view will be acquiesced in by every European in India, and by all at home who have any knowledge of the subject.

But to this question, also, there is a painful side. It was our lot to arrive in India at a time when every prospect was full of hope. We were taught to believe that the time was soon to arrive when the native of India was to take his place among the truly civilized. We were taught to believe that, in a century's experience of British rule, the native had learned to prize and respect, if not to love, that Government which (with all its faults) had been just, strong, and benevolent, beyond any that India had ever known. Nay, we were taught to believe that the time was rapidly approaching when, under the auspices of English rule, the Hindoo and the Mahommedan might be prepared for selfgovernment; when the foundation of a new system might be laid, under which the nations of the East were to share the blessings, by acquiring the character, of the races of the West.

We cannot say we altogether participated in these brilliant hopes. While we submitted our judgment to that of men who had seen more of the East, and more of mankind, than we ourselves could boast of, yet we could not fully coincide in their views. Our doubts were shared and encouraged by many others among the European denizens of India. And alas! our doubts were destined only too soon to become melancholy certainties. The old enmity of East and West is not reconciled; the old contest between light and darkness is not appeased; the events of the past three months have clearly proved how far the natives of India are from the state of improvement, civilization, and concord, in which we thought we had placed them. Out of this evil we may draw some good: we may learn the futility of violent attemps to accelerate the march of improvement, and to attain results without awaiting the natural process of their evolution. Among such attempts lately made in India, not the least remarkable is the series of enactments constituting the Reformed Code of Criminal Law and Procedure, familiarly known as the "Black Act."

We had intended to discuss this measure at some length, but as our time is necessarily limited, we are compelled to postpone our intended remarks to a future occasion.

CALCUTTA, July 16, 1857.

THE DEAD WALTZER.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINRICH HEINE.

In her chamber the lady sleepeth
Where streams the peaceful moon;
From without strange music sweepeth,
As of a waltz's tune.

"That waltz-I admire it vastly!
I'll see who's there," she said:
She looked out, and saw where a ghastly
Skeleton fiddled and played.

"To waltz with me once you promised;
You've broken your pledge, ma chere:
At the charnel to-night's a reception,
Come, dearest, and dance with me there."

She could neither stay nor answer,
Such spell was over her thrown;
So she followed the skeleton dancer
Who, fiddling and singing, went on.

Fiddling and dancing, and spinning
His ribs in time to the tune,

With his white skull bobbing and grinning
Horribly under the moon.

LURÁLIE.

H. HEINE.

I KNOW not what thoughts are thronging
My heart with their wondrous chime;
They fill me with passionate longing
For a dream of the bygone time.

The sky with clouds is darkling,

But gently flows the Rhine; In dyes of sunset sparkling

The mountain summits shine.

And there on the height is reclining
A lady, wondrous fair;
Her golden jewels are shining;
She binds her golden hair.

With a golden comb she binds it,
And sings a magic song;
In trancing melody winds it
River and cliffs along.

The fisherman hears it ringing
With woe and wild surprise;
He hears but the lady singing,
He heeds not the storm arise.

And darkly will roll the river

O'er fisher and boat e'er long:

Such ruin is linked ever

With Luralie and her song.

EUTHANASIA.

H. HEINE.

LIFE is the toiling day;

Death is the night-time blest; The day hath made me weary, It darkens, and I would rest.

In the tree above me spreading
The nightingale singeth clear:

Of love for ever sings she-
I in my dreams shall hear.

BISHOP BUTLER'S THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE.

"Moralis philosophia vera et genuina; ancillæ tantum vices erga theologiam suppleat."-BACON.

BISHOP BUTLER's well-known formula, "human nature is adapted to virtue," or that "man is by nature a law to himself," has been strongly assailed on the ground of being at variance with the Scriptural depositions to the great fact of human depravity. If such be really the case, there should be no hesitation in rejecting it as untrue, and in reprobating it as dangerous. But there is no difficulty in showing that this objection -plausible enough to careless thinkers, and, it is to be feared, sufficiently popular to prove them to be many-proceeds wholly upon a misconception of our greatest British moralist, and, partly at least, upon a misunderstanding of the Scriptural description of this all-important doctrine.

Any writer, however eminent, is liable to grave censure who should, without any explanation of his meaning, assert "human nature to be adapted to virtue," because he is using a form of words which he must know to be ambiguous, and certain, where occasions of error should— because of the importance of the subject-be carefully avoided, to be both mistaken and misrepresented.

But if, when forced, as all men are when speaking of common matters, to employ common language, he has been careful to define the sense in which he uses words of unavoidably doubtful import, then he has a right to require that he shall be held responsible for his statements in that sense only which he has expressly assigned to them. And if, in addition to distinct declarations of the meaning which he affixes to words, he has also been careful to exclude other meanings which he foresees may be mistaken for his own, he has then used all the precautions which a lover of truth can adopt to guard against misconstruction.

Yet it is only by substituting those meanings of the word "nature," which Bishop Butler expressly rejects, for that which he distinctly employs, that his well-known formula, "human nature is adapted to virtue," can be impugned as at variance with observation, or inconsistent with Scripture. In his sense of the term it is in striking accordance with both.

Any unambiguous assertion respecting our nature, which is antagonistic to the Bible, must be peremptorily set aside as both false and highly dangerous. But it would be a lamentable fact, indeed, if the

results of well-conducted observation upon our moral nature, or upon any other subject, should terminate in the establishment of any such inconsistency. Wherever such appears to be the issue, we may be fully assured-not that adequate observation or just inferences from it can ever lead to such a conclusion, but-that, in these cases, our observation has been incomplete, or our deductions unwarranted. Our duty then is, not to disparage these instruments of ascertaining or corroborating truth, but to rectify our own erroneous application of them. With Christians the Bible is decisive. Testimonies extrinsic to it are not required by them to authenticate its announcements. Still there are many well-intentioned persons, who, mistaking the design, and overlooking the real use of establishing that accordancy which must exist between Scripture and the facts of our moral nature, either hastily reject moral science as false, because of some imaginary collision with Revelation, or disparage it as useless, because superseded by it. They forget, however, that there are evil-intentioned persons who seek to bear hard on Revelation itself, by asserting that there is direct collision between "best attested observation" and it, inferring hence that we must either largely qualify, or wholly discredit the Bible. Now, surely, it is a matter of great moment to establish to their discomfiture, and to the support of truth, for their sakes, and for the sake of those who may be influenced by such misrepresentations, that "best-attested observation" can never, even in a single instance, and especially upon momentous questions, eventuate in opposition, but always in harmony, with the Word of God.

It is so with Bishop Butler's theory of "human nature as adapted to virtue." The tendency to reject it-exhibited mostly by disciples of a peculiar school of theology-is founded, partly, upon an undoubted misconception of this writer's very explicit language, and partly uponwe are bold to say-as undoubted a misunderstanding of Scripture.

One of the ablest and most popular of Bishop Butler's assailants is the well-known Scottish divine, Dr. Wardlaw. His objections are clearly and eloquently made. His own language will best convey his argu

ment:

"In the extracts which I have just given from the Bishop's Sermons we are certainly, in a great degree, allowed to lose sight of the present character of human nature; we are left to suppose it in its present state, such as it was designed by the author of its constitution to be. The various parts of the watch are put together by the skill of the artist, each in its proper place, and all relatively adjusted to the production of a certain effect,-the correct measurement of time. So is it, according to Bishop Butler's theory, with human