the weight and force of practical wisdom, and from the first were very much hearkened unto."

66

mon

Those were days of deep humiliation, perverted justice, trampled right, arbitrary taxation, unconstitutional levies, forced loans, exorbitant fines, wholesale opolies, feudal exaction, the Thorough and Star Chamber, and a government without parliament for nearly twelve years. They were days of Charles I., given to dark and perverse ways, for the Guise blood was in his veins,—and of Strafford and Archbishop Laud.

Even more galling and irritating than the deeply designed and despotic schemes of Thorough, by which the rights of a free people were so seriously imperilled, was the tyranny of ecclesiastical administrations. Innovations were made in established forms of worship. Canons and ceremonies were multiplied to a vexatious degree. For the upper classes, there were flowers and incense, millineries and upholsteries; and for the common people, sports upon the village green. For loyalty to conscience and conviction there were whips and pillories, slit noses and mutilated ears, fines and imprisonments. A system of surveillance was extended to every corner of the realm, and during that regime England was "merry England," no more.

Short parliaments having been vexed into tempestuous violence and hastily dissolved, the Long Parliament met in 1640. Grievances were now redressed with an unsparing hand. The boundaries of constitutional liberty were accurately defined. Strafford was impeached and Laud imprisoned. The Star Chamber and High Commission were swept away. A "grand remonstrance was presented to the king. Extreme measures produced reaction, and a rovalist party was organized, that

for a time gave promise of wiser administration.

But Charles, who promised to consult responsible advisers, proved incurably prone to a wretched king-craft. He preferred other counsels, and chiefly through his perverseness and duplicity the nation was plunged into fratricidal strife.

For nine long years there was civil conflict in England. With varied and alternating fortunes, the tide of battle between royalist and parliamentary forces swept through the land; but ever with a bright light light in Cromwell's conquering track, until his his "crowning victory was won, and he became master of the Revolution.

much remains To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renowned than war."

Transition from civil war to established government, always a thorny track, was extremely difficult at the period of the Commonwealth. But the Lord General was no longer the simple Puritan squire. His mind expanded with the greatness of the occasion, and, by the right divine of the gift of ruling, he proved himself to be regal in all but name.

Had Oliver Cromwell's administration not been thwarted by obstreperous parliaments, and by fierce and factious sectaries, who regarded his magnanimous policy

as time-serving compromise, it would probably have presented a model of moderation and wisdom. As it was, under all its disadvantages, the Protectorate is entitled to honourable recognition and a bright record in the annals of English history.

In an age of political and ecclesiastical intolerance, civil and religious liberty were established on lines to which there had been no previous parallel. Constitutional law was administered upon a greatly improved system. Parliamentary representation was reformed with such thoroughness that even now, after centuries of tolerant legislation and enlightened State policy, we are but working out the same programme. The public service was opened to fair and honourable competition. Learning and literature were patronized and protected. Oxford and Cambridge universities were fostered, and Durham University founded. Eminent men, irrespective of party or political principles, such as Owen and Usher and Jeremy Taylor, were specially distinguished. On the bench was

Sir Matthew Hale,

For deep discernment praised, And sound integrity, not more than famed For sanctity of manners undefiled."

John Howe, the illustrious author of "The Living Temple,” became chaplain to the Protector; while greater Milton, already meditating his sublime and immortal song, filled the important office of Latin Secretary of State.

But the consummate and commanding ability of Oliver Cromwell's civil administration was even surpassed by the splendour and successes of his foreign policy. The maritime superiority of England, lost under the Stuarts, was regained, and her proud commercial rival, the United Provinces, was glad to accept of peace at any

price. A special mercantile treaty was negotiated with Denmark. An embassy was sent to Sweden, and Oliver Cromwell won the romantic interest of the young Queen Christiana. He commanded the friendship of France, the haughty Louis and the crafty and brilliant Mazarin, and from them received costly presents of wine, tapestry, and Barbary horses. The proud empire of Spain was humbled, her treasure-ships were brought in triumph to London, and the valuable island of Jamaica wrenched from her western possessions. Pirates of Tunis and Tripoli, long the scourge of commerce, and the terror of the high seas, were chased and chastised. With the conquering Blake he swept the Mediterranean, and fixed his eagle eye upon Gibraltar as a strategic fortress rock and a most desirable acquisition to his country. The Vatican was threatened by the thunder of his guns, and persecuted communities in distant Alpine valleys, and blood-stained Piedmont, were protected by the potency of his name; so that, in recent Armenian atrocities, the thought uppermost with Protestants of England was, "O for an hour of Oliver Cromwell !"

Thus was realized the "splendid improbability" to which the Lord Protector was pledged, that, before his death, he would make "the name of an Englishman as much feared as ever was that of an ancient Roman."

"England," says Goldwin Smith, "feels safer beneath the aegis of his victorious name; and the thought returns in danger, not that we may have a Marlborough or a Black Prince, but that the race which produced a Cromwell may at its need produce his peer, and that the spirit of the Great Usurper may again stand forth in arms."

Halifax, N.S.

This eminent Irish-American, scholar, preacher, and missionary, whose great work in India and Mexico is so well known to all readers of Christian enterprise, spent a few weeks in the Lower Provinces during 1866. His recent death brings back to memory some singular circumstances in his career as related by himself in public and in private conversation. It rarely falls to the lot of a man who springs from ordinary life to go through such marvellous extremes of danger and honour, of hope and fear, as followed each other in Dr. Butler's history. was a noble specimen of manhood in those days of his prime. Fresh of face, portly, alert, brimful of the humour of his native land, eloquent and versatile, he carried an audience through a two hours lecture giving them scarce time to breathe. Bursts of applause were broken into by the impetuous speaker sometimes, in his impatience to overtake the ideas that hurried upon his memory and imagination.

He

His lecture before the Conference of 1866, which survivors will always regard as the crowning occasion of the old Centenary, St. John's, existence, was the treat of a lifetime. The spacious building was crowded with the members of Conference, at that time attending from Newfoundland to western New Brunswick, before the first Union of Canadian Methodism.

Notable hearers had the lecturer, many of whom have been numbered with the host beyond, to whom Dr. Butler himself has recently been gathered. Dr. Richey, the Nestor of the Conference, was there, his fine classic features, his

silky curls of grey hair, and his expressive eyes making a marked. picture as he leaned over the pulpit, in front of which the lecturer occupied a large platform. Dr. Dewolfe, too, whose besignant expression and flowery eloquence were associated with keen scholarly intuitions, sat among the elevated group of notables, sometimes suggesting a word, when Dr. Butler, just returned from India, hesitated, as the English language now was partially rusty to his tongue. Brewster, the man of marvellous imagination; Narraway, the logical, persuasive orator of Provincial Methodism; Albrighton, whose ear and eye and tongue were trained in all the proprieties of personal appearance and speech; MacMurray, also an Irishman, the theologian among his brethren. These and many other appreciative hearers mingled with the best citizens of St. John listening to Dr. Butler.

His subject was, "The Sepoy Rebellion." For over two hours he stirred his audience, from the philosopher to the beardless boy. All clapped and wept and laughed by turns. Dr. Butler had been entrusted with the serious duty of organizing the converts of the Methodist Episcopal Church in that vast territory into compact shape. While there he found himself in the centre of the cyclone that swept over wide districts and shattered the best structures of society far and near. He described how he first went into Lucknow or Cawnpore with letters of introduction to the authorities, going up to the Residence on the back of an elephant, and guarded right and left by British.

soldiers, for there was suspicion of treachery before the rebellion broke out. This strange experience he contrasted with his last visit to the same city before returning, and after the war was over. There were bazaars open along the principal streets, sellers and buyers perfectly secure under new laws and police guardianship. A rollicking son of Erin, relieved from soldier's duty for the day, went out loaded and primed with strong drink for fun and mischief. Beginning at one end of the bazaars he strode along the street shouting and shaking a heavy stick, the Sepoys fleeing in every direction.

An officer stepped into the magistrate's court and reported the wild conduct of the Irish soldier. 'Arrest him at once," said the irate magistrate. "We have tried," answered the officer, "but he is wild, and we cannot take him."

"Send out a corporal's guard, then, and bring him, if necessary, at the point of the bayonet." The soldier and his shillalah were at length brought in. "What do you mean, man," said the man of law, "by this disturbance of the peace ?"

"Arrah, there, yer anner," was the reply, "I've jist bin perfarming me vow, please God. Manny a sore mar-rch I've had after the villyuns, across the hot sands, and I promised the Holy Lady if oncet I got a chance I'd flake them. And now, if yer anner jist says the wurred, I'll clane the streets of the city of 'em, I will."

Then the lecturer aptly quoted the words so descriptive of a cowed and conquered people, "One shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight." No better picture of the terrible revenge which Nana Sahib brought upon his hordes was ever presented than in that passage. But the inimitable drollery of the Doc

tor's recital, as he brought out the Irish soldier's yells and contortions, sending the Sepoys scurrying in all directions, kept his audience in uncontrollable laughter. Dr. Richey was hidden behind the pulpit, above which his head. would emerge at times long enough to show the effects of the fun on his classic features. This writer sat near him and enjoyed Dr. Richey's defeat in his attempts to keep cool and grave, quite as much as Dr. Butler's electric storm of eloquence.

Another memorable picture of that great lecture was the scene of the guard which Dr. Butler and some companions organized in self-defence. After describing the narrow escapes from the savage rebels, whose cunning and cruelty were too much for many innocent Europeans in those terrible days and nights, he told of the gathering on the mountain top of a few scores of men, women and children, with no food and in momentary danger of insult and death. The troop of Falstaff, he told us, was not more grotesque than this self-constructed guard. The women and children were huddled away in a cave, while the men-merchants, tourists, mechanics, and this minister of the Gospel, provided as best they could means to defend them.

A pathway leading to the mountain summit, wound about a point some distance below, where the Sepoys must show themselves if they approached. This path the beleaguered men cut away so far that only one person could pass at a time. "Then," said the Doctor,

out I would have turned the butt (the boot he pronounced it) end of my gun and clubbed them to my last breath." It was a tremendous applause that greeted him then!

It became my happy lot to drive with Dr. Butler over the marsh country of Tantramar, being then stationed in Sackville. He was looking at this time toward Mexico, where he subsequently repeated, for the Methodist Épiscopal Church, the same organizing methods which he had followed in India. His amazing energy, his almost restless ambition to be employed for his Master, his massive ideas, his clear apprehensions of the divine possibilities open to the Church if only she were willing to go forward, his masculine manhood, joined to so sweet and tender a spirit, kept one thinking and wondering and questioning at every turn in the conversation. On our return we obtained from

him and Dr. Dewolfe a privilege we highly esteemed of having them both engaged in dedicating our child in baptism, bestowing their joint names on the occasion.

men

We have known many mighty in the eloquence of pathos and description, but the equal of Dr. Butler on the platform we have never listened to. There were and are great orators on that rare bench of Bishops across the line, several of the very chiefest of whom we have heard, the versatile McCabe, the superb Fowler, the massive Newman, the intense Foss, the scientific Warren, the unique Taylor, with others of wide fame, but Butler, who never was called Bishop, was yet worthy of being ranked among the noblest Romans of them all. He finished his great work, and his day's darg was done.

New Glasgow, N.S.