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in the case of “ Roderick,” any one can feel the austere grace of 
passages like these. The first, The answer of Pelayo, the founder 
of the Spanish monarchy, to one who announced to him the over- 
throw of his house and family. 
(Quotation here made.) 
I ventured to quote these words in public upon the occasion 
of the tragical overthrow of brilliant hopes, when the present 
successor of Pelayo last year lost his beloved and charming 
bride; Again, the description of ‘ Virtue overclouded by 
misfortune” of which he himself describes the origination. 
(“* Life and Correspondence.”) But “Thalaba” and “ Kehama” 
have never lost their hold on those who were once swayed 
by them, and this arises from a deeper cause than the 
mere melody of the verses, or loftiness of the sentiments. 
He has himself given the account of their origin. (Vol. IIL, 
p. 351, “ Life and Correspondence.”) You will perceive that, 
unconsciously perhaps, he was here treading on the threshold 
of that immense world of religious philosophy, which the later part 
of the r9th century has, for the first time in the world’s history, 
appropriated to itself,—the region of comparative theology, or com- 
parative religion—that which in our day has been so powerfully 
set forth by Professor Max Miiller. It is a region of the greatest 
interest ‘to scholars ; but it is also a region full of the most serious 
and useful instruction to pastors and their flocks in the humblest 
walks of life, because it opens to us the consoling belief, taught indeed 
by the Apostles, but in the later ages of Christendom almost 
entirely eclipsed—that the knowledge and grace of God are not 
confined to any single church, or any single race, but may be found 
wherever the heart sincerely turns towards whatever there is of the 
best and highest in its own experience. 
I remember an aged peasant in Cheshire, since called to her 
rest, describing to me, as though it came with the force of a new 
revelation, that she had once gone to a neighbouring barn to, hear 
two old persons, a Quaker and a Quakeress, as she called them, 
who travelled in many parts of the world, and had announced it 
as their fixed belief, that in every religion God would accept those, 
- ERR. 
