furtherance of the great questions of peace, temperance and complete suffrage-the last being the leading movement. In this way, we came to get an insight into the real character and condition of the people of England; for Joseph Sturge was no less at home in the dwellings of the rich, than in the cottages of the poor. It was amusing, as well as instructive, to see how he stuck to his text, when it was a good and telling one. For example, having analyzed the membership of the House o Commons, and shown by classification how many interests it represented, civil and military, he was so pleased with it, as demonstrative of the source of class legislation, that he never tired of using it. "How can you ever expect justice from a house like that?" he would say; and then the masses cheered to the very echo. One day we suggested that a change might be useful, and offered to analyze the House of Lords; but he would not hear of it, saying, "I once heard Daniel O'Connell say, that when he had a subject which ought to be understood, he would repeat what he had to say about it, until he heard the echo of his own words coming back again." And on he went, at meeting after meeting, with his brief but most instructive analysis.

The mention of Daniel O'Connell brings up before our mind a scene in which that remarkable man made the last public speech he delivered before he was incarcerated for what was called " Cumulative Conspiracy." He was addressing four thousand people in the Town Hall of Birmingham on the wrongs of Ireland, when a small knot of discontents, who would hear of nothing but the "Charter," disturbed the meeting. Stopping suddenly, and fixing his keen and piercing grey eyes on the ringleader, he most deliberately said, "Will some one put a potato in that man's mouth!" This was followed by such a roar of laughter as gave us quietness all the evening. The Irish wit of O'Connell in this incident finds a parallel in the English tact of Richard Cobden, who, in the same place, on another occasion, being disturbed by one or two noisy men, appealed to the working men nearest to them, saying, "For the sake of your own reputation, keep these men quiet"; and they did so. The tact, in both cases, contrasts strongly with the rough and ready method of the present day, when you so often hear the cry, "Put him out!"

Another incident in the life of Joseph Sturge is most suggestive. He was president of the " Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society," and, having called a meeting of the committee to consider an address of remonstrance with the people of America for their inconsistency in having "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," in their Declaration of Independence,

while they had more than three millions of people in slavery, only three attended-Mr. Sturge, the writer of the address, and the deacon of the Baptist church. Some other meeting at the time hindered others. But the meeting had a quorum ; the address was criticised, read, and adopted. He signed it, and sent it to the chairman of an anti-slavery society in America. It was published in most of the leading journals, and became the subject of a debate in Congress, in a motion remonstrating with the government of this country to restrain the people of England from interfering with the domestic affairs of another nation! The name of Joseph Sturge carried such weight as led to this course of action-representing, as it did, a mighty spiritual force; and yet that man was as simple and unsophisticated as a little child.

As a lesson in the art of social enjoyment (for there is an art in it) take a note of one of his parties. Some leading abolitionist has come over from America. He is the guest of Joseph Sturge. An evening is chosen likely to suit most of his neighbours and friends. They are invited to meet "Lewis Tappan of New York." They assemble in the spacious drawing room of his large house at Edgbaston, a suburban residence. After tea and a free chat, he takes the chair, and, in the most winning manner, tells his guests that he is about to ask Lewis Tappan to tell them something about the work of the abolitionists in America. All are attention. A short and lively account is given, and then some fruit is handed round. Some other friend has now something to say about the progress of anti-slavery societies in England, and then there is a stroll through the green-house and the garden if it is summer; another social conversation follows, while "Friends move about with real courtesy. A sandwich and a glass of water, or a cup of coffee, is served out, then a portion of scripture is read, followed by silent prayer, and the party separate. Such is one of many gatherings which were wont to take place during our three years' residence, in connection with Joseph Sturge, in Birmingham.

But all the meetings we had to attend were not of this character. Never shall we forget the first political gathering we were sent to address. It was a district or ward meeting, held to promote the return to the town council of liberal candidates. Imagine a large room attached to a public house, and about a hundred men, nearly all master tradesmen or master mechanics. There is a happy-looking, easy-going friend in the chair, supported by an alderman and some of the retiring councillors. Most of the others are seated before little tables, some chatting, some rising from their seats and putting a

penny on the surface of a little tin plate, ingeniously fixed in an opening on the top of a small box, on a table in the middle of the room. As it weighs down one side and disappears, it throws up on the other side a pipeful of shag tobacco! Imagine the chairman, having had his smoke, ringing a hand-bell, and all pipes down; then he introduces the deputy from the central committee, who makes his oration. Cheers follow, and all is quiet again. In come the waiters, and the glasses are charged for another round! Such was our first acquaintanceship with the political life of Birmingham. Would that these had been the last meetings of the kind! But, although there has been much improvement in the mode of conducting public meetings to promote municipal and other elections, and Birmingham has been among the foremost in this happy change, there can be no doubt that the almost profane sarcasm so frequently heard since last election was not without foundation, that "beer and the Bible" gave conservative majorities to the present parliament; for the public-house and the State church overthrew the liberal government.

Such, then, are a few reminiscences of a political and social character; but this review would be incomplete did it not include also some account of religious work, and its life and character, in a town which has been so long known as a great and important centre of Nonconformity. The first thing that struck us, on visiting some of the chapels, and among them that of the late John Angell James, was the rage everywhere for instrumental music. To say nothing of the "kist o' whistles," which was to be found in every chapel, the "orchestra❞—for we can call it by no more appropriate name-frequently contained, besides the singers in front, arranged as if they were to sing before an audience in a theatre, a couple of violin players, with bass violin, trombones, clarionets, and flutes! On entering a pulpit from the vestry behind, we shall never forget the sight of the choir and instrumentalists; but what was our surprise to find one of the hymns sung to the tune of " Auld lang syne"! and the leader of the band rather disappointed when he found that we did not enjoy it, seeing that it was so dear to "Auld Scotland." In another chapel, where there was a thin attendance, the leader gravely assured us that there had been a great falling off since he had been told to have only one fiddle!

It was about this time that a great stir was made about a young Baptist minister, who had just come to be pastor of one of the largest churches in Birmingham. He was the son of a Baptist minister of some repute, and, if we mistake not, had got part of his education in Scotland. Be that as it may, he

had not profited much by the Shorter Catechism, for he was not long in his pulpit until he told his people plainly that he neither believed in the dogma that "God hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass," nor in "reprobation," both of which might have been preached with impunity to a portion of his church members. But he went farther-he preached a full and a free Gospel, declaring that, as the propitiation was made for the sins of the whole world, it followed that, like the remedy of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, that propitiation was commensurate with the sinners' needs, and that all unsaved men had but to "look and live." Moreover, he held that the faith which so looks, like the eye of the Israelite fixed on the serpent, is no supernatural gift, but the exercise of mental faculty as a means of grace-the supernatural being, as it were, superinduced on this action, and the result, conversion. He held also, with John Bunyan in his Pilgrim's Progress, that there is a way to hell from the very gate of heaven; while, with the late Dr. Macleod, he would have been ready to answer any of his hearers disposed to ask, if he thought that a Christian falling from grace might fall finally, that he would advise him not to try the experiment. Such preaching made a great stir, and when the eloquent young man put on a black, instead of a white necktie at times, and walked about on the streets dressed like other people, the cup of his transgression was full. Sometimes, too, he would help us with a leading article on the poor laws, in the journal we edited, and might have been seen in one of our sanctums, discussing some knotty point in casuistry with our Sub, an able and amiable young man we had just brought into the field of literature, and who had newly begun a series of articles, entitled "Sociology," in our literary department. The Baptist minister would take his stand on the laws of affinity, and argue that, just as the sunbeam is composed of atoms of light, and the ocean of globules of water, every atom and globule having affinity for every other; so the individual mind, educated and elevated by high principle, would socialize itself by that law of moral affinity, and not need much outside manipulation to make perfect its socialization. The Baptist preacher, however, had to succumb. The trust deed of his church. contained the leading doctrines of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and when these were placed before him, he resigned his charge. Those who left with him built another chapel, and called it the "Church of the Saviour," and there he preaches to this day, as the well known lecturer, "George Dawson,' the other being the yet wider known "Herbert Spencer"; and although both have become broader in their views, and

followed their prototype, John Stuart Mill, farther than we can go, yet these facts in their early history lead us to hope, in both cases, that at "evening time it will be light."

J. H. W.-L.

IMMORTALITY IN THE LIGHT OF NATURE.

THE immortality of the soul is one of the cardinal problems of the human mind, and, like all such problems, is possessed of a perennial interest. From the first, it has provoked the thinking efforts of the philosophic few, and excited the interested curiosity of all; and to-day, notwithstanding all that has been thought and said and written on the subject, its freshness and attractiveness are not in the least abated. So emphatically is it a human question, that the man is not human who treats it with indifference. If we occasionally peruse some chapter of individual or national history with an interest that deepens into a painful suspense, till the catastrophe, seen to be pending, is decided; with what feelings should we contemplate the alternative possibilities involved in the question of immortality-a question on which depend not the mere temporal fortunes of a particular individual or a particular people, but the cardinal hopes and fears of the entire race of man? The difference between the alternatives-life, on the one hand, with all its fair hopes and noble aspirations, suddenly cut short by the inexorable stroke of death; and life, on the other, surmounting death, boundless in its duration, and thus adequate to the infinite desires of the soul-is so immense, that it is impossible, without affectation or a most ignoble insensibility, to profess indifference to the issue. And it is by no means certain, that indifference constitutes a necessary qualification for the treatment of the subject. To do justice to the problem, we must appreciate its importance. Without taking into account the stupendous consequences involved, we shall not have so much as the desire, still less the ability, to "rise to the height of this great argument." At the same time, let it be remembered, that we are our own enemies, if we perpetrate deception on ourselves, even for the sake of a flattering expectation.

The fact that the question, though so long discussed, is still as warmly discussed as ever, is proof of its difficulty, as well as of its interest. The immortality of the soul, however, is not the only interesting question that is also difficult of solution. On the other hand, all ultimate questions are at once the most