in which scholarly activity was constantly relieved by domestic and social pleasantry, could testify what an upright, just, steadfast and joyous heart was his, and how noble and generous and loving a man he was.

This character was formed and sustained by a steadfast and earnest Christian faith. The culture which he seemed to put on so naturally and so gracefully, extending as it did with rare symmetry to his intellect, his tastes, and his sympathies, was eminently a Christian culture, inasmuch as faith in the personal Christ gave it form and vitality. The "sweetness and light" which blended so delightfully in his character and his intellect, the light which grew more and more radiant, and the sweetness which became more and more attractive, were inspired by the master of his best affections and the object of his unswerving trust. There was in him no occasion to adjust the conflict between the claims of culture and the impulses of Christian duty. He was too spontaneous and entire a Christian to allow such a conflict to exist, and yet very few of his intimate friends knew how assured and warm-hearted was his Christian character. He was nurtured in the gentle ways of a loving Christian household. At the early age of ten, he became a communicant in the Presbyterian church. He lived a blameless and decorous life in the multitude of his literary and social activities, with no special Christian activity till he was eighteen, when the death of a greatly beloved brother, fourteen months younger than himself, the dear companion of his childhood, brought the future life very near to his mind, and awakened his slumbering faith to a vigorous and earnest activity. From that period his Christian life has been positive and distinct to his own consciousness. It has shown itself in his uniform interest in all religious observances, in his reverent attention to religious truth, and in his sympathy with all devotional duties. It would however, be most unjust and dishonorable to his memory to conceive that the grounds of the Christian faith were not closely and earnestly scrutinized in the light of his mature knowledge, or that he was too much absorbed in professional and favorite studies to subject the objects of his faith and hope to the severest scientific examination. He was a practised student of history; he was a consummate philologist. He was

familiar with all that had been written by the most learned and the most acute of the modern antagonists of Christianity. He had been a student of theology, and was at home among the speculative objections of those who would assert or insinuate that no sensible man who is abreast with modern thinking can accept the supernatural Christ of the Christian history. I shall never forget, on an occasion when there was submitted to him an argument for his revisal, how emphatically and positively he assented to the position taken, that modern criticism must force the historic student to say: The Christian history is genuine or, at least, enough of it to oblige the critic to accept the alternative, that the Christ of history, if not supernaturally commissioned, was either a conscious deceiver or romantically self-deceived.

On another occasion he said something like this: No man who considers the way in which men begin and go on in this life, can fail to perceive, explain or describe it as he will, that we begin our life under what seems a moral disadvantage and go fearfully astray. No man who believes that God is good can avoid presuming that he would interpose in some way to help man. If he has interposed, there is no way in which he could do it so effectually as by revealing himself in a human person, as he is said to have done in Jesus Christ. I must therefore believe that He is God manifest in the flesh.

The steadiness and sharpness of his mental vision had little in common with that speculative flightiness which will not distinctly face the facts of man's desperate moral extremity. As little could his literary insight sympathize with that flightiness of critical interpretation which would eliminate from the evangelical narrative the spiritual truth and historic reality which have made it powerful to meet this extremity. As a thinker and an interpreter, Prof. Hadley felt himself compelled to be a Christian believer. He was a literal and historic, but none the less a catholic Christian.

These conclusions concerning Christ were not held merely as critical or scientific opinions. With the spontaneous and thorough energy which characterized the man, he made them operative in his life. The Christ of history became to him a spiritual power, on whom he rested all his hopes for this world

and the next, reaping in his own serene and buoyant life the large rewards which are promised to those who seek first the kingdom of God. It is a pleasant thing to record that the last work of his life was in the interest of the proposed revision of the New Testament, for which he marked with a pencil the phrases and words requiring alteration in the first three chapters. Such a man as Prof. Hadley is not likely to give frequent utterance to his inmost religious feelings. But there have been times when they have been distinctly expressed. When he was called to face a severe surgical operation with a doubtful issue, he expressed entire assurance of his confidence in Christ and of Christ's fidelity to himself. After the operation was over, during a long continued paroxysin of agony, he broke out in semi-consciousness in the words of a Welsh hymn, of which he subsequently furnished a written translation:

"Oh God give me thy peace,

And the vision of thy face;
And pardon now my great faults,

Ere I go down to the grave.

This might I gain, I would fear no more

The vale or the sting of death,

Till led by thy hand to the farther side,
Unalarmed, unharmed, some day I come,
Above all pangs and pains."

In the early part of his last sickness, before it had assumed an alarming character, he said freely, under the oppression of extreme prostration, that the future life was so clear and sure to him, that death had become rather attractive than otherwise. Certainly he should prefer to die than to be unable to labor. Few scholars with his hopes and his fame, few men of any class in the meridian of life, have learned in the school of Christian hope to rejoice so confidently

"In the sublime attractions of the grave."

No words could better describe the habitual feeling of his soul in respect to this life and the next than the words: "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent we may be accepted of Him."

In the later stages of his illness, after a day of fearful struggle for life, on returning to consciousness, he asked: "What of yesterday?" On being told how near he had been to death, he exclaimed: "Is it possible that I have been so near the realization of my hopes!" Again, he said, in great feebleness: "I cannot easily command my thoughts, but I can slowly hum over these stanzas:

'We would see Jesus-for the shadows lengthen

Across this little landscape of our life;

We would see Jesus, our weak faith to strengthen
For the last weariness-the final strife.

We would see Jesus-the great Rock Foundation
Whereon our feet were set by sovereign grace;
Not life nor death, with all their agitation

Can thence remove us, if we see his face.'"

This prayer we believe has been fulfilled,-that he has seen the Redeemer whom he confessed and in whom he hoped, and been made completely like him by seeing him as he is;that he has left behind whatever of evil or infirmity remained, and been introduced into what he described toward the last in these slowly uttered words: "Salvation-forever-foreverforever;" adding also, "Christ-everlasting-sure."

As we follow him in our triumphant thoughts to the begin. nings of that eternal life, we cannot wholly forget the irreparable loss which his family, his friends, this college, and the fraternity of American scholars have sustained. The loss is indeed irreparable. None can feel this more sensitively and bitterly than myself, in the manifold responsibilities to which I have been called. I speak for my colleagues as well, who feel as keenly that one of the wisest and kindest of our circle has been taken from the sphere of activity which we had hoped he might fill for a score of years. It will be long before we forget him or cease to remember him with tender and reverent affection. He has been with us for more than thirty years as a student and instructor. His is one of the brightest names among all those which this College has enrolled upon its annals. May his example and spirit remain with us for another generation!

ARTICLE III-AUGUSTE COMTE AND POSITIVISM.

Cours de Philosophie Positive. Par AUGUSTE COMTE, Répétiteur d'Analyse transcendante et de Mécanique rationelle à l'École polytechnique, et Examinateur des Candidats qui se dertinent à cette École, Deuxièine Édition, Augmentée d'une Préface, par É. Littié, et d'une Table alphabetique des Matières. Paris J. B. Baillière et Fils. 1864. (Six volumes.)

Système de Politique Positive. Par AUGUSTE COMTE, Auteur du Système de Philosophie Positive. Ordre et Progrès. Paris Chez Carilian-Goeury et Vor. Dalmont. 1851, 1852, and 1853. (Three volumes published in successive years.)

INTRODUCTORY.

AFTER all that has been written, and ably written, on the subject of the Positive Philosophy, it may seem superfluous to add another attempt to weigh and estimate that remarkable system of thought. But it has seemed to the writer, that, with all that has been done in this line of effort, there is still room for another effort to present the main outlines of this system in its bearing on the questions now at issue between science and religion.

Without presuming to criticize the labors of others, it is sufficient to say that it is the aim of the writer, in this effort, to present such a view of positivism in its scientific, moral, and religious bearings, as shall bring the subject within the scope of the general reader, and enable him to judge intelligently the various questions which rise for decision in the conflict of opinion growing out of the writings of Comte.

But some notice of the life of the author, and of the aims which gave direction to his thinking, and shape to his system of philosophy, is essential to a clear understanding of his published works. Fortunately all that is important under this head may be gleaned from the prefaces and foot-notes of the several volumes of the Philosophie Positive and the Politique Positive.