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directly communicating religious instruction is to them an object of abhorrence. A tale is introduced (p. 54) apparently for the purpose of showing us how much more excellent a man a play-actor is than a minister of the gospel. The minister is represented as an inhuman monster, a profane swearer, having a heart dead to charity, and presenting nothing to the starving but religious tracts. The actor is a man of active benevolence, and while making no profession of religion, carrying on a mission of mercy and tenderness. The design of such a tale is abundantly obvious. How far it is true to nature, let experience testify. We do not deny that there is such a thing as a benevolent actor, neither do we deny the existence of hypocritical clergymen; but such are not proper representatives of their class, and would not be given as such, except for the purpose of stirring up in the hearts of the outcast and forlorn poor of our large towns a suspicion and hatred against the only class of men capable of doing them any effective and permanent good, or who are at all likely to attempt it. This is emphatically the mission which the Church has now to undertake and carry on, and we confess we would have stopt ere now our somewhat disgusting revelations of what others are attempting to do for the masses of our large towns, were it not that we are urged on by the hope of contributing something to stimulate the sluggish energies of Christians in this vast field of labour. The matter is, we are solemnly convinced, one of most pressing urgency. The call is "now or never.'

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The Journalists give us their method of making men religious. They say (p. 133), "The best course would be to enlarge their minds, to give something like training to the powers and capabilities they possess; to lead them to greater knowledge of the truths of nature around them-to expand and raise their thoughts; and then, in this growth of the mind, the religion would come of itself, if they have the elements of religion in their nature; it would come to them, for it belongs to the human constitution." This is ra

ther an improvement upon the "godless education" devised by statesmen and politicians. Not only are youth and grown men not to be taught religion in schools, or colleges, or lecture rooms, but they are not to be taught it at all. Religion, it seems, is an instinct, and consequently not a subject of education. When men have been taught all other things, it will spring as a natural fruit out of them all, and adorn them all. We would certainly feel disposed to say that such expectations as these run counter to all experience. But the disposition is checked when we find what kind of fruits the writers of the Journal characterize as religion. Many of our readers may be aware that, in his early youth, Shelley wrote and published a poem, abounding with the most fearful and outrageous blasphemies. Even those who were indifferent to all religion were shocked by its daring profanity. Queen Mab stands unrivalled in its ferocious atheism. Now of Shelley and of this poem of his, the writers of the Journal say (p. 131), "I would take Shelley, and take him, not in his more mature state, but in his poetic boyhood, when he was inditing the fierce and ponderous commentaries of Queen Mab; take him in his hostility to our received forms of faith and received authorities; take him when, in the first fervour of youth, he was throwing down the gauntlet to every species of superstition, and waging against theology an interminable warfare; and I say that, even at that moment, Shelley was a religious poet. Whatever is just, true, and beautiful in human feelings, as it flows out towards the vast universe of which we are a portion-whatever is most ennobling in the principle of love towards all beings-whatever tends to show the advance in human nature, and even in unconscious being-we have in that persecuted and condemned Queen Mab a demonstration that if Shelley were an atheist, he was an atheist whom a God might love, and in whom we may perceive a brother." Now we are quite prepared to admit that the religion of Shelley was the religion instinctive in the human constitution.

The Scriptures attest it when they say, "The carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." And if so, there can be little doubt that the method of training the human mind suggested by the Journal would present us pretty uniformly such results as we find in Shelley. It were well that such a truth as this were more deeply pondered, and that men everywhere should act upon the conviction, that without early and careful religious training, we cannot expect religious men. Unless, indeed, we get so latitudinarian in our views of religion as to hold with the writers of the People's Journal in regard to the principles developed in Queen Mab-" if that be not religion, there is no religion on the face of the earth." We have now got, we think, to the ultimatum of these writers. Their view of religion, as expressed in our last quotation, is, that it consists in denying the existence of a God-in casting ridicule upon, and uttering horrid blasphemies against, the being and attributes of that God who is revealed to us. Religion is, that each man becomes a god unto himself-the deification of human nature, or of nature in general. This was the religion of the French Revolutionists. And we confess some measure of alarm, when we think that it is becoming the religion of so many of our common people, the artisans of our large towns. It is dreadful even to contemplate the possibility of the scenes enacted on the wide stage of France being renewed within the shores of Britain. Yet there can be little doubt that where such principles are cherished and acted upon, they must issue in such results. There is nothing which tends so much to harden the heart, and to produce that intense selfishness which terminates in deeds of general massacre, as the deification of nature, especially of human nature. When man ceases to believe in God, he ceases to have human sympathies. Love to man is the result and fruit oflove to God.

In the religious belief of these writers the existence and the government of a God has no place. In regard to this they leave us in no doubt. "True re

ligion," they say, "is that condition in which the mind of man attains to its noblest elevation and its broadest views

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when it traces laws in the natural and in the moral universe-when it has glimpses of the great order of things that every where prevails-when it relies on the beneficent operation of those laws-and feels itself a portion of one great whole, bound together by the principles of vital being," &c., (pp. 130-1.) Their view of religion, as here expressed, seems to combine in some measure those developed in Combe's "Constitution of Man," and those more recently brought out in the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." both these works, they elsewhere express a very unqualified admiration, and indeed their moral philosophy and theology may be safely asserted to be exclusively derived from them. Of the Vestiges they say, "What denunciations of impiety were hurled against the author about Materialism-what endeavours were made to heap obloquy against him, because what he had advanced in his book was thought to endanger certain theological doctrines! Positions laid down in that work which had previously been recognised as the results of science, and concurred in by all who had made geology their study, such as the gradual formation of the world," &c., (p. 34.) Surely it is scarcely necessary to say, that all this is utterly untrue. The author of the Vestiges has found his opponents in the men of science who have convicted him of erring quite as much from these ascertained truths, as from the truths of revelation. It has been proved against him, not only that he is a materialist, but that his assumptions are glaringly inconsistent with known facts, and that he is mainly ignorant of the science he professes to teach. The danger which was apprehended from his work, and the People's Journal proves it to be a real danger, was that mén even more ignorant than himself, would take his assumptions as true, and employ them for the purpose for which they are eminently fitted.

It is not without its use to notice in closing this exhibition of the religious principles of the People's Journal, se

veral points of contact with Puseyism and Popery. It is an old adage, that extremes meet, and we have here a new exhibition of its truth. The rampant infidelity of the Journal has many views -indeed almost all their practical views in thorough harmony with Puseyism. Its mode of alleviating the condition of the people is the same as theirs -with some slight difference, perhaps, in the modes they would respectively take to educate the young. They are both strenuous advocates for an undiscriminating beneficence to the poor, and for the multiplication of sights and games wherewith to amuse them. Nay, so accommodating in this way are the writers of the People's Journal, that they express a longing desire for the restoration, in all their integrity, of the popish holidays. After the quotations we have made, what do our readers think of the following? The title of the essay is Easter Monday. Football playing in the last century," "With the exception of Christmas, Easter was and is the greatest festival of the Catholic Church. The occasion is the most joyful that can be conceived -the rising of Christ from the tomb, the promise and evidence of immortal life to every child of Adam. There is

nothing calculated to inspire so much joy-so much rapturous confidence-so much grateful love to God and our Saviour," (p. 197.) Thus it is seen how well superstition and infidelity get on together. There is the strongest possible objection to people frequenting church-to the circulation of religious tracts to teaching Bible truths, but it is a most praiseworthy thing to exhibit grateful love to God and our Saviour, by playing foot-ball on Easter Monday,

Is not the following also an admirable piece for the Puseyites? It is from the pen of William Howitt, “With all our progress, we have not progressed into half the ease and gaiety that our ancestors possessed. With all our improvements, we have not improved on their habit of enjoying themselves. With all our triumphs of machinery and of knowledge, we have won no leisure, no happiness, not even our daily bread. We have lost all that our ancestors possessed, and have

gained nothing which they had not.” This would do for a lamentation over the evil effects of the Reformation. William Howitt is anxious to restore to the people the May-day festivities. He sighs for the restoration of the Book of Sports, by which the Stuarts of old thought to beguile the Scottish people of their religion. The scheme was not ill devised. It is surely ominous of evil times, to find the modern disciples of Laud working hand in hand with infidels, for the accomplishment of the same wicked purpose.

2. What are the educational views of the People's Journal?

On this subject it is happily not necessary that we should long detain our readers. Though the question is to us one of vast and increasing interest, a criticism on this periodical is not the most fitting occasion for the full consideration of it. The educational views of the present age, are the religious and irreligious. Their partizans respectively hold, that religion ought to impregnate and form a part of all education, or that religion should not be taught at all, but left as the proper work of ministers, who may overtake it as best they can. The views of the writers of the Journal differ from both of these. They have no place for religion at all. It is left to spring up instinctively; and if it do not spring up at all, perhaps, so much the better. To give a harmony and acceptance to their principles, they hold that there is nothing in human nature which requires to be checked and corrected. Education with them consists in fostering and giving strength to the impulses of our nature. They ridicule the idea of its being in any sense a corrective. Thus, "It is well said in Combe's work on Man, that gathering knowledge is to the mind of man what gathering honey is to the bee; and this deserves to be regarded as the foundation truth of education. Fortunately we do not interfere with the bees in their work as we do with human intelligences in their work. If we did, it is to be feared that the world's supply of honey would be very much diminished in quantity, and deteriorated in quality, We should be

gin to hear of the natural and total depravity of the bee tribe; there would be attempts to prevent any bees from gathering honey unless they had a sectarian mark painted on their wings; and what with this interference, and proscribing them from certain fields and flowers, or only allowing them a previously defined range according to the convenience of others, great would be the starvation and sufference of the insect tribe itself; and manifold would be the injury to human beings who now reap profit and enjoyment from letting the truths and precepts of nature take their course with insects, though they strive against them in human nature." Popery, we apprehend, would not be unwilling to avail itself of the inference deducible from this passage. For what is it? Plainly that there should be no education at all. If the foundation truth of education be that men gather knowledge as the bees gather honey, where is the use of schools and schoolmasters? The bees have no teachers, because they have an unerring instinct; and, as creatures of instinct, are incapable of education-of improvement-of progress. If it be so with men, let us shut up our schools, and get back again to barbarism. Surely such a view as this is an outrage upon the common sense of mankind. And yet something like it must be adopted by those who hold that there is nothing in human nature that requires to be checked and counteracted. But if, on the other hand, human nature be such a thing as to require both checks and stimulants, it will be very difficult to avoid the inference in favour of a religious education. For if these are to be employed at all, why not bring early and habitually into operation that which has proved itself to be the only effective check and counteraction, and best stimulant to humanity-the Christian religion.

3. What are the social views of the People's Journal?

It is painful to contemplate them. Their object seems to be, to infuse a deadly hostility into one class against another. The people against the aristocracy-the employed against the employers! The work-people, they say,

"have been rendered the mere tool of the employing class, and placed at the mercy of a terrible influence." And, again, in another place, “England, proud England, rich England, mighty and free England, grinding its children to death in mines and mills, in subterranean darkness and nakedness."

Such statements as these can have no other effect than to irritate and inflame the minds of working people against their employers. It would have been unspeakably more to the purpose to have indicated to both parties the precise practical evils which admit of a remedy, and which prevail in their existing relations, and to have shown what remedies they propose. On both of these subjects, however, if they are not altogether silent, their teaching is in the last degree vague. The condition, it would appear, which is to be achieved for the working man, is that which the common people of England are supposed to have enjoyed long ago —a condition, if not of entire idleness, at least one on which he could amuse himself on all the Popish holidays. Now we do not object to any working man, or the whole class together, achieving as much relaxation from labour as they possibly can, though we would strive to have them spend their leisure time more profitably than in dancing round a May-pole, or playing at foot-ball on Easter Monday. But how is such a result to be brought about? How are our workmen to be freed from oppressive labour? Not, certainly, by heaping abuse upon their employers. They must achieve this freedom for themselves. And here, for once, these writers and we are agreed. But the question still is, how? answer is that of Dr Chalmers-by a Christian education, and the exercise of Christian graces. The answer of the People's Journal is different. But we confess our inability to gather precisely what that answer is. Sometimes we are led to infer that combination is to do

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it sometimes, again, that the resources of the rich are to do it. Perhaps they contemplate both-a poorlaw providing for the comfortable maintenance of all who are unwilling to work, or unable to obtain employment,.

and a union of all, restricting them not to work below a fixed rate of wages.

Their views are not all alike hopeless and vicious. They trust too much, however, to the principle of co-operation. Benefit societies are recommended as better than savings banks for this reason. A more hopeful scheme, in every way, is the formation of extensive associations, to enable working men to become proprietors of the houses they live in. We view this scheme favourably, not because we think the object an important one, but because its existence and operation tend to foster habits of economy, fore-thought, and self-denial, which, to the working man, and indeed to all men, are extremely valuable. We are not quite so sure of another scheme, which is a special favourite with the People's Journal. The great complaint they have against capitalists is, that they realize enormous profits at the expense of the working man. Why might not the working man become a capitalist himself, and, in addition to his wages, reap all these profits? This he cannot do singly. But co-operation might make him a capitalist. The combination of many small savings might supply funds to erect a factory, and to work it. This is their scheme. It appears plausible, and there may be some possibility of realizing it. But what then? If we are not very much misinformed, this very scheme was put in operation many years ago, both in Glasgow and Paisley. The results were not in favour of the working people. In a time of commercial prosperity, the plan may work well, but with the first stagnation in trade-the first glut in the market-comes ruin. The capitalist can for a period work short hours -he can work at a loss, and recover himself with the return of prosperity. The co-operative factory becomes a wreck. Its proprietors must work, for they cannot afford to be idle. Working at a loss, they not only are without any return for their labour, but require an outlay, which obliges them either to relinquish their factory, or leaves them helpless when the returning tide comes. They have not wherewithal to purchase the raw material, and avail themselves

of the profits of a good and ready market. This, or something very like it, is practically the history of such schemes hitherto tried in Scotland.

Our limits forbid us to deal with this subject of our social relations and economics more at length. We greatly fear that the writers of the People's Journal have not practical information enough to enable them to counsel wisely even on such subjects as these. How much less on subjects' touching our more general relations, as classes and members of a community! They seem, when speaking of them, as men looking into unfathomable depths of darkness. They fear quiescence; every movement is to them pregnant with hope.

We have finished our review of this volume with feelings of mingled pain and alarm. Its prevailing scope is to set man against man in fierce and interminable conflict, and all against God. We seem to be standing on the verge of a vast volcano, ready to explode, and overwhelm us with terrible destruction. The existence of the People's Journal-the countenance and support afforded to it, reveals an awful state of things, which it is right should be obtruded upon our notice, that we may be aware of it in time, and, if possible, avoid its terrible consequences. The fires will not always continue smouldering-they are even now actively fed with most inflammable materials, and we may expect an awful conflagration. Wisely directed and vigorous efforts might yet be made to quench them. Above all, immediate, and, if possible, united action, is necessary.

Is it to be regarded as a fair deduction from the demerits we have noticed that the People's Journal says much about the duty of love, which, to us, wears very much of a French dramatic aspect? The love which it inculcates, excepting in some few instances of the exhibition, and commendation, of family affections, is a love limited to class. The labourers are to love one another, because love is essential to combination, and combination is essential to, we shall not say what, but some faint glimpses of it may be obtained by what we have already said and quoted.

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