ress. man can be more searching than his words to the Dr. Jelfs, who could only measure in an early letter, that "it sapped the two him by the foot-rule of their definitions. divine roots of the family and the nation.” Maurice was no logician, and his defect is Yet it was in no party spirit he opposed seen at times in a certain mysticism of it. He did not join with any who raised style; but he is the most quickening of the fierce cry of Romanism, nor did he de- thinkers in his own field. It was not only ny the partial good it might have done by his intellectual mastery, but the grand moral infusing new life into the body. But he elements of the man, his love of truth, his saw that it was a movement backward' and large heart, his unselfish labor, which won not forward. He loved the church of Eng. the reverence of Kingsley. I find no inland, because in his view its creed was that stance of manlier friendship. Maurice is to of the simplest positive faith, and its na- him always his “ dear master;" he clings tional position linked it at once with the his- to him in his own inental struggles, amidst toric life of the past, yet with a sound prog- church persecution, and all his self-denying It was therefore he was drawn alike toil for working men. But it was especially as a scholar and a man of action toward the early volume on “ The Kingdom of those who are called by the name of Broad Christ,” that shaped the ideas of Kingsley. Churchmen. Nothing in his day and noth- Few know to-day what power this book, ing now shows so truly the incapacity of ma- which Hare called the noblest since Hooker, ny in England to understand the growth of had forty years ago over young Christian their own church, as the use of such a word to scholars. It was the aim of the author to denote a party. High and Evangelical and find in all the discordant systems of ChrisAnglo-Catholic are dogmatic parties. But tendom the partial truth which witnesses the very character of Broad Churchinan- to the divine fellowship, and should lead ship lay in this, that it represented a stage us at last to no dream of a Nicene age, but to in English thought when the old issues the recognition of the Kingdom of God were decayed, and more living formation as an unbroken reality to-day. That faith was needed. It was no school. It made gave a new meaning to the whole life no new creed or organization. Its guiding of the young curate of Eversley. There minds were of various types. They were dawned on him the idea of his own work, men sincerely attached to the faith and to make this kingdom of Christ a social worship of the church, but they sought, in- fact, then and there in the England of stead of party traditions a sounder learning the nineteenth century, with all its dogin theology and history to meet the wants matic parties, its feuds of class, its sleek of their time. Coleridge, the foremost of Phariseeism, and its hard Gospel preached English thinkers in that direction, had to the poor in the cotton mill or the colliery. brought forward the spiritual truth of Reve- The national church was no political eslation against the shallow naturalism of tablishment, and no sect among sects. It his age. Thirlwall and Hampden had ap- was the English household of Christ whose plied a philosophic criticism to doctrinal roots were entwined with all the growths of history. Arnold, with his more practical social life; and its clergy were to be the training, was educating the Tom Browns of representatives of the nation, champions of Rugby. But the mind which had most in- the people, without respect of persons in uence on the thought of our young scholar state or church, without any fear save the was that of Frederick Maurice. We do not fear of God. yet appreciate the personality of this one And thus began his public life as author man in shaping the Christian growth of his and worker in the van of earnest Englishgeneration. His earnest faith in the creed men. It was a tireless activity of brain of the church, his study of the principles and pen, from 1848 to his riper age. His of revealed truth in their bearing on his- parish at Eversley was never neglected tory, yet his dislike of all systems that nar. amidst other cares; and one of the noblest rowed its spiritual life, made him a riddle proofs of his fidelity is given in his Vil a lage Sermons. It is a wholesome fact to and State. There was in Charles Kingsley recall what an impression was made all over no jot of the social theory so common across England, by this little book full of the fresh- the channel from St. Simon to Leroux, est Christian thought, plain to the unlettered which would overturn the laws of labor and yet inspiring to the scholar; and what power reconstruct the world by social affinities into it had to create in the English Church a new phalanstery, with a French chef de much of the best preaching of its pulpit cuisine to cook every dish, from the table since. Men felt as they read these simple, d'hote to the religion. He was a thorough outspoken words, which had been heard by believer in a constitutional monarchy. He the village folk of Eversley, that there was defended the right of property, and would somewhat in such a gospel of real righteous- deal with social wrongs only by social law. ness, nearer to them than the fine rhetoric He had the sympathy of an English gentleof a Melville, or the polemic of many church man with the most refined culture, and the divines. But with this he entered heart reverence of a Christian for the worship of and soul into more public work. Ile was the Church. His socialism was that of an eager to aid Maurice in his College for earnest mind and a stout heart against the working men; and some of his robust essays abuses of his tiine. We need not claim for saw the light in the “ Politics for the Peo- him the wisdom of a statesman, or a thorough ple," and the “ Christian Socialist.” “ Par- drill in the details of political economy. But son Lot,” as he was called among his genial it is to his immortal honor that he was the friends, was no theorist, but conld handle true friend of the people in that critical abuses of trade in real life, in stinging pa- time, when the Chartist movement threatpers like “Cheap Clothes and Nasty," which ened a war of classes; and the influence of reached the English conscience. “Yeast,” such men saved London, more than its appeared in Fraser in 1818, and two years horse-guards. We find him now in the city later the work which gave him his first calming the mob, and then in some smoky laurels, “ Alton Locke.” At this day, it is manufacturing town lecturing to the crowd hard to understand the praise or the rebuke on the Christian law of capital and labor. it called forth. There was undoubted talent There is no better instance of the struggles in the book, and it was one of the earliest through which he was forced to pass, than in that portraiture of the English working the story of his sermon in a London church man, so happily followed since; but it was a at the time of the Exhibition, when he youthful beginning. Carlyle gave the best preached to the workingmen on the true libcritique, in his frank letter. “ To make the erty of Christian law and the falsehood of malt sweet, the fire should and must be mob rule, yet was publicly insulted at the slow; and I include all duties under that close by the clergyman. It was in such la Saunders Mackaye is nearly perfect. bors, amidst many cold hearts, sometimes Of the grand social and moral questions we with broken health, yet with unshrinking will say nothing at present; any time within earnestness, that his years flew on. the next two centuries, it is likely, there will in that happy class of parsons barred out be enough to say about them.” from all mitres or orthodox honors; but it But it is not so much “ Alton Locke" did not vex him in his brave work, or in which asks our review, as the Philistinism his study at Eversley. Already he had bethat raised so wild a hue and cry against its gun to be understood hy the England of the author. It was well-nigh a death-blow to newer time, and his parsonage was filled his clerical reputation. He was called a with the growing troop of friends-Arthur pestilent radical and an infidel socialist. Helps, Froude, Ludlow, Hare, Bunsen and We can only recall these things to-day with others of the best brain and heart in the a bewildered smile, yet it is well to keep land. them in memory, that we may know some- We e may spend a few words here on the what of the conservatism which still loves books which followed “ Alton Locke” in to talk of those good old times of Church ripe succession, and set him among the fore one. He was a 9 most in literary fame. He had remembered the “ Fishers," or the “ Sands of Dee.” And Carlyle's counsel. The fire was slower and what shall we say of the childrens' books, in the malt sweeter ; yet there are few who this day when so many scribblers by the milhave reached such finish in the midst of a lion have never learned the secret, that he who busy professional life. “ Westward Ho,” will write must first “be converted and “ Amyas Leigh,” “Hypatia," “ Two Years become as a little child?” We read the Ago,” were written before the age of 38. ** Greek Heroes” as a young Argive might As a work of art, and still more as an out- have listened to Homer, and the “ Water growth of his Christian thought, “ Hypa- Babies" is the fairiest wonder-tale of our tia" must remain bis best creation. Noth- time. ing can be richer than this picture of an age But we must return from the writings to buried to almost all in the crypt of church Almost thirty years of busy life folios, but touched by his hand with such had passed over Charles Kingsley, since he coloring as to make anchorite and pagan entered on his ministry, to the time when real inen of our day. But it reveals, far he began to gather in the ripe fruits. He more, that religious aim which I have said had won fame as an author, at the cost of was the secret of all his writing. For it church honors. He was now to find that spoke the living truth of church history, bis earnest work had the repayment he had and unmasked better than a dozen graver never looked for in his life-time. I know, books, that romance of the Nicene age writ- indeed, no nobler encouragement to the ten by the novelists of Oxford. Every reader laborer in any cause of truth or human could know the saintly graces of Cyril and right, than we find in the growth within his mob of monks who defended the faith even one generation of the ideas to which by murder; yet the portrait of the wise and he had pledged his manhood. The social good Augustin drawn with the most rev- reform, that seemed at the time of the Charerent feeling. It was not strange that the tist movement the coming of Anti-Christ, book should be called “immoral” by the di- had been won step by step in Parliament. vines who had inherited the ethics as well as Cobden and Bright had led the nation into the orthodoxy of Cyril; and years after, when the path whence it will never turn back. the degree of Doctor of Laws was proposed It was already seen by stolid Tory and for Kingsley, the charge was renewed by the timid Whig that the policy of the past had magnanimous leader of the Oxford school been well-nigh their own ruin; and if they with such holy zeal as to defeat him. But feared the growth of liberal opinions, they the book remains, in Bunsen's words, “a were forced to yield respect. Nor was the great and lasting work" of genius. We change less striking in the tone of Univerwill not linger on the rest. All his novels sity and Church. There had risen by dehave the like wealth of fancy and keen por- grees, out of the party strifes, a race of no traiture of character. As a poet, he had not bler scholars than in any time since. Hales the constructive form of a great master, yet and Chillingworth; wise and earnest churchhis marvelous skill in the mother tongue, men, but of no old party type and no Oxford and his deep sympathy with all life in nature hobbies, who represented a critical learnor the heart of man, make the few poems he ing, a sound study of history, and a generhas left dear to us, as we love a bit of Land- ous sympathy with the culture of the time. seer more than acres of canvas. The “ An- Lightfoot, Stanley, Westcott, Davies, and a dromeda” is the best example of the classic host beside, are the signs of the larger life, hexameter in English. Longfellow's “Evan- that will outlast the morbid humors of geline” has more of dramatic beauty, but it these forty years. The conscience of the must yield to the Greek fire of Kingsley, Church had been awakened, too, to its social poured into the purest Saxon speech. His duty; and it had begun to feel what Kings“Santa Maura” is nobler in the same vein ley had so often urged, that if it would than Tennyson's “ Simeon Stylites.” There keep its national claim, it must do national is no ballad of Uhland more exquisite than work. It was these changes, which at last the man. 6 » con a brought him the honor he deserved. We He had the same magnetism over the stuneed not dream, indeed, that ecclesiastical dents at his lectures as in the pulpit, by his narrowness was gone; but it had not the insight into historic principles and his moral strength of former days that had pushed honesty. We find him busy with all the Maurice from his chair. In 1854, the author stirring questions of the time, lecturing at of “ Hypatia,” when an invalid passing his social science meetings, urging larger plans summer at Torquay, writes in an amusing of university education, and entering with letter that he is shunned by all the clergy eager thought into the new problems of of the neighborhood, and finds good com- natural science. He is always the same pany among the sea urchins; but five years Christian believer, while the fearless advolater he was one of Her Majesty's chaplains cate of intellectual and social progress. It in ordinary, and the year after was chosen is at this point we may recall the famous Professor of History at Cambridge. Such passage at arms with Newman, which called honors, indeed, are of small worth, save as out the Apologia.” A sentence in an they show the change of tone; for they article printed in Macmillan's Magazine, came when he had won success by his own in which he said that “ truth, for its own strength, and after many lesser men had sake, had never been a motive with the long been bishops of fat sees. Nothing is Roman clergy,” and that “ Father Newmore pleasant than to read the letter of the man informs us that it need not, and on worthy Dean of Chester, even nine years the whole, ought not to be," was later, when Kingsley was made Canon of strued into a personal attack on the moChester, in which he speaks of his fears at rality of that erratic divine. None could the first encounter with this suspicious rad. be farther than Kingsley from the thought ical, and the sweet comfort of finding him of a personal insinuation; it was solely after all so sound a churchman. It is the against the untruth of the system of which best feature of the man that he bore his Newman has been a leader, that this just honors very meekly; and while he was glad charge was made. There is an intellectual of this new field of work, he loved the three immorality which may be joined with entire fir trees at Eversley, a fishing trip with honesty of heart. Leigh Hunt tells us in one Hughes, or an earnest talk with Maurice, of his bright essays, of a friend who “had the beyond all gifts the University or Church privilege of exaggeration, without losing his could bestow. abstract love of truth." It is a vice that We are specially indebted to this biog- belongs, alas! to many Protestant as well as raphy for the light it has thrown on the Roman champions, and deserves the same studies and the ripe convictions of his last rebuke. Yet if I should choose in our own years. His parish life at Eversley remained time the two master works which show the as dear to his heart as ever ; but his public most perilous sophistry in reasoning, the dogwork was changed with his entrance on his matic end that sanctifies any logical means, new duties as Professor of History. I need I should name the “ Essay on Development” not speak at length of his results in this and the “Grammar of Assent.” I admire special path. We can not claim for him the intellectual feats of Newman as I do that critical power to be found in scholars those of an athlete, but I prefer the ethics like Arnold or Freeman ; and the habit of of Charles Kingsley. mind so long trained in other literary work But I must turn to other points more dihardly fitted him for history. “The Ro- rectly touching his position in his own man and Teuton" has indeed the mark church. There are not a few, as I said at of a fresh genius which might have been the opening of this essay, who look on Mr. very fruitful, had he followed out that germ Kingsley as one of the early liberal leaders of study into the early growths of European who at last became a stolid conservative. civilization. But the influence of men of his But we can now understand from his biogtype is not so much in learned octavos as in raphy the true and healthy growth of his the spirit they breathe into science or letters. character. There had come to him, as to all such earnest minds, a time of more positive negative critics, not by noisy persecution convictions, after the energies of youth had but by a better learning; and we may been sobered; and this change in himself thank God it has begun to learn the lesson. was yet more strengthened by the change But we cannot dwell longer on the inciwhich had passed over Church and State. dents of these last years. It might have His faith in the real progress of England was been thought that with his strength of body now assured. His faith in the capacity of and unfaded youth of mind, there lay bethe Church to throw off at last its backward fore him a long career of noble toil. Yet tendencies, his love of its positive yet broad it is plain, from his biography, that he creed, its historic symmetry, had taken himself foreknew the breaking up of his deeper root. He had dropped the impa- powers. The death of Maurice in 1872, and tience of the years when life was a half- that of Norman McLeod, called out the confought battle, and without the cynicism of fession," he is an instance of a man who the Diogenes of Chelsea, was better able to has worn his brain away, and he is gone as understand his quaint saying, that, “ of the I am surely going.” A few weeks by the grand social and moral questions, it is like sea-shore or among the hills had hitherto there will be enough said within the two recruited his strength, but the overtasked next centuries.” This riper character is body had lost much of its old energy. More found in all his writing and his doing. We and more his failing health alarmed his see in his letter to John Stuart Mill on the friends, and at last, in 1874, after he had res vexatissima of woman's rights, his hearty just entered on his new duties as Canon of sympathy with every effort for education, Westminster Abbey, he resolved, by the adyet his unflinching maintenance of the vice of his physician, to fulfill his old wish Christian law of the household. His knowl- of a visit to America. To him it seemed edge of natural science only deepens his be- the revival of his youth, although to us he lief " that science and the creeds will shake had the look of premature age. His letters hands at last,” and he hopes that he may are brimming with adventures, from the help on the reconciliation, although he may Rocky Mountains to the smaller wonders of . “ suffer the fate of those who see both sides.” Washington and a New York dinner. The In the same spirit he wrote in 1864, when hearty welcome which he won and the rethe famous “ Essays and Reviews" had membrances he left behind him, cannot be roused so fierce a storm. There was not, as better told than in the letter of Whittier to a sane Churchman might think, enough in Mrs. Kingsley : “My copy of his “Hypatia' a small book of disjointed criticisms to is worn by frequent perusal, and the echoes of frighten the scholarship of the nation. In- his rare and beautiful lyrics never die out of deed it has proved after the long softening my memory; but since I have seen him, the of the muscles from the Oxford divinity, man seems greater than the author.” But like the Russian cold-plunge after the steam, we had hardly bidden him a happy sail a healthy shock, which will end in a more homeward, when the news came of his sudthorough Christian criticism. But pulpit den and fatal illness. He died in January and pamphlet and convocation sounded the of 1875, at the age of 55. We will not linalarm, as if Christianity were in peril. It ger on the story told with such tenderness was to his honor that Charles Kingsley re- by his wife in this memorial. It was fitting fused to sign the circular against the essays, that he should be laid at rest in Eversley by but in his letter to the Bishop of Winchester the three fir trees, and all the honors so well he gave his sound opinion. He deplored the paid him by all England, are less than the book as one which “only raised afresh the love of the village folk, old and young, who doubts that have passed through the mind gathered in the plain churchyard. The of every thinking man in the last 25 years, quaint epitaph, “Amavimus, amamus, amabyet gave no help to a practical solution.” imus," tells the whole life. This he believed the great need of the Happy the England, which has had such Church, to defend its truth against such a son in her old age! We love the scholar, |