that man has ever made, and are now the most formidable obstacles to his attainment of happiness -the ultimate object of his nature. 11th. That, for the convenience of discourse, it is necessary that some concise term should be adopted, by which to designate this eternal, uncaused, omnipresent Power; and that the term God is, perhaps, as unexceptionable for this purpose as any one word that can be employed; and it has the additional recommendation of general use in its favour. 12th. That, therefore, this eternal, uncaused, infinite, incomprehensible Power, will probably be called God in the Millennium The next question which has been asked is, What is the whole duty of man to this Power? admit. destroy him in a moment-without whose ministering aid his life cannot subsist for a day-which, when he disobeys or neglects them, break loose to ravage cities and swallow up navies, are yet, to those who will obey them, who will recur to mediating powers which they submit to, as docile and as flexible as infants. Who shall dare to say that the Spirit, which made man, cannot be bent by prayers of man, when the hard and senseless matter, which He has placed against us like a rock, becomes yielding as water to We reply, That the whole duty of man is to at- the hand, when we have learned and contain the object of his existence; which is, to be hap formed ourselves to the mediations py himself, to make his fellow-beings happy, and to endeavour to make the existence of all that are which He has appointed? And what is formed to feel pleasure and pain, as delightful as the first thing which this poor worshiphis knowledge and power, and their nature, will per of Nature will have to learn? A What!" will the superstitious and irrational creed, a formula of faith, describing the exclaim, "no compulsory, or state religion-no laws of Nature, its attributes, its mysterforms and ceremonies-no temples-no prayers-ies-for mysteries they must be before no gloom—no mortification of the flesh or spirit- they have been reduced to his own perno anger on account of religious differences-no sonal experiences. And is this creed a religious persecution? What! friendship, and kindness, and charity for Jew and Gentile? What! short or easy one? No, it contains the nothing to be done by man for the glory of God, whole code of every branch of physical but make himself and all other living beings as science. And is it of little consequence? happy as possible? This is downright blasphemy Will it bear to be trifled with ? Will it and infidelity!" Yes, this is what men trained according to the be punctilious and scrupulous in exacting notions of the old moral world think and say; it a most rigid conformity, even to an iota is the language of insanity and madness; and, as of the truth, under penalty of entire destruction? What does this rational religionist say to the damnatory clauses in that Athanasian creed of nature, according to which he believes, that a spark dropped in a powder-magazine-a mere spark, dropped carelessly, doubtingly, ignorantly, will explode it as well as a conflagration-by which a pin's head of deviation from the right line will hurl a man over a precipice-by which a touch will spread a plague through a nation as well as universal contact? These creeds, therefore, are to be learned by him at his peril. And learned how? He answers, by experience By experience! What will become of the child, who is to learn the suffocating law of water by running into it; and the universality of that law by running into it always who must not abstain from putting his finger into the candle, until after a valid number of experiments-who must taste and empty all the bottles in his mother's medicinechest, before he is convinced that they are poisons? Mr. Owen, of whose sanity the Bishop of Exeter may well doubt, and wish to doubt, founds all knowledge on experience; and experience, we think, will inform him, if nothing better has done so before,that it is wisest, and safest, and most usual, to learn our creeds of Nature from men have hitherto been trained to be insane or mad, it is natural for them thus to feel and express themselves. 'But in the Millennium state, to produce happiness will be the only religion of man; and the worship of God will consist in the practice of active benevolence and useful industry; in the acquisi. tion of knowledge, in uniformly speaking the language of truth, and in the expression of the joyous feelings which a life in accordance with nature and truth is sure to produce. Thus will a religion be established which will offend no sensible man, be adopted first by the in. telligent and rat onal of all sects, in all countries, and afterwards by the human race, when it shall become one nation and one people, having one language and one interest, and when Truth, or the "knowledge of the Lord, shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea."-Robert Owen's New Moral World, vol. ii. No. 5. If the miserable man who wrote this trash knew anything of that mighty Nature, whose laws he dares to speak of, the very first thing which he would be compelled to recognise is, that he is placed from his birth in a covenant with it. Why will he not thrust his hand into the fire? Because the fire declares that, if he does, it will burn him. Why will he not at tempt to walk upon the water? Because the water threatens to drown him. And yet the fire will warm, and the water will refresh him, if he will learn their nature and submit to their laws. Ay, and these stern inexorable elements, which can thus ported by infinitely better witnesses, than any the most simple facts of physical science on the knowledge of which our life depends, none of which have been maintained by thousands at the sacrifice of life and creeds of a Catholic Church-none handed down and accepted by generations after generations, as tried, certain, invariable, eternal truths. And if men choose to set such testimony aside, they must do it at their peril-just as, at the peril of their lives, they would swallow arsenic in defiance of their physician, or sit upon the valve of a steam-engine when warned that it would certainly explode. the testimony of men-to begin with certain period in the history of man, this taking Newton's word for the movement fabric of the material world, which now of the planets-to consult Dr. Buckland stands before us as our stern and absowhen we are boring for coal-to go to lute master, beyond which we see no Sir Henry Halford or Sir Astley Cooper other, did fall down and worship a Being, if we require to know the mode by which whom by every act of submission it owna fever is to be quenched, or a bone set. ed for itself, and pointed out to us, as its Experience, we think, would tell him that Lord and Master. Air and water, trees testimony-the testimony of man-testi- and animals, man and beast, spirit and mony, not so much to opinion, but to matter, life and death, each and all acfacts-is the very sheet-anchor of our ex- knowledged in Him that empire and istence, the guide of our actions, the re- claim to our allegiance, which, if paid to cord of the past, the light of the future, themselves, is idolatry. It is a fact in the criterion of truth, the foundation of physical science. This testimony of Nabelief. What right has Mr. Owen, or ture to the supremacy of Him, who sent Mr. Anybody, to advise, or rebuke, or us His Gospel, is as strong and as unerform plans, or propagate opinions, except ring-nay, infinitely stronger, and supon the validity of testimony? And therefore, when he stands before the Power of Nature, and asks how to discover its laws, the first warning of that Power is, that he look carefully to testimony-consult those who have studied it before, to none formally embodied in the rituals whom it has revealed itself already. And where are they to be found? Has that same Power left him without such witnesses and guides? How came he to be born with parents? How is it that the very presence of a fellow-man is a warning to him, and a teacher? Qui habet comitem, habet magistrum. How is it that he is born into a state of society under kings, magistrates, legislators, and tutors, whose interest and duty it is to testify to him his own interest and duty? No, Nature has not left this need of man unpro. vided for. She has given him a cloud of witnesses to her material laws; founded a Church of science, as well as of religion, appointed a hierarchy, established a line of tradition through which we become acquainted with her physical truths. And what is the first truth which they witness? It is, that they have received from past generations-and they prove that it has been received by a concur. rence of independent witnesses-a fact; a fact, as much a matter of experience to the senses as the gravitation of a stone or the flowing of water; fact relating to that very Nature, of which it is our bounden interest to understand the whole constitution-which warns us in the most threatening accents not to omit the slightest iota in our judgment of its history and truths; not to make the least mistake in our conduct respecting it, for fear it should turn upon us and destroy us, and not to be guided in our judgment by the evidence of our senses only. And this brings us to the great question, how is this atrocious system to be combated? The first person to look to is the State-the Crown, whom the Bishop of Exeter most wisely admonished of its duty by reading the Queen's solemn pledge on her first entrance on the throne. These are times when it cannot be brought forward too publicly : Victoria Regina-We, most seriously and religiously considering that it is an indispensable duty on us to be careful, above all other things, to preserve and advance the honour and service of Alvice, profaneness, debauchery, and immorality, mighty God, and to discourage and suppress all which are so highly displeasing to God, so great a reproach to religion and government, and (by means of the frequent ill examples of the practices thereof) have so fatal a tendency to the corruption of our disposed, and which, if not timely remedied, may loving subjects, otherwise religiously and virtuously justly draw down the Divine vengeance on us and our kingdom; we also humbly acknowledging that we cannot expect the blessing and goodness of Aland on whom we entirely rely to make our reign mighty God (by whom Kings and Queens reign, happy and prosperous to ourselves and our people, without a religious observance of God's holy lawsto the intent, therefore, that religion, picty, and good manners may (according to our most hearty desire) flourish and increase under our administraThis fact is the following:-that, at a tion and government, we have thought fit, by the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our royal large an object to escape the eye even of Proclamation, and do hereby declare, &c.; and we the most somnolent of ministers:-the do expect and require that all persons of honour, or in place of authority, will give good example by Bishop of Exeter did not drag the thing their own virtue and piety, and to their utmost con- before them, until the public had been tribute to the discountenancing persons of dissolute compelled to see it; and compelled to and debauched lives, &c.: and for the more effect- ask the question, whether or not the gov ual reforming all such persons, who, by reason of their dissolute lives and conversations, are a scandal ernment of this country deemed blasto our kingdom, our further pleasure is, and we do phemy a crime punishable, and which hereby strictly charge and command all our judges, they were resolved to punish, by the laws mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and all our of the land. Let the answer be given boldly, and the blasphemy will soon disappear. Already the dread of prosecution has checked its openness. other officers and ministers, both ecclesiastical and civil, and all other our subjects whom it may concern, to be very vigilant and strict in the discovery and the effectual prosecution and punishment of all persons who shall be guilty of excessive drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewd. ness, profanation of the Lord's day, and other disso. lute, immoral, or disorderly practices.' But beside the supreme government much may be done by its representatives among the educated classes of society. A little tract, published, we see, at Romsey, is very short but very sensible :— Mr. Trueman (walking in his garden) stops before the border where Tom Moore is digging. 'Mr. T.-How much do I owe you for wages, Tom? ‹ Tom.-'Tis just a week's, sir. Mr. T.-There!-Take your money.- -Is it right? Tom.-Yes, sir! Mr T.-Now, then, put down your tools, and go off my premises directly. Tom. Why? What have I done, Sir, to be turned off in this way? Now, either this is a mere farce and mockery-or the blasphemies of the Socialists are not profane-or some great change has come over the principles of government since this proclamation was made;-without one or other of these alternatives the government cannot escape from prosecuting these wretched men. Their meetings are open, their tracts publicly dispersed, their books avowed. If there is any law in the land, or any power of enforcing it, here is the occasion. If this be omitted, what other crime shall we ever attempt to punish, the moment it has become common, and organised itself in a society? If a set of murderers had formed a congress at Bir- Let us not hear of persecution. Permingham, would the government prose-secution is a hard word, but punishment cute them, or say, that to prosecute a is not persecution; and vice must be murderer only encouraged murder, only punished, and ignorance warned, and brought him into notice? Yet murder is truth proclaimed-and no way of doing mainly injury to man-blasphemy is insult to God-and murder of the worst kind-of man's spirit as well as of his body. 'Mr. T.-You have disobeyed my orders and advice, by going to hear the Socialists" discourse," both last Sunday and the Sunday before-that is what you have done.' this is so easy and effectual as the course recommended here with the lower or. ders, and a similar course, that of expulsion from society, with all others. They have set a mark upon themselves; it is our business to avoid them, lest we should be swallowed up in their condemnation. Let it be remembered, that the great duty of a government is to assert its own principles; to put forth its own moral character; to warn its subjects against evil. When this has been done, the rest If there are persons who, as not being must be left to God. There may indeed connected with the Church, or not intebe cases, in which it may be necessary to rested in the suppression of blasphemy seem not to see an evil, and when, as not as a matter of religion, are willing to seeing, we compromise no principle by overlook it, we recommend to abstaining from punishing: the Bishop some other considerations more nearly of Exeter well distinguished between affecting their pockets. Even Locke alcases of sedition and cases of blasphemy; lows that those are not at all to be in the former of which political consider- tolerated who deny the being of God. ations might at times be allowed to sus- Promises, covenants, and oaths, which pend prosecution. But an organised body, are the bonds of human society, can for the propagation of blasphemy, num- have no hold upon an atheist. The takbering 100,000 members, and 350 places ing away of God, though but even in within its reach, and 61 chartered socie- thought, dissolves all.' We beg to ask ties in connection with it, is rather too * 1st Letter on Toleration, p. 47. them how they like the following application of the non-responsibility doctrine -and which has been publicly applied in the Socialist meetings even to the murderer of Lord Norbury, and to Messrs. Frost and Williams : A "WORD IN SEASON" TO JURORS. [Under the present distressed circumstances of the operative classes, when the influences which surround them are of a nature to stimulate them to actions-conventionally named crimes-it seems. peculiarly appropriate to republish the following paper; we recommend the reasoning it contains to the serious attention of all whose position may place them in the jury-box.-ED.] Thus, also, have the middle classes of society, in what are most erroneously called civilized countries, been made, by the existing classification, anything but rational beings. OBJECTIONS to convict for offences having The professions, civil and military, the leading their origin in misgovernment and the vicious influ- merchants, bankers, manufacturers, and tradesences or arrangements which confessedly exist, men, are, one and all, systematically trained, by but of which society, and those who administer the the objects and persons around them, to become laws, are either ignorant or powerless to counteract deprived of every rational perception, and fit only and remove-convictions that lead to punishments to occupy one of the larger or smaller cells in our, which all experience proves inefficient to repress crime, or to reclaim criminals-presented to the Commissioners at the Old Bailey, November 27th,' &c. &c. &c. at present, terrestrial lunatic asylums. It is indeed doubtful whether they have yet advanced so far as to admit their best and kindest friends to attempt their cure, without arousing all their angry or irrational feelings. For, hitherto, The following recommendation, quot-terested fellow-men have made, at great personal when their least mentally injured and most disined with the highest applause from Mr. risk, some effort to convince them of some important Shelley's Queen Mab, and placed as an error, and to show them a valuable truth, these appendix to Mr. Robert Owen's Lectures comparatively wise men have uniformly experienon Marriage, may also deserve atten- suffered death, and some even uuder the most exced severe persecution, and many of them have tion :cruciating tortures. Chastity is a monkish and evangelical supersti. tion; a greater fue to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race to misery, that some few may monopolize according to law. A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage. 'I conceive that, from the abolition of marriage, the fit and natural arrangement of sexual connection would result. I by no means assert that the intercourse would be promiscuous: on the contrary, it appears, from the relation of parent to child, that this union is generally of long duration, and marked above all others with generosity and self-devotion. But this is a subject which it is perhaps premature to discuss. That which will result from the abolition of marriage will be na tural and right, because choice and change will be exempted from restraint. These so-called civil professions are real ene. mies, and most formidable ones too, to the human race. They destroy the minds and morals of all, and materially injure the health of all; they are, in fact, the cause of all the deception and hypocrisy which spoil the human character, and make the earth a pandemonium instead of a terrestrial para. dise; a paradise which truth, with the progress already attained in the arts and sciences, would now soon form it to become. The irrationality of these professions will appear the more glaring, when it is called to mind that individuals are taken out of families to be trained to deceive and prey upon the other members of the family; for the priests, lawyers, and medical men, continually deceive and prey upon every other class in society, but especially upon the agriculturists, manufacturers, merchants, traders and operatives, who they consider are trained to be their dupes, and are fair game, from whom to make their fortunes.' In fact, religion and morality, as they now But perhaps the following cover, restand, compose a practical code of misery ander-peated on many of their tracts, will suvitude: the genius of human happiness must tear every leaf from the accursed book of God ere man persede any farther hints. We only beg can read the inscription on his heart. How would our readers to observe the medley : Now publishing, in Weekly Numbers, at Threepence each; and in Monthly Parts at One Shilling: BRONTERRE'S LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MAXIMILIAN ROBES. Proving, by irrefragable Facts and Arguments, that that "bloodthirsty Monster" and VOL. LXV. Engraved on Steel proofs 0 6 A FINE BUST OF EPICURUS. proofs 1 0 0 3 0 3 Or, THE KISSES OF JOHANNES SECUNDUS. To which are added, FRAGMENTS AND A POPULAR HISTORY OF PRIESTCRAFT; Boards, 3s. 6d. ; or in Six Parts, at 6d, each. CONSIDERATIONS touching the Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the AN ADDRESS On the Benefits of General Knowledge; more especially, the sciences of Mineralogy, THE BIBLE OF REASON. In Numbers, at Twopence. By WILLIAM HAZLITT. Price 2d. SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF VOLNEY, To which is added, the celebrated Dialogue between the People and the Privileged Just Published, price 2d. a Brief and Interesting Sketch of THE LIFE OF M. DE VOLTAIRE. Price 2d. An Interesting Sketch of the LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE BARON D'HOLBACH. ADDRESS ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE CLERICAL PROFESSION. PREFACE TO THE EDIPUS JUDAICUS OF SIR WILLIAM rests, and the personal experience of each hearer, as the proper standard by which to measure divine truth, and right and wrong. If this be not the standard appealed to, what is it? Is it revealed law? We see that two self-constituted societies, called the City of London Mission, and the Christian Instruction Society, have taken, one of them the theatre of the London Mechanics' Institution, and the other a chapel near Red Lion Square, in which courses of lectures have been But the Dissenters must prove the fac delivered on the subject of Socialism. of their revelation, and for this they must If these are merely lectures, not discus- go to the witness, the historical witness sions-such as have been rashly under- of the church-for its witness not only to taken in many parts of the manufactur- the simple fact, but to the definite form ing districts, to the great triumph and of the revelation itself: since a revela. encouragement of the Socialists---the tion not definite is a contradiction in principal thing to be lamented is that terms. But throw themselves on this, parties should have ventured on the task, and what becomes of dissent? If there who, by their own principles, must be be this positive witness, why secede from, defeated in it; for we observe they are and set it at naught? And, therefore, disalmost exclusively Dissenters; and Ow-sent dares not grapple with these blasenism, we beg to assure them, is only a phemies by bringing forward a positive, species of Dissent. definite, external, revealed law; and its The lists of these lecturers and their other standard the blasphemer will gladly chosen topics are before us; and we accept, for it is the very foundation of must confess ourselves entirely in the his system. We do go by our reason, dark if they, one and all, mean anything they will say, and we do not understand but an appeal to the understanding, to the Christianity; and, therefore, we reject it. moral sentiments, to the personal inte- We do act according to our conscience, |