The family dispersed, and fixing thought, No rattling wheels stop short before these gates; Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blow The poet's or historian's page, by one The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds And in the charming strife triumphant still, 30 10 15 20 5 LXVI. THE FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. BY HENRY EDWARD MANNING.' HITHERTO the British Empire has rested upon a twofold divine base, both natural and supernatural. It was built up by our Saxon, Norman, and English forefathers, first upon the unity of Christendom; next, even they who saw this unity wrecked, or had a hand in wrecking it, preserved of the Law Christian all that it was still possible to save. But lying deep below this Christian foundation of our Empire there are the lights and the laws of the natural order the truths known to man by the light of reason 10 and by the instincts of humanity. The whole civil society of men in all its ages, apart from the commonwealth of Israel the monarchies of Assyria and Persia, the liberties of Greek civilization, the imperial law and sway of old Rome--all alike rested upon the Theism of the 15 natural order. I may be asked what is this Theism of the natural order. I answer: that God exists; that He is good, wise, just, and almighty: that He is our Law-giver and our Judge; that His law, both eternal and positive, is the 20 rule of our life; that we have reason by which to know it in its dictates of truth and of morals; that this law binds us in duties to Him, to ourselves, and to all men; that this law is the sanction of all personal, domestic, social, civil, and political life: in a word, without God 25 there is no society of man, political, social, or domestic. 5 Society springs from God, and lives by His pervading will. Deny the existence of God, and nine thousand affirmations are no more than nineteen or ninety thousand words. Without God there is no law-giver above the human will, and therefore no law; for no will by human authority can bind another. All authority of parents, husbands, masters, rulers, is of God. This is not all. If there be no God, there is no eternal distinction of right and wrong; and if not, then no morals: truth, purity, chastity, justice, temperance are names, conven-10 tions, and impostures. Sir William Blackstone,' after quoting Sir Edward Coke as saying "The power and jurisdiction of Parliament is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds," goes on to say "It can transcend the ordinary course of laws; it can regulate the succession of the crown; it can alter the established religion of the land; it can change and create afresh the constitution of the kingdom." "So that it is a matter most essential to the 20 liberties of this kingdom that such members be delegated to this important trust as are most eminent for their probity, their fortitude, and their knowledge; for it was a known apothegm of the great Lord Treasurer Burghley' that England could never be ruined but by 25 a Parliament." Judge Blackstone further quoted the President Montesquieu,' who foretold that, "as Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have lost their liberty and perished, so the constitution of England will in time lose its liberty and will perish; it will perish whenever the 30 legislative power shall become more corrupt than the executive." The purity of Parliament depends therefore upon the eminent probity, fortitude, and knowledge of its mem 15 5 bers. And these qualities are tested, so far as is in man, by the oath or solemn declaration of allegiance by which every man intrusted with a share in the supreme power of legislation binds himself by a sanction higher than that of any mere human authority to be faithful to the Commonwealth. The oath of the Catholic members of Ireland, and of the Christian members of England and Scotland, and the affirmation of the members of the Hebrew religion, and the affirmation of the members for Birmingham and for Manchester, all alike bind their 10 conscience by the highest sanctions of the divine law. So also, if there be any who, resting, as many in the last century did rest, on the Theism of the Old World, and on the lights and laws of nature, affirm their probity and their allegiance under the sanctions which trained 15 the prisca virtus of the Roman Commonwealth-of such men, under the obligations of the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, enforced by the dictates of natural conscience and the eternal laws of morals, we feel sure. Their build and make is 20 natural and human, in conformity with the commonsense and patriotic traditions of the Christian civilization of Europe, by which they were created, and by which they are sustained, in a higher moral life than a defec tive belief can account for. And such is the mixed foundation of the British Empire, a mingled system of gold and silver, brass and iron, and the good honest clay of the order of human nature as God made it, with its rights and laws, like our English mother-earth, in which our secular oaks root deep and outlive generations and dynasties, but not the monarchy of England. 25 30 LXVII. ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC. AN ODE. BY JOHN DRYDEN.' I. 'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won, By Philip's' warlike son: Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne: His valiant peers were plac'd around, Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: (So should desert in arms be crown'd) The lovely Thaïs, by his side, Sate like a blooming Eastern bride 10 In flow'r of youth and beauty's pride. None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair. II. Timotheus,' plac'd on high Amid the tuneful quire, With flying fingers touch'd the lyre: 15 20 |