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bigoted proceedings. Now Jewell is not sparing of strong words respecting Anabaptists; and the reader may be curious to know how the Tract Committee contrive to keep their compact, and yet to act honestly. Let us turn first to the very passage we have been considering, where Jewell, having defined the sacrament of baptism, says that "no one who wishes to profess the name of Christ" is to be denied it; adding, in the strongest terms, "Ne infantes quidem Christianorum hominum, quoniam nascuntur in peccato, et pertinent ad populum Dei, arcendos esse." This is properly translated in the old version adopted by the Christian Knowledge Society, "No, not the infants" &c., and in the Cambridge version, "Nor even the infants;" whereas the Tract Society, not daring wholly to obliterate the passage, first alters the translation which it had pledged itself to follow, except where "correction" was requisite to bring it nearer to the Latin text, by diluting the significantly strong words of Jewell "Ne quidem," which he meant for a rebuke to the Anabaptists, into the poor tame monosyllable "Nor" (the quidem being dishonestly left out); and then appending a note, which however we do not complain of, saying "It will be remembered that Jewell is here stating the views entertained by himself and the other Reformers, which it was not consistent with the plan of this work to omit." This note is fair enough; but why the garbled translation softening down Jewell's emphatic words?

But this is not the whole; for Jewell elsewhere mentions the Anabaptists by name, and with much indignation; as for instance where he says "Why have he (the Bishop of Rome) and his followers in that, shaken off the yoke, like the Anabaptists and Libertines, and exempted themselves from the jurisdiction of all civil powers, that they might with the greater liberty and security plague the world?" What is the committee to do now? How is it to "correct" this passage so as to bring it nigher to the original? It suppresses the words "like the Anabaptists and Libertines," so that not one of its readers could know, unless he took the trouble to collate the whole volume, that such words were written in the treatise of which this professes to be an honest translation. The Latin is, "Cur ille, ejusque sectatores, Anabaptistarum et Libertinorum more."

Nor was this inadvertence; for there is another passage where the Anabaptists are mentioned with several other sects, and here again is another silent suppression. Speaking of ancient heresies, Jewell says "If any of these heresies happen to break out anew amongst us, we severely and seriously correct the revivers of them with lawful and civil punishments. We confess that upon the beginning of the Reformation there arose some new and unheard-of sects, as Anabaptists, Libertines, Mennonians, Zwinkfeldians; but we render our unfeigned thanks to God that the world is now so well satisfied that we neither brought forth, nor taught, nor maintained those monsters." Will it be believed that the Tract Committee have surreptitiously left out the words above given in Italics; not choosing to let it be known that Jewell thought it necessary, in the name of Protestantism, to repudiate Anabaptism, with which Popery had reproached it. What defence will the committee set up for this insidious suppression in a translation professing to be accurately reprinted, except where correction was necessary to bring it nigher to the text? Will they say that modern Anabaptists are not like those rebuked by Jewell? They might, if they pleased, have added a note to say so, as they add various other explanatory notes; or they might have confessed that they had left out something; but instead of this they silently mutilate the passage, and yet affirm to the reader that they give him a genuine ungarbled translation. In other places Jewell gives lists of what he considered heretics; and these they print, because Anabaptists are not named; but in the places where this sect, which has made the Tract Society a main instrument of promoting its objects, is mentioned, the Committee silently leave out the words they object to. Our pages shall be open to their reply, if they venture to offer one. We never, in the case of any Society, will restrain the expression of our grief and indignation at such proceedings. Christians are not to do evil that good may come.

MELANCHOLY PARALLEL BETWEEN LORD CHESTERFIELD AND

LORD ORFORD.

For the Christian Observer.

A valued correspondent lately alluded in our pages (January, p. 19) to the melancholy closing days of Lord Chesterfield; who had run, as his Lordship expressed it, "the silly rounds of business and pleasure, and had done with them," "knowing their futility, and not regretting their loss;" disgusted with "the coarse pullies and dirty ropes, which exhibit and move the gaudy scene," and "the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of an ignorant multitude." And now, sated with the past, and without hope for the future, destitute of the consolations of religion, never having studied its evidences, which he scoffingly set at nought, and ignorant of its doctrines, as he was negligent of its duties, finding nothing worth living for, yet fearing to die, this unhappy voluptuary had no resource but the miserable one of trying to doze out the remainder of his days, not even affecting apathy, to conceal his poignant anguish. Hear his mournful words:

"When I reflect back upon what I have seen, what I have heard, and what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle, and pleasure of the world, had any reality; but I look upon all that has passed as one of those romantic dreams which opium commonly occasions, and I do by no means desire to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive dream. Shall I tell you that I bear this melancholy situation with that meritorious constancy and resignation which most people boast of? No, for I really cannot help it. I bear it, because I must bear it, whether I will or no. And I think of nothing but killing time, now he is becoming my enemy. It is my resolution to sleep in the carriage the remainder of the journey."

This, it is to be feared, has been the wretched condition of many who have not, like Lord Chesterfield, left their bitter experience upon durable record. But this wretched man confesses his misery. He does not pretend to bear his "melancholy situation"-so he calls it-with "constancy or resignation." He only submits to it because he must, whether he will or not. He thinks of nothing but killing time, his greatest enemy, and sleeping in the carriage the remainder of the journey.

Contrast this with the language of St. Paul: "I am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." In a dreaming and distracted world, as Baxter calls it, where men chase butterCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 53.

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flies and grasp at rainbows, there is nothing truly solid that has not some relation to an enduring scene beyond the grave. "He thinks he hath eaten, and his soul is empty." But eternity is substantial; and the Bible, therefore, which is the golden key to its treasures, is a boon of inestimable price. The wonder is, not that of those who live either theoretically or practically infidels, many feel, and some express, the anxiety which Chesterfield describes; but that any should be so absorbed with business or pleasure, so mentally intoxicated, or so brutishly ignorant or thoughtless, as not to experience similar apprehensions. If, indeed, this world were all, who would not wish to sleep out the remainder of the journey, rather than awaken to the consciousness of approaching annihilation? but if this world be not all, if there be an eternity of weal or woe, to be unconcerned is madness. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life."

We were reminded of Lord Chesterfield by the recent revival of the memory of one of his cotemporaries and friends, whose name, like his own, once floated conspicuously upon the stream of time, but had begun to sink into oblivion. Between Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth earl of Chesterfield, and Horace Walpole, fourth earl of Orford, there were many striking resemblances. Both had been educated in the sunshine of courts; Orford being the son, and Chesterfield the great nephew, of a prime minister, who respectively obtained for their houses an earldom which in both instances flitted through four successors within the range of a few years. During nearly half a century Chesterfield and Orford were mirrors of fashion and arbiters of elegance. Each had passed through the same university, Cambridge; each early addicted himself to literature, to politics, and to pleasure ; they were both men of weak health and delicate frame; but of sprightly mien and courtly habits; full of wit and vivacity; undeniably possessed of very considerable talents; men who might have been great blessings to the world, had their moral character corresponded to their mental ability. Each wrote fair poetry, brilliant essays, and letters as admirable for their graces of style, striking thoughts, and playful corruscations, as they were execrable for their heartlessness, licentiousness, and irreligion. As if to bring them into closer comparison as authors, we find them both contributing to Essays in the pages of the "World," and to Dodsley's Poetical Miscellany; and we may add, that even their haunts were similar, for Chesterfield delighted to grace Pope's villa at Twickenham,* and Walpole adorned

* We fear that Pope must be remembered among the unhappy race of sceptics which abounded in his day; for though he called himself a Romanist, he has not left any clear evidence upon record of his being a sincere and firm believer in Christianity. Upon his deathbed, being asked whether he would not die like his father and mother, and whether a priest should not be sent for, he replied: "I do not think it essential, but it will be very right and I thank you for putting me in mind of it." Now in one of his poems he uses this very expression to indicate apathetic indiffer

ence:

"Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead,

She bids her footman put it in her head." Pope thanked his friend for "putting it into his head" to consider whether he would die of any religion. It is clear, therefore, that it was not there before. The morning after the priest had been with him, and performed the usual Romanist ceremonials, he said: "There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue.' We wish we could think that he did not in this remark mean to set as lightly by the peculiar the same village with his Strawberry Hill wonders. Nor was their parliamentary career unlike; but their chief scene of display was in palaces and drawing-rooms. Both were worshippers of birth and rank, and both made the world's applause their highest object of ambition. Both travelled much upon the continent of Europe, revelling in the dissipations of its most profligate courts, and courting the friendship of its infidel philosophists, especially of Voltaire. Neither of them made any secret of his contempt for Christianity, and of the habits which it inculcates. Their career was similar in its duration, Chesterfield expiring in 1773 at the age of 79 years, and Walpole in 1797 at the same age. What the survivor said of his friend applies to both: "Lord Chesterfield's entrance into the world was announced by his bon-mots, and his closing lips dropped repartees that sparkled with his juvenile fire."

But the moral of the whole is, that their latter days were embittered with the feeling described by one who like them had run the silly round of sensual and intellectual dissipation, but had been mercifully recovered from the snare, -" Vanity of vanities; vanity of vanities; all is vanity;" and he adds, "Vexation of spirit;" as they found it to be, though they did not, like Solomon, arrive at the blessed conclusion : "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." The last few years of Chesterfield's life were doubly pitiable. He had lost his son whose education and advancement had long been the principal object of his care, and he sank into deep melancholy. Had his recollections been such as a Christian parent might cherish, who had endeavoured to bring up his child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, there had been some alleviation; and though the bereavement would still have been afflicting, he might have enjoyed the blessed consolation of assuredly believing that through his Redeemer's merits he was eternally rescued from a world of sin and care, and that the sorrowing father would, when he had patiently waited his change, be translated to the same felicity : "I shall go to him, but he shall not come back to me." But when Chesterfield remembered how he had brought up his son, as too plainly appears from his letters to him, which Dr. Johnson described as "inculcating the morals of a strumpet with the manners of a dancing master;" fearful must have been the retrospect; and if he had no hope beyond the grave, as seems too probable-no hope whatever, either well or illfounded-it is difficult to conceive of a state of mind more forlorn and wretched.

Lord Orford continued to amuse his latter years in adding to and exhibiting the books, prints, pictures, antiquities, articles of taste and curiosity, and other rarities at Strawberry Hill; all which he directs in his will shall continue for ever as heir-looms appurtenant to the estate. This lath and plaster mansion, (for his Gothicising was chiefly superficial, though it assisted in reviving that long-neglected style, for which gratitude is due to the designer) is itself a store of

doctrines of Christianity as by extreme unction. It is a strange truth, that in his celebrated epitaphs for men whom he professed to revere and love, and wished to honour, he never chances to mention among their virtues that they

were disciples of Jesus Christ. There is less religion in those compositions than in the Diis Manibus of the old Pagan funeral inscriptions. A man who can forget the Gospel in a churchyard, cannot think much of it any where else,

monitory mementos. It was originally a small tenement built by a nobleman's coachman; it was afterwards inhabited by Colley Cibber the player; Dr. Talbot, Bishop of Durham; the Marquis of Carnarvon; Mrs. Chenevix, the toy-woman; Lord Sackville; Horace Walpole; the Hon. Mrs. Damer, the sculptress; and last, by the better known than highly venerated present Earl of Waldegrave, whose heavy debts, and his disgust at his Twickenham neighbours for not more cordially sympathising with him in his calamitous six month's incarceration for assaulting a policeman, have induced him to scatter abroad by auction the fond relics by which poor Lord Orford hoped to be long remembered, as a man of elegant taste and prodigal liberality. The scene which is now passing at Strawberry Hill, under the ruthless hammer of Mr. Scatter-trope Robins, reminds us of one of Walpole's own gloomy anticipations; though there was perhaps somewhat of affectation and self-complacent coquetry blended with his professed renunciation of long-lived fame. He says: "With regard to the bookseller who has taken the pains of collecting my writings for an edition (amongst which I do not doubt but he will generously bestow on me many that I did not write, according to the liberal practice of such compilers), and who also intends to write my life, to which (as I never did anything worthy of the notice of the public) he must likewise be a volunteer contributor, it would be vain for me to endeavour to prevent such a design". "Literary characters, when not illustrious, are known only to a few literary men; and amidst the world of books, few readers can come to my share. Printing, that secures existence (in libraries) to indifferent authors of any bulk, is like those cases of Egyptian mummies, which, in catacombs, preserve bodies of one knows not whom, and which are scribbled over with characters that nobody attempts to read, till nobody understands the language in which they were written. I believe, therefore, it will be most wise to swim for a moment on the passing current, secure that it will soon hurry me into the ocean where all things are forgotten."

We are not certain whether in this last phrase Walpole means only that human fame is transient, or whether he includes a far more fearful notion; but the tenor of his opinions leads to the conclusion that he cherished no hope of any kind beyond the tomb.

We cannot help contrasting with the above deplorable extracts, from the letters of Chesterfield and Orford, the following from one of the letters of their illustrious cotemporary, Lord Chatham, to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, the first Lord Camelford. We are not quite clear what Chatham means by "active vital principle of faith," as distinct from "subtle speculative opinions;" but the general character of the passage appears in cheering contrast to the melancholy effusions above noticed. He says:

"I come now to the part of the advice I have to offer to you, which most nearly concerns your welfare, and upon which every good and honourable purpose of your life will assuredly turn. I mean the keeping up in your heart the true sentiments of religion. If you are not right towards God, you can never be towards man : the noblest sentiment of the human breast is here brought to the test. Is gratitude in the number of a man's virtues? If it be, the highest benefactor demands the warmest returns of gratitude, love, and praise. Ingratum qui dixerit, omnia dixit. If a man wants this virtue, where there are infinite obligations to excite and quicken it, he will be likely to want all others towards his fellow-creatures, whose utmost gifts were poor, compared to those he daily receives at the hands of his

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