JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE: ALL FOR GREED, by the BARONESS BLAZE DE BURY. Price 38 cts. PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION AT THIS OFFICE: HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. These very interesting and valuable sketches of Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Pope, and other celebrated characters of the time of George II., several of which have already appeared in the LIVING AGE, reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, will be issued from this office, in book form, as soon as completed. A HOUSE OF CARDS. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER, by MR. TROLLOPE. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. The Complete Work, 50 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. From The Transcript. THREE SONNETS. BY THE REV. CHARLES TURNER. [In earlier years Mr. Turner was known to the public as Mr. Charles Tennyson, brother of the more famous Alfred, and one of a whole family of singers.] 'Tis good our earliest sympathies to trace! Was awed by Death's consummate kingliness. A hint of rain - a touch of lazy doubt Once on a time, when, tempted to repine, And served with light by two metallic eyes. AN ENIGMA. If it be true, as some folks say, And ye, who boast from ages dark Painted on parchment nice - As I was Adam, Adam I, In spite of wind or weather. Adam was not I, Neither was Mrs. Adam I, Unless they were together. Suppose then Eve and Adam talking, With all my heart - but were they walking? For though I've tongue and often talk, Not such an end but that I've breath, I make but small objection OLD LETTERS. Old Magazine, A Box of sweetest music is that case, Filled with the song of those who sing no more, Save in the records of this sacred store, By their dear hand marks. Ah, what cherished grace, With pale-voiced echo floats across the space Those outer leaves which keep the thoughts apart, For mostly hath a glance my memory told Of all within; so like the electric smart, Let but the hand the fading scripture hold, And all its spirit rushes on the heart. LOVE. BY R. SOUTHEY. THEY sin who tell us love can die. Its holy flame for ever burneth, It here is tried and purified, For all her sorrow, all her tears, NO. VII. - THE REFORMER. It is difficult, either from the bare facts of history or from disjointed scenes in it, to arrive at any clear idea of the general state of feeling and thought at any special period. It is only, indeed, within recent days, that modern history has troubled itself with any endeavour to realise the spiritual fashion paternal love of Chesterfield - are all as independent of any religious motive or meaning as if those princely personages had been as heathen in name as they were in reality. The wonderful wifely support and countenance which Caroline steadfastly gave, in spite of all the repugnance of nacure, to her faithless and often contemptible husband, gave at the same time an unseemly countenance to vice. Walpole served his country and the devil together, and laughed at the very idea of goodness. and wont of the age it painted. So many Chesterfield, in devotion to one of the most things happened so many battles were blessed of natural pieties, did not blush to fought-so many kings reigned, - its au- encourage his son in shameless wickedness. dience asked no more. The reigns of the Pope babbled loudly of the vice for which first Georges were occupied with a struggle his weak frame incapacitated him, and held to establish their dynasty; to set the con- his hereditary faith for honour's sake, with out the slightest appearance or pretence of any spiritual attachment to it. They had some pagan virtues amid their perpetual flutter of talk and dissipation: one was a good son, another a good father, a third a most loyal and tender wife; and yet, take them either together or apart, it is clear as stitutional government of the country on sure foundations; to settle a great many questions on the Continent, with which England had not very much to do. Such is the record; and a very bare record it is, notwithstanding the depths of individual interest that are contained underneath. But, fortunately, the public mind has now taken daylight that thought of God, or even of to a certain curiosity about how things came about; and there are few subjects which could more call for such a preliminary inquiry than the one on which we are about religion, was not in them. They were not impious except by moments; but they were godless, earthly, worldly, without sciousness of anything more in heaven or con to enter. Such a figure as John Wesley earth than was dreamed of in their philosodoes not arise in a country without urgent phy. It was one of the moments in which need, or without circumstances that account the world had fallen out of thought of God. for most of the angles in it. To consider Other ages may have been as wicked, but the apparition by itself, without considering we doubt whether any age had learned so these, is to lose half its significance, as well entirely to forget its connection with higher as to judge unjustly, in all probability, of things, or the fact that a soul which did not the chief personage of the narrative - a man not rising vaguely out of society, without any call or necessity, but tragically demanded by a world ready to perish, and born out of the very hopelessness of its need. die - an immortal being akin to other spheres - was within its clay. The good men were inoperative, the bad men were dauntless; the vast crowd between the two, which forms the bulk of humanity, felt no stimulus towards religion, and drowsed in comfortable content. It was the age when the chaplain married my lady's maid, and ate at the second table, and would even lend a hand to carry my lord to bed at night, after he had dropped under the table, and turn a deaf ear to the blasphemy with which his speech was adorned. It was the age when delicate young women, of the best blood and best manners in the land, talked with a coarseness which editors of The sketches which have preceded this, though attempting no analysis or even description of the period, must have failed altogether of their end if they have not indicated an age singularly devoid not only of religion, but of all spirituality of mind, or reference to things unseen. The noble natural qualities of Queen Caroline, and her high devotion to the view of duty, of which her mind was most capable - the patriotism (such as it was) of Walpole the amazing the nineteenth century can represent only J . by asterisks; and in which the most pol-bury in 1711. Twenty years later, the faished and dainty verse, Pope's most melo- mous Nonconformist Calamy laments the dious, correctest couplets, were interspersed "real decay of serious religion both in the with lines which would damn forever and Church and out of it." To this country and time, lying in ignorance, in that sneering and insolent profanity which is, of all others, the most hateful condition into which humanity can fall, John Wesley was born - and not a day too soon. ever any poetaster. Personal satire, poor instrument of vengeance which stings without wounding, had such sway as it has never had before in England; but that sense of public honour which prevents open outrage upon decency was not in existence. The Reformer, whose influence upon his The public liked the wicked story, and generation was so extraordinary, is not one liked the scourge that came after; and of those who concentrate the spectator's atlaughed, not in its sleeve, but loudly, at tention upon themselves, or move him to blasphemy and indecency and profanity. passionate sympathy, admiration, and love, Even the sentiment of cleanness, purity, blotting out, to some extent, the meaner and honour, was lost to the generation. Its soul was good for nothing but to point an oath. The name of God was still used in public documents as giving victories and confounding enemies and suchlike; and in private very freely, as the most round syllable to clinch the perpetual curse; but was of no more spiritual significance than the name of George or James, and not half so much external weight. Such was the age: a period of confused fighting, here for Maria Theresa, there for Charles XII., again for the fallen, ever-falling Stuarts; with no principle in the strife, and little good coming out of it to any man or kingdom, except perhaps in the end the Prussian; and, so far as England was concerned, a gradual weaning of the popular mind from any belief or hope in excellence, or power of contrasting the good with the evil. So long as the Excise-bills were held aloof, and tranquillity preserved, what did it matter whether light or darkness was uppermost? or, indeed, was not darkness the rule, and light, if not painful, at least indifferent, to the eye, not a matter to make any fuss about? One of the most hopeless unexalted ages that ever benumbed the faculties of man. "I have observed the clergy in all the places through which I have travelled," says Bishop Burnet in 1713, not a hard or earth. His progress through life is rather that of a moving light which throws gleams upon the darkling mass around it. His very cradle illuminates a quaint family picture, opening up to us one of the still, pious households which broke with their quaint religiousness and formal order the level of reckless living. His father was vicar of Epworth in Lincolnshire, a good man of Nonconformist lineage, but a zealous Churchman; his mother, the daughter of one of the ejected ministers. Mr. Samuel Wesley had been driven out of the Dissenting body by the fierce sectarianism of the community; his wife, with more remarkable individuality, "had examined the controversy between the Dissenters and the Church of England with conscientious diligence, and satisfied herself that the schismatics were in the wrong." Such a pair at the head of a large family in the little parsonage among the fens developed various quaint features of religious opinionativeness which have worn out of fashion in our day. The husband had gained his benefice by a little book about the Revolution, which he dedicated to Queen Mary. Years after, it struck the good man that at prayers his wife did not say amen to his petition for Dutch William; and he found, on inquiry, that to her the King of the Revolution was still Prince of Orange, an unnatural usur difficult judge, - "Papists, Lutherans, Cal- per. She had said nothing about her disvinists, and Dissenters; but of them all, sent from his opinions on this subject, being our clergy is much the most remiss in their impressed, as Southey says, by a deep labours in private, and the least severe in their lives." "A due regard to religious persons, places, and things has scarce in any age been more wanting," says Atter sense of "the duty and wisdom of obedience." But in this case, as in most others, it is evident that the husband did not see the beauty of that much commended but highly unpleasant duty. He went off in a pet, as husbands when " obeyed " are too apt to do, and vowed never to see or communicate with the schismatic again till she had changed her mind. This humorous incident is not, however, turned into a moral lesson by any change of mind on the part of Mrs. Susannah. The King died, which answered the purpose just as well, and the husband came back, somewhat sheepishly one cannot but think, leaving the victory in her hands. Another controversy of a less amusing character which arose between them shows that the duty of obedience, after all, was not the first in tained in it lies upon you, yet in your absence I Mrs. Wesley's mind. Her husband, evi- to God than if I had retired to my own private dently a self-willed and hot-headed man, devotions. This was the beginning of my pres ent practice: other people's coming in and joining with us was merely accidental. Our lad told his parents: they first desired to be admitted; - then others that heard of it begged leave also. So our company increased to about thirty; and it seldom exceeded forty last winter. "But soon after you went to London last, I light on the account of the Danish missionaries. though a good and true one, was in the habit of attending the sittings of Convocation, " at an expense of money which he could ill spare from the necessities of so large a family, and at a cost of time which was injurious to his parish." There was no afternoon service at the church at Epworth during his absences; and, with a curious foreshadowing of what was to come, the clergyman's wife took in hand a little domestic service on the Sunday evenings, praying and reading with her children and servants as a mother and mistress may. But by degrees a few neighbours dropped in, and Mrs. Wesley did not think it proper I thought I might pray more for them, and "that their presence should interrupt the duty of the hour." The thing grew, so that at length thirty or forty people would be present at their domestic worship. Mr. Wesley, busy with his Convocation squabbles, heard and took fright at this unusual proceeding. It does not seem to have moved him to the length of coming back and looking after his own business; but he made haste to write to her that her conduct "looked particular"-that, as the wife of a public person, it behooved her to exercise discretion - and that she ought to employ some one else to read for her. To this she answered at length, in a letter which most singularly anticipates many of the views afterwards proclaimed by her son: "As I am a woman," writes Mrs. Wesley, " so I am also mistress of a large family; and though the superior charge of the souls con I was, I think, never more affected with anything. I could not forbear spending good part of that evening in praising and adoring the divine goodness for inspiring them with such ardent zeal for His glory. At last it came into my mind, though I am not a man nor a minister, yet I might do something more than I do. might speak to those with whom I converse with more warmth of affection. I resolved to begin with my own children, in which I observe the following method: I take such a proportion of time as I can spare each night to discourse with each child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Henry, Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with Charles, and with Emily and Sukey together on Sunday. "With those few neighbours that then came to me I discoursed more freely and affectionately. I chose the best and most awakening sermons we have. And I spent somewhat more time with them in such exercises without being careful about the success of my undertaking. Since this our company increased every night; for I dare deny none that ask admittance. Last Sunday I believe we had above two hundred; and yet many went away for want of room to stand. "I cannot conceive why any should reflect on you because your wife endeavours to draw |