bravery; and while his performance was a profound and brilliant one, its heroism was even more memorable.

Probably the most careful studies that he has given to the public are his lectures before the Lowell Institute, Boston, on the "Treatment of Social Diseases," in 1857. These lectures were very patient, practical, and sagacious, and undoubtedly prepared the author for his present task as President of the Sanitary Commission. The organization of this commission was in great part his work; and they who were with him throughout the first struggle of its friends to secure to it a firm foundation, testify to the boundless courage, versatile talent and practical sagacity, with which he carried his point, and won over to his cause the heads of the nation, and discomfited the red-tape procrastinators who are such masters of the art "How not to do it." His labors for nearly a year in this commission have been very great. He has conducted a large correspondence, given many addresses, had personal interviews with important persons, travelled east, west, and south, to inspect the camps and hospitals in person, and actually rendered the service of a major-general in the corps of militant benevolence. Meanwhile, he has kept his ministerial charge, and maintained the high intellectual and devotional character of his pulpit labors.

Dr. Bellows is a versatile man, and, by a necessity of his nature, as well as from the opportunities of his position, he has taken a warm interest in subjects of the most diverse kind. Thus, shortly after astounding the old priesthoods by his defence of the drama before an association of actors, he came out with his famous discourse at Cambridge on the suspense of faith, and alarmed his old friends in freedom and progress with fears lest he were taking the back track, and would be soon at the Vatican, kneeling for the pope's blessing on his penitent head. But they who look to the springs of his convictions discover the interior unity of the man, and can see that he may be a warm champion of a new and purer Church Universal, and be all the more ready to give the beautiful arts, the drama among them, a place within its benediction. We should, perhaps, be sorry to be obliged to reconcile all Dr. Bellows' utterances through a term of years with each other, for he writes and speaks from the spur of the moment, pushing his fiery steed on at full gallop, apparently without looking behind him. Yet it is very remarkable how well his various positions illustrate and complete each other; and even when he runs counter to himself in appearance, as in his attitude at one time as a teacher of transcendentalism, and again as a champion of an authoritative Church, it will be found, as in his recent volume of sermons of various dates, that his course is cumulative, and that he is travelling over dif ferent parts of the same great domain, and now ranging in the open pasture and now resting in the safe fold. If, however, he had the same power in setting forth and urging a complete system of truth or practice that he has shown in dealing

with specific ideas and measures, he would take a place among the great constructive minds of the age. As yet he has not brought his convictions and powers to bear organically upon his work, and his brilliant thoughts sometimes flash more in lines of impulsive force, like the lightning, than shine together like the constellations. Yet it is not difficult to conceive of him as combining his views, experiences and plans into one method, and bringing his electric power to bear upon some great and permanent work of social or religious construction. He has some great gifts as a religious teacher and organizer; and if he lives twenty years, he ought to do something to meet the great want of our time, which he has so ably set forth, the want of a broad and effective and truly catholic church system, that shall be at once generous and strong. As it is, however, he has done little in this direction; and with gifts that in some respects rival Wesley's or even Loyola's, he has been apparently little ambitious of church influence, and depends mainly upon his rare personal power as preacher for the success of his ministry, without any help from the methods of edification and administration which he so powerfully discusses and advocates as needed to unite and strengthen the generous minds of our day. As yet, he talks catholicity, and practises extreme individualism.

Dr. Bellows is an acute and original thinker, a shrewd observer of men, a lover of the best books, especially of the day, a ready and brilliant writer and eloquent speaker, a cordial friend, a humane and devout Christian. His main gift that marks him above most other men is a certain force of character that gives him direct influence over others. He has contemporaries more learned, more philosophical, more constructive than he, and quite as brilliant in style and eloquent in speech. But no man can carry a given point where enthusiasm and moral power are needed so well as he; and he has a certain princely quality in his temper and presence that gives him remarkable sway. Were he not eminently public-spirited, and full generally of humane purposes, his tone might often seem presuming; but in leading movements he rides his hobby or his knightly steed not for himself, but for the good cause of patriotism, or humanity, or faith; and while the superannuated dignitaries of the faculty, or the staff, or the pulpit, whom he starts from their sleep, may curse him for his insolence, the patriots and philanthropists of the land will honor him as a brave and sagacious reformer, and wish him God-speed in his campaign of mercy and heroism.

These stirring times have evidently had a decided effect on Dr. Bellows' ways of thinking. He has long been a leader in the liberal school of thought, and has given a large part of his life to vindicating the rights of the human soul against ancient prescriptions and priesthoods, dogmas and dignities. In this he has followed in the track of Channing, and sometimes he has approached the extreme individualism of Emerson, and tended to slight the power of positive

institutions and constitutional laws. Of late years he has been more conservative, and since his public position has connected him more closely with national affairs, and shown him the difficulty of carrying out abstract ideas, and the importance of uniting men as far as possible upon some standard of authority, he has taken a bold stand with the constitutional party. He is now, as ever, an emancipationist, but he trusts mainly in the power of social and moral causes to free the slave; and, while favoring the rigid enforcement of law against rebe slaveholders, he is for leaving to all loyal states and men their full rights of local jurisdiction under the constitution.

In person, Dr. Bellows carries dignity and suavity, and has an air of experi ence and age beyond his actual years. At heart, however, he is very young, and can be as merry and amusing as any of the solid old fathers of the Church, like Luther and his compeers, who thought an honest laugh sometimes no unseemly preparation for a sincere prayer. Perhaps the doctor's prayers are the best thing that he does; and the fair inference is, that if so much unction drops so readily from his lips, there must be a deep fountain within. It is well that he is thus a devout man, and earnest to subdue his will to the Supreme will; for his temperament is of the impulsive, commanding kind, such as tends, not from calculation but from instinct, to take the lead, and to submit with great difficulty to any other position. If the army has thus lost a brave and somewhat exacting general, or the Senate a brilliant and imperious leader, the Church has gained a . commanding preacher, and humanity a fearless and faithful friend.