MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE has much to answer for. The publication of the first two volumes of his great History in 1856 was followed by the most dire consequences. Mr. Froude undertook to show that the character of Henry VIII. had been wholly misunderstood by his contemporaries and by historians. Instead of being a modern Bluebeard, gross in tastes and sensual in habits, he was in reality the most faithful and forbearing husband who ever had the misfortune to be married to a succession of faithless and ill-tempered wives, a saintly Christian, a gentleman and a scholar. Mr. Froude was an able advocate, and he pleaded his cause so well that most of us who read his fascinating pages were staggered, if not convinced. We did not, perhaps, accept his portrait of Henry VIII. as a correct likeness, but we were inclined to think that the verdict of history had been a little too severe. Nobody doubts, we suppose, that Mr. Froude's account of Henry VIII. was the result of conclusions honestly reached after his study of that monarch's career. But the popularity of his History produced a large crop of imitators, who took to furbishing up rusty reputations and whitewashing blackened names, from pure love of paradox and desire to make a sensation in the world535of letters. The result has been to make the last twenty-five years an era of whitewashing. No one of the men of past ages has been too criminal, too sensual, to deter these historical whitewashers from trying their hands at touching up the dark places in his life, in the hope of reversing the verdict of history. Caligula and Nero have been represented as wise and humane rulers; it has been charitably pleaded that Judas betrayed his Master out of the purest motives; and it has even been argued with apparent gravity, that Cain murdered Abel during an attack of emotional insanity. In the case of men less criminal, yet condemned by the moral sense of mankind, pleas are made from time to time for a modification of our condemnation. This is especially frequent in the case of men of genius. Because Byron, Burns and Poe wrote poems that will endure as long as the English language is spoken or read, their biographers would have us deny, or at least forget, that their lives were dissipated and their characters vile. We need not say how common this art of whitewashing is in political and social life. Every day brings a fresh instance of the freedom with which the brush is applied to damaged reputations. It is not unknown among the churches. Just before we began to write these words, we had in our hands a copy of complimentary resolutions passed by a certain church, speaking in very high terms of the pastor who had just resigned, the signature of the church clerk being appended. A private note accompanying the resolutions said, "the real reason why Brother —— left us was," etc., giving a very different account of the man from that embodied in the resolutions. The strangest thing about it was, that the writer seemed to think this way of doing things all right. This is not the first time that such a thing has happened. In fact, it has come to such a pass that when a church adopts such resolutions on the resignation of the pastor, to a great many people that fact has a suspicious appearance of whitewash. We all know, too, how prompt churches are to set on foot an "investigation" of charges of immorality brought against a pastor; how uniformly a "complete exoneration" follows; and also how little effect such an exoneration has on public opinion. "Whitewash" says everybody, and the last state of the pastor is worse than the first. Then there is that other very common form of whitewashing—eulogies of the dead. No magician's wand ever worked such marvelous transformations as the simple fact of death often makes. The most mediocre men are extolled as prodigies of learning or ability; the most ordinary and commonplace of women are endowed with qualities beside which Solomon's "virtuous woman" appears dim. Virtues that nobody ever suspected before are discovered, and a notorious sinner is not unfrequently found to be worthy of canonization. Now all this is an evil, a great evil. Must Mr. Wendell Phillips add to his list of forgotten secrets, in his lecture on the "Lost Arts," the art of speaking the truth about men? The worst of it is that this evil is not recognized as such. Slander, everybody admits to be a sin, and nobody wishes to be thought a slanderer. But it may be questioned whether slander is not a less evil than whitewashing, after all. Is it not worse for the world to have a base man made to pass for the beau ideal of all that is noble and manly, than to have a good man calumniated? Is not the moral standard of mankind lowered more perceptibly by seeing Tweed honored than by hearing Lincoln abused? The conscience of the public revolts against slander, while it tacitly approves whitewashing. At any rate, they should be recognized as twin evils, alike to be fought by all men who love the truth. It is not always necessary to tell the truth about a man; one can sometimes be silent. But what one says should be true. It is as bad to exaggerate virtues as to depreciate vices. Let Christian people combine to make the next quarter century an era of truth-telling—of speaking the truth only, about the living and the dead alike. The moral standard of Christian people soon becomes the moral standard of the world. If this shall be done, whitewashing will speedily cease to be one of the fine arts, and will decline to its ancient and honorable, though more humble use.—Examiner and Chronicle.