The Turkish Emperor having named a time when he would receive her, Sewel says: fore the Sultan, who had his great men about Being come to the.camp, she was brought behim in such manner as he was used to admit ambassadors. He asked, by his interpreters (whereof there were three with him), whether it was true what had been told him, that she had something to say to him from the Lord God? She answered, "Yea." Then he bade her speak on, She, pausing, and weightily pondering what she might say, and he, supposing she might be fearful to utter her mind bethat any might go aside before she spake ? fore them all, asked her whether she desired She answered, "No." He then bade her speak the word of the Lord to them, and not to fear, for they had good hearts and could hear it. He also charged her to speak the word she had to say from the Lord, neither more nor less, for they were willing to hear it, be it what it would. Then she spoke what was upon her mind.

we do not see the darker side of the early | Fourth, who treated her much better than Quakers. Margaret Fell and her family either King or Protector treated her friends were not likely to fall into the wildest ex- in England. We have to quote at secondtravagances of some of their brethren. We hand from Sewel, the Quaker historian, do not fancy them running-sometimes but the interview is too creditable to both running naked-into churches and courts Turk and Quaker to be passed by:— of justice, and insulting clergy and magistrates as hireling priests and unjust judges. Yet Margaret Fell herself, when she was brought within the grasp of the law, held a dialogue with her judge which no judge could be expected to put up with. Whatever was the established government in Church or State, the Quaker appeared as the common enemy of all social order. He was hateful alike to King and Protector, to Bishop and Presbyter. The persecution of the Quakers was odious, because all persecution is odious, and because the Quakers were dealt with in a way which was specially unfair. The Quaker could hardly be called a peaceable subject, but he was a loyal subject, so far as that to conspire against either King or Protector was alien from all his doctrines and feelings. And certainly no one was further from wishing to bring in the jurisdiction of any foreign Prince, Prelate, or Potentate. But the Quaker would not swear to anything; therefore he would not swear allegiance to the King. He would not renounce the Pope upon oath; he therefore, the antipodes to the Papist, made himself liable to the penalty ordained against Popish recusants. No wonder the Quaker complained feelingly of the horrible injustice of such treatment; but it is clear that it was thoroughly according to the letter of the law. And it should be specially remarked that the persecution of the Quakers was in no way exclusively the sin of the Monarchy or of the Epicsopal Church. The Restoration only continued what the Protectorate began. Clergy, magistrates, populace, were quite as bitter, often quite as unjust, under the Protectorate as under the Monarchy. And Charles the Second, whenever he could be got at personally, was clearly more inclined to grant a little indulgence than Cromwell Charles underwent a good deal of preaching, both personally and by letter, from Margaret Fell, and her style, comparatively moderate as it is, was not exactly what kings were used to. She had, before that, tried Oliver. Of the two, Charles seems to have been the readier listener.

w as.

But of all Quakers and Quakeresses, let us most honour Mary Fisher, who in 1660 went all the way to Hadrianople, with the hope of converting the Grand Turk. And some honour too is owing to Mahomet the

"The Turks hearkened to her with much

gravity till she had done, the Sultan asking her whether she had anything more to say. She asked him if he understood what she had said, and he answered, 'Yes, every word;' and further said, that what she had spoken was truth. Then he desired her to stay in that country, saying that they could not but respect one who had taken so much pains to come to them so far as from England with a message from the Lord God. He also proffered her a she intended going. But, not accepting this guard to convey her to Constantinople, whither offer, he assured her it was dangerous travelling alone, especially for such an one as she; and he wondered she had passed safely so far as she had; adding, that it was out of respect and kindness to her that he made the offer, that he would not for anything that she should come to the least hurt in his dominions.

the others asked her what she thought of their "She having no more to say to the Sultan, she knew him not; but Christ, the True Prophprophet Mahomet? She answered, warily, that et, the Son of God, who was the light of the world, and enlightened every man coming into the world, Him she knew. And concerning Mahomet, she said they might judge of him to be true or false, according to the words and prophecies he spake; adding, 'If the word that a prophet speaketh come to pass, then shall ye know that the Lord hath sent that prophet; that the Lord never sent him.' The Turk but if it come not to pass, then shall ye know confessed she had spoken truly; and Mary, having delivered her message, departed from the camp to Constantinople, without a guard

t

and without the least hurt or scoff. So she of even the most commonplace sort grafts safely arrived in England."

After this, it is, really a fall to read that
Mary Fisher, instead of becoming the Chlo-
thilda or Æthelburh nowadays we should
say the Emma—of the Ottoman Empire,
two years after "was married to William
Bailey, a sea-captain, and a preacher and
writer of considerable note among the
Friends."

We mentioned Robert Barclay. Let us
add that this volume contains a poem by
"the American poet Whittier ”
"Barclay of Ury," which, if it is not to be
called
found elsewhere, would alone make the Fells
of Swarthmoor a book worth having. Not-
withstanding one or two eccentricities aris-
ing from a peculiar metre, we cannot help
setting it down as one of the noblest ballads
in the English language. It is unluckily
too long to quote, and a single stanza or
two would hardly be intelligible.

From the Saturday Review.
OCCASIONAL CYNICISM.

The

for his own special use upon the trunk his nominal creed. Men mostly believe, or system which accident or habit has made think they believe, that there is such a thing sequent upon a certain course of conduct. as thorough happiness and satisfaction conStill they are apt, in their inner minds, to let this belief be diluted and weakened by crude doubts whether, after all, happiness happiness is so wonderfully satisfactory even is really possible; whether what we call when to all seeming we are filled with it; us as virtue, and the reward of virtue, is whether a good deal of what is held up to not rather too shadowy and impalpable. These underlying bits of inconsistent halfbelief are constantly found to tinge a man's conduct far more strongly than what seems to be the chief stratum of beliefs and motives. A deeply cynical conviction or suspicion, which is often but dimly recog nized by him who is most habitually acted upon by it, that virtue is only a name, and not a reality, for creatures who eat and drink and to-morrow die, is the root of three-fourths of the selfishness and lack of principle which so astounds us among nomiTHERE can be nothing much more internally religious or thinking people. esting to the student of human character Preacher's ejaculation that all things come than to watch the different shapes that are alike to all, that there is one event to the constantly being assumed, at different times, righteous and to the wicked, to the clean by the old feeling of the worthlessness of and to the unclean, is the expression of a all our aims and objects of endeavour. great deal of secret and unavowed popular This is one of the very few convictions philosophy. It is fortunate for the interests which, in some form and at one time or of society that so paralysing a doctrine as another, come home to all the world. No- this of the utter delusiveness of human hapbody is so buoyant or so dull, so sunk in piness and of virtue, and of the connection self-indulgence or so elevated by self-denial, between the two, is unable to infect more as to be entirely unsusceptible of the chill- than a minority. It is impossible to prove ing persuasion that all the works that are to the minority that they are wrong. If done under the sun are vanity and vexation they choose to think, or rather to feel, that of spirit. The degrees of susceptibility nobody is ever happy, or that a hog is as range between very widely distant points happy as the most virtuous and intelligent from the hide-bound Pharisee, who is of men, they take up a position from which barely open to these uncomfortable impres- no amount of argument can expel them. sions at all, up to the professed cynic, who You may argue for ever with a West-Indian has reached the truly delightful conclusion negro upon the increased happiness which that "the whole thing," by which he means men derive from labour and thrift, and the life and all its interests, is a sheer mistake rest, but you will never get even the thin and piece of confusion. As it presents it- end of the wedge of conviction into his self to the grander and loftier type of mind, mind. And, in just the same way, all talk this difficulty is the starting-point of all sys-about the comfort and satisfaction that foltems of religion and philosophy, of which low on vigorous and sustained exertion, and it is the object to show either that aims exist before men's eyes that are solid realities worth pursuing, and not mere shadows, or else that even shadows are better worth pursuing in some one way than in all others. But not less important nor less interesting are the fragmentary notions which a person

self-sacrifice, and abundant interests and likings, falls on incurably deaf ears when a man has once thoroughly imbibed the fatal notion that everything comes to pretty much the same in the long run, whatever you do.

There is no aspect of this many-sided but always benumbing theory more worth

considering than the influence which it oc- | hangs over them, a source of real torment. casionally exerts on the most valuable sort As such effort is crowned with success, they of men. The theory comprehends the are disposed to put to themselves the cyniwhole philosophy of the cynic. It under- cal problem, how much nearer they are to lies the conduct of a great many people who contentment. Each fresh summit gained either get on very well without any philos- only serves to bring new summits within ophy at all, or else whose declared philoso- view, and at the same time to fill us with phy teaches them something very different doubt whether they are any better worth indeed. Its power serves to explain, and scaling than the one we have just conquered. in their own eyes to vindicate, some of the Even the plainest evidence that others have folly and most of the wickedness which so been benefited by our endeavours, pleasur many cultivated persons are upon occasion able and consolatory as it may be up to a ready to exhibit. But, besides all these, certain point, fails to counteract the presmen who believe most firmly, and act most sure of vague and troublesome despondency. sedulously on the belief, that there are a The most benevolent of men may be well great many things in the world worth pursu- pleased with the success of his projects, and ing and possessing, and that the more of yet, paradoxical as it seems, may not feel such things any one seeks the wiser he is much more of that profound mental ease even men who think and act on all this find which moralists too liberally promise as the from time to time their purpose overshad- reward of well-doing. The dejection of owed, and their strength enervated, by dis- those who are habitually active in doing the mal questionings of What is the use? It best they can for others and for themselves has been said that the most successful man, is very different from the arid and comwho has got every prize for which he has placent contempt of those who, because striven, and has honestly, and not fruitlessly, the world is full of miseries and disappointtried to make the best of himself and his ments and folly, look with scorn on any opportunities, still, by the time he has attempt to discover principles that may reached middle age, would not much re- lessen the doleful stock. But the best men pine at the prospect of being found quietly and the worst alike are open to the feeling dead in his bed some morning. Nobody of that, when you have done all you can, there solid character - that is, according to No- is still little to be got but vanity and vexavalis's definition, nobody of "completely tion of spirit. Only with the one it is a fashioned will"-would permit feelings of passing mood, with the other a rooted habit this kind to lead him gloomily away from that springs from some horribly bad logic the course of conduct which he had deliber- and superficial observation in the first place, ately marked out, or to deaden his faith and then has thriven on the indolent selfin principles which he had no other reason ishness which the bad logic engendered. than this for doubting. But, for all that, such feelings may go some way to damp his energies, and cloud the pleasure which he should have felt in their exercise. There are young men now-a-days who start in their career with the idea firmly implanted in their minds that there is not much to be got out of life; that a man who lives in chambers, belongs to a Pall Mall Club, has a modest competency, and steers clear of domestic ties, and of too many interests, and of anything like enthusiasm on any subject, does on the whole get more happiness than the rest, but that even this, after all, is a sorry sort of stuff. Systematic selfishness of this description may not make the amiable and enlightened being whose sands. Of course everybody desires money gospel it is very uncomfortable, though even in his case the appalling notion ultimately creeps on that the whole thing, with himself at least, has been a mistake. But to men of another stamp the mere suspicion that all the work that is wrought under the sun is only vanity is, so long as the shadow

The objects for which men labour and make sacrifices, and which in their healthy moods seem amply worth labouring and making sacrifices for, are obviously as many as the types of human character. A great many people expect that happiness is to be found in making and accumulating money. Balances and investments, stocks and dividends, are the unvarying material out of which they rear their castles in the air, and this kind of aspiration may be observed as much among persons in a moderate way of life as among men in the full tide of big commercial transactions. The one class stake as much on their hundreds as the other on their thousands and tens of thou

more or less, in whatever direction his tastes may run. But men of this stamp want it for itself, for the sense of power and security which it confers, and for the gratification it brings to their self-esteem. They may feel all this, and still not be avaricious or purse-proud in the vulgar sense.

Another set of people have no taste what- suffer it to give, will find within his reach ever for fine investments and high rates of a never-failing stock of adequate pleasures, interest. A modest income which should which make his life very well worth living give them a pleasant house, and a horse, for. One reason why even wise men are and a library, and a good garden, and per- occasionally attacked by a fit of cynicism is mit them to be hospitable, and to take an that they have been infected by some sort occasional trip, as well as to commit an ex- of philosophy, or by some of the traditions travagance now and then by the purchase of the race which point to a golden age, of a picture or an expensive book an in- past or future, when mortals on earth might come of this kind is the be-all and end-all enjoy the mysteriously blissful existence of of their private dreams. Others, again, the immortals in Olympus. It is probably fancy that to present a numerous and well- the last lesson which we teach ourselves, bred family to the State is one of the most and it is one which the mass perhaps never useful and creditable things a man can do. learn at all, that men can never grasp those The rearing, the education, the prospects of ideals of happiness which poets and airy their children, overtop all other interests to philosophers have amused themselves and them as pre-eminently as does the eager- beguiled others by constructing. People ness to be rich or to be comfortable, and to find this world all vanity and vexation of have an oportunity of gratifying all his spirit because they have somehow got a tastes, in a man of different temper. Then notion of a world where everything is to go there is the large class, perhaps the most on by rules of supreme virtue and disintervaluable of all, to whom success and happi- estedness, where failure and disappointment ness do not mean money or comfort, or the are unknown-where, in fact, everything power of maintaining a wife and ever so is thoroughly unlike the conditions amid many sons and daughters, but a great repu- which our existence is so unfortunately tation in science or politics or art. To bound. As an acute Frenchman has said, have extended his subject by new discov-"Les idées d'un autre monde font à celui-ci eries, to have written a book or painted a plus de tort qu'on ne pense," and this is picture of which all men and women should one of the ways in which such wrong is talk, to have gained a wide hearing for a done. favourite principle, is to him a much more desirable aim achieved than anything else that he can think of. All these are among the objects which the most active and besteducated people in the community propose to themselves, and the energetic pursuit of each of them is an ingredient in the general welfare. Though themselves the main ends of a man's exertion, they do not preclude him from taking a reasonable interest in all the other ends which concern his neighbours. If his mind works healthily, and he has anything like a sound theory of life, devotion to his chief pursuit does not incapacitate him from seeing how many other pursuits there are which it is well for men to make their chief aims.

Anybody who has thus with judgment fashioned out some predominant purpose, and at the same time kept all other sympathies and interests moderately accessible from without, has done as much as we mortals ever can to secure happiness of the best kind. Il health and the loss or misconduct of friends, as has been rightly observed, are two fatal enemies to mental tranquillity, which no possible precautions can always enable us to resist. So long, however, as these two noxious elements are absent, a wise man, who does not expect more from life than the conditions of life can ever

From the London Review, 21 Oct. LORD PALMERSTON.

FORTUNATE in his life, Lord Palmerston has also been fortunate in his death. He has died as he would have wished to die, still in harness-still grasping the reins of government. No prolonged decay removed him from the sight or effaced him from the rcollection of his countrymen. No national disasters or difficulties clouded his closing days. He has terminated an illustrious career in the plenitude of power and popularity, and with the flush of a great triumph yet upon him. For the last ten years he has occupied, with but slight intermission, the highest position to which a subject can aspire, and the result of the general election in the summer was a conclusive proof that in the opinion of the country he had occupied it wisely and well. Even political opponents exempted him from the censure with which they freely visited his colleagues, and but a few days since he was not only the leader of a powerful party, but the accepted ruler and representative of the nation. Every one said that so long as he retained mental and bodily vigour