upon what you are now. No good soldier in his old age was ever careless or indolent in his youth. Many a giddy and thoughtless boy has become a good bishop, or a good lawyer, or a good merchant; but no such an one ever became a good general. I challenge you in all history to find a record of a good soldier who was not grave and earnest in his youth. And, in general, I have no patience with people who talk about the thoughtlessness of youth indulgently. I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age and the indulgence due to that. When a man has done his work, and nothing can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil and jest with his fate if he will; but what excuse can you find for wilfulness of thought at the very time when every crisis of future fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home for ever depends on the chances or the passions of an hour! A youth thoughtless, when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a moment! A youth thoughtless, when his every act is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in any after years rather than now; though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless his death-bed. No thinking should ever be left to be done there."

IN

VIII.

YOUNG STATESMEN.

N the difficult work of statesmanship the sage remark of the youngest of the friends of the great patriarch Job is appropriate "Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom." So many interests are involved in national politics, and so many considerations of an international importance require to be fully viewed, that it is scarcely to be expected that youth should possess the necessary sagacity for the conduct of public affairs. Yet, apart altogether from hereditary position, there have been some notable instances of precocious statesmanship in young men. OCTAVIUS (63 B.C.-14 A.D.) became Cæsar when he was only nineteen. He was made triumvir at twenty-two, and he got the proud title of Augustus, as master of the Roman empire-the most colossal of the ancient world-when he was thirty-three. He was born 63 B.C., but lost his father when only four years of age. His mother married again, but she superintended the education of her son, as also did his step-father, with the utmost vigilance. His uncle, Julius Cæsar, took great interest in him, and became deeply attached to him. He hoped to make him his son by adoption, and to train him to be his successor in ability. He therefore watched over his education with great care, and personally aided it.

The young Octavius gave great promise in the early efforts which he put forth. In his twelfth year he pronounced the eulogium at the funeral of his grandmother Julia, with whom he had resided from the time of his father's death. At sixteen he assumed the toga virilis, and was made a member of the College of Pontiffs. He was then well trained in military exercises, which helped greatly to strengthen his delicate constitution. He profited much intellectually from his teachers, Apollodorus of Pergamus, and Theogenes the mathematician.

He was nineteen when the great Cæsar fell, and being hailed as Cæsar by the soldiers, "he at once took his position as a man, and displayed the very highest ability." "The state of parties at Rome was most perplexing; and one cannot but admire the extraordinary tact and prudence which Augustus displayed, and the skill with which a youth of barely twenty contrived to blind the most experienced statesmen in Rome, and eventually to carry all his designs into effect." He had to contend against Antony, the chief of his late uncle's party, and Brutus, the chief opponent; but he conducted himself so as to win the favour both of senate and people, and to be regarded by Cicero, "who at first looked upon him with contempt, as the only man capable of delivering the republic from its troubles." Octavius was also great as a warrior, and won the battle of Actium, which decided the fate of the world, and established his triumph as the chief of the state. He took office only for a period of years, and assumed no outward appearance of monarchy. He lived as a citizen with the world at his feet, and kept up the forms of the republic while he held imperial power. Though so large a part of the known world was subject to him-from the Pillars of Hercules to the waters of Babylon, and from the forests of Germany to the sands of Libya-there was almost universal peace. The

greatest era of Roman literature culminated in his reign. Virgil and Horace, Lucretius and Ovid, Seneca and Cicero, flourished in that age. And then occurred the grandest event in human history: the fulness of time came, and a decree from Augustus brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, and JESUS CHRIST was born. The sacred narrative has particularly preserved the fact that in the reign of Augustus came the true King of men.

ALFRED THE GREAT (849-901) was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 849, and, as Gibbon says, "amidst the deepest darkness of barbarism, the virtues of Antoninus, the learning and valour of a Cæsar, and the legislative spirit of a Lycurgus were manifested in this patriotic king." He succeeded to the crown when only twenty-one, and had much to do to keep his little kingdom of Wessex from the pagan Danes. He had soon to yield to their power, and seek safety in disguise; but he kept up his spirit by reading the Psalms, and by making songs and singing them to his harp. Disguised as a minstrel, he watched the conquerors, and kept up communication with his faithful people. When at length, in his twenty-ninth year, he escaped, and set up his standard and gained his kingdom, he manifested a singular ability as a statesman, framed laws founded on the Scriptures, distinguished for their humanity, justice, and mercy. He laid the foundation of England's greatness in its monarchy, its literature, and its religion.

"One cannot help," said Burke, "being amazed that a prince who lived in such turbulent times, who commanded personally in fifty-four pitched battles, who had so disordered a province to regulate, who was not only a legislator but a judge, and who was continually superintending his armies, his navies, the traffic of his kingdom, his revenues, and the conduct of all his officers, could have bestowed so much of

his time on religious exercises and speculative knowledge; but the exertion of all his faculties and virtues seems to have given mutual strength to all of them."

He was a great sufferer from his seventeenth year, and subject to epileptic fits; but during those trying years of his youth, and when in hiding, he disciplined his mind for the great and pious work for which he has been so gratefully and affectionately remembered. By the force of an unyielding will he learned "to overcome the heaviest cares that ever weighed upon any ruler engaged in a contest with a most terrible foe, and under the weight of corporeal weakness and the cares of the outer world to prosecute unceasingly his great purpose." His biographer Asser asserts that Alfred had in youth "begged for some protection against his passions, for some corporeal suffering which might arm him against temptation, so that his spirit might be enabled to raise him above the weakness of the flesh." He was indeed subjected to a most painful malady, which rendered him absolutely incapable of any exertion for a time. He was seized with fear and trembling-an epilepsy which often came upon him. Physicians could do little to mitigate, and nothing to prevent, these attacks; but the king himself committed his way to God in prayer, and only desired to be enabled to fulfil his high and important office.

He was the founder of the English constitution, of trial by jury, of local government, and probably of the University of Oxford. He was twelve years of age before a master could be found to teach him the alphabet; but he wished every child in his kingdom to be taught. He was a rigid economist of his time, and had a method of regulating it. He is universally characterized as one of the wisest, best, and greatest of English kings.

EDWARD VI. (1537-1553), King of England, was a re