were taught to comprehend fully the meaning of this great central idea of Christianity, the union of the divine and the human, and to recognize in Christ the true type of all human perfection, and consequently the true dignity and immortal destiny of man, that a government based on the essential equality of all men, and their inherent right, in virtue alone of their manhood and their responsibility to God, to be free, became possible. Thus we find that spiritual always precedes and begets social and political freedom. It was only when Luther had unlocked the Bible, and the printing-press had given it to the people, that the essential living principles of Christianity sank down into the hearts of the masses and awakened the desire for civil liberty. It was freedom to worship God, above all else, that our fathers sought for in the New World. The idea of religious liberty was the germ they planted in the wilderness, and watered with their tears and their blood, until it grew and blossomed and bore the rich fruit of social and political equality.

Thus we see how the uniform tendency of the forces of nature, the great outlines of the continents, the characteristics. of the races, the grand march of history through the ages, and above all, the sublime doctrines of Christianity, all conspire to teach us the importance of our high position, as well as the magnitude of our responsibility as a nation.

The question now forces itself upon us, and we could not evade it if we would, have we, as a people, comprehended the lesson, or met the responsibility? Have we not rather forgotten the universal law of moral compensation, as applicable to nations as to individuals, that the richer the blessings the higher the duty; and while enjoying our blessings have we not forgotten our duty? Have we not forgotten that, in making us "the heirs of all the ages," God intended to exact of us in return the most heroic performance and the most generous sacrifice for the principles of eternal right and justice that any nation was ever required to pay? These are questions which four years ago the nation impiously thrust aside as fanatical and even treasonable, but which God is now thundering into its ears from the brazen throat of the cannon, and it cannot help but hear. By the flashes of the lightning that gleams from this fearful thunder-cloud of war, we can now see the

frightful precipice on which we stood, and look shuddering into the abyss of utter ruin into which another step would have plunged us; and by the glare of the same light, we can now look back over the slimy path of compromise and concession to wrong down which we basely crawled to the very brink of destruction. We, who would not listen to the silent admonitions of conscience, nor learn the lessons of nature and history, cannot help but read this terrible curse written in blood wherever we turn:

"Because ye have broken your own chain,

With the strain

Of brave men climbing a nation's height,

Yet thence bear down with brand and thong
On the souls of others, for this wrong

This is the curse.

Because yourselves are standing straight

In the state

Of Freedom's foremost acolyte,

Yet keep calm footing all the time

On writhing bond-slaves, for this crime
This is the curse.

Because ye prosper in God's name,
With a claim

To honor in the old world's sight,
Yet do the fiend's work perfectly
In strangling martyrs, for this lie
This is the curse.' 39

God is now only exacting, in the form of a bloody retribution, what we refused to pay in faithfulness to the responsibilities of our high position, and it is a fearful penalty we are paying; yet it is God's price, high as it is, for what we basely bartered away in the past. But life and money are cheaper commodities than principle; and we may be thankful if we can cancel the debts of the past and secure our national integrity for the future at the immense cost of blood and treasure we are now paying. It will be cheap even at that price.

As, in the human body, the chemical forces of dead matter, while under the control of the vital principle, work together harmoniously to build up and sustain the living organism, but when the vitality has left it, go to work, like vandals, to pull down the structure they had reared, and resolve it into its

original dust, so under the control of the vitalizing, harmonizing principle of liberty and equality, the independent sov ereign states combined together to build up the beautiful fabric of our government; but when the hideous vampire of slavery had sucked the life-blood of the nation, until there was scarcely virtue enough left to resist its impious demands, then the disintegrating elements of state sovereignty, which our fathers repudiated, began to tear to pieces the fair form they had helped to create. And so far had the work of disintegration gone, that the head of this great nation was forced, by the traitors in the cabinet, to declare, in his official capacity, that the government had no power "to coerce a state into obedience to its authority;" that this young republic, for which all history has been a preparation, with its work before it scarcely begun, had not vitality enough to save it from falling to pieces. So completely had the piratical crew dismantled the ship of state, that, amid the howling of the storm, the man at the helm was heard, in whining tones, proclaiming that there was not strength enough left in the "old hulk" to hold its planks together. No wonder that the stoutest hearts quailed before the dangers of that dark hour, and patriots gazed with mute despair into the threatening gloom of the future! But God did not mean to destroy us. Even in the last extremity deliverance came. The pirates, who were madly driving us on the breakers, were hurled overboard, and now, with a loyal crew and a firm, unflinching hand at the helm, the old ship has righted; and as she gallantly rides the heaving billows, the sun-light breaks through the rifts in the thunder-cloud, with the assurance that she will yet weather the storm, and bring her rich freight of human hopes safe into port at last!

God means to save us; but he means to try us by fire. All that is ruthless and wicked in us will be burned up, but all that is worth saving in us will only be purer and better for the fierce ordeal. God intends to make us fit for the work he put us here to do; and to make us willing to do it. the duty is noble to which we are called, so the chastisement that is to prepare us for it is severe; nor will it end until our repentance is thorough. But already the nation, from the depths of its humility, is looking anxiously toward Heaven FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVIII.-2

inquiring, "What must we do to be saved?" Already the paralyzed and deadened national heart begins to show signs of life; and the first effort of its returning vitality is to throw off this virus of slavery, and bring itself into sympathy with the great living heart of humanity. Already we have learned that devotion to the principles of truth and justice is worth more than "all the wealth that sinews bought and sold have ever earned," and as we begin to fall in with the grand, everflowing current of God's providence, cheering signs of promise are given to us;

"While down the happy Future runs a flood

Of prophesying light:

It shows an Earth no longer stain'd with blood;
Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud
Of Brotherhood and Right."

ART. II.-BOSSUET AS A PERSECUTOR.

AMONG the eminent men who have graced the pulpit of Roman Catholic France, there is none whose name is better known, outside of his own Church, as well as within it, than Jaques Bénigne Bossuet. This rare distinction is not the result of accident. The acute intellect, which revealed its great capacities to the instructors of his youth, and induced the Jesuit fathers of Dijon to make strenuous but unsuccessful efforts to gain him for their order, was allied to oratorical powers of the very first rank. As a boy, he was distinguished for his assi duity and proficiency; and in the college of Navarre, where he pursued his studies for the priesthood, he was recognized as the most promising scholar of his day. Undoubtedly the influence of the ancient and respectable Burgundian family from which he sprang, had something to do with his early advancement; but it was the beauty of his style that delighted the literary men of his times; it was the grace of his delivery that rendered him a favorite with the despotic monarch of France and his courtiers; it was the elegance and force of his address that entranced the multitudes who followed him around from church

to church in the metropolis. Thus everything conspired to promote his elevation. Within the space of a few years, from being a simple canon of the cathedral of Metz, we find him appointed to preach lenten sermons before Louis the Fourteenth, next nominated to the bishopric of Condom, then selected to be preceptor to the dauphin, and finally settled in the episcopal see of Meaux, in the immediate vicinity of Paris, to be called frequently to assist the king by his counsels.

Whatever may be thought at the present day of the merits of his Universal History, it will be conceded by all that he was peculiarly adapted to the part which he so frequently assumed as a controversialist. From his dispute with Fénélon he came off with the appearance of victory; and among all the champions of the Roman Catholic side there was no one but Bossuet who could make even a respectable opposition to the surpassing eloquence of the great Claude. No one knew how to present an argument in a more specious guise; and his printed works bear as unmistakable testimony to this, as the traditions of his skillful evasions in oral controversies. His "History of the Variations of the Protestants" is even now a favorite weapon in the hands of the advocates of the Roman Church, and more than one really critical mind, to say nothing of the multitudes who are ever easy dupes of ingenious fallacies, has been attracted by it, for a time at least, to the pretended Mother Church as that in which alone true unity can be found. By no writer have the inconsistencies of doctrine of the representative men of the various Protestant Churches, and their contests with one another, and deplorable want of charity for the supposed errors of brethren with whom they nevertheless agree in the essential. .points of the Christian faith, been employed more effectively to exhibit the perils attending individual and independent inquiry, in contrast with the safety of the adherents of ecclesiastical tradition.

But it is neither with Bossuet as the debater and writer on points of theological controversy, nor yet with Bossuet as representative of the Gallican Church and defender of its liberties against the usurpations of the papal see, in the famous declaration of the French clergy in 1682, that we have here to do. It is rather Bossuet in his diocese, Bossuet as Bishop of Meaux, in his relations to the poor Huguenots, whom we propose to