where to-morrow's food is to come from, still it would be cheap-the cheapest thing that England ever did-to subsidize them till better times came round rather than engage in an unjust and violent attempt to break a legal blockade, and to declare war against a people anxious to be friendly with us, and who are only engaged in an endeavor which we here deem patriotic-viz, to maintain the integrity of their Government and the permanence of their nationality."

Mr. Bright's assertions have been fully borne out by the failure of the attempt to organize in Lancashire a demand upon the Government for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy and for intervention to terminate the war. What Mr. Bright said so well at Birmingham, Mr. Bazley, M. P., has said at Manchester; and Messrs. Cobden, Milner Gibson, Fox, Baines, and other representatives of manufacturing towns, have given advice and testimony to the same effect.

In the critical time of the Trent imbroglio the people of England, so far as they entered into the cry of war against the United States, were hounded on by ministerial organs, which, as we have shown, were using that incident for partisan ends. But even then, large deputations from the various Dissenting bodies formally memorialized the Government in behalf of peace with America; the period between the thirtieth of November, 1861, and the eighth of January, 1862, was devoted by thousands of British Christians to special prayer, in union meetings, for the preservation of peace between the two countries; the workingmen of London, wont to assemble in large numbers at Surrey Chapel, received with marked approval appeals against a war with the United States; like appeals were heard by willing ears throughout the cotton districts; and when on the eighth of January news came of the rendition of Mason and Slidell," a sense of relief, as from an insufferable burthen, and of gratitude for a great mercy," were felt by myriads of Christian hearts in England.

But this aversion to war with America was prompted by mingled motives of Christian philanthropy and self-interest. The failure of the British people has been in the want of an active moral sympathy with our cause, as essentially the cause of freedom and of right. As Count Gasparin has said :—

"During many long months, English Christians uttered hardly one word of encouragement to those who, as I have shown, were fighting and suffering in a no

ble cause. Not one meeting was held, not a speech was made in their behalf. Nearly all the periodicals which represent the principal churches, have sought to throw blame upon the movement, have rejoiced over the trials of the Republic, have exaggerated the triumphs of the South and labored to represent those of the North as of little importance, have denied the agency of slavery in producing the conflict, have advocated the justice of a separation and the desirableness of a Southern Confederacy.

"This was sad, very sad. Christian England has not forgotten the moment when the eloquent cry of deceived affection came over the sea: 'Oh! Englishmen! Could ye not watch with us one hour? Mirabeau once proposed to the National Assembly that they pass the following resolution: The silence of Sieyes is a public calamity' How much more ought we, continental Christians, with hearts saddened by the attitude of England, to Resolve, That the silence of English Christians is a universal calamity."

་

Yes, this silence has been a calamity for both nations. It has cost Christian England her good name for devotion to principle. It has prolonged and emboldened the rebellion. It has widely alienated from the English nation the respect and confidence of Americans. True, there are apologies even for this silence. Knowing almost nothing of the geography, the political history, the constitution of the United States-topics hardly touched upon in their schools-the English were ready to believe the notions palmed upon them by secessionists and their tools abroad, regarding the right of the South to secede, and the impossibility of conquering it and holding it in the Union. Abolitionists from this country, more earnest than practical, more vehement than wise, had assured them that the entire North was pro-slavery, that the ministry, the churches and the people, the informants alone excepted, were hopelessly under the power of the slave-oligarchy. And since, at the opening of the war, the Government of the United States, hampered by conservative traditions and constitutional theories, did nothing avowedly in the anti-slavery interest, it was difficult for Englishmen to perceive the political right and the moral significance of our cause. We therefore put in once more the plea of ignorance on their behalf.

Yet, difficult as it was for foreigners to discern the right, through the first smoke of the conflict, this was not impossible.

* L'Amerique devant L'Europe, p. 523.

Hav

If Count Gasparin could discover it, why could not the Earl of Shaftesbury? If a rationalistic publicist, like John Stuart Mill, could penetrate the veil of trans-Atlantic mystery, why could not an evangelical leader, like Sir Culling Eardly, pierce it with the eye of faith? Such Christian leaders should have said, "This Southern Confederacy is organized to defeat by treason and insurrection, the popular verdict given against slavery by the election of Mr. Lincoln; it is avowedly and defiantly based upon slavery as its corner-stone; its hands are steeped in crime! Therefore, Englishmen, touch it not! Set yourselves against it, and bid it down." Though the British Government had compromised the nation by its precipitate proclamation of neutrality, the people of England should have refused to be committed to indifference in such a cause. ing been for half a century the financial support of slavery, when startled by the stupendous crime and daring of the system, they should have given us their moral support in a war that must hasten its overthrow. This we had a right to expect. We who have never failed to honor England for her championship of civil liberty and the rights of man, we who are so allied to England by history, by language, by institutions, by social and commercial intercourse, we who were so quick to sympathize with England in her deadly struggle with the Sepoy mutiny, we who stand side by side with England in all that pertains to a representative government, to constitutional freedom, and to Christian civilization, had a right to expect of her people this moral support in the defense of these great and mutual interests.

Failing of this, they have lost their opportunity; they have embittered our conflict; they have dishonored freedom and morality. Yet England is our mother; and we must and will say to her, "With all thy faults, we love thee still." Her unnatural discipline is for our profit. We shall teach England to respect us in the field of battle, and in the field of morals. And seeing our prowess in arms and our progress in freedom, she will make haste to retrieve her error, and to strike hands with us for constitutional liberty and enfranchised humanity.

"I have elsewhere shown," says Gasparin, "the causes of a misunderstanding which I believe I shall never fully comprehend. Perhaps after all we can best explain it by calling to mind that the United States, under the influence of the proslavery party, was fast becoming an odious Government, without liberty at home or equity abroad, showing no scruples of conscience in the transaction of either public or private business. However it may be, the light has now shone, the organs of the independent churches especially, have now adopted a language which will be heard. It has already produced its fruit; generous sympathy has already burst forth in the very districts, whose industry has particularly suffered by the American crisis. The influence spreads, and has already driven back the miserable policy of the last year; it will rebuke it wherever it may appear; and not content with simple neutrality, it will declare that the best wishes of the British nation are with the North. It prepares a broad basis for the friendship of the two countries. The Bible party has risen up; Christian England, for her honor and the good of America, will repair, and more than repair, the evil she has done."*

As this Article goes to press, its general conclusions are fully justified by the tone of the speeches in Parliament upon General Butler's proclamation touching the New Orleans viragos, and the tone of the English press in regard to the rumored intervention of France in American affairs. The former betrays the eagerness of the British ministry to make capital for themselves out of our complications; and also the supercilious air of the bureaucracy toward our Government. It was not once assumed that the American people were too high-minded to suffer such an outrage as Lord Palmerston and Earl Russell imputed to General Butler; nor will those gentlemen, who have had no rebuke for the atrocities of the rebels toward the living and the dead, have the magnanimity to confess their own ludicrous misconstruction of General Butler's order. The British ministry are willing to play a bold game for office, even with edged tools. But the tone of the press upon intervention shows no disposition in the people to provoke a war with the United States, or to be involved in our conflict. Yet where is the moral sentiment of England, that should cry out against the ready advances of her ambitious politicians toward the slaveholders' oligarchy ?-that should demand the suppression of the rebellion as the only guaranty of peace and freedom in this western world?

* L'Amerique devant L'Europe, p. 527.

ARTICLE XI.-WHAT IS THE COST OF TRACT-DISTRIBUTION?

Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the American Tract Society, presented at New York May 7th, 1862. Published by the American Tract Society, 150 Nassau Street, New York, 1862.

THE American Tract Society, instituted in New York A. D. 1825, defined for itself the work which it was to do and the means by which it was to do its work. Nothing is more essential or sacred in the Constitution of that Society than the first article, which is,

"This Society shall be denominated the American Tract Society, the object of which shall be to diffuse a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of sinners, and to promote the interests of vital godliness and sound morality, by the circulation of Religious Tracts calculated to receive the approbation of all evangelical Christians."

If there is anything unquestionable in the interpretation of this article, it is the limitation of the Society's work, not simply to one object, but to one method of attaining that object. The one object, "to diffuse a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of sinners and to promote the interests of vital godliness and sound morality," is common to all distinctively Christian enterprises of associated benevolence. It is the object of the American Home Missionary Society, and of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and of all other institutions that operate by agents sent forth to preach the gospel. It is the object of the American Education Society, and of all institutions that operate by endeavors to increase the number of evangelical preachers and their fitness for their work. It is the object of all Christian colleges and theological seminaries. It is the object of the American Sunday School Union, and of all similar societies, large and small. It is the great and comprehensive object of all organized churches and ecclesiastical fed