neglected." It is not quite true. If no great metaphysician has appeared since Jonathan Edwards, as he truly says, how many has England produced since Berkeley? Dr. Hickok's “Rational Psychology" is a more profound book than that of Jonathan Edwards.7 Three things go to make a great metaphysician; power of psychological analysis; intuitive power to perceive great truths, either by a synthetic judgment a priori or by a comprehensive induction from facts of consciousness or observation, power of deductive logic. Jonathan Edwards was great only in the last, and least of all. America is more devoted to practical affairs, and certainly has done little in metaphysics. But from the death of Newton, in 1727, till the end of that century, how little England did in mathematics! We wish it were true that knowledge is so widely diffused as he says. But, alas! there are four million slaves who know nothing, and as many "poor whites" who know little. We shall not pursue these

criticisms.

"Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura.”

Mr. Buckle has given us one of the most important contributions which any Englishman has yet made to the philosophy of human history. We wish we had adequate space to point out its excellences in detail; but the analysis and the extracts we have given must suffice for the present. We congratulate the author on his success. We are sure the thoughtful world will give him a thoughtful welcome, and if his future volumes, which we anxiously look for, shall equal this, he is sure of a high place in the estimation of mankind.

IX

HENRY WARD BEECHER

There are more than thirty thousand preachers in the United States, whereof twenty eight thousand are Protestants, the rest Catholics,- one minister to a thousand men. They make an exceeding great army,

mostly serious, often self-denying and earnest. Nay, sometimes you find them men of large talent, perhaps even of genius. No thirty thousand farmers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, or traders have so much of that book-learning which is popularly called "Education."

No class has such opportunities for influence, such means of power; even now the press ranks second to the pulpit. Some of the old traditional respect for the theocratic class continues in service, and waits upon the ministers. It has come down from Celtic and Teutonic fathers, hundreds of years behind us, who transferred to a Roman priesthood the allegiance paid to the servants of a deity quite different from the Catholics. The Puritans founded an ecclesiastical oligarchy which is by no means ended yet; with the most obstinate "liberty of prophesying" there was mixed a certain respect for such as only wore the prophet's mantle; nor is it wholly gone.

What personal means of controlling the public the minister has at his command! Of their own accord men "assemble and meet together," and look up to him. In the country the town-roads center at the meeting-house, which is also the terminus a quo, the

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golden mile-stone, whence distances are measured off. Once a week the wheels of business, and even of pleasure, drop into the old customary ruts, and turn thither. Sunday morning all the land is still. bor puts off his iron apron and arrays him in clean human clothes,—a symbol of universal humanity, not merely of special toil. Trade closes the shop; his business-pen, well wiped, is laid up for to-morrow's use; the account-book is shut,- men thinking of their trespasses as well as their debts. For six days, aye, and so many nights, Broadway roars with the great stream which sets this way and that, as wind and tide press up and down. How noisy is this great channel of business, wherein humanity rolls to and fro, now running into shops, now sucked down into cellars, then dashed high up the tall, steep banks, to come down again a continuous drip and be lost in the general flood! What a fringe of foam colors the margin on either side, and what gay bubbles float therein, with more varied gorgeousness than the Queen of Sheba dreamed of putting on when she courted the eye of Hebrew Solomon! Sunday this noise is still. Broadway is a quiet stream, looking sober or even dull; its voice is but a gentle murmur of many waters calmly flowing where the ecclesiastical gates are open to let them in. The channel of business has shrunk to a little church-canal. Even in this great Babel of commerce one day in seven is given up to the minister. The world may have the other six, this is for the church for so have Abram and Lot divided the field of time, that there be no strife between the rival herdsmen of the church and the world. Sunday morning time rings the bell. At the familiar sound, by long habit born in them, and older than memory, men

assemble at the meeting-house, nestle themselves devoutly in their snug pews, and button themselves in with wonted care. There is the shepherd, and here is the flock, fenced off into so many little private pens. With dumb, yet eloquent patience, they look up listless, perhaps longing, for such fodder as he may pull out from his spiritual mow and shake down before them. What he gives they gather.

Other speakers must have some magnetism of personal power or public reputation to attract men, but the minister can dispense with that; to him men answer before he calls, and even when they are not sent by others are drawn by him. Twice a week, nay, three times, if he will, do they lend him their ears to be filled with his words. No man of science or letters has such access to men. Besides, he is to speak on the grandest of all themes,- of man, of God, of religion, man's deepest desires, his loftiest aspirings. Before him the rich and the poor meet together, conscious of the one God, Master of them all, who is no respecter of persons. To the minister the children. look up, and their pliant faces are moulded by his plastic hand. The young men and maidens are there,

such possibility of life and character before them, such hope is there, such faith in man and God, as comes instinctively to those who have youth on their side.

There are the old: men and women with white crowns on their heads; faces which warn and scare with the ice and storm of eighty winters, or guide and charm with the beauty of fore-score summers,— rich in promise once, in harvest now. Very beautiful is the presence of old men, and of that venerable sisterhood whose experienced temples are turbaned with the rai

ment of such as have come out of much tribulation, and now shine as white stars foretelling an eternal day. Young men all around, a young man in the pulpit, the old men's look of experienced life says 99 Amen to the best word, and their countenance is a benediction.

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The minister is not expected to appeal to the selfish motives which are addressed by the market, the forum, or the bar, but to the eternal principle of right. He must not be guided by the statutes of men, changeable as the clouds, but must fix his eye on the bright particular star of justice, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. To him office, money, social rank and fame are but toys or counters which the game of life is played withal; while wisdom, integrity, benevolence, piety are the prizes the game is for. He digs through the dazzling sand, and bids men build on the rock of ages.

Surely, no men have such opportunity of speech and power as these thirty thousand ministers. What have they to show for it all? The hunter, fisher, woodman, miner, farmer, mechanic, has each his special wealth. What have this multitude of ministers to show? how much knowledge given, what wise guidance, what inspiration of humanity? Let the best

men answer.

This ministerial army may be separated into three divisions. First, the church militant, the fighting church, as the ecclesiastical dictionaries define it. Reverend men serve devoutly in its ranks. Their work is negative, oppositional. Under various banners, with diverse and discordant war-cries, trumpets braying a certain or uncertain sound, and weapons of strange pattern, though made of trusty steel, they