reminded us. fulfil strenuously an obligation which he Mr. Stephen expressly declares that secu- refers to nothing more potent and more laristic ethics can say no more than this, permanent than a sigh of the heart, infi"Be good, if you would be happy," adding, nite or finite. The better kind of secu however, "in an emphatic aside, 'Be not larist recognizes it chiefly in the heat and too good."" Yet Mr. Leslie Stephen is restlessness with which he tries to sweep obviously not in the least satisfied with away injustice, seeing that injustice not his secular ethics, for he does not echo on swept away in the lifetime of the living, his own account the advice, "Be not too is, for them, in his belief, never swept good; "indeed, he evidently despises it, away at all. And unfortunately, heat and though he does not in the least know restlessness of feeling are just the least where to find the intellectual leverage favorable of all conditions for coping with with which to justify the contempt he and removing injustice. It is really only feels for those who adopt it. Well, that the theologian who is convinced in his is a good illustration of what we mean. inmost heart that justice and righteousEven those to whom the vision of what ness, though defeated tempororily, can Christ revealed is no vision at all, noth-only be defeated temporarily in order to ing but the shadow of a cloud, are often triumph for eternity, who can bring to the just as much pressed upon by the obliga- war with evil at once that absolute trust, tions of the eternal world as those who and that calmness under disappointment, recognize it in full. Some of them no which give the best guarantee of victory. doubt contrive, by continually turning away their attention from the burden, to make the least of it, and get as much distraction in the world as they can; others are rendered simply restless and feverish by it, and plunge into fictitious religions with Mr. Frederic Harrison; or into ambiguous moral, social, and political move ments with Mr. Bradlaugh; but all who have any sensitiveness to social obligations at all, do practically recognize that human life is not, and cannot be, made a trivial affair of; that there is an immeasurable pressure of obligation resting on it which, whatever your theory of life, you must feel, and, if you are honest, recognize; that you can only satisfy your own heart by treating life as if it were vastly more important than, on the common secular theory, it ought to be; and that the man who is willing to accept the utilitarian form of the command," Be good, if you would be happy, but be not too good," is a person whom, whether you are bound to justify him or not in theory, you can only pity and despise in practice. Nevertheless, Canon Liddon's position, that the Christian and the Christian alone, really husbands to the utmost the force derived from this supreme pressure of in The real difference between the believer in the Christian revelation, the halfbeliever, and the unbeliever, is this, — that while all of them, if in any degree good men, fight boldly in the battle against evil, only the first has absolute confidence that the obligation under which he is laid to fight it, is a sure guarantee of final success. That secret pressure on the will which the others obey with hope at best, and with despondency at worst, faith obeys gladly, as the soldier obeys the call of a general by whom he has been led again and again to victory. Faith is not, however, the power itself, but the right understanding of the source whence the power comes. The sense of obligation itself descends on every will which is open to the appeal of good; but while the unbeliever is fevered by it, and made far too restless for cool and careful conflict; while the half-believer is rendered only wistfully hopeful by it, and lives on the strength of ambiguous and often feeble aspirations, the genuine believer is steeled against all discouragement, knowing that eternity is long enough to give the true interpretation to temporary failure, and the true significance to all success. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. LAURESTINUS. How empty seems the firelit room, An open desk, a book laid down, Of laurestinus, glossy green, It seems most meet that she should wear And washed by winter's shower. No rose for her of ruddy hue, With thorns to pierce, as love's thorns do, No lily trembling on its stem, For her white innocence. But this bright, hardy evergreen, Above the dark, damp mould; It asks no shelter from the storm; The crown of work, its blessed cares, The smile of Heaven, the poor man's prayers, Are all she strives to win. And so she fares, alone, apart, And giving both her best; She wears, afar from worldly strife, NOT UNTIL NEXT TIME. "I DREAMED that we were lovers still, And you looked up, and smiled at me." "True sweethearts were we then indeed, When youth was budding into bloom; But now the flowers are gone to seed, And breezes have left no perfume." "Because you ever, ever, will Take such a crooked view of things, Distorting this and that, until Confusion ends in cavillings." "Because you never, never, will Perceive the force of what I say; As if I always reasoned ill Enough to take one's breath away!" "But what, if riper love replace The vision that enchanted me, When all you did was perfect grace, And all you said was melody?" "And what, if loyal heart renew The image, never quite foregone, Combining, as of yore, in you A Samson and a Solomon?" "Then to the breezes will I toss "Oh, welcome then, ye playful ways, From The Nineteenth Century. LORD MELBOURNE: A SKETCH. THERE never probably was a time when a larger number of the community was interested in politics than now. The articles and speeches bearing upon any measure likely to be brought before Parliament become daily more numerous, and are devoured by the public with daily increas ing appetite. There are few thinking men of any class who are not tolerably well versed at least in the outlines of the principal questions of the hour. The characters also and the careers of our leading statesmen are pretty generally known. It has, however, often occurred to me that there is, comparatively speaking, great ignorance of the past, particularly of those times which lie just beyond the memory of persons now living. It has struck me that at this moment some advantage might be taken of the temporary lull which seems to exist, while men on both sides are drawing breath before plunging into new struggles, to call attention to some of those who took a leading part in the earlier years of the present century. As a small contribution towards this object I have ventured to ask space in this review for a slight sketch of my relation, Lord Melbourne. His life has not long ago been admirably written by Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens, but, for the sake of clearness, and for the instruction of those who have not been able to read this work, I have cast my few remarks upon his career into the form of a biographical notice. an extent as to cripple the largest fortunes was the common amusement of both sexes; and morality, in other respects, was in a low state. But joined with this there was that high sense of personal honor, which in England, and still oftener in France, has at other times been united with similar manners. There was more than this. There was a spirit of justice and generosity - even of tenderness -and, in some cases, a delicacy of feeling which we are accustomed now to associate only with temperance and purity. There was also a very cultivated taste, derived from a far more extensive knowledge of the classics than is to be found in these days - a love of poetry and history — and, above all, an enthusiastic worship of liberty. How came this strange worship of liberty among this exclusive and luxurious aristocracy? Originally, perhaps, as the result of faction. Excluded from power, and deprived of popularity by misfortunes and mistakes, which it would take too long to mention, the Whigs had been driven in their adversity to fall back upon their original principles. The debating instinct of their great Parliamentary leader seized upon the cry of liberty as a weapon of warfare in the House of Commons, and the cause which he advocated was so congenial to his frank and generous nature that he embraced it enthusiastically, and imparted his enthusiasm to his friends. I will not pursue these thoughts further, but the circumstances of a man's early life have such influence in moulding his character, that even in such a slight sketch as this it may not have been out of place to call attention to the state of that soci William, second Lord Melbourne, was born on the 15th of March, 1779. His father and mother were friends of the Prince of Wales, and lived in that brilliant Whig circle of which Fox and Sher-ety, with its vices and its redeeming quali idan were the political ornaments and the ties, in the midst of which William Lamb Duchess of Devonshire the Queen of grew up. Beauty. It is difficult now to realize the spirit of that society, in which dissipation and intellectual refinement were so singularly combined. Drunkenness among the men was too frequent to be considered disgraceful, and even those who passed for being sober took their two or three botties a day. Conversation was habitually interlarded with oaths. Gambling to such He went to Eton in 1790, and to Cambridge in 1796. In 1797 he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, but without leaving Cambridge. In 1798 he won a prize by the oration on "The Progressive Improvement of Mankind," alluded to by Fox in the House of Commons. In 1799 he went to Glasgow to Professor Millar's, from whose house he wrote,. during this and the following year, several letters to his mother which still exist. | these years that he acquired habits of They show the keenest interest in poli- reading which were never afterwards abantics, and an enthusiastic admiration for doned, and that he accumulated much of the French, and they are not entirely free that vast store of learning, that large from a slight taint of that apparent want knowledge of all subjects ancient and of patriotism which infected the Liberal modern, sacred and profane, which formed party at that time, and which did it such a continual subject of astonishment to irreparable damage. It is only fair to say those who knew him in later life. that there is an entry written in a notebook a few years later, showing how keenly he appreciated and lamented this political error, and that, throughout the whole course of the Peninsular war, he expresses the warmest wishes for the success of the British arms, and for those of our allies in Germany. His career at the bar was brief and uneventful, and, by the death of his elder brother, he shortly became heir-apparent to his father's title and property. We now come to a most important event; important to all men in his case particularly so and attended with almost unmitigated evil. After endless quarrels and reconciliations they were regularly separated in 1825, but he was with her at her deathbed two years later, and she expired in his arms. Though he was a member of the House of Commons for many years, and occasionally spoke, he cannot be said to have acquired any distinction in that assembly; but his abilities had always been recog nized by leading men, as may be shown by the fact that he twice refused office during that period. His public career began in 1827, when he accepted, in Canning's administration, the post of chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland. On the 3rd of June, 1805, was solemnized the marriage of William Lamb It is difficult to form a just opinion of with Lady Caroline Ponsonby. It is heart him as he appeared to his contemporaries less, unnecessary, and altogether wrong at this time. Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens has to expose the dreariness, and the pain, done justice to his high character, his and the ridicule of an ill-assorted mar- clear intellect, and his broad, sound, and riage. Too many particulars of this un-sensible views of men and things. Lord happy union have already found their way Melbourne's relations must always feel into print. Lady Caroline was a woman grateful to Mr. Torrens for so clearly of ability, and, I suppose, a certain amount bringing forward this side of his nature, of charm, but nobody who reads her and perhaps also for not attempting to works, or her letters, or the accounts of delineate those characteristics which reher conduct, can doubt that she was par- quired to be touched with a more delicate tially insane. Of her husband it is enough | hand. The uncontrolled flow of humor, to say that whatever his faults may have been of over-indulgence at certain times, and perhaps an occasional outbreak of a passionate temper at others, he was on the whole singularly tender and kind and considerate. He was always honorable and gentlemanlike, and he bore his burden with a brave and manly spirit. But for twenty years his life was embittered, his ability repressed, and even his credit with the world temporarily impaired. and originality, and mischief, might easi'y have been perverted in the description into buffoonery or jauntiness, from which no man was ever more free. The paradoxes might have appeared as an ambitious effort to astonish and to draw attention when considered separately from the simple and spontaneous manner in which they were uttered. They were saved from this, as all good parodoxes are, not only by the manner, but by each one of them containing some portion of the truth which is generally overlooked, and which was then for the first time presented to the mind in a striking and unexpected way. But though any attempt to describe the |