states, and enabled them to produce | graduated at Salamanca and been honored works of art and civilization, some of at Madrid. which have not been surpassed even in Europe. They accumulated great wealth, and were not without the knowledge how to use it. We confess we do not perceive the smallest indication that the polity in troduced by the Spaniards was any compensation for the polity they destroyed.

pos

The simple truth is, that the Indian population of America was either exterminated altogether, or was destroyed with a destruction which, sparing life, was yet more fatal than if it had required it. That, and none other, so far as the natives were concerned, was the net result of the administration of the Spanish Conquest in America.

We know well there were not wanting noble and able men who would fain have had it otherwise. But the most excellent intentions were often frustrated by insufficient knowledge; or knowledge had not power; or power had not good-will; or, when knowledge, power, and good-will were all found together, as in Cardinal Ximenes, something else was wanting. Either opportunity could not be found, or jealousy, avarice, or baseness got the first chance of seizing it and took very good care to keep it.

If any one reminds us that the motives of the conquerors were in part religious, that they were anxious for the conversion of the natives, we can only answer, that however sincere in these desires were Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus and some others, the great majority of the Spaniards gave no sign of being influenced by any such motives at all. Moreover, though the Indians were not Christians when they were discovered, they were not without religion. Such dim and errant light of nature as they had, many of them had followed with a docility and fidelity which, it appeared to some of the most religious of the Spaniards, the So far as these pages are concerned we sessors of the light of the Gospel might have now to take leave of Mr. Helps. We not unreasonably have envied. On the do so with our warmest thanks for the whole, we do not find that they were delight and instruction his volumes have made more religious, but less so. In afforded us. We must deny ourselves the Mexico it is certain that a revolting and satisfaction of explaining our regrets at bloody idolatry was suppressed. But it having had to pass almost in silence over was suppressed, not by bringing a convic- the innumerable beauties and the wealth tion of its unreasonableness or its wicked- of thought and of feeling with which they ness to the minds of its adherents, but by are every where enriched. We have made the sword of Cortes. Its altars were it our task simply to illustrate the adminoverthrown, not by converted worship-istration of the conquest. The work iters, but by Spanish cannon-balls. And the power which suppressed the external rites of this idolatry with such success, found itself simply impotent to introduce Christianity into its place.

So far as an attempt was made to introduce the civilization and refinements of European life, their introduction was little better than a mockery, for the Indians were none the less slaves, though they were imprisoned in fetters as finely wrought as those which bound Caonabó, and were tortured by Spaniards who had

self illustrates many things besides. We would warmly commend it to our readers. They will find it repay, we will not say their perusal only, but their affectionate and earnest study. Its author has made his countrymen greatly his debtors. He has long been reverently loved as a wise Friend in Council, and as a right noble Companion for one's Solitude. He has now completed the work upon which will rest his fame as a historian; and it is such as will give him a high place in that ca pacity.

From the London Review.

NOVELS AND

NOVELISTS.*

In curious contrast with an author whose | the undisturbed dominion of the devil. role it is to declare that all is bad which This is Kingsley's standing ground, where is of man's making, we meet with another he offers fight to all opponents; and, per equally strong in the assertion that all is haps, among his works of fiction, Hypatia good which is of God's giving. If Thack- most fully illustrates his various points of eray is a Cynic, Kingsley is a Jew; a Pla- defense and attack. See, modern Christtonic-we had almost said an Alexandrian ians, he cries, see what Christianity will -Jew, though it might seem like a para- come to, if it be separated from the Old dox to charge him with the very degen- Testament; see what a Church will come eracy against which he protests. The to when it is cut off from a universal kingspirited sketcher of character, the brilliant dom of God. Have we no sects in Eng painter of scenery, always racy, clear, and land, fighting, with mixed motives and forcible, he stands forward as the popular dirty tools, less for righteousness than for exponent of muscular Christianity;" that their own privilege and policy-as Cyril is, of a religion which embraces every ele- did in Alexandria? Have we no pietists ment that belongs to humanity, and which, in England, limiting their life to the culif it lays a little too much stress on physi- ture of the spirit, and forgetting all beside cal development, does it, we may hope, in -as monks and nuns did in the deserts of temporary reaction from a false spiritual- Egypt?-with this difference only, that, ism, which has confounded the flesh" in a less corrupt state of society, we can of science with the "flesh" of Scripture, fight our soul-battle in that world from and pronounced every thing belonging to which they were seduced to fly. And the body to be either weak or base. It have we not the same results around us ?— is Kingsley's fundamental maxim, that government, law, and order left to careevery part of the creation of God is good, less Romans; a needy populace left to and nothing to be refused-from the low-vice and ignorance; strength and courage, est wants of the body, to the widest wants of nations, and the highest wants of the spirit. All that was made by God the Father has been redeemed by God the Son, and may be sanctified by God the Spirit; and on this common ground he loudly proclaims the existence of universal Judaism, that is, a Christian kingdom of God, over which the Anointed One is already reigning, and within which every natural faculty and every social relation is comprehended. On this common ground he protests against that narrow theory of sects which would limit the kingdom of God to those who are really, or only professedly, obeying him; and which, by so doing, would withdraw the stamp of God's rightful possession from all that ranges beyond that narrow pale, leaving nature and art, science and poetry, with all the elements of domestic and national life, to

* Concluded from page 41.

as in the Goths, art and philosophy, as in poor Hypatia, left, godless, to sustain themselves? It was not so in times of old-in those ancient Jewish times, from which we have borrowed one of the few things that were destined to die-their exclusiveness. Narrow as was the Jewish theocracy, it was narrow in numbers only, not in nature. If it comprehended but one nation, it comprehended all that constitutes nations-every natural faculty, every social relation, every principle of man's or God's government; and for this very reason, that, in the times to come, when the kingdom of God should embrace all nations, there might be nothing wanting to suit its requirements to all. In the better times of the Jewish polity we see the working of this grand national principle, which Christians, to their cost, have forgotten. Kings ruled for God, judges judged for him, poets sang for him, artificers worked for him, soldiers fought for

speak, and speak well, of the great worldbattle between good and evil, and of the living God who overrules it; but when that strife comes to a crisis in each individual soul, Kingley gets out of his depth, and flounders helplessly. There is scarcely one of his novels in which a soul-crisis is not introduced; yet in his hands these crises become little more than curious facts in psychology. Alton Locke turns from evil to good through a series of vivid fancies or visions; Tom Thurnall, through a shake of the nerves; Amyas Leigh, through three days of delirium, and a dream; while in Phaethon and Hypatia the greatest fact in human existence--the choice of the soul between life and death

is brought before us in the merest wordbattle of Platonic dialectics. Strange that he who cries so loudly to communities, “It is not words or views you want, but a real Helper and Ruler," should, to the individual, offer help and rule in intellectual play of words! Raphael the Jew, who has just found the living God of Israel in the Christian Messiah, comes to the graceful heathen with whom he has studied Plato, and presents to her his new life and light in true Platonic form. By definitions and abstractions, and subtile argu

him. They were not all good men, far from it; but it was stamped into the heart's core of the people that their whole life was a feoff held from the Most High, for which they were bound to render open homage. The anomaly of modern times is this, that while we have higher and holier views of God as the God of individuals, we have lower views, rather we have no views at all, of God as the God of nations, the King of kings and Lord of lords. They who adopt this phrase in Christian hymns, generally repudiate the only meaning that makes it more than a phrase; and altogether deny that God still asserts sovereignty over nations, still demands outward homage, still inflicts pun ishment and promises reward. Who, in an age that has separated national and spiritual life-who dares believe that if, at God's command, and for the sake of right, England met danger and risked loss, she would as certainly find protection and safety as did Judea of old? The unrighteous have lost faith in the God of nations, and, still worse, the righteous have lost faith in him. We greatly rejoice that a writer as popular as Kingsley is, should use his strength to support this forgotten truth; and we equally regret that he should so link it with his own pet notions and fan-ments on the properties of things, and cies, with rash speculations and lax opinions, that from his hands it is too often carelessly or suspiciously received as "one of Kingsley's views." He himself does injustice to this old Jewish belief; in truth, he is but an Alexandrian Jew. On points of doctrine, where the ancient Jew was so dogmatic, on points of obedience, where he was so unswerving, (the Fourth Commandment, for instance,) Kingsley slides off into dialectics, and goes―no one knows where. He seems to want that highest attribute of genius-full command over its own creations. It is not so much he who makes his characters go further than they ought, as his characters who make him go further than he ought. Thus, in Alton Locke he does not merely portray a democrat, but is dragged down with him into the very cant of democracy. Thus, in Westward Ho, he can not stop when he makes gallant Amyas Leigh a little too combative, but must needs sink with him into the black heathenism of revenge. Thus, in Yeast, he not only describes the fermentation of social elements, but is himself in the whirl and bubble, and plainly can not get out. He can

considerations founded on Plato's archetypes, he seeks to lead her to the discovery of a living God and Christ. Are we to suppose that it was thus St. Paul preached to the graceful Greeks of Corinth? We wish we had space for the whole scene between Raphael and Hypatia, but must be content with giving part of the lucid summary with which Kingsley concludes his sketch of the fifth century:

"And now we will leave Alexandria also, and, taking a forward leap of some twenty years, see how all other persons mentioned in this history went each to his own place.

"A little more than twenty years after, the wisest and holiest man in the east was writing of Cyril, just deceased: His death made those who survived him joyful; but it grieved most probably the dead; and there is cause to fear, lest, finding his presence too troublesome, they should send him back to us.'. Cyril has gone to his own place. What that place is in history, is but too well known. What it is in the sight of Him unto whom all live forever, over all his works, have mercy upon all, wheis no concern of ours. May He whose mercy is ther orthodox or unorthodox, Papist or Protestant, who, like Cyril, begin by lying for the cause of truth; and, setting off upon that evil

road, arrive surely with the Scribes and Phari- | to the bishop, and asked, where were the souls sees of old, sooner or later, at their own place. "True, he and his monks had conquered, but Hypatia did not die unavenged. In the hour of that unrighteous victory, the Church of Alexandria received a deadly wound. It had admitted and sanctioned those habits of doing evil that good may come, of pious intrigue, and, at last, of open persecution, which are certain to creep in wheresoever men attempt to set up a merely religious empire, independent of human relationships and laws. And the Egyptian Church grew, year by year, more lawless and inhuman. Freed from enemies without, and from the union which fear compels, it turned its ferocity inward, to prey on its own vitals, and to tear itself in pieces by a voluntary suicide, with mutual anathemas and exclusions, till it ended as a mere chaos of idolatrous sects, persecuting each other for metaphysical propositions; which, true or false, were equally heretical in their mouths, because they used them only as watchwords of division. Orthodox or unorthodox, they knew not God; for they knew neither righteousness, nor love, nor peace. They hated their brethren, and walked on still in darkness, not knowing whither they were going,' till Amrou and his Mohammedans appeared; and . . . . . . they went to their own place.

46

Twenty years after Hypatia's death, philosophy was flickering down to the very socket. Hypatia's murder was its death-blow. In language tremendous and unspeakable, philosophers had been informed that mankind had done with them; that they had been weighed in the balances and found wanting; that if they had no better Gospel than that to preach, they must make way for those who had. And they did make way. We hear little or nothing of them or their wisdom henceforth, except at Athens, where they descended deeper and deeper into the realms of confusion, .. gradually looking with more and more complacency on all superstitions which did not involve that one idea which alone they hated, namely, the Incarnation; craving after signs and wonders, dabbling in magic, astrology, and barbarian fetchisms; bemoaning the fallen age, and barking querulously at every form of human thought except Peace be to their ashes! They are gone to their own place.

their own.

of his heathen ancestors? 'In hell,' replied
the worthy prelate. Wulf drew back from the
font, and threw his bear-skin cloak around him.
'He would prefer, if Adolf had no objection, to
go to his own people.' (Note, a fact.) And so
he died unbaptized, and went to his own place.
"Victoria was still alive and busy but Au-
gustine's warning had come true-she had found
trouble in the flesh. The day of the Lord had
come, and Vandal tyrants were now the masters
of the fair corn lands of Africa. Her father and
brother were lying by the side of Raphael (her
husband) beneath the ruined walls of Hippo,
slain, long years before, in the vain attempt to
deliver their country from the invading swarms.
But they had died the death of heroes, and Vic-
toria was content. And it was whispered among
the down-trodden Catholics, who clung to her
as an angel of mercy, that she, too, had endured
strange misery and disgrace; that her delicate
limbs bore the scars of fearful tortures; that a
room in her house, into which none ever entered
but herself, contained a young boy's grave; and
that she passed long nights upon the spot, where
lay her only child, martyred by the hands of
Arian persecutors. Nay, some of the few who,
having dared to face that fearful storm, had sur-
vived its fury, asserted that she herself, amid
her own shame and agony, had cheered the
sinking boy on to his glorious death. But
though she had found trouble in the flesh, her
spirit knew none. Clear-eyed and joyful, she
went to and fro among the victims of Vandal
rapine and persecution, spending upon the
maimed, the sick, the ruined, the small remnants
of her former wealth, and winning, by her puri-
ty and piety, the reverence and favor even of
the barbarian conquerors. She had her work to
do, and she did it, and was content; and, in
good time, she also went to her own place."

Next on our list follows a bold conception: a novel half-immoral, half-Dissenting; a tale of seduction, relieved by Methodist sermons and prayers! The popularity of Adam Bede has been im

mense.

"Particular" ladies have placed it on their drawing-room tables; sober people have declared that all young men ought to read it; nay, to our excessive Wulf, too, (the Gothic wise man,) had gone astonishment, we have heard it called a to his own place, wheresoever that may be. religious novel. Let us glance at the plot He died in Spain, full of years and honors, at the court of Adolf and Placidia, having seen his of the story. Arthur Donithorne, the younger companions-in-arms settled with their generous, honorable, kind-hearted young Alexandrian brides, up on the sunny slopes squire, falls in love with the farmer's niece, from which they had expelled the Vandals and pretty Hetty Sorrel; and blindly, and alSuevi, to be the ancestors of 'bluest-blooded' most unresistingly, abandons himself to Castilian nobles. Wulf died, as he had lived, a the impulses which are certain to bring heathen. Placidia, who loved him well, as she disgrace on himself and ruin on his victim. loved all righteous and noble souls, had succeeded once in persuading him to accept bap-resistance to make resolutions which are We say, unresistingly, for we count it no tism. Adolf himself acted as once of his sponsors; and the old warrior was in the act of stepping into the font, when he turned suddenly

never put in practice. In the course of three months, (for this is no gradual fall!)