veins, and that which is best and truest in every man, and that which is tenderest and gentlest and purest in every woman, in his character. He is emphatically the son of Man. Out of this arose two powers of his sacred humanity,-the universality of his sympathies, and their intense particular personality. The universality of his sympathies: for, compare him with any one of the sacred characters of Scripture. You know how. intensely national they were-priests, prophets, and apostlesin their sympathies. For example, the apostles "marveled that he spake with a woman of Samaria"; just before his resurrection, their largest charity had not reached beyond this, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom unto Israel?» Or to come down to modern times, when his spirit has been molding men's ways of thought for many ages: now, when we talk of our philanthropy and catholic liberality, here in Christian England, we have scarcely any fellow-feeling, true and genuine, with other nations, other churches, other parties, than our own: we care nothing for Italian or Hungarian struggles; we think of Romanists as the Jew thought of Gentiles; we speak of German Protestants in the same proud, wicked, self-sufficient way in which the Jew spoke of Samaritans. Unless we bring such matters home, and away from vague generalities, and consider what we and all men are, or rather are not, we cannot comprehend with due wonder the mighty sympathies of the heart of Christ. None of the miserable antipathies that fence us from all the world bounded the outgoings of that Love, broad and deep and wide as the heart of God. Wherever the mysterious pulse of human life was beating, wherever aught human was in struggle, there to him was a thing not common or unclean, but cleansed by God and sacred. Compare the daily, almost indispensable, language of our life with his spirit.-"Common people"? point us out the passage where he called any people that God his Father made, common. "Lower orders"? tell us when and where he, whose home was the workshop of the carpenter, authorized you or me to know any man after the flesh as low or high.-To him who called himself the Son of Man, the link was manhood. And that he could discern even when it was marred. Even in outcasts his eye could recognize the sanctities of a nature human still. Even in the harlot, "one of Eve's family;" a son of Abraham even in Zaccheus. Once more, out of that universal, catholic nature rose another power, the power of intense, particular, personal affections. He was the brother and savior of the human race; but this because he was the brother and savior of every separate man in it. Now, it is very easy to feel great affection for a country as a whole; to have, for instance, great sympathies for Poland, or Ireland, or America, and yet not to care a whit for any single man in Poland, and to have strong antipathies to every single individual American. Easy to be a warm lover of England, and yet not love one living Englishman. Easy to set a great value on a flock of sheep, and yet have no particular care for any one sheep or lamb. If it were killed, another of the same species might replace it. Easy to have fine, large, liberal views about the working classes, or the emancipation of the negroes, and yet never have done a loving act to one. Easy to be a great philanthropist, and yet have no strong friendships, no deep personal attachments. For the idea of a universal Manlike sympathy was not new when Christ was born. The reality was new. But before this, in the Roman theatre, deafening applause was called forth by this sentence:-"I am a man: nothing that can affect man is indifferent to me." A fine sentiment. that was all. Every pretense of realizing that sentiment, except one, has been a failure. One, and but one, has succeeded in loving man- and that by loving men. No sublime high-sounding language in his lips about educating the masses, or elevating the people. The charlatanry of our modern sentiment had not appeared then; it is but the parody of his love. What was his mode of sympathy with men? He did not sit down to philosophize about the progress of the species, or dream about a millennium. He gathered round him twelve men. He formed one friendship, special, concentrated, deep. He did not give himself out as the leader of the publican's cause or the champion of the rights of the dangerous classes: but he associated with himselt Matthew, a publican called from the detested receipt of custom; he went into the house of Zaccheus, and treated him like a fellow-creature, a brother, and a son of Abraham. His catholicity, or philanthropy, was not an abstraction, but an aggregate of personal attachments. AGNES MARY FRANCES ROBINSON (1857-) HE poetry of culture - the poetry which smells of the lamp and implies commerce with books can be as genuine and enjoyable as any other. All that is necessary is the authentic impulse, and sufficient individuality to assimilate the many influences to which the sensitive mind and soul of this order of singer are subjected. It is a mistake to sneer at culture-verse as derived and uninspired. As with any other kind of work, so in this, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The young Englishwoman whose verse is signed by the name of A. Mary F. Robinson-and who in 1882 became the wife of the brilliant French Orientalist, the late James Darmesteter-is of this school of poets. Her polished and lovely verse indicates reading, and the absorption of the riches of the literary past of her own and other tongues especially that of the Romance peoples. But her talent is independent; her note is distinct enough to justify all her contact with the great spirits of literature; and the chastened classic quality of some of her song in no wise detracts from the modernness of her mind. For a certain refined melancholy and pure lyric musicalness she is thoroughly a modern, the child of Pre-Raphaelite models,feeling some of the time's realistic tendencies, and yet showing too a close affiliation with the Elizabethan song-makers. Agnes Mary Frances Robinson (Madame Darmesteter) was born at Leamington, February 27th, 1857. Her father was an architect in connection with the ecclesiastical buildings in the neighboring town of Coventry. She was educated at Brussels, in Italy, and at University College, London, giving special attention to Greek. Her taste for poetry showed itself very early: at thirteen she was writing on history. Her first volume of verse, 'A Handful of Honeysuckle,' appeared in 1878, when she was twenty-one. Following this came 'The Crowned Hippolytus' (1880), containing a translation from Euripides and pieces of her own; 'The New Arcadia and Other Poems' (1884); 'An Italian Garden: A Book of Songs' (1886); 'Songs, Ballads, and A Garden Play' (1888); and Retrospect' (1895). Besides verse, Madame Darmesteter has published a novel, 'Arden' (1883); a couple of biographies,- one of Emily Bronté in the Eminent Women Series (1883), the other on 'Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre' (1889); and a book of historical essays, 'The End of the Middle Ages' (1888). Her response to the realistic demand of the day is felt in 'The New Arcadia,' which contains a number of narrative poems dealing with the English peasant life, and sternly tragic in subject. The work, though not without strength and skill, and commendable for its yearning sympathy with the wrongs and sorrows of the working folk, is not in the poet's most successful vein. A trip to Italy in 1880 revealed her truest source of inspiration. She sings most sweetly when seized with the gentle spirit of sadness which wafts from some old exotic garden where lovers, soon to be separated by chance or change or death, wander with clasped hands and dimly foreboding hearts. In 'An Italian Garden' are songs and lyrics of great beauty, whose art is hidden by the simplicity and fervor of the utterance. Here Madame Darmesteter gives unaffected expression to her thoughts and imaginings on the grave things and the glad things of life; and the delicacy of the music, the tender mournfulness of the verse, together with its felicitous descriptive touches, make a very lovely impression. The sequence of love lyrics which imitate in form the Italian Rispetti are fairly Heinesque in their passionate feeling and charm of phrase. Of all the chords in the diapason of song, that most native to this poet is a tender dreamy minor that lingers long on the ear. She is neither robust nor optimistic; but the mysterious sweet sadness of life is of the very essence of poetry, and few of the younger English singers have given it voice with more attraction. Since Madame Darmesteter's marriage and foreign residence she has written several works in French. One of them, a sketch of the chronicler Froissart, appeared in English translation in 1895. She published in 1896 her husband's 'New English Studies,' a collection of magazine papers and reviews,-furnishing an introduction to the volume. There is no reason to conclude that her poetical activity has ceased. In any case she has done sufficient work to secure her a place among the minor lyric singers of England. WHA TUSCAN CYPRESS (RISPETTI) AT good is there, ah me, what good in Love? There's but division and a broken heart? And yet, God knows, to hear you say - My dear! I LOVE you more than any words can say, You look at me, and yet you do not know. You look at me, and yet you do not fear; O LOVE, O Love, come over the sea, come here, Come back and kiss me once when I am dead! Come back and lay a rose upon my bier, Come, light the tapers at my feet and head. Come back and kiss me once upon the eyes, WHEN I am dead and I am quite forgot, Ah, no,- AH ME, you well might wait a little while, I had a home, a little distant isle, With shadowy trees and tender misty sky. I had a home! It was less dear than thou, I had a home, more dear than I could tell, |