stance, who has ever forgotten those lines of Tacitus, inserted as a small, transitory, altogether trifling circumstance in the history of such a potentate as Nero? To us it is the most earnest, sad, sternly significant passage that we know to exist in writing: So, for the quieting of this rumor,* Nero judicially charged with the crime, and punished with most studied severity, that class, hated for their general wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians. The originator of that name was one Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered death by sentence of the Procurator, Pontius Pilate. The baneful superstition, thereby repressed for the time, again broke out, not only over Judea, the native soil of that mischief, but in the city also, where from every side all atrocious and abominable things collect and flourish.' Tacitus was the wisest, most penetrating man of his generation; and to such depth, and no deeper, has he seen into this transaction, the most important that has occurred or can occur in the annals of mankind.

"Nor is it only to those primitive ages, when religions took their rise, and a man of pure and high mind appeared not merely as a teacher and philosopher, but as a priest and prophet, that our observation applies. The same uncertainty, in estimating present things and men, holds more or less in all times; for in all times, even in those which seem most trivial and open to research, human society rests on inscrutably deep foundations; which he is of all others the most mistaken, who fancies he has explored to the bottom. Neither is that sequence, which we love to speak of as a chain of causes,' properly to be figured as a chain,' or line, but rather as a tissue, or superficies of innumerable lines, extending in breadth as well as in length, and with a complexity, which will foil and utterly bewilder the most assiduous computation. In fact, the wisest of us must, for by far the most part, judge like the simplest; estimate importance by mere magnitude, and expect that what strongly affects our own generation, will strongly affect those that are to follow. In this way it is that conquerors and political revolutionists come to figure as so mighty in their influences; whereas, truly there is no class of persons creating such an uproar in the world, who in the long run produce so very slight an impression on its affairs. When Tamerlane had finished building his pyramid of seventy thousand human skulls, and was seen standing at the Tacit. Annal. xv. 44.

* Of his having set fire to Rome.

gate of Damascus, glittering in steel, with his battle-axe on his shoulder' till his fierce hosts filed out to new victories and new carnage, the pale on-looker might have fancied that nature was in her death-throes; for havoc and despair had taken possession of the earth, the sun of manhood seemed setting in seas of blood. Yet, it might be, on that very gala-day of Tamerlane, a little boy was playing ninepins on the streets of Mentz, whose history was more important to men than that of twenty Tarmerlanes. The Tartar Khan, with his shaggy demons of the wilderness, 'passed away like a whirlwind,' to be forgotten forever; and that German artisan has wrought a benefit, which is yet immeasurably expanding itself, and will continue to expand itself through all countries and through all times. What are the conquests and expeditions of the whole corporation of captains, from Walter the Penny less to Napoleon Bonaparte, compared with these moveable types' of Johannas Faust? Truly, it is a mortifying thing for your conqueror to reflect, how perishable is the metal which he hammers with such violence; how the kind earth will soon shroud up his bloody footprints; and all that he achieved and skillfully piled together will be but like his own canvass city of a camp; this evening loud with life, to-morrow all struck and vanished, a few earth-pits and heaps of straw!' For here, as always, it continues true, that the deepest force is the stillest; that, as in the Fable, the mild shining of the sun shall silently accomplish what the fierce blustering of the tempest has in vain essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in mind, that not by material but by moral power, are men and their actions governed. How noiseless is thought! No rolling of drums, no tramp of squadrons, or immeasurable tumult of baggage wagons, attends its movements; in what obscure and sequestered places may the head be meditating, which is one day to be crowned with more than imperial authority; for Kings and Emperors will be among its ministering servants; it will rule not over, but in, all heads, and with these its solitary combinations of ideas, as with magic formulas, bend the world to its will! The time may come, when Napoleon himself will be better known for his laws than for his battles; and the victory of Waterloo prove less momentous than the opening of the first Mechanic's Institute."

The page seemed to speak to me, and I read the article through. I was looking over different passages of it

again when Uncle John entered the room. "What is this?" I asked ; "who wrote it?" "That?" said he, looking over my shoulder," that is something more than mere words; the writer is clearly a Believer; he has Faith founded on knowledge. His name is

I

have heard it, but it has escaped me. It is my firm belief," he continued, "that the present general unbelief in religious matters is, in a great measure, owing to theological schools; a system has been formed of teaching Religion by rote; certain logical arguments and the evidence of the miracles are continually used: While the questions, Is the History true? Is the evidence of the performance of the miracles complete? ever return to the Doubter unanswered, indeed logically unanswerable. There is, it seems to me, only one way for a man unacquainted with ancient literature to read the Bible; to read it as he would another book, even as he would a work of imagination, a creation of Genius; then without being troubled by questions of its matter-of-fact truth, let him consider the character of Jesus of Nazareth. Its all-surpassing beauty and majesty can hardly fail to dawn upon him, revealing, more or less clearly as he is fitted for the revelation, the Eternal. The internal evidence of christianity is the life of Christ. Did any man, without actual prototype, conceive this Life, and thus word-paint it to the hearts of millions? That, surely, were a miracle greater than any on record. The man who can believe this is more credulous than I —." He ceased; his lip quivered, and tears filled his eyes. He rose, walked to the window, and stood there some minutes in silence; then turning round he said, "One is now and then betrayed into something like this; but for the most part I avoid all talk called religious; little good comes of it."

Our conversation turned to common matters; we were cheerful, even merry, and made fair weather within doors though clouds made it dark without.

most interesting of all

One can hardly ride an

Does

Biography is said to be the studies. True enough it is so. hour in a stage-coach without a desire to know somewhat of his fellow-passengers, were it only their names. any one of them say a word which has meaning in it, straightway we are eager to know something more of him; where does he live? is he married? what business does he drive? and so forth to the end of that long category. Seeing that this love of Biography is so universal I will place here some particulars of Uncle John's life. Of his childhood I shall say next to nothing. We have glanced into his early home, and have seen, clearly enough, that there was little there to suit the purpose of any modern lecturer on education. One fact, however, in regard to that home, it may be well to note; this, namely; the life of his parents was not a lie; they did not pretend to be what they were not. They gave no studied precepts, no exhortations to virtue and piety; but there was, perhaps, in their open life, with all its defacements, a lesson which imprinted itself on the open mind of the child. The allimportant lesson for a child is the unconscious, not the conscious one; therefore, every man who would do good must be true.

The conscious, exterior education of this boy was such as one might get in the common schools of that day; and while yet a boy he found a place in the counting room of a city merchant. When of age he commenced, with borrowed capital, commercial business on his own For some few years he was called prosperous, and seemed to be on the road to wealth; but the gain

account.

fever, so prevalent in this country, came upon him, and he clutched more than he could hold together. The fabric of his commercial greatness, ill-built on weakest basis, fell one day with a fearful crash, and grumbling claimants gathered up the fragments. He stood there, short time, amid the ruins almost doubting that he had survived the fall. Yesterday, he called much his own. Today he had nothing. It was a time of deep and painful thought: he was a Bankrupt: a thing (as he now says) of deepest meaning to those who can understand it. What should he now do? His magic wand of credit was broken; should he get another and build again ? or what should he do? He struggled long with himself: at intervals he saw plainly enough, what he had often painfully suspected, that there had never been a reality in his possessions. He struggled long I say; but there is no need to say much about it; many men have struggled; all men must more or less.

One somewhat serious passage in Uncle John's life, the Reader shall have as from himself. "In the midst of my other troubles sickness of body came upon me while I was journeying toward my father's house. One of my fellow-passengers, who, during the day, had shown some sympathy for my condition, invited me, when the coach stopped at his dwelling-place, to alight and pass the night beneath his roof; at first I declined his offer with thanks : but when he urged me, said he was a physician, and that my state of health was such that another night passed in the stage coach might be fatal to me, I yielded. Soon I was in a comfortable bed: but all the kind man's skill and care availed not to extirpate the fever which had seized me; it would have its way. For many days I was for the most part insensible to all around me; my con