by what he called the malice of Fate; but they were to meet again at some indefinite time and place; and more loving, true

"You see he never sent one of them, and she would not understand a syllable of them if he had. What a strange mode of building his castle in the air," said Serle. always did think that German play wasn't recited in the corner for nothing."

"Was he insane, Serle ?" said I.

"I

his will solemnly read by a lawyer from
Doctors' Commons, and found that, exclu-
sive of a mourning-ring to each of us, and a
trifling legacy to his landlady for understand-hearted letters I never saw.
ing him and the smoke, the whole of his
savings, amounting to three thousand
pounds, which had been gathered out of his
plates and designs through hard-working
years, and lodged with Cuttleman and Co.,
were bequeathed to Mrs. Henry Hawkins,
formerly called Miss Julia Jane Bellingham,
in testimony of the friendship and respect
entertained for her by her father's pupil.
The testament concluded with a strict in-
junction to us to keep his drawings, but de-
stroy all the written papers we should find,
without allowing them to be seen by any
eyes but our own. The drawings, as might
be expected, were well worth preserving, for
Carl was a born artist, and I have some of
them yet; but the written papers consisted
entirely of letters in his own hand, and in
German; bundle after bundle methodically
sealed with his crest; and all addressed to
Madame Carl von Werner at half-a-dozen
different streets and numbers, where we
knew my cousin Hawkins had encamped;
the latest being directed to his present resi-
dence, Filmore Terrace, Kensington. As
executors, we had a right to look into that
mystery, and we did it. Letter after letter
was opened and read by us both. There
was between Serle and me a smattering of
German, so we understood enough to see
that they were all addressed to his beloved
wife, Julia Jane, who was separated from him bachelor.

"Perhaps he was on that point, but Carl's insanity was not of a common kind. We had better burn these letters, and say nothing about them."

The letters were burned before we left the room, and Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins never knew any thing except that she had been left three thousand pounds by Carl Werner's will. Hawkins ever after spoke of him as a noble fellow; but his poor little wife, who had lived and borne up so well through their days of difficulty, sickened and died in the following autumn; and Henry, after doing the inconsolable for thirteen months, married advantageously into the family of a successful engraver, who had thought Carl a rival. He has since became in a manner successful himself; but the whole Bellingham lineage daily denounce him for not having shared Lady Jane's three thousand with them; and Serle and I, when we happen to be alone together-which family-men cannot often be-sometimes talk of those strange letters, and our poor friend the married

ELOQUENCE OLD IN BOTTLE.-There is an | the friend to whom it is sent shall receive and experiment mentioned by Walchius, who thinks open it, the words shall come out distinctly, and it possible so to contrive a trunk or hollow pipe, that it shall preserve the voice entirely for certain hours or days, so that a man may send his words to a friend instead of his writing. There being always a certain space of intermission, for the passage of the voice, betwixt its going into these cavities, and its coming out, he conceives that if both ends were seasonably stopped, whilst the sound was in the midst, it would continue there till it had some vent. Huic tubo verba nostra insusurremus, et cum probe munitur tabellario committamus, etc. When

in the same order wherein they were spoken. From such a contrivance as this (saith the same author) did Albertus Magnus make his image, and Friar Bacon his brazen head, to utter certain words. Which conceit (if it have any truth) may serve somewhat to extenuate the gross absurdity of that Popish relic, concerning Joseph's [Hah] or the noise that he made (as other carpenters use) in fetching of a blow; which is said to be preserved yet in a glass amongst other ancient relics.-Bishop Wilkins' Secret and Swift Messenger.

From The Athenæum. the females are in excess of the males, and ON POLYGAMY IN HEATHEN CONVERTS. in which the chiefs and elders have many A Letter to His Grace the Archbishop of wives. He speaks to these persons of gosCanterbury, upon the Question of the pel truth and the beauties of a pure faith. Proper Treatment of Cases of Polygamy, as found already existing in Converts from They ask what they will have to do on beHeathenism. From the Right Rev. J. W. coming Christians. To put away their wives Colenso, D.D., Bishop of Natal. (Pieter-all except one wife-is the first condition maritzburg, Davis.) insisted on by the Church of England from THAT a bishop of the English Church can, all its converts. This is the language held under any circumstances, tolerate polygamy to the Cherokee, the Dahoman, the Polynewill appear to many persons rather startling. sian, the Santal, the Maori; and the almost But the Right Rev. J. W. Colenso, Doctor universal first response to a proposal which of Divinity, and Bishop of Natal, not only appears to the unbeliever an outrage upon tolerates polygamy, under certain circum- Nature herself is, we are told, a refusal to stances, but defends it on the ground of re-hear any more. The love for wife and child ligion and humanity. is a fixed fact. Veneration for an abstract truth, of which the savage mind has at best only a dim perception, has little chance against such strong realities, and the heathen who is asked by a missionary to break up his household, put away his wives, and separate mothers from their children, as the preliminary of Christian baptism, only shakes his shoulders and passes on. This, we are assured, is the ascertained fact; and in the midst of our zeal for converting the savage polygamist, it is wise to look ascertained facts in the face.

A well-known story represents the circumstances with which Dr. Colenso has to deal. An African chief is converted by missionary zeal to Christianity. But there is a difficulty. The proselyte has two wives. The Christian teacher tells him he must put one of them away, for the new law does not permit a man to have more than one wife. The chief is sorely perplexed. It is no easy thing to disturb domestic institutions, and the poor convert goes away to his home rather dark in the countenance. But a light fell suddenly upon him; and when next he met the mis- Bishop Colenso thinks there is a cure for sionary his eyes were wild with joy. "Me this great evil-a means of removing this bery good Christian now," he shouted; me great obstacle in the way of conversion. only one wibe."—" Ah, very well," says the He would tolerate polygamy; and he believes missionary, "and what have you done with that he has found good reason in the Bible, the other?"—"Oder," says the gleeful sav- in history, and in social philosophy for a tolage," me ate her up-nice!" eration which, it is impossible to deny, many This story, which may not be true in fact, persons of liberal mind will condemn as exmust be allowed to be true in spirit. How, cessive. He says: "It is nearly twenty except by eating them, is an African or Fij- years since the subject was presented forciian convert to get rid of his superfluous bly to my mind by the account, which I rewives and concubines? The difficulty has ceived from a Church of England missionary, been felt by men wiser than those Fijian of the painful way in which he himself had chiefs, with whose family affairs our corre- been obliged to enfore the rule of putting spondent, Dr. Seemann, has recently made away superfluous wives before baptism' us so well acquainted. The Grand Turk has among the North American Indians. Since had recourse to the Bosphorus, the king of that time I have pondered much upon the Spain to the religious houses. A superfluous matter, and sought information upon it from sultana might be sewed in a sack, and a dis- various quarters-from the Scriptures and carded señora made a lady abbess. But ancient fathers of the church, from the writthe Fijian or the Kaffir is denied the more ings of modern theologians, and the expeexalted conveniences or consolations of civ- rience of missionaries, and especially, of late ilized life. A Kaffir wife does not like to years, from natives themselves, in daily fago back to her father's kraal. Every mis- miliar intercourse with heathens and consionary into heathen countries find this dif- verts from heathenism. And the conviction ficulty in his way. He goes into a commu- has deepened within me more and more, nity which is socially established, in which that the common practice of requiring a

Salt Lake. Under the new circumstances woman makes herself a new law. In the newspapers of this morning accounts appear of a Mormon party having left London the other day for Liverpool and Salt Lake City. Two thirds of this party are said to be women. It is impossible, we should say, to assert that this tendency of British women towards the domestic institutions of Utah is the result of profligacy. Ignorance may be the cause in part. But there are some who begin to see in it the probable operation of a general law. Is it the effect of a surplus half-million? Is Nature trying in this strange manner to accommodate herself to facts?

man, who may have more than one wife at | Paddington, and Whitechapel, in Manchesthe time of his conversion, to put away all ter and Leeds, in Glasgow and Norwich. It but one before he can be received to Chris- is the surplus half-million that laments, and tian baptism, is unwarranted by the Scrip- the voices of complaint rise up from every tures, unsanctioned by apostolic example class. What can we say to it? Our instior authority, condemned by common reason tutions have no remedy for such developand sense of right, and altogether unjustifi-ments. Our habits of thoughts have scarceable." In fact, Bishop Colenso considers ly any tolerance for their discussion. What polygamy to stand in the same relation to then? We see the results in those stubborn Christian ethics as slavery. Both are against facts which under the disguise of social evils, the spirit of Christianity; neither is forbid- pretty horsebreakers, and Mormon emiden by the law. In the twenty years which grants, have so lately offended our sense of the bishop has given to the consideration of true social decorum. Nature, we see, will this serious and important subject, he has always accommodate herself to actual facts. learned to understand and to tolerate many A twig will rend a rock, and a weak woman's things which must at first thought have been yearning will rend the most solid instituquite alarming. Those who have not gone tion. Against all counsels, all proprieties, through his experience, or made themselves we see the female tide set in towards Great masters of his authorities, will unquestionably demur to his conclusions. But he will not be driven from his positions by the mere cry of danger to morality, danger to the household affections, and the like. He is prepared, we dare say, to hear it said that he is worse than Brigham Young, and that his proper place would be a pulpit in the Mormon Church. Indeed, we should not be surprised to hear that in the minds of a certain kind of reasoners, this public defence of polygamy on the part of an English bishop, exceptional and conditional though it be, was considered to have an unconscious and yet philosophical relation to that singular outbreak of the Anglo-Saxon race towards the practice of a multiplicity of wives. There are others who will probably run from Bishop Colenso into a much larger argument; connecting this defence of polygamy, remotely, perhaps, and yet intelligibly, with the fact made known in the census tables,- and which lies at the root of all those Belgravian laments and legends about pretty horsebreakers, of which the newspapers are just now so full, the immense excess of the female population. England had forty years of peace, and the end of this prosperity is, that we have half a million more females than males. Pretty horsebreakers and Mormon emigrations may be the results of that obnoxious fact. But no amount of Belgravian lamentation will put an end to the one, and no amount of preaching seems likely to stop the other. The lamentation is not confined to Belgravia. It will be found, by those who listen for it, in Bermondsey and

Our bishop's "Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury," though it has no direct relation to these topics, will inevitably, and against his wish, lend a new interest to their discussion, and perhaps borrow from the discussion a new source of interest for the problem it more particularly strives to solve.

In the letter which Bishop Colenso has addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury “On the Proper Treatment of Cases of Polygamy," he has thrown his conclusions into the form of twelve general propositions, numbered as follows:

"(i). I hold that polygamy is forbidden, indirectly by the letter of the New Testaity, as not being in accordance with the mind ment, and directly by the spirit of Christianof the Creator, and the great marriage law which he laid down for man in Paradise ; and that, consequently, it cannot be allowed to Christians to practise it in any form,—that

is, either first to enter into the state of polyg- to commit an act or acts of cruel hardship and
amy, or to increase the present number of wrong to others, and dismiss his wives and
their wives. (ii). I find, however, that, un- children, perhaps, to rot and perish in the
der the Old Dispensation, polygamy was abominations of heathenism. (x). I find no
practised by eminently pious men, who, while direction of the apostles, and no authority of
continuing in that state, were singularly the ancient church, to guide me in this diffi-
blessed of the Almighty, without a single word culty. (xi). But I find a case somewhat
of reproof, or intimation of God's displeasure similar provided for by St. Paul, who strictly
being addressed to them on account of it. charges a Christian to marry in the Lord,'
(iii). From this circumstance, and the addi-yet allows, nay, requires, a Christian who has
tional facts, that passages occur in the Mosaic married a heathen before baptism, to retain
Law, expressly recognizing the existence of his wife unless she chooses to leave him,-
polygamy, and that not a word is found in however strange and unhallowed such a con-
the law or the prophets, denouncing or in nection may seem to us, however likely to in-
any way condemning it, I am led to conclude terfere with his own progress, and to corrupt
that, though not in accordance with the mind the morals of his children,—and a Christian
and will of the Creator, it was yet suffered wife, in like manner, to remain with her
by him to endure for a season, and is not to heathen husband. And I find also cases of
be regarded by us as being, in all cases and incestuous marriages, contracted before con-
under all circumstances, (that is, without ref- version, which were allowed in former days,
erence to the knowlege of his will, pos- in our own English Church to continue after
sessed by the persons who practise it,) sinful the reception of Christianity. (xii). Under
and displeasing in his sight. (iv). I am these circumstances, and considering that
confirmed in this view by finding that, polygamy was tolerated by the Almighty in
whereas the Mosaic Law punished adultery the case of so many good men of old, and that,
with death, no punishment of any kind is as- consequently, it is not sinful and wicked in
signed in it to the polygamist; and polygamy itself, and contrary to all religion, though it
is only noticed in the law, to correct certain is contrary to the spirit of Christianity, whereas
evils connected with it. I conclude, therefore, acts of injustice and wrong are positively sin-
that polygamy was not considered to be adul-ful and wicked, and contrary to religion itself,
tery, in the case of the Jews. (v). Neither as well as to the spirit of Christianity, I be-
is it to be considered adultery among the
Kaffirs and Zulus, who, in fact, though hea-
thens and polygamists, distinctly punish and
condemn the adulterer. (vi). From the exam-
ples of the Old Testament, I infer that, though
marriage, in the high and proper sense of the
word, can only exist between one Christian
man and one Christian woman, in which case
it sets forth the mysterious union betwixt
Christ and his church, yet there have been
marriages of another kind, permitted, or at
least winked at,' by Almighty God, in the
days of man's ignorance,'-marriages which
were lawful and binding, though not made On the first point we suppose there will be
according to the Great Marriage Law of little or no difference of opinion in the Church.
Paradise. (vii). I believe the marriages of Indeed, it will shock most people to find that
the Kafirs and the Zulus to be precisely of a clergyman should think it necessary to de-
this kind, and very probably derived from the clare his conviction that a Christian cannot
days of Abraham himself, through their Arab
descent. (viii). It is certain that such mar-
lawfully marry more than one wife. The re-
riages cannot be violently broken, without maining propositions will, we think, meet with
very serious wrong and injury to the wives much censure. It is well, however, to say
put away against their will, and to their that Bishop Colenso's twenty years of re-
children. (ix). Hence, in dealing with the search have produced a mass of learning on
case of a polygamist convert from heathen- the subject, and an appearance of authority
ism, we have to choose between two evils: in favor of his views, not to be easily or has-
either we must allow him to retain his wives
and children, and discharge his duties to- tily impugned.
wards them, until it pleases God himself in
his providence to interfere, and release him
from his obligations; or we must compel him

lieve it to be the lesser evil of the two, and,
indeed, the only righteously possible course,
to allow a polygamist convert, whose wives
do not choose to leave him, to retain them,
with the understanding that he shall take no
more, exhorting him to endeavor, by God's
grace, to live as a faithful servant of the Most
High among them, according to the light
vouchsafed to him, and like the polygamist
Abraham of old, "to command them and his
children after him, to do justice and judg-
ment, and to keep the way of the Lord."

For the period of the Old Testament, the bishop relies very much on the case of David :—

"When David received for the first time the great promise of the Messiah, he too was a polygamist, and had long been so. For two chapters before the above promise is recorded, we are told that David took him more wives and concubines out of Jerusalem;' and two chapters again before that, we have given the names of six wives, whom he had married previously to these,-two of them during his sojourn in the wilderness, when he had daily close communion with God, and wrote so many of the sweetest of the songs of Zion. Again, we have, at least, two passages in the Mosaic Law, which expressly recognize polygamy as freely permitted among the people of Israel. Thus we read, 'If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish; and If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the first-born son be hers that was hated; then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved first-born, before the son of the hated, which is indeed the first-born.' And these passages occur side by side with others which denounce most severely the sin of adultery, and punish it with death."

The passage of Leviticus xviii. 18, "Neither shalt thou take a wife or woman to her sister, to vex her during her lifetime,"has been quoted as an authoritative prohibition of polygamy. Bishop Colenso, however, quotes from "Patrick's Commentaries" an exposition of this text more favorable to his own construction of it. Patrick says of the desire to receive these words of the law as a condemnation of polygamy, "There are such strong reasons against it, that I cannot think it to be the meaning. For, as more wives than one were indulged before the law, so they were after. And Moses himself supposes as much; which plainly intimates an allowance in his law of more wives than one.

sister' properly in this place a woman to her sister,' as the words 'daughter' and mother,' where he forbids a man to take ‘a woman and her daughter,' or 'a woman and her mother.' The meaning, therefore, is, that though two wives at a time, or more, were permitted in those days, no man should take two sisters, as Jacob had formerly done that is, two sisters at one and the same time-one of them during the lifetime' of. the other." And the Bishop of Natal adds to this reasoning of Bishop Patrick the fact "that the Mohammedan law copied, no doubt, from the Jewish, forbids a man to take to wife two sisters, except what is already past, for God is gracious and merciful."

Coming down to the New Dispensation, Bishop Colenso is equally unable to find in the teachings of Christ and his apostles any distinct condemnation of the system of polygamy. With regard to the teachings of Christ, he says:

"The Jews, in our Lord's time, were in theory, at least, decided polygamists, though may be doubted whether many of them were actually living with more wives than one at the same time. It would seem that

it

6

they rather practised polygamy by the more
economical way of divorce, putting away one
wife easily, without cause, in order to marry
another. Justin Martyr, indeed, speaks of
the foolish and blind teachers of his people,
who even until now allow each man to have as
many as four or five wives at once;' and again,
he writes about a man's taking to himself
as wives, whom he would, and how he would,
and as many as he would, such as men of
your (the Jewish) nation do, who, in every
part of the world, wherever they have come
or are sent, take to themselves women, un-
der the name of matrimony. Maimonides
also (quoted by Jebb, in his note on the
above) says: It is lawful for a man to
marry any number of wives, even a hundred,
whether all together, or one after another
hindering this, provided he has the means of
nor has the first-married wife any power of
supporting them.' It is certain, then, that.
the practice of polygamy was recognized as
perfectly right and lawful by those to whom
our Lord addressed his discourses.
yet, if it was very common, it is strange that
we have no direct reference to it in any part
of the New Testament, except in the contro-

And

;

And so we find expressly their kings might have, though not a multitude. And their best king, who read God's law day and night, and could not but understand it, took many wives without any reproof. Nay, God gave him more than he had before, by delivering his master's wives to him. And, besides all this, Moses speaking all along in the chap-verted passage, of which I will speak prester of consanguinity, it is reasonable to con- ently. We know that Herod the Great had clude that he does so here, not of one woman nine wives at one time. And it can scarcely to another, but of one sister to another, there be doubted that among the richer Jews would being the like reason to understand the word be found some who lived in like manner,