ally the ministers of God's Word and Sacraments, whether any unreality on their part can give occasion still to such genial natures to hold aloof? We plead not for the sin of scepticism. It is a great sin, even as it is a great misfortune: and the natural pride of man's heart gives almost all of us a bias towards it. We love not to be bare learners; we like to find, if not to teach. We are most of us tempted to assert our superiority to our fellows. The cheapest way of doing this, it is obvious, is by smiling on their faith, by pitying their credulity. But Napier's nature was too noble to fall a prey to this temptation. In his case, it would really seem that truth in its fulness was not clearly placed before the mind. The abstract doctrine of the Atonement may doubtless save a soul alive; but how far easier to receive it, when it comes to us in the guise of sacramental beauty, waited on by love and reverence as handmaidens! This was denied to Napier, and his ardent heart, despite its many temporal affections, was orphaned in the world. Nothing less than the knowledge and the love of GOD could satisfy such a nature.

We pass on to other points, for, after all, it would be unfair to recognise this central defect in a hero's mind, without acknowledging his vast and sterling merits.

We are willing to take Sir Charles's estimate of the real value of his services in repressing the threatened Chartist outbreak in the North rather than that of the Government of the day. No man assuredly was ever more modest than he, though his proximity to the menacing danger may have led to an unconscious exaggeration. There, however, he earned no laurels, received, that is, no public recognition of his services. It was not till he had attained to just sixty years of age that he found occasion to display his genuine powers as Commander in Scinde, in 1843, against the Beloochees. It is not a little interesting to read his own comments on the fact, noting first his dread of personal ambition.

"Roree, December 21st. Ten thousand fighting men and their followers are encamped here at Alore, a town built by Alexander the Great. My tent overlooks this most beautiful encampment. The various sounds, the multitude of followers, the many costumes and languages, and the many religions, produce a strange scene which makes a man think, Why is all this? why am I supreme? A little experience in the art of killing, of disobedience to Heaven's behests, is all the superiority that I, their commander, can boast of! How humbled thinking makes me feel! Still I exult when beholding this force. I have worked my way to this great command, and am gratified at having it, yet despise myself for being so gratified! Yes! I despise myself. Not as feeling unworthy to lead, for I am conscious of knowing how to lead, and my moral and physical courage are equal to the task: my contempt is for my worldliness. Am I not past sixty? Must I not soon be on the bed of death? And yet so weak as to care for these

things! No. I do not. I pray to do what is right, and just to have strength to say, Get thee behind me, Satan! Alas! I have not that strength. Well, this comfort remains. With a secret and strong desire to guide in war, I have avoided it studiously.” —P. 265.

We do not say that there was nothing morbid in these feelings; the war was possibly just, nay, essential, and Napier believed so, and there is a lack of cheerful trust in GoD's Providence. Yet have we not all the elements of moral, even of religious greatness here? Was not this man a hero? Must not Britain be proud to rank him among her sons? The glories of the Scindian campaign, of the march upon Emaum Ghur, and the great and decisive battles of Meeanee and the Dubba, need not be here narrated. We have the highest commendations of the military genius displayed by Sir Charles in the private notes of the Duke of Wellington, the best of authorities. It interests us more, and will our readers probably, to note little points of character such as these. He is talking of himself and his brothers in a private diary :

"We are all a hot, violent crew, to do us justice, with the milk of human kindness though. We were all fond of hunting, fishing, and shooting; yet all gave them up when young men, because we had no pleasure in killing little animals. George and I were bold riders. [What Ideals' for Mr. Kingsley's novels!] Once at a drag hunt we beat the whole field, going neck and neck; my horse beat his in a lane, but could not clear a five-barred gate at the end, and both rolled over headlong, breaking the top bar: George cleared gate, me, and horse, as we rolled together. He was a bolder rider than I was, and when his blood was up all the devils in hell" [rather strong language !]" would not stop him in a hunt or a battle. We, however, always found it pain, not pleasure, to worry poor animals. Lately in camp a little hare got up, the greyhounds pursued, and the men all shouted to aid the dogs: my sorrow was great, and I rode away, yet at dinner I ate a poor fowl! It is not principle therefore on which we act, it is a painful feeling."Pp. 290, 291.

But a noble feeling, we must add; though of course all are not bound to yield to it. We do not condemn field sports; but were there ever men who realised the "chevalier sans peur, et sans reprôche" like these? At last the great battle of Meeanee is to be fought. On its eve he writes:

"Journal, 16th February. My troops are in high spirits, so am I. Not to be anxious about attacking such immensely superior numbers is impossible; but it is a delightful anxiety. Three hours I have to get some sleep, and at nine o'clock to-morrow my gallant soldiers shall be launched against these brave Beloochees! It is my first battle as a commander, and may be my last. At sixty that makes little difference; but as my feelings are, it shall be do or die. Beaten, I could not show my face unless the fault was with the troops."-P. 323.

He was too tired and too busy to record more than the bare fact of the victory next day. Immediately after, in a private letter, he wrote:

"Riding over the plain of Meeanee afterwards, I said to myself, Am I guilty of these horrid scenes? My conscience reproached me not. I was weary."-P. 326.

And to Captain Kennedy:

"We beat them, John, at Meeanee: the battle was terrible. I afterwards rode over the horrid field, and questioned my conscience: this blood is on the Ameers, not on me! How I escaped Heaven knows; I do not. We were for three hours and a half only one yard apart: man to man: fearful odds, and they fought like heroes. Covered by their shields, they ran upon us sword in hand with desperate fury, but down they went under the musket and bayonet all fought hand to hand."

Again, on the 18th, we find this-to us-touching record:

"Well, it was a fearful fight! I feel now frightened at my own boldness, but having worked my courage up to try, have been successful. The 22nd gave me three cheers after the fight, and one during it. Her Majesty has no honour to give that can equal that, if indeed she gives me any. I do not want any; none at least but what awaits a victor from history. I shall be glad though of a medal with the officers and soldiers; sharing with them will be an honour of more value to me than any other that can be given."

His beautiful letters to officers' widows we shall not cite, but one more long extract we must give from the private diary, premising that Lord Ellenborough, then Governor-General, seems to have exhibited the sympathy of genius with genius throughout.

"March 31st. Nineteen long letters from Lord Ellenborough! He has made me Governor of Scinde, with additional pay; and he has ordered the captured guns to be cast into a triumphal column, with our names. I wish he would let me go back to my wife and girls, it would be more than pay, and glory, and honours: eight months away from them, and my wife's strange dream now realised! This is glory, is it? Yes! Nine princes have surrendered their swords to me on fields of battle, and their kingdoms have been conquered by me and attached to my own country. I have received the government of the conquered province, and all honours are paid to me while living in mine enemy's capital! Well, all the glory that can be desired is mine, and I care so little for it, that the moment I can, all shall be resigned to live quietly with my wife and girls: no honour or riches repays me for absence from them. Otherwise this sort of life to me is agreeable, as it may enable me to do good to these poor people. Oh! if I can only do one good thing to serve them where so much blood has been shed in

accursed war, I shall be happy. May I never see another shot fired! Horrid, horrid war! Yet how it wins upon and hardens one when in command! No young man can resist the temptation, I defy him; but thirty and sixty are different."

The simplicity, the straightforwardness, the perfect truthfulness of all this is to us very charming. Then at last when the news of honours accorded, rather tardily, came from England, and others were disappointed that his reward was not greater, thus writes the grand old warrior:

"The fellows here are wroth, very, that only a grand cross has been given to me. I tell them, and think so too, that a regiment and grand cross is more than enough for one man; and it is idle to suppose because the Whigs gave Lord Keane a peerage, the Tories are to do the same by me: a precedent for a good act should be followed, not for a bad one !"-P. 421.

A passage follows, which seems to us one of the noblest and most heartstirring in the whole compass of records of high principle and gallant feeling.

"Roberts has come from the Delta, and brought up two scoundrel Kerdars who have been riding roughshod over the ryots. I will make such an example as shall show the poor people my resolution to protect them. Yes! I will make this land happy if life is left me for a year; nay, if only for six months they shall be sorry to lose the Bahadoor Jung. I shall then have no more Beloochees to kill. Battle! Victory! Oh! spirit-stirring words in the bosom of society, but to me! oh, GOD! how my heart rejects them! That dreadful work of blood, sickening even to look on: not one feeling of joy or exultation entered my head at Meeanee or Dubba; all was agony, I can use no better word. I was glad we won, because better it was to have Beloochees slain than Englishmen, and I well knew not one of us would be spared if they succeeded to win was my work for the day, and the least bloody thing to be done! But with it came anxiety, pain of heart, disgust, and a longing never to have quitted Celbridge, to have passed my life in the 'round field,' and the devil's acre,' and under the dear yew trees on the terrace among the sparrows: these were the feelings which flashed in head after the battles. Well, we are born for war in this good world, and will make it while men have teeth and women have tongues. But away with these feelings! let me go to work, let me sink in harness if God so pleases: he who flinches from work, in battle or out of it, is a coward.'

my

That was never Charles James Napier! To see this brave man shrinking from the horrors of war is an instructive spectacle. In this respect he pairs well with the noblest hero of the Crimea, Lord Raglan. O, that the day may be at hand when swords are to be beaten into ploughshares, and the nations learn war no more! We must break off here, noting only in conclusion the generous

and earnest appeal of the veteran to Government for Chaplains for his poor soldiers, written in the spirit of a Christian warrior: "I cannot believe that such a Government will allow mammon to cross the path of our SAVIOUR, to stand between the soldier and his GOD, and let his drooping mind thirst in vain for the support his Church ought to afford."

"Cum talis sis utinam noster esses omnino !" rises involuntarily to our lips. What was lacking? Objective teaching, a definite creed, sacramental life, faith in the spirit of self-denial of the Church's ministers, faith in her suffering LORD. For ourselves, let us take the warning! May no spirit of compromise with truth or duty, no bowing down to the Rimmon of popular opinion and supposed expediency, make us cast a needless stumbling-block in the way of such men, by teaching them involuntary distrust of the entire candour and integrity of those whom God has appointed for their spiritual friends and helpers. As little may we be hurried by party-haste and party-spirit to needlessly extreme measures. "To speak the Truth in Love" is our call, is our essential duty.

Earnest-hearted religious men, it may be observed, of every sect are always something more than Protestants. Sir Charles James Napier was no "Gallio." "Gallio." God forbid! But he was emphatically a Protestant. May he find peace! And may we hesitate not to teach and proclaim and act out that faith which was once delivered to the saints, and which can alone satisfy the restless cravings, and quiet the perturbed intellect of the Nineteenth Century!

NOTE ON CHURCH AND DISSENTERS' SCHOOLS.

In looking through the Summary Tables contained in the last volume of Minutes published by the Committee of Council for Education, we were led to a closer investigation of their bearing on Church Education; and some of the results are so curious, that we venture to think they will interest our readers, e.g.

GOVERNMENT EDUCATIONAL RETURNS FOR ENGLAND AND WALES.