Theory of God Almighty's universe as I for my share, am right thankful to have no concern with at all! I think, on the whole, as broken-winged, selfstrangled, monstrous a mass of ir coherent incredibilities as ever dwelt in the human brain before."'

One or two positions in this latest Pamphlet we must object to. Carlyle tells us that Hudson was a king elected by the people,' if ever man wasalmost the only authentically elected king in these days. This is a picturesque mistake. Hudson was the elected king of certain money-grubbers, and adventurous speculating gamblers. The people, the real people, always saw that he was a sham. Again : because a certain sausage maker is making a fortune in Chelsea, and because his sausages are not good wholesome sausages, and because said fortune is being made chiefly from the patronage of the poor-therefore universal suffrage is a stupidity. The people buy to the extent of their means. They do not elect to buy. They must buy what they can. Sausages may be a luxury. All men cannot live upon crowdy diluted with beer. And if this luxury of the poorest people be made of unwholesome meat, so much the more infamous the conduct of the said sausage maker. But the philosophy of Carlyle, if he will pardon us the imputation, is susceptible of an interpretation. We cannot attempt it here, because it would require a separate article. We may give it at some future period.

But it will be not unimportant to observe that the influence of Carlyle is deep, strong, and wide-spreading. He acts upon all the thinkers. Prophetlike, his continual, and to most people wearisome, exhortations to honesty and truthfulness, have produced an impression corresponding to their earnestness and continuity. Carlyle's reputation has gradually grown up to a most potential thing. From being laughed at by the mob of gentlemen who both write and read with ease, he has come to be respectfully saluted, and in some remarkable instances actually worshipped by them. He is a potent propagandist, both of democracy and free-thought, among those classes least easily reached by the popular journal and the popular thought; and we suggest to his publishers that a people's edition of some of his works would be a good thing just now.

Grim Religion: or the New Sunday Bill. London: Political and Social Tract Society, Literary Institution, John Street, Fitzroy Square.

THERE is genuine humour and solid sense in the pages of this Tract. The proposition for a second Sunday, with which it concludes, has our warmest support. The Political and Social Tract Society deserves the assistance of the public in carrying out the laudable efforts in which it has engaged.

All works for Review, to be left with the publisher.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT EDUCATION.

SIR,-Though bigotry, ignorance, and blind prejudice, have hitherto asserted their rights in this liberty-loving Saxon country of ours-and though told again and again by our house of medleys that the elements of knowledge are the elements of evil, unless accompanied by a strong mixture of sectarian religion-still I have faith in an early alteration in the laws that affect education.

In speaking through your journal, Mr. Editor, I speak, as a friend of order and progress, in favour of secular education.

Do respectable religious bodies know what they are about in this blind crusade against their most protective fortress? Or do they imagine that infidelity, as they are pleased to call a difference in fundamental belief, is so influential as to carry all sway in England, against the dazzling influence of inspiration? In my opinion, religious creeds and natural laws and facts have no more to do with one another than we have with the inhabitants of the moon, if there be any. There are philosophical Christians, Mahometans, Buddhists, and Jews. Now, if this be the case, what harm can happen though our ploughmen, scavengers, and sweeps read books as well as go to church or meeting? If it is urged that a little knowledge inclines men to be captious and conceited, I would reply, that a little knowledge must precede a greater amount, and that men naturally look up to those who know more than themselves; while men of little knowledge can lead men who have comparatively none. Moreover, if the mass possessed a little knowledge, men of much knowledge must lead them.

Open your eyes, then, ye blind bigots, ye rich churchmen and dissenters, get the people taught to read, and depend upon it if what you print appeals at all to the heart and the good in man, it will be, it must be, read. Do not think I am sinister or a snake in the grass because I speak through a freethinking journal. If I were I should speak through some other medium. I do not think education (in its elements at any rate) will make a man more reasonable, for that depends on the character of the man, and the things which surround him. In fact, I have found very quick and well-educated men very domineering and unreasonable, saying many things must be believed whether we are able to believe them or not.

Now, what will be the consequence of the persistence in ignorance which seems the dominant spirit of the united body of religionists? Canting impostors will pick up one half, whilst crime and misery will absorb the other, of the uneducated masses, to the detriment of the respectable religious bodies; for it naturally falls out that care, attention, and good feeling, incline

men to those above them, whilst pride and carelessness breed hatred and contempt; and how can the wealthy show good feeling better than by trying to raise the sons of labour to feel themselves men, even amidst misery-poor only by the chances of fortune, not by the inequality of power refused to them in the shape of A B C and arithmetical lessons?

We live in strange times-property is attacked on every side. The Socialists of England desire and expect a time when men shall live in harmony together, having no aim but the universal good; caring not for self alone, but for all men-to their hope and prayer I say Amen. On the Continent there are communists whose aim is to manage the affairs of their respective countries, so that the government shall centralise and command all work for the good of the whole community. But there has sprung up in America, and is growing in England, an anti-old-world sect more formidable than the Socialists. I speak of the Mormons. This sect founds its creed on the Bible, but has invented a new book, called the Book of Mormon. This book, they say, is an inspiration—that its believers are the saints of God; and their fundamental maxim is, that the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, and His saints shall inherit it.' Acting up to this, they in Missouri, and afterwards at Nauvoo and Illinois, in the United States, played most familiar pranks with the property and liberties of their neighbours, until a civil war on a small scale commenced, and they retreated to California, where they are now settled.* Their success is most astonishing, and its proselytes here, as well as in America, increase daily. The secret of it is, in my opinion, that it appeals to the avarice and also to the religion of the ignorant and fanatical. It is a capital creed for millions, and depend upon it will be embraced by them; it suits well the sordid, sanctified character of the present day, and will spread under that influence. Jesuitical Catholicism is on a par with it; and it, too, is increasing and will increase, unless knowledge is spread and free thought regarded by the influential with a less jealous eye. It is among the uneducated and partially poor, that sectarianism and extravagance of creed are encouraged. Without denying the utility of awakening among the neglected portion of our race a consciousness of mind, or soul, or manliness, or whatever name you call that inward feeling of equality of value that exists among all men, I would show that this sentiment alone is dangerous among the ignorant and neglected, who will grasp at the theory of a charlatan, the creed of an impostor, the sword of the rebel, in blind retaliation for the treatment they endure. Wesleyanism, and all the isms of the present day, have been strengthened and augmented, I may say founded, by this spirit. Few among the well to do, or would-begenteel, would countenance a new sect; but its poor votaries in time grow rich, have rich connections, and at last an extravagant fanaticism becomes a

* For more about these interesting saints see Eliza Cook's Journal for June.

respectable creed. Such has Methodism become. These Latter-day Saints or Mormonites will go-a-head faster than all, and wherever they have influence they will blight or destroy, such is their creed, every liberal sentiment, every cosmopolitan inspiration. Among the thoughtless rich, Catholicism will increase: nunneries and monasteries, abbeys and cathedrals, will grow like mushrooms. That this is no fiction, or wild imagining, the present aspect of this religion in England evidences. The church is vacillating and disunited by it; fresh converts are daily pouring into it, and its establishments springing up in all directions. Shall the reign of darkness, superstition, and sectarian prejudice prevail in our land, or shall we have faith in freedom and truth? Shall that worst of infidelities, the fear of intellectual light, prevail, or shall our youth be allowed to be expanded in mind by the cheering influence of knowledge? Opponents of knowledge, 'ye know not what ye do.' Have education of some sort the working classes will. You refuse them an honest, friendly, and liberal one; now the road is open for demagogues and charlatans. These will hold the sway where knowledge and sense might rule, and the friends of property as it is will more than likely rue it. ERA.

To Correspondents.

G. H. R., Wymondham.-Yes; but the editor cannot undertake to return rejected communications.

F. R. Y., Diss, Norfolk.-A Freethinker, Alva.-Janvier, North Shields.M. R., Walthamstow.-Ezekiel.-L. T., Manchester. To these friends our best thanks are returned for their communications.

Works Received.-Aldis on the Excellent Glory, Emerson's Representative Men, National Instructor, and papers from Bristol, Norfolk, Newcastleon-Tyne, Manchester, and a number of other towns.

All communications for this periodical are to be addressed to the Editor of the Freethinker's Magazine, care of J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row, London. We have received a number of communica tions from good and true friends of the cause on the subject of subscrip. tions towards this attempt at propagandism. We thank them most sincerely; and while declining their kind offers as regards this work, beg to suggest the formation in every town of a committee to collect subscriptions, &c., the proceeds to be devoted to supplying the local priesthood with copies of works of progress as fast as they come out. To such communi. ties we promise, on our part (and fancy can guarantee on the part of seve ral other publications), such a reduction on the cost, as shall enable the various committees to distribute a larger quantity than under ordinary circumstances they would be enabled to do. The Editor begs to intimate, it would forward the cause of progress were he furnished with the names and addresses of the clergy of all denominations in their several localities.

Printed by Holyoake Brothers, 3, Queen's Head Fassage, Paternoster-row; and published by James Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row, London."

THE

FREETHINKER'S MACAZINE,

AND

Review of Theology, Politics, and Literature.

Oceans of ink, and reams of paper, and disputes infinite might have been spared, if wranglers had avoided lighting the torch of strife at the wrong end,; since a tenth part of the pains expended in attempting to prove the why, the where, and the when certain events have happened, would have been more than sufficient to prove that they never happened at all.-REV. C. C. COLTON, A.M.

No. 4.]

SEPTEMBER 1, 1850.

THE POLITICAL REVIEWER.

[PRICE 2d.

I.

THE session is over and the holidays have commenced. All members who have, and many who have not, available capital and available time, have rushed frantically away from the Metropolis to all the quarters of the globe. The moors of the north, to the great inconvenience of the volucrine inhabitants thereof, will soon swarm with peers and commoners, each armed with his double-barrelled Joe Manton. The spas of Germany, the cafés of Paris and Italy, will be invaded by fugitive senators from 'haughty and perfidious Albion.' There will be wine-bibbing and cigar-smoking on the banks of the Rhine; and the mother-tongue of England will be heard among the mountains of Switzerland. The yachts of Young England will float in every sea, and enter all manner of ports, bearing cargoes of sentimental youths and middle-aged gentlemen, who have exchanged the white waistcoat and irreproachable after-dinner costume of St. Stephen's for the shining castor and picturesque raiment of the British tar; and who, having spun out nonsense speeches, voted idle votes, and lounged painfully through idle committees all the session, will now pump up nonsense verses, manufacture doleful novels, and jot down light-headed 'journals, never intended to meet the public eye,' but which, in due course, will be found on the shelves of Colburn or Newby, and in the circulating libraries, to the great inconvenience of the public. What is technically termed, in the world of fashion, 'all London' has gone out of Town.' West End tradesmen, and West End cabmen, are suffering all the horrors of suspended animation-which drives the former to frantic trips to the coast, and the latter to fitful slumbers on his box, and as much beer as he can find money to pay for. The operas are closed; Pall Mall is deserted; Belgravia a howling wilderness

D