are very liable to mix, and then the former degenerate and finally disappear, and only bald, unprincipled policies remain. And the danger is greater from the fact that a policy pays better than a principle in the run of human accounts. From this constant degeneration of principles into simple ways and means, we suppose there springs up their classification or grading, so that we have first principles, and then second, third, and so on, till they are so near nothing we do not reckon them as anything.

Their incumbrance is farther seen in the fact than we live much by patronage and on the good will of many; in securing which a fixed notion in theology, politics or morals, is often an obstinate and insuperable bar. As, therefore, it is easier to change principles than places, men are often found holding on to the latter only. Their reasoning is clear and practical, when they say: What is the use of supporting opinions that will not support you? So often a public, or popular, or thriving man will be seen to contract the area of his principles in proportion as he enlarges that of his patronage. Do we here learn why our best treatises in theology have come from rural districts, where the authors were "passing rich on forty pounds a year"? Edwards wrote his immortal work among the Indians, where the pews did not endanger his theories.

But what makes principles, perhaps, most of a burden and nuisance is the constant shifting of majorities on questions said to be based on principle. The popular tide ebbs and flows violently, as in the Bay of Fundy, and as the cattle there, so men in public, must run for life, that is living, that is office. Wo to him whose principles encumber him on the marshes, when he feels the tide coming or going. Still it is a good thing to have principles, if one knows what they are and can afford to keep them.

PAGAN OR CHRISTIAN. It is not as a rhetorical extravaganza that this sharp distinction is held by some as denoting precisely the conflict going on between the schools of naturalism and of evangelic faith. It is not a war between faith and reason, but between a Christian and Pagan reason. So it has impressed not a few attentive observers of its progress and spirit, on the conservative side, if that term pleases. We find what looks to us as an admission of the justness of this discrimination, from the other side of the controversy, in the recent review of "Coleridge's Writings," in the Westminster. Denying that in the middle ages faith had reconciled itself to philosophy, or that it is thus reconcilable, the reviewer says:

"It is not that faith has become one with reason; but a strange winter, a strange suspension of life, has passed over the classical culture, which is only the human reason in its most trenchant form. Glimpse after glimpse,

as that pagan culture awoke to life, the conflict was felt once more. The two elements had never really mixed. . . . We wonder how the two elements could have existed side by side; brought together in a single mind, but unable to fuse into it, they reveal their radical contrariety. . . . In the present day, we have on the one side Pius IX., the true descendant of the fisherman, issuing the Encyclical, pleading the old promise against the world with a special kind of justice; and on the other side, the irresistible modern culture, which, as religious men often. remind us, is only Christian accidentally."

Hardly as much as that, we beg leave to say, in such a pronouncement as the foregoing. The reviewer's opinion about the Papacy as the present legitimate representation of primitive Christianity is, of course, naught to us. To such a judgment he is most welcome, if he regards it of worth enough to harbor. Our only point is, that this organ of modern progressive thought is obviously with us in classifying the combatants of this latter day struggle as Pagan and Christian. The division is conveniently simple and intelligible, as we believe it to be essentially true.

GOOD ENGLISH. Nothing in language is simpler, purer, stronger, than our plain mother tongue. Yet what abuses it suffers from our public speakers and writers, especially of the clerical class! Some use long, involved, inverted sentences, having almost as many joints as the two hundred and eight bones of the human system. Such paragraphs, sermons and chapters, remarks and periods, ought to go under the chopping-knife of Ossian, and so be made intelligible by separation of thoughts and brevity of expression. How many cases would the lawyer gain before his jury of twelve plain men, if he should muffle up his ideas in wordy wrappers, fold within fold, as some ministers do? Here is a book for popular reading and practical effect; and the language walks and struts about the thought in a stately, or stilted or flowery way through a whole page, and the idea is finally to be obtained by inference. The style has all the bowings and salutations of an Oriental, instead of walking up like a business man and saying: "Good morning." "Beautiful" writing, word-playing, has gone back mostly to the boarding schools, where it can revel in azure and rose tints, and have the perfumed breezes of Araby fanned by the down of angel wings, and all that and all that. Some young speakers, however, not realizing how young they are, still indulge in it; and misses and novelette readers hang on their lips almost literally, charmed and enraptured with "our new minister." Slow are we in learning, slower than our years, that the great beauty and power of style lie in the abundance and closeness of the ideas conveyed. He is a master in public teaching and per

suading, whose thoughts are never impeded and concealed by his words, and whose style never draws off attention from what he is trying to say.

In these times of hurry, when so much must be said, so many wish to speak and so few to hear, one must learn to pack his thoughts, and make them obvious at the first hearing or reading, else he will not be able to impart them. And it is a wide error to suppose that our "English undefiled," with a large share of homely, colloquial Saxon element, can not convey dense and profound ideas clearly. No man ever loaded his language more heavily with thought than Webster; and yet simpler English, with more words of single syllables, and for a child's comprehension, can not be found.

Such simplicity is the height of elegance, if it be conceded that language is a medium or vehicle only, to transmit our notions. If one has nothing to say, and yet must fill the hour or page, we commend him to the long sentences, inflated style, "beautiful style," words that are musical and lengthy, and ponderous in themselves, and that come swelling up to an audience with an imposing presence and foreign air. The magnificent show and obscurity will be taken for profundity, and under the smoke of a battery where only powder is used, and no shot at all, one may for a time keep his reputation safe.

CROOKED STICKS. A man is hopefully converted, and makes a profession of religion. We think he is a Christian. He talks and prays and, in some things, lives like one; all which is new in him. We hope he is a child of grace. Yet are we in a wonder and mystery how grace can dwell with a person who makes others so uncomfortable. How coldly and sternly the man speaks to his wife, whom he is commanded to love, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself to die for it! What a cross, crabbed way he has toward his children! Everything in the house must bend to his iron will and crooked notions. The inmates look out for his step and voice and eyes, as a sailor does for rocks and breakers.

How uncomfortable a neighbor! No plan, work, or opinion as good as his. He has more conscience than a score of hard working and good natured Christian men, who are so intent on God's work that they think nothing about conscience, specially the scruples of it. [Scrupuli, small, sharp pebbles.] Yet the man evidently wants to do good. He rejoices in the cause of Christ. He seems to be going heaven-ward, though it must be confessed he has a strange way in it all. And just so some vines always grow up toward heaven, yet always with a crook and a twist.

We never knew so well what to do with such crooked men, and

There we

how to use them, till we had made a visit to a ship-yard. learned that crooked sticks were the very best ship timber for certain parts of the vessel. The gnarled and ugly knees brace against all storms and insure the cargo. Now we try to put our curved man in the church and society just where the curve will be the line of beauty and of force; and the knotty knees of old oak, that grace does not presume to strengthen, we work in where a rugged resistance and stiffness and will are needed. And since that ship-yard lesson we have discovered that the crooked sticks have often saved the ship of state and of church too.

ART AND REVERENCE. We can not refer this sentiment to its author, but it is a key to the best criticism of any art-production: "The instincts of true reverence rarely conflict with the principles of true art." It applies alike to themes derived from nature, humanity, Deity. Each of these has its sanctities which genius can not violate without degrading itself, and, in a degree, forfeiting its claim to that attribute. This is the lee shore which strands so many brilliant but ill-regulated aspirants for artistic fame. No one has executive power enough safely to neglect this law, whether marble, canvas, or language be the material of his work. This is near akin to Coleridge's doctrine of the "close connection between just taste and pure morality, because true taste springs out of the ground of the moral nature of man."

Errata. Page 61, 1. 12, for "calendars" read calculus; p. 65, 1. 33, for "classics" read claims; p. 71, 1. 39, for "appeared" read upheaved; p. 112, 1. 21, read successions of feeling; p. 29, 1. 11, for "horrors" read houris.

BOSTON REVIEW.

VOL. VI.-JULY, 1866.-No. 33.

ARTICLE I.

FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, by the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Five Series. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1857-1864. Lectures and Addresses on Literary and Social Topics, by the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., of Brighton. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859.

Life and Letters of FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-53. Edited by STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M. A., late Chaplain to the Embassy at Berlin. In two volumes. Boston: Ticknor &

Fields. 1865.

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON was born in London, 3d February, 1816, and died in Brighton 15th August, 1853. Though in the ministry thirteen years, he was actively engaged hardly more than eleven, one at Winchester, four at Cheltenham, and six at Brighton. At the former places, he wrote his sermons; at the last, he preached from brief but carefully prepared notes. In his day, he was not more widely known than many of his profession whose works will never be published, and whose biographies will never be written. Since his death, his name has become familiar to the reading public, in his own country and in this. His published sermons consist partly of abstracts and complete discourses written by himself after their delivery,