master to whom he had sold himself. The principle of "set a thief to catch a thief" seems to have been acted on in both cases. Baker, who had had something to do with the English police, is set to command the Turkish police. So Hobart, once a blockade-runner in an evil cause, was set to hinder blockade-runners in a good cause. So things were in 1868. When in 1869, Mr. Gladstone's Government came in, Hobart began again begging to be restored; but one letter, of May 7, 1869, was so insolent in its brags and insinuations that Lord Clarendon deemed that it deserved no answer at all. From this time there is a gap till October 16, 1874. Lord Derby is now again in power; Hobart sets forth his great merits in Crete, his great merits in organizing the "navy of our ally”—that is, of the foreign tyrant of Crete. Lord Derby answers in his usual fashion:

"That the reinstatement of Admiral Hobart Pasha would be of material advantage in supporting him in the position which he occupies, and might properly be accorded as a matter of Imperial policy."

It is hard to construe this jargon. Its meaning however clearly is that the position of a man who organizes a barbarian fleet, and uses it to crush the best hopes of a Christian people struggling for freedom, is a position which, in Lord Derby's opinion, deserves reward at the hands of an English Government. Babble about "Imperial policy" may of course mean anything or nothing. Such meaningless phrases are the natural refuge of a man who does not know his own mind. But, by the help of facts, we can put a meaning on them. The "Imperial policy" of Lord Derby, by which the commander of the Turkish fleet was quartered on the English tax-payer, is a policy which can forgive the grossest disobedience on the part of an English officer, if only his disobedience tends to the suppression of freedom and the promotion of tyranny. To have strangled the last hopes of Crete, to prowl about with a barbarian fleet ready to carry havoc into any other Christian island which may rise for its freedom, these are the merits which receive honour when Lord Derby represents England in the eyes of other nations. The whole thing is of a piece. It was doubtless "Imperial policy" which refused help to Cretan fugitives eleven years back, as only yesterday it forbade an English official even to beg for the lives of Bulgarian martyrs. Between the two acts fittingly came the restoration of the bitterest enemy of Hellenic freedom to the rank which his crime had forfeited. It is the same Imperial policy which finds a subject for honour in an official whose grossly false statements are refuted by his own subordinate, and whose chief merit seems to be that he had stirred up a half-reluctant savage to a further shedding of Christian blood. It is the same Imperial policy which tries to bully an independent people into a promise

to forswear their highest duty, a promise to hinder the deliverance of their brethren who are still under the yoke. It is the same Imperial policy which sends the old enemy of the Christian nations of South-Eastern Europe to represent England at the court of their oppressor, to express English "sympathy" for the oppressor, and to devise how his power of oppression may best be prolonged. Lastly, it is the same Imperial policy which mocks heaven and earth by solemnly proclaiming strict and impartial neutrality, by denouncing the penalties of the law against every British subject who shall sin against that neutrality, and then sitting calmly by while British subjects, within British jurisdiction, in a land under the authority of British courts, openly despise that neutrality, while they openly break the laws of England and disobey the proclamation of the Queen of England, by selling themselves to the service of one of the belligerent powers. With Lord Derby and Lord Beaconsfield it would be vain to appeal to the higher principles of right and wrong; it would be vain to speak to them of the blackness of their sin who sell themselves to do the Turk's foul work of wrong and oppression. But even Lord Derby and Lord Beaconsfield may perhaps understand the shame which they bring on the land which is the country of one of them, the dishonour which they bring on their Sovereign, when they make their Sovereign put forth a proclamation of neutrality, and then allow neutrality to be broken by British subjects under British jurisdiction. Here then is a distinct point for the English people. Neutrality is the favourite word, the most taking cry, of the moment. Neutrality is professed by the Government; the penalties of the law are denounced on those who infringe it. Will the English people endure the disgrace which must gather round a nation which allows the most solemn acts of its Sovereign to be thus mocked by her subjects? On such points the Ministry will doubtless deprecate discussion; they will plead earnestly not to be embarrassed. The more they deprecate the discussion of such acts, the more must we insist on discussing them. The more they seek not to be embarrassed in doing such acts, the more steadily must we do all we can to embarrass them. Surely, even among their own supporters, there must be some who are not dead to the dictates of national conscience, to the feeling of national honour. There must be some who can feel the shame of standing forth in the eyes of the world as a nation which pledges itself to neutrality, and then allows its solemn pledge to be trampled under foot, which threatens legal punishment and royal displeasure against a certain class of criminals, and then allows those criminals to carry out their evil work without lifting a hand or speaking a word to stop them. EDWARD A. FREEMAN.

ESSAYS AND NOTICES.

IT

CHARITY DELIBERATING.

F the woman who deliberates is lost, may anything like that be truly said of charity? No doubt the man who has begun to consider whether he ought to give or not is in a path which may lead him to button up his pockets, and the more frequently he hesitates over a kindly impulse, the more likely is the impulse to grow weaker and weaker.

The Indian Famine and the War are making large claims upon the purses of Englishmen just now, and though what we have given and are giving must be the proverbial drop in the bucket, or in the ocean, it is something. But few of us can have escaped reading or hearing arguments intended to make us pause in the act of subscribing to funds for the succour of the victims of the war. The plea that we must do all that we possibly can for our starving fellow-subjects in India, before we think of Russians, Turks, or Bulgarians, is simple and obvious. The other plea is not so obvious, though it must have occurred spontaneously to thousands. Every penny-that is the argument-which we send to the aid of Russian or Turkish soldiers, is so much indirect help supplied to the combatants. If we relieve them of part of the burdens which they ought to bear in regard to the wounded, what are we doing but helping them to fight on; loading their guns and sharpening their swords for them?

If there was any class of our brethren whom this kind of argument might be supposed likely to hit hard, it would be the Quakers; yet they have an organization of their own for helping the victims of the war; and, as might be expected, it is. irrespective of nationality. But it certainly struck some of the readers of Mr. Bright's late speech at Manchester-perhaps all of them-that his language about the subscriptions now going forward was lukewarm. However that may have been, it is not likely that the arguments which have been employed to make charity "deliberate," so that she should in the end be "lost," will be successful except among cold-hearted people, whose charitable pulse is too weak ever to trouble them. But those who have watched any of the paper wars that have been going on upon these matters-for instance, the Strangford-MacColl correspondence—may possibly have concluded that partisan subscriptions were, after all, the best-that is, the most expedient, or even the most logical. Subscribe for the help of the Russian wounded, or subscribe for the help of the Turkish woundedthat is a straightforward demand, and you know what you are about. Neither is there anything harsh about the limitation. It is not to be supposed that a doctor or a nurse, harnessed and supplied for the special succour of Russians, would refuse to succour a wounded Turk that came in his way; but if you define your charity, you at least know whom you are helping. The general argument against helping belligerents (because it is indirectly helping on a war) will never work, but nobody likes to think that he is indirectly helping the wrong side: while he may be glad enough to help the right. A man who would, if he could, shoulder a gun to help

the Russians against their enemies, may consistently send a guinea to assist in setting one of their warriors on his legs again; and so, of course, on the other side of the war.

But this course is attended with its disadvantages. "Sweet Charity, the child of God," is of no parish-is neither Jew nor Samaritan. And if she becomes partisan she loses much of her moral power. One of the very strongest of all arguments in favour of these missions of mercy is that they are, indirectly, a protest in the name of all Divine and human love, against all war. Still, we cannot help drawing distinctions. "Near is my doublet, but nearer is my skin." Nor is that all. In a battle of the seventeenth century between the Danes and the Swedes, a wounded Dane was on the point of drinking up some beer from a wooden bottle which he carried. A groan made him turn his head; when he saw a wounded Swede. He said, like our own Sir Philip Sidney, "Thy need is greater than mine," and knelt down to give his enemy a drink. The base Swede actually took the opportunity to fire his pistol right into the Dane's shoulder. "Thou rascal!" said the Dane-"I go to help thee, and thou wouldst requite me with murder. But this shall not go unpunished. I was about to give thee all the beer; now thou shalt only have half." This is a true story, and the Dane was ennobled by his sovereign; but the point is that it just suits our purpose as an illustration. It would be something worse than pedantic to say that in helping a Swede he was abetting the enemy's cause; and the childlike humour with which he settled the question of moral preference is better than a volume of casuistry.

The simple truth is that Charity cannot live in the atmosphere of casuistry; we are not sure that she can stand “organization" of the self-protective order—it remains to see. We must not waste money, and we must choose our "objects" as well as we can. But it is useless to bid Charity to stay her hand because, for example, every gift of hers to ill-desert is so much taken from good-desert. Superficially, it must always be so. Every conceivable act of charity is in some way vicarious; and three-fourths of such acts are deeds in which the good suffer, or do, or both, for the bad. But who has ever shown that the general basket and store is not replenished by such deeds? That it is replenished in that very manner is the working hypothesis of all beneficence without exception; of all active love and service whatever, from a mother's to a sister-of-mercy's. And, for the rest, we must bear in mind that it is also of the essence of charity that it is free in its origin. The impulse which at last opens the purse or nerves the hand for other help cannot be commanded. In other words we must give when the heart says "give." We cannot always be sure that the smitten rock sends the current right into the thirstiest land. But it must flow as it can. It is a hard case when compassion is asked to choose between a famine-struck child in India and a gashed and festering soldier under the Balkans. But there is surely a tendency in compassion to abound most freely toward suffering that is most obviously and directly caused by human wickedness and that presents the most awful signs of torture in excess of what the immediate cause might justly be expected to carry with it. However, we will not dare to follow that out. One question we may ask. Of course, twenty shillings cannot be made to count twenty-five, in any individual case. Only, if Charity goes on, as wisely as she can, but above all in faith and love, will the cruse of oil and the jar of meal fail soon? It is a horrible hour when one victim calls out, "Give me that bread, I have had none for days,-that other had food the day before yesterday"-when the surgeon or nurse has to choose between the fellowcreature with six wounds which have been dressed and the one with three which have not been touched yet-but such hours are not for any casuistry except that of inspired hearts and wills. To them, who will dictate?

I

"INTUEING."

N the last number of this REVIEW, Professor Caird, criticizing the religious system of Rousseau (if "system" be at all an applicable word), indicated the failure of his argument from the sentiment intérieur of the individual, and the raison commun. What Professor Caird said upon this subject was summed up in the words which we take the liberty of reproducing. Rousseau's answer to objectors (wrote the learned Professor) was that the truth was "to be found only in the sentiment intérieur, which teaches that God is, and that he is the maintainer of the moral order of the universe. Rousseau is fully aware of the objections to his assertion of the rights of pure subjective feeling, but his only answer is that we must distinguish the mere feeling of the individual as such, from feeling as the utterance of the raison commun. . . At the same time, Rousseau confesses freely that this appeal to sentiment is powerless as an argument against those who say that they do not feel it. A proof of sentiment for us,' he allows, 'cannot become a demonstration for them, and it is not reasonable to say to any one, "You ought to believe this because I believe it." Rousseau is in the difficulty of one who appeals solely to the individual as such, who indeed admits no other appeal, and who nevertheless asserts that there is such a thing as universal truth. But, from this point of view, a universal truth could only be that which was believed by every one, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; and the first man who honestly denied that he had any such conviction would seem to be a conclusive negative instance against its existence."

So far as to Rousseau's statement of the case and the answer to it. Our present concern with Professor Caird's article is only to thank him for it. But, of course, the difficulty is one that is perpetually recurring, and in various shapes. We have, very lately, had it repeated in so many ways that it might well have become tedious to the general reader, and probably has become so to readers sufficiently versed in the literature of such questions to recognize the old in the new. But, after all, there must be, and is, in the opinion favoured and held to be proved on one side of the schools, some recourse to intuition in these matters. What is its nature, and its limit?

On the other side of the schools there is, of course, the old familiar ridicule of any recourse whatever to intuition. This is perfectly fair, admitting for the moment their first principles. But whether they put the case of the other side of the schools fairly or completely is another question. Quite recently we have had something like the following, which we place within quotation marks, though it is nothing like verbatim. The objector is a well-known opponent of every system which admits 'necessary ideas." "You tell me,” says this objector, "that you have a power of intueing certain truths. I find I have, myself, no such power. Others also deny that they have the power; and I have no hesitation in declining to admit your pretensions to intue these things, or any other. Take the case of the power of the human eye. The man Jones tells me he can, with his eyes, intue something ten thousand miles off. I find I cannot intue anything of the kind. I therefore make an experiment. I place some admittedly known or knowable small thing at a distance off where I cannot see it myself and where other people cannot see it, and I ask him if he can intue that. When, after perfectly fair experiments of this nature, I discover that his intueing faculty will not help him at a distance of a mile, I feel justified in denying that he can intue anything up in the Milky Way."

This is rather brutal in the French sense of the word, but let that pass, while we inquire whether it is accurate, or rather complete. We affirm that it is incomplete. No reasoning man, in possession of his senses, asks any other man to receive the existence of a God (which we will suppose to be the truth in dispute) upon the ground that he, the former, "intues" it. The man who says that he intues a truth