Present Condition and Prospects of Italy.

349

dustry of all Nations, as the rare product of a twelvemonth's labour. The result at which the Roman States have arrived after a struggle carried on by fits and starts from 1815 to 1850, is a Senate of Cardinals, supreme as before; a Council of Ministers, with the chief power concentrated in the Cardinal Secretary, the Alter Ego of the Pope; a reserve force of Ministers without a portfolio; a Council of State and Consulta of Finance, limited to the pleasant task of consultation and advice, without any executive functions; Provincial and Municipal Councils-voilà tout!

We hazard no prophecy on the prospects of Italy, but taking the superficial and obvious facts of the case, the greater part of the Peninsula is now in the same condition as it was before the movement of 1847 began. The same problems are unsolved, the same wants are unsatisfied, the same spirit is striving against its chains. But every element is more developed. Italy has gained knowledge, has had reforms, constitutions, the war of independence, democracy. The strong hand of power has crushed them all: but the same feelings and passions are working under the surface. The fire is still living in the ashes. The Italians have had time to learn something of their errors, of the principles of their weakness and strength, and of the influences that have proved so fatal to their progress. In Tuscany, in the Two Sicilies, even in Rome, the right of the subject is constitutional government, according to the solemn guarantee of regal statutes, and they have the strong element of right in their effort to maintain the Constitutions against the restored regime of the old absolutism. The regal policy which is now treating oaths as of no binding obligation, and the statute-book as so much waste paper, is strengthening the democratic element while it destroys the constitutional. It seems as if the princes themselves were opening the door for Young Italy. With the exceptional case of an Italian kingdom in the north advancing in a better path, discussing great questions in open parliament, entering boldly into political speculations, passing Siccardi laws, abolishing immunities of the priestly ages at a stroke, and standing up to defend her right to do so in the face of Christendom-with such an example before their eyes, the other Italian kingdoms, having the same rights according to statute, but none in reality, cannot quietly sink down into contentedness. If that exceptional case continues, the example must have an influence on the subjects of the other States. If it ceases, Piedmont also will be merged in the general discontent. It does seem as if, in either case, the forces were mustering for another struggle, more determined and more decisive than the last.

ART. III.-The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. By PHILIP DODDRIDGE, D.D. With an Introductory Essay by JOHN FOSTER. Glasgow.

ASIDE from the great thoroughfares, and yet not far from London; large enough to be self-contained, and yet conscious of no bustle; its spacious streets and tidy shops announcing industrious comfort, and its belt of villas suggestive of refined society; its margin laved by the winding Nen, and its ample meadows fragrant with cowslips and milch kine; that shadowy interest hovering over it in which historic minds invest the scene of old Parliaments and sieges, whilst meeting-houses, reading-rooms, and railway stations flare beside medieval fanes in confidential proximity; like a British oak from a Saxon acorn, still growthful and green at heart, Northampton is one of those towns of good constitution, which combine the freshness of youth with the sedateness of antiquity. And as first we hailed it, standing up with its towers and steeples, an islet of masonry in a verdurous sea, we felt that even England could not offer a more tempting retreat to a student somewhat social. Sequestered enough to promise leisure, and withal sufficiently populous to supply incentives to ministerial exertion; had we been a pastor in search of a people, like St. Catherine at Ledbury, we should have heard an opportune chime in its evening air tinkling, and telling us, "Here take up thy rest."

To English Nonconformity Northampton is, or ought to be, a sort of Mecca. Three hundred years ago, it gave birth to Robert Brown, the father of English congregationalism; and within the last generations, Northampton and its neighbourhood have been a chief stronghold of the English Baptists. It was here that the Rylands ministered: the elder, in his orthodox vehemence a Boanerges, in his tender feelings a beloved disciple the younger famous for his microscopic eyes, and who ought to have been famous for his telescopic heart; for never was there spirit more catholic, or one who could espy goodness at a greater distance. It was in the adjacent Kettering that Andrew Fuller laboured for thirty years; in a noisy study (for it was withal a populous nursery) composing those volumes which have gone so far to give the right tone and attempering to modern Calvinism; a deep digger in the Bible mine, and whose rich, though clumsy ingots, supply to the present day the mint of many a sermon-coiner; himself too homely to be a popular preacher, and too unambitious to regret it, he was in contrivance resourceful, and in counsel sagacious; the mainspring of each

denominational movement, and one of the purest philanthropists, but blunt and ungainly withal. And in Northampton and its surrounding villages a poor cobbler used to ply his craft—for Northampton is the Selkirk of the South-its citizens are sutors; and leaving at home his broken-hearted wife, poor cobbler Carey would hawk from door to door his shoes of supererogation to pay the funeral charges of his child. Under ague and rain, and the unsaleable sackful, he was revolving that Eastern mission of which he was soon to be the father and founder, and from borrowed grammars acquiring those elements of Polyglottal power which shortly developed in the Briareus of Oriental Translation. But our pilgrimage to Northampton was mainly impelled by veneration for another worthy. The running title has already told it; but without its help our readers would have guessed the name of PHILIP DODDRIDGE. We went to see the spot ennobled by the saintliest name in last century's dissenting ministry. We went to see the house where "The Rise and Progress" was written. We visited the old chapel, with its square windows and sombre walls, where so many fervent exhortations were once poured forth, and so much enduring good accomplished. We entered the pulpit where Doddridge used to preach, and the pew where Colonel Gardiner worshipped. We sate in the old arm chair beside the vestry fire, and flanking the little table on which so many pages of that affecting Diary were written. And with a view of a supposed original likeness in the study of our host-a minister of the same school with Doddridge -we finished our Northampton pilgrimage.

*

In the ornithological gallery of the British Museum, and near the celebrated remains of the Dodo, is suspended the portrait of an extinct lawyer, Sir John Doderidge, the first of the name who procured any distinction to his old Devonian family. Persons skilful in physiognomy have detected a resemblance betwixt King James's solicitor-general and his only famous namesake. But, although it is difficult to identify the sphery figure of the judge with the slim consumptive preacher, and still more difficult to light up with pensive benevolence the convivial countenance in which official gravity and constitutional gruffness have only yielded to good cheer; yet, it would appear that for some of his mental features, the divine was indebted to his learned ancestor. Sir John was a bookworm and a scholar; and for a great period of his life a man of mighty industry. His ruling pas

The older houses in Northampton are constructed of oolite, fine grained and yellow, not unlike petrified pease-pudding. When darkened by the weather, such buildings acquire a complexion so sallow and metaphysical, that it somewhat affected our spirits.

sion went with him to the grave; for he chose to be buried in Exeter Cathedral, at the threshold of its library. His nephew was the rector of Shepperton in Middlesex ; but at the Restoration, as he kept a conscience, he lost his living. In the troubles of the Civil War, the judge's estate of two thousand a-year had also been lost out of the family, and the ejected minister was glad to rear his son as a London apprentice, and young Daniel had to push his own way as an oilman. A few years before Mr. Doddridge resigned the living of Shepperton, there had come over to England a Bohemian refugee, John Baumann. When the persecution against the Protestants arose in his native land, this godly pastor fled from Prague, taking with him his German Bible, and a hundred gold pieces stitched into a leather girdle. Sleeping in a country inn on one of the first nights of his flight, the fugitive forgot the girdle,_ and did not miss it till he reached his next resting-place. It was a weary tramp to retrace his steps to his former lodging; but there the maid of the inn informed him that she had that morning found an old belt, and from its worn appearance had thought it useless, and thrown it away. However, animated by the offered reward, the damsel instituted a search for the traveller's old belt, and found it in one of those domestic limbos,-a closet under the stair, where worn besoms and broken stools await the next general removal. With the remainder of his gold pieces, and with his Luther's Bible, Pastor Baumann at last reached England, and when, many years after, he died, the teacher of a school at Kingston-upon-Thames, he left an only daughter. In the providence of God, the son of the ejected Nonconformist, and the daughter of the German refugee, became acquainted. Perhaps the similarity of their descent might help to interest them in one another. But, sure enough, they fell in love, and the London shopkeeper espoused the orphan daughter of the Kingston schoolmaster. Their income was never great, and in nest-building visions they sometimes fancied how pleasant it would be if they could only recover some of Sir John's Devonshire acres. But the salutary dread of a lawsuit soon checked the vain ambition, and sent Daniel back to his casks and his cans, and his wife to her humble housekeeping. And for all their toils, the Sabbath made them sweet amends. They had a sorer trial. Except one sickly girl they had lost all their children; and that little girl was the only survivor of nineteen. At last on a mid-summer's day, and in an airless chamber of some stifled London street, Mrs. Dod

* June 26, 1702.

dridge gave birth to her twentieth child. In their solicitude for the half-dead mother, no one paid much attention to the small and lifeless-looking infant. Encouraged, however, by some symptom of animation, a neighbour took in hand the little castaway, and, by dint of tender nursing, saved to the world what it had so nearly lost, the life of Philip Doddridge.

A child so fragile, and given to them in circumstances so affecting, was exceedingly endeared to his parents; and, as usually happens with delicate children, his finely-strung sensibilities, and his yearning affection, rendered him peculiarly susceptible of maternal influence. His first lessons were out of a Pictorial Bible, occasionally found in the old houses of England and Holland. The chimney of the room where he and his mother usually sate, was adorned with a series of Dutch tiles, representing the chief events of Scriptural story. In bright blue, on a ground of glistering white, were represented the serpent in the tree, Adam delving outside the gate of Paradise, Noah building his great ship, Elisha's bears devouring the naughty children, and all the outstanding incidents of Holy Writ. And when the frost made the fire burn clear, and little Philip was snug in the arm-chair beside his mother, it was endless joy to hear the stories that lurked in the painted porcelain. That mother could not foresee the outgoings of her early lesson; but when the tiny boy had become a famous divine, and was publishing his Family Expositor, he could not forget the Nursery Bible in the chimney tiles. At ten years of age he was sent to the school at Kingston, which his grandfather Baumann had taught long ago; and here his sweet dispositions and alacrity for learning drew much love around him—a love which he soon inspired in the school at St. Alban's, whither his father subsequently removed him. But whilst busy there with his Greek and Latin, his heart was sorely wrung by the successive tidings of the death of either parent. His father was willing to indulge a wish he had now begun to cherish, and had left money enough to enable the young student to complete his preparations for the Christian ministry. Of this provision a self-constituted guardian got hold, and embarked it in his own sinking business. His failure soon followed, and ingulfed the little fortune of his ward; and, as the hereditary plate of the thrifty householders was sold along with the bankrupt's effects, if he had ever felt the pride of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the poor scholar must have felt some pathos in seeing both spoon and tankard in the broker's inventory.

A securer heritage, however, than parental savings, is parental faith and piety. Daniel Doddridge and his wife had sought for their child first of all the kingdom of heaven, and God gave it now.

VOL. XIV.

NO. XXVIII.

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