more in accordance with the general tenour of holy Scripture than a democracy. The kingly government is handed down to us from the patriarchal times, when the father of a family was acknowledged as its chief; it is every where sanctioned by the word of God as lawful; and it appears most conducive to individual holiness. There seems to me in a republic something very unfavourable to the development of the Christian character. It nurtures an arrogant, independent, suspicious spirit, quite different from that which is set forth in the Gospel. Monarchy, on the other hand, promotes submission to the law, obedience to command, loyalty, and faithfulness. Republicanism is always insisting on its rights; monarchy suggests the idea of duties." "If the choice lay between absolute monarchy and republicanism," said Mr. Walton, "I confess that, from what I have observed of the two governments, I should greatly prefer the former. But we have to thank God for having placed our lot under a government which unites the advantages of all. It is also clear, that the aristocracy which exists in England, accessible as it is to all classes, has a direct and powerful tendency to raise the standard of national civilisation, and to maintain principles of high honour and excellence. The depression of our aristocracy would be almost as great an evil as the overthrow of the monarchy. And, after all, what can the most ardent admirer of liberty complain of under the English constitution? Is there any thing which any man may not do or say, provided it does not injure his neighbour? Can the sovereign or the nobleman oppress the poorest man in the land? Are not the poor man's rights as much protected as those of the greatest and wealthiest ? Where shall we find so admirable a system of judicature as in England? Defects, no doubt, there are; but let us be very careful, lest, in removing them, we break in upon a constitution which has made us, under God's blessing, the greatest people on the earth. Any successful attempt at a forcible alteration of our constitution must end in revolution." "Oh!" said Mr. Raffles, "don't talk about revolution; that is a mere bugbear to frighten old "Beware," said Mr. Walton, with serious earnestness, "how you speak lightly of revolutions. Bless God that you know not what revolutions are, and pray that you may not live to see." Here Mr. Walton paused, and looked as he usually did when preparing for one of his disquisitions. His friends, who knew his manner, and had learned to listen with habitual respect to his opinion, did not interrupt him, when he began as follows. CHAPTER XV. MR. WALTON EXPLAINS TO MR. RAFFLES THE NATURE OF REVOLUTIONS, OF WHICH THE LATTER WAS NOT AT ALL AWARE. Lo, the giant Frenzy, Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm, Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell COLERIDGE. I REMEMBER, when I was a boy, a good deal used to be said about the bloody French revolution. My father, and other middle-aged men, who were old enough to judge of that political convulsion, would speak of it with a mixture of horror and disgust, and often warn their young hearers to "Fear God and honour the king," if they hoped to save their own country from a like calamity. But the feeling seems now very much to have died away. The great political changes which then took place are matter of history; but the horrible details which made one's young blood run cold, are forgotten. It is not good that it should be so. They were given to us as solemn warnings. We are not wise if we neglect them. We ought at least to know and feel what revolutions really are. Now revolutions are of various degrees of intensity and violence, depending on a thousand unforeseen circumstances; but chiefly on the relative condition of the parties. Where all the strength is on one side, a revolution will sometimes take place without great violence, or the struggle will be brief. So it was in this country in the year 1688,-though, perhaps, it is scarcely right to call the change of dynasty which then took place a revolution. James II. wanted to set up popery in England; the people would not hear of it; so the king was forced to abdicate, or leave the throne, which he did quietly, and took himself off one night to France. I do not mean to say that either the king or the people acted properly on this occasion; I only state that the revolution was effected in England in this comparatively quiet way. It must not, however, be forgotten, that though it passed off quietly in England, it was accompanied by a murderous civil war in Ireland, where King James's party was stronger. The last French revolution was of the same sudden character as the English revolution of 1688: there were only three days' hard fighting in the streets of Paris, and not more than three or four thousand men, women, and children, were killed ; and the thing was over,-for the time at least. How soon they may begin again, no one can say: when a country once gets unsettled, it is liable, long afterwards, to continual outbreaks. The émeutes which even now break out continually in Paris, accompanied by the violent death of hundreds of people, are the after-symptoms of these former revolutions. On the other hand, when parties are pretty equally balanced, as they are at the present moment in Spain, and here in England, then a revolution is of necessity accompanied by a violent and protracted struggle, and a nation has to go through many years of suffering before it rights itself. Indeed it almost invariably happens that it does not right itself at all, without the power being thrown into the hands of some military despot, as Cromwell, or Napoleon. It is very plain that if a revolution, or, as it is now the fashion to call it, an "organic change," or a 66 66 new charter," were to be attempted by violence in England, the greatest probability is, that we should have to go through a ten years' civil war, which, in a very densely peopled country like this, would be accompanied by universal bankruptcy, starvation, massacres, and miseries greater probably than any which the world has witnessed since the siege and destruction of Jerusalem; where, according to the divine decree, human suffering reached its highest pitch of horror. People are not aware what a revolution really is, or they would not talk of it as a bugbear to frighten old women." They are either very designing people, or strangely misinformed, who use this language. I know that it is the common opinion, that the worst sort of revolution bloody revolution-is something of this kind:—that the people rise in masses, drive out the aristocracy, the gentry, and the clergy, and step very comfortably into their places. A greater mistake never was made. So far from the rich being the only sufferers, they often come off the best. Many of them send their money abroad, and invest it in foreign securities; and when violent times begin, they get out of the country as fast as they can. The chief sufferers are the middle and poorer classes, who are forced to stay behind. a I do not say this without good authority; and in order to prove it, will just set down some extracts from the official list of persons condemned (Liste général des Condamnées) by the revolutionary tri bunal at Paris. In the month of July 1794 there perished by the guillotine, in Paris alone, 835 men and women, or more than 30 a-day, for the guillotine did not work on decades, that is, every tenth day, which was their day of rest. Observe-this infatuated people had abolished the Lord's day; which accounts for their |