patible with this, then let the other things shift for themselves. Truth, principle, antice, we say, though the heavens should fall; but we think that the heavens are much more likely to fall when lies, expediency, and injustice are the laws by which a nation allows itself to be governed.

Granted that the men who assemble annually in St. Stephen's are gentlemen, well-bred, generally truthful, usually honourable and just in all the relations of private life-as far as such conduct may be compatible with human nature. What does this avail them? In Parliament they are not private, but public, men. Private morals drop off from them when they enter the doors of the House. Private morality will not serve them there. The institution being false, its members become like it. Neither does it depend upon their will. The atmosphere of the place, its traditions, its maxims, its precedents prevail over all beside. As the House of Commons is at present constituted, it cannot do justice. Put a true man in a false position, and he will either destroy the position or the position will destroy him. He will become, perhaps by degrees and unconsciously, corrupt and untrue, no longer able to testify to the truth that is in him. We hold that the present House of Commons is such a position; and that all true men who go there, except to destroy the position, commit a moral suicide. Therefore it is that we look upon the House of Commons with contempt, and upon all faith in it for good with despair. We regard as hopeless all attempts which do not aim at a thorough reform in its nature and constitution ; we regard as waste of energy and time all efforts which have not for their primary object a REFORM OF PARLIAMENT.

In January last, the Times, in a memorable article, predicted a new Reform Bill, mendaciously adding that ministers would then be enabled to carry out the 'intentions of the Reform Act, which had been frustrated by accident or neutralised by time.' The prediction proved to be premature, but the sentence accompanying it is valuable. What a happy choice of words! To frustrate' or 'neutralise'! Do not they express the alpha and omega of Whig statesmanship? What have they ever accomplished but the frustration and neutralisation of reform. The Reform Bill itself, the Newspaper Stamp Act, Penny Postage, the Municipal Reform Act, volumes of Irish legislation, have been frustrated or neutralised under the tutelary guardianship of the whigs. They have a gift that way. To patronise the people and betray them; to moralise on principle, and practise expediency; to toast the sovereignty of the people,' to conserve the sovereignty of the aristocracy; to display meanness in defeat, and arrogance in victory ;-these are the cardinal points, not of honour, in the Whig scheme of misrule. The happy sentence of the Times is easily changed into a description of Whig tactics, when we say that they are framed to 'frustrate' by design, and 'neutralise' by pportunit.

·

The peculiariy of this and the last two years is, that there has been no

grand political agitation, no startling demonstrations, no movement of much importance on the surface; but immense political activity among all classes. After the great year of 1846, the nation sunk into apparent apathy. Commerce began to revive. The continental revolutions appear to have astonished and alarmed the English, but not to have communicated any momentum to agitation. They have, however, caused a much more valuable result. Instead of open and obvious manifestations of strong political feeling, we have had great, though secret and unobtrusive, political reflection. The state of society has been investigated, as never before. Profound uneasiness is felt by all classes. Profound wrong is perceived to exist by the richer, and acutely felt by the poorer, classes. The present session shows that no one prevailing class are satisfied with our methods of government. All are discontented. The privileged are only tolerated because, as we have indicated, the majority do not see their way out of existing difficulties, and fear the consequences of change. This cannot last long. The anarchy of parliament disgusts our practical notions. The anarchy of society shocks that intimate sense of the just which every man possesses, however he may hide or disguise it. The attitude of the thinking majority (of the unthinking it is useless to take any account) is one of expectation-not idle, but reflective, inquiring, and anxious for conclusions; and thus, while the wrecks of the old parliamentary parties are playing at the old game of party warfare, the people, the thinkers, and the independent politicians are preparing in earnest for a conflict with the aristocracy, the result of which cannot be for one moment doubtful. To sum up. We have anarchy in parliament, anarchy in society, anarchy in thought. Mr. Carlyle's revolutionary pamphlets are sowing doubts in thousands of minds, and breaking with iron and merciless hands the constituted idols of authority. Socialism has invaded the church, and found defenders who are solemnly ordained and consecrated. The Freehold Land Movement threatens to add a numerous and new class to county voters. The Financial Reform movement is creating a vast amount of distrust of government, and is aiming to dry up the sources of corruption and patronage. The Parliamentary Reform movement, which might occupy such a good position, had its leaders boldness and decision of purpose, is mainly tump oratory. The Conference was a failure. It is somewhat singular that men who detest democracy should unwittingly be its influential advocates, while men who tell us they are its friends should be comparatively impotent. The parliamentary reformers help it but little, for want of convictions. The Chartists, as such, help it still less, not for want of convictions, but for lack of truly democratic convictions and catholicity of belief. The Radical minority help it scarcely at all because they have no policy, but faint political convictions, no political enthusiasm, no organisation, and no leaders. But Mr. Carlyle, much, doubtless, against his will, disseminates democratic dogmas with a simplicity of mind and an unconscious fanaticism, which is

admirable; and scatters the fire of revolutionary ideas with a seemingly calculated recklessness which is quite cheering. And the Duke of Richmond, with his farmers at his back, threaten to rouse the peasantry because we have free-trade and cheap corn; apparently little dreaming that the peasantry of 1850 would not fight for dear corn and high rents, but for the rights which have been wrested from them; and that they would in their present ignorance rather destroy than preserve agricultural property.

Thus have characters changed hands. The friends of order are the apostles of revolution; and the professed friends of reform, the obstacles to progress. G. H.

THE GENUINE GIBBON.

A REPRINT OF THOSE PORTIONS OF THE FAMOUS HISTORIAN THAT CHRISTIANS CONSIDER IT TO BE THEIR DUTY TO SUPPRESS, IN ORDER THAT DOUBTS MAY NOT BE RAISED AS TO THE INFALLIBILITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.

If the advocates of a divine revelation were wise, they would devote their time and talents not to suppress investigations tending to contravene their tenets and dogmas, but so to elucidate them as to make them so clear that all who run might read. This they do not do; their propagandism consists in using their might against the right of free discussion: their arguments consist of abuse and calumny against the holders of opinions opposed to their own, and in all works published under their auspices, liberal views and candid statements are either diluted so as to be entirely denuded of their pith and force, viewed as arguments against their theories, or those portions of any great work that cannot be garbled, are altogether suppressed. Such has been the case with Gibbon's celebrated work on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' and the result is the production of a work facetiously termed 'THE FAMILY GIBBON.' In plain English, all of Gibbon is extracted from the work-all the results of the researches of his untiring industry, so far as those investigations bore on theology, have been expunged, and what is left is in the old render-unto Cæsar style of writing, that has been the stereotyped form of history from time immemorial. Now whether the partisans of a system who feel it incumbent upon them thus to mutilate the works of authors opposed to them in theological views be honest, be sincere, really believe in those dogmas, is a question for the candid portion of mankind to answer; but upon those who only require to know the truth, whatever it may be-those who believe God ever gave a divine revelation (as usually understood) to man, that he is quite capable and competent to take care of it-it becomes an important duty not to allow these forbidden portions of great authors to die out; for instance, it is a well-known fact that much of what men think is the word of God in the Bible once figured only as notes, or remarks of those persons who, in the first ages before

printing was invented, had the rewriting, or copying, of the holy books; those notes from time to time have been inserted into the text, and other parts of which they disproved omitted by subsequent scribes, till at last no one knows what is the part God dictated, or which was introduced by the will or caprice of men anything but divine. Now a very short time would suffice, if not exposed, for these suppressions to be forgotten, and at a future time it is just possible Gibbon himself may be quoted, ah! and loved, and his memory idolised, because (as the adverse passages are abstracted) he does not hold opinions adverse to Christianity; in fact, if suppression is practicable, why should not a passage or two be foisted in as in the celebrated Ten Lines of Josephus, which would actually enable Christians to quote Gibbon as a supporter of the system which, by his researches, he proved to be an . imposition on the credulity of mankind. To prevent this result, we intend to reprint his fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, the substance of which is omitted in the truthful 'Family Gibbon,' so that should any of our readers ever have been so sufficiently deluded as to purchase a copy, he will have in his possession that portion of this celebrated author, without which the publication is a gross and base fraud upon the intelligence of mankind.

CHAPTER XV.

THE

PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND THE SENTIMENTS, MANNERS, NUMBERS, AND CONDITION, OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS.

A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment of Christianity, may be considered as a very essential part of the history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigour from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portions of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.

But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the gospel; and, to a careless observer, their faults may seem to cast a shade on

the faith which they professed. But the scandal of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only by whom, but likewise to whom, the divine revelation was given. The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption, which she contracted in a long residence upon carth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great author. But as truth and reason seldom find so favourable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as instruments to execute its purpose; we may still be permitted, though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most effectually favoured and assisted by the five following causes :I. The inexorable, and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses. II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the Christians. V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire.

I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient world, and the facility with which the most different and even hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves, emerged from obscurity under the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a surprising degree in the east, and afterwards in the west, they soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. The sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and unsocial manners, seemed to mark them out a distinct species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their im placable hatred to the rest of human-kind. Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the