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"Chansons," for Béranger, in heart and life, could count his goodness by miles, and it would be telling more than the truth to say that Sue could count his by barleycorns. He was a Deist as near as his religion can be guessed at. His social ideas came from the author of "Emile." Many of his songs partake of a licentious character: for them let him have his deserts. They do not give evidence of genius, as many others of his songs, and they reverse, in a great measure, Mark Antony's opinion of the good and bad actions of men. These songs either died before the poet died or felt the death chillness creeping over them. The good Béranger did is all that gives promise of "living after" him. He is no example to the world of a Christian, and all that can be said in his honor is, that he had a kind and feeling heart, and he wrote good songs. It is not a wonder that he was not religious, when we remember the imperfect canvas and incongruous colors which constituted the picture of French religion in the former half of his life, and which promised but little change during his declining years. The wonder is that he was as good as he was. He made no professions of philanthropy. The most, perhaps, he ever said on the subject was: "When I think of the unfortunate, I wish myself only born to be rich." His love to help the poor and suffering was undoubtedly his greatest virtue, and his whole life was one continued illustration of it. In the preface to the edition of his songs in 1833, he writes: "The happiness of humanity has been the dream of my life." See what he says of his songs: "Mes chansons, c'est moi, ****. Le peuple, c'est ma Muse."

Beranger died in July, 1857, the same month, more than half a century ago, which witnessed the taking of the Bastille, when as a lyric poet and republican he was born. During his final illness the empress was very attentive to him. It is said that when she could not visit him personally she sent him little delicacies, which served to soothe, in a great measure, the pangs of sickness and approaching death. When she was a little girl he wrote snatches of poetry to please her childish fancy. "You have taken care of my youth," said she, "and now I will take care of your old age;" and she did it to the last. Immediately after his death was publicly announced, a placard was posted up at the street-corners of Paris, stating that the government would take charge of his burial, because he had expressed in his will that no popular demonstration should take place at his funeral. The placard was signed by the prefect of police. So the soldiers buried Béranger, and the people whom he so much loved had to keep their distance. It was said that he had been dead six days before his death was publicly announced, in

order that the telegraphic wires could be united at the office of the prefect of police, and soldiers could be called in from a distance. The poet of the people was then followed to his long resting-place by one hundred thousand soldiers with loaded muskets. He now sleeps in the cemetery of Pêre la Chaise, and though there is no royal dust to aristocratize the spot, there sleep around him the greatest and the best who have adorned the pulpit, the forum, and the Parnassus of France. He is worthy a place among them, and his tomb bears the simple inscription, "Béranger." Two months after his burial a number of fresh wreaths hung around his tomb. They were the offerings of affection, and it would be hard to tell who hung them there, so many poor people has he helped in their poverty and distress. It is a beautiful custom in most European countries to lay fresh wreaths day after day on the graves of departed friends. Nor are people employed to do it, as mourners are hired in Holland, but they are the offerings of the heart. Friends pay such homage at the shrine of affection scores of years after those they loved in life have gone back to their mother dust. To lay a wreath upon a friend's grave-it is as evidence that affection lives longer than years; it means that your friend wears a wreath of the unfading leaves that angels have plucked and twined, as a reward from labor and a welcome home. Let those who disbelieve in the endurance of earthly friendship and affection, stand beside one of these graves and learn a lesson of the heart. It is no mean proof that man was not stripped of all his goodness at the fall.

Since France needed a lyric poet so much, it is not likely that she will soon part with him; the less likely since he touched a chord in the heart of the nation. In many of the rustic French cottages you can see on one end of the little mantle-piece a portrait of the first Napoleon, and on the other that of Béranger. Nor are these two portraits more the indices of the peasant's character than of Frenchmen generally. The love of sword and song, it is the greatest part of their enthusiastic nature; and when the old peasant points his palsied hand to one of these portraits, he means it to be an incentive for his grandchild to glory and fame; but when he points to the other he means that to be a lesson of patriotism and kindness of heart. But there is much reason to think that the Anacreon of France has not been unappreciated across the English Channel. In fact the Conservative as well as the Liberal press has teemed with the highest encomiums upon his songs, and the old minstrel of so many vicissitudes has gone to his grave accompanied with the warmest sympathies of many an English heart. But the echoes of those songs have reached farther than across the Channel. They

have come to our own shore, and are more distinctly heard here than anywhere else out of France. The warmest admiration for Béranger, especially since his death, when a great man is always best known, has been expressed in all quarters of our country. Without subscribing in the least to his fanatical or licentious songs, we can indorse the sentiment of some of his patriotic and warm-hearted strains, for that sentiment is our own on both sides of Mason's and Dixon's Line. There can be no question that many scenes in our history, especially during the last quarter of the last century, inspired his muse with some of her noblest flights. What American can forget "Lafayette en Amérique." The French will hereafter love Béranger as the Scotch love their "plough-boy poet." His songs strike the heart and they must be permanent. Years after we are all in the dust, perhaps the poor peasant will be allowed to sing them without looking around in fear of a policeman, and will forget his labor and his poverty while he does it. In some cases they have been the war-trumpet; it is to be hoped they will yet be the lyre of peace, whose notes will echo glad tidings and make happy hearts and homes from the vine-clad hills of Provence, that reflect their shadows in the Mediterranean, to the somber forests of Normandy, that skirt the English Channel. If we can reasonably indulge such a hope, then we can the more reasonably breathe the prayer which we have learned from the Roman Catholics: May he rest in peace.

ART. VII.-THE BERLIN CONFERENCE OF 1857.

[FIRST ARTICLE.]

THERE was a time when, from almost heathenish darkness, the Christian Church broke forth into the light of evangelical truth and freedom, when bursting the sepulcher in which she had been entombed for centuries, she arose in the power of her risen Saviour and shook off her dust. In that time the great watchword was, How shall the sinner become just before God? Justification by faith alone was then the criterion of true, living Christianity. It is still so, but not in the same sense and degree. Essential as this great fundamental doctrine of the Gospel will always be to the very being of the Church, it is not now the only and pre-eminent lever which she has to use in bringing the world to Christ.

In every age the Church of Christ has a new mission to execute, and is characterized by a new watchword, by a new seal of her Divine calling. The Reformation of the sixteenth century had for her watchword, "Justification by faith." The mission of the succeeding century was, to exhibit the various truths of Divine revelation in their systematic connection as an organic whole. It was the age of Protestant orthodoxy. The glorious badge of the eighteenth century was, the work of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of every believer, and the Divine attestation of that Spirit to the believer's adoption into the family of God.

And what is to be the watchword, the badge, the peculiar mission of the Church in the nineteenth century? She dare not lack any of the former sacred commissions, but she has a new one; it is, the union of all Christians in the conversion of the world to God. It is the great truth, that as the individual Christian must have a living union with the head of the body, Christ, so the whole Christian Church must become fully conscious of herself as one body, and manifest herself to others as one body, whose different members perform various functions, while the same blood runs through all parts, the same spirit animates all the members, and one and the same head guides all the motions of the body. The prismatic colors, which reflect the rays of the one great sun of the Gospel, shall no more divide Christians, but be looked upon with as much delight as the beautifully blending colors of the rainbow, or the variegated precious stones in the breastplate of Aaron. In short, the mission of our age is, by an extension of our intellectual horizon, and still more by an enlargement of our hearts, to exhibit to the world the essential unity of the Church: the unity of the Spirit, which is well compatible with the greatest variety of form; a unity of faith which worketh by love, each branch of the Church furnishing its quota for the conquest of the world, the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth. Have we not a pledge of this glorious work in the catholicity of spirit which characterizes the great awakening of this year, with its union meetings, in which no sectarian distinctions are allowed to appear, and in which Christians of all names labor side by side in their Master's vineyard?

The highest development of the kingdom of Christ on earth, the millennial period in the history of the militant Church, the great Church historian, Neander, has fitly denominated the age of St. John, the beloved disciple. "Now abide faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity." May not what our Lord said of John, "I will that he tarry till I come," imply, besides

its primary meaning, this: that the spirit which characterizes the inspired writings of John, shall in all ages constitute the very essence of Christianity, and that it shall more universally and prominently pervade the Christian Church in its millennial glory, preparing the followers of Christ for his appearance, and enabling them to say with one accord: "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." St. John is the only evangelist who has recorded the cheering prophecy of the one fold and the one Shepherd, and the intercessory prayer of our great High Priest, which he commenced on earth and continues in heaven even unto the end of his mediatorial office. In that prayer, which our blessed Lord offered up not only for his apostles, but for all which should believe on him through their word, we hear him say: "I pray, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." And again: "I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfect in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me."

Fitly did the ancient Christian painters symbolize St. John as an eagle. Did not his spirit soar far above the narrow dales, where the eye beholds in too great projection this and another church steeple, up into those heights around the throne of the Lamb, where nothing is seen but the smoke of the incense of prayers, ascending from every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and mingling into one pillar of praise and glory? While Paul and Peter seem affected by the differences between Hebrew and Gentile Christians, St. John appears unconscious of such difference. He sees only Christians, who "know that they have passed from death unto life, because they love the brethren." "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him."

The primitive Christian Church in Jerusalem exhibited the unity for which Christ prayed, and is both a type and pledge of what the Church will be, when grown up to a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We read in the Acts: "The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And all that believed were together and had all things common. they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people."

And

This consciousness of unity remained with the Church of Christ

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