if we can apply only the impersonal pronoun it to the eternal and uncaused existence, how can we with any consistency suppose that such a power possesses desire, inasmuch as we can predicate the existence, and expression of desire, only on the part of intelligent beings? Admitting that the material universe is the uncaused existence, then I ask what part of it, or what creatures inhabiting the earth excepting man, can cherish, and intelligibly express desire. The sun, the earth, the planetary system, air, water, the laws of gravitation, nor any part of the matter, or laws of the universe can possess, or give utterance to desire; and though Mr. Owen, in the "Religion of the New Moral World" does not teach the existence of an intelligent First

Cause, yet he strangely says, "That if this power had

desired to make the nature of its existence known to man, it would have enabled him to comprehend it without mystery or doubt."

The practical result of this view of the eternal and uncaused existence is broadly stated in the "Creeds and Duties of the System." The second paragraph is thus expressed: "that all ceremonial worship by man of this cause, whose qualities are yet so little known, proceeds from ignorance of his own nature, and can be of no real utility in practice, and that it is impossible to train men to become rational in their feelings, thoughts, or actions, until all such forms shall cease.' Be it remembered that these forms are to be tolerated in the new community, and consequently men will never be trained, even there, "to become rational in their feelings, thoughts, and actions."

In the book of "The New Moral World,"+ Mr. Owen says: "When the mind can be relieved from the early prejudices which have been forced into it [respecting God and the devil], it will be discovered that there is not one single fact

*Outline of the Rational System, p. 8:

† P. 32.

known to man, after all the experience of the past generations, to prove that ANY SUCH PERSONALITIES EXIST, OR EVER DID EXIST;* and in consequence, all the mythology of the ancients, and all the religions of the moderns, are mere fanciful notions of men, whose imaginations have been cultivated to accord with existing prejudices, and whose judgments have been systematically destroyed from their birth. There is no practical advantage to be derived from the supposition, that the power of the universe is an organized being, or that it should be personified in any manner whatever; but on the contrary, all attempts which have been made to describe the cause of motion, of life, and mind, have been injurious to the true interests of the human race, and every attempt to force a belief upon mankind on this subject can lead only to error, confusion, and crime."

The fifty-seventh hymn in the Social Hymn Book, expresses also the accredited sentiments of the Socialists:

1. What Nature is no mortal knows,

And therefore none can tell;

The universe, as language flows,

Would suit the truth as well.

2. Yet Nature in her varied forms

Applies to local things;

To men, to beasts, fish, fowl, and worms,

As each to nature clings.

This is a plain denial of the existence of the God of the Bible, and is repeated in various phraseology by Lecturers on Socialism. I heard Mr. Coon (an accredited Lecturer on Socialism) say in the course of a debate with the Rev. Mr. Bailey, in the Social Institution at Lambeth, "I have no God to pray to; no desire has ever been created in me to have one, nor do I wish to have one:" he also said, "There cannot, is not, nor ever will be an intelligent First Cause." He affirmed that "matter is the cause of intelligence, and that there is no necessity for a cause to be superior to the effect." I have given the phraseology as I took it down at the time.

3. The universe produces all,

(As Nature keeps her course), Unnumbered beings great and small, By one projectile force.

Here the production of men, beasts, fish, fowl, and all things, is attributed to nature, and is effected by a projectile force.

The thirty-ninth hymn is equally if not more expressive of the sentiment, that the only God we have is nature. Several verses of other hymns teach the same doctrine, and not a line out of 155 hymns, recognizes the existence of an intelligent Creator, and Ruler of the universe.

I could here adduce many other passages from the writings of Mr. Owen, and could give the statements of public and accredited Lecturers, some of whom I have heard utter sentiments so contumelious of the God worshipped by Christians, and so revolting to the spirit of candour, charity, and true philosophy, that I forbear to repeat them.

Mr. Owen, like the author of the "Systéme de la Nature," makes the gratuitous assumption of a being, whom he calls nature, and intimates that if it had desired to make itself known it would have done so; but though he assumes the existence of nature he does not tell us what it is, nor how we arrive at a knowledge of its existence. He has also assumed the existence of matter, or the material world, and then asserts what is absolutely contrary to every day's experience and to the first rudiments of science, that we know and can know nothing but what our senses tell us. Mr. Owen ought to know, and to feel, that assertions and assumptions will not and ought not to be received as truth, even by his own disciples, unless accompanied with some evidence. But I am most anxious truly to represent Mr. Owen's writings, and to do him full justice: and although I cannot find in his Discussions with Campbell, Roebuck,

or Legg-or in his book of "The New Moral World"—or in the Lectures of the accredited Socialist Missionaries, any acknowledgment of an intelligent First Cause, yet I have found in Mr. Owen's Lectures on Charity, delivered at an early period in the institution at New Lanark, more than one or two paragraphs in which the existence, and providence of God, are spoken of as if Mr. Owen had been a devout Christian. In quoting them I call your attention only to those phrases which relate to the subject of this Lecture. In Lecture the third, p. 17, Mr. Owen says: "Attend ye then to the words which I shall utter; for I am instructed to declare to you, and through you to all mankind, truths of the most mighty import; truths which by their plainness and simplicity shall with ease overcome the learning of the learned and the power of the mighty ones of the earth; truths against which tongues shall not prevail, and before which the most eloquent shall become dumb: truths, in short, which by their never-varying consistency with all the great, and glorious, and wonderful works of Deity in his creation around us, will appear so evidently and unerringly true, that opposition to them from any quarter will be vain, futile, and utterly hopeless."

In Lecture the fourth, p. 28, Mr. Owen says, "It seems from this expression that Paul understood prophecy to be a gift direct from our Creator, and not an ordinary acquirement to be taught by man to man and continued to us regularly from one generation to another, as language and many other kinds of knowledge." Again, he says on the next page, "The spirit of prophecy (Mr. Owen afterwards explains the sense in which he uses the word prophecy) then is an immediate gift from our Creator: but it is not a more miraculous gift than any of our other faculties, all of which in like manner we receive from the great Author of our being." At page 30, Mr. Owen, speaking of a man destitute of charity, says, "If destitute of this, the most

valuable of all gifts, his gifts, and powers of prophecy, though by the dispensations of Providence they may be rendered useful to the world, yet to the individual they may become as nothing." There are other passages somewhat similar, but these will suffice. If they are now Mr. Owen's sentiments, and if adopted and taught by the Socialists, bona fide, then, I repeat, that all controversy as to the subject of this Lecture is at an end.

Mr. Owen is now, I believe, about sixty-nine years of age; he was at Lanark at the commencement of the present century, and I presume it was at an early period in the history of that institution that he delivered the Lectures from which I have now quoted.* Was Mr. Owen then, about thirty-five years since, a believer in an intelligent First Cause, the great Author of our being? If so, has he been able to disprove the existence of him, in whom he then believed? Or have we anything in his writings that will throw light upon the matter? I attribute no improper motives to Mr. Owen in teaching what he did at New Lanark, knowing as he did the sentiments and religious prejudices of the Scotch; but I cannot reconcile such sentiments and such teaching with his positive declaration, made, as to his early and confirmed scepticism in his discussion with Mr. Campbell. He says in that discussion,+ "At seven, eight, nine, and up to ten years of age, I only read what are called good books; but at ten years of age I became convinced from these books that there was error somewhere. The more I read and reflected the more errors and mistakes I discovered in religion, and therefore the more I differed from Christianity and all other religions, until at length I was compelled,

It is strangely inconsistent that the London District Board should recognise the "Lectures on Charity," containing such references to the supreme Being, as one of their authorized publications.

† P. 164, of the American edition.