that the Pope may release subjects from creed. They are "questions as to the natheir allegiance; and that indulgence may ture and attributes of the Deity, and as to be purchased for the darkest crimes. And, His dealings with mankind, depending on the with respect even to such doctrines as these, interpretation of certain portions of Scripall that the State ought to prevent is their ture." active dissemination. The mere holding them being involuntary, is not a fit subject for legislation."

There is obviously no subject which man ought to approach with such reverence, such caution, indeed such timidity, as the attributes of the Deity. We cannot venture to set any bounds to them. We cannot venture to treat His power, His knowledge, or His benevolence, as limited. But nothing that is unlimited is conceivable by the human mind. A Being, therefore, of infinite attributes is to us incomprehensible. When we attempt to reason about Him, it is only on hypothesis, and by analogy. Our hypothesis an hypothesis which looks rash and absurd, and probably is absurd, but is after all our only hypothesis-is, that His motives and His conduct resemble the motives and the conduct of the only being with whom we can compare Him--a wise and benevolent

man.

Now, if a man, with power to express his meaning clearly, and with knowledge enabling him to foresee how his words will be interpreted, uses language susceptible of different interpretations, we cannot but infer that he intends it to be differently interpreted.

The Archbishop answers, that "if men were designed to hold all diversities of religious belief, the natural inference is, that it is no matter whether we hold truth or falsehood, or rather, that there is no truth at all in any religion."

This must be admitted.

The examples given in the article, are the disputes as to the pre-existence of the Father, and the procession of the Holy Spirit;-disputes which relate, perhaps, to matters above our comprehension, and may resemble those of blind men as to colours, or of deaf men as to sounds.

The Archbishop adds-"This is not all; the same reasoning would go to prove that, since there is no infallible and universally accessible guide in morals, and men greatly differ in their judgments of what is morally right and wrong, hence we are to infer that God did not design men to agree on this point neither."

Now, the author's reason for holding that men were intended to differ as to some of what may be called the metaphysical questions in theology, is not the absence of an infallible and universally accessible guide, but the supposed presence of an ambiguous revelation. If the Sermon on the Mount were as susceptible of different interpretations as are the texts which Greeks and Latins cite against one another, it might be imagined that our Saviour intended it to be differently interpreted. But the moral precepts of the Gospel are as perspicuous as some of what may be called its metaphysical statements are obscure. There is scarcely a Christian sect which has separated from the general Church solely on any moral question. The schisms which have been founded on points of doctrine, or of discipline, or of ceremonies, may be counted by hundreds.

We may add, that we see some reasons, we will not say for affirming, but for suspecting, that such schisms are not without their utility.

But the Archbishop, perhaps from inadvertence on his part, perhaps from a want of perspicuity on the part of the author of the article, has not apprehended his meaning. He does not affirm, nor does he believe, Men do not seem to be improved by bethat men were designed to hold all diver- ing thrown together in great homogeneous sities of religious belief, or that it is in con- masses. The Chinese Empire-the largest sequence of the will of God that men are Buddhists, Hindoos, or Mohammedans. Why they are so why false religions are permitted to spring up and to endure, is a portion of the insoluble problem of the origin of evil-a problem which meets and arrests every speculator, Christian, Pagan, Deist, or Atheist, at every turn.

The questions as to which he ventures to think that men are designed to differ, are narrowly limited in kind and in number; and, so far from including all diversities of religious belief, apply only to the Christian creed, and to a very small portion of that

aggregation of human beings with one gov ernment, one language, and substantially one religion, that was ever collected-contains, perhaps, the most corrupt and the least improvable people that can be called civilized. Differences of language, of climate, and of habits, seem to be among the means employed by Providence in order to break men into smaller communities, in which individual merit may hope to make its way, and which improve one another by emulation and collision.

Some of the speculative differences which divide Christians may be intended to pro

duce the same effect. We have no doubt "Not altogether," he answered. "An inthat we owe much of the earnest religious tention to harm may render more virulent belief and feeling which distinguish the An- the poison of the glance; but envy, or the glo-Saxon race to the prevalence of dissent. desire to appropriate a thing, or even exThe great improver of the English clergy cessive admiration, may render it hurtful was Wesley. In Italy there is no dissent; without the consciousness, or even against but how much is there of religion? the will, of the offender. It injures most the thing that it first hits. Hence the bits of red cloth that are stuck about the dresses of women, and about the trappings of camels and horses, and the large spots of lamp black which you may see on the foreheads of children. They are a sort of conductors. It is hoped that they will attract the glance, and exhaust its venom."

Bacon's Essay on Envy is the work of a man who had suffered much from the envious. He passed the earlier and the most active portion of his life in a small, ambitious, intriguing society, in which all were acquaintances and rivals; and the sovereign -the last and the best despot that England has ever endured-could scatter prizes, such "A fine house, fine furniture, a fine camel, as, in our sober aristocratical community, and a fine horse, are all enjoyed with fear only Parliament can give, and only once and trembling, lest they should excite envy perhaps in a century. All the ambitious, and bring misfortune. A butcher would be all the covetous, and all the vain, crowded afraid to expose fine meat, lest the evil eye to the court, to contend, by flattery, by sub- of passers-by, who might covet it, should servience, and, we must add, by real service, taint it, and make it spoil, or become unfor the favour which gave power, wealth, wholesome." and station. Such a court was a hot-bed of "Children are supposed to be peculiarly envy; and Bacon's masterly enumeration the objects of desire and admiration. When of those apt to envy, and of those apt to be they are suffered to go abroad, they are inenvied, is evidently the result of personal tentionally dirty and ill-dressed; but geneobservation and experience. It is remarka-rally they are kept at home, without air or ble that he appears to have been infected exercise, but safe from admiration. This by the Oriental superstition of the evil eye. occasions a remarkable difference between "There be none of the affections," "he the infant mortality in Europe and in Egypt. says, "which have been noted to fascinate In Europe it is the children of the rich who or bewitch, but love and envy: they both live; in Egypt, it is the children of the have vehement wishes, they frame them-poor. The children of the poor cannot be selves readily into imaginations and sugges- confined. They live in the fields. As soon tions, and they come easily into the eye, es- as you quit the city, you see in every clover pecially upon the presence of the objects, field a group, of which the centre is a tethwhich are the points that conduce to fascina- ered buffalo, and round it are the children tion, if any such thing there be. We see, of its owner, with their provision of bread likewise, the Scripture calleth envy an evil and water, sent thither at sunrise and to reeye, and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars evil aspects; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an ejaculation or irradiation of the eye; nay, some have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph, for that sets an edge upon envy; and besides, at such times the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the blow."

We once, in Cairo, conversed on this superstition with an intelligent Cairene, who described it as the great curse of his country. "Does the mischievous influence of the evil eye," we asked, "depend on the will of the person whose glance does the mischief?"

* Essay on Envy, p. 75.

main there till sunset, basking in the sun, and breathing the air from the desert. The Fellah children enter their hovels only to sleep, and that only in the winter. In summer, their days and nights are passed in the open air; and, notwithstanding their dirt and their bad food, they grow up healthy and vigorous. The children of the rich, confined by the fear of the evil eye to the 'hareem,' are puny creatures, of whom not a fourth part reaches adolescence. Achmed Pasha Tahir, one of the governors of Cairo under Mehemet Ali, had 280 children; only six survived him. Mehemet Ali himself had 87; only ten were living at his death."

"I believe," he added, "that at the bottom of this superstition is an enormous prevalence of envy among the lower Egyptians. You see it in all their fictions. Half of the stories told in the coffee-shops by the professional story-tellers, of which the Arabian Nights are a specimen, turn on malevolence.

Malevolence, not attributed, as it would be or softness, which taketh an honest mind in European fiction, to some insult or in- prisoner. Neither give thou Æsop's cock a jury inflicted by the person who is its ob-gem, who would be better pleased and hapject, but to mere envy: envy of wealth, or pier if he had a barleycorn. The example of the other means of enjoyment, honourably acquired and liberally used."

Bacon points out as likely to follow ill-di- that can produce a greater amount of misrected benevolence, are evils affecting the chief than may be done by thoughtless good giver. He does not appear to have seen that nature. For instance, if any one, out of tenit inflicts evils, far greater in amount, and far derness of heart, and reluctance to punish or more mischievous in kind, upon the receiver. to discard the criminal and worthless, lets In the long contest between the labourer, de- loose on society, or advances to important sirous of choosing for himself his residence, offices, mischievous characters, he will have his master, and his occupation, and the em- conferred a doubtful benefit on a few, and ployer, anxious to confine him in the political done uncalculable hurt to thousands. So prison of a parish, and to force him to work also-to take one of the commonest and most there for such wages as the justices should obvious cases, that of charity to the poor,-. think fit, success was then on the side of the a man of great wealth, by freely relieving labourer. The imprisonments, whippings, all idle vagabonds, might go far towards slavery, chains, mutilation, and death, de- ruining the industry, and the morality, and nounced against sturdy vagabonds-that is, the prosperity, of a whole nation. For there against those who, having no property but can be no doubt that careless, indiscriminate their labour, presumed to act as if they alms-giving does far more harm than good, thought that they had a right to dispose of since it encourages idleness and improviit had failed. "Partly," says the preamble dence, and also imposture. If you give to the 1st Ed. vi. c. 3, "by foolish pity and freely to ragged and filthy street-beggars, mercy of them which should have seen the you are, in fact, hiring people to dress themsaid goodly laws executed, and partly from the perverse nature and long-accustomed idleness of the person given to loitering, the said goodly statutes have had small effect." It was not until the times of George III., when the prime minister proposed to make parochial relief a matter of right and an honour, and one of the leaders of the Opposition complained that he had searched the statutebook in vain for a law to compel the farmers to do their duty, and to raise wages with the price of provisions, that the friends of the labourer succeeded in reducing him to a slavery and a degradation which his enemies had been unable to inflict.

Archbishop Whately, writing after the experience of two centuries and a half, sees much more clearly than Bacon the real mischiefs of misdirected beneficence.

selves in filthy rags, and go about begging with fictitious tales of distress. If, on the contrary, you carefully inquire for and relieve honest and industrious persons, who have fallen into distress through unavoidable misfortunes, you are not only doing good to those objects, but also holding out an encouragement generally to honest industry."

"You may, however, meet with persons who say, 'As long as it is my intention to relieve real distress, my charity is equally virtuous, though the tale told me may be a false one. The impostor alone is to be blamed who told it me: I acted on what he said; and if that is untrue, the fault is his, and not mine.' Now, this is a fair plea, if any one is deceived after making careful inquiry; but if he has not taken the trouble to do this, regarding it as no concern of his, "Bacon," he says, "is speaking of what you might ask him how he would act and is now called benevolence and beneficence; judge in a case where he is thoroughly in and his remark is very just, that it admits of earnest, that is, where his own interest is no excess in quantity, though it may be mis- concerned. Suppose he employed a stewdirected and erroneous. For if your liberal-ard, or other agent to buy for him a horse, ity be such as to reduce your family to and this agent paid an exorbitant price for poverty, or-like the killing of the hen that what was really worth little or nothing, givlaid the golden eggs-such as to put it out ing just the same kind of excuse for allowing of your power hereafter to be liberal at all, his employer to be thus cheated, saying, 'I or if it be bestowed upon the undeserving, made no careful inquiries, but took the sellthis is rather to be accounted an unwise and er's word; and his being a liar and a cheat, misdirected benevolence than an excess of it is his fault, and not mine;' the employer in quantity. And we have here a remarkable would doubtless reply, 'The seller, indeed, is instance of the necessity of keeping the whole to be condemned for cheating; but so are you character and conduct, even our most amia- for your carelessness of my interests. His ble propensities, under the control of right principle, guided by reason, and of taking pains to understand the subject relating to each duty which you are called on to perform. For there is, perhaps, no one quality

* P. 109.

being greatly in fault does not clear you, and your merely intending to do what was right, is no excuse for your not taking pains to gain right information.'

"Now, on such a principle we ought to act in our charities; regarding ourselves as stewards of all that Providence has bestowed, and

confiding and hopeful; the old, diffident and suspicious. The young please and are easily pleased; the old are morose and fastidious. The young are open and frank; the old, cautious and reserved. The young desire what

as bound to expend it in the best way possi- young belongs laudable emulation; to the ble, and not shelter our own faulty negligence old, malignant envy. The young are inunder the misconduct of another. clined to religion and to devotion by their "It is now generally acknowledged that re- fervour and by their inexperience of evil; lief afforded to want, as mere want, tends to in- the piety of the old is chilled by their want crease that want; while the relief afforded to of charity, by their long familiarity with the sick, the infirm, and the disabled, has plain- evil, and by their tendency to unbelief. In ly no tendency to multiply its own objects. youth, the will is strong; in age, it is modNow, it is remarkable, that the Lord Jesus em-erate. The young are volatile and changeployed His miraculous power in healing the able; the old, grave and firm. The young sick continually, but in feeding the hungry are liberal and kindly; the old, avaricious, only twice; while the power of multiplying self-seeking, and self-wise. The young are food, which He then manifested, as well as His directing the disciples to take care and gather up the fragments that remained, that nothing might be lost, served to mark, that the abstaining from any like procedure on other occasions was deliberate design. In is great; the old take pains for what is nethis, besides other objects, our Lord had pro- cessary. The young admire the present; bably in view to afford us some instruction, the old, the past. The young revere their from His example, as to the mode of our cha- superiors; the old judge them. Still the rity. Certain it is, that the reasons for this old, until they are in their dotage, have some distinction are now, and ever must be, the advantages: though their invention be barsame as at that time. Now, to those en- ren, their judgment is clear; they prefer the gaged in that important and inexhaustible safe to the specious; their garrulity, and subject of inquiry, the internal evidence of even their vanity, has its use; as they canChristianity, it will be interesting to observe not act, they talk,—hence the fable that Tihere one of the instances in which the super- thonus was turned into a cricket." human wisdom of Jesus forstalled the discovering of an important principle, often overlooked, not only by the generality of men, but by the most experienced statesmen and the ablest philosophers, even in these later ages of extended human knowledge and de-long in a world in which evil predominates velopment of mental power."

Bacon published, at different times, two comparisons of Youth with Old Age: the first in 1612, when he was in his 42d year;* the second in 1623, when he was in his 62d year, and already sinking under premature decrepitude.

It is remarkable that his earlier work is by far the less unfavourable to old age. He admits that, "for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the advantage, as age for the politic;" that "the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth ;" and that "age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections." But these are the only hints of any moral superiority in the young.

In the Historia Vita et Mortis, however, in almost every moral quality, the advantage is given to youth.

"The young," he says, "are modest; the old, hardened. The young are kind and compassionate; the old, callous. To the

Essay on Youth and Age.

The reader may perhaps be interested by comparing Bacon's view of old age with that of Aristotle. We will translate the 15th chapter of the second book of the Rhetoric. "The aged," says Aristotle, "having lived

-having frequently failed, and frequently been deceived-rely on nothing, trust nothing, and have rather opinions than knowledge. Their propositions are always qualified by a 'probably' or a 'perhaps.' They are uncharitable, taking everything in its worst sense. They are suspicious, because experience has deprived them of confidence. They neither love nor hate; or, rather, obeying the precept of Bias, they treat their friends as possible enemies, and their enemies as possible friends. Life has humbled them; they desire nothing great or even extraordinary, and are satisfied with what is barely necessary. They are stingy; for they know that money must be had, and that it is hard to earn and easy to lose. Their coldness makes them timid, as the warmth of the young makes them bold. They love life, and more and more dearly as its end approaches; for men desire most the things of which they have least. Their selfishness makes them prefer what is useful to what is great; for utility is relative to the individual, greatness is intrinsic. They are shameless, because, caring only for what is profit

+ Historia vitæ et mortis. Discrimina juventutis able, they are indifferent to opinion. They

et senectutis.

have seen that most things are bad, and that