gone into the hands of our own Royal Princes, and had been welcomed, with much thankfulness, by those who, so highly to their honour, find leisure, amidst the arduous duties of the State, for the private education of these important children; and we could not help feeling, as we passed through this second volume, how many lessons they conveyed of the highest value to those who may hereafter fill the highest places of this country. Let us hope that, whenever such changes take place, it may be granted to us to possess a Louis without his fanaticism, or a Henry IV. without his fickleness and profligacy. And should Mr. Gurney have the privilege of thinking that he has, in the smallest degree, contributed to such a result, this fact will recompense him a thousand fold for having devoted those summer vacations to historical reading and writing, of which we suspect few of his countrymen can give as good an account.

We present our readers with a single extract as a specimen of the whole :

"The memory of St. Louis's name and virtues is a precious legacy to Frenchmen, who have often lavished their admiration on far less worthy rulers. The Grand Monarque' of the seventeenth century, whose swelling pride gave utterance to the sentence by which he is best known to posterity, L'Etat, c'est Moi,' is really a little man by the side of his lowly-minded namesake, who looked on the State as God's, and not his, and who felt as a brother towards the meanest of his subjects. Napoleon and St. Louis had one meeting point,—both led an army to Egypt, and returned to tell a tale of disaster and defeat; but we shall search in vain for another. The contrast is as wide as possible between that which is just and pure and lovely and of good report, as embodied in the character of the Christian King, and the cold-hearted and calculating wickedness of the Emperor, to whom war was a pastime to his restless and reckless ambition,-his self-glorification in the most naked form,-his deadness to human sympathies,-his contempt of all that was virtuous and noble, his deliberate postponement of moral obligations to the aggrandizement of his own name, and the accomplishment of his fancied destiny. One other name is dear to France, and justly so, for many reasons, as we shall see in our later narrative. Among the millions of her people, an immense proportion, doubtless, if asked who was the greatest in her ancient line of kings, would point at once to Henry the Great. But, in the name of Virtue and Religion, we must demur to the choice. Far above the brave, the affable, the witty Founder of the Bourbon Dynasty; the man of generous aims but uncertain purpose, who wished well to his people when their good cost him nothing, but could never deny himself for their gain or his credit,-the libertine, whose passions were his masters up to the last year of life, though he numbered six years beyond half a century, the renegade, moreover, who was twice a Protestant, and twice a Papist, the change of creed, in each case, concurring with his worldly interests,-far above this popular idol we must put his great ancestor, St. Louis, who did as much for France, and did it all righteously, and in the fear of God,-who carried the Crusader's mark upon his shoulder, but, moreover, bore the cross in the higher sense of submitting conscience and heart and will to his Heavenly Master,-who taught kings and their subjects that most precious of all lessons in the art of government, that obedience to God is the highest wisdom, and that losses for conscience' sake will make a nation, in the end, greater and stronger than all the glories and gains of conquest."

Diary in the Turkish Waters. By Lord Carlisle. Longmans. 1854. "THE times have been" when only men from the ordinary ranks

of life took up the pen to trace out to plebeian eyes the marvels of their travels by land and by water, their hair-breadth escapes, and their overwhelming transports and terrors as they gazed around them. Then, too, only an occasional book of travels cheered our winter evenings. But now, travellers of all classes, ages, and sexes, have started into life. Ladies circumnavigate the globe; and the Earl of Carlisle, now the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, stoops from his high estate, to tell us all that he has seen, and a little too much of what he has heard, in an expedition to Turkey and its neighbourhood. Dr. Johnson says, that when he went to meet Lord Chesterfield in a party of highly distinguished wits and scholars, he hoped "to find a wit among Earls, but that he found only an Earl among wits." And although we should be sorry to take from the honour due to so condescending a tourist, we must say that the book before us is not as much better than ordinary books as an Earl is higher or greater than a Commoner. The volume, however, derives considerable interest from the fact, that the noble Author's visit to Turkey and Greece was at the moment of the opening of the war; that he was often a guest at that time to the Admirals in the port of Besika-to Lord Stratford when striving to trim the scale of national rivalry-and to other persons now filling prominent posts in the great struggle of the Eastern and Western nations. We have no leisure to follow Lord Carlisle through his expedition; but we may observe, that as he had been led by the study of Prophecy to expect the downfall of Turkey, so all that he saw in that land of the Alcoran confirmed him in this anticipation. Everywhere the Turks were in a state of decay, and the Greeks were rapidly advancing, so that, as he thinks, the hour is soon to be expected when the swarming and prosperous Greeks will feel authorized to say to the Sultan-" We will have a Christian Sovereign." It was a piece of advice, we believe, of Archbishop Secker to his Clergy, to insert about one learned passage in each of their sermons, to shew the congregation how very learned they could be if they pleased; and this, in order that they might use the utmost possible simplicity in all the rest of their discourse. In like manner Lord Carlisle has introduced into the heart of his book a learned dissertation on the Troad, which seems somewhat out of place, and must, we think, be a little ashamed of the company by which it is surrounded. We are bound to add, however, that the volume is that of a scholar, a gentleman, and a man who, together with a relish for a sort of society and amusement not quite to our taste, discovers an honest zeal for the interests of religion and morals.

OBITUARY.

CAPTAIN HEDLEY VICARS, 97TH REGIMENT. DAY by day, good men die, and the children of God are taken to their rest. Their memorial remains in the hearts which loved them, and in the particular circles which they adorned. The genuineness, or even the greatness of their piety, demands no public record. That is called for only when the Public, or some considerable part of

it, has been instructed by their writings, profited by their labours, or interested in their career. Such has been our own rule in regard to the " Obituary" papers which find an occasional place in these pages. Yet there is no rule from which a departure is not sometimes justified by circumstances; and such circumstances appear to us to exist in regard to the little memoir which we are about to introduce to our readers.

For some time all eyes have been fixed on one scene; and Christians watch the events which pass there not only with the same feelings as the rest of the community, but with interests and anxieties which are especially their own. If we have the opportunity of meeting those interests and of shewing how the prayers of the people of God are answered—in the history of one who, at the same instant, fell in battle and slept in Jesus, they will not complain that the name is that of a young man of twenty-eight, which may never have reached them before, except in the honourable record of his death, presented in some of the public journals.

Hedley Shafto Johnstone Vicars was the son of an Officer in the Engineers, who himself lived and died in Christ. His dying hand was laid upon the head of his eldest son, then twelve years of age, with the charge and the prayer that he might be a good soldier of Jesus Christ; and with a holy confidence, exerted under peculiar circumstances, he committed his widow and young children to the same faithful hands into which he commended his own departing spirit.

The five years which followed, developed in the boy a bold and hardy spirit, great simplicity, honesty, and openness of character, and very warm and tender domestic affections. On Christmas Day, 1843, his mother received the letter which accorded a commission to her son. On Good Friday, 1855, a despatch, written by the same hand, informed her in what manner the career, then opened to him, had been closed.

At parting, she placed a Bible in his hand, which was neglected, and even lost; and his life for several years, first in the Mediterranean and afterwards in the West Indies, was that of a young soldier, foremost among his companions in enterprise and amusement, but living without God in the world. In Jamaica, the cholera raging around him, and sweeping off tens of thousands of the inhabi tants, awoke a greater seriousness of mind; and his letters spoke the language of remorse for particular errors and deficiencies towards his earthly parent, but not yet of any return to God.

It was at Halifax, under the faithful ministry of the garrison chaplain, Dr. Twining, that the great change was begun and established. An earnest sermon on the duty of the personal use of the Bible arrested his attention. On opening the precious Volume, the words which speak of the blood which "cleanseth from all sin," took forcible hold upon his mind. With characteristic honesty of spirit, he resolved that the duty of regular reading of the Scriptures should never be omitted. He saw not yet to what it would lead him; but it was a duty, and it should be done. With characteristic openness and courage he placed a large Bible on his table, that his brother officers might see what he meant henceforth to be the law of his life. Scenes of astonishment and pity, of ridicule and anger, ensued; but CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 209.

2 Z

the open Bible survived them, and accomplished its intended work of banishing from that room the language which had been heard in it before. Meantime, the great truth which had so vividly shone upon him from its pages, became the life of his soul, and free forgiveness through the blood of the Cross was thenceforth the centre of his thoughts and fountain of his hopes.

Thus the Word of God was the instrument, and the cross of Christ was its "power," and the religion thus formed bore the stamp of its origin in a character eminently simple and fervent, evangelical and consistent.

Early in the year 1852 came a letter written in a new strain, speaking of "a purifying process gradually but surely taking place within," and breathing a wish (oh, how well fulfilled!):-"I was always foremost and daring enough in sin: would that I could shew the same spirit in the cause of Christ!" And he did shew it at once. His open honest nature hid nothing of the standard at which he aimed, or of the motives which led him to aim at it. He sought to do good-made himself the companion of the sick and the teacher of the ignorant: in a very short time he could speak of three soldiers," once great sinners, nearly as bad as myself,"—who had followed him in turning to the Lord; while his letters to his family, increasing in affection, expressed the greatest anxiety for their spiritual welfare. "Never," writes Dr. Twining, "in the course of my ministry did I witness anything to exceed the rapidity of his growth in grace, or his earnest, self-denying labours in the cause of Christ."

In the spring of 1853, the 97th returned to England, and a year passed a happy one to him, and to those who loved him,-among the foremost of whom were thenceforth numbered some to whom he had been before unknown. Everywhere he was followed by affectiou and respect. There was no mistaking the spirit of the Christian in the manly independence, the genuine humility, the open, unselfish heart, and the singleness of purpose, which ever seemed to say, "One thing have I desired-one thing I do." To his mother he left the remembrance of unreserved affection and communion in the Lord; to his brother and sisters, of a love more than brotherly, but which, where there was need, did not cease to be faithful. In the camp at Chobham, and in the places where he was quartered, while he entered with all his heart into the interests and duties of a soldier, his lips and life held one unchanging story of the love of Christ.

In May, 1854, he sailed for the Piræus. All know the trial to which the regiment was there subjected. To use his own expression while in the midst of it, " Nothing but death, death on every side." He rose to the occasion,-rather let us say, "the grace of God which was in him" did so. Now hearts were opened to his influence which had been closed before, both among his brother officers and the men. He passed hours by day and night in the cholera and fever hospital, and brought the Word of God and prayers to the bed-side of the sick and dying. He volunteered for funeral parties, read the service, and addressed the survivors by the side of the fast multiplying graves. The opposition which he had encountered gave way before such proofs of the reality of his religion, and love and respect succeeded. His own soul meantime, sinking more deeply

into the truth of the Gospel, was kept in peculiar peace; and the thought of a removal to the immediate presence of his Saviour grew daily more attractive to his mind. "Death is dreaded as a fearful thing to go through; but, I think, with Jesus very near me, I could welcome it to-morrow-the prospect of meeting in a few hours that glorious Saviour, whose love we can never conceive here in all its magnitude, makes me long to depart and be with Christ." With all the earnestness of one who was a soldier in heart, he had longed to be at the seat of war, and had felt it a distinct exercise of resignation to the will of God to be satisfied with military inaction. At last the order came, and on November 20th he landed in the Crimea. His men were always his first care; and that night when he visited his company in bivouac, and told them that he should stand by the colours and rely on them to stand by him, he was cheered by evidences of confidence and attachment which he could not mistake. All through the sad trials of that winter his letters breathed only the spirit of alacrity and cheerfulness, without a sound of despondency or complaint. And the same spirit was a subject of remark to those around him. He did his work as a soldier, "full of gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all" around him. There was a secret source of all this, though he made no secret of it, "Christ within, the hope of glory." The nights in those gloomy trenches were nights of communion with God; the watch-fire threw its light upon the holy page. The souls for whom Christ died were sought after among the healthy and among the sick. Others more or less like-minded were drawn around him, and strengthened by his unswerving walk and unfaltering testimony. He had longed for this communion. "You cannot tell," he wrote, "how lonely the heart feels when long debarred from the communion of saints. I know there is nothing I have more felt the want of in this wilderness; for although we may often view the Saviour near to our souls, yet one loves to hear others testify to His faithfulness and goodness." Six or seven persons under these influences often met together in a tent for reading and prayer. A light from heaven shone in that tent, and shone from it One of the number, Captain Craigie, fell the week before his friend. Others have survived to express the grief with which they feel their loss.

too.

In the midst of all this there was the frequent wish "for a brush with the Russians," and a readiness, and almost a desire, for a soldier's death. It was not only natural courage which spoke thus, but the hope of shewing the character of true religion to those about him in a way which they could understand.

He nearly missed the kind of death which he would have chosen ; for, on the morning of January 5th, he was found insensible. He had slept with a charcoal stove in the tent, and life was nearly extinct. In a neighbouring tent another officer lay dead from the same cause; but he himself was restored for a few more weeks of faithful service, and for a nobler end.

How bright those few weeks of restored life appeared! when he could write again: "I am, thank God, safe and well in body and soul. I never was in better health; and the Lord continues to