MODERN CHRISTIAN HEROES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

HEN comparing the men of the present to those of

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the past there are, as in other matters, two extremes. There are those who, on the one hand, look upon the men of the past as something more than mortal. Standing on the distant eminence, and illuminated by the sunshine of fancy, they seem, as did the troops to young Norval,

"A host gigantic clad in glorious arms!"

Their every attitude is graceful, their every action is infallible, their every word is inspired. People now are little men, and these, oh! these were the men, and wisdom lived, died, and was buried along with them. Others, again, look on their ancestors with supreme and sovereign contempt, and if they do not, with our modern Anthropologists, class them with apes, they are far enough from identifying them with angels ; they were, they think, dull, decent, commonplace characters, awfully narrow, and woefully ignorant-fathers to us in name, children in reality, giants in distant perspective, dwarfs upon the nearer view. Here the truth lies between, or, rather, the

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truth is something different from, and superior to both these extreme views; and we may express it thus-There were giants in those days: there are giants in our days, too,— every age has had its giants, although some have excelled others alike in the number and the loftiness of their progeny, and others, somewhat deficient, perhaps, in outstanding and overtopping celebrities, have made up for it by the general diffusion of knowledge and intellect throughout the mass of the community. Our intention, accordingly, is to fill this new gallery with Protesting and Reforming heroes, not only from the Past, but from our own times.

Our reasons for selecting such a subject, and our intended method of treating it, shall form the subject of a few introductory remarks. We live in a time when hero-worship abounds. With many it has become a part of their religion; with some, it is the whole. And as smokeless altars in this new worship, there are arising, in all directions, here magnificent monuments to the great departed, and there brilliant volumes or ardent odes in their praise. Like all new sects,

this has carried its belief and adoration to extremes. It has sought for and found heroes on the gallows, on the highway, in the brothel, and in the robber's cave; and such names as Robin Hood, Rob Roy, Mahomet, Mirabeau, and Marat, attract nearly as much homage as those of William Tell, Sir William Wallace, Martin Luther, or Oliver Cromwell. Now, that there is a truth and value in a modified hero-worship is at once conceded. It is natural for us to look up to those who are taller than ourselves, to admire feats of agility and strength, to laugh at the jests of the witty, to love the beautiful, to bow to the strong, and to reverence the holy.

Hero-worship is at once a necessity of our intellect, and an irresistible instinct of our heart; it is at once a duty and a delight; it is related to the very highest feelings we possess -those, namely, with which we regard God himself and, although practised in this age more systematically, and carried, perhaps, to greater extravagance by some than in former days, it has always more or less characterised the human race, and, unlike many primeval feelings, has not yielded to, but rather been strengthened by culture and civilisation. We do not, therefore, wish hero-worship suppressed: the wish were idle. We wish it purified and exalted; we wish it set upon proper objects, and carried on in a proper spirit; we wish to sever it from idolatry, and connect it with religion. And for this purpose we propose to open up a gallery where every picture shall be that not only of a hero, but a Christian hero of one distinguished not more by intellectual power, genius, or learning, than by moral worth, noble aspirations, Christian beliefs, and, at the same time, by liberal and progressive tendencies, and by a protesting mission.

There is, our readers will have noticed, one peculiarity in our selection of heroes. We have called them reforming and protesting men, and have thus linked them together as by a chain of martyrdom and fire. We have a notion that in all ages it has been much the same. The Christian hero, even before Christ--for we need hardly say that there were many true Christian heroes before Christ-was a protesting, wrestling, reforming, fighting, martyr-like man. And it is to that

class that the apostle who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews alludes so glowingly-to those who through faith wrought

righteousness, subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, and were tortured not accepting deliverance, thereby showing that these men not only protested, but suffered for their protest. When Christ himself came, he followed the example of his forerunner, John the Baptist-viz., in the commencement of his ministry, by preaching the gospel and doctrine of repentance-in other words, by denouncing and protesting against the evils of his age. Since then, his protest has been repeated and continued-first of all by his disciples, many of whom were honoured by the martyr's crown, and afterwards by the nobler of the Fathers of the Church, and by that whole army of Confessors who were sacrificed to the fury of the Pagan Power, because they would not conform to the idolatries of worship and superstitions of practice which then prevailed. During the dark ages, on the other hand, when the intellect of Europe was eclipsed, and its belief succumbed under the yoke of Popery, there was little or no protest; on the contrary, there prevailed a dead and prostrate submission, through which the Bulls of the Vatican were heard

"To bellow through the vast and boundless deep,"

like the thunder o'er the sleeping angels in the burning marle of old. But by and bye, now by Wickliff in England, and now by John Huss and Jerome of Prague abroad, the power of protest was again exerted, and the voice of protest again rose. Nor did the one slumber, nor the other sink into silence, till Luther appeared

"The solitary monk that shook the world,"

and shook it chiefly by the energy, the vehemence, and the

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perseverance of his protest. Need we say that in his time arose the glorious name of Protestant—a name that has been for 300 years a terror to Popish despotism, and which, in its wider, future meaning, shall be a terror to every form of arbitrary power, civil or sacred, throughout the world.

Since then, the protest has continued, although it has sometimes changed its form and its watchword. In Luther's age and country, it was entirely a religious protest against the usurpations and corruptions of the Church of Rome. In Scotland, again, it had more of political character, and included resistance to the arbitrary power of a Court as well as the exactions and tyrannical sway of a Church. In the next age, it assumed the shape of the great Puritanic Protest, culminating in the great Puritanic Revolt, when Monarchy and Episcopacy fell. In Scotland about the same time, the spirit of protest blossomed into the scarlet and blue colours of the Covenant, and was embodied in the Solemn League -a document of which few now entirely approve, but which did noble service in its day, and was, for the time being, the charter of our political and religious liberties. In the next, or eighteenth century, we find it in the form of Methodism in England, protesting against the dead religious indifference of that age, and in Scotland in the form of the Seceder and Relief Movement against the yoke of State Patronage. More lately we have had it in the Voluntary Question, contending against the connection between Church and State. And at present it is fast assuming the aspect of protest against whatever unduly stereotypes religious opinion, and tyrannises over the consciences of enlightened and progressive Christian men.