(6) 'O, were there not a spirit in the word of man, as in man himself, that survived the audible bodied word, and tended either godward or else devilward forevermore, why should he trouble himself much with the truth of it, or the falsehood of it, except for commercial purposes? 3. 24.

'What is truth, falsity, human Kingship, human Swindlership? Are the Ten Commandments only a figure of speech, then?' 25. 248.

'My friend, it was not Beelzebub, nor Mephistopheles, nor Autolycus-Apollo that built this world and us; it was Another.'

25. 259.

VII.

God's Judgments.

(1) ""Ach Gott, when I gazed into these Stars, have they not looked-down on me as if with pity, from their serene spaces; like Eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man! Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed-up of Time, and there remains no wreck of them any more; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar."' 1. 126.

'O ye kind Heavens, azure, beautiful, eternal behind your tempests and Time-clouds, is there not pity in store for all!' 4. 221.

'Infinite pity, yet also it is so Nature is made.'

infinite rigour of law: 13. 88.

(2) It is certain the demands of Eternal Justice must be fulfilled: in earthly instruments, concerned with fulfilling them, there may be all degrees of demerit and also of merit,-from that of a world-ruffian Attila the Scourge of God,

conscious of his own ferocities and cupidities alone, to that of a heroic Cromwell, sacredly aware that he is, at his soul's peril, doing God's Judgments on the enemies of God, in Tredah and other severe scenes. If the Laws and Judgments are verily those of God, there can be no clearer merit than that of pushing them forward, regardless of the barkings of Gazetteers and wayside dogs, and getting them, at the earliest term possible, made valid among recalcitrant mortals!' 31. 35.

(3) Oliver Cromwell did believe in God's Judgments; and did not believe in the rosewater plan of Surgery:-which, in fact, is this Editor's case too! Every idle lie and piece of empty bluster this Editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to shudder at it; has to think: "Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also art shutting men's minds against the God's Fact, thou wilt issue as a cleft crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in bogs whither cavalry cannot follow ! "

-But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still belief in the Judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing Capital Punishments," of Jean-Jacques Philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but for making laws just God the Maker's Laws, they considered, had not yet got the Punishment abolished

from them! Men had a notion, that the difference between Good and Evil was still considerable; -equal to the difference between Heaven and Hell. It was a true notion. Which all men yet saw, and felt in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening towards radical change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing-up of Good and Evil into one universal patent-treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau Sentimentalism, universal Pardon and Benevolence, with dinner and drink and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.' 16. 143.

'Reader, even Christian Reader as the title goes, hast thou any notion of Heaven and Hell? I rather apprehend, not. Often as the words are on our tongue, they have got a fabulous or semi-fabulous character for most of us, and pass on like a kind of transient similitude, like a sound signifying little.' 14. 124.

(4) Act with the due degree of perversity, you are sure enough of being violently put to death, in hospital or highway,-by dyspepsia, delirium tremens, or stuck through by the kindled rage of your fellow-men! What can the friend of humanity do?-Twaddle in Exeter-hall or elsewhere, "till he become a bore to us," and perhaps worse!'

12. 43.

'Politico-economical benefactor of the species! deceive not thyself with barren sophisms: National suffering is, if thou wilt understand the words, verily a "judgment of God"; has ever been preceded by national crime.' 10. 84.

'Why populations suffer for their guilty Kings? My friend, it is the Populations too that are guilty in having such Kings. Reverence, sacred Respect for Human Worth, sacred Abhorrence of Human Unworth, have you considered what it means? These poor Populations have it not, or for long generations have had it less and less. Hence, by degrees, this sort of "Kings" to them, and enormous consequences following!' 26. 294.

(5) In new dialect, whatever modified interpretation we may put upon it, the same must be said as in old : "God's judgments are abroad in the world"; and it would much behove many of us to know well that the essential fact lies there and not elsewhere. If we "sin against God," it is most certain "God's Judgments” will overtake us. 20. 253.