Do not fear with regard to - all will be well. Affectionateness, maidenly self-possession, and a quiet spirit are more likely to bud into a beautiful character hereafter, than that impetuosity of sentiment which too often makes life the prey of wild and self-destructive passions. Principle is a higher thing than feeling, and will stand life's terrible test far better.

LXXXV.

November 12.

I confess the awful mystery of life, and the perplexity which hangs around the question-what it is, and what it all means. Nevertheless, I am persuaded-as persuaded as of any thing I can be in this world-that the meaning is good and not evil-good, I trust, to the individual as well as to the whole. There is a wondrous alchemy in time and the power of God to transmute our faults, errors, sorrows-nay, our sins themselves-into golden blessings; a truth which always appears to me prominent in the history of the Fall. The curses on man and woman, toil, etc., are all, in the process of time, changed into benedictions; the woman's lot itself, of subjugation and pain, becoming the very channel of her best powers of character, the condition of her devotion and her meekness. It is only the tempting devil-snake, in whose curse there is no element of alteration: only apparently a degradation, a slighter doom, no pain-better for him had it been so, for anguish might have slowly worked out change-but to crawl, and creep, and eat the dust of lower being forever. A truth for which my whole spirit blesses and adores the Ever Just. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." asked the meaning of this; surely it is plain. The tears which destroy the beauty of the outward man, channel his cheeks, cut his features with the sharp graver of anguish, are doing a glorious work on the spirit within, which is becoming fresh with all young and living feelings.

I have just returned from the committee relating to the "Protestant and Anti-Popery," etc., etc., meeting on Thursday, into which I was hooked. They asked me to speak on that day. I refused; on which the vicar begged for a show of hands, and they were raised, and the thing carried by clerical acclamation. Only conceive that! Of course I have still my option.

LXXXVI.

To-day I had a long and strange interview with a lady who has recently become a member of the congregation. *** She asked me if I had ever known a case of trial so severe as hers. "Yes," I replied; "numbers: it is the case of all. Suffering is very common, so is disappointment." "Are our affections to be all withered ?"—" Very often, I believe." "Then why were they given me ?" "I am sure I can not tell you that, but I suppose it would not have been very good for you to have had it all your own way." "Then, do you think I am better for this blighting succession of griefs ?"—"I do not know, but I know you ought to be." Wordsworth was lying open on the table, and I pointed to her these lines:

Then was the truth received into my heart,
That under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,
If from the affliction somewhere do not grow
Honor, which could not else have been a faith,
An elevation and a sanctity;

If new strength be not given nor old restored,
The blame is ours, not nature's.

The deep undertone of this world is sadness: a solemn bass occurring at measured intervals, and heard through all other tones. Ultimately, all the strains of this world's music resolve themselves into that tone; and I believe

that, rightly felt, the Cross, and the Cross alone, interprets the mournful mystery of life-the sorrow of the Highest, the Lord of life; the result of error and sin, but ultimately remedial, purifying and exalting.

LXXXVII.

I read, or rather studied, "Macbeth" through last night, sitting up very late, and never felt half its beauty-beauty as distinct from power-before. Macready is now giving his farewell appearances, and "Macbeth" is for to-night. I was strangely tempted to go. Macready nobly tried to purge the stage from all its evils, and Shakspeare is free from the strong objections I have to any acting which merely exhibits dangerous feeling in its might. A friend had taken places and I had resolved not—nevertheless, I felt the temptation strong last night. The murder-scene became so vivid that I actually felt a sensation of creeping awe as I went up the stairs of the silent house, and in very shame was obliged to walk down again through the dark passages, to convince myself that I was not a child haunted with unreal terrors. I felt the tears actually start in reading that noble scene in which Macduff's fidelity to honor and goodness is tested by Malcolm. Macduff's burst of disappointment, on discovering that the prince, to whom all his heart's homage had been given, is, as he supposes, unworthy of it, touched me until my heart seemed too large. Those fine lines (Act IV. Scene 3)—

Fit to govern! No, not to live;

and then, when Macduff has the man he hates with noble hatred at last "within sword's reach," I could have almost shouted. I felt as if to have a firm grip of a sword in a villain's heart were the intensest rapture this earth has to give-the only thing which such as Macduff had worth living for. Places were taken for two nights-"Othello" and "Macbeth"-but I could not trust myself to either.

I have been trying lately to regulate my outward life somewhat more satisfactorily than usual-my papers, my study, my hours, in order that the inward life may have a faint chance of growing into form. The outward is at least within our power-whether the inward is I do not know; but the one acts upon the other, and it is a duty, at least, to do all that can be done. That all but omniscient Shakspeare says, in reply to Macbeth's

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

*

Then Macbeth says:

Come, put mine armor ou, give me my staff, etc.,

wisely resolving upon present acting.

CHAPTER IX.

BRIGHTON, 1851.

Interest of Mr. Robertson in Social Questions.-Sermon Preached in Mr. Drew's Church to Working-men.-He is accused with Mr. Maurice and Professor Kingsley of Socialistic Opinions.-His Answer.-The "Record " Newspaper reasserts the Charge after his Death.-Letters of Mr. Maurice on the Subject.-Letters of Mr. Robertson on Professor Kingsley's Sermon.-Letter from Mr. Drew containing Extracts from Mr. Robertson's Letters on the same Subject.-Declining Health. Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians.-Lecture to Working-men at Hurstpierpoint.-Close of the Year 1851.

Letters from March 14, 1851, to December 5, 1851.

DURING the first six months of this year, 1851, no external occurrences of any importance broke the monotony of the life of Mr. Robertson. There are, however, a number of letters which exhibit some of the phases of thought and feeling through which he passed from January to June.

His interest in social questions continued to increase. His correspondence proves that he studied and endeavored to refute the views of Louis Blanc. In March he spoke at a meeting held to provide lodging-houses for the poor. On WhitSunday he preached a sermon on the social and religious aspects of the Great Exhibition.

In June, he was asked by Mr. Drew, of St. John's Church, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, to preach one of a series of sermons addressed to working-men. He consented, and chose as his subject the story of Nabal and David. The sermon, which is published under the title of "The Message of the Church to Men of Wealth," is an embodiment of his views on the subject of the rights of property and the rights of labor.* It brought him into an undesired notoriety. The public protest of Mr. Drew, after Mr. Kingsley's sermon, in which the former repudiated before his congregation the teaching of the latter, naturally attracted the notice of the press; and Mr. Robertson was involved with Mr. Maurice, Mr. Kingsley, and Mr. Drew in a general accusation of socialistic opinions. The cause of the accusation is an amusing instance of the danger of propinquity. It happened at that time that Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley were prominent persons in a movement called Christian Socialism, and the office where their business was transacted chanced to be opposite to St. John's Church. The series of sermons in the church, and the work in the office, were at once connected by some

He continued the subject afterwards at Brighton. Sermon XVIII. (First Series).

wiseacres of the press, and the report arose that both Mr. Robertson and Mr. Drew were involved in a movement " with which," to use Mr. Drew's words, "they were never at any time, directly or indirectly, connected." Mr. Robertson was attacked by one of the papers, and accused of preaching democratic principles. He answered that the expression, "democratic principles," was too vague to deal with; that the only passage in his sermon which bore upon the subject of democracy was a distinction drawn between the reverence to authority which is declared in Scripture to be a duty, and the slavish reverence to wealth and rank which is confounded with that duty, and in Scripture nowhere declared to be a duty that if by democratic principles was meant Socialism. -Socialism was not only not advocated, but distinctly opposed in his sermon.

Very soon after his death, the "Record" newspaper reasserted the charge of socialistic opinions; and a correspondence, of which the following letters from Mr. Maurice form a part, was published in the columns of that paper. These letters appeared on January 12, 1854:

No. 1.

June 26, 1851.

MY DEAR MR. ROBERTSON,-I fear very much that I have allowed myself to forget the painful position into which I have been the means of bringing you. It has disturbed me much, since I saw you last night, to reflect that we may have weakened your influence, and added to some people's hard thoughts of you, by bringing you into connection with us and our unpopularity. I felt much ashamed of the vanity and injustice of any proposition about printing our sermons together, which only occurred to me at the moment, and which I perceived afterwards would be doing injustice to you. I can only ask you to forgive me for having tempted you to engage in the work, which I certainly never supposed would end as it has done. I think, if you do not object, that I will write a quiet letter to the "Daily News,' fully admitting their right to say any thing they please of Christian Socialists; but begging them, in common justice, not to confound you with us, as you never called yourself by any such name, and as your sermon was neither Socialist nor High-Church in any ordinary view of either epithet, but what they themselves would confess to be a liberal and manly utterance. If you can suggest any better way in which I can act, or if you wish me to abstain from that way, I will do as you like; at all events, will you let me express how much the great pleasure of having seen you and made your acquaintance is mixed with pain at the thought of having made you feel more than ever the divisions and confusion of the Church?

Yours very truly,

No. 2.

To CAPTAIN ROBERTSON.

F. D. MAURICE.

January 3, 1854.

MY DEAR SIR,-I very much regret that my absence from London has delayed my answer to your note of the 31st December. It must have made me appear neglectful of your wishes. I trust that you will believe that my rev

A

erence and affection for the memory of your son would render any suspicion of indifference to his character, or to his relatives, especially painful to me. The inference which you draw from your son's own statement, and which was confirmed by my letter, is altogether correct. He never, even for a moment, identified himself with the Christian Socialists, or entered into any of their plans. I never had the pleasure of seeing him till the spring of 1851, when I called upon him at Brighton, at the request of Mr. Drew, who was in no way connected with our proceedings. It happened that Mr. Kingsley and I were asked to preach sermons in the same course with him, and that Mr. Kingsley very reluctantly accepted the invitation. But other persons were also asked, who would entirely have disclaimed his views and mine; and the character of the church in which we were successively to appear showed that our only bond was a common feeling that the Church was to labor for all classes, but particularly for the working-classes. When I found that the circumstances connected with Mr. Kingsley's sermon had led the newspapers to confound the different preachers in Mr. Drew's church together, I proposed, as you have seen, entirely to exculpate Mr. Robertson-the only person, besides Mr. Kingsley and me, who had yet delivered a lecture-from the charge. He very generously declined my offer in a note (the only one, I believe, I ever received from him, certainly the only one which was not of a merely formal character), which I was looking at the other day, and which I shall hope to send you when I return to London. But I am certain he declined only from his characteristic chivalry and unwillingness to shrink from us while we were in disgrace, not because he in the least adopted our name or was disposed to take part in our plans. From the time of our meeting in London, in the summer of 1851, to the time of his death, I never saw him or had any intercourse with him by letters. I sent him one of my books, and preached once in his church (when he was absent, and without his knowledge); but I never had the slightest reason to imagine that he sympathized in any opinion of mine, theological, moral, or economical. I always felt that he was doing a great and noble work, amidst much misrepresentation and obloquy, and I was anxious not to give him more to bear than fell naturally and necessarily to his lot. The exceeding delight which it would have given me to learn from him, and to have received his hints and corrections of my views, would have been purchased too dearly if I had led his enemies or his friends to suppose that he was responsible for any words or acts which they might be disposed to condemn in me.

There are two obvious verbal inaccuracies in the copy of my note which you have sent me, but I will not say they are owing to you or me. If you should find that the original does not warrant my alterations, pray publish it according to your reading. But make any use of that letter, as well as of this, which you may think desirable. Believe me, my dear sir, faithfully yours, F. D. MAURICE.

P.S.-If you wish it, I will write to the "Record" or any other paper; but the chance of my letter being inserted is, I should think, small (at least in the "Record ").*

The two following letters agree with the expressions in the letter of Mr. Maurice, and prove that Mr. Robertson, while wishing Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley God-speed in their work, and refusing to shrink from their side, neither adopted the views they then held, nor gave his personal sanction to the means they employed:

*The "Record" has denied that these letters appeared in its columns, but there they are nevertheless.