FROM

ROM the time when fraud in connection with the Panama Canal was first charged in the French Chamber of Deputies, a strong public interest has centered upon M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who had carried the scheme upon his shoulders from its inception, and whose personality had excited the respect and admiration of the world as among the foremost men, if not the foremost man, of France; and a keen anxiety has been manifested to know whether this man was free from any taint of fraud in his connection with the great project which was so intimately identified with his name. The latest reviews bring us some papers bearing upon this matter.

THE PANAMA CANAL CONGRESS. Rear-Admiral Daniel Ammen, U. S. N., Chief of the Bureau of Navigation in the Navy Department, who was appointed by

President Hayes as a representative of the United States in the Panama Canal Congress which convened in Paris, May 15, 1879, presents in the North American Review for February his Recollections" of that Congress. The Admiral secured the printing of the maps, plans, and profiles of the Panama and Atrato-Napipi surveys, for the purpose of presenting them with all other surveys of our Government, comprising the whole Isthmian region, to the Paris Congress. He says:

"From certain indications I had a suspicion, which I regretted to find afterwards was entirely warranted, that the Congress was called not to discuss, but to assure and confirm what had been prearranged.

"On the third day of the Congress the maps and plans had arrived, and I made a formal presentation of them [with a statement of the scope and breadth of the work of the Commission which had been appointed by President Grant, and which had made its first report February 7, 1876].

'On the same day Mr. Menochal presented technically the Nicaragua Canal route, and explained his methods of overcoming difficulties in the execution of the work, in the improvement of Greytown harbor, and in making the dams of the San Juan River. The leading engineers of Paris were much gratified at his presentation of, the important details.

Lieutenant Wyse then placed on the stand for explanation his suggestion for a canal in the vicinity of the Panama Railroad. [This "plan," drawn by Lieutenants Wyse and Reclus, was for a sea-level canal, actually predicated on a dozen cross-sections of levels on the Panama Railroad, and, of course, the profile of the railroad, which was obtainable from the railroad company. This is an indisputable fact, the gravity of which the public may now see.] It is strange, almost beyond conception, that M. de Lesseps should have given these "plans" his unqualified admiration when the consequences were momentous.

"On the 20th Mr. Menochal explained the surveys and plans of the Panama route made by our Government, much to the satisfaction of Sir John Hawkshaw (one of the ablest hydraulic engineers in Great Britain); no doubt less so to M. de Lesseps. He exposed the hopelessness of an attempt to make a sea-level canal, pointing out that there would be a cataract of the Chagres River at Matachin, of forty-two feet, which in periods of floods would be seventy-eight feet high, of a body of water thirty-six feet deep with a width of fifteen hundred feet. The surprise and sorrow of those who had made plans for a sea-level canal can hardly be conceived. The fact stared them in the face that such plans were impracticable. There was, however, after a day or so, a presentation of plans and estimates of cost of execution,' quite independent of a sufficient knowledge of the topography upon which they could be properly based."

It is then related that Sir John Hawkshaw next gave his views, leading to the conclusion "that the canal should be constructed so as to retain the rivers for natural drainage," in which case "recourse would have to be had to locks." He said there could be no difficulty in carrying on the traffic with locks properly constructed, provided there were an ample water-supply, which would be a sine qua non.

The Admiral found on the 28th that the ablest engineers generally favored the Nicaragua route, and that virtually all the other delegates were favorable to the Panama route. But he tells us that

got no substantial support in furtherance of the construction of his sea-level canal. On June 20th the Society of Civil Engineers of Paris discussed the subject of Isthmian canals. It was stated at the time that M. de Lesseps appeared unexpectedly, and appealed to the Society to discontinue the discussion as it would be greatly to the injury of French interests. His power at that time is shown in the fact that this unreasonable request was complied with. An eminent engineer of that society stated that I had little conception what professional injury one would suffer by incurring the displeasure of M. de Lesseps."

It is then related that, subscriptions to the Canal stock failing, M. de Lesseps determined to go to Panama "to see for himself," and so be able to inform the public just what the canal would cost; that he reported the climate delightful and healthful, made a large reduction in the estimate given in. the Congress, and stated that he had a substantial agreement with Couvreux and Hessenlt to execute the work for about 512,000,000 francs. In concluding his paper, Admiral Ammen says:

"In relation to M. de Lesseps, this pitiful recital of human frailty-certainly without criminal intent to ruin himself and all of those nearest and dearest to him, as well as half a million of rentiers, who had a blind faith in him, and some tens of thousands of men who, assured by an authority they regarded omniscient, went to the Isthmus and died there-admonishes us to pause for reflection. It is not given to man to condemn, save in a judicial way, nor to pronounce culpability. An all-wise Creator can measure human actions far beyond the decrees that belong to mundane existence."

AT THE HEAD OF A GREAT FINANCIAL SCANDAL.

In the February number of the Chautauquan, and in an article entitled 'De Lesseps and the Panama Canal Scandal," George Wheeler Hinman, Ph.D., maintains that enough is already known to show that Ferdinand de Lesseps has been at the head of the greatest financial disaster, and the greatest financial scandal, of the nineteenth century. As necessary to an understanding of his initial responsibility, and its relations to the exigencies in which the scandal originated, he regards knowledge of a few cardinal points in Panama Canal history aş indispensable.

These points, as set forth by him, may be summarized as follows: M. de Lesseps, in 1879, was considered, by reason of the construction of the Suez Canal, the greatest project of modern times for the annihilation of time and space, preëminently the engineering genius of the world. In these circumstances, his opinion in favor of a tidewater canal between the Gulf of Limon and the Bay of Panama was accepted without question. The commission of experts reported that such a canal could be built in twelve years for 1,200,000,000 francs; but M. de Lesseps, after a trip across the Isthmus in 1880, cut this estimate to 843,000,000 francs. Later French contractors who undertook much of the work, stated that the canal could be made for 500,000,000 francs. The Commission calculated, that the shipping would yield an annual income of 90,000,000, while the cost of working and maintenance would not exceed 5 per cent. of the receipts. As this would yield to ordinary shareholders a dividend of more than 7 per cent. there was little difficulty in founding the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique de Panama. The capital of the company was but 300,000,000 francs. The roseate light thrown over the enterprise by underestimates of expenses and overestimates of profits deceived the people, and the shares (500 francs each) were freely taken by all classes, especially the peasants. Inevitably with a concern paying out scores of millions in advance interest on its bonds, and fighting constantly the disadvantages incurred through purposely deceptive estimates, the company was obliged to secure loan after loan, each one loaded with more oppressive conditions than its predecessor. In 1888, the Government gave permission to issue the celebrated lottery bonds for 720,000,000 francs; but faith in the company had been shaken, and only 305,000,000 were subscribed. In December, 1888, collapse was imminent, and appli

cation was made to Parliament to defer payment on Panama bonds and shares for three months. The application was. refused and liquidators appointed. A report in 1890 showed the criminal deception involved in the original estimates. The canal had then cost 1,250,000,000 francs, and at least 750,000,ooo more would be required to complete it, not as a tidewater canal, but as a much cheaper waterway, with locks and sluices. Dr. Hinman then says:

"Thus it was shown that M. de Lesseps's estimate of 843,000,ooo francs could have been hardly more than one-third of the actual cost of the canal that he had in mind. The connection of this light-heartedness in deceiving present and future stockholders from the inception of the undertaking, with the enormous frauds now being revealed, is clear to all. The Company, never overscrupulous, was driven to seek help in times of exigency from anybody, at any price, and by any means, and therein may be found the explanation of the bribery of Senators, Deputies, Cabinet Ministers, and editors, which has undermined the foundations of the Republic and may wreck the governmental institution of the last twenty years."

"But among all the bribegivers and bribetakers, tainted Deputies, Ministers, and ex-Ministers, unscrupulous financiers, and sordid lobbyists, whose dishonor is being revealed with the exposure of the Panama Canal Scandal, Ferdinand de Lesseps is the one heroic figure. Known but recently to the world as 'the great Frenchman,' and eulogized as the incarnate spirit of modern French enterprise, intelligence, and science, he lies to-day mentally and physically broken, watched from a distance by the officers of the law. Other men of national and international reputation have suffered as keenly, but the fall of each and all is insig nificant in comparison with the fate of the old man of Castle La Chanaye."

"

How far is Ferdinand de Lesseps to be held responsible for this national shame under which the masses stagger and their leaders fall? Can he truthfully proclaim his blamelessness, as does his son from a prison cell? Pitiable as is his condition, the most charitable must feel that, but for the roseate prophecies to which he lent his name, and the delusive promises which he made with so light a heart, the French people might have been spared the suffering, dishonor, and degradation which now threaten to overwhelm the Republic."

The outcry against those charged with having been corrupted by Panama Canal money is a campaign against the Republic. When the turmoil was at its height, there was apprehension of a Presidential crisis. The danger of that has disappeared at the moment at which I am writing these lines. Will the danger appear again by the time they are seen in print-?

It is difficult to foresee what may happen with a Chamber almost equally divided between two parties. The Republican Deputies who vote with the Right are animated by complex and personal considerations against which the Government can do nothing. Some of these Deputies are afraid of their electors, others want to pose as knights of virtue; those who are suspected of having something to hide are most vociferous in crying out: 'Light! light!' How can you reason against a metaphor?

"This campaign against the Republic is so cunningly managed that there are suspicions that it is directed by the Jesuits, who would like to act, at the same time, against the Republicans and the Pope, who has been so unfortunate as to call on the clergy to rally around the Republic. The fact is that La Libre Parole was started but a few days after the Encyclical of the Pope of February, 1892. The priests who acted as go-betweens, the brokers who were most active in placing Panama Canal shares, keep saying now to those whom they duped: It is the fault of the Republicans! Enlist under our banners. We will take these rascally Republicans by the throat and you will get back what you have lost.'

"These good apostles talk incessantly about the interests of the 400,000 holders of Panama shares. But nobody compelled them to take the shares they hold. Seduced by the success of the Suez.

Under pretext of defending their interests, the people belonging to the Right, the Boulangists, the Republicans, attacked with vertigo, stop everybody's business, throw France into a state of lively alarm, and threaten it with the great danger of a governmental crisis, which will go, as many hope, far beyond a change of Ministry and even a change of President.

The campaign undertaken is the revenge of the Boulangist coalition, but much more dangerous. In the case of the "brav' Général," he was visible and palpable. It sufficed to walk over him, and he was extinguished. In the present case we are contending with invisible and intangible microbes.

"The important point is for the Committee of Inquiry to abandon as soon as possible its part of a Committee of Public Safety. It is holding an inquest over a legislature which is no longer in existence. There is no reason in the world for its wanting to go back to the Chamber which cannot be found, and for its prolonging its labors indefinitely. A country cannot live with a Committee of Accusation, keeping everybody under suspicion.

The Government has taken the best possible means for rendering the Committee without excuse for existing, by arresting M. Charles de Lesseps and other persons mixed up with the affairs of the Panama Company. Justice will pursue its regular course, under the forms provided by our criminal procedure, with the sanction of the Penal Code. The Deputies will no longer have need of recurring to informers. There will be no longer a Committee of Public Safety in charge of purifying the Chamber. The Deputies will vote the budget, will pass good laws, if possible, by repealing the bad ones, something which is more difficult; will demand from the Government the maintenance of public order and respect for the law, themselves setting an example of such respect. Then this whirlwind will be forgotten, like so many before it. The pretenders will cease to agitate, and the elections of 1894, we will hope, will give a solid governmental majority of Republicans."

GREEDY REPUBLICANS RESPONSIBLE.

In an entirely different vein from the foregoing is an article by M. Ch. De Mazade in the Revue des Deux Mondes of January 15. He argues that things like the Panama frauds have been made possible by the greed to rule of a class of Republicans who have seized "power as though it were so much booty" and "pretended to make the Republic the property of a party": that the one essential thing with them was to have a majority, and that to do this they have extorted contributions from financiers, and "made merchandise of their influence under the protection of Republican solidarity." He says:

If what is taking place to-day cannot tarnish the probity and honor of France, as President Carnot said at his reception on New Year's Day, the moment has come to cut loose entirely from a suspected past, to go to the source of the evil. Let people wrangle as much as they wish, let them strive to belittle the importance or limit the incidents of the matter, to attribute it to political parties, they cannot get rid of one truth, which is clear and striking. This disastrous Panama affair, the explosion of which was retarded as long as possible, is but a sign of the times; it is the visible end of an order of things condemned by its works and its results. Warnings have not been lacking in the course of the development of the situation the sad fruits of which we have under our eyes. It is the last word of a generation which is exhausted."

"Has not a Minister quite recently admitted, with a frankness either cynical or reckless, as you choose to term it, that he had excluded from examination, for a very humble office, some young people suspected of having reactionary families or relatives? Has it not been alleged that departments of public charities have refused bread to the unfortunate or indigent, because these sent their children to the religious schools? Has it not been agreed that you may beg unprincipled financiers to be accomplices in a political interest, in order to help the candidacy of deputies threatened with defeat? In order to keep the Radicals in good humor, have not the authorities failed to execute the law in the face of strikes which were real riots, in the face of manifestations of social anarchy? The fact is that, under pretense of serving the Republican interests, they no longer make a distinction between good and evil, but use and abuse everything which they think

"Now the evil is done and the evidence of it is shameful. What prepared the way for the evil, what brought it about, is also evident, and the explosion of this monstrous Panama Scandal is but the most concentrated, most striking, manifestation of a moral state progressively altered.

"That being so, what is the character, what is the real significance of those two incidents which marked the opening of the session which has just begun, incidents occurring simultaneously at the Palais-Bourbon and in the councils of the Government? How is it that M. Casimir Perier is the President of the Chamber, and M. Ribot the Minister of the Interior? This means, say the unquiet Radicals, that there has been a reaction, which has triumphed with the aid of the Centre Left and the moderates. Yes, there has been a reaction, but very different from the one the Radicals have in mind. There has been a reaction, not against institutions, not against the principle of government, but against the weakness and confusion of late years, against the policy of connivance, avowed or concealed, with all agitations. The reaction is that or it is nothing."

BENEFITS OF THE SCANDAL.

M. Hector Depasse, in the Revue Bleue for January 7th, is disposed to take a cheerful view of the situation, and in a somewhat light and happy strain suggests that the revelations of the scandal will prove of value in educating the people, and lead to the doing away with many things which have tended to make a Panama Scandal possible. He says:

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The Count of Paris has, they say, summoned home the Duke of Orleans 'in view of present circumstances,' and the Deputies of the Right are organizing nine days of prayer' all over France, in order to pray God to save the country from the terrible ordeal it is passing through.' Unfortunately Providence has been visibly on the side of the Left for the last twenty years, not only in France, but throughout Europe, and ever since the Panama Scandal and the shameful doings about the Guelph Fund, Providence does not appear to be willing to go over to the side of the Right. 'The actual crisis, I think, must be considered a part of the plan of Providence, as crises everywhere generally are. By tearing away many veils and exposing to public view the true inwardness of great projects, this crisis will have aided in the education of the people, and in the economic and political development of democracy. The most ignorant will have acquired, by means of the unbridled publicity of these calumnies, of this defamation, as well as of the truths mingled with invective, very useful notions, in which up to this time they have been lacking, about the launching of great enterprises, about the organization of the Stock Exchange and the Bank of our day, about syndicates of guarantee, about systems of participation, about the function of cheques, and many other things good and bad, which have served to execute the most glorious works of civilization and humanity, and which have ended by leading to the most frightful abuses, to the waste of the fruits of labor and the absorption of the savings of the people.

"When the whole people understand clearly this mechanism, it will be impossible to preserve it. Other rules and other means of action will be put in play which will be more conformable to justice and equality; not to hinder or enfeeble the flight of industrial genius, but, on the contrary, to give it more power, and, with more power, more security.

If, instead of carrying on the Panama enterprise in the dark, by superannuated and dangerous means, which, moreover, were insufficient for the gigantic work, as the event has proved by a striking and terrible failure, if the enterprise had been conducted in the light of day, by telling the whole truth, by appealing to the coöperation of all the national forces, and, better still perhaps, to the coöperation of all States, the enterprise might have succeeded. Very probably the Panama Canal will yet be made. When?

On that point I would not dare to speak, but it appears to be a part of the plan of general civilization and of the logical development of great works of the future. Whenever the Canal is cut, it will be in daylight, with the conscious participation of the people, supported by good reasons, and not in the dark, under the cloak of syndicates of bankers.

This economic régime, which we are beginning to see, will differ as much from the régime which will disappear as the powerful and feeble government of modern democracies differs from the weak and precarious government of the little princes of days gone by."

TENN

ASPECTS OF TENNYSON.

'ENNYSON'S sincerity, earnestness for the right, hopefulness, unchanging loyalty to the spirit of progress, and persistence and consistency as a poet with a message "-these qualities and characteristics are the themes of many writers, probably, indeed, of most of the writers who undertake to estimate in a broad way the significance and value of his career and his work. The rank and genius of Tennyson as a purely literary artist, compared with the other great poets, is discussed much less than his spirit, his power, and his graces as a man of the age, or rather of the modern world, speaking its thoughts, sympathetically interpreting its tendencies, and voicing its generous impulses and aspirations.

TENNYSON'S MESSAGE TO THE AGE.

The Reverend Henry Van Dyke, D.D., in an article in the February Century on 'The Voice of Tennyson," tells of a visit that he made at the poet's home last August. Tennyson read to him the poem "Maud," and the reading conveyed to him a peculiar understanding of the author's distinguishing attitude, feelings, and purposes as a thinker, observer, and singer. From the point of view thus obtained, Dr. Van Dyke presents his estimate of Tennyson.

"This is the significance of Maud,' as Tennyson's own voice interpreted it: Love is redemption from the insanity of selfishness. And it was in keeping with this lesson that, when I asked him a few days later to write me a couplet to go underneath his picture, the old poet turned back fifty years and wrote these two ringing lines from Locksley Hall':

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

"As I listen backward to the memory of Tennyson's voice, not only in this reading of 'Maud,' but in many others, the thought that comes to me and craves expression is very clear and distinct. Tennyson is essentially and characteristically a poet with a message. His poetry does not exist merely for the sake of its own perfection of form. It is something more than the sound of one who hath a lovely voice, and can play skillfully upon an instrument. It is poetry with a meaning and a purpose. It is a voice which has something to say to us about life.

"

As Mr. E. C. Stedman, whose criticism always illuminates, has well said: 'He devoted himself, with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite art, and wreaked his thoughts upon expression, for expression's sake.' He was, in fact, like an ardent student who labors to learn all the secrets of his instrument before he begins to play for the larger audiences.

“But the same critic of insight has pointed out the fact that while the poets of the æsthetic school stop at this mastery of art for art's sake, Tennyson did not stop there. He went forward to a higher stage of development.

The real secret of Tennyson's influence comes from his true and intense human sympathy. Living as he did in seclusion, withdrawn from the inane vanities of that dull puppet-show which is ironically called 'society,' and guarded against the intrusions of that Philistine curiosity which robs a man of his power to serve the public by destroying his private life, the poet had, and kept, one of the largest, kindliest, warmest human hearts that ever beat. The best proof of this is to be found in his poems. How wide is their range of thought and feeling, touching all characters from the peasant to the philosopher, and revealing the deeper, sympathetic insight into the conditions of our infinitely varied, pathetic, glorious, mortal, and yet immortal life! I do not say that all of those ballads and pictures, stories and lyrics, are equally successful, equally valuable as poetry; but in all of them he has tried to express the changing hopes and fears of his fellow men, and in all of them he has appealed to that vital element which is common to all humanity.

"There are three points on which the message of the poet is especially clear, and most important for the present age.

"1. The first is the question of the relation of man to woman. Our poet has scorned the lust that defiles. He has hated the social lies that debase marriage to a bond of avarice or fashion. He has praised pure love as the bright consummate flower of life, and taught that it is the honor of all knightly men

To love one maiden only, cleave to her
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they win her; for indeed I know
Of no more subtle master under heaven

Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. "2. But there is another question hardly less important-the relation of man to his country. Tennyson has protested against 'the falsehood of extremes,' the ruinous influence of party rivalry, the mockery of freedom under the tyranny of the mob. He has woven a garland of deathless praise for the unselfish love of country as it is crystallized in supreme acts of devotion to duty, which shine like jewels in a nation's crown.

"3. The third question in which the voice of Tennyson has a clear message for us is the relation of man to humanity. This is the burning question of the age. What is the first duty which each man owes to his fellows? How are the cruelties, and strifes, and miseries of humanity to be mitigated at once, and cured at last?

'Our poet does not deny them, nor pass them by in silence. He does not teach the gospel of hate, which is nihilism, nor the gospel of envy, which is communism, nor the gospel of despair, which is pessimism. He teaches the old gospel of personal love and help, which is Christianity.

Amid all the confusion and uncertainties of our age, the dark. fears, the vague hopes, the wild dreams, the one thing that we must remember is the unchanged and unchanging value of personal goodness. To feel that each one of us has a place in the divine order; to find it and keep it; to obey the highest law of our being; to live up to the duty that lies nearest our own souls-that is the talisman to keep us in safety, that is the clue to guide us through the labyrinth.

And if we ask, as indeed we must again and again, What is that duty? the poet's voice answers, Love-a pure and reverent love of manhood for womanhood, a sane and unselfish love of country, a sincere and practical love of humanity; love is the fulfilling of the law; love is God."

TENNYSON AND THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT.

George Parsons Lathrop, in the American Catholic Quarterly Review for January, writes upon the question, “Was Tennyson Consistent?" and answers it thus:

Tennyson's single-minded conscientiousness in his art, his fidelity to the best that was in him poetically, gives him a great value to readers of literature and lovers of that which is beautiful in it. Nothing like justice has been done by the world in general to the abundance, the merit, and the variety of his productions during the declining decades of his wonderful career; the grace and sweetness of his nature-studies, the vigor and spirit of his martial or naval ballads, the force and inventiveness of his halflyrical tales in verse, full of character, suggestion, and the play of passion. A large proportion of that which he has left us will remain a source of delight and a subject of interesting study for a long time to come. But we cannot read or study him with genuine profit unless we realize the curious paradox embodied in his life and works.

"The paradox is as follows: People accused him of inconsistency in his poetic career, and even derided him for it. But, as a matter of fact, he was entirely consistent poetically, to even an exceptional degree-remaining the same at last as he was at the beginning. On the other hand, great numbers of people and critics (supposing these to be two separate and alien bodies) have praised him unstintedly for consistency in Christianity, and this is precisely where he was inconsistent; since, being so largely imbued with the thought, the feeling, and conviction of a Christian, he missed becoming wholly one, and drifted toward the vagueness of an eclectic and agnostic religion.

'He appears to have become spellbound by the magic of his own power over language, color, imagery, and to have been held there helpless in a land of poetic enchantment, which, to the last, prevented him from grasping the supreme reality that he perceived ahead of him as an unattainable, distant light. In reading Tennyson, therefore, it is well to guard against being veiled and fettered by the same impalpable yet clinging mist of soft, meditative, poetic loveliness, which gradually blurs and blots the clear outlines of things, then confuses the traveler's eye and brain, and finally overpowers him with drowsy and moveless languor."

Quite a different view of Tennyson's religious attitude is taken by a writer in the London Quarterly Review (January): "We must not look in Tennyson for the language of definite theological assertion. It has been possible to say of him that he felt more of wistful faith than of clear conviction,' and this despite the intensity and fervor which mark the expression of his faith, the passionate resolution with which he clings to it. He has never attempted, indeed, to formulate his creed, or to give logical

demonstration of its truth; he has held such demonstration impossible. Nothing worthy proving can be proven,' he told us only some six years ago; but he has rested well content with the deep inner conviction, not demonstrable by reason, but not opposed to it, which during more than fifty years has assured him of the existence and the benignant Fatherhood of God, the existence and the redeeming might of Christ, the deathlessness and the majestic future possibilities of the human spirit. Confronted by modern theories, modern discoveries, supposed to be anti-Christian in their tendency, he has not been daunted, but has found them capable of supporting the truth he loves. There is an almost Biblical grandeur in his ' Higher Pantheism,' higher indeed than the Pantheism of the skeptical herd:

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills, and the plains-
Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns?
Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why;
For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel "I am I?"
Speak to Him then for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet,
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see, But if we could see and hear this vision--were it not He.

I have climbed to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the past,
Where I sank with the body at times in the slough of a low desire,
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last,

As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher.

"One might say that his championship of faith has become bolder as its enemies have become more insolently aggressive. He is not content with holding the fort; he sallies forth with ringing battle-cry against the foe. It would be hard to estimate fully the far-spreading, beneficial influence, in an age so tormented by doubt as our own, of this golden-mouthed prophet of good, who is almost too conversant with the intellectual difficulties that beset his generation, and too deeply saddened by seeing the moral ruin they work, but whose faith, undefined as it is, has always inspired him to teach the heaven-high morality of Christ. A story is current that one would gladly believe, how Tennyson, walking in the garden and being asked the ever-new question, ' What think you of Christ?' answered after a pause, by pointing to a beautiful flower, and saying, 'What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. He is the Sun of my soul.' True, or merely wellinvented, the anecdote is wholly consistent with the life-long attitude of the poet towards the Saviour."

To those interested specially in the question of Tennyson's religious disposition we commend the article by Rev. Samuel P. Rose, D.D., in the Methodist Magazine, Toronto, for February, on "Tennyson's Indebtedness to the Bible." It embraces copious quotations.

POLITICAL.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN ENGLAND. F. S. STEVENSON, M.P.

Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (5 pp.) in Westminster Review, London, January.

"THERE

HERE is an impression," writes Charles Greville on the 17th of May 1835, "that this Government will not be of long continuance, and that the Ministers are themselves aware that their tenure of office must be brief." Yet, from April 1835 to August 1841, the Ministry stood its ground, and was able to pass measures of great importance to the public welfare.

The most superficial observer cannot fail to note a certain resemblance between the political situation in 1835 and the political situation in 1892. Then, as now, the Irish question formed the battle-ground of rival parties. Then, as now, the

Liberals were confronted, not only with the serried ranks of their habitual opponents, but with a not inconsiderable body of seceders from their own side. Then, as now, the supporters of the Government were described as a heterogeneous mass. Then, as now, the prophets of the opposition foretold the coming downfall of the Administration. Now, as then, they may live to see their hopes dashed and their predictions falsified.

For seven years the Home-Rule controversy has been carried on, the arguments on either side have penetrated everywhere, and the outcome is that the country has shown that it is almost as much in favor of the general principle of Home Rule as of the general principle of Free Trade, and that, through the operation of the change of feeling in England and Scotland, it has returned to power a majority and a Ministry pledged to do justice to Ireland by according to it the management of what Parliament shall decide to be distinctively and specifically Irish affairs. No issue presented to the electors was ever fought out with more keenness. And yet we are told that, because Home Rule was not the only question before the electors-because the election was fought, as always, upon the whole of the Liberal programme for the time being-it is incumbent upon the adversaries of the proposed change to go so far in their efforts to defeat the Bill as to destroy the efficiency of the present Parliament as a legislative machine. No claim more monstrous was ever put forward, and it is to be hoped that the wiser counsels, tendered by Mr. Courtney, to consider the measure on its merits, will gradually find favor with an increasing number whose minds have not been utterly warped by prejudice, especially when they bear in mind the difference which will necessarily exist between the Bill of 1886, and the Bill of 1893.

Whatever may be the precise order in which the measures of the coming Session are introduced, the most important question of all, apart from Ireland, with which the Government must deal, will be the satisfaction of the demands of rural electors, to whom the Ministry are more largely indebted for the position they now occupy than to any other section of the community. Their fidelity has shown that it can bear a strain; but the strain may become a wrench, unless a serious and determined effort is made to embody in legislation their aspirations and wants. The Local Government Act of 1888, though marking an epoch in the history of local representative institutions, failed to deal with the matters in which the rural inhabitants are primarily interested, or with the areas with which they are chiefly concerned. That deficiency remains to be supplied by the establishment of parish councils, enabling the dwellers in the smallest localities to have a direct and equal voice in the management of their own affairs. The need of a Royal Commission on the Poor Laws has been urged in many quarters. A good deal in fact may be done by the present Ministry without resort to Parliament. A good deal more may be done, in the domain of finance, by the House of Commons without the possibility of interference on the part of the Lords.

The necessity for grappling with the land question becomes greater every day. The vast majority of the Irish representatives, perceiving that the interests of the two democracies have much in common, are prepared to give a hearty support to the simultaneous progress of measures affecting the urgent requirements of the people of this country; and even Mr. Redmond's minority is willing to adopt a similar attitude. The needs of the rural electors demand foremost consideration, and a dissolution of Parliament, following upon neglect of those needs, would probably mean the destruction of the Liberal party as an instrument of reform for the next quarter of a century. Whenever a Regisration Bill is brought on-under which may be included proposals for the recognition of the principle of "one man one vote," as well as for the shortening of the period of qualification, it will be met by a demand for a redis