welcome with great joy any new work of art that seeks to lay its foundations upon these fundamental principles. Mr. Carpenter's work is so grounded. For this reason we take pleasure in mentioning him to our countrymen as an artist who approximates a true conception of the great end of art, showing it to be something more than the commonplaceness of intent which we ordinarily see in picture-galleries. He is an artist who is zealously ambitious, not only to do worthily what he does at all, but to do something worthy of being done; who labors humbly and reverently, looking to the Heavens for help; who believes in the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; who knows that any quickening less than this is unworthy of that art which, in its historic prime, was devoted to better than mere vain, fashionable, and worldly ends-that art whose departed glories will never again be achieved unless striven for in a like spirit of faith and prayer. It is the high praise of this picture that it sprang out of such a mood of mind. Since it is the work of a young man who means to try his hand again (and, we trust, many times), it is not necessary to his deserved encomium that his first memorable canvas should be in all points, either of drawing or coloring, a marvel of skill. The fact that we have among our artists this man, and a few others of like temper, who paint their pictures in religious earnestas Straduarius wrought his sweet-sounding violins is the victory we wish to chronicle and crown. Twenty men who, to fine natural genius, should add such a religious spirit—intensifying, developing, and multiplying the force of their intellectual faculties-would byand-bye carry up American art into a worthiness of comparison with the elder and golden days.

So far as we know, Mr. Carpenter is the only artist

who as yet has been moved to commemorate the greatest American event of the present age-proving thereby, perhaps, that no man is more worthy of the subject than he who first had eyes to discover it; yet he has set forth his lofty theme with such a modesty of treatment that if he had chosen, instead, a far humbler subject he could hardly have chosen a much simpler style. The design is graceful and natural, without the dramatic quality which an artist with a more intense constructive faculty would have sought. The various likenesses, both in face and figure, are so true to life that one feels like saluting them by name-particularly the likeness of Mr. Lincoln, which is more nearly the man himself than any other portrait of him we have yet seen-conveying that indescribable sadness in his eyes which is the chief indication of greatness in his countenance.

Here, therefore, is a work of art which is to be judged, as all great works ought to be judged, not only by the measure of technical skill which it displays, but by the evidence it affords of the artist's consecration to that high end for which God has lent the artistic faculty to the human mind. Here is a devout young man giving his first great canvas to no less an end than the Liberty of his Country-an example worthy to be heeded by many older practitioners in a profession which is now busying itself too much with pretty trifles to the neglect of grander things.

OUR CANDIDATE FOR THE NEXT

PRESIDENCY.

E have an early word to say concerning the next Presidency. A few newspapers are protesting that something else, just now, is more impor

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tant to be thought of than politics. Unmake the rebellion first, say they, and make the presidency afterward. But the appointed time to remake the presidency will come before we have unmade the rebellion. To be preparing now for the next presidential issue is one thing; to be caucusing with candidates is quite another. It is too early, we agree, to be insisting upon men, but not too early to be establishing principles. The candidate is the mere ball upon the fountain; the principle is the perennial stream that tosses him up or tumbles him down.

The presidency of George Washington was not, and of Abraham Lincoln is not, of equal importance with that of the next four years. Washington entered upon his office just after a great storm had ended; Lincoln, just before a greater storm had burst; the next president will go to his office while the tempest rages over his head. Or are we, as some predict, to have peace before next summer? No: we may not have war, but we shall not have peace. For, though military hostilities may cease (which we doubt), yet, when the war of bayonets has ended, the war of diplomacy will begin. The collision of armies will give place to the collision of parties. On the next morning after peace, a strife of cunning questions will open.

The enemy, throwing away his worst weapon, the sword, will resume his best, the tongue. So that, even if the battle-smoke shall be blown away by the breath of the next June roses, danger will still remain.

"A nation tired of war," said De Tocqueville, "will submit to be duped for the sake of peace." This nation, now confronting such a peril, seeks in advance to mould a government able to ward off the cheat. To settle a civil war is usually a harder task than to wage it. It is, in fact, the most difficult duty that can devolve upon a government, one almost never well done-the proof of which is, that almost every civil war in history has ended in a compromise. Shall ours? God forbid! But how avert it? "To be forewarned is to be forearmed." Let us be wise in time, that we may not be "duped for the sake of peace."

The next administration, if it shall open with an unexpected peace, will have its hands more full of various labors than under a continued war. Government has a cohesive power during war greater than during peace. A national emergency, such as the American Revolution, or the present Rebellion, consolidates all loyal interests-fusing all men's minds into a single purpose, and compacting the government into a terrible strength. But peace, with its diversity of interests, dividing and scattering popular sympathy, uncentralizes the governing power. It will be a harder task to unite parties under the next administration than it has proved under this. It will require a finer statesmanship to conduct the next administration than it has had for this. Great statesmen are few in any countrylike great poets. But, few as they are, we must find one for the next presidency.

What a complication of problems the next four years

will bring! The establishment of Human Liberty; the reconstruction of a broken Republic; the readjustment of the rights of the States, and of the Federal Government; the status of the negro, and his conversion into a voter; the punishment of treason; the re-ownership of Southern lands; the Mexican question; the Monroe doctrine; the national finances; the re-absorption of a disbanded soldiery into citizenship; the establishment of a standing army large enough to defend liberty, and not large enough to menace it; these and many other problems, foreseen and unforeseen, are the unparalleled difficulties which the next administration must meet and master.

That administration, facing in advance such an uncounted multitude of duties, must be equal to the emergency. The country cannot afford to risk any secondrate committee to be its President and Cabinet. It needs first-class men-every one a pure diamond! If Cromwell and Milton themselves could step from their graves to serve us with their own genius, they could bring no superfluous ability for the occasion. When one stops to think how the immediate future of this country shuts fast in its bud the whole world's hope-how by our victory or defeat the happiness of all mankind is to be hindered or helped-so solemn and serious becomes the question of the national leadership that sober men may well ask, "Who is sufficient for these things?"

The man who comes bearing credentials for the next presidency must demonstrate, as his first token of fitness, his allegiance to God, Liberty, and Human Rightspossessing a reverent mind, heightened to the noblest conception of the function of Government, the grandeur of Justice, and the nobility of Man. The chief object of government stops short of nothing less than the uplifting