worked with that man." The murder would have taken place, in all probability, had the man never said a word about his relation; for the murderer was a quarrelsome, bad man, full of anger and too ready with his knife. At Spezzia an old Garibaldian hastened to protect some women from brigands, was wounded in the contest, and died. A priest told his hearers that the judgment of God was fulfilled, and "improved the occasion" in favour of bad government and King Francis; but in two or three days some of the regular troops punished the brigands, and during the contest shot the priest. Here the tables were turned : perhaps the priest suffered judgment too, for being so ready to judge others.

At the present moment (1862) many priests, who are given up, body and soul, to the party of King Francis, assert most publicly and vehemently that the very dry weather is a judgment upon the whole country, and threaten the poor Italians with a famine, because Garibaldi has overturned the Bourbons. "It is all very well," they say, "for you to pray to the sacred images: they will not help you; they are not in our hands ;" and, to say the truth, many processions have taken place lately without any results.

What priests and politicians do in the great world, we are all too ready to do in our own small one. One old lady in a village will tell you why Mrs. Jones's cow died, and why Tom Blank went away to sea. Of course both of them were "judgments;" and so we dare to mete out Providence, to measure the thunder, and to notify the vengeance; and, like Job's friends, when we find any one sitting amongst the pot

sherds, we at once begin to retrace his steps, and point out that he was wrong there and here, and that he deserved the judgment. But, as that sacred story should tell us, perhaps the least we say about these matters the better. So far from the rain being withheld from Italy as a punishment, we are told that the rain falls upon the just and the unjust equally. So far from believing that the wicked are cut off, we are advised that the wheat and tares grow together till the harvest. So far from goodness and sinlessness being necessary to worldly prosperity, we often see that the worst man is the best tradesman, and that it is too often that the mean, the despicable and narrow-minded, make the largest fortunes and are the most thoroughly successful men. In one sense it is not possible to make the best of both worlds, if "best" signify the highest place at the table, the largest fortune, most honour, and the best house; but if, on the other hand, it should mean the quietest, most honest, and therefore the happiest life, then indeed it is.

These considerations may teach us the folly of proclaiming judgments against any one. When two armies meet in battle prayers are put up for either side, and the opponents mutually declare each other wicked and worthy of destruction. In America (North) the Southern States are detestable rebels ; in the South the Northerners are frantic tyrants. When Luther assailed the Pope's creed his opponents said, and say to this day, that he was created by the devil, whilst we reckon him a second St. Paul. Distance in both instances—in one of miles, in the other of years—makes us see things in a different light.

Perhaps North and South can no more exist together than could Lutheran and Protestant, and perhaps it will be the very best thing for the world that the present war took place. At any rate, we have no right to look at it as a curse. Let us wait awhile. Do not let us say it is a judgment on slavery, or upon any other particular sin : it is a trial which will improve both parties; and, with our own friends and countrymen, do not let us be too ready to point the blow. Let us remember the rebuke that they upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell were not the only guilty in Samaria; and that when the Jews, eager to point a moral, asked whose fault it was that a man was blind-was it his sin, or his parents'?—they were rebuked, and told that it was occasioned by no sin, but that God's mercy should be more fully shown. How often this is the case we poor, weak, and blind creatures cannot say; but often enough, we may hope and trust, to put an end to the common and unchristian method of passing judgments upon others.

ON THE FACES AROUND US.

T has become the fashion for historians, who take care to write in a much more pictorial way than those who preceded them, to draw new portraits of the heroes and heroines of the history they relate. They find their reward in the greater interest which their narratives excite. We all want to know what manner of man Alexander, or Cæsar, or Napoleon was. We collect coins, and purchase expensive engravings, to satisfy us. The pictorial newspapers thrive upon this desire, and the passion extends very low down in the social scale, and cheap woodcuts of notorious criminals are eagerly sought for, so much so that a complete collection is very valuable. When Jack Sheppard committed his prison-breaking exploits there was such a desire to know the man that Hogarth obtained permission to paint his portrait, and did so, Jack being in prison with his irons on, Sir James Thornhill the King's sergeant-painter, and Gay the poet, being present at the time. The picture is that of a brutal, villainous-looking fellow, by no means the hero whom novelists have pictured. To turn from the lowest to the highest, we may add that it is to the

curiosity of a Roman Emperor—so says the legend—that we owe the only portrait of the Saviour that we have, and its description. It was cut on an emerald: the forehead broad, but low; the beard pointed and small; the hair parted in the middle; the nose straight, and of full size. This is plainly a Grecian type of face, and, from that circumstance and from others, both the word-portrait and the gem have been long ago declared to be fictitious: but the anecdote is sufficient to prove the desire; and, moreover, from that gem possibly the modern paintings of our Lord have, through the Byzantine copies, descended to our times.

Mankind seem to have felt, from a very early period, that the science of physiognomy is intrinsically true. A good face is a letter of recommendation, says an old proverb, which almost every one finds. Our police magistrates frequently judge of disputed testimony in witnesses by the face. A downcast look, a forehead "villainous low," a darksome, worn, and greasy complexion, a face in which anger, care, and bad passions, have set their marks, is one not likely to be let off easily when suspected. Shakspeare frequently alludes to the face; Falstaff is full of shrewd remarks upon it; and dozens of rules for physiognomy might be drawn from the works of "immortal Will," written near two hundred years before Lavater made it his especial study. Look, for instance, at those few words which Cæsar says of the lean and hungry Cassius. The internal spirit will make itself seen externally. There must be, and always will be, "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," or disgrace either.