THE DEFENDER:

a Weekly Magazine,

OF CHRISTIAN EXPOSITION AND ADVOCACY,

Who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.-MILTON.

SCENE. A Cell in the Calton Jail, Edinburgh.

PERSONS.-A Minister of the Gospel-a Magistrate-a Prisoner.

TIME.-A year of political convulsion.

Mag. I hope I see you well, this morning.

Pris.--Very well, thank you.

Mag. I have brought a friend of mine to see you.

Pris.-I'm very glad to see him. When we get in here, it is not many people that care to look after us; and when any do speak to us, it is generally in a repulsive tone. For my part, I would far rather none ever visited me, than that they should take it for granted that my principles are false, without ever attempting to reason with me on the subject.

Mag-Well, you know, we have had several discussions on your principles, and I hope we have conducted them in a tone of candour and kindliness,

Pris. Of your tone and manner, baillie, I have no reason to complain. I am very much obliged to you for coming so often to see me, and although we do not agree in our religious sentiments, our conversations, at least, have helped to relieve the tedium of my confinement.

No. 22, Vol. I.

illiterate, with all the narrowness and bigotry belonging to their countrymen, with no marks of superior minds, having low notions concerning Christ and his kingdom, in fear leaving their master in the hour of trial. But Penticost comes, the Spirit is poured out upon them, and immediately these illiterate fishermen speak all manner of languages! What moral heroism characterizes them, braving dangers the most formidable, 'not counting their life dear' in the work of the world's renovation. Ignorance and bigotry disappear. The light of heaven breaks in upon their souls; and they are filled with the deepest compassion for their fellow-beings. Now I meet the infidel on his own ground, that we are to receive the Bible in the same way that we receive other human works, and ask him to account for these things if the apostles were not inspired

men.

W. P.

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DELTA writes:-'Our friends should be careful in calling names.

'Observer' calls

the Reasoner' more properly calumniator.' I should much like to see this system banished from the columns of all publications, especially Christian publications. Let the Defender' set this good example.' We certainly think that the simple statement of facts often produces a deeper impression than the strongest declamation. We advise all our correspondents to avoid offensive personalities; still we must allow them their own mode of uttering their sentiments. Even where names are warranted by acts, there is the possibility of overcharging the style with them. If, however, our friend 'Delta' knew, as we do, the whole course of the periodical referred to, he would agree with us in thinking that the descriptive is far from undeserved.

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THE DEFENDER:

a Weekly Magazine,

OF CHRISTIAN EXPOSITION AND ADVOCACY.

Who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.-MILTON.

SCENE. A Cell in the Calton Jail, Edinburgh.

PERSONS.-A Minister of the Gospel-a Magistrate—a Prisoner.

TIME.-A year of political convulsion.

Mag. I hope I see you well, this morning.
Pris.--Very well, thank you.

Mag. I have brought a friend of mine to see you.

Pris. I'm very glad to see him. When we get in here, it is not many people that care to look after us; and when any do speak to us, it is generally in a repulsive tone. For my part, I would far rather none ever visited me, than that they should take it for granted that my principles are false, without ever attempting to reason with me on the subject.

-

Mag. Well, you know, we have had several discussions on your principles, and I hope we have conducted them in a tone of candour and kindliness,

Pris. Of your tone and manner, baillie, I have no reason to complain. I am very much obliged to you for coming so often to see me, and although we do not agree in our religious sentiments, our conversations, at least, have helped to relieve the tedium of my confinement.

No. 22, Vol. I.

Mag. I think I have proved that some of your views of Christianity are altogether unfounded in fact; but as my friend here has had much intercourse with persons of your opinions, and has thought much on the questions that we have discussed, I thought I should bring him here that he might have a little conversation with you.

Pris. Well, I do not think that he or anybody else can change my mind. I can't see what good Christianity does its professors, and I can't think it true. Min.-Don't you think that if people did to others, as they would that others should do to them, that the world would be a great deal better than it is? Pris. No doubt; but then that is just what people do not do.

Min.-But you cannot deny that Christianity requires nothing less of them than this, and if they do not love their neighbours as themselves, it is because they do not obey the precepts of the Bible.

Pris. The precepts of the Bible may be very good, but where do we find the people that keep them? I have never met with any persons so inconsistent as Christians.

Min.-No, perhaps you never have. Their theory is so much better than their practice that you look upon them as the most inconsistent of all beings. But this is a silent eulogium upon the beauty of their moral theory, a tribute to the moral perfection of their religion. If their theory were bad, you would say that in doing wrong they were consistent people. If a man's theory is to steal, and deceive, and lie just to suit himself, and if he is a thief and a cheat, you call him aconsistent man; but if he does all these things while his theory condemns them utterly, you properly regard him as thoroughly inconsistent. Pris.-I cannot see that men's religion is worth anything.

Min.-It must be worth a great deal if it does no more than show when human conduct is unbecoming and morally wrong, and if it furnishes neither justification nor excuse for wrong-doing. Man's religion may not do this, but the religion of the Bible does. And it does more than this; for it furnishes the most powerful motives to obedience and love.

Pris.-Well, all I can say is this,-I have found some that have had a little religion tolerably decent sort of people; but I dread those who are religious over much.

Min. The less of religion the better,' seems to be your motto.

Fris. That is about it; I strongly suspect people who talk much about religion.

Min.-But if their religion were a life and not a 'talk' you would have little reason to suspect them. You seem to take hypocrites as your specimens of true Christians. Now, no doubt, there are men who profess to believe and feel what they do not; but does this prove that if they really believed and felt what they profess to do they would be bad men? Is it not just because they do not believe aud feel what they profess that they are wicked men? If you could show that Christianity sanctions and smiles upon hypocrisy and wickedness, your position would be established, but that you cannot do. It contains the most terrible denunciations against hypocrisy; the deceiver finds no shelter in any of its teachings or precepts. Now, can you hold a religion responsible for what it condemns? When it teaches men, and leads them, to love their neighbours as themselves, surely the more of it the better.

Pris. I never saw any religion of that kind; it looks all very well to talk about, but we want to see it acted.

Min. That is what I want to see too. I am no advocate for a profession of religion, where there is none.

Pris. I must say that I have not met with the people you speak about. Min.-The question is not whether you have met with such people, nor even whether there are such people, but whether if men really believed the

truths of Christianity, obeyed its precepts, and drunk into its spirit they would not be unselfish and noble men.

Pris. I can never, believe in Christianity while I see how Christians persecute those who differ from them.

Min.-I do not remember of having seen anything in the Bible in favour of persecution. If I read it aright, it represents the friends of truth and righteousness as the persecuted.

Pris. It is the persecuting spirit of Christianity that has brought me here. Min.-How do you make that out?

Pris. I am here on a charge of sedition, because I have stood up for the rights of the people, and have denounced the government of the day. I believe them to be a set of heartless villains, caring only for place, and utterly regardless of the welfare of the community. I look upon them as robbers and deceivers. What I believe, I have openly declared, and have been apprehended for having urged the people to violence in the late political riots. The government is Christian, and is supported by priests. These rulers and priests are leagued against the people, and because I have dared to utter my convictions I am here. I do not think that the people's voice will ever be heard while religion prevails in the country.

Min.-You seem to me to judge very harshly. Some of those whom you brand with such dark names may be as true patriots and friends of liberty as yourself, only in defending liberty they may resist anarchy, and for the safety of the state and the welfare of the community they may seek that popular enlightenment may be the pioneer of popular power. Words and deeds of violence generally recoil upon those who adopt them, and there are no greater friends of despots than the men who would give ascendancy to an excited, an ignorant, and a brutal rabble. Liberty is not safe, nor life sacred, in the hands of men, who involve all who differ from them in one sweeping condemnation. I am far from an admirer of things as they are. There is room, there is need for great improvement. But I have little confidence of its being secured by force. What is gained by physical violence, might often wrests from the grasp of the people. What, on the contrary, is won by the might of reason and of enlightened conviction generally becomes an heir-loom to posterity, which the tyrant dares not touch. The real ministers of the Gospel, whom you include under the sweeping designation of priests, are the true friends of the people, and that gospel which they preach is a greater friend than themselves, for it proclaims the sublime fact that God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth.' You cannot with any justice hold it responsible for the position in which you are placed. It teaches men to do justly, and to love mercy, as well as to walk humbly with God. Ere you blame Christianity for the position in which you are placed, supposing you undeserving of punishment, you should be able to point out some passage in the New Testament which sanctions the punishment of an innocent man.

Pris. I am the enemy of the tyrants, and would crush them to-day if I had the power.

Min.-It is very well that you have no sympathy with oppression, and you would not have less if you believed in that religion which teaches men to unbind the heavy yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to give unto their servants that which is just and equal, and to show kindness to the poor and the suffering. I am sorry that you should look upon oppression, cruelty, and injustice as flowing from a religion which inculcates and requires their opposites, and which threatens the tyrant with the most terrible overthrow.

Pris. So you say, but I am not convinced of it. I blame the priests as much as anybody. They hold the terrors of damnation over the people, if they dare to rise up against their masters. They fear lest power should pass out of