From The Spectator.
POLYGAMY.

ple under the same temptation. One mighty community, a tenth of the human race, bases its whole social system, from the descent of thrones to the smallest ceremony, upon the necessity of keeping the line intact, and pundits almost deny that heaven is possible to the man who dies childless. Is the church to allow, as Hindooism does, that polygamy, in itself admitted to be an evil, is justified when it averts this hardship? The argument proves too much, and should never have been advanced by a bishop who would not admit that the command, "Leave all and follow me," was a "stumbling-block” in the way of conversion. The true argument lies in the wrong which the wives and children thus put away endure, and which could only be justified by a direct command. There certainly is no such command in Scripture, the only sentence implying such

DR. COLENSO, Bishop of Natal, is riding a hobby to death. For the last six years he has been arguing, teaching, and even preaching, that the putting away of extra wives, which the missionaries of Natal urge upon their converts, is not commanded by Christ or justified by the Gospel, and that while it delays the progress of Christianity from the natural repugnance which it creates, it is also in itself an immoral act. He now solemnly calls on Convocation, in a letter addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to give the subject "a calm and careful deliberation," and formally decide in favor of his view of the moral law. In other words, he desires that the Church of England should, after public and formal debate, decide that polygamy is not a malum in se, but a practice which, under particular circumstances, a law-"let every man have his own wife, may be allowed to Christian men. The Church had, in our judgment, much better let the matter alone.

and let every woman have her own husband"-being at least as clearly directed against celibacy, and explicable by the text In the special case of the converts, sensi- which, forbidding a minister to have more ble men will probably be inclined to agree than one wife, seems to justify the practice with the bishop, though some of his argu- among laymen. Even this idea of wrong, ments are of the shallowest order. One however, must not be pushed too far. Every which weighs very much with him-the people which permits polygamy-the Hindoo hardship of compelling a man to put away excepted-permits also divorce, and the wife his wife seems to us almost without weight. is married subject to that liability. The fact The hardship is not a bit greater than, for that the cause of divorce is a change of faith example, the renunciation of caste which does not increase the wrong she endures, every Hindoo convert gives up, and the loss though it may deepen the moral wrong of which separates him from all his own re- which the husband, awakened to new relations, his mother and children included. sponsibilities, does to his own conscience. To relax laws of this kind on the ground of A careful balance, however, between the personal hardship, is the most dangerous of wrong inflicted on individual families, and practices. In almost all Asiatic countries the evil caused by polygamy temporarily one frightful hardship exists which is pleaded tolerated among Christians, will, we think, by the people themselves as a full justifi- incline observers slightly towards the bishcation of polygamy: the woman withers op's side. Men, however devoted to literal twenty years before the man begins to de- interpretations, will not, we think, blame a cay. An Asiatic girl, married at twelve, is missionary who, secure of his own conat thirty, and often at twenty-five, a wrinkled science, tolerates polygamy among converts, scarecrow, incapable of child-bearing, and or seeks to disturb the civil immunity which hideous to the eye. Is the Church to rule polygamy has always enjoyed in heathen that in all such cases polygamy is lawful or countries governed by British law. The expedient? To many men the fact of child- monstrous system called Koolinism, under lessness is the most terrible of calamities. which certain Indian Brahmins marry a Henry the Eighth broke down a social or- score of wives and live with none of them, ganization which had lasted for centuries is not polygamy at all, but simply an arrangeonly to avert it. Napoleon sacrificed the ment subversive of ordinary morality, and wife of his youth, broke with the Revolu- open to legal action at the request of the tion, and risked his popularity with his peo-people.

But while missionaries may be left to their | trust of men conscious of divided affection, own interpretation of Scripture and sense of that there is, we believe, no community on rectitude, we deprecate strongly any action earth which allows polygamy and does not by the English Church in favor of any such also concede to the husband the power of latitude. Polygamy, though not directly life and death. Nor, we believe, is that fact forbidden, is wholly foreign to the spirit and any result of barbarism, but of a just appreessence of Christian life, as well as to the ciation of the natural laws which make every unwritten revelation found in physiological evil a source of evils more numerous still. laws. The Christian theory rests on the The example of the Mormons is nothing to unity of the husband and wife, which polyg- the point. They punish adultery with death, amy at once destroys, while the practice, by and they were bred up in all the influences introducing a permanent and irremediable of Christianity and Western civilization. cause of jealousy, breaks up the home, and Any measure, therefore, which tends to with it that form of civilization which is diminish the Western horror of polygamy is found to develop most fully the ordinary in itself, pro tanto, an injury to morals and Christian virtues. By robbing the poorer civilization, and a resolution by the English members of the community of the wives who Church affirming Dr. Colenso's proposal should have been theirs, it directly injures would be a most serious injury. The mass all whom it does not directly corrupt, while of mankind will never be restrained either it lowers of necessity the whole tone of that by the considerations of civilization or exsystem of sentiments which we in Europe pediency, nor will they believe that a thing call love. If we cared to offend the prudery wrong in itself can ever be right under which in England tolerates no plain speak- certain exceptional circumstances. Conseing, except in police reports, we could pro- quently they will either treat the decision as duce strong physical arguments, and that wholly nugatory, or they will argue that adwithout appealing to the very doubtful phys- herence to one wife is merely a rule imposed iological ground popular among English by the civil law; that, for example, it would travellers. They are very apt to affirm that be morally right for a man to turn Mormon, a race given to polygamy degenerates, for- and act on his principles, even before he had getting that the Jews have been among the reached Utah. The mass of men are caremost enduring of races, and that while the less enough of restraint as it is, without anyRoman who hated polygamy has disappeared, body offering them additional arguments in the Arab, who reduced it to system, retains favor of relaxation. No case of the special an overflowing vitality. But there is one kind which appealed to Dr. Colenso can social fact patent to all men with eyes, who ever arise in England, and the missionaries can recognize any society but that of the had much better be left to deal with excepBritish Isles. Polygamy enslaves half the tional causes in their own lands, where even human race. It cannot be worked at all an occasional blunder on either side, howwithout sharp and stern laws pressed down ever mischievous to the individual, can have on the women's necks. So strong is the in- no evil effect on society at large. fluence of jealousy, so ineradicable the dis

GREGORY OF PAULTON.-A biblical note | have named Homer, Horace, Virgil, and others, containing a quotation from this celebrated I will quote Josiah Gregory, whose mind might father, may possess some local interest, if you be compared to a diamond of the first water, would kindly reproduce it for the benefit of my whose native splendor broke in various places Paulton friends. The commentator (Dr. A. through its incrustations, but whose brilliancy Clarke), in illustration of the simile of a "tink-was not brought out for want of the hand of the ling cymbal," used by the Apostle, 1 Cor. xiii. 1., proceeds:

lapidary. Among various energetic sayings of
this great unlettered man, I remember to have
heard the following: 'People of little religion
are always noisy; he who has not the love of
God and man filling his heart is like an empty
wagon coming violently down a hill: it makes
a great noise because there is nothing in it.'"
F. PHILLOTT.

"I have quoted several passages from heathens of the most cultivated minds in Greece and Rome to illustrate passages of the sacred writers. I shall now quote one from an illiterate collier of Paulton, in Somerset; and as I-Notes and Queries.

HON. EDWIN M. STANTON.

Toombs contended that a quasi-treaty had EDWIN M. STANTON, now Secretary of been made by the officers of the GovernWar, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and is ment with the leaders of the rebellion, to about forty-five years of age. In his native offer no resistance to their violations of law town, he began the study of law, after grad- and seizure of Government property. Floyd uating at Kenyon College. During his resi- especially blazed with indignation at what dence in Ohio, he undertook the authorship he termed the "violation of honor." At of a portion of the Ohio Supreme Court Re- last Mr. Thompson formally moved that an ports, and these now bear his name. In imperative order be issued to Major Ander1848, he removed to Pittsburg, Pennsyl- son to retire from Sumter to Fort Moultrie vania, and at once took position at the head -abandoning Sumter to the enemy, and of the bar. Early in the administration of proceeding to a post where he must at once Mr. Buchanan, he was selected by Attorney- surrender. General Black to represent the Government in the important land cases of California. When General Cass-grieved and indignant-left Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, Mr. Attorney-General Black was transferred to the portfolio of State, and Mr. Stanton, then absent from Washington, was fixed upon as Attorney-General. The same night he arrived at a late hour, and learned from his family of his appointment. Knowing the character of the bold, bad men in the ascendency in the Cabinet, he determined at once to decline; but when, the next day, he announced his resolution at the White House, the entreaties of the distressed and helpless President, and the arguments of Mr. Black, prevailed upon him to accept.

At the first meeting of the Cabinet which he attended, the condition of the seceded States and the course to be pursued with the garrison of Fort Sumter was discussed. Floyd and Thompson were dwelling upon the "irritation of the Southern heart," and the folly of continuing a useless garrison to increase the irritation. No one formally proposed any course of action, but the designs of the conspirators were plain to the Attorney-General. He went home troubled. He had intended, coming at so late a day, to remain a quiet member of this discordant council. But it was not in his nature to sit quiet longer under such utterances.

The next meeting was a long and stormy one, Mr. Holt, feebly seconded by the President, urging the immediate reinforcement of Sumter, while Thompson, Floyd, and

Mr. Stanton could sit still no longer, and, rising, he said, with all the earnestness that could be expressed in his bold and resolute features," Mr. President, it is my duty as your legal adviser, to say that you have no right to give up the property of the Government, or abandon the soldiers of the United States to its enemies; and the course proposed by the Secretary of the Interior, if followed, is treason, and will involve you and all concerned in treason.” Such language had never before been heard in Buchanan's Cabinet, and the men who had so long ruled and bullied the President were surprised and enraged to be thus rebuked. Floyd and Thompson sprang to their feet with fierce, menacing gestures, seeming about to assault Mr. Stanton. Mr. Holt took a step forward to the side of the Attorney-General. The imbecile President implored them piteously to take their seats. After a few more bitter words the meeting broke up. This was the last Cabinet meeting on that exciting question in which Floyd participated. Before another was called, all Washington was startled with the rumor of those gigantic frauds which have made his name so infamous. At first he tried to brazen it out with his customary blustering manner; but the next day the Cabinet waited long for his appearance. At last he came; the door opened, his resignation was thrust into the room, and Floyd disappeared from Washington. Such was the end of Floyd, and the beginning of Stanton.-St. Louis Republican.