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Those social and political problems which rack and torture modern society we have undertaken to solve for ourselves in our own way and on our own principles." It is a great human experiment, a new missionary power on the earth. Reverently we feel," continues the Evangelist, "that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to the nations with great truths to preach. We must speak them boldly, and whoso hath ears to hear let him hear; "--and then, after this emphatic use of our Lord's words, comes the sentence, to us so blasphemous, in which the South clothes itself, in "the agony and bloody sweat," which is to sanctify its cause, and claims to be pouring out that blood of martyrdom which is to be the seed, in this case, of the oligarch's monopoly and the slave-driver's whip.

From The Spectator, 20 June. rejected" Son of Man. The article to which THE CONFEDERATE EVANGEL." we allude is written throughout in the exalted THE Confederates are at least admirable for strain of fanatical belief and propagandism. the frankness and enthusiasm of their faith. It is not for the sake of the South only, not While their unfortunate English advocates for America only, that this divine experitry with painful industry and contortions of ment is being tried. "The establishment of intellect to believe and prove that the triumph the Confederacy," says the writer, "is verily of the Confederacy will be the surest death- a distinct reaction against the whole course of blow to slavery, the great representatives of the mistaken civilization of the age. And this their thought, and even the spokesmen of is the true reason why we have been left their Government, are daily witnessing, and without the sympathy of the nations, till we ostentatiously calling heaven and earth to conquered that sympathy with the sharp edge witness, to their reverence for it. They tri- of the sword. For Liberty, Equality, Fraumph in being a "peculiar people," set ternity, we have deliberately substituted apart by the King of kings to proclaim a new Slavery, Subordination, and Government. gospel to the world; they glory with passionate fervor in what all Europe regards as their shame and humiliation; they thank God that they are accounted worthy to suffer like the early Christians in this equally divine cause; they speak of themselves in language far stronger than that of St. Peter, as much more than "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God"-nay, we scarcely like to write down words which may sound like blasphemy, but which we profoundly believe to have been written in the highest mood of exalted faith, -but they adopt in moments of enthusiasm much higher language than this: they speak not only of having sanctified their cause by their baptism of sacrificial blood, but expressly of their claim" by their agony and bloody sweat," to plead before the mountains the Lord's controversy, to establish on the strong foundations of the earth in place of the infidel principle of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," the good tidings of great joy which are comprised in the formula, " Slavery, Subordination, Government." We are not exaggerating. Weare quoting from an article in the Richmond Examiner of May 28, a paper which is held as the foremost in the South for ability and influence. No one can read that article without a certain shudder of conviction that here is the spokesman of a people profoundly in earnest in what they are doing-that here is a fanatic who really thinks, and has a large following in thinking, that the South is set apart by God as a sort of political Saviour for the rest of the world, and feels warranted in adopting the same language of triumph in the contumely now attached to slavery which Christians only apply to the "despised and

It may be said of course with some show of reason, that this sort of fanaticism does not fairly represent the South; that you must no more judge the Southerners by the violent and blasphemous fanaticism of the Richmond Examiner than you would the North by the enthusiasm of W. Lloyd Garrison or Frederick Douglas. It is curious, indeed, that the very same language is used on both sides ;the earnest abolitionists, like Mr. Conway, frequently applying to the despised negro that very language which the Prophets applied in the first instance to the Jewish people, and then to their Divine Head. For our own part, we see a great significance in this strange grasping at the language of Christian faith among the extreme partizans on both sides, and, without affecting to think there are more Southerners to endorse the one than Northerners to endorse the other, we are profoundly convinced that here you see the ulti

mate tendencies of both sections of the Union, the sufferings and the agony of slavery. Inif each should be allowed to develop fully and deed, the tone of this address was, on the freely the "idea" which is in them. In the whole, so mild and didactic, that it received one, you would get a structure rigidly based an early and almost emphatic welcome from on slavery from the lowest caste of society, our sedate contemporary. Now, what do these and carrying up the claim of strength to deal four hundred gentlemen say about the cornerwith the weak as it thinks fit into the strata stone of their system? Do they encourage, above, by the aid of the Richmond Examiner's as the Times correspondent in the South second great apophthegm that " among equals would have us believe, the notion of an early equality is right; among those who are nat- emancipation movement so soon as the South urally unequal, equality is chaos; that there has established its independence? Do they are slave races born to serve, master races tell us, as the inventive mind of English symborne to govern; "-and, he ought to add, pathy repeats-only the more eagerly the the lees and dregs of master races born to be more utterly groundless the dream appears, their tools in carrying out their will on the-that the true way to secure freedom for the race of slaves. In the other, we shall have a structure of society more and more deeply penetrated by the Abolitionist idea of the divine rights of the weak and the oppressed to a protected freedom, leavening, we trust, the prejudiced and narrow, though not radically ungenerous ideas, which always pervade large masses of imperfectly cultivated men, till the spirit of freedom and reverence at length subdues even the bigotry of headless majorities, that have to grope their own blind way to statesmanship. We have always maintained that the missionary principles and leaders on both sides are destined to prevail over the lukewarm; and the process is going on rapidly before our eyes.

slaves is to say at once to the South, without conditions, "Go in peace?" On the contrary, they give thanks for slavery,—much on behalf of the whites, more on behalf of the slave himself. Let them speak for themselves: "With all the facts of the system of slavery in its practical operations before us, as eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, having had perfect understanding of all things' on this subject of which we speak, we may surely claim respect for our opinions and statements. Most of us have grown up from childhood among the slaves; all of us have preached to and taught them the word of life; have administered to them the ordinances of the Christian Church; sincerely love them If any one, like our amiable and sedate as souls for whom Christ died; we go among contemporary, the Globe, for instance, them freely, and know them in health and which invariably endeavors, in its own culti- sickness, in labor and rest, from infancy to vated but rather helpless way, to mediate be- old age. We are familiar with their physical tween European political convictions, and the and moral condition, and alive to all their Southern slavery, doubts this inevitable interest; and we testify, in the sight of God, gravitation of the South towards the extreme that the relation of master and slave among development of the extreme propagandist idea us, however we may deplore abuses in this, it has so rashly hugged to its bosom, let him as in other relations of mankind, is not innote how steadily even the anxious tempor- compatible with our holy Christianity, and izers pass under its influence. There is an that the presence of the Africans in our land address to which four hundred Christian min- is an occasion of gratitude on their behalf, isters of all denominations in the Southern before God: seeing that thereby Divine States have lately given in their signatures at Providence has brought them where missionRichmond, and addressed to "Christians aries of the Cross may freely proclaim to them throughout the world." Now, when minis- the word of salvation, and the work is not ters of the Gospel try to put the best face on interrupted by agitating fanaticism. The the Southern case to "Christians throughout South has done more than any people on the world," we may be sure they will be as earth for the Christianization of the African moderate in crossing the convictions of Chris-race." They go on to say that the slaves tians throughout the world as they can be consistently with their own position. From them, at least, we need not fear that the most sacred words and ideas will be applied to

who have escaped since the war are gone, "and, we aver, can go to no state of society that offers them any better things than they have at home, eitherin respect to their temporal

choose to do so without more distinct authority, and said he would write for credentials, when Mr. Mason rejoined by a letter of indignation evidently written for publication, and intended to demolish Mr. Conway, in which he exposes to the United States the dealings of the Abolitionist party. We shall be sur

or eternal welfare." It would, of course, be much worse, both for the "temporal and eternal welfare" of the slave, if the system which legalizes, and sometimes almost insists on, brutality, adultery, and the disruption of family life, were entirely done away with. Clearly the four hundred ministers of Christ's Gospel have only diluted the more earnest lan-prised, however, if the effect, on the whole, guage of the Richmond Examiner, for foreign-perhaps the carefully calculated effect-of consumption.

Mr. Conway's measure be not to convince Englishmen of the utter futility of their hopes for a Confederate emancipation. Mr. Mason concludes with saying, "As some reward, however, for your interesting disclosure, your inquiry whether the Confederate States will consent to emancipation shall not go wholly unanswered. You may be assured, then, and perhaps it may be of value to your constituents to assure them, that the Northern States will never be in relations to put this question to the South, nor will the Southern States ever be in a position requiring them to give an answer," a somewhat enigmatic piece of braggadocio, but conveying, we take it in connection with the whole tone of the letter, Mr. Mason's conviction that, however agreeable to the Confederates the prospect of peace

But, finally, what do the Southern statesmen say to the assertion of their English friends that their first wish is to get rid of slavery as soon as they have got rid of the Northern aggression? We have a curious glimpse of this aspect of the subject in the correspondence just published between Mr. Mason, the Confederate diplomatist here, and Mr. Conway, the representative of the Abolitionist party. Mr. Conway, by birth a Virginian, and a true Southerner by political instinct, though his faith in freedom has induced him to sacrifice even patriotic feeling for his duty to the slaves, has just written to Mr. Mason to make him an offer on the part of the American Abolitionist party. They support the war, he says, on anti-slavery principles alone; if the Confederates would and independence with slavery may be, war, emancipate honestly, or promise an emanci- or even subjugation, would be preferable to pation guaranteed by European powers with- casting away this corner-stone of their great in the limits of any reasonable time, the edifice. Northern Abolition party would no longer And, no doubt, this is the truth. The care to conduct a war which would then, in- Confederacy has but one political idea which deed, be a mere war for empire." They dominates the imaginations of men. That are fighting for something much better than idea is the new gospel of" Slavery, Subordiempire-freedom. That once secured, they nation, Government,”-the good tidings of would not care to rule the continent of Amer- great joy that every African is born to be ica, but be quite ready to part in peace. scourged on earth, and subjected to the vile Unfortunately, however, that once secured, passions of his white masters, before he can the Confederates would not care to keep their earn his salvation. Mr. Mason would probseparate nationality, which is based not on ably not have scrupled for a moment to nethe love for self-government, but on the love gotiate an alliance with the Northern Demofor the arbitrary government of others. It crats; but with the Abolitionists! why, it was for this purpose, and this only, that they would have been better a thousand times to seceded, and Mr. Mason has evidently a very propose a surrender without terms to the distinct impression that his superiors are by mercy of the Northern armies. The Confedno means prepared to abandon the despotic erates are making war for something more privilege for the sake of which they have run than an idea. They have a fanatic faith in all this risk. He replied to Mr. Conway's their own horrid institution; and if asked first letter by a diplomatic feint, which shows to choose between that and independence, that he is a very sly man indeed, and might have succeeded in inculpating more than one Abolitionist with the Federal Government. He wanted Mr. Conway to produce the names of his Abolitionist principals. Mr. Conway did not

they would probably prefer political servitude for themselves, with the sacred right of tyranny over others, to an independence which, in sacrificing the right to keep others under the yoke, would have lost all its sweetness and flavor.

of a new political era have been awakened in a dim and shadowy way. But all this is on a scale that makes it very safe. Nine-tenths of the Chamber will still be composed of deputies who would vote black was white if they were bidden, and, therefore, the practical course of Government cannot be changed. Nor are the large towns at all less securely in the grasp of their master than they were. Paris may return an Opposition deputy in every district, but Paris is at the mercy of a ruler who has barracks full of soldiers within the city, and who has cleared in every direction these open paths for cannon-balls the spectacle of which, because they are lined with big white houses and rows of trees, is supposed by M. Persigny to awaken so much gratitude and pleasure in the Parisians. Lyons, and Marseilles are as liable as they were ten years ago to those fatal raids which swept off so many innocent and unknown men to the horrors of a penal settlement, and hushed the discontented into the silence of a gloomy fear. Therefore the reality of power is the same, and the deep foundations of the Imperial Government remain unshaken. But the empire has a new spirit and energy thrown into it by the presence of capable and eminent men in its councils, and the intellect of its great cities is saved from stagnation and despair, while yet the invisible chains it never ceases to wear are sufficient to prevent it from doing any harm.

From The Saturday Review, 13 June. THE RESULTS OF THE FRENCH ELECTIONS. THERE is much in the general result of the elections in France which might be supposed to harmonize very well with what Imperialism is theoretically. For it would be unjust to deny that, in the mind of the emperor, and of those who are capable of seeing Imperialism through the halo with which his fancy surrounded it, the Government which the Second Napoleon was destined to establish was something more than a mere stupid, grinding despotism. It was to be a strong Government, with a strong mind at the head of it, but at the same time it must realize the hopes and satisfy the wishes of every section and class. And, among other persons, those who think for their neighbors, and reflect upon public life, and have a sense of civic patriotism, ought to be able to contribute all they can to the public service. It is at once a discredit and a danger to a great country that a heavy shroud of deadly ignorance and apathy should completely envelope it. There ought to be some stir, some life, some vent for the ardor, or the doubts, or the discontents of the educated classes. The press, indeed, is full of dangers, and an Imperial Government that could bear to have the truth told of it every morning would cease to be itself. Nor is Parliamentary government, after the English pattern, to be tolerated, for it is absurd that the Government should be committed to the hands of one man, and yet that A sanguine and enlightened Imperialist he should be made to do what he perhaps might easily carve out some comfort for himentirely disapproves of because a certain ma- self of this sort; and it appears to us to be chinery of votes and speechifying has been substantially true that a certain degree of brought to play against him. But the em-political life is quite consistent with at least pire might obtain a safe advantage if the sense the temporary strength of the empire. There and intellect of the nation could but be brought to light, and made to show themselves, and to work in an appointed path, while yet their activity was kept within a recognized limit. And it might be said that this is very much what is promised by the recent elections. The large towns have, it is true, shown a new disposition to think and act for themselves. A thrill of political life has passed through the population. In many important constituencies deputies have been returned to oppose the ministry, and in many others the success of the ministerial candidate has been seriously imperilled. Men who can teach the Government something have been sent to the Chamber, and the hopes and fears

is no reason why the emperor should not do what the country wishes him, and be only the better established for complying; and he may learn what he is to do by having the index of an effective Opposition to guide him. He is, indeed, saved by his position from having to make those sudden promises of a change of policy which are forced on the rulers of constitutional countries by the shifting tides of parliamentary majorities. Nor need he give up any object on which he has set his fancy, or abandon any enterprise with which he has connected his name. He is not likely to depart from that system of large expenditure on public works which has, indeed, been a severe drain on France in the last ten

years, but which has certainly gained him | place have the clerical party or their friends much popularity, and has directed the hoards ventured on any strong appeal to the masses of his subjects into many profitable invest- on the points most dear to the chief chamments. He will scarcely abandon the Mexi-pions of the Papacy. There has been scarcely can expedition, and the Mexicans will prob- an allusion to the temporal power of the pope ably have to suffer severely for their cour- or to the Christian duty of supporting it. It ageous and resolute defence of Puebla. But is evident that Frenchmen of the present day it was unmistakable at the elections that all do not care about keeping the pope up and those in France who are capable of reflecting aggrandizing or protecting the Church, in the on political subjects are bent on a diminu- sense in which they care about having fewer tion of the public expenditure, and on avoid- taxes to pay or having their relations saved ing for the future the squandering of French from being sent to die of yellow fever in the life and money in distant purposeless expe- tropics. A year ago, when the emperor was ditions. It was not only the success of the supposed to be hesitating whether he should Opposition candidates that showed this, or let the Italians have Rome or not, it was the confidence with which they appealed on generally thought that the great influence these two points to the convictions of their which the priests could bring to bear against countrymen. In many places the ministerial him if he ceased to occupy Rome went far candidate had to take exactly the same line, to determine his resolution. But the elecand denounced extravagant expenditure and tions have shown that the priests could do useless enterprises in a way which nothing little to hurt him, and that he may be guided but the approval of the préfet could have by considerations of pure secular expediency. made to appear becoming in a friend, of the Nor is this all. The priests have been shown Government. The emperor may, therefore, to be capable of being something worse feel sure that France at this moment would than defeated. They have been shown, like him to be a little more economical, and in at least one remarkable instance, to be a little less venturous, and, if he takes the willing to be bought over. M. de Montalemhint, France will be pleased. The Opposi- bert, the first of Catholic orators, the chamtion will, of course, decline to be satisfied, pion of Rome, the philosophic friend of the and will suggest that his economy is not Papacy, the literary hero of Ultramontanism, sufficiently economical, and that his caution was rejected, and he was rejected because the as to engaging in foreign entanglements is bishop of the diocese worked openly and hard not sufficiently cautious. But if, on the against him. The bishop, when appointed, whole, he is plainly going in the direction undertook to be a friend of the Governmeħt, in which the country desires he should go, and he has amply redeemed his promise. It mere criticism of details will be powerless is impossible to overrate the importance of to diminish the favorable impression which the fact. The Government was very anxious this will produce. And if this is the result to keep M. de Montalembert out, and the of the elections, it is by no means clear that chief reason for this anxiety was the appreFrance, feeling the great fact that power lies hension lest the eloquence and the fame of in the hands of the chief of the army, and the great orator might cause embarrassment that there is no chance of any great and sud- whenever the Government was supposed to den access of liberty, will not be very toler- be endangering the interests of Catholicism. ably content. And yet such a man has been condemned to silence, and the Papacy has lost its champion in the Chamber, through the agency of a bishop. Nothing could provoke a more bitter contempt in the minds of Frenchmen for the clerical party, or more amply justify the indifference with which the cause of the priests appears to be regarded.

And it must be remembered that if, in one direction, the Government has suffered a defeat, and has discovered more of political thought and political courage than it expected, in another direction it has achieved a great triumph. The recent elections have done much to rid it of its fear of the clergy. The priests have carried their candidates in very few places. One or two of the Ultramontane opponents of the Government have been returned, but that is all. And in no

This makes the path of the emperor much clearer. It is not difficult for a man with his ability to fall in with the general line in which the political thought of the coun