-

and our conscience is shocked at nothing receive, whether we can explain it or not. which promises to be useful. We do lay, And we are rejoiced to see that one of with you, the greatest stress on morality, the most valuable members whom the on charity, on the absurdity of fixed theo Church can boast, Dr. Hook—who is haplogical creeds, of established hierarchies. pily stationed at Leeds where the SocialWe consult, as you recommend, our own ists have fixed their head-quarters-is eninterests, and find it much more agreea- gaged with a body of his brother clergyble to make a paradise upon earth at once men in composing and disseminating some than to struggle on in fearful obedience very judicious tracts for this purpose. with the prospect of heaven at a distance. Few persons have done more for the We have read the Bible, as you recom- Church than Dr. Hook; and his view of mend-the Bible, and the Bible alone the mode in which the evil must be met, by ourselves; not carelessly, for the in is worthy of his high reputation. But the numerable inconsistencies which we pro. very first lesson to be taught to churchduce in it show we have studied it deli- men is to listen to no suggestions, to read berately. To you it seems inspired, to no books, to attend no meetings, to abus not; and who will decide between us? stain from polluting themselves by any We do agree with you, that marriage is communication whatever with infidels and not a rite which requires to be solemnly blasphemers. It is the rule laid down in consecrated by God's appointed minis. the Church-by the Bible-by common ters therefore, it is left to man's will-prudence, which prohibits the indulgence therefore we may do as we like with it, of curiosity in tasting poisons, or the atand we think it very inconvenient, and tacking an enemy rashly with weapons, are logical and bold enough to remove which we do not know how to use; and, the inconvenience without any prudery or false shame. You appeal to the misery of vice. We have no intention to be vicious. We mean to be prudent, and temperate, and amiable-to omit nothing from our catalogue of virtues but that one item of Christianity, on which item you yourselves evidently are quite in the dark, quarrelling with yourselves, and only If to this the Church could add her own agreeing in separating from a body, who solemn Excommunication, it would be a have authority, which you want, for their movement of incalculable importance. belief, and in protesting against its receiv- Excommunication, even Locke confesses, ing the assistance of the State to make your fellow.creatures Christians. Like you, we have a right to our opinions; and if any of you are now too prejudiced un der circumstances to be reformed up to our point, the young, at least, will under-duty more obviously imperative. It would stand us, and appreciate our proposal for their happiness.

And to this there can be no answer. But the Church has a very different ground. It must raise up more boldly than ever its historical testimony to the fact of a revelation, and to the definite. ness of the revelation itself. Beyond this, it has no concern with minds without its pale. When it has given its wit ness publicly to what it has seen and heard, its task is done, and God will do the rest. For those within it, who acknowledge that testimony, and act upon it, it may pour out the whole abundance of its knowledge, to show the reasonable. ness, and wisdom, and benevolence, and usefulness of the system which, as coming from God, we are bound and glory to

happily, in this case, there can be nothing to confuse its application, as when poor people are led away to dissenting chapels, under the notion that they only hear the same truths as in the Church. Punishment is the only form by which a Christian can recognise them, and punishment by the law of the land.

is no persecution. It is a privilege es sential to the very existence of a religious society, indeed of any society. There never was a case in which its reasonableness would be more intelligible, or its

act as a solemn warning-convey the denunciations of the Church in a clear and indisputable form to every part of the country. It would remind men of the great truth, that the Church has within her power a fountain of spiritual blessings, which she can open and shut, which she herself trusts in unfeignedly, which she will not permit to be profaned, however others may scorn them. And the first step to make others recognise the existence of a privilege is to exert it ourselves. It would be an act of authority wholly independent of the State. It would also be an act of power, like a city surrounded by enemies, who had gone out and come in at their pleasure, at last rousing itself, and shutting its gates; and the mo. ment the Church begins to show this pow.

er, it will find numbers to rejoice in it, and throw themselves under her protection. Socialism itself is a symptom of the craving now rising on all sides for the development of some realised society out of the present disorganised atoms of our civil and ecclesiastical ruins,

in their present position. Socialism has not dropped from the clouds, but sprung out of the earth. It is the rank produce of a rank soil, uncultivated and full of poison.

How is it that our manufacturing towns, occupying, as they do, the very If in the present anomalous state of the vitals of the country, are hot-beds of this law any temporal evil, such as out- profligacy and sedition? First, because lawry, followed the excommunication, it they are full of poverty. But poverty would be necessary to clear this away, will increase and multiply until either and let the spiritual punishment stand some legislative enactment, or the ruin, quite alone. The man, indeed, on whom which sooner or later must fall on unbriit fell might laugh at it as a penalty for dled competition, or the growth of manuwhich he cared nothing; but the church factures in foreign countries, shall have itself would be invigorated and relieved, put limits to our present unbounded and animated for fresh exertions; and market and gambling speculations, and the clergy, especially, would be saved made demand regular, and wages adefrom one most painful and distressing quate. You may destroy your corn-laws, situation, to which they are now exposed. and with them your agricultural popula. There is nothing to prevent these blas- tion, and so purchase a short respite phemers from bringing a dead body to from ruin to the master-though none to the church, and compelling the clergy the workmen-but competition will only man by the law of the land to read the advance so much more rapidly, the conburial service over it. Even now there vulsions of trade become more frequent, are numberless instances, in which the the population more alarmingly corrupt. existing state of this law, and the suspen- But, if the market is diminished, what is sion of the act of excommunication, press to become of the population created by most anxiously on the minds of the cler- the present demand? You must progy. But what would be the mockery, vide for them by colonization, both and triumph, and ridicule, the perplexity abroad and on our own waste lands. of ignorant Christians, the humiliation of Still there is the influx of Irish labourers. the clergyman, the doubt thrown on the Now there are poor-laws in Ireland, this reality of all we hear uttered and profess- ought to be stopped. Then rise up the ed by ministers of God in the most so- national encumbrances. How is our lemn of moments, if a man whose pro- debt to be paid if our manufactures are fession it has been to defame the Bi- curtailed? We answer, that if our manuble, to insult Christianity, to deny God, factures continue as they are, they will in to mock at another life, may claim to a few years generate a sufficient power have his remains accompanied to the to sweep away at one explosion, not only grave with the same words of comfort a national debt, but a national constituand thanksgiving which are uttered over tion, a national religion, a national name. the body of a Christian! It is scarcely Any amount of debt may be tolerated, if possible to imagine a circumstance which the heart and mind of the people is sound would inflict a more deadly blow on the and healthy. None will be safe, if corcharacter of the Church, and on the faith ruption advances as at present. of its members. It may be hoped that But who then is to attempt to grapple the same Providence, which has already with this dense mass of population, and roused the heads of the Church to attack throw this chaos into form and order? the nuisance in the legislature, will save It must be the Church; without the it from this calamity under their own Church, the State is powerless. It canspiritual jurisdiction. not teach, nor guide, nor watch over, nor And yet, even if this be done, and if infuse moral principles, nor communithe law succeeds in repressing all overt cate, what is greatest of all, that, without acts of blasphemy, will the Church be which all other things must fail, the susatisfied? Will all be safe? No! most pernatural power to resist evil, and work assuredly not! The Church never can out good-without the church. And never be satisfied-religion, and virtue, and had a Church to perform a task so grand or obedience, and loyalty never can be free difficult. Oh, that she would raise herfrom these outrages, again and again to self up to fulfil it as she ought! Oh, that be repeated, so long as things continue she would look the whole battle in the

face; measure it in its height and plans of this kind: and the seminaries breadth; measure her own weakness thus established may be judiciously fed, first, and gather up her arms for the con- both from the national schools and the flict; that, if she did not conquer, at middle schools now forming under dioleast she might perish nobly. One thing cesan superintendence, so as to draw off she has provided in abundance, the writ- from the inferior classes the most gifted ten word; but bibles alone are powerless. and intelligent scholars, raise them to a The Socialists have bibles, read them, highly respectable position in society, quote them, and even praise them, in de- save them from becoming, as they now fence of Atheism. Churches she is now become, the half-instructed, half-witted adding, and with an energy, if not equal-agents of mischief, and bind the classes or anything like equal to the demand, from which they are taken to the interyet full of comfort for the present, and ests of religion, as the Irish poor are athope for the future. But churches re- tached to their Romanist system, by quire preachers; and preachers will pro- opening to them an entrance into the duce churches much more easily than highest spiritual offices, from which they churches will produce preachers. We are now generally excluded. In this want clergymen-a whole army of cler- diocesan-education plan, and in the germs gy, sufficient to act regularly, consistently, efficaciously, on the millions who are dependent upon them. What should we say to a Secretary of State, who proposed to keep the population of London in order by twenty or thirty policemen ? What should we think of a schoolmaster who, single-handed, undertook the education of 1000 boys? And yet the moral police, the spiritual education, and in that all the other education of the English people, is in this condition. And why is it thus? Because the Church has no means of sending out more labourers-she is impoverished. And yet in some way or other this miserable blank must be supplied.

of a clerical education-system lying dormant in our cathedral institutions, there are the rudiments of a grand design for rebuilding the walls of the Church, and let us pray that they may be fully developed.

But this is not all. Until we have opened our eyes to the great crying mistake in our present system, no multipli. cation of clergy will effect much. When the Duke of Wellington was resolved to stand the charge of the enemy's army, or to charge them himself, it was not his practice, we are sure, to spread his troops, soldier by soldier, with spaces of miles between each, over a whole country. No! he threw them into dense We want some bold and master hand columns-into hollow squares; and we to trace out the old outlines of our eccle- must form our clergy into dense columns siastical polity-not those excrescences and hollow squares. We must have coladded on by Romanism, which only en- leges of clergy established throughout cumbered and pulled down by their own the land-not monasteries, let us rememweight the original solid walls, but-all ber-we want no vow of celibacy, no vow that really belonged to the old Catholic of poverty, no self-invented asceticism, no scheme of Christianity; and to lay the new excrescence in the Church exempted foundations anew, or raise a new build- from the discipline of the Bishop ;-all ing on their ruins. Of these the very these were inventions of man, and they first part required is a nursery for the ended, as such inventions obtruded on clergy. At present we have none. The the plans of God naturally would end, in Universities give general education; and the crimes of Popery and of the Reformaa very imperfect outline (for they cannot tion. But we do want, in our parochial do more) of the rudiments of Theology. system, collegiate bodies, which may But we want seminaries, which shall give mutual support to the clergy, which create a body of men, who may be most may exhibit to the eyes of the people a useful in the Church without having been permanent, living, moral power in the able to incur the necessary expenses of Church-not subject to the errors, and an University education. For these we infirmities, and mutability of individuals must look to our Cathedrals, if the Pro--which shall grasp their minds as with vidence which has hitherto postponed a hand, not, as now, attempt it with a the deadly blow aimed at the Church little finger, from which the thumb and through them, is continued to preserve other fingers have been mutilated. Such them. The Bishops of Chichester, and bodies, properly organised, would, in the Bath, and Wells, have already formed first place, be the best and most appro.

priate provision for the additional paro- philosophy as in religion-in our practice chial clergy. They would maintain them as in theory. We despise antiquity, abat the least expense; confer on them a hor restraint, recognise no power beyond respectability and dignity which would us, and in the mists of a vague specularender them indifferent to smallness of tion overlook all the limits and warnings, income-enable them to continue their which God, and not mere experience, has studies to divide their labours-to bring raised up to be our guides. It was not under their immediate superintendence so with those great men, to whom we the many important operations which, to owe our liberties and grandeur; it never be well performed, must be carried on by was so with any man deserving the name the Church herself-such as educating of greatness, or wisdom, or goodnessthe young, assisting the poor, contriving for man is never great except in submisplans for bettering their condition, not sion to law, never wise but when he dis wholly unlike Mr. Owen's, with the one trusts himself, never good but when obe. exception of their being systematically dience triumphs over self-indulgence. religious; and providing refuges and Few things, indeed, so strike a thoughtoccupations for the many of all classes, ful mind as the timid, cautious, superstiwho now lie idle and unhappy about our tious delicacy, with which the best of country towns, and dissipated watering- past generations recognised the obligaplaces, with good feelings, and active tion of law. Even when to common eyes minds, and small incomes-all ill-employ- its lines were scarcely visible, they seemed, but who, under proper training and ed to feel them-they moved about with instruction under such collegiate bodies, caution, as certain blinded animals avoid might form a most important part of the by instinct the net spread before them. moral machinery of the Church. Not Our polity,' says Bracton,* is founded one of these ends can be accomplished upon usage.' Our common law is govtill, as of old, our clergy are stationed in erned by precedent; our religion estabcolleges. The Bishop of London, we lished upon authority; our church sysare rejoiced to hear, has made the first tem modelled after antiquity; our prostep towards this grand restoration, by an establishment of the kind in one of the worst districts of the metropolis; and he deserves the gratitude of the Church for showing us such an example.

perty perpetuated by inheritance; our government based upon succession; the dearest rights and liberties of Englishmen claimed not as new inventions, but as our ancient and undoubted birthright. We owed everything to our fathers, we trusted nothing to our will. So men used to think; so they will think again, if Providence has yet in store for us the rescue of this country from destruction;

When this has been done, then we shall be able to attack, boldly and successfully, the real root of all this mischief -the self-will of man. Raise up legislators, or witnesses to the laws, whom the people will respect, and you may teach and they, who would aid in this great them to respect law itself; and until we work, whether in resistance to Socialism all have learned, from the highest to the or to any other nuisance, must here take lowest, to respect law, Socialism, in some their stand, and teach others to stand likeform or other that is, discontent with wise. When schemes for man's improvethe condition in which we live-contempt ment are imagined, they will test them for the will, and the revelation, and insti- by the statute-law of a past and adequate tutions of God-vain, conceited schemes experience. When infidelity starts up, of reformation-mischievous associations they will crush it with the historical fact for carrying them into practice-shame- of an indisputable definite revelation. less defiances of appointments which When nature's laws are outraged, they shackle our self-indulgence-and irra- will support them by the positive comtional reasonings on mysteries beyond mands of God. They will not hope for our reach-this, which is the spirit of any Millennium in the future, which is to Socialism, will continue to prevail among begin by overturning the past and mockus; and its irruption upon religion, and ing the present. morality, and society, in the gross naked form in which it has now been laid bare, will only be a question of time.

Lawlessness is our sin and our curse throughout the whole range of societyin our morals as in our politics-in our

* Cum autem fere in omnibus regionibus utantur legibus et jure scripto, sola Anglia usa est in suis finibus jure non scripto et consuetudine.-Bracton, lib. i. c. 1.

+ See Burke, French Revolution, quarto edition,

p. 57.

They will not be afraid of that prejudice to be carried up recklessly into the air, of antiquity which makes a man's virtue and torn about by every wind of heaven. his habit, and his duty a part of his nature. They will live by law a law external to They will not cut off that chain of associ- themselves; law over their consciences, ation, which links them to the whole hu- law over their actions, law to temper their man race, to all that have been, and all feelings, law to guide their belief. They that are to come, by a mutual responsibili. will deem it neither shame nor hurt to ty and dependence-which gives them a reasoning being, nothing perilous to their partnership in society, not in the per- man's welfare or derogatory to his freeishable atoms of the day, but in the one dom, to have that for a counsellor and eternal system which holds all genera- rule, which is the rule of God himself; tions together-'a partnership in all sci- the golden chain, which holds creation. ence-a partnership in all art-a partner. in its place, by which the seas know their ship in every virtue and in all perfec. bounds, and the stars roll in their courses, tion.' They will not act as if they were And the eternal heavens are fresh and strong;'* masters of their possession in the state which alone raises man from the earth, -not cut off the entail, or commit waste and gives energy to his acts, constancy on the inheritance, by destroying at their to his will, immutability to his knowledge, pleasure the fabric of their society, ha- safety to his weakness;-to recognise it zarding to leave to those who come after in the humblest of its forms--as men of them a ruin instead of an habitation, and teaching these successors as little to re- Author of law, even in the degradation a holy nature knew God, who is the spect their contrivances as they had them- of humanity-and as wisdom can trace it selves respected the institutions of their still as much in the whirling of a leaf as forefathers.' They will be quiet instead in the revolution of a planet ;-to live of restless, humble instead of ignorant, with it gratefully, and humbly, as her willing to learn, and cautious to teach; whose seat is in the bosom of God, and as tolerant of conscientious error as they her voice the harmony of the world; to are firm in condemning the error, and whom all things in heaven and earth do zealous in enlightening the conscience. homage, the very least as feeling her They will never dream of 'beginning re- care, and the greatest as not exempt formation by subversion'-of sacrificing from her power, whom angels and men justice to indulge benevolence-as if any and creatures of what condition soever, benevolence could exist apart from order, though each in different sort, yet all with and one man could possibly be benefited uniform consent, admire as the mother of by the injury of another. They will ven: their peace and joy.'t erate the doctrines of their religion and the constitution of their country; not as a bundle of statutes, worm-eaten and illegible, which any hand may cast behind ART. VII.-Primitia et Reliquiæ. pp. 77. the fire, or scrawl over with visionary projects; but as a body of imperishable

London. 1840.

6

His

truths above and beyond all temporary THIS is a very interesting little volume, edicts-which were spoken by the mouth which an elegant and Ciceronian dedicaof God or written in the heart of man tion Viro eximio Henrico Brougham long before Englishmen existed; which, Amico suo dilectissimo,' informs us is the to the envy of the world, our forefathers production of Lord Wellesley. embodied in their practice because they lordship's reputation as a statesman is came from God; which they clung to in known to all the world: amongst his every Revolution, and chained down the friends and contemporaries he was distinState upon them so that neither in war guished as an accomplished scholar; and nor peace, nor in the usurpation of kings, his recently published dispatches, and, nor superstitions of popes, nor popular madness, nor the downfall of dynasties, nor vicissitudes of fortunes, not even in the heat of successful resistance to oppression, did they let loose the polity of their country or the faith of their Church,

short as it is, that beautiful biographical sketch of Mr. Pitt, with which we were permitted to enrich a former number,‡ had proved him an eloquent master of English composition; but we were not,

* Wordsworth, Ode to Duty.
+ Hooker, b. 1.
Quarterly Review, vol. lvii.