MEN OF THE MONTH. the atmosphere of a court, and while a mere boy attracted the notice of his sovereign by his polite and ready replies. "How old are you?" the queen asked. "Just two years younger than your majesty's happy reign," was the courtly reply of the future chancellor. Here is a trait of character which all young people could and should strive to possess. Courteous and agreeable manners cost little, and are worth much. The lad's thoughts were already taking an experimental direction. On one occasion he left his playmates in order to examine the cause of an echo which he had discovered in a vault in St. James's Street. This bent of his mind was soon clearly manifested when, as a student at Cambridge, he became acquainted with the philosophy of Aristotle. I must explain to my readers that the old philosophy, which had come down from the celebrated Aristotle, while it embodied a large number of valuable facts, had this serious defect —it was not experimental. Factswere collected, observations were made; but learned men did not attempt to try and test these real or supposed truths. Hence one quoted from another, until at last all natural philosophy came to be a collection of doctrines, some true, many false; but the right and the wrong mingled confusedly together. Bacon's great mind saw the weakness of this mode of philosophizing, probably before he had attained to man's estate. The death of his father threw a serious obstacle in the way of Francis Bacon's advancement, and failing to obtain the patronage he had expected, he found it necessary to study the law for a subsistence. He 3 entered himself at Gray's Inn, and the rooms which he occupied are still pointed out, as well as his numerous professional autographs. He gained some promotion as years rolled on, and his early friend, the Earl of Essex, used his utmost exertions in his favour. It is said that this generous aid was repaid with base ingratitude when the Earl fell into disgrace with the queen. The accession of King James proved highly advantageous to the rising lawyer. He was knighted, became solicitor-general in the year 1607, then attorney-general, and at length Lord Chancellor of England, with the title of Baron Verulam, about 1618. Unhappily this high station had not been reached without much self-seeking, much unscrupulousness, and many unjust and degrading deeds. Yet all seemed to go well. Lord Bacon's sixtieth birthday, we are told, was kept at the old mansion in the Strand, with the utmost splendour and magnificence. Poets and courtiers deemed him the most enviable of mortals. He had already published his invaluable "Essays, "—a work which I earnestly commend to all young men,his "Advancement of Learning, and "Wisdom of the Ancients;" and now he was about to send forth his greatest work-the work of his lifethe "Novum Organon," or new method of philosophizing, which prepared the way for all the triumphs of modern science. It appeared in 1621. In that same year the sword of justice was unsheathed against the great but unscrupulous judge. He was charged with receiving the bribe which "perverts judgment," was found guilty, confessed the ge neral accuracy of the charges brought | is quite true that it was unhappily a against him, and besought mercy from his fellow peers. From the chancellor's seat he passed to the gloomy prison of the Tower, a heavy fine was imposed upon him, and he was deprived of all public offices. He was soon released from confinement, and at once retired to his country seat of Gorhambury, near St. Albans; where he spent the remaining GORHAMBURY. years of his life, closing in sadness and obscurity the career which had opened with such bright prospects of renown. He died at the house of Lord Arundel, at Highgate, in the year 1626. It is hardly possible not to admire the genius and abilities of this wonderful man, or to overlook his mighty influence on the minds of posterity. We sympathize with his rise to worldly eminence, and pity him in his miserable fall. Yet we must not palliate his offences. They were not crimes of ignorance, but of selfish ambition. He knew the right as few other men knew it; yet he deliberately chose the wrong, and sacrificed conviction to personal interest. It common thing in Bacon's days for judges and magistrates to accept presents from intending suitors. This was professedly designed to obtain early hearings of their causes; and Lord Bacon was never charged with unjust decisions. Yet no one can doubt that the practice was highly reprehensible, and no one perceived this more clearly than the great philosopher. His illustrious predecessor, Sir Thomas More, acted very differently. A lady in whose favour he had decided a lawsuit, sent him, on the next New Year's day, a present of a pair of gloves containing a large sum of money. "I accept the gloves," was the dignified and graceful reply, "the lining you will be pleased to bestow elsewhere." It would have been well for Bacon's fame had he manifested the same high integrity. But, alas! in order to grasp wealth, power, and worldly honour, he stifled the voice of conscience, and climbed to worldly eminence only to fall with more startling rapidity. He lived in an age of legal corruption, it is true, but his intellect was not warped by the opinions of others. With him, unhappily, it was "A mind that soared through crea tion-a spirit bounded and poor;" and let it ever be remembered that, in proportion to the clearness of our moral discernment will be our sin, if we close our eyes against truth and right. Let duty be ever supreme, let conscience and the word of God be our monitors, and then, whether wordly honours be given or withheld, we shall inherit the blessing which maketh truly "rich, and addeth no sorrow therewith." LOST IN THE BUSH; OR, THE WEARY WANDERERS. (See Frontispiece.) BY THE REV. ROBERT ROBINSON. "BLESS me! here's a picture for you! A queer sort of New Year's greeting this! I say, George, old fellow, just come and look;-and you too, Sissy, just put down your crochet, stretch out your long neck, and open your little eyes, and tell me whether this isn't enough to make our granny run for her 'spectacles,' and look with all her eyes. Now see what's to be seen. Well, first of all, there's an ugly little reptile; don't you see the snake? Snakes! I hate them! and this little wriggling, sneaking one looks as if he meant mischief, or had done it. Then that boy, what's he about? I suspect he's 'burking' the baby, and I reckon that mock-modestlooking girl is just an accomplice; and those two 'darkies' are cannibals, of course. You see how, for the benefit of their comrades, they are pointing to the delicious little bit of whitebait' they've just found; and those gentlefolk you see in the distance, with all their hurry and bustle, are not likely to be in time to prevent them from gobbling up the youngsters! A strange picture, I do declare, for New Year's Day!" Now, Tom, my dear fellow, I hope you have talked yourself out of breath, or at least have exhausted your stock of words, and reached the end of your tether; because, you know, you have been romancing all this while, just drawing upon your imagination, and proving that you know nothing at all about the picture. So come now, sit down with George and Sissy, and let me tell you a thing or two about it, and I think it may possibly make your loving sister 'pipe her eye' a little, and perhaps find out the soft place in your own tender heart, and thus help you and George, and a lot of you besides, to paint the picture on your mind, as something worth looking at and thinking about for a whole year to come! Those Now look at it again. three children under the tree, among the bushes, are sleeping beauties. The boy's name is Frank, nine years old; the girl's name is Jane; she is seven, and the other is little Trotty, only five-two sisters and a brother, and they have both father, mother, and home, but for eight days they have lost them all! Now sit still, and let me tell you where and how. Of course you know something about Australia? I mean that vast continent on the other side of the globe which belongs to Great Britain, but is very much bigger! for Great Britain looks very little by the side of it, and on it, some day, a good many "little Englands" will spring up. Out there you may see many towns, but more woods; many houses, but more trees. The settlers often build their little wood cabins on the very edge of the forests, into which it is very easy to get, but our of which it is often very difficult to come. You may soon be lost, and so get into a much more awful fix than you ever found yourselves in amid the perplexities of "the naze" at Hampton Court. more. The parents called their few neighbours, who all heartily joined in the search; but it was of no avail, and the last remnant of hope seemed crushed out of their hearts. And where, all this while, were weary wanderers"? Well, the " Well, the parents of our "sleeping beauties" lived in some such cabin, on the borders of some such forest; and the children, trained to be useful, often went into it to gather fire-after they had gathered their bundles wood and other things, and they of firewood they had a few gambols always came back in safety and in in the copse, and then, rather later good time, until, one bright after- than usual, they started for home; noon, they went out and remained but the forest being pathless, they out ! The parents waited awhile, unwittingly took the wrong direcand then went out of doors and tion, and only discovered it when, looked, and shouted their names, after walking a long way, they but got no answer. They came in found themselves more in the thick again, and waited long with grow of the wood than ever; then they ing uneasiness, but waited in vain. turned and returned, walked and They then tried to take their tea, wandered, until, night coming on, but could not; the mother was hungry, tired, and filled with terror, up and down a dozen times a they nestled together and fell asleep. minute, and the father took hurried Then up again the next morning, walks in different directions, but only to walk, and tumble, and cry, returned, looking more blank each and eat berries, and wonder why time, until at sundown, as the father and mother didn't hear their black night began to set in, the call and come to them. "Oh, mother fairly broke down, and, in Franky, I tan't walk no more; tarry an agony of tears, sobbed out, "I me, tarry me!" said dear little know they're lost in the bush; Trotty. And poor Frank, wiping his they'll die with cold and hunger. eyes on the sleeve of his jacket, said, I shall never, never see them again!" "Yes, Trotty, I'll try and carry The father could say little to you 'a flying angel.' But, poor comfort her, for his own heart sank fellow! he was so weak and weary, within him, and he felt a choking he couldn't do that long, and they sensation in his throat; but, strug- both sank down together! gling against the rising despair, he then again the cry went ringing said, "Oh, no doubt they'll turn up among the bushes, "Father! moyet; they can't have gone very far; ther! do come-oh, do come!" Then they'll soon see your light in the they became faint and ill, and window, and find the way home." could walk no further, and poor But no home did they find! Their little Trotty seemed fast getting little cribs were empty all that away into the spirit world as she night, and the next night, and the whispered, "Kiss, Janie; do kiss next, until, after eight nights of and cuddle! I so cold!" Janie mourning had passed away, no one did kiss her, and also sent a whole thought of seeing them alive any shower of tears down on the dear And THE WEARY WANDERERS. little cheeks; but she did something more; she stripped off her own frock and wrapped little Trotty in it to make her warm, though she herself was sadly nipped with cold. And thus, on the ninth day of their wanderings, they all went fast asleep, as you see them in the picture, and well-nigh slept the sleep of death! 7 And thus they were soon and tenderly all carried back to "home, sweet home" ! passed in safety through many days Oh, how wonderfully kind was that Providence that watched over them! What a tender yot mighty hand kept them in safety! How marvellously good is "the good God"! Think now, my dear lads and lasses, of the great world-wilderBut in the meantime a happyness around you. You have already thought had struck the parents, and they resolved to seek the help of some of the natives-those "darkies" who, as by instinct, can trace a footstep where, to an ordinary eye, nothing is visible. They soon came on the “trail,” and said, “Ah, see! here little one tired, and sit down." | And again they say, "Ah! here big one carry little one; big one fall." And so on they go, now losing and again finding the track, until at last the "darkies" came up to the youngsters' resting-place, and there, catching sight of the sleeping beauties," they raised a shout, and stretched forth their hands; and thus hurried forward the whole party, who came on with palpitating hearts, to find the children, not dead, but sleeping! Then, with shouts, and tears, and warm embraces, the little ones were brought back to renewed life and consciousness; and presently little Trotty was able to look up in her father's face and say, "Father, why oo didn't come sooner? we kied for oo ;" and then Frank and Janie, catching hold of mother and father, laughed and cried, and kissed, and tried to shout, "We're found! we're found!" "Jesus sought me when a stranger Wandering from the fold of God He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood. Here I raise my Ebenezer, Hither by Thine help I'm come, And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home!" |