THE WORLD'S MEDICINE.

It is no new complaint, that the world is out of joint. As long ago as the days of Solomon, and no doubt much earlier, there were grievances to be redressed in the state, the social circle, and the family. " "I saw under the sun, the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there." "There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness; and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness." "If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of justice in a province, marvel not at it." Such were a very few only of the multiform experiences of this wisest of men.

In the nineteenth century of the Christian era, we are in much the same position. Every one finds something to complain of every one has some remedy to propose, and yet we arrive at no realization of our wishes. Physicians are abundant, and comforters are not wanting; but the first, prove to be "physicians of no value:" the latter, "miserable comforters."

What then do we want? More liberty or less? More knowledge, more morality, more wealth, more equality, or what? It is quite clear that we all wish to be happier; how then are we to be so ?

It looks very like presumption, perhaps, to give an opinion, where so many opinions have been given in vain. Yet we cannot help thinking, that goodness is one of the conditions—the condition, in fact, of such happiness. Liberty, knowledge, wealth, equality, or even mere morality, are beggarly elements" compared with goodness, as we understand that term; and we are disposed, therefore, to hold them all in abeyance to the great idea of holiness-of Bible excellence, which is what we mean by goodness. Make men better, and you will advance the true interests of the world, and promote peace, good-will, and happiness every where.

Two years ago, Liberty was the great panacea for all the wrongs of states and individuals. A reaction has since taken place, and the abettors of liberty have grown sick of the scheme. The screws of society have been reversed, and the whole instrument has gone out of tune. No wonder then if they fly off to the opposite extreme, and tell us that the world is dying of too

I

much liberty. This is the language now held, amongst others, by Mr. Thomas Carlyle, in his Latter Day Pamphlets; and he is perhaps, right. It would seem so, indeed, by the way in which the public have received his statements, for few quarrel with them, though many are disposed to see practical difficulties in the way of carrying them out.

"The easiest thing in the world," said one of the old philosophers "is to give advice; the most difficult is to follow it." Little inferior, in many cases, is the difficulty of instructing others how to do so. But we have great faith in our Bible, and by its aid the matter appears often comparatively easy. Where God directs we cannot do wrong in following; where he is silent, let us be so too.

"We apprehend," says one of our most upright and honest reviewers, with reference to Mr. Carlyle's tract on the "Present Time”—“ there is very little difference among men as to who ought to govern; we all desire to see the wisest in the seat of power. The only real question is, how is the wisest to get into that seat ?"

To us, we must say, that this appears to be rather the second or third question, than the first or only one. It must be settled beforehand who this wisest of men is. And then it may fairly be asked, whether wisdom be the only requisite for the righteous government of a great people. The children of this world are allowedly wiser than the children of light, but it by no means follows that they would rule more in accordance with their Great Model-the King of kings and Lord of lords.

We can easily imagine, where there are so many opinions and shades of opinion as to who are the wise men, that the world would grow very old indeed, before any one state, or kingdom, or nation, had made up their minds upon the subject. The infidel would think that man the wisest, who was loudest or most forward in his repudiation of the only true source of wisdom-the revealed Will of God. The Socialist would place in the seat of government, the man whose superlative wisdom lay in the notion, that all property was robbery. The man whose narrow mind dwelt on one or two microscopical grievances, whilst he overlooked the thousand privileges and benefits by which he was surrounded, would choose as undoubtedly the

wisest of his species, the individual who saw things just as he eyes of others, unconscious of And thus the first, even, of our

did, and detected motes in the the beam that was in his own. three questions, would remain unsettled till the end of time. But much of our difficulty vanishes, when we turn towards the sun of revelation, as he looks from behind the dark cloud of human passion and prejudice. "Make the tree good." "First cast out the beam," these, and such as these, are the lessons we have still to learn; but which, once learnt thoroughly, would enable us to go down deeper towards the root of the evil, than has been done hitherto. If the people be the government, as many tell us they are, they should know how to govern. And if on the other hand, they be willing to place themselves under one Master Mind, or a conclave of such spirits,-" representative men,” as they are sometimes called, they must learn to appreciate their wisdom or capacity to rule over or represent them. In either case, the people must be schooled up to a high point. Whether they claim to exercise that power themselves, or are willing to delegate it to others, they must know something of its nature, its rights, its duties, or its modus operandi.

And of these things how little do they know at present! Let them be informed then; let them be instructed; let them be educated-let them, in one word, be made wise and good. We are no friends to republicanism; for we think we have abundant reason to bless God for all the mercies we enjoy under our present glorious constitution, especially when we contemplate the wrecks of other nations on the continent of Europe: but we are sincere friends of the people-even of the " common people," the representatives of that class who in our Saviour's time "heard gladly" that Best of Teachers, and often held in check the so-called better fed and better taught, when their jealousy was aroused by the simple greatness of his gracious words. By all means, then, let them be made wise and good. We say "wise and good;" unless we may substitute God's estimate of goodness for the world's. For we do not think that mere knowledge is enough. Nay, we know that without love, it "puffeth up" and does not edify-it inflates instead of building; and without a well-built mind, we see little prospect of real benefit to society. Whether any existing government, as

such, can thus educate the people, we do not pretend to say, but the Bible evidently supposes such a thing possible. Nay, it predicts it as certain. Kings are to be the nursing fathers, and queens the nursing mothers of the church. Make the tree good, and the branches will partake of its root and fatness. Infuse into the fountain of the state, the vitalizing virtue of the gospel, and it will flow forth again, in ten thousand hearthealing streams, till the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the

rose.

But how can we do this? If asked in sincerity and simplicity, we think the question is not very difficult of solution. How are states made? From what materials are cabinets constructed? Have the people nothing to do in providing these materials, even though denied the nicer task of electing, collocating, assorting, and arranging the several parts? From the six hundred delegates they return from time to time, the government is mainly fashioned-the council of the land is chosen. It rests then, with the people, to have good men or bad-Godfearing or God-dishonoring representatives.

Then, why not sink all other distinctions in this great, this momentous, this all-important distinction? What is the little fact, that this or that man prefers to worship God in another manner, form, or way, from that in which we do, compared with the startling fact that he does not worship him at all—that God is not in all his thoughts-that He is not in his creed, or in his life? Yet men who glory in the name of Christians, will often sacrifice the greater, to the lesser good. They will choose men not by the standard of the gospel, but by that of their own prejudices or party feelings. A Christian must represent that within all other Christians, which is best and surest; a shrewd and clever worldling can only represent our lower grades and shades of principle. Shall we be content then, to give our political crotchets a voice in the senate, while our common christianity is dumb; or to let our probable mistakes speak out, while the great certainties of our spiritual relations have neither friend nor advocate?

How many are the evils which would be remedied, if all were only anxious for the Good, the Right, the True, as developed in the Bible. The boundary line between the Christian and the

worldling is boldly, broadly marked enough. If a man be renewed in the spirit of his mind, it needs no argument to prove that he will make it his first business to aid in the regeneration of the masses; but if he be a man without religion, we despair of his leaving the world much better than he finds it. Much evil that is charged to other causes, has its root in nothing but the wickedness and vitiated tastes of the people, and would be more effectually remedied by their mental and moral elevation, than by the removal of taxation, or any other political nostrum of the day.

To instance one out of many questions raised in the present times of agitation-not because it is by any means an all-important matter, but because it more immediately concerns ourselves, and our cotemporaries in the vast field of literary labor —the abolition of the paper duty. The subject has been handled in a well-known pamphlet entitled, "The Struggles of a Book against excessive Taxation," with more ability than candour, and has just now excited considerable interest. But to us the question appears to have been greatly complicated instead of simplified. It lies in truth within a very narrow compass. Thousands of cheap, trashy, corrupting serials, are issued weekly from the press, and find a ready sale, to the injury or entire suppression of the better class of periodicals. And this, it is argued, is the result alone of the unequal pressure of the tax on paper But how? This "literary garbage" is printed on a thinner, lighter paper, than the more respectable publications; and as the tax is chargeable by weight, of course the duty and the aggregate expense must be less. So far, the argument is fair enough, and sufficiently clear; but the author of our pamphlet goes much farther. He assumes, not only that the paper for these respectable works is dearer, but, that editor, contributors, compositors, pressmen, and advertisers, must of necessity, be paid more handsomely. We say, "of necessity," for the whole argument turns upon this supposition-fallacious, nay, actually false, as it seems to be. For wherefore this necessity, so far as the money question is concerned? If a bad work, upon bad paper, with a cheap and bad editor, bad contributors, bad compositors, and bad pressmen, badly advertised, sells to the same extent as an able, well-conducted, and well