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of doubt,-did it simply indicate an intellectual peculiarity, it were only contemptible, but as it proceeds from the state of the heart, it is a pitiable and an awful symptom.

On looking back on what we have advanced, we perceive that we have employed the phrase reasonable presumption 'against the truth.' And while we contend that the force of testimony, taken in connexion with the moral character of real Christians, presents a presumption in favour of the truth of religion, indefinitely stronger than any presumption which can lie against it, we admit that there exist grounds of reasonable prejudice, reasonable in the absence of opportunities of correct information, which will in part account for the infidelity they cannot excuse. To an individual who bas never seen Christianity otherwise than as associated with priestcraft, superstition, avarice, and intolerance, there is presented a reasonable presumption against the system, although it forins no solid evidence against its truth. The corruptions of Christianity by worldly policy, have done more to fortify the unbeliever in his impiety, than all the arguments which he could summon in his defence. While we shudder at the atrocious blasphemy of such a man as Voltaire, let us not forget that the Christianity which provoked the malignity of his opposition, was not the genuine Christianity of the New Testament, for with that he was unacquainted, but the system of fraud, intrigue, and spiritual tyranny, which assumed its name. The ill treatment he received from the French clergy, was what drove him to take up arms first against hypocrisy, and then, as he grew more daring and more vain, against religion itself. In countries in which Popery is the only form in which Christianity is exhibited, it is no wonder that, with rare exceptions, all the men of learning and intelligence are found holding some modification of Deism. Contemplating for instance such a country as Spain, we might almost be justified in asking, Can they be otherwise? The moral condition of such a people would seem to be far more hopeless than that of the worshippers of Brahma, or the professors of Islamism. The rapid progress of infidelity in France, or, to speak more correctly, the sudden eruption of the infidelity which the institutions of Popery had at once fostered and concealed, sufficiently proved the absence of any counteractive principle of vital religion. The language of Mr. Bowdler on this subject, which we have already introduced into our pages, is extremely forcible, and as proceeding from his pen, it will be received without prejudice, The philosophers and the people of France saw not,' he remarks, the religion of Christ such as it proceeded from the hands of its Divine Author, lowly and self-denying, benevolent and spiritual, but debased by its alliance to a superstitious establishment, and sustained by a

'civil authority at once arbitrary and contemptible. They saw 'the profession of Christianity often united to the practice of 'vice, or the policy of a worldly ambition; its dogmas peremp'torily enforced, and its precepts babitually relaxed.' While 'we reprobate the men who conspired against Christianity,' he adds, and deplore their success, let us never forget that there were other conspirators still more formidable, and to whom that success is chiefly to be atttributed; the unfaithful ministers and professors of religion, who rendered it weak by their 'dissentions, odious by their bigotry, and contemptible by their 'crimes.'

We cannot go the length to which some persons have been carried by their fears or political zeal, who see in Hone's Parodies and the republication of Paine's Works by Carlile, the symptoms of a moral state of things in this country, parallel to that which was developed by the French Revolution. We have, it is true, conspirators among us of the more formidable class adverted to in the passage just extracted,-conspirators to whom any success which our rabble infidels may meet with, will be mainly attributable. We too have among us the formalist and the bigot, unfaithful ministers and professors of religion; men who unite the profession of Christianity to the practice of vice, or the policy of s worldly ambition. And just so far as in this respect the parallel holds good, we have, deposited among us, the seeds of moral and political danger, and may be justified in taking alarm at the wretched blasphemies of Carlile. But still, there are some few circumstances which appear not to have been in the recollection of the individuals who have with more eloquence than discrimi nation, insisted upon the comparison. We have some things which France had not. We have a Protestant Establishment instead of a Roman Catholic hierarchy. This will readily be allowed to be a point of difference of some moment. But we have something better than this; an instructed instead of an ignorant population. We live in times in which every poor man has his Bible, and every poor man's child can read it. We have a middle class of society, interposing to prevent a fata collision between the rich and the poor, and, pervading this portion of the community, we have such a measure of religious knowledge, and such a spirit of active and enterprising piety, as may surely present some effectual resistance to the machinations of the enemies of social order. Our Bible Societies, and our Missionary Societies, with the leave of Mr. Lloyd, we hold to be some security against the inroads of sedition and blasphemy. And even the exertions of the Methodists and other evangelica sects, although they may have the unhappy effect of puritanizing large sections of the community, must be regarded as forming a point of opposition to the circumstances which brought on

Erevolution in France. We really believe that these large bodies of the people are innocent, are even utterly ignorant of any conspiracy that may be going on against the Altar and the Throne.' They are at all events not in alliance with Mr. Carlile.

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And it is a circumstance not wholly undeserving of remark, that we have in this same Mr. Carlile, not quite a Voltaire, nor in Mr. Hunt, a Mirabeau. Between, on the one hand, some of the greatest men which their country ever produced, and, on the other, men of insignificant talents and contemptible character, the contrast is more than consolatory; it is amusing.

We can scarcely account for the extraordinary language in which some lords and gentlemen of the Tory faction have indulged themselves, in painting the present dangers of the country. It seems too extravagant to be the honest expression of a panic alarm, and yet, it is ill-calculated for the purpose of delusion. To hear these declamations, one would imagine that we had a Temple of Reason in every street of the metropolis; that public opinion had unequivocally declared itself on the side of Treason and Infidelity; that the standard of Radicalism had been raised by leaders of commanding influence, eloquence, and property, and that from among the middle classes, numbers were daily 'deserting, to range themselves in hostile array under their banners. What is the fact? We speak not now of the sedition that is at work in some particular districts among the lower orders, but of the supposed progress of infidelity. A man is prosecuted for republishing and vending Paine's Age of Reason. The jury, indignant at the effrontery with which he conducts his defence, with one accord find him guilty, and he is consigned to gaol for the term of his sentence, without a demonstration of pity on the part of the public, with scarcely from any quarter the faintest murmur of disapprobation. A sentiment of disgust, and even horror, seems to be the general impression produced by his blasphemies. Individuals are loud in their execrations of his impiety, who hitherto had kept their own religion a profound secret. The most zealous endeavours are immediately called into action, to counteract the spread of irreligion by suitable publications in defence of Christianity. The pulpit and the press are both put in requisition, and both are mainly, on this point, employed on the side of the Legislature. Truly, this is very ominous of another French Revolution; this spectacle presents the very counterpart of the state of public feeling and the posture of affairs in France, previous to the destruction of the Bastile.

If the language of exaggeration and false alarm 'be necessary to stimulate the people of England to the discharge of their civil and social duties; if it is not enough to know that infidelity Vol. XIII. N. S.

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and crime are loudly calling for a more fervent zeal in the ministers of religion, and for measures of salutary counteraction in the true friends of their country; but we must have some stalkinghorse, some bugbear, Popery or Blasphemy, Tom Paine or Bonaparte, to terrify people into piety and allegiance to the State,—why, it must be so. We trust that our readers, however, stand not in need of being put into such a state of feverish excitement; that the prevalence of impiety, whether among the lower or the higher orders, is regarded by them with equal solicitude and concern. Those who have not now for the first time to be informed of the existence of infidelity among the lower classes, persons who have had any kindly intercourse with the poor, know, that if infidelity bas been making any progress aniong the labouring class, religious knowledge has also been progressively diffusing itself in the same class of society. That irreligion and profaneness are, upon the whole, on the increase, it would require something more than the data before us to prove. The sale of infidel publications had, indeed, been surreptitiously going on to a considerable extent, long before Mr. Carlile let the Government into the secret. Three years ago, we are assured that a large impression of Paine's Age of Reason had been thrown into circulation. Such a circumstance proves, we grant, that there must have existed a previous disposition to inti. delity among many of the lower classes: it afforded an indication that, somewhere or other, the elements of inischief were exerting an unwonted activity, the causes of which it became a matter of the highest interest to explore. But it is not in the power of a Tom Paine, much less of a Carlile, to convert the population of a country, or even of a district, to infidelity. Let us not mistake the morbid symptom for the cause, lest, by an empirical treatment of the disorder, we oply aggravate its malignity. It is nothing new, that profaneness and impiety exist to a considerable extent among all classes of the community. The habitual profanation of the Sabbath by the higher ranks, by officers of the State, by dignitaries of the Church, yes, by the very men who affect a sensitiveness of horror at the profaneness of a Carlile, bas long presented no equivocal mark of growing impiety.. Nor was it to be expected, that the infection would not spread downwards. The relaxation of moral principle, of which the disregard of the Sabbath affords a sure criterion, could not fail to be soon participated by the democracy. For a time it might operate unobserved. So long as it vents itself in mere cursing and swearing, and abuse of the Methodists, or is being turned to some good account within the walls of the crowded ale-house, no politician dreams of danger. But let a period of distress and commotion arrive, that shall put in agitation the inert, unhealthful mass of a pauperized district, and stir up

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from the very bottom what had been heedlessly suffered to stagnate, let all this profaneness take a direction that seems to threaten political mischief, and all is consternation and surprise.

Be the existing irreligion, however, more or less,-be the proportion it bears to the amount of religious knowledge and priuciple in this country, on the increase or not,-and be the causes which have recently thrown out the peccant mischief on the surface, what they may,-real Christians have at this crisis an important duty to perform, which they cannot, even if they would, devolve upon the Legislature. The torrent of impiety is not to be stopped by an Act of Parliament. If danger from this quarter is to be apprehended, it must consist in the perverted tendency of public opinion; and public opinion is not susceptible of legislative control. The Gospel in all its power,' to use again the words of Mr. Bowdler, appealing to the consciences of men, and carrying its credentials in the practice of those who acknowledge it, is alone capable of contending long against the pride and passions of a people who have once thrown off the bondage of an ignorant and implicit faith; and those who ' have the weakness to place their reliance on the authority of ancient institutions, or the seemly pomp of rituals and services, 'will assuredly discover, when it is too late, that these are but the perishable forms in which religion is enshrined, not the living and immortal spirit which can alone protect itself and us in the hour of danger.'

Adverting, then, to the remarks we offered at the commencement of the present article, it must assuredly appear to be of the highest importance, that neither by injudicious legislative interference, nor yet by any conduct on the part of believers, at variance with the spirit of the Gospel, occasion should be given for scepticism to strengthen itself in its prejudices against the Christian faith. How much the presumption in favour of its truth is lessened, in the eyes of men of the world, by all penal enactments for its support, is not left doubtful. The alliance of religion with the State, has supplied the infidel with matter for some of his most poiguant sarcasms. There are, at the present time, hundreds, not to say thousands, of half-informed sceptical young men, who believe that were the protection of the State withdrawn from Christianity, it would discover the impotence of a decrepit superstition, and speedily lose its hold upon the minds of men. The zeal of the clergy is all referred, by. persons of this description, to anxiety for their tithes, and the whole system is viewed as nothing better than an engine of state policy. No notion is manifestly adapted more directly to weaken the force of testimony, and the presumption which it supplies in favour of the religion of Christ: none can tend more fatally to cherish that contempt previous to examination.