soul gave way. The beauty, the tenderness, the glory of His character overpowered me. I was ashamed that I should ever have so fearfully misconceived it and done it such grievous injustice. The tears flowed from my eyes, but I proceeded with my task, and drew the portrait of the Saviour to the best of my ability, sending articles to the press. When my children read those articles in correcting the press, they, too, wept, and said one to another, Father is coming right again; he will be himself again by-and-bye.' And they were right in thinking so. I had come in contact with the Great Healer. I had got a view of One on whom it was impossible to look without experiencing transformation of soul. And from this time forward I became less and less of a sceptic, and more and more of a believer in Christianity.” His last public debate was in the City Hall, Glasgow, with Colonel Shaw, an Ayrshire Christian gentleman. In an interval of two days he went to the country seat of this good soldier, where he felt the warmth, beauty, and grace of a Christian home. When the discussion ended the two disputants shook hands warmly amid the loud cheers of an immense audience. He was touched by the solicitude of several friends, who made him feel that they cared for his soul. His old antagonist, the Rev. Dr. Cooke, did much towards the wanderer's return to Christ. Very touching is his reference to the death of his old and steadfast friend, Samuel Methley, of Mirfield. He had often resisted Mr. Barker in his infidel raids. Now that he was dying, he sent for him, and said, 'Pray for me, Joseph.' It was many years since he had last prayed; but he broke down now, and said, 'I will, Sammy;' and at his death he preached his first sermon as a funeral sermon for his true and faithful friend. Then he preached for the Methodist Reformers, then the Tunstall Primitives honoured themselves by asking him to preach in their noble chapel. Some were suspicious, as well they might be; but all were thankful that the recreant soldier had re-enlisted in the service of his Saviour and Lord. He identified himself with the Primitives and spent his time in preaching and lecturing in different parts of the kingdom. He went back to America, to his estate in Nebraska, when this memoir does not say. In the winter of 1874 he became very feeble through persistent dropsy and jaundice. He knew that his end was near. He arranged all his affairs, and was anxious that his full and perfect faith in Christ should be recorded and made known to all his friends. In all his sufferings he was patient and resigned, and, finally, slumbered away.' He was buried at Omaha, the principal station on the Union Pacific Railway. It is a lesson of such importance that it were worth repeating that

Mr. Barker's life teaches us that unfriendly surroundings need not debar any one from becoming, if not great in the ordinary acceptance of the term, yet great in the true sense of the term, great in the power of goodness, and great in the power to influence others. What was said of a greater name than his may yet be said of him: 'He succeeded because all the world in concert could not have kept him back, and because, when committed to a cause, he played his part with a prompt intrepidity and commanding ease that were symptoms of the reserves of energy on which it was his power to draw.' This success represents the hardest of hard work kept up for many years, and which involved the putting forth the whole strength of his powers. His eminence as a speaker in the pulpit or on the platform was attained as the result of thought and careful training. He acquired perfect mastery of his passions. In the scenes of wildest uproar, or sharpest attack, he, perhaps, only once lost his equable temper. His voice, his memory, his reasoning powers were all under perfect control. He never made rash statements through excitement. His habit was to grasp firmly any subject he undertook to discuss. He was careful to discover not only all that could be said for a subject, but also all that could be said against it. His statements and arguments were not only lucid, but luminous. Two other things contributed to make him one of the first public speakers of his day. One was the large use he made of examples and illustrations. No one could hear him or read his sermons, lectures, and essays without seeing that this gave force to his utterances. You not only saw his meaning, but was struck with it, arrested, and held by it. We could, did space allow, give instances of this. Those who have this biography may find examples, though by no means his best, on pages 369, 370, and 377. The second thing which led to his eminence as a speaker was his use of strong, vigorous Saxon speech. We never find a 'tall,' or 'fine' sentence or phrase in any of his productions. He would have despised the use of such a sentence as this: The nocturnal scene was brilliantly luminous with the radiance of astral and lunar effulgence.' Superfine phrases, to please gaping natives,' were ever beneath him. He was so anxious about the substance of his address that he gave little care to its trappings. We should rejoice if a volume of selected sermons, essays, and lectures could be published. It would be a boon prized by those who knew him, and the generations who know him only by name would be stirred by noble thoughts, expressed in the best, because strongest and clearest, language.

H. E. G.

VIII.-THE VICTORIAN AGE.

FIRST PAPER.

*

WITH the victory of Waterloo we reach a time within the memory of some now living, and the opening of a period of our history the greatest, indeed, of all in real importance and interest, but, perhaps, too near to us as yet to admit of a cool and purely historical treatment.' So writes Mr. Green, and then dismisses the history of the last sixty-five years in eight pages. Such an account of such a period, though written in the most interesting style, is utterly inadequate to meet the demands of those who were not living when the battle of Waterloo was fought, who cannot remember the coronation of the Queen, and were too young, too, at the time to appreciate the benefits of the repeal of the Corn Laws. What is required is a full and detailed account of our latest history, so that the present generation may be able to verify and see the full force of Mr. Green's statement, that it is the greatest of all the ages in real importance and interest.

This work has been accomplished in a clear and able manner by Rev. W. N. Molesworth, M.A., † bringing our history down from 1830 to 1874, and by Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P., ‡ bringing it down from 1837 to 1880. Mr. Molesworth places the facts and incidents of the period he has undertaken to review in a plain and orderly manner, so that there is no difficulty in tracing the order of events; but he has made very little attempt to delineate the character or ascer tain the motives of those whose words and actions he records. Mr. McCarthy has, with considerable success, narrated the facts, traced the causes and tendencies of events, and examined the motives and character of public men, many of whom are still living. It may, however, after all, be doubted whether either the one work or the other meets Mr. Green's ideal of a cool and purely historical' treatise, and the time may be far distant when such an ideal can be reached; but, in the meantime, we have to our hands, in pleasant and convenient form, information which gives us an exalted idea of the Victorian Age.

* A Short History of the English People, by J. R. Green. and Co.

London: Macmillan

†The History of England from 1830 to 1874, by Rev. W. N. Molesworth, M.A. London: Chapman and Hall. 3 vols.

A History of Our Times from 1837 to 1880, by Justin McCarthy, M.P. London. Chatto and Windus. 4 vols.

Just before the opening of this age changes had taken place in the nation which were likely to exercise the most powerful influence. Railways had been introduced, and the locomotive steam-engine had proved a success. The telegraph wire was gradually stretching its attenuated but powerful arm from one end of the kingdom to the other. The churches were waking up to the condition and needs of the people. Education had become a question of importance to practical Statesmen. Political reforms had been carried by the Whig Ministry of Lord Gray, and afterwards by that of Lord Melbourne with surprising rapidity. The great Bill of 1832, to reform Parliament, was the starting point; and in the year following Slavery was abolished in the West Indies at a cost of twenty millions sterling. 1834 saw the passing of the new Poor Law, by which it was hoped to cure the most glaring evils of pauperism; and in 1835 the Corporations Act was passed, by which old municipal abuses were swept away. In close succession followed the Act instituting a general system of registration of marriages, births, and deaths, and conceding civil marriages to Dissenters; and the Tithes Commutation Act, which brought to an end the constant quarrels occasioned by the Tithe system. Then set in a season of political inactivity, which was fast undermining the power of the Whig Ministry, and there was a general expectation that Lord Melbourne would be driven from office, when the news of the death of William IV. gave the people something else to think about.

When the sensation caused by the death of the King had subsided, the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne was the signal for an outburst of loyalty such as this kingdom had not known for many years. The only instance that can at all be compared with it was when George III. became King after the nation had been governed by his two predecessors, who were really foreigners. The personal unpopularity and reckless wickedness of George IV., and the stupid Toryism of the whole Hanoverian line of Kings had seriously tested the patience and loyalty of a people seeking social and political reform on peaceable and Constitutional lines. True, the admirers of the late King could point to a string of reforms such as might have added lustre to a reign three times its length; but only those who are acquainted with the minute history of those reforms can estimate how near to the gulf of insurrection the King drove the coach of State. Now he is gone, and in their places in Parliament men of all ranks and parties unite to say pleasant things in his memory, and then proceed to consign his remains to the grave.

With William IV. passed away that low, vicious Court which had occupied the Royal palaces during the two previous reigns, and in its place there came, with the young Queen and her mother, a Court pure in sentiment and action. For this had the Duchess of Kent, the Queen's mother, carefully secluded her daughter from Court life, and during the long and trying period of her widowhood trained her in all that was pure and noble.

With the death of the King passed away the dual reign of the monarch which divided our Sovereign between England and Hanover, for the throne of the little Continental kingdom could not be filled by a woman. This was a double blessing, for while it disentangled this country from personal participation in Continental politics, it drew away to another kingdom the most troublesome of all the sons of George III., and, as report said, the most wicked and treacherous. The Duke of Cumberland was thenceforth King of Hanover.

With William IV. passed away the last remnant of personal rule. George III. carried it to an alarming length, and George IV. only modified, but did not abandon it. William IV. came as near giving it up as we could expect him to do; but when the Queen came to the throne she was evidently determined to give our Constitutional government full play, and ever since her Majesty has known no master save the sovereign voice of the people plainly expressed at the pollingbooth or the ballot-box.

From June 20, 1837, when her Majesty became Queen, to the coronation, a year elapsed, and during that time the country was becoming more acquainted with their new Sovereign, and she lost no opportunity of becoming familiar to and with her people. In person she prorogued Parliament; soon after she attended a banquet given in her honour by the Lord Mayor of London, and when the new Parliament assembled she passed through the streets of London in State to open the proceedings. On each occasion she received the most convincing proofs of her popularity and the people's loyalty, and when the coronation day came the people went coronation-mad. Westminster Abbey was fitted up in the most gorgeous style; ecclesiastical dignitaries were arrayed in the rich vestments used only on such occasions; the representatives of foreign Courts were there in full force; the princes, nobles, and judges, the members of Parliament and civic officers thronged the places assigned them. Outside the Abbey the decorations from Buckingham Palace had been got up regardless of cost, and the best decoration of all was the presence of a loyal and contented people, who lined the streets, thronged the