We want people to look such facts squarely in the face. It is time, high time, to quit talking about European oppression, and look round us. Only the other day Victor Hugo wrote to Juarez. The text he chose was this: "Thou shalt not kill." What else has Mexican Republicanism done for fifty years?

It has, however, other things to answer for. Mr. Wasson goes on to speak of the prevalence of robbery.

"Property meanwhile is so insecure that whoever accumulates it to any degree, must imitate the action of feudal times - make his house a kind of fort, and surround himself with the means of defence."

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Instead of having to do with republican Mexico, feudal Mexico, it would seem, is the appropriate term. After thus describing a state of affairs, hideous beyond all precedent, Mr. Wasson lays down a principle.

"Moreover," he says, "it should be fairly and fully recognized, in all applications of the past, that a republican government cannot exist, save in virtue of a high moral sentiment in the people. A demoralized people must have a monarchical government or none at all."

Now are the thinking men of the United states prepared to recognize this?

According to the view presented here, Napoleon was right in at least one thing. He was right in setting up a monarchy. And yet it is precisely this which forms the current charge against him. It is for precisely this reason that the United States set herself against Maximilian. If Imperialism had come to be established in Mexico, who knows but that Mexico might have shown those same signs of power, of progress, and of life, which within the last fifteen years have become so manifest in France?

Not a few readers of the New York Tribune noticed between the fall of 1865 and the fall of 1866 the letters from Mexico. Deserved as was the reputation of the Tribune during this period for its foreign correspondence, we venture to say that none of it equalled the correspondence from Mexico. It is only the very unusual, not to say, the extraordinary character of these letters, which leads us to refer to them, and to quote from them. The Tribune correspondent describes the sights of which he was an eye-witness. He went through the country travelling. He visited by turns the imperial and the republican camps. He describes the splendid and consistent discipline which prevailed in the one, the riot and brutality which filled the other. We hardly venture to make extracts where it is so hard to

choose. Two or three will suffice. Writing from the city of Mexico in September, 1865, the correspondent says:

"When the history of this war shall be written, it will be easy to perceive by a single glance at the state of the country, and of the population, that the establishment of the Empire was not, as some people imagine, the introduction by violence of a foreign government, but the deliverance of a nation which, during the last generation, endured all the evils that could possibly afflict a people. Take the Indians, for instance, who form the bulk of the population of Mexico. Is it possible to imagine a more miserable community of men in any part of the globe, than this when under the republican administration? Impressed by the various leaders who were competing for the ascendency, robbed of the little they had, shot if they resisted, they possessed no resources whatever against this odious oppression, and left the ranks when they could to fly into the woods. With the Empire, things are not carried on in such a way. The poor Indian begins to feel relieved from his yoke and seek for his right." And so on.

From the other letters we take only an extract or so, about Maximilian and Carlotta. An account, quite a particular account, which the correspondent gives of Maximilian, he closes thus :

"The encourager of all liberal and progressive ideas, he is the uncompromising enemy of slavery or human servitude in whatever form. Some of his works published years ago contain sentiments on the subject of slavery which would have found a cordial response from Wendell Phillips or Lloyd Garrison themselves."

In the same letter, written in May, 1866, the writer says of Carlotta: "The Empress, who has acted as President of the Imperial Benevolent Society, from the time of its formation under her auspices last year, has just made the first annual Report, over her own name, to the Emperor. This has been published throughout the country, and, by the positive beneficial results in active charities to the poor and distressed, has still more endeared the name of Carlotta to the Mexicans. The report is generally praised, not only for the simplicity of its language and unostentatious style, but for the delicate modesty with which the mantle of charity is worn. No member of the Society has done so much by personal exertions to alleviate the sufferings of the poor as Carlotta, to say nothing of the munificent contributions to this object from her own immense private fortune."

Here is what the Tribune said some eighteen months ago in regard to the duty of the United States.

"If our government should intermeddle with this matter, and succeed in driving out Maximilian, the civilized world would inevitably say to us, ‘you have expelled a government which gave promise of peace, unity, authority, vigor, security, industry: how do you propose to replace it? If you intend

that Mexico shall retrograde to her endless cycle of pronumciamentos, revolutions, and military dictatorships, we protest. You have no right thus to injure the commerce, the industry of the civilized world. If you destroy the only government that gave hope of stability and progress, you are bound to replace it by a better.''

According to the Tribune, the only governmet which has given the Mexicans a hope of progress, is the only one the United States has refused to recognize. Suppose the world should address us something in this wise :

"You are hypocrites. You pretend to sympathise with the cause of liberty in Mexico. You know there is no liberty there. What you really want is that the government of Mexico shall be so despotic and so destructive, that year by year the country will grow degraded, and degraded, and degraded, till it gets helplessly weak. Then you will lay your hands upon it."

It is notorious that there are men in the United States who wish just this. There are men in the United States who are opposed to Maximilian — and are willing to say so for precisely this reason. They saw that under his government Mexico was coming to life. They saw that she was becoming at last a civilized and progressive nation. This is why they were against Maximilian.

We have now made the two sketches we proposed, one of France, he other of Mexico.

C. S. F. WELD.

SURSUM CORDA.

EEK not the spirit if it hide

SEEK not the if

Baby, do not whine and chide :

Art thou not also real?

Why shouldst thou stoop to poor excuse?

Turn on the accuser roundly; say,

'Here am I, here will I remain

Forever to myself soothfast;

Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!
Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,

For only it can absolutely deal.'

THE TWO RELIGIONS IN 1

IV.

N my last paper I sketched the tv that attach themselves, and alwa the names Jesus and Christ. But s hibit the difference under survey, w contrasts involved in the two names, and are even more striking in their pects. The bearing of either system marks its most prominent, if not And if in the realm of ideas one exc one exclude the other in the realm of of Jesus is the only one of the two bearing on society whatever. The C ty, under any form that makes it an new communities are carefully separ made to constitute a world apart, and other as members of this select bod of John this is declared with an ex] sion. "I have manifested Thy na gavest me out of the world." "I pra world but for them which Thou hast them in the world, I kept them in T Keep those that Thou hast given me may be one as we are one." "They they are not of the world, even as I me into the world, so have I sent the that Thou wouldst take them out of t keep them from the evil."

Thus far the prayer is for those throughout to these, but still it does pray I for these alone, but for them their word;" that is for the future b may be one, as Thou Father art in m hath not known Thee: but I have known that Thou didst send me.”

Here the "world," society, social of all relation to the disciples exc preaching. They are in it, but not live in it incidentally and unsympath

snatching converts from it. "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them that the world may know that Thou hast sent me."

These disciples are to keep their regards turned steadily away from the earth. "No man hath come down from heaven, but the Son of Man who is in heaven." "What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending up where he was before?" "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day." "I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me." "I go to prepare a place for you: and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself: that where I am ye may be also." "I will that those whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am."

It has already been remarked that the love which the Christ inculcates on his disciples is a bond of union among themselves, as fellow disciples, and not a tie of brotherhood committing them to service in behalf of mankind at large. It is a supernatural grace bestowed on believers, not a human virtue belonging to men. Thus on every ground, whether as connected with him who is their head, or as bound up in each other, or as concerned with communities, the believers are cut off from vital concourse with their kind.

What a different order of relations we come into when we join the company of Jesus! A hearty social life, a cordial sympathy with men, an earnest activity in all that concerns human welfare and advances human progress, loads the thought and colors the language all through.

According to Luke, Jesus' first sermon was taken from Isaiah, and he applies to himself the beautiful words, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those that are bruised."

To the Baptist's doubting message, Jesus sends the reassuring reply: Go and tell John what ye have seen and heard: how the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them."

The second aspiration of the Lord's prayer is, "Thy kingdom come," and the third, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Not "may we come into Thy kingdom," but "may Thy kingdom come unto us." Not, "may we justify Thy will in heaven," but "may we do it here." The divine influences are invoked to come down to men.