"There is another way, George. If you were as he is now would I not love you? You are the same to me as he is; you are dead to me!" Her strength suddenly deserted her, and she broke into wild sobs. He knelt beside her and forced her gently into his arms. "Cecil, you cannot put me out of your life, like this, with a word! You cannot mean to mock me with a love that denies our very humanity. It is nonsense to say I am dead to you, when every nerve in my body starts at your touch. Did we make that tie? It is the oldest, the strongest tie between man and woman. There is no duty that can break it. I am your duty and you are mine, in the sight of God." She struggled to her feet. He rose, too, and stood before her, white with the passion of his last appeal. "You have done your duty, in spite of the cost," she said. "Now I must do mine. I will try to be brave, too." A belief that he must, in the end, prevail, had unconsciously supported him, and fed his persistence; but it forsook him now as he looked in her face. He continued to look at her a moment; something like a shiver passed over him; then his words came heavily, like the first sluggish drops following a deep wound which bleeds internally. "Are you so sure that this is your duty ?" "You were very sure of yours," she faltered, dealing this last blow helplessly, and hearing herself speak as if her voice were the voice of some one else, pronouncing his doom and her own. There was a loud knock on the outer door. The same ominous hand delivered it that had knocked in the watches of the night before. Cecil started at the sound and turned instinctively, in her terror, to Hilgard. It was the one moment when she might have yielded. The knock was repeated. She made a gesture toward the door, and as Hilgard turned to open it she escaped from the room. It was Gashwiler who stood on the thresh old. "Go to the other door!" Hilgard said, fierce with the anguish that was mounting in his blood. His words were like a curse. The two men looked each other in the eyes for an instant, then Gashwiler retreated down the steps, and around the corner of the house to the kitchen. Hilgard plunged through the melting drifts that hid the trail, dashing the wet snow from the low fir-boughs. A storm of revolt was let loose within him. He saw no justice, no logic, in his fate. Its mockery was yet in store for him. (To be continued.) LES MORTS VONT VITE. Les morts vont vite! Ay, for a little space What man would find the old in the new love's face? But when disease brings thee in piteous case, To them for whom remembrance plead in vain. H. C. Bunner. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY. A MAN of many gifts and graces has passed away; a man so singularly central in English society and amid English schools of thought, so individual and yet so multiform, that among the wreaths which bestrewed his tomb in Henry VII.'s chapel,-the offering of all nations, from Ireland to Armenia, of men of all opinions, from dignitaries of the church to scientific materialists, of all classes of society from the Queen of England to the poor children of Westminster,-it would be hard to say which tokens were the most natural, the most appropriate, the most sincere. A man so many-sided should be described by many men; a man of such wide and active sympathies should be commemorated not by his intimates alone, but by others who have looked up to him as to a source of life and light; who have enjoyed, perhaps, some amities of a hereditary friendship, some encouragement of his cordial smile. Without repeating what has been already said, or anticipating what may be more fitly said by others, there is room for some such reflections on his work and character as will be suggested here. The outward life of Arthur Stanley was so ordered from childhood upward as to enable him to mature and exercise his powers in the most favorable way, and to lead his receptive nature through scene after scene of sterling virtue or of old renown. The happy Rectoryhome at Alderley gave to his after years the inestimable background of childish memories of unmingled brightness and peace. His intercourse with Dr. Arnold at Rugby showed the relation of teacher and pupil in its ideal form. At Oxford, the three great colleges of Balliol, University, Christ-Church, welcomed him in town, and each upbuilt some part of the fabric of his being. The ancient shrine of Canterbury fostered at once his historic instincts and his deep sense of the greatness of the English Church. And finally Westminster received him to an office so congenial to every aspiration of his heart that all else seemed to have been but a prolusion to those stately duties and an antechamber to that famous home. He was blessed too, in father and mother, in family and friends; blessed most of all in the wife whose presence doubled both his usefulness and his felicity, and whose loss gave to his latest years the crowning dignity of sorrow. One incongruity alone was sometimes felt in this harmonious career,-a certain dis crepancy between Stanley's habits of thought and those of the clerical world around him. Scruples of this kind had led him to hesitate as to taking orders, but they had then been brushed aside with rough vigor by Arnold's friendly hand. But as Stanley rose into prominence his supposed laxity of dogmatic view gave umbrage to many members of his profession; he experienced "that difficulty" which, in his own words, "is occasioned not so much by the actual divergence of opinion amongst educated, or amongst uneducated men, as by the combination in the same religious and the same social community of different levels of education,”—and it may be added of original temperaments, so diverse that their professors, however educated, must needs construe this perplexing universe in many varying ways. Dean Stanley's view of his own position in the church is given in a striking passage in the preface to his "Essays on Church and State": tion from every conceivable outward form of organi"The choice is between absolute individual separazation, and continuance in one or other of those which exist, in the hope of modifying or improving it. There are, doubtless, advantages in the former alternative. existing system loves truth and seeks charity, is, inThe path of a theologian or ecclesiastic, who in any deed difficult at the best. Many a time would such a one gladly exchange the thankless labor, the bitter taunts, the "law's delay," the "insolence of office," public duties, for the hope of a few tranquil years of the waste of energy, that belong to the friction of independent research or studious leisure, where he need consult no scruples, contend with no prejudices, entangle himself with no party, travel far and wide over the earth, with nothing to check the constant increase of knowledge which such experience alone can fully give. But there is a counterbalancing attraction, which may well be felt by those who shrink from sacrificing their love of country to a sense of momentary relief, or the hopes of the future to the pressure of the present. To serve a great institution, and by serving it to endeavor to promote within it a vitality which shall secure it as the shelter for such as will have to continue the same struggle after they are to be endured which otherwise would be intolerable." gone, is an object for which much may be, and ought This passage is interesting, moreover, as distinctly indicating Stanley's conception of the functions of a national church. A national church may be regarded as aiming at either of two somewhat different ends. We may say that it is meant to promulgate that body of spiritual truth which has, at a given historical epoch, approved itself to a given nation. Or we may say that it is meant to promulgate such spiritual truth as may, from time to time approve itself to that nation as it lives and grows. On the first theory, the church must represent a fixed code in the midst of a changing world, as the Greek and Roman churches profess to do. On the second theory, it must modify its teaching, as the Reformed churches actually did, when the great mass of thinking men in a nation are seen to have modified their belief. Such changes can have no finality; and if a violent wrench like the English Reformation was justifiable, it must be still more justifiable, in those who now wish to maintain the national church, to introduce as gently as possible such changes as may keep her in sympathy with the advancing knowledge of the time. And these changes, though initiated by laymen, must be adopted by church dignitaries if they are to become a part of the established creed of the nation. It is noticeable, indeed, that in past centuries the same men have often been first denounced as heretics, and afterward accepted as pillars of the church, having carried through at their own risk some reform which was ultimately felt by all to be beneficial. It is needless to say that the recent rise of science, physical and historical, has effected an even greater alteration in men's mental outlook than was effected by the revival of learning, which led almost necessarily to the Reformation. If, then, the English Church is to maintain her position as national, she must be prepared to modify her teaching, with little delay, and such modification can best be carried through by men of Stanley's comprehensive sympathies and strong com mon-sense. There remains, however, the question whether religious unity is really strongly desired by many men; whether the different sections of the English church or the English nation are disposed to make much effort to preserve the idea of a national church. And the answer commonly given is that such union is not strongly desired, that, on the other hand, men tend to hold views more divergent, and to express them with more distinctness, than ever before. It might, perhaps, have been expected that as the conclusions of science become more definite, as it grows easier to make men understand the same demonstrations and obey the same laws, it would also grow easier to unite them in the same religion. But this is not so; for religion is a matter of tastes and emotions, as well as of reason. Along with what is deepest and most universal its sphere includes all that is most individual and variable in man. It includes points on which classes of men at different mental levels-nay, even different individuals on the same level-cannot possibly be expected to agree. On the one hand, as fresh bodies of men wake up to religion they inevitably pass through stages of thought and feeling which many of their contemporaries have already outgrown. And, on the other hand, learning and intellect, so far from securing uniformity, will, when combined with certain temperaments, only serve to make the cases of reversion to an older type, or of divergence into an individual type, more marked and impressive. So long, in short, as the evidence as to an unseen world remains much where it is, that evidence will probably be interpreted as variously as heretofore. An accession of new evidence might, no doubt, lead to a greater unity of creed; but the possibility of such an accession of evidence is just what all sects unite to deny. From the theological point of view, therefore, it may seem neither possible nor very important to maintain the Church of England. On the other hand, the political and the philanthropical arguments for a national church are strong. It is, or may be made, the safest bulwark against sectarian bigotry, the most efficient machinery for supplying the moral needs of the community. And there is also a historical point of view, of which Stanley was the best representative. It seemed to him a childish, almost an impious thing, that our disagreements on questions which, for the most part, we can neither solve nor comprehend, should lead us rashly to destroy that august institution which so many names have adorned, so many memories hallowed, which has spread her wide arms from pole to pole, and has embodied for centuries the spiritual life of a mighty people. How premature were such a dissolution! For no one knows what direction opinion will ultimately take; and the Church of England, which is committed to so much less than the Church of Rome, and which, with her allied churches in both hemispheres, stands already second in importance to the Church of Rome alone-the Church of England, it may well be said, has a better chance than any other religious corporation of finding herself erect after the general reconstruction, and constituting, in some sense or other, the Church of the Future. Should such a fate be hers, she will be grateful to those whose historical instinct saved her from disruption, who did not despair of the spiritual republic in times of inward conflict and dismay. Descending from general principles to details, we find the peculiar type of Stanley's historical instinct his delight in striking anecdote, in unlooked-for parallels, in the picturesqueness of the past,-well illustrated by his treatment, in his latest book, of the rites and symbols of the early church. To the mystic, these symbols seem still instinct We can indeed hardly claim for Stanley with spiritual truth. To the philosopher they the title of an original investigator on any suggest a field of unexhausted inquiry; they subject, save only the very difficult and lead back the mind to the Seven Rivers of interesting one of the geography of Sinai and the Indus valley, to the worships of our Aryan Palestine. But it would be equally unfair to ancestors in Persia or Babylon, to the remote speak of such popularizations as his "Jewish and essential unity of the creeds of men. Church" as though they were slight or easy Stanley is not attracted in either of these productions. Crude knowledge must be diways. He does not deal with thought and gested and re-digested before it can enter emotion in their subterranean currents, but vitally into the intellectual system of manrather in their dramatic manifestation on the kind, and rightly to assimilate such nutriment great theaters of the world. And he is never may often be as difficult as to collect it. The better pleased than when by some quaint Englishman, especially, writing, as Stanley juxtaposition he can show the irony of men's did, for two hemispheres and some half-dozen pretensions to dogmatic infallibility, or to nations, must needs feel that the form in the authority of immemorial tradition. In which he gives his results to this enormous "Christian Institutions" it delights him to public is a matter of no slight concern. point out that the only true Sabbatarians are to be found in Abyssinia; that the kiss of peace was one of the most indispensable of primitive practices," but is now preserved only by "the Glassites, or Sandemanians"; that although the Coptic church alone retains the original form of the Lord's Supper, some vestige of the true position is retained by the Presbyterians and the Pope. The Pope, in fact, is for Dean Stanley a perfect museum of paradoxes. While reflecting with regret that "Augustine would have condemned him as an unbaptized heretic," he is pleased to find in the peculiarities which surround him, a mass of latent Primitive Protestantism." He traces with interest the origin of his white gown, his red shoes, his peacock fans; while he is careful to remind us that the only ecclesiastical vestment recognized by the early Fathers consisted of trowsers. The breadth, and also the limitations of Stanley's view are well exemplified by his essay on the pictures in the catacombs of Rome. He draws out admirably from these figures the ἀγαλλίασις and ἀφελότης, the joy and simplicity of the primitive Church. There is found there no crucifix, no cypress, no death's-head, no dance of skeletons, no martyrdom of saints, but the young shepherd carrying the lamb amid green pastures, and dove-like souls that soar to heaven, and the mysterious gladness of the vine. All this he sees in that ancient imagery, but he does not attempt to explain its strange anomalies by any reference to a yet remoter past. He has no word of comment (for instance) on the view of those in whose eyes an occult tradition mingles here with the new-risen faith; who see in the crux ansata, with its recurved extremities, the cross of wood from whose central hollow our Aryan forefathers made spring the friction-fire; who discern in Agnus the mystic Agni, and in the lamb's luminous aureole the transmuted symbol of that Vedic flame. 66 Of this, Dean Stanley, with his keen interest in America, his vivid sense that "westward the course of empire takes its way," was certain to be fully conscious. And he remembered it most of all when he dealt with that subject whose world-wide diffusion has given to it its chief importance. For the history and literature of England may be said to have had greatness thrust upon them. They have not been selected for universal study on account of their intrinsic interest and perfection, as have been the history and literature of Greece. But they belong to a race which happens to have just those qualities which enable it to overrun the earth. Whatever the history of such a race may be, the world must know it; whatever its literature, the world must study it. And in recounting the English Past no tone could be fitter than Dean Stanley's,-a tone indicating at once a glowing sense of the dignity of the story, and an honest consciousness of its many blots and imperfections. Long before Stanley was made Dean of Westminster, it was felt that the memories which hallow English ground appealed to no man more vividly than to him. And when he was placed, as it were, in official connection with English history,— when he was made the guardian of that pile of buildings which is to the British Empire,nay, to all English-speaking lands,—almost what the Capitol was to Rome,-then indeed the thought of him became so inseparable from the thought of the Abbey that one knew not whether the man magnified the office, or the office the man. It is there, in some part of that vast, irregular pile, that the memory of all who knew him will choose to imagine him still. Some will best recall him as he dispensed hospitality in the Deanery, or stood in that long library which seems immersed in silence and antiquity within a bow-shot of earth's busiest roar. These will remember his talk, its vi vacity and simplicity, its tone as of a man accustomed to feel that his words carried weight, yet never grasping at an undue share in the conversation, nor failing to recognize the least contribution which those who spoke with him might bring. To those who recall such scenes he may well appear as the very type of civilization, of the manners to which birth and breeding, mind and character, add each their charm; which can show feeling without extravagance, and power without pride; which can convince men by comprehending them, and control with a smile. To some, again, his image will present itself as he stood in his pulpit in the nave of Westminster, or by the tomb of some great man departed, or before the altar on the rare occasions when the solemn Abbey opened its portals to a scene of marriage-joy. These will recall the voice of delicate resonance, the look of force and dignity enhanced by the contrast with a body so small and frail; and, above all, that efflux of vivid human fellowship which all men felt when he was near, the sense of the responsive presence of a living soul. He lies where he had most truly lived. Beside him, in the niche of Henry VII.'s chapel, is laid the wife to whom, in his own solemn words, the earthly union was but designed to link him "till death us join" in some bond more sacred still. Above him float the banners of his knightly Order of the Bath, whose ideal chivalry and purity have never found an earthly embodiment more chivalrous or more pure. The chapel opens into the mighty Abbey, solemn and noble as work of men's hands can be, yet filled with tombs and tablets miscellaneous as life, incongruous as history. Many a strange shape is there: Rodney's captains, and Admiral Tyrrell rising from the sea, and the monstrous image of Watt; but, in the midst, still rises the shrine. of the Confessor, and the fifth Henry's helm, with the dints of Agincourt, hangs in the dusky air. It may be that, in ages to come, those who tell the roll of England's worthies in the aisles of Westminster may think that Stanley's name stood higher with his contemporaries than any definite achievement of his could warrant. We cannot correct the judgments of posterity; but we may feel assured that if it had been allowed us to prolong, from generation to generation, some one man's earthly days, we could hardly have sent any pilgrim across the centuries more wholly welcome than Arthur Stanley, to whatever times are yet to be. For they, like us, would have recognized in him a spectator whose vivid interest seemed to give to this world's spectacle an added zest; an influence of such a nature as humanity, howsoever it may be perfected, will only prize the more; a life bound up and incorporated with the advance and weal of men; a presence never to be forgotten, and irreplaceable, and beloved. |