"God forgive us all!" said Norah. "Yon they never named the subject again, the one poor man needs forgiveness perhaps less than to the other. He had been among the any one among us. savages-shipwrecked-I know not whatand he had written letters which had never reached my poor missus."

"He saw his child!"

"He saw her yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts another start; for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here, as I more than halfpromised. My mind misgave me when I heard he had never come in. O sir! it must be him!"

Mr. Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and then said to Norah:

Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice had been charged by her husband in his letter not to allude to the supposed theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly obedient to those whom she loved both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject, only treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for unjust suspicion.

Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr. Openshaw had been absent during his uncle and aunt's visit, after he had once said that it was unavoidable. He came back grave and quiet; and, from that time forth, was curiously changed. More thoughtful "I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be and perhaps less active; quite as decided in unavoidably absent for a few days; that I conduct, but with new and different rules for have found you; that you are well, and send the guidance of that conduct. Towards Alice her your love, and will come home to-mor- he could hardly be more kind than he had You must go with me to the Police always been; but he now seemed to look Court; you must identify the body: I will upon her as some one sacred and to be pay high to keep names and details out of treated with reverence, as well as tenderness. the papers. He throve in business, and made a large fortune, one half of which was settled upon

row.

"But where are you going, sir?" He did not answer her directly. Then he her. said:

"Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I have so injured, unwittingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave, as if he were my only brother and how he must have hated me! I cannot go home to my wife till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dreadful secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again, after these days are over. I know you will not, either." He shook hands with her and

;

Long years after these events,-a few months after her mother died, Ailsie and her "father" (as she always called Mr. Openshaw), drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, and she was carried to a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the carriage. There was a head-stone, with F. W. and a date. That was all. story; and for the sad fate of that poor father ting by the grave, Mr. Openshaw told her the whom she had never seen, he shed the only tears she ever saw fall from his eyes.

Sit

FREE TRADE IN FRANCE.-Opinion in favor of free-trade seems making way in France. At the autumnal meeting of the Agricultural Society of Boulogne, the Sous-Prefect, M. Menche de Soisne, said: "An inquiry which is being made as to the result of the system of liberty under which the corn trade is carried on in England, will soon determine the government as to the measures to be taken. If we are well informed, this inquiry will justify all our anticipations, for it will have proved that free importation and exportation of grain and cattle has been

favorable to cultivators and landlords, in aug menting production and maintaining remunerative prices. Let us, then, have confidence in a government which seeks the truth, and which will know how to conciliate the interests of the consumer with those of the producer. Both statesmen and distinguished writers have devoted themselves to the defence of our agricultural interests, and have more and more pronounced themselves in favor of such a fixed and liberal legislation as would give it the security of which it stands in need."

From The Christian Observer.
DR. JOHNSON.

of the lowest conditions to which religion ever sank in England. He was himself a

Letters of James Boswell, addressed to Rev. High Churchman, and he inherited those opin

J. Temple. R. Bentley. 1857.

ness.

ions from his father, and he clung to them WE have prefixed this title to our article, with the tenacity which distinguished his but we do not recommend the work to our character. Towards Dissenters his antipathy readers. Though the story of the way in was great a compound of aversion and conwhich it came to light is a strange one, we tempt. Now the only religious movement do not question its truth. But the work which broke the apathy of a hundred years itself is worthless; it is an unblushing his- came from the Methodists; and the Methotory of folly and vice. We all know Bos-dists, as dissenters from the polity of his well as the biographer of Johnson: these Church, Dr. Johnson disliked and despised. letters give us what we do not know-a He was attracted, indeed, to Wesley by his portrait of Boswell himself. That he was literary attainments and his conversation; vain, froward, and foolish, all the world was aware. That his principles and practice were any thing but strict, we had reason to suspect. But we were not prepared for such a flagrant exhibition of continued licentiousHis confessions are frank; and they seem to have lost nothing of their openness because they were addressed to a clergyman. But they give such a picture of early profligacy, such perseverance in habits of licentiousness, such ignorance of religion, and such familiarity with vice, that we are sure no one will be either wiser or better for reading them. They have only this advantage, that they show us the habits of the day, and teach us the superiority of Johnson to those with whom he associated. If his practice and opinions are marked by a severe morality, he drew none of this from the society in which he lived. This may serve to illustrate his merit, and to direct us to its source. And we may, therefore, thank this book, however in itself worthless, for recalling us to one whose worth has not been sufficiently estimated, and who, in the midst of his learning, the powers of his conversation, and the variety of his gifts, has not had full justice done to him for the practical religion which guided his life. We shall render, as we think, some service to our readers, and offer them a subject which has by no means lost its interest, if we dwell for a little on the religious opinions of Dr. Johnson, and on the impulses drawn from religion which regulated his life.

but it is doubtful if he ever heard him preach, and he regarded Whitfield as a mountebank and buffoon. Thus tied and bandaged by his opinions, he was held in fetters. He would have regarded it a sin to enter a Methodist tabernacle; and if any accident carried him there, he wore such chain-armor of prejudice as to make him invulnerable against the shafts of eloquence and persuasion. He was confined, therefore, to what he could learn in the Church of England; and the fare which the Church of England's Sermons supplied to its hearers was indeed meagre. Good men were there within the Church, learned men, and prelates of piety; but the sermons usually preached were low-caste moral essays, far inferior to those of Plato or Cicero. That we do not exaggerate in such a statement, we have the highest testimony. The celebrated Blackstone settled in London early in the reign of George the Third. He had a strong curiosity, and he went to listen to every preacher then of note in the Church within London. He said he never heard a sermon which had more of Christianity in it than the works of Cicero; and it would have been impossible for him, from internal evidence, to discover whether the preacher was a believer in Confucius, in Mahomet, or in Christ. Yet it was to these sermons, and to these worthless ministrations, that Dr. Johnson held himself strictly confined. there Sunday after Sunday, overcoming his desultory habits, late hours of rising, constitutional indolence and infirmity; resorting, In forming a just opinion, we must care- there, both in the forenoon and afternoon, fully avoid estimating Dr. Johnson's position with unbending resolution. How sternly from the religious standing which we have he repressed his appetite, that by fasting he reached, and from the knowledge of religion might keep his mind clear; how stoutly he which distinguishes the present age. The refused the calls of society and the pleasures age in which Dr. Johnson lived was in one of conversation, in order that he might atTHIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. 214

He went

*

tend his church-his own journal tells us. | man shivered in the night air on the river, And if we consider the melancholy in which or complained of a headache when he was he lived, his deep anxiety on his spiritual state, the feeling of awe with which he regarded futurity, we must perceive that, of all men, he was the most prepared, not only to hear, but to welcome the gospel. And, had it been proclaimed in his hearing by a simple and faithful preacher-had it been delivered, without exaggeration indeed, but without reserve we cannot doubt that the anxious listener, who leant forward with failing ear to catch the words of the preacher, would have hailed it as a message from heaven. Such opportunities were not open to him; and, as far as we can learn, it was only in his last years, and especially during his last illness, that the statement of truth was faithfully made to him. Through life he seems to have been left very much to his own thoughts, and to the erroneous conceptions which abounded in his day. We see in his journal many traces of the impressions then current, misleading and fatal as these were. He thought that it was by his own efforts that he was to work out his salvation. The deficiencies in his work were to be covered by the work of atonement. The idea that all was done, and that we were only to accept and believe it, never crossed his mind.

travelling, Johnson scolded him for his effeminacy. On the other hand, to this strong frame were given appetites to match. He could live all night out of doors, or work all night as well as all day. He could fast for hours, and bear without flinching the pains of want and hunger; but then, when food was supplied him, he ate it like a savage: he ate till his veins swelled and his face perspired. "Some people," he said, “have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously and very carefully." So he ate ravenously and with a voracious relish. If a friend asked him to a plain dinner, he was displeased; when his printer gave him a good dinner, he expressed his high satisfaction. He never drank to excess; but he could drink at a sitting, two bottles of strong port without inconvenience. With these strong appetites, there was an extreme tendency to indolence. He was desultory, and averse to continuous work. He made many resolutions to rise early in the morning; but his habit was to lie in bed till twelve or one. His diary is a running record of resolutions and regrets. He will rise, and he does not rise; he will read books, and he fails; he will restrain his appetites, and they get the better of him; he will keep a regular journal, and his journal is most irregular. As to plans of study, he says, "I have never persisted in any plan for two days together.”

Independently, however, of the unfavorable influence which arose from the state of his church, there were peculiarities in his own temperament which must be estimated. He was a sufferer from early life from scrofula; he was nearly blinded by it; it had left There was another feature in his character its mark upon his countenance; and it pro- not to be omitted in a review of his difficulduced convulsive movements of his limbs. ties. He had great courage, great indepenHis temperament was thus naturally melan- dence, and self-reliance; but these very qualicholy-so melancholy that he had always ties, which kept him from the low habits and present to his mind the fear of madness, so degradation of his contemporaries, were asthat he dwelt upon that subject with tenacity, sociated with other feelings less to be apread medical books regarding its symptoms, proved-with a violent pride and impatience and harrassed his friend Dr. Lawrence with of contradiction. If he had not been what his fears and inquiries. This temperament he was, he would have probably sunk into the was accompanied, and in some degree bal- gulf in which literary adventurers disappear; anced, by a giant's strength and colossal en- but being as he was, he had to grapple with ergy. His body was like that of a street strong temptations-enemies more subtle but porter, and his nerves, partly from nature, not less powerful. Close beside him lay a and partly through twenty years' discipline masterly pride; and that pride flung its arms of want, were hard as iron. The idea that round him, and coiled about his nature. It any one could be affected by climate or was caressed as a manly emotion, allied to weather, moved his contempt. Nothing strength of purpose and the consciousness of made him so angry as persons complaining power. He had shown this pride early. of the want of sunshine or of rain. If a When a pair of new shoes was left as a gift

blow:

66

at the door of his room in college, he Twelve years after her loss he thinks of her haughtily rejected them. Though he was with his eyes full; and after twenty-six years half-starving, he concealed hunger under the he is still fancying what she would have enaffectation of mirth. He said of himself, in joyed; observing the day of her death as a after-life, when speaking of this period, " Ah, day of mourning, and feeling his own pleassir, I was mad and violent; I was miserably ures tasteless because she could not share poor, and I thought to fight my way by my them. We take one of the prayers in which literature and my wit; so I disregarded all he expresses his religious feelings under the power and authority." But in later life the same proud spirit appeared. Any error or exaggeration of a conversation, undue blame, too much praise, a doubt thrown on his accuracy, the gentlest contradiction of his argument, aroused in a moment the slumbering lion. The Quaker who spoke of red-hot balls at Gibraltar-the West-Indian traveller who described a hurricane-Mr. Pepys, who disputed his view of Lord Lyttleton-kindled his savage temper, and roused him to petulance and wrath. His friend and admirer, Miss Burney, deplores these bursts of temper, which marred and clouded his later years.

With these strong animal propensities and moral defects, there was united the pernicious influence of society in his day. His constitutional disease, and the melancholy which was the consequence, drove him for refuge into society. But though society ministered to his comfort, though in Mr. Thrale's villa at Streatham he enjoyed every resource which his infirmities required, and in London he had access to the first literary circles, the society which he frequented was neither favorable to reflection, or to just views of religion. The common notion of the day was, that to observe the Sunday was pharisaical and absurd; that to go beyond the most formal attendance once on a Sunday at church, was preposterous; and for a layman to care about religion when its ministers were careless, was a thing unheard of. If, therefore, Dr. Johnson had any earnestness in religion, he did not borrow it from his associates. We turn to the facts, and we find in them proofs of an earnest inquiry into religion, which would have been remarkable in any day, and was marvellous in his own. Let us open his journal, and take almost at random some specimens.

One of the sharpest tests of religious sincerity is that which affliction affords. Dr. Johnson was strongly attached to his wife, and her loss was deeply mourned by him. Two years after this, we find the evidence of a prayer which was wet with his tears.

April 24, 1752.-Almighty and most merciful father, who lovest those whom thou punishest, and turnest away thine anger from the penitent, look down with pity upon my sorrows, and grant that the affliction which it has pleased thee to bring upon me may awaken of a better life, and impress upon me such my conscience, enforce my resolutions conviction of thy power and goodness, that I may place in thee my only felicity, and endeavor to please thee in all my thoughts, words, and actions. . . . And now, O Lord, hopes, true faith, and holy consolation; and release me from my sorrow, fill me with just enable me to do my duty in that state of life to which thou hast been pleased to call me, without disturbance from fruitless grief or tumultuous imaginations; that in all my thoughts, words, and actions, I may glorify thy holy name, and finally obtain what I hope thou hast promised to thy departed servant, everlasting joy and felicity, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

We add one more, as it illustrates the earnest character of Dr. Johnson's religion. Four years after her death, on the anniverthe early hour of two in the morning, in this sary of the day, he records his feelings, at

prayer:

66

Almighty God, our heavenly father, whose judgments terminate in mercy, grant, I beseech thee, that the remembrance of my wife, whom thou hast taken from me, may not load my soul with unprofitable sorrow, but may excite in me true repentance of my sins and negligences, and, by the co-operation of thy grace, may produce in me a new life pleasing to thee. Grant that the loss of my wife may teach me the true use of the blessings which are yet left me; and that, however, bereft of worldly comfort, I may find peace and refuge in thy service, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

There is throughout Dr. Johnson's prayers a speciality and an honesty which forcibly impress us. He struggles against vain thoughts in church; he resists evil thoughts; he prays for strength against his indolence; and that he might be enabled to attend to the word and worship of God. We trace the

deepening of his spiritual affections, greater | sickness and suffering, his hand and heart interest in Scripture, less of awe and alarm were open. If he was busy in providing for in his approach to the sacrament, and an in- his own wants, he was never too busy to help creasing interest in the religious state of his a friend. When every moment was precious friends; his constant prayers for his friend to him, he writes to ask Mr. Walton how he Mr. Thrale and his family, his regular prayers can help him: when Kit Smart, half a drunkwith his attached servant Francis Barbour, his ard and half a madman, needed the help of faithful advice on many occasions to Boswell, his pen, it was ready for him: when Sir his earnest request to his friend Sir Joshua Joshua Reynolds was recovering from illness, Reynolds that he would give up painting on and he thought his company might promote the Sunday and would study the Bible; all his recovery, "I will not delay a day to come these are significant signs; but no traits are to you:" when his friend Collins was sinking more distinct, and none more touching, than under mental disease, "Poor dear Collins, let those which concern his mother. Not only me know whether you think it would give him did he show his filial affection by working for pleasure that I should write to him." To Miss her and supplying her wants, while he was Porter, who had watched his mother through himself engaged in a sore struggle for liveli- her illness, he writes, "Whenever I can do hood. His sympathy, his constant interest, any thing for you, remember, my dear darling, when her strength was failing; his words and that one of my greatest pleasures is to please deeds of tenderness are remarkable from such you." His house was, in fact, a refuge for the a man. He was needy, he was busy; he destitute; a poor negro, a broken-down wrote "Rasselas " to supply her sick-room apothecary, a blind querulous old woman were with comforts; but he finds time to write to its inmates. They moved with him, as he her as follows:moved, from lodging to lodging: when some one wondered how he could take an interest in some wretched being, "he is poor and miserable," said Goldsmith, "and that is enough to secure the sympathy of Johnson."

"The account which Miss Porter gives me of your health pierces my heart. God comfort and preserve you, and save you, for the sake of Jesus Christ." "I would have Miss read to you from time to time the Passion of our Saviour; and sometimes the sentences of the Communion Service, beginning with Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' "I have just now read a physical book, which inclines me to think that a strong infusion of the bark would do you good. Do, dear mother, try it."

999

He sends her money, begs her forgiveness for his omissions, entreats her prayers, and he adds, "I pray often for you."

Not less affecting was his sympathy with the attached servant who had been his mother's attendant. Her death happened eight years after his mother's. He writes that he visited her, desired all to withdraw, then told her that we were to part forever; that as Christians we should part with prayer, and that "I would, if she were willing, say a short prayer beside her." She expressed great desire for this," and held up her poor hands, as she lay in bed, with great fervor, while I prayed kneeling by her." It should be remarked, that the robust coarseness of his natural temperament was here subdued to the liveliest sympathy. Though he hated to hear people whine about metaphysical distresses, as he told Miss Hannah More, yet for want and hunger,

It is true-and we do not deny it-that his temper, his impatience, and his associates offer perpetual inconsistencies and contradictions to his virtues; but those who weigh these things closely must also judge them justly, and must bear in mind the extenuations which we have alleged. When in such society, and in such an age, we find the devotional habits, which Dr. Johnson's journal records, and which Boswell attests; when we find him, through a long life, uniform in vindicating religion, in his daily conversation, against a careless world, we feel that there is satisfactory evidence, both of principle and practice. If this consideration is taken along with the difficulties which he surmounted, and the constitutional temptations which he encountered and overcame, there is truly a remarkable instance of the power of piety. It is well, however, after this general review, to refer to some striking incidents, and to the well-attested particulars of his later years, and of the closing scene.

That there was a change in his character, and a softening in the temper of the man, is evident from the testimony of those who saw him intimately. We find indications of this in the letters of Miss Hannah More. Writing