gress of the world rejects the ideal of unity and uniformity which it was the office of the medieval Church to proclaim. Once again the world has left the old temples, to embrace a new idea. The spiritual sovereignty it seeks for now has nothing to gain from the recognition of a Constantine or the donations of a Charlemagne. In that broad domain of pure thought into which it is passing from the darkness of materialism and the corruptions of superstition, earthly symbols will no longer displace or extinguish divine realities. Leaving to the law its force, to the temporal power its traditional rights, the true papacy will no longer be of the Church, but of the individual.

In its decay and its gloom Rome symbolizes to-day the change which is going on in the religion it claims to guide. Its temporal power was not essence, but accident, - beginning late and ending as soon as the development of civilization in Europe set it in antagonism with the political pretensions of the Church. Its spiritual power will share the same fate, when the enlightenment of Europe has redeemed it from its superstitions. Already, as you walk the streets of Rome, it is as if there flitted by you the ghosts of the buried ages, — the shadows of the lost empire of the Cæsars and the Popes. In the basilicas, still upheld by the ancient columns and decked with the ancient marbles, the ceremonies of the Church repeat the rites of the temple. The gorgeous tiara of the Pope still glitters on Corpus Domini, as in the days when, at the wave of the papal hand, the Catholic world from the Alps to the Andes sank in awe upon its knees. Still, at the elevation of the Host, the vast crowds in St. Peter's sway and bend, and the halberds of the guards come ringing upon the pavement as when Michel Angelo looked upon the pageant for which he designed the costumes. Still, as in the prosperous days of Leo X., the cardinals, in gold embroideries and broad red hats, are driven in their gilded carriages, and bishops walk in processions in cloth of silver, with mitres on their heads. Harlequin lackeys in scarlet and purple and black, and brown-cowled Franciscans, and white Carmelites, and belted Capuchins, with the veiled figures of the penitent sacconi, and the midnight torches and crosses crowned with golden ivy; the acolytes wafting incense; the great Madonna figures; the pilgrims with their long staffs

1863.] Cambridge and Kingsley on American Affairs. 421

and rosaries; the Carnival, with its tumultuous tossing of flowers and its flashing maccoletti, with its mad races and its quaint masquerades; the myriad lights streaming from St. Peter's dome at the going out of Lent, they come and go as in a dream, to confuse the memory they sadden of that city of Rome which still sitteth upon her seven hills and still looketh out upon the ends of the earth.

Celui que Dieu a touché est toujours un être à part, says Renan. Silent and solitary in his island home, Garibaldi watches and waits for the sounding of the hour in which he is to break the chains of Rome. Silent and solitary also, apart from the tumult of the world it controls, intent to destroy the superstition of which through so many centuries Rome has been the symbol and the centre, watches and works the spirit of the age, with its purer thought and its vaster activity, with its humbler faith and its sweeter rest, with its vision of the infinite transfiguring the earth.

ART. VII.- CAMBRIDGE AND KINGSLEY ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

1. Two Years Ago. By CHARLES KINGSLEY.

2. The London Times.

AMERICA has never yet found time to do full justice to the great tide of feeling which swept over England, when the arrival of Lincoln's Proclamation of January 1st, 1863, convinced millions of Englishmen that the North was sincere in its opposition to slavery, - a fact which before was very seriously doubted. Americans have yet to learn with what deep sympathy their cause is regarded by the majority of Englishmen. No one who was present at the great Exeter Hall meeting (January 29, 1863) would speak of England as hostile or unsympathizing. Any such censures must be confined to the individuals or classes that really deserve them. It is safe to say that no such demonstration has been made on either side of the Atlantic. Sympathy is not the word. It was a tremendous, VOL. LXXV. — 5TH S. VOL. XIII. NO. III.

36

an overwhelming burst of enthusiasm, the like of which has perhaps never been witnessed on an equally imposing scale, or for an equally august cause. The testimony of that meeting, with other testimony which we hope to present hereafter, is enough to justify the broad assertion, that, if the votes of all classes of Englishmen were taken to-day, there would be more than three to one in favor of the North.

America should judge England, not from an English standpoint, but from her own; and, very quietly ignoring the selfelected class-exponents of British opinion, should insist on calling the verdict of the people of England the true voice of the English nation. For that verdict she may confidently wait.

It is perfectly true, nevertheless, that an American might easily travel over England, and come to the conclusion that a large majority was against the North. If he would just obey the simple direction of following the Times newspaper everywhere, he could not fail to come to such a conclusion.

In large cities he would find its influence greatly neutralized by various causes; but if he be pursued into countryhouse after country-house by the inevitable sheet, he will be able to understand pretty accurately both where and how much of what is called English public opinion is manufactured.

It is right to say, however, that, upon the whole, the great influence of the "Times" has been well earned, not only by its general ability, its almost incredible liberality to its contributors and correspondents, and the unheard-of prices it pays for important intelligence; but also by its fearless exposure of wrongs perpetrated by persons high in station or authority, its steadfast opposition to all sinecures and shams, and its inflexible determination to ventilate every subject; a habit, which it cannot utterly get rid of, even on the American question witness the masterly letters of " Historicus," which have done such good service on both sides of the water.

:

Thus much in excuse for those who accepted its verdict on the American crisis. We presume that its influence is nowhere greater than in the Universities. Let us endeavor to account for this overmastering influence, to combat which would require more originality and independence than most persons possess.

In the "Union Debating Society" of Cambridge, the only one in the University, sixteen copies of the "Times are taken in. These contain sixteen leading articles, running down everything in the United States; sixteen money articles, detailing the financial collapse in that unhappy country; sixteen letters from "Our Own Correspondent," giving a lamentable picture of the "distracted and despairing multitude," which courtesy alone would name a nation; and occasionally, sixteen letters from "Our Special Correspondent,” giving a vivid picture of the scrupulous adherence to constitutional obligation, and the tender-hearted and chivalrous humanity, which are so universal in the Confederate States.

Now when we consider that students read that paper almost exclusively, and read it too, in some instances, with such care that they can discourse on American men and things quite as fluently, and possibly with quite as much real knowledge of the subject, as "our own correspondent" himself, when we consider all this, can we be surprised if the tide of public sentiment runs so strongly in that seat of learning, that even a Professor of Modern History himself might find it easier and pleasanter to float down it than to stem it? Seeing that these things were so, a friend of ours endeavored to stem the tide, by proposing a debate at the Union on the following subject: "That the cause of the North is the cause of humanity and progress; and that the wide-spread sympathy for the South is the result of ignorance and misrepresentation."

We have only time to notice one thing which seemed to us very characteristic in the two consecutive nights of debate that followed. Not one speaker attempted to defend slavery. The object of all on the Southern side was to prove that slavery had nothing to do with Secession; that the South had seceded because of protective tariffs; that the negro was hated more and treated worse in the North than in the South; that the North were fighting to keep slavery in the Union, while the South were fighting to take it out; that thus, philanthropically speaking, there was not a pin to choose between the two, except, indeed, that the triumph of the South would render emancipation much more probable than it would be in any other event. On the whole, then, as the Southerners

were gallantly fighting for their independence, and as they were the weaker side, English sympathies should go for the South.

This was the opinion of the majority of the house; the vote taken being one hundred and seventeen to thirty-eight against the motion. It was a somewhat curious coincidence, that, just ten years before, the opener had taken part in a debate in this very Union, which decided, by an overwhelming majority, that the "immediate abolition of slavery in the United States is right, practicable, and politic." He was then one of the opposition, who contended (and it required some moral courage to go even so far as this), that just a little time might be granted for education, &c., the final result being agreed upon by all hands!

Disappointed and surprised at the prevailing tone of undergraduate sentiment, we turned, with well-founded hope, to the lecture-room, as no less a man than Charles Kingsley fills the chair of Modern History. He was just then engaged in the delivery of a course of lectures on the History of the United States down to the present hour, with considerable vaticination as to the future of that unique country. It is a very unusual thing to select a subject immediately connected with contemporaneous and exciting events; but it seemed all the more a timely and manly thing, that Mr. Kingsley should attempt to stem the prevailing current in the University, and set Young England right, by showing it the direction in which a true man's sympathies should be thrown. His position was peculiar. He had thoroughly committed himself, with the most noble abandon, to sympathy with the Republican party, and in his "Two Years Ago" had inserted a splendid episode, having nothing whatever to do with the main plot of the story, wherein he gave eloquent utterance to that sympathy. A very brief sketch of this episode will help us, further on, to illustrate and account for Mr. Kingsley's present position.

Marie Lavington is a beautiful slave-girl, whom Tom Thurnall, the hero of the book, has rescued in obedience to the dying prayer of a friend, and conveyed safe to Canada. Full of fire and genius, she becomes an actress, and, under an