weakness, but the negligence of the colonists. The Colonial Government, strange to say, did not close with this proposal. On the 2nd of January the minister replied that it would be quicker and easier to raise a force in the colony than to get it from England. 'I cannot, therefore, support your Excellency's request to Her Majesty's Government for more troops.' Yet, even under this discouragement, Sir Bartle Frere, on the 9th of the same month, persevered in requesting the Secretary of State to send him out two regiments, with the inauspicious intimation that he might want them in Natal.

Those who have read recent colonial newspapers will not fail to see the immense colonial unpopularity which was likely to attach to this conduct of Mr. Molteno's if ever it became known. And on his dismissal, which soon followed, his successor, Mr. Sprigg, did not fail to make the most of it. In his election manifesto, addressed to his constituents on taking office, he informed them of the somewhat whimsical result. He told them that on the arrival of the reinforcement which the Governor had, in spite of his then Ministry, and with some difficulty, obtained from the War Office,

His Excellency asked the Ministry [of Mr. Molteno] what they advised him to do with it. Their reply was that 'it might be sent to any part of the Empire where it was wanted, but that it was quite unnecessary to retain it in the colony.'(C. 2,079 of 1878, p. 102.)

Seeing that the ablest politician in the colony did not think an additional force of British troops necessary, and that the best Government officers show that, if left to themselves, they would identify themselves with that forbearing policy, which allows temporary difficulties to disperse, it seems to me a fair question whether the prospects of peace may not have been injured by these attractive promises of gratuitous help. They have doubtless greatly increased the personal influence of the Governor, and through him perhaps that of the Home Government. But they can hardly fail to have reproduced that colonial mischief which we have learned by experience to dread-the mischief of encouraging discontented settlers or impatient officials to force on a war of which they will have the advantage and this country the loss.

Thus much, however, is at least clear-and no more is necessary for a purely defensive argument-that whereas the principle of the late Ministry was to abstain from interference in local affairs, and to withdraw troops, the recent practice has been to extend our interference, and to force our troops even on a reluctant local government. And whatever may or may not have been the shortcomings of the colonists in respect to self-defence or in respect to humanity, it surely follows that these shortcomings cannot be ascribed to a policy which has been not so much arrested as reversed.

To sum up shortly what I have said on the three points which I

have selected for remark, I contend (1) that a close alliance with the Boers is, from the settled character of their policy, impracticable, except on terms which make it unadvisable. (2) That the annexation of the Diamond Fields, defensible in itself, has no substantial connection with the recent wars; and (3) that there is sufficient ground for hoping that the establishment of responsible government will not cause, and no ground whatever for alleging that it has caused, the evil consequences which are assigned to it.

BLACHFORD.

THE HISTORY OF THE EVANGELICAL

MOVEMENT.

AFTER the large space which Mr. Gladstone, in his recent article on the Evangelical movement,' has devoted to the confutation of a passage in my History of England in the Eighteenth Century, it would perhaps be hardly respectful to so great a name if I were to leave his criticisms entirely unnoticed, and I have the less hesitation in examining them because they touch upon points which have much more than a mere personal or literary interest.

I had drawn in my History a dark picture-but not at all darker than Mr. Gladstone has himself drawn in his article-of the religious apathy of England in the first half of the eighteenth century, and of the almost complete eclipse in the popular teaching of distinctively Christian doctrines. I described with much detail the religious revival which began with the writings of Law, which found its first exponents in the Wesleys and Whitfield, and which Grimshaw, Berridge, Newton, Romaine, Jay, Venn, and the other leaders of the Evangelical party carried over the length and breadth of England. These men, I said, and their colleagues gradually changed the whole spirit of the English Church,' and I added the words which Mr. Gladstone has made the subject of his criticisms-They infused into it a new fire and passion of devotion, kindled a spirit of fervent philanthropy, raised the standard of clerical duty, and completely altered the tone and tendency of the preaching of its ministers. Before the close of the century the Evangelical movement had become dominant in England, and it continued the almost undisputed centre of religious life till the rise of the Tractarian movement in 1830.'

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I must in candour acknowledge that the term dominant' in this passage is not happily chosen, and that in a previous passage, which Mr. Gladstone has not cited, I had greatly overrated the number of the Evangelical clergy. The ascendency of Evangelicalism in the Nonconformist bodies Mr. Gladstone has not disputed, but he has, I think, successfully established that at the close of the last century, and even during the first two or three decades of the present one, avowed Evangelicals formed but a small numerical proportion of the clergy of the Established Church, that they were very rarely selected by the Government for high ecclesiastical positions, and that,

1 British Quarterly Review, July 1879.

though they had a great influence at Cambridge, they were nearly unrepresented at Oxford. These concessions, which Mr. Gladstone will perhaps think sufficient for his purpose, I readily make, but beyond this I am unable to go. I cannot admit that it was only after the rise of Tractarianism that the positive part of Evangelical teaching acquired a wide and general influence in the Church of England. I must still maintain that at the close of the eighteenth century the Evangelical movement had not only fully developed its principles and its powers, but had also become, both in Nonconformity and in the Church, the chief centre of religious activity in England.

It is certain, in the first place, that the violence of the opposition to it had in the most remarkable degree subsided. Of this fact Wesley himself furnishes conclusive proofs. During more than forty years of his mission his journals are full of accounts of the violent and incessant opposition, largely instigated by clergy of the Church of England, which he encountered wherever he went. In the last years those accounts almost absolutely cease. He was himself fully conscious of the change. Is the offence of the Cross ceased?' he asked in 1777. It seems, after being scandalous near fifty years, I am at length growing into an honourable man.' 'The tide,' he wrote a few years later, 'is now turned;' and he observed with surprise that he, who had for a long time been scarcely ever suffered to preach in an Anglican pulpit, was now overwhelmed by the number of the invitations which he received.

It is, I believe, equally certain that by the end of the eighteenth century the Evangelical party had attracted to itself nearly all the fervour, the activity, the spirit of religious propagandism and of religious enthusiasm that was circulating in the community. The strongest religious influence in general literature was the poetry of Cowper, who was wholly in its service. The leading religious influence both in society and in politics was that of Wilberforce and the little group of which he was the centre. One of the most remarkable religious features of the latter half of the eighteenth century is the growth of a great literature of popular theology, which acquired an immediate and almost unexampled popularity, became the chief religious reading of the middle and lower, if not of the higher classes in England, and may, I believe, be said to have almost absolutely superseded in general acceptance the popular religious literature of the earlier generation. It is, I think, no exaggeration to say that at least four-fifths of this literature was produced by the Evangelical party, and that the overwhelming majority of the books which in the last years of the century acquired a great and general popularity in the religious world were deeply impregnated with their principles. Of the Theron and Aspasio of Hervey, which was published in 1755 and was intended to expound the Evangelical system of religion, no less than 10,000 copies were sold VOL. VI.-No. 30.

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in England in nine months. The popularity of the Force of Truth and the Scripture Commentaries of Thomas Scott, which were published before the end of the century, is sufficiently indicated by the fact that in the lifetime of their author more than 199,000l. was paid across the counter for his theological works. Romaine's treatises on Faith, which were all published before 1795, were but little less successful. Venn's Complete Duty of Man, which was published in 1763, appears to have almost entirely displaced the old Arminian Whole Duty of Man, and before the death of John Venn in 1813 no less than twenty editions of it had been sold. The Practical Christianity of Wilberforce, which was published in 1797, met so fully the religious wants of England that 7,500 copies were sold in six months, and it is said to have gone through fifty editions in as many years. And these are only conspicuous examples of a religious literature which comprised among many other books the Church History of Joseph Milner, the chief religious writings of Hannah More and of John Newton, the works of the Wesleys and of Fletcher of Madeley. The fact that the greater part of it is almost absolutely destitute of literary merit only strengthens my argument for its representative character, for it shows that it owed its success much more to its substance than to its form. My position is that the overwhelming preponderance of the devotional literature of the last part of the eighteenth century, which acquired a widespread and extraordinary popularity, was produced by the Evangelical party, and was intended to represent their principles. And by far the greater part of that literature was the work of members of the Established Church.

Few things reflect more clearly the deeper devotional feelings of an age than its hymns, and in hymns the last part of the eighteenth century in England was peculiarly rich. The names of Toplady, Cowper, Madan, Newton, and Charles Wesley will at once occur to the reader. All these were ardent Evangelicals; all of them were members of the Anglican Church.

The application of other tests will, I think, lead to similar results. Perhaps the greatest step, in connection with religion, for improving the condition of the poor in the last century was the creation of Sunday schools, which then for the first time appeared and spread rapidly over the land, and it is notorious that of all the sections of the clergy the Evangelicals were by far the most active in creating them. The great crusade against slavery and the slave trade, which was the most conspicuous sign of the appearance of a religious spirit in politics, was led and chiefly supported by Evangelical laymen. In the older religious societies it is true, as Mr. Gladstone has alleged, that the new party had little weight, but nearly every fresh departure, nearly every new organisation which grew up in the religious world, was mainly due to them. The Church Mission