averred that they had high, not to say the highest, authority, for their assertion, that by "lawful," the As but "moral," or, in the narrowest sense," constitutional ;" and we learn, too, that the existence of the Association is itself illegal, and that, therefore, it is useless now to affix limits to the illegality that shall be committed." And many such things are currently reported as the sober morning sentiments proclaimed upon the house-tops, and not secretly confided, of even graduated and greyheaded officials of the British AntiState-Church Association. And all these things may be right enough, and it may be right, too, to involve Christian congregations, and all the awful interests committed to their care, in a course of systematic opposition to the nation's law; and we may be sorry time-servers and miserable trimmers for venturing to question the holiness and the wisdom of it all. One thing, however, we have a right to call for, and we call for it accordingly -an intelligible manifesto of the Association's plans-a truthful detail of all that they design. the reason of the law is obvious enough, and sound as it is obvious. For the executive government can thus, by a brief examination of the sy-sociation does not understand "legal," noptical documents presented at the head-quarters, inform itself with exactness, and without delay, of all that the association, however extensive, has performed; whereas, if every local committee were the nucleus of a distinct but "corresponding" body, no time, no vigilance, no espionage, could keep within the reach of the executive the facts which the history of nations shows it should undoubtedly possess. The law, then, should be honoured-first, for conscience sake, and then for the sake of public safety; and when, by local committees everything desired may be gained, and, we think, much more securely than by corresponding associations, no conceivable plea can be brought forward to justify even a probable infraction of it. Yet we are told that, within four and twenty hours of Dr Price's late visit to the town of Manchester, the friends whom he had met, resolved themselves, consciously and wilfully, into an illegal association. We know it from themselves, and they gloried in their deed when they described it and they added, too, that I when it was reported to the Central Executive, as the first act of open war, all present, except one or two, and all the chiefs, without exception, praised and magnified both deed and doers. That the deed will be undone, how ever, we have not a doubt; but that the lawless spirit which excited to it, suffered it, and praised it, will be laid, we shall have no hope whatever till we find the heads of the Association giving a distinct and an unequivocal assurance of their determination, neither to indulge themselves, nor to involve the Association in any illegality at all. We may be referred to the fourth rule of the Association, whereby "lawful and peaceable means, and such only," are pretended. But wẹ were lately taught, and our informants to us; It would be wrong for us to leave this subject without explaining our recorded conviction, that congregational delegation to a Political Association is a violation of the law. For though a congregation be not a political society, yet, by delegating any of its members to one, it thereby, notwithstanding its professions and its name, itself becomes one too. And though it may be pleaded that a congregation is no organization, and is nothing, therefore, in the eye of law, hereunto we demur; for it has been authoritatively convened; it has its officers, of one kind or another; it sends forth delegates; it is responsible for their support; it holds them responsible for what they do. It does all that an organized body can do; and as an organized body it must answer for itself. Did we think it, then, on other grounds, a proper thing for Christian congre We hope, from the speeches lately made in Scotland by the Deputation, that the juvenile zeal of their colleagues in Manchester will lead to no mischievous results, but its very rise is ominous. gations, as such, to be involved in the movements of a political association, we should think it improper, till the legality of such a course were proved; for at present it is written, "He that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordidinance of God." At least, let the matter be satisfactorily adjudicated; and let not men call upon the best and wisest of their fellow-subjects to support them in a movement, and, supporting them, to jeopard the reputation of the Gospel, till that movement be declared either legal or illegal by the highest authorities to whom appeal is practicable. Our opinion will by this time be perceived, that the heads of the Association have themselves not gauged the difficulties of their undertaking; or that if they have, they are not ingenuous enough to allow the calculation to appear. From all that we have heard, there was but one speaker at the Conference of 1844 who seemed acquainted with these difficulties. This one man was George Thompson; and he, we believe, has never actively supported the Association. The papers read were good-Mr Miall's and the "Barrister's" particularly; but they gave no description of the practical difficulties. But except George Thompson's brief but meaning speech, we apprehend that of all the speeches made, not one was superior to what may any day be heard in England, on no more critical an occasion than that of opposition to a Church-rate. They were all frothy, noisy, egotistical, and nauseous declamation. Not one evinced a care to grasp the whole of this tremendous matter, and to keep the gaping audience from delusion and disappointment. And at this we cannot be surprised. Not many men were there who had cared to investigate, and had striven to comprehend, all the antagonistic forces. Such men were not likely to attend at the public invitation that was given; or, if there, to do anything but watch. They already knew the leaders, and expected what is come to pass; what may now be known by all men. And the kindest plea that we can offer for those leaders' carelessness about securing the active services of such men, and for their rashness in challenging the foe without them, is, that they themselves were ignorant of the nature of their task; for if not ignorant, it would be hard to show that they were neither weak nor wicked. We will elucidate our meaning. It is in England that the StateChurch system strikes its roots the deepest. England will be the actual battle-field on which it and its opponents will essay their strength. England, too, must be the chief scene of all preliminary skirmishing. Englishmen, then, must be expected to become the most conspicuous agents in the enterprise; and of these, in the present aspect of religious parties, few except the Independents have it in their power to do deeds of might and efficacy. The Independents have been slighted or defied, insulted or haughtily rerebuked, from the commencement of this movement to the present hour; if not exclusively and by name, yet pointedly, and so that they have felt it. "The Nonconformist" entered on his course, as if he were alone the people's friend, and as if all ministers were priests, and every deacon a usurper. English people have the habit of enjoying a good laugh whenever an official man, of any kind, is publicly attacked. They laugh; but they seldom value less the object of their boyish mirth; indeed they usually tender him the more affectionate and intelligent observance, if he bear their sport with dignity. We apprehend that not a single minister or deacon has been changed from what he was, by the waspish petulance of "The Nonconformist," or has experienced any diminution of regard from those whom he respected. A rabble that " gave tongue," believed no doubt that the doom of dignities was settled, and their day not distant. But from that time to this, the Independents have gradually become in appearance more and more Conservative; and the wondering rabble are reduced, at last, to silence. The worth of experienced pastors, and of open-handed deacons, could not be forgotten long; and their future services were indispensable. For these, "The Nonconformist" was no substitute; and for these the people were still grateful, even though, among them, many doubtless mourned that the 66 men of influence" would neither join the Association nor devise another. But these men of influence had been taught to leave Mr Miall and his toil alone. Neither to follow him, nor to compete with him, was pleasant. Meanwhile, too, it was found that both "The Nonconformist" and "The Eclectic" were Universal Suffragists, and supporters of many a daring scheme besides. Everything they supported might be right; and few men cared to say that anything was wrong. Still fewer men, however, if officials, were prepared to take an open part in advocacy of the many points of the "Complete Dissenter's Creed:" and finding that to join the Association would be generally regarded an adhesion to this creed, they thought it better to remain aloof. It became, then, so much the more important to obtain their aid; and the aid of numbers of them might have been obtained, even as the aid of many may be now. But their manifested sense of what was due to them, elicited but little sympathy. As "unsound, hollow-hearted, crotchety, and timid," they are to this day habitually contrasted by the Association with their "earnest, truthloving, high-principled, devoted, and heroic" selves. Many of them have been singled out for personal attack; others have beheld insidious efforts to degrade them in the estimation of their respective congregations; all of them are told that these congregations shall be triennially incited by the Association to demand their liberty of free discussion; and the few among them who might yet be won by ingenuous, respectful, and enlightened treatment, find their position and power overlooked, or sneered at, even on the very verge of the triennial Conference, while, too, convulsive efforts are in progress to render it a crowded Conference, and although it is likely that fewer English men of character and high position will attend it than assembled at the last. Ꮓ The circumstance, that both the leaders are proprietors and editors of important "periodicals," should also have induced them to make special efforts for securing most conspicuously the aid of the eminent among their brethren who are independent of the public press. It would have been well, not only in order to give individuality to the movement, but in order also to prevent the suspicion of personal designs, that a promise of active co-operation, or at least of fellowship in responsibility, should have been obtained from men of general celebrity, but known not to belong to the "Eclectic" and "Nonconformist" school. "Is the association the organ of the periodicals, or are they the voice of the Association? Are they labouring for its support, or is it designed for theirs?" Such questions have been often put, and they will yet be put again; and it would have been better to prevent them, or at least to be prepared with such facts as would answer them effectually and for ever. We think, too, that the large and powerful class of wealthy dissenting merchants and manufacturers has been singularly overlooked. The history of the Anti-Corn Law agitation should alone have taught our friends sufficient knowledge of this variety of human nature. Not a merchant, however generally enlightened, not a manufacturer, however pious and humane, contributed to that agitation from a primary regard to what is commonly called principle. The economies of the question gave them their first motion. Statistics and arithmetic were both their doctrines and their rules. They afterwards, we doubt it not, felt much and talked still more, concerning God's original designs, the principles of justice, and the law of love; but it was figures, not of speech, but the ten Arabic numerals-it was these that won from them their money and their votes. And they will never work efficiently as members of an AntiState Church Association, but on the spur of similar incentives. "The Nonconformist" may tell them that they are not of a spiritual mind; but they only "give him up." He may then expose them to their numerous workpeople; but he will never raise a "servile improved. It is idle to retort, that theirs is not the most perfect form of character. It is not; neither is that of the man who would retort this on them. One of our chief complaints against Mr Miall and his school is, that they disdain all efforts to secure the aid of men who do not reach their standard of perfection. The men, such as they are, may be won, if reasons adapted to their mental habits be presented. If the reasons only which other kinds of men feel most be offered, they will still be as they are. Charges of carnality, a trading spirit, pusillanimity, and such like, may be multiplied; those who make them waste their labour and destroy what personal influence they had, and that is all. The commercial spirit is only what it has been always, and the most enlightened and patriotic citizens in every age have had it. Men not in commerce may not like it ; merchants and manufacturers like theirs as little. God, however, uses men imbued with the commercial spirit, and while using He accepts them too. His people should do likewise; but it is generally felt that the Association act as if they wished to drive all rich Dissenters to avowed hostility. war" by this means. For the workpeople, knowing well their masters' general liberality, and witnessing their costly contributions for the furtherance of the Gospel through the hands of the Dissenters, as well as their steady personal adherence to dissent, notwithstanding innumerable inducements of the strongest nature to desert it-inducements, it may be, such as Mr Miall never felt, will, after their first broad English grin at their superiors' castigation, philosophize, and ask if there may not be varieties of non-conformity; and doubt if Mr Miall's kind monopolizes every excellence; and conclude that, be things as they may, Mr Miall's unbrotherly censoriousness will make them little better. It is an intolerable assumption, that, to be consistent, nonconformists must be antagonists to State Church principles; anti-State Churchmen must co-operate in a grand national association; all who wish so to co-operate must join the British ;" and all who join the British must believe in Mr Miall. Yet by one means or another has the British managed to convince the public, that this fourfold and most gross assumption is a vital article of faith to all its members. The opulent Dissenters to whom we have referred are practically among the most serviceable anti-State Churchmen in the country. As such, then, they should be appreciated; for not only are they such, but such they mean to be. They embrace, exemplify, and circulate all the most spiritual truths which inspire the best members of the Association; and, with scarcely an exception, they are their pastors' most efficient seconders in every effort to diffuse the spiritual principles of the Messiah's kingdom. We know intimately hundreds of them such as we describe; and of these hundreds there are very few who would not willingly subscribe to circulate the Association's own productions. And these men, too, may be won to the Association, or to something better, at least, if certain meaning tables can be laid before them. A political association, however, they will not care in the slightest to support, unless the national finances will be thereby importantly In this connection we suggest to the Association, that a modification of their "fundamental principle" might cause the adhesion to them of a crowd of energetic spirits now excluded. For if all that was required of members was a declaration of antagonism to every "establishment" existent, many a useful co-operator might appear where least expected. Every member would be still at liberty to believe what 66 principle" he chose; and every speaker to assert his own individual motives and articles of faith. Co-operation, too, like this, would happily be demonstrated the surest and the fittest path to unanimity in creed. Of inferior matters, we shall refer to only one, but that one is strikingly instructive. Never, perhaps, was any public body, not to speak of a national Association, plagued and crippled by its own executive, as this unfortunate association has been by its conductors. But they must needs, as it became such spiritual men, resolve on having a gratuitous secretariat alone. L.500 a-year, with the near prospect of L.1000, would have been well outlaid upon an able secretary. But the "Nonconformist" had imbued his scholars wilh a generous scorn of hired performances. A paid secretary was an evil spirit of a lower grade than a paid parson. No member of the Con ference dared to bring up the idea. "We are all Voluntaries," was the tom-boy cry. And so there were three "Voluntary" secretaries. And the result is what we said at the commencement of this article-the Association is an abortion. We think we have elucidated what we promised. Ignorance-ignorance of man, ignorance of Providence, ignorance of friends, ignorance of foes, ignorance of every thing but the art of theorizing, and the power of straining idioms with the view of making them effective, till, on cultivated minds, a nausea irrepressible is the one effect alone. This is what we charge on the Association, that is, on its leaders, and, in relation to the last two counts, on Mr Miall only. The men may have been a little weak as well, and occasionally, too, a little wicked. We think as well of them, however, as of most men, according to their knowledge. It is a pity that they became leaders in 1844. The campaign has been disastrous, and, we fear, through faults, rather than misfortune. But if the generals are wishful to repair the damage done, well, let them try. We shall not oppose them, neither shall we go to sleep. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. Providence, Prophecy, and Popery. By Rev. William White, Haddington. Edin. 1846. This work is thus characterised in a private letter recently received from Captain Gordon. We think it no more than justice to Mr White to give his able work the benefit of such an opinion from so competent a judge; and we do not consider that we take any liberty, to which Captain Gordon himself would object, in availing ourselves of the extract which has been furnished to us, and which is as follows: "It is a commentary on the Book of Daniel, and whether we regard the power of mind which it displays, the eloquence of its language, or the justness of its criticisms, it is, in my humble judgment, one of the first works of the day." To add a single word of our own would be superfluous, and would only weaken the force of so high and honourable a testimony. The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal; a New Translation, with Historical Introduction and Notes. By the Rev. Thomas M'Crie. Fcp. 8vo, pp. 412. Edin. 1846. We shall be the more brief in our present notice of this important work, because we hope to be able in our next Number to deal with it at length. Notwithstanding the wide celebrity of the Provincial Letters, few foreign works of note have been so unhappy in their trans lators. Few English translations had appeared previous to the present one. The first contemporaneous with the original Letters, and the second so recently as 1816, but both are lamentably deficient. They are nothing better than dull, heavy, unreadable books, in a great measure unintelligible. Not only have the exquisite wit and point-the keen and delicate irony of the original entirely escaped the translators, but the very sense and spirit of the work is in a great measure lost. In all these respects, the translation by Professor M'Crie presents a striking contrast to the former attempts, and now for the first time, the mere English reader will be able to comprehend the grounds upon which the world-wide reputation of the provincials is based. The historical introduction is copious and valuable, and by the aid of it, and of the notes, there is not a reference, nor allusion in the text, which the commonest reader will not be able to appreciate. The translation will not be the less valued that it was undertaken at the suggestion of the translator's father-the late venerated Dr M'Crieand now, after having been long laid aside, appears at a crisis, when it cannot but be hailed as a peculiarly seasonable and acceptable contribution to the anti-Romish Literature of the day. We trust it will have a wide circulation, for we know of few works so eminently fitted to exhibit, in its true breadth, the genius of Popery, |
