graph, as subsequently explained, had a twofold reference to the calculations of Le Verrier, and to a similar investigation previously completed by Mr Adams of Cambridge, the independence of the investigations, and their very nearly coincident results, justifying the confidence so strongly expressed by the speaker.

Mr Adams com

menced his theoretical researches in January 1843, recommenced them upon larger data in February 1844, and obtained results for the heliocentric longitude, eccentricity of orbit, longitude of perihelion, and mass, of an assumed exterior planet, deduced entirely from unaccounted for perturbations of Uranus. These results were communicated to Mr Challis, the Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge, in September 1845. In October, they were in the hands of Mr Airy, the Astronomer Royal, whereas Le Verrier's labours were not made public till the June of the year following. They were not then so complete as those of Mr Adams, indicating merely the probable position of the hypothetical planet, while the latter had given values respecting its mass and the form of its orbit. The correspondence between two independent enquiries as to position, inspired confidence, and Mr Airy recommended a systematic search for the object which Mr Challis commenced on July 29. It now appears, that, on August 4th and 12th, he actually seized the planet, and recorded two positions of it, but did not recognise it, through not comparing his observations, which a pressure of occupation, and an impression that the discovery required a much more extensive search, prevented. But for this, and the non-publication of the Cambridge mathematician's results at the time they were forwarded to Mr Airy, the honourable position of M. Le Verrier would have been occupied by Mr Adams, and that of M. Galle by Mr Challis. The French have displayed

no little irritation at these facts being laid before the public, but historical truth, and a just distribution of honour to whom honour is due, demanded their prompt statement, while nothing can be more explicit than the recognition which M. Le Verrier's claims have received on this side the channel. Among other proofs of this, the council of the Royal Society of London have awarded to him the Copley medal, given to Sir W. Herschel for his discovery of Uranus.

The new planet, thus brought before human observation after ages of concealment, is one from which our smaller world can never be hailed, unless it has dwellers differently constituted to ourselves, or furnished with far superior instrumental assistance. It is the third body in the system in point of magnitude, having a computed diameter of about 50,000 miles, that of Jupiter being about 90,000, Saturn 79,000, and Uranus 35,000. Taking the earth as 1, its comparative volume will be 250, that of Jupiter being 1300, Saturn 900, Uranus 80, and the sun near 1,250,000. Its comparative mass, taking that of the earth as 1, is 38, that of Jupiter being 338, of Saturn 95, of Uranus 17, and of the sun 355,000. Its mean distance from the sun appears to be 3,200,000,000 miles, that of Uranus, the farthest planet before known, being 1,800,000,000. Consequently, its discovery has added a linear extent of 1,400,000,000 miles to the former supposed limits of our system.

Yet there, across that mighty gulph, as here, and where Mercury nestles near the sun, the laws of gravitation are constantly and unerringly obeyed-a silent but impressive proclamation this to intelligent piety, of the cardinal doctrine of Scripture, with which, indeed, the remoter regions of the universe are oracular, that there is

IN our day such periodicals have become very numerous, and very very influential. Circulating extensively among the more intelligent and thinking class of the working people, they constitute a large share of, in very many instances, their only reading. The minds of such men are in great measure moulded by the reading of such publications, and by means of personal intercourse, and the inevitable influence which strong and active minds have over those of weaker frame, the information and opinions they thus imbibe are indefinitely extended among the working population.

The contributors to such periodicals are by no means men of contemptible intellect. Some of the most vigorous, powerful, and well-stored minds of the age, give expression to their views through this channel. The Archbishop of Dublin contributed his Essays on the Christian Evidences to a weekly penny periodical. The Penny Cyclopedia numbered among its contributors some of the highest scientific names in England.

These are not the times, then, in which small and cheap periodicals can be safely despised or overlooked. They are among the most powerful agents in the formation of public opinion, and hence, in the moulding of the general character of our population. They are generally read by a greater number of persons than any other class of publications, and the frequency with which they repeat their visits more than compensates for any defect which might be supposed to arise from the brevity of their instructions.

It may not be unimportant, therefore, that we should occasionally take a glance at the character of this class of publications, either in the way of reproof or commendation. This seems the more necessary when we consider how covertly, and in what infinitesimal doses, error of the most dangerous character may, through this medium, be instilled into the public mind. For

this they possess a double facility. They are not generally subjected to the rigid tests by which works larger in size and of higher pretensions are tried. They escape the judgment of any who are best qualified to pronounce a just verdict on their merits, and but rarely fall under the notice of those who, while they read them, will at the same time prove them. They occupy more than any other kind of books the position of teachers. They are peculiarly addressed to a class of men who either refuse to read books at all, or who, when they do read them, subject their minds to the influence of them.

And what makes a bad periodical of this class more dangerous still, is, that its errors, often very dangerous, are not obtruded upon the mind unmixed. The case is often thus. A reader of a single number, in the variety of articles presented to him, finds some entertaining, some dull enough, some instructive, some bad. He will take the periodical with this drawback, and read it from week to week. Meanwhile the periodical is tolerably uniform in its teaching-it goes on systematically-and the poor reader, when the year is out, has taken, not merely a grain of poison, which his constitution might have shaken off, but he has it now circulating through all his veins, and forming part of his constitution itself.

As a specimen, for the present, we take up the People's Journal, a London weekly publication, price three halfpence. Each number contains sixteen pages of letter-press royal octavo. It abounds in essays, lectures, tales, and poetry. Each number is illustrated with a wood-cut, admirably executed, even for our day, when high excellence in this department of art is far from being rare. Its literary ability is of a high order. It numbers among its contributors many men and women well known to fame. The name of the author of each article is given; and we find regularly such as William and Mary Howitt, Miss Mar

tineau, Camilla Toulmin, Ebenezer Elliot, &c. Let us, then, for a little, examine the Journal. Let us see, not what it professes to do, but what it really is doing, for the people-what kind of principles it is teaching them, and in what direction it seeks to lead them.

1. What are its religious principles, or has it any? Perhaps it would not be quite safe to say that it is entirely atheistical- -as much so as the French Revolutionists at the end of last century. There is mention frequently made in it of a God, and therefore it is to be presumed that its writers have some belief in the existence of such a being. It is impossible, however, to gather from its pages what kind of a being their God is, and whether there are positively any duties He requires at the hands of men. This much, at least, it is easy to determine, that their God is not the God of Christians, and that the duties they inculcate upon men are not Christian duties. The most copious writer in the Journal is also the most outrageous and outspoken in his hatred to what is commonly known and reverenced as religion. His papers purport to have been delivered in the form of lectures to the working classes. He is the wellknown W. J. Fox, popular Socinian preacher and lecturer in London. Some of his lectures, given here, are able and vigorous-most of them, however, characterized by a style rather inflated, and not unfrequently descending to what is commonly called claptrap.

From what we have stated-and we now proceed to vindicate and prove our statements-it will be inferred that they have no great liking to any of the positive institutions of religion. The Sabbath comes in for a fair share of the censure which all religious institutions call forth. Thus it is asked, p. 33, "What is the shutting up of our museums and zoological gardens on the Sundays, but superstition? And then, the principle is laid down, that to sanctify the Sabbath, we are called upon to engage in whatever exalts and enlarges the intellect. In this way it is obvious that it would

be very difficult to specify any engagement which might not with propriety be undertaken and performed on the day of holy rest. At least there is not one, which the doer of the thing would find it difficult to classify under the general category. It is our duty, however, while thus noticing the lax notions of Sabbath observance, to inform our readers that there is a formal complaint against Sabbath desecration entered on the pages of the Journal. We are thus furnished with a sufficiently precise notion of the way in which they think the Sabbath ought to be kept. They tell us, somewhat vaguely, it is true, what we may do on that day; they are more precise when they come to tell us what may not be done.

But before we introduce the single and most notable thing which is not to be done on Sabbath, let us inform our readers of the occasion on which this prohibition is introduced. The same

W. J. Fox who tells us above what it is lawful to do on Sabbath, gives a lecture on the political morality of Shakspeare's Plays, and, with marvellous coherence to his subject, informs us that one of the greatest existing nuisances is the Sabbath ringing of church bells. "Oh the jangling of those bells, whether considered literally or figuratively, is one of the nuisances the Church entails upon us * * * disturbing the quiet of Sunday, and breaking rudely upon the disposition to reflectiveness and. calm which belongs to it. Such a nuisance ought to be brought under the operation of the New Police Act." Mr Fox proceeds to give a story, we presume from the police reports, of a boy being apprehended and fined for ringing his bell and selling crumpets on the Sabbath, and indignantly puts the question, Why, I should like to know, are the crumpet bells to be put down, and the church bells kept up?" With Mr Fox's leave, there are one or two things which we also should like to know; as, for instance, whether a boy ringing a bell and selling crumpets on the street on a Sabbath, was employed in sanctifying that day, even according to Mr Fox's view of the matter

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that is, whether the said boy was engaged in "what enlarges, purifies, and exalts our intelligence?" And, farther, we should like to know, as Mr Fox plainly does not think the boy was a Sabbath-breaker, whether there be any employment less congenial to the enlargement, purification, and elevation of the intelligence, than ringing a bell and selling crumpets? And if so, we should like to know what that employment is, that at least we might have some of men's ordinary avocations noted down as unlawful to be prosecuted on Sabbath? We should like to know also what reflections were passing through the mind of Mr Fox, when they were rudely dissipated by the chiming of the church bells, and whether his intense dislike to them does not very much arise from his impatience at thinking that any body whatsoever should be so stupid as go to a church?

The People's Journal is not a whit more friendly to the church than to the church bells. Seldom, we are told, is an advance made in science, but there is a clamour raised of danger to the souls of men. And even this little qualification is afterwards removed, for, at p. 46, when science is again introduced, it is spoken of as a thing which "churches seek to crush." We need scarcely say that this is in the last degree unfair, and in point of fact utterly false. It is rather late, we hope, to revive such a prejudice against churches. It is equivalent to the assertion that religion and science cannot co-exist, and that churches can only be tolerated in a time of ignorance. It embodies, though it does not express the conviction, that all religion, or rather religion as held by all churches whatsoever, is untrue, and will be exploded in the increasing light of science. We apprehend that he who entertains such views has a very inadequate and distorted knowledge, both of what religion is, and of what science is. But we do not mean here to argue the matter our object at present rather is to let our readers know what are the principles maintained in the People's Journal, than to weigh them, and to expose their dangerous character.

With a view, we should suppose, to the extinction of churches, and the consequent advancement of science, we are presented with the following poetical aspiration.

"Oh the days when we are freemen all, the days when thoughts are free

To travel as the winds of heaven, towards their destiny;

When man is sovereign of himself, and to himself the priest,

And crowned wisdoms recognise the manhood of the least;

Then God shall walk again with man, and fruitful converse grow,

As in the noon of Paradise, a long time ago."

Here we should think it pretty evident, if the poet understands what he says, that in a more advanced and perfect state of society all ministers of religion are to be dispensed with, and each man is to be sovereign of himself, and priest to himself. It is true, there is here an introduction of God and Paradise, though manifestly for the sole purpose of poetical machinery; for how, in any proper sense, there can be a God, and yet each man sovereign of himself, it is impossible to see. It is involved in the very relation between God and man, that God is the sovereign of the man. Again, the Scripture representation of the Christian is, that he is a priest unto God. The notion of the poet is, man a priest to himself that is to say, the worshipper of himself offering sacrifices to himself-being a god unto himself. This is the religion of infidelity, which has long ago been tried and found wanting. The aspiration of this poet is nothing else than that which Satan tried to put into the hearts of our first parents-" Ye shall be as gods.'

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The writers of the Journal, as a matter of course, regard all kinds of religion as alike. Every heart beating with humanity," they say, overlooks the differences of creed" (p. 79). These differences are traced to 66 a fanatical spirit seeking ever to exalt as an idol its own particular form of faith and worship" (p. 133). In the expression of such sentiments as these, we are afraid the Journalists will meet with a more extended sympathy than for some others to which they have given utterance. And yet, to what do they amount? They are the expres

sions of a man speaking with compassion of those who are contending about shadows. They pre-suppose that all religions are alike-simply because all are false. And if it be wrong to contend for a particular faith and worship, what, as concerns religion, are men to contend for? Can there be a religion without a particular faith and worship? If it be any thing more than a name or a dream, it must have some way to express itself, and consequently some form of worship; and if it be a belief in any thing, it must have a particular form of faith, or, in other words, its belief can surely be defined and expressed. It is a very common method with modern infidelity to take exception, not so much at the belief of a Christian, as at the particularity of it, for they have at least the common sense to know that if a belief be not defined and particular, it must be inoperative and uninfluential. It would be well that Christians should not be quite so much frightened as many of them are at the charges of bigotry and sectarianism, which, in the sense in which they are frequently employed, express anything rather than criminality.

It is very difficult to determine whether the writers of the Journal believe in the existence of sin and crime, understanding by the former offences against God, and by the latter, the violation of our social duties. They seem to regard criminals as scarcely worthy of censure. The great offenders, in their estimation, are the churches on the one hand, and the community on the other. As to sin, they say little about it, and appear to regard it as non-existent. They have a confident belief, at all events, that sin will not be punished. They tell us that it has been established, both from Scripture and reason, in a work of Dr S. Smith, that the whole human race will be restored to a state of purity and happiness (p. 99). Their beliefs, however, on the future destiny of mankind does not appear very consistent or well defined. The most definite statement on the subject with which we have met in their volume, carries us at once into the regions of

Brahminism. It is said (p. 28), "He spoke no more; the man he addressed had died while he was speaking, and a human soul was absorbed in the In

finite Spirit." We had previously thought that the doctrine of absorption was limited to Hindostan, and were a little startled by its exhibition in the popular literature of England. Whether ultimate absorption into the great Brahm or the Infinite Spirit (as they prefer to call him) and the ultimate purity and happiness of the whole human race, signify the same thing, we do not care very much to enquire. The writers of the Journal, however, profess a desire to promote the present happiness and social comfort of Englishmen, and it might be worth their while to examine practically whether Christianity has not more effectively served these ends in England than Brahminism has in Hindostan, and consequently whether they are serving the people by teaching the doctrines of the latter.

As will be anticipated, they have no appreciation of the efficacy, and no relish for the exercise, and no feeling of the need of prayer. This comes out very strongly in their criticism of the anthem " God save the King." They say (p. 204), "It seems as if those who chaunt it were most earnestly bent upon God's saving the sovereign, as if that were one of the most doubtful points in the world. They intercede with the Deity, chaunt to the Deity, over and over again, as if they would hammer it into the hearing of Providence-as if salvation were wanted, not for the inheritor of all possible virtues, but for a desperate class of incorrigible sinners." We, too, feel somewhat doubtful as to the religious propriety of the National Anthem, but certainly not on the ground that the sovereign does not need the prayers of her people, or that it is not their duty to render her this service. Perhaps the greatest evils under which we suffer socially and politically, are traceable to a neglect of the scriptural command to pray for "kings and for all that are in authority."

Any thing which has the aspect of