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LECTURE IX.

I AM not surprised that Owenism should have set itself in determined hostility to the Christian religion. If that is true, if there is truth in its fundamental principles, if, as it teaches, there is a primary Intelligence ; if that Intelligence is the Father and Guardian of the universe; if Jesus Christ came from him on a message of mercy and love to man; if man is held responsible for his actions as having power to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before his Maker; if the more intimate relations of domestic life are founded on divine ordinations, and partake of the perpetuity of that state for which they were mainly designed to prepare man; and if the human race are not destined to moulder away as the leaves of autumn, but to rise to another, a renovated and an endless existence,-then is Socialism false; and so far as any one of these suppositions is the implication of a reality, so far is the ground narrowed on which Socialism has taken its stand. Accordingly, Socialists make it a chief part of their occupation, both by speaking and writing, to bring Christianity into discredit and contempt. They have fairly put the issue as between its truth and the truth of Socialism. They have staked the existence of their own system on the destruction of the religion of Jesus Christ. And it is fit that men should know the alternative, and especially that those should know it who may feel any inclination towards their doctrines. Owenism will not permit that you should be at the same time Christians and Socialists. It is a war of extirpation which it wages against every form of Christianity. It denounces it as false, as

having 'been tried for 1800 years and proved futile,** nay more, as being the csuse of most, if not all, the evils which exist in the world.' And not only would it wrest Christianity from society by the force of hardy and dogmatical assertions, but in the moral, or rather immoral atmosphere which it creates and throws around all who come within its influence, it seeks to poison, by the contagion of its scornful mockings, all those pure and delicate sympathies which constitute no small part of the gospel life in the soul of man. Most seriously, therefore, does it become every one who has found Christianity a good, to ponder the grave exchange which Socialism proposes; to sit down and soberly count the cost before he passes over into the camp of Socialism; and it may admit of a doubt whether it is wise in the professed follower of Christ, after he has become acquainted with the doctrines, proposals, and spirit which it presents, to venture near the precincts where its influences are dispensed. The least injurious result of even such an approach would be a waste of time.

Owenism has itself, as I have intimated-put the issue thus-Christianity is false, and, therefore, Owenism is true;-Owenism is true, and, therefore, Christianity is false. This, it must be admitted, is a bold and chivalrous method of warfare; but I am mistaken if it is not more rash than safe. It thus lays itself open to a double attack. Prove the religion of Jesus, you disprove Owenism;-or you may assail Owenism on its own independent grounds. Challenged as one of those Christian ministers, against whom and against whose teachings it levels its bolts, I have taken it in both its ways of assault, and, so far as the occasion permitted, proved that neither is Christianity false, nor Owenism true. Indeed Owenism, with all its vaunted certainty, * Clarke's Christian Looking Glass. Book of the New Moral World, 1838.

consists in its fundamental doctrines of a series of propositions, each of which depends on the truth of its precursor, so that if you strike away but one link, the whole chain falls shivered to the ground; yet each successive link in the chain of argument depends for its certainty on no surer support than the faithfulness of the observation and accuracy of the reasoning,-where reasoning is attempted-of the fabricator of the system; while it is not merely allowed, but boldly proclaimed, hat the apprehensions and convictions of the entire of the civilized world, with a very few exceptions, are in direct and open contrariety to the novelties which he has expounded. Surely, if ever dogmatism was unbecoming, it is in such a case. But this is only another proof that hardihood of assertion is generally found in the inverse ratio of the goodness of a cause.

But amid the daring statements on which Owenism has ventured, none exceeds, if any parallel, the declaration that the influence of Christianity has been not only nugatory, but purely and universally baneful. And for myself, I am content to let the acceptableness of the religion of Jesus go before any jury of impartial men, on the simple question of the nature of its influence in the world; only I should require that the panel be impartial. Socialists themselves are not fit to try the case. They are pledged to its condemnation: their verdict is already given and published. Besides, they have, for the most part, succeeded in eradicating from their breasts those sympathies and charities to which the most advantageous appeal would have to be made; and no few of them must be left to a higher and a more effectual, if also a more painful, species of instruction than any mere human instrumentality can employ the instruction of Providence in the experience through which it conducts each individual, and those by no means the least, who put the thought of God, duty, and eternity far from them.

The question, however, of the nature of the influence which the religion of Jesus has exerted on the world, may in one view be considered as settled with the great majority of men ;-so far as they have seen, and known, and felt, they have found its influence beneficial. The evidence of its worth is in their own grateful experience. And when you remember that this evidence has come down through nearly two thousand years, and been felt and admitted by persons in almost every possible variety of condition, of external and internal condition; almost every possible variety in regard to clime, country, civilisation, age, and social position, you will feel that it is entitled to no mean respect. Certainly it is not at once to be set aside in the mind of the serious and the thoughtful, by the bold assertions of a man who has never made a personal trial of its efficacy, but, as is alleged, began what may, in courtesy, be termed his rational existence, by abstract convictions adverse to its truth.

I feel, however, little doubt that in his judgment of Christianity, Mr. Owen has, as so many others, been misled by an erroneous method of considering the subject. Unbelievers, as might easily be proved from their writings, have mistaken the corruptions of Christianity for Christianity itself; and thus led astray by the superficiality of their view, have renounced the power of godliness, because the accidental form in which they regarded it proved repulsive. No institution, however, whether of divine or human origin, not even Socialism itself, could stand before so false a test; and no man would be knowingly guilty of so great a mistake, who would wish to prove faithful to his opportunities and to his highest interests.

Another error has been to estimate Christianity solely by what were considered its obvious and prominent results. The tendency to this mistake has been grievously increased by the unhappy and prejudicial practice of historians, in dwelling on, if not all but exclusively pre

senting in their pages, the darker features of the human character. For the most part, history, as it is commonly offered to the reader, has been a painful chronicle of war, bloodshed, ambition, and treachery. The true history of man has yet to be written. Where shall we find a detailed description of the goodness and virtue which have been the conservative power of society? or of the happiness of which it has been the creator and the witness, and of the graces and charities by which it has been adorned and blessed? Yet it is of the essence of the religion of Christ to call into being and sustain those very qualities which history has left unrecorded. The kingdom of God has ever come, and still comes, without observation. Its operation and its triumphs are within, in the gentleness, goodness, truth, and affection, in all those softer and more sacred virtues which naturally shun the public eye, and are too subtle, if they are not too sober, for the rough and gaudy pencil of the historian, but which have proved the very life and charm of individuals, and poured into the homes of civilized society,-into its cottages, its halls, and even in some degree its palaces, a stream of pure, solid, and lasting satisfactions. This is the great work and the great triumph of the religion of Jesus.

A third error is this;-not sufficient consideration has been given to the antagonist principle. The lower passions have ever stood, and still stand, in fearful array against the religion of Christ. It is no theological fiction, but a moral fact, that the human heart is prone to wickedness. I do not deny its capabilities for good; I maintain them. But as little can I run counter to experience, and deny its tendency to evil; the one is no less certain than the other. Now Christianity has no alliance with the powers of darkness. It is their enemy, not their associate; and consequently it has to subdue them ere it can exert its proper influence.

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