messenger of peace so full of Christ's spirit as to be the coming of Christ to you.' But at last his eyes were opened, and he rejoiced in the light. Then he preached with heart and wideembracing charity; and thus, using only expressions which blossomed out of his own thrifty soul, and shedding all the dead leaves of the past, he came into another sad experience, which also is not uncommon-to be suspected by those who cannot distinguish between truth and established formulas—to be tried for heresy, and to be abundantly acquitted. This was

during the first two years at Mobile. The next two years were spent in preaching in a free church as a city missionary, an enterprise initiated by John A. Campbell, now judge of the Supreme Court at Washington, and supported by persons of every denomination. The audience was made up of all classes, from the poorest and most ignorant to the richest and best educated. They were very happy years, of abundant promise for a fruitful future; but health gave way again, and the prostration of strength made removal to the North essential. In December he was re-elected Chaplain to the Senate, which post he held till March of 1855. During the summer, he prepared a course of lectures entitled, "Sketches of the Early History and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley,' which were first delivered before the Lowell Institute, at Boston, in December. He has since been wholly engrossed by lecturing, and his success is unsurpassed. He has spoken from Augusta, Maine, to New Orleans, and from Chicago to Savannah. From October first to May first, he has spoken on an average seven times a week, at least five-sevenths of which were lectures."

This volume consists of a selection from these lectures. They will be read, if I mistake not, with deep interest, not only from their intrinsic excellence, the ability they evince, and the eloquence they exemplify, but from the affecting recollection of the author's infirmity. "The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties" can never be more apparent than in the

STYLE OF THE LECTURES.

XV

case of an individual afflicted with the loss of what Mr. Milburn calls, with a felicity at once touching and eloquent," the imperial sense. His allusion to his own blindness, in the beginning of the second lecture, is very affecting. His remarks on the impossibility of the blind attaining oratorical excellence are forcible and striking, and are doubtless correct; yet he himself, it would seem, has, to a great degree, surmounted the difficulty, and become, as a public speaker, singularly effective. His style wants something of that compression which distinguishes what is slowly elaborated by the pen, and subjected to careful reviews; but it is admirably adapted for immediate results, and is therefore suited to its end. "Speeches are made to be spoken." Lectures are intended to be heard. When presented to us, therefore, in a printed book, it becomes us to place ourselves rather in the position of auditors than readers. The following pieces have the flow and vivacity of free speech. They are distinguished, moreover, by originality and acuteness of remark, and reveal the fervour and earnestness of the man. There are occasional passages in which the ideas and language rise into poetry, and many which evince the speaker's mental independence, his freedom alike of thought and utterance. It has often been noticed that the blind are remarkably and uniformly cheerful. This seems to be characteristic of Mr. Milburn. In spite of his sad and

melancholy deprivation (as we deem it), he appears to live in an atmosphere of unruffled and radiant joy. It may administer rebuke to the more favoured of the race, to find him the advocate of the "ministry of cheerfulness,” and proposing himself to become our instructor! Can it be that, in a world like this, blindness is an advantage?-that they who live in external darkness have it irradiated by a light from within, which reveals to them only forms of goodness and beauty, while they are saved from the sights of wretchedness and disorder so familiar to us! However this may be, the fact referred to is indisputable, and is one of the proofs of that gracious and merciful system of compensation which so obviously pervades the economy of Providence.

I learn from Mr. Gladstone-the writer of those striking and admirable letters on the condition of Kansas which very recently appeared in the Times -that the appearance of Mr. Milburn, when in the act of speaking, corresponds with his own description of the oratory of the blind. There is necessarily the absence of the flash and expression of the eye, and, so far, a barrier is interposed between him and the audience, which at first is painfully felt. In spite of this, however, the power of his mind appears to be such, --such the force of his language and the contagion of his enthusiasm, that he soon evokes and permanently secures the sympathy of his hearers; sways, and con

THE CHURCH AND THE LECTURE ROOM. xvii

trols, and carries them along with him. As, however, there are men whose spoken and written styles are very different, so, also, others, or the same, are like different individuals in the pulpit and on the platform,— when engaged in Christian instruction, or delivering a popular lecture. The following description of Mr Milburn, as a preacher, would seem to indicate that his address is distinguished by appropriate characteristics in the church, and in the lecture-room. "His delivery is simple and natural; his voice is clear, inclining to gentle inflections and tender undertones, though sometimes rising into great vigour and ring of utterance. He speaks extemporaneously with ease and affluence, though he uses his memory but little in preparation for public discourse. His preaching is not of the style most popular in his Church, for it is not demonstrative nor assured; but quiet, and touching upon heart-experiences with the gentleness of one who has felt them."

We shall close this preface with two extracts from Dr. McClintock's "Introduction." The following is his description of Mr. Milburn, which, though a little sentimental, will be read with interest:

"From his early childhood he has lived on, nearly, but not quite blind; sometimes able to read, painfully and slowly indeed, but yet to read. A blessing has this small share of occasional eyesight been to him; many a lesson of wisdom from the printed page has that little corner of a wounded eye let in

a

to feed and stimulate the apt and quick-seeing soul behind it; and now and then, a winged arrow from 'the golden quivers of the sky,' has shot into that small opening of the elsewhere sightless orb, always offering itself as a willing target. But of the brilliant beauty of the fair earth, trembling in its joy under the ceaseless shower of sun-rays on a bright day; of the shining pageants and braveries that every-day life affords to every-day eyes; of the rich dyes that nature is ever dropping from her light-tipped fingers-the crimson, the purple, and the gold of the evening sky-the pale light of stars, studding the deep azure-the violet, the purple, and the emerald of garden, and field, and meadow; of the full effluence of

'That tide of glory which no rest doth know,

But ever ebb and ever flow'

of all these he knows nothing except by recollection and by imagination.

"But he has this great advantage over the born blind, or even over those who have become totally blind in after life, that he is not entirely dependent upon what others tell him about the outer world; that he did get images of it in his childhood, which still furnish the inner chambers of his soul; and that he yet sees, now and then, at least, a little of the world's beauty -enough to stimulate his fancy, and at the same time to rectify its aberrations.

"And as the eye, however physically perfect, is only an instrument for the mind to use; as it remains true, now as ever, that the eye only sees in nature what it brings means of seeing ; so Mr. Milburn's little modicum of vision has prevailed him more, for all purposes of culture, than most men's perfect eyesight. It is doubtless true, also, that this very defect of vision has quickened his power of attention, enlarged his faculty of observation, and strengthened his memory of things once seen. At all events, in these capacities he is very largely endowed. But, above and beyond all this, he has that richest of all possessions to any man-precious especially, above all price, to him, The light that never was on sea or land;

The vision and the faculty divine,'