RICHARD COBDEN.

A Chapter in English Biography.

RICHARD COBDEN was born June 3rd, 1804, at a farm-house near Midhurst, Surrey. We pause not in a life so full of incident to give glimpses of his boyish days. Owing to the death of his father, Richard had at an early age to enter the bustling scenes of business life in London. Here he was so much given to reading, that his old-fashioned master used to caution him against persisting in a practice which would be sure to blast his business prospects. Stubborn facts so far falsified these predictions that, having failed himself, the master afterwards became the recipient of a pension from his prosperous and generous apprentice. Cobden was at this time unconsciously storing his mind. with those historical facts and political principles which he employed so powerfully at a later period. But for his early reading habits, he would never have known Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," from which he imbibed his Free Trade notions,-never having possessed the ability to put into practical shape his schemes for unfettering the hands of industry,never have had the eloquence to gain a nation's ear, a nation's conversion, a nation's good.

While engaged as a commercial traveller, Cobden heard of a business which was to be disposed of for £1,500, and, with two other enterprising young men, agreed to try and purchase it. A customer of Cobden's placed so much reliance in his integrity and industry, that he lent him £500; but his two friends did not succeed in securing their shares. The owner of the concern, however, hearing how matters stood, with praiseworthy liberality, allowed them to take it for one £500. Cobden, as soon as he was established in business in Manchester, did in the calico print trade what the Crossleys did in the carpet trade. Instead of sending round samples for approval, he designed new and beautiful patterns, and so created a demand by offering a supply of goods at once chaste and cheap; and what he could not find a ready sale for at home he shipped to foreign markets. The project succeeded, and the continental trade often called him abroad. The results of his observations were presented in pamphlets, which first brought him before the public as a deep thinker and a forcible writer.

When the Reform and Emancipation questions were convulsing the nation, Cobden began to write letters to the Manchester Times, signed Libra. The Editor, struck with the sound sense and strong Saxon of his letters, requested an interview with the writer. This took place at mid-day, and although Cobden protested, he was prevailed on to address a public meeting the same evening. The ordeal of making a maiden speech before distinguished speakers on so short a notice was simply awful. He bowed and blushed, shook and stammered, and sat down so ashamed and disgusted with his first platform effort, that for a long time he maintained that he was constitutionally disqualified for public speaking. But happily this notion was by degrees dispelled, and the calls of poverty and evil policy urged him to the front, till he took rank among the foremost English orators.

When Manchester was incorporated in 1832, Cobden was elected an alderman, and became the acknowledged exponent and leader of the

much-maligned Manchester party-a party which seeks the widest extension of commerce, the most complete representation of the people, the utmost religious liberty, and the breaking down of all monopolies. From the first, the newly-incorporated town sought to secure the repeal of the Corn Laws, and Cobden was the inspirer of the movement.

The Corn Laws professed to protect British producers by imposing a tax upon all imported grain. Practically, they prevented competition from abroad, and kept up prices at home. A bad harvest, followed by a severe winter, inflicted untold misery upon every poor family. With bread at from 10d. to 2s., often from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. per 4lb. loaf, men, goaded on by hunger, and maddened by the sight of pining wives and starving children, did rash things! Would not you? The object of the Anti-Corn Law League was to abolish these laws, and give the people untaxed bread. The history of Richard Cobden and the League are inseparable. Mainly through his skill and courage it flourished, till uniting millions of Englishmen it raised one mighty protest, and by the trumpet blasts of truth brought down the walls of the Jericho of Protection. Cobden was the great projector of the plans by which a favourable public opinion was created in answer to Governmental challenges. Indeed, he proposed that "A Central Association of Associations should be formed," and this led to the formation of the League.

On February 4th, 1839, a deputation was refused a hearing at the bar of the House of Commons. They adjourned to an hotel close by, where Cobden said, "I think there is no cause for despondency because the House over the way has refused to hear us. We are the representatives of 3,000,000 of the people; we are the evidence that the great towns have banded themselves together; and our alliance will be as an Hanseatic League against the feudal Corn Law plunderers."

Soon after John Bright's young wife died, Cobden visited him at Leamington, where he found him prostrate with grief. Here is his remedy for its removal: "Come with me, and we'll never rest until we abolish the Corn Laws." Bright complied, and from that day they were as brothers; and the nation and the world have reaped a rich harvest from Bright's sorrow and Cobden's visit of condolence.

In August, 1841, Cobden entered Parliament, and on the second night of the session he told the people's tale in the House of Commons. In closing a speech in which he had in fervid and graphic language sketched a sorrowful picture of the suffering poor, and shown what he called "the monstrous injustice of the case," he said, "Englishmen had a respect for rank, for wealth-perhaps too much; but there was another attribute in the minds of Englishmen-there was a permanent veneration for sacred things,-and where their sympathy and respect and deference were enlisted in what they believed to be a sacred cause, you and yours (turning to the Tories) will vanish like chaff before the whirlwind."

In another speech, he turned to Sir R. Peel, and said, "I ask the Right Hon. Bart., is he prepared to carry out the same principle in the articles of cotton and wool?" Sir Robert, "It is impossible to fix the price of food." "Then," asked Cobden, "on what are we legislating? I ask the Right. Hon. Bart., and I again pause for a reply. Will he try to keep up the price of cotton, silk, and wool? No reply! Then we come to this conclusion-We are not legislating for the universal people."

RICHARD COBDEN.

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Meanwhile, the League had raised vast sums of money; flooded the nation with literature; propounded its principles from press and platform and pulpit; and held a monster bazaar in London, by which £25,000 were raised. By these means the country was aroused. Lord John Russell-renowned as a reformer, a meddler, and a recanterwrote a recantation of his fixed duty scheme. Men of note followed suite. Parliament met in January, 1846, to repeal the Corn Laws. In passing the bill, Sir R. Peel said, "The name which ought to be and will be associated with the success of these measures is the name of one, who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has with untiring energy made appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence all the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned:-the name which ought to be chiefly associated with these measures is the name of RICHARD COBDEN."

Cobden had made great personal sacrifices in the service of the public. The last act of the League was to raise a national subscription of £80,000, with which an estate, embracing his birth-place, was purchased, and, together with the surplus, presented him as a tribute to his singularly disinterested labours in the cause of justice, commerce, peace and humanity.

Cobden's love of peace was intense; his hatred of war bitter. When his countrymen were mad with the fighting mania, as in the Russian and Chinese Wars, he rebuked their folly, and rashness, and sin. Yet he was a genuine patriot. He would have been the first to defend his native shores, and to resist an invasion from any quarter. He advocated arbitration before the bloodshed and the strife. This principle, which has fortunately prevailed in settling the vexed Alabama claims, may be regarded as one of his posthumous triumphs.

Lord Palmerston many a time pressed Cobden to become President of the Board of Trade, or of the Board of Audit, to become a Baronet, or a Privy Councillor, but he persistently refused place and privileges.

Cobden was the advocate of Retrenchment, Electoral Reform, the Ballot, Compulsory and Unsectarian Education, when these questions were not popular; indeed we may assert (the space allowed will not admit of proofs being adduced) that he was the pioneer advocate of all those schemes which have forced their way into the sphere of practical politics since his death, and for which Tear'em claims credit!

Fortunate in having rendered one great service to his country, he was instrumental in giving effect to another grand principle destined to bring into happiest fellowship the nations of the earth. We refer to the principle embodied in the Commercial Treaty which Cobden negociated with the late Emperor of the French, by which the interests of two rival, almost hostile nations, were made almost identical. Owing to the disastrous effects of the Franco-Prussian War the original treaty has been somewhat departed from; but the people for whose supposed benefit the changes have been made are already demanding that it shall be restored in its integrity.

In the spring of 1865 it was feared that America would seize Canada on the pretext that our neutrality had been broken by the St. Albans' Raiders. A debate was to take place in the House on the defences of

Canada in case of attack. Cobden, who warmly sympathized with the North in its struggle against slavery, resolved to resist the attempt to build fortresses which would be regarded as a menace by a friendly state. This effort to serve his country cost him his life. He caught cold in travelling to town, and after a few days prostration died in the path of duty in the sixty-first year of his life. No sooner was he dead than the nation missed and mourned him. All parties joined to rear a monumental pillar to his praise and to laud his many virtues.

Next day the benches of the House of Commons were densely packed at the opening hour. The leaders of the two great parties, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli, amid breathless silence, paid tribute to his memory, and delared "that the House had lost one of its brightest ornaments, and the country one of its most useful servants." Then, in response to many calls, rose John Bright, trembling with emotion, with tears streaming down his cheeks, and sobbing, said, "Sir, I feel that I cannot address the House on this occasion; but every expression of sympathy which I have witnessed has been most grateful to my heart. But the time which has elapsed since I was present when the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever tenanted a human form departed this life is so short, that I dare not attempt to give utterance to the feelings by which I am oppressed. I have only to say that after twenty years of most intimate and almost brotherly friendship, I knew but little how much I loved him until I found I had lost him."

A word-summary of the prominent features of the character of Richard Cobden must close these "glimpses." Richard Cobden was a self-taught, self-made, earnest, independent, consistent, courageous, humble, truth-loving, and peace-making Christian Englishman. In a life of such transparent uprightness only the captious and the cruel would parade in print any mistakes he may have made. May the mantle of his integrity fall upon many of England's sons. May they never forget him; but arise to complete what he so gloriously began, and so make our island home great, free, happy, and Christian!

R. SILBY.

THE RETURN HOME.

THE holidays are over, and we are beginning to think of plans for our winter's campaign. Let us attempt great things for Christ. Men need His gospel as much as ever, and they wait for us to carry it to them. Let each soldier seek to enlist recruits. Kind words, spoken naturally, wisely, and lovingly, will heal the heart and lead men to Christ. Speak to the man who is next you. He expects it. Look after the wanderers. Get the fearful and timorous to confess Christ and unite with His people. Make church-fellowship so real and helpful that men shall covet it. "Every man a missionary," is the right maxim. Pastors and deacons and elders should aim to develop men. Lay hold of them whilst they are young. Train them. Give them work to do. Let them feel the yoke of responsibility. Be not afraid of the zeal of youth. Rejoice in it. Direct it. Talk kindly to it, and it will rejoice in the wise counsel of age. Lord give all our churches to partake largely of His fulness of love and zeal, and grace upon grace!

Give it occupation.

The all-prospering

DR. PRICHARD, OF NORTH WALES.

A Monologue.

FIFTY-TWO years of ministerial labour in the same town bespeak a lifework that sinks into the strata of past years, where most of us have been wont to search for fossil incidents and curious relics. Leaving Abergavenny College in 1823, John Prichard, a delicate young man who had been fighting for months with liver disease and fever, accepts the pastorate of the church at Llangollen, and the congratulations of senior preachers are spiced with the ominous warning, "There is a curse on the place;" and truly the valley nestling in the hills was a very hotbed of roystering drunkenness and gambling. The congregation numbered about fifty people, twenty of whom were church members, with another ten resident in the hamlet of Glyndyfrdwy, six miles away. There was a debt of £300 on the chapel, with accumulated unpaid interest to the tune of £80. The young minister had to preach twice in Llangollen, and once in Glyndyfrdwy, or Chirk (in English), both places requiring a walk of six miles between each service. The salary was £22 a year; so that the delicate young pastor had to hire himself during the week as book-keeper to obtain a subsistence. The services were not always very lively; a godly sister used to start the singing, until in after years a young man acquired that ability by a joint-stock arrangement which required old John Edwards to sound in his ear, just before he stood up, the proper key-note.

It was soon found that the drunkenness of the people sapped the morality of the neighbourhood. Some of the members attending a farmer's funeral, were shocked to find that the man who usually repeated a prayer prior to the "raising of the coffin" was too drunk to do so; and during the funeral journey into the valley the coffin was pitched to the ground by tipsy bearers three times. A "Moderation Society" was formed, which allowed members half-a-pint of beer; but, as the minister naively wrote, "We never reclaimed a drunkard, as the first glass always prepared the way for another.". Soon afterwards a Total Abstinence Society was formed, and the young minister, notwithstanding his weak constitution and numerous duties, added to his work the duty of addressing temperance meetings-a work in which he continued, in spite of sneers and sometimes unkind opposition. His last sermon, preached a fortnight before he died, was a temperance sermon; and during his last illness he persistently refused "hock" and "port," so that he was privileged to honour his principles by surviving through eighty summers as a cold water drinker. At this time his earnest anxiety for the emancipation of the slaves in British Colonies led him to address meetings in various parts of the principality; he wielded this sword well, and with his fellow-soldiers joyfully hung it up in the hall of victory.

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In 1837 some of the church-members discovered" that their minister was not a Calvinist! Alas! how many of the best ministers of Wales at that period were harassed by such ferreting discovery, until their health was ruined, and the congregation wrecked! He was certainly not an Arminian, and as clearly was he removed from being a Gadsbyite, for he often used to say that God gave strength to the sinner