SOME MAGAZINES.
Tax Nineteenth Century is, on the whole, this month in advance- of its fellows,—that is, it contains more papers which men seeking other food for their minds than fiction care to read. (If the reader wants fiction in snippets, let him buy Longtnan's or the Cornhill. There is nothing being published elsewhere in the least comparable with Mr. Rider Haggard's " Allan Quater- maine " and "Jess," and in the former the author has just reached, as we suppose, the verge of the purely imaginative section of his story.) The Duke of Argyll answers Mr. Huxley's recent paper on Canon Liddon like a man who clubs an opponent for whom he still feels a respect. We have rarely read a more powerful piece of writing, and shall be curious to. see the answer to one particular illustration. If nothing is that is not concrete, what becomes of the abstract idea of colour P What is "black," if only "the substantial and the concrete have any existence? We can only, try we ever so hard," believe" in colour ; yet is anything more real than colour, except, indeed, pain, a thing of which there is occasionally no proof except the sufferer's conviction P Is there no abstract idea of pain ? We recommend the Duke's paper to those who think that contempt for an argument must always imply contempt for him who uses it The Duke, as we have said, uses a bludgeon in his fight, but acknowledges all through that within a certain range of subjects, he is defending himself with it from a superior. We would not for an instant question the perfect bona fides of M. Joseph Reinach, the editor of the Republique Pranpaise, in his paper on "The True Position of French Politics ;" but we may be allowed to remark that a very crafty politician would have written the same paper. What is the use of saying that France is all for peace, but will defend her honour, true though the sentence may be ? Does not anything that France dislikes, if done by Germany, touch her honour ? We fear it would, even though the thing done were a German remonstrance at a Russian invasion of Bulgaria. M. Reinach does not give any reason why France should be peaceful, except that a nation in which every family has two or three members. in the Army ie naturally loth to go to war. Is that so ? If it is so, why do wars happen ; for the only country in Europe not so situated is Great Britain ? Sir R. Stout, Prime Minister of New Zealand, advocates Imperial Federation boldly, but will, we fear, make few converts. His argument is, that if Britain ceases to be a European Power, and attends exclusively to her Colonies as the United States do to their internal affairs, Federation is possible. Does Sir R. Stout perhaps mean that this country is to defend the New Hebrides against France, yet have no rela- tions with France, no care whether France masters Germany, or Germany masters France ? He must mean that, and how meaningless is that meaning ! Of course, if the English-speaking races all cohere, as be thinks possible, French action does not matter much ; but then, what becomes of our independence ? Dr. Jeseopp is this time as brilliant as ever, in "The Trials of a. Country Parson," although a little fierce. Is this literally true P. —" A year or two ago my friend X. was dining in a London mansion. Who's that ?' said a lady opposite, as she ducked her head in his direction and looked at her partner. X. turned to speak to his partner, but could not help hearing the scarcely whispered dialogue A. country parson, did you say P Why, he's tall !' " Dr. jessopp's sketch of the pecuniary pains and wrongs of the country clergyman is as telling as it is truthful, and as incisive as his stories of country swindling ; but we prefer to quote his strongly worded account of East Anglia There is one salient defect in the East Anglian character which presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the country parson who is anxious to raise the tone of his people, and to awaken a response when he appeals to their conecienoes and affections. The East Anglian is, of all the inhabitants of these islands, most wanting in native courtesy, in delicacy of feeling, and in anything remotely resembling romantic sentiment. The result is that it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to deal with a genuine Norfolk man when he ie out of temper. How much of this coarseness of mental fibre is to be credited to their Danish ancestry I know not, but whenever I have noticed a gleam of enthusiasm, I think I have invariably found it among those who had French Hognenot blood in their veins. Always shrewd, the Norfolk peasant is never tender; a wrong, real or imagined, rankles within him through a lifetime. He stubbornly refiner' to believe that hatred in his case is blameworthy. Refine- went of feeling be is quite incapable of, and without in the least wishing to be rade, gross, or profane, he is often all three at once quite innocently during five minutes talk. I have had things said to me by really good and well-meaning men and women in Arcady that would make susceptible people swoon. It would have been quite idle to remonstrate. You might as well preach of duty to an antelope. If you want to make any impression or exercise any influence for good upon your neighbours, you must take them as you find them, and not expect too much of them. You must work in faith, and you must work upon the material that presents itself. The sower soweth the word' The mistake we commit so often is in assuming that because we sow—which is one duty—therefore we have a right to reap the crop and garner it. It grows to gnerdon after-days' " The writer, who is an East Anglian, and who remembers that a majority of Cromwell's best regiments came thence, feels that to be a hard saying. Are vindictive and hot-tempered men wanting in imagination P We had thought those faults were specially found among Highlanders and Welshmen. Is there no imagination in Mr. Rider Haggard, a genuine Norfolk man ? We do not care for Lord Brabourne when he answers Mr. Glad- stone, even though on the main point we agree with him ; nor, we must add, for Mr. Gladstone upon the place of Poseidon among the greater gods of Olympus. The leader of the Liberals shows that he has studied Homer profoundly ; but mytholo- gists now scarcely go to the poets to explain the genesis of a nation's Pantheon. What we want to know is not what Homer or Hesiod thought of Poseidon, but bow either came to think of such a god at all. What earlier creed did this deity, who is the subordinate of Zeus yet somehow independent of him, come out of ? Zeus reigned, if we understand the Greek idea at all, by right of mind, as Mr. Gladstone says, but also by right of conquest, else how came the Titan legend and its marvel- lous flower, the story of Prometheus, whom Zeus has bound and tortured, but cannot destroy ? Earl Grey's plan for governing South Africa is simply the Indian plan, and the Indian condition granted, would probably succeed :—
" I hope that what I have said may be sufficient to explain my proposal that an attempt should be made to govern the still inde- pendent tribes of South Africa by their own chiefs, advised and con- trolled by British officers. Treaties should be made with as many of these tribes as possible, their details being varied to snit the special circumstances of each tribe, but the main principle always being the same, that, namely, of granting them British protection on condition of their engaging to act under the advice of British officers, and to abstain from making war on their own account, trusting to the mili- tary power of England to secure them from wrong."
But then, will Britain grant the Indian condition,—viz., force sufficient to make her will executive without perpetual little wars ?
Lord Thring's paper in the Contemporary on " Home-rule and Imperial Unity " should be read by every 17nionist, because it is, on the whole, the best defence of Mr. Gladstone's two Bills which has yet appeared. Its essence is that, as regarded the Home-rule Bill, Ireland would be placed in the position of any free Colony, and that every Colony with self-governing institutions has become loyal; and that, as regards the Land Bill, England lends the money to buy out the landlords to the Irish State, which in return allows the interest on that money to be collected by the Imperial Receiver. So far, Lord Thring proves his case almost unanswerably ; but the reply is at least as unanswerable. It is simply that any free Colony can rebel, and that if two-thirds of its revenue were hypothecated to Great Britain, it would rebeL If it rebelled, we should let it go ; but we cannot let Ireland go. Yet how prevent her going, except by the force which even now, with every legal right on their side, the British people practically refuse to use ? Lord Thring treats every legal guarantee for unity as if it must exist in fact because it exists in law, and compares Ireland with New York as if Irishmen were as willing to submit to the central power as New Yorkers are. He, in fact, assumes that Home-rule will care the dislike of Irish- men to the British connection ; and when we ask why, has only to reply that Canadian dislike has been cured. He might ae well argue that Alsace-Lorraine will be faithful to Germany because - Bavaria is. Canada is, in the main, either English or French, —that is, either a State full of men attached by instinct to the Empire, or of men mortally afraid lest if they cease to be English, they will be swallowed up by a community whose entire social system is hostile to theirs. Still, a Unionist who does not read Lord Thring misses much. Every one, too, misses much who does not read "E. Gerard "—we presume the author of Reata—on "The Transylvanian Peoples." The article is full of light on that strange province or State, with its composite population,-650,000 dominant Hungarians, 1,200,000 servile but restive and improving Roumanians, and 211,000 slowly perishing Old Germane, settled in it seven centuries ago. The "Saxons," who are Germans alike in their good and their bad qualities, are dying from their unwillingness to support the children, in whose numbers the Roumanians take the greatest pride. The latter hold themselves as aloof from strangers as Hindoos do, but neither despise nor dis- like them, holding them to be "subjects of their own law." They believe themselves, as orthodox Greek Christians, to be the only Christians, but cultivate revenge as a virtue, and, like the ancient Spartans, hold offences wrong mainly when they are found out. They have, however, a thirst for knowledge, are singularly beautiful, and possess a certain inexplicable faculty of superiority such as may have belonged to the Roman soldiery from whom in part they sprang. "It is a remarkable fact that even in cases of intermarriage, the seemingly stronger- minded and more vigorous Hungarians are absolutely powerless to influence the Roumanians. Thus the Hungarian woman who weds a Roumanian husband will necessarily adopt the dress and manners of his people, and her children will be as good Roumanians as though they had no drop of Magyar blood in their veins, while the Magyar who takes a Roumanian girl for his wife, not only utterly fails to convert her to his ideas, but himself, subdued by her influence, will imperceptibly begin to lose something of his nationality. This is a fact well known, and much lamented by the Transylvanian Hungarians, who live in anticipated apprehensions of seeing their people ultimately dissolving into Roumanians." The article is charmingly written, and fall of curious stories of little-known customs. The Contemporary has also a readable paper on "The Decline and Fall of Dr. Faustus," which is sub- stantially an account of the inability of the English common people to comprehend that legend. The proprietors of penny theatres and penny gaffs, stimulated by Mr. Irving's success, are playing Faust all over England ; but neither players nor audience understand it in the least. They are taken only with certain mechanical and quasi-supernatural effects to which the story lends itself. The most serious paper in the number, after Lord Thring'e, is Dr. Martinean's defence of his plan for nationalising the Church of England. He would make of that Church a federation with divisions including every sect which is willing to be even nominally Christian. The Church, deprived of all revenues originally belonging to the nation, is to be set free under its own Synod to live its own life, but is to recognise officially every other Church :— " Hence it ie proposed that any Christian denomination at present counted as Dissenting shall be co-ordinated with the Episcopalian as another branch of the Church of England, on showing its hold on the English religions life by a history of one hundred years and a magni- tude of two hundred congregations, and also its adequate provision for education and character in its ministers. And it is to the bodies fulfilling these conditions that a proportionate participation is ex- tended in the benefits of the Church endowment prior to 1662; and left applicable to any religious purpose approved by the recipients. In subdivided sects seeking this admission, the minor varieties, already tired of their isolation, would undergo a rapid and welcome fusion, and by incorporation in a nobler organism be saved from disintegration. The tendency to gravitate towards each other is more manifest every day in the different components of both the Wesleyan and the Presbyterian communities. The confederated group of com- munions thin constituted would take the name no longer monopolised by the Episcopalian body, and be the ' Church of England' in its enlarged sense. They would have their collective representation in a 'National Church Assembly,' for the combined guardianship of Christian principles and prosecution of common enterprises of righteous zeal and piety."
We may discuss this scheme more at large hereafter, and need only say here that we believe it to be undesirable as well as im- practicable. We see no use in a comprehension so wide that vital differences are treated as unimportant, and cannot believe in a Church which has not at least an ideal of belief and government.
We should raise precisely the same objection to Canon Fre- mantle's views, in the Fortnightly, on the course to be taken by the "New Reformation." He wishes to widen Churches till they have no visible boundaries. We cannot understand, for instance, how the thought which runs through the following paragraph is to be reconciled with the organisation of any Christian Church whatever :—
" They fthe new theologians] will not spend time in questions which admit of no solution, such as the eternity of matter or the origin of the world, or the possibilities of other spheres of life than those known to us by experience. They will trace the divine as working through nature and man ; or, if they endeavour to think of a transcendental God, they will take care not to represent him as a demiurge standing outside his work and putting in his hand here and there, a conception which has turned so many physicists into atheists. But they will feel able to speak of God as just and loving, since the Supreme Power ex hypothesi includes mankind, the leading portion of the world, with all its noblest ideals. They need not quarrel with those who think of the Supreme Power rather after the analogy of force or law than according to the strict idea of personality, provided that the moral nature of man be held fast and its supremacy acknow- ledged."
We hope we do the Canon no injustice ; but if that does not mean that a theologian may doubt the existence of a future state, and resolve God into a vague All, including man himself, and yet remain a Christian theologian, what does it mean ? We cannot see the advantage of no misusing words, or of calling a Society in which such questions may be left open a Christian Church. What is Christianity, if God be not a person, and if immortality is a doubtful speculation P The following is even more definite. After admitting the special importance of the miracle of the Resurrection, the Canon proceeds :—
" But the theologian who starts from the Epistles of St. Paul as the solid central ground of New Testament literature, will go upon the Apostle's teaching that not flesh and blood, but the spiritual per- eonality—clothed in the new hones which is from heaven—inherits the kingdom of God, and will take the vision by which the Apostle was converted as the type of all the manifestations by which the companions of Christ were assured that he was not lost but gone before. He will, with St. Pant take the assurance that Christ was alive after his passion as the fulfilment of the general hope of immor- tality which Israel bad long entertained. This hope of immortality was grounded on the connection of man with God, and especially with his moral nature ; and consequently, after the confirmation it received by the assurance of Christ's resurrection, it became a kind of passionate certitude. The history of the Church, however, shows how each a passion may become a great danger and seam of corruption ; and we may expect that the theologians of the future will substitute the words thrown out at a great subject' for the certitude and definitions of the past. Immortality will be to them a great background of hope beyond the scene of present duty."
That is to say, the scenes after the Resurrection were visions, and immortality is only the larger hope, which we are to faintly trust or not trust. The great paper in the Fort- nightly on Russia we have noticed elsewhere, and per- haps the next beet is the account of Alaska as a hunting- field. Mr. H. Seton Karr lived there for six months, and he narrates his experiences in a lively way. The country is certainly attractive enough to sportsmen who do not mind cold, wet, and hard work. There are eariboo, bears, reindeer, deer, sea-otters, salmon, ptarmigan, ducks, and, in fact, everything that can delight the soul of men bent on killing ; while the scenery is of the loneliest, wildest, and most awe-inspiring. Mr. Seton Karr threatens the world with a book which will be, at all events, full of novelties. "A Conservative " does not add ranch, if anything, to our knowledge of affairs in Burmah ; nor does General Digby Willoughby dissipate any formed ideas about Madagascar. He repeats, however, that the French protectorate over that island will never be acknowledged, and rates the French position there very low. The French garrison, he says, are practically prisoners, and the Malagasy have gained both moral courage and weapons of precision from the events of the war.
If the story is original—which we have no right to doubt — Murray's Magazine has found in a new writer, who signs herself "Andr6e Hope," one who may prove a second Hugh Conway. The present story, "A Terrible Night," is a trifle too ghastly and painful, but there is a strong imagination at work.
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