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THE KNOTTED CORDS.

"Take these things hence."

In the great temple made with hands,
Where Jewish altars drip with blood,
Behold the true Messiah stands-

In lowly guise, but loftiest mood;
And bids the sons of Traffic flee-

His spirit stirred to shame's deep sense, Their merchandise and gold to see,

With scourge and voice, "Take these things hence !"

From scourge and voice the guilty throng,
With fear amazed, a-sudden rush,

And Zion's courts and halls along

There spreads a strange and solemn hush;

Nor Priest, nor Pharisee, the ire

Fierce seething in his bosom vents,

Awed by the brightness of the fire

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Which flames the words, "Take these things How sweeter far to hold the place

hence!"

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From The Reader, 18 June. UNPOPULARITY OF GREAT BRITAIN

ABROAD.

of the warfare in Schleswig in March last,-
there are several passages in which the
author calls the attention of his fellow-
countrymen to this present unpopularity
of our nation abroad, and to the causes of
it.
Here are the most notable of these
passages :—

GREAT BRITAIN, it seems, is at this moment extremely unpopular with all the rest of the world. By some of the great powers she is absolutely detested; others are unusually cold in their estimates of her; and the one "A German's Talk about Us on the Railway or two that are still kindly to her as a nation are sad on account of her present statesman- remarks on England struck me as containing from Hanover to Hamburg.-Some of his ship. Such, at least, is the report from all grains of truth. You are personally disquarters; and there seem to be corrobora- liked,' he said, because you affect a supetions of its truth. Neither of the two riority over other nations. No nation can powers now at war with each other in submit patiently to be despised; and yet this North America is satisfied with the conduct is what your speech and your writing and of Great Britain in reference to their strug- your manner require of us to bear. You have now no right to be surprised if, when gle; and the feeling of the Federals toward her is one of actual bitterness. On the Con- ing-stock of Europe, we take advantage of your foreign policy has made you the laughtinent, for some time past, but more espe- the opportunity to hurl back this contempt cially since the war between the Germans at you.' After that he relapsed into wildand the Danes began, there has been a uni-ness, with only occasional gleams of reason. versal pointing of fingers, with hisses orYou do not understand in England such other unflattering expressions, towards our questions as the Dano-German. Your peotight little island. We have been snubbed ple are uneducated, and forced to follow the teaching of the press, which is corrupt. The by Russia for our officiousness in the matter Manchester school is coming to the head of of Poland, without any compensation in the affairs, and they will never allow you to go way of respect or gratitude from the Poles. to war, however many a “dröhnungs-note In France the selfishness and insular narrow- you may write. You are no longer a milmindedness of Britain are at present the itary power; you could not even raise, durfavorite themes of journalists. As to Ger- ing the Crimean War, as many soldiers as many—why, there, it is said, we are in such you wanted in England. You are very great at spinning cotton or working iron, at makdisfavor on account of our behavior in the ing money, but not at making war.' There Schleswig-Holstein business that English are two ideas, as you will notice here, which tourists are everywhere, throughout the Ger- have taken fast hold of the German mind,man States, received with the cold shoulder, the one that our press has entirely lost its and are even in risk of insult. The state- independence, and the other that England ment has been contradicted; but it has been could not and would not sustain the burden of a great war. made and repeated so strongly that it is impossible to suppose it wholly false. And then, in poor little Denmark, where they do love us for the sympathy so generally shown among us for their cause, they are sorely disappointed that our sympathy has been so barren of aught save words. In short, if there never has been a time when Britain was generally popular with other nations, she seems at present to be exceptionally unpopular all round.

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"What they think of Us in Denmark.-The Danes are sorely hurt at our desertion of their fortunes. They feel it the more acutely because between them and England there has existed a silent brotherhood. English is the language which is taught in their schools and colleges, and which forms a regtheir feelings, their ways of thought, their ular part of their education. Their customs, character, and sometimes their very look, are English. To English literature they have turned in the attempt to oppose it to that of In Mr. Auberon Herbert's volume, just Germany, which, during the last years, has published under the title of "The Danes in been creeping silently northwards; English is the language which they seem to have Camp: Letters from Sönderborg -a volume chosen even in preference to French or Gerwhich we briefly noticed last week, and man, which would have afforded a better which we again recommend as containing link of communication between themselves graphic sketches, by an enthusiastic English and the nations of that great continent on friend of the Danes, of scenes and incidents whose outer edge their fortunes are cast, and

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to which they cling desperately, with nothing but the bravery and the stern virtues of the old Norse race to maintain them on their narrow foothold. Whatever the Danes feel on the subject of England, they say but little to an Englishman. It always touches me to see how much their courtesy seals their lips. Sometimes, however, the thought escapes indirectly from them."

"Universal Opinion of Us on the Continent. -It is well for an Englishman as he travels through Germany, if he understands no language but his own. The most undisguised contempt is poured upon us. We have not been liked for some time past in Prussia; but, until the present, we were at least respected. Let me try and put before you something of that which I have heard from educated foreigners, not Danes, about our behavior.

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taining order in the great European family?
You can have no external policy. Your
Eastern, your Italian, your Grecian, or your
Portuguese policy will break as a bubble be-
neath any finger which touches it. You may
fight when your own possessions are threat-
ened; but, as a member of the European
family, with a controlling voice in the inter-
ests and happiness of Christendom, you have
vacated your place. What right have you
to do this? What right, as a first-class
nation, have you to try and free yourself
from the obligations of your position?
Nor, in all probability, will peace be the re-
ward of your peaceful policy. Some minis-
ter or people, presuming on the past, will
insult you; and you are still too proud a na-
tion to bear, without resenting it, a national
insult. You will then find yourselves en-
gaged in some great war, standing alone and
apart from the sympathy of Europe, and
with the bitter reflection that this had been
spared, had you known how to speak in sea-
son a few words of brave and honest mean-
ing when the peace of Europe demanded it.'

"What can I say? What do you find to say in England; or are you silent as I am? That, perhaps, which mortifies one most deeply is the remembrance that twice, even without time to change our dresses, we have played the same character. There was but one feeling in England that we had either spoken too much or done too little for unhappy Poland; and yet, loudly as we reproached ourselves, we were only repenting to be free to sin again. But the subject is hateful."

"You in England,' say my friends, have taken up a neighbor's quarrel; you have taken the cards out of his hands, and played them for him; you have played them for him in such a way as to give all that his antagonist asked; you have made him separately and severally concede every point demanded; nowhere and at no moment has he refused to follow the course on which you have insisted, or turned aside from the sacrifices which you have dictated; nor has he taken his cards back into his own hands until the last moment, when you yourselves have thrown them up, and have left him alone and friendless to play the remnant of this miserable game out for himself. Is not this literally what you have done? I do not want to judge your conduct by what men think of it in Denmark; I am willing that Deducting as much as we choose from it should stand on its trial in any court or these reports of Mr. Herbert, on account of country which you choose to name in Eu- the one-sided susceptibility which we may rope; but if, at Vienna, at Berlin, at Paris, at Turin, or anywhere else out of England ish cause may have given him,—and one does suppose his passionate affection for the Danyou choose, you find but one opinion, and that of such a sort as would, could you hear note in his book a certain innocence and juit, disturb even your self-esteem, are you venility of feeling which, while it makes us willing to remain quite happy in your share like him, would hardly dispose us to receive of the past, and quite satisfied with what implicitly his judgments or even his impresyou have done? Are you quite sure that, sions,after all, these foreign nations, who from of thought. His testimony that we are very —we have still enough left to be matter different points of view have formed but one opinion about your writings and your doings, unpopular at present throughout Europe acare not as likely to be right as you who are cords with too many other testimonies to be judging from one point of view of what re-set aside; and, though a nation ought not, lates to yourselves? . . . Of what weight any more than an individual, to set so much will your voice be hereafter in the councils store on popularity with its neighbors as to of Europe to protest against a wrong, or to be greatly downcast by the cessation of it, uphold a right? Of what value will be your provided it has the approval of its own conseal? Why, even the voice and seal of Prussia-whom you have been in the habit science, yet a nation cannot, any more than of calling fearful and selfish-will count for an individual, be quite indifferent to the fact more than yours! Of what use now are that it is generally disliked. It is for politiyou, or will you be henceforward, in main-cal journalists to investigate the causes of

the present universal unpopularity of Great fault, we need not take our unpopularity Britain, in so far as they lie in the peculiar much to heart. In a country like this there, course of diplomatic action which has been will always be such oppositions and differpursued by our Government in such recent international questions as those of the American war, the Polish insurrection, and the quarrel between the Danes and the Germans. There are aspects of the subject, however, of less exclusively political interest.

ences of view on contemporary foreign ques tions, even among those who do base their judgments on study and inquiry, that what is called the national tone of feeling on any such question can only be the tone of feeling of a more or less considerable majority. It is to be remembered also that, when parties are in conflict, we can never please them all, and that, whatever amount of anger may be directed against us because of the tone of feeling which is prevalent, there would probably have been as much anger if the tide of feeling had gone the other way. Still, the lesson for us is the necessity there always is

In so far as our unpopularity may have arisen from the resentment of other nations at the general tone of British opinion and feeling in reference to questions which are of life-and-death importance to those nations, the contemplation of this unpopularity need not disturb our equanimity unless we are conscious of having neglected the duty that lies upon us always to qualify ourselves of a study of the question respecting which for having an opinion on a foreign question events call us, if only as spectators, to before pronouncing one. What is the means come to a conclusion. In the war between by which we can qualify ourselves for judg- Germany and Denmark, for example, what ing of a foreign question and for honestly we behold is history making a step forward, letting one side or the other of those actively -a tendency to some new adjustment at engaged in the question have the benefit of that point in the map of Europe where the our good wishes and expressions of sympa- Scandinavian and the German races, and the thy? There is no other means than the political systems which they respectively study of the question. This phrase "the represent, come into mutual contact, and study of the question " is one which we where there has long been a disturbed ought to keep frequently repeating to our- equilibrium. We are called upon, if only selves in these days when we are called as spectators, to say how we should like to upon, almost by the habits of society, to be see history taking this step,-what particular, so opinionative all of a hurry upon matters adjustment would best satisfy us. It does far beyond our own personal range. There not seem impossible that, as spectators, we are, perhaps, few questions, however complex, should arrive at a notion of an adjustment - the terrible American war itself being which should be equitable and expedient in hardly an exception,-in which it would not all the circumstances of the case,-which be competent for an intelligent man, if only should remedy the original causes of disconhe would take a little pains, to arrive at tent in Schleswig-Holstein, and, while gratisuch a distinct preponderance of affection fying as far as may be our natural British for one side or the other as would at least be sympathies with brave little Denmark, and sufficient for himself. They are compara- also that general Scandinavianism which tively few, however, in any community who seems to have been suddenly awakened in take this trouble in forming their politics. our fibre (as if we felt more akin to the We rush into decisions on the impulse of a Scandinavians than to the Germans, and few stock-notions or prejudices, or simply more bound up with them in the near fubecause, when all around us are vehement, we must be vehement too, in order to do our part in the talk. What we have to ask ourselves now, accordingly, in presence of the fact of our unpopularity abroad, is whether we have of late, and in reference to recent questions of international interest, been more than usually hurried and careless of real inquiry in the formation of our opinions. If our consciences acquit us of any such

ture of Europe), should yet recognize the respect due from all the world to any idea on which a nation so great intellectually as the Germans declares itself to be unanimous.

How we should judge and wish in such matters, is one question; what we ought to do, if our judgment and wishes are thwarted, and our recommendations scouted and rejected, is another. There are among us at pres

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We have no need to explain to our readers, who are Germans, what value is to be given to the vivats of a Paris crowd, as they have a disgust for all such homage to the gods of the age. But, even in the crimes of a nation, there is something to be seen of its convictions, and sometimes there is a deep tone in a mere cry, which may grow to great importance.

It is this deep tone in the outcry against England which merits attention, and which we refer to all the more freely, as we are devoid of that ill-will toward England which is prevalent in Germany.

ent who are rampant for a war, on certain Down with England! Long live the Imperial easy contingencies, in behalf of Denmark. Prince! Down with England! What leads them to this is, partly indignation at the fixed idea of foreign powers and peoples that Britain, now that she has the Manchester party in such influence at the heart of her, will never go to war with anything whatever, and that, consequently, in any arrangements concerning other parts of the earth, no attention need be paid to her. They long to see an end put to this state of things, to see Great Britain go to war, if only to prove that she can go to war. A very unsatisfactory reason, we think, for resorting to the last action of nations! When, and for what, a country should go to war, is a question removed by a dark intervening gulf from the question, when, and for what, a country should avow its convictions of right, or its predilections of expediency. The gulf can hardly be too broad. There may, indeed, come occasions when it must be overleaped; but they ought, surely, and especially for an island like ours, to be few and far between. May the next occasion for us be distant! And yet, in the state in which the whole world now is, who can tell how near it may .be?

From the Volks-Zeitung (Berlin: Democratic), 11 June.

THE ILL-WILL TO ENGLAND ON THE CON

TINENT.

IN the latest newspaper reports from Paris, an incident in so-called public life is related, which in itself is so insignificant that it will soon be forgotten, but which, as a symptom of the state of feeling which, on another more serious occasion, may lead to important results, merits a word or two of notice.

At a race at the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris, a prize of 100,000 francs was offered, for which, an English and a French horse, which had won triumphs elsewhere, were competitors. The French horse gained the victory, and the enthusiasm of the French spectators rose to such a height, that the French papers designate it" a real political event. The accounts of German newspapers complete the description of the scene. "The Court," says a correspondent, "left for Fontainebleau -the emperor, the empress, and her son, in an open carriage. So long as I have been here, I have never, excepting on parades, when the Vive l'Empereur! regularly rolls like thunder, heard such a hurral. The two cries alternated : Long live the Emperor!

We now speak of a matter which we should be glad if thinking men in England would reflect on. The opinion and clamor historical events, which overwhelm those who of a people are often the forerunners of great will not listen to them. England appears to have long suffered by this crime. A warning from such a quarter, where, as in Germany, old sympathies are difficult to eradicate, should make the English think, in the midst of their national pride, that it is time to consider the cause and effects of such phe

nomena.

We need not say that we have a predisposition for England, which it would be difficult for us to get over. There is not a good law, a useful invention, or practical arrangement, in which England has not been our model. In comparison to what we have learnt from our teacher of German descent, all that we have learnt from our Romanic neighbor is of doubtful nature. What we have taken from him in legislation is the oppression of freedom, the surveillance and espionage of centralization officials. We only give England her due when we say that we have to thank her for every step we have made in the way of reform.

In spite of this fact, the ill-will towards England has been increasing and increasing until it almost amounts to hostility, and as what we speak of in Germany, in this respect, prevails all over Europe, the cause must, according to all the rules of scientific investigation, lie in England, and we would earnestly urge all thinking men in England, for the good of their nation, to seek it. We will only indicate what appears to us to be the cause of this phenomenon.

England is now in a transition state, in which she is descending from the height of a State dictating to the world to a community anxious only to get wealth. . . . Hence it is that England talks big, in the old English style, on every European affair; and hence it is, also, that she is silent, and sinks down to inactivity so soon as it comes to doing something for an idea.

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