prayer, prayer is said to work a change in our hearts and to conform our will to that of God. Instead of going to heaven or hell, the consequences of virtue are described in the joy and peace of the heart obedient to God, and of vice in the pangs and remorse of an evil conscience. Instead of throwing ourselves at the feet of Jesus, and being sprinkled with His blood, and being clothed with His righteousness, we are told that we must, by sympathy with the mind of Christ, and in conformity with what He requires of his disciples, work out our own salvation with fear and trembling."

forced upon him that those to whom he spoke were not ripe for it, had not felt the need of it. "I am inclined," he writes,

to think that the preliminary preaching, Repent ye,' is what we now want; and when we are casting about in despair for something to lay hold of, then will be time enough to speak of the redemption which may be found in Jesus Christ." That which most shocks him in the state of feeling round him is the absence of any sense of needing that redemption. He reads a sermon by Mr. M. (qy. Martineau ?), who says that

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we have passed beyond the thought and want of salvation, that redemption is as much a thing of the past as the old outward law," and feels that such words are at once the most distinct disavowal of the essence of Christianity, and yet the most honest confession of the general state of the Unitarian mind," that he ever met with.

He confesses, with an almost startling candour, that in his earlier days, when he was most thoroughly an Unitarian, he had doubted whether his friends were right in calling themselves Christians. If Christ" were only a man, only a teacher, only an example, was it not "a departure from the Christian spirit" for men to call themselves by his name?

A sudden and entire break-down in health compelled him to leave Manchester and retire to Norwich, and the remainder of his life was that of an invalid, prematurely old; for many years that of what has been scoffingly called a Christian "unattached," joining any congregation of men like-minded with himself, working, wherever he was, with the old love for souls, the old regard

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The result of this change was to bring Travers Madge into sympathy with a wider circle of Christians, with many who were to be found in the sects whose faith on these points was in harmony with that which has been the characteristic faith of Christendom. Churchmen, Methodists, Independents, were ready to welcome one who felt and spoke as they did. But with this adoption of "evan-lessness of self, the old power to win the gelical" doctrine there was the old craving hearts of the poor, gathering men round after righteousness, the old asceticism, show- that which was to him and them the "Table ing itself at once in self-denial and in deeds of the Lord,”. -a Communion Service," of love. The " easy, worldly, respectable which one who was often present described religion of some Christians seemed to him as seeming more like the original one like the cold and clammy hand of death." than I ever felt it anywhere else. We all The new faith did not bring with it at first sat around a long table, and the bread and any conviction of the necessity of joining wine were passed round, and each spoke another visible society than that with which who wished, and the Master himself was he had hitherto been connected. His name present there to our hearts, and the poor remained on the roll of the Presbyterian room felt like the holy of holies." i. e., Unitarian congregations of Lancashire and Cheshire at the very time when he looked on Unitarianism as weighed in the balance and found wanting. The Primitive Methodists seemed to him to " keep more directly in view the objects which a Christian church ought to have, than any other denomination." He himself preached wherever he found men willing to listen to himin Independent chapels, or the like. In the strength of his new faith, he went back to Manchester in 1851, and resumed his old work in his beloved schools in Mosley Street; still, as before, loved and loving, received by the rough lads as an angel from God, with clasped hands, and eyes that glistened with delight. But as he gave utterance to that faith which had come as a message of glad tidings, the conviction was

After some years spent in his comparative retirement, he re-appeared at Manchester, in 1859, as the minister of a congregation of stragglers from various folds, tradespeople and working men, some from the Plymouth Brethren, some from the Baptists, some from the Independents, many from the Methodists. Such materials did not promise much in the way of unity, and divergencies of thought and feeling soon began to show themselves. Travers had to throw himself, as into a spiritual asylum from the strife of tongues, into his old work with the rough street lads, and to teach them to pray, and repent, and love Christ, and sing hymns, till the evenings which he spent with them seemed to him as though he had passed them amongst the angels in heaven." The work lasted, however,

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only for a few months. Health and strength again gave way: he was once more thrown back upon himself.

And with this there came that which is seldom found in a mere proselyte to a creed, a mere apostate from a party, but which is perhaps the characteristic crown and glory of the progress of a seeker after truth. There is a blending together of old things and new; third thoughts, which harmonize the first and the second thoughts that had seemed in blank contradiction with each other. His confession of an evangelical faith is not less distinct than before.

་

"If I have not spoken much in my letters lately of that wonderful revelation to the burdened hearts of sinful men, that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's own Son, cleanseth from all sin,' it is not because my faith in this is shaken, or because I feel the need of it less than I did. Never, never did I feel the preciousness of this truth as I feel it now. Without it I should be in outer darkness, in misery without any comfort, in uttermost despair."

sinful man,

of God, more than He has revealed. When men say that the death of Christ satisfies His justice, or that the wrath of God against sin fell upon Christ, I think they are using rather venturesome language. Yet I cannot but feel that, by divine appointment, and by His own self-sacrificing love; and his oneness with poor, suffering, of human woe, even into that deepest human Jesus plunged himself into the abyss misery which we might have imagined it impossible for the sinless One to have experienced. In accepting this sacrifice God reveals His forgiving mercy to the whole human family. In that forgiving mercy all who seek His face find peace and joy. Forgiveness, in the sense of the removal of future punishment, does not seem to me to enter into the minds of the Apos tles, or to be that of which Christ speaks. We rejoice in forgiving love, inasmuch as we know from God, His ear is open to our cry, and His that, notwithstanding our sins and wanderings arms are always stretched forth to welcome us

home."

We cannot wonder that, in this state of feeling, he should note with especial joy his presence at a lecture given by Professor Maurice at the Working Men's College, and a conversation with him, and contrast the teaching which he found there with Mr. Spurgeon's more popular theology.

The remainder of the story of his life may be told rapidly. Old affections drew him, in 1861, once more to the Crown-Street congregation at Manchester, but more as an outsider, as a member not of that particular church, with its tests and limitations, but of the great family of the reA home mission for the ragged children and their parents occupied and exhausted the little strength that remained; the Lancashire distress roused him, in 1862, to fresh labours and exertions. When they were over, consumption had made such progress that the two years which followed were simply a time of patient, cheerful suf

deemed.

"God has, I believe, been instructing me in some things of late which I did not see before, and which I have perhaps, therefore, more frequently referred to, such as the true conversion of all who repent of sin and seek to live to God, though they may frequently stumble, and know nothing of the experience which so-called evangelical Christians and Methodists seem to regard as necessary; also the hope, rising to an assurance, that the work of redeeming mercy is not confined to this world, and that the sentence of eternal death may at any time be remitted; fering and hopeful expectation of the end. also that all doctrinal exclusiveness in the In 1865, chiefly, it would seem, through church, and all attempts to judge of others' in-contact with the Bishop of Norwich at ternal fitness for church membership, are alike evil and unscriptural; and, last of all, that Scripture readings at Lady Buxton's, at Christian influence is not confined to conversaCromer, he was drawn towards the Church tion on religious subjects, but that the Christian's of England - with which he had indeed character shines forth in the midst of the various been for some time in a secret, half conscious pursuits, intercourse, and amusements in which sympathy- was baptized into membership he may be engaged. And here it is that, I with her, and became, till his death, a regthink, we have been judging harshly, both doing ular communicant. In March, 1866, the harm and receiving harm. Perhaps I ought not end came. The love of Christ still filled to say we. I have, I know I have, misrepre-his soul. He read the story of his own life sented Christianity, and especially those truths in the words of a hymn: which have brought me so much peace and comfort, by the course which I have taken."

But with this there is a wider view, a more hopeful recognition of the good to be found in those who had not yet received the truth as he received it, a stronger faith in the possibilities of the future. At one time the whole state of Christendom had seemed to him full of "wounds and bruises and putrefying sores;" now he had learnt the lesson, Meliora latent.

And again, in the same strain, he writes:"I dare not say anything about the counsels 536

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XIII.

"O Saviour, I have nought to plead

In earth beneath, or heaven above,
But just my own exceeding need,
And Thy exceeding love.

warning which do not warn, words that have to be explained in a non-natural sense, aids to faith which surround the truth that attracts by its own beauty and completeness with that which simply repels, and rouses, as by way of protest against the denuncia-sided over by Dr. Rieger, the journals pubtion, a not unnatural antagonism?

Led by a Committee composed of Deputies to the Austrian Parliament and pre

E. H. PLUMPTRE.

lished in Bohemia profess to be animated by a fear of what the destiny of the Slavonic races of Austria might be in case of a further dismemberment of the monarchy. They assert that the German element in Bohemia, which constitutes, they allege, only one-quarter of the total population, is even now gravitating towards a great Germanic Empire or Confederation, and that it seeks to carry with it the alien population over which it rules by historical right. Irritated by the ingratitude with which the Austrian Government has repaid the loyalty of the Slavonic races in 1848, as well as by the attempts which have so long been made to put the Slaves to the wall (Die Slaven an die Mauer drücken," - a phrase attributed to Count Beust) - the Czech national party view with considerable apprehension the possibility of their being thrown into the common German crucible. The immediate object of the national party in Bohemia is, therefore, to wrest from Austria, before the expected agglomeration of German States takes place, such an autonomy as will per

Notwithstanding the repressive measures adopted by the Austrian Government after the crisis of 1848, when the Hapsburg dy-mit the Czech to develop themselves indenasty was saved by its Slavonian subjects pendently of the present Austrian monarchy, and by Russia, the Bohemian or Czech na- and to acquire such an amount of political tional party, led by Dr. Palacky and Dr. importance and material strength as will Rieger, have actively employed the interval enable them to dispose freely of their own that has elapsed in educating the lower future at a convenient opportunity. The classes of their countrymen in a sense ultimate object of their desires is, however, of national dignity and importance. Their the formation of a Confederation which success has been very great. Out of a Bo- should include such other kindred races as hemian population of nearly five millions, may hereafter have the power or the inclionly three per cent. have not had the ad- nation to join it; such, for instance, as the vantages of education. No fewer than Poles of the present kingdom and the Slaeleven Slavonic journals, with an aggregate vonians of Turkey. This Confederation the daily circulation of 20,000 copies, are now leaders of the Czech national party desire devoted to the idea of Slavonic autonomy to place under the sovereignty of the House and federation, and the extent to which the of Hapsburg, which they anticipate will Slavonic language is used in Bohemia as the sooner or later be forced to abandon the medium of education and a vehicle of patri- last of its Germanic possessions, in the genotic thought may still further be estimated eral movement of German unity. from the fact that a society for the diffusion of popular literature at Prague publishes 25,000 to 30,000 copies of certain literary works with a political bias, while an Encyclopædia of Science, of which eight volumes, of the size of Chambers's Encyclopædia, have already appeared, meets with a demand of 5,000 copies. This great result had been attained in spite of the predictions of one of the most learned and patriotic his- Eastern question, and will constitute that torians of Bohemia, Dr. Pelzel, who in counterweight which the balance of Europe 1790 declared that within fifty years his un-will require for the consolidation of Ger

They argue that a Slavonic Confederation, embracing a homogeneous population of about twenty-five millions, and including the kingdom of Hungary, with a spirited population of five millions more, will afford adequate compensation to the House of Austria for the loss of its Germanic possessions: while, on the other hand, it will be a step towards a satisfactory solution of the

From The Spectator, 13 March.
THE CZECH QUESTION.

THE reverses of Austria and the general expectation of a further concentration of States in Germany have given fresh vigour to the Slavonic revival in Central Europe, and particularly in the kingdom of Bohemia, where the "Czech question" has caused Prague to be proclaimed in a state of siege, and its prisons to be filled with the more prominent of the twenty thousand political offenders whom the Austrian Government has put on their trial for violating the laws which regulate the press and the right of public meeting. An accurate though friendly account of that revival will interest our readers.

happy country would be as thoroughly German as the once Slavonian provinces of Mecklenburg and Brandenburg.

many. It would further, they imagine, se- the Russian tendencies of its Bohemian subcure the peace of Europe by tranquillizing jects, the Austrian Government has been France, whose legitimate influence on the much inclined to attribute to the Russian Continent of Europe would be established Cabinet a desire to promote disaffection in by the restoration of Poland within the lim- Bohemia, as a means of preventing the Galits of the present kingdom as regards Rus-ician Poles from receiving liberal treatment. sia, and inclusive of the greater part of Gal- Organ-grinders are now prohibited from icia in respect to Austria. This is, indeed, playing the Russian national anthem in Boone of the principal conditions on which the hemia, and a strict surveillance has been idea of Slavonic federation, as understood placed over all strolling musicians to prein Bohemia, is based, and the two Czech vent them from distributing, as it appears leaders gave much dissatisfaction in Rus- they have in some cases done, the photosia when visiting the Ethnographical Sla- graph of the Grand Duke Constantine's vonian Exhibition at Moscow in 1867 by youngest son, Wenceslaus, bearing, as he openly pleading the cause of their Polish does, the name of the patron Saint of Bobrethren. They boldly advised the Rus- hemia. sians to make peace with the Poles, and thus remove one of the greatest obstacles to Slavonic unity; "For," said Dr. Rieger, "we cannot but acknowledge that the Poles, a branch of the western Slavonic race, distinct from the Russian people both in their history and language, have an equal right to independent national existence."

But such being the bases of the proposed Slavonic State, it may be asked, how is it that the Czech movement excites so much sympathy in Russia, and how the Bohemians can expect to obtain the support of the Russian Government in plans evidently hostile to the reputed objects of the Russians themselves, viz., the denationalization of Poland and the ultimate absorption of the Danubian and Slavonic provinces of Turkey? The Czech argument on this point appears to be that it is necessary to draw a distinction between the practical policy of the Russian Government and the sentimental overtures of Russian Panslavists. A national awakening or revival has been as much required in Russia as in Bohemia. Slavonic patriots in both countries had felt the necessity of convincing their countrymen that their own nationality was capable of independent development. The Russians pointed to the ancient civilization and glories of Bohemia, while the Czechs and other Slaves under foreign rule encouraged their countrymen in their desires for independence by extolling the magnitude and power of the Russian Empire.

While the Russian Panslavists have thus, on the one hand, devoted themselves to a study of Slavonic literature, and to an admiration of what had been achieved by their brethren in the past, the Bohemians have, on the other hand, held up to admiration the progress of Russia in the present, and have eagerly reproduced in their journals the many words of sympathy and encouragement expressed towards themselves at on which nothing but her polity is written, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Alarmed at - a mass of rough humanity, whose social

It may be that all this apparent sympathy and co-operation between the Western and Eastern groups of the Slave race may not be as real and lasting as the Russian Government may desire, or the Emperor of Austria fear. The Slavonic demonstration at Moscow in 1867, to which the Austrian Government attached so much importance, was not much patronized by the Russian Government, which had reason to be alarmed rather than pleased with the general tendencies expressed by the Bohemians, Servians, and other Slavonic visitors. It is certain that the Ethnographical Exhibition of Moscow was organized by sentimental politicians, and that both the superior officers of Government and the more reasonable section of the intellectual classes in Russia kept aloof from the demonstration. There are many weighty reasons why even the weakest and least developed Slavonic people can never be drawn into practical union with Russia. Russian rule is scarcely more popular among the Slavonians than that of Austria or Turkey. The Bohemians, Moravians, Poles, Croats, Carinthians, and Slovaks are, moreover, Roman Catholics; they have the advantage of an older and more perfect civilization, and they are the neighbours of the Romans, Servians, and Bulgarians, who look forward to their own independent supremacy in the East at no distant future. The presence alone of a resuscitated Poland in the midst of the proposed Confederation would probably be more than a sufficient guarantee against any intimate alliance with Russia.

Even Hilferding, the most distinguished member of the Panslavist party in Russia, confesses that the institutions of his country have not as yet inspired much sympathy among the Western Slavonians, who still, he says, hold, with the Polish poet Mickiewicz, that Russia is a blank sheet of paper,