GEORGE MACDONALD'S PREACHING.

To the Editors of the Boston Daily Advertiser:

In the first of the Rev. Phillips Brooks's "Lec-
tures on Preaching", he speaks of a sermon
preached in this country some years ago by
George MacDonald as being in some respects one
of the most remarkable that he ever heard.

I think I cannot be mistaken in the surmise that
this refers to the sermon preached at the First
church in Boston in May, 1873. Mr. Brooks's allu-
sion revived my own memory and that very re-
markable discourse, and of a passage in the note-
book of a friend, which I am permitted to quote.
It gives a contemporaneous record of the impres-
sion made by it, and may have some present in-
terest as an illustration of what Mr. Brooks says.

"May 5, 1873. Last evening I went with — to hear George MacDonald preach at Rufus Ellis's church. He preached for a full hour, I should think. And I desire to record the profound impression which he made upon us all, and upon the whole audience. I never heard anything like it. He spoke without notes and with all the effect of extempore speech. There was no text. Nobody ever had such a manner, it was all his own, unique, not to be imitated, and yet so earnest, so free from any sign of effort or pretence, that it carried him straight to the best and inmost part of us. It was as if a father were pleading with his children,—his own feeling had melted away all that could obstruct the directness of his communication with us. The secret of it all was the simplicity and intensity of his feeling; he had become the very mouthpiece of the Divine Spirit, and we all heard and answered to him in our deepest hearts. This, indeed, is preaching! And when one doubts what preaching is good for and whether the day of churches has not gone by, this one sermon alone will suffice, with those that heard it, to answer all questions. Neither books, nor lyceums, nor the general spread and equalizing of knowledge, can do for a man what this can do. Here is the 'Divine man,' whose heart is melted within him with longing to restore all to the happiness which we miss, whose influence penetrates and softens the heart through all its armor of intellectual doubt or indifference, or custom, or sin, like sunlight. He had no answer for doubt, no warning for sin,—but the utterance of an intense love and yearning for us all, which went deeper than anything else could go; all these things seemed irrelevant,—or rather were quite forgotten. —was, perhaps, even more stirred than I was. I have not read his books and have not been particularly drawn to him. Indeed, some weeks ago when we were asked to meet him I went with some indifference, or even unwiltingness. But I was then glad to have seen him,—he talked so frankly, and there was so kindly and simple a soul in him... But as to his sermon last night,—as I say, there was no text. The great house was crowded. He looked about it anxiously and began in his broad Scotch dialect—if it be not rather like what I suppose the Yorkshire dialect to be—by saying that the temptation sometimes comes to a man, in addressing a mingled audience, to withhold his 'message,' it is so certain that some who are present will not understand it! There was a singular pathos—almost distress—in this very beginning. He dwelt upon this a little, but then recalled to himself the existence of an inner 'ark of the covenant' in every man. The only message that he bad was merely this, that what we have to do 'is just to find our God.' And pretty soon he turned to the Bible and read at length the account of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. This he commented upon, and lighted it up with a most simple and tender dwelling upon the details of the transaction,—his taking those feet into his hands and wiping them and making them cool and clean,—very genuine, very delicate and very deeply touching. 'How are we to find our God? How? How? Sometimes we cannot find words to say the highest things. And so Jesus tried to tell his disciples, and tried, and tried again, until at last he just girded himself with a towel, and down he went upon his knees and just washed their feet! And yet it is still so hard for us to understand!' And then a pause and an earnest, pathetic, distressed look, and suddenly, as if to get light for all these doubts, 'Let us pray.' And then a wonderful, earnest prayer, in which he seemed truly a child, turning passionately with all his doubt to his father, in a clear, soul-felt, unobstructed intercourse."

T.

NEW ENGLAND NEWS.

THE METHODIST RECORDER, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1873.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

Several years ago, in the Sunday Magazine, we read with ever increasing interest and delight, "The Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood," and, subsequently, with wonder and admiration, the stories, "Robert Falconer," and "David Elginbrod." These works, both in England and in America, so widely circulated and read, have made the name of George MacDonald "familiar as a household word." As a writer, he is imaginative and intense. He enters the chambers of the human soul and brings forth the most fancies. His skill as a painter of childhood's thought and purposing, of life's mental and moral beginnings, and of mature humanity's relations and destinies, is marvelous. Unlike Dickens, MacDonald's characters are of the higher and more cultured class. He does not distort nor caricature human nature. He sees the good in men and women and magnifies that; while he inclines to pity and to help that which is bad. In some of his more recent works, especially in "Wilfred Cumbermede," his liberality has been criticised as unevangelical; and yet the Gospel of love, which is the under-current and the over-atmosphere of that remarkable story, is the author's conscientious interpretation of the divine Word. The book, thoughtlessly read, may make wrong impressions; and yet, when perused with unprejudiced and inquiring mind, it can scarcely fail to do good. Its tone is elevated, and its range of argument beyond the apprehension of the mere professional Christian who lives by letter and walks by sight. "Wilfred Cumbermede," like "Robert Falconer," will, perhaps, bewilder a bigot; but when honestly and prayerfully read, its teaching seems to us to be harmony with the truth as it is in Jesus. At least, we are quite willing to accept its general current as orthodox and wholesome, even though here and there, from some roughness near the shore, a little backward drift or restless eddy may ruffle the surface. We measure MacDonald, not by a chapter, or even a volume; but by his varied works in their completeness. Anything less than such girdle does not span the meaning of the man. He is liberal beyond our sect, perhaps; but we believe him to be honest.

Not only as a prose writer, but as a poet, MacDonald is pre-eminent. His earliest literary achievements were in verse. In Scriptural paraphrase, in personal experience, in historical and scientific fact, and in the range of purest ideality, he is a master in the beauty and power of expression. One feels, in reading his lines, as if some sweet singer were chanting accompanying music to every syllable. There is something more in MacDonald that the eye takes in from

the printed pages—an undertone of personal appeal—as if every word were intended for one's self alone. We fail in describing to others what we so especially enjoy in reading for ourselves.

It has been hinted that, here and there, in some of MacDonald's writings, it is indicated that the wicked, in some way, shall be restored to eternal life. We have not so understood him. We rather interpret him, as we have said, by a volume, or by a series of volumes, than by "heres and thesers." The long-run of his preaching is in the right proportion to its depth and its breadth. Men may apply their own little theological tape lines to his sermons and his books; and if these fall short in measuring, the lack may be in the tape and not in the truth. The Bible itself is never adequately compassed by a creed, or a philosophy, or a school. Calvin and Arminius, even in partnership of survey, do not see all; and how can either make points and draw lines for the faith and development of the human race? We have little patience with that class of critics who make hasty reconnoitering of a minister or of an author and write him down as exactly thus and so, in their limited register of Christianity. It is much more evangelical to exercise charity and to recognize the right of private judgment in the things of the Spirit. Until we shall see clearer evidence to the contrary, we must claim the author of "Wilfred Cumbermede" as evangelical.

MacDonald charmed an immense and appreciative Pittsburgh audience on the evening of January 30th, with an analysis of Shakespeare's play of Macbeth. He was announced for another topic, —Tom Hood—but his trunk, with books and manuscripts, was wrong shipped, somehow, and he substituted "Macbeth." He riveted attention from the beginning, and held it, entranced, to the close. The *Evangelist* says, of this lecture: "He remarked, generally, by way of introduction of Shakespeare's writings, that the plot is never the principal thing. Humanity is the stage on which the great dramatist plays, and the plot is merely subservient to this. Macbeth he described as a soldier of great physical courage, a courage which may be wholly unaccompanied by the highest kind of courage. He was possessed of a vivid imagination, and was of a highly nervous organization. Lady Macbeth was possessed of but little imagination, had but a feeble moral sense, and was swallowed up in ambition for her husband. He did not think she was a bad woman at the start. He sketched in a masterly manner the fearful progress they both made in evil, when once they had yielded to temptation. Such topics as the sinfulness of ambition, the wrongs a man may do to his conscience, the fearful

progress in moral deterioration which is made by men or women when they first follow their inclinations without self-restraint, were handled with a thrilling power. He touched most interesting questions in intellectual and moral philosophy, in theology, as well as in literary criticism; and the preacher whose sermon should produce as deep and salutary an impression might be well satisfied. And yet the lecture sparkled with wit and humor throughout."

By favor of Bro. William P. Herbert, of the Lecture Committee, and in company with Pastor McKeever, we were permitted an hour's interview with MacDonald at his lodgings. He is a sturdy Scotchman, straight, broad-shouldered, full-bearded, and entirely innocent of anything like professionality or affectation. He is natural, easy, and genial, without any pet-phrases or kill-time mannerism. One feels in company with a hearty friend, in sitting near MacDonald, seeing his manly face and hearing his honest brogue. He is accompanied by his wife and eldest son; while ten children still remain at the homestead in London. We were shown a photograph of the whole family—a sunny-faced and radiant group—with little Maurice among them, the lad who suggested, his mother said, by his quaint sayings, that weird writing, "On the Back of the North Wind."

"If our "Vine-Dresser," of the RECORDER, had been present, he might have overheard a fine compliment from George MacDonald, who has been reading of Sandy and other company. To receive a word of general encouragement from such a source cheers the RECORDER, and will not spoil our Illinois contributor. But we lifted our pen for an editem, and lo, all this! Well, MacDonald does not come often, nor shall we ever see or hear his like in our Smoky City more. We shall have renewed pleasure in his books, and stronger faith in the great life whose light we have seen and whose warmth we have felt.

## George Macdonald as a Preacher.

This celebrated Scottish novelist and poet preached in Association Hall, Newark, N. J., on Sabbath afternoon, December 29th, to an immense throng of people who filled every available spot of sitting and standing room in the spacious building. The only other sermon which he has delivered since his arrival in America was in Boston, when also a great multitude crowded Music Hall to hear him. In Newark all the exercises of the occasion were conducted by the preacher. His reading of the Scriptures and hymns and his prayer were remarkable for that peculiar earnestness which he throws into every utterance. The sermon, which was delivered without notes, and occupied about fifty minutes, was from the words of Christ to the young man (Matthew 19:21), "If thou wilt be perfect." It embraced an interesting and minute exegesis of the whole narrative to which these words gave the clue.

We do not propose to analyze or sketch the discourse. In many respects, it was a fine specimen of the expository method, giving most interesting turns to its words and phrases, evolving suggestive trains of thought, and oftentimes making some sudden practical appeal which went right home to many hearts. There was no attempt at oratorical manner nor finely-wrought expression. But the deepest earnestness and reverence, mingled with great simplicity; and beautiful expressions, alternated with homely ones in a way that showed him to be a master of public speech, to the mixed multitude. His voice is clear, musical, capable of much variety of expression, and adapted to all the changing moods of thought and feeling that marked the whole discourse. Looking his hearers full in the face, gesticulating with easy propriety, throwing his whole soul and body into his thought, and often adopting a familiar conversational manner, how could the people help listening to a man who thus brought his tribute to their hearts?

That there was a general feeling of disappointment as to the preacher's style and delivery is unquestionable. Yet throughout it was a unique and characteristic effort, free of all attempts at greatness, and yet great in its very simplicity and originality, combined with exquisite touches of tenderness and keen searchings of human hearts.

Of the preacher's theology we cannot speak so favorably. It certainly lacked the savor of the old-fashioned Scriptural doctrine of men like Chalmers, Candlish, and Guthrie. Here and there certain phrases indicated the views which are more distinctly stated in the author's *Robert Falconer* and *Wilfrid Cumbermede*, respecting the final restoration of the wicked to eternal life. They were only glintings toward those sentiments, not open declarations, and possibly may not have been noticed by the mass of his hearers. But not a few recognized them distinctly, and expressed their dissatisfaction in strong terms. To us it was evident that Mr. Macdonald seemed to feel under the restraints of his position, and that the discourse, which was in many respects so admirable, was marred by failure to bring out distinctly the essential gospel principles which underlie and permeate the narrative. He did not clinch the nail.

The only direct reference to the Saviour's sufferings and death, as the foundation of our "salvation unto "eternal life," was in a single paragraph toward the close of the sermon. It is critically true, indeed, that Jesus himself made no allusion to them in His interview with the young man, and Mr. Macdonald might say in self-defence that he went only so far as the Master himself did in this interview. Yet, when preaching to such a multitude respecting perfection and eternal life, it surely seems hardly necessary, upon merely exegetical grounds, to shut almost out of view the great truths without which there can be no salvation. "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

We add but one more reflection. Personally, we were quite prepared for just such a sermon as we have described. Any one who has read Mr. Macdonald's two volumes of poems, *Within and Without*, and *A Hidden Life*, and especially the poem called *The Disciple*, will heartily appreciate our criticism. Only one who has struggled long with torturing doubts, and to whom Christ is a living pres-

ence, could have preached that sermon, notwithstanding its defects.

In person, and somewhat in manner, Mr. Macdonald reminded us very much of John B. Gough. He is apparently about fifty years old, wears a full-grown, dark, shaggy beard, and has a pleasant face, speaking features, and a tough, wiry frame. He speaks with a decided Scotch accent, and possesses a wonderful magnetism of voice, countenance and manner, which is better felt than described. His ecclesiastical relation is with one of the Scotch Presbyterian churches, in which he was very popular as a preacher until ill-health induced him to retire from the pulpit. Since then he has devoted himself to popular literature. His prose and poetry have a strong religious cast, while in genius, originality, pure-mindedness, and genuine power, they entitle him to a high place in the first rank of living writers of his class.

Cin. Enquirer, Friday Morning, February 7, 1873

ROBERT BURNS.

Mr. George MacDonald's Lecture on the
Scottish Poet.

Last night Mr. George MacDonald, the author of *Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood*, and a number of other semi-religious novels of very considerable popularity at the present time, lectured at the Third Presbyterian Church on "Robert Burns." There was a large, and, despite the sacred character of the edifice in which the entertainment was held, quite a fashionable audience attracted thither by the fame of the lecturer as well as the subject of the lecture, an ever-popular one with an American audience. It was such an assemblage as would be called brilliant if gathered within the auditorium of the Opera-house or either of our theaters, and comprised among its members many of our most cultivated citizens, though the large proponent-ance of the ladies among those present was noticeable. The fathers and sons and brothers were not out in as full force as they might have been, but their absence was fully made up by the presence of the mothers and sisters and daugh-ters, many of them in famous toilets.

The desk was ornamented with a magnificent basket of flowers, mountain daisies, harebells and bluebells, the flowers of Scotland so loved by Burns, and a reminder to the speaker of the land he comes from. As a prelude to the entertainment Professor Andres played a voluntary on the organ.

Shortly after eight o'clock Mr. MacDonald came into the Church escorted by Ex-Secretary Cox, and was at once led to the pulpit. Mr. MacDonald is a medium-sized man, of about forty years of age, and a rather distingue appearance. His hair is light and parted exactly in the meridian line, [a consolat ion, by the way, to Fourth street dry goods clerks], his beard sandy and worn natural. He wears a dress-suit of black, a white eravat, and a vest showing an amplitude of snowy shirt front. His manners on the rostrum are easy, his voice clear and melodious, with a very decided Scotch dialect. He would be recognized by any one who met him, and heard him talk as a thoroughly cultivated Scot-a clergyman, perhaps, if it were not for the some seal ring he wears upon his left hand. His reading, of which he gave several specimens from the works of his hero, was admirable.

The speaker was introduced by ex-Secretary J. D. Cox. After acknowledging the cordial reception that had been given him, the lecturer commenced by saying that no man ever did work well who was not called to it. To some it might appear strange if Burns was called to some of the work which he performed looking at the call as a Divine mandate. If not, which of the highest of God's earthly messengers will say he had done his work? The object of his lecture would be to show that whatever were his faults wherein he failed, he was a man sent to do a certain work. And in so doing he felt that he might sympathize and feel for him more than to look up to him. So much for preamble.

If it was admitted that God cares for His creatures, it must be recognized that He has regard for the literature of a country. If there is an overruling, an onward-ruling, power, it is on the literature of a country. At the time Burns appeared literature was dull and stagnant. The fifteenth century, the Elizabethan Era-smallest of all in the history of English literature-had passed away; the sixteenth, the beautiful, and even grand in its purity, had gone too; the seven-teenth, less bright, and showing, despite its brilliance, the seeds of decay in literature, had already passed, and the eighteenth had come with its dullness and heavy mannerisms. It had become stagnant mainly because we had begun imitating. Imitation, he thought, was obnox-ou's to the policy of nature, and in poe-

try, in art, or in handicraft, no work of imitation ever lives. So in the eighteenth century they had become respectable in the way of imitation. When the occasion comes for a man to bring forth new thought; to sing a new song, that man is usually found. He generally comes from where he is least expected. Can good come out of Nazareth? Can a poet come from the plow-tail? and here our poet was found. If some one of your mothers was told that a son was destined for a poet, how careful you would be of him. How would you shield him from danger and harm; what time you would give him at school and in college! You'd give him time often, which, I think, is rather scarce with you Americans, and would give him money and trim his wings for flight. But such was not given to Robert Burns. Born in a clay hut with two rooms-with clay under his feet, clay for walls, and peat to keep warm by-with no animal food from one end of the year to the other-nothing but oat-meal. So he was brought up until he was sixteen, when he took the plow-with such advantages was our poet made! Well, mother, if your boy is to be a poet, all you've got to do is to be a good mother to him, and he'll come out by-and-by.

Burns had a great, simple-hearted father to teach him. This was the seeds of the great root of poetry that was in him. He got a good deal of training, honest, good teaching from his father and mother-not much from the clergyman. He went on from his youth not without suffering, but with more joy and happiness than is given to most people. He went on with joy in every thing, that delight of the eye, that melody to the ear that is the life of the poet. He had all nature about him. It's not necessary that it should be specially grand. It's enough that it's nature; that the trees grow, the brooks run, so that it is nature. The man that's got nature to learn may be a very clever fellow, but he's a common fellow after all, and is without poetry. If you will make a man a poet, you must have this correspondence of feeling to mature with him. Here in the rude peasant's life of Scotland he was reared. He was in sympathy with human nature, with animal nature, and thus aided in his growth as a poet. He had endless powers of sympathy. Look how he sympathized with the daisy! Here you have them in pots, I believe. There we have them all over the fields, covering them, though there is room for the blades of grass between. He could not see that little creature torn up by the plow-share without feeling for it. He couldn't see the mouse running from him, as from an enemy, without pity. He grew angry as he saw the wounded hare go limping by. Herein he showed his poet's heart. It is truth to nature. A poet has this advantage-in that he is at home in other hearts as well as his own. He has shown an acquaintance with people, perhaps, that you wouldn't care to know-like some Flemish paintings, admirable in their work and their truth, but studies that you wouldn't care to hang up on your parlor walls. So it is with some of his poetry. "The Jolly Beggars" is one of these pieces. So was "The Cotter's Saturday Night" and the "Address to the De'il," of which the lecturer read a verse or two. He didn't know how the poet could go so far as this with his sympathy.

The fact of Burns being a laboring man of humble birth and of comparatively little education first induced people to believe him a poet. But, further than this, he taught them to find poetry where they were. If you can't find poetry where you are, in the fields or the workshop, you could not find it in Paradise itself. Burns said I'll not go to the Tiber or to Troy, or any of these great subjects, but the little mountain brook running right past my door. Again, he taught men that a man is to be judged, not by what he has, but by what he is. That's no new doctrine now, but at the time it was a great lesson to come from a peasant. Reading the song, "A Man's a Man for a That," the speaker went on to say that it was the key to Burns' character. It was the recognition of the heart of man in preference to his wealth or intellect. A good deal of this warmth of feeling that Scotchmen have for one another is due to Robert Burns. At the time he came upon the scene there was a disposition to

disintegrate and fall apart, but his poetry served to weave them together into the hands of love for country and love for each other. A single song would do more for this than a thousand sermons. Scotland, as you know, is a poor country, with a population less than the single city of London, but they have always maintained an independence of England. And Scotchmen to do this have had to be united. Referring to the battle of Rannockburn the speaker read "Scots wha ha," the song Burns had put in the mouth of Scotland's greatest hero, Robert Bruce. He afterward read the songs of "O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad," and "My Nannie's Awa." One peculiar beauty of Burns's songs is that they show all phases of feeling, joy, sorrow, hope, love, or what not. A poet who can sing only in one key may be a poet, but still he can not write for the people like he can depict the various feelings that have possession of the heart from time to time. The speaker next read "Tom O'Shaunter" in excellent style.

Leaving the consideration of Burns as a poet he referred to his immorality and irreligion. He wrote many stinging satires against the church, and they were well deserved. The church de-served them all. In regard to his drinking songs he felt that there was much to be regretted. Burns often got drunk; so did the public man, the officer, the clergyman even; but Burns was not a drunkard. He drank for the company it brought him into, not for the love of drink. He was not a man who gave himself up to vice. When he died his accounts as a Keeper of Excise were found to be correct. These were not the actions of a drunken man, and his song, "A Man's a Man for a That," was written during the later months of his life.

The speaker did not intend to defend Burns for his immorality toward those of the other sex. If he had been content to live the simple life of purity lived by his father, and had written the songs he did, there would have been a regard for him but little shortness of worship. He knew what kinds of temptations were offered to young men, but they were all lies, and they led only to blot them when they thought of the ruin of a sister. The evil in a man is what tends to destroy him. The good is God's, the evil Satan's. Let us think of Burns as a man who sinned and repented. He was not a man that sought to justify himself for his errors. He was not contemptible enough for that. While deploring much that was immoral in the career of the poet, and without attempting to excuse what were his grievous faults, the lecturer closed by saying: "If we can not honor him as much as we would, we are at liberty to love him as much as we can."

At the conclusion of the lecture a large number of those who were present went forward to the pulpit, where he yet remained, and were introduced to the speaker.

*To-night he will lecture at the same place on Macbeth.*

* * *

I ENQUIRER, FRIDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 7, 1873.

Robert Burns.

Eighty-seven years ago a Scottish peasant, at work on a Mossgiel hillside, overturned with his plow a little daisy. It was only a little daisy, perishable and short-lived, at best; its tender form was "scaree reared above the parent earth," when the tender-eyed Scottish plowman crushed its slender stem, but he made it the only immortal daisy that ever bloomed. A year earlier the same robust, dark-eyed Scot, then twenty-six years old, on the same farm at Mossgiel, had made a "wee, sleekit, cow'r'n, tim'rous beastie"—only a little mouse—a poetical quadruped. Eighty years ago, nearly, the same seer, while riding on horseback through the middle of a tempest, over a wild Galoway moor, composed the best war ode ever written. It contained the essence of all martial poetry, and began with the words:

"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wha Bruce has often led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie!"

Last night Dr. GEORGE MACDONALD, a Scot, an author of note, and an appreciative admirer of ROBERT BURNS, this Scottish plowman, gave a lecture in this city on that large-hearted, short-lived, lovable man of genius. It was, perhaps, less a critical or historical address on ROBERT BURNS than a view of the poetic art as illustrated in BURNS. While Mr. MACDONALD may not have clung so closely to his theme as some of his hearers, perhaps, wished, it was an exceedingly suggestive address. He gave a graphic description of when and how and why BURNS wrote poetry, and offered his estimate of BURNS as a man, which was an estimate which bore few if any evidences of an attempt to excuse without ground on the one hand, or to blame without reason on the other.

Of all the poets that ever wrote, BURNS had the largest and truest heart, and, is, therefore, the most lovable. It was a wefred, wild, and, as the world thinks—and, perhaps, rightly—an unpoetical life that he lived. Men knew him when he lived—save only during that brief, brilliant year which he spent at Edinburgh—as a plain Scot and peasant. He was a farmer, though only an indifferent one; he attempted to be a flax-dresser, and failed; he was an excise man, but he doubtless sipped too much of the ale he gauged; he was a friend and companion of smugglers; he wore homespun and sat in basement ale-houses and kept them in a roar; his life was an unrhymed romance, a brief, bitter battle with poverty and pride and passion, but the songs which he sung make men think of his plowing and liquor gauging as they look on the alleged deer-stealing of the bard of Avon, or the corn-stealing of the Nazarene and his Apostles. In his

own time, among his brother Scots, he was simply a royal fellow. If he arrived at an intat midnight when host and guests were in bed, the news would spread that BURNS had come, and host and guests would presently arise and listen to his drollery and wit. But his half-spent life went out in sadness, and for many years JEAN ARMOUR, the divinest of wives, was the only person to write his name above his grave. And yet he made the poetry of Scotland, and his songs linked every Scot to his fellow. All will not agree with Mr. MACDONALD that this nurture on oatmeal and potatoes, and milk, and this life among farmers and smugglers and brewers was best calculated to call forth the powers of this tuneful, tremulous, susceptible nature. But it is the old story: HOMER wandering a blind man; CHRIST crucified; DANTE exiled; ROGER BACON and GALILEO in dungeons; TASSO in a mad-house; PAUL in bonds; SCROUTES drinking hemlock; LOCKE banished as a traitor; CERVANTES maimed, and in prison; and SHAKESPEARE driven from his home by a shrew into immortal song. It seems to be

"Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne."

It is difficult to say, except on the theory which we infer to be Mr. MACDONALD's, that Providence orders all things wisely and for the best, that BURNS would not have added more to human delight, and to the beauty and value of literature, had he been taught instead of untaught, and had the blessings of abundance and of culture been thrown around him.

A wise and a poetical man said that there is nothing new under the sun. It is not given to human capacity to originate any thing. Men only discover truth and beauty. The man of greatest genius is the man who finds most. When MICHAEL ANGELO painted the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel he took his copies from the persons in the street, transforming the beggar into a giant, and the flower-girl into an angel. GEORGE ELIOT found in a carpenter's shop among the Yorkshire hills a character of rare symmetry and beauty, and her picture of the plain man in paper cap and leathern suit, brought all English-speaking people to her feet and to his. A sad-eyed American found in a musty barrel in a Salem Custom-house the greatest American romance. BURNS found beauty and pathos and poetry in the hare, and the daisy, and the mouse, and the ilkhappin' bird, the silly sheep, and in the unpretending bonnie Doon, just as HOMER made the many-voiced sea sing divinest anthems and lifted men into gods. BURNS never aspired to grand themes, but he made Mossgiel and Dumfries forever sacred and beautiful. Possessing as tuneful a soul as GOD ever gave to the world, his poetry was not mere tunefulness. It was the poetry of the heart. Who but BURNS would ever have said of a little bird in winter:

"Where wilt thou cow'r the chittering wing,
And close thy ee?"

And who has thrown more pathos into fewer words than BURNS into these:

"The pale moon is setting beyond the white wave,
And Time is setting wi' me, O."

And no one has more vividly described the character of earthly pleasures than BURNS, when he likens them to

"The snow-fall in the river,

A moment white, then melts forever."

Of the songs of BURNS, no praise is too great. They were as

"Sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,
And soft as their parting tear."

They were National songs, for BURNS was a Scot. He spoke sincerely of

"A wish (I mind its power),
A wish that to my latest hour
Will strongly leave my breast;
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,
Some useful plan or book could make,
Or sing a song, at least."

In these desultory comments on ROBERT BURNS, which Mr. MACDONALD's admirable lecture suggested, it has neither been intended nor possible to give a measure of the poet or the man at all approaching completeness. Some of his gems, which we would gladly reproduce, the world knows by heart. The poet is the darling of mankind; and this Scot, born in a clay hut, who was a poet when he was receiving $35 a year as a laborer—this proud-spirited man, as sensitive to the music of nature as an Æolian harp; this brave, sympathetic, sincere, artless and honest man, we believe to be the darling among poets. Of the great tragedy which he lived, and, seemingly in the midst of which he died, he has himself told the story:

"I saw thy pulse's madd'ning play,
Wild lead thee pleasure's devious way,
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray,
Was light from Heaven."

015879 A323305

THE LIBERAL CHRISTIAN, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1872.

MacDonald.

To the most enterprising and devoted among the thousands of readers in New York who have within ten years become affectionate and admiring friends of George MacDonald his appearance as a public lecturer at Steinway Hall on Monday evening gave an opportunity of substantiating their idea of the man, of seeing him in the flesh, testing his magnetism and tasting his personality. It is never without anxiety that we first approach to look upon a man as he is in the flesh, whose life and genius have greatly moved us. We expect and fear to find our mind imagination of the poet's, the hero's, the statesman's person wrecked upon the reality. Yet there is seldom any final disappointment. For genius and worth, great talents and high character are sure to clothe themselves in a striking exterior. We are often shocked to find a man other than we dreamed ; but he is seldom less in appearance than he inwardly is. And truly, a man's face and form are the necessary interpreters of his genius and character. Nobody can thoroughly understand any author, statesman or philanthropist whom he has not seen. His inconsistencies or strange offsets of character and talents become intelligible when we see his father and mother struggling in his face, his head highly intellectual, his mouth very sensuous, his complexion sanguine, his eyes cold and bilious, his frame heavy, his spirits effervescent. Who has not seen a head that would have fitted a man for the State prison on a face of cameo elegance and refinement, and found there the first clue to the strange beauty and strange defects of a great but inconsistent writer ?

We had all seen photographs and engravings of MacDonald and they had fully justified the expectations created by his writings. The poet and saint, the humanist and seer, the man of humor and pathos, the broad-minded and high-thoughted man, the profound lover of his species, the keen observer, the spiritual seeker and teacher—all were expressed in the familiar wood-cut of a London pictorial paper, a portrait which we have long kept framed upon the mantelpiece of our study for daily enjoyment. But portraits, however good, and photographs, too, so often deceive. Color, action, life, these cannot be copied, and the man whom his portrait resembles does not always resemble his portrait.

MacDonald is not as handsome as this picture, but he is better-looking. He has not as large a head nor as perfect a beard; his hair is not as full nor his dignity so severe; he is not as sad and pregnant with earnest thought. But he is far more genial, simple and natural. His forehead, though marked with prominent perceptive organs, retreats a little too swiftly for the highest intellectual effect. His strong and generous pose is full of character and humanity—of courage and will and benevolence. His

mouth is too much hidden by a full mustache and beard to tell its story very plainly, but it suggests rather an Irish than a Scotch humor. He has a full figure, notending to the least grossness; delicate feet,aintantly shod; and exquisitely white hands,apered and ringed with a signet, of whichhe makes the most eloquent use. He isevidently a lover of color. He has blackand white in his double neck-tie, a sparkling diamond breast-pin and jewelledstuds, and a massive watch chain conspicuous with pendent charms. This was to be expected. All poets love jewels and all artistscolor, and MacDonald evidently dresses toplease himself, not his audience. For ifthere be anything unmistakable about hismanners it is a triumphant unconsciousness,an naivete and naturalness which have not a SUSPICION of acting or affectation in them. He is thoroughly self-possessed and inearnest, and of course self-forgetful.

The subject, Thomas Hood—Hoode, ashe called it—was charmingly suited to MacDonald. He treated it con amore, but withkeen insight and thorough comprehensiveness. But we have no time to tell what hesaid. It was so much, so valuable, instructive, humane—had so much indirect wisdom,love and sentiment in it that we could do nojustice to it by taking it out of its own exquisite words. MacDonald speaks withoutnotes and evidently not from memory. Heis the most easy, engaging and delightful oflecturers. His language, correct, exact andcopious, is absolutely free from stilted, rhetorical glamor and ad captandum ornamentation. It comes from him with the dew ofthe thought upon it, fresh as if just conceived. You see and feel the action andheat of his own mind and heart. There isjust enough delay and instant choice orretouching of his phrase to give you thepleasure of a looker-on, as the artist paintsin his picture.

He puts himself completely behind hissubject. Thomas Hood was kept steadilyin the foreground and MacDonald as steadily wholly out of his own sight—if he couldnot escape ours. Indeed, his real modesty,which is not self-disclaiming or artificial,but manly and honest, was the fine featurehe could not hide even in the strong shadowof his theme. He has an extraordinarypower of self-communication. He does notutter his thoughts, but conveys them. Hisrelationships with humanity are so cordial,ready and complete, that five minutes puthim in perfect rapport with a thousandhearers, and he walked into their hearts andleft his suggestions and feelings there withperfect sureness and success. His voice isnot very clear nor strong, but his articulationis excellent and his enunciation and deliverytelling. He has a most appreciative, vigorousand effective way of reciting poetry, andan almost infallible judgment in selectingit.

His gesture is, of all Englishmen's off thestage we have ever listened to, the best, fullof ease, grace and nature, while his hands

and fingers are full of significance, pointedwith meaning and dripping with emotion. On the whole, we have heard no foreign lecturer with so much satisfaction and delight. We are sorry to see Mr. MacDonald lookinga little worn and weary, which is none theless painful because he is so conscientiousin doing his utmost in every public performance. We hope his friends and admirerswill spare him all they can—a very difficultself-denial to practice in the case of one who so irresistibly draws likeminded souls to hisown loving and genial heart and charmingpersonality.

GEORGE MACDONALD,

THE ENGLISH NOVELIST AT THE
TABERNACLE.

The Author of Winafred Cumberwell
on the Lyries of Tennyson.

George MacDonald, the Author of Wini-
fred Cumberwell, and The Vicar's Daughter
and one of the foremost of England's novel-
ists, lectured at the Tabernacle last even-
ing on the "Lyrics of Tennyson," his lec-
ture being the second of the Novelty
Course. Mr. MacDonald is of medium
height, rather broadly built than otherwise,
and is about forty years of age. His ad-
dress was more like a conversation or per-
haps a sermon—since to everything
he drew a ready moral—interspersed
with readings, than like what
American audiences understand by a lecture.
The audience was neither large nor enthu-
siastic, and most of those present, it is safe
to say, were disappointed. There was noth-
ing like an attempt at oratorical display in
the lecture, and his rendering of Tennyson
hardly met with sympathy from most of
his hearers. His reading did not compare
favorably with that of Richardson, and was
marred by the sharp falsetto voice, by just
the faintest cockney taint and the rising in-
flection at the end of each sentence, peculiar
to Englishmen and annoying to Americans.

The lecturer described a poet and gave
Tennyson as the example of a perfect poet;
poetry, and Tennyson's poems as perfect
poetry. He said a poet should be able to
see things with other people's eyes; to put
other's thoughts and feelings into verse.
Tennyson had felt with people of every
grade of feeling and put their thoughts in
words and song. As examples of variety of
feeling displayed he instanced "The De-
serted House," "Willie's Gone" and "The
Northern Farmer," the two former of which
he read. Poetry, he said, was made up of
music, thought and feeling; feeling pre-
dominates with music in song, and in other
poetry every possible combination from pure
thought to pure feeling is shown. Instanc-
ing the different variations of feeling he
read "The Brook," "A Farewell," and
the lines commencing "Break, Break,
Break." In the reading of "The Brook" there
was considerable music without, however,
such a rendering of the thought as met with
the sympathy of his audience, while to any
one who loves the lines, which were the
first outbreak of Tennyson's great grief at
the loss of his best friend, his reading of
"Break, Break, Break," was almost harsh.
"The Northern Farmer," he characterized
as the most perfect poem in the language,
without a word of poetry in it and then
spoiled his paradox by explaining it at
length. A paradox will not bear explana-
tion much better than a joke. The poem is
a difficult one to read, and in the sharp,
affected falsetto of the lecturer, it is doubt-
ful if any one in the audience not thoroughly
familiar with the poem was able to follow
him. "The Charge of the Light Brigade,"
which Mr. MacDonald called the "bugle call
of poems," was then read with apparently
better effect than anything which had pre-
ceded it, and the lecturer then concluded
with the reading of some extracts from "In
Memoriam," the monument which through
seventeen years Tennyson was engaged in
raising to the memory of his boyhood's
friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. Fortu-
nately perhaps, the speaker's favorite pas-
sages were not those best known to the au-
dience, and they were thus spared the mang-
ling of some of the purest passages in the
English language by a reading which was
simply execrable.

Mr. MacDonald's brilliant reputation as
an author has led to great expectations of
his ability as a lecturer. This we think it
fair to say has proved a disappointment.
He said—just as he writes—brilliant things
but they were borne down by the weight of
a bad delivery; he said many good things
in the worst possible way, and there was
the widest difference between his written
and spoken language. The latter was
hardly King's English of the purest sort.

NEW-YORK DAILY TRIBUNE. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1872.

THE LECTURE ROOM.
GEORGE MACDONALD ON HOOD.

A most enjoyable lecture was delivered, last evening, at Steinway Hall, on the character of Thomas Hood's poetical writings. The lecturer, Mr. George MacDonald, was, as Dr. Holland remarked in presenting him to the audience, a stranger with whom they were all well acquainted. Mr. MacDonald is a Scotchman of the softer type of face, with a clear dark eye, a high forehead, from which the hair falls back, and a general expression of intellectual earnestness very pleasing to contemplate when the speaker is animated and absorbed in his subject.

His manner of delivery differed in a marked and unusual degree from that of other popular lecturers. During the entire delivery he bent forward upon the desk before him, making it a means of support for him.

self rather than for his manuscript alone, and while he leaned upon one elbow, gave with the other arm and hand the thousand graceful gestures which served to emphasize his meaning. The most noticeable feature of the delivery itself were an entire absence of oratorical effort, and an employment of the simplest sentences and the shortest and plainest words.

Mr. MacDonald claimed that Thomas Hood was more a poet of pathos than he was of humor. In all his poems he makes us recognize ourselves as belonging to the human family. The true poet is the man who mostly brings people to themselves and to each other. We all feel one while we are laughing at his humor. It is very difficult to define this peculiarity of Hood's humor, and the lecturer, preferring to make what he called a picture of it rather than attempt a definition, turned to "Faithless Sally Brown," which he recited with a success which brought out appreciative laughter from the audience, and so perfect was his identity with the humor of the verses that he himself gave an amused laugh at the close.

Hood again had the amazing gift of using this fun for serious purposes. There are some men, said the lecturer, who could jest about serious things without offense, and yet it would shock you unspeakably to hear other people jest about the same matters. Some people cannot make a joke but you fall back on your Christianity to keep from hating them. [Applause.] The surest way to offend some people is to tell them something they do not know. Laughter. But if you could put it into such shape as to make them laugh while receiving it they might perhaps swallow a little of the medicine before they knew it. Hood had this wonderful power of so being able to tell a man his duty without offending him. He was also distinguished for a love of antithesis. It is a very skilful tool in the hands of a man who would cut out sharp, clear cameos of truth. There are few people who understand the melodies and harmonies of spoken verse, but Hood was one of the fortunate exceptions. One of the great secrets of writing, too, is the using of such words as shall not only satisfy your own feeling, but such as will satisfy the person hearing you. There are people who could go maundering on from year to year uttering their own feelings, knowing that the utterances of them conveyed nothing to other people. They don't feel the same glow that the writer felt.

Hood possessed this great power to a remarkable degree, and his poems, simple as many of them were, will live long after those of greater literary excellence have passed from our memory. The lecturer then recited the "Song of the Shirt" with a faithfulness to the sentiment of the verses that made him the recipient of the heartiest applause. He followed this with a recitation of the more important passages of the poem "Miss Kilmansegg," which terminated the lecture, and the audienceicludely departed.

In response to the invitation of about fifty gentlemen of this city, Mr. George MacDonald will lecture once more in New-York before his departure for Europe. His subject will be "Hamlet," and those who have enjoyed his subtle and sympathetic analysis of other poets will be glad to listen to his exposition of the moral purpose of this most tantalizing of the philosophical plays of Shakespeare. He will doubtless, in the words of Browning, "find some points in Hamlet's soul unseized by the Germans yet." Anything Mr. MacDonald says upon any subject is worth listening to, and few writers have ever been able to excite among their readers so strong a feeling of personal kindliness as that which is mingled with the admiration with which he is regarded by his vast congregation in England and America. If every one in New-York who has been made better and gentler by his teachings would go to this lecture on Thursday evening next, no house ever built would hold them. We hope at least to see Association Hall crowded to its fullest capacity. Mr. William Cullen Bryant will preside, and Dr. Bellows will deliver to Mr. MacDonald the parting greetings of his American friends. The occasion will be one of the most interesting of the present year.

Why is it that some of our "religious" newspapers will not restrain the gushing fervor of certain correspondents? Here from one of them is the description of a Bishop's sermon: "In his address the lips of the prelate seemed touched with fire, the clergy around the holy place infused with light; and the about-to-be recipient of the priesthood sat before his spiritual father in the meekness of a child. The large congregation present seemed spiritualized as the quick flashes of holy thought glanced forth in words from the mouth of the speaker." Pray, wasn't that congregation in some danger of the fate of Semele? Again, in an account of a missionary preacher at the West, it is said: "To see one of these audiences would be a curious sight, some sitting, some lying full length in their bunks, on all sides, and even behind the preacher's back, with only their heads projecting; and these they would sometimes pull in when a heavy storm of denunciation of their particular sins was launched at them, and put them out again when the storm had passed over. So the gentle violet meekly bends its head in early Spring until the chilling gust passes over." To this we have nothing of comment to add. The violet is too much for us.

NEW-YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, MAY 20, 1873.

Mr. MacDonald's Lecture.

George MacDonald lectured on "Macbeth" at the First Presbyterian church, on Thursday evening. The audience was so large that High School Hall would have been too small for the occasion.

Mr. MacDonald was introduced by Mr. I. Remsen Lane, Chairman of the Lecture Committee, who, in announcing this as the last entertainment of the fourth annual course of the Young Men's Christian Association, returned thanks to the audience for their hearty co-operation in making the course so great a success.

Mr. MacDonald said that he experienced no embarrassment in lecturing on "Macbeth" in a church, as it had been one of the smaller aims of his life to speak of the dritt of Shakespeare's tragedies. This play was a solemn warning of the consequences of taking one's own way. It might be called the "Play of Retribution." It could not be called the "Play of Conscience," for Macbeth had no conscience from beginning to end. Hamlet was a "Play of Conscience." The speaker said that it was a peculiarity of Shakespeare's characters that they never leave a man where they find him. There is no action of life but that changes the man. The play traces the history of the actors. There is a double scale of man: one ascending, the other descending. Between the time of Falstaff's appearance in the First Part of Henry IV, and the Second Part, he descends in the moral scale. King Lear descends socially from the monarch who has a crown to bestow, to the beggar without a hat; but he rises in the moral scale. The petulant old man comes to learn what true love is. Macbeth rises in the social, but descends in the moral, scale. Shakespeare's characters show what comes of people taking their own way; of keeping conscience out of the way; and letting the impulse of the bosom take sway.¹ Conscience was impossible to Macbeth and wife. Shakespeare wrote terrible scenes, not for the sake of the terror that was in them, but to show the influence of events on character. He was not like the playwrights of the present time, who seek for display and show. He knew how to put murder on the stage in a more powerful way than the realistic way of the present day. He did it by a woman's face showing what was going on in an adjoining chamber. The speaker showed how, through the reasoning of Lady Macbeth, the way was got ready for Macbeth to yield his conscience to her. Macbeth was a man of great animal courage, which is not a bad thing in itself; but the noblest courage is that which resists temptation when it assumes its worst form. He was apprehensive. There is a great deal of cour-

age that is not imaginative, but Macbeth was a man of imagination and he feared many things not present to him: but it was not a high and noble imagination. He speaks poetically and can forecast the future. It is rare to find fighting men imaginative. His imagination is so strong as to make him oblivious to all surroundings. Again, he was subject to cerebral illusions, closely connected with his crimes. When contemplating the murder of Duncan, he sees a dagger in mid-sir before him. So strong is the illusion that he reasons about it, and draws his own dagger to see if they are different. After the murder he hears a voice saying that Macbeth shall sleep no more. At the banquet he sees the ghost, which rises out of the charnel house of his evil mind. All these show that the brain so wrought on the organs of sense as to produce the same effect as if the object were from without. Macbeth was a man of great ambition. The speaker said that ambition was an evil. The desire to mount higher and higher is an unchristian thing. What rejects every perfect thought of God is bad and ruinous. One of the worst things is the desire to be before other people. All should aim to do their work, and let the Master put us at the head if he will. If you want to be before other people you belong to the same class as Macbeth. He wanted to go up and up, with nothing above him. He had no conscience. No man, said the speaker, has a bad conscience. He sought power through right or wrong, and the fear of punishment was not enough to deter him. He was a hard, selfish, yet imaginative, man. He had all the elements to make the worst of men. He had such gifts as would have made a great poet, if he had not been a murderer. Mr. MacDonald read the soliloquy, beginning:

> "If it were done, when it is done,"—
> to show that it Macbeth were sure of his chances of escape in this world, he would take the chances of the next. It was the even handed justice of this world that he did not like. He had seen in this life that "as we met out to others so is it meted out to us." It was neither in the next world nor in this life that he was to suffer punishment, but in the divine intelligence that is within us, born of God, and eternal. He never thought of that until it had seized upon the heart of him. The lecturer read from the chamber scene between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, to show that when for the first time the latter felt the need of prayer, he could not pray. His punishment came out of the infinite world of thought and consciousness, and the animal courage upon which he relied forsook him. The very consciousness of his own condition after this, brings

upon him his own destruction and downfall in this world. He is no longer capable of ordering his own ways prudently. His fears led to the murder of Banquo, and Macduff's wife and children. These murders bring about his speedy downfall.

The character of Lady Macbeth was then sketched. She is somewhat cold and hard. She has not as much imagination as her husband. Like some women she has a strong will, which is often mistaken for a free will. She loved her husband. It is a wrong idea to suppose that she was a blood-thirsty woman. She was ambitious, but she was ambitious for her husband instead of herself. She gave life and strength to further his ambitions. In his presence she is tender and pitiful, but by herself prays to the powers of darkness to aid her. We miss half the sense of the play unless we regard the love of Lady Macbeth for her husband. The usual character ascribed to her is impossible and incredible. In the other view we get something very possible to believe indeed. The point where retribution begins to overtake the wife is where she sees that instead of giving him prosperity she had brought upon him misery. She becomes almost grand in her efforts to sustain him

Her misery came upon her in seeing the misery of her husband. While he is in the field, retribution overtakes her. She dares not sleep in the dark, and in her dreams goes through all the terrible scenes she had been a witness to.

Mr. MacDonald read the sleep-walking scene and other passages which very effectively illustrated his lecture. He said he should consider Macbeth the most amazing thing in literature, were it not that other plays had been written by the same pen. The play was woven into a grand and harmonious whole, lighted here and there with points of transcendant beauty.

Mr. MacDonald was listened to with the closest attention throughout the evening. As a specimen of keen analysis of character, his lecture has probably never been excelled.