of those terrible letters about home life in August ?"

You

Mr. Dabney said that he didn't, and Grandmamma began to soften down. 66 I am very fond of literary society," she said. "It is one of my great griefs that there is so little literary society in Ludlow. are too young, of course, Mr. Dabney, but I am sure it will interest you to know that I knew personally both Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray."

Here a shudder ran round the table, and Lionel practically disappeared into his plate. I stole a glance at Mr. Dabney's face.

Drops of perspiration were beginning to break out on his forehead.

"Mr. Dickens," the old lady continued remorselessly, and all unconscious of the devastation she was causing, even at the sideboard, usually a stronghold of discreet impassivity, "Mr. Dickens I met at a hotel in Manchester in the sixties. I Iwas there with me dear husband on business, and we breakfasted at the same table. Mr. Dickens was all nerves and fun. The toast was not good, and I remember he compared it in his inimitable way to sawdust."

Mr. Dabney ate feverishly.

"I remember also that he made a capital joke as he was giving the waiter a tip, as me dear husband always used to call a douceur. 'There,' he said-"

Mr. Dabney twisted a silver fork into the shape of a hair-pin.

It was, of course, Naomi who came to the rescue. 66 Grandmamma," she said, "we have a great surprise for you the first dish of strawberries."

"So early!" said the old lady. "How very extravagant of you, but how very pleasant!" She took one, and ate it slowly, while Mr. Dabney laid the ruined. fork aside and assumed the expression of a reprieved assassin.

know," she asked Mr. Dabney, "who said that? It was a favorite quotation of me fawther's."

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Dabney, who had been cutting it out of articles every June for years, "it was Bishop Berkeley."

The situation was saved, for Grandmamma talked exclusively of fruit for the est of the meal. Ludlow, it seems, has some very beautiful gardens, especially Dr. Sworder's, which is famous for its figs. A southern aspect.

At one moment, however, we all went cold again, for Lionel, who is merciless, suddenly asked in a silence, "Didn't you once meet Thackeray, Grandmamma ?"

Naomi, however, was too quick for him, and before the old lady could begin she had signaled to her mother to lead the way to the drawing-room.

By the time the evening ended Mr. Dabney had quite recovered, and he was ready enough on the way home to laugh at his adventure. We talked Dickens long into the night; and there is no better subject. Mr. Dabney said one very interesting thing. "What I always wonder about Dickens," he said, "is how on earth did the man correct his proofs ?" Because, as he went on to point out, between the time of writing and the time of correcting he must have thought of so many new descriptive touches, so many new creatures to add, so many new and adorable fantastic comments How could he deny himself the joy of putting these in?-for there can be no pleasure like that of creation.

on

life.

666 Doubtless,' "Grandmamma quoted, "God could have made a better berry, but doubtless he never did.'

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine

arm:

rem.

The King and the chorus of court ladies receive her with flatteries. But her heart turns to her Peasant Lover, and to the royal flatteries she turns a deaf ear. The company go up to Jerusalem, taking the captive maiden with them. The King hopes that absence from her lover in new scenes, and the glories of the city and the palace, will win her away from her rural home. But she will have none of them. Waking, she sings of her brothers, her vineyard, her lover. Sleeping, she dreams of him. Neither the flatteries of the King nor his ardent passion has any effect upon her. And the simple story ends with her return to Galilee, where she appears leaning upon the arm of her Peasant Lover, and greeted by the song of the village maidens as the lovers come back to the rural home beneath the apple tree, where she was given birth by her mother, and given a second birth by her lover. And the simple drama, whose motif is the spontaneity of love," Stir not up nor awaken love until it please," ends

It does not come within the province of these brief practical sermons to enter into doubtful questions of Biblical criticism. There are two modern interpretations of this hook: one the dramatic, here adopted; the other the lyrical, that it is a.collection of love songs, but with dramatic unity. For the former see W. E. Griffis's "The Lily among Thorns" for the latter, R. G. Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible, Biblical Idylls." See also my "Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews," chapter lx., and note there.

with the verse which I have chosen as my

text:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm :

For love is strong as death;
Jealousy is cruel as the grave:

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
A very flame of the Lord.

Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the floods drown it:

If a man woul give all the substance of his house for love,

He would utterly be contemned.

Solomon's Song is to most readers of the Bible a closed book. The age needs to reopen and re-read it. For it is a simple and graphic portrayal of the conflict between love and ambition in a woman's life, with love triumphant. And in this age, when ambition in all its forms is calling so loudly to woman to come out from her home-social ambition offering her wealth or European titles, business ambition offering her the zest of competition with men in the struggle of life, political ambition demanding that she take up the duties and burdens and proffering her the shadowy rewards of government—a literature that reminds her that love is the best life has to offer, and that if a man would give all the substance of his house in lieu of love he should be utterly contemned by the true woman, is not too archaic to be read and pondered with profit.

There is a theory of life known as the doctrine of "total depravity." This is not intended to mean that every man is as bad as he can be, which would imply that there are no grades in wickedness; it is intended to mean that all the faculties and powers of man are naturally evil and become good only as by a divine influence the man is re-created. So defined, I absolutely and totally dissent from the doctrine. On the contrary, I believe that every faculty and power of man is naturally good; evil only as it is evilly directed. Depravity is not natural; it is unnatural, contra-natural. Acquisi

tiveness is the spur to useful industry; approbativeness is the mother of sympathy; self-esteem is necessary to selfprotection; without combativeness there would be no heroism, without destructiveness no great reforms. On the other hand, the nobler faculties misdirected incite to evil: reverence to superstition, faith to credulity, hope to illusion, illgoverned love to sentimentality.

Of all the forces which combine to make up man's complex nature, perhaps the Passions are the strongest-the most cruel, and the most beneficent. They are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame, and, like fire, are a good servant and a bad master. They may cheer the home with a welcoming radiance, or they may consume it and leave it in a heap of ashes. Unsanctified by spiritual love, the passions have been used to minister to a horrible greed, they have reduced women to an unspeakably cruel slavery, they have committed most foul and unnatural murders, they have wrecked homes, embittered lives, sundered fair friendships, incited to bestial treachery, betrayed kings to their own undoing and the undoing of their country, and have degraded body and soul and sent both together to the lowest hell even while yet on earth. Guided by a sound intelligence, controlled by a strong will, and spiritualized by pure unselfishness, the passions form the sweetest, the strongest, and the most sacred love on earth, save only the love which unites mother and child, and of that love they are the creator. So sanctified and directed, they make the holy family possible, which in turn makes the State and the Church, they make the souls of the lovers immune from the perils of prosperity and make sweet the cup of adversity, they give courage in danger, patience in disaster, moderation in victory, and a joy in life which no pen of poet or eloquence of orator has ever been able adequately to portray. This passionate love is unique-unlike the love of parent for child, or friend for friend. It has no analogue in any other motive power, any other emotion. Inspired by this love, the careless youth

becomes a caretaker for her whom he loves, and blazes his way through the unknown forest, made by her companionship heroic in meeting danger, persistent in overcoming obstacle, patient in routine, and by love redeeming toil from drudgery. Do I idealize? No! I could not if I would. For there is no danger which, in the actual history of the world, this love has not bravely met, no burden which it has not gladly borne, no tragedy which it has not calmly confronted. The passion of love is the master passion of the human race, and, at its best, is the purest and divinest of human passions.

'This," says Paul, " is a great mystery." Mystery it is, and mystery we must leave it. But it ought not to come to our children a wholly uninterpreted mystery. Every mother ought, however reluctant her tongue, to interpret the mystery to her daughter, every father to his son. For, if guided aright, this passion of love leads up to a heaven on earth; unguided and uncontrolled it leads to a hell. Creator of life, it is also a prolific producer of disease. Supreme among the virtues, it sometimes becomes the most degrading of vices. The Church, the Press, the School, can teach little on this subject. This duty belongs to the home and the parent, and cannot be safely shifted off upon substitutes. To teach our children what is the mystery of love and life, to train our boys in that chivalric reverence for woman which should be her wholly adequate protection, to train our girls in that womanly self-respect which should be their self-protection when chivalry fails and genteel boorishness takes its place; not to essay the generally impossible and always perilous task of keeping boys and girls apart, but in lieu thereof to habituate them to grow up together in a natural and mutually respecting fellowship which may gradually ripen into love without the danger that comes from a sudden onrush of uncontrolled passion too strong to be resisted-this is perhaps the most important, as it certainly is the most delicate and difficult, task of the parent. lect it, however difficult, is a criminal breach of trust; to perform it, a sacred duty.

To neg

I

N an admirable preface to her "History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century" (Macmillan), Mrs. Schuyler van Rensselaer strikes a keynote that vibrates dominantly throughout, and brings into harmony the fragments of as intricate a bit of local history as could be found. By dint of patient, honest study she has collected a mass of facts which she has skillfully arranged in such perfect order as to attract even an indifferent reader and absorb his attention from the first to the last page of two large volumes.

Mrs. van Rensselaer has the gift, denied to many historians, of perfectly mastering details, yet she is able to use or discard, to emphasize or slight, and to present, finally, a well-compacted, beautifully rounded narrative, attractive and impressive to all intelligent readers.

In spite of a lack of carefully preserved records, in spite of conflicting contemporary opinion, and, far worse, in spite of the inaccuracy of preceding historians, the author moves quietly and competently through the maze, and we have a clear, dispassionate yet vivid history of New York during the first eighty years of its existence.

As the author reminds us, in the seventeenth century New England fills the foreground of the colonial picture; but in the first part of the eighteenth century the place is largely occupied by New York. From the very beginning, however, this province and city proves more clearly than any other "that the American Revolution was not a movement of transplanted Englishmen." Europeans of diverse origin were transformed into Americans by influences that were potent from the first settlement-a combination of geographical, economical, industrial, and human influences. The author does not attempt a political history, or even a history of the municipality; she writes a history of the city and its inhabitants, showing how the way of the Revolution was prepared. She succeeds in her aim and paints the life of the people on all sides. Explorers, followed by fur-traders,

braved the dangers of the sea, and among them the Netherlanders held foremost rank. For a hundred years on from the first quarter of the sixteenth century England, Spain, and Holland sailed the seas in search of trade and conquest. In 1623, after many vicissitudes, the Dutch province was born on the fertile, desirable stretch of coast then called New Netherland. The colonists, sent by the West India Company of the States General of Holland, came to live in the new country, to establish farms and towns, not simply to traffic in trading stations. They planted the seed that afterward became five of the Thirteen Colonies-New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Some thirty years later England, under the authority of King James, insisted that they were "intruders." Just this difference of view was the cause of years of intricate and troublesome contests between the Dutch and the English.

The West India Company certainly pursued a short-sighted policy, and opened the way for English usurpation. The situation is graphically described by De Vries in his book entitled "Short Historical and Journal Notes of Several Voyages made in the Four Parts of the World," from which Mrs. van Rensselaer draws much color. She contrasts it with Irving's burlesque history, for which she has little patience, because, as she says, it sadly distorted the story of New Amsterdam. "Its comic-opera background, with groups of foolish plethoric burghers dozing, boozing, and smoking in comfortable chimneycorners, bears, of course, no remotest likeness to the real New Amsterdam of 1633-to the poor, stinted, struggling little frontier post, where, only five years before, even the clergyman suffered hardship." Blunt Captain De Vries wrote that the New Engl nders who dubbed their Dutch neighbors "intruders" believed that "they are Israelites, and that we at our plantation are Egyptians, and that the English in Virginia also are Egyptians." From all sides the Dutch possessions were threatened. The varying for

tunes of government are followed with marvelous ability through many pages of lucid narrative, into which are introduced curious bits of information in regard to the origin of many familiar names as well as clever side-lights thrown upon the differences between Dutch and English character. The Dutch were far more liberal to those holding other forms of religious faith than were the bigoted New EnglandThey welcomed men from all over Europe and treated them as worthy of respect. Drunkenness was the great sin of the Dutch, but good Dominie Michaelius wrote to his friend Smoutius that, though his parishioners were somewhat rough and loose, they were mostly "good people.".

The Dutch would never subscribe to the Rev. John Cotton's dictum," Better be hypocrites than profane persons." Under good, bad, and indifferent governors the colony struggled on, threatened by English, French, and Indians, and ill supported from home. The names of Governors Kieft and Stuyvesant are prominent during these years. Their course is clearly indicated by the author with discriminating comment and elucidation. Then came the relinquishment to English claims, for Holland was not ready for war, and New Amsterdam was rechristened New York in 1665, remaining English until the Dutch recaptured it in 1673.

This change was not accomplished without fiery remonstrance from the colonists, but the States General submitted, only expressing an opinion that the English "consider themselves at liberty to do what they please; they are not bound by any treaty; whatever they do is all right, which, if done by this side, would be proclaimed a violation of all law." However, Mrs. van Rensselaer says that the Dutch province, by falling under English rule, "exchanged the control of a moribund trading company for that of a dictator of royal blood, and the overlordship of a republic to which they could always frankly speak for the sovereignty of a king to whom they could not very hopefully appeal over his brother's head. Nor did they profit in the way of increased commercial freedom."

A change of fortune restored the province and city to Dutch control in 1673, when the old name of the province was

restored and the city was called New Orange, in honor of the young Prince of Orange. The new Governor, Anthony Colve, though stern, was no despot;

every one was permitted to go where he pleased to hear the Word of God, but the Reformed Dutch religion was to be maintained." Never was the province in so martial a temper, yet just at this moment "it began to fear that it must quietly submit again to King Charles." This was arranged by the home powers, and New Orange became once more New York and had an English Governör, in 1674.

The remaining chapters of the second volume are devoted to a view of the province as developed commercially and socially by the mixed Dutch and English inhabitants. The vitality of the former is evidenced in the persistence to this day of Dutch names and customs. Discon tent and revolt naturally accompanied reorganization and growth. From 1674 to 1691, when the history closes, there was a succession of governors from Andros to Leisler, a turbulent time, yet effective in development. Fierce factional disputes demanded attention from England, and Governor Sloughter was despatched to take over authority.. This he exercised in a way graphically reflected by the historian. An unfortunate decision in the case of Lieutenant-Governor Leisler and his associates, involving the execution for treason of Leisler and Milborne, was, in Mrs.. van Rensselaer's opinion, the underlying cause in many after-years for the existence of a party in active opposition to the Government-"a fortunate fact in a province shut as tightly as New York in the royal hand, a province unchartered, unprivileged, uninspired by such memories of an early time of freedom as survived in New England, unprotected save by the intelligence and the energy of its own sons. The persistent strength of party feeling in New York meant, in short, a habit of watchfulness and aggressiveness in public affairs which largely helped to open the path for revolution." Again the vibrant keynote is heard, and with renewed interest in the history of our city, and quite satisfied with its latest dignified and competent presentation, we lay down this admirable work.