old writer who said, "I would rather give my country a beautiful song than lead her to victory in battle."

It is greatly to be regretted that Bayard Taylor became in the latter part of his life so much German in his tastes, in his disposition and belief. It is a disgrace to his country that one of its first intellects should have imbibed so deeply of the modern heresies and skepticism as he is shown to have done in "Prince Deucalion." However, he was not spared to become a leading character in the dissemination of those reli gious principles that he entertained, and although the world lost much in his being taken in the prime of manhood and intellectual vigor, yet we do not know whether to rejoice at or regret his unexpected death. His influence would have been great, and when employed in that cause which his morbid disposition and fondness for the German character led him to accept, he would have dishonored that splendid chaplet woven for him by the richness of his poesy, and which the world was proud to bind about his temples.

He died across the water, with the people that he loved perhaps not less than his own, with the "cap of civic honor on his brows pressed down," and whether he now lives in grander light and sings to a nobler harp than he ever knew below, or whether he has given his life to long regret, none will answer.

INTROSPECTION.

HE world is in a tempest of speculation. Every man's life is in the midst of converging whirlwinds, and he is to be pitied who has not made some port of safety and moored his craft to some solid pier. We are living in a thinking age, and he who would keep abreast of it must think. No man is what he ought to be till his opinions are settled and he knows what they are, for every one is called upon to know what he believes and why he believes it. Each must

have a rally-cry for his sentiments when they are so heavily beset on every hand. A thousand problems challenge our personal investigation, and in their solution we cannot afford to pin our belief to the sleeves of other men. "Is it truth ?"

"Is it needed?" "Does it enlarge the mind and benefit the intellect?" "Does it stir the best and holiest sympathies of the heart?" Such are the questions which occur to the thoughtful judgment when anything is presented for its consideration. A well defined and consistent belief is a benefit. It strengthens one and enables him to feel the ground beneath him, and it is only when we can touch the bottom that we can brace ourselves against the current. Such opinions, well marked and systematized, have belonged to every man who has been of force in the world and accomplished good.

But we need more than a mere intellectual standard. We are practical beings, and need a standard of conduct. We naturally seek for this in the lives of others, and the study of history helps the thoughtful in the search. The knowledge of its characters inspires him to pattern the virtues of the good and avoid the vices of the bad. Its recorded failures warn him, and its successes give him courage. In conduct men are naturally imitators. They measure the good they do by what others have done, and judge their faults by those of their fellow men. Our apologies for misconduct and claims to virtue, originate in this universal disposition to graduate our acts by some other life, Therefore, our characters are what they should be, only as our standard is perfect and we sncceed in its emulation. If this be true, how essential that the standard of perfection be high!

History contains the record of one perfect character. I shall speak of him as a man, and endeavor to apply the same rules which are necessary to benefit us in the study of any other classic life. His influence has impressed itself on history; his teachings have lighted up the world's path of progress and given character to modern civilization. The fact

that his life is principally contained in writings which Christendom holds sacred, renders the character of Jesus of Nazareth no less of historical interest, and detracts nothing from it as an example of what men should try to be by emulating the best of those who have lived and done good in the world.

Our habits of thinking of Him as more than man too often prevent us from appreciating Him as a man. Aside from the splendor with which our ideas of His divinity naturally encircle Him, He stands forth before us in the light of history, a a perfect man, and the example of human conduct which He embodied in a life given to thoughtfulness and introspection, is reasonable-entirely consistent with the soundest philosophy and severest experience.

Human nature is the same everywhere and always, whether developed in Him to perfection, or moving in the cramped and smaller sphere of our finite souls. The cardinal principles of ethical law and mental action are no arbitrary rules. They come like heat from combustion-like the glitter of the diamond from the construction of the jewel. They come from mind and morals, the essential product of their very being. They must be the same, therefore, whether evolved in his perfect manhood or working in hearts like ours: and what was necessary to perfect them in the perfect man cannot be dispensed with in us. Our natures must retain their identity forever, and the laws that now control them must remain the same, working on toward the perfection of human character, till, purified and freed from every uncleanness, the soul shall reflect in its future state the love and glory of its God. Goodness and justice and truth and moral beauty are not one thing above, and another thing below the skies. Human nature in its progress over the highroad of experience is not subject to one code of conduct in my life, and to a different code in the life of a perfect Exemplar: but the humanity He came to benefit and lift up to God, must display the Creator's glory, if at all, after the same laws and principles of life

which controlled the Perfect Man. Our bosoms throb with the same high motives that moved His breast. He was a man perfected; and that perfection made Him more of a man, rather than detracted from His nature as such and if more a man, more thoroughly governed by the same laws of ethics and experience that He prescribes for us.

Students of history find interest in other characters. The heart warms toward the weeping Andromache at the tomb of Hector; the death of Socrates is grand, and Cæsar's touching. We follow Hannibal as he returns to Carthage and weeps above its ruins. Why not also follow Christ to the garden of sorrow while no one is near to help Him bear one pound of His crushing burden? Why not go with Him through the shadows of the wilderness of temptation, and there learn lessons of Him to help us bear our own? Study Him while in suffering He was fitting for His work. Draw near at such times that we may know what he underwent. For forty days that man tasted no food. Hunger hollows His cheeks and plows great furrows in His face; but His humanity struggles on. Satan comes. His heart is full of evil, and his tongue of deceit. Hear him: "Thou art the son of God. Why suffer so? The power of a God is sleeping in Thy hand. Put it forth. Command these stones to be made bread." But no. Man shall not live by bread alone. A lesson greater than Hannibal's is this. Our Ex mplar was learning by experience how to succor the tempted and give them strength-teaching the student of history to live by every word of hope and promise coming from the mouth of God.

But see again. Yonder temple town; our Examplar and the Enemy. His appeal now is not to the hungry, halfstarved man. His aim is higher. He challenges now His very confidence in God: "Prove Him. Prove that everlasting love. Are you not His son, His delight? Cast Thyself down from hence. His angels shall bear Thee up and not a single rock shall bruise Thee." Nay, "Thou shalt not tempt the

Lord thy God." Thou shalt not abuse His mercy, and misuse His love. What a lesson here!

Come higher yet and see again. He takes that man to a mountain-top. Around them as on a map the kingdoms of the world are spread; and all their power and rule shall be His-all their wealth and glory-for one single obeisance to the enemy before Him-one single acknowledgment of a fallen angel's dignity and power and might. It was a trial. That ambition, of which we afterwards hear, leading Him to look for the recompense of His reward, swells his human heart, "Tempted in all things" like other men, He differed from them only in the absence of sin. There is one way for him to inherit the possessions of the world, and He must follow that. "Get thee behind me Satan. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." Here was a battle. Here was the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth tried and tested. The Spirit had not led Him from the crowded banks of Jordan for nothing, and those who study the life of this marvelous man often underestimate that trial He was called to undergo. Too prone are we to allow our faith in His divinity to lessen our ideas of what He bore as a man. Jesus of Nazareth was a man like other men; tempted in all things like we, and only differing from us in the absence of sin. His human heart throbbed in a breast full of powerful human emotions, each gathering strength for action from the very perfection of His soul. Hunger's torture was more exquisite, since it had more mental material to involve in its physical results. Ambition was more potent, for it had more perfect and refined motives to which to appeal. Hope of reward was stronger, for His powers of appreciating it made it so. His sense of dignity was more acute, because He was more perfectly a man. The whole of His humanity was tried like other men's, the trials being greater in proportion to their field of action-their flames glowing hotter by virtue of the more abundant and refined fuel His nature could afford them. That perfect human. nature suffered; not His divinity, for that could not suffer ;