LIBRARY 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY' OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Deceived JUL 28 1893 , 189 
 
 ^Accessions No . ^2 1 ^2~ % . CL iss No . 
 
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS AKNOLD, D.D. 
 
LONDON t 
 PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, 
 
 ANGEL COURT, SKINNKR STREET. 
 
THE 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 
 
 OP 
 
 THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D. 
 
 LATE HEAD MASTEK OF RUGBY SCHOOL, 
 
 AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF OXFORD. 
 
 COLLECTED AND REPUBLISHED. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON. 
 T. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STKEET. 
 
 1858. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS Volume consists of a republication of such Miscel- 
 laneous Writings of Dr. Arnold as appeared to possess 
 any permanent interest, or to illustrate his general views, 
 especially, as will be seen, on the subjects of education 
 and of the social and political state of the country. 
 
 It has, therefore, seemed best to exclude from it the 
 occasional publications of his earlier years, such as articles 
 written in the British Critic, 1819, 20; or that on Nie- 
 buhr's History of Rome in the Quarterly Review of 1825, 
 and on " Letters of an Episcopalian," in the Edinburgh 
 Review of 1826; or, again, such publications of his later 
 years as had a local or temporary character, including the 
 Tract on the Cholera in 1831, and two or three letters to 
 newspapers, as well as the article on " Dr. Hampden " in 
 the Edinburgh Review of 1836, or such of the Essays 
 appended to his edition of Thucydides, 1830-35, as were 
 confined to questions of purely topographical or historical 
 detail. The Essays on Church and State, which were to 
 have appeared in this volume, have now, for various rea- 
 sons, been published as Appendixes to the Second Edition 
 of the Fragment on the Church ; in which form they may 
 also be had separately. 
 
 The contents of this volume express what, on the whole, 
 were Dr. Arnold's deliberate views on the subjects of 
 which he wrote ; at the same time it will be obvious that 
 his language would often have been modified by a change 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 of circumstances, and that expressions are occasionally 
 used which he would have himself wished subsequently 
 to cancel, as, for instance, in two passages (pp. 40, 77) of 
 the pamphlet on the Roman Catholic Claims. (See Life 
 and Correspondence, vol. i. 262, ii. 34; Letters, Oct. 29, 
 1829, May 4, 1836.) 
 
 In conclusion, the thanks of Dr. Arnold's friends are 
 due for the kind permission of the proprietors of the 
 Quarterly Journal of Education, and of the Edition of 
 Thucydides, to republish the parts of those works which 
 appear in the present volume, as well as for the trouble 
 taken by the Proprietors of the Sheffield Courant and the 
 Hertford Reformer to recover and supply the various let- 
 ters published in their Journals. 
 
 A. P. S. 
 
 Univ. Coll. Oxford, 
 May 29, 1845. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Christian Duty of Conceding the Roman 
 
 Catholic Claims. 1829. . . . 1 
 II. Essay on the Social Progress of States. 
 From the First Appendix to Edition of 
 Thucydides. 1830 . . . .79 
 
 III. Extracts from "The Englishman's Register." 
 
 1831 113 
 
 IV. Letters to " Sheffield Courant." 1831, 1832. 169 
 
 1. The Social Condition of the Work- 
 
 ing Classes 171 
 
 2. The Education of the Middle Classes 225 
 
 3. The Elections . ... 240 
 V. Preface to "Poetry of Common Life." 1831 249 
 
 VI. Principles of Church Reform ; with Post- 
 script. 1833 257 
 
 VII. Rugby School Use of the Classics. From 
 the "Quarterly Journal of Education." 
 
 1834, 1835 339 
 
 VIII. Discipline in Public Schools. From the 
 
 same 361 
 
 IX. Preface to the Third Volume of the Edition 
 
 of Thucydides. 1835 . . . . 381 - 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' X. Lecture before the Mechanics' Institute, at 
 Rugby, on the Divisions of Knowledge. 
 
 1838 401 
 
 XI. Order of Deacons. 1841 . . . .425 
 
 XII. Letters to "Hertford Reformer." 1837- 
 
 1841 431 
 
 1. States of Parties. 1837 . . 433 
 
 2. Church Rates. 1837 . . .436 
 
 3. Wesleyan Methodists and Conserva- 
 
 tives. 1837 . . . .440 
 
 4. Copyright Bill. 1837 . . .445 
 
 5. Church Establishments. 1838 . 449 
 
 6. State of Manufacturing Population. 
 
 1838 . . . . . . 452 
 
 7. The same. 1838 . . . . 457 
 
 8. The same. 1839 . . . .461 
 
 9. The State and the Church. 1839 . 466 
 
 10. The same. 1839 .... 470 
 
 11. The Labouring Population and the 
 
 Chartists. 1839 . . .475 
 
 12. State of the Manufacturing and 
 
 Labouring Population. 1839 . 478 
 
 13. Evils of our National State. 1839 482 
 
 14. National Church Establishments. 
 
 1840 . .... 486 
 
 15. State of the Poor. 1840 . . 492 - 
 
 16. State of the Working Classes. 1840 497 
 
 17. Church Establishments. 1840 . 502 
 
 18. War with France. 1840 . . 508 -' 
 
 19. The same. 1840 . 513 
 
 20. The Elections. 1841 
 
THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN DUTY 
 
 OF 
 
 CONCEDING THE CLAIMS 
 
 or 
 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN venturing to offer the following pages particularly to 
 the notice of the clergy, my main object has been to 
 correct this prevalent impression, that it may be wrong in 
 a religious point of view to grant the Catholic claims, but 
 it cannot be more than inexpedient to reject them. I 
 have, therefore, argued the Question on the grounds of 
 right : although I allow, that in the ordinary discussion of 
 it, the topic of right is one which it is on many accounts 
 better to wave ; and where the opponents of the Catholics 
 do not make conscience their plea for resisting the claims, 
 it is enough to press them on grounds of political ex- 
 pediency. My particular object will account for my 
 omission of many powerful arguments which are usually 
 brought forward in favour of concession ; and especially 
 for my not noticing more at length the trite objection, 
 that the measure now before Parliament is an inroad upon 
 the constitution ; whereas it is in fact the fulfilment of it, 
 if by the constitution be meant a system for the govern- 
 ment of the commonwealth on the principles of liberty and 
 justice. 
 
 For my writing on the Catholic Question at all I need 
 offer no other justification than the universal interest it 
 excites, and the great misapprehension and irritation which 
 exist concerning it. I write, because I wish to remove 
 the one and allay the other amongst a class of men who 
 require arguments of a different class from those com- 
 monly used in the political and Parliamentary discussions 
 on the subject. 
 RCGBY, 1829. 
 
 B 2 
 
OP 
 
 UFI7BRSIT7 
 
 CHRISTIAN DUTY 
 
 OP CONCEDING THE 
 
 V 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 
 
 THE political merits of the Catholic Question have been 
 too often and too ably discussed, and the political au- 
 thorities in favour of what is called Emancipation are too 
 overwhelming, to render it necessary at this late period to 
 state the grounds of national expediency on which that 
 great measure may be defended. But the most respect- 
 able opponents of the Catholics, including, I believe, a 
 large proportion of the Clergy of the Church of England, 
 consider the Question in a higher light ; they think that 
 it involves more than political interests; that to admit 
 Catholics to become Members of the Legislature would be 
 most injurious to the cause of the Protestant Religion ; and 
 that therefore no views of worldly policy should induce 
 a good man to compromise the service of God, and in 
 effect to sacrifice his highest duty for the sake of obtaining 
 a temporal advantage. 
 
 This is at once to put the Question on its true grounds : 
 for as parties and public bodies are made up of individuals 
 morally and religiously responsible ; and as no individual 
 Christian, who values his salvation, can knowingly 
 prefer any temporal benefits, however great, to the strict 
 line of his Christian duty ; it is manifest that Parliament 
 ought to reject the Catholic claims, even with the cer- 
 tainty of thereby provoking a civil war, if it be indeed 
 a sin against God to grant them. I am, therefore, not 
 
6 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 only willing to consider the Question as one of duty 
 rather than of expediency, but it is my earnest wish to do 
 so. These are the principles on which it becomes a 
 Christian to argue; and woe to him who for party, or 
 even for national considerations, allows himself to lower 
 the high standard of Christian perfection ; to value civil 
 privileges and political freedom beyond a single and un- 
 wavering devotion to the will of God. 
 
 It will be my endeavour then in the following pages 
 to prove, 
 
 First, that it is the direct duty of every Englishman to 
 support the claims of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, 
 even at the hazard of injuring the Protestant Establish- 
 ment ; because those claims cannot be rejected without 
 great injustice; and it is a want of faith in God and an 
 unholy zeal to think that he can be served by injustice, 
 or to guard against contingent evil by committing certain 
 sin. 
 
 Secondly, that as the path of duty is the path of wis- 
 dom, so the granting of the Catholic claims, to which we 
 are bound as a plain point of duty, will in all human pro- 
 bability greatly benefit the cause of Christianity ; that it 
 will tend to purify the Catholic Religion in Ireland from 
 its greatest superstitions, and gradually to assimilate it 
 more and more to Protestantism. 
 
 The principle of the first assertion, when addressing 
 myself to conscientious Christians, I need not waste time 
 in proving. No good man in our days would defend the 
 practice of pious frauds, or of supporting the interests of 
 his Church by persecution. If then the exclusion of the 
 Catholics of Ireland from their civil rights be an act of 
 injustice, or in other words if it be a sin when knowingly 
 committed, it is not a lawful means of advancing or de- 
 fending the Protestant Religion. 
 
 Now in order to shew that this exclusion is unjust, it 
 will be necessary to ascend to higher principles than those 
 to which its advocates generally appeal ; and to shew that 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 7 
 
 these higher principles can alone in fact determine the 
 merits of the Question. And it is here that good men are 
 blinded, as we shall see hereafter, by an original error in 
 their political opinions ; which being in its very essence 
 destructive of our notions of justice, distorts the view of 
 every political question, and makes those who entertain it 
 mistake habitually wrong for right and right for wrong. 
 
 Nothing has ever been more pernicious to the growth 
 of human virtue and happiness than the habit of looking 
 backwards rather than forwards for our model of excel- 
 lence. The individual who should compare his life with 
 what he himself was in his earlier years, instead of con- 
 trasting it with that high Christian standard which he 
 never yet has reached, but which it should be his daily 
 prayer and labour to reach hereafter, would assuredly go 
 back rather than improve in goodness and wisdom. And 
 so on a larger scale is the improvement of civil society 
 obstructed, by referring to its actual origin and past 
 fortunes, rather than contemplating that hitherto unat- 
 tained excellence, to which, if it rightly used its increas- 
 ing experience, it should be approaching in every gene- 
 ration successively nearer. We might as well build our 
 ships after the model of our forefathers' coracles, as 
 endeavour to find the principles of wisdom and justice 
 developed in our forefathers' government. Necessity or 
 chance led to the first rude attempts at navigation : force 
 and cunning were the predominant elements in the con- 
 stitution of the earliest civil societies. The supremacy of 
 strength and intellect over weakness and ignorance is no 
 doubt sufficiently natural : so is selfishness natural ; and 
 nothing could be more in accordance with our unimproved 
 nature, than that the strong and the wise should possess a 
 pre-eminence and abuse it. Governments then being- 
 established, some on the base of mere physical force, some 
 on priestcraft, and others on a mixture of both these 
 elements, the language of the laws which were framed by 
 the governing powers was naturally adapted to the prill- 
 
8 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 ciples and interests of the framers. And as these prin- 
 ciples were very different from those of justice and true 
 wisdom, so the written or municipal law was also very 
 different from that unwritten and universal law, whose 
 " seat is in the bosom of God, whose voice is the harmony 
 of the world." 
 
 But the dictates of this divine law were never wholly 
 unknown to men ; and their excellence is such, that those 
 who hated them most were often ashamed openly to dis- 
 pute them. Those who suffered under the yoke of a 
 tyranny grounded upon force or superstition, appealed to 
 justice as the most powerful advocate of the weak against 
 the strong: they gave currency to her language, and 
 asserted her principles ; and even when success had cor- 
 rupted them, and made them inclined themselves to forget 
 her, yet the good which they had done continued to exist 
 in spite of them : the truths by which they had profited 
 remained to instruct others also; the wisdom of which 
 they had opened the spring for their own necessities, 
 flowed forth with a perpetual stream to refresh far distant 
 lands. Meanwhile the language of municipal law under- 
 went a very partial improvement. It ceased to press upon 
 that part of the community who had succeeded in releasing 
 themselves from bondage; and sometimes those who had 
 obtained a participation in political power introduced into 
 its enactments some of those just principles to which they 
 had been indebted for their own deliverance. But the 
 selfish fear, that from henceforth they had more to lose than 
 to gain from the general ascendancy of truth and justice, 
 disposed them to limit the application of those principles 
 to their own particular case ; and to shrink from substituting 
 them broadly and universally for the language of the older 
 constitution of things. 
 
 o 
 
 The repetition of this process in successive generations 
 brings us to a state of things, in which most classes of the 
 community have secured to themselves all the rights which 
 equal justice could require; in which all have gained the 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. y 
 
 simplest and most necessary of these rights ; in which the 
 great principles of the eternal law are most widely known, 
 and upheld by the unanimous voice of the wise and good ; 
 but in which the municipal or written law of the land has 
 not yet learnt to avow those principles, but still retains 
 amidst great partial improvements much of the narrow and 
 iniquitous spirit of its earliest origin. It was at first a 
 mere system of exclusion : and so far from being the 
 standard in great questions of national right, every victory 
 gained by public right has necessarily led to the improve- 
 ment of the law, and could have only been rendered legal 
 by the law's alteration. Nay, as those very alterations 
 from various causes have generally expressed the particu- 
 lar application of principles, rather than the principles 
 themselves, and as their particular application may greatly 
 vary with times and circumstances, so it may sometimes 
 happen, that laws promulgated in one age to further the 
 cause of liberty and justice, may in another have the very 
 opposite tendency, and must be repealed in the letter if we 
 wish to fulfil their spirit. 
 
 What I meant, then, by the original error of the political 
 creed of many good men, is the principle that in all ques- 
 tions of political alteration the presumption is against 
 change. Now, on the contrary, the presumption is always 
 in favour of change, because the origin of our existing 
 societies was an unjust and ignorant system; because, 
 where that system has not been altered it must require to 
 be so ; and even where it has, as the alteration was often 
 of a temporary and particular nature, a fresh improvement 
 will be generally desirable, if we wish to secure the sub- 
 stantial principle of justice and wisdom. 
 
 A similar fallacy is involved in another argument, com- 
 monly used by the enemies of improvement, that the con- 
 stitution must not be tampered with. Now, this is a plea 
 of considerable weight wherever the existing order of 
 things is the result of one comprehensive plan ; wherever 
 the claims of the different elements of the social body 
 
10 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 have been impartially weighed, and each has received that 
 exact proportion of power and consequence which a sound 
 view of the general good would assign to it. Under such 
 circumstances partial alterations may mar the symmetry 
 of the whole ; and a general change is not likely to be 
 needed. But where the existing constitution is the mere 
 result of various partial and independent reforms, each of 
 which redressed one particular grievance, while incon- 
 gruities in the rest of the body politic were suffered to 
 continue unheeded ; it is worse than idle to speak of it as 
 one uniform system, digested by comprehensive wisdom ; 
 and to deprecate the repetition of those particular reforms 
 to which all its excellence is owing, and which may by 
 easy gradations bring it at last to a practical perfection, 
 without the necessity of a complete revolution. 
 
 These remarks apply to the history of almost all na- 
 tions ; except those which have received an entire consti- 
 tution at one particular time, founded on comprehensive 
 views of the rights and interests of all orders of men in 
 the country, and providing justly and wisely for the good 
 of each and of all. Where such a constitution has been 
 digested, proposals for any partial subsequent reforms are 
 justly to be regarded with strong suspicion ; because 
 where the parts of a system have been expressly framed 
 with a view to each other and to the whole, an alteration 
 in any one of them introduced with a particular object is 
 likely to harmonize ill with the rest, and to produce a 
 general inconvenience greater than the local one which it 
 was designed to remedy. 
 
 But it has rarely or never happened that the terms of 
 this hypothesis have been fully complied with. In the 
 constitutions given by the lawgivers of antiquity, or in 
 that actually enjoyed by the United States of America, 
 although these were framed much more on certain general 
 principles than the constitutions of modern Europe, yet 
 there was an order of men which they did not embrace, 
 which formed no part in the civil edifice, and with regard 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 11 
 
 to which the system of the legislator was imperfect, and 
 required future revision. While all classes of citizens 
 were provided for, there was a class of men which re- 
 mained unregarded, and whom justice seemed to have 
 abandoned the class of predial or domestic slaves. 
 Among the ancient lawgivers, indeed, the time perhaps 
 was never contemplated when justice should have her 
 perfect work, and all who possessed the same human 
 nature should be regarded as fit elements of civil society. 
 But now that Christianity has so greatly enlarged and 
 purified our notions of moral good, all systems, where 
 slavery exists, are regarded as confessedly imperfect, and 
 the propriety of improvement, confessed by all as a ques- 
 tion of principle, is only contested on particular and tem- 
 porary grounds. I have shewn, that even the cases which 
 I acknowledge as exceptions are not to be considered as 
 altogether such, in order more fully to confirm the general 
 statement, that considering the origin and subsequent 
 history of civil societies, there is a presumption a priori 
 in favour of any alteration whose avowed tendency is to 
 extend or enlarge the enjoyment of civil rights. 
 
 And now, I would ask of those who shrink from what 
 they call liberal opinions, as if they were connected with 
 a disregard for Christianity, in what do the opinions which 
 have been here expressed differ from the spirit of the 
 Gospel? Is it unchristian to labour to effect the destruc- 
 tion of injustice ; to promote the growth of equal rights ; 
 to advance the physical and moral condition of mankind 
 by applying to the constitution of society those notions of 
 perfect goodness and wisdom which the Gospel, and the 
 Gospel alone, has taught us ? Or will it be said, that all 
 worldly objects are too insignificant to engage the atten- 
 tion of an heir of immortality ? Yet it is only by the pur- 
 suit of some worldly object that we can perform our 
 worldly duty, and so train ourselves up for immortality; 
 it is by improving the various faculties that are given to 
 us that we can fit ourselves for our everlasting habitations. 
 
12 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 Or can the relief of the ordinary physical wants of indi- 
 viduals be so high and essential a virtue, and yet the 
 remedying those political evils, which affect both the 
 physical and moral condition of millions, be no fit object 
 of our exertions ? And since in the present state of 
 society we can scarcely avoid being called upon to act, 
 or to express an opinion, directly or indirectly, upon public 
 matters which may influence the conduct of others, is it 
 well to remain in such ignorance of the principles and 
 facts of political science, that our practice is but a leap in 
 the dark, and our advice and influence can do nothing 
 but mislead ? 
 
 But it may be said, existing laws and existing govern- 
 ments are invested with the authority of God, and cannot be 
 resisted without sin. It does not, indeed, require the light of 
 Christianity to teach us that no individual can be justified 
 in offering active physical resistance to the government, 
 or in disobeying the laws for any private advantage of his 
 own. Metellus Numidicus understood the duty of passive 
 obedience, when he yielded peaceably to an unjust sen- 
 tence of banishment, and would not suffer his party to 
 procure its repeal by violence. And certainly our Lord's 
 strong expressions, when enjoining his disciples to resist 
 not evil, must apply even more strongly when the resist- 
 ance, besides implying a want of meekness in ourselves, 
 would also disturb the general peace of society. So, also, 
 under a system of oppressive taxation, if the existing laws, 
 however unjustly, authorize the exaction, then we are 
 bound to be subject not only for wrath, but also for con- 
 science' sake; we should not presume to think that the 
 injustice of the tax warrants us in evading it. But as 
 the first Christians, while they never defended themselves 
 by physical force, yet persevered in the most determined 
 efforts to overthrow the established idolatry and corrupt 
 practices of the Roman empire, and laboured earnestly to 
 introduce a purer system in their room; so should we 
 labour, every man according to his knowledge and influ- 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 13 
 
 ence, that established injustice and corruption should be 
 overthrown, and that such laws as are oppressive or partial 
 should be laws no longer. And is this only to be effected 
 by violence ? or does not experience shew that steady 
 perseverance in a just cause mostly renders violence un- 
 necessary; and that truth, when sealed by the labours, 
 the sufferings, nay, if it be needful, even the blood of its 
 advocates, at last shames the few who have continued 
 longest to oppose it from any further struggle against it ? 
 Or when its converts are become so numerous that it is 
 no more a small body of individuals striving to reform a 
 corrupt state of society, but the society itself is divided, 
 each division containing within itself the elements of a 
 distinct social existence, numbers, and wealth, and rank, 
 and intelligence ; by what other laws can their mutual 
 relations be judged, than by those which apply not to 
 individuals the subjects of one society, but to the several 
 societies of the human race themselves, who acknowledge 
 no common law but that founded on the eternal principles 
 of justice ? Then if a contest ensue, its lawfulness must 
 be decided on the same grounds which determine our 
 judgment of national wars; one party must incur deep 
 guilt in drawing the sword; but to which the guilt is to be 
 attached depends solely on the merits of the question at 
 issue, and in no degree on the former relation which 
 subsisted between them while they were parts of the 
 same society. 
 
 I may be allowed, perhaps, to notice one other impres- 
 sion, which tends strongly to indispose many minds 
 a priori to what are called liberal principles : and this is 
 the notion that the advocates for improvement rest their 
 cause solely on theory, that the existing state of things 
 may, indeed, be often liable to objection on abstract prin- 
 tiples, but that, practically, it works and has worked well. 
 No answer has been more frequent than this in the 
 mouths of the enemies of Reform ; none, perhaps, has so 
 often satisfied the rising scruples of honest but ignorant 
 
14 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 minds, and persuaded them that they may shut their eyes 
 upon the evils which they see around them, for that the 
 whole system, with its evil and its good, has had the sanc- 
 tion of experience; and that the plans proposed for its 
 amendment are but the dreams of ingenious theorists, the 
 mere imagination of intellectual enthusiasts. Now this 
 belief, so injurious to our own moral improvement, as it 
 accustoms us to a contented acquiescence in moral evil, 
 is either altogether founded on falsehood, or is wholly in- 
 applicable to the conclusions which they who inculcate it 
 wish to make its practical consequence. It is false that 
 experience sanctions existing institutions, and that theory 
 alone objects to. them. What is called theory is, in fact, 
 a wider experience than that which pretends exclusively 
 to the name. The practical man sets his own individual 
 experience, limited in place, and most span-like in dura- 
 tion, against that accumulated experience of many coun- 
 tries and all ages, whose conclusions he calls a theory. 
 He presumes to judge of the whole by that small part of 
 it which he has himself witnessed : he has seen the first 
 stages only of intoxication, and knowing nothing but from 
 his own observation, he calls it mere theory, when he is 
 told that the short-lived merriment and animation which 
 had so charmed him would surely be followed by stupe- 
 faction and nausea. The effect of institutions can only 
 be judged of after an experience far longer than the 
 longest life of an individual ; nor will one single specimen 
 inform us how far local or temporary causes may have 
 aggravated or softened their inherent properties. They 
 must be watched from their origin to their extinction; 
 their natural consequences must be distinguished from 
 their accidental results ; the experiment must be tried on 
 various subjects in order to be satisfied that its operation 
 is uniform; before we can be fairly said to judge of them 
 from experience. But this true experience, furnishing, 
 indeed, a safe and universal rule, is no other than what is 
 often called theory ; unattainable to the vulgar, because it 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 15 
 
 alike exceeds their perseverance, their grasp of mind, and 
 their capacities of discrimination ; and hated by the ignor- 
 ant and low-principled, because it is at once above their 
 reach, and because its lessons offer no apology for insti- 
 tutions founded on injustice, and supported by selfish- 
 ness and folly. 
 
 So far, then, it is false that men who are well acquainted 
 with persons and things now existing, men who have 
 mixed extensively in society in their own country, but 
 whose knowledge of other times and other countries is 
 exceedingly imperfect, have any right to put their experi- 
 ence on a level with that far more universal experience 
 which thinking and inquiring minds have gained from a 
 comprehensive study both of the present and the past. 
 But if many of the advocates for reform in various parts 
 of our institutions have been theorists in the true meaning 
 of the term, if they have ventured to form conclusions on 
 an imperfect induction, or from some defect in themselves 
 have proposed systems almost as faulty as those which 
 they wished to alter, they individually may be undeserving 
 of confidence ; yet this failure affords not the shadow of 
 an excuse for the vaunts of their adversaries. " Even a 
 one-eyed man is a king amongst the blind;" and the 
 glimmering of twilight is better than the thick darkness on 
 which it has begun to dawn. Let the light, indeed, shine 
 more and more unto the perfect day ; but let us not so 
 complain of the indistinctness of the dawn as to prefer the 
 unbroken obscurity of midnight. Let those who com- 
 plain of the ill-grounded theories of reformers reprove 
 their fault in the best manner, by working their way them- 
 selves to a fuller knowledge; but let them not rest con- 
 tented in the very depths of ignorance, because those who 
 have assayed to soar into a purer region have been unable 
 in their first trial to escape altogether beyond the range of 
 the mists of the valley. 
 
 But is there, then, so much to learn ; and have our fore- 
 fathers indeed lived in so intense a darkness? Let any 
 
16 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 Christian look first upon the volume of the New Testa- 
 ment, and then turn his eyes to the existing state of 
 society, to the wars of ambition, to the conquests, the per- 
 secutions, the corruptions, the sufferings, the low princi- 
 ples, and lower practice, which have prevailed during the 
 last eighteen hundred years, amidst men who have pro- 
 fessed the Christian faith, and called themselves the 
 redeemed and sanctified people of God ! Alas ! for the 
 words of Christ's Prayer, so often repeated in mockery, 
 when we daily beg of God that his kingdom may come, 
 whilst our institutions, our principles, and our practice 
 uphold the kingdom of another master ! Alas ! for the 
 unfulfilled promises of the older prophecies, whose accom- 
 plishment has been so long hindered, while we either 
 regard them as a splendid vision of eastern fancy, or 
 murmur and are offended because the blessings designed 
 for a world that should be the image of Heaven have 
 found no place amidst our evil passions and abounding 
 iniquity ! Dissatisfaction with ourselves is wisdom, but it 
 is the most fatal folly to gaze with regret upon the past, 
 rather than to turn with an eager and inquiring hope to 
 the future. We are not worse than our fathers ; it is 
 shame enough that we are not more advanced than we are 
 beyond their exceeding badness; but our desire should 
 be to be ten thousand times better ; not looking back to 
 the things behind, but pressing forward to those that are 
 before, until we grow up into the perfect man ; into the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. 
 
 I write as a Christian to Christians, and I have thought 
 it neither irrelevant to my particular subject, nor generally 
 unimportant, to endeavour to point out the unchristian 
 tendency of those prejudices in favour of past times and 
 established institutions which with too many close the 
 ears and the understanding against the claims of truth 
 and justice. Whereas he who knows the origin of society 
 and its actual vicissitudes on the one hand, and has learnt 
 from Christ's Gospel to understand what it ought to be on 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 17 
 
 the other, will at once see that the antiquity of an institu- 
 tion does not afford a presumption in favour of its excel- 
 lence; and that instead of idle language about holding 
 fast to the laws of our ancestors, our constant object 
 should be to carry on those successive improvements to 
 which all that is good in them is owing; not to doat upon 
 the productions of our childhood, but to labour to bring 
 them to the perfection of the ripest wisdom of manhood. 
 And we shall find that in the consideration of our imme- 
 diate subject these general principles are peculiarly ap- 
 plicable. 
 
 The origin of the present form of civil society in Ireland 
 was conquest; and, what was more unfavourable to the 
 establishment of just institutions, it was a conquest ob- 
 tained over a barbarous people by another scarcely less 
 barbarous, and of a race and language at once distinct 
 and dissimilar. Now in that order of God's providence 
 by which even our wickedness is sometimes made to pro- 
 mote his purposes of good, it cannot be denied that the 
 ultimate consequences of conquest have been in many 
 instances highly beneficial to the conquered themselves ; 
 a better national character has been produced by the in- 
 termixture of different races, and laws, commerce, and 
 general civilization have been communicated by the con- 
 querors to their subjects. To talk in this case of a con- 
 tinued right in the conquered people to regain by force 
 that which they had lost by force is palpably foolish, for 
 in a few generations there are neither conquerors nor con- 
 quered remaining, but one united people sprung from the 
 intermixture of both, and professing in its improved moral 
 and physical condition reasons for remembering only with 
 thankfulness the cause which first brought its two ele- 
 ments into contact. But where the wounds inflicted by 
 the first conquest have never been suffered to heal ; where 
 the conquerors have continued to form a distinct people, 
 and the conquered have been regarded as an inferior race ; 
 where conquest, in short, has never been softened into 
 
 c 
 
18 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 union, but retains all the harshness of its original features, 
 aggravated by successive centuries of irritation ; such a 
 state of things is a perpetual crime, and the original guilt 
 of the conquerors must* for ever extend to their posterity, 
 so long as, by neglecting to remedy or palliate its evil con- 
 sequences, they make themselves a party to it. It is too 
 late then to talk of the inconveniences of extending the 
 rights of citizens to those whose peculiar opinions dis- 
 qualify them for an union with their conquerors. We 
 brought them forcibly into our national society, and we 
 must not shiink from the just consequences of our own 
 act. And the plea of conscience, when urged as an excuse 
 for not offering atonement for our crime, while we con- 
 tinue to profit by its fruits, is no better than self-deceit 
 and hypocrisy. If Protestants urge that they cannot 
 allow Catholics to have any voice in the government, why 
 did they bring a Catholic people into political connection 
 with themselves ? If they so dread the infection of Ca- 
 tholic opinions, why do they oblige Catholics to live and 
 breathe in the same society with themselves ? But this 
 they have chosen to do; and if their health be endangered, 
 they have only themselves to thank for it. 
 
 In saying this, it will not be supposed that I am gravely 
 arguing in favour of a total separation between this country 
 and Ireland. When I urge that those who refuse to do 
 Ireland justice, and make conscience their plea for the 
 refusal, are bound not to be conscientious only where it 
 suits their own interests, but to make restitution in full if 
 they scruple at coming to a fair compromise ; I mean to 
 shew the futility of their plea, and to insist that it is only 
 a deceived or self-deceiving conscience which advances it. 
 In fact, it is a plea which would dissolve the whole fabric 
 of society throughout Europe, and would make it im- 
 possible for men of different religions to live together as 
 fellow-citizens, if they mutually insisted upon their own 
 exclusive supremacy. The connection between this coun- 
 try and Ireland is not now to be torn asunder; the injus- 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 19 
 
 tice which we have done cannot now in that manner be 
 rendered undone ; but it is our bounden duty to remedy 
 its actual evil effects. What ought to have been done 
 long since should at least no longer be delayed ; we should 
 hasten to remove all those marks of our original violence, 
 which leave us still guilty till they are wiped away : we 
 should make it as impossible even to dream of a separation 
 with Ireland, as to breakup England itself into the original 
 elements of its heptarchy. 
 
 But it has been urged by Lord Be.xley that the Catho- 
 lics of Ireland are not the Irish nation ; that we are united 
 with the Protestants of Ireland, and that they, politically 
 speaking, constitute Ireland. Thus it is that the language 
 of municipal law, so often the mere organ of power, is 
 quoted to give an imposing sanction to injustice. What 
 are the Protestants of Ireland but military colonies planted 
 by the conquering nation in a conquering province, who 
 can only have a distinct existence so long as the evils of 
 conquest are unatoned for, and the tenure is one of might 
 and not of right. Such in the reign of Augustus were the 
 colonies of Narbo, Vienna, and Lugdunum in Gaul ; of 
 Corduba and Hispalis in Spain ; and whilst these alone 
 possessed the privileges of citizenship, whilst these alone 
 were regarded by the Romans as enjoying legal exist- 
 ence, so long was the connection with Gaul and Spain 
 forced and insecure, so long were the massacres and 
 spoliations of the first Csesar an enduring crime of the 
 Roman government. But the Italian war had taught the 
 Romans a memorable lesson; and the statesmen and law- 
 yers of Rome were not incapable of profiting by the ex- 
 perience of the past. Within sixty years after the death 
 of Augustus, the rights of Roman citizens were bestowed 
 on all the free inhabitants of Gaul, and from that period 
 Gaul was truly united to the empire, her old language 
 and her old customs were gradually forgotten, and the 
 bonds which bound her to Italy could only be torn asunder 
 by the general convulsion of the civilized world. To con- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 sider, then, the Protestants of Ireland as the Irish nation 
 is merely to perpetuate the injustice of our original con- 
 quest ; to say that, although inferior in numbers, they pos- 
 sess a great superiority in property, is to keep alive the 
 memory of those sweeping confiscations which transferred 
 the soil of Ireland to the conquerors, and of those more 
 atrocious laws which, down to the year 1778, forbade the 
 Irish Catholic to become a purchaser of land in his own 
 country. Who can wonder, that if we on our part still 
 display the trophies of victory, the majority of the Irish 
 people should cherish a bitter recollection of their defeat? 
 that if we, till within the last fifty years, so far abused the 
 rights of conquest as to hinder the conquered from re- 
 gaining by peaceful industry the property which they had 
 lost, they should have remembered how they had lost it, 
 and by what means alone they could expect to recover a 
 share of it ? The stream of events cannot flow backward, 
 nor is there any fear that the injustice of our conquest 
 will be removed by an opposite injustice : unless we 
 obstinately refuse ourselves to obliterate its traces, and 
 persist in treating Ireland as a conquered province, where 
 our Protestant colonies alone are to enjoy the rights of 
 citizens. 
 
 It may be urged as a last plea for still calling upon Par- 
 liament to persevere in the iniquities of our ancestors, 
 that exclusion from the full rights of citizenship is not 
 directed against the Irish Catholics as Irishmen, but as 
 Catholics ; and that the Catholics of England are in some 
 respects subjected to still greater disqualifications. This 
 also is one of those arguments which men are liable to 
 advance, while they want the knowledge or the ability to 
 connect the present state of things with the causes that 
 produced it. That the majority of the Irish people are 
 Catholics at this hour is almost demonstrably owing to 
 the English conquest, combined with the neglect of those 
 measures which repair the evil of conquest. Had Ireland 
 been left to herself she would have experienced in all 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 21 
 
 human probability the same course of events with the 
 other countries of the North of Europe. Her kings 
 would have become impatient of the papal pretensions ; 
 her aristocracy would have been jealous of the wealth and 
 consequence of the Church ; her Commons would have 
 been alienated by the unworthy lives of the clergy ; and 
 with these predisposing causes to aid them, the doctrines 
 of the reformers would have taken root as effectually as 
 they did in Scotland and in England. Or had conquest 
 been followed by an effectual union ; had we known how 
 to improve, and conciliate, and civilize, as well as we 
 understood the arts of slaughter and confiscation, Ireland 
 
 O * 
 
 would have had one heart with England, and Connaught 
 and Minister would have opposed no greater obstacles 
 to Protestantism than Cornwall and Cumberland ; it would 
 have been merely the slowness of ignorance, and not the 
 deep aversion of national hatred. But now Ireland is 
 Catholic because Protestantism was associated in her eyes 
 with subjugation and oppression; she clung the more 
 fondly to her superstitions because they were renounced 
 and persecuted by her enemy. And who can doubt but 
 that the dread and hatred of Popery which prevailed in 
 England during the seventeenth century were at least 
 greatly aggravated by causes arising out of her political 
 relations with Ireland. If there was one thing more than 
 another which made Popery detestable, it was the Irish 
 rebellion and massacre of 1642 : or, at a later period, the 
 support which Ireland gave to James the Second, and the 
 Acts of James's Irish Parliament in 1689. Now, although 
 religious animosity had a great share in the violences of 
 both these periods ; yet it was so mixed up with feelings 
 of national and' political hatred, that they ought not to be 
 regarded as the mere effects of Catholic bigotry, but as 
 the atrocious vengeance of a barbarous people upon those 
 who had conquered and held them in subjection. In all^ 
 these cases, to remember only the wickedness of the re- 
 taliation, and to pass over the injustice which provoked it, 
 
22 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 is at once morally and politically blameable. Let us abhor 
 as much as we will the individual actors in scenes of 
 cruelty, but let us not think that their guilt can cancel 
 ours ; or that because evil has been overthrown by worse 
 evil, that therefore we are justified in restoring and uphold- 
 ing it. 
 
 Once again, it is urged by some that the disabilities 
 imposed on the Catholics are no other than all govern- 
 ments may enact in their discretion upon particular classes 
 of their subjects : and parallels are sought for in the law 
 which disables clergymen from sitting in the House of 
 Commons ; and in those which make the possession of a 
 certain amount of income an indispensable qualification 
 for a member of the legislature, or even for an elector in 
 the county election. With respect to the privilegium 
 against Home Tooke, for such in fact it was, which 
 assumed the thin cloak of a general principle to cover 
 its real motives of personal aversion and fear, it is difficult 
 to conceive how one act of injustice can be a defence for 
 another ; and the depriving the clergy of their rights as 
 citizens, when their old rights as a distinct order in the 
 State had been taken from them, was a measure worthy 
 of the suspicions and violence of the time at which it was 
 effected. But to require in a legislator the possession of 
 such wealth as ought fairly to place him above any cor- 
 rupt temptation, is allowed by the highest authorities 
 in political science to be a provision for the common 
 benefit; and it is a principle equally just and beneficial, 
 however particular circumstances may sometimes require. 
 it to be modified, that he who has no interest in the 
 maintenance of society, should have no voice in the 
 choice of those who are to defend and govern it. But 
 even admitting that it were otherwise, yet there is one 
 great distinction between these laws of disqualification 
 and those which affect the Catholics of Ireland. The 
 clergy form one particular profession ; the poor form one 
 particular class in society; but they are intermingled 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 23 
 
 locally as well as politically with other professions and 
 other classes ; so that it is impossible that either should 
 constitute a distinct society by themselves. They are 
 essentially parts of a whole ; and as such, submission is 
 their duty; and Government may lawfully, on its own 
 conscientious belief of its being for the general good, im- 
 pose on them restrictions which they may consider in- 
 jurious. And this same principle applies also to the 
 Catholics of England, whose claims certainly could not be 
 urged with justice if they were likely to be dangerous to 
 the Church establishment of England that is, to the in- 
 terests of the great majority of that society of which the 
 Catholics are necessarily and naturally a part. It applies 
 also, it may be observed, to very small portions of a 
 national society, even though they may be locally dis- 
 tinct; as, for instance, it were idle for the inhabitants of 
 one single county, united as they are by laws, language, 
 customs, and habits of living, to the rest of the nation, to 
 consider themselves as capable of forming a distinpt 
 national society. Thus when Johnson, a in order to ridi- 
 cule the pretensions of the American Congress, imagines 
 a congress of Cornishmen assembled at Truro to hold a 
 similar language, and then adds, that he knows no argu- 
 ment used by the Americans which may not with greater 
 justice be urged by the Cornishmen, he forgets the infi- 
 nitely different ratio which America and Cornwall bear 
 towards Great Britain ; and that distance, resources, and 
 population fitted the former as decidedly for a separate 
 social existence, as its close local connection, and its 
 comparative insignificance in power and numbers, marked 
 the latter as a natural part of the civil society of Britain. 
 Now the Catholics of Ireland are not a single profession, 
 like the clergy ; nor a single class of society, like the 
 poor ; on the contrary, they comprehend all the different 
 elements of a nation ; nobility, wealth, intelligence, num- 
 
 a In his Pamphlet, entitled " Taxation no Tyranny," vol. viii. of his 
 Works, 8vo. edit. 1806. 
 
24 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 bers, and variety of professions and occupations. Nor 
 again, are they so locally mixed up with the mass of 
 British society as to form only a necessary part of it, in- 
 capable of a separate existence. On the contrary, Nature 
 herself has marked out their boundaries with a decided 
 hand; and Ireland is, geographically speaking, a world 
 by itself. Further, they are not so insignificant a portion 
 of the society of the empire as to be bound, under all cir- 
 cumstances, to submit to the will of the majority, because 
 their separation could not be contemplated without ridi- 
 cule. Many states in Europe, far inferior to Ireland in 
 population and resources, and far less favourably situated, 
 have enjoyed, and still enjoy, a happy and glorious inde- 
 pendence. If, by a persevering refusal to treat the Irish 
 as citizens, we urge them hereafter to consider themselves 
 as foreigners, they may be called rebels in England during 
 the continuance of the struggle, but as soon as it is over 
 the name of rebellion will be exchanged for that of war, 
 and even municipal law will allow of our then giving it a 
 title which universal law and the voice of all other nations 
 had conferred on it from the very beginning. 
 
 Nay, even were we to extend the principle of non-resist- 
 ance to societies as well as to individuals ; if we hold that 
 war is under all circumstances unlawful, and that the 
 nation which repels injury by force is ever to be con- 
 demned, still this cannot lessen the guilt of those who 
 offer injury, or of those who make the injustice of the 
 government their own by their loud petitions to persevere 
 in it. Naboth certainly would have been guilty of rebel- 
 lion, had he attempted as an individual to maintain his 
 vineyard against Ahab by force ; but would this have 
 altered the wickedness of the king's act in seizing it, or of 
 those counsellors who had instigated him to the crime? 
 If it be sinful even to resist evil, how much more sinful is 
 it to do evil? But some are not ashamed to argue that 
 although the present state of things in Ireland is the 
 result of injustice, yet that it is not injustice now to main- 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 25 
 
 tain it; that our fathers are answerable for the sin, and 
 that we may fairly reap the profit of it. I know not a 
 mote striking proof of the lamentable ignorance in which 
 many good men live as to all political duties, than that 
 any one calling himself a Christian should use such an 
 argument as this. Apply it to private life, and he who 
 would advance it is not an erroneous reasoner, but defi- 
 cient in common honesty ; " non verbis et disputatione 
 philosophorum sed vinculis et carcere fatigandus." The 
 Catholic St. Louis, King of France, had other notions of 
 Christian duty than these. He, not contented with the 
 scrupulous justice of his own Christian life, "appointed 
 commissaries to inquire what possessions had been un- 
 justly annexed to the Royal domain during the two last 
 reigns. These were restored to the proprietors, or, where 
 length of time had made it difficult to ascertain the 
 claimant, their value was distributed among the poor." a 
 This was the real tenderness of an enlightened conscience ; 
 this was a true horror of the contamination of that worst 
 idolatry, unrighteous gain. But to make no attempts to 
 compensate for our fathers' injustice, or to think that sin 
 can ever die to those who retain the benefit of it without 
 repairing the evil which it occasioned, is indeed to " allow 
 the deeds of our fathers," and to expose ourselves to the 
 heavy judgment denounced against those who repent not 
 of their fathers' crimes. 
 
 As a last resource, we are opposed by the argument 
 " that men have no right to govern themselves, but only to 
 be kindly and justly treated by their governors. That, 
 therefore, the Irish Catholics may indeed claim exemption 
 from persecution and tyranny, but that they have no right 
 to a voice in the Legislature, or to exercise the highest 
 functions of free citizens, the administration of the whole 
 state." Now if men, that is, if societies of men, for we 
 are not speaking of individuals, have not a right to govern 
 themselves, who has the right to govern them ? Govern- 
 a Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 42. 8vo. edit. 
 
26 CIIBISTJAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 ment is either a matter of agreement, as when the pro- 
 prietors in a joint-stock company depute some of their 
 body to manage the concerns of the whole ; or it arises 
 out of a natural superiority, either temporary, as that of 
 men over boys and children, or perpetual, as that of men 
 over beasts. Now it is very true that beasts have no right 
 to govern themselves, but only to be kindly and justly 
 governed ; for men have a natural superiority over them, 
 which is perpetual and unalterable; and God has accord- 
 ingly declared his will, that to men they should be sub- 
 ject. It is true also, that boys and children have no right 
 to govern themselves while they remain boys and children, 
 for there also is a natural superiority in their parents and 
 elders over them ; and God has accordingly in this case 
 also sanctioned this authority by his express law. But as 
 soon as boys arrive at manhood, the superiority of nature 
 on the part of the parent expires ; then, therefore, the child 
 has a right to govern himself, and this the law of Christian 
 countries, justly, as I conceive, interpreting the divine 
 law, has agreed to acknowledge. A child, then, has no 
 right to govern himself while he is a child, but he has a 
 right so to be governed as shall qualify him for governing 
 himself hereafter; and what should we say of the guilt of 
 that parent who should wilfully neglect his son's educa- 
 tion in order to protract the period of his own authority ? 
 Now according to the general belief of ancient times, such 
 a natural superiority existed in some classes of men over 
 the rest, and was derived from a supposed divine extrac- 
 tion : for the descendants of those deified men who were 
 amongst the earliest objects of idolatry, were accounted 
 themselves to be a race of demigods or heroes, and to be 
 entitled to the exclusive possession of the offices of king 
 and priest ; of king, because as men were the natural lords 
 of the brute creation, so demigods were the natural rulers 
 of men; of priest, because the gods would receive no 
 strangers' services with the same satisfaction as those 
 offered by their own descendants. These were the 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 27 
 
 @a<nXYig of the heroic age of Greece, and a 
 similar belief gave a sacred authority to the Brahmins of 
 India, the Lucumones of Etruria, the Patricians of Rome, 
 and the hero race who, according to the national traditions, 
 were the earliest sovereigns of Egypt and of Aztlan. It 
 was the government of such kings that the old philoso- 
 phers accounted the most natural and perfect of all go- 
 vernments ; because it was the government of a superior 
 being, so far exalted above the nature of his subjects, 
 that his single worth and fitness to govern surpassed the 
 sum total of the virtues of the whole people besides. On 
 similar principles the existence of slavery was defended ; 
 some divisions of the human race were naturally fitted to 
 command, and others to obey ; and the former, amongst 
 whom the upholders of this doctrine tpok care to class 
 themselves, were only acting agreeably to the order of 
 nature when they made the latter their slaves. Still, how- 
 ever, it was a question whether this inferiority was acci- 
 dental or perpetual ; for, if it were the former, then eman- 
 cipation was the right of the slaves so soon as they became 
 fit for it, and the duty of the masters was to prepare them 
 in the mean time for exercising hereafter the power of 
 self-government. But in all these cases the principle was 
 just and intelligible, that a superiority of nature conferred 
 a title to authority over beings of an inferior order ; and 
 they who believed kings to be of superhuman extraction 
 and to possess superhuman virtues, justly maintained their 
 divine right to govern mankind, and justly asserted that 
 men were lawfully subject to them, and could claim no 
 more from them than they were bound themselves to 
 render to the brute creation, that is, just and kind treat- 
 ment, so far as it was compatible with an absolute right of 
 dominion. When, however, the conclusions of one set of 
 premises are appended to premises entirely opposite, the 
 incongruity would be truly ludicrous, were not its conse- 
 quences too mischievous to allow of laughter. It is among 
 the most humiliating instances of human folly that Chris- 
 
28 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 tians, while holding as one of the first principles of their 
 religion the common descent of all mankind, their com- 
 mon sinful nature, and common need of being born again 
 in Christ, should adopt a conclusion which rested wholly 
 on their supposed different extraction, and on the high 
 purity and excellence of some particular races contrasted 
 with the degraded state of others. To us who admit of no 
 such differences it is a conclusion little better than mon- 
 strous ; and the very fact that no beings exist in the world 
 who enjoy a natural superiority over mankind, and that no 
 one race of mankind possesses, except from accidental 
 causes, such a superiority over another, shews decisively 
 that God has given to men the right of self-government, 
 and that as no one race can claim dominion as its peculiar 
 birthright, so all lawful power over them is derived solely 
 from their own consent, and is a mere matter of arrange- 
 ment for the general benefit. Mankind, therefore, have a 
 right to govern themselves, that is to say, society is the 
 supreme power on earth, and the ordinances of society, 
 or the laws and the commands of magistrates who act in 
 the name and for the welfare of the society, are binding 
 upon all the individual members of it; but neither has any 
 one national society any authority to govern another, nor 
 still less have magistrates, who are but the officers of 
 society, any right to rule contrary to the will of that 
 society, or to exercise any greater power than it may 
 authorize. And if such magistrates, by the physical force 
 of a body of men purposely kept distinct from the in- 
 terests and feelings of the community, exercise and main- 
 tain a despotic power over society, it is a state as mon- 
 strous as if wild beasts were to occupy any country to the 
 exclusion of mankind ; and the social body would be as 
 fully justified in delivering itself from the unnatural vio- 
 lence of one of these brute enemies as of the other. The 
 Christian Scriptures indeed enjoin conscientious sub- 
 mission to government on the part of individuals, resting 
 this duty on the divine authority vested in it, as the 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 29 
 
 representative on earth of our supreme moral Governor. 
 They strongly condemn the doctrines of the Fifth Mon- 
 archy men, and of the ancient Jews, who held that the 
 saints were not subject to any earthly society, especially 
 when it consisted of heathens, because they had one only 
 King in heaven. They discourage the notion so common 
 amongst religious bigots, that there is something profane 
 in political institutions with which the servants of God 
 should not intermeddle. On the contrary, the apostles 
 teach that these political institutions are God's appointed 
 means of governing the world, and that he so highly 
 regards them as to invest them with one of his own attri- 
 butes, the dispensation of good to the well disposed, and 
 of punishment to the evil doer. If they are perverted from 
 fulfilling these purposes they are faulty and require amend- 
 ment, and every servant of God should use his best endea- 
 vours to restore them to their designed purity. But that 
 they who had so perverted them should be allowed to profit 
 by their own wrong, that they should in spite of nature 
 transfer the principles of government exercised over beings 
 naturally inferior to the government of beings naturally 
 equal ; and that this violation of the manifest laws of 
 God's providence, and obstruction of his declared will for 
 the perfecting of human society, should defend itself by 
 arguments grounded upon falsehood and idolatry, and then 
 claim to be sanctioned by divine truth, affords altogether a 
 melancholy instance of the art with which the great enemy 
 of all goodness employs the pretext of respect for the Gos- 
 pel, when he would most effectually prevent the Gospel 
 from bringing forth its proper fruits. 
 
 And now I would briefly recapitulate the proofs of my 
 original position, that it is a direct Christian duty to grant 
 the claims of the Roman Catholics, and a direct sin, how- 
 ever ignorantly committed, to endeavour to procure the 
 rejection of them. We conquered Ireland unjustly, and 
 have perpetuated the evils, and consequently the guilt, of 
 our first conquest. We refuse to admit the Irish nation 
 
30 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 into the pale of our civil society, whilst, by admitting into 
 it those Protestant military colonies by which we have 
 from time to time garrisoned Ireland, we keep up a broad 
 line of distinction between union and conquest, between 
 the small minority whom we make our fellow-citizens, and 
 the majority whom we treat as subjects. We plead the 
 inconveniences to ourselves of a connection with Ireland 
 on equal and just terms, while we affected in the first in- 
 stance, and still insist on maintaining, a connection on 
 unequal and unjust terms. We talk of the sin of uniting 
 ourselves with Papists, yet we force Papists to belong to 
 us ; and we plead the idolatry of the Catholics as a reason 
 for not doing them justice, when our own injustice has 
 been the cause of this idolatry still existing : and had it 
 not been for us, Ireland would in all human probability 
 have been at this moment Protestant. We confound an 
 entire national society with particular orders or professions 
 of society, and sacrifice the rights of one nation to the 
 interests of another, because the interests of a part of a 
 nation may lawfully be sacrificed to the paramount rights 
 of the whole. We attempt sometimes to justify our con- 
 duct by an argument, which, if acted upon in private life, 
 would cause a man to be banished from all honest society ; 
 namely, that we are not bound to repair an injustice done 
 by others, even though we continue to reap the profits of 
 it. We attempt at other times to defend it by transferring 
 conclusions, legitimately drawn from premises which we 
 acknowledge to be false, to the very contrary premises 
 which we acknowledge to be true. And we individually, 
 that is, the clergy, gentry, farmers, and shopkeepers of 
 this country, make ourselves each separately guilty of the 
 injustice which we have committed as a nation, by calling 
 upon our rulers to persevere in this wickedness, when they 
 appear inclined to relieve us and our posterity from the 
 curse which it must entail upon us, and to return at last 
 to the path of duty. 
 
 It is not, therefore, the advocates, but the enemies of 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 31 
 
 the Catholics who are preferring state policy to their 
 Christian duty ; it is not their advocates who would sacri- 
 fice the Protestant religion Jo the views of worldly expe- 
 diency, but their adversaries who would violate the plain 
 duties of our common Christianity, rather than consent to 
 the political evil of abandoning Ireland to herself, if their 
 consciences will not permit them to treat it with justice. 
 The plea of religion is wholly foreign to the question, ex- 
 cept upon such grounds as would authorize direct perse- 
 cution. If the believers in a true religion claim a title to 
 restrain those who are in error from the enjoyment of 
 their natural rights, in order to have a greater chance of 
 converting them to the truth ; then also they may pretend 
 to persecute them directly with the same object, and there 
 is no doubt that a thorough persecution will generally root 
 out the doctrines against which it is directed. Or if they 
 claim a natural superiority on account of the truth of their 
 religion, so that they are fitted to govern unbelievers, or 
 heretics, on the same principles that men govern children, 
 this is a pretension far less reasonable than if we were to 
 claim dominion over those nations whose constitutions 
 were unfavourable to the welfare of their people, or whose 
 moral character we might judge to be inferior to our own. 
 What human power can pronounce authoritatively upon 
 the truth of a religion, when every nation will with equal 
 zeal maintain the truth of its own? Or does Christ au- 
 thorize his servants as such to assume the office of judg- 
 ing the world, until the day when he shall himself appear 
 to pronounce the judgment? 
 
 Hitherto then I have argued the Question solely on the 
 ground of justice : and have shewn, that a third part nearly 
 of the inhabitants of the whole empire, containing in them- 
 selves all the different elements of a nation, locally dis- 
 tinct, differing in race, and a large part of them in language 
 also, from the people of Great Britain, cannot be con- 
 sidered as necessarily forming only a part of our national 
 society, on whom we as the majority may impose what 
 
32 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 rules we will, while they have no other duty but submis- 
 sion. We are bound either to treat them fairly, or not to 
 meddle with them at all ; and if our constitution must be 
 altered before they can be members of it, we are bound to 
 alter it ; as we, by making them subjects unjustly, contracted 
 voluntarily the obligation to make them citizens ; or else 
 we are labouring at this hour under the guilt of our an- 
 cestors' usurpations. But although this would be the 
 plain path of duty under any circumstances, yet it would 
 be a most painful alternative, had we to choose between 
 the overthrow of our religious institutions, and th dis- 
 memberment of the empire. No national evil that did 
 not involve national sin could be greater in my judgment 
 than the destruction of our Protestant Church Establish- 
 ment. That union of Church and State, which so many 
 good men lament and some condemn, appears to me to 
 be far too powerful a means of diffusing the blessings of 
 Christianity to be lightly broken asunder ; and although I 
 earnestly desire to see the actual abuses of that union 
 remedied, yet even now the good which it is daily working 
 is such as to make every sincere Christian regard at least 
 with anxiety the prospect of its dissolution. I have said 
 thus much, because the advocates of the Qatholic claims 
 are often accused of indifference to the safety of our own 
 Establishment. With whatever justice this may be im- 
 puted to some of their number, I beg in _my own case to 
 protest against the charge as wholly groundless and 
 untrue. I think certainly, that even the existence of our 
 Establishment would be too dearly purchased, if it could 
 only be upheld by injustice; I should be unwilling to do 
 evil that good might come ; to call upon Satan to cast out 
 Satan. But our Protestant Church is one of the greatest 
 blessings with which England has been favoured; and 
 may it exist secure from every enemy under the care of 
 its divine Head, and trusting in its lawful arms, the truth 
 of its doctrines, and the holiness of its members ! 
 
 With this feeling, not less sincere than theirs, who 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 33 
 
 express most loudly their fears for its actual safety, it is to 
 me a matter of deep joy that the very course which jus- , 
 tice calls on us to follow, should be also that which is 
 most likely to ensure the safety of the Protestant Church, 
 and to extend the influence of its doctrines : and that the 
 very act which does justice to Ireland, holds out also the 
 fairest promise of her moral and spiritual improvement. 
 So universally true is our Lord's declaration, that if we 
 seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all 
 other things shall be added unto us ; if we do our duty 
 without fear of the consequences, we shall most surely 
 gain those advantages which, had they tempted us to flinch 
 from our duty, we should for ever have forfeited. 
 
 Now at the commencement of this argument I am willing 
 to take the picture of Ireland and the Irish Catholics from 
 those who think most unfavourably of them. I am willing 
 to suppose that the Irish race are deeply tainted with bar- 
 barism ; that they know little of obedience to law ; that 
 they are the slaves of passion and feeling, and by conse- 
 quence deficient in the highest qualification of human 
 nature, self-denying virtue, founded upon a high-principled 
 sense of duty to God and man. I would allow, also, that 
 in no part of Europe, does the Roman Catholic religion 
 exist in a more aggravated form ; nowhere are its supersti- 
 tions more gross, or its bigotry more ferocious ; nowhere 
 is it a more fearful corruption of Christ's Gospel. But 
 with this unpromising race and with this dreadful religion 
 we have chosen to connect ourselves ; and we have thus 
 deprived ourselves of the right to regard them with mere 
 disgust and abhorrence; we must endeavour to better 
 them, and the more so as the virulence of the evil is in a 
 great degree to be attributed to our own neglect or abso- 
 lute ill treatment. Now how are they to be bettered, or f 
 can they not be bettered at all ? They can be bettered, 
 for the Roman Catholic religion wears so different an 
 aspect in different countries, that it may evidently be in- 
 fluenced by external causes : and they who believe in the 
 
34 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 common origin of all mankind, must conclude that all 
 important moral differences, between one race and another, 
 may be gradually removed as they have been created ; 
 and that, as unfavourable circumstances made them differ, 
 so a happier system and better institutions may in time 
 restore their original equality. Now a religion may be 
 externally influenced either by forcible or by gentle mea- 
 sures ; by persecution, or by persuasion and example. I 
 will not insult any of my readers by enlarging on the 
 utter wickedness of the first of these means ; but will at 
 once proceed to consider those others which we may and 
 ought to use. If we wish to influence any one by our 
 arguments or by our practice, should we be most likely to 
 succeed if previously he regarded us with suspicion and 
 ill-will, or if he were living on friendly terms with us? 
 The question may seem too simple to be seriously asked ; 
 and yet there are some who believe that Protestantism is 
 less likely to win its way among the Irish Catholics, when 
 being treated justly and kindly, they will regard its pro- 
 fessors as countrymen and friends, than it is at this mo- 
 ment, when it is looked upon as the badge of an enemy, 
 and when its name is indissolubly associated with hostility 
 and oppression. But let us see what I mean by saying 
 that Protestantism will win its way in Ireland if the claims 
 of the Catholics are granted. There will not be many 
 direct conversions; not many who will say in so many 
 words that they abjure the errors of popery, and go over 
 to the Protestant Church ; there will be very little of this 
 on either side, for there are stronger feelings in men's 
 minds opposed to a professed change of religion than any 
 that can be brought in favour of it. The nominal conver- 
 sion of the heathen world to Christianity is a misleading 
 example : for heathenism was not a matter of conscience 
 with most of its votaries, and wanted many of the strongest 
 links by which all forms of Christianity, and even Moham- 
 medanism itself, are bound to the hearts and minds of their 
 respective professors. Thus in modern Europe, wherever 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 35 
 
 Catholics and Protestants have been mixed largely toge- 
 ther, as in Germany, France, and Switzerland, neither 
 religion has nominally gained much over the other ; and 
 in those cantons of Switzerland in particular which are 
 divided between Catholics and Protestants, the Catholic 
 parishes have in general continued to be Catholic, and the 
 Protestant to be Protestant, without the limits of either 
 faith having been enlarged by proselytism. In fact, if 
 men of different religions are to live together in peace, 
 they must abstain from a direct interference with each 
 other's tenets; just as in marriages between two persons 
 of different persuasions, an arrangement is commonly 
 made which limits the influence of either parent over their 
 common children, and determines that some shall be 
 brought up in the opinions of their father, and others in 
 those of their mother. But although direct renunciations 
 of the Roman Cathojic tenets are likely to be few, yet the 
 general approximation of those tenets to the faith of Pro- 
 testants is likely to be very considerable. For this ex- 
 perience is our warrant ; inasmuch as the Roman Catholic 
 religion exists in its most corrupted form in those coun- 
 tries where there are either no Protestant?, as in Spain, 
 Portugal, and Italy, or where, from political animosities, 
 Protestants are regarded with suspicion and abhorrence, 
 as in Ireland. On the contrary, where Protestants are 
 numerous, and are living on friendly terms with Catholics, 
 there the Catholic religion exists in a very improved state, 
 and its worst abuses are practically done away with. I 
 have now before me two Catechisms : the one a Spanish 
 one, printed at Valladolid, apparently during the war with 
 Napoleon, but the date of the year is not given ; the other 
 printed at Rheims in 1822, and circulated by the orders 
 of the Archbishop of Rheims, for the use of his diocese. 
 Much certainly that is offensive to a Protestant ear may 
 be found even in the latter; yet the difference in tone be- 
 tween it and the Spanish Catechism is very remarkable ; 
 and sufficiently shews that the Roman Catholic religion is 
 
 D 2 
 
36 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 not always practically one and the same, although its 
 members, if pressed on the point by Protestants, might 
 think themselves bound to assert its unchangeableness. 
 For example, in the Spanish Catechism, after the catechu- 
 men has expounded the several Articles of the Apostles' 
 Creed, the catechist proceeds to ask, whether there are 
 any other things which he believes ? To which the an- 
 swer is given % " Yes, father; everything contained in the 
 holy Scriptures, and everything revealed by God to his 
 Church." " And what things are these?" proceeds the 
 catechist. " That," replies the catechumen, " you should 
 not ask of me, who am ignorant. There are Doctors in 
 our holy Mother Church, who will know how to answer 
 it." "You say well," resumes the catechist, "that it 
 becomes the Doctors of the Church, and not such as you, 
 to give an account of the extent of all the points of faith. 
 It is not enough for you to give an account of the Articles 
 as contained in the Creed." And again, in another place, 
 the catechumen, after enumerating the several means of 
 grace, mentions, as the last and most powerful b , " the 
 making choice of a wise, virtuous, and prudent confessor, 
 and obeying him in everything." " You say well," re- 
 joins the catechist, " and remember to act accordingly ; 
 for such a confessor will be like an angel, who will guide 
 
 a Si, Padre, todo lo que esta en la Sagrada Escutura, y quanto Dios 
 tiene revelado a su Iglesia. P. Que cosas son estas 1 R. Eso no me 
 lo pregunteis a mi, que soy ignorante: Doctores tiene la santa Madre 
 Iglesia, que lo sabran responder. M. Bien decis, que a los Doctores 
 conviene, y no a vosotros, dar cuenta por extenso de las cosas de la 
 Fe: a vosotros bastaos darla de los Articulos como se contienen en el 
 Credo. 
 
 b Por decir uno que abraza muchos, el elegir un confesor sabio, vir- 
 tuoso, y prudente, y sujetarse a el en todo. M. Bien decis. Hacedlo 
 pues vosotros asi, pues este os sera como un Angel, que os guiara, pro- 
 poniendo-os estos y otros medios, &c. 
 
 I have inserted the original words of these passages, because, as my 
 knowledge of Spanish is exceedingly slight, I may possibly have com- 
 mitted some mistakes in my translation of them ; although I believe 
 I have not mistaken the exact sense. 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 37 
 
 you by proposing to you these and other means of grace/ 
 &c. Now to the first of these extracts there is nothing at 
 all similar in the French Catechism ; and with regard to 
 the confessor, all that is said is a practical rule at the end 
 of the Article on Confession, recommending every one 
 to choose a good confessor, who may question them, in- 
 struct them in their duties, and be a check on them ; and 
 advising them " to listen to his counsels, and follow them 
 with docility." Again, in the French Catechism the na- 
 ture of the honour paid to the Virgin Mary and the Saints 
 is carefully defined ; and it is expressly said that we may 
 not worship either the Virgin, or the Saints and Angels, 
 but God alone : nor may we pray to them to give us grace, 
 but to pray for it to God in our behalf; and that the cross 
 and the images of the Saints are not to be respected in 
 themselves ; for they have in them no divinity and no 
 virtue; Catholics address to them no prayers, and put no 
 trust in them ; but they may be honoured for the sake of 
 those whom they represent to us. But in the Spanish 
 Catechism there are none of these explanations, and it is 
 simply said that we should honour the images of the 
 Virgin, and of the Saints, and pray to the Angels and. 
 Saints, as to our mediators. Finally, in the French Cate- 
 chism there is at the end of every Article a list of passages 
 from the Scripture bearing on the subject of the Article, 
 which can only be inserted in order to encourage the study 
 of very large parts of the Scripture at least, if it does not 
 imply the recommendation of the whole volume. There 
 is not a word in the Spanish Catechism, on the other hand, 
 which refers the reader to $be Bible, or would lead him to 
 consider the study of the Scriptures as useful to him. And 
 this brings me to a difference in the Roman Catholic reli- 
 gion as it exists in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, 
 on the one hand, and in Italy on the other, of which every 
 one who has travelled through these countries may speak 
 from his own knowledge. In the three former, crucifixes 
 by the road side are sufficiently common ; but images of 
 
38 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 the Virgin and the Saints are comparatively rare; while 
 in Italy these last are more frequent than the crucifix. 
 Again, most of the modern paintings in the French 
 Churches are taken from Scriptural subjects : and what is 
 perhaps even more remarkable, amongst a collection of 
 thirty or forty coloured prints of the cheapest description 
 which I looked over in a shop at Cologne in June last, 
 there was not one relating to any legend of the Saints or 
 the Virgin, but the subjects of all were taken from the New 
 Testament. Whereas at Rome and in its neighbourhood 
 the pictures and legends of the Saints are far more nume- 
 rous on the walls of the Churches, by the road-sides, in 
 shops, and in houses, than pictures relating to our Lord, 
 or that are taken from the Old or New Testament. Now 
 it may be very true that a French or German priest, if 
 pressed by a Protestant, would declare that the faith of 
 his Church was one and unchangeable, and that the Ca- 
 tholics of Italy held the same doctrines as himself: but 
 still the practical effect is infinitely different, if the parts of 
 these doctrines which are prominently brought forward be 
 in one country the main truths of Christianity which Ca- 
 tholics hold in common with Protestants, and in another 
 their own peculiar corruptions of it. And this more 
 Christian aspect of the Roman Catholic faith exists in 
 every country where it has been much in contact with 
 Protestantism, except in Ireland; while there, on the 
 contrary, it presents itself in its very worst form. This is 
 in itself a phenomenon ; and this alone, if duly considered, 
 should induce every man who is anxious for the religious 
 improvement of his countrymen to promote the admission 
 of the Irish Catholics to their civil rights. Wherever 
 Catholics and Protestants have lived together on a friendly 
 footing, the influence of Protestantism has been insensibly 
 operating, and has practically improved the character of 
 Catholicism ; but where they have lived together as a 
 degraded and a persecuting caste; while the one has 
 groaned under a system of exclusion, and the other ex- 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 39 
 
 ulted in the enjoyment of its ascendancy, there has been 
 no room for the exercise of any beneficial influence ; men's 
 religion has become their party also ; and thus its most 
 distinctive peculiarities. have been rather obstinately main- 
 tained than softened or abandoned. Yet the Irish Pro- 
 testant Church is wealthy and learned ; and has numbered 
 amongst its ministers some of the most apostolical men 
 who have ever borne the Christian name. Under any other 
 circumstances their talents and their virtues, and the poli- 
 tical influence of their Church, might have attracted the 
 respect and love of the Catholics, might have drawn them 
 into a cordial union in works of charity and public utility, 
 and might in time have induced them to tolerate, if not, 
 like the Catholics of Germany, to encourage, the circula- 
 tion of the Scriptures amongst their people. But in Ire- 
 land the system of ascendancy has poisoned everything; 
 and, while the Catholic regarded the Protestant as an op- 
 pressor, and the Protestant looked upon the Catholic as 
 meditating insurrection, both were repelled from all ap- 
 proaches to union ; and each was forward to hurl upon 
 the other the names of heretic and idolater. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten, that if the influence of Pro- 
 testantism has improved the Catholic religion in Germany, 
 it might be expected, if it were once disentangled from its 
 encumbering armour of ascendancy, to produce a much 
 stronger effect in Ireland. That which the Puritans 
 charged upon the Church of England as its crime, has 
 always recommended it to the Catholics as the least offen- 
 sive of the Protestant Churches ; I mean its form of 
 Church government, its Liturgy, and its ceremonies. 
 Hitherto the objects of our Reformers, in avoiding all 
 needless departure from the doctrines and discipline of 
 the Church of Rome, have not been fully answered ; their 
 policy has, perhaps, disgusted more Protestants than it has 
 conciliated Catholics. I do not mean, therefore, to urge 
 that it was blameable ; but it will be a great reproach to 
 ourselves if, after having suffered so long from its ill 
 
40 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 effects, as exemplified in our bitter dissensions with the 
 Puritans, we do not now avail ourselves of the opportunity 
 which Ireland affords, to realise some of its intended 
 benefits. A Puritan clergy in Ireland, or a clergy at all 
 partaking of the spirit of Puritanism, would be an evil 
 which the Government should carefully watch over, and 
 to the utmost of its power vigorously prevent. There 
 should be no furious commentaries on the Apocalypse, no 
 raving about the sin of tolerating idolaters. The deep 
 folly of such conduct can hardly be an excuse for its utter 
 uncharitableness, and the incalculable mischief of its con- 
 sequences. Our language to the Roman Catholics should 
 be that of St. Paul to the Jews : " Believest thou the Pro- 
 phets ? I know that thou believest." " After the way that 
 you call heresy, so worship we the God of our fathers, 
 believing none other things than. those which the Prophets 
 and Moses did say should come." " You have a zeal of 
 God, but not according to knowledge." You are our 
 brethren, " yours are the fathers," and " if concerning the 
 Gospel you are at all our enemies, yet are you beloved 
 for the fathers' sake," even those same fathers a who, in 
 their heroic zeal for Christ's sake, became the fathers of 
 this very nation in Christ, and " in Christ Jesus have be- 
 gotten us through the Gospel." And if they receive our 
 charity with unkindness, against all example ; if our 
 Church, after all, shall produce less effect upon them than 
 has been wrought by other Protestant communions, whose 
 differences with them are more universal, we shall then, at 
 least, be entitled to say, what at present would be an im- 
 pious mockery, "Your blood be upon your own heads, 
 we are clean." We have, at last, presented truth to you 
 fairly, not as your oppressors and persecutors, from whose 
 hands even truth herself must be received with suspicion, 
 but as your countrymen and brethren, not pretending to 
 have dominion over your bodies, but, if it might be, willing 
 to deliver your minds from error, and to be helpers of 
 a Pope Gregory and Augustine. 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 41 
 
 your joy. If you reject it now, you reject not us, but the 
 truth itself: your fall will be your own fault, and we shall 
 be no more guilty of having thrown a stumbling-block in 
 your way, by uniting truth of religious profession with the 
 practice of iniquity and oppression. 
 
 The answer to all this is the mere repetition of the 
 assertion, " that popery is unchanged and unchangeable." 
 It is in vain that we appeal to facts, and shew that it is 
 not unchanged in practice ; that in some countries it is 
 practically Christianity mixed with some errors, while in 
 others it is practically idolatry and superstition bearing the 
 name of Christianity : that the German Catholics who cir- 
 culate the Scriptures are not exactly the same sort of per- 
 sons as the Italian Catholics who carefully proscribe 
 them : that the Catholic Kings of Saxony, who being the 
 absolute Sovereigns of a Protestant people have left the 
 Protestant Church Establishment in Saxony uninjured 
 and unmolested for a hundred years; and the reigning 
 monarch in particular, who by a recent law will allow no 
 convert from Protestantism to be received into the Catho- 
 lic Church till after an interval of some months after his 
 declaring his change, or without producing a certificate 
 from his Protestant minister that he had tried without 
 effect to shake his conviction ; that these Catholic princes 
 do not exactly resemble that picture of a persecuting 
 bigot, which we from the single example of James the 
 Second pronounce to be the common likeness of all 
 Catholic sovereigns. Or if we say that the Pope would 
 be very thankful to our zealous Protestants if they could 
 make their words good, and prove that his political influ- 
 ence over all Catholics outweighed all considerations of 
 allegiance, patriotism, or national interest; if we suggest 
 that not only have the Kings of France, the eldest sons of 
 the Church, constantly asserted against the Popes the 
 rights of their crown and nation ; but that Pope Pius the 
 Sixth went from Rome to Vienna in person to deprecate 
 in vain the vigorous ecclesiastical reforms of the Emperor 
 
42 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 Joseph the Second ; that the Republic of Venice by its 
 well-known distinction between the Church and the Court 
 of Rome, resisted all political interference of the Popes 
 while acknowledging their spiritual supremacy ; and that 
 neither the Catholic cantons of Switzerland nor the Ca- 
 tholic subjects of Prussia have ever allowed their religion 
 to interfere with their civil duties to their country and their 
 King: if we quote all these facts and a- hundred others of 
 the same kind, our opponents content themselves with 
 answering, that they know nothing about facts (which 
 indeed is true), but that they know that a Catholic must 
 always be a bigot, and must always obey the Pope im- 
 plicitly. They say that Catholics must be bigots, because 
 they believe that no heretics can be saved ; that they can- 
 not change their opinions, because holding the Church to 
 be infallible, what she has once decreed must for ever 
 remain valid ; or at least that they are fairly chargeable 
 with all the doctrines professed by the Council of Trent, 
 until another General Council shall have declared that 
 those doctrines are no longer to be maintained. If we 
 bring instances of Catholics who have shewn themselves 
 not bigoted, and who have not considered themselves 
 bound to obey the Pope in temporal matters; then we 
 are told that these are not true Catholics : and although 
 if this be so, a majority of the Catholics of Europe are not 
 true Catholics, and the probability is, that the Catholics of 
 Ireland will be no truer, in this sense of the term, than 
 those of the Continent, yet it is always assumed that they 
 will retain the extremest rigour of the tenets of their 
 Church, even under circumstances which, as experience 
 has shewn, have generally qualified them. 
 
 It is important however to enter into this subject some- 
 what more fully, and to shew the unfairness or the igno- 
 rance of the enemies of the Catholics when they thus 
 press upon them the most obnoxious tenets of the worst 
 ages of papal superstition and violence. Nearly three 
 centuries have now elapsed since the dissolution of the 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 43 
 
 Council of Trent; and since that time no General Council 
 has been assembled, and the Catholic Church has had no 
 opportunity of officially declaring its sentiments. As 
 then the long suspension of the sittings of the Convoca- 
 tion of our own Church has caused many things to remain 
 unaltered in our Liturgy and Church Government and 
 probably in our Articles, which would have been reformed 
 ere now had the Church still possessed the means of ex- 
 pressing its collective sentiments, the very same thing 
 may be fairly presumed with regard to the doctrines of the 
 Council of Trent. 
 
 But we are not left to mere conjecture as to the possi- 
 bility of a Church heartily disapproving its former official 
 acts without having ever actually disavowed them. Is 
 there any member of the Church of England now alive, 
 who does not disclaim and condemn the provisions arid 
 orders which I have here extracted from the " Constitu- 
 tion and Canons Ecclesiastical, treated and agreed upon 
 by the iwo Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the 
 rest of the Bishops and Clergy of those Provinces, in 
 their Synods begun at London and York, 1640, and pub- 
 lished for the due observation of them by his Majesty's 
 authority under the Great Seal of England." I quote 
 these Canons the more gladly a , because they are very little 
 known ; as it would be impossible for honest men so often 
 to deny that the Church of England was officially and 
 by its public acts a persecuting Church, if they had 
 even suspected the existence of such Canons as the 
 following. 
 
 a They are to be found in " A Collection of Articles, Injunctions, 
 Canons, Orders, &c., of the Church of England, published to vindicate 
 the .Church of England and to promote uniformity and peace in the 
 same," by Sparrow, in 1671 ; a proof, by the way, that in spite of the 
 non-confirmation of them by the statute 13 Charles II. the clergy 
 were not yet inclined to disavow them. 
 
44 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 FBOM CANON I. CONCERNING THE REGAL POWER. 
 
 "For any person or persons to set up, maintain, or 
 avow in any their (i. e. the realms or territories of Kings) 
 said realms or territories respectively, under any pretence 
 whatsoever, any independent coactive power, either papal 
 or popular, (whether directly or indirectly,) is to under- 
 mine their great royal office, and cunningly to overthrow 
 that most sacred ordinance which God himself hath 
 established : and so is treasonable against God, as well as 
 against the king." 
 
 FROM CANON III. FOR THE SUPPRESSING OF THE 
 GROWTH OF POPERY. 
 
 " But if neither conferring nor censures will prevail 
 with such persons, (i. e. Roman Catholics,) the Church 
 hath no way left but complaints to the secular power ; and 
 for them we straitly enjoin, that all Deans and Archdea- 
 cons, and all having inferior or exempt jurisdiction, shall 
 every year, within six months after any Visitation by them 
 holden, make certificate unto their several Bishops, or 
 Archbishop, (if it be within his diocese,) under their seal 
 of office, of all such persons who have been presented 
 unto them as aforesaid, under pain of suspension from 
 their said jurisdictions by the space of one whole year. 
 
 "And we in like manner enjoin all Archbishops and 
 Bishops, that once every year at the least they certify 
 under their Episcopal seal in parchment, unto the Justices 
 of Assize of every county in the circuits and within their 
 dioceses respectively, the names and surnames not only 
 of those who have been presented unto them from the said 
 Deans, Archdeacons, &c., but of those also who upon the 
 oaths of churchwardens and other sworn-men at their 
 Visitations, or upon the information of ministers employed 
 in the said conferences, have been presented unto them, 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 45 
 
 that so the said intended proceedings may have the more 
 speedy and the more general success. 
 
 " In particular, it shall be carefully inquired into at all 
 Visitations, under the oaths of the churchwardens and 
 other sworn-men, what recusants or Popish persons have 
 been either married or buried, or have had their children 
 baptized otherwise than according unto the rules and 
 forms established in the Church of England ; and the 
 names of such delinquents (if they can learn them, or 
 otherwise such names as for the time they carry) shall be 
 as aforesaid given up to the Bishop, who shall present 
 them to the Justices of Assize, to be punished according 
 to the statutes. 
 
 " And for the education of recusants' children, since by 
 Canon already established no man can teach school, (no, 
 not in any private house,) except he be allowed by the 
 Ordinary of the place, and withal have subscribed to the 
 Articles of Religion established in the Church of Eno 1 - 
 
 o o 
 
 land : we therefore straitly enjoin, that forthwith at all 
 Visitations there be diligent inquiry made by the church- 
 wardens or other sworn ecclesiastical officers of each 
 parish, under their oaths, who are employed as school- 
 masters to the children of recusants ; and that their seve- 
 ral names be presented to the Bishop of the diocese, who, 
 citing the said schoolmasters, shall make diligent search 
 whether they have subscribed or no ; and if they or any 
 of them be found to refuse subscription, they shall be 
 forbidden to teach hereafter, and censured for their former 
 presumption ; and withal the names of him or them that 
 entertain such a schoolmaster, shall be certified to the 
 Bishop of the diocese, who shall at the next Assize pre- 
 sent them to the Judges to be proceeded against accord- 
 ing to the statutes. And if they subscribe, inquiry shall 
 be made what care they take for the instruction of the 
 said children in the Catechism established in the Book 
 of Common Prayer. And all Ordinaries shall censure 
 those whom they find negligent in the said instruction ; 
 
46 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 and if it shall appear that the parents of the said children 
 do forbid such schoolmasters to bring them up in the 
 doctrine of the Church of England, they shall notwith- 
 standing do their duty; and if thereupon the said parents 
 shall take away their children, the said schoolmasters shall 
 forthwith give up their names unto the Bishop of the 
 diocese, who shall take care to return them to the Justices 
 of Assize in manner and form aforesaid. And because 
 some may cunningly elude this decree, by sending their 
 children to be bred beyond the seas, therefore we ordain, 
 that the churchwardens and other sworn ecclesiastical 
 officers shall likewise make careful inquiry, and give in 
 upon their oaths at all Visitations, the names of such 
 recusants' children who are so sent beyond the seas to be 
 bred there, or whom they probably suspect to be so sent : 
 which names as aforesaid shall be given up to the Bishop, 
 and from him returned to the Judges as aforesaid, that 
 their parents, who so send them, may be punished accord- 
 ing to law. Provided always, that this Canon shall not 
 take away or derogate from any power or authority al- 
 ready given or established by any other Canon now in 
 force. 
 
 "And all the said complaints or certificates shall be 
 presented up to the Judges in their several circuits by the 
 Bishop's Registrar, or some other of his deputies immedi- 
 ately after the publishing of his Majesty's commission, or 
 at the end of the charge, which shall be then given by the 
 Judge. And this upon pain of suspension for three 
 months. 
 
 "This sacred Synod doth earnestly entreat the said 
 Reverend Justices of Assize, to be careful in the execution 
 of the said laws committed to their trust, as they will 
 answer to God for the daily increase of this gross kind of 
 superstition. And further, we do also exhort all Judges, 
 whether ecclesiastical or temporal, upon the like account, 
 that they would not admit in any of their courts any vexa- 
 tious complaint, suit or suits, or presentments against any 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 47 
 
 minister, churchwardens, questmen, sidemen, or other 
 church-officers for the making of any such presentments. 
 
 " And, lastly, we enjoin that every Bishop shall once in 
 every year send into his Majesty's high court of Chancery, 
 a sigtiificavit of the names and surnames of all such 
 recusants who have stood excommunicated beyond the 
 time limited by the law, and shall desire that the writ 
 De excommunicato capiendo might be at once sent out 
 against them all ex officio. And for the better execution 
 of this decree, this present Synod doth most humbly 
 beseech his most sacred Majesty, that the officers of the 
 said high court of Chancery, whom it shall concern, may 
 be commanded to send out the aforesaid writ from time to 
 time as is desired, for that it would much exhaust the par- 
 ticular estates of the Ordinaries, to sue out several writs 
 at their own charge. And that the like command also 
 may be laid upon the Sheriffs and their deputies, for the 
 due and faithful execution of the said writs, as often as 
 they shall be brought unto them. 
 
 " And to the end that this Canon may take the better 
 and speedier effect, and not to be deluded or delayed ; we 
 further decree and ordain, that no popish recusant, who 
 shall persist in the said sentence of excommunication be- 
 yond the time prescribed by law, shall be absolved by 
 virtue of any appeal in any ecclesiastical court, unless the 
 said party shall first in his or her own person, and not by 
 a proctor, take the usual oath, De parendo Juri, et 
 stando mandatis Ecclesia" 
 
 FROM CANON V. AGAINST SECTARIES. 
 
 " Whereas there is a provision now made by a Canon 
 for the suppressing of Popery, and the growth thereof, by 
 subjecting all popish recusants to the greatest severity of 
 ecclesiastical censures in that behalf: this present Synod 
 well knowing that there are other sects which endeavour 
 the subversion both of the doctrine and discipline of the 
 
48 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 Church of England no less than Papists do, although by 
 another way; for the preventing thereof, doth hereby de- 
 cree and ordain, that all those proceedings and penalties 
 which are mentioned in the aforesaid Canon against popish 
 recusants as far as they shall be applicable shall stand in 
 full force and vigour against all Anabaptists, Brownists, 
 Separatists, Familists, or other sect or sects, person or 
 persons whatsoever, who do or shall either obstinately 
 refuse or ordinarily, not having a lawful impediment, (that 
 is, for the space of a month,) neglect to repair to their 
 parish churches or chapels where they inhabit, for the 
 hearing of divine- service established, and receiving of the 
 holy communion according to law. 
 
 " And we do also further decree and ordain, that the 
 clause contained in the Canon now made by this Synod 
 against the books of Socinianism, shall also extend to the 
 makers, importers, printers, and publishers, or dispersers 
 of any book, writing, or scandalous pamphlet devised 
 against the discipline arid government of the Church of 
 England, and unto the maintainers and abettors of any 
 opinion or doctrine against the same. 
 
 " And further, because there are sprung up among us 
 a sort of factious people, despisers and depravers of the 
 Book of Common Prayer, who do not according to the 
 law resort to their parish church or chapel to join in the 
 public prayers, service and worship of God with the con- 
 gregation, contenting themselves with the hearing of ser- 
 mons only, thinking thereby to avoid the penalties due to 
 such as wholly absent themselves from the Church. We 
 therefore for the restraint of all such wilful contemners or 
 neglecters of the service of God, do ordain, that the 
 church or chapel-wardens, and questtnen, or sidemen of 
 every parish, shall be careful to inquire out all such dis- 
 affected persons, and shall present the names of all delin- 
 quents at all Visitations of Bishops, and other Ordinaries ; 
 and that the same proceedings and penalties mentioned in 
 the Canon aforesaid respectively shall be used against 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 49 
 
 them as against other recusants, unless within one whole 
 month after they are first denounced, they shall make 
 acknowledgment and reformation of that their fault. Pro- 
 vided always, that this Canon shall not derogate from any 
 other canon, law, or statute in that behalf provided against 
 those sectaries." 
 
 These Canons have been censured indeed by both 
 Houses of Parliament, during the civil war ; and they are 
 expressly declared not to have the sanction of Parliament 
 by a Clause in a Statute passed after the Restoration, 
 cap. xii. anno 13 Car. II. 5. But the Church has never 
 disavowed them, and they are thus still on a footing with 
 her other Canons which have not received the sanction of 
 Parliament, and therefore are not accounted part of the 
 law of the land. 
 
 But they who charge on all the Roman Catholics of the 
 present day the persecuting doctrines of the Council of 
 Trent, are liable to another retort. In the apology of 
 Bishop Jewell there occurs the following passage. " Ex 
 illo" (Verbo, scil. a Christo patefacto et ab Apostolis 
 propagato) "nos solo omne genus veterum hsereticorum, 
 quos isti nos aiunt ab inferis revocasse, condemnamus, et 
 Arianos, Eutychianos, Marcionitas, Ebionseos, Valentini- 
 anos, Carpocratianos, Tatianos, Novatianos, eosque uno 
 verbo omnes, qui vel de Deo Patre, vel de Christo, vel de 
 Spiritu Sancto, vel de ulla alia parte Religionis Christianas 
 impie senserunt, quia ab Evangelio Christi coarguuntur, 
 impios et perditos pronuntiamus, et usque ad inferorum 
 portas detestamur; nee id solum, sed etiam si forte erum- 
 pant uspiam, et sese prodant, eos legitimis et civilibus 
 suppliciis severi et sino coercemus" Now Jewell's Apo- 
 logy, to use the words of Bishop Randolph, " is said to 
 have been published with the consent of the Bishops, and 
 was always understood to speak the sense of the whole 
 Church, in whose name it was written : " and this work ex- 
 pressly declares, and boasts that the Church of England, 
 "severally and earnestly checks by secular and legal 
 
 E 
 
50 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 punishments," (and the term suppliciis is most naturally 
 to be understood of capital punishments,) all who in her 
 opinion hold impious doctrines with regard to any point 
 of the Christian religion. Nor is this all, for this very 
 work of Jewell's containing this avowal of persecution was 
 reprinted by Bishop Randolph in 1792, and again in 1812, 
 amongst a Collection of Tracts, Catechisms, &c., whose 
 express object was to convey the genuine sense of the 
 Church of England. (See the Preface to the Enchiri- 
 dion Theologicum, Oxford, 1812.) And yet should we 
 not repel it as a calumny only excusable from the utter 
 ignorance which it implied, if a Nestorian or Polish So- 
 cinian, unacquainted with the toleration actually enjoyed 
 in England, and the actual sentiments of its members, 
 were to assert that the Church of England is a persecut- 
 ing Church, and thinks it her duty to burn all those whom 
 she judges to be heretics? 
 
 The Catholics, it is true, are entangled by a difficulty 
 which we do not feel, in their tenet of the infallibility of 
 the Church. I call it an entanglement and a difficulty, 
 for that is the true light in which to consider it. The 
 tenet of the infallibility of the Church does not really keep 
 the Catholics in perpetual ignorance, but it embarrasses 
 them in the expression of their sentiments, and gives Pro- 
 testants a means of unfairly perplexing and misrepresent- 
 ing them. That is to say, that such being the tenet of 
 the Church to which he belongs, an individual Catholic 
 does not like directly to disavow it : his habitual respect 
 for the Church makes him inclined generally to admit her 
 infallibility; so that when he meets with particular deci- 
 sions whose truth he cannot in his own mind allow, he 
 would rather express his disbelief practically and indi- 
 rectly, than by stating it directly permit himself to be 
 charged with the conclusion, that then he must admit the 
 Church to be fallible. It would be rather hard to tax 
 the mathematicians of France and Italy with believing that 
 the earth is the centre of the solar system ; yet the Jesuits 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 51 
 
 who edited Newton's Principia thought it right to declare 
 in their Preface, that although in order to illustrate New- 
 ton's reasoning they were obliged to assume the truth of 
 his premises, yet they did not mean to deny the doctrine 
 of the Church, which had declared the earth to be im- 
 moveable. No one is misled by such language in this 
 instance : and if we dealt fairly with the Catholics we 
 should in moral and political matters also believe their 
 practice and the general tenor of their language, although 
 they have not renounced, and perhaps would not renounce 
 if called upon to do so, the general tenet of the Church 
 with which their practice and sentiments may be incon- 
 sistent. We may call this if we will inconsistency or self 
 deceit: but a similar state of mind is very common 
 amongst those who are not Catholics ; and it is certainly 
 unjust either to tax them with consequences which they do 
 not acknowledge, however legitimately drawn from their 
 premises; or to represent them as insincere and unworthy 
 of confidence in the ordinary duties and business of life, 
 because in one of the most intricate parts of human duty, 
 they may not have traced their path clearly and boldly. 
 I call it one of the most intricate parts of human duty, 
 where a man is divided between his respect for the author- 
 ity, and the inability of his reason to admit what that 
 authority has declared : where he cannot practically agree, 
 yet the public and direct expression of disagreement 
 would break through ties which he holds most sacred. In 
 these circumstances, which are incident more or less to all 
 men in their relations with societies, but most of all in 
 their relations with their Church or religious society, it is 
 perfectly easy to silence or perplex an adversary, but not 
 so to convince him, and release him from his entangle- 
 ment. If we wish really to remove a tenet which is cer- 
 tainly a great impediment to the improvement of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, we must not appeal to it on 
 every occasion as rendering improvement impossible and 
 incredible : we must welcome and encourage every effort 
 
 E 2 
 
 OF THR 
 
 'UHIVE1 
 
52 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 of individuals to release themselves from it, although they 
 cannot distinctly disavow it without separating from a 
 Church which they reverence ; and the Church itself has 
 no means of expressing its voice, since no General Coun- 
 cil is likely to be ever again called together. 
 
 If I were writing politically I should hardly dwell longer 
 on this part of the subject ; but viewing the restoration of 
 Catholics to their civil rights as opening, with God's bless- 
 ing, the fairest prospect of their religious improvement, 
 and considering that the realizing or disappointment of 
 this prospect will mainly depend upon the conduct of the 
 Protestant clergy, I am anxious to combat the notion that 
 the Roman Catholic Religion is unchangeable and incur- 
 able, and that our business is only to try to gain indivi- 
 dual converts from it, not to improve it by peaceful influ- 
 ence judiciously exerted. Now I believe that avowed 
 proselytism will do very little in converting individuals, 
 whilst it will irritate the bulk of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, will keep alive a spirit of controversy always most 
 unfavourable to the arriving at truth, and will confirm and 
 aggravate those obnoxious tenets which we wish to do 
 away with. On the contrary, our object should be to lead 
 the Catholics first to alter practically the character of their 
 religion by dwelling chiefly on those points which they 
 hold as Christians, and avoiding as much as possible to 
 draw their attention to their peculiar tenets as Roman 
 Catholics. We should try to foster that state of mind so 
 beautifully depicted in a little work equally pious and 
 eloquent, in which the sincere Catholic priest, who dares 
 not in his humility renounce the communion of his Church, 
 is represented as converted from its errors to all purposes 
 of his soul's salvation by sinking all minor points, and 
 dwelling entirely on the love of Christ. We should study 
 the gradual progress of the corruptions of Popery, and 
 observe how large a portion of them grew out of the com- 
 mon superstition and common vices of human nature, 
 deepening with the deeper ignorance of the times, and 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 53 
 
 likely to be first softened and finally dispelled with the 
 progressive brightening of Christian light. We should 
 direct our particular attention to the band which has 
 united these into one mass, and thus given them a greater 
 than their natural power of evil, a longer than their natural 
 term of existence. Then we should see that this band, I 
 mean the doctrines of the authority of the Church, and of 
 the Papal supremacy, was first formed by honest ignorance 
 upon principles whose falsehood we have ourselves hardly 
 yet discovered, was then strengthened by men of great 
 ability and lofty views, as a powerful means of counteract- 
 ing the violences and abuses of the times ; and was lastly 
 maintained as an instrument of the lowest covetousness 
 and ambition, and was thus wearing its most odious form 
 when it was first exposed to a general attack. The attack 
 of the Reformation was thus vehement, for the evil which 
 it assailed was monstrous : but this vehemence excited the 
 angry passions to defend what the baser passions had 
 before maintained from interest, and frightened the humble 
 and the ignorant by denouncing as a mass of iniquity what 
 to them amidst all its evils had still imparted some drops 
 of the water of life. Those in authority insisted that the 
 system was one and indivisible, because the tainted part 
 which would otherwise have been instantly cut out, was 
 that which they most desired to keep : those who were 
 engaged in the controversy as usual lost sight of truth in 
 their ardour for victory, and defended error because their 
 opponents had attacked it; while the ignorant shrunk 
 from the sin of heresy, and trembled at the thought of 
 abandoning the Catholic Church of Christ. The reformers 
 on the other hand shared on many points the mistaken 
 views of their adversaries, and therefore combated them 
 unskilfully. What was a departure from Christian unity, 
 what was the Church of Christ, and how its relations with 
 corrupt forms of civil government had rendered the lan- 
 guage of the New Testament in some respects inapplicable 
 
54 CHRISTIAN DUTY <JF CONCEDING 
 
 now, were questions which in the sixteenth century men 
 were too recently awakened from a long sleep of ignorance 
 to be able to answer. To these must be added the evils 
 occasioned by a misunderstanding of the nature and uses 
 of the Old Testament; and the perpetual reference to the 
 Jewish covenant as an authority for institutions and prac- 
 tices among Christians. Hence the cry of idolatry so 
 loudly raised against the Church of Rome and the bitter 
 intolerance with which its worship and its members were 
 regarded. Meantime national and political animosities 
 mingled themselves with the religious dissension, and the 
 breach between Catholics and Protestants became decided 
 throughout Europe. A period of peace succeeded, of ex- 
 ternal peace, but with no approximations towards union. 
 Other objects occupied the chief place in the attention of 
 mankind; commerce was. greatly extended; the useful 
 arts, the physical sciences, and all the branches of general 
 literature, were assiduously cultivated. Men's minds were 
 engrossed with the present, forgetful of its indissoluble 
 connection with the past and the future. In the preceding 
 age religious controversy had been loud, and religious 
 bigotry ferocious : it was succeeded by religious indiffer- 
 ence ; and thus the ignorance on this point remained as a 
 single dark spot amidst the rapidly-advancing light of 
 secular knowledge. The effects of this secular knowledge, 
 for knowledge it really was, were felt in that great convul- 
 sion from which we have lately recovered, and to whose 
 beneficent severity we and our children to the most dis- 
 tant times may look back with gratitude. Evils which the 
 Reformation was powerless to remedy have now been 
 swept away; and never was so fair a prospect of universal 
 improvement opened upon mankind before. One thing 
 was wanting in the great crisis which we have witnessed ; 
 the heavenly wisdom which the Gospel gives us, purified 
 from all the corruptions of earthly ignorance, and united 
 in just society as the companion and directress of political 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 55 
 
 wisdom. Enlightened and benevolent statesmen* saw in 
 Christianity as presented to their view, nothing but a 
 system to maintain ignorance and iniquity : humble and 
 devout Christians shrunk from the truest views of social 
 improvement because they were advocated by unbelievers. 
 It was a bitter price that we paid for the ignorance that 
 had so long neglected to develope the principles of the 
 Gospel, and for the baseness which had corrupted them. 
 During the last century then, Christianity was too much 
 neglected by the public mind throughout Europe to afford 
 any chance of clearing it from the abuses and erroneous 
 notions which had encumbered it. In an earlier century 
 the political knowledge and experience, the liberal views, 
 and the dispassionate judgment required for so great a 
 work, had been generally wanting ; now they existed, 
 but were directed to other objects. The work still re- 
 mains to be done, to apply the full lights of modern know- 
 ledge to the true developement of the principles of the 
 Gospel as applicable to man in a state of civil society ; 
 and thus and thus only will Protestants and Catholics 
 be brought to a true Christian union retaining if they 
 will their separate social existence, but co-operating cor- 
 dially in their one great work, to prepare themselves by 
 establishing God's kingdom on earth for the everlasting 
 enjoyment of it in heaven. 
 
 Then the very corner stone of Roman Catholic intoler- 
 ance, the opinion that there is no salvation out of the pale 
 of the Church, may be stripped of all its mischief, and 
 reduced to the simple expression of a great Scriptural 
 truth, that God's covenanted mercies can only be pro- 
 
 a I allude particularly to Turgot and Malesherbes ; the notes of 
 Condorcet on Pascal's Pensees also strongly illustrate the statements 
 in the text. In the note on the 53rd clause of the 17th Article of the 
 " Pensees," part 2, the various evil principles and actions which have 
 either made a part of the institutions of countries nominally Chris- 
 tian, or have generally existed uncondemned by the ministers of 
 Christianity, are stated with a force and purity which one would 
 rather expect to find in Pascal than in his commentator. 
 
56 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 mised to such as are within the covenant ; that in the ark 
 of Christ's Church alone is certain safety, and without it 
 all is a dark wilderness of doubt and danger. The evil of 
 the proposition has arisen from the false opinion that 
 Christ's redeemed people must all form one separate 
 ecclesiastical society, when we know that God's created 
 people are not required to form one separate civil society. 
 Had the countries in which Christianity was first preached 
 been as now politically unconnected with each other, 
 the confusion never would have arisen : for then the 
 Christians in one nation must have formed a society 
 avowedly distinct from those in another. Spiritually in- 
 deed they would have been one society, inasmuch as they 
 would have had the same divine Head, the same indwell- 
 ing Spirit, the same hope, and the same God ; but ex- 
 ternally they would have been perfectly independent, and 
 competent like all other societies to form their own rules 
 and appoint their own officers. But the first Christians 
 being accidentally members of the same political society, 
 naturally regarded themselves as forming also only one 
 ecclesiastical society : and as their civil sovereign resided 
 at Rome, so they looked to the same place for their ec- 
 clesiastical head ; just as the branch religious societies 
 in our several counties are subordinate to a central and 
 supreme society in London. That which has always hap- 
 pened soon comes to be considered as necessary; and 
 therefore because the Church had in point of fact been 
 one society, it was declared that it essentially and neces- 
 sarily was so : because the head of the central society at 
 Rome was naturally the head of all the provincial societies, 
 it was made out that his supremacy was not accidental 
 and temporary, but necessary and perpetual. But a per- 
 petual and necessary head of the Church was certainly 
 Christ's vicar ; and for so great an office it might well be 
 supposed that an extraordinary portion of Christ's Spirit 
 would be vouchsafed to him. The conclusion indeed was 
 reasonable; and had Christ's servants been designed to 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 57 
 
 form of necessity one society, had it been their Lord's 
 pleasure, that that should be without the common right of 
 all other societies, the right of self-government, and be of 
 necessity subject to one head, it is probable that this head 
 would have been clearly marked out for his office by pos- 
 sessing superior gifts and graces, just as men are thus 
 clearly marked out for authority over children, and do- 
 minion over the brute creation. And therefore the fact, 
 that the bishops of Rome have not possessed this per- 
 petual superiority of goodness and wisdom, renders it 
 probable that they were not designed to be the perpetual 
 heads of the Church, and that Christians as such possess 
 the same rights of self-government in ecclesiastical society, 
 which they enjoy as men in civil society. Now Protest- 
 ants have seen and allowed all this as far as the supremacy 
 of the Pope is concerned, but by retaining themselves a 
 portion of the original error of Popery they have found 
 it more difficult to combat the conclusions which that 
 error gave rise to. They shared the error of the Catholics 
 in supposing that the Church must be one society in a 
 sense differing from that in which all mankind are one 
 society ; and therefore in order to acquit themselves of 
 what they called the sin of schism, in separating from the 
 Church, they charged that Church with idolatry, that they 
 might represent it as a greater sin to remain in commu- 
 nion with it. Whereas had they remembered that the 
 members of one nation are connected as Christians with 
 the members of another nation only in the same way that 
 they are connected with them as men ; redeemed and 
 sanctified by the same God, as the same God also created 
 them: with the same spiritual, as they have the same 
 natural faculties ; and aiming at one common perfection 
 of the former as they do of the latter ; with one common 
 law of reason binding them as men, and one common law 
 of the Spirit binding them as Christians, but left equally 
 as Christians and as men, to form their own municipal or 
 particular laws, and to determine that form of government 
 
58 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 by which they may respectively judge their common ob- 
 jects most likely to be obtained in their own case, inde- 
 pendence would have implied no schism, nor would they 
 have sought to aggravate the errors of their neighbours in 
 order to make out a just ground of quarrel, when their 
 forming themselves into a distinct society was no breach 
 of charity,' and should have been considered as no quarrel 
 
 at all. 
 
 The Roman Catholics then are right in maintaining, that 
 out of Christ's Church there is no covenanted salvation : 
 but they are wrong ; and many Protestants share in their 
 error, in mistaking the accidental state of the Church at 
 its first origin for something essential to its nature : as if, 
 because it was one society then in the strictest sense of 
 the term, it must be in some other than a spiritual sense 
 one society now. In that spiritual sense indeed it is ever 
 one : but in that sense all are members of it, to how many 
 soever subordinate forms of Christian society they may 
 respectively belong, so long as they acknowledge the same 
 Maker and Saviour and Sanctifier, so long as they are one 
 with each other, not in forms and regulations, but in prin- 
 ciple and in spirit, in the Father and in the Son. And 
 therefore when sincere Protestants a would) acknowledge as 
 members of the Catholic Church of Christ those societies 
 of Christians only which are governed by Bishops, on the 
 ground that amongst them alone the apostolical ^ucces- 
 sion is preserved, there appears a misapprehension of the 
 true nature of a spiritual society, and a participation in 
 the same erroneous views which have led the Romanists 
 to exclude from their sense of the Catholic Church all 
 who will not acknowledge the succession of the Popes 
 from St. Peter the chief of the Apostles. 
 
 a I allude to a Sermon published two or three years since, by the 
 Rev. Walter Hook, of Christ Church, Oxford. 1 have the less scruple 
 in mentioning his name, as I know him to be a sincere and zealous 
 minister of Christ ; and my belief that his views on one point are 
 erroneous, does not interfere with my high respect for his character. 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 59 
 
 The principle which we should follow in our endeavours 
 to purify the Roman Catholic religion, might be exempli- 
 fied in numerous other instances : but it will better suit 
 my present limits if I state once more what it is, and 
 shew the bearing of what I have last written upon my 
 general subject. The principle is this ; that we should 
 trace the errors of the Catholics to their origin, arid should 
 thus perceive how much of them is mere corruption, that 
 is, error introduced for an interested or ambitious pur- 
 pose ; how much arises from ignorance or misconception, 
 and what the misconception was; and, above all, how 
 much of truth is mixed with the error, and may be ex- 
 tracted from it by a careful and delicate analysis. In 
 doing this we should also observe how far Protestants have 
 either condemned the whole of a tenet of the Romish 
 Church, without discrimination, or themselves retain the 
 original error which gave birth to it, and therefore contend 
 against it on wrong grounds. We should consider that 
 our true object is not to convert Catholics to Protestant- 
 ism, but to perfect their views and our own to the full 
 wisdom and holiness of Christianity, although we may 
 each remain distinct societies, and retain different rites and 
 internal regulations. We should substitute inquiry for 
 controversy; not wishing to bring them over to our side, 
 but that both they and we should be on the side of truth, 
 renouncing our errors, and clearing our views when indis- 
 tinct and imperfect. " Whereunto we have already at- 
 tained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same 
 thing :" that is to say, while aspiring to more perfect 
 knowledge, let not those who are more advanced despise 
 their more backward brethren, but- let both walk in the 
 same rule of Christian holiness, and with the same spirit 
 of Christian .charity. 
 
 And for the application of all this to the great Question 
 which now engrosses the whole mind of England ; I wish 
 to impress upon the Christian opponents of concession, 
 that while I maintain the positive duty of granting the 
 
60 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 Catholic claims as an act of simple justice, it is also 
 with the most deliberate conviction, that thus and thus only 
 can the spiritual improvement of our Catholic countrymen 
 ever be effected. If Protestants will not endure to hear 
 the language of impartiality and charity towards the Ca- 
 tholics, if they will only look upon them as men without 
 truth, and without humanity, as ferocious bigots and blas- 
 phemous idolaters, do they think that the Catholics can 
 be more favourably disposed to them, when over and above 
 the irreligious prejudices they must entertain against them 
 the galling sense of national and civil injustice ? What 
 Protestant missionary, however holy and eloquent, can 
 have any chance of influencing men, who are not only 
 daily reviled by Protestants, but actually degraded and 
 oppressed by them; are treated as aliens in their own 
 land, as unfit and unworthy to become citizens of their 
 own country ? They who are most zealous in their endea- 
 vours to convert the slaves in the West Indies to Christi- 
 anity, are also most eager to effect their temporal deliver- 
 ance: they are regarded therefore as friends, and the 
 Gospel is doubly loved for the sake of those who offer the 
 knowledge of it. Would the negroes listen to a mission 
 of tyrannical overseers, who spoke to them with the whip 
 in one hand and the Bible in the other; or to a set of 
 plantation proprietors, who had most steadily refused to 
 adopt every measure recommended by the government of 
 Britain for the improvement of their temporal condition ? 
 We have a great, a solemn duty to perform towards our 
 Irish brethren ; we have connected them with ourselves, 
 and therefore we are bound first to do them justice, and 
 then to do them kindness : to labour at this eleventh hour 
 to atone for the long day during which we have riot only 
 neglected to do them good, but have heaped upon them 
 evil alike physical and moral. 
 
 The great numerical majority of the clergy of England 
 are united against doing an act of Christian justice, and 
 Christian wisdom : and they tax their opponents with 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 61 
 
 acting upon worldly views, and sacrificing their religion to 
 political expediency. I will not retort by impugning the 
 motives of those who think differently from me, nor by 
 depreciating their understandings. I know that there are 
 amongst them men who are not to be surpassed in holiness 
 of life, or in vigour of natural abilities. But what they do 
 want, and I speak it neither reproachfully nor insultingly, 
 is acquired knowledge and impartiality. It is notorious 
 that a large portion of them abstain habitually upon prin- 
 ciple from the study of politics ; and how can they possibly 
 understand what they have refused to learn ? And what is 
 the ordinary education of a clergyman ? *The history of 
 his own country, except in a mere abridgment, forms no 
 part of his necessary studies, either at school or at the 
 university ; still less does it generally occupy his atten- 
 tion when he begins to prepare himself for his own profes- 
 sion. Many persons certainly read much more than they 
 are compelled to do; but not the majority; and in point of 
 fact, I should not underrate the historical knowledge of 
 the mass of the clergy, if I supposed them to have read 
 Hume, perhaps with Smollett's Continuation, Clarendon, 
 and Burnet's History of the Reformation. Of the Laws 
 and of the progress of our Constitution of England they 
 know but little ; and of the history of the other nations 
 of Europe, their knowledge is commonly still more 
 limited. The impressions which they gain from the 
 writers I have mentioned, for, with the mass of readers, 
 the tone of an author's sentiments leaves a much deeper 
 impression than his detail of facts, are all in favour of 
 Toryism, or against the Catholics ; and these, in the present 
 state of affairs, belong to the same party, and lead to the 
 same political conduct. Their professional studies tend 
 to produce the same bias : their making the thirty-nine 
 Articles the text-book for a large portion of their theo- 
 logical reading, accustoms them to look at religion con- 
 troversially ; they learn what are the arguments by which 
 the Catholics are to be combated; and the obnoxious 
 
62 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 tenets of the Romish Church are brought before their eyes 
 in their most offensive form, while the good parts of the 
 system, and the causes which led to its errors, and which, 
 although they do not make them less errors, yet would 
 often moderate our dislike and suspicion of those who 
 held them, are not presented to them. With this pre- 
 vious education, if they travel for a short time a on the 
 continent of Europe, and particularly if they visit Italy, 
 they return home with prejudices increased and ignorance 
 unenlightened. With little knowledge of the history and 
 literature of the countries they travel through, and with 
 few personal acquaintances among the people to soften 
 their feelings towards them, they catch directly at those 
 gross exhibitions of superstition which are so common, 
 and think that they have now a confirmation of all their 
 former notions of the monstrous nature of Popery. 
 
 On their return home they settle mostly in country 
 parishes, and the little time they can spare from their 
 pastoral duties for pursuing their own studies, is naturally 
 devoted to works on divinity. In this state of mind and 
 
 a A longer residence abroad might perhaps lead to a different result. 
 I was told two years ago by an English Clergyman who has resided at 
 Rome since the year 1814, that he settled there with a strong impres- 
 sion against the Roman Catholic religion, and against granting the 
 claims of the Catholics of Ireland: that his sense of the evils and 
 errors of the Catholic religion had become continually stronger and 
 stronger ; but his opinion with regard to the Catholic Question was 
 wholly changed : and he was satisfied that there was no prospect of 
 relieving Ireland from its superstitions, but by granting to the 
 Catholics their civil rights, and so alienating them from their de- 
 pendence on Rome by uniting them on equal terms to their Protest- 
 ant countrymen. 
 
 In confirmation of this view of the subject, I know that some of the 
 principal members of the Papal Government, in conversation with an 
 individual totally unconnected with England, have expressed their 
 apprehensions lest the Catholic claims should be granted ; as the in- 
 fluence actually enjoyed by the Pope, in Ireland, would then be 
 superseded in the minds of the Irish by natural feelings of attach- 
 ment to their country and constitution. 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 63 
 
 with this previous education, the Catholic Question pre- 
 sents itself to their notice : a question involving at once 
 the first principles of civil society; and requiring a copi- 
 ous knowledge of the history of the Christian Church, of 
 the constitution and parties of England, and of the history 
 and institutions of several of the nations of the Continent. 
 They who have never considered great political questions, 
 nor have examined the origin of civil society, and the 
 rights and duties of individuals as members of it, cannot 
 appreciate the sin of that flagrant injustice which we have 
 offered to the Catholics of Ireland. They who know not 
 the history of the Christian Church, are ignorant of the 
 causes which led successively to the growth of Popery, 
 and know not the probability of its improvement, if its 
 nature be thoroughly understood, and a suitable plan of 
 dealing with it be devised. They who have never studied 
 the contests of our parties, and the vicissitudes of our 
 government, are not aware that in their sense of the term 
 we have no constitution at all ; that we have no code in 
 which the principles of our government were at once fully 
 laid down, and the whole social edifice constructed ac- 
 cording to them ; but that what we call our constitution 
 is a state of things resulting from various successive 
 struggles, each of which had its own particular object, and 
 led to its own particular reform. Thus the struggle which 
 ended at the Revolution of 1688 was substantially and in 
 principle whether the crown or the nation, as represented 
 in Parliament, should possess the effective control of our 
 government; and all the enactments against Catholics 
 were merely accidental, and arose partly out of the cir- 
 cumstance that the popular party in the last two reigns 
 had consisted chiefly of Puritans ; partly because persecu- 
 tion of Popery was the only point in which the Tories 
 could sympathise with the Whigs ; and they were glad, by 
 their zeal against the Catholics, to compensate for their 
 long oppression of the Protestant Dissenters ; and partly 
 because the great reliance of the two last Stuart princes 
 
64 CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 was on the support of the Catholic despotism of France. 
 But so little are the principles of Roman Catholics neces- 
 sarily adverse to civil liberty, that had the quarrels be- 
 tween the Guelfs and Ghibelines lasted for three centuries 
 longer, we should have seen the Pope supporting and 
 supported by the free Republics of Italy in a contest 
 against the Protestant tyranny and high monarchical doc- 
 trines of the emperors of Germany. They who know the 
 Roman Catholic religion only from the naked statement 
 of its worst tenets, as exhibited in the works of Protestant 
 controversialists and are ignorant of what it is and has 
 been in practice for the last hundred and fifty years 
 wherever it has been placed in peaceful contact with Pro- 
 testantism judge of it naturally from the tendency of its 
 most offensive principles, supposing that all men will 
 carry their principles into practice, and ignorant of the 
 checks and palliatives which in actual life neutralise their 
 virulence. Not feeling, therefore, the sin of national in- 
 justice, not understanding the nature of Catholicism, not 
 acquainted with our parties and their struggles, not fami- 
 liar with the actual state of the Catholic Religion in other 
 countries, they act upon one impression only, which their 
 education and professional studies have alike fostered, 
 that Popery is an unchristian thing, and that nothing 
 should be done to favour it. Influenced by this impres- 
 sion themselves, they impart it to their parishioners, whose 
 ignorance is more complete, and their passions more vio- 
 lent; and thus a clamour is raised, powerful from the 
 numbers that join in it, and respectable from the honesty 
 of their motives; but worth nothing in determining the 
 merits of the Question, as the knowledge of those who 
 raise.it is so little proportioned to their zeal. I know 
 that it savours of arrogance to claim a superiority of 
 knowledge over those who differ from us; and the carvers 
 among the lions would no doubt represent the matter 
 differently. Yet the statement which I have given of the 
 ordinary education and studies of the most active class 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 65 
 
 of our opponents is one which they themselves cannot 
 deny; nor can it be denied, on the other hand, that all 
 those statesmen who have most considered the Question, 
 and whose means of information have been the fullest, 
 have, with an unanimity unparalleled on any other public 
 measure, agreed in their judgment, that the claims of the 
 Catholics should be granted. The accession of the 
 Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel to this distinguished 
 band has given to the argument from authority a force 
 which admits of no further increase. The leading minis- 
 ters of the country, who had for many years opposed con- 
 cession, have exposed themselves, without any conceivable 
 motive but the conscientious conviction of fuller know- 
 ledge, to all the vulgar odium which attaches to every change 
 of opinion, and have offended a powerful party, whose de- 
 voted attachment they had hitherto possessed, in order to 
 add their voice to the consenting wisdom of all our other 
 great statesmen, and to declare that the claims of the 
 Catholics should be opposed no longer. Here, then, we 
 find the warmest opponents of the Catholics to be men 
 whose political knowledge is, from education and profes- 
 sion, greatly defective ; while, on the other hand, those who 
 have united the greatest natural abilities with the fullest 
 information are unanimous in advocating their cause. 
 And if it be urged that it is a religious question rather than 
 a political one, and that on points of religion no authority 
 can be superior to that of the clergy, I will answer, that 
 this argument is either false or inapplicable. It is false 
 that it is a religious question, in that only sense in which 
 the clergy could be the best judges of it ; namely, if the 
 point at issue were, whether the doctrines of the Catholic 
 or the Protestant Church were most agreeable to Scrip- 
 ture. A religious question, indeed, it is in another sense, 
 inasmuch as every question of practice concerns our reli- 
 gious duty to God, and every act of injustice, every 
 stumbling-block that is thrown in the way of our neigh- 
 bour's spiritual improvement, is a sin for which we must 
 
 F 
 
66 DUTY OF CONCEDING CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 
 
 answer at God's judgment-seat. But in the discernment 
 of our duties as members of civil societies, the clergy 
 assuredly are not the best judges; because the origin, 
 rights, and successive revolutions of civil societies, they 
 avowedly neglect to study. 
 
 In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to treat the 
 Question as a religious one : to urge the granting of the 
 Catholic claims as in itself a necessary act of Christian 
 justice, and as the only means by which we may be en- 
 abled to perform to our Irish brethren hereafter our 
 bounden duty of Christian charity, in advancing their 
 physical, moral, and spiritual good. I have never for- 
 gotten that I am a Christian minister myself, and that 
 those whose attention to my arguments I most wish to 
 gain, are Christian ministers also. Earnestly, solemnly 
 would I entreat them to believe, that my love for our 
 common faith is not less than theirs, and my desire to 
 promote the kingdom of our common Master not less 
 sincere; that the principles which I have maintained I 
 believe to be those of Christ's Gospel, and that certainly 
 the more often and attentively I have studied that Gospel, 
 I have been the more fully satisfied of their truth. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 SINCE the foregoing pages were written, I have been 
 informed that some Letters, written by Mr. Faber, and 
 published in the St. James's Chronicle, are considered by 
 many persons to contain arguments against concession to 
 the Catholics, which on religious grounds are unanswer- 
 able. I had seen the second of these Letters before, and 
 it had not seemed to me to deserve any particular atten- 
 tion; I was, besides, unwilling to enter into controversy 
 with an individual for whose character as a Christian I 
 had been accustomed to feel much respect. But as 
 others, it appears, judge differently of Mr. Faber's reason- 
 ing, I would request their candid attention to the following 
 attempt to reply to it. 
 
 Mr. Faber's views of the Catholic Question and mine 
 differ at the very outset. He throws aside the argument 
 from right as " a palpable folly," " because no individual 
 possesses any abstract right to the possession of political 
 power." And having thus decided that no man can urge 
 concession to the Catholic claims as a point of duty, he con- 
 siders that it can only be defended by arguments drawn from 
 expediency and from terror; meaning by expediency that 
 same motive which is in private life called self-interest; 
 and by terror, the feeling that weakly shrinks from diffi- 
 culty and danger. He thus denies that any man can 
 advocate the Catholic claims on the grounds of Christian 
 principle, and using the terms "expediency and terror" 
 in a sense which makes them synonymous with two of the 
 very basest of human motives, he fastens a severe and 
 uncandid imputation upon those who differ from him. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 POSTSCRIPT TO CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 I, on the contrary, maintain that the argument from 
 right is perfectly decisive of the whole Question ; because 
 nations, and societies of men large and varied enough in 
 their elements to form distinct nations, have an eternal 
 right to possess political power over themselves ; and if 
 they unite with other societies, it follows that as each, 
 when separate, had a right to the whole government 
 of itself, so each, when united, has a right to a share of 
 the government of itself and its associate. 
 
 I further maintain, that the argument from charity, or 
 a regard to the general welfare of the society to which we 
 belong, is no less decisive than the argument from right ; 
 that the welfare of this whole nation, both temporal and 
 spiritual, will be highly advanced by the removal of a 
 perpetual cause of discord between two important parts of 
 it, and the consequent growth of " peace and happiness, 
 religion and piety," as the natural fruits of an act founded 
 on "truth and justice." And this argument from charity 
 is in all national questions of internal policy another 
 name for the argument from expediency. For where no 
 foreign nation is concerned, the welfare of his country, or 
 what is most expedient for the good of that country, is to 
 a statesman precisely the object which, as a member of it, 
 he is most bound to promote ; and to aim at which is not 
 selfishness, but comprehensive charity. 
 
 I maintain, thirdly, that the dread of occasioning physi- 
 cal and moral evil to others, especially when we ourselves 
 shall partake, perhaps, of the moral evil, but are not likely 
 to be affected by the physical, is a most honourable and 
 Christian terror; and that he who is without it is in a 
 degraded state, both intellectually and morally. And the 
 terror of provoking a civil war in Ireland, the terror of 
 sweeping slaughter, conflagration, massacres, and execu- 
 tions ; the terror of letting loose without restraint all the 
 worst passions of human nature, while they themselves 
 would be living in peace, and would be certain of political 
 victory without incurring any personal risk or suffering, 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 69 
 
 this is the terror which the legislators and ministers of 
 England are reproached with, as if it were no other than 
 the low and unworthy fear which shrinks from danger. 
 
 So much then for what Mr. Faber calls " the palpable 
 folly " of the argument from right; and so much for his 
 assertion that " the argument from expediency involves in 
 its very nature a total disregard to moral honesty, if such 
 moral honesty stand in the way of fancied convenience:" 
 and " the argument from terror avowedly reposes on a 
 disgraceful confession of the most degrading moral 
 cowardice." 
 
 But having thus disposed of these arguments for con- 
 cession, he proceeds to bring forward what he considers 
 a decisive argument against it; namely, the argument 
 from " religious responsibility." Of this, he says, he has 
 never heard the slightest mention ; but, on the contrary, 
 " he has sometimes noted the objection that the question 
 is purely political, and that it has no concern with reli- 
 gion." Now I agree so far with Mr. Faber, that I think 
 we do hear too little " mention of our religious responsi- 
 bility;" that is, that we are not enough accustomed to 
 consider ourselves responsible to God for all our actions 
 whether in private life or in public : and liable to his 
 judgment alike for national and political as for individual 
 injustice, when we make it our own act by instigating it, 
 or trying to prevent its removal. In this sense therefore 
 I think that the Catholic Question has a great deal to do 
 with religion. But if those who say that it has no con- 
 cern with religion mean, as Mr. Faber must know that 
 they do mean, that in doing justice to our neighbour the 
 consideration of his religious belief is wholly foreign to 
 the question; and that a judge who were to make a law- 
 suit between a Catholic and a Protestant a religious 
 question in Mr. Faber's sense of the term, and were to 
 regard not the merits of the case but the religious belief 
 of the parties, would not be more "religiously responsible " 
 
70 POSTSCRIPT TO CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 for his unjust judgment, than the government which 
 should decide a dispute between a Catholic and a Pro- 
 testant people on the same grounds, then they mean no 
 more than is perfectly true, and Mr. Faber has said 
 nothing that can shake their statement. 
 
 Let us see however what his argument against con- 
 cession from " religious responsibility " is built upon. 
 The Members of both Houses of Parliament before they 
 take their seats make an oath, in which is contained the 
 following clause. " I do believe that the invocation or 
 adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the 
 sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church 
 of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous' 1 Therefore, 
 says Mr. Faber, every Member of both Houses has sworn 
 that he believes Popery to be idolatry : and to vote there- 
 fore " for a national union with the Romanists " is to vote 
 " for a national union with those whom he has declared to 
 be idolaters ; " that is to say, it is to vote " for the perfect 
 engraftation of idolatry " upon what Mr. Faber and others 
 " have fondly deemed their exclusively Protestant consti- 
 tution." And in order to extend this argument to those 
 who are not members of the Legislature, he reminds all 
 persons who have subscribed to the thirty-nine Articles, 
 that is, all the clergy and all graduates at both universi- 
 ties, that "our national Church in her accredited Homi- 
 lies (Homilies recognised in her Articles) has pronounced 
 Popery to be idolatry." 
 
 I believe I have stated Mr. Faber's argument fully and 
 fairly. Now although I have subscribed the Articles, in 
 which the Homilies are recognised, yet I do not feel 
 myself at all bound to think or to call the Roman Catho- 
 lic religion "idolatry," in Mr. Faber's meaning of the 
 term ; nor should I feel myself bound to do so, if I had 
 taken the oath imposed on all Members of Parliament. 
 And if I did believe that Popery was idolatry, I should no 
 less think that concession to the claims of the Roman 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 71 
 
 Catholics of Ireland was, in our circumstances, a positive 
 Christian duty. These several statements I am now to 
 endeavour to justify. 
 
 I have subscribed to the thirty-fifth Article of the 
 Church of England, which declares, that " the second 
 book of Homilies doth contain a godly and wholesome 
 doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former 
 book of Homilies:" "and therefore," it proceeds, "we 
 judge them to be read in churches by the ministers, dili- 
 gently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of 
 the people." In saying that a book "doth contain a 
 godly and wholesome doctrine," do I pledge myself to 
 maintain the justice of the exact degree of condemnation 
 which it attaches to those who hold the opposite doctrine ? 
 nay, do I even pledge my assent to all the doctrine which 
 it may itself contain? The Homilies do "contain a 
 godly and Christain doctrine," for they contain the doc- 
 trines of the Gospel, and their predominant character is 
 according to that Gospel. But may these doctrines never 
 be stated with some exaggeration, and may they not be 
 accompanied with too fierce a tone of condemnation 
 against those who differ from them? Jewell's Apology 
 contains a "godly and Christian doctrine," but do I, 
 by saying this, pledge my approbation or assent to that 
 passage which I have already extracted, in which he 
 declares that the Church of England detests all whom it 
 considers heretics, to the gates of hell, and punishes them 
 by the secular arm wherever it can find them ? Nay, with 
 regard to the Homilies, I conceive, that the omission of 
 the Bishops for many years past to enforce " the diligent 
 reading of them in the churches" expresses their belief as 
 well as that of the majority of the clergy, that although 
 they were necessary for the times to which the epithet 
 " these " was applicable when the Article was written, yet 
 that the word " these '' has not a perpetual varying appli- 
 cation, so as to signify all times from the sixteenth century 
 downwards. And for those who extol the Revolution of 
 
72 POSTSCRIPT TO CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 1688 with a claim of such exclusive attachment to it, do 
 they conceive themselves bound to admit all the doctrines 
 of the "Homily against Rebellion?" 
 
 " But the Members of both Houses of Parliament have 
 sworn that they believe Popery to be idolatry." They 
 have sworn to no such thing, but simply, "that the invoca- 
 tion or adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, 
 and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the 
 Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous." The 
 adoration of any creature, that is to say, the putting any 
 created being in the place of God, and worshipping him 
 as the Author of spiritual good, would certainly be idola- 
 try; but this adoration the Roman Catholic Church dis- 
 claims as earnestly as we do. " D. Pent on adorer les 
 anges et les saints ? R. Non, on ne peut adorer que Dieu 
 seul ; mais nous honorons et nous invoquons les anges et 
 les saints comme les amis et les serviteurs de Dieu. D. 
 Adorons nous les Tres-Sainte Vierge? R. Non, il n'est 
 pas plus permis d'adorer la Tres-Sainte Vierge que les 
 autres saints; mais nous 1'honorons d'une maniere plus 
 particuliere que les saints et les anges." CatecMsme 
 imprime par Ordre de son Excellence Monseigneur tAr- 
 cheveque de Rheims, pour V usage de son Diocese. Rheims, 
 1822, p. 112, 113. The invocation of creatures after they 
 have departed from this world and no longer stand to us 
 in any human relation, is so apt to border upon worship, 
 and as it is now used in the more ignorant Roman Catho- 
 
 O 
 
 lie countries, so often becomes worship, that it may justly 
 be termed in practice, that is, as it is now used in the 
 Church of Rome, superstitious and idolatrous. In prac- 
 tice it is idolatrous : out does it therefore follow that the 
 whole Roman Catholic religion is to be branded as idol- 
 atry, that is, as an apostacy from the worship of God and 
 the substitution of some creature or creatures in the place 
 of God, because one of its doctrines is superstitious and 
 of dangerous consequence, and leads amongst the ignorant 
 to idolatrous practice, not necessarily or designedly, but 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 73 
 
 from its exceeding liability to abuse? If Popery be 
 idolatry, it is not a true religion grievously corrupted, but 
 a false religion altogether : nay, it is worse than Moham- 
 medanism, for even Mohammedans worship one eternal, 
 invisible, and spiritual God, the Maker and Preserver of 
 all things visible and invisible. Now if this has been the 
 language of some individuals in the Church of England, 
 
 O O O 7 
 
 it has certainly not been the general sense of her mem- 
 bers : they have held that the Church of Rome was a true 
 Church, although grievously corrupted; that the Church 
 of Rome has " erred," to use the language of the nineteenth 
 Article, " in matters of faith," like the Churches of Jeru- 
 salem, Alexandria, and Antioch ; but that it has not there- 
 fore wholly forfeited the character of a Christian Church, 
 any more than they. I need hardly remind my readers 
 of the sentiments of Hooker, which exposed him indeed 
 to the censures of the Puritans of those days, that the 
 Church of Rome is a Christian Church, and holds the 
 foundation of Christian faith, although some of her doc- 
 trines deny that foundation by consequence. Such in my 
 judgment is the true construction of the clause in the 
 oath taken by members of the Legislature ; they swear 
 that they believe one of her doctrines to be in practice 
 idolatrous, not that her whole system is idolatry. 
 
 But now admitting, for the sake of argument, that Popery 
 is idolatry in Mr. Faber's sense of the term, still his con- 
 clusion, that the Catholic Claims cannot be granted with- 
 out sin, would not follow from this admission. Indeed 
 the conclusion in his two first Letters is throughout as- 
 sumed, without even an attempt to prove it ; and it is only 
 in his third Letter, when some friend had reminded him 
 of this omission, that he endeavours to make out his 
 case. He first of all appeals to the Old Testament, " in 
 which an union of any description with idolatry is clearly 
 forbidden to the Israelites, on the broad arid general 
 ground, that such union would infallibly seduce the people 
 into the practices of their associates ;" and " the ground 
 
74 POSTSCRIPT TO CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 of this prohibition," he thinks, " is of universal applica- 
 tion ;" but as " it may be captiously said " that the case of 
 the Israelites is peculiar, he forbears to press this argu- 
 ment, and " turns forthwith to the New Testament/' 
 
 If I wished to avoid replying to any part of Mr. Faber's 
 statement, I might content myself with observing, that the 
 argument from the Old Testament is one which he does 
 not himself press, although he still asserts that " it is of 
 universal application." But his admirers will perhaps 
 believe his assertion, although he does not urge the proof 
 of it ; and if they are candid, I ought not to leave them 
 in error without attempting to lead them out of it. Now 
 amongst the Jews, idolatry was a capital crime ; and every 
 one who was guilty of it was forthwith to be put to death. 
 This was also ordered on the general principle, lest the 
 Israelites should be seduced by evil example. Would 
 Mr. Faber recommend this method of settling the Catholic 
 Question, by a general massacre of all those whom he calls 
 idolaters, after the example of Elijah and Jehu? The 
 Israelites were told that the practice of idolatrous rites 
 defiled the land, and union therefore was out of the ques- 
 tion with those who were not even allowed to live. So 
 that on this principle we should renew the scenes of 1780 ; 
 burn all the Roman Catholic Chapels, and do as the mob 
 then gladly would have done, put to death those who 
 worship in them. We are already polluted, according to 
 the Jewish law ; and if I may without seeming irreverence 
 state the conclusions to which Mr. Faber's reasoning 
 leads, the curse of God can only be avoided by the per- 
 petration of the most atrocious acts of persecution and 
 murder. 
 
 The truth is, that the principles of the Old Testament 
 are eternal, but the application of them wholly different 
 under the Jewish and under the Christian dispensation. 
 When we read the 109th Psalm in our Service, the appli- 
 cation of the wishes of evil there contained must be wholly 
 spiritual, otherwise our very prayer will be turned into sin. 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 75 
 
 Our "enemies" (v. 19.) are sin and Satan : for men, how- 
 ever sinful, are not to be so regarded by us, till Christ the 
 Saviour shall come as Christ the Judge. Till that great 
 day the most wicked man alive is our brother ; and for 
 him as well as for us Christ has died. Christians indeed 
 when formed into commonwealths may use the sword as 
 the ministers of God's moral government; that is, they 
 may punish crimes against society which heathen govern- 
 ments may punish also : for the sword is committed to 
 them not as Christians but as men. But Christ's spiritual 
 government has no sword, and the arms which they may 
 use as Christians are wholly spiritual. And as idolatry is 
 a spiritual crime, it may be opposed by us only with 
 spiritual weapons ; the penalties and restraints which we 
 may use as men against moral offenders, we may not 
 apply as Christians against spiritual offenders, without pre- 
 sumption. "The Son of Man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save." 
 
 I must now follow Mr. Faber to his argument from the 
 New Testament : which is grounded, as one might have 
 supposed, on the command of the Revelation to flee out 
 of Babylon. Here he first assumes that Babylon means 
 " a principle or a community manifestly idolatrous," that 
 is, idolatrous in the literal sense, as worshipping others 
 than God. Now in order to fix the interpretation of the 
 commandment to " come out of Babylon," it makes some 
 difference whether Babylon signifies a principle or a com- 
 munity ; because if it means the former, the " coming out 
 of her " must signify " withdrawing ourselves from idol- 
 atrous principles:" a duty certainly which no Christian 
 ever disputed. But let it signify a community, and let 
 the < coming out " be taken as a command to have no 
 
 O 
 
 intercourse with such a community, because, as Mr. Faber 
 says, " no penal plague or excision can descend upon the 
 heads of the idolaters, which must not inevitably descend 
 also upon the heads of the non-idolaters, their closely 
 intimate and voluntary associates." That is, when idol- 
 
76 POSTSCRIPT TO CHRISTIAN DUTY OF CONCEDING 
 
 aters and non-idolaters live in the same country, the visit- 
 ations of war, pestilence, and famine cannot fall on the 
 one without involving the other in their suffering. The 
 conclusion from which is, that we should either separate 
 locally from the Roman Catholics, or make them separate 
 from us. Does Mr. Faber mean to recommend that we 
 should migrate to America, or that we should adopt the 
 milder alternative of the curse of Cromwell, and shut up 
 all the English and Irish Catholics together, in Con- 
 naught ? Or, to speak seriously, does he forget that we 
 are nationally and politically associated with these idol- 
 aters already? that the Irish Catholics are already our 
 countrymen, that they serve in our armies, man our fleets, 
 practise in our courts of law, and pay taxes to our 
 government ? On his principle we should instantly 
 banish them from amongst us : their presence must entail 
 defeat on our armies, and shipwreck on our fleets ; and 
 their money certainly must be an accursed thing, which 
 will bring down a judgment on us if we receive it. If 
 this be his meaning, it would at least be honest. But to 
 receive benefits from the society of idolaters, and yet to 
 exclaim against the pollution of it ; to get all we can from 
 living with them, and only scruple about giving them any- 
 thing in return ; is something like the piety of Saul, who 
 destroyed utterly all that was vile and refuse of the spoil 
 of the Amalekites, but spared the best of the oxen, and 
 of the sheep, to sacrifice unto the Lord his God in Gilgal, 
 to keep up Protestant ascendancy. 
 
 Such are my answers to Mr. Faber's premises and his 
 conclusion, so far indeed as I can make out what his 
 conclusion is meant to be. My conclusion also shall be 
 grounded on a precept in the New Testament, which, on 
 the supposition that Catholics were idolaters, would be 
 more to the purpose than the quotation about coming out of 
 Babylon. We are united actually in civil society with 
 Catholics, and the question is, how we are to deal with 
 them ? Now St. Paul directs, that where Christians were 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 77 
 
 married to unbelievers, that is, to idolaters, the Christian 
 husband or wife should not propose to quit his or her 
 unbelieving partner. "What knowest thou," is his truly 
 Christian question, " whether thou shalt save thy wife or 
 thy husband ? " whether, if you continue to live on affec- 
 tionately with them, you may not be the means of con- 
 verting them. But the parties thus continuing to live 
 together, the terms of their union were settled not by 
 their religious faith, but on principles of civil and social 
 justice. The heathen husband must have had authority 
 over his Christian wife, and must have had the supreme 
 control over the education of his children ; because 
 natural and civil law declared that such were his rights 
 
 O 
 
 as a man and as a citizen. So, also, should we be anxious 
 to live on in peace with the Irish Catholics, as we are 
 actually their countrymen. But this being so, our re- 
 spective political rights must be decided on the universal 
 principles of social and political justice, and not from the 
 spiritual superiority which one party may possess over 
 the other. Religion is not injured by our giving idolaters 
 their rights as men and as citizens, but by our forgetting 
 our own duty in either joining with them spiritually, or 
 oppressing them politically. 
 
 I had purposed to make some comment upon the tone 
 of Mr. Faber's Letters, and on the assumption which runs 
 through them, that the advocates of concession to the 
 Catholics are men who care little for religion. But in- 
 stead of doing so, I have thought it better to look over 
 my own answer, and carefully to erase everything which 
 might appear to be unkind or insulting in tone and ex- 
 pression there. Evil passions are never more apt to 
 arise within us than when we are engaged in what we 
 sincerely believe to be our duty ; it shews strongly our 
 corrupted nature, that it is so hard to keep our motives 
 and feelings pure, even when our work is a good one. 
 
 Mr. Faber's opinions I think to be erroneous and mis- 
 
78 POSTSCRIPT TO DUTY OF CONCEDING CATHOLIC CLAIMS. 
 
 chievous; and as such 1 have done my best to answer 
 him. Whatever he may think of the force of the answer, 
 I trust that he will allow my sentiments to be as con- 
 sistent with a sincere affection for Christianity as his own ; 
 and that a man may advocate the Catholic claims with 
 other arguments than those founded on his interests or his 
 fears. 
 
ON THE 
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS OF STATES. 
 
[OK THE 
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS OF STATES.'] 
 
 Thucyd. I. 13. Tvpavvides Iv rats TrdXeo-t Kadiaravro, ra 
 lii6va>v yiyvofievo)V irporepov de rf(rav eVi [farois yepcuri irarpiKal 
 
 THE change described in these words is so important, and 
 
 bears so much on the right understanding of the history, 
 
 or the natural pert- not only of Greece, but of all other nations, 
 
 ods or divisions in the / 
 
 history of nations. that I have thought it deserving of a fuller 
 consideration than it could receive in a note. Its impor- 
 tance consists in this, that it is a natural period in history, 
 marking the transition of every country from what I may 
 call a state of childhood to manhood. Now states, like 
 individuals, go through certain changes in a certain order, 
 and are subject at different stages of their course to cer- 
 tain peculiar disorders. But they differ from individuals 
 in this, that though the order of the periods is regular, 
 their duration is not so ; and their features are more liable 
 to be mistaken, as they can only be distinguished by the 
 presence of their characteristic phenomena. One state 
 may have existed a thousand years, and its history may 
 be full of striking events, and yet it may be still in its 
 childhood : another may not be a century old, and its 
 history may contain nothing remarkable to a careless 
 reader, and yet it may be verging to old age. The know- 
 ledge of these periods furnishes us with a clue to the study 
 of history, which the continuous succession of events 
 related in chronological order seems particularly to re- 
 
 a First Appendix to the first volume of the Edition of Thucydides, 
 1830. 
 
82 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 quire. For instance, in our* own history we are apt to 
 take certain artificial divisions, such as the accession of 
 the different lines of kings, or an event like the restoration, 
 which is rather a subdivision of one particular period, 
 than the beginning or termination of a period in itself. 
 And in this manner we get no distinct notions of the 
 beginning, middle, and end of the history of a people, and 
 often appeal to examples which are nothing to the pur- 
 pose, because they are taken from a different stage of a 
 nation's existence from that to which they are applied. 
 
 I take, then, the words which I have quoted at the be- 
 ginning of this essay, and shall proceed to notice the 
 he^t? bTlSSJS critical period described in them, the pe- 
 the e l?ce S ndln n cy fr Tf nod, namely, when wealth begins to pos- 
 
 birth to that of pro- , , , , ' . , . 
 
 perty. sess the ascendancy formerly enjoyed by 
 
 nobility; and the contending parties in the state assume 
 the form of rich and poor, the few and the many, instead 
 of the old distinction of nobles and commons, of a con- 
 quering race and a conquered. 
 
 This ascendancy, enjoyed in the earliest state of society 
 
 by noble birth, has been traced in various countries, and 
 
 This subject ably ^ s phenomena most successfully investi- 
 
 tbta vico, In his gated by Giovanni Battista Vico a in his 
 
 Prindpt di Scienza n J- a IT 
 
 nuova. Pnncipi di bcienza nuova ; a work dis- 
 
 figured, indeed, by some strange extravagancies, but in its 
 substance so profound and so striking, that the little cele- 
 brity which it has obtained out of Italy is one of the most 
 remarkable facts in literary history. Vico's work was pub- 
 lished in 1725, yet 1 scarcely remember ever to have seen 
 it noticed by any subsequent writers who have touched 
 upon the same subject even down to our own times. 
 
 a I mention Vico, particularly, because his work is not generally 
 known. My obligations to the great writers of Germany, to Niebuhr, 
 Miiller, Wachsmuth, &c., it is almost unnecessary to mention, as, 
 since the publication of their works, it would imply strange pre- 
 sumption or strange ignorance to write upon ancient history without 
 having studied them. 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 83 
 
 The statement of Thucydides with respect to Greece, 
 contains, it may be seen, no mention of any period of 
 arSls ^Greece we?e~ aristocratical government ; but describes the 
 cenda n nc e y of nobm!?: transition as taking place from limited here- 
 ditary monarchies to tyrannies : it may appear, therefore, 
 to a superficial observer that nobility enjoyed no such 
 ascendancy as I have imagined, and that the very first 
 case to which I apply my theorem disproves its truth. 
 But the old Homeric monarchies were, in fact, an instance 
 of power depending on blood, and, therefore, of the as- 
 cendancy of nobility. They were like the feudal mon- 
 archies of .modern Europe, essentially aristocracies, in 
 which the separation of all the chiefs or nobles from the 
 inferior people was far more strongly marked than the 
 elevation of the king above his nobles. Nay, if we con- 
 sider Greece as a whole, and remember the small space 
 included within the limits of the several kingdoms in the 
 heroic ages, the kings, as they are called, resemble the 
 feudal vassals of France and Germany, each supreme over 
 a dominion as extensive as the Greek kins;doms, and 
 
 O ' 
 
 forming together a body widely separated from the com- 
 mons, and whose members were felt to belong to the same 
 class, and to be on a level with each other in purity of 
 blood, however great might have been the differences be- 
 tween them in power and connections. It was virtually 
 then, the ascendancy of nobility, when all power and dis- 
 tinction were confined to the class of nobles, whether there 
 was one individual elevated above the rest of his class 
 with still higher power and distinction, or whether all the 
 members of it exercised the sovereignty jointly and alter- 
 it existed generally nately. So in other countries the same 
 
 in other countries, . , I " 
 
 though under subor- state or society has varied more or less in 
 
 dinate varieties of . IT / 
 
 form - its subordinate relations, and yet, if care- 
 
 fully examined, will be found everywhere to retain its 
 essential character, and to mark the first period, or youth, 
 of political existence. Some of these varieties it may not 
 
 G 2 
 
84 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 be uninstructive to notice, and to trace the causes which 
 have led to them. The simplest, and probably the 
 office^of "pSSt e and earliest form, was that in which the offices 
 SKamfpersoif in of chief and priest were united in the same 
 persons, as in the heroic times in Greece, and in the well- 
 known instance of Melchizedek, king of Salem, at a far more 
 remote period. This is the first transition from domestic 
 or patriarchal to something like civil society ; and if the 
 several sons of a patriarch established themselves in sepa- 
 rate habitations, they would each become the chiefs and 
 priests of their immediate followers. But in the course of 
 a few generations, if the united body of these little societies 
 happened to settle in another country, and the dangers of 
 their new situation forced them to choose some one chief 
 for their common leader, yet still the other chiefs would 
 remain as widely distinguished as before from the mass of 
 the people, and would still retain their sacred and sove- 
 reign character, although its exercise was limited to their 
 own particular tribe, and somewhat obscured by the greater 
 elevation of the king of the whole nation. Nay, even 
 when the posterity of these original nobles was so multi- 
 plied that many of them were necessarily excluded from 
 an active share in the government, still they did not lose 
 the distinction of their birth : they were naturally eligible 
 to public offices, to priesthoods, and to commands in war, 
 if they did not actually enjoy them ; and their equality 
 was maintained by their right of meeting in a general as- 
 sembly, to control, if need were, those of their body to 
 whom the executive authority had been delegated, and by 
 being exempt from any judicial sentence of the greater 
 chiefs, or kings, unless the free voices of their own equals, 
 or peers, had first declared them guilty. This first form of 
 aristocracy, in which civil and military command were 
 united with the office of priest, existed, besides the in- 
 stances already noticed, in Rome and in Etruria : in the 
 former along with the habitual appointment of a king ; in 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 85 
 
 the latter, the purely aristocratic form generally prevailed, 
 and a king, or chief of the whole nation,, was only chosen 
 in seasons of peculiar difficulty. 
 
 Another and later form of the ancient aristocracies was 
 
 that in which the offices of priest and chief were distinct 
 
 2d form-where the from one another, as in India, in Persia, in 
 
 offices of priest and . 
 
 chief were distinct. Egypt, in ancient Gaul, and in the feudal 
 kingdoms of modern Europe. The origin of this separa- 
 tion of powers, was probably various. In some instances 
 -ist V frSm u \h rl ronl ^ ma y nave been produced by the invasion 
 
 quest of a ruder peo- Qf ft mder peQple? wnQ; while they took to 
 
 themselves the possession of the land and the civil and 
 military government, yet learned to respect the superior 
 knowledge of the old inhabitants, and left to their chiefs 
 the dignity and influence of the priesthood, while they 
 deprived them of their actual power as rulers and leaders 
 in war. This was the case in the foundation of the 
 modern feudal kingdoms ; the Gaulish or Roman clergy a 
 preserved and increased their rank and influence under 
 the Frank invaders, while the property of the soil, the 
 sceptre, and the sword, were transferred almost entirely to 
 the conquerors. Thus also the Median magi continued 
 to enjoy their religious pre-eminence and immunities under 
 the Persian kings, while all other classes of the Median 
 nation were shorn of their supremacy, and held an inferior 
 dSacte^o? the 6 S ranli under the Persians. In other cases 
 ^the h peo b P Te ba " the separation of the two powers arose from 
 the character of the national religion. In a rude people, 
 religion, unless supported by the art of its ministers, holds 
 but a low place in public estimation : he who was chief 
 and priest would value himself upon the former character 
 much more than upon the latter : his priestly duties would 
 be in time devolved upon persons of an inferior class b , to 
 
 a See Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 146, ed. 8vo. Thierry, Con- 
 que"te de 1'Angleterre par les Normands, tome i. p. 32, &c. 
 
 b As in the story of the Potitii of Rome, whose family was sup- 
 posed to have become extinct as a punishment for their profane- 
 
86 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 spare himself the trouble of performing them ; or, if re- 
 tained, would be used as mere engines of state craft for 
 the maintenance of his own civil superiority. Thus 
 among the ancient Scythians we read of no priests at all ; 
 that is, the chiefs either performed the sacrifices them- 
 selves, or devolved them, as a menial duty, upon their 
 servants : among the Anglo-Saxons there were priests, but 
 as they formed no order in the state, as they were not 
 allowed to carry arms, or to ride but on a mare, it should 
 seem that they were only an inferior class, the mere 
 ministers at the sacrifices, on whom the chiefs had thrown 
 the performance of a duty which they disdained to execute 
 themselves. The existence of prophets among both the 
 Scythians and Saxons, as of certain prophetic families 
 among the ancient Greeks, must not be mistaken for a 
 priesthood. The priestly and prophetic character were 
 not necessarily connected with one another; and the 
 latter was not, like the former, held to be communicable 
 only by descent. Besides, that impatience to penetrate 
 into futurity, which has in every age and country encou- 
 raged pretensions to prophecy, is quite distinct from those 
 feelings of reverence and devotion which are the salt of 
 religion, even in its worst corruptions. Prophets or for- 
 tune-tellers might exist among a people too brutish to 
 have any conceptions of religion, as they have peculiarly 
 marked the lowest tribes of negroes, and the degraded 
 race of the gypsies. In these instances, then, the separa- 
 tion of the offices of priest and chief would arise from the 
 rudeness of the people, and the want of any external or 
 internal recommendations in the religion itself. But the 
 e/charl onheft more common form of separation arose from 
 vIneration d P 2d toTt! the very opposite cause. In proportion as 
 religion was valued ; as its ceremonies were more imposing ; 
 as the necessity of fixing the period of its festivals led to the 
 study of astronomy ; and as men's minds, thus saved from 
 
 ness in devolving their hereditary priesthood upon public slaves. 
 Livy,i.7. 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. . 87 
 
 sinking into barbarism, retained the traditions of older 
 times, and preserved in their devotions something more 
 worthy of Him who is the true object of all worship ; so 
 would the priest-chiefs of the people esteem their priest- 
 hood above their civil and military authority, and would 
 especially prefer their peaceful and sacred duties to the 
 exercises and combats of arms. Hence, whilst they 
 ministered at the temples of the gods, presided at festivals, 
 and perhaps awarded punishments and settled differences 
 between man and man, as the representatives of the gods, 
 they appointed persons less distinguished and less sacred 
 to lead out the people to battle a , and sometimes would fix 
 upon some warlike stranger, whose adventures in arms had 
 spread his renown, and who, living by his sword, was ready 
 to offer his services to any who could hold out a 
 worthy recompense. Military command thus conferred 
 was sure to become ere long political sovereignty ; but the 
 king thus raised could not venture to. invade the old privi- 
 leges, or diminish the ancient dignity of the priestly order; 
 the priests still remained the highest class in the state 5 , 
 and the military leaders and soldiers, who received for 
 their services grants of land from the sovereign, on the 
 tenure of joining his standard whenever he should summon 
 
 a It appears that one of the principal reasons which made the Is- 
 raelites change their earlier government into a monarchy, was a wish 
 that the leader of their armies should be the first man in the state, 
 and not, as had been hitherto the case, subordinate to the religious 
 authorities. For although Samuel was not a priest, yet still in his 
 government the religious character predominated over the civil and 
 military, as was naturally the case where the religion was so pure and 
 elevated in its principles as amongst the Israelites. 
 
 b As in India, Egypt, Gaul, and Attica. The military caste in 
 Egypt held their lands from the sovereign. (Compare Herodot. ii. 
 168, and Genesis xlvii. 20-22.) In Attica the Eupatridas and Geo- 
 mori corresponded to the priests and military class of Egypt ; whereas 
 in the colonies which were founded when society was more advanced, 
 and when the distinctions of blood had yielded to those of property, 
 the Geomori, or military landowners, formed the first and most aris- 
 tocratical class. Compare Herodot. vii. 155. Thucyd. viii. 21. 
 
88 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 them, and who thus became the founders of a new nobility, 
 inseparably connected with territorial property, held not- 
 withstanding only the second rank. Still, howeyter, so 
 general was the aristocratical spirit in early times, the 
 territorial nobility adopted the feelings and institutions of 
 the earlier priest-nobles in their earnestness to preserve 
 their blood pure from any mixture with the classes below 
 them ; intermarriages were forbidden, and the mass of the 
 community were as carefully excluded by the military 
 nobles from all civil and military power, as they were by 
 the priesthood from all religious authority, and from the 
 knowledge of which the priestly order were then the sole 
 possessors. 
 
 A third form of aristocracy, later perhaps than either of 
 
 the two already noticed, retained some of their features, 
 
 3rd form. Aristo- while in oilier points it resembled the most 
 
 cracy of conquest tT*~Tjr\ 
 
 where the conquerors recent form of all, the aristocracy of colo- 
 
 become noble in rela- 
 
 tion to the conquered. n j es< jh e $wrd form, then, I may call, by 
 way of distinction, the aristocracy of conquest. An in- 
 vading people occupies the country of a people of a dif- 
 ferent race : the old inhabitants either seek a refuge else- 
 where, or are reduced to a state of vassalage ; nor does 
 even their religion survive the common wreck. The con- 
 querors introduce their own institutions, differing in their 
 internal relations according to the circumstances of their 
 previous condition, but establishing always one and the 
 same relation between them and their subjects, the rela- 
 tion of nobility and commonalty a . Inferior leaders, or 
 even common soldiers of distinguished bravery, in the 
 conquering army, acquired lands, and became territorial 
 nobles with respect to the conquered people; while, on 
 
 a This was the case with the Dorians in Peloponnesus after the 
 conquest, as also with the Normans in England. "Les valets de 
 1'homme d'armes Normand, son ecuyer, son porte-lance, furent gen- 
 tilshommes ; ils furent des hommes nobles et considerables aupres du 
 Saxon autrefois riche, autrefois noble lui-meme, maintenant courbe 
 sons Tepee de 1'etranger," &c. Thierry, tome i. p. 343. 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 89 
 
 the other hand, the common interest and common dangers 
 of the invaders drew them all more closely together, and 
 diminished or destroyed those distinctions of rank which 
 might have existed between them in their former country. 
 A nobility of race succeeds to that of family; and is 
 guarded from corruption by the same restrictions upon 
 intermarriage with persons not noble, that is to say, not 
 of the conquering people. It will be observed, that in all 
 these cases the ascendancy of blood is still the prevailing 
 principle, insomuch that even when partially interrupted, 
 in one case by the admission of a military leader and his 
 followers to share the sovereignty of the priest-nobles, and 
 in the other, by the circumstances of the conquest natur- 
 ally impairing all artificial distinctions between the con- 
 querors themselves, still, it soon recovered its force, and 
 proved only to have formed for itself a new channel, in 
 which it continued to flow with even an increase of 
 strength and rapidity. In fact, nobility having taken pro- 
 perty not so much into its alliance as into its service, 
 strengthening itself with the real power of wealth, yet 
 making noble descent a necessary qualification, without 
 which political power was unattainable, established itself 
 on a firmer basis, and opposed a barrier to the advance of 
 popular principles which long delayed their triumph, and 
 rendered it in the end incomplete. 
 
 The ascendancy thus enjoyed by noble blood was not 
 
 merely the fruit of the natural respect which men feel for 
 
 The ascendancy of the sons, and even for the descendants, of 
 
 blood was sometimes 
 
 just and natural in its those who have been illustrious in their 
 
 ongin> out was con- 
 
 to ft be so. had generation. Two other powerful causes 
 
 contributed to it ; the one, a real superiority of military 
 prowess or wisdom, such as at this day distinguishes the 
 European from the Hottentots, or the natives of New South 
 Wales, and which has ever accompanied certain races of 
 mankind as compared with others; the other may be found 
 in the doctrines of a false religion, which, having first made 
 to itself gods of men, taught, as a consequence of this doc- 
 
90 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 trine, that the posterity of the men thus deified were them- 
 selves of a higher order than the bulk of mankind, and 
 were more valued and loved by the god who in his mortal 
 state had been their progenitor. Of these two causes, the 
 one was wholly founded on falsehood ; the other rested on 
 what was true once, but it was a truth not eternal and 
 necessary, but temporary and contingent; a truth the 
 term of whose existence it became those who profited by 
 s it to do their best to abridge. Differences of race have 
 not yet been proved indestructible, and the probability is, 
 that they might be removed or infinitely lessened, if the 
 members of the superior race shewed half as much eager- 
 ness in elevating and enlightening the inferior, as they 
 have generally done in degrading them. But the guilt of 
 all aristocracies has consisted not so much in their original 
 . acquisition of power, as in their perseverance in retaining 
 it : so that what was innocent, or even reasonable, at the 
 beginning, has become in later times atrocious injustice; 
 as if a parent in his dotage should claim the same authority 
 over his son in the vigour of manhood, which formerly 
 in the maturity of his own faculties he had exercised na- 
 turally and profitably over the infancy of his child. 
 
 The principle, then, of the ascendancy of noble blood 
 necessarily marks the infancy of mankind ; and wherever 
 it has long continued to exist, it marks a state of infancy 
 unnaturally prolonged by the selfish policy or criminal 
 neglect of those who ought rather to have gradually trained 
 it up to the independence of manhood. } I now proceed 
 hS^n is oyenhroTn y to examine the course of circumstances by 
 8oMMo N s : igiQ f the which this aristocratical dominion has been 
 overthrown ; by what untoward causes the critical periods 
 of this- overthrow have, in many instances, only led to 
 a worse and more hopeless disorder ; and how, in other 
 cases, the purposes of God for the progress of the human 
 race have been better answered, and the moral and politi- "Y 
 cal constitution, when recovered from the shock of its 
 crisis, has gone on healthfully towards the full perfection 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 91 
 
 of its being. For this purpose then' it will be necessary 
 to trace the origin and progress of the estate of the COM- 
 MONS, noticing particularly those causes which influenced 
 its condition, and which served in some cases to ensure 
 and complete its victory, or in others impeded its natural 
 growth, and have kept it in a state of perpetual insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 The earliest form of the existence of the commons ap- 
 pears to be that in which they were no other than the 
 ist form-where the slaves of the chiefs or nobles. This form 
 
 commons were the 
 
 slaves of the nobles, appears in the numerous households of the 
 heads of the pastoral tribes, almost before anything de- 
 serving the name of a state was to be met with. At a 
 much later period it prevailed in Parthia a , and has been 
 one of the characteristics of the Sclavonic nations in mo- 
 dern Europe. It naturally marks the infancy of society 
 when the inferior occupations of lite^-and all common 
 trades were followed exclusively by slaves or by foreign- 
 ers 5 ; and by the former probably somewhat earlier than 
 by the latter. The chiefs of a tribe, whether they were 
 one or many, fixed their dwelling on the tops of isolated 
 hills, or where a high table land terminated abruptly in 
 precipitous cliffs : here they made their followers con- 
 struct walls for their defence, and within this fortified pre- 
 cinct they lived with their families and their personal 
 attendants, and here also they made a place of worship for 
 the gods of their fathers. Below, at the foot of the hill, 
 rose the dwellings of the rest of their dependents, the 
 keepers of their flocks and herds, or' the cultivators of their 
 lands, who for their own security were glad to live under 
 the protection of the castle of their chief. If several of 
 these little tribes united to form one people, they would 
 sometimes occupy a spot where several eminences were to 
 be found, near to each other, yet distinct ; and each of 
 
 a Justin, xli. 2. 
 
 b Ilap fviots TJV SoCAoi/ TO pdvavaov tj gcviicov. Aristotle, Politics, 
 iii. 3. 
 
92 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 these would form a separate xu/w, or village, appropriated 
 to a separate tribe, while all together composed the city of 
 the united people. Sparta a was an instance of a city thus 
 formed out of a cluster of distinct villages; and, according 
 to some opinions, Rome was another. But in general the 
 original city consisted properly of one fortified enclosure, 
 on commanding ground, which contained the habitations 
 of the chiefs and their immediate dependents, with the 
 temples of their hereditary gods ; while the dwellings of 
 the rest of their dependents were built without the walls b , 
 either at the foot of the hill, or scattered over the sur- 
 rounding country. And these men, not living in the town 
 but around about it, not citizens but dependents, were the 
 original TTE^IOIKOI of Grecian History. Their numbers in 
 process of time increased, and their own condition im- 
 proved. Their numbers increased by the number of 
 strangers, who, in a rude and unsettled state of society, 
 were constantly driven from their homes to seek a refuge 
 elsewhere ; the slaves or followers of another chief, who 
 hoped to find an easier service ; adventurers attracted by 
 the military fame of the tribe to which they desired to join 
 themselves; and men with blood on their hands, flying 
 from the vengeance of the family of him whom they had 
 slain. Persons of the last class, as being often of noble 
 blood in their own tribe or country, were received as citi- 
 
 a See Thucyd. i. 10, and the note. 
 
 b This on a larger scale seems to have been the plan of some of the 
 great eastern capitals. What, .was properly called the city of Ecba- 
 tana consisted of seven concentric tfortified enclosures, the external 
 circle being about the size of Athens ; but all these were only the 
 residence of the king, and apparently of the higher castes, the magi 
 and principal warriors : the mass of the population lived without the 
 walls. See Herodot. i. 98, 99. So in ' Babylon, Ithe great external 
 walls enclosed a district rather than a city, but within these were 
 two smaller fortified enclosures, the tower of Belus, and the royal 
 quarter or precinct of the court, which, as far as we can judge from 
 the existing remains of it, extended along the Euphrates for about 
 two miles. (See Mr. Rich's Memoir, in which the Mujelibe" seems to 
 answer to the /Sao-iX^ia of Herodotus, i. 181.) 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 93 
 
 zens in their new home a : but fugitives of the other two 
 descriptions swelled the number of the wegtoutoi, or com- 
 mons. Sometimes also a whole people expelled from 
 their own country, or led by some other cause to seek a 
 new abode, solicited an asylum amongst the inhabitants 
 of another city. They were admitted to dwell with them, 
 (O-UVOMOI syEvovro,) like the Israelites of Egypt, and the Pe- 
 lasgians in Attica 5 ; and had a distinct quarter assigned 
 for their residence: but neither were these considered 
 as citizens, and either continued a distinct race/and were 
 subjected to the dominion of the citizens till they were 
 either driven or became enabled to emigrate once more : 
 or if they blended with the old inhabitants of the land, it j 
 was with the commons, not with the citizens ; and they 
 swelled the mass of that already mixed population which 
 was grown up around the city of the chiefs, and which 
 made it now a citadel in the midst of a city, rather than 
 the principal part of the city itself. Meantime, while the 
 numbers of the commons thus increased, their condition 
 improved also. In the middle ages the emancipation of 
 the serfs of the nobility was largely effected by the influ- 
 ence of Christianity ; nor was the church slow in urging 
 in this instance a full compliance with the spirit of the 
 gospel. But the gospel addresses itself in vain in our 
 days to the proprietors of slaves; and this difference 
 neither arises from any moral superiority in the noble 
 over the planter, nor altogether from the diminished zeal 
 of the church. It springs out of the different relation inl 
 which the slaves stood to their masters. The dependents > 
 of a feudal noble were the instruments of his pride and 
 power rather than of his wealth : their numbers swelled 
 his state, their swords maintained his quarrels ; but if they 
 were changed from serfs to tenants, their services in these 
 
 a See the story of Phoenix, Homer, Iliad, ix. 479, &c., and of Epei- 
 geus, Iliad, xvi. 570. Compare also the famous story of Atys and 
 Adrastus in Herodotus, i. 34, &c. 
 
 b Compare Herodotus, ii. 51, vi. 137. Thucyd. ii. 17, note. 
 
94 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 respects would be nearly the same ; so that it was no ex- 
 traordinary sacrifice of selfishness to emancipate them. 
 Thus also the followers of the nobles of a much more re- 
 mote period were employed in war or agriculture much 
 more than in household offices. Slaves of this latter 
 description were extremely few a ; they were bred up with 
 the children of the family, and little distinction was made 
 in the treatment of the one and the other. Meantime the 
 agricultural vassals were suffered to make the most of their 
 own industry, and portions of land b were sometimes 
 granted them by their lords, in which they acquired in a 
 few generations a sort of property : while those who lived 
 nearer to the towns acquired wealth by following various 
 branches of trade or handicraft employments. In this 
 manner they grew comparatively rich and powerful ; and 
 when a change of circumstances took place, and the chiefs 
 began to feel that wealth was an important means of 
 power, it was too late then to reduce their vassals to the 
 condition of our colonial slaves, and to make a profit of 
 their labour, when they were on the point of asserting 
 their complete equality with their lords. 
 
 But before this change was effected, all but the chiefs, 
 that is, all who were not of noble blood, whether they were 
 The commons were born dependents on the nobles, or whether 
 
 not originally consi* -, 1111-11 
 
 dered as citizens. they were strangers who had been induced 
 to settle amongst them, were alike comprised under the 
 denomination of " commons," dw/xoj, and were not con- 
 sidered members of the state, or WO^TOU. The widely- 
 different feeling which existed towards them, and towards 
 the citizens or members of the state, is best shown by the 
 different language in which Homer makes Ulysses address 
 them. (Iliad, book II.) They could neither command in 
 war or in peace : they could not minister at the altars of the 
 gods ; nor were their voices admitted in the decision of 
 state affairs. They were, in short, in the heroic times, 
 
 Herodot. vi. 137, viii. 137. Juvenal, xiv. 168. 
 b Festus in " Patres." 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 95 
 
 what the slaves and resident foreigners were in the historic ^\ 
 age, that is, inhabitants of the country, but not citizens. V 
 They could not possess land nor intermarry with the 
 citizen nobility of the commonwealth : and if they were 
 free from personal slavery, yet both politically and in 
 private life they were liable to constant oppression ; for the 
 " limited prerogatives " of the kings of ancient Greece are 
 to be understood only with respect to their nobles ; over/ 
 the commons both the kings and nobles were absolute./ 
 Still, as we have seen, if they could acquire any property, 
 either in war or by commerce, it remained fully their own ; 
 they thus obtained consideration, and learned to feel their 
 own power and rights ; and were already sufficiently im- 
 portant to be courted as auxiliaries in the civil contests of 
 the aristocracy, before they were strong enough to assert 
 their claims in their own name, and enter as principals 
 into the quarrel in their own cause. 
 
 The outline here given, as far as relates to the ancient 
 world, can be made out only from a careful comparison of 
 Example of the ori- various scattered passages in ancient authors; 
 
 gin and progress of , . D . , 
 
 the commons, afford- nor perhaps can every portion of it be sup- 
 
 ed by the history of , , ,. - 
 
 AUGSBURG. ported by direct testimony, although in the 
 
 main I have no doubt that all who have studied ancient 
 history attentively will admit its correctness. But for the 
 analogous period of society in modern times we have 
 evidence full and direct : and a slight sketch of the Con- 
 stitution of Augsburg a will at once illustrate and confirm 
 what I have given as a picture of the origin of the com- 
 mons generally under similar circumstances. On the con- 
 quest of Swabia by the Franks, a certain number of 
 persons, free by birth, (Ingenui,) and enjoying in conse- 
 quence of their birth the privileges of an aristocracy, such 
 as the exclusive right of serving in war, of administering 
 
 a The whole of this account of the constitution of Augsburg is 
 taken from Paul von Stetten's " Geschichte der adlichen Geschlechter 
 in Augsburg." (" History of the Noble Families of Augsburg.' ) 
 Augsburg, 1762. 
 
96 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 justice, and of discharging the offices of religion, settled 
 with their dependents in the town of Augsburg. In pro- 
 cess of time there grew up around them a large population, 
 chiefly formed out of the class of freedmen, that is, of the 
 vassals or dependents of the free citizens who had been 
 emancipated by their lords ; and this population was 
 settled not within the precincts of the city, but outside the 
 walls in suburbs surrounded by a palisade, whence they 
 were denominated " Pfal burger," or "citizens of the 
 palisade," the Greek vrepioutoi, to distinguish them from the 
 genuine citizens who lived within the walls. But the 
 free or noble inhabitants of the inner town were alone 
 called simply " citizens," (burger ;) a " decree of the citi- 
 zens of Augsburg " was synonymous with a " decree of the 
 great council of the inhabitants of free blood," and by no 
 means comprehended the Pfal burger, although these last 
 formed the most numerous part of the population. The 
 " citizens " of Augsburg, although living in a town, and 
 not on their lands in the country, were yet in all respects 
 accounted the equals of the Milites Agraii, or country 
 nobility, throughout Germany ; they used all the distinc- 
 tions of nobility, banners and armorial bearings, and they 
 intermarried with the nobles, as belonging to the same 
 class in society. They had their two Stadt-Pfleger, or 
 burgomasters, their ordinary council of twelve citizens, 
 annually chosen by the council of the preceding year; 
 and their great council (the Comitia Curiata of the early 
 Roman constitution,) composed of the whole body of 
 citizens. But about the beginning of the 14th century 
 the commons found themselves sufficiently advanced 
 in wealth and power to lay claim to their share of 
 the rights of citizenship. They seem first to have been 
 admitted into the great council, as the Plebeians at Rome 
 voted in the comitia before they were admitted into the 
 senate, or eligible to the consulship : then the ordinary 
 council was increased from twelve to four-and-twenty, the 
 additional members being apparently chosen from the 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 97 
 
 commons; but the twelve patrician counsellors still formed 
 a separate tribunal, to which cases were brought in the 
 last resort, although on other occasions they formed one 
 body with the counsellors of the commons. Still faith- 
 fully representing the same course of events which had 
 marked the downfall of the old aristocracies of Greece 
 and Rome, Augsburg had her noble family of popular 
 principles, whose members, whether from ambition or true 
 patriotism, asserted the rights of the commons, and ex- 
 posed themselves to the persecutions of their own body ; 
 and Sibot Stolzhirsch and his kinsmen acted the part of 
 Clisthenes and the Alcmaeonidse at Athens, of the Valerii 
 and Manlius Capitolinus at Rome. Finally, in the year 
 1368, the companies of trades, or, in other words, the 
 commons of Augsburg, succeeded without a struggle in 
 gaining for themselves not only an equality of rights with 
 the nobles, but an absolute ascendancy ; and in the first 
 moment of their triumph they proposed to destroy the 
 political existence of the nobility altogether, and to oblige 
 every citizen under the old constitution to become a com- 
 moner and a member of some a one of the companies. 
 They listened however to the entreaties of the nobles, and 
 allowed them to remain a separate order ; they gave them 
 also their share in the government, ordering that fifteen 
 nobles should be chosen into the common council of the 
 companies, and that one of these should be always burgo- 
 master along with the burgomaster of the commons. 
 
 This story of the gradual emancipation of the commons 
 of Augsburg is particularly deserving of attention, because 
 The value of this ex- it exhibits a rare instance of society ad- \ 
 
 ample, in shewing the > 
 
 St^wS^oTob- van cing in its natural course without the 
 in r g uc c au d s e s^ y disturb ' interference of any disturbing causes; and 
 
 a This was done from time to time at Florence as a reward of the 
 liberal principles of particular nobles ; for the nobility being disqua- 
 lified from holding public offices, could only be rendered eligible to 
 them by being made commoners. On the other hand, unpopular 
 commoners were sometimes ennobled, in order to disfranchise them. 
 See Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. III., part ii., p. 435. 
 
 H 
 
98 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 the example therefore is well fitted to shew what are to be 
 considered as the general laws of a nation's progress, if 
 left to itself, and what are merely accidental and forcible 
 interruptions of them. For instance, the subsequent revo- 
 lution in Augsburg in 1548, by which the aristocracy 
 regained almost all their former ascendancy, was not pro- 
 duced by any internal and natural causes, but by foreign 
 violence ; the emperor Charles the Fifth, in his hatred of 
 all free and just government, forcibly dispossessing the 
 commons of their power. But even where the disturbing 
 cause is certain in its interference, as in mechanics the 
 resistance of the air always prevents a body from obeying 
 the natural laws of motion, still the general principles of 
 the science are universally held to be essential to the 
 attainment of a true knowledge of it. Much more does 
 this hold good in political science, where disturbing causes 
 need not of necessity come into action, and what is true 
 in principle may sometimes, as at Augsburg up to the 
 year 1548, be no less true in practice. 
 
 The history of Augsburg down to the overthrow of its 
 liberty by Charles the Fifth, shews the manner in which 
 the aristocracy of blood is naturally overthrown by the 
 But disturbing causes ordinary progress of a people in wealth and 
 
 have in fact gene- J r 
 
 rally interfered with Civilization : it sllCWS tOO With how little 
 
 this natural course of ,,. . 
 
 difficulty and danger this change may be 
 effected, where no disturbing causes exist, and where the 
 effort of the political constitution is neither hurried for- 
 wards, nor violently checked, external circumstances com- 
 bining also to favour it. v Spring is ever a critical period, 
 and the fairest promise of blossom on the healthiest tree 
 may be cut off by one of the sudden frosts or storms so 
 incident to that changeful season. In the political spring 
 also there are peculiar dangers internal and external, 
 which in too large a proportion of instances have never 
 allowed the blossom to ripen. These may be stated prin- 
 
 dangefs whiS'SS d P all y aS threG 5 lst > The U n f property, 
 
 l.'S&c/Tf under peculiar local circumstances, with 
 weaun? * ' f nobility ; 2nd, The increasing influence of 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 99 
 
 wealth leading to absolute monarchy instead of a free 
 government ; 3rd, an unfavourable state of foreign rela- 
 tions. I proceed to speak of these in their order. 
 
 1st, The union of property, under peculiar local circum- 
 
 stances, with nobility. This is a check upon the growth 
 
 ist danger; the of liberty which peculiarly belongs to what 
 
 union of property i ' , " n c 
 
 under peculiar local I have called aristocracies or conquest: tor 
 
 circumstances, with 
 
 | n these cases the first settlement of the 
 
 conquering people renders the distribution of property 
 fearfully unequal, and the hostile relation long maintained 
 between the conquerors and the conquered leads to fruit- 
 less insurrections and subsequent confiscations, or to laws 
 directly restraining the acquisition of property by the 
 conquered people. But where the distinction between 
 nobles and commons is not founded on conquest, the 
 emancipation of the latter is checked by the local circum- 
 stances of the country, or the moral and physical con- 
 stitution of the race of its inhabitants. Distance from 
 the sea, the want of great rivers, the existence of large 
 forests and deserts, the interposition of numerous chains 
 of mountains or impracticable hills, any thing, in short, 
 that impedes communication, and thus shuts out foreign 
 commerce, necessarily tends to prevent the creation of 
 any wealth but that arising from land, and the land is 
 already monopolized by the. aristocracy. Now where the 
 land, as in Judea, is divided in the beginning amongst the 
 whole people, the absence of foreign commerce, although 
 incompatible with any high advancement in knowledge 
 and general cultivation of mind, is not incompatible with 
 a large amount of national virtue and happiness : but an 
 agricultural country in the hands of an aristocracy is a 
 state at once of physical, intellectual, and moral degrada- 
 tion, and which tends to exclude all opportunities of 
 amendment. Again, the moral and physical constitution 
 of different races of mankind produces results worth 
 noticing. The lively and social temper of the Greeks and 
 Italians led them to desire frequent intercourse with one 
 
 H 2 
 
100 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 another, and could scarcely exist without the excitement 
 of the theatre and the forum. Thus the chiefs resided in 
 the towns, even while their main property was derived 
 from the country; and they were far more accessible to 
 the influence or power of the commons than if, like the 
 territorial nobility of Germany, they had resided on their 
 estates in castles, which were so many strongholds of their 
 dominion. On the other hand, the strong passion for 
 field sports which distinguished the Teutonic nations, and 
 their little aptitude for social and intellectual enjoyments, 
 made them in general abandon the towns to their vassals, 
 and continue to keep themselves and their immediate de- 
 pendents out of the reach of the humanizing influences 
 of general society, as well as of the direct force of popular 
 power. Under these circumstances, then, property is 
 f united with nobility in keeping down the progress of 
 I the nation; either because the commons are prevented 
 from acquiring commercial wealth, by which alone they 
 can hope to balance the territorial wealth of the aris- 
 tocracy ; or because the nobles find in the very situation 
 of their property an advantageous military position, en- 
 abling them to escape the influence of the commons be- 
 fore an actual collision takes place, and to enter into the 
 contest when it does come with superior means of resist- 
 ance. 
 
 2nd. But the most fatal danger which threatens the 
 
 political constitution, arises out of the very crisis of its 
 
 2d danger-, that the state of transition from the ascendancy of 
 
 change from aristo- lllin , i -i 
 
 cracy should end in blood to that of property, when monarchical 
 
 despotism rather than r J ' 
 
 in a free government, despotism is the result instead of general 
 liberty. Sometimes this despotism has been itself only 
 transient, and after having been the instrument of good 
 in plucking up by the roots the old aristocracy, has yielded 
 in its turn to a free and liberal government; but in other 
 cases it has realized the fable of the horse and the stag, 
 and has established a worse and more enduring tyranny 
 over the people than that which it supplanted. Of the 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 101 
 
 first class were the despotisms noticed by Thucydides as 
 springing up almost everywhere on the first overthrow of 
 the old aristocratical monarchies : of the second, the his- 
 tory of modern Europe affords but too many examples. 
 But in both, the evil arose from the imperfect distribution*! 
 of wealth ; commerce was confined to a few hands, and 1 
 produced a rate of profit, proportionably large ; and the 
 increased attention paid to agriculture added to the wealth 
 of a few only, because the land was engrossed by only a 
 small portion of the community. In Greece a man who 
 could purchase the services of a small body of mercenary 
 soldiers, seized the citadel, and made himself tyrant. In 
 modern Europe a king who was rich enough to substitute 
 a small standing army for the feudal array of an earlier 
 period, became at once independent of the support of his 
 nobles, and powerful enough to crush them if they offered 
 any opposition to his plans. In the famous revolution of 
 1660 in Denmark, the commons surrendered their liber- 
 ties to the crown in order to purchase thus dearly the subver- 
 sion of the aristocracy. And wherever a king has existed 
 in modern Europe, the overthrow of the aristocracy has 
 generally been effected by his means. Happy the people 
 who 'have not suffered their liberties to be merely trans- 
 ferred from one spoiler to another, but have asserted their 
 right to share in the victory of the crown. But in modern 
 Europe, the size of the kingdoms, and the much more 
 strongly monarchical spirit of the people, allowed the kings 
 to consolidate their work ; while in ancient Greece the! 
 tyrant of a single town was far more readily overthrown. 
 It has been an aggravation to the,. evil in modern tim 
 that the king, after he had once established his power, 
 
 seemed to make common cause with the aristocracy 
 against the people, and lent his support to maintain them 
 in their many exemptions and prerogatives. At the same 
 time, the means by which he has maintained his own des- 
 potism, a mercenary standing army, has rendered finance 
 
102 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 a most important subject of attention, and has marked that 
 second stage in society, in which money rather than birth 
 confers the ascendancy. 
 
 3rd. But if we look a little further we shall trace this 
 
 unfavourable aspect of the great crisis in the progress of 
 
 3d danger; arising society to one cause above all others, to an 
 
 out of foreign wars, c -,-, n n i , 
 
 and the union of two unfavourable state of foreign relations, or, 
 
 or more nations un- . . 
 
 der one sovereign, m other words, to foreign wars.- W ell has 
 Thucydides, with his accustomed wisdom, denounced war 
 as the great aggravation of the factions of Greece ; it was 
 this whicrj hardened their hearts, and blinded their reason, 
 till they were ready for the perpetration of any folly and 
 any crime. And to the exemption from this curse, which 
 Great Britain enjoyed during the latter half of the six- 
 teenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, the 
 favourable termination of our political crisis is mainly to 
 be attributed. In no country had it commenced with 
 symptoms more alarming : the aristocracy were exhausted 
 by the wars of the Roses ; the clergy changed from an 
 independent estate of the realm to the veriest slaves of 
 the king's pleasure ; the commons were daily advancing, . 
 it is true, in wealth and intelligence, but their strength 
 was not yet matured, and was wholly incompetent to resist 
 a vigorous military despotism. But providently was it 
 ordered that the prudence and parsimony of Elizabeth, 
 and the unwarlike temper of her successor, saved us from 
 engaging deeply in the great continental wars. Most 
 thankful should we be that their foreign policy was not 
 more vigorous, their commanders not more wisely selected, 
 their military operations not more fortunate. Leicester 
 and Buckingham by their incapacity were far more useful 
 to their country under the circumstances of that time than 
 if they had possessed the genius of Marlborough or Wel- 
 lington. Had the military spirit of the nation been more 
 ably directed, had there been formed in the wars of Hol- 
 land or the Palatinate such a band of disciplined soldiers 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 103 
 
 as those whose unrivalled exploits 8 in Flanders in 1658 
 were the admiration of their French allies, and the terror 
 of Spain, the triumph of the crown in the civil war of 
 1642 must have been speedy and decisive, and before 
 even the talents of Cromwell could have organized the 
 parliament's armies, their total defeat, and the utter extinc- 
 tion of the national liberties, would have been inevitably 
 consummated. 
 
 What England thus happily escaped, delayed for nearly 
 two centuries the deliverance of France. The long con- 
 test with Spain and Austria produced effects infinitely 
 more disastrous than the defeats of Pavia and St. Quentin. 
 For these, ample atonement was made at Rocroi and 
 Fribourg : but what could remedy the prevalence of a 
 military spirit, created by so many years of warfare ; the 
 distraction of the public mind from all schemes of internal 
 improvement; and the absolute power acquired and se- 
 cured by the crown ? And within our own memory, when 
 nature, recovered from her long check, made a second and 
 happier effort to attain to maturity, the curse of war again 
 interposed to mar the work, and the aggressions of the 
 imperial armies provoked a reaction, by the consequences 
 of which the deliverance achieved by the Constituent 
 Assembly was again for a time placed in jeopardy. 
 
 Nor, while noticing the evils arising to the political 
 constitution from an unfavourable state of its foreign 
 relations, must we forget that abuse of the principle of 
 hereditary succession which has placed the crowns of 
 remote and uncongenial nations on the head of the same 
 individual. This accumulation of dominion has been often 
 regarded with jealousy by foreign nations, as threatening 
 their own independence ; but its dangers are still greater 
 
 a There is a most entertaining account of the exploits of thi& 
 invincible army in one of the volumes of the Harleian Miscellany, 
 written by major-general Morgan, who was its actual commander, 
 although Lockhart was nominally the general. 
 
104 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 to the people a thus unnaturally subjected to the same 
 master. In this ill-omened union, each member of it is 
 to the other like the dead corpse fastened by the tyrant of 
 old to the living man ; the strength and resources of each 
 are employed in crushing the other's independence. So 
 Charles the Fifth trampled upon the liberties of the 
 Netherlands with the help of his Spanish soldiers, and 
 upon Italy with the military force both of Spain and 
 Germany. 
 
 Such are the dangers besetting that critical period of a 
 nation's existence, when it is emerging from the dominion 
 surmo^nfedt^nd the f ^ ts ^ aristocracy. If it escapes these, 
 hajpfiy, the n s ew?tatl either originally.. -or finally, it enters upon 
 
 of things is very dif- . n t i i i 
 
 ferent from the old, its state of manhood, and is exposed to a 
 somewhat different succession of struggles. The contest 
 then, is between property and numbers, and whenever it 
 has come to a crisis, I know not that it has in any instance 
 terminated favourably. Such was the state of Greece in 
 the time of Thucydides ; of Rome during the last century 
 of the commonwealth ; and such has been the state of 
 . England since the revolution of 1688. Comparisons 
 drawn from the preceding period are inapplicable to this ; 
 
 a What is here said applies, be it remembered, to the period when 
 the commons are in the natural course of things ripe for political 
 emancipation, and are strong enough to excite the jealousy of the 
 aristocracy. But at an, earlier period, while they are still entirely 
 subservient to the nobility, the union of several crowns in the person 
 of one sovereign, has been advantageous to the general liberty, 
 because his great foreign power and resources have led the nobles to 
 conciliate the regard of the commons for their own defence against 
 the king; and a happy union of interests and feelings has been thus 
 produced, whose effects in after-times are most beneficial. Such was 
 the case in England, owing to the extensive continental dominion of 
 the first Plantagenet monarchs: the Anglo-Norman barons became 
 English in feeling, and favoured the liberties of the commons, because 
 they were afraid of being ejected from their possessions by the 
 Poitevins and other continental subjects of Henry the Third, as their 
 ancestors had dispossessed the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 105 
 
 while, on the other hand, as the phenomena of the second 
 period arise out of causes connected with the earlier state of 
 things, they cannot be clearly understood unless that former 
 state be fully known to us. Thus, to argue that the Ro- 
 mans were less bloody than the Greeks from a comparison 
 between the factions of the Peloponnesian war and the 
 struggles of the Roman commons against the Patricians, is 
 to compare the two nations under very different circum- 
 stances; it is instituting a parallel between the intensity 
 of our passions in manhood and in childhood. The 
 bloody factions of Corcyra and Megara are analogous to 
 the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, of Caesar and Pompey, 
 of Brutus and Cassius against the triumvirs : the harmless 
 contests between the commons and patricians can only be 
 compared to those which prevailed in Greece before the 
 Persian invasion, when the party of the coast at Athens 
 was disputing the exclusive ascendancy so long enjoyed 
 by the eupatridae or party of the plain. And the true con- 
 clusion is, that the second contest, between property and 
 numbers, is far more inevitably accompanied by atrocious 
 crimes than that earlier quarrel in which property and 
 numbers were united against property and birth. 
 
 The causes of this difference are worth noticing. The 
 distinction between the nobility and the commons was 
 originally a real one ; that is, it was grounded upon a real 
 superiority, either physical or moral. But every succes- 
 sive generation tended to make it more and more ima- 
 ginary ; till, at the moment of the final struggle between 
 the two orders, it had no real existence at all. The com- 
 mons were then become as well qualified as the nobles, 
 both physically and morally, to conduct the affairs of 
 peace and war ; and thus the exclusive ascendancy of the 
 nobility being become unnatural and absurd, now that it 
 existed along with a rear^equality of the two parties in 
 merit and in wealth, was resigned for very shame, and was 
 in fact, but the sacrifice of a shadow. Whereas in the 
 contest between property and numbers, the course of 
 
106 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 things is exactly the opposite. The final struggle here 
 only takes place when the real differences between the 
 contending parties have reached the widest point of sepa- 
 ration ; when the intermediate gradations of society are 
 absorbed in one or other of the two extremes, and the 
 state is divided only between the two irreconcilable oppo- 
 sites of luxury and beggary. This is no contest between 
 men really equal, to do away with a fictitious distinction : 
 it is a struggle between utter contraries \ between parties 
 who have absolutely no point in common, no knowledge of 
 each other's feelings, no sympathy in each other's pursuits ; 
 and who are contending for a prize which one cannot gain 
 without a proportional loss to the other. And in confirm- 
 ation of this view of the subject, wherever difference of 
 blood and race is so strong as even after the lapse of ages 
 to constitute a real distinction, as in the case of white men 
 and negroes, there the perfect amalgamation of the po- 
 litical body becomes exceedingly difficult, if not utterly 
 hopeless ; and the daily increasing negro population of 
 the United States, a population excluded by a feeling of 
 natural diversity from an enjoyment of the rights of citi- 
 zenship, is, perhaps, one of the most alarming points in the 
 future prospects of that great and growing people a . 
 
 On the other hand, the position of parties in the later 
 
 a " The hostility existing between the free blacks and the whites in 
 the United States is even more inveterate than that of slaves towards 
 their masters ; and in some of the states, Virginia especially, it has 
 been thought necessary to enact laws, by which all manumitted slaves 
 are compelled to quit the commonwealth." Ward's Mexico, vol. i. 
 p. 38. In Mexico, on the contrary, where there is scarcely any thing 
 of a pure negro population, so much more strongly distinguished than 
 ( the native American race from the physical character of Europeans, 
 the different castes have blended freely together, and the common 
 feeling of hatred to the old Spaniards of Europe has drawn together 
 all the natives of Mexico, whether of Spanish or of Indian extraction ; 
 and has even led the former, descended as they are from the first 
 conquerors of Mexico, to identify themselves with the aborigines, and 
 to speak of the atrocities of their own ancestors as committed by 
 Spain against their countrymen. Ib. p. 34. 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 107 
 
 contest must be traced to causes connected with that one 
 yet can only be un- which preceded it. The enormous inequality 
 
 derstood from a clear _. , . , ., 
 
 knowledge of the of property at Rome, against which the 
 
 state of things that * " J 
 
 preceded it. Agrarian laws were particularly directed, 
 
 arose out of the exclusive claim to the rights of citizen- 
 ship formerly asserted by the patricians. They who were 
 not citizens could have no title to a share of the national 
 lands; and in early times none were citizens except the 
 patricians. The principle that the land of the state 
 should be equally* divided amongst all the citizens 
 in the original settlement of the country, and that an 
 admission of new citizens implied that they should, 
 share for the future in all public land not yet divided, 
 was generally recognized by the nations of antiquity. 
 But the Roman patricians, whilst they allowed the first 
 part of this principle, objected to the second ; and re- 
 fused to admit the commons to any division of the un- 
 appropriated public land. So again in modern times, how 
 much of the actual situation of our aristocracy of property 
 is derived from our old aristocracy of conquest: the 
 enormous landed estates of many of our nobility, the 
 great political influence conferred by land above all other 
 kinds of property, the law of primogeniture and the law 
 of entails. Above all, the existence of an order of nobility 
 communicated by descent, with separate powers, and 
 
 a This appears from what we know of the first settlement of parti- 1 
 cular nations in the territory which they afterwards occupied ; as, ( 
 for instance, of the Israelites in Canaan, and the. Dorians in Pelopon- 
 nesus. It appears also from the practice observed in the planting of 
 colonies, both among the Greeks and Romans, where equal shares of 
 land were distributed to the several colonists. Hence when a num- 
 ber of new citizens were admitted, there was generally a demand for 
 a re-division of the land, on the principle that it was a common stock, 
 which ought to be equally shared among all the citizens. The philo- 
 sophers also, in their proposed models of a commonwealth, proceed on 
 the same notion: certain portions of the land are to be set apart for 
 religious purposes, and the rest to be divided in lots amongst the 
 citizens. See Plutarch, Lycurgus 8. Thucydid. V. 4. Dionysius 
 Halicani. II. C, 7. Herodot. IV. 159. Aristot. Politic. VI. 4, VII. 10. 
 
108 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 peculiar privileges, gives to the aristocracy of modern 
 Europe much more of the character of the older aristocracy 
 of blood than was retained after the corresponding revo- 
 lution in Greece and Rome. In fact, if hereditary 
 monarchy was to be retained, public liberty could scarcely 
 have been achieved or preserved without a co-existent 
 hereditary aristocracy. 
 
 The view that has been here taken of the progress of 
 society offers an explanation of many points which, with- 
 TWS view of the P e- out it, have been sometimes misunderstood. 
 
 riods of society tends 1,1 i n T 
 
 to explain many it shews now the popular party or an earlier 
 
 seeming mconsist- e * 
 
 encies m history ; period becomes the antipopular party of a 
 later ; because the tendency of society is to become more 
 and more liberal, and as the ascendancy of wealth is a 
 more popular principle than the ascendancy of nobility, 
 so it is less popular than the ascendancy of numbers. 
 Thus the comitia centuriata of Servius Tullius, which in 
 the times of Marius and Caesar would have been an insti- 
 tution entirely aristocratical, were in their first creation 
 a most liberal and popular measure, by admitting wealth 
 to that supremacy which had before been monopolized by 
 noble birth. Thus the house of commons, which was the 
 popular part of our constitution so long as the struggle 
 was between the nation and the crown, has been regarded 
 since the accession of George the Third as a body pre- 
 dominantly aristocratical, because the parties in the state 
 have resolved themselves into the advocates of property 
 on one side, and of general intelligence and numbers on 
 the other. 
 
 r 
 
 We may learn also a more \sensible division of history 
 than that which^js^commonly adopted of ancient and 
 ' 5 - modem., We shall see that there is, in fact, 
 
 with . 
 
 phical' divisions of T -i -.- .,-1 i 
 
 it; v_ ^"' an ancien t and a modern period m the his- 
 tory of every people ; the ancient differing, and the modern 
 in many essential points agreeing with that in which we 
 nowjivfi, Thus the largest portion of that history which 
 we commonly call ancient is practically modern, as it 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. 109 
 
 describes society in a stage analogous to that in which it 
 how is; while, on the other hand, much of what is called 
 modern history is practically ancient, as it relates to a 
 state of things which has passed away. Thucydides and L 
 
 Xenophon, the orators of Athens, and the philosophers, 
 speak a wisdom more applicable to us politically than the 
 wisdom of even our own countrymen who lived in the 
 middle ages; and their position, both intellectual and 
 conciSionrrel^ap- political, more nearly resembled our own. 
 SSS sodeT wn We pay learn also by the experience of 
 other societies in an^ analogous;; state to ours, that having ""- 
 happily overlived the critical season of the transition from 
 youth to manhood, what we should now most dread are 
 accidents, or constitutional disease produced by external 
 violence : that is, that the great enemy of society in its 
 present stage is war : if this calamity be avoided, the pro- 
 gress of improvement is sure; but attempts to advance the 
 cause of freedom by the sword are incalculably perilous. 
 War is a state of such fatal intoxication that it makes 
 men careless of improving, and sometimes even of repair- 
 ing; their internal institutions : and thus the course of 
 
 O ' """"""s^ 
 
 national happiness may be/ cut short, not only by foreign 
 conquest, but by a state of war poisoning the blood, 
 destroying the healthy tone of the system, and setting up 
 a feverish excitement, till the disorder terminates in des- 
 potism. 
 
 Extending our view still more widely, and observing 
 that in some parts of the world society seems never to have 
 it teaches us also that reached its natural manhood, but has either 
 
 there are causes be- - . _ """"* > N 
 
 yond human control gone on in protracted infancy, or has re- 
 affecting the progress to V-i_ ~- J * 
 
 of society, such as, ce ived a shock at the moment of its transi- 
 tion, which has condemned it to a long living death ; that 
 either the old aristocracies have still existed, or have only 
 been exchanged for despotism in its worst, and, humanly 
 speaking, most hopeless form ; we shall draw near with 
 reverence to those higher causes which, proceeding directly 
 
110 ON THE SOCIAL 
 
 from the inscrutable will of our Maker, seem designed to 
 
 humble the presumption of fancying ourselves the arbiters 
 
 ist, constitutional of our own destiny. It is vain to deny that 
 
 difference of national . : r 
 
 character, and, differences of national character apparently 
 constitutional, and belonging to distinct families of the 
 human race, have immensely influenced the greatness and 
 happiness of each : it is equally clear that the physical 
 geography of the several parts of the earth has advanced 
 or prevented the moral and intellectual progress of their 
 2d, the physical geo- respective inhabitants. The boundless and 
 
 graphy of different 
 
 parts of the earth, unmanageable mass of earth presented by 
 the continents of Asia and Africst has caused those parts 
 of the world, which started the earliest in the race of civil- 
 ization, to remain almost at the point from whence they 
 set out; while Europe and America, penetrated by so 
 many seas, and communicating with them by so many 
 j rivers, have been subdued to the uses of civilization, and 
 have ministered witti an ever-growing power to their chil- 
 dren's greatness. Well, indeed, might the policy oftKe 
 old priest nobles of Egypt and India endeavour to divert 
 their people from becoming familiar with the sea, and 
 represent the occupation of a seaman as incompatible with 
 the purity of the highest castes. The sea deserved to be 
 hated by the old aristocracies, inasmuch as it has been 
 the mightiest instrument in the civilization of mankind. 
 In the depth of winter, when the sky is covered with 
 clouds, and the land presents one cold, blank, and lifeless 
 surface of snow, how refreshing is it to the spirits to walk 
 upon the shore, and to enjoy the eternal freshness and 
 liveliness of ocean. Even so in the deepest winter of the 
 human race, when the earth was but one chilling expanse of 
 inactivity, life was stirring in the waters. There began 
 that spirit whose genial influence has now reached to the 
 land, has broken the chains of winter, an,d covered the face 
 of the earth with beauty. 
 
 But these distinctions between race and race, like those 
 
PROGRESS OF STATES. Ill 
 
 between individuals, involve a duty which men have been 
 vet these causes, unhappily very unwilling to practise. They 
 
 L J J * J 
 
 to be removed, may w ho are most favoured by nature owe their 
 
 mitigated b bji- 
 
 though not altogether 
 
 to be removed, ma 
 
 be mitigated by bji 
 
 S^bmSdl^duiy 1 of best assistance to those whose lot is most 
 yS^SS^gSSSi unpromising; they who have advanced the 
 miTfSheeilvation furthest in civilization are bound to en- 
 
 of others to their own .^_ . , , 111 
 
 level. lighten others whose progress has been less 
 
 rapid. But here that feeling of pride and selfishness inter- 
 poses, which, under the name of patriotism, has so long 
 tried to pass itself off for a virtue. As men in proportion to 
 their moral advancement learn to enlarge the circle of their 
 regards; as an exclusive affection for our relations, our 
 clan, or our country is a sure mark of an unimproved 
 mind, so is that narrow and unchristian feeling to be con- 
 demned, which regards with jealousy the progress of 
 foreign nations, and cares for no portion of the human 
 race but that to which itself belongs. The detestable en- 
 couragement so long given to national enmities, the low 
 gratification felt by every people in extolling themselves 
 above their neighbours, should not be overlooked amongst 
 the causes which have mainly obstructed the improvement 
 of mankind. Exclusive patriotism should be cast off, 
 together with the exclusive ascendancy of birth, as be- 
 longing to the follies and selfishness of our uncultivated 
 nature. Yet, strange to say, the former, at least, is some- 
 times upheld by men who not only call themselves 
 Christians, but are apt to use the charge of irreligion as 
 the readiest weapon against those who differ from them. 
 So little have they learned of the spirit of that revelation 
 which taught emphatically the abolition of an exclusively 
 national religion and a local worship, that so men, being 
 .all born of the same blood, might make their sympathies 
 coextensive with their bond of universal brotherhood. 
 
EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER, 
 
[The "Englishman's Register" was a weekly newspaper which Dr. 
 Arnold undertook in 1831, during the alarm and agitation which 
 prevailed throughout the country at the time of the passing of the 
 Reform Bill ; " more," he said, " to relieve his own conscience, than 
 with any sanguine hope of doing good ; " but " earnestly desiring to 
 speak to the people the words of truth and soberness, to tell them 
 plainly the evils that exist, and lead them, if he could, to their causes 
 and remedies." It died a natural death in a few weeks ; partly from 
 his want of leisure to control it properly, and from the great expense 
 which it entailed upon him, partly from the want of cordial sym- 
 pathy in any of the existing parties of the country. (See Life and 
 Correspondence, vol. i. c. vi.) The following Extracts consist of 
 most of the leading articles which he contributed to it, and though of 
 a more temporary and homely character than the other contents of 
 this volume, have been inserted as the best illustration of the views on 
 which he thought that a popular newspaper should be conducted.] 
 
EXTEACTS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 [From No. 1, May 7, 1831.] 
 (1.) OUR OBJECT. 
 
 THE country is filled with newspapers, and yet we are 
 here offering to the public a new one. Of course we sup- 
 pose therefore that something is wanted which other 
 journals do not supply, or that there is some evil mixed 
 with their good, which needlessly lessens their usefulness. 
 We do think that an honest, a fair, and a high-principled 
 journal is yet wanting wanting for all classes of persons ; 
 but above all, for those who cannot afford time or money 
 to read much, and who are therefore most apt to be in- 
 fluenced by the tone and sentiments of the little which 
 they do read. We think that in a Christian country the 
 tone of a public journal ought to be decidedly Christian ; 
 we think that a publication professing to give a true 
 impression of the state of things should not hold a certain 
 set of opinions in a lump, because they are commonly 
 found united in the same persons, but should pick out 
 and admire the truth which may exist on one side amidst 
 a mass of errors, and renounce and expose the falsehood 
 which may be mingled on the other side with views in the 
 main true. We think, above all, that a newspaper should 
 be thoroughly independent independent of all undue 
 influence, whether aristocratical or popular; for it is as 
 base and as wicked to pander to the violence and ignor- 
 
 i 2 
 
116 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 a nee of the people as to screen or palliate the follies 
 and oppressions of the great. We wish our journal to 
 be read; but we should be ashamed to purchase its cir- 
 culation by omitting any thing which our conscience bids 
 us publish, or by indulging in any unfairness or violence 
 which, if lying on our death bed, we should look back 
 upon with regret. 
 
 But these are mere general professions. To come to 
 particulars we see around us one vast and fearful strug- 
 gle going on between the friends of things as they are and 
 the advocates of change. Not in England only, but all 
 over Europe, this contest is raging, and no man who loves 
 his country or mankind ought to remain neutral in it. 
 But the misfortune is, that they whose voices are heard 
 the loudest on both sides in this quarrel are so foolish or 
 so unprincipled as to make the triumph of either an object 
 of just apprehension. Who can wish success to that 
 blind ignorance which cannot see that all things are and 
 must be for ever changing ? that it is worse than kicking 
 against the pricks to oppose our vain efforts to an eternal 
 and universal law of God's providence ; and that by 
 striving against change we do not prevent it from coming, 
 but only render it violent and injurious, when it might 
 
 V . 
 
 have been natural and beneficial. England cannot remain 
 
 what it has been ; and the endeavour to detain a state of 
 things which is passing away is, at the best, a waste of 
 those efforts which might be better employed in preparing 
 for the approaching and inevitable change, and in making 
 the passage from the old system to the new as easy and 
 imperceptible as possible. 
 
 To the anti-reformers therefore, both in church and 
 state, we are decidedly opposed ; but with a large party of 
 the reformers we have quite as little sympathy. They cry 
 for change as blindly as their adversaries oppose it; they 
 overrate existing evils, and hope to cure themJby remedies 
 which are either wholly inadequate, or have nothing at all 
 to do with the mischief complained of. They think too 
 
OUR OBJECT. 117 
 
 highly of themselves and of their own times, while they 
 despise that knowledge of former times which can alone 
 make us wiser than our fathers by giving us the advantage 
 of their experience. Above all, while professing to release 
 men from unjust and absurd restraints, they have forgotten 
 that there is yet a worse evil on the other side an absence 
 of any restraint whatever. Reformers are especially bound 
 to enforce the authority of the laws of conscience and of 
 God while they are exposing the weakness and corruption 
 of the laws of men ; for of all possible states of degrada- 
 tion and misery none can be so horrible as that religious 
 and moral anarchy where men are the slaves of all their 
 evil passions, hateful and hating one another. 
 
 We may be wrong, or our call may be too feeble to be 
 heard with any effect ; bu our hope is to rally those, and 
 we believe they are many, who feel in these tremendous 
 times as we do who are disgusted alike with the folly and 
 iniquity that would keep all things as they are, and with 
 the no less foolish and unprincipled violence that would 
 destroy rather than reform, and which pollutes even re- 
 form itself by its unchristian spirit and sentiments. 
 
 Of the many evils which the anti- reformers have brought 
 upon their country, none is so great as this that the 
 holiest things have been blasphemed through their fault 
 that Christianity itself has been represented as hostile to 
 truth and liberty, because so many of those who have pro- 
 fessed it most zealously, have used its authority in politi- 
 cal matters rather for evil than for good. But, in spite of 
 all this, infidelity is far from having deeply infected the 
 people of England. Against this evil Englishmen possess 
 the best preservative in the general circulation of the 
 Scriptures throughout the country ; for where the Bible 
 is well known and commonly studied, all honest minds 
 are sufficiently fortified against the poison of our English 
 infidels. The contrast between the principles and spirit 
 of the gospel, and those of our most famous unbelievers 
 
118 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 is quite enough to show which comes from God and which 
 from the author of all evil. 
 
 As for the differences between Christians and Christians, 
 their complexion is quite of another nature. In times of 
 perfect peace soldiers may often quarrel amongst them- 
 selves about the merest trifle ; but when the common enemy 
 is near it is worse than folly if even serious causes of 
 disagreement are not forgotten from a sense of their com- 
 mon danger. Now most of the disputes between Christians 
 in this country are either about matters of little impor- 
 tance, or ought, at any rate, to sink into nothing when 
 compared with the far greater points which we all hold 
 alike, and the great need which we have of union amongst 
 ourselves. For this reason, although we are ourselves 
 members of the Church of England, yet, in the religious 
 articles of this Register, we intend to avoid all notice 
 of the differences between the Establishment and the 
 great mass of Protestant dissenters, except so far as to 
 shew how greatly both sides are apt to exaggerate their 
 importance, and that, if a wiser spirit prevailed, they are 
 no insurmountable obstacles to union. 
 
 In brief, then, our principles are those of Christian 
 Reform. These two words comprehend every thing ; and 
 especially they include a sincere and hearty desire to pro- 
 mote the welfare of the poor ; for nothing has any claim 
 to the title of Christian, if it be indifferent to this most 
 important Christian duty. We earnestly wish to see great 
 improvements effected in the condition of the poor, both 
 bodily and mentally we wish to see them better fed and 
 better taught raised in comfort and independence, and 
 knowing how to value these blessings and to improve 
 them. We know that their actual state in many parts of 
 the kingdom is most startling; and we know the difficulties 
 which beset every attempt to bebefit it. Here too, as in 
 every thing else, the opposite errors of those two most mis- 
 chievous parties, the anti-reformers and the_ultra-reformers, 
 
OUR OBJECT. 119 
 
 have each, in nearly equal proportions, increased the evil. 
 The anti-reformers have spoken as if all the sufferings of 
 the poor were the result of inevitable necessity, and assert 
 that the rich, far from being in any degree the cause of 
 them, have done their best to relieve them. The ultra- 
 reformers represent the rich as tyrants and the poor as 
 slaves, and they speak of them as the natural enemies of 
 each other, and tell the poor in plain terms that all their 
 sufferings come from the oppression of the rich, and that 
 it is their own fault if they do not at once remedy and 
 revenge them. Thus one party tries to lull the consciences 
 of the rich, and encourages them in their errors and neg- 
 lect ; while the other appeals to all the bad passions of the 
 poor, and disposes them to regard with suspicion every 
 attempt of the rich to do them good, as if it were the 
 mere stratagem of an enemy. 
 
 Amidst all these difficulties we commence our under- 
 taking, confident in nothing so much as in the force of 
 simple truth, and feeling sure, whatever may be our ability 
 to discover it, that our pursuit of truth will be to the ut- 
 most fearless and sincere. For those who may agree with 
 us in our principles, we either entreat their support to this 
 attempt of ours, or if, while approving of the end, they 
 judge the means to be too feeble to effect it, then we 
 implore them, in the name of God and of their country, 
 to use every endeavour to do that thoroughly which, rather 
 than leave it undone altogether, we now, with a full con- 
 sciousness of our many deficiencies, have assayed to 
 accomplish. 
 
120 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 (2.) ON THE SIN NOT TO BE FORGIVEN. 
 
 " Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be 
 forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, 
 it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world 
 to come." Matt. xii. 32. 
 
 EVERY one who reads his Bible for the first time, when he 
 comes to this passage, asks anxiously, what does it mean? 
 what is this sin which shall never be forgiven, either in 
 this world, or in the world to come ? Some who have 
 tried to explain it have said that it is a sin which cannot 
 be committed now; while others have made themselves 
 very unhappy from the fear that they themselves have com- 
 mitted it. But both are mistaken ; for it is a sin which is 
 committed unhappily every day : but it is most certain 
 that they who are afraid of having committed it are the 
 persons, above all others, who must be innocent of it. 
 
 Christian reader ! it can scarcely happen in these days 
 but that you must have heard or read some things in the 
 course of your life unfriendly to the Master whom you 
 profess to serve. But it is of great consequence that you 
 should be able to distinguish which of these things seem 
 like blasphemies against the Son of Man and which appear 
 to be blasphemies against the Holy Ghost. 
 
 By the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit of God, is meant 
 God speaking to men in such a language that no honest 
 mind can mistake who it is that is speaking. Thus mira- 
 cles wrought to confirm the doctrine of Christ are said 
 to have been wrought by the Holy Spirit, because by them 
 was shown a more than human power exerted in the cause 
 of good ; and much more may the Holy Ghost be said to 
 be the author of all good desires, good thoughts, and good 
 principles, inasmuch as these all bear most manifestly 
 upon them the seal of God speaking in them. So the 
 
ON THE SIN NOT TO BE FORGIVEN. 121 
 
 Holy Ghost inspired the apostles to deliver those great 
 truths which are contained in their epistles, and which 
 also commend themselves to the thinking mind as the 
 fruit of a wisdom and goodness not less than divine. It 
 is manifest, therefore, that although miracles have long 
 since ceased, yet that other works of the Holy Spirit still 
 are being daily wrought, and that in these he may be still 
 as much as ever blasphemed. 
 
 It is then a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit when any 
 man speaks against Christianity because he cannot bear 
 the purity of its spirit and the wisdom of its doctrines. It 
 is a blasphemy against the Son of Man only when any 
 one from ignorance, or prejudice, or carelessness, does not 
 know what Christianity is, and speaks against it under a 
 false impression of its being unfavourable to human virtue 
 and happiness. For instance : in Roman Catholic coun- 
 tries, where the Scriptures themselves are not commonly 
 read, a great number of persons speak against the Son of 
 Man ; and even in Protestant countries it may very often 
 happen that men, not having been religiously brought up, 
 and taking their impressions of Christianity upon trust, 
 may confound it with the abuses of the Establishment, or 
 with the errors, or bigotry, or servility, of some of its 
 ministers, and thus dislike it, not for its good, but for its 
 supposed evil. Such unbelief, although showing great 
 unfairness, or at any rate most blameable carelessness, is 
 yet a very different thing from blasphemy against the 
 Holy Ghost, because it does not of necessity show any 
 dislike of goodness or love of evil, 
 
 But when a man knows what Christianity is, and hates 
 it for that very reason when he speaks against it, not 
 from a mistaken impression that it favours evils which it 
 in fact condemns, but because its spirit is pure and meek 
 and self-denying, and he is lustful, and revengeful, and 
 selfish, then he speaks not against the Son of Man only, 
 but against the Holy Ghost : he has chosen to love evil 
 and hate good, and if good triumph he must be for ever 
 
122 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 miserable. This is not an imaginary case only there 
 have been, and are, too many instances of it; but in im- 
 puting guilt so dreadful and so hopeless, none but he who 
 sees the heart can dare to fix on any particular individual. 
 
 Still there - is a use in looking at a picture so terrible. 
 In the first place, men who, while they attack Christianity, 
 show that they really do hate it for its own sake ; men who 
 say that revenge is a virtue and sensual indulgence no sin, 
 such men are not to be feared as dangerous enemies, 
 but rather regarded as awful witnesses to the truth of the 
 gospel. Far from their unbelief making against Christi- 
 anity, it confirms it : for the Christian Scriptures say, not 
 only that such men as these may be unbelievers, but that 
 they must be so, that they are of necessity blinded to the 
 truth, and that this blindness is a part of their punish- 
 ment, because "they had pleasure in unrighteousness." 
 Take up a tract or a paper written by men of this kind, 
 and if you find in one page that all your bad passions are 
 roused and encouraged, that the book is putting you into 
 a state of mind which is neither good nor happy, hope, 
 rather than fear, that the next page may contain some 
 open blasphemy against your Saviour and his gospel. It 
 is all right and fitting that they who love evil should hate 
 good ; the only way in which such wretches can honour 
 Christianity is by abusing it. 
 
 But for ourselves, Christian reader, we may draw this 
 lesson, that any allowed carelessness of practice and much 
 more any one unchristian principle cherished within us 
 is sure to weaken and will in the end destroy our faith. 
 A man may ruin his power of believing the gospel as 
 surely as he may his power of relishing plain and whole- 
 some food ; indulged bad passions and neglect of God will 
 as surely destroy the one as a course of drunkenness or 
 gluttony will destroy the other. And the wickedness and 
 unbelief help each other forward ; the more wicked a man 
 is, the less can he believe ; and the weaker his faith, the 
 more fearlessly does he plunge into wickedness. Let us 
 
REFORM. 123 
 
 only love God and try to please him, and all the infidel 
 books in the world cannot really hurt us; they may dis- 
 turb our understandings, and greatly affect our comfort, 
 but they will never overthrow our faith ; for let all the 
 doubts and difficulties that the most diseased scepticism 
 has ever imagined be brought together, and what do they 
 amount to ? They may infinitely darken our prospects of 
 happiness, but with the words of Christ and his apostles 
 in our hands, so full of wisdom and goodness, so entirely 
 claiming our admiration and love, we should still desire to 
 live and die Christians, even if our hopes of eternal life 
 were far more clouded and uncertain than, thanks be to 
 God, they are in reality. 
 
 [From No. 2, May 14, 1831.] 
 (1.) REFORM. 
 
 TT would not be honest in any public journal to shrink at 
 the present moment from expressing its sentiments on the 
 great question of Parliamentary Reform. Whether we 
 speak of it or no, our readers will be sure to speak of it, 
 and probably to act about it, and we therefore request 
 their attention to the following considerations. 
 
 Every man who gives a vote, or canvasses for one, or 
 who swells a crowd and joins in a cry either for or against 
 Reform, ought to be able to give a reason for his conduct. 
 It is but a fool's motive to do a thing because others do 
 it and it is a knave's motive to do it because you are 
 bribed ; and it is a coward's motive to do it because you 
 are afraid to do otherwise. 
 
 For one man who is against the Reform Bill there are 
 I suppose, taking all England through, at least ten who 
 are in favour of it. Now then, speaking first to this more 
 numerous class, let each man amongst them ask himself 
 this plain question " Why do I wish for the Ministers' 
 Reform Bill to be carried?" 
 
124 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 A general answer would be given readily enough " Be- 
 cause the boroughmongers have oppressed us and usurped 
 our rights ; and because the House of Commons ought to 
 be chosen by the People, and not by a small number of 
 Peers or rich Commoners, without any regard to the choice 
 of the People at all." Now I am not one of those who 
 think that a right is to be despised unless we can show 
 some practical good derived from it. If it does no more, 
 it removes the painful feeling of injustice which exists 
 where right is denied ; and so much of our happiness and 
 misery depends upon our feelings, that I hold it to be no 
 sign of wisdom to treat them lightly. But in political 
 matters " Right" is a thing so hard to be defined, except 
 when it means " a Right given by existing laws," that it 
 is generally best to consider not what we have a right to, 
 but what will be for the good of the nation ; and a right 
 that was likely to do no good to the nation, but a great 
 deal of harm, would be a thing which we should do well 
 to consider as no right at all. And, indeed, most people 
 have a notion, whether clearly defined or not, that the 
 Reform now so much talked of will do them a great deal 
 of good that it will not only be the recovery of a right 
 but the obtaining of a benefit. The question then is, 
 " What good will Reform effect for us ? " And here I am 
 afraid that some men look for a good from it which, I 
 believe, never will come, and which, I am sure, ought not 
 to come. There are some persons who talk about "a 
 Reformed Parliament removing the burdens of the People," 
 by which they mean that the National Debt will be wiped 
 off and the Public Creditor robbed of his property. Now 
 so long as there is such a thing as a notion of right and 
 wrong in the world, so long will such an act be reckoned 
 by all good men a shameless villany ; there is no lighter 
 word to describe it ; it would be as shameless a villany as 
 any for which a common criminal was ever hanged at New- 
 gate. We must speak plainly in this matter we hold the 
 Debt to be an enormous national burden we hold the sys- 
 
REFORM. 125 
 
 tem of getting into debt as morally and politically detest- 
 able. We hold farther that the contracting our present 
 debt has been one of the greatest causes of all the distress 
 of the country. Most earnestly do we hope that the sys- 
 tem of making war at the expense of our posterity that 
 is, of supporting a war by loans, which will be a mill-stone 
 round the necks of our children for ever will never again 
 be revived in England ! But it is one thing to feel 
 strongly the folly and the evil of running into debt, and 
 another to object to pay a debt when once contracted. 
 It is not the fault of those who lent their money to the 
 government, in times past, that the government borrowed 
 extravagantly and spent foolishly. The use or the waste 
 of their money was our concern, not theirs they lent it 
 to us to do as we pleased with it, and no man can have a 
 better title to his land, or to the profits of his trade or 
 labour, than the fundholder has to the interest or the 
 principal of his loans to the country. 
 
 There are other persons, again, who talk of "a Reformed 
 Parliament doing away with the grievance of Tithes/, by 
 which they mean, not merely a change in the manner of 
 payment, but a taking away the payment itself, and apply- 
 ing it to very different purposes. That the enemies of Chris- 
 tianity should rejoice in such a prospect is, of course, very 
 natural ; but that any Christian should be found to agree 
 with them is hardly conceivable. For, setting aside all 
 questions of abuses in the Church which require correction, 
 the point to be considered is, whether we are all so well 
 taught in Christianity, or so practically observant of it, 
 as to require no regular provision for instructing us, or 
 reminding us of its duties ; and whether it is not, as in all 
 other things, the best way of effecting this object, to make 
 it the exclusive business of those who are entrusted with 
 it. 
 
 Others, again, hope that a Reformed Parliament will 
 not plunge the nation into unjust and expensive wars. 
 Reform would then indeed be a blessing; but we fear that 
 
126 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 a popular House of Commons would in this respect be no 
 better than the imreformed one. It would go to war, 
 perhaps, on different grounds and with different enemies ; 
 but he must be foolish indeed who supposes that a People 
 are more peaceable and more conscientious in their deal- 
 ings with foreigners than an Aristocracy or a King. At 
 this very moment it is the popular party in France who 
 are most eager to begin another general war, and who 
 look back with the greatest fondness to the victories and 
 glories of the reign of Napoleon. 
 
 " But a Reformed Parliament will make bread and other 
 necessaries of life cheaper, and will thus improve the 
 condition of the working classes." I have already said that 
 the great burden which weighs down the country is the 
 Debt and if any one could find out a means of relieving 
 us from this honestly, he would deserve the thanks of the 
 whole nation. But how to get rid of a Debt honestly, 
 except by paying it, it would puzzle the cleverest man in 
 England to explain to us. To pay the interest of the 
 Debt there must be heavy taxes ; and an English farmer 
 who is taxed heavily cannot sell his corn so cheaply as a 
 Prussian or American farmer who is taxed lightly : yet, if 
 we do not buy corn of our own farmers, how are they to 
 pay their labQurers, and how is the agriculture of the 
 country to be kept up ? lam very far from saying that 
 nothing can be done to make bread cheaper; but if a 
 Reformed Parliament consist, as I trust it will do, of wise 
 and honest men, they will find that there is something 
 more than corruption and covetousness to make the settle- 
 ment of the Corn Laws difficult. 
 
 What then will Reform do for us ? or are we to think 
 that it is all a delusion, and that the people are crying out 
 so loudly for what they fancy to be a cloud full of refresh- 
 ing rain, but which will really yield them nothing but 
 scorching wind and blight? I have said that more is 
 expected from the Reform Bill than either can or ought 
 to come from it ; but it is still a measure of great necessity 
 
REFORM. 127 
 
 and of very excellent promise, and if we use the oppor- 
 tunity rightly, it will be a very great and lasting blessing 
 to the whole nation. 
 
 It is a measure of great necessity and great justice. At 
 the beginning of things nations are generally very poor 
 and very ignorant. The mass of the people are thus easily 
 governed by the few who have knowledge and property, 
 and these are very few indeed. In the course of time, 
 knowledge and wealth spread a little farther, and then a 
 larger portion of the people come to have a share in the 
 government. The same thing goes on more and more, if 
 the natural course of events be left to itself, and thus the 
 government becomes more and more popular that is, a 
 greater portion of the whole people take a part in it, 
 either directly or indirectly. When attempts are made to 
 stop this natural progress of things, Revolutions are the 
 consequence; just as if you were to try to dam up a 
 river you would lay the whole country under water. Thus, 
 about two hundred years ago, when trade had enriched a 
 great many persons in the middle classes of society, and 
 books were more commonly read, and knowledge was there- 
 fore more generally diffused than ever it had been before, the 
 House of Commons began to claim a greater share in the 
 government of the country than it had before exercised, 
 because the House of Commons consisted of country 
 gentlemen, merchants, lawyers, and great tradesmen, or, 
 in other words, of the richest and most enlightened part 
 of the middle classes. The time was come for a change, 
 and no human power could stop it; but attempts were 
 made to stop it, and therefore the change was violent instead 
 of peaceable, and was purchased at the price of nearly 
 seventy years of violent contentions, of a bloody civil war, 
 and of the death of thousands of good and brave men, in- 
 cluding even one of our kings. This ought to be our 
 warning now when the time has become ripe for another 
 change, and the only question is, whether we will have it 
 peaceably, or whether it must come with confusion and 
 
128 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 blood, and all kinds of wickedness and misery. Another 
 large portion of the people has so grown in wealth and 
 knowledge within the last fifty years, that they claim a 
 greater share in the government ; and the present Reform 
 Bill, by destroying what are called the rotten boroughs, 
 and giving the elective franchise to many thousands of the 
 lower portion of the middle classes, the very portion of the 
 people that is ripe for political advancement, proposes to 
 satisfy this claim fully and fairly. 
 
 There is a great deal of importance in seizing the happy 
 moment of doing a thing, and not putting it off too long. 
 Now this is just the case with the Reform Bill, if it be 
 passed directly. In spite of a great deal of loud talking 
 and violent writing, I am happy to think that the different 
 classes of society are not yet wholly estranged from each 
 other. A nobleman, a country gentleman, or a clergyman, 
 if they do their duty in their several stations, are not only 
 loved and respected, but are respected more for their very 
 station's sake. There is a time, and a very long one, 
 during which rank and riches cover all the vices of their 
 possessors : this too often changes suddenly to the very 
 opposite state, when they render virtue itself unpopular. 
 We are at this moment just upon the turn rank and 
 station are fast losing all undeserved and excessive 
 respect; a little more and they will weigh against a man 
 instead of for him, and the evil spirit of levelling will be 
 let loose upon us. Let the Reform Bill now pass lead- 
 ing, as it surely will do, to a Reform in the Church and 
 the higher classes will have a spur to virtuous exertion 
 which may be a double blessing to themselves and to the 
 country. Influence must henceforth be deserved, not 
 commanded : but desert can yet win it and the world 
 never yet saw a race of men better fitted to win it than the 
 nobility and gentry of England, if once roused from the 
 carelessness of an undisputed ascendancy. Let the higher 
 classes be thus fully excited to their great and honourable 
 duties, and the prospect presented by the Reform Bill is 
 
REFORM. 
 
 bright indeed. The House of Commons will be purified 
 from that worthless portion of the aristocracy who now 
 enter it only from vanity or self-interest to frank letters 
 and write M.P. after their names or to purchase by their 
 vote places for themselves and their families. It is true 
 that it might be filled with men even worse than these 
 with demagogues of low principles and coarse minds 
 with adventurers, as destitute of fortune as of honesty and 
 knowledge with all that variety of worthless pretenders 
 to patriotism, who have ever imposed upon the people 
 in moments of strong excitement, when all vileness and 
 all folly was forgotten for the sake of a forward loudness 
 in the popular cause. But this is a breed which flourishes 
 only upon the folly of an aristocracy : the people admire 
 these counterfeits because their natural leaders retire in 
 pride or in despair from the place which they ought to 
 occupy. When this Bill is carried, and the present ex- 
 citement subsides, other merits will be looked for in a 
 candidate besides his willingness to support Reform ; and 
 the services of many good and able men will be available 
 in a Reformed Parliament whom, because of their avowed 
 opposition to Reform, the people must in the present con- 
 test reject. Then there is good hope that the whole frame 
 of our society may be examined with a firm and moderate 
 hand, and its most glaring evils lessened, if not removed. 
 The adjustment of the advantages and disadvantages of 
 different kinds of property the striking a balance between 
 the political influence given by land, and the exemption 
 from burdens enjoyed by the fundholder the removal of 
 the iniquity and insolence of the game laws the improve- 
 ment of our criminal code the extinction of slavery 
 abroad, and the bettering the condition of the poor at home ; 
 these and other great measures may be looked for as 
 likely to be discussed in a Reformed Parliament; and if 
 the present contest be speedily terminated, they will be 
 discussed wisely and moderately. I conclude with an ex- 
 ample which speaks volumes for the wisdom of speedy and 
 
130 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 liberal concession to popular claims when the course of 
 nature renders it at once impossible and unjust to refuse 
 them long. The commons at Rome struggled long and 
 resolutely with the nobles to obtain the right of being 
 eligible to the highest offices of the stater They were 
 successful, and the nobles yielded in time. But mark the 
 consequence : when the right was once obtained, the 
 commons continued for a long time to elect only the 
 nobles as before, their natural respect for birth and station 
 resuming its influence, as soon as it was a tribute freely 
 given to real nobleness, and not the subservience of a 
 slave to his master. 
 
 (2.) THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 
 
 " Understandest thou what thou readest ? " Acts viii. 30. 
 
 THE answer given to this question in the story from which 
 it is taken must still be the answer of thousands and ten 
 thousands of those who have the Bible in their hands, and 
 read it with their eyes and their affections. " How can I, 
 unless some man would guide me ? " How, indeed, can 
 they understand a book written so many ages ago, in 
 countries unlike to our own in every point of climate, 
 productions, and manners, so little illustrated, in its earliest 
 parts, by any other books of the same period, and, in 
 many places, obscure in itself, and rendered much more so 
 to an English reader by an imperfect translation, and 
 by the faulty division into chapters now so universally 
 adopted ? 
 
 It is true that a great many commentaries and helps to 
 the Bible have been published ; but still the number of 
 Bibles published is much greater, and therefore there may 
 be many persons who may like even such short remarks 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 131 
 
 and explanations on different parts of the Bible as we can 
 find room for in this Register. 
 
 No one needs to be told that the general and peculiar 
 character of the Bible is religious : that is, it speaks of 
 what God has done for man, and what man ought to do 
 towards God. It is a religious book, just as a common 
 history of England may be called a political book ; but as 
 in a common history there are parts which are not poli- 
 tical, such as those which give anecdotes of particular 
 individuals, or which speak of the state of religion or of 
 the arts and sciences, so there are parts in the Bible which 
 are not religious, but merely historical; that is, which 
 contain stories of men and manners, such as might be 
 found in any other book, without any particular reference 
 to our relations with God. 
 
 Thus the book of Genesis is, in its general object and 
 character, quite unlike any other history. It does not 
 give an account of the most powerful kingdoms of the 
 world, nor of the first settlement of different tribes of the 
 human race in their several countries, nor of their progress 
 in laws, arts, and civilization. Leaving all these things 
 aside, as far as its main object is concerned, it looks 
 through the earth only for the most manifest signs of 
 God's presence, and regards only those persons with 
 whom He has most vouchsafed to communicate. 
 
 It thus begins with the creation of the world not its 
 origin or coming into existence, which are mere matters 
 of natural philosophy, but its creation " In the beginning 
 God created the heaven and the earth." It follows, there- 
 fore, that if it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves, 
 that we are His people, wholly dependent upon Him, and 
 in an unnatural state if ever we forget Him. 
 
 o 
 
 It records the destruction of the inhabited world by 
 water, for the wickedness of the inhabitants. The great 
 destructions of the earth's surface both by water and fire ; 
 the utter extinction of some species of animals ; the revo- 
 lutions in climate that have befallen our globe, and the 
 
 K 2 
 
132 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 immediate or natural causes which have produced them 
 these are all matters of geology, considered in themselves, 
 and as such the Bible says nothing about them a . But 
 without telling us at all by what natural causes the deluge 
 was effected, the Book of Genesis sees in it only the first 
 and real cause, i. e. God. " I, even I, do bring a flood of 
 waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh." 
 
 [From No. 3, May 21, 1831.] 
 THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 AFTER the Flood, what may be called our present world 
 began its existence. Whatever changes in the earth's 
 surface have taken place since that time have been con- 
 fined only to particular districts, or have been too gra- 
 dual to produce a striking effect at any one period. No 
 general destruction has since happened ; but the order 
 of nature has gone on, for the most part, regularly. The 
 human race, as a body, have since received no special 
 manifestation of God's will, or of his judgment, and there- 
 fore the Bible, as the history of God's revelations to man- 
 kind, confines its attention, after the Flood, only to par- 
 ticular nations or to individuals, with whom, alone, God 
 did in a special manner communicate. In other words, 
 after a brief notice of the dispersion of the descendants of 
 Noah into the different countries of the earth, the Book of 
 Genesis takes up the story of Abraham, and all the 
 remaining part of it is occupied with the account of his 
 life, and of the lives of his posterity for the three genera- 
 tions next following him. 
 
 O 
 
 Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful in other 
 
 words, he stands at the head of those who, in all ages and 
 
 all countries, have had a revealed knowledge of God, as 
 
 distinguished from that knowledge of Him which we gain 
 
 a [See Sermon I. vol. vi.j 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 133 
 
 by natural reason. This revealed knowledge was first 
 given to his natural descendants, the nation of Israel ; it is 
 now given to those who are called the heirs of his faith, 
 that is to persons, of whatever nation they may be, who 
 believe in the God of Abraham, and consider themselves 
 to be sharers in the promises which Abraham first received, 
 although he was not destined to witness their fulfilment. 
 
 Of these promises, the chief was this, " that in Abra- 
 ham's seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed." 
 It is a promise simple, short, and clear, of which we can- 
 not mistake the meaning, nor dispute the fulfilment. 
 Except a few fanatics in wickedness, all then, whether 
 believers in Christ or no, will acknowledge that Christi- 
 anity has done more to civilize the world than any other 
 system, religious, political, or philosophical ; and that it is 
 literally and undeniably true that from an Israelite, a 
 descendant of Abraham, all nations have derived the most 
 signal blessings. 
 
 7 believe, certainly, that we owe to Christianity some- 
 thing even better than civilization : but at any rate, even 
 in its lower sense, the promise made to Abraham is ful- 
 filled and fulfilling daily before our eyes ; and thus, one 
 of God's earliest revelations recorded in the Bible is to us 
 at this day not a matter of faith, but of positive and cer- 
 tain knowledge. 
 
 It was thus declared, that at some future time some 
 person of Abraham's descendants should be a blessing to 
 the whole earth. It was also said that his descendants 
 should become a great nation. This was fulfilled once, 
 for they were at one time a very great nation ; and what 
 has been often remarked, they are at this day a nation, 
 though not a great one : which is more than can be said 
 of any other people on the face of the earth who were a 
 nation as early as the Jews, and have suffered so many 
 strange revolutions of fortune. 
 
 The Jewish nation, Abraham's natural descendants, were 
 set apart, above all other nations, to receive and keep the 
 
134 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 revealed knowledge of God until the time when that one 
 Person should rise up from among them through whom all 
 nations were to be blessed equally. But it should be 
 observed, that, while set apart to be the keepers of revealed 
 religion, there was no special interference with their minds 
 and characters to make them fully understand and improve 
 it. Certain truths were told them and no more. Truths 
 which might indeed have led them to a great many other 
 truths, but which would not do so of necessity. And 
 though from a right knowledge of God we may make out 
 perfectly all our duties to one another, yet it by no means 
 follows that we cannot help making them out. Therefore, 
 Abraham and Abraham's descendants, not having a perfect 
 revelation of their duties to their fellow creatures distinctly 
 given to them, and not finding it so easy as we might fancy 
 to make them out for themselves from what was revealed 
 to them about God, were in fact no further advanced in 
 many respects than other nations of the same period, and 
 had no higher notions of moral duty in many points than 
 the heathens around them. Nor is this to be wondered at, 
 if we take the Bible as we find it, and do not spoil it by 
 foolish suppositions of our own ; if we observe what is 
 there said to have been revealed to the early patriarchs, 
 and do not fancy that a great deal more must have been 
 revealed to them, because it is now revealed to us. 
 
 What has been here said is the key to all the difficulties 
 in the Old Testament which have been made so much of; 
 and with this remark I now leave my readers to think it 
 over for themselves. 
 
 [From No. 4, May 28, 1831.] 
 (1.) THE ELECTIONS AND THE TORIES. 
 
 WE are beginning at last to breathe freely after the in- 
 tense excitement of the elections all over the kingdom. 
 The contest has been sharp but short, and the victory of 
 
THE ELECTIONS AND THE TORIES. 135 
 
 Reform has been complete, even beyond the most sanguine 
 hopes of its advocates. But it was a noble principle 
 which forbade Romans to triumph over Romans : the 
 pride of conquest and the ignominy of defeat, bad as they 
 are in every case, are above all to be forborne when our 
 adversaries are our countrymen. We have been delighted 
 therefore to witness the honourable and kindly feeling 
 which has been shown on both sides in some of the late 
 elections. It was cheering to see that the manly and 
 touching address of Mr. Bankes, when resigning the con- 
 test for the county, was not lost upon the electors of Dor- 
 setshire ; and that those of Cornwall, while resolute to give 
 their votes only to a Reformer, could still respect and 
 regard the ability and virtue of Sir Richard Vyvian. 
 These things encourage the hope expressed in a former 
 number, that, as soon as the struggle was decided, the 
 people would distinguish between their honourable and 
 conscientious opponents and the mere mercenaries of the 
 anti-reform cause, and that they would gladly avail them- 
 selves of the services of the former as soon as the com- 
 plete success of Reform should enable them to do it with 
 safety. 
 
 Yet although many individuals of the Tory party will, 
 is we hope and believe, be members of a reformed par- 
 iament, still it cannot be doubted that, as a party, the 
 Tories are, politically speaking, from henceforth perpetu- 
 ally humbled. No man, indeed, can foresee what changes 
 may be reserved for us in a course of years, and many of 
 the elements of Toryism may again be seen in the ascend- 
 ant : but the old form of common English Toryism, whe- 
 ther in its earlier shape of devotion to Church and King, 
 or in its later character of an attachment to Aristocracy, 
 is become now a thing of other days it will influence 
 the fortunes of this nation no more. We confess that 
 this total overthrow of an enemy lately so formidable has 
 wonderfully lessened our hostility towards it. One can- 
 not strike a man when he is down : and it was difficult 
 
136 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER 
 
 not to be softened even towards Napoleon himself when 
 he was a prisoner at St. Helena, and to think more of his 
 actual degradation than of the fearful and systematic 
 wickedness of his prosperous days. We can fully trust 
 ourselves now to sketch the Tory Party of England with 
 fairness; and as their political life is at an end, the follow- 
 ing remarks may serve for their epitaph. 
 
 We have seen the Tories, at one period of our history, 
 strongly opposing a war with France and at another 
 earnestly supporting one. We have seen them, in the 
 time of the Stuarts, half coalescing with the Roman Ca- 
 tholics, and in our own days most strenuously resisting 
 them : and yet they have been always perfectly consistent. 
 But what they have never supported are Popular Princi- 
 ples what they have always steadily resisted has been 
 Reform, or, in their own language, " Change." When 
 France was the great supporter of old established despot- 
 ism, both civil and religious, they regarded her with 
 favour ; when she set up a government founded on revo- 
 lution, whether it were a republic or a tyranny, they 
 struggled against her to the death. Thus again there was- 
 a period when they were friendly to the Roman Catholics ; 
 but never have they shown one spark of favour to the 
 Protestant Dissenters. France has been, as we have 
 seen at different times, their friend and their enemy ; but 
 towards America they have ever shown one uniform spirit 
 of coldness and aversion. But two years ago, when the 
 Russians were fighting against Turkey, and professing to 
 assert the liberties of Greece, the Tories with one consent 
 maligned their motives, undervalued their armies, and 
 regretted their triumph : now that these same Russians 
 are fighting against the liberties of Poland, the Tories are 
 magnifying their resistless power, and eagerly anticipating 
 their victory. 
 
 The dislike of change which marks the Tories as a po- 
 litical party is in itself one of the most universal feelings 
 in human nature. Some few nations may offer an excep 
 
THE ELECTIONS AND THE TORIES. 137 
 
 tion ; but, generally speaking, both nations and classes of 
 men and individuals shrink from the trouble of alteration. 
 Amongst the multitudes who cry so loudly for Political 
 Reform, how many are there who dislike all changes by 
 which their own habits and practices are altered ! The 
 change of the style the change of the weights and mea- 
 sures improvements in farming improvements in ma- 
 chinery nay, in many cases, improvements in health, 
 cleanliness, and domestic comfort, are either rejected, or 
 slowly and unwillingly received by the multitude, because 
 it requires some trouble, some effort, some interruption to 
 their old habits, to adopt them, or accommodate them- 
 selves to them. This common feeling the Tories apply to 
 political matters for this further reason also: because 
 they belong mostly to that class of society who are well 
 of}' under things as they are ; and the indolence which 
 shrinks from the trouble of change has, in their case, 
 nothing but a liberal zeal for the good of others which 
 could counteract it. But if men will endure rags, and 
 dirt, and clumsiness, rather than make an effort to break 
 their old habits, how much less will they desire any 
 change, when their own actual condition is not one of 
 suffering but of enjoyment? 
 
 Another point which marks the Tories as a party, and 
 which no less marks a great proportion of those who abuse 
 them the loudest, is their horror of general principles, and 
 their adherence to what they call practical, straight-for- 
 ward, common- sense notions. This indeed is closely 
 connected with their dislike to change : but as it has 
 formed a very striking feature of their public policy, it is 
 as well to consider it apart. It is this feeling which has 
 made them so long resist all amendments of our law, 
 which has led them to detest free trade and political 
 economy, and to delight in a paper currency. It is this 
 same feeling which has made even the religious men 
 amongst them so ill fitted to make our government and 
 our institutions agreeable to the spirit of the Gospel. 
 
138 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN^ REGISTER. 
 
 They do not find it said in so many words in the New 
 Testament that slavery is a wicked thing, and therefore 
 they argue that Christianity does not condemn it. Rightly 
 understanding that oaths are not in all cases unlawful to 
 be taken, they have never made out the general principle 
 of Christ's words, namely, that to require oaths of men 
 has a tendency to make them careless about their bare 
 word and that therefore it is most blamable in persons 
 in authority to impose a single oath without the strongest 
 necessity ; and that it is their duty to endeavour that in 
 time none may be necessary at all. So with wars and with 
 public measures in general : because from the situation 
 of the first Christians the New Testament could not con- 
 tain any direct rules upon these matters, and because the 
 Tories are slow in catching the spirit of a system, and 
 in applying general principles to particular cases, we have 
 seen religious Tories maintaining the Lottery and the 
 Game Laws ; and we have not seen them alive to the 
 wickedness of war, in ninety-nine cases out of every 
 hundred ; nor, while justly inculcating the duty of obe- 
 dience on the part of the subject, have they been equally 
 alive to the no less binding duty of a watchful, a self- 
 denying, and a reforming attention to the public welfare 
 on the part of the Government, 
 
 In this love of the letter, rather than of the spirit, the 
 Tories and the multitude strongly sympathize with each 
 other. In fact, it is but a common weakness in our na- 
 ture, and they are but exceptions who are free from it. 
 The Tories are but another name for the multitude 
 amongst the richer classes the common run of human 
 characters, with their faults and weaknesses, and also with 
 a large portion of their virtues and respectable qualities. 
 I have spoken of their faults I will as fairly speak of 
 their excellencies. As they are slow at improving upon 
 general principles, so they are quick, dexterous, and de- 
 cided, in practising the particular thing before them. 
 They are good in administration and in action ; so that if 
 
THE ELECTIONS AND THE TORIES. 139 
 
 we were living in a perfect world, or under a perfect po- 
 litical system, I should wish to see none but Tories in 
 p ublic stations, whether civil or military. 
 
 Again, as many of our natural feelings are great ob- 
 stacles in the way of improvement, so there are many also 
 which are far better and more ennobling than the mere 
 hard intellect that despises them. Among these are a re- 
 spect for noble birth, and the dignity which, even in very 
 ordinary minds, is often derived from the consciousness of 
 being; born and bred a gentleman. Such also is local and 
 
 5 O 
 
 patriotic affection, and an attachment to names, customs, 
 and places, around which time or association has thrown 
 a charm. Such too is the frank and cheerful love of 
 sports the entire abandonment of the mind at times to a 
 state of childlike simplicity and enjoyment the shrinking 
 from the pride and pedantry of being eternally wise; 
 these are all beautiful points in the character of the Tory 
 country gentlemen, which redeem a large mass of ignor- 
 ance and really blamable prejudice. In all these things 
 the old Church-and-King men are a most delightful con- 
 trast to the hard and coarse intellectualism or fanaticism 
 of their adversaries. 
 
 These elements of the Tory party are mixed, of course, 
 in infinitely different proportions in the individual mem- 
 bers of it. In some the good so preponderates, and the 
 evil is so qualified by natural ability or moral goodness, 
 or circumstances, that the dread of change is hardly more 
 than a mere ballast to the zeal for improvement ; the dis- 
 like to theories and general principles becomes only a 
 safeguard against extravagant speculations, and against 
 the fault of living in the clouds, instead of doing with an 
 ardent spirit the world's daily business. Had men like 
 these predominated in the Tory party, never should we 
 have had our present Reform Bill, and for the best of all 
 reasons because we never should have needed it. Had 
 those pious, wise, manly, and liberal Tories, of whom there 
 happily still exist many in England, been able to give the 
 
140 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 tone to the general character of Toryism, I could have 
 wished their party to enjoy a perpetual ascendancy as 
 heartily as I now rejoice in its defeat. But the comfort 
 is, that the more we purify our institutions the more safely 
 and usefully may we employ the Tories to administer 
 them, as, while their good qualities will be as valuable as 
 ever, their faults will be powerless to do mischief. 
 
 (2.) THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 I ENDED my last paper with saying that the key to all the 
 difficulties in the Old Testament was to be found in one 
 simple truth namely, that the revelation made to the 
 early patriarchs consisted of some particular points, only ; 
 that although much more might have been made out from 
 these in the course of time, yet that it does not follow 
 that it must have been, or was made out ; and that in a 
 great many points therefore the Patriarchs may have been 
 no better informed than the heathens around them. I 
 call this the key to the difficulties of the Old Testament, 
 because, as all our goodness must be judged according 
 to our knowledge, we can well understand how men may 
 be spoken of as good, who lived up to the best light of their 
 conscience, even though that conscience might have still 
 had much to learn. But if, on the other hand, the Patri- 
 archs had the knowledge of Christians, then, unquestion- 
 ably, nothing less than the standard of Christian excel- 
 lence can be referred to in judging of their principles and 
 practice. 
 
 It has been made an objection to Mr. Milman's His- 
 tory of the Jews, that he lowers our notions of Abraham 
 by calling him a " Sheik," or " Emir." And indeed so far 
 as these terms are associated in our minds with " Belief 
 in a false Religion," so far they are unworthily and im- 
 properly applied to the " Father of the Faithful." But so 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 141 
 
 far as they lead us to think of a state of society very little 
 advanced in its knowledge of the duties of man to man, 
 and even in some respects of the duties of man to God, 
 a state of society in which slavery, polygamy, and pri- 
 vate revenge were held to be perfectly lawful, and which 
 was accustomed to make a very wide distinction between 
 false speaking, and false swearing, so far they give us not 
 only the truest, but also the most favourable impression of 
 the lives of the Patriarchs. It is by considering Abraham 
 as an Eastern Emir, and as a man living in a state of so- 
 ciety even less enlightened than that of the East at this 
 moment, that we can best appreciate the excellence of his 
 faith, and the power of the revelation of God. That un- 
 hesitating submission to God's command which led him to 
 leave his country and pass all his days as the chief of a 
 shepherd tribe ; that noble sacrifice of all his dearest 
 hopes at the call of his Maker, which made him consent 
 to offer up his son ; that mingled reverence to God and 
 love to man which appear in his earnest intercession for 
 Sodom; all these points, in which the most enlightened 
 Christian cannot surpass him, become still more admirable 
 when viewed as showing what the knowledge and love of 
 God can effect upon the chief of a wandering tribe, sur- 
 rounded by examples of the completest ignorance of all 
 duty, both religious and moral a . 
 
 Thus also in that most famous action of his life, when 
 he was going to offer up his son as a sacrifice, the principle 
 of this great trial was the same which has been applied to 
 God's servants in every age, whether they were willing to 
 part with what they loved best on earth when God's ser- 
 vice called for it. But the particular form in which this 
 principle was conveyed to Abraham was one suited to the 
 imperfect religious knowledge of that early period. To 
 sacrifice his son as a burnt offering to God would be to a 
 Christian, not an heroic act of self-denying duty, but one 
 of blasphemous fanaticism, which no evidence of its being 
 
 a [See "Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture," vol. ii. p. 446.] 
 
142 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 a divine command could justify ; because it is so contrary 
 to the Gospel of Christ, that if an angel from Heaven were 
 to bid us do it, we should be bound to reject it with 
 abhorrence. Even after the Law of Moses had been given, 
 whic.h spoke of parents sacrificing their children as an 
 abomination which God hated, we cannot conceive that 
 such a mode of trial could have been chosen, since it is 
 not so much a trial of our faith as an utterly maddening 
 confusion of our notions of right and wrong, if we are 
 forced to believe that God commands us to do what he 
 has himself forbidden. But before the Law, before God 
 had declared his abhorrence of human sacrifices, and in 
 an age and country where they were resorted to as awful 
 proofs of a wish to purchase the favour of Heaven by any 
 sacrifice however costly, the command to sacrifice his son 
 would be to Abraham distressing but not shocking ; it 
 would be the call of God to the performance of a most 
 trying duty, not the dreadful delusion of a fanatic that 
 revelation can be contrary to our uncorrupted conscience. 
 But if any one should think that the lives of the Patri- 
 archs are rendered less instructive by being thus con- 
 sidered, or that it is lowering the early scripture history 
 if we speak of the actors in it as of men possessing far 
 less than a Christian's knowledge of right and wrong; 
 nothing, as it seems to me, can be more unreasonable than 
 such a fear. What can be more instructive than to trace 
 the one great principle of faith in God existing in com- 
 bination with the most different degrees of moral know- 
 ledge ; yet always so ennobling the character in which it 
 dwells as to raise it above the standard of its own times ; 
 and thus to witness in each successive generation that it 
 is the true salt of human nature, the main element of its 
 highest perfection ? And as for lowering the Scriptures, 
 it may indeed prevent us from superstitiously bestowing 
 upon imperfect goodness that reverence which can be 
 safely paid to One alone ; but we can have learnt but little 
 of the spirit of the Gospel, if because we know our duty 
 
THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 143 
 
 more fully than the Patriarchs we think ourselves better 
 than they ; not considering that as our clear light is our 
 heaviest condemnation, so it is their greatest glory, that, 
 so long before the sun had risen, they yet, amidst the 
 twilight, could keep the right way so steadily. 
 
 [From No. 5, June 4, 1831.] 
 THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 THE Reform Question has so taken hold of the public 
 attention, that the newspapers have scarcely noticed some 
 fresh causes of wilful fires that have taken place in Kent 
 and Sussex, and some very painful instances of a mali- 
 cious spirit shown towards the farmers in Wiltshire, by 
 destroying or injuring various articles of their property in 
 the night-time. 
 
 When the storm is raging no one can help noticing it; 
 but the misfortune is, that so few people, when the sun is 
 shining, watch for or think of the signs which warn us 
 that the storm is going to rage. It is only the old and 
 experienced seaman who observes every threatening ap- 
 pearance in the weather, and gets in all his sails in time ; 
 while the landsmen on board, seeing nothing but blue 
 sky over their heads, wonder what the captain can be 
 afraid of. 
 
 Will any man say that the causes of all the disturbances 
 and crimes of last winter are now removed ? Will any 
 man say that the condition and feelings of the working 
 classes are so thoroughly changed, that there is no more 
 discontent or bitterness among them or that the rich 
 have been so thoroughly awakened that they are no longer 
 guilty of neglecting or undervaluing the distresses of the 
 poor? or is the Reform Bill to work all these miracles 
 for us, and if so, how is it to do them ? 
 
 Our object in setting up this Register was to get, if 
 possible, to the root of this great evil the unhappy situa- 
 
V 
 
 144 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 tion in which the poor and the ricji, the poorer and the 
 richer classes, stand to each other. It is the evil, the 
 great I had almost said the only evil from which we are 
 suffering. We want the rich to open their eyes widely to 
 the fact; we want the poor, who feel the fact but too 
 keenly, to understand the causes of it. We want the rich 
 to think of some real and good way of curing it; we want 
 the poor to think whether the way which they are advised 
 to try by their pretended friends is not a false and a 
 wicked one. 
 
 When I call the great evil of England the unhappy 
 situation in which the poor and the rich stand towards 
 each other, I wish to show that the evil is in our feelings 
 quite as much or more than in our outward condition. 
 Much greater states of actual suffering have often existed 
 in different parts of the world. War, pestilence, and 
 actual famine have raged in former times through this 
 very land of ours with a destruction which we now can 
 hardly so much as fancy. In many parts of the world at 
 this moment, even allowing for difference of climate, the 
 poor are quite as ill fed as in England, and far worse 
 clothed and lodged. But the great evil in us is, that there 
 is so much suffering and so much enjoyment close along- 
 side of each other; that although the poor in other 
 countries may be as poor, yet the rich are nowhere so 
 rich as in England ; that if the one has elsewhere as much 
 to suffer, yet the other has nowhere on the face of the 
 earth any thing like as much to enjoy. 
 
 I have never had any patience at hearing persons in the 
 rank of gentlemen in England complain of the burden of 
 taxation. Undoubtedly our taxes are heavy, but they are 
 but a cheap purchase-money for the unequalled civiliza- 
 tion which we enjoy. Perfect freedom perfect security 
 unrivalled means of communication unequalled excel- 
 lence in every article which can minister to the comfort of 
 life and the most abundant means of acquiring know- 
 ledge and of gratifying our taste and curiosity ; these are 
 
THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 145 
 
 the blessings enjoyed in this country by all the higher 
 and middle classes, and the lighter taxation of other 
 countries would be but a poor exchange for the infinite 
 superiority of civilization and comfort which the richer 
 classes can command in England. 
 
 Together with this enjoyment together with the extra- 
 ordinary state of refinement which has flowed from it 
 there exists in the daily sight of it, and feeling the contrast 
 of it at every turn, an enormous mass of poverty and ig- 
 norance. God forbid that I should speak of this ignorance 
 proudly or reproachfully ! In fact, it is a matter of the 
 deepest shame and humiliation to those who have know- 
 ledge that so many of their fellow creatures should be left 
 thus destitute of it. Nor by ignorance do I mean only an 
 ignorance of what is called book-learning, but an ignor- 
 ance of mankind and of many of those pleasures which 
 men under happier circumstances can enjoy. They are 
 ignorant of mankind, as all people must be who neither 
 read, nor travel, nor see a great variety of persons at their 
 own homes. The pleasures of poetry and music, of paint- 
 ing, of natural scenery, and of a knowledge of the common 
 objects which we see every day around us, and of those 
 laws by which they are governed, are either wholly un- 
 known to many of the poor, or are, at least, most imper- 
 fectly enjoyed. And the consequence is, that while rich 
 and poor are all born with one common nature, yet the 
 tastes and faculties of each are so differently cultivated, 
 that many things which the one most delights in are not 
 at all understood by the other, and are therefore ridiculed 
 and despised. 
 
 Here, then, are two classes of people in the same country 
 constantly coming in each other's way, yet with very little 
 sympathy in each other's feelings, or views, or pleasures. 
 They cannot understand each other, but yet they can see 
 that the one class abounds, while the other is in want; 
 that is, there are strong causes why one should, according 
 to the well-known nature of man, envy and dislike the 
 
 L 
 
146 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 other, and there are very few motives existing to draw 
 them cordially together. And this is an evil which con- 
 tinually increases itself; for it is the natural effect of 
 wealth to get more wealth, and of poverty to become still 
 poorer, and the wider the distance is between the outward 
 condition of the rich and poor, the wider also will be the 
 difference between their notions of things and their feel- 
 ings. This goes on for a long while, with a daily increase 
 of wickedness and misery, till the end is at last so dread- 
 ful that I gladly turn away my mind from the thought 
 of it. 
 
 I lay a particular stress upon this separation of tastes 
 and feelings between the rich and the poor in England, 
 because I am sure it is the peculir curse of our state of 
 society. The most hurried view of the state of things on 
 the continent must at once be struck with the great differ- 
 ence in this respect between the rest of Europe and our- 
 selves. Abroad, the rich and the poor approach one another 
 much more nearly in their habits, manners, and in many 
 of their favourite amusements. The richer classes live 
 more simply; the poor have opportunities afforded them 
 of gaining a taste for the more refined pleasures. Nothing 
 has given me more delight than to see the crowds of per- 
 sons of every condition who frequent the great botanical 
 garden at Paris. It is open freely to everybody, with all 
 its walks, plantations, museums, and menagerie ; and the 
 consequence is that the poor take a pleasure and a pride 
 in it ; and instead of disliking such things as the mere 
 amusements of the rich, they enjoy them as much as the 
 rich do ; and common feeling prevents all that wanton 
 misdjief which is so complained of in England, and which 
 is made the excuse for shutting up all our collections of 
 pictures and other curiosities, and confining them to the 
 rich alone. After what I had seen at the botanical garden 
 at Paris, I was not surprised to hear that the people in the 
 late revolution respected generally the works of art, and 
 that such things were looked upon really as national 
 
_^ THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 147 
 
 property, which every man had a common interest in 
 protecting. 
 
 This, then, such as I have described it, is the state of 
 the rich and poor in England. But what has led to it? 
 and what will cure or mend it ? These are two great 
 questions, which require a great deal of thought, and 
 knowledge, and calmness to answer properly. And he 
 certainly cannot have any one of these qualities who pre- 
 tends that any single cause has brought about the evil, or 
 that any single remedy can remove it. 
 
 I shall go on with this subject in a future number; in 
 the mean time, if any reader of the Register, who takes 
 an interest in it, and whose recollection of his own neigh- 
 bourhood goes back a few years, would take the trouble to 
 record and send to the Editor a notice of the principal 
 changes which he has himself noticed in the relations of 
 rich and poor towards each other, he would confer a service 
 not only on this publication but on the country at large, by 
 helping to throw light upon the causes of the greatest of all 
 evils under which it is labouring. 
 
 (2.) THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 HAVING set out at some length what I conceive to be a 
 principle most important to the right understanding of the 
 whole of the Old Testament, that the Revelations made to 
 the Patriarchs were only partial, or limited to some par- 
 ticular points, and that their conduct must be judged of 
 not according to our knowledge but to theirs, I now shall 
 in a manner retrace my steps a little, and consider some of 
 the particular events recorded in Genesisj beginning with 
 the earlier part of it. 
 
 Considering the main object of the Scripture History to be 
 that of tracing the religious progress of mankind, or their 
 
 L 2 
 
148 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 successive relations towards God, the story of the first state 
 of man, and of his fall, contains all that we could most ex- 
 pect to find in it. For leaving out a great many things which 
 certainly we should be very glad to know, but which yet be- 
 long only to the subject of ordinary history, the story in Ge- 
 nesis, following man only in his relations to God, de- 
 scribes him as being first innocent, and then overcome by 
 temptation as being at first at peace with God, and after- 
 wards afraid of Him and averse to Him as being at first 
 completely happy, and afterwards made subject to all those 
 evils which we know to embitter the life of man at this day. 
 It is very true that there are some things in the first 
 chapters of Genesis which we cannot understand, and part 
 of it possibly may be a sort of allegory or parable, of 
 which we have not the key ; yet, after all, there is much 
 which is not only intelligible, but which speaks a language 
 no less remarkable than valuable. It is most striking, and 
 most original, that the first fault of man should be de- 
 scribed as consisting, partly, at any rate, in a desire after 
 knowledge, and that this knowledge, when gained, made 
 him feel more unfitted than before for communion with 
 God, and more anxious to escape out of his presence. 
 This is remarkable; for the whole tone and language of 
 the Scripture is sensible and manly, and ignorance and 
 superstition are continually combated and condemned. 
 But unquestionably the Scripture, while encouraging to 
 the utmost all knowledge that may help us to do our duty 
 better, does seem habitually to discourage the cultivation 
 of the mere intellect, as a thing unfitted to our present 
 condition in this world. The pursuit of knowledge for its 
 own sake, and for the mere indulgence of our intellectual 
 appetite, seems to be regarded pretty nearly in the same 
 light with an excessive desire of food for its own sake, for 
 the gratification of our bodily appetite. There is, indeed, 
 this great difference between the two, that whereas our 
 bodily desires are too low for us, so the desires of our 
 mind are too high : the one a good man has outgrown, but 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 149 
 
 for the other he is not yet grown enough and he is told 
 to wait with patience for that more perfect state of being 
 when knowledge may not only be safely followed, but may 
 be obtained in its full perfection. That this is a true re- 
 presentation of what is best for us in our present state is 
 to my mind certain ; if for this reason only, that no one 
 can doubt whether the happiness of a family, of a neigh- 
 bourhood, or of a nation, is best promoted by moral excel- 
 lence or by intellectual ; or, whether, in plain terms, he 
 would rather have his son distinguished as a very learned 
 man, or as a very good man a . 
 
 All this may be misrepresented, and so rendered false 
 and absurd, exactly in the same way as all sorts of super- 
 stitions have arisen from over straining the rules of com- 
 mon sense and of Scripture about our bodily appetites ; 
 instead of keeping them within proper bounds, men have 
 tried to get rid of them altogether, and thus have made 
 themselves very different beings from what God intended 
 them to be. So, if a man were to destroy his intellectual 
 appetite instead of regulating it; if he were to think 
 ignorance was good, because knowledge may be pursued 
 too keenly ; if he were to trample upon his understanding 
 because some put it as it were in the place of God, then 
 he too would act against God's purposes, and instead of 
 becoming good and wise, his ignorance would certainly 
 lead him into wickedness. Whereas what the Scripture 
 teaches is, to have all our faculties and appetites in a 
 healthy and vigorous state, but to take care that each 
 keeps in its own proper order ; for if our bodily appetites 
 take the lead over those of our minds, we become no better 
 than beasts ; and if our intellectual appetites outgrow our 
 affections, and make us forget that we are but put into the 
 world to serve God, and do good to man, we are changing 
 fast into the likeness of devils. 
 
 a [See Serm. Vol. vi. The Fall.] 
 
150 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 (3.) " THE BILL, THE WHOLE BILL, AND 
 NOTHING BUT THE BILL." 
 
 ANOTHER week, and Parliament will be assembling, and 
 the great question of Reform will be on the eve of passing 
 through it triumphantly. The tactics of the antireformers 
 were so plainly exhibited before the dissolution, that the 
 reformers would indeed be foolish if they were to be now 
 unprepared to meet them. It was clear that the Tories 
 would try to cripple the Bill in its passage through the 
 committee by altering its most effective clauses, or by 
 adding others whose tendency would be to neutralize them. 
 Thus the reformers were forced, in self-defence, to make 
 their rallying cry " the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing 
 but the Bill ; " and members have been in several places 
 subjected to a close catechism on the part of their consti- 
 tuents, as to their sentiments on the particular clauses of 
 the Bill, because a mere general profession of reform may 
 be only a cloak for the most decided enmity ; and a man 
 while praising reform in the abstract may by partial ob- 
 jections defeat this and every other measure of actual 
 reform which may be brought forward, and thus may try 
 to keep things in their present state till we and all our 
 generation shall be gathered to our fathers. 
 
 A double duty then is imposed upon the friends of 
 reform ; they must unite the tactics of parliamentary war- 
 fare with the enlarged and unimpassioned views of men 
 legislating for posterity; they must be ready, to borrow an 
 allusion from the sacred history, at once to fight and to 
 build. No divisions amongst themselves must be suffered 
 to give the enemy an opening ; yet at the same time in 
 enacting a great constitutional law it seems unwise to 
 sacrifice a clear permanent benefit for the sake of winning 
 a somewhat more decided victory at the present moment. 
 They must therefore maintain to the death the great prin- 
 
THE REFORM BILL. 151 
 
 ciples of the present Bill, while they endeavour by certain 
 salutary additions to obviate the most weighty objections 
 to it. 
 
 In the first place, " Schedules A and B " must be most 
 rigorously insisted on. Of course to correct unintentional 
 mistakes of detail is not to depart from them but strictly 
 to fulfil them. The principle is that all existing boroughs 
 whose population shall exceed 2,000 persons shall return 
 at least one member to Parliament. If, owing to mistake 
 or incorrect documents, a town containing more than 2,000 
 inhabitants has been entered on schedule A, or one con- 
 taining more than 4,000 on schedule B, it is clearly no 
 alteration of the Bill, but a strict complying with its en- 
 actments, to correct such errors and to give to such towns 
 the privileges which the Bill intended them to have. But 
 beyond this point we must not yield a hair's-breadth. 
 The rotten boroughs must be clean cut off. Proved or 
 unproved corruption has nothing at all to do with the 
 matter ; for the very existence of these boroughs is, and 
 in many cases always was, a gross corruption and ab- 
 surdity. " Ntillum tempus occurrit Reyi " is a maxim of 
 law never more justly pleaded than now, when the King, 
 in behalf of himself and his people, is proceeding to chal- 
 lenge the boasted prescription of the rotten boroughs, and 
 to remind them that no lapse of time can bar him from 
 reclaiming his own and his people's lawful rights and 
 properties. 
 
 With equal steadiness should we insist on the enfran- 
 chisement of the several places enumerated in schedule 
 C, and on the proposed addition to the number of county 
 members. Alteration here is not worth the risk of division. 
 The antireformers have sneered at what they call " those 
 overgrown watering places, Cheltenham and Brighton;" 
 but why should not the natural advantage of possessing 
 mineral waters raise a town as justly to political impor- 
 tance as the natural advantage of possessing a good har- 
 bour j or why should not Cheltenham derive the same 
 
152 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 distinction as Bath from the same cause ? Bath owes its 
 corporation, its right of returning members,- its abbey 
 church, and its very existence, as a city, to its waters : 
 why should those of Cheltenham be denied the same in- 
 fluence ? I do not say that the Ministers may not fairly 
 alter or add to their list, if by so doing they find that they 
 will only the more effectually fulfil the principle of the 
 measure; but any objection raised by the antireformers 
 should be met by a decided opposition ; because its mo- 
 tives must be suspicious and the chance of exciting differ- 
 ences between the friends of Reform is an evil far out- 
 weighing the possible advantage to be derived from yield- 
 ing to it. 
 
 The third great point in the Bill is the giving the right 
 of voting to the 10/. householders. It has been said that 
 strong efforts will be made to raise the standard, and to 
 fix it at 20/., or at 151., rather than at 101. Here again the 
 friends of reform should strenuously resist such an alter- 
 ation. It would not really improve the measure, but it 
 would infinitely lessen its power in satisfying the minds 
 of the people ; as it would seem like an abandonment of a 
 great popular principle in order to conciliate the friends 
 of oligarchy. Besides, if the qualification be raised to 
 201., or even to 151., can the disfranchisement of the scot and 
 lot voters be then fairly insisted upon ? I would say hold 
 fast to the 10/. qualification, but give other qualifications 
 besides. Do not in any way narrow the liberality of the 
 Bill, but rather extend it; and by so doing you will 
 supply the only thing in which it seems to me to be 
 deficient. 
 
 By the present scheme two great portions of the people 
 appear to be unreasonably excluded from their just share in 
 the national representation the great body of agricultural 
 and manufacturing labourers, on the one hand, and the great 
 monied and commercial interests, including a large mass of 
 the principle and intelligence of the country, on the other. 
 By the old system, so far as the poorest classes enjoyed 
 
THE REFORM BILL. 153 
 
 the right of voting at all, they enjoyed it in the worst pos- 
 sible manner. The agricultural labourers, unless they 
 happened to have a 40s. freehold, were universally de- 
 prived of it : whereas, in several instances where it was 
 possessed by the populace of large towns, their numbers 
 and their physical force gave them an undue influence, 
 and there was as little freedom in an election for Preston 
 as there used to be heretofore in one for Newark. It 
 cannot be regretted, then, that the old scot and lot voters 
 are to be disfranchised ; but it by no means follows that 
 the labouring classes are incapable of exercising any elec- 
 tive rights at all. Of all things in the world, nothing 
 certainly is more hateful than a mob, that is, an assem- 
 blage of persons at once numerous and tumultuous. But 
 there may be a mob of noblemen as well as a mob of ope- 
 ratives; that is, it is the natural effect of a crowd, of what- 
 ever elements it is formed, to excite men's passions, and 
 to drown their reason to put, in short, the worst part of 
 our nature uppermost. Bring the labourers of town or 
 country together in large bodies, and let them be excited 
 by one another and by the speeches of demagogues, and 
 you might as well, or even better, trust the election of a 
 member to chance, as to the votes of such an assembly. 
 But let every five labourers give in writing to the constable 
 of the parish the name of some one individual among 
 those who enjoy the elective franchise, whom they or the 
 majority of them think proper to fix upon as their elector; 
 and let him give one vote for a member of parliament in 
 the behalf of these five constituents, in addition to his 
 own. It should be provided that no one individual should 
 be thus entrusted with more than five votes besides his 
 own ; in other words, that he should not be the elector 
 for more than twenty-five persons. The power, therefore, 
 would not be great enough to tempt any man to bribe for 
 it ; and in general it would happen, when the choice was 
 thus quietly and calmly made, that the labourer would 
 choose as his elector the very man whom he ought to 
 
154 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 choose : that is, the person whose judgment and kindness 
 he had learnt most to respect and value in the common 
 concerns of daily life. 
 
 With regard, also, to the great monied and commercial 
 interests, it does seem to me that by the provisions of the 
 Bill they are likely to be very inadequately represented. 
 It must be a chance, for instance, whether there will be 
 any man in Parliament capable of understanding and pro- 
 perly defending the interests of the India Company, the 
 Bank, or the Colonies in general. And I cannot but think 
 that it would be every way expedient to relieve funded 
 property from the sort of outlawry under which it labours, 
 to recall it within the pale of national society, to subject it 
 to the burdens and to invest it with the privileges to which 
 all property is at once liable and entitled in other words, 
 to tax the funds on the one hand, and to give the fund- 
 holders the elective franchise on the other. It is true that 
 the rotten boroughs sometimes enabled the great commer- 
 cial and colonial interests to be represented ; but then it 
 was accidentally and unequally ; and, as experience has 
 shown, they were open to the nabob of Arcot as well as to 
 the India Company open, in short, to any one who could 
 buy them. A better plan would be to allow the proprie- 
 tors of Bank Stock and India Stock to choose a certain num- 
 ber of representatives for themselves, just as they actually 
 choose their directors : and to extend this same right to 
 such other great commercial bodies, whether actually in- 
 corporated or no, as from their importance and from the 
 general ignorance and indisposition to their interests, may 
 most require to be heard by their representatives in Par- 
 liament. This plan has a complete precedent in the con- 
 stitution, in the case of the Universities, which return 
 members not as mere local bodies, but as corporations for 
 the maintenance of learning ; and as Dublin, Oxford, and 
 Cambridge send at once their local members and their 
 University members, so London might return its members 
 for the City, and its members for the Bank, the India 
 
THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 155 
 
 House, &c., without introducing any new principle into the 
 constitution, and with manifest benefit, as it appears to 
 me, to the character of the national representation. 
 
 Thus would the Reform of the House of Commons be 
 not only effectual, but would be freed from the only serious 
 objections to which it is now liable, that it will leave a 
 large portion of the people unsatisfied, and some of our 
 most important interests unrepresented. I would zea- 
 lously uphold the present Bill, but I would add to it, and 
 add to it in a manner that would make it at once more 
 popular and more conservative, by giving to every Eng- 
 lishman such a participation in the elective franchise as 
 he may fairly and usefully enjoy, and by providing that 
 some of the most important elements in our national great- 
 ness should find members in the House of Commons who 
 may duly appreciate and understand them. 
 
 [From No. 6, June 11, 1831.] 
 THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SINCE the publication of our last number, I have hap- 
 pened to meet with some other writings upon this subject 
 which profess, indeed, to remedy the distresses of the poor 
 in a manner sufficiently summary. According to them, 
 the land belongs to everybody alike, and as the poor are 
 the most numerous class, it will be perfectly easy for them 
 to seize their due share of it, and they will have a perfect 
 right to do so. 
 
 Now it is very true that every Christian, and, indeed, 
 every man of common sense and honesty, feels instinct- 
 ively that this is robbery, and that robbery can never be 
 right. A poor woman gave me, a few weeks since, the best 
 and simplest answer to all such wicked folly : when speak- 
 ing of her landlord wanting his rent, she said quite natur- 
 ally that she could not blame him "for own 's own, whe- 
 
156 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 ther to rich or poor''' And whether the writers who preach 
 up these doctrines belong to some of those large gangs of 
 pickpockets and thieves which infest London, and are 
 thus only recommending to others what they are daily 
 practising themselves or whether they belong to those 
 still more miserable wretches, who not only are doing the 
 devil's service, but confess their master openly, and call 
 themselves after his name there is no serious fear of such 
 preaching gaining many converts. But yet an honest 
 man, when in great poverty himself, and when seeing 
 others around him in great comfort, may be sometimes 
 sorely troubled and perplexed at the sight, and his under- 
 standing may not find so ready an answer as his con- 
 science to a doctrine which his distress renders so tempt- 
 ing. I should be glad, therefore, to lay the matter, if pos- 
 sible, clearly before the eyes of such men to explain 
 what the right of property is, and how it is neither just nor 
 expedient to violate it. 
 
 It is said that the land belongs to everybody. This is 
 the original falsehood of the whole doctrine. Nothing 
 belongs to everybody; but it either belongs to somebody 
 or to nobody at all. The air belongs to nobody the open 
 sea belongs to nobody, and for this reason because man 
 has done nothing, and can do nothing, to make them 
 better for his use than God made them from the beginning. 
 The very first day after men were made upon the earth, 
 the sea would carry ships, and the air would supply them 
 with breath, just as perfectly as at this moment. Man has 
 had nothing to do with them but to use them as he found 
 them ; and therefore over these God has given him no do- 
 minion they are not his property at all. But wilh the 
 earth or land, and with all things in it, it is quite different. 
 Men were to subdue the earth, that is, to make it by their 
 labour what it would not have been by itself; and with the 
 labour so bestowed upon it came the right of property in 
 it. Thus every land which is inhabited at all, belongs to 
 somebody that is, there is either some one person, or 
 
THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 157 
 
 family, or tribe, or nation, who have a greater right to it 
 than any one else has : it does not and cannot belong to 
 everybody. But so much does the right of property go 
 along with labour, that civilized nations have never scru- 
 pled to take possession of countries inhabited only by tribes 
 of savages countries which have been hunted over, but 
 never subdued or cultivated. It is true they have often 
 gone further, and have settled themselves in countries 
 which were cultivated, and then it becomes a robbery ; but 
 when our fathers went to America and took possession of 
 the mere hunting grounds of the Indians of lands on 
 which man had hitherto bestowed no labour, they only 
 exercised a right which God has inseparably united with 
 industry and knowledge. 
 
 But you may say we know that France does not belong 
 to us, nor England to Frenchmen ; all that we mean is, 
 that England belongs to every Englishman, and France to 
 every Frenchman. But all that I want to show is the 
 right of property at all ; that is, that some have a greater 
 right to the possession of a thing than others ; for if this be 
 once allowed, we need not talk any longer about a state of 
 nature, as it is foolishly called ; we have done with beast's 
 nature, and are living according to man's nature that is, 
 according to LAW and RIGHT, not according to BRUTALITY 
 and MIGHT. It is LAW and RIGHT which say that although 
 France produces wine and oil, and England can produce 
 neither, yet that Englishmen must either get the wine and 
 oil from France with the consent of Frenchmen, or else 
 they must go without them. And it is just the same law 
 and right, which say that although Northumberland has 
 plenty of coal and Kent has none, yet that the men of 
 Kent must either persuade the Northumbrians by fair 
 means to let them have their coal, or they must go without 
 it; or again, which say that although the soil of Bagshot 
 Heath is very poor, and that round about Farnham is very 
 rich, yet that the parishes on Bagshot Heath may not touch 
 the hops of Farnham without the owners' leave ; or again, 
 
158 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 to come down a step lower, it is the self same LAW and 
 RIGHT which will not let the man who has no land eat the 
 corn of his neighbour who has land, unless he can per- 
 suade his neighbour, either for love or money, to let him 
 have a share of it. 
 
 You may say however further, " we would have the law 
 divide all England equally amongst Englishmen, and 
 surely the law of the land may do what it likes with the 
 land." But the law of the land and the law of property 
 are as old as one another, and one of these cannot upset 
 the other. The holders of property may doubtless make 
 laws about their own property, but those who have none 
 can never make a law about that of others, because the 
 law of property is as old as society itself, and if this be 
 done away with, we go back at once to the state of BRUTES, 
 when every man got what he could, and kept what he 
 could. As men in a savage state may not kill one another, 
 because the right to life is as old as the very existence of 
 man at all ; so men in society may not take away property, 
 because the right to hold property is as old as the very ex- 
 istence of society itself. 
 
 But are persons without property to starve rather than 
 lay hands on the property of their neighbours ? I will ask, 
 in return, what do we think of those dreadful cases in 
 which men in the extremity of famine have even killed one 
 of their number to be food for the rest ? We cannot 
 judge of acts of the last dreadful necessity; but we do 
 know that the extremest necessity is no rule for common 
 cases, and that if absolute starvation be allowed to be 
 stronger than the law of property, it does not follow that 
 the same excuse should be allowed to distress and incon- 
 venience. I will not speak of the right of a starving man, 
 or a man with a starving family, to help himself to food if it 
 is denied him, till I shall know that there are found to be 
 any so wicked as to deny it him. But what is to the pur- 
 pose to speak of, and what, with God's blessing, I hope to 
 speak of, is the wickedness of those who would persuade 
 
THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 159 
 
 the poor that poverty, not starvation, may be relieved by 
 robbery, and the equal wickedness of those, who being 
 aware of the poverty of their neighbours, are yet disposed 
 to make no sacrifices to relieve it by means at once right- 
 ful and effectual. 
 
 Meanwhile we may be assured of this, that as nothing 
 less than absolute starvation could justify an attack upon 
 the laws of property, so nothing less will ever successfully 
 attempt it. It is very true that the poor are many, and the 
 rich comparatively few, and that if all the poor were to 
 combine they might not only rob, but murder also, if they 
 chose it, all the rich. They might do this, if they would; 
 but they never will have the will to do it. Any man might 
 kill his neighbour if he chose, but he does not choose it ; 
 for God, although He suffers evil to exist in the world, does 
 not allow it to exercise such dominion as this. God no 
 more allows the majority of mankind to think evil good, 
 and good evil, than He allows the beasts of the field to 
 concert and combine together, to throw off the rule of man. 
 As surely therefore as the horses will never use their strength 
 to destroy men instead of serving them, because it is 
 against God's law of nature, so surely will the mass of 
 mankind never combine to rob and to murder, because it 
 is against God's law of human society. The hearts of men 
 are in his hand no less than the stars of Heaven ; and He 
 will no more permit the one to destroy the social system 
 by their vices, than He will let the other derange the order 
 of the universe by their irregular wanderings. Therefore, 
 if the right of property be founded on justice, and is ac- 
 cording to God's will, and necessary to the well-being of 
 mankind, as I have shown that it is, it never will be over- 
 thrown; and although its abuses will and ought to be 
 removed, yet it will in itself stand fast till the world itself 
 shall perish. 
 
160 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 [From No. 7, June 18, 1831.] 
 
 THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 I HAVE said that in the first chapters of Genesis there 
 are some things which we cannot clearly understand ; and 
 that parts of them may possibly be a sort of allegory or 
 parable, of which we have lost the key. Yet still I have 
 always thought that what is called the Story of the Fall 
 illustrates the actual state of the world in some remarkable 
 points more than is commonly noticed. 
 
 The story literally taken represents the offence of the 
 first man and woman to have consisted in eating of a cer- 
 
 O 
 
 tain fruit, which is called the Fruit of the Tree of Know- 
 edge of Good and Evil ; and it goes on to state, that one 
 consequence of this offence was the sense of personal 
 shame, that sense of decency which has induced almost 
 all nations, except some of the most ignorant savages, to 
 wear at least certain portions of clothing. The account 
 further states, that a part of the punishment for this offence 
 consisted in subjecting women to pain and danger in the 
 birth of their children, and in imposing upon men the 
 necessity of perpetual labour. 
 
 It is also mentioned and this is a part of the history 
 which is much more dwelt upon that in consequence of 
 having broken God's commandments, man became afraid 
 of God, and wished to escape from His presence ; and that 
 he was driven out of the Garden of Eden, that he might 
 not eat of the Tree of Life and live for ever ; for now he 
 was not only to labour while he did live, instead of enjoy, 
 but his life was after a few years to be at an end, and he 
 was to return to the dust out of which he had been made. 
 
 Now that there are things in this account very hard to 
 be understood is plain to everybody. But looking at the 
 whole carefully, it seems to show that man's first offence 
 was a mixture of the desires of the body with those of the 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 161 
 
 mind or intellect ; that it was longing &fter sensual plea- 
 sures and intellectual power. And our present condition 
 in the world seems very much to throw light upon the 
 particular nature of the punishment inflicted. 
 
 Mr. Malthus has said that men, if left to themselves, 
 have a tendency to multiply faster than food can be raised 
 to maintain them. Therefore, the population must be 
 checked either by good means or bad; either by men's 
 own prudence and sense of duty before the evil begins, or 
 by distress and various kinds of misery in the end. But 
 it has been objected that this is accusing God of mis- 
 managing the course of nature, and of putting an evil in 
 it which must render happiness here impossible. The 
 account in the beginning of Genesis seems here to step 
 in, and to show that this state of things was in fact in- 
 tended as a punishment; that it was ordered on purpose 
 that there should be no happiness here unpurchased by 
 self-denial. The tendency to multiply faster than food 
 can be produced, or in other words, to multiply exces- 
 sively, seems to be itself a part of the corruption of our 
 nature ; it is the dominion of the animal appetite. It is 
 an evil, doubtless, but one not of God's original design, 
 but of man's bringing in afterwards. He chose to give 
 his animal passions an unnatural strength and power, and 
 he takes the consequence. Hence the sufferings of child- 
 birth in women and the necessity of labour in man, were 
 at once the punishment and at the same time the check 
 upon this evil. If a man multiplied his children, he must 
 multiply his labours ; while, at the same time, he was not 
 cursed to labour without fruit ; but the support which he 
 could not get without working, he yet might obtain if he 
 did work for it if not in one country, yet in another that 
 so, good might still be brought out of evil ; and the very 
 necessity of labour always existing, and growing out of the 
 very midst of prosperity and increasing numbers, might be 
 too powerful even for man's indolence and natural feelings, 
 
 M 
 
162 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN^ REGISTER. 
 
 and might force him from the land of his fathers to go and 
 subdue and replenish other, even the most distant parts of 
 the world. 
 
 So far, then, as man's first offence consisted in longing 
 after forbidden animal pleasures, and so making his animal 
 desires unnaturally strong, so far we see its punishment 
 in that constant tendency to an excess of population which 
 obliges him to constant labour and self-restraint. And so 
 far as his offence consisted in longing after forbidden in- 
 tellectual pleasure, and so making his intellectual desires, 
 his curiosity, and thirst of knowledge in itself, unnaturally 
 strong, so far we see its punishment in that sentence of 
 death and bodily infirmity which of necessity humbles the 
 pride and cuts short the inquiries of the wisest. On the 
 very verge of strong intellectual excitement is madness, 
 incurred too commonly by an absence of wholesome con- 
 trol over our passions, intellectual as well as bodily the 
 natural termination of restless and selfish desires, whatever 
 be their particular kind. And this is a disease which in- 
 creases with the increase of civilization; the greater the 
 excitement produced by a strong competition in every 
 thing, and by an almost feverish activity both of body and 
 mind, the more is our reason endangered. 
 
 Thus far, then, the twofold character of the original 
 offence, as recorded in the earliest chapters of Genesis, 
 corresponds with what we see now daily before us ; and 
 what is described as having been adjudged as its punish- 
 ment is, in fact, in daily operation, and rendering it im- 
 possible that this world should ever be a place of perfect 
 bodily or perfect intellectual enjoyment. The other effects 
 of the Fall, and what is meant by " Death," further than 
 the mere extinction of our earthly being, I propose to 
 consider hereafter. 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 163 
 
 [From No. 9, July 2, 1831.] 
 THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 IN my last paper I considered those parts of the punish- 
 ment of man's first offence, as recorded in the Bible, which 
 are matters of daily experience. We all see that we are 
 born under a necessity to labour. We see too that all our 
 plans and all our undertakings are cut short by bodily de- 
 cay and death. 
 
 But there is something more in this word " death," ac- 
 cording to the Scripture account of it, than the mere end 
 of our life here : it is spoken of in darker terms than as a 
 mere falling asleep for ever. And this farther sense of 
 the term, this worst evil of our natural condition since the 
 Fall, I am now proposing to consider. 
 
 I said in my former paper, that as man's first fault seems 
 to have consisted in an excessive indulgence of his bodily 
 desires, and in an excessive indulgence of his intellectual 
 desires, so the punishment was exactly fitted to the offence ; 
 inasmuch as this world can never be a place of perfect 
 bodily or perfect intellectual enjoyment. But there are 
 other desires in man besides those of his body and his in- 
 tellect ; there are the desires of his spirit, his wish to know 
 God, and his desire to be happy with Him, and in Him. It 
 is very true that in too many of us, as we now are, there 
 seems to be no such wish or desire at all ; we are too often 
 what the Scripture would call, dead to God ; yet if we 
 argue upon it coolly, such wishes and desires are just and 
 reasonable, and in the best men they do exist as a matter 
 of fact. I call them, therefore, natural, as being required 
 by our nature in theory, and actually existing in the best 
 specimens of it; although in the common and imperfect 
 specimens they are wanting. These desires then after 
 God were, by the first sin of man, thrown down from being 
 the strongest principles in us, to be the very feeblest : the 
 
 M 2 
 
164 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 desires of the body and the mind quite overgrew them. 
 This is what may be called the natural effect of the Fall, 
 and it brought with it its own punishment ; for having 
 ceased to care about God, or to love Him, we shut our- 
 selves out, in a manner, from the highest happiness of a 
 created being, and that which at once ensured immortality 
 we undid the relation between us and our Maker and 
 Preserver, withdrawing ourselves from the care of His 
 providence, and subjecting ourselves to whatever fate 
 may attend those for whom His protecting care watches 
 no longer. 
 
 What seems intended then by the word " death," in the 
 Old Testament, is principally " a state of final separation 
 from God." He is no longer our God, and we are no 
 longer the objects of His care. If there were no God, and 
 if all things in the universe were to become at once a 
 blanK when this mortal life were over, death would then 
 indeed be no more than an eternal sleep, and we might 
 easily train ourselves to regard it with no terror ; but as 
 God lives for ever, and His power fills the whole universe, 
 death is dreadful on two accounts, first, for what it de- 
 prives us of an eternity of happiness with God and next, 
 for what it may subject us to in an eternity passed with- 
 out Him. -!> 
 
 The very ungodliness then which prevails so commonly 
 in the world, is the actual seal and assurance of this most 
 awful sentence of death. Men are too often separated 
 from God actually they believe not in Him, care not for 
 Him, are, in short, living without Him in the world. They 
 are, in the Scripture language, dead and condemned 
 already, having shut their eyes, and closed their hearts, 
 against the fountain of light and life. They have denied 
 Him, and are denied by Him. They look upon the uni- 
 verse as on a system without a governor; and to them it 
 will be so for ever. They will probably never know any 
 more of God than they do now : to them the universe will 
 contain nothing wiser or better than themselves. And 
 
THE BIBLE. GENESIS. 165 
 
 this now for a few years, and with God's creatures given 
 them to enjoy, they find to be sufficiently tolerable ; but 
 when these creatures are all taken away from them, when 
 left to themselves, and to the society of such as them- 
 selves only, nothing can be conceived so miserable as 
 such a state a state of death to every thing good and 
 happy, and of the full enjoyment of unmixed evil in 
 themselves and others for ever. 
 
 (2.) 
 
 It is with considerable regret that we feel ourselves 
 obliged to announce to our readers that we must, in this 
 present Paper take our leave of them. Without troubling 
 them with matters of no public concern, the Proprietor of 
 the Englishman's Register may simply observe that the 
 expense of continuing it unsupported, and under some 
 unavoidable disadvantages, is too serious to be long de- 
 frayed by an individual, with a very uncertain prospect of 
 ultimate success. 
 
 At the same time we have nothing to complain of in 
 the reception which our Paper has met with, and sincerely 
 thank our friends for the encouragement they have given 
 us. Our main object will be abundantly answered, if, 
 from this attempt, any thing on the same principles, but 
 with better means of ensuring success, may be hereafter 
 originated. And we earnestly hope to be able ourselves 
 to do something still for the great work, on which we 
 verily believe the existence of civilized society in this 
 country does mainly, under God, depend. 
 
 The people want neither to be excited nor insulted 
 neither to be goaded on by the wickedness of the Revolu- 
 tionists nor to be disgusted with the suppressions and 
 idle cant of those who call themselves the conservative 
 party. Nor yet do they want the suppressions of another 
 
166 EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 
 
 party, who would impart to them all truth except the 
 highest who would give them all knowledge, except the 
 knowledge of God. They want to be told the truth in the 
 fullest sense of the word ; and nothing else will ever be so 
 pacifying or so enlightening. 
 
 But good men will not unite to tell it them, and the end 
 will be that falsehood and error of one kind or other is 
 likely to be predominant. In these divided attempts, 
 however, to win the People's ear, the party which will be 
 most successful, will, we fear, be that of the Revolution- 
 ists ; inasmuch as the actual distresses of the poor are so 
 powerful an ally to their reasonings. And neither the 
 Conservative party nor the Liberals can singly cope with 
 them ; the former, from the suspicion attached to them on 
 account of their seeming indifference to all the evils of 
 the present system ; and the latter, because they do not 
 take that high ground, on which the direct and monstrous 
 wickedness of the revolutionary school can alone be ef- 
 fectually combated. 
 
 The writings of this school have been noticed in Par- 
 liament this week, and Sir F. Burdett and Mr. Hume 
 affected to speak contemptuously of their influence. No 
 doubt they will have no effect on any good and well- 
 informed mind ; but how many amongst all classes are 
 there who are neither good nor well-informed. What 
 writings could be viler, in every point of view, than those 
 of Marat and Hebert ? And their influence certainly 
 was short-lived, as may be expected in all similar cases ; 
 but yet it was no light amount of evil that they effected in 
 the interval. Our children may outlive the storm, but we 
 in the meanwhile, with some things perhaps more irrepar- 
 able than any single one of the fleeting generations of 
 mankind, may be swept away by its violence. 
 
 What may be done by fair discussion, by meeting, by 
 growing intelligence of the poorer classes with real sym- 
 pathy, and sincerely labouring to advance it, has been 
 already beautifully shown by the impression produced on 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISHMAN'S REGISTER. 167 
 
 the London Mechanics' Institute, last winter, by the Lec- 
 tures of Sir R. Wilmot Horton. Whatever good this ex- 
 cellent person may do in Ceylon, he can ill be spared in 
 England : and in this, as in too many other instances, 
 it is far easier to admire a good example than to imitate it. 
 Here, then, we take our leave of our Readers, in the 
 earnest hope, that, if no one has been amused or in- 
 structed by the Englishman's Register, at least no one 
 has been injured by it; and that others may make the 
 same attempt that we have done, with greater ability and 
 with better success. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 CHIEFLY ON 
 
 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE 
 OPERATIVE CLASSES. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE SHEFFIELD COUBANT. 
 
[In July, 1831, after the discontinuance of the Englishman's 
 Register, Dr. Arnold, on finding that some of its articles had been 
 copied into the Sheffield Courant by the Editor, Mr. Platt, opened 
 a communication with him, of which the following Letters, written 
 in the latter part of 1831 and the early part of 1832, were the result. 
 See Life and Correspondence, vol. i. 285. 309.] 
 
LETTERS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE 
 OPERATIVE CLASSES. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 SIR, I have lately been travelling through the northern 
 and midland counties of England ; and though I am ill 
 qualified to give you an agricultural report, yet it was im- 
 possible not to be struck with the promising aspect of the 
 crops, and the generally flourishing appearance of the 
 country. But I find that views of this kind, whenever I 
 see them, affect me with almost as much pain as pleasure. 
 One cannot enjoy the beauty which one sees, because we 
 know how much of suffering and how much of discontent 
 and all evil passions are lurking beneath it. Even when I 
 saw the work of harvest going on in full activity, and in 
 the most favourable weather, I could not but think of the 
 wickedness which out of pure fiendish malice had so often 
 during the last winter destroyed the fruits of the earth 
 which God had given us, and which perhaps is now pre- 
 paring to repeat, on a larger scale, the same atrocities 
 again. 
 
 I confess to you, Sir, that when I think on this great 
 subject, on the moral and physical state of the English 
 labourers, whether employed in agriculture, in manufac- 
 tures, or in trade, I grow somewhat impatient of those 
 long discussions upon the Reform Bill, which are engross- 
 ing the time, if not the attention, of Parliament. And so 
 
172 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 widely are these discussions spread by the public press, 
 that this same question engrosses the attention not of 
 Parliament only but of the nation at large : it delays 
 inquiry into other matters, and prevents those measures 
 of precaution or of palliation, which it is dangerous, which 
 it may be fatal to postpone. What have we learnt from the 
 experience of last autumn and, winter? Nothing, I fear, 
 in the way of preventing the recurrence of such scenes ; 
 the wise and good, they who could and would better the 
 present state of things, seem to have learnt nothing at all 
 from it ; but the authors and instruments of evil .have 
 learnt much. Upon them, if I am not greatly misin- 
 formed, the lesson has been any thing but thrown away. 
 At any rate this much is certain, that while nothing has 
 been done within the last six months to enlighten and 
 improve the poorer classes, much has been done and is 
 daily doing to mislead and to excite them ; clubs, unions 
 and associations, the eternal curse of society in every age 
 and country that has witnessed them, are more active and 
 more audacious than ever; and the foundations of all 
 moral and social good are assailed with a vehemence 
 which, unhappily, is only to be equalled by the supineness 
 or ignorance with which they are defended. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sir, there is in action one instrument from 
 which I hope much, and that is the Provincial Press. 
 Most of the country newspapers which I have seen, seem 
 to me to be really independent; to be free from aristo- 
 cratical influence, and at the same time to be above pan- 
 dering to the popular passions and follies, like too large a 
 portion of the newspaper press of London. There is a 
 soberness in their tone which is the thing most essential 
 to the directors of public opinion. The people are just 
 as much slaves, when they follow blindly the violence and 
 faction of an unknown writer in a newspaper, as when 
 they are bribed or overawed by property and political in- 
 fluence. I wish the people to be really independent; 
 that is, to think and to judge calmly for themselves ; not 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 173 
 
 to be agitated, and to clamour without thinking, just as 
 their favourite newspaper sets them on. I am a thorough 
 friend to knowledge, and, therefore, I detest excitement 
 and violence; for these utterly obscure the truth, and 
 make a man ready to talk and act upon every thing, while 
 he knows nothing. 
 
 If you agree with me in these principles, you will, per- 
 haps, be disposed to second my endeavours to put them in 
 practice. I care not whether people agree with me or 
 not in all my conclusions, if I can but persuade them 
 really to think for themselves, and to consider freely and 
 fairly those questions on which they are now no better 
 than the veriest parrots and slaves. Far be it from me 
 to fancy that I can see my way through all the difficulties 
 of our social condition; so absurd a vanity would make 
 me unworthy to occupy the humblest and smallest corner 
 of any of your columns. But if I can only set an exam- 
 ple of fair and calm inquiry, concealing nothing, palli- 
 ating nothing, exaggerating nothing if I can lead men to 
 consider their grievances wisely, as well as to feel them 
 keenly to look into the causes of them, and so to dismiss 
 that soreness and fierceness with which they now regard 
 their supposed authors ; if, in short, 1 can but in any 
 degree improve the temper and sober the judgment with 
 which men now study political questions, neither shall 
 I have written in vain, nor will you, I am sure, repent of 
 the space in your paper which you will have allowed me to 
 occupy. 
 
 I propose to begin, then, in my next letter with giving a 
 sketch of the several causes which have brought about the 
 present relations of the rich and poor towards one another, 
 both with regard to their mutual feelings, and to their 
 outward condition. 
 
174 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 SIR, Allow me to thank you for the readiness with which 
 you have received my first communication, and for the 
 kindness with which you have expressed your willingness 
 to forward my views. 
 
 If it should please God that the Cholera should reach 
 this country, if it were to spread through our thickly- 
 peopled towns and parishes with its usual virulence, if 
 suffering and death were preying upon thousands of our 
 population, you can conceive, Sir, amidst all the panic 
 that would undoubtedly prevail, how much we should 
 witness, also, of active and judicious inquiry, and of self- 
 denying charity. But above all, great as would be the 
 evil, it would not be embittered by angry and revengeful 
 passions amongst ourselves. It would arise so clearly 
 from causes utterly beyond human power to counteract, 
 that the sufferers themselves could attribute their calamity 
 to no other source than the inscrutable will of God : 
 it would be so great and manifest a scourge, that all 
 persons would use their best and most vigorous endeavours 
 to get rid of it. 
 
 Such is the case with the visitations of sickness ; such is 
 the case, also, with the visitations of famine, when they 
 arise clearly from unfavourable seasons. But unluckily 
 it is far otherwise with the visitations of poverty. Here 
 the sufferers attribute the evils which oppress them to the 
 faults of other men ; and as passion is blind, they are apt 
 to try any means rather than those which can really effect 
 their object, to deliver themselves from their burden. On 
 the other hand, they who are exempt from the visitation, 
 instead of regarding it as an evil calling aloud for pallia- 
 tion, if not for total cure, are tempted to view it too much 
 as coming in the natural course of things, as resembling 
 the fevers of autumn, or the agues of marshy districts 
 inconveniences which have happened and will continue to 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 175 
 
 happen against which it is vain to struggle, and they who 
 escape them have only to enjoy their good fortune and 
 congratulate themselves that they are not the victims. 
 
 The object, then, of every honest public writer at this 
 moment should be to calm and to enlighten the poor ; to 
 interest and to arouse the rich. We are afflicted by a great 
 evil, not certainly brought on solely by the hand of God 
 like the visitations of pestilence or famine, yet brought 
 on, so far as men have been the authors of it, partly by a 
 sort of chance medley, partly through ignorance, and 
 partly from the mere indulgence of feelings so universal 
 and usually visited with so little blame, that no man has a 
 right to impute them as a crime to his neighbour. On the 
 other hand, the evil is so great, and ignorance and care- 
 lessness, however excusable at first, become so deeply 
 blamable after warning given, that it will not do to 
 regard the actual state of the poor as an unavoidable 
 drawback upon national prosperity, a drawback which 
 must be paid, and which it is the best way to think of as 
 little as possible. 
 
 If I do but state ever so briefly the various causes 
 which have brought on our present distress, the number of 
 matters thus crowded together within a few lines will be 
 almost enough to bewilder some readers. But if they can 
 scarcely see their way through the subject when laid at 
 once before them, how could others, while seeing only the 
 unconnected parts of it, and without the aid of experience 
 to enlighten them, be expected to see beforehand to what 
 their conduct was leading ? Our present distress is owing 
 
 First To the long war which raged through Europe 
 for more than twenty years, everywhere deranging the 
 state of society, and in England forcing suddenly the 
 increase of our population and of our commerce and 
 manufactures to an unnatural and therefore mischievous 
 excess. 
 
 Second To the natural tendency of wealth to become 
 richer, and of poverty to became poorer ; by which trade 
 
176 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 carried on on a large scale has driven trade on a smaller 
 scale out of the market ; by which the rich have v been 
 enabled to buy property to a large extent, and often at a 
 great advantage ; while men of small fortunes have been 
 led to sell, often at a great disadvantage ; so that, while a 
 larger portion of the community has been forced to depend 
 wholly on their labour, that labour itself, owing to the effect 
 of great wealth in encouraging human invention, and thus 
 leading to the discovery and use of machinery, has become 
 far less valuable. 
 
 Third To the effect of wealth in making men more 
 
 O 
 
 alive to, and more able to procure, intellectual pleasures ; 
 while poverty renders the same pleasures at once undesired 
 and unattainable ; so that the different classes of society 
 have been removed to a greater distance from one another, 
 have sympathized with and understood each other less, 
 and thus have become strangers to each other, too ready, 
 I fear, to become enemies also. 
 
 Fourth To the Poor Laws, a beneficent institution, 
 harmless, and even salutary in a wholesome state of 
 society ; but fearfully aggravating its evils when once it 
 becomes diseased, by encouraging a want of forethought 
 and exertion in the poor, and accustoming them not to 
 look higher than the bare necessaries of life ; while, on the 
 other hand, the rich are galled by a burden of a compul- 
 sory charity, their feelings are hardened, and, accustomed 
 to look on their neighbours as on paupers supported at 
 their expense, they lose towards them all sense of equality 
 and brotherhood. 
 
 Fifth To the excess of aristocracy in our whole system, 
 religious, political, and social ; an evil arising from causes 
 which run back to the earliest period of our history ; and 
 which have tended, silently and unconsciously, to separate 
 the higher classes from the lower in almost every relation 
 of life. For instance, it is an enormous evil, yet one for 
 which no one is to blame, that the rich and poor in Eng- 
 land have each what is almost a distinct language ; the 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 177 
 
 language of the rich, which is, of course, that of books also, 
 being so full of French words derived from their Norman 
 ancestors, while that of the poor still retains the pure 
 Saxon character inherited from their Saxon forefathers. 
 
 Now, Sir, in this brief and compressed statement there 
 is matter enough to think upon, for those who are able and 
 willing to think, instead of clamouring and indulging mere 
 ignorant abuse. These are real and intelligible causes of 
 the present distress ; but because they do not serve the 
 ends of agitators, they are passed over in silence, whilst 
 the changes are rung upon the vague words " Cor- 
 ruption," " Misgovernment," " Tyranny," " Pampered 
 oligarchy," " Borough-mongering faction," &c., &c. Truly 
 it is hard to decide whether they who use this language 
 are more wicked or more ignorant ; for though their tone 
 and spirit abundantly show that truth is not their object, 
 yet their excessive shallowness must wholly acquit them 
 of having discovered it, and then wilfully suppressing it. 
 But popular principles are too sacred to be abandoned in 
 disgust because of the vileness of their advocates ; and I 
 hope to labour unceasingly in the great work of social 
 reform, notwithstanding the baseness and the folly by 
 which it is obstructed under pretence of advancing it. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 SIR, In the month of November last, a paper was found 
 one morning, affixed to the church in a small parish in 
 one of the midland counties, which was at that time, and 
 afterwards, perfectly free from any disturbance. The 
 paper was of some length ; and from some particular cir- 
 cumstances, as well as from internal evidence, it was 
 known to be the genuine production of one of the labourers 
 
178 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 in the village. It was so striking, both in matter and 
 manner, that the clergyman of the place read it aloud 
 immediately to the farmers in the vestry-room, and car- 
 ried it about afterwards, to show it to several persons in 
 the neighbourhood. Amongst the rest, he showed it to me, 
 and I read it with very great interest and attention . It 
 seemed to me to be clearly genuine that is, it expressed 
 the real grievances of the labourers of that neighbourhood, 
 just as they were likely to feel them of themselves, without 
 having been influenced and corrupted by the falsehoods 
 of the Jacobin press. Its complaints, therefore, appeared 
 to me to be well worth our serious attention, and they 
 certainly confirmed the views which I had long been 
 accustomed to entertain as to the real evils of the labourers' 
 condition and their causes. 
 
 This paper said nothing about rents, or tithes, or taxes: 
 it complained neither of the squire, nor of the parson, nor 
 of the government : neither did it cry out against the 
 aristocracy, nor speak of the rich as the enemies and 
 oppressors of the poor. It set out with saying, that God 
 had intended thai; there should be both rich and poor in 
 the world, but not that the poor should be so wretched 
 and degraded as they were at present. It complained that 
 cottages had been pullejd down, and cottage gardens thrown 
 together and ploughed up, to increase the size of the 
 large farms. It dwelt particularly upon the distance which 
 there now was between the farmers and the labourers : the 
 farmers, it said, do not now call their labourers into their 
 kitchen, and give them a draught of beer, but " take no 
 more notice of them than if they were dumb beasts, and 
 let them eat their crust by the ditch side, with nothing to 
 drink with it but water." And it spoke of the fires which 
 were then frequent in so many counties, as of great acts of 
 wickedness; but that the farmers might certainly expect 
 such a judgment on their hard-heartedness, if they still 
 persisted in it. It concluded with praying for a blessing 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 179 
 
 upon the clergyman of the parish, whom it described as 
 " the good shepherd," who worked in the Church and out 
 of the Church to do the people good. 
 
 Now we see, Sir, that in this paper the grand grievances 
 of the labourer are described as twofold ; his absolute want 
 of comforts, in getting only the poorest food, and a crowded 
 and miserable dwelling ; and his degradation in society, in 
 being left to eat his meal in the open air, as if he were a 
 dumb beast. The latter of these seemed to have made 
 quite as deep an impression on the writer's mind as the' 
 former, and very deservedly; for a want of kindness is as 
 bad as a want of food, and to society at large it is far more 
 mischievous ; for it spreads mutual suspicion, and fear, 
 and hatred, and makes men ascribe the evils of their out- 
 ward condition to the faults of their neighbours, and thus 
 to think themselves not unfortunate, but aggrieved. There 
 is no saying how much mischief is thus created, and the 
 consequences cannot be better shown than by what was 
 said in the paper about the fires. The writer, it seems 
 would on no account have taken any part ~in them, yet he 
 could not be altogether sorry if they were to break out in 
 his parish ; because those who suffered from them seemed 
 to him to deserve punishment. Even a good man could 
 go as far as this ; and how many are likely to be found in 
 every parish who would gladly go much further ? 
 
 I will go any lengths with any man in acknowledging the 
 enormity of this evil, and the urgent necessity of correct- 
 ing it. But still I know that it has not been brought 
 about intentionally, and that it would not have been easy, 
 unless they were far better than they are, to have avoided 
 it. It is the consequence of the violent stimulus or spur 
 given to the progress of society in our days, by various 
 causes, some good and some bad : by the long war in 
 which we have been engaged, on the one hand ; and by 
 the increased activity of the human mind, on the other. 
 We have been living, as it were, the life of three hundred 
 years in thirty. All things have made a prodigious start 
 
 N 2 
 
180 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 together, or rather all that could have done so, and 
 those that could not have, therefore, been left at a long 
 distance behind. When an army makes a forced march, 
 every one knows how impossible it is to make all the parts 
 of it advance equally. 
 
 The process in its details has been this. The war 
 created a great demand for every thing; and the other 
 countries of Europe, feeling the actual miseries and the 
 distractions of war far more than we did, and being cut 
 off by our great naval power and Bonaparte's decrees from 
 foreign commerce, left us to supply much more than our 
 fair share of it. Large fortunes were made, and enormous 
 sums of money brought into circulation ; activity and ex- 
 travagance were the order of the day. Every man in the 
 richer and middling classes saw around him examples of 
 greater enterprise in all sorts of ways, and of greater luxu- 
 ries enjoyed in consequence, than he or his father had 
 ever known. We know how contagious such examples 
 are, and that in these matters no man likes to be left be- 
 hind his neighbour. Accordingly, rents were raised, 
 wastes were inclosed, farms thrown together, small proper- 
 ties bought up, new branches of trade opened, new manu- 
 factories set up, new machines invented, and every hand 
 that could be found was pressed into the service of capital, 
 either to make it or to increase it. All was busy and all 
 was thriving ; and of the quantity of national wealth thus 
 created, you and I, Sir, and all the higher and middling 
 classes are tasting the benefits; some, it is true, with 
 more or less of a drawback in their increased taxation, but 
 still we are enjoying many more comforts, or luxuries if 
 you will, than were enjoyed by our fathers. Nor is it to 
 be denied that the poor also are deriving some benefit 
 from it. Earthenware has succeeded to wood or pewter ; 
 their wives and daughters can dress better and cheaper ; 
 and cheap publications are much more numerous. But 
 with the poor it has taken away with one hand more than 
 it has given with the other. It is an universal rule, whe- 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 181 
 
 ther In morals, in knowledge, or in money matters, that 
 " much will make more" and that " little is apt to become 
 less." The small farmer was driven out of the market by 
 the large farmer ; the small tradesman by the great one ; 
 the small home manufacturer, who eked out the produce 
 of his farm or of his labour in the fields, by the spinning, 
 or straw platting, or lace making, of his wife and daugh- 
 ters in the winter evenings, could not stand against the 
 united powers of capital and machinery. Deprived of the 
 means of selling any thing else to advantage, they were 
 forced to increase the class, already too large, of those 
 who had nothing to sell but their labour. But here the 
 market was becoming overstocked, for the war ended, and 
 the demand for every thing lessened, and other nations 
 were bestirring themselves to supply their own wants ; so 
 that there was getting less to be done, with more hands, 
 and those wholly without other means of support, vying 
 with one another to do it. Of course labour fell, for who 
 could expect a farmer to pay more for work when he could 
 get it done for less ? But what was even worse was this, 
 that while one half of society was moving forward, and the 
 other half sinking backward, the distance between them in 
 feelings and habits was continually becoming greater. I 
 have often heard gentlemen speak with much indignation 
 of the changed habits of farmers and tradesmen : the 
 farmer, they say, keeps his hunters, and his wife and 
 daughters dress as finely as ladies, and learn music in- 
 stead of making pies and puddings, as formerly; and hence 
 it is, they go on, that the labourers are turned out of doors 
 to eat by the ditch side, and are treated like "dumb 
 beasts" I have never heard such language without feeling 
 quite as much indignation as those who used it ; but it 
 was directed not against the farmers, but against them- 
 selves. What insolence is it, when we ourselves are so 
 changed from the manners of our fathers, when we are so 
 much better educated, and enjoy so many more comforts 
 than they did, to complain of others for having made a simi- 
 
182 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 lar advance. I rejoice most heartily in the changed habits 
 of the farmers, if the fact be true, and I only wish that 
 the habits of the labourer had been raised also. The high 
 Aristocrat is but echoing the language of the worst Ja- 
 cobin ; except that the Jacobin is the more consistent 
 of the two. Both would pull down the higher of two 
 unequal classes, instead of raising the lower ; but whilst 
 the Jacobin would reduce all ranks to the lowest level, the 
 high Aristocrat would reduce all but his own. To both is 
 the doctrine of the good and the wise utterly opposed. 
 Our business is to raise all, and to lower none. Equality 
 is the dream of a madman, or the passion of a fiend. Ex- 
 treme inequality, or high comfort and civilization in some, 
 co-existing with deep misery and degradation in others, is 
 no less also a folly and a sin. But an inequality where 
 some have all the enjoyments of civilized life, and none 
 are without its comforts, where some have all the trea- 
 sures of knowledge, and none are sunk in ignorance, that 
 is a social system in harmony with the order of God's 
 creation in the natural world, and which can alone fulfil 
 His purposes for man as a reasonable and a spiritual 
 being, as capable of serving and glorifying his Maker 
 here, and of enjoying with Him hereafter an eternal com- 
 munion. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 SIR, My last letter has brought me very nearly to the 
 threshold of the grand difficulty which besets the whole 
 matter of our inquiries ; the difficulty of knowing how 
 things are to be mended. There are mistakes enough 
 afloat as to the causes of our present evils, and yet here 
 we have actual facts to investigate ; they may be tangled 
 and confused, it is true, yet we know that as the result is 
 before our eyes, a careful tracing of things backwards will 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 183 
 
 bring us at last to the true cause or causes of it. But in 
 projecting remedies we are in a manner bridging chaos : 
 we start from firm ground, but we instantly lose our foot- 
 ing, and all becomes uncertain ; we may hope, we may 
 suppose, fairly argue, and reasonably conclude ; but with 
 regard to the future we cannot know. 
 
 I wish that this view of the case were as vividly present 
 to the minds of all political writers, as it must be to theirs 
 who know the most and think the deepest. To read the 
 arrogant language of many a journalist, one would sup- 
 pose that they were the very wisest men of their species, 
 whose clear sight would carry them with a firm step 
 through intricacies where ordinary persons must grope on 
 their way darkling. But the truth is, that they walk con- 
 fidently only because they are so short-sighted as to see 
 no obstacles in their path till they actually stumble over 
 them. 
 
 Good sheer thorough ignorance is indeed apt to be 
 presumptuous and violent, for its only chance of gaining 
 credit is by preventing its readers from exercising their 
 own reflection and judgment. Whereas, he who under- 
 stands something of his subject and is really anxious to 
 know more, desires nothing so much as a fair and full 
 examination of his statements. He knows that there is 
 something at least in them worth attending to; he is aware 
 also that there may be much that is mistaken ; but truth 
 being his object, he wants the question to be fairly worked 
 out, and he cares very little whether himself or any one 
 else be the lucky man who shall first discover the vein of 
 the precious ore. If nine-tenths of all that I have said, 
 or may say, were to be entirely mistaken, I should yet be 
 perfectly satisfied if its tone and manner had invited my 
 readers to think for themselves, and so enabled them to 
 correct my errors. 
 
 I may seem to be going a little out of the way, but it is 
 bad economy of time in the end to set out on a journey 
 unprepared. Every newspaper, every tract, every pam- 
 
184 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 phlet, nay, I dare say every active member of a club or an 
 union, has got a remedy at hand for the evils of the times. 
 There is Mr. Owen, formerly the proprietor of the great 
 cotton factory at New Lanark, who would begin with 
 society from the very beginning, and make us all men 
 of a different nature from what we are now. There is 
 Mr. Carlile of the Rotunda, who would make all things 
 straight by merely- persuading every man to get rid of his 
 conscience, and labour, talk, write, and fight, if needful, 
 to advance his own interest, and gratify his own passions ; 
 a doctrine, in short, which says in plain English, " every 
 man for himself and the devil for us all." Others talk 
 only of attacking "the drones of society;" of making 
 those who live in idleness disgorge the wealth which they 
 are daily sucking out of the poor man's labour : and espe- 
 cially of stripping parsons, pensioners, and stock-jobbers, 
 by which last term Mr. Cobbett means " those who have 
 got any money in tfa funds" Then again others of a dif- 
 ferent party cry out for war and a paper currency, to give 
 employment to the poor : they sigh for fresh issues of 
 country bank notes, for long credits and high rents : they 
 think, in short, that the process of getting drunk is far 
 pleasanter than that of getting sober; so they want to 
 apply again to the dram bottle. 
 
 It may perhaps be worth while, therefore, to detain your 
 readers a little while with a few simple reasons, to show 
 the groundlessness of those notions which are entertained 
 by many rash anil inconsiderate talkers. 
 
 In the first place I would protest against the extravagant 
 expectation of a remedy for all evils, which some entertain 
 from parliamentary reform. Not that 1 would disparage 
 the utility or the importance of improvements in our re- 
 presentative system ; but, in the first place, it is absurd to 
 expect that any system should of itself bring about bene- 
 ficial changes. The most perfect plan of representation 
 can only enable the people, to choose, if they will, the 
 fittest persons to represent them ; but if the electors are 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 185 
 
 influenced by private and personal considerations, and 
 not by public spirit, if they elect with a view to indivi- 
 dual interest, or the interests of their own particular class, 
 in opposition to that of the country, a reformed parliament 
 is likely to be as corrupt as an unreformed ; and if the 
 members of parliament show themselves selfish and un- 
 principled, they will in fact only be the fitter representa- 
 tives of such electors. But in the next place, supposing 
 that members are elected on the purest principles, and 
 prove worthy of the trust reposed in them, they can do 
 much indeed, but they cannot do all that is desirable 
 towards remedying many of the national evils. There is 
 a great part of them which, though time and wisdom com- 
 bined may, I trust, gradually remove, will not admit of a 
 sudden cure by any human skill ; and there are, I fear, 
 many objects contemplated by some, which no human 
 means can ever possibly accomplish. No parliamentary 
 wisdom, for instance, can at once sweep away the burden 
 of the national debt. It is a debt contracted for money 
 which was borrowed and spent in the course of a long and 
 costly war; the money is gone and lost for ever. We might 
 by wiping off the debt with a wet sponge, ruin the fund- 
 holders, and enrich the rest of the nation at their expense ; 
 but this would be no benefit to the community, because 
 the fundholders are a part of the community ; and it can 
 be no benefit to any nation that one-half of it should be 
 robbed, and the other half robbers. 
 
 We may, however, by judicious frugality, gradually di- 
 minish the debt ; and we can resolve never to increase it 
 by resorting to the ruinous practice of borrowing. 
 
 But in order to avoid increasing the national debt, we 
 must above all things endeavour to avoid a war. Those 
 who honestly (and I believe there are some such) regard 
 war as beneficial on account of its furnishing employment, 
 are under the most mischievous of all delusions. Those 
 whom war maintains and enriches, it enriches at the ex- 
 pense of the rest of the community, and at a far greater 
 
186 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 loss to the one party than gain to the other. And yet de- 
 structive as it is both of life and of capital, I am per- 
 suaded that its disordering and demoralizing effects are 
 far the greatest part of the evils of war. 
 
 Let it not again be supposed that it is in the power of 
 any legislature, however enlightened and upright, and 
 zealous, to fulfil the expectations of many among the la- 
 bouring classes, who seem to think that regulations might 
 be established which should secure to every labourer to 
 all that now exist and shall hereafter come into existence, 
 i. e. to an indefinite number wages sufficient at all 
 times to enable them to maintain their families comfort- 
 ably. The funds for the support of labourers, whether 
 greater or less, cannot in any country be infinite ; and a 
 law which professes to insure to all who demand it, whether 
 they worked well or ill whether they were few or many, 
 a comfortable subsistence, would profess an impossibility. 
 To compel a farmer to employ a certain fixed number of 
 labourers at a certain rate of wages, whether it answered 
 or not, would be only unjust ; to compel him to maintain 
 all that offered, would be impossible. I ought not to 
 be made to part with all I have; I cannot be made to part 
 with more than I have. 
 
 But I do think that a wise and active legislature may 
 do much towards mitigating, and in time doing away the 
 sufferings to which the labouring classes are, and long 
 have been exposed in many parts of England. 
 
 The practice of making up wages out of the poor rates, 
 which, in the southern parts of England especially, has 
 for some time been very prevalent, is, in fact, under the 
 mask of kindness to the poor, one of the most degrading 
 systems of oppression. When men are paid, not accord- 
 ing to their industry and skill, but according to their 
 wants, when for the same species of labour one man 
 receives only half the weekly wages of the other, not 
 because his work is worth less, but because he is a 
 single man, we are so far advanced towards a state of 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 187 
 
 slavery. The slave (like one of the domestic animals) 
 being his master's property, receives, whether the profits 
 of his labour be small or great, as much, and only as much 
 as is sufficient to support him in tolerable condition : his 
 maintenance is proportioned to his need, not to his exer- 
 tions ; and as a necessary consequence of this want of a 
 stimulus, he is kept to work by the fear of punishment. 
 
 On this, and several other evils connected with the mal- 
 administration of the poor-laws, I am happy to say I feel 
 confident that the attention of the present Ministers is 
 strongly fixed. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 SIR, It has given me great satisfaction to observe, that 
 several of the provincial papers, and amongst the rest the 
 Voice of the People, have thought my statement of the 
 causes of the existing distress and bad feeling amongst us, 
 worthy to be copied into their pages. It is a sincere 
 pleasure to me, quite independent of any personal vanity, 
 to find what I really believe to be truth received as such^ 
 at least to a considerable extent, by others ; and it encou- 
 rages me to think, that in suggesting remedies or palliatives 
 for our actual evils, I may also hold a course in which 
 other writers, with greater means of doing good than I 
 possess, may be disposed to go along with me. 
 
 But, Sir, if I was right in attributing the evils of our 
 social relations to various causes, it cannot be probable 
 that the remedy is to be sought for in any single measure. 
 I may have my own notions, like other men, as to the 
 measure most especially called for in the first instance ; 
 but I am quite satisfied that any one by itself will be 
 totally inefficient towards working any substantial improve- 
 ment. Neither Reform in Parliament, nor emigration, nor 
 lowering the interest of the debt, nor church reform, nor 
 giving the poor allotments of land, nor spreading know- 
 
188 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 ledge and a taste for intellectual pursuits among them, 
 nor yet the abolition of the corn laws and of the tithes, 
 for which many call so loudly, none of all these things 
 will do us any great or real good, unless, as the waters of 
 bitterness have flowed in by so many different channels, 
 we set vigorously to work at stopping up all the inlets of 
 mischief, on one great system, clearly and comprehensively 
 devised, and steadily and perseveringly executed. 
 
 For, if I may be allowed to refer to my former statement 
 of the causes of our distress, the increase of our population 
 and of our manufactures to an unnatural excess, which I 
 have put at the head of these causes, might perhaps be 
 relieved by emigration, or by home colonies, as they are 
 called, or as some think by the abolition of tithes and corn 
 laws ; but how will these things affect the moral evils of 
 our condition ? how are they to raise the moral and intel- 
 lectual character of the poor, to bring them and the rich 
 nearer to one another ? or how will they prevent the return 
 of the same evils, or of others even still worse, in the 
 course of a few years, if circumstances should again favour 
 their revival? Or, again, capital and machinery have, in 
 the way I have stated, and when combined with other causes, 
 helped to depress the condition of the labourer ; and it 
 may be thought that to fix a maximum of property or a 
 minimum of wages, or to destroy steam engines and ma- 
 chines of all other descriptions, might at least cure this 
 evil. But here we should be further still from our object; 
 for though I believe that capital and machinery have, 
 under actual circumstances, done much harm, yet the 
 fault is not in them, but in those unfavourable circum- 
 stances which have drawn evil out of what is in itself 
 good. And thus, to destroy what is good in itself, and yet 
 not to meddle with the circumstances which alone have 
 made it in part injurious, would only leave us in a worse 
 state than we are in now. So, again, the ignorance of the 
 poor might be removed by education : but how can you 
 really educate a man, unless he and his equals in society 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 189 
 
 go along with you, and appreciate the good which you 
 would give them ? And who can be expected to desire 
 general knowledge and intellectual pleasures, while his 
 mere bodily wants are ill satisfied ? Yet again the 
 Poor Laws are and have been injurious, owing to other 
 unfavourable circumstances. Should we mend the matter 
 by striking off the Poor Laws at one sweep ? Or would 
 not this be an act as wicked as it is utterly impracticable, 
 and should not we by so doing deserve all the horrors of 
 that general convulsion, for which we should ourselves have 
 given the signal ? Lastly, for the evils produced by a 
 spirit of ultra aristocracy prevailing throughout our social 
 system, many, I fear, would think that, for this at least, 
 they knew a short and effectual remedy. To overthrow 
 the peerage and the church, to divide great properties, or, 
 in short, to do away with such a thing as a gentleman al- 
 together, would strike home, they would say, to the root 
 of this mischief, once and for ever. It is waste of time to 
 talk of wickedness to a Jacobin, for it is the very essence 
 of his nature. But setting aside the guilt of such a 
 scheme, and granting its practicability, I say boldly that 
 on the lowest notions of utilitarian morality it would not 
 answer. It might if we had as much elbow room as in 
 America, and a population of slaves to do all our hardest 
 and most irksome work for us : but conceive our population 
 of fifteen millions pent up in the narrow limits of this island, 
 with society in an utter chaos, all its former landmarks 
 gone, all hitherto respected principles of order utterly 
 rooted out, all property submitted to a scramble, and the 
 best restraints of our ferocious passions snapped into a 
 thousand pieces. No living man can tell, and God forbid 
 that we should have any real cause to speculate, when 
 such a sea of troubled waters would ever grow calm, in 
 what direction a volcano so fraught with all elements of 
 
 O 
 
 destruction might discharge its fury. Whether foreign 
 war with all its evils might come as a welcome relief to the 
 
190 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 utter miseries of domestic anarchy, whether England 
 might renew the career of Napoleon, and, after spreading 
 the curse of its conquests over Europe, might provoke, as 
 he did, a bitter revolution on her own head ; or whether, 
 from very weariness after civil war, want of employment, 
 and their consequences, famine and pestilence, had ef- 
 fectually reduced the superfluous population, the people 
 might fly for relief to despotism : this much is certain, 
 that the moral and physical condition of the poor (and 
 who would then be other than poor ?) would be ten times 
 more miserable and degraded than it is now. 
 
 All these considerations show the enormous difficulty 
 of the subject, and should teach us that a great deal of 
 knowledge, and a great deal of good judgment, and very 
 comprehensive views, and good principles and good 
 temper, are all required in the public men who would 
 help us out of our present evils. For instance, to take 
 only one question out of many, that of our population, 
 how many various opinions exist about it ; first as to the 
 fact whether it be excessive or no ; and then as to the 
 remedies, whether emigration or home colonies are pre- 
 ferable, or whether some mere political changes would ef- 
 fect all that is wanted. On some of these points, I doubt 
 whether any one is sufficiently well informed ; and happy 
 should I be if I could direct the attention of some of your 
 readers, who may be far better qualified than I am, to 
 the importance of gaining and communicating information 
 upon them. I know how much I have to learn about 
 them myself, and I see that some writers of great name 
 and much pretension are exactly in my own situation, al- 
 though they do not appear to be aware of it. My next 
 letter, on population, therefore, will be very like an honest 
 map of an imperfectly-surveyed country ; it will exhibit 
 great blanks by the side of spots laid down in full detail; 
 but how much better is this than to do like some of the 
 old geographers, who filled up from imagination the parts 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 191 
 
 for which they had no real authorities ; and thus, as far 
 as in them lay, perpetuated to posterity the ignorance of 
 their own generation. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 SIR, It is more than two thousand years ago that a 
 Greek philosopher, Phaleas of Chalcedon, impatient, like 
 Mr. Owen in the present day, of the existing evils of so- 
 ciety, proposed to remedy them by an equalization of pro- 
 perty and of education. Upon the first of these remedies 
 Aristotle remarks, that a limit set to property is inefficient, 
 unless you also set a limit to population. Otherwise, says 
 he, your system in the first place cannot last, and besides 
 you will in the course of a few years have as much poverty 
 as ever. Within our own memory, Mr. Godwin, better 
 known perhaps as the author of " Caleb Williams" than 
 from his work on " Political Justice," repeated the com- 
 plaint of Phaleas, and again maintained that the evils of 
 society arose from misgovernment, and especially from the 
 unequal distribution of property. Mr. Malthus replied to 
 him as Aristotle more than two thousand years before had 
 replied to Phaleas. He said that there was another cause 
 at work quite independent of political misgovernment, and 
 as powerful in producing evil ; namely, the tendency of 
 population to outgrow the means of subsistence. So that, 
 to use Aristotle's words, a limitation of property is nothing, 
 unless you can also limit within proper bounds the increase ' 
 of population. 
 
 Here, Sir, you have in a few words what is called the 
 Malthusian theory of population ; but which, in fact, was 
 known to Aristotle and to the philosophers of ancient 
 Greece, quite as well as to Mr. Malthus. The doctrine, 
 however, had long been forgotten in modern Europe, be- 
 cause, since the days of the Roman Empire, Europe had 
 never been fully peopled, and therefore the advantages of 
 
192 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 a large population were much more an object of desire, 
 than its inconveniences were matter of alarm. It had be- 
 come a habit with literary men to retail the complaints of 
 the Roman writers upon the decay of the true strength of 
 a state, a free and hardy population, and the growth of 
 overgrown luxury among the rich in its stead. And in 
 them this complaint was reasonable ; for, partly owing to 
 long and bloody civil wars, partly to the general buying 
 up of small properties by the rich, and the employment of 
 slave labour instead of that of free men, and partly to an 
 unequalled profligacy of manners, the free population in 
 Italy was, even as early as the Christian era, exceedingly 
 scanty, and every encouragement was given to the rearing 
 of a family, both to increase the number of citizens, and, 
 by opening a field for the domestic affections, to bring 
 back a more wholesome state of public morals. 
 
 I have stated thus much to account for the alleged 
 novelty of Mr. Malthus's theory when he first published it ; 
 although it had been well known in Greece two thousand 
 years earlier. People are not apt to think of the evils of 
 one extreme, when they themselves are actually suffering 
 from those of the other ; and therefore while Europe was 
 under peopled, and labour was sure to find a good market, 
 because there was constant demand for it, no one was in- 
 clined to anticipate the time when the tide would turn, 
 and when, instead of wanting men to do the work, work 
 would be often sought for in vain to employ the men. 
 
 But though our fathers may well be excused for not an- 
 ticipating an evil which they did not feel, I cannot extend 
 the same indulgence to those who would persuade them- 
 selves that the evil which they do feel is not an evil, 
 because their fathers never complained of it. There are 
 generally, it seems, two periods in the history of a nation, 
 at which its population is found to press too hardly upon 
 its means of subsistence. The first takes place when its 
 most obvious and first-found resources become insuffi- 
 cient ; when the slovenly farming and careless enjoyment 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 193 
 
 of the earliest stage of a nation's existence are exchanged 
 for a harder industry, a more careful search after other 
 and more hidden sources of wealth, and the calling in of 
 science to quicken the somewhat enfeebled powers of 
 nature. And this period occurred in England towards 
 the middle of the sixteenth century; when landlords be- 
 gan to understand the value of their land, and to employ 
 it in the manner which would return them the greatest 
 profit ; when commerce began to be followed up with un- 
 accustomed vigour, and when, as the sure mark of a great 
 change working in the state of society, the distress and 
 numbers of the poor increased beyond all further example, 
 and rendered the hazardous experiment of the Poor Laws 
 welcome and necessary, as they deemed it, to the states- 
 men of that generation. Then begins a second period 
 the period of systematical improvement, so far as the phy- 
 sical resources of a nation are concerned, but, unhappily, 
 by no means of equal improvement in the higher points 
 of national wisdom and national virtue. And, therefore, a 
 crisis is hastened which otherwise might never have ar- 
 rived : national wealth is enormously increased : but be- 
 cause great moral ignorance generally prevails, national 
 poverty increases also. The population thus goes on in- 
 creasing too rapidly ; because, whilst the high state of 
 commercial activity on the one hand offers it constant en- 
 couragement, the poor, as no pains are taken to elevate 
 them, become less and less thoughtful, less and less de- 
 sirous of a high state of comfort, and therefore ready to 
 marry and to raise a family, if they have a prospect of the 
 bare necessaries of life. Thus, however skilfully and 
 vigorously a nation's whole resources may be called into 
 action ; however much its agriculture may be improved, 
 its commerce extended, its manufactures multiplied ; 
 still the population is increasing too fast, because there ^ 
 is a large portion of the community whose habits belong 
 rather to the first state of society than the second, who 
 marry and have families as if the earth were still yielding 
 
 o 
 
194 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 its first luxuriant abundance for its handful of original set- 
 tlers, instead of being come to that point, when civilization 
 being necessary to call forth its powers, men are ill fitted 
 for the state in which they are living if they are content 
 to multiply as savages. 
 
 To this second period we are come, and to the time 
 when its crisis is most threatening. The great point 
 on which I would insist is this ; that let railways be mul- 
 tiplied as they will, or new markets opened for our manu- 
 factures, or still further improvements introduced into agri- 
 culture, still our population will continue to be excessive 
 so long as the wages of labour are low, and the bulk of 
 the people depend solely on their labour. And this will 
 continue to be the case, until the habits and tastes of the 
 poor can be raised, and they can be taught to look for 
 better prospects for their children than merely keeping 
 them from starving. I come to the conclusion, therefore, 
 that our population requires to be lessened : and I pro- 
 pose, in my next letter, to consider the different means 
 of effecting this great object thoroughly and permanently. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 SIR, The storm, I trust, has blown over, and has spent 
 its violence upon Nottingham and Derby. Your own 
 townsmen, I am glad to see, have kept up their usual cha- 
 racter for good sense and a regard to justice in abstain- 
 ing from such disgraceful outrages as have been perpe- 
 trated in the neighbouring counties. Disgraceful and 
 atrocious outrages indeed they are, and almost more dis- 
 graceful to that portion of the public press which excited 
 them first and then tried to palliate their guilt, than to the 
 miserable ruffians who perpetrated them. If the friends 
 of liberty and the people would save their cause from utter 
 disgrace, they should not gently regret such crimes and 
 half excuse them, but denounce them with disgust and ab- 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 195 
 
 horrence, and try to bring the actors and abettors of them 
 to condign punishment. 
 
 Meantime, what additional interest is thrown by all these 
 disgraceful scenes upon the subject on which I am ad- 
 dressing you ! What can more plainly show how insuffi- 
 cient any one remedy would be to bring things to a better 
 state ? An increase of work or a rise in wages would do 
 nothing for these Derby and Nottingham rioters in the 
 way of making them better members of society ; so long 
 as they continue in their present state of ignorance and 
 demoralization, they would but eat and drink the more for 
 the time, without doing any thing to raise their condition 
 permanently. And yet, whilst they continue in their pre- 
 sent poverty, how are the.y to be enlightened and human- 
 ized? 
 
 Since I wrote the last letter of my series, I have read a 
 very able pamphlet by Mr. Richardson, of Haydon, in 
 Norfolk, on the general question of the Poor Laws and the 
 employment of the agricultural population. Mr. Richard- 
 son thinks that there is no excess of population in the 
 agricultural districts ; but that many more hands might be 
 profitably employed. He proposes that every county 
 should constitute one entire parish, thus making the mar- 
 ket of labour perfectly free within the bounds of each 
 county : he would simplify the laws of settlements, and 
 make them settlements on counties, not on parishes : he 
 would provide for the employment of the principal part of 
 the labourers by allotting a certain number to every rate- 
 payer, according to his assessment, giving him, however, 
 the choice of his men : and for the employment of the re- 
 mainder he would provide by what he calls district farms, 
 to be hired by the county ; and which he supposes would 
 cover their own expenses by the sale of their produce. 
 
 It seems to me that there is much good in these sugges- 
 tions, and particularly in the plan for doing away with parish 
 settlements, at present a frightful source of misery. Mr. 
 Richardson is a practical man, and his opinions are re- 
 
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196 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 commended by a large experience. I should be very glad 
 to see his reforms adopted, but still I am clear that the 
 mischief lies deeper than his plan alone would reach. 
 For granting that more hands than are now employed 
 might be set to work with advantage, yet still the evil is 
 not only that many men are now out of employment, but 
 that those who do work are underpaid ; and no man can 
 imagine, when he takes into the account the population, 
 not of the agricultural districts only, but of the manufac- 
 turing, and above all of Ireland, that the wages of labour 
 can materially rise while there is so great a competition at 
 hand to keep it down. 
 
 The evil, Sir, lies deeper ; and it is this. Freedom and 
 property are things so essentially united, that to have a 
 large free population wholly dependent on their labour, 
 when that labour is of a sort which every man can per- 
 form, is of itself a state of things fraught with mischief. 
 Perhaps some of your readers may not be aware that this 
 state is one of rare occurrence in the history of the world 
 because, generally speaking, either the great mass of 
 labourers have been slaves, or else their numbers have 
 been much below the resources of the country, and their 
 market has been so good that industry has enabled them 
 to acquire property. Now when the labourers were slaves, 
 their welfare as little entered into the consideration of 
 statesmen as that of the brute creation ; the happiness of 
 the nation was never thought to be affected because its 
 slaves were oppressed and miserable. In truth this was 
 the readiest way of solving the problem, how to ensure 
 the happiness of civil society shut out from society those 
 whom it is most difficult to render happy, and you can 
 then effect your object easily. 
 
 Slavery, Sir, is justly looked upon with abhorrence ; but 
 it would have been well if, when priding ourselves upon 
 its extinction, we had considered the new and most dif- 
 ficult duties which then devolved upon us. It is very 
 easy to say, " we will not tolerate slavery," but it is a very 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 197 
 
 different matter to know how to untie that knot which the 
 system of slavery cut in twain summarily. Society, if it 
 deserve the name, must provide for the welfare of all 
 whom it receives into its pale ; and we have truly learnt 
 from Christianity that it should receive every human being. 
 We cannot and we ought not to go back, but neither can 
 we remain as we are ; for our poor at this moment have 
 the name and rights of freemen, while their outward con- 
 dition is that of slaves. And this is the case, because we 
 have transferred to our free population the notions which 
 were entertained of a population of slaves : because la- 
 bourers, when slaves, had and could have no property, we 
 have thought it no evil that labourers when citizens should 
 be equally destitute. 
 
 It is on this view of the case that I call our present 
 population excessive. I do not doubt that a much larger 
 population could be maintained in a state of slavery ; but 
 the question is, whether our present numbers are not so 
 great as to make it impossible for the labourer to acquire 
 property by his labour, in other words, whether they are 
 not so great as to hinder the labourer from becoming what 
 a freeman ought to be. I may be told that they are not 
 too great, if the property be fairly divided : but to this I 
 answer that a division of property is no more a just pro- 
 posal on the part of the poor, than it would be just on the 
 part of the rich to bring back the poor to their original 
 state of slavery. Either of these measures would, no 
 doubt, remove the particular inconsistencies of our present 
 state, but it would be only by introducing far greater in- 
 justice and greater misery in the room of it. 
 
 By the law of the land as it now is, every poor man 
 may claim from society the maintenance of a slave : he 
 has a right to be kept from starving, as a slave would be 
 kept; and in return society may justly claim his work, as 
 it would the work of a slave. But according to my 
 notions, society should do more than this ; it should put 
 the- poor man, being a freeman, into a situation where he 
 
198 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 may live as a freeman ought to live : and I see not how 
 this can be done, except in one of two ways, either by 
 what are called home colonies, or by emigration. This was 
 the course regularly pursued in ancient times, when our pre- 
 sent difficulty presented itself. When a large population 
 who had formerly been slaves or conquered in war, grew 
 up to the condition of freemen and citizens, they were 
 provided for by being settled on the unappropriated lands 
 of the state, or when none of these were to be found, they 
 were sent out to be settled in a colony. And this was the 
 only way of avoiding one of two evils, each of which was 
 then considered intolerable; the existence on the one 
 hand of a free population in beggary ; and on the other, a 
 total overthrow of society, by dividing the property of the 
 old citizens, in order to satisfy these new partners in the 
 political firm, who wanted to come into a share of its pro- 
 fits for nothing. But my limits warn me to conclude, and 
 what has been here stated may afford sufficient matter for 
 reflection. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 SIR, When I spoke in my last letter of the evil of 
 having the bulk of our population dependent wholly upon 
 labour, when that labour was of a sort which every man 
 could perform, I said that in our present circumstances I 
 could see no other remedy for this evil except in what are 
 called Home Colonies, or in emigration. I am willing, 
 however, to take the expression " Home Colonies," in the 
 widest possible sense, and extend it to every measure for 
 giving the labourer an interest in the soil, whether as a 
 tenant or as a proprietor. And I do believe that if these 
 and emigration, accompanied with other measures, to be 
 specified hereafter, were fairly tried, there is nothing in 
 our present condition which forbids our entertaining lively 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 199 
 
 hopes for the restored and much improved welfare of our 
 country. 
 
 But I am told that the people cannot bear to hear that 
 our population is excessive ; they say, that before any are 
 turned out for the general good, the resources of the 
 country should first be more equally divided ; that it is 
 only because some have too much that others have too 
 little. Why, Sir, no one talks of turning out any body : 
 I never heard any man dream of forcing people to emi- 
 grate, which would be in plain English to transport them; 
 neither is it doubtful that if all persons fared alike, and 
 we could persuade one half of the community peaceably 
 to share their property with the other, that there is food 
 enough in the island to maintain us all till next summer. 
 But it is one thing to encourage the poor to emigrate, and 
 another to force them to do it it is one thing not to be 
 overpeopled if an utterly impossible change in society 
 were to take place, and another not to be overpeopled as 
 society now exists. No doubt human beings might be 
 packed much closer in Great Britain than they are now : 
 but the real question is, whether such a crowding is prac- 
 ticable under actual circumstances, and whether also it is 
 desirable ; whether, in short, England could make itself 
 like Judaea in the time of Solomon ; and whether, if it 
 could, this would be the best means of mending our actual 
 condition. 
 
 I am at a loss to understand how it can be unjust or in- 
 human to say to a man who is here barely able to keep 
 himself from starving, that we will assist him to go to 
 another country, where he may live in comfort, and pro- 
 vide sufficiently for himself and his family. I know that 
 such a proposal made to persons in the richer classes is 
 not thought a hardship or an insult, but a great favour; 
 that fathers are glad to get situations for their sons in 
 India, even though they part with them for such a 
 number of years, that they cannot expect to live till they 
 return. No doubt a parent would rather be able to pro- 
 
200 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 vide for his son comfortably at home than send him to 
 India ; but he would much rather send him to India than 
 see him live in beggary at home ; and it does not occur to 
 him to ask his neighbour to give him a piece of his estate, 
 rather than that he should have to bear the pain of part- 
 ing. Or if any particular trade be overstocked in any 
 town, the man who finds himself best able to support him- 
 self by capital previously acquired, does not think himself 
 injured if he be advised to go and look for an opening in 
 his trade elsewhere. It is, indeed, a shocking thing that 
 poor men should be persuaded to emigrate without know- 
 ing any thing of the country to which they are going, and 
 without having any one to advise them when they get 
 there. And this ignorance, I am inclined to think, is one 
 of the greatest obstacles to emigration. No man likes to 
 take a leap in the dark ; and emigration is nothing better 
 than a leap in the dark, when a man has never before been 
 ten miles from his own village, when he has no notion of 
 distances, and knows not a single particular about the 
 climate, productions, customs, and manner of living in 
 foreign countries. A mere elementary knowledge of geo- 
 graphy would instantly dispel the vague fears which many 
 of the poor now feel unreasonably : emigration would thus 
 lose its terrors, and their knowledge would not only make 
 them cease to fear it, but would teach them how to derive 
 the full benefit of it. 
 
 This is a subject which the Government have taken up, 
 and on which I hope they will proceed to act on a large 
 scale, as soon as the Reform question is once settled. 
 You will observe, too, Sir, that here, as everywhere else, 
 the importance of increasing the knowledge of the poor 
 forces itself upon us most strongly. Ignorance, indeed, 
 meets us at every turn, as one of the greatest difficulties 
 which we have to encounter. 
 
 What I am next going to notice is one proof of the 
 mischiefs of ignorance. Nothing is more common than to 
 hear people talk of the millions of unproductive acres 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 201 
 
 which are to be found in this island, on which they tell us 
 our whole labouring population might be advantageously 
 settled. It is impossible that persons who talk thus can 
 know much about these unproductive acres. There are 
 enough of them doubtless in point of extent between 
 Cornwall and Northumberland ; your own county, as you 
 well know, Sir, possesses its full share of them. I have 
 sometimes thought that the Railways hereafter may do a 
 great deal for your moors, by enabling you to get lime and 
 manure in sufficient quantities to make a completely new 
 soil in such parts as may be brought into cultivation. In 
 this way the enclosure of Hounslow Heath, and the other 
 wastes within ten miles of London has been found to 
 answer tolerably well. But the moors offer three obstacles 
 which I do not believe all the Railways in the world would 
 ever effectually overcome : the three obstacles of great 
 extent, an impracticable soil, and a bad climate. Some 
 people seem to fancy that because a great many new 
 enclosures have taken place within the last fifty years, that 
 therefore the waste lands still remaining may also be 
 enclosed with advantage. They forget that what has been 
 left was naturally the most impracticable part of the whole 
 country ; and I speak upon a general knowledge of every 
 extensive tract of waste now remaining in England, when 
 I say that almost all present difficulties either of soil 
 or climate, or both, such as to render their cultivation on 
 a large scale in our present state of science a matter 
 practically hopeless. 
 
 This is quite a sufficient answer to the mere idle talk 
 about our millions of unenclosed acres, which some in- 
 dulge in who ought to know better. At the same time I 
 do not doubt that much may be done on a small scale in 
 different parts of the country, by allotting portions of re- 
 claimable waste to the poor of particular parishes and dis- 
 tricts. And I should like to know whether there does not 
 often exist great abuse as to the employment of what is 
 called the poor's plot; that is, the ground which was 
 
202 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 awarded to the poor of the parish at the time of an en- 
 closure, in compensation for the loss of their rights of 
 common. I am afraid that in some instances this land is 
 let by the parish officers to a farmer, and even the rent of 
 it, instead of being given to the poor, goes partly to eke 
 out the poor rates. 
 
 Besides the enclosure of wastes, there is another way 
 of giving property to the labourer, namely, by allotting 
 him a portion of land for a garden. This is a measure 
 which every one seems to approve of; which I know in 
 practice to be a source of great benefit to the poor, and 
 of great comfort ; which, I believe, is daily becoming more 
 and more adopted, and which I heartily hope will spread 
 over the whole country. 
 
 But, what is to be done meanwhile for the manufacturer ? 
 He cannot be set to enclose wastes, and where, in the 
 midst of a crowded town, can he get the pleasure and the 
 profit of a garden ? How can he be put in a condition to 
 acquire property, or how can life be rendered to him 
 something more befitting a man and a Christian than it 
 too often is at present ? This is a question, Sir, which, I 
 doubt not, has frequently occurred to your mind as well 
 as to mine ; and what is more to the purpose, it is be- 
 come perfectly familiar to the manufacturers themselves ; 
 and if a good and fair answer be not given to it by others, 
 they are but too likely to answer it themselves in a manner 
 ruinous and disgraceful alike to them and to their neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 It cannot be answered, however, without touching upon 
 various points, both moral and political, in which the evil 
 is plain enough, but the remedy seems beyond the power 
 of any legal enactment, and to rest mainly with the people 
 themselves. But the urgency of the crisis may make men 
 listen to a statement which would have found them deafer 
 than the deaf adder, if uttered in the season of apparent 
 prosperity. 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 203 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 SIR, It has been often said, that there are some prophe- 
 cies which tend to ensure their own fulfilment ; and the 
 language which I see and hear used every day by persons 
 perfectly well-intentioned, seems likely to furnish another 
 instance of the truth of this. People talk as if they were 
 arrived at a period when every thing is to be thrown, as it 
 were, into the crucible, and come out again in a new form. 
 Not only the details of Government, but the very principles 
 on which society is held together, are spoken of as likely 
 to be questioned : not only the mere external constitution 
 of the Church Establishment, but the foundations of our 
 duty to God and man are considered as on the point of 
 being subjected to a rude inquiry. Now, if men accus- 
 tom themselves to hold this language, they are assuredly 
 helping to bring about the very thing which they fear. 
 There never have been, and never will be wanting some 
 few wretches, or madmen, who, in their folly or their 
 wickedness, would be glad to get rid of every law and 
 every principle. There are always some to be found who 
 have strong personal reasons for thinking gaols a nui- 
 sance, and who would be glad to make converts to their 
 opinions. But are honest men really to stand and discuss 
 such questions as this ? or would it not be the greatest 
 possible encouragement to pickpockets and thieves, if we 
 were gravely and mournfully to regret the prospect of 
 having soon to examine the right of enacting laws against 
 them, and to dread the possibility of the speedy repeal of 
 all such restrictions, after they had been fully subjected 
 to the scrutiny of public opinion ? 
 
 I proposed to speak of the state of the manufacturer ; 
 and great need there is of speaking plainly about it. It 
 is in the manufacturing towns that we are told to look for 
 the seeds of all these wonderful changes in the increased 
 knowledge and improved organization of the working 
 classes. I am heartily glad to think that their know- 
 
 IVERSITY 
 
204 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 ledge is increased ; and if it were increased a little more, 
 I should think their improved organization a great bless- 
 ing also. But will any man in his senses tell me that the 
 working classes in any town in Britain have acquired 
 knowledge enough to put us. all at sea again as to the very 
 main principles of social, nay, even of human life ? Mr. 
 Loudon tell us (I quote from an extract in your last 
 week's Courant) that the intelligence of the Birmingham 
 workmen is particularly remarkable. This, he says, is 
 owing partly to the peculiar skill which their manufacture 
 requires, and partly to the prevalence of school education 
 in that neighbourhood. The former cause, no doubt, 
 makes them remarkably intelligent in matters connected 
 with their own manufactures, and gives them a great faci- 
 lity of turning their hand from one sort of work to another, 
 as the state of the market may require ; and it is owing 
 to this that the distress in Birmingham has never equalled 
 that which has been felt occasionally in the cotton dis- 
 tricts in Cheshire and Lancashire. It gives them an 
 intelligence in matters connected with their own business, 
 which I have noticed with high admiration, not without 
 some shame at my own inferiority to them. But skill in 
 the working of metals will not give an acquaintance with 
 the far more difficult working of society : and as to their 
 school education, Mr. Loudon knows, as I know, that 
 neitaer the nature of the instruction given at what are 
 called English schools, nor the time that any workman 
 can spend at them, are such as to give him much moral 
 and political knowledge. Or, are they to get this know- 
 ledge in after life from newspapers ? I am sure you your- 
 self would be the first man to laugh at the utter absurdity 
 of such a notion. Do newspapers pretend, or is it their 
 business, to give a general view of the principles of any 
 science ? To tell us of past times, or of the state of 
 foreign countries ? It is true, they give us an account of 
 passing events in other countries, but they cannot do 
 more, and how little is this towards giving us an accurate 
 

 THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 205 
 
 knowledge of what is really thought and done in them ! 
 And supposing that newspapers could teach a great deal 
 more than they either do or can, what are the working 
 man's opportunities for reading it calmly, and for thinking 
 it over, and properly digesting it in hia own mind ? And 
 what previous cultivation has his mind received to enable 
 it to turn any fresh information to the best account? 
 When, therefore, I hear so much said of the intelligence 
 of the working classes, and of the enlightened state of 
 public opinion, I feel very much as I should do if any ill- 
 judging friends were to overwhelm a clever and intelligent 
 child with compliments, and make him think himself as 
 wise as his teachers. I should say that these friends were 
 taking the very way to hinder him from ever being as wise 
 as his teachers, by teaching him to think so too soon, 
 and thus to slacken his efforts, or to misdirect them. I 
 am, indeed, indignant at the insolent language in which 
 some persons depreciate both the capacities and the know- 
 ledge of the working classes, and treat them as if they 
 knew nothing and were unable to think for themselves. I 
 have known quite enough of the working classes to make 
 me justly impatient of such foolish and impertinent lan- 
 guage as this. But it is one thing to speak of them as 
 ignorant and incapable of judging about politics, and an- 
 other to suppose them capable of disproving principles 
 established by the general consent of the best and wisest 
 of men, or to say that they can possibly judge as well 
 upon subjects which they have not fully studied, as those 
 who have a hundred times greater knowledge and experi- 
 ence. Assuredly we may learn a great deal, even on 
 political subjects, from the working classes : I never talked 
 with an intelligent man amongst them, I never read any 
 of their speeches at public meetings, or of their writings, 
 without deriving some instruction from them. But take 
 even Mr. Cobbett, with all his extraordinary natural abili- 
 ties, and the great advantages which he has had in later 
 life ; and who can only be put on the same grounds with 
 
206 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 the working classes as far as regards his original defects 
 of education. We all know how cleverly Mr. Cobbett 
 writes ; but to talk of him as an oracle of political or moral 
 wisdom would be ludicrous. And he is so violent, and, I 
 fear, so little scrupulous, that some may attribute many of 
 his most absurd assertions, such for instance, as that 
 England was formerly more populous than it is now, to 
 a wilful intention to deceive. But, in truth, I do believe 
 that it is sheer ignorance ; not indeed honest or excusable 
 ignorance, for no man ought to write about a question 
 without learning the facts of it, but yet a very natural 
 ignorance in a clever man who has been ill educated ; 
 who has read little, and has never been taught how to 
 digest and appreciate properly what he has read. 
 
 I do not know whether the mechanics of Sheffield are 
 likely to do me the honour of reading this letter. I wish 
 they may, for I am sure that they will have the sense to 
 allow the truth of my statement, and I arn not afraid of 
 their suspecting me of any aristocratical pride in saying it. 
 God knows that I have not a particle of any such feeling, 
 and that my most earnest wish is to see the working 
 classes raised in every thing, that there may be one hearty 
 feeling of brotherhood between us all. But to flatter 
 them is to insult them, and we seem now to be in some 
 danger of overvaluing their knowledge and judgment, just 
 as, for a long time, they were undervalued. As long as 
 they listen readily to any one who appeals to their pas- 
 sions, and turn away from him who addresses their reason, 
 so long must they necessarily remain half instructed ; for 
 truth can only be attained by overcoming prejudice, just 
 as virtue can only be attained by the conquest of our 
 selfish passions. 
 
 I have been led on by my subject, for it is an important 
 one, and one which falls directly in my way. It will not 
 do to be run down by the cry of ignorant men, merely be- 
 cause they have a numerous body of hearers and disciples. 
 And as to mere physical force, I have no more fear of its 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 207 
 
 triumphing over truth and justice, than I have of the brute 
 creation rising in rebellion against mankind, and trying 
 the force of horns and hoofs against reason and the laws 
 of God's creation. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 SIR, I wrote my last letter in the full confidence that 
 the truth spoken in sincerity would not generally of- 
 fend. Had any covert object lurked behind the lan- 
 guage which I used, had I secretly desired to uphold 
 or palliate existing abuses, or to keep the working 
 classes in their present degraded state, I should have 
 been ashamed to have written it. But as it is, I should 
 be ashamed not to have written it : I should be ashamed 
 of nothing more heartily than of speaking the truth on 
 one side only : a practice, I am sorry to say, quite as 
 common amongst the professed friends of the people as 
 amongst their supposed enemies. 
 
 If any principle or general statement be founded on 
 truth, the course of events will serve continually to bear 
 witness to it. In one of the earliest of my letters I stated 
 " that the different classes of society have been removed 
 to a great distance from each other have sympathized 
 with and understood each other less, and thus have be- 
 come strangers to each other, too ready, I fear, to become 
 enemies also." How dreadfully has this fear been veri- 
 fied by the riots at Bristol, how boldly has the fact been 
 affirmed by Mr. Dyer, at the Cripplegate Ward meeting, 
 when he said there could be no union between the em- 
 ployer and the employed ; and by another person at the 
 same meeting, who asserted " that it was as impossible to 
 effect a union between the high and the low classes of 
 society, as to mix oil and water ; there was no reciprocity 
 of feeling between them". If this be true, that is, if it is 
 
208 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 (C impossible to effect a union between the higher and the 
 lower classes," then indeed the Reform Bill is too late 
 all the efforts of individuals and of public bodies are alike 
 too late, and a sort of Jacqueline war throughout the 
 country is the only thing to be looked for. 
 
 But, Sir, I utterly deny that it is impossible to effect a 
 union between the rich and the poor. Wretches whose 
 only hope of distinction consists in preventing such a 
 union, may well wish to make us believe it impossible, and 
 the less hateful wretches who carried on the work of 
 plunder and burning at Bristol, would no doubt be happy 
 to have it believed also. But good and honest men, of 
 whatever rank or fortune, from the richest peer to the 
 poorest mechanic, will feel that it is a doctrine as false as 
 it is wicked. 
 
 Yet even this Mr. Dyer, whoever he may be, tells us 
 something- from which we may take a lesson. "There can 
 be no union," he says, "between the employer and the 
 employed." Why not ? " Because" he goes on, " it is 
 the interest of every employer to get as much work as he 
 can done for the smallest sum possible. 11 Truly, Sir, this 
 is a text on which there might well be preached an 
 awakening sermon. 
 
 Where is the Church most hated ? Where is the aris- 
 tocracy most hated ? Where is the alienation of the poor 
 from the rich most complete? The answer will always 
 be, wherever the relation between them has been most ex- 
 clusively that of employer and employed : in other words, 
 where the relation has been most purely mercenary, I do 
 not say, like that of master and slave, but actually worse. 
 
 I say " actually worse than that of master and slave," 
 and I say it advisedly. West Indian slavery is the rela- 
 tion of employer and employed : the use of the slaves is 
 merely to make them work in the plantations, and they 
 may be sold like the hoes with which they work. But the 
 old system of English slavery called villainage, was abso- 
 lutely a far kinder relation. There the villain was a fixture 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 209 
 
 on the land, and could not be sold away from it. Be- 
 longing to his lord, from his cradle to his grave, he was 
 thought of not only as a living and moving tool, but as a 
 human being. Affection often subsisted between him and 
 his master, of which there is this decided proof, that the 
 system of villainage chiefly wore out by the master's 
 voluntarily giving his villains freedom. This never would 
 have happened, had the relation between them been only 
 one of profit and loss : of employer and employed. 
 
 Or look, Sir, to agricultural parishes, and to private 
 families. A farming labourer, a domestic servant, were 
 once considered members of the household ; they lived 
 in the same family for years, and a mutual attachment 
 subsisted between them and their masters. But how is it 
 now ? The relation of employer and employed has come 
 into full action; farmers will not keep their labourers, 
 masters sometimes will not and sometimes cannot keep 
 their servants ; they are afraid of letting them get a settle- 
 ment in the parish, if they stay over the year, and so com- 
 pletely is this understood in some places, that a servant 
 leaves his situation naturally at the end of a twelvemonth, 
 unless something be expressly said about his remaining 
 longer. 
 
 Now, Sir, our great manufacturing towns have risen 
 solely with a view to this relation of employer and em- 
 ployed. The very name shows this, that they are places 
 where men have assembled together, not for the purposes 
 of social life, but to make calicoes, or hardware, or broad 
 cloths. A man sets up a factory, and wants hands: I be- 
 seech you, Sir, to observe the very expressions that are 
 used, for they are all significant. What he wants of his 
 fellow creatures is the loan of their hands ; of their 
 heads and hearts he thinks nothing. These hands are at- 
 tached to certain mouths and bodies which must be fed 
 and lodged : but this must be done as cheaply as possible ; 
 and accordingly, up starts a miserable row of houses, 
 built where ground is cheapest, that is, where it is least 
 
210 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 generally desirable to get it; built as close as possible, 
 to have the more of them on a given space, and for the 
 same reason without any sort of garden or outlet attached 
 to them, because the comfort and enjoyment of the human 
 being is quite independent of the serviceableness of his 
 hands. But further, Sir, these hands are not only at- 
 tached to mouths and bodies, but to reasonable minds and 
 immortal souls. The mouths and bodies must be provided 
 for, however miserably, because without them the hands 
 cannot work ; but the minds and souls go utterly unre- 
 garded. And is this any other than a national crime, a 
 crime in the civil government, a crime in the Church, a 
 crime in all the wealthy and intelligent part of the Eng- 
 lish people, that while hands have been multiplying so 
 enormously during the last forty years in every corner of 
 the kingdom, no greater efforts have been made to provide 
 for the welfare of the human beings who have multiplied 
 with them ? beings born not for time only but for eternity. 
 
 Hear the cry with which the bishops in particular are 
 now assailed in every part of the kingdom, and most loudly 
 in the great manufacturing districts. Whence comes the 
 especial bitterness with which they, above all the other 
 anti-reforming peers, are everywhere attacked ? Whence 
 the hatred with which the whole order of the clergy is 
 sometimes pursued? Is it not because the people have 
 never been made to feel the full amount of the good which 
 an Established Church may and ought to effect, and there- 
 fore are the more ready to complain of its endowments ? 
 Is it not because in our large manufacturing towns the 
 Church has allowed thousands and tens of thousands of 
 its members to grow up in misery and in ignorance ; and 
 that a step-mother's neglect is naturally requited by some- 
 thing of a step-mother's unpopularity ? 
 
 I am not blaming individuals, nor have I in my mind 
 a single personal allusion to any one either dead or living. 
 But the reproach attaches itself to the body. What worse 
 than folly was it to talk of delicacies, and difficulties, and 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 211 
 
 the danger of Parliamentary interference, and the mischief 
 of interfering with Church property, when the very end 
 for which the establishment existed was left unattained ! 
 Was it fit to wait for money enough to build an expensive 
 church, rather than license the first room, or the first 
 court-yard that could be found, wherever the inhabitants 
 of the parish became too numerous or too remote to attend 
 the parish church? Was it even dedent to leave many 
 thousand persons to the instruction and care of one minis- 
 ter, rather than apply to Parliament for power to make a 
 new allotment of the Church property, such as the new 
 state of things required ? 
 
 But these things were neglected; neglected by the 
 Church, neglected by the government, neglected by the 
 master manufacturer, and by the rich generally. Thou- 
 sands of men grew up devoid alike of physical comforts, 
 and of intellectual and moral culture ; and now we are 
 reaping the fruits of it. Having no property of their own, 
 they hate property, having no means of intellectual en- 
 joyment, they are driven to seek the pleasures which we 
 have in common with brutes, having never been made 
 Christians, their undisciplined natures are incapable of 
 valuing Christianity, and their evil passions teach them to 
 hate it. 
 
 Still it is not too late now to remedy the evil ; it is not 
 too late now, but in Jive years it will be. Enough of 
 individual kindness still exists, enough of individual good- 
 ness, to ensure the success of measures carried into effect 
 by well-combined exertions of men co-operating with each 
 other. Mr. Dyer, and men like him, may yet be silenced; 
 and the two orders of society may be brought together, 
 each feeling too deeply their own faults to dare to re- 
 proach those of the other. But I am insensibly running 
 into thoughts and feelings, which I shall find it hard to 
 check, if I once allow myself to indulge in them. Mean- 
 time let me congratulate you on the honourable contrast 
 which Sheffield presents, and has long presented, to so 
 
 p 2 
 
212 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 many other manufacturing towns ; so that in what I have 
 said above, other places have always been present to my 
 mind ; when I think of the remedies to be applied, 
 Sheffield always occurs to me, to fill me with hope and 
 encouragement. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 SIR, If my last letter but one was likely to give offence 
 to some of the working classes, my last, I suspect, would 
 be viewed with as little favour by those who call them- 
 selves the conservative party but who, if we may name 
 them from the tendencies of their conduct rather than 
 from their intentions, may be well called ultra-revolution- 
 ists. I have, however, been always of opinion, that the 
 whole truth, when not spoken in malice, can never be in- 
 flammatory- that all the mischief is done either by giving 
 half the truth, or by throwing round the whole truth a 
 violent, and therefore an unfair expression. At any rate, 
 if my two last letters have been disliked by two different 
 classes of readers, I trust that my present one, while it 
 explains and justifies its predecessors, will at least give 
 offence to none, even if none are convinced by it. 
 
 Take the facts of my two last letters, if so I may be 
 allowed to call them, and place them by the side of each 
 other. On the part of the working classes, there is a mass 
 of imperfect and ill-digested knowledge, which has just 
 succeeded to deep and general ignorance. On the part of 
 the rich, there is a mass of half informed and half 
 awakened attention to the poor, newly risen, after a long 
 continuance of great neglect. Surely, here are the ele- 
 ments of a most happy state of things, if this imperfect 
 knowledge on one hand, and partial attention on the other, 
 are by all means brought to assist in improving each other 
 if the past, instead of being for ever appealed to to in- 
 flame angry passions, be forgotten as if by common con- 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 213 
 
 sent, like an evil dream, from which we are most thankful 
 to have been awakened. But if the poor, instead of look- 
 ing to be helped on by the rich, think to get on faster by 
 plundering and pulling them down or if the rich, instead 
 of increasing their efforts a hundred fold, and in a wiser 
 spirit, now stand aloof in fear or in disgust, the conse- 
 quence will be, that both rich and poor will suffer, or 
 rather that all good men will surfer, whether rich or poor ; 
 while they who profit by the general ruin will be the dregs 
 of either party, perhaps of both ; the treacherous, lawless, 
 greedy, profligate, and cruel ; that class of wretches who, 
 whether they have called themselves aristocrats or demo- 
 crats, have been always alike in their tyranny, alike in 
 their contempt of every law of God and man, and in their 
 exclusive love of themselves, and their own interests and 
 passions^ 
 
 It has been a great evil that the relations between the 
 rich and the poor have been so much confined to the 
 single one of employer and employed. But is not this a 
 very natural state of progress between the time when they 
 stood to one another as master and slave, and that when 
 they will stand to one another as citizen to citizen ? The 
 matter is now to hasten forwards as quickly as possible to 
 this last state; and in order to do this, we must make 
 efficient those great means of blessing whose inefficiency 
 has been the cause of so much evil, but whose destruction 
 would render the matter utterly hopeless. 
 
 I say plainly, and I beg not to be cried down unheard, 
 that those great means of blessing are the Aristocracy 
 and the Christian Church. No man alive is more aware 
 than I am of the evils of an Aristocracy, or of an Esta- 
 blished Church, when there is nothing to balance them; 
 no man is more aware than I am of the quantity of good 
 which they have left undone. But I should not blame 
 them for their neglect, if it was not that their active exer- 
 tions are capable of rendering us such enormous services. 
 No man wishes more earnestly to see them reformed; and 
 
214 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 I hesitate not to say, that no man would more deeply 
 grieve to see them destroyed. When I have been travel- 
 ling in your beautiful neighbourhood, and looking over 
 the magnificent domain of Lord Fitzwilliam, I have often 
 heard my companions exclaim against the steam engine 
 chimneys which in various parts of the view were sending 
 up into the air their columns of smoke ; but I have always 
 said in answer, " Those unsightly chimneys, and that dis- 
 figuring smoke, are a most wholesome balance to the 
 palace, and the gardens, and the woods of Wentworth. 
 Were it not for them, England would be no better than 
 Russia or Poland, we should be the mere serfs of a terri- 
 torial aristocracy." And what if a companion of another 
 sort were to exclaim against the aristocratical pride of 
 Wentworth House, and against the useless costliness of 
 keeping up the Churches of Ecclesfield and Rotherham ? 
 I should say to him as heartily and truly, " That park and 
 mansion, and those churches, are a most wholesome 
 balance to the chimneys of the iron furnaces. Were it 
 not for them, we should be without two of the greatest 
 means of elevating and purifying mankind, nobility, and 
 religion ; we should be in danger of becoming what the 
 French sometimes falsely call us, a nation of buyers and 
 sellers. But as it is, let all work together, and all do their 
 duty, and we have the means of arriving at the happiest 
 and highest state of society that the world has ever yet 
 witnessed." 
 
 The perfection of Parliamentary Reform would be one 
 which so raised the working classes, as to oblige the aris- 
 tocracy to treat them more liberally, without throwing in 
 their hands an exorbitant power before they are instructed, 
 and softened enough to use it wisely. I wish the aris- 
 tocracy in every place to come forward manfully, to join 
 the political unions, or any other lawful and honest so- 
 cieties of the working classes, to state fairly the amount of 
 their past neglect, and their hearty wish to make up for it. 
 They may then meet the mere agitators boldly face to 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES; 215 
 
 face, and indignantly deny their outrageous and shameless 
 falsehoods. While confessing their great and most blame- 
 able neglect, that they have too long suffered their poorer 
 brethren to live in a state of suffering and ignorance, they 
 may most truly say that from wilful oppression and injustice 
 they are, generally speaking, clear. The laws have, 
 hitherto, by carrying to excess the principle of non-in- 
 terference with a man's private concerns, allowed him un- 
 intentionally to cause great public mischief. As it is the 
 business of civil society to defend property, so it is no 
 less its duty to limit the exorbitant exercise of its power. 
 The famous Thellusson Act has already decided the prin- 
 ciple, that a man may not do all that he will with his own : 
 he may use it, but not capriciously abuse it. Un- 
 doubtedly it is a matter of public concern that our great 
 towns be not injured at the discretion of every individual 
 speculator, who runs out street after street, and row after 
 row of houses, till the working man in the heart of the 
 town can neither breathe fresh air, nor find any open 
 ground within his reach on which he can venture without 
 being guilty of a trespass. It would be no slight benefit, 
 if public walks arid gardens, and still more public places 
 of exercise, so laid out as to be ornamental as well as 
 useful and agreeable, were of necessity attached to every 
 great town in the empire. And it might be fairly impera- 
 tive on every man who builds a certain number of houses, 
 to annex to them a certain portion of ground which might 
 never be built upon, and which would serve in various 
 ways for the sports and recreation of the inhabitants. 
 
 I know it is said that the poorer people have no respect 
 for works of art, nor for public property: that if indis- 
 criminately admitted to museums, libraries, churches, or 
 gardens, their greatest pleasure would be to do mischief. 
 True it is, that the poor do not respect these things in 
 England as much as they do abroad ; and why ? because, 
 Sir, they have never been thought capable of enjoying 
 them, and therefore have been carefully denied access to 
 
216 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 them. Certain it is, that they never will respect them, till 
 they are allowed to have an interest in them ; but, I 
 should think it well worth while to risk the injury or de- 
 struction of a great many works of art, that the people 
 might at last, as they surely would, become fond of these 
 things, and feel that it was indeed a public injury to mis- 
 use them. And as a step to this, I have thought that ad- 
 vantage might in the first instance be taken of any so- 
 cieties actually formed amongst the working classes, such 
 as benefit clubs, self-supporting dispensaries, political 
 unions, or the like : and that it would be well worth the 
 while of benevolent individuals to assist in the formation 
 of libraries, or museums, or if possible in renting ground 
 to serve for a public garden and place of amusement, not 
 to be open at first to all the working classes, but to be 
 placed under the management of one or more of these 
 societies for the benefit of their own members. I say 
 " placed under the management of these societies," per- 
 haps with the addition of one or two honorary members 
 of the richer classes, who might advise without being able 
 to control their poorer associates; for it is most impor- 
 tant to put the poor in authority, to intrust them with the 
 care of property, and with the making and enforcing of 
 regulations for its protection and improvement. The true 
 and only way to make civil society really deserving of its 
 name, is to give its members an active and not merely a 
 passive part in the management of its concerns. 
 
 It will be said that all this is easy to talk of, but not so 
 easy to execute. True it is that no single individual can 
 execute it, but a number of individuals may do a great deal 
 towards it themselves, and still more may be done if plans 
 of this sort are pressed forward on the public attention, 
 till from being at first only noticed, and discussed, they 
 end with being generally adopted. Nor does it signify if 
 any one particular plan be objectionable ; the principle of 
 raising the working classes in their bodily, in their intel- 
 lectual, and in their spiritual condition, is the great thing 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 217 
 
 that should be for ever inculcated on every man possessed 
 of any influence in society. Of the truth and importance 
 of this principle I am sure ; whether the suggestions that I 
 have thrown out in this letter be the best means of cjJrry- 
 ing it partly into effect, many of your readers can judge 
 better than I can ; only if my plan be not a good one, it 
 is essential that some one should devise a better, other- 
 wise I am sure it is far better to try mine than to try 
 nothing. 
 
 In my next letter I shall speak of what can and ought 
 to be done by the Church. This is a vast subject, and 
 on none has there been poured forth a greater quantity of 
 audacious ignorance, to use the very gentlest term. But 
 it is a matter far too momentous to be left to such writers 
 as Mr. Beverley. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 SIR, It is now about 120 years ago since a Tory cler- 
 gyman was impeached by the House of Commons for 
 preaching a sermon full of the most violent doctrines of 
 Toryism. During his trial the popular feeling ran so 
 strongly in his favour, that as he passed backwards and 
 forwards from his lodgings to the House of Lords, the po- 
 pulace obliged all persons to take off their hats to htm : 
 the members of the House of Commons who conducted 
 the impeachment, were abused and insulted, the houses 
 of the Whig ministers were attacked, and the Queen, who 
 was supposed to have no great affection for her ministry, 
 was greeted with shouts of " God bless Your Majesty and 
 the Church." Nor was this feeling confined to London : 
 I read in the history of those times that Birmingham, 
 Bristol, Norwich, and many other places were the scene 
 of riots, in which the popular cry was " Down with the 
 Whigs ! High Church and Sacheverel for ever." 
 
218 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 But this was more than a hundred years ago. Well 
 then, Sir, it is only just forty years since " Church and 
 King " was again the war cry of a riot. In the year 1791, 
 the Birmingham mob, with this cry in their mouths, com- 
 mitted the same or even worse atrocities than those which 
 have been lately committed at Bristol; and as a dinner 
 given to an Anti-Reforming Recorder was the excuse for 
 the Bristol riots, so those at Birmingham were excited by 
 a dinner given by a number of eminent liberals and re- 
 formers, to celebrate the anniversary of the first French 
 Revolution. 
 
 This last event was noticed the other day in your paper, 
 and it appears that a bishop has been lately burnt in effigy 
 at Birmingham, on the very spot where Paine, the noted 
 author of the " Age of Reason " and the " Rights of Man," 
 had received the same tribute forty years before. But it 
 is paying far too great a compliment to the actors in either 
 of these burnings to call their acts an instance of the 
 change of public opinion. They are merely an instance 
 of the ease with which ignorant men are excited to vio- 
 lence, without knowing why or wherefore. The populace 
 of 1709 shouted " God bless the Church " with just as much 
 reason as the populace of 1831 are shouting " Down with 
 the Bishops/' And if there is any one fact undeniably 
 certain, it is that the clergy of the English Church, far 
 from having fallen off since the days of Dr. Sacheverel, 
 were never so enlightened, never so zealous, never so 
 generally exemplary in their lives, as they are at this pre- 
 sent hour. 
 
 The Church has always had the fortune to be defended 
 and attacked with equal violence and equal unreasonable- 
 ness. At this day, when the cry is all against it, there is 
 no subject of which popular writers are so profoundly ig- 
 norant. The writers for the public press, whether law- 
 yers, or men in trade, or young men who live by their writ- 
 ings, know and can know next to nothing of the clergy. 
 They seldom fall in their way, their habits and views of 
 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 
 
 219 
 
 things are so different as to preclude much intimacy when 
 they do meet, and while, from residing in large towns, 
 they see a quantity of the evil which the Church has not 
 prevented, they know little of the many thousand country 
 parishes where it is daily more or less effective in doing 
 direct good. 
 
 Again, when men attack the Church it is very desirable 
 to know for what reasons they dislike it. Many excellent 
 men .amongst the dissenters are unfriendly to it because 
 they think it a hindrance to religion; but a greater num- 
 ber I fear hate it for the very opposite reason, namely be- 
 cause it recommends religion. Many good men com- 
 plain of its total want of discipline among its own members; 
 but a notorious declaimer against it in an adjoining county 
 has been annoyed by what he thinks its over strictness. 
 He is violent against Church abuses, because his moral 
 character in one particular is such, that the clergymen of 
 his parish will not visit him. I am always anxious, there- 
 fore, when I hear any attacks against the Church, to know 
 what sort of a man they come from ; for though a great deal 
 that is said against it may be very true, yet considering the 
 principles of many of those who say it, I should exceed- 
 ingly object to any remedy of their proposing. 
 
 The most general complaint against the Church turns 
 upon the excessive amount, and the unequal distribution 
 of its property, and especially upon the burdensome and 
 impolitic nature of the tithe system. There is also a 
 strong popular feeling against the political opinions of the 
 clergy, particularly of the bishops and other dignitaries 
 among them ; and this, together with the evils of the tithe 
 system is, I believe, the main cause of their unpopularity 
 among persons who are not ill affected to religion it- 
 self. 
 
 My conviction of the benefits of a Church Establishment 
 arises from this : that thus, and thus only, can we ensure the 
 dispersion of a number of well-educated men over the whole 
 kingdom, whose sole business is, to do good of the highest 
 
220 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 kind ; to enforce, in their public teaching, the purest prin- 
 ciples and practice that mankind have ever yet been made 
 acquainted with ; and to exhibit these in their own per- 
 sons in all their daily intercourses with their neighbours, 
 instructing the young, visiting the sick, relieving, advising, 
 and maintaining the cause of the poor; and spreading 
 amongst all ranks the wholesome influence of a good life, 
 a cultivated understanding, and the feelings and manners 
 of a true gentleman. For these reasons, I most earnestly 
 admire and love a Church Establishment; and because it 
 has in it the means of doing all this better, I think, than 
 any other sect of Christians, therefore I value and would 
 most rigorously reform the actual Church Establishment. 
 Nor are the needful Reforms so difficult as many persons 
 imagine. 
 
 I will state them, Sir, even at the risk of seeming to 
 dogmatize, because I have not space to state at length the 
 arguments on which they rest. 
 
 1st. A commutation of tithes, even if it can only be 
 effected at a great loss to the Church, because it is far 
 better that the Church should be somewhat poorer, if at 
 such a price it can remove what is at present a great cause 
 of offence. 
 
 2nd. An entire remodelling of the Episcopal Order, 
 that many scandals may be removed, and the Church ob- 
 tain an efficient government. For this object it seems 
 essential, 
 
 1st. That Translations should be made illegal. 
 
 2nd. That the incomes of the smaller Bishoprics be 
 so increased out of the larger ones, as to supersede 
 the necessity of annexing to them Deaneries, liv- 
 ings held in commendam, or any other ecclesiasti- 
 cal preferment whatsoever. 
 
 3rd. That the Dioceses be divided, so as to give the 
 Church an efficient government. For this purpose all 
 Deaneries should be made Bishoprics, retaining their pre- 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 221 
 
 sent incomes, and of course with no seats in Parliament. 
 The Prebends should be annexed to underpaid livings in 
 large towns, and the largest Church in all such towns 
 should be erected into a Bishop's See; so that there 
 should be no great town throughout England without 
 its resident Bishop, who, without being raised to any 
 undue elevation in rank and fortune, would yet in both 
 be sufficiently respectable to maintain the just influence 
 of the Church with the higher classes as well as with the 
 poor. 
 
 4th. That in all large towns and populous districts a 
 sufficient number of new parishes be created, with a resi- 
 dent minister to each. Funds might be provided by an- 
 nexing, for the future, every one of these new parishes to 
 some valuable country living, if possible in the same 
 neighbourhood or county. Any incumbent accepting 
 such living for the time to come being bound to reside in 
 his town parish nine months in the year, and to keep a 
 resident curate on his benefice in the country. 
 
 5th. The Church government being thus rendered effi- 
 cient, by reducing the size of the dioceses to what would 
 be within the power of an individual to manage, a system 
 of ecclesiastical jurisdiction should be framed, for the 
 prompt punishment, not only of scandalous vice in the 
 clergy, which is, happily, very rare, but of what may 
 be called unclerical conduct and neglect of duty; so that 
 the class of " sporting clergy," as they are called, should 
 be gradually weeded out of the establishment. 
 
 These reforms would, I am persuaded, work a change 
 in the usefulness of the Church, and in the state of feeling 
 towards it, especially in the manufacturing districts, which 
 would be well worth purchasing at the cost of far greater 
 innovations. Of reforms of a more strictly religious cha- 
 racter, such, I mean, as relate to the liturgy and articles 
 of the Church, I have purposely said nothing ; because I 
 think that a newspaper is not the best place for Such dis- 
 cussions. But there are some other points of a less serious 
 
222 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 nature, such as the relations of the Church with dissenters, 
 and its excessively aristocratical character, which, perhaps, 
 I may be allowed to notice in a following letter. 
 
 LETTER XII!. 
 
 SIR, It happened to me some years since to be visit- 
 ing at the house of a Scotch clergyman, the number of 
 whose parishioners amounted to nearly five thousand souls. 
 I asked him how he found it possible to look after so large 
 a population without assistance. His answer was, that he 
 had assistance ; that there were three or four dissenting 
 congregations in the town, and that the ministers of these 
 were very useful auxiliaries to him, in providing both for 
 the physical and spiritual wants of his parishioners. 
 
 The words of this answer, as well as the simple and 
 natural manner in which they were spoken, have often re- 
 curred to my memory when I have noticed the totally 
 different light in which the Dissenters are regarded even 
 by some of the best of the clergy in England. With us, 
 the notion of an opposition of interests between the Church 
 and the Dissenters seems always paramount ; and I have 
 heard it said over and over again, when people were giving 
 the highest praise to the zeal and general excellence of a 
 Minister of the Establishment, that such a man would 
 soon thin the meeting houses, and bring back the people 
 to the Church. 
 
 Now, Sir, at first sight we cannot doubt that the Scotch 
 clergyman's feelings with regard to Dissenters is a far 
 happier one than that generally entertained in England. 
 It is a great misfortune that Christians should not all 
 heartily co-operate with one another ; and a still greater 
 that they should actually look on one another as rivals 
 almost as enemies. It is a most tremendous evil at a 
 time when their most vigorous efforts, if strengthened by 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 223 
 
 the closest union, would not be in any degree too great 
 to meet the dangers which threaten them both in com- 
 mon. 
 
 But it is an evil which must be laid as much to the 
 fault of the dissenters as of the Church. They have 
 been quite as intolerant, and talked quite as foolishly 
 about the superstition of the Church Services, as their an- 
 tagonists on their side have talked of the sin of schism. 
 And at this moment, if the government should attempt to 
 effect an union between the Church and the Dissenters, there 
 would be found quite as many obstacles to such a plan on 
 the part of the latter as of the former. Nor is this wonder- 
 ful, if we remember that the Dissenting Ministers, gene- 
 rally speaking, are men of inferior education, and inferior 
 rank to the Established Clergy, and have thus a less share 
 of the two great antidotes to bigotry a large acquaintance 
 with the wisdom of ancient times on the one hand, and 
 with various classes of living men, viewing things in many 
 different lights, on the other. 
 
 But it is far from my purpose to throw blame either on 
 Churchmen or Dissenters. Thus much, however, is clear, 
 that from the Church, as holding the vantage ground, 
 ought to proceed the first advances to a reconciliation. 
 Now, if uniformity be insisted on, reconciliation is of 
 course out of the question : two men of different habits 
 cannot live together on friendly terms, if either be called 
 upon to conform to the fashions of the other; and a com- 
 promise of our own opinions has always something about 
 it so bordering upon meanness and insincerity, that no 
 good fruit can be looked for from a seed so rotten. 
 
 One great cause of Dissent has been the utter ineffici- 
 ency of the Church in populous towns, as a religious so- 
 ciety. Men's feelings of Christian union, all their social 
 propensities as Christians, desire some better satisfaction 
 than to be members of a parish of 10,000 or 20,000 souls, 
 half of whom must necessarily be strangers to the other 
 half. It is impossible that they can have much personal 
 
224 LETTERS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF 
 
 knowledge of their Minister under such circumstances; 
 and what sort of a society is it in which the members 
 neither know one another, nor him who, in some respects, 
 is their head? In forming themselves into a distinct re- 
 ligious society when so situated, the Dissenters acquired a 
 bond of charity more than they had before, but I know 
 not what bond it was which their conduct violated. 
 
 This cause of Dissent would cease if the parishes in 
 our large towns were properly subdivided ; and the same 
 measure would remove another cause not less powerful, 
 the actual want of room in the churches of the Establish- 
 ment for the population which that Establishment professes 
 to instruct. But other causes would still remain, and 
 could not be so easily obviated. Some, however worldly 
 their character, are in practice among the most difficult to 
 overcome. I mean the property vested in the different 
 Dissenting chapels, and the incomes actually enjoyed by 
 their ministers. It would not be easy to purchase these, 
 and this alone, therefore, would seem an indissoluble bar 
 to such an union with Dissenters as should merely 
 merge them in the Church Establishment, supposing that 
 by some compliance with their religious objections the 
 Establishment might become such as they would not on 
 religious grounds alone object to join. 
 
 There is yet another cause of Dissent very deeply 
 rooted. The established clergy must belong generally to 
 the richer classes, because so long as a residence at the 
 university is a necessary passport to ordination, none but 
 the rich can afford to enter the Church. But separated 
 as the richer and poorer classes are from one another in 
 England, separated not only in manners, habits, and feel- 
 ings, but actually in language also, who can wonder if the 
 poor desire a religious instructor with whom they can 
 more nearly sympathize than with their regular clergyman, 
 an instructor who by birth, station, language, and man- 
 ners, is more nearly one of themselves. True it is that when 
 the regular clergyman is at once a good man and a sen- 
 
THE OPERATIVE CLASSES. 225 
 
 sible man, his being a gentleman is all so much in his 
 favour ; for though a gentleman parson be a very bad thing 
 if the gentleman be the predominant element in the com- 
 pound, yet a good parson who in education and feeling is 
 a thorough gentleman beside, in the best sense of the 
 word, inspires justly a degree of respect and confidence 
 as well as of affection which the poor never can feel to- 
 wards a man of coarser manners and less education. But 
 in the nature of things there will be always a great many 
 of the clergy in whom the gentleman, not in the best sense 
 of the word, is predominant over the parson ; and then as 
 far as the poor are concerned, the salt that had lost its 
 savour was not more worthless 'than they find such a 
 minister. 
 
 Besides these causes of Dissent there is yet another, 
 which, however, I am inclined to rank among the least really 
 powerful of all : I mean the actual differences of opinion 
 on matters of religion. I cannot enter into particulars on 
 this point, for the same reason which made me abstain in 
 my last letter from considering the expediency of some 
 reform in our liturgy and articles. But when I think 
 what the points are on which we and the Dissenters dis- 
 agree, except in the case of the Unitarians, I am fully sa- 
 tisfied that they ought not to hinder good men, while 
 keeping firmly to what they themselves think the truth, 
 from co-operating in the great cause common to all Chris- 
 tians with those who hold the opposite opinions. 
 
 I see then some causes of Dissent existing which a need- 
 ful reform in our own Establishment would remove ; others 
 again are independent of any conceivable extent of reform ; 
 while a third class are indeed invincible obstacles to uni- 
 formity, but ought to be none to union. And he who 
 knows the history of the Christian Church has too good 
 cause to remember how fatally the pursuit of this foolish 
 phantom uniformity has lured men from the attainment of 
 the real and substantial blessing, union. Let us leave the 
 Dissenters in the undisturbed enjoyment of their own or-' 
 
 i 
 
226 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 ganization, and government, and doctrines ; but let us 
 cease to call or think them schismatics or enemies. By 
 reforming ourselves in those points which manifestly need 
 it, we shall probably bring over many to our communion 
 in the most honourable manner; and for those who re- 
 mained, if we treated them as allies more valuable in 
 their own independent manner of fighting, than if forced 
 against nature to adopt ours capable of meeting the 
 wants of the poorer classes in the very points where the 
 Establishment can least satisfy them, and affording an ex- 
 ercise for that natural and commendable desire after social 
 organization, which a national Establishment has less 
 room for, we should find the Dissenters most valuable 
 friends and co-operators in that great work of Christian 
 improvement which is, or ought to be, the one great object 
 of every Christian society. 
 
 [The following Letters are on miscellaneous subject?.] 
 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 April, 1832. 
 
 SIR, Four months have elapsed since I last addressed 
 you; and the course of events has certainly not slum- 
 bered during the interval. Would that I could see less 
 cause for deep anxiety in the present state of affairs than 
 there was four months ago ; but it cannot be pretended 
 that the most alarming symptoms have as yet suffered any 
 abatement. Wickedness is no less active, and folly no 
 less loud. I fear, too, we must add that honesty and 
 wisdom are no less supine and silent. 
 
 We are all aware of the growing power of the middling 
 classes of society, and we know that the Reform Bill will 
 at once increase this power, and consolidate it. But 
 power, like every other gift bestowed upon us by God's 
 Providence, is not a mere gratuity, but a trust : it is given 
 
EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 227 
 
 us to do good with it ; and, therefore, it is far better both 
 for ourselves and others that we should not possess it at 
 all, than that we should not know how to use it. 
 
 There is one party in the country who wish the mass 
 of the people to be shut out from political power, and 
 who maintain, their belief agreeing with their wish, that 
 the people will never be fit to exercise it. Another party 
 triumphs in the prospect of the increased power of the 
 mass of the community, without seeming to care whether 
 it be fitted to discharge so important a trust or no. Now, 
 Sir, I am earnestly desirous that the people should grow- 
 jointly in power and true knowledge ; but at the same 
 time I should regard their power as the worst of evils, if 
 true knowledge were not to accompany it. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that the education of the middling 
 classes at this time, is a question of the greatest national 
 importance. I wish exceedingly to draw public attention 
 to it ; and at the same time, if I may be allowed to do so, 
 to impress most strongly on those engaged in conducting 
 it, the difficulty of their task, as well as its vast impor- 
 tance ; how loudly it calls for their very best exertions, and 
 how nobly those exertions, wisely directed, may hope to be 
 rewarded. And on this, as on other subjects, feeling 
 sincerely that my own information is limited, I should be 
 very glad to be the means of inducing others to write 
 upon it, who- may be far better acquainted with its details 
 than I am. 
 
 The schools for the richer classes are, as it is well 
 known, almost universally conducted by the clergy ; and 
 the clergy, too, have the superintendence of the parochial 
 schools for the poorer classes. But between these two 
 extremes there is a great multitude of what are called 
 English, or commercial schools, at which a large propor- 
 tion of the sons of farmers and of tradesmen receive their 
 education. In some instances these are foundation 
 schools, and the master is appointed by, and answerable 
 to, the trustees of the charity ; but more commonly they 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 are private undertakings, entered upon by individuals as 
 a means of providing for themselves and their families. 
 There is now no restriction upon the exercise of the 
 business of a schoolmaster, and no inquiry made as to 
 his qualifications: the old provision which rendered it 
 unlawful for any man to teach without obtaining a licence 
 from the bishop of the diocese, has naturally and neces- 
 sarily fallen into disuse ; and as the government for the 
 last century has thought it right to leave the moral and 
 religious interests of the people pretty nearly to them- 
 selves, an impracticable restriction was suffered to become 
 obsolete, but nothing was done to substitute in its place 
 one that should be at once practicable and beneficial. 
 
 Now, in schools conducted by the clergy, the parents 
 have this security, that the man to whom they commit 
 their children has been at least regularly educated, and 
 generally speaking, that he must be a man of decent life. 
 And, if I mistake not, it is merely the prevalence of the 
 feeling that this is so, which has in point of fact given to 
 the clergy nearly the whole education of the richer classes. 
 A man who was not in orders might open a school for the 
 sons of rich parents, if he chose, but he would find it 
 very difficult to get pupils. This state of things has been 
 converted into an accusation against the clergy, by some 
 pretended liberal writers; but it is evidently a most 
 honourable tribute to that union of intellectual and moral 
 qualifications, which) in spite of individual exceptions, 
 still distinguishes the clergy as a body. A layman, who 
 had obtained academical distinctions, would have the 
 same testimony to his intellectual fitness, that a clergy- 
 man could boast of, but these distinctions prove nothing 
 as to a man's moral character, whereas, it is felt, and 
 felt justly, that the profession of a clergyman affords to 
 a great extent an evidence of moral fitness also : not 
 certainly as implying any high pitch of positive virtue, 
 but ensuring at least, in common cases, the absence of 
 gross vice; as affording a presumption in short that a 
 
EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 229 
 
 man is disposed to be good, and that his faults will be 
 rather those of deficient practice than of habitual careless- 
 ness of principle. 
 
 But the masters of our English or commercial schools 
 labour under this double disadvantage, that not only their 
 moral but their intellectual fitness must be taken upon 
 trust. I do not mean that this is at all their fault ; still 
 less do I say, that they are not fit actually for the dis- 
 charge of their important duties : but still it is a disad- 
 vantage to them that their fitness can only be known after 
 trial, they have no evidence of it to offer beforehand. 
 They feel this inconvenience themselves, and their pupils 
 feel it also ; opportunities for making known their profi- 
 ciency are wanting alike to both. It has long been the 
 reproach of our law, that it has no efficient secondary 
 punishments : it is no less true that we have no regular 
 system of secondary education. >The classical schools 
 throughout the country have Universities to look to : dis- 
 tinction at school prepares the way for distinction at col- 
 lege ; and distinction at college is again the road to distinc- 
 tion and emolument as a teacher; it is a passport with which 
 a young man enters life with advantage, either as a tutor 
 or as a schoolmaster. But anything like local Universi- 
 ties, any so much as local distinction or advancement 
 in life held out to encourage exertion at a commercial 
 school, it is as yet vain to look for. Thus the business 
 of education is degraded ; for a schoolmaster of a com- 
 mercial school having no means of acquiring a general 
 celebrity, is rendered dependent on the inhabitants of his 
 own immediate neighbourhood ; if he offends them, he 
 is ruined. This greatly interferes with the mainten- 
 ance of discipline : the boys are well aware of their pa- 
 rents' power, and complain to them against the exercise 
 of their master's authority ; nor is it always that the 
 parents themselves can resist the temptation of showing 
 their own importance, and giving the master to under- 
 
230 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 stand that he must be careful how he ventures ^to displease 
 them. 
 
 It is manifest that this disadvantage cannot be overcome 
 by the mere efforts of those on whom it presses : the 
 remedy required must be on a larger scale. That the evil 
 occasioned by it is considerable, I can assert with confi- 
 dence. Submission and diligence are so naturally unwel- 
 come to a boy, that they whose business it is to enforce 
 them have need of a vantage ground to stand upon : they 
 should command the respect of their scholars, not only by 
 their personal qualities but by their position in society ; 
 they should be able to encourage diligence, by pointing 
 out some distinct and desirable reward to which it may 
 attain. For this the interference of Government seems to 
 me indispensable, in order to create a national and syste- 
 matic course of proceeding, instead of the mere feeble 
 efforts of individuals ; to provide for the middling classes 
 something analogous to the advantages afforded to the 
 richer classes by our great public schools and Universi- 
 ties. Meanwhile it may not be amiss to consider what is 
 the course of education actually followed in the generality 
 of commercial schools, and what are the improvements of 
 which it is susceptible. If you, Sir, or your readers, agree 
 with me in the importance of the subject, you will allow 
 me, perhaps, to resume it in a future letter. 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 May 4, 1832. 
 
 SIR, I propose in this letter to pursue the subject of 
 commercial schools, and to state what is the course of 
 study actually pursued in them. And I shall not be sorry 
 to call the attention of your readers to certain general 
 
EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 231 
 
 truths connected with education, which, though very obvi- 
 ous and very important, are yet very apt to be neglected. 
 
 I believe it often happens, that boys in the lowest form 
 of a commercial school require absolutely to be taught 
 to read. They have been neglected at home in their ear- 
 liest years, till, when they come to eleven or twelve years of 
 age, their friends find themselves obliged to send them to 
 school ; forgetting, however, that owing to their own neg- 
 lect, what ought to be the work of seven or eight years 
 has now to be completed as it can within three or four. 
 But supposing a boy able to read and write, his education, 
 properly so called, then commences. He receives in- 
 struction in arithmetic, history, and geography ; in Eng- 
 lish grammar, and in composition. The rudiments of 
 physical science, carried on to a greater or less degree of 
 advancement, are also taught him ; and with a view to 
 his particular business in life, he learns land surveying, if 
 he is to be brought up to agricultural pursuits ; or book- 
 keeping, if he is intended for trade. His religious instruc- 
 tion varies probably more than any thing else, according 
 to the personal character of his instructor, the line of 
 study here being much less clearly marked out except to 
 a man who is himself in earnest as to its importance. 
 Sometimes the boys are required to analyse grammatically 
 any sentence in an English book, and to give the deriva- 
 tions of the several words in it, just as boys at classical 
 schools are called upon to do in Greek and Latin. And 
 doubtless there may be many commercial schools, espe- 
 cially in the manufacturing districts, where the course of 
 study far surpasses what is here given, and where the in- 
 struction on scientific subjects, in chemistry, and in me- 
 chanics, is carried to a high degree of proficiency. 
 
 But I confess that this is not the point upon which I 
 feel much anxiety. I have little doubt that boys will be 
 sufficiently taught all that they require for their particular 
 calling ; and scientific knowledge is so generally valued, 
 and confers a power so immediately felt, that I think its 
 
232 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 diffusion may safely be reckoned on. This, however, has 
 nothing to do with the knowledge which the Reform Bill 
 calls for. A man may be ever so good a chemist, or ever 
 so good a mechanic, or ever so good an engineer, and yet 
 no't at all the fitter to enjoy the elective franchise. And 
 if we call a people educated who possess only scientific 
 or physical knowlege, we practically misapply the term ; 
 for though such knowledge be a very good education, as 
 far as a man's trade or livelihood is concerned, yet in a 
 political sense, and as a qualification for the exercise of 
 political power, it is no education at all. The distinction 
 requires to be stated more fully. 
 
 Every man, from the highest to the lowest, has two 
 businesses ; the one his own particular profession or call- 
 ing, be it what it will, whether that of soldier, seaman, 
 farmer, lawyer, mechanic, labourer, &c. the other his 
 general calling, which he has in common with all his 
 neighbours, namely, the calling of a citizen and a man. 
 The education which fits him for the first of these two 
 businesses, is called professional^ that which fits him for 
 the second is called liberal. But because every man 
 must do this second business, whether he does it well or 
 ill, so people are accustomed to think that it is learnt 
 more easily. A man who has learnt it indifferently seems, 
 notwithstanding, to get through life with tolerable com- 
 fort; he may be thought not to be very wise or very 
 agreeable, yet he manages to get married, and to bring up 
 a family, and to mix in society with his friends and neigh- 
 bours. Whereas, a man who has learnt his other business 
 indifferently, 1 mean, his particular trade or calling, is in 
 some danger of starving outright. People will not employ 
 an indifferent workman when good ones are to be had in 
 plenty ; and, therefore, if he has learnt his particular busi- 
 ness badly, it is likely that he will not be able to practise 
 it at all. 
 
 Thus it is that while ignorance of a man's special busi- 
 ness is instantly detected, ignorance of his great business 
 
EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 233 
 
 as a man and a citizen is scarcely noticed, because there 
 are so many who share in it. Thus we see every one 
 ready to give an opinion about politics, or about religion, 
 or about morals, because it is said these are every man's 
 business. And so they are, and if people would learn 
 them as they do their own particular business, all would 
 do well : but never was the proverb more fulfilled which 
 says that every man's business is no man's. It is worse 
 indeed than if it were no man's ; for now it is every man's 
 business to meddle in, but no man's to learn. And this 
 general ignorance does not make itself felt directly, if it 
 did, it were more likely to be remedied : but the process 
 is long and round about; false notions are entertained 
 and acted upon ; prejudices and passions multiply; abuses 
 become manifold ; difficulty and distress at last press on 
 the whole community; whilst the same ignorance which 
 produced the mischief now helps to confirm it or to aggra- 
 vate it, because it hinders them from seeing where the 
 root of the whole evil lay, and sets them upon some vain 
 attempt to correct the consequences, while they never 
 think of curing, because they do not suspect the cause. 
 I believe it is generally the case, at least in the agricul- 
 tural districts, that a boy is taken away from school at 
 fourteen. He is taken away, less than half educated, be- 
 cause his friends want him to enter upon his business in 
 life without any longer delay. That is, the interests of 
 his great business as a man are sacrificed to the interest 
 of his particular business as a farmer or a tradesman. 
 And yet very likely the man who cares so little about 
 political knowledge, is very earnest about political power, 
 and thinks that it is most unjust if he has no share in the 
 election of members of the legislature. I do not blame 
 any one for taking his son from school at an early age 
 when he is actually obliged to do so, but I fear that in too 
 many instances there is no sense entertained of the value 
 of* education, beyond its fitting a boy for his own imme- 
 diate business in life: and until this be altered for the 
 
234 EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 better, I do not see that we are likely to grow much wiser, 
 or that though political power may pass into different 
 hands, that it will be exercised more purely or sensibly 
 than it has been. 
 
 " But the newspapers they are cheap and ready in- 
 structors in political knowledge, from whom all may, and 
 all are willing to learn." A newspaper writer, addressing a 
 newspaper editor, must not speak disrespectfully of that 
 with which they are themselves concerned ; but we know, 
 Sir, and every honest man connected with a newspaper 
 would confess also, that our instruction is often worse than 
 useless to him who. has never had any other. We sup- 
 pose that our readers have some knowledge and some 
 principles of their own ; and adapt our language to them 
 accordingly. I am afraid that we in many cases suppose 
 this untruly ; and the wicked amongst our fraternity make 
 their profit out of their readers' ignorance, by telling them 
 that they are wise. But instruction must be regular and 
 systematic ; whereas a newspaper must give the facts of 
 the day or the week, and if it were to overload these with 
 connected essays upon general principles, it would not be 
 read. I fear that my own letters tax the patience of some 
 of your readers to the utmost allowable length : and that 
 many, perhaps those who might find them most useful, 
 never think of reading them at all. And yet my letters, 
 although the very least entertaining things that could be 
 tolerated in a newspaper, cannot and do not pretend to 
 give instructions to those who are wholly ignorant. All 
 my hope is to set my readers thinking; and my highest 
 delight would be that any one should be induced by them 
 to suspect his own ignorance, and to try to gain know- 
 ledge where it is to be gained. But assuredly he who 
 does honestly want to gain knowledge, will not go to a 
 newspaper to look for it. 
 
 No, Sir, real knowledge, like every thing else of the 
 highest value, is not to be obtained so easily. It must be 
 worked for, studied for, thought for, and more than 
 
REFORM, AND ITS FUTURE CONSEQUENCES. 235 
 
 all, it must be prayed for. And that is education, which 
 lays the foundation of such habits, and gives them, so 
 far as a boy's early age will allow, their proper exercise. 
 For doing this, the materials exist in the studies actually 
 pursued in our commercial schools ; but it cannot be done 
 effectually, if a boy's education is to be cut short at four- 
 teen. His schooling indeed may be ended without mis- 
 chief, if his parents are able to guide his education after- 
 wards ; and the way to gain this hereafter is to make the 
 most of the schooling time of the rising generation, that 
 finding how much may be done even in their case, within 
 the limited time allowed for their education, they may be 
 anxious to give their children greater advantages, that the 
 fruit may be proportionably greater. 
 
 It may be that this is impracticable, to which I have 
 only to say that I will not believe it to be so till I am 
 actually unable to hope otherwise ; for if it be impractic- 
 able, my expectations of good from any political changes 
 are faint indeed. These changes might still be necessary, 
 might still be just, but they would not mend our condi- 
 tion ; the growth of evil, moral and political, would be no 
 less rapid than it is now. 
 
 REFORM, AND ITS FUTURE CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 May 28, 1832. 
 
 SIR, The events of the last fortnight have so advanced 
 us in our political career, that like men who have nearly 
 reached the top of the hill, we find the prospect of the 
 country on the other side of it beginning to open upon us. 
 We are not coming to, indeed, but have actually reached 
 a great era in our existence as a nation. Practically 
 speaking, the Reform Bill is passed, the new Constitution 
 iof 1832 (I use the term advisedly) is already achieved; 
 and now let us see what are likely to be our fortunes 
 under it. 
 
 I have much to lose by revolution ; I have nothing to 
 
236 REFORM, AND ITS FUTURE CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 dread from reform. I have much to lose by revolution ; 
 not in point of rank or fortune, but because having been 
 long used to, and accustomed deeply to love, the habits 
 and feelings and society of English gentlemen, I have 
 little wish to see foreign manners and feelings introduced 
 here, or to be forced to live amongst them abroad. And I 
 know, moreover, that there is no character on earth which 
 contains the elements of so much national virtue and 
 happiness as the old national character of England, not- 
 withstanding the many defects with which both it and our 
 institutions are chargeable. 
 
 And I have nothing to dread from reform. On the con- 
 trary, as an enemy of revolution, I have every thing to 
 hope from it. I wish it to be deep, searching, and uni- 
 versal : I wish it to extend to church and state, to army, 
 navy, law, trade, and education ; to our political and social 
 institutions ; to our habits, principles, and practice, both 
 as citizens and men. God grant that reform may so have 
 its perfect work as equally to crush and bring to nothing 
 the Conservatives and the Jacobins, those equal enemies 
 of all good, whose alternating crimes and follies have, 
 between them, been the curse of mankind from the very 
 beginning of its history. 
 
 Now, Sir, considering the Reform Bill as already passed, 
 it is of the last importance that the first workings of the 
 new constitution be watched and directed by a popular 
 government. All violent and disastrous revolutions have 
 been brought about by suspicion : because, though the 
 acts of the government were popular, yet its real senti- 
 ments were thought to be different : because, though it had 
 made abundant concessions, yet it had done nothing good 
 and liberal except as a concession: it had been honest 
 only upon compulsion. And, therefore, the only safe 
 government in seasons of popular agitation, is one which 
 notoriously sympathizes with the people, which professed 
 and acted upon popular principles from conviction, when 
 such conduct was neither prompted by interest nor fear : 
 
REFORM, AND ITS FUTURE CONSEQUENCES. 237 
 
 which is not dragged along reluctantly and helplessly by 
 the movement of the times, but heading it frankly and 
 voluntarily, can restrain its excesses and ensure its final 
 progress, by not letting it run itself out of breath at first 
 in the intemperance of its haste, or waste its strength in 
 wild and unprofitable deviations from its true line of 
 advance. 
 
 Such a government will know how to seize for the public 
 good, the advantages which the Reform Bill offers it. 
 Hitherto the ascendancy of the conservative party has 
 obliged those who were fighting for reform to accept the 
 aid of some not very worthy associates. It is not the least 
 curse of Toryism that it persists in keeping the door fast 
 shut against the voice of reason, till passion takes part in 
 the dispute and breaks it open. But now that the Tories 
 are rendered incapable of doing mischief, except by 
 playing into the hands of the Revolutionists, these last are 
 the party most to be dreaded. As yet, happily, they are 
 but a small minority, and they may be made continually 
 smaller and smaller if the government act manfully and 
 honestly, and by fearlessly reforming whatever is bad in 
 every existing institution, leave those who wish for more 
 than reform without a single supporter, except the un- 
 principled and the desperate. 
 
 For instance, there is a party in the country whose real 
 object is to destroy Christianity, simply and purely be- 
 cause they hate God. One of this sect fairly confessed 
 what lies at the bottom of their atheism by saying, " that 
 it would make him miserable to think that there was any 
 being in the universe superior to himself." These men 
 would be very sorry to see the Church reformed ; because 
 so long as it retains its abuses they have so much the 
 greater hope of seeing it destroyed. They now hope for 
 the aid of all the Dissenters, of all who dislike the tithe 
 system, of all who are vexed at the conduct of the Tory 
 Bishops. Meanwhile they familiarize the people to hear- 
 ing the ministers of religion reviled and sneered at, and 
 
238 REFORM, AND ITS FUTURE CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 to hearing it without alarm or displeasure, because it is 
 their political and not their religious character which is 
 the avowed object of attack. But there is no doubt that 
 an irreligious feeling is thus excited, even unconsciously to 
 those who entertain it ; and it comes to this with the mass 
 of the community, that their political hatred to the Esta- 
 blishment and the Clergy is a great deal stronger than 
 their religious affection for Christianity. And in this state 
 public opinion will tolerate, as was shown in the case of 
 the Hebertists in France, any degree of irreligion, even 
 amounting to an actual persecution of those who profess 
 religion. The majority of the French people were not 
 atheists, but were lukewarm as to Christianity, and so they 
 preferred even Hebert and Robespierre, and Marat, with 
 the Revolution and national independence, to Lesaue and 
 Larochejacqueline, with the old regime and the dismember- 
 ment of France. And although we think ourselves a very 
 religious people, yet I am convinced that if the present 
 state of feeling about the Church continues, the majority 
 of the nation would ere long be ready to make a similar 
 choice in England. 
 
 Again, there is a party in the country exceedingly de- 
 sirous of trying experiments upon property, in the way of 
 making a more equal division of it. This is so far from 
 being a catching madness in itself, that even amidst the 
 worst violences of the French revolution no nearer ap- 
 proach to it was made than the Law of the Maximum ; 
 that is, the law which fixed the price at which provisions 
 were to be sold. But in England it will gain proselytes 
 yearly, unless the condition of a large proportion of the 
 community be improved. When a man has property of 
 his own, although it may be very small in comparison with 
 his neighbour's, he prefers holding what he has got on 
 the old tenure to the risk of gaining somewhat more by 
 breaking society to pieces. But he who has nothing 
 cannot be worse off than he is, and he feels too little in- 
 debted to " the World's Law," to entertain any scruples 
 
REFORM, AND ITS FUTURE CONSEQUENCES. 239 
 
 about destroying it, whenever it may suit his purposes. 
 He will listen to the Owenites or the Saint Sirnonians, or 
 any other set of political fanatics ; just as a man with a 
 painful disorder which the regular practitioner does not 
 relieve, applies eagerly to all the quacks who advertise 
 their " infallible remedies." 
 
 If religion and property be thus exposed to danger, it 
 is needless to speak of the risk to which our peculiar 
 political institutions, our monarchy and aristocracy, must 
 necessarily be subject. Nor will I allude to the ultimate 
 process by which these changes will be effected; that, 
 however dreadful, may be the misery of one single gene- 
 ration only. But let us look beyond, and see the pro- 
 mised land at which our children will have arrived, after 
 the storms of the journey have blown over. A people 
 three parts atheists and the remaining part wild fanatics ; 
 with no humanizing amusements, for our countrymen 
 are not like the French in their fondness for the drama or 
 the fine arts, for picture galleries and museums ; with no 
 capital, for the law of equal property will effectually pre- 
 vent this, with no public or private credit, with manu- 
 factures vainly struggling against that competition in the 
 market, which the great crash of credit and property at 
 home will have enabled foreigners to create, and with 
 our sixteen millions and a half of human beings so morally 
 and politically disorganized, pent up together within the 
 narrow bounds of this island. 
 
 Into this gulph we may be about to be plunged ; and 
 there are not wanting wretches who would be happy to 
 plunge us into it. Now then, Sir, more than ever is the 
 time for a liberal Government to step forward, to state 
 broadly and clearly the line between reform and revolu- 
 tion, to rally all the honesty and spirit of the nation in 
 support of the first, and to denounce in no hesitating lan- 
 guage the promoters of the second, as the worst enemies 
 of their country, for whose wickedness no degree of exe- 
 
240 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 cration can be too intense, no punishment inflicted by the 
 laws of God or man can be too severe. 
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 August 10, 1832. 
 
 SIR, In travelling, lately, through some of the great 
 manufacturing towns of Lancashire, I was struck by the 
 various placards on the walls in every quarter, relating to 
 the ensuing election ; and if one opened a newspaper, its 
 columns were full of the same subject : one read of meet- 
 ings to consider the propriety of supporting such and 
 such candidates of the catechism to which the candidates 
 had been subjected, in order to discover their views on 
 various political questions, arid of the pledges proposed 
 to be demanded of them, in order to secure their adher- 
 ence to the wishes of their constituents. 
 
 I do not wonder at all this excitement. The elective 
 franchise, now for the first time to be enjoyed by many of 
 these great towns, is indeed a trust of no light importance. 
 It is a great matter to support the best candidates : it is 
 most desirable that we should not give our votes in the 
 dark, but should know accurately who and what a man is 
 before we send him to Parliament as our representative. 
 
 And truly, Sir, I believe that if the people were left to 
 themselves, they would discharge their great trust admir- 
 ably : they would return a House of Commons which 
 would be a noble vindication of the Reform Bill, con- 
 founding the prophecies of its opponents, and more than 
 realizing the fondest hopes of its supporters. What they 
 will return, under actual circumstances, is unhappily far 
 less certain, though my hopes even now outrun my fears. 
 
 Who is it that will not leave the people to themselves ? 
 
THE ELECTIONS. 241 
 
 Who are the new boroughmongers whose influence threat- 
 ens the real liberty of election as much as it was ever 
 threatened by the old ones ? Who are now setting up to 
 be tyrants over us, with pretensions new in our own days 
 and in our own country, and likely therefore to deceive 
 those who know nothing beyond the present; but old, 
 stale, and threadbare, even to utter nakedness, to all those 
 who are acquainted with the history of the past ? They 
 are the agitators of the Political Unions, and of the news- 
 paper press the brazen, shallow, and insolent speakers- 
 the ignorant, lying, and malignant writers, known for no- 
 thing but their turbulence and their libels, and without a 
 hope of rising to distinction but by the confusion of order, 
 and the general overthrow of truth and goodness. 
 
 It was the last humiliation of the dying lion in the 
 fable, that he was kicked by an ass : and surely the bit- 
 terest enemies of England could desire no worse shame to 
 befall her, than that she should have broken to pieces the 
 iron sceptre of Napoleon, only to be trampled to pieces 
 by the brute feet of demagogues and libellers the shal- 
 lowest, the vilest, and the falsest of their tribe, who have 
 ever yet arisen to be the curse of their own times, and the 
 mingled scorn and detestation of posterity. 
 
 I am very far from saying that all speakers at Unions, 
 or all political writers, deserve this character. Of course, 
 this cannot be the meaning of one who has written much 
 for a newspaper himself. But I am sure that it would be 
 a safe rule to give to every elector " Vote for no man 
 whatsoever, who is known to you solely or chiefly from his 
 speeches or his political writings." He may be honest, 
 he may be trustworthy, but his speeches and writings are 
 no sufficient warrant for it. But vote for men whom you 
 know by their lives and actions for men well spoken of 
 as good Christians, good husbands and fathers, good 
 neighbours men who have minded their own business or 
 calling well, and whom you may therefore safely trust with 
 yours men who are upright, and sensible, and liberal in 
 
 R 
 
242 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 their private relations whose advice you would be glad to 
 ask in any private difficulty on whose word and on whose 
 kindness you would rely with perfect confidence in any 
 private embarrassment or distress. Happily for our 
 country, such men are not yet scarce amongst us ; they 
 may be found in every large town, not confined to any 
 one religious denomination, to any one political party. 
 Let these be your candidates, and then ply them with 
 your questions scrutinize as narrowly as you will their 
 opinions : choose from amongst them that man whose 
 political notions most agree with your own, and you will 
 have exercised your elective franchise well you will have 
 sent to Parliament a worthy representative a representa- 
 tive of your conscience, your judgment, and your prin- 
 ciples, not of your folly, your prejudices, and your 
 passions. 
 
 Your readers will naturally apply these doctrines to the 
 approaching election for Sheffield. Undoubtedly they 
 are applicable to it, and are very unfavourable to the pre- 
 tensions of Mr. B . I neither say nor insinuate any 
 
 thing against him ; but what do the inhabitants of Shef- 
 field know of him at all, except as a political writer ? It 
 is to the class which I object, not to the individual speci- 
 men of it. Mr. B is a stranger, known to us as the 
 
 editor of a newspaper in the East Indies, who was sent 
 home from India by the Government there, and has ever 
 since been a violent opponent of that Government. He 
 is known as the author of an entertaining book of travels, 
 and as a lecturer upon the state of the oriental nations. 
 He is a clever and active man, who is trying what he can 
 do for himself : but do we know anything more of him ? 
 Do we even know the real merits of his quarrel with the 
 Indian Government ? But much more : have we known 
 him in youth and in manhood in all the various relations 
 of private life, apart from that which is merely addressed 
 to the public eye and ear writings, and speeches, and 
 lectures ? Adventurers may be honest : but in so serious 
 
THE ELECTIONS. 243_ 
 
 a matter as the choice of our representative, we want 
 to see them in another state than when full dressed to act 
 their part on the stage. 
 
 You, Sir, know with certainty that in saying this I nei- 
 ther have, nor can have, by possibility, any personal or 
 party motives. You know, that so far as concerns the 
 Sheffield election, I neither have, nor can have, any parti- 
 cular interest in favour of any of the candidates or against 
 them. Nor should I have mentioned the name of Mr. 
 B , had not his case furnished me with a very strik- 
 ing and uninvidious example whereby to illustrate my 
 general meaning. If I had known any thing against him 
 had he been a notorious libeller, false and worthless, 
 like some individuals whom I might have named, the 
 character of my letters would have suffered from intro- 
 ducing him, as they might then have become chargeable 
 with personality : but as it is, I take him merely as a 
 political writer as belonging to a class of persons whom 
 I wish to see carefully excluded from Parliament men 
 who are strangers to their constituents, except from what 
 they have said or written on political subjects, without 
 being officially engaged in the public service. And my 
 rule applies to men of all parties and of all characters ; 
 for my objection is not that persons of this description are 
 not honest, but simply that we have no means of knowing 
 them to be so. 
 
 I wish it also to be distinctly observed, that I say no- 
 thing, and mean nothing, against men who are known for 
 their speeches and writings, so long as they are not known 
 solely or chiefly on this ground. If a man, in addition to 
 a high private and professional character, is known be- 
 sides, as taking an active interest in public affairs, of 
 course it is all so much in his favour ; for what he has 
 spoken and written then becomes a very valuable security 
 that he will not be an indolent and inefficient member. 
 But as politics are not the main business of any private 
 man's life, so it is a bad symptom when his opinions about 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 them are the most prominent part of his character; to 
 those who know him at all, he ought to be known for 
 something better. 
 
 It is very easy to show, moreover, that an elector can- 
 not exercise his franchise so independently, and safely to 
 himself, as by following the rule which I have given. 
 And as I wish for elections to be really free and inde- 
 pendent, I shall venture, with your permission, to enlarge 
 a little upon this matter in a future letter. 
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 August, 1832. 
 
 SIR, I concluded my last letter by saying, that if an 
 elector wishes to exercise his franchise in the most inde- 
 pendent manner, he will beware of all political adven- 
 turers ; of all stranger candidates, whom he knows more 
 by their speeches and writings than by their actions. I 
 call this the most independent way of voting, because it 
 leaves a man most entirely to the judgment of his reason, 
 and takes him away from the influence of his passions, 
 whether of hope or fear. 
 
 I know of no worse symptom of the state of a country 
 than the estimating a man's political opinions above his 
 moral principles and practice. We know a man's opi- 
 nions, it may be said, and that is all that we want : if they 
 agree with ours, then he is the best man whom we can 
 choose. But if we cannot trust a man's honesty we never 
 can be sure that he will not back out of his opinions 
 whenever his interest may tempt him to do so ; still less 
 can we depend on what his opinions may be on points re- 
 specting which we have not expressly questioned him. 
 We can put no general confidence in him, and we shall 
 be lucky if we can even hold him always to the direct 
 pledges which he has given. Who can dare to speculate 
 
I 
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 245 
 
 upon the nature of Mr. Cobbett's opinions upon any given 
 topic, should he be returned to Parliament, except so far 
 as it may be conjectured what party will have it in its 
 power to bid highest for his support? 
 
 Moreover, Sir, in the concerns of this great nation 
 there must be a variety of questions on which it is the 
 merest folly in the world for the mass of the electors to 
 entertain a decided opinion at all. I will just instance 
 the question of the Currency, on which it seems that 
 writers and speakers are positive, exactly in proportion to 
 their ignorance. Undoubtedly I have my own opinions 
 about it, but still I am well aware of the immense difficulty 
 of the subject, and therefore I should be very sorry to 
 vote for any candidate merely because he had pledged 
 himself to support what in my present state of knowledge 
 I conceive to be the truth on this point. I should much 
 rather suspect his honesty, or his wisdom, in pledging 
 himself at all on a question hitherto so far from decided, 
 than I should confide in him because his present views 
 happened to coincide with mine. 
 
 Again, with respect to the slavery question, the corn 
 laws, the East India question, the tithes, the taxes on 
 newspapers, &c., it is perfectly impossible for the great 
 majority of the people of this country to form a decided 
 judgment on all these points which shall be worth any thing. 
 We, Sir, who are obliged to attend to our own particular 
 business or profession, have not time to follow up all these 
 enquiries thoroughly. We want our representatives to 
 do this for us ; it is their business to do it ; but we are 
 actually disabling them for discharging it, if we bind them 
 down beforehand to abide, in spite of clearer knowledge, 
 by the decisions, if I may so call them, of our half-in- 
 formed judgments. 
 
 Now here is the great blessing of the Reform Bill, that 
 it enables us safely to choose the best men for our repre- 
 sentatives, without looking for the pledged supporters of 
 such and such opinions. Under the old system so many 
 
246 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 members were returned who were sure to support one par- 
 ticular side, that wherever there was a popular election, 
 the people were anxious, in self-defence, to look out for 
 a member equally bound to the opposite side. But now 
 that the rotten boroughs are destroyed, and the undue in- 
 fluence on one side done away with, we are no longer 
 under the necessity of choosing one violent partizan to 
 oppose another, but may look merely to a man's intrinsic 
 merits, and have no occasion for any partizans at all. 
 Even so infamous a profligate as Wilkes, might be the 
 object of the popular choice for his profession of popular 
 principles, when Luttrell, with a character no less profli- 
 gate, was brought forward by the anti-popular party, for 
 the avowed object of keeping popular principles down. 
 This was a state of constant warfare, in which each party 
 looked out, not for the purest heart or the wisest head, but 
 for the strongest arm, and for the most inveterate spirit to 
 direct it. 
 
 The salvation of the country depends, I am sure, on 
 our preventing this state from ever again reviving amongst 
 us. The Reform Bill has freed the commonwealth from 
 the undue preponderance of a portion of the people over 
 the rest ; but if it only leads to the preponderance of an- 
 other portion, I do not see how the commonwealth as a 
 whole is likely to be benefited. If the working classes 
 speak of the bill as of their victory, and look to it as to 
 an engine of their own exclusive advancement, and of the 
 humiliation of the rich, what is this but saying we are not 
 one people, but two irreconcileable factions, and that we 
 are just as far from the triumph of justice, and liberality, 
 and mutual kindness, and national happiness, as we have 
 ever been before. 
 
 Undoubtedly the Reform Bill is a means, and not an 
 end : on this we are all agreed. I wish it to become the 
 means of thoroughly reforming what is amiss in the coun- 
 tr y? by enabling us to choose the best and wisest men 
 amongst us for our legislators ; by giving us the power of 
 
THE ELECTIONS. 247 
 
 looking out for a member of Parliament as deliberately 
 and independently as we choose the members of a com- 
 mittee for any local object. We look around us on such 
 occasions, and see who of our neighbours best under- 
 stands, and is likely best to fulfil the duties committed to 
 him. And if we look round us fairly and calmly, we shall 
 be as sure to find men who understand and will honestly 
 fulfil the great duties of Members of Parliament. 
 
 One thing is certain, that the Reform Bill can never be 
 taken away from us ; that is, the rotten boroughs never 
 can be restored, nor the qualification for the elective 
 franchise narrowed. Indirectly, indeed, it may be ren- 
 dered useless, if we choose to surrender our judgments to 
 party feelings, or, still worse, to the dictation of the 
 managing members of the Political Unions. There will 
 then be needed a new sort of Black Book, to lay open the 
 names and private history of these radical boroughmon- 
 gers; to shew who and what they are who pretend to 
 direct the votes of the people of England. 
 
 The object of the people is to be relieved from their 
 actual state of distress. Arid does any one believe that 
 the thousands of honest and intelligent individuals with 
 whom this country abounds, men excellent in all the 
 relations of private and domestic life, active in business, 
 and respected for their general benevolence and sound 
 judgment, are really insensible to the distress of their 
 country; or, that they would not relieve it far more ef- 
 fectually than a set of adventurers who are known for 
 nothing but their professions and their virulence ? Every 
 one is aware how much requires to be amended in our 
 state of society ; but common sense, as well as the uni- 
 versal experience of history, assures us that high principle, 
 impartiality, and moderation are the qualities most likely 
 to effect the amendment thus needed. 
 
 One word I may venture to address to the Dissenters. 
 No union can be more unnatural none more disgraceful, 
 than, that between Christians, of whatever denomination, 
 
248 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 and the enemies, not of this sect nor of that, but of Chris- 
 tianity itself. They do not love the actual Establishment, 
 and for this I have no quarrel with them; but they should 
 consider that Church property is, in the strictest and 
 highest sense, he property of the nation, and that every 
 Englishman has an interest in its remaining so for ever, 
 and not being plundered or squandered for the profit, or 
 supposed profit, of one generation. What would we now 
 give if the public were still in possession of the estates of 
 the monasteries, which, in an hour of true Jacobinical 
 brutality, were iniquitously robbed, and wastefully and 
 corruptly lavished ! What a host of magnificent and 
 useful institutions, colleges, schools, institutes, hospitals, 
 asylums for orphans, asylums for the aged, might have 
 been furnished to the country out of the Abbey lands, had 
 Henry VIII. been a true reformer instead of a selfish 
 and coarse-minded revolutionist ! So it is with Church 
 property now ; the clergy are not a caste, like the priests 
 and Levites of the Jews they are severally but life 
 tenants, and their children have no more interest in their 
 benefices after their deaths, than the children of every 
 other man in England. But it is for the common interest 
 of the whole nation, that there should be some property 
 in every small subdivision of the kingdom set apart for 
 ever for public purposes, providing on the one hand for 
 the performance of services of the most important kind, 
 and furnishing on the other a prospect of an honourable 
 station in society, a respectable maintenance, and great 
 moral advantages, to which the son of the poorest parents 
 may hope to raise himself. The Dissenters would do 
 well to endeavour to make the benefits of the national 
 Church more comprehensive than they are at present, 
 and to render its institutions more efficient : they would 
 act consistently and could not be blamed, if they laboured 
 to obtain for themselves a larger share of its advantages ; 
 but they will act at once foolishly and wickedly if they 
 lend their aid to those who would destroy it altogether. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 POETRY OF COMMON LIFE. 
 
[This Essay was written in 1831, as the Preface to a Collection of 
 Poems for the Poorer Classes, made by Mr. Platt, Editor of the 
 Sheffield Courant, and entitled " The Poetry of Common Life."] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 POETRY OF COMMON LIFE. 
 
 THERE is a ridiculous character in one of Moliere's French 
 plays, who is represented as going to school in his old 
 age to acquaint himself with the very first rudiments of 
 learning. He is particularly struck with the explanations 
 given him of the words " Verse" and " Prose," and cannot 
 enough express his astonishment that he should have been 
 talking " Prose " all his life, without ever being aware 
 of it. 
 
 This feeling, caricatured as it may seem, is exactly what 
 many persons entertain with regard to poetry. They look 
 upon it as a thing quite remote from common life and 
 common people, and would be utterly surprised to hear 
 that they themselves have most certainly been many 
 times in a state of mind completely poetical ; and, in all 
 probability, have often, like Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain, 
 spoken in poetical language without being aware of it, 
 just as he had been talking prose. 
 
 Much mischief has arisen from this false impression. 
 The most natural thing in the world has been regarded as 
 the most artificial ; and one of the most ennobling plea- 
 sures of the human mind, and, at the same time, one most 
 within the reach of every one, has been thought to belong 
 almost exclusively to the rich, like the luxuries of the 
 table, or the splendour of a great establishment. Nor is 
 this merely owing to aristocratical pride in the richer 
 
252 PREFACE TO 
 
 classes, or to their wish to keep a monopoly of enjoyment 
 to themselves. It arises out of a real honest ignorance of 
 the nature of poetry, and of the almost universal capacity 
 of taking delight in it ; for there is no doubt that Mr. 
 Cobbett would go along with the highest aristocrat in 
 laughing at the notion of the poor reading poetry; not 
 because he would think them not fit to enjoy it, but be- 
 cause he would consider it as not fit to be studied by 
 them : he would regard it as a mere rich man's toy, which 
 none but the idle, or the silly, would hold it worth their 
 while to study. 
 
 No error has ever arisen without something to make it 
 less absurd than we might at first sight suppose it. In the 
 present case it has accidentally happened that the lan- 
 guage of poetry for many years in this country was quite 
 unnatural, and the subjects to which it was confined were 
 not capable of exciting general interest. And not in this 
 country only, but in many others, as the rich had most 
 means of rewarding the writers of poetry, so it was na- 
 turally made suitable to their tastes; and the subjects 
 chosen, and the style in which they were treated, were 
 both adapted to the turn of mind of the richer classes ; 
 and for that very reason such has been the unhappy 
 separation between the different parts of society, they 
 have been less agreeable and less intelligible to the mass 
 of the community. 
 
 But this does not make it less true that poetry, in itself, 
 may be one of the most universal pleasures of mankind. 
 By poetry we mean certain feelings expressed in certain 
 language. Poetical feelings are merely, in other words, 
 all the highest and purest feelings of our nature, feelings, 
 therefore, which, considering what we generally are, cannot 
 but be of rare occurrence. It has been truly said that 
 
 " Our better mind, 
 
 Is like a Sunday's garment, then put on 
 When we have nought to do, but at our work 
 We wear a worse for thrift." 
 
POETRY OF COMMON LIFE. 253 
 
 Our common temper, therefore, which is but too generally 
 cold, and selfish, and worldly, is altogether unpoetical ; but 
 let any thing occur to put us above ourselves, any thing 
 to awaken our devotion, our admiration, or our love any 
 danger to call forth our courage, any distress to awaken 
 our pity, any great emergency to demand the sacrifice of 
 our own comfort, or interest, or credit, for the sake of 
 others, then we experience for the time a poetical temper, 
 and poetical feelings ; for the very essence of poetry is, 
 that it exalts and ennobles us, and puts us into a higher 
 state of mind than that which we are commonly living in. 
 Such, then, being poetical feelings, we shall soon see 
 what is meant by poetical language. Our words, our 
 style, nay, our very tone of voice, naturally vary according 
 to the temper of our minds. When we are feeling any 
 strong passion it instantly alters our manner of speaking 
 from that which we practise on common occasions. It 
 clears away all that is mean and vulgar, all that is dull 
 and tiresome in our language; and renders it at once 
 spirited, noble, and pithy. The mind being highly excited, 
 becomes more than usually active ; it catches with great 
 quickness every impression given by surrounding objects ; 
 it seizes rapidly every point in which they may seem to 
 express sympathy with his own feelings. Hence its lan- 
 guage is full of images and comparisons ; it is unusually 
 rich and beautiful, that is, it crowds together a number of 
 ideas in a short space, and expresses them in, the most 
 lively manner, because its conception of them is keen and 
 vivid. Again, the very tone of the voice is altered, it 
 becomes more rapid and animated, and the flow of our 
 words is less broken, and more measured and musical, 
 than in common unexcited conversation. This will be 
 understood in a moment by just turning to the poetical 
 parts of the Bible : for instance, let any one observe the 
 difference between the two first chapters of the Book of 
 Job, which contain the mere story, and those which imme- 
 diately follow them. He will find his tone and manner of 
 
254 PREFACE TO 
 
 reading, if he be reading aloud, change instantly in going 
 from the second chapter to the third. Poetical language 
 is, in truth, the language of excited feeling ; and this is 
 what was meant by saying that as every man has been in 
 a poetical state of mind at some time or other of his life, 
 so almost every man must, in some degree, however im- 
 perfect, have expressed himself on such occasions in 
 poetical language. 
 
 This is what may be called the natural history of poetry, 
 showing the elements in nature out of which it arose. 
 Here, as in all other cases, art came in to imitate nature : 
 the pleasure of excitement is notorious to every one; 
 and poetry, in the common sense of the word, is an arti- 
 ficial means of producing this pleasure, by presenting us 
 with exciting feelings expressed in exciting language. 
 Hence arose the invention of verse, partly, in imitation of 
 that flowing and harmonious language which is natural to 
 us when speaking under the influence of strong feeling ; 
 partly to create an additional excitement by the effect of 
 an harmonious arrangement of sounds. But the oldest 
 known poetry, which is that contained in the Old Testa- 
 ment, was not written in any regular metre or verse ; nor 
 is verse essential to the nature of poetry, although the 
 almost universal practice of later times has made us 
 think it so. 
 
 It is manifest, from what has been said, how the various 
 sorts and .styles of poetry have arisen. For, though all 
 men have the same feelings, yet at different times, and in 
 different classes of society, some feelings will be pre- 
 dominant over others : nor will the same feelings always 
 be excited exactly in the same way. For instance, a very 
 rude people will be most delighted by the poetry which 
 tells of the warlike actions of their fathers ; a religious 
 people will be most fond of devotional poetry; a people 
 in a very high state of refinement will enjoy a poetry 
 which goes deeply into the workings of our minds and 
 affections, and awakens feelings absolutely unintelligible 
 
POETRY OF COMMON LIFE. 255 
 
 to men in a less advanced condition. But although all 
 persons may thus be unable to enjoy the same poetry, yet 
 every one would enjoy poetry of some kind or other, if he 
 could meet with any of the kind suitable to his own case 
 that is, if it was addressed to those feelings which are 
 most alive within his own breast, and expressed in lan- 
 guage which he could understand. 
 
 The more extensive our knowledge of men and things, 
 and the greater the activity of our minds and the liveliness 
 of our feelings, so much the more universal will be our 
 pleasure in poetry ; inasmuch as we shall be able to enter 
 into the notions, and to sympathise with a greater number 
 of poets of different descriptions, ages, and countries. 
 For to like only one sort of excellence is the sure mark of 
 an imperfectly-educated mind ; it likes one sort only, be- 
 cause it only knows and understands one sort. 
 
 Meanwhile, the object of the present collection is at 
 once to gratify the taste of a large class of readers, and 
 to improve it. The poetry here presented to them speaks 
 to those universal feelings which we all have in common, 
 as men and as Englishmen. None can find it too hard 
 for them ; while at the same time, the poems here selected 
 are the productions of minds at once so vigorous and so 
 cultivated, that every reader will find in them something 
 to strengthen his understanding, and to enrich it some- 
 thing whose beauty will rise on his contemplation of it, at 
 once exciting greater efforts of mind on his part and re- 
 warding them. 
 
 One thing more may be added : the works of great 
 poets require to be approached at the outset with a full 
 faith in their excellence : the reader must be convinced 
 that if he does not fully admire them, it is his fault, and 
 not theirs. This is no more than a just tribute to their 
 reputation ; in other words, it is the proper modesty of an 
 individual thinking his own unpractised judgment more 
 likely to be mistaken than the concurring voice of the 
 public. And it is the property of the greatest works of 
 
256 PREFACE TO POETRY OF COMMON LIFE. 
 
 genius in other departments also, that a first view of them 
 is generally disappointing ; and if a man were foolish 
 enough to go away trusting more to his own hasty impres- 
 sions than to the deliberate judgment of the world, he 
 would remain continually as blind and ignorant as he was 
 at the beginning. The cartoons of Raphael, at Hampton 
 Court Palace the frescoes of the same great painter in 
 the galleries of the Vatican at Rome the famous statues 
 of the Laocoon, and the Apollo Belvidere and the Church 
 of St. Peter at Rome, the most magnificent building per- 
 haps in the world all alike are generally found to disap- 
 point a person on his first view of them. But let him be 
 sure that they are excellent, and that he only wants the 
 knowledge and the taste to appreciate them properly, and 
 every succeeding sight of them will open his eyes more 
 and more, till he learns to admire them, not indeed as 
 much as they deserve, but so much as greatly to enrich 
 and enlarge his own mind, by becoming acquainted with 
 such perfect beauty. So it is with great poets : they must 
 be read often and studied reverently, before an unpractised 
 mind can gain any thing like an adequate notion of their 
 excellence. Meanwhile, the process is in itself most use- 
 ful : it is a good thing to doubt our own wisdom, it is a 
 good thing to believe, it is a good thing to admire. By 
 continually looking upwards, our minds will themselves 
 grow upwards ; and as a man, by indulging in habits of 
 scorn and contempt for others, is sure to descend to the 
 level of what he despises, so the opposite habits of admira- 
 tion and enthusiastic reverence for excellence impart to 
 ourselves a portion of the qualities which we admire ; and 
 here, as in every thing else, humility is the surest path to 
 exaltation. 
 
PRINCIPLES 
 
 OP 
 
 CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 
[For the circumstances which occasioned the publication of the 
 following pamphlet, see Life and Correspondence, Vol. I. c. vii.j 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE called the following pamphlet, "Principles of 
 Church Reform/' because I thought it better to try to 
 establish these, than to lose myself and my readers in a 
 mass of minute details. For if the principles be true, 
 there are persons of much greater experience and know- 
 ledge than myself to contrive the best way of carrying 
 them into effect; while, had I proposed any particular 
 arrangements which might have been ill-judged or im- 
 practicable, this error in the details might have been 
 transferred by unfairness or ignorance to the main prin- 
 ciples of the argument, and they would have been called 
 impracticable also. These principles I believe to be irre- 
 fragable ; that a Church Establishment is essential to the 
 well-being of the nation; that the existence of Dissent 
 impairs the usefulness of an Establishment always, and 
 now, from peculiar circumstances, threatens its destruc- 
 tion ; and that to extinguish Dissent by persecution being 
 both wicked and impossible, there remains the true, but 
 hitherto untried way, to extinguish it by comprehension ; 
 that different tribes should act together as it were in one 
 army, and under one command, yet should each retain the 
 arms and manner of fighting with which habit has made 
 them most familiar. 
 
 But as to the manner of carrying these principles into 
 effect, I am far from proposing any thing with equal con- 
 fidence. Nor am I anxious about any particular measure, 
 which I may have ventured to recommend, if any thing can 
 
 s 2 
 
260 PREFACE. 
 
 be suggested by others, which may effect the same great 
 object more completely. But practical ability, of which 
 we have no lack in the country, must labour not merely for 
 no good, but for absolute mischief, unless it clearly under- 
 stands the principles of the question. And the numerous 
 plans of Church Reform already before the public, have 
 also the same bad effect, that they lead their readers off 
 on a false scent, and make them fancy, that by their adop- 
 tion the Church would be reformed and secured, when its 
 great defects and dangers would remain in fact untouched. 
 But the natural tendency of mankind to reform by patch- 
 ing rather than effectually, gives great reason to fear that 
 some one or other of these plans will be adopted ; and 
 that the matter will then be considered by the Govern- 
 ment to be set at rest. Whereas, in fact, it will not be at 
 rest ; but will be agitated with more violence than ever, 
 and with less hope of a favourable settlement ; because 
 one party will be exasperated at what they will call a mere 
 mockery of Reform, and the other will complain that their 
 concessions have given no satisfaction, and will therefore 
 be disposed, for the time to come, to fight out the battle to 
 the last. 
 
 RYDAL, 
 Jan. 9, 1833. 
 
PRINCIPLES 
 
 OF 
 
 CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 EVERY man who talks, writes, or votes in favour of Church 
 Reform, would do well to ask himself, why he wishes for 
 it. And in like manner the Government, when legislating 
 to satisfy the general call for Church Reform, would do 
 well to consider with what motives it is called for ; to see, 
 first, whether they who call the loudest are persons who 
 ought to be satisfied ; and, secondly, what it is that truth 
 and wisdom demand ; for their call ought certainly to be 
 listened to, though it is generally preferred in a voice so 
 gentle, that they who care not for it may easily avoid hear- 
 ing it at all. 
 
 Now Church Reform being a very vague term, it is of 
 great consequence to know what they, who use it, mean 
 by it. It is impossible that a man can care, properly speak- 
 ing, about the reform of any institution, if the objects of 
 the institution are of no interest to him. If then a man, 
 without being a Dissenter, is -one who seldom or never 
 goes to Church, and appears to have very little value for 
 Christianity personally; the main object of the institution 
 of the Church is clearly of no interest to him ; and his 
 anxiety for its reform can only be for the sake of certain 
 subordinate objects which he may suppose to be promoted 
 by it. Still, if he be a man of enlarged and liberal views, 
 and capable of desiring the intellectual welfare of his 
 countrymen, and their moral improvement also so i'ar as it 
 affects society, he may sincerely wish to see the Church 
 reformed in the proper sense of the term, although he 
 
262 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 may not be a religious man ; because the social improve- 
 ment of man is one of the direct objects of a Church 
 establishment, although not its highest object ; and it is 
 properly to wish an institution reformed, if we wish it 
 rendered more capable of effecting any of its proper ob- 
 jects. But men of another stamp, who neither value the 
 social nor the religious benefits conferred by an establish- 
 ment, cannot rightly be said to desire its reform ; they 
 merely wish to see it destroyed ; and destruction is so very 
 different from reform, that it is a gross fraud to call our- 
 selves friends of the one, when what we really desire is 
 the other. 
 
 Here then is one class of Church Reformers, and an- 
 other class who call themselves by the same name, but 
 whose proper title is Church Destroyers. A third, and a 
 very numerous class, must however be added ; men who 
 have no value for the objects of the Church, nor yet 
 any antipathy to it ; who in point of fact neither wish 
 for its reform nor for its destruction. They merely look 
 upon its revenues as affording the means of lessening their 
 own outgoings in money, by being made in part available 
 to public purposes. These men are in truth Church de- 
 stroyers, only they are restrained by temper or by some 
 scruple of conscience from going the full length of their 
 own principles. Their object in short is wholly and 
 entirely selfish, and if we might borrow the language of 
 the seventeenth century, we might fitly distinguish them 
 by the name of the " Self-seekers.'' 
 
 The avowed Dissenters join also in the call for Church 
 Reform ; and they again use the term with singular im- 
 propriety. They can hardly care about the reform of an 
 institution from which they have altogether separated 
 themselves. They belong, in fact, either to the class of 
 Church Destroyers, or of Self-seekers : to the former, if 
 being convinced that an establishment is an evil, they 
 wish to see it altogether put down : to the latter, if their 
 object be simply to be relieved from Church rates, Easter 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 263 
 
 dues, and tithes, because they support a ministry of their 
 own. But I have heard as yet no language from the Dis- 
 senters which could entitle them justly to the name of 
 Church Reformers. That they may, and ought to become 
 so, I shall endeavour to show hereafter. 
 
 Now it is manifest, that if we take all these classes of 
 persons to the letter of their present, perhaps I ought to 
 say, their yesterday's language, if we do reform the 
 Church, by ridding it of the evils most loudly clamoured 
 against, three out of four of them will still be unsatisfied. 
 It is quite idle to think that the Destroyers, or the Self- 
 seekers, really care about pluralities and non-residence, 
 and the inequality of Church benefices : still less are they 
 concerned about alterations in the Liturgy, or the intro- 
 duction of a more effective clerical discipline. The real 
 question with them is one of money, they want a cheap 
 religion, and they lay the more stress upon the epithet, 
 in proportion to their ignorance of the value of the article 
 for which they are bargaining : about religion they know 
 and care little, about money they know and care much. 
 
 We are told that there is now an universal wish for 
 Church Reform. This, as I have shown, is not true ; on 
 the contrary, I doubt exceedingly, whether the friends of 
 Reform are powerful enough to get their object effected. 
 There is on one side a great wish for Church destruction 
 and Church robbery; and on the other side a great unwil- 
 lingness to correct Church abuses : but the generality of 
 the wish for Church Reform is a fact which I should ex- 
 ceedingly rejoice to see established. 
 
 It is not enough, in times like these, to stand battling 
 about a few points of detail. We must take up the whole 
 question from the beginning, that we may know on what 
 grounds we are going to legislate. Before I discuss any 
 scheme of Church Reform, I must state why I am utterly 
 opposed to all schemes of Church destruction. 
 
 I will not insult even the most violent Church destroyer, 
 so far as to suppose him to contemplate the ejectment of 
 
264 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 the present holders of benefices. As the law declares 
 that a man's benefice is his freehold, it is precisely the 
 same thing to deprive an incumbent of the income arising 
 from his church preferment, as to deprive any other indi- 
 vidual of the rents of his land, or of the profits of his 
 trade. If, therefore, such an act could be committed, it 
 would be neither more nor less than literal robbery ; and 
 we should be far advanced on our way towards that happy 
 consummation, when every man will keep what he can, 
 and take what he can. 
 
 But, saving all existing interests, why should not 
 the Establishment expire with the present generation? 
 Why should not the tithes, in every parish, revert, on the 
 next vacancy, to the several owners of the soil ; and all 
 Church lands be sold for the payment of the national 
 debt ; leaving the next generation of ministers, if there be 
 any, to be maintained by the voluntary contributions of 
 their hearers ? 
 
 I am so anxious to get to the very principles of the 
 whole question, that I am contented to pass over all the 
 particular and practical objections which might be made 
 to such a scheme ; such as its invasion of the rights of 
 the patrons of Church benefices; and the question how 
 far episcopal or chapter lands, which certainly were never 
 granted by the state, could justly be taken by the state 
 for its own purposes. These are all very substantial ob- 
 jections, and would, I hope, be fully insisted upon by all 
 friends to law and right, if ever the proposal of Church 
 destruction should come before the legislature in its plain 
 form : but I hold it much more satisfactory, to rest the 
 case simply on general principles; and to show that if 
 the Establishment could be subverted, without the least 
 individual injustice or illegality, still it would be the 
 greatest possible folly in the nation to subvert it. 
 
 It is quite manifest, that the whole amount of Church 
 property in England, including under that name both 
 tithes, so far as they are in clerical hands, and Church 
 

 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 265 
 
 lands of every description, is so much saved out of the 
 scramble of individual selfishness, and set apart for ever 
 for public purposes. Now there are few things from 
 which society in England has suffered greater evil, than 
 from the want of property so reserved : it is apparent in 
 every town, and in every village, in the absence of public 
 walks, public gardens, public exercise grounds, public 
 museums, &c., in the former; and in most instances, of 
 even so much as a common green, in the latter : let a 
 man go where he will, he is beset on every side by the ex- 
 clusiveness of private property; the public has kept 
 nothing. This has arisen very much out of the false and 
 degrading notions of civil society which have prevailed 
 within the last century. Society has been regarded as a 
 mere collection of individuals, looking each after his own 
 interest ; and the business of government has been limited 
 to that of a mere police, whose sole trse is to hinder these 
 individuals from robbing or knocking each other down. 
 This view of society, alike unphilosophical and unchris- 
 tian, has largely counteracted the good which the world, 
 in this advanced stage of its existence, has derived from 
 its increased experience; and its pernicious effects have 
 been abundantly shown in the actual state of the poor 
 throughout England. For their physical distresses, their 
 ignorance, and their vices, are the true fruits of the sys- 
 tem of " letting alone ; " in other words, of leaving men to 
 practice for their own advancement, all arts, save actual 
 violence ; of allowing every natural, and every artificial 
 superiority, to enjoy and push its advantages to the ut- 
 most, and of suffering the weaker to pay the full penalty 
 of their inferiority. ^ 
 
 Thus, even before I consider the particular application 
 of Church property, I hold it to be an enormous benefit 
 that it is so much secured for ever to public uses; a 
 something saved out of the scramble, which no covetous- 
 ness can appropriate, and no folly waste. Again, it is not 
 only a considerable mass so saved ; but it is so happily 
 
266 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 divided, that every portion of the kingdom, with certain 
 wretched exceptions, shares in the benefit. The sight of 
 a church tower, wherever it is met with, is an assurance 
 that every thing has not been bought up for private con- 
 venience or enjoyment ; that there is some provision 
 made for public purposes, and for the welfare of the poor- 
 est and most destitute human being who lives within the 
 hearing of its bells. In the most unattractive districts of 
 the country, no less than in the most inviting, this same 
 beneficent provision extends itself: or if it does not, it 
 is owing wholly to the neglect of these later times, when 
 all things have been left to find their own level ; and the 
 result has been, as might well have been expected from 
 the inequalities of the bottom, an alternation of some deep 
 pools here and there with huge wastes of unmoistened 
 sand and gravel. 
 
 But what are the* particular public purposes for which 
 this property is set apart? Alms-houses are an admirable 
 provision for the poor and aged; hospitals for the sick ; 
 schools for the young ; a public garden furnishes amuse- 
 ment to all; a public library gives instruction to all. 
 But this property is designed to provide a benefit higher 
 and more universal than any of these, to secure for every 
 parish the greatest blessing of human society, that is, the 
 constant residence of one individual, who has no other 
 business than to do good of every kind to every person. 
 Men in general have their own profession or trade to 
 follow; and although they are useful to society, yet it is 
 but an indirect benefit not intended for society in the 
 first place, but for themselves ; so that no one feels 
 obliged to them for their services, because there is nothing 
 in them which partakes of the nature of a kindness. 
 Those again who possess an independent fortune, are not 
 only raised too high to be in perfect sympathy with the 
 majority of their neighbours, but are exposed to moral 
 temptations of a peculiar kind, which often render them 
 an inadequate example to others. Whereas, it is impossible 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 267 
 
 to conceive a man placed so favourably for attaining 
 to the highest perfection of our nature, as a parochial 
 minister. Apart from all personal and particular interests ; 
 accustomed by his education and habits to take the purest 
 and highest views of human life, and bound by his daily 
 business to cherish and sweeten these by the charities of 
 the kindest social intercourse : in delicacy and liberality of 
 feeling on a level with the highest ; but in rank and fortune 
 standing in a position high enough to insure respect, yet 
 not so high as to forbid sympathy : with none of the 
 harshness of legal authority, yet with a moral influence 
 such as no legal authority could give ; ready to advise, 
 when advice is called for, but yet more useful by the in- 
 direct counsel continually afforded by his conduct, his 
 knowledge, his temper, and his manners; he stands 
 amidst the fever and selfishness of the world, as one whom 
 the, tainted atmosphere cannot harm, although he is for 
 ever walking about in it, to abate its malignant power over 
 its victims. 
 
 Now I wish it to be observed, that all this good results 
 simply from the circumstance, that here is a man of educa- 
 tion, relieved from the necessity of following any trade or 
 ordinary profession in order to maintain himself, and placed 
 in the most improving of all situations, a life of constant 
 intercourse with men, of which the direct and acknow- 
 ledged business is to do them good physically and 
 morally. Thus much is independent of religion : and 
 had there been a resident sophist stationed in every 
 village of the Roman empire, with such a general commis- 
 sion to improve in every way the condition of the people, 
 the amount of crime and misery would have been enor- 
 mously lessened. But to all this, how much is superadded 
 in the Christian ministry ! How great is the difference of 
 the notions conveyed by the terms " lecturer " and 
 " preacher ; " by the names of " sophist " and " pastor ! " 
 The truth is, that men bear impatiently the teaching of 
 men, unless it comes with more than man's authority : 
 
268 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 the beneficent relations in which a minister stands towards 
 his people, derive much of their power from this very cir- 
 cumstance, that he is a minister of religion. And Chris- 
 tianity, whilst it fully invests him with this character, yet 
 has provided in the strongest manner against superstition 
 and priestcraft ; for a minister can speak with no authority 
 beyond his commission, and this commission lies open for 
 all men, to judge whether he adheres to it or no. It gives 
 him power unspeakable, so long as he faithfully discharges 
 it: but deserts and condemns him the very moment that he 
 would pervert it to selfish purposes, to make his own word 
 a law, and himself an idol. But in this commission there 
 is contained indeed the very food, and more than the food, 
 of man's life: the remedy for all troubles and sorrows, from 
 the simplest physical suffering of the rudest nature, up to 
 the mental conflicts which are the inevitable portion of the 
 loftiest and most sensitive : the medicine for all moral 
 evil, from the mere bodily appetites of the most grossly 
 ignorant, to the most delicate forms of pride or selfishness 
 in minds of the highest intelligence : the light to clear up 
 every perplexity of practice, strengthening the judgment 
 through the purified affections : the most exalted hope in- 
 separably united with the deepest humility ; because we 
 believe in Christ crucified because we trust in Christ 
 riseri a . 
 
 Now an appropriation of a certain portion of property to 
 secure for ever to a whole people so invaluable a blessing 
 
 a I shall not be suspected of meaning this high character of the 
 benefits of a national Christian ministry to apply in its full perfec- 
 tion to the actual state of the Church amongst us. The faults of 
 human nature will always make the practice of an institution fall 
 below its theory. But it is no less true that all the tendencies of the 
 ministerial office, as such, are wholly beneficial ; and if the actual 
 good derived from it be not so great as it might be, this is owing to 
 counteracting causes, some remediable such, for instance, as faults 
 produced by imperfect education and inefficient church discipline ; 
 others, arising out of the mere weakness of human nature, admitting 
 ouly of palliation, not of complete removal. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 269 
 
 as a resident Christian ministry dispersed over every part 
 of the country, will naturally be objected to by those who 
 hate the very names of God and of goodness. And per- 
 sons who arrive from mere brutishness at the same prac- 
 tical conclusion to which the godless party are led by 
 deliberate wickedness, men who can neither look before 
 nor after, but limit their notions of political good to the 
 mere physical welfare of their own generation, because 
 they can understand nothing higher, such persons may 
 consistently think that hand work is more useful than head 
 or heart work, and that no elements in society can be so 
 well spared as piety, and charity, and moral wisdom. It 
 is no wonder, then, but a just tribute to the excellence of 
 the Christian ministry, that it should be hated by the sub- 
 limed and systematic wickedness of the godless party, and 
 by the brute ignorance and coarseness of the dregs of the 
 democracy. But that men who, though not religious, are 
 yet admirers of much that is noble, and much that is 
 excellent; still [more, that men who really fear God and 
 love Christianity, should be found to doubt the wisdom of 
 a national provision for the moral and intellectual im- 
 provement of the people, for giving them the knowledge 
 of that truth which is life eternal, this is on the face of 
 it a phenomenon so strange, nay, so monstrous, that we 
 cannot but eagerly desire, for the honour of human nature, 
 to explain the causes of it. 
 
 It has arisen from that worst reproach of the Christian 
 name, the spirit of sectarianism. For Christians having 
 become divided into a thousand sects, and refusing to join 
 in each other's worship, a national establishment is re- 
 garded as an unjust preference of one sect over another ; 
 and, as it is considered impossible to establish all, and 
 unfair to establish any other rather than another, there re- 
 mains no alternative but to establish none; and, to use a 
 phrase much in fashion, to look upon every man's religion 
 as an affair between God and his own conscience only. 
 
 That the objection to a national provision for the minis- 
 
270 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 ters of religion arises, amongst thinking men, solely out of 
 the difficulties created by sectarianism, is manifest from 
 this ; that where sectarianism has not existed, or only in 
 an insignificant degree, the wisdom of such a provision 
 has been allowed with remarkable unanimity. For, not to 
 speak of the ancient world, where it was a thing unheard 
 of for a state to be without its national worship, its tem- 
 ples, its festivals, and its priests; the whole Christian 
 world, from the time that governments have become 
 Christian, has acted uniformly on the same principle, with 
 the single exception of the United States of America, 
 where the evil spirit of sectarianism has wrought his per- 
 fect work. And what is still more to our purpose, the 
 French people, even while declaring that they will have 
 no established religion, have yet retained the great benefit 
 of an establishment, namely, a national provision for the 
 religious instruction of the people, inasmuch as they keep 
 up the churches, and pay the ministers who officiate in 
 them. This they do, because the clear wisdom of the prin- 
 ciple is not obscured to their minds by the perplexities 
 which rise out of religious dissent ; the Catholics are so 
 great a majority, and in most parts of France so nearly 
 the whole of the population, that Catholic, and Christian 
 are convertible terms, and the state's wish to instruct its 
 people is not frustrated by the endless discussions of con- 
 tending sects, each objecting to all forms of instruction but 
 its own. 
 
 This evil of religious dissent is so enormous, is so 
 fraught with danger at this moment to our highest interests, 
 national and spiritual, and has been to my mind so un- 
 fairly and unsatisfactorily treated by men of all parties, 
 that I shall make no apology for entering fully upon the 
 consideration of it. Unless it be duly appreciated, and in 
 some measure remedied, it is perfectly needless to talk of 
 Church Reform. 
 
 Whoever is acquainted with Christianity, must see that 
 differences of opinion amongst Christians are absolutely 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 271 
 
 unavoidable. First, because our religion being a thing of 
 the deepest personal interest, we are keenly alive to all 
 the great questions connected with it, which was not the 
 case with heathenism. Secondly, these questions are ex- 
 ceedingly numerous, inasmuch as our religion affects our 
 whole moral being, and must involve, therefore, a great 
 variety of metaphysical, moral, and political points; 
 that is to say, those very points which, lying out of the 
 reach of demonstrative science, are, through the constitu- 
 tion of man's nature, peculiarly apt to be regarded by dif- 
 ferent minds differently. And thirdly, although all Chris- 
 tians allow the Scriptures to be of decisive authority, 
 whenever their judgment is pronounced on any given 
 case, yet the peculiar form of these Scriptures, which in 
 the New Testament is rather that of a commentary than 
 of a text ; the critical difficulties attending their inter- 
 pretation, and the still greater difficulty as to their appli- 
 cation : it being a constant question whether such and 
 such rules, and still more whether such and such recorded 
 facts or practices, were meant to be universally binding ; 
 and it being a farther question, amidst the infinite 
 variety of human affairs, whether any case, differing more 
 or less in its circumstances, properly comes under the 
 scope of any given Scripture rule ; all these things pre- 
 vent the Scriptures from being in practice decisive on 
 controverted points, because the contending parties, while 
 alike acknowledging the judge's authority, persist in put- 
 ting a different construction upon the words of his sen- 
 tence. 
 
 Aware of this state of things, and aware also with 
 characteristic wisdom, of the deadly evil of religious divi- 
 sions, the Roman Catholic Church ascribed to the sove- 
 reign power in the Christian society, in every successive 
 age, an infallible spirit of truth, whereby the real meaning 
 of any disputed passage of Scripture might be certainly 
 and authoritatively declared ; and if the Scripture were 
 silent, then the living voice of the Church might supply its 
 
272 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 place, and being guided by that same spirit which had 
 inspired the written word, might pronounce upon any new 
 point of controversy with a decision of no less authority. 
 
 With the same view of preventing divisions, the unity 
 of the Church was maintained, in a sense perfectly intel- 
 ligible and consistent. Christians, wherever they lived, 
 belonged literally to one and the same society, they were 
 subject to the same laws and to the same government. 
 National and political distinctions were wholly lost sight 
 of; the vicar of Christ and his general council knew no- 
 thing of England or of France, of Germany or of Spain ; 
 they made laws for Christendom a magnificent word, 
 and well expressing those high and consistent notions of 
 unity on which the Church of "Rome based its system. 
 One government, one law, one faith, kept free from doubt 
 and error by the support of an infallible authority the 
 theory was in perfect harmony with itself, and most im- 
 posing from its beauty and apparent usefulness ; but it be- 
 gan with assuming a falsehood, and its intended conclusion 
 was an impossibility. 
 
 It is false that there exists in the Church any power or 
 office endowed with the gift of infallible wisdom ; and 
 therefore it is impossible to prevent differences of opinion. 
 But the claim to infallibility was not only false, but mis- 
 chievous ; because it encouraged the notion that these 
 differences were to be condemned and prevented, and 
 thus hindered men from learning the truer and better- les- 
 son, how to make them perfectly compatible with Christian 
 union. Doubtless it were a far happier state of things if 
 men did not differ from each other at all ; but this may 
 be wished for only ; it is a serious folly to expect it. For 
 so, while grieving over an inevitable evil, we heap on it 
 aggravations of our own making, which are far worse than 
 the original mischief. Differences of opinion will exist, 
 but it is our fault that they should have been considered 
 equivalent to differences of principle, and made a reason 
 for separation and hostility. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 273 
 
 Our fathers rightly appreciated the value of church 
 unity ; but they strangely mistook the means of preserv- 
 ing it. Their system consisted in drawing up a statement 
 of what they deemed important truths, and in appointing 
 a form of worship and a ceremonial which they believed 
 to be at once dignified and edifying; and then they pro- 
 posed to oblige every man, by the dread of legal penalties 
 or disqualifications, to subscribe to their opinions, and to 
 conform to their rites and practices. But they forgot that 
 while requiring this agreement, they had themselves dis* 
 claimed, what alone could justify them in enforcing it 
 the possession of infallibility. They had parted with the 
 weapon which would have served them most effectually, 
 and strange were the expedients resorted to for supplying 
 its place. At one time it was the Apostles' Creed ; at an- 
 other, the decrees of the four first general councils; or, 
 at another, the general consent of the primitive Church, 
 which formed an authoritative standard of such truths as 
 might not be questioned without heresy. But though the 
 elephant might still rest upon the tortoise, and the tortoise 
 on the stone, yet since the claim to infallibility was once 
 abandoned, the stone itself rested on nothing. The four 
 first councils were appealed to as sanctioning their inter- 
 pretation of Scripture by men who yet confessed that the 
 decisions of these councils were only of force, because 
 they were agreeable to the Scripture. Turn which ever 
 way they would, they sought in vain for an authority in 
 religious controversies ; infallibility being nowhere to be 
 found, it was merely opinion against opinion ; and how- 
 ever convinced either party might be of the truth of its 
 own views, they had no right to -judge their opponents. 
 
 With regard to the ceremonies and practices of the 
 Church, a different ground was taken. It is curious to ob- 
 serve the contradictory positions in which the two parties 
 were placed : the Church of England enforcing a tyranny 
 upon principles in themselves most liberal and most true; 
 the Dissenters accidentally advocating the cause of liberty, 
 
274 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 while their principles were those of the most narrow- 
 minded fanaticism. One feels ashamed to think that the 
 great truths so clearly and so eloquently established by 
 Hooker, in the earlier books of his Ecclesiastical Polity, 
 should have served in practice the petty tyranny of Laud 
 and Whitgift, or the utterly selfish and worldly policy of 
 Elizabeth. The Church of England maintained most 
 truly, that rites and ceremonies, being things indifferent 
 in themselves, might be altered according to the difference 
 of times and countries, and that the regulation of such 
 matters was left wholly to the national Church. But inas- 
 much as the government of the national Church was a 
 mere despotism the crown having virtually transferred to 
 itself the authority formerly exercised by the popes its 
 appointments were made with an imperious stiffness, which 
 was the more offensive from the confessed indifferent na- 
 ture of the matters in question ; and while one ritual was 
 inflexibly imposed upon the whole community, in direct 
 opposition to the feelings of many of its members, and 
 too simple and unattractive to engage the sympathies of- 
 the multitude, this fond attempt to arrive at uniformity, 
 inflicted a deadly blow, according to Lord Falkland's most 
 true observation on the real blessing of Christian union. 
 
 I am well aware that if it be a mere question of com- 
 parative faultiness, the opponents of the Established 
 Church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are at 
 least as much to be condemned as its rulers. That coarse- 
 minded ignorance, which delighted to isolate itself from 
 all the noble recollections of past times, and confounded 
 all the institutions and practices of the Christian Church 
 during several centuries, under the opprobrious names of 
 superstition and idolatry ; that captious superstition which 
 quarrelled with the form of a minister's cap, or the colour 
 of his dress, deserved indeed little consideration, if the 
 principles of government are to be made dependent on 
 the merits of particular parties or individuals. But the 
 cause of truth, and the welfare of mankind, have been for 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 275 
 
 ever sacrificed to the paltry triumphs of personal argu- 
 ment : if a party can show that its opponents have been 
 more blameable than itself, it looks upon itself as stand- 
 ing clear in the judgment of posterity and of God. The 
 provocation given may indeed lessen our estimate of the 
 guilt of individuals; but it ought not to affect our senti- 
 ments of the wisdom or evil tendency of their conduct; 
 and though the virulence and ignorance of the puritans 
 may dispose us to excuse Whitgift and Laud, as indivi- 
 duals, yet their system is not the less to be condemned, 
 as in itself arbitrary and schismatical, and tending to ag- 
 gravate and perpetuate the evils which it professed to 
 combat. 
 
 Thus within fifty years of the overthrow of the Roman 
 Catholic religion in England, the spirit of Protestantism, 
 followed up only in one half of its conclusions, had di- 
 vided the nation into two hostile parties, each careless of 
 union, and looking only to victory. The religious quarrel 
 blending itself with the political struggle at which society 
 in its progress had then arrived, became thus the more 
 irreconcilable ; each party boasted of its martyrs, and 
 exulted in the judgments which had befallen its enemies; 
 the royalist churchman consecrated the 29th of May as a 
 day of national thanksgiving ; the puritan, who had deemed 
 popery and prelacy crushed for ever by the arms of God's 
 saints, now bewailed the new St. Bartholomew of 1662, 
 and the vindictive oppression of the Five Mile Act. 
 
 There succeeded an age of less zeal, but scarcely of 
 more charity. Time had reconciled men to the monstrous 
 sight of a large proportion of a Christian people living in 
 a complete religious separation from their fellow-Chris- 
 tians ; of a numerous portion of the children of the State, 
 living as aliens from the national worship. And the 
 means hitherto adopted for preventing such a division 
 were so odious in themselves, and had so signally failed 
 to effect their object, that none could wish them to be 
 continued any longer. Hostilities were accordingly sus- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 pended, and the Toleration Act was passed ; a strange 
 measure, by which the nation sanctioned the non-observ- 
 ance of its own institutions, and relaxed by one half the 
 bond of national communion. Yet at the very same 
 period an attempt to effect, not a peace, but an union with 
 the Dissenters, totally failed : those true Christians who 
 wished to make the national Church more comprehensive, 
 were unable to carry their point : persecution first tole- 
 ration afterwards any thing seemed preferable to Chris- 
 tian charity and Christian union. 
 
 Then followed one of those awful periods in the history 
 of a nation, which may be emphatically called its times of 
 trial. I mean those tranquil intervals between one great 
 revolution and another, in which an opportunity is offered 
 for profiting by the lessons of past experience, and to di- 
 rect the course of the future for good. From our present 
 dizzy state, it is startling to look back on the deep calm 
 of the first seventy years of the eighteenth century. All 
 the evils of society were yet manageable ; while complete 
 political freedom, and a vigorous state of mental activity, 
 seemed to promise that the growth of good would more 
 than keep pace with them, and that thus they might be 
 kept down for ever. But tranquillity, as usual, bred care- 
 lessness ; events were left to take their own way uncon- 
 trolled ; the weeds grew fast, while none thought of sow- 
 ing the good seed. The Church and the Dissenters lived 
 in peace; but their separation became daily more con- 
 firmed. Meanwhile the uniformity, and the strict form- 
 ality, which the Church had fondly adopted in order to 
 extinguish Dissent, now manifestly encouraged it. As the 
 population increased, and began to congregate into large 
 masses in those parts of the country which before had 
 been thinly inhabited, the Church required an enlarged 
 machinery, at once flexible and powerful. What she had 
 was both stiff and feeble ; her ministers could only officiate 
 in a church, and were compelled to confine themselves to 
 the prescribed forms of the liturgy ; while the Dissenters, 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 277 
 
 free and unrestricted, could exercise their ministry as 
 circumstances required it, whether in a mine, by a canal 
 side, or at the doors of a manufactory ; they could join in 
 hymns with their congregations, could pray, expound the 
 Scriptures, exhort, awaken, or persuade, in such variety, 
 and in such proportions, as the time, the place, the mood 
 of their hearers, or their own, might suggest or call for. 
 
 Thus, by the very nature of the case, the influence of 
 the Dissenters spread amongst the poorer classes. It was 
 a great good that the poor and ignorant should receive 
 any knowledge of Christianity ; but it was a mixed good, 
 because the evil of sectarianism was at hand to taint it. 
 The minister at the meeting-house rejoiced to thin the 
 church ; the minister of the church rejoiced in his turn, 
 if he could win back hearers from the meeting. As if 
 their great common cause had not required all their ef- 
 forts, much of their zeal was directed against each other j 
 and if there was not hostility, there was an increase of 
 rivalry and of jealousy. It might have been thought that 
 the many good and active men who were now daily rising 
 up amongst the ministers of the Establishment, would have 
 been struck by the evils of their position, and have la- 
 boured to remove them. But some had been so used to 
 the existence of Dissent that they were insensible to the 
 magnitude of its evils ; others, with the old party spirit 
 of the High Churchmen, imagined that all the blame of 
 the separation rested with the Dissenters ; they talked of 
 the sin of schism, as if they were not equally guilty of it ; 
 they would have rejoiced in the conformity of the oppo- 
 site party, that is to say, in their own victory; but they 
 had no notion of anything like a fair union. Others, 
 again, fully occupied with their own individual duties, and 
 feeling that they themselves were usefully employed, never 
 directed their attention to the inadequacy of the system to 
 which they belonged, considered as a whole ; while a fourth 
 set argued against reforming the Church now, from the 
 fact of its having gone unreformed so long ; and because 
 
278 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 the crisis was not yet arrived, they were blind to the sure 
 symptoms of its progress, and believed that it would only 
 be brought on by the means used to avert it. 
 
 But the population outgrew the efforts both of the 
 Church and of the Dissenters ; and multitudes of persons 
 existed in the country who could not properly be said to 
 belong to either. These were, of course, the most igno- 
 rant and degraded portion of the whole community, a 
 body whose influence is always for evil of some sort, but 
 not always for evil of the same sort, which is first the 
 brute abettor and encourager of abuses, and afterwards 
 their equally brute destroyer. For many years the popu- 
 lace hated the Dissenters for the strictness of their lives, 
 and because they had departed from the institutions of 
 their country ; for ignorance, before it is irritated by phy- 
 sical distress, and thoroughly imbued with the excitement 
 of political agitation, is blindly averse to all change, and 
 looks upon reform as a trouble and a disturbance. Thus 
 the populace in Spain and in Naples have shown them- 
 selves decided enemies to the constitutional party; and 
 thus the mob at Birmingham, so late as the year 1791, 
 plundered and burnt houses to the cry of " Church and 
 King," and threatened to roast Dr. Priestley alive, as a 
 heretic. But there is a time, and it is one fraught with 
 revolutions, when this tide of ignorance suddenly turns, 
 and runs in the opposite direction with equal violence. 
 Distress and continued agitation produce this change; 
 but its peculiar danger arises from this, that its causes 
 operate for a long time without any apparent effect, and 
 we observe their seeming inefficiency till we think that 
 there is nothing to fear from them; when suddenly the 
 ground falls in under our feet, and we find that their work, 
 though slow, had been done but too surely. And this is 
 now the case with the populace of England. From cheer- 
 ing for Church and King, they are now come to cry for 
 no bishops, no tithes, and no rates : from persecuting the 
 Dissenters, because they had separated from the Church, 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 279 
 
 they are now eagerly joining with them for that very 
 same reason ; while the Dissenters, on their part, readily 
 welcome these new auxiliaries, and reckon on their 
 aid for effecting the complete destruction of their old 
 enemy. 
 
 This being the state of things, it is evident that the ex- 
 istence of Dissent has divided the efforts of Christians, so 
 as to make them more adverse to each other than to the 
 cause of ungodliness and wickedness; it has prevented 
 the nation from feeling the full benefits of its national 
 Establishment, and now bids fair to deprive us of them alto- 
 gether. Dissent, indeed, when it becomes general, makes 
 the Establishment cease to be national; there being so 
 large a portion of the nation whose religious wants it does 
 not satisfy. Yet we have seen, on the other hand, that 
 differences of religious opinion, and of religious rites and 
 ceremonies, are absolutely unavoidable; and that since 
 there exists on earth no infallible authority to decide con- 
 troversies between Christians, it is vain for any one sect to 
 condemn another, or in its dealings with others to assume 
 that itself is certainly right, and its opponents as certainly 
 in error. 
 
 Is it not, then, worth while to try a different system ? 
 And since disunion is something so contrary to the spirit 
 of Christianity, and difference of opinion a thing so in- 
 evitable to human nature, might it not be possible to 
 escape the former without the folly of attempting to get 
 rid of the latter; to constitute a Church thoroughly 
 national, thoroughly united, thoroughly Christian, which 
 should allow great varieties of opinion, and of ceremonies, 
 and forms of worship, according to the various knowledge, 
 and habits, and tempers of its members, while it truly held 
 one common faith, and trusted in one common Saviour, 
 and worshipped one common God ? 
 
 The problem then is, to unite in one Church different 
 opinions and different rites and ceremonies ; and first 
 
280 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 let us consider the case of a difference of religious opi- 
 nions. 
 
 Before such an union is considered impracticable, or 
 injurious to the cause of Christianity, might we not re- 
 member what, and how many, those points are on which 
 all Christians are agreed ? 
 
 We all believe in one God, a spiritual and all-perfect 
 Being, who made us, and all things j who governs all 
 things by His Providence ; who loves goodness, and ab- 
 hors wickedness. 
 
 We all believe that Jesus Christ, His Son, came into 
 Ihe world for our salvation ; that He died, and rose again 
 from the dead, to prove that His true servants shall not 
 die eternally, but shall rise as He is risen, and enjoy an 
 eternal life with Him and with His Father. 
 
 We all believe that the volume of the Old and New 
 Testaments contains the revelation of God's will to man ; 
 that no other revelation than what is there recorded has 
 been ever given to mankind before or since ; that it is a 
 standard of faith and a rule of practice ; so that we all 
 acknowledge its authority, although we may often under- 
 stand its meaning differently. 
 
 We all have, with very few exceptions, the same notions 
 of right and wrong; or, at any rate, the differences on 
 these points do not exist between Christians of different 
 sects, but between sincere Christians of all sects, and those 
 who are little better than mere Christians in name. We 
 all hold that natural faults are not therefore excusable, but 
 are earnestly to be struggled against ; that pride and sen- 
 suality are amongst the worst sins ; that self-denial, humi- 
 lity, devotion, and charity, are amongst the highest virtues. 
 We all believe that our first great duty is to love God ; 
 our second, to love our neighbour. 
 
 Now, considering that on these great points all Chris- 
 tians are agreed, while they differ on most of them from all 
 who are not Christians, does it seem unreasonable that 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 281 
 
 persons so united in the main principles of man's life, in 
 the objects of their religious affections, and of their hopes 
 for eternity, should be contented to live with one another 
 as members of the same religious society ? 
 
 But they differ also in many important points, and can- 
 not therefore form one church without seeming to sanction 
 what they respectively believe to be error. Now, setting 
 aside the different opinions on church government, which 
 I shall notice presently, is it true that there are many im- 
 portant points of pure doctrine on which the great ma- 
 jority of Christians in England at this moment are not 
 agreed ? The Presbyterians, the Methodists of all deno- 
 minations, the Independents, the Baptists, the Moravians, 
 can hardly be said to differ on any important point, ex- 
 cept as connected with church government, either from 
 one another or from the Establishment. The difference 
 with the Baptists as to the lawfulness of Infant Baptism, 
 may perhaps be thought an exception; but if I mistake 
 not, one of the highest authorities among the Baptists has 
 expressly maintained the lawfulness of communion with 
 Psedobaptists ; and the question is not which practice is 
 the more expedient, but whether Infant Baptism on the 
 one hand, or the refusing it to all who cannot understand 
 its meaning on the other, be either of them errors so fatal 
 as to make it impossible to hold religious communion with 
 those who maintain them. 
 
 There remain the Quakers, the Roman Catholics, and 
 the Unitarians, whose differences appear to offer greater 
 difficulty. And undoubtedly, so long as these sects pre- 
 serve exactly their present character, it would seem im- 
 practicable to comprehend them in any national Christian 
 church; the epithet "national" excluding the two for- 
 mer, and the epithet " Christian/' rendering alike impos- . 
 sible the admission of the latter. But the harshest and 
 most offensive part of the peculiarities of every sect has 
 always arisen from the opposition of antagonists. Extra- 
 vagance in one extreme provokes equal extravagance in 
 
282 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 the other. If, then, instead of devising forms so positive 
 and controversial, as to excite mistrust of their accuracy 
 in the most impartial minds, and vehement opposition from 
 those whose opinions lean to a different side, we were to 
 make our language general and comprehensive, and con- 
 tent ourselves with protesting against the abuses which 
 may follow from an exclusive view of the question, even 
 when it is in itself substantially true, it is probable that 
 those who differ from us would soon begin to consider the 
 subject in a different temper; and that if truth were the 
 object of both parties, and not victory, truth would in fact 
 be more nearly attained by both. In this respect, the 
 spirit of the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England 
 affords an excellent model, inasmuch as it is intended 
 to be comprehensive and conciliatory, rather than contro- 
 versial. And the effect to be hoped for from assuming 
 such a tone, would be the bringing reasonable and mode- 
 rate men to meet us, and to unite with us ; there would of 
 course be always some violent spirits, who would maintain 
 their peculiar tenets without modification ; but the end of 
 all wise government, whether in temporal matters or in 
 spiritual, is not to satisfy everybody, which is impossible, 
 but to make the dissatisfied a powerless minority, by draw- 
 ing away from them that mass of curable discontent whose 
 support can alone make them dangerous. 
 
 That there is this tractable disposition in the majority 
 of mankind, experience sufficiently proves. And we should 
 remember that at present the spirit of sectarianism binds 
 many men even to the extravagancies of their own party, 
 because they think it a point of honour not to be suspected 
 of lukewarmness. But even as things are, we know that 
 many Quakers conform, in their dress and language, much 
 more nearly to the rest of the world, than the stricter 
 members of their sect approve of. Would not this temper 
 be carried still further if those needless assertions of the 
 lawfulness of war and of oaths were expunged from our 
 Articles, and if we showed ourselves more sensible to that 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 283 
 
 high conception of Christian perfection, which breathes 
 through their whole system, and which, even when per- 
 verted into extravagance, ought not to be spoken of with- 
 out respect? 
 
 Again, with the Roman Catholics ; as long as we in- 
 dulge in that scurrilous language respecting them, which 
 is almost habitual to one party amongst us, we shall as- 
 suredly do nothing but confirm them in all their errors, 
 and increase their abhorrence of Protestantism. It is 
 perfectly idle to attack their particular tenets and prac- 
 tices, till we can persuade them that they may lawfully 
 judge for themselves. Nor shall we effect this by calling 
 the Pope antichrist ; and his claim to infallibility the 
 blasphemous fruit of ambition and avarice. We dare not 
 analyse too closely the motives of our best actions ; but 
 if ever grand conceptions of establishing the dominion of 
 good over evil may be allowed to have concealed from the 
 heart the ignobler feelings which may have been mixed 
 with them, this excuse may justly be pleaded for Gregory 
 VII. and Innocent III. The infallibility of the Church 
 was the fond effort of the human mind to believe in the 
 reality of the support which its weakness so needed ; 
 its unity was a splendid dream, beautiful but impracticable. 
 We might sympathise with the Roman Catholics in the 
 wish that we could find any infallible guide that there ex- 
 isted on earth the wisdom and the goodness capable of ex- 
 ercising an universal dominion ; and then we might urge 
 them to consider whether indeed our wishes are enough 
 to warrant our belief whether experience does not forbid 
 the fulfilment of our hopes ; and whether the lesser, but 
 certain good, be not a surer stay to our infirmities, than an 
 image of perfection which we cannot realize. 
 
 If ever the Roman Catholics of England could be con- 
 vinced that universal empire is equally impracticable in 
 religious matters as in temporal; and that no bond of 
 society, using the term in the strict sense of a body of 
 men living under the same government, and bound by the 
 same laws, can be more extensive than that of the political 
 
284 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 society or nation to which every man belongs by birth, 
 they would then feel that they were members naturally of 
 the Church of England, and not of the Church of central 
 Italy. And then they would acknowledge further, that as 
 the Parliaments of our ancestors could not preclude their 
 posterity from making such alterations as the altered cir- 
 cumstances of a future generation might demand ; so 
 neither could the councils of our ancestors debar their 
 successors from a similar right ; that the national Church 
 in every generation is equally invested with sovereign 
 power to order such rites and forms of worship as it may 
 deem expedient ; and that though necessarily unable to 
 command conviction in matters of opinion, it may yet 
 lawfully regulate matters of practice. And if our Church 
 were made truly national in point of government, if the 
 king's supremacy were made what it was intended to be 
 in principle, the substitution of a domestic government in- 
 stead of a foreign one, and if our ecclesiastical constitu- 
 tion were rendered definite and intelligible, is it beyond 
 hope, that many who are now Roman Catholics, would ere 
 long unite themselves religiously as well as politically with 
 the rest of their countrymen ? 
 
 Lastly, with regard to the Unitarians, it seems to me 
 that in their case an alteration of our present terms of 
 communion would be especially useful. The Unitarian 
 body in England consists of elements the most dissimilar ; 
 including many who merely call themselves Unitarians, 
 because the name of unbeliever is not yet thought credit- 
 able, and some also who are disgusted with their unchris- 
 tian associates, but who cannot join a church which re- 
 tains the Athanasian creed. Every means should be taken 
 to separate these from their present unworthy society, that 
 they who are really Christians might join their fellow-Chris- 
 tians, and they who are really unbelievers might be known 
 by all the world to be so. I know that many good men 
 draw a broad line of distinction between errors respecting 
 the Trinity, and errors on any other point. They cannot 
 unite, they say, with those who are not Trinitarians ; and 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 285 
 
 Lord Henley, while advocating an union with Dissenters in 
 general, especially excepts those who, to use his own lan- 
 guage, " deny the divinity of our Lord, or the mystery of 
 the triune Jehovah." The last expression is worthy of 
 notice, as affording a specimen of that irritating phrase- 
 ology which has confirmed so many in error. Is it the 
 way to reclaim any man from Unitarianism, to insist upon 
 his believing in " the mystery of the triune Jehovah ? " 
 The real question is, not what theoretical articles a man 
 will or will not subscribe to, bat what essential parts of 
 Christian worship he is unable to use. Now, the address- 
 ing Christ in the language of prayer and praise, is an essen- 
 tial part of Christian worship. Every Christian would 
 feel his devotions incomplete, if this formed no part of 
 them. This, therefore, cannot be sacrificed ; but we are 
 by no means bound to inquire, whether all who pray to 
 Christ entertain exactly the same ideas of his nature. I 
 believe that Arianism involves in it some very erroneous 
 notions as to the object of religious worship; but if an 
 Arian will join in our worship of Christ, and will call him 
 Lord and God, there is neither wisdom nor charity in 
 insisting that he shall explain what he means by these 
 terms ; nor in questioning the strength and sincerity of 
 his faith in his Saviour, because he makes too great a dis- 
 tinction between the divinity of the Father, and that which 
 he allows to be the attribute of the Son. 
 
 It seems to have been the boast hitherto of the several 
 sects of Christians, to invent formulae, both of worship 
 and of creeds, which should serve as a test of any latent 
 error ; that is, in other words, which should force a man 
 to differ from them, however gladly he would have re- 
 mained in their communion. May God give us, for the 
 time to come, a wiser and a better spirit ; and may we 
 think that the true problem to be solved in the composi- 
 tion of all articles and creeds and prayers for public use, 
 is no other than this ; how to frame them so as to pro- 
 voke the least possible disagreement, without sacrificing, 
 
286 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 in our own practical worship, the expression of such feel- 
 ing's as are essential to our own edification. 
 
 o 
 
 If it be said that this is contrary to the uniform ex- 
 ample of the Christian world, it is unhappily too true that 
 it is so : and let history answer how the cause of Christi- 
 anity has prospered under the system actually adopted. 
 Or let those answer who, in attempting to acquaint them- 
 selves with ecclesiastical history, have groaned inwardly 
 for very weariness at its dull and painful details. What 
 ought to be more noble, or more beautiful, than the gra- 
 dual progress of the Spirit of light and love, dispelling the 
 darkness of folly, and subduing into one divine harmony 
 all the jarring elements of evil, which divided amongst 
 them the chaos of this world's empire ? Such should 
 have been the history of the Christian church ; and what 
 has it been actually? No steady and unwavering advance 
 of heavenly spirits ; but one continually interrupted, 
 checked, diverted from its course, nay, driven backwards, 
 as of men possessed by some bewildering spell wasting 
 their strength upon imaginary obstacles fancying that 
 their road lay to the right or left, when it led straight 
 forward hindering each other's progress and their own 
 by stopping to analyse and dispute about the nature of 
 the sun's light till all were blinded by it instead of 
 thankfully using its aid to show them the true path on- 
 ward. In other words, men overrated the evil of differ- 
 ence of opinion, and underrated that of difference of 
 practice; and their efforts were thus diverted from a cause 
 in which all good men would have striven together, to one 
 where goodness and wickedness were mere accidental 
 adjuncts, equally found on one side as on the other. Or 
 to take a much narrower view of the question, we should 
 consider that the very notion of an extensive society im- 
 plies a proportionate laxity in its points of union. There 
 is a choice between entire agreement with a very few, or 
 general agreement with many, or agreement in some par- 
 ticular points with all ; but entire agreement with many, 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 287 
 
 or general agreement with all, are things impossible. Two 
 individuals might possibly agree in three hundred articles 
 of religion ; but as they add to their own numbers, they 
 must diminish that of their articles, unless they can prevent 
 their associates from exercising their own understandings. 
 Nor is this only applicable to a national church; it 
 holds good of the smallest districts, where there are 
 assembled men of different habits, different abilities, dif- 
 ferent degrees of knowledge, different tempers, and it 
 may be almost said different ages. If agreement of 
 opinion on a number of points be required as the condi- 
 tion of communion, there must be many different churches 
 in every town ; and these will be continually multiplying, 
 for exclusiveness grows by indulgence; and men will 
 form select societies among the select, till the church of 
 Christ will become almost infinitely divisible. Infallibility 
 or brute ignorance can alone prevent differences of opinion. 
 Men, at once fallible and inquiring, have their choice 
 either of following these differences up into endless schisms, 
 or of allowing them to exist together unheeded, under the 
 true bond of agreement of principle. 
 
 I may be pardoned, perhaps, for some repetition in 
 dwelling again on points already noticed ; as this perver- 
 sion of the term unity, from a practicable and useful sense 
 to one at once impracticable and unimportant, has been 
 the great mischief both of the Christian church in general, 
 and of the Church of England in particular, and has 
 brought about in the latter that monstrous state of things 
 in which a total Reform can alone save it from total de- 
 struction. We now proceed then to consider the practi- 
 cability of uniting in one national church men attached 
 to various forms of church government. 
 
 In proposing any alterations in this part of our system, 
 we have at least this advantage ; that the present state of 
 things is acceptable to no one. It is in fact a confessed 
 anomaly, at once weak and unpopular ; and has come to 
 such a point of actual dissolution, that it has been made 
 
288 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 a question what the government of the Church of England 
 is. Yet there exist prejudices which would be more 
 shocked, perhaps, by any change than they are by the 
 present system; and these prejudices should be consulted, 
 as far as is possible, without interfering with the sub- 
 stantial ends of all government. 
 
 It is the fashion to complain of the great inequality 
 which prevails .in the Established Church ; but it is not 
 very difficult to prove that there is not inequality enough ; 
 that the Church is like an army destitute of non-com- 
 missioned officers, and therefore incapable of acting with 
 sufficient effect, through this defect in its organization. 
 In other words, as all classes of society require the ser- 
 vices of the ministers of religion, the ministry should 
 contain persons taken from all ; and in a national church, 
 all the great divisions of the nation should have a share in 
 the government. The Scotch church fails in not reach- 
 ing up to the level of the aristocracy; the English 
 Church, as Wesley saw, fails in not reaching down to the 
 level of the poor : the Roman Church, embracing in the 
 wide range of its offices every rank of society, from the 
 prince to the peasant, offers in this respect a perfect 
 model. And if the scale of ascent be sufficiently gradual, 
 the Christian ministry thus furnishes a beautiful chain to 
 link the highest and the lowest together through the bond 
 of their sacred office, without the absurdity of attempting 
 to bring both to the same level. 
 
 But when we propose such a scale, we find that its 
 highest and lowest points are vehemently objected to by 
 opposite parties. On one side we have the old cry 
 against prelacy, strengthened at this moment by a foolish 
 political prejudice, and by the natural impatience of the 
 lovers of evil at seeing Christianity advanced, as such, to 
 situations of honour and influence. And on the other 
 side, there is a dread of low-minded and uneducated 
 teachers ; combined, perhaps, with some Jewish and Pagan 
 confusion of the Christian ministry with the caste and 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 289 
 
 family priesthoods of antiquity. The cry against a wealthy 
 and dignified episcopacy, is, where it is honest, the fruit 
 of a whole series of mistakes and misconceptions. It is 
 ridiculous to suppose, that the rulers of a society could 
 ever have been, as a body, taken from the poorer members 
 of it. The relation of the Apostles to the rest of the 
 Church was wholly peculiar : men, so divinely gifted, had 
 a claim to authority, which set aside all considerations of 
 wealth or poverty ; but the instant that these gifts ceased, 
 wealth would be in itself a title to power; and where 
 merit was equal, a rich man would have made a more 
 efficient bishop than a poor one. St. Paul requires a 
 bishop to be " given to hospitality ; " he must therefore 
 have wherewith to exercise it. There is a great deal 
 said in the New Testament against covetousness and self- 
 indulgence ; but this is addressed to all Christians equally ; 
 and if a layman does not conceive himself to be violating 
 these commands by possessing a considerable property, 
 with what assurance can he press such an interpretation 
 of them upon his neighbour, because he is a minister? 
 Some who inveigh against the wealth of the Church, 
 meaning by that term the clergy, and yet express great 
 satisfaction in the wealth of the nation, which in this 
 country is the Church, betray an ignorance and an incon- 
 sistency truly surprising : but an argument from mis- 
 applied texts of Scripture would be called superstition 
 and folly if it were urged in defence of tithes ; and truly 
 it is no less fanaticism and folly, or folly and something 
 worse, when it is used against the riches of the clergy, 
 than when it is used in support of them. 
 
 Equally unreasonable are the arguments against an 
 order of ministers chosen from the poorer classes of so- 
 ciety. That they must be generally less educated than 
 the ministers of a richer class is clear ; and so far they 
 would be inferior to them : nor is it intended that an un- 
 educated man should in any case be the principal 
 minister in a parish, as that would undo one of the chief 
 
 u 
 
290 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 benefits, so far as moral and social improvement is con- 
 cerned, of a national establishment. But there is an 
 enormous advantage in giving all ranks of society their 
 share in the administration of the Church : they would 
 think that they had an interest in a system which pro- 
 vided a place for them as well as for the rich ; but no man 
 cares much about a system in which he is wholly passive ; 
 in which he never acts himself, but is always the object of 
 the care and regulations of others. The difference of the 
 gifts possessed by the first Christians, applies entirely, 
 by analogy, to us now: "those members of the body, 
 which seem to be more feeble, are necessary ; " and more 
 is gained by the variety of qualifications, than is lost by 
 their inequality. 
 
 But it is said that uneducated ministers would spread 
 the most mischievous fanaticism. I ask, what is the case 
 as things are now ? Have we no fanatical teaching at 
 present ? Now, if an uneducated man of serious impres- 
 sions feels that he can be useful to persons of his own 
 sort, by pressing on their minds the truths which have 
 improved and comforted his own, he finds no place for 
 himself in the Established Church. The clergyman of 
 his parish would tell him to go to church and learn him- 
 self, instead of setting up to teach others. And no doubt 
 he has enuogh to learn, but so have we all : and it does 
 
 O ' 
 
 not follow that he should be unfit to teach some, because 
 there are others who could teach him. But, meanwhile, 
 the result is, that whether fit, or not, he does teach : the 
 Toleration' Act has settled this point. He may teach 
 where and what he chooses, so long as he does not be- 
 long to the Establishment. And of what use is it to say 
 that the Church does not suffer from his ignorance, and 
 is innocent of encouraging it? The nation suffers from 
 it, so far as it is ignorance, and the National Church is 
 therefore concerned in remedying it. As present it exists 
 unchecked and undirected, because the Church abandons 
 it to itself : but if it were incorporated into its system, it 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 291 
 
 would become immediately subject to control, and whilst 
 all, and more than all, of its present usefulness was de- 
 rived from it, its mischiefs would in a great degree be 
 obviated. 
 
 But the most essential step towards effecting this and 
 every other improvement in the Church, consists in giv- 
 ing to the laity a greater share in its ordinary govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The Bishop stands alone in his diocese, the Minister in 
 his parish ; and so little are the laity associated with 
 them officially in their operations, that the very word 
 Church has lost its proper meaning, and is constantly 
 used to express only the clerical members of it. The 
 worst consequence of this, no doubt, is the unchristian 
 distinction thus created between the clergy and the 
 laity, to the equal injury of both; but one considerable 
 evil resulting from it is the annihilation of Church disci- 
 pline. As long as the clergy have the whole administra- 
 tion of the Church in their own hands, their power over 
 other men must be neutralized, or else we incur all the 
 dangers of a system of priestcraft; and for the same 
 reason, if a Bishop be the sole ruler of his diocese, he 
 must be so shackled to prevent him from becoming a ty- 
 rant, as to be actually divested of the powers essential to 
 government. And so from a superstition about what men 
 fancy to be the divine right of Episcopacy, the Church 
 has practically all but gone to pieces, from the want of 
 any government at all. 
 
 This want of government or of social organization in 
 the Church, has been one main cause of the multiplication 
 of Dissenters. Men's social wants have not been satis- 
 fied : and a Christian Church which fails in this particu- 
 lar, neglects one of the most important ends of Christian- 
 ity. Consider the case of one of the parishes in a large 
 manufacturing town; there is a population of several 
 thousand souls often comprised nominally within the same 
 subdivision of the whole Christian society of the nation ; 
 
 u 2 
 
292 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 but what is their organization and bond of union ? Perhaps 
 one parish church, utterly unable to contain a fourth part 
 of their numbers; and one minister, who must be phy- 
 sically incapable of becoming personally acquainted with 
 even so much as a smaller proportion of them. The 
 other officers of the parochial society are the parish clerk, 
 the churchwardens, the overseers of the poor, how little 
 like the deacons of old, the beadle, and the constable ! 
 What an organization for a religious society ! And how 
 natural was it that men should form distinct societies for 
 themselves, when that to which they nominally belonged 
 performed none of the functions of a society. And even 
 in those cases where by the exertions of the incumbent in 
 providing one or more curates to assist him in his duty, by 
 the endowment of chapels of ease, or the institution of lec- 
 tureships, the visitation of the sick in the parish is tolerably 
 provided for ; still the want of a social organization re- 
 mains the same. The parishioners, except in questions 
 about rates, never act as a body, nor feel as a body. They 
 have no part in keeping up any religious discipline ; those 
 amongst them who are qualified for instructing or exhorting 
 their neighbours can do it only as individuals. The very 
 church itself, closed during the greater part of the day, 
 perhaps of the week, is opened only for the performance 
 of one uniform service, never to be added to, never to be 
 varied. Even the singing, where alone some degree of 
 liberty has been left to the congregation, is in some dio- 
 ceses brought down to the same uniformity, and nothing 
 may be sung but the old and new versions of the Psalms 
 of David. Thus the people are, as members of the 
 Church, wholly passive ; the love of self-government, 
 one of the best instincts in our nature, and one most op- 
 posite to the spirit of lawlessness, finds no place for its 
 exercise; they neither govern themselves, nor is there 
 any one else to govern them. 
 
 In order to an efficient and comprehensive Church sys- 
 tem, the first thing necessary is to divide the actual dio- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 293 
 
 ceses. A government must be feeble where one bishop, 
 as is the case in the diocese of Chester, has the nominal 
 superintendence over a tract of country extending in 
 length above a hundred miles, and over a population of 
 nearly two millions of souls. Every large town should 
 necessarily be the seat of a bishop, the bishopric thus 
 created giving no seat in Parliament; and the addition 
 of such an element into the society of a commercial or 
 manufacturing place, would be in itself a great advantage ; 
 for as in small cathedral towns, the society is at present 
 much too exclusively clerical, so in towns like Manchester 
 and Birmingham, the influence of the clergy is too little ; 
 they are not in a condition to colour sufficiently the mass 
 of a population whose employment is to make money. 
 The present dioceses might then become provinces, or if 
 it should be thought desirable to diminish the number of 
 bishops in the House of Lords, the number retained 
 might correspond to the number of provinces which it 
 might be found convenient to constitute, so that metropo- 
 litan bishops alone should have seats in Parliament. And 
 for the new bishoprics to be created, the deaneries 
 throughout England would go a long way towards endow- 
 ing them ; while in many cases nothing more would be 
 required, than to change the name and office of the in- 
 cumbent of the principal parish in the town ; so that in- 
 stead of being the minister of one church he should be- 
 come the bishop of the diocese, the income of his office 
 remaining the same as at present. 
 
 The several dioceses throughout England being thus 
 rendered efficient in point of extent and population, it 
 would be next required to organize their government. 
 Episcopalians require that this should be episcopal; the 
 Dissenters of almost every denomination would insist that 
 it should not be prelaticaL But it may be the first with- 
 out being the last. Episcopacy may be regulated in two 
 ways, so as to hinder it from being tyrannical; either by 
 withdrawing almost every matter from its jurisdiction, 
 
294 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 according to the system now pursued in England, or by 
 uniting and tempering it with an admixture of more po- 
 pular authorities. But of these two expedients the first 
 is equally destructive of the power of a bishop for good 
 as for evil ; the last would leave him at liberty to do good, 
 but would merely restrain him from using his authority 
 amiss. For instance', a bishop should be incapable of 
 acting without his council, and this council should con- 
 sist partly of lay members, and partly of clerical, to be 
 appointed partly by himself, and partly by the ministers 
 and lay elders of the several parishes in his diocese. A 
 court would be thus formed, to which the maintenance of 
 discipline might be safely entrusted, and ministers of 
 scandalous life might be removed from their benefices 
 without the tedious and ruinous process now imposed 
 upon the bishop, if he is anxious to do his duty in such 
 cases. Probably, too, it would be expedient to create 
 something like a general assembly of the Church in each 
 diocese, to meet at a certain time in the year, under the 
 presidency of the bishop, and to enact such general regu- 
 lations as might from time to time be needed. A meeting 
 of this kind, even were its sittings ever so short, would be 
 useful in the mere sensation that it would excite among 
 the people ; as it would present the Church to them in a 
 form at once imposing and attractive, and would destroy 
 that most mischievous notion which the present visitations 
 rather tend to encourage that the Church is synonymous 
 with the clergy. Again, either this general assembly, or 
 the bishop and his ordinary council, should have the 
 power of increasing or reducing the number of church 
 officers in any particular parish, and of settling the limits 
 of their respective ministrations. Where one man's con- 
 stant ministry is sufficient, the occasional assistance of 
 more may yet be desirable ; or if not a public, yet a do- 
 mestic ministry, in addition to the public one, may be 
 useful; that is, even in small country parishes there are 
 often found men of serious character, who would be able 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 295 
 
 and willing to preach to their neighbours, and who do 
 preach, as things are at present, but with this evil, that 
 they preach by their own authority, and are unavoidably 
 led to feel themselves in opposition to the Establishment. 
 Now, it is an obvious principle of every society, that men 
 should not take its offices upon themselves without au- 
 thority ; and many persons who are now self-constituted 
 teachers, would gladly obtain a sanction to their ministry, 
 and would consent to put it under the regulation of the 
 government of the Church, if such a recognition were 
 rendered a thing easily obtainable. But in large towns, 
 all the Christian ministers of every denomination actually 
 employed in them are certainly not more than adequate 
 to the wants of the population. That these could not be 
 all maintained out of the funds of the present Establish- 
 ment is manifest ; it is possible that some might be ; and 
 it is also possible that some gratuitous assistance might 
 be rendered by persons who, having another trade or pro- 
 fession, were not wholly dependent on the ministry for 
 support. But as the dissenting ministers are actually 
 maintained by voluntary contributions, so the assistant 
 ministers of a more comprehensive system, whether their 
 opinions were in exact agreement with the present articles 
 or not, would be easily, and I believe most cheerfully 
 maintained by Easter offerings, levied upon all the mem- 
 bers of the Church, and divided according to the qualifi- 
 cations and labours of the respective ministers. And as 
 these would all be equally ministers of the National Church, 
 they would have their share in the election of the clerical 
 members of the bishop's council, and would be effectually 
 secured against any lurking spirit of sectarian hostility 
 which might be supposed to survive the overthrow of the 
 present sectarian system. 
 
 But it may be said that a difficulty would arise as to the 
 manner in which these ministers should be appointed ; 
 their election by their congregations being as odious to 
 one class of persons as it is dear to another. It seems 
 
296 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 to me desirable that a national Church should comprehend 
 in itself many various ways of appointment; and that 
 whilst the patronage of the existing benefices should on 
 no account be disturbed, whether it be vested in the 
 crown, or in corporate bodies, or in private individuals ; 
 yet, that where there is no endowment, and the minister 
 is paid by a general contribution, the principle of election 
 may fitly be allowed. But the actual abuses of all patron- 
 age, whether individual or popular, might easily be ob- 
 viated by certain general regulations. It is a great evil, 
 that a worthless individual, whether nominated by a pri- 
 vate patron, or chosen by a misguided majority, should 
 immediately and without further question enter upon his 
 ministry. All patronage should be strictly recommenda- 
 tory, and no more: the patron or electors should send 
 the object of their choice to the bishop and his council, 
 or, if it were thought fit, to another distinct tribunal, ap- 
 pointed by them ; and here his qualifications should un- 
 dergo a most rigid scrutiny. If he were rejected, the 
 patron should recommend another candidate ; but never 
 should his recommendation, or the election of the inha- 
 bitants, be deemed equivalent to an actual appointment. 
 And even when confirmed by the Church authorities, it 
 should still be, in the first instance, only provisional, for 
 one year ; that during that time he might be tried in ac- 
 tual service, and if any just ground of objection existed 
 against him, which might well happen without supposing 
 any such misconduct as should warrant his removal from 
 an office conferred for life, the appointment might be 
 either wholly cancelled, according to the nature of the 
 case, or the term of probation extended to a longer 
 period. 
 
 In suggesting that the qualifications of every person 
 recommended to a benefice should be rigorously scruti- 
 nized, I am far from meaning that he should be subjected 
 to an examination. Examinations can only be fitly ap- 
 plied to young men, -and their proper place is previous to 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 297 
 
 ordination, not when a man, after having been ordained, 
 is to be appointed to some particular cure. Yet, in a 
 matter of such importance, every security is needed ; and 
 more is required than the present system of testimonials, 
 not only from their proved insufficiency, but because the 
 people should have a more direct check than they have at 
 present on the nomination of their ministers. It should 
 be the duty of the parish authorities, both lay and clerical, 
 to report fully to the bishop's council, all that they can 
 collect as to the character and general fitness of the per- 
 son recommended by the patron. For instance, a senior 
 fellow of a college, however irreproachable in his cha- 
 racter, may, from his inactive and retired habits, be an 
 unfit person to be appointed minister of a populous parish 
 in a large town. It would be the duty of the parish au- 
 thorities to represent this to the bishop's council ; and in 
 some cases the objection might be so strong, owing to 
 local circumstances, as to render it proper to reject the 
 person proposed altogether. But in every case it would 
 be desirable that the appointment should, in the first in- 
 stance, be only temporary, that it might be seen how the 
 individual could accommodate himself to a life so different 
 from his past one, whether his previous habits were or 
 were not alterable. And we may be sure that the working 
 of every system will be so much more indulgent than the 
 theory, that we never need fear an excess of strictness ; 
 do what we will, considerations of good-nature and kind- 
 ness to an individual, will always prevail in the long-run 
 over the sense of public duty. 
 
 The Church government then would be made more 
 efficient, and at the same time more popular than it i^ at 
 present; 1st. By reducing the size of the dioceses: 2nd. 
 By giving the bishop a council consisting of lay members 
 and of clerical, and partly elected by the officers of the re- 
 spective parishes ; which officers should themselves also be 
 lay and clerical, and for the most part elected directly by the 
 inhabitants: 3rd. By the institution' of diocesan general 
 
298 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 assemblies : 4th. By admitting into the Establishment, 
 persons of a class much too poor to support the expense 
 of an university education ; but who may be exceedingly 
 useful as ministers, and who do preach at present, but 
 under circumstances which make them necessarily hostile 
 to the National Church, and leave them utterly at liberty 
 to follow their own caprices : 5th. By allowing in many 
 cases the election of ministers, and by giving to the in- 
 habitants of the parish in every case, a greater check over 
 their appointment than they at present enjoy: and 6th. 
 By constituting Church officers in every parish, lay as well 
 as clerical, who should share with the principal minister in 
 its superintendence ; and thus effect generally that good, 
 which in London and elsewhere is now being attempted 
 by individual zeal in the establishment o.f district visiting 
 societies. Whilst by rendering the Articles far more com- 
 prehensive than at present, according to what was said in 
 ',the earlier part of this sketch, those who are now Dis- 
 senting ministers might at once become ministers of the 
 Establishment, and as such, would of course have their 
 share in its government. 
 
 It will be observed, that the whole of this scheme sup- 
 poses an episcopal government, and requires that all 
 ministers should receive episcopal ordination. The Esta- 
 blishment is entitled surely to this concession from the 
 Dissenters, especially when Episcopacy will have been di- 
 vested of all those points against which their objections 
 have been particularly levelled. Besides, there are many 
 members of the Establishment who believe Episcopacy 
 not expedient only, but absolutely essential to a Christian 
 Church : and their scruples are entitled to quite as much 
 respect as those of the Dissenters. And when expe- 
 rience has shown that Episcopalians will be satisfied if 
 the mere name of a bishop is preserved for nothing can 
 be more different in all essential points, than our Episco- 
 pacy and that of the primitive Church and as this name 
 is recommended not *only by its ancient and almost uni- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 299 
 
 versal use throughout Christendom, but by its familiarity 
 to ourselves, and its long existence in our own constitu 
 tion, there seems every reason why it should be retained, 
 and why those who may have objected to a prelate 
 lording it over Christ's Church with absolute authority, 
 may readily acknowledge the limited authority of a bishop, 
 the president of his council of elders, supreme in rank, 
 but controlled effectually in power. 
 
 This, perhaps, may be the fittest place to notice the 
 
 clamour in which the Dissenters have blindly joined the 
 
 unbelievers, against the bishops holding seats in the 
 
 House of Lords. Never was there a question on which 
 
 fanaticism and narrow-mindedness have so completely 
 
 played into the hands of wickedness. The very notion 
 
 of the House of Lords, is that of an assembly embracing 
 
 the highest portions of the most eminent professions or 
 
 classes of society. Accordingly, it contains, speaking 
 
 generally, the most considerable of the landed proprietors 
 
 of the kingdom, the most distinguished individuals in the 
 
 army and navy ; and in like manner a certain number of 
 
 the heads of the clerical profession, and of the law. It is 
 
 not that the Lord Chancellor and the Bishops are the 
 
 representatives of their respective professions, in the sense 
 
 of being placed in Parliament to look after their particular 
 
 interests ; nor is it at all for the sake of the clergy or the 
 
 lawyers that they sit in the House of Peers, but for the 
 
 sake of the nation ; that the highest national council may 
 
 have the benefit of their peculiar knowledge, and peculiar 
 
 views of life. Now it is manifest, that all of what are 
 
 called the liberal professions, exercise a certain influence 
 
 over the minds of those who follow them both for good 
 
 and for evil ; for evil, so far as they lead to exclusiveness 
 
 for good, inasmuch as they foster particular faculties 
 
 of the mind, and give an especial power of appreciating 
 
 and enforcing one class of important truths. As then, 
 
 in an assembly consisting of men of one profession only, 
 
 the evil influence becomes predominant, and pedantry and 
 
300 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 narrow-mindedness are sure to be its characteristics; so 
 when men of different professions are mixed, the evil of a 
 professional spirit is neutralized, while its advantages re- 
 main in full force ; and in proportion to the greater num- 
 ber of professions thus brought together in one assemblyj 
 will be the universality of its tone, and at the same time 
 the soundness of its particular resolutions. 
 
 Lord Henley, therefore, labours under a double error 
 when he supposes that the revival of any sort of ecclesias- 
 tical synod or convocation could be a substitute for the 
 sitting of the bishops in Parliament, and when he talks of 
 allowing the bishops to vote only on such questions as con- 
 cern the Church. A synod or convocation might look as 
 effectually after the interests of the clergy ; but how would 
 it compensate for the removal of one important element 
 from the constitution of our highest national assembly? 
 And again, when he speaks of questions which concern 
 the Church, he means questions about the duties and 
 payment of the clergy an important part certainly of 
 Church questions but by no means the most important, 
 still less the only ones. According to this narrow view of 
 the meaning of the word Church, the bishops may vote 
 upon a curate's salary bill, or a church-building act ; but 
 the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and 
 Jtruth, are questions which affect the Church no more than 
 the Royal Society. In other words, it concerns not the 
 Church whether its members are involved in the guilt and 
 misery of an unnecessary war, whether their laws are re- 
 gardless of human life, and multiply temptations to crime ; 
 whether in short, their institutions and form of society 
 are favourable to their moral advancement, or tend, on the 
 contrary, to debase and to harden them. 
 
 But, says Lord Henley, the Divine Founder of the 
 Church has declared that his kingdom was not of this 
 world, and he " refused to give sentence in a criminal 
 cause of adultery, and in a civil one of dividing an in- 
 heritance," p. 49. It might make Lord Henley and other 
 
PRINCIPLES OP CHURCH REFORM. 301 
 
 good men a little suspicious of the applicability of our 
 Lord's words to the present question, if they would re- 
 member how favourite a text they are with men who 
 scarcely know any single declaration of our Lord's be- 
 sides this, and who clearly and almost avowedly fear 
 nothing so much as that the world should really become 
 his kingdom. But first of all, if Christ's kingdom be not 
 of this world, in the only sense which applies to the pre- 
 sent question, if his Church may have nothing to do with 
 making and repealing laws, approving of peace and war, 
 imposing taxes, and other such matters, it follows dis- 
 tinctly, not that every clergyman, but that every Christian, 
 should instantly be excluded from the Throne, from Par- 
 liament, and from every public office whatever, whether 
 civil or military. We should require from members of 
 Parliament no declarations against transubstantiation, 
 but simply a protestation that they did not belong to the 
 kingdom of Christ, but were, and would remain so, faith- 
 ful subjects of the kingdom of the world, and bound to do 
 the god of this world true and undivided service. It is 
 perfectly inconceivable how a man like Lord Henley can 
 go on, page after page, using the word " Church " to sig- 
 nify the clergy, when he must know it is never used so in 
 the New Testament; and that every passage which he 
 quotes against mixing in secular affairs, applies exactly as 
 much to the Lord Chancellor and the Commander-in- 
 Chief, if they are Christians, as to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. 
 
 Lord Henley objects to " the example of such Jewish 
 precedents as Eli and Ezra," p. 49. By what strange 
 perversity does it happen, that the party to which Lord 
 Henley seems to belong, should refuse to acknowledge 
 the authority of Old Testament precedents, in the very 
 case where they are really applicable, and yet should be 
 for ever appealing to them where they are not applicable 
 at all ? Eli and Ezra are in this matter far more to the 
 purpose than Paul, or Peter, or John ; because, in their 
 
302 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 days, as in ours, the kingdom of God was a kingdom 
 of the world also ; whereas, in the days of the apostles it 
 was not so. It is absolutely ridiculous in a country where 
 Christianity is said to be the law of the land, where all 
 our institutions acknowledge it, and our kings are actually 
 anointed before the altar, to quote as applicable the 
 state of the Christians of the first century, whose religion 
 necessarily drew them away from all public duties, be- 
 cause heathenism and heathen principles were so mixed 
 up with all the institutions of Rome, that every public 
 office involved some compliance with them. 
 
 It is again a most groundless superstition, and one 
 which at once occasioned and has been increased by the 
 mischievous confusion of the Christian ministry with a 
 priesthood, that any thing can be lawful for a Christian 
 layman which is unlawful for a Christian minister. As 
 the ministers are in a manner picked out from the whole 
 Christian body, it may be within possibility to exact from 
 them a higher standard of practice than can be enforced 
 generally; but this is no more than saying, u what all 
 ought to le y we will take care that some at least shall be." 
 If any one looks at the qualifications required by St. Paul 
 in the ministers of the Church (1 Tim. iii. 1-10. Titus i. 
 69), he will find amongst them no esoteric purity of life 
 or fulness of knowledge ; but the virtues of a good man, 
 a good public officer, and a good Christian ; the virtues 
 which become, and are to be expected of, every one in- 
 vested with authority in the Church of God, whether his 
 peculiar ministry be on the seat of justice, or at the altar, 
 or in the general government of the whole society. 
 
 But because these virtues are now become rare, because 
 there mqy be found in the other ministries of the Church, 
 men who do not acknowledge their obligation, therefore it 
 is the more important that they who are called ministers, 
 in a peculiar sense, the ministers at the altar, should be 
 put forward in situations where they can most loudly and 
 most efficiently enforce them. And this is the great 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 303 
 
 reason why the clergy ought to sit in both houses of Par- 
 liament, and why the enemies of Christianity, who well 
 understand the interests of their Master, would gladly 
 exclude them from both. It is because they are not 
 priests, but Christians ; because they hold and know no 
 esoteric doctrine; because they are required to practise 
 no virtue beyond the rest of their brethren, but yet be- 
 cause their profession obliges them to know what Chris- 
 tianity is, and public opinion, to take the lowest ground, 
 hinders them from utterly casting it off in their practice, 
 that therefore they are wanted in the national assembly of 
 a professedly Christian nation. What we ought to calcu- 
 late on in every member of the legislature namely, that 
 he should speak and act on Christian principles we are 
 obliged now to look for from those who are bound to be 
 Christians by a double profession, by their ordination as 
 well as their baptism. In proportion to the proved insuf- 
 ficiency of one of these securities singly, is the need of 
 applying to the combined strength of both. 
 
 But what if the salt has lost its savour ; if in point of 
 fact the bishops have not thus diffused the influence of 
 Christianity through the House of Lords : whose has been 
 the fault, and what is its remedy? Was not the fault 
 theirs, who for so many years, I may almost say so many 
 generations, made the appointment of a bishop a mere 
 matter of patronage ; or, at the best, the reward of ability 
 and knowledge displayed on some mere abstract question 
 of theology ? Was not, and is not, the fault theirs, who, 
 some in fraud, and others in simplicity, adopting Lord 
 Henley's confusion about the word Church, would confine 
 the bishops to speaking on merely professional subjects, 
 and would accuse them of meddling with secular matters, 
 if they were to endeavour to christianize the laws or the 
 measures of the government ? Is not the fault, above all, 
 theirs, who, retaining the system of translation for the 
 sake of their own patronage, place the bishops in a situa- 
 tion of certain suspicion, and of unfair temptation ? And 
 
304 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 is it not the most, obvious remedy to do away at once and 
 entirely with the system of translations, and thus to make 
 the bishops the most independent of any men in the 
 House of Lords ? For a lay lord, if. he is an able and 
 active man, may hope to rise to power by displacing an 
 existing ministry, or by supporting them ; a bishop, if 
 translations were at an end, would have nothing to hope 
 for from courtliness or from faction : he could gain no- 
 thing by basely voting for the government, nothing by 
 ambitiously and unfairly molesting them. 
 
 This digression, if such it can be called, has somewhat 
 interrupted the main divisions of my argument ; but it is 
 naturally connected with the question of Church govern- 
 ment, and no part of the whole subject has been so mis- 
 takenly and so mischievously handled. I now return to 
 the third division of my inquiry : whether it be not pos- 
 sible to unite in one Church great varieties of ritual, in 
 other words, whether uniformity of worship has been 
 wisely made the object of our ecclesiastical legislation. 
 
 The friends of the Established Church justly extol the 
 substantial excellence and beauty of the liturgy. It can 
 indeed hardly be praised too highly as the solemn service 
 of the Church, embodying one of the best representations 
 of the feelings and language of a true Christian, in his 
 confessions, his thanksgivings, and his prayers. But as, 
 while we reverence the Bible above all other books, we 
 yet should never think of studying it to the exclusion of 
 all others, so, and much more, may we say of the liturgy, . 
 that, even allowing it to be the best conceivable religious 
 service in itself, still it ought not to be the only one. The 
 liturgy of the Church of England, with some few altera- 
 tions, which I need not here specify, should be used once 
 on every Sunday, and every great Christian holiday 
 throughout the year, in every parish church in England. 
 But I doubt whether there are not many even amongst its 
 most sincere admirers, who, in a second service on the 
 same day, would be glad of some variety, still more who 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFO.RM. 305 
 
 would wish to vary the service according to the time and 
 circumstances, when the church was opened on week 
 days. Indeed, I hardly know a more painful sight than 
 the uninterrupted loneliness in which our chucches are so 
 often left from one Sunday to another. The very com- 
 munion table and pulpit are dismantled of their coverings 
 and cushions; the windows are closed; the doors fast 
 locked, as if a Protestant church, except on a Sunday, 
 were like the Pelasgicum at Athens, " best when unfre- 
 quented."* Now this has arisen partly, no doubt, from 
 other causes ; but the necessity of reading the Liturgy, 
 and nothing but the Liturgy, both at morning and evening 
 prayer, is an invin-cible obstacle to the opening of the 
 churches generally with any effect, except on a Sunday. 
 It is doubtful whether our arrangement of our time, and 
 the universal pressure of business, would allow of the at- 
 tendance of a large congregation at church on week days, 
 under any circumstances ; but it is certain, that in order 
 to overcome these disadvantages, something more attrac- 
 tive is needed than the mere uniform reading: of the same 
 
 o 
 
 prayers, and going through the same forms day after day, 
 both in the morning and the evening. Nor should I 
 think it an evil, but a great good, that different services 
 should be performed at different times of the day and 
 week, within the walls of the same church. Not only do 
 the various tastes and degrees of knowledge amongst men 
 require varieties in the form of their religious services; 
 but the very same men are not always in the mood for 
 the same things : there are times when we should feel most 
 in unison with the deep solemnity of the Liturgy ; there 
 are times also, when we should better enjoy a freer and 
 more social service; and for the sake of the greater famili- 
 arity, should pardon some insipidity and some extrava- 
 gance. And he who condemns this feeling, does but lose 
 his labour, and can but ill appreciate one great attribute 
 of God's works, their endless variety. Our sight, our 
 a To UfXcuryiKvi/ dpyov ap.fi^ov. Thucyd. II. 17. 
 
 X 
 
306 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 hearing, and our taste, are furnished with subjects of gra- 
 tification, not of one kind only, but of millions ; the morn- 
 ing song of the lark is not the same with the evening song 
 of the nightingale : the scenery which we most enjoy in 
 the full brightness of a summer day, is not that which best 
 harmonizes with the solemnity of an autumn evening. 
 
 Now, considering that some persons would like nothing 
 but the Liturgy, that others, on the contrary, can endure 
 no prayers but such as are extemporaneous, that many 
 more have a preference for one practice or the other, but 
 not so as to wish to be confined to the exclusive use of it, 
 there seems to be no reason why the national Church 
 should not enjoy a sufficient variety in its ritual, to satisfy 
 the opinions and feelings of all. In a parish where there 
 was but one minister, he might read the Liturgy on Sun- 
 day mornings, while on Sunday evenings, and on week 
 days, he might vary the service according to his discretion 
 and the circumstances of the case. But where there were 
 several ministers, as there would be wherever there are 
 now ministers of different denominations, the church might 
 be kept open nearly the whole of the Sunday, and we may 
 hope, during some part at least of every week day ;- the 
 different services being fixed at different hours, and per- 
 formed by different ministers. And he judges untruly of 
 human nature, who does not see that the peculiarities 
 which men now cling to and even exaggerate, as the 
 badge and mark of their own sect, would then soon sink 
 into their proper insignificance when nothing was to be 
 gained by dwelling on them. Good men, feeling that they 
 might express their opinions freely, and that their silence 
 could not be misconstrued into fear or insincerity, would 
 gladly listen to their better nature, which would teach 
 them how much they had in common with one another, 
 and how infinitely their points of agreement surpassed in 
 importance their points of difference. And instead of an 
 unseemly scene of one minister preaching against another, 
 we should probably have an earnest union in great mat- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. . 307 
 
 ters, and a manly and delicate forbearance as to points of 
 controversy, such as would indeed become the disciples of 
 Him who is in equal perfection the God of truth and the 
 God of love. 
 
 It may appear to some a point of small importance, but 
 I believe that it would go a long way towards producing a 
 kindly and united feeling amongst all the inhabitants of 
 the parish, that the parish church should, if possible, be 
 the only place of public worship; and that the different 
 services required, should rather be performed at different 
 times in the same spot than at the same time in different 
 places. In this respect, the spirit of the Mosaic law may 
 be most usefully followed, which forbade the multiplica- 
 tion of temples and altars, but fixed on one spot to be- 
 come endeared and hallowed to the whole people as the 
 scene of their common worship. Besides the parish 
 church has a sacredness which no other place of worship 
 can boast of, in its antiquity, and in its standing amidst 
 the graves of so many generations of our fathers. It is 
 painful to think that any portion of the people should 
 have ever broken their connection with it ; it would be 
 equally delightful to see them again assembled within its 
 walls, without any base compromise of opinion on either 
 side, but because we had learned a better wisdom than to 
 deprive it of its just claim to the affections of all our 
 countrymen, or to exclude any portion of our countrymen 
 from the happiness of loving it as it deserves. Nor is it a 
 light thing in the judgments of those who understand the 
 ennobling efforts of a quick perception of what is beautiful 
 and venerable that some of the most perfect specimens of 
 architecture in existence should no longer be connected, 
 in any man's mind, with the bitterness of sectarian hos- 
 tility ; that none should be forced to associate, with their 
 most solemn and dearest recollections, such utter coarse- 
 ness and deformity as characterize the great proportion of 
 the Dissenting chapels throughout England. 
 
 The appointment of various services in the same church, 
 
 x 2 
 
308 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 would not only be desirable in itself, but would also 
 obviate the necessity of altering our own Liturgy, in order 
 to enable the Dissenters to join in it ; for even if we could 
 overcome their objections to any Liturgy whatever as such, 
 still the differences of mere taste between different classes 
 of people are so great, as to render it impossible to con- 
 trive any one service such as should be satisfactory to one 
 party without a needful sacrifice of what is a great source 
 of pleasure to the other. For instance, some of the Dis- 
 senters object to an organ, and to all but the simplest 
 kinds of church music : yet it would be very unreasonable 
 to pull down our organs, and to banish our anthems, and 
 all the magnificence of our cathedral service, without con- 
 sidering that numerous class who feel as much delighted 
 and edified by these things as others are offended at them. 
 On the other hand, it is quite as unreasonable, and much 
 more unchristian, to make a difference of taste a reason 
 for continuing divisions in the Church of God. There is 
 no reason why all should not be gratified without quarrel- 
 ing with each other ; why the organ should not sound at 
 the morning service, and be silent in the evening : why 
 the same roof which had rung at one part of the day with 
 the rich music of a regular choir, should not at another 
 resound with the simpler but not less impressive singing 
 of a mixed congregation. 
 
 Such, as it seems to me, is the reform really needed ; 
 to make the Church truly and effectually the " Church of 
 England." Many points, about which there is the loud- 
 est clamour, I have passed over without notice partly, 
 because for these there have been remedies proposed by 
 other writers, and partly, because I hold them to be ut- 
 terly subordinate grievances when compared to the mon- 
 strous evil of sectarianism. The evil of pluralities is like 
 that of sinecures and unmerited pensions in the state; 
 it should be removed, because it is unseemly and discre- 
 ditable ; but it is only folly or bad faith which would rank 
 it amongst the most serious practical mischiefs of our ec- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 309 
 
 clesiastical system. The inequality of ranks and emolu- 
 ments in the Church, like that existing also in the whole 
 frame of our society, is probably excessive ; but is a far 
 less evil than the platform of equality to which some 
 would reduce it. Even non-residence itself, by which I 
 mean the non-residence of any minister of the Establish- 
 ment, whether incumbent or curate, happens accidentally 
 to be only of inferior importance, because it generally 
 exists in country parishes, where the amount of population 
 is small. Destroy it altogether, and the efficiency of the 
 Church would be increased in a scarcely perceptible de- 
 gree ; for its great inefficiency as a national establishment 
 arises from other causes, from the enormous population 
 of the towns, where the minister of the parish is generally 
 resident, but utterly incapable of doing the work which 
 he is nominally set to perform, and from that other large 
 mass of population, to whom the ministers of the Esta- 
 blishment are nothing, whether resident or not, because 
 they have separated themselves from the national com- 
 munion. With regard to the cry about the bishops, trans- 
 lation is certainly indefensible, and its utter extinction 
 highly needful : some means also should be taken to 
 increase the revenue of the poorer bishoprics ; and for 
 this object something probably might well be spared from 
 the revenue of those that are richest. But the sitting of 
 the bishops in Parliament is a great national good ; and a 
 multiplication of their number, with a remodelling of their 
 power, so as to give the Church a real episcopal govern- 
 ment, is the reform of their order most needed and most 
 effectual. 
 
 Nor have I said a word on the great question of Tithes, 
 because I have reason to believe that that question is in 
 other and far abler hands. All acknowledge the odiousness of 
 the present manner of payment; but the problem hitherto 
 has been, how to provide for it an adequate substitute. 
 
 But, suppose Tithes to be commuted, the revenues of 
 the Clergy equalized, residence universally enforced, 
 
310 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 and pluralities done away with, the efficiency of the Esta- 
 blishment, as a great social engine of intellectual, moral, 
 and religious good, will still be incomplete, and for this 
 very reason its stability will be precarious. There will 
 still remain that vast mass of the dissenting and of the 
 godless population, who, not sharing in its benefits, will 
 labour to effect Us destruction. These two parties are 
 leagued together ; and unless their league can be dis- 
 solved, the long continuance of a national Church in this 
 country is a thing impossible. The cry which is destroy- 
 ing the Protestant Establishment in Ireland is already 
 beginning to be echoed here : the Dissenters repeat the 
 complaint of the Catholics, " Why should we be obliged 
 to contribute towards the maintenance of a Church which 
 is not ours ? " All the inherent evils of our detestable sec- 
 tarian system will presently be brought to light, and will 
 derange the very frame of society. Church rates have been 
 already resisted; that is to say, the noblest and most 
 useful of all our public buildings will be suffered to go to 
 ruin, or to be maintained by private munificence. Marriage, 
 the most important of all social ordinances, will be made 
 a private ceremony ; for such must be the character of a 
 rite performed without the intervention of any public 
 officer; whether that officer be a magistrate or a clergy- 
 man, may be a question of comparative indifference ; for 
 in either case society sanctions, and in a manner presides 
 at the celebration of its holiest contract; but a Dissenting 
 minister is a mere private individual, or rather an alien 
 from the national society, to whose acts society lends no 
 authority. The registration of births, marriages, and 
 deaths, a thing essentially of national concern, and to be 
 placed under the control of public officers, is already 
 claimed by the Dissenters as a right to be enjoyed by their 
 own communities separately. Our universities, the great 
 seats of public education, are in danger of becoming 
 odious, because they are practically closed against so large 
 u portion of the community ; while the evils of Dis- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 311 
 
 senting colleges, pledged by their very name to narrow- 
 mindedness, will continue to multiply. The end of all 
 this will be, what the godless party are earnestly labouring 
 to effect, the dissolution of the Establishment altogether ; 
 that is, in other words, the public renouncing of our 
 allegiance to God ; for, without an Establishment, although 
 it may happen that the majority of Englishmen may still 
 be Christians, yet England will not be a Christian nation ; 
 its government will be no Christian government; we 
 shall be wholly a kingdom of the world, and ruled accord- 
 ing to none but worldly principles. In such a state the 
 establishment of paganism would be an absolute blessing; 
 any thing would be better than a national society, formed 
 for no higher than physical ends ; to enable men to 
 eat, drink, and live luxuriously; acknowledging no power 
 greater than its own, and by consequence, no law higher 
 than its own municipal enactments. Let a few generations 
 pass over in such a state, and the missionary, who should 
 preach the worship of Ceres, or set up an oracle of Apollo, 
 or teach the people to kindle the eternal fire of Vesta on 
 the common altar hearth of their country, would be to that 
 degraded society as life from the dead. a 
 
 a I cannot resist the pleasure of copying here the beautiful lines 
 in which Mr. Wordsworth sympathizes so entirely with the feeling 
 expressed in the text : 
 
 " The world is too much with us : late and soon, 
 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 
 
 Little we see in nature that is ours ; 
 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
 
 This sea, that bears, her bosom to the moon ; 
 
 The winds, that will be howling at all hours, 
 
 And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
 
 For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; 
 
 It moves us not. Great God ! I 'd rather be 
 
 A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 
 
312 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 But we are told to look at America ; the United States 
 have no national religion ; but yet we are assured that 
 they are as religious a people as ourselves. When a man of 
 science hears a fact asserted in direct contradiction to the 
 known laws of nature, he cannot but suspect some mis- 
 representation or confusion in the statement. To assert 
 that the irregular efforts of individual zeal and courage 
 will oppose an invading enemy as effectually as a good 
 regular army, would be little better than insanity ; and 
 yet it may be true, that in the last war the Spanish gueril- 
 las did more service to their country than the Spanish 
 regular armies. We know, however,, that the guerillas did 
 not, and could not deliver Spain; k was- an efficient regular 
 army which achieved that work. So, if it could be shown 
 that under any circumstances Christianity was nourishing 
 as much without an Establishment as with one, it would 
 merely prove that the particular Establishment in question 
 was in a state of deplorable corruption, as it had so com- 
 pletely forfeited its inherent advantages. But in the 
 alleged instance of the United States, we forget, that 
 "America" is, in the first place, a very vague word,, and 
 that in those parts of the Union in which religion is in the 
 healthiest state, there is what is almost equivalent to an 
 Establishment ; that is, every man is obliged to contribute 
 to a fund for religious instruction, but he has his choice as 
 to the particular sect to which his quota is to be paid. 
 Again, the Episcopal Church in New York is an endowed 
 church ; it still possesses the lands assigned to it by the 
 British government, previously to the revolution. It may 
 well be then that in New York, and in some of the New 
 England states, the people may be more religious than in 
 the great towns of England ; but this concludes in favour 
 of an Establishment, not against one ; because there is an 
 Establishment, or what amounts to nearly the same thing, 
 in' these parts of the United States, whereas there is vir- 
 tually none in our great towns ; so utterly inadequate is 
 the supply of ministers to the demands of the ever-growing 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 313 
 
 population. But if it be asserted, that in the southern 
 and western states, society is in as healthy a state morally 
 and religiously as in those parts of England where the 
 Church is enabled to be efficient, then I should deny the 
 fact altogether. With all the advantages enjoyed by 
 America, as to the physical condition of her people, with 
 her prodigious extent of available land, and her as yet 
 comparatively scanty population, rendering the temptation 
 to offences against property far less than it can be in an 
 old and fully-peopled country ; still the world has as yet 
 produced no instance of society advancing under a less 
 promising aspect, intellectual, moral, and religious, than 
 in the new states and territories of the American Union. 
 But if we with our overflowing population and narrow 
 limits were wilfully to plunge ourselves into the moral and 
 religious state of southern and western America, the evils 
 of their condition would be multiplied a thousand-fold 
 here. Crowded together as we are, we cannot afford to be 
 disorderly ; it is well if, with all the aid of the most 
 powerful and the purest institutions, we can organize and 
 keep from taint the unwieldly masses of our population. 
 And as the best of all institutions, I am anxious to secure 
 a truly national Church, which, uniting within itself all 
 Christians who deserve the name, except perhaps the 
 mere handful of the Quakers and Roman Catholics, would 
 leave without its pale nothing but voluntary or involuntary 
 godlessness. We should hear no complaints then of the 
 burden of supporting a Church to which men do not 
 belong. Such language in a Dissenter's mouth is forcible ; 
 but who would heed it from a man who belonged to no 
 church, who paid no minister of his own, but hating God 
 altogether, was consistently averse to contributing towards 
 his service ? Truly we may wait a long time before we 
 shall find the thieves of a country willing to pay for the 
 building of gaols, or the maintenance of an efficient 
 police 
 
314 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 But, it may be said, admitting the soundness of the 
 principles put forward in these pages, that the National 
 Church should be rendered thoroughly comprehensive in 
 doctrine, in government, and in ritual, by what power are 
 they to be carried into effect ? To whose hands, in parti- 
 cular, should be committed the delicate task of remodelling 
 the Articles, a measure obviously essential to the proposed 
 comprehension, yet presenting the greatest practical diffi- 
 culty ? It seems to me, that this is a question more pro- 
 perly to be answered by the Government, than by an 
 individual ; only, I may be allowed to express an earnest 
 hope, that if ever an union with Dissenters be attempted, 
 and it should thus become necessary to alter our present 
 terms of communion, the determining on the alterations 
 to be made should never be committed to a convocation, 
 or to any commission consisting of clergymen alone. It is 
 the more needful to express this opinion strongly, because 
 Lord Henley, while himself looking forward to an exten- 
 sion of the pale of the Church, declares that this is " ex- 
 clusively a theological and ecclesiastical duty, and that no 
 layman can take, or should desire to take, any part in the 
 execution of it." So completely does his confused notion 
 of what is meant by the Church pervade and vitiate every 
 part of his work. Well has Mr. Hull a observed, with 
 reference to this notion, that " it breathes too little sense 
 of Protestant responsibility." " We cannot be justified," 
 he adds, " in neglecting the public service of our Creator, 
 our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier; and must, therefore, 
 at our own peril, look well to the method in which that 
 public service is conducted and maintained." Laymen 
 have no right to shift from their own shoulders an important 
 part of Christian responsibility; and as no educated lay- 
 man individually is justified in taking his own faith upon 
 trust from a clergyman, so neither are the laity, as a body, 
 warranted in taking the national faith in the same way. 
 
 a " Thoughts on Church Reform." London : Fellowes, 1832. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 315 
 
 If ever it should be thought right to appoint commissioners 
 to revise the Articles, it is of paramount importance, in 
 order to save the plan from utter failure, that a sufficient 
 number of laymen, distinguished for their piety and 
 enlarged views, should be added to the ecclesiastical mem- 
 bers of the commission. Professional learning, if not 
 sufficiently tempered with the straightforward views of a 
 plain and sensible piety, would be absolutely mischievous ; 
 as it would lead men to retain the language of former con- 
 troversies where it is most important, both for the sake of 
 truth and charity, that the statement should be general, 
 and should adopt no technical terms whatever in declaring 
 doctrines, beyond such as may be used in the Scriptures 
 themselves. 
 
 As for the proposed constitution of the government and 
 ritual a of the Church, this would be naturally and in the 
 first place the subject of legislative enactment; nor would 
 it be more difficult to draw up the necessary details in 
 this case than it was found to be in the case of the Reform 
 Bill. Care and attention would, of course, be requisite; 
 and information on many points must be sought from 
 persons locally or professionally qualified to furnish it ; 
 but there is nothing in the subject-matter itself which can 
 render the previous report of any other authority neces- 
 sary, before the question is submitted by the king's 
 Government to the consideration and decision of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 In venturing even to suggest so great a change in the 
 constitution of our Church, I may probably expose my- 
 self to a variety of imputations. Above all, whoever 
 pleads in favour of a wide extension of the terms of com- 
 
 a jjy ritual " I do not mean to include the alterations to be made 
 in the Liturgy, and which would be the proper business of the com- 
 mission appointed to revise the Articles ; but only the repealing those 
 laws which permit nothing but the Liturgy to be read in the Church, 
 and enjoin that it shall be read itself both at Morning and Evening 
 Prayer. 
 
316 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 munion, is immediately apt to be accused of latitudinari- 
 anism, or, as it is now called, of liberalism. Such a charge 
 in the mouths of men at once low-principled and ignorant, 
 is of no importance whatever; neither should I regard it 
 if it proceeded from the violent fanatical party, to whom 
 truth must ever remain unknown, as it is unsought after. 
 But in the Church of England even bigotry often wears a 
 softer and a nobler aspect ; and there are men at once 
 pious, high-minded, intelligent, and full of all kindly 
 feelings, whose intense love for the forms of the Church, 
 fostered as it has been by all the best associations of their 
 pure and holy lives, has absolutely engrossed their whole 
 nature; they have neither eyes to see of themselves any 
 defect in the Liturgy or Articles, nor ears to hear of such 
 when alleged by others. It can be no ordinary church 
 to have inspired such a devoted adoration in such men ; 
 nor are they ordinary men over whom the sense of high 
 moral beauty has obtained so complete a mastery. They 
 will not, I fear, be willing to believe how deeply painful 
 it is to my mind to know that I am regarded by them as 
 an adversary; still more to feel that I am associated in 
 their judgments with principles and with a party which I 
 abhor as deeply as they do. But while I know the de- 
 votedness of their admiration for the Church of England, 
 as it is now constituted, I cannot but wish that they would 
 regard those thousands and ten thousands of their coun- 
 trymen who are excluded from its benefit; that they 
 would consider the wrong done to our common country 
 by these unnatural divisions amongst her children. The 
 Church of Christ is, indeed, far beyond all human ties ; 
 but of all human ties, that to our country is the highest 
 and most sacred : and England, to a true Englishman, 
 ought to be dearer than the peculiar forms of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 For the sake, then, of our country, and to save her 
 from the greatest possible evils, from evils far worse 
 than any loss of territory, or decline of trade, from the 
 

 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 317 
 
 sure moral arid intellectual degradation which will accom- 
 pany the unchristianizing of the nation, that is, the de- 
 stroying of its national religious Establishment, is it too 
 much to ask of good men, that they should consent to 
 unite themselves with other good men, without requiring 
 them to subscribe to their own opinions, or to conform to 
 their own ceremonies ? They are not asked to surrender 
 or compromise the smallest portion of their own faith, but 
 simply to forbear imposing it upon their neighbours. 
 They are not called upon to give up their own forms of 
 worship, but to allow the addition of others ; not for them- 
 selves to join in it, if they do not like to do so, but simply 
 to be celebrated in the same church, and by ministers, 
 whom they shall acknowledge to be their brethren, and 
 members no less than themselves of the National Esta- 
 blishment. The alterations which should be made in their 
 own Liturgy should be such as, to use Bishop Burnet's 
 words, " are in themselves desirable, though there were 
 not a Dissenter in the nation ; " alterations not to change 
 its character, but to perfect it. 
 
 " But it is latitudinarian not to lay a greater stress on 
 the necessity of believing the truth, and to allow by public 
 authority, and sanction by our own co-operation, the 
 teaching of error." I will not yield to any man in the 
 strength of my conviction of truth and error ; nor in the 
 wish that the propagation of error could be prevented. 
 But how is it possible to effect this? How many of the 
 sermons and other writings of our best divines contain 
 more or less of error, of foolish arguments, of false pre- 
 mises, of countervailing truths unknown or neglected, so 
 that even the truth on the other side, being stated alone; 
 becomes virtually no better than falsehood ! How many 
 passages of Scripture are misinterpreted in every transla- 
 tion and in every commentary ! But are we to refuse to 
 co-operate with our neighbour because of these errors ; or 
 shall our own love of truth be impeached because of our 
 
318 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 union with him? Every one knows, that it is a question 
 of degree and detail ; but with a discipline watching over 
 a man's practice, and with a sincere acknowledgment of 
 the authority of the New Testament, although much and 
 serious error may yet be maintained and propagated, yet 
 it is better even to suffer this, than by insisting on too 
 great an agreement, necessarily to reduce our numbers, 
 and bring upon our country the fearful risk of losing the 
 establishment of Christianity altogether. 
 
 Men are alarmed by the examples of Germany and 
 Geneva. But what do they prove ? The latter proves 
 admirably the mischiefs of an over-strict creed ; and ultra- 
 Calvinism was likely to lead to ultra-Socinianism, with 
 the change of times in other respects. But at this mo- 
 ment the mischief in Geneva consists in the enforcement 
 of the exclusive principle, not in its abandonment : the 
 Church is now exclusively Arian or Socinian, as it was 
 once exclusively Calvinistic ; and Trinitarian ministers 
 are not allowed to teach to their congregations the great 
 and peculiar doctrines of Christianity. And With regard 
 to the Germans ; had the Protestant Churches there re- 
 tained ever so exclusive a body of articles, yet the strong 
 tendency of the national character would probably have 
 led to the same result : with no other difference than the 
 addition of the evil of hypocrisy to that of ultra- ration- 
 alism. For let any man observe the German literature in 
 other branches besides theology ; and he will see the 
 same spirit of restless inquiry everywhere pervading it. 
 Nor is it confined in theology to the German Protestants ; 
 the Catholics are not exempt from it; only there, from 
 the nature of their Church, it is displayed less sincerely, 
 and therefore, I think much more painfully. As an 
 instance of this covert rationalism, I should name a book 
 which has been translated into English, and has had 
 some circulation in this country, " Hug^s Introduction to 
 the Study of the New Testament." 
 
PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 319 
 
 For us, on the other hand, critical and metaphysical 
 questions have but small attractions; we have little to 
 fear from the evil of indulging in them to excess. Un- 
 belief, with us, is mostly the result of moral and political 
 causes; to check which, nothing would be so Efficient as 
 a well-organized and comprehensive National ^Church, 
 acting unitedly and popularly, and with adequate means, 
 upon the whole mass of our population. The widest con- 
 ceivable difference of opinion between the ministers of 
 such a Church would be a trifling evil compared with the 
 good of their systematic union of action. 
 
 Lastly, if it be said that the changes proposed are too 
 great, that the scheme is visionary and impracticable ; I 
 answer, that the changes proposed are great, because the 
 danger threatening us is enormous ; and that although the* 
 scheme very probably will be impracticable, because men 
 will persist in believing it to be so without trial, yet that 
 it remains to be shown that it is impracticable in itself. 
 But if the Reform of the Church be impracticable, its de- 
 struction unhappily is not so, and that its enemies know 
 full well. It may be that a patchwork reform will be 
 deemed safer, as assuredly it is easier; it may be, too, that 
 after such a reform has been effected, and has left the 
 great evils of the Church just where it found them, so 
 that its final destruction shall be no less sure, the blame 
 of its destruction will be laid by some on the principle of 
 reform, and we shall be told that had no pretended im- 
 provements been attempted in it, it would have stood for 
 ever. So it is, that no man is ever allowed to have died 
 from the violence of his disease^ but from the presump- 
 tion of his physician, whose remedies, tried at the eleventh 
 hour, he was too weak to bear. If I have seemed to 
 speak confidently, it is not that I forget the usual course 
 of human affairs; abuses and inefficient institutions obsti- 
 nately retained, and then, at last, blindly and furiously 
 destroyed. Yet, when interests of such surpassing value 
 
320 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 are at stake, it may be allowable to hope even against hope 
 to suppress no plan which we conscientiously believe 
 essential to our country's welfare, even though no other 
 result should follow than that we should be ridiculed as 
 theoretical, or condemned as presumptuous, 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 SINCE the first publication of this pamphlet I have heard 
 and read a great many objections against its principles 
 and details. But a very recent work on Church Reform, 
 by the Rev. C. Dickinson, Domestic Chaplain to the 
 Archbishop of Dublin, has particularly determined me to 
 add some explanation and defence of what I have written ; 
 for Mr. Dickinson's objections are levelled against that 
 part of my pamphlet which rests on principles most com- 
 monly misunderstood ; and the tone of his remarks is at 
 the same time so friendly, that it is impossible for any 
 acrimonious feelings to mingle with my re-statement of 
 my argument. 
 
 The substance of what I endeavoured to show was this, 
 that a Church Establishment is one of the greatest 
 national blessings; that its benefits have been lessened, 
 and are now in danger of being forfeited altogether, by its 
 being based on too narrow a foundation, and being not so 
 much the Church of England, as of a certain part only 
 of the people of England ; and that in order at once to 
 secure it from destruction, and to increase its efficiency as 
 an instrument of national good, it should be made more 
 comprehensive in its doctrines, its constitution, and its 
 ritual. 
 
 The first proposition, namely, that a Church Establish- 
 ment is a great national blessing, is disputed sufficiently 
 in many quarters, but not in those from which most of the 
 objections to my pamphlet have proceeded. Nor have I 
 
322 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 met with any attempt to disprove the most important part 
 of my second proposition that is, the actual jeopardy in 
 which the Establishment as at present constituted is 
 placed, from the strength of the several parties who are 
 working together to effect its overthrow. And yet this is 
 the main ground on which I urge the necessity of so ex- 
 tensive a reform : for although it might be an improve- 
 ment upon our present system under any circumstances, 
 yet if the Church, as it now is, were in no danger, I am 
 quite ready to allow that it would be unwise to risk, sup- 
 posing the proposed change to be a risk, the great benefits 
 which the country even now derives from it, merely in the 
 hope of making them greater. 
 
 But against my third proposition, that the Establish- 
 ment should be made more comprehensive, a surprising 
 outcry has been raised. Some, as I expected, have 
 ridiculed it as impracticable, while others have protested 
 against it as latitudinarian a and contrary to the truth of 
 Christ's Gospel ; and the whole argument connected with 
 it has been assailed on various grounds, and with various 
 degrees of understanding, of good feeling, and of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 " The proposed comprehension is impracticable." It 
 may possibly be so, and it is not only possible, but very 
 likely, that I may have spoken too sanguiriely of its im- 
 mediate practicability in its full extent. I have supposed 
 it impossible to include at present the Roman Catholics, 
 the Quakers, and the Unitarians : it may be, that other 
 
 a " A considerable cause of our divisions hath been the broaching 
 scandalous names, and employing them to blast the reputation of 
 worthy men ; bespattering and aspersing them with insinuations, 
 &c. ; engines, devised by spiteful, and applied by simple people ; 
 latitudinarians, rationalists, and I know not what other names, in- 
 tended for reproach, although importing better signification than 
 those dull detractors can, it seems discern." From an unpublished 
 and unfinished Treatise, "relating to the Dissenters" ly Dr. Isaac 
 Barrow. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 323 
 
 bodies of Dissenters whom we might be willing to admit, 
 would themselves object to the union, and would prefer 
 their present independence, especially if they can succeed 
 in obtaining relief from what they consider the burdens of 
 their actual condition. Undoubtedly if they do obtain 
 this relief, they will have so much less inducement to be- 
 come members of the Establishment ; yet if the Esta- 
 blishment make no efforts to unite them to itself, how can 
 this relief be refused them ? But if the Establishment 
 were to set its doors widely open, do we doubt that within 
 fifty years the great mass of the dissenting population 
 would gladly enter them ? Supposing that habit made 
 the majority of the existing generation of dissenting, 
 ministers prefer their own chapels and their own separate 
 society ; yet how many of the rising generations, who will 
 now be Dissenters, would eagerly enlist as ministers of 
 the Establishment, if an opening were made for their ser- 
 vices by our employing ministers of different stations in 
 society, and exacting from them a less rigid conformity ? 
 
 I would have no renewal of the Savoy or Hampton 
 Court Conferences; some of the leading Dissenters might 
 be privately consulted, but the alterations to be made in 
 the Liturgy and Articles should be marked out by a Com- 
 mission % appointed by the king in the first instance, and 
 
 a And above all, I must repeat what I have said before, that this 
 Commission should not consist solely, nor even principally, of Clergy- 
 men. The failure of the Commission in 1689 is a warning on this 
 point, as well as against the notion of submitting any plan of Church 
 Reform to the judgment of a Convocation. Previously to this un- 
 successful attempt, it had been moved in the House of Lords, "that 
 a number of persons, both of the clergy and laity, should be em- 
 powered to prepare such a reformation of things relating to the 
 Church as might be offered to King and Parliament, in order to the 
 healing our divisions," (I am quoting Burnet's words,) " and the cor- 
 recting what might be amiss or defective in our constitution." 
 Burnet, giving the clergy credit for a sincere desire to promote such 
 a design, wished to leave the matter wholly in their hands, and there- 
 fore warmly opposed the motion, which was accordingly rejected. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 then submitted to Parliament; and the alterations in the 
 administration of the Church should be decided by an act 
 of the legislature, drawn up under the direction of the 
 Government. That the improvements thus effected would 
 at once reconcile many of the Dissenters, and convert 
 many merely nominal Churchmen into hearty friends of 
 the Establishment, appears to me little less than certain. 
 That within fifty years they would nearly extinguish all 
 dissent throughout the kingdom, or reduce it so greatly as 
 to destroy its importance as a national evil, I hold to be 
 in the highest degree probable. 
 
 " The proposed comprehension is unchristian." Surely 
 not, as far as the mass of the Protestant Dissenters are 
 concerned, or how could three attempts have been made, 
 in the course of the seventeenth century, to effect it ? It 
 matters not whether the ruling party was sincere in its 
 professions ; the mere fact of the Hampton Court and 
 Savoy Conferences, to say nothing of the abortive Com- 
 mission of 1689, is an admission on the part of the 
 Church that a comprehension with those who are called 
 the orthodox Dissenters, cannot be in itself unlawful. I 
 would go farther, and include all who will agree in TO, 
 dvayxaioTtzTa, in those points, a denial of which abso- 
 lutely excludes a man from the Church of Christ. And 
 I hold with Bacon, that the bonds of Christian com- 
 munion are laid down to be, " One faith % one baptism," 
 
 " But I was convinced soon after," fce says, " that I had taken wrong 
 measures, and that the method proposed was the only one like to 
 prove effectual." History of His Own Times, Vol. III. p. ll.Svoedit. 
 London, 1818. Unless we profit, as Burnet did, by his experience, 
 we are likely to meet with a repetition of the same disappointment 
 now. 
 
 a " Vincula enim communionis Christianse ponuntur, Una fides, 
 unum baptisma, &c. non unus ritus, una opinio." " His itaque per- 
 pensis, magni videatur res et momenti et usus esse, et definiatur, 
 qualia sint ilia et quantae latitudinis, quae ab ecclesiae corpore 
 homines penitus divellant, et a communione fidelium eliminent. 
 Quod si quis putet, hoc jam pridem facturn esse, videat ille etiain 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 325 
 
 not " one ceremonial, one opinion." And further, I think 
 that what Bacon found wanting in his time is wanting 
 still ; namely, " a declaration of the nature and magnitude 
 of those points which utterly divide men from the Church, 
 and expel them from the communion of the faithful." 
 " And if any man think that this has been done long 
 since," either in the decrees of the four first councils, or 
 in any creeds or articles of any existing Church, " let him 
 observe again and again," as Bacon most justly adds, 
 " how much truth and how much moderation have been 
 shewn in the doing of it." For instance, a false criterion 
 of " fundamental errors " has been set up, in measuring 
 the importance of the error to us by the excellence of 
 the object to which it relates. This has caused men to 
 lay so much stress on all opinions that relate to God. 
 And, indeed, opinions of his moral attributes are of the 
 last importance, because such as we suppose him to be 
 morally, such we strive to become ourselves ; but opinions 
 as to his nature metaphysically may be wholly unim- 
 portant, because they are often of such a kind as to be 
 wholly inoperative upon our spiritual state : they neither 
 advance us in goodness, nor obstruct our progress in it. 
 
 On the other hand, that is to us a fundamental error 
 which directly interferes with our own edification. That 
 is to say, we cannot worship with a man who insists upon 
 our omitting some religious exercise which we feel to be 
 important to our own improvement. I laid the stress 
 therefore on the worship of Christ, not on the admission 
 of his proper divinity. If a man will not let me pray to 
 and praise my Saviour, he destroys the exercise of my 
 faith altogether; but I am no way injured by his praying 
 to him as a glorified man, while I pray to him as God. 
 
 atque etiarn, quam sincerd et moderate. Illud interim verisimile est, 
 eum qui pacis mentionem fecerit, reportaturum responsum illud Jehu 
 ad nuntium, ' Numquid pax est, Jehu ? Quid tibi et pad ? Transi et 
 sequere me? Cum non pax sed partes plerisque cordi sint." Bacon, 
 De Augmentis Scientiarum, IX. 1. 2. 
 
326 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from the known fallibility 
 of human judgments, is, not that we should be sceptical 
 ourselves, or compromise our own practice, but that we 
 should bear with our neighbour's thinking as he judges 
 right, so long as he will bear with our acting as we judge 
 right. Conformity to our Liturgy therefore is a much 
 better test to require than subscription to our Articles. 
 In other words, if the public prayers of a Church be 
 enough to satisfy a Christian's devotion, and to be an 
 effectual means of grace to him, and if the sacraments be 
 duly administered, we have every thing that is essential 
 to our own improvement; and what has been imagined 
 to afford a greater security to our faith, has, in fact, rather 
 tended to weaken and perplex it. 
 
 Of course I am aware that Articles are regarded as a 
 security against erroneous preaching. Now, certainly it 
 would belong to the common discipline of the Church 
 that a minister should not preach against the Liturgy, 
 he should not contradict the prayers in which he had just 
 ' before joined. And gross ignorance, and violence, or any 
 indecency of language or manner, might and ought to be 
 noticed by the Church authorities, whose superintendence, 
 if the Church were reformed, would be much more com- 
 plete and efficient, we might hope, than it is at present. 
 But as to differences of opinion, they exist actually, in 
 spite of the Articles, and all the inconveniences which 
 would arise on that score may be thoroughly appreciated 
 already. We have at this moment the extremes of Cal- 
 vinism and Arminianism united within the pale of the 
 Establishment: it is difficult to conceive how any greater 
 differences of opinion could exist, so long as the Liturgy 
 was a Christian Liturgy, and no man was allowed to 
 preach against it. 
 
 With respect to Church government, the principal 
 points which I urged were, first, the admission of the laity 
 to a larger share in it; secondly, that its constitution 
 should be rendered more popular; and, thirdly, that the 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 327 
 
 power of the bishops should be rendered more efficient 
 by the institution of such checks as might allow of its 
 exercise without danger. 
 
 I am not aware that on these points Mr. Dickinson's 
 views would differ, from mine. He speaks of " the bishop 
 of the diocese, aided by his proper council" as if he had 
 no idea that such a limitation of a bishop's power were 
 either unlawful or inexpedient. He is probably not igno- 
 rant that in the primitive Church a "the bishop did 
 nothing of importance without the advice of his presbyters 
 and deacons," and that " frequently he took the opinion of 
 the whole people." He remembers, that one of the cir- 
 cumstances in the administration of bishops in England, 
 with which Bacon never could be satisfied, was, " the sole 
 exercise of their authority;" that "the bishop giveth 
 orders alone, excommunicateth alone, judgeth alone;" 
 "a thing," he adds, "almost without example in good 
 government. " b Nor is Mr. Dickinson, so far as appears, 
 one of those extraordinary persons who gravely maintain 
 that primitive Episcopacy, and Episcopacy as it now 
 exists in England, are essentially the same. I was well 
 aware that many persons did maintain this, and I spoke 
 purposely in my pamphlet of the great difference between 
 the two institutions, in order to draw their attention to the V 
 
 grounds on which their belief rested. But as it seems 
 
 a " En chaque eglise l'Ev6que ne faisoit rien d'important, sans le 
 conseil des pretres, des diacres, et des principaux de son clerge. 
 Souvent meine il consultoit tout le peuple quand il avoit interest 
 a 1'affaire, comme aux ordinations." Fleury, Discours sur VHistoire 
 des Six Premiers Siecles de V Eglise, prefixed to the eighth volume of 
 his Ecclesiastical History. This and the other discourses of the same 
 writer, scattered through the volumes of his history can hardly be 
 recommended too strongly. I know of nothing that at all approaches 
 to them in excellence on the subjects to which they relate. Sir J. 
 Mackintosh has done justice to their merit, in a note in the first 
 volume of his History of England, p. 146. 
 
 b " Of the Pacification of the Church." Bacon's Works, Vol. IT. 
 p. 436. Folio edit. 1730. 
 
328 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 that they are not apt to think out the question for them- 
 selves, they are requested to consider the following 
 points. 
 
 An office may be said to be essentially the same so long 
 as it is calculated to fulfil equally well the object for which 
 it was originally instituted. Thus, if the object be to per- 
 petuate the dignity and authority of one particular family 
 or race, the office may be called the same, so long as it is 
 hereditary in this family or race, even though its powers 
 in the course of years may undergo considerable altera- 
 tion. Thus in an hereditary priesthood, as long as the 
 blood was preserved pure, the office would retain its most 
 essential character of identity, although at one period the 
 priests' power were independent of the civil magistrate, 
 and at another completely subservient to him. 
 
 Again, if the object were to secure the continued effi- 
 ciency of some highly valuable gift, which the possessor 
 for the time being could communicate to any one whom 
 he might fix upon, then the office would be substantially 
 the same so long as the possession of this gift remained 
 annexed to it, although in other matters its powers might 
 be increased or diminished. 
 
 But, if the object be simply to provide for the general 
 ends of good government, then the office loses its essen- 
 tial identity so soon as it is altered in those points which 
 affect its operation upon the commonwealth. For instance, 
 the powers of the office may remain the same, but its 
 operation for good or for evil may be wholly different ac- 
 cording to the different hands in whom the appointment 
 is vested. No man would call the House of Commons 
 essentially the same, if its members were to be nominated 
 by the crown instead of elected by the people. And, on 
 the other hand, the mode of appointment may remain un- 
 changed, but the character of the office may be essentially 
 changed, by extending its powers or abridging them. The 
 tribunes were still chosen by the tribes as formerly, but 
 the people felt that it was no longer the same office when 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 329 
 
 Sylla deprived it of the right of originating any measure, 
 and made it a disqualification for attaining to all the 
 higher honours in the commonwealth. 
 
 Now Episcopacy was clearly not instituted for the sake 
 of maintaining the ascendancy of any one family or race ; 
 and therefore it has never been hereditary. It is the 
 second case which has given rise to the prevailing con- 
 fusion on the subject. For the Apostles were possessed 
 of certain most valuable gifts, and could communicate 
 them to others ; and had these gifts been capable of 
 perpetual transmission, the office with which they were 
 transmitted would have remained essentially the same, 
 however much its ordinary powers might have been 
 changed from what they were originally. Now if any gift 
 be thus transmitted in the case of Episcopacy, what is it, 
 and where is the proof of its existence ? When men say 
 that the power of ordaining ministers is thus transmitted, 
 there is a confusion in the use of the word power. Bishops 
 confer a legal qualification for the ministry, not a real one, 
 whether natural or supernatural. They can give neither 
 piety, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor eloquence; nothing, 
 in short, but what the laws or constitutions of the Church 
 empower them to give, that is to say, a commission to 
 preach and to administer the sacraments in the Church of 
 God, according to the measure of the gifts which the 
 person ordained has received, or may receive hereafter, 
 not from them, or through their medium, but from God, 
 and the blessing of the Holy Spirit on his own prayers 
 and exertions. 
 
 Episcopacy then was instituted for the general ends of 
 good government; and like ordinary civil offices, its 
 identity depends on its continuing to exercise an equal 
 influence on the welfare of the body connected with it. 
 If then its mode of appointment be wholly changed, and 
 its relation to the Church greatly circumscribed ; still 
 more, if the whole society to which it belongs has assumed 
 a different aspect, it is hard to conceive how it can be said 
 to continue essentially the same. Now the primitive 
 
330 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 bishops were appointed by the members of their own 
 order, with the approbation of the people of the diocese : 
 bishops in England are appointed solely by the crown. 
 The primitive bishops could legislate for the Church, laity 
 as well as clergy : the bishops in England can legislate 
 for no one without the consent of the crown, and if they 
 are allowed to meet in synod, they can legislate only for 
 the clergy, over the laity their canons have no authority 
 whatever 51 . The primitive bishops fixed the doctrine of 
 their churches, and ordered their ceremonies : no single 
 bishop, nor all the bishops in England united, can order 
 a single prayer to be added to or taken from the Church 
 service^ nor can they so much as alter a single expression 
 in its language. No bishop can ordain any man unless he 
 will take certain oaths imposed by act of parliament, and 
 subscribe to the Articles of religion as required by act of 
 parliament. No bishop can refuse to institute any man 
 regularly ordained to any cure of souls in his diocese, to 
 which he may be appointed by the patrons ; nor can he, 
 except as patron, and not as bishop, confer the cure of 
 souls on any one. Finally, in the primitive times the 
 bishops were judges in civil matters amongst their people, 
 and thus possessed a temporal influence and authority as 
 well as a spiritual : whereas in England, they are ac- 
 counted solely the governors of the clergy, and the bulk 
 of the people are hardly aware of their possessing any 
 authority at all. 
 
 It will not be supposed that I am dwelling on these 
 differences for the purpose of depreciating our present 
 Episcopacy. Whatever be the faults of our system, it is 
 no reproach to it that it differs from that of the primitive 
 Church. With every thing changed around us, it would 
 be most extraordinary if the same forms of government 
 could continue to suit our altered condition : and to ima- 
 gine that any one form was intended by the Apostles to 
 be binding upon all Christians, in all times and in all 
 
 a See Blackstone's Commentaries, Vol. I. p. 83. Edit. Coleridge, 
 1825. 
 

 POSTSCRIPT. 331 
 
 countries, seems to me to betray equal ignorance of the 
 spirit of Christianity, and of the nature and ends of go- 
 vernment. 
 
 But the change which has taken place in the relations 
 of the Church with the civil power since the first beginning 
 of Christianity, has been a fruitful subject of dispute. 
 The pretensions of the popes, and of the Roman Catholic 
 clergy in general, the fanaticism of the Puritans, and, 
 in later times, some practical inconveniences in our actual 
 system in England, have all helped to embarrass the 
 question. I have charged others with using the word 
 " Church " in a vague or improper sense; and Mr. Dick- 
 inson brings the same charge against me. He complains 
 that I have identified the Church in this country with the 
 nation. I plead guilty to the charge, for I do believe 
 them to be properly identical. 
 
 The Church, using the word now as synonymous with 
 " Christian society/' was instituted for the promotion of 
 man's highest possible perfection and happiness. It did 
 not neglect even his physical wants and sufferings, but its 
 main object was to improve him morally and spiritually; 
 to bring him to such a state of goodness and wisdom 
 that his highest happiness would be no longer an un- 
 attainable dream. 
 
 Now this is precisely the object of civil society also : 
 that is, of the State. Our physical wants may have a led 
 to its actual origin, but its proper object is of a higher 
 nature ; it is the intellectual and moral improvement of 
 mankind, in order to their reaching their greatest perfec- 
 tion, and enjoying their highest happiness. This is the 
 object of civil society, or "the State" in the abstract; 
 and the object of any particular civil society or state is 
 still the same, but limited to certain local boundaries 
 which mark the particular subdivisions of the society of 
 mankind. 
 
 a IloXts yivouevr) \i*.v rou ^v CVCKCV, ovtra de TOV ev ^fiv. Aristotle, 
 Politics, 1, 2. 
 
332 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 Civil society aims at the highest happiness of man ac- 
 cording to the measure of its knowledge. Religious so- 
 ciety aims at it truly and really, because it has obtained a 
 complete knowledge of it. Impart then to civil society 
 the knowledge of religious society, and the objects of 
 both will be not only in intention but in fact the same. 
 In other words, religious society is only civil society fully 
 enlightened : the State in its highest perfection becomes 
 the Church. 
 
 When, then, the individuals of any nation have been 
 converted to Christianity, they see that they had in many 
 instances entertained false and imperfect notions of their 
 highest perfection and happiness. Their mistakes are 
 now corrected ; what they thought was the summit of the 
 mountain, they now find to be a point of inferior height : 
 but their object is still the same as it was before, to 
 reach the top of the mountain. Institutions may be 
 modified, laws amended, wars may become less frequent 
 and less bloody, the practice of the nation may be sub- 
 stantially changed, but still it is pursuing the same object 
 as before ; only with the advantage of discerning it more 
 clearly, and following it more steadily. 
 
 But the case has been perplexed, by its being supposed 
 that civil and religious society have necessarily two dis- 
 tinct governments; that the magistrate is at the head of 
 the one, and the priest of the other; and that these two 
 offices have a different tenure ; the one deriving its au- 
 thority from human law, from custom, from mutual agree- 
 ment, or from superior force, while the other was derived 
 from the express command of God, and handed down in 
 an unbroken succession from those whom God first in- 
 vested with it. 
 
 Of two powers with such pretensions neither could be 
 expected to yield to the other. And the alleged distinct- 
 ness of their titles hindered them from coalescing; the 
 State not choosing to take its rulers from those who 
 boasted to possess already a higher title to authority than 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 333 
 
 the State could give them, while the Church regarded it 
 as a profanation to place rulers made by man on a level 
 with those appointed by God. Offices so distinct natu- 
 rally kept up the belief that the societies to which they 
 respectively belonged were essentially distinct also. 
 
 But the error consisted in ascribing to Christianity an 
 office which it does not recognize on earth, that of the 
 priesthood. Grant that there is a priesthood, that is, an 
 order of men deriving their authority from God only, 
 through the medium of one another, and you introduce at 
 once into the relations of civil and religious society an 
 element of perpetual disunion. It will for ever be a 
 question whether the State is to rule the Church, or the 
 Church the State, or if they are supposed to meet as 
 allies with one another, yet one or the other party will be 
 for ever complaining that the terms of the alliance are 
 not strictly kept to. 
 
 The New Testament, amongst a thousand other proofs 
 of that divine wisdom in which Christianity originated, 
 offers this most remarkable one, that alone of all the re- 
 ligions of civilized man it disclaims any earthly priest- 
 hood. The Christian, society had its ministers of various 
 ranks and various offices ; but nothing was definitely and 
 universally commanded with regard to their number, juris- 
 diction, or mode of appointment. As far as related to its 
 external constitution, it was left from age to age in full 
 possession of the right of regulating its own govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, whilst the civil society was distinct from the re- 
 ligious one. it is manifest that the civil offices belonoins: 
 
 O / OS 
 
 to the latter must have held a very subordinate place, be- 
 cause those of the highest dignity and importance were 
 exclusively in the hands of the former. The highest 
 earthly ministers of God's moral government, that is to 
 say, those persons who were invested with the supreme 
 executive and legislative power, could not be ministers of 
 His spiritual government also, because they were not yet 
 
334 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 acquainted with it. Yet as their jurisdiction, and the 
 benefits of their functions, extended to the members of 
 the religious society, the exercise of similar functions by 
 these last was at once unnecessary and impossible. The 
 great work of civil society was already done for them by 
 others ; not perfectly indeed, because it proceeded from 
 men who had not the benefit of their wisdom, but yet so 
 as to preclude them from attempting to do it for them- 
 selves, 
 
 But no sooner had civil society become enlightened, 
 and learned aright what was the destiny of man, what his 
 greatest perfection, and what his highest happiness, than 
 it became at once a religious society, but armed with 
 powers, and grown to a fulness of stature, which rejigious 
 society till now had never known. The civil offices which 
 it now had to discharge were no longer subordinate and 
 municipal, but sovereign and national ; nor did they lose 
 their inherent supremacy, because they were administered 
 on higher principles. The King had been the head of 
 the State, he was equally the head of the perfected State, 
 that is, of the Church ; with him rested the duty of dis- 
 posing and superintending all the details of the society's 
 government, so as to make them most effective towards 
 the attainment of its great object, the highest perfection 
 and happiness of the community. And the " King/' in 
 this statement, is merely another name for the supreme 
 power in society ; so that what is true of the individual 
 sovereign in a pure monarchy, is equally true of the 
 bodies of men, be they more or less numerous, by whom 
 the sovereignty is exercised in an aristocracy or a de- 
 mocracy. 
 
 When this sovereign power then directs and controls 
 its inferior ministers, the clergy, and legislates for the 
 great objects of the society, by providing for the highest 
 instruction of its members, and taking care that it be at 
 once pure and effective ; it is not that the State is govern- 
 ing the Church, but that the Church, through the medium 
 

 POSTSCRIPT. 335 
 
 of its supreme government, is ruling itself. The confusion 
 has arisen from the notion, that the highest ministers of 
 the Church must always be bishops or presbyters, because 
 they were so in the days of its existence as a subordinate 
 and municipal society. Even had the Christian ministers 
 of religion been a priesthood, yet the example of the 
 Israelites might teach us that Moses is greater than 
 Aaron, that he who rules God's people to direct them 
 in the ways of judgment, mercy, and truth, is greater than 
 he who ministers at the altar. Much more are Christian 
 rulers greater than the Christian clergy, inasmuch as 
 the functions of the latter, not being definitely fixed by 
 any divine law, are far more subject to the control of the 
 supreme government of the Church than were the offices 
 of the Jewish priesthood. 
 
 What I have here stated are the true principles of the 
 Church of England, upon which she asserted, in opposi- 
 tion to the Roman Catholics and to the Presbyterians, 
 that the King is the supreme head of the Church on 
 earth. " It was certainly designed at one time," says 
 Mr. Dickinson, " that the Church and the nation should 
 be co-extensive." I should rather say that the founders 
 of the Protestant Church of England considered them as 
 identical : the Christian nation of England was the 
 Church of England ; the head of that nation was for 
 that very reason the head of the Church ; the public 
 officers of the nation, whether civil or ecclesiastical, were 
 officers therefore of the Church ; and every Englishman 
 was supposed to be properly a member of it, baptized 
 into it almost as soon as he was born, taught its lessons 
 in his early childhood,- required to partake of its most 
 solemn pledge of communion a , married under its sanc- 
 
 a " And note that every parishioner shall communicate at the least 
 three times in the year." Rubrick at the end of the Communion Ser- 
 vice. gee also the Prayer for the Church militant, and the second 
 Collect for Good Friday, as beautiful instances of the extensive sense 
 in which our reformers used the word " Church." In the former, the 
 
 ! 
 
336 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 tion and blessing, and laid in the grave within its pecu- 
 liar precincts, amidst its prayers and most affectionate 
 consolations. And is it indifference or latitudinarianism 
 to wish most devoutly that this noble, this divine theory, 
 may be fully and for ever realized ? a 
 
 Tt is owing to the existence of religious dissent that not 
 only is it not realized in practice, but its very truth and 
 excellence are disputed. And that dissent has arisen out 
 of faults and errors on both sides, on the part of the Dis- 
 
 King's Council, the Judges, &c., are prayed for as officers in the 
 Church, before even the Bishops and Curates. See also Romans xii. 
 6-8. 
 
 a It is objected to this doctrine, that it implies the exclusion of 
 those who are not members of the Church from the civil rights of 
 citizens. 1 think it does imply such an exclusion in the case of those 
 who are not members of the Church of Christ : nor should I consider 
 a Christian nation justified in forming a legislative union with a 
 nation of Jews, or Mahometans, or Heathens. Hf the citizens of the 
 same nation are in nearly equal proportion Christians and Heathens, 
 the State in that country is not yet sufficiently enlightened to be- 
 come a Church ; and it is here that our Lord's words apply, that 
 "his kingdom is not of this world:" Christians have no right, as 
 such, to press the establishment of their religion to the prejudice 
 of the civil rights of others. Yet if the two religions happened to be 
 for the most part locally divided, it would be a reason why such a 
 nation should separate itself into two, and the Christian and Heathen 
 portions of it form each a State distinct from the other. But when 
 the decided majority of a country become Christians, so that the 
 State may justly become a Church, then the Heathen part of the 
 population ought to be excluded from the legislature, and encou- 
 raged, if it be possible, to emigrate to other countries, if they com- 
 plain of not participating in the full rights of citizenship. At pre- 
 sent, in England, I should earnestly deprecate the admission of the 
 Jews to a share in the national legislature. It is a principle little 
 warranted by authority or by reason, that the sole qualification for 
 enjoying the rights of citizenship should consist in being locally an 
 inhabitant of any country. But all professing Christians, of what- 
 ever sect, as being members of the Church of Christ, must be sup- 
 posed to have much more in common with each other, as far as the 
 great ends of society are concerned, than they have points of differ- 
 ence. Their peculiar tenets, therefore, need form no ground for their 
 exclusion. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 337 
 
 senters no less than on that of the Church, is a fact which 
 no impartial man can doubt. It may be too late now to 
 remedy the mischief entirely ; but surely if it be remedied 
 even in part it will be no light benefit, and it is absurd 
 to suppose that it can be remedied at all without an alter- 
 ation, or rather an enlargement, of our present ecclesi- 
 astical constitution and ritual. Therefore I earnestly 
 desire such an enlargement, and I look to the supreme 
 government of the Church, the government of this still 
 Christian nation, as the only power by which it can or 
 ought to be effected. Let it be supposed chimerical to 
 expect any extensive comprehension of the Dissenters ; 
 even then the relaxing uniformity of the Liturgy, the 
 reduction of the size of the dioceses, and the increase of 
 their number, the appointment of additional orders of 
 ministers, which might include members of the poorer 
 classes, and, above all, the conferring on the lay members 
 of the Church a greater share in its ordinary administra- 
 tion, would be productive of "the greatest benefit, inas- 
 much as it would interest many in the welfare of the 
 Church, who now, without being Dissenters, feel that 
 they have little to do with it, and habitually look upon it 
 as the concern of the clergy, and not their own. Such a 
 reform, too, might make the Church effective, where its 
 exertions are most needed, and where they are at present 
 necessarily most inefficient; I mean, amongst the masses 
 of our manufacturing population. Indeed, when we con- 
 sider the utter inadequacy of the Establishment, as it now 
 stands, to meet the wants of the great manufacturing 
 towns and districts, it may be said that in those portions 
 of the kingdom our business is not so much to reform the 
 
 O 
 
 Church, as to create one. 
 
 Undoubtedly if that large part of our population, who 
 are at present neither Churchmen nor Dissenters, could 
 be really attached to the Established Church, the danger 
 arising from the existence of avowed dissent would be 
 greatly lessened. We might then hope to save the Esta- 
 
338 PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 blishment; which must always be a great blessing, 
 however much its usefulness and excellence may be im- 
 paired by exclusiveness. But as things now are, in any 
 attempts to attach the people to the Church, we find that 
 the Dissenters actually oppose us ; and this, it is to be 
 feared, will always be the case, unless a more comprehen- 
 sive system be adopted. If this fear be ill-founded ; if 
 the Church, without any alteration of its Articles, or 
 Liturgy, or government, can succeed in working its way 
 amidst the manufacturing population ; can improve them 
 physically and morally, and make them sensible of the 
 benefits which they receive from it; there is not a man 
 alive to whom this proof of its inherent vitality will be 
 more grateful than to me. Were it even more exclusive 
 than it is, its preservation would still be earnestly to be 
 desired, as one of the greatest national blessings. Most 
 heartily do I wish to see it reformed, at once for the 
 sake of its safety and of its greater perfection; but, 
 reformed or not may God, in His mercy, save us from the 
 calamity of seeing it destroyed. 
 
RUGBY SCHOOL USE OF THE 
 CLASSICS. 
 
 z 2 
 
[This and the following article were contributed by Dr. Arnold to 
 the Quarterly Journal of Education in 1834, 1835, and are here 
 inserted by the kind permission of the publisher. 
 
 The account of Rugby School, in the first part of this article, was 
 written in compliance with a plan for a description of the different 
 Public Schools by their several head-masters. In some respects the 
 arrangement of the School, which is here given, underwent con- 
 siderable modifications.] 
 
RUGBY SCHOOL. USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 THIS school was originally a simple grammar school, de- 
 signed for the benefit of the town of Rugby and its neigh- 
 bourhood. Any person who has resided for the space of 
 two years in the town of Rugby, or at any place in the 
 county of Warwick within ten miles of it, or even in the 
 adjacent counties of Leicester and Northampton to the 
 distance of five miles from it, may send his sons to be 
 educated at the school without paying any thing whatever 
 for their instruction. But if a parent lives out of the 
 town of Rugby, his son must then lodge at one of the 
 regular boarding-houses of the school ; in which case the 
 expenses of his board are the same as those incurred by 
 a boy not on the foundation. 
 
 Boys placed at the school in this manner are called 
 foundationers, and their number is not limited. In ad- 
 dition to these, there are 260 boys, not on the founo!^tion ; 
 and this number is not allowed to be exceeded. 
 
 The number of masters is ten, consisting of a head- 
 master and nine assistants. The boys are divided into 
 nine, or practically into ten classes, succeeding each other 
 in the following order, beginning from the lowest; first 
 form, second form, third form, lower remove ; fourth form, 
 upper remove, lower fifth, fifth, and sixth. It should be 
 observed, to account for the anomalies of this nomen- 
 clature, that the name of sixth form has been long as- 
 
342 RUGBY SCHOOL. 
 
 sociated with the idea of the highest class in all the great 
 public schools of England ; and, therefore, when more 
 than six forms are wanted they are designated by other 
 names, in order to secure the magic name of sixth to the 
 highest form in the school. In this the practice of our 
 schools is not without a very famous precedent ; for the 
 Roman augurs, we are told, would not allow Tarquinius 
 Priscus to exceed the ancient and sacred number of three 
 in the centuries of Equites : but there was no objection 
 made to his doubling the number of them in each cen- 
 tury, and making in each an upper and a lower division, 
 which were practically as distinct as two centuries. There 
 is no more wisdom in disturbing an old association for no 
 real benefit, than in sparing it when it stands in the way 
 of any substantial advantage. 
 
 Into these ten classes the boys are distributed in a 
 three-fold division, according to their proficiency in clas- 
 sical literature, in arithmetic and mathematics, and in 
 French. There is an exception made, however, in favour 
 of the sixth form, which consists in all the three divisions 
 of exactly the same individuals. All the rest of the boys 
 are classed in each of the divisions without any reference 
 to their rank in the other two : and thus it sometimes 
 happens that a boy is in the fifth form in the mathe- 
 matical division, while he is only in the third or fourth in 
 the classical ; or, on the other hand, that he is in a very 
 low form in the French division, while he is in a high one 
 in the classical and mathematical. During the two first 
 lessons on Wednesday, the school is arranged according 
 to its classes in French ; and on Saturday, according to 
 its classes in arithmetic and mathematics. 
 
 The masters also have different forms in the three dif- 
 ferent divisions. The masters of the higher classical 
 forms may teach the lower forms in mathematics or 
 French ; and the masters of the higher forms in either of 
 those two departments may have the care of the lower 
 forms in the classical arrangement. 
 
RUGBY SCHOOL 343 
 
 The general school hours throughout the week are as 
 follows : 
 
 Monday. First lesson, seven to eight. Second lesson, 
 quarter-past nine to eleven. Third and fourth lessons, 
 quarter-past two to five. 
 
 Tuesday. First and second lessons, as on Monday. 
 Eleven to one, composition. Half-holiday. 
 
 Wednesday. As on Monday. 
 
 Thursday. As on Tuesday. 
 
 Friday. As on Monday. 
 
 Saturday. As on Tuesday and Thursday, except that 
 there is no composition from eleven to one. 
 
 There are various other lessons at additional hours for 
 different classes, but it is needless to trouble our readers 
 with such minute details. 
 
 Each half year is divided into two equal periods, called 
 language time and history time. The books read in these 
 two periods vary in several instances, the poets and 
 orators being read principally during the language time, 
 and history and geography being chiefly studied during 
 the history time. This will be more clearly seen from the 
 following Table of the general work of the school for a 
 whole year. 
 
344 
 
 RUGBY SCHOOL. 
 
 
 H _ ^ !- 
 
 
 w 
 
 g I 
 
 Si 
 
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 IS O ~ PH 
 
 .9 
 
 
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 - 
 
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 11^ 
 
 fill 
 
 - 
 
 
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 a .2 
 
 1 3 
 
 
 ^ rl ^ 
 
 a w Q 
 
 
RUGBY SCHOOL. 
 
 345 
 
 3 T3 r b 02 
 
 .S -S 3 .2 
 
 -^> c3 H} a 
 
 O O '^ Qj 
 
 I 1 
 
 W 
 
 
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 c^t^ 
 
 o 
 
 " 
 
 43 
 
 
 P 
 1 
 
 'o 02 
 P 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 ft 
 
 cs a 
 
 jf 
 
 Ilj 
 
 
 112- 
 $* 
 
 1 
 
 g | 
 
 
 l 
 
 "5 ^ o 
 ^ - 
 
 00 
 
 M" '3 
 
 11 
 
 a" S 
 
 o bO 
 
 CO ^H y 
 
 ^> 
 
346 
 
 RUGBY SCHOOL. 
 
 s'sg.a.g 
 slU 
 
 .2 
 
 8*8 
 
 .* 
 
 -2 
 
 'o-J.g 
 
 
 i, 
 
 < 2 
 
 II 
 I s 
 
 
 5*11 Id 
 
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 Lang 
 
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 o , 
 
 
RUGBY SCHOOL. 347 
 
 Every year, immediately before the Christmas holidays, 
 there is a general examination of the whole school in 
 the work that has been done during the preceding half- 
 year. A class-paper is printed containing the names of 
 those boys who distinguish themselves; and in order to 
 gain a high place on this paper, it is usual for the boys to 
 read some book in one or more of their several branches 
 of study, in addition to what they have read with the mas- 
 ters in school. In this manner they have an opportunity 
 of reading any work to which their peculiar taste may lead 
 them, and of rendering it available to their distinction in 
 the school. 
 
 There are exercises in composition, in Greek and Latin 
 prose, Greek and Latin verse, and English prose, as in 
 other large classical schools. In the subjects given for 
 original composition in the higher forms, there is a con- 
 siderable variety. Historical descriptions of any remark- 
 able events, geographical descriptions of countries, ima- 
 ginary speeches and letters, supposed to be spoken or 
 written on some great question or under some memorable 
 circumstances ; etymological accounts of words in different 
 languages, and criticisms on different books, are found to 
 offer an advantageous variety to the essays on moral sub- 
 jects to which boys' prose composition has sometimes been 
 confined. 
 
 Three exhibitioners are elected every year by the trus- 
 tees of the school, on the report of two examiners ap- 
 pointed respectively by the vice-chancellors of Oxford 
 and Cambridge. These exhibitions are of the value of 
 60 a year, and may be held for seven years at any col- 
 lege at either university, provided the exhibitioner con- 
 tinues to reside at college so long ; for they are vacated 
 immediately by non-residence. 
 
 One scholar is also elected every year by the masters, 
 after an examination held by themselves. The scholar- 
 ship is of the value of 25 a year, and is confined to boys 
 under fourteen and a half at the time of their election. It 
 
348 RUGBY SCHOOL. 
 
 is tenable for six years, if the boy who holds it remains so 
 long at Rugby. But as the funds for these scholarships 
 arise only from the subscriptions of individuals, they are 
 not to be considered as forming necessarily a permanent 
 part of the school foundation. 
 
 In any statement of i\ie business of a school, such as 
 has been given above, there will be an unintentional ex- 
 aggeration, unless the reader makes due allowance for the 
 difference between the theory of any institution and its 
 practical working. But on the other hand, a reader un- 
 acquainted with the real nature of a classical education, 
 will be in danger of undervaluing it, when he sees that so 
 large a portion of time at so important a period of human 
 life is devoted to the study of a few ancient writers, whose 
 works seem to have no direct bearing on the studies and 
 duties of our own generation. For instance, although 
 some provision is undoubtedly made at Rugby for acquir- 
 ing a knowledge of modern history, yet the History of 
 Greece and Rome is more studied than that of France 
 and England ; and Homer and Virgil are certainly much 
 more attended to than Shakspeare and Milton. This ap- 
 pears to many persons a great absurdity ; while others 
 who are so far swayed by authority as to believe the sys- 
 tem to be right, are yet unable to understand how it can 
 be so. A journal of education may not be an unfit place 
 for a few remarks on this subject. 
 
 It may freely be confessed that the first origin of classi- 
 cal education affords in itself no reasons for its being con- 
 tinued now. When Latin and Greek were almost the only 
 written languages of civilized man, it is manifest that they 
 must have furnished the subjects of all liberal education. 
 The question therefore is wholly changed, since the growth 
 of a complete literature in other languages ; since France, 
 and Italy, and Germany, and England, have each pro- 
 duced their philosophers, their poets, and their historians, 
 worthy to be placed on the same level with those of Greece 
 and Rome. 
 
USE OF THE CLASSICS. 349 
 
 But although there is not the same reason now which 
 existed three or four centuries ago for the study of Greek 
 and Roman literature, yet there is another no less sub- 
 stantial. Expel Greek and Latin from your schools, and 
 you confine the views of the existing generation to them- 
 selves and their immediate predecessors : you will cut off 
 so many centuries of the world's experience, and place us 
 in the same state as if the human race had first come into 
 existence in the year 1500. For it is nothing to say that 
 a few learned individuals might still study classical lite- 
 rature ; the effect produced on the public mind would be 
 no greater than that which has resulted from the labours- 
 of our oriental scholars ; it would not spread beyond 
 themselves, and men in general after a few generations 
 would know as little of Greece and Rome, as they do. 
 actually of China and Hindostan. But such an igno- 
 rance would be incalculably more to be regretted. With 
 the Asiatic mind, we have no nearer connection or sym- 
 pathy than that which is derived from our common hu- 
 manity. But the mind of the Greek and of the Roman is 
 in all the essential points of its constitution our own ; and 
 not only so, but it is our own mind developed to an extra- 
 ordinary degree of perfection. Wide as is the difference 
 between us with respect to those physical instruments 
 which minister to our uses or our pleasures ; although the 
 Greeks and Romans had no steam-engines, no printing- 
 presses, no mariner's compass, no telescopes, no micro- 
 scopes, no gunpowder ; yet in our moral and political 
 views, in those matters which most determine human cha- 
 racter, there is a perfect resemblance in these respects. 
 Aristotle, and Plato, and Thucydides, and Cicero, and 
 Tacitus, are most untruly called ancient writers ; they are 
 virtually our own countrymen and contemporaries, but 
 have the advantage which is enjoyed by intelligent travel- 
 lers, that their observation has been exercised in a field 
 out of the reach of common men ; and that having thus 
 seen in a manner with our eyes what we cannot see for 
 
350 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 i 
 
 ourselves, their conclusions are such as bear upon our own 
 circumstances, while their information has all the charm of 
 novelty, and all the value of a mass of new and pertinent 
 facts, illustrative of the great science of the nature of civi- 
 lized man. 
 
 Now when it is said, that men in manhood so often 
 throw their Greek and Latin aside, and that this very fact 
 shows the uselessness of their early studies, it is much 
 more true to say that it shows how completely the litera- 
 ture of Greece and Rome would be forgotten, if our sys- 
 ten of education did not keep up the knowledge of it. 
 But it by no means shows that system to be useless, un- 
 less it followed that when a man laid aside his Greek and 
 Latin books, he forgot also all that he had ever gained 
 from them. This, however, is so far from being the case, 
 that even where the results of a classical education are 
 least tangible, and least appreciated even by the individual 
 himself, still the mind often retains much of the effect of 
 its early studies in the general liberality of its tastes 
 and comparative comprehensiveness of its views and 
 notions. 
 
 All this supposes, indeed, that classical instruction 
 should be sensibly conducted ; it requires that a classical 
 teacher should be fully acquainted with modern history 
 and modern literature, no less than with those of Greece 
 and Rome. What is, or perhaps what used to be, called 
 a mere scholar, cannot possibly communicate to his pupils 
 the main advantages of a classical education. The know- 
 ledge of the past is valuable, because without it our know- 
 ledge of the present and of the future must be scanty ; 
 but if the knowledge of the past be confined wholly to it- 
 self, if, instead of being made to bear upon things around 
 us, it be totally isolated from them, and so disguised by 
 vagueness and misapprehension as to appear incapable of 
 illustrating them, then indeed it becomes little better than 
 laborious trifling, and they who declaim against it may be 
 fully forgiven. 
 

 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 351 
 
 To select one instance of this perversion, what can be 
 more absurd than the practice of what is called constru- 
 ing Greek and Latin, continued as it often is even with 
 pupils of an advanced age ? The study of Greek and 
 Latin, considered as mere languages, is of importance 
 mainly as it enables us to understand and employ well 
 that language in which we commonly think, and speak, 
 and write. It does this because Greek and Latin are spe- 
 cimens of language at once highly perfect and incapable 
 of being understood without long and minute attention : 
 the study of them, therefore, naturally involves that of the 
 general principles of grammar ; while their peculiar excel- 
 lences illustrate the points which render language clear, 
 and forcible, and beautiful. But our application of this 
 general knowledge must naturally be to our own lan- 
 guage ; to show us what are its peculiarities, what its 
 beauties, what its defects ; to teach us by the patterns or 
 the analogies offered by other languages, how the effect 
 which we admire in them may be produced with a some- 
 what different instrument. Every lesson in Greek or 
 Latin may and ought to be made a lesson in English ; the 
 translation of every sentence in Demosthenes or Tacitus 
 is properly an exercise in extemporaneous English com- 
 position ; a problem, how to express with equal brevity, 
 clearness, and force, in our own language, the thought 
 which the original author has so admirably expressed in 
 his. But the system of construing, far from assisting, is 
 positively injurious to our knowledge and use of English ; 
 it accustoms us to a tame and involved arrangement of 
 our words, and to the substitution of foreign idioms in the 
 place of such as are national ; it obliges us to caricature 
 every sentence that we render, by turning what is, in 
 its original dress, beautiful and natural, into something 
 which is neither Greek nor English, stiff, obscure and flat, 
 exemplifying all the faults incident to language, and 
 excluding every excellence. 
 
 The exercise of translation, on the other hand, mean- 
 
352 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 ing, by translation, the expressing of an entire sentence 
 of a foreign language by an entire sentence of our own, 
 as opposed to the rendering separately into English either 
 every separate word, or at most only parts of the sentence, 
 whether larger or smaller, the exercise of translation is 
 capable of furnishing improvement to students of every age, 
 according to the measure of their abilities and knowledge. 
 The late Dr. Gabell, than whom in these matters there 
 can be no higher authority, when he was the under-master 
 of Winchester College, never allowed even the lowest 
 forms to construe ; they always were taught, according to 
 his expression, to read into English. From this habit 
 even the youngest boys derived several advantages; the 
 meaning of the sentence was more clearly seen when it 
 was read all at once in English, than when every clause or 
 word of English was interrupted by the intermixture of 
 patches of Latin ; and any absurdity in the translation 
 was more apparent. Again, there was the habit gained of 
 constructing English sentences upon any given subject 
 readily and correctly. Thirdly, with respect to Latin itself, 
 the practice was highly useful. By being accustomed to 
 translate idiomatically, a boy, when turning his own 
 thoughts into Latin, was enabled to render his own natural 
 English into the appropriate expressions in Latin. Having 
 been always accustomed, for instance, to translate " quum 
 venisset" by the particle " having come," he naturally, 
 when he wishes to translate " having come" into Latin, 
 remembers what expression in Latin is equivalent to it. 
 Whereas, if he has been taught to construe literally 
 " when he had come," he never has occasion to use the 
 English participle in his translations from Latin ; and 
 when, in his own Latin compositions, he wishes to express 
 it, he is at a loss how to do it, and not un frequently, from 
 the construing notion that a participle in one language 
 must be a participle in another, renders it by the Latin par- 
 ticiple passive ; a fault which all who have had any expe- 
 rience in boys' compositions must have frequently noticed. 
 
USE OF THE CLASSICS. 353 
 
 But as a boy advances in scholarship, he ascends from 
 the idiomatic translation of particular expressions to a 
 similar rendering of an entire sentence. He maybe taught 
 that the order of the words in the original is to be pre- 
 served as nearly as possible in the translation ; and the 
 problem is, how to effect this without violating the idiom 
 of his own language. There are simple sentences, such 
 as " Ardeam Rutuli habebant," in which nothing more is 
 required than to change the Latin accusative into the 
 English nominative, and the active verb into one passive 
 or neuter : " Ardea belonged to the Rutulians." And in 
 the same way the other objective cases, the genitive and 
 the dative, when they occur at the beginning of a sen- 
 tence, may be often translated by the nominative in 
 English, making a corresponding change in the voice of 
 the verb following. But in many instances also the nomi- 
 native expresses so completely the principal subject of 
 the sentence, that it is unnatural to put it into any other 
 case than the nominative in the translation. " Omnium 
 primum, avidum novee libertatis populum, ne postmodum 
 flecti precibus aut donis regiis posset, jurejurando adegit 
 [Brutus] neminem Roma passuros regnare." It will not 
 do here to translate "adegit" by a passive verb, and to 
 make Brutus the ablative case, because Brutus is the prin- 
 cipal subject of this and the sentences preceding and 
 following it ; the historian is engaged in relating his mea- 
 sures. To preserve, therefore, the order of the words, the 
 clause " avidum novae libertatis populum" must be trans- 
 lated as a subordinate sentence, by inserting a conjunction 
 and verb. " First of all, while the people were set so 
 keenly on their new liberty, to prevent the possibility of 
 their ever being moved from it hereafter by the entreaties 
 or bribes of the royal house, Brutus bound them by an 
 oath, that they would never suffer any man to be king at 
 Rome." Other passages are still more complicated, and 
 require greater taste and command of language to express 
 them properly ; and such will often offer no uninteresting 
 
 A A 
 
354 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 trial of skill, not to the pupil only, but even to bis in- 
 structor. 
 
 Another point may be mentioned, in which the transla- 
 tion of the Greek and Roman writers is most useful in 
 improving a boy's knowledge of his own language. In 
 the choice of his words, and in the style of his sentences, 
 he should be taught to follow the analogy required by the 
 age and character of the writer whom he is translating. 
 For instance, in translating Homer, hardly any words 
 should be employed except Saxon, and the oldest and 
 simplest of those which are of French origin; and the 
 language should consist of a series of simple propositions, 
 connected with one another only by the most inartificial 
 conjunctions. In translating the tragedians, the words 
 should be principally Saxon, but mixed with many of 
 French or foreign origin, like the language of Shakspeare, 
 and the other dramatists of the reigns of Elizabeth and 
 James I. The term "words of French origin" is used 
 
 o 
 
 purposely, to denote that large portion of our language 
 which, although of Latin derivation, came to us imme- 
 diately from the French of our Norman conquerors, and 
 thus became a part of the natural spoken language of that 
 mixed people, which grew out of the melting of the Saxon 
 and Norman races into one another. But these are care- 
 fully to be distinguished from another class of words, 
 equally of Latin derivation, but which have been intro- 
 duced by learned men at a much later period, directly 
 from Latin books, and have never, properly speaking, 
 formed any part of the genuine national language. These 
 truly foreign words, which Johnson used so largely, are 
 carefully to be shunned in the translation of poetry, as 
 being unnatural, and associated only with the most un- 
 poetical period of our literature, the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 So also, in translating the prose writers of Greece and 
 Rome, Herodotus should be rendered in the style and 
 language of the chroniclers, Thucydides in that of Bacon 
 
USE OF THE CLASSICS. 355 
 
 or Hooker, while Demosthenes, Cicero, Csesar, and Tacitus 
 require a style completely modern the perfection of the 
 English language such as we now speak and write it, 
 varied only to suit the individual differences of the differ- 
 ent writers, but in its range of words, and in its idioms, 
 substantially the same. 
 
 Thus much has been said on the subject of translation, 
 because the practice of construing has naturally tended 
 to bring the exercise into disrepute : and in the contests 
 for academical honours at both Universities, less and less 
 importance, we have heard, is constantly being attached 
 to the power of viva voce translation. We do not wonder 
 at any contempt that is shown towards construing, the 
 practice being a mere folly; but it is of some consequence 
 that the value of translating should be better understood, 
 and the exercise more carefully attended to. It is a mere 
 chimera to suppose, as many do, that what they call free 
 translation is a convenient cover for inaccurate scholar- 
 ship. It can only be so through the incompetence or 
 carelessness of the teacher. If the force of every part of 
 the sentence be not fully given, the translation is so far 
 faulty; but idiomatic translation, much more than literal, 
 is an evidence that the translator does see the force of 
 his original ; and it should be remembered that the very 
 object of so translating is to preserve the spirit of an 
 author, where it would be lost or weakened by translating 
 literally; but where a literal translation happens to be 
 faithful to the spirit, there, of course, it should be adopted; 
 and any omission or misrepresentation of any part of the 
 meaning of the original does not preserve its spirit, but, 
 as far as it goes, sacrifices it, and is not to be called " free 
 translation," but rather " imperfect," " blundering," or, in 
 a word, " bad translation." 
 
 In the statement of the business of Rugby School, which 
 has been given above, one part of it will be found to con- 
 sist of works of modern history. An undue importance is 
 attached by some persons to this circumstance, and those 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 who would care little to have their sons familiar with the 
 history of the Peloponnesian war, are delighted that they 
 should study the Campaigns of Frederic the Great or of 
 Napoleon. Information about modern events is more 
 useful, they think, than that which relates to antiquity; 
 and such information they wish to be given to their 
 children. 
 
 This favourite notion of filling boys with useful informa- 
 tion is likely, we think, to be productive of some mis- 
 chief. It is a caricature of the principles of inductive 
 philosophy, which, while it taught the importance of a 
 knowledge of facts, never imagined that this knowledge was 
 of itself equivalent to wisdom. Now it is not so much 
 our object to give boys " useful information," as to faci- 
 litate their gaining it hereafter for themselves, and to 
 enable them to turn it to account when gained. The first 
 is to be effected by supplying them on any subject with 
 a skeleton which they may fill up hereafter. For instance, 
 a real knowledge of history in after life is highly desirable; 
 let us see how education can best facilitate the gaining 
 of it. It should begin by impressing on a boy's mind the 
 names of the greatest men of different periods, and by 
 giving him a notion of their order in point of time, and 
 the part of the earth on which they lived. This is best 
 done by a set of pictures bound up together in a volume, 
 such, for instance, as those which illustrated Mrs. Trim- 
 mer's little histories, and to which the writer of this, article 
 is glad to acknowledge his own early obligations. Nor 
 could better service be rendered to the cause of historical 
 instruction than by publishing a volume of prints of uni- 
 versal history, accompanied with a very short description 
 of each. Correctness of costume in such prints, or good 
 taste in the drawing, however desirable if they can be 
 easily obtained, are of very subordinate importance : the 
 great matter is that the print should be striking, and full 
 enough to excite and to gratify curiosity. By these means 
 a lasting association is obtained with the greatest names 
 
USE OF THE CLASSICS. 357 
 
 in history, and the most remarkable actions of their lives; 
 while their chronological arrangement is learnt at the 
 same time from the order of the pictures ; a boy's memory 
 being very apt to recollect the place which a favourite 
 print holds in a volume, whether it comes towards the 
 beginning, middle, or end, what picture comes before it, 
 and what follows it. Such pictures should contain as 
 much as possible the poetry of history ; the most striking 
 characters, and most heroic actions, whether of doing or 
 of suffering.; but they should not embarrass themselves 
 with its philosophy, with the causes of revolutions, the 
 progress of society, or the merits of great political ques- 
 tions. Their use is of another kind, to make some great 
 name, and great action of every period, familiar to the 
 mind ; that so in taking up any more detailed history or 
 biography, (and education should never forget the import- 
 ance of preparing a boy to derive benefit from his ac- 
 cidental reading,) he may have some association with the 
 subject of it, and may not feel himself to be on ground 
 wholly unknown to him. He may thus be led to open 
 volumes into which he would otherwise have never thought 
 of looking : he need not read them through indeed it is 
 sad folly to require either man or boy to read through 
 every book they look at but he will see what is said about 
 such and such persons or actions ; and then he will learn 
 by the way something about other persons and other 
 actions; and will have his stock of associations increased, 
 so as to render more and more information acceptable; 
 to him. 
 
 After this foundation, the object still being rather to 
 create an appetite for knowledge than to satisfy it, it 
 would be desirable to furnish a boy with histories of one 
 or two particular countries, Greece, Rome, and England, 
 for instance, written at no great length, and these also 
 written poetically much more than philosophically, with 
 much liveliness of style, and force of painting, so as to 
 excite an interest about the persons and things spoken of. 
 
358 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 The absence of all instruction in politics or political 
 economy, nay even an absolute erroneousness of judgment 
 on such matters, provided always that it involves no 
 wrong principle in morality, are comparatively of slight 
 importance. Let the boy gain, if possible, a strong ap- 
 petite for knowledge to begin with ; it is a later part of 
 education which should enable him to pursue it sensibly, 
 and to make it, when obtained, wisdom. 
 
 But should his education, as is often the case, be cut 
 short by circumstances, so that he never receives its finish- 
 ing lessons, will he not feel the want of more direct 
 information and instruction in its earlier stages ? The 
 answer is, that every thing has its proper season, and if 
 summer be cut out of the year, it is vain to suppose that 
 the work of summer can be forestalled in spring. Un- 
 doubtedly, much is lost by this abridgment of the term of 
 education, and it is well to insist strongly upon the evil, 
 as it might, in many instances, be easily avoided. But 
 if it is unavoidable, the evil consequences arising from it 
 cannot be prevented. Fulness of knowledge and sagacity 
 of judgment are fruits not to be looked for in early youth; 
 and he who endeavours to force them, does but interfere 
 with the natural growth of the plant, and prematurely 
 exhaust its vigour. 
 
 In the common course of things, however, where a 
 young person's education is not interrupted, the later pro- 
 cess is one of exceeding importance and interest. Sup- 
 posing a boy to possess that outline of general history 
 which his prints and his abridgments will have given him, 
 with his associations, so far as they go, strong and lively, 
 and his desire of increased knowledge keen, the next 
 thing to be done is to- set him to read some first-rate his- 
 torian, whose mind was formed in, and bears the stamp of, 
 some period of advanced civilization, analogous to that in 
 which we now live. In other words, he should read Thu- 
 cydides or Tacitus, or any writer equal to them, if such 
 can be found, belonging to the third period of full civil- 
 
USE OF T?HE CLASSICS. 359 
 
 ization, that of modern Europe since the middle ages. 
 The particular subject of the history is of little moment, 
 so long as it be taken neither from the barbarian, nor from 
 the romantic, but from the philosophical or civilized stage 
 of human society ; and so long as the writer be a man o 
 commanding mind, who has fully imbibed the influences 
 of his age, yet without bearing its exclusive impress. And 
 the study of such a work under an intelligent teacher be- 
 comes indeed the key of knowledge and of wisdom : first 
 it affords an example of good historical evidence, and 
 hence the pupil may be taught to notice from time to time 
 the various criteria of a credible narrative, and by the rule 
 of contraries to observe what are the indications of a tes- 
 timony questionable, suspicious, or worthless. Undue 
 scepticism may be repressed by showing how generally 
 truth has been attained when it has been honestly and 
 judiciously sought; while credulity may be checked by 
 pointing out, on the other hand, how manifold are the 
 errors into which those are betrayed whose intellect or 
 whose principles have been found wanting. Now too the 
 time is come when the pupil may be introduced to that 
 high philosophy which unfolds " the causes of things." 
 The history with which he is engaged presents a view of 
 society in its most advanced state, when the human mind 
 is highly developed, and the various crises which affect 
 the growth of the political fabric are all overpast. Let 
 him be taught to analyze the subject thus presented to 
 him ; to trace back institutions, civil and religious, to their 
 origin ; to explore the elements of the national character, 
 as now exhibited in maturity, in the vicissitudes of the 
 nation's fortune, and the moral and physical qualities of 
 its race ; to observe how the morals and the mind of the 
 people have been subject to a succession of influences, 
 some accidental, others regular ; to see and remember 
 what critical seasons of improvement have been neglected, 
 what besetting evils have been wantonly aggravated by 
 wickedness or folly. In short, the pupil may be furnished 
 
360 USE OF THE CLASSICS. 
 
 as it were with certain formulae, which shall enable him to 
 read all history beneficially ; which shall teach him what 
 to look for in it, how to judge of it, and how to apply it. 
 
 Education will thus fulfil its great business, as far as 
 regards the intellect, to inspire it with a desire of know- 
 ledge, and to furnish it with power to obtain and to profit 
 by what it seeks for. And a man thus educated, even 
 though he knows no history in detail but that which is 
 called ancient, will be far better fitted to enter on public 
 life than he who could tell the circumstances and the date 
 of every battle and every debate throughout the last 
 century ; whose information, in the common sense of the 
 term, about modern history, might be twenty times more 
 minute. The fault of systems of classical education in 
 some instances has been, not that they did not teach 
 modern history, but that they did not prepare and dispose 
 their pupils to acquaint themselves with it afterwards ; not 
 that they did not attempt to raise an impossible super- 
 structure, but that they did not prepare the ground for 
 the foundation, and put the materials within reach of the 
 builder. 
 
 That impatience, which is one of the diseases of the 
 age, is in great danger of possessing the public mind on 
 the subject of education ; an unhealthy restlessness may 
 succeed to lethargy. Men are not contented with sowing 
 the seed unless they can also reap the fruit; forgetting 
 how often it is the law of our condition, that " one soweth 
 and another reapeth." It is no wisdom to make boys 
 prodigies of information; but it is our wisdom and our 
 duty to cultivate their faculties each in its season, first the 
 memory and imagination, and then the judgment; to 
 furnish them with the means, and to excite the desire, of 
 improving themselves, and to wait with confidence for 
 God's blessing on the result. 
 
DISCIPLINE 
 
 OP 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
[This Letter, written in 1835, was occasioned by an article against 
 " Flogging and Fagging as practised at Winchester School," which 
 appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Education.] 
 
ON THE 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. 
 
 SIR, As the sentiments contained in this Article will 
 differ materially from those which have appeared from 
 time to time in your Journal, it appears to me most proper 
 to address them to you as coming from a correspondent ; 
 and therefore, as in no way pledging you to agree with 
 them, you will not perhaps object to receive iny views on 
 a very important subject connected with education, 
 although they may not agree with your own. 
 
 Liberal principles and popular principles are by no 
 means necessarily the same : and it is of importance to be 
 aware of the difference between them. Popular principles 
 are opposed simply to restraint liberal principles to 
 unjust restraint. Popular principles sympathize with all 
 who are subject to authority, and regard with suspicion all 
 punishments liberal principles sympathize, on the other 
 hand, with authority, whenever the evil tendencies of 
 human nature are more likely to be shown in disregarding 
 it than in abusing it. Popular principles seem to have 
 but one object the deliverance of the many from the 
 control of the few. Liberal principles, while gene- 
 rally favourable to this same object, yet pursue it as a 
 means, not as an end; and therefore they support the 
 subjection of the many to the few under certain circum- 
 stances, when the great end, which they steadily keep in 
 view, is more likely to be promoted by subjection than by 
 
364 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 independence. For the great end of liberal principles is 
 indeed " the greatest happiness of the greatest number," 
 if we understand that the happiness of man consists more 
 in his intellectual well-doing than in his physical ; and 
 yet more in his moral and religious excellence than in 
 his intellectual. 
 
 It must be allowed, however, that the fault of popular 
 principles, as distinguished from liberal, has been greatly 
 provoked by the long-continued prevalence of principles 
 of authority which are no less illiberal. Power has been 
 so constantly perverted that it has come to be generally 
 suspected. Liberty has been so constantly unjustly re- 
 strained, that it has been thought impossible that it should 
 ever be indulged too freely. Popular feeling is not quick 
 in observing the change of times and circumstances : it is 
 with difficulty brought to act against a long-standing evil; 
 but, being once set in motion, it is apt to overshoot its 
 mark, and to continue to cry out against an evil long 
 after it has disappeared, and the opposite evil is become 
 most to be dreaded. Something of this excessive recoil 
 of feeling may be observed, I think, in the continued cry 
 against the severity of the penal code, as distinguished 
 from its other defects ; and the same disposition is shown 
 in the popular clamour against military flogging, and in 
 the complaints which are often made against the existing 
 system of discipline in our schools. 
 
 The points which are attacked in this system are two 
 flogging and fagging ; and we will first consider the ques- 
 tion of flogging. We have nothing to do with arguments 
 against the excessive or indiscriminate use of such a 
 punishment : it is but idle to attack what no one defends, 
 and what has at present hardly any real existence. The 
 notion of a schoolmaster being a cruel tyrant, ruling only 
 by the terror of the rod, is about as real as the no less 
 terrific image of Bluebeard. The fault of the old system 
 of flogging at Winchester, alluded to in your last Number, 
 was not its cruelty, but its inefficiency ; the punishment 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 365 
 
 was so frequent and so slight as to inspire very little either 
 of terror or of shame. In other schools, eighty or a hun- 
 dred years ago, there may have been a system of cruel 
 severity, but scarcely, I should imagine, within the memory 
 of any one now alive. But the argument against all 
 corporal punishment applies undoubtedly to an existing 
 state of things ; and this argument, therefore, I shall pro- 
 ceed to consider. 
 
 " Corporal punishment," it is said, " is degrading." I 
 well know of what feeling this is the expression; it ori- 
 ginates in that proud notion of personal independence 
 which is neither reasonable nor Christian, but essentially 
 barbarian. It visited Europe in former times with all the 
 curses of the age of chivalry, and is threatening us now with 
 those of Jacobinism. For so it is, that the evils of ultra- 
 aristocracy and ultra-popular principles spring precisely 
 from the same source namely, from selfish pride from 
 an idolatry of personal honour and dignity in the aristo- 
 cratical form of the disease of personal independence in 
 its modern and popular form. It is simply impatience of 
 inferiority and submission a feeling which must be more 
 frequently wrong or right, in proportion to the relative 
 situation and worthiness of him who entertains it, but 
 which cannot be always or generally right except in beings 
 infinitely more perfect than man. Impatience of infe- 
 riority felt by a child towards his parents, or by a pupil 
 towards his instructors, is merely wrong, because it is at 
 variance with the truth : there exists a real inferiority in 
 the relation, and it is an error, a fault, a corruption of 
 nature, not to acknowledge it.j 
 
 Punishment, then, inflicted by a parent or a master for 
 the purposes of correction, is in no true sense of the word 
 degrading; nor is it the more degrading for being corpo- 
 ral. To say that corporal punishment is an appeal to 
 personal fear is a mere abuse of terms. In this sense all 
 bodily pain or inconvenience is an appeal to personal 
 fear ; and a man should be ashamed to take any pains to 
 
366 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBL[C SCHOOLS. 
 
 avoid the tooth-ache or the gout. Pain is an evil ; and 
 the fear of pain, like all other natural feelings, is of a 
 mixed character, sometimes useful and becoming, some- 
 times wrong and mischievous. I believe that we should 
 not do well to extirpate any of these feelings, but to regu- 
 late and check them by cherishing and strengthening such 
 as are purely good. To destroy the fear of pain altogether, 
 even if practicable, would be but a doubtful good, until 
 the better elements of our nature were so perfected as 
 wholly to supersede its use. Perfect love of good is the 
 only thing which can profitably cast out all fear. In the 
 meanwhile, what is the course of true wisdom ? Not to 
 make a. boy insensible to bodily pa*5n, but to make him 
 dread moral evil more; so that fear will do its proper and 
 appointed work, without so going beyond it as to become 
 cowardice. It is cowardice to fear pain or danger more 
 than neglect of duty, or than the commission of evil ; but 
 it is useful to fear them, when they are but the accom- 
 paniments or the consequences of folly and of faults. 
 
 It is very true that the fear of punishment generally 
 (for surely it makes ho difference whether it be the fear of 
 the personal pain of flogging, or of the personal incon- 
 venience of what have been proposed as its substitutes, 
 confinement, and a reduced allowance of food,) is not the 
 highest motive of action ; and therefore, the course actually 
 i followed in education is most agreeable to nature and 
 reason, that the fear of punishment should be appealed to 
 less and less as the moral principle^becomes stronger with 
 .advancing age, IFany one really supposes that young 
 men in the higher forms of public schools are governed by 
 fear, and not by moral motives ; that the appeal is not 
 habitually made to the highest and noblest principles and 
 feelings of their nature, he is too little aware of the actual 
 state of those institutions to be properly qualified to speak 
 or write about them. 
 
 With regard to the highest forms, indeed, it is well 
 known that corporal punishment is as totally out of the 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 367 
 
 question in the practice of our schools as it is at the 
 universities ; and I believe that there could nowhere be 
 found a set of young men amongst whom punishment of 
 any kind was less frequent, or by whom it was less re- 
 quired. The real point to be considered is merely, w r hether 
 corporal punishment is in all cases unfit to be inflicted on 
 boys under fifteen, or on those who, being older in years, 
 are not proportionably advanced in understanding or in 
 character, who must be ranked in the lower part of the 
 school, and who are little alive to the feeling of self- 
 respect, and little capable of being influenced by moral 
 motives. Now, with regard to young boys, it appears to 
 me positively mischievous to accustom them to consider 
 themselves insulted or degraded by personal correction. 
 The fruits of such a system were well shown in an incident 
 which occurred in Paris during the three days of the revo- 
 lution of 1830. A boy of twelve years old, who had been 
 forward in insulting the soldiers, was noticed by one of 
 the officers; and though the action was then raging, the 
 officer, considering the age of the boy, merely struck him 
 with the flat part of his sword, as the fit chastisement for 
 boyish impertinence. But the boy had been taught to 
 consider his person sacred, and that a blow was a deadly 
 insult ; he therefore followed the officer, and having 
 watched his opportunity, took deliberate aim at him with 
 a pistol, and murdered him. This was the true spirit of 
 the savage, exactly like that of Callum Beg in Waverley, 
 who, when a " decent gentleman" was going to chastise 
 him with his cane for throwing a quoit at his shins, in- 
 stantly drew a pistol to vindicate the dignity of his 
 shoulders. We laugh at such a trait in the work of the 
 
 C5 
 
 great novelist, because, according to our notions, the 
 absurdity of Callum Beg's resentment is even more strik- 
 ing than its atrocity. But I doubt whether to the French 
 readers of Waverley it has appeared either laughable or 
 disgusting ; at least the similar action of the real Callum 
 in the streets of Paris was noticed at the time as some- 
 
368 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 thing entitled to our admiration. And yet what can be 
 more mischievous than thus to anticipate in boyhood 
 those feelings which even in manhood are of a most ques- 
 tionable nature, but which, at an earlier period, are wholly 
 and clearly evil ? At an age when it is almost impossible 
 to find a true, manly sense of the degradation of guilt or 
 faults, where is the wisdom of encouraging a fantastic 
 sense of the degradation of personal correction ? What 
 can be more false, or more adverse to the simplicity, 
 sobriety, and humbleness of mind which are the best 
 ornament of youth, and offer the best promise of a noble 
 manhood ? There is an essential inferiority in a boy as 
 compared with a man, which makes an assumption of 
 equality on his part at once ridiculous and wrong; and 
 where there is no equality, the exercise of superiority im- 
 plied in personal chastisement cannot in itself be an 
 insult or a degradation. 
 
 The total abandonment, then, of corporal punishment 
 for the faults of young boys appears to me not only uncalled 
 for, but absolutely to be deprecated. It is of course most 
 desirable that all punishment should be superseded by the 
 force of moral motives; and up to a certain point this is prac- 
 ticable. All endeavours so to dispense with flogging are 
 the wisdom and the duty of a schoolmaster; and by these 
 means the amount of corporal punishment inflicted may 
 be, and in fact has been, in more than one instance, 
 reduced to -something very inconsiderable. But it is one 
 thing to get rid of punishment by lessening the amount of 
 faults, and another to say, that even if the faults are com- 
 mitted, the punishment ought not to be inflicted. Now it 
 is folly to expect that faults will never occur; and it is 
 very essential towards impressing on a boy's mind the 
 natural irnperfectness and subordination of his condition, 
 that his faults and the state of his character being different 
 from what they are in after life, so the nature of his 
 punishment should be different also, lest by any means he 
 should unite the pride and self-importance of manhood 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 367 
 
 question in the practice of our schools as it is at the 
 universities ; and I believe that there could nowhere be 
 found a set of young men amongst whom punishment of 
 any kind was less frequent, or by whom it was less re- 
 quired. The real point to be considered is merely, whether 
 corporal punishment is in all cases unfit to be inflicted on 
 boys under fifteen, or on those who, being older in years, 
 are not proportionably advanced in understanding or in 
 character, who must be ranked in the lower part of the 
 school, and who are little alive to the feeling of self- 
 respect, and little capable of being influenced by moral 
 motives. Now, with regard to young boys, it appears to 
 me positively mischievous to accustom them to consider 
 themselves insulted or degraded by personal correction. 
 The fruits of such a system were well shown in an incident 
 which occurred in Paris during the three days of the revo- 
 lution of 1830. A boy of twelve years old, who had been 
 forward in insulting the soldiers, was noticed by one of 
 the officers; and though the action was then raging, the 
 officer, considering the age of the boy, merely struck him 
 with the flat part of his sword, as the fit chastisement for 
 boyish impertinence. But the boy had been taught to 
 consider his person sacred, and that a blow was a deadly 
 insult ; he therefore followed the officer, and having 
 watched his opportunity, took deliberate aim at him with 
 a pistol, and murdered him. This was the true spirit of 
 the savage, exactly like that of Callum Beg in Waverley, 
 who, when a "decent gentleman" was going to chastise 
 him with his cane for throwing a quoit at his shins, in- 
 stantly drew a pistol to vindicate the dignity of his 
 shoulders. We laugh at such a trait in the work of the 
 great novelist, because, according to our notions, the 
 absurdity of Callum Beg's resentment is even more strik- 
 ing than its atrocity. But I doubt whether to the French 
 readers of Waverley it has appeared either laughable or 
 disgusting ; at least the similar action of the real Callum 
 in the streets of Paris was noticed at the time as some- 
 
370 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 retained at it ; and if they do stay, the question becomes 
 only a choice of evils. For the standard of attainment 
 at a large school being necessarily adapted for no more 
 than the average rate of capacity, a boy who, after fifteen, 
 continues to fall below it, is either intellectually incapable 
 of deriving benefit from the system of the place, or 
 morally indisposed to do so, and in either case he ought 
 to be removed from it. And as the growth of the body is 
 often exceedingly vigorous where that of the mind is slow, 
 such boys are at once apt for many kinds of evil, and 
 hard to be governed by moral motives, while they have 
 outgrown the fear of school correction. These are fit 
 subjects for private tuition, where the moral and domestic 
 influences may be exercised upon them more constantly 
 and personally than is compatible with the numbers of a 
 large school. Meanwhile such boys, in fact, often con- 
 tinue to be kept at school by their parents, who would 
 regard it as an inconvenience to be required to withdraw 
 them. Now it is superfluous to say, that in these cases 
 corporal punishmerlt should be avoided wherever it is 
 possible ; and perhaps it would be best, if for such grave 
 offences as would fitly call for it in younger boys, older 
 boys whose rank in the school renders them equally sub- 
 ject to it, were at once to be punished by expulsion. As it 
 is, the long-continued use of personal correction as a pro- 
 per school punishment renders it possible to offer the alter- 
 native of flogging to an older boy, without subjecting him 
 to any excessive degradation, and his submission to it marks 
 appropriately the greatness and disgraceful character of his 
 offence, while it establishes, at the same time, the im- 
 portant principle, that as long as a boy remains at school, 
 the respectability and immunities of manhood must be 
 earned by manly conduct and a manly sense of duty. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that the complaints commonly 
 brought against our system of school discipline are wrong 
 either in their principle or as to the truth of the fact. 
 The complaint against all corporal punishment, as degrad- 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 371 
 
 ing and improper, goes, I think, upon a false and mis- 
 chievous principle: the complaint against governing boys 
 by fear, and mere authority, without any appeal to their 
 moral feelings, is perfectly just in the abstract, but per- 
 fectly inapplicable to the actual state of schools in England. 
 1 now proceed to make a few remarks upon another part 
 of the system of public schools, which is even less under- 
 stood than the subject already considered, I mean the 
 power of fagging. 
 
 Now by " the power of fagging," I understand a power 
 given by the supreme authorities of a school to the boys of 
 the highest class or classes in it, to be exercised by them 
 over the lower boys for the sake of securing the advantages 
 of regular government amongst the boys themselves, and 
 avoiding the evils of anarchy, in other words, of the law- 
 less tyranny of physical strength. This is the simple state- 
 ment of the nature and ends of public school fagging an 
 institution which, like all other government, has been often 
 abused, and requires to be carefully watched, but which is 
 as indispensable to a multitude of boys living together, 
 as government, in like circumstances, is indispensable to 
 a multitude of men. 
 
 I have said that fagging is necessary for a multitude of 
 
 boys when living together ; for this will show how the 
 
 system may be required in the public schools of England, 
 
 and yet be wholly needless in those of Scotland. The 
 
 great Scotch schools are day-schools those of England 
 
 are boarding-schools. Now the difference between these 
 
 two systems is enormous. In the Scotch schools the boys 
 
 live at their own homes, and are under the government of 
 
 their own relations; they only meet at school for a certain 
 
 definite object during a certain portion of the day. But 
 
 in England the boys, for nearly nine months of the year, 
 
 live with one another in a distinct society ; their school 
 
 life occupies the whole of their existence ; at their studies 
 
 and at their amusements, by day and by night, they are 
 
 members cf one and the same society, and in closer local 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 neighbourhood with one another than is the case with the 
 ordinary society of grown men. At all those times, then, 
 when Scotch boys are living at home with their respective 
 families, English boys are living together amongst them- 
 selves alone ; and for this their habitual living they require 
 a government. It is idle to say that the masters form, or 
 can form, this government ; it is impossible to have a suffi- 
 cient number of masters for the purpose; for, in order to 
 obtain the advantages of home government, the boys should 
 be as much divided as they are at their respective homes. 
 There should be no greater number of schoolfellows 
 living under one master than of brothers commonly living 
 under one parent; nay, the number should be less, inas- 
 much as there is wanting that bond of natural affection 
 which so greatly facilitates domestic government, and gives 
 it its peculiar virtue. Even a father with thirty sons, all 
 below the age of manhood, and above childhood, would 
 find it no easy matter to govern them effectually how 
 much less can a master govern thirty boys, with no natural 
 bond to attach them either to him or to one another ? He 
 may indeed superintend their government of one another; 
 he may govern them through their own governors ; but to 
 govern them immediately, and at the same time effectively, 
 is, I believe, impossible. And hence, if you have a large 
 boarding-school, you cannot have it adequately governed 
 without a system of fagging. 
 
 Now, a government among the boys themselves being 
 necessary, the actual constitution of public schools places 
 it in the best possible hands. Those to whom the power 
 is committed, are not simply the strongest boys, nor the 
 oldest, nor yet the cleverest; they are those who have 
 risen to the highest form in the school that is to say, 
 they will be probably at once the oldest, and the strongest, 
 and the cleverest; and further, if the school be well 
 ordered, they will be the most respectable in application 
 and general character those who have made the best use 
 of the opportunities which the school affords, and are 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 373 
 
 most capable of entering into its objects. In short, they 
 constitute a real aristocracy, a government of the most 
 worthy, their rank itself being an argument of their de- 
 serving. And their business is to keep order amongst 
 the boys ; to put a stop to improprieties of conduct, espe- 
 cially to prevent that oppression and ill-usage of the 
 weaker boys by the stronger which is so often ignorantly 
 confounded with a system of fagging. For all these pur- 
 poses a general authority over the rest of the school is 
 given them ; and in some schools they have the power, like 
 the masters, of enforcing this authority by impositions, that 
 is, by setting tasks to be written out or learnt by heart for 
 any misbehaviour. And this authority is exercised over 
 all those boys who are legally subject to it, that is, over 
 all below a certain place in the school, whatever be their 
 age or physical strength, so that many boys who, if there 
 were no regular fagging, would by mere physical force be 
 exercising power over their schoolfellows, although from 
 their idleness, ignorance, and low principle they might be 
 most unfit to do so, are now not only hindered from tyran- 
 nizing over others, but are themselves subject to authority 
 a most wholesome example, and one particularly needed 
 at school, that mere physical strength, even amongst boys, 
 is not to enjoy an ascendancy. Meanwhile this govern- 
 ing part of the school, thus invested with great responsi- 
 bility, treated by the masters with great confidence and 
 consideration, and being constantly in direct communica- 
 tion with the head-master, and receiving their instruction 
 almost exclusively from him, learn to feel a correspond- 
 ing self-respect in the best sense of the term ; they look 
 upon themselves as answerable for the character of the 
 school, and by the natural effect of their position acquire 
 a manliness of mind and habits of conduct infinitely su- 
 perior, generally speaking, to those of young men of the 
 same age who have not enjoyed the same advantages. 
 
 What becomes then of those terrible stories of cruelty 
 which inspire so many parents with horror at the very 
 
374 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 name of fagging ; or what shall we say of that very repre- 
 sentation of the fagging at Winchester, which appeared in 
 the last Number of your Journal ? It is confessed, indeed, 
 in. a subsequent page of that Number, that your corre- 
 spondent's representation is not applicable to the present 
 state of Winchester. Would it not then have been fairer 
 to have inserted in the running title of the article, " Flog- 
 ging and Fagging at Winchester," the words " as formerly 
 practised?" But, indeed, even as describing a past state 
 of things, there is surely some confusion in the statement. 
 It is important to distinguish such acts of oppression as 
 belong properly to the system of fagging, from such as 
 arise merely from superior physical force, and consequently 
 exist as much, I believe a thousand times more, in those 
 schools where there is no legal fagging. For instance, 
 your correspondent complains of the tyranny practised at 
 Winchester at bed time, " tossing in the blanket, tying 
 toes, bolstering, &c.'> These, indeed, are most odious 
 practices, but what have they to do with fagging ? I have 
 known them to exist at private schools, where there was 
 no fagging, to a degree of intolerable cruelty. In college, 
 at Winchester, where there were two or three prefects in 
 every chamber, I scarcely remember them to have been 
 practised at all during the period of which I can speak 
 from my own experience. And this is natural; for the 
 boys who delight in this petty tyranny are very rarely to 
 be found amongst the oldest in a school, and still less 
 amongst those who have raised themselves to the highest 
 rank in it ; they are either middle-aged boys, from four- 
 teen to sixteen, or such older boys as never distinguish 
 themselves for any good, and who, never rising high in 
 the school, are by a system of fagging, and by that only, 
 restrained from abusing their size and strength in tyranny. 
 Other abuses which your correspondent mentions, such as 
 toasting, lighting fires, &c , arise so far from a system of 
 fagging, that this system, when ill-regulated, allows a cer- 
 tain well-defined class of boys to exact services which 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 375 
 
 otherwise would be exacted merely by the strongest. But 
 I said, what every one must be aware of, that the go- 
 vernment of boys, like every other government, requires 
 to be watched, or it will surely be guilty of abuses. Those 
 menial offices which were exacted from the juniors at 
 Winchester were only required of them because the at- 
 tendance of servants was so exceedingly insufficient, and 
 the accommodations of the boys in many particulars so 
 greatly neglected. If you do not provide servants to 
 clean the boys' shoes, to supply them with water of a morn- 
 ing, or to wait on them at their meals, undoubtedly the 
 more powerful among them, whether the power be natural 
 or artificial, will get these things done for them by the 
 weaker; but supply the proper attendance, and all this 
 ceases immediately. There will remain many miscella- \ 
 neous services, such as watching for balls at cricket or 
 fives, carrying messages, &c., which servants undoubtedly j 
 cannot be expected always to perform, and which yet be- 
 long to that general authority vested in the boys of the 
 highest form. They belong to that general authority, and 
 are therefore now claimed as rightfully due; but if there 
 were no such authority they would be claimed by the 
 stronger from the weaker. For I assume it as a certain 
 fact, that if you have two or three hundred boys living 
 with one another as a distinct society, there will be some 
 to command, as in all other societies, and others to obey : 
 the only difference is, that the present system first of all 
 puts the power into the best hands ; and, secondly, by re- 
 cognising it as legal, is far better able to limit its exercise 
 and to prevent its abuses, than it could be if the whole 
 were a mere irregular dominion of the stronger over the 
 weaker. 
 
 There is another thing which, to those who are ac- 
 quainted with schools, will seem of no small importance. 
 Leave a number of boys together as legally equal, and the 
 irregular tyranny exercised under these circumstances by 
 
376 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 every stronger boy over every weaker one, has so far the 
 sanction of the public opinion of the school, that any indi- 
 vidual sufferer would be utterly afraid to complain of his 
 ill-usage to the master. . But give one class a legal supe- 
 riority over the rest, and an abuse of power on their part 
 is no longer received with sympathy ; and the boy who 
 were to complain of it to the master, instead of being 
 hated as an informer, would rather be regarded by the 
 mass of his companions as an asserter of their common 
 liberties. Now to those who consider the difficulty of 
 getting boys to complain of ill-usage where public opinion 
 condemns the complaining, it will appear an immense se- 
 curity against oppression, that it may be denounced with- 
 out incurring general odium; and such, I fear, is the Jaco- 
 binical spirit of human nature, that this can never be the 
 case unless the oppression proceed from one invested with 
 legal authority. 
 
 For my own part, however, I am not one of those who 
 think it an evil that younger or less manly boys should be 
 subject legally to those more advanced in age and in cha- 
 racter. Such subjection is not degrading, for it is rendered 
 not to an arbitrary, but to a real superiority; it is shown 
 to a power exercised in the main not for its own good, but 
 for that of the society as a whole. Neither do I regard 
 it as oppressive; for the degree and kind of obedience 
 enforced under a well-regulated system of fagging is bene- 
 ficial to those who pay it. A strict system is not there- 
 fore a cruel one; and the discipline to which boys are 
 thus subjected, and the quickness, handiness, thoughtful- 
 ness, and punctuality which they learn from some of the 
 services required of them, are no despicable part of edu- 
 cation. Many a man who went from Winchester to serve 
 in the Peninsula in the course of the last war must have 
 S / found his school experience and habits no bad preparation 
 for the activity and hardships of a campaign ; not only in 
 the mere power of endurance, but in the helpfulness and 
 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 377 
 
 independence which his training as a junior had given 
 him. When your correspondent talks of the servility en- 
 couraged by the system of fagging, and gravely imputes 
 to this cause what he calls the characteristic servility of 
 English gentlemen, the cause appears to me as wrongly 
 assigned as I think the supposed result imaginary. 
 
 The real servility which exists in England, whether 
 amongst men or boys, is not an excessive deference for 
 legal authority, but a surrender of individual judgment 
 and conscience to the tyranrrj_of_public opinion. This 
 tyranny exists in schools to a fatal degree ; but it is not 
 exercised chiefly by those who have the power of fagging, 
 and far less in virtue of that power ; on the contrary, the 
 boys of the highest form are the only corrective of it, and 
 so far as they contribute to it, it is not owing to the power 
 which distinguishes them from the other boys, but to that 
 imperfection of age and judgment which, to a certain 
 degree, they share in common with them. Great, indeed, 
 is this evil ; but it is one arising almost inevitably from the 
 circumstances of a boarding-school, namely, that it is a 
 society wholly composed of persons whose state, morally 
 and intellectually, is, by reason of their age, exceedingly 
 imperfect. 
 
 It is this which renders it so difficult to make a large 
 school a place of Christian education. For while, on the 
 one hand, the boys stand to their masters in the relation 
 of pupils to a teacher, they form, on the other hand, a 
 complete society amongst themselves : and the individual 
 boys, while influenced by him in the one relation, are 
 unhappily in the other more influenced by that whole of 
 which they are members, and which affects them in a 
 much larger portion of their lives. And how can this 
 influence be of a .Christian character, when the perfect 
 impression of Christianity cannot possibly be received by 
 any society which is not in the highest state of advance- 
 ment? by all others it is either taken incorrectly, or 
 
378 ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 repelled altogether : they can but exhibit that mixture of 
 superstition and profaneness which characterized the semi- 
 barbarous societies of the middle ages ; a mixture as un- 
 favourable to the development of man's highest excellence, 
 as Christianity purely imbibed is favourable to it, and 
 indispensable. 
 
 The stress of this remark, however, applies to a society 
 in a low moral state, and not to an individual. Boys in 
 their own families, as the members of the natural and 
 wholesome society of their father's household, may receive 
 its lessons, and catch its spirit, and learn at a very early 
 age to estimate right and wrong truly. But a society formed 
 exclusively of boys, that is, of elements each separately 
 weak and imperfect, becomes more than an aggregate of 
 their several defects : the amount of evil in the mass is 
 more than the sum of the evil in the individuals ; it is 
 aggravated in its character, while the amount of good, on 
 the contrary, is less in the mass than in the individuals, 
 and its effect greatly weakened. 
 
 Now this being the case, and the very fact of a loard- 
 mgr-scliool involving the existence of such an unfavourable 
 state of society, he who wishes really to improve public 
 education would do well to direct his attention to this 
 point ; and to consider how there can be infused into a 
 society of boys such elements as, without being too 
 dissimilar to coalesce thoroughly with the rest, shall yet 
 be so superior as to raise the character of the whole. It 
 would be absurd to say that any school has as yet fully 
 solved this problem. I am convinced, however, that in 
 the peculiar relation of the highest form to the rest of the 
 boys, such as it exists in our great public schools, there 
 is to be found the best means of answering it. This 
 relation requires in many respects to be improved in its 
 character; some of its features should be softened, others 
 elevated : but here and here only is the engine which can 
 effect the end desired ; and if boarding-schools are to be 
 
ON THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 379 
 
 cleared of their most besetting faults and raised in all that 
 is excellent, it must be done by a judicious improvement ; 
 but most assuredly not by the abolition of the system of 
 authorised fagging. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A WYKEHAMIST. 
 
 January 22nd, 1835. 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE EDITION OF 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
[This Preface, written by the Author in 1835, on the completion of 
 his Edition of Thucydides, may be regarded as expressing as it 
 were his farewell thoughts on Greek Literature and Greek History, 
 the critical study of which he now finally abandoned; See Life and 
 .' Correspondence, 4th Ed. Vol. I. c. 4, p. 209, c. 7, p. 343.] / 
 
 \ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE EDITION OF 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 IN presenting to the readers of Thucydldes the three last 
 books of his History, I may observe that I have received 
 no further assistance from any new manuscripts in ad- 
 dition to those already noticed in the Preface to the 
 second volume of this edition. But I have enjoyed for 
 this last part of my work the benefit of Bekker's third re- 
 vision of the text of Thucydides, as given in his small 
 Leipzig edition of 1832. My respect for Bekker's judg- 
 ment has increased continually ; and I feel so great a re- 
 liance on his experience and tact, that in many instances 
 where the reading seemed doubtful, I have yielded im- 
 plicitly to his authority ; and probably were I to go over 
 my work again, I should follow him still more generally. 
 
 It may be asked why I have abandoned my original in- 
 tention of subjoining appendices to the several volumes of 
 this edition, partly philological, and partly historical. 
 My answer is, that I have not time enough at my com* 
 mand to execute my design, even to my own satisfaction. 
 I neither have sufficient knowledge already, nor is it in 
 my power to gain it. At the same time I am aware that 
 the present state of scholarship, as well as of historical 
 inquiry, makes it especially unbecoming to write on any 
 philological or historical subject without being completely 
 master of it. 
 
 I shall confine myself, therefore, to the mere statement 
 of two or three points which offer, I think, a tempting 
 
384 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 field for investigation. They are not certainly exclusively 
 connected with Thucydides, but as bearing generally upon 
 Greek philology and history, I have thought that the men- 
 tion of them in this place would not be impertinent. 
 
 I. Even after all the labours of the Prussian scholars, 
 much remains to be done towards obtaining a complete 
 knowledge of the number, and still more of the value, of 
 the Greek MSS. now existing in Europe. It is not easy 
 to know how many MSS. of any given writer are extant, 
 where they are to be found, and, above all, whether from 
 their age and character they are worth the trouble of an 
 exact collation. A labour of this kind cannot be ac- 
 complished by individuals ; but the present spirit of 
 liberal co-operation which seems to influence literary as 
 well as scientific men throughout Europe, renders its ac- 
 complishment by the combined exertions of the scholars 
 of different countries by no means impracticable. It 
 would be exceedingly convenient to possess an alpha- 
 betical list of all the extant Greek and Latin writers, with 
 a catalogue raisonnee of the MSS. of each : and if such a 
 work were attempted, there is little doubt, I imagine, that 
 in point of number a very large addition would be made 
 to the stock of MSS. already known. What the result 
 might be in point of value is another question ; still it is 
 desirable to know what we have to trust to ; and when we 
 have obtained a right estimate of our existing resources 
 in manuscripts, we shall then be better able to judge what 
 modern criticism will have to do from its own means 
 towards bringing the text of the ancient writers to the 
 greatest possible state of perfection. 
 
 II. We seem now to have reached that point in our 
 knowledge of the Greek language, at which other lan- 
 guages of the same family must be more largely studied 
 before we can make a fresh step in advance. The 
 practice of Greek, if I may be allowed the expression, 
 seems tolerably well understood ; the usage of the best 
 writers, not only in points of construction, but even of or- 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 
 
 385 
 
 thography, has been carefully examined. We are now 
 anxious to explain some few words or expressions of less 
 frequent occurrence, or to understand the principle of 
 others whose meaning we have sufficiently learned from 
 experience. I had intended, for instance, to inquire into 
 the difference between the two conjunctions el and yv and 
 there is much in the use of the particle av, which has 
 not yet been explained satisfactorily. I went far enough 
 to ascertain the different uses of and jv in Thucydides, 
 as a matter of fact ; but my ignorance of the etymology 
 of the two words made me unable to ascend higher, and 
 to explain the principle of this difference. It is easy 
 enough to guess at etymologies, but this has been done 
 more than enough in times past : and an etymology built 
 on sniesses is as worthless as one found on real know- 
 
 O 
 
 ledge is instructive. It is possible that a more enlarged 
 study of the different languages and dialects of the great 
 fndo-Germanic family, both in their ancient and actual 
 forms, may enable us to acquire such a knowledge ; and 
 we shall thus obtain perhaps a more clear understanding 
 of some of those particles which even now are involved 
 in much uncertainty. So far, I think, we may hope to 
 advance not unreasonably ; but further progress seems 
 scarcely possible. The origin of language in itself par- 
 takes of the same obscurity which surrounds the origin of 
 society : there is a point with both beyond which we 
 cannot penetrate. Attempts to explain the phenomena of 
 language a priori seem to me unwise. We cannot con- 
 ceive the inventing of a language, because we cannot con- 
 ceive the human mind acting without language. From a 
 certain point we can readily trace the nature of the pro- 
 cess : we can understand how simple terms expressive of 
 outward objects were transferred to express by metaphor 
 the operations of the mind ; but how these simple terms 
 were themselves arrived at, it seems impossible to dis- 
 cover, or even reasonably to imagine. Wherever the re- 
 
 c c 
 
386 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 ^^- 
 
 suit is obtained by combination of existing elements, the 
 <? _ ^ . method is intelligible ; but invention, strictly speaking, 
 appears to belong to. a higher power than ours. As it has 
 been well observed, that, supposing the first men to have 
 been savages, we cannot understand how, without some 
 divine interference, the human race could ever have arrived 
 
 A/ 
 
 at civilization, so, if we suppose men to have been in such 
 a state as to have had to invent or contrive a language, we 
 cannot conceive how mankind, any more than other ani- 
 mals, should ever have been able to speak at all. 
 
 III. Passing from the language in Thucydides to the 
 matter contained in his History, the introduction in the 
 first book naturally leads us to consider the question, how 
 far the pretended early history of Greece is really histo- 
 ^=3? rical or mythical. And here I confess that further con- 
 
 sideration has induced me to accede to many of those 
 notions of Niebuhr and Miiller which I formerly regarded 
 as unreasonably sceptical. I had not deferred sufficiently 
 to the tact which is gained in these matters by great 
 natural ability aided by long experience. Niebuhr's com- 
 parison is most true, that "if any one, on going into 
 Benvenuto's prison when his eyes had for months been 
 accustomed to see the objects around him, had asserted 
 that Benvenuto, like himself, could not distinguish any 
 thing in the darkness, surely he would have been some- 
 what presumptuous." Yet still the character of the early 
 Grecian history does not seem to have been completely 
 analysed. Niebuhr has shewn that in the Roman history 
 passages wholly legendary occur in the midst of a narra- 
 tion substantially historical ; thus the account of the 
 taking of Veii is legendary, while the earlier events of 
 the siege are as clearly historical. This is important, 
 because it prepares us for the same intermixture in the 
 .^ | early-history .of Greece also; and shews us that portions 
 |l of real history may exist before the beginning of the 
 merely historical period: towards the frontiers of fable '\ 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 387 
 
 and history patches or fragments of each are often to be 
 found completely insulated within the territories of the 
 other. And to distinguish one from the other, we must be 
 guided by internal evidence ; the ancient writers may 
 have offered both indiscriminately as history, and may 
 have erred in doing so ; but is it not to imitate their error, 
 if we represent both indiscriminately to be mythical, be- 
 cause we cannot rely on their discernment, and because 
 they have in some instances related as history what has 
 no pretensions to the name? 
 
 But with respect to Thucydides himself, it is a ques- 
 tion how far he is to be taxed with such want of discern- 
 ment, and whether he has himself regarded any thing as 
 historical in the traditions of ancient Greece, which was 
 in fact no better than mythical. This question is one 
 which his editor seems naturally called upon to examine : 
 and it may incidentally perhaps throw some light on the 
 question of mythical narratives in general, on which as a 
 whole I do not feel myself competent to enter fully. 
 
 There is no doubt that the ablest men may entertain 
 erroneous opinions on points which nothing has led them 
 particularly to examine. If therefore Thucydides had 
 never been led to question the real existence of the chiefs i 
 or patriarchs who were said to have given their name to 
 their respective people, his mention of Hellen and Minos 
 as historical persons would afford no proof that they were 
 so. And it is well observed by a most able writer, that 
 the power of distinguishing between history and mythical 
 stories " depends upon a survey of a vast field, of which 
 but a small part was open to the view " of the early Greek 
 historians. We suspect the real existence of Hellen and 
 his sons, because we observe a practice widely spread 
 amongst different nations, of deriving the name of a peo- 
 ple from a supposed king or leader of it ; and not only do 
 we find the lives and actions of these pretended heroes to 
 be for the most part of an unhistorical character, but our 
 more extended knowledge of languages enables us in 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 j many instances to discover the real origin of a national 
 name, and thus to prove the falsehood of its reputed deri- 
 vation. And thus a general suspicion being thrown upon 
 such stories, any single one of the number, although con- 
 taining nothing improbable in itself, must yet be regarded 
 as unhistorical, unless there be some peculiar circumstances 
 connected with it, giving it some distinct and particular 
 ground of credibility. 
 
 So far then I am willing to allow that Deucalion and 
 Hellen, Pelops, and Eurnolpus, and any other heroes 
 whom Thucydides may have named in his History, can- 
 not be safely maintained to be real persons from his hav- 
 ing mentioned them as such, without expressing any 
 doubt as to their reality, Nor can it be thought to prove 
 the existence of an individual Homer, the author of the 
 Iliad, Odyssey, and Homeric Hymns, that both Thucy- 
 dides and Herodotus appear to have been of this opinion, 
 and to have entertained no doubt of its truth. Literary 
 criticism was in their days so much in its infancy, and 
 that experience of the erroneousness of popular traditions 
 which in our times has awakened criticism was then so 
 wanting, that the ablest men may be forgiven for having 
 embraced the common notions on such matters just as 
 they found them, without making any inquiry into their 
 truth. But with regard to the early history of Greece, 
 
 / Thucydides was well aware of its uncertainty, and of the 
 / mythic character of some of those accounts which had 
 I P5^ f r history. It is with a full consciousness of these 
 facts that he professes to give us notwithstanding a cre- 
 dible outline of the principal revolutions which Greece 
 had undergone; and carries his notices back to a period 
 earlier than the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, or even 
 than the war of Troy. His account of the Pelopid kings 
 
 , is professedly drawn from the statements of those " who 
 had received from their fathers the clearest information as 
 to the affairs of the Peloponnesians." Herodotus, when 
 speaking of the Dorian invasion of Peloponnesus, ex- 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 389 
 
 pressly says that the account given of it by the Lacede- 
 monians themselves, differed from all the stones of the 
 poets. Is it impossible that there should have existed, 
 along with the poetical version of the early Greek history, 
 another version of a simpler and truer character; and 
 that long before written narratives were known, a faith- 
 ful tradition may have been handed down in some 
 particular families, which the memory could have re- 
 tained as readily, when once applied to the task, as it 
 is known to have retained the verses of the rhapsodists? 
 And if this be so, the fabulous actions ascribed to any 
 hero in the poetical version of his exploits are no more 
 a reason for our rejecting the historical traditions re- 
 specting him, and for supposing him to be altogether 
 an imaginary personage, than the romances about Charle- 
 magne should make us disbelieve the biography of Egin- 
 hard. 
 
 Undoubtedly it may be said that these apparently his- 
 torical traditions have no real foundation ; and are no 
 no more than the clumsy attempts of Palsephatus to make 
 fable pass for truth by merely divesting it of its impossi- 
 bilities. And in this manner, according to Niebuhr, the 
 annalist Piso pruned and mangled the poetical legends of 
 Rome, and thought by so doing to convert them into his- 
 tory. It may be so certainly, but it does not follow that 
 it must be so j and with respect to Greece, the judgment 
 of Thucydides is no inconsiderable argument to prove 
 that it was not so. And if any writer as able and as in- 
 quiring as Thucydides, and as fully aware of the existence 
 and real character of the poetical legends, had arisen at 
 Rome in the age of the Scipios, or even of Cicero; and 
 after stating in express terms the general uncertainty of 
 the early Roman history, had given a brief outline of its 
 principal events, collected from sources which he con- 
 ceived to be trustworthy, such a sketch would in all pro- 
 bability have rendered the immortal work of Niebuhr in 
 great measure superfluous. 
 
390 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 It is incteech natural that revolutions which effect a 
 change in the inhabitants of a country should tend to in- 
 terrupt the traditions of the conquered people, or to cor- 
 rupt them ; and thus the Dorian conquest was likely to 
 obscure the recollections of the Achaian princes of Sparta 
 and Mycenae. Yet it should be remembered that the 
 Achaians were neither extirpated nor enslaved ; that they 
 may have retained their own traditions, as the Welsh and 
 Irish have done under circumstances somewhat similar; 
 and that in one part even of Peloponnesus itself the de- 
 scendants of the Pelopid princes had established them- 
 selves as conquerors, amid the general disasters of their 
 race ; so that in Achaia the old Achaian traditions may 
 have been preserved as easily as the Dorian traditions in 
 Laconia and Argolis. With respect to the Dorians them- 
 selves, if their whole early history since their establish- 
 ment in Peloponnesus had in the time of Thucydides be- 
 come utterly lost, if the very race of their kings had been 
 falsified, so that they pretended to be Achaians and He- 
 raclidae, whilst in reality they were Dorians like the rest 
 of their people, such a phenomenon would call for some 
 inquiry into its causes, as it has no antecedent probability 
 . -to induce us to believe it, . It is not probable that a people 
 (^ far removed from the condition of savages, and established 
 within historical memory in the country which they were - 
 actually occupying ; a people who since that period had un- 
 dergone no great revolutions, whose social and political re- 
 lations, whose religion, and whose customs had suffered no 
 change, should nevertheless have wholly lost the memory of 
 their ancestors' fortunes, and should have had none but a 
 poetical history, though their traditions were notoriously at 
 variance with the stories of every known poet. But most 
 incredible of all is it that they could have been mistaken 
 as to the race of their kings, to which. -their existing institu- 
 tions bore a living witness. A man's race in ancient times 
 was marked by the peculiar religious worship of his family; 
 thus Herodotus, in order to throw light on the extraction 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 391 
 
 of Isagoras, observes, that the members of his gens sacri- 
 ficed to the Carian Jupiter : and owing to this circum- 
 stance, the member of any distinguished person's origin 
 was preserved in as effectual a manner as it could be by a 
 series of contemporary documents. Now the constant 
 voice of tradition as to the Achaian extraction of the 
 Spartan kings must have been confirmed by their peculiar 
 religious ceremonies, such as they existed in the historical 
 age of Greece; and there is no likelihood that these 
 should have undergone any change since the period of 
 the Dorian conquest. But if they were then Achaian, 
 and not Dorian, the period of the alleged expulsion of the 
 Heraclidae from Peloponnesus was at that time within 
 memory, and a thing so tenaciously remembered as the 
 peculiar ancestry or race of a people would not be forgot- 
 ten in the course of a hundred years. Besides every 
 tradition of the Spartans attested that the kings were of a 
 different race from their people; the royalty of the one, 
 and the independent allodial property of the other, were 
 derived from a supposed original contract, by which the 
 two parties united for their common benefit ; the Heraclidse 
 recovering the thrones which belonged to their race, 
 whilst the Dorians, to whose aid their restoration was 
 owing, took care to assert their own independent con- 
 dition, very distinct from that of a mere $iy40f in those 
 early times under its own natural hero chiefs, y, It seems 
 to me the wildest of fancies to suppose that all these 
 traditions which were not poetical, as well as the known 
 religious rites of the kings, were the mere fruits of state 
 policy, which artfully represented the Dorian chiefs as 
 being of Achaian extraction, in order to give a sort of 
 colour of right to their occupation of the Peloponnesus. As ; 
 if barbarian conquerors needed such a pretext, or were in 
 the habit of inventing itj: as if the Norman chiefs would 
 have forsworn their own real ancestry, to represent them- 
 selves as descended from the race of the conquered I 
 Saxons. And where is the improbability of the common / 
 
392 
 
 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 
 story, which represents the Heraclidae as exiled from 
 Peloponnesus, and then becoming the chiefs of the people 
 who gave them an asylum ? The very same thing hap- 
 pened with the Norman nobles who took refuge in Scot- 
 land : they became chiefs of Keltic clans, to which they 
 gave their name without altering the national character of 
 their clansmen ; and in little more than two centuries after 
 their flight into Scotland, two of these Norman families, 
 those of Bruce and Balliol, were seated on the Scottish 
 throne. Without pretending then to assert the historical 
 character of the stories told of the individual founders of 
 the Spartan royalty, yet that the Spartan kings were of 
 Achaian and not of Dorian extraction seems to me to 
 admit of no reasonable doubt; being precisely one of 
 those points on which tradition may best be trusted ; 
 being proved by what in ancient times was a positive 
 evidence, supplying the place of history, namely, the 
 
 ' peculiar character of the religious rites of different races ; 
 and being in itself quite consistent with probability, yet 
 
 7 had it not been true, most unlikely to have been invented. 
 IV a . There is another point not peculiarly connected 
 
 
 with Thucydides, except so far as he may be considered 
 as the representative of all Grecian history, which appears 
 to me deserving of notice; that state of imperfect citizen- 
 ship so common in Greece under the various names of 
 
 &c. This is a matter of im- 
 
 
 a What follows, on the subject of citizenship, has been controverted 
 since the appearance of the first edition of this work, by those whose 
 arguments and authority are alike entitled to the greatest respect. 
 I hope to have an opportunity ere long of returning to the subject, 
 and attempting to meet the objections brought against the theory 
 here maintained. In the meanwhile, I did not think it desirable to 
 carry on such an argument at length in the preface to an edition of 
 Thucydides ; so that I have contented myself with reprinting the 
 preface in its original form, reserving a fuller exposition and defence 
 of the positions maintained in it for another occasion. [Note to the 
 second Edition of Thucyd., 1841. The allusion is to the Appendix to 
 he Inaugural Lecture on Modern History.] 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 393 
 
 portance, as bearing upon some of the great and eternal 
 principles of political science, and thus applying more or 
 less to tb history of every age and nation. ^ 
 
 It seems to be assumed in modern times, that the 
 being born of free parents within the territory of any par- 
 ticular state, and the paying towards the support of its 
 government, conveys a natural claim to the rights of 
 citizenships In the ancient world, Oil the contrary, 
 
 citizenship, unless specially conferred as a favour by 
 some definite law or charter, wa^s derivable only from race. 
 The descendants of a foreigner remained foreigners to 
 the end of time ; the circumstance of their being born and 
 bred in the country was held to make no change in their 
 condition ; community of place could no more convert 
 allies into citizens than it could change domestic animals 
 into men. Nor did the paying of taxes confer citizen- 
 ship; taxation was the price paid by a stranger for the! 
 liberty of residing in a country not his own, and for the' 
 protection afforded by its laws to his person and property ; 
 but it was thought to have no necessary connection with 
 the franchise of a citizen, far less with the right of legis- 
 lating for the commonwealth. 
 
 Citizenship was derived from race; but distinctions of 
 race were not of that odious and fantastic character which 
 they have borne in modern times ; they implied real dif- 
 ferences, often of the most important kind, religious and 
 
 moral. Particular races worshipped particular gods, and 
 in a particular manner. But different gods had different 
 attributes, and the moral image thus presented to the 
 continual contemplation and veneration of the people 
 could not but produce some effect on the national cha- 
 racter. According to the attributes of the god was the 
 nature of the hymns in which he was celebrated ; even 
 the music varied ; and this alone, to a people of such 
 lively sensibilities as the Greeks, was held to be a power- 
 ful moral engine ; whilst the accompanying ceremonies of 
 the worship enforced with still greater effect the impres- 
 
 
394 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 sion produced by the hymns and music. Again, par- 
 ticular races had particular customs which affected the 
 relations of domestic life and of public. Amongst some 
 polygamy was allowed, amongst others forbidden ; some 
 held infanticide to be an atrocious crime, others in cer- 
 tain cases ordained it by law. Practices and professions 
 regarded as infamous by some, were freely tolerated or 
 honoured amongst others : the laws of property and of 
 inheritance were completely various. It is not, then, to be 
 wondered at that Thucydides, when speaking of a city 
 founded jointly by lonians and Dorians, should have 
 thought it right to add " that the prevailing institutions of 
 the place were the Ionian;", for according as they were 
 derived from one or the other of the two races, the whole 
 character of the people would be different. And, there- 
 fore, the mixture of persons of different race in the same 
 commonwealth, unless one race had a complete ascend- 
 ancy, tended to confuse all the relations of life, and all 
 men's notions of right and wrong ; or by compelling men 
 to tolerate in so near a relation as that of fellow-citizens 
 differences upon the main points of human life, led to a 
 general carelessness and scepticism, and encouraged the 
 
 (/ notion that right and wrong have no real existence, but 
 
 !( are the mere creatures of human opinion. 
 
 But the interests of ambition and avarice are ever im- 
 patient of moral barriers. When a conquering prince or 
 people had formed a vast dominion out of a number of 
 different nations, the several customs and religions of 
 each were either to be extirpated, or melted into one mass, 
 in which each learned to tolerate those of its neighbours, 
 and to despise its own. And the same blending of races, 
 and consequent confusion and degeneracy of manners, 
 was favoured by commercial policy; which, regarding 
 men solely in the relation of buyers and sellers, con- 
 sidered other points as comparatively unimportant, and 
 in order to win customers would readily sacrifice or en- 
 danger the purity of moral and religious institutions. So 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 395 
 
 that in the ancient world civilization which grew chiefly 
 out of conquest or commerce, went almost hand in hand 
 with demoralization. 
 
 Now to those who think that political society was~~l 
 ordained for higher purposes than those of mere police or 
 of traffic, the principle of the ancient commonwealths in 
 making agreement in religion and morals the test of citi-J 
 zenship cannot but appear wise and good. And yet the 
 mixture of races is essential to the improvemenT~oT man- 
 "" kind, and an exclusive attachment to national customs is 
 incompatible with true liberality. How then was the _ . 
 problem to be solved ; how could civilization be attained 
 without moral degeneracy, how could a narrow-minded 
 bigotry be escaped without falling into the worse evil of 
 Epicurean indifference ? Christianity has answered these 
 questions most satisfactorily, by making religious and 
 moral agreement independent of race oif national customs; 
 by furnishing us with a sure criterion to distinguish be 
 tween what is essential and eternal, and what is indifferent, 
 and temporal or local ; allowing, nay, commanding us t 
 be with regard to every thing of this latter kind in the 
 highest degree tolerant, liberal, and comprehensive ; while 
 it gives to the former that only sanction to which implicit 
 reverence may safely and usefully be paid, not the fond 
 sanction of custom, or national prejudice, or human au- 
 thority of any kind whatever, but the sanction of the truth 
 of God. 
 
 That bond and test of citizenship, then, which the an- 
 cient legislatures were compelled to seek in sameness 
 of race, Because thus only could they avoid the worst of { 
 evils, a confusion and consequent indifference in men's 
 notions of right and wrong, is now furnished to us in the 
 profession of Christianity. He who is a Christian, let his 
 race be what it will, let his national customs be ever so 
 different from ours, is fitted to become our fellow citizen : 
 for his being a Christian implies that he retains such of 
 his national customs only as are morally indifferent ; and 
 

 396 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 for all such we ought to feel the most perfect toleration. 
 He who is not a Christian, though his family may have 
 lived for generations on the same soil with us, though they 
 may have bought and sold with us, though they may have 
 been protected by our laws, and paid taxes in return for 
 that protection % is yet essentially not a citizen but a 
 sojourner ; and to admit such a person to the rights of 
 citizenship tends in principle to the confusion of right 
 and wrong, and lowers the objects of political society to 
 such as are merely physical and external. 
 
 In conclusion I must beg to repeat what I have said 
 before, that the period to which the work of Thucydides 
 refers belongs properly tp modern b and not to ancient 
 history; and it is this circumstance, over and above the 
 ^rcat ability of tle historian himself, which makes it so 
 peculiarly deserving of our study. The state of Greece 
 from Pericles to Alexander, fully described to us as it is 
 in the works of the great contemporary historians, poets, 
 orators, and philosophers, affords a political lesson per- 
 haps more applicable to our own times, if taken all 
 together, than any other portion of history which can be 
 \ named anterior to the eighteenth century. Where Thucy- 
 
 a It is considered in our days that those who are possessed of pro- 
 perty in a country ought to be citizens in it : the ancient maxim was, 
 that those who were citizens ought to be possessed of property. The 
 difference involved in these two different views is most remarkable. 
 
 b ft is curious to observe how readily men mistake accidental dis- 
 tinctions for such as are really essential. A lively writer, the author 
 of the " Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau," ridicules the study of 
 what is called ancient history ; and as an instance of its uselessness, 
 asks what lessons in the art of war can be derived from the insig- 
 nificant contests which took place before the invention of gunpowder. 
 Now it so happens that one who well knew what military lessons 
 were instructive, the Emperor Napoleon, has selected out of the 
 whole range of history the campaigns of seven generals only, as 
 important to be studied by an officer professionally in all their 
 details ; and of these seven three belong to the times of Greece and 
 Rome, namely, Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar. See Napoleon's 
 " Melanges Historiques," tome II. p. 10. 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 397 
 
 dides, in his reflections on the bloody dissensions at 
 Corey ra, notices the decay and extinction of the simplicity 
 of old times, he marks the great transition from ancient 
 history to modern, the transition from an age of feelingj 
 to one of reflection, from a period of ignorance and' 
 credulity to one of inquiry and scepticism. Now such a 
 transition took place in part in the sixteenth century ; the 
 period of the Reformation, when compared with the ages 
 preceding it, was undoubtedly one of inquiry and reflec- 
 tion. But still it was an age of strong feeling and of in- 
 tense belief; the human mind cleared a space for itself 
 vigorously within a certain circlej_but except in individual 
 cases, and even those scarcely avowed, there were still ac- 
 knowledged limits of authority, which inquiry had not yet 
 ventured to question. The period of Roman civilization 
 from the times of the Gracchi to those of the Autqnines 
 was in this respect far more completely modern : and 
 accordingly this is one of the periods of history which we 
 should do well to study most carefully. But unfortunately 
 our information respecting it is much scantier than in the 
 case of the corresponding portion of Greek history ; the 
 writers, generally speaking, are greatly inferior; and in 
 freedom of inquiry no greater range was or could be taken 
 than that which the mind of Greece had reached already. 
 And in point of political experience, we are even at this 
 hour scarcely on a level with the statesmen of the age of 
 Alexander. Mere lapse of years confers here no increase 
 of knowledge ; four thousand years have furnished the 
 Asiatic with scarcely any thing that deserves the name of 
 political experience ; two thousand years since the fall of 
 Carthage have furnished the African with absolutely no- 
 thing. Even in Europe and in America it would not be 
 easy now to collect such a treasure of experience as the 
 constitutions of 153 commonwealths along the various 
 coasts of the Mediterranean offered to Aristotle. There he 
 might study the institutions of various races derived from 
 various sources : every possible variety of external position, 
 
398 PREFACE TO THE 
 
 of national character, of positive law; agricultural states 
 and commercial, military powers and maritime, wealthy 
 countries and poor ones, monarchies, aristocracies, and 
 democracies, with every imaginable form and combination 
 of each and all ; states overpeopled and underpeopled, old 
 and new, and in every circumstance of advance, maturity, 
 and decline. So rich was the experience which Aristotle 
 enjoyed, but which to us is only attainable mediately and 
 imperfectly through his other writings ; his own record of 
 all these commonwealths, as well as all other information 
 concerning the greatest part of them, having unhappily 
 perished. Nor was the moral experience of the age of 
 Greek civilization less complete. By moral experience I 
 mean an acquaintance with the whole compass of those 
 questions which relate to the metaphysical analysis of 
 man's nature and faculties, and to the practical object of 
 his being. This was derived from the strong critical and 
 inquiring spirit of the Greek sophists and philosophers, 
 and from the unbounded freedom )vhich they enjoyed. 
 In mere metaphysical research the schoolmen were in- 
 defatigable and bold, but in moral questions there was 
 an authority which restrained them : among Christians the 
 notions of duty and of virtue must be assumed as beyond 
 dispute. But not the wildest extravagance of atheistic 
 wickedness in modern times can go further than the 
 sophists of Greece went before them ; whatever audacity 
 can dare and subtilty contrive to make the words " good " 
 and "evil" change their meaning, has been already tried 
 in the days of Plato, and by his eloquence, and wisdom, 
 and faith unshaken, has been put to shame. Thus it is 
 that while the advance of civilization destroys much that 
 is noble, and throws over the mass of human society an 
 atmosphere somewhat dull and hard; yet it is only by its 
 peculiar trials, no less than by its positive advantages, 
 that the utmost virtue of human nature can be'.matured. 
 And those who vainly .lament that progress of earthly ' 
 things which, whether good or evil, is certainly inevitable, 
 
THIRD VOLUME OF THUCYDIDES. 399 
 
 may be consoled by the thought that its sure tendency is 
 to confirm and purify the virtue of the good : and that to ^ 
 us, holding in our hands not the wisdom of Plato only, 
 but also a treasure of wisdom and of comfort which to 
 Plato was denied, the utmost activity of the human mind 
 may be viewed without apprehension, in the confidence 
 that we possess a charm to deprive it of its evil, and to 
 make it minister for ourselves certainly, and through us, 
 if we use it rightly, for the world in general, to the more 
 perfect triumph of good. 
 
 I linger round a subject which nothing could tempt me 
 to quit but the consciousness of treating it too unworthily. 
 What is miscalled ancient history, the really modern 
 history of the civilization of Greece and Rome, has for 
 years interested me so deeply, that it is painful to feel 
 myself after all so unable to paint it fully. Of the mani- 
 fold imperfections of this edition of Thucydides none can 
 be more aware than I am ; but in the present state of 
 knowledge these will be soon corrected and supplied by 
 others : and I will at least hope that these volumes may 
 encourage a spirit of research into history, and may in 
 some measure assist in directing it ; that they may con- 
 tribute to the conviction that history is to be studied as "a 
 whole, and according to its philosophical divisions, not 
 such as are merely geographical and chronological; that 
 the history of Greece and of Rome is not an idle inquiry 
 about remote ages and forgotten institutions, but a living v 
 picture of things present, fitted not so much for the 
 curiosity of the scholar, as for the instruction of the 
 statesman and the citizen. 
 
 Fox How, Ambleside, 
 January, 1835. 
 
ON THE 
 
 DIVISIONS AND MUTUAL BELATIONS 
 
 OP 
 
 KNOWLEDGE 
 
 LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE 
 AT RUGBY, IN 1838. 
 
 D D 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 I HAVE been induced to publish this Lecture in consequence of the 
 efforts which have been lately made by the Society for the Diffusion 
 of Useful Knowledge, to organize the several Mechanics' Institutions 
 now existing throughout the kingdom, and to encourage the establish- 
 ment of others. The Society has also published a Manual, containing 
 amongst other things a Catalogue of Books recommended as fit for 
 such Institutions and for Apprentices' Libraries : an,d this Manual is 
 farther submitted to " the friends of adult education," as being in- 
 tended to promote their great object. Wishing most earnestly to 
 serve the cause of " adult education," and feeling that while it was 
 desirable on the one hand to encourage Mechanics' Institutions on 
 account of the good which they can do, it was no less important to 
 call attention to their necessary imperfections, and to notice that 
 great good which they cannot do, I have thought that the following 
 Lecture might be generally useful, if printed in its original form, as 
 it was actually addressed to the Members of the Institution of Rugby. 
 Only a very few corrections and alterations have been made in it, for 
 I did not wish to give it a more pretending character than belonged to 
 it as it was originally written. 
 
 RUGBY, 
 September, 1839. 
 
ON THE 
 
 DIVISIONS AND MUTUAL RELATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 THE subject which I have chosen for this evening's lecture 
 may seem liable to two objections ; it may be thought too 
 dry to awaken interest in the minds of the audience, and 
 too difficult to be properly treated without more time and 
 more research than I have been able to devote to it. I 
 am aware that there is some force in both of these ob- 
 jections : but on the other hand there are reasons which 
 have induced me to choose this subject, and which I think 
 will be found to outweigh them. 
 
 It happens necessarily in an institution such as ours 
 that the lectures delivered embrace a great variety of sub- 
 jects, and that they are given without any order or mutual 
 connection. Different views of the great world of know- 
 ledge are thus presented to us : but all are necessarily 
 partial, nor do they tell us how they are to be joined on 
 to one another, in order to convey a just notion of the 
 whole. Even an imperfect attempt therefore to show the 
 connection or relation between them, seemed to me to be 
 better than nothing ; that we may understand what is the 
 value of the several branches of knowledge, as helping to 
 make up the great sum of human wisdom ; and may also 
 see, which is a point of no small importance, what sort of 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 knowledge it is which particularly entitles its possessor to 
 be called a well-educated man. 
 
 Now even this slight statement of the object of this 
 lecture shows that we are going to venture on an inquiry 
 of a very high order, inasmuch as it embraces not the 
 subjects of any one or more of the sciences, but the na- 
 ture and merits of those very sciences themselves. This 
 sovereign investigation, in which the mind may be said to 
 exert the very fulness of its power, examining at once the 
 world of outward things and its own faculties and opera- 
 tions, standing apart as it were from all things visible and 
 invisible, and as if by a mere abstract power of observa- 
 tion, looking at once above and below, around and within 
 itself, this it is which is properly called philosophy. 
 
 First then, with a subject before us so extensive and so 
 various, it will be necessary to break it up into certain 
 divisions, that our minds may be able to comprehend it. 
 This process of philosophical division admits of very con- 
 siderable variety. We are not to suppose that there are 
 only a certain number of divisions in any subject, and 
 that unless we follow these, we shall divide it wrongly and 
 unsuccessfully : on the contrary every subject is as it were 
 all joints, it will divide wherever we choose to strike it, 
 and therefore according to our particular object at diffe- 
 rent times we shall see fit to divide it very differently. 
 For instance, let us suppose that our subject be the vege- 
 table creation; we sKall see that this subject is divided 
 differently, according to our different objects in studying 
 it. If we consider vegetables only with reference to the 
 uses which man can derive from them, we should divide 
 them first into such as are useful to him directly, and such 
 as are not : and the former again we should divide into 
 such as are useful for food, such as are useful for clothing, 
 and such as minister to our various wants in other ways. 
 But in this division we should class some vegetables toge- 
 ther which on another view of the subject we should find 
 it necessary to separate, and separate others which on 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 405 
 
 another view of the subject we should be obliged to class 
 together. For instance, on the view of the subject already 
 noticed, we should class wheat, and the potatoe, and the 
 grape, and fig, under one division, that of vegetables use- 
 ful for man's food ; and should of course separate them 
 from such plants as are incapable of being applied to the 
 same purpose. But if we consider vegetables without any 
 reference to man, and merely according to the differences 
 or resemblances in their own structure, in other words if 
 we consider them botanically, the wheat, the potatoe, the 
 grape, and the fig, notwithstanding their common useful- 
 ness, are immediately separated from one another; the 
 wheat is classed along with the grasses which feed our 
 cattle, the potatoe and the vine are ranked with the night- 
 shade and the henbane, and the fig is placed in the same 
 division as the ash tree. 
 
 Bearing this in mind, we shall see that the various 
 branches of human knowledge are capable of the most 
 different arrangements according; to the light in which we 
 
 O O O 
 
 wish to regard them. Bacon, for instance, makes a three- 
 fold division of them, which he derives from a similar 
 division of the powers or operations of the human mind, 
 into the memory, the imagination, and the reason. Ac- 
 cordingly he divides all knowledge into history, poetry, 
 and science or philosophy ; the first belonging to the me- 
 mory, the second to the imagination, and the third to the 
 reason. Another division has been adopted in a work 
 still in the course of publication, the Encyclopaedia Me- 
 tropolitana ; a division of which the author was, I believe, 
 the late Mr. Coleridge. He first divides all science into 
 pure and mixed. By pure science he means such as is 
 conversant merely with the acts of the mind in itself, by 
 mixed science that which considers these acts in con- 
 nection with the outward world. The pure sciences again 
 he divides into formal and real ; under the first of which 
 he places grammar, logic, arithmetic, and geometry; under 
 the second are ranged metaphysics, morals, and theology. 
 
. th 
 | le 
 
 406 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 I am aware that this brief statement must be obscure; but 
 my object in making it is to illustrate the truth, that 
 human knowledge may be divided variously according to 
 the purpose of the divider; and I wished to draw attention 
 to the division into formal and real science, for I shall 
 have occasion to make use of these terms hereafter, and 
 shall then attempt to explain them. 
 
 For my present object, which is to give such a division 
 as may be most readily and generally understood, I know 
 not that I could adopt a better method than to divide our 
 dge into such as relates to man, and such as 
 relates to other objects of what kind soever, animate or 
 inanimate. But when I speak of man, I mean that part 
 of him which is peculiar to himself, namely, his intellec- 
 tual and moral nature. For the study of his mere bodily 
 frame, or of the phenomena of his physical life, is but a 
 small part of one great whole, of which by far the greatest 
 part relates to objects distinct from himself, and therefore 
 the study may generally be classed more properly with 
 
 ose which relate to external things. Thus the know- 
 ledge which relates to man would naturally include every 
 thing relating to his double nature, as a being having an 
 understanding, and a moral part which we may call for 
 convenience a spirit. Thus it would in the first place 
 embrace the study of his mind ; the analysis of its facul- 
 ties and ideas, which is metaphysics ; the analysis of the 
 processes of his reason, which is logic ; and the analysis 
 of language, the instrument which he necessarily employs 
 in these processes, which is grammar. Secondly, it would 
 embrace the study of his moral nature; the analysis of his 
 feelings and affections, which, like that of the faculties of 
 his understanding, maybe classed under metaphysics; and 
 the analysis of his duties. The last, so long as his duties 
 towards God are not understood, is the part of ethics or 
 morals : but as soon as we are acquainted with God, and 
 with our relations to Him, all our duties, whether towards 
 God or man, are properly to be classed under one niune, 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 407 
 
 that of religion ; because it is manifest that all our duties 
 to other men are duties to God, and that whatever we 
 ought to do is our duty for this very reason, because it is 
 the will of God that we should do it. 
 
 Besides the study of man's nature in general, knowledge 
 relating to man would also embrace a knowledge of the 
 actions, characters, and fortunes, of particular parts of 
 mankind, whether larger or smaller. Under this head are 
 to be ranked History, with all its sub-divisions, and Bio- 
 graphy. 
 
 Then turning to the other great division of human 
 knowledge, the knowledge that relates to all other objects 
 besides ourselves ; here too the one vast whole thus pre- 
 sented to our imaginations may be broken up into various 
 parts. It will include. Natural History in its widest sense, 
 including not only the ^ammal and vegetable kingdoms, 
 but the mineral also, and even the earth itself. But when 
 we speak of the history of animals and plants, we must 
 remember that here history is wholly distinct from bio- 
 graphy. Amongst creatures without reason, whether ani- ' 
 mate or inanimate, one individual is like another; history 
 with them regards only the species. Nor is chronology 
 much more connected with them than biography ; for the 
 oak and the lion of the present day are the same, so far 
 as we can discover, as the oak and the lion of the first 
 year of the world's existence. Time, has only wrought 
 changes in some few cases, through the agency of man, as 
 in the change effected in particular vegetables by cultiva- 
 tion, and perhaps in one or two instances in animals also, 
 by the attention bestowed on improving the breed. With 
 
 the history of the earth, on the contrary, chronology is 
 every thing. Here there are constant changes working, 
 altering the limits of land and water, and in some in- 
 stances where volcanic agency is busy, or where particular 
 phenomena of wind and soil are combined, actually alter-/ 
 ing the character of the land as welljas^essening or in- 
 creasing its limits. But still in al l/nis to ry there is this 
 
408 , ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 common point, that its principal business is to describe 
 facts as they are or have been, rather than to enter into 
 causes or general principles. And thus the natural histo- 
 rian looks as it were but on the outward edifice of nature : 
 it belongs to other branches of knowledge to penetrate 
 within the sanctuary. 
 
 It will be obvious that what is most needed for Natural 
 History is careful observation. If we want to know more 
 of an animal than we can collect from one simple view 
 of it, we must, examine it more carefully, and watch its 
 habits for a considerable time together. Thus the very 
 amusing account which Huber has given us of bees, was 
 the result of constantly watching them ; so that he made 
 himself as it were an eye-witness of the whole life of the 
 animal. So again in Geography, which is the history of 
 the surface of the earth. All that is wanted in order to 
 draw a map of a country r 4s to bestow sufficient pains on 
 surveying it; it is a long book which takes a great deal of 
 time to read, but still all the information is to be found in 
 > the book, if we have but patience to read it through. But 
 i we want to do more than this with nature; we want not 
 only to see what she is, but to understand how and why 
 she is so, that we may be able ourselves to form her or 
 reform her for our own purposes. Water, and air, and 
 light, are things which the most ignorant of us enjoy, but 
 not all understand them. The sky with its hosts of stars 
 must strike every one as beautiful, but to how few is there 
 more of order apparent in that bright multitude, or^regu-^ 
 larity in their movements, than in the wild dance of a 
 swarm of fireflies. Thus on every side, above us and 
 around us, there are materials not for observation only but 
 for thought and reasoning ; we may not only mark and 
 learn the visible result produced by God's working, but 
 observe the laws by which He works, that here too we 
 may, after our most imperfect measure, learn to work like 
 Him. 
 
 In ascending then fron/ Natural History to Natural 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OP KNOWLEDGE. 409 
 
 Philosophy, the first laws that would be inquired into 
 would be those of a most obvious as well as most exten- 
 sive class of phenomena, the phenomena of Motion..^ I 
 use this term in its widest sense, as embracing the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies ;no less than of earthly, as includ- 
 ing tlte motion of fluids, such as air and water, as well as 
 of solids. With regard to the heavenly bodies, their 
 movements were indeed almost the only point in which 
 human science could study them. The laws which pre- 
 side over these movements formed the greatest part of the 
 inquiries of Astronomy ; as the laws which direct the 
 movements of earthly bodies were, in the case of solids, 
 the subject of Mechanics ; and in the case of fluids, the 
 subject of Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, and Optics. In all 
 these instances there is this point in common ; that we 
 are considering those laws which act upon bodies from 
 without, and produce in them a change of place only, and 
 not of quality. We are therefore still, if I may so speak, 
 at the outside of things, examining their movement only, 
 and not their composition. It is possible, however, to go 
 farther than this, and to examine another class of pher 
 nomena, those namely in which bodies are found to 
 change not their place only but their quality, a change 
 evidently of a deeper kind, and belonging to causes of a 
 different character. And here we come to those studies 
 in which such great progress has been made in our own 
 generation; Electricity, with its kindred subjects Mag- 
 netism, and Galvanism, and Chemistry. How little pro- 
 gress had been made till a very recent period in the 
 examination of the nature of bodies as opposed to their 
 movement, may be well understood from this fact, that in 
 the popular works on science which were in circulation in 
 our owjri childhood, fire, air, earth and water, were still ,. 
 
 represented as the four elements of the universe. To 
 what point the inquiry into these subjects may be carried 
 hereafter, it seems impossible to anticipate : the doctrine 
 of atoms appears indeed to be bringing us to the very ele- 
 
410 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 ments of physical existence; while the study of the phe- 
 nomena of Electricity, of Magnetism, and above all of 
 what is called Animal Magnetism, seems to promise that 
 in the course of years, or it may be of centuries, we may 
 arrive at some glimpses of a yet higher mystery, the rela- 
 tions of physical and moral existence towards each other, 
 and the principle of animate life. 
 
 The study of external nature then, that is of all things 
 existing except ourselves, seems to divide itself first of 
 all into two great divisions, History and Science : by the 
 first of which I mean a mere record or description of facts 
 or existing phenomena in the natural world, whether ani- 
 mate or inanimate ; while by the second, I understand an 
 inquiry into the laws or causes by which these phenomena 
 are regulated. But Science again admits of a' double 
 division^, jnasmuch as its inquiries may either regard the 
 movements of bodies, or their component parts and quali- 
 ties ; that is, to speak generally, it may consider them as 
 affected mechanically or chemically. So then the divi- 
 sions of all our knowledge of nature may be said to be 
 three, Natural History, Mechanical Science, and Chemi- 
 cal Science, using all these terms for convenience's sake 
 in a sense rather wider than that which they bear in com- 
 mon language. 
 
 It would seem then that the range of natural know- 
 ledge is sufficiently extensive, and its subjects sufficiently 
 sublime. To soar to the utmost limits of visible space, to 
 measure the movements of the host of heaven, and on the 
 other side to penetrate into the subtlest laws of being, 
 and to analyse matter up to its very original elements, 
 might surely be enough to vindicate the dignity of the 
 study of nature. But the Greek philosophers exalted it 
 yet further, by making it ascend not only to the purest 
 forms of physical existence, but higher still, to the nature 
 of God Himself. And undoubtedly, according to that 
 grand division of all knowledge which I have adopted, 
 the knowledge of man on the one hand, and of all other 
 
' 
 
 MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 411 
 
 objects except man on the other, the knowledge of God 
 might seem to take its place fitly as the last ascent of 
 natural philosophy, and so the study of nature might in- 
 finitely transcend in dignity the study of man. But I 
 would request your attention to this point, as it will be 
 the foundation of all I have to say on the remaining part 
 of my subject, the relations, namely, of the different divi- 
 sions of our knowledge to one another. I request attention 
 to this great truth, that God considered in this point of 
 view, as the summit of the scale of existence, as the most 
 exalted of all beings, and therefore in Himself the noblest 
 object of knowledge, that God regarded in this manner is 
 wholly beyond our reach, unapproachable and incompre- 
 hensible. No doubt He is the head as well as the author 
 of all being ; the fit completion of the pyramid of the 
 knowledge of the universe is that it stibuld end in that 
 point of perfection of unity, the One Great Cause of all. 
 But this pyramid is like that, unfinished tower of Babel ; 
 its top never can reach to God. It stands for ever mani- v 
 festly incomplete, yet incapable of being completed ; for \ 
 the power which reared all the rest of the fabric can 
 neither find nor lay in its place that last and crowning 
 stone. God thus hiding Himself altogether from the 
 sight of natural knowledge, reveals Himself only as a 
 part, if I may so speak, of o\ir knowledge of man ; first as >' 
 the fountain of all our duties, and so the perfection not 
 of our natural knowledge but of our moral ; and secondly 
 in that great truth of the Christian Revelation, that as 
 man alone He is to be known, or is in any way com- 
 prehensible. 
 
 We thus remove the centre of all our system from the 
 division of natural knowledge to that of moral; and thus 
 our view of the relations of the different branches to one 
 another becomes greatly modified. That is, we get to 
 regard all science, whether natural ~cff moral, as a matter 
 of\duty N >ather than of simple knowledge : the knowledge 
 lL cases referable to ^Tarther end,. that,is^our 
 
412 
 
 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 duty in compliance with God's will. For as on the one 
 hand it is possible to regard all moral questions as a 
 matter of simple science, inquiring into the actions and 
 fortunes of man, and analysing his passions and faculties 
 and duties purely for the sake of speculative truth, as if 
 we were the inhabitants of another planet ; so it is no less 
 possible to regard all physical knowledge as a matter of 
 practice; studying the phenomena, and inquiring into the 
 laws of irrational and inanimate bodies not for the mere 
 intellectual pleasure of discovering truth, but because the 
 discovery of truth is more or less our duty according to 
 the nature of our calling, for the benefit of others, directly 
 or indirectly, or for the improvement of our own powers 
 of mind, that so we may act our part in life more effi- 
 ciently. 
 
 And thus, while we see that no knowledge whatever is 
 to be despised, and while we rejoice in the cultivation of 
 all science of whatever kind, we yet cannot but perceive 
 also, that thus looking upon all nature as ministering in a 
 manner to man, and the knowledge of it as valuable be- 
 cause it ministers to his happiness, if other knowledge 
 ministers to his happiness more, and more universally, 
 then that knowledge must be deemed as yet more valu- 
 able than the knowledge of nature, and the possession of 
 it must be considered essential to perfect education. 
 
 This is universally understood with regard to what is 
 called religious knowledge, which every one allows to be 
 beyond dispute the most valuable of all. It will be my 
 object here to show that it is true also of those studies to 
 which Coleridge gives the name of the pure sciences, and 
 which he divides, as I have said before, into those which 
 he calls formal and real. 
 
 The pure sciences are all engaged either with mind, or 
 with the operations, or with the ideas and abstractions of 
 the mind ; none of them have to do with real material 
 nature. Now the human mind may fitly be called that 
 great and universal machine by which we operate upon all 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 413 
 
 things. We all know the fame which was so deservedly 
 obtained by the late Mr. James Watt, for his great im- 
 provements in the steam engine. The value of the steam 
 engine consists not only in the magnitude of its powers, 
 but in the generality of their application. It is useful not 
 for one purpose only, but for hundreds. How different 
 are the callings of the cotton manufacturer, the brewer, 
 and the packet-master or coach proprietor ; yet steam 
 serves the purposes of them all. Now if the steam engine 
 be so general an instrument, the human mind is yet more 
 so. Nothing absolutely can be done without it, and who 
 can set bounds to what may be done with it? In im- 
 proving, then, this universal engine we are conferring a 
 service on mankind, something the same in kind with the 
 improvement of the steam engine, but in degree and ex- 
 tent of usefulness beyond all comparison greater. 
 
 Unhappily, however, there has either been no James 
 Watt to perfect this mightier engine ; or his directions^ 
 have been despised or neglected ; or mind being less 
 manageable than iron and steam, the engine has refused 
 to be moulded according to the model proposed for its 
 improvement. For it is notorious that minds of equal 1 
 natural power are most unequal in their practical efficiency, 
 and that many persons with considerable talents and favour- 
 able opportunities are unable to avail themselves of either 
 to any good purpose, because the cultivation of their mind 
 has been wholly neglected. Now the mind is a universal 
 instrument through its reasoning powers, its judgment, 
 and its powers of rapid and extensive combination. By 
 the reasoning powers I understand the faculty of coming 
 to a true conclusion from premises or data which are un- 
 disputed ; the power of making the most of our materials 
 of knowledge. As a familiar and most admirable example 
 of this I may refer to the Elements of Euclid : all that 
 we set out with in this case are three simple postulates, or 
 things required to be granted; and from these three are 
 drawn, by the strictest process of reasoning, all that 
 
414 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 variety of truths respecting the properties of triangles, 
 circles, &c., which fill a whole volume. Now all these 
 truths are really contained in the postulates, axioms, and 
 definitions of the two first pages ; yet how few persons 
 would have been able to discover and to prove them. 
 This has been done by the power of reasoning; the 
 power, that is, of finding out all the truths which lie 
 hidden in any facts or principles presented to us, and of 
 avoiding false conclusions ; that is, the supposing certain 
 truths to be contained in our principles which really do 
 / riot exist in them. A good reasoner, then, is he who draws 
 from the data, or premises, or evidence before him, all 
 that may justly be drawn from them, and nothing which 
 may not. 
 
 Now as the human mind is eager to gain fresh know- 
 ledge, positive faults in reasoning have been quite as 
 common as negative; that is, men have come to wrong 
 conclusions quite as often as they have failed to discover 
 all the light ones. This evil, of positively bad reasoning, 
 of concluding what cannot be justly concluded, arises 
 from a want of a due acquaintance with the instrument 
 necessarily used in every process of reasoning, namely 
 language. And hence appears the importance of .those 
 two studies which teach us to analyse language, logic and 
 grammar. Language is, indeed, a wonderful instrument, 
 but the very facility of using it w v ith a certain degree of 
 effect, for we all talk and occasionally argue, is apt to 
 conceal from us the difficulty of acquiring a perfect com- 
 mand of it. We constantly find persons both speaking 
 and writing vaguely : using words in different senses, or 
 in no well-defined sense at all, without being aware of it : 
 and as never having analysed the process of correct 
 reasoning, arguing in a manner at random, and supposing 
 that to be a proof, or an answer to an objection, which in 
 reality is not so. These are faults for which the study of 
 grammar and of logic is the appropriate remedy. In both 
 we take language to pieces, examine its structure, and 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 learn to appreciate and recognize those defects to which 
 it is most liable. In logic especially, we learn what may 
 be called the skeleton of reasoning, that simple form 
 which, however concealed under the more ornamental form 
 of our common style of talking or writing, as the actual 
 skeleton is concealed by our flesh, can never be really 
 departed from without involving a fallacy. Knowing this 
 skeleton accurately, we can in an instant feel, even 
 through the covering, the flesh, so to speak, of our or- 
 dinary language, whether all the bones are in their right 
 places, nay, we know where to suspect disorder, and by 
 passing our probe at once to the suspected part, we can 
 see whether or no all is sound. These suspicious parts in 
 reasoning to speak generally, are first what may be called 
 the joint of the argument, the point of connection between 
 the pTeTnises and the conclusion, and secondly, any ab- 
 stract terms which are found to occur often in the reason- 
 ing. For men's notions about such terms being often in- 
 distinct, it happens that they do not always use them in 
 the same sense, and thus may deceive both others and 
 themselves, by a word's imperceptibly shifting its meaning 
 in the course of their argument, and a thing in reality dif- 
 ferent being thus passed off as the same. 
 
 Logic and Grammar then, as putting us on our guard 
 against the fallacies of language, are the great means of 
 cultivating pur reasoning powers. And they are called 
 formal sciences^ as opposed to real, because they treat not 
 of any particular thing or matter, but of those forms of 
 speech and of reasoning which apply equally to all matter; 
 they are moulds into which we may put any material that 
 we will, but without which none whatever can be shaped 
 properly. 
 
 Such are the studies which the mind requires to perfect 
 its reasoning powers ; that is, the powers by which it un- 
 folds truth already acquired and recognized. All reason- 
 ing must set out from some fixed point supposed jto be 
 true ; and its business is to see what other hidden truths 
 
416 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 
 may be developed from the truth so granted or assumed. 
 Unhappily, however, the mind is not only liable to error 
 in this process, but the supposed truth itself, which is the 
 foundation of our reasoning, may have been assumed un- 
 justly : we may be wrong in the stating of the sum as well 
 as in the working of it. But here no formal science will 
 be sufficient for us : for though there is one common form 
 for all reasoning, yet things themselves are so infinitely 
 various, and their truth is collected in so many different 
 ways, that no one rule can be applicable to all. The 
 judgment therefore, that power of the mind by which we 
 take cognizance of truth, and transmit it, having stamped 
 upon it our sanction, to our reasoning powers to(coin as it 
 were into other truths, can only be probably guided, not 
 infallibly secured from error. But how is this guidance 
 to be given it ? How is this task> which most peculiarly 
 deserves the name of education, to be accomplished ? 
 What is that great preparation which can dispose the 
 mind, amidst the delusions with which we are surrounded, 
 to fix on truth with a sure instinct, and to avoid error? 
 
 Error, according to Bacon's comparison, may originate 
 in ourselves, or without us : outward objects may not com- 
 municate a faithful image to us, or our own minds like a 
 broken or uneven mirror may distort the image presented 
 to them. Truth may not be to be found, or we may be in 
 no fit condition to receive it. 
 
 What then are the hindrances in our own minds to re- 
 ceiving truth ? Bacon divides them into three, principal 
 classes, which he calls the! spectres or phantoms, of the 
 race, .pf the den, and of the market place. The fanciful- 
 ness of these names is characteristic of the man: but 
 their meaning is not the less admirable. The phantoms 
 of the race are those prejudices or tendencies to error 
 which are common to the whole race of mankind ; the 
 phantoms of the den are those which grow out of the 
 peculiar weakness of each man's individual mind : and 
 those of the market place are such as arise from our com- 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 417 
 
 A> 
 
 munication with other men, from the vagueness and am- ( 
 biguities of language. 
 
 With the last kind we have no concern, as they have 
 been noticed before. The other two demand the greatest 
 attention, but my limits will not allow me to do more than 
 just to point gut-4heir importance. Among the common 
 errors of our, race may be noticed, 1st, that bondage of 
 our minds to our senses, by which the~visible and the 
 present always prevails over the invisible and the absent ; 
 that great moral corruption which the Scripture calls un- 
 belief; 2nd, that craving after general truths or principles, 
 which makes us form theories hastily, upon insufficient 
 evidence, and without noticing what makes against them : 
 and 3rd, the abuse of a principle most true in itself, that 
 truth and goodness are identical; a principle which be- 
 comes the fruitful parent of error, when setting up blindly 
 and imperfectly our own standard of goodness, we will 
 allow nothing to be true which seems to us to contradict 
 it. These three, the spirit of unbelief, the spirit of im- \ 
 patience, and the spirit of bigotry, are common to all ^ 
 mankind, and we are all more or less affected by them. 
 
 Not less important to notice are the phantoms of the ""* 
 den, the tendencies of each man's individual constitution 
 of mind. For example, how great are the differences be- 
 tween men, according as imagination or observation has 
 most power over them. This difference separates the man 
 of feeling and sentiment from the man of fact and reality ; 
 the poet from the man of science ; the idealist school of 
 philosophy from the sensualist ; the admirer of names and 
 associations from the lover of positive rights ; the fanatic 
 from the sceptic. How apt are these two classes to sneer 
 at and rail against one another ; to tax each other with 
 folly, and with hardness, and low-mindedness ! How 
 earnestly should we labour, if our imagination and feel- 
 ings be predominant, to steady and sober them with the 
 love of fact, and reason and justice ; or if observation 
 and reasoning be our natural tendency, how heartily 
 
 E E 
 
418 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 should we strive to soften and ennoble them by admira- 
 tion, and love of the beautiful, and faith in thejnvisiblej 
 
 These instances, for I can but just allude to them, will 
 show the discipline which our own minds require, to clear 
 them from the common erroneous tendencies of our na- 
 ture, as well as from those which infest ourselves individu- 
 ally. But whilst thus making the mirrorof our own minds 
 even and pure to receive the imaged truth when presented 
 to us ; there is a farther difficulty still, in extricating that 
 form entire and unsoiled from the mass of confusion and 
 error in which it so often lies buriejl. There is in the 
 first place the difficulty of getting at the truth of facts ; 
 then at the truth of opinions ; and again there is the great 
 question whether the truth of any opinion be eternal or 
 only temporary ; for it may be that a doctrine may be 
 very true as applied to one time or place, which would be 
 very false as applied to another. Thirdly there is the 
 comparison of truths, which in practice is every thing ; 
 when two statements of principle are alike true in them- 
 selves, but are not both practically true with regard to us ; 
 because the less of two good things becomes a positive 
 evil if we follow it to the neglect of the better ; as for in- 
 stance, a doctrine may be perfectly true as far as regards 
 political economy, but not true as regards the happiness of 
 a people speaking morally and religiously. Here then comes 
 in the comparison of truths : for the economical truth be- 
 comes a practical falsehood if we follow it to the neglect of 
 the moral truth. Let us observe then how many things are 
 required for the jperfecting of this great faculty of the mind, 
 the judgment of trutn7~with which we are now concerned. 
 To ascertain the truth of facts requires a knowledge of 
 the laws of evidence; what makes a testimony credible, 
 and what makes it suspicious. To estimate the value of 
 opinions requires, over and above our knowledge of human 
 nature in general, a particular knowledge of the effect 
 which circumstances have upon men's opinions, circum- 
 stances whether of time or country. For instance, it has 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 419 
 
 often been made a question whether the opinions of ancient 
 or modern times are entitled to most respect fTTow this 
 question, setting aside its ridiculous vagueness, might even 
 if asked with regard to any two definite periods, require a 
 different answer according to the different opinions about 
 which the dispute turned : for it is very possible that the 
 opinion of one age might be most valuable on one point, 
 and that of another upon another. Again, to know 
 whether an opinion is true generally or partially, requires 
 in itself no slight acquaintance both with the distinguishing 
 characteristics of eternal and partial truth, and with the cir- 
 cumstances of different times and countries, and the bear- 
 ings of those circumstances upon the truth in question ; for 
 a truth may be only local or temporary, and yet may apply 
 to two countries or to two periods differing in many re- 
 spects from one another, but not in those particular re- 
 spects which affect the application of the truth to their 
 case. Further, the comparison of truth, renders it neces- 
 sary that our standard of duty and of good should be 
 clearly settled ; that knowing what is the highest truth, 
 and what the subordinate and inferior, we may never fol- 
 low that lower good, which, when opposed to the higher, 
 becomes evil. 
 
 Besides the reasoning powers and the judgment, I spoke 
 of the power of rapid and extensive combination, as one 
 of the things which enabled the mind to be an universal 
 instrument. Perhaps, strictly speaking, I ought not to 
 give it a distinct place, for it is in many cases essential 
 towards forming a sound judgment: but its great impor- 
 tance may justify, me in bestowing some separate notice 
 upon it. We live in a world so varied, that without this 
 power of combination our views must be exceedingly nar-* 
 row, or exceedingly confused. They must be narrow, if 
 confining ourselves to one class of subjects and of rela- 
 tions, we understand them indeed in themselves thoroughly 
 so far as they can be understood thoroughly without con- 
 sidering them as acting or acted on by other things, but 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 are wholly ignorant of all others ; they must be confused, 
 if studying variously, and receiving ideas from many dif- 
 ferent sources, we let them lie confusedly upon one 
 another, without arranging them into on,e_ great wholej 
 The power of combination may be said to consist in a 
 quick perception of .likeness: in two different subjects we 
 discern some one point bearing a resemblance to a com- 
 mon third : we group them together, and then notice 
 their disagreements as well as their agreements. And 
 this goes on continually with a multiplied power; for 
 the more ideas we have thus grouped together in our 
 minds, the more points are offered to which some riew idea 
 may attach itself; as in a ^child's card sheep-fold, the 
 more cards you add, the more you multiply points on 
 which to join fresh cards still. This power of combina- 
 tion is most essential to the profitable reading of history, 
 for unless we combine the lessons afforded by the story of 
 one age or country with those afforded by that of others, 
 our recollection of one will confuse that of the others, 
 they will probably be all imperfectly remembered, and 
 most certainly all will be imperfectly understood. 
 
 If any of my hearers be surprised at the great number 
 of elements thus required to perfect the human mind as 
 an instrument (for all that I have been saying has borne 
 on this point only ; I have spoken nothing of any particu- 
 lar knowledge as useful to ourselves or others, except as 
 far as regards its bearings on the powers of the mind ;) 
 let them learn to think more highly than men commonly 
 do think of the full meaning of the term /education, and 
 let them not over-estimate the value of the attempts that 
 are now making in various ways to give information to the 
 people, including such institutions as this of ours. Simple 
 knowledge of any the humblest trade may enable us to 
 be useful to others, to maintain our families, and if it be 
 followed as our appointed line of duty, to glorify God. 
 But considered as instruction, as information, as in short 
 an intellectual acquisition, the value of the knowledge 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 421 
 
 communicated, be it of chemistry, be it of astronomy, 
 be it of geography, be it of history, depends on the powers 
 and on the education of the receiving mind. Knowledge 
 is the material for the mind to work upon ; but if the 
 instrument be blunt or out of order, what avails the fine- 
 ness of the material ? it continues stuff unwrought and 
 useless. Further, we shall have seen that education in 
 the proper sense of the word cannot be given equally to 
 a great number of persons. You may teach them the 
 formal sciences indeed equally, so that their reasoning 
 powers may be cultivated alike ; but you cannot do the 
 same with their judgment or their power of combination. 
 For the judgment depending greatly on a knowledge of 
 men, and the power of combination, increasing with the 
 number of ideas presented to it, they who by circum- 
 stances are confined to a limited sphere, who see little 
 variety, who have never associated with many highly-cul- 
 tivated minds, and above all with minds cultivated under 
 different circumstances of rank, profession, and country, 
 must labour under disadvantages which no mere book 
 instruction can remove. But at the same time it is im- 
 portant to see how much mere book instruction can do, 
 if it be applied wisely. If we read the works of great 
 men, philosophers, or orators, poets, historians, or divines, 
 the works of great men, whose own views are large and 
 profound, whose minds have^ combined actively a great 
 variety of ideas, and beautifully expressed them ; and if 
 we read them with our minds alive and awake to catch 
 and to understand, we are not only, as has often been 
 remarked, in a better society than is easily to be found 
 amongst living men, but we gain a far wider and truer 
 experience of men and of things than is gained often- 
 times by a whole life of active intercourse with what is 
 called the world. And not to speak of foreign writers, 
 what a treasure of wisdom and of experience is to be 
 gained from the works of Bacon, his Essays and his 
 Advancement of Learning] from the conversation of 
 
422 ON THE DIVISIONS AND 
 
 -Johnson as recorded by Boswell, far more indeed than 
 from his writings; from _ the Aids to Reflection, and the 
 Literary Remains of^Cpleridge,) from the Sermons of 
 Butler ; from the poetry of IVTilton and of Shakspeare. 
 Only let us read with a mind attentive and inquiring ; let 
 us for instance always acquaint ourselves with the age in 
 which the writer lived, with something of the circum- 
 stances of his life and the -peculiarities of his character. 
 And when I speak of the age in which he lived, I do not 
 speak of a knowledge of a mere date, which is good for 
 nothing; as for instance that Bacon was born in 1560, 
 f and died in 1626; but_an idea of what that period was, 
 / what events Bacon saw, and with what men he held inter- 
 1 course, how remote from, or how like to our own. An 
 inquiring spirit is not a presumptuous one/"b"ui- the very 
 contrary : He whose whole recorded life was intended to 
 be our perfect example, is described as gaining instruction 
 in the Temple by hearing and asking questions : the one 
 is almost useless without the other. We should ask 
 ! questions of our book and of ourselves; what is its pur- 
 pose ; by what means it proceeds to effect that purpose : 
 whether we fully understand the one, whether we go along 
 with the other. Do the arguments satisfy us, do the 
 descriptions convey lively and distinct images to us ; do 
 we understand all the allusions to persons or things ; 
 in short does our mind act over again from the writer's 
 guidance what his acted before; do 'we reason as he 
 reasoned, conceive as he conceived, think and feel as he 
 thought and felt; or if not, can we discern where and 
 how far we do not, and can we tell why we do not? 
 
 And now in conclusion, if the mind be thus cultivated 
 and exercised, we stand as it were on the edge of the 
 great garden of knowledge, free to turn on which path we 
 choose, with an instrument of surpassing power to make 
 any portion of it yield its fruits for our nourishment 
 and enjoyment. Happily indeed the choice is fixed for 
 most of us, our calling in life decides for us the particular 
 
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 423 
 
 branch of knowledge, whether physical or moral, which we 
 are most required to study. And inclination or accidental 
 circumstances may farther suggest such branches as we 
 may choose to study besides, in such hours of leisure as we 
 can command. Only it is clear that in whatever it is our 
 duty to act, those matters also it is our duty to study ; 
 there are many things of which we must all* be ignorant, 
 many of which we may be ignorant because there are other 
 studies which we prefer to follow : but there are two things 
 of which, unless we go wholly out of the world, we may 
 not be ignorant without great blame, our duties as men 
 and as citizens. And thus the very matters which con- 
 cern us most nearly, are exactly those on which the rules 
 of this and other similar institutions forbid us to enter. I 
 do not dispute the expediency 9f these rules, or to speak 
 more correctly, their necessity, in the present state of party 
 feeling both religious and political : but so long as they 
 are observed, it is idle to call Mechanics' Institutes places 
 of adult education. Physical science alone can never 
 make a man educated ; even the formal sciences, invalu- 
 able as they are with respect to the discipline of the reason- 
 ing powers, cannot instruct the judgment; it is only moral 
 and religious knowledge which can accomplish this: And 
 if habitually removing such knowledge from the course of 
 our studies, we exercise our thoughts and understanding 
 exclusively on lower matters, what will be the result, 1)ut 
 that when we come to act upon these higher points, in our 
 relations as citizens and as men, we shall act merely upon 
 ignorance, prejudice, and passion ? For notions of moral 
 good and evil of some sort or other we must have; and so 
 also in this country we can hardly help having some 
 notions about political good and evil ; but if we take 
 no pains that these notions shall be true and good, what 
 will our lives be but a heap of folly and of sin ? This 
 should be borne in mind carefully ; and if these merely 
 scientific or literary institutions appear to us to be suffi- 
 cient for our instruction, if having learnt all that they can 
 
424 ON THE DIVISIONS, ETC., OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 teach us, the knowledge so gained shall hide from us our 
 moral ignorance, and make us look upon ourselves as edu- 
 cated men, then they will be more than inefficient, or in- 
 complete ; they will have been to us positively mischievous. 
 But if we are well aware of their deficiencies, and take 
 them only at their real value, they may furnish us with 
 some knowledge that may be of use to us in our several 
 callings, and they may undoubtedly give us some innocent 
 and wholesome recreation. They may do more than this, 
 however, if they encourage in us habits of unimpassioned 
 inquiry ; if they make us hold commune with our minds, 
 and teach us to feel the difference between understanding 
 a subject and not understanding it. In this manner they 
 may prepare us for the study of those higher matters on 
 which they themselves do not enter; they may make us 
 feel our ignorance where we are ignorant, and the vague- 
 ness of our notions where they are vague : they may thus 
 preserve us from presumption on the one hand, and yet, 
 by stimulating the desire of knowledge, may save us from 
 an idolatrous leaning upon human authority, on the other ; 
 so helping to cherish a state of mind at once 'docile and 
 inquiring, which best becomes us both as men and as 
 Christians. 
 
ORDER OF DEACONS. 
 
[The following paper was circulated by Dr. Arnold, in 1841, in the 
 hope of calling attention to a subject in which he had long taken 
 great interest. See Life and Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 151. 180. 
 4th Edit. Serm. vol. iv. Pref. p. Ixiv. Serm. 38.] 
 
ORDER OF DEACONS. 
 
 THE want of a sufficient number of ministers of the 
 Church is more or less felt everywhere ; but in large towns, 
 and in the extensive and populous parishes of the manu- 
 facturing districts it is a most serious evil. To provide a 
 maintenance for as many additional clergymen as are 
 needed, either out of the actual amount of Church pro- 
 perty or by private subscription, is clearly impracticable. 
 It has been suggested whether the desired end could not 
 be attained by giving efficiency to the order of deacons, 
 and restoring to them that importance in the Church 
 which in ancient times belonged to them. 
 
 O 
 
 To get a sufficient number of deacons nothing seems 
 wanted but the repeal of all laws, canons, or customs, 
 which prevent a deacon from following a secular calling, 
 and also of all such as subject him to any civil disqualifi- 
 cations, or confer on him any civil exemptions. 
 
 It is conceived that if this were done a great many 
 pious and active members of the church would be very 
 glad to be ordained deacons, and to take a part in the 
 ministry. In all spiritual functions they would be under 
 the direction and control of the presbyters of their re- 
 spective parishes ; but in temporal matters, such as the 
 management and distribution of funds for charitable pur- 
 poses, and in making provision for the bodily wants of the 
 poor, they would form a council, of which the presbyter 
 would be the head, and to which all such matters might 
 be entrusted. 
 
428 ORDER OF DEACONS. 
 
 According to the present form of ordaining deacons, no 
 deacon is authorised to preach, except he shall obtain the 
 bishop's licence to do so. This provision might be en- 
 forced, and the licence to preach given only to such dea- 
 cons as the Bishop should judge expedient, and might be 
 granted only durante bene placito. 
 
 It is conceived ^that besides the great benefit of increas- 
 ing the number of ministers of the Church, other advan- 
 tages might be looked for from allowing deacons to follow 
 secular callings. A link would be formed between the 
 clergy and the laity by the existence of an order par- 
 taking of the character of both. The confusion of con- 
 fining the term Church to the clergy would be greatly 
 dispelled : inasmuch as there would be not only members 
 but even ministers of the Church who did not belong to 
 the clergy considered as a profession. And as the dea- 
 cons of the Church would be expected to live in all things 
 as became Christians, the same standard would be fol- 
 lowed by them which general opinion requires the clergy 
 to conform to, but which it does not always enforce in the 
 laity ; as for example in the case of duelling. The mi- 
 nistry of the Church would thus also be safely and most 
 beneficially open to persons of inferior rank and fortune, 
 who cannot afford the expense of an university education, 
 and have no prospects of a maintenance by entering into 
 the ministry as a profession, but who may have gifts which 
 enable them to serve the Church effectually, and who may 
 naturally and lawfully wish not to let these gifts lie idle. 
 It does not seem improbable that many persons who now 
 become preachers amongst the dissenters, without object- 
 ing to any of the doctrines of our Church, but simply be- 
 cause they have no means of following what they feel to 
 be their calling in our communion, would gladly become 
 deacons on the system suggested above, and would thus 
 be useful to the Church instead of being in some sort op- 
 posed to it. 
 
 The subscriptions required by law to be made by all 
 
ORDER OF DEACONS. 429 
 
 persons ordained deacons would continue as at present : 
 and the examination previous to ordination might be mo- 
 dified at the discretion of the bishops. With respect to 
 the order of priests or presbyters, it would of course re- 
 main in all points as it is at present, and its strictly pro- 
 fessional character would be wholly preserved. 
 
 Should the above suggestions be approved of by the 
 members of the Church generally, and especially by the 
 bishops, it might be expedient to prepare petitions in the 
 several dioceses, to ask Parliament to carry them into 
 effect. 
 
 May, 1841. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
[The following Letters were addressed by Dr. Arnold to the " Hert- 
 ford Reformer," now the " Hertford Mercury and Reformer." His 
 first communications with the Editor, Mr. Austin, were commenced 
 through Mr. Platt, after the discontinuance of his connection with 
 the Sheffield Courant, and were continued, at various intervals, from 
 1837 to 1841, but chiefly in 1838, 1839, and 1840, when under the 
 name of F. H (from his house in Westmoreland, Fox How,) he began 
 a regular series of letters, partly on the social evils of the country, 
 then betraying themselves in the disturbances of Chartism, partly on 
 some questions connected with the relations of Church and State 
 which had been treated in some letters in the same journal under the 
 name of " Augur," by Sir Culling E. Smith. See Life and Corre- 
 spondence, vol. ii. c. ix.] 
 
LETTERS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 I. STATE OF PARTIES. 
 
 [From the Paper dated May 30, 1837.] 
 
 THE defeat of the Liberal candidate at Westminster has 
 been followed by a similar result of the contest at Bridge- 
 water. It is easy to ascribe these defeats to mismanage- 
 ment, or to intimidation, or to the good organization of 
 the opposite party : but we should do well to remember 
 that it was otherwise in 1832; that the Liberals could 
 scarcely have been better managers then than they are 
 now ; that the Tories were certainly as rich, and as well 
 disposed to avail themselves of their wealth and influence, 
 as they can be at present. But though the boat and her 
 crew be the same, yet she will not make her way into har- 
 bour so quickly when the tide is ebbing as she did when 
 it was running in at the rate of ten knots an hour. 
 
 There is a turn in the tide, or if we like it better, the 
 flood is done, and it is slack water. This is enough to ac- 
 count for far greater defeats than the Liberals have as yet 
 sustained, unsupported by those extraordinary causes 
 which enabled them to crush the Tories in the elections 
 of 1831 and 1832, they now feel the disadvantages to 
 which the Liberal party is ever exposed when contending 
 against Conservatism. 
 
 The Liberals profess to be the advocates of truth and 
 justice; without regarding men's interests or prejudices. 
 Therefore they ever have been and still are a minority in 
 all political contests; their great victories have been 
 
 F F 
 
434 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 gained by their course happening to coincide for a time 
 with the interests of some powerful portion of society. 
 Every man appreciates justice when it is on his own side, 
 and thus all oppressed parties in their turn become 
 auxiliaries of the Liberal cause, but they do not therefore 
 become liberal; nor are they interested in the struggle 
 on any high ground of principle ; so that when their par- 
 ticular wrong is redressed they presently quit the contest ; 
 and are very likely to engage in it the next time on the 
 other side ; being often as tenacious in upholding the in- 
 justice from which they derive profit as they were in 
 combating that under which themselves were sufferers. 
 
 Again, nine men out of ten are, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, Conservatives. Who takes the trouble of going 
 out of his way, of altering his habits, of watching over 
 the evil tendencies of his nature? Ordinary men are sure 
 to be Conservatives if their outward condition is tolerable; 
 it is a matter of course that the majority of persons in 
 the richer classes should naturally be Conservative ; so 
 are the majority of the poorer classes, except so far as 
 they suffer or think that they suffer from things as they 
 are : they are not apt to be Reformers from the pure love 
 of truth and justice. 
 
 A truly Liberal government, as it relieves the oppres- 
 sions suffered by all parties and all orders, so it also re- 
 forms the abuses of all. But it has been long ago remarked 
 that he who reforms an abuse, gains lukewarm admiration 
 and zealous enmity. The present government reformed 
 the Rotten Boroughs, and incurred by so doing the deadly 
 hatred of the Tories: they reformed the Poor Laws, and 
 have thus given mortal offence to a large proportion of 
 the most ignorant and violent of the poor, who cling to 
 their abuses as fondly as the Tories do to theirs. But we 
 do not find that the gratitude and support of the country 
 at large are at all in proportion to the resentment and en- 
 mity of the Tories on the one hand, or of the misguided 
 advocates of pauperism on the other. 
 

 STATE OF PARTIES. 435 
 
 We must be prepared, then, to see a Liberal and honest 
 government always in a situation of peril, after the en- 
 thusiasm excited by its first great reforms is over. Its 
 friends relax their efforts, while its enemies rally. The 
 Liberal governments of George the First and George the 
 Second's reigns, had the steady support of the Crown, be- 
 cause so long as a Pretender was to be dreaded, resting 
 his claim on Tory principles, the Crown was obliged to 
 be liberal. Had not Charles Edward sunk towards the 
 end of his life into utter personal degradation, and had not 
 he, unhappily, been the last of his race, for his brother, 
 the Cardinal, was out of the question, George the Third 
 would not have dared to be a Tory. Without the support 
 of the Crown, hated by the aristocracy, the clergy, and 
 the lowest of the populace, sure of the opposition of 
 ignorance and dishonesty, where can a really honest 
 government look for friends but amongst the best and 
 wisest part of the people at large, where is its hope but 
 in the diffusion of principles of truth and honesty ? 
 
 This is the glorious task of the true Liberals ; to appeal 
 to reason, not to ignorance, to principle, not to selfish- 
 ness; for their triumph can be gained by no other 
 means. For any one particular measure they are, indeed, 
 sure of the support of those whose interest it promotes ; 
 but for their cause in general, they can have no supporters 
 but men to a certain degree honest, and intelligent, and 
 in proportion to the degree of honesty and intelligence in 
 the nation at large, will be the efficiency of the support 
 which they will receive. We must not doubt that this 
 support is to be won by recalling to men's minds the real 
 merits of some of the great questions now at issue, be- 
 tween the Government and the Conservatives ; and by 
 reminding them of what the Conservatives as a party are, 
 and ever have been. Least of all can we believe that any 
 honest man, after a moment's reflection, would tolerate 
 the notion of looking to measures, rather than to men : 
 for this doctrine can only mean that provided certain 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 measures are adopted by the government, it matters not 
 of whom that government consists : that is, it is a matter 
 of indifference whether that common honesty which we 
 regard as indispensable in the humblest menial servant 
 be, or be not, to be found in the character of a prime mi- 
 nister : whether the man, who acts from interest, or from 
 compulsion, against his conscience, is for the very sake of 
 his baseness, because he is ready to be the tool of any 
 one who is the strongest, a fit person to be entrusted 
 with the government of a Christian people. 
 
 II. CHURCH RATES. 
 
 [From the Paper dated June 20, 1837.] 
 
 WE trust that our meaning will not be mistaken when we 
 say that we do not regret postponement of the Church 
 Rate Question to another year. In that question are 
 involved principles of such vital importance, and the true 
 solution of its difficulties is, in our judgment, so little per- 
 ceived by the disputants on either side, that we are by no 
 means anxious to see it brought to a precipitate, and 
 therefore an imperfect and mischievous, settlement. The 
 proposed plan of the government did not make the 
 maintenance of the churches cease to be a national object, 
 because it provided for their repairs out of the proceeds 
 of the bishops' lands. The bishops 1 lands are as much 
 national property as the lands belonging to Greenwich 
 Hospital. And if the Greenwich Hospital lands presented 
 an amount of surplus revenue, which was to be devoted 
 to the building of King's ships, those ships would be just 
 as much provided by the nation as heretofore. But if 
 such an appropriation were avowedly intended to satisfy 
 the scruples of the Quakers, because they objected to the 
 building of ships of war, then we think that in allowing 
 this exemption, we should allow an exceedingly important 
 principle, and one which would tend to deprive the royal 
 
CHURCH RATES. 437 
 
 navy of its national character, and make it become the 
 navy of only a certain part of the community,' those, 
 namely, who did not hold Quaker opinions. We hold 
 that it marks a very critical point in the relations of 
 society, when there is reason to allow the protest of a 
 minority, so 'far as they themselves are concerned, against 
 any measure or institution approved of by the majority. 
 In some cases such a protest must always be inadmissible ; 
 if the minority will not venture their lives and fortunes 
 in support of a war which they disapprove, the national 
 bond is at once destroyed. Nor does the size of the 
 minority in this case make any difference, because the 
 question admits of no compromise : there must be either 
 war or no war; and therefore unless the minority yield to 
 the majority, the majority must yield to the minority, 
 which is still less reasonable. Other cases, of which the 
 appropriation of national funds is one, do manifestly 
 admit of compromise : and here the size of the minority 
 does make a great difference ; for we may truly say with 
 respect to political influence, "De paucissimis non curat 
 Lex:" but supposing the minority to be equal to two- 
 fifths, for instance, of the nation, it would become reason- 
 able that all the national funds should not be appropriated 
 according to the notions of the majority ; it would be 
 fair, that where consideration is so obviously practicable, 
 the notions of so important a minority should be in some 
 degree considered and complied with. But then this con- 
 sideration should be shown rather in the modified character 
 of the national act or institution in itself, than by main- 
 taining these in their full rigour, and allowing the 
 minority to be exempted altogether from their operation. 
 If the Dissenters are so important a minority, that any 
 appropriation of the national funds which they may dis- 
 approve cannot strictly be regarded as the act of the 
 nation, they may claim something more than a mere 
 exemption from contributing to the funds so appropriated 
 themselves. They are more than a few individuals, 
 
438 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 they are a substantial part of society; and therefore they 
 should share, except in cases where no such compromise 
 is possible, in the positive benefits to be derived from the 
 acts of society, and should not merely be exempted from 
 sustaining from them positive inconvenience. In short 
 the Dissenters' claim of exemption from Church-rates 
 either goes too far, or does not go far enough. If they 
 are felt to be so important, that society must recognize 
 them as a distinct and constituent element of the nation, 
 then the existence of an Establishment as a National 
 Institution which they wholly disapprove, and which does 
 not pay the slightest regard to their notions and wishes, 
 is in itself unjust. If, on the contrary, the Establishment 
 may justly be regarded as a National Institution, then we 
 cannot understand on what ground a certain number of 
 individuals who happen to dissent from it, are to be allowed 
 to withhold their money, when the society of which they 
 are members demands it for the promotion of an object of 
 public benefit. Even if it be contended that the mere 
 exemption from Church-rates is exactly that peculiar form 
 of compromise which is due to the actual political im- 
 portance of the Dissenters; that they may claim so 
 much, and have no right to expect more, yet it is evident 
 that, by parity of reasoning, as soon as they increase in 
 importance, their claims will advance in proportion : and 
 the Establishment must and ought to be deprived of one 
 mark after another of a National Institution, because it 
 will more and more represent the opinions of a part only 
 of the community, and not of the whole. It is this which 
 vitiates Warburton's argument, although many persons of 
 great name agree with him, when he contends for an 
 Establishment representing the opinions of one set of 
 Christians, without attempting any comprehension of 
 Dissenters, but giving them an ample toleration. War- 
 burton forgot that this was merely a temporary state of 
 things ; and that as there was a period when Dissenters 
 were so weak that they regarded toleration as a boon ; 
 
CHURCH RATES. 439 
 
 and as there afterwards came a period when they claimed 
 it as a right; so there was likely to come another period, 
 when they would reject it as an insult, and when the 
 existence of an Establishment from which they were 
 excluded would be at once unjust and impossible. The 
 founders of the Church of England neither contemplated, 
 nor would have consented to tolerate the existence of any 
 Dissenters. Had their notion been realized, the Church 
 of England would have continued to deserve its name 
 strictly. When Dissenters first appeared, they were 
 treated as criminals ; and so long as this was the case, no 
 alteration of the Church Establishment was to be expected. 
 Society will not alter its laws for the satisfaction of a 
 few individuals whom it regards as contumacious. But 
 when the Dissenters became strong enough to claim tole- 
 ration as their right, and to insist on a political equality 
 with the members of the Establishment, then that Esta- 
 blishment must either enlarge its basis or perish. In 
 other words, it must either become really as well as in 
 name the Church of the Nation ; or it will not long be 
 able to enjoy the wealth and dignity which belong rightly 
 to a national institution, but cannot be claimed by one 
 which belongs only to a party. The tendency of the 
 times is towards the latter alternative ; narrow-minded- 
 ness in all its various forms is agreed in refusing to extend 
 to the whole nation the benefits of an Established Church ; 
 whilst a growing sense of justice will teach men, that if 
 the nation is hopelessly divided into a number of sects, 
 no one of these can be suffered to claim an ascendancy 
 over the rest. It is, no doubt, far easier to cut the knot 
 than to untie it; far easier to preserve for a time and 
 then to destroy, than to construct, create, and improve. 
 But as we are satisfied that there is not a single evil 
 existing at this moment in England for which the institu- 
 tion of a truly national Christian Church is not the best 
 remedy ; as we know that the objections to such a Church 
 arise in great measure from misconception, and from 
 
440 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 supposing that all Establishments must share the faults of 
 those that have hitherto existed ; or, on the other hand, 
 from that wretched bigotry which would sacrifice Chris- 
 tianity, with all its infinite blessings, before the idol of its 
 own sectarianism ; and as we cannot believe that mis- 
 conceptions must be perpetual, or that bigotry must for 
 ever triumph over truth and goodness, so we shall ear- 
 nestly hope that the Church-rate question may be settled, 
 not by a measure which sanctions the double solecism of 
 calling that a National Church which is only the Church 
 of a part of a nation, and of allowing individuals to 
 escape contributing towards an institution claiming to be 
 national ; but by making the Church so effectually the 
 Church of the nation, that Church-rates shall be de- 
 manded of all with undoubted justice, and paid by all 
 without a murmur. 
 
 III. THE WESLEYAN METHODISTS AND 
 CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES. 
 
 [From the Paper dated Aug. 1, 1837.] 
 
 WE have heard that some of the Wesleyan Methodists 
 are disposed to vote for Conservative candidates at some 
 of the county elections. We never address any so wil- 
 lingly as those who we are sure can understand and value 
 Christian principles, whose grounds of reasoning are the 
 same as our own. We venture, then, to submit to the 
 Wesleyan Methodists, and to all sincere Christians of all 
 denominations, the following reasons why they, above all 
 men, should endeavour to exclude the Conservatives from 
 every chance of influencing the tone and measures of the 
 new Parliament. 
 
 1st. He who calls himself a Conservative is self-con- 
 demned. Toryism has been often right, inasmuch as 
 there have been many states of society in which the mo- 
 narchical principle has been essential to the improvement 
 
THE WESLEYANS AND CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES. 441 
 
 of the people; and the popular principle would have been 
 premature, and, therefore, mischievous : but Conservatism 
 has been wrong, at all times, since the Fall, and in every 
 place, except Paradise. The business of good men, at all 
 times and in all countries, has not been to preserve, but 
 to improve, or to prepare the way for improvement. 
 
 2nd. If the Conservatives say that they are opposed 
 not to improvement, but to destruction, then we tell them 
 that men have rarely erred on the side of destructiveness, 
 never, in any one instance, except when Conservatism 
 has driven them to it. We challenge all the Conserva- 
 tives in the world to produce a single exception to this 
 rule : and further, exactly in proportion to the duration 
 and intensity of the dominion of Conservatism, has been 
 the violence of the outbreak of destructiveness. In other 
 words, when a thing is too bad to be mended, there is no- 
 thing to be done but to throw it away. 
 
 3rd. If, from general principles we come to Conserva- 
 tives in England, their case is even worse. They boast of 
 our unrivalled Constitution : but whatever there is which 
 distinguishes England from other countries, has been won 
 by the Reformers of successive generations, in spite of all 
 the efforts of Conservatism. The Conservatives of King 
 John's time opposed Magna Charta; the Conservatives 
 of Edward the Sixth's time opposed the Reformation; 
 the Conservatives of Charles the Second's time op- 
 posed the Habeas Corpus Act; those of William the 
 Third's and of Anne's reign opposed the Toleration Act, 
 and the Protestant Succession, just as those of our own 
 days opposed the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the Re- 
 form of the Penal Code, Catholic Emancipation, and the 
 Reform Bill. If, then, you love the Constitution, vote 
 against every Conservative, for it was only by triumph- 
 ing over the Conservatives of old times that the Constitu- 
 tion was obtained : it can only be by triumphing over 
 them now that the Constitution can be perfected and 
 perpetuated. 
 
442 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 4th. But the Conservatives say that they would have 
 been Reformers in old times, that reforms then were 
 good; but now they are bad. Remember that this was 
 exactly the language used by the Conservative Scribes 
 and Pharisees of Jerusalem " if we had lived in the days 
 of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with 
 them in the blood of the prophets." And remember who 
 it was who, reading the human heart to the bottom, told 
 them that they were the true children of those who slew 
 the prophets; that their spirit was the same, and would 
 show itself in the like acts. And so it has been yet again. 
 The Conservative priesthood of the sixteenth century dis- 
 claimed the crimes of the Conservative Scribes and Pha- 
 risees and they did just the same in their own generation, 
 they persecuted Christ's truest servants, as their true 
 fathers in character had persecuted Christ Himself; and 
 as their ancestors, at a more remote period, had murdered 
 the prophets. Be sure that there is no pedigree so pure 
 and unmixed as that of the Conservatives. Haters and 
 opposers of good in the earliest ages of the world, they 
 have continued to be so steadily down to this very 
 hour. 
 
 5th. But how is it that Conservatism should always be 
 wrong ? May it not be, that after a great many reforms, 
 a thing which was once evil may have become good ; and 
 so that our business may be to preserve it merely, and not 
 to improve it? The great answer to this is, that in human 
 things nothing will ever stand still ; it must either grow 
 worse or grow better ; and, therefore, to talk of preserving 
 it as it is, means merely to hinder it from growing better, 
 and therefore to make it grow worse. All good Christians 
 know, that if they were to act on Conservative principles 
 with regard to their own hearts, the end would presently 
 be destruction. They know who made it his one great 
 maxim " to forget those things which were behind, and 
 to reach forward to those which were before ; and never to 
 count himself to have apprehended," that is, to have at- 
 
THE WESLEYANS AND CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES. 443 
 
 tained that point where he might cease to exert himself to 
 go further. 
 
 6th. This, then, is the general reason against all Con- 
 servatism : against that of the English Tories; now, there 
 is this farther one, which makes the case yet stronger. All 
 our great reforms in England have been partial ; they 
 have only mended some one particular grievance which 
 was grown too bad to be endured any longer. No one 
 has ever looked over the whole system, to construct it on 
 any sound and good principles. Remember always that 
 every thing in England bears or has borne the marks of 
 that most Jacobinical system, the system of feudalism in 
 the State and of priestcraft in the Church. Remember 
 that this system went on for centuries with full power to 
 work its evil will. No doubt its worst abuses have been 
 long since removed ; but they have been removed mostly 
 one by one, and many have been still left behind. And 
 in many instances where the actual evil was removed, no- 
 thing positively good was put into its place ; as was the 
 case especially in the Church and its government. And 
 therefore, we are indeed delivered from ecclesiastical ty- 
 ranny, but we have yet to restore in its room the organi- 
 zation of a true Christian Church. 
 
 For instance, many of the exemptions and privileges en- 
 joyed by the French noblesse, before the Revolution, have 
 certainly no existence in England. But it would be a 
 great mistake to suppose that the principle of equal law 
 has ever fully been established amongst us. Many per- 
 sons do not know that a peer or peeress may commit with 
 impunity any felony, provided it be not capital : because 
 their peerage is a bar to their suffering any ignominious 
 punishment short of death. Earl Ferrers was found guilty 
 of wilful murder, and therefore he was hanged ; but had 
 the verdict been manslaughter, even though it had been of 
 that aggravated character which in a commoner would 
 have been punished by transportation for life, he would 
 have received no punishment at all. This was actually 
 
444 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 the case with a former Lord Byron when tried for murder, 
 and with the Duchess of Kingston when tried for bigamy. 
 It is very true that peers are not apt to commit felonies ; 
 but the example is very valuable as proving what we said 
 above, that all our reforms have been partial, and that the 
 feudal system, where not reformed, is utterly iniquitous. 
 And many other proofs might be given of the same 
 thing. 
 
 7th. Above all, every sincere Christian should vote 
 against a Conservative, if he desires the spread of Christ's 
 Gospel in Ireland. You abhor Popery, and we agree with 
 you ; but the real question is, so long as we have any 
 thing to do with Ireland, how is Popery there to be 
 mended ? Can there be a more mischievous state of 
 things than what now exists in Ireland ? Roman Catholics 
 
 O 
 
 and Protestants hating one another, and confirming one 
 another, by their opposition, in the most extravagant parts 
 of their respective tenets ? Does any man believe that a 
 Roman Catholic people, in any part of Europe, will ever 
 be converted to Protestantism by Protestants, who have 
 been its hereditary adversaries ? Was any Roman Ca- 
 tholic Church ever reformed except by itself ? If you re- 
 member what was done by the Jansenists in France, in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries how those great 
 and good men, Arnauld and Pascal, asserted the most 
 vital points of Christian doctrine, and how far the Gal- 
 lican Church went in maintaining its independence of 
 Rome ; you will be convinced that such is the only pro- 
 spect of real religious good which is to be looked for in 
 Ireland, and that such a prospect can never be opened, 
 so long as the Roman Catholics are made a mere sect 
 so long as all the revenues of the Christian Church in 
 Ireland are given to a small minority, and those, for the 
 most part, not in their origin the brethren of the Irish 
 people, but its conquerors and oppressors. 
 
 If there is such a rule in the world as doing as we would 
 be done bv, then the exclusive establishment of the 
 
THE COPYRIGHT BILL. 445 
 
 Protestant Church in Ireland is a direct injustice, and 
 therefore a direct sin. If we may take the property of 
 the Irish nation to advance, as wa think, the cause of 
 Protestantism, we might certainly with equal justice per- 
 secute the persons of the Irish people for the same object. 
 But God's truth is not served by wickedness ; you would 
 disclaim the aid of the State to uphold Protestantism; 
 is the robbery of a nation's property an expedient any 
 way more righteous or more becoming a Christian ; and 
 does it not at this moment, in point of fact, grievously 
 and notoriously obstruct in Ireland the growth of Christ's 
 kingdom ? 
 
 IV. THE COPYRIGHT BILL. 
 
 [From the Paper dated May 5, 1838.] 
 
 MR. SERJEANT TALFOURD'S Bill on the subject of Copy- 
 right, has excited, as was likely, no small stir amongst 
 the booksellers and publishers, and they are using all 
 their influence to organize an opposition against it. If 
 they succeed, it will not be owing to the strength of their 
 interest so much as to mistaken notions about freedom 
 and monopoly and public expediency, which on this 
 question, as on several others, show the great distinction 
 between popular principles and liberal, between those 
 whose object is simply to get rid of all restraint, and 
 those who think that freedom is only valuable so long as 
 it is an instrument of moral good and not merely of selfish 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The question is, however, one of some real difficulty, 
 and though the booksellers' arguments, if so they may be 
 called, are shameless almost to absurdity, yet on the other 
 hand some of the advocates of the rights of authors carry 
 their claims too far, or rather they do not "see that the 
 author's right, pushed to an extremity, interferes with 
 what is scarcely less than a right on the part of the public, 
 and hence arises the necessity of a compromise. 
 
446 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 On the one hand, nothing seems more natural and just, 
 than that an author should retain a property in the pro- 
 ductions of his own mind. Lands and houses, it is said, 
 are much less our own than what we ourselves have 
 created, what other person can have any right to inter- 
 fere with our own work, which no one else brought into 
 existence, which it may be none but ourselves could have 
 originated ? 
 
 But yet, on the other hand, the knowledge which we 
 gain, from whatever sources, becomes our own so soon as 
 we have gained it, and we may use it how we will. When 
 it was the fashion to hear rather than to read, if any man 
 with a good memory had learnt by heart the greatest part 
 of the Homeric Poems, would he not have had a right to 
 rehearse them to others, and might he not justly have 
 derived a profit from such a recitation ? And is the case 
 altered if a man uses his money instead of his memory, 
 -and has copies multiplied for various persons to read 
 them, instead of communicating the same pleasure to an 
 equal number of persons by his voice and his recollection ? 
 
 The act of publication means that you communicate 
 to the public your own discoveries, or knowledge, or 
 thoughts, or fancies. You communicate them, not like 
 a secret entrusted to one or two favoured individuals, but 
 unconditionally to all men. The knowledge which you 
 thus give they may immediately turn to account ; they 
 may teach it to others, and make a profit by so doing; 
 as in the case of a schoolmaster introducing amongst his 
 boys a useful school-book, as he communicates this 
 knowledge orally, and receives payment for it, may he not 
 communicate it also by writing, and if by writing, may 
 he not by printing ? the paper, type, ink, &c., being as 
 lawfully his own as the voice, which is his instrument of 
 communicating the same knowledge to his pupils. 
 
 These two conflicting rights, of the author over his own 
 works, of the purchaser of a book over the knowledge 
 which he has so purchased, and which is thus in a manner 
 
THE COPYRIGHT BILL. 
 
 447 
 
 become his own, necessarily call for a compromise. The 
 author and purchaser being both members of society, so- 
 ciety will decide between them. Society finds the pur- 
 chaser's right, if unrestrained, destructive to itself; if he 
 whose interest in any given piece of knowledge is no 
 more than a few shillings, the purchase-money of the 
 book, acquires the same right over it as he whose interest 
 in it may be the labour of years, vast expense, and, what 
 is not to be calculated, the exertion of his own mind in 
 bringing: it to hVht, then men will be obliged to devote 
 
 ^ o O ' ^ 
 
 less time, less exertion, less money, to the pursuit of 
 knowledge, and so there will be a less valuable article for 
 
 o " 
 
 the purchaser to purchase. Society says therefore to the 
 purchaser, " Your rights over this knowledge being far less 
 than those of the author, must yield to his, as otherwise 
 less and less valuable knowledge will be discovered, by 
 which you and society altogether will be the losers." 
 
 Thus then the right of literary property is fixed by 
 society on the principle of compromise, yet not as if the 
 rights of the author and purchaser were perfectly equal in 
 the eye of reason ; but that there is enough of justice in 
 the claim of the latter to modify the unreserved exercise 
 of the right of the former. But the question may be 
 asked, whether the present statute law has established the 
 compromise fairly : whether to limit an author's right over 
 his works to a period of twenty-eight years, or to his own 
 life, be not rather assuming that the purchaser's right is 
 the greater ; but that its extreme exercise is modified by 
 some regard for the inferior right of the author. It is one 
 thing to say that an author's right is not absolutely inde- 
 feasible, and another to insist that it shall expire at the end 
 of thirty or forty years at the outside. There is no pro- 
 portion between the perpetuity of all other property, and 
 the mere brief occupation tenure of this. 
 
 That the present law is imperfect, the single case of 
 Mr. Wordsworth is sufficient to show clearly. Mr. 
 Wordsworth's early Poems were published so long ago 
 
448 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 that on his death all property in them would be imme- 
 diately lost to his family. Now the property which a 
 man cannot secure even to his own immediate children, is 
 surely scarcely to be called property at all. 
 
 Nature has herself drawn a marked line which may well 
 guide us in fixing the term of such rights as are not ab- 
 solutely indefeasible. To our children we are bound by 
 the closest ties ; our interest in our children's children is 
 in ordinary circumstances very faint beyond the period of 
 their early childhood. The prosperity of our grandchil- 
 dren is more a gratification to our family pride and am- 
 bition than to our natural affections ; but the common 
 feeling of all mankind, in allowing men to dispose of their 
 property after their own death, shows that our own welfare 
 is supposed to be inseparably connected with that of our 
 own children ; that wealth must lose half its value if we 
 cannot secure it to them, even after we ourselves are taken 
 away from them. 
 
 This seems a clear and intelligible ground for the ex- 
 tension of an author's copyright given by Mr. Serjeant 
 Talfourd's Bill. It will be now secured in ordinary cases 
 to him and his children. This seems the very least that 
 can be granted to him consistently with justice ; while, 
 on the other hand, the peculiar character of literary 
 property, the sort of right which we have already acknow- 
 ledged to exist in the purchaser, and the comparative 
 indifference with which mere natural affection regards our 
 remote posterity, may be reasons why no more should be 
 granted. As for the mere consideration of benefit to the 
 purchaser by restricting the term of copyright, this alone 
 cannot be allowed to determine the question, so long as 
 there is any regard paid to common honesty. It might be 
 very convenient to the purchasers, at least for a time, to 
 be able to get bread and meat at half of the market prices : 
 but few probably would be found who would therefore 
 recommend a law for a maximum. Now the booksellers' 
 argument about the public benefit in getting books cheap, 
 
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 449 
 
 even if true in fact, which it is not, in any calculable 
 degree, is precisely imposing a maximum upon authors : 
 It says, you all sell your property at such a price ; for 
 if you do not, you cannot afford to await for a better 
 market, because after a certain time we will take your 
 property from you for nothing. 
 
 V. CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 [From the Paper dated November 24, 1838.] 
 
 SIR, Your correspondent " Augur '* has entered upon a 
 great subject, and he treats it like a man who has thought 
 upon it much and well. No subject can be so important, 
 for, in fact, it includes every other : moral evils are ever 
 at the root of such as are physical and political ; and for 
 moral evil I know of only one cure, and that is Christian- 
 ity, by its double influence, as a Religion and as a Church. 
 This double character of Christianity is continually for- 
 gotten : strip it of either of its two essential parts, and you 
 destroy its virtue, although not in an equal degree. The 
 Church without the religion is, as we all see, worthless. 
 I do not think we enough understand that the Religion 
 without the Church is comparatively powerless that it 
 benefits comparatively only a few individuals, while for 
 the mass of mankind it produces effects wholly unworthy 
 of the promises which were bestowed on it. 
 
 Augur understands the way in which the Priesthood 
 has superseded the Church : he speaks strongly of this 
 evil but he is mistaken, I think, in connecting the evils of 
 a Priesthood with an Establishment. There is no natural 
 connection between them ; for although where all men 
 are beset with the heresy of the Priesthood, their Esta- 
 blishment, if they have one, will unavoidably bear the 
 marks of their common error, yet the Church can never 
 exist in its perfection without an Establishment, if men 
 
 G G 
 
450 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 will but consider what an Establishment properly is, and 
 what principles it involves. 
 
 The people of a certain country are, we will suppose, 
 Christians ; while at the same time they are politically 
 sovereign ; that is, they can impose taxes, make laws, and 
 enforce them if need be by capital punishments. By 
 being a sovereign society their control extends over every 
 part of human life ; the education, habits, and principles 
 of the several individuals of their society are matters in 
 which they have a direct concern. But a Christian 
 society with a general control over human life, with a 
 direct interest in the moral welfare of its members, and a 
 sovereign power of affecting this welfare by laws, rewards, 
 and punishments, is already a church. It can only cease 
 to be so by forfeiting, more or less, its Christian character; 
 for it is manifest that a Christian government, acting in 
 the name of a Christian people, is bound to shape its 
 practice and its institutions according to Christian princi- 
 ples, that is, in every thing that relates to moral good ; 
 it is bound to do the exact business of a Church, nor 
 can it resign this high duty without being most deeply 
 culpable. 
 
 It is bound therefore to provide for the Christian edu- 
 cation of the young, for the Christian instruction of the 
 ignorant, and for the constant and public dissemination 
 of Christian principles amongst all classes of its people. 
 It is as much bound to do this, as it is bound to provide 
 for the external security of society, or for the regular ad- 
 ministration of justice. 
 
 Now, by the actual law of England, there is a very 
 large portion of the property of the country set apart for 
 these objects ; and it has been set apart so long, that it 
 can in no sense be called a tax upon the private property 
 of any single individual. What utter madness would it 
 be to take this public property, and give it away to a 
 certain number of individual landholders ! It would be 
 an act of folly unrivalled by the most wanton extravagance 
 
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 451 
 
 of the worst government on record ; it would be an act 
 of direct robbery also; for it is a robbery committed 
 against society, when public property is given away to 
 individuals ; it is a robbery against the existing genera- 
 tion and their remotest posterity. 
 
 That this portion of public property is not applied in 
 the best manner for the fulfilment of its proper objects, 
 may be, and I think is, perfectly true. It may have main- 
 tained a priesthood to the injury of the Church, because 
 the priesthood so long set up an unchristian claim to be 
 the sole representatives of the Church. The rector of 
 every parish was said to be "persona ecclesite ; " he is 
 in law " a corporation sole," as it is called, because in his 
 single person the rights of the church in that parish are 
 held to be vested. Alter this in its proper measure ; do 
 not let the priest continue alone to represent the Church ; 
 but restore the true and living institution which has 
 been corrupted ; and do not commit the fatal error of 
 extinguishing disease by death : of removing the evils 
 which have impaired the excellence of the best of all in- 
 stitutions only by destroying the institution itself. 
 
 I therefore hold it to be an especial blessing that we 
 have in England two facilities for reviving the efficiency 
 of the Christian Church throughout the country, such as 
 we most of all desire. 1st. We have an ample portion of 
 public property already devoted by law to the especial 
 objects of the Church, independent of any tax upon indi- 
 viduals, or any voluntary subscriptions whatever. And 
 2nd. In the great recognized principle of the King's or 
 Queen's supremacy, which may truly be called the charter 
 of the Church of England, we have the truth clearly 
 established that the Church or Christian society has the 
 complete power of self-government, and is not subject to 
 any privileged caste of priests, whether they may happen 
 to be few or many, or whether their government be called 
 a Presbytery, a Synod, a Convention, a Council, or a 
 Papacy. 
 
 G G 2 
 
452 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 VI.STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING 
 POPULATION. 
 
 [From the Paper dated December 1, 1838.] 
 
 SIR, I am rejoiced to find that your attention has been 
 aroused by the proceedings of the manufacturing popu- 
 lation in Lancashire and Yorkshire. I believe that our 
 views on this subject are much the same ; but perhaps you 
 will not be sorry to address your readers in two parts of 
 your paper on a question so momentous ; for assuredly 
 it is one on which no one can think too often, or with too 
 deep an interest. Should any acts of open violence take 
 place, it will then be the time for acting, not for writing ; 
 for the decision of the Government, not for the counsels 
 of individuals. May that acting and that decision, should 
 any occasion unhappily demand it, be prompt, vigorous, 
 and effectual I In such cases timely severity is the greatest 
 mercy; and never would the utmost severity of the law 
 fall more deservedly than on the men whose wicked pas- 
 sions had excited such an outbreak. 
 
 But suppose that the Government do its duty to the 
 uttermost ; suppose that the vigour of the civil and mili- 
 tary authorities, should any tumult arise, shall prevent a 
 repetition of the disgraceful plunder and conflagration of 
 Bristol. Suppose the profligate incendiaries, who are now 
 urging on the people to deeds of robbery and blood, to 
 have received their just reward, still in a few years' time 
 there will again be the same danger. It was averted in 
 1831, it may be again averted in 1838 or 1839, but it will 
 not be so always. Like the first signs of a mortal disease, 
 these fainter shocks do but indicate the nature of the evil 
 which will one day prove fatal. 
 
 But do I appeal only to our fears ? God forbid ! 
 There may be something of courage in despising danger; 
 but there is nothing but selfishness in neglecting to re- 
 move the evil. The future danger besides is contingent ; 
 the actual evil is certain. Undoubtedly, Sir, there is 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 453 
 
 much in the present state of the manufacturing popula- 
 tion which calls for notice on the part of society at large, 
 and not only for notice but for relief. Look at the 
 elements of the whole question. Has the world ever yet 
 seen a population so dangerous in every respect to the 
 society in which it existed as the manufacturing popula- 
 tion of Great Britain ? Not slaves, not utterly ignorant, 
 not thinly scattered, not restrained by close connection 
 with other classes of society, not possessing political 
 power, not enjoying physical comfort, not softened by 
 knowledge, not within the reach of the ordinary influences 
 of any religious society ; but free men, with much in- 
 telligence, crowded together in most formidable masses, 
 well aware of the force of organization, ambitious of 
 the power and longing for the comfort which they have 
 not, and which others have ; but not aware of the un- 
 reasonableness of their first desire, and the impractica- 
 bility of their second. If they were slaves, they might be 
 kept down by force : if they were what citizens ought to 
 be, they would be peaceable alike from interest and from 
 duty; but as they are neither the one nor the other, what 
 is to be done ? 
 
 We are justly proud of having done away with slavery; 
 but we do not remember that slavery cut the knot of the 
 most difficult of all earthly questions, how to provide for 
 the physical and moral well-being of the mass of human 
 society. Slavery cut the knot, by saying that the majority 
 of human beings in every country who constitute the great 
 difficulty of the question, shall not be considered as a part 
 of society. We do well to refuse to cut the knot, but we 
 do ill not to attempt to untie it. 
 
 This neglect is encouraged by one of the falsest maxims 
 which ever pandered to human selfishness under the name 
 of political wisdom, I mean the maxim that civil society 
 ought to leave its members alone, each to look after their 
 several interests, provided they do not employ direct fraud 
 or force against their neighbour. That is, knowing full 
 
454 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 well that these are not equal in natural powers, and that 
 still less have they ever within historical memory started 
 with equal artificial advantages ; knowing, also, that power 
 of every sort has a tendency to increase itself, we stand 
 by and let this most unequal race take its own course, 
 forgetting that the very name of society implies that it 
 shall not be a mere race, but that its object is to provide 
 for the common good of all, by restraining the power of 
 the strong and protecting the helplessness of the weak. 
 
 This letting alone system argues thus : " Every man is 
 the best judge of his own interest, and therefore we leave 
 the movement of society to direct itself. Nature points 
 out manufacturing industry as the great source of wealth 
 to this country; and of course the manufacturer must 
 carry on his business in the most profitable manner that 
 he can. Certain parts of the country are more suitable 
 for his purposes than others ; manufactories therefore will 
 be crowded together in such districts, and a large popula- 
 tion necessarily will grow up within a small compass. It 
 will go on rapidly increasing, for there is a sufficient pro- 
 spect of employment to encourage a man to marry, where 
 the standard of comfort is not set high, and thoughts of a 
 remote future can scarcely be expected to have any in- 
 fluence. The population thus multiplying necessarily lessens 
 the value of its sole commodity, its labour : a man's wages 
 do not keep pace with his expenses; but his wife and 
 children may do something to help him; and the ma- 
 nufactory will provide them with employment. They must 
 all work early and late, however, in order to earn a suffi- 
 ciency; but still the sufficiency can be gained. If wages 
 are sufficient, how can the manufacturer be expected to 
 raise them ? especially as, were he to do so, he must, by 
 adding to the price of his commodity, be undersold by 
 foreign competitors, and so involve his workmen in his own 
 ruin. Every step in this process is natural, and taken vo- 
 luntarily by all parties : how can it be interfered with by 
 a government, or how ought it to be interfered with ? The 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 455 
 
 relation between the masters and men is one purely com- 
 mercial ; and who ever attempted to shackle the natural 
 liberty of commerce, without doing infinite mischief to 
 those whom he meant to benefit ? " 
 
 That there is a truth in this view of the question is in- 
 disputable. Nothing can be more unwise than the sneers 
 in which some well-meaning persons indulge against po- 
 litical economy : for it is not possible that so many able 
 men should have made a particular subject their study 
 without arriving at far more truth respecting it than can 
 be attained by those who never studied it at all. The 
 truths of political economy are to be learnt from political 
 economists, and like all other truths relating to human 
 affairs ought to be known and respected by the statesman. 
 BuMt does not follow that he should be exclusively guided 
 by them, unless there were no other moral and political 
 truths in the world which were to be learnt from other 
 sciences. And here is the presumption and the fault of 
 the political economist, that he assumes for his science the 
 title of political science generally ; as if because a thing is 
 right economically, it must also be right politically. Yet 
 the greatest generals know that an operation expedient on 
 mere military grounds may sometimes be forbidden by 
 higher considerations of general policy; and the soldier 
 must then yield to the statesman. So it may well be, that 
 what is economically called expedient may be politically 
 mischievous ; and then the economist also should yield to 
 the statesman. 
 
 The statesman, for instance, may well say to the econo- 
 mist, "Your system works perfectly well for the objects 
 with which alone you are concerned ; and, therefore, on 
 your view of the question, you are perfectly right in up- 
 holding it. But as it does not work perfectly well for the 
 general security and happiness of the nation, I am bound 
 to look out for some other truths which do not lie within 
 your province, and to apply their lessons in order to re- 
 move certain evils of which you consistently can take no 
 
456 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 cognizance. You see an immense mass of capital profit- 
 ably employed, and increasing prodigiously the national 
 wealth. You see this truly ; but I see also a vast and in- 
 creasing population placed in a very unfavourable state, 
 socially and morally, and this, politically speaking, is an 
 evil of the first magnitude. You say that their relation 
 with their masters is purely commercial, and that, there- 
 fore, we must not tamper with its freedom. But I say 
 that this very fact, that the relation between the rich and 
 the poor in so large a part of the kingdom is purely com- 
 mercial, is in itself most mischievous ; because a purely 
 commercial relation not only arises out of nothing better 
 than self-interest, but it goes on to nothing better; it 
 neither springs from nor leads to any feelings of admira- 
 tion, confidence, reverence, or love, which are the true ties 
 between man and man. Unless, therefore, I can add some 
 better relation to this purely commercial one, we shall see 
 the rich and the poor living in close contact indeed exter- 
 nally ; but it is a contact which only irritates. We shall 
 see no sympathy between them, and therefore no society." 
 . This, then, is the great evil in the condition of a manu- 
 facturing population, that, it implies the congregation of a 
 vast multitude within a comparatively narrow space, and 
 with an object purely commercial. In other words, they 
 are regarded as hands not as heads, hearts, or souls; 
 and yet they are not slaves, and cannot be restrained as 
 such. This is a fearful anomaly, and one peculiar to 
 modern society ; and in its excess, peculiar to this country 
 alone. 
 
 The political question involved in the demand for uni- 
 versal suffrage, is nothing when compared to the social 
 question which has been stirred in the wild language used 
 with respect to capital and labour. We do not enough 
 consider that such social questions have scarcely ever 
 been mooted ; during the greatest excitement of the 
 French Revolution, no one dreamt of attacking property 
 as such, or talked of labour and capital as having con- 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 457 
 
 flicting interests. And yet the far less irritation of poli- 
 tical questions has caused bloodshed enough in many 
 countries and many ages. What will be the case if here 
 the exasperation of political contest be farther embittered 
 by the fearful struggle of poverty against property ? 
 
 Here is the evil, and it is not a light one. Let every 
 man, rich or poor, who loves his country, look well to the 
 remedies of it. You, Sir, I know, will do so, and if you 
 will accept my assistance in the task, I should feel ho- 
 noured by uniting my efforts to yours in a cause so 
 noble. 
 
 VII. STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING 
 POPULATION. 
 
 [From the Paper dated December 29, 1838.] 
 
 SIR, My last two letters were written on subjects appa- 
 rently very remote from each other, the Church, and the 
 state of the manufacturing population. Really however 
 they are in my judgment very closely connected ; inas- 
 much as the one affords the greatest of all social remedies, 
 while the other is the most dangerous of all social dis- 
 orders. But the particular manner in which the remedy 
 should be applied to the disorder, is a question of great 
 difficulty, and to answer it properly requires an union of 
 various qualifications, such as are scarcely to be found 
 together in any man, and to which most assuredly I am 
 very far from advancing the slightest claim. I would only 
 try to attract the notice of your readers to the peculiar 
 evils of the state of our manufacturing population ; the 
 adaptation of the remedy should be left to those who unite 
 practical experience with a benevolent desire to make 
 that experience available to their neighbour's good. 
 
 Let me just state again that the peculiar evil of a 
 manufacturing population is this ; that it is essentially a 
 
 
458 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 crowded population, employed in servile labours, yet pos- 
 sessing the feelings of freemen ; and above all, that it 
 owes its existence to a purely commercial relation, that of 
 employer and employed. Consequently, it contains within 
 it one only, and that not the best, element of civil society. 
 The difference will be apparent, if we compare the mere 
 outward appearance of a town or village of any other part 
 of the kingdom with that of a town or village in the manu- 
 facturing districts. You see in the former, houses of every 
 variety of size and condition ; from the house of the 
 lord of the manor, or some other great person whose 
 place forms a sort of link between the town and the 
 country, down to the cottage of the poorest artizan. Be- 
 tween these there are the houses of the banker, the lawyer, 
 the clergyman, the medical man, the retired merchant, the 
 private gentleman, and again, the houses of the richer 
 tradesmen forming a third class, and a fourth class of 
 the houses of the smaller shopkeepers. Here is variety, 
 and also a just proportion ; for although the houses of 
 the poorest class are the most numerous, yet their number 
 does not so much exceed that of the houses of the richer 
 classes, as wholly to dilute, if I may so speak, that social 
 influence which every class of society ought to exercise 
 upon the rest. The poor, in other words, do not so enor- 
 mously outnumber the rich, as to make it certain that a 
 large proportion of the former must be personally un- 
 known to any of the latter, except to their own employer. 
 Now consider the appearance of a manufacturing town 
 or village. There is the great manufactory, and there are 
 the long rows of cottages which constitute the dwellings 
 of the poor manufacturing workmen. Besides, there are 
 some poor shops, supplying such articles as the workmen 
 require ; and perhaps, but not always, there would be the 
 houses of the clergyman and the medical man. But these 
 are lost amidst the multitude of the poor; and whilst many 
 of the elements of society which exist elsewhere are here 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 459 
 
 wholly wanting, those which remain are socially power- 
 less, because the poorest class has been multiplied around 
 them beyond all wholesome proportions. 
 
 This is a great difference ; another, not so striking to 
 the mere outward eye, is, notwithstanding, of very sub- 
 stantial importance. 
 
 I said that a manufacturing population owes its exist- 
 ence to a purely commercial relation, that of employer 
 and employed. This relation of course must be found 
 everywhere, but it has found rather than created the popu- 
 lation. I will explain my meaning more fully. A labourer 
 in an agricultural village, or an artizan in a common town, 
 works for an employer, but he did not become an inhabi- 
 tant of the village or town in order to work for him. He 
 lives there because the place is his home, because his 
 father lived there before him because his family and friends 
 have lived there from time immemorial. These are all such 
 reasons as become a man and a citizen, and they involve 
 in them circumstances no less elevating. Such a man 
 has a neighbourhood to which he belongs, in which he 
 is known, and where his character is the subject of a" cer- 
 tain public opinion, whether for good or for evil. But 
 what is the case with the manufacturer who is brought to 
 a certain part of the country to work for an employer, and 
 must live there only because he works there ? Whatever 
 be the physical comfort of the cottage in which he is 
 quartered, how can it be to him like a natural home ? 
 What ties has he to the place or to the neighbourhood, 
 except the transient tie of his actual work ? And what 
 is his neighbourhood but a mere mixed multitude of per- 
 sons brought together from different parts of the country, 
 with nothing to bind them either to the place or to one 
 another, as incapable of forming a society as if they were 
 a mere assemblage of slaves ? Let any man look at the 
 wretched huts which are often run up by the side of a 
 railway whilst the construction of it is in progress, for the 
 
460 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 temporary accommodation of the workmen. Let him go 
 into ten or twelve of these huts, one after the other, and 
 see the different features and mark the different dialects 
 of their respective inmates. He will find them tenanted 
 by persons brought together from all parts of the kingdom, 
 brought together, indeed, but incapable of forming a 
 society, and destined in a few weeks to be separated 
 again, and to be called off to some other railway. Here 
 indeed he will see the evil in its most palpable form ; yet 
 this homeless, unsocial, herding, and at the same time 
 vagrant condition, is in the main the lot of every popula- 
 tion who are brought to live in a place only because they 
 are employed to work in it. 
 
 What the manufacturing workmen want is, first, a home ; 
 and then, as a natural consequence, to become members 
 of a society more varied in its elements and more whole- 
 some in its character than their own clubs and unions. 
 Unless these wants can be supplied, they will in some of 
 the most important points resemble slaves rather than 
 citizens ; they will feel some of the worst moral evils of 
 the slave's condition ; they will regard the civil society 
 around them with much of the slave's hatred ; but because 
 they are not slaves altogether, because they are not 
 chained, nor liable to be crucified by hundreds at a time 
 on the least symptom of mutiny, their power of gratifying 
 their hatred will be a hundred times greater than that of 
 the slave, and consequently they will be a hundred times 
 more dangerous. 
 
 That it is difficult to supply these wants of which I 
 have spoken, I am well aware; the word "impractic- 
 able " is for ever on the lips of those who, from blindness, 
 or recklessness, or self-interest, cannot or will not see the 
 evils of their actual state, and will not make the effort 
 which is required to mend it. But that the task is really 
 impracticable and impossible, God forbid that I should 
 believe ; for if it be, the prospects of England are scarcely 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 461 
 
 less gloomy than those of the slave states of America ; 
 they threaten equal misery in the issue; they involve, I 
 fear, scarcely less of national guilt. 
 
 Thus far I have spoken unhesitatingly ; for the evils of 
 the present state of our manufacturing population are 
 perhaps more visible to a bystander than to one actually 
 engaged in the system. But in what I shall say as to 
 remedies, I would suggest doubtfully and diffidently ; I 
 would ask whether this of that cannot be done, I would 
 urge those whose knowledge is far greater than mine, not 
 to be content with showing that my proposed relief is im- 
 practicable, but to turn their experience to good account 
 by devising some relief that shall be practicable : for, let 
 my remedies be as visionary as they will, the existing evil 
 unhappily is but too real. 
 
 VIII. STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING 
 POPULATION. 
 
 [From the Paper dated January 5, 1839.] 
 
 SIR, I have dwelt rather largely on the actual evils of 
 the state of the manufacturing population, because, if the 
 country could be made sensible of the magnitude of the 
 evil, the remedy, I believe, would surely follow. We 
 have seen what efforts were made, what sacrifices were 
 submitted to by the English people, in order to put down 
 first the slave trade, and more recently slavery. We 
 know what societies have been formed, and what large 
 sums are yearly expended, to forward the great work of 
 spreading the knowledge of Christianity amongst heathen 
 and barbarous nations. Surely if we are aware that there 
 exists in the heart of our own country a state combining 
 much of the physical suffering and degradation of slavery, 
 with much of the moral and religious ignorance of heathen- 
 ism and barbarism, we shall not be deterred by any diffi- 
 culties or any sacrifices from determining, with God's help, 
 to better it. 
 
462 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 I have said that the manufacturing population not only 
 wants many of those varied elements which are essential 
 to society, and combines those which it does possess in 
 no just proportions ; but that its labourers are inferior in 
 some important points to the labourers of other districts, 
 inasmuch as they have no connection with the place 
 where they live, except as being employed to work in it ; 
 that the feelings of neighbourhood and of home are 
 with them comparatively strangers ; that they are rather a 
 motley crowd of accidental sojourners, than a regular so- 
 ciety of the natural inhabitants of the country in which 
 they dwell. Being thus without the organization of regu- 
 lar society, the organization which they have amongst 
 themselves is rather mischievous than beneficial they are 
 formed into clubs and unions, associations which breathe 
 a narrow and selfish spirit at the best, but which, under 
 unfavourable circumstances, become mere gangs of con- 
 spirators : the isolation in which they exist, with respect to 
 the larger national society around them, being apt in a 
 moment to become alienation and active hostility. 
 
 Yet these men thus isolated from the national society 
 in the midst of which they live, as isolated really as ever 
 were the slaves of the old commonwealths of Greece or 
 Rome, are insisting loudly that they are members of 
 that society, and are claiming the rights a of members ac- 
 cordingly. In other words they are demanding the right 
 of voting for the election of members of parliament, with 
 the avowed hope of being able thereby to influence the 
 national society according to their own notions. And, 
 strange to say, their demand is at the bottom just, and 
 therefore, sooner or later, and with more or less of qualifi- 
 cation, it will be carried. It is just on our own showing, 
 because we acknowledge that they are not slaves. 
 Foreigners or sojourners, in the literal sense, they are not 
 certainly, nothing therefore remains but that they must 
 be freemen and citizens. Yet for freemen and citizens to 
 be wholly without political rights, is contrary to the sirn- 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 463 
 
 plest notions of a free government. What choice is left 
 us, then, but to make them citizens in feeling as well as in 
 name ; to make them really as well as nominally members 
 of our national society, that when they obtain political 
 rights in that society, as in process of time they will and 
 ought to do, they may exercise them in harmony with its 
 spirit and institutions, to its benefit, not to its destruction. 
 
 The first thing required, as it seems to me, is to organ- 
 ize the population of the manufacturing districts with an 
 organization that shall be legal and beneficial, instead of 
 that organization of clubs and unions which is merely 
 mischievous. For this object we require amidst so dense 
 a population, that the divisions should in point of local 
 extent be extremely small ; whereas unluckily the 
 parishes and townships of the north of England, having 
 been adapted originally to a population as thin and scat- 
 tered as it is now for the most part dense and numerous, 
 are much larger than those of the south. Again, many of 
 the towns being of recent growth are not as yet incorpor- 
 ated; and have thus a less effective system of self- 
 government than many much smaller places in the south- 
 ern part of the kingdom. It is desirable that the primary 
 element in the civil and ecclesiastical divisions of the 
 manufacturing districts, whether in towns or in the 
 country, should be extremely small ; for thus only where 
 the population is so dense, is it possible to get that mutual 
 knowledge of each other amongst the several inhabitants 
 of the same division, which is necessary in order to create 
 a neighbourhood, a public opinion, and a common feeling 
 of kindness, all of them essential points in the constitution 
 of a true civil society. 
 
 Every such division should have a certain portion of 
 common land unalienably attached to it, to serve as a 
 place for exercises and games, and partly it may be for 
 public walks or gardens. Where the population is so 
 great as to make that system of individual allotments 
 which has been practised with such benefit in the agricul- 
 
464 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 tural districts, wholly impracticable, it is of the last im- 
 portance that there should be township or parish allotments; 
 not only for the direct benefit and pleasure to be de- 
 rived from them, but also because thus only can we give 
 to the manufacturing workman the consciousness of pos- 
 sessing something of a property in land ; a feeling so sa- 
 lutary that it can scarcely be secured at too dear a price. 
 And therefore this common land should belong to all 
 the inhabitants of the division ; and they all should have 
 a voice in the management of it, care being taken that 
 they should neither be able to sell it, nor let it on a build- 
 ing lease, nor to let it at all except for the shortest pos- 
 sible term. 
 
 The importance of securing a portion of ground for 
 games and exercises in all thickly-peopled districts has 
 been urged more than once in parliament, not less wisely 
 than kindly, by Mr. Slaney, the excellent member for 
 Shrewsbury. It is a delightful duty to honour the name 
 of every public man who seeks to promote the innocent 
 pleasure of the poor, and who by thus investing law with 
 a character not of justice only, but of actual kindness, 
 commends it to the affection of those whose worst degrad- 
 ation it is to regard it as their enemy. 
 
 The township or parish, thus possessing its common 
 property, should also possess its own internal govern- 
 ment. There is at present a wide gap in our system for 
 the administration of justice between the justice of the 
 peace and the constable. The first is too high, and be- 
 longs exclusively to the aristocracy, the latter is too 
 humble, and possesses an authority too entirely subordinate. 
 There might be some officer between these two ex- 
 tremes, something more resembling the juge de la paix 
 ' of the French canton, or the syndic of the villages of 
 Savoy. The object would be not merely one of police, 
 although that is far from unimportant, but to train the 
 people themselves to a sympathy with and a practical un- 
 derstanding of the administration of justice, and also to 
 
STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. 465 
 
 introduce into a manufacturing population another element 
 besides those of employer and employed. If the office 
 were salaried, it would be on many accounts a great ad- 
 vantage; and where the object is so important as the 
 raising in all points the condition of so large a portion of 
 our fellow-subjects, the most economical government may 
 well dare to be liberal. 
 
 I would rather hint generally at the sort of measures 
 which appear to me to be needed, than venture to propose 
 any thing in detail. I am sure, however, that we have 
 much to learn as to the efficacy of government for some- 
 thing more than the mere purposes of police ; for not 
 protecting society merely from external injury, but for 
 giving it inward life and energy, and for putting down that 
 mischievous spirit of individual self-will, which, whether 
 shown in its aristocratical form, as in Europe during the 
 middle ages, or in its democratical, as now in parts of the 
 United States, most truly deserves the name of Jacobin- 
 ism. But on one point I may dwell with more confidence ; 
 because I am sure of its efficacy, and because its prac- 
 ticability is only impeded by certain misapprehensions 
 respecting it, very widely spread, and very deeply rooted. 
 I speak of that great power of social improvement, in the 
 highest and most comprehensive sense of the word, which 
 is contained in the institution of the Christian Church. 
 
 And here it is necessary that I should a little unfold 
 those views respecting Church Establishments which I 
 stated briefly in my first letter, and which many, I fear, 
 besides your correspondent " Augur," will consider either 
 visionary or profane. With " Augur's " difficulties I can 
 entirely sympathize : he is not the first good and sensible 
 man whom I have known to be perplexed by them ; but 
 that they are difficulties which may be removed by a full 
 and large inquiry I feel as satisfied as I can be of any 
 moral truth which has not the direct confirmation of God's 
 Revelation. But I have already trespassed sufficiently on 
 
 H H 
 
466 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER, 
 
 your columns ; and the subject on which we are going to 
 enter demands to be considered in a separate letter. 
 
 IX. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 [From the Paper dated January 12, 1839.] 
 
 SIR, Before I enter upon the subject of this letter, I 
 would assure your correspondent Augur, that however 
 different the roads by which we may at present appear to 
 be travelling, the point at which we are both aiming is I 
 trust and believe one and the same. My views of the 
 most perfect condition of the Church have no reference to 
 mere worldly expediency ; I love to entertain them, be- 
 cause the Church, as they represent her, appears to me 
 best fitted to perform her appointed work, of bringing 
 many souls to God. 
 
 Augur, as it seems to me, imagines that a Christian 
 State and Church must differ from one another, because 
 his notions of a State are too low, whilst the Church, such 
 as he conceives it to be, is rather the Church perfected, 
 than the Church as it ever has been, or as it ever can be- 
 come, except, as I think, through that very system which 
 in his judgment is so degrading to it. 
 
 Of course if the object of a State be merely, as War- 
 burton represents it, the protection of men's bodies and 
 goods, then the ideas of Church and State are neces- 
 sarily distinct. And the same conclusion follows also, if 
 we hold that the object of a Church, either solely or prin- 
 cipally, is to perform certain external ceremonies or to 
 teach certain abstract opinions. 
 
 But these are the notions of sensualism on the one 
 hand and of priestcraft on the other, not of true philoso- 
 phy and Christianity. The State has a far nobler end 
 than the care of men's bodies and goods : the Church 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 467 
 
 has a far nobler end than the performance of ritual ser- 
 vices or the inculcating abstract dogmas the end of 
 both is the highest happiness of man ; and this must be 
 his moral happiness; but the difference between them 
 has sometimes been, that the State, when not Christian, 
 has pursued its object ignorantly : the Church has always 
 known how to pursue it rightly, but it has not always 
 acted according to its knowledge. 
 
 The true object of the State, which the old philosophers 
 distinctly recognized and laboured to carry into effect, has 
 been, as we know, continually lost sight of through the 
 evil passions of men; insomuch that Government has 
 come to be regarded as a mere necessary evil, an encroach- 
 ment upon individual liberty not to be desired, but en- 
 dured ; and of which the smallest possible dose, so to 
 speak, is the most desirable. And the Church, through 
 the same evil nature of man, working in this instance by 
 the system of priestcraft, has so fallen short of its true 
 object, and so turned aside after a false one, that it too 
 has been regarded as an enemy to man's happiness, and 
 the most perfect school of all truth and goodness has been 
 branded as the source of superstition and of folly. 
 
 If the object of the State and that of the Church be 
 always in intention identical ; and if in a Christian State 
 it is really identical ; that is, the Christian State and the 
 Church have precisely the same notions of man's moral 
 happiness ; and if the State, by virtue of its sovereign 
 power, can control men more effectually than any less 
 sovereign society ; if, again, they have neither of them of 
 necessity a distinct external form, which cannot be made 
 to assimilate to that of the other; then the two insti- 
 tutions may be identical ; and that common object which 
 both pursue will then be pursued most effectually when 
 they are identical ; i. e. when the State is Christian, or 
 to express the same thing in other words, when the Church 
 is sovereign. 
 
 O 
 
 A hundred fancied forms of evil will, I know, start up in 
 
 H H 2 
 
468 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 the minds of your readers when they shall have followed 
 me to this point. One set of them imagines that a 
 sovereign Church implies spiritual tyranny and persecu- 
 tion ; another fancies that to mix the name of State with 
 that of Christianity, is to secularize religion, or even to 
 dethrone Christ from His headship of the Church, and 
 to set up a king or a parliament in His place. I believe 
 that my abhorrence of both these evils is as great as that 
 of any man alive ; but if you have patience with this dis- 
 cussion, and these letters are not occupying the room of 
 more interesting matter, it will not be difficult to show that 
 the system which I am upholding implies neither of them, 
 but rather repels them both. 
 
 For the present, I must consider Augur's arguments 
 drawn from the addresses of St. Paul's Epistles, from 
 which he thinks it follows that the early Churches con- 
 sisted only of true Christians. Yet it is certain that those 
 very Epistles notice evils existing in every one of those 
 Churches quite inconsistent with such a supposition; 
 and the particular expression translated in our Bible 
 " Saints," on which Augur apparently grounds an argu- 
 ment, signifies not that those to whom it applied were 
 personally holy, but that they were God's covenanted 
 people now, as the Israelites had been formerly. For 
 the proof that the utmost heterodoxy of belief as well as 
 irregularity of practice were to be found amongst the 
 members of the primitive Churches, and that they were, 
 therefore, as much mixed societies as any existing Church 
 is now, I would refer your correspondent to the following 
 passages : Romans, xvi. 17, 18; 1 Corinthians, iii. 1 3 ; 
 v j. 7 ? 8, 1520; viii. 912; xi. 1734; xv. 12; 
 2 Corinthians, xi. 1215; xii. 20, 21; Galatians, iii. 1 4; 
 iv. 11; v. 715; Philippians, ii. 4, 20, 21 ; iii. 1719; 
 1 Thessalonians, iv. 3 8 ; v. 14 ; 2 Thessalonians, 
 iii. 11, 12; 1 Timothy, i. 6, 7 what is implied in the 
 charge iii. 3 ; v. 22, 24, 25; vi. 9, 10; 2 Timothy, i. 15; 
 iii. 69; Titus, i. 12, 13; Hebrews, iii. 12, 14; James 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 469 
 
 ii. 19; iii. 810; iv. 110; 1 Peter, iv. 15; 2 Peter, 
 ii. per to turn; 3 John, 9 11. See also the character 
 given to so many of the seven Churches in the first 
 chapters of the Revelations. And above all, I appeal to 
 the character given by our Lord Himself, not of the world 
 only, but of His Church, the Kingdom of God, St. Mat- 
 thew, xiii. 47 50. Yet this Church so described as 
 containing alike both good and evil, is compared, v. 33, 
 to the leaven which influences the whole mass ; and this 
 the Christian Church, with all its corruptions, has done 
 and will do ever. 
 
 Let Augur also consider the mixed multitudes of three 
 thousand persons at a time who were sometimes admitted 
 into the Church, exactly as was the case when Augustine 
 first preached in England. Is it possible to conceive 
 that all these men were deserving of the name of Saints, 
 as implying personal holiness ? The system of the Apos- 
 tles was not to set out with a select society, which if they 
 had done, Christianity could never have triumphed as it 
 did ; but to receive in the first instance all who were 
 willing to come, and then by a gradual process to purify 
 them more and more. And, in point of fact, the Christian 
 Church at the end of the first century, and in the second, 
 had a stricter discipline, and enjoyed generally a higher 
 standard of truth and holiness, than it had done for some 
 years after its first foundation. 
 
 I would gladly therefore include in the Church all 
 nominal Christians, and by so doing we should greatly 
 increase its efficacy, and it might be raised gradually, 
 not in our days certainly, but in days to come, to as great 
 a degree of purity as was ever attained by the smallest 
 and most exclusive congregation. For we should re- 
 member how much of real evil will still lurk in the nar- 
 rowest sect that most vaunts its purity ; all those bad 
 passions of covetousness, envy, and uncharitableness 
 which it is impossible for any human system of discipline 
 to restrain. 
 
470 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 X. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 [From the Paper dated February 2, 1839.] 
 
 SIR, I have expressed my conviction that the State and 
 Church are then only in a perfect condition, when they 
 are not allied, but identical; in other words, when the 
 State is a Christian Society, and the Church a Sovereign 
 Society. 
 
 This was the doctrine of Hooker, however much it has 
 been forgotten by some of those who profess to be 
 Hooker's warmest admirers. Before I proceed to answer 
 the objections which are commonly brought against it, let 
 me notice the most remarkable of the other systems of the 
 relations of Church and State which exist at present 
 amongst us. 
 
 The two extreme systems in one point of view, are those 
 which uphold respectively in the highest and in the lowest 
 degree the principle of centralization; in another point 
 of view the extreme systems are those which uphold re- 
 spectively the entire identity of Church and State, and 
 their total alienation and even opposition to each other. 
 Between these come all the various forms of alliance, as it 
 is called, establishment, and endowment: which also for 
 the most part hold a middle place between the extreme 
 systems in point of centralization. 
 
 1. The Roman Catholic system, taken in its full-blown 
 development, is the extreme of centralization, and also the 
 extreme of identity in Church and State. It would have 
 the whole world subject to one government ; and it would 
 have this government absolute. Now as absolute govern- 
 ment virtually excludes not only all co-ordinate but even 
 all distinct subordinate power; every thing emanating 
 from it and being accountable to it; so the Papacy in its 
 ovv proper form, as it was exhibited in the days of its 
 greatness, was an identification of the State and the 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 471 
 
 Church under the form of the latter. For the Christian 
 world was the Church, and of this Church the Pope was 
 sovereign ; and the so-called temporal princes, emperors, 
 kings, and senates, were responsible to him as to Christ's 
 Vicar, and exercised their functions as subordinate parts 
 of the great system of the Church. 
 
 Opposed to this extreme degree of centralization is the 
 system of the Independents, which excludes centralization 
 altogether. According to this system each congregation 
 of Christians meeting in one place for the purposes of 
 worship is independent of all other congregations. Now 
 as in modern times political centralization has nowhere 
 been reduced to so low a point as this, the Independent 
 system has practically implied an entire separation of 
 Church and State, inasmuch as the State has exhibited a 
 centralization which the Church in its independent form 
 has utterly repudiated. But if every distinct town were to 
 be a sovereign commonwealth, as was sometimes the case 
 in ancient Greece, then the independent principle, as such, 
 need not be inconsistent with the identity of Church and 
 State; for in that case the principle of centralization 
 would be as much extinct in the political relations of the 
 town, as it was before in the religious relations of its in- 
 habitants. 
 
 2. The Church and the State are identical, when both 
 consisting alike of Christians have one and the same su- 
 preme government. This government may be exercised 
 under what is called the Church form, as in the papacy ; 
 or under what is called the State form, as where the king 
 is the head of the Church. 
 
 The Church and State are in opposition to one another, 
 where the government and the mass of the nation, which 
 constitute the State, are not Christian; where therefore 
 the principles or laws of the State and of the Church are 
 on many important moral points at variance with each 
 other; and a true member of the Church cannot be pro- 
 perly a citizen of the State, but only a subject ; he obeys 
 
472 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 it actively in matters not opposed to the laws of the 
 Church ; he obeys it passively, by submitting patiently 
 to its penalties, in such matters as are opposed to the laws 
 of the Church ; but he cannot exercise a share in its go- 
 vernment, for that were to make himself responsible for its 
 principles; and its principles are those of the world, and 
 not of the Church. 
 
 3. Between these extremes are the cases of alliance, 
 establishment, and endowment; which suppose the State 
 to be distinct from the Church, and yet to be on friendly 
 terms with it, and to give and receive from it certain ser- 
 vices. How far a member of the Church can be a member 
 or citizen of the State under such circumstances, depends 
 on the nature of the reasons which hinder the State from 
 identifying itself with the Church, instead of allying itself 
 with it, or patronizing it. If it be merely owing to certain 
 notions of Church government, there is then no objection ; 
 for the principles of the State may still be Christian. 
 But if it be on the ground that the State, as such, should 
 be of no religion, then the State is in fact unchristian, and 
 members of the Church can take no part in its govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I must notice now the doctrine which on the one hand 
 leads to the extreme of centralization ; and on the other 
 has prevented the true identity of Church and State, and 
 has led to all the various schemes of alliance, establish- 
 ment, or independence and alienation. The doctrine is 
 that of a peculiar form of government existing in the 
 Church, jure divino, and therefore incapable of modifica- 
 tion at any 'time or under any circumstances. And the 
 difficulty has been still farther increased by representing 
 this supposed divine form of government to be also a di- 
 vinely-constituted priesthood. 
 
 This doctrine leads to the extreme of centralization, 
 because it represents all Christians in all parts of the 
 world as subject to one government, which derives its title 
 from a source foreign and far superior to the laws of the 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 473 
 
 land, and much more to the by-laws of any particular 
 congregation. According to this view, if consistent with 
 itself, the whole Christian Church all over the world must 
 be subject either to a Pope or to a General Council : which 
 of these two be preferred is a very subordinate question, 
 both being consistent, and alone consistent, with the no- 
 tion of a divinely-constituted Christian priesthood. 
 
 For the same reasons this doctrine prevents the identity 
 of Church and State in all ages which have any just no- 
 tion of good government. For a power neither derived 
 from law nor responsible to law, such as that of a pre- 
 tended jure divino priesthood, is so clear an evil, that no 
 men in their senses, when arrived at that period of society 
 at which mere might is taught to yield to right, would 
 allow it to exercise dominion over them. The Papacy 
 therefore is unsuited to an age which begins to have a 
 sense of justice. On the other hand, the claim of divine 
 authority in the priesthood will not yield to those offices 
 which are derived from human law, and have only so far 
 God's sanction. Thus as men's common sense will not 
 allow the priest to be King, and the belief in a priesthood 
 equally interferes with the King's sovereignty over the 
 priest, the Church and the State are kept of necessity 
 distinct, and the connection between them must be one of 
 alliance, whether equal or dependent, or else there can be 
 no friendly relation at all between them. 
 
 From this supposed divine right of a priesthood, flowed 
 directly the distinction between the so-called secular and 
 spiritual powers; and farther, between secular matters, as 
 the phrase runs, and spiritual. This distinction striking 
 as with a two-edged sword, and pulling asunder what God 
 had joined, made common life profane and religious life 
 formal and superstitious; for what are all our business 
 and our studies but profane, if not done in Christ's name ? 
 and what are our acts of religion but the extremest folly and 
 falsehood, if they are not made to act upon our common 
 life ? Every act of a Christian is at once secular and spi- 
 
474 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 ritual; secular, inasmuch as it is done in the body, in 
 time, and on earth ; spiritual, as it proceeds from the 
 mind and the heart, and therefore affects the soul, and 
 reaches on to eternity. 
 
 Here then we have, in point of centralization, three sys- 
 tems. One which would subject all the Christian world to 
 one government, namely to that of one or more persons of 
 the pretended divine order of priesthood. Another, which 
 rejecting the priesthood and the extreme of centralization, 
 is not content with this, but rejects all centralization what- 
 ever ; bringing back society almost to its simplest element, 
 that of a single town or village. Between these there is 
 the third system, which adopts centralization as far as 
 God's providence appears visibly to have sanctioned it, 
 and no farther ; not placing all the world under one go- 
 vernment, nor yet making sovereignty ridiculous by 
 ascribing it to what may be called social atoms ; but tak- 
 ing the clearly-marked and practical division of nations or 
 commonwealths ; so that the nation should be sovereign, 
 and not each particular town or village on the one hand, 
 nor on the other hand, the whole world. 
 
 Again, we have the system of a pretended priesthood, 
 which, to be consistent, requires the system of extreme 
 centralization, and that the centre should be itself. But 
 being driven from this by the common sense of mankind, 
 it has yet prevented the acknowledgment of any other 
 centre, and has therefore been the fruitful parent of divi- 
 sion, contradictions, and anarchy. It has given occasion 
 to the notion of a Church in alliance with a State, or pa- 
 tronized by a State ; and having thus led men to conceive 
 of the State as of something not Christian in itself, it has 
 tended to produce that system of extreme anti-centraliza- 
 tion, which has renounced the ideas both of the Church 
 and of the State together. 
 
 And here I pause, fearful of having trespassed too 
 much on your columns ; yet afraid also lest in trying not 
 to write too tediously I should have written obscurely, 
 
THE LABOURING POPULATION AND THE CHARTISTS. 475 
 
 or have omitted to anticipate objections, and so have 
 written unsatisfactorily. 
 
 
 XL THE LABOURING POPULATION AND 
 THE CHARTISTS. 
 
 [From the Paper dated May 25, 1839.] 
 
 SIR, During the session of Parliament, your columns, I 
 know, are better employed in recording what is actually 
 said or done by persons in public stations, than in circu- 
 lating the mere comments of a private individual ; nor 
 would I wish you to depart from your practice in this 
 respect. I will not comment upon facts, I would only 
 again and again entreat my countrymen to consider the 
 facts themselves. 
 
 We read with interest the accounts of changes in the 
 ministry, we rejoice or grieve, as it may happen, at the 
 result of the late negociations. And we do well in this ; 
 for it is not a light matter whether our rulers be wise or 
 unwise, equal to the emergencies of our condition, or 
 unequal to them. Yet I verily believe, that the existence 
 of the worst conceivable administration would be a light 
 evil, in comparison to the insensibility which appears so 
 general as to the amount and real nature of the mischiefs 
 which threaten us. 
 
 Are we not apt to be a great deal too lenient in punish- 
 ing crime, and a great deal too sluggish in removing real 
 evil ? 
 
 Language is publicly held by the Chartist leaders, as 
 wicked and mischievous as the tongue of man can frame; 
 they recommend, directly or indirectly, murder and 
 arson to thousands : and yet these men, a hundred times 
 more wicked than any felon who suffers death for a single 
 crime, are either allowed to enjoy perfect impunity, 
 or their offence is a misdemeanour to be corrected 
 merely by fine and imprisonment. 
 
476 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 If history teach any one point clearly, it is that the 
 leaders and instigators of a populace, as opposed to a 
 people, are always either foolish or wicked, and mostly in 
 the highest degree both. They are entitled to no respect 
 and to no compassion. The heaviest punishments of law 
 never fall more deservedly than on the heads of such men. 
 They are a mere curse to the human race, and most 
 especially to the wretched victims of their delusions, in 
 the actual evil which they do in their own generation, and 
 still more in the good which they hinder, through disgust 
 and terror at their crimes, in many generations after them. 
 
 Against these men we use neither prevention nor 
 adequate punishment. This may be most wise and most 
 noble, if we render them powerless by removing or lessen- 
 ing that real evil which alone makes them dangerous ; it 
 is mere suicidal folly, if we at once allow them to go on 
 in their wickedness, and allow their victims to remain in 
 such a state, that when the pestilence i| let loose amongst 
 them they cannot but catch its infection. 
 
 But whether we prevent or punish these men, or whether 
 we let them alone, still if the real evil is not attended to, 
 it must come in the* end to the same thing. Could these 
 men produce any impression at all'in any healthy state of 
 society ? Could they be listened to for a single instant 
 unless suffering and ignorance had already prepared the 
 minds and hearts of their hearers for the reception of any 
 wickedness and any folly ? Suffering and ignorance are 
 co- existent amongst a vast mass of our people, with a 
 power of organization, and with a sense of personal and 
 civil rights, not clear indeed or just, but lively, and with a 
 foundation of justice which makes it doubly dangerous. 
 Poverty, ignorance,*$Lumbers, organization and a sense of 
 wrong done and right withheld, I know not how any 
 country can be more cursed than by having all these 
 points combined together within its bosom, in opposition 
 to every one of its existing institutions. 
 
 Greater poverty may have existed elsewhere, and 
 
THE LABOURING POPULATION AND THE CHARTISTS. 477 
 
 greater ignorance, perhaps too in a greater multitude of 
 persons; but never with such organization, never with 
 such a keen consciousness of evil suffered, never in such 
 fearful and exasperating contrast with wealth and know- 
 ledge, never within historical memory, I speak advisedly, 
 did there exist in any country so alarming a mass of dis- 
 affection towards the whole actual frame of society as we 
 have now around us in England. 
 
 When Prussia, in the hour of her greatest nee'd, wanted 
 to wield the united energy of her whole population in one 
 unanimous effort against the tyranny of France, she at 
 one stroke emancipated her peasantry. It was a great 
 measure, a measure to alarm the timid and offend the 
 selfish ; but yet the way to effect it was obvious and easy : 
 a servile tenure was easily changed into a free one : the 
 peasant held the land before and he continued to hold it 
 still : the change required was but political, the relieving 
 him from certain oppressive services, which had needlessly 
 galled and degraded him : but these once removed, the 
 boor was ready at once to start into the free landholder 
 and citizen. 
 
 When France shook off the accumulated iniquities of 
 centuries of neglect and oppression, her path too was 
 comparatively easy. She had but to destroy the mere 
 gratuitous insolence of feudality, as we might do away 
 with the vexations of copyhold or customary tenures : but 
 there, as in Prussia, the peasant had his house and his 
 land, and the multitude of feudal tenants became a mul- 
 titude of free proprietors, constituting the strength and 
 happiness of their country. 
 
 But what can remove the evil here ? It is no remnant 
 of an unjust political system, which coK be swept away in 
 an instant ; it is no mere accidental incumbrance on a 
 social state essentially sound, and which, as soon as the 
 incumbrance is shaken off, springs up with unabated 
 vigour. It is a social evil merely; the growth not of 
 feudality but of free trade, not of minute and' insulting 
 
478 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 tyranny, but of the system of letting alone, and therefore 
 its remedy is the most difficult problem ever submitted to 
 civilized man ; nor can the solution be obtained without 
 shocking many favourite prejudices and involving some 
 painful sacrifices. But the slave trade was overthrown ; and 
 shall an evil equal abstractedly and to us far greater than 
 that of the slave trade be allowed to exist unchecked for 
 ever ? What Bible or Missionary Society can propose to 
 itself an object so great as the redemption of the labour- 
 ing population of England from their present wretched 
 state, wretched alike to body and mind and soul ? And 
 if the work is to be done by combined efforts, will no so- 
 ciety be formed for this highest and holiest of all purposes ? 
 If it is to be accomplished by individual energy, will there 
 be no new Howard, or Clarkson, or Fry, to lay bare this 
 evil in all its enormity, and to resolve with God's help 
 that it shall no longer remain unremedied ? If the aid of 
 the legislature be needed, will the Government or will 
 Parliament refuse their assistance to the most glorious and 
 most blessed undertaking which ever immortalized the 
 memory of a statesman or a legislator ? It is not for an 
 individual to prescribe in presumptuous ignorance what is 
 to be done : but he may implore all his countrymen to ap- 
 ply their best thoughts to the question, to consider the 
 present evil in all its length and breadth, and then to ask 
 themselves, in the sight of God, whether any difficulties 
 ought to deter them from resolving at any price to remove it. 
 
 XII. STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING AND 
 LABOURING POPULATION. 
 
 [From the Paper dated July 20, 1839.] 
 
 SIR, It is very natural that you should expect from 
 me, after having dwelt so much on the evils of the actual 
 state of our manufacturing and labouring population, that 
 I should attempt to suggest something as a remedy. But 
 
MANUFACTURING AND LABOURING POPULATION. 479 
 
 if I were to do so, I should virtually belie the representa- 
 tion which I have made of the magnitude of the evil. 
 That could be no deep and wide-spreading disorder in the 
 political system, for which a common observer like myself, 
 with no particular sources of information at his command, 
 could confidently recommend a cure. It is in fact the 
 common error committed by unprofessional men, by 
 those who are laymen, if I may so speak, with regard to 
 the subject which they are discussing, that not contented 
 with calling attention to the evil, they venture also to pre- 
 scribe a remedy for it. And by thus unwisely stepping 
 beyond their proper province, they often defeat their own 
 object. If from want of practical familiarity with the 
 working of a system they propose, as often happens, some 
 awkward or impossible alteration in it, not only do they 
 furnish a triumph to the interested supporters of old abuses, 
 but even good and wise practical men are so shocked at 
 the evident presumption and ignorance of the proposed re- 
 form, that they do not listen to the really true statement 
 of grievances, which abundantly showed that some reform 
 was needed. 
 
 But although incompetent to suggest the most proper 
 remedies, yet a bystander may do good service by calling 
 the attention of those who are competent to do so, but 
 who in their turn labour under a disadvantage of an- 
 other kind ; namely that their long familiarity with the 
 actual state of things makes them less apt to perceive and 
 to dread its dangers. The practical man is often wanting 
 in this, that the practice with which he is well acquainted 
 is merely his own, or that of those immediately around 
 him ; the practice of other times and countries he often 
 does not know ; and what he calls experience is there- 
 fore delusive, because it is too partial to furnish any safe 
 general conclusions. " There have been riots in the manu- 
 facturing districts often without any serious consequences : 
 why should the danger be greater now ? It is no new 
 thing in England for a large portion of the population to 
 
480 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 be dependent merely on their labour, why should we 
 regard it a state so fraught with evil ?" And sometimes if 
 we speak of the great number of poor persons in England 
 as compared with the rich, we are answered by a text from 
 Scripture, misapplied as stray texts generally are, and 
 are told that God Himself has said " that the poor shall 
 never cease out of the land." Now (not to dwell upon the 
 false impression conveyed to an English reader by the 
 word " shall " in this passage, which in the time of our 
 translators expressed mere futurity, but now in our pre- 
 sent language expresses also the will or intention of the 
 speaker;) yet it is one thing to say that the poor shall 
 never cease out of the land altogether, and another, that 
 they shall form the greatest proportion of its inhabitants. 
 And this, so far from beins; according: to the intention of 
 
 ' O O 
 
 the Mosaic law, was one of the things which it most 
 laboured to obviate : the Israelitish people were to be a 
 nation of landed proprietors : poverty was to be the occa- 
 sional exceptionpbut not the rule. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne, in the late debate in the House of 
 Lords on the Government scheme of education, expressed 
 a benevolent wish that education, if generally introduced 
 amongst our manufacturing population, might greatly re- 
 duce the amount of crime. God forbid that I should 
 speak or think slightingly of the blessings of education ; 
 but I greatly fear that we are expecting more from it in 
 the actual state of our society than it can alone by pos- 
 sibility accomplish. Most wisely has Mr. Laing said in 
 his most instructive account of Norway, that " a man may 
 read and write and yet have a totally uneducated mind ; 
 but that he who possesses property, whether he can read 
 and write or not, has an educated mind : he has fore- 
 thought, caution, and reflection guiding every action ; he 
 knows the value of self-restraint and is in the constant 
 habitual practice of it." What we commonly call educa- 
 tion is invaluable when it is given in time to a people pos- 
 sessing the education of property ; when it opens to them 
 
MANUFACTURING AND LABOURING POPULATION. 481 
 
 intellectual enjoyments whilst they are yet in a condition 
 to taste- them, and so, by accustoming them to raise their 
 standard of happiness, it prevents them from recklessly 
 sinking to a lower condition. Education, in the common 
 sense of the word, is required by a people before poverty 
 has made havoc amongst them; at that critical moment 
 when civilization makes its tirst burst, and is accom- 
 panied by an immense commercial activity. Then is the 
 time for general education, to teach the man of smaller 
 means how to conduct himself in the coming fever of na- 
 tional development : to make him understand the misery 
 of sinking froift the condition of a proprietor to that of a 
 mere labourer ; and if this cannot be avoided at home, 
 then to dispose him to emigrate to a new country whilst 
 he still retains the habits which will make him a valuable 
 element in a new society there. But can what is called 
 education, can book learning really educate beggars, or 
 those whose condition is so low that it cannot become 
 lower? Our population want book knowledge, and they 
 also want the means in point of social well-being to render 
 this knowledge available. This is the difficulty of the pro- 
 blem, that we know not where to begin. And we shall have 
 gained something, if we are well convinced that no single 
 measure, whether of so called education, or of emigration, 
 or of an improved poor-law, and far less any political 
 privilege which, when given to men unfit to use it, is an 
 evil to themselves rather than a good, will be of real 
 efficacy to better our condition. 
 
 If I can impress your readers with this conviction, I 
 shall do more good than by proposing any remedy of my 
 own, to which there might be serious practicable objec- 
 tions ; and then he who makes these objections would 
 be supposed to have overthrown all that I had been urging. 
 I cannot tell by myself how to mend the existing evil, 
 but I wish to call attention to its magnitude. I wish to 
 persuade men that a prodigious effort is required : we 
 want every man's wisdom and every man's virtue to con- 
 
 i i 
 
482 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 sider carefully the state in which we are now living, and 
 to shrink from no sacrifices which may be called for to 
 correct it. 
 
 XIII. THE EVILS OF OUR NATIONAL 
 STATE. 
 
 [From the Paper dated November 9, 1839.] 
 
 SIR, If I have not troubled you lately with any of my 
 communications, it is not that my interest is at all abated 
 in these great questions to which I have tried to awaken 
 the attention of your readers ; nor yet that the present 
 apparent slumber of Chartism encourages me to hope that 
 the symptom of the great national evil which afflicts us 
 are really wearing a more favourable aspect ; but it is 
 much rather because the contrast between the magnitude 
 of the disease, and the feebleness of my efforts to check 
 its progress, is so absolutely startling, that to hope to do 
 good by such means in such a matter seems at once 
 ridiculous and desperate. 
 
 I feel, Sir, but too truly that it is so. And I could 
 often find it in my heart to turn away my eyes altogether 
 from the prospect of our national state, and solacing 
 myself with the hope that the dreaded evil may after all 
 not come in my life-time, to occupy myself wholly with 
 private interests and duties. Many I believe do this; 
 the supposed desperateness of the case veiling to their 
 consciences the blameableness of thus abandoning it. 
 But, Sir, although things as they now are may last out my 
 time, can we persuade ourselves that they will last out the 
 time of our children ? And it is surely no very romantic 
 patriotism to dread for one's own immediate children the 
 arrival of a season of crime and misery, such as I will 
 believe the whole preceding experience of the human race 
 will have never seen paralleled. 
 
 What no individual efforts could compass, I am not 
 
EVILS OF OUR NATIONAL STATE. 483 
 
 speaking of any thing so insignificant as ray own, but 
 what really is beyond the powers of any one man to ac- 
 complish, that may possibly be effected by the joint efforts 
 of many. But a Society, to be worthy of such a cause 
 should be truly comprehensive, should embrace men of 
 all varieties of rank, calling, and political party. Yet we 
 know that in England, although men of different ranks 
 and occupations will work together, yet men of different 
 parties will not, and indeed in some respects cannot. 
 For if my neighbour's truth be to me a falsehood, how 
 can I assist him in propagating it; or how can he help to 
 circulate what I hold to be truth, if to him it seems to be 
 
 error : 
 
 In order to meet this difficulty, and yet to obtain that 
 general co-operation which is on every account so de- 
 sirable, it would seem desirable that the object of the pro- 
 posed Society should be merely to collect facts relative to 
 the condition of the labouring classes, and to bring them 
 to the knowledge of the public, without expressing any 
 opinion as to the most effectual remedies for the state of 
 things thus developed. It is obvious that to present a 
 full view of the condition of the labouring classes through- 
 out the kingdom, would be at once a very costly and a 
 very laborious undertaking ; that it would find ample em- 
 ployment for the contributions and for the personal exer- 
 tions of a very numerous and wealthy society. And I 
 conceive that the points of ,inquiry might be made so de- 
 finite, as greatly to check, if not altogether to exclude, the 
 exhibition of party feeling in the reports of such a society. 
 For instance, in order to obtain a correct notion of the 
 state of the poor in any given town or parish, we should 
 wish to know, 1st, the total population, and the propor- 
 tion of mere labourers to shopkeepers, professional men, 
 farmers, or proprietors ; 2nd, the rate of wages, and their 
 proportion to the price of provisions, lodging, and fuel ; 
 3rd, the quality of the labouring population, how many of 
 them are strangers, and how many have been born in the 
 
 i i 2 
 
484 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 place where they are now working ; 4th, the ecclesiastical 
 divisions of the place, and the number and size of places 
 of worship, and the number of ministers, whether of the 
 Established Church or dissenters ; 5th, the number and 
 character of the schools, and other places of instruction, 
 including the age at which the children generally go to 
 and are taken away from school ; 6th, police details : the 
 amount and character of crime, and, so far as it exists in 
 a noticeable shape, of vice ; the number of public houses 
 and beer houses ; 7th, wherever it is possible there should 
 be a comparison of the actual state of the country in all 
 these points, and its state ten, twenty, and fifty years ago; 
 for by comparing the present with the past, we find out 
 which way things are tending, whether for the better or 
 for the worse ; 8th, the size and situation of labourers' 
 dwellings; how many persons live in cellars under ground ; 
 how many sleep in the same room, and the size of rooms ; 
 how many have gardens, or any accessible outlet, where 
 they may have fresh air and healthy exercise ; 9th, the 
 quality and quantity of food, the comparative use of bread 
 and potatoes ; what is the consumption of animal food on 
 the one hand, or of ardent spirits on the other ; how many 
 human beings live actually on bread or potatoes, and on 
 tea; 10th, what books, newspapers, tracts, or addresses, 
 circulate amongst them ; whether they read much, and 
 what they read ; and also the number and character of 
 such clubs, unions, associations, &c., as may exist among 
 them. I might add yet other points, but these which I 
 have given are all tangible matters of fact, and as such 
 might be faithfully reported by men of the most opposite 
 opinions, so long as they agreed in the wish that the real 
 state of the poor in all particulars should be brought be- 
 fore the eyes of the rest of the community. 
 
 But to a Society so formed for the exclusive purpose of 
 bringing to light matters of fact, without proposing any 
 remedies to the evils thus made public, much objection 
 has within my own knowledge been made ; and it has 
 
EVILS OF OUR NATIONAL STATE. 485 
 
 been said that before we thus reveal the evil in its tre- 
 mendous magnitude, we ought to come to some under- 
 
 O * O 
 
 standing as to the best means of removing or reducing it. 
 I contend, on the contrary, that at present such an under- 
 standing is absolutely impossible ; and I cannot conceal 
 my conviction that the remedies required will involve 
 sacrifices on the part of the richer classes, which if not 
 willingly made but wrested from them will be wholly use- 
 less, and which will not be made voluntarily unless they 
 are first thoroughly impressed with the enormity of the 
 existing evil. I do not say that such sacrifices would be 
 made, even then; it may be that they would not; but I 
 am sure that they will not be made otherwise. There are 
 men who will not deny their appetites in eating and drink- 
 ing, even if they are aware that the consequences of conr 
 tinued self-indulgence is certain death ; but there are 
 thousands and tens of thousands who would undoubtedly 
 refuse to observe a very strict regimen, if they were not 
 aware of any thing in themselves or in the state of the at- 
 mosphere which threatened them, unless they were careful, 
 with serious or fatal diseases. 
 
 But can it be supposed that there is danger in revealing 
 the evils of our social condition, unless we offer at the 
 same time the hope of a remedy for them ? Surely the 
 danger consists not in knowing that our neighbour is in 
 distress, but in his knowing it himself. The rich might 
 safely be ignorant of what the poor suffer, if the poor 
 could be ignorant of it also. If both were ignorant of it 
 equally, there would be safety ; if both were clearly aware 
 of it, there would be hope ; but for the poor to know and 
 feel it keenly, while the rich are ignorant of or inattentive 
 to it, this is dangerous, this is a state of things almost 
 desperate. Would the most elaborate reports that could 
 be published add to that deep sense of disquiet and pri- 
 vation which prevails amongst the poorer classes, and 
 which is not the less dangerous because it neither under- 
 stands clearly the cuuses of its suffering, nor judges rightly 
 
486 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 of the remedy? A real knowledge of their own state, and 
 of its causes, would be desirable even for the poor them- 
 selves : bad as the truth is when seen wholly, it is not 
 nearly so bad as it seems to be when viewed only par- 
 tially ; but for the richer classes, the fullest knowledge, 
 the liveliest sense of the evils endured by their poorer 
 countrymen, is not danger, but recovery : ignorance in 
 them is not bliss, but inevitable destruction. 
 
 Therefore it seems to me that a Sociey, consisting of 
 men of all parties, might be advantageously formed for the 
 purpose of collecting information, at once comprehensive 
 and minute, respecting the state of the class of labourers, 
 agricultural and manufacturing, throughout the kingdom, 
 and of calling public attention to the facts so collected. 
 This appears to be a step practicable and important ; safe, 
 yet leading to great results hereafter. If any of your 
 readers agree with me in this, let them think whether they 
 can do any thing to carry our idea into effect ; if they have 
 any better plan to propose, gladly would I adopt it, and, 
 so far as I could, further it. Only let our great object be 
 effected, and it matters little who are the instruments. 
 
 XIV. NATIONAL CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 [From the Paper dated January 18, 1840.] 
 
 SIR, I trust that your correspondent, Sir Culling Eardley 
 Smith, will not accuse me of disrespect if I still address 
 you under my accustomed signature. To say the truth, I 
 am so unknown to the great majority of your readers, 
 and so much a stranger to your county, that I should 
 accuse myself of presumption if I obtruded myself per- 
 sonally by name upon their notice. The character of my 
 letters will I hope be a sufficient voucher that I can have 
 no unworthy motives for not affixing my name to them ; 
 there has been, 1 trust, nothing in any of them which as a 
 
NATIONAL CHUliCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 487 
 
 Christian or a gentleman I should be ashamed to avow. 
 This being the case, it seems to me more becoming that 1 
 should leave my communications wholly to their own fate, 
 that nothing of a personal nature may affect any one's 
 judgment of their contents, whether for good or for bad. 
 
 The question now at issue in the Church of Scotland 
 is doubtless one of considerable importance. I do not 
 feel enough acquainted with the constitution of that 
 Church to enter into the legal points ; but I do not see 
 how the present dispute affects the question of Church 
 Establishments. It is surely perfectly feasible in a Church, 
 as well as in any other society, to provide for the due 
 appointment of the officers of the society : the right of 
 patronage is held subject to such laws as may be required 
 to qualify it. These laws may be at present too lax, 
 that is, they may not sufficiently provide against the ap- 
 pointment of unfit persons ; if so, let them be made 
 more stringent : for certain it is that it is the theory of a 
 Church Establishment, as of all other institutions, that 
 unfit persons should not be made its officers; and this 
 theory may be reduced to practice as nearly in the ap- 
 pointment of a minister of the Church as of a judge, or 
 a governor of a colony ; it will never of course be per- 
 fectly acted upon owing to the faults of human nature. 
 
 Thus far then I should agree with Dr. Chalmers, that if 
 by the actual constitution of the Scotch Church the 
 choice of the individual patron is too unrestrained, so that 
 in spite of the remonstrances of the proper Church 
 authorities he may appoint an unfit and unworthy minis- 
 ter, then that constitution requires amendment, and un- 
 doubtedly it may be amended, if it be found expedient, 
 without any injustice to the patrons ; for patronage is 
 essentially a trust rather than a property, and as such 
 may be, has been, and is, controlled by law. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if the Church of Scotland were 
 to cease to-morrow to be an Establishment, I for one, if 
 I were a member of it, should deprecate earnestly the 
 
488 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 language used by Dr. Chalmers and I think also by Sir 
 Culling Smith, as assuming a power of judgment such 
 as belongs to God alone, and tending in practice either 
 to a system of priestly tyranny, or to one of party and 
 sectarian exclusiveness, most injurious to the spiritual 
 welfare of the Church. 
 
 It is a grievance, according to Dr. Chalmers; and 
 your correspondent quotes the sentiment, I think, with 
 admiration, "that before a man can forfeit the privilege" 
 (of Church membership and access to the Communion), 
 " there must be a corpus delicti, some specific delin- 
 quency palpable enough for cognizance and condemnation 
 by a bench of secular judges, at whose mandate the 
 prostrate Church must receive into her inmost sanctuary 
 men who, in her own judgment, though living without 
 any gross or definable, immorality, are yet living without 
 God in the world." I have no doubt that many of your 
 readers will sympathize with this language. I have heard 
 other good and sensible men, besides Dr. Chalmers, speak 
 in this manner, yet it seems to me either extremely 
 vague and incautious in its expression, or else in a high 
 degree unjust and unchristian. It is the misuse of the 
 invidious term " secular judges," which deceives so many. 
 If it be meant that heathens should not judge in a matter 
 pertaining to the Christian Church, no one, so far as I 
 am aware, disputes it. If it be meant that Christians, 
 whether judges or bishops, clergy or laymen, are some- 
 times rather worldly than spiritually minded, it is true, 
 and to be lamented, but by no human power effectually 
 remedied. If it be meant again that the courts of common 
 law can only take cognizance of violations of that law, 
 and that there are sins and vices which are not crimes, 
 then such courts, acting on such a principle would be 
 unfit to judge of the propriety of a Church appointment; 
 but their unfitness would have nothing to do with their 
 secularity, for courts martial, which I suppose are secu- 
 lar enough, can and do take cognizance not only of 
 
NATIONAL CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 489 
 
 crimes but of vices, and even of things so undefined as 
 " conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman/' But 
 Dr. Chalmers himself does not appear to charge the civil 
 courts with proceeding on such a limited view of their 
 duty as to consider nothing but legal criminality in a 
 question of Church membership. His complaint is that 
 they require " a Corpus delicti, some specific delin- 
 quency;" whereas the Church, or more properly the 
 clergy, would exclude a man who was "living without any 
 gross or definable immorality," because "in their judgment 
 he was yet living without God in the world." That is to 
 say, that the civil courts require at least " a definable im- 
 morality " before they will exclude a baptized Christian 
 from the communion of his Church ; but Dr. Chalmers 
 and his brother clergymen would exclude him, " because 
 in their judgment he was living without God in the world." 
 If a Christian man's " living without God in the world " 
 be not indicated by so much as any "definable immorality," 
 by what power shall any human eye ascertain it? And 
 are Christ's people, with no offence charged or chargeable 
 against them, to be excluded from the Church because 
 their brethren presume to judge, in spite of their baptism, 
 in spite of their continued profession, in spite of their 
 moral lives, that they are "living without God in the 
 world?" 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I know that they may 
 be so living ; I know that there are evils of the heart 
 which may exclude many even eminent and useful mem- 
 bers of the visible Church from entering into Christ's 
 perfected Church or kingdom hereafter. Let Dr. Chal- 
 mers, let us all, be deeply aware for our own selves, that 
 there is One who seeth not as man seeth, who trieth the 
 very hearts and reins. But no less earnestly do I depre- 
 cate the pretensions of any human judge to invade the 
 peculiar province of Christ the Judge of all ; it is for 
 Him and Him alone to judge of the heart by itself and 
 not from its actions ; but we even in His Church must 
 
490 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 require " some specific delinquency : " " some definable 
 immorality," or else our judgment will not be spiritual as 
 opposed to secular, but presumptuous, uncharitable and 
 unjust, as opposed to what is wise and good and Christian. 
 This fond desire after an unattainable spiritual purity 
 in the Church on earth is the great error of many of the 
 best men amongst the Dissenters. I call it without hesita- 
 tion an error, both because it is I think contrary to Scrip- 
 ture, wholly at variance with the practice of the early 
 Church, and considered both theoretically and in its 
 practical results injurious to the interests of Christianity. 
 St. Paul has no other idea of exclusion from the Church 
 than as the punishment of open and scandalous sin ; 
 " If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or 
 covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an 
 extortioner ; with such an one, no not to eat." It is well 
 known that the words, translated " covetous," and " an 
 extortioner," mean much more than these English terms : 
 and signify rather " one who defrauds," and " one who 
 takes by violence." All these are proveable and tangible 
 offences, and as such are proper subjects for human judg- 
 ment ; with regard to these things and such as these the 
 discipline of the early Church was strict, and that great 
 strictness in such matters is by no means out of the reach 
 of civil magistrates is shown (to take one famous example 
 out of the general practice of the ancient world), by the 
 severity of the Roman censorship. But the mischief of 
 going farther than this, and of attempting to punish what 
 is called " living without God in the world," consists in 
 the opening a door to all uncharitableness and to all party 
 prejudice, feelings whose favourite weapon is vague and 
 unproveable accusation. And again, from the vagueness of 
 the charge of a want of spirituality, and the impossibility 
 of really proving this against a man, people are apt to set up 
 various imaginary criteria of the offence, according to their 
 various tempers and prejudices ; even look and manner are 
 held to be indications of a worldly mind ; again, opinions 
 
NATIONAL CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 491 
 
 on all sorts of subjects are regarded as symptoms of the 
 same thing, and thus a captious and narrow disposition is 
 generated, and while worldly-mindedness is jn vain at- 
 tempted to be hunted out of the Church, other sins no 
 less unchristian, such as malice, spiritual pride, and 
 hypocrisy, are actually encouraged by the process. 
 
 A really strict discipline, such as the Christian Church 
 once had, strict against open and proveable offences, but 
 not pretending to judge the heart, is practicable and has 
 been practised amongst large bodies of men, and even 
 amongst an entire people. In proportion as public 
 opinion is purified, discipline may rise with it; but public 
 opinion in every Christian country would at this instant 
 sanction a very considerable amount of discipline, if men 
 would leave off confounding the Church with the clergy, 
 and supposing that the legislation and government of the 
 Church rest not with itself, but with one particular order 
 of men amongst its members. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers's letter is full of this confusion, which 
 indeed the unhappy constitution of the Scotch Church, 
 in this respect agreeing unconsciously with the original 
 and inherent error of the Romish, does but too much 
 encourage. But we in England have no excuse for being 
 so beguiled. The foundation of our Church is laid in the 
 great principle that the clergy are not its rulers but the 
 King : the King, who is the representative of the whole 
 Church, and in whose supremacy the claims of popes, 
 bishops, or presbyteries to be by divine right the rulers 
 of Christ's people, have been by God's blessing both in 
 principle and practice denied. 
 
 If a heathen government endeavour to invade the rights 
 of the Christian Church, Christians should lay down their 
 lives rather than abet such a sacrilege. But in England, 
 and would that it were so also in Scotland, in any 
 quarrel between the clergy and the government, it is 
 begging the whole question to talk of it as a dispute 
 between the Church and the State. It roav be so indeed, 
 
492 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 * 
 
 and then there is no doubt that the highest obedience 
 of every Christian is due to the Church. But it may be 
 also a dispute between the Church and the clergy ; and 
 then also our duty is the same, and the sacrilege and 
 profaneness is not in the supreme government of the 
 Church, but in its inferior officers ; not in the Crown but 
 in the clergy. 
 
 XV. STATE OF THE POOR. 
 
 [From the Paper dated January 25, 1840.] 
 
 SIR, I remember well that the year 1840 was fixed upon 
 more than once by various persons, as a period which 
 would be marked with great calamities. And in the course 
 of the last summer there seemed to prevail, as I have 
 heard, an indefinite apprehension over many parts of the 
 Continent, as if some great change were at hand. Such 
 forebodings, as we all know, are sometimes verified by the 
 reality ; but whether they may be so or not in this in- 
 stance, the prospects with which the year 1840 has opened, 
 are certainly full of reasonable alarm. 
 
 We see a slave rebellion breaking out, or burning just 
 below the surface, over a large part of the kingdom. I 
 call it a slave rebellion, advisedly ; for the words and 
 actions of the Chartists show them to be slaves of the 
 most degraded sort, and if we give them their right name 
 it will teach us how to deal with them. 
 
 Slaves, Sir, by the curse of their unhappy condition, are 
 in a certain degree morally mad. The ideas of freemen 
 are not intelligible to them, while they go wild after some 
 strange chimeras of their own ; they plait their straw into 
 the shape of a crown, and they fancy themselves to be 
 kings. 
 
 It is for this reason that I call the Chartists slaves. 
 When I hear them speaking against the institution of 
 

 STATE OF THE POOR. 49C; 
 
 property, what is it but a slave's language ? A slave can 
 neither acquire nor alienate, he has and can have no 
 property ; the notion of property is essentially foreign to 
 his condition; but to freemen, it is one of the highest dis- 
 tinctions of humanity that men cannot only possess what 
 they eat and drink and wear, which the beasts can do no 
 less, but that they can lay by, improve and increase, give 
 and even bequeath certain portions of the earth or of the 
 things upon it, portions taken by industry and preserved 
 by law from being subject to the wasteful scramble of 
 ignorance and force. An institution so sacred, and so 
 essential to the elevation of our nature, is and ever has 
 been deeply valued by all freemen who have been more 
 than savages. Slaves, as I said, have no share in it, and 
 no perception of it; and they who speak of it slightingly 
 proclaim themselves to be as slaves. 
 
 Again : freemen have held it a part of their condition, 
 that they should not be confined to one place, but be able 
 to O to other countries when their circumstances at home 
 
 O 
 
 are unfavourable. By the exercise of this freedom the 
 whole earth has been subdued to man's uses, and civiliza- 
 tion has been spread all over the world. When then I 
 hear a Chartist leader protest against emigration, and call 
 it transportation, I hear the language not of freemen but 
 of slaves ; of persons bound to the soil, glela adscripti, 
 who, being fastened to one spot like the trees and rocks 
 around them, have no knowledge or conception of living 
 in any other : when distress and scarcity come, they have 
 no choice but to starve and die. 
 
 Freemen, further, have a love for the past, and an an- 
 ticipation of the future. Brought up by the tender care 
 of their own parents, they are immediately connected with 
 the generation before them ; rearing up their own children 
 with equal care, they are connected no less with the gene- 
 ration that is to follow them. And as every generation 
 of freemen is so linked with the one before and after it, 
 and as they have works of their hands and much more of 
 
494 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 their minds which live through many generations, so free- 
 men are, as becomes them, " Beings of large discourse, 
 looking before and after ;" what is ancient, is not so much 
 distant from them as consecrated to their minds bv having 
 
 / G 
 
 been known and loved" by so many of their fathers, in so 
 many ages ; what is remote in futurity, is. that high bless- 
 ing to which, if they forfeit not a freeman's privilege, their 
 children, helped by their care and institutions, may one 
 day be enabled to attain. 
 
 But how is it with the slave ? Alas! in the stern but true 
 language of the law, he is " nullius filius" the son of 
 nobody; he has no parent, and can have no children. 
 What is the past to him or what the future, so far as 
 earth is concerned, more than to the beasts? Ancient 
 buildings, ancient birth, ancient usages, ancient laws, are 
 to him but words without a meaning, All behind him is 
 a blank, and so is all before him. And thus, again, when 
 I hear the Chartist leaders talk with indifference or with 
 hatred of all our old institutions, when I find them per- 
 fectly ignorant and careless of history, and as incapable 
 of carrying forward their view beyond the immediate pre- 
 sent, I see again the certain marks of slaves, I hear a 
 language which in all but slaves is insanity. 
 
 Most of all, in the most degraded state of slavery, the 
 slave has had no sense of the virtues or crimes of freemen ; 
 he has been unable to understand their very religion. He 
 has been false, dishonest, bloodthirsty, and godless. And 
 when we hear them recommending and practising arson 
 and murder, when we find them echoing the wretched 
 blasphemies of the Socialists, as dead to a Christian's 
 hope as to a freeman's honesty, what can we say but that 
 they are slaves of the very lowest and vilest sort, sunk to 
 a far worse state than that of the beasts who cannot be 
 better than they are. 
 
 But now, Sir, what shall we say, if this slavery in which 
 the Chartists, or at least their loudest organs, are sunk, 
 be a state which they have in great measure brought on 
 
STATE OF THE POOR. 495 
 
 themselves ? With much of neglect on the part of others 
 towards them, a neglect which I acknowledge to be our sin 
 in the sight of God, yet there is not oppression. They 
 are not slaves in law or in fact by the injustice of their 
 neighbours ; the men whose writings and actions ex- 
 hibit the worst wickedness and ignorance of a slave's con- 
 dition, have sold themselves. The wretches who call 
 themselves Chartist leaders, who in no other known age 
 or country would have escaped condign punishment for 
 the atrocity of their daily language and proceedings, are 
 slaves indeed of the worst sort, but they are slaves of their 
 own makino*. 
 
 O 
 
 For the working classes of England, our free and 
 Christian brethren, who, from the course of circumstances 
 ill watched and ill understood, are labouring at the pre- 
 sent moment under a distress and an ignorance most unfit 
 for freemen and Christians, our most tender sympathy, 
 our most zealous efforts of counsel and action may most 
 justly be claimed. But for the Chartists I speak of 
 them from their speeches and their acts, as long as they 
 make themselves slaves in all falsehood, ignorance, and 
 atrocity, so long they should be treated as slaves, strictly 
 coerced and severely punished; lest by any means they 
 should be able to exhibit the spectacle of slaves broken 
 loose, and trampling down every thing dear to freemen in 
 their brutish ferocity. 
 
 It seems to me quite necessary to say this, because 
 there is a portion of the public press which seems to con- 
 found the Chartists with the working classes, and appears 
 unwilling to condemn the former strongly, lest it should 
 appear insensible to the rights and sufferings of the latter. 
 Whereas precisely because the elevation of the working- 
 classes is to me an object more precious than any other 
 in the world, I abhor these wretched self-made slaves who 
 would degrade the working classes and all others body 
 and soul to their own level. Nor must we confound 
 
496 LETTERS TO TH.E HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 political opinions with flagrant crimes. Granting that the 
 former should have free course, is it disseminating politi- 
 cal opinions to recommend burning and robbing and 
 murdering ? And could not the plain sense of any jury 
 in the land distinguish between even an intemperate or 
 scurrilous argument and a direct incentive to crime ? 
 
 I honour the Government for their wish to leave the 
 repression of these outrages to the ordinary course of law. 
 But it should be remembered that the proceedings of our 
 law, so admirably fitted to prevent the oppression of inno- 
 cence, are for that very reason unfitted to a state of open 
 crime, which does not seek to escape justice, but defies it. 
 The common sense of all mankind has adopted extra- 
 ordinary measures of prevention or of punishment in times 
 when sedition was breaking out into rebellion; and it is 
 not wise to allow our towns to be burned and our citizens 
 to be murdered, because one or two of the guilty, if caught 
 in the fact, may by possibility, after much delay and every 
 exertion of legal ingenuity in their favour, be convicted 
 and punished. 
 
 I have called the Chartists, judging from their language 
 and actions, slaves of the most degraded sort ; and made 
 such not by others, but by themselves. And so their 
 emancipation can come only from themselves. We may 
 encourage it indeed, and are bound to do so ; we may call 
 upon them to remember that they are freemen, if they 
 will but know their privileges ; but we can do no more 
 than this : if they will hold the slave's language, and prac- 
 tise the slave's crimes, no power of man can raise them 
 into citizens, whether of an earthly commonwealth, or of 
 the city of God. 
 
 But cannot we and are we not bound to stop these 
 slave's principles from tainting our freemen ? Are we not 
 bound to consider earnestly and immediately the condi- 
 tion of the working classes, remembering always that the 
 freeman without property is in some danger of becoming 
 
STATE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 497 
 
 the slave who hates property, that the poor freeman not 
 treated by the rich as a brother, is apt to sink into the 
 slave who hates the rich as his enemies. 
 
 Every motive that can rouse men to action calls us to 
 this duty ; if we neglect it, surely it must be that God has 
 stricken us, rulers and people together, with that blindness 
 which is the consequence of sin and the forerunner of de- 
 struction. 
 
 XVI. STATE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 [From the Paper dated February 1, 1840.] 
 
 SIR, It is satisfactory to see that the condition of our 
 working classes has attracted the serious attention of 
 Parliament. To observe and to inquire must surely lead 
 us to remedy and to improve. May I at this moment 
 venture to offer one or two suggestions, suggestions in- 
 deed presented with a deep consciousness of my imperfect 
 knowledge, and if for brevity's sake I speak without 
 qualification, I would beg my readers to believe, once for 
 all, that nothing is farther from my mind than a pre- 
 sumptuous confidence in the wisdom of my own conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 1st. The evil to be remedied is not local or temporary. 
 The present aggravated symptoms may be both these, 
 and there is great danger of our mistaking these symptoms 
 for the whole disorder. It is neither the indifferent har- 
 vest, nor the American embarrassments, nor the Corn 
 Laws, which constitute the real mischief. Trade may re- 
 vive, and the ultimate evil may be only the more increased. 
 The evil is universal and perpetual on our present system, 
 because that system, in all its manifold branches, allows 
 the poorer classes, being freemen, to sink more and more 
 into the state of slaves ; or as I believe I have said before, 
 it congratulates itself on having done away with slavery, 
 
 K K 
 
498 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 and it does not understand how great a task it undertook 
 in so doing. For it undertook to solve and not to cut that 
 great difficulty which puzzled the wisest men and the 
 wisest nations of the ancient world, how to keep all the 
 human beings in any given country in a condition worthy 
 of their common humanity. 
 
 This is the real problem; it is how to keep more than 
 twenty millions of human beings in such a state, as that, 
 speaking in the mass, they shall have sufficient physical 
 comforts, and a share of political rights, and some degree 
 at least of intellectual and spiritual cultivation. All these 
 are the just portion of freemen, and if we do not think 
 it possible to provide these for our people, then let us cease 
 to revile the Greeks and Romans and Americans, and con- 
 fess that we too have slavery amongst us, and confess it to 
 be an inevitable evil. 
 
 No, Sir, by God's blessing it is not inevitable, if we 
 look steadily at it, and will pay the price of removing it. 
 We did not scruple to pay twenty millions to get rid of it 
 in the West Indies ; would we and ought we not to pay 
 twice as much if needful to remove it at home ? 
 
 Now for the remedies ; this seems a clear general rule 
 that many being equally needed should be applied to- 
 gether. A remedy in itself good for one particular symp- 
 tom may do harm rather than good to the whole case, if 
 applied alone ; or if not mischievous it may be inefficient. 
 Many a man has some favourite specific which he loudly 
 presses on our notice. If we take any one of these singly 
 we are but trusting to a quack medicine, and shall pay the 
 penalty of our folly but if we take all, we may be likely 
 to be much nearer the remedy. 
 
 Again, some things can be pointed out confidently as 
 both practicable and beneficial ; of others we can but say 
 that the remedy lies somewhere about them, and should be 
 well looked for, but its distinct shape and proportions are 
 not yet manifest. 
 
 Of things certainly practicable and beneficial I place 
 
STATE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 499 
 
 first, the subdivision of parishes and townships, so as to / 
 furnish to every thousand of human beings the benefits of 
 what may really be called society. The inhabitants of a 
 fashionable square in London, or those of a wretched row 
 of cottages in a mere manufacturing village, are neither 
 by themselves deserving of the name. Into the masses of 
 poor now herded together in many of our large towns, 
 the influences of society cannot penetrate. The best charm 
 and the highest virtue of neighbourhood, that every one 
 knows every one, is there utterly lost. 
 
 The Church Building Society has had a notion of this 
 evil, but has surely mistaken the means of remedying it. 
 What is wanted is to build up living churches, not dead 
 ones of brick and stone. That was a true and living 
 Church which met for prayer and praise in the subter- 
 ranean quarries without the walls of Rome ; and such 
 Churches would better serve our purposes than all the 
 splendour of St. Peter's. Not that the splendour of the 
 material church impairs the purity of the living Church ; 
 to think so were a puritanical folly ; but each in its own 
 order, first that which is necessary, the living Church ; 
 then in its season, the natural fruit of the prosperity of 
 the living Church, comes the church of brick or stone. 
 
 The money which is given for building places of wor- 
 ship should be given to provide ministers. Those ministers 
 should have each their deacons not clergymen, nor men 
 paid by society, which is impossible ; but such good men 
 and women as do now after a manner supply the deacon's 
 place in large towns, under the name of visitors of the 
 poor, supported by their own ordinary callings, and never 
 dreaming of being paid for their services. But if these 
 were as they should be, the deacons and deaconesses of 
 the Church, what a variety of benefits would result from it 
 in more ways, and in larger measure than I can now fully 
 develope ! 
 
 Together with this, it would be surely practicable and 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 clearly beneficial to have in every division so constituted 
 something of an internal administration, in which every 
 man should be more or less concerned. A vestry is an 
 excellent institution, but it includes only the rate-payers. 
 It has been the misfortune of our constitution in all things 
 to consider government too exclusively as a matter of mere 
 management of money, and therefore to give a share in it 
 only towards those who pay. Now there is no surer law 
 in human affairs than that the possession of a certain de- 
 gree of administrative and legislative power^ if it be but 
 administering and legislating for a common club, is in it- 
 self highly softening and civilizing ; it inculcates obe- 
 dience to law, because it acquaints men practically with 
 law's importance, and identifies it in some degree with 
 their own. 
 
 All that I have been urging was actually the system of 
 our Saxon' forefathers. They were fully aware how im- 
 portant it was in society that every man should know 
 every man ; they went even farther, and made every man 
 answerable for every man. They had no notion of a mass 
 of human beings poor and ignorant, wandering often from 
 one place to another to find work, un missed in the place 
 they leave, unnoticed in that to which they migrate. 
 And ask of the officers of local regiments, where the men 
 all come from the same neighbourhood, whether this 
 principle has not been found of wonderful force in main- 
 taining discipline and good conduct. I have heard of a 
 Highland regiment in which the commanding officer has- 
 been known to substitute for the threat of ordinary punish- 
 ment that of writing to the offender's father, and it was a 
 threat which was seldom used in vain. 
 
 In short, the unwieldy and utterly unorganized mass of 
 our population requires to be thoroughly organized. 
 Where is the part of our body into which minute blood- 
 vessels and nerves of the most acute sensibility are not 
 insinuated, so that every part there is truly alive? Not 
 
STATE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 501 
 
 less true than the old tyrant's maxim of " divide and 
 conquer," is the rule of political and Christian wisdom, 
 " divide and improve." 
 
 This could be done at once, easily and with certain 
 benefit. But is this enough? Then indeed if I said so 
 my remedy would be a quack's nostrum, I should be 
 doing the very thino; which I deprecate. This is not 
 enough ; but thus far I see my way clearly, beyond I 
 see only that we must advance, I see what direction 
 generally the road must take, but the country has not 
 yet been sufficiently surveyed to determine the particular 
 line. 
 
 Something must be done to restrain the enormous ac-~] 
 cumulation of property in single hands, to facilitate its 
 acquisition and secure its possession to the mass of the I 
 community. Men must distinguish clearly between small 
 tenancies and small properties ; the former, as in Ireland, 
 are but a source of servility, wretchedness, and crime; 
 the latter, as in Norway, and in every other country 
 where they have ever existed, have been a source no less 
 sure of independence, comfort, and virtue. 
 
 Sooner or later men must look to the question of the 
 debt. Do we really think that the property and industry 
 of the nation can struggle against this burden for ever ? 
 Why do we make such a cry about the Corn Laws, and not 
 look to that monstrous evil from which the whole difficulty 
 of the Corn Law question proceeds? Every acre in the 
 kingdom is deeply mortgaged ; every manufactory is mort- 
 gaged, every mine is mortgaged ; our very limbs and minds, 
 our industry and our skill, are so to speak mortgaged, 
 and yet our very existence depends, not on our merely 
 rivalling but actually surpassing all the competition of 
 nations whose land, capital, and faculties are alike un- 
 burdened. 
 
 This has been well known by the greatest and ablest of 
 men, by Burke and by Niebuhr ; this was clearly seen 
 by the unprejudiced sagacity of Hume; this must com- 
 
502 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 mend itself one would think to the common sense of 
 every man who has ever felt the burden of being in debt, 
 arid the pleasure of feeling that his property and his in- 
 come were his own. That the greatest sacrifices would 
 be wisely made to ensure this object, and that thus alone 
 can a scandalous bankruptcy sooner or later be prevented, 
 appears to me perfectly certain. 
 
 There is enough to think on in what has been already 
 stated. Would that others would carry on the train of 
 thought which I have suggested, would improve it where 
 it is just, and would correct it where in error ! 
 
 XVII. CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 [From the Paper dated March 21, 1840.] 
 
 SIR, I am sincerely unwilling to add to the number of 
 your correspondents on the subject of Church Establish- 
 ments ; unwilling besides, if I trouble you at all, to 
 write upon any other question than that to which I have 
 generally confined myself. But in truth this discussion 
 about Establishments does touch most nearly the question 
 of the social improvement of our poorer classes. Difficult as 
 such improvement must be under any circumstances, it 
 must be, humanly speaking, utterly impossible, if the 
 voluntary system, as it is called, should ever be set up on 
 the ruins of the Establishment. Inadequate as our means 
 are at this moment, what would they be if all those funds, 
 which now in every part of the kingdom are set apart for 
 public purposes, were to be taken from the public, and 
 given over to private individuals ? 
 
 If I understand the objections to an Establishment 
 rightly, they resolve themselves, at least so far as the 
 writers in the Christian Reformer are concerned, into these 
 
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 503 
 
 three following: 1st. That what is called the King's su- 
 premacy and the power of parliament over the Church is 
 a profane subjecting of Christ's kingdom to a secular au- 
 thority. 2nd. That the Church ought to be a congrega- 
 tion of good and holy men, and of such only : and 3rd. 
 That an Establishment interferes of necessity with its be- 
 coming so. 
 
 You will feel at once, Sir, that it is impossible to argue 
 all these points fully within the limits of a newspaper ; 
 and even if I could discuss them all satisfactorily, there 
 would still remain the positive side of my argument, that 
 Establishments are not only not sinful but are absolutely 
 essential to the full manifestation of Christ's kingdom ; and 
 then again I should have to show how far our actual Eng- 
 lish Establishment realizes its theory or idea; and what 
 are the causes which make it in any degree fall short of it. 
 A great subject indeed, I know of none worthier ; but 
 one requiring for its full development, not a newspaper, 
 nor even a pamphlet; but a large volume. 
 
 Again, my own views differ very widely I believe from 
 those of the greater part of the defenders of Establish- 
 ments. On their principles I could not maintain their 
 conclusions. It is very likely therefore that although my 
 view is perfectly intelligible to myself, yet that if stated 
 briefly it may not be so to others : that it may be judged 
 from the views of other writers who agree with me in my 
 result, and that I may be supposed, therefore, unless I ex- 
 pressly state the contrary, to agree with them in their 
 principles; so that I may appear to be holding incon- 
 sistent opinions, or some which lead to mischievous conse- 
 quences, because such have been often held by those who 
 in this question are, to speak in common language, engaged 
 with me on the same side. 
 
 For instance, if I held the necessity of what is called 
 the apostolical succession of bishops and presbyters, I 
 must allow that the King's supremacy is an usurpation 
 of the State over the Church ; and such an usurpation 
 
504 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 I hold to be clearly contrary to Christianity. For if a 
 government for the Christian Church has been fixed for 
 all time by divine authority, and of this government the 
 King forms no part, nor is mentioned in what may be 
 called on this supposition the Church's constitutional 
 charter, then he must be clearly an extraneous element, 
 and his supremacy must be that of a stranger over the 
 household of God. 
 
 But, Sir, it is just this one grand falsehood of the 
 necessity or possible reality of such a succession, which 
 from the earliest times has confused this whole question. 
 The Church, like every other society, has varied practi- 
 cally in its government in different times and countries; 
 and these varieties have all had their good as well as their 
 evil. It must have a government clearly ; but whether 
 this government shall be popular, aristocratical, or mo- 
 narchical, has been no more fixed for it by divine au- 
 thority, than for any other society in the world. As long 
 as it is merely a subordinate part of any nation, the alter- 
 ations of its government depend on other causes ; but as 
 soon as it becomes co-extensive with the whole nation, 
 then its government takes the form which it found exist- 
 ing in that nation; being democratical in a democracy, 
 aristocratical in an aristocracy, monarchical in a pure 
 monarchy, and mixed under a mixed government like 
 ours. 
 
 The Church, having no government fixed for it by 
 divine authority, naturally assumes the form existing in 
 the nation, when its members coinciding with the members 
 of the nation, it expands into its higher character of a 
 Christian commonwealth or kingdom. It is not of neces- 
 sity that it should do so, the nation may assume the form 
 of the Church government if it will; in other words, the 
 members of the nation and the members of the Church 
 being the self-same persons, may appoint for their supreme 
 government whatever form shall seem good to them. 
 
 Now, Sir, having thus far shown that the doctrine of 
 
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 505 
 
 apostolical succession by divine right is inconsistent with 
 the King's supremacy ; in other words, that the King's 
 supremacy is only to be defended as the form of govern- 
 ment adopted by the Church for herself in her more per- 
 fect form of a Christian commonwealth, she having no 
 form of government prescribed for her by divine authority 
 for all times and countries. I come next to confess, no 
 less fairly, that such an identity of Church and State as I 
 have here supposed, identity be it observed, and by no 
 means alliance merely, that this identity of Church and 
 State, which I hold to be the highest perfection of each, 
 and which Mr. Hallam and many others hold to be a 
 notion fraught with mischief, is clearly false and impracti- 
 cable if the doctrine first broached in the eighteenth or 
 seventeenth century be true, namely, that the highest ob- 
 ject of the state is the physical well-being of its members, 
 or as Warburton expresses it, the conservation of body 
 and goods. 
 
 Undoubtedly, Sir, if this be the true notion of a State, 
 it never can be identical with the Church of Christ. But 
 neither can there properly be an alliance between them, 
 for they are as if this be r.eally the highest object of the 
 State, not different merely, but opposed to one another. 
 The State is then " the World," which is not the ally of 
 the Church, but its enemy. It is the very contrast ex- 
 hibited in the account of our Lord's temptation; the 
 Church declaring that man shall not live by bread alone, 
 but by every word of God : the State insisting that the 
 stone shall be turned into bread. 
 
 And here we have before us in these two doctrines, 
 that of the supposed apostolical succession of bishops and 
 presbyters on the one hand, and that of the exclusively 
 physical and external objects of government on the other, 
 two principles utterly at variance as I think with any just 
 views of an Establishment. If I held either of these to 
 be true, I should be obliged to confess that an Established 
 
506 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 Church in the full extension of the term could not and 
 ought not to be. 
 
 But as I regard these two principles to be respectively 
 types or representatives of the two great forms of evil by 
 which the world has been cursed from the beginning, 
 which apparently most adverse to one another have yet 
 continually promoted each other's success, and have alike 
 thwarted and persecuted the cause of good; those great 
 forms of evil which may be called, the one idolatry and 
 the other ungodliness; so the incompatibility of each of 
 these with what- appears on other grounds to be the per- 
 fect idea of the Christian Church, is, to my mind, a most 
 encouraging and comforting circumstance ; inasmuch as 
 it affords no mean presumption that what these two arch 
 and opposite falsehoods each repel with equal aversion, 
 can be no other than the very pure and perfect truth. 
 
 The supremacy then of King and Parliament in a 
 Christian nation, over bishops and presbyters, is the su- 
 premacy of no external or secular power over the Church, 
 but of the sovereign power of and in the Church, over its 
 subordinate officers; or, to speak more correctly, it is the 
 assertion of the sovereignty of the Church as a whole over 
 any one particular portion of its members ; a principle 
 which is the foundation of all good government, and which 
 it were the strangest of all strange phenomena, did I not 
 know the infinite confusions which possess men's minds 
 on this question, to see disputed by English Dissenters. 
 
 The writers against Establishments, in the Christian 
 Reformer, do not hold the doctrine of the apostolical suc- 
 cession in more respect than I do. But they hold, I fear, 
 the other and not less mischievous doctrine, that the ob- 
 jects of civil society are purely physical and external. 
 And the prevailing opinions and practices of the present 
 age, in this country not less than in others, are likely no 
 doubt to countenance them in it. But the accordant voice of 
 all governments and of all philosophers, till within the last 
 
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS 507 
 
 hundred and fifty years at the outside, is against them ; 
 and in no age or country has the doctrine of the merely 
 physical objects of law and government been fully acted 
 upon ; for if it were brought out consistently in all its 
 consequences, the common sense and conscience of man- 
 kind would at once reject it. 
 
 He who holds that government was instituted, I do not 
 mean in historical fact but according to its true idea, and 
 God's purpose, for the general improvement and well- 
 being of man ; and that this object has been pursued more 
 or less successfully according to the more or less correct 
 views which have prevailed as to what man's well-being in 
 the highest sense is; will see that government, when en- 
 dowed with Christian knowledge, is then and then only in 
 a condition to accomplish its object thoroughly, that then 
 its object becomes identical with that of the Church ; and 
 two societies with the self-same object and the self-same 
 members, must inevitably, unless there be a necessary 
 hindrance in their formal constitution, blend together into 
 one. The alleged apostolical succession would be such 
 an hindrance, unless the society chose to take that form 
 of government, and become a priestly aristocracy ; but 
 those who reject the pretended succession ought not 
 surely to see any objection in point of principle to that 
 perfected form of a Christian commonwealth in which 
 the knowledge of the Church is blended with the power 
 of the State, and both are combined to work out man's 
 highest good. 
 
 Space is wanting for an answer to the objections which 
 may be made to this statement. I must by the necessity 
 of the case content myself with stating my view of the 
 question, and endeavouring at any rate to make it in- 
 telligible. Two points urged by the opponents to Esta- 
 blishments yet remain to be noticed ; but I have already 
 trespassed upon your columns too largely. 
 
508 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 XVII. WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [From the Paper dated November 28, 1840.] 
 
 SIR, There seems almost a foolishness in any attempts 
 on the part of obscure individuals to influence the mea- 
 sures of the government of a great nation. Yet it is 
 hardly in human nature to see oneself on the edge of a 
 cataract, and to surrender oneself to destruction without 
 moving a hand or uttering a sound. And though one 
 journal, and certainly a mere correspondent of one 
 journal, can do little or nothing, yet if the press through- 
 out the kingdom could be roused to the magnitude of the 
 danger, the evil would undoubtedly be averted. 
 
 History is full of wars undertaken on slight grounds, 
 and as foolish as they were wicked. But taking all things 
 into the account, the increased sense of the evils of war, 
 now so generally prevalent, the actual difficulties of the 
 country, the object aimed at, and the enemy selected, 
 Lord Palmerston's war with France, should such a cala- 
 mity unhappily take place, will stand, I verily believe, un- 
 matched in the records of human folly. 
 
 For the last five and twenty years nations have been 
 learning more and more to appreciate the evils of war. 
 They have found out more than they ever did before 
 the blessings of free and friendly intercourse with each 
 other; and they have become aware that the interruption 
 of these by war is mostly a mere evil : that war answers to 
 nobody : that with an infinity of crime and suffering 
 during its progress, its results are to all parties unsatis- 
 factory; that they are mostly nothing but a compromise 
 produced by mutual exhaustion ; that the object aimed at, 
 utterly unworthy as it was of the sacrifices made to pur- 
 chase it, is for the most part not purchased after all. 
 Comparing too the progress of mankind during the last 
 twenty-five years, with the twenty years of war which pre- 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 509 
 
 ceded them, men have observed how fatally war checks 
 internal improvement; how all social evils thrive un- 
 checked during its continuance ; because the whole ener- 
 gies of the nation are turned to outward objects, she has 
 neither time nor interest to bestow on watching her domes- 
 tic condition. 
 
 A statesman therefore who provokes a war now, is far 
 more inexcusable than he ever could have been before. 
 He is sinning in spite of knowledge ; he is gathering a 
 fruit which he and all the world know to be poisonous. 
 
 This applies to all statesmen ; how much more to those 
 of England? Is it not enough that the last war has mort- 
 gaged for ever every acre of land, every house, every article 
 of property, nay, the very bodies and minds, the limbs, 
 the skill, the industry and the genius of every in- 
 dividual in the nation? Do we forget the debt, and the 
 manner in which it was contracted ? Do we forget how 
 every question which most embarrasses us derives its 
 peculiar difficulty from this single cause? What is the 
 great defence of the Corn Laws, but that burden of tax- 
 ation which far more than any inferiority of climate dis- 
 ables the English agriculturist from competing with 
 foreigners ? What is the weight which almost crushes the 
 marvellous energy of our manufacturers, but that they are 
 struggling against those of the Continent as men heavily 
 taxed against those lightly taxed; that out of their capital 
 and skill, and out of the ingenuity and labour of their 
 workmen, they have not only to rival the foreign manu- 
 facturer, but to pay over and above the dividends of the 
 English fundholder ? And what if we follow this a little 
 farther ? Is our population perfectly united and tranquil ? 
 Will no favourable opportunity encourage agitation in 
 Ireland ? Is Canada pacified ? Is India secure ? Is 
 Chartism above all so extinct that the confusion and pres- 
 sure of war would be unable to awaken it ? Surely never 
 was any country in the world less in that state of fulness 
 
510 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 of bread and exuberance of strength which should seek 
 war as a pastime or an exercise. 
 
 Still no doubt there might be a cause so sacred as to 
 force us to forget all the evils of war, general and parti- 
 cular ; it is conceivable, that is, the thing is physically 
 possible, that we should be called upon to sacrifice in- 
 terests so precious as to leave us no choice but to draw 
 the sword. Physically possible it is no doubt, but scarcely 
 morally. No nation in existence would so force this great 
 country into a clearly unavoidable war. But a cause of 
 war so frivolous as that which now threatens us, may be 
 looked for in vain through our annals, except in the case 
 of that scandalous war which Charles II. made upon Hol- 
 land. Our trade, lawful or contraband, is not interfered 
 with : no barren rock of so much as the size of half an 
 acre has been claimed from us ; no boundary line involv- 
 ing the acquisition of some square miles of bog or forest 
 is disputed. Lord Chatham, carrying the doctrine of 
 British interference to the greatest possible length, said 
 that not a single shot should ever be fired in Europe with- 
 out our permission. But no single shot was fired or going 
 to be fired. Here is no disputed Austrian or Spanish 
 succession ; no question about the opening of the Scheldt 
 or the obstruction of the Rhine. It is a quarrel between 
 the Sultan of Turkey and one of his overgrown subjects, 
 which is to involve England, Europe, and the world in all 
 the guilt and misery of war. 
 
 The parties in this quarrel are remote, but what is geo- 
 graphically remote, may sometimes be politically near. 
 Let us see what in this present case is the nearness and 
 the magnitude of the danger dreaded. If the Pacha of 
 Egypt retains Syria, his power will become highly dan- 
 gerous to the independence of Turkey ; if Turkey's inde- 
 pendence be threatened, Turkey will call in Russia to her 
 aid ; if Russia protects Turkey, her protection will be 
 soon changed into dominion ; and finally, we shall see the 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 511 
 
 Russians at Constantinople. As if the evil of seeing the 
 Russians at Constantinople, an evil depending on a series 
 of contingencies, were in any degree to be compared to 
 the evil of a war between England and France. What 
 surer way can there be of bringing the Russians, not to 
 Constantinople only, but to Vienna and to Berlin, nay 
 perhaps to Paris and to London, than to involve England 
 and France in war with each other, that when the lion 
 and the tiger have torn each other to pieces, the fox may 
 steal away the prey from both of them. And what surer 
 way of keeping the Russians from Constantinople, than to 
 bind our alliance with France trebly fast, thus keeping for 
 ever before the eyes of Russia a control which she dared 
 not to disregard. What Russian soldier would ever set 
 foot across the Balkan, if England and France, indissolubly 
 joined together as the protectors of the old civilization of 
 Europe, were ready at an instant to pour their fleets into 
 the Black Sea, and without repeating the folly of the 
 march to Moscow, to strike at the life of Russia through 
 her vulnerable heel; to drive her back behind the Pruth, 
 to thrust her away from the shores of the Euxine, and by 
 occupying the Crimea as an impregnable fortress, to seal 
 up the only outlet by which the evil spirit of Russian am- 
 bition can issue forth to trouble the world ? 
 
 But instead of this, we are ready to verify all that 
 Russia's wildest dreams could hope for, and involve our- 
 selves and all Europe in a war with France. For what 
 imaginable end except to smooth the path of Russian am- 
 bition ? So long as England and France are friends, the 
 peace of Europe cannot be disturbed ; their enmity alone 
 can endanger it. We choose for our enemy our nearest 
 neighbour, with whom we have so often tried our strength 
 before that either nation is well taught to respect the other, 
 and to know that their contest can and must entail the 
 greatest jsvils on both, with no possible advantage to either. 
 We each have our separate course to run, in which we 
 cannot interfere with each other. France has no desire to 
 
512 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 interfere with our colonial empire, and what can we wish to 
 take from France ? And if the French be burning for 
 war, so that their heroic king can scarcely restrain them, 
 if their press has been madly violent, if the recollections of 
 1815 are rankling in the hearts of the French people, shall 
 we irritate them still farther by cold and insulting language, 
 shall we encourage them to believe that we too would 
 gladly revive the old quarrel ; or shall we meet them in a 
 spirit of frankness and friendliness, going beyond what we 
 are strictly bound to do, to lull their suspicions, and mani- 
 festing to them our conviction that in this contest between 
 Turkey and Egypt their interests and ours are identical, 
 and that if we differ as to the means of advancing them, 
 no madness can be so great as to let this difference 
 lead to a quarrel, like two physicians tearing their patient 
 to pieces whilst each was so eager to monopolize his 
 cure? 
 
 War is a dreadful evil, war for England at this moment 
 more than ordinarily dreadful, war with France is an evil 
 deeper than all. One thing alone is wanting to the bit- 
 terness of this prospect, that it should have been brought 
 on smilingly and complacently, like a child in its simplicity 
 putting a match to a barrel of gunpowder, and thinking 
 that the explosion would be a fine sight to look upon. 
 Ten years ago the Whig ministry came into power with 
 the cry of peace, reform, and retrenchment. Is it from 
 them above all other men that we are to receive the boon 
 of the most unjust, the most insane, and most ruinous 
 war? 
 
 Surely Lord Lansdowne and Lord John Russell do not 
 forget that from them at least better things may be ex- 
 pected ; and if some of their colleagues retain the anti- 
 Gallican feelings of their old political connexions, yet 
 they at any rate must be well aware of the inestimable 
 value of our alliance with France, and that to forsake 
 France for Russia is such utter impolicy in a British mi- 
 nister as to excuse those who not being aware of the de- 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 513 
 
 gree of ignorance so often displayed by our governments 
 in their foreign transactions, are disposed at once to 
 ascribe it to corruption, or to some other influence equally 
 discreditable. But he who knows the history of those 
 administrations with which Lord Palmerston was origin- 
 ally connected, will believe no amount of honest blunder- 
 ing to be impossible in one trained in such a school. 
 
 XIX. WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [From the Paper dated December 5, 1840.] 
 
 SIR, I thank you for your comments on my last letter. 
 If we are agreed as to the tremendous evil of a war with 
 France, I am quite willing to hope that you may judge 
 more justly than I of Lord Palmerston's past policy, and 
 I can truly say that I would far rather that the foolishness 
 should be in my writings than in his conduct. At any 
 rate I will not again separate Lord Palmerston from his 
 colleagues, and as no man can wish more earnestly than I 
 do for the continuance of the Whig government, I cer- 
 tainly am not disposed to cavil at its measures, nor would 
 wish to speak of it in any unfriendly language. 
 
 But without irritating any one, if I can help it, I would 
 again press upon your readers the dangers of the actual 
 crisis, and the urgent need of a generous and utterly un- 
 selfish and unpassionate policy on the part of the British 
 government. No one can doubt that our late success at 
 Acre will exasperate the war party in France, and render 
 the task of the French government in preserving peace 
 more difficult. But our newspapers are fanning the flame, 
 not only by absurd comparisons between Napoleon's 
 failure before Acre and our success, but actually in some 
 instances by calling upon our government to keep Acre in 
 its own hands, and convert it into another Gibraltar. I 
 do not insult the government by suspecting them of such 
 
 L L 
 
514 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 an act of infamy : but I speak of the mischief done to 
 public feeling in France by the mere broaching of such a 
 project, even though it never entered any more influential 
 head than that of an obscure writer in a newspaper. But 
 we know that suspicion of English Machiavelism has been 
 one of the inherent faults of the French character ; we know 
 that the most extravagant crimes were imputed to our go- 
 vernment on no foundation at all ; how much more plausibly 
 will our nation be charged with what is truly the guilt of 
 some at any rate amongst us, and how naturally will the 
 French transfer to the English people and government 
 what is known to be the language of some of the leading 
 English journals. 
 
 If, again, in an evil hour our demands should in any way 
 rise with our success ; if, without the baseness of appro- 
 priating to .ourselves what we have won in the name of 
 our ally, we demand even for that ally, and in a fancied 
 spirit of general policy, any greater concessions than we 
 had before insisted on ; then, too, we shall be overstraining 
 the patience of the French people, and all the virtue of 
 their government, nay all the prudence of the majority of 
 the Chamber of Deputies, may be too weak to stop the 
 tempest. 
 
 For let us not believe that the decision of the French 
 Chambers must necessarily be in the last resort the decision 
 of France. One single step foolishly taken in the exulta- 
 tion of success, may so gather round the more Jacobinical 
 war party all that vast mass of elements which in France 
 are most intolerant of a peace represented as prudential 
 but dishonourable, that the Chambers must either yield, 
 or the door of revolution is well nigh opened. Should it 
 indeed open, and should the heroic king' of the French 
 and his wise and virtuous minister fall in such a struggle, 
 how deep would be the guilt of those British ministers 
 who in mere childish vanity were, with their eyes open, 
 the original causes of such a catastrophe. 
 
 All that has been hitherto done in Syria cannot in itself 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 516 
 
 be welcome to Russia ; its object, its only justification has 
 I) <ii, that it is to raise up a barrier against Russian en- 
 croachments. Thus far then Russia, in lending her name 
 to the treaty of July, may be said to have been acting 
 against herself. But what then is to be her reward ? Or 
 i^ not the moment now come when she hopes to reap it? 
 Let us unite if we will under the Sultan's sceptre all the 
 countries which once obeyed Solyman the Magnificent; 
 let us strip Mohammed AH of Egypt as well as of Syria, 
 and advance the Turkish frontier not to the Pruth but to 
 tin- l>orysthenes or even to the Don; what would Russia 
 can-, if the price paid her for allowing armour to be put 
 on the limbs and a sword into the hand of a dying enemy, 
 be the wasting mutual hostility of those two powers who, 
 had they remained united, would have been enemies in- 
 vincible by the utmost efforts of her ambition. If Russia 
 be wise, she will not only tolerate but will gladly tempt 
 our worst excesses of pride or of ambition ; let her but 
 involve us in a war with France, and all her momentary 
 sacrifices will be over paid a thousand fold. 
 
 Nor let me be thought to have any the slightest sym- 
 pathy with that violent party in France whose language no 
 doubt has given much provocation to the people of Eng- 
 land. But that party can be wholesomely and effectually 
 put down, not by the arms of Europe, but only by the 
 \\I-doin and virtue of France herself. The more and the 
 wilder may be the elements of anarchy and blood existing 
 in the mass of the French nation, the more closely should 
 we sympathize with those better elements which hitherto 
 have so nobly resisted them : the more earnestly should 
 we avoid giving to the evil an additional power by weak- 
 ening the hands of the good. Let it ever be remembered 
 that the crimes of September could not have been per- 
 petrated had it not been for the unjust invasion of France 
 and the proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick. Thou- 
 sands of good and brave men, in 1793 and 1794, thought 
 that even the Government of the Mountain Committees 
 
516 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 was a less* evil than the triumph of the Coalition over the 
 French nation. 
 
 It is the unfortunate result at any rate of Lord Palmer- 
 ston's policy, even now that it has added strength to that 
 violent party in France, which twenty-five years of peace 
 and increasing prosperity had gone far to weaken. It has 
 revived half-extinguished jealousies and animosities be- 
 tween France and England : an evil dearly purchased by 
 the expulsion of Mohammed Ali from Syria. At this 
 moment the mischief may be remediable if the British 
 government meets M. Guizot more than half way in the 
 work of peace if its tone be frank and friendly its 
 conduct moderate and straightforward ; if it be made 
 manifest that we prize the friendship of France most 
 highly that our object in our apparent estrangement was 
 but to secure benefits no less important to France than to 
 ourselves but having no secret or selfish ends to gratify 
 we have done what we honestly thought but for the peace 
 and welfare of Europe, and trust that as our interests and 
 those of France are in fact identical, so they may be iden- 
 tical no less in our mutual apprehension of them ; but we 
 may pursue the same ends side by side, with no other strife 
 but as to which shall pursue them most purely and most 
 zealously. 
 
 XX. THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 [From the Paper dated August 21, 1841.] 
 
 SIR, The event has answered to, or even surpassed my 
 expectations. The Tories have obtained not only a large 
 but a commanding majority. The wheel is " come full 
 circle." The "reaction" is consummated, and the pro- 
 spects which it opens to us are of the gravest. 
 
 Your correspondent, Vigil, wishes that the daily press 
 might be made a vehicle for communicating systematic 
 information on politics ; he laments, and with justice, the 
 
THE ELECTIONS. 517 
 
 general want of such information. But the misfortune is, 
 that if the information could be conveyed in a newspaper, 
 I doubt whether common readers would bring with them 
 the state of mind which would enable them to profit by it. 
 The evil in my opinion lies deeper, it is not only that men 
 are not well informed on political subjects, but that the 
 whole spirit with which they turn to them is faulty ; they 
 do not regard them as a matter of solemn duty, they bring 
 to them not their better mind but their worst ; either their 
 lightest or their most passionate and most unscrupulous. 
 The temper of most men, I fear, in reading a newspaper, 
 or in talking or acting about political subjects, is the very 
 most unlike in the world to that with which they would 
 say their prayers, or consider any practical question of 
 duty in common life, or perform acts of charity. 
 
 Now I am well aware that we are even in our best tem- 
 pers far enough from what we ought to be. Nevertheless, 
 we are not by many degrees so bad as our talking, or 
 writing, or acting on political matters would make us 
 appear to be. If our morality at elections, for example, 
 was a fair specimen of our principles and practice in gene- 
 ral, we should be indeed utterly hateful both in the sight 
 of God and of man. 
 
 The remedy of this evil is not obvious. Political 
 preaching is a matter so delicate that one hardly dares to 
 wish for its adoption. It is greatly to be feared that the 
 preacher would soon go off from the state of mind with 
 which political questions should be approached, and try to 
 give his hearers what he would call right notions on po- 
 litical subjects ; the consequence of which would be, not 
 the purifying of our politics, but the polluting of our devo- 
 tions ; we should not read newspapers with a better mind, 
 but pray with a worse. 
 
 Undoubtedly, I wish that men held on political subjects 
 those opinions which I believe to be true. But this is by 
 no means my most earnest wish on the matter. What I 
 wish far above all other things, is that men would talk, 
 
518 LETTERS TO THE HERTFORD REFORMER. 
 
 write, and act on political subjects in the fear of God ; as 
 if they were forthwith going to stand before His judgment. 
 Even so talking, writing, and acting, they might and 
 would often be in great error ; still if ever we are to come 
 to any generally sound knowledge about public matters, 
 it can be only gained by this previous moral improvement 
 in our way of studying them. Error of course will always 
 remain, but it will be thus least prevalent and least mis- 
 chievous. 
 
 But when I speak of men's talking and acting about 
 political matters in the fear of God, I do not mean that 
 they should persuade themselves that their own opinions 
 are according to God's will, and that in pushing those 
 opinions vehemently they are doing God service. This 
 does not purify their political conduct, but deeply cor- 
 rupts themselves ; this is fanaticism, the fruitful mother of 
 all falsehood and all cruelty. The fear of God should 
 come in, not as an excuse for violence against our oppo- 
 nents, but in the formation of our own opinions, and in 
 considering our own temper and conduct. Whether such 
 and such an opinion be clearly according to God's will, 
 can never be so certain as that taking up an opinion 
 hastily, talking about it without knowledge, maintaining it 
 or pressing it unfairly or passionately, are against God's 
 will. That our adversaries' opinions are sinful, can never 
 be so sure as that unkindness, sophistry, violence, and 
 uncharitableness in ourselves towards them, are sinful in 
 us. God will judge them; it is our business to judge 
 ourselves. 
 
 If men approached a newspaper, the political part of it 
 I mean, with such a temper, the effects would be speedily 
 felt both by the publishers of newspapers and by them- 
 selves. By the publishers of newspapers, for they would 
 soon find that mere scurrility, gross unfairness, falsehood, 
 and misrepresentation, in all their varieties, would disgust 
 their readers, and injure the sale of their journals; by the 
 readers themselves, because while they were in a better 
 
THE ELECTIONS. 519 
 
 state for arriving at true knowledge, the newspapers would 
 have become more capable and more disposed to commu- 
 nicate it. Now, Sir, if your correspondent Vigil desires 
 systematic instruction for the people, he will at least allow 
 that I have in this letter begun at the beginning. I have 
 also best suited my own capacity ; for I am by no means 
 sure that I could inform any one rightly upon the " poor- 
 law, commerce, corn, or taxation/' although I, like others, 
 have my opinions on these points; but I am quite sure, 
 that in advising men to seek for political information by 
 setting about the study of politics in a pure, a lofty, a 
 loving, and a holy temper, I am putting them on the right 
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