THE

COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON'S

NEW MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1850.

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.

SOME of our friends have been alarmed lest the title of our Magazine should awaken prejudice. It is well known that the prestige of the terms, Duke, Marquess, Countess, Lord, Baronet, Knight, &c., has greatly diminished, and to thousands in our land a periodical from the pen of a plain "Eliza Cook," would have far more charms than one written by a duchess. Aristocracy and Democracy are not unfrequently set in battle array as irreconcileable antagonists, and the life of the one is said to depend upon the destruction of the other. This arises from a misunderstanding on both sides. If " Aristocracy" meant nothing but a body of men and women claiming tyrannical power, running after pensions and places, perpetually dipping its hand in the national purse, and opposing every obstacle to the progress of right and liberty;—and if Democracy was the true designation of the enemies of all law, order, property, taste, learning and religion;-then not only the annihilation of one, but of both, would be a consummation to be devoutly longed for by all good people. Neither of these opinions however is correct. The ideas just given have no necessary connection with the parties alluded to. We may have an aristocracy without despotism, meanness, or robbery, and a democracy without sedition, anarchy, or violence. According to our Dictionaries, Aristocracy means a form of government in which the whole supreme power is vested in a few men distinguished for their rank and opulence ;" and

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Democracy" signifies that the whole legislative and administrative authority is exercised by the people. Now, the British constitution recognizes neither of these interpretations; so that in legal phraseology, we have neither an aristocracy nor a democracy amongst us. That wicked men on both sides have laboured to become tyrants, our history abundantly testifies, but still there is no necessary reason why Lords and Dukes should be despots, or why the masses, if possessed of power, should be anarchists or levellers. We once obtained a sermon on Waterloo Bridge. There was an individual exhibiting a cage, in which animals, supposed to be created with implacable antipathies, and which, in their natural state, preyed on one another incessantly, dwelt together in peace and amity. The sparrow and the robin committed themselves without fear to the talons of the cat and the hawk, and the puppy and the kitten were nursed by the same mother. In fact, it was the Garden of Eden on a small scale. We could not help thinking of that lovely scene of prophecy which Isaiah has so graphically pourtrayed as the result of the reign of Messiah:

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

And the cow and the bear shall feed;
Their young ones shall lie down together.
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
And the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
Because the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea."-CHAP. XI. 6—9.

Poetry cannot boast of a lovelier picture than this, nor prophecy of a happier effusion. The muse that inspired it was divine; by its aid we are carried back to the paradise of Adam for scenery, and onward to the Millennium for its moral realization. Many have supposed, that the prophet has here prefigured the happy blending of all ranks and classes in the fold of Emmanuel; that the hions, &c., represent tyrants and despots, and that the weaker animals are the down-trodden people. Certainly if we are faithful to history, we must admit that there have been too many instances in which aristocratical lions have worried and devoured defenceless lambs; and on the other hand, that democratic violence has been guilty of the most destructive carnage. But then we deny that these things arise naturally from the dignity of the nobles on the one hand, or the power of the people on the other. Rank may be just,

gentle and benevolent; and power may be as mild and harmless as a seraph. "Angels excel in strength," and yet they were the ministering spirits of Lazarus. In the Lord Jesus, we have "power, majesty, might and dominion" blended with love, condescension and sympathy. He can challenge the universe to equal, not only his power, but his meekness.

It has long seemed to us that in England, and perhaps from the principles of the British constitution, the words aristocracy and democracy receive a new signification, and that, as a nation, we are destined to show to the world that these supposed lions, wolves, bears, and lambs, are not natural enemies. We never taught our children to say ::

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,

For God has made them so."

We are not believers in this sentiment of Watts; and still farther are we from supposing that rank in nobles must of necessity war with the rights of the people, or that power in the hands of the multitude must be the determined foe of the nobleman. Aristocracy in its etymological and original meaning, signifies "The power of the best, the highest, the noblest, the wisest, and the bravest ;" and " Democracy" simply expresses the "Power of the people ;” and thus we have power on both sides. This is as it should be, and as our Creator intended it to be; and what we want for the good of all parties is, that these two powers, instead of living "in malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness," should move in harmony and love; should seek each other's welfare, and fully illustrate the words of holy writ, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."

But here we are told that there is an insurmountable difficulty. It is said that the nobility are too proud and tyrannical to regard the rights or the wants of their poorer brethren; and that the people are too depraved and too seditious to be trusted with any thing beyond the smallest fraction of liberty or power. These notions are as contrary to fact as they are to the Word of God. History affords examples by the thousand to show their incorrectness, and the Gospel, in the wonders it has effected, and promises still to effect, gives us a Divine pledge that power, under its sanctifying influence, is as gentle and harmless as a lamb or a dove : and whether wielded by an aristocratical or a democratic hand, will "neither hurt nor destroy." A religion that can accomplish this is "the desire of all nations," and must eventually triumph. Now we have a strong conviction that Lady Huntingdon was raised up to show what a lovely and glorious character the grace of God can form out of the nobility. Had every lady of title been endued with her spirit, and every member of the peerage imitated her example, we should

never have heard one word in disparagement of this portion of the commonwealth. We are fond of biography, and have studied history a little, but we have never yet seen the equal of the Countess of Huntingdon. Taking into consideration her age, her education, her rank, her associates, and the customs and conventionalities of her order, she is, in our judgment, one of the most marvellous trophies of the Gospel that history has left on its page.

We will neither pain nor pollute the minds of our readers by dwelling on the vices or the haughtiness of an order of men and women who had received some of their deepest impressions from the age and court of Charles II. Those who have perused "The Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough," or of the Court of George II., will have such facts at command as will fill them with no small degree of wonder, that a spirit so lowly, so gentle, so pure, so benevolent, so seraphic, could have emerged from such a scene of corruption. Had the peerage been instituted to degrade and deprave mankind, instead of exalting them, it could hardly have worked more injuriously than it did in those days. Whence, then, we may ask the metaphysician, the philosopher, the sceptic, or the moralist-Whence, we say, came the evangelically philanthropic character of the Countess of Huntingdon? It was not produced by the philosophy of Bacon, or the ethics of Hobbes or Shaftesbury. The Bishops and Clergy of that day would have deemed it one of the foulest libels that could have been uttered, to have been charged with having the least hand in the formation of her principles. The Church of England was guiltless in this respect, and proud to show that the piety of the Countess was not originated in her pale. The most rational account that the poetic and philosophical Southey could render of the phenomenon was that her Ladyship was infected with "hereditary insanity!!" The sophists and savans of the period were loud in their boasts that Christianity was about to be superseded by the inventions of their schools. And never perhaps had the country a race of sceptics of more acute or profound intellects. But these men, whose theories and predictions have alike passed away as a dream, had nothing to do in quickening the soul, or sanctifying the heart of the Countess. When Rome talked most magniloquently of its philosophies, its condition, as to morals, was the lowest; and it remained for a few Galilean fishermen to accomplish what Socrates, Plato, and others, had attempted in vain. So England, when Lady Huntingdon arose, had a brighter constellation of philosophical minds than probably at any preceding period, and yet it was a race of men and women as much despised as the Nazarenes of old, that commenced the work of reformation which has done wonders for Britain and America, and is destined to regenerate the world. We need not add that these highly honoured individuals were "THE METHODISTS." This term at first included the followers of Whitfield