though Prussia has Catholic provinces, and desires very much to conciliate the South, Von Bismarck knows that the Ultramontanes everywhere hate the Hohenzollerns with a hatred no concession will quench, and knows, too, that the pro-Prussian Catholics, the Liberals, disbelieve in the Temporal Power. Russia is at daggers drawn with the Vatican, and will remain so, national feeling and religious feeling being in Poland, as in Ireland, inextricably mixed together. England will not interfere, and Spain, which would if she dared, is for the moment out of politics. The Queen could not risk a war in which the first step would be an insurrection, headed by men who have already often applied to Florence for assistance. There would, therefore, be no external resistance, and of internal there seems to be no chance. The Pope may indeed fly, but in that case Rome would be occupied, and he himself invited back to a position which would be all but sovereign, and which he could not refuse without showing to the whole world that he was seeking temporal and not spiritual power. It is far more probable, when we remember his age, the importance of the vast establishments which he cannot move, and which his flight would surrender to the Italians, the diffi. culty of finding a refuge, and the strong links forged through so many ages which bind the Pope to Rome, that he will remain, will play the role of undeserved suffering, and go on just as he did when the rest of his States were originally reft away. He cannot curse any harder, and if he does, even Catholics are now little affected by Papal excommunications. All they seriously desire is that his action should not be fettered by subjection to any secular power, and it will be no more fettered in Rome without a garden than it has been in Rome with one. This temporary solution may be delayed a few days, or even weeks, by the Emperor's irresolution, but it seems to be the only one which can reasonably be anticipated. The only mode of avoiding it is to reoccupy Rome with French troops, and apart altogether from alliances, Napoleon cannot confess again that he has utterly failed. A return would be a formal confession of failure by a man whose claim to reign is success. The Pope cannot keep down his provinces when once in insurrection by his own strength, -his Treasury, to begin with, would be empty in a month, and if he summons the Italians, the programme is accomplished with his own consent. He must, too, decide quickly. The Italian Government cannot keep 60,000 men perpetually encamped on the frontier, and if they retire the Reds will be masters of the situation. Of course if, as the Catholic journals expect, a miracle intervenes, there is an end of the matter; but if not, the Papacy is reduced to one of two alternatives, to resign its remaining provinces to the people, who can give the Pope no guarantee for his city; or to summon bis " erring son," Victor Emanuel, who can. With the Italian troops in sight of Rome, the problem of the Temporal Power, which of all others has most perplexed the Liberal statesmen of the Continent, will be almost resolved, and Protestants throughout the world will be very near to a danger greater than any they dread from Dr. Colenso, tion a truly saintly Papacy, without sword or purse, or threatening in its mouth, might have for the unhappy masses of mankind. the attrac From the New-York Evening Post. HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH. CONCLUSION OF DR. STEVENS'S WORK. fin THE third and fourth volumes of Dr. Abel Stevens's "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States " ishing the work have been issued by Messrs. Carlton & Porter. The third volume takes up the story of the Methodist Church in America at the time of the General Conference of 1792, and the return of Bishop Coke to this country. In his diary, written during his voyage across the Atlantic-which lasted sixty days - the Bishop says, with noble simplicity: "From the time I rise till bedtime I have the cabin table to myself, and work at it incessantly. I never was accustomed to dream much till now; but I seem to be at my pleasing work even while I sleep. I have six canary birds over my head, which sing most delightfully, entertaining me while I am laboring for my Lord.*** I am now forty-five. Let me take a view of my past life. What is the sum of all? What have I done? And what am I? I have done nothing; no, nothing; and I am a sinner! God be merciful to me!" Yet, says Dr. Stevens, "neither Wesley nor Asbury exceeded this devoted man in ministerial labors or travels, and scarcely any man of his age equalled him in pecuniary sacrifices for religion." This General Conference met in Baltimore, and was memorable as the occasion of the schism and final separation from the Methodist church of James O'Kelly, who had been a prominent leader and missionary preacher in the southern circuits. Dr. Stevens's narrative of this backsliding of O'Kelly, and its effect upon the great and good men of the council, is deeply interesting, and given with great pathos and descriptive eloquence. It is curious, by the by, that this first instance of "secession" should come from the southern wing of the church, for O'Kelly was a resident presiding elder and circuit preacher on the border between North Carolina and Virginia, and "his influence," says Dr. Stevens, "swayed the ministry and people, on both sides, all along the line." This prototype of secession returned to Virginia, and, availing himself of the party agitations between the Federalists and Republicans, raging at that time, formed a church with the title of "Republican Methodist," thus identifying his religious scheme with the dominant political party. The prosperity and power of the Republican Methodists were brief, and their fall disastrous. They waged a war of words and pamphlets for a few years, until in 1809 they fell finally to pieces. Dr. Stevens passes from this to sketch the course of Methodism in the South generally, the labours of Bishops White and Asbury, and another schism, known as Hammet's schism, in Charleston, S. C. The descriptions in these chapters of the trials and sufferings of Bishop Asbury are vivid from their absolute simplicity and the absence of all attempt on the part of the author to intensify them by any approach to sensational writing. Dr. Stevens's style is always dignified, lucid, terse and yet powerful, with a sense of the character of the events and personages of which and whom he is the historian. Here are a few abstracts, for example, from the narrative of Bishop Asbury's progress through the South: * "He was soon returning through South Carolina (after meeting and overcoming Hammond in Charlestown) treading through deep swamps and heavy rains, in dark nights, improving himself as his horseback study, in the Hebrew tones and points. We afterwards trace him in Noth Carolina, wrestling with floods, his food Indian bread and fried bacon, and his bed not set up on posts, with dashboards laid across, but on the cabin floor." And so on, till he reaches the home of the late General Russel, the brother-in-law, of Patrick Henry, of whom he writes: "I feel the want of the dear man who, I trust, is now in Abraham's bosom. He was a general officer in the Continental army, and underwent great fatigue; he was powerfully brought to God, and for a few years past was a living flame and a blessing to his neighborhood." * Dr. Stevens then proceeds to narrate the advance of Methodism in the North and East in the same felicitous manner, and closes the third volume with the record of the services of Yellabe, Brodhead and Merritt, in New England. The fourth and last volume treats of Methodism in the West, from 1796 to 1820, and also continues the history of the Church and its apostles in the other sections of the country up to the same period, closing with the deaths of Whatcoat, Carle, Lee and Asbury, which took place between 1816 and 1820, and of whom Dr. Stevens eloquently says: "Thus fell, in arms, but victorious, towards the conclusion of our period, one after another of the most conspicuous heroes of the grand Methodistic battle-field of the new world; the last two, and perhaps the two most important in the American history of the denomination, in the very year that completed its first half-century, and all of them giving, by both their great deeds and sublime deaths, a sort of epic grandeur and completeness to the history of the Church down to their epoch. In no place can the historian more appropriately draw the curtain of this singular religious drama. "Asbury struck forthwith to the South, to anticipate any schismatic measures of O'Kelly and his associates He held conferences, love-feasts, class and band-meetings, preaching once or twice and riding forty or fifty miles almost daily. He excelled the humblest preachers in the Its every page has been sughumblest pastoral labours, and gestive of lessons, and it requires no epithis was the habit of his long ministerial logue. It demonstrates an obvious and subHe hastened through North lime fact: that Christianity thrown back and entered South Carolina, riding thirty, upon its primordial truths and fears, cannot forty, fifty miles a day, cold, hungry - it fail in its very simplicity, humility, charity was December but preaching at the close and power, to attain the mastery of the of each day's journey in barns, private human soul, to wield the supremacy of the houses, new chapels of logs, open to the moral world." life. * * * No. 1225.- November 23, 1867. CONTENTS. 1. Memoir and Letters of Miss Edgeworth 2. The French Retreat from Moscow 3. Bishop Lonsdale 4. Florence and Italy PAGE Edinburgh Review, 451 478 497 498 499 511 5. The Occupations of a Retired Life. By Edward Garrett Sunday Magazine, 6. "A New Biographical Dictionary" SHORT ARTICLE: A Curiosity in Literature, 498. London Review, POETRY: Song of the Horse, 450. Sea Music, 450. Twenty Years, 450. New Books THE SEXTON'S TALE, AND OTHER POEMS. By Theodore Tilton. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. By Mrs. R. H. Davis. Sheldon & Co.: LEYTON HALL. By Mark Lemon. T. B. Peterson & Brothers: Philadelphia. Preparing for Publication at this Office THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS. By the author of "Heir of Redclyffe." THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of "Nina Balatka." THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP'S FOLLY. By Charles Lever. ALL FOR GREED. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER. By W. Trollope. Just Published at this Office THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Fanu. 50 cents. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay e mmission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. THE SONG OF THE HORSE. A poor old stage-horse, lank and thin, Why was I made to toil and tug Or why was he made, for that matter? Here I go, day after day, Pounding and slipping down Broadway, It wasn't my fault, you see, at all, That my joints grew big, and my muscles small, Yet the meanest horse is a horse, you know, Oh, no! So on the surf-white strand, Chants of deep peal the sea-waves raise, Like voices from a viewless land, Hymning a hymn of praise. By times, in thunder notes, The booming billows shoreward surge; By times, a silver laugh infloats; By times, a low, soft dirge. Souls more ennobled grow, Listing the wordless anthem rise: Discords are drowned in that great flow Of Nature's harmonies. Men change, and "cease to be," And empires rise and grow and fall; But the weird music of the sea Lives, and outlives them all. That mystic song shall last Till Time itself no more shall be: TWENTY YEARS. She nears the land - the boat that brings And now each sunburnt face I see. He left me when a little lad, A lad! a babe; I see him now, But brings not back the time that's fled; I shall not hear the voice again, I shall not pat the childish head. Perhaps a trace I yet may find Of boyhood in his look or tone; A glance - an accent to remind Me still of hopeful visions gone. His mother's smile may greet me, when We hold each other hand in hand, His mother's voice may echo then A blessing from the spirit land. The boat comes on; a minute more She'll grate upon the beach. And see, Who rises now to spring on shore? Who waves his cap aloft? "Tis he. No more I look in wistful doubt, As in the man the child appears; His earnest gaze, his joyful shout, Have bridged the lapse of twenty years. From The Edinburgh Review. | try of the same kind with that which she A Memoir of Maria Edgeworth, with a Se- WE are afraid of appealing so confidently to the present generation, but are there any survivors of the last who do not habitually associate the name of Maria Edgeworth with a variety of agreeable recollections? with scenes, images, and characters which were the delight of their youth -with the choicest specimens of that school of fiction in which amusement is blended with utility, and the understanding is addressed simultaneously with the fancy and the heart? All these, and they must still be many, will be rejoiced to hear that a Memoir has recently been printed (though it is as yet unpublished) which may enable them to watch the everyday life of their old favourite, to peep into the innermost folds of her mind, to track her genius to its source, to mark the growth of her powers, and fix how much was the gift of nature and how much the product of cultivation or of art. For ourselves, we were led by it at once to a reperusal of her works; and so satisfactory was the result, that we can confidently recommend a fresh or first trial of them to novel-readers of all ages, who are not utterly spoiled by Miss Braddon and Mrs. Wood. There is another reason for reverting to Miss Edgeworth's writings with unabated interest, independently of their attractiveness. They contributed, more than any others that can be named, towards the inauguration of that splendid era of romance which began and reached its full effulgence with the author of Waverley. 'In the General Preface to the collected edition of the Novels, after alluding to the two circumstances which led him to this style of composition, Scott says: The first was the extended and well-merited fame of Miss Edgeworth, whose Irish characters have gone so far to make the English familiar with the character of their gay and kindhearted neighbours of Ireland, that she may be truly said to have done more towards completing the Union than perhaps all the legislative enactments by which it has been followed up. Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact, which pervade the works of my accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own coun Luckily for her father, and not unluckily for Miss Edgeworth, their lives and labours are so blended and intertwined, that her name and memory cannot be separated from his. They were connected by ties stronger than ties of blood-by community of objects, habits, affections, and modes of thought. He had plausible claims to the title of her literary parent. He divined the natural bent of her genius, and aided without forcing its development. He gave her the most bracing kind of education, moral and intellectual; the groundwork being scrupulous accuracy of statement, patient observation, frankness, self-knowledge, and self-respect. He made her from early girlhood his companion and friend. He read with her, wrote with her, came before an ap plauding public hand-in-hand with her, and (we really believe unconsciously) traded on her. The best description of him in advanced years is given by Lord Byron : "I have been reading the Life by himself and daughter of Mr. R. L. Edgeworth, the father of the Miss Edgeworth. It is altogether a great name. In 1813 I recollect to have met them in the fashionable world of London, in the assemblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry and Lady Davy's, to which I was invited for the nonce. I had been the lion of 1812: Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Staël, with the Cossack, towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year. I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk and endless. He was seventy but did not look fifty- no, nor forty-eight even. I had seen poor Fitzpatrick not very long before-a man of pleasure, wit, eloquence, all things. He tottered - but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly. Edgeworth bounced about, and talked loud and long, but he seemed neither weakly nor decrepit, and hardly old. He was not much admired in London, and I remember a ryghte merrie' and conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day - viz. a paper had been presented for the recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage, to which all men had been called to subscribe. Whereupon Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did propose that a similar paper should be subscribed and circumscribed for the recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland. The fact was everybody cared more about her. She was a nice little unassuming 'Jeannie-Deans-lookingbody,' as we Scotch say; and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she could write her name; whereas her father talked, not as if he could write |