CHRISTIANS AND INFIDELS

(By Robert Blatchford, in the Clarion).

Socialism and Atheism are being bracketed together by certain section of the British press, and the charge is commonly supported by quotations from my books and articles.
Now I do not know what proportion of the Socialist party are Christians. There may be many Christian Socialists, or there may be few.
But I am quite sure that most of those outside the Socialist ranks who profess to be shocked by infidelity are infidels themselves, and are Christians only in name.
For to be a Christian, in fact, one should believe in the teaching of Christ, and should at least try to put Christ's precepts into practice.
But how many professing Christians really believe what Christ taught ? And where is the one man who obeys implicitly the express commands of Him he calls 'Lord, Lord!'?
Christ said, ' Sell that you have, and give to the poor.' Do the readers of the STANDARD, the MAIL, and the EXPRESS obey that order ? Do the leaders of the Liberal and Tory parties obey it ? Do the Protestant voters of Kirkdale obey it?
I am told by men who should know, that the essence of Christ's teaching, and the foundation of real Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount. How many of those who attack Socialism because of their faith in Christianity believe the Sermon on the Mount? They dread Socialism because they think it would destroy Christianity. And they defend and uphold a state of society and a system of politics and commerce which are more anti-Christian than anything the most atheistic Socialist has ever dreamed of.
Let us take the Sermon on the Mount as a test, and find out who are the 'infidels.'

But woe unto you that are rich ! For ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full ! For ye shall hunger.
But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.
And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other ; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest ; for He is kind unto the unthankful and the evil.

I need quote no more. Which of the Tory papers believe these words? Which of the Christian opponents of Socialism believes these words ? If an infidel is one who is unfaithful to his religion what are the bulk of our professing Christians but infidels ?
And I ask the Christians if they really believe that if Christ returned to earth today He would approve of our modern system of riches on the one hand and poverty on the other. Would he approve of our existing system of commercialism based on ruthless competition ? What would He say of the unfed children, of the dishonored women, of the outcast unemployed men ? What would He say of the Trusts, of the millionaires, of the 'Smart Set,' of the slums, of the Yellow Press ? Would He approve of the Empire? Could he approve of the Church ?
You infidels who call yourselves Christians, what are you doing on the side of the landlord, and the money-lender, and the sweater, and the publican, and the gambler? What are you doing in the ranks of those who oppress and plunder the workers and the poor ?
You who listen to the hireling scribes of the covetous and the rich, what do you know of the Socialism you oppose ?
Are you aware that the Socialist, be he a believer or an atheist, is nearer to the Christ you profess to worship than you are yourselves?
Are you aware that you cannot deny Socialism without denying Christ ?
Are you aware that you cannot revile socialism without reviling Christ ? Has it never been apparent to you that all the institutions of this Christian country are contrary to the express teachings of Christ ? Don't you know that the lynch-pin of our social system, the principle held most precious and most sacred by your Liberal and Tory leaders, is the principle of selfishness : the desire for gain ? And don't you see that this principle is the very principle against which Christ's whole life and teaching made protest?
' But Socialists do not believe in God.' Ah ! And what does the Tory Press believe in ? What do the Tory leaders believe in? And how could all the Socialists in the world prevent the weakest and poorest man from believing in God, even if any single Socialist would try to deny the right of any fellow-creature to believe in any religion that to him seemed good.'
The wicked Socialists, your masters and exploiters tell you, will rob you of your wealth, and of your liberty, and of your faith. How much wealth or liberty or faith do you possess ?
We have a faith ; a faith that all men should be free, a faith that all women should be honored, a faith that all children should be loved, and taught, and fed.
You do not know that, because you take your facts from liars, and your morals from rogues, but it is there to see. You can find that Socialist faith in the Socialist books and newspapers. You can hear it uttered from a thousand Socialist platforms.
Go to the Socialists and judge for yourselves. Mix with them. Talk with them. Argue with them.
I am the arch-infidel of the movement. I am the terrible example of Socialist atheism. Well, read my books. Then read the Tory papers. Then read the New Testament. And if you are brave enough and good enough you will come with me and help in the work of the emancipation of mankind.
Now try it, if you dare.

Clipper (Hobart, Tas. ),  1908, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84641719

THE DECLINE OF FAITH.

Medicine has often been called a sceptical study, but it would appear that members of the other professions are also losing their hold on the doctrines of the church.  Speaking as an outsider, as an observer of religious tendencies, Mr. Justice HIGINBOTHAM has asserted his firm conviction that a simple belief in the unity of God was the first rational creed, and he has predicted that it will also be the last. Whatever may be thought of the intrinsic value of this statement, he has at least one sympathiser on the Victorian bench, and he may be taken as a type of many educated men. The thoughtful are drifting away from the faith professed in the churches, some to Theism or Pantheism, some to Agnosticism, while others, giving up the vain effort of speculation on religious things, view controversies with indifference, and content themselves with the work that comes daily to their hands. At one time theology was culture; all learning gathered round it, and all literature was saturated with it. The two are now widely apart. It may safely be said that there is hardly a scientific man whose religious opinions have not been considerably modified, while there are hundreds who proclaim themselves uncompromisingly hostile to the current teaching. It is equally true that of our literary men few or none have remained faithfully by the standpoint of the creeds, and not even TENNYSON has escaped blame. Naturally, therefore, the feeling has gradually spread abroad, that the creeds, confessions, and symbols of the church are out of date and antiquated; They are old landmarks, interesting historical monuments, but the tide of thought has passed beyond them. They are like a castle that looks down upon a new race of people to whom it is of little use, or like a rock that still stands, although the whole appearance of the surrounding country has been changed. Such is a view which has found expression even within the church. It is confirmed in a multitude of minds by a glance at the method in which the creeds were originally formed. They were partly the outcome of a most unchristian strife and opposition. Though they may contain the pure gold of truth, it is seen to be imbedded in the mud brought down the ages by floods of controversy .

But though the creeds may now be received with less authority, it cannot be denied that the Unitarian Church, which claims to represent liberal thought, has made little progress. Mr. Higinbotham confesses this, even when avowing his heartfelt sympathy with its principles. Dr. MARTINEAU takes a despondent view of the future, and in America, where it has been the nursery of most of the great writers, its influence is not increasing. Nor is the reason far to seek. The Unitarian Church is in its origin distinctly a sectarian organisation. It began and has been continued principally as a protest against one particular doctrine. Its tone has been negative—the denial of what is affirmed elsewhere, the repudiation of what is usually believed. Now, the majority of people have no desire to desert their own churches and take up a hostile attitude to them; they wish rather to see their church broadened and liberalised. Moreover, they are not tempted to hurry over to the other extreme, which they might find as unsatisfactory as the old creeds ; and while they are willing to modify their ideas, they will take no violent step. Then, again, the Unitarian Church, by constantly engaging in a work of destruction, offers little stimulus to the devotional feelings which are an essential part of the religious nature, and even those who grow up in it become indifferent. But the success or failure of one denomination, or of all the denominations, has little to do with the onward advance of thought. The growth of a more liberal spirit is to be traced in current opinion and within the churches. It is only a few years since FREDERIC ROBERTSON raised a tremendous storm by declaring that the traditional doctrine of the Atonement, as formulated by a medieval schoolman, was immoral and untrue. Since then we find that a London preacher is allowed without question to reconstruct theology in accordance with the Darwinian theory. We see, also, that the modern criticism of the books of the Bible is rapidly making headway among some schools of clergymen. Half the doctrines which were wont to be declaimed from the pulpit are now quietly ignored, and the harsher side of the creeds is disappearing. Humaner notions prevail, and an Edinburgh minister, in a noteworthy poem, has pictured CHRIST Himself as wearing of the glory of the traditional heaven,  and going forth to save the souls of the lost. All these things reveal the beginning of a change, the end of which is not yet visible.

Several causes have conspired to give it new bent to the thoughts of men on religious questions. Science has virtually created a new heaven and a new earth, for the modern evolutionist sees in the world something totally different from that which was perceived by people who believed in its instantaneous creation out of nothing. Then the wisdom of the East has again been introduced to Western knowledge. The studies of Indian literature, brilliantly begun by MAX MULLER, have shown that there were many sound and useful precepts in other faiths, and that Christendom does not possess a monopoly of the truth. Researches into many ancient beliefs have led to a science of comparative religion, which promises, whether mistakenly or not, to discover how religion has been gradually developed from the first crude hopes and fears which were cherished by primitive man. Besides this, the interpretation of the Bible has been modified in many points by a more just criticism, and instead of being regarded as a storehouse of texts, it is viewed as the literature of a nation. These are the chief tendencies of the age, which have already caused a large amount of doubt and uncertainty, and we have now to ask what result they are likely to produce.

It is obvious that the question of the miraculous will be the standard and touchstone in religion. There is an ever-increasing number who find a great difficulty in believing in the reality of a miracle. The world, they say, is orderly; legends are easily made, and a miracle proves very little at the best. It is hard, therefore, to imagine that the course of nature has ever been disturbed. On the other side will be a strong belief in the supernatural, and we may expect that the minor differences of sects and the other dogmas of the creeds will be considered of comparatively little importance. But even if the former view should prevail, we cannot hold with Mr. Higinbotham that the idea of God may disappear from the world for a time. As long as men acknowledge a power superior to themselves, most of them will conceive that power to be spiritual and intellectual. Mr. Higinbotham seems to think that they will wait until the existence of God is proved before they believe in Him. But this is contrary to all experience. Were it true there could be no religion. Religion is an instinct or an impulse of human nature, and faith springs up first ere it is analysed and examined, just as men eat before they know anything of physiology, and walk before they learn anatomy. So it must continue, and people will embrace by faith, believing where they cannot prove. The churches may be shocked and alarmed by the utterances of the Chief Justice. Laymen will feel that knowledge does not end in the abyss, and that the discovery of new facts must in the long run be to the advantage of the world.

Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 23 July 1887, page 24

DECAY OF RELIGION IN EUROPE.

Dr. Bellows, an American minister, who has lately made the tour of Europe, speaks thus unfavourably of the condition of religion in the old world : —

In Paris, there is a great show of religious education, without insisting urgently on ecclesiastical dogmas. Modern Catholics say very little about doctrine, but seek to recommend their religion by good works. The Church has a prodigious hold on the common people ; the middle class are rather apathetic than hostile to it; while the fashion of the cultivated class is sceptical, materialistic, atheistic, especially with young men. Protestantism makes no impression. It has never been popular in France, and seems to find no soil for its modern growth. In Germany, there is a great decay in the faith and spirituality of the people. The Catholic Church has great influence in some regions as a political power and a mighty superstition; but where it has died out nothing vigorous has shot up in its place. The people have settled into a decorous, aesthetic materialism ; but are without aspiration, devoutness, or faith in the invisible. Protestantism enters very little into national, social, or domestic life. The instinct for God and immortality appears to be asleep, and the prospect is that Christian faith and worship will for same time to come undergo a farther natural decay on the Continent.

There is, of course, a religious body in Germany, and it is in the main soundly orthodox in its theology. In Berlin and other great cities you find Protestant churches well attended, especially by women, where the preaching, if a little sentimental and vague, is still earnest and evangelical, and where the prayers and hymns are very thorough in their orthodoxy. The general participation in the singing gives much warmth to the worship. This is true also of the German Catholic worship, where, unlike other Catholic churches, the people universally sing, and seem really interested in and to be helping in the worship. There, however, it is only the humbler class that attends. But three manifestations are exceptional. This kind of faith is against the grain and spirit of the time. Evangelicism is maintained in the Protestant Church by prodigious effort on the part of a few anxious and faithful souls, alarmed at the general tendencies of thought and life, and willing to shut their own eyes and the eyes of others if only so the old confidence and the old piety can be upheld or brought back. Meanwhile the intelligence, the political aspiration, the science and philosophy, the experience and courage of the community are all leaning the other way. The universities, as a rule, are favouring the secular and non-religious view and feeling. Tho savans and meta-physicians are mostly openly or covertly sceptics and positivists. A few months ago, at one of the universities, the birthday of one of the most venerable and popular of the professors was celebrated with literary and social festivities, and after dinner, it is said, in an address to the company, he openly boasted of his atheism. Hegelianism seems to be the prevailing philosophy, and while its right wing is cautiously respectful to Christian faith, its left is, less dangerously perhaps, denunciatory of it. The labours of Strauss have produced more effect than we are aware of among the educated minds of Germany. The authenticity and genuineness of the Gospels, it seems vary largely assumed, have been finally discredited. Miracles, few scholarly men, not tied to official necessities, have the courage to treat with the least respect. It seems settled, at least for the time, by the physicists of England and the savans and metaphysicians of France and Germany, that whatever else may be true about Christianity there is no need of considering any farther the possibility of events like the resurrection. Is is possible for Christianity, as an institution or a religion, to survive the prevalence of opinions so radically destructive as this ?

Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875), Monday 17 August 1868, page 4

ARCHBISHOP VAUGHAN'S FOURTH LECTURE "DENIAL."

(Concluded.)
 Now turn for one moment to another subject. Whilst this debasing and brutalising process has been going on at home, have the people been increasing in Christianity ? Are they tending towards the Religion of Denial, or towards that Religion which it so violently opposes? Have men been more and more impressed that they have "to be perfect as their Heavenly Father is Perfect,"— which is the Christian principle of morality and happiness; or that they have to enjoy themselves as hogs, if that happen to please them most— which is the fundamental principle of the Religion of Denial ? Let me quote an enemy to Christianity on this point, and then a friend; and you will see how they bear the same testimony:—"A very large proportion," says Greg, probably the majority, of the operative classes in towns are total unbelievers; and these are not the reckless and disreputable, but, on the contrary, consist of the best of the skilled workmen, the most instructed and thoughtful as well as the steadiest. The hard-headed, industrious, reading engineers and foremen, the members of mechanics' institutes, the natural leaders of the artizans, are sceptics intellectually, not morally ; they disbelieve because they have enquired, argued, and observed, and have been unable to obtain from their Methodist fellow-workmen, or even from Ministers of the Gospel, satisfactory answers to their doubts. Among manufacturing artizans and the highest description of citizen labourers, it may be stated, with even more confidence than of the ranks above them in the social scale, that the intellect of this body is already divorced from the prevalent creeds of the country. The range and form of this scepticism varies widely in the different classes. Among the working men it is for the most part absolute Atheism, and is complicated by a marked feeling of antagonism towards the teachers of Religion, a kind of resentment growing out of the conviction that they have been systematically deluded by those who ought to have enlightened them. Thinkers of the higher order amongst the educated classes, and more especially, scientific men, by no means as a rule go so far as this, but content themselves with pronouncing God to be unknowable and His existence unprovable ; the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, and the details of its historical basis neither made out nor in any way admissable, and a future life to be a matter of pure speculation, which may or may not be in store for us, but as to which no rational man would dare to dogmatise. Literary men and scholars are often sceptical merely as to special creeds, though sincerely and deeply religious in tone and temperament. But all concur in repudiating existing forms of Christianity— that is the common religion of the nation; the Jehovah of the Bible, the heaven and hell of Divines and priests, the Resurrection of the Gospels, and the salvation formulas of creeds and churches." (Greg's Rock's Ahead," p. 131.). . . "The shrewd honest mechanic cannot half say one thing and believe another, and has no great respect or trust for the man who can. His instrument of thought is not delicate enough to play with dogmas, and want of downright assertion and negation appears like want of integrity to him. He cannot suspend his judgment ; with him unbelief immediately and inevitably becomes disbelief, and disbelief fast becomes mixed with contempt and indignation towards the sceptic or half believer, whom he regards as coquetting and tampering with the unclean thing. Nebulous tenets, vague dissent, luminous conceptions with a coloured halo round them, are not for the skilled workman; he is angry with the teachers of a church that has so long misled him, and seems bent on mystifying him still. When the lower classes reach the point, therefore, of abandoning Christianity, their rejection of it will be not, as often among the upper ranks, languid and reserved, but absolute and most probably resentful. Their disbelief will be apt to be as intolerant and dogmatic as the credence of the orthodox." (Ibid, p. 138.) Now take the words of a friend. "The advance of infidelity," says an able writer in "The Month," among a large portion of the generation now entering, or having entered, upon the full enjoyment and use of life, has reached the line, at which even morality becomes a sentiment rather than a law; conscience a phenomenon, rather than the voice of God sitting in judgment; free-will and responsibility an imagination; the universe a physical system, self-evolved and self-regulated; the soul of man a mechanism; the future of man a blank; sin, original and actual, a fiction; the Atonement, an impossible superstition." Again— The advance of infidelity and of its inseparable shadow, immorality, among the lower classes of our towns, the extreme activity with which the poison is spread in books, in cheap newspapers, by lectures and the like, and the measures by which this activity should be met with on the side of all who are for Religion and for God, should be subjects of earnest thought and meditation for all who have duties which bring them frequently across the evils which have just been enumerated. . . . No one whose occupations lie among considerable numbers of men can pass many days or even many hours without hearing religious subjects discussed, and the discussion will too often take a blasphemous tone. The mechanic, the young man in the house of business, the clerk in the office, however good and sound their faith may be, will often hear statements which they cannot contradict, though they feel them to be false arguments which they cannot answer, though they know them to be fallacious. It is often the case that such persons have to spend the greater part of their time in company in which irreligious talk is usual or perpetual. ("Month," Sept., 1874.)
 Here, then, we have two facts of momentous import staring us in the face; the first is, that the British nation is becoming more and more brutalized ; and the second is, that it is becoming more and more infidel— that it is taking up the Religion of Denial, and rejecting that form of Christianity offered it by Protestantism. I ask calm-judging men whether or not there is a relation of cause and effect between the process of brutalizing and the fundamental principle of the Religion of Denial? I ask them seriously whether or no, if there is no God in Heaven, and if man is merely an expanded mud-fish, with no freedom of will, no spirituality, no responsibility, but with violent lusts and cravings— whether or no, if such be the case, anyone in the world can blame him for doing exactly as he likes and getting as much pleasure gross or otherwise as he can compass during his short career on earth— if a man be a dog or a hog, why not act as such? What law has to hinder him from seeking to satisfy that particular craving that is strongest, and indulging in that especial excess which gives him the most exquisite delight? I cannot even imagine any reason why he should not; I can see every reason why he should; and every reason why he will and why he does; for if there be no God or Lawgiver, and if man is merely a piece of carbon, how can he help himself, or even dream of doing anything except squeeze the greatest amount of pleasure for himself out of life, in the most successful way he can. Brutalization is a direct consequence of the Religion of Denial; as civilisation is a direct consequence of the Religion of Affirmation, of the Religion of the Cross. Even the more conscientious theoretical promoters of the Religion of Denial shrink back, at least at present, from the full consequences of their principles. They are, fortunately, some of them, better than their creed and have upon them the pressure of that Christian tradition which they cannot throw off; but which, unless something be done, will lose its hold over society more and more every day. So far we may thank the Christianity which still remains to us that things have not progressed still more rapidly than they have towards brutalization. 
"The Christianity which yet remains diffused amongst us," says Dr. Mivart, "and the refinement of modern manners, render the open practice of licentiousness and sanguinary rites as yet impossible ; but the spirit which prompted them finds in this system of contemporary antitheists its complete and logical justification, as it has found in a contemporary poet its distinct lyrical expression—the tendency of this movement is to approach little by little to this worst phase of Paganism, as the corruption of morals gradually increases through the temporary decreasing influences of Christianity upon the outer surface of society. Already we have advocated the murder of the infirm, the sick the suffering, the old, as well as self-murder. Free-love has not only its advocates, but its avowed votaries; and a hatred of marriage and the family tie is one of the sentiments common to those political enthusiasts, who claim for themselves par excellence the title of Advanced." ("Contemporary Evolution," pp. 43,44.) Virchow distinctly tells us that "Socialism," the political expression of the Religion of Denial, is intimately connected with the mud-fish theory of evolution:—
"Gentlemen," he exclaims to the assembly of German savants, "I will only hope that the evolution theory may not bring upon us all the alarm that similar theories have actually roused in the neighbouring country. At all events, this theory, if consistently carried out, has a very serious aspect, and trust it  has not escaped your notice that Socialism has already established a sympathetic relation with it. We must not conceal these facts from ourselves. ("Freedom of Science,"p.19.)
See now how this principle of the Religion of Denial is corrupting the whole mass of civilized society—society which owes all its moral elevation to the  Religion of Affirmation. I do not presume to use my own words to show you this. One has just spoken who sits on the high watchtower of the world, and takes in, at a glance, the condition of all nations, even of the furthest from his throne. What has Leo XIII. just told the bishops of the world regarding the present condition of human society? He describes the character of that Religion of Denial, which in point of fact has been evolved from the theory of the mud-fish. His words are too weighty and too important not to be quoted in this connection. He shows clearly which way the world is drifting, having broken loose from the Christian principle, and having adopted that of Unbelief. The very fact of his speaking as he does shows his direct antagonism towards it, and its absolute antagonism to him. "As the nature of Our Apostolic office required of Us," he says, "from very beginning of our Pontificate, in an Encyclical letter addressed to you, Venerable Brethren, We did not neglect to advert to the deadly pestilence which is creeping through the innermost frame of human society, and brings it into the extremity of danger, and We at the same time pointed out the most efficacious remedies by which it may be restored to health and may escape the very grave dangers which threaten it. But these evils which we then deplored have in a short time increased to such a degree that We are constrained to address you again, the voice of the Prophet as it were ringing in our ears : Cry aloud and cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet. You will easily understand, Venerable Brethren, that We speak of that sect of men who are called by different and almost barbarous names, Socialists, Communists, or Nihilists, and who, scattered through the whole world, and most closely bound together by most unholy ties, no  longer seek safety in the shades of secret assemblies, but boldly coming forward into the light of day, strive to accomplish the design which they have formed long since of overthrowing the foundations of every civil society. These are they who, as the Divine oracles testify,  defile the flesh, despise dominion and blaspheme majesty.  Nothing which has been wisely enacted by human or divine laws for the security and adornment of life is left by them intact or entire. They refuse obedience to the higher powers, to which, according to the admonition of the Apostle, every soul ought to be subject, and which derive their right of governing from God, and they preach the equality of all men in rights and offices. They dishonour the natural union of the man and woman, which even barbarous nations hold sacred, and weaken or even sacrifice to lust the bond of that union, by which principally domestic society is held together. Allured, moreover, by the desire of present good, which is the root of all evils and which some coveting have erred from the faith, they impugn the right of property sanctioned by the Law of Nature, and by a monstrous crime, while they appear to meet the wants and satisfy the desires of all men, they aim at seizing and holding in common whatever has been acquired by the title of lawful inheritance, or by the intellect, or the labour of the hands, or by frugal living. And these portentous opinions they publish at their meetings, inculcate in pamphlets, and scatter among the lower orders in a cloud of journals. From this it results that the reverend majesty and rule of kings has so incurred the hatred of a seditious populace, that nefarious traitors, impatient of every restraint, have more than once within a short space of time, in impious daring, turned their arms against the Princes of the realm themselves. But this audacity of perfidious men, which threatens greater ruin to civil society, and strikes the minds of all with anxious fear, derives its cause and origin from those poisonous doctrines, which, scattered in former times like corrupt seed among the peoples, have borne such pestilential fruit in their season. . .The object of the war has been that, by setting aside all Revelation, and the subversion of every kind of Supernatural order, an entrance might be cleared for the discoveries, or rather the delirious imaginations of mere Reason. This kind of error, which wrongly usurps the name of Reason, as it entices and sharpens the desire of superiority naturally implanted in man, and gives a loose rein to desires of every kind, has spontaneously penetrated to the widest extent not only very many minds but civil society itself. Hence it has come to pass that, by a novel impiety, unheard of even among the heathen nations, states have been constituted without taking any account of God and of the order established by Him ; it has been, moreover, declared that public authority derives neither its principle nor its majesty, nor its power of command from God, but rather from the multitude of the people— which, thinking itself absolved from all Divine sanction, has determined to acknowledge only these laws which itself has framed according to its own good pleasure. The supernatural verities of Faith having been impugned and rejected as if they were inimical to reason, the Author and Redeemer Himself of the human race has been, insensibly, and little by little forcibly banished from the Universities, the Lyceums, the Gymnasiums, and from every public institution connected with the life of man. Finally, the reward and punishment of the future and eternal life being relegated to oblivion, the ardent desire of happiness has been confined within the span of this present life. These doctrines having been disseminated far and wide, this so great license of thought and action being everywhere introduced, it is no wonder that men of the lowest class, weary of a poor home or workshop, should desire to invade the palaces and fortunes of the rich; it is no wonder that there now exists no tranquillity in public or private life, and that the human race has nearly reached its lowest depth." (Given 28th Dec, 1878.)
 Well may the very professors of the Religion of Denial groan in spirit when they see their work. "There are few reflective persons," says Bradlaugh, "who have not been, now and again, impressed with awe as they look back on the past of humanity. . . It is then that we see the grandest illustrations of that unending necessity under which, it would seem, man labours, the necessity of abandoning ever and again the heritage of his fathers, . . . of continually leaving behind him the citadel of faith and peace, raised by the piety of tho past, for an atmosphere of tumult and denial. . . Whatever may be our present conclusions about Christianity, we cannot too often remember that it has been one of the most important factors in the life of mankind." (National Reformer, October 6, 1878.) Listen to the cry of another writer in his agony, who has made shipwreck of his faith. "Does that new philosophy of history," asks Glennie, 'which destroys the Christian philosophy, of itself afford an adequate basis for such a reconstruction of the ideal as is required? Candidly, we must reply, 'Not Yet.'. . . Very far are we from being the first who have experienced the agony of discovered delusion." ("In the Morning Land," p. 29.) "Never in the history of man," says another, "has so terrific a calamity befallen the race, as that which all who look may now behold advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, resistless in might, uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and burying our highest life in mindless desolation. The floodgates of Infidelity are open, and Atheism overwhelming is upon us. . . Man has become in a new sense, the measure of the universe; and in this, the latest and most appalling of his soundings, indications are returned from the infinite voids of space and time that his intelligence, with all its noble capacities for love and adoration, is yet alone— destitute of kith or kin in all this universe of being. . . Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the "new faith" is a desirable substitute for the waning splendour of "the old," I am not ashamed to confess that, with the virtual negation of God, the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness. And when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it, at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible.(" Physicus : On Theism," p. 51.)
"We cannot judge of the effects of Atheism," says Sir J. Stephen, "from the conduct of persons who have been educated as believers in God, and in the midst of a nation that believes in God. If we should ever see a generation of men, especially a generation of Englishmen, to whom the word God had no meaning at all, we should get a light upon the subject which might be lurid enough." ("First Principles," p. 117.)
" Few, if any," even Herbert Spencer says, "are as yet fitted wholly to dispense with such [religious] conceptions as are current. The highest abstractions take so great a mental power to realize with any vividness, and are so inoperative upon conduct unless they are vividly realized, that their regulative effects must for a long period to come be appreciable on but a small minority. . . . . .  Those who relinquish the faith in which they have been brought up, for this most abstract faith in which Science and Religion unite, may not uncommonly fail to act up to their convictions. Left to their organic morality, enforced only by general reasoning imperfectly wrought out and difficult to keep before the mind, their defects of nature will often come out more strongly than they would have done under their previous creed." ("Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," p. 825, 2nd Ed.) In a word, it is as about as easy for the soul and moral sense to live upon abstractions and false maxims as it is for the body to get fat on air. There is a sense within man too strong for all the infidel logic in the world. We know that behind the veil there is One who personally knows and loves us, we know it as surely as that we personally know and love him in return. We are forced to exclaim, in the words of Lowell:

God of our fathers, Thou who wast,
Art, and shalt be when the eye-wise who flout
Thy secret presence shall be lost
In the great light that dazzles them to doubt,
We who believe Life's bases rest
Beyond the probe of chemic test,
Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near !

And besides this, we know, moreover, that the Religion of Denial, far from being approved of even by those who do not hold with Christianity, is looked upon by the more far-seeing amongst them as a mere empty hypothesis. It is not its truth, but the license it allows that makes it palatable with the multitude. Scientific men themselves, men that is, who are philosophers as well as scientists, are, by their inexorable logic, drawing it down from its pedestal, and displaying it in its veritable colours. Founded on falsehood, it is the fruitful parent of every species of debasement. Allow me to quote the London Times' correspondent, giving a summary of Häckel's teaching, as delivered before the German naturalists in Munich, 1877, and the reply of Virchow. The correspondent says that "having contended that the Biblical account of this planet's creation has long been demolished by geology, Herr Häckel wondered that morphology should have been so slow to come forward and explain the origin and diversity of the animal world. According to him, the two principles of inheritance and adaptation explain the development of manifold existing organisms from a single organic cell while, were further argument needed to disprove supernatural intervention, we have only to turn to the frequent occurence of undeveloped and useless organs in many types of the animal world, to realize the truth. In this way the Creator is disposed of, not only as superfluous, but as a Being who, if He existed, instead of being all-wise, would every now and then have committed the indiscretion of attempting to create eyes and wings which His power did not suffice to perfect. Then, passing on to the omnipotent cell constituting the groundwork of animal bodies, he referred his audience to certain zoological inquiries proving the possessing of motion and sensibility, of perception and will, even by those primary organisms consisting of but a single cell. Everything thus being dependent upon the cell, the lecturer at this stage became interested in the matter forming this marvellous organism. The cell, then, consists of matter called protoplasm, composed chiefly of carbon, with an admixture of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur. These component parts, properly united, produce the body and soul of the animated world, and, suitably nursed, become man. With this simple argument the mystery of the universe is explained, the Divinity annulled, and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in. It was a fitting conclusion to such a scientific pronunciamento that the lecturer, who regarded his argument as incontrovertible, insisted that it should be taught in every school in the land." (The Times, Nov. 30, 1877.) Here, then, is Häckel dogmatically laying down a teaching which is subversive of the whole scheme of Natural and Supernatural Religion here is an "advanced thinker," an Apostle of the Religion of Denial urging that such teaching should be made a portion of the National Education. And here, on the other hand, is another "advanced thinker" absolutely contradicting him, and declaring that Häckel's doctrines are merely "fancies," and not established truths at all. Listen to Virchow's own words: "It is easy to say that 'a cell consists of small portions, and these we call Plastidules,' and that plastidules are composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and are endowed with an especial soul; which soul is the product of some of the forces which the chemical atoms possess. To be sure this is possible. I cannot form an exact judgment about it. It is one of the positions which are for me still unapproachable. I feel like a sailor who puts forth into an abyss, the extent of which he cannot see. But I must plainly say that, so long as no one can define for me the properties of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in such a way that I can conceive how from the sum of them a soul arises, so long am I unable to admit that we should be at all justified in imparting the 'plastidulic soul' into the course of our education, or in requiring every educated man to receive it as scientific truth so as to argue from it as a logical premiss, and to found his whole view of the world upon it. This we really cannot demand. On the contrary, I am of opinion that, before we designate such hypotheses as the voice of Science—before we say, 'This is modern Science'— we should first have to conduct a long series of elaborate investigations. We must therefore say to the teachers in schools, 'Do not teach it.'" (" Freedom of Science," p. 23, 45.) Farther on he exclaims, after speaking of how Oken taught a doctrine as absolutely true which turned out to be absolutely false : "Gentlemen, let us not fail to profit by the experience of that great naturalist; let us not forget that when the public see a doctrine— which has been exhibited to them as certain, established, positive, and claiming universal acceptance— proved to be faulty in its very foundations, or discovered to be wilful and despotic in its essential and chief tendencies, they may lose faith in Science. Then break forth the reproaches : 'Ah, you yourselves are not quite sure; your doctrine, which you call truth to-day, is to-morrow a lie; how can you demand that your teaching should form the subject of education, and a recognized part of our general knowledge?' " (Ibid, p. 41.)
 And surely now I have said enough. I have shown you that the fundamental principle on which the Religion of Denial is based leads back logically and inexorably towards that state of bestiality from which "modern thought" says man has sprung. You have seen with your logical eyes that you cannot get more out of a thing than is in it; and if it be really true that there is no God, and that man is simply a mud-fish, that mud-fish never can be blown out into anything higher or better, or more noble than the stuff out of which it comes. A soap-bubble may reflect all the colours of the rainbow, but it will be a soap-bubble still— it will burst when brightest, and you will find there is nothing in it. I have shown you how this bubble of "Denial," whilst pretending to take the place of Christianity, is the absolute death of every moral principle, and of all religion worthy of the name. I have shown you how the cowardly, or at least the unmanly way in which scientific men treat the profoundest questions, creates suspicion; and how others, with less head, but, perhaps, more courage, sweep their cobwebs on one side and boldly deny God's existence altogether. I have drawn your attention to the fact that no sooner is God denied and man declared a mere protoplasm than minds are at once actively engaged in forming plans by means of which they make use of their new freedom from restraint, and indulge in every species of immorality and viciousness, so long as it gives them personal pleasure to do so. I have shown you how these teachings inevitably drag the human race down to the very mire and how philosophers do not shame to suggest to their disciples that the life of a hog is the happiest life for them. I have called your attention to the picture drawn by Thomas Carlyle of "the universal swine's-trough" which man has now to wallow in, that is if he be true to the Religion of Denial, and to the bestial nature Denial says is his; and I have corroborated, by undeniable statistics, the teaching of Carlyle, showing how the masses of the English people at home are plunging deeper and deeper in brutalization and infidelity as days go by. I have shown you that this is the natural effect of an intelligible cause— of the people giving up Christianity and taking to the Religion of Denial, and thus providing for themselves a logical justification for all the enormities which they commit. I have suggested how crime is but the fruit which is produced by the tree of Infidelity; and that unbelief and bestiality are intimately related as cause and as effect. I have shown you, moreover, from Virchow's teaching, that the Religion of Denial and Socialism are in closest sympathy, and, by quoting the words of Pope Leo XIII. in his Encyclical, I have drawn your attention to the fact, which any one can see the truth of at a glance, that the chaos and confusion into which religion and civil society are plunged all over the world are due to the action of that same principle of collapse. I have suggested that it is Christianity, even in those men who trample on it, which makes them better than their principles, and that still preserves the world from absolute destruction. I have shown how the very champions of the Religion of Denial are terrified by its effect, and cry out in despair that they have been deceived in their anticipations and, finally, I have called your attention to the curious circumstances that these very champions themselves are fighting with each other and that what is declared by Häckel to-day to be a victorious discovery of Science is declared by Virchow to-morrow to be a mere craze on his opponents mind, without any underpin of logic for its support— the very fundamental principle of the Religion of Denial being proved to be no principle at all, but a subjective fancy or maggot in the mind of a naturalist who is possessed by a special anxiety to upset the Christian creed. When to all this is added what I have already proved; that it is reasonable to hold man to be a man, and not a mud-fish and that there is a God ruling heaven and earth, instead of no God at all; these two facts being substantiated, the very ground has, by the doing so, been cut from under the feet of the Religion of Denial, and is convicted of being not merely shallow, but a stupid as well as a deadly poisonous deceit, used by intellectual criminals or by superficial thinkers without sense of responsibility, for upheaving the deep foundations of Supernatural Religion, and of that morality which must ever be synonymous with restraint. I do not dare to trust myself to speak of such men as these, who, by means of a blasphemous and lying philosophy, have brought so much ruin and desolation into the homes of my fellow-men.
 Next Sunday I hope to show you the bright side of the picture, for this evening our work has been sad enough. I shall aim at giving you sufficient reason for coming to the conclusion that, whilst the Religion of Denial is shallow and something worse, as has been proved, the Religion of Affirmation, or Christianity, on the other hand, is reasonable, and should be embraced by every sane and prudent man.

New Zealand Tablet 23 May 1879

DR.CHALMERS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF MALTHUS

. . . . . . . . but, with all deductions on either side, the fact is apparent and incontrovertible—that education has made the Scotch people an orderly, law-abiding, industrious, and moral race.

"We give below an extract from a work of Dr. Chalmers. We do not apologise for its length. We have scarcely ever read a delineation full of such striking and painful contrasts.

Paisley was a town in which there was nothing originally to supply a moral stamina but the habits and character of the people. That character was admirable. That even level of society in which some persons have discovered the condition of happiness existed there. There was employment ; there was competence ; but there were no great superfluities. The industry of the weaver enabled him to live in comparative enjoyment, and his taste surrounded his dwelling with all those attractions and amusements which have so often embellished humble life, where it has not been disturbed by either poverty or ambition. There education was universal, and, according to the beautiful narrative, "in every house there was an altar to God." A time, however, came when an impetus was given to the trade of Paisley, and children acquired a mercantile value. Their industry, such as it was, added something considerable to the earnings of the household. The habits of the people were revolutionised. The schools were no longer attended ; the children were deprived of moral training; their precocious independence released them from parental restraint. Habits of providence and forethought ceased from among the people. Marriages were universally early. The whole character of the town was changed, and society presented a scene of moral ruin. This was in Great Britain—a place accessible to all the influences of high civilisation—where the law was strong and punishment could speedily overtake its violators. If such were the consequences there, can we expect less in those outskirts of Australian civilisation ?

The neglect of one generation draws after it the degradation of another. We have had recently an example of what human nature may become by that neglect. Look at those poor children who have just been rescued from the blacks ! In what do they differ from the wretched people whose captives they were? How difficult it is to reconcile ourselves to the thought that the most lovely and intelligent child among us could, by being lost for a few years in the depths of aboriginal degradation, cease to possess intellectually or morally any characteristic in common with the race from which it sprang.

It is true that this is an extreme example, but at least it shows how possible it is for humanity to decline rapidly—how necessary it is that all the appliances of civilisation, and religion should be kept in active operation to prevent that decline, and how hard it is to recover a people when they have once lost the knowledge and the tastes of civilisation.

——

" Paisley is perhaps the most plebeian town of its size in Europe—its population being composed chiefly of weavers, with such accompanying trades and occupations as are dependent upon, or necessary for, the supply of weavers and weaving apparatus.

" As some important practical results, both of a moral and political nature, may be drawn from a review of its past and present history, it is our intention in the present article, to take a cursory view of the general population of that town from about the year 1775, or 80, to the present day ; contrasting its moral and intellectual character at two or three distinct periods, and endeavouring to account for the sad declension in public manners, which, of late, has been so obvious to the country at large.

" To state the simple fact, that the once quiet, sober, moral, and intelligent inhabitants of Paisley, are now generally a turbulent, immoral, and half-educated population, is to state what almost everyone knows and what many mourn over.

" It is, indeed, a melancholy subject for contemplation, that, what was at first eagerly embraced by many, as an addition to their family receipts, has ultimately proved not only a chief cause of individual poverty but of family feuds, insubordination on the part of the children, and, as a natural consequence, a general moral degradation over the whole community.

"From about 1770 to 1800, the manufactures of silk gauzes and fine lawns, flourished in Paisley ; and also during a portion of this period alluded to that of figured-loom and hand-tamboured muslin. These branches afforded to all classes excellent wages ; and being articles of fancy, room was afforded for a display of taste as well as enterprise and intelligence, for which the Paisley weavers were justly conspicuous. Sobriety and frugality being their general character, good wages enabled almost every weaver to possess himself of a small capital.

"Nearly one-half of Paisley at that period was built by weavers from savings off their ordinary wages. Every house had its garden, and every weaver being his own master, could work it when he pleased. Many were excellent florists ; many possessed a tolerable library. Never perhaps in the history of the world, was there a more convincing proof, of the folly of being afraid of a universal and thorough education, especially when impregnated with the religion of the Bible, than in the state of Paisley at that period.

"At the period alluded to, every man, woman, and child above eight or nine years of age, could read the Bible : many could write and cast accounts ; and not a few of the weavers' sons went through a regular course at the Grammar School ? To have had a distant relative unable to read, or one sent to prison for stealing, would have been felt as equally disgraceful.

"The inhabitants were so universally regular in their attendance upon church, and strict afterwards in keeping indoors, that it is recollected, at the end of the last century, or commencement of the present, that not a living creature, save two or three privileged blackguards, were ever seen walking the streets after divine service ; or if any chanced to appear an errand for the doctor was supposed to be the probable cause. Family duties were generally attended to ; and prayer and praise were not confined to the Sabbath evening ; for on week-days, as well as on Sabbath days, the ears of the bystanders were regaled with songs of praise issuing forth from almost every dwelling; and in those days it was no uncommon thing to find the highly respectable weaver a most consistent and truly useful elder of the church.

"At that period, the honest quiet weaver might be seen with his wife, at four or five o'clock sallying forth on an evening's walk, in full Sabbath attire ; the husband, in advance of his wife, carrying the youngest child in his arms, and his wife following, with two, three, or four children ; and perchance, ere their return, a brother and sister-in-law, were honoured with a visit to a cup of tea, to which they experienced a hearty welcome. Nor were little luxuries on such occasions altogether unknown; a weaver then being able to afford them.

" Although early marriages were very common, yet the frequent attendant evils were not immediately felt ; a lad of eighteen or twenty, being quite as able to support a family as his father at forty ; and he did not anticipate those days of darkness and privation, which have since come on Paisley.

" We come now to the mournful cause of the present degraded state of that once moral and happy town. The introduction of the manufactory of imitation Indian shawls, about the year 1800, required that each weaver should employ one, two, or three boys, called draw-boys. Eleven to twelve was the usual age, previous to this period, for sending boys to the loom ; but as boys of any age, above five, were equal to this work of drawing, those of ten were first employed ; then, as the demand increased, those of nine, eight, seven, six, and even five. Girls, too, were by and by introduced into the same employment, and at equally tender years. Many a struggle the honest and intelligent weavers must have had between his duty to his children and his immediate interests. The idea of his children growing up without schooling, must have cost him many a pang ; but the idea of losing 2s. 6d. or 3s. a week, and paying school-wages beside, proved too great a bribe even for parental affection, and, as might have been expected, mammon in the end prevailed, and the practice gradually became too common and familiar to excite more than a passing regret. Children grew up, without either the education or the training which the youth of the country derive from the schoolmaster ; and every year, since 1805, has sent forth its hundreds of unschooled and untamed boys and girls, now become the parents of a still ruder, more undisciplined, and ignorant offspring. Nor was this all. So great was the demand for draw-boys, that ever and anon the town crier went through the streets, offering, not simply 2s. 6d., 3s., or 3s. 6d. a week for the labour of boys and girls, but bed, board, and washing, and a penny to themselves on Saturday night. This was a reward on disobedience to parents—family insubordination, with all its train of evils followed. The son, instead of standing in awe of his father, began to think himself a man, when he was only a brawling impudent boy. On the first, or second quarrel with his father, he felt he might abandon the parental roof, for the less irksome employment of the stranger. The first principle of all subordination was thus early broken up, and the boy who refused to hearken to the voice of his father or his mother, and to honour them, could not be expected when he became a man, ' to fear God, or to honour the king.' If ignorance be the mother of superstitious devotion, it is also the mother of stupid and vulgar contempt. An intelligent and moral people will ever be most ready to give honour where it is due ; and, respecting themselves, will yield a willing respect to intelligence, virtue, rank, and lawful authority, wherever it is placed.

" The increase of the family receipts, arising from the employment of one or more children as draw-boys, ceased on the first slackness in the demand ; for it is evident that the additional sum—we shall suppose of 5s. a week—drawn by the labour of the weaver's children, enabled him to work just at so much lower prices to any manufacturer who might choose to speculate in making goods at the reduced price, in the hope of a future demand. A short period of idleness, on the part of the weavers, would have given time for the overstock of goods to clear off, whereas, this practice of working even extra hours, during the period of a glut, tended to perpetuate the glut, or to render fluctuations arising from this source more frequent, and, along with other causes, to perpetuate low wages. Thus was the employment of their children from five to ten, by the weavers of Paisley, at first an apparent advantage, but in the end a curse ; demonstrating that whatever may appear to be the interest of parents, this year, or next year, it is permanently the interest of them, and their offspring, to refuse every advantage in their temporal concerns, which tends to defraud youth of the first of parental blessings—Education—and that Providence has bound in indissoluble alliance the intelligence, the virtue, and the temporal well-being of society. In 1818-19, there were found full three thousand, Paisley-born and Paisley-bred, who could not read ; and the decline of intelligence has been followed by the decline of that temperance, prudence, and economy which are the cardinal virtues of the working classes, by which alone they can elevate their condition or preserve themselves from sinking into the most abject poverty.

"The Paisley weaver of forty years ago married early, because he foresaw that he could, in decency, support a family, and even save something for sickness or age, or the fluctuations of his trade. The Paisley weaver lad, in 1832, marries equally early, on a pittance that scarcely supports himself, because he has neither judgment to reflect on the misery which he is entailing on himself and others, nor moral principle to feel the solemn obligations of the state into which he is entering. Had the population of this town, continued a well educated, religious population, and, as wages diminished, intelligence and virtue increased, the fall of wages would have been arrested by the natural operation of that prudence, which leads mankind to consult their duty, as well as their inclinations ; and without any knowledge of the principles of Malthus, the operative classes would, like the middle and upper classes, have acted on his principles. It was the practice of the old Paisley weaver, after an attachment was formed, and an engagement entered into, to interpose sometimes a delay of years, in the labour of collecting, their providing or plenishing; that is, a most enormous mass of bed and table linen, an eight-day clock, &c, &c. ; and it was a point of distinction, on the day previous to marriage, by one or other of the parties, to exhibit to all the neighbours, this accumulation of industry and economy. Will the clergy of Paisley inform us how many marriages they now celebrate annually, where the parties have such plenishing to exhibit, with honest satisfaction, to their neighbours ? Or, rather, how many enter into the state of wedlock, without one thought of the future, and who know not nor care not what they do ?

" Those who have no consideration concerning the things of this life, are not likely to have any forethought regarding the life to come; and just in proportion as the modern Paisley weaver is without religion does he despise it. All clergy are necessarily hypocrites, as all kings and magistrates are, in their estimation, tyrants. Unitarianism, infidelity, or reckless profanity, too generally abound ; and the popular cry is against all distinction of ranks. Thus, measuring themselves by themselves, they would reduce society to their own level. Paisley thus furnishes an affecting illustration of the declaration of Holy Writ, ' That righteousness exalteth a city ; but sin is the ruin of any people.' "


The Sydney Morning Herald 1 November 1859

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.*

This work of an able, thoughtful writer, and a deep and comprehensive student of Biblical and religious history, has been the cause of much speculation even beyond the limits of the circles to which the questions treated are usually confined. Some of this is doubtless due to the fact that the writer is unknown, and that the book has been by various guesses attributed to different persons of elevated positions in the religious world. Some of the interest it has excited is also owing to its peculiarly apropos character in the present relations of orthodox religion to the thinking power of the age. But in addition to these causes the book without question has commanded attention by the thorough-going fearless spirit, and the calm judicial tone, by which it is pervaded, and the lofty amplitude and masculine power of its discussion.

The question the author puts before himself at the outset is one than which, as he says, " there can be no more urgent problem for humanity." It is—"Is Christianity a supernatural Divine revelation or not ?' He holds that "at no time has such an investigation been more requisite." Few will dissent from this belief who have ever seriously reflected on the spectacle of the advanced cultivated thought of the age breaking away altogether from all share in the received faiths, not attacking them, not even expressly repudiating them, but contemptuously ignoring them, and passing them by as matters of no serious concern. To no one upon any side of the controversy can this be regarded as at all a satisfactory position. It is time, as our author maintains, that the intellect of the world was recalled to the consideration of what it once regarded as its worthiest sphere of exercise and labour. The claims of supernatural revelation have satisfied a large part of the world in past ages. If those claims are able to substantiate themselves in a free and fair inquiry, then it is right that the sceptical scientific intellect of the day, which so scornfully rejects them, should be called upon to justify its dissent. On the other hand, if they have to be given up, then it is due to the historical mind and conscience of humanity that we should know clearly and distinctly why they are surrendered. Christianity has filled too large a   place in the world's history, its pretensions are too vast, and its influence, past and present; is too mighty for the case to be  adjudged against it by default. In the words of our author— 

"The results of scientific inquiry and of Biblical criticism have created wide-spread doubt regarding the most material part of Christianity considered as a Divine Revelation. The mass of intelligent men in England are halting between two opinions; and standing in what seems to us the most unsatisfactory position conceivable: they abandon before a kind of vague and indefinite, if irresistible, conviction, some of the most central supernatural doctrines of Christianity.; they try to spiritualise or dilute the rest into a form which does not shock their reason; and yet they cling to the delusion that they still retain the consolation and the hope of truths which, if not Divinely revealed, are mere human speculation regarding matters beyond reason. They have, in fact, as little warrant to abandon the one part as they have to retain the other." 

Certainly it is desirable that this twilight condition of belief and disbelief, mingled together, and both alike irrational because unfounded on any substantial reasoning, should give place to clear daylight, whatever that may reveal to us. Both sides, therefore, should be indebted to the author for thus fully and distinctly raising the question, even if his work had no other effect. How he states it, how he deals with it, and the conclusions at which he arrives we shall endeavour briefly to set out.

The question, as he presents it, is not identical with its recent statement by Dr. Strauss. The great German theologian asked, "Are we still Christians? The problem discussed by our anonymous author is rather : —Judging as reasonable men upon the evidence offered, ought we to be Christians (in the received sense of the word) or not? The question is not one of fact, but of proof. He commences the inquiry by a consideration of miracles as evidence. He quotes the admission, or rather the contention, of divines that supernatural evidence is necessary to establish a supernatural revelation. But the evidence afforded by the miraculous is curiously complicated by the fact, recognised throughout the Scriptures, that miracles may, and often do, arise from a Satanic power, and are not necessarily from a Divine source. Therefore the miracle, while adduced in support of the doctrine, has itself to be tested by the doctrine, and we have only reason to guide us to a decision. Miracles are by their definition exercises of supernatural power exerted contrary to the universal order of nature. Consequently all such assumptions as those often employed by people who have given very little thought to the subject, of a miracle being an exemplification of some "unknown higher law " that is in itself natural, are to be set aside. The miracles can have no evidential force in proving the supernatural unless it is not only to our ignorance but in itself and essentially, a violation of the order of nature. Such, devices as Archbishop Trench's singular belief that "exemption from the control of the law of gravitation &c," is a "lost prerogative" of our race, which we may one day recover, are needless and unmeaning. But there is nothing more certain to our reason than that such violations of the order of nature are impossible and incredible. Upon the lowest statement of the case very extraordinary evidence is required to make such phenomena worthy of a moment's attention, to induce us to believe their actual occurrence we must, according to a well known logical canon, have a degree of evidence that is sufficient to overcome their antecedent improbability. In inquiring, therefore, into the evidence upon which Christianity rests—viz., the miracles by which its introduction was accompanied, we have to ask what, in the first place, is the evidence for these miracles themselves.

This problem is treated by the writer in a long and searching analysis as to the historic authenticity of the records contained in the Bible of the origin of Christianity. Of the scholarly, laborious, judicial investigation contained in these volumes it is almost pre sumptuous for any but a trained Biblical and theological critic to speak. An able religious paper, the Spectator, describes the author's "masterly examination of the evidences for the antiquity of the Christian Scriptures" as being "an an paralleled specimen in the English language," and further observes that the book forms " a perfect mine of information on the subject, alloyed indeed with no small prejudices yet wonderfully faithful and comprehensive." The writer has in this part of his work put up a very high standard of argumentative ability and critical and historical research, and one to which his opponents will have to rise to render their replies of much logical value. It would be wholly beyond the limits of our space to attempt even the slightest sketch of his inquiry, and we can only give some of the conclusions to which it conducts him. He says:—

" We have seen that a Divine revelation is such only by virtue of communicating to us something which we could not know without it, and which is, in fact, undiscoverable by human reason, and that miraculous evidence is absolutely requisite to establish its reality. It is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the specific revelation which we are considering, the very substance of which is supernatural and beyond the criterion of reason, and that its astounding announcements, if not demonstrated to be miraculous truths, most inevitably be pronounced 'the wildest delusions.' On examining the supposed miraculous evidence, however, we find that not only is it upon general grounds antecedently incredible, but that the testimony by which its reality is supported, so far from establishing the inferences drawn from the supposed supernatural phenomena, is totally insufficient even to certify the actual occurrence of the events narrated. The history of miraculous pretension in the world, and the circumstances attending this special exhibition of it, suggest natural explanations of the reputed facts which rightly and infallibly remove them from the region of the supernatural . . . A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment" . . " Upon all grounds of Reason and experience, the supposed miraculous evidence, by which alone we could be justified in believing in the reality of the Divine revelation, must be pronounced mere human delusion, and the result thus attained is confirmed by every external consideration."

Turning to the documentary evidence for the reality of the miraculous occurrences, his conclusions are equally distinct.

" We do not find any real trace even of the existence of our gospels for a century and a half after the events they record. They are anonymous narratives, and there is no evidence of any value connecting these works with the writers to whom they are popularly attributed. . . . These gospels themselves do not pretend to be inspired histories, and they cannot upon any ground, be regarded as more than mere human compositions. As evidence for miracles and the reality of Divine revelation, they have no weight, being merely narratives, written long after the events recorded, by unknown persons, who were neither eye-witnesses of the supposed miraculous occurrences, nor hearers of the statements they profess to report." The conclusion of all this is—"The miraculous evidence upon which alone, it is admitted, we could be justified in believing its astounding doctrines being thus nugatory, the claims of Christianity to be considered a Divine Revelation must necessarily be disallowed, and its supernatural elements, which are, in fact, the very substance of the system, inevitably sharing the same fate as the supposed miraculous evidence, must, therefore, be rejected as incredible, and opposed to Reason and complete induction."

The writer by no means views the result of his inquiry to be any lessening of the importance or the authority of the religion whose supernatural element he has been considering. Christianity, he maintains," takes a higher position when recognised to be the most perfect development of human morality than it could do as an abortive pretendent to Divine honours." Further:—

" No one who pretends to make the moral teaching of Jesus the rule of life merely from dogmatic obligation can have under stood that morality at all, or penetrated beyond the mere letter of its precepts. In surrendering its miraculous element and its claims to supernatural origin, therefore, the religion of Jesus does not lose its virtue or the qualities which have made it a blessing to humanity. It sacrifices none of that elevated character which has distinguished and rated it above all human systems; it merely relinquishes a claim which it has shared with all antecedent religions, and severs its connexion with ignorant superstition. It is too divine in its morality to require the aid of miraculous attributes. No supernatural halo can heighten its spiritual beauty, and no mysticism deepen its holiness. In its perfect simplicity it is sublime, and in its profound wisdom it is eternal.

"We gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the reality of Divine Revelation. Whilst we retain pure and unimpaired the treasure of Christian Morality, we relinquish nothing but the debasing elements added to it by human superstition. We are no longer bound to believe a theology which outrages Reason and moral sense. We are freed from base anthropomorphic views of God and his government of the universe; and from Jewish mythology we rise to higher conceptions of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being, hidden from our finite minds, it is true, in the impenetrable glory of Divinity, but whose Laws of wondrous comprehensiveness and perfection we ever perceive in operation around us. We are no longer disturbed by visions of fitful interference with the order of Nature, but we recognise that the Being who regulates the universe is without variableness or shadow of turning. It is singular how little there is in the supposed Revelation of alleged information, however incredible, regarding that which is beyond the limits of human thought, but that little is of a character which reason declares to be the 'wildest delusion.' Let no man whose belief in the reality of Divine Revelation may be destroyed by such inquiry complain that he ahas lost a precious possession, and that nothing is left but a blank. The Revelation not being a reality,that which he has lost was but an illusion, and that which is left is the Truth. If he be content with illusions he will speedily be consoled ; if he be a lover only of truth, instead of a blank he will recognise that the reality before him is fall of great peace."

The book ends with the following eloquent passage:—

"It is manifestly our first duty, as it should be our supremest pleasure, to apprehend as dearly as we may the laws by which the Supreme Being governs the universe, and to bring ourselves and our actions into reverent harmony with them, conforming our selves to their teaching, and learning wisdom from their decrees. Thus making the Divine Will our will we shall recognise in the highest sense that God is ever with us—that His good providence controls our slightest actions—that we are not the sport of Satanic malice nor the victims of fitful caprice, but are eternally cared for and governed by an omnipresent immutable power for which nothing is too great, nothing too insignificant but which equally regulates the orbits of worlds and the position of an atom, and in whose Divine order there is nothing common or unclean, but its fitting place is found for the lowest as well as the highest in the palpitating life of the Universe."

It is, of course, open to every reader to accept or reject the writer's conclusions. But alike whether they are accepted or rejected, the book must be regarded by every candid lover of truth as an important contribution to the paramount question present to the soul of humanity. No truth can be obscured or falsified by such treatment as this. If anything is dissipated and lost in the process of analysis such as this it must be something that never was worth preserving. The tone of the book, while it evinces reverence toward the subject it is investigating, should also exact respect from its critics and its opponents. In the controversies to which it is certain to give rise it would be sad for all true friends of religion to see these arguments waved contemptuously aside as mere "shallow, flippant infidelity," or to see so fair an antagonist met in a way unworthy of him, of the subject, and of the gravity of the question at issue.

*"Supernatural Religion. An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation."  London ; Longmans, Green, and Co. 1874

The Australasian 10 October 1874,

[2014 note. Now known to be written by W. R. Cassels]

DAVID HUME (1711-1776) PHILOSOPHER AND HISTORIAN.

 (By "I.S.O.")
 The bi-centenary of David Hume which occurred on the 26th ult., is a fitting time to recall the main incidents in the career and the principal achievements of one of Scotland's most illustrious sons. In spite of his great and acknowledged abilities and of his many undoubted services to his own nation and to the intellectual world in general, his name has, in the past, evoked to a remarkable degree the suspicion and dislike of the majority of his fellow-countrymen; on account of his openly expressed scepticism, concerning opinions and views held by a large section of professing Christians. However, after a lapse of two hundred years, with that clearer recognition of their real value which time, and distance lend to a life and a life's work; we may now survey his writings with that freedom from prejudice for which Hume himself pleads. In these days of widely entertained and pronounced views as to liberty of thought and speech, many are apt to regard with increased and increasing indifference those influences which disturbed the opinions so characteristic of his day.
  When Hume reached manhood, Scotland seemed to offer no opportunity for the use or cultivation of such peculiar talents as he possessed. He accordingly journeyed to France, where, stimulated by the scholarship around him, he wrote his first work—a "Treatise on Human Nature," published in parts between 1737 and 1740. The book met with little public favour, but learned men hailed its author as a distinguished thinker and an adept in abstract reasoning. His "Essays" followed, and in these—the essay on miracles in particular—Hume first antagonised the religious feelings and practice of his time. Amongst the evangelical section Hume came to be both hated and feared, and he was unreservedly denounced as an evil influence. At this period religious belief in Scotland permitted of little or no latitude. Between the hard and fast creed of the professor of an ironclad Calvinism and the contempt for all creeds of the absolute unbeliever no middle way was recognised. Hume's books were resented as tending to undermine religious earnestness, and, in the eyes of the popular party, their author was an arch-infidel. Hume learned to his cost the strength and value of the opposition he had aroused. To it was due his failure to carry the appointment to the chair of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh and also that of Logic in Glasgow. But to-day his "Enquiry concerning Human Understanding," and his "Treatise" are text-books in the very class-rooms to which he was refused admission as a teacher in his life-time. In building up with unswerving resolution and conspicuous ability his system of philosophy he erected a barrier in his progress to university distinction. His ability, his attainments, his teaching power were admitted, but sufficed not to stem the tide of adverse public opinion.

 But if Hume was at variance with the religious feeling of his countrymen, he was equally beyond them in his political and social philosophy. In his "Essays Moral and Philosophical," he proceeds to point out the evils which inevitably flow from universal suffrage, from aristocratic privilege, and from absolute monarchy and concludes, "that an hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals and a people voting by their representatives form an ideal government." To speak of a king as ruling by divine right and as God's vicegerent on earth is, in his opinion, only calculated to excite laughter. Here is a profound political truth from his "First Principles of Government," which evidences how far Hume was before his times:—"As force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion; it is, therefore, on opinion only that government is formed, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free." On the whole, Hume's political opinions are tinged by his sceptical cast of mind. He sees but little good in existing institutions. Nevertheless, he now and again exhibits a clear vision of the future. Writing shortly before his death he expresses regret that the two most civilised nations of Europe, Britain and France, should be on the decline, and that barbarians like the Goths of Germany and Russia should be rising in power and renown. He favoured the extension of the suffrage and predicted from it the very results which are happening in our own day. He looks for a time when the electors will exact definite pledges from candidates, when, in short, members of Parliament will become in truth delegates of their constituents.

 Hume's maturer ideas on the nature of religion are contained in his "Natural History of Religion" and in his "Dialogues on Religion." In the second of these more especially, he elaborates his ideas. He was firstly and chiefly an inductive and speculative thinker intensely interested in the difficulties attending all research, and the best efforts of his life were directed to enquire in to the conditions of certainty in knowledge. As a thinker he lived apart, reserving to the printed page the public presentation of his speculations. Huxley, one of his biographers, and a frank and occasionally a severe critic, admits that Hume anticipated the results of modern investigation in declaring fetishism and polytheism to be the form in which savage and ignorant men naturally clothe their ideas of the unknown influences which govern their destiny, and they are polytheistic rather than monotheistic, because the first ideas of religion arose, not from a contemplation of the works of Nature but from the hopes and fears which actuate the human mind. All of Hume's biographers, including Calderwood, agree that a careful study of his works gives direct contradiction to the old idea that Hume was an "atheist." In philosophy he was certainly a sceptic in regard to everything that transcends individual experience, but nowhere in his writings can be found proof that his views on religion deserve the traditional and erroneous condemnation. This rested partly on and arose from the intolerance of ignorance, and was partly due to the difficulty of distinguishing between a man's theory and his faith. His philosophic scepticism necessarily reacted to some extent on faith and feeling, but it never eclipsed them. "He started," as Professor Calderwood remarks, "with the assumption that certainty depends altogether on the senses, and, as the knowledge of God cannot come in this way, religion was for him exclusively a matter of faith. No life of Hume can be accurate which describes him as an atheist." The prominence given to the sceptical element in his philosophy is largely responsible for the prevalence of the idea, but, in our day, a deliberate and critical examination of his writings enables us to form a truer and more favourable judgment.

 Hume's sceptical spirit attended him in all his enterprises. In spite of his earnest endeavours in his "History of England" to be dispassionate and fair to all parties, this spirit tinges the narrative. So much was this felt at the time that the History gave in some quarters more offence than all his philosophical writings. He has also been wildly attacked for his alleged gross perversion of facts. But many of his shortcomings in this respect are clearly traceable to his want of of knowledge of the common law of England and his too great reliance on ancient and unsupported chronicles. Notwithstanding all this, his book possesses and deserves popularity for the grace of its style and the easy flow of its narrative.

It is difficult for us in these days to realise the conditions existing in Hume's time in Scotland in the matter of religious belief. Intolerance was its strongest feature, an intolerance differing only in degree from that which included the stake and the rack among its instruments of regeneration. The God of the time was scarcely ever a God of love and pity, but was always conceived as a Deity ever on the outlook for transgression and ever ready with abundant punishment, both in this world and the next. As a natural corollary to this, the power of evil was invested with a personality which to us touches on the ridiculous and the pathetic. There was no parish in Scotland unacquainted with him, and the aged man or woman who could not recite instances of personal encounters with Satan or his agents was regarded as one who had neglected his or her opportunities in life. Scotsmen of all classes had indeed created God and Devil in their own image. In such a community as this it is no matter for wonder that Hume's writings aroused an intense feeling of repugnance and hostility. The educated were mostly with him and were his friends, but even they feared to incur the odium which open and avowed championship would excite. When asked by Hume, shortly before his death, to edit and superintend the publishing of the "Dialogues," Adam Smith declined the task, and when the book did appear, it bore no imprint and no publisher's name. To-day the "Dialogues" attract attention, not by their heterodoxy, but solely on account of their close reasoning, liberal views, and somewhat pitiless logic.

 To Hume Scotland and progress owe much. His writings, whatever their faults, and however much his conclusions may be traversed, gave an impetus to philosophical study and inquiry which has not yet been exhausted, and in his own domain he still holds a foremost place. The two centuries which have passed since his birth have been productive of what in his own words he describes as "a sensible change in the opinions of men by the progress of learning and of liberty," and to this end he has largely helped. He dealt mainly with the perennial aspects of the problems he discusses, and hence the abiding value of his treatment of them.

 The West Australian 6 May 1911,

COLLECTED WORKS OF DUGALD STEWART

 REVIEW.

(From the Atlas.) 

Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Edited by SIR W. HAMILTON, Elements of the Philosphy of the Human Mind, Vol, II, Constable.

 We receive with pleasure this handsome edition of one of the best and most eloquent essays emanating from the Scotch school of philosophy. To the volume before us is prefixed, as a summary, the Introduction and Part First (of the Intellectual Powers) from the "Outlines of Moral Philosophy." These "Outlines" were first published in 1793 ; three other editions (1801, 1808, and 1818) appeared during the Author's lifetime. . . .

Dugald Stewart was born in 1753, and closed his long and honourable life in 1828. The Scottish school of philosophy, of which he was the most eloquent and popular advocate, originated with Reid, who was indeed anticipated by Claude Buffier in his adoption of the principle of "common sense" as the foundation of all mental science. Reid seems to have had Hume's theories continually before him, and to have aimed throughout at annihilating the material or sensational school, by sweeping away the doctrine of representative ideas which was its basis.

While Dr. Priestly and the materialists most irrationally refused to admit any intuitive principles of belief, Reid and some of his followers multiplied those principles unnecessarily. Reid was not happy in the selection of the term "common sense" for the universal faculty of perceiving first truths, and, by so doing, laid himself fairly open to the ridicule of Priestly. These "principles of common sense," Stewart more felicitously named "fundamental laws of human belief." Campbell called them "the primary truths of the understanding," as not being derived from any previous ones. Our personal identity is one of these intuitive truths. " I am the same person to-day I was yesterday." Sir W. Hamilton justifies the use of the terms "common sense" to denote this primary principle, as "not inappropriately applied to denote an original sense of knowledge common to all mankind, or fountain of truths—intelligible indeed, but like those of the senses, revealed immediately as facts to be believed, but not possibilities to be explained or understood."

Stewart somewhat modified Reid's opinions by the importance he attached to the principles of Association of Ideas, His moral philosophy is, however, far less imperfect than his mental ; and it may be considered as the most faithful expression of the opinions more generally admitted by those who believe in "duty," and practice what they believe. In this doctrine he has combined and reconciled to a certain point the principles of the most hostile schools. He insists that the happiness of our nature, as well as our perfection, consists in doing our duty, regardless of the consequences, so far as our human nature will allow. In this axiom the systems of self or personal interest, of perfectibility, and of disinterestedness, are all united, and yet rendered subordinate to the exigencies of human nature ; for even moralists must be indulgent to our frailties, and moderate in their expectations. We have heard that Stewart had begun to doubt the soundness of his theories towards the close of his life, and we shall look with eagerness for the subsequent volumes containing the "Moral Philosophy." It is the custom to sneer at the metaphysics of the Scotch school, and at this writer in particular, mainly, we think, because his style is so clear and beautiful that the reader never meets with any difficulty. The nomenclature of the transcendental school of Germany has so learned and profound an air about it, that those who are content to take words for sense—chaff for corn—are sure to be misled by it. There is one great benefit in this repulsive nomenclature, that its terms can be used in any sense and to prove anything ; and so far has it been from really advancing our knowledge of the nature and faculties of the human mind, that the schools of metaphysical philosophy are as numerous as its professors, and scarcely any two agree in one common opinion. But we believe a reaction is setting in. Even Sir W. Hamilton begins to write more like a rational being, and this re-issue of Stewart's works will do much to accelerate the so desirable change.
 We had marked several additions for quotation, but have only room for one. In the chapter on "Conception," Stewart enquires into the causes of the effects produced on the the mind by the exhibitions of fictitious distress on the stage. They take their rise (he says) in the momentary belief that the distresses are real ; besides which, there is something contagious in a faithful expression of the passions (which we hold to be the real cause). "The emotions produced by tragedy are, upon this supposition, somewhat analogous to the dread we feel when we look down from the battlement of a tower." To this he adds a note, all of which, except the first paragraph, is appended for the first time to the text :—

With respect to the dread which we feel in looking down from the battlement of a tower, it is curious to remark the effects of habit in gradually destroying it. The manner in which habit operates in this case, seems to be by giving us a command over our thoughts, so as to enable us to withdraw our attention from the precipice before us, and direct it to any other object at pleasure.

It is thus that the mason and the sailor not only can take precautions for their own safety, but remain completely masters of themselves in situations, where other men, engrossed with their imaginary danger, would experience a total suspension of their faculties. Any strong passion which occupies the mind produces, for the moment, the same effect with habit. A person alarmed with the apprehension of fire, has been known to escape from the top of a house by a path, which, at another time, he would have considered as impracticable ; and soldiers in mounting a breach, are said to have sometimes found their way to the enemy by a route which appeared inaccessible after their violent passions had subsided.
 From the principles which I have endeavoured to establish in this chapter, may be derived a simple, and I think a satisfactory explanation of the manner in which superstition, considered in contradistinction to genuine religion, operates on the mind. The gloomy phantoms which she presents to her victims in their early infancy, and which consist chiefly of images or representations of spectres and demons, and of invisible scenes of horror, produce their effect not through the medium of reasoning and judgment, but of the powers of conception and imagination. No argument is alleged to prove their existence, but strong and lively notions of them are conveyed, and, in proportion as this is alone, the belief of them becomes steady and habitual, It is even sufficient in many cases to resist all the force of argument to the contrary, or, if it yields to it during the bustle of business and the light of day, its influence returns in the hours of solitude and darkness. When the mind, too, is weakened by disease, or the infirmities of age, and when the attention ceases to be occupied with external objects, the thoughts are apt to revert to their first channel, and to dwell on the conceptions to which they were accustomed in the nursery. " Let custom," says Locke, " from the very childhood, have joined figure and shape to the idea of God, and what absurdities will that mind be liable to about Deity !" (Vol. ii. p. 144.) A person of a lively but somewhat gloomy imagination once acknowledged to me, that he could trace some of his superstitious impressions with respect to the Deity, to the stern aspect of a judge whom he had seen, when a school-boy, pronounce sentence of death upon a criminal. Hence it would appear that he who has the power of modelling the habitual conceptions of an infant mind, is, in a great measure, the arbiter of its future happiness or misery. By guarding against the spectres conjured up by superstitious weakness, and presenting to it only images of what is good, lovely, and happy, he may secure through life a perpetual sunshine to the soul, and may perhaps make some provision against the physical evils to which humanity is exposed. Even in those awful diseases which disturb the exercise of reason, I am apt to think that the complexion of madness in point of gaiety or of despondency, depends much on the nature of our conceptions ; and it would surely be no inconsiderable addition to the comfort of any individual to know, that some provision had been made by the tender care of his first instructors, to lighten the pressure of this greatest of all earthly calamities, if it ever should be his lot to bear it. In truth, the only effectual antidote against superstitious weaknesses, is to inspire the mind with just and elevated notions of the administration of the universe ; for, we may rest assured that religion, in one form or another, is the natural and spontaneous growth of man's intellectual and moral constitution ; and the only question in the case of individuals is, whether, under the regulation of an enlightened understanding, it is to prove the best solace of life and the surest support of virtue ; or to be converted by the influence of prejudices and diseased imagination, into a source of imbecility, inconsistency, and suffering ?

 Empire 19 February 1855, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page5516174

CATHOLICISM IN GREAT BRITAIN.

(From the Boston Weekly Bee.)

Among other evidences of their passion for defeating themselves by dabbling in secular affairs, we find a pamphlet just published under Cardinal Wiseman's auspices, entitled : " A true account of the Hungarian Revolution, its purposes and pretences." The title-page further says, " By an American Democrat," "With   Preliminary Observations respecting the Liberals abroad and the Liberal party at home, especially intended for the perusal of Roman Catholics, by W. B. Maccabe." The brochure, a very bulky one, is quite worthy of an Irishman—for the preface is longer than the work ; and this shows that the "Hungarian Revolution" is only the show subject, the gist of the publication being an attack upon "Liberalism" generally. The "American Democrat" is a prosy writer of the Boston Pilot school, who has got a notion that the Hungarian effort for independences was merely the effort of the Magyars, or nobles, and not that of the Sclavonic people, a blunder which has been exposed often enough—the very fact of Kossuth, one of the people, leading, sufficing to show its absurdity. Maccabe assumes all the "democrat's" facts, and then attempts to show that the liberal party everywhere is an infidel party with no sympathy and hardly any connection with the veritable people. "When," he says, "cause and motive are laid bare, we hope to render Magyars and Liberals alike objects of contempt to all who love liberty, who hate tyranny, and who desire to promote the welfare, happiness, ease, and contentment of the poor."

So he advises the poor to uphold despotism, and condemns all the reformed governments of Europe. His model government is Austria. He shows, what a "paternal despotism" really is—how happy it makes a country—and what an error it is in Lombards, Poles, and Hungarians to quarrel with the compulsory happiness presented to them. The argument thus boldly outlined is full and minutely elaborated, and is illustrated by a prodigious number of references to facts and authorities, in past and present times —showing throughout great learning and great ingenuity. What the argument is worth is evident—and that is nothing. If it were good for anything, it ought to show that the States of the Church and back streets of Rome are earthly paradises. The fact is not so, and Mr. Maccabe only proves, therefore, that he makes the mistake of supposing that such men as Lord John Russell or Guizot are "Liberals." it does not carry the argument even far enough in his own way ; for while he jeers at Mazzini-ites and Red Republican Communists, he quotes Louis Blanc as to the condition of the civic poor, and never ventures on a denial that Mazzini and Ledru Rollin, certainly not Catholics; and suspected to be infidels, meant, in their revolutionary struggles, to establish Socialism—a system for the poor even more efficacious, it would appear, on paper, than the cathedral and monastery system loved by Mr. Maccabe. But the pamphlet will not be examined for its argument, but for its tendency ; and, so regarded, it is damnatory, in popular eyes, to the pretensions to prosperous progress suggested in the aggression." The pamphlet, if it have any meaning, is a pamphlet to uphold Metternichism and Haynanism,—to justify the prisons of Rome, and the cruelties at Naples ; and if this be the ultra-montanism which Dr. Wiseman has become a Cardinal to promote, it is clear he has made a mistake. The politics will sink the religion.

Empire 22 January 1852,