a clergyman," he said; "but that was long ago."

Ah, no, but it isn't the clergyman the gentleman means," said Mrs. O'Flaherty. "It is the nephew of the clergyman, a young man who came down to the islands just like the gentleman himself, and went to live for a time on the middle island, and not such a long time in it either-perhaps a month it was."

"Yes," said O'Flaherty, "and then wrote it all down in a book when he got back to Dublin, and made it a pack of lies, and told how the islanders were a set of raving savages. I looked into the book myself, and half of it is not true at all."

"If he should come down from Galway again," volunteered gentle Michael, "he would not write a book again, but wouldn't we boys be pushing him over one of those tall cliffs you were telling us of at Dun Aengus?"

"He is dead, I believe," I said, somewhat hastily, for I hated to think of Michael as a murderer.

"I know," says Michael; "and left a great fortune when he died."

"He was a nice-looking young man," mused O'Flaherty, more charitable than the rest, for he alone was puffing a pipe.

"And 'twas a bad use he made of his looks, then," says Mrs. O'Flaherty, usually

so kind and charitable-so kind that she is sorry that German ships even should be "drowned" at sea-" for he went to the Atlantic Hotel on this island, and when he told them he was nephew of Mr. Synge, who had been the clergyman here, they made free with him, and he would sit with them evenings; and then afterwards he made a book of it all and didn't get things right either. For he was a stranger, and was only two weeks or the like in it at all."

I wonder if any one who ever wrote a really notable travel book, or regional fiction, or drama of strong vitality, was appreciated or tolerated even by those of whom he wrote? I think of no such case. After they had once seen his writings Daudet never dared return to Tarascon, that I remember. Kipling thought to pay a tribute to our Massachusetts fishermen, but they found harsh words for him and rude corrections at Gloucester. Mr. Cable has been regarded in New Orleans as an interloping alien, I am told. And Canon Hannay, of St. Patrick's"George A. Birmingham "-is not popular at Westport. When his play was acted there by an English company last spring, the scenery of "General John Regan" was damaged by the vegetables they threw.

The case of Synge and the Aran islanders is in no sense an exception.

T

HE New York" Independent" was established in 1848 as a representative of radical Congregationalism, and placed under the joint editorship of three Congregational ministers-Dr. Richard Salter Storrs, Leonard Bacon, and Joseph P. Thompson. Independence in Church carries with it independence in State, and the new journal gave voice to the reforming spirit of the time. It was especially vigorous in its interpretation and advocacy of the anti-slavery movement. In 1861 Henry Ward Beecher succeeded the triumvirate and became editor-in-chief, and the editorials which he wrote on the slavery question were quoted and copied North and South and exerted a powerful influence in shaping public opinion. But he soon wearied of the regularity and routine inevitable in editorial work, and in the fall of 1863 retired, giving place to Theodore Tilton, his protégé, a brilliant writer but an erratic thinker. Mr. Beecher continued, however, to write for the paper at intervals, and was under contract to give to it a sermon every week for publication. When the Republican party, after the death of Abraham Lincoln, enforced upon the South a policy of universal suffrage which devolved the political power in the Southern States upon the ignorant and incompetent, too often led by the self-seeking and the corrupt, Mr. Beecher parted company with his old anti-slavery allies, and when a soldiers' convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, to pledge from men of unquestionable loyalty their support to President Johnson in his resistance to the Republican radical policy, Mr. Beecher wrote a letter of sympathy which aroused against him almost as much indignation as

Daniel Webster's 4th of March speech in favor of the compromise measure had aroused against that statesman sixteen years before. The “ The Independent," which adhered to the radical wing of the Republican party, sharply criticised its former editor, and at the same time, without notice to Mr. Beecher, ceased the publication of his sermons. The criticism Mr. Beecher bore, as he bore all such criticisms, with equanimity. I Copyright, 1914, the Outlook Company.

If the withdrawal of the sermons had been accompanied with any explanation to the public, I think he would have borne that also. But no explanation was offered; the public, which is accustomed to jump to its conclusions without waiting for a knowledge of the facts, assumed that Mr. Beecher had out of pique ceased to furnish his sermons to the paper which had criticised him, and he was deluged with letters from all over the country rebuking him for acting in such disregard of the principles and the spirit which in his preaching he inculcated. In sheer self-defense he gave to the "Independent" the three months' notice required to end the contract, and at the same time let the facts be known. It may be presumed that the protesting letters now began to pour in upon the "Independent." At all events, it promptly proposed to recommence the publication of the sermons. But, while Mr. Beecher was not easily aroused by any injustice to himself, when his resolution was once taken he did not easily reverse it. His connection with the 'Independent was never renewed.

This break took place in the fall of 1866. Mr. Beecher's friends at once proposed to start another weekly which should be the exponent of his views, political and religious; but for a time he resisted all persuasions which would lead him into a position of apparent rivalry with the journal whose editor, Theodore Tilton, and publisher, H. C. Bowen, were members of his church and had been his warm personal friends. Three years passed-time enough for the public to forget the incident and to give the "Independent" a standing quite apart from Mr. Beecher. A little paper called the "Church Union," with a circulation of two or three thousand, was in existence, devoted to the promotion of an organic union of all Protestant churches in one body, an ideal which Mr. Beecher thought neither practicable nor desirable. The publishing house of J. B. Ford & Co. purchased this paper and converted it into the Christian Union," devoted to the promotion of a unity of feeling and a co-operation of effort of all Christian churches, and

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in June, 1870, it began its new life with the salutatory of Henry Ward Beecher as its editor-in-chief. In this salutatory he defined both the purpose and the spirit of the new journal. The "Christian Union," he said, "will devote no time to inveighing against

sects. But it will spare no pains to persuade Christians of every sort to treat one another with Christian charity, love, and sympathy. . . . Above all, and hardest of all, it will be our endeavor to breathe through the columns of the Christian Union' such Christian love, courage, equity, and gentleness as shall exemplify the doctrine which it unfolds, and shall bring it into sympathy with the mind and will of the Lord Jesus Christ, in which great labor we ask the charity of all who differ, the sympathy of all who agree, and the prayers of all devout men, whether they agree with or differ from us."

Nearly twenty years before, F. D. Maurice, whose provocation was great and who was never lacking in courage, had made, in a letter to Lord Ashley, a bitter attack on the religious press of England, in which he said: "The principle of doing evil that good may come, that it is lawful to lie to1 God, that no faith is to be kept with those whom they account heretics, are principles upon which these Protestant writers habitually and systematically act. The evil which they do to those whom they slander and attack is trifling; the evil which they do to their readers and admirers is awful." I do not think the American religious press ever deserved so severe an indictment; whether the English press deserved it or not I do not know. But, with the possible exception of the "Independent," all the religious papers of any note were denominational organs. They have been not inaptly called "trade journals." Their first duty was to report the doings and defend the practices and tenets of their respective sects. And the amenities which characterized their denominational controversies is not unfairly illustrated by the following paragraph from the New York. "Independent," published about the time of which I am writing, and referring to a contemporary religious weekly:

Take a man who can neither write, nor preach, nor keep his temper, nor mind his own business; thrill his bosom day by day with a twenty years' dyspepsia; flush his brain with the hallucination that his bookkeeping mind is

So quoted in his biography, but I suspect is a misprint; probably should be "lie for God."

That a paper could be a Christian paper and not a church organ appeared to this sectarian press quite impossible. The novel proposal was greeted with a chorus of protest, criticism, and derision which was not always free from personalities. The following paragraph from one of Mr. Beecher's earliest editorials must here suffice to interpret to the reader the kind of reception which was accorded to the "Christian Union " by its religious contemporaries and the spirit in which Mr. Beecher replied to their welcome :

The "Watchman and Reflector" has introduced a needless personal element into its remarks: "With the highest respect, however, for Mr. Beecher's pulpit ability and his great freedom from a blind regard for sect, we doubt his competency to guide Protestant Catholicism. He is too impulsive. He is too sentimental. He is too loose. He is too ready to surrender truth." In editing the "Christian Union" Mr. Beecher no more proposes "to guide Protestant Catholicism" than, in editing the "Watchman and Reflector," Mr. Olmstead proposes to guide the Baptist churches of New England. May we not be allowed to contribute what little we can to so good an end as the more cordial co-operation of all Christians? As to the rest of the paragraph ("He is too impulsive. He is too sentimental. He is too loose. He is too ready to surrender truth"), we shall take it to heart and strive henceforth to be slower, dryer, tighter, and more obstinate.

The public appreciated the purpose of the "Christian Union" better than did the denominational organs, and it sprang at once into a circulation of thirty thousand, probably larger than that of any church organ, with possibly one or two exceptions. It was the chromo age, and also the age of giving premiums to subscribers. The enterprising publisher got two charming chromos of a little child with the descriptive titles "Wide Awake" and "Fast Asleep," had one hundred and thirty thousand copies printed in France, gave a copy of each print to every new subscriber to the "Christian Union,” and in a single year pushed the circulation up to one hundred and thirty thousand or thereabouts.

Meantime I was both writing a weekly

letter for the "Christian Union and doing some incidental editorial work for the "Independent," chiefly book reviewing. This casual and intermittent employment gave me a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the feeling of both the editor and the publisher of the "Independent," and I took occasion to warn Mr. Beecher that the phenomenal success of his paper had intensified their hostility to him, aroused by his withdrawal three years before. He laughed at my fears; and I must confess that when the conspiracy against him was consummated and the charges were brought against him with the avowed purpose of driving him into retirement, I was no less amazed than he. My conviction, which at the end of the long trial I expressed editorially in the columns of the "Illustrated Christian Weekly," that "the inherently improbable accusation is the product of a jealous malice," is the judgment of history. Accusers and accusation are now alike forgotten. But, coupled with other causes, they proved at the time disastrous to the "Christian Union." The subscriptions purchased by chromos did not stay purchased. It was said that in one Canadian town FrenchCanadian subscribers were obtained who could not read the English language, and who had subscribed to the paper solely for the pictures. Another chromo for the next year's campaign proved ineffective. The firm of J. B. Ford & Co. failed, whether owing to this collapse in the subscription list or to other causes I do not know. A small corporation of friends of Mr. Beecher was organized to publish the "Christian Union." But at that time Mr. Beecher's name was not a name to conjure by. His church was still crowded. Whenever he lectured throngs flocked to hear him. But the paper which bore his name had to make its way against an ebbing tide and an adverse wind.

I believe, however, that it would have more than held its own, in spite of these adverse circumstances, if it had not been for one other circumstance not less adverse. Mr. Beecher, during the first year of the "Christian Union," had written constantly for it; and what he wrote had the impress of his genius. Then came the time of accumulating difficulties. To write became an arduous task. When he wrote, there was no audience visibly present to inspire his pen, as there was when he spoke to inspire his tongue. Though his name stood on the first page of the "Christian Union" as its sole editor, he

rarely wrote for it. Yet he would not allow. its columns to defend his good name from attack. I doubt whether there was any journal in America which had as little to say about him as the "Christian Union." His enemies would not take it because it carried his name. His friends did not take it because it carried nothing of his but his name. His associate, Mr. George S. Merriam, under other circumstances, would have made a great editor. He wrote a beautiful English because his was a beautiful spirit. His personality illustrated Matthew Arnold's famous phrase "sweetness and light." He had a spiritual and luminous quality which often reminded the reader of the editorials of R. H. Hutton in the London "Spectator." His character enabled him to draw about him a notable corps of contributors. The "Christian Union" under his editorship was, in my judgment, the best, though not the most popular, literary weekly in America. But, though it offered to its readers Mr. Beecher, it gave neither Mr. Beecher nor anything about Mr. Beecher; and Mr. Merriam resigned.

It was necessary to give somewhat fully this early history of the "Christian Union in order that the reader might understand the conditions which confronted me when, on September 13, 1876, I became associated with Mr. Beecher in the editorship of the paper, and practically assumed its entire control. The following letter from my father will serve to indicate to the reader that the winter preceding was a time of special work and special anxiety:

"Sunday Evening, February 20, 1876.

"I slip this line for you into my letter to H-, to say how much we all think of you at this time when you are under so heavy a pressure of duty and responsibility-with the care of the Weekly,' the work of pushing forward the Commentary, attending to the preparation of so many other miscellaneous writings, and, last of all, the duties of the very responsible position you occupy in the Council. We read all the articles of yours in the papers, and watch especially for your name in the daily reports of the proceedings of the Council. How you can stand up under the load of such complicated burdens, I don't see. I feel a great desire to help you in some way, for, though I well know you have long since outgrown all need of any help that a father can render, and all capacity of receiv