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so inconceivable and unexpected. Why | to do anything to serve you. I had already has he come? Janet thinks where shall she proposed the exchange to your uncle when escape, and then all her strength goes; she I got your note. Dear Janet, don't look so stands quite still like a maiden of stone or overwhelmed," Hollis continued, touched a pillar of salt; it is no use trying to speak by the sudden rush of light and happiness as usual or to look unconscious, she can and sweetness in her face; "only give me only stand still. a right to serve you always, and then you can ask me what you will."

"I came back to speak to you," said Hollis, in his usual voice, trying to reassure her. "I met the carrier just now, and he gave me your letter. I hope you don't regret having written it," he said, hurriedly. "You don't know what pleasure it gives me

When Caroline came to the window again she saw the two walking, slowly, arm-inarm towards the house, and then she knew what Janet's answer had been.

nant race, to subjugate and absorb inferior ones.
Gradually, but surely, the Arabic has gained
the ascendency over Coptic and Syriac, and is
now the universal language of the people all
through Egypt, Syria, and North-west Africa.
The thorough understanding of all the niceties and
refinements of this language and its difficult and
complicated grammar is the principal object of
these Arabic teachers. It fills the place in their
colleges that the Latin and Greek do in ours;
but the ultimate aim and end of all this labour
is the study of the Koran and its numerous com-
mentaries, which hold the same place with the
Moslems as the Talmud does with the modern
Jews. It is easy for those who behold Islamism
at a distance to speak of it with modified admi-
ration as a system of pure Theism, and its wor-
ship as something which may be, at least to a
certain degree, elevating and purifying in
its character. A nearer view of Islamism would
at once dispel this illusion.
It is a system prac-
tically deadening to the conscience and moral
sense. Those who have, to a certain degree
freed themselves from the trammels of its de-
grading superstitions, are often men of little or
no religious belief; while the mass of worship-
pers have no idea of religion as affecting the
heart or life. With them it consists in a round
of puerile ceremonies; and prayer is nothing
but a formal and mechanical repetition of a string
of epithets applied to the Creator, accompanied
by bodily prostrations and genuflexions.

MOSLEM AND COPTIC ANTIQUITIES IN CAIRO. | languages, analogous to the power of a domiAt last we reached the mosque of Azan, which is also the great Mohammedan college, not only of Cairo, but of the Moslem world, being reckoned the centre of Islam learning and bigotry. Alas for the mistake of those who say Islamism is dying out! Again laying aside our shoes, we passed across a vast square marble quadrangle with massive pillars of the same. On the floor were laid strips of matting, on which numerous groups of white-turbaned men and lads were seated cross-legged on the ground, in little knots of threes and fours, some with books or sheets of manuscript in their hands, some with tin or zinc plates (the substitute for slates), on which they write with pen and ink. All seemed busied in studying or conning tasks. There appeared to be no regular teacher; they seemed to be helping each other mutually, some talking together, or showing their works to each other, some writing on leaves of paper, or sheets of tin, on their hands (desks seem unknown here); and in most groups one reading aloud, and rocking himself to and fro as he read -the universal practice with Orientals. Through this outer court we passed into the mosque itself, which was the largest we had yet seen. The whole spacious area was entirely filled up with groups of learners like those we had seen outside; a side room or vestibule was occupied in the same manner. Wherever there was space for them, groups were seated, all intent on their studies; and a hum of busy voices resounding through the building. To the Christian eye it was a very painful sight. Here we saw assembled a multitude of zealous and attentive students, devoting all their powers and their time, with an earnestness and perseverance which might be an example to many well-instructed European A POLYGLOT dictionary in eleven languages is youths to what? to the thorough understand-in course of publication by Signor Calligaris, ing of a false and corrupt religion. These Mo- at Turin. It comprises French, Latin, Italian, hammedan scholars are often exceedingly learned Spanish, Portuguese, German, English, modern in their own way. They devote much time and Greek, written Arabic, spoken Arabic (in Roattention to the cultivation of their own language, man letters), and Turkish, with the pronunciathis remarkable Arabic tongue, which possesses tion. a power of superseding and driving out other |

Golden Hours.

From Blackwood's Magazine. COUNT CHARLES DE MONTALEMBERT.

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genial kindness. But it is early yet for such softened thoughts; now and then a sob must come in, a pang of farewell, and that intolerable sense that nothing more can be said to him, nothing more heard from him, which is the soul of grief. Was it only the other day that he wrote, let me hear often from you?" and careless life went on, and a world of petty affairs prevented the response. What matter? one would do it to-morrow or to-morrow; and now in all heaven and earth there is no way of doing it, no means of answer. There is no sadder consciousness in life.

THERE is something very sad in the dying out of a generation of the leaders and rulers of the world. Nothing marks so clearly the passage of time, the succession of one age to another, as this dropping, one by one, of the familiar names which have been sounds of authority and pre-eminence for half or quarter of a century. New necessities, new difficulties, new combinations of circumstances, have stolen upon us unawares, and we are conscious, practically, that new men have come in to guide the fortunes of nations; but nowhere are the It was in the winter of '65-'66 that Monepochs of contemporary history so clearly talembert's last illness, from its beginning marked out as by graves. One cycle has a very painful one, first attacked him. He ended, another has begun. The old men was so ill in the spring of '66 as to be comwho linger like leaves upon the topmost pelled to give up for a time the work on branches, but emphasize the universal pass- the completion of which he had so much set ing away of all with whom they have been his heart, his great and favourite work, associated. The old order changeth, giv-Les Moines d'Occident." Early in '67 ing place to new. he described himself as in a very sad and In such a case as that of Count de Mon- precarious state;" and before the summer talembert the ending has been softened by of that year his physicians had dreaded that a long preliminary chapter of retirement his malady, if cured at all, must yet be a from the world softened to his friends, very lingering one. His strength was then not to himself. And yet to how many of so far reduced that he had to be carried to his friends will the closing up of that cham- his carriage on the days he was permitted ber in the Rue du Bac, which was the abode an airing; but still every day about five of so much pain, yet of so much vivacious o'clock in the afternoon, his room was full interest in the world, and animated discus- of guests, friends of his life, who called the sion of all its affairs, be like the extinction worn statesman and author by his Christian of a friendly light in the midst of the dark-name, and could enter with him into full ness. For a great part of these years, the discussions of all his life-long pursuits and little simple bedroom which the author of convictions; and, on the other hand, strangthe "Figaro" described the other day to ers from all quarters, whom his illness and his readers, with a particularity more Amer- suffering did not prevent him from receivican than French, has been an audience- ing with all the courtly kindness and genial chamber to which crowds have flocked. grace of his nature. Your countrymen Like a dream, the writer recalls, as he do not come to see me as much as I could writes, the half-mournful half-smiling con- wish," he wrote not three months before his versation of two or three gentlemen, all of death, notwithstanding the numbers who European name, who were waiting in the sought him continually. His interest was large drawing-room, which formed a kind as fresh in everything that everybody was of antechamber to Montalembert's recep- doing, while he lay there on his weary tion, one afternoon now nearly three years couch, with the close-capped sister in conago. The room was darkened because of stant attendance upon him, as if he had still the summer glare outside, and the animated been in the full current of life. It was a voices came as from ghosts half seen. They relief and help to this rapid, ever-active inwere talking of Cousin, then not long dead; telligence, thus suddenly confined within discussing those peculiarities which are de- four walls, and shut out from personal exfects in a man as long as he lives, but after ertion, to participate, at least by way of his death become, as being habits of his, sympathy, in the work and thought of others. more dear to his friends than the highest His ear was open to everything that was qualities of his character. Are they talking suggested to him; his mind as ready and now more sadly, yet with the smile of rec- vivacious as that of any youth-nay, far ollection already beginning to break up the more so: for youth is too much occupied heaviness of grief, of Montalembert? No with its own affairs to give such full unhesit doubt reminding each other of his out- ating attention to those of others. Whatbreaks of characteristic impatience and en- ever might be the special interest of his visergy, of his sharp sayings, his keen wit, his litor, Montalembert had always some light

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world to accept a specious theory or visionary tale. To add after this, as we are inclined to do- and yet he was a fervent Roman Catholic, accepting a hundred things as absolutely true which to us seem mere fables of a fond and excited fancy — would have been to himself but another instance of " unconquerable British prejudice in respect to anything Roman; " yet it is difficult to restrain the expression of this wonder, be it prejudice or be it justice. The attitude in which at this moment he appears to us as a protestant against the last great attempt at self-assertion on the part of the Papacy, has a certain composing effect upon the general aspect of his religious character; and we have to recall to ourselves that it is the young Christian knight who in the pride of his youth gave up at a word from the Church one of the most cherished of his prospects that it is the biographer of St. Elizabeth, the historian of the monks, of whom we are speaking. Not a miracle in all those saintly lives, not a prodigy recorded in the ages of faith, disturbed his power of belief. He accepted them with the full and frank confidence of the simplest believer. He, with his keen wit and quick perceptions, his learning and sagacity, an accomplished writer and brilliant man of the world, tingling to his finger-points with the new sap and modern vigour of his century, yet received everything which the hoary past brought to him in the name of religion with the tender faith of a child. Such a phenomenon is to be seen now and then in the world, and when it appears it is always full of attraction, full of interest one of the finest yet strangest combinations of human character. And such was Charles de Montalembert.

to throw upon it, some stray glances out of the wonderful treasures of his own knowledge or experience, or at the best, a courteous interest, an unfeigned sympathy. The first feature in him which struck the stranger was this gracious gift of courtesy. His manners were just touched with the elaboration of the old régime, as became the son of an émigré, the inheritor of centuries of courtly French breeding. But we do not think that this impression of extreme personal benignity and politeness was, after the first encounter, the aspect of Count de Montalembert's character which made most lasting impression upon the mind of a recent acquaintance. It was rather the keenness of perception, the rapid vision, the sharp wit, never failing in absolute grace of expression, but leaving the less ready insular intelligence, with a puzzled sense of discomfiture, miles behind. He took the slow Englishman up, who was saying something probably sensible enough, and cast a gleaming coil of wit round him, and extinguished his half-said perplexed reasonings on the spot an operation which caused a certain sensation of fright, by no means without foundation, to the bystanders. This, however, was in his days of health and unbounded activity, while yet the inherent impatience of a lively and impetuous nature survived in certain glimmers and sparkles of sarcastic vivacity, such as even perfect politeness could not quite annihilate. The enthusiasm of his character, and its intense love of beauty and appreciation of everything noble and generous, did not, we think, show so plainly in his conversation as this intellectual brilliancy and speed. Keen as daylight, sharp upon any pretence as the steel of Ithuriel's spear-instantly conscious of the presence of polite simula- It is not yet time to enter upon any full tion, and pitiless to it - it was rather the account of his life or estimate of his influclearness of his judgment than his poetic ence. The existence which has just ended character which struck the observer. His must be a little further off before it can was the kind of mind one could have sup- "orb into the perfect star" of completed posed quick to sift every belief, less moved being. He had lived about sixty years in by imagination than by reason, more famil- the world, when he was suddenly called out iar with the processes of thought than the of it. For thirty of these years his life was visions of faith. The reader who knows full of activity, and spent very much in the him only by his works will be startled by eye of the public. During this time many such a view of his character. But nobody changes had taken place in France, and who knew Count de Montalembert will be none greater than those religious changes disposed to deny a fact which adds tenfold into which he threw himself heart and soul. to his weight and influence as a believer, and In the spring of '67, the writer, then in which makes it so much the more difficult to Paris, attended by his advice several conunderstand many features in his creed and ferences of the Retraite des Hommes, ir many portions of his work. There could not Notre Dame, during the holy week-a be found any more clear-sighted observer, most impressive and wonderful sight, such or shrewd and able man of the world. In as it would be difficult to find any parallel things temporal and intellectual he took to in this country, with all its boasted nothing for granted, and was the last in the gravity. Somewhere about four thousand

men, a dark mass, but faintly lighted by great | joined himself to Lamennais and Lacordaire flambeaux of gas placed here and there, in the management of their paper called were closely packed in the great central isle "L'Avenir." A year later the Christian of the Cathedral, listening with rapt atten- Liberals found themselves aux prises with tion to the preaching of Père Félix, who, Rome, as they bad already got into contact though a very popular preacher, is no with civil law at home. The spiritual auorator by right divine, nor capable by his thority was more difficult to struggle with own attraction only of calling so great a than the temporal; and it was only after a multitude together. The chanting by this long process of deliberation and anxious mass of men, in plain song, of the Stabat thought that the two friends, Lacordaire Mater on Holy Thursday, and of the and Montalembert, made up their minds shorter hymns of the Church at the conclu- what was their highest duty. The story is sion of the other services — the great thun- told by Montalembert himself in his life of der of so many male voices in unison -was his friend. There he describes Lacordaire such a strain as we never remember to have as wandering and musing about the memoryheard before, and which no one could listen haunted ruins of Rome, pondering many to without emotion. M. de Montalembert's things which are not written there to the face brightened when he heard the impres- common eye. He understood, from all he sion made by this wonderful scene upon the saw around him, "not only the inviolate mind of the writer. When he began his ca- majesty of the supreme Pontificate, but its reer, he said with a certain gleam of high difficulties, its long and patient plans, its satisfaction in his eye, it had been consid- adoption of necessary expedients (ménageered a wonder in France to see a young ments indispensables) for the government of man enter a church, or to hear him avow men and things below." "The weakness any charity towards Christianity. These and infirmities inseparable from the mixture were the days when Charles de Montalem- of human things with divine did not escape bert, a youth half English, or rather half Scotch, and whole enthusiast, speaking French with a taint of insular accent, and with ideas not yet wholly Continental, made acquaintance with the young Henri Lacordaire. They had met, and joined themselves together, and set their young wits to work on the grandest patriotic problem how to lead France back to Christian faith and a religious life, cherishing all her liberties, all her privileges, the residue of good left behind by the devastating torrent of the Revolution, at the same time. What they had succeeded in doing, in one point at least, we had learned in the crowded nave of Notre Dame during those rainy chilly April evenings, and on the bright winter morn at the early communion. It was a sign of accomplished work which might well have cheered any reformer. This was one of the great objects of Montalembert's life -one which does not show largely in ordinary history: he had helped to make religion possible, helped to make it real, in his country; and if ever the history of the revival of religion in France during the last forty years should be written and there could be no more interesting chapter of modern history-the name of Count de Montalembert would take its natural place there, side by side with that of his friend. He poured the whole force of his young life into this highest scheme; he threw himself into plans of public instruction in every way in which it was practicable to him. His first step in public life was taken when he

him." In short, the devout and enthusiastic yet reasonable mind of the young French priest, recognized that perfect modes of working were not to be found in human society: that the support of the Papacy, the greatest of spiritual institutions, was far more likely to advantage a great religious work, than any wild fight for independence which he could adopt. He recognized what many men in all churches have always recognized, that something must be swallowed, something endured, in turn for the great spiritual support of a universal church behind you, with all its popular traditions, and fundamental hold, however obscured now and then for a moment, upon ancient Christendom. We may accept this description written by Montalembert of his friend, as his own creed. He, too, bowed his head to the Pope's bull, when it came, forbidding the immediate work in which they were engaged. They yielded to it, both knowing that they had more important matters in hand, which forbade the possibility of schism or sectarian opposition, and thus their lives were decided in obedience to Rome; while Laennais, in some respects a greater figure than either, mistook or declined the lesson, and giving up Rome, gave up at the same time, as happens so often, along with his faith in the Pope, his faith in Christianity.

In Germany, where the young Montalembert wandered after his unsuccessful mission to Rome, and where he again encountered Lacordaire, the materials for his beautiful Life of St. Elizabeth, one of the finest idylls

of Christian literature, were collected. It of democratic sentiment. It was not only was published in the year 1836, his first rank, or wealth, or temporal advantage, work of importance. On his return to which the mob resented, but, above all, France he threw himself into political life, the superiority of mind and sway of intelliand lived and laboured with all the energy gence. Epicier France was glad to be free of his nature, taking part in all the events of ces gens-là-the Guizots, the Thiers, the and all the important movements of the liberal statesmen and men of talent who time. "It was, the heroic age of our reli- had been the leaders of their generation. gious and liberal struggles," he says, in his It was a relief to the surging and heaving Life of Lacordaire; and everything that be- popular mass to throw off the sway of every longed to that enlightened and conservative one better than themselves, and to be ruled liberalism, which is the natural creed of all by men of nothing. Even his politeness eclectic politicians, moved him with more than was scarcely proof against any rash apmerely political ardour. Justice, freedom, proval of absolute power; and the sentipurity, and not party names or party objects, mental English fancy, or profession of a were with him the recognized aims of legis- fancy, for theoretic Cæsarism, irritated him lation. His code was that all men should to a high degree. "Why, for heaven's be free to do well, to say what good was in sake," he writes, in respect to a review of them, to make such efforts as they were ca- his own touching Memoir of General Lamopable of for the advancement of the world; ricière, "do you incline towards M. Carbut yet there was in him, it must be allowed, lyle's theory of autocratic government?" a certain reserve as to what constituted The mere suggestion stirred him to a sharppolitical well-doing, and inclination to set ness keen and angry; and so did the Engup an arbitrary standard of his own. It lish admiration for the Emperor, which was was good for France to be free and united, once more lively than now. This sentibut he did not see that the same necessity ment stung him as a poor man might be held for Italy. And there are other incon- stung by commendations of poverty made sistencies in his political creed. He was in by a rich and easy neighbour. "It is well favour of the expedition to Rome, though for you to applaud a rule which you would Poland and Ireland (which he always classed not have for a single day," was his indigtogether) filled him with indignant sympa- nant comment, often repeated. Not only thy. In short, he was no perfect man, but the actual evil, but the reproach upon one full of individual partialities and preju- France, the implication of her indifference dices, and laden with the defects as well as to those liberties which he prized so much the virtues of his opinions. Although he for her, wounded him to the quick. And speaks of the odious injustice and unpar- with this feeling was mingled all the condonable uselessness" of the Revolution of tempt, half expressed but always under'48, his political career lasted beyond the stood, of the old noble fils des croisés for a coup d'état. He even made an effort to parvenu court. He, too, was impatient of submit himself to what was inevitable as ces gens-là; and still more impatient, still long as his own honourable, upright, more contemptuous, was the high-born straightforward spirit could do so. The household which surrounded him. spoliation of the Orleans princes was, it is Montalembert's generous, liberal, unfacsaid, the point which brought his patience tious spirit, made it at the same time diffito an end. But he continued to sit in the cult for him to maintain full amity even Chamber until 1857, when he was defeated with the Catholic party, to which he had in his own department, and retired from done, one time and another, immeasurable active political life, though not from such service. It was not in him to adopt unsharp usage of his pen as brought him, on hesitatingly a certain party, with its drawvarious occasions, into contact with the au- backs and advantages. He could not bind thorities, and exposed him to trials and vain himself, whatever the penalties might be, sentences of imprisonment, which the Em- to the paltry and untrue. He who had peror was wise enough never to permit to made the beginning of his career extraordibe carried out. His opinion of the present nary by bowing his head, in all the youthGovernment of France was very low, and ful fire of his genius, under the yoke of the touched with an indignant bitterness. The | Papal decree who for the best part of his inevitable and fast-growing triumph of de- life was incessantly occupied in serving the mocracy was his favourite horror. With a interests of his Church, and by all the force contemptuous vehemence which no hearer of his talent and influence aiding her procould forget, he would describe the hatred gress- became such a mark for the arrows of mediocrity for anything superior to itself, of the Ultramontane party as no profane which was, in his opinion, the true essence person could have been. "There is

LIVING AGE.

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VOL. XVII. 757

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