Of the far thunder deepens, and no more
  God’s gracious sunshine greets the lifted eye! 
  Not Faith alone, but Faith with Action armed,
    Shall win the battle, when the anointed host
  Wars with the alien armies, and, unharmed,
    Snatch victory from a field where all seemed lost. 
  Front Death and Danger with a level eye;
  Trust in the Lord, and keep your powder dry!

* * * * *

TINTS AND TONES OF PARIS.

It is a curious test of national character to compare the prevalent impressions of one country in regard to another whereof the natural and historical description is quite diverse:  and in the case of France and England, there are so many and so constantly renewed incongruities, that we must discriminate between the effect of immediate political jealousy, in such estimates, and the normal and natural bias of instinct and taste.  To an American, especially, who may be supposed to occupy a comparatively disinterested position between the two, this mutual criticism is an endless source of amusement.  In conversation, at the theatre, on the way from Calais or Dover to either capital, at a Paris cafe, or a London club-house, he hears these ebullitions of prejudice and partiality, of self-love or generous appreciation, and finds therein an endless illustration of national character as well as of human nature.  But perhaps the literature of the two countries most emphatically displays their respective points of view and tone of feeling.  While a popular French author sums up the elements of life in England as being la vie de famille, la politique, et les affaires,—­’domestic life, politics, and business,’—­he complacently infers that le fond du caractere Anglais, ’the basis of the English character,’ is nothing more nor less than le manque de bonheur—­’a want of anything like happiness.’  An English thinker, on the other hand, finds in the very language of France the evidence of superficial emotion and unaspiring, irreverent intelligence.  ‘How exactly,’ writes Julius Ham, ’do esprit and spirituel express what the French deem the highest glory of the human mind!  A large part of their literature is mousseux; and whatever is so, soon grows flat.  Our national quality is sense, which may, perhaps, betray a tendency to materialism; but which, at all events, comprehends a greater body of thought, that has settled down and become substantiated in maxims.’[A] How far a Frenchman is from appreciating this distinction, as unfavorable to his own race, we can realize from the following estimate of the historical evil which an admired modern writer considers that race has suffered from the English, and from the character of the latter as recognized by another equally a favorite:—­

[Footnote A:  Guesses at Truth.]