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for a suspension of the laws of nature. And we hold it for good Protestant doctrine that miracles have ceased since the sealing of the latest Scripture.

The very term special providence' is vague and indefinite; any interruption of God's law, we may be sure, is only an interruption in appearance-that God with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' What we in our blindness term miracles are violations of a lower, but fulfilments of a higher law.

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Sir James himself says, that nations are punished or rewarded temporally-a phrase which seems to us to concede the whole question. Whatever happens altogether upon this visible stage and within time, must be subject to human observation and inquiry;-only, so long as you use such phrases as reward' and punishment,' you confuse the nomenclature of science and prevent all logical method. The soul of the individual man, on the other hand, did not, for aught we know, begin with his birth, and, we trust, shall not end at his death. The soul and its destinies, therefore, are beyond our ken, and can be investigated only by the light of revelation. • Corruption' and grace' may be eliminated from social questions, as having relation only to the individual.

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If we endeavour to push speculation beyond its limits, the effort recoils in effeteness upon ourselves. Astronomy, one of the most perfect of physical sciences, deals only with the motions and mass of the heavenly bodies, but never hints at the first great moving and creating cause. And who thinks of charging astronomers with impiety on that score? Why, then, apply to one science only, a rule which must apply equally to all? Why must the historian who abstains from mentioning Providence be held up as one who forgets God? The charge of impiety might be retorted with much more. justice upon a Mr. Wordy, who writes a history of the late war to show that Providence was all on the side of the Tories;' or those Christian journalists who saw in the potato disease God's judgment for the Maynooth grant.

Such misapplications of sacred

names move our disgust; for no profanity can be worse than that of using pious phrases to cloak the malignity of party strife.

The honest Θεῖον τί, which is the ever-ready explanation of old Herodotus, only provokes a smile.

Sir James Stephen's doctrine, though not so glaringly absurd, is, we venture to think, not less unphilosophical-that is, not less untrue. The instances which he selects are the English and French revolutions; neither of which (he says) would have been so complete but for the character of each of the then monarchs. It was by a special providence that Charles I. was stubborn and audacious, and Louis XVI. timid and irresolute.

Now, in the first place, an historian has no business to talk about 'what would have been.' How can we tell, if the characters of the monarchs had been interchanged, what causes might have worked together to bring both to the scaffold? Besides, out of the multitude of cooperating causes, why select one as a matter of special providence? If Hampden and Falkland had both lived, things might not have been pushed to such fatal extremities. Was it a special providence which billeted the bullet upon them? If Mirabeau had lived, he might have reconciled the court and the mob. Was it by special providence that he died of the results of his excesses? If the king had escaped to Bouillé's army, what then? Was it by special providence that the innkeeper of Varennes recognised the profile of his fugitive majesty?

To assert the special is to deny, by implication, the general providence of God, without whom, we know, not a sparrow falls to the ground.

Are we empowered to judge of the degree of criminality attaching to actions in the view of universal purity and omniscience? Do we find that, even in our eyes, criminal actions of communities are always followed by their appropriate degree of punishment? If not, are we prepared for the inference ?-an inference from which every one but a Manchæan would recoil with horror! Truly, there is but one step from pietism to profanity.

Far more really pious and reverent is the philosopher who silently assumes the universal rule of the Divine Intelligence, and forbears to apply the name of absolute truth to the conclusions of his own limited

sense.

The earth is the Lord's, and he who studies man and nature-His works-studies Him. The divine contemplates God in revelation; the philosopher contemplates God in operation. To the one, God is mercy, justice, truth; to the other, God is law.

Revelation is the expression of the infinite in terms of finite comprehension, and does not come, in its essence, within the compass of the reason. The province of the reason there is to infer from general to particular, and the end is practical rules of life.

Science, on the other hand, ascends from particulars through successive generalizations, ever tending to, though never reaching, the goal of absolute truth.

Faith is the beginning of theology, but the end of science.

It is obviously impossible to express the conclusions of the one in terms of the other; and the attempt to do so will only introduce uncertainty in nomenclature and confusion in argument. We can never affirm, for certain, that a conclusion of science agrees with or contradicts a dogma of religion. We should not, therefore, be justified in rejecting this or that result of scientific investigation, merely because it seems to be at variance with the written

Word; but we must hold fast, confident in the ultimate reconcilement of discrepancies, with an earnest love and longing for truth. We must repel the aggressions of that Papal spirit which thought to refute the theory of Galileo by the words of Joshua; and in later times, would fain have smothered infant geology beneath the first chapter of Genesis.

All things of time and space, we may be sure, are included in the heritage which God has bestowed upon the human intellect, which it behoves to advance to its possession in a spirit of awe, and reverence, and humility. Such a spirit ever attends on the greatest and the wisest. To quote the oft-quoted words of that dying sage (whose mantle we trust is as reverently preserved in his well-beloved college as his other relics), 'I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'

All honour and success to those who are constructing rafts and barks for the voyage. Let them launch out with bold hearts and unflinching eyes, never heeding the timid voice of mistaken Piety, wringing her hands and moaning on the shore:

Necquidquam Deus abscidit Prudens oceano dissociabili

Terras, si tamen impiæ

Non tangenda rates transiliunt vada.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CAPTAIN DIGBY GRAND;

OR,

'THE DANGEROUS CLASSES.'

CHAPTER VI.

A CHAPTER OF WAYS AND MEANS-THE FAVOURITE FOR THE OAKS-A FOREGONE CONCLUSION FOILED-RAISING THE WIND-FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BOLD-THE FASHIONABLE DEALER.

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looked over, and the idea of paying was not dreamt of for an instant. My actual income kept me in gloves and perfume, perhaps blacking. And the uninitiated will marvel how I obtained the necessaries, not to say the luxuries, of life. But the artificial state of society, which forces the youngest son or the embarrassed heir to spend his halfcrown upon sixpence a day,' in justice furnishes means and appliances wherewith to solve that problem, for a time at least. The noble invention of counters, forming a fictitious credit, opens to him the resources of the gaming-table, at which an opportune run of luck may enable him to win a fortune he has never staked. Early intelligence, or as it is called, good information,' on the turf, encourages him to invest large sums upon what may fairly be termed a foregone conclusion. If

A beats B in public, giving him three pounds, and C beats A in a trial, giving him seven, it is obvious that when C and B are to meet at even weights, the exclusive possessor of the result of this trial has a great advantage in backing his opinion.' Billiards, to a skilful performer, may be worth a flourishing retail business, and whist realize a larger income than in these times could be wrung from many a dirty acre.

My proficiency in the two latter sciences, and my habit of never paying ready money, helped me for a time wonderfully; but it was to the turf that I looked as a permanent provision - an ever-yielding mine of wealth. My Derby-book, constructed upon strictly mathematical principles, had won me a few hundreds; but this was a certainty, as I had been 'betting round.' There was, however, another card in the pack, that I fondly hoped was to be the best thing out for many a year.' I had it from the very best information, in fact, reduced to a proof there was no gainsaying, that Major Martingale's Queen of the May' was to win the Oaks. She could not lose, so they said- the race was over! Queen of the May would come in by herself! Levanter, who was now on half-pay, and a regular turfite, had backed her heavily at Newmarket. I had got on,' as the term is, at long-odds; and now her stable com

panion had won the Derby, and we, the select few, knew what an example the mare could make of him. This brought her up in the betting, and still I went on booking bet after bet in her favour. She left off even against the field on the Thursday night, and stood to win me a fortune. I dined with Colonel Grandison and a party of brother-officers, but was absent and impatient till the repast was over. At Crockford's I could hear nothing new with regard to the morrow, and I went to bed earlier than usual to pass a fevered, restless night, and dream of the events of the following day.

I was awoke from a golden vision, in which the chesnut mare, adorned by Martingale's well-known colours, was leading the van at a killing pace, while the shouts of the multitude rent the sky, by my ruthless servant entering the room to inform me that Captain Lavish was waiting breakfast; and making as rapid a toilet as I could, I found my hungry friend, who was to drive me down to Epsom in his drag, with a party of scapegraces like himself. The day was beautiful-the dust laid by just sufficient rain-the team tractable and fast-the party all in high spirits and good humour, mostly backers of Queen of the May. Lavish was an agreeable companion, with a pleasant, careless manner, that was extremely fascinating; and what was more important to his freight, an excellent coachman. Many a jest and rapartee enlivened our drive; but even whilst our mirth was fastest and most furious, the sight of the pleasant country—the summer sky, and the fresh-blooming lilacs, so redolent of spring-brought back to one of the party thoughts and feelings much at variance with the actual scene. The sweet influence of nature in her loveliest aspect stole over my senses, and I found myself speculating as to whether there was not a higher destiny for man, even in this world, than to support a life of pleasure by a career of recklessness; whether the path I had chosen was, in truth, the happiest; and whether a course of selfdenial and self-sacrifice-a sort of crusade in the cause of virtue-would not be, in reality, a far more satisfactory lot. If Queen of the May

wins the Oaks,' I thought, 'I shall retire from all this, pay my debts, get out of the hands of Mrs. Mantrap, cut Coralie, and devote myself to Zoë, my old and faithful flame; in short, turn over a new leaf.' Ah, those new leaves! If half of them were turned over that are talked about, what a gigantic volume would they form in the life of every one of

us.

But here we are at Epsom, looking so cool and roomy after the crowd and confusion of the Derbyday. How much pleasanter a meeting is the Oaks; with not half the people, or a quarter of the noise, it is so much more racing-like, so much more a matter of business, than the great three-year-old-scramble that precedes it. Off the drag I jump in a twinkling, and away to Martingale's stable, where the mare stands, looking as like a winner as if she had already been painted by Herring in that character. Every one is full of confidence from the Major's whiskers, curling in stupendous magnificence, as though they already anticipated a triumph, down to the stunted stable-boy, who believes there is but one race-horse in the world, and that one is his own especial care; all seem to think the event a certainty. The trainer begs me to put another fifty on for him, when I go into the ring; and Martingale swears that if Queen of the May can't beat them all to-day, as far as they can see, he will never keep a race-horse again.'

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Flushed with confidence, and greedy still of gain, I elbow my way into the waving mass and Babel-like confusion of the betting-ring. What do I hear? They are laying odds upon the Queen,' as they call her; they are betting 6 to 4 they name the winner. Whata time to hedge! Shall I make a cerainty of winning a good stake, and lay against the favourite, or shall I stand the shot, and make a fortune? Stand the shot,' whispers the busy fiend at my elbow; and I accommodate a vociferous fielder' with six to four in hundreds, as my concluding stake, and close my book with the air of quiet determination with which we may fancy Napoleon shutting up his telescope, after giving his last orders at the critical moment which

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should decide the fate of an army. Now I am at leisure to talk to the ladies, and pay my accustomed homage to Mrs. Man-trap; now I can trifle in half-crown lotteries' and glove bets-glad to cover with an affectation of frivolity the gnaw. ing anxiety that is eating at my heart. Hark! the bell rings-the numbers are up-nine come to the postand jewelled pencils are wielded by fairy fingers to mark the starters on 'Dorling's Correct Card.' The course is cleared; and the only two figures left on the turf are Martingale and his jockey, exchanging few more last words. One after another the competitors sweep by in their preparatory canters; and, to my eye, the only dangerous-looking forms of the lot are St. Agatha and the Hospodar filly. St. Agatha made a sorry display at Chester, and we have got the filly's capabilities to a pound; so I feel much relieved by the certainty of victory. Mechanically I light a cigar; and ere the first half-dozen fragrant whiffs have perfumed the atmosphere, they are off!-the pace tremendous; and St. Agatha's stable-companion, a ewenecked, lop-eared weed out of Atropos, making the running! our mare well up. The hill tells off the leader; and Queen of the May, accompanied by St. Agatha and the Hospodar filly, creep to the front. Down the hill and round the corner they come like a hurricane, the terrific pace creating a tail of half a mile; and at the distance, the race is between the three, whose names are equally vociferated as winners, according to the fancy or the investments of the shouters. I am watching Martingale's colours narrowly with my glass. The Queen is halfway up the distance, nearly a length in advance. Can I believe my eyes? Hands and heels are at work as the Hospodar filly draws upon her; and the icy conviction shoots through me that our mare is beat. And now the three pass the stand, neckand-neck. Our animal is game to the last, and it is just possible that she may pull through. No, no; ridden by Newmarket's finest horseman, nothing can save her. The Hospodar filly struggles to the front -St. Agatha clears the two with a tremendous rush, and, after one of

the finest races on record, is landed a winner by a neck, the Hospodar filly second, and Queen of the May a moderate third!

What a facer! 29007.,-and where to get the money? for on Monday next must this unfortunate stake be paid. If anything could console me -if anything could raise a laugh at such a moment, it would have been Martingale's crest-fallen appearance after so unexpected a defeat. The ruby countenance had become livid, the ambrosial whiskers hung limp and helpless, and the whole man was completely beaten and undone. I believe I did laugh and jest like others during the remainder of that eventful afternoon, but it was with a load at my heart that all the merriment in the world could not have got rid of.

Long and earnest was our consultation that night on the steps at Crockford's, as Jack Lavish and I formed a committee of ways and means. I could not have applied to a better person than Lavish for advice in pecuniary difficulties, as, probably, no man in England lived so continually in hot water with regard to money-matters as did that lighthearted dragoon. The only fellow to get you out of this,' said Jack, is my old acquaintance and benefactor, Mr. Shadrach. The time is so short that no regular practitioner in London would be man enough to produce 3000l. by two o'clock on Monday. But Shadrach will do it, I have no doubt; only you must submit to be robbed enormously.' And to Shadrach, accordingly, Jack agreed to drive me betimes the following morning.

It may be a grateful partialityit may be an amiable weakness; but I confess that the Jews have always appeared to me a calumniated race. From spendthrift King John downwards, the Christian has ever pocketed the ducats and abused the donor. Very frequently has the worthy Israelite's loan become a gift; for gentlemen who are compelled to have recourse to such assistance are not always the best payers even to their fellow Christians; and the usurer's profits, like those of a fashionable tailor, must needs be large to cover the amount of his bad debts. And directly there is a word said about suffering a Jew

to become a legislator, the ingratitude of his clients knows no bounds. What, a Jew!-an Ebrew Jew' to become a lawgiver!-to pollute with his presence the chaste atmosphere of a British House of Commons ! Forbid it, that religious and highprincipled assemblage! Forbid it, worn-out revellers, who have all their lives been indebted to that wealthy tribe! Forbid it, fathers, who have eldest sons on fire to mortgage, and younger ones athirst to borrow! He has smoothed the paths of pleasure for our youth; he has mortified the cankering love of gain that blights the flower of our manhood; he has taught us foresight and caution, very likely a little practical law, to recreate our old age. And this is our return!

But here we are at Shadrach's door; and Captain Lavish, who is evidently well known to the servant, is immediately admitted with his friend into the sanctum of the usurer. Unlike the dens of the city, where dirt and capital appear to go hand in hand, in whose dingy corners the emblematic spider spins unmolested, Mr. Shadrach's gay and lightsome apartment was gorgeously furnished, with a good deal more style than taste, though adorned by one or two pictures of considerable value; whilst ottomans, flowers, and nick-nacks brought far more vividly to our minds the picture of hapless Rebecca than of the miserly Isaac of York. Our modern Isaac himself was a fresh-coloured, portly, good-humoured looking man, with little about him to betray his Hebrew origin, save a pair of dark curling whiskers and a fine aquiline nose. And his air was courtesy itself, as he requested us to sit down, and begged to know in what he could be useful. I stated the case in a very few words, and expressed my willingness to make any arrangementthe term invariably used to express the hopeless entanglement of one's affairs; only I insisted that the money must be forthcoming immediately. After a few pointed inquiries as to my expectations, it was decided that a post-obit bond was the only means of raising the necessary funds; and after some more unceremonious questions as to Sir Peregrine's age, health, habits, &c.,

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