THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 3I 



-moral, the intellectual and the productive, and by them we deal 

 with virtue, knowledge and industry. He would not have us 

 to suppose that we study these separately, for each is closely 

 connected, interwoven in fact with the others. To Macaulay 

 particularly belongs the honor of directing attention to the 

 practical subjects of history. He sees the value of lowly pur- 

 suits, and recognizes the importance of matters so apparently 

 trivial that pretentious scribes would regard them as being 

 beneath the dignity of historic record ; and it is refreshing to 

 hear Carlyle contrast the works of the conqueror who crossed 

 the Alps and won the fields of Cannee and Thrasymene, with 

 that of the nameless boor who first hammered out for himself 

 an iron spade. 



Surely these considerations lead us to recognize the solid- 

 arity of history. All history is one, ancient and modern, 

 ecclesiastical and military, social, religious, and that which is 

 profanely called "profane." (There may have been a time 

 when the use of the last term was admissible, but now it is 

 simply unpardonable. The word carries with it the idea of 

 sacrilege, and there is no sacrilegious history excepting as 

 wicked men make it so. If the use of the name is persisted in, 

 we should label it and say we do not mean what we say. Are 

 not the terms "secular," or "general," sufiiciently explicit?) 

 A general hictory of Europe failing to treat of the Reformation 

 would not be tolerated, and woe to the historian of Canada who 

 omits the " Clergy Reserves." The annals of England and 

 Scotland would be untruthful without treatment of Puritan and 

 Covenanter, and Green's History of the English People carefully 

 reviews the influence of John Wesley in the i8th century. 

 Now these are emphatically topics of church history, yet the 

 general historian is not turning aside from his task when devot- 

 ing his pages to them. 



Regarding history thus broadly our estimate of its value 

 must be large. By it we are made the heirs of all past time, 

 the acknowledged debtors to all mankind, having upon the 

 historian's page the ledger showing the amount of our obliga- 

 <tion. By its study we are, as Lord Bacon says, " made wise." 



