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right, or that a minority will have the force, to subvert a government; and consequently, that the Federal interposition can never be required but when it would be improper. But theoretic reasoning, in this as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice. Why may not illicit combinations, for purposes of violence, be formed as well by a majority of a State, especially a small State, as by a majority of a county or a district of the same State; and if the authority of the State ought in the latter case to protect the local magistracy, ought not the Federal authority, in the former, to support the State authority? Besides, there are certain parts of the State constitutions which are so interwoven with the federal Constitution, that a violent blow cannot be given to the one without communicating the wound to the other. Insurrections in a State will rarely induce a Federal interposition, unless the number concerned in them bear some proportion to the friends of government. It will be much better that the violence in such cases should be repressed by the superintending power, than that the majority should be left to maintain their cause by a bloody and obstinate contest. The existence of a right to interpose will generally prevent the necessity of exerting it.

Is it true that force and right are necessarily on the same side in republican governments? May not the minor party possess such a superiority of pecuniary resources, of military talents and experience, or of secret succors from foreign powers, as will render it superior also in an appeal to the sword? May not a more compact and advantageous position turn the scale on the same side, against a superior number so situated as to be less capable of a prompt and collected exertion of its strength? Nothing can be more chimerical than to imagine that in a trial of actual force, victory may be calculated by the rules which prevail in a census of the inhabitants, or which determine the event of an election! May it not happen, in fine, that the minority of citizens may become a majority of persons, by the accession of alien residents, of a casual concourse of adventurers, or of those whom the constitution of the State has not admitted to the rights of suffrage? I take no notice of an unhappy species of population abounding in some of the States, who, during the calm of regular government, are sunk below the level of men; but who, in the tempestuous scenes of civil violence, may merge into the human character, and give a superiority of strength to any party with which they may associate themselves.

In cases where it may be doubtful on which side justice lies, what better umpires could be desired by two violent factions, flying to arms and tearing a State to pieces, than the representatives of confederate States not heated by the local flame? To the impartiality of judges they would unite the affection of friends. Happy would it be if such a remedy for its infirmities could be enjoyed by all free governments; if a project equally effectual could be established for the universal peace of mankind!

Should it be asked, what is to be the redress for an insurrection pervading all the States, and comprising a superiority of the entire force, though not a constitutional right, the answer must be that such a case, as it would be without the compass of human remedies, so it is fortunately not within the compass of human probability; and that it is a sufficient recommendation of the Federal Constitution, that it diminishes the risk of a calamity for which no possible constitution can provide a

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MAURICE MAETERLINCK.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK, a Belgian dramatist, born at Ghent in 1864. His studies being completed, he devoted himself exclusively to letters. In 1891, after the appearance of his "Princess Maleine," he was awarded the prize for literary drama, which he refused. "L'Intruse," one of his first pieces, has been played at Paris at the Théâtre d'Art. A representation of "L'Aveugle" was organized in December of the same year. "L'Intruse " was given in Brussels toward the close of March, 1892. These two pieces were reproduced in German at Vienna, and in Danish at Copenhagen. Among his other works are "Les Sept Princesses," "Pelléas and Méllisande," and some verses entitled "Les Serres Chaudes." He also translated "L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles de Ruysbroeck," "L'Incomparable,” “Le Trésor des Humbles," mystical essays, and "Le Barbare." His "Treasure of the Humble," and " Aglevaine and Selysette," have been well rendered in English by Alfred Sutro.

JEAN VON RUYSBROECK.

(From "Ruysbroeck and the Mystics.")

THE life of Jean von Ruysbroeck, like that of most of the great thinkers of this world, is entirely an inner life. Nearly all his biographers wrote nearly two centuries after his death, and their work seems much intermixed with legend. They show us a holy hermit, silent, ignorant, amazingly humble, amazingly good, who was in the habit of working miracles unawares. The trees beneath which he prayed were illumined by an aureole; the bells of a Dutch convent tolled without hands on the day of his death. His body, when exhumed five years after his death, was found in perfect preservation, and from it rose wonderful perfumes, which cured the sick who were brought from neighboring villages. A few lines will give the positively ascertained facts of his career. He was born in 1274 at Ruysbroeck, a little village between Hal and Brussels. He was first a priest in the Church of Sainte-Gadule; then by the advice of

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the hermit Lambert, he left the Brabant town and retired to Grönendal, in the forest of Soignes, in the neighborhood of Brussels. Holy companions joined him there, and they founded the abbey of Grönendal, whose ruins may still be seen. tracted by the strange renown of his supernatural visions, pilgrims from Germany and Holland, among them the Dominican Jean Tauler and Gerhard Groot, came to this retreat to visit the humble old man, and went away filled with an admiration, of which the memory still lingers in their writings. He died Dec. 2, 1381, and his companions gave him the title of "L'admirable." It was the century of the mystics and the period of the gloomy wars in Brabant and Flanders, of stormy nights of blood and prayers under the wild reigns of the three Johns, of battles extending into the very forests where the saints were kneeling. St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas had just died, Thomas à Kempis was about to study God in that mirror of the absolute which the inspired Fleming had left in the depths of the Green Valley; while first Jehan de Bruges, and afterwards the Van Eycks, Roger van der Weyden, Hugues van der Goes, Thierry Bonts and Hans Memlinck were to people with images the lonely Word of the hermit.

Every language thinks always more than the man, even the man of genius, who employs it, and who is only its heart for the time being, and this is the reason why an ignorant monk like this mysterious Ruysbroeck was able, by gathering up his scanty forces in prayers so many centuries ago, to write works which hardly correspond to our senses in the present day. Many of Ruysbroeck's phrases float almost like transparent icicles on the colorless sea of silence, but still they exist; they have been separated from the waters, and that is sufficient. I am aware, finally, that the strange plants which he cultivated on the high peaks of the spirit are surrounded by clouds of their own, but these clouds annoy only gazers from below. Those who have the courage to climb see that they are the very atmosphere of these plants, the only atmosphere in which they can blossom in the shade of non-existence. For this is a vegetation so subtle that it can scarcely be distinguished from the silence from which it has drawn its juices and into which it seems ready to dissolve.

THE INNER BEAUTY.

(From "The Treasure of the Humble.")

THERE is nothing in the whole world that can vie with the soul in its eagerness for beauty, or in the ready power wherewith it adopts beauty unto itself. There is nothing in the world capable of such spontaneous uplifting, of such speedy ennoblement; nothing that offers more scrupulous obedience to the pure and noble commands it receives. There is nothing in the world that yields deeper submission to the empire of a thought that is loftier than other thoughts. And on this earth of ours there are but few souls that can withstand the dominion of the soul that has suffered itself to become beautiful.

In all truth might it be said that beauty is the unique aliment of our soul; for in all places does it search for beauty, and it perishes not of hunger even in the most degraded of lives. For indeed nothing of beauty can pass by and be altogether unperceived. Perhaps does it never pass by save only in our unconsciousness: but its action is no less puissant in gloom of night than by light of day; the joy it procures may be less tangible, but other difference there is none. Look at the most ordinary of men, at a time when a little beauty has contrived to steal into their darkness. They have come together, it matters not where, and for no special reason; but no sooner are they assembled than their very first thought would seem to be to close the great doors of life. Yet has each one of them, when alone, more than once lived in accord with his soul. He has loved perhaps, of a surety he has suffered. Inevitably must he too have heard the "sounds that come from the distant country of Splendor and Terror "; and many an evening has he bowed down in silence before laws that are deeper than the sea. And yet when these men are assembled, it is with the basest of things that they love to debauch themselves. They have a strange indescribable fear of beauty; and as their number increases, so does this fear become greater, resembling indeed their dread of silence or of a verity that is too pure. And so true is this, that were one of them to have done something heroic in the course of the day, he would ascribe wretched motives to his conduct, thereby endeavoring to find excuses for it, and these motives would lie readily to his hand in that lower region where he and his fellows were assembled. And yet listen: a proud and lofty

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