6 the dead;' but the accusation is immediately followed by the words, And now brethren I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.'* St. Peter, it was true, was only an Apostle, and the author of Ecce Homo,' who forms his opinions independently of the conclusions of Apostles, may demur to his authority. All who listen to Apostles with reverence will admit that the testimony is decisive. The Jews had perpetrated a wicked deed, or there would have been no need to pray for their forgiveness; but their ignorance, though heinously culpable, was real. They were not more enlightened than St. Paul, who ignorantly in unbelief verily thought with himself that he ought to persecute unto death the Church of God.' They never dreamt that they were crucifying the Messiah, but disbelieved that Jesus of Nazareth was he. He saved others,' they exclaimed in his agony, 'let him save himself if he be Christ the chosen of God.' If he be the King of Israel let him now come down from the Cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will have him, for he said, I am the Son of God.'† The chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the people were there, reviling and taunting our Lord. In the midst of this awful scene of impiety and cruelty, the meek voice of the Redeemer is heard pronouncing the prayer, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;' and we are to believe that this comprehensive petition did not apply to the authors of his death, to the multitude of deluded mockers around him, but was limited to the heathen officials, who were compelled to obey the orders of the Roman governor. The sublime exemplification in our Lord's person of our Lord's precept, 'to pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you,' is deprived, by the petty interpretation of the author of Ecce Homo,' of the reach and grandeur which taught the first martyr Stephen, in imitation of his Master, to cry out loudly with his dying breath, though those who stoned him were Jews and not Romans, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,' and which has taught myriads of martyrs since to look with compassion upon their destroyers, and plead for their pardon with God. Such a spirit shames the doctrine of a writer who argues that our Lord 'continued to the last to think of his murderers with anger,' and who tells us that he has urged his view of the law of resentment ' at some length, lest it should be supposed that Christianity is really the emasculate, sentimental thing it is sometimes represented to be.' To us it seems that the loveliness and vitality of Christianity would be grievously enfeebled by the adoption of the spurious Acts iii. 14-17. † Luke xxiii. 35; Matt. xxvii. 42. version version which has been substituted for the facts, and the triumphant power of the Gospel over human passions, its ability to raise mortals to a more than mortal height of heroism, is never displayed with greater force and beauty than when it inspires a Stephen to merge his sense of injury in anxiety for the welfare of his persecutors, and to pray that the sin of murderers, blinded by prejudice, may not be laid to their charge. To refute all the errors which abound in Ecce Homo' would be tedious and useless. Our object is to show the character of the work. The author claims to have studied the subject with especial regard to the facts, and he perverts the commonest particulars which lie on the surface of the Gospels. He writes with an affectation of philosophical depth, and numerous passages in his treatise exhibit either ignorance or defiance of the elementary principles which are familiar to children and peasants. He disguises every-day truths by a pomp of disquisition and a wordiness of style which darken what is simple instead of elucidating what is obscure. His diffuse phraseology is wanting in precision, and his ideas are often in the last degree vague, and sometimes contradictory. His performance is just the reverse of its pretensions, and is inaccurate, superficial, and unsound. Whatever may be his creed-which he has carefully concealed-his want of candour in dealing with his authorities, his presumption, and his rashness, deserve the severest censure. That his book should have obtained the suffrages of any members of the Church of England is melancholy evidence of their slight acquaintance with their faith and their Bibles. There are many persons who are alarmed at the activity of scepticism, and there can be nothing to prevent its diffusion with those who are not at the pains to inform themselves upon the substance of Christianity and the grounds upon which it is held. The shallowest theories and the flimsiest arguments find a ready reception in an empty mind, and their sole strength is in the weakness and credulity of their dupes. Happily, there is a vast body of educated men who are better informed, and while error is perpetually changing its form and is only born to die, the grand truths of Christianity are passed on with accelerated impulse from generation to generation. They were never more in the ascendant than now; and there is this good, at least, in the assaults of adversaries, that they promote inquiry and help to establish the revelation they were designed to overthrow. ART. ART. IX.-1. Electoral Returns: Boroughs and Counties. Parliamentary Paper. London, 1866. 2. Debate on the First Reading of the Reform Bill. London, 1866. 3. Parliamentary Reform. By Edward J. Gibbs. London, 1866. HE story about the live fish that could be put into a full jar of water without causing it to overflow, with which Charles II. puzzled the Royal Society, has lately been regarded as a myth, chiefly on account of the impossibility of attributing such extreme simplicity to so philosophical a body. Whether common repute did them injustice or not, it can hardly be asserted by the present generation that they were guilty of any incredible or unique absurdity. Several Cabinets and more than one House of Commons have become competitors for their fame. For nearly twenty years the question has been before Parliament, Why are the working-men, as a class, excluded from the franchise? It has been discussed at endless length, and with immeasurable warmth. It has split up parties, it has lifted up Governments and cast them down, it has torn asunder statesmen previously united by the closest ties, it has been the battle-cry of divisions, the ground of dissolutions, the subject-matter of innumerable pledges extorted from reluctant candidates by imperious Radicals; -in short, it furnishes the only clue to the almost inexplicable vicissitudes of party-struggles during the last sixteen years. At last it occurred to some original genius, as in the case of Charles II.'s fish, to enquire whether the exclusion, which politicians were expending so much ingenuity and animosity in denouncing or justifying, really was a fact or not. Lord Elcho, we believe, has the credit of first suggesting this seemingly elementary inquiry. But, like all great ideas in advance of the intelligence of those to whom they are unfolded, it was at first received with scorn. It was all nonsense, people said, for Lord Elcho to ask for a Commission; the exclusion of the working class was a matter of common notoriety. Mr. Bright had proclaimed it upon fifty platforms; it had been the theme of five Queen's speeches and four Government Reform Bills, besides a countless host of smaller abortions produced by private members: and it was ridiculous to suppose that so many authorities could be wrong. However, Lord Elcho persevered with his demand: and more, apparently, to take a plea out of his mouth, than from any suspicion of the real state of the case, the Government resolved that a partial inquiry should take place. It is clear that they could not have expected that it would result in any reversal of preconceived notions: for at the same time that they set the inquiry on on foot, they announced the measures to which they intended it should guide them. Before they proceeded to examine into the malady, they relieved the patient from embarrassing suspense by announcing what the remedy would be. It is easy to conceive that when the returns which they had ordered began to pour in, the consternation of the Government must have been extreme. In most cases, and under most leaders, the unexpected information would have produced not only a revulsion in feeling, but also a change of policy. But Reform had not been proposed to meet a public necessity, and was, therefore, not discredited by the proof that that necessity was imaginary. Grounds of pure policy never made men Reformers of the constitution in any country in which contentment is so general as it is in this. It is an insult to the intellect of the present Cabinet to suspect them of being influenced by a genuine belief that the quality either of our legislators or our legislation would be improved by admitting a needier class to the franchise. Nor, again, would it be fair to impute to them any sincere acceptance of Mr. Gladstone's dreamy sentimentalism. The considerations which have impelled them to the fatal step which may possibly be their ruin, have been of a far homelier character. The pressing necessity of purchasing by some concession the votes of the American school in the House of Commons was the first consideration with which Lord Russell had to deal when he succeeded to power. So long as the American war lasted, the path of the Government was smooth enough. Do what they would, Mr. Bright dared not overset them; for they might have been replaced by a Government which would have consulted English interests, rather than democratic sympathies, in its conduct towards the contending States of North America. Just as in 1860 and 1861 the reforming zeal of the Radicals was bought off by the sacrifice of the Paper Duty, so from 1861 to 1865 it was appeased by the sacrifice of the gallant Confederacy. But, with the fall of Richmond, Mr. Bright's heart was set at ease concerning the fate of the Government to which his true allegiance is given, and which he has represented in the House of Commons for so many years with such unflagging devotion. His tone changed at once. Even in September, in his letter to a friend at Bradford, he denounced those to whom he had given his vote in the confidence division of the previous year as the perpetrators of the greatest fraud of modern times. As long as Lord Palmerston was alive, it was less material to the Ministry whether Mr. Bright threw off his allegiance to them or not. The old man's enormous popularity was a sufficient shield to them. But the moment he was removed by by death they instinctively felt that the time had again come round for buying off once more their insatiable ally. This time there was nothing for it but to reproduce a Reform Bill. There remained no taxes to which he had a special aversion, no foreign crisis in which he took an absorbing interest. Accordingly, Mr. Gladstone tells us, they had no sooner lowered down their stout Anti-Reforming Chief into the earth, than they set about preparing themselves to pay the next instalment of the tribute which they were well assured would be immediately demanded by Mr. Bright. It is evident from the varying tone of his speeches, as one opinion or another gained the mastery in the Cabinet, and from the information which he was always able to give to his hearers as to the sentiments of different Members of the Cabinet, that his communication with them was close and constant. They seem to have shrunk at the last moment from admitting him into it, as was at one time intended. But he has exercised over their decisions a greater influence than would have been exerted by any one inside it. The form of the measure was the most important question for those who looked mainly to a Parliamentary triumph. Mr. Bright, almost alone among Reformers, entertained the view that the franchise question ought to be dealt with independently of any proposals for the redistribution of seats. That, contrary to the tradition of all former Reform Bills, and to the views of all other Reformers, this particular plan was followed in the construction of the Reform Bill, is sufficient to establish the real parentage of the measure. Men who came in this spirit to their task were not likely to pay much heed to statistics. Indeed, it needs no proof that a resolution taken in November could not have been taken with much regard to statistics, which were to be procured by the end of February. The only use to which the returns could be applied was to furnish arguments for a predetermined theory; and Mr. Gladstone must have mentally echoed the Frenchman's ejaculation, Tant pis pour les faits!" when he found how little they were adapted for the use for which he had destined them. To those, however, who look upon the proposal to change the ruling class of England as something of more importance than a mere party struggle, these returns will furnish matter of the deepest interest. They are, indeed, terribly defective. All the conclusions based upon them must be to some extent precarious, because there are gaps in their figures which can only be bridged over by conjectural computations. Still, such as they are, they have a value which no other statistics upon the same subject can boast. They furnish a glimpse of a country hitherto wholly unexplored. They tell us something definite about the working man, |