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At a numerous and influential meeting, held in the Large Hall, 5 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, on the Union, the subjoined resolution was unanimously adopted:—
"This Meeting, having heard a Statement Explanatory and Defensive of the 'Declaration' subscribed by Ministers and Elders in consequence of the proceedings adopted by the majority of last Assembly upon the Union Question, approve generally of the same, and order it to be circulated for the information of the Church and Country."
The following is the document referred to in the above Resolution.
[As we believe that great ignorance prevails throughout the Church in regard to the actual proceedings of last General Assembly of the Free Church on the subject of Union, caused partly by the fact that these proceedings were not fully or fairly reported in the
Home and Foreign Missionary Record, we give the following account of what actually took place.]
On Thursday, 30th May, the Report of the Committee on Union was given in by Dr Buchanan, who also addressed the Assembly on the subject. Dr Rainy brought forward the motion on Union, of which Dr Candlish had given notice, as follows:—"That the General Assembly approve of the report, and express their grateful satisfaction with the large measure of agreement under the First Head of the Programme, as well as with the reiterated assurances of entire agreement under the Second Head. Further, the General Assembly being more than ever impressed with the duty and importance of aiming at a cordial union among all the disestablished branches of the Church of Scotland, re-appoint the Committee with the former instructions. And being of opinion, as at present advised, that, as regards the First Head of the Programme, considered in itself, there appears to be no bar to tub union contemplated, the General Assembly, while reserving final judgment on the whole case, and every part thereof, direct the Committee to give their earnest attention to the other Heads of the Programme, especially those which deal with the worship, government, and discipline of the Church, and with those important practical questions which relate to property and finance." Dr Begg proposed the following amendment:—"That the Assembly, in receiving the report laid on the table by the Com-
Dr Begg then rose and said,—"Moderator, I wish to lay on the table of the General Assembly the following Protest:—'We, the subscribers, for ourselves, and on behalf of all others who may
st, Because the resolution, as adopted, implies an abandonment and subversion of an admittedly constitutional principle of the Free Church of Scotland. 2nd, Because the resolution, as adopted, is ultra vires of this Assembly. For these and other reasons, we protest that we, and all other office-bearers and members of the Church, shall not be committed by the said resolution, to any action that may be taken thereupon, and shall be at liberty to oppose all such action by every competent means. (Signed) James Begg, D.D.; Peter Denny; John Forbes, D.D.; James Galbraith; Jas. Gibson, D.D.; Robt. M'Corkle, minister; James Julius Wood, D.D.; D. Thorburn, M.A.; Robt. Gault, minister; Wm. Balfour, minister; John M'Millan, elder; Patrick Borrowman, minister; A. Macbride, minister; John Irving, elder; D. Crichton, elder; Alexander Cameron, minister; D. Macdonald, elder; Wm. Moffat, minister." The Assembly appointed this Protest, with reasons, to be kept in retentis. The following Dissent, with reasons, was also given in and read, and ordered to be inserted in the minutes:—"We, the undersigned, for ourselves, and on behalf of all others who may adhere to us, dissent against the resolution now adopted by this Assembly, for the following, amongst other reasons:—1st, Because the resolution, as adopted, implies an abandonment and subversion of an undoubtedly constitutional principle of the Free Church of Scotland. 2nd, Because the resolution, as adopted, is ultra vires of this Assembly. (Signed) James Begg, D.D.; James Gibson, D.D.; John Irving, elder; James Julius Wood, D.D.; Robert Gault, minister; Thomas Gardiner, minister." To this Dissent Mr Borrowman, minister at Glencairn, and Mr M'Corkle, minister at St Ninian's, intimated their adherence. The following Dissent was also given in and read—"We dissent, because we deem the resolution come to by the Assembly as fitted to hinder, instead of furthering, the proper union of the Churches. (Signed) William Nixon, Thomas Main, James Stark, Alex. Ferguson, Thomas Hislop, John Fraser." Dr J. J. Wood, Dr Begg, Dr Gibson, Mr Nixon, Mr Main, and Captain Shepherd, then resigned their places as members of the Union Committee. A number of members afterwards adhered to the above Protest and Dissents.
The mover, in withdrawing his amendment, did it expressly "on the understanding that these words" (When the proposed union between the Non-Established Presbyterians of Scotland was first introduced into the General Assembly of the Free Church in consistent with a due regard to the principles of this Church." An amendment, expressing the same view more distinctly, was proposed, but was withdrawn, on the clear understanding that the duty of conserving our whole distinctive principles was already fully embodied in the motion, which was therefore carried unanimously. i.e., consistent with a due regard to the principles of this Church) "honestly express the same thing as my motion."—See Blue Book.
"Dr Gibson.—I wish to ask, whether or not, by consenting to the reappointment of the Committee, the Assembly will be hold as admitting that we are prepared to make any modifications. (Cries of 'No, no.') Well, but I know what many members of this House do not know.
"Sir H. W. Moncreiff.—It has been put on this footing all along. We should go to this Committee altogether uncommitted on any of the questions involved in this proposal.
" In the same Assembly, Dr Gibson.—Then I am perfectly satisfied."
Not only was this the ground on which the negotiations were carried forward, hut repeated assurances were given that there would be no haste or hurry, and that the satisfying and carrying of all along to any contemplated result would be made a matter of special study. Appendix, No. I., page 29. It is understood, however, that the United Presbyterians intimated in the Union Committee, that unless such a resolution was carried in the Assembly, their Synod would probably put an end to all farther negotiations.not only without the consent of P resbyteries, but without any proposal to submit it for their consideration. In these unprecedented circumstances a number of the brethren found it necessary to hold a meeting, at which the following Declaration was adopted, which has since been subscribed by a large number, both of ministers and elders, throughout the Church; many more signifying their full sympathy with the movement, though, for the present, withholding their signatures:—
"We, the undersigned, are convinced that the recent decision of the General Assembly on the question of Union is fitted to hinder rather than to promote the proper union of the Churches. We are well aware that great diversity of opinion and feeling exists throughout the Church with regard to the present negotiations. We are deeply impressed with the serious risk now being incurred of distracting and even dividing our own Communion. We therefore feel constrained to express our united determination to resist any attempts to press or pursue these negotiations in a manner that would imperil the great and vital interests which our whole Free Church is so solemnly bound to preserve and maintain."
Subsequently it was resolved to draw up a Statement in which the whole case should be presented to the Church, and the position
We now submit the following as some of the grounds upon which our resolution is based:—
1. Our position is that of a Our use of the word minorityminority is ecclesiastical; and refers to the vote in last General Assembly; but there is no reason for believing that we are a minority in the Church. The general indications given in the "Suggestions" of Presbyteries pointed in an opposite direction. The Assembly, besides, only embraced one-third of the Ministers of the Church; and there is the best reason to believe that a number both of Ministers and Elders voted in the majority in last Assembly under various misunderstandings. We have reason to know also that the eldership and membership of the Church are, very largely, with us in their sympathies. A very large proportion of the ciders in the Assembly are from Edinburgh and Glasgow, and by no means represent on such a question the general mind of the Church. We are persuaded that our Sessions and Congregations in general will, as soon as an opportunity is given, support us by decided and, in many cases, "overwhelming majorities." Why the last Assembly should not have sent down their deliverance for the judgment of Presbyteries is inexplicable, save on the supposition that Presbyteries could not be counted on to support the Assembly's decision, and could not be so easily managed as the upper Court.
2. Our attitude is defensive, not aggressive. Our object is not the promulgation of what is new, but the conservation of what is old. We are not innovators, tampering with our venerable constitution, and advocating changes either in our principles or in the working
practical interpretation of them, as assumed and acted out by ourselves hitherto, and by our fathers since the Reformation; an interpretation which forms one great feature in our historical identity, and one great link in the chain which connects the Free Church with the Church of Knox and Melville, of Henderson and Rutherford. Our desire is that our Church should not only recognise the same Articles as hitherto, but the same construction of these as has been embodied in her history; lest, shaking herself loose from the said historical construction, by opening questions which have been all along deemed settled, she should drift entirely from her old anchorages, condemning the past three centuries of Scottish Church history as pervaded with one grand mistake and blotted with one fatal sin. Our earnest wish is that we should still be in circumstances to reckon the Scottish Church history from Knox's days an integral part of our own,—that we should be able to appeal, as hitherto, to recognised Acts of Assembly, and cite old decisions as precedents and rules. In the Church of the future we wish to see the great elements which have impregnated the constitution of the Church of the past not eliminated but reproduced.
3. Though a minority, we are yet brethren,—brethren in Christ and brethren in one common Church,—and as such we appeal to brethren. May we not be listened to? Many of us are of pre-disruption standing; not now young in years; and recalling the memory of past days, we appeal to those who shared with us the conflict and the sacrifice; brethren who were then of one heart with us in what we contended and suffered for. Shall our appeal be mot, not by the response of Christian sympathy, but by repeating the numbers of the "overwhelming majority"? All of us are office-bearers in the Church, and as such we lay our case before our fellow office-bearers and before the members of our congregations, claiming at once their brotherly regards and their solemn attention. May we not hope that our conscientious scruples will be respected, seeing we are but doing what we believe our duty to Christ and our allegiance to our Church demand?
4. What we have done has not been done in haste,—out of the soreness of defeat or in the spirit of unreasonable obstructiveness,—but under the deep conviction, in the sight of the Church's Head, that we are maintaining the principles to which our Church has from the beginning borne witness, the sum of which is, The supremacy of Christ over the Church as her Head, and the supremacy of Christ over nations and governments as "Prince of the kings of the earth;" in the former, recognising Him as the sole lawgiver of His Church; in the latter, demanding from all kings and rulers obedience to His
5. A majority has its powers, but a minority has still its rights; rights which no judgment of a majority can touch; rights fenced both by civil and ecclesiastical law; rights which, for reasons shown, we may surrender, but which cannot be taken from us without our consent. These rights it is our purpose to maintain; and in maintaining them we are following no divisive nor mutinous courses, but fulfilling our ordination vows. To us does not belong the guilt of causing "divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which we have learned" (Rom. xvi. 17): the causing of division lies with those who, in the face of these rights, press on us a scheme which, under the name of union, will rend the Church, as well as change both its character and its testimony.
6. In ordinary circumstances, a minority, after recording its dissent or protest, with accompanying reasons, may, without any surrender of principle, and with a good conscience, be silent, and allow the will of the majority to be carried out without impediment. But there are cases in which a minority may continue its action; nay, is bound to do so; claiming as a Christian right that its scruples be respected; as when the decision complained of involves changes in the original platform of our Church (to which platform we have all alike sworn); requiring modification and relaxation either in our Articles themselves or in their working out; when it encroaches on, or violates the paction into which those constituting the Free Church entered, solemnly and unanimously, with each other; when no absolute necessity exists for urging on the changes proposed; and when the conscience of the majority would not have violence done to it by concession, or delay, or arrestment of procedure; but when the conscience of the minority would he seriously aggrieved by an enforcement of the deliverance dissented from.
7. The law of our country recognises the claims of minorities, however small, and protects their civil rights; and it is hardly conceivable that Christian brethren, who, along with us, fought the battle of conscience, should deny the claim which we now assert, viz., to be allowed, even though a minority, to maintain and carry out in their integrity the principles to which in
8. More especially do we feel ourselves warranted in presenting such claims, because of the repeated protestations Appendix, No, I., page 29.
9. The cases in which a minority may claim that their scruples be deferred to are, no doubt, exceptional and extraordinary. But the present case we hold to be such. It is peculiar in itself; not provided for in our Disruption settlement, nor coming under any of our usual forms of procedure. It is, moreover, in its bearings and ramifications, both primary and subordinate, of such intricacy and wide extent as to make the exact adjustment of the various points involved in it a matter of no common difficulty. As it happens in all great changes, so here it will be found that the indirect and unforeseen results are more numerous and important than the direct and the foreseen. And seeing that each of the Churches has a distinctive and traditional policy, as well as a peculiar interpretation of certain Articles, we are justified in hesitating to incur the risk, not simply of confusion and conflict, but of creating two great parties in the Church, at continual variance with each other; a risk which the attempt to fuse into one two such opposing lines of policy and interpretation necessarily supposes. The importance of these considerations is the greater when we know that the step proposed to be taken must be final. The union is for better or for worse. Whatever its results may be, it is irrevocable. No after regrets or recriminations would avail to dissolve the tie. Our brethren of the majority are willing, surely, to count the cost; and many seem anxious for unanimity before proceeding farther, which shows some measure of deference to the scruples of a conscientious minority, and some recognition of the necessity of our present movement. Whether they have taken the proper way, either in their actings or speeches, to conciliate that minority, is another question.
10. Ordinary eases, then, fall to be ruled by majorities; but in one like this the minority has a valid standing, and may plead both
injustice; injustice all the worse, and all the more keenly felt, because done in the name of Christian concord, and by those whose professed object is to heal the breaches of the Church. Old breaches are certainly not to be healed by creating new ones. External uniformity, purchased by internal discord, would be a disappointment in the end. "The rent would be made worse;" and it is invidious, as well as unjust, to throw the odium of disunion on the minority, and to insist that they, because they are the minority, should either forego their convictions, or submit to be evil spoken of, as obstructors of peace and enemies of charity. Union at the expense of what the minority holds to be essential principle—principle embodied in our Free Church Standards,—would give little promise of stability or comfort; nor is any Church entitled, even for such an end, to do violence to the consciences of brethren; especially of brethren who up till this time have been one with all the rest, both in trial and in testimony, both in labour and in blessing. They who, ex animo, subscribed our Free Church Standards in the sense in which they were understood in outside these Standards, which were, when our subscriptions were adhibited, supposed to lie within.
11. Claiming rights for ourselves, as a minority, we protest against being voted out of the Free Church merely because we adhere to its principles; and we protest against a majority voting away that Free Church itself—name, and history, and distinctive principles—for the sake of a human sentiment, under the name of a divine idea; for external uniformity under the name of Christian Union. As we do not hold that the separate action of Churches is schism, so neither do we believe that the incorporation or amalgamation of Churches is unity.
12. Junction is not union; yet junction is all that the vote of a majority can accomplish. In urging this junction, there is a double temptation to its advocates,—that of underrating old principles, and overrating new ones; perhaps, we might add, of overvaluing new friends and undervaluing old ones. In pleading for union, and for the necessity of paying some price for it, there is the danger of magnifying ecclesiastical amalgamation into a divine idea, and making it equivalent to the union between the living members of the body of Christ. We desire friendship, common action, and closer union also, when consistent with principle; but outward uniformity and acknowledgment of one government, we, in common with all Protestants,
13. That all who are in Christ Jesus are one, we believe; and all efforts for unity assume this. That this individual spiritual oneness should have some external exponent, some visible and corporate manifestation, we also hold. But as all Christians on earth cannot now meet in one building, such a universal gathering could not be meant to be the exponent of unity here. As all Churches cannot now form one universal Church, governed from one centre, under one General Assembly, or one head, as Romanists contend for, such a united Church of all nations cannot have been intended to be essential to unity. Thus, while the inner unity has no limitations, the outer unity has many,—of place, and circumstance, and time, and other diversities. Such limitations do not touch the inner oneness; nay, do not always necessarily prevent the visible expression of this oneness. This must be kept in mind when we are assailed by the strong and sweeping arguments as to the duty of union, current in the present day. The duty of all Churches to amalgamate is not absolute nor unlimited. Such an amalgamation might, in certain cases, be an imperfect and insincere expression of Christian oneness; nay, it might be the intimation of laxity, or indifference to truth; and perhaps, too, the beginning of discord.
14. Some who are most zealous in proclaiming "the duty of union" are the most decided limitarians after all, and were leading instruments in bringing about a necessary Disruption twenty-four years ago. It is only union with a certain class of Churches that they seem now to believe to be inculcated by Christ, not with all true Churches, whatever be their name,—Congregational, or Baptist, or otherwise. "Union between Non-Established Presbyterian Churches" is their programme. Such is their idea of union; such their principle of limitation; such their avowed sectarianism, according to their own newly adopted principles. We are not speaking of the possibilities or probabilities of union; we are merely referring to the supposed duty of seeking union with all whom we do not deny to be Christian Churches; and it is something worse than a contradiction to urge the duty of Christian union, yet to limit that union by one's own arbitrary theories, to make union between the "Non-Established Presbyterian Churches of Scotland" the answer to their Lord's intercession in the seventeenth of John. Our United Presbyterian brethren would probably not so restrict the duty of union, as they have never scrupled to exchange pulpits with ministers of the Establishment, nor to co-operate with them in various ways; but we of the Free Church, who have not yet seen our way to such intimate acts of communion with the Established Church, ought
seeking union with all true Churches, though many limits to the practical carrying out of that duty. The hindrances which create these limits we are bound, so far as lies in our power, to remove from all, and not merely from the "Non-Established Presbyterian Churches of the land." The fact of our United Presbyterian brethren frequently preaching in "National" pulpits and worshipping in Parish Churches, in preference to Free, when their own was not accessible, has not raised against them the cry of hankering after a share in national endowments, so our proposition, which is simply the doctrine of Disruption days, ought not to subject us to the charge of seeking to be "re-established," or "re-endowed." We have no desire to be otherwise than we are in regard to such temporalities, although the question of endowments will probably soon assume a position of vast importance in connection with National Scriptural Education.
15. To these considerations we of the minority would specially call the attention of our brethren in the present case, if possible to stay their haste, and induce them to attach some weight to our scruples. But besides all this, the change contemplated will reverse or modify so many principles; will alter the aspect and value of so many facts, such as the Disruption itself, with all its memorable scenes; will make so many now settled subjects matters of internal dispute; will affect so many consciences; will touch on so many interests; will introduce so many new elements which have hitherto been excluded by our well-defined Disruption position, as protesting against Erastianism on the one hand, and Voluntaryism on the other; will raise so many new questions for ecclesiastical discussion or theological controversy or civil litigation; that a minority is justified in taking decided steps to protect its rights, civil and ecclesiastical, to save its conscience, and to preserve the Free Church from becoming historically extinct, or its Protest and proceedings from turning out a boast or a mistake or a failure. As appears to us, judging from the published materials, the projected union can only be effected by such a change or relaxation of creed, constitution, and civil title-deeds, as will amount to a dissolution of the Free Church, and the construction of a new body, with a new name, on a new basis, with a stock of new points, called "open questions," for agitation and warfare; in which newly constructed body Free Church principles, if still hold by individuals, cannot be acted out or even spoken out, without offence and variance. Thus the new body would be simply the present United Presbyterian Church, with the Free Church merged in it; all the peculiar tenets of the United Presbyterian Church being
16. The result of union thus consummated would be disunion; and both in process and result there would be a reversal of all usual plans for drawing Christian men together, viz., by excluding all repulsive or explosive ingredients; but the present scheme is to unite two Churches, by importing into the new body proposed to be formed, under the name of "open questions," all the explosive materials that formerly existed outside. This would be to sacrifice Christian unity on the altar of ecclesiastical uniformity. It would be the semblance of union, with all the reality of aggravated discord. It would exchange the present quiet of brotherly juxtaposition and pleasant neighbourhood, in which our differences, however decided, are neither irritants to brethren nor scandals to the world, because they silently work themselves out in the respective Churches without coming into practical collision, for the perpetual conflict of one great incorporation into which all the elements of discord have been imported by the creation of the so-called "open questions."
17. The settlement of union by means of "open questions" was, when negotiations were resumed in
18. This creation of "open questions" seems to us full of danger. It amounts to a declaration that certain points which our Church has from the beginning reckoned true, and acted on as such,
Appendix, No. II., page 30.outside the Confession. If the question of endowments be the only point of difference, and if it be outside the Confession, why do our United Presbyterian brethren make any difficulty about receiving the entire Confession? If they who drew up either our present Confession or our former one had been divided in opinion, and, of set purpose, left out this point, or if the many thousands who have, during these three hundred years, signed these Confessions, had subscribed them on this understanding, there might be some force in the argument. But to say that because endowments are not explicitly mentioned, although this is not admitted,
19. These statements, thus urged, in bar of the present union scheme, ought to carry the greater force, seeing the minority are not advocating any change, but are simply desirous of remaining as they have done since Appendix, No. III, page 35.
20. Some of those who are urging on the present scheme have avowedly altered or modified their opinions on certain points which
21. The Free Church has for nearly a quarter of a century occupied a particular and distinctive position; a position which is at once the result and exhibition of a peculiar history. It has been her glory in this, that she has acted on the principles which our fathers, from the Reformation, counted true and sacred. We have not yet seen reason to alter this position, or, without publicly altering it, to become silent in regard to it, or, without pledging ourselves to keep silence, to place ourselves in circumstances in which our advocacy of that position would be an offence to brethren. We protest against being compelled by a majority to unsay or undo what we have been saying or doing these forty years; still more against being compelled to counteract or to neutralise what our fathers have said and done these three hundred years. If the Free Church has become dissatisfied with its Disruption position and principles, let us openly announce this to our people as distinctly as we once did the unchangeable sacredness of that position and these principles. The maintenance of the double testimony against Erastianism and Voluntaryism was once deemed a solemn duty. We undertook to prove this to our people. They received our proof, believed our sincerity, and left the Establishment with us, desiring to assert along with us not only Christ's Headship over the Church, but Christ's Headship over the nations, in the way in which our fathers had held it and developed it. By this double testimony we induced thousands to leave the Establishment, and so accomplished disunion. In connection with the same double testimony we have induced our people since to give large sums to the Free Church. If, then, we have discovered that part of that great testimony was a mistake, relat-
22. They who would shrink from publicly emitting a declaration of this change of principles, may well bear with those who shrink from taking any step which tacitly and indirectly indicates such a change. Holding still the same great truths as we did in
23. We are met by the averment, that the question between us and our United Presbyterian brethren on the power of the Civil Magistrate is merely that of endowments,—a "paltry question of money." This, in other words, means that it is not in the theory, but in the practical application of the theory, that we differ. Even assuming the truth of such a statement, which we only do with certain deductions, we ask, "What is it but the exact case (mutatis mutandis) between us and the Established Church? That Church comes much nearer us in theory, for it professes to adopt without reservation the whole of the 23d chapter of the Confession of Faith, and proclaims the Headship of Christ in as decided language as we could desire. It was in the practical application of a true theory that, according to our Disruption Protest, that Church erred; bartering (we maintained) the crown rights of Christ for the privilege of endowment. The Headship of Christ was never, in words, denied, through the whole controversy, by any one, but as frequently asserted on the one side as on the other. But the decisions of the
24. It would thus seem that, so long as the Establishment principle suited our purpose and secured our temporalities, we counted it sacred; nay, were often at a loss for words to express our astonishment at the blindness of those "Voluntaries" who could not see what the doctrine of the Headship of Christ had to do with the question of endowments. But as soon as it is of no more pecuniary use to us, or when its depreciation will serve another end, we come to understand its paltriness. Had we rejected it at the Disruption, the inconsistency would not have been so noticeable. But we kept, year after year, protesting to our people that we held it as sacred as ever, till now, when the undervaluing of it is needed, we come to the conclusion that it is a mere money matter, "outside the Confession of Faith," unimportant in itself, and worse than unimportant when appealed to in connection with the doctrine of Christ's Headship over kings and nations.
25. The question of endowments is not only a practical one, and as such Appendix, No. IV., page 38.a recognised exponent of certain truths or articles of our creed, but its ramifications are of an extensive kind. We find it coming up at the very commencement of our ecclesiastical history; and assuredly Knox did not treat it, either in regard to schools or church,
26. The question of endowments is not to be more disparagingly treated than that of ministerial support. Our own Sustentation Fund might be thus refused a locus standi in the construction of the new Church; and Paul's maxim, that the labourer is worthy of his hire, might be, in like manner, postponed or set aside when found
27. It is, then, the Appendix, No. V., page 38.practical nature of the endowment question, in connection with Scriptural principle involved, that makes it so important, for it is the development that tests the theory. This meets us at every point. It will not let us alone, even though we should consent to let it alone. It is not altogether the intrinsic magnitude of the questions between us and our Congregational and Baptist brethren that keeps us asunder; it is their practical character. They cannot be open questions; not merely because they are important, but because in the working of them collision would be inevitable. The formula given in the Report of the Union Committee, and affirmed by last Assembly to be "no bar to union," might have been such as we could subscribe, but this assent is neutralised by the divergent practical interpretations put upon the formula. As soon as we come to work it the diversity emerges. Our United Presbyterian brethren would work it out in one way, and we in another. So long as this practical ambiguity exists it is impossible to affirm of any proposition that it is "no bar to union." Unless we know how it is to be worked out in the jurisprudence, the proceedings, and the schemes of the Church, we are not in circumstances to pronounce it no bar. Admitting that some of our brethren do see their way to accept this formula, with all its practical ambiguity, and declared so in last Assembly, that should not make them indifferent to the scruples of those who do not. They cannot but see that it is no light matter to accept of a union, in which, while agreeing in propositions, we shall be at variance in practice; a union in which we shall not be able to carry on our great schemes as heretofore, or act out our great principles, or preserve our history, or maintain our past connection with such sister Churches as the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, to whose sympathy, and liberality, and brotherly kindness, we have owed so much for twenty-four years.
28. The practical uncertainty or ambiguity of the article in question does then, in our judgment, make it a bar to union. But besides this, it is not enough to affirm of any article, negatively, that it is no such bar; it is desirable that we should be able to adopt it, positively and heartily, as an indispensable link in the chain which is to knit
29. It is of great moment that at the present time we should not drop our testimony as a Church to the practical aid due from national rulers, as such, to the cause of Christ. That question is coming up in a form and magnitude which it has not hitherto been allowed to assume, and it would be unwise in us to place ourselves in a position which would prevent our voice from being heard with effect. Our testimony is at present, and will continue to be, a disinterested one in behalf of the obligation of the rulers of nations to uphold the laws of Christ that are essential to the well-being of society, and to provide to a greater or less extent, as required, for the maintenance and extension of the means of instruction in the truths of the Gospel. We are now in most favourable circumstances to advocate this practical national countenance of the truth, and to protest against every kind of national patronage and promotion of error. In the new position proposed for us, with these open questions on the one hand, and the open advocacy of an uncompromising Voluntaryism on the other, we should soon feel ourselves unable to raise our old testimony, and be forced to petition equally against the endowment of truth and error,—which the Church of Scotland for these three centuries has not yet done. Our voice will not be heard as against error, but against truth as well.
30. To those who reckon the Government support of truth a sin, the way may be clear for the annihilation of all public provision for its maintenance; but to those who consider the non-support of truth a failure of duty, the solution of the difficulty is not so easy. The cessation of all national support of the truth is not the true way of meeting the difficulty as to the indiscriminate endowment of all religions. Without attempting to solve this hard problem of the present day, we are bound to consider the duty of the magistrate, from which no opinion of ours can release him, and which yet has become so difficult to discharge, because of the divided state of the nation. And in looking at this duty in the light in which our fathers did, we are the more bound to maintain our present position, as that in which we can most effectually deal with the great questions of the day emerging out of it.
31. The importance of union has been pressed upon us, from some quarters, because of the political strength it would secure to the Non-Established Churches of Scotland. We dread and deprecate such a line of argument, even if we could expect any strength from union without unity. It is not legitimate for those who belong to a kingdom which is not of this world. It degrades the question of
32. The reservation of certain questions (such as the introduction of organs, Appendix, No. VI., page 39.
33. Believing that the union as now projected affects the most vital interests of the Church, and goes to the very root of what are called "Church principles;" believing also that the change contemplated amounts to a dissolution of the Free Church as settled at the Disruption and to the construction of another, from the platform of which some of our distinctive principles are struck out under the name of "open questions"—we ask that the membership of the Church be consulted. They were specially consulted in every step leading on
34. We dread precipitation in a matter like this. An ill-assorted union would soon be repented of, and prove worse than our present state of separate action. They who are conducting the movement have repeatedly and solemnly assured us that there shall be no such haste; and yet the movement is urged on without slackening, and every step gained is made a reason for more urgent action. Many earnest unionists see no reason why union should not be immediate. They first, by their peculiar line of action, make the thing, as they think, inevitable, and then they proclaim it such. Thus, calm judgment is overborne; the wavering are frightened into decision; the refractory are bowed into submission; the Union is consummated in haste, to be repented of at leisure.
35. We are at a loss to know what, in such a case, is to become of those of us who do not see our way to union. Are we really to be coerced by a majority in a matter of this kind, where reason and charity, not numbers, ought to sway? We may be self-willed in the estimation of many; we may not have given reasons for our proceedings sufficient to satisfy others; but if our consciences remain unconvinced, what are we to do, or what is to be done with us? We are Free Churchmen of
36. In making these statements we disclaim the thought of charging our brethren who differ from us with any intentional deviation from our Standards beyond what they explicitly avow. We mean to say that such is our interpretation of their proceedings, and our impression of their speeches. We may be wrong, but many things have been said and done recently which we cannot reconcile with Disruption Free-Churchism.
37. We are the friends, not the enemies, of true Christian union. We love as brethren all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, "both theirs and ours;" but we dread a union of compromise; it would be the seed-sowing of internal strife. We resent a union of compression, Such as a majority might force upon the Church. We must love and agree, and understand each other thoroughly before we can unite.
38. True union may not be consummated so swiftly as that which is false, but it will be enduring and blessed. Harmony both of
grow; it cannot he forced; it refuses to obey majorities, however large.
39. We do not undervalue true union. We do not advocate isolation, far less variance and jealousy. Our prayer is that the divided Church of God on earth may become one; one externally as well as internally; one in government as well as one in creed. Yet we are not bound to adopt all modern theories of union, nor to acquiesce in any special scheme which appears to us at variance with Scripture, with the principles of our Church, and our own solemn vows.
40. We pray for union, and for the removal from all Churches of whatever hinders it. But in order to this, we pray especially for the shedding down of the Holy Spirit on all who name the name of Christ, as the true and safe preparation for such a union. When that mighty Spirit comes with his full flood of blessing, as the Spirit of truth, and holiness, and love, then Christian sympathy will spring up unbidden, and unity will make union become as easy as now it is difficult. In carrying out that blessed union there will be no heat of controversy, no pressure either of argument or influence, no majorities nor minorities, no victories nor defeats, no extruded brethren, no troubled consciences, no heavy hearts, no doubtful disputations, no compromised truths. Spiritual sympathies will overflow and work out Christian harmony. It will be a thorough union both of creeds and souls, not a mere junction of ecclesiastical Courts; a union of righteousness, and joy, and love.
41. We have been asked, once and again, Are you prepared to incur the responsibility of arresting the present Union movement? Being fully persuaded that this movement, as recently conducted, is at variance with the truth which we have sworn to maintain, we are prepared for this. Nor should we have taken the steps we have done had we not been so. We did not shrink from a greater responsibility in
42. We ask in return, Are our brethren prepared to incur the responsibility of rending the Free Church asunder? Appendix, No. VII., page 40.
43. In conclusion, we protest against the way in which we have been misrepresented as enemies of Christian unity. We are not careful to answer all the imputations cast upon us; but we may say that we reckon them unfair and unchristian; unworthy of men aiming at union; unwise, no less than ungenerous, as tending not to conciliate but to exasperate; intolerant also, as if brethren were to be coerced, not won; indicative more of impatience and self-will than of confidence in a holy cause. A course like this is adverse to all kindly deliberation, and fatal to any solid adjustment of the question,—a question which, more than most, ought to carry us out of the region of human passion. The movement is one which appeals to our deepest sympathies as Christian men, and should therefore lead us to seek the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It is a movement which involves not only the principles of true Churchmanship, but of brotherly kindness and charity in the fullest sense; and while proposing to make us see eye to eye with brethren of another Church, long separated, it must not overlook the greater necessity of keeping us side by side with brethren of our own Church, from whom we have never been estranged. The difficulties of the question are great; and any solution of them which proceeds on an underrating of the calamity of internal discord either from the alienation of brethren or the importation into the Church of divisions which have hitherto existed outside, must be defective. Not only will the acquisition of new friends be small compensation for the estrangement of the old,—the long tried and long trusted fellow-soldiers and fellow-sufferers of other days; but it will, of a surety, originate and perpetuate two, or more, distinct parties in the new Church with conflicting views and irreconcilable lines of policy, with separate histories to refer to, and separate precedents to guide them. Whether the future annals of a Church composed of such elements are likely to justify the cost and peril of the erection is not for us to say. We confess ourselves unable to acquiesce in the present scheme of union, in the position and form which it has now assumed, or to approve of the way in which it is being carried out. Here we take our stand. There may come light out of darkness. We may be spared many things which we dread. Our brethren may yet respect our convictions. The day of open questions may yet be distant. We would rather deprecate the evil than forecast it. Yet we could not be silent; though we make the present appeal to brethren with mingled hope and fear
Dr R. Buchanan, in but which will carry the confidence of the Church at large, in vain shall we proceed in it at all. (Applause.)" And again, in the Assembly that of the slowest sailer in the fleet. (Laughter and applause.)" Even so late as January 9 of this present year, so little indication was given to the Church of approaching haste and hurry, that Dr Bannerman carried an overture in the Edinburgh Presbytery, supported by Dr Candlish, Dr Rainy, and Sir H. W. Moncreiff, to the effect, that it "was highly important and necessary, in connection with the present negotiations for union, and the negotiating parties, that the Church should inquire into the whole principles embodied in the Word of God that ought to regulate the duty of union as between the separate Churches." This "highly important and necessary" inquiry has not yet been instituted. Will these four brethren tell us when it is to be begun?
In the 23d chapter of the "Confession of Faith," sec. 3, it is said to be the duty of the Civil Magistrate to "take order" that "all the ordinances of God be duly settled, administered, and observed." It has been justly held that these words refer to the establishment of the Church at first, and the continued maintenance and support of Divine ordinances by the Civil Magistrate. To "settle," Dr Johnson says, means, amongst other things, "to place in any certain state," "to establish," "to fix inalienably by legal sanctions."
The following are given as Scripture texts to illustrate and prove the duty thus said to be incumbent on the Civil Magistrate. Isa. xlix. 23—"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers." Ezra vii. 23—"Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done, for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons?" This text, quoted by the Westminster Divines, refers to the command of Artaxerxes immediately preceding, viz., "That whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require of you, let it be done speedily, unto an hundred talents of silver, and to an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred baths of wine, and to an hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much." Most people would surely regard this as of the nature of an endowment. They afterwards quote Ezra vii. 27—"Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem." These texts wore furnished at the request of the Parliament of England, and they would be without meaning if they did not imply that material help might lawfully be given, and ought in proper circumstances to be given, by nations to the Church. The faith of the Church, moreover, must always be held to rest not on the letter of the Confession, but on those Scripture truths which the Confession embodies, and to which it refers. Till recently this view was never disputed. We shall give two illustrations of this.
Dr Patrick Macfarlan, in his Letters to his People, Edinburgh, Third Edition, Letter II., page 8. Confession of Faith, chap, xxiii. § 3.and to provide for its support and extension in the world;
Dr Cunningham, referring to the same passage in the Confession, in his chapter on "The Westminster Confession on the Relation between Church and State," says—"The introductory words, that he 'hath authority, and it is his duty,' do not necessarily mean more than that it is competent to, and incumbent upon him; and then the next phrase, 'to take order,' on which the meaning of the whole statement essentially depends, can easily be proved, according to the usus loquendi of that and the preceding period, to mean to attend to, aim at, to see about, to provide for, to labour to effect . . . . . The words, then, do not necessarily or naturally mean more than that the Civil Magistrate is entitled and bound to seek to effect the different objects here specified, which are all comprehended under the general heads of the welfare of religion, and the purity and prosperity of the Church of Christ. This is just the principle of National Establishments, which we believe to be not only true but important."—Church Principles, pp. 225—6.
Apart from the Westminster Confession of Faith, this doctrine has been maintained by the Church of Scotland ever since the Reformation.
The old Scots Confession (
The Second Book of Discipline says—"It pertains to the office of a Christian Magistrate to assist and fortify the godly proceedings of the Kirk in all behalfs, and namely, to see that the public estate and ministry thereof be maintained and sustained, as it appertains according to God's Word."—Chap, x., section 2.
In the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, under the petition, "Thy kingdom come," it is said that this prayer means, amongst other things, that the Church shall be "countenanced and maintained by the Civil Magistrate."—Question 191.
In the Protest tabled by Dr Welsh in St Andrews Church, on
In the "Catechism of the Principles and Constitution of the Free Church of Scotland," prepared by the Rev. Andrew Gray of Perth, and published in to employ their power and resources in such a way as shall best contribute to its successful progress within their territory and throughout the world." Of this Catechism Dr Cunningham, in
In Act and Declaration of a historical nature was adopted, and not only printed in the Acts of Assembly, but given as a preface to this volume of Free Church Standards, published by Johnstone & Hunter in the same year, national recognition and solemn sanction of her constitution, as it had been settled by her own authority according to the Word, was at last obtained, first in the Act of Parliament
Again, in reference to the doctrine held by the Associate Synod, admitted in do heartily concur with us in holding the great principle of an Ecclesiastical Establishment, and the duty of acknowledging God in our national as well as our individual capacity."
The Act goes on to say—"holding firmly to the last, as she holds still, and through God's grace will ever hold, that it is the duty of civil rulers to recognise the truth of God according to His Word, and to promote and support the kingdom of Christ without assuming any jurisdiction in it, or any power over it; and deeply sensible, moreover, of the advantages resulting to the community at largo, and especially to its more destitute portions, from the public endowment of pastoral charges among them," etc.
The Act concludes as follows:—"And finally resolved and determined, as in the sight and by the help of God, to prosecute the ends contemplated from the beginning, in all the acts and deeds of her Reforming Fathers, until the errors which they renounced shall have disappeared from the land, and the true system which they upheld shall be so universally received that the whole people, rightly instructed in the faith, shall unite to glorify God the Father in the full acknowledgment of the kingdom of His Son, our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whose name be praise, for ever and ever. Amen."
In the Assembly i.e., Christ's) authority, and bound, according to the nature of the powers bestowed on them, to do what in them lies to promote His cause and glory. We believe that the Church and the State being equally ordinances of God,
In the Assembly all the more on this account, to adopt measures for keeping before the minds of the people, and especially of the rising generation, the principles which this Church holds, and the position which she occupies as the Free Protesting Church of Scotland."
In the Union Committee, whilst the United Presbyterian section maintained, "that it is not competent to the Civil Magistrate to give legislative sanction to any creed in the way of setting up a Civil Establishment of religion, nor is it within his province to provide for the expense of the ministrations of religion out of the national resources; that Jesus Christ, as solo King and Head of His Church, has enjoined upon His people to provide for maintaining and extending it by free-will offerings, that this being the ordinance of Christ, it excludes State aid for these purposes:" the Free Church section unanimously, and throughout, declared that, "as an act of national homage to Christ, the Civil Magistrate ought, when necessary and expedient, to afford aid from the national resources to the cause of Christ, provided always that in doing so, while reserving full control over his own gift, he abstain from all authoritative interference in the internal government of the Church."—Report of the Union Committee,
It must require a very large measure of courage or credulity, after reading all these quotations, not to speak of many others which might be made, to believe that the Confession of Faith docs not affirm, or that the Free Church is not committed to the maintenance of, the principle of a Church Establishment.
Dr Robert Buchanan, in introducing a course of lectures on Church Establishments, at Glasgow, in
* * * * * * * * *
If we hold, as the Voluntaries do, that kings and rulers ought not, in their public and official capacity, to profess themselves to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ—that they ought not, publicly and officially, to recognise His religion as that which alone is true—that they ought not, publicly and officially, to interpose their authority to have its truths made known, and its ordinances observed among the people over whom they have been placed—if, I say, we hold, as the Voluntaries do, that kings and rulers ought not to do any of these things, then we virtually maintain, that though God's revealed will may be a rule for the guidance of private, it is not binding as a rule of public life; that a man may be one thing as an individual, and another thing as clothed with the public office of a Civil Magistrate; that in the former ho may be, and ought to be, a Christian; that in the latter he must be an infidel."
In farther illustrating the evils of Voluntaryism, Dr Buchanan traced the movement directly to Satan. Speaking of all the efforts of that great adversary against the Church of Scotland, and of the recent "times of reviving and refreshing," he exclaims—"What was her old enemy to do now! The tyranny of an arbitrary government was no longer at hand, to be stirred up on the ancient plea of the Church's too great freedom and independence. With matchless effrontery he now comes forth as the very advocate of that freedom and independence he had once laboured to destroy. So jealous is he now of the very appearance of subjection, that he will have her divorced from the Stale altogether."
Dr Candlish, in the Assembly
When the Original Seceders were admitted into the Free Church in I venture to say we-would not have been prepared to unite with them. (Renewed cheers.)"—Proceedings of Assembly, p. 19. Edinburgh: Greig & Son.
Mr Innes, in his able book on "The Law of Creeds in Scotland," Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons.changes its principles, it cannot compel the congregation to go with it. That when the Church, without changing its principles, merges its separate identity by union with another body, it cannot compel the congregation to go along with it. That not only a majority, but even a minority of the congregation, has a right to vindicate the congregational property in the two cases last mentioned." (P. 363.) The application of these principles to any attempt to force a union on the footing of abandoning our distinctive principles, and to carry over the property of the Free Church to a united Church, without the consent of the ministers and people, is sufficiently obvious, and has been established by several recent decisions.
The following extract from Dr Candlish's Manse Fund speech, delivered at Glasgow, Witness newspaper on the 17th of that month, will abundantly prove our statement, that the minority in last Assembly were simply defending the principles of the Disruption against an attempt to abandon them:—
"We must never forget the position we occupy as a Church in this country—the position, I mean, which we profess to occupy. Of course I do not mean to say that all other bodies of Christians in the land can be brought to acknowledge that, the position we claim is our real one, but we ourselves believe it to be the real one, and should never, in the closest and most friendly association with others, shut our eyes to the position we claim as in the sight of God our true position. We ought, as a Church, to cultivate the closest and most intimate relations of Christian brotherhood with the non-established Churches in this land, and especially with our Presbyterian brethren adhering to other bodies who have left the
I hold it to be of vast importance to the interests of Presbyterianism in Scotland, in the long run, and these, I think, are identified with the interests of the Church of Christ—that we should maintain our position as the Church of Scotland, from which the Erskines and Fishers seceded, and to which their descendants may be expected to return. As regards our brethren and friends in the Establishment, with many of whom we may co-operate in the work of the Lord, we must never forget, nor allow the world to forget, that we hold the Establishment to be a thing of yesterday, a creation of Lord Aberdeen's—a thing which has existed only since The dale of the existence of the present Established Church of Scotland is 1843. The dale of our existence is
In the proposed plan for solving the difficulties in the way of Union, by means of open questions, it is proposed to make an open question of what is regarded by the one party as sin, and by the other party as a duty. The United Presbyterians profess to hold that "the ordinance of Christ excludes State aid" for the support of the Church; in other words, that States which give endowments to the Church, commit an act of sin against the ordinance of Christ; and yet it is proposed by them to make this an open question! On the other hand, the Free Church section of the Union Committee maintain, that instead of its being a sin to give endowments to the Church, it is, in proper circumstances, "an act of national homage to Christ;" and yet it is proposed by the majority of last Free Assembly to make this also an open question! And the same thing thus proposed to be done in theory is to be done also in practice. For example, in the case of the Irish Presbyterian Church, which, on the United Presbyterian theory, is supported in violation of the ordinance of Christ, it is proposed "to leave it to the United Church to decide what ought to be done" in the way of continuing to hold the closest fellowship with this sinning body; a proposal which it is very difficult to reconcile with the Voluntary theory. This is also true in regard to public State grants given for religious education, to which the United Presbyterian Committee naturally object. The giving of State endowments for teaching religion to the young, is the very same thing, in principle, as much a violation of the supposed ordinance of Christ, as giving endowments for teaching religion to the old. The United Presbyterians, therefore, very naturally say (Report of the Union Committee, Assembly
This Church is nearly as large as the United Presbyterian. A deputation from it appeared at the Convocation, to cheer the hearts of our ministers in their time of difficulty; and at the Disruption itself, they, in the face of the Government, cordially made common cause with the Free Church. This brotherly intercourse has ever since been maintained; but it is a very natural and important question, Can it be maintained after the contemplated Union, or is the Union to consist only in breaking up one alliance for the purpose of forming another? This question was discussed
In regard to the allowing of instrumental music in public worship, Dr Cairns, in the U.P. Synod of if I were on the floor of a United Church, I would slate afresh, and endeavour to the best of my ability to defend." On the contrary, Dr Candlish holds, in his Preface to the Essay of Dr Porteous (i.e., the organ, "in all other congregations of the Church as well as in our own." He adds—"All who are conscientiously opposed to it, who regard it as inexpedient and unlawful, unauthorised and unscriptural, must feel themselves bound, as Presbyterians, to do their utmost against a proposal to have it even tolerated." Dr Buchanan, in the Assembly of the repeal of the law by which ministers in the Presbyterian Church in England could be translated to charges in the Free Church."—Blue Book,
The resolution adopted by a majority at last Assembly was to the effect, that the Assembly saw no bar to unionsinful, being, as is alleged by them, Ten Years Conflict. That conflict might have been avoided if the Church had been willing to take this ground at first, whilst, by taking it now, we proclaim that we formerly convulsed the kingdom unnecessarily, and were "martyrs by mistake." It is said that we may still hold the duty of the Magistrate towards the Church as individuals. This is certainly true. No power on earth can prevent us from holding our private opinions. But the question relates to the public testimony of the Church, which the decision of last Assembly attempts to alter and overturn, without consulting the Church as a whole. It is said that the alteration proposed is small. This is the constant excuse of innovators. Small or great, however, the Assembly had no right to interfere with the fixed testimony of the Church without special authority; but if the matter in question be so small, why do the United Presbyterians adhere with such tenacity to the opposite view? Instead of being small, however, it affects the crown-rights of Christ to the entire homage of nations; the historical position of the Church since the Reformation, and even the constitution of the kingdom, as connected with the Protestant succession to the Crown, besides having a direct bearing on a number of practical questions of urgent interest.
But what is to be done now? If we may judge by the report of the proceedings of the Union Committee which has lately appeared, the union to be pressed forward. The negotiating parties are proceeding as resolutely as ever, apparently on the assumption that some historical statement and the arrangement of details are alone necessary, and that the recent proceedings in the Supreme Courts have virtually set aside all difficulties in the way of principle in carrying out the contemplated result. This, however, must not be allowed. A clear issue has been raised. The constitution of our Church has been attacked, and in so far as the Assembly had power, subverted, and no proper means must be left untried to have the members of the Church fully instructed on the subject, and to have the old Scriptural constitution again proclaimed and acknowledged in the General Assembly. Let us pray that the Church at large may be fully aroused to the duty and privilege of rallying again, at this new crisis, around the peculiar "banner displayed" in Scotland over since the Reformation, "because of the truth," viz., The Universal Supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dr Cairns has since explained, in a letter to the Daily Review of date December 23, as follows:—"What I did say was, that, while ready to go on any deputation, I should reserve to myself the right, in some way or other, of showing that I did not thereby surrender my protest against the Regium Donum accepted by the Irish Presbyterian Church."
Webster defines blasphemy: "1, An indignity offered to God by words or writing; 2, That which derogates from the prerogatives of God." John the Divine says that "God is love." Admitting both Webster's and John's definition to be correct, it is difficult to conceive how a greater indignity can be offered to God than in charging him with being addicted to "eternal hate," "wrath," "vindictiveness," "revenge," or any degrading vices or propensities that falliable men are liable to.
Now, Spiritualists are often accused of blasphemy, and especially by the Orthodox clericals: let us examine the subject a little, and learn, if we can, who are the blasphemers—Spiritualists, or their accusers.
In general, Spiritualists hold that John's definiton of God is true, and that the great incomprehensible Power that sustains and controls the universes is altogether lovely in his attributes, and has done all things well, and after the exact pattern intended; and that, in spite of man's inability to discern the wisdom and goodness of his plans, everything will eventually work together for the good of his creatures, and insure to all a never-ending progress and developement toward a better and a higher state of being. Holding the fall of Adam, as accepted by the Churches, to be a mere allegory, or myth, they have no belief either in the necessity or the fact of a vicarious atonement, but regard Jesus of Nazareth as a most eminent reformer and enlightener, such as seems intended in the Divine economy shall be raised up, from time to time, to meet the progressive knowledge and wants of humanity. That Jesus received power and inspiration through divinely appointed messengers from higher spheres, to say and do many wonderful things, Spiritualists believe; but they hold that these spiritual gifts afford no proof that the physical instrument through which they were exercised was necessarily of especial Divine origin; much less that he should be endowed with the infinite attributes of the Godhead, as is claimed by the Orthodox Churches. This, if admitted to be conclusive testimony, would seem to prove too much for their argument; for it would then follow that all the instruments who have done or now do the seemingly miraculous works that Jesus did, must likewise be endowed with personal attributes of Deity. Moreover, Spiritualists hold that Jesus of Nazareth, so far from claiming any especial Divine origin, repeatedly took occasion to disabuse the superstitious and hero-worship-inclined followers, to whom he mostly
miraculous works that he himself did, but even greater works. And it is a remarkable fact, that church contemners of what is called "modern Spiritualism" might do well to note, that, when the risen Jesus, whom they have Deified, sent forth his despised disciples of that day "into all the world, he instructed them with his latest words how they might distinguish those who believed aright in the gospel he commissioned them to preach, enumerating certain signs that should "follow them that believe," which, singularly enough, are substantially the same that very generally attend upon the ministry of the despised "spirit medium" of this day, but very seldom on that of the ordained ministers of the popular churches. The Orthodox ministers of that day charged Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples with being blasphemers, and workers of miracles through the power of the devil, precisely as those of the Orthodox churches in our day charge against the "spirit mediums" who do the works that Jesus declared all should do who believed in (or rightly received) him and his gospel Who, then, are the blasphemers—the "Spiritualists," or the "Orthodox?"
If infinite love is the all-pervading attribute of the God of Jesus Christ and his apostle John, then I again say that nothing more blasphemous can be uttered, than to charge him with being a God of hate and malignancy, after the manner of Calvinistic Orthodoxy—as may be abundantly proved from the written testimony of its very highest authorities. John Calvin, the chief comer-stone and founder of the Presbyterian sect, says,—"Children bring their condemnation with them from their mother's womb, being liable to punishment, not for the sin of another, but for their own; for, although they have not produced the fruits of their iniquity, they have the seed inclosed in themselves. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed of sin; therefore, it cannot but be odious to and abominable to God."
I submit that this one dogma of Calvin, alone entitles the church he founded to lay claim to one of the seven heads of the murderous beast seen by the Revelator, that was destined to pervert and trample upon the gospel of Jesus, all of which were inscribed with the name of "Blasphemy"
Now, hear what the Rev. Jonathan Edwards (the American Calvin,) has to say: "Reprobate infants are vipers of vengence, which Jehovah will hold over hell in the tongs of his wrath, until they turn and spit venom in his face." And Emmons, an other reverend Calvinist, in his sixteenth published sermon: "The happiness of the elect in heaven will in part consist in witnessing the torments of the damned in hell; and among these, it may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, and friends on earth. One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the doctrine of reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their tor-
Amen! Halleluiah! Praise the Lord!"
Up to the present time, the priest and the parson, as they ever have been, are the most deadly foes of human progress; and while with braggart lies they claim that the advance of civilization among the superior Caucasian race, over that of all others, has resulted from their labors, they stand as they have ever stood, a barrier againt all attempts to ameliorate our laws or benefit the condition of the poor. It is they who erect and sustain the gallows—it is they who shut the people from libraries on Sunday! Go, say they, as you see fit, to the "church" or the grog shop for your recreation on the "Lord's Day," but to the free library you shall not resort, for that of all institutions is the deadliest foe of ignorance, priestcraft and the church. A thousand criminals may die in prisons, in cellars, or in garrets, unheeded by priests and parsons; but let one of these be brought to his end on the gallows, and like crows, that flock about a dying sheep, the black-coated gentry gather around the despairing sinner, that they may spectacle themselves before the world, and make the real or coined confession of the culprit minister to their own or the church's glory. But tame indeed, oh, how infinitely tame are all the millions of horrors that the priest has inflicted in secret and in public on mankind, when compared with the ghastly system of everlasting punishment that Edwards and his creedists found (and logically so in some measure) upon that dark and bloody code of Jehovah and the Jews, that Constantine and his council of priests bound in the same volume with its opposite, the Gospel of Jesus, some fifteen centuries ago, and in the plentitude of imperial and priestly power dubbed, and forced upon the acceptance of mankind as being in every line and letter the "Word of God." As in that day, the system of theology then founded upon the Bible, originated through and in the interests of imperial and priestly despotism—so it has continued ever since. And I again repeat that there never has been a code of morals or a system of worship invented or practiced on earth that inculcates precepts, doctrines, and dogmas more debasing and imbruting to humanity (when carried out in full,) or blasphemously derogatory to the Divine Being, and his attributes of love, mercy, justice, and truth, than is embodied in the creeds of most of the churches of to-day, and forced upon the acceptance of infantile minds in our Sunday and other Orthodox schools.
How sickening to the heart of enlightened humanity to know that through the teachings and discipline of that blasphemous order of men (who have ever "garnished the sepulchers of the prophets, whom their fathers killed" in other days, and murdered those of their own day), begun with the child at the poor bigoted priest-ridden mother's breast, the religious heart and mind of Christendom has been so fearfully warped, perverted and emasculated as to surrender its reason and intellect, and bow in blind obedience at the feet of a monstrous image that priests have made in their own likeness, "and exalted," in their temples and creeds, "above all that is willed God," by Jesus of Nazareth as well as by Spiritualists.
What should we think of a fallible earthly potentate, who, for dis-
incomprehensible necessity, consent to partake—in some little degree—of their torment that they might be relieved, would the act be of a quality to demand excessive praise, think ye? On the contrary, if such a Father was endued with any of the nobler traits of humanity, would not the bestowal of excessive praise, much less Divine honors, upon him because of his having made so small a personal sacrifice for the attainment of so great a good for his children, carry with it under the cirumstances, an implied censure galling to his better nature? And might not the eternal sing-song laudation at length acquire a mocking tone in his ear as if the cringing sycophants would say, "We, your poor helpless slaves and children, always supposed you to be a horribly cruel demon, only acting out your nature when you condemned your poor children to such unspeakable torments; but now that you have relieved them, at the cost of some inconvenience to yourself, we think somewhat better of you, but still fear that you may relapse into your former vindictive nature and serve us all as you did them; and for this, rather, than from any sentiment of love, we offer you unceasing homage!" And yet, Orthodox divines would fain have us believe that the bestowal of Divine honors is acceptable to Jesus in heaven, because he consented to suffer a few days' agony on the cross that countless myriads of human beings might be saved from eternal torments infinitely more terrible than any earthly potentate or even priestly inquisitor ever had the ingenuity to invent, or the power to inflict!
From the bottom of my heart and inmost soul, I thank my God that, with all my imperfections, weaknesses and sins, I feel that without an entire change of nature, I could never "enter on my list of friends" the man who, whilst removed from all fear of suffering himself, could look down unmoved, even from the highest heaven, upon the meanest reptile of earth, writhing in Edward's ghastly hell. Nay, more; when it came to be fully apprehended, as is taught by Calvinistic and other Orthodox divines, that the whole of God's great universes of suns and planets might pass away at the rate of only a particle of microscopic dust in cycles of myriads of centuries, multiplied by myriads, and the ineffable torments of the poor creature not have been appreciably diminished in duration—as Edwards, Emmons, and others teach—is the lot of the nearest and dearest earth-relations of the blessed in heaven. When, I say, this horrifying thought should be fully realized, I feel that my better nature would not only reject as a friend, but revolt almost to loathing from any man, angel, God, or devil, who would not gladly undergo greater mortal agonies for the redemption of the poor unreasoning creature, than we are taught in churches and Sunday schools to believe mankind must eternally offer divine honors to Jesus of Nazareth, for undergoing to save countless myriads of the human race. To me the thought seems too horrible to entertain without upsetting the citadel of human reflection and reason; and if I believed that such enormi-
But it may be said that men are always growing better than their religious creed, and that there are no such horribly awful doctrines taught in our day, as those I have inveighed against. I grant the rule may fairly apply to the majority of "the hearers of the Word"; but I hold that the real "Godly priest" affords an exception to it. "Once a parson, always a parson," is not only a trite, but true saying.
Through testimony from the Spirits, I learn that the lowest strata of the lowest spirit sphere, instead of being "paved with infants' skulls," is the place assigned for the early probation of the most wicked men, and that its mosaic is thickly studded with the dark spirits of cruel and bloody tyrants and other muderers, and with those of multitudes of persecuting popes, bishops, inquisitors, and priests; some of whom, tormented by bloodstained consciences, have been gnashing their teeth, in chains of spiritual darkness, for hundreds and even thousands of years, without having yet discovered a way, (in the words of Jesus) to "escape the damnation of hell." There, all bigots and persecutors, who have delighted in inflicting pain and death on their fellow creatures have ever gone, and there they will continue to go, as no intelligent reader of the record can fail to perceive that the abominations against which Jesus hurled the fearful "woes" are, one and all, those that most Papal and Orthodox Protestants, prelates, and priests are, as ever, peculiarly inclined to in the present day. Nor can there be a doubt but that, if Jesus was to rise from the dead and attempt to repeat the same words in the Orthodox churches of today that he formerly uttered in the Jewish temple, (were it not that Spiritualists and lnfldels-would protect him,) the Orthodox "children of those Orthodox priests that killed the prophets" and Jesus of Nazareth of yore, would seize upon the person of the seamless-coated vagabond, and offer him up at Calvary's Mount, or Smithfield's stake, a holocaust to the heathen Moloch they have installed in their temples of idol and hero-worship, and blasphemously inscribed with his loved and loving name. It is true that the horrible religious doctrines of Calvin (who, I learn, is yet in darkness,) are not as openly avowed at the "corner of the street" and from the "house tops," or belched forth from the pulpit as they were a few years ago; but this is due rather to the outside pressure of public opinion than to the better culture of the priest. The congregations may have grown wiser and better than their creed, but their parson remains at heart the same. "The snake is not killed, but only scotched," and still seeks, in its wily, creeping, stealthy ways, to imbue its deadly poison into the mind and heart of every man, woman, and child it can approach; whether through the press, the confessional, or the Sunday school.
With such awful conceptions of the Deity taught in their infant Sabbath schools, and covertly cultivated and enforced in the pulpit by thousands of "raw-head and bloody bone" ministers and priests, how can we expect the status of morality in the (so-called) Christian nation to be other than what it is—a shame and reproach even to the heathen.
I trust there are no readers of the foregoing remarks who will accuse me of manifesting an unchristian spirit in the discussion; but that on the contrary, they will credit me with having striven, as far as I have ability, to imitate Jesus of Nazareth in his considerate tenderness of spirit, when speaking of ordinary criminals and sinners. And, further, should they notice that I have in anywise failed in extending a proper Christlike severity towards those "serpents and vipers" and other Orthodox "hypocrites, whited sepulchers," and "blind leaders of the blind," &c., that Jesus so often and eloquently thus characterizes, that it will not be attributed to any intention on my part of avoiding imitating the pattern and example that was set by the gentle Nazarene for his followers, in these as well as in all other respects; but because I am not gifted with his power of language to give my sentiments the full force of expression, that he possessed and applied so infinitely more pungently and effectively than any other denouncers of the ungodly, persecuting, murderous crew of priests and Pharisees, have ever been Divinely, or otherwise inspired to do.
In closing, I flatter myself that I have succeeded in proving, in the judgment of all unorthodox and unprejudiced readers, that, by the mere assertion, maintenance, and propagandism of their atrocious dogmas and doctrines, the Orthodox Christians commit more heinous and intense blasphemy against the great God of the universes, (in whose loving embrace—as Spiritualists hold—all His creatures repose in unquestionable safety, secure in the consciousness that, in their progress, all things, however dark may be their surroundings, will be made to work for the eternal good of all,) than any man or men, by mere exertion of their organs of speech, though their lives were devoted to profanity, have the power to commit. Addressing his childlike disciples, the spirit through the organism of Jesus said, "It were better that a millstone were hanged about a man's neck, and he drowned in the depths of the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." And how, in the name of all that is holy, let me repeat, can a greater offence be committed against "little children" than to entice or force them into a Sabbath school, and, whilst their minds are plastic, and as easily crooked and twisted to any shape as a young and growing vine, train and teach them to regard their loving Heavenly Father in the light of a brutal monster, who made the first man and woman after so bungling a pattern that they committed, within a few days of their creation, and before they had acquired knowledge or experience sufficient even to know that they were naked, a sin so unpardonable in the eyes of their malignant creator, by the mere eating of some tempting fruit that he had seemingly placed in their way for the express purpose of enticing them to disobey him, as to subject not only themselves, but countless myriads of their progeny, to eternal torment in such awful hells as Calvin, Edwards, Faber, and other reverend fathers of the Orthodox churches describe? How blasphemously insulting too, to the benign attributes of the God that Jesus and the Spiritualists trust in, and so lovingly revere, to distort and poison the minds and souls of these little unreasoning children, by teaching them to believe that with the exception of the miserable failure of the plan to save mankind from the
drowning experiment, the great Creator (although, as Barries says, he could, at any time, save the world if he wished to) neglected for centuries even to propose his latest and final method of salvation, to come in the far-off future, through the vicarious atonement of His only (to be) begotten son—a raw-head and bloody-bones experiment that the aforesaid Rev. Dr Barnes asserts, (and is evident to all) has proven as fallacious and fruitless as all previous ones; and, above all, to instill into the minds of these helpless infants the murderous, malignant, and truly infernal doctrine that, whilst at the most, a small number of each loving earth-family only are to be saved and go to glory in that dreadful Calvinistic and Orthodox Kingdom of Heaven, the joy of these few is to be enhanced by witnessing the eternal torments of a majority of those who sucked the same doting mother's breast, and were dandled on the same loving father's knee as themselves.
In some respects, the quality of vegetables and mental growth seems to be the same. Begin with a vine or even a tree, when it is young, and its stem and branches may be trained in any direction and made to grow in any form. But when it has attained to maturity, it is even less difficult to bend, in almost any direction, the full-grown natural tree or vine, than it is to straighten out that which had been artificially crooked; and the more intricate and unnatural the folds, so much the more difficult to reclaim them. If skilfully intertwined, they will "break" rather than "re-bend" to the position Nature designed them to occupy. So with the human mind. Give it over, in infancy, to the manipulation of the priest—that traditional enemy of God and his prophets, that John saw was to usurp the dominion over the great-hearted Divine truths taught by Jesus of Nazareth, throughout all the nations of the earth, and cover it all over in their countless idolatrous temples, with "names of blasphemy"—I say, give this fungus of humanity,—the priest—exclusive dominion over the mind of the child, and he can readily, by his manipulations, train it to assume any form of thought or worship that best suits his interests, tastes, or superstitious belief; and the more inconsistent, unreasonable, monstrous, past comprehending, mysterious, and intricate are the doctrines and dogmas he foists upon the impressible material, the more difficult (if not impossible,) will it be for truth to enter and reassert its authority. In view of this acknowledged and self-evident truism, does it not become the duty of "Spiritualists," and of all liberals and honest-hearted skeptics and "Infidels," to exert themselves to the utmost to save as many of these little infant brands" from the burning and soul-destroying influence of Orthodox teachings in Sabbath schools, even at the risk of these being subjected to other degrading earth vices and influences more repulsive externally, but not half so injurious to their eternal welfare, as are the blasphemous conceptions of the Deity and other malignant dogmas they imbibe and suck in, as it were, with their mother's milk, in Orthodox Sabbath schools.
A lecture was delivered last evening, at the Independent Church, Collins street, in aid of the funds of the Victorian auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, by the Right Rev. the Bishop of Melbourne, the subject being "The Bible: its evidences, characteristics, and effects." In consequence of the unfavourable state of the weather, the attendance was only moderate. Owing to the indisposition of his Honour Sir W. F. Stawell and Judge Pohlman, the vice-presidents of the Victorian branch of the society, the chair was occupied by the Hon. G. Harker.
The Bishop said,—To deliver a lecture on the Bible would be at any time a task of great responsibility, but it is especially so at the present day, when so many are endeavouring in various ways to undermine the authority of the sacred volume. For this very reason, however, a servant of Christ, when required to undertake it, may the more confidently depend upon the help of his Divine Master for its successful accomplishment. In dependence upon that help I have prepared the essay which I am now going to read; and I trust that, notwithstanding its defects, it will prove, by God's blessing, conducive to your firmer belief in, and higher appreciation of, this most wonderful book. As the subject admits of being treated in many different ways, I would in the first instance caution you against expecting what I do not purpose to attempt, and so misapprehending the nature and purport of my argument. It is no part of my plan to explain or defend the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. The fact of those doctrines being derived from it is doubtless the cause of that repugnance to the Bible which makes the rationalist use all manner of sophistical artifices for persuading himself and others that it is unworthy of belief; but I shall not now try to dispel his prejudicies by convincing him of their unreasonableness. Neither shall I adduce any of the usual arguments for proving the "divine and miraculous origin" of the Bible. Again, I shall not discuss the question whether this or that particular book ought to be included in the Bible; for, if every book and portion of a book, concerning whose genuineness there is any, the least ground of doubt, were omitted, the observations which I am going to make would not need to be in the slightest degree modified. Neither shall I concern myself about the various readings—to the number, it is asserted, of 150,000—which are found in the existing manuscripts of the Bible. The fact of their occurrence can be easily explained; and they are of such a kind as not to affect at all materially the character of the volume or any of the books which compose it One other preliminary remark I wish to make. While desirous, as far as possible, to avoid giving offence or causing pain to any of my hearers, I must ask you to remember that, speaking as a bishop of the Church of England, I must state as they appear to me the facts to which I refer, and therefore some of my statements may probably be contrary to the conscientious convictions of individuals among you. As, however, I do not profess to be infallible, I am quite willing to concede to everyone what I claim for myself—the free exercise of that reason with which God has endowed us, and for the right use of which we are severally responsible to Him alone. Having told you what you must not expect from me, I will briefly state what I now propose to myself. My purpose at present is to consider the Bible simply as a volume of ancient writings—such as those of Homer, or Herodotus, Plato, Demosthenes, or any other classical author. Regarding it in this character, I shall first adduce some evidences of its authenticity—i.e., reasons for believing that all
sui generis, possessing an authority which belonged to none others, and conclusive in all questions and controversies among Christians." "They were in very early times collected into a distinct volume. They were distinguished by appropriate names and titles of respect. They were publicly read and expounded in the religious assemblies. Commentaries were written on them, harmonies formed out of them, different copies carefully collated, and versions (as I have already noticed) made into different languages." And, besides all this, when those heresies, of the springing up of which we have indications in several of the Epistles, began to disturb the peace of the church, not any of their leaders ventured, so far as appears, to dispute the authority of the Christian Scriptures. On the contrary, they "were usually appealed to by both sides in their controversies." Even the early adversaries of Christianity, by attacking the Gospels as books containing the accounts on which Christianity was founded, have helped to confirm their authenticity. These propositions, as remarked by Paley (from whose admirable work on the evidences of Christianity I have borrowed the substance of this part of my argument), cannot be affirmed of any other books besides those which at present constitute the volume of the New Testament. It may indeed be alleged, and truly, that some books now included in that volume—viz, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the 2nd Epistle of Peter, the 2nd and 3rd of John, that of Jade, and the Book of Revelation—were not universally received by the church as canonical until some time after the rest. But this fact, instead of invalidating, really confirms the argument for the authenticity of the whole; for it shows that great care was taken by the early church in the formation of what is called "the Canon of Scripture," i.e., the volume of writings which contain the acknowledged rule of Christian faith and practice. Such is the evidence which I would now submit to you for the authenticity—not, I repeat, the inspiration, but simply the authenticity—of the volume of the New Testament; and I do not hesitate to say, that if it be pronounced insufficient, none of the ancient classics can be proved genuine. 2. I proceed to adduce-
a) That the Old Testament Scriptures, as we now have them in their original language, or rather languages (for a small portion of them is in Chaldee), are substantially the same with those in possession of the Jews at the commencement j of the Christian era, is proved incontestably by the ancient Mss., which have been preserved by that people themselves in different parts of the world, and likewise by the Greek version, known as the Septuagint, which was made of the whole volume not less than 150 b.c. Starting, therefore, with this admitted fact, I would lead you backward through the several divisions under which I have classified them, beginning with the books relating to the period which followed the return of the Jews from Babylon. Of this period, extending from about 535 to about 400 b.c., it is to be observed that the whole comes within the recognised historic age, and the authenticity of the Jewish writings must be determined by the same evidence as Greek, or any others professedly written within it. What evidence, then, have we for the authenticity of the histories of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the prophetical writings of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi? We have; this, that they were accepted in the time of Our Lord by the whole nation of the Jews—not only by the inhabitants of Judea and Galilee, but also by those Jews who were dispersed abroad in every land, "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt," and in all other countries. Such universal acceptance of them at that time might alone be esteemed conclusive proof of their authenticity, but we have likewise the independent evidence of a Septuagint version, which carries us back more than 150 years further. No reasonable doubt, therefore, can exist as to the genuineness and trustworthiness of that portion of the Old Testament, which belongs to the period after the return of the Jews from Babylon, (b) Assuming this, I would next point out the testimony which these bear to the authenticity of those preceding them. The allusions which they contain to what "is written in the law of Moses," to the praising of the Lord "after the ordinance of David, King of Israel," to the re-peopling of Samaria by Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, to the widely extended dominion of Solomon, and to all the long series of God's judgments and mercies, as recorded in the Pentateuch and the book of Judges; clearly show, as does yet more certainly the reading of the book of the law in the presence of all the people by Ezra, that the more ancient Scriptures belonging to ail the antecedent periods of their history were then in the possession of the priests and rulers, and were regarded by the Jews of that age with the same implicit belief and reverence as by the Jews of the present day. Moreover, it is to be remembered that, while a large number of the Jews remained in the lands to which Nebuchadnezzar had removed them, some of the ten tribes who had been carried away by Esarhaddon, or had previously joined the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, returned with their brethren and settled in the land of Judea. The testimony, therefore, of Ezra and Nehemiah to the earlier books of the Old Testament, shows them to have been the sacred Scriptures, not of the Jews only, but of the whole nation of the Israelites at the expiration of the captivity in Babylon. This is an important link in the chain of evidence for their authenticity. But that which I now wish you particularly to observe is, that since the captivity lasted only 70 years, and we are expressly told of old men who lived through it, and remembered the glory of Solomon's Temple which Nebuchadnezzar destroyed, this acceptance by all the Jews of the books of Daniel and Ezekiel, who wrote during the captivity, and of the book of Jeremiah, who for the latter years of his life was contemporary with them, is conclusive evidence of the authenticity of those writings. In respect to them, at least, the united testimony of the Jews who returned from Babylon, and those who remained behind, must be received as decisive evidence of their general authenticity. I say general authencity, because I am not concerned now with the genuineness of each particular portion. (c) We have thus advanced another step in our progress, and may now proceed upwards to the historical books of Chronicles and Kings, and from them to the two books of Samuel, and thence to Judges and Joshua, until we come to the Pentateuch or five books of Moses, observing as we go along how, throughout the whole course,
ie., of the whole Bible. I now proceed to the second branch of my subject,
The Characteristics of the Bible.
The first which I shall mention appears to me very greatly to conduce to its practical value, viz., its historical framework. The one subject of the Bible is religion; but the volume does not consist of a number of religious essays. It relates a series of events, beginning with the creation of man after the image of God, and proceeding onwards, through his fall and its immediate consequences, to the destruction of the whole human race except Noah and his family by the deluge, the call of Abraham, the establishment of his descendants, the Israelites in the land of Canaan, and the varied dealings of God in the way of judgment and mercy with that nation, during a period of 1,000 years; then, after 400 years, during which it is silent, taking up the story again with the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and carrying on its narrative through his life to his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven; and thence onwards to the labours, sufferings, and success of his apostles and their associates in the evangelization of the world. All its doctrines and precepts, all its promises and threatenings, all it sublime visions and prophecies, are interwoven with its historical records.
b.c. The earliest book of the New Testament was not written until about 430 years after Malachi, and the latest about 60 years afterwards. Hence the interval between the dates of the earliest and latest books of the Bible was not much less than 1,600 years. 3. With this gradual formation of the Bible during so long a period is strikingly contrasted the fact which I would next notice, the completion of the volume before the end of the first century after Christ. As after a period of 1,100 years, during which the Old Testament was in the course of formation, there followed one of 430, in which nothing was added to it so since about the year of Our Lord 90 no addition has been made to the New Testament. During nearly 1,800 years the Bible has been, according to the belief of the whole church of Christ, perfected. In all these centuries no sect, no individual, has ever ventured even to suggest the insertion into it of any writings of confessedly later date. If we bear in mind its previous gradual growth—that it was not, like the Koran, compiled and published as a whole at once, but was formed by the continual accretion of new parts—this acceptance of it by the universal Church as at a particular period completed, and this abstinence, notwithstanding the manifold heresies and schisms which so soon destroyed the unity of Christendom, from any attempt to add to it, must be regarded as an extraordinary attestation to the peculiar nature of the several books of which it consists. 4. Another characteristic of the Bible is its marvellous variety. This is observable, first, in its language. Besides that, the Hebrew of the later is very different from that of the earlier books. A portion of the Old Testament is in Chaldee, and the whole of the New Testament is in Greek. Again, what is more remarkable, its authors, as we learn from themselves, differed from one another in almost every particular. Some were kings and rulers, others priests; one a herdsman, others fishermen; one a pharisee, another a publican; some renowned for wisdom and knowledge, others "unlearned, ignorant men" The Bible also contains almost every sort of composition both in prose and verse; plain, unadorned history, a code of laws, the most sublime orations, the most touching elegies, the most terse proverbs, the most beautiful odes, a series of admirable letters, together with prophetical visions, the imagery of which is, I suppose, altogether unrivalled. 5. But while no collection of writings in the world exhibits so great variety as the Bible, one of its most wonderful characteristics is the harmony which subsists throughout the whole. Although the Old Testament contains the sacred writings of the Jews, who, as a people, have hitherto denied the title of Jesus to be the Messiah, and continued irreconcilable enemies to Christianity; although the several books of the Old Testament are of such various kinds, and were written in different ages by men so diverse in station, education, and natural character; although likewise the writings of the New Testament are strongly marked by the idiosyncrasies of their respective authors; although, above all, the law which was given by Moses, and which remained in force until Our Lord's coming, is exhibited to us in direct contrast with the grace and truth which "came by Jesus Christ;" yet does there exist the most perfect harmony
e.g., in Our Lord's lamentation over Jerusalem, when, after foretelling the approaching desolation of the city, He added—"I say unto
i e., about the time of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, there prevailed, as you will remember, among them a general expectation that there would shortly be born of the family of David one who should become their king, and, as the Messiah or Christ, i.e., the anointed of God, raise their nation to all its former, and more than its former, greatness and prosperity. But when He in whom Christians believe that expectation to have been fulfilled, Jesus of Nazareth, came unto them, they rejected Him and procured Him to be crucified. Within 70 years after this their temple and city were destroyed, and thenceforward up to this day (i e for more than 1,800 years) they have been scattered over all the earth. Nevertheless, although without a country which they could call their own, without a temple in which to celebrate their religious rites, without prophets or any other miraculous aid, and often subjected to the
i.e., to those portions of the volume of Old Testament Scriptures which their successive generations possessed. The only possible explanation of all their marvellous history, is their earnest, unshaken belief in these Scriptures. The influence of their religious rites and customs, their sacrifices and festivals, in causing and maintaining their distinctive nationality, is not inconsistent with this explanation, for those rites and customs were all prescribed by the law, which was a part of the Scriptures, and are therefore to be included among their effects. Nor, again, is the special providence which has been manifested, and the miracles which have been wrought from time to time on behalf of the Israelites, inconsistent with it; for every such special interposition of God, whether providential or miraculous, was designed to enforce, not to impair, the authority of the Scriptures. I repeat, therefore, that the effect of the volume of the Old Testament apart from that of the New has been to form and preserve unto the present day a peculiar people, altogether diverse from others, who, during 1,500 years that they dwelt in Canaan, were the sole witnesses in the world to the truth that there is one God, and none other besides Him; and who since, during another period of 1,800 years that they have been dispersed over the earth, have maintained their identity, and, while bearing still their testimony to the oneness of God, have persistently refused to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, holding fast the expectation of another deliverer who shall reestablish them in their old land, and reign over them as their King for ever. I pass on to the effects of the whole Bible, the volume of the New in conjunction with that of the Old Testament. These also may be summarily described as consisting in the formation and preservation during a long series of centuries unto the present day, of a peculiar people, diverse from all the rest of mankind—the Church of Christ. Let us consider some particulars concerning this people. Reflect, first, upon the origin of the church, how it sprung up suddenly above 1,800 years ago, among the Jews, a small and despised nation; and not among the higher class and ecclesiastical rulers of that nation, but among the poor and unlearned of the people. Reflect, further upon its rapid growth, how it extended itself from Judea and Samaria to the neighbouring countries, and thence, in a few years, throughout all parts of the Roman world. Reflect how everywhere it had to endure either official opposition and ill usage or popular outrage; how one emperor of Rome after another attempted to extirpate it; how, nevertheless, it still lived and increased, and became more and more powerful, until it gained the imperial favour, and Christianity, having supplanted heathenism, was recognised as the established religion of the Roman empire. So it continued, as you will remember, except for the brief period of the reign of Julian, while that empire lasted. Carry then your thoughts onward to the overthrow of the dominion of Rome by the barbarians, and reflect how, during the revolution which followed, the church still survived, and how it gathered into itself, first, the hordes which overran the Roman provinces, and afterwards all the nations in the regions beyond, even to the farthest extremities of Europe. The circumstances which next attract our attention are of a different character. Previously to the establishment of Christianity by Constantine as the religion of the Roman empire, much corruption both of doctrine and practice had crept into and spread itself in the church; and this increased more and more afterwards, until it led in the seventh century to the rise and triumphant progress of Mohammedanism throughout the East, and to the gradual establishment in that and the following centuries of the usurped dominion of the Bishop of Rome throughout the West. Of the Eastern Church, which fell before the arms of Mohammed and his followers, I shall say no more than that, although partially freed from the tyrannical oppression to which it was formerly subjected, it still remains in a corrupt and for the most part very degraded condition, and, like the 10 tribes of Israel, has not yet been restored to its ancient purity and prosperity. But on behalf of the Western Church, as formerly on behalf of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the providence of God has graciously interposed. By the Reformation
i e, bringing them into the church. That the Reformation was the effect of the Bible, is yet more plain. The men by whose agency it was accomplished did not claim to possess any miraculous powers. A copy of the Bible, which had then become almost altogether an unknown volume, was discovered by a monk in a German monastery, and, like the copy of the Book of the Law discovered in the Temple during the reign of Josiah, wrought at once a religious revolution, which spread not only through Germany but over a large portion of the continent of Europe. Thus the mighty work effected by Luther and his coadjutors was the direct and manifest effect of the Bible. In England, also, the bringing of it to light by Wiclif, who had translated the volume into his native tongue more than a century before the time of Luther, and the subsequent retranslation and circulation of it during the reign of Henry VIII., prepared the way for and really effected the Reformation under Edward VI. These effects of the Bible—the origin and rapid growth of the church, its establishment throughout the Roman empire, the surviving of it after the downfal of that empire, the gathering into it of barbarian conquerors and of all the nations of Europe, and the reformation of a large portion of its Western branch—are facts patent on the pages of history. But we shall not duly appreciate their importance unless we observe the political and social changes involved in them. I would therefore ask you further to compare in your minds the condition of the people under all the great empires of the ancient world previously to the time of Constantine, and under the heathen dynasties of India and China in modern times, with the condition of the subjects of any, even the worst, government in Christendom. Such a comparison will show us—in the mitigation of despotic tyranny, in the increased personal freedom, in the greater domestic happiness, and in the more friendly social intercourse which characterise every Christian nation—the ameliorating effect of the Bible. And if this can be perceived in countries where the book itself is little known by the people, and its influence only indirectly and feebly felt, how much more may it be seen in lands where the volume may be listened to in public assemblies for religious worship, and read in their own private houses by all of every class who desire to become acquainted with it. There needs not that I should expatiate upon the civil privileges, the moral virtues, the social blessings, and the home comforts by which our own favoured fatherland is distinguished. However much of vice, and misery consequent upon vice, exists among the people of Great Britain, and of this and other provinces of the British empire, none can deny that we are remarkable above almost all others for our liberty, our independence of thought, our sense of justice, our truthfulness, our generosity, our observance of the duties and enjoyment of the happiness of domestic life. And, to what are we indebted for all this? Not to any natural superiority of the Anglo-Saxon or Norman race; for the Arab, the Persian, the Turk, the Maori, is physically by nature as fine a man in body and in mind as the Englishman. Not to any law of progress observable in the history of the human race, for no such law can be observed. What evidence have we of growth, intellectual or moral, in the transfer of empire from Babylon to Persia, and from Persia to Greece, and from Greece to Rome? What progress do we perceive in the succession of Eastern dynasties, or in the establishment of the Mohammedan rule in Greece and Asia Minor? The history of the world refutes the hypothesis of such a law. The only rational explanation of our high position as a nation is, that we have been
himself not to take what they teach upon trust from others? While every Christian should be willing and thankful, for the better understanding and more profitable use of the Bible, to receive instruction from the voice of the living and from the writings of the dead, no one who can read the Scriptures ought to call any man "master," or teacher, as not to "prove all things" by them, and so, with God's help, certainly distinguish, and firmly "hold fast that which is good." To all who have received an ordinary education, the Bible ought to be the "lamp" unto their feet, and the "light" unto their path. Out of it they ought to draw arguments for belief, motives for obedience, strength against the day of temptation, and confidence and joy for the hour of death. But Christians have also another duty with respect to the Bible. It teaches us that we should "look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Hence every Christian ought not only to read the Bible himself, but also to take care, so far as he is able, that it be read by all the members of his family and household, and others under his personal influence; and not only so, but likewise to help his poor neighbours, who would otherwise be unable, and persuade the ungodly who are naturally unwilling, to procure and use the sacred volume. Nor should he stop here. He should endeavour to extend the blessings which the Bible brings with it over a wider circle still—throughout the land he dwells in, and further yet, even to the uttermost regions of the earth. And this, blessed be God, by the agency of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and other societies of a kindred nature, each of us may help to do. By them we can severally aid in circulating over all the continent of Europe, among the English speaking population of the world wide British dominions, and among all the chief nations of the earth—European and Asiatic, African and American—in their own native languages, that book which has made our fathers, and will, we trust, make us and our posterity throughout all generations, a free, intelligent, and prosperous, and, comparatively at least, a moral and religious people.
Throughout bis remarks, the bishop was listened to with the closest attention, and on resuming his seat was loudly applauded.
On the motion of the Rev. H. M. Becher, hon. secretary of the Bible Society, a vote of thanks to the bishop for the lecture he had delivered, was carried by acclamation.
A collection was then made on behalf of the Victorian branch of the society: and votes of thanks to the chairman for presiding, and to the Rev. A. M. Henderson and the deacons of the Independent Church, for allowing the use of the building, were passed.
The Ven. the Dean of Melbourne pronounced the Benediction, and the proceedings terminated.
Stillwell and Knight, Printers, Collins Street East.
This Sermon was preached on last Lord's Day evening, April 14th, in the Hanover-street Baptist Chapel, with special reference to the efforts now being made in Dunedin to shorten the hours of shop labour; it is now published, just as it was preached, in deference to the request of the Committee of the "Grocers' Early Closing Association," who are kind enough to think it should speak to a wider audience than that which heard the preacher's voice. It was written, of course, without the slightest thought of publication, and the writer must bespeak a lenient judgment of its many faults, and marks of evident haste. If it, in any degree, helps forward a movement that has his warmest sympathies, he will be more than satisfied.
You will not meet with a sublimer ode than this 104th Psalm in all the wide range of poesy, sacred or profane. It is a grand, sustained strain of praise to the All-mighty and All-wise Creator and Preserver. The language is of the richest poetical beauty, and the images employed, whether we isolate them or regard them in their groupings, are surpassingly lovely; while the description is as faithful as it is eloquent. Though the Psalm has no title and no author's name prefixed, it has been ascribed by many expositors to Israel's sweet singer, David. Its close connection with the 103rd Psalm greatly strengthens this opinion; though it must be acknowledged that many—Hengstenberg amongst the number—are against the Davidic authorship. Undoubtedly the Psalmist's object is to set forth the majesty and might of Jehovah in the work of Creation, and His beneficence and bountifulness in Providence. He seems to behold the Almighty clothed in a glistening garment of light: he seems to hear His authoritative commands—done as soon as spoken: he seems to see His plastic hand moulding matter to the fair designs of His will: and he marks the lavish profuseness with which all things needed for the sustenance and comfort of His creatures have been provided. With such a theme it is not to be wondered at that he whose harp had many notes, and whoso soul was capable of passionate adoration, should almost surpass himself.
Careful critics have detected a plan in the composition well worth a passing remark. The author's model is the first chapter of Genesis. He recounts the six periods of God's work, viewing them as perpetually prolonged in the preservation of all; and at the close he appropriately hints at the seventh period of rest, wherein the Lord rejoices in His works. If you will turn for a
Now, set in the very heart of this Psalm, which is almost wholly about God and His work, we have something about man and his work. God is spoken of as working and working always, because His work is without weariness, because the pouring forth of His energy is without exhaustion. But man, because of his frailty, because he is liable to fatigue, though under the law of labour, yet has a limit assigned to his labour. He is not to be, like the Eternal Jehovah, ceaselessly working; nor is he to toil by day while the stork is making her house in the fir trees, while the wild goats are gleaning their food on the tops of the high hills, and by night, too, when all "the beasts of the forest do creep forth." Man has a time for labour, and that time is the day. Man has a limit to his labour, and that limit is the evening. "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening." We have here, then—
"Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour." He goeth forth, mark you, not by his own choice—for man has little love for work. He goes forth in obedience to a law. The existence of this law can be proved from Scripture, from reason, and from necessity. I do not prove it here, because I have neither time nor need to do so. The character and obligation of this law may be seen from the following considerations:—
1. It is Divine. And we get some grand and cheering thoughts from the remembrance of this fact. Let all workers note it. By working you follow a divine example, and obey a divine law. Light up your places of toil and irradiate your common tasks with that reflection. See a higher model than the most skilful craftsman—see God working for evermore, doing all things well, making all things perfect. Obey a higher law than the law which comes from the lips of an earthly master—the law of Him
It is necessary, also, to free labour from that false association with the curse into which it has been wrongly dragged. Labour is not the result nor a result of the curse. Men do not work because Adam fell. Men would not have been free from labour if our first parents had kept their first estate. Adam was not an idler during those days at whoso cool eventide he heard the voice of the Almighty among the leafy lovelinesses of Eden. It is wholly a mistake to say we work because of sin. For in the 15th verse of the 2nd chapter of Genesis—before our common mother, who was the first in the transgression, was formed—it is written: "And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to dross it, and to keep it." Now the word there rendered "to dress" (ghabadh), is the root of the very word which in my text is translated "work." And by that word the meaning of the Hebrew would be more clearly expressed:—"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and to keep it."
It is not labour then that divides us from God, and it is not labour that marks the difference between man's state in innocency and man's state under condemnation. It is sin which has cut us off from God; and it is sin which has made labour a curse, so that that which before was man's pastime and privilege is now regarded as the sign and seal of his lapse, the irksome necessity of his lot. It was these words which flung a dark shadow upon toil and made it bitter: "Cursed be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; .... in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." There you have the cause of all man's weariness and dislike for work. Still, with the sweat beading upon the brow as a result, the law of labour is Divine. God has ordained it for us. It is His decree. And the organs, the faculties, the limbs with which we are endowed—the planning brain, the far-reaching mind, the cunning right hand—all confirm the written command, and teach that man was made "to go forth unto his work and to his labour."
If you need further proof, we have the law repeated in the New Testament: "If any man will not work neither shall he eat." If you need further attestation you have it in the fact that the "Father worketh hitherto," the Son toiled at his craft in despised Nazareth, the Holy Ghost intercedeth incessantly, and the angels, "are they not all ministering Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"
2. This law is Universal. All men work. Work is manifold—of
But there are many toiling labourers besides those who work with their hands: and there is other sweat than that of the brow There are the men who work the mine of thought, who gather the wisdom of the ages, who solve life's problems, who unravel earth's mysteries, who plan our gigantic works, who lesson by artificial means the severity of toil, who manage our commerce, who write our books, who expose the false and teach the true. These are true workers though their palms are unhardened, and their brows are dry. They work with mental implements, and their sweat is the sweat of the brain. There are pitying ones, upon whom human sorrow rests as a burden, whose hearts yearn over the outcast and the destitute; on whom there rests a woe if they do not go forth redressing wrongs, striking off fetters, opening prison doors; if they are not devising how to teach the ignorant, lift up the fallen, and reclaim the criminal. Their hands are soft, and, thank God, their hearts are softer still. You will not refuse them an entrance into your ranks; you will not be ashamed to stand side by side with these gallant leaders of forlorn hopes, in your "lordly chivalry of labour"—for the sweat they sweat is the sweat of the heart, and the work they do is likest His who went about doing good. We are all working men—some with hand, some with brain, some with heart, some with all three combined. Let neither class despise the other, but like a triple-stranded cord, be all the stronger by being woven indissolubly together.
3. This law is Necessary. Some measure of physical work—to narrow the meaning—is needful for our general well-being. It is needful for the body else the sinews relax, the muscles become flaccid, the nerves grow over sensitive. It is needful for the mind else the over-wrought brain flags, and the tension of thought destroys the balance of the intellect. Every wise man, therefore, who wishes to keep a sound mind in a sound body works with his hands or his feet—for no better tonic can be found for the mind than physical fatigue. But labour is necessary for other reasons than these. If we are to get the good there is in nature, if we are to be surrounded with comforts, we must work for them personally or in order to pay those who have worked. Nature supplies man with material, but it is in the rough. She furnishes the elements, but they are uncombined. To combine
4. This law is Beneficent. Labour is not only of divine institution, universal and necessary; but it is also the best law there could be for us, fashioned as we are and hemmed in as we are by other laws. Idleness is an evil, and the prolific cause of numberless evils besides itself. Wherever a man or nation of men has given up honest, earnest toil—wherever pleasure has been made the only work—it has invariably ended in ruin. Idle periods in nations' histories have always been improvident and vicions periods. An idle man with no occupation save the gratification of his restless spirit and hungry heart, is ever as unhappy as he is injurious. There is something both preservative of good and preventive of evil in the discipline of severe, faithful work, whether it be of the hand or the brain. It gives stability and width to the character, it checks the rank growth of evil that quickly overspreads the unoccupied mind, it gives a level beat to the heart, it gives an accurate skill to the motions of the hand, it gives a zest to needful food better than the best of tonics and more provocative of appetite than the choicest condiments, it gives a sweetness and a soundness to sleep which nought beside can furnish, so that the labouring man closes his eyes, and "tired nature's sweet restorer" folds him in her arms, and hushes him to a deep and dreamless slumber, upon a hard and an unpillowed couch, while pampered idleness tosses wearily upon eider down and within silken curtains. Let the idlers and workers both declare if the law of labour is not beneficent as well as divine, universal and necessary.
But—
"Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour Until the evening." He is not to prolong his toil, nor is he to have it pro-
that Limit is the Evening. For proof I appeal:
1. To Scripture. But at the outset, because it is necessary to the understanding of the passages I shall quote, I must ask you to note the Scripture definition of Day. In Genesis i., 5, we find "God called the Light Day." We start then with that understood—the Day is the duration of Light. And now what saith the Scriptures? If you turn to Genesis iii., 17—19, you will find the sentence upon man runs thus: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread ... all the days of thy life." In Deuteronomy xxiv., 15, we have the Mosiac Law: "At his Day thou (the master) shalt give him (the hireling) his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it." in Judges xix., 16, we have a casual reference which shows the custom during the time of the Judges; "And, behold, there came an old man from his work, out of the field, at even" In Job xiv., 6, we have life compared to the term of labour: "He shall accomplish as a hireling his day." In Psalm civ., 23,—the text—we have the length of the working period fixed for the great human family: "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening." In Isaiah xxviii., 24, we have the question: "Doth the plowman plow all day to sow?" In Matthew xx., 2—8, we learn by a parable our Lord's will concerning labour: "The householder agreed with the labourers for a penny a day; and when the even was come, the steward gave them their hire." Then, in John ix., 4, we have the duration of toil definitely settled—Christ says: "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is Day; the night cometh when no man can work."
No doubt these references point to a primitive period, and to primitive occupations; but the last one quoted and the text are to be understood in the widest sense. If we accept the teaching of Scripture at all, we are not to set up our modern customs against it as either invalidating or rendering its sanctions obsolete. If, then, the Bible be of any authority, its utterances are plain, emphatic and consistent throughout that the limit of labour is the evening.
2. Nature is another witness. Her testimony is unmistakeably on the side of early hours. She enforces her law in her own domain. "The sun knoweth his going down;" and "the day spring knows his place." The sun has his appointed time, and
'Toil comes with the morning, And rest with the night.'"
It may possibly be objected that this is poetical and consequently most unpractical. It may be said the difference between the length of summer and winter days renders the following of nature's rule most inconvenient, for at one time it is too long, and at another too short." My reply is: "Take then, the long and the short, add them together, draw the line at the average, and you will find seven o'clock outside the due and proper limit.
3. Reason's utterance is in strictest agreement with that of Scripture and Nature. Man is a compound creature. He is not all body. He is body, intellect, and spirit. The body in fact, because of its mortality, and the brevity of its existenec, is confessedly of incalculably the least value. Reason, therefore, protests against the monopolizing of nearly all man's time for the benefit of the body alone. Reason claims that the intellect and the spirit shall both have their fair share, their due proportion of the three score years and ten. How can they have this if twelve and fourteen hours are greedily grasped for providing the body with the bread that perisheth, and if eight hours more—and few men who work twelve or fourteen hours can do with less—if eight hours more are to be given to rest and sleep, to enable the body to endure its protracted labour? If you take the lesser number, if a man works twelve hours and sleeps eight, you have Five-Sixths—if you take the larger number, if a man works fourteen hours and sleeps eight, you have Eleven-Twelfths of the six working days wholly devoted to the body. What can the jaded mind, what can the deadened
There is a Law of Labor. Let no man neglect it, or ask for pity because he has to work, and work hard. But it is a Law with a Limit. Let no man habitually pass it, or compel others to pass it. "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor;" yes, but he goes forth "Until the evening," and then he should return to his home, or devote his hours to his mind and his soul.
I have no time to do more than hint at what might have been a very long division, viz.:—
I could say much upon the physical evils that ensue The stunted stature; the undeveloped and impaired constitution; the exhausted, because overtaxed, frame; the premature feebleness that comes before age—for Nature is rigourous in her exactions, and demands the uttermost farthing. Youth may draw bills on the strength of the future, but age, and oft times middle age, must pay them. Nature suffers no dishonour.
I might have dwelt upon the mental harms that follow. The forgetfulness of what once was learnt: the fading out of facts and principles from the memory; the blunting of the keenness, the crippling of the nimbleness of the intellect; the gradual lessening and narrowing alike of the capacities and aspirations of the mind, until little is known beyond prices current, and ignorance covers it like green weeds cover a stagnant pool, shutting out even the reflection of light and beauty,
I might have enlarged upon the irremediable and eternal ruin that results to the soul. It is chained to earth like a captive eagle, and though it would fain soar up into the sunlight, it ceases at last to chafe itself with a vain endeavour. Its energies are bent to the producing and laying up of treasures on earth. Every freshening thought of a Father's and Redeemer's love is expelled—until plodding a weary round of unprofitable and unennobling work, the soul's highest creed comes to be: "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die—
'For men mast work and women must weep, And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep; And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.'"
And the end of such a godless life is a godless eternity of unending and unintermitted misery.
I have but touched on these things in passing. I trust that I have said enough to make all who hear me feel that the subject has a solemn as well as a practical side to it.
Now I must hasten on, for I have kept you long, to point out
1. I begin with Employers of Labour. Their duty is to rest, and give rest; to live and let live. "Masters are to give to their servants that which is just and equal, knowing they also have a Master in heaven." They are to apply the golden rule. They are to do as they would be done by. They are to do by those in their employ as they wished to be done by when they were employed. For I have known very energetic advocates for early closing when they were assistants grow very short memoried about their principles when they became masters, and very loth to yield a single hour of grace. They should remember all the fine and bitter—and true things too—they once said. They should remember how hard the bondage was to them, and mete out the measure they wished to be meted out to them. Employers too are not to shut up their shops, and keep their employeés—a practice very common in the case of milliners, dressmakers and sempstresses—working on far into the night, so that even in Dunedin there are some who can sing with a dolorous voice—
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Employers should, further, as far as practicable, pay their wages on Friday instead of on Saturday night. Then there will be some hope of putting an end to that most pernicious of all practices—late shopping on Saturday nights. The very night when because "the Sabbath draws on." toil should be over earliest, is the very one when it is the most prolonged. The result is, that some are so worn out as to be unable to attend the house of God, and others are so jaded as to be unfit to profit by its hallowed exercises. This accounts for empty pews, and nodding hearers. Then, further still, employers should generously give those in their employ time during
2. I now pass to the Employed. Their duty is to be patient. They are to be subject not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to the froward. It is better to make no mention of force. Anything like a strike invariably places the employed in a false and worse position than the employers. I am well aware the Association on whose behalf I am preaching needs no counsel to orderliness. The members of it have shown they not only know how to plead their cause, but that they know what to do with their time. While, therefore, I urge the general principle of judicious measures, I am far enough from bidding the employed to be content with what has been aptly called "White Slavery." On the contrary, I would say to them, "Work, and work hard, till you get your right. Agitate! Agitate! Agitate! Endeavour by every proper means to obtain remedy and redress. The prayers and hearty sympathies of every philanthropist are with you."
3. And now I come to what I may term the General Public, to which many of us belong. You and I then are to act as if the downfall of the long hour system wholly depended upon us individually. There must be no shirking of personal responsibility. There is no putting an end to any social abuse unless every member of society rises to the dignity of his position, and individually wages war against it. We are not to mind what others do; we are to do right, and use every effort to induce them to do right also. We are not to find refuge in the flimsy excuse that it is a small matter, or that we are very unimportant units of the great whole. It is quite enough that we are units—and what the units do that the whole does If each individual does his duty, society will do its duty.
In this particular case, I have no hesitation in saying that it is the clear duty of every faithful friend of his kind, to withdraw his support from every man who refuses to comply with the reasonable request to close at a reasonable hour; and to give that suppor to those who think that to do what is right, and fair, and equal, is better than to get pelf. Specially they who themselves know the benefit of early hours—specially they—should be foremost to emancipate those who are still doomed to late hours. I hope no working man who leaves off with the bell, goes himself or permits his wife to go buying at eight and nine o'clock. Then ladies who must have their new bonnets and dresses to wear on Sunday, should give their orders early instead of late in the week; and so offer no premium to wrong, no bribe to conscience. We must not expect too much from employers, we must not ask them to be too heroic, we must bear our own part in the work.
I venture to recommend that all purchases of every kind should be made Before Six O'clock. I ask that those who have domestic
before that hour. If we, the public, enter into a compact to do no buying after that hour, it will be worth no one's while to try and sell. For I desire that not one trade but all trades should share in the benefits of the movement—that even those employed in hotel-bars and chemists' shops should be set free from their interminable work, and in one city in the world at least be permitted to go out in the daylight.
And now I must finish. I have been plain, practical, and pointed, for without particularising I should do no good. I have said but little in the way of appeal to your feelings. Yet I could find materials for a pathetic appeal. There are the sighs of the weary to echo. There are the wrongs of the dumb to give voiced to. There are the rights of the timid to plead for. I could appeal to you on behalf of men, women, children—fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. I could plead for their bodies, their minds, their souls. I fervently pray, though I have not pleaded, you may be persuaded, and nobly, unitedly act.
In conclusion, remember that life itself is but one long day. We are accomplishing it. Evening comes on apace. The night when no man can work draws nigh. Take care—Oh! take care—that none neglect the one thing needful. Life has but one all important work. If that be left undone, all besides is vain and worthless. And this is the work, to believe on Jesus Christ whom God hath sent to save us from our sins, and bring us to that rest which remaineth for the people of God. May it be so when our life's evening comes, when the evening deepens into twilight, and the twilight darkens into night, we may each close our eyes in peace, and then open them where there is no night, and where an eternity of service will bring no weariness.—Amen
Spiritualism the Work of Demons. By the Rev. John Jones, Congregationalist Minister, Liverpool.
When a scientist is confronted with the facts of Spiritualism, and is satisfied that they are genuine, he is pretty sure to conclude that he has come upon the discovery of a "new force;" when the same facts are brought home to a clergyman or Congregationalist Minister, he in general is equally confident that it must all be the work of the devil or of evil spirits; and as the one naturally has recourse to levers, spring balances, and other mechanical apparatus to prove his theory, so the other as instinctively resorts to Church doctrines, Scripture texts, and other theological apparatus to establish his. I do not complain of this: every man to his trade and to the tools he is most expert in the handling. The worthy shoemaker in the old story was no doubt sincere in urging that for the defence of a city there was nothing like leather; his fellow-citizens, however, might, we think, reasonably be excused for not taking quite the same professional view of the situation, and so a mere layman may perhaps be pardoned if he takes exception to the validity of the conclusions and method of reasoning of the conscientious and earnest Congregationalist Minister of Chadwick Mount Chapel, Liverpool, in his late sermon on Spiritualism; the substance of which he has now "sent forth from the press, in order that it may address itself to a still larger audience."
The Congregationalist Minister reminds us that "For these sixteen past years Spiritualism has been spreading like a tidal wave over the land;" that it "is beginning to deeply agitate the masses;" and that it "is coming up to the front in the town of Liverpool as in other places;" and he warns "the ministers of religion" that they "had better deal with it in time." He sets his brethren in the ministry an example in this respect, but so far it would seem the results are not encouraging, for we learn his sermon and pamphlet have given quite an impetus to
"That is a strange imposture in which millions are leagued together, many of whom are eminent personages in the ranks of literature, science, and nobility throughout the civilised world." Again, he shows that natural causes alone are insufficient to explain the phenomena of Spiritualism, and refers as instances to direct spirit-writing and spirit-music. He observes—"Now, there is in the fact of a written sentence and familiar music a display of intelligence which neither magnetism nor electricity possess, and these laws of nature, therefore, do not account for the mystery." In short, Mr. Jones considers himself to have established the following propositions:—"1.—The facts of Spiritualism are sufficiently authenticated. 2.—These facts cannot be interpreted in the light of imposture and trickery. 3.—Neither can they be accounted for by any known laws. 4.—They belong, therefore, to the domain of the preternatural."
The only contention with him is as to "what is the source of these preternatural manifestations?" To this question he replies that they are Satanic; and he offers the following arguments in support of his theory:—"1.—These Satanic manifestations are predicted in the Scriptures. 2.—They are corroborated by the facts of history. 3.—Having recourse to the spirits of the dead is forbidden by God. 4.—Spiritualism is an apostacy from the Truth?"
Of course this raises the whole question of Bible Spiritualism, the adequate consideration of which would require far more space than can here be given to it; but without entering fully into this discussion now, I may remark that the first two propositions have no bearing on the question unless it can be shown that all spirit manifestations—and those of the present day especially—are Satanic. The adroit introduction of the term "These," (meaning modern spiritual manifestations) is simply begging the question to be proved. In connection with the third proposition it would need to be shown (which is not even attempted) that the prohibition to the Jews is binding upon Christians, and that spiritual intercourse, through all time, of every kind and for whatever purpose, is alike forbidden and unlawful. I have treated the subject at some length in the first three chapters of The Two Worlds, and more particularly in the second chapter on "The Law of the Old Testament and of the New."every spirit, it implies that there are some spirits worthy of credence; and the exhortation to "try the spirits whether they are of God" could have no point if it did not mean that some were so, and that we should discriminate between them; which is just what the Spiritualist affirms and what the Congregationalist Minister denies.
The truth is, the Bible throughout recognises what the Congregational Minister does not—that there are two kinds of Spiritualism: the good and the bad; the divine and the diabolical; the lawful and the unlawful. The latter, doubtless, is prohibited; the former was practised by patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and by Christ himself. Of this kind are the spiritual gifts of the early Church and the modern Spiritualists, and concerning which St. Paul told the members of the Church at Corinth he would not have them ignorant, bidding them earnestly to covet the best gifts. It is a sheer evasion of the Congregationalist Minister to say of the good men in the Bible narratives to whom Angels of Light were despatched, "but these were exceptional cases, and always emanated from God, and are a totally different thing to necromancy or Spiritualism." This is only asserted, it is not even attempted to be proved.
But while prepared to meet our clerical opponent on his own ground, point by point, and text by text, and to shew that while he ignores or evades one class of passages in Scripture, he puts upon another a construction, and gives to them an application unwarranted and gratuitous; I apprehend that my readers, like myself, must be weary of this constant battle of texts, which the experience of Christendom has proved so eminently unsatisfactory, turning as it generally does to a considerable extent on verbal subtleties, questions of Greek and Hebrew, grammar and critical exegesis,—laboured attempts
The most casual reader of this sermon can scarcely fail to observe in it an evident straining of texts to fit the facts, and an equally obvious straining of facts to fit the texts; as, for example, in the pretence that Spiritualism leads men to become vegetarians and celibates, which, though it may be exceptionally true, as a rule is so contrary to the universal plain fact that it could never have been made except to make it fit the text about forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.
So again, the text is quoted in which the seer of the Apocalypse saw two unclean spirits like frogs; but what has this to do with Modern Spiritualism? The spirits seen by our mediums are not like frogs, but are our departed friends and kindred. Mr. S. C. Hall, for instance, as quoted by Mr. Jones, tells us that he and seven other friends saw the spirit of his "venerable and truly Christian sister," and that the "likeness was exact;" that he "recognised every feature;" she was, therefore, no more like a frog than like a weasel or a whale. Again, there is an eager clutching at any extravagant or exceptional utterance of any reputed Spiritualist which may seem to serve the writer's purpose, with a desperate effort to fasten upon Spiritualism the responsibility for these individual vagaries. We may smile at these puerilities and special pleadings; but it is a matter of serious regret to find a Christian minister, in order to make a point against Spiritualism, striving to depreciate the value of the belief in immortality, questioning if conversion to it may not be "a very barren result," and affirming that "it is much to be feared that this mere abstract belief in futurity will be of little value in relation to the final destiny of man."
Very different is the feeling of those who have ever experienced the agony of doubt. Speaking of the "idea of a world to come," Robert Burns says—"Would to God I as firmly believed it as I ardently wish it;" and the celebrated author of Night Thoughts says of the dispute about religion—"I think it
Is man immortal, or is he not? If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of skill . . . . . I have long been persuaded that most, if not all, our infidels are supported in their deplorable error by some doubt of their immortality at the bottom; and I am satisfied that men once thoroughly convinced of their immortality are not far from being Christians."
The experience of many a Spiritualist more than bears out this last assertion. They have confessed that Spiritualism has made them, not only almost, but altogether Christians.
Writing of the late Professor Hare, Judge Edmonds says—"Dr. Hare has all his life long been an honest, sincere, and inveterate disbeliever in the Christian religion. Late in life Spiritualism comes to him, and in a short time works in his mind the conviction of the existence of a God, and his own immortality. . . . . The last time I ever saw him, he told me that he was at length a full believer in the Revelations through Jesus—that, in fine, he was now a Christian, full in the faith—that but a few days before he had made a public proclamation of his belief at a meeting which he had addressed at Salem, Mass., and he read me a long article on that subject, which he had prepared for publication." Judge Edmonds adds:—"In the Introduction to my second volume of Spiritualism, I published some twenty letters from different persons, showing that the writers of these letters were but a few of the long list we have of such conversions."
Of the efficacy of Spiritualism in bringing home the conviction of immortality to those who had doubted or denied it, and whom the pulpit had failed to convince, we have the fullest admission in the pamphlet before us. Thus, after citing Mr. Hall's account of the apparition of his sister, it goes on to say:—"Equally remarkable and authenticated instances are recorded, apparently confirming the Spiritualistic theory, and what seems to strengthen their belief in it, is the consideration of the object of such apparitions, viz., to lead back the world, in this materialistic epoch, to the belief in the doctrine of immortality. In this Spiritualism has undoubtedly succeeded. It has made a convert of many a bold materialist; it has gathered up into its chariot crowds of the rationalists and sceptics of the world, and such like are still rallying around the unfurled banner on which is inscribed the word 'Immortality.'"
If this is "the work of demons," may God speed it! The "demons" are manifesting His truth, and so doing a great work, which the professed ministers of religion have been unable to effect, and which, alas! too many of them are now striving to hinder.
Nor do the concessions of our reverend opponent end here. He tells us—"Spiritualism comes also under the guise of benevolence; and human suffering and malady excite the compassion of the spirits." But we are told, that "for all this semblance of religion and benevolence, there is within it the elements of the blackest apostacy." That is to say, the theological opinions of some spirits and of some Spiritualists do not altogether coincide with those of the Congregationalist Minister of Chadwick Mount Chapel, Liverpool. All his quotations at the utmost prove no more than this. In the simplicity of his heart, the good pastor says in effect, "So much the worse for them. They ought to believe as I believe, and to teach as I teach: if the spirits do not, it is a sufficient proof that they are demons. Beware of them!"
Thomas Carlyle, alluding to the strange fantastic tricks played before high heaven by an eminent Anglican divine, once wrote:—
The Congregationalist Minister of Chadwick Mount Chapel is a seceder—or, to use his favourite term, an "apostate" from the Church of the "Nine-and-thirty Articles;" but, nevertheless, he has his own small plan of orthodoxy by which the wise Builder of this universe framed the worlds and æons, and to which pattern the spirit-world must conform its teachings. If the spirits do not preach this Gospel of total depravity and endless punishment, they are to be held "accursed." If they teach that the Divine Father is ever ready to forgive "all such as do truly repent," in whatever world they may be; that "when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive," whether he be physically embodied or disembodied; and that there is hope and the possibility of progress for all; they are proclaimed teachers of "damnable heresies."
Steadying himself a little, and struggling to be candid, our Congregationalist Minister bethinks himself that "it will be only fair to listen to the defence of the Spiritualists in regard to this charge of apostacy." Quite so. He tells us that "they say, in effect, that as Spiritualism inculcates such things as love to God, charity towards men, and morality of life, it is impossible for it to be Satanic, for then Satan is divided against
seducing' of the text: all this is trickery on the part of the demon, and is exceedingly good policy. They know well enough that rank atheism and open immorality, and a negation of all religion, would never do as yet. The stratagem is then for the present for 'Satan himself to be transformed into an angel of light' (2 Cor. xi., 14); and through the demons, who are his subordinate ministers, to preach morality. The grand purpose is the destruction of man; and the 'powers of darkness' take care to adopt any means whereby this can be achieved. They can afford for awhile to preach love, and charity, and righteousness, if at the same time they can subtract from the creed of their victims all the wise and saving points of the Gospel. For the present they leave them the shell, after most carefully extracting the kernel. Yes, we repeat, demons can afford to proclaim morality, if, at the same time, they can destroy the notion of natural depravity, of a Saviour, and an endless doom."
Now, we ask, How does the Minister know all this? Have the "demons" taken him into their secret counsels; or has he had a special revelation on the subject; or has he acquired it by instinct, or evolved it from the depths of his own consciousness, or is it but the mere reflection of professional prejudice? One thing is clear—it is unwarranted by any present facts; for in the same breath that he says, "We charge Spiritualism with being a gross departure from the doctrines of the Gospel as received by the Church in all ages;" he adds, "Not that it at present assumes a non-religious character. No, demons are wiser than that. Séances in Paris are, under the direction of the spirits, opened with prayer. Séances in London, under similar instruction, are opened with the reading of the 23rd Psalm, and closed with the Doxology. Nay, more, the spirits seem to be of a most reveren-
séance held near London, the following message was received from the spirits—'We do all that we can to convince you that we live, and that God is Love.'"
Could some of these "demons" gain access to the Congregationalist Minister, they might perhaps whisper in his ear that, according to a Christian apostle, Chanty is greater than Faith; and that his Gospel of "natural depravity" and "endless doom" is not quite the same with the Good News of God proclaimed eighteen centuries ago by One who folded little children to His bosom, and reminded His disciples that "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven and who exemplified the relation of man to God in the Parable of the Repentant Prodigal; and they might remind him of that gentle warning voice—"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
And, after all, who are these "demons?" We are told by the Congregationalist Minister that they are "evil men having departed this life." At the worst, then, they share our common humanity—weak, erring, sinful, as who is not?—but still our brethren, members of the same family, children of the same Divine Father. Should we then, on the plea that they are evil, refuse all communion with them, and withhold from them all sympathy? or, because they hold what we consider incorrect opinions, or, as the Minister puts it, have "apostatised from the faith," charge them with "teaching lies in hypocrisy," and treat them as accursed? Would it not be better, more kindly, more Christ-like, to try to win them back to virtue and to truth? Would not this be acknowledged as simply our duty were they in this world, and are our relations to them so wholly changed that we must adopt a contrary code of ethics because they have "departed this life?" Are the principles of moral obligation so mutable that, under change of circumstances, what was a duty may become a sin? Might not a disciple, and still more a minister of Christ, deem it not incompatible with his Christian profession and office, to seek to save those that were lost?—happy could he bring back some wandering sheep into the fold of the Good Shepherd—happy could he give help and counsel to some misguided, unhappy spirit, seeking light and aid from his mortal brothers.
Say not that for these dark and troubled spirits there can be no light, no help, no hope. Do not so malign the All-merciful Father as to say that for these His erring children He has reserved only eternal wrath and infinite despair. Say not that our counsels to them and our prayers in their behalf can be of no avail. The experience of many and many a Spiritualist—aye, and the faith of the Church in all ages when it has not been smitten with fatal paralysis—is evidence to the contrary. Think
But, as already intimated, I do not expect this question to be settled by mere citations or arguments from Scripture. The theologian is indeed ready enough to pelt heretics with texts, but he is generally text-proof when texts are quoted on the other side; and especially is this so with the clerical mind. If a text looks heretical, it must be teased and tortured to mean something different to what it says; or it must be offset by some other text more orthodox, or at least more convenient for the occasion. Instead, then, of further appeal to the logic of texts, let me give an illustration from the logic of facts; premising that while I think the matter of it instructive, I must not in quoting it be understood as thereby expressing approval of every incident related, or of the tone in which every remark is written. I quote it, not only for its bearing on the question at issue, but incidentally, because I think it may also be suggestive to those who regard forms of exorcism as of magical efficacy in casting out and banishing evil or undeveloped spirits.
An Experience with "Demons" or "Dark Spirits."
Mr. Thomas R. Hazard, who states that he has had more than fifteen years' experience in Spiritualism, in an essay just published on Mediums and Mediumship, narrates his experience with "demons" or "dark spirits," at a circle of which he was a member. First, the circle broke up the séance, when they found these spirits had gained possession of the medium. Then, they had recourse to exorcism. The spirits were commanded in the name of God to depart, which they did. A command in the name of Christ was equally effective. At length, on one of these occasions, a member of the circle, we are told, "bade every devil of them depart in the name of the devil, and depart they did full as promptly as before."
Mr. Hazard continues:—"I was now satisfied of that which I had before began to suspect—that it was not the particular name used that drove away the 'evil spirits,' but the amount of our own will that was embodied, as it were, in the name that produced the effects. Even this pleasing thought, however, was
"And now for a new phase of the 'devil' theory which these experiences prepared us to receive. Our spirit-friends had always told us that those spirits that we had been taught to regard as 'fiends or devils,' are simply spirits less developed than some others, but still destined, in the Heavenly Father's good time, to enter into rest and joy; and that their return to earth in the way they did, was in accordance with the laws of spirit-being and unfoldment, and that, instead of chiding and driving them away, we ought always to treat them kindly, as by so doing we would greatly assist them to develope out of their dark state, and, at the same time, benefit ourselves. This was too transcendental a doctrine for even nominal orthodox Christians—as some of us were at that time—to readily receive; but at length, other means having failed, we determined to try the experiment, and, at the next greeting of our unfriends, we all put on a grave look, and answered their customary taunting expletives in as kindly a tone as we could command. At this the medium paused; and holding the pencil quietly in his hand, inclined his head one side, very much as we have seen a pig do under an apple tree when his attention has been aroused by a doubtful sound that indicated the approach of something unusual, the exact nature of which, and whether friendly or otherwise, he was not fully assured of. The spirit in control, however, in thus reading our minds, seemed to detect the exact nature of the experiment we were trying to come over him, and soon commenced railing very much in the same strain, though not so decidedly rancorous as before. We persevered, however, in our course through several sittings, until we arrived at a state of mind consonant to the external manner we had assumed, and not only spoke kindly to the poor undeveloped spirits, but from the bottom of our hearts felt so. This won for us the victory; and from that time we were not only relieved of all annoyance, but it became a most pleasing duty—to some of us at least—to commune with the poor dark 'spirits in prison,' and by our counsel and sympathy help them to progress out of their low and unhappy state.
"The change was marvellous indeed. Ranting, profane 'spirits of the damned,' that but a short time before came to-annoy and abuse us, when they looked into our hearts and
"From such and other experiences, I learned that many souls, when launched into the spirit condition, find themselves, through the false conceptions of the future state that they have imbibed in earth life, very much like a ship at sea, without chart or compass, that has lost its reckoning; nor can they find any way to advance until they return again to the earth-sphere, and through some mediumistic source acquire light and strength to begin anew their voyage of progression in the spirit-life. Nor is there probably a soul, either on earth or in the spirit-world, so utterly depraved as not to be amenable to the laws of kindness and love, such as Jesus taught and practised, if these can be extended in such a way as to leave no doubt on the intended recipient's mind of their genuineness."
Here is "philosophy teaching by example." I hope our reverend friend may profit by it, and not like too many of his clerical brethren, steeped to the lips in prejudice, be "as the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears and will not hear the voice of the charmer charm he never so wisely."
It is only the confused, perverted theologic vision, peering amid the dim religious light and sombre shadows of the conventicle, that sees more devils than vast Hell can hold. These demons of the mist vanish in the open sunshine. To that clear reason which is the eye of the soul and that purity of heart which sees God, they are alike unknown; or if known they excite no terror. Had we more faith in God we should be less haunted by these shapes of Ignorance and Fear, and the "Demon" we had cursed would be received by us in the spirit of Christ as a man and a brother. It is not the sinner but the
Death is not a moral but a physical incident; it will not make us other than we are: we shall be neither worse nor better for experiencing it. If we are "evil men" now, we are as much "demons" as we shall be when we have "departed this life;" and "demons" (though we may not know it) are our associates now, as they will be then, drawn to us by the attractions growing out of a like spiritual condition. "Death creates nothing new for us. It only reveals our condition, and externalizes it. The only nearness in a spiritual sense is the nearness of sympathy; physical proximity is no condition of influence. We are no nearer in reality to an evil being because he happens to speak to us or to be in the same locality that we are in. Christ was never in any interior or real sense near to the devil who stood by His side in the desert, on the Temple height, or on the mountain-top!"
I do not deny that there are "demons"—"evil men departed this life," alas! too often made evil by ignorance and want, injustice and culpable neglect, and the force of strong temptation from which we may have been happily exempt. Perhaps, in the eye of Infinite Justice we may not be wholly free from responsibility for the misdeeds of our erring brother. If we would not have to do with "demons," let us cease to manufacture them: and let us also be vigilant lest we each individually add one to the number. But, thank God, the spirit-world is not peopled alone or chiefly by the vicious and the criminal. The wise and good who have "departed this life," and who come to us as "ministering spirits," are, indeed, a "multitude whom no man can number;" and if our reverend brother's spiritual sight is holden to this great "cloud of witnesses" that surround us, so that he cannot discern that "they that be with us are more than they that be with them," we should on his behalf offer up the prophet's prayer—"Lord Open the Young Man's Eyes that he May See!"
Thomas Scott, Printer, Warwick Court, Holborn.
Page 27, line 45 for IV. read III
Page 28, line 5—for fourth read third
Page 28, line 5—for prospects read point and prospects.
When asked by the Rev. Mr. Edwards to lecture, during my visit to Dunedin to assist in the consecration of the Bishop, I felt some hesitation in acceding to the request, because the duties of my office give me very limited opportunities for working out a new subject, and also because the times do not justify any clergyman in devoting his efforts to anything but that which will, directly or indirectly, advance his work. I have not, however, fixed on my subject without mature consideration; it is one which has occupied my attention both before and since I came into the Colony, and has been practically forced upon me by circumstances in which I have found myself placed since residing in the Diocese of Nelson, so that I am handling a practical and important problem, the solution of which I am endeavoring to find for purposes connected with the advancement of my own particular work, rather than as a theory. I am conscious also that I am touching upon a subject which is pressing upon the attention of many, if not of all, Christians in .New Zealand; and I therefore desire to approach it in a spirit of gravity and thoughtfulness—fearing lest I may, if off my guard, use expressions or give utterance to opinions which may wound those whom I am desirous of attracting, or rouse undue suspicions and unwarranted anxieties in those whoso co-operation I look for. In the first place, therefore, I only claim for what I may say, the influence of an individual opinion; holding an official position, I do not venture to speak officially. The triennial General Synod of our Church lately held its session here, and did not give an official utterance on the subject, but confined itself to a recognition of a correspondence that passed between the Bishops and an eminent member of the Presbyterian ministry here. It would,
It may be that what I may say may be approved by others who bear office in our Church. I hope so; the event will show. Men are changing most rapidly. Amidst the many changes of a doubtful character, if not worse, may we not hope that there may be changes more cheering, more hopeful, more charitable, and more Christian, than any we have yet seen. Further, I owe it to the position which will, we trust, shortly be occupied by the Chairman, who has already begun to win respect and regard, to be hereafter developed into hearty sympathy and affection, as chief pastor of the Episcopal Church here, to state that nothing that I say to-night can in any way affect, unless he please it to be so, the future attitude that he may think fit to assume towards those amongst whom he will live and work; and, therefore, I wish you to be so good as to bear in mind, that it is quite possible he may hereafter take a very different aspect of the case; and while I doubt not that the end we have in view is the same, even he and I may differ as to the best way of bringing it about. Mind, I do not say we do differ; but I will claim for him, as for myself, the right to be utterly unhampered and unfettered by any view that I may set forth; and I merely claim for myself what I would claim for him, the right of expressing our individual opinions, without the risk of giving offence to each other, especially when the end in view is one of such importance, as that every way must be tried, every suggestion even welcomed, every movement pointing in that direction encouraged, and every stitch of canvas that can help the vessel on the tack of real not specious unity, be made available.
In order to clear the ground, we must lay aside all appeals to antiquated prejudices, all such foolish expressions as "nailing one's colours to the mast," when the question is not of differences with enemies, but of misunderstandings with friends and neighbours,—all exhortations not to forsake the Church of our fathers, simply because it is that. Why? Go to India, and see that poor wretch worshipping the tooth of Buddha, or the impression of Gaudama's foot. Ask the Chinese merchants, Kum Goon Li and Co., at the end of the street, why they cut out paper trowsers and jackets, and burn them for clothing the spirits of their deceased ancestors?
in you, to you, and around you,—if they speak not according to this, it is because there is no light in them. I look into history, not blindly to follow it, but to see, as I often do, how very near the men of history came to the achievement of great discoveries in science, morals, and religion, and yet just failed, just missed it, even when on the very point of discovery! I want to benefit by their mistakes, and take up the thread where they dropped it.
There may be now fashioning a new cable along which the electric spark of unity is to flow, but I will also try and pick up the broken strands of wire, even though merged in Atlantic depths of history. In this my proposed inquiry, I wish to gather up first one and then another submerged wire of past history, to weld them together, and through them to transmit to dear, and loved, and esteemed brethren, the message of affection and oneness.
I confine myself to considering an eirenicon between the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches; we shall come to the relations of other bodies in due time; but both at home and here, this is the most pressing question, and one of which there is perhaps greatest probability of solution. The question is, in this Province, whether 14,500 Church of England members will combine with 27,000 Presbyterians, or whether two such extensive bodies of Christians shall stand aloof from each other? I do not forget the existence of others, and also the Wesleyan Methodists, with whom I would that we had closer relations; but I see at present greater difficulty in their case—1st. because we differ from them, and they from us, so little; and, 2ndly, because I cannot see, under present circumstances, why they should so far depart from the traditions and principles of their own founders, and continue still separate from us. One event of the times certainly is the actual reunion between the Primitive Methodists and the Irish Protestant Episcopal Church; this is an accomplished fact, a sufficient answer to all objections that our subject is a visionary and unpractical one. It may appear to some as if I narrowed the ground of controversy between us into a question of Church Government as between Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, but so I do. There is so con-
I do not venture to go so far as to speak of union between Presbyterians and Episcopalians; there is no fear, some would say, and no hope, others would say, "of love at first sight," and before there can be any happy union, there must be a mutual appreciation of each other's good qualities, so that further acquaintance may be the result; otherwise, there is some danger of such a state of things coming to pass, as that in which the answer is given, "I cannot accept you, but I shall always regard you as a friend;" which means, or rather is interpreted by the opposite party to mean, "I hope I may never see you again." Well, I will not propose that as yet. If it conies to that hereafter, well and good. I hope it may, so that from a better understanding of each other may arise the Church of the Future, holding the same faith as is now common to both of us, and with more or less of the old constitution recast, and improved by the separate experience of Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism during the last 300 years. In discussing this subject, I must refer to points of history familiar to many of you, but which I fear too many have forgotten. It is the professed interest of some in the Colony to forget history; we, however, do not intend to do so. I will first briefly explain the terms used in the title of the lecture, in order to show how I purpose treating the subject.
I propose to consider those periods in the last 300 years, during which there were negociations actually on foot for assimilating the system of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches to each other, and those periods also during which overtures with that result in view might have been made with probable success,—tending to the conclusion that the present bids fair to be a period most favourable for the consideration of such proposals.
By Persons of Contact, rather a singular expression I admit, I mean those many individuals who for their personal excellence, or the character of their writings, have been mutually appreciated and honoured by both these branches of Christ's Church,—men who, professedly of one side, are, as it were, common to both, and who furnish by their catholicity, and the esteem in which they are
Points of Contact, I understand to be a name applicable to those circumstances which may call for common action, or those points on which there is at present unanimity or sympathy, or those formularies, rites, and doctrinal statements which are shared by both Churches.
Prospects of Contact, forms an attractive and practical ending to the discussion, leading to consideration of the best means to be devised for bringing about some mutual understanding between Presbyterians and Episcopalians, so that we may not be doing the work twice over, nor unnecessarily hampering each other's movements at the cost of the hindrance of spiritual religion. It will be noticed that I have almost exclusively treated Episcopacy as identified with England, and Presbyterianism with Scotland. This does not represent the whole question; but as English Presbyterianism developed into, or was to a great extent absorbed by Independency, the consideration of the attitude of Independents to Episcopacy would be a different subject, and may be discussed at some future time. This will account for my omission of reference to the Savoy Conference, though it had its influence on ecclesiastical transactions north of the Tweed.
I. In In We are not surprised accordingly at finding the following disloyal utterance from John Ross, a minister of the Scotch Kirk, by way of repartee, in The reason why King James was so violent for Bishops, was neither their divine institution (which he denied they had), nor yet the profit the Church should reap from them, for he knew the men and their communications, but merely because he believed they were useful instruments to turn a limited monarchy into absolute dominion and subjects into slaves, the design in the world he minded most.—Quoted in Buckle's History of Civilization in England, vol. iii. ch. 3.Periods of Contact between Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches.—When we look back to pre-reformation times, we find the realms of England and Scotland both existing as portions of the unreformed Catholic Church. Their Service books, teaching and discipline, and their connection with the Papal See of Rome as the visible Head of the Church, were the same. Prior to the dawn of the Reformation, they were one in darkness, one in corruption, one in their acceptation of human traditions overriding divine simplicity, one in their superstitions, one in their fondness for ecclesiastical grandeur and multiplication of ceremony, one in the gross ignorance of their clergy, and one in the degradation of their moral standard. Would to God that those who were so joined in darkness, had sought and found the light in company. At first it appeared as if they were going to do so; and if Knox had followed up his own sagacious aspirations, he would have accomplished what was done in England, viz., the reformation, as distinguished from the destruction, of the government of the Church. The Churches of England and Scotland were as yet one, while Knox was hesitating whether he should accept an English
The following passages will prove the statements I have just made, being extracted from Usher, Hooker, and Richard Field, the friend of Hooker, made afterwards Dean of Gloucester by James the First, and of whom the present Dean of Chichester (Dr. Hook) says:—"The republication of this deeply learned work of Field would in these days be very advantageous," and "one of the distinguishing features of this great divine is, that in refuting error he always takes care to state with precision the opposite truth."
Dean Field's definition of a Church is as follows:—"What Church soever can prove itself to hold the faith once delivered to the saints, and generally published to the world without heretical innovations and schismatical violations, is undoubtedly the true Church of God." With this one Church Field identities the Reformed Churches, such as those of England, Germany, and Geneva. They are called Churches as belonging to different nations, but they are connected with that one Catholic Church which was established at Pentecost. They did not begin with the Reformers, but God used the Reformers as His servants to put away some evils that had grown up in them. The inclusion of non-Episcopal Churches determines what Field thought a lawful ministry. (Hunt's Religious Thought in England, pp. 116-119.)
As to the possession of the bare and empty name of Catholic as a mark of the true Church, Field admits that there may have been something in it in the days of our fathers, but it is now common to schismatics and heretics, and therefore not a mark of the true Church. When there was but one main body of Christians, the word Catholic meant something. But when the East was divided from the West, the name remained common to both parties. The Greek Church, not less than the Latin, is the Catholic Church. As this name has ceased to be a note of the true Church, so the
The Latin Church, Field says, was the true Church till our time. We condemn the errors, not the doctrines, of that Church. Luther did not begin a new Church.
In speaking of Church Government, Field is very clear. Orders, he reduces to the necessity of order. He dare not, he says, condemn those worthy men who were ordained by Presbyters, when the Bishops were opposed to the truth of God. In their circumstances, ordination by Presbyters was orders, and therefore valid orders. The Lutheran and Presbyterian Churches are therefore reckoned as one with the Church of England, and as members of the Catholic Church.
Archbishop Usher did not regard the Presbyterian minister as unordained, but he thought it desirable to restore the Apostolic model of Bishops acting with their Presbyteries. Ordination by Presbyteries might be schismatical, but it was justified by circumstances. (Hunt's Religious Thought, 172.)
Hooker's view of orders may be gathered from the following extracts:—
"Which divisions and contentions might have easily been prevented, if the orders which each Church did think fit and convenient for itself had not so peremptorily been established under high commanding form, which tendered them unto the people as things everlastingly required by the law of that Lord of Hosts against whose statutes there is no exception to be taken. For by this it came to pass, that one Church could not but condemn another of disobedience to the will of Christ." (Hooker, Ecc. Pol., 161, Keble's edition.)
"If we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us, and the strongest against them, were to hold, even as they do, that in Scripture there must need be found some particular form of Church polity which God hath instituted, and which, for that very cause, belongeth to all Churches and all times. But with any such eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow." (Hooker, p. 494.)
Hooker denies explicitly that in Scripture there must be of
It is curious to see how the Scotch clung to the reality of Episcopacy after the name of it was abandoned, and they had committed themselves against its reintroduction. They regarded it in two aspects—
In this latter aspect they were willing to accept it, only under another name; and it is almost amusing to read the description given of the duties of the Superintendent, as laid down in the First Book of Discipline agreed to by the Scottish Kirk of
"We consider that, if the ministers whom God hath endowed with his singular graces among us, should be appointed to remote places, there to make their continuale residence, that then the greatest part of the realme should be destitute of all doctrine, which should not only be the occasion of great murmur, but also be dangerous to the salvation of many. And therefore, we have thought it a thing most expedient at this time, that from the whole number of godly and learned men now presently in this realme, be selected ten or twelve, to whom charge and commandments should be given to plant and erect kirkes; to set, order, and appoint ministers, as the former order prescribes to the countries that shall be appointed to their care where none are now; and by their means, your love and care over all the inhabitants of this realme, to whom you are equally debtors, shall evidently appear; as also the simple and ignorant, who perchance have never heard Jesus Christ truely preached shall come to some knowledge, by the which many that are dead in superstition and ignorance shall attain to some feeling of godliness, by the which they may be provoked to search and seek further knowledge of God, and his true religion and worshipping; whereas by the contrary, if they shall be neglected, then shall they not only grudge but also
Then follow the designation of the Dioceses or Superintendencies, and the chief town at which the Superintendents are to reside in each, Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries, &c.
"These men must not be suffered to live as your idle Bishops have done heretofore, neither must they remain gladly where they would, but they must be preachers themselves, and such as may not make long residence in any place, till their kirkes be planted and provided of ministers, or at least of readers. Charge must be given them that they remain in no place above twenty daies in their visitation, till they have passed through their whole bounds. They must thrice everie week preach at the least, and when they return to their principal town and residence, they must be likewise exercised in preaching and edification of the kirk, and yet they must not be suffered to continue there so long that they may seem to neglect their other kirks. But after they have remained in their chief towne three or foure months at most; they shall be compelled (unless by sicknesse they be retained), to reenter on visitation, in which they shall not only preach, but also examine the life, diligence, and behaviour of the ministers, as also the order of the kirkes and the maimers of the people. They must further consider how the poor be provided and the youth be instructed. They must admonish where admonition needeth, and drene such things as by good counsell they be able to appease. And finally, they must note such crimes as be heynous, that by the advice of the kirk the same may be corrected."
While reading the above description, we almost recognise it as a photograph of Bishops in New Zealand, who are charged with all the above mentioned functions, in addition to several others of equally important character. We can scarcely believe that the Presbyterians of New Zealand would object to that which was accepted and approved by the very founder of their present establishment, John Knox, or refuse to join, for the sake of greater union and more extensive usefulness, a system which he had expressed approval of. But for the arbitrariness of James the First and Charles the First, Scotland would have received Episcopacy in a moderated and more primitive form; but the times were out
Henceforth, on such a basis as this, there was small hope for union, and both parties seem to have declared "war to the knife;" no state policy, no personal ability, not even a Chrysostom in holy eloquence, nor the angelical life of as genuine a saint as ever trod the earth, could win over the Presbyterians of those days, who were determined that a Bishop never could be anything other than a wolf, and no shepherd, they would not believe, and not altogether without reason, but that Prelacy was a back-door by which Popery might be brought back again into Scotland, forgetting that that was not the only danger, and that there can be Protestant Popes as well as Romanist, and that spiritual despotism may exist as well in the cold grey kirks of Scotland as in the darkened halls of the sun-emblazoned temple of St. Peter's,—forgetting that it is the papacy of human nature which has from age to age to be protested against, and on which the door must be closed, whether it proceed from judaic, papal, puritan prelatical, episcopalian, presbyterian, methodistic, independent, or secularist sources; for all of these, so far as they are true to human nature, have an indisputable tendency to produce Popes from time to time.
Nevertheless, from
In
In
In
In
The times are well described in a poem, entitled "The Bishop's Walk," by "Orwell," in which Bishop Leighton speaks thus:—
Charles the Second, like his grandfather, hoped to use Episcopacy as his tool for subjugating the Scotch to despotism, and to prepare the way in time for the reintroduction of Popery, for which he had conceived a strong desire during his exile. Accordingly, by forcible proclamation of Council, not on the petition of their lawful ecclesiastical assemblies, Episcopacy was again established in
There was at that time again exhibited a disposition to accept a moderate form of Episcopacy. The Synod of Aberdeen desired it, and two-thirds of the ministers conformed to it; and had the rest of the Bishops been penetrated with the same humility, discretion, and love for the essentials of Christian conduct that characterised Leighton, we should not have had to discuss the question before us.
Archbishop Sharp, however, proved himself a hard, rapacious, and cruel man. He set up a court of ecclesiastical commission which filled the prisons to overflowing, and when they would hold no more the victims were transported to Barbadoes.
These last Bishops were invested with such immense power, that the former set made by the Parliament of
1 That the Church should be governed by the Bishops and their clergy mixing together in the Church judicatories, in which the Bishop should act only as a President, and be determined by the majority of his presbytery, both in the matter of jurisdiction and ordination.
2 That the presbyters should be allowed, when they first sat down in their judicatories, to declare that their sitting under a Bishop was submitted to by them for peace sake, with a reservation of their opinions with relation to any such presidency, and that no negative vote should be claimed by the Bishop.
3 That Bishops should go to the churches in which such as were candidates for ordination were to serve, and hear and discuss any exceptions that were made to them, and ordain them with the concurrence of the presbytery.
4 That such as were to be ordained should have leave to declare their opinions, if they held that the Bishop was only the head of the presbyters.
5 That provincial Synods should sit in course every third year, or oftener if the King summoned them, in which complaints of the Bishops should be received, and they should be censured according to their deserts.
In Assertory Act was passed, placing all power in ecclesiastical causes and arrangements in the hands of the King in council. One result was to transfer Bishop Leighton from Dunblane to Glasgow as Archbishop, in the hopes that, in a position of higher dignity, his influence might proportionally increase. In connection with this a new conference was held at Holyrood, to endeavour to conciliate the Presbyterians. At this meeting, Leighton dwelt on the calamities which had already arisen from the sad alienation of Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and after notifying the readiness of the Bishops to stoop to the lowest point of defensible yielding in meeting the Presbyterian scruples, he drew a comparison between the two platforms, pointing out what he thought the defects inherent in the Presbyterian system, and the ground there was for concluding that Episcopacy had existed in substance, if not in name, from the infantile age of Christianity. He laboured to convince them, that many parts of the Presbyterian discipline were not fortified by apostolic practice, and bore no signature of a Divine appointment; that in establishing a form of ecclesiastical government, we are free to institute offices of which the inspired yolume furnishes no precedent, provided nothing contrary to the orders of Christ, and to the spirit
Such reasonable negociations as these nevertheless proved useless where men had made up their minds; but unsparing in his efforts to accomplish his desire for union, later in the same year,
The only answer given to such proposals was—"We are not free in conscience to close with the propositions made by the Bishop of Dunblane as satisfactory."
His answer was:—"My sole object has been to procure peace, and to advance the interests of true religion. In following up this object I have made several proposals, which I am fully sensible involved great diminutions of the just rights of Episcopacy; yet, since all Church power is intended for edification and not for destruction, I thought that, in our present circumstances, Episcopacy might do more for the prosperity of Christ's kingdom, by relaxing some of its just pretensions, than it could by keeping hold of all its rightful authority. It is not from any mistrust of the soundness of our cause that I have offered these abatements, for I am well convinced that Episcopacy has subsisted from the Apostolic age of the Church. Perhaps I have wronged my own order in making such largo concessions, but the unerring Discerner of hearts will justify my motives, and I hope ere long to stand excused with my own brethren."
The only answer the Presbyterians would give to this last and final appeal was, that the solemn oath they had taken forbad (to use their own words) a hoof or so much as a hair of the Scottish model to be departed from. In
The Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, trod in the
It was left to William of Orange to terminate the sad struggle, and this only after recourse to very questionable means of pacification, till at last the political atmosphere becoming calmer, and the union of the two kingdoms being consummated on the basis of the existence and establishment of two national Churches, Presbyterianism remained in the possession of the field, and the Episcopalian congregations, scattered and harassed, had some difficulty in maintaining their existence; and by a natural reaction, were in their turn the victims of restrictive and arbitrary laws; their service was proscribed, and their clergy denied the right of ministration till very recent days.
We do not desire to prolong the traditions of the past into the present, but rather to look at the matter anew, and hope that in the very heart of Presbyterianism itself, there will be found a disposition to unite with us on an Episcopal basis, on terms which shall be honourable to both sides.
Arising out of the necessities of the case originally, and approved by the example and provision of the Apostles, especially St. Paul, if Episcopacy is to be restored universally, it must be by its being regarded as supplying a felt need; and thus revived and accepted, it will, we fully believe, in a well balanced system, approve itself as one of the best organizations for the defence and spread of the truth. A new principle, that of perfect toleration, is the principle of our æra; neither Episcopacy nor Presbyterianism have yet been tried on the basis of complete toleration. We must not think that Episcopacy, acting with perfect toleration, and the absence of coercive force, will produce the same evils as Episcopacy leagued with and hampered by the intolerance and ignorance of the past.
How full of instruction and suggestion is this history; how noble, and, on the other hand, how weak and vile were some of the actors in it. How nearly men approached to what we in these last days desire; will it be our happiness to go further in accomplishing union than they did?
Perhaps we may gain what we wish by simple cooperation and combined action, whereas they persisted in looking for it only in subordination of one to the other. Whether or not the present is an æra of favourable and converging contact, has to be proved. My argument is this,—all that ever was said before in favour of
Our circumstances are wholly new, and wholly different from those of any age before us; and there is room for new action, new construction, and new results. Let us not, for the sake of quietness, cast away such a precious opportunity, nor try to re-produce the cracked china of a past age, but present to the world a new form of a Christian Church, unshackled as to its government and organization, either by local, territorial, or traditional conditions,—that has all the family features of the blanches of Christ's Church from which it has resulted, and through which it derives its unbroken connection with the Apostolic Church; a Church which would be recognised by any primitive Christian in the simplicity of its creed and worship, while in its comprehensiveness and fulness, it satisfies minds educated under all the varied influences of the past history of churches and doctrines.
I conclude this sketch with the following extract from the Bishop of Christchurch's (our Primate) address to the General Synod, "It is here in New Zealand, indeed, that we are made to feel most sensibly the unquestionable evils of disunion, and the waste of power for good which must ever be the ease, when persons having the same object in view, and labouring in the same field of labour, are systematically acting apart from each other. "Our Church, so far as I know, has never pronounced any opinion on the validity of the ministry of other communions—she has only declared that no one shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the United Church of England and Ireland, except he shall have Episcopal consecration or ordination; and while abstaining, in like manner, from drawing any invidious comparison between our ministry and that of other communions, we shall, I have no doubt, feel ourselves bound to hold fast the precious heirloom which
Our disunion, in some instances, may have been overruled for good, but it is plainly an unchristian state of things; and if, at this present time, we can do nothing more than retain upon our records the resolution referred to, it is at least an admission, on our part, that such disunion is deeply to be regretted, and that it is our duty to be still seeking to remedy it, and to be assistant in any practical efforts for that purpose. Much of course may be effected in this direction, if the members of the various religious bodies maintain friendly intercourse with each other; honestly appreciate the services of each other in the cause of religion; and if, with larger sympathies with those who differ from them, they tolerate opinions and practices which are not opposed to the fundamental principles of Christianity and to purity of morals; allowing, that is to others in such matters, the same liberty as they claim for themselves. But I must add that, in my opinion, we must go further than this, if there is to be in this Colony any effectual and enduring restoration of Christian unity. We must endeavour to realise our Christian brotherhood, by uniting together in one religious organization, so that we may labour together side by side in full communion with each other, not necessarily in the same way, but still under rules which shall be equally binding upon all.
Actuated by similar feelings, the Rev. D. M. Stuart, of John Knox Church, Dunedin, offered the pulpit of his church to one of the Bishops when at Dunedin. The Bishops answered the kindly invitation in the following terms:—
"
My Dear Sir,—Mr. Edwards has placed in our hands your letter of February 1st, kindly inviting one of the Bishops now in the city to preach in Knox Church on Sunday forenoon. We most sincerely thank you for this token of your good will, and recognition of our common ministry as preachers of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and personally we should have had much satisfaction in accepting your invitation, but in such a matter as this we do not consider ourselves at liberty to follow our own inclinations without the concurrence of that branch of the Church of which we are ministers. We are compelled, therefore, to decline your kind invitation. Trusting, however, that the time is not far distant when, not only in preaching the Word of God, but in all other efforts for the cause of true religion, we may be brought nearer to each other."We beg to subscribe ourselves yours very faithfully in the Lord,
, Primate. H. C. ChristchurchW. Waiapu.A. B. Nelson.W. G. Auckland.A, Wellington.Rev. D. M. Stuart. Dunedin, February 3rd, 1871."
The reason for the Bishops' withholding at the time was not, as was foolishly stated, any objection to preach in a building not formally dedicated according to the rites of the English Church, but in order that, when it was done, it might if possible be a public and official, rather than a private and personal, act. We are each of us perfectly free to do it at any time.
II. Now, turning from these periods, during which there have been opportunities lost or improved for union and comprehension, we shall have borne away from them the memory of many who stood forth conspicuously in each sera as men of union—men claimed in spirit, if not in letter, by both sides—men whose catholic spirit surpassed the limits of the particular fold of which
The very men who were exasperated to take a most prominent line in opposing our Episcopal system, or rather the Episcopal system of their own day, were men whom, if they had lived now, we should have for our allies.
John Knox himself would, we firmly believe, have voted for such Episcopacy as is proposed now, and such as is practically carried out; but the only Bishops he knew in Scotland were identified with Romanist and unreformed views, and this prevented his sanctioning the establishment of such a government. I cannot allow him to be quoted against Episcopal government now, or against liturgical services, and many other features of the Anglican Church; it was against a different Church altogether that he protested, and against the possible rein traduction of Popery through its means. Had Scotland seen among its Bishops men like Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and Hooper, it would have looked at the office with a more kindly eye, and admitted the possibility of its being restored with safety and advantage.
Calvin, so misunderstood by those who bear his name, and fancy they are his followers, by no means rejected the office; its associations were so strong, that he was afraid to carry out his own advice and system; but shall we not rather recur to his well studied theory and approved system, rather than to the make shifts to which he was reduced by the prejudices and dangers of the time. After reading his opinions, I have no hesitation in classing him as a friend. Bishop Hall quoted him as such within a hundred years of his death.
Who would have thought at first sight that we should be justified in claiming Baxter as an ally in our protest in favour of Episcopacy. I have transcribed here Mr. Baxter's own words, Church Government, part iii. p. 276.
"An Episcopacy desirable for the reformation and peace of the Churches. A fixed president
durantevita. But some will say, we are engaged against all prelacy by covenant, and therefore cannot yield to so much as you do without perjury.Ans. That this is utterly untrue, I thus demonstrate—"1. When that covenant was presented to the Assembly with the bare name of prelacy joined to popery, many grave and reverend divines desired that the word prclacy might be explained, because it was not all Episcopacy they were against,
and therefore the following concatenation in the parenthesis was given by way of explication in these words: That a Church government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans and Chapters, Archdeans, and all the other ecclesiastical officers, depending on that hierarchy. By which it appears, that it was only the English hierarchy or frame that was covenanted against, and that which was then existent, but was taken down. "2. When the House of Lords took the covenant, Mr. Thomas Coleman, that gave it them, did so explain it, and profess that it was not their intent to covenant against all Episcopacy,
and upon this explication it was taken; and certainly the Parliament was most capable of giving the due sense of it, because it was they that did impose it."3. And it could not be all Episcopacy that was excluded, because a parochial Episcopacy was at the same time used and approved commonly here in England.
"4. And in Scotland they had used the help of visitors for the reformation of their Churches, committing the care of a country or circuit to some one man, which was as high a sort of Episcopacy as any I am pleading for. Besides that they had Moderators in all their Synods, who were temporary Bishops.
"5. Also, the chief divines of the late Assembly at Westminster, that recommended that covenant to the nations, have professed their own judgments for such a moderate Episcopacy as I am here defending, and therefore never intended the exclusion of this by covenant."
After this Baxter adds:—
"As we have prelacy to beware of, so we have the contrary extreme to avoid, and the Church's peace (if it may be) to procure; and as we must not take down the ministry, lest it prepare men for Episcopacy, so neither must we be against any profitable exercise of the ministry, or desirable order amongst them, for fear of introducing Prelacy."
Surely here is a person who may bring Presbyterians and Episcopalians together; who may say to the former, surely you cannot object to this; to the latter, you do not ask more. Just as we appealed to the reformers of whom we have spoken before, we appeal to Baxter's serious unprejudiced judgment, and we feel his advice to us is that we need not keep asunder.
But of all the men of contact, none stands out so prominently, none has a name more acceptable to both of us, than that of Archbishop Leighton, whose gentle spirit and Christ-like disposition are strikingly brought out by his coming into contact with Presbyterians and Episcopalians, as we have seen above.
Few contrasts are more curious than those of Dr. Leighton, the father, and Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow, the son.
The father wrote a most intemperate appeal to Parliament, entitled "Sion's Plea against Prelacy." Of this we are told, the arguments were those of the Presbyterian party, not strong in themselves, yet deriving strength from the manifold evils unreformed in the Church.
"The Lord," he says, "had a controversy with the land, because the prelates had usurped the place of Christ. Parliament is asked to remove Ashtaroth, that God's judgments against us may cease, that the honour of the state may be redeemed, and there may be a dashing of Babel's brats against the wall."
This is a kind of contact not very agreeable to contemplate; and, according to the savage custom of those times, R. Leighton reaped the reward of his intemperance and misquotation of Holy Scripture, by having his ears cropped, and being condemned to stand in the pillory with his objectionable treatise slung to his neck.
Who would have expected with such a beginning and associations, to find his son a model Bishop, and, above all, a Scotch Bishop; and yet we are quite willing to let the whole question between us be decided by Leighton's arguments and writings. His integrity is undeniable; the advantage of his loving, wise, and Christian superintendence over the clergy of his diocese cannot be questioned; and his proposals come to us with a force and claim for our consideration such as none others can have. Others may overwhelm us with their history, precedents, and arguments; he makes us feel such a man could scarcely have gone very far wrong in a matter of this kind; and when we see in his history how many loopholes he had by which he might have escaped, he becomes one of our most valued witnesses in any plan for reunion or combination of differing Churches. We cannot adduce any new arguments,—we cannot make any further concessions than he made,—we cannot outrun his charity,—we can scarcely equal his devotion; and as we read his life at the present day, we cannot help feeling that there must be some great advantage to be derived by the Church by following out this organization, otherwise so wise, so holy a man would scarcely have thought himself justified in spending so much time and labour to re-establish it. The anecdotes related of him show, that he laid down the controversy as soon as ever he could consistently; and if so, the fact that he took it up again as of necessity, proved how strongly he felt about the matter.
But we have seen that even he did not succeed; and if so, is there any hope for us now? If so, it must be wholly in the alteration of the times; and they are so completely changed, that we hope men's minds are changed too, and that they no longer take fright at a name, nor adhere to a matter only for its age.
After Leighton's death in
There were to be found a few individuals on both sides who recognised their common Christianity, as, for example, we find the Rev. M. Hervey, author of "Theron and Aspasio," in
If a revival came after, it was not owing to the excellence of either a Presbyterian or Episcopalian government, for one of the chief agents in it was Whitefield, who, cast out of the Established Church of England, visited Scotland in
No sooner, however, were men roused to a sense of sin and to faith in the gospel, than there rose up in both Churches men who were glad to fraternise, and appreciate good in other Churches besides their own,—men like Dr. Chalmers, who could write thus in "It is not to any violent demolition in the existing framework of society, that we look for the impulse that is to regulate our nation. The actual constitution, whether of Church or State, is a piece of goodly and effective mechanism, were the living agents who work it animated with the right zeal and the right principle. And sorry should we be in particular, were a rashly innovating hand laid upon the venerable Hierarchy of England. Even the affluence of its higher dignitaries, so obnoxious to some, could be made subservient to the best of causes; and through it, the principle of deference to station, which, in spite of all his assumed sturdiness, every man feels to be insuperable within him, may be enlisted on the side of Christianity. We envy not that dissenter his feelings, who could not bless God and rejoice in the progress of an Apostolical Bishop through the diocese."
What a change has come over Presbyterians for one of them to speak thus of Episcopacy. They can now do justice to their own convictions, because their prejudices are not roused by being compelled to accept what is distasteful.
From Dr. Chalmers' time persons of contact are frequent on both sides. Edward Irving, of Scotch Church, Regent Square, London, thus preached at its opening:—
"I commend first of all to you the churches of our Presbytery, that you may pray for them, and affectionately desire their prosperity in faith and righteousness. Next I commend unto you the churches of our sister Establishment, that you may love them as sisters in the Lord, and join with them in sweet fellowship, as Abraham did unto Eschol and Aner, when he went to do battle with Chedorlaomer who had spoiled Lot."
We wonder not that Dr. James Hamilton, his successor, the author of the "Mount of Olives," "Life in Earnest," &c., was found dedicating some of his hooks to (his former fellow-collegian) the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and constantly mixing and associating with Episcopalian clergymen.
You may judge of the way in which each side takes advantage of the excellencies of the other, by observing on the shelves of how many Presbyterian clergy is to be found, Keble's celebrated collection of poems, "The Christian Year," and the frequency with which you meet with the "Memoir of the Rev. R. M. M Cheyne," in Church of England studies. We can only now mention the names of those who are men of contact,—time fails us to show the degree in which they are so. But the names of Dean Alford, Lindsay Alexander, Arnot, Beith, M'Cosh, Tulloch, Guthrie, Cairns, Horatius and Andrew Bonar, Smith of Jordanhill, Douglas of Cavers, Dean Ramsay, Sir D. Brewster, Professor Balfour. G. Wilson, and Norman M'Leod, are familiar to both sides, their works equally appreciated and consulted as being of an essentially catholic spirit; not to speak of the community of editorship in Clark's valuable "Theological Library," in which clergy of both Churches are associated together. The late Lord Aberdeen, when Lord Haddo, at one and the same time fraternised with the Presbytery in his own native country, and liberally erected and endowed an Episcopalian church, parsonage, and school in the east of London, in Whitechapel, which was then the parish of the present Dean of Lichfield, the Rev. W. Champneys, Whitechapel., Such are specimens of men of contact.
Amongst men of contact who have recently lived, we must spare a special notice for Dr. R. Lee, of Greyfriars' church—not indeed that he was an Episcopalian, or had any inclinations personally in that direction, but he was identified with, and the prime originator of a movement which has gone far to break down the differences between our modes of worship, and so, we trust, to help us to draw nearer to each other. He had to fight an uphill battle against prejudice, in the effort to introduce and obtain license, if not sanction, for the introduction of instrumental music into churches, and conducting service by a written, printed, or
We find persons of contact in the missionaries to the heathen, of whom Dr. Duff and Dr. W. Burns are good specimens. Of the former, there was no greater friend or appreciator than Dr. G. Lynch Cotton, the late Bishop of Calcutta, who signalised his episcopate by arranging for the use of Episcopal churches by Presbyterian congregations; and the latter was always ready to co-operate with the missionaries of the Church of England. In the presence of heathenism the questions of government are in abeyance, and long may they remain so. A work has been going on in Scotland and India, chiefly connected with the Presbyterian Church, in providing medical missionaries. Some are trained in Scotland, some in India; of these latter, we hear last year of twelve who were trained under Presbyterian influence, under Mr. David Paterson of Madras; three of them are under the Church Missionary Society, and one under the Society for Propagation of the Gospel; while of four students who went forth from the Institution in
Now, what are the signs of the times as regards contact between different religious sections,—are men altering their tone, are they moderating their language as regards each other? Undoubtedly the leaders of Presbyterian thought are modifying their ancient arbitrariness. You well know what used to be said in Disruption times,—nothing could be said bad enough for those who did not come out of the Established Kirk; but now just listen to Dr. Candlish, at a meeting held in Edinburgh, "Dr. Candlish maintained the independence of the Church. He would not consent to he tied to
At a large meeting recently held at Glasgow, Dr. Islay Bums used the following remarkable language, which, although used
"The Church was not a mere number of people having a kindly feeling to-wards each other, but it was a living society of men and women, united together in the Lord in common faith, and for common work, and common worship and service. The denominational system, with which they were so calamitously familiar, was entirely an invasion of modern times, and in its very idea was new to the writers of the New Testament. Those who discourage the unity of the Church were not sound Presbyterians. The terms of union were in essence the same as the terms were from the first in the Church of Christ. It must be so, for Christ was their only legislator, and He had never given any new laws to his Church since the completion of the New Testament canon, though the duty of the Church in applying and defending them varied from age to age. This was the great distinction between scriptural principles and the application of scriptural principles. The one was immutable, unchangeable,—the other changed with the change of time and circumstances."
On the same occasion, Dr. Gould, Mr. Arnot, and Dr. Nelson' spoke in the same spirit.
Some, ignorant of Baxter's explanation, as given above (page 21). fancy incorrectly that the Westminster Confession is an obstacle to the adoption of Episcopacy, but there are many Pres-byterians who agree with the following sentiments uttered by Dr. Buchanan of Glasgow:—
"Our own Church does not now, and never did, receive that Confession without important explanations. That any of the other negotiating Churches receive it in the same way, cannot possibly, therefore, in and of itself, furnish any ground for saying that there is an objection in principle to our uniting with those Churches on the basis of a common confession. The only possible way in which the contrary could be proved, would be by making it clearly out that these explanations contained something so radically different from ours, and something in which vital principle was so essentially involved, that not even for the sake of an object so great or good as that of union among the unhappily divided sections of our common Scottish Presbyterian Church, would we consent to make that difference a matter of forbearance, and this is really the hinge of the whole controversy."
IV. What now has our enquiry reached? and what fears and hopes has the review of the past raised in our minds? One in darkness; the same Reformation led us into clearer light, but altered our relationship. Many efforts have been made to bring us together; they have failed—will they continue to fail—is there not in our circumstances here a call from God to join once
We thus come to the fourth division of our subject, the Prospects of Contact between Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches,
Here we approach some difficulties. If we have come, like the two goats in Luther's fable, to the middle of the plank, so that one must bend down for the other to walk over, it will become a great question whether either party has at present enough Christian humility or desire for union as to be willing to take the subordinate place; it may not, however, be necessary to come to this; if, however, it is,—if Episcopalians do come down so far, and yet Presbyterians will not move on and take advantage of it, at whose door will it lie?—at ours or yours? Some Presbyterians say—"Wait a little, they are so anxious to have us—the Bishop of Nelson, and those who think with him, will fall into our arms, and we will absorb them." "Excuse me, I do not think so." A leading member of the Presbyterian community, not in Otago, said very recently to me, "If our people knew all your organization of Diocesan and General Synods, and what power the people have in the appointment of Pastors and Bishops, they would join you directly." I am not so sanguine as that. But what I want to show is, that whereas in a case of this kind there must be some giving and taking, we, as Episcopalians, have given and altered and reformed already. We do not, for example, present you with an arbitrary Church government. The Bishop in our Church, as at present constituted, is, by way of government and executive, above his clergy, and as such is valued by them. I would always myself prefer to be under one man than under many. I do not like committees, or councils, or kirk-sessions, for that reason. If you have to deal with a man, you have all his conscience and kindness there; but when you get to a number of men, one man's conscience crouches down behind his neighbour's.
I am sure no definite Church system is enforced and laid down arbitrarily in the Now Testament; there are records of what was done, evidently as a pattern to be followed; and in the remarkably honest words of one of your own professors, Dr. Islay Burns—"There were three primary elements of the apostolic order—the presiding minister (whether bishop or presbyter bishop), presbyters, and deacons—and to these were added, a.d. 250, other offices." These facts lead us to believe that the Apos-
For the sake of unity, and to avoid too great individuality, the Church erected Episcopacy; and such a form of Church government was certainly in use universally from within 100 years after Christ until
The prospects of contact lie in the direction, first, of the recognition of Presbyterian orders; and, secondly, in the Presbyterian adoption of Episcopal superintendence and organization.
It is my own opinion, that we in the Church of England ought to recognise formally, as we have already done indirectly, and for a long season actually, the orders of Presbyterian ministers; that we ought to recognise them as ministers of the gospel, and after receiving from them the declaration of their conformity to our standards, admit them to officiate in our Church, subject, of course, to such conditions as our own clergy have imposed on them, and subject to any other restrictions necessary for discipline and order. This may, to some of my own Church, appear a bold step; but are they at all aware that, as a Church, we have already actually recognised them, and that overtures have been made to them from time to time to this effect, which, however, were not accepted, probably from want of confidence in those who offered them.
The foreign Reformed Churches of France and Germany were recognised by such men as Hooker, Lord Bacon, Bishop Davenant, and even Bishop Cosin himself; and although narrower counsels prevailed in the last revision of the Prayer Book, and Episcopal ordination was a sine quâ non, yet it is satisfactory to know that we have, in taking this broad view, so many on our side.
I must commend to the notice of all my so called High Church hearers, the words of Bishop Cosin; he was Bishop of Durham, and one of the chief speakers at the Savoy Conference. Baxter says of him, he was excellently well versed in Canons, Councils, and Fathers, which he remembered, when by citing of any passages we tried him. "I would be loath," he says, to determine that those ordained by Presbyters are no ministers." It is not desirable that Presbyters should make Presbyters, yet their ordination is good and valid. "It is," he says, "the judgment of learned and eminent men, both Catholics and Protestants, that Presbyters have the intrinsic power of ordination in actu primo." And that this was the doctriue of the Church of England, he brings forward the case of a French minister coming to incorporate himself with us. "In such a case we do not reordain, and never did."
A little later we have the following propositions made by Archbishop Tillotson,
This has been done.This we are providing for in the. Constitution and Statutes of our New Zealand branch of the Church of England.for the future none be capable of any ecclesiastical benefice or preferment in the Church of England that shall be ordained in England otherwise than by Bishops, and that those who have been ordained only by Presbyters shall not be compelled to renounce their former ordination. But because many have and do still doubt the validity of such ordinations where episcopal ordination may be had, and is by law required, it shall be sufficient for such persons to receive ordination from a Bishop in this or the like form—'If thou art not already ordained, I ordain thee.' As in case a doubt be made of anyone's baptism, it is appointed by the Liturgy that he be baptised in this form—'If thou art not baptised, I baptise thee.'"
I merely quote the above as the proposal of an Archbishop of our Church, to meet the objections which will arise rather from our own side than yours, and also to prove my loyalty to our Church system before going further.
As it stands at present, it will be necessary for a Presbyterian minister to be ordained by a Bishop and the Presbyters of the
status in Presbyterian orders, but he had thereby gained admission to the ministry of the Episcopal Church. I do not feel satisfied with individual exchange of pulpits; it is too private and unauthorised a proceeding, though perhaps the way to authorise it is to try it. There ought to be a mutual recognition that the administrators of each Church have an inherent right to inquire into the motives, and knowledge, and profession, and behaviour, of every one who aspires to be a minister thereof; and, therefore, I am quite ready for myself, if that be the condition laid down, to consent to give my account of my faith to any proper authorities in the Presbyterian Church, who have from the nature of the case a corresponding right to ask a reason of the faith that is in me, with a view to the exercise of that position of Christian minister in connection with such Christian bodies as they themselves may represent. John Howe said, "I will not be re-ordained, because a thing cannot have two beginnings." This seemed a smart, but, was it a true or wise, saying? How much wiser and more reasonable was Leighton's view at the same period, when he having received Presbyterian orders was admitted to Episcopal ordination by Bishop Sheldon. In his opinion, "the re-ordaining a priest or
de facto previous ordination.
Is it Utopian to expect this? There would probably be some congregations and ministers who would hold out long, perhaps as long as their existence, against such a theory; they would determine to regard a proposal for any thing like re-ordination as an insult, notwithstanding the above explanation; and when a man makes up his mind that you must, shall, and will insult him, not-withstanding all your protestations to the contrary, he believes himself rather than you, and is even confirmed in his belief by your pretexts.
The next perfect point of contact is that of the recognition of Episcopal organization. I do not wish to see what is known as Prelacy restored. No one desires it—certainly not Dunedin. But some, nay many, Presbyterians have already expressed to me their feeling that such an organization has its peculiar merits, and they feel themselves much drawn towards it. I do not fear the direction affairs are taking. The prospects of contact are bright in this direction, and all we desire is to recommend such organization to your gradual adoption, by proving in a quiet and uncontroversial yet progressive manner, that Episcopal organization is one under which the best interests of Christ's Church in New Zealand will most rapidly and permanently be secured.
Whether, as some think, an occasional exchange of pulpits and services should precede any formal expression of recognition of Presbyterian orders on the one side, and of Episcopal government on the other, is a matter which will require very careful consideration. If it be adopted, I venture to suggest that there should be a temporary form of license or admission of this description:—"I, A. B., about to be permitted, or being united, to officiate in such and such a church, do promise, in discharge of such function to abstain from preaching anything contrary to the doctrines or formularies of the Church in whoso buildings I may officiate."
It will be said no fair man or gentleman would take advantage
I am convinced that some good would result from such a plan. Such occasional conferences and interchanges would lead to better understanding and mutual esteem of each by the other. Men who had stood on the same spot, and preached faith in the same Saviour, and heard one another do so, would in most cases be marvellously drawn to each other, would learn to esteem one another very highly in love for the work's sake, and be at peace among themselves.
Another point and prospect of contact in the future immediately over against us, will be that of our common version of Holy Scripture, and our efforts added to those of others in supporting institutions for the object of disseminating the Bible. With regard to the British and Foreign Bible Society all Church people who support the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel should support the forenamed Society, for without its aid this venerable Society could not carry on its missions. But it is not only in maintaining and circulating our present authorised version that we may unite, we shall have to combine together in support of the editing and publishing of the new revised version of the Scriptures now being undertaken in England. The scorn raised against this work by a few, shows how much they dread the increased power which the Word itself will have, when divested of some of the human imperfections now hanging to it in its external form. It is specially interesting to know, that scholars from the north of the Tweed, and representing the intellectual power of Presbyterianism, are sitting on the Revision Committee side by side with men of strongly pronounced Anglican Church opinions, brought into contact not by force of Royal Mandate, nor Court influence, but by the freedom of a kindly invitation, and the cordiality of a self-imposed task and a mutually recognised duty. Those who have joined together in breaking of the Bread of life in the Word of God, and distributing it to the multitudes waiting for it, will be hereby drawn together into a closer union than they or we have ever yet experienced.
"If on one Book their minds have fed,
And they have in one meaning read."
They will hand over to us for increased distribution amongst the Anglo-Saxon race the Word of God in its purest and most accurate form; and it will be our privilege to unite together, as now, in this our one Bible, and to combine for the purpose of dispersing it over the world.
But common enemies and opponents will bring us together, and force us to find some way of union which the halcyon days of peace and assent would never have brought about. It cannot be denied that Materialism has of late raised its head proudly; there are men amongst us who are materialists, and who are not ashamed to assert it; and there are many more who are such practically, but blush and are angry with the imputation, and try to explain it away; such as these are our real opponents; these are they who will rob us of all high thought, noble enterprise, glorious hope, or animating prospect beyond this life; they are destined to make life a misery, man a being far more unhappy than the brutes he despises, and the world a blank and a great mistake. How are such to be treated; are they to be put down as pests, stamped out as dangerously infectious, or to be tolerated? To be tolerated certainly. To be left alone, or, if handled at all, to be met, not with the boots, thumbscrews, and cropping of ears, as in olden days, but with the anti-dote of increased knowledge more widely diffused, of less smattering, and better balanced education, and well pointed argument. Surely here is work for the Argyles, and M'Leods, and Campbells, and the Mansells, Moselys, and Liddons, on the other. Work in which they may and ought to join, to the help of Truth against Falsehood.
We cannot afford to spend a book or an hour in controversy about Church government, compared with the duty of defending our young men against such unhappy soul and spirit destroying tendencies. The sense of a common danger will make us better friends, and we shall have to thank our opponents for uniting us. Our bookshelves are destined to receive many additions from the combined action of Presbyterians and Episcopalians in arresting a common danger. In presence of the Amorite, Ephraim and Judah will let go their envy and join one another.
But we have opponents in other directions, and we cannot refrain, for the sake of quietness and false peace, from pointing them out, especially as not from any action of ours, but from their own, they force such notions upon us. I refer to the Roman Catholics, and more especially to those of them, whoever they may
Not only in Dunedin, but in Nelson and elsewhere, we are asking what are to be the limits of interference with education, in a country which has determined not to endow any religion, but to tolerate all such as do not interfere with the liberty of the person We are asking what is to be the limit of Romanist claims upon our educational funds, and the mode of their disbursement. We hear that history has to be re-written to please them; that their young men when they go to College are not to read the same English history as their comrades. Will you agree to this? Will you, at their dictation, blot out a painful but yet a most instructive page of English history which we are not I hope ashamed of, nor have we ceased to be thankful for it as a whole, viz., the Reformation.
Was it a mistake? Was it not needed? It was indeed brought about by mixed motives, but for all that we are thankful for it, and stand to its principles,—which are, liberty of thought, liberty of speech, the Word in our own tongue, and no [other] mediator between God and man, but Christ Jesus. We will run the full risk of what private judgment will lead us to. We do not advocate ignorant private judgment, but well informed private judgment; and are quite sure that, with a God above, a revelation in our hands, His government before our eyes, the experience of history, the guidance of Christ's Church, and His voice of conscience in our hearts, we shall not go far wrong.
We must stand together in this matter, and take care that the story of arbitrary religious tyranny, and the emancipation of our country from the foreign Papal yoke, be told to our children. Is it that we wish to keep an old sore open? No, it is not we who do so. It is they who propose to pass such a rule as this in the year let him be anathema." In the celebrated Syllabus, it is laid down that "ecclesiastical law takes precedence of civil law;" that "the sacred ministers of the Church should have care and dominion over temporal things;" that "the Catholic religion should be considered as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship."
By the Canons above quoted, if they are passed, every Roman Catholic makes it a part of his creed that it is lawful for the Church to persecute; and, of course, if his Church is infallible, it must be lawful to persecute. It is all fearfully consistent as a system. It stands or falls altogether. These are the arrogant claims of Rome, as pretentious now as at any time of her history; they are recognised professedly by one-tenth of the population of this Province, but utterly repudiated, I trust, by the remainder, and denounced by them. We say such doctrines are dangerous to the liberty of the subject; and as such the State, our State at least, ought not to support them. Give them their full and fair share of the rates; insist on their teaching their children to read and write, let them share equally and fairly with all other citizens, but let us not be partakers in the responsibility of forwarding the detestable doctrine that the Church may persecute.
We Presbyterians and Episcopalians of the year "Let us not be ashamed of but glory in our Protestantism! Let us make no compromise with the lying vanities of Sacerdotalism, whether its home be Italy or England. But rather say boldly, say strongly, yet say it in charity—I want no chair of human authority, I want no voice of human infallibility, I want no person sitting in God's temple, calling himself whether Christ's vicar or God's vicegerent; these things are all foreign, all repugnant to the spirit of my Christianity; these things are so many veils and barriers between me and my God. My Church is not poor because she has them not—it would be her shame, her deformity, if she thought she had them. It is written in the Prophets, and Christ, the Lord of the Prophets, condescends to endorse the saying—'In gospel days they shall all be taught of God.'"
In such sentiments I hope we now are one; and if those who avow allegiance of body and soul to Rome force themselves, as
I sincerely trust that, come what may, you in Otago will keep the honourable position you have already maintained, in having the Word of God read in your schools. I was told that for the last fifteen years, up till a few weeks ago, no difficulty had occurred. Why this disposal to change?—whence does it emanate? We will be true to our principles of complete toleration; but we claim that, with an ample conscience clause, no real wrong is done; the 27,000 Presbyterians, and the 14,500 members of the Church of England, have a right not to be overriden. Long may Otago flourish by the reading of the Holy Scriptures in the Public Schools; they must not, and they need not, be made arenas of controversy or proselytising; but the motto of Christians at least should be, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
We read the Bible in schools, because if parents read it at home, they at least will be thankful to be helped by the additional study of it by their children in school; and if from ignorance, or any other cause, children do not read it at home, then we hold it to be more than ever a duty and privilege for them to be taught it at school.
At all events, we Episcopalians and Presbyterians are at one on this point—we wish the Bible read by our children. Are we to be refused this? If so, where is our boasted liberty and toleration!
My friends, I have now completed my task; the end has come at last,—I fear you must be weary; but I am only here for a short
The following letter was inserted in the Otago Daily Times, in answer to one from Bishop Moran, which denied the existence of the Canons referred to in the Lecture, notwithstanding they were of European celebrity; he also denied that it was part of a Roman Catholic creed that his Church had a right to persecute. Universal history is a sufficient refutation of Bishop Moran's denial. As to the Canons, the letter will explain the circumstances.
( To the Editor of the Otago Daily Times.)
Sir,—I have just reached home, and find a letter of Bishop Moran's inserted in your issue of June 8th, animadverting on statements made in my recent lecture."In reply, I assert that the 21 Canons, to one of which I referred, whose existence Bishop Moran denies, are a matter of history. I have them all before me as printed in the 'Augsburg Gazette,'
February, 1870 ."The originals were drawn up for acceptance by the (Ecumenical Council, and created on the Continent of Europe considerable excitement at the time. Count Beust endeavored to dissuade the Papal Government from having them enacted by the Council, and the note which he communicated to Rome on the subject was forwarded to the ambassadors of Austria elsewhere, and the contents of it published. Count Daru, on the part of France, seconded the representations of Count Beust by an additional dispatch to the authorities at Rome. The answer given by Cardinal Antonelli to Count Beust
did not ignore the existence of these Canons. but pointed out that there was a great difference between theory and practice. 'No one,' said he, 'would ever prevent the Church from proclaiming the great principles upon which its Divine fabric is based; but as regards the application of those sacred laws, the Church, imitating the example of its heavenly Founder, would be inclined to take into account the natural weaknesses of mankind, and accordingly would only exact so much from human frailty as was within the power of every age and country to render.' Cardinal Antonelli, in reply to Count Daru's note ofFebruary 20, 1870 ,did not dispute the authenticity of the text ofthe 21 Canons objected to, but endeavored to explain away their objectionable features."I have not heard that these Canons aforesaid were either withdrawn or rejected. The above facts were recorded and constantly repeated without a word of denial in the English journals, and if the Canons had been withdrawn or modified in whole or in part, a fact so conducive to forming a favorable view of the proceedings of the Council would scarcely have been passed over unnoticed. I must therefore adhere to my opinion, unless Bishop Moran can throw more light than mere assertion on it, that these Canons are in force and do represent the mind of his Church. That these Canons were put forth is matter of notoriety; if any modification of them took place, it would be highly desirable to know it. Perhaps they were erroneously described as Canons, and were only Postulates or Anathemas, on which further resolutions were to be based. But all that is beside the real question at issue, which is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church and its officers and members to the question of toleration, and the use of force in advancing or maintaining religion.
"If Bishop Moran tells us that henceforth the Church of Rome never intends to use force even when it has the power, and if he can shew that he is authorised to make this disclaimer, then I for one shall be rejoiced to believe and bear testimony that Rome wishes to separate itself from its past history, and is indeed changed. My argument was wholly misunderstood by the Bishop, owing to an error in the report of the lecture, whereby '
it must lie' was read in place of 'it must be.' What I said was, if the Church of Rome was infallible, then it must be a persecuting Church, for if it had but a short time to save men's souls in, and possessed infallibility, it would be the utmost cruelty for it to neglect any means to bring men to the knowledge and obedience of such infallible truth."The question is not whether it is Canon 12 or 13, or whether this is the last or last but one series of Canons, but whether the principles expressed therein
are those of the Roman Catholic Church; whether the principle that Christ conferred on the Church the power to direct not only by advice and persuasion those who turn aside, but also to compel them by orders, by force, by external violence, and by salutary punishment, is a principle specifically rejected or approved by that Church. In the oath appointed to be taken by every Bishop, as contained in the Roman edition of the Pontifical, printed at Rome by authority, 1818 , on page 62, the Bishop swears to be faithful and obedient to his Lord the Pope and his successors; to assist them in maintaining the Roman Papacy and the royalties of Saint Peter, against all men; to preserve, defend, augment and promote its rights, honors, and privileges;to persecute and impugn with all his might, here tics and schismatics and rebels against his said Lord, etc."If this oath be exacted of all Roman Catholic Bishops, it is futile to try and persuade us that Rome has given up both the desire and privilege of persecuting those of adverse opinions to her own, and the general assent to the Church's teaching required of every Roman Catholic is sufficient to identify him with its principles. I am, &c.,
" "Nelson,A. B. Nelson, N.Z.July 1, 1871."
Bishop Moran objects to my rendering "persequor" persecute, in the above letter, and says I cannot translate Latin! At all events I am in good company with the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. C. Wordsworth, whose translation I have given, and not my own at all. "Persequor" has two meanings, a literal and a figurative one, and we must look at the surrounding associations to ascertain which of these meanings of the word is to be adopted. I suppose Bishop Moran will admit that the use of it is ecclesiastical rather than classical, and therefore it is in its use in ecclesiastical books that we must look for its meaning. Now, in the Vulgate, I find
Acts ix. 4, Saule, Saule! quid me persequeris.
Acts ix 5, Ego sum Jesus quem tu persequeris.
Which the Douai version renders
Saul, Saul! why persecuted thou me.
I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
I looked in 2 Tim. ii. 22, where the Douai version reads "Pursue justice, faith, charity." Here, thought I, as it is the same word in the Greek original, the Vulgate will translate it by "persequor," and if so, it would be an example of the use of "perseciuor" which Bishop Moran would be very thankful to meet with; but on turning to the Vulgate, I found that it did not use "perseqaor" in this passage at all, but read it thus—"Sectare vero justitiam," &c., proving that in the Vulgate "persequor" is not used in the sense of "following up perseveringly with a good intention." To make the matter more sure, I looked in the Douai version, and I found the following out of many similar passages:—
Rev. xii. 13, The dragon persecuted the woman.
I Thess. ii. 15, Killed the Lord Jesus and persecuted us.
Luke xi. 49, Some of them they will kill and persecute.
John v. 16, Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus.
Matt. v. 11, Blessed are ye when they shall—persecute you.
The above passages are rendered thus in the Vulgate:—
Rev. xii. 13, persecutus est mulierem.
I Thess. ii. 15, et nos persecuti sunt.
Luke xi. 49, ex illis Occident et persequentur.
John v. 16, Propterea persequebantur Judæi Jesum.
Matt. v. 11, Beati cum—persecuti fuerint.
Certainly "persequor" has always hitherto been construed as I have translated it: I can only hope Bishop Moran is, for the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, going to translate it differently, and that he will continue to do so.
P.S.—I have to thank "Omega" for strictures in the "Evening Star" on the above subject.
Nelson, October 7, 1871
Printed by John Mackay, Princes Street North.
In
The area of the group is about 3,500 square miles, or equal to that of the counties of Ayr, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown, or to the half of Wales. The several islands lie S.E. and N.W. from each other, at unequal distances, and their longest diameter is that between these points. They are all independent, that is, are claimed by no other country. With two exceptions, they are of volcanic origin. They are lofty, being in some cases 3,000 feet high. The scenery is varied, and very beautiful, being composed of sharp peaked mountains, gently undulating plains, and deep valleys, covered with grass, ferns, and trees. Some of the islands rise gradually from the shore to the inland peaks, others have a bold coast with table land at a considerable elevation. A few have an outlying reef, but generally they have deep water close in shore, and the navigation is free of danger. There are several harbours, three of which are not only capacious, but landlocked. The surrounding sea teems with the whale, shark, and turtle, as well as smaller fish, and the shores abound in coral and shells. The islands are well wooded and watered. On some of them there is abundance of Kauri, and other timber, and on others, sandalwood, which brings from £30 to £40 per ton in China. The soil is very fertile, especially along the shore, and in the valleys, and
volcanoes, one of which on Tana is visible at night for more than thirty miles. The prevailing wind is the S.E. trades, but it goes round the compass by N., perhaps once a month. In the more Northerly Islands the trade wind is very constant, and the land and sea breezes more perceptible. There are two seasons—the wet and the dry. In the former, which lasts from December till April, the sun is vertical, and the rains accompanied with thunder and lightning, are heavy and continuous. During these months the hygrometer often indicates an atmosphere perfectly saturated. In the dry season, which lasts from April to December, we have rain less frequently; and when the wind is well from the S., there may be a difference of six or seven degrees between the two bulbs of that instrument. The thermometer, in the south of the group, has a range of about thirty degrees all the year round—viz., from sixty to ninety deg within doors,—about half the range in the Australasian Colonies. The climate, as compared with that of New Zealand, is moister, more debilitating, and hotter, especially at night. The barometer has a range of a third of an inch. It stands as a whole lower in summer than in winter. During cyclones, i.e., storms of wind having two motions, one on their own axis and another in a direction forward, the barometer falls as much as one-and-a-half inches, more especially at the centre, where a perfect calm prevails. There are whirlwinds also, which mow down every thing in their path. These storms occur from December till April. Slight earthquakes are also experienced. The prevailing disease is fever and ague. It seizes the Natives as well as Europeans. The epidemics are influenza and dysentery. The latter at times commits great havoc. Measles and small pox have visited some of the islands and proved very fatal.
The population of the group has been estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand. The Natives are Papuan, i.e., they are like the inhabitants of New Guinea—not so fair, tall, or intelligent as the Malays, nor so dark and degraded as the aborigines of Australia. It is impossible to say whence they have come, and whether they be the real aborigines or a mixed race. They are rather under medium stature, well-built, fleshy, active, and expert at swimming and climbing. Their hair is a dark brown, or a light sandy color, and is woolly in general, but curly in some, and straight in a few. On some islands the men wear it long, and divided into numerous locks, each lock being wound round or served with the
naked, with the exception of a narrow girdle of bark or matting, and a wrapper of leaves. The women have a rude petticoat made of grass, or the flax-like fibres of a native plant. They are all exceedingly fond of ornaments, such as shells, teeth of various animals, beads, strips of red or other showy cloth, rings of tortoise shell, plates of pearl, &c. These they wear in the tips of their ears, and on their arms, wrists, necks, and legs. A piece of wood is worn in the septum of the nose. Their faces are streaked with red and black ochres, made into a paste with oil. Their perspiration when excessive has a sensibly unpleasant odour. They are subject to scrofulous swellings and sores difficult to heal, and they enjoy better health in the warm than in the cold season. Many children die in infancy; families are not large, and as a race they are not long-lived. Owing to certain practices there are more men than women. In disposition they are suspicious, revengeful, jealous, and selfish—not to be depended on, volatile and treacherous. They are addicted to lying, stealing, cruelty, uncleanness, war, and bloodshed. Physical qualities are far more appreciated by them than mental. They are not without intellectual ability. They learn easily to pull an oar, handle tools, read, write, cipher, and sing tunes. They can tell you the owner of this dog or that fowl, or of these fruit trees and those foot prints. They can commit long passages of Scripture, and many of them speak two or more languages. If their minds are less powerful in any respect than our own, it seems to arise solely from want of exercise.
On the same island there are several tribes, each having its own district and chief. The power of the chiefs, which descends from father to son, is very limited. Their laws are few, and might is generally right. The Natives do not roam much. They erect houses, make plantations and fences, fish, and go frequently to war. They irrigate by taking the water along the hill sides for miles at a higher level than that pursued by the parent stream. They fish with nets and also with hooks. They plait baskets and mats. They have one musical instrument like a flute, and another like Pan's pipes. They are fond of singing, especially when a number of them are doing some work, as carrying a log, but it is monotonous, embracing only a few notes. On Espiritu Santo they make rude, unglazed earthenware. The principal meal is eaten in the evening. Their food, consisting of vegetables with fish, fowls, and pork, is cooked among the ashes, or else by covering it up with leaves in contact with stones at a red heat. Kava, a narcotic beverage, obtained by chewing the root of a plant of the Piper family, is drunk by the men about sunset. They retire early, and rise at break of day. The men never go abroad unarmed. Their weapons consist of clubs, iron bolts got from wrecks, and pieces of stone or branch coral. They have also muskets, spears, and arrows, these last being tipped with bone and poisonous. They trade but little. Occasionally
They are polygamists, and infants are betrothed. Circumcision is practised, and they are inveterate cannibals. No Native likes to tell you his name before any of his brethren. Chiefs often declare tabu, i.e., certain places, fruit trees, kinds of fish and food, are pronounced tabu, or forbidden to certain parties for so many moons. If you give a Native food, he will not touch it with his bare fingers—a piece of paper or a leaf must interpose between his fingers and it. There are sacred men, who by their incantations make rain, wind, death, and all other calamities. Hence the Natives are careful to pick up all scraps of food, and even hair, lest some wizard find them and evolve evil from them. They have feasts, at which large collections of food, animal and vegetable, are made. Dancing, singing, and beating of hollow trees are practised at night, at full moon. They believe in the existence of gods or spirits—superior beings who have made and who govern the world. There are priests who make offerings of food and drink to these spirits. They believe in an invisible world, in which the sin to be most severely punished will be stinginess. They have faint traditions about the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood. Their religion consists in a belief in magical incantations and spirits, and in the practice of unmeaning rites and ceremonies.
Every island has its own language, and on several there are two dialects. Not only are the names for the same object different on the several islands, but even the construction of all the languages is not the same. The words are hard, long, and full of consonants. Every syllable does not end in a vowel as in the Maori. There are four numbers, singular, dual, trial, and plural, and a double we, called by grammarians, we inclusive and we exclusive. In the Aneityum language all the nouns with scarcely an exception begin with in or a. The verb To be, as in English conjugates the verbs through all their moods and tenses, and the nominative is the last word in the sentence. The following are the numerals on
The only resemblance is that between the words for two, just as in the Australian dialects. The words for one, three, four, and five are very unlike. On Aneityum and Tana the Natives count by fives on their fingers and toes, but on Eromanga and Fate by tens.
The condition of the South Sea islanders was at first greatly exaggerated. Their form was said to be erect, and perfectly developed, and their minds were extolled for their quickness and the nobility of their conceptions. The high qualities of generosity and unsuspecting confidence were predicated of them. It was supposed that you were welcome to their hospitality and safe under their roof; that their individual, domestic, and social condition was like that of their beautiful island homes; and that their lives were happy, because they were ignorant of wealth, ambition, and the evils of civilized society. Contact with them has dispelled the delusion.—Traders, missionaries, and teachers after having lived among them, and seen their every day life, cannot confirm such glowing statements. Their condition, on the contrary, is one of want and suffering. Over their shipwrecked vessel floats a flag of distress with these words—"Come over and help us."
The more prominent features of their life, as seen from a Christian point of view, are these:—
1st. It is a life of poverty. Their tools, utensils, works of art, and articles of furniture are not only rude, but very few. A Native might carry all his moveable property on his back, or at least in his canoe. On their persons they have ornaments. In the houses of the more wealthy (if the word can be used) may be seen a few floor and sleeping mats, with some bark cloth, a pillow, a basket, a hank of native twine, a hatchet, a few spears and arrows, a cocoa nut shell for water, a fishing net, a bag of sacred stones, and perchance a musket. Out of doors you may see a plough, (a pointed stick five feet long,) a few fowls, a female dress suspended from a tree to dry, a canoe, a pig, and a dog or cat. It is impossible for any one on these islands to accumulate much more property than his brethren. As there is no law to protect him in the possession of it, he will be deprived of it, either by importunity or stealth.
2nd. It is a life of discomfort. It is true that the Natives when seen, for example, paddling their canoes, or sitting under the shade of the palm, or training the tendrils of the yam, in their ancestral possessions, or marching along the beach with their spears poised ready for launching at the first suitable object—seen in Such circumstances they may appear to be free and in want of nothing. But follow one of these Natives to his hut, see him in his family, or when thwarted, or injured, or when weak from age or sickness, and you will come to a different conclusion. His poverty is one cause of his discomfort. His hut is not a palace. The night air finds its way through the numerous crevices—it is dark, for there is no window—it is badly ventilated, for the doorway is low—it is full of smoke, for there is no chimney—it is nearly empty, for there is no furniture—it is unhealthy, for the damp earth forms the
3rd. It is a life of fear. It is impossible for us, brought up under Christianity and just laws, to feel the burden heathenism is, or the constant fear induced by it. In the first place, the Natives fear each other. This is to be expected where there is no law and nothing to check the selfishness and innate wickedness of the heart. Every man's hand is against his neighbour. Their hearts are not only full of bad intentions, but these intentions ripen into all manner of evil deeds. Every man knows how he feels toward his neighbours and the things that are theirs, and he judges rightly that they think and feel in the same way about him and his, and are only waiting for a favorable opportunity of proceeding to action. They fear the sacred men, who are supposed to have the power of causing all sorts and degrees of calamities. At their pleasure the rain descends, the wind rages, and men sicken and die. They fear the spirits—so numerous as to people the air, earth, and ocean—all malicious, easily provoked, and powerful to punish whomsoever they will. "To realise somewhat of their condition, let us suppose that all our knowledge respecting God, angels, and spirits—every idea that we have obtained respecting them from the Bible, were to be blotted out from our mind—that all this light were to be wanting, and that all that we knew of the spiritual world was learned from fabulous legends about ghosts, apparitions, and the appearances and doings of Satan, and suppose that we had a hereditary belief that every noted man was a wizard, and every noted woman a witch, possessed of such powers that by a few incantations they could bring famine, disease, or death as often as they would. If it were possible for its to realise such a state of feeling, we should have some faint idea of the grievous fear engendered by heathenism."
4th. It is a life of isolation. They have scarcely any intercourse with the world, with its countries, peoples and productions. They know little of it beyond their own islands, and as many more as may be visible from them. They have but little intercourse with the adjoining islands, which form a part of the same group. Looking at the numbers who have set out but have perished on the way to other islands, they are afraid to risk their lives in their frail canoes. Nor can many of them visit other islands from another cause—viz., the hostility of the Natives of one island to those of another. They only are safe who have a league of hospitality with those to whom they go. But a Native may not even know the whole
his own small island. From the hatred that exists between its several tribes, much of it may be a perfect terra incognita to him, and there are certain boundaries which he cannot pass without risking his life. Even among the members of the same tribe there is not much intercourse. They seldom live in villages, but build their huts wherever they may own a piece of good soil, or fruit trees, or swamp, or a canoe harbour. Mutual protection or aggrandisement is almost the only cause leading to combination. Even among the members of the same family there is not much intercourse; e.g., between husbands and wives, parents and children. Husbands and wives do not eat together or occupy the same end of a house, and they seldom consult together. In a word, a native by the time he has entered his teens is independent even of his parents; he can supply his own few wants, and as he seldom requires the aid of others, he comes to think almost exclusively of himself.
5th. It is a life of cruelty. They are cruel to infants, especially to females. There is no rejoicing at their birth, being regarded rather as a burden than a blessing. Mothers not un-frequently, to save them the trouble of rearing their offspring, destroy them in the womb, or after their birth, by leaving them in the bush or killing them outright. They are cruel to the old and the insane. The hoary head is not respected, and as the insane are supposed to be possessed by evil spirits they are rather maltreated than cared for. They are cruel to the sick. At first they are waited on, but if the sickness continues they are left to provide for themselves. Hence many die mainly from want of food and drink. They are cruel to women. They are the servants of the men, and do much of the manual labour. They fish, dig, gather fuel, collect food, cook, and nurse their children. On Aneityum the words wife and servant are interchangeable. If a woman meet a man in a narrow path, she rushes up among the tall grass with her back to the path till he has passed. Before high chiefs they go on their hands and knees. They sit apart from the men, and must not touch certain kinds of food. On Aneityum when a man died his wife was immediately strangled that she might be his servant in the other world as well as in this. They are cruel to those who have injured them. An offence they will neither forgive nor forget. It would be considered unmanly not to take vengeance. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth at the very least. If no opportunity occur of retaliating for years, the memory of the event is kept up by notches on trees or other means. They are cruel to strangers, e.g. to natives who when fishing have drifted away from their own islands—to natives who land on a part of an island other than that they intended to visit—also to shipwrecked sailors who in boats reach their shores: they escape the vengeance of the sea only to be seized on shore and their bodies cooked. They are cruel to Teachers and Missionaries. On almost all the islands where Teachers have lived for a time, some of them have been killed—perhaps as many as twenty in all. On every island where Missionaries have lived they have experienced much cruelty, and on one, Eromanga, four have been killed—Williams and Harris in
6th. It is a life of ignorance and error. They are ignorant of many things useful to them in this life, and to a great extent with regard to this world, with its continents, islands, nations, languages, and productions—animal, vegetable, and mineral. The Aneityumese, when they saw the first ship off their island, concluded that it was a great spirit coming to them, and endeavoured to frighten it away by blowing on their conch shells. They are ignorant of the causes of natural phenomena—e.g., volcanoes, earthquakes, eclipses, storms, &c. A barometer belonging to the missionaries on Tana was believed to cause wind, because the missionaries were seen consulting it during gales. They are ignorant with regard to the heavenly bodies. With them the sun and moon are equal in size and greatly less than this world of ours, and equally distant with the stars. They are ignorant of the causes of sickness and death. They believe that disease is caused by sacred men, who produce it by sorcery. When a person takes ill, his relatives some-times endeavour by a present to appease the disease-maker. Missionaries and teachers are regarded as sacred men of great power, and are blamed for many of the epidemics and other calamities that occur. The Natives believe that if they receive the message of these men, viz. the Gospel, they will certainly take sick and die. This belief in the deadly effect of the Gospel is a most formidable obstacle in our way. They are ignorant of everything connected with their eternal welfare. They know not Jehovah, the living and true God. They are all idolators, worshippers of stones which are the supposed residence of spirits, none of them objects of love, but all requiring to be propitiated. These gods are legion, and each has power over a locality or class of objects. One causes the taro to grow, another presides over bread-fruit, another gives success in war or fishing, another causes the pigs to thrive, and so forth. They know nothing, then, of the true God or of their relation to Him as Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor—nothing of their souls, or of their fall in Adam and of recovery through Christ—nothing of the Law or Gospel—nothing of heaven, hell, or of the eternal world.
7th. It is a life of helplessness. Like babes, they cannot elevate themselves physically, intellectually, or spiritually. Unless aided, they will never procure the comforts of civilized life, their knowledge on all subjects will remain the same, they will continue to practise all their cruelties, and they will never attain to the knowledge of God. One generation will just resemble another. They may go back, and sink, and add to their wicked customs, and lose a portion of their little knowledge, but they will never rise by their own unaided efforts. When Cook was at Tana he saw the women carrying burdens as if they were pack-horses. The same sight is still seen there, after the lapse of ninety-two years.
8th. It is a condition of unconsciousness. They are to a great extent ignorant of the painful circumstances in which they are. They resemble some one in the last stage of disease, or one who has been stunned by a blow on the head. He is in critical circumstances, but he knows it not; he makes no effort to help himself, not even
sight, of him is the only thing to call forth help from the spectators. Just so; the condition of the New Hebrides Natives more than their words call upon Christians to help them.
In the words of Scripture these people are—hateful and hating one another—perishing for lack of knowledge—their dark lands are full of the habitations of cruelty—destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known—they are sitting in the region and shadow of death, and have no light.
If such be the condition of these people, what Christian need envy them? They are blessed who know the joyful sound; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord.
Though the islands were discovered ninety-two years ago, it was only in
1st. The whole group has not been evangelised. We have been working six islands only—viz., Aneityum, Tana, Futuna, Aniwa, Eromanga, and Fate. Only one-fifth of the group is occupied, four-fifths are yet untouched, at least so little has been done that it is hardly worth mentioning; only one-thirty-seventh of the New Hebrides Natives have the Gospel preached to them, thirty-six-thirty-sevenths hear not, for they are without a preacher; indeed, only one-fiftieth of the group is fully and efficiently worked.
2nd. On Tana no progress has been made. Three primers have been printed, some of the Gospels have been translated, and four missionaries have labored there—two in
3rd. On Aniwa and Futuna we have made some progress. These islands are worked by teachers. On them both we may have fifty Natives, who abstain from work on Sabbath, attend worship on that day, put on clothing, and have abandoned the grosser heathen customs.
4th. On Eromanga and Faté we have made considerable progress. On the former there are 200 converts, seven of whom have been baptised and admitted to the Church. The most of these 200 attend school and can read, and all of them attend Church. The following books have been printed:—a primer, catechism, hymn book, Life of Joseph, Jonah, and Luke. At present there is one Missionary and a few teachers on the island. The Missionary came out in
5th. On Aneityum, the first island to be permanently occupied, the work has been very successful. The whole population (
But let me not mislead you by statements such as these. Un-
And now I stand before you to plead the cause of the other islands, nearly twenty in number, still in deepest darkness. I ask you for the means of Christianizing and civilizing them. If you and others will only assist in the way I shall point out, we are confident of success. If you ask me, What are the prospects for these other dark islands? I reply in the words of Judson when he was questioned about Burmah, and say—If the Church of Christ in the Australasian Colonies will only bestir herself, "the prospects for them are bright, yes, bright as the promises of God, which shall all be fulfilled," for "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
Remember, I do not say that we shall meet with no opposition or defection. Why should missionaries not have trials, since they are met with by men in all spheres of labour? The merchant has his failures, and so have the farmer, the sailor, the physician, and even the minister. When you shall hear of such things in connection with our work, jump not to the conclusion that we have run unsent, or that Christ has forgotten His "Lo, I am with you alway." If His promise appear to be a dead letter by His servants fleeing for their lives or falling under the tomahawks of the heathen, it is a dead letter only on account of human imperfection. The missionary work, it ought ever to be remembered, is a human work to a great extent. It is carried on by men, frail and erring, not by angels—among men the most degraded and depraved, not among the redeemed in glory—in the use of human means, e.g., printing, teaching, and preaching, not by miracle from heaven—and on earth, this vale of tears, not in heaven where all is perfection. Being human, this work must have vicissitudes; being connected with earth it must have its pains as well as its pleasures, its foul winds as well as its fair. We read (Ps. cxxvi.) that in going forth to sow God's Word in the waste places of the earth we shall do so with tears (remember that), but (forget not this) we shall doubtless, yes doubtless, come again with rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us. Occasional trials and reverses are not incompatible with ultimate success—success on earth I mean. Why should people be so clamorous for results on the heathen field? Why expect us to make converts as if to order? Our Christianity (how imperfect it is!) is the growth of many centuries. Because our labours fail for a time in
them do not believe, shall their unbelief and not the commission of Christ be our rule of duty? There must be room for unbelief: some will reject the counsel of God against themselves. Besides, the Gospel has been extinguished among whites as well as among blacks, not only in the case of modern missions but in lands evangelized by the Apostles.
The remedy for these other dark islands is the Gospel; not the arts and sciences merely, not civilization merely, not secular know ledge merely, far less Mohammedanism and polygamy which some recommend us to try. Some of these things are a good but not the good these islanders most require. In the Pacific, civilization will follow the Gospel, but not precede it. Our experience goes to prove that if we would affect the body we must do it through the heart—the rudder of the man. "Out of it are the issues of life." I regard the Gospel, therefore, as the chief agency to be employed. And is it not adapted to remove the evils which exist among these Natives? It brings light to remove darkness, and truth to be the substitute of error; it replaces superstitious fears by an assurance of the mercy of God. By the atonement, it effects a reconciliation between God and man; and by subduing selfishness and cruelty it puts men right in their relation to their fellow men.
How then can this remedy be conveyed to the New Hebrides? Neither by ship, nor post, nor telegraph, far less by miracle. It can only go by men and women who will take it in their hearts, in their mouths, and in their hands. Yes, that it be disseminated we require four-instruments, viz., Missionaries, Teachers, a Mission Vessel, and the power of the Holy Spirit. These constitute
1st. We want more Missionaries. In seventeen years, three Missionaries and six Teachers have received about 4000 converts from heathenism. When, with the same number of laborers and at the same rate of progress, viz: 230 per annum, will the whole 150,000 Natives come over to Christianity? Why, after the lapse of 600 years! But this must not be. It will not be, for by the close of this year there will be ten Missionaries on the field and a staff of teachers. But even with ten Missionaries at the past rate of progress per Missionary, when shall we be able to say that every Native has had the Gospel preached to him? We be able, did I say 1 Why, we on the field now shall not only have grown old and gone the way of all the earth, but nine generations of laborers shall have succeeded us before it can be said the New Hebrides Natives are all blessed for they know the joyful sound. Must two long centuries yet elapse? I assure you for myself and brethren that we cannot bear the crushing The ught that so many years must pass before the copestone is placed on the building the foundation
To overtake fully and at once the whole group, we require thirty men from the Colonies, of which number New Zealand must send us five at an annual cost of £650. Yes, we want the Presbyterians to look out for, send, and support five Missionaries—men of the right stamp—young-vigorous in body—skilful with their hands—persevering—prudent-learned—of strong faith and full of love to souls. Aye, and we want as many women, their wives, who will compassionate their sable sisters, and whisper in their ears that God cares for them, and tell them of that Saviour through whose work, from being slaves to their husbands, they may become servants to the Most High, and of the Holy Spirit who, The ugh their skins cannot be changed, can yet change their hearts. We want men as like as possible to Paul, Martyn, Carey, Hunt and Williams; and women like Priscilla, Harriet Newall, and Mrs. Judson—whose praise is in all the Churches.
Young men and young women of these Colonies, it is from you that a supply of labourers must come, for the heathen field. You will readily get acclimatized and adapt yourselves to new circumstances, and acquire the language of These to whom you go. The Missionary work is important and difficult, and I would not have any one to undertake it rashly; but looking at the millions of heathen, and remembering that they can be evangelized only through human instrumentality, I would ask you as in the sight of God if there be no indications that you should think of this work. The Missionaries want more labourers, and so do the heathen, and the Church, and even God himself. While volunteers can be found for our Queen, and soldiers to fight the battles of our country, why is it that so few young men in these Colonies are turning their attention to the Ministry, not to speak of the Missionary work? Young men and young women, have you no desire to be the first to claim some country for Christ, to be the first to pronounce to some barbarous tribe the name of Jesus, and to be the first to give to some people a translation of the Word of God? Why should you be so hard to persuade? Is it nothing to be a co-worker with God, and to have the omnipotence and omnipresence of Jesus, to be, the one the breaker up of your way, and the other your rearguard?
Perhaps you think of the Missionary work as one of loneliness and hardship only. These are some of its features, but not all. Hear the testimony of Judson, a Missionary to Burmah:—"This is a filthy and wretched place, still, if a ship were lying in the harbour, ready to convey me to any part of the world I might choose, I should prefer dying to embarking. I know not that I shall live to see a single convert, but notwithstanding, I feel that I would not leave my present situation to be made a king." Or take the testimony of Paul:—"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed;
Ponder well this matter then, and if it appear to be the will of God that you should go far hence to the heathen, begin at once to prepare yourselves.
But I would ask not only the young, but also parents, How can the heathen hear without a preacher? Yes, Parents, what are you doing for the evangelization of the world? Perhaps you give money, well that is good; perhaps you also pray, well that is better; but your first-born or your most gifted child would be the noblest contribution of all. Mrs. Lyman, when she heard that her son had been murdered by the Battas, said,—"I bless God who gave me such a son to go to the heathen, and I never felt as strongly as I do at the present moment the desire that some others of my sons may become Missionaries also, and may go and preach salvation to these savages who have drunk the blood of my son."
"But," you will say, "how can we send five men? We have more need of five men here, for the Church is small and engrossed with Home extension efforts; wait a little." True, but you may as well tell your child to wait for the strength of manhood before attempting to walk. Let the Church remember Carey's motto—"Attempt great things for God and expect great things from God." The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Though numbering only about 40 congregations, will have in a few months five Missionaries on the New Hebrides, or one for every eight congregations. Besides supporting them she, will raise if required, £250 a-year for the Mission ship. Her efforts for the heathen have been a blessing, as her Home operations were never more extensive or more prosperous than now. If forty congregations in Scotland can support five Missionaries, will it tax the sixty Presbyterian congregations in New Zealand, to support that number? I think not.
2nd. We want support for Native teachers. They are colored Natives of the Christianised islands in the Pacific, who act as the pioneers and assistants of the Missionaries. They are well fitted from previous training and habits for island life,—for subsisting on Native food, and for living in such houses as can be conveniently erected, If food is scarce, they can fish and plant and raise food for themselves. Again, these teachers are less apt to offend the Natives than white men, from knowing their habits, customs, feelings, and prejudices; being more on a level with the heathen they obtain more ready access to them, and the heathen associate more readily with them than with Europeans. Besides, their modes and forms of The ught are much the same with The se of the heathen; and they can, especially at first, better explain things than the Missionaries. As showing what these men can do, I may mention, The ugh the case is somewhat exceptional, that there was a Church of sixty members on Fate when the first Missionary was settled there. All the instruction these people had received to fit them for that position was received viva voce from teachers. A teacher and his wife receive a salary of £5 a-year in clothing, medi-
3rd. We want support for the Mission vessel, "Day Spring." She is a brigantine of 115 tons, built in Nova Scotia in young, and I trust that there will soon be in every Sunday School a Mission box, a portion of the contents of which, at least, shall go for the "Day Spring." We consider a vessel quite as indispensable as Missionaries. But for the "J. Williams" and the "Southern Cross" the Mission could not have succeeded in its early stages. The "Day Spring" works the New Hebrides and Loyalty groups, and her importance to the Mission will be apparent from the following statement:—
The "Day Spring" goes to the Christianized Islands for Native teachers, and settles them wherever there may be an opening on the heathen islands.—Takes to the teachers their yearly supplies o clothing, medicine, barter, &c., to the value of £5 each a-year; and takes away The se who require to be removed from age, inefficiency, sickness, bereavement, or the hostility of the Natives.—Takes to the missionaries yearly supplies of foreign food, clothing, and medicine; their home and colonial letters, magazines, and newspapers; as also all other requisites for their own comfort and the progress of the work of God.—Takes missionaries who are in danger to a place of safety, These requiring a change to a colder climate; new missionaries, or The se who may have been recruiting, from the colonies to the islands, and the children to a Christian land to be educated.—Enables the missionaries, teachers, and Native Christians on one island to write to and visit the missionaries, teachers, and Native Christians of other islands, and all the missionaries to meet for consultation.—Takes heathen Natives to Christian islands that they may see the effects of the Gospel, and have their prejudices against it and against the missionaries and teachers somewhat removed. She also returns strayed Natives to their own island.—Carries the word of God from the Press to the several islands, and the contributions of the Native Christians for the support and spread of the Gospel to a market.
The "Day Spring" is the rope for lifting the Missionaries and Teachers occasionally up out of the mine of heathenism, and for sending down necessaries for their minds and bodies. I wish all the young to put a hand to this rope and to hold it firm and fast.
In addition to purchasing the vessel, the Australian Colonies
insure her. An association for this purpose has been formed, and her estimated insurance value, £2000, has been divided in 440 shares of £5 each. Can New Zealand not produce 440 men and women to undertake the risk? A shareholder taking one share will require to pay £1 a year for five years, unless he prefer paying up at once. If anything befall the vessel; say after three years, the balance of the share, viz £2, will be called up at once to replace the vessel. Of these shares 110 have been allotted to Auckland, 30 to Hawke's Bay, 50 to Wellington, 140 to Otago, and so on in proportion to the supposed ability of the several Provinces. The only dividend that I can promise subscribers will be, not twenty per cent., nor even five, but the consciousness of having done something for the cause of Christ.
But why not continue to insure the "Day Spring" in the regular way? The advantages of the plan above proposed are these: 1st. We shall save the present premium, about £180 per annum. 2nd. The vessel will get the benefit of the interest accruing from shares or parts of shares paid up. 3rd. New Zealand will have a connection with the "Day Spring" not inferior to that of the sister colonies. 4th. We shall be free to go where and when we wish, without losing time by writing to London for authority. We want a world-wide range for our vessel, like that of the Gospel she is designed to spread.
4th. We want prayer for the blessing of God to attend our labours. These are our plans, but in what will they result without prayer? I am not mocking you when I say "Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified," in the New Hebrides, "even as it is with you." Pray that your hearts and the hearts of the Church at large maybe opened to feel for the heathen. Pray that as the harvest is great and the labourers few the Lord of the harvest would thrust forth labourers into his harvest.
We shall look to the children, then, to keep the "Day Spring" afloat; to the adults to support Missionaries and Teachers, and to insure the "Day Spring;" and to all (for all can help us) to uphold the cause by prayer. And may we soon see on the New Hebrides some of the sons and daughters of this country to aid the solitary labourers now on the field, and to be the representatives among the heathen of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand.
1st. You would not be singular. But the sect or congregation that has not its association for missionary purposes is now the
2nd. You are near these Islands. They are only a week's sail from New Zealand, and form one of the nearest groups.
3rd. Your past efforts. This Colony was the first to send help in the shape of boxes of clothing and money, the latter being nearly sufficient to maintain the "John Knox," the predecessor of the "Day Spring." From you we have had church-door collections and Sunday School contributions. You have thus put your hand to the plough, and you cannot, nay, you will not, go back.
4th. The cheap rate at which Missions can be conducted there. A Missionary's salary is only £120. Five Missionaries from New Zealand will cost the Church not more than £650 per annum. If we had forty Missionaries on the group, the salary of a Missionary, even including his share in the "Day Spring," would be only £150.
5th. By aiding the Mission you will promote Science. As the gospel extends, new languages will be reduced to a written form, new plants, birds, and fishes will be discovered, and unheard of manners, customs, and mythologies will be brought to light.
6th, By aiding the mission you will benefit Commerce. These Islands lie on the eastern passage to China, and were they christianized, The ugh they may never have a numerous white population, vessels could call for wood, water, and vegetables, or to effect repairs, and large exports might be raised. As soon as the Natives are christianized they will cultivate and sell cotton, coffee, arrow-root, cocoa nut oil, cocoanut fibre, oranges, and other tropical productions, and purchase manufactured goods in return.
7th. By aiding the Mission you will benefit suffering humanity. I ask your help as philanthropists. You feel for the destitute and the sufferer. Even for the present life alone, on the supposition that heaven is a dream, that not one of these Natives will reach it, and The ugh these tribes may one day become extinct, I would urge you, notwithstanding, to send them the gospel. It will greatly relieve their physical distress. Do you not hear the piteous wail of the helpless infants, the cry of the neglected sick, of; the old, the insane, the wounded in battle, and the down-trodden women? Do you not hear the shriek of the widow about to be strangled, of the strayed Native, and of the shipwrecked sailor, soon to be killed? Maidens and mothers, do you not pity the poor women whose marriage ring or rather cord is also the instrument of their death? Ye worshippers of Jehovah, do you not feel for those who fear a stone—an eyeless, earless, mouthless, handless, footless god?
8th. By aiding the mission you will benefit yourselves and the Cause of Christ in this country. You will not be poorer in your basket or store. "Give and it shall be given" is the rule of Heaven. Have Britain's efforts for the heathen impoverished her? The ocean is the fountain of all the rain, but it all returns to its
9th. You ought to aid this work from gratitude. You are blessed for you know the joyful sound; you are a happy people because your God is the Lord; you know of salvation and of Him who is the way to heaven. Then I charge you in person, or by your representative, to make them known to the heathen. "Can you," I ask,
You believe that in Heaven are many mansions, and that men of every nation are welcome there; then do not go up thither in selfish solitude—seek to take others with you.
10th. You are entreated and commanded to aid this work. As Christians and as individuals, not merely as churches, you are hemmed in and shut up to it, on the right hand, aye and on the left too. You stand where? Why between the commission of Christ and the prayer of heathendom, between the "Go into all the world" and the "Come over and help us," between the will of the Saviour and the wish of humanity. Heaven calls upon you to do it and earth entreats you, Christ commands you and men implore you, He who died for you says Go, and they who are dying in their sins say, Come. O then, go over and help them.
Mills, Dick and Co., Printers, Stafford Street, Dunedin.
And the Ministers of Contributing Congregations.
On the 5th of Juno the Dayspring, Captain Fraser, arrived at Aneityum from Sydney, having on board as passengers Mrs. Fraser, Rev. D. Morrison and Mrs. Morrison, Rev. W. M'Cullagh and Mrs. M'Cullagh, Rev. T. D. Gordon, of the Nova Scotia Mission, and Rev. S. Ella, Mrs. Ella, and three children, of the London Missionary Society; all on board well. The passage from Sydney was a very stormy one. (There was worse weather and heavier seas between Sydney and Aneityum than in the whole voyage from Nova Scotia to Australia.)
As the John Williams was daily expected from the eastward, on her way to Sydney, and as Captain Fraser was a stranger, and unacquainted with the navigation of These seas, he was very desirous to meet with Captain Williams, and obtain from him such information on various points as his long experience and intimate knowledge of these islands could so easily supply. After being ready for sea he waited nearly a fortnight, expecting every morning that the John Williams would be seen on the horizon. But, alas! on the 17th of May, two days before the Dayspring left Sydney, after twenty years of remarkably efficient and successful service, the John Williams, during a dead calm, was carried along by a strong current off Pukapuka, or Danger Island, till she struck on a reef, and, four hours after she struck, went down—hull, masts, sails, rigging, and everything—at one plunge into the depths of ocean, and not a vestige of her was ever seen afterwards. Very providentially all on board, forty-one souls, got safe to land.
On the 28th of June the Dayspring sailed from Aneityum, with five missionaries on board, for the Loyalty Islands, with the view of visiting all the mission stations on that group, and settling Mr. Ella and his family on Wea. On the following day we came to anchor at Mr. Jones's station on Marè. We found the mission families well. It was seven years since the writer of this had visited that island, and the improvements made during that time on the mission station, and in the appearance of the natives, were very great indeed. The mission house is commodious, convenient, taste-
On the following day we went round to Mr. Creagh's station. As there is no anchorage there, the vessel lay off and on while a party of us went ashore in one of the boats, taking off some goods for Mr. Creagh. This station is in as good a condition as Mr. Jones's. Mr. Creagh has charge of the printing department. The New Testament is printed as far as the end of Hebrews. A large building was being erected, intended, part of it as a school-room for Mrs. Creagh, and the rest of it for other purposes connected with the mission. The spirit of industry and liberality has been largely displayed by the natives of Mare: they have little, if any, money; but this year they have prepared and contributed to the mission, or given as payment for books, about eight tons of cocoanut fibre, worth in Sydney from £300 to £400. For many years, owing to the obstinate opposition of one or two leading chiefs, the half of the island, or more, remained heathen. Latterly a large proportion of these have professed Christianity. Still there are a few tribes who cling with tenacity to the old system of darkness and cruelty, and our last accounts from Mare informed us that two of these tribes have been waging war with each other, and in the last battle fought about twenty men fell on the one side, and somewhat more on the other—a great slaughter for a native battle as wars are usually conducted in these islands. But this is likely to be the expiring struggle of heathenism, unless French interference, to which we shall by-and-by refer, shall secure it from the aggressive but benign influence of Christianity.
As a meeting of both the New Hebrides and Loyalty Island missionaries was to be held on Lifu, Mr. and Mrs. Creagh and Mr. Jones came with us in the Dayspring. On the passage to Lifu Mr. Currie, the first mate of the Dayspring, had a narrow escape for his life. The day was squally; they were bustling and taking in sail, when a native, turning round quickly, came violently against Mr. Currie without observing him, and, as the vessel gave a heavy lurch at the same time, he fell right overboard through the door of the gangway, which by some oversight was not closed up. Providen-
On the following day, July 1st, we came to anchor in Wide Bay, Lifu, at Mr. McFarlane's station. A French steamer was lying at anchor in the bay. As soon as we came to anchor a boat came off, informing us that the French and the natives were fighting, and that we could have no communication with the land. Captain Fraser went on board the steamer, and was referred to the Commandant on shore. When he went to the Commandant he was told that, as the island was under military law, all intercourse with the shore was forbidden. As he came there in ignorance of the state of affairs, he might land the goods he had brought for the missionaries, but none of the missionaries on board could go on shore, nor could either of the missionaries on shore go on board. As a special favour, Mrs. McFarlane was allowed to come on board to see the ladies, and the ladies on board were allowed to go on shore to return her visit.
The history of the war was this:—About a fortnight before this time the Governor paid first a visit to Marl, but as the natives, through the influence of the missionaries, complied with all his demands, there was no reasonable ground for a quarrel. He, however, imposed the following restrictions on the mission work:—All the Samoan and Rarotongan teachers were to cease labouring in the mission. The missionaries were to cease teaching till they can teach in the French language, and then they must apply for permission to teach. No purchase of land from the natives is valid, unless a title be obtained from the French Government, and paid for. The missionaries must first of all obtain a permit of residence. They are at present simply pastors to the Protestant natives, but they must not preach to the Catholics or the heathen.
After leaving Marè the Governor proceeded to Lifu, landed 125 troops at Wide Bay, went round to the other side of the island, and landed an equal number there. The French had three encounters with the natives. Their first attack was upon the church. While Mr. McFarlane was conducting a morning service the soldiers rushed in, but they found only five or six of the Samoan and Barotongan teachers, and a few natives. As the whole party were unarmed, conquest was easy. They made the teachers all prisoners. One woman took sanctuary under the pulpit; some part of her dress was discovered, and the soldiers assailed her with their bayonets,
The mission and the mission family were suffering very seriously from this state of warfare. As soon as we came near the anchorage we saw the effects of it in houses burnt down, and in the number of trees that were scathed with the fire. One house belonging to the chief was burnt down, and about £100 worth of cocoanut fibre destroyed. The church was converted into a barrack; the Commandant's bed was in the pulpit; the missionaries' pew was a scullery, where dishes were washed; the forms in the church were being broken up for firewood. The leg of Mr. McFarlane's horse was broken; the leg of one of his cows speared; his cocoanuts were fast disappearing; his poultry were sharing the same fate; while the soldiers, without leave either being asked or given, took the use of his boat as often as their convenience required it. Add to this, that their little baby, ten days old, died the very day the Governor arrived. The restrictions here on the mission are even more rigid than at Mare: Mr. McFarlane is prohibited from preaching, and all kind of missionary work; he is simply a resident.
It may be asked, what have the missionaries and the teachers done that these restrictions have been laid upon them?—men who, by great labours and amid many perils and privations, have Christianized, and, to a great extent, civilized, The usands of ferocious cannibals, introduced among them a written language, and given to them a large portion of the Word of God, and were fast elevating them in the scale of humanity. They know, and we know, of no
But what, it may be asked, have the natives done that war must be waged against them? We have two versions of this—one by the French Governor, the other by the missionaries on the islands. We shall state both. The Moniteur de la Nouvelle Caledonie of July 3rd, as reported in a Sydney paper, contains an official document signed by the Governor, M. Guillain, of which the following are the most important extracts:—"We, the Governor of New Caledonia and its dependencies,—Considering that, under cover of the Protestant religion, strangers have sought to denationalize the population of the Loyalty Islands, and have induced some of the chiefs to assume powers which belong to the Governor alone:—Considering also that the natives of the village of Chepenehe, and The se of many parts of Leussi, misunderstanding their duties towards the colonial authority, have fomented disorder and revolt amongst the other populations of the island of Lifu:—And considering that, since our arrival at Hiacho, and in spite of the notices and summonses which we have addressed to the refractory chiefs, These parties refrain from yielding obedience to our orders, and so persist in their rebellion, therefore we have decreed the island of Lifu to be in a stage of siege. The military authority is clothed with all the powers required for the maintenance of order and of police."
The missionaries say the cause of the war was this:—The French priests on Lifu were continually threatening the natives, and speaking to this effect—"Unless you become Catholics a man-of-war will come; soldiers will come; they will take away your chiefs and destroy your land." When the Governor came with 300 soldiers, and sent for the chiefs to come and speak to him, they, remembering the habitual threats of the priests, and what the French had done some years before both at the Isle of Pines and Yengen, were so afraid that they would not go to him. The two missionaries, Messrs. McFarlane and Sleigh, did everything in their power to persuade them to go; they even got them to consent to go; but when the time came their courage failed. The Governor wished to take some young men to Port de France to have them instructed in mechanical arts, but the youths selected fled to the bush through fear. Their conduct, which was produced simply by fear and want of confidence, was set down as rebellion, and punished accordingly. The Governor took with him as captives four principal natives and thirteen common men, and left the island under martial law.
In the circumstances of the island and the mission, we were very anxious to have a personal interview with the Commandant, to explain to him fully the nature and object of our visit. On the Monday we sent him a most respectful application to that effect, written in our best French. He took full time to consider the document, and sent us in the afternoon a distinct negative. Captain. Fraser also received instructions to sail as soon as practicable. Had
Our appearance at Life, as we understood, was anything but agreeable to the French. When we first appeared in the bay they would fain have made themselves and the natives believe that it was a small ship of war from Port de France, bringing more troops for their assistance. The missionaries said, "O, that is our vessel!" The French said, "O no, that cannot be; that must be a French vessel." But when it was found that we were no other than the veritable mission vessel, the Dayspring, they were very much disappointed and annoyed. The priests had been continually inflaming the fears of the French with the report that the natives were collecting in the interior, and would be down upon them eight thousand strong, to drive them all into the sea. Our presence, it was thought, would be the occasion for making this assault; but our presence was perhaps more dreaded on another account: Here were seven missionaries and three missionaries' wives, all likely to give such publicity to their proceedings in the colonies, in Europe, and in America, as would not redound to the glory of either France or Rome. Rome especially would rather have such things done than published.
On July 4th, at four o'clock in the morning, we were awakened by a sudden and terrific squall; the wind came in from the westward, blowing direct into the bay, and almost a hurricane. The rain poured down in torrents, the thunder was one continued roll, and the lightning all but a ceaseless blaze; so loud was the noise that the captain giving out orders at the top of his voice could scarcely be hoard by These nearest him on deck. A second anchor was at once let down; seventy-five fathoms of chain were payed out; the yards were sent down, and every precaution was taken to lessen the strain on the vessel and increase her power of resistance. When daylight came and we could see our position, it was found to be very critical. The sea was rolling in with tremendous power, and the rocks were close under our stern. The anchorage is on the ledge of a reef; if our anchors had dragged, or our chains snapped, we should have got into the breakers at once. We agreed to hold
All the missionaries took part in the exercise. Our prayers were graciously heard: the wind came steadily round to the south and south east, and the sea fell. After breakfast we had worship; the men, being The roughly drenched, could not attend at the usual hour. We sang another portion of the same psalm, beginning at
At noon of the same day we weighed anchor and sailed for Marè In the evening we held a thanksgiving service on board for our merciful deliverance. On the following day we landed all our Mare passengers, and made for Fate or Sandwich Island, in the New Hebrides.
On Friday, July 8th, we came to anchor in Erakor Bay, at Fatè, a small Christian settlement. We met with a cordial reception. There had been two Rarotongan teachers and one Aneityum teacher, and their wives. We found that Moekore, one of the Rarotongan teachers, had died about a month before our arrival, and his widow was in indifferent health. Toma, the other Rarotongan teacher, was also in very poor health, but his wife and daughter were well. Thivthiv, his wife, and two children were well; they live at Pang, a place about three miles from Erakor, and a very healthy spot. We lay at Erakor till Monday afternoon. On Saturday we paid a visit both to Erakor and Pang, and received presents at both places, for which we made some suitable returns. The settlement of Erakor contains about 150 people, who are all professedly Christian. Three years ago Messrs. Murray and Geddie baptized a number of them, and formed a church, and dispensed the Lord's Supper among them. In the following year, Messrs. Gell and Jones also visited them, in the John Williams, and baptized a number more. The number of church members, we understood, was about 50 or 60. On Sabbath we dispensed the ordinance of the Lord's Supper among them. Mr. Ella preached in Samoan, and Pomal, the chief, who had been some time at the Institution in Samoa, interpreted. A part of the devotional services connected with the ordinance was conducted in Aneityumese, and a part by Mr. Gordon in English, for the benefit of These belonging to the vessel who understood neither the Fatean nor Samoan languages. The audience amounted to about 130. They were all decently dressed in European clothing, and behaved with great propriety. It was an interesting and impressive meeting. Here we stood on the very outskirts—on the utmost verge of the Christian church; nothing beyond but heathen darkness—islands and groups of islands with not a ray of Christian light falling on them till we reach the great empire of China.
At Pang the chief and a few of the people are professedly Christian; they have an Aneityum teacher, hut they would prefer a Rarotongan, and the chief of Fil is also very desirous to have a teacher with him. "Waihit, one of the first converts on Aneityum, who was with us, and who pleaded their cause very earnestly, put the ease in its true light. "Misi," said he to Mr. Inglis, "they are just as we were when our hearts were dark, we did not care about the teachers because they were poor, we wanted the missionaries because they had a great dead of property." As it was in the beginning so it is now; our Saviour had the same experience. "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." It is the temporal advantages of Christianity which first commend it to the heathen. Its spiritual blessings cannot be appreciated till they are understood, and those who expect anything else at such a stage of progress as this, show how little they know of the nature of Christian missions.
We felt satisfied that one, and if possible, two missionaries, ought to be settled on this island without delay, and we arranged to some extent accordingly. A stone church was being built at Erakor, but nothing had been done to it since the death of Moekore. A house for the missionary was, however, the most pressing necessity, and we looked carefully out for a suitable site. The village of Erakor lies in a low confined situation, and is apparently very unfavourable for health, but in the centre of the bay there lies a beautiful island, slightly elevated, and covered with wood, on this we fixed as the site of the mission premises, the chief and people cheerfully gave up the island to the mission, and we gave instructions to the teacher and them to commence a house for a missionary. We gave similar instructions to the teacher and chief at Pang. We left them all, in good spirits. Fatè is a large, beautiful, fertile, and populous island.
Leaving Fatè we sailed for Erromanga, but as we encountered strong head winds, we did not get there till Friday afternoon, and as it then fell calm, we did not get to anchor in Dillon's Bay till Saturday morning. We had one Aneityum teacher, Nehieiman, and his wife on Erromanga, we found them both well, and in good spirits. Within the last year matters have taken a very favourable turn on this island as regards Christianity. Four stations have been opened, and about 200 profess themselves Christians. The teacher has been employed without intermission in going from place to place assisting to erect school-houses. We spent three days here. On Sabbath we conducted public worship in the principal station at Dillon's Bay. Like the previous Sabbath day's service at Erakor, they were polyglot. After prayer and praise, conducted by natives, Mr. Gordon, who had been studying the language for some time read portions of the Scripture out of his late brother's manuscripts, and a short address prepared by himself. Mr. Inglis spoke in Aneityumese, and Nehieiman interpreted.
On Monday a party of us went ashore, and visited the grave of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. They are buried by the side of the river, at or near the place where Mr. Harris was killed in
When we came ashore on Saturday, the first native that met us was Kaneauri, the murderer of John Williams, wearing a red serge shirt, and giving us apparently a very friendly reception. When we returned to the beach on the Monday, we found a great number of natives assembled, both Christian and heathen, but all peaceable and friendly. The Christian natives had brought a small present of food for the ship. Among the heathen party, was Narabalit, the murderer of Mr. Gordon, an impudent, savage-looking fellow; Mr. Ella, however, got hold of him, and through Mana, the first Christian on Erromanga, who had been some years in Samoa, and who understands that language, gave him such a
The writer of this was present at the settlement of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon in
There is a large sandle-wood establishment at Dillon's Bay, belonging to Mr. Henry. We are happy to say that both he and Mrs. Henry have shown a great amount of kindness to the mission, to Mr. Gordon, the natives, and, at each of her visits to all connected with the Dayspring.
Leaving Erromanga, we came next to Aniwa. Here we found the state of affairs very discouraging. When we went ashore, the
We sailed thence to Fotuna, where we found Ru and Kakita, the two Rarotongan teachers and their wives well, also Sakaraka, the Aneityum teacher, and his wife. The natives received us kindly. The work is not advancing under the teachers; still from the feeling displayed by the people, and the statements made by the teachers, we felt satisfied that Fotuna is quite prepared for the reception of a missionary. We made and received some presents, held a service with the teachers and the people, and then returned to the ship. We intended next to visit Tanna; but as a westerly wind had set in, which would have rendered it necessary to beat up to Tanna, but which was fair for Aneityum:—that and some other circumstances led us to decide on returning at once to Aneityum. We did so, and came to anchor at Mr. Inglis's station on the following morning, the 21st of July.
On the 25th we held a meeting of the mission to decide on the location of the new brethren. It was unanimously agreed that Mr. and Mrs. Manson should be located at Erakor on Fatè; Mr. Gordon, at Dillon's Bay, Erromanga; and Mr. and Mrs. McCullagh, at Anelgauhat, Aneityum, to take charge of Mr. and Mrs. Geddie's station till their return. It was also arranged that Mr. and Mrs. Copeland should accompany the Dayspring on her return to the Colonies, before taking up a new station of their own. Mr. Ella had applied to the French authorities for a permit of residence on Wea, but as the application had to be forwarded to Port de France before an answer could be obtained, he and his family had to return again to Aneityum. It was therefore arranged that Mr. Ella should proceed with the printing of Luke's Gospel, in the language of Erromanga, the translation of which had been prepared by the late Mr. Gordon; the MS. was in the handwriting of Mrs.
On the 3rd of August, the Dayspring sailed on her second voyage, and settled Mr. Gordon, on Erromanga; and Mr. and Mrs. Morrison, on Fatè. The reception given to both was most cordial and encouraging. Great disappointment was felt by the chief and people of Pang, that there was no missionary brought for them, but they were partly reconciled when Simeona, a teacher from Aitutaki, and his wife, were located among them. Simeona went to England in the John "Williams in
On the return of the vessel to Aneityum, Captain Frazer had an additional strip of copper put round the vessel, and several other necessary repairs effected, before her third voyage was undertaken. The new restrictions imposed by the French on the Loyalty Islands interfered very seriously with the usefulness of the vessel to the brethren in that group: but it was hoped that the visits of the John Williams this year, on her way to and from Sydney, would, to a great extent, supply her lack of service caused in this way. When the intelligence came of the loss of the John Williams, the Dayspring was about to proceed on her third voyage. Before this a quantity of goods had arrived at Aneityum from Sydney, for the Loyalty Islands. Some natives of Mare, shipwrecked in the whaling vessel, the "Bonnie Doon," off Banks's group, were left on our hands ill with fever and ague; it was arranged, therefore, that the Dayspring should take the goods and the natives on board, and proceed to Lifu, and state the circumstances of the case, and as a favour ask permission to land the goods and natives on Mare. A trading vessel, however, came in from the Loyalty Islands, and brought such a report of the stringent regulations of the French, as led to the belief that such an attempt might endanger the insurance of the vessel, and would otherwise effect no good. It was then agreed to refit the John Knox; two men were left for this purposo from the Dayspring, while she proceeded on her third voyage and visited all the islands in this group as far north as Fate. On the return of the Dayspring, the John Knox being newly caulked, coppered, and painted, and otherwise fitted for sea, was dispatched under the command of Mr. Currie, the first mate of the Dayspring, with the natives and as many of the goods as could be taken on board, to proceed to Port de France, and there clear out for Marè, as she was not insured there was no insurance to risk, and she could go anywhere. On proceeding to sea, she was found, from her being sixteen months or so out of the water, to be so leaky, and
On the return of the John Knox, the Dayspring proceeded on her fourth voyage, taking the Ambrim and Santo natives with her. The vessel proceeded as far north as Ambrim, left three of the natives, and brought away other three; the fourth one preferred returning in the ship, and going on as a seaman to Sydney. The other three are to remain for five or six months on Aneityum. The two Santo natives were left with Mr. Morrison on Fate, in the expectation that an opportunity of getting them home would occur before long. It was too far on in the season for the Dayspring to go on to Santo and land them, and accomplish the other work that still lay before her. On her return from this voyage on the 16th of November, she encountered a fearful gale off the north end of Tanna. They tried to get to anchor at Black Beach, but they could not make the anchorage. The sea was rough, but she rode out the storm without any damage, the aneroid fell six-tenths of an inch, it was the heaviest gale that we have ever seen on Aneityum out of the hurricane months. The natives were in deep anxiety lest the Dayspring should be lost; and the next morning but one, when at daybreak she was seen on the horizon, the news of her safety was reported round the island almost with the speed of the telegraph.
More favourable reports were now being received as to the disposition of the French; and as it was all but imperative that the vessel should visit the Loyalty Islands, arrangements were made for making the attempt, as well as to visit Fotuna, Aniwa, and Tanna, as the vessel returned to Sydney. These arrangements were just completed, when a letter was received from Mr. McFarlane, giving us distinct information that liberty could now be obtained at Lifu from the commandant to visit all the Loyalty Islands.
On the 29th of November, the Day Spring set out on her last trip before going to Sydney. She called at Fotuna, Aniwa, and Tanna, leaving an Aneityum teacher at the two last islands. On the 3rd December she reached Lifu, and obtained permission to settle Mr. Ella on Wea, where he was landed on the 8th. She next called at Marè, to land goods and take on board Mr. and Mrs. Creagh, but the commandant forbade their leaving, under the penalty of not being allowed to return.
In reviewing the work done by the Day Spring during the six months she has been among the islands, and the progress of the mission as affected by that work, we have abundant grounds for
The sailing qualities of the vessel are of the first order. Captain Frazer has been very successful in gaining the confidence of the natives, wherever he has come in contact with them; and the natives of Aneityum are loud in their admiration of the good conduct of the officers and the crew.
Satan appears to have overshot his mark when he shut Mr. Ella out of Wea for six months; his residence on Aneityum has been of signal advantage to this mission, especially to Erromanga. With the assistance chiefly of two natives, he has printed 1000 copies of Luke's Gospel in the Erromangan language. It is printed beautifully in English type, one of the finest specimens of typography and one of the most readable books ever printed in the South Seas. He printed also a primer and a Catechism in the Erromangan language, a primer and a hymnbook in the language of Fate, the first books ever printed in that language, and which were received with an excess of joy. He also printed a portion of a Scripture history and an almanack for
The prospects of the mission on this group are, upon the whole, highly encouraging. The six mission families who have been residing on the group since the arrival of the Day Spring have enjoyed good health. On Aneityum, Christianity and civilisation are steadily advancing among the people. The natives are in a good measure recovering from the fearful shock which they sustained by the measles and the hurricanes of
There is one source of anxiety to us at present, and that is the vicinity of the French. It is reported that the French authorities in New Caledonia have written home to France for liberty to take possession of the southern part of the New Hebrides. For the last hundred years everything that has been done for the New Hebrides has been done by Britain. These islands were surveyed and named by Cook; Aneityum and Fotuna were fully surveyed and accurately laid down by Captain Tenham; Sir Edward Belcher surveyed and laid down Port Resolution on Tanna; Captains Erskine and Oliver did something towards surveying Fate. A considerable amount of British capital is embarked in the different branches of the island trade. The missions on this group are all British: Bishops Selwyn and Patteson have made many a perilous voyage among these islands; Williams, Harris, and the Gordons fell by the hands of savage men in Erromanga; Mrs. Paton, Mr. Johnston, and the Mathesons and two children fell by disease on Tanna. When the heavenly tree of Christianity, planted with so much toil, and watered with so much blood, is just beginning to bear its life-giving fruit, will the Christians of Australia stand by and look on with indifference, and see the boar out of the forest threatening to tear it up and trample it on the ground? We hope not. But & they should, there is One in heaven who laughs at princes and rulers when they take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed; and seeking to put our trust in Him, our duty as yet is very clear—to employ all the resources at our command for the evangelization of these islands. Christ's kingdom must and will advance. It is an advancing tide, and The ugh from temporary causes it may be interrupted, and even appear to recede, yet it will return and more and more advance, till "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
The Districts of the Elders and Deacons will be seen by referring to the Map hung in the Class Room.
Meets in the Class Room every alternate Wednesday at half-past Seven p.m.
The revolution of another year calls upon us to lay before you our Annual Report of the state of the Congregation, spiritually and financially—of work undertaken and done. In the review of the year we are met on the one hand by mercies which require devout acknowledgments, and on the other by changes and occurrences which remind us of life's uncertainty, and the necessity of improving our opportunities of learning and doing.
In carrying on the spiritual affairs of the Congregation the Session held twenty meetings during the year; received into fellowship thirty-six by certificate, and thirty-six by examination—in all forming a goodly addition to the membership and the working strength of the Church. The Communion was dispensed quarterly, and the average number of Communicants was over four hundred.
It is desirable that Members on changing their residence, would leave their address with their former Elder or the Church Officer, as otherwise they are apt to be overlooked in the distribution of Communion Cards, which the Elders hope to render effective.
It is with great regret that the Session reports that Messrs Street and Smith have resigned their Eldership in the Congregation.
While the Session have pleasure in reporting that the attendance on Public Worship is well maintained, they observe, in respect of the Evening Service, a slackness on the part of several families. Aware that there may be sufficient reasons for this, they hope that none will reckon among these the increased facilities for Sabbath travelling which the Port Chalmers Railway affords.
For a part of the year the attendance on the Prayer Meeting was highly encouraging. Here, week by week, prayers are offered for the sick, the tempted, and the young, and in general for all Church work and objects. The Session record with pleasure that a fair proportion of These who attend give assistance in the service. After conference with the Deacons, they recommend, with a view to meet the circumstances of many members, that the hour of meeting be altered from seven o'clock to half-past seven p.m.
The Church Sabbath School, under the care of Mr Street and his noble staff of Teachers, more than maintains its ground—having the large attendance of upwards of four hundred. The spiritual work done from Sabbath to Sabbath can only be appreciated by The se who are conversant with school operations. While prominence is given to direct Scriptural teaching, the children are encouraged to store their memories with choice Psalms and Hymns, and lessons of faith and duty. The fact that the religious instruction of our Public Schools is now, from the religious divisions of the people, necessarily limited to little more than the reading of the Scriptures, is a loud call to the churches to increase the efficiency of the Sabbath School. The Session have learned with much pleasure that the Sabbath School Teachers of the Church meet from time to time not only for prayer but also for conversation on the School lessons, and the best means of imparting their knowledge of the Gospel.
This School continues to prosper under the zealous care of Mr Grant and his unwearied assistants. The attendance at this school is 45. The Minister has borne frequent testimony to the value of the Christian service to the children of the Church and the Gospel by our Sabbath Schools—and we join with him in commending them to your prayers and sympathies.
Meets in the Class-room every Sabbath morning at ten o'clock. The ugh this institution, like the Church itself, is subject to change—the older pupils giving place to younger ones—the average attendance is still maintained. In the lessons of the class the Minister keeps steadily in view the end of all Christian instruction, the conversion of the Scholars, their growth in sacred knowledge; with a view to Church Membership and service in the diffusion of the Gospel. Appreciating the importance of this class as mid-way between the Sabbath School and Church work, the Session would earnestly exhort parents to encourage their sons and daughters to join it.
This society reported at its annual meeting contributions to the amount of £108 9s for the spread of the Gospel. Its nourishing condition is due, under God, to the devotedness of Mrs Glasgow and the Collectors. At the Annual Meeting there was a general wish that the Synod should take a warmer interest in the spiritual condition of our Maories. The Minister took care to convey this
Mr Francis, the Precentor, devotes an evening every week during six months in the year to give instruction in Sacred Music to Members of the Congregation. The Session would urge our young people to avail themselves of the class, with a view to the still greater improvement of our service of song. They gladly acknowledge the heartiness of our Congregational singing. The Session and Deacons' Court gladly acknowledge a contribution of £10, through Mrs R. Gillies and friends, towards purchasing music for the Choir.
This Society meets in the class-room on every alternate Wednesday, at half-past seven o'clock p.m., during its session. Its objects are the improvement of the Members by the delivery and criticism of original essays, discussions, readings, recitations, and the cultivation of friendly feelings among the members. The Session recommend it to the young men of the Congregation.
At a Congregational Meeting held on the
Accordingly the following gentlemen were elected to the Deaconship, viz.—William Baird, The mas Cassells, Adam Johnston, James T. Mackerras, and Charles McQueen.
The change above referred to will necessitate an annual election of Deacons to fill the place of those who retire by effluxion of time.
The Deacons' Court held twenty-four meetings during the year.
The sum contributed by the Church for all purposes during the year amounts to £1,572 5s. 4d., being £22 8s 5d in excess of last year.
Through some accident, The ugh the amount actually raised for the Sustentation Fund is above that of
The special collections show that the Congregation has a heart for objects not especially Congregational.
There are Libraries in connection with the Sabbath Schools which are extensively used. The Church Library, rich in history, biography, philosophy, poetry, and practical divinity, is open every Thursday evening at the close of the Prayer Meeting, and is free to the Members of the Congregation. Mr Glasgow, assisted by Mr Dalglish attends to issue books. The Deacons' Court have to repeat the hope that a plan may be devised whereby the Catalogue of the Library may be periodically enlarged.
This Scholarship, held by John Ferguson, expires after another year. It will remain for the friends of the higher education to decide whether they will renew it for the encouragement of young men studying for the Ministry.
The Congregational collection to this fund amounted to the handsome sum of £5-1 15s. 5d., for which the Deacons' Court feels thankful.
There is still a balance in hand which will enable the Court to afford some relief until the next annual Collection falls due.
The erection of a new church has been under the consideration of your Deacons' Court for a long time. For the information of members generally it may be desirable to recapitulate the salient facts connected with this matter.
As far back as the
A Committee appointed to inquire and report as to the probable costs of the foundation of the present site and also of the new site, unanimously recommended the purchase of the section adjoining the manse property, and that the present church should be kept for the use of the Sabbath School. After much consideration it was resolved by the Deacons' Court to adopt the suggestion of the Committee. A Congregational meeting was held, on the
The Building Committee having asked for competitive designs for a stone church capable of accommodating one thousand persons, 17 plans were sent in. The Committee gave in a final report on the 25th July last, which recommended among other things that the consent of the Congregation should be obtained to the principle—that the Deacons' Court should select and appoint an architect for the erection of the new church. At a meeting of the Congregation held on the 8th August last, this course was approved of, and a resolution was passed remitting the whole question of the erection of the church to the Deacons' Court without limitation of amount.
In accordance with this resolution the Deacons' Court, on the 22nd August last, nominated Mr David Ross as architect, and a Building Committee (members of the Court) was appointed to make all necessary arrangements with that gentleman. The Committee having come to an agreement with him sent him the necessary instructions, and on the
On the 25th November last the foundation stone was laid by Dr Stuart in the presence of the Office-bearers, and on the 27th of the same month the sum of £175 was paid to the Architect in respect of commission.
The Committee were anxious to secure the services of a competent Inspector of Works, one in whom they, the Architect, and Contractors, would have full confidence. They were desirous of consulting the Architect in the appointment of the Inspector, but they were astonished to find that he (the Architect) demanded the appointment and dismissal of this officer entirely in his own hands. To this the Committee, acting under the instructions of your Deacons' Court, absolutely refused to agree, more especially as the person proposed by the Architect was one whom the Committee did not consider suitable. The Committee endeavoured to adjust the difficulty amicably by requesting the Architect to nominate one or more persons suitable for the office, from whom the Committee would select one, leaving Mr Ross to appoint him. As the Architect declined to accede to this proposal, and insisted on the person named by him being appointed, the Building Committee, in the interest of the Congregation, after giving the Architect notice, advertised for an Inspector. On the 31st December last the Committee appointed Mr David Henderson, and intimation of this was given to the Architect who refused to recognise him as the inspector. Much correspondence passed between the Architect and the Building Committee without any satisfactory result. The Committee therefore brought the position of affairs before the Deacons' Court, with an intimation that having carefully considered all the aspects of the case, and having ascertained that the Contractors were willing to annul the contract for a reasonable sum, they re-commended that the contract be annulled.
Your Deacons' Court believing that the position assumed by the Architect regarding the appointment of an inspector was unreasonable, on duly considering all the circumstances, anticipating further difficulties with him during the progress of the work, and being pressed by the necessity for an immediate decision, adopted the recommendation of the Committee and instructed that body to take the necessary steps for cancelling the contract. Accordingly the Committee and the contractors annulled the contract and notice was given to the Architect dispensing with his services.
The Deacons' Court regrets the unpleasant position in which it has been placed, but it is hopeful that at an early date the erection of the new church will be proceeded with.
To Balance at Dec. 31st, 1871
By Balance at Dec. 31st, 1871
"We have examined the above for the year ending
"
Andthe third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. (Rev. xiv. 9, 10, 11.) The war, contained in Chap, xi to 7th verse.
The End.
Dunedin: Mills, Dick & Co., Printers, Stafford Street.
The Synod of Otago and Southland met, and after sermon by the Rev. D. M. Stuart, D.D. (in lieu of the late Moderator), on the text Deuteronomy i. chap. 21st verse, and Luke xxiv., and 47th, was constituted with prayer by the Moderator. Thereafter the Clerk produced the following roll of ministers and elders, members of Synod:—
The roll having been made up and called over, the Synod proceeded to elect a Moderator for the next twelve months, when the Rev. Mr. Bannerman, of Clutha, was unanimously chosen, who took the chair accordingly and suitably addressed the Synod.
Rev. John M. Allan, of Waihola, was appointed Clerk during the meeting of Synod, and the Clerks of Presbyteries were appointed a committee to attend to the printing of the Synod's Proceedings—Mr. Stobo, convener.
Commission in favor of Rev. James Nish, of Sandhurst, from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, appointing him to represent that Church before this Synod, was given in and read. Mr. Nish having been introduced by Rev. J. H. M'Naughton, was welcomed by the Synod and associated with it.
It was reported from the Presbytery of Dunedin, that the Rev. Mr. A Ives, of Kaikorai, had demitted his charge; that Mr. Alexander Blake had been inducted into the pastoral charge of Kaikorai; and that Rev. George Sutherland, of First Church, Dunedin, had demitted his charge. From the Presbytery of Clutha it was reported that the Rev. A. B. Arnot, of Balclutha, had demitted his charge; that the Rev. Andrew Bett had been ordained to the pastoral charge of Tapanui; that Rev. James Kirkland, of Inch Clutha, had been translated to Hokitika; that Rev. John M'Ara, had been ordained to the pastoral charge of Balclutha; and that Rev. James Haynes Cameron had been ordained to the Pastoral charge of Lawrence. From the Presbytery of Southland it was reported that the Rev. Charles S. Ross had been inducted to the pastoral charge of Riverton, and Rev. J. M. Thomson to that of Winton and Forest Hill.
The Moderator and Clerk of Synod, the Clerks of Presbyteries, and Messrs. James Copland, M.D., James Chisholm, Donald Ross, and John Christie, ministers, and Messrs. Alexander Rennie, John Stenhouse, John Cumming, and David Gardner, elders, were declared the committee on Bills and Overtures, etc. It was agreed that the same be appointed a committee to arrange the order of business—the Moderator, convener.
Messrs. Stobo, Johnston, Waters, Todd, ministers, and Messrs. Wales, Brown, Cumming, and Anderson, Mr. Stobo convener, were appointed a Committee to revise records of Presbyteries, and of standing committees.
The Moderator, and Messrs. Gillies, Will, Copland, Waters, Allan, Todd, Ryley, Clark, Stobo, and Ross, Mr. Gillies convener, were appointed a committee to receive returns on Rules of Procedure, and to report.
Dr. Stuart reported that a friend had agreed to give the Princeton Review for one year to each of the thirty-five ministers of Synod for five
It was agreed that the first hour of tomorrow's sederunt be spent in devotional exercises.
It was agreed to hold the Annual Missionary Meeting on Monday evening.
The conveners of standing committees were appointed a committee to nominate standing committees for the year, Mr. Gillies convener.
Adjourned to meet in this place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The Synod engaged in devotional exercises during the first hour of meeting, led by the Moderator, and Messrs. Gow, Stobo, and Ryley.
Rev. James Laurie, of Wairarapa, was introduced to the Synod and associated with it.
The minutes of the former meeting were read and confirmed.
The Clerk read reports of committee on Bills and Overtures, and on order of business, when it was agreed to adopt the order as proposed by the committee.
It was agreed to record the thanks of the Synod to Dr. Stuart for his excellent sermon at the opening of the Synod, and to the Moderator for his able opening address.
It was agreed that each speaker be limited to ten minutes; the mover and seconder of motions to be excepted from this rule.
Mr. Gillies gave notice of motion, "That in the case of the death or removal from the ministry of this Church of the Moderator of Synod during the term of his office, the duties pertaining to the Moderatorship devolve upon the next preceding Moderator, being a minister of this Church."
The Moderator, Dr. Copland, Messrs. Gow, Gillies, Stobo, and Todd, were appointed a committee to confer with the Deacons' Court of First Church anent new church, the Moderator convener.
Mr. Todd gave notice that he would move when returns on Hymn Book were given in, "That the English Presbyterian Hymn Book be sanctioned by this Church for the use of its congregations." Mr. J. P. Millar gave notice that he would move as an amendment, "That the Synod delay the adopting of the English Presbyterian Hymn Book until the Synod receive the Free Church collection of paraphrases and hymns."
Mr. Gow gave notice that he would move "That whereas on completion of the First Church the funds now devoted to its exclusive use will be available for the general benefit of the Church, and whereas St.
It was resolved to sanction the proceedings of Clutha Presbytery in the ordination of Mr. Bett, to the pastoral charge of Tapanui, and also in the moderation of call at Lawrence in favor of Mr. Cameron.
It was agreed to instruct the Sustentation Fund Committee to include Mr. Alves as sharing in the equal dividend from the Sustentation Fund for the past year.
Report on students having been called for, the clerk of Clutha Presbytery reported that Mr. John Stevens had entered upon his second year's theological curriculum under the superintendence of the Presbytery; and the clerk of Dunedin Presbytery reported that Mr. Andrew Fleming had not taken license under the Presbytery, and was no longer under its superintendence, having accepted the rectorship of the Invercargill Grammar School, within the bounds of another Presbytery.
Overture on theological training of young men having been read, and Dr. Stuart heard in its support, it was resolved to adopt the overture, appoint a committee to consider the training of our theological students and provision for this object, and to report to next Synod.
Mr. Gow gave in report of committee on Sabbath Schools, which having been read it was resolved, that the Synod approve of the report, record its thanks to the committee, and especially to its convener, appoint a standing committee on Sabbath Schools, and remit the recommendations contained in the report to the committee, with powers, and further recommend the committee to endeavor to obtain funds to provide suitable books for Sabbath Schools.
The report of the deputation appointed to visit the outlying districts having been called for, Mr. Ryley reported verbally that owing to Mr. Kirkland's translation the deputation had not been able to fulfil their appointment.
It was agreed to add the name of Mr. Will to the Finance Committee, to which committee the Synod remitted the matter of insurance of church buildings.
Adjourned to meet in this place this evening at 7 o'clock.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
Minutes of former meeting read and confirmed.
It was agreed to appoint the University Committee a committee to consider the training of theological students.
Overture from Presbytery of Southland anent funeral services was called for and read. Mr. Stobo having been heard in its support, it was
It was also moved and seconded that the overture be not adopted, and that the "Synod recommend that the ministers of this Church hold religious service at the house of the deceased, and, when convenient, at the grave."
It was further moved and seconded, "That the overture be not adopted, and that the Synod, deeming it unnecessary to give any deliverance on the matter referred to therein, leave it to every minister to act according to his own judgment."
A vote having been taken between first and second amendments, there voted for the first 17, and for the second 24. A vote having been taken between the second amendment and the motion, there voted for the motion 9, and for the amendment 31. The amendment was declared carried accordingly.
Commissions were laid on the table in favor of Rev. J. Elmslie, Moderator of General Assembly of Presbyterian Church of New Zealand; Rev. Charles Fraser, Christchurch; and Rev. J. Kirkland, Hokitika; and Messrs. J. D. M'Pherson and J. L. M'Donald, elders—appointing them deputies to this Synod. It was resolved that the Moderator welcome the deputies present, and that they be associated with the Synod. Messrs. Elmslie and Fraser being present, were welcomed by the Mode-hator, and took their seats accordingly.
Returns to overture on Hasty Legislation having been called for, it was reported that all the Presbyteries disapproved of the overture, also eight Sessions, and that four Sessions approved.
It was resolved that the overture be not adopted.
Overtures from the Presbyteries of Dunedin and Southland anent the practice of the administration of Baptism were read, and Dr. Copland heard in support of the overture from Dunedin, and Mr. Stobo in support of that from Southland. Thereafter it was moved and seconded, "That the Synod having considered the overtures anent the administration of baptism, declares that the law authorises the administration of baptism only to those, and the children of those, who profess faith in Christ, and enjoins that any who, after due examination, may be judged fit to receive this privilege for their children, but who have not joined the Church as members in full communion, shall be placed on the roll of catechumens, or members on trial; that they shall be subject to the same jurisdiction and discipline as members in full communion, but shall
It was also moved and seconded:—"Having considered the overtures anent baptism, declare that the principles of this Church are opposed to indiscriminate baptism, both as to subjects and place, and require that those receiving baptism for themselves or their children make credible profession of their faith in Christ and obedience to Him; and that the ordinance, when practicable, be administered in public; and enjoin the ministers of the Church to carry out these principles in their practice."
It was moved and seconded, that the motion and amendment be both sent down to presbyteries and sessions, in the form of overture, for consideration.
It was further moved that the two original overtures be sent down to presbyteries and sessions for consideration.
A vote having been taken between the two last amendments, the first was carried by a majority of 21 to 7. A vote was then taken between the amendment carried and the one preceding, when the former was adopted by a majority of 20 to 4. A vote was then taken between the original motion and the amendment, when the motion was carried by a majority of 17 to 13, and the motion ordered to be embodied into an overture and sent down to presbyteries.
Adjourned, to meet in this place tomorrow at 11 o'clock a.m.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
Minutes of former meeting read and confirmed.
Report of committee on order of business read and adopted.
Mr. Waters gave notice that when returns of presbyteries and kirk sessions anent the English Presbyterian Hymn Book are given in, he would move that the motion of Mr. Todd to adopt said book is incompetent. Mr. Watt gave notice of the following motion:—"That the Synod appoint two ministers to prepare short papers bearing on such points of Christian faith and practice as may seem to them worthy of treatment, to be read at next meeting of Synod."
Report of committee on sanctioning of charges having been called for, was read, and laid on the table. After consideration, it was moved and seconded that the report be adopted, sanctioning Mataura as a ministerial charge, but refusing at present to give sanction to Caversham. It was also moved and seconded, that the Synod approve of the report in so far as it refers to Mataura, but in so far as it refers to Caversham it be not adopted; and that the Synod sanction Caversham as a regular charge.
A vote having been taken, there voted for the amendment 13, and for the motion 33. The motion was declared carried accordingly.
Overture from Oamaru Presbytery anent an Aged and Infirm Minister's Fund was read, and Mr. Ryley heard in its support. It was agreed to adopt the overture, and appoint a committee to consider the whole matter and report to a future sederunt.
Overture from the Presbytery of Clutha anent Hymns was read, and Mr. Allan heard in support of it. It was moved and seconded, that the Synod receive the overture, and declare that the Synod in its resolution of
Adjourned, to meet in this place this evening at 7 o'clock.
Closed with prayer.
First Church, Dunedin, eodem die.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
Minutes of former meeting read and sustained.
Returns to remit on Hymn Book having been called for, it was reported that two presbyteries approved of the adoption of English Presbyterian Hymn Book, and that one disapproved; that no return had been sent from Clutha Presbytery; that eight sessions approved, and twelve disapproved. Mr. Todd moved, according to notice, "That the English Presbyterian Hymn Book be adopted by this Church, for the use of its congregations." This having been seconded, Mr. Waters moved that it was not competent to move the motion proposed by Mr. Todd, in view of the return now read. Mr. Waters' motion was rejected by a majority of 32 to 5. It was then moved and seconded, "That this Synod delay adopting the English Presbyterian Hymn Book until this Synod receives the Free Church collection of paraphrases and hymns."
The Synod adjourned the discussion of the subject, for the purpose of hearing the deputies of other Churches, whereupon Messrs. Elmslie and Fraser, from the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, addressed the Synod on the desirability of union or co-operation between the two Churches; and Mr. Nish, from the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, who communicated much valuable information regarding the Church represented by him. The deputies having been heard, it was agreed that the Moderator return the thanks of the Synod to the deputies for their very
The Synod having resumed discussion on the adoption of the English Presbyterian Hymn Book, it was moved and seconded, "That the Free Church Hymn Book be sent down to presbyteries and kirk sessions for their consideration, with a view to its adoption at next meeting of Synod, if it be found suitable." A vote having been taken between the first and second amendments, there voted for the first 18, and for the second 14. A vote was then taken between the motion and the amendment carried, when there voted for the motion 21, for the amendment 11; and the English Presbyterian Hymn Book declared sanctioned accordingly.
Adjourned, to meet in this place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
Minutes of former meeting read and confirmed.
Mr Gillies moved, in accordance with previous notice, "That in the case of the death or removal from the ministry of this Church of the Moderator of Synod, during the term of his office, the duties pertaining to the Moderatorship devolve upon the next preceding Moderator, being a minister of this Church." The same having been seconded, was unanimously agreed to.
It was remitted to the University Committee to take charge of the books in the Theological Library, with instructions that the books be properly cared for.
Mr. Blake gave notice that he would move that the Synod continue services at the Heads during the year.
Report of Church Extension Committee was read by the Convener, and laid on the table. It was resolved, by a majority of 28 to 3, to approve of the report, and also of the action of the Committee in sending home to the Colonial Committee for two ministers; record the thanks of the Synod to the Committee, and especially to the convener, and instruct the Committee to make application to the Colonial Committee for four ministers in addition to the two already sent for, instead of two additional as recommended in the report.
Report on Dunedin Church properties given in and read. The Synod approved of the report, and instructed the Factor to lease the several available portions of these properties, under advice of the Church Trustees.
Adjourned, to meet in this place on Monday, at 3 o'clock p.m.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The minutes of last meeting read and approved.
The Moderator read communication from Mr. Alves, thanking the Synod for its kindness and practical sympathy with him in his present circumstances of ill health.
The following committee was appointed to consider and report on the proposed Aged and Infirm Ministers Fund, viz.—The Moderator, Messrs. Will, Todd, Gow, Watt, Clark, Stobo, and Ryley, ministers; and J. F. Millar, and J. Allan, elders—Mr. Ryley, convener.
The several standing committees were then appointed.—see Appendix.
Report of committee on Widows' Fund given in, read, and adopted.
It was remitted to the Finance Committee, with powers, to call for information anent all congregational properties, and to consider the terms of the Model Trust Deed, and to report to next meeting of Synod.
The report of the University Committee was given in and read-After consideration, it was agreed to adopt the report, record the thanks of the Synod to the convener, and recommend Presbyteries to make every effort to provide one or more bursaries, as suggested by the committee, and report to next meeting of Synod.
It was agreed that the present holder of the Lang Scholarship (which the Synod declared at last meeting should be tenable for two years) be permitted to hold it for a third year, on condition that he continue his attendance at the University and show satisfactory progress, and that his theological curriculum be not reckoned from an earlier date than the termination of such university attendance.
Adjourned, to meet in this place this evening at 7 o'clock.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The minutes of former meeting read and approved.
Report on Missions having been given in and read, the Synod engaged in the consideration of missions and the missionary operations of the Church, when Messrs. Gow, Fraser (of Christchurch), Nish (of Victoria), Elmslie (of Wanganui), addressed the Synod, and to whom a vote of thanks was accorded. The Synod having resumed consideration of the report, the following deliverance was agreed to:—"That the Synod approve of the report; record the thanks of the Synod to the committee, and especially to the interim convener; express their gratitude to Almighty God for the continued success attending the missions of this Church in the New Hebrides and among the Chinese in this Province; instruct the Presbytery of Dunedin to make arrangements that will enable Mr, Blake to visit and preach at the Heads as frequently as possible; and that all the Presbyteries of the Church be recommended to see that those ministers in the neighborhood of the various Native villages within their bounds take some interest in and oversight of the Maoris; that the Synod deeply sympathise with the New Hebrides Mission Synod in the bereavement it has suffered in the murder of Mr. Gordon, and in the
Adjourned, to meet in this place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The minutes of last meeting read and approved.
The Rev. Mr. Blake obtained leave of the Synod to withdraw the motion of which he had given notice, respecting services at the Heads.
The Rev. Mr. Gow, with the leave of the Synod, withdrew the motion standing in his name, with regard to a grant to St. Andrew's congregation.
The Finance Committee was instructed to advise the Factor as to an agreement with the Government with reference to the carrying of Cumberland street through the Church Hill property.
Report of the deputation to Northern Church having been called for, the same was given in by Mr. Watt, when the following deliverance was adopted:—"That the Synod receive the report of the deputy, record the thanks of the Synod to the deputy for his diligence, appoint Dr. Stuart and Mr. Ryley, ministers, and Messrs. A. Anderson and A. Rennie, elders, their deputies to the General Assembly, to meet at Auckland in December next; and with a view to forward the carrying out of the practical suggestions made by the General Assembly with respect to co-operation respecting theological training, and with a view also to make suggestions towards a closer co-operation which may ultimately, and at no long distance hence, result in an incorporating union, appoint the following committee, viz.—The deputies, and Messrs. Bannerman and Stobo (Stobo convener), with instructions to communicate with any similar committee appointed by the General Assembly, to report to next meeting of Synod." It was also resolved to empower the Moderator to grant a commission to a member or members of the Synod to attend the Synod of Canterbury, appointed to meet in May next. And further, that the Synod express its satisfaction at the presence of the Rev. James Nish, of the
Report of the Sustentation Fund Committee was read and laid on the table. After deliberation, it was resolved to adopt the report; record the thanks of the Synod to the committee, especially to its convener; and that the suggestion to insert L175 in Nos. 1 and 3 of the Sustentation Fund regulations, be sent down to presbyteries and kirk sessions for their consideration, and to report to next meeting of Synod.
Appeal of Mr. J. P. Millar against decision of Presbytery of Dunedin anent proceedings of moderation of call at Kaikorai, with relative papers, was read. Compeared—Mr. Millar for himself, and Mr. Gillies for the Presbytery. Parties having been heard and removed, it was moved and seconded, "To dismiss the appeal, and confirm the judgment of the Presbytery." It was also moved and seconded, "Sustain the appeal, on the ground that it was incompetent for the Presbytery, in the face of a dissent and complaint (for leave to appeal), to proceed in the matter appealed against; but sanction the settlement that has now been made at Kaikorai." A vote having been taken, there voted for the amendment ten, and for the motion ten. The Moderator gave his casting vote in favor of the amendment, which was declared carried accordingly, and the same was intimated to parties.
The Synod adjourned, to meet in this place this evening, in private conference on the state of religion, at 7 o'clock; in public at 9 o'clock.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and sustained.
Mr. Todd gave notice that he would move, "That in view of the desirability of the nature of the business coming before the Synod being known by the members as early as possible, and for the better conducting of the same, all overtures, petitions, reports, etc., be transmitted to the Synod Clerk, care of Mr. E. Smith, General Treasurer, not later than the Monday preceding the meeting of Synod, and that the following committee be appointed to print the same so as to have all papers on the table of the Synod the first day of meeting, viz.—The City ministers and representative elders, with the Synod Clerk; the Clerk to be convener."
In terms of resolution of forenoon sederunt, the Synod met in conference in private, to consider report of committee on the state of religion. The report having been read, and the convener heard in support of the same, it was resolved to adjourn the further consideration of the report, and to meet in private at sederunt of tomorrow forenoon for deliverance upon the report.
Remit, from the Presbytery of Dunedin, anent the employment of students, etc., was read and laid on the table. After lengthened deliberation, it was resolved to send it down to presbyteries for further consideration, and to report to next meeting of Synod.
It was agreed, that in the event of a congregation receiving a minister from home, said congregation shall pay at least one-fifth of the passage money, which may be paid in two annual instalments.
Adjourned, to meet in this place tomorrow at 11 o'clock a.m., when the Syned resolved to meet in private.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The Synod met in private conference, on the report of committee on the state of religion, in accordance with resolution of last sederunt. Thereafter public business was proceeded with.
The minutes of the former meeting were read and sustained.
The following deliverance was adopted on the report of committee on state of religion:—"The Synod approve of report as amended; record the thanks of the Synod to the committee, and especially to its convener; express the satisfaction of the Synod at the favorable symptoms of a growing interest in religion indicated in the report; regret the existence of so much that is opposed to the progress of true godliness throughout the Province, and in terms of the report instruct the several ministers to observe the first Sabbath of November as a day of special services for the young, and to address their respective congregations on the first Sabbath of March on the subject of Sabbath observance; and to continue special evangelistic services during the year; and further recommend that a deputation be appointed to visit the outlying districts of the Church during the year."
The Rev. Messrs. Todd and Ryley were appointed a deputation to visit the outlying districts of the Province.
The Committee on Bills, &c., brought up minute of Presbytery of Dunedin (being a new application for the sanctioning of Caversham as a ministerial charge), with the proviso that this proposal to reopen a matter already determined should not be held as affording a precedent for like procedure in future. After consideration, powers were granted to the Dunedin Presbytery to sanction Caversham as a ministerial charge, provided that the charge be self-sustaining.
The committee appointed to consider the whole matter of the Aged and Infirm Ministers Fund brought up the following report, which was adopteed: "1. That the Synod resolve to institute an Aged and Infirm Minister Fund. 2. That each minister of the Church be required to pay into said fund not less than L2 per annum. 3. That the wealthier members and friends of the Church be invited to contribute to this fund by donation, legacy, or otherwise, as they may deem best. 4. That the whole matter be sent down to presbyteries for their consideration, with instruc-
The Synod having taken into consideration the state of Mr. Alves' health, and the necessity of making provision for him, resolved to remit the matter to the Presbytery of Dunedin, to deal therewith as they may see fit.
Report of Committee on Tcmperance was called for, given in, and read. After consideration, it was resolved, "To adopt the report, record the thanks of the Synod to the committee, especially the convener, and instruct the several ministers to attend to the recommendations contained in the report.
Report of Committee on revision of records was given in, read, and adopted, and the Moderator authorised to attest the several records as examined.
Mr. Wales gave notice that he would move that in Rule 27, page 9 of the rules of procedure, after the words "duly elected," be inserted the words—"for a term of three years, and that an annual election of officebearers take place, one-third of the elders and one-third of the deacons to retire annually. In the first election made under this rule, those who have the lowest number of votes to retire first." And that the above be sent down to presbyteries for their consideration, and to report to next Synod.
Report of Committee appointed to confer with deacons' court of First Church anent new church, having been called for, was given in as follows:—"Your Committee have held several meetings with the representatives of the deacons' court, and one meeting of said court along with the University Committee. The accompanying extract minute of deacons' court was read and considered, when the following resolution was adopted, though not unanimously:—'That no further grant towards First Church be recommended, but that arrangements be made to secure the full grant of L14,000 being immediately paid up; and further, that the present church be taken in lieu of L1500 now lying on it as a mortgage.'" The following is the minute of deacons' court referred to in the Committee's report:—
The report of the Committee appointed to consider Mr. E. Smith's letter of 6th inst. was brought up by Mr. Moore, as follows:— "The Committee find that the new church building will probably be finished in about three months. That the total cost of same will be as follows,
"That in terms of the contract payments have to be made only from the Manse Reserve Fund, as the rents of the property accrue, but that a sufficient sum to meet the cost of the building has not yet accrued from this source. That the deacons' court cannot get possession of the building until the above sum of L14,767 12s. 6d. is fully-provided for. That the Synod has only voted the sum of L14,000, and that the deacons' court has no fund from which to pay the balance of the said sum of L14,767 12s. 6d. That this sum represents the bare cost of the building and approaches to same, but that it will be necessary to have the ground properly fenced and drained. That this is estimated to cost about L1000. The Committee recommend that the Synod be respectfully requested to make provision for the payment of the above sum of L14,767 12s. 6d., so as to enable the deacons' court to get possession of the building on completion; and also to vote from the Manse Reserve Fund a sum sufficieut to properly fence and drain the land in connection with the Church."
It was moved by Mr. Mollison, seconded by Mr. Wilkinson, and carried unanimously, that the report of the Committee be adopted; and that the Committee be re-appointed, and instructed to lay before the Committee of Synod an extract from this minute, and to support the views of this court before the Synod, if necessary, and that the same Committee be appointed to arrange for a settlement with the Synod as to the present church building.
It was moved and seconded, that the report be adopted, and that the Synod resolve in accordance therewith. Further consideration of the report was adjourned till the evening sederunt.
Adjourned, to meet in this place this evening at six o'clock.
Closed with prayer.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The minutes of last meeting were read and approved
The Synod having resumed consideration of report on First Church, it was moved and seconded, "That the Synod grant L14,000, together with the sum of L1767 12s. 6d. set forth in the extract minute of deacons' court, on the condition that the latter body give a guarantee that no further grant would be asked in respect of the erection of the new church, and that the present church building be handed over to the Synod in lieu of L1500 for which it is mortgaged."
Before determining the matter, it was resolved that the deacons' court of First Church should lay their records on the table of the Synod. To give them an opportunity to do this, the Synod proceeded to take up other business, when Mr. Todd's motion anent printing papers was adopted; and Mr. Watt, in accordance with the sense of the Synod, withdrew the motion standing in his name, anent reading of papers before Synod. Motion anent election of elders, of which notice was given in by Mr. Wales, was sent down to Presbyteries.
Committee appointed to revise Rules of Procedure continued, with name of Mr. Stevens added.
The records of deacons' court of First Church having been laid on the table, the Synod resumed discussion of the report anent First Church, when it was moved and seconded, "That no further grant towards the First Church be sanctioned; but that arrangements be made to pay the deacons' court such sum additional to what has already been paid as will make up the amount to L13,000 on completion of their new buildnig; and that on condition of their taking possession of the same and vacating the present building and site, the remaining portion of the
The Synod adjourned, to meet in this place tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.
The Synod met and was constituted. The Moderator in the chair.
The minutes of former meeting were read and approved.
The Moderator intimated that he had received from an anonymous donor a second donation of L50, for a second missionary to New Hebrides. It was agreed to record the thanks of the Synod for the same, and to request the Moderator to acknowledge the donation through the press.
Dr. Stuart, as ex-Moderator of Synod, was authorised to sign the minutes of
The following answers to reasons of dissent were given in, read, and adopted:—"1. The dissentients in their first reason have not correctly stated the position of the Synod under the Dunedin Church Lands Ordinance, James Copland, convener of committee."
It was agreed to instruct the Church's Factor to cany out the resolution adopted at the last sederunt anent Manse Reserve Fund, and the Finance Committee were appointed to advise with him thereanent.
Report of Finance Committee given in and read. After deliberation) it was unanimously agreed to adopt the report; record the thanks of the Synod to the committee, and especially to its convener, for the admirable manner in which its business is conducted.
Report of committee on Synodical expenses was given in and read, and the several charges allocated.
Collections were appointed to be made on behalf of Church Extension not later than March next; for passage-money of ministers, not later than July next; and for Missions, not later than November next. A collection for the Bethel Mission, Fort Chalmers, was also recommended.
The Moderator, Clerk of Synod, and the Clerk of Dunedin Presbytery were appointed a committee to superintend the printing and publishing of the Synod's Proceedings.
It was agreed that the committees be instructed to prepare notices to be laid in the pews of the churches previous to collections being made, giving information regarding the object of the collection.
Pastor Heine, of Nelson, was introduced to the Synod.
It was agreed to record the thanks of the Synod to the reporters and conductors of the press, for the satisfactory reports given of its proceedings.
The minutes of this meeting were read and approved.
The Moderator then addressed the Synod, which adjourned to meet in this place on the second Wednesday of January next.
Closed with prayer.
Church Extension.—Dr. Stuart (Convener), Messrs. Gow, Watt, Johnstone, M'Naughton, Copland, ministers; Messrs. Ronnie, Millar, Wales, Cargill, elders.
Missions.—Rev. Wm. Bannerman (Convener), Messrs. Cameron, Chisholm, Allan, Waters, M'Ara, ministers; Messrs. Jamieson, J. W. Thomson, Henry Clark, Anderson, and Ritchie, ciders.
Sustentation Fund.—Hon. .T. Paterson (Convener), Messrs. Wm. Thomson, E. B. Cargill, A. Mercer, A. C. Begg, Wm. Somerville, J. Reith, G. Hepburn, N. Y. A. Wales, J. P. Millar.
Sanctioning Charges.—Rev. A. H. Stobo (Convener), Messrs. Johnstone, Allan. Todd, Gow, D. Ross, and Dr. Stuart, ministers; Messrs. Grant, Millar, Matthews, and Captain Thomson, elders.
Finance Committee.—Rev. Wm. Gillies (Convener), Messrs. Watt and Will, ministers; Messrs. Cargill, Rennie, N. Y. A. Wales, A. C. Begg, Wilkie and Reith, elders.
University Commitee.—Mr. E. B. Cargill (Convener), Messrs. Watt, Johnstone, Will, Stuart, Copland, Gow, Chisholm, Todd, Stobo and Gillies, ministers; Messrs. Wales, John Paterson, and R. A. Lawson, elders.
Temperance Committee.—Members of Oamaru Presbytery, Mr. Clark, Convener, corresponding members, Messrs. Stobo, Connor, and Copland.
Sabbath School Committee.—Rev. John Gow (Convener), Messrs. Johnstone, Copland, Watt, Blake, ministers; Messrs. John Paterson, Smith, Reith, Moore, Grant, and C. H. Street, elders.
State of Religion.—The Oamaru Presbytery, Mr Ryley, Convener; corresponding members, Messrs. Stobo, Chisholm and Copland.
The Committee on Sanctioning Charges report that there are two applications for sanction this year. The one is from the district of the Lower Mataura, at present under the pastoral care of the Rev. Charles Connor, bnt distant thirty, and in some parts sixty miles from Popotunoa, which is the centre of Mr. Connor's proper charge. The application is accompanied by a subscription list showing £158 1s. per annum. It is believed that the district will soon be in a position to raise very much more towards the support of a minister, and in these circumstances the Committee think it advisable that the ecommendations of the Clutha Presbytery be given effect to, and the district be sanctioned as a ministerial charge.
The other application is from the suburb of Caversham, and comes up in the from of a petition from residents in that district to the Presbytery of Dunedin, and accompanied by a subscription list showing £152 16s. promised in the district. The Presbytery of Dunedin have strongly recommended that Caversham be sanctioned. In this recommendation your Committee do not concur. They are of opinion that if charges far below the self-sustaining point be sanctioned, it should be in the districts of our land spiritually neglected, and far removed from ordinances, and not in the immediate neighborhood of Dunedin; but recommend that it be fostered by the Presbytery in order to be sanctioned as soon as possible.
Report that no deaths have taken place during the present year, and that there was only one annuitant; that the receipts amounted to £254 6s. 10d., and the capital fund to £1363 16s. 8d.
Your Committee have much pleasure in submitting the following report upon the general funds of the Church, giving evidence as it does of progress and stability.
1. Sustentation Fund.—The total sum collected for the past year in connection with this fund was L6215 16s. 5d. This shows an increase for the year of L613 16s. 7d. Owing, however, to the increased number of ministers on the fund, the dividend payable to each minister is nearly the same as last year, viz.: for
2. Mission Fund.—Credit balance at beginning of year, L144 13s. 5d.; congregational contributions for the year, L521 11s 6d.; donations, L6; special subscriptions to Chinese mission, L16 16s. Total income for the year, L544 7s. 6d.; expenditure, L412 17s. 5d.; excess of revenue over expenditure, L131 10s. Id.; which, with last year's balance, makes a credit balance to this fund of L276 3s. 6d. This large balance arises from the removal of Mr. Blake from the Maori Mission. Had this part of the Church's operations been continued, the income would not have met the necessary expenditure. The congregational contributions to this fund have been as follows:—Knox Church, L98 13s. 2d.; Oamaru, L48 7s. 6d.; Tokomairiro, L45 18s.; East Taieri, L45; Inch Clutha, L33 6s.; Otepopo, L26 4s. 10d.; Invercargill, L25 4s. 10d.; Green Island, L24 5s.; West Taieri, L20; Balclutha, L15 16s. 6d.; First Church, L15 14s. 7d.; Waitahuna, L14 7s. 6d.; North Dunedin, L12 12s.; Waihola, L11 10s. 6d.; Teviot, L11; Lawrence, L9 2s.; Palmerston, L7 17s. 10d.; North-East Harbor, L7 16s. 7d.; St. Andrew's, L6 6s.; Popotunoa, L6 5s. 2d.; Queens, town, L6 2s.; Anderson's Bay, L5; Clutha, L4 12s.; Wallacetown, L3 18s.; Waikouaiti, L3 4s.; Oteramika, L3 3s. 8d.; Kaikorai, L3; Mount Ida, L2 Is. 6d.; Tapanui, L2; North Taieri, L1 2s. 4d.; Hampden, L1; Wairuna, L1. Special contributions to New Hebrides Mission—First Church, L6 16s.; St. Andrew's, L5; Invercargill, L1 18s.; West Taieri, 5s.; Caversham Sunday School, L2 3s. 6d.; Miss Valpy, L4;—Total, L20 2s. 6d.
3. Dayspring Fund.—The contributions to this fund show a very considerable decrease for the year; but this is accounted for by the fact that last year a special appeal was made for extra contributions for repairs required by the mission vessel; still, only 22 congregations out of the 36 sanctioned charges of the Church have contributed to this fund during the past year. They are as follows:—Tokomairiro, L23 15s. 8d.; Invercargill, L26 16s.; Knox Church, L20 10s. 7d.; Palmerston, L15; West Taieri, L14 14s, 6d.; Lawrence and Waitahuna, L14 14s.; First Church, L14; Oamaru, L10 10s.; Anderson's Bay, L8 18s.; Oteramika, L8 15s. 6d.; Clutha, L7 15s. 6d.; Kaikorai, L7 8s.; East Taieri, L6 6s.; Popotunoa, L5 11s 6d.; St. Andrew's, L5; North-East Harbor, L3 3s. 1d.; Green Island, L2 4s.; Teviot, L2; Wallacetown, L1 10s.; Balclutha, L1 7s. 6d.; Waihola, 17s. 9d.; Riverton, 10s. 3d. Total, L195 7s. 10d. The Dayspring being so necessary to the carrying on of the Mission operations in the New Hebrides, it is to be hoped that the congregations of the Church will not fail in their interest in support of this fund.
4. Church Extension Fund.—Credit balance at the beginning of the year, L11 9s. 3d.; Congregational contributions, L388 3s. 9d.; Donations, L33 7s. 8d. Total L433 8s. Expenditure, L344 14s.; leaving a credit balance to be carried forward to next year of L88 6s. 8d. The following five congregations were vacant for part of the year, and contributed for the supply granted to them as follows:—Kaikorai, L25 17s.; Lawrence, L83 11s.; Riverton, L47 11s.; Winton, L72 3s. 3d.; Alexandra, L15.
5. Passage Expenses Fund.—There is at present to the credit of this fund, in the hands of the Treasurer, the sum of L135 6s. 4d. The liability to the Church at home for ministers already in this Colony is about L240; thus leaving a debt of over L100 against this fund. The Synod having, in consideration of the great necessities of the Province, agreed to send for six additional ministers, the expense attendant on the bringing out of whom may be reckoned about L600, strenuous efforts will require to be made by the Church at large to meet this liability. Your Committee would strongly urge upon the ministers of the Church to see that the claims of this fund and its great importance are fully brought before their congregations. The congregational contributions for the past year are as follows:—Knox Church, L24 8s.; West Taieri, L14 17s. 6d.; Oamaru, L10 8s. 1d.; Invercargill, L7 4s. 9d.; East Taieri, L6 10s.; Wakatip, L6 5s. 3d.; Green Island, L6; First Church, L5 10s.; Tokomairiro, L5 2s. 9d.; Anderson's Bay, L4; Balclutha, L3 15s.; Riverton, L3 7s. 2d.; North-East Harbor, L3 6s. 8d.; Palmerston, L3 6s. 1d.; Waitaki, L3 4s.; St. Andrew's, L3 1s.; Clutha, L3; Waihola, L2 19s. 5d.; Lawrence, L2 10s.; Mount Ida, L2; North Dunedin, L1 10s. 9d.; Oteramika, L1 4s.; North Taieri, L1 2s. 4d.; Popotunoa, L1 6s.; Teviot, L1'; Hampden, L1.
6. Theological College Fund.—Revenue for the year, L120 3s. 4d.; expenditure, L6 1s.; total sum now accrued, L550 2s. 9d.
7. Scholarship Fund.—The Lang Scholarship Fund amounts to L246 12s. 6d., the interest on which affords an annual bursary of L20. To the credit of the Synod Scholarship there is L48 7s.
8. Ecclesiastical Trust Fund.—Credit balance at beginning of year, L189 4s.; revenue, two-thirds of rental, L823 2s. 10d. Patd—Manse grants, L607. Balance in hand, L405 6s. 10d.
9. Educational Fund.—Revenue, one-third of rentals, L411 11s. 5d.; Interest, L172; total, L583 11s. 5d. Expenditure, L558 12s. Amount of capital fund, L2493 16s. 1d.
10. Manse Reserve Fund.—Balance in hand at beginning of year, L1743 1s. 4d.; income for the year, L942 1s. 1d. Expenditure, L112 I1s. 5d; payments to First Church during the year, L1737 10s. Balance now in hand, L835 11s.
11. The general balance-sheet shows the amount of contributions throughout the Church for the past year to have been L14,560 0s. 4d. This is a less sum than was reported last year, but a comparison of the two sheets will show the decrease is not on the funds contributed for general Church purposes, but those for congregational objects.
It is gratifying to the Committee to observe the very marked increase in the number of congregations contributing to the various Church funds, and would recommend to the Synod that the instruction to Presbyteries be renewed, to see that all the congregations within their bounds make the various collections enjoined by the Synod.
To the General Treasurer the thanks of the Synod are very specially due for the manner in which he conducts the whole business of the Church entrusted to him.
Your Committee beg to report that soon after the rising of the Synod last year, they, in order to elicit and collect information regarding our schools, issued a schedule of queries asking the information desiderated. Thirty-eight schedules were issued, and of these thirty-six were returned with answers. Two congregations made no returns, viz.—Clutha and Switzers; and of the thirty-six congregations which made returns, two of them report that they have no Sabbath School in connection with their congregations. These are Mount 1da and Winton and Forest Hill. In connection with the remaining thirty-four congregations there are 63 Sabbath Schools. They are as follows—Within the bounds of the Presbytery of Oamaru there are 6 schools, with 425 scholars and 40 teachers, of whom 9 are office-bearers; within the bounds of the Presbytery of Southland there are 11
Before making a few suggestions calculated to promote the efficiency of our Sabbath Schools, your Committee would draw the attention of the Synod to the comparatively small number of office-bearers who take part in the religious instruction of the young in these schools. Of the 374 who give their time and energies to this good work, only 77 are office-bearers. In no fewer than ten of the congregations which have reported, it appears no office-bearer takes part in the Sabbath School instruction of the young, and in each of five congregations only one officebearer is engaged in Sabbath School teaching.
Your Committee would also call attention to the fact that in a few cases a very large proportion of the children of people connected with the Church do not attend the Sabbath School, viz.—in one case 77 are reported as attending, while 50 are not attending; in another 53 are attending, while 50 are not attending. It is worthy of note, that the sexes of both scholars and teachers are on the whole very equally balanced. Of the 3471 scholars,
Although our Sabbath School teachers constitute a noble band of Christian labourers, and are doing a great and good work, for which we have reason to give God thanks, still it appears that they do not sufficiently meet the exigencies of our schools. In several instances ministers and Superintendents complain of the difficulty they find in obtaining the services of a sufficient number of competent teachers, and of their being forced in some instances, in the absence of such, to take those who are too young and too inexperienced for the important and arduous work of leading the lambs to Christ. To remedy this state of matters, your Committee can suggest no other means than these—that the ministers and elders of our Church endeavour as far as possible to impress the more qualified of our Christian people with a sense of their obligation to devote a portion of their time to this most important work, and that ministers' bible classes be conducted with a view to their being as far as possible nurseries for the training of Sabbath School teachers.
Your Committee, after mature consideration of the suggestions made in the schedules, and of the whole subject of our Sabbath Schools, would make the following recommendations:—
First—That each teacher should make it a matter of conscience to attend regularly, for almost nothing is so calculated to destroy the interest of the child in the class, and to disperse and destroy the class itself, as irregularity in attendance on the part of the teacher.
Secondly—That teachers be earnestly encouraged to visit periodically their scholars in their homes, and especially if any one is absent on a particular Sabbath that the teacher shall visit the child at its home during the week, and ascertain from the parents the cause of absence. This practice, where followed, is attended with the most happy results.
Thirdly—That teachers should meet together once a week, or at least once in two weeks, for the purpose of preparing lessons, and prayer for the success of their labours.
Fourth—That there be appointed by the Synod a central standing committee to be called "The Synod's Committee on Sabbath Schools." whose object shall be to procure and distribute a Sabbath School literature, e. g. books suitable for Sabbath School libraries—books fitted to assist them in the preparation of the lessons, such as a scheme of lessons, notes on the Scripture lessons, and other publications which are calculated to enhance the efficiency of our schools as a great Christian institute.
Fifth—That a short address to Sabbath School teachers be printed and circu-
Since this report was written, a return has been received from Clutha, which it appears has one Sabbath School, with 20 scholars and 3 teachers. This makes a grand total of 64 schools, with 3491 scholars and 277 teachers.—J. G., C.
Your Committee have endeavoured to prosecute the work entrusted to them as far as possible during the past year. That work embraced special services for the conversion of the young, and their dedication to God, evangelistic services for the revival of vital religion in the congregations of our Church, petitions to the Houses of Legislature with the view of securing the cessation of unnecessary traffic on railways and highways on the Lord's Day.
Your Committee are happy to report that the state of religion generally throughout the bounds of our Synod is improved, and matters are in a more healthy condition than for years past. The means of grace are, on the whole, well attended, while in some places spiritual fruits are being gathered, and our Church is exercising an influence for good throughout the laud. Whilst no decided revival, or marked work of God, has taken place, there appears to be a growing interest in spiritual and divine things in several districts in connection with our Church. The corresponding members of this Committee speak hopefully of the spiritual condition of the congregations within the bounds of their respective Presbyteries. One Minister thus writes:—"I have no hesitation in saying that, whilst there is much indifference to spiritual concerns, and a small residuum of our population that are characterised by open ungodliness and profanity, yet there are a considerable number of people that are known by me to be truly godly, in whose houses the incense of praise regularly arises, and that are to a large extent a leaven for good amongst the population."
Evangelistic services have been held during the past year within the bounds of all the Presbyteries of our Church, though not in all the congregations, and in some places with gratifying results. The experience of all the Ministers in whose parishes these meetings have been held is, that the attendance and interest increase when the meetings are continued for five or six evenings in the same place. Your Committee believe that the sermon on Sabbath observance enjoined by last Synod was generally preached by the Ministers, and the day of prayer appointed for the conversion of the young, was observed by all the congregations of our Church. What fruit these services have produced, the great day alone will reveal; but one thing is certain that in connection with the faithful use of God's own appointed means for bringing the young to the Saviour in the morning of their days, the Divine blessing will be given sooner or later. Your Committee are glad to learn that a union prayer meeting has been established in Dunedin by Ministers of various denominations, and is well attended. The week of prayer appointed by the Evangelical Alliance at the beginning of this year was observed in this city and in several other places throughout the Province. The corresponding member of the Dunedin Presbytery called the attention of your Committee to a matter of very great importance to the cause of vital religion in this city. We give the following extract from his communication, which will explain itself:—"Perhaps it should be stated that what is termed the social evil exists here to a large extent, about fifty women habitually and openly seeking a livelihood by vice, besides others following the same course more secretly. Repressive measures have recently been adopted, and a number of them lodged in jail under sentences of about two months. I am informed that the want of some refuge to which those women might betake themselves who desire to return to the paths of virtue, has been keenly felt, but no steps, so far as is known to my informant, have been taken." Your Committee would cherish the hope that the Christian ladies of Dunedin will take an interest in these poor unfortunate women referred to in the above extract, and that soon there will be a refuge established to which those may flee who wish to recover themselves out of the snare of the devil.
The present aspect of the Sabbath question is one of great practical importance and growing interest, and it is one for which your Committee would humbly solicit
With the proper sanctification of the Lord's Day is bound up the moral and spiritual welfare alike of individuals, families, the Church, and the nation. The manner in which the observance of the Sabbath is regarded, whether as a day of pleasure or drudgery, as a matter of conscience or of worldly enjoyment, as a means of religious improvement or as a source of social recreation—will determine the character at once of a Church, a nation, or an individual. In the present day not less than in the time of old, the Sabbath is a sign between God and men, and its scriptural dedication to the Lord's service and glory is an indication of the inner life; a test of our love and loyalty to heaven.
Your Committee, in accordance with instructions given, prepared petitions for the House of Representatives and Legislative Council. The time at their disposal being too limited, no petition was sent to the Provincial Council. A copy of these petitions, with an accompanying note explanatory of the object contemplated, was sent to each Protestant Minister in Otago and Southland. The result was not so satisfactory as might have been expected, considering the paramount importance of the subject. About twenty congregations sent in returns. When the various lists of names were added together, the aggregate of signatures amounted only to 2,250. The petitions were presented by the Rev. Mr. M'Gillivray and the Hon. Dr. Menzies. in the House of Representatives and Legislative Council respectively, but nothing definite was decided on. The Committee on Public Petitions recommended the prayer of the petitioners to the favourable consideration of the House, but there was no one to take up the matter and bring it to a final issue. While no direct result has followed this effort of our Church to pat down what all right-thinking men must regard as an open and flagrant violation of the fourth commandment, your Committee are convinced that much indirect good will result from the public testimony which has thus been borne to the Divine appointment of the Christian Sabbath, and the open exposure thus made of the conduct of those who set pleasure and profit before them as the great end of their existence, as the only goal they are to reach; regardless of whose feelings they may outrage, or whose interests they may cause to suffer. In this connection your Committee are happy to report that an order has been issued by the Postmaster General putting a stop to all labour in post offices on the Lord's Day throughout the Colony, and it is earnestly hoped that the necessary additional assistance will be given, so that this instruction will be carried out in every branch of the post office department in New Zealand. It is gratifying to know that there are many members of the community who realise the preciousness of the weekly Sabbath, and hail its return not merely on account of the rest it brings to the physical frame, but for the opportunity it affords of attending to the requirements of their higher nature, and preparing for the rest and services of that eternal Sabbath the Lord has promised to those that love Him. But whilst these friends of order and religion know their privileges, and regard correctly the Sabbath as God's gracious gift to a working world, and seek to improve it for the high and holy ends for which it was intended, your Committee are sorry to inform the Synod that the restless and rebellious spirit of irreligion is busily engaged in every part of the Province, and increasing efforts are made for setting aside the sacred and religious character of the Christian Sabbath, and for making it more and more a day of business or pleasure.
Judging from the tone of the press, and the determined opposition manifested not only to the scriptural authority of the Lord's Day, but to many other relative subjects, it would seem that Dunedin shares largely in this spirit. The Harbour Company's steamers still ply between Dunedin and Port Chalmers on the Sabbath, when sufficient inducement offers; and it is with profound regret your Committee observe that the Railway Company advertise three trains to run each way between this City and the Port, on that blessed day. This is a new source of Sabbath desecration, at least in this Province, and a fresh insult is thereby offered to the Lord of the Sabbath, and to the moral sense and religious feelings of the community; while the officials connected with the railway are deprived of rest and religious worship. Their liberty, their Christian privileges, and their domestic enjoyment are all interfered with in order to increase the profits of the Company, and to meet the wishes of (it is to be hoped) a small class of the community, who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers either of God or man. It is a public scandal that one class of men should be enslaved for the pleasure or gain of another class, and every true Christian should set his face against it.
Notwithstanding the resolution of the Provincial Council, carried by a majority of one at a recent session, the friends of the Sabbath in Southland have prevented the running of trains, and the loading and unloading of steamers at the Bluff on the Lord's Day, up to the present time. Your Committee would wish these brethren God speed in every effort they put forth for continuing this happy state of things in their midst. Dray traffic on the Sabbath is still prevalent in many parts of the country; not only are the draymen deprived of the Sabbath, but through them many men are engaged all that day on the different lines of transit. Shops are also kept open in Dunedin and other places throughout the Province, for the sale of liquor and other goods.
Your Committee look to the pulpit for a clear and oftrepeated testimony on behalf of the Sabbath, and against every encroachment on its sacred hours. Let the Church gird herself to the great work of creating and maintaining a public opinion on the subject of the Sabbath in accordance with the word of God and the best interests of the community, assured that her labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. In conclusion, your Committee would venture to make the following suggestions to the Synod:—1. That there be a conference of the Synod before its rising, on the state of religion throughout the congregations of our Church. 2 That the first Sabbath of November next be set apart as a day of special prayer for the young. 3. That a deputation be appointed to visit the outlying districts of our Church during the year. 4. That evangelistic services be held in as many congregations as possible. 5. That a sermon on Sabbath observance be preached on the first Sabbath in March by all the Mimisters in our Church.
The operations of your Committee have been somemwat hindered in consequence of the changes that have taken place in the Convenership of the Synod's Mission Committee during the past year; firtt, by the appointment of Mr. Kirkland in room of Dr. Copland, who had from the beginning of the mission scheme so ably filled the convenership; and, secondly, by the translation of the Rev. Mr. Kirkland to another Church.
By the transference of Mr. Blake from the Mission to the ordinary field of the Church's work, your Committee has been constrained to content itself with a somewhat circumscribed sphere of labour. No successor has been found to take Mr. Blake's place, and do the work that was done by him among the native population of the Province. All that the Committee have been able to do has been to continue the arrangement sanctioned by the Synod, of employing the native Bartholomew, who has rsgularly held divine service at the Heads. Your Committee would recommend to the Synod that the Dunedin Presbytery be instructed to make arrangements whereby Mr. Blake may be enabled to visit the Heads once a month.
Though unable in respect of the Maori Mission to report progress, your Committee have abundant cause for thankfulness to Almighty God in the continued success that has followed the Synod's operations in its other Mission fields.
Mr. Milne, ably seconded by his devoted wife, continues faithfully at his post, in Nguna, manfully breasting the difficulties of his position, and labouring with unabated zeal to make known the glad tidings of salvation to the savage heathen among whom his lot has been cast. In the words of a recent communication from Mr. Inglis, the devoted missioanry of Aneityum, and who recently visited this Church, "Mr. and Mrs. Milne are working hard, anh fast establishing a strong position for Christianity in the midst of the darkest heathenism. Mr. and Mrs. Milne are indeed fully meriting your sympathy and support." To be certified thus in reference to the Synod's Missionary by one himself a successful servant of the Lord amid a like heathenism, cannot be less gratifying to the Synod than encouraging to Mr. and Mrs. Milne. Already Mr. Milne has so mastered the language of Nguna, as to have prepared a small primer and hymn book, to further his work among the natives both young and old, in regard to whom in his letters to the Committee he speaks not without hope. Though the evils to a large degree still exist that have seriously interfered with the work of the Missionaries, through the unchristian labour traffic
The minutes of the annual Conference of Missionaries (hereafter to be designated the New Hebrides Mission Synod), held at Anelgauhat, Aneityum,
Several matters have been brought by the Conference under the notice of the Committee, which require some deliverance on the part of the Synod. A memorial unanimously adopted by the Conference has been received, and now lies on the table of the Synod, expressing the desire of the Missionaries to be placed by their various Churches on the same footing as the agents of the London Missionary Society in the neighbouring islands, as to salary and the meeting of the necessary expenses of the Mission. What the amount of salary is that is given by that Society the memorial does not show, and your Committee have not yet been able to learn. The Conference does not wish that this matter should be determined at once by us, but rather that in regard to it we should put ourselves into communication with the other Churches connected with the Mission, that whatever be resolved upon there may be simultaneous and harmonious action on the part of all the Churches, placing all the Missionaries on the same footing. Your Committee would suggest that the Committee be authorised to communicate on the subject with the Churches, and to agree to such salary and arrangements as to Mission expenses as may be agreed to by them.
The Conference has also called the attention of the Committee to the necessity for the different Churches providing for themselves collecting cards, and the annual report of the Dayspring. These have hitherto been printed and issued by the Mission Agent in Melbourne, at an expense to the Dayspring Fund of £120 per annum, a large sum withdrawn from its special object, and which the Conference thinks may be avoided by the various Churches undertaking to provide at their own cost what of these may be required for their own use.
Changes have been made by the Conference in regard both to the Mission Agency and the head-quarters of the Dayspring. The Mission Agency has been transferred from Melbourne to Sydney, and placed in the hands of Dr. Steel, of that city, in room of Dr. Macdonald, of Emerald Hill, Melbourne, who has for many years ably and with large success conducted the Agency. The headquarters of the Dayspring have been fixed at Sydney instead of Melbourne, on the ground that Sydney is more suitable in consequence of two voyages between the colonies and the islands being required each year, to meet the increasing demands of the Mission. Your Committee are not in a position to give an opinion as to whether it rests with the Conference to make these changes, and as to whether they are calculated to be profitable to the working of the Mission.
Your Missionary Paul Ah Chin has throughout the past year pursued his labours among his fellow-countrymen with his wonted faithfulness, zeal, and diligence. He has preached each Sabbath day to about 15 to 20 at Lawrence. Prayer meetings have been held by him each Sabbath morning at the Chinese camp, and on a week-day evening at Wetherstones. He has continued in almost daily intercourse with the converts, who are ever needing his help and en-
Your Committee, alive to the importance of the task it had undertaken, began its labours by asking the blessing of the Great Head of the Church on every effort to be put forth by it, and trusts that the result which it has now to report will show that such blessing has not been asked in vain.
Your Committee at the outset resolved to hold regular monthly meetings, which resolution has been adhered to, twelve meetings having been held, with an average attendance, out of a Committee numbering eight members in the Colony, of six.
Your Committee early prepared a short appeal to office-bearers, and sent the same to the various Deacons' Courts of our Church, and has been assured by many that such appeal was generally approved and likely to have a beneficial effect. Subsequently an address, which was thought by the Committee to be a very admirable one, was adopted, printed, and extensively circulated throughout the Church, with what result is yet to be seen. The Committee has also urged quarterly collections and returns.
Your Committee had, on the 9th July, before it a remit from the Presbytery of Dunedin, in re moderation of a call to Kaikorai, and, after having heard Dr. Stuart in support of such, resolved "That the consideration of the subject be delayed for three months." It is with regret your Committee has to report a misunderstanding having arisen between the Presbytery of Dunedin and itself in regard to certain action taken by said Presbytery anent said call, as recorded in extract minute of Presbytery of 4th September received by the Committee; and your Committee has now to draw the attention of the Synod to the following resolutions, passed unanimously by the Committee, after consideration of minute above referred to, and ordered to be embodied in this Report, viz:
in re the reference in Kaikorai case, for the following reason—That the case having been referred to the Sustentstion Fund Committee, it was not competent for the Presbytery to take any action in the matter until it had received the decision of that Committee.
Your Committee, on the expiration of the three months, again considered the remit of the Presbytery, and resolved that it could not at present recommend the moderation of a call.
The Committee deems it its duty to report to the Synod, that the Presbyteries of Clutha and Southland granted moderation of calls to Balclutha and Riverton respectively without first remitting the same to this Committee, in terms of the regulations, and would urge on the Synod to recommend Presbyteries in every case to conform to such regulations.
Your Committee has had under its serious consideration the desirability of raising the minimum amount required to be contributed by congregations ere moderation of a call be granted, and unanimously adopted the following resolution:—"That the following amendment in the 'Regulations anent the Sustentation Fund' be recommended for adoption by the Synod, viz—That the sum of £175 be inserted in Nos. 1 and 3, in lieu of £150."
On the 9th July your Committee considered a recommendation received from the Presbytery of Dunedin, that the Rev. Mr. Alves, in consequence of the state of his health, should be continued on the Sustentation Fund up to the end of the year, which the Commit-
The total sum contributed to the Sustentation Fund for the first half of viz., 4 months, of £63 4s 4d each to Mr. Bett of Pomahaka, and Mr. Thomson of Winton; and £19 15s 1d to Mr. C. S. Ross of Riverton, for 1¼ months.
For the half-year ending 31st December, there has been received, including 14s 6d of a balance on hand brought forward, £3412 12s 7d, from which must be deducted the sums of £23 6s 6d paid for printing, postages, etc., and proportion of Synodical expenses, and also refunds of contributions from Mount Ida for 6 months ending 30th June, to Mr. Smith, £83 16s 6d; Switzers, Mr. Morrison, £80; and Lawrence, Mr. Cameron, £11 9s;—there then remained available for division £3213 15s 4d, out of which the Committee declared a dividend for each of 33 Ministers of £95 18s 8d, and a proportion, viz., 3 months, of £47 19s 4d, to Mr. Kirkland; thus making the dividend for the year
The Committee has considered the case of Hampden, and agreed, seeing that there was a small advance on the half-year, and that efforts had been successfully made during the year to reduce the debt on their church, to leave it on the equal dividend for the past year.
Your Committee is pleased to notice that no fewer than 21 congregations have made a step in advance, and some a large one, either on the year or half-year, on behalf of this great fund; that 12 out of the 21 are by non-self-sustaining congregations, a fact your Committee records with much satisfaction, and 9 by the self-sustaining or above. The Committee desires specially to notice a few, whose returns show a considerable increase, with the view of encouraging them to continued efforts in so good a cause, and others throughout the Church to follow their good example—viz., West Taieri, Anderson's Bay, Port Chalmers, Clutha, Popotunoa, and Oteramika.
There are several congregations which have either only had broken periods of a year to report, or which are only in their infancy as it were, and have no complete years to compare with, but whose rate of contribution seems hopeful, and to such your Committee would earnestly say, do not relax in your efforts to be not only self-sustaining, but to be able to help the weaker charges. There are other congregations again, of whom the Committee had reason to expect better things when the whole Church was making an effort to increase, but which are found among the decreasing number, and apparently without any good cause—viz., Knox Church, Oamaru, and North Taieri.
From Warepa no return had been received when the Committee met to declare dividend, but it understands that it has since been received, and is £77, showing an increase on the year of £4 10s.
Your Committee cannot but feel that its efforts have not been altogether seconded by the Deacons' Courts, on the whole, as it could have anticipated, but trusts the reason is not lukewarmness in the cause.
Monthly collections, where possible, and at least quarterly collections and returns to the Clerk, your Committee would suggest to the Synod to recommend or enjoin as it may think best.
The only returns of supplement sent in are as follows, viz:—Green Island, £15; East Taieri makes up to £300; West Taieri to £290; Tokomairiro to £300; Oamaru to £350; and Otepopo to £300; and none is given by N.E. Harbour, Switzers, Waihola, Long Bush, and Palmerston. The Committee regret that so little attention is paid to the requirement of this return, and would urge a more regular compliance therewith by all the congregations of our Church.
The Committee acknowledge, with thanks, donations from the following:—Miss Muir, of Percetown, £30 15s 6d; A Friend, £3; Mr. T. Edmonston, of Edinburgh, £3.
Your Committee beg to report that they have carried out the instructions of last meeting of Synod, by advertising the Lang and Synod Scholarships to be competed for, the former by students of the second year, and the latter by entrants, at an examination to take place on the viz—1. A paper of questions on Euclid, Books I and II, to be drawn up by the Rev. Mr. Johnson—value, 75 marks; 2. Algebra, up to Quadratics, Rev. Mr. Alves—value, 75 marks; 3. English History and Literature (reign of Queen Elizabeth), Rev. Mr. Todd—value, 100 marks; 4. Roman History, Century before Christ, Rev. Mr. Sutherland—value, 100 marks; 5. Latin, I Georgics, Rev. Mr. Watt—value, 100 marks; 6. Greek, I Iliad, Rev. Mr. Watt—value, 100 marks. It was resolved that the examination for the Synod Scholarship should be by means of similar papers, viz—1. A paper on English History, reign of George III, by Rev. Mr. Sutherland—value, 100 marks; 2. Arithmetic, Rev. Dr. Stuart—value, 100 marks; 3. Euclid, Book I, Rev. Dr. Stuart—value, 100 marks; 4. Bible Knowledge, four Gospels, Rev. Mr. Chisholm—value, 100 marks; 5. English Grammar and Analysis, Rev. Dr. Stuart—value, 100marks; 6. Latin, De Amicitia, Rev. Mr. Watt—value, 100 marks; 7. Greek, Grammar, Rev. Mr. Watt—value, 50 marks. It was further resolved that no competitor be eligible for a Scholarship who had not made at least two-thirds of the total value attached to the various papers.
On the day fixed for holding the competition the Committee met in the vestry of Knox Church, and there appeared in accordance with previous intimation given by them, Mr. Charles Connor, second year's student in the University of Otago, the sole candidate for the Lang Scholarship; and Messrs Arthur Grant, Thomas Irving, and Joseph Class, competitors for the Synod Scholarship. The examination took up the best part of two days, with the following results—Out of 100 marks, the value attached to each of the papers in Latin, Greek, English History and Literature, and Roman History, Connor made 68, 34, 85, and 84 respectively; and out of 75 marks attached to each of the two papers on Euclid and Algebra, he made 75 and 26. In a word, out of a total of 550 marks Connor made 372, which being above the two-thirds previously fixed upon as the minimum of eligibility, the Lang Scholarship was accordingly adjudged to him. The competitors for the Synod Scholarship made the following number of marks each—Out of 100, value of paper on History of George III, Grant, 77; Irving, 51; Closs, 64. Arithmetic, Grant, 57; Irving, 38; Closs,. 60. Euclid, Grant, 97; Irving, 80; Closs, 60. Latin, Grant, 53; Irving, 72; Closs, 17. Bible Knowledge, Grant, 94; Irving, 37; Closs, 50. English Grammar and Analysis, Grant, 60; Irving, 79; Closs, 32. Out of 50, value attached to paper on Greek Grammar, Grant, 48; Irving, 47; Closs, 42. Out of a total of 650 marks, Grant made 486; Irving, 404; Closs, 303. The Synod Scholarship was therefore adjudged to Grant, who had made the largest percentage of marks over all the papers.
Your Committee would take the liberty of suggesting to the Synod that energetic steps be taken for providing additional bursaries for students who may have the ministry of this Church in view. They would remind the Synod of what is being done by the American Presbyterian Church as an example to us in this direction. At the present moment the majority of the young men studying for the Ministry of that Church, or a very large proportion of them, are supported at their studies by the Board of Education connected with the Church. Out of 57 young men studying with a view to the Ministry, under the jurisdiction: of the Synod of New York, 37 hold scholarships from the Board of Education. In no other way could the ranks of the Ministry in the American Presbyterian Church be recruited amidst the peculiar circumstances of a new country. Nor will it be amiss to remind the Synod that even in the home country aspirants to the Ministry have always received encouragement in their studies. Many of the clergy of the Church of England have received their education at the universities by means of scholarships connected with the various great schools. In Scotland a considerable number of the theological students of the Established, Free, and United Presbyterian Churches are provided with such scholarships, of more or less value. Your Committee have a profound conviction that unless some more than ordinary inducements be held out to young men in the Colonies—the long curriculum of study demanded of aspirants to the Ministry of our Church, and the
Your Committee have pleasure in reporting that early in the year the following Ministers Were settled, with every prospect of comfort and usefulness, viz—1. Rev. Andrew Bett, in Tapanui; 2. Rev. Alexander Blake, M.A., in Kaikorai; 3. Rev. James Cameron, in Lawrence; 4. Rev. John Macara, in Balclutha; 5. Rev James M. Thomson, in Winton and Forest Hill; 6. Rev. Charles S. Ross, in Riverton.
The charges still vacant are—1. First Church, Dunedin, through the resignation of the Rev. George Sutherland; 2. Inch Clutha, through the translation of the Rev. James Kirkland to Hokitika; 3. Alexandra and Clyde; 4. Lower Waitaki; 5. Waitahuna.
Your Committee regret that they have not been able to give regular supply to the vacant charges, owing to various causes, as the continued illness of the Rev. Wm. Alves, late of Kaikorai; the acceptance by the Rev. Mr. Cosh of a call from Balmain Church, New South Wales; and the appointment of Mr. Fleming, a Student of Divinity under the care of the Dunedin Presbytery, and who was ready for license, to the Rectorship of Invercargill Grammar School. On the scarcity of ministerial supply becoming known, the Presbytery of Dunedin proposed that the Church Extension Committee should be requested to send home for two Preachers with as little delay as possible, provided the other Presbyteries of the Church concurred with the proposal. The Presbyteries of Southland and Oamaru did so; the Clutha Presbytery, however, while approving of the object, recommended its attainment through the Synod, and for this purpose suggested the calling of a pro re nata meeting of the Court. Your Committee, in view of the delay which the Clutha suggestion would occasion, decided to send for two Ministers, feeling sure that their action in this emergency would be condoned by the Synod.
It affords your Committee much satisfaction to report that several young men of fair ability and good character are now attending the undergraduate course at the Otago University, with a view to the Christian Minsstry in our Church But this fact, so gratifying to the lovers of our Zion, imposes on the Synod the necessity of making immediate provision for their training in theology and kindred subjects.
In view of the large additions recently made to our population, and likely to continue to be made for some time, the supply of vacant charges and stations, and the taking up of new ground requiring ordinances, as Stewart's Island, Martin's Bay, Upper Waitaki, etc, your Committee request authority to send for two Preachers in addition to the two sent for in November. There is no donbt that, with a largely increased staff of Ministers, there are several fields within our bounds now lying waste where ordinances would be valued.
The First Church and Inch Clutha congregations have laid the Church under obligation, by providing pulpit supply for themselves—thus relieving their Presbyteries and your Committee.
Waitahuna, since its sanction, has borne the entire expense of ordinances. The Rev. A. B. Arnott, M.A., has ministered there for six months with acceptance.
The Committee regret that such important fields as Alexandra and Clyde, and the Lower Waitaki, should be so long without regular supply.
It is the earnest prayer of your Committee that God may lead our Synod to devise liberal things for the immediate evangelisation of such parts of our country as are to this day without the preached Gospel.
Your Committee in presenting their report have to state that their attention was mainly directed to cooperation with the "Otago Temperance Alliance," in getting petitions signed in favour of the Permissive Bill which was before Parliament. That there is need for vigorous efforts being put forth in this direction will appear when it is known that public houses are increasing to an alarming extent. In
Your Committee find from returns furnished, that 1077 arrests took place for drunkenness during the past year, while in
In view of the number of places for selling intoxicating drinks, and prevalence of drunkenness, your Committee would respectfully yet earnestly urge this Church to bestir herself, and endeavour to create a healthy public opinion on the subject, and seek to help in getting a legislative enactment passed embodying the principles of the Permissive Bill. As an encouragement to greater effort in this direction, the gratifying fact was stated by the late Premier, "That never before had so many people in the Colony united to petition for any one object."
Your Committee are glad in being able to inform this court that Total Abstinence Societies and Bands of Hope have been formed in various districts during the year; also that considerable efforts were put forth by the Sons and Daughters of Temperance and Good Templars for the suppression of intemperance.
Your Committee have seen with pleasure the efforts made by the Justices in Dunedin to reduce the number of public houses within the city at last Licensing Court, and they hope that the public generally, and this Church in particular, will give the approval and moral support which such efforts deserve.
Your Committee would again suggest that the Synod recommend Ministers to preach on the subject during the year, and encourage the establishment of Temperance Societies and Bands of Hope in the districts where they do not exist.
I. That the Synod approve of the principle of employing Probationers and Lay Missionaries in the work of evangelisation, when and where they may be needed.
II. That such Agents may be Probationers, Divinity or undergraduate Students, or other members of the Church possessing suitable qualifications for the work.
III. That no such Agent be employed until he has first been examined by one or other of the Presbyteries of the Church as to his personal piety, his acquaintance with the Word of God, and otherwise his aptitude for such work; and also until he has received from such Presbytery a certificate of qualification and fitness for the work.
IV. That those who shall have been thus found qualified shall be called and known by the name of "Home Missionaries."
V. That the Synod authorise the formation of an association to be called the Home Mission Association of the Synod of Otago and Southland, having for its objects the employment of Missionaries, and the raising and dstribution of funds to aid in their support while labouring in those districts within the bounds of the Synod whose population are destitute of the means of grace, and are from their situation and means unable to support a settled ministry.
VI. That the Home Mission Association shall at the solicitation of the Presbytery have power to appoint a Missionary to any sphere of labour, or remove him therefrom as they shall see cause.
VII. That any such Missionary, when thus appointed, shall during the currency of his appointment be under the direction and control of the Presbytery within whose boundary his sphere of labour is situated, and shall be associated with and act under the super intendence and advice of any Minister duly appointed by his Presbytery to take the oversight of the district constituting his sphere of labour.
VIII. That the duration of the appointment of any such Missionary shall in no case exceed six months; but at the end of six months he may be reappointed, if the Homo Mission Association see fit.
IX. That the Synod request the Ministers of the several Presbyteries to use all diligence in endeavouring to find agents suitable and willing to be employed in Missionary work, and to forward their names and addresses to the Secretary of the Home Mission Association.
X. That the Synod enjoin the Presbyteries of the Church to make forthwith a careful survey of the districts within their bounds where such Agents might be advantageously employed; to ascertain the probable amount of means which might be raised within the several districts in aid of the support of the Missionaries; to report the same to the Secretary of the Home Mission Association, and take any other measures they deem advisable in order to have those districts supplied with the means of grace as speedily as possible.
I. That this Association be named the Home Mission Association of the Synod of Otago and Southland.
II. That the objects of this Association shall be to employ Missionaries, and to raise and distribute funds for the purpose of assisting sparsely peopled districts within the bounds of the Synod to maintain Missionaries until the several districts shall be in a condition to obtain a settled Ministry.
III. That the members of the Association shall consist of subscribers of twenty shillings a year and upwards.
IV. That the Managing Committee shall consist of a Chairman, a Secretary, and twenty members, in addition to such members as may be appointed by branch Associations, of whom six shall be a quorum.
V. That this Association shall be in connection with the Synod of Otago and Southland.
VI. That the funds shall be raised by annual subscriptions, donations, legacies, such collections as may be allowed, and any collections and subscriptions which may be made at any missionary services conducted by the Agents of the Association.
VII. That an annual meeting of the Association shall be held in the month of January each year, to receive the report and balancesheet of the Association, and to elect a committee of officebearers for the ensuing year.
VIII. That branch associations be formed in the various towns and districts of the Provinces of Otago and Southland, and that such societies as contribute a sum of not less than £10 annually to the funds of the parent society shall name one member of the Managing Committer, and societies contributing £25 shall name two.
Whereas the Synod, in discussing and determining the principle of the use of Hymns in the public worship of God, passed a resolution to the effect—"That the use of Hymns is neither unscriptural nor contrary to the standards of our Church and whereas said resolution is defective, and is felt 'o be, by some, a departure from the principle "that nothing is lawful to be introduced into the worship of God but what he hath appointed in His word it is humbly overtured by the Presbytery of Clutha to the Synod of Otago and Southland, that they would take the foregoing premises into their serious consideration, and devise such measures thereanent as may tend to promote the glory of God and the good of the Church.
I. Whereas there is reason to fear that the principles on which the ordinance of baptism ought to be dispensed in this Church are not sufficiently understood, and that there is not sufficient uniformity of practice in regard to this ordinance on the part of the various ministers, it is overtured by the Presbytery of Southland to the Synod to take this matter into consideration, with a view to make clear the principles and practical rules by which the ministers of this Church snould be guided in this matter.
II. Whereas the subordinate standards of our Church authorise the administration of baptism only to those who profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him, and to such as are members of the visible Church; whereas the directory for the public worship of God states that baptism is not to be administered in private places or privately, but in the place of public worship, and in the face of the congregation; and whereas there is reason to believe that the aforesaid requirements are not uniformly carried into practice throughout the Church; it is overtured by the Presbytery to the Synod to take the premises into their consideration, and give such deliverance anent the same as shall secure uniformity of practice in the administration of the ordinance of baptism throughout the Church.
Whereas in the directory for public worship, prayers, and religious services at funerals, made at the grave, are directed to be laid aside; and whereas the practice of using such prayers is becoming common, it is humbly overtured to the Synod to take this matter into consideration, with a view to declare the practice on such occasions which this Church ought to adopt.
Whereas the importance and necessity of rearing a coloniallyeducated Ministry are becoming daily more apparent (1) Because of the proven difficulty of getting an adequate supply of Ministers from the home churches, and (2) because of the better adaptation of youth educated in our midst for the circumstances under which the work of the Church must be carried on for a time in a country drawing its population from different nationalities; whereas the present training, given through Presbyteries to students in divinity is confessedly inadequate and unequal; and, lastly, whereas several young men now attending the arts classes in the Otago University, with a view to the Ministry in our Church, will in the course of a year or two require direct theological training. It is humbly overtured to the Synod of Otago and Southland, by the Presbytery of Dunedin, to take the premises into consideration, in order to devise the means of more systematic instruction in theology.
Whereas it is important that provision be made for aged and infirm Ministers of this Church, and whereas no step has been taken to meet this want. It is humbly overtured by the Presbytery of Oamaru to the reverend the Synod of Otago and Southland, to take such steps for originating a fund for this object as in their wisdom they may see meet.
Several lay-preachers have of late appeared in your midst, and the question has often been asked, who are they? what do they teach? "Few know anything of them. The writer of this tract has made it his business to get at their doctrines, and knows both by reading their history and personal experience what are the results of their false teaching. He writes simply to inform the inhabitants of Lerwick regarding them, with a view to putting Churchgoers and others on their guard, lest they beled away from the churches to which they may belong, perhaps unwittingly, and find, as many have done who have become their followers, that they have gained nothing, but on the contrary that their religious beliefs have become confused and distracted.
Well, these laypreachers do not call themselves Plymouth Brethren. They say they are simply "evangelists" (?) come to preach the gospel, thus assuming that the gospel is not preached where they go, which, so far as Lerwick is concerned at least, is simply a falsehood. When pressed for a definite answer they acknowledge that the world calls them Plymouth Brethren. The truth is they are known all over the country to go under the names of "Brethren," "Plymouth Brethren," and "Darbyites." It is fair to state, however, that there are Plymouth Brethren who are not Darbyites, those known as such holding slightly different views.
It is the policy of the Plymouth Brethren not to reveal their distinctive beliefs until they have drawn away people from the different churches to which they may belong, for their converts almost exclusively consist of those whom a pastor, perhaps after years of faithful labour, has added to his church. Any one going to hear them for the first time may not hear anything to which he can conscientiously object, but after a little they tell their hearers that the existing churches are rotten; that the ordained ministry and its stated support are unscriptural, and advise their hearers to come out of the churches of which they may be members and join their sect if they would not commit the sin of being "unequally yoked with unbelievers."
That their doctrines are highly dangerous, notoriously unsciptural, on many points, and in many respects injurious to your best interests, you may judge from the following brief statement of their views which has been taken from the most authentic sources.
They profess to abhor sectarianism in every form, yet they are a distinct sect, and seek to increase it by disaffecting the minds of members of the existing churches regarding the teaching they listen to. Can any sectarianism be worse than that?
If they really wish to save souls, why do they not try and get hold of the
There is scarcely an instance on record in their history of a thorough change of heart and life, but there are many instances of churches having been rent asunder, and very great mischief done to the interests of true religion through the instrumentality of their teaching.
If they should seek "to creep into your houses do not admit them, for depend upon it they will sow the seeds of dissention and strife in your families. You will live to repent that you ever had anything to do with them.
Do not go to their meetings. Let them alone, and they will soon leave the town. Show that you refuse to be led away by people who profess to have discovered a "New Gospel," by adhering to what you already know to be true that no new gospel can possibly be preached to you, and remaining connected with the churches to which you may belong.
Please read the following attentively, and you will know something of these socalled revivalists who are presumptuous and impertinent enough to assert that they alone are inspired, and that no one can be saved except they believe their gospel. They say:—
1st. That the Moral Law is not a rule of life to believers.
What does Christ say? Never that those who believe are relieved from the moral law as a rule of life—but that having believed they sustain a new relationship to it.. What does Paul say? "Do we then make void the "Law through faith? God forbid, yea we establish the law."
2nd. They deny the rightfulness of a stated ministry. Scripture contradicts them on that point, when it says "God hath set some in the "church, first apostles, secondarily teachers," &c. (See. 1. Cor. xii. 28, 31.)
3rd. They object to a fixed support given to the ministry. Christ says "The labourer is worthy of his hire," and Paul says "They who preach the "gospel are to live by the gospel." Moreover the Plymouth Brethren do not object to receive support if it comes privately, and in no stipulated proportion. They profess to live by faith, and at the same time very quietly hint that they are dependent upon their adherents for a bit of bread. They thus practically give the lie to their faith in Providence for their support.
4th. They deny that the Christian Sabbath is of Divine Authority, and that all the seven days are equally secular or equally sacred. We reply, "The Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it." It is therefore of Divine institution. In the 4th Commandment man is enjoined to rest on the Sabbath because God blessed and hallowed it. As to the question of the change of the Sabbath, from the seventh to the first day of the week, the Apostles made the change, and the Plymouth Brethren must therefore settle it with them.
5th. They assert that the church had no existence till the day of Pentecost, and that the Jews were not a church. Answer: Stephen speaks of the church in the wilderness (Acts vii, 38), and the Hebrew word translated "congregation" in the Old Testament exactly corresponds to the Greek word translated "church" in the New Testament.
Moreover Isaiah represents the Jewish Church as enlarging itself for the reception of the Gentile converts (see Isaiah liv. 2, 3 and lx. 3, 5, and Amos. iv. 11) quoted by James at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts xv. 15) represents the Christian church not as the erection of a new tabernacle, but as the setting up of the tabernacle of David which had fallen down. Paul says to the Gentles "Thou bearest not the root, but the root thee," showing that it is Israel's old olive tree on which the gentile church has been grafted. This cannot refer to the invisible church, for no branch was ever broken off
first applied to Israel.
The identity is clearly established i, l Cor. x. chap., which see.
6th. They hold that the visible church consists of none but converted people, and that believers should hold no religions fellowship or pray with unbelievers. Now 1st. They assume that they and they alone are the visible church. That is simply the Phariseeism of old which said "stand by for I am holier than thou" which Christ condemns in the severest terms. 2nd. A common rejection of error does not afford a centre of union. Romanists and Protestants equally deny the affirmation of the atheist that "there is no God," but can that or does that u ite them? The idea leads to mischievous and divisive consequences; it separates true brethren for one brother sees evil, where another sees none. It makes each man his brother's judge; and it makes one holier and wiser than the Lord who Himself said "ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man."
Moreover to be consistent, no Plymouth Brother should have family worship as it is generally conducted. He ought to exclude the members of his family when they are not believers of his doctrines. Does not that shock the sense of every Christian parent, and open the door to schism and rancour in the sacred circle of the family? It is wellknown that a Plymouth Brother will not say grace if all at the table are not believed to be converted. The Plymouth principle divides not only in public gatherings, but even in family relationships, sister refusing communion with sister, and child with child.
7th. They assert that the Holy Spirit did not exist before the day of Pentecost, and that being once given it is wrong for believers to pray for the Spirit. That is untrue. The angel said unto Mary the Mother of Jesus, "The Holy Ghost shall Come upon thee and the power of the Highest "shall overshadow thee." It is apparent therefore that the Plymouth Brethren deny one of the most fundamental doctrines of Scriptures; viz., that the sinless human nature of Christ was begotten by the Holy Ghost.
The ministry, miracles, death and resurrection of Christ are all spoken of in connection with the Holy Spirit (Acts x. 38. Hebs. ix. 14. 1 Tim. iii. 17.) This was all before Pentecost—see also John xx. 22. "He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." The Spirit existed before the day of Pentecost, for Peter says "Holy men of old spake as they were "moved by the Holy Ghost." (1 Peter i. 21,) and he speaks of "the Spirit "of Christ" in the prophets when he mentions that the Spirit testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. (See also Heb. iii. 7, ix. 8; Mark xii. 36; Luke iii. 22; Pealm li. 11.) It is no reply to quote Christ's words, "If I go not away the spirit will not come to you," because it was not the existence or the coming, but the extraordinary effusion of the Spirit which was the burden of Old Testament prophecy. The Spirit was to inaugurate a new dispensation with remarkable signs, viz., speaking with tongues, working of miracles, and multitudinous conversions. When Joel spoke of the "Spirit being poured out on all flesh," he was not ignorant of the Spirit's existence and work, for how was he or could he be inspired to prophesy save by the Holy Spirit in common with the other prophets?
8th. They say, further, on this subject that it is a mockery to ask God to repeat the gift of the Holy Ghost since it has already been given in Christ. But Christ says "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts "unto your children, how much more shall your Father give the Holy "Spirit to them that ask him." Moreover, if it is wrong to ask for the Holy Spirit it must be wrong also to ask any spiritual blessing and gift, for they wore all given in the gift of Christ. The conclusion is inevitable that the Plymouth Brethren should never pray at all since they have nothing to pray for.
9th. They deny commentaries and their use, sneeringly calling them
human productions. But the Plymouth Brethren write commentaries tracts, and treatises of their own. One of them has written a commentary on Leviticus, and these they call Divine. What are all Plymouth tracts but commentaries on Scripture? A commentary from the lips of a preacher does not become false by being printed in a book. Why are the treatises of Darby, Macintosh, and others styled inspired, and those of Matthew Henry, Barnes, &c., styled human productions; on what authority, and how proved?
10th. They say that the atonement actually paid every sinner's debt "to the last farthing," so that all his sins "past, present, and future" were "put away" or forgiven when Christ died. In answer we say the atonement of Christ is not the payment of a debt; the Scriptures nowhere teach that it is. If it were, it must be either the payment of the debt of the sins of the Elect, or of the sins of the whole world. If of the forme., not one save the Elect can possibly be saved; so that from this rigid Calvinistic standpoint, it is simply a mockery to preach a full and free salvation to all men, their bills and bellringings announcing the preaching of the gospel as revealed in the Scripture are therefore worse than useless. If of the latter, it is equally impossible for any one of the human family to be lost. What is this we ask but the rankest universalism!
The Plymouth Brethren confuse atonement with pardon. The Scriptures never say they are identical, but that the atonement of Christ is the ground on which pardon may be procured on condition of faith. It is that, as every one who has read his Bible to any purpose knows, by which God "can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly who believe in Jesus." The Plymouth Brethren, by preaching that the atonement is the payment of a debt, pervert the teaching of the Word of God on the subject, and incite to the most presumptuous and impious assurances on the part of those who accept their views. An honest farmer in the King's 'County, Ireland, after hearing one of the Plymouth Brethren preachers speak, said, "Well, I "never understood the Gospel before; I shall give myself no trouble about "either repentance or faith, it is all nonsense. This gentleman has proved "to my satisfaction that Christ paid my debt before I was born, and what "ever time I go into the other world I will claim my discharge from all "legal consequences, as a matter of simple equity." Such are the converts of the Plymouth Brethren! What? we ask, would the state of this or any community be, if they were all converts of this type.
11th. They say that the atonement is the payment of a debt and at the same time say that faith is the condition of salvation. If Christ has paid every sinner's debt to the last farthing, how can faith be the condition of salvation? The payment of the debt is either a fact or a fiction of their imagination. If a fiction, then what becomes of the gospel? If a fact, unbelief cannot reverse that fact or affect it in any way. The sinner's debt Was paid before he was born; if this be a fact it remains true whether he believes it or not: It cannot by any possibility, make the slightest difference as to his final safety.
12th. They further assert that unbelief or the rejection of Christ is the damning sin. How utterly absurd is this in view of their belief that Christ paid the debt of every sinner to the very last farthing? "This payment "either included this sin of unbelief, or it did not. If it did not, how is this "sin of unbelief to be forgiven? If it did, the debt cannot have been paid "and also."
13th. They say, only believe that Christ put away all sin when he died, and you are saved You are a Christian. Now, that is simply asking assent to a statement—a statement moreover which is false. Can any man become a Christian by simply saying I believe that Christ put away all sin 18 hundred years ago? Does that change his heart? Is it not with the heart man believeth unto righteousness? Faith is not simply the exercise of the intellect, but the outgoing of the whole spiritual nature to Christ. What but personal relationship to Christ can enable a man to take up his closs daily, and bear it for Christ sake? and is not crossbearing one of the fundamental conditions of discipleship?
The Plymouth Brethren would make people believe that there is a Cheap and easy way of getting to heaven. If that be true what do the Scriptures mean when they say, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way"—"Strive to enter in at the strait gate."
14. They say that unconverted men ought not to pray for mercy; and while believers only should pray, they must not confess sin or ask its pardon, as their sin has already been put away eighteen hundred years ago by the death of Christ.
Now, there are numerous passages of Scripture which show that it is the duty of unconverted men to pray (see Act iiiv. 21. 23. Isaiah lv. 6, 7. Psalm lxv. 21); and, further, that the neglect of prayer is charged as the sin of such (see Jeph. i. 6. Hosea vii. 7 Jer. x. 21. Psalms x. 4, lxxix. 6, and cxli. 2, 4.) Moreover, the Plymouth Brethren confess openly that they do not know how to deal with a believer when he falls into sin; showing to all thinking people that the doctrine, as stated above, is utterly untenable.
They will not use that part of the Lord's prayer, which says "Forgive us our trespasses," because they say it was given to be read only before the death of Christ. Nothing can be more absurd. On that principle they should not pray for "daily bread," nor not to be lead "into temptation," because the objection they urge against one part of the Lord's Prayer applies equally to the whole of it.
15th. They say that a sinner should not pray for salvation, but take it without praying, as if the things were inconsistent.
We would ask, Is it possible to take salvation without at any rate feeling a desire for it, and what is "feeling a desire" but inwardly asking:—and is not that a form of prayer? Did not Peter tell Simon Magus (an unregenerate man be it remembered) to "repent of his wickedness and pray God, if, perhaps, the thought of his heart might be forgiven him." Acts viii. 22. Was it not after the prayers of the publican and the dying thief that they were justified? And docs not Isaiah, speaking of the world at large, say "Call ye upon up the Lord while he is near."
If the prayer of an unregenerate man cannot be acceptable to God, how, in the name of possibility, can the faith of an unregenerate man be? Clearly the Brethren shut the doors of both faith and prayer in the face of the sinner, and, if so, what door is open to him?
16. Repentance has no place in the preaching of the Plymouth Brethren.
They call it "trash," "legalism.," and "salvation by works," hindering the sinner from coming to Christ. Paul says "Repent and believe the gospel," and Christ says "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." We never read in Scripture of an impenitent believer or a penitent unbeliever. We have in the doctrine of the Brethren on this point but another of the many instances of confusion of things which differ. They mix up faith and repentance in such a muddle that they cannot be recognised as the things nor in the forms taught in Scripture; and yet they have the arrogance to say that they alone are inspired, and that their expositions of the Word of God are alone to be relied upon as correct and true. Truly might sinners pray "save us from our friends," if those who teach such doctrines are such.
17th. They hold that believers are justified from eternity, or from the time of Christ's death, and that faith has no more to do with justification than merely to bring the fact of it to our knowledge. They deny the imputed righteousness of Christ which is the ground of our justification; and though they hold that Christ suffered in our stead they deny that He obeyed the law in our stead. The whole argument of Paul to the Romans on the doctrine of justification is dead against the Plymouth Brethren on this head. If Christ did not fulfil the law for us, then what does Paul mean when he says "For by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one (Christ) shall many be made righteous." (Rom. v. 19.) He says that the very object of Christ's coming was that "the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us," i.e. the righteousness which the law required of us. He says further in another passage that
made under the law to redeem them who were under the law. If Christ's righteousness is not imputed to us by faith, then there is nothing on which any mortal being can rest for acceptance with God. If the Plymouth Brethren rest on their their own righteousness then there could not be a clearer case of justification by works which they emphatically condemn. Verily, how blind are some people to their own inconsistencies!
18th. The Brethren assert that we are sanctified as well as justified in Christ; that all believers are sanctified in Him, in a sense that excludes all personal and progressive sanctification; and that they are perfectly holy the moment they believe (i.e. say, they believe the false statement, that their sin has been all put away in Christ, when he died), and that they never become more holy. They quote in support of their view the passages "Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. By one offering He hath perfected for ever, them that are sanctified." Here again is a confusion of things which differ—the Brethren confound "consecration" with "sanctification." When a man truly believes he consecrates himself to Christ, but he is not therefore completely delivered from the power of sin. Believers consecrate themselves to God that they may be purified inwardly by the Holy Spirit. The vessels of the ancient sanctuary were at once separated to God's service, but that did not imply that they did not need daily ablution. If sanctification is not a gradual process, Paul misleads when he says, "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ," see also l Thess. v. 23. 2 Cor. iv. 16.
19th. They say that the design of the Spirit is not to improve or sanctify the flesh, or the old man—that the flesh in the believer is no better than in an unbeliever, and no better at the end of a saint's life, than at the beginning, and that the error of the churches has always been to try the mending of the old Adam—nature, which is not to be mended, but crucified. They thus deny all personal and progressive sanctification. In this case what does the Spirit sanctify? Not the old man, for he is buried with Christ in His death; not the new man, for he is perfect and sinless. They therefore deny the Spirit's sanctifying work, which is one of the fundamental doctrines of Scripture. Their views are besides, immoral, because they free the believer from all responsibility of sin committed. Can any teaching be more fallacious and nefarious than that? If people are once led to understand that they are not responsible for the sins they commit, they will soon defy all the restraints, not only of the Plymouth faith—which, in truth, would be but a small crime—but of every or of any code of morals ever revealed to man.
20th. They rebaptize all their converts for, they are usually Baptists in doctrine; they are therefore opposed to the baptism of infants, though that has been the practice of the church for eighteen centuries.
Into this question we cannot now enter, especially as in doing so we would come into collision with the Baptists, as such with whom at present, we have no controversy. To us, however, it appears a very harsh and unchristlike thing to say, as the Plymouth Brethren often do, that there is no reason to believe that any child dying in infancy goes to heaven. If they do not say that infants go to hell, they at any rate leave that impression with their hearers, by the way in which they speak of the subject.
A mother's heart is a truer criterion of truth, than the vague and distracting statements of the Plymouth Brethren on the matter; and we are sure that the best part of her human nature (if the Brethern believe in such a thing) will revolt against the horrible idea, that her innocent child will ever find a place in the outer darkness.
The above comprises only a few of the doctrines of the Plymouth Brethren,—and the refutation of them we have given is necessarily of a brief and much less thorough character than we could have given, had our space and time allowed. We are not aware of having transgressed on, any point, the laws of criticism. While admitting that the object of the Plymouth Brethren may be good, in what we have said above, the reader will see how much calculated their teaching is to do his knowledge of, and faith in, the truths of Scripture as therein taught, perhaps an irreparable injury.
Reader before going to hear, or to cast in your lot with these Plymouth Brethren, reflect that you are giving countenance to one of the most church destroying and family-disturbing sects of modern times.
Sir,—As one of the clergy of the Church of England whom Mr Creery in his letter mentions by name, I ask you to allow me to reply to some observations of his which seem to be founded on misapprehension.
After enumerating some of the disadvantages under which "heretical" clergymen labour, he states his opinion that they expose themselves to those disadvantages "solely with the hope that by their example and teaching the Church may be widened, so as to comprehend parties of all opinions."
Now, it is perfectly true that we cherish the hope of seeing the restrictions sufficiently relaxed, so as to enable all really earnest and devout men, who wish to teach what they believe to be true, to serve as ministers in the National Church. But I think Mr Creery greatly errs in considering this hope to be the primary object of those exertions of ours which involve us in so much trouble.
I, for one, distinctly deny that this is ray object in the course I am pursuing. If I am asked, "Why do you place yourself in such an unpleasant position? "my simple answer is, "Because I feel it to be my duty." I shall be only too glad if I can do any good to my fellowmen. I shall be nearly as
I can assure Mr Creery and your readers that we have no ulterior object. We are servants of God and the truth, as far as we can discover it. In serving truth with a single mind we hope, in that way, best to serve our Church and our country; but we should in vain hope to serve them in any other way, or by having a lower aim than the simple declaration of our honest convictions.
This has already borne good fruit, although perhaps not sufficient to satisfy the eager wishes of the Rev. A. M. Creery, and those who like himself abandoned our Church in despair. The terms of subscription, which he says he tried in vain to get relaxed, have been relaxed, and in such a way as to make it increasingly difficult to convict a clergyman of heresy.
The Prayer Book is not yet reformed, but we would rather wait till men's minds are educated up to the point necessary to secure a radical and effective revision. The influence of what has already been said in the Church during the last eight or ten years even exceeds our expectation; every day makes our position stronger, and swells the ranks of those who prefer private judgment to authority.
I must ask your indulgence to let me say a few words in reference to Mr Creery's reproach against
Orthodox bringing the accusation of insincerity and hypocrisy against those who have made such startling announcements of their own convictions as I and some others have done; but we do wonder that men who sympathise with much that we do think and say should allow their sectarianism to prevail over their love of truth, and to lead them to discourage efforts, however honest and selfdenying, which are not made according to their own pattern, or issued under their sanction. The Church of England is under the control of Parliament, and as such can be modified as to doctrines, rites, and discipline in accordance with the best religious feelings and convictions of any given age. On this account solely, and not for its rank and endowments, do we "heretics" cling devotedly to the National Church. We know by experience and observation that there is no liberty, no independence, worthy of the name, to be enjoyed elsewhere. We see that in every sect, even in the Unitarian body itself, "heretics" are in more evil case than any of us; no professed freedom from creeds and articles would confer the liberty which we enjoy, even at this moment, with all its restrictions in the Church of England. You have, I think, admitted that Theodoro Parker himself would have found few Unitarian pulpits open to him in England some five or ten years back. We are alike free from the tyranny of conferences and of congregations. Convocation is simply an object of curious amusement, and has no terrors for the beneficed clergy. We are upheld and
To help others to perceive the moral tenableness of our position, let me remind them that the religious opinions and beliefs of our countrymen are undergoing rapid change. The Church of England is in a state of transition. Objections to her Articles and Formularies are now being made by Churchmen, lay and clerical, which were not thought of, except by very few, twenty years ago. The Church of England may pass into still closer harmony with the Roman Catholic branch of Christendom, or it may become still more Protestant and develop into Theism. We need not make prophecies, but we know for certain that, whatever change will be made, it will be made by Acts of Parliament only, and by a Parliament which will then express pretty fairly the religious convictions of the people at large.
Should there be any reactionary movement which would reenforce doctrines which are distasteful to me in such proportion as to leave a decided deficiency of what I now admire and adopt, then the question of my retirement from the Church of England's ministry would be reopened and quickly settled. But while I feel I have a small share in the work of substituting reasonable convictions for unreasonable superstitions and beliefs granted to me by the law of the land within the freest Church in this country, I will not throw away so good a chance of being heard and listened to as I now enjoy through the protection of the law.
I shall read with interest Mr Creery's promised letter, and hail with pleasure any really wise suggestion on the great subject which he has taken up. Only let me say, it does not only seem somewhat ungenerous, but it is quite useless, to bring a charge of insincerity against us. We have counted the cost
Then we looked our worse fear in the face, and we resolved to stand and brave it. We are now quite familiar with it, and have grown accustomed to the noise which at first sounded so threatening. Men may judge us, but they are not our judge. We must leave our accusers to the growth of their own minds and to the all-healing influence of time.
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Last Sunday, at St. George's Hall, Mr Voysey took for his text Psalm xcviii., 7, 8, 9,10. "O shew yourselves joyful before the Lord the King. Let the sea make a noise and all that therein is; the round world and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for he is come to judge the earth. With righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity."
The Christian Churches, he said, are now celebrating the season of Advent, with which they begin their ecclesiastical year. The central belief of this celebration is that clause in the Apostles' Creed which says of Christ—"He sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." That clause is based on several warnings in the Apostolic Epistles, which in turn probably owe their origin to traditions recorded in the first three gospels, which profess to give Christ's own prediction that he would return during the lifetime of some of his followers, and "come in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory." Whether Jesus Christ ever said so or not, it was firmly believed by some of his followers, and proclaimed again and again by some of the Apostles, until at last, in sheer bewilderment at its nonfulfilment, they began to make
It is a matter of little moment to decide whether Christ did or did not make any such prediction; it always seemed to me to have been glaringly inconsistent with his many noble manifestations of character; and if he ever was led into such a vain and foolish hope—into such an extravagant notion of his own importance, as that he was appointed to be judge of all mankind—this would only prove that he was carried away by fanaticism, and had lost his reason. So here again are the Christians on the horns of a dilemma. If he did not say these words, they have no ground for their expectation of his second Advent; and if he did say them, he must have been mad. But in spite of the complete failure of the most emphatic of all these predictions, the Christians go on repeating their belief that Jesus will come again to judge the world, and that he "shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel."
We cannot but wonder at the Christian poet writing thus, for the lips of little children to sing:—
The Book of Revelation, most likely written by John, the beloved disciple whom his master called one of the Sons of Thunder, gives all the awful details of this coming day of judgment, in prophetic
The contrast is complete and absolute. To the Christian, the second Advent of Christ can only be an event of unmitigated and hopeless calamity to this fair world, and to nearly all the human beings who dwell upon it. To the old Hebrew Psalmist, the judgment of God in righteousness and equity, was the signal for universal joy among all the children of men, in which nature would join with her chorus of thanksgiving. "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; Let the sea make a noise, and the round world and all that dwell therein; let the floods clap their hands, and let the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord; for he is come to judge the earth; with righteousness to judge the world and the people with equity"
It is worth while spending a few moments on this so-called Advent Sunday, in examining the grounds of this tremendous contrast. What is it which makes one man mourn and another man rejoice at the thoughts of God's judgment?
First, I think it is enough to make a man mourn to believe that human sins, failures, and follies are stored up in Divine account books as debts to be one day ruthlessly brought up against us, and payment of them demanded when payment is known to be impossible. It seems so undignified on the part of a Divine Being to treasure up in spiteful memory all our petty failings and shortcomings, our sinful deeds and idle words. It is so cruel towards men to treat them as insolvent debtors, and to augment their liabilities every day, till they know not what they owe, and then send them in the fearful reckoning, Heaven only knows when, but the weight of which must be awfully aggravated by the uncertainty and the delay. What should we think of a father who never corrected his children's faults, but only scrupulously watched and recorded them day by day, and hour by hour, to bring up against them as accusations when they grew to manhood? But yet worse than this is the notion that God's judgment is deferred till some distant day, when it is threatened that he will visit these accumulated offences with vengeance of eternal fire.
It is quite possible that a certain amount of delay secures, rather than defeats, the ends of justice—that a man may be more effectually cured of some bad propensity by tasting some of its bitter fruits; but such a delay of justice as that involved In the postponement of it to the Second Advent is absolutely subversive of all justice, and is an inducement to bad men to go on in their wickedness, because whether they sin little or much they will not have to render an account for ages and ages, and then it will make no difference to their fate, for the sentence is one of endless woe to every unpardoned sinner alike.
On the other hand, it is enough to make the heart glad that God, the righteous judge, is not a God afar off, nor one that fosters and nurses his wrath till it bursts at length in one storm of everlasting fire, nor one who is for ever running up a list of debts against erring sinners. But it makes the heart glad to feel that He is near to us at all times, that His voice is heard in the inmost, chambers of our own souls, that He is come to judge the
And this brings me to the second ground of contrast between the old Hebrew and the Christian. The Hebrew could be glad and rejoice in God's judgment, because it was just, because God would judge the world in righteousness, and the people with equity. As long as justice is done, no one ever need be unhappy. Whether justice come to him with gifts or with stripes, he is equally blessed—the stripes are to make him better and more fitted for the gifts. "Judge me, O Lord, according to thy righteousness, is the prayer of every one who truly believes in God. We do not know ourselves, we cannot know ourselves fully, unless a light be shed from Heaven upon our hearts, or a Divine voice recalls us to our senses, and sweeps away our conceit and blindness. So we hail God's judgment, let it come in storms of tribulation, let all the water floods rise about us, and let us be threatened by the realisation of our worst fears. Yet, all the punishment He ever sends is for blessing, and nor for cursing, for good and not for evil, in love and not in vengeance.
Besides, when do we ever find that men's consciences have reproached them more than they deserved, or approved them when
If they would draw us in love and gratitude to their great idol, they must first carefully expunge or disguise with subtle art, that great revealed truth, that the Lamb and his holy angels shall witness without ceasing the torments of the damned. There it stands in the book of Revelation 14th Chap., 10 and 11th verses. "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and
On Sunday (Jan. 26th) at St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Psalm xl., 10., "Thy law is within my heart."
He said:—Last Sunday we were considering the argument for the existence of a Supreme intelligence, which may be drawn from the intellectual part of man's nature. Our next step is to examine the moral part, and to endeavour to show that the Conscience of man furnishes strong ground for our belief in a Perfectly Good Cod.
Let us first inquire what is the proper function of the Conscience. In the first place it seems to be a faculty distinct from the ordinary reflective powers of the mind, which we sum up under the term Reason. I do not now enquire how Conscience is, in the first instance, generated, or whether or not it be some phrenological organ, more or less conspicuous as a bump on the human head. It is neither my province, nor within my grasp, to settle such questions as to its origin or physical construction, I have only to deal with it as it seems to most men to act a part in our complex nature, and to influence our conduct. In affirming, then, the distinctness of Conscience from the Reasoning faculties, I only speak of it as it appears to my thought. It does not, and cannot, teach me what is right or what is wrong. Only my
i.e., not as wrong, but believing it to be right. "The time will come when he that killeth you will think that he doeth God service," is a good illustration of this perversion of mind. Many persons will thereupon jump at the conclusion that Conscience is not to be trusted, and that it must be overruled by superior authority external to itself—whereas the fault lies not with the Conscience but with the Reason which is imperfectly enlightened. The Conscience has nothing whatever to do with drawing the conclusions of the Reason; its only function is to endorse with all the weight of its sanction whatever the Reason has pronounced to be right. Conscience, even in its apparently worst perversions, is not perverted at all, is still loyal to the best that is put before it. It cannot help us to make up our minds in the least degree; it waits quietly till this process is completed by the Reason, and then steps in with its powerful mandate, to demand that the best alternative should be adopted and pursued. It has always seemed to me a great mistake to blame the Conscience for those moral errors which have been perpetrated in its name. Conscience is ever loyal to duty as duty, never sanctions any wrong as wrong, is a perpetual witness in the soul of man for all righteousness, and it differs in different men only in strength and intensity, in its power to control the life; it does not differ in being morally inferior and superior.
If my Conscience sanctions what another man's Conscience
Looseness of language is largely responsible for many popular errors. We often speak of one man as conscientious, and another as unconscientious, when the real difference we wish to describe is the difference of their moral opinions. We ought never to use these terms "conscientious and unconscientious," except to distinguish between the man who obeys his Conscience and the other who disobeys it. We take too much for granted that our estimate of what is right and wrong is shared by every one else alike; and then come to the false conclusion that those who do not do what we believe to be right are acting against their Consciences.
Whole races of men we have heard stigmatised as wanting in conscientiousness because they are remarkably untruthful; others because they are habitual thieves; others because they love to shed innocent blood and their land groans with murder; others because they are frivolous, fickle and vain; others because polygamy is their law; others because they practice polyandry. In all these cases you find conscience quite as much at work as in ourselves, commanding what is believed to be right, forbidding what is believed to be wrong. They lie, and steal, and murder, &c., through their want of clear and vigorous perception that lying, stealing, and murder are wrong. Their education has been deficient, and the inherited tendency to these habits has not been resisted; they are ever ready with reasons to justify their conduct, or to make very light of it. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for whole populations to connive at these outrages, and to shield the guilty heads from the penalties of the law. But these same people taught from their youth up to regard some act of religious observance as the highest of all duties, and the neglect of it the most wicked of crimes, are very very conscientious in the discharge of that duty, and manifest the functions of Conscience in that particular, in a striking degree,
If ever the question is raised "Why does the Conscience bid you do this," the solo answer always is, "Because it is right." Never in any case is it "Because it is wrong."
The Conscience is, I grant, not equally strong in all men. In some natures it has more, in others less, power to influence the conduct. But this is only like all other faculties in man. The Reason, the imagination, the affections, the hopes, and the fears vary considerably in strength and degree in different men, and so also the Conscience varies; in some it is the lord of the whole life, in others it is hustled into a corner and seldom suffered to raise its voice. But it is sufficiently universal to be argued from as the common property of human nature, and in reasoning about the source and fountain of all things, the Conscience is as much entitled to be considered as the intellect.
Moreover, if we would argue fairly, we must take the average quality of the Conscience rather than the more rare instances of those who hardly exhibit any Conscience at all. In a treatise on the Reason of man, it would be manifestly unfair to take only the undeveloped state of it, as it appears in a child, or the diseased condition of it as it appears in an idiot; so in speaking of the Conscience of man we ought to take it in its more complete and perfectly healthy development, in the noblestmoral examples, rather than its earlier and undeveloped state.
We are searching for indications of a Divine Being among the works of the universe, we have found, so far, that man is the noblest of them, by Reason of his Intellect alone, but we find that he has something else, which, in his own estimation, he reckons nobler still than Intellect—viz., Conscience, or the faculty which urges him to do what is right and avoid what is wrong, and this faculty is, in its normal exercise, one of the greatest blessings which man could possess.
In the first place, it marks afresh our superiority to the physical world. While everything around us is by the laws and constitution of its nature designed for selfishness, to win its way, if it can, in the struggle for existence; while even the body of man, with all its functions, has precisely the same nature, and might lawfully (were it not for the Reason and Conscience) study its own comfort
i.e., will inflict injury on others, that does not necessarily prevent my wishing to do it. I cannot help wishing to do it, if the gratification be very great, and do it I should to a certainty, but for that wonderful monitor within, who says "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God."
The collision is so complete between the higher voice and the impelling instinct, that one can only feel that the two are radically different in nature, and must have had a different source. This struggle between a strong desire and a higher law within the same breast if it gives any witness, bears testimony to the exalted nature of man, and almost drives him in thought to the threshold of that Heavenly Home, where he was born and cradled. To have the power of doing intentionally what one shrinks from doing, and to deny oneself the pleasure which is so fascinating, and which one longs to do, is to prove the immense superiority of our inner selves over the visible universe.
Here I must pause to notice an objection which may be urged, that whenever we obey the Conscience we only do so to gain a greater pleasure than we relinquish. It is said that we are still
do good to our fellowmen, rather than to make them happy. An unenlightened benevolence, such as the animal instinct of an indulgent parent, which leads to the spoiling of a child, is a mere impulse to give happiness, and is on that ground actually condemned by the enlightened Conscience, because that happiness not only does not tend to the child's real and lasting good, but tends to his present and future degradation. In its higher state the Conscience bids us aim exclusively at the cultivation of all virtue in ourselves and in others. It teaches us always to subordinate happiness to holiness, and often deliberately to forego and withhold happiness, that goodness may ensue. Truth and righteousness would be preferred, not only before wealth and comfort here below, but even before an eternity of mere enjoyment without personal holiness. Thus, on every side, it seems that the superiority of our inner nature becomes an antagonism to the outward and visible. "The flesh warreth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other." The contrast and hostility between them we all feel, but which of the two do we reckon the higher, the nobler, the truer part of man? Surely the Conscience—the Conscience which makes us mortify our flesh with its affections and lusts, which often and often mars our happiness and embitters our pleasure, upbraids us with reproaches, and stings us with remorse—that voice which hushes our cry for happiness, which will not endure a single selfish plea, but demands unquestioning obedience, and bids us fall down in the very dust before the majesty of duty. We all in our secret hearts revere this power, whether or not we obey it as we should. At least we pay it the homage of our inmost souls and feel how great and grand it is to be its slave.
We have here, then, something in man which we cannot find in the physical universe, where happiness is the aim of every living thing. Every single being in every class of animal life, including the body of man, is constituted to seek its own happiness first, but in man we find a principle entirely at war with this universal instinct, a power that forces us to break the natural law of mortal life, and to seek for that which is supremely higher than mere animal safety and enjoyment. For the sake of goodness, men have
Now to me, I confess, this fact is a greater revelation of a Divine Being than even the intellect of man. For ignoring altogether the fact that men have almost universally regarded the Conscience as the vicegerent of God:—the mere possession of a power which claims the mastery over our whole natures, which disturbs our animal repose, and which demands the deliberate surrender of happiness for the sake of truth, righteousness, and every form of duty, brings us face to face with a power—call it human or Divine—which, whatever it be, is absolutely transcendent over nature, and suggests to our minds the existence of another world altogether, in and around us, in which the laws and forces of the visible universe have no place. Were we to grant that our intellect is only an animal organism, we should still be at our wits' end to account for the Conscience on purely physical grounds; and we would never get over the anomaly and absurdity of the Universe evolving and evolving itself cycle after cycle till it produced an element at variance with its own laws, a power and a force which deliberately set them at defiance, and a conscious being who calmly rejected, for the sake of virtue, the most enticing happiness placed in its path. If we could get over the intellectual difficulty of Atheism, we could never get over the difficulty which is presented by the Conscience. I do not deny that there is antagonism in the physical universe; it abounds everywhere; it is in accordance with its own principle of "Everyone for himself;" but that antagonism is wholly different from that which exists between two distinct portions of one and the same being; greater still is the difference when we observe that the higher law often condemns as morally wrong what nature herself tempts us to do.
I cannot pursue the enquiry further at present, it is enough that the human Conscience is not merely superior, but antagonistic, to the selfish principle in nature, to prove that if we would search for indications of the Deity, we must make man the field of our enquiry.
On Sunday (Feb. 2nd) at St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from 1 John iv., 16, "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."
He said—We now come to the third branch of our enquiry into the nature of man, in search for indications of a Supremo and Perfect Divine Being.
We have perceived, in the intellect of man, manifest tokens of a supreme intellect from which it sprang. We have discovered in the Conscience a power, not only superior, but antagonistic, to the forces in Nature; and we must now direct our attention to Human Love.
What is Love? This sacred name has alas! been shamefully misapplied. It has been made to stand for its very opposite—selfishness. It has been used to denote the most imperious of our animal instincts, the gratification of merely physical desire; even the mere desire to attain such enjoyment, has been profanely called Love. Far be it from me to deem anything which God has placed in the nature of man as unholy or unclean. The animal instinct referred to is exquisite and sacred, the source of untold happiness, and the fountain of domestic virtue, but then it is not Love. When people talk of "making Love" and "falling in Love," they are using expressions of profound inaccuracy, for which the poverty of our language is the only excuse. The affection which
sometimes nothing more than a merely animal attachment to each other, which they share in common with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. It is all called "Love," and we cannot in a day—no, not in a generation—change its name. But the time seems to have come for us to make long and loud our protest against the use of ambiguous terms. Words do react more or less upon those who use them, and if we persist in applying one and the same term to two or more absolutely distinct things, we shall come in time to lose sight of the distinction between them, and in that case the higher sense will be forgotten, and the lower one alone remain.
Now, to discern what Love is, we must contrast it with what it is not.
We find everywhere reigning in nature the law of self-love, of self-preservation, self-indulgence, and self-advancement. We own its necessity. No living thing is safe without it. It is given to us that we may live as long and as happily as we can, and that we may promote our own earthly advantage. In the struggle for existence this law bids us without scruple trample on the rights of others if they have any, and then might becomes right. In reference to self-indulgence, it bids us get all the pleasure we possibly can; it takes no account of the pleasure of others, except in so far as it may minister to our own. And as for self-advancement its maxim is to be first in the race if we can. Its cry is, "Every man for himself."
Now it is easy to see without illustration that were this the only law which governed humanity our time would be divided between avarice, lust, and war. We should have nothing else to do but to give free play to our appetites and to smite and murder every one who stood in the way of our gratification. Supposing that a certain amount of civilisation had been reached by mutual concessions for the, attainment of happiness then you would have
Bret Harte, an author to whom I shall again presently refer, among other writers has given pictures of life in the Far West of America, wherein all that we could imagine of such a state of society has been enacted within this century. Lawless, ruffianly, selfishness has been the rule, because most of the men gathered in those regions were mere animal men, carrying their whole animalism with them into a district where they had no law but themselves. This was the coarse and brutal picture of the reign of selfishness. But we need not go so far as to San Francisco to see the same selfishness under a more refined aspect. There are men and women in all our great cities, aye, and in the country too, (let us hope there are but few of them), who behave as if they were animals and nothing more—human animals with the cunning and resources of human skill, education, and prudence—who live for themselves alone, and who seldom feel what it is to love. They follow their strong instincts for pleasure and ease, their unscrupulous desire to enrich themselves on the racecourse or at the gambling tables, their studious regard for their own health and the supply of every luxury; and they do not hesitate in the pursuit of their own indulgence to force their rivals or dependents down into unspeak able misery, or leave others to die in disease and poverty, rather than forego one of their accustomed pleasures.
We may fairly hope that such are extreme and most rare instances; but dress it up as finely as you can, you will only get
Now true Love is that principle which we find almost universal in human nature, which impels us to resist in a measure this law of selfishness, to overcome its dictates whenever they tend to entrench on the rights and welfare of others. Love will go long lengths in sanctioning the law of selfishness; but there is a point where it will stand up and resist it. It will sanction self-preservation until another's life is in peril. It will sanction self-indulgence until that indulgence becomes robbery of the happiness or wellbeing of another. It will sanction ambition, and even gathering of gold, so long as the means employed do not hinder a companion in the race.
Love will hide itself beneath an apparently selfish disguise, and all at once it will leap out upon you in all its glory, melting your eyes and your heart. It is that in man which redeems him from being a beast—for man without Love is worse than any beast which Lord God hath made; and when he Loves he becomes more than animal, more than man, I had almost said, and stands forth in the very image of God.
With the world so full as it is of real Love, if we will only look for it, illustrations would be endless. But every wish felt, every word spoken, every deed done for the sake of others is a witness of true Love.
Some may say this is only the function of conscience over again. But, in reply, I say that the brilliancy of Love outshines that of conscience as the sun outshines the moon. Love is conscience in an ecstacy—it is a perfect enthusiasm of goodness, because it does not stop to reason out with itself, and to balance the pros and cons of right and wrong, but with eager bound rushes to its goal and acts without reflection, the slave of inspiration. Conscience says, "Do this because it is right." Love says, "I will do this for you." Conscience mercifully keeps us mindful of our responsibility when
By Love, we pass out of ourselves into our object, as it were; we seem to have merged almost our own consciousness, sympathies, and desires, in the soul of another; till we live a new life in hers, and become her saviour and her shield. When Paul said, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore Love is the fulfilling of the law," he stated feebly and negatively the exact truth. He should have said, "Love worketh all possible good to his neighbour, therefore Love is the fulfilling of the law." It will not do to leave our neighbour alone, and do him no harm; love bids us be active and attentive, and do him all the good we can. Then Love is the fulfilling of all human obligations. If we were wholly and continually under the influence of Love, and not sometimes under the sway of selfishness, our whole lives would be blameless, sin would be no more, and human life—ah! it would be too sweet ever to lay it down.
But Love teaches us that goodness is identical with the supremest happiness of man. It is not identical with physical happiness, it is often at war with that, and its terms with our animal nature are unshrinking submission, and if need be, the self-sacrifice of life itself. Yet strange—most strange—when we suffer most for one we love, we reap our highest joys, every wound is a healing of the spirit, and as we lie on Love's altar, bleeding, gasping, dying, we reach the sublimest region of human joy.
Think what the old poets have sung, what the Bibles of all lands have enshrined, what tradition prizes as its noblest treasure. They all sing in praise of Love—Love which began by heroic selfconquest and ended in death. But one and all bear the same testimony, the joy of dying for Love was worth all that life itself could ever purchase.
In those tales of the Far West, by Bret Harte, to which I have alluded, there is unfolded a perfect gospel of this human triumph. Amidst scenes of appalling horror, of the most brutal savagery, and the most abandoned lawlessness, he brings to view this one exquisite flower of humanity, and shows how Love was at the bottom of these fierce hearts; how it stayed the murderer's hand; how it softened the impious tongue; and brought men whose lives had been fouled by the worst of crimes to die the noblest martyr death. No Christ could do more than those and hundreds and thousands of our fellowmen have done for each other, and are doing daily—and all for Love.
That fearful catastrophe to the Northfleet, off Dungeness, which has awakened so much sympathy throughout the land, brought out afresh the glorious powers of self-sacrifice which belong to man. To some, the touching incidents of the Captain's farewell of his wife might seem a conflict between Lave and Duty. But Love and Duty are one, they can never clash. It is always a duty to do what Love desires. And Love itself is best proved by doing our Duty. Just think of those few minutes of parting agony.
Amid the roar and screaming of rough men and women, all struggling for their lives, some so fierce and frantic in their terror that they must be kept back from swamping the boats by the captain's revolver, his young wife, a bride ef seven weeks, pleads to be allowed to stay and die at her husband's side. Her Love, however, made her lose herself in him, and to make him happy she would do his bidding, and live in bitter grief all her clays. Her Love and duty were one. She would have stayed and died for Love; she left him for a life of woe—no less for Love. It was all she could do for him, to live because he asked it; and he, in his keen sense of duty, knew that to desert his ship even for his wife's sake would have been no act of Love to her. To bring with him into safety a soiled reputation and an honour stained would
Are there no more like him? Yea! thousands on thousands. The earth is full of such heroes, though we know them not, and their lives and deaths have been done in secret—no plaudits to give them courage; no eulogies spoken over their graves. Ask the generals who lead armies, the captains who carry their vessels all over the world, search the records of the Royal Humane Society, look into the hospitals, the theatres, and the homes of the poor. Enquire at the police stations; yes, and search the gaols and the galleys. Everywhere you find such Love as makes men and women Divine; raises them above themselves, i.e., above all that selfish nature would make them. If you will only look for it, I believe every one you meet can show it, or has some heavenly story to tell of how it was shown to them. Let us not say, then, that God has deserted his world, while he has given us love. "He left not himself without witness in that he did us good," says the Apostle. But he goes on to say, "in giving us rain and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." I will not question the general benevolence of the arrangements of nature; but they are not worth looking at by the side of the marvellous gift of Love which God has given to men to make them fruitful in all virtue, triumphantover all appetites and passions, and full of joy unspeakable, and full of glory. This great gift, I say, is so antagonistic to the laws and forces of nature that it cannot have had its origin in the visible universe whose laws it sets at defiance. It cannot be "of the earth, earthy," it must be "the Lord from Heaven," it must be an afflatus which is Divine. We
I have only then to urge once more, that as man is the noblest work in the universe, and as Love is the noblest part of man, so we must infer that God cannot be a Being inferior to the most Loving of men. He may be, and to our adoring eyes of faith He really is, far and high exalted over his noblest creature; but less than that He cannot be. Whenever, therefore, we would conceive of Him, we must make the noblest part of the noblest man's character our starting point, or else we shall do violence to the first principles of Reason, and contradict the universal testimony of the human Consciousness.
I believe it can be shown that, with the light of human Love shed upon the scene, all that is most dark, and sad, and dismal in the world can be reconciled with the existence of a Perfectly Holy and Loving God; and more than that, the miseries of the world become proofs and tokens of what God is, and unfold to us His nature in a more complete and intelligible manner than had we been living in a fairyland, or had we been all our lives happy citizens of some Golden Jerusalem. If you shut out sorrow you shut out the highest, purest, forms of Love. And if you shut out Love you shut out God. So we come back, out of our clouds of sorrow, to praise His glorious Name for every wounded heart, for every scalding tear, for every last farewell!
On Sunday (Feb. 16th) at St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Hebrew xii, 11, Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
He said:—In my last sermon I endeavoured to describe what true Love is; how it differs from merely animal attachment, how complete is its triumph over the natural desires, and how it raises us into the highest happiness in the supreme act of self-sacrifice. It is my purpose now to point out the process by which Love is generated or brought out into manifestation; to show that Love cannot be developed at all except under the conditions of suffering or sin, and therefore that that which we deem the most beautiful flower of humanity is the result of those very conditions on which the Atheist bases his strongest arguments against the existence of a Good God. The Atheist, as represented by Mr Winwood Reade in his Martyrdom of Man, argues thus:—
"The conduct of a father towards his child appears to be cruel but it is not cruel in reality. He boats the child but he does it
"Again, either sin entered the world against the will of the Creator, in which case he is not omnipotent, or it entered with His permission, in which case it is His agent, in which case He selects sin, in which case He is fond of sin, in which case He is sinful, which is an absurdity again."—(pp, 518519.)
It would be easy to dispose of this argument by at once disputing the hypothesis that God is omnipotent. The so-called "omnipotence" of God has assumed the most extravagant shapes in the human imagination. We could name a score or two of things inherently impossible, which God Himself has no power to do He cannot make the phenomena of noon and midnight to coincide. He cannot so alter the nature of a thing as to make it at the same moment both a cube and a sphere. He cannot confound the parts of a thing with each other, or put any part for the whole. God could not make my hand to be my eye; nor my eye to be my hand Never could a single limb be a whole human body. Never can God undo the past or break the sequence of time. God Himself could not make any material thing to be in two places at once. God's power is limited—by what, we do not know—possibly by His own will; i.e.—if he wills a thing to be such and such, he cannot at the same time make it to be absolutely different. We have no difficulty whatever in giving up the notion of God's omnipotence, when the idea of that omnipotence is stretched beyond the limits of common sense. But this is not quite the point in the passage quoted from Mr. Reade's book which I desire to take up. He manifestly assumes and elsewhere affirms, that if there be a God, He cannot be either cruel or sinful. Mr. Reade
per se, and what is more, they are unnecessary evils."
If this were true, then with the facts before us, we could draw no other conclusion than that an evil God caused the unnecessary evils; but when we confront this conclusion with the axiom that an evil God is a contradiction in terms; or more plainly, that "if there be a God, He must be good," it follows at once that if suffering and sin are unnecessary evils, there is no God at all.
What, then, we have to dispute is the assumption that suffering and sin are evils, per se, and unnecessary evils.
If we can show that suffering and sin are not evils, per se, but only relatively evils compared with other conditions; and further, that they are not unnecessary, but absolutely indispensable to our highest good, then, instead of going to prove that there is no God, suffering and sin will go far to prove that there is a God; and moreover, a good and holy God, who would not create any creature except for its good. Now, as I must not attempt too many things at once, I must leave on one side for the present the sufferings of the lower orders of animals, and confine myself only to the subject of the sufferings and sin which are endured by man.
Of the various functions which suffering and sin serve in the economy of the moral world, I have elsewhere written at some length; I now only desire to dwell upon one function, the chiefest of all, viz.,—they are the agents by which the purest Love is called forth. If they do originate or call into activity this noblest, most beautiful part of man's nature, they cannot be evils per se; and if,
necessmy.
You will remember that true Love is the very opposite of selfishness—it makes us do sometimes the most painful things; it is most exalted and supreme in a perfect self-sacrifice.
Now, what do we find, e.g., in the relations between husband and wife. Granted that there has been much animal attachment between them, and that true Love has not been yet elicited. Let one or the other be in sickness or pain, or in any trouble of mind, body, or estate, and then, if there be a germ of Love in the other, it will come forth in thoughts, words, and deeds, of exquisite sympathy and self-devotion. "We need not lift the sacred veil which covers wedded life, but surely all husbands and wives must know that their real Love first made itself heard and seen in some season of suffering and pain; they know what holy sacrifices it has demanded and received. Suffering is the cradle of Love.
See, too, how the mother's love, even as a mere animal affection, surpasses the Love which first made her a bride; and how it quickens her into activity of devotion; giving, and toiling, and watching; watching, and toiling, and giving, day and night, to her own cost of health, rest, and ease; and why? because her infant is feeble, dependent, suffering. Its cries lacerate the mother's heart, and fill her eyes with tears; but the same sting kindles a Love which is Divine, making her ready to give her life for her babe.
You see the same thing in the family. How selfish, how quarrelsome, children often are; till the hour comes when there is an accident, a terrible bruise, or a broken bone; and up the little wranglers run and are like ministering angels to the sufferer. Toys that were once fought for are now heaped on the sickbed without being asked for, and the dreariness of the siekchamber is willingly endured by sturdy ruddy boys who would ten times rather have been out at play. But Love has made them stay by the sickbed, drawn thither by her handmaid—Suffering. It is
By very instinct we look on sin as a terrible kind of suffering—a fearful moral disease—and it has a tendency to call out Love, in spite of its first tendency to call out hatred. We are angry and indignant if any injury be done to ourselves it is true, but the highest and rarest forms of Love—viz., mercy and forgiveness, are very often developed by the wrong doing of others. What sight more pretty among children than the making up of some quarrel, the sweet overtures of tiny arms around tiny necks, and the smothering kisses all wet with tears, which tell of the birth of the highest Love in their little souls!
In domestic life it often happens that sin, as well as sorrow, calls forth this noblest virtue. Neglected duties, careless accidents, even want of fidelity and honesty on the part of servants, have been overlooked, or forgiven and forgotten out of true pity and charity, which "hopeth all things." In like manner loving servants have borne long and patiently with the provocations of of their masters, forgiving their harsh and inconsiderate treatment and their surly tempers, and covering with a sacred privacy their worst failings. Old and young, all around in turn, have to bear and forbear, i.e., to bear gently the injuries of others and to forbear from revenge, to return good for evil, and thus to rise into man's most exalted condition because of the sin which is being continually committed. Love cannot rise higher than this—to render good for ill, to overcome all evil with good. And where, we ask, would such Love be but for the evil which calls it into exercise?
But go abroad and look on men and women beyond the home which is but a microcosm, and you will see the same beautiful sights if you knew how to look for them. Sin and sorrow every
To have received an injury, and yet to have pardon freely, and to have turned our foe into a friend, is unspeakably better than to have received no injury at all. To have kindled Love—true Love in the breast of another, is worth doing at the cost of much suffering. And although no one would be so mad as to incur disease on purpose to arouse sympathy, or so idiotic as to commit an injury for the sake of being forgiven; yet, for all that, the suffering and the sin do raise the hearts of those who come in contact with them, and teach them what they could not otherwise learn. As Miss Cobbe says in her Intuitive Morals. "Instead of an evil nature, our lower nature is a necessary postulate of all our virtue." Every word you use to denote the highest human qualities implies the conditions of pain and sin. You speak of patience? How could you be patient if there were no trials to bear, no cruel suspense to undergo, no provocation to irritate your temper, or to prompt your revenge? You speak of mercy and forgiveness? How could you be merciful to those who have done you no wrong, or forgive those who have never sinned? You speak of generosity of heart and hand? What generosity of heart could you feel for those who never failed in duty, who never transgressed the exact limits of their own rights? What generosity of hand could you show to those who never needed your bounty, and what happiness was already full? You speak of sympathy, but sooner could the light be severed from the sun than sympathy be detached from suffering. How could you know what this perfectly holy feeling is, had there been no suffering to feel for, no pains to lament, no sin to degrade and distress? And you speak of Love—the word which gathers up patience, mercy, forgiveness, generosity, sympathy, and surpasses them all? How could you have known the bliss of it unless human feeling had been, as it were, bruised and trampled on, to spread its fragrance, and to shed its life-giving wine? Humanity has indeed been martyred. Its flesh has been given for the life of the world. Its sacrifice was needed before men could grow out of the human into the Divine. Sin and sorrow must rend it, pain and shame must
Evils, you call them? Well! so they are, if, by evil, you mean that which makes one uncomfortable. The rod, the medicine, and the surgeon's knife, are, in this sense, evils. But not so do I define evil. I call that an evil which works only for harm and incurable misery; and of such kind of evil I do not know one single specimen in the whole universe. Relatively, many things are evil, nay, almost all things but Love, because they are imperfections, and constantly under the correction of something better; but so long as they are working for final good, all things are good, and to dispense with any one of them while it thus works would be our bitter loss.
But granting that sin and suffering are evils—not absolute but relative, we must admit that they are necessary to the development of that which is highest and most lovely in man's nature. Because, as I have tried to show, Love in its highest and purest forms has no existence apart from the conditions of sin and sorrow which call it into exercise.
I do not say that this, therefore, proves the existence of God, but it removes one of the most common and powerful arguments against it. It destroys the objection of the Atheist which is based on the sin and misery of the world.
There remains one more objection to meet, and that is contained in Mr. Reade's question, "If God is Love, why is there any bad at all?" Because, I answer, there would have been no more love in
Love.
Rightly or wrongly, we ascribe to the Divine Being a divine conquest of Love over what are to us the difficulties and obstacles in nature. We believe He is taming and subduing all things to His purposes, and making all things work together for good to every creature which He has made. Our own highest attitude in our difficulties of sin and sorrow is that of patient, untiring Love; and this it is, only in its supremest exaltation that we ascribe to Him when we say "God is Love."
To do the final good at once, instead of to prolong the process through painful stages, even if it were possible, would be to achieve something quite foreign to our best conceptions of good. But it is a begging of the whole question to imply that it could be done To make men good at once, without the intermediate processes of pain and sin, would be to make another kind of creature altogether, of whom and of whose happiness we have neither experience nor conception. As well might you try to imagine a man who had never been a child, as a man made perfect without the discipline of sin and sorrow.
I rejoice in it all, as I have often said, with unspeakable and glowing delight. My frail flesh would fain escape some of its dreadful pangs, would fain lay the heavy burden of its cross upon the shoulders of others. I shudder when I see and think of the martyrdom of pain, and the worse crucifixion of shame, which have been the portion of some, and might have been my own; but I would not have one grain of the world's burden lightened by evasion, or one pang dulled by the deadly anodyne, In the present controversy about Euthanasia, I wish it to be understood that the term "deadly anodyne" has no reference to the humane and perfectly justifiable methods of preventing or alleviating physical suffering. I have been for years an earnest advocate of Euthanasia, and I deem it right to use all means in our power to diminish or prevent pain. Pain and sin are tilings to be conquered and got rid of by all means short of injury to others, or to our higher nature; but not to be considered unnecessary when they are inevitable.
"It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good."
On Sunday (Fob. 23rd) at St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Psalm xvi., 11.—"In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."
He said—In our recent meditations upon the subject of Atheism, we have been considering the nature of man as the chief field of our enquiry in seeking indications of a Divine Being.
"We have studied man in reference to his reason, his conscience, and his affections. One more point remains to be considered,—viz., man in his religious aspect.
Man is undoubtedly a religious being; he has in all races, and under almost all conditions within the limits of history, manifested a belief in a Divine invisible Being, and in his own dependence on that Being. And in most cases that belief has not been a merely intellectual conviction, nor purely an emotional sentiment, but also an influence which has ruled his life, regulated his conduct, and inspired his hope. No one will deny this fact of man's nature. Not even the Atheist ignores it, while the Apostle of Positivism endeavoured to turn it to account in the establishment of his own form of Atheism.
The argument which the believer in God would draw from it is this:—As nearly all mankind have believed in some God, there
Now, in reply to this last assertion, we first of all admit the immense importance of teaching and training, especially in religious matters, which have been generally taught authoritatively as dogmas, some of which could not have survived the progress of intelligence but for such dogmatic method of transmission. But this will not account for the origin of religious ideas in the first instance, or explain the fact that whole races of men, widely separated from each other in their earliest origin, possess in common religious feelings and beliefs, though their creeds and cultus be ever so different. If religion be due to training and nothing more, how could religion have ever originated I The first founder of each of the various Fetich, Polytheistic, and Mono-theistic religions must himself have spontaneously guaranteed the religious idea, even if all his diseiples and successors owe their religion to him. Religion, too, must be very welcome to man, or the teachers of it would not have succeeded so well in making it universal among mankind. Even supposing it to be not intuitive universally, it must have been intuitive in the first men who set religion afloat in the world; and it is for the Atheists to account for such spontaneous generation of the religious element, not in one place or in one age only, but in many places, and in many different periods of our history.
The probability here is on the side of the opinion that Religious feeling is as much one of our natural possessions as the Reason, the Conscience and the Affections; that man is as naturally
And be it observed that I speak, not of the various forms in which the religious sentiment in man has been clothed, and whose name is Legion, but of that one common element in them all—the recognition of a Divine Being on whose will or providence man depends, and from whom his very existence is derived.
I now pass to the consideration of the former and more important objection made by the Atheist, viz., that religion is a delusion similiar to many delusions which have been universal, or nearly so, but which have faded before the dawn of brighter knowledge and higher culture.
It is most certainly true that the earlier forms in which religious belief has been clothed have all had to be laid aside as obsolete; they have all in turn decayed, waxed old, and at length vanished away. Those now remaining are tending with various degrees of rapidity to the same end. They must "all perish and wax old as doth a garment," and as a vesture the hand of time will fold them up and they shall be changed; but the religion which they embodied shall be ever the same; its years shall not fail. Our own embodiment of religious belief, which is at once the most ancient and the most modern, because it is the most natural and the most reasonable, must pass through the same refitting crucible, in which its dross must be burned away, and from which it can be poured in all its radiant purity into a new mould. But the metal itself is imperishable, and will last while the human race endures, while common sense looks out with steady gaze upon the wonders of creation, while moral sense bids us obey the still small voice of conscience, and while true love throbs in the human breast, and tells us what is bliss. Religion is co-eternal with man, and though
The Atheist may cry out "Ah! it is all a delusion." But whether or not it be a delusion, it has been the most powerful influence for good, which has ever swayed mankind; and it is on this ground, that we cannot reasonably regard it as a delusion. It is in the highest degree improbable, that the most powerful of all the influences for good which has swayed mankind should be based on a lie. It is in the highest degree improbable, that any goodness can be the direct and immediate offspring of so profound an error. We invariably find that moral evil treads on the footsteps of falsehood; that moral good follows as surely on the discovery of truth. In so far as what is true in religion has been acting upon mankind, it has acted only for the common good; in so far as falsehood was mixed up with it, it wrought only for evil.
We shake hands with the Atheist over the gigantic evils which have been perpetrated in the name of religion. We admit to the full that religion, as commonly received and understood, has been the world's bitterest curse; that it has crushed the noblest virtues, and enthroned the most degrading vices; that it has set at nought the laws of the Living God, and trampled on the just claims of man; that it has been the prolific mother of the worst forms of tyranny and cruelty; that the most horrible tortures ever endured by man are to be laid at its door; that it has frightfully augmented the terrors of death. The history of the Church of Christ would be enough to prove this, without travelling further in search of evidence. But in spite of all this, I still say, religion itself is the highest boon God has granted to men. For it was not the truth, but the falsehood which gathered round the holy element of
It is because religion is so powerful in its influence that the derangement of it by falsehood was so pernicious. Had it not been so interwoven with all man's hopes and fears, with every sentiment, with every pulse of his life, the injury done by error in his belief would not have been so deadly. But because it is all in all to him, both for his well-being and well-doing here, and for his hope hereafter, the slightest aberration from truth and rectitude in his religious belief, if not immensely counter-balanced by other influences, naturally plunged him into a fanaticism bordering on ferocity or despair.
As no one would consider it fair to blame Christ for the centuries of foul crime perpetrated in his name, so no one ought to blame religion for the outrages on mankind which have been done in the name of religion.
Religion is the sweet assurance of the Divine love and care, and the enjoyment of all the privileges, and all the duties which that assurance brings. What has it not done for man? It has stimulated his intellect, and cultivated his reasoning powers, and thereby enlarged his knowledge, which in turn has acted for the well-being of the race. He loves to study the wonderful works of God, to watch their ever-changing beauty, to understand their subtle nature, and their unerring obedience to the forces which guide them. Religion has been the cradle of science; the drop of honey in the student's cup; the pledge and promise that God would ever let him know more and more, world without end. As his last hour comes, he lays aside his telescope, his microscope, his chemical tests, his unfinished mathematical problems, and like a child lying down to rest in its mother's arms, he thinks of the bright and happy morrow, when he will wake up again to pursue his glorious work in clearer light, with better instruments, and with mind more vigorous for its delightful toil. It is the Great Mind behind it all that gave a zest to his pursuit; it is the Great Heart of love before
And what has not religion done for the conscience of man? Surely here, if anywhere, religion is a boon. The man whose feet are stedfast in the path of duty, whom terrors cannot daunt, whom bribes cannot allure, to whom conscience is the voice of God—surely he, of all men, is blessed by religion. What would be the conscience at all without an abiding conviction that it was the inward witness of God's will? A man might naturally refuse to listen to its claims if he thought it originated entirely with himself and had no Divine sanction. He would be a fool to thwart his natural inclinations in submission to a mere passing fancy of his own imagination, or to pay any deference to a monitor which was nothing more than a ghost, conjured up by a disordered brain.
But religion shuts out this possible absurdity, and makes us feel as it were, face to face with a loving friend whose will is echoed in our Conscience. No longer then are its mandates obeyed with a cold and mechanical regularity, but obeyed with a warm and grateful delight, which makes the hardest service easy, and the most painful sacrifice a pleasure. Religion makes duty to be our delight; obedience to Conscience a perpetual joy. To have actually pleased God, to have a sense that we, with our real freedom, have consented freely to do what our Maker desired us to do freely, is to receive a joy into our hearts surpassing all earthly joys below, and all possible rewards in the world above. Most true it is "In thy presence is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."
As Conscience is not regard for public opinion, is not tolerant of any unworthy motive, will not put up with any half-compliance, or evasion of its laws; so, when fortified by religion, it becomes too powerful for the whole world to withstand, and the crowds of living men have to give way and fall submissive at its feet. One such conscientious religious man has more than once moved the world, and changed its moral aspect from bad to better. And it will be done again. But only when religion is at the back of Conscience, nerving it for the fight.
Lastly, let us ask ourselves, how has religion influenced man in regard to his Love? Surely here, one might say, is a department where religion is not wanted, in which man rises superior to religion. Not so. The man who regards God as the universal friend, knows the higher joy of loving God. His own dear ones cannot always be near to him; they are not always faithful; they may and must die; but God is ever near. He is always faithful. Death can never touch Him. To love God is to be assured of loving Him for ever; to know that He would not cast us away like a withered leaf or flower when we began to fade; the love of our hearts for God has no drawbacks, there is no dread hour approaching when we must part from Him, no dark day in which the light of His presence is to be withdrawn. Religion thus exalts the affections of men, and gives them an immortal object, therein promising him life for evermore.
Is this no boon to man? To have all the clouds of fear rolled away, to have the sting of death plucked out, to have all doubts and speculations swept out of his path of duty on earth by perfect rest in the love of God? It is enough that he loves God to prove that God first loved him. And if God loves him, what possible fear of harm can cloud his mind or make his heart to quake? He can now attend to his earthly duties without distraction, and go on his way rejoicing, waiting patiently for the summons, but not morbidly longing for pleasures in store, delighted and contented with his present lot in the world, working for God while he is working for man, and lighted all along by the presence of One who never leaves him nor forsakes him.
In this way, and by the same means, is our love to each other strengthened, purified, and consoled. Religion throws a halo over the head of every fellow-man. In its light we see in everyone a child who is dear to God, and who is therefore, in very deed our brother. Religion elevates our whole idea of the sacredness and holiness of man, will not suffer us to despise our brother, or look upon him as a clod of clay. It reveals all souls to us as citizens of an immortal home of purity and peace, and fills our hearts with reverence where irreligion would only inspire contempt. Let them be as bad as they may, religion bids us hope for their amendment, and to be assured of it as a certainty of God's good
But it has also consoled us. The bitter hour of laying our beloved in the dark tomb has come, or will come to most of us; and in that hour we feel all the agony of love. Then, if there be no God, no future, the ashes of a poisonous and treacherous fruit crunch between our teeth, and we may well curse the day on which we were born, and curse still more the day on which we began to love. Love grows and deepens, and binds its roots faster and stronger round our hearts the longer we live, the nearer we approach the dreadful hour of the last farewell; and then the crash comes, the utter misery and hopeless despair, the drowning of all hope in the relentless ocean of destiny. But religion is at hand, whispering 'God is Love,' 'God is immortal,' 'God is true,' 'God is faithful,' 'God is nigh,' and our drooping spirits rise, like the lilies in the sunshine after the storm, to greet the heavenly message. "We are taught by our love, and by the agony of bereavement, to be quite sure that we shall not be sundered for ever; that in God's good time our purest, highest, and most loving desires shall be granted to us, and we shall all meet again to love each other better than before and to bless the hand of the faithful Creator who hath done all things well.
Surely religion is man's greatest blessing, for it enriches all the rest. It elevates, strengthens, purifies, and consoles him, and it is contrary to all reason that a power so entirely beneficial to mankind should originate in a delusion, and owe all its benign influence to a lie.
For the present, I leave this subject of Atheism, which I only claim to have touched very superficially, and which I may resume at some distant day. If I have succeeded in stirring one unbelieving soul to reconsider the reasonableness of his position, or one thoughtful believer to take up the work which I now lay down, for the benefit of this age, I shall be more than satisfied. But on whichever side lies the truth, Atheist and Theist can alike look forward with perfect confidence to that time when we shall "know the truth, and the truth shall make us free."
On Sunday (Dec. 29th) at St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from the 2 Corinthians, iv. 13 v., "We also believe, and therefore speak."
He said—In a splendid oration before the scholars of Liverpool College, the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone made an appeal to his young hearers on behalf of the Christian religion, warning them against the Pantheism which Dr. Strauss has recently put forth, with all frankness and courage, in a book entitled, "The Old Belief and the New."
We cannot but sympathise with the pious intention of this warning, nor can we fail to admire the high and generous tone which the speaker adopted in reference to the great critic whose opinions he deplored and denounced. The temper of the speech was as perfect as its eloquence, and, although we may find grave fault with some of the positions he assumed, we feel quite assured that the speaker was honestly doing his very best for the moral and religious interests of the youths before him, and that he was only uttering forth the most cherished convictions of his own heart.
In the interests of that very religion of the soul, which Mr. Gladstone would defend with all the great powers of his mind and tongue, we must, however reluctantly, bring to light some of the mistakes into which he has fallen, and place the relations of Orthodoxy and Pantheism in a new light.
I say, in the interests of true religion, we must do this; for whether Orthodoxy be true or false, there are thousands of Orthodox people who are truly religious, who are living lives of earnest faith and love towards the highest God they can conceive, and while they thus live (kept back by sonic cause or other, not of
So far as the words we are considering were spoken by a truly religious man, we must sympathise with him in his repudiation of Dr. Strauss' Pantheism. The learned critic declares his Pantheism with a plainness of speech which commands our gratitude. He says, "There is no personal God; there is no future state; all religious worship ought to be abolished. The very name of Divine service is an indignity to man?" Instead of God he offers to us what he calls the All or Universum. This All or Universum has neither consciousness nor reason. But it has order and law. Now Dr. Strauss might be right or wrong. We are not now discussing the question, we only contrast this Pantheism with the devout language of our own hearts; and it is 110 stretch of enthusiasm to say the contrast is as between darkness and light—Heaven and Hell. We who utterly believe in a God who has both reason and consciousness, in One who knows all about the past, present, and future of every one of us; in One who really love us each and all with a fatherly and motherly affection, and who has taught us to look up to Him, and love and trust Him, and seek to do His will, for the sole satisfaction of doing it; we to whom good and ill-fortune, health and disease, life and death, are all ministers of His Divine will to work only for our good; we, who thus believe, should be plunged into the outer darkness of despair if Dr. Strauss' Pantheism were true. You may put out a man's eyes and sentence him to livelong night, but in the dreary gloom there come sweet voices of loving friends, gentle hands to make sure the companionship, and to guide the steps, and beams of Heavenly sunshine to warm the chill blood in his veins, and tell him that the glorious light still shines on. But if you put out the eyes of a man's soul, who across that nethermost abyss can reach him with a word of hope, or melt the frozen fog in which his spirit is imprisoned? The darkness of night is as clear as noon-day compared with the blackness of despair when the light of the soul has been put out. But to feel this horror, in all its intensity, you must once have known what it is to see God, and to live joyously in his presence. To be born blind is not to suffer 1,000th part so much as to have once had eyesight and lost it. The Pantheist or Atheist is almost
I do not wonder, then, at the earnestness with which Mr. Gladstone pleaded with those young people not to go too near that awful precipice. I think that passionate fear for their safety justified him in warning them of their peril.
If we have nothing but unconscious unreasoning Universum, we have no God. Its boasted order and law are cruel and inexorable. Nay, rather they can have no moral significance to the moral beings who are tortured by their caprice. Without the heart of man to reflect the heart of God, the order and laws manifested in the phenomena around us chiefly tell of reckless disregard of human feeling and utter negligence of creature happiness. What is it to me to be told that the greatest number are happy, when I may be one of the wretched few whose life is a torment? Take away God, and the whole creation is cursed—not a single solution left of all its malignant riddles, not a grain of hope left at the bottom of nature's infernal gifts. Its very joys mock us; it sweetest pleasures grind to ashes as we taste them. But oh! with just one gleam from Heaven, refracted from the poor dull broken mirror of the heart of man; what light and joy spring forth; how all the woes of earth are relieved, how its most suffering victims are pillowed on a mother's breast, how its worst despair is conquered by the feeblest hope! If we only believe in One just a little better than ourselves, a Heavenly voice goes through the world cheering the drooping souls on its way with the celestial song, "Glory to God in the Highest, on Earth there shall yet be peace, for all is goodwill to man." And they hear a voice behind them saying, "Fear not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will help thee. Yea, I will strengthen thee, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."
I must pause for a moment to explain what we mean by a "personal" God. We use this term only in contrast to Pantheism. It is commonly taken to imply a God in some form or other, possibly human. But of course that is not the sense in which we use it.
Ego et non-Ego—I and the Universe, I and you. However mysterious and subtle the connexion may be between God and matter, yet we believe God is able to say "I and matter," that he is able to think, and to will, and to love. This is why we speak of a "personal" God, even while we have not the remotest anthropomorphic conception of the mode of His existence, or of the nature of His substance or essence.
To return to Mr. Gladstone's speech. The safeguard against Pantheism or Atheism which he proposes, is to hold fast "the faith once delivered to the Saints," viz., "Belief in the Deity and Incarnation of our Lord." These he describes as "the cardinal and central truths of our religion," "confessed by many more than ninety-nine in every hundred Christians."
With quite as deep a horror of Atheism as he has, we nevertheless demur altogether to his antidote, and we will give our reasons for it.
First, in passing, we may well question whether the Deity and Incarnation of Jesus was the faith once delivered to the Saints, or the belief of the Apostles themselves. But as it is a matter of no consequence whatever, except to the critics, we pass on at once to give our reasons for demurring to the efficacy of the safeguard proposed.
1st. Mr. Gladstone seems to us to make his first mistake in identifying a belief in the Deity and Incarnation of Jesus with religion. You will, perhaps, remember in my recent sermons on "Faith: Intellectual and Emotional," how I endeavoured to shew that Intellectual Faith was not only not essential to religion, but, for the most part, calculated to weaken and destroy religious emotion. I will not go over this ground again, but I can quite understand Mr Gladstone identifying the two things which are radically distinct, because all his own religious emotion has been derived, in the first instance, from impressions connected with the Christian doctrines, and they are now practically bound up together. That is, the historical Jesus, of whom his Church and his Testament speak, has become to him a God in Heaven, and the personal solace of his own soul. He cannot enter into the feelings of the Jew who, while looking upon Christ as only one of his countrymen and a mere man, lifts up his soul to Jehovah in the words of the Old Psalmist, "Whom have I in Heaven but
Mr. Gladstone's creed may be true or false. Whether it be one or the other, true religion is to be found connected with all creeds.
But we demur to this safeguard on another ground, viz., that it is a belief resting solely on external authority, and not on the reason, conscience, and love of the human soul. Any religion coming to us on such terms, claiming belief in external authority, must expect to have its claims challenged, its witnesses cross-examined, its authority sifted.
Now-a-days we cannot expect men and women to believe the Deity of Christ because Mr. Gladstone believes it, or because others before him, not a bit more entitled to credit on such a subject, believed it. The appeal to antiquity is vain, for it proves too much; it proves Brahminism, Judaism, Buddhism, and ever so many things, false as well as true. Dr. Strauss himself, the master of modern criticism, has examined these historical claims for Christianity, and found them wanting. He began, no doubt as many begin, by thinking that the only God in Heaven was the God revealed in the Bible, and when he found that the Bible told falsehoods, and that the image of God, in some places therein described, was a foul image, to be hated and not loved by man, he ceased to believe in God at all. He cannot have had any religion, as we understand it, apart from his intellectual conceptions of the Divine Being, as drawn from the Old and New Testaments, interpreted by the Church, or else his belief in God would have survived the shock of his discovery. But having no idea of God, apart from what he had been taught, he came to the only logical conclusion—that there was no God at all. Dr. Strauss will pardon me if I have misread his experience; but it is that of thousands and thousands, It is not merely natural, it is inevitable.
The same process is going on around us in all the religious bodies of this country. So far as men and women have been taught that their Bibles and Churches are the only means of
It is, therefore, not only the Christian creeds, but the Christian method of imposing them on the acceptance of men which is to blame for Pantheism and Atheism. You churches have done it; You Christian Evidence champions, in your mistaken zeal; You sticklers for dogma; You believers in moral and physical monstrosities; You slave-bound idolaters of the traditions of antiquity. It is you that have slain these poor souls, or shut them up in the dungeons of despair. It is on your heads that the blood of these victims will fall, and it cries up out of the ground for vengeance at the hands of the living God. No, not for such vengeance as your Bible teaches, "a fearful looking-for, of fiery indignation, to consume the adversaries"—not that; but for the plucking up, and tearing down, and ruthless burning of your false creeds, which are only cruel when they are not childish and silly. All these thousands and thousands of stray souls, driven out by your curses from green pastures into a waste howling wilderness—these bear witness against you, that when they asked you for bread you gave them only a stone; when they sought the Lord God who made them, you set before them a fierce and burning savage, more awful than Moloch, and then tried—but vainly—to shade his hideous imago by the Cross of Calvary; when they wanted the eternal, you gave them only the temporal; when they panted for the living God, you gave them only a dying man. Oh! shame on your cowardice, your childish fears, which bind you to these old wives' fables, and make you an incubus on the face of God's fair earth. You make a darkness where all ought to be light, and would be light too, but for your crypts and cells. You make desolation where joy and beauty
But there is yet hope for men and women in this world if the croning churches will but hold their peace. In the hearts of the young are strains of Heavenly music, which will lure them on into paths of holiness and peace, if the sounds be not overwhelmed by the threats of the creeds. "My son give me thine heart" is no pretty fiction of fabulist or poet; but a great multitude, whom no man can number, have heard that celestial entreaty and have cast themselves into the Father's everlasting arms. Tell them far and wide, over the whole earth, "God is Love." "God is Just." "God is Holy." Use what terms you will to express all that is noblest and highest—only, "Speak good of his name." Dishonour it not by your old fables. Blaspheme it not by your Bible curses. "Speak good of His name." "O, let your songs be of Him, and praise Him." "Let your talking be of all His wondrous works." "Be telling of His righteousness and salvation from day to day." And then surely you will find even the young ones more ready to embrace the holy joy, more willing to learn more about so great and good a God; and then the poor Atheists, too, whom your false creeds have blighted, will perchance come back, as many have done already, under the genial rays of such a gospel, and begin to believe in very earnest what their hearts had so long told them was "too good to be true." Let it never be forgotten that there is a third alternative between Orthodoxy and Pantheism, a true religion of love and trust towards God, and of love and duty towards men, without Bible, or dogma, or church; without Christ, or Paul, or John. And as it is most certainly true that Orthodoxy must fall when you take away from its foundations the bottomless pit of hell fire, so it is true that, so long as man is man, his faith will survive the ruin of the churches, and the burning of creeds and Bibles; and as the ages roll on, he will wonder not that he can walk so well without these long disused props and crutches, but that he could ever have borne at all such frightful and dangerous impediments to his communion with God."
If I have spoken too fiercely, I must say "my zeal hath even consumed me." I may be reproached for "pride and perverseness," but I am not ashamed of being proud to bear witness for the noblest conception of God ever held by mortal man, nor ashamed of a perverseness which refuses to be made the slave of foolishness, or the accomplice of Atheism.
On Sunday (March 9), at the St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Isaiah lviii, 5, 6, 7. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"
The season of Lent, which some of the Churches of Christendom are now observing, suggests the consideration of the true and false views of Self-denial.
Self-denial, in some shape or other, and at certain times, is universally admitted by man to be a duty. In his higher moods, it becomes natural to him to forego some pleasure or to incur some pain, either to benefit his own spiritual being or to do good to his fellow-creature. What we have to do then is to see that this noble tendency is neither abused nor perverted. We cannot eliminate it from our nature without loss, we cannot exercise it excessively, or in a wrong direction, without injury to ourselves or others. By common consent we have abandoned—if indeed we ever practised—the custom of fasting and such abstinence as the Churches enjoin. Let us examine the grounds on which this
The modern practice of fasting, however, cannot be identified with the ancient practice so far as regards its objects. Men and women no longer fast, or take fish instead of meat, in honour of the goddess Freya; nor do they fast to produce in themselves an ecstatic fervour of devotion or preaching. They fast because the Churches of which they are members have commanded them to fast. In many cases it is practised by persons of stainless lives, of the largest charity, and of great practical usefulness; and it would be in the highest degree unfair to attribute to them any unworthy motive in doing what seems to us so absurd and injurious.
But why have the Churches enjoined it? Partly, I believe, from the best of motives. Originating in times when people were over-fed, and even gluttonous—their passions pampered and unduly strong through too much luxury and too little toil—it was manifestly good to have weekly days of abstinence and frequent periods of absolute fasting, in which surfeited nature might have time to recover itself, and some check be put upon indulgence. Whether any such necessity for fasting exists in the present, I leave others to determine. We certainly have neither gluttony, drunkenness, nor profligacy so gross and offensive as in "the good old times." Such degradation of the human being is regarded as degradation, and to a great extent has been driven out of the higher
Comminution Service in our old Prayer Books, which is appointed for Ash Wednesday, with its obsolete curses and maledictions, was well-meant, considering the ignorance and spiritual darkness of those who composed it. Bad as it is, useless as it, it is at least a protest against sin, and designed to promote morality.
These two objects, viz., the restoration of health and the rebuke of sin constitute, in my opinion, the only favourable aspect of Church Fasting. So far it was well meant; and no doubt, in past times, it did a great deal of good. But when we have said this we have said all. For the rest, fasting is an absurd mistake. It is a mistake because it is done as an act of religion, as an act which will please God, and conciliate His favour. Priests may repudiate this in words as much as they please; but they know as well as we do that the practice of fasting is chiefly enjoined as an act of obedience to the Church, and that they teach their people that obedience to the Church is the highest act of obedience to God. Therefore the people cannot help believing that their fasting is pleasing to God and will help to ensure His favour. Now, no mistake can be greater than to suppose God will be pleased with us for going without food, or taking less than a healthy appetite requires, especially if we have been taking too much on all other days in the week. As though we could atone for regular intemperance by rare intervals of sobriety and moderation. Into such a mistake the Hebrew race were often falling, but they were often warned by their prophets that this kind of compromise was
unfavourably with the words of the Hebrew prophet five hundred years before him. Let the Christians reconcile this if they can, with their belief in his absolute perfection of wisdom and knowledge.
Isaiah heaps scorn upon the popular method of fasting; he quizzes and caricatures the penitent sitting in sackcloth and ashes, and bowing down his head as a bulrush, and asks in derision, "Wilt thou call this an acceptable day to the Lord?" But even this was not nearly so absurd as some of the penitential ceremonies which have been performed in some of our own Ritualistic Churches, where men and women have crawled on their hands and knees up the aisle to receive a sacred candle from the priest. This sort of fasting is a mistake so easily discernible by human reflection as to be ridiculous as well as wrong. As if sins could ever be compounded for by self-torture; or the Righteous God satisfied for a moment by any affliction of a man's body for the sin of his soul.
But we repudiate fasting on broader grounds still. Whatever really conduces to health of body and mind, to the proper balance between our flesh and our spirit, that ought to be the constant rule of our lives. It is monstrous to regard it as only an occasional duty. It should be uniform and regular. Health implies continuously healthy condition; not intermittent fits of soundness. If it be needful, owing to previous over-indulgence, to restore health by abstinence, it is much more needful to preserve health by habitual temperance. And if we regard fasting as a beneficial influence upon the conscience, calling us back to a forgotten or
e.g., to atone for, and do penance for, past sins, or to ensure their title to Heaven hereafter—condemn themselves as unenlightened and deeply foolish.
One is glad that the observance of Lent has been frowned upon, and even openly violated, in quarters where the rules of fashion are generally moulded; but it is still humiliating to perceive that the priestly element is still powerful enough to diminish the number of marriages during Lent, and to curtail the hospitalities of even worldly people. We repudiate fasting, not only because it is an absurd mistake, but also because it is enforced by the Church. It is degrading to sensible men and women, and injurious to those who are not sensible, to be ordered about in this childish way by priestly lips. To have a man, who claims Divine authority, thrusting himself into your house, and regulating your meals—or what is unspeakably worse, dictating to your very wife at the Confessional, on subjects too sacred to be thought of beyond the innermost shrine of your home—this is degradation indeed! I would rather have for my companions men openly vicious and profligate, than be the tool and slave of one who—while retaining every human attribute, assumes the privileges of a disembodied spirit, and even of the Divine Being Himself.
We go on our way somewhat too easily. We forget what abominations are being wrought through the English Confessional. We are too happy in our own freedom. We forget the poor slaves who are still in thraldom.
What Lent is to some in its vilely corrupting influences, is hardly known to us who look upon it as a mere bit of folly, and have never experienced its vile secrets. Lent is the time of harvest in which silly women laden with sins are reaped and garnered—not into store-houses of purity and peace. Lent is the time when the Confessional has its Carnival. Lent is the time when all that is morbid, and most needs to be rooted out by healthy activity, strikes most deeply in corrupting soils. Of one thing we may be very sure, it is not such a fast as God hath chosen. Even in the hands of those who use it in a pure and holy manner it is utterly foolish; and in the hands of the unholy it is unspeakably debasing. It may be of the Church; but it is not of God. It may serve priestcraft, but it cannot serve mankind. It may pamper the world's luxuriousness, and pander to the world's vices; it can never make men manly, nor women womanly. It may fill the soul with priggishness and self-righteousness; it can never make it sober, righteous, and godly.
What kind of fast would God have instead? Surely that old Hebrew prophet is right in his answer. It commends itself sweetly to our listening hearts. If there is to be any religious outburst; if men are to break off for a while from their self-indulgences, and to call their sins to remembrance; if they are to fast, or to spend a day acceptable to the Lord, is not this the fast which He hath chosen, "To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke Freedom—freedom—freedom. Its one cry is freedom. To set free oneself first from the chains of sin whereby we have been tied and bound. To put off the fetters of an unlawful or degrading habit; to cease to love unworthy objects, or to be the slave of lust, avarice, or ambition; and then having set free oneself, to set others free; to undo the heavy burdens—to undo the heavy burdens of needless misery, or of enforced sin; to make it easier for others to be good, to take off any burden we have been unconsciously or selfishly laying upon each other by word or deed; so to behave ourselves as to make every one who comes near us feel free and at home with us; that they may almost say what they like and do as they please without our being hurt, or offended; so to assure others of our entire friendliness that their
You bend yourself to this mighty task of setting free, and God will fight for you against the demon of slavery. You need be nobody; you need be no capitalist, or politician, or general. No kingly crown need shine upon your brow, nor deadly weapon be wielded by your arm. In the obscurity of your home, where you may be only a child, or a servant, or a poor relation, or something iuconceivably little in the world's eyes, if you only try to make one heavy burden light, to break only one of the many cruel yokes that press upon those around you—you will have done more for God and man than any prophet, priest, or king that has only made himself famous. Nay, I think it is these poor little souls, half hidden by the wayside of life, who have done the most and the best for the refinement of humanity. The men have done what the women first taught them to do. The uppermost ranks in life learn their most beautiful lessons of love from the lowest. So God chooses the weak things of the world to confound things which are mighty and base things, yea, and things which are despised, and things which are not, to bring to naught the things which are.
daily—a perpetual fasting from all indulgence which presses painfully or unduly upon others; and let our self-examination be "What have I done this day to lighten the burden of others?" It is not the almsgiving, though that, if timely, may be good. It is not the contribution of our share of work or mirth, though these are essential and indispensable. It is more than these. It is the contribution of such sympathy as we can spare for those who are in any way dependent on us and on what we are. It is the endeavour to remove hindrances, to take away stumbling blocks, to allay unkind suspicions, to soothe irritation, and to banish anger by patient love. This devotion we can all feel for each other in turn, and we can all show it; and where it prevails, there is freedom, there is peace, there is joy.
Of the prophet's words concerning our duties to the poor, especially to poor and disagreeable or despised relatives, I need not speak at any length. They speak for themselves; nothing can be clearer than this line old prophet's meaning, and we ought to be grateful to him for having lived to break one yoke at least; the yoke of superstitious fasting and religious observance. He would have men take that only view of God which is born out of a loving heart, viz., That God requires no service of man which will not benefit his fellow-man; that God requires no self-mortification, no fasting, no sackcloth and ashes, no bowing down of the head like a bulrush, nor anything of the kind whatever; but that the only service which he requires, the only work of Self-denial which can make our days acceptable to Him, is what we can do to make each other more free, more happy, and more holy; to "undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke."
On Sunday (March 30), at St. George's Hall, Mr. Voysey took for his text, Genesis iv., 9., "Am I my brother's keeper?"
He said—Occasions are continually arising in which a demand is made upon our sympathy and our help; and it is no light cause for pride and thankfulness to know that English hearts are, for the most part, sound at the core, and English hands are ever-ready to succour the distressed, and to defend the cause of the poor. From the Queen on her throne, to the humblest and most obscure of her subjects, the call of suffering and wrong meets with a kind and ready response; and I know of no sign more hopeful than this for the future of our race and the welfare of our country.
If once this passion of philanthrophy takes hold of men's hearts, it must lead them first into all duty, and then into all truth. If we love each other in thought, word, and deed, we shall come to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. No seed grows so fast, or bears such abundant fruits as the germ of love in an honest heart. It may be alone for a time; it may be hidden deep in the breast, but its springtime must come at last, and it will cover the ground around it with refreshing verdure and lovely flowers. One loving thought born in a single breast will, in time, overspread a class, then a nation, until it is found alive and flourising in all that nation's laws.
The day has passed, we hope for ever, when men and women hearing of the sufferings of their fellow-creatures, would shrug their shoulders and with a faint ejaculation of pity on their lips would "pass by on the other side." We no longer regard the woes of large classes of our countrymen, who happen to work and suffer at a distance from us, as out of reach of our sympathy and help. We cannot use the many articles of commerce and manufacture without a tender interest in the lives of those who labour in their production. We cannot even warm ourselves at our own fire-side without thinking tenderly and gratefully of the poor miners, who spend all their days deep down in the dangerous darkness, many of them lying on their backs in a mere hole, and hacking away at the black rock over their heads. We cannot partake of the most ordinary breakfast without being reminded of the perils of the sea, through which those men have passed who brought these necessaries to our shores. We cannot handle even a knife or a needle, without remembering that the men who give them their exquisite polish, sacrifice at least one-third of the average length of human life. Look where we will, handle what we may, we cannot forget that our necessaries and luxuries are provided for us at the cost of not merely much painful toil, but also great physical suffering, and much loss of life. Never again can we ask, like Cain, in a spirit of murderous indifference, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
It is, therefore, with no little confidence that I would address you this morning, on an appeal which has recently been made to this country at large by Samuel Plimsoll, the member for Derby. His little book only fell into my hands last week; and on me the effect was irresistable. I confess myself carried away by his persuasiveness, and more than convinced by the accumulated facts which he records in support of his appeal.
In few words, his cry to his fellow-countrymen is, "Come to the rescue of our merchant sailors;" and so strongly am I impressed
i.e., supposing him to be condemned. But with these legal contests we have nothing to do, and can neither form nor express an opinion upon them. We have, moreover, nothing to do now with defending Mr Plimsoll's integrity, or enlisting sympathy for him. That is not what we have to do; and I feel sure it is the last thing which he desires. His book is not a plea of self-vindication; it is the advocacy of a neglected class by a man evidently for the time much more reckless of his own interests than designing. But I will pass at once to the appeal which he has made, and the facts on which it rests.
As we all know, passenger ships and ships of war are regularly and strictly inspected by Government surveyors before they can leave a port. But such is not the case with what is called the mercantile marine. Inspection is not compulsory; and therefore, in some cases, and those quite the exception, ships are sent to sea in a dangerous condition through being badly built, or thoroughly out of repair, or being overloaded, or insufficiently manned. Though these exceptions are few, the result is a fearful waste of
Our author says more than this, however; he explains to us the various inducements to wicked practices, to which dishonest and covetous men are exposed. He tells us how some ships are insured at sums far exceeding their cost, and, then as a natural result, the owners are enriched by the loss of the vessels. Fearful, if true, are the revelations on this head. He states that the under-writers at Lloyd's have agreed to refuse insurance to certain ships built by certain ship-builders, or owned by certain ship-owners. He shows what temptations there are to overloading—to altering the build of a ship that it may carry greater cargo, but with greatly diminished safety—and lastly to gain profits by the shortening of the crew; a proceeding which in severe weather is almost certain to be fatal to the vessel, and in any season is a great hardship to the few men on board who have to work, when exhausted, for their very lives. Repairs, of course, cost money, and its more precious equivalent, time; so that if a ship cannot discharge her cargo, and refill, and set sail again at the shortest possible interval, the owner cannot secure a reasonable profit. So, in some instances, she is sent to sea almost in a state of rottenness, and that, time after time, till she sails her last voyage, and is never heard of again—founders with all hands. But then a fraudulent owner will make a large sum of money by her being lost.
The poor sailors have no redress, if they once contract to serve on board a ship, and if finding out afterwards that she is badly out of repair or overloaded, they try to get rid of their bad bargain, they are instantly imprisoned.
Sailors have been known thus to save their lives by surrender to the police as the only way of escape left to them. There is no
If I wanted to excite your feelings I could read pages from Mr Plimsoll's book which would fill you with indignation and horror. But I do not desire to do this. I only wish to call your attention to what he has said; and to kindle your sympathy for a class of men (and that, of course, includes their wives and children) who are defenceless, and who are at the mercy of those who have no mercy. You can read for yourselves the tales of woe, and master for yourselves the degrading details of the system of fraud; but what is done under the mere impulse of mental agitation is not done wisely nor done well. Calmly look at the narratives, strip them of what seems to you superfluous colouring; and then act upon your conviction of what you ought to do. After reading his book I could myself come to no other conclusion than that if the half of the sad tale were true, or merely possible, we ought to do our best betimes to prevent it, or render its repetition impossible. The remedy is only too simple—Government inspection—just the same safeguards as are now provided for passenger ships, and ships of war. That is all. Our tender-hearted Queen once wrote to the Directors of Railways wishing that they would take as much care of the lives of her subjects as they took of her own. All we crave from our Government is to do for poor merchant seamen what they have already done for passengers, and for the Navy. If we are at a loss how to promote this end Mr Plimsoll himself has undertaken to guide us. He says (p. 114) "Will you help me to put these things right? If you will, whether man or women, write me just a line to 111, Victoria-street, S.W., to say so, and I will then say how you can best do so."
Those who have time can give time; those who have influence, can give influence; those who have money, can give money if it be wanted. I intend to make enquiries this week about the last-named item, and if money is wanted, I will ask you to contribute next Sunday to this object, hoping that meanwhile you will have read the book for yourselves, and given it the calm thought for which I have asked.
Before I conclude with a short extract from the book itself, let me say one word of caution against the tendency of what goes by the name of political economy, and the principle of non-intervention. No doubt much of political economy is true, and much needed for these times, as a wholesome discipline, and a corrective of much laziness, which had been fostered by the hope of getting somebody else to bear our burdens for us. But political economy does not cover the entire range of human duty and human feeling. It is rather a description of things as they are, and not of things as they ought to be. It makes no provision for the finest instincts of our nature, but leaves us to the perpetual study of our self-interest. The principle of nonintervention and letting things get right of themselves is a profoundly unwise one; it is next door to the murder spirit of Cain, which says "Am I my brother's keeper?" It debases those who act upon it even more than it injures those who suffer by it.
If we see a wrong—a patent flagrant case of oppression or cruelty, and save ourselves the trouble and danger of interference by the happy thought that if we interfere we shall probably do more harm than good, we are not only undermining our courage and our native chivalry, but are gilding over our sloth and our cowardice with the tinselled counterfeits of virtue. Oh dangerous, most insidious error! Better to make a thousand blunders in political economy than make your soul mean; better to interfere and get bitten for our pains—yes, bitten by the venomed tooth of slander—than to leave your weak brother to perish, or the tyrant to have
be noble rather than to be called so, we must earn it by nobility of soul, and there is none in the miserable calculations of self-interest. If we want to be good rather than to be admired or successful, we must act loyally to our heart's highest call first, and count the cost afterwards.
If Mr Plimsoll is such a man, time will soon clear the clouds from his fair fame, and the gratitude of a growing world will be his reward. These are his last words:—
"Help them then, I pray you, and you too shall be helped by the recollection of your brotherly aid when that hour comes when you will need the help of Him that sticketh closer than a brother. Consider how, not only are the sailors' lives sacrificed, not only are many, very many, of their wives made widows, but what a clouded life all then wives lead from well-grounded and constant apprehension, which, deeply depressing at all times, knows no other variation than the quick agony into which those apprehensions are aroused, whenever the wind rises, even to a moderate gale.
"Whoever you are who read this, help the poor sailors, for the love of God. If you are a man of influence, call a meeting and confer on this appeal, if you are not, and will write to me, I will try to show you how to help. If you refuse—but this I cannot think—if you refuse or neglect to use your influence, before another year has run its course at least five hundred—five hundred men!—now in life, will strew the bottom of the sea with their dead, unburied, unresting bodies, and desolation and woe will have entered many and many a now happy home; but if you do render your help, we can secure such life-preserving activity in precautionary measures, that the sailor will have no fear; and then the storms of winter may come, but with good tight ships under them, and sound gear to their hands, their own strong arms and stout hearts can do the rest; and as, after a storm and tempest, which, but for your fraternal care, would have overwhelmed them in death and sent bereavement and anguish into
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On Sunday (April 6), at St. George's Hall, Mr. Voysey took for his text, Dean Stanley's Essays on Church and State, Preface p., xix., "Let it be remembered that one condition necessary for the genuine growth of free and sound opinion in any Church is, that the minority shall have not only the power, but the courage and the will to persevere to the end in publicly denouncing as false what they have declared to be false—in publicly proclaiming as true what they know or believe to be true."
He said—In the course of our remarks on the idea of a Church, we come now to consider Churches and Sects as organizations for the spread of religious truth. All who are interested in religion at all will understand, without any elaborate explanation, the desirableness of some organization to propagate what is in any given age believed to be true. Everyone who holds to certain views or doctrines which, from his observation or experience, he has found to be beneficial to himself and fellow-men is naturally desirous of inducing others to accept his views, and to believe as he believes. So strong is this natural desire that men have given their whole lives to this work, and some have endured great hard ships, and made vast sacrifices to accomplish it. No one can understand this feeling better than we can, who have in some measure been moved by such zeal, and have paid our own little share of sacrifice to the holy cause.
It seems clear then, that whenever two or three are banded together, either by what they believe to be a discovery of new truth, or the exposure of error, the first thing they will do is to organize some plan of gaining adherents, and of directing the attention of other? to their cherished ideas. From this point of view all Churches and Sects have their fullest justification. They began with one or two individuals, and grew and spread by the simple means of persuasion. The Church of Christ was thus founded by a carpenter and a handful of fishermen, who had a gospel to proclaim. They went from city to city, from country to country, and their words spread like fire among the dry and barren souls who heard their message. Whatever their message may seem to us now, it must have once been needed, or it would never have been embraced. Souls must have been sick and deceased, or they would have needed no physician. Souls must have been starving on husks, or they would not have accepted what was offered to them as the bread of life. But in that very infancy of the Church we see also the justification of sects and divisions. What was one man's meat was another man's poison. Souls not constituted alike, and differently nurtured, could not be all healed by the same drugs, or fed by the same food. Hence arose divisions in the camp, new leaders of new sects, schools of thought sharply distinguished from each other, separate foundations on which a wrangling posterity would rear rival Churches and Creeds. A whole world of thought divided James from Paul, and the so-called pillars of the Church were often compelled to stand apart and to support a different roof. Heretics there were from the very beginning, and were objects of the same odium theologicum, which we find in the 19th century. A perfect and undivided whole, Christendom has never been since that fabled day of Pentecost, when about 120 met with one accord in one place, and when the Church was simply a Communism.
In the region of religious truth, it is impossible that the state of things should be otherwise.
Even in science we find doctors differ, as opinions must ever differ where knowledge is defective. But the difference is clearly traceable to the deficiency of knowledge. Much more than is it to be expected that in religious matters, where our knowledge
It is more than probable that some little fragment of truth lay at the root of every heresy and every schism. It was essential then that that fragment should be preserved, and should hold its own against the voice of majorities. So the heretic gathers to himself sympathisers, at first only a very few, afterwards more, till at last his fragment of truth becomes planted and safely rooted in the world. To the old Jewish Church in Jerusalem, Jesus Christ was just such a heretic, and his church was at first nothing more than a new Jewish Sect which was everywhere spoken against. Time rolls on, and a church with many divisions is formed; and out of the many divisions, one rises into political power, and imperiously dictates to the rest. This fortunate one calls itself "the Church," and its less fortunate rivals are contemptuously called sects and have to take the old place of inferiority occupied by Jesus and his apostles. In Christendom there were two such powerful divisions, represented by Rome and Constantinople, but not even then were the smaller sects entirely absorbed or silenced. Greatly over-shadowed, no doubt, by the vast branches above them, they still managed to live and to develope afterwards into modern Protestantism and Unitarianism, which together are numerically little behind, if at all behind, the older churches.
Now, I conceive that all these divisions and subdivisions of Christendom were not only inevitable, but eminently desirable, inasmuch as every one of them was due to a heroic struggle for liberty against a dominant tyranny.
Each Church or Sect in turn started with the aim of spreading some truth—something which, if not absolutely true, was at all events an improvement on what had gone before it, or on what was prevailing around it. That was its great justification. But as time goes on, flaws are detected in that truth or doctrine with which it started, and then instead of modifying its statements and amending its Creeds, the old Church or Sect holds on more firmly than ever to the ancient half-truth, and refuses to acknowledge it to be error. Consequently the few who have had their eyes open, are either driven out, or they banish themselves, from the old Communion, and start a new Sect with the express object of pro-
It is dangerous to prophesy with any tone of certainty, but the time seems to have arrived for a total change in this matter. People are beginning now to see the immense evils of Sectarianism, as well as the still greater evils of dogmatic Churchism. They are growing restless under the tyranny of imposed belief; but they are not willing to add another to the long list of schismatic corporations. Within and without the Churches is constantly heard the cry "Stay where you are. You cannot better yourself, or do any more good to others by secession. If you try to fight your battle for liberty outside instead of within, your foes will be stronger than ever; dogmatism will be more and more impregnable." Now, why is this feeling gaining ground, but because men are firmly convinced that the old state of things is passing away; that soon will come that happy change in which the dogmatism of all Churches and Sects will disappear and the dogmatic spirit be for ever banished. More and more patent every day is the cruelty and the absurdity of binding men to teach and to hold certain religious views; of making contracts with tender and earnest-hearted ministers to bind them never to change their opinions; never to see truth more clearly; never to discover any error in their own Creed. It will be seen how immoral it is to set a man up to teach all the highest truth about God that he can discover, and yet to tell him that he must only come to certain foregone conclusions and preach only within certain prescribed limits.
Churches as organizations for the spread of religious truth cease to be such the first moment that their dogmas interfere with the liberty of thought and speech. So long as they aim at encouraging
In principle and theory, if not in practice, the Unitarian Church is an exception to the general rule. All the other Churches and Sects have in them the sure elements of decay, because they are essentially dogmatic. The time, I hope, draws near when men will recognise the fact that religious truth cannot be final; that in its very nature the knowledge of God and of our relation to Him must be defective, and therefore capable of progress and development. And as soon as this is really perceived, it will become apparent that liberty is the first requisite for the progress of our knowledge; that without liberty men will put off as long as possible the dangerous task of thinking, and will never dare to say what they think. Now if you could get a Church organized on this principle of freedom from dogma, you would have a means of spreading religious truth indefinitely more effective than any which have gone before; and possibly such a Church might be imperishable. Wherever it stood among a people who really loved the truth, and were aware of their own ignorance, it would be Catholic and Universal. There would be no ground for dissent, no room for heresy, no attempt at schism. Everyone might think as he pleased, and speak as he pleased; there would be no restrictions whatever upon individual opinion. Such a church would of course require endowments to prevent the present abuses of voluntaryism, for it is just as
legal formularies, and repeal the Act of Uniformity, and henceforth to let every man preach what he believes to be true without fear of any pains and penalties; and we shall then have a Church in which there could be no heresy, no schism, and which, instead of being broken up into Sects, would incorporate all the Sects now standing round her in hostile array. Disestablish the Dogmas and you give liberty; if you give liberty, you give life, and all that would make religious life dear.
This scheme may seem to many a pure chimœra. But whether it be worth anything or not, the fact remains that peoples' eyes are opening, not merely to the absurdity of this or that particular doctrine, but to the injuriousness of enforcing any doctrines at all on priests or people as dogmatic truths. It is becoming more and more manifest that religion itself is suffering from the incumbent mass of Creed under which it is being stifled; that in consequence of it, many have come to think there is but little alternative between a superstition that is offensive to the intellect, and a scepticism which is painful to the heart. Under existing circumstances, a man with the greatest genius for religious thought and religious expression, if fettered by dogmas, is no more than a child pinned to its mother's apron, and is only allowed the limited freedom of an imbecile.
I will, on another occasion, pursue this subject more into detail; at present I would urge upon you the immense importance of our devoting much thought to the whole question of Churches; what they were, what they are, and what they may become. Many persons have made up their minds on the political course which should be adopted in regard to the Church of England; and I fear many have done so without due regard to the different aspects of the case. It is very certain that things cannot and must not be allowed to remain as they are. It is patent to all, that the establishment of any particular set of dogmas not universally
may have a very good servant, but you cannot have a very bad master.
In the Church of England, we have at all events, a magnificent organization, compared with which her present defects are almost trifling. The organization is altogether independent of her doctrine. Her doctrine is accidental. It has been already changed from Romanism to Protestantism, and an act of Parliament could release her from both, She might still remain a Church and yet
If, as we believe, our opinions are the truest yet known, and our principles the most sound, we may be sure that the nation at large will one clay embrace them. Let it be our care then that no fatal step be taken which would close the door to their progress for at least another century, and render tenfold more difficult the healing of strifes and divisions.
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On Sunday (April 13), at the St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Matthew vi., 11., "Give us this day our daily bread."
He said—I am going to say something this morning on the doctrines of the Resurrection of the body, and of the life of the world to come; and you will, perhaps, wonder at my starting from such a text as I have chosen.
But, somehow, it was impossible for me to separate my thoughts on the future state from the sentiment of this simple petition. The longer I pondered over the abyss of uncertainties in which the future lies buried, the more I felt the necessity of looking up to our Father in Heaven, and of trying to content ourselves with the "daily bread," which we have a right to ask at His hands. To any one who knows by experience what it is to live from hand to mouth—to have an income absolutely insufficient for the necessities of that position which he must fill, and which he has no chance of relinquishing, the daily prayer, "Father, give us this day our daily bread," has a depth of meaning in it which no one who is amply provided for can thoroughly comprehend. But when experience of this nature has once taught the value—the profound consolation—of this daily reliance on a Heavenly Father, the spirit of the supplication becomes transferred to every other kind of anxiety. In the many changes and chances of this mortal life, every conscientious man must be more or less anxious and full of care as to how he may decide some momentous question of duty;
Nay, in the daily routine of common work, pressing as it does in this age with increasing severity and rushing haste, it is often the only refuge from mental exhaustion, or absolute incompetence, to ask for the "daily bread" at the hands of the ever-bounteous Giver of all wisdom and strength. Whether or not the theory of prayer, as commonly entertained, be philosophically sound, its practice by hearts who know when and how to use it is, beyond all question, really helpful and sustaining.
The happiest man is he who asks, for each day as its comes round, that daily bread which he needs for the support of every function, of his complex nature, in every department of human activity, and who, at the same time, consciously yields his own will to the Divine, and is ready to take defeat, failure, disappointment, hunger of soul, as well as hunger of body—if it must be his portion—with submission and undiminished confidence in his God.
The man who lives in the greatest peace of mind, is he who, whatever be the sources of his anxiety or the objects of his solicitude, is still able to live from day to day, waiting patiently to see what God will do with him, trusting that good, and only good, and the highest good, will in the end come; and thus assured, he will not cast his searching gaze too far towards the horizon, but will go quietly on his way, concentrating all his thought on the road before him, that he may avoid its stumbling-blocks and its snares. To quote the words of the Hebrew prophet, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."
Now there must be many of us to whom the subject of the future life is of paramount interest—to some it will be one of passionate anxiety. And when we have gone wearily over the ground of conjecture, and probabilities, and analogies, and find our hearts aching as heavily as before—our eyes thirsting for the light, and not a ray will touch them—it seems to me that we have nothing to fall back upon, but to live, as it were, from hand to mouth, to look up to the Father for the daily bread, and beseech
We are too apt to be deceived into thinking that what we desire most must be the best for us, and therefore when we pine for certainty as to cur future state, or even to know if there be a future state for us at all, we are inclined to think that all our usefulness, and even our morality, depends on that knowledge.
I have heard it gravely asserted that if there be no future life morality itself is a mistake. I may have gone too near such language myself in my eagerness to inspire hope in the breasts of the despairing. But there is higher wisdom than this, and it is to subordinate the future to the present; the aspirations to the duties; the anticipations of to morrow to the realities of to day. It is far nobler to do good and try to be good without hope of reward. And, perhaps, this nobleness could never be cultivated, if all our path were illumined by a sight of that bliss to which we may be travelling.
No doubt different stages of human development in the aggregate of mankind, just as in individuals, require different influences to promote its progress and well-being. At one time, it may be above all things needful to stimulate aspiration and set men's hearts and affections on things above and not on things on the earth, to animate them into religious activity by things which to us now seem childish, to quicken their appetite for celestial enjoyments so as to raise them a step or two above the sensualism in which they are steeped; it may be wise to unfurl before their childish delight pictures of a new Jerusalem or of a Moslem Paradise; and it may even serve some hidden purpose of good to be led to believe that the spirits of the dead can speak to the ears of the living. But all this kind of stimulant to hope and conviction must give way to less intoxicating influences, to a discipline more stern and severe. The time must come when we shall have to be recalled from the excitement of all such meditations and set hard to work upon the tamer interests of earthly occupation. We shall need to have our loyalty to duty tested by the crucial experiment of seeing no reward for it beyond its own sacredness, and the privilege of having lived to do it. We shall have to learn to trust God to be
Already there are signs of terrible significance that darkness is coming on a-pace, in which the world's hope will be for a time eclipsed; and men will have nothing left them, but to live on from day to day on duty, to learn to live for that alone, and to bear the anguish of bereavment as best they may without any solace beyond the memory of their own loving services.
Whether such a shadow of death will certainly pass over the world or not, it is well for us to be prepared for it; first by getting rid of every false prop on which our hopes have heretofore rested; and then by resolutely setting ourselves to live according to this prayer—come what may, each day as it comes round—for every duty and anxiety to which we may have to face. "Our Father in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread."
The darkness which I anticipate, if it comes at all, will come chiefly, if not wholly, out of those erroneous ideas which at present prevail in Christendom. The break up of the very foundations of Christianity is at hand, and many poor souls, who deserved a better fate, will be plunged into misery and despair, when they discover, for the first time, the rottenness of those supports on which all their hopes had rested. Millions remain professing Christians this day, only because they have been trained to believe that the Christian basis of the hope of a future life is the only sure one. It is around this hope that the affections are entwined, and it is in the hour of death that the Christian Churches exercise their most powerful spells.
But then, alas! they are "spells," and nothing more; fascinating enough, but fond and delusive; blinding to the intellect, and paralysing to true faith in God. Spells to bewitch the unwary, to mystify the unlearned, and to enrage the resisting. What are they? They are statements at variance with every conclusion of science. Theories of a future life contradicted by the most ordinary common sense. And based upon what? A fiction so palpable, so lamely concocted, as to disclose at once the good faith of those who set it going, and at the same time their utter incapacity to furnish trustworthy testimony. And what do these spells say? "That all men shall rise again with their bodies," with the very
It is not we who have spoiled it. It is God and God alone. God whose voice speaks to us words of truth and soberness in every sound conclusion of science. God who takes away a false hope only that He may give a better one in its place, who would not rend a bleeding heart unless the better to heal its wound, who "doth not afflict willingly," nor capriciously "grieve the children of men."
I will not waste time in disproving the Churches inherited blunder about the resurrection of the body. Suffice it to say, that it is ceasing to exercise the influence it once had. If you watch the feelings of surviving friends and relations, and mark their expressions, you will see that the belief in the Resurrection of the body has given way before the higher idea of the ascension of the soul at once into the life of the world to come. Mourners console themselves and each other by the thoughts of the departed being in perfect rest and unbroken happiness. The material Resurrection occupies but a small portion of their regard. It is is too far off to bring them comfort. The crowded avenues to the Great White Throne are out of keeping with the tender joys of reunion, and are, for the most part, wisely forgotten, the "open books" revealing foolish words, or unhallowed thoughis, or secret deeds of darkness, which God, in his more delicate compassion, suffers to lie hidden or be forgotten, are too revolting to come prominently before the imagination of those whose love is deep and whose tears are still flowing. So we may trust that the soil is ready for a nobler hope
But the most absurd part of that old belief is the ground on which it is based. The Christian Churches are saying to-day, "Because Jesus Christ was raised to life again the third day after his crucifixion, therefore all the dead will be raised with their bodies some thousands of years hence." The argument is a non sequitur, a simple insult to our understanding. Supposing the fact were undeniably established that Jesus actually died and rose again before corruption set in—what earthly connexion could that have with the restoration to life of the perfectly decayed bodies of all the rest of mankind? If any concluion could be drawn from the established fact (supposing it could be established) common sense would draw just the opposite conclusion to that of Christendom. We should say, "Because Jesus died and rose again the third day after his death, that shews him to be a grand exception, and the fact of the millions of men and women not rising the third day after death, but going into complete decay, makes that exception still more striking; and it is, at best, unfavourable to the probability that the bodies once dissolved can be raised again to life.
The dictum of Paul "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain," taken in connection with the Christian belief in Christ's special Resurrection, is one of the most unwarrantable and presumptuous assertions ever quoted in favour of orthodoxy. Whether Christ was raised or not, our faith is not vain, our hopes of endless life with God and with each other, are built on infinitely surer grounds than that—aye—they stand unshaken in spite of the Christian Creed, in defiance of that confusing and perplexing narrative which, if believed for a moment, would hamper our assurances and cripple our perfect trust in Him who is not only God of our hearts and consciences, but also the Lord and giver of science.
It is no new thing in this place to set aside the Gospel records as unworthy of credit, and far abler men than myself have shown the narratives of the Resurrection to be among the most untrustworthy of all. Mr Greg has shewn this conclusively in his Creed of Christendom Examined. I do not disparage these records for the sake of pulling in pieces what other men revere. I only speak
I said that the fiction of the Resurrection of Jesus sprang up out of a substantial basis of fact. If any reliance at all is to be placed on the narratives, we must, I think, admit that the early followers of Jesus really believed they had seen him and talked with him after his crucifixion. I can only say that I believe they did really see him alive and well, and bearing the marks of his wounds; but I also believe that Jesus did not really die on the cross; whereas the disciples took that for granted. Now there are many little touches in the narrative which bring one to this conclusion, although the historians go out of their way to assure us that Jesus was really dead. This, of course, may be duo to the late origin of the Gospels after the fiction of the Resurrection had been not only believed, but challenged.
Pilate was certainly friendly to Jesus, and did what he could to save him. Hemay have had private communication with Joseph of Arimathea and consequently have given secret orders to the soldiers not to break the legs of Jesus, as they did those of the two malefactors who, it will be observed, were Most, if not all, of the pictures of the Crucifixion represent Christ as being pierced on the not dead at the end of the few hours' suspension. At all events, Joseph secured the body and put it into an unoccupied tomb for safety. If there be any truth in the seal and the watch, these may have been precautions of safety adopted by Pilate to protect the body from outrage and further injury. In this tomb Jesus may have been, and very likely was, resuscitated, his wouuds dressed, and nourishment administered to him with sedulous care. When the tomb was searched after he had left it, the burial clothes were found
right side, which would not necessarily injure the pericardium, but only injure the pleura—a process not necessarily fatal.
It must not be supposed that we ourselves care any longer whether Christ did or did not die on the cross—that made no difference to his heroism—or did or did not rise again from the grave. These are questions which much more concern the Christians to solve on their own behalf. If, however, they still affirm that
That even this little can be said in disparagement of the Christian belief about the Resurrection of Jesus, shows how unsafe a foundation it is on which to rest the hope of immortality for a dying world. I deeply bewail that the Churches should have floundered into such a dangerous morass, that the poor souls whom she has drawn after her will have no light to cheer them in their darkest hour, or to guide them on their way except the flickering and bewitching glimmer of this fatuous flame. "If the blind lead the blind shall they not both fall into the ditch?"
Our usual time is now exhausted, but I would trespass on your attention a few minutes longer to touch upon the doctrine of the "Life of the world to come," and to give some of the grounds on which that nobler faith is based.
At the outset, let me say it is not needful to have any definite notion of what that life may be. It is enough for us to feel that that life will be a continuation of the present one so far as personal identity and memory are concerned, or else it would be no future life at all. We are also assured that it must be progressive and full of hope, or else it would not be worth having. Far be it from us to lay down any other condition as absolutely necessary to our conception in the life of the world to come. Speculations are not only wild, but mischievous; they are inconsistent with that pure faith in God on which our hopes are based. It is enough to feel that we are in the hands of a Father
With these limitations, then, it is hardly too much to speak of our future life of personal identity and progress as a certainty, all but demonstrable. We cannot demonstrate the existence of God, so neither can we demonstrate the future life. Believing, as I do, with all my glad heart, in Him and in His eternal and unquenchable love for myself and for all men, I am not afraid to own that this faith lies entirely out of the region of evidence or mathematical certainty. It belongs to millions of our race by reason of a spiritual nature which physiology has hitherto been unable to account for, but against which it offers not one valid objection. It does not resemble those wretched mysteries of Theology which outrage reason, but it is an instinct, if one may call it, sui generis with which the reason in its clearest moments heartily concurs and which it always largely assists whenever it has any materials to work upon. And from that faith in a Heavenly Father, simply as one all powerful, all wise and only more kind to us than the best of men and women wish to be to each other, there grows a corollary, irresistible, satisfying; that He will gratify all our highest desires, or only thwart them to give us something better still. I will not suffer myself to be tempted into any rhetorical language about that future life, nor into any flights of fancy which are as unprofitable as they are vain. I only say that the belief in a God, who is only better than ourselves, carries with it, as a matter of natural sequence, a belief in the life of the world to come. The two must go together. If there be no God, there is no future for men. If there be a God, the source of all that is best and noblest in man, there must be endless life of ever-increasing good for all, from the least unto the greatest. For why?
Because otherwise there has been going on from the earliest dawn of human love, a dreadful waste of humanity in its most glorious
Oh! let us push from us these awful alternatives, and with humble grateful souls lift our eyes to his mercy-seat, and behold the pledge of His everlasting love. Here below—even in our hearts and homes—has He given to us the anchor of hope at at which we may ride in safety through the storm of doubt and unbelief. Every face which is dear to us, every hand which we press in honest friendship, speaks to us from the oracle of God, and gives promise of the life that is to come. All hearts which have ever throbbed with a pure unselfish affection have been consecrated by that affection for endless love. All the sorrow of bereavment and the anguish of hearts that have lost—for this world—all that they cared to live for; are only so many echoes of that same pledge "I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty."
If we did not care—if we had no love—no capabilities for longing to meet again—then, indeed, we might argue that there is no life to come. But with men and women as they are, exquisitely
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On Sunday (May 4th) at St. George's Hall, the Rev. C. Voysoy took his text from 1 Peter, iv., 11, "If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth."
He said—At the request of some of the congregation, I will resume my discourses on the subject of the Church. In order to form a correct idea of what a Church should be, we must first consider what are the proper relations between a minister and the people to whom he ministers.
The first thing that strikes one as eminently desirable is that those relations should be made as close and as permanent as possible, short of absolute irrevocability. The parochial system, as it is called, furnishes the opportunity for such a relation better than any other which has yet been tried. A minister ought to be resident among the people to whom he ministers, and should make it his paramount duty to become personally acquainted with them, and if possible, to become their constant friend. He can do very little indeed for their advantage in the pulpit, unless he is tolerably familiar with their daily lives. Unless he knows their thoughts and sentiments by friendly converse, more than half of what he may say is like beating the air, and is sheer waste. Unless he hears their arguments against his own opinions, he and they will diverge further and further, till his influence is entirely destroyed—to say nothing of the constant strain upon his ingenuity as a preacher in selecting subjects for the pulpit, week after week, without having any clue as to what is most expedient or timely
Important, however, as is the work in the pulpit, it is not nearly so important as the work in the parish. And if the minister's function be to build up the temple of religion and morality, and to help in raising to a higher platform the less advanced souls of his flock, that function can never be adequately fulfilled by mere preaching. He must live amongst his people, and learn to understand their feelings and sympathise with their views, and have compassion on those who are are ignorant. Personal contact is the only power that one can depend upon to obtain a legitimate influence over the minds of others. We see it too often resorted to for most unworthy ends. It is an old complaint that priests have been wont to "devour widows' houses," and to "lead captive silly women laden with sins." Of such influence we can only think with indignation and shame, but what I would advocate is the use, instead of the abuse, of a power which, when wielded aright, is pregnant with beneficial results. What the minister has to do is to serve his people—to lay out his days in such help of head, or heart, or hand, as may be within his power to render. If he knows his duty and privilge, it will delight him to make friends of all his parishioners, so that in time of trouble they will send for him, as a matter of course, knowing how faithfully and efficiently he will stand by them. Such help is something infinitely more than almsgiving. That, of course, is unhappily needful at times, but the help of which I speak may be extended to persons of all ranks and conditions, till almsgiving sinks into one of the most occasional and unimportant services he has to render.
There may be places where such services are quite superfluous, but I believe I am right in saying that in nine-tenths of the parishes in England, the presence of a resident clergyman and his family is an unmixed blessing, for the loss of which not even liberation from superstition would entirely compensate. I have known clergymen who have spent the greatest part of their days in visiting their parishioners and in teaching in the village school. During their rounds, they have not only consoled the sick, and
quid pro quo. If a man has it in him, he will soon show that he works only for love, for the sake of being useful, and not even to be well spoken of, though that is a great boon in such a position. And so when he fails, as he surely must fail sometimes, in the pulpit, to satisfy his hearers, or to come up to the standard of his own ideal, he has at least the satisfaction that his whole life is spent in their service, and one good deed is better than a thousand sermons. In spite of all the misuse that has been made of this relation of minister and people, it can assuredly be made the purest instrument of good that can be imagined. But you can only get this relation in the parochial system. Draw a line round a given area and let all the inhabitants of that area know that they have a property in the gentleman who resides among them as their minister; and let him also know that he is placed there to be their common servant; let Jews and Christians, let Catholics and Protestants, Churchmen and Dissenters, Believers and Infidels alike claim his faithful friendship and service. Let him know that it is his business not to convert them, but to be of use to them in mind, body, and estate; to help them all whenever and howsoever he can; and then, if this condition be fulfilled, you have your ideal parish, in which peace will reign, in which sectarianism and religious strife become paralysed, and in which the minister of religion is recognised as the type of perfect toleration and the best of peacemakers. Do not think this is Utopian; it has been done already and done under more eyes than mine.
It is, however, essential to the clergyman's fidelity and self-respect that he be entirely independent of his parishioners for his income. He cannot possibly preserve a strict impartiality if he be supported by the voluntary subscriptions of his flock. Those who give more money for his support would claim more of his service and concession than those who gave less. He would become the rich man's minister and the rich man's tool. The poor could not feel, as they do under the endowment system, that he was particularly their property—more their servant because their needs for his culture were greater. No man, however high-minded, could bear such a restraint upon his conduct as that which is involved in being the protegé of a wealthy parishioner who practically had the power of dismissing him.
Still there is something in the objection: What is a parish to do with an incompetent or unworthy minister? How is he to be got rid of? Well. He ought to be got rid of; and parishioners ought to have the power of preventing a well-known obnoxious clergyman being forced upon them; and after one year's trial of any minister a majority of three-fifths or three-fourths of the parishioners ought to have power to remove him. This power in reserve would be enough wholesome restraint upon lax-minded or indolent men, while it would do no injury to the self-respect of those who were good and capable.
The subject of patronage I do not here touch upon. I will now endeavour to represent what the minister and people ought to do in reference to the public ministrations of religion. Supposing them to be in the harmony which I have described, and which is much easier to achieve than is generally supposed, the minister, still keeping in mind that he is the servant of the people, will set his mind on having a service such as they, or the large majority of them, will approve. He may well be entrusted and expected to draw up the service in accordance with what he knows or guesses to be popular and within the limits of the resources of the district. He does not say, "You shall have this service whether you like it or not;" but says, "Try it for a little while, and if then you do not like it, we will alter it to meet your objections, or prepare another." If the loudest and most influential voices are inclined to be over-bearing and dictatorial, it will be his duty to plead for
Here, instead of a new bone of contention, would be found a new bond of friendship and mutual esteem. A minister so acting would thereby recommend his own proposals far more eloquently than by any reasoning. It would be enough for the people to know that not only they could have their own way about the service, but that that was the minister's solo desire. Say not, this could not be done in a parish, when it has been done where not one single parochial advantage exists. It has been done here, where our congregation meets from the four winds, and many members of it travel long distances, few knowing each other, and the minister labouring under the overwhelming disadvantage of only meeting them in the pulpit, and exercising not one ministerial function for them during the week. If it be both possible and easy under our circumstances, it would be infinitely more so, were we all living together in one parish.
I do not know how my brother clergymen would like what I have next to propose? But I cannot forget that half-a-dozen persons in my late parish, who still remained my sincere friends, felt conscientiously unable to attend the parish church while I preached in it. Such a case might happen anywhere, and in some places the scruples might be very numerous; yet it always seemed to me a hardship that even six people were kept away from the church on such grounds. Now in my ideal parish, if I were minister, I would advocate the opening of the church once at least on a Sunday to the few who could not agree with the majority, and they might have as their minister for the occasion whomsoever they would, provided always that the man chosen were blameless in moral character, and that the services were decently conducted, and not made occasions for irreverent mirth. Next to subscribing to Dissenters to enable them to build their chapels in one's own parish, I think such a step would be highly beneficial. A man
I have now only to speak of the minister's function in the pulpit. I take it for granted that he is a man of ordinary tact, and possessing what is infinitely more than tact, an honest and kind heart. I have assumed that every minister should have some culture, and be morally of blameless life. These are the only conditions with which the State ought to concern itself. As to his religious views and opinions, they are exclusively his own, to hold or relinquish at pleasure. His sole claim to appointment is that he is duly qualified from a literary point of view, and that he seeks to be a minister of religion. He goes to his parish perfectly untrammelled by religious tests, 39 Articles, 3 Creeds, or Acts of Uniformity. He is not bound to take any man, or any number of men, as his guide or model. He is perfectly free. All that is expected of him is that he will be faithful—true to himself, and to his own convictions. Being a man among men, it will be only natural for him to be tentative at first, and not shock and alienate the strangers who gather round to hear his earliest discourses. He will find out by gentle means how much the people agree with him and how far they differ, so that he may give attention to those points where reconciliation is attainable by persuasion or amplification. He will soon discover whether he can lead them on, or whether he is altogether unfit for their present stage of thought. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, such a minister's work will be easy from the first, and crowned at last by the hearty concurrence of his parishioners. But this is the only limitation he will put upon his own perfect freedom; the only ground on which he will tolerate in himself the slightest reticence. His grand aim will be to declare unto them "the whole Counsel of God," as it appears to him; and not to keep back "one word of God's truth from the great congregation." He has no excuse now for evasion or subtlety, or that most miserable and fashionable of expedients, the knocking to pieces of some orthodox doctrine, and then saying, "I believe in it for all that." He has no ground for
I know I am speaking the sober truth when I affirm that though there are many earnest and true-hearted men of every shade of religious opinion, who invariably say what they think to be true, are yet undistinguishable from the mass around them, who preach doctrines cut and dried for them, and shun original thought or speech as they would the plague. How can you tell whether a man be true to himself or not, if all are tethered with the same length of rope and must not transgress certain limits. Go to St. Pauls, or to Westminster, or to our Chapels Royal, or anywhere you please, and distinguish the honest men from the dishonest if you can. They are there sure enough, but you cannot test them. They are bound up in one bundle with the insincere and the indifferent. In the interest of all religious opinions whatever, it is absolutely needful to have no prohibition on the expression of honest opinion. Without that liberty you cannot be sure that the Protestant is not a Catholic, the Catholic an Infidel, the Evangelical a Rationalist. It is in the power of any Sunday School boy to say of every preacher thus tied and bound—"Ah! he did not dare say what he believes."
While we are yet ignorant, we need the fullest variety of opinion. Such differences are blessings, not curses, till the true science of God shall come. And we ought to welcome honest speech, however distasteful its arguments and conclusions, however seemingly
is honest, and is the deeply rooted conviction of another man's mind. More than this, I believe the honest utterance of opinions one does not like, does a great deal more good than the flattering repetition of sentiments already adopted.
For the present I close with this remark. The ideal parish which I have endeavoured to draw, is based upon the principles of Love, Liberty, and Truth. In sad contrast to these, the churches, as history tells us, are worked by hatred, intolerence, slavery, and falsehood—falsehood clung to after it had been detected and exposed. Shall not the Church of the Future learn a lesson by the shame brought upon the Church of the past, and cast away her idols of Dogma, Sacerdotalism, and so-called Uniformity to the moles and to the bats?
Eastern Post Steam Printing Works, 89, Worship Street Finsbury, E.C.
I have been asked by many persons to explain how these three Lectures have been given to me, and I will do so as briefly as possible. They are communicated by a spirit taking possession of a human medium. The face of that human being is transfigured for the time being, and the magnetic light plays about her head. Not a word is spoken by the spirit during the time I am writing. The ideas are communicated magnetically, by the laying of the spirit's hand upon my own head; my own brain and hand being passive instruments as it were. When I commence a lecture I do not know what the subject will be, and when I have finished one sentence, I am ignorant as to the nature and construction of the next; but all is consecutive and coherent, without a correction or erasure. Sometimes I stop short in the middle of a sentence, and then I look for a few seconds at the eyes of the spirit, when the current of ideas and words immediately resumes its spontaneous flow. I have laid my watch upon the table and timed myself, and have found that I write in about one-third of the time which I should occupy in composing a lecture of my own. These phenomena have occurred in the presence of a dozen people, each of whom writes also under the spiritual influence. After I have finished, the spirit enters into conversation with me upon the topics arising out of the lecture; explaining that the magnetic fire communicated through him is identical in its nature and influence with the tongues of fire seen by the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, and that the work of the spirits on earth—acting through human agencies—is to bring mankind back to a knowledge of the One True God; to rescue them from the thraldom of theological superstition and debasing priestcraft; and to prepare for the ingathering of our own branch of the human race—which they describe as the Fourth of the Seven Churches.
The craving for communion with the spirit-world, while it is a testimony to the immortality of the soul, since mere matter cannot be attracted towards or by what is immaterial, is also one of the deepest and strongest instincts and desires of our nature. It is an evidence of the emancipation—to some extent—of what is spiritual within us, from the trammels of animalism. But we must be extremely careful how we endeavour to justify this craving. Indulged in, according to some methods, it merely gratifies an idle curiosity, it brings about us undeveloped spirits, with sentiments and sympathies which are still directed to the earth they have quitted and about whose precincts they are still hovering, and it subjects us to be misled, deceived, and in some instances mentally destroyed.
Spiritual communion is governed by immutable law, like all the processes of nature, and obedience to that law is essential for the safe and salutary enjoyment of that intercourse for which so many human beings instinctively yearn. There is no such tiling as a supernatural phenomenon in the universe. Whatever we call by this name is a natural circumstance uncomprehended by us. Supernaturalism is a phrase which ought therefore to be discarded from our dictionaries. Spiritual communion is one of the natural facts of the world. It has existed from the beginning of time upon this our earth, and it will continue to exist until our globe has fulfilled its appointed work. Sacred and profane literature is full of testimonies to the truth and actuality of this communion; and all the religions of civilised mankind repose upon a spiritual basis. Take away this and they crumble to pieces; as everything that is human and material will necessarily do, in virtue of the law of its being. But the records and the preceptive books of all these religions being largely adulterated and contaminated by human error, and what is historical in them having reference merely to but a small fragment of our race, and to a limited period in its annals, mankind has gone astray with respect to its apprehension of spiritual truths.
We must go to the very foundation of things in order to get at the truth of spiritual intercourse, and to explain the beautiful and wonderful gradations of intelligence and rule by which our world is governed. We must understand that the human race made its appearance upon the earth tens of thousands of years before the date assigned to the creation of the world in the Mosaic Cosmogony. We may be said, indeed, to belong to the middle ages of the history of mankind. There have boon three great ingatherings of the human race—spoken of in the vision of John as churches—at intervals of many thousand years; and some idea may be formed of the incorrectness of our systems of chronology from the fact that the ingathering of the Third Church occurred at a period considerably anterior to the bondage of the children of Israel in Egypt. The time has arrived at which the work of gathering in the Fourth Church has been commenced, and although a thousand years may probably elapse before the work is perfected, it is steadily proceeding, and will eventuate in the establishment of such a spiritual civilization of the globe—and of such a confraternity of the spiritually minded in all countries, as has not been witnessed since the consummation and fulfilment of the last Church;
Outside of this earth are a number of spheres, constituting with our own—which is the birth sphere—seven. Ours is the first; in the second abide all those spirits who have quitted the earth
Man being thus related to the angels, their watchfulness over him is incessant, and their influence upon him for good would be great, and no less unceasing, were it not, as I have said, that he alienates them from his side, and violates by disobedience the law of his being. This law is harmony and happiness, and its first transgression, in the case of most of us, springs from our getting outside of our individual spheres. Every person in the world has his appointed place in it, determined by the nature of his faculties and by the specific bent of his genius. Occupying these, the whole family of man would be as one brotherhood. Each unit of us belongs as much to a fixed order of things as the infinite varieties of animal and vegetable life below us fit into their proper places, and act and move to one consentaneous purpose. Between each human being and every other human being there are the same differences as between the quadruped and the bird, and the bird and the fish. Not only so, but as there are innumerable species of the bird tribes, so there are equally innumerable varieties of the man tribe; and it is just as erroneous, just as much an infringement of the law, and just as much a source of pain and perplexity for one human being to step out of his sphere, as it would be for a wolf to adopt the plumage of the peacock, or for an eagle to clothe himself in the skin of the tiger. Most of the crime and confusion which prevail in the world, and no small part of its vice and disease, are attributable to this very aberration of human beings from their respective spheres. It pervades all grades of society, and is productive of endless discord and incalculable suffering. There are many kings who should be tending swine, or following the vocation of hunters, or cooks, or dancing masters; and in like manner there are many mute inglorious Miltons, possible Hampdens, and probable Cromwells, who are leading lives of obscurity and arduous toil. Not only is the work of the world done badly in consequence, but mankind is deprived of innumerable inventions of which it might reap the advantage if those who are capable of communicating them were not repressed by unspiritual circumstances.
But, it will be asked, how is each man or woman to discover his or her proper sphere, and to occupy the same? God has defined it for each of us. There is not a child who would not clearly indicate it if carefully studied. It betrays itself in very early life, and it is the duty of every parent to provide for its fulfilment. But convention steps in and says, No! If the son of a professional man, or of a person in opulent circumstances, evinces a marked inclination for mechanical pursuits, it is discouraged and repressed. He is otherwise trained. He is subjected to a learned education. His mind is crammed with dead languages, and with equally lifeless facts, and he is put to some employment which he follows from habit or necessity, but which—if it brings him success-never brings him happiness. There is an unsatified craving which he can neither account for nor allay. He endeavours to minister to it by pleasure, by excitement, by the accumulation of wealth, or by its expenditure upon objects which he no sooner possesses than they become indifferent to him. This happiness eludes his grasp. He has got outside his individual sphere; the evolution of his spiritual nature—if it evolves at all—is at variance with the evolution of his physical nature, and the result is enduring discord. Do you not suppose that Louis XVI. would have been a happy man if it had been consistent with the practice of kings to have placed him apprentice with a locksmith, and to have permitted him to pass his life in the peaceful pursuit of the mechanical employment to which he was so much attached? Do you not suppose, also, that if, instead of ascending a throne, Mario Antoinette could have folio wed the healthy calling of a rosy dairymaid, she would have been one of the happiest women in Europe? Who have been the world's chief benefactors? Have they not been the men and women who, knowing their own spheres, resolutely kept within them, developing their own natures on all sides, and growing up into the glorious stature of noble and natural human beings—unspoiled by erroneous systems of education, untrammelled by circumstance, and un-warped by any of the distorting influences of an improper and uncongenial training.
Such persons being natural, and having undergone no mental distortion, are necessarily more amenable to spiritual impressions; and to these, as I have said, humanity is indebted for everything precious that it possesses. If mankind have gone astray, if the world is a scene of turbulence and bloodshed, of wrong and rapine, if it presents to us the spectacle of enormous wealth, immense luxury and shameful self-indulgence, side by side with squalid poverty, with abject want and absolute starvation, who is to
The great difference between the spiritual intercourse which is ordinarily enjoyed upon the earth, and that which has been permitted to mankind through the agency of the magnetic teaching, is this—that whereas the former brings us into contact with spirits only one remove from humanity—spirits in many instances not yet enfranchised from the errors of belief, and the intellectual trammels which impeded their mental progress and spiritual growth on earth spirits who are being cured and instructed—spirits, in a word, occupying the second sphere—the magnetic teaching is bestowed upon us by those advanced intelligences which occupy the higher spheres of this our globe, and are the appointed channels through which the Most High conveys his love and light to his creatures upon earth, and to the undeveloped and progressive spirits in the second sphere. In that sphere reside all the spirits which have taken their departure hence, ever since the present branch of the human family—or in other words the members of the Fourth Church—appeared upon the earth. In the infinite wisdom of our Almighty Father he has prescribed that there shall be seven great ingatherings of the human race. Three of those, as has been said, have already taken place. The first was gathered in some 21,000 years ago, when our globe was much smaller than it is at present. The members of this Church, at their ascension, became the spiritual guides, teachers, and counsellors of the human race next dwelling on the earth. At the completion of each Church the earth underwent a great convulsion. Its physical aspect was changed, and its bulk expanded. When, in the fulness of time, and at the expiration of seven thousand years, the Second Church was gathered in, the first ascended to a higher sphere, and became the guide and teacher of the Second, which remained in the second sphere. And so in like manner with the Third. When that arose, the First passed into the Sun, and its members were invested with a lustre corresponding with the glorious radiance of the centre of our planetary system. Our teachers and instructors, as I have said, are members of the Third Church, and they flourished on the earth shortly before the epoch at which Biblical chronologists have fixed the creation of the world. When the ingathering was completed, our globe underwent yet another change and expansion of its bulk. Up to that time there was but one continent and one sea. The four continents which now exist were riven asunder, and the islands we inhabit began to emerge from the ocean. We foolishly imagine that the discovery of America was first accomplished a few centuries back. Nothing can be more erroneous than the supposition. That land was perfectly well known to the members of the third church; it was the seat of a pure and spiritual civilization, and the dwelling place of a noble and natural race of beings.
When our own Church is gathered in, all the spirits of the human race translated to the second sphere since what we are pleased to call the creation of the world-that is, since the date of the last great cataclysm—will ascend, and will take the place now occupied by the Third Church, and this last will take the position of the Second Church, which will pass into the sun, and there join its glorified predecessor. After us will come three other Churches, and when these have reached their completion, our earth—which has been described to me as one thought of the Most High, and as enclosing within itself when it first emanated from the Supreme Mind the germ of every being which ever has lived or ever will live upon its surface—will have fulfilled its work, and will pass away perhaps, or be prepared for the residence of a more exalted race of beings than ourselves.
And it is because the time has arrived for the commencement of the ingathering of the Fourth Church, that this spiritual awakening is taking place all over the globe. In every part of it, the loving and wise ministers and messengers of God are acting impressionally upon the minds of such persons as are susceptible to their impressions. Men of science and theologians are finding them-selves brought face to face with doubts and difficulties which they are unable to solve. The old superstitious are crumbling to ruin, scepticism is invading the sanctuaries of orthodoxy; the belief in a physical death and a physical hell
The magnetic teaching, as now vouchsafed to mankind in its more direct and obvious form, is another variety of that inspiration which has been bestowed upon a favoured few in all ages of the world's history, which is to be found in all the so-called religions which have taken rise in the East—which has created and vitalised whatever is durable in art, literature, and science, and which would become the common property of all mankind, if mankind lived in obedience to the laws of God, and listened to and acted upon those impressions which our good angels are over waiting and watching for an opportunity of imparting to us. For, as each living being, from the lowest organism to the highest, does actually ensphere an archangel, so in every member of the human family lie all the potentialities of genius. This, though rare among us, is not a privilege, is not an exclusive gift, is not a special favour. God, our infinite Father, does not deal in this wise with his children. They are equally dear in his eyes—equally precious to his all-com-prehending love. What he gives to one, he bestows on all, and that with a lavish hand—with the free bounty of a Being whoso goodness is inexhaustible, whose love knows no limit, whoso active beneficence is incapable of rest, whoso superintending Providence embraces the whole uniyerse within its stupendous grasp.
The day will come when men, brought back to a sense of His presence in the world, weaned from the pernicious errors, the degrading superstitions, and the amazing absurdities of human theologies, and studying Him in his glorious works, will participate as freely in the attributes of genius as they now share in the blessed sunshine, in the free air of heaven, and in the enlightened enjoyment of the spectacle daily presented to us by this beautiful earth. In every human brain lie the germs of genius—that is to say, of creative power. All they require is to be quickened by the magnetic light and fire which God's holy angels and our ministering spirits are commissioned to confer upon us if we only prepare the soul, and keep it free from the weeds of human doctrine and human error. Our part in the work is very simple, and our duty very easy. It is not oven a labour. God, in his wonderful goodness, has made it absolutely delightful. Consider for a moment all that is required of us. Obedience! nothing more! We have but to do as the lower animals and the vegetable world do—obey impressions. These come to us from above—from the ministering angels just spoken of. If we followed them, every human being would occupy precisely that sphere which he is peculiarly and pre-eminently qualified to fill. In it he would enjoy health and happiness. Out of it he would never wish to depart. He would resemble one wheel out of millions in a wisely conceived, exquisitely constructed, and harmoniously-working piece of machinery. He would fit in with every other part of that complicated mechanism, and would contribute his quota to the results produced.
Mankind have not yet come to recognise this their inter-dependence and in tor-relationship—have not yet felt that each unit of the mass is just as closely related to every other human being on the globe, as the nerves behind my eye are to those which are ramified through my hands or feet. Not only so, but we are akin, on the one side, to the dust beneath our feet; upon the other, to those celestial beings whose privilege it is to be admitted to the councils of the Almighty. "the chain of being" is something more than a figure of speech: it is an eternal fact. And this is a truth which is in process of revelation by the magnetic teaching, and will become before long so patent to the understandings of all men who have eyes to see and ears to hear, that they will wonder that they could have lived so many years upon the earth in utter blindness of verities which are being proclaimed every hour of every day by the million voices of animated Nature, speaking to us from every animal, from every bird, from every insect, from every tree and flower, and from every—so called—inanimate object, that looks up in wonder and gratitude—in love and adoration—to the great Creator and Father of us all. But upon this subject of inspiration or impression it is necessary I should speak in greater detail. The question is one about which civilized mankind have agreed to differ, and chiefly because we have been accustomed to consider the gift as something partial and exclusive; as limited, indeed, to one sot of books, produced by one family of people, arrogantly assuming to
Let us illustrate the difference between what is inspired and what is uninspired, by a reference to two familiar passages of the Old Testament. In the one we find the following commandment:—"I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other Gods but me." Of the inspiration of this no reasonable being can entertain a doubt. Not that it is to be supposed that the Creator of this stupendous universe ever stood face to face with Moses upon the mountain and delivered the first commandment to the great lawgiver who goes by that name, by word of mouth. For this, if not an impossibility—as we believe it to be, since no merely human being could look upon God and live—is obviously a gross improbability. But, examined by the light of reason, that is to say by the illuminating power of the Divine principle within us, how do the commandments present themselves? As having been framed by some sagacious and enlightened ruler, who asked for assistance from on high in the preparation of a code of laws for the government of an idolatrous, covetous, cruel, and generally inferior race of people, and who received the assistance—the impressional or inspirational help he asked for. But knowing the abject superstition, and at the same time the overweening pride, of the unruly tribe of fugitives he had to deal with, he felt that, in order to make these just and wise and salutary laws binding and authoritative upon the minds of the people, he must profess to have received them, not indirectly, but directly, from the Most High, Hence he goes up into a high mountain, of which the summit is habitually veiled in clouds, and as he is versed in all the meteorological lore of the Egyptians, he selects for the period of his visit, the time at which a tempest is impending. In all probability—if we assume that the historical narrative is correct in the, man—he take? with him—unknown to the people generally—two tablets of stone, and a priestly artificer. He is absent from the camp for a long time, and in the interval a terrific storm breaks over the mountain. Thick darkness envelopes the summit, the thunder rolls, the lightnings flash, and the wondering spectators at the foot of the mountain, ignorant and credulous, and believing all such phenomena to be special and irregular manifestations of Divine power, are prepared to receive with undoubting minds the assurance which Moses gives them on his return, that he has conversed with God, and that the ten commandments he brings with him were traced upon the two tablets of stone by the finger of the Almighty himself.
The second instance to which I would refer is this of the alleged standing still of the sun and moon--or more correctly speaking, of the globe we inhabit—in order to enable a sanguinary engagement to be completed during daylight, between the Israelites and their enemies. Now here we have a narrative which is not only full of improbabilities, but also of impossibilities. It is unnecessary to discuss the question whether such a battle was over fought. We may conclude that it was, and that it was recorded by an Israelitish scribe; but when we examine the record by the light of our reason, what do we discover in it? A total absence of inspiration. All inspiration comes to us, as has been said, from the Most High. Therefore it is absolutely true, because He him-self is absolute Truth. But in this case we find the narrative contaminated by human error. In the first place, in order to justify what was probably an act of wanton aggression and cruel ferocity, the historian professed to assert that God had authorised the battle, and approved of the wholesale destruction. That nothing happens save by His permission we must all reverently admit; but to make a God of love the particeps criminis in sanguinary outrages is obviously little short of blasphemy. In the next place we have the utter impossibility of the sus-
But what are—according to a rational hypo-thesis—the facts which probably underlie this partly fictitious narrative. May we not easily imagine the Captain of the Israelites, when expatiating on the events of the day, in the midst of his companions in arms around the camp fires at night, exclaiming, "In that momentous crisis of the battle, when victory was in suspense, and for a moment the issue of the conflict was doubtful, so much incident and excitement, and such a throng of hopes and fears come crowded into a few minutes, that it appeared to me as if the very setting sun lingered over the mountains of the west, as loth to look his last upon the scene, and that as the moon rose out of the east, she was awed by the spectacle presented to her pure gaze, and shrank for awhile from rising in the heavens?" Now, it requires very little intelligence on our part to know that language of this kind, reported from mouth to mouth, traditionally preserved, and committed to writing years after the event, perhaps, would undergo an inevitable transmutation. A chronicler as zealous for the honour and glory of his race, as Clarendon was for the Royalists, or as Carlyle is for the Roundheads, would drop the word "seems" out of his narrative, and would tell a proud, vainglorious, and superstitious people that the sun and moon actually did stand still in order to enable this battle to be brought to a close, and that this prodigy was of course the act of that Deity whom, in the narrowness of their belief and the egregious vanity of their minds, they declare to be the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, and of them and their descendants only; leaving all the other and the far more numerous children of the human family, outside of the sphere of the Divine Providence, and of his all-comprehending love.
Thus, then, you will perceive how necessary it is to discriminate between what is inspirational in the Scriptures and what is merely human; and if yon study them by the light of reason—asking for, awaiting, receiving, and acting upon those impressions which are given to us as freely as the blessed sunshine, all difficulties will disappear, all doubts will be cleared up, and you will able to sift the truth from the error, and to discern, amidst the illusions and extravagances of both the Hebrew and the Christian writers, the imago of the true God shining out upon us through the clouds of human darkness and the mists of human misconception.
All these errors, and all this darkness and misconception, are the result of disobedience to impression. There is and can be no mystery in religion—no mystery in the relationship to Almighty God. It is a purely filial one: full of infinite love on His part, and demanding nothing on our own but childlike obedience. An earthly father does not convey his injunctions and wishes to his little ones in parables and allegories. He adapts them precisely to the growth and character of their minds. He makes them simple, lucid, perspicuous, and intelligible. If he did otherwise, could he wonder at their disobeying what they failed to comprehend? And if this be so with human parents, frail, feeble, and fallible as we are, how much more so must it be with our Heavenly Father, who is perfection itself, omniscient, and infinite in goodness and in power? There is and can be no mystery in His commandments. Wherever you find anything that is mysterious and provocative of controversy in what is called Sacred Literature, you may be perfectly sure that it is of human origin—that it is the product of the human intellect, professing to know so much better than God himself, and substituting its own ignorant dogmas for his simple truths.
God speaks—through his angelic ministers and messengers—to every one of us, every day, every hour, and every minute of our lives, if we will only listen to Him. And not alone to us, but to every object in animated nature; and there is no such thing as an inanimate object, organic or inorganic, in nature. Every mineral, every vegetable, insect, reptile, fish, bird, and animal has its own magnetic atmosphere—its individual atmosphere, upon which plays that magnetic fire which has been described to me as the very nature and spirit of God. There is not one of these things, from the pebble beneath our foot to the stately elephant in the forests of Ceylon, that is not necessarily acted upon by this magnetic force-that is not obedient to the impressions thus received, and that is not perfectly happy in consequence. They obey natural laws, and that obedience is an act of worship—is the only worship that is acceptable to Almighty
Man is the only animal on the face of this beautiful globe that is disobedient to impressions, and he is accordingly the only animal that is unhappy, the only animal that is subject to vice, disease, and misery; excepting only in so far as the lower animals are liable to these things when brought out of their sphere, and vitiated and injured by contact with him, and by what we call domestication, which usually means debasement and degradation.
Man did not fall away from God-did not become an exile from a figurative Paradise by eating of the fruit of a forbidden tree. In all these poetical allegories and Oriental fables there lurks a germ of truth. Man suffered from disobedience
The more the great truth of inspiration or impression is investigated, and the better it is understood, the more harmonious does it appear with God's beneficent purposes and with man's nature and necessities. According to the generally received belief, our Infinite Father is infinitely remote from us. In our prayers we acknowledge His nearness, but that nearness is not a living reality to us. If it were so, we should not live as we do. If the conviction that He is omnipresent and all-seeing had any firm hold upon our minds, could we, as ratioual beings, think, act, speak, and live as we do? The question has only to be stated in order to be answered with an emphatic No! Once a week we make a sort of compromise with our consciences. We enter what we call the House of God—as if the whole universe were not the abiding place, and each of us were not, or ought not to be. His living temple—and we declare ourselves to be miserable sinners. On that day, we abstain to a considerable extent from worldly occupations, and endeavour—sometimes with a reasonable degree of success—to appear as gloomy and morose as if we actually supposed that the Infinite Being, who is love itself, and who has willed that all men shall be happy, on the simple condition of obedience—could be pleased or propitiated by the spectacle of austere countenances and mortifying practices. But, on the morrow, we resume our buying and selling, our cheating and overreaching, our adulterations, and our sordid practices of all kinds, with a sort of tacit understanding that we can live for ourselves during the rest of the week, and make our peace with God—by means of putting up certain prayers, singing certain hymns, and listening to certain edifying discourses on the Sunday following. And so we go on from year to year; balancing the worldliness of six days by the devotional exercises of the seventh, as we imagine, and keeping a kind of debtor and creditor account with the Almighty.
It is no part of my purpose to utter a tirade against Sabbatarianism. What I am anxious to declare to you is this—That every day in the week and in the year should be a Sabbath—should be consecrated by the love of God and by the love of our neighbours, by the abnegation of self, by a growth in knowledge, and by a steady advancement in happiness and spiritual light and life.
And thus it would be if we were only obedient to His holy will which His ministers and messengers are ever ready to impress upon us if we only listen to them. Surely no scheme of the moral government of the universe could possibly be so beautiful, so loving, so wise, or so perfect as this. For what does it reveal to us? Is it not the fulfilment and realisation of that dream of the patriarch in which he saw a ladder stretching from Heaven to earth, and angels ascending and descending by it, while he slept at the foot? And in this vision or allegory we discover a great truth, for, in all men, the receptiveness of or susceptibility to angelic impressions is most vivid during sleep. Our guides and counsellors can then reach us when our animal passions are laid to rest, when the sensorial avenues to the brain are all closed, and when the mind alone is active and open to impressions.
But at all times, and in all the circumstances of life, this impressional guidance and instruction is equally open to us, provided we will listen to and obey it. It comes to us like the winds of Heaven, like the fragrance of the flowers that surround us, like the blessed light of day, or the tranquil shadows of the evening. There is nothing mystical or mysterious in its nature; nothing occult or incomprehensible in its operation. "My law is easy, and my commandments are light," was said of old, and every one who has once been accustomed to obey impression must acknowledge the truth of this—must perceive that obedience is happiness, and that to submit to the voice of what we call conscience will infallibly confer upon us the peace which passeth all understanding. Men ever substituting the complicated inversions of the human mind for the beautiful simplicity of God's most holy will, have devised innumerable forms of religion, innumerable rites and ceremonies, innumerable dogmas, doctrines, and professions of faith. They have imagined that by the adoption of these, they can either perform an acceptable service to our Infinite Father, or avert what they are pleased to call His wrath, or propitiate His favour. And multitudes of men, professing these forms of faith, and devoutly believing in these dogmas, have drawn nigh to Him; but
Ah! men and brethren, if the human race could only be brought to feel its relationship with the invisible world, could only perceive that it is surrounded by angelic intelligences, could only know that we have perpetually by our side the ministers and messengers of the Most, High, filled with His love, affectionately submissive to His will, and overflowing with tenderness towards their human kindred, what a total transformation would be effected in the aspect of this fair and lovely world of ours! Vice and wrong-doing of all kinds would speedily disappear. We might pull down our lunatie asylums, dismantle our prisons, and abolish our hospitals. We could dispense with our armies, and navies, and fortresses, and relegate to productive labour the millions of men whom we now train and support in comparative idleness as the instruments and implements of homicide upon a scale of gigantic magnitude. But do you imagine that this transformation will not take place! Let any man who has lived for fifty years upon the earth look back to the state of society all over the civilised globe in
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We are frequently asked what are the doctrines taught, and the duties inculcated, by "higher intelligences" who communicate with us. The following lecture, emanating from Them, supplies an answer:—
Upon a knowledge of God's commandments—which their Almighty Author has inscribed upon the book of nature and in our own consciences—depends man's happiness, both here and hereafter. For that knowledge precedes and presupposes obedience to them; inasmuch as, when it is perfectly understood how wise, how beautiful, how harmonious, and how beneficial they are, obedience will follow as a matter of course. Their harmony and adaptability to men's wants and to the circumstances of their daily lives, commend themselves to our finite minds with irresistible force. They are found to have been devised by infinite wisdom, guided by infinite love. They are the fruit or divine foresight operating in and for the benefit of mankind. To obey them is happiness; to disobey them is misery. Man, in his natural frame, is like an exquisitely constructed piece of machinery, and if this were superintended and controlled—as it was originally fashioned—by reason, it would go on working with the most efficacious results, until he attained the full term of four-score years. If, unhappily, it becomes deranged at a much earlier period, and falls to pieces far short of the natural span of human life, the creature is alone to blame. Sickness and vice are not inherent in our nature. They spring from ignorance and abuse. God has given to each of us a wonderfully compacted structure of blood, bone, flesh, muscle, and nerve. Properly handled, this admirable framework would become more and more enduring from generation to generation, because each would be an improvement upon its predecessor. Every one of us would enter on his new existence not merely with the mental attainments he brought with him from a former life, but also with a frame superior to that possessed by his predecessors. Thus, then, you will perceive that not merely does each one of us inflict a positive injury upon himself by his ignorance or his violation of natural laws, but that he transmits the consequences of his ignorance or of that violation to those who come after him.
Love of God begets knowledge. It is, we are told, "the beginning of wisdom;" and knowledge begets faith. Necessarily so, because it is impossible, to know God's laws without at the same time reposing the most illimitable trust in His wisdom, justice, and goodness. Ordinarily speaking, you will observe, the process is reversed. Men are taught to believe, or to repeat, certain abstract propositions and mysterious formulae—and this is expected to serve as the groundwork of knowledge. The foundations being laid in error, what can we expect from the superstructure? A faith in the Trinity, for example, conducts a man to certain impious conceptions of the Almighty Father. It induces him to derogate from the unique power of the great "I Am." The supreme authority is divided between three mystical persons, each of whom is supposed to be coequal with the other. By-and-bye this figment of the human brain is supplemented by the idea of a devil—a power antagonistic to, and in habitual rebellion against, the Most High, whose Omnipotence is thus actually impeached. For to imagine that any absolute monarch, even upon this earth, would tolerate the co-existence of an evil pretender to his throne, constantly engaged in seducing his subjects from their allegiance and in dragging them away to a loathsome dungeon—makes a greater demand upon human credulity than many of the most do-graded superstitions of the most benighted savages. Then, again, a physical devil necessitates the imagination of a physical hell—a place of un-speakable torment, into which are supposed to descend the souls of all those who have been al-lured from their lawful allegiance to the rightful and only true Sovereign of the Universe; and who are kept there, bound in everlasting chains, with no hope of ultimate release. And all this goes on, we are told, in defiance of the authority, and in despite of the beneficence, of the great Being whom our intellectual instincts assure us to be as Infinite in love, as he is Supreme in power. Surely a belief of this kind is only paganism rebaptised.
But ignorance and superstition do not stop here. They do not scruple to defame the character and to defile the name of the Most High, by attributing to him the meanest passions of his meanest creatures. They make him jealous, revengeful, capricious, bloodthirsty, delighting in sacrifices, presiding over battles, authorizing lust and rapine, and sanctioning and encouraging the mutual slaughter of the beings whom he has created. Can you imagine anything more awful, anything more impious, anything more irreligious, anything more blasphemous than this ascription of the base passions and sanguinary deeds of human beings to Him who sitteth in the heavens; and before whose power, purity, wisdom, and Almighty Love, man must stand in reverential awe and silent adoration: wondering and grateful for the divine gift of reason, whereby we have been enabled to apprehend and perceive, as through a glass darkly, these glorious attributes of our common Father.
Yes, Father! In that one word is summed up the beautiful relationship in which he stands to each of us. As a Father, he counsels, teaches, guides, and instructs us. As a Father, he conducts our steps through the infant stages of our multiform existence. As a Father, he feeds us with knowledge, imparting it in proportion to our growth and capacity, as well here, as heretofore, and hereafter. As a Father, he is with us always, and everywhere, tenderly considerate of our infirmities, long-suffering under circumstances of great provocation—as we should think them—and fulfilling towards us every duty that the most loving, the most benignant, and the most exemplary human parent could possibly discharge towards his offspring.
And does this imply no corresponding obligation, as of sonship, on our part? Setting aside the debt—the unspeakably heavy debt of gratitude we owe him "for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life," is it not incumbent upon us to make ourselves acquainted with his laws, and, having ascertained them, to ensue them with all diligence and zeal? Even upon that odious principle of selfishness, which some philosophers have made the basis—the hideous basis of all human actions, should we not feel impelled to make His commandments our study, and obedience to them our delight? For in that knowledge and in that obedience lies the root of earthly happiness. And do not let us entertain the erroneous conviction that happiness is something alien to human life. Granted that it is continually eluding men's grasp, what does that prove? That the mode of search—the method of the chase—is wholly erroneous. Doubtless humanity has its afflictions, but a knowledge of God's laws turns all calamities to blessings. Our friends undergo the change called death; but we know that the separation is only temporary, and that we shall rejoin and recognise them elsewhere. Fortune deserts him, but the wise man who has learned to love, and therefore to know and trust his heavenly Father, accepts all such reverses with a serene mind and a tranquil countenance, because he sees the light behind the cloud.
By the laws of nature, men commonly under-stand the operations of some dumb, monstrous power, directed by a blind intelligence towards an inevitable end with irresistible force. They altogether omit to see that they are simply the laws of God, and, as such, are governed by the perfection of wisdom for the most beneficent of purposes. Obedience to them, I repeat, is perfect happiness; violation of them produces disorder and misery. Their authority ought to be supreme, and conformity to them by no means excludes the exercise of man's free will. This is left intact. If its exercise coincides with the will of the Almighty, it is well for the creature. If it is repugnant to that will, it merely delays the fulfilment of the Divine purpose, but does not prevent its ultimate accomplishment. Thus, then, free will and necessity are not incompatible. It is only by taking a narrow and limited view of each, and by forming a confused notion of both, that men have entangled themselves in profitless discussions concerning the alleged conflict of freedom and predestination.
God's purpose, we may be certain, is un-changeable; but it is necessary for the growth and development of man that he should be accorded a large amount of liberty. This might appear at first sight to clash with the higher law and with the Supreme Will; but in reality it does nothing of the sort, and people will understand this more clearly when they comprehend how small is the proportion which the period of time embraced in what we call human life, or in one human life, bears to the sum of each existence, and how every man has repeated opportunities of retrieving those errors, by the commission of which, he has been enabled to delay, but not, in the end, to counteract, the supremely beneficent objects of Almighty Wisdom.
To understand natural law—or, in the language of Scripture, the commandments of God, there are three things which demand to be studied, and they are these:—to know what we are, where we are, and whether we are going.
As to the first: It is incumbent upon each of us to acquire an intimate acquaintance with our physical structure, with our mental organisation, and with our spiritual nature, so as to provide for the preservation and the healthy growth of all three. A knowledge of the laws of physiology would teach us how to preserve our bodies in such a condition as that they would be absolutely exempt from disease and suffering—both of which are unnatural and abnormal; and would also enable us to obtain the greatest amount of beneficial work out of our frames, and to keep them vigorous and active to the full term of human life, which even now falls far short of what it is capable of reaching under proper conditions of diet, clothing, exercise, and recreation. We should ascertain what food is suitable to us, in what quantities, and how it ought to be prepared. The avoidance of improper diet and drink would become intuitive, as it were, and we should religiously shun excesses of all kinds. The mere consciousness of existence, under such circumstances, would become at all times and in all conditions of life, an absolute blessing. We should find new and unnumbered sources of happiness and enjoyment opening to us; and the passions which now deprave and degrade humanity would die out for want of aliment. Our wearing apparel would be simple and suitable; not necessarily devoid of beauty and propriety, so as to deprive the eye of its legitimate gratification, but free from costliness and extravagance. Fashion would no longer be the grotesque and merciless tyrant it is, and so many thousands of lives which now perish by the needle just as effectually as if that household implement were a sharp sword or a poisoned arrow, would no longer be offered up on the altars of that hideous idol. Neither would some men pamper their appetites with all sorts of food, in all sorts of disguises, and with all sorts of stimulating and vitiating condiments, while so many of our fellow creatures perish of starvation, or slowly wither away, by reason of the insufficiency and the innutritious character of the food upon which they subsist. Most of the vices and crimes which now afflict society, and all insanity, would disappear; for to a perfectly healthy body, inhabited by a perfectly healthy mind, and animated by a progressive spirit, all these evils would be impossibilities.
Then, again, the understanding of what we are, would also involve the study of the human mind, and the comprehension of its laws, processes, and capabilities. Men would neither permit its powers to lie latent and undeveloped, on the one hand.; nor would they overtask them, on the other. There would be fewer prodigies of learning, no doubt, because scholars and students would be less disposed to bury themselves amidst the dust, the mould and mildew of the past. They would discover that to each generation is given its appropriate teachers, and that nine-tenths of the literature that is now extant, howsoever valuable at the time it was written, and howsoever useful to the people for whom it was written, possesses very little, if
In nature, you will observe, there is nothing retrospective or retrogressive. Everything aspires; everything advances. Progress and ascension are the universal law. The locust, when he casts his shell, does not sit poring over the case in which his limbs were previously enveloped; nor does the butterfly apply itself to a laborious investigation of its former stages of being. When these are done with, both these insects direct all their efforts to the new life upon which they have entered, to the utter neglect and oblivion of the past. And should not this be the case with us? Each of us—as Paul says—"dies daily,"—physically and mentally. The atoms of our body perish—or rather they enter into now forms of matter and new combinations with other substances external to ourselves. This frame of mine is not the frame I wore last year, or last month, or last week. And so with the mind. It is daily and hourly secreting new ideas—daily and hourly excreting such as, in its growth and experience, it has found reason to reject. There-fore, we should study to direct our thoughts to that which lies before us and beyond us—speaking, for the present, of this world only—and "let the dead past bury its dead." That has gone, and those who were responsible for what it was, and for what they made of it, have gone also.
If life were long enough, and if men had sufficient leisure to make themselves masters of the immense amount of so-called book-lore which exists in the world, its study might be tolerated perhaps; but have we not abundant employment for the most active and laborious minds in the study of natural science, in the investigation of the laws of health—of our own intellects, and of the questions which concern us in connexion with the other world, towards which we are all moving?
2. Where we are? With the external beauty of the earth, we are all more or less acquainted; but of its internal structure and utility how little do we know! And yet this knowledge is all-important to us. Without it, we are but as strangers and aliens on the globe we inhabit, for the time we are on it. Its framework should be as familiar to us as the framework of our own bodies. We should then understand that every-thing which we call a phenomenon is, in reality, the product of a law; and that, by knowing these laws, we should not only be enabled to derive the greatest amount of material good from the earth, but should escape the consequences of those calamities and disasters which take the form of shipwrecks, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons, avalanches, hurricanes, and so forth. These are not lawless explosions of what we call the forces of nature, but the inevitable results of the operation of certain laws, our ignorance of which exposes us to sufferings and misfortunes. The earth is a great laboratory, created and superintended by Infinite Wisdom, and in proportion as His creatures exercise the Divine gift of reason, which our beneficent Father has bestowed upon each of us, to cultivate and dovelope,—shall we understand the processes, objects, and results, of the work which is going on in that laboratory. For, although we are told that, on the Seventh Day, God rested from his labours, we may be perfectly certain that this was only spoken figuratively. The work of creation—or of evolution—is never suspended—never has been suspended; and, we may assume, with great humility—never will be suspended.
The activity of Almighty Power is incessant and inexhaustible—all-penetrating and all-pervading. It is manifest in the greatest as in the smallest things—in the upheaving of a continent, and in the construction of the minutest insect inhabiting a tiny drop of stagnant water.
In the study of nature, we should all find not only profit but delight. It would yield us the fruits of the earth necessary to our sustenance in greater abundance and variety than we now receive them, and with far less toil. But its chiefest service to us would be that it would elevate our minds ever nearer and nearer to the Great Architect of this amazing universe. We should comprehend, though with such limitations as are necessarily imposed by our finite intelligences, the wonderful love, the illimitable forethought, the magnificent design, the exquisite adaptation of means to ends, and the sublime goodness of our Almighty Father. We should perceive, moreover, that this globe is but the analogue of millions of other globes, many of them superior to our own, and peopled by a superior race of beings, and we should be qualified to understand that great principle of infinite variety of form in unity of type which seems to run through all Creation.
3. And this naturally conducts me to the third part of my subject—Whither we are going. Every man is conscious by the revelation within him—apart from other revelations of varying authority and authenticity, that he enfolds an immortal principle—a "Me," perfectly independent of, distinct from, and superior to, the physical structure he inhabits. But, practically, this consciousness is belied and suppressed by his material longings, feelings, and desires. He knows that he is immortal by an intellectual instinct—by a spiritual intuition. To deny it is almost to forego his title to be considered a rational being. An atheist is something abnormal in the human family—a lusus naturae, an object of wonder and commiseration, but not of condemnation, any more than we should condemn a two-headed calf. Our immortality rests on grounds more impregnable and indestructible than even the truths of science. It is testified to by an inner voice, speaking in accents no louder than a whisper, but with a power exceeding that of the deep-voiced thunder.
But if we ask what influence this conviction of our immortality exercises upon the daily lives of each of us, the answer is a painful and humiliating one. And why? Because intellectual assent does not ripen into living conduct. "The world is too much with us, late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our power."
All natural laws, then, are ordained by our Almighty Father for the preservation and progression of the creatures. We are called upon to investigate and learn them because the process is beneficial to us. He does not ask us for a blind obedience to them, but for one founded upon a rational apprehension of their beauty and utility. He does not say to us, "Do this, because it is my Supremo Will;" but "Do this, after having first ascertained, on your part, that the doing of it is essential to your health and happiness—to your welfare here, and to your eternal progress hereafter. My service should be one of love, enlightened by reason. Obedience is happiness, because My laws have all been framed in wisdom, working for wise and beneficent ends." And the more closely these laws are investigated, and the more completely they are understood, the greater is our admiration, and the profounder our adoration of their Creator. We are drawn towards the fountain and source of Infinite Love by love itself. We perceive that the whole created universe is pervaded, penetrated, sustained, and bound together by this great principle. Science reveals, and experience confirms, it. We look up to Him through His works and we exclaim—as he is represented to have declared of old—Behold they are very good." We discover the omnipresence and incessant activity of law—law in the construction of a solar system—law in the population of a drop of water with its myriads of animated beings. Nothing is too great for His Supreme Power to undertake and construct—nothing too minute for His paternal Providence to oversee, protect, and preserve.
We look within ourselves and we learn that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We! read in the brain of the infant, and in its successive stages of development, the early history of our race. We watch the changes which its skull undergoes, and we discover in them the cranial growth of the human head, ethnologically considered. The more closely we study the anatomy of our own bodies the more forcibly are we struck by the evidences they present of wonderful design, of an exquisite adaptation of means to ends, of amazing foresight and infinite knowledge. They inform us from what and whence we came, just as our minds—even more wonderful in their construction and operation—premonish us whither we are going. And in harmony with the complicated simplicity of our bodies—all referable to a few archetypes, and all agreeing in regard to general structure, functions, and purpose, is the complicated simplicity of life imposed upon us in order to keep both mind and body in perfect health and rational activity. By complicated simplicity must be understood that variety in unity which runs through all the works of nature. For example, our diet should be simple as well as sufficient; but this does not preclude the wise and temperate use of the infinite number of fruits and other natural products which have been furnished for our aliment and enjoyment by a bounteous Providence. So, too, with respect to the mind while its operations should be conducted in obedience to one uniform law, and therefore governed by simplicity and regularity, and coherency of procedure, the field of its activity is, humanly speaking, unlimited.
And so, also, in the multiform relations of man, living in society with his fellow men, the rule of conduct and the bond of union are both simple in the extreme. They are summed up in one golden sentence, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And in the fulfilment of this precept, we experience the beneficent working of a principle of enlightened selfishness. This will not be the motive, but it is nevertheless the result. What we do, we do for the benefit of our fellow creatures, but it is reflected upon ourselves. Every good deed is retroactive in its operation. Like mercy, it is twice blessed. It blesseth him who gives and him who receives. To make others happy, is to take the most effectual means of securing our own happiness; just as to promote or restore the healthful condition of any one member of our body, is to contribute to the healthful condition of the whole frame. For humanity, however, we may regard it, is not many, but one. Its principle is unity, its manifestation is variety. We each belong to it, and are each just as inseparably united with it, as is the hand with the arm, or the foot with the leg. By labouring for it, we labour for ourselves. We cannot advance its growth, promote its welfare, or strive for its elevation, without indirectly advancing our own. As is its condition in the bulk, such is it in the individual sample. It is not something which lies outside ourselves, which is foreign to our interests, sentiments, and feeling, but something with which we are absolutely incorporated. This is the truth, probably, which was discerned by the French philosopher who proposed to establish what he called a "religion of humanity." There is a religion of humanity, in the sense of a bind-
Thus, then, we arrive at this great principle, that all mankind are interdependent, and that no one can live by or for himself. He must rely on others for the satisfaction of most of his wants, and those others must in like manner be dependent upon him for services which they are in-capable of rendering to themselves. Ignorance of, or indifference to this fact is the cause of so many errors in public policy and private conduct,—of so many of the wars which desolate the world, and of so much of the misery and suffering which those wars entail. Once let us feel the solidarity of the human family, and that family will live as one household. We recognise the principle, you know, in the foundation and establishment of communities. The tribe is but an extension of the family, and the nation is but an expansion of the tribe. Why should not humanity, in like manner, become an extension of the fundamental principle of the household? What is more beautiful than domestic life when the members of a family are knit together by the ties of affection and esteem? What mutual respect and fondness are displayed, what delicate consideration, what a spirit of cheerful self-denial, what an anxiety to please, what a prompt putting forth of strength to succour weakness, and of compassion to alleviate suffering, and what a spirit of kindness and conciliation are manifested in the daily life and in the hourly relations of such a family! How strong it becomes in its union, how exemplary in its influence, how happy in its homely history! Do you suppose that what is practicable—what, in-deed, is so often visible—in the family circle, is incapable of being realised in the nation, and among the whole human race,—which is but a bundle of nations? What is to prevent it? What does actually prevent it? An absence of the principle of love to our neighbour, and the want of that knowledge of ourselves and of God's laws, which would spring from the development of that principle in each of us.
Take any one of the causes which separate nation from nation, whether fiscal policy or political ambition, the thirst for martial glory or the greed of territorial aggrandisement. Analyse it, and trace its operations. Does it not take its rise in ignorance or animalism? And is it ever productive of real happiness, or of lasting advantage to the nation Itself, or to the master minds by whom that nation is conducted into war or desolation. Need I point out to you the history of France from the rise of the first Napoleon to his death at St. Helena? What did France gain by that series of wonderful achievements on the field of battle from Austerlitz to Jena? Did she retain the territory she had conquered, or could she recover the blood and treasure which she had squandered in so many sanguinary engagements?
Compare the map of France in
Here was a magnificent animal!—but an animal only: a man who deliberately ignored God's presence in the world, who rebelled against his natural laws, and who shattered himself and his ambition to pieces, in the mad endeavour to resist or to set them aside. Contrast the life of this gigantic homicide with that of Oberlin, the simple-minded, truth-seeking and God-loving Swiss pastor, and tell me which you would rather have been—Napoleon the Great, or Oberlin the obscure?
Let us remember this, that whenever we seek to obtain happiness—or what we imagine to be such—at the expense of our fellow creatures, it not only eludes our grasp, but it proves to be a source of pain, dissatisfaction, discontent, and disappointment to us. But when we endeavour to arrive at the same end by doing good to others, we invariably find what we seek; and the greater the amount of good we do, the more abundant is the happiness reflected on ourselves. I suppose it has happened to most of us in the course of our lives, to have been moved by an impulse of benevolent enthusiasm, or touched by a pathetic tale of sorrow, and to have measured the relief we afforded rather by our estimate of the sufferer's great need than of our own capacity to alleviate it; so that the act of kindness has necessitated some exercise of self-denial known only to ourselves. Let me ask the most worldly-minded, if he ever experienced any sense of pleasure so exquisite as that which glowed within him when he reflected on what he had done, and when he recalled to mind the eyes of the afflicted glistening with tears of gratitude,
Now, imagine the feeling which promoted the benevolent action to be constantly influencing us in our daily lives, and what would be the result? An enormous and immediate diminution of the vast amount of suffering around us, and an equally immediate and enormous augmentation of the sum of human happiness. For this fulfilment of our duty to our religion would have the natural effect of awakening in him a sense of his duty towards us. Animated and fortified by our example, and moved by our unselfishness, the spendthrift, the drunkard, and the thief would begin to feel that they had no right by their in-temperance, their improvidence, and their spoliation, to wrong their fellow men. The improvident would exclaim, "How can I consent to place myself in the shameful position of leaving my children dependent on the bounty of others, when those others are so active and so disinterested in the discharge of every one of their obligations towards me, and so eager and liberal to alleviate any case of genuine misfortune?"
And thus with all forms of vice, ignorance, and crime, those who now give way to them would, if mankind acted up to the principles of human brotherhood, be driven, in very shame, to relinquish habits and practices which would then appear so hideous and degrading, by comparison with the pure, healthy, and beneficent lives of their fellow men. Nor would the depredations or depravities of what we call the dangerous classes derive that indirect sanction which they now obtain from the malpractices of the classes above them. We all know that, besides that form of intemperance, which finds its punishment at the police court, there are many varieties of it—far grosser in character, and far more pernicious in their consequences which meet with no punishment whatever; but which are actually—to some extent at least—honoured, imitated, and rewarded. Need I enumerate avarice, gluttony, the greed of personal, social, literary, or political distinction, the thirst of applause, the love of dress, and the cravings of sensuality. These are in full force around us, and those who practice the more vulgar vices, or the more vulgar forms of vice, feeling within them a rough instinct of justice, exclaim:—"Why should I be punished for getting intoxicated, or for picking a man's pocket, when the filthy sensualist, the fraudulent trader, and the man who robs hundreds of his fellow creatures by concocting a bubble company, and disseminating falsehoods, is not only not punished, but is honoured, and rewarded; perhaps, even, is selected to assist in making the very laws by which I am adjudged to be fined or imprisoned for the comparatively trivial offence I have committed?"
The principle of love to our neighbour, how-ever, cannot receive its perfect development, until we fully comprehend the unity of the whole human race, and understand that the "family of mankind" is something marc than a conventional expression; that it implies the closest relationship as well as that identity of interest which is felt among the members of the same household. Selfishness, in truth, is a huge mistake; and for this obvious reason, that it misses the very object at which it aims. No selfish man is, or ever was, or ever will be happy. You have only to look at his face to be assured of the fact And yet, what is the aim of all selfishness? Is it not to promote the happiness of the individual, no matter at what sacrifice to the happiness of those who surround him. Show me a man who is supremely selfish and supremely happy, and I will undertake to show you, in return, the philosopher's stone, or to present you with the elixir of life.
It is wisely ordained by our Almighty Father, that no one human being shall arrive at that which is the aim of all humanity, save by the simple, natural, unique, and eternal way of conferring happiness upon others. In proportion as this is done, in proportion as a man thinks, acts, and labours for his fellow creatures, will he secure that indestructible enjoyment and imperishable delight which are the secure possession and the appropriate reward of the truly benevolent. Nor does this, by any means, imply or necessitate the neglect of those efforts which are conducive to the well-being of his family and himself. This were to inculcate a wholly erroneous system of ethics. It is one of the conditions of humanity—its curse, according to Theologians, its blessing, according to ourselves—that a man should labour with his hands or with his head, for his own subsistence, and for that of those who are dependent upon him. But each of us can, and does, produce more than is necessary for this purpose, and it is this very overplus that should be devoted to the support of the incapable, and the relief of the afflicted. And, instead of hoarding up wealth with a view to exempt our children from the wholesome obligation and admirable discipline of labour, it would be far better for them, and far better for ourselves, if we were to dedicate these savings to ameliorate and equalize the lot of those around us. By doing so, we should very soon discover that instead of competitors and rivals, we should be surrounded with coadjutors and helpers—with eager assistants and spontaneous friends.
Instead of the spectacle which society presents at this moment—that of a herd of ravenous beasts, each striving to monopolise as largo a portion as possible of the common pasturage, each ready to fly at the other's throat the moment that pasturage is encroached upon, and each rejoicing when the weaker combatants are worsted in the conflict, and are compelled to slink away, wounded and disabled, into the jungle of wretchedness and misery—we should witness a spirit of genuine brotherhood arise. Men would be mutually helpful, mutually eager to help, mutually rejoicing in each other's welfare, and mutually participating in the prosperity of all Egotism would be merged in a far nobler sentiment, and the State, instead of being the personification of that odious principle, would become what it ought to become—a Commonwealth, towards which form of government and constitution of society so many vague aspira-
I think it must be sorrowfully admitted that the neighbourhood of man to man implies a re-lationship which is almost lost of sight in modern society, owing to the isolation in which each of us lives, and the strange seclusion in which we—the most gregarious of animals—voluntarily immure ourselves, each like a wild boast in his lair. In fact, the very precautions we take to secure that segregation, and to confirm what we believe to be our safety, are—when regarded from a philosophical point of view—ridiculous in the extreme. Look at our iron railings, our high walls, our doors and shutters, our safety locks, our bolts and bars, and all the ingenious arrangements by which we either sequester ourselves from, or guard ourselves against, the incursions of our fellow men. Do you find any-thing like it in nature except among the weakest and most defenceless of insects—as, for example, the trap-door spiders of South Australia? What a satire is it upon man—the lord of the creation—man gifted with mental power so much in excess of that of the lower animals—man capable of framing and obeying laws for his self-government in society, that he should be driven to have recourse to these devices in order that he may the more effectually sever himself from his fellow creatures, and protect from depredation the fruits of his industry, or—as not unfrequently happens—the proceeds of his wrong-doing! Is this the outcome of so many centuries of civilisation? Is this the proud achievement of humanity after occupying the earth for ages upon ages? Have we not yet reached such a social condition as that we can afford to dispense with precautions which are manifestly cased upon the assumption that every other man is an intruder or a marauder? Don't you think that barbarism—as we contemptuously term it—has the advantage of us in this respect? Must there not be something terribly unnatural and even rotten, in our so-called civilization, when so much of the structure of our daily life is based upon the supposition that the human family—or our own branch of it—is not a brotherhood, but an aggregation of thieves and suspicious persons; and that the secure enjoyment of life demands individual isolation, and compels a mutual denial of the principle that God made all mankind of one flesh? Custom, however, has so brazed our minds, and clouded our faculties that we fail to discern the shocking inconsistencies which present themselves between our principles and our practice. And yet there must be moments in the life of each of us, when the still small voice within admonishes us of the irrationality and of the un-naturalness of our social life; and when we feel perforce that if the question were addressed to us—"Who is thy neighbour?" we should be dumbfoundered by the startling interrogation, and humiliated by our inability to reply to it with satisfaction to our own consciences.
As God has loved us—we are told—so should we love one another. This is, of course, but a figurative expression; for His love to us is infinite and inexhaustible, whereas ours towards our fellow men is, of necessity, finite and limited. But the very knowledge of the immensity of the Divine Love to man—whereof the proofs lie all around us, in the whole scheme of creation and progression—ought to inspire us with the deepest and truest affection for our fellow creatures, made like ourselves in His spiritual image, destined to immortality, and capable of being advanced in their upward path, by the manifestation towards them of the love of their neighbours. For, in this principle of love lies the true germ of progress. Quicken it in the minds of those in whom it is dormant, and you become their benefactor. They instinctively turn towards the Father of Love, as the plant turns towards the light—as the infant bends its eyes in trust and tenderness upon its mother's face. From the love of God, once established as a vital and growing principle within us, springs the desire to know Him as reflected and revealed in His works objectively, and in ourselves subjectively. And the more intimately we become acquainted with both, the more patiently and profoundly we study the Almighty Mind in the infinitely great and in the infinitely little—in the life which swarms in a drop of water, and in the myriads of solar systems which are distributed through space—the nearer shall we be drawn towards Him, the more fervid will become our adoration, and the more immutable our faith in His supreme power, and in His unspeakable love. For, as I took occasion to remark previously, knowledge brings faith. To love God is to know Him, and to know Him is to repose unshaken and immovable trust in His benignant Providence, His unceasing care, His immeasurable kindness, His unbounded affection.
Knowing, therefore, what is His love to us—can we impose any limits upon our love to our fellow men? If we would endeavour to repay—for the endeavour is all that is possible to us—His love to man, in what way can we do so more effectually than by loving our neighbour even as He has loved us?
Reflect for a moment what a "Paradise Regained" this earth would become if we could eradicate from our nature the principle of selfishness which now reigns so universally. All injustice would cease as a matter of necessity. No man would inflict upon another the wrong which he would be unwilling that another should inflict upon himself. No man would be intemperate, violent, or slothful, because he would feel that the consequences of his misconduct would be partially visited upon others. No man gifted with a superabundance of mental power, or of material wealth, would withhold any portion of it from those who are "in need, sickness, or any other adversity;" and the number of the latter would be materially diminished, because each person would feel that the fulfilment of his duty to his neighbour involved the exercise of diligence and forethought, temperance and prudence, on his part: so that, while the principle of benevolence would sustain an immense expansion on the one hand, there would be a commensurate contraction of the sphere of its efforts on the other.
And are we to be told that such a state of society as is herein shadowed is visionary and Utopian? The men who reason thus virtually deny the divine element in the ethical teachings
All the day-dreams of the past—all the visions of man's perfectibility—dim suggestions as these were of higher possibilities within him—will be realised and fulfilled when the true principles of human brotherhood begin to be recognised and acted upon. Instead of being, as it is, a menagerie of wild beasts, in which we see the worst passions of our animal nature displaying themselves in greed, cunning, and ferocity, we shall witness a genuine sentiment of benevolence and philanthropy, taking possession of men's minds. It will spread outwards from those of a few to those of the multitude. For among the most ignorant and the most unimpressionable there is to be found a latent sense of goodness and justice, and a capacity for appreciating nobility and unselfishness of conduct. Show a disinterested action to the most selfish man, and convince him that it is without base alloy, and he will admire it in spite of himself. Multiply disinterestedness upon the earth, exhibit the spectacle of only a hundred men living disinterested lives and labouring for others, and, believe me, you will find thousands following their example. For there is this paradoxical characteristic about un-selfishness that it is the most selfish proceeding of which a man is capable. To put the paradox in other words, the greater the amount of happiness a man diffuses around him, the greater the store of happiness he garners up for himself both here and hereafter. And happiness is, avowedly, our "being's end and aim. We are always striving after and struggling towards it. The avaricious man, the sensualist, the student, the statesman, the merchant, the speculator, and the explorer—each is labouring for the acquisition of certain means, or of a certain position or reputation which he regards as indispensable to the attainment of a given end—that end being happiness. Let me ask you how many of these are successful in the achievement? They acquire, perhaps, what they have been accustomed to consider as the means, but the end is as just as far from them at the close of their career as at its commencement.
"Ah!" said a poor friend of the late Baron Rothschild, as he entered his office in Paris, and found him surrounded by the documentary symbols of wealth, "What a happy man you must be!" "Call me not happy," said the cynical Croesus, "until you see me throw all these bonds, debentures, scrip, and drafts into the river Seine."
"How I envy you!" said an American one day to the wealthiest man in New York. "Do you?" was the grim reply. "Would you undertake the management of my enormous and complicated business for no other remuneration than your food, clothing, lodging, and pocket-money?" "No." "That's all I derive from it," was the almost pathetic rejoinder of the opulent merchant.
All! But who can estimate what the losses—the mental and spirital losses—of such men as Rothschild have been? And then imagine the eagerness and rapidity with which their heirs may have watched their failing health and calculated upon their approaching death. Do you suppose that the last hours of a man's life are likely to be soothed and consoled by the knowledge that the very people who are gathered round his bed—with white handkerchiefs in their hands and a decent show of grief upon their hypocritical countenances—are mentally speculating upon the probable distribution of the dying man's wealth? Do you imagine that he himself, with every sordid instinct of his nature sharpened by incessant exercise through life, and with that clearness and penetration of vision which people acquire just before physical dissolution, does not clearly discern the wolfish craving of their selfish natures glaring through their ravenous eyes. What a valediction to earth! What a foretaste of the remorse and anguish of mind which msut precede the commencement of regeneration elsewhere—that is, supposing the immortal principle is not sent back to earth again to recommence another pilgrimage upon the globe!
Contrast the life and death of men who have lived for themselves with those of men who, feeling the brotherhood of humanity, and loving their fellow creatures because God first loved us, have devoted themselves to ameliorating the physical condition and elevating the mental character of their race. They may be poor, obscure, and insignificant. Their names may not be written on the scroll of secular fame. They may have been decried as fanatics or commiserated as madmen. They may have been familiar with sorrows like Christ, accustomed to hardships like Spinoza, and acquainted with persecution like Galileo; but we may be absolutely certain that, in life, they were accompanied by troops of angels; that they experienced the peace which passeth all understanding; and that when the change which we call death occurred, it was but an awakening into a state of existence such as human eyes have not seen, nor human ears heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the glory, the wonder, the rapture, and the unending and infinite progression thereof.
The resurrection of the Spirit from the grave of animalism, typified in the parable of Lazarus, contains one of those profound truths of which the uncorrupted portions of the Old and New Testament are full to overflowing. But men looking for signs, and wonders, and portents, and craving for miracles, as is natural to persons in a semi-savage condition, mistake the husk for the kernel, read parables as narratives of actual events, and thus lose themselves in a maze of doubt and mystery. Putting a natural interpretation on things figurative, they bring what they read, or what they imagine they read, into conflict with the laws of nature; and thus while, in one class of minds, a feeling of superstition is engendered, a sentiment of scepticism is begotten in another. For the so-called and self-entitled religious man makes it a merit to believe the improbable and the impossible credulity is the measure of his piety. With him, belief or faith is all in all; faith is something which never happened, faith is something which never can, and therefore never will, happen. And this revelation, misinterpreted and misunderstood, is brought into direct antagonism with reason and science. It is assumed that the operations of the unchangeable and unresting laws of God have been suspended at some time, and that the earth has actually paused in its rapid revolution on its own axis, in order to enable the commauder of a horde of barbarians to finish a sanguinary battle with the enemies of Israel. It is also assumed that the waters of the Red Sea suddenly divided for the purpose of enabling these same barbarians to escape from a land peopled by a superior race to which the fugitives had fulfilled the same functions as the coolies in India and elsewhere discharge towards their European employers.
What wonder, therefore, that devout minds studying our Heavenly Father in His works, and in the allwse laws of which those works are but the expression and the instrument, recoil from a belief in these things, and from the doctrines which are based upon it? What wonder that weak, perverse, conceited, and unreverential minds are driven into blank unbelief and to the utter negation of God in His glorious universe?
Before we condemn any such—and instead of condemning we should commiserate them—let us ask ourselves how far the so-called orthodox religionists are responsible for whatever atheism exists in professedly Christian communities.
Of the many doctrines which shock belief, and which have retarded or prevented man's resurrection on earth, that of original sin may be regarded as the most pernicious. Nakedly stated, it is this:—All mankind sprang—it is alleged—from one couple, originally inhabiting a beautiful garden. They were innocent, and they were simple. The freshness of the dewy morning was in their natures, as it was upon the face of Eden. There was only one restriction on their freedom. They must not eat of the fruit of a particular tree. As a matter of course, they surveyed this fruit with longing eyes. It was to them what the secret chamber was to Bluebeard's wife and her sister in that other Eastern apologue. One day a sort of rival to their Creator, of whoso previous existence these guileless babes had never heard, taking upon himself the form of a serpent, and employing all the beguiling eloquence of a damaged archangel, coaxed the woman into tasting the fruit. She found it very palatable, and persuaded her husband to eat it also. He did so, and then the Creator—a Being of Infinite Love, and Infinite Prescience—who had foreknown through all eternity what Adam and Eve would do, turned them out of Paradise in just such a passion as a human being might experience with a servant who had disobeyed him just such a passion, indeed, as is commonly attributed to the gods of the heathen mythology. By this incident, we are told, sin and death made their entry in to the world, and every child that is born into it bears the taint of Eve's wickedness. I am credibly informed that there are many Christian sects which believe—or very recently believed—that every child, dying unbaptised, is forthwith translated to a physical hell, where it undergoes endless tortures, such as the imagination cannot picture, nor the tongue describe. And all because of that unfortunate apple! It is almost impossible to write, or to speak seriously on such a subject. A belief like this transports us to the very infancy of the human race, when all men were only one remove from the lower animals, and when—as soon as the imaginative faculty began to stir within them—they conceived the most preposterous notions of the Diety, and regarded him as a magnified reflection of themselves.
But this doctrine of original sin has survived the childhood of the human race. It is vital yet. It is believed in by millions of beings who call themselves civilized, and repute themselves Christians. They are evidently reluctant or incapable of relinquishing it. They cannot find any other explanation of the animalism of man's nature.
The authors or compilers of the Mosaic books were probably ignorant that thousands of years before the age of the patriarchs, and even long before the time at which the wise Egyptians forced upon the servile Hebrews the sanitary laws embodied in the book of Deuteronomy, three great races of people had lived and flourished on the earth, had known, loved, and worshipped the one true God, and, having reached the highest stage of spiritual civilization, had passed away to continue their sage and beneficent existence elsewhere. The Jews knew nothing of the pure monotheism and exalted morality of the Ancients. In their pride and egotism they believed themselves to be the chosen people of God. They either knew not, or craftily suppressed the fact that there had been divinely given revelations in Asia and in Africa; and that, in the latter country more especially, long before the days of Moses, the purest morality was taught and practised. God was worshipped in simplicity and truth, a fatherly form of Government was established—the like of which has never been seen since—art flourished, and the sciences and inventions which we flatter ourselves as being the especial property of our own time were known to the whole population.
As the clouds of Man's ignorance are dissipated with respect to the origin and antiquity of the race to which he belongs, the doctrine of original sin is destined to be replaced by a juster perception of his being and his nature so that the will of our Heavenly Father may be fulfilled on earth as it is on high. For the same law-one and immutable-reigns there and here. It is universal Man cannot vary it—cannot, with safety, rebel against it. If he does so, he suffers. There is nothing in the world of matter or of mind that is exempt from its operation; and when we have ascertained how it acts in the former, we learn how it influences and controls the latter. We discover, also, that there is nothing absolutely evil; and that what we designate as such is more ignorance—is undeveloped nature—is good, in the process of being evolved. This enables us to explain all the moral problems which have been vexing mankind for ages. Men have been puzzled to understand why, in this beautiful world of ours, there should appear to be a power antagonistic to the love and goodness of the Most High, and—as it seemed to their unenlightened judgments—continually engaged in thwarting His most holy will, and in neutralising His benevolent designs. And thus it was, that the notion of a devil arose, and, in some form or other, entered into the religious systems of nearly every branch of the human family in its superstitious infancy. Thus it was that many of the grander phenomena of nature were supposed to be the work of malignant and supernatural beings—gnomes, giants, genii and demons.
Ignorance and superstition naturally governed the minds of semi-savage races of men and women but one remove from the brute, and endowed not with reason, but with just a higher form of instinct. For reason is by no means the gift or essential property of all mankind. It is, in reality, the attribute of a very small number—of those only whoso natures have been spiritually renewed. You may judge of the presence of reason in a human being by his language and actions. If these are guarded and governed by it, the presumption is that he is a rational animal. He leads a rational life. The world and the pleasures of sense are indifferent to him. He fulfils his duty to his family and to himself; but he regards the earth in no other light than as a place of temporary sojourn. He is conscious of the dual nature within him—the animal or bestial, and the spiritual. All his efforts are directed to slay and crucify the former; and to render himself more and more susceptible and receptive of the light and love which descend upon us from above. He is not necessarily an ascetic or a recluse. On the contrary, he practices self-denial without mortification or maceration. He does not sequester himself from his fellow men like the hermits and monks of old, because he knows that his place is among them. When he has provided for the satisfaction of his daily wants and for those of his family—these wants—reduced to their ultimate expression—being few and simple, he applies himself to the grateful task of assisting his fellow creatures. He feels his unity with them, and he recognises the obligation to work for them. And he does so, in a spirit of cheerfulness and with a loving zeal that add immensely to the value of the beneficent actions he performs. This, then, is the human animal upon whom has been bestowed the divine gift of reason.
No doubt, this doctrine of the comparative rarity of reason among ourselves—the higher animals—is calculated to shock and startle us. But have you ever investigated the springs of human conduct and asked yourselves—Was the motive power of this or that action instinct, or was it reason? If you will only do this, and do it without prepossession or prejudice, you will be amazed at the discovery of the enormous part which merely animal instinct plays in the affairs of human life. The fact is, we have been accustomed to accept, as an axiomatic truth, the mere presumption that a broad line of demarcation separates us from the lower animals. There is nothing of the sort. There are no abrupt transitions in nature. Every grade of being shades off into the next below it and the next above it by imperceptible degrees. You cannot tell where the one ends or the other begins, any more than you can define where one line of the rainbow terminates and where another commences. Many of the so-called lower animals are mentally superior to many human beings. There are dogs, horses, and elephants gifted with instincts and even with moral qualities which place them far above some of their masters. The instincts of the former are greatly superior to those of the latter. Which do you suppose is
Did you ever see a horse or a dog eat or drink to excess? Did you ever see any of the lower animals slaves to sensuality as so many thousands of human beings are? Can we call any man a rational creature who is the servant of vice, or any woman reasonable who is servile to fashion or folly? No. There is no denying the fact that reason is the gift of a comparatively small number of the human race. It is the precious possession of the spiritually minded. It is their passport to the higher life hereafter; because it is God's gift, and nothing can enter heaven but that which came from thence. To the animal, admission to the abodes of the blessed is absolutely interdicted, just as a fish is forbidden to live in our atmosphere, and just as it would be impossible for us, in our present forms, to breathe the rarer other which surrounds our globe.
It is important to bear these distinctions in mind, between man as a creature of instinct and man as ennobled by reason, because they throw a flood of light upon the origin of our race; and when this has been clearly ascertained and firmly and finally established, the entire fabric of superstition—founded on the basis of the doctrine of original sin—will crumble into dust, in such complete ruin that no amount of theological ingenuity will ever be able to set it up again.
Man was formed of the dust of the earth, we are told in that venerable collection of documents, which contain so many grand and inspired truths, intermingled with so much human error and perversion, and with so many parables and legends, which biblioters have mistaken for the narratives of actual occurrences. Man undoubtedly was made of the dust of the earth. His vital principle commenced its earthly journey in the most rudimentary forms of organic life; and thence, ever advancing and ever expanding, it continued its career through the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdom, until it is incarnated in the human form. And even here it is obedient to the same law of progression. It passes through the savage, the semi-savage, the semi-civilized and through many bodies, until it reaches such a stage of growth and development, that it becomes fitted to forsake an earthly tabernacle and to assume a spiritual form; and, in this glorified shape, is privileged to commence that progression through the realms above, which will be eternal in duration.
So man becomes a living soul:—Called out of the infinite past to put on an individual form, and to live thenceforward in the infinite future—a being recognisable by other beings—never, in all the changes of form, losing the unity and identity of essence—one in himself, and one also with God, so soon as he has undergone that spiritual regeneration, upon which theologians have bestowed the epithet of being "born again." In such a genealogy, there is much to humble man's pride—to abase it, indeed, to the very dust from which he sprang; but with such a future there is everything that should ennoble his aims, purify his life, exalt his actions, and inspire his hopes. And consider, for a moment, what a magnificent conception it gives us of Almighty Power and of Almighty Love. Contrast this account of man's origin with the poetical allegory contained in the earlier chapters of Genesis, and you will at once perceive how consonant the former is with men's highest reason—with God's boundless beneficence and how the latter resembles a fairy tale invented to satisfy the inquiries and beguile the attention of the Hebrews in the infancy of their civilization.
On the one hand we have the story—evidently borrowed from the older literature of India—of one pair of human beings planted in a beautiful garden, by a deity who came down to recreate himself like an ordinary mortal in the shady groves of that garden in the cool of the evening. His power was so feeble and his foresight so weak that he could not exclude from thence a rival deity of greater intellect and capacity than himself. So the latter came, saw, and overcame the simple earth-man and his credulous wife; and because these two yielded to a temptation, which they were obviously unfitted to resist, they were driven out of Eden into the bleak and dreary wilderness, which was cursed with sterility on their account: and thus, as I have said, sin and death are traditionally reported to have made their appearance in the world. Reflect upon this parable or allegory for a moment—divest it of the superstitious veneration which has grown up around it, and how will it present itself to your minds? As the childish fancy of man in the very infancy of his intellect—man incapable of conceiving of a Supremo Being as anything better than an exaggerated and distorted reflection of himself—capricious, irritable, jealous, and vindictive.
Now, look at the other version of man's origin—that which represents him as susceptible of infinite progression—that which reveals him to us as an eternal principle, emanating from God in the first instance, undergoing infinite changes of form, and yet immutable in essence, each change being an improvement and an advance upon its predecessor, and each conducting him by slow and gradual stages to a higher life, endowed with larger powers and finer faculties, until—eventually divorced from matter and from all forms of planetary life—that immortal principle, clothed in a spiritual body, forsakes this "dim diurnal sphere," and commences its magnetic and ascending march through eternity, accompanied by those it has known and truly loved on earth.
In such a scheme of creation and evolution, there is no room for that monstrous invention of the theologians called "original sin." It could find no place in it. Would they blaspheme the Almighty by imputing to Him that He, the
If mankind would only study the laws of their being; would only perceive how gracious our loving Maker is to each of us how large is the liberty he accords us, how repeated the opportunities he affords us of "rising on the stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things," it would completely change the whole tenor of human conduct—the whole course of human affairs. Consider how exquisite the tenderness displayed by our Infinite Father in drawing the veil of oblivion over the previous existences of each of us. Now and then we catch dim glimpses of them. We visit strange places which are curiously familiar to us; we hear voices and melodies in which there are tones that vibrate mysteriously in our memories; and we have a vague consciousness—and oftentimes a startling conviction—of repeating actions and words performed or spoken in some far off and incomprehensible epoch. But beyond this, all is cloud and thick darkness. And mercifully so. Otherwise, what remorse, what regrets, what repinings would overwhelm each of us! The mendicant who may have been a monarch in his former incarnation would experience a feeling of inconsolable wretchedness in contrasting his bygone state and splendour with his present abasement and misery. The poor household drudge who may have been, in her former state, a reigning beauty, the petted and pampered idol of a court or capitol, would be tempted to escape from her degradation by suicide, unknowing that her new life was necessary for her probation and spiritual advancement, and that, out of its trials and hardships would grow that humility and resignation, that sympathy for others and forget fulness of herself, which may qualify her, when she has again undergone the change called death, to put on the garments of immortality in a world where sorrow and sighing shall pass away, and tears shall be wiped from all eyes.
These doctrines are not new to mankind. They have been known to numbers in all ages. They have been familiar to three, at least, of the most advanced races that ever lived; and if you study the Old Testament by the light which they will flash upon its pages, you will be amazed at the enigmas which will be solved, and at the mysteries which will be cleared up; for, as it is written in the Book of Ecclesiastes, "men and beasts have all one spirit, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast," until the latter is crucified within him, and there has been a resurrection of the spirit out of the grave of animalism.
If you will investigate the majestic scheme of God's Providence with the aid of this simple and sufficient clue, you will discover in it a harmony, a grandeur, a beauty, an absolute justice and a faultless perfection, which have not otherwise manifested themselves so vividly and completely. But people shrink from whatsoever tends to undermine and destroy their venerable and dearly cherished superstitions. They refuse to put away childish things. They cling to the doctrine of Original Sin, as if it were something precious, something holy, something unspeakably comforting. You know that a great theologian has said that there are infants in hell a span long. These blameless little creatures owe their endless torments to original sin. They experience the fire which is never quenched, and the worm which never dieth, because a fabulous woman, in a fabulous garden, at the instigation of a fabulous serpent, ate a fabulous apple, tens of thousands of years subsequent to the appearance of humanity upon the earth.
And there are theologians in our own day—let it be mentioned with sincere sorrow—who affect to fear the overthrow of Christianity if the doctrine of Original Sin be eliminated from the popular belief. As if anything in the world, or out of the world, were capable of overthrowing what is essential and vital in Christianity; as if the two great commandments—upon which hang all the law and prophets, were not indestructible, were not divinely inspired—were not known and practiced thousands of years before the Christian era, and will not be known and practiced by all the children of God upon this earth, so long as the world endures.
Ah! men and brethren, when we look around us and sec what are the predominating superstitions and what is the prevailing darkness, it is almost enough to make us feel and believe, either that mankind is in its infancy still, or has passed into mental decrepitude and second childhood. If we would only turn from human theologies and priestly inventions, to the book of revelations ever open before us in the works of nature, and to that other book of revelation which the Almighty has bestowed upon us in our own minds, we should see how completely belied all theologies and invented dogmas are by God's works. We should read in the latter—stamped in broad, legible, and ineffaceable characters—that he is a God of love; that there is no place for such a thing as original sin in the whole universe; that it is repugnant to His nature, and irreconcilable with His supreme wisdom and unerring justice; that it is an evil imagination of human ignorance, like a physical devil and a physical hell, and that the time will come
Out of darkness, however, cometh light. From the shadows of the past emerges the luminous star which will guide us through the future. We cast off what is old, and put on that which is new. Man, rising higher and higher in the scale of animated beings, even upon earth, as he will continue to do in the world to come, ascends above the mists and fogs of superstition in which he was enveloped while he was a dweller in the vallies; and—breathing the rarer and purer air of the mountain tops—his clearer vision qualifies him to perceive the darkness which he has left behind him, and to discern the brightness which lies before him. Although related to the worm, he feels that he is also kindred with the angels. Although, as a lower animal, his perceptions and conceptions may have been hitherto congenial with that condition, he relinquishes them as he advances. He comprehends God, by means of his expanding intelligence, and the greater the growth of that intelligence, the more exalted is the notion he forms of the attributes of the Infinite Mind. It must be so; because he draws nearer to the fountain of all intelligence—to the source of all knowledge—to the author of all wisdom, supreme, beneficent, and all-loving. And this nobler and truer apprehension of the nature of our Almighty Father entirely banishes the venerable and child-like superstitions that God has created sin or sinners, that he is capable of being propitiated by sacrifices or burnt-offerings, that he is liable to the infirmities of a human parent, and that He sanctioned and permitted the decent upon earth of an only Son—co-equal in all respects with himself, as the theologians say—but superior to the Father in affection and commiseration—to suffer an ignominious death upon the Cross as an atonement for the sins of an insignificant fragment of the human race: those sins deriving their origin, as has been said, from the simple fault of an unsuspicious woman tempted by one of the grandest of the archangels—that archangel having been expelled from Heaven, which is love itself—for rebellion against the Omnipotent.
Are not these inventions of men—men living in the dark ages—men seeing in the Supreme Being only a distorted and magnified reflection of their own feeble, variable, and ignorant natures—shocking and repulsive in the extreme? They will not abide the test of reason. We have only to reflect upon them to perceive how grossly they dishonour and defame the Most High. Mankind may well have gone astray under such delusive teaching as this. People might well take refuge in barren atheism as an escape from such a frightful creed as this. Christendom may well be divided into innumerable sects, each quarrelling with, hating, and persecuting the other, when such fictions are presented to it as truths. The human mind recoils appalled from the picture of the Almighty which has been pourtrayed for its admiration—say, rather, for its terror, by theologians. He is not presented as a Got! of love—not even as an affectionate Father in the human sense of the term. No; he is shown to us as actually incapable of foresight, and restricted in power—full of childish caprice, rancorous vindictiveness, and cruel animosity towards the beings he has created. He is described as imposing conditions upon the first man and woman which experience demonstrated it was impossible to obey, and then—after the lapse of a few centuries—as having destroyed the whole of mankind—one family alone excepted, by an universal flood. Then, when that family had multiplied, and it had branched off into many nations, God is represented as sanctioning and directing exterminating wars between the descendants of Noah; and as petting and fostering one branch of the family, and dealing ruthlessly with the rest. Finally, we are told that He sent down His only Son to redeem these pampered Hebrews, by whom, however, that Son—in spite of his immortal and imperishable Godhead—is put to death like a common malefactor, and is rejected, scorned, despised, denied, and derided by the very people he came to save.
Think upon these things. Ponder well upon the merely human and thoroughly debasing image, in which they present the Supremo Ruler of the universe, and then tell me who are the sceptics and the infidels, those who assert that this monstrous conception of the human mind in its infancy and barbarism, is really and truly God, or those who, winnowing away the human error from the grains of divine truth and inspiration, which are to be found in the writings of the Old and New Testaments recognize, worship, love, and adore the one God—the Infinite Mind—a Being of boundless power, boundless wisdom, and boundless affection, whose all-seeing and all-embracing Providence includes everything, every atom of matter, every created being within its stupendous grasp, who was, and is, and is to be—who, from all Eternity, has been the same benignant, beneficent, and blessed God, whom to know, though in ever so faint a degree, and with ever such finite limitations, is happiness—who to love, is one of the laws of our nature—whom to approach, is the impulse and the motive power of all progression, and towards whom to aspire is our highest privilege, our noblest duty, our most exquisite delight, our endless employment, and our supreme reward.
I will now pass on to speak of that resurrection from the body which is possible to many of us, even while we continue to be dwellers on the earth. For the spark of divinity within us, the eternal principle which, in the hereafter, will become the Me to each living being, lies buried in the grave of animalism, and must ascend from thence before we ourselves can rise. "Flesh and blood," we are told, "cannot inherit the kingdom Heaven." The animal cannot enter there; and by the animal is meant not merely what is coarse and sensual, but what we often suppose to be pure and uncensurable, the animal is a very Proteus in form. His varieties
Or, perhaps, I am a just and upright man, rigorously correct in my daily conduct, and severe upon the moral aberrations, and the mental weaknesses of my fellow men. Unconsciously to myself, I am a vainglorious Pharisee. It is my pride and ambition to stand well in the estimation of the world, to be pointed at as a good citizen, a model member of society, an exemplary man. Am I therefore exempt from the dominion of animalism? In no wise.
Or, perchance, I have the ambition to shine in the world of letters, to see my name on the title page of books, to hear it mentioned with approbation by readers and reviewers; and, dying so, to leave an enduring reputation behind me? Is not this also animalism? Undoubtedly. There is no limit to the variety of forms under which it presents itself, no possibility of determining under what aspect it may not beguile and betray us.
This is that "body of"—so-called—"sin," from which the apostle prayed to be delivered; and the resurrection from which ought to be the object of our earnest supplications, as well as of our incessant efforts. Nor let it be concluded that our advancing civilization—or that rotten thing which we ennoble by that name—is favourable to such a resurrection. On the contrary, it heaps up mounds—nay, mountains—over the crave in which the spiritual principle lies buried. None of the earlier civilizations—I refer to those which existed before our globe assumed its present aspect—were at all comparable with our modern civilization in its baseness, its dangers, and degradations. On the contrary, they were essentially spiritual civilizations, and the races which flourished under them were correspondingly superior to our own.
A spiritual civilization is something, indeed, almost inconceivable in these times when our mental perceptions and intellectual judgments have been clouded and perverted, warped and distorted, by centuries of error, ignorance, and materialism. We find it hard to imagine a state of society in which the acquisition of wealth would have been regarded as an evil or as a proof of insanity—in which there were no class distinctions—in which the soil of the country was held in common—in which art was consecrated to the decoration of cities and the enjoyment of the whole people—in which men, after providing by moderate toil for the satisfaction of their daily wants, concentrated their energies upon the acquisition of a true knowledge—a knowledge of themselves and of God their Father, and upon the development of the spiritual element in their natures. We find it difficult to conceive of a whole nation living as one family, under the rule of an entirely fatherly governor or chief; and with no statute books, or judges, or juries, or lawyers, or policemen, but obedient only to the law of love. And yet thrice within the history of man—thrice during a period of 27 or 28,000 years—has this Utopia been realised. But among these peoples—before they were gathered in and taken from the earth—there had been a general resurrection of the spiritual man out of the animal man; and to this resurrection are we, in like manner, graciously united by our Heavenly Father.
Coming from the animal we bring with us, compacted in our earthly frame, the passions and desires of that animal. But the spark of divinity within us, implanted there at the very dawn of our existence, grows and expands, and must eventually burn and destroy all that is earthly—all that is bestial in our nature. Yet the conflict is a strenuous and protracted one between the two principles—the divine and the animal. That which is material, being also visible and tangible to us, is very precious in our eyes. That which is immaterial and immortal, being invisible, intangible, and imponderable, is in many instances almost, if not altogether, disbelieved in. We worship ourselves when we ought to worship the Creator and Father of us all. We seek our own honour and glory when we should seek to honour and glorify Him, by living in obedience to His holy laws, by aspiring towards His excellence, and by directing all our thoughts to the cultivation and development of the eternal principle within us.
Take the life of the very best of us, and analyse it by the light of divinely illuminated reason, and what is it? How is it spent? This stage in our existence—"this bank and shoal of time"—is a mere point—a scarcely perceptible and vanishing point in the endless record of our eternal duration; but how is it consumed? Study each man's employment of this brief parenthesis called Time, and can anything be more irrational—might we not venture to say insane—than his occupation of his waking hours? Do we not live as if we emerged from nothing when we entered upon life, and as if we should finally cease to be when our bodies go down into the dust? All our concern is to gather riches, or to acquire position, or to achieve renown, or to indulge and pamper our animal appetites. Everything is done for, by, and through the body, or the animalised brain. There is apparently no vital conviction of the higher nature within or of the higher life beyond us. Life is
Compare the commonly received ideal of human life with the higher ideal set before us by the inspired men of old, and observe how utterly dissimilar the two are. By the latter we find it declared that the body is a mere gross, bulky encumbrance of the spirit, requiring nothing more at our hands than to be maintained in health by a pure and simple diet, by cleanliness, by sufficient and unpretending clothing, and by moderate exercise and necessary labour. We are assured that it is perishable, and we know that so long as we inhabit it our spiritual being cannot ascend to the abode for which it has, or ought to have been preparing itself on earth, and towards which its purest aspirations should be directed. We are admonished that a like perishableness is the attribute of everything we touch and taste, see and smell. Decay is written upon all around us. Change is the law of matter. All that men labour for—all that they wear out their strength in procuring—all that they rack their faculties and ruin their health of mind and body in accomplishing, perishes. Fame is evanescent. Power falls from the grasp of the mightiest; wealth disappears; social position is transitory. Spiritualised mind alone is immortal. Poets and philosophers, sages and statesmen have moralised for centuries on the instability of human grandeur, human opulence, and human reputation. The proofs of that instability meet us at every stop—confront us every hour of our lives—startle us at every death or disaster that comes within the range of our personal experience. And thus the lessons of life serve to reinforce the maxims of wisdom. Observation confirms the theorems of philosophy. Therefore we are convinced, or ought to be so, that the higher, the spiritual ideal of human life is the only true one; but do we carry the conviction into operation? We have only to look around us, and to watch each man's conduct, not forgetting our own, in order to receive an emphatic assurance that the opposite—the animal—theory of existence is a degrading, a mistaken, and a disappointing one. Must we not pray, and ought we not to strive in the strength which will be given to us from above, if we only ask for it, for the resurrection of the spirit out of the grave of animalism?
And of this animalism, as has been said, there are as many forms as there are varieties of animal life; and it is almost needful that we should be conversant with these, in order to comprehend and to be upon our guard against those; for, as the immortal principle within us has passed through so many husks or shells of matter, ever enlarging, expanding, and growing more refined in its progress, and as the human frame is the final dwelling plaice of the soul or spirit upon earth, there reside within it passions and feelings derivative from inferior and precedent bodies, and powerful in proportion to the greater power and higher development of the human body. If you look around you, you will perceive, stamped upon the face of every human being, the visible signs and tokens of his animal ancestry. They are, of course, grosser, more obvious, and more legible, in proportion to the nearness of the human being to the bird, beast, or fish through which his eternal principle has passed in its perpetual ascension. You meet with the lineaments of the wolf, the cat, the dog, the tiger, the placid ox, the ponderous elephant, the soft-eyed deer, and the fascinating snake, in the countenances of the men and women you encounter in your daily intercourse with your fellow creatures. Even their figures and their gait betray their origin. There is a suppleness and vivacity in some, a slowness and heaviness in others—a nervous mobility here, and a disposition to inactivity and sloth there—which are distinctively indicative of origin. So, too, with the amazing varieties of walk, and the equally wonderful diversities of voice, among human beings. No two are alike, and each bears the indelible impress of its animal ancestry. As we get farther and farther, by successive incarnations, from our bestial fore-runner's, these characteristics are softened down. The animal becomes finer and finer; but we can never wholly obliterate the heraldry of our family.
I know not whether, in those barbaric devices of the old fighting times, when men crested their helmets with the carved head of some animal, there may not have been an instinctive recognition of the relationship between the head beneath and the head above the visor; but certain it is, that among the purely savage tribes in many parts of the earth, there prevails a worship of certain Of the lower animals, founded upon an acknowledged sense of some mysterious kinship between the worshipping savage and the "totem" he adores.
And if each of us preserves ineffaceably in our material forms some of the physical character-istics of the animals through which we have ascended in the scale of creation, is it not reasonable to conclude—is it not a fact demonstrable by observation and experience-that we bring with us into the human life the instincts and propensities of our former states of existence? Study the character, and what is called the natural bias, of each individual, and if you possess sufficient powers of discernment and discrimination to determine the nature of the animal through which his spirit passed, immediately before he began—as a brutish earth-man—to climb the ladder of humanity, you will be startled by the correspondency which presents itself between his merely animal propensities and instincts, and those of his remote ancestor. These may be modified by civilization, but they are fundamentally identical. The ravenous ani-
So, too, with many of the occupations of life—some of them so repulsive that we cannot imagine any persons deliberately adopting them? Are not these defined for them by antecedent habits and tendencies—the mole to the mine, and the sea-bird to the career of a sailor? May not the scavenger birds of eastern cities, after the vital principle which animated them has passed into a human frame, still fulfil the same Useful purposes to mankind, in their more advanced stages of existence, which they discharged formerly? Are we not all familiar with jewelled peacocks exhibiting their iridescent necks to admiring or to envious beholders, on civic footpaths or in public gardens? have we not seen self-adoring lyre birds, in ballrooms and elsewhere, dancing round in deep admiration of their voluminous tails or skirts? Are we not all acquainted with parrots and magpies, ever repeating the same commonplaces, the same un-meaning and—lifeless formulae in pulpits and on platforms? And are there not, on the other and, admirable descendants—or to speak more correctly—ascendants from the patient sheep, the faithful dog, the docile and magnanimous elephant, and the noble and serviceable horse?
Read human nature by the light which is shed upon it from a knowledge of our origin, and you will find all mysteries made plain, all doubts and difficulties swept away; ana all darkness dissipated. Nor is it necessary that we should be versed in the intricacies of science for this purpose. Upon the whole, it may be doubted whether literature and science, unless inspirationally given—as to the Newtons, the Keplers, the Bacons, and Shakespeares of mankind-have not been a greater restraint upon the real intellectual progress and spiritual advancement of the human race, than a help to it; for the simple reason that books prevent and repress original thought in each of us. God has bestowed upon every human being a mind capable of arriving at all earthly knowledge by its own independent processes, if the possessor will only ask for light from above to quicken and expand its latent capacities. Of course the quality of that mind will be largely affected by the progress which the individual has made in the scale of being, but the germs of intellectual development are to be found in every human brain; and it is a notable fact in the history of our race, that the greatest and most beneficent inventions in this—the fourth of the seven epochs of humanity—have been communicated to us through men of a reflective turn of mind—men who thought their own thoughts, instead of copying or appropriating those of other people.
Common to all men as is the change called death, the resurrection in this life is unhappily restricted to a few, though possible to many. It ought to be one of the grandest objects of human aspiration, nevertheless it is one that is almost universally neglected. We live for the body—for the animal within us—and we suffer the eternal principle—the God-like emanation from above—the over-living spirit—the light that should burn so brightly, that should be as a pillar of fire guiding us through the human wilderness, to flicker faintly and almost to die down in the pestilential atmosphere which gathers round it in our progress through the world. Here "we have no abiding place;" yet we think and speak and act as if this were indeed the tabernacle of our everlasting rest. What is perishable we cherish, adorn, and love. What is imperishable we starve, neglect, and endeavour to destroy. The animal is all in all. The spiritual is nothing in our estimation. The former undergoes a sort of earthly apotheosis; while the latter is deposed, despised, and misused. A man has only to retire within himself and reflect—has only to sequester himself for a few days from his fellow creatures, and live among God's works in nature—has only to listen to their teachings, to study the wisdom, the harmony, and the beauty of the laws which govern their existence and development, in order to be conscious of the miserable mistake we all make in continuing to be in the grave of animalism, when we ought to pray to our Heavenly Father to instruct His holy angels to roll away the stone from the sepulchre, and thus permit the enfranchisement of our immortal spirit.
If the pampering of our animalism were conducive to our happiness in this life, there would be something intelligible in our servile devotion to all the lower instincts of our nature. But let any man who has been signally successful in the attainment of the objects upon which he has most set his heart—be they wealth, titular rank, social distinction, military, naval, literary, or scientific fame—the adulation of the classes beneath him or the envy of those around him—place himself in the confessional before God, and then answer truly to the question, Are you happy? And what would be his response? Can anyone walk through the streets of a populous city, like London or Paris, without being painfully struck by the care-worn, languid, haggard, and even animal expression of the countenances he meets with. Now and then he sees a bright and happy face—but it is that of a child or of a young girl, not yet subjected to the tyranny of fashion and convention. Otherwise all is dark, if not repulsive. Where is "the mind, the music breathing from the face?" Where the heavenly light that should play upon the human countenance divine? Nearly every face you see bears the impress of anxiety and care, passion or pain. Upon each is written a history—generally sad,
Only imagine a herd of swine in some old English forest, confabulating in this way:—"I have accumulated," exclaims an astute boar, "a bushel of acorns, and I expect to monopolise ten bushels by the time my turn comes to be converted into brawn. These acorns I shall bequeath to my piglings, with strict injunctions to add to the store, so that I may found a distinguished family of hogs, and be pointed at, for many generations to come, as the rich pig progenitor of a long line of obese and affluent swine."
Very absurd, doubtless, but not a whit more so than the conduct of us human beings, who waste the best years of our life in the endeavour to accumulate what is our equivalent to acorns; and who appear to imagine that it is our duty to exempt our children from the wise and beautiful necessity of labouring for their own subsistence. The lower animals—as we superciliously call them are wiser than we are. They have an instinctive trust in God's providence. As a general rule—with a few such well-known exceptions as the ant, the bee, and the squirrel—they take no heed of the morrow. They are simply submissive to natural laws, and are perfectly happy, in consequence. They know, by a species of intuition, that as the sun rose this morning and the green leaf and tender blade of grass continued their growth, and the dew fell, and the blessed sunshine descended upon them, and all the sweet and gracious influences of nature combined to make the earth fruitful and to replenish in the living hour whatsoever supplies of food were consumed on the previous day, so, on the morrow, the same all-seeing, all-providing, all-loving God and Father of us all, will care for their wants and for those of their young. Man is literally and absolutely the only animal on the face of this beautiful earth which practically denies and ignores the existence and activity of a paternal Providence. He acts as if there were no such thing in the world, and he obstinately refuses to be enlightened by experience. He is perpetually being admonished that this over-ruling Providence is all-powerful and all-pervading; he sees—daily and hourly—the dissipation of wealth hoarded up by men who fondly believed it would endure for ever—the passage into oblivion of names and reputations which, it was conjeetured, would be immortal on the earth—and the futility and worthlessness of all kinds of human schemes of ambition and aggrandizement; nevertheless he blindly and foolishly perseveres in fighting against reason, against revelation, and against God; and, as a matter of course, he is ultimately worsted and destroyed in the insane and disastrous conflict.
There is a darkness greater than that which we associate with the change called death—a darkness enshrouding all our faculties in a thick pall—a darkness so deep and dense as to appear almost impenetrable. And as it is internally—as the spirit—the immortal principle—the emanation from the Infinite Mind—which is within us, is enfolded by this thick gloom of selfishness and worldliness, so it is with our external aspects. Wherefore should there be such a difference between the divine expression which inspired painters, like Fra Angelico da Piesole, and Michael Angelo, and Raffaelle have stamped upon the virgins, saints, and angels yet living upon and almost breathing from their canvasses, and the haggard, care-worn, dark and grovelling countenances which surround us in the world? Do you not suppose that to all of us—angels in embryo—beings linked with a chain of intelligences stretching up to God himself, would be vouchsafed some of the brightness of the other world, if we habitually set our faces towards it? The light which "was never yet on tree or flower"—would irradiate us—would shine upon us with a softened but growing lustre if, instead of bending our gaze so persistently downward upon the earth and its perishing things, we would lift it up to the source of all light, the fountain of all glory, the inexhaustible reservoir of all splendour. But, in order to do so, there must be a spiritual resurrection within us. We must come forth, like Lazarus, out of the grave of animalism, and leave behind us the cere-clothes of natural interests and the decomposition which springs from our devotion to, and absorption by, what is of the earth earthy, transitory, and perishable.
That immortal principle, that spark of the divinity, I have spoken of, resembles the seed of a flower; and as is the husk of that seed—the rough envelope which encloses it—so are our bodily wants and animal passions. For a time they overlay and conceal the beautiful germ. For a time it is—as it were—buried in the earth. But after a time, under the benignant influences of the sunshine and the dews, and in virtue of that wonderful power of growth and evolution which resides in it, the seed puts forth a tender shoot above the ground and sends down delicate little rootlets below it, and the shoot expands and aspires. It looks up in love and gratitude to the beneficent sun, welcomes the bland breezes and the soft showers of heaven, and so grows from day to day and from hour to hour—ever manifesting new beauties, ever enlarging in bulk, and ever exhibiting such a matchless perfection of form, and such an exquisite wisdom of purpose, that it is almost impossible to study it without exclaiming, Behold a miracle! And yet, as we know, it is no miracle. It is merely the product of an eternal and immutable law prescribed by Infinite Wisdom and Foresight.
And as is the tiny seed buried in the earth, such is the spirit within us. It is capable of receiving its resurrection here. It awaits its emancipation upon earth. It requires to be freed from the trammels of animal passion. The body is as necessary to it here, as the rootlets are necessary to the flower, but they should be kept in strict subordination to it. We should not reverse the beautiful processes of nature. We should not bestow all our attention on the roots and deliberately depress and destroy the beautiful blossom, the bright consummate flower. Yet this is precisely what we do. All
For, looking beyond it, what awaits us? Penetrating the thin veil which separates the spiritual from the material, what do we see with the purified vision of faith and love! An endless ascension from sphere to sphere—a perpetual growth in knowledge and affection—a constant acquisition of new faculties—a boundless expansion of the horizon of observation and perception—a glorious and inspiring intercourse with the prophets and seers, the sages and philosophers, the poets and artists of all antiquity—the power to survey the entire field of mundane history from the moment when God, by a divine afflatus, created this little globe of ours, until the hour at which we were permitted to take our departure from it. And through the ages yet to come—which will be to us like those which have rolled away—a perpetual Now, we shall watch with the deepest interest and the tenderest solicitude, the progress of our race upon the earth. We shall be permitted, indeed, to instruct, to comfort, to counsel, and to guide them; and we shall be enabled to comprehend—though still in a finite degree—the eternal truth that God is love, and that as He is a Spirit, so he must be worshipped in spirit and in truth, world without end,
Printed at the "Daily Times" Office, Princes Street, Dunedin.
Before entering on the special subject of my lecture, I beg to make one or two explanations of a personal nature. It may be asked: Why come forward now to lecture, after remaining silent so long, when a public challenge was given to discuss the subject publicly? In answer, I have to state that, while admitting public discussion may, under certain circumstances, be valuable, it is in most cases eminently unsatisfactory. The course of argument and illustration is abruptly interrupted, and the attention of the audience is apt to be distracted from the main points by lively repartee, and jokes and witticisms. Such sallies often carry more weight with a mixed popular audience than solid reasoning, and there is a strong temptation presented to the disputants to frame their speeches so as to gain the applause of the audience at the moment rather than to inform and convince their understanding. Before a select audience, trained to weigh the force of logical arguments, this would not be the case, but such would scarcely be looked for in a popular audience that might assemble to hear a debate on this subject. Moreover, I frankly confess that I expected the general interest in Spiritualism, which appeared eight or ten months ago, and which seemed to have nearly passed away, would not now be revived, at least beyond the natural curiosity to see and hear any new comers of great pretensions, particularly when nothing new was advanced in support of Spiritualism or the doctrines which are usually associated with it. I have been given to understand, however, that a number of individuals in this city have recently been led to attach great importance to Spiritualism, and especially to the doctrines of a strongly negative character generally connected with it, such as the denial of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ, of original sin, and of the existence of the Devil and of Hell. I have come forward therefore with the view of assisting, if possible, any who may be in perplexity or darkness in respect to this subject, and have adopted this mode of reaching such, as, in my view, the most suitable, In this I have acted simply on my own responsibility, and I would wish it to be under-stood by all that none of my respected brethren in the ministry are in any degree parties to my action. Some of them, I belive, may not approve of this step; and I would not presume to censure any of them for holding a different opinion, or following a different course. I am sure of this, that whatever appeared to them to be duty they would boldly and readily follow out. I may state that the subject of Spiritualism has not engaged my attention now for the first time, as I have writen articles upon it in the Press at home as far back as seventeen years ago. At the same time, I do not put myself for ward as professing to offer a complete explanation of all the phenomena which have been presented in the name of Spiritualism. The evidence as to the existence of the alleged phenomena has in many cases not been furnished, and the state of scientific enquiry on all these points has not yet been so far advanced as to warrant me in professing myself able to furnish a complete solution of them. The real subject, however, which claims our attention is much more limited. It is to determine, if possible, what may be accepted as unquestionable facts established by sufficient evidence; then to consider whether science, as fairly established, furnishes any adequate explanation of them, and, if not, whether the theory of the Spiritualists can be received as giving the explanation required. This theory is simply that they are caused by
seance, how the coat has been whisked off one man instantaneously, and on the gas being turned on, is found on the back of his neighbour, whose hands, strange to say, have been bound behind his back all the time. Those who know anything about the doings of the spirits must be aware that they largely consist of practical jokes of this description, militating against the gravity and decorum we naturally associate with the inhabitants of another world. The very grotesqueness and absurdity of the reported marvels of Spiritualism are, I confess, to me a proof of their reality; for I cannot help thinking that men and women in this nineteenth century, to whom an exalted model of supernatural action has been presented in the miracles of Jesus Christ, would be ashamed to select the utterly purposeless and silly displays of power which make up a large proportion of the Spiritualistic manifestations, if they have not actually witnessed them." Would any other person derive such an inference? Do we not infer the nature of causes from the nature of effects? And if, as he admits in this case, the effects consist largely of practical jokes, militating against the gravity and decorum we naturally associate with the inhabitants of another world, surely this should be a very strong presumption that the inhabitants of another world had nothing whatever to do with them, and that the practical jokers might be found among those who had such a propensity, and the opportunity for carrying it into practice in darkened rooms. But he reaches the same conclusion by another process of reasoning, equally fallacious. He says:—"They (the American Spiritualists) court controversy, and exhibit a bonhommie under the vituperation of opponents, which proves to me they are conscious of standing on a solid foundation of facts, and can afford to look down with something like a feeling of amusement on the efforts made by these critics to deny those facts, or explain them away." To my mind, the natural inference to be drawn from the conduct of those referred to would rather be that they hold their theory and the doctrines connected with it in a very light manner. They could not attach great importance and solemnity to their so-called faith if they could derive amusement from sneering and ridicule which might be cast upon it. If we could ascertain that Spiritualists were ready to make themselves martyrs for what they declared to be the truth, and that they persisted in their efforts to extend it through years of self-denying toil, then we might infer that their conviction of the reality of the phenomena was real and strong. I have never observed that earnest Christians could find any amusement in hearing the claims of their divine Saviour ridiculed; or his offering himself as a sacrifice for sin sneered at as of no more efficiency than the offering of the blood of a sheep. Earnest Christians could find no amusement in hearing such blasphemy, and would refuse to countenance those who were guilty of it. And yet they have often shown how deep and strong were their convictions of the reality of Christ's divinity, by the sacrifices they have made in giving their testimony to this fact. It is, however, but justice to Mr Watt to state that although his philosophical Pegasus has carried him through such vagaries, he declares that the argument which has weighed most in his mind in accepting the Spiritualistic phenomena has been the testimony of such men as Judge Edmonds and Robt. Dale Owen, The alleged phenomena, however, are far too numerous and multiform, and, in many cases, obscure, subtle, and evanescent, to be received in the mass on the testimony of any single witness, however sincere and honest he may be. They must be examined in detail, and the evidence presented in support of them must be carefully scrutinised. This has to a certain extent been done by the Dialectical Society of London. Members of that Society devoted months of
But when clad in silk, or if the atmosphere chanced to be humid, they had no power to act either on the table or on each other. Speaking of a French medium, whose case was reported to the Paris Academy of Science in a chair held by two strong men was broken in their hands." When a number of people were seated for a considerable time in a close room, it was very natural and probable that electricity should become so accumulated and intensified as to present a sufficient reason for the phenomena declared to have been witnessed by the Dialectical Society, not merely on the table with which their hands are in contact, but likewise on the walls or floor of the room. Such effects may be accounted for, as it has been scientifically demonstrated that electricity is conducted by the air as well as by solid bodies. There, then, is a sufficient cause for the physical part of the phenomena, and so far there is no need for a ghost. But how explain the manifestation of intelligence? If the knocking force proceeds from the highly charged human body or bodies that are present, it is reasonable to suppose that direction in which it may be transmitted may be influenced to some extent by the movements of parts of their bodies under the
Gymnotus electricus—in South America, may serve to illustrate this. Humboldt placed both his feet on a fresh Gymnotus, and experienced a more violent shock than he had ever felt from a Leyden jar. When he and another held one of them between them, one holding the head or shoulders, and the other the tail, the one felt the shock and the other did not, and they were led to the conclusion that it could direct its electric strokes where it chose. Further, they found that some Gymnoti which they kept alive killed some other fishes which they introduced into the same vessel of water, without coming, in contact with them. The force with which this can be done was observed by Humboldt in America to stun horses which were driven into the water when they were swimming, so that the horses fell down completely overpowered, and were drowned. Regarding the probability of electrical effects proceeding from the human body, influenced to some extent by the will, I think there is here a clue to the intelligence displayed by the table knockings in answer to questions put. That intelligence, from all the reliable evidence I have been able to obtain, is sufficiently accounted for by the intelligence of one or several of those from whom the knocking force proceeds. The evidence of the Dialectical Society does not advance one step beyond this. The answers, the report states, are usually of a common place character, but sometimes known only to one of the persons present. We must, however, accept of other evidence besides theirs. Let us try then, if this explanation will apply to the well-known story of "the Rochester knockings." Circumstances given by Mrs Harding and by Dale Owen, and many more, need not be questioned. They are briefly these:—The Fox family, residing at Hydesville were disturbed by knockings about their house. After a time it was found they would respond to questions, and they gave correct answers about the names and ages of the children when questioned by Mrs Fox. Questions were further put—Are you a man? are you a spirit? and, what is your name? and so on. Gradually, and after many questionings, and that by different people and on different occasions, a connected story was made out from the answers that this was the ghost of a pedlar named Charles B. Rosma, who had slept in the house four or five years before on a Tuesday night, and had been murdered at 12 o'clock by John C. Bell, a blacksmith, who occupied it, and was that night in the house alone. It was further stated that the body was buried in the cellar 10 feet deep. It appears from the evidence that the knockings had never been heard in the house previous to the time thus indicated, but by all who had since occupied it. It seems to be assumed by Mr Owen that none of the neigh-bours knew anything of' the occurrences mentioned. But this, I think, is a very improbable supposition; for Mr Owen states that the daughter of a neighbour (Lucretia Pulver by name, 15 years of age), was servant at the house at the time when the pedlar came with his pack, and that she spoke to him. This young woman gave her depositions regarding the circumstances after the knockings attracted public attention. She stated that Mrs Bell told her she was acquainted with the pedlar before. Is it then not a very probable thing that she would mention his name to the girl? Lucretia was sent home that clay, as Mrs Bell was going from home, and said she would not require her services longer. The pedlar remained in the house with Mr Bell, but next day he never came, according to expectation, to the house of Lucretia, who had promised to buy a new dress from him. Lucretia was sent for again on Mrs Bell's-return 3 days afterwards, and came and resided there. Then she heard knockings and sounds of footsteps about the house at night, Then sounds as if coming from the cellar. A week after this Lucretia having gone into the cellar, was alarmed by sinking in the soft soil. She asked Mrs Bell what Mr Bell had been doing in the cellar. Mrs Bell said that it might be rat holes, and her husband was occupied a few days afterwards taking down earth to till them up. The tenants who succeeded Mr and Mrs Bell, who had evidently considered it prudent to leave that part of the country, resided in the house a year before they heard knockings, and thereafter they had no peace for them, and shortly afterwards left. How are we to account for the knockings after the pedlar's visit, heard by Lucretia and Mrs Bell, and then for the absence of them during a year after their successors came to the house, and further, for the resumption of the knockings at that time? The most reasonable explanation is that th knockings, in so far as they were real (although no doubt their excited imaginations would exaggerate them, and assign them to their several localities), proceeded from the excited persons who were terrified and haunted by the strong suspicion of foul murder having been committed. The absence of the knockings for a year after their successors entered was probably due to their ignorance of this dark deed. But as they had become better acquainted with their neighbours the secret had evidently been drawn out from Lucretia, and the natural result followed. They became terrified, and through their excited state knockings were produced, which no doubt would be exaggerated in the stillness of night. They did not bear this long, but sought another dwelling where they would find peace. The Fox family next took
Latent Mental Modifications, or more .recently by Dr Carpenter's Unconscious Gerebration.
It will serve to explain such a case as the following given by Owen, which he entitles "Sister Elizabeth." Dr H. saw an apparition while attending Dr Bellow's Church in New York of three female figures. One appeared as his wife, the other as his mother; the third, a young girl between them, he did not recognise, He had a sister Anne, who had died 39 years before, but he settled that the young girl did not resemble her. Next day he called on one of the Foxes. He wrote out a number of female names. Anne was passed by, and the table rapped out the name of Elizabeth, his sister. He declared he never had a sister Elizabeth. He asked if the figure he saw was his sister Elizabeth, and the raps at once answered yes. He afterwards consulted the family register, and found that a sister named Eizabeth had died a few weeks after birth. This had happened during a five years' absence from home, and on being questioned, Dr H. thought it likely that his father would mention the circumstance in one of his letters at the time, but he had forgotten it. This had been most probably suddenly recalled to his mind at the moment when he was intently seeking information—possibly with so much dimness and uncertainty, that he had been unable to assure himself of its correctness until the family register revealed what had been long ago made known to him. The answer I regard as simply a response influenced by his own will, although he had a feeling of doubt as to its correctness. He had already settled that the figure in question could not be his sister Elizabeth. Being between his mother and wife, he would most probably think that she must be another sister, although he forgot that there really was another. The name had no doubt flashed up suddenly yet dimly, when expecting the response. The vastness of the storehouse of memory in every soul is far beyond our conceptions, and as wonderful is the subtlety and apparent caprice which characterise I the mode in which it yields up its treasures. It is in sleep, in the somnambulic state, and in various abnormal conditions, that the extraordinary powers of the memory are most vividly displayed. Instances of this I cannot here take time to present, but they go far to prove that all we have once known is ever retained, and may be at any moment recalled, and probably no circumstances are more favourable for recalling what has been long forgotten than when a susceptible person, eagerly expectant, is making enquiries about it at his wooden oracle. It may, perhaps, be asked by some, Have you not admitted the reality of ghosts in the last-mentioned instance, in which Dr H. saw distinctly three figures, which he recognised as those of his departed relatives? Nothing, surely, can be stronger evidence than seeing them. If seeing is believing, then, surely, nobody can deny. This leads me to the subject of spectral illusions or apparitions which in all ages have been seen, and have ministered most powerfully to the love of the marvellous. Mr Owen admits—and I agree with him,!—that some of the spectral illusions are truly accounted for on well-understood optical principles. For example, the visitor to the top of the Brocken, which is the principal summit of the Hartz Mountains, in the North of Germany, may see about sunrise, when the atmospheric conditions are favourable, the appearance of a giant in the clouds perhaps five or six hundred feet in height. Not, however, equal to the conception of the great Highland giant, Gog Magog Mac Finn MacCoull, whose mouth was 11 miles wide, his teeth 10 miles square.
He would upon his toes upstand, And take the stars down in his hand, And set them in a gold garland, To deck his wifle's hair.
This wonderful spectre, which I was not fortunate enough to see when I was there, is simply explained when it is known to be merely the shadow of the traveller standing! in light clouds with the sun shining brightly upon him, which is reflected from the distant clouds, and of course magnified to enormous proportions. Similar principles explain the Fata Morgana of the Mediterranean, the mirage of the Desert, and occasional figures of ships or cities, or other distant objects, some-times seen in the clouds. These are illusions, considered as to the reality of what is represented, but not illusions as to the objective reality of the images or reflections themselves. With regard to illusions as to images which have no outward existence, but which simply exist in the imagination of the beholder, he is inclined to deny that there are such, unless in the case of persons labouring under disease or persistent hallucinations bordering on insanity. He lays down something like a principle to distinguish those hallucinations which he will admit to be
influence of the imagination. This explanation will probably be regarded by some of you as a mere vague and unsatisfactory-reason, resorted to to get rid of a difficulty—a reason which has no solid, or at least no scientific basis on which to rest. I think, however, I shall show you sufficient reason from facts well-established by science, and many of them quite familiar to your own experience, that may lead you to attach more importance to it than is frequently done. It is clearly and incontrovertibly established that all the organs of sense are also the organs of imagination—that they may be under its control, and exercise their several functions under its influence. On this point hear what Sir David Brewster says—who, I have observed, has been claimed by Spiritists as one of their supporters. He remarks that "when the eye is not exposed to the impressions of external objects, or when it is insensible to these objects in consequence of being engrossed with its own operations, any object of mental contemplation which has either been called up by the memory or created by the imagination will he seen as distinctly as if it had been formed from the virion of a real object. In examining these mental impressions, he adds, I have found that they follow the motions of the eyeball, exactly like the spectral impressions of luminous objects, and that they resemble them also in their apparent immobility when the eyeball is displaced by an internal force. If this result shall be found generally true by others, it will follow that the objects of mental contemplation may be seen as distinctly as external objects, and will occupy the some local position in the axis of vision as if they had been formed by the agency of light." The truth of this, I think, everyone will understand, and admit in re! gard to the state of sleep, You have the! impression of visible objects as distinctly as in the waking state. Moreover, you see them always in such position with regard to yourselves as you would do if you were awake, and in their presence. You never dream that you see objects behind you, or in any position relative to yourselves on which it would be impossible for your eyes to see them, if it were a reality instead of a dream. I have no doubt that theeyes really adjust themselves to the positions of the various objects which imagination has presented to the mind. A fur-
muscles of expression, as is well known, readily obey the impulses of imagination, so that the mother who is watching her child, and sees at times the beaming smile light up its countenance, says very truly her babe is dreaming. So the organs of speech are frequently found obedient to the imagination during sleep, and have sometimes revealed the secret of the murderer when he little knew of it. And various members of the body of some individuals show, on many occasions—sometimes to the loss and damage of their bedfellows—that they are ready at the call of imagination to follow Hamlet's advice to the players, and 'suit the word to the action and the action to the word.' But it will be said all this may be true in regard to sleep, but it is quite different when a person is awake. Then he can distinguish at once between any impression or influence of his imagination and an equally strong impression or influence from something which is a reality. This is not in all cases so easy as you think. The reason why we can in most cases distinguish between what is an impression of the imagination and what is a reality, is that the impressions of the imagination are usually inconsistent with, and contradicted by, the whole circumstances around us. We have on the one side a single impression derived from the imagination, and on the other a vast number of impressions all consistent with each other, and all opposed to this single impression derived from the imagination, and so we readily distinguish between the one and the other. But when the impression furnished by the imagination is not inconsistent with our surroundings—which sometimes, although rarely, happens—then we may be left in uncertainty. I remember a case of this which, although trivial in itself, furnishes a clear illustration. One day I suddenly called to remembrance an impression that I had made an engagement to meet a friend on a particular evening at his house. On trying to recall the circumstances connected with making the appointment, I could not do it. The impression was then distinct enough, but all the attendant circumstances had gone from me. I considered with myself, could this be an impression received in a dream? I could not recall any attendant circumstances to afford a clue. There was nothing inconsistent or unlikely in the thing itself, nor anything extraordinary in my forgetting the circumstances. I felt quite uncertain, and only after going to the house at the time, arrived at the conclusion that the impression had been received in a dream. What happened to this very limited extent has occurred in another case quoted by Hamilton, to an extent which, if it were at all common, would turn the world upside down. 'A young man had a cataleptic attack, in consequence of which a curious effect was wrought upon his mental constitution. Every night, about six minutes after falling asleep, he began to speak distinctly, and always of the same subject, and he continued from night to night to act the same part. On awaking he had no re-collection of his dreaming thoughts. He played a double part in his existence. By day he was a poor apprentice, by night he was a wealthy senator, the father of a family, and in prosperous circumstances. If during sleep anything concerning his true state were said to him, he declared it was unreal and a dream.' This may show that it is not always so easy for us to distinguish between what is presented by the imagination, and what by outward realities. Impressions made in dreams frequently continue after awaking. Probably you can all remember that when you have had a vivid dream, and have been suddenly awakened, you remain for a time under the full belief that the dream was a reality, and only gradually persuade yourself that it was not. It is the fact that the imagination can and does influence the various organs of sense during our waking hours, as well as during sleep. Neibuhr, the celebrated Danish traveller, when old and blind, said that 'as he lay in bed all visible objects strut about; the pictures of what he had seen in the East continually floated before his mind's eye, so that it was no wonder he could speak of them as if he had seen them yesterday.' Many eminent composers of music first compose their whole piece in their minds and perform it in their imagination, and are able to hear the whole harmony of the music as distinctly as if it were performed by an orchestra. The sense of smell, too, is also subject to the imagination's influence. A lawyer once accompanied a doctor to a post mortem examination of a child who had been murdered. They saw the coffin when they entered, and very speedily the gentleman of the long robe said the body was too far gone; he felt the smell overpowering, and he must at once retire. The doctor's well-seasoned nose, however, did not perceive the odour. On opening the coffin it was found to be empty, and there was no assignable cause for the strong impression on the olfactory nerves of the lawyer, but his
touch is also subject in a remarkable degree to the magic spell of imagination. There are, however, illusions to which it is subject that may be accounted for on strictly physiological principles which physicians well understand. If you were visiting a friend whose leg had been amputated a week before, and in the course of your conversation on other topics, you casually ask him how he felt his leg; you must be startled by hearing him reply that he was much annoyed by a constant pain in his big toe. You must start at this, knowing probably that his amputated limb was already buried, or receiving special attention in the dissecting room; and yet his sensations must be easily accounted for on well-known physiological principles. But where there is no such physiological reason, innumerable instances occur daily of false perceptions of touch, which can only be explained by the influence of imagination. Without referring to such extraordinary cases as those in which a person believes that his head is turned the wrong way and dresses himself accordingly, or where he is convinced that some important part of his person is made of glass, which necessitates on his part very extraordinary caution, and fills him with many groundless fears—the sensations of touch, and especially in all parts of the body—except the points of the fingers, and the tip of the tongue, are in very many cases utterly deceptive." Keeping in view those well established principles that show the influence of the imagination to be much more powerful than was generally understood, we might find in them a sufficient explanation of the great mass of cases in which it is alleged ghosts had been seen. When the imagination was strongly excited or very susceptible, it might cause one to see, even in the daylight, objects of its own creation. The simple reason why they did not usually see such so vividly during their waking hours was that the attention was generally distracted by impressions from external objects. If, however, they should sit down in a darkened room, in perfect silence, and with the strong desire and expectation of seeing a ghost, it would not be at all surprising if they should, like so many Spiritists, succeed I have already said that Owen mentions a test for distinguishing between an illusion and a reality, namely—that the reality may be seen by any who are present, while the illusion cannot. If he adopted this principle, he should cast aside as unreliable all the cases of all ged ghosts seen only by one person. But, probably from what he may allege to be corroborative evidence, he accepts visions, though seen only by one, as being actual ghosts. Now there is sufficient evidence to prove that the mere fact of two or more spectators receiving the same impression at the same time, is not proof that the thing seen is an outward reality. Owen gives the case of the two girls being seen by the rest of the family clearly and distinctly at a little distance from their house. The father went towards them to see, but before he reached the place they disappeared. The family also standing outside the house lost sight of the figures about the same time. They found the two girls in the house upstairs, alone, and in their usual state of health. This circumstance might convince anyone that the figures seen outside could not be their ghosts. The girls, Owen says, saw and recognised their own figures as well as the others. What explanation then, does he offer? He maintains they were realities, though he does not profess to give the full explanation. He suggests, however, as a probable solution, that the purpose was to forbode the death of both of the girls, which took place within a year. The purpose of the figures appearing is not the question of main importance: What were these outward realities, as he maintains them to be? Either they were ghosts, according to his view, or they were not. If they were, we have the extraordinary result of persons who had two ghosts—one to serve them in the body, and another for ornament; one to be like Punch's useful poker, and the other to remain always polished and bright. Really to overtake such a reasoner as Mr Owen, and bring him to convictions in accordance with common sense, seems as hopeless as to catch a ghost. To his mind it is not sufficient to find ghosts for the dead, but he claims them for those who are asleep or in a trance, and even for such as are looking with amazement upon what he declares to be themselves. Surely if they believed that this was their own ghost at which they were so amazed, we might well say—
The explanation of this phenomena, so far as the evidence supplied affords indication, is a very simple one. It was a case of optical illusion arising from the peculiar state of the atmosphere. It was the month of October, after a heavy rain, and when the sun was shining brightly. In such a case there would most likely be a good deal of vapour rising from the soil, causing light clouds to form near the ground. The two girls were in the upper part of the house, in some part where the sun shone upon them from the one side of the house, and from which their shadows would be thrown out of the opposite side upon the light vapoury clouds near the ground. The reflection of these shadows would sufficiently explain the whole phenomena, without either ghost or foreboding of any kind. There is a story given by Owen in his "Footfalls" of a totally different kind, which Spiritists, I believe, hold to be a most clear and convincing demonstration of the correctness of their theory. The wife of an officer who had gone to India saw his spectre one night
The utter vagueness that characterises these narrations, and the faint shadow of coincidence with which ghost seers are commonly satisfied, remind one of the mental idiosyncracies of the child, who is,
I may mention a story, which I have not seen in any of the ghost books, but which I think might afford a much more plausible instance to illustrate the Spiritist's theory. Although I am stating it from recollection extending back 19 years, and cannot give the names and places concerned, still I believe it is authentic, as I heard it related by the late Professor Aytoun, of Edinburgh, in his lectures when dealing with evidence. A number of a ship's crew landed on an island to procure water. On this there was a burning mountain, which, however, does not seem to have been at the time in action. While engaged in procuring water, one of them called the attention of the rest to an extraordinary spectre on the mountain side at some distance from them, crying, "Oh, there's Old Fogie!" this being the familiar soubriquet by which they designated a marine storekeeper in the port from which they hailed, with whom they were all well acquainted. They all at once recognised the identity of the person named, and, eager to satisfy their curiosity, left their water operations and hurried one after the other to see what was the matter. Their astonishment and horror can be easily described, when they saw not only Fogie, but a number of active followers, whom they at once set down in their minds as demons. Up the mountain sides the spectres ran, and as quickly the wondering sailors followed. They continued the pursuit until they observed Old Fogie with his spectral train had reached the crater at the top, when down into its dark depths he quickly disappeared, and all the demons immediately followed. The whole circumstances were narrated when they went on board, and a correct account of them was inserted in the log book, and signed by all the witnesses. When they returned to their own port, they made known the strange apparition they had witnessed at the crater, and they discovered that Old Fogie had died on that same day on which they had seen the spectres. The surviving relatives of this respected storekeeper felt much annoyed by the circulation of such a story regarding him, believing it to be a malicious fabrication. They accordingly brought an action against the captain of the vessel for circulating the story. The log book, however, was produced in Court; the witnesses could also testify to the accuracy of the facts. Judge and jury seemed to be confounded, and dismissed the case as something which no fellow could understand. This story, Professor Aytoun (who was a lawyer as well as a poet) said, was recorded fully in the records of one of
Before I enter on the subject of the present lecture, I will refer to some letters in the public Press regarding the former one. It is not difficult to perceive in the letter signed "Perplexity and Darkness," appearing in the Daily Times, that the purpose the writer had in view was to lead his readers into perplexity and darkness on the subject which it is my purpose to make plain. He avows his agreement with me in attributing the phenomena or Spiritism to influences proceeding from the individuals who assemble to question the spirits rather than from external sources. So far, it might be thought there was no occasion for his writing at all unless to inform the public, who might be interested to know, that he agreed with the views which I set forth. But for some purpose he wishes to present himself as an antagonist, and as one of a dubious sort. He roars like a lion, but stalks forth in the skin of the ass. Now I could respect an honest, even although he were a stout antagonist, who appeared in his own character, boldly challenging combat on his own footing, which, in this case, is evidently that of an opponent of the truths set forth in the Scriptures, but this intellectual hippogriff only excites contempt. My purpose is to deal with Spiritists, and the alleged phenomena on which they rest their system, and to show that these, in so far as they appear supernatural, are unsupported by solid facts; but the conduct of this double-faced adversary resembles that of the convict who tried the other day to escape from gaol by throwing pepper in the eyes of his keeper. He, however, was caught, and returned to his cell, and so long as my opponent wears the prison garb of Spiritism, I must deal with him on his Spiritualistic merits, until, by footing it for a sufficient time on the treadmill of this dark and dreary ghost house, he satisfies himself that the noise and dust with which he is surrounded are not indications of progress on the highway of intelligence and religion, but merely the illusions and impostures to which renegades from true religion have by their own folly been subjected. Another newspaper correspondent asks, "what force or law there is in nature which anybody knows of, that will account for the appearance of materialised spirits or ghosts?" I answer it is fully explained by the well-known law of the reciprocal influence of trickery and credulity. The difficulty mentioned, regarding a piece—which could not be matched in London—cut out of a ghost's garment, is one which probably diapers can explain. It may have been
séance was held to the next room was effected, there could be little doubt, through a concealed door. The whole occurrence simply presents the results of a set of impostors practising on their dupes. While Spiritists may concede this, I will no-doubt be referred to the much-talked-of case of Home's levitation, described by Lord Lindsay, and which must be admitted to have been very extraordinary, if true. A very slight examination of the narrative, however, excites the gravest suspicion of its correctness. By this I do not mean to insinuate that Lord Lindsay consciously misrepresented anything which he stated, but on the face of it the evidence offered is singularly incomplete, if not self-contradictory. Like many of Mr Owen's narratives, given, no doubt, in perfect honesty, so unbounded is the faith displayed in the honesty and power of the mediums, who have to be tested in regard to these very qualities, that precautions against imposture and illusion have not been taken on these points on which precaution was most necessary. Lord Lindsay describes Home's levitation as if it were a most ordinary occurrence, and with as little care to satisfy the suspicions of his readers as if he believed they had all as much faith in Home as he had. This narrative also appears in the Spiritual Magazine of
Now it must occur to every one who reflects on this narrative, that we should require to know a great deal more about the circumstances than is here given, before we can believe that Home levitated from the one window to the other. The account is given in the most slipshod and un-
psychic force, discovered to be so fully developed in this individual by Mr. Crooks, F.R.S., has been found to change the weight of bodies. It was long ago ascertained, by careful experiment, that electricity produced a very slight difference, both in the volume and in the weight of bodies; but so minute as only to be regarded or measured by the scientific chemist. Crooks's experiments on Home brought out considerably greater results. These have not however, been accepted by most scientific men as at all reliable. This, however, is, for our present purpose, a matter of little importance. Even the greatest results which Crooks professes to have obtained in the lessening of the weight of bodies, would not, by any means, account for the continuous floating of the human body high in the open air. The elevating of the tables in rooms where a number of persons are present affords different conditions to the continuous floating of the human body high in the open air; and until satisfactory evidence has been discovered of the reality of the alleged phenomena of human levitation, we shall leave our floating mediums to the company of their respected ancestors, the witches of the broomstick. I pass now to seek out and follow up the trail of ghosts of a more intellectual character than those who delight in gymnastics. It is said that ghosts of this description take possession of the heads and hands of their friends, and cause them to write communications conveying information which they did not know, and often expressing sentiments of a more exalted and refined description than they could of their unaided genius have attained to; always, however, be it remarked, observing a beautiful conformity to the peculiar notions regarding spelling and grammar which the earthly medium may happen to entertain. Their intellectual efforts are directed to subjects as various as those which engage the thoughts of ordinary mortals. A book of their communications might fitly serve the title given to an ancient treatise "concerning all things and a few other matters." Besides the commonplace style of epistle you may have poetry ranging over all the gamut of human sentiment, "from grave to gay, from lively to severe;" you may have musical compositions when the mediums have capacity for this work, and orations and treatises such as those wonderful productions of Mr James Smith which so much excited the admiration of the citizens a few months ago. With a deeper meaning than our literary judges were able at the time to discern, he told the public that he was not the author of them, but that only his hand had written them. The spirit of some departed author had inspired him, and it now appears as a sure confirmation that the same spirit had written down and published during his earthly lifetime in books which are in the Melbourne library the very same wonderful revelations. In short all kinds of literary effort may be expected from the ghosts, with the solitary exception of a gospel sermon. A devoted educational reformer imagined he had gained a great point, when he raised the cry and sought to make it a reality, "The schoolmaster is abroad but this seems antiquated and worthless compared with the advent of the literary ghosts. With the trifling drawback of their carelessness in such matters as spelling—holding, I suppose, the views of a distinguished nobleman, that people have a right to spell their own words in their own way—the royal road to knowledge, long sought in vain, has at last been found. To give an illustration of its striking character and intrinsic value, I cannot do better than present you with the account which Mr Owen has given of a ghostly communication written by a lady's hand before his eyes, which was the means of converting him to that new and beautiful faith which he so appropriately adorns. In a small party in Naples, a lady enquired of Mr Owen if he had seen spirit-writing. He replied in the negative. Another lady expressed her disbelief of the reality of such a thing, and a trial was agreed upon. Several sat down with paper and; pencil, waiting for the ghost to move them. A question was asked by one lady, "Who gave me these pins?" and another wrote down as an answer, "The one that gives you a maid and a cook." This answer was correct. A friend in Florence who had given the pins, had also sent to her a ladies' maid and a cook. This produced great astonishment, particularly to the lady who had asked the question. Mr Owen's philosophic mind could not rest without probing it to the bottom. He accordingly ascertained by enquiry next day from her, that she had never spoken to any one outside her family circle, about the servants, whence they came or who sent them, nor yet about who sent the pins. Moreover, she stated that she had only lately made the acquaintance of the lady who had written the reply so correctly. He did not consider it necessary to push his enquiries further, by asking the lady who wrote the answer, about the extent of her acquaintance with the affairs of the owner of the pins; as the whole matter of both pins and servants seems to have been known in the household, and the two ladies were acquainted, it is most probable that some of the children, or of
that he knew walked or written in his sleep. Is that then a sufficient ground for rejecting this most natural and sufficient explanation? Somnambulism where it occurs must have a beginning some time, and the fact that this old gentleman was not aware of his being a somnambulist is no guarantee that he was not. It is brought out in the narrative that if this was the first occasion, it was not the last. Such cases of somnambulism are so frequent, that it is surprising any man of intelligence should seek for any ghost to account for this writing and composing during sleep. Mr Owen however points out a greater wonder, which he regards as proof positive of the reality of a ghost. Some people enlightened M. Bach about Spiritism and Spirit-writing. Accordingly, three or four weeks after his dream, M. Bach, feeling a headache and nervous trembling of the arm, the idea struck him that perhaps some spirit wished to write through him and explain the mystery about the spinet. He sat down with paper and pencil, then lost consciousness, and in that state he wrote that the spinet contained a piece of parchment written by King Henry and nailed on the inside of the case, and beneath was written a copy of the parchment. Signed, Baldazzarini. The spinet was accordingly sent for from the museum, where it had meanwhile been deposited. Auxious search was made by father and son, and a parchment was found in it as described, with an inscription closely resembling what was written down by M. Bach, in his state of unconsciousness, or, as I would call it, somnambulism. No doubt he had examined the instrument and seen the first parchment nailed inside, and read the inscription on it, during his first somnambulistic: attack. It is quite evident, too, that he now wrote down in this second somnambulistic attack what he had seen during his former somnambulism, but had forgotten during the interval. This is very much like what is well known as double-consciousness. The recurrence of the same train of ideas as he formerly had, and the recalling vividly what he had formerly seen, is quite according to the ordinary experience of such cases. The most remarkable thing about the case is the simplicity of Owen, who imagines he has discovered a ghost. He goes into a long and laborious investigation, presents full evidence of the statements he has given, and then argues about the explanation. He laboriously strives to demolish the supposition of imposture in the case, for which I think there was not the slightest ground, but regarding the most natural and simple explanation that it was a case of somnambulism, he has nothing to object except that the old man did not know previously that he was subject to this affection. A slightacquaintance with well-authenticated cases of somnambulism, will afford a sufficient explanation of many things as wonderful as this. Dr Abercrombie supplies a host of them. I may mention one, as it is somewhat remarkable for the kind of accomplishment manifested in this state, and may perhaps afford a clue to some of the spirit music with which Spiritists are occasionally entranced. A girl 7 years of age slept in an apartment next one frequently occupied by an itinerant fiddler. He was a skilful musician, and spent a part of the night performing fine pieces. The girl, however, merely regarded his music as a disagreeable noise. After 6 months' residence here she fell ill and removed elsewhere. After recovery she acted as servant, and during the night there was heard in the house where she was the most beautiful music, which could not be accounted for. At length, it was found to proceed from her lips, and resembled the sweetest tones of a small violin. On further observation it was found that after being about two hours in bed she became restless, then uttered sounds like tuning a violin, and then dashed off into elaborate pieces of music. After a year or two she imitated the sound of a piano, which she heard in the house where she now lived. A year after she began to talk as if instructing a pupil on a vast variety of topics, and with great ability. She has been known to conjugate Latin verbs, and speak several sentences in French—though ignorant of these languages when in her waking state. This case shews clearly how powerfully the faculties may be excited in this condition, and especially how memory may give back even impressions which had been apparently forgotten as soon as they had been heard. It affords ample grounds for explaining M. Bach's remembrance of the parchment and what was on
by mediums is that which attracted public attention in London about the year far simile of the name which he had surreptitiously read on the pellet. This will indicate sufficiently the principle on which the whole practice of those impostors called test-mediums is carried on. Of course there are many variations in the particular modes adopted for drawing off the attention from the art of trickery, but sleight of hand is the main explanation of the whole. I have little doubt, too, that some advance a little further, and from careful study of the countenance and manner of persons while writing down a number of names, one of which they wish the medium to pick out, hazard a guess about it, and in most case may be correct. The whole appearance of the mode of proceeding can leave little doubt that it is a piece of trickery. The information which the medium professes to give is simply elicited from what the inquirer has written down in his presence, or from the medium's knowledge of those who come to consult him. None of Owen's cases, although he professes to have scrutinised them, and presents full evidence on points about which there is no room for doubt, can disabuse the mind of trickery and sleight of hand as the real explanation. He never entertains the suspicion himself, and takes no means, therefore, to put it to the test. Let us glance at a case which he gives as most convincing. He visited Foster, the best test medium, he says, he ever knew, and intimated he wished the name of a spirit from whom he had lately received d a communication. Foster told him he saw the spirit of a lady with a basket of flowers—all violets. Owen was at once excited. He indicated this was the party he wanted, and asked the name. Foster told him to write down seven christian names, which he did. Foster then took the list, glanced over it, then tore off the names separately, and rolled them up into small pellets, which he threw down among a number of blank and written pellets which were lying on the table. Foster told him to take them up and hold them in his hand under the table. He then said: "The spirits desire to have your hat under the table." Foster accordingly put it there. Then he said: "Spirit, when you have selected the pellet, will you let us know by rapping?" In a minute the raps sounded. Conversation by raps followed as to who should take up the hat and receive the pellet. A young lady with Mr Owen was requested to do so. Before she opened it, Foster said: "Let me try first if I can get the same name written under the table." He held paper and pencil for a little under the table, and handed the paper to Owen. Of course the name in the pellet and the paper was the same, and in a minute after he shewed it marked on his arm. Now most plainly all this is mere conjuring or sleight of hand. We have no means of judging of the extent of Foster's previous knowledge of Owen. Probably he knew much more than Owen thought of. Besides Owen had some conversation with Foster in what he calls "a general way" about the purpose of his visit, and most probably Foster elicited more than Owen dreamt of. In watching Owen write down the names, Foster must (if he did not previously know it) have made his guess as to which it was. Foster himself separated the names, and made them up in pellets, so that he, could easily secrete between his fingers the one he had fixed on and drop another in its place. He then dropped the pellet into the hat as he put it below the table. To guard against Owen's detecting the exchange Foster made, in regard to the pellet, by examining the pellets left in his hand, Foster took care to have them mixed up with a number which were lying on the table, and of which Mr Owen did not know the number nor yet the names in them. The writing on paper below the table and on the arm was easily enough accomplished during the many movements which were made during the performance to divert attention. Although this is one of the commonest conjuring tricks, and one therefore which might most readily be suspected, the possibility of it never seems to enter Mr Owen's mind, and of course he takes no precautions against it. I would have no hesitation in defying any test medium whatever, to do what they profess to do, and what Mr R. D. Owen believes, in his simplicity, they do, under anything like reliable test conditions. Every pretension to such supernatural power or knowledge, set up in the name of Spiritism or clairvoyance, has been found, when put to the test in anything like a scientific way, to be mere imposture, performed with varying success, according to the natural cleverness and acquired audacity of the performer. To show you what is the tendency of this whole system, as it appears to any calm and impartial mind after close and careful scrutiny, I may quote a sentence from the judgment delivered by the Vice—Chancellor in the Court of Chancery, in the famous suit which was raised by Mrs Lyon against Home, the well known medium, in the year right arm only she declared that both the right leg and right arm were paralysed. He next mentally paralysed her left leg, but she affirmed that she could move that leg very well, but not at all the left arm. Another, professing to read without the assistance of the eyes, completely failed. She would not acknowledge her deceit, however, but persisted in making guesses, which of course exposed her pretensions. A prize of 3000 francs, which had been offered in &c. Another lady who came from Germany to London in
Equally efficacious I am prepared to admit, and not one whit more so, maybe the healing power of the ghosts. It has been said by Owen and some others that Spiritism may be a good cure for in sanity, and I would not wonder if, on homoeopathic principles, that statement would prove correct. It would then, however, be a serious question whether the cure were not worse than the disease. Looking at this system of delusion and imposture as a whole, its intellectual imbecilities, its moral results, and its religious negations (which form its real attraction for the sinful and blinded heart of humanity), I say, far rather welcome the bold and defiant front of open infidelity, the dreamy speculations and heartless sentiment of Pantheism, or the coarse and confident dogmas of scientific materialism. These possess at least the merit of honesty; and however repulsive and unsatisfactory they may be to the human heart, that cries, from the depth of its sin and sorrow, Who will show us any good? they do not delude their votaries with the mockery of professed adherence to the Bible. But this heterogeneous compound of silly superstition and crafty imposture, called Spiritualism, is an insult to the human understanding, a degradation to the moral nature, and a destructive snare to the soul.
Printed at the "Daily Times" Office, Princes Street, Dunedin.
Mr Donovan held his promised Religious Service at the Rifle's Orderly Room last, evening, the subject of his discourse, or lecture, being, "The Evidences of Spiritualism." The hall, shortly after the hour announced for the service, was quite filled with an audience including a large number of the principal citizens of Sandhurst, notably of all the religious denominations, whilst the front seats, especially, were thronged with ladies. The service was commenced by Mr Denovan giving out, Byron's hymn, "The Prayer of Nature"—"Father of Light! on Thee I call." We may mention the psalmody was accompanied throughout by Mr Hallas, on his cornet, and by Mr Collins, on a fine and very powerful harmonium, which swelled the voices with all the grandeur of tone of an organ. The opening hymn being closed, Mr Denovan read portions of Scripture from the 3rd Chapter of Proverbs, and the 5th 6th and 7th Chapters of Matthew. He then, lifting up his hands, repeated the words of Jesus, "After this manner pray ye," and said the Lord's Prayer. The second hymn was then sung, being also selected from the works of Byron, of which the first verse was as follows:—
"The Home of the Soul":—
was sung at a subsequent part of the service.
Before commencing his lecture, Mr Denovan announced that shortly after the commencement of the new year, he would deliver a companion lecture to his present one, the subject of which would be "Objections to Spiritualism Considered." During the interval, he added, he would be happy to reply to any ladies or gentlemen who were desirous of satisfying their doubts on the subject, or of seeking further information upon any topics connected with it,—and for this purpose he would, for the next three weeks, hold himself in readiness to be addressed by letter, by any lady or gentleman, the address of his office in town being well-known.
Mr Denovan then said:—
Friends,—In all ages of the world of which we have any record, there has existed, in one shape or other, a belief in a Supreme Being and a life beyond the grave. This belief has assumed as many phases as there are races on the earth. Amongst savage nations it has, like themselves, been low and grovelling, their gods being gifted with the earthly and devilish attributes of their "medicine men," and the people the slaves of their own credulity and superstitions; whilst among civilised and cultured-nations it has, from the force of circumstances, been more exalted and spiritual. That this belief had its origin in our natures and has not been acquired, is proved to our senses by its universality. It is no argument against its truth that it has been turned from its legitimate purposes, for thousands of years by portions of the clerical order and the selfish classes; for the supreme influence which it has always exercised over the destinies of all nations whether for good or for evil, is rather a proof than otherwise of its being inherent in us. This belief has survived all the changes incidental to the rudimentary condition of man. It has nerved the arm of the Patriot to deeds of prowess in defence of his home and country; it has fired with a spirit of lofty ardour and holy zeal the breast of the missionary, making him leave all that he held dear to him in this life so that he might carry to the dark places of the earth the glad news of his faith (see the life of Dr. Livingstone); and it has brought consolation in trial and affliction to millions. But, on the other hand, it must be acknowledged it has excited feelings of hatred and
The same power too which conferred upon men and women the intuitive and perceptive faculties, enabling them to know of the existence of a Supreme Being and an after-life, and to provide for their own sustenance, also gave them the desire and ability to hold daily converse with the spirit inhabitants of the higher spheres. We have no record of how or when this delightful spiritual intercourse commenced; but we have ample written testimony to prove that it was begun and continued for thousands of years, both in India and Egypt, prior to to the Christian era. Writing of these countries, Sir William Jones says:—
"I am persuaded that a connection existed between the old nations of India, Fgypt, Greece and Italy, before the time of Moses."
I am indebted to J. M. Peebles's "Seers of the Ages," for the following quotation from Emmanuel Rebold, who, writing of the occult practices of these nations and their intercourse with the spirit world says:—
"That occult science designated by the ancient priests, under the name of regenerating fire, is that which, at the present day, is known as animal magnetism—a science that, for more than three thousand years, was the peculiar possession of the Indian and Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses was initiated at Heliopolis, where he was educated; and Jesus, among the Essenian priests of Egypt or Judea; and by which these two great reformers, particularly the latter, wrought many of the miracles mentioned in the scriptures.'
Indeed, it has been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what is now known amongst us as Spiritualism, was far more familiar to the ancient nations of India, Greece and Egypt, and by and through them to the Jews—especially the Essenians, and of whose sect Jesus of Nazareth was a member—than it has ever been to modern Spiritualists. Not only was this the case as regards the priesthood of India and Egypt, but it may, with equal justice, be said of that of Greece and Persia. Pythagoras, who, like Jesus, was born in Syria, but live I some 600 years before him, and who also had been initiated into the same mysteries as the latter, was a great spiritual teacher. Having spent many years of his life both in India and Egypt, he was thoroughly versed in all the occult sciences of the priesthood of those countries, and lived in accordance with their divine teachings. So pure and holy was the life of this sage, that he enjoyed the reputation of being divinely inspired. His birth was foretold by the Pythian oracle; and Godfrey Higgins writing of him says:—"Pythagoras was known by the same identical title as Jesus, namely, the Son of God." This good and great man, like the seer Swedenborg, of later times, held daily spiritual intercourse with the departed sages, his spirit being so much en rapport with theirs as to be permitted to leave the body and visit them. He was also conversant with the Spiritualism of the Persian Magi. The seers, indeed, of all these ancient races professed to hold communion with the spirits of the departed
"The gods and demons of the mythologic ages, were the good and heroic of earth's inmortalized, yet giving oracles to the living."
Educated in such schools, it was not surprising that the pure and holy religions of Moses and Jesus should rest upon a common foundation; or that these two great spiritual teachers should make use of their knowledge of those occult mysteries into which they had been initiated, to impress their followers with their divine mission, and by which, no doubt, they were enabled to perform the many mighty works so intimately associated with their names.
Within the compass of a single lecture I cannot be supposed to dwell at any length on the evidences of spiritualism, as it prevailed amongst the ancient nations, as it would interfere with the object I have in view, namely, to lay before you a few of the primary evidences of Modern Spiritualism as it has appeared in our own age. Yet, having duo regard to the importance of such evidence in the discussion of this subject, I cannot pass it over without considerable notice. You will pardon me, therefore, before proceeding with the more immediate subject of the lecture, for asking your attention a little longer, to another epoch in the history of this wonderful spiritual movement—the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, the incidents of which you are, no doubt more conversant with than with those of earlier times. As most of you are aware, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are little more than the records of the sayings and doings of men, angels and spirits with each other, in days when the Jewish Jehovah was said to hold converse with men. When, finding that man fell from his first estate and became wicked, God destroyed the world, only saving Noah and his family; when Moses, by command, led forth the children of Israel from the house of bondage, and the waters of the Red Sea were cleft in twain so that they might pass over on dry land; when amid the thunders of Sinai the law was delivered and Israel becan.e "the chosen of the Lord." Showing how after sojourning? and sufferings in the wilderness for forty years, they wore, after being the recipients of God's favors, finally brought in safety to the promised land; how kings and princes of the earth were made to do homage to the anointed of the Lord" how the Temple was built in which sacrifices were offered up, and a magnificent priesthood celebrated in accordance with Jewish ritual, the worship of "the Most High." And how in the fulness of time, when Israel had, notwithstanding their deliverances and blessings, rebelled against Him, and had become subject to the power of the Roman Empire, there appeared—heralded by omens, stars, dreams, and other wonderful occurrences—a long promised deliverer in the shape of a child; how "wise men of the east" came to worship him; how he was said to be conceived by the power of "the Holy Ghost" and born of a virgin; how he excelled in wisdom and purity all his predecessors; how he, notwithstanding his being "the son of God" and working such miracles as raising the dead, opening the eyes of the blind, cleansing the lepers, walking on the water, and many other miracles, was rejected by bis nation, and crucified by them. How after three days he was raised to life again, appeared among men, and afterwards ascended to Heaven as the Prince of Peace, and in ercessor with his Father for all the world; and how he appointed Apostles to preach his Gospel to all nations, promising to be with them; and, as a token of their divine mission, they were to be endowed with power to work similar miracle's to him. And how these scriptures have been received by millions of the human family as the veritable "word of God," which "holy men wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost."
It is not my purpose to-night to enter into a discussion of the question as to the truth of the claims set up for these scriptures, but rather to deal with them as the source from whence these millions draw their consolations and belief's. The Bible being "the infallible word of God" to all such, it becomes necessary on their part
And now friends, having traced the progress of what is known to us as spiritualism from the earliest ages down to the closing scenes of the lives of the apostles, I must refer you to William Howitt's "History of the Supernatural," and Robert Dale Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundaries of another World," for full accounts of its progress from then till its revival in
Dr. Adam Clarke, writing of them, says:—"The accounts given of them are so circumstantial and authentic as to entitle them to the most implicit credit." Similar cases have constantly occurred in all parts of England, and indeed in all lands trod by human pilgrims. Friends, many of you, if not in your own experience, have heard your parents or grandparents speak of strange occurrences in their families, unacountable to them; but still links in the chain of evidence of the presence of spirits amongst us, and of the deep interest our dear departed ones continue to take in our welfare. "Ministering spirits sent forth by God to minister to the heirs of salvation." A perusal of the books I have already named would well repay the earnest inquirer. Some objection has been taken for your reading this class of books; but with all due respect to the objectors, I say to you, improve your minds by reading and free thought. Learn the merits of a question before venturing to condemn it. This is eminently an age of progress and investigation, when men will no longer be content with the beliefs of their great grand parents without free enquiry an age in which old dogmas are being "weighed in the balance and found wanting" and in which the churches of Christendom must either drive back the education of the masses to the dark ages or remain content to lose their influence over them. Already, friends, this is, to a large extent, the case. What theologians call "infidelity" is rampant everywhere. Can you wonder at it? Is it not the natural effect of shutting up the human intellect within "infallible" churches, bibles and creeds,—saying to it thus far but no farther shalt thou go? Within the churches themselves, how many of the more educated of their attendants believe in the doctrines preached to them? How many, for instance, believe in eternal punishment for finite offences? How many believe in a personal devil? I venture to assert that out of every hundred persons who attend church, not twenty believe in either: for if they did, society would either become a vast prayer meeting, or our lunatic asylums would be too small to hold those who sought admission to them. And if I am right, what then becomes of the other cardinal points of faith built upon these other? Friends, you cannot shut your eyes to these things. You know that every-where our men of science and intellect are turning away from the churches, and are driving God out of the world, having—many of them, at least—ceased to believe in a life beyond the present. And with millions of nominal christians, what more than this does their belief amount to? Do they know themselves? Is their daily walk and conversation evidence of their belief? How much of their time do they give to the pursuit of wealth, and how much to the service of their fellow creatures (for this latter service is really the service of God)? For what do they continue to attend public worship; and what do they know in these days of the spiritual life so nobly exemplified in the life of Jesus, and of whom they profess to be followers? Can it be wondered at that in the presence of a dead faith and so many mammon worshipping professors, this revelation of the divine love to man, which, in the present day, is manifesting itself anew to all nations, and known to us as spiritualism should be received by most of us with scorn and derision? Why this alarm of the Christian church at the re-appearance of those spirit and angelic manifestations which, it is admitted, prevailed, in that church in its early days; which, according to the Scriptures, were in all ages to accompany the preaching of the gospel? Has a secret disbelief in a
The clergy have arrayed themselves against modern spiritualism, because they perceive in it danger to their own pretentions, but as I have already shewn you by quotations from the Bible itself, they cannot consistently do so without condeming their own religion; for the evidences by which it is sustained, are precisely the same as those advanced by spiritualists in support of theirs. Writing on this very subject, the author of a very able little book, culled "Hints for the Evidences of Spiritualism," after speaking of the scripture spiritual manifestations says:—
Now, in the minds of those who believe in the truth of the occurrences just mentioned, there cannot be even a sense of feeling of general improbability as attaching to spiritual manifestations. There can only be a sense of its being improbable that they should occur at the present day or in the future; since it is not open to them to dispute the past generations, and indeed, whole nations have had experience of them."
Permit me now, friends, to draw your attention to some of the evidences in support of Modern Spiritualism. Many of you are aware that the spiritual manifes-
"From the first, the family was disturbed by noises in the house: but these they attributed for a time to rats and mice. In
These extraordinary occurrences increased in intensity, disturbing the rest of the family, and at length attracting the attention of the neighbours, who crowded from all parts of the country for miles round, to witness them. Mrs Fax and her daughter Kate began to rap in response to the raps, and thus was commenced the popular method of communicating with the spirits by rapping. The alphabet was called, so many raps to constitute yes or no. By this means the number of the family, their ages, the death of one of them, her name and age were all correctly given, until conviction was forced upon them that their strange visitors were the spirits of the departed. The clergy took alarm as the interest increased. The press held it up to ridicule, and separate committees of ladies and gentlemen were formed for the express purpose of investigating the phenomena, as they were supposed to be the result of some trickery on part of the family; but these committees were compelled, after the most searching investigation, to report: "That they were unable to trace the phenomena, to any known mundane agency." Thus was commenced the most wonderful movement of modern times. It spread like wildfire to all the principal cities and towns of America, becoming more startling as the mediums became better developed, exciting the wonder of all, the hostility of many, and the support of hundreds. Circles were formed for investigation, and so great was the interest in it, that at one time it was computed that there were no fewer than 1500 circles assembled weekly in the city of Boston alone. The manifestations by means of many of the mediums were truly astonishing; mediums increased in number too, and some of them such as Miss Kate Fox, D. D. Home, and the Davenport brothers, were of such susceptible temperaments and organisations, as to allow of the spirits not only making themselves visible to mortals through them, but likewise speaking in their presence to friends still in the flesh, writing messages indifferent languages, shaking hands with them, joining audibly in vocal and instrumental concerts, and producing such marvellous phenomena as to attract the notice and rivet the attention of many of the first minds in the country. In addition to these mediums for physical manifestations, there were other phases of mediumship, such as trance speaking, motive, test mediums, healing mediums, drawing and writing mediums, and many other kinds, all more or less of an extraordinary character, and all serving to bring home the fact to the witnesses, of the existence of a spirit world not far away, in which our loved and lost ones still lived and preserved their identity; through means not generally known, were able, under certain conditions, to communicate with us. When, after repeated tests with these mediums, the conviction was forced upon investigators that the phenomena were caused by the disembodied spirits of the departed, their joy and gratitude to God, our Heavenly Father, was intense. Hundreds and thousands of all classes—especially the educated, became Spiritualists, renounced Materialism, joined with others in spreading the good news everywhere, and in devoting their time and means to works of benevolence and mercy. So great has been the effect on the public mind in America, and so wonderful the progress made, that, in the short space of twenty-five years, the spiritualists have increased until they number eleven millions. This is the estimate given of them by the Catholic clergy of that country. Robert Dale Owen's estimate is 7,500,600; but for the sake of being within the truth let us accept the lower one, and still the fact remains, that no religion was ever known to have spread so rapidly in any country before. Our
"Many persons that we know draw, paint, or write under spiritual agency, and without any effort or action of their own minds whatever, some of them never having learned to draw. Several of my family drew and wrote. I wrote a whole volume without any action of my own mind, the process being purely mechanical on my part. A scries of drawings in circles, filled up with patterns, every one different from the other, were given through my hand one evening: the circles were struck oil' as correctly as Giotto or a pair of compasses could have done them; yet they were made simply with a pencil. Artists who saw them were astonished, and, as is generally the case in such matters, suggested that some new faculty was developed in me; when, lo, the power was entirely taken away, to show that it did not belong to me. The drawings, however, remain; but I could not copy one of them in the same way if my life depended on it."
Mr Howitt further says:—"I may add that I have never visited paid mediums, but I have seen most of the phenomena exhibited through Mr Home, Mr Squire, and others. I have seen spirit's hands moving about; I have felt them again and again. I have seen writing done by spirits, by laying a paper and pencil in the middle of the floor, and very good sense written too. I heard things announced as about to come to pass, and they have come to pass, although appearing very improbable at the moment. I have seen persons very often, in clairvoyant trances, en-
tee and converse daily with spirits; and she gave continued proofs of it, as any one may see who reads her story."
I have quoted from William Howitt's testimony at considerable length, as he being an Englishman and a man of high standing, as an author, such evidence will probably have some weight with a British audience, though in Australia. Dr Ashburner, of London, in his work "Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism," writing of these spiritual phenomena, and what took place in his own house in the presence of himself and friends says:—
"There were but three of us at the dinner table (Ashburner, Sir William Topham, and Foster, the medium). The servant placed the souptureen on the table, and no sooner had I helped my friends to soup, than Sir William, who had preferred the seat with his back to the fire, requested permission to alter his mind, as the fire was too much for him. He went to the opposite side of the table forgetting to take his napkin. Immediately a hand, apparently as real as the hand of any one of us, appeared, and lifted the napkin into the air, gently and gracefully, and then dropped it carefully on the table. The appearance of hands was by no means an unusual phenomenon. One evening I witnessed the presence of nine bands floating over the dining table."
Dr Ashburner adds:—"One evening in my drawing room a hand, as palpable as my own hand, appeared a little above the table, and soon rested upon the thumb and four fingers on the surface of it. Several persons were seated round the table. Mr Foster, addressing me, said, 'The person to whom that hand belongs is a friend of yours. He is a handsome man, with a portly presence, and is very much gratified to see you and to renew his acquaintance with you. Before, he mentions his name, he would like to know if you remember his calling your father his old friend, and yourself his young friend.' I had forgotten it; but I remembered it the moment the name was mentioned. 'He calls himself Sir Astley Cooper," said Mr Foster, and wishes me to tell you that certain spirits have the power, by the force of will, of creating from elements of organic matter in the atmosphere facsimiles of the hands they possessed on earth.' Shortly the hand melted into air."
Dr Ashburner further say:—"I have myself so often witnessed spiritual manifestations, that I could not, if I were inclined, put aside the evidences which have come before me."
Mr Livermore, the well-known and wealthy New York banker, gives the following account of extraordinary manifestations which he witnessed, through the mediumship of Miss Kate Fox:—
"The lights being extinguished, footsteps were heard as of persons walking in their stocking feet, accompanied by the rustling sound of a silk dress. It was then rapped out by the alphabet, 'My dear, I am here in form; do not speak'—(meaning the spirit of Mr Livermcre's late wife). A globular light rose up from the floor behind me; and, as it became brighter, a face, surmounted by a crown, was distinctly seen by the medium and myself. Next the head appeared, as if covered with a white veil. This was withdrawn after the figure had risen some feet higher; and I recognised unmistakably the full head and face of my wife, surrounded by a semicircle of light about eighteen inches in diameter. The recognition was complete, derived alike from the features and her natural expression. The globe of light was
stood before the mirror, and was reflected therein" The spirit form of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin also appeared at the same circle, and was fully recognised by the sitters. Mr Livermore says:—"I now aver, that no doubt of the identity of this spirit longer remains upon my mind. * * His presence was a wonderful and startling reality, seated in the chair opposite me at the table, vividly visible, and even to each article of dress, there could be no mistake." The medium, Miss Kate Fox, Dr Gray, a gentleman of unimpeachable integrity and high social position in New York, writes:—"She has been intimately known to my wife and myself from the time she was a very young girl. * * Miss Fox is a young lady of good education, and of an entirely blameless life and character. At the spirit rooms of Jonathan Koons, Ohio, spirits manifested themselves to thousands who flocked from all parts of America to see them. A band of spirits, under the leadership of a spirit named King, attended at these rooms, and through the mediumship of Mr Koons and his eldest son, audibly joined in vocal and instrumental concerts, carrying the instruments through the air above the heads of the sitters, exhibiting their spirit hands as they did so, writing messages to friends present and at a distance, and shaking hands with hundreds. For proofs of this see Emma Hardinge's "History of Modern Spiritualism in America." Judge Edmonds and Dr Dexter, both gentlemen of high attainments, and who are esteemed and loved wherever they are known, in their able work, entitled "Spiritualism," have testified in the strongest manner to the facts which have conic under their own observation in connection with the progress of this great spiritualist movement. Judge Edmonds writes in his introduction:—
"I have known Latin, French, and Spanish words spelled out through the rappings, and I have heard mediums who knew no language but their own speak in those languages, and in Italian, German, and Greek, and in other languages unknown to me, but which were represented to be Arabic, Chinese, and Indian, and all done with the ease and rapidity of a native."
Dr Dexter writes—"During the time I abstained from sitting in any circle, I was twice lifted bodily from my bed, moved off its edge, and thus suspended in the air. * * During the whole time, from their earliest endeavour to write, they have used my hands as the instrument to convey their own thoughts, without any appreciation on my part of either ideas or subject. I know nothing of what is written until after it is read to me; and frequently, when asked to read what has been communicated, I have found it utterly impossible to decipher it.
At the circle attended by Judge Edmonds, the following beautiful teachings came from the spirits, through the medium:—"The spirits see and rejoice at every deed of kindness to humanity that you perform. Wouldst thou know more of heaven—know more of the spirit world? Wouldst thou be happy in the performance of thy duty? Be guided by the spirit of love, and justice and equity, and angels will follow thy footsteps, and good spirits surround thee. To see the friends we love on earth happy, adds greatly to our happiness here. These manifestations are given to mankind to prove their immortality, and teach them to look forward to the change from one sphere to another with pleasure. There are great changes now being made. The spirits of just men made more perfect are knocking at the door of your understanding, and the work which God has commenced will bear its way gloriously. No human power can hinder its progress."
The gift of healing has been bestowed upon many mediums in England, America, Australia, and elsewhere, wherever the spiritual gospel is being preached. Dr New
Did time permit, I could relate many equally convincing proofs of spirit power; but let these suffice at present. And now friends, those of you who are orthodox christians have hitherto denied the truth of these things, and set them down as either "imposture, delusion, mesmerism, or the devil." Those, like myself, who have investigated the phenomena, and have, as the result of their investigations, been compelled to believe in their spiritual origin, have been laughed at, sneered down, pitied and prayed for, and this too by persons who have never investigated the subject lor themselves, have never studied it, but because it chanced to be something out of
You believe that. Upon what evidence do you believe it? Is the dead evidence stronger than the living? And if such a thing was done in the days of the Apostles, is there not a strong probability of its being done now? I apply the same reasoning to the speaking in strange tongues, to the healing of the sick, the appearance of spirits, the spirit writing, &c., &c. You cannot place your linger on a single passage of the Old or New Testaments which forbids this spirit intercourse, or that says when it was to conic to an end; and, as I have shown, that intercourse which has been renewed in a very prominent manner in our day, was not only begun thousands of years before the days of Jesus, but has been continued uninterruptedly from then till now. I am aware that oftentimes the power was weak and capricious through the wickedness of nations; but in one shape or other it has always existed, and has in various ways—both inside the church and outside of it—made itself seen and felt. It is scarcely two hundred years since—in those two enlightened nations, England and America—Judges and Juries were engaged trying and condemning innocent men and women, and even children, for "witchcraft," the very crime of which thousands of the mediums of the present day are guilty. Barrington says that "30,000 people were burned for witchcraft within 150 years." And yet to-day the truths attempted to be taught by these poor persecuted ones of former days, are now forcing themselves upon the notice of everyone in all lands, and are yet destined to pervade the world. Nor will it long carry weight with the majority of thinking persons, for a portion of the press to continue holding such a movement, supported by such disinterested evidence, up to ridicule and obloquy. It is not difficult to divine the cause of such opposition, seeing that so large a number of the gentlemen connected with the press are—were their real opinions known—either sceptical of the truths of revelation, or materialists. On the other hand, these of us who, by reading and investigation, have become believers in Spiritualism must not forget, in judging others, that when our attention was first called to the subject, we acted towards it just in the same way that others who have not honestly investigated it, are now doing, laughing at its advocates as "crazy and wondering how so many sensible persons could possibly believe in such a delusion." Let a knowledge of this, therefore, teach us to be charitable in our condemnation of others, and let us quietly continue to sow the seed, leaving it to time and freedom of thought amongst our fellow citizens, to open the eyes of their understanding as our own were opened. Many people, no doubt, will laugh at us, the clergy will rail at us in the pulpits and call us backsliders and infidels; the press will misrepresent us; but spiritualism carries its own motive power, and will make its way into the hearts and heads of the people in the face of all such opposition. There is always a largo class of reflecting, honest-minded persons in every community, and the truth cannot long be withheld from them. They will not willingly believe that so many thousands and millions of all classes in all countries in the world, can be misled in such a matter; and after they have first laughed at it and perhaps cursed it, they begin to think after all that "there must be something in it," will become interested, read up on the subject, and finally end in honestly investigating it in their own home circles. The result in all such eases spiritualists can foretell. It has been asked by numbers: "What good is it even were it true?" Our reply to that is simple enough: It is to teach the men and women of the present day that their departed friends live in another state of existence, can communicate with them under certain conditions hitherto but im-
"Can These Things be True," from the facile pen of "W.I.R," of Melbourne:—"It is not to be denied that we are at the present time in the midst of a great religious crisis The educated classes, it is said, are renouncing Christianity; scepticism is widely spread in the universities; the highest intellects are no longer at the service of religion, and even the clergy themselves are making shipwreck of faith. During the last ten years we have been compelled to give up positions which we once thought were the strongholds of Christianity. We have entered upon a new era, and all men are musing in their hearts what the end is going to be."
The Rev. J. Hunt, Contemporary Review,
Pray, pardon me friends, for being somewhat plain spoken with you on this subject. You do not know, in your hasty condemnation of spiritualism, the happiness you are denying yourselves, To know for a certainty that your friends live, and that when you shall have "shuffled off this mortal coil" you will also live, is joy unspeakable. You wonder at the spread of spiritualism and the general interest excited by it, but knowing as you must know the uncertainty which prevails in the public mind concerning a future life, and the contradictory doctrines taught by it, is it surprising that intelligent responsible human beings (despairing of ever obtaining reliable information or repose for their souls in the decaying churches) should seek after that which brings home to the senses the very evidence they are in search of? Twelve months ago, or little more, whilst agreeing with the other religious teachings of spiritualism, I laughed at the idea of spirits demeaning themselves to communicate with mortals at all, far less at their doing it at tables; but I listened to what its pronounced advocates had to say, and, being naturally of an enquiring turn of mind, became impressed with their sincerity and good sense, thought I ought to know more of it before refusing to believe it, and that I would read and investigate for myself. Having come to this resolution, I resolved honestly to abide by it, to learn all that could be learned on the subject, irrespective of trouble or expense (for I at once saw if it really were true its importance to my fellow creatures could not be over estimated), and to decide after an impartial investigation according to the evidence. I am here to-night to pronounce judgment. And that judgment is now unreservedly in favor
London Spiritualist, which, on opening, I discovered, to my amazement, was my own copy, with my name written on it, and which I had sent to a friend on Saturday afternoon, who resides at Quarry Hill, with a request that he would return it on Monday. On his calling on that day—the circle having all agreed not to tell him what had occurred—he said that he had called to inform me that he had lost or mislaid my Spiritualist. He missed it on Saturday night, when he wont to change his coat. On putting his hand in his inside pocket, expecting to
the Melbourne Harbinger of Light"—the account which he gave us of himself to the London Medium, with a view of having him traced, because you will see if his statements, on enquiry, are found to be correct, it would indeed be a powerful test. Just such a test was given to our excellent friend Mr Peebles. Some years ago, a strange spirit controlled Dr. Dunn in America, and addressed Mr Peebles as follows:—"I am a stranger to you, but not you to me. My name is Aaron Nite. My birth-place is Yorkshire, England. I departed this life when nineteen, and have been in the spirit-world about 170 years."
The spirit further added that his surroundings was at the River Ouse, St. Mary's Abbey, York Minister. Mr Peebles nor no one in America, could give any information concerning this spirit; but on Mr Peebles visiting England a few years afterwards, he related the particulars to some friends in London, expressed his anxiety in the cause of truth to verify the statement, and set off, accompanied by an antiquairian for St. Mary's Abbey, Yorkshire. There they looked up the old regis-
Of course those two cases are not so decisive as the one of Mr Peebles, nevertheless they are at least somewhat interesting, and will serve to show you that, in conjunction with a mass of evidence from all quarters of the globe and from all sorts and conditions of men and women, spiritualism is not a thing to be laughed at; and that so far from being a delusion, the arguments and evidences in its favour are so powerful and convincing as to be conclusive. At all events the most learned men of our opponents such as Dr Carpenter, Professor Thompson, and the great body of the clergy, have not been able to account for the phenomena occurring at thousands of circles in England and America, upon any other reasonable or rational hypothesis than that claimed for them by the Spiritualists. Friends those fellow citizens who rise in the morning and do nothing else all day but devote their energies to money making, and to "what they shall eat and drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed," cannot understand spiritualism, and think it would be time lost to investigate it; but the time will come for them as well as for us all when they shall be stripped of all they possess, and just as they have sown so shall they reap. God is not mocked. That spiritual life which we have not led here to prepare us for the company of the noble and good in our Father's house of many mansions, will have to be begun there. This law, the spirits tell us is unalterable, and is as inexorably applied to the king who has worn a crown as to the meanest of his subjects. With God there is no respect of persons. If we live hero for our own selfishness alone, shutting out from us those nobler duties incumbent upon us, of ministering to the wants of our fellow-creatures; if we live but to gratify the lusts of the eye and the pride of life, and neglect the weightier matters of the law—justice and mercy—we shall inevitably reap the whirlwind of our own sowing. Paul, addressing the Corinthians, said:—
"Now concerning spiritual gilts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Now there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. But; the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom—to another, the word of knowledge by the same spirit—to another, faith by the same spirit—to another, the gifts of healing by the same spirit—to another, the working of miracles—to another, prophecy—to another, discerning of spirits—to another, divers kind of tongues—to another, the interpretation of tongues."
If you would desire to possess these gifts, which the Apostle desired that the Corinthians should not be ignorant of (and they are just those of which spiritualists are possessed at the present day) keep your bodies in subjection, lead spiritual lives; be honest and just in your business transactions; train up your children in the way they should go; be virtuous in your public and private lives; be a law to yourselves in everything; make your word as good as your bond; and thus will the spirit-world be brought near to you, and heaven begun on earth. One of old has wisely said:—
"A good name is better than riches."
Let us all strive then, to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be added unto us." There is reason for hope and congratulation that people of all nations and creeds—as the result of increased intercommunication with each other, and the more general spread of education—are begining to see that such teachings are full of wisdom, and that the more nearly they are followed up, the greater the mutual confidence, esteem and happiness between all classes in their several relationships with each other, will prevail. Thus we see in many eases differences between employers and employes amicably settled by the employer's setting the example of concession, and showing by his actions in shorten-
A very numerous and a very attentive and apparently deeply-interested audience assembled at the Orderly Room last evening, to listen to a discourse by Mr Denovan on the above subject. Many, doubtless, were kept away in consequence of the heat of the weather. Fully a third of those present were ladies. The singing was very good, some fine female voices adding to the effect. Mr Denovan intimated that he would deliver the third of the series of lectures, on "The Christian Objections to Spiritualism Examined," in a month or six weeks from now, if possible.
The lecturer read a chapter from the Acts of the Apostles, and the hymns sung during the evening were Addison's noble composition, "The spacious firmament on High," "From North and South, from East and West, advance the myriads of the blest," "Death is the fading of a cloud," and the Doxology. Mr Denovan then proceeded:—
Friends,—In my former lecture on "The Evidences of Spiritualism," I endeavored to prove that the extraordinary phenomena occurring at circles, in all nations, were genuine, and were produced by the spirits of our departed friends and relatives, who, by means of a great natural law of God, of which we are ignorant, were, though absent in the body, still able to communicate with us. I pointed out to you that in former ages, by means of this law, spirits held daily converse with men; and, that if it were denied that they could do so in the present age, it would be incumbent on our opponents to prove when this law became inoperative, by whom it was rendered so, and for what wise purpose so beneficent a provision of nature was set aside. I also drew your attention to the present state of Christianity—to the wide-spread unbelief in the truth of divine revelation which prevails amongst the educated classes, and the necessity which exists for a new revelation, with a view of converting materialists and sceptics to a belief in God and a life to come. Spiritualism, as I showed you, had already been instrumental, to a very great extent, in bringing about the conversion of many thousands of "infidels" in all those countries where it had obtained a footing, and was understood by the people; and that as its truth was established by the most incontestible evidence from all quarters, and by all ranks and conditions of men, it was only fair, before being condemned by you, that it should be subjected to the crucial test of an honest and impartial investigation.
To-night, in accordance with my promise, I proceed to consider "The Leading Scientific Objections to Spiritualism." And in the discharge of this duty, permit me to assure you of my desire to act honestly and impartially in the matter. I would most respectfully remind you that if spiritualism be not true, and the objections urged against it are capable of proof, then before the arguments of the materialists, believers in the immortality of the soul will have to bow their heads; because, if the living evidence in favor of this all-important doctrine is to be rejected (for such evidence is, from the very nature of things, the most convincing), the dead evidence must also fail. Hence the vital importance to all believers in God, and a life beyond the present, of the truth of spiritualism.
The first objection I will deal with is as follows:—"The phenomena produced at circles, if genuine, are the result of brain force." Now, let us examine this objection carefully, and see if it is correct. Before this opinion can be received in elucidation of the phenomena, its advocates will require to prove to the satisfaction of the public what brain force is, how it can raise and suspend heavy bodies in the air without human contact, how loud raps on the tables, chairs, doors, and walls of rooms are produced by it, and how things are related at circles, through mediums, of which none present have any knowledge, but which are afterwards found to be strictly correct; and how it conjures up the spirits to visibly show themselves to mortals. That these phenomena are not the result of brain force I shall now endeavor to show. Robert Dale Owen, in his "Footfalls on the Boundary of another World," gives an account of a lady who resided in a beautiful country residence, at no great distance whom London, and who had lost by death an aged friend, to whom
backward; completing the first line rear the left-hand edge of the sheet, then commencing a second line, and finally a third, both on the right, and completing the writing near to where she had first put down her pencil. Not only was the last letter in the sentence written first, and so on until the commencing letter was written last, but each separate letter was written backward or inversely: the pencil going over the lines which composed each letter from right to left." Mr Owen adds:—"Mrs W. stated to me that (as may well be conceived) she had not the slightest perception of what her hand was writing; no idea passing through her mind at the time." * * The sentence read thus: "Ye are sorrowing as one without hope. Cast thy burden upon God, and He will help thee" The lady, after recovering from her surprise, pondered over in her mind who caused her to write the sentence, and she very naturally concluded that it was the spirit of her aged friend who had thus been permitted to comfort her. She silently prayed that if it were her old friend he would write his name. Mr Owen says: "The event, however, wholly belied her expectation. The pencil, again drawn nearly to the right-hand edge of the paper, wrote, backward as before, not the expected name, but the initials R. G. D. Mrs W., as she read them, felt herself shudder and turn pale. The grave seemed giving forth its dead. The initials were those of a young man who, eighteen years before, had sought her in marriage, but whom, though she had long known and highly esteemed him, she had rejected." I regret that time will not permit of me giving the narrative in full; but sufficient has been given to convince you that "brain-force" had nothing whatever to do with this spirit manifestation. In this case the lady was used as a mere mechanical agent by another, and that other an entirely different spirit to the one she was thinking of, one too who had been in the spirit world for a number of years. And in addition to the startling fact of the initials given being those of a person she was not even thinking of instead of those of her old friend, there was the writing itself, a letter of which she did not know when writing it until she had laid aside the pencil and read it. Friends, such facts as these will carry conviction to all whose minds are open to the reception of truth. I may add, too, that the lady in question was not a spiritualist. There was in this case strong evidence of the presence of an independent intelligence, which not only impressed the lady in question to write, but directed her hand in a totally different manner from her usual style of writing, making her write the last letter of the last word of the sentence backward, and so on to the end of the first letter of the first word of it; and though the sentence is a very beautiful one, she was so purely a mechanical agent in the writing of it, that she knew not what she had written until she read it. Then, her brain force came into action, and supplied her with the necessary intelligence to know and understand what she had written. I presume most persons will agree with me that this is the natural and legitimate purpose for which brain force is given to all of us. Rut it will be a hard task indeed for anyone to prove that the brain can of itself upset all the normal faculties of an individual, and so control him as to make him write in any manner it may choose, and to at the same time so deaden all his perceptions as to make him perfectly unconscious of what he is writing; and above all to supply him with intelligence which was not within his brain at the time he was made to write. It appears to me, in such a case, it would be much easier to believe in the spiritual theory than in that of brain force. But in all cases where men or women are used as mere mechanical mediums, it is a well-known fact that during the process of their organisations being so used, the brain is either made inactive or "deadened." This is frankly admitted now by the more learned of our opponents, who have been driven by the logic of facts to seek for other and more tenable objections to spiritualism. William Crookes, of the Royal Society, has proved by his experiments with Mr Home, that "an accordion was floated and played without human contact, and a tune performed without a key being touched by Mr Home or anybody else." Now
The next objection of any weight is that urged by that eminent scientist, Dr Carpenter, namely, "Unconscious Cerebration." This idea means, as plainly as I can express it, the revival or reproduction of impressions or thoughts which, at one time or other, were in the brain, and which, unknown to us, remained dormant there, irrespective of the lapse of time. That is, if you and I wore to-night to receive an impression that the world was flat instead of round like a globe, the impression might be altogether forgotten by us, as though it had never been made; yet it would remain latent in the brain unconsciously to us, and might be by a corresponding action of the brain reproduced, and appearing to us as a now impression. Now, friends, Dr Carpenter in the 'Quarterly Review' and in his lectures against Spiritualism, has argued in favor of this theory being one of the principal causes of the extraordinary phenomena produced at circles, with all the eloquence and learning of which he is capable; but it has only had the effect of creating a little attention and excitement on both sides, without weakening the spiritualist hypothesis in the least. Because it only proves this much, and nothing more, namely, that where latent thought or impressions have at one time or other been made on the brain, they may without the knowledge of anyone present be revived. Now, I am quite prepared to admit that in not a few cases where mediums have met in circles for a few weeks only, what is spoken or written by them in the abnormal state may be nothing more than the abnormal action of their own brains, causing them to reproduce words and sentences which may appear new to them, but which in reality are nothing more than old disjointed scraps of what they have heard or learned at church, or the Sunday school, and with which no spirit out of the body has had anything to do. But to suppose for one moment that such a theory would account for the leading phenomena of spiritualism, is preposterous and absurd, and only goes to prove how very little knowledge such learned men as Dr Carpenter possess on the subject, or how little of their time and thought they have given to a proper investigation of it. It may be that statements have been made through mediums at circles which all present at the time thought were incorrect, but which afterwards were proved to be true, and thus recalled to the mind of some present; but it is likewise equally true that information has been given, which no one present had over known or heard of, and which has afterwards been verified to the letter. In the latter case it could not be by the aid of "unconscious cerebration," as it had never been impressed on the brain. And this theory most certainly does not create, whatever else it may do. But even in the former case, Dr Carpenter would have some trouble to prove to the satisfaction of an intelligent audience that his theory accounted for the information given. If not in the mind of the medium; but in that of one of the circle, by what means was the unconscious thought conveyed to the brain of the medium, and by him re-conveyed to the original possessor of it? With his brain deadened, as it is acknowledged to be in the abnormal state, what power enabled him to do such a thing? Let us examine Dr Carpenter's theory further. I frankly acknowledge its important bearing on the question at issue, and would, therefore, most respectfully ask your close attention while I endeavor to prove to you its utter fallacy as an antidote to the spiritualist hypothesis. Signor Damiani, in his evidence before the Committee of the Dialectical Society, of London, stated that at a seance he attended, a spirit came and announced itself to be his sister Marietta. He had
seen the hands." In reply to a question by the chairman (Dr Edmund), "Have you ever obtained any information which could not have been known to the medium, or to any one present?" Lord Lindsay, another witness, said:—
"I know of one such fact, which I can relate to you. A friend of mine was very anxious to find the will of his grandmother, who had been dead forty years, but could not even find the certificate of her death. I went with him to the Marshalls, and we had a seance; we sat at a table, and soon the rape came; my friend then asked his questions mentally; he went over the alphabet himself, or sometimes I did so, not knowing the question. We were told the will had been drawn by a man named Wm. Walker, who lived in Whitechapel. The name of the street and the number of the house were given. We went to Whitechapel, found the man, and subsequently, through his aid, obtained a copy of the draft; he was quite unknown to us, and had not always lived in that locality, for he had once seen better days. The medium could not possibly have known anything about the matter, and even if she had, her knowledge would have been of no avail, as all the questions were menial ones."
Mr Manuel Eyre gives the following extraordinary evidence:—
"I will now relate a fact which, I think, shows an intelligence foreign to that of the persons present at the circle where it occurred. One object of my visit to this country was to obtain if possible the register of the baptism of a person born in England, and who died in America a century ago. From information given me, I was led to believe I would get this in Yorkshire or Cambridgeshire. I spoilt over three months, and took a great deal of trouble, but all to no purpose. I had received from America a spirit communication that I would be able to get the information of where this baptismal register was to be found through a medium in this country. I tried through several mediums, but got nothing satisfactory but the assurance I would get it. I at last received a communication from a spirit, directing me to go Mrs Marshall. Being mistrustful of public mediums, I determined to use extreme caution in pursuing my investigation. I went to Mrs Marshall in the winter of
And now, friends, I think that you will at once see that the theory of "unconscious cerebration" does not nor cannot account for such cases as these I have just read to you; and these are only a few out of hundreds of such. Take those of Professor Hare and Mr Peebles, which I related to you in my previous lecture, both being remarkable cases of spirit manifestations, and showing as plainly as evidence could show it, that the mediums nor no one connected with them in the body, had anything to do with their production. If, then, this theory of Dr Carpenter's does hot cover all of the more important phenomena occurring at spirit circles, it must be given up as untenable, and he and his supporters will either have to accept the spiritual origin claimed for them by upwards of twenty millions of people, or find out some other more rational cause for them than the one which he so persistently but so hopelessly advocates. And that it fails to do this, let me hope that the evidence which I have thus placed before you has abundantly demonstrated. The next leading objections to the spiritualist theory are these:—"The phenomena are genuine, but are to be accounted for in laws and forces connected with the human organism such as mesmerism, odic-force, muscular action," &c., &c. In this class of objectors the spiritualist perceives honesty of conviction, a belief in the integrity of most of those who testify to what they witness at the circles, and the wish to learn more. I desire, therefore, to return the gentlemanly courtesy of such opponents, by a respectful consideration of their theories. It is a step gained for the now philosophy when we find those opposed to it forced to admit the genuine character of the phenomena. If they would only apply themselves to a diligent and impartial investigation of them, they might find that instead of the spiritualist being wrong in attributing them to the action of disembodied spirits, they themselves were at fault in hastily adopting the opinion that they were only the result of some physical law connected with the human system, and hitherto unknown to science. Let us now see if there is anything in these objections. I have already endeavored to show you that brain force and unconscious cerebration had nothing whatever to do with the production of the principal manifestations at spirit circles, and that the agents of them were independent in many of their actions of the circles altogether; whilst at the same time, in consequence of the peculiar nature of certain organisms, these agents had the power of using them mechanically for such purposes us they deemed necessary in their efforts to impress us with the truth of their being able to communicate with us; and that these intelligences uniformly asserted they were the spirits of departed friends and relatives who had at one time or other dwelt amongst us. Now, before spiritualists can consistently be asked to distrust the evidence of their senses and disbelieve in the spiritual theory, our opponents must first be able to show us that these agents are laws and forces within us, instead of actual spirits. How could laws and forces within us carry a letter through the air, from Florence to Leghorn, wait for an answer, and take it back to its destination, a distance of 120 miles, as testified to by Baron Kirkup of Italy, as having been done last year by a spirit, to his knowledge, in little more than an hour of time? Would the laws and forces within us convey a message from Bendigo to Melbourne by electric telegraph and back, unless there were an operator at each end of the line? Or supposing, for the sake of argument, that we have laws and forces within us capable of doing such astounding things, contrary to all the known laws of our physical being, would not this go a great, way towards establishing the truth of spiritualism? For would it not prove an in-dwelling God—if I may so express it—who could create as well as execute, and whose power would reach beyond the finite understanding to conceive? It is on record, and supported by evidence which would be received in any court of justice in the world, that natural flowers have been brought into circles, formed into wreaths and crowns and placed on the heads of some of those present by invisible agent. Whether, let me ask, is it more consistent with common sense to believe that
That would be a miracle with a vengeance, and makes that of Jonah and the whale look very small. But were such a thing possible, the creation thus brought into being would be, from its nature, a mere automaton of the thoughts, opinions, and peculiar characteristics of those present; but what are the facts? It is acknowledged that the spirits who visibly appear in bodily form at circles express opinions directly contrary to those held by the members, and act and think as independent beings, distinct and separate from us. William Howitt, writing of this odic force, says:—"Search through Reichenbach's essay on this force, and you will find no trace of a reasoning power in it. It cannot enable people to draw and write, and play exquisite music, who have no such power or knowledge in their brains; it cannot come from other brains, for there are often no other brains present. If it could do such things it would be spirit, endowed with volition, skill, and knowledge; and there would be an end to the dispute. The condition, therefore, of those who ascribe these powers to odic force, is that of one ascribing the telegraphic message to the wire, and not to the man at the end of it. Odic force may be the wire; for spiritual communications are, and ever have been, made through and under certain laws, as all God's works always are; but it certainly is not the intelligence at the end of it. Whilst the odists and automatists speculate about an action on the brain, we cut the matter short, and say—'There stand the spirits themselves, seen, hoard, felt and conversed with.'"
This idea, then, must also be given up as totally at variance with facts, as utterly repugnant to all the laws governing our physical organism, and as insulting to our common sense. Neither the laws and forces within us, nor the chemical emanations proceeding from our bodies, could possibly endow us with power to create an adult human being, perfect in every part, and able to shake hands with us, sing, write, and speak. Our opponents who advocate such a theory must indeed be hard pressed for an argument, which is about as near the truth as the one ascribing the table phenomena to the "knee-joints" of some one present, or to that of Mr Wizard Anderson, to "secret springs being placed under the rooms" whore they occur. The Mesmeric theory is the most sensible, in my opinion, of any yet propounded by our opponents. It is stated that the medium is involuntarily mesmerised cither by some one in the circle or by the circle. I do not say that in the case of some sensitives this is not the case; indeed, I think it highly probable that it is so; and that in such cases spirits out of the body have nothing to do with what they say or do. It would be a fatal mistake, friends, to attribute to spirits a great deal of the twaddle that is spoken and written at some of the circles by entranced mediums, who are but partially developed. Such mediums only give expression to their own thoughts, or those of some present, and are clearly under the delusive and visionary operations of mesmerism. And if their mediumistic qualifications are not of a
spirit. And he may not require to go inside the body, or even to be present in the circle, to effect his object. His will-power is brought to bear upon the medium whether he is absent or present. But in a very large number of cases those mediums controlled or mesmerised by the spirits, are persons who never could be mesmerised by any mesmerist in the body, a fact which I beg to commend to the special notice of such a learned gentleman as Dr Carpenter, and to ask him to explain it if he can. Again, there are many mediums, such as Koto Fox, D. D. Home, and Dr Slade, through whom some of the best and most convincing of the phenomena come in their normal state (see Owen's 'Debatable Land,' 'The Banner of Light,' and Home's 'Incidents in my Life and some without either circle or medium. In the circle of which I am a member, a mesmerist who joined it a year ago, and who was not then a spiritualist, thought he could prove the phenomena neither more nor less than the result of ordinary mesmerism, and without letting any of us know, quietly, whilst sitting in the dark, proceeded to try his experiments on the mediums while they were under control; but he soon found, to his utter astonishment, that he could exercise no power over them whatever, and that instead of his being able to mesmerise them, he was likely to get mesmerised himself. And so he did, the spirits completely controlling him and throwing him on the floor in a deep trance. Nor could any of us exercise the smallest control over them any more than our friend until the spirits would tell us to "wake them." Spiritualists, therefore, frankly admit the mesmeric theory as accounting for some of the phenomena; but they differ from their opponents as to the operators. With the ordinary mesmerist, the sensitive is under his control; but when the spirit-mesmerists control ordinary operators have to give place to them. This has been proved in our own circle over and over again when the usual mesmeric passes have failed to wake the mediums, and the spirits have chosen to wake them by other moans. These are facts, and facts are stubborn things. Mr Peebles, when in Bendigo, related a case in point. You will remember it, it was in reference to a young man Atkin, whom he had under his control, but after a time lost it, a spirit having controlled him. It was the same with Dr Dunn. This gentleman, when a lad, one night went on the platform to be mesmerised by a mesmerist lecturer. He went to sham, but was really mesmerised, not by the lecturer—who found he had no control over him—but by a spirit. Friends, from all these facts which I have thus endeavored to plainly bring before you, you must admit that there are good and substantial reasons for the spiritual theory; in fact, that "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." It is all very well for the Materialist to sneer at, and deride the idea of our living after the physical body has been laid in the grave; but sneering will not make the fact any less, nor will it prevent the spread of the truth on this momentous question. Every day is teaching us how little we really know concerning ourselves and the wonders of creation. It is, no doubt, a hard matter for many highly educated minds to believe in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; but they have had before now to unlearn many things which they supposed were as true as mathematical truth, and will have again. We are not to blindly follow the lead of the scientist who clings to his darling idea of matter being the first and only cause of all things, as a child does to his rocking horse; because God has bestowed upon us reasoning faculties which enable us to think and know differently. Plato and Pythagoras, as well as the so-called inspired penmen of the Bible, taught that the world was flat instead of round, and that the sun moved round it; instead of it—as the brave Galileo demonstrated—moving round the sun. Some highly respectable journals in England, supported by men of science, laughed at and ridiculed the idea of people travelling by rail, or crossing the ocean in a steamboat; yet all these things have been accomplished, and millions travel by both these means. And now, to meet the commercial requirements of the old and new worlds, a telegraphic girdle encircles the globe. Who, in the presence of such facts as these, will have the hardihood to assert that God's omnipotence
And now, friends, in drawing this lecture to a close, let me ask you to dismiss from your minds all the silly things you have heard spoken and written against spiritualism "the new science of the nineteenth century—and resolve calmly and deliberately to give it a fair and patient investigation, either in your families or in private circles. Do not, as reasonable and responsible beings, allow prejudice to interfere with this duty. I would most respectfully remind you that those who have already done so belong to all ranks and conditions of men, whose judgment and discernment are as good as your own; whoso purpose is noble and disinterested, and who would not knowingly give their countenance to this cause did they not firmly believe it to be a righteous one. Of course the clergy will call its pioneers 'blasphemers and infidels." What of that? Did not the priests of the old religions of the time say the same of Jesus? Have they not said the same of the advocates of every now truth which
This is the great truth which spiritualism wishes to bring home to our senses. And on the ladder of magnetism and electricity which the angels have formed between earth and heaven, and in obedience to God's law of affility, there come to us thousands of
to tell us of the life beyond the grave, and of the glories that await us in our new homes in the higher spheres. These divine messengers give us good counsels; telling us to live noble lives if we would be happy here and hereafter. The clergy say that it is all the work of the Devil. Well, all I have to say in reply to this is: it it be his Satanic Majesty, he must have got converted, for most assuredly he is doing the work of the other side. What a curious old fellow this Devil must be. Would Darwin or Buckle tell us if he has got a tail, and whether—as he appears to be ubiquitous—he ever appears in the pulpit with a surplice? Then, it is said to be all a delusion, the thousands who testify to what they have seen and heard having been deceived. Now, let me reply to this in the words of the late Dr Robert Chambers, who was a devoted spiritualist. He says:—
"A little modesty would evidently go a great way to solve the difficulty which the incredulous profess to feel on this point. If they would so far yield to the behests of their favorite philosophy as to inquire before pronouncing, it might chance that the position of a believer in these phenomena would become more intelligible to them. So at least, it has already happened with a vast number of persons, equally positive at starting, that the whole was a delusion, and we are entitled to assume that what has been may be so again."
Friends, I beg to thank you for the undivided attention you have given me throughout the lecture, and commend what I have said to your favorable consideration. "I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say."
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Reader! avast, before you proceed any further, for, if you have not been in the habit of exercising your reflective faculties, or if you do not intend to begin now to exercise them, you may save yourself the trouble of reading the following pages—they are not intended for you and will do you no good—the shallow and the unthinking can reap no benefit from their perusal—but if you have trained your mind to reflect, to weigh evidence and form your own conclusions, I hail you as a brother of independent mind, an individuality, a soul, a man on your own account, and I invite you to a consideration, with me, of those principles which so much affect the problems of physical, intellectual, moral, social and spiritual life. I do not lay claim to much originality of thought; I cannot tell how much of the following is original, or how much has been suggested by other authors; I will not even guarantee that many of the passages, marked as quotations in the following pages, are correct, or that many not marked at all are not quotations; I may have altered both to suit my own ideas, for, in nearly all instances, I quote from memory, and many of the authors I have never read; but this I feel, whether the following thoughts have originated with myself or with others, whether I have read them in books, or whether I have been impressed with them by my spirit guides, they are equally dear to me in the present state of my mind, and I hope they may meet with the same approval on your part. But whether they meet with your approval or disapproval I shall be equally satisfied, providing your verdict is conscientiously given.
The men who have set their mark upon the progress of thought have done so, not so much by the originality of their views, as by the happy manner in which they have compiled and brought within reach the advanced views of the age in which they lived; their success has not consisted so much in declaring something new, as in introducing—probably in a new dress—old thoughts of sterling value, which have lain dormant and neglected in men's minds for ages. Few writers of advanced thoughts live to see the fruits of their labors. Silently and unobserved they rise and take their place among the stars in the intellectual constellations, and when the healthful breeze of freedom has cleared the atmosphere of haze and clouds, they shine forth with truthful and beautiful splendour, guiding stars in the pathway of mind, culminating points in the realm of thought.
How true it is that one shall sow and another shall reap! Think you that a sensualist living in Jerusalem, with his harem of 1,000 wives and concubines, could be the author of all the ancient Jewish proverbs, so simple and so truthful! I say 'tis an impossibility. The mind of such an individual might give birth to the lascivious thoughts contained in that production of the Jewish Anacreon, The Song of Songs, but the wise sayings of the sages are too much above the plane of his thought. Thoughts are as natural as any other product of life, Nature never contradicts herself.
The fine moral precepts found in the sayings of Jesus existed ages before his time, his true value as a reformer consists in that he evolved from the region of Idea and Thought, as he understood them, a religion of action—ill understood by his immediate disciples, and still less understood by the majority of that people calling themselves Christians.
There was an Illiad before Homer wrote his, many Philosophers were before Socrates and Plato, Galileo and Copernicus, before Newton, Bacon's method had been followed, from the hour that reason dawned, and Aguste Comte is not the last that will carry it beyond its legitimate province.
Many of the ancients and a Monbaddo wrote of the origin of the human species before Darwin, and Professor Owes is neither the first nor the last nor the greatest of our philosophers. Mind succeeds mind in the kingdom of thought, ever onward rolls the wave of human pro-
Before we proceed let me define our terms. Harmonial Philosophy! The term Harmonial is used as implying perfect unity—a happy oneness and accord in all its parts—
We use the term philosophy in its most extended sense, as not only embracing the physical sciences, but all the higher problems which have engaged the minds of mankind from the earliest dawn of thought. Theology, metaphysics, positive science, the physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual constitution of man, his relations with the external worlds of matter and spirit, with his fellow men, and with the great positive mind of the universe.
This is no system of high philosophy, purely abstract, designed only for the pedantic and sour-minded misanthrope, flaunting his learning before the eyes and in the ears of the untutored clown, bus is interwoven in all its details with human sympathies and social interests.
The vulgar notion of liberty only implies a freedom from constraint of action. This is a very defective definition, and you will perceive its defects when you hear what the Harmonialist says:—
"True liberty can only be enjoyed by the united freedom and union of internal and external law working in harmony; physical action is bounded by the power and circumstance of our being, and its social relations, but the range of mind is illimitable, and we claim for it free course to pursue its unrestricted enquiry, and to speak its sentiments as well as Moses, Buddha, Jesus or Mahomed. Nothing must be considered too sacred, nor yet anything too profane, on which to exercise the powers of man's intellectual endowments, but this which appears so simple is a most difficult task. The iron sceptre of im-
Reader, you are perhaps better acquainted with the methods of reasoning followed as a fashion by the different schools of wranglers than I am, let us however refer to them.
That known as Aristotle's mode, the syllogistic, was long adhered to; it obtained particular favour among dogmatists, but its days are on the wane, it is uncertain and oft leads to error. We cannot be sure that the major term is always correct, it has first to be proven. The minor term may or may not correspond with it, so in every case the conclusion is extremely liable to be vitiated. Reasoning from hypotheses is like building castles in the air, it takes the foundation for granted which may be no foundation at all, and the first fresh breeze of true discovery lays our superstructure prostrate in the dust.
Reasoning from Analogy, of which Butler has given us the best example in our language, is now so generally considered unreliable that it has almost ceased to be a process of reasoning, and is now simply used by sensible writers for purposes of rhetoric or embellishment; there are however a few who still adhere to what they chose to term—strict Analogy, but their number is lessening every day. In my view Analogy seems rather to be a process through which the mind passes the subject before it proceeds to investigate it, than a mode of proof
David Hume and Dr. Paley misapplied the method, and drew opposite conclusions. When two such minds as these follow the same method and arrive at opposite results, the fault is more likely to be in the method than in the men.
But the most amusing result of all is to see the length to which Aguste Comte has been driven. He has got as far as "Materialism in Physcology, Selfishness in Ethics, and Atheism in Theology," and he could not help himself. The system he lays down for himself drives him to that pitiful end, and whoever accepts his method cannot escape his conclusions.
But the Harmonialist refers to the other end of the same chain of reasoning; a very old method "more ancient than the divine Plato, its august diciple," probably the oldest of all, as the mind invariably adopts it before it seeks to prove by induction. This mode commences a priori from what appears self-evident to the mind, descends, meets,
We have already noticed the absurd conclusions to which M. Comte has been driven by carrying the sensuous method beyond its proper domain, and such has also been the result of the Cartesian method, from its one-sided spiritual view, that its disciples have truly earned for themselves the titles of Mystics, Dreamers, and Visionaries, landing ingloriously through their unbalanced enthusiasm in the mire of absurdity.
No wonder Descartes is now at a discount; he will never be properly appreciated until his book of Method and Principles takes its place by the side of Bacon's Novum Organon, and the Physical and Spiritual unite as a harmonious whole, forming a full and complete mode of reasoning.
In speaking of human happiness the harmonialist says, that it is derived from a natural basis. "Our whole nature must participate, for no true happiness can be found except in the development of our whole nature; physical power, in harmony with the power of conscience, the unity of the external with the internal man, the truthfulness of the soul in perfect agreement with the words and actions of the phenomenal man. That inharmonial or purely physical pleasures are sensuous, transitory and partial;" whereas harmonial pleasures, in unison with the whole of our nature, physical and rational, are permanent to the last degree." That inharmonial pleasures produce discord in our nature. The severance of the rational from the natural prevents all permanent enjoyment, and that where our nature is thus thrown into discord, we can neither see clearly, nor enjoy fully, the general beauty social order, and harmony of all existences..
The harmonialist affirms that there is nothing in the professedly revealed religions existing among mankind but what the human mind could either discover or invent.
That the evolution of religious thought follows the exact law of man's development.
The faculty of wonder lying immediately over the animal faculties which constitute the basis of man's nature, comes into operation before the higher organs of intellect, and thus gives birth to the mysterious, which in its turn begets the theological—the first outgoings of mind on the road of progress—the second stage of progress turns the mind in upon itself, and gives birth to the metaphysical. Still onward, and the mysterious and metaphysical become modified by the analytical process of the mind. These stages must of necessity all remain imperfect until the intellect by direct knowledge reduces the mysterious, the theological, and the metaphysical to their proper value in the currency of exact science, a feat which the harmonialist alone seems capable of accomplishing. The harmonialist avers that nothing tends more to damp the soul and produce ungenial and inharmonious thoughts than a stern and gloomy creed. That all conceptions of a future state of existence partake of the mental idiopathy, and moral and intellectual state of the conceptionalist. The great faith of the Harmonialist in the supreme fountain of all wisdom appears to lay at the basis of all his chief enioyments, and, in anticipating his future advancement, he reasons thus: "In our present state the greatest among us can take in but a small portion of clear knowledge as respects the vast universe around us, but we perceive the all comprehending mind, and our rational nature suggests that the intellectual desires of all his creatures will as assuredly be satisfied, as their appetites, for natural desires are nowhere falsified in the plan of nature. "Without this satisfaction life would be a fragment without a design, a delusion and a misfortune." He follows up this train of thought by saying "The greater portion of the human family are born, live sensuously, feel, and die in darkness and ignorance, understanding not, nor being understood. Millions of illuminated insects whose span of life is short; just long enough to
It is no part of our present purpose to enter into an examination of these proofs, but simply to state that millions of living witnesses, men and women of virtue and intelligence, bear witness to the truth and variety of spirit communications.
In reviewing this philosophy we find it to be peculiar in its freedom from dogmatism." It lays no claim to infallibility, sets up no fixed standard of thought; beyond the bounds of which you may not pass; professes not to have displayed the whole of truth, but leaves the future generations of the race to ascend still higher in the great temple of mind, that riches vast and invaluable, from the inexhaustible recourses of the mighty university may be added to its store."
It recognises no direct antagonism in any of the systems of Religion or Philosophy, which have gone before it, nor stands at direct variance with any of the systems which occupy men's minds at the present day, but sees a measure of good and truth in all, even the simplest and meanest, and propounds, as a fact arrived at by retrospective investigation, that the durability and permanence of every system depends upon the measure of Truth which it contains. That Truth alone is permanent—hath a never ending existence—that Thought Ideas, and Principles alone contain Truth in its purity—that men, and parties of men, are only imperfect symbols, and the strongest union of these symbols must come to an end. If bad, their glory will be shortlived, if possessing a large measure of truth they will endure much longer, but no longer than until the race outgrows them. When that period arrives they must yield their old spirit and commence a new life, or perish of neglect as a part refusing to unite with the whole in its advancing changes.
The Harmonialist believes that the whole order of the universe originated in the divine unity, and that, when its cycle is complete, t'will be resolved again into perfect unity, and that all the deviations
In all matters of judgment the Harmonialist takes reason as the standard of appeal, he admits that errors may arise, but these arise from imperfect knowledge, and not generally from any defect in the faculties. Correct knowledge will lead to correct reasoning.
In matters connected with morality and virtue he acknowledges with Jocobi, the authority of conscience, although it is no absolute test in matters of right, owing to its impersonal and subjective quality; yet it possesses considerable value, and may be appealed to, except in the case of the hardened offender who denies its existence.
He agrees with Bentham that "virtue has no reality apart from the rational pursuit of happiness," and with Bentham's opponents that a disinterested act produces the greatest amount of internal pleasure.
He agrees with Kant and Hegel and Shelling, and many of the German Idealists, that reason and conscience are impersonal, and may be corrected and adjusted by an appeal to the collective reason and conscience, in history and external nature, since all are in harmony.
He defines Truth as the relation of things as they are, and Error as the relation of things as they are not." Facts as things which are, done, and can be attested by the senses. History he regards as a relation of facts, mingled with the myths of past ages, still he does not impugn the veracity of old authors, well knowing that no man can entirely free himself from the prejudices and frailties of the age in which he lives.
To sum up our definitions. The Harmonial Philosophy is not so much a letter, a word, a system of principles or ethics, or spoken thoughts and sentiments, as a life, a true religion of action, recognizing the law of God as stamped in and upon universal nature, and obeying that perfect law as written in the human soul. It encourages the utmost freedom of thought and bows in bondage to no fixed creed, daring to scrutinize all systems of faith, well knowing that truth and science can never imperil true faith, nor can God's house ever be divided against itself.
Our spiritual philosophy being natural and universal, which cannot be said of any of the religions of mankind, it must necessarily follow that spiritualism is greater than them all, for, according to their spirituality, which ought to be the one essential element of their being (in fact the only thing that entitles them to be called religions) they must all be comprehended within its scope, reduced to the position of so many servants or witnesses, all bearing a testimony, more or less clear, according to their light, in favor of Spiritualism, the universal tree of the great Father's planting, with its roots in the earth and its branches shooting up into the heavens.
Man is a religious being, or rather possesses a religious element in his nature, which makes Deity, Immortality and Spiritual Progress facts necessary to his very being. Where this element and these facts are ignored, true harmony is an impossible attainment. Such is the power of this natural sentiment in the human soul that it can subdue and conquer the fear of death, enforce pain, privation and mortification of the flesh, and, when misdirected, can be made to do violence to the holiest and most sacred ties that bind humanity. Atheists, and mere secularists, who ignore it, must of necessity fail in their efforts to bind in one homogenous mass the conflicting interests of mankind.
The Harmonialist proceeds upon the principle of induction in proving his conclusions in regard to spiritual matters, he collates the various facts of so-called spirit phenomena, and, from a combination of unvarying results, giving forth an intelligible phase; from the unseen and invisible, he is led to the conclusion that unseen intelligences bound our material existence on every hand.
Animal magnetism he finds to be the conduit or channel through which the thoughts of these intelligences come to us, he finds magnetism to be no intelligent entity but an element bound by the
Our philosophy comprises not only the spiritual but the physical, intellectual, moral and social condition of the human race in this the birth-sphere of their existence, and preparation to enter with advantage into the succeeding stages of being in the after-life. It embraces The Science of Man, The Science of the Universe, The Science of a Pure and Lovely Religion. In its universality it is apart from human authority, however learned, and from hero worship, however sublime. Tradition and the records of old opinions may corroborate our views but cannot give the sanction of proof. That rests with ourselves and within the compass of our natural powers. Our God is the supreme and infinite life of universal nature, our knowledge of him is derived from fixed and universal laws, demonstrated as humanity advances; our religion, our morals and our social relations must be alike based on science; and our faith must be the result of our real knowledge. To extend our faith beyond our knowledge is presumption, and in a knowledge of the principles which govern all life are we to find our road to complete happiness.
All primary ideas of God are true, all human conceptions of him are false; their conflicting nature proves them to be so; we can form no just conception of that which we cannot fully comprehend, we can only comprehend what is inferior or less than ourselves, or what comes within the range of our powers, hence the conflicting and consequently erroneous conceptions of God put forth by all the religions of the world. Plato's discovery of a geometrizing God as every substance in the physical universe exists in a state of geometrical and mathematical precision, however beautiful and true, is but a cold conception. The Father God of Jesus is a warm and happy conception
We avoid all hero worship, and seek not to impose our principles by the sanction of great names, for no name, however revered by man' can render truth more true or falsehood more false, or yet substitute the one for the other. Authority must give place to enquiry and precedent to our highest sense of right. The admiration of a long passed away moral hero, however great and good, must not take the place of the teachings of the omniactive spirit of all goodness within and with-out, the all and in all, of purity and truth.
There is no distinction with us in the nature of truth, no such division as human and divine truths. The knowledge of God, of the Earth, of man, and the facts or laws of the universe, are alike from one source, and of one harmonious origin; all science is from one root, and all true knowledge of it is obtained by one method—investigation.
The universal belief of a principle does not prove its truth, free investigation by intelligent minds in the pursuit of knowledge has overturned many of the time-honored beliefs of mankind; which fact serves to teach us modesty' and points to progress.
We look upon no religious system ever invented by man as being utterly alse; all possess more or less good according to the genius and habits of the people from whom they emanated, or by whom they were adopted and professed.
A Religion of beliefs as an effort to reform the race, consisting of naught but words of advice, and, as such, however good, is utterly valueless to change the world. The Religion of Action which Does and Bids You do will accomplish more in an age than windy, wordy, boms bastic beliefs have done since the world began. Indeed, the professors of the latter, who have propagated their system by flourish of trumpet,
There are periods of infancy, adolescence, maturity, and drivelling old age, in the life of all human religious as well as in that of man. In infancy they are subservient to their parentage: kicked and cuffed by persecution. In adolescence pleading by apologies for bare toleration. In maturity persecuting in their turn the young scions of thought for non-conformity to their useless ceremonials and vain, stupid, dogmas. And by this shall all men know them. For the great eternal truths of heaven-born pure and undefiled religion never yet engendered enmity in a human heart. They are not religious who believe in religion, those who practice it are alone entitled to be called so.
We aver that no human language ever spoken or written is capable of conveying an immutable and infallible meaning to all mankind; for such is the mutability of all languages that, were it possible to do so in the first instance, the transmutation of the language alone, without taking into account the differences of human recipients, or the changes undergone by translation' would cause it to be variously understood in different and succeeding ages.
That teaching which approaches nearest to infallibility must be that which is stamped by deity direct upon the general nature of humanity, and the impression of which is renewed in every succeeding generation of the race.
Experience may lead to mistakes and reason to errors, but man
Our Mother Nature never inspires her children with desires which are designed not to be gratified. She holds out no illusive hopes; utter no false prophecies; evolves no instincts to mock herself, but she is consistent and truthful throughout.
Aguste Comte but repeats the idea of Immanuel Kaut, when he admits the necessity of a God but denies the existence, or possibility of proofs of his existence, or of the immortality of the soul; arguing that we have no absolute demonstration on such topics, but that such beliefs are necesary to the harmony and satisfaction of the mind, and must therefore be admitted, now as harmony, and satisfaction is the full end and enjoyment of all God's creatures and everything is pro-vided in nature to accomplish that end. Such absolute demonstrations on these topics must exist, and and that they do exist is proven by man's intercourse with the spirit world.
Mind like muscle follows the same law of development, use gives strength and vigour to both. The human mind excels the capabilites of the widow's cruise of oil and barrel of meal, take as much from it as you please extraction only increases its capacity to produce. The influx of great thoughts is increased in the same rratio as we actively pursue our true line of duty in putting them forth, and decreased in proportion as we neglect them and allow them to become stagnant in the mind. All men feel that they have power over all circumstances in a greater or less degree to change or modify them to their well-being, and advantage or neglect and slight them to their hurt and sorrow.
We do not accept the idea that sensual impression is the only source through which we receive our ideas, our intuitions lead us to reach beyond the objects of sense, and our spiritual perceptions give a proper and definite meaning to the terms Mind, Life, Nature, Eternity, Infinity, Almighty, &c., &c., upon these we can reason as truly and come to conclusions as certain as upon the material objects which we
In nothing is this more exemplified than in the science of geometry which lays at the foundation of all the physical sciences, the foundation of this science is in the mind's ideal, it describes a point as being without length, breadth or extension—such a thing cannot be produced, it is no sensible or tangible thing, it is nothing material. It describes a line as a continuation of points, i.e., a continuation of nothings. Yet there is no two ideas existing in the mind more real than the ideas of a point and a line, and we must accept these ideas which can only be negatively described before we can proceed to investigate any physical science whatever. There are three ways in which impressions are produced upon the mind. The first is external and through the senses; the second, internal, or by spirit impression; the third by the generating power of the thinking sentient being entering into harmonial relations with both the former sources of knowledge, and thus giving birth to new thoughts or impressions.
Memory, Mental Identity, Personal Unity, Love of Life projecting into the future, belong to the spiritual part of our being, they are nevertheless as real and distinctive as the form of the visage, the stature, or the complexion of any individual, and an idea more distasteful to the well developed human being, than the destruction of his mortal body, is the annihilation of his mind.
We must therefore seek our development according to the laws of our nature operating within us in harmonv with the laws of nature operating without, a true and rational love of self in harmony with fraternal man, as also the harmonization of the desires, instincts, passions, and functions of the body with the spirit life within; for every gift that God has bestowed upon us is intended to be used in the best and highest sense our judgments can dictate, and not abused or neglected, which converts them to evil and a curse. Every ardent and longing desire of our true nature is destined to receive its fulfilment if free from the misdirected influences of sensual passion or perverted instinct.
Through the triumphs of our mentality we find ourselves the apex
Geology proves the development of the forms of life in a grand ascending scale, from the lowest monad to man; it is a glorious science' and reveals the wonder-working mind of the Creator. But the highest branch of science—in short, the science of all other sciences—the master-key that unlocks the mighty casket—is the science of humanity, its innate laws and its social development ought to constitute our chief study. If this be neglected, whatever other attainments we may possess, we are yet uncivilised, and in the bonds of barbarism.
Everything of which we cannot trace the cause is to us a mystery; but when our intelligence has obtained a thorough knowledge of the cause or causes, the mystery disappears. Mystery will therefore always find a place in the world until knowledge of all causes and their effects are mastered by the intelligence of man; but to what height will that intelligence lead him as he rises in the scale of being, passing from sphere to sphere higher and yet higher, ascending towards the fountain of true knowledge, and capable of comprehending all beneath him. We are utterly unable to prognosticate man's full capabilities in the future; to the Great Father of Life alone is man's ultimate truly known.
There can be no true use of wealth unless you share it with your neighbours nor true spiritual development of yourself unless you seek the spiritual development of others, think not to raise yourself in the scale of being by reading good books and adopting true principles, only let the care of your actions engross your greatest thought and attention, for by deeds alone we rise, and the truest and purest principles are valueless unless we practice them.
All nature moves forward in the grand procession of the ages—humanity follows the same law of progress, the aggregate of the worlds
We look upon ourselves as moral and accountable beings, yet there is no department of our nature more misunderstood and neglected than this. Many think they have fulfilled their moral obligations to society when they have pointed out their bypath through their own particular church to a sectarian heaven, or got rid of their accountability by believing that some one else has been made a scapegoat for their shortcomings. True moral teaching shows us how to control our nature, and act in accordance with the laws upon which our Father God has founded our being, for to these laws alone are we accountable.
Moral virtue consists in the temperate use of all our natural faculties, as when the whole of our instincts are governed by reason and we are thoroughly imbued with a willingness to forego self-gratification if it cannot be indulged except at the expense of the good of others or injury to any part of our being.
Moral and mental harmony is only possible when we have obtained calmness and serenity of mind by freedom from inordinate care and over anxiety, the isolation of ourselves from society will not accomplish this mental and moral harmony. This is the abuse of this law, its proper use alone is pursued when, in social concert, we enjoy life and communicate its enjoyments to others in the best, most complete, and happiest manner possible.
It is not humility that cries, "Am I my brother's keeper?" What good can I do? It is selfishness and laziness, or the spirit of self-indulgence speaking from the bottom of a depraved mind alluring its votary to thus sin against society.
But supineness and indolence are also sins against self in as much as
Every human being is an integral part of society, and his weal or woe, his peace or misery, is bound up in the bundle of social union, if the individual acts not upon general society for its good, it will re-act upon him or his progeny to their hurt. God has given harmony to our animal organisation for the performance of our animal functions, violate that harmony and we suffer, preserve it and we enjoy life. We must build our social fabric upon the tame principle of harmony in all its parts, or it will be as it has hitherto been, an ill-success and a disgrace to a world of rational beings.
As man must suffer when he by vicious actions deranges his animal functions, so must society suffer while they tolerate the possibility of vice arising from the existence of poverty and ignorance, these causes of discord must be removed, or 'tis vain and against all natural law to expect either a Golden Age or a Millenium.
No individual creates entirely the circumstances that bound his moral liberty in this life, for these the collective body of the community are responsible in the greatest measure and become the chief sufferers, and deservedly too, for permitting the existence of bad circumstances which it was in their power to remedy.
Every circumstance, whether it be Race, Family, Nationality, Religion, or aught else which prevents the affections of the individual from embracing the whole of his kind, must of necessity be false and bad, and ought to be rigidly examined, and the Golden Rule of Right and Harmony found and acted upon for no true brotherhood of our race can exist unless there be first established Harmony of sentiment, in the absence of all disparity in our social condition, and for the want of this not only every single individual but society in its collective force is responsible.
Our habits are the strongest power that bind us, in many minds much stronger than convictions; when firmly fixed, convictions cannot act directly upon them and uproot them; when bad and pernicious, nothing can effectually change bad habits but the substitution of good ones, thus the physical lays at the basis of all permanent moral and spiritual reform.
Motives are not always the cause of action, they serve rather to give character to our actions than to compel them, they enable us to judge whether the action be good or bad according to the character of the motive the self interested feeling impels to action, and being living and sentient beings our nature is to feel free and justify our acts by reference to the purity of our motives.
Conscience is a faculty of the mind which requires directing and cultivating as do all our other faculties, for its healthy and vigorous action it depends not upon one organ or group of organs of the brain but upon the concentrated power and free operation of all our higher faculties, we may be so misdirected as to cause us to have conscientious scruples at variance with the most fundamental laws of our being. Conscience can only be properly directed, when our law of what is right and proper is fully known and practised, when this takes place external law in all human society may perish from the earth. Man will have become a law unto himself.
Man possesses freedom of will or choice in a limited degree; his will is bounded by necessity and fixed by the general tendency of his nature or disposition; he cannot carry out what he wills if beyond the limit of his power; he can, by industry and perseverance, substitute one class of circumstances for another; and he moves in the right direction when he changes inferior or bad circumstances for superior or good ones.
Sometimes our will is the result of our feelings, at other times the result of our convictions; these, separately or combined, influence us to action, and may be termed voluntary; at other times we act from mere habit or impulse. This may be termed involuntary action, as the predisposing cause lays more remote; but whether the cause be Feeling, Conviction, Habit or Impulse which induces our will, when we make our choice and fix our desire we form our will.
Common Sense is only the average of the world's intelligence, prevalent in the market-place and at the corners of the streets, blown forth by the popular lecturer and preacher, or paraded in the columns of shallow newspapers, received without being tested by reason or justified by experience.
Your votary of Common Sense takes nothing upon its own merit but judges all by the standard of his own predilections.
Common Sense is shaped by the prevalent fashion of thinking, and worn as a garment to hide our nakedness of mind, when the popular voice shall have shaped out a new garment of Common Sense the common sense of this age will be thrown aside as old rags and the now one worn in its stead.
The discovery of what is right and wrong is not always the result of reasoning, it is of times the result of our intuitive sense or preception or conviction which we cannot help feeling to be the impress of a spiritual intelligence. Eight is obedience to the highest dictates of our understanding, and wrong disobedience to those dictates.
No man willingly does wrong for wrong doings sake, he only persues a criminal or wrong course because in his ignorance he conceives that such a course is most calculated to render him happy, for happiness is the pursuit of all. The intelligent and wise take the right path and enjoy life, while the ignorant and foolish take the wrong one and don't enjoy it. It is wrong to leave that which we can control to chance or fate, and it is right to bring the highest amount of intelligence we possess to regulate ourselves and all our affairs.
For an individual to obtain the greatest amount of happiness here upon earth the means of temperately satisfying all his physical, moral and spiritual desires must be provided by society, and placed within easy reach, and he must be trained not to run into excess and thus abuse God's good gifts, and sin against himself and suffer for his folly, or sin against his fellow beings by continuing to consume without rendering a just equivalent to society, and thus be the cause of suffering in others. The bountiful hand of omnipotence has made the earth to teem with all that is necessary to man's health and enjoyment if he will put forth his skill and energy to obtain it. The temperate use of this skill and energy tends to the greatest personal good in promoting the health and developing the mind, its intemperate use to which some are driven by the absurd usages of society, robs man's soul of its highest glories, and makes him a mere chattel. The disuse of skill and energy incidental to a luxurious life makes man a poor, helpless and dependent soulless thing. Temperance is the rational mean between repletion and want.
All our social, moral and physical evils result from a want of temperance, being either the result of repletion or want, there is therefore no such thing as absolute evil to be found anywhere in the gifts of God. In its nature evil is contingent, being either the abuse, or entire disuse of what is really good. Therefore, evil not being a natural pro duct but an abarretion of nature—when all have become natural, and rational, evil will cease, and, furthermore, we may justly infer that evil is not necessary to the production of good, nor is temptation necessary to prove virtue.
For virtue is a rational, temperate and faithful obedience to the laws of our nature, its opposite vice a disregard of, or acting contrary to those laws.
Many fall into the error of confounding intelligence and under standing with wisdom; they are not to be so confounded.
I define wisdom as the apprehension and practice of truths relating to man's happiness and progress by the fullest and best
The education of the human being commences at the hour of conception, and continues till birth through the organization of the mother—how important then that the maternal condition should be made the most favorable for the development of a justly balanced organization.
The science of educating the human being after birth is one of the most important, not so much to teach him what to think, but how to think and act so as to secure to himself the greatest amount of wisdom and happiness.
Every faculty of body and mind requires education, if that education be false the consequences are discordant and productive of misery; if true they invariably result in harmony and happiness. We must study the physical, moral, mental and spiritual peculiarities of each pupil, so that unnatural peculiarities may be corrected, moral difficiencies made good, and physical malformations altogether avoided or rendered harmless, for mental and physical peculiarities can only be overcome by effectual education or the continual operation of counteracting circumstances, fostering and encouraging the good, and restraining the defective qualities or quantities of our temperament and organization, thus you will perceive that training and intellectual acquirements, coming from without, do not constitute the sum of true education, they only furnish a part of the means of obtaining it. True education bears its fruit from within. It is true development of soul.
To neglect the physical and overtax the mental may produce the weathered husks of book-worm learning, but never the halo, green, vigorous plant of fruit-bearing thought.
To under-educate man physically we need not altogether neglect his sensual feelings and desires: we need only to teach him as men do monkeys—by imitation—failing to show him the virtue and happiness arising from the rational use of his natural powers.
False or over-education is produced when the mind is so mis-directed as to throw too much restraint upon the natural feelings and desires, hiding or suppressing all natural propensities, over-riding poor human nature until she sinks and dies beneath the hoofs of a vile and inhuman fanaticism.
The popular motive for educating the coming generation is too low; it's mere end is the mitigation of the amount of crime, in order to save the expense of punishment. Higher ground than this the Harmonialist occupies. His aim is the development of the human soul to the full extent of its capabilities, producing an effect that shall carry its consequences into eternity.
Mankind have collated their facts in the different departments of science, and formed those glorious monuments of intelligence and art which are the wonder of our age, while to himself and his social relations man has been utterly neglectful; as if God designed all nature should be understood and improved, man alone being left in darkness and barbarism to prey upon his fellow men, finding his type among the savage beasts of the forest, whose perfection in many respects he has net yet reached.
The grand reason for this neglect has been the bigotry and arrogance of social and religious systems, which having once marked out their course of thought and practice, have declared their claim to
We may admit that the present state of society among the Anglo Saxon race is a great improvement upon many which have gone before it, yet is it fixed upon no true scientific basis; its laws and its usages are alike the result of empiricism; its law makers and its politicians the most misohievous of all quacks; see how many hundreds of years they have labored at their class legislation; and with what result? Not even among them nor in any country under heaven, nor any society existing on the face of the earth, could a perfectly harmonial being be produced; the clash of contending interests, the proximity of vice and selfishness; under the sanction and protection of villanous and deceitful laws, tend to perpetuate evil and would nullify the teachings of the most divine teacher that ever appeared on earth.
Man is a social being, and cannot be happy to the full extent of his capabilities while alone, he must dwell in society, but not altogether for himself—he has no true interest apart from the interests of the whole.
Individual interest as pursued in the present state of society cuts asunder every tie that binds man to his fellows, and sends him isolated and grovelling after his own ends. He cannot love his neighbor as himself so long as his neighbor remains his inferior in the social scale, or possesses an interest at variance with his own. He cannot be truly pious, for true piety seeks the good of others rather than its own. He can find no true outgoings for his own self-love, for even that finds its true sphere in administering
Personal wealth is a hideous demon in the path of spiritual progress. It has placed the rich where the wise ought to have been in the conduct of public affairs, competition has given the low-minded, acquisitive, secretive organizations every facility for absorbing the greatest share of the good things of this life, and there is really no barrier in our present insane social condition to prevent these neglected and unscrupulous children of nature from pursuing the full bent of their mind, or stay the best things in this life from passing into the hands of the worst of men; even many of our rulers, standing on the pedestal of wealth, furnish the worst specimens of our race, and yet we honor them, while the generous, large-hearted, benevolent, well-balanced human being has to put up with the worst, if he has not to go about in absolute want and misery, passing out of this life forlorn and neglected.
Every attempt to patch up the present state of inequality must prove a failure, for so long as such pernicious practices prevail and mammon rules in mens hearts we can only shift the evil not destroy it as we ought.
All precipitate action must be avoided in our social changes towards a pure harmonial state of society, the beauties of which seem so attractive and the advantages so great; fear of want and prospect of ease and abundance will drive or draw men into a trial of a new state
We must not follow the example set us by Christian teachers who do not try to make their hearers lives conform to the precepts of Jesus, but do their utmost to make His precepts fit to the lives of their hearers, thus producing a worse condition than ignorance—stupid sophists, vain and puffed-up, inaccessible to reason, yet laying claim to the greatest amount of humility. Poor deluded souls, they ought to excite our greatest commiseration. All human law should be kept inviolable so long as it remains law, and any under-mining, over-riding, or evasion of laws enacted by the supremo authority (the aggregate intelligence of the people) ought to meet with our utmost condemnation.
"We must avoid the vital error of making laws for the government of mankind in society contrary to Nature's laws, fixed by the Eternal. Our reason for this is based on the fact that all the laws of Nature in and around us are not the result of an unintelligent force: they are the speaking voice of the ever-living, omnipresent God instructing us in the path of duty and obedience.
When we see the evils of Riches or Poverty, Gluttonous Luxury or Destitute Want, Unhallowed Extravagence or Starving Misery, Pampered Ease or Over-wrought Physical Power,—men who have hewn their way through forests of human beings or plunged through
Finis.
It is designed by the formation of this Association to unite the scattered individuals holding the principles of the Harmonial Philosophy in one common brotherhood for the amelioration of their earthly condition, and to put forth a concentrated effort for the effectual solution of that which so much agitates the industrial classes of the present day—the Capital and Labor Question, combined with the science of social harmony.
In confining this Association exclusively to individuals imbued with the leading principles of the Harmonial Philosophy, the projectors feel convinced that under no other condition is entire success possible; as, thereby, they avoid the great bane of social intercourse—the strife and bickerings of sectarianism and religious animosities—and found a community free from individual, selfish antagonisms, and devoted to progress and self-sacrifice; whose aim is not merely secular advantage, but a higher and holier development of humanity, that shall carry its effects into the future, as well as the present, sphere of our existence.
Our design is to purchase and occupy about four square miles, i.e., 2,560 or more acres of agricultural land of the best quality, in one block, adjoining a large area of common or grazing land—say 10,000 acres in all—in any of the Australian colonies or New Zealand (as may hereafter be decided), the whole to be cultivated and wrought jointly for the benefit of the Members and their families, and on which shall be erected according to plans which are being prepared, dwellings sufficient to accommodate 100 families with central Lyceum buildings, workshops for various trades, storehouses and out-buildings—site to be chosen, pioneer company organized, and operations to commence when £1,000 of capital is subscribed.
For the guidance of all intending members, and the harmonious working of the internal arrangements of the Association when in operation, a code of Rules and Regulations are also being prepared based upon the most liberal and advanced principles, which will be submitted to the Central Committee for their revision and approval, and afterwards placed in the hands of applicants for membership, who, having first filled in a form of application, which shall be submitted to them, and then made themselves well acquainted with our rules, their examination shall follow, and their affiliation or rejection finally declared.
Your projectors have much pleasure in announcing that in defiance of the popular prejudice of the age, which withholds the natural rights of one-half the human family—they will consider female members on a perfect equality of right with their male members in every respect.
It is also designed to admit the children of all Members of the Association, natural or adopted, free of all charges, and who shall be entitled to receive a thorough harmonial education, all the necessaries of life, and a trade or occupation suited to their taste and capacity, with the privilege of becoming full Members of the Association at the age of 18 years free of cost.
It is intended that the amount per share contributed by each male head of a family shall be £100.
It is also proposed to admit single men between the ages of 20 and 40 years at a charge of £50; Single women at a charge of £25; widows with children at the same amount with an additional charge
It is also intended to admit as Members individuals above the age of 50 years upon payment of the sum of £300 to a life interest, who shall be exempt from manual labor and entitled to all the privileges of the Resident Associated Members in every respect.
Provision will also be made by which Members unable to contribute the full amounts as stated above will be able to enter in limited numbers, and afterwards liquidate their deficiency by a method plainly laid down in our rules.
We intend also to establish means by which the poorest among our brethren can, by a small weekly or monthly contribution, be placed upon our list of members and fully affiliated as associates so soon as the Association can utilize their services without injury to the general interest of the associated brotherhood. We also know it as a fact that there are among the admirers of our divine philosophy men of pure benevolence and considerable means who would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity to assist their poorer spiritual brethren in obtaining a position among the inhabitants of our Aurelia, so that no true-hearted harmonial spirit need despair of entering into our superior and lovelier condition.
We would thoroughly impress upon the minds of all devoted to our principles that the money consideration is not a matter of the greatest moment with us, but the suitableness and efficiency of the individuals applying for admission as Members; to secure such our formula of examination must necessarily be strict, so as to secure us from the peril of individuals with misdirected minds or pernicious habits, and false brethren.
It is also our intention that the full advantage to be derived from the most recent improvements in machinery for cultivation of land or manufactures, be taken advantage of by us, and purchase of such be made in any of the markets of the world to which we can have access, so as to reduce to a minimum the hours and fatigue of labor, at the same time producing an abundance of the necessaries and even luxuries of life for home consumption as well as for commercial purposes and exchange.
Our Members will be required to renounce all private trading and competition, and determine that no private store, public-house, hotel, or boarding-house, shop, or any other huckstry, fixed or moveable, shall find a place within the precints of our Aurelian Estate to carry on any traffic whatever; our buying and selling being carried on solely by those Officers appointed for the purpose, and who shall reap no personal benefit or advantage except such as may accrue to every other Member of the community. That all will observe the utmost economy in the production and consumption of all the materials necessary to the health, comfort, and well-being of every individual Member of the Association. And that, for the higher development of our spiritual nature, there shall be provided, at the common cost, ample means for educational improvements, both for young and old, together with the means of recreation and amusement, to cheer the life and lessen the wear and tear of humanity incidental to the present sphere of our existence.
Also, that the best and most advanced teachers in educational and scientific matters shall be obtained by us, that the intelligence of our community may keep pace with the progress of the intellect of the age in which we live.
That our Library shall contain the best Books, and our Lecturers the highest amount of knowledge in their several departments, so that ignorance, plethoric riches, poverty and crime of every description, may die its natural death, and bright intelligence, and sound moral habits reign triumphant. Our children, being removed from the unholy example and contaminating influences of an uncivilised and mixed society, shall grow up in wisdom, intelligence, truth, purity and industry.
It is with confidence that the projectors of this Association appeal to their Spiritual and Harmonial brethren for the accomplishment of this their most earnest desire. We owe no apology to the rest of mankind for leaving them out of our programme; if they cannot fully agree with us let them follow out their best intentions for social improvement by some other means; our Aurelia shall stand as a beacon on a hill lighted by the spirits of the great and good who have left their mark upon all by-gone ages of the world.
It is by no means intended to enter into any compact which will tend to trammel the mind or restrain full liberty of thought in any of our Members. Means will be provided by which the benevolent desires of each and all may be in some measure carried out in the most efficient manner towards reforming and blessing mankind by freeing them from the bondage of poverty, ignorance, and vice of every description, and our Members will find that instead of their usefulness being lessensed it will be tenfold increased for good in any direction they may choose to exert it, for what it would be impossible for the isolated individual, struggling alone with the world, and the cares of a family, to accomplish, the concentrated effort of harmonial and kindred minds will easily effect.
Ours shall be no state of cloistral or monastic seclusion; and while we avoid the beastly polygamy of old Judaism and Mormonism, the promiscuous intercourse of Agapemonists and self-styled social science men, the unnatural and debasing acetism of monks, nuns and shakers, we will maintain in purity our family relations, waging effectual warfare alike with poverty, criminal riches, ignorance, idleness, and vice and sin of every description, until our influence is felt upon the ages. Our rules are few, and easily understoood, and conformity to them will secure the greatest enjoyment and delight to the harmonial mind, and the most perfect health of all cur intellectual, moral and physical faculties, thus promoting the growth and development of our spiritual nature.
It is not our intention, as an Association, to attempt by coersive measures to overturn or destroy the political institutions, or social order, of any country, much less that in which we shall be located, but to render obedience to its laws so long as they shall remain the general expression of its inhabitants; nor seek to change these laws by any other than by the power of truth and right, and for which purpose "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual—mighty through God" (whose agents for good we are), to the building up of a social temple in which He shall ever dwell as our Supremo Ruler seated upon a rational throne.
We see with pity the actions of the ignorant and misdirected Communists of France, the almost futile attempts of the International
Behold we have found the secret of the long hoped for Millennium. It is the right path through life,
Walk Ye all in it!
Forms of Application for all desiring to become Members, can be had of the various Secretaries, whose names and addresses will shortly be published; and when filled in according to directions and returned, an examination must be passed, and should the applicant be found eligible a copy of the Rules for Internal Management and Order will be placed in applicant's hands, to which free and full consent must be given before their final affiliation as Members, and they are allowed to subscribe towards the funds as shareholders entitled to the benefits of the Association.
Published by the Provisional Committee.
[XXX].
The following lecture was delivered in the Mechanics' Institute on Sunday evening last, by G. C. Leech, Esq.
The maniacs of the old world are at each others' throats again. Three hundred thousand Prussians, with their backs to the Rhine, and the yet more numerous legions of France, hurrying across the plains of Gaul, are making ready for another vulture's feast in Europe. In a little time, vineyard and meadow, level and hill-side, will be incarnadined with blood. The prospect is one which must make every friend of humanity shudder. Is there no hope of peace in this dire extremity of Europe? Surely, yes: for a Council of the Fathers of Christendom was seated in eternal Rome ere the shock of battle began. Six hundred successors of the Apostles of Jesus, long met in conclave, gave forth their utterance before the strife began. Let us hear with hushed breath that which will still the voice of war. The great Council of Christendom, on the advent of battle, whilst even yet its sound is in their cars, has propounded for the expectant world the dogma that an epileptic old man is infallible! With such a startling anomaly before us, it may not be uninteresting to some to learn how the simple Bishop of Rome grew into such proportions, and how Christianity has so failed to fulfil its mission of bringing "peace on earth and good-will amongst men." Early in the fourth century, Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor who embraced Christianity, ascended the imperial throne, and soon after transferred the seat of empire from Rome to a new city in the East, called ever since after him, Constantinople. After various dynastic changes, which it would be out of my province hero to refer to, the beginning of a complete severance between the Eastern and Western Empires took place, a.d. 726. The year before, Leo the Isaurian ascended the imperial throne and commenced a crusade against the image worship which had almost universally begun to prevail in the Christian Churches. The respective tendencies to objective or subjective faith depend largely on the constitution of individuals and nations. To some the former is utterly abhorrent, and others on the contrary are incapable of the latter. Leo was one of those natures who could not endure an objective worship, which approached idolatry; and soon after he began to reign an edict was issued for the removal of the images from the churches. A fierce tumult arose in Constantinople amongst the monks, but it was speedily extinguished in blood. The image worshippers fled in largo numbers to the islands of the Archipelago, where they formally consigned Leo to the flames of hell for ever, and exhorted the faithful to rise and expel him from the throne. Not contented with spiritual arms they organised an expedition and sailed for the Byzantine waters, hut hardly had they entered the Hellespont before the substantial Greek Fire of the Emperor proved more effective in their destruction than the supernatural fires of the future against the Iconoclast. The churches of the East were soon denuded of their images, but the West yet remained to be dealt with; for image worship had extended everywhere throughout Christendom. Whilst Paganism preserved any of its old power and prestige, a certain amount of spirituality was retained in Christian worship, but after the demolition of the old faith, the Christians began to imitate the idolatry which they had them-selves helped to extinguish. Leo's missives commanded less power in the West than in the East. True, his authority was administered by the Exarchs of Ravenna, but real power had already begun to pass into the hands of the Bishop of Rome. In years of suffering and danger to Italy, when the power of the Byzantine rulers was not always ready to sustain their western subjects, the courage and zeal of the bishops had saved the Italians. Therefore, although as yet not possessed of nominal power, they had begun to possess much of the reality. The edict of Leo found in the possession of the Roman See a man not easily to be over-awed, Gregory the Second addressed a scornful refusal to the Eastern Emperor, declaring that he was intellectually incapable of understanding the niceties of the question at issue. Image worship, said Gregory, amongst the Pagans was indefensible, because the objects of worship were the unreal images of demons, whereas the images in Christian churches were the authentic likenesses of Christ, of the mother of God and of the saints. The exquisite metaphysical distinction I must leave to churchmen. Leo sent a further and more resolute message, but the unfortunate Exarch only lost his life in attempting to enforce it. An army now landed from the East, but the undaunted Gregory met force with force, and the Imperial army was defeated with such slaughter that the Po Was deeply stained with blood. The bishop, however, with some moderation, still suffered an Exarch nominally to administer rule, but the real power was from that time, and, thenceforward, vested in his and his successors' hands. At a later period the Pope became a ruler in name also. The Lombards invaded the Roman territories, which were delivered by Pepin, who consolidated the Papal power, but it remained for Charlemagne to invest the successor of St. Peter with sovereign, temporal rule. The history of this investiture is an amusing instance of human credulity. Adrian I presented an alleged donation of Rome and the adjacent country from Constantine to St, Silvester, the then Bishop of Rome. The story was that
a.d, a.d.
that he is God incarnate, and never dies, carefully, of course, concealing the death of each Lama, and supplying his place. The Pope, in effect, is also to be regarded as God incarnate, if we are to take as correct a summary in one of the Melbourne journals of a lecture delivered by the Rev. Dr Barsant on the sovereignty of Pope last week in St. Patrick's Hall. I quote from the report in age of Friday, and I have not since seen any correction, and the reporter there says of the lecturer:—"In speaking of Pius IX., he described him as the last victim of freemasonry and revolution, which had joined in a federal and fiendish compact to destroy his sovereignty. After all, he maintained the Pope would always be the Pope, the prince of his brethren, the ruler of his flock, and the stay of all people, the blessed and only potentate on earth, king of kings, and lord of lords." This was the utterance of the last great Council of Christendom to Europe about to bleed with war. The successors of the Apostles were assembled for months in the Eternal City. As they were about to separate they saw two millions of men about to be arrayed against each other in deadly strife—the plains of Europe about to be strewn with dead, and the rivers incarnadined with blood, and they present them with a dogma which is an insult to human reason! These men all believe that eighteen hundred years ago, when the founder of their faith was born into earth, the Syrian shepherds heard the midnight anthem of the angel choir singing "peace on earth, and goodwill amongst men;" and yet to Europe, about to engage in a mortal struggle, they offer a metaphysical dogma. Men and brethren,—I charge this sin of failing to raise a voice against war, not upon the Church of Rome alone, but upon Christendom at large—Protestant as well as Catholic. Protestantism has been equally guilty. With the exception of the Society of Friends—a body utterly despised by orthodox Protestantism—and the Moravians, all the Churches of Christendom have sanctioned and given their blessing to war. The Church of England in her thirty-seventh article has given her flat on the matter by declaring that "it is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in the wars, "the precept being thus general, and not confined to wars which are defensive. The Presbyterians and the Nonconformists of England also sanction war. They all alike will bless the banners going forth to be stained with blood: will offer up prayer for success, and return thanks to God for victory. If it be right to do this collectively, it must be also right to do it individually; and so we may imagine a man, after duly loading his Snider, asking God thus, "Oh, my Heavenly Father, give me clearness of vision and firmness of muscle to shoot that man in the opposite rank dead. It is true, he never did me any wrong, and my bullet sped home may make a woman a widow, and her children orphans; nevertheless, Oh my God, guide my aim aright." Then, when the bullet pierces the heart, and the marked man, with a shriek and a leap in the air, falls prostrate on the earth, the man who has done the deed may return thanksgiving. Why not? The clergy do it for the army in globo. When the earth has been stained, and the rivers red with blood, the Te Deum will be sung in Paris, or in Berlin, or, if England were in the fray, in London, "We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father Everlasting. Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ. Thou art the everlasting son of the Father." Is it not sad that after eighteen hundred years have rolled away since Christ died—died with a prayer on his lips for his enemies—died with only one agony upon his soul—the agony lest the consequences of their act should come upon his murderers—is it not sad that the men who claim to be his accredited ministers should have no word to say against war, should raise no warning cry to stay the nations from embruing their hands in each other's blood? Such was also the painful truth on the eve of the Crimean war. No bishops in England, or France; no minister of the gospel of peace made effort to keep men from that folly. A folly it was, as well as a crime. There is not a statesman in England now but knows that that war was utterly useless, and result-less of good; the money was squandered in vain; the more priceless treasure of human life was utterly wasted. Who alone raised their voices against that war, and underwent trouble and pain to prevent it? Three members of the despised Society of Friends left their homes on an errand of peace to Russia amidst the clamour of the multitude, and the derision of a base venal press. Their errand to the Czar was fruitless; but their deed is written with a pen of iron on the rock for ever. Men and brethren, -Why is it that the teachers of Christianity have thus failed in their mission of peace? I will tell you. Because, when the forces of the human mind are directed in one particular channel almost exclusively, they must be powerless in their elsewhere flow. Now, nearly all the forces of the Christian teachers are directed to the enforcement of certain dogmas. All that the churches are really and actively earnest about is that the people shall be what is called orthodox. The masses may be wallowing in moral filth, but let anyone attempt to raise them in a heterodox fashion and the churches will waken up at once, making it evident that they would prefer the multitude to be orthodoxically damned, rather than be heterodoxically saved. Take an instance in our fatherland. Until Wesley and Whitfield arose, the moral condition of the masses in England was enough to harrow any true human heart. They were bad enough in the towns, but in the country districts the labourer was intellectually lower than the brutes which he drove at the plough. With a revenue of over eight millions a year, the clergy, elsewhere than in great cities, were, with a few honourable exceptions, ignorant, for the most part, and too often not very respectable in their lives. Well, John Wesley arose and quickened into
Printed by Messrs J. J. and E. Wheeler, and Published by Mr H. Bamford, Cmainc,
[XXXI].
The following lecture was delivered in the Mechanics' Institute on Sunday evening last, by G. C. Leech, Esq. Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
One day towards the close of the last century, a man, a solitary man on horseback, was riding along a path which led through the primeval wilderness of Canada. He wore the uniform of a private soldier of England, and such he was. He was the bearer of despatches which it was of importance should arrive safely at their destination, but, failing this, it was of still more importance they should not fall into the hands of the enemy. As he rode along, some shots from an ambush struck him from his horse, and he was a captive in the hands of his foes, but no enemy's eye ever read the despatches of which he was the bearer, for the down-stricken soldier thrust the papers into his wounds, and they were not found by the searchers. He died in agony, concealing his appalling suffering; and the English commander, in writing home his narrative of the incident, used words somewhat after this tenor: "When Marcus Curtius leaped his steed into the yawning gulf in the Roman Forum he was surrounded by an applauding and admiring multitude, but this poor private soldier did this act not in the presence of an admiring crowd, nor with any hope of after glory or reward, but only animated by the heroic sense of doing his duty!" What is the meaning of this heroism of life? Whence came it, and what are its uses? I take it as that God-given quality in humanity which lifts man above—lifts him immeasurably above the lower creatures. It is that high sense that teaches man that he is not sent into this world merely to live at selfish ease; that he is not sent here to gratify his sensual appetites; that he is not merely to make himself secure from pain and peril; that he is not to study how best he can pass with ease and pleasure through this scene of earthly probation, but that there is something higher, nobler, and grander than personal safety—than personal gratification—that there is something higher than that which is even more tempting than physical rest—mental ease. It teaches him that he owes a duty to his fellow-man, to his country, and his God. It was the consciousness of this sublime principle that made the old Greek poet draw such a grand picture of Agamemnon. When woes and perils came thick and fast upon him, he felt and endured the present bitter suffering undismayed. He gazed upon the lightnings of heaven with a smile, and when the thunderbolts fell he looked on with unblanched cheek, but when the woes came upon his country the great king wept. In all nations, particularly in the instances brought specially under our knowledge through near association, by history and religious record, we find the same sublime traces of this heroism of life. Judaism, Paganism, and Christianity have produced manifold sublime instances. You remember the memorable example of that king whom, to use his own words, God' had taken from being a shepherd to be a great king in Israel. The hosts of the Philistines were ranged in grim and serried array, and on the other side were the dismayed and demoralised ranks of Judah. Thrice upon a battle-day a gigantic warrior came forth, challenging to mortal combat any son of Israel who would confront him. In days of modern warfare, the quick, sharp shot of a rifle would have brought the vaunt of such a champion to a sudden termination. Bat in olden warfare, when chief and common soldier fought side by side, and won the day more by force of arm than by strategy and invention, it was not so. Then the forward step, the unbending front, and the defiant challenge of some grim and doughty warrior was not unlikely to cause dismay throughout a whole army. Amongst all the hosts of Judah not one man could find it in his heart to step forth from the serried ranks to meet the giant in single combat. Rut into the disordered camp came a ruddy-faced boy, who heard with mingled shame and anger the unaccepted challenge of the Philistine, and strong in a confidence and faith that grew out of a brave defence of the flock entrusted to his charge, he went forth to meet the Philistine The stripling youth, armed with five stones from the brook, one of which smote the giant on the temple, laid his great adversary senseless upon the earth, where he became a prey to his own broadsword. This was an act. of heroism doubly ennobling, doubly en-during, not only because it gave faith, confidence, and victory to his own ranks, but in after time and in every age this grand and sublime old story has taught men in their distresses and nations in their dire extremities, when struggling against superior force, that not always is the race to the swift nor the battle to the strong. It is this heroism which makes men in the past, though dead, yet speak. You all know the grand old Roman story of the captive leader of republican Rome, who, when in the hands of the Carthaginians, was sent with an embassy to sue for peace. His foes drew from him his word of honour—and those old Pagans could keep their word, too,—they drew from him his plighted word and troth that should the embassy prove unsuccessful in its mission, he would return with the ambassadors to Carthage. It was a base bribe that he should speak strongly in favour of peace, and second the efforts of the embassy. There came a great day in the Roman Forum when the embassy was to have audience of
All honour to the true martyrs—not the men, the impracticable and foolish men, who thought it necessary as a part of their faith to enter and insult the houses of worship where they lived, or who would insist on receiving death at the hands of those who
Printed by Messrs J. J. and E. Wheeler, and Published by Mr H. Bamford, Cmaine.
[XXXIV].
The following lecture was delivered in the Mechanics' Institute on Sunday evening last, by G. C. Leech, Esq. Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
In the olden times when the Algerines lorded it over the Mediterranean, those Moslem pirates used to capture and sell into bondage multitudes of Christian men, and many a father, a husband, a brother or son, torn from home and kindred, toiled hopelessly in African fields, beneath the burning sun, or at the oar as galley slaves, labouring under the lash of the task master. To free from this direful slavery those captives, there was formed in Europe what was termed the brotherhood of the "Redemptorist Fathers." In village and in city, in field and in hamlet, the heroic and Christian-like members of the brotherhood gathered alms from the merciful and benevolent, that they might redeem their fellow men from slavery, and soon they enlisted in their numbers men of wealth who gave bountifully of their gold, or lacking gold, gave their lands which were sold. By these means from time to time they sent forth their agents to redeem their brethren. These were sublime and heroic acts; but there are other kinds of slavery, and other bondages than those of the body. There is the slavery of the soul; and to deliver men from that worst bondage of all, there have arisen, in all ages and all lands, brave and unselfish men who have rescued their fellow men from political, social and moral slavery. That man who has helped his brother, and saved him from those evils, who has made him instead of a slave a free man, is in the true Sense a redeemer of earth. History, we are thankful to say, fails not in any cycle of her ages to present noble examples of such, and modern history is pregnant alike with exemplars of men, who not only have delivered their fellow men from bondage, but who have done so willingly at the sacrifice of their own lives; and if not at all times at the cost of their lives, at the sacrifice of wealth, social status and often good name. In a period of the history of old Greece so far back that it melts almost, but not altogether, into the region of myth, a Greek found his nation lawless, without a policy, without any of those great national ties which give strength and cohesion to a commonwealth. He framed for them a code—stern indeed—and to men of our lineage and habit of thought intolerable, but good, wise and salutary to the barbarous people to whom it was addressed. When he had exacted an oath from the assembled nation—that they would observe his legislation until such time as he would release them from their obligation, he turned his back upon his people and deliberately went forth to his death, so that at no future time they should be able to exact from him a release from the laws he imposed. There was too, a time in the history of the great Roman Republic when her people were trodden down beneath the iron heel of oppression. Though a republic in name it was but an oligarchy ruled by a patrician aristocracy. In the ruling powers were concentrated, not only all the authority, but also all the wealth, and the patricians did not disdain to be usurious money lenders to the poor. In prisons deeper sunk than the bed of the Tiber, languished in the cold of winter and festered in the heats of summer the debtors of the patricians. They were only led out in time of danger when soldiers were necessary to defend the state. To deliver those men from their degradation, two patriots arose. They emancipated their brethren, but in emancipating them they paid the penalty with their lives. As long as the name of Rome lives, the names of the Gracchi will be imperishable! Those who are familiar with the Old Testament will find a noble example of self-sacrifice in the history of that man who delivered his people from bondage. Brought up in all the luxury of the Egyptian court, Moses still preferred to be the deliverer of his brethren, to the riches of Egypt, While the names of great and all-powerful despots have long since passed away, still stands as an imperishable monument the name of the great leader of Israel who brought out a great nation from bondage. He was the greatest warrior who ever buckled sword, and never did earth produce a philosopher so sage: yet his true glory rests not in these, but in the fact that while there was an eager demand for his talents, where there were riches and honour as a reward, he rather chose to cast his lot with his oppressed brethren. In later times of our own era, the Swiss patriots were drawn up on their mountain sides against the serried ranks of Austria with nothing but their courage and their true hearts to defend their fields and their mountain sides from the arm of the invader. For arms some poor weapons of husbandry and a few rude arrows were all the patriots had wherewith to defend themselves. The serried ranks of Austrians were formed in dense array, the men in armour clad, armed with long well pointed spears. The poor feeble weapons of the Swiss could not break
the Redeemer of mankind. He brought to his great task, not eloquence, nor what is called genius, nor yet what is still more strange to assert—personal force of character, but he brought that which has prevailed in all times past, and that which will always prevail—the irresistible power and force of love. It was this force of love that drew to him the social outcast, who found in Jesus, though spotlessly pure, a sympathising friend. It was this that gathered to his feet the sinful women and the degraded men of the time, and if it were necessary to present one man above all others, who is, par excellence, the redeemer of mankind, the palm might be given to him who was born in Judea in the days of Herod the King. But, men and brethren, God has many agents. God has wrought out through men and by men, and not by one man but by many men and many agents, the deliverances I have enumerated. Theologians will tell us we were born in sin, that there is no good thing in us, that we have no recuperative power within us, that all the good that is within us is a kind of supernatural presence, that we have nothing to claim for ourselves, but that what good we have is above and beyond our own nature. We deny this, and say there is no analogy to this elsewhere throughout God's government, as in everything there is an inherent recuperative power. Trample with your foot upon a blade of grass and it will gradually become erect again. Bend down the shrub in the garden and it will still have a tendency to return to its natural inclination. Break a bone, and it will knit again, gash the flesh, and it will reunite. The same phenomena are presented throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Then shall it be said that throughout God's universe there is an inherent power of recovery and that the disastrous exception is in the very highest and most noble part of our being? Believe it not. In every age and in every land where men have yielded overmuch to the instincts of their material nature there is within them an inherent power to recover. There are times, no donbt, when the fallen man begins to despair of restoration. Sometimes there comes upon him shadows like the darkness of the gloomiest night, when memories of the past come hovering round him in his present hopelessness. At times when he casts back the eye of his soul upon his past life, and remembers vows broken and promises unfulfilled, he is cast down and distracted, but nevertheless let no man despair, for he is not yet lost—the inherent power of recovery is within him. The first effort made, the first attempt to break the bonds that have bound him, and the worst struggle is over. Each succeeding effort will be more successful than the last and each succeeding struggle less intense. Sometimes upon the bosom of the shoreless deep, from the ship on fire, or fast sinking into the stormy abyss, there puts off a frail small boat. The shore is a far off, the storm is high, the danger is imminent, but do the men in the boat stay to count on the probabilities of some friendly sail appearing and picking them up? Not so. Hoping and trusting in the future they put away from the side of the sinking and perishing ship, and mayhap in the end the haven of security is reached. So is it with regard to the moral fight of life. There may be for a time no prospect of deliverance, but when once an effort is made the next will be more successful, and whether it be here or hereafter, there is no such thing as final, hopeless, and irremediable ruin I In every age of earth, there have been men, who like Jesus of Nazareth and his apostles, have been successful above their fellow men in rescuing their brethren from moral degradation, and let me tell you that neither their mission, nor their desire to redeem, nor their anxious love, ceased at their death. The great and the good, the high and the heroic sons of earth, who have counted their own lives as nothing so that they might save their fellow men, do not, when they pass across the seeming gulf of death, neglect or ignore the world for which they have done so much. Because this is an enduring fact, we maintain that there is in our world a power to receive messages of comfort and of light from the great and good departed of earth. For what qualifications was it that Jesus selected his twelve apostles? When he saw Peter the fisherman at his net, and beckoning to him with his finger, told him in his own quaint language that he should be a fisher of men, when he called Matthew from his tax-gathering table, was it for their learning, their eloquence, or their genius? They had none of these gifts. They were simple Galileans. If they knew anything beyond their own Aramaic tongue it was a little ungrammatical Greek. They were not scholars. Some will say he called them for
par excellence, a redeemer of earth, I for my part would select Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary; but I believe God has not been so niggard of his gifts as to give him alone as the redeemer of mankind. I believe that in all times and in all lands there have been those, who by their organic constitution have been more fitted to be media than others, who were able to convey divine instruction, and heal the sick, and mitigate pain. I feel that the man who in this materialistic age stands up and confesses himself a disciple of any abstruse doctrine,—one not much understood and still more uncommonly accepted—subjects himself inevitably to no little scorn and contempt. I do not wonder that what is called Spiritualism should have been travestied and ridiculed. But I would ask you, whatever you read or hear, to remember that it is never wise to take a doctrine from the enemies of the system. Let me explain to you the process of those who set about to receive such communications. Imagine to yourselves some dozen—less or more—of men and women seated round or at a table. Suppose that they are persons of whose veracity you have no doubt, who have no earthly interest in deceiving you; some who have wealth and are the heads and representatives of established institutions, having interest in upholding that which to them is their means of life. Take it then for granted—for the purpose of explanation—that the circle of persons have no desire or object in deceiving, but are merely met to investigate the subject. They commence with prayer for wisdom and light with, possibly, a hymn sweetly sung for the reception of pure and spiritual gifts. Then if you saw written words of wisdom and counsel, words of admonishment traced by the hands of persons who have no conception when they write, of what word will next follow, and then find that such communications were such as you would be glad at all times should be addressed to your wives and children, then I ask you—when you have seen all this—not to conclude all at once that the matter is true, but that it is worthy of your investigation. I commenced my discourse by reference to the Algerine pirates and their slaves. Let me conclude with an illustration from the same subject. An agent went over and had concluded the redemption of a number of slaves, but one remained for whose ransom there was no purchase money left. With a sorrowful eye and a downcast look he was being led away, for he had thought that he too would have been redeemed from bondage. The heart of the Redemptorist Father was moved with pity and compassion, and he gave himself a ransom for the worn and broken down slave. "How shall I ever repay you?" exclaimed the liberated man. "In this way," was the answer. "When you return to your home, seek to deliver men from moral bondage,—seek to carry out that which if I were free I would endeavour to effect; it will not be in your power to save the body, but you can endeavour to save the soul." If the Father in his self-imposed slavery heard that the man he had redeemed was not carrying out his wishes, would it not have added to his burthens, and made more bitter the pains of his bondage and captivity? Now, men and brethren, you who hold faith in orthodoxy, or you who are with us in our nobler belief would it not be an act of ingratitude, black and gross, on your part, after all that Jesus and the redeemers of the earth have done for mankind, that you should surrender your nature to that which is sensuous and vile? Fight strongly against every thing contrary to the wishes and teaching of the great redeemers of earth, and then Jesus looking upon the world, which he still so marvellously loves, will see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.
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Jesus of Nazareth and his professed followers are at issue upon the elementary ethics of their faith. The great teacher said with utterance too distinct to be misunderstood, "You cannot serve God and Mammon." His priestly teachers comfortably assure their disciples that the two services can be consistently and successfully undertaken. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and also uttered this prophecy, "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." The priests and teachers of Christianity in almost all ages, have given their sanction to war, and have chanted the Te Deum over the slaughtered hetacombs of the battlefield. When Jesus began his gentle teachings by the lakes of Galilee, the world was sadly in need of some tender faith that would—in the moral and spiritual chaos that was abroad in the earth—give mankind some faith in the Fatherhood of God, and abate violence, fraternal discord and wrong, by propounding the sublime principle of the brotherhood of humanity. To the poor, the true gospel of Jesus—which within a small compass contains these two sublime principles—the gospel was of priceless value. There was a class in the Roman Empire even more deplorably outcast than the poor, and that was the slave. Poverty is a bitter trial for human fortitude, but amidst the worst evils there is a certain consolation in the fact that the man is free. I do not mean to say that there are not sometimes in this world men and tribes and nations so debased that they will prefer the lot of the sleek, pampered and well-fed slave to the portion of the striving, struggling free man. Not a few of the old Hebrews that Moses led out of Egypt yearned in the freedom of the wilderness for the flesh-pots of Egypt. But wherever there is true manhood there is ever a burning and unquenchable thirst for freedom. Therefore we say the slave in the Roman Empire was in a worse condition than the poor plebeians, who were free. The African bondsman or his descendant, who writhed beneath the lash of the cotton and rice planters of the Southern States of America had, at least, the spirit of rebellion somewhat stifled in his bosom by the reflection that his oppressor was a white man, and, in many respects, superior to him, but the Roman slave was as fair to look upon, and often as noble as his master, being taken captive in war. Even the philosophers of Rome thought the condition of the slaves undeserving of notice. What thrilling tidings then, to them must have been the Gospel which proclaimed that all men were equal before God, that proclaimed that the meanest slave toiling in the field, or engaged in the meanest office of the household, was in the eyes of the Infinite Father as deserving of notice as the Emperor on the throne. The religion of Jesus in early periods
vacua et inornata—now began to wear the similitude of the pagan temples. They were hung with purple and decorated with ornaments. Soon wealth as well as honour began to descend upon the teachers of Christianity, till at last the Chief Bishop put upon his head the diadem of a temporal prince. In the allegory of the temptation of the wilderness, the personification of evil says to Jesus, pointing to the kingdoms and principalities of the earth,—all these things are mine, and to whomsoever I will, I give them. The temptation in the wilderness was thrust aside, but it prevailed in after times, and as wealth grew the spiritual gifts of the church departed. The church, the nation or the individual who entirely gives up the forces of the mind to the acquisition of the good things of this life which are useful in due season, but not beyond, cannot be a recipient of spiritual gifts. Ere the blood of Jesus of Nazareth had dried upon the cross of Calvary, spiritual gifts descended upon his disciples. They were able to stimulate the exhausted forces of nature, and arrest disease. The man who acts in this wise is working no miracle; he is merely restoring nature to herself. One morning at the hour of prayer two fishermen, the companions, jesus, in his teachings and journeyings in Galilee and Judea, entered the Beautiful Gate and saw a man crippled lying upon the tessalated pavement of the porch of the Temple, and as he looked up and expected alms, the fisherman said "Silver and Gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise stand up and walk." There was something in the command that made the man put forth an effort, and he did stand up and walk. I know a clearly anthenticated case of a boy, who,
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The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject: "Kings, Priests, and People." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
The fable about the "Divine Right of Kings" did not begin with the Stuarts of England. It was heard of many ages before our British ancestors left off living on acorns; long before the young colonists left their Etruscan home to found young Rome, and long before the day when Saul, looking for his father's asses, found a prophet to anoint him king. The Divine right began to be thought of not many ages after the first hunter upon the Syrian Plains had persuaded his fellows to set him up as king; and ever since it has existed in some form or other, bringing no small fatuity to kings, and no small amount of woes to the people. Upon the face of it, to any philosophical mind, this doctrine is absurd in the extreme. The idea of old, grave, and reverend men, and strong sturdy adults, going down on their bended knees paying homage to the you by every obligation which would bind a man to speak the truth, that my doubts about the vicarious sacrifice of Christ came to me, not in the hour of health and Strength, but began on a bed of sickness and on what I had no little reason to believe to be the chamber of death. When I had lain two or three days in excruciating agony, so protracted and horrible to endure that I could have experienced the feeling which precedes mortification and death with resignation and without regret, I thought, indeed, that death was not afar off, and I thought upon the after world as a man will think, to the eyes of whoso soul the gates of death are ajar. As I thought for my soul's security on the popular and orthodox theory, I began to doubt and distrust, and at length I came to the conclusion that it would not hold good in the eyes of reason—therefore I could not reconcile myself to it. The popular theory of the innocent being sacrificed for the sins of the guilty, and that sacrifice being accepted by the judge of Heaven and Earth, seemed to me to be inconsistent, and at utter variance with the reason God had given me. Furthermore, I could not satisfy myself that there was any necessity for such a cruise. Why should God our Infiuite Father, who is changelessly pood and all-wise, require in the course of his divine government that some one suffer? Yet I could see my way clear to cast my soul on the Fatherhood of God, and I could have passed from what is called time to eternity—I could have passed through the gates of death with the strong assurance that they would be to me the gates of life eternal. But as I have said, millions have found peace and security, and millions find it still in the popular belief of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, but we present to them a simpler, clearer, and surer way. We give them instead of a complex and elaborate scheme—a scheme that is eternally puzzling the human mind—we present them with a faith pure, plain, majestic, and simple, having for its grand basis the Fatherhood of God. But, says the priestly order, how, without some kind of sacrifice, some kind of atonement, can man be delivered from the presence and consequence of moral evil—nay, more, how can divine justice be satisfied without some punishment being inflicted upon someone? I have no hesitation in saying of that, which has been the strength of sacerdotalism—that their notions of the consequences of sin are erroneons; that these consequences are confined to and rest with and end with the individual himself. If a man transgresses God's natural or moral laws, he suffers the consequence attached thereto, and there is an end of the matter: the function of Divine Government has been fulfilled. If man violates a natural law as surely as a stone thrown into the air fads to the ground by the force of gravitation, so surely will the consequence of that man's act follow him. If a man transgresses a moral law, if be violates lis conscience, he mars and wounds his spiritual nature and retards God's purpose concerning him. These are the punishments and they fall on the right shoulders as surely as death comes on all of us. You hear and read about God's lienor and about God doing this and that for his own glory, as if the whole purpose of His being was to receive glory and honour from his creatures. What would you think of a sovereign, or of any earthly father whose, whole and sole purpose was to gain homage, honor, and praise? Would this not be the incarnation of selfishness? And yet this is the character given too often to God. God has made certain natural and moral laws and if you or I violate them we have to pay the penalty. As our material bodies are hurt by a violation of a natural law, so are our spiritual bodies injured by the violation of moral laws. When the penalty is paid, and the offender is thus hereby warned, God's purpose, is fulfilled, and He does not consult His own glory or honour in the matter at all—that is above and beyond risk. Now, you see this cuts the ground from under the feet of orthodoxy. To take the view I have taken I think is far simpler and more satisfactory to man, and immeasurably more honouring to God. The orthodox view. I own, has made the sacerdotal order very powerful—it
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The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject; "What is Truth?." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
For many ages—indeed from time immemorial—there has been ever a restless spirit of inquiry in the human mind. Not only is this a something inevitable to our aspiring nature, but it is essential, absolutely necessary to our true intellectual, moral, and spiritual development! There have been, and there are still, men who evade this spirit of inquiry—men who have for so long time left this great function of the mind unused—that it has almost lost its power of effort. And there are those who stifle it as an inconvenient and troublesome possession. There is yet a lower class of man—the man who says, "let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die," and who will not therefore listen to the higher voice of the soul. All the powers of the mind and body are given over to sensuous thoughts and sensuous indulgences, and therefore the taste and appetite are averse to the inquiry after truth. There are those—and they are reckoned by millions—in our world who are not sensuous in their thoughts, who are pure-minded, full of a Spirit of charity, to whom all that is sensuous and selfish are abominable and evil things, and yet they also stifle the spirit of inquiry after truth. They prefer to give over their intellectual powers to the government and sway of the priesthood. Such men are to this world, though far nobler than the sensuous multitude, the most disastrous and effectual barriers to the world's advancement, for they give a stamp of decorum and propriety to what they associate themselves to, no matter however effete or retrogressive it may be the opposition of the sensuous is so much a degraded and m an thing, that upon the face of it there appears something abhorent to the higher disposition of the soul. There are those who think a restless spirit of inquiry after truth a power wasted. They say truth is after all, only a metaphysical speculation, a mere abstraction. "Why waste, the valuable hours of life in discussing those questions?" Why should we not think as our fathers thought—worship as they worshipped? Mark you this same spirit has permeated the domain of science. It is the same spirit which would have hushed the voice of Galileo, that would say, see, how under the old system men were able to calculate end foretell with accuracy the recurrence of eclipses. In science, as in all branches, though in a less degree, the spirit of "let it alone has pervaded." When one of the great, scientific giant, of England was about to explore what at that time, a mere, sandy mound, was supposed to be the site of the long buried city of Ninevah the Pacha interrogated hint thus:—Have you no home in the land you came from? "Yes" was the reply, have you a family? "Yes." was again the answer, "but I left them behind to come here in the cause of science." "Then," said the Pacha, "why in Allah's name did you come such a distance?" When afterwards
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The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject: "The Spiritual Life." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
We read to you to night from the most authentic of the epistles of Paul, and in the lesson you heard those memorable words, "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; and he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." Interpreted in their broad, true meaning, the words were meant to indicate the great truth that the man who seeks his happiness out of the gratification of sense will find those gratifications altogether dependent upon his perishable material nature; whilst the pure and nobler cultivation of the spiritual part of man's being will exist coevally and coeternally with a spirit immortal and imperishable. The spiritual life of man being thus the all-important part of his being, it will not be foreign either to its interest or importance, briefly to trace the history of spiritual life. Nearly all the philosophers of the past have divided things into spirit and matter. It may be that the dividing boundary was fixed sometimes too arbitrarily, and also in past has been fixed in ignorance of great laws, which have since become familiar to the ignorant portions of mankind. Still philosophy retains the time honoured distinctions of spirit and matter. Contrary to ordinary theology, we hold that both spirit and matter are eternal; that not only was there never a point in the infinite past when God the Great Spirit was not, but neither was there any moment of eternity bygone in which there were not also space and matter. It is held now by men of advanced thought who are very far indeed from being atheistic—although the opprobrious term has been freely bestowed upon them—that
Now this claim of Christ's church is not admitted as that other is of which we spoke. It is largely rejected by those who admit that other. There are many who are ready to admit that Christ, the Teacher, is helpful to the spiritual life of men, who will not admit that He is necessary to it. They acknowledge that we are taught by His morality, and elevated by His example; but not that we are, or can be "saved by His life." He is for them a great moral teacher, but not a Divine Saviour. This is the world's controversy with the Church. It is one form of that long controversy which, in one shape or other, has ever been waged between the Church and the World the controversy between those who acknowledge only the visible and the natural, and those who believe in the invisible and the supernatural. The idea of a Teacher, whose words and example instruct men, is simple, natural, intelligible—it is accepted. The idea of a Saviour, whose life, communicated to, those who believe in Him, shall give them life, is mysterious, inexplicable, supernatural, and therefore must be rejected. And the
as such in proof of the supernatural is a mere begging of the question in dispute. The supernatural is not to be demonstrated, it is to be felt; it does not prove itself to sense, it reveals itself to faith. Between the man who insists on seeing before he believes, and the man who believes in order that he may see, the dispute is endless. It is really as profitless as a dispute about tune between a man with a musical car and one without one; or a dispute about the qualities of a picture, between one who looks at it from the proper distance, and in the proper light to take in all its beauties, and who insists upon examining it only through a powerful microscope. They have no common measure of the thing in question. They are not so much opposed to as utterly apart from each other. Each truly testifies to what he sees; but one believes that he sees or hears, more than the other. The answer and the only answer each can make to the other is this—Stand where I do, feel as I feel, and you will see what I see, and hear what I hear.
Now you see, admittedly, that a great Christian divine, standing in a high position, addressing himself to a large scientific audience, tells the world that there is no proof of the supernatural. It is only capable of being felt, not demonstrated. When I present you my views of the spiritual life, of course they are incapable of proof. They have come home to my own mind from impressions. These impressions have been received during the purest moments of my life—at a time when I would have been glad to receive spiritual impressions of the purest character. I present them to you as being of value from having realised and felt their strength myself. If they agree with your reason you will receive them with more or less trust,. If not, you will reject them. I conceive that this world in which we now live is the first stage of our individual existence. It has often been averred by thoughtful men that we have had an antecedent existence. It has been evoked as a sort of proof—if proof it may be—that there comes on the memory dim recollections of an existence which could not have belonged to earth. There is no doubt that some such dim and undefinable flashes do light up the minds of some individuals with a kind of twilight. But, however these phenomena may be acccounted for psychologically, I am convinced (to my own satisfaction) that this is the first stage of our individual existence. I have every faith that in the next sphere of existence, and all future spheres, we shall have a distinct memory of life on earth and all things incident thereto. And if I can thus hope and believe of the future I am justified in coming to the conclusion that if there had been a past existence we should have a memory of it, so that the belief would come home to us as a faith. In this the first sphere of existence—the soul which came from God, and which having come from God, must assuredly never be sent down into an abysm of nothingness—has received the position of sovereign and master. It is necessary that in order that the Creator's purpose should be fulfilled concerning us that we should have two natures. In our natures, whether body or soul, there is nothing inherently evil. I have great respect for Paul, the tent-maker, but I do not believe him when he says, "in mo there is no good thing." Quoting from memory, Theodore Parker says, "in him there was much that was good." Even in that body of his, which sometimes drew from him a querrulous cry, there was much that was good. In the words of Theodore Parker there is not in this body of ours a bone that is not a good bone, nor a muscle that is not a good muscle, nor a connecting nerve which is not a good nerve, and which were not devised for a good purpose. When Paul said to the contrary he was mistaken, just
&c As they do at homo so these do abroad—anathematise one another. He wisely avoided receiving instructions from Christian
My first inquiry was, What is the creed taught in the Bible? Must I swallow the whole theology of Christianity which is put before the world as Christianity? Must I go through all the dogmas and doctrines which constitute Christianity in the eye of the various sects, or is there something simple which I can at once grasp and turn to account? I found Christ spoke one language and Christianity another. I went to him prepared to hear what he had to say, and was immensely gratified when he told me "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and love thy neighbour as thyself;" and then he added, "This is the whole law and the prophets;" in other words, the whole philosophy, theology, and ethics of the law and the prophets are concentrated in these two grand doctrines of love to God and love to man, and then elsewhere he said, "This do and ye shall inherit everlasting life." I was anxious to inherit everlasting life, and who is not in this assembly? and humbly I approached Christ and waited for an answer, and this was the answer I received, "If I loved my God with my whole life, not intellectually or emotionally but with the warm fervour of my heart and soul, and if I served man as my brother, and loved him as myself, I would most assuredly inherit everlasting life"—(applause). This is the true Christian creed as Christ set it forth in the Gospel; if I do accept this I shall be saved. But I need the means, the way to the accomplishment of this sacred precept. There is something in the Bible which has staggered many who stand outside the pale of orthodox Christanity, and that is the egotism of self assertion. Christ says truly, "Love God and love man, and ye shall inherit everlasting life;" but still docs he not say, "I am the way; I am the light of the world?" Does he not say, "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest?" Not in one or two exceptional passages, but in many passages does he lay considerable stress upon this I. There is constant allusions to himself as the way to eternal life. He who said the only way to eternal life is the love of God and the love of man also says, "I am the way." Jesus Christ, then, truly analysed, means love of God and love of man. In him we see a heavenly embodiment of this love of God as the Father and the love of man as the brother; and instead of there being a contradiction we find that there is absolute and most charming harmony between these two precepts. If we love God and love man we become Christlike, and so attain everlasting, life. Christ never demanded from me worship or adoration that is due to God the Creator of the Universe. He appeared to me to put himself forward in the Gospel as the way, not the goal—as my guide, not the destination at which I have ultimately to arrive. He places himself before me as the spirit which I must imbibe in order to approach the divine Father, as the great teacher and guide who will lead me to God. "I am the way," he said, and if we avail ourselves of that way we shall roach our destination, which is not Christ, but God the Father.
This is the conclusion he comes to concerning the religion of Jesus. By the unaided struggles of this Indian's mind he found the truth in the words of Jesus, when he said, "Truly I am the way, the truth and the light." And it may come to pass yet in our world that in a higher and more advanced condition of man's spiritual life there will arise one who will say, I am the way." But neither will he mean, nor did Jesus mean, that he was the goal or end. Every good man or exemplar is the way. The mistake of humanity has been in deifying Christ. His soul is grieved by the gigantic error. The mistake in times past has been in supposing that an utter finality has been fixed, that a beacon lighted 4000 or 2000 years ago will light us on the path of the Infinite. As there has been, so there will be—progression that will so develope mankind that after generations will be as superior to us, both spiritually and physically, as we are to the African gorilla or the Indian ape. Onward and upward will be the course of men, while ever varying nature will be evolving new forms of life. We shall not rein habit this world, but in other worlds and other spheres we shall develope into brighter, and nobler being. Men and brethren every surrender to our lower nature; every yielding to that which is selfish and unbrotherly is delaying the development of our glorious life.
Printed at the "Representative" Office, Castlemaine.
[XLIII.]
The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject. "The Good Time Coming." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
Several years ago, but within the memory of men still living, the author of Vathek lay dying in one of the gorgeous chambers of Fontbill Abbey. A man of earnest spirit, who was anxious for the soul of the dying man, requested to be admitted to the chamber. The request was refused, but with the refusal there went this message: "Tell him I die possessed of the highest gift of God to man—Hope." In the spiritual condition of that man the orthodox believer would have had no hope, for he would not have assented to any of those doctrinal tests which such believers deem a requisite passport to Heaven. But neither would those who think as we do have had much joy in that man's end. Possessed of almost boundless wealth by birth, he gave up his soul, his life, every mental power and every bodily faculty to the indulgence of what was sensuous. Possessed of singularly elegant tastes, his sensuality partook of the refined, but it was none the less sensuality. Whether a man shall be a refined materialist or whether he shall grovel in the lowest and most degrading sensuality are matters purely of education, and not of the inherent qualities of the mind. His life was given up to all that was morally sensuous, though he was by no means ignorant of the spiritual life and the requirements of the human soul; yet, though sensuous as he must have been, having set aside every high and holy aspiration after that which was spiritual, notwithstanding, he died with hope. How strong must that property of the human heart be when it is to be found in those who are spiritually degraded? If it is found there, how deeply seated it must be in those whose aspirations are high, and whose minds ever soar upwards after the beautiful and true? In the darkest life the soul has hope for light. In the worst period of a man's lite or a nation's history there is still an inherent and latent belief that form man and nation alike there is a good time coming. There was a period in the history of Europe not many years since when the Italian Patriot, though be had still hope in his soul, had little prospect of the realisation of that hope. The patriots of Italy languished in dungeons deeper than the river bed, or died in the Papal dominions, shot in the back, and branded as parracides. All at one time was darkness and gloom, when upon a sudden, from his Island home of Caprera, the Great Patriot of Italy burst forth, swept the Bourbon from Sicily, then from Southern Italy, and then in triumphal march went northward, clearing all save one spot. At last the dreams of the patriot were realised, and Italy was free. There was one spot still left to despotism—it was left to the worst kind—the despotism of the king and priest combined. There are tyrannies bard to bear when the spirit, is free, but the tyranny, of priestly power is doubly hard to hear. In Home the soul and body were bound down by iron slavery. When the free men of Italy could no longer bear it, a small band of Italian patriots set forth in the direction of the Imperial and ever famous city. They would have beaten the armed hirelings of the Vice-gerent of God, but the better arms of France came to sustain the shock of the battle. The few men who came in patriotic ardour to save Rome were shot, down in a sort of battue, not in battle. All seemed to be dark, and the cause of the patriots seemed to have sunk lower. There then arose a cry of the oppressed, but there seemed none to comfort them. Yet in the darkest and most hopeless hour there came a good time for Roman freemen. Upon a sudden the tempest of war broke forth upon Europe. The man whose trained soldiery had kept down the freemen of Italy, set out on a triumphal march to cross the German frontier, and ride triumphant through the plains of Prussia, when to the amazement of Europe the tide
Pio Nono does not listen to, his successor, surely will. And if Rome—Rome that ever boasts to be the same—if Rome ever enlarges her boundaries, sinks her dogmatism, and relaxes her bigotry, woe in that day to her more modern rivals, if they attempt still to retain their little dogmatisms borrowed from the worst part of the old system of Rome. The hopes of the Patriot are comparatively transitory. The oppression, wrong and despotism against which he wars are confined to nations; but there are other woes and pains of earth which are not passing away, but are hereditary and the cause of continuous sorrows to mankind. There are physical pain, disease, bodily suffering, and death. We believe in the fatherhood of God. We have faith that he is perfectly wise. How is it then that man is the victim of pain, disease, and death, an I how can we reconcile the moral and physical pains of men with this wisdom and beneficence? In this very simple way! We should not ask for the solution of the difficulty in that miserable old fable—of original sin. It is perfectly clear that it was never intended that our bodies should be immortal. If it was, it is opposed to any
Printed at the "Representative" Office, Castlemaine.
The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject: "The Madman among the Tombs." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
Some of the parallel scenes of this world contain, at times, strange and startling contrasts. In some cities, especially of the east, the hut of the beggar abuts on the Palace of the Prince. In one part of a great city, the head of a criminal may be falling beneath the sword of the headsman, when elsewhere they are making merry at a joy us feast. In one quarter, with voices of loud mourning they are burying the dead, while in another they are welcomine the birth of a new born heir. So pain and pleasure often run in parallel lines. Upon one memorable occasion, the history of Jesus and his apostles, presented one of these startling contrasts With James and John he was up upon the heights of Mount Tabor, where, endowed with supernatural vision, they not only commuted with, but beheld the mighty dead. The sublime law giver of the Jews, with the grandest of all the Prophets, there conversed face to face with the founder of the new faith. And, says the narrative, it was so sublime, and so carried away the Fishermen, who were companions of Jesus, that they desired to tarry there, rather than go down again to the common business, and cares of life. Such emotions are not unknown to humanity. In some of the best moments of our lives, relieved from the low and sordid things of earth, our souls commune with the great Spirit of the universe, and we get weary with the thought that we have to go back to the course cares of daily life: but for Jesus, for James and for John, there was waiting work to be wrought out on the plain of this lower world. There was to be encountered by the great Teacher himself, a day of the desertion, agony, scorn, and shameful death, and for his followers, a somewhat similar doom each. And so to the plain, of necessity, they descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, and as they descended there met Jesus a man bearing him his little son. "Have mercy upon me thou Son of David, for my son is tormented with a demon, and I brought him to thy disciples but they could not heal him." The great pitiful heart of Jesus went out in compassion to the stricken father and he gave forth from himself that power whereby the nerves and jarred forces of nature were adjusted and reconciled. When thus entreated he healed the afflicted. On another occasion to which we refer he healed without entreaty, because he came across a wretched outcast, afflicted hopeless man, and who, according to the
Victory was wounded during the engagement in the head by a splinter which drove a part of his scull on the brain. After suffering this injury he was incapable of thought. He was completely unconscious and had only an animal existence, He was taken home and conveyed to the Green which hospital. Years afterwards it was proposed to try the effect of the operation of trepanning on him. Immediately the fractured portion of the skull was removed and the pressure taken off the brain, he recovered consciousness. But he thought he was still in the Bay of Aboukir, that he was still on board the Victory, and that the battle was yet going on; and he proceeded to complete bona fide as they were, and yet won complete victory—that he trampled down his lower nature, making the spiritual supreme, then is presented a picture to man of unutterable power and strength. But when you take him out of the category of man and tell them that he was not like themseles, but the Almighty Creator, then man, struggling heretofore under a strong hope that he can was as Jesus won, shrugs his shoulders and withdraws from the strife. Therefore you will understand that it is from no lack of respect to our elder brother when I say that Jesus held to superstitions which modern science had exploded. One night in the darkness, whilst the billows of Lake Tiberius rose high beneath the moonless sky, the weary fishers were anxiously rowing with their master. Beside them loomed in the darkness the land of the Gadereens, and the weary rowers would not land, for it was an accursed place. It was where the dead were buried out of sight. But it was not that which kept them from the place. The inmate of the tombs of the inland of Tiberias was a living and not a dead man, a man whose maniacal cries startled their ears in the darkness as they rowed across the billows of the lake. But by and bye when the morning began to break they took courage and set their feet on shore and as they landed the madman of the tombs came down to meet them; urged by the restlessness of insanity or it may be moved by some good and gentle spirit tenderly leading him to the place where he might find hearing rest and peace. And this man, naked and bleeding from his self infected wounds with the
Printed at the "Representative" Office, Castlemaine.
The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject: "The Two Debtors." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.
My belief—which I by no means profess to present to you dogmatically, but simply as my own opinion, which you, as reasonable men, will accept or reject as you think wise—my belief, I say, is that the Governor of the Universe rules, teaches, and strengthens the souls of men through the spirits of the mighty dead of earth. In other worlds, in the countless galaxys that deck the midnight sky there are doubtless also sentient beings—beings who differ from us possibly in outward form altogether beyond our conception, but who have, notwithstanding, like us, imperishable spirits. The souls of such sentient beings the Supreme Governor of the Universe also rules, guides and strengthens by the spirits of their departed mighty dead. In this great economy of God there is no derogation of His supreme dignity for being Omnipresent, there being nowhere in the immeasurable expanse of the universe the smallest space where His Infinite Spirit is not present, He guides and directs the intermediate spirits, His eye is ever upon them. They are but the ministrants of His will. Happily for us, happily for the sentient beings of other worlds, the divine love and pity, the appreciation of our continual weakness, the consciousness of our need of sustaining strength, reaches Him through beings, who themselves have also felt those weaknesses, have suffered and solved the besetting difficulties of life, have struggled and won, have, alas! also struggled and been defeated. Many great and good of our world are doubtless filling such functions of the Eternal at this moment. The special nations, the particular people to whom on earth they addressed the guidance and comfort of their presence, are gathered round them now in their eternal home. Jesus of Nazareth, doubtless, who to my mind more than any other man fathomed the Divine mind and penetrated into the secrets of His designs, had this great fact, in view, when he said to his disciples, "In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not go I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there ye may be also." In the grand roll of earth's heroes, the men who held life, honor and ease, and all things cheap in comparision with the sublime work of duty are many who have held this doctrine, and in the circles of other spheres they have around them those who found in their written counsels spiritual strength, light and peace. I hope, and I have something more than hope—I have deep and earnest faith that when the earthly house of my tabernacle will be dissolved I shall enter the mighty circle that surrounds the teacher of Nazareth! I have also, concerning him, not only a
Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. Hut forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took
him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
Men and brethren, in all the teachings of Jesus there prevailed this manifest truth that the highest and strongest recommendation to God is pity, compassion and love. Whilst all good qualities are to be practised, remember this, that the sacrifice of every feeling of cruelty, hardness of heart and wrong, is most agreeable to the God and Father of Jesus Christ. As he was during his earthly ministrations, so also is he now. Therefore whilst cultivating every quality let us also remember that the spirit of unreasoning anger to our fellow man is to be restrained by every power in our command, and we shall become one with Christ, as he was one with God, by mutual affinity of spirit unto spirit. Men and brethren, I believe for some ten months past we have been meeting in this place and many of you present have been hearing my voice. During that time there has been no little controversy. I have been assailed strongly, assailed by not a few opponents, and in the somewhat unequal conflict, I have no doubt that I have said many strong things, it may be that I have said harsh things; as I say pressed in the somewhat unequal conflict if at any time I have wounded my opponents I ask their forgiveness, I regret it. And if I have felt myself sometimes wounded by taunts of real faults unfairly exaggerated, and wounded by the imputation of faults not existing, I freely fore give them as I have faith that the God and Father of Jesus Christ has for all things, freely forgiven me.
Printed at the "Representative" Office, Castlemaine.
As the increasing importance of Co-operation has, for some time past, been engaging the attention of the leading reformers of Europe and America, and as steps are being taken at the present time to establish a Co-operative Store in Dunedin, we intend publishing, as our space permits, a series of tracts and papers hearing on the subject. We give below, as the first of the series, the "Banbury Co-operative Tract, No. 3." The Banbury Co-operative Society, like that of the Rochdale Pioneers, began in a very small way, and bids fair to be as successful as its great prototype. It was commenced by a small number of working men, and within four years from starting, had eight hundred members, chiefly heads of families, and was doing a business equal to £20,000 a year.
"Good Morning, Joyful—I'm glad to see you," said Sam Jones (a working carpenter), as he met Tom Joyful, who was out for a walk the other Sunday morning, on the Oxford Road. "I wanted to see you; for I have thought a good deal about you since last we met."
"Indeed!" said Joyful. "How is that?."
"Why, you remember giving me a couple of tracts on Co-operation, don't you?"
"I do," said Joyful.
"Well, I did as you requested me. I took them home and read them again and again: and although I had passed that place on the Cow Fair scores of times, and seen what was over the door I never knew, nor did I think of its meaning, until I read those tracts," said Jones,
"I dare say not," said Joyful. "Unfortunately, there are, I am sorry to say, vast numbers of working men who go on, and on, and on, in the old routine of life, without looking either to the right or to the left, or noticing what lies in their way, be it ever so valuable; and that's the reason the world makes the slow progress it does: whereas, if they would only make use of the means which lie within their reach for improving their condition, it would not be what it now is, in too many instances, a miserable one indeed. But do you know what it means now?"
"From what I read in the tracts, I was induced to join the Society; and I have often thought it was only what was due to you that I should tell you—and I am glad of this opportunity of doing so—that I found what they contained to be strictly true; and I thank you for putting them in my hands," said Jones.
"I am very glad to hear that," said Joyful; "it is not always I get so recompensed. But as you seem to have been so interested, suppose we take a turn, and have a little further conversation about this thing called Co-operation?"
"I shall be pleased to do so," said Jones.
"Well what have you made out about it?" said Joyful
"Made out?" said Jones: "well, I told you I read Tract No. 1, and that opened my eye a little; then I read No. 2, and I saw further Since then I have read and thought a good deal about it; and I feel the more I know, the more I want to know about it."
"That's a good state of mind to be in,"
'The
mind'sthe standard of the man.'
But to our subject. This Co-operation then, means nothing less, Jones, than the complete salvation of Labor. I mean the liberation of Labor from all wealthy patronage, and control. Labor is, and for ages has been, the slave of Capital; and though men talk of the interests of Labor and the interests of Capital being identical, under the present system it's all humbug—'a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.' They are nothing of the kind—they are as opposed to each other as they possibly can be. Labor is the slave of Capital; and though it has made, and still continues to make, desperate efforts to free itself, they always end in failure, and in riveting its fetters still tighter. Look at the thousands, the hundreds of thousands of pounds the working classes have expended in strikes, and the sacrifices they havee made; and to what purpose? Capital has now a firmer grip of its victim than ever. You, like myself, are a working man, dependent on labor; but our labor is of no use to us if there are none with money who will employ us: and with no employer, we have to starve or go to the workhouse, as thousands are doing at the present time; while if we are employed, it must be on the employers' terms, and not ours."
"That shall be right," said Jones.
"All this," said Joyful, "proves to me that it's no use Labor fighting Capital. Capital must be met with capital; and this the working classes can never obtain but by Co-operation. Co-operation will give it them, and that in the simplest, safest, and easiest manner possible. Do you doubt it? See what they have done at Rochdale, and many other places. At Rochdale, 30 years ago, you might have kicked the weavers and working classes from there to Jericho, and could not have kicked a hundred pounds out of them: now they have a capital of £100,000. How did they get it? By Co-operation! This buying and selling of quarter-pounds of tea, penn'orths of soap, or ha'porths of treacle, may appear a very trifling matter; but it is not so trifling, after all. On the contrary, it is a most important one, as it is the mode or method by which the salvation of Labor is to be wrought out."
"That seems curious too," said Jones.
"Yes it does," said Joyful; "but if, as you go through life, you will observe well, you will find that most of the greatest effects are produced by the simplest means: as, for instance, gunpowder, one of the greatest explosive forces known, is produced from nothing more than a mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre; or steam, that mighty giant, from a little fire and water. And as in the physical, so also it is in the moral world—
The greatest wonders do from trivial causes spring.
But to our subject again. Society is now divided into two classes—the Producers and the Non-producers of wealth; in other words, the workers and the schemers; and, up to the present, the schemers have had the best of it. Now, there is no wealth that is not produced by labor. Labor is the source of all wealth; but, unfortunately for themselves, while the laborers have been toiling and moiling to produce wealth, they have not carefully protected it, but have allowed the schemers to run off with it as fast as produced. 'Tis true, the schemers do not knock the laborers down and rifle their pockets, as do the highwaymen the lonely traveller; but they have a system by which they do it quite as effectually, and far more safely; and of this system shopkeeping forms an important part. Let me illustrate this:—Peter Simple earns a pound; he takes it to the shopkeeper, to be exchanged for either groceries, provisions, clothes; or furniture. If for groceries, he receives so much butter, cheese, or lard; but he leaves the shop with only eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, or fifteen shilliugs' worth for his pound; the remainder is retained, and the poor bumpkin, thinking he has the value of his pound, goes away contented. Now suppose if, instead of for groceries, he goes in to change his sovereign for silver, and the shopkeeper offers him eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, or fifteen shillings for it—would Simple be so simple as to take it? Not he; he would insist upon having a pound's value for his pound; and yet so much is custom interwoven with our nature, that large numbers of our fellow-workmen still prefer the old method of spending their money, and taking eighteen shillings for their pound, to the new, which gives them value for value, or twenty good shillings' worth for their sovereign. Of course, we must not blame the shopkeeper. Who would not be a shopkeeper while so many kind Simples abound?"
"Rot it!" said Jones, "what a fool I must have been all my life."
"Never mind," said Joyful. "Although the people do not at present see through it, they will see through it; and when they see through it—good-bye to private trading. Shops may be opened, plate glass may fill their fronts, windows may be dressed, goods be offered at less than prime cost—they will not be entered. 'In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird;' they will be regarded
"And a jolly good job, too," said Jones.
"That is not all," said Joyful. "With the shopkeepers will go many of the classes above them—bankers, lawyers, landlords, rentiers, and rate collectors. Banks will not then pay 20 per cent, dividend to shareholders; lawyers will no longer be engaged, like bull-dogs, tearing poor humanity to pieces; debts will no longer be incurred; goals will be closed, or turned into hospitals for incurables; the police may be disbanded; and a thousand and one more things, equally desirable, will or may take place, when the people have learnt to go to their own shop for what they need, instead of to other people's. It all hinges on that, Jones—to their own shop, instead of to other people's"
"I see—I see," said Jones.
"But we have only talked about a part of the question yet," said Joyful. "We have had the spending side: now let us have a few words about the producing side. By selling their goods at the store at the same price as the ordinary shopkeeper, the working people of Rochdale and elsewhere (as I said before) have accumulated a large capital, which has given them not only huge stores of clothing, but has enabled them to build large mills to grind their corn, to build factories, to purchase shiploads of cotton and machinery, and to employ themselves in making sheeting for beds, flannel for backs, and to build houses for themselves to live in (a hundred at a time) to educate themselves, and to become, in fact, their own employers, and independent of all private capitalists. What a joy! what a consummation to be able to have—to earn—plenty to eat, to drink, and to wear; a good house to live in, and to be educated and enlightened men and women; without having to thank any one but Heaven and themselves for them all. This is what I mean by the salvation of labor. I earnestly hope the time is not far distant when we shall see the like in Banbury—in short, all the world over."
"I hope so, too," said Jones; "but I fear it will take a long time to bring it about."
"Time!" said Joyful, "no one knows the time: it might be a century; it might be fifty, forty, twenty, ten, or five years; it might be sooner than the most sanguine of us expect; but this we know—it can, and will be, just when the working classes will it. They have only to say it shall, and it will be done. They have nothing to do but determine (as I said before), to buy all they want at their own shops, instead of other peoples', and the work is accomplished. Oh! it does grieve me to see the working people—some even who are members of the store—so simple as to carry their hard-earnings to places where they never see them more, instead of to the place whence they would return to them again and again. Such a course is just about as sensible as would be their continually feeding their rich neighbor's fat pig, while their own was starving in its sty. But we must have patience, Jones; the people have to be taught better, and that necessarily takes time; they are learning—learning with a speed you little think of; and all will be well in the end."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Jones; "anything I can, I shall willingly do, to help in such a work."
"Good," said Joyful, "willing hearts and willing hands, with God's help, will enable us to accomplish all we desire. No man knows what he can do till he tries. Take this bundle of tracts, distribute them among your fellow-workmen, and urge the subject on their attention; never forgetting, that just in proportion as we labor, so will the change be brought about—a change the most glorious that ever gladdened the heart of humanity—a change which will be beneficial to all, because it will be founded on that great principle and formula of justice—"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
"I believe it," said Jones; and shaking Tom by the hand, they parted, and each wont his own way.
Dunedin: Mills, Dick & Co., General Printers, Stafford Street,
1. In presenting their report of the proceedings of the past twelve months, the Board are glad to be able to say, for the first time for some years, that there has been a decided improvement during the year in the position and prospects of the Institute. There has been an increase, more especially during the last six months, in the number of subscribers to the Library and in the circulation of books, and as the Government grant has been restored in the present year to nearly the amount at which it stood formerly, the Board have been able to order books more freely than they have done for some years, a change of which before long the subscribers will feel the advantage.
2. The enlargement of the Institute building, which has for so many years been a standing topic in the annual reports of the Board, has as usual occupied a considerable share of their attention during the year. It would appear that the measures adopted in
3. Lectures.—The anticipation in last year's report of a speedy resumption of the Institute lectures became a reality sooner than was expected, as the Board found themselves able to arrange for a short course of lectures in the spring, terminating with the usual Christmas entertainment of select readings. The attendance at the lectures was considerably above the average, and at the readings the room was as usual crowded. The Board take this opportunity of thanking the gentlemen who contributed on that occasion to a very pleasant and successful entertainment. The following lectures, &c., have been given since the date of the last report:—
"Elizabeth Barrett Browning"—Miss Spence.
"Robert Browning"—Miss Spence.
"Food; its Chemical Features, &c."—Mr. G. Francis.
"The Golden Ago of English Literature"—Rev. J. Davidson.
"Select Readings."
4. Classes.—Considerable changes have taken place in this department during the year. At the date of the last report the Mastership of the Latin, Greek, and English Classes had become vacant in consequence of the resignation of Mr. G. R. Irwine, which was followed not long afterwards by his death. Applications were invited from gentlemen desirous of filling the post in question; this resulted in the appointment of the Rev, H. Read, M.A. A desire having been expressed that a mathematical class should be established, a similar course was adopted, and the Rev. T. Field, M.A., was appointed master. Recently the Board decided that those masters of classes at the Institute who hold degrees or some recognised equivalent thereto should be styled professors. At the present time only the two gentlemen mentioned above are entitled to that designation. Miss Hinton's classes for ladies were continued during the greater part of the year, but are now closed, and the Rev. Mr. Read has commenced classes for ladies in English, Latin, and Greek. The Elocution Society after an existence of about six years was formally dissolved in June last, and there is now no Society of that kind in connection with the Institute.
The classes in existence at the present time are:—
Latin, Greek, and English—Professor, Rev. H. Read, M.A.
Mathematics—Professor, Rev. T: Field, .M.A.
French and German—Master, Mr. H. Nootnagel.
Vocal Music—Master, Mr. H. F. Price.
Drawing, Painting, and Modelling—Master, Mr. C. Hill, under the superintendence of the S. A. Society of Arts.
The following are extracts from the reports of the Professors and masters of the different classes, except the drawing classes, the report on which appears in the sub-report of the S.A. Society of Arts (Appendix B):—
The Rev. H. Read, M.A., Professor of Classics, reports that the total number of pupils who have attended his classes during the year has been—Latin, 7; Greek, 3; English 7. And that the number at the present time is—Latin, 6; Greek, 2; English, 3. The pupils in the Latin Class are in various stages, from the rudiments to easy extracts from the classics, with exercises in Latin prose. The Professor further states that one of his pupils has recently
The Rev. T. Field, M.A., Professor of Mathematics, reports that the total number of pupils admitted into the Mathematical Class since its formation in April last has been 12, and that during the first term their attendance was regular and their progress satisfactory. Since then the number has been reduced to seven, three pupils having left to join the Union College Classes and two others having been prevented by unavoidable causes from continuing their attendance. The course of instruction so far has included the first book of Euclid and Algebra to Simple Equations. The Professor concludes his report by saying that the pupils under his care are, he believes, making sound progress in their studies, to which they are giving unremitting attention.
Mr. Nootnagel reports that the average number of pupils in his classes during the past year has been as follows:—German, 6; French, 3; and that the number at present is—German, 8; French, 4. The classes include both ladies and gentlemen, and Mr. Nootnagel reports favourably of their attention and progress.
Mr. H. F. Price reports that Hullah Class No. 13 was formed in March last, but it being too small to be carried on successfully, another class was formed in July, with which No. 13 was incorporated. This class numbers at the present about 20 pupils; the average attendance being about 12, and the progress satisfactory. A severe illness in the early part of this year prevented Mr. Price from attending his classes for some months, which of course has had an unfavourable effect upon them.
In their last report the Board stated that they had submitted to the Government for confirmation an additional Statute giving them power to hold periodical examinations of young persons of either sex in general education, with the intention that such examinations should, besides the service they might be expected to render to the cause of education generally, be available as the Preliminary General Examination to be passed before a young man can be admitted to pursue his professional education under the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The Government approved of the proposal, and in due course the Statute, of which a copy is given below, was approved by His Excellency the Govornor-in-Chief, and laid before Parliament, this being the mode prescribed by the Institute Act, for the legalization of additions to or alterations in the Schedule of Statutes and Rules. The Governmeut stipulated, however, that before any action was taken under this Statute, the formal recognition of the proposed examinations by the Royal College of Surgeons should be obtained. The consequent communication with England has caused some delay, and it was only very recently that a letter was received from the Secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons, conveying the satisfactory intelligence that the Council of that body had, after due consideration, passed a resolution recognizing the proposed examinations. The Board are now engaged in settling the details of the scheme, which will be made public as soon as it is matured. It is intended if possible to hold the first examination in the month of September next.
"Addition and Amendment to the Schedule of Statutes and Rules in the Schedule B to the 'South Australian Institute Act;
"The Board of Governors shall be and are hereby empowered to institute periodical examinations, which shall be open to the youth of the colony of both sexes, and for that purpose to appoint and remove Examiners from time to time, subject to the following regulations;—
"1. Every candidate shall be of the age of not less than 15 years, and not more than 21 years, and shall have been resident in the colony for not less than 12 months.
"2. The examinations shall be held at such times and places, and shall include such subjects, as may from time to time be determined by the said Board; provided that they shall comprise all the subjects prescribed by the Royal College of Surgeons of England for the preliminary examination of candidates commencing their professional education there.
"3. The Board of Governors shall at the close of each examination grant certificates to all candidates who have passed satisfactorily, in such form as they may from time to time determine, and shall also cause to be published in the
Government Gazettethe names of all such candidates arranged in the order of merit."4. The Board of Governors may charge such fees to candidates for examination, and grant such fees to examiners, and make such awards of prizes to successful candidates, and also make such other payments in relation to the said examinations as shall to them seem fit.
"5. The Board of Governors may from time, to time make, alter, and rescind By-laws for the purpose of regulating the mode of conducting the said examinations."
"By order of the Board, " , Secretary. "By command,Robert Kay" , Chief Secretary. "Approved,William Milne" , Governor. "James FergussonJanuary 3, 1872 ."
5. Country Institutes.—The country Instistitutes continue to progress satisfactorily and to increase in number. During the past year four newly-established Institutes have been affiliated, viz., Highercombe, Ardtornish, Troubridge, and Salter's Springs; one Institute has been roopened and one has been closed. The total number of Institutes in operation at the present time is 63.
The following are the principal statistics of the Country Institutes for
Circulation of books during the year ending
It has come to the knowledge of the Board that some of the Country institutes which possess buildings have not had trust-deeds executed for the due protection thereof. They have therefore in all such cases declined to pay the annual grant until satisfactory trust-deeds are prepared.
The number of boxes of books in circulation amongst the Country Institutes remains the same as it was last year, viz., 63. This number, however, is very insufficient to meet the demands made upon it, and the Board hope before the end of
The Palmerston Book Club, the establishment of which was notified in the last report, remains, so far as the Board are informed, in much the same condition as it was last year. It seems probable, however, that before long there may be a considerable increase of population in that part of the colony, when the Club will in all likelihood develop into an institution of a more public and permanent character. Parcels of withdrawn periodicals have been sent to it from time to time, as opportunity offered.
6. Incorporated Societies.—As heretofore, the Adelaide Philosophical Society and the South Australian Society of Arts are the only Societies incorporated with the Institute. Reports of their proceedings during the past year are attached to this report. (See Appendices B and C.) Beyond again regretting the limited accommodation they can at present afford to these Societies in the Institute building, the Board have nothing further to say on this head.
7. Museum.—It being impossible from utter want of room to make any large addition to the collection at present exhibited in the Museum, the Board have thought it advisable to do what appeared possible in the way of improving its apearance, and have added a few cases where space would permit. It is to be hoped, however, that before long much more extended acommodation will be provided for the Museum, when the large number of specimens for which there is at present no room may be made available. It is pleasant, meantime, to be able to report that even with its present restricted accommodation the Museum attracts a large number of visitors not merely on holidays but at all times, amounting probably to 50,000 persons in the course of the year. Many specimens have been received as donations during the year, and others have been procured by exchange, of which a fuller account will be found in the Curator's report. (Appendix A.)
8. Library.—The following is a summary of the results of the annual examination of the Library, which took place as usual in May last, viz.:—
The Board desire to acknowledge the following donations to the Institute Library during the past year, viz.:—
The Board have also to acknowledge with thanks the regular receipt of presentation copies of the following:—
The loss of the P. & O. Company's steamer Rangoon, at Point de Galle, in November last, caused an interruption in the regular supply of periodicals and newspapers; fortunately, however, there happened to be very few of the former in that vessel. Of the missing newspapers the greater part have been replaced; some, however, cannot be got, and the files must necessarily remain imperfect. With this exception the periodicals and newspapers per English mail have been regularly received during the year; a few books have also been received in that way. Two small parcels of books have been procured from Melbourne during the year, and two crders for books have been sent to London, the first instalment of which may be expected in the early part of next year.
9. Statistics.—The following are the principal statistics of the Library Department of the Institute for the past year, with the corresponding figures for the previous one:—
10. Board of Governors.—The Rev. Canon Farr, M.A., one of the Governors appointed by His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief, retired from office on
Mr. N. Blyth will retire by rotation on October 1, he having held office longest of the three nominated Governors; and Messrs. W. Everard and C. Todd, who represent the S.A. Society of Arts and the Philosophical Society, will retire from office in the course of October. The vacancies so caused will have to be filled up by the above-mentioned Societies.
Mr. L. Glyde, M.P., and Mr. J. Howard Clark, who represent the subscribers to the Library, will retire at the annual meeting to be hold on October 14, when the subscribers will elect their representatives for the ensuing year.
All the retiring Governors are eligible for re-appointment or reelection as the case may be.
11. Receipts and Expenditure.—'The following is a statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Institute during the past year:—
12. Conclusion.—The Board close their review of the proceedings of the past year with the feeling that there is in it more evidence of substantial improvement than it has been their lot to chronicle for some time, and they trust that in the coming year the improvement may be more manifest, and that the subjects treated of in this report as probabilities may have become realities.
"Report of the Curator of the South Australian Institute Museum on the progress of the Museum during the year ending
"To the Board of Governors of the South Australian Institute.
"Gentlemen—In laying this annual report before you I regret to state that the progress made this year has not been so favourable as might have been wished on account of the funds available for Museum purposes being insufficient for the purchase of such specimens of natural history peculiar to this province as are valuable desiderata to other Museums with which I am in correspondence, and from which considerable additions might have been made by mutual exchanges.
"The principal additions made to the collection by exchanges consist of a choice selection of beautiful birds typical of genera peculiar to South America, and an interesting collection of reptilia from the same country, received from the Royal Museum at Berlin; a small collection of humming birds from Mr, Gould; various specimens of rare reptilia and a fine specimen of the newly-described amphibian Ceratodus Fosterii from the Australian Museum, Sydney;
"The subject of the absolute necessity of more suitable Museum accommodation having been already so frequently brought before the public renders it unnecessary for me to comment on this matter further than by stating it is much to be lamented that the progress of so useful and popular an institution should be so long retarded, especially as the utility of Museums is now so generally acknowledged as an important agent in national education.
"Special thanks are due to Mr. R. Jagoe, who has on various occasions kindly given the use of one of his boats for trawling, and to Mr. A. Molineux for the use of his trawl net, by which means many valuable additions have been made to our collection of fishes from St. Vincent's Gulf, duplicate specimens of which have been forwarded to the Count F. de Castelnau, Melbourne, who is now engaged on a work on Australian fishes, and has described from among those received by him several quite new to science.
"The Museum continues to be well frequented by the public.
"I now beg on behalf of the Governors of the Institute to return thanks to the following ladies and gentlemen to whom the Museum is much indebted for their donations:—
Abstract of the Transactions and Progress of the South Australian Society of Arts for the year ending
1. At a special general meeting of the members, hold on the 26th October last, W. Everard, Esq., J.P., was elected a Governor of the Institute.
2. The Fourteenth Annual Exhibition opened on the
3. The works entered to compete for the 73 prizes (amounting to £142 16s.) were in number 186. The successful competitors were—The Adelaide Photographic Company (4), Mesdamos W. H. Benham (4), Frampton (2), Scales (2),W. Wyatt (1), the Misses DeMole (1), I. A. Darling (3), A. C. Saunders (1), Light (1), H. L. Wyly (1), E. Thornber (1), J. A. Stuckey (1), S. B. Thornton (1), E. L. Gray (2), K. Brown(l), S. Kugelmann (2), E. Menpes (2), F. H. Little (1), E. Hall (2), and M. E. Bagot (1), Messrs. J. H. Biggs (5), T. Duryea (7), R. E. Minchin (7), W. P. Doll man (1), H. Jones (1), W. Bur-meister (1), T. Duryea, jun. (2), T. R. Russell (1), R. W. Hall (1), E. W. Minchin (1), M. L. Menpes (1),S. Wake (1), and A. E. Bonney (1).
4. The Art Union distribution consisted of 35 framed engravings. The following members drew prizes—His Excellency Sir J. Fergusson, Bart.; Mrs. R. Haussen, Mrs. J. Patterson, Messrs. J. P. Boucaut, M.P., J. Riddoch, M.P., W. D. Sanderson, H. Brown, S. Ormerod, A. Jones, E. S. Wigg, Jas. Scott, G. Boothby, J. T. Turnbull, C. Everett, C. Peacock, T. H. Artaud, J. P. Bickford, J. B. King, G. Ormerod, M.Clarke, W. W. Hughes. S.Cornish, H. Bickford, J. H. Biggs, C. H. Davis, Thos. Foale, Thos. King, W. D. Hewer, P. Rowland, S. Wilson, E. S. Davys, A. M. Simpson, W. G. Luxmoore, M. Goode, and G. W. Goyder.
5. The annual general meeting was held on the 15th February, at which the following were elected office-bearers for the year, viz.:—
His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, K.G., &c.
His Excellency the Governor, the Right Hon. Sir James Fergusson, Bart.
The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Adelaide,
A. Short, D.D.
His Honor the Chief Justice, Sir R. D. Hanson. Sir J. H. Fisher, J.P.
G. F. Angas, Esq., J.P.
The Hon. John Hart, M.P., C.M.G.
Member of the Board of Governors, S.A.I.:
W. Everard, Esq., J.P.
Treasurer: John Souttar, Esq., J.P.
Hon. Secretary: Abraham Abrahams, Esq.
6. The annexed letter and tables from the Master of the School of Design report favourably on the number and progress of the pupils:—
"School of Design, S.A. Institute, September 25, 1872 ."Dear Sir—I have pleasure in reporting a continued improvement in the pupils attending the School under my charge, although the attendance has been very fluctuating, as will appear from the enclosed tables.
"I regret the unavoidable postponement of the Exhibition, as the publication of the prize-list generally gives a fresh impetus to the energy of the intending competitors. As mentioned in my last, the want of more advanced subjects to study from is much felt.
"Yours truly, " , Master.Charles Hill"To A. Abrahams, Esq., Hon. Sec. S.A. Society of Arts."
7. The Room in the Town Hall in which the two previous years' Exhibitions were held not being suitably lighted, the Society was necessitated to hold the last Exhibition at the Institute, but by reason of insufficiency of room could only exhibit competitive works. It is earnestly to be hoped that Parliament will at once grant a sum for the enlargement of the building, by erecting the centre and the eastern wing, in order to give accommodation to the Museum. Library, Reading, Lecture and Class Rooms, School of Design, Picture and Sculpture Galleries, and thereby also facilitate the founding of a University in South Australia.
8. The Society regret to state that the want of space in the Institute precludes the holding any Exhibition this year, but arrangements are being made to hold one at the end of
9. The Committee of Management have resolved to extend the scope of the Society by fostering Science and Manufactures in addition to the Fine Arts. The future Exhibition will be open to drawings, models, examples and articles in acoustics, astronomy, architecture, bookbinding, chemistry, castings (ornamental), carving, decorative art, electricity, engineering (civil and military), enamelling, furniture and upholstery, firearms and ordnance, geography, geology, geometry, gems and jewels, heat, light, magnetism, mechanics, music, machinery (models), maps, metallurgy, meteorology, mining, natural history, numismatics, naval architecture, navigation, pneumatics, pottery (ornamental), printing, photography, statistics, steam-engines, stained glass, works in precious metals, and kindred subjects.
10. The Society has provided some engravings, which with statuary ordered from England will comprise the next Art-Union Distribution. It is intended in future that the Society's financial year shall terminate on the 30th June, in lieu of 30th September as at present.
Abstract of Proceedings of the Adelaide Philosophical Society for the year ending
At the 18th annual meeting, held in
During the year the following papers have been read before the Society:—
"On the Government Bill for Promoting Elementary Education in South Australia," by Mr. Jas. Hosking.
"On the Fermentation of Grape Juice," by Mr. S. Davenport.
"The Theory of Evolution," by His Honor Sir R D. Hanson. Kt.
"An Improved Plan of Erecting Telegraph Lines," by Mr. A. Murray.
"On the Superiority of the System of Perpetual Leases," by Mr. Jas. Cumming.
"The Early History of Vaccination," by Dr. Paterson.
"On the Poisonous Plants Cultivated in the Botanic Gardens, their Properties and Effects, with some remarks on the Poisonous Plant that appeared lately at Port Lincoln," by Dr. Schomburgk. Living specimens of all the plants were exhibited.
William Kyffin Thomas, Printer, Grenfell-street, Adelaide.
An Ordinary Meeting of the Institute was held
We meet this evening to inaugurate the fourth year of the Otago Institute. And first, I have to thank you for again electing me President. At the same time, you must permit me to suggest that this office should not be permitted to devolve, as of course, continuously on the same individual. The infusion of new blood is salutary to an Institution like this. Many of our members are more masters of their time than I am, and on several occasions, when I have especially desired to attend the meetings of the Society, I have been prevented either by absence at the Court of Appeals or on circuit, or by my engagements here. There are also many members of scientific attainments, whose election to the office of President would tend to promote the success of the Institute. I therefore hope that at the election of officers for the year
The constitution of this Society, and others of a similar character in close union with the New Zealand Institute, seems to me to be highly favourable to the promotion of science. Taking our own Society alone, it provides for the free interchange of the scientific knowledge and scientific thought, possessed and capable of being communicated by each and all of the members. It also furnishes the wholesome stimulus of emulation and friendly competition. It has another advantage, apart from science—its primary object. It has a social usefulness. It brings together, in friendly social intercourse, men who from their private engagements and pursuits, or remoteness from each other, might never otherwise have an opportunity of meeting. The New Zealand Institute performs for the several societies united with it, that which each society does for its own members. It makes common property of the contributions of all. Whatever is useful in the deliberations and proceedings of one, is thrown into the common stock, with a salutary power of rejection and selection. The four volumes of Transactions bear witness to this. No one society, howsoever able its members, or howsoever liberally supported, could have produced such a valuable body of scientific in-formation as we find in the volumes to which I have alluded. Nor could all the societies, working independently, have done so. The mere pecuniary economy of the present arrangement is a source of efficiency which no amount of isolated energy could attain. All share in the liberality of the legislature. The power of selection, too, to which I have alluded, which involves rejection, has imparted to the Transactions a character which has called forth commendation from the scientfic bodies of other countries.
A few words upon the history of these institutions will, I trust, be deemed not out of place. The first attempt to establish a scientific body in New Zealand was the New Zealand Society, in
The New Zealand Institute owes its existence to the "New Zealand Institute Act,
The Wellington Philosophical Society, which, from its locality, has a closer connection with the Institute than more distant Societies can have, numbers among its members several men of high scientific attainments, nor is any one of the Societies destitute of members capable of making valuable contributions to the common stock of scientific ideas. Sir George Bowen, the Governor, has directly promoted the success of the Institute, and indirectly that of the affiliated Societies by his zeal, and especially by his encouraging addresses.
When the New Zealand Institute Act was passed in un fait accompli. From my connection with the old Society of
Hitherto the attention of all these societies has been directed principally, but not quite exclusively, to what are called the natural or physical sciences. Of these, undoubtedly geology and her twin sister mineralogy are of the greatest importance to us. New Zealand is especially rich in mineral resources—gold, iron, and other metals, and coal. Unscientific enterprise may develope, and indeed has developed, these resources to a considerable extent; but they are capable of being rendered available with immeasurably greater rapidity, if energy be directed by scientific knowledge. Now, all science is susceptible of two distinct kinds of progress. First there is the improvement and development of science itself—the increase of the sum total of scientific knowledge; and, secondly, the extension of the existing stock of scientific knowledge, be it great or small, among those who may reap practical benefit from it.
One of our poets has said—
No doubt, full, accurate, and exhaustive knowledge is better than the poet's little knowledge; but, practically, a little knowledge is better than no knowledge at all; and although superficiality is to be avoided, yet the communication of even a little knowledge, if that little be sound in itself, is in the highest degree useful. The miner works with more certainty, and with less risk of failure, if armed with even a small amount of geological and mineralogical science, provided that the little which is imparted to him by the man of science be accurate. The farmer, too, without aiming at being a great chemist, is saved from many disappointments by even a "little knowledge" of that department of chemistry which treats of soils and the food of plants. Other indus-
But the natural or physical sciences do not exhaust what is comprehended in the word science; and our field seems to me to be of much wider extent. There is a science in every department of human knowledge. Even our manly English sports have their science; that is, their operations are referred to principles and reduced to rules. Niebuhr has taught us that there is a science of historical criticism. Look at our best modern histories, as compared with the dry chronicles of the middle ages. The historian now dives into the springs of human action; he applies a rigid criticism even to the facts previously accepted as historical; and he arrives at conclusions with a degree of moral certainty unattainable in early times. The early history of the native race of New Zealand is not unworthy of the labours of the critical historian. Their traditions are worthy of being collected and critically examined, upon recognised principles which constitute the science of history. The language of the Maori proves beyond all doubt that he is a member of the widely-spread Polynesian family. His own tradition points to Hawaiki as the place whence he came, and Hawaiki is no more than a linguistic variety of the name Hawaii, and the two languages have no more differences than are capable of being accounted for by Grimm's law. Philology is now copiously applied to the testing of traditions. This Society has already contributed something to the common stock under this head, in the most interesting paper read to this Society by Mr J. T. Thomson, and printed in the fourth volume just issued. But we in Otago are too remote from the great seats of the Maori population to be favourably situated even for the collection of facts. The Northern Societies, however, have the facts at their very doors, and I cannot help hoping that the attention of some members of those bodies will be directed to the subject before it becomes too late.
There is another subject, or rather class of subjects, quite within the province of this Society. I mean the science of language generally, and the science of each particular language and especially of our own mother English Much has been done of late years in Europe in these departments of science. Max Müller has produced two interesting volumes of lectures on the Science of Language, and he has, I think, succeeded in showing that there is such a science generally, without reference to particular languages, except for purposes of illustration. Writers in the present century Grimm in German (Geschichte der Deutschen Spache), and Littré in France (Histoire de la Langue Francaise), Latham in England (The English Language), and Marsh in America (Lectures on the Origin and History of the English Language), have all treated their respective languages more or less scientifically. Until the present century there were very few dictionaries which were anything more than collections of words with fancied etymologies, which were often misleading, and sometimes false. The dictionary of the French Academy, the Italian Vocabolario della Crusca, and even our own Johnson's dictionary, all fall short of the requirements of the present state of philological knowledge. The great German dictionary of Grimm, the French dictionary of the learned Littré, and the new English dictionary of Latham, are of a much higher character. It is of course our own speech which is of the most importance to us; and with a few exceptions, at distant intervals, it is only recently that it has been philosophically investigated.
This has been much aided by the recent revival of the study of Anglo-Saxon, which is really English in its oldest form. To take part in these investigations, with the hope of adding something to the common stock of knowledge, is certainly not inconsistent with the general scope and objects of these Societies. And, be it observed, that the wider the field which we embrace, the more do we place ourselves in communion with the scientific and learned bodies in Europe and America.
In England, France, and the United States, each science has its distinct society. Geological societies, geographical societies, botanical societies, antiquarian societies, philological societies, historical societies, and many others, are to found in all the countries of Europe and America. We are far too young, and our population is too small, and too much divided for such a division of scientific labour. The Institute is a happy expedient for securing all the advantages of association which our circumstances admit of. And this principle of union for scientific objects is not with-out example in England, where it is less needed than with us. The British Association for the Advancement of Science is of this catholic character, and there is a
l'esprit d'association is in fact one of the characteristic features of the present age.
I have alluded to the two kinds of progress of which science is susceptible; and let it never be forgotten that if in our humble beginning we should add but little, or even nothing, to the increase or improvement of science, extension and diffusion are within our reach. But may we not also hope to add something to the general stock? Let me say a few words to encourage hope, and stimulate exertion, in that direction. Great and successful examples cannot fail to animate hope in those who are laudably ambitious of scientific attainments, and of making some contribution to the common fund.
One of the grandest discoveries of modern times—perhaps the most remarkable discovery of science ever achieved—was effected simultaneously by two mathematicians, but little known at the time. I allude to the discovery of the planet Neptune. This planet was literally discovered before it was seen, by two scientific men, acting entirely without concert. These men were known rather as skilful mathematicians than as astronomers. They were Leverrier, of Paris, and Adams, of Cambridge. The planet Uranus had been discovered by the elder Herechel in
In
Scarcely inferior to this as a scientific discovery by the mere force of reasoning, and superior in practical results, is that which is described by Tyndall in one of his admirable lectures, namely, the discovery, or rather invention, of the barometer, which was arrived at by a process of scientific reasoning. It grew out of the common pump. About
This experiment was soon followed by another, which confirmed Torricelli's theory (if indeed it needed confirmation). The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, reasoned thus:—If Torricelli be right, if the water in the pump, and the mercury in the tube, be equally supported by the weight of the atmospheric column, then, as we decrease the height and weight of that column by as-cending a mountain, the mercury ought to fall. Accordingly, he ascended the Puy de Dôme, taking with him what we may now call a mercurial barometer, which he found to fall as he ascended, and rise again as he descended, with perfect regularity.
Now, although we cannot hope to match the grand discoveries which I have just described, let this Society, and others connected with the New Zealand Institute, comfort and animate themselves with this reflection, that we enjoy, as the scene of our operations, a new country, and a comparatively unexplored field; and not only may we add materially to the common stock of scientific knowledge, but we may exercise a much more useful function—we may each in our humble sphere of life aid in the extension and diffusion of scientific knowledge among those who by their practical skill are best able to turn it to profitable account.
Another word of encouragement to those who are actively engaged in the ordinary business of life. The highest attainments of science have not been confined to those who have devoted themselves exclusively to scientific pursuits. Merchants, bankers, clergymen, lawyers, musicians, medical men—actively engaged in their respective professions and callings—have rendered themselves eminent in science by study during their hours of leisure. Lord Bacon, a lawyer, and Lord High Chancellor of England, is considered the founder of the inductive philosophy, the true method of "interrogating nature," to use his own expression. David Ricardo, author of the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, was an active and successful member of the Stock Exchange. Thomas Tooke, the author of the History of Prices, and a scientific writer on currency, was a Russian merchant, and at a time, too, when merchants had a prejudice against the science. George Grote was a banker when he commenced his truly philosophical History of Ancient Greece, and became an active member of Parliament during the progress of his work. John Stuart Mill, when he wrote his admirable "System of Logic, Ratiocinative, and Inductive," and his "Principles of Political Economy," was a laborious officer of the East India Company. It is only his recent works that can be considered as the fruit of "a learned leisure." His philosophical works are enough for a long life of thought, and yet between thirty and forty years of that life were occupied in a laborious and responsible office. The Power-loom was invented by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright—a country clergyman. The great bell at the New Houses of Parliament was planned, and the casting thereof superintended, by a barrister
The great astronomer, Sir Wm. Herechel, was by profession an organist. Music was the business of his life, astronomy his recreation, until, in process of time, they changed places. Grove, the author of one of the most profound and able works of modern science, an "Essay on the Correlation of Forces"—a work which ranks side by side with the scientific writings of Tyndall and Huxley—was a practising barrister, then a Queen's Counsel, and is now one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster. It will be obvious, therefore, that not one of the ordinary pursuits of active life is inconsistent with the prosecution of science. All such active pursuits afford some hours of leisure. There is a conventional "day's work" in all occupations, and when the mind once becomes habituated to healthy activity, inaction becomes unendurable; and we naturally crave some new occupation for our hours of leisure. To all such craving spirits this Society offers comfort and help, co-operation and encouragement.
Printed at the "Daily Times" Office, Princes Street, Dunedin.
An ordinary meeting of the Otago Institute was held in the University Building on Tuesday evening, November 14th, Robert Gillies, Esq., one of the Vice-Presidents of the Institute, in the chair.
After the usual preliminary business had been disposed of, it was announced that at this meeting the Institute had the right of nominating a gentleman to be an honorary member of the New Zealand Institute—the Governors of the Institute selecting three annually from amongst the nominees of the incorporated Societies.
Mr J. S. Webb moved that Dr Wm. Lauder Lindsay, of Perth, be nominated by this Institute. Last year Dr. Lindsay had been elected an honorary member of the Otago Institute, and it had been presumed that by this election he became a member of the New Zealand Institute also. The Governors had evidently been of a different opinion, and had subsequently passed rules for the election of Honorary Members. Under these rules this Society ought last year, in common with the other incorporated Societies, to have had the opportunity of nominating three gentlemen—the Governors electing nine out of the whole number nominated. He was informed that notice of the new rule had notbeen received here in time, and this privilege had been lost. In future one nomination annually would be allowed. Most of those who were present were aware of the grounds on which Dr. Lindsay had been elected an honorary member of their own body. He was one of the few well instructed naturalists who had personally examined the botany of Otago; he had always taken a great interest in the Province; had published an interesting book, "Contributions to the Botany of New Zealand," which was chiefly devoted to the plants of Otago, and had at the time of the Intercolonial Exhibition, held in Dunedin in
Mr A. H. Ross seconded the motion.
The Chairman, on putting the motion to the meeting, remarked that Dr Lindsay was the first person to make the suggestion that a University should be established in Dunedin.
The motion was carried unanimously.
Mr D. Brent then read the following paper:—
On Proportion Applied to Geometry.The last time I read a paper before this Institute I promised to make some remarks at a future meeting on the theory of Proportion in connection with Geometry. I propose now to give an outline of the treatment of proportion in the Fifth Book of Euclid, and to show how arithmetic should be applied to geometry, and to magnitude in general.
Geometry is the purest of all the sciences to which arithmetic or calculation is applied, for while all the other sciences involve ideas of space in connection with either time, matter, or force, geometry involves that of space only.
The fifth and sixth Books of Euclid, treating of the
quantityof magnitudes, require a higher calculus than the first four Books, which treat only of thequotityof magnitudes; for a single number will always express quotity, but two numbers are in general necessary to express quantity. Now quantity involves the idea of ratio, which is a fundamental idea existing in the mind, and as such cannot be defined so that the idea it represents may be conveyed by words: we merely assert the existence of this idea in the following definitions which are those usually given both in arithmetic and geometry.Ratio is the mutual relation which exists between two magnitudes of the same kind with respect to quantity.
Magnitudes which have the same ratio are called proportionals; so that if four magnitudes are proportionals, the ratio of the first to the second is the same as the ratio of the third to the fourth.
The ratio between two magnitudes is expressed arithmetically by the fraction which represents the multiple-part the one is of the other: in Euclid we find no reasoning about ratios considered by themselves, but only in connection with other ratios.
When two magnitudes are commensurable, that is to say, when they can be divided into equal parts of the same size, we can find an arithmetical expression for their ratio; but, when they are incommensurable, we cannot find a number which shall be identically equal to their ratio; and the fact of our being unable to do so depends upon the nature of number, and magnitude, for numbers are essentially discontinuous, whereas the latter are continuous.
As an illustration, suppose there to be two lines, each of the same length, and suppose one of them to be produced to double of its former length, we cannot find a number which shall identically represent the ratio which the first line bears to the produced line at
anystage of its lengthening. For, suppose the first line to be divided into a million equal parts, then the fractions 1.000,000/1,000,001, 1,000,000/1,000,002 and so on up to 1,000,000/2,000,000 represent identically the ratio which the first line bears to the produced line at each of a million times during the lengthening; but the intervals between these are unrepresented. By dividing the first lino into a greater number of parts, we may increase the number of these intervals, and diminish their size; we may, in fact, make them as small as we please, but they will never absolutely vanish: that is to say, we can at any point find a number which, if not identically equal to the required ratio, shall yet be the ratio which the first line bears to the produced line at a point distant from the required point by less than any assignable distance; and in this sense, and in this sense only, can it be said that numbers are capable of representing the ratio between two continuous magnitudes.In arithmetic, the test of proportion is the equality of the ratios, this naturally follows from the definition; Euclid, however, gives a different test—the well-known fifth definition of the Fifth Book, "Four magnitudes are said to be in the same proportion when any equimultiples of the first and third are respectively either greater than, equal to, or less than any equimultiples whatever of the second and fourth, whatever be the two sets of equimultiples taken." This definition is objectionable, inasmuch as it is not elementary; it does not satisfy the notion of proportion already existing in the mind, namely, the sameness of relative magnitude. It is also not good in logic, for its converse contains superfluous conditions. Besides, adopting this, we should have two tests for proportion—one for arithmetic, and another for the purposes of geometry, or, more correctly speaking, for magnitude in general; for the Fifth Book of Euclid, although geometrical in form, is not geometry, hut arithmetic applied to magnitude, of whatever kind. For all magnitudes, whether of space, time, matter, or force, may be properly represented by straight lines, which are continuous magnitudes, and therefore capable of expressing all magnitudes.
Euclid has introduced no arithmetical expressions for quantity in his Fifth Book, and the want of this has made his treatment of proportion cumbrous and wearisome, although it is conducted with great ability and ingenuity, and characterised by rigid exactness of reasoning. It may be asked why Euclid did not introduce measures in his Fifth Book, which is really a chapter in general arithmetic. Probably because the Greeks, in consequence of their notation, were very bad arithmeticians (except in whole numbers, in which they made very great advances), whereas fractions are in general necessary for measuring quantity, and are capable of doing so to an
ad libitumdegree of accuracy. The first great advance was made by the introduction of our present system of notation, where the position of a figure indicates its value; the next is duo to the master-mind of Newton, who discovered fractional indices, and thus gave us another form for the representation of continuous magnitude, and it is worthy of note that no other simple forms capable of expressing continuity as nearly as we please have yet been discovered besides fractions, and fractional indices or logarithms. To Newton also we are indebted for the first Lemma of the first book of his Principia, the foundation of the application of arithmetic to the sciences.I will now give a sketch of the application of arithmetic to the measurement of magnitude, and state the principles upon which it is founded.
The principles are these:—
1. Any magnitude may be conceived to be divided into as many equal parts as we please,
2. (Newton, Lemma I.) Finite magnitudes, and also their ratios, which in any finite time tend continually to equality, and which before the end of that time approach nearer to each other than by any assignable difference are ultimately equal to one another.
A perception of the fundamental ideas of ratio and proportion is also assumed, and they may be thus expressed.
Ratio is the mutual relation which exists between two magnitudes of the same kind with respect to quantity; this relation being estimated, not by the difference of the magnitudes, but by the multiple part the one is of the other.
Four magnitudes are proportional when the ratio of the first to the second is equal to the ratio of the third to the fourth.
As all our ideas of magnitude are merely relative, in measuring a magnitude we must necessarily fix upon some standard magnitude with which to compare it. This arbitrary standard is called the unit. Thus, in measuring a line, all we have to do is to express its magnitude relative to a line of arbitrary length, called the unit of length.
Suppose a line to contain the unit line a certain number of times exactly, say 3, then the number 3 is the measure of the length of the line. Every number, whether abstract or concrete, is in fact a ratio, the number itself denoting its relation to unity. Again, suppose the line not to contain the unit line a certain number of times exactly; then, if this line and the unit line are commensurable, we can measure the line. For suppose that when the unit line is divided into 10 equal parts, the line can be divided into 37 equal parts of the same size, then the line contains one-tenth of the unit line 37 times, and the measure of the line is properly expressed by the fraction 37/10
In the above, the line is supposed to be commensurable with the unit line. We will now suppose it to be incommensurable, as, for instance, the diagonal of a square described upon the unit of length. Suppose now the unit line be divided into 100 equal parts, the diagonal will contain one of these parts more than 141 and less than 142 times; that is to say, the measure of the diagonal lies between the two fractions 1.41 and 1.42. Again, if we were to divide the unit line into ten million equal parts, we should find that the diagonal would contain one of these parts more than 14,142,135 times, and less than 14,142,136 times; the measure of the diagonal lies therefore between the two fractions 1.4142135 and 1.4142136, that is to say, the fraction 1.414214 is the measure of the diagonal correct to six places of decimals, and it differs from the true measurement by less than half a millionth part of the unit line. By proceeding in the same way we may find theoretically the measure of a lino to any required degree of accuracy; I say theoretically, for practically we should soon be stopped by the imperfections of our instruments.
Again, since the unit may be conceived to be divided into as many equal parts as we please, we can approximate as nearly as we please to the measure of an incommensurable line, and we can find a fraction which shall differ from the true measurement by as small a quantity as we please; hence, by conceiving the number of parts into which the unit line is divided to be continually increased, we may obtain a fraction which will differ from the true value of the ratio by less than any assignable difference; it is therefore equal to that ratio, by Newton, Lemma I. Hence two numbers forming the numerator and denominator of a fraction are sufficient to represent quantity, for what has been said respecting a line is true for any magnitude whatever. It is also manifest that what is called in the above the measure of a line, is merely the arithmetical expression of its ratio to another line of arbitrary length, the unit line. Hence, in the same way, the ratio between any two magnitudes may be expressed arithmetically by a fraction.
Geometry being, as I have already pointed out, the first (in natural order) of the sciences to which arithmetic is applied, a chapter in general arithmetic applied to magnitude is not out of place therein, inserted, of course, distinct from the other chapters, and explicitly shewn to apply, not only to geometrical, but to all other continuous magnitudes. In the application of proportion to magnitude, the following theorem is the fundamental one, the proof of which is founded on the principles stated above.
If in any general theorem, four continuous magnitudes are shown to be proportional in all cases where they are commensurable, they will also be proportional in all those cases where they are incommensurable.
For let
A, B, C, andDdenote the four continuous magnitudes, and suppose that it can be proved that
Ais toBasCtoDin all cases in which
A, B, C, andDare commensurable, to show that they are also proportional, when the four magnitudes are incommensurable.If
AandBare incommensurable, we cannot find an aliquot part ofBof whichAis a multiple. Suppose, then,Bto be divided intoanynumber of equal parts, sayn, and let A contain m but not m+1 of those parts, then by hypothesis ifDis divided intonequal parts,Cwill also containmbut notm+1 of those parts.Let
PandQdenote magnitudes which contain exactlymof those aliquot parts ofBandDrespectively.Then, since
Pcontains the one-nth part ofB mtimes exactly, andQcontains the one-nth part ofD mtimes exactly, the mutual relations ofPandBwith respect to quantity are the same as those ofQandD; that is,
Pis toBasQtoD.Now
Pdiffers fromAby less than the one-nth part ofB, and asnis by hypothesisanynumber, we may takento be as large as we please, that is, the aliquot part ofBmay be as small as we please. Suppose, now, we increasencontinually, then the aliquot part ofBdiminishes continually, and by takingnsufficiently large we may make the aliquot part ofBless than any assignable magnitude, and asPdiffers fromAby less than this,Pis ultimately equal toA.Similarly,
Qis ultimately equal toC, and sincePis toBasQtoD., thereforeAis toBasCtoD.The following well known theorems should also be inserted in this chapter of applied arithmetic, and are, I believe, all that are required for the purposes of geometry:—
1. Equal magnitudes have the same ratio to the same magnitude; and magnitudes which have the same ratio to the same magnitude are equal to one another.
2. Magnitudes have the same ratio that their equimultiples or submultiples have.
3. If of six magnitudes, the first is to the second as the third is to the fourth, and the third is to the fourth as the fifth is to the sixth, then is the first to the second as the fifth to the sixth.
4. If four magnitudes be proportional, and any equimultiples be taken of the first and third, and also any whatever of the second and fourth, then the multiple of the first is to that of the second as the multiple of the third is to that of the fourth.
5. If four magnitudes be proportional,
Then (i.) the second is to the first as the fourth is to the third—(
incertendo.)Also (ii.), the sum of the first and second is to the second as the sum of the third and fourth is to the fourth—
(componendo).Also (iii.), the difference of the first and second is to the second as the difference of the third and fourth is to the fourth—
(dividendo).Also (iv.), if the first be greater than the second, the third will be also greater than the fourth; if equal, equal; and if less, less.
6. If four magnitudes of the same kind be proportional, the first is to the third as the second is to the fourth—
(alternamlo).7. If any number of magnitudes of the same kind be proportionals, then the first is to the second as the sum of the antecedents is to the sum of the consequents.
(addendo.)8. If of six magnitudes, the first is to the second as the fourth is to the fifth, and the second is to the third as the fifth is to the sixth, then the first is to the third as the fourth is to the sixth.
(ex equali.)The adoption of Newton's Lemma is tantamount to a new definition of equality, and it may be urged as an objection against it that although two quantities may be equal according to the Lemma, yet if multiplied by very large numbers, it might be then possible for them to differ by an appreciable quantity. The answer to this is, that by hypothesis the two quantities continually approach to equality, and ultimately differ by less than any assignable difference, so that if they had any finite difference when subjected to any processes of arithmetic, we might invert those processes and name a quantity by which they originally differed, which is contrary to the hypothesis. Hence no error can arise in reducing theory to practice.
I will now point out the close connection existing between Euclid's definition and our common ideas of proportion; a proof of the former as following from the latter, and
vice versâ, is given in most algebras. In the first place it is easily seen that the idea of the equality of submultiples connotes also the idea of the equality of equimultiples for if one-fortieth of a £ is one-half of a shilling, it follows that two £ are forty shillings. Now, if all magnitudes were commensurable, and therefore capable of being multiplied so as to become equal to one another, Euclid might have given as his test of proportion the equality of corresponding multiples, which would have been virtually the same as the equality of corresponding multiple parts; but this test would not apply rigorously to incommensurable magnitudes. In such cases, strictly speaking, the arithmetical test fails, but not so Euclid's, for he takes as his test not only the equality but also thelikeinequality of corresponding multiples for every possible set of multiples; and he says if it can be shewn from the nature of the four magnitudes that whatever be the equimultiples token of the first and third, and whatever those of the second and fourth, the multiples of the first and second will he always similar, in excess or defect, to those of the third and fourth, then the four magnitudes are proportional.From the proof of the general theorem: given above it is seen without much difficulty that the adoption of Newton's Lemma virtually amounts to this alteration in the definition of proportion. Four magnitudes are proportional, when the first and third contain respectively the same aliquot part of the second and fourth the same number of times exactly, or the same number of times with remainders less than the parts respectively, whatever be the aliquot part taken.
The fundamental propositions of Euclid's sixth book, the first and thirty-third, admit of a simple proof based on the above principles. I may add that Professor Challis, in his recent work on the Principles of Mathematics and Physics, advocates the admission of those two theorems without formal proof. Firstly, two rectangles between the same I parallels are to each other as their bases; as will, he says, "be perceived
immediatelyby conceiving them placed so that one extremity of the base of the one coincides with one extremity of the base of the other, and the; larger rectangle includes the less." Hence, Euclid VI., I. follows at once, it having been shewn in Book I. that parallelograms are: equal to rectangles of the tame base and altitude. Secondly, Two arcs of the same circle, or of equal circles, are proportional to the angles at the centre which they subtend; "for it is not possible to insert any argument between this statement and arationalperception of the truth of the statement. The proportionality is seen at once by an unaided exercise of the reason, and consequently there is no room for the application of reasoning such as that founded on Def. 5."For my part, I must say that I do not agree with him here, for I think that no rem capable of proof should be assumed as an axiom, however simple it be, and it appears to me that there is an argument which must be inserted between the statement of the latter proposition and a rational perception of its truth, and that is one based on the theorem that in equal circles equal arcs equal angles at the centre, and on this theorem depends the truth of the second proposition; and on the fact that parallelograms, or triangles, on equal bases, and of equal altitudes are equal depends the truth of the first one. Moreover, the mental superposition is in itself an argument, unless I misapprehend the meaning he attaches to the word argument.
Before concluding, I wish to state that although I am in favour of the substitution of a chapter of arithmetic applied to magnitude for the now nearly obsolete fifth book of Euclid, I do not therefore advocate the introduction of arithmetical or algebraical symbols of quantity into pure geometry; far from it, for in the very absence of these symbols consists its great value for mental training, inasmuch as at every step there is an appeal to the reason. The pure geometry also more clearly exhibits the processes of the demonstration, and the relations of the figure than does the younger and far more powerful sister-science analytical geometry, in which, by the use of symbols, the reasoning is carried on independent to a great extent of the ideas of the magnitudes themselves.
Mr. J. S. Webb then read the following The article referred to In tills Paper appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Science for Otaqo daily Times of Tuesday,
I desire at the outset to state that I am not about to offer any argument for or against the theories of professed spiritualists. The subject is one of which, so far as regards its more recent manifestations, I know nothing. In common with many others I feel very much obliged to those scientific men who have taken in hand to examine the phenomena on which spiritualists base their theories, and offer the following criticism upon the most recently published statements of one of these gentlemen, simply because I think the position he holds in the scientific world is not unlikely to lead many persons to accept the results he may think he has arrived at as those of pure scientific research, without enquiring into the methods which he may have adopted. New results, when even of small importance, are not thus received by scientific men. The methods of experiment which have been employed, the precautious against error, and the strictness of the explanation offered for the result which is claimed as new, are all keenly scrutinized. Such is the case when a chemist announces a new organic compound, or an astronomer a new line in some stellar spectrum, a naturalist some new species of a well known genus, a metaphysician some new demonstration of the undemonstrable, a scholar some new reading of hieroglyphic or arrow-headed characters an Etruscan inscription or a corrupt passage. The scrutiny ought to be still more rigid, when anyone, however eminent he may be, asks us, on the faith of a short course of experiments made by himself, to believe in the existence of a force hitherto unheard of, and which, if it be what Mr Crookes supposes it to be, is so extraordinary in its habits and properties, that the true Spiritualist may well say to those who believe in it—"Our faith is more consistent with all the rest of human knowledge than yours."
The first point I have to note in regard to the experiments relied on by Mr Crookes, is the very small number of them. Those who were aware that he was investigating this subject expected that when he did speak he would present us with a long and carefully classified list of phenomena, and that before he ventured upon any important deductions he would prepare himself with a cumulated series of proofs, for any theory he might propound. Such expectations were natural, because this is the recognised method of scientific investigation in our day, and because we know Mr Crookes to be a person instructed in this method, and accustomed to use it. By far the most unsatisfactory feature of his paper, is the fact that it does not in the least fulfil these expectations. He does indeed speak of many experiments having been made, but he himself rejects as unreliable all but the two of which we have now the account. It is remarkable, too, that whilst one of the reasons which induced him thus to reject nearly the whole of the observations he had from time to time made as unworthy of the name of scientific experiments, viz.: that "it has but seldom happened that a result obtained on one occasion could be subsequently confirmed," has not been applied by him to those two experiments which he ventures to call "crucial.' Until they are repeated over and over again—until it is demonstrated that, given certain conditions this or that invariably happens, it is very hasty work to furnish us with a new theory, and to ask us to believe in a new law of nature, which, instead of harmonising with all other known laws, appears to interfere with and contradict them at every turn.
Verification is of the first necessity in physical investigations, and that not by repetition only, but by every other available device. All physicists know that in their work there is invariably a liability to error on their own part, over and above all the error which arises from slight imperfections of instruments, slight impurities of substances used, and so forth, This is known as "the personal error," and arises as often from mental as from physical characteristics in the operator. It ought, I think, to have suggested itself to Mr Crookes and his colleagues that their report of the peculiar investigation in which they were engaged would have been most securely verified by adding to it that of some competent person who should have played the part of an onlooker. Had some individual, trained in scientific observation, been a bystander, engaged in assuring himself that those who undertook these experiments omitted from their notice nothing that ought to have been taken into account, the report of such a person would probably have been written in a very different style from that which we now have, and would either have been much more convincing or much more hesitating.
I claim, then, that until the experiments related by Mr Crookes have been repeated over and over again, with change of operators, and until a very large number of others yielding similar results have been instituted, his deduction that a hitherto unknown natural force has been discovered has not the foundation which established physical theories possess, and has no claim to acceptance at all similar to that which has been made good for other natural laws.
The next point which attracts attention in these experiments is that annoying character which they possess in common with all true spiritualistic phenomena—viz., the fantastic circumstances under which they are made. The accordion operated upon in the first experiment was put into a cage, and the cage stowed away under a dining-room table. Thus situated, no very critical examination of its alleged performances appears to have been possible. Mr Huggins is obliged to confess that his "position at the table" did not permit him to be a witness of the withdrawal of Mr Home's hand from the accordion. This circumstance alone is sufficiemt to throw a suspicion over the whole investigation. Here are men of acknowledgeed scientific attainments undertaking an inveestigation, for no trivial ends, supposed to be earnestly in the pursuit of truth, who permit themselves to be placed during the experiment in such a position that they could not see distinctly what was going on. If they permitted Mr Home to suit himself with the surroundings he delights in—to seat a little company around a table in positions in which they must strain their necks in order to see what he was doing—to place the physical object he was about to operate on in a position, the peculiarities of which appear to be objectless unless intended to assist in a deception—if whilst themselves assenting to be placed in such positions as he might dictate, they appointed no assistant free from such improper trammels to check their enervations—they threw aside all that their training and personal experience had taught them of the conditions of accurate investigation. In connection with this part of the subject it is very striking that Mr Crookes gives us no preliminary account of the positions actually taken up by the observers. We only gather what we do know about this from chance expressions, a fact which is alone sufficient to stamp the narrative as wanting in scientific precision, and if the account of these experiments, written subsequently and at leisure, is thus wanting, it is a fair inference that during the experiments themselves the minds of the observers were not in a judicial frame.
Another point which struck me very forcibly when reading the account of the second experiment is very curious. The dimensions of the mahogany board used in this case are carefully given by Mr Crookes, and he informs us that when the apparatus was adjusted before the experiment began, that portion of its weight which affected the spring balance was 31bs. [Description quoted.] Now the specific gravity of mahogany, as ordinarily given in the tables, is 1060 (that of water being taken at 1000), and irrespective of that portion of the board which absolutely rested upon the table, we have in this case 342 cubic inches of mahogany suspended, one-half of the weight of which would, if the board were truly horizontal, have rested upon the balance. A cubic foot of water weighs rather more than 997oz avoirdupois, hence 342 cubic inches of mahogany at the specific gravity just stated, weigh rather more than 209oz, or 131bs 1oz. It is strange that a trained man of science should not have noticed this discrepancy. At the very least we might have expected that he would have assured himself of the absence of all suspicious circumstances by weighing the whole board before adjustment, since it was the effect of the so-called Psychic Force upon its apparent weight, which he had set himself to observe. It may be answered that mahoganies vary much in specific gravity, and that a light timber would naturally be chosen for the experiment. The discrepancy appears to me to be far too large to admit of such an explanation. Had the board been of ordinary Scotch pine, the indicator ought to have shown more than 31bs 4ozs pressure on the balance, and even had the common Canadian yellow pine been used, it could hardly have shown less than 31bs. Moreover, it is evident from the context that the weight of the cord or whatever else was used to suspend one end of the board from the balance is included in 31bs indicated, although with that want of precision on which I have already commented, Mr Crookes omits to tell us so. This makes the matter slightly worse, and I cannot avoid the conclusion that the circumstances under which this experiment was made are highly suspicious.
Other reasons might be adduced why these experiments cannot be accepted as having been made in a really scientific spirit. Some of these have been concisely stated by a writer in "Nature" (No. 92,
"Let us now examine the experiments in detail. Firstly, with regard to the accordion, we are not told why the cage was constructed at all, and why, moreover, when constructed, it was placed under a dining-room table of all places in the world. Does Mr Crookes wish us to believe that it is only inside such wooden cages, and in such peeuliar positions, that this 'psychic force' manifests itself If that is not the ease, why: was not the cage placed openly in the room, so that Dr Huggins might not have had to confess that he did not see the accordion freely suspended in air, which Mr Crookes and others, by dint of straining under the table, did sec? Then, again, the accordion was confessedly placed in Mr Home's hands before it was placed in the cage under the table—this was certainly unnecessary, and is very unsatisfactory. Then, it is obvious that to play the accordion the keys must in turn have been depressed. Yet Mr Crookes does not volunteer a single word to show that he noticed whether the keys were successively pressed down or not; in fact, he rather leads us to infer that they were not. Again, it is clearly a physical impossibility for the accordion to have go no round and round the cage if Mr Home's hand was quite still; for, if he held the accordion at all, his hand must have followed its movements, and what is there to show that the accordion moved his baud or his hand the accordion? Then, again, as to the instrument chosen: would a concertina act in the same manner or not? for, from the frequency with which an accordion has been appealed to by 'spiritual mediums,' it has acquired anything but a good reputation. It is a pity we are not informed whether Mr Home could in the moments when he is free from 'psychic influence' play on the accordion or not, and also, as to what were the names of the 'simple air' and the 'sweet and plaintive melody' which it so obligingly played. We are also not told either how long the experiment lasted, or how long the accordion was playing, or, what is much more to the point, how long it contravened all the laws of gravity and of the acoustics of wind instruments. Surely this is an important question—quite as important as that the temperature varied from 68° to 70° Fahr.
"Such are some of the questions which
"There still remains the second experiment, which was of an entirely different kind: the one with the spring-balance. Mr Crookes here says—'Mr Home's lingers were never more than one and a-half inch from the extreme end, and the wooden foot being only one and a-half inch wide, and resting flat on the table, it is evident that no amount of pressure exerted in that space could produce any action on the balance,' and in this I quite agree; but did Mr Crookes notice if the table itself was moved at all? From a very slight consideration of the peculiar apparatus employed, it is obvious that were the table to tip up in any so small a manner, the index of the balance must descend; and if the table was to tip up and down successively, the very same effect would be produced on the index of the balance as that which Mr Crookes ascribes to 'successive waves of psychic force.' I do not say that the table was tipped up—that would have been trickery—but we have to account for certain results, and I do say that the tipping of the table would produce those very results, and that, moreover, there is nothing said about the table being immovable, or even heavy, or in any way fastened to the ground, as it most assuredly ought to have been. It does not appear so difficult to imagine that the Psychic Force' which could produce such a strange effect upon an accordion could also so agitate the table that it also should show tendency to move; and, if this were the case, the whole apparatus was so placed that the very slightest movements of the table would be magnified by the index of the balance."
In conclusion, I may remark that, had we as accurate a measure of the meental temperament of the observers as Mr Crookes has taken the pains to giveve us of the temperature of the apartment in which his experiments were conducted, we should know better what to think about the whole of this curious affair.
At the request of the M Meeting Mr. Webb then road so much of M Mr. Crooke's article as contains the descripription of his experiments.
Mr Brent, referring to the he balance apparatus, said that Mr Crookookes had de-scribed the board as beinging arranged perfectly horizontally, but had not said what means he had taken fo for proving it to be so. A scientific man ought to have registered the upward oscillations as well as the downward ones. If the he board had been moved by pushing it wirith the hand (which he did not say had been the case), then, if the oscillations each way had been registered, it would have been seen that the upward and downward oscillations were about the same in quantity. Again, assuming the apparatus to have been perfectly accurate when Mr Crookes put his foot upon the end of the board, there would have been no difference in the register. Now, Mr Crookes accounted for the downward pressure merely by saying that he might have put his foot beyond the fulcrum, a point he might easily have made himself sure upon.
Mr Stout said that Mr Webb's first objection was that the experiments had not been numerous enough. Mr Crookes had stated in his article that although space would only allow the publication of the details of one trial, that it must be clearly understood that he had for some time past been making similar experiments with like results, and that his conclusions had not been arrived at hastily or on insufficient evidence. Another objection was, that Mr Crookes, though a scientific man, had not paid sufficient attention to the experiments he made. No scientific man would detail in a report every circumstance that occurred in experimenting on anything, except he conceived it had some especial bearing on the subject in hand. Besides, they must assume that Mr Crookes, as a scientific man, had skill which those who were not scientific men did not possess. They must rely on his reputation in the scientific world, and, in fact, it was his reputation in the scientific world that had caused so much attention to be drawn to this psychic force, for Mr Crookes was not the first person who had discovered the existence of some such force. They had not only the scientific reputation of Mr Crookes, but also that of Dr Huggins, in support of the statement that no fraud had been practised upon them. Even granting that they were not scientific men, the meeting must surely credit them with possessing common sense, and sufficient ability to detect any fraud on Mr Homo's part, or any attempts to dupe them. Another objection urged was that Dr Huggins did not see all that was taking place under the table, but Mr Webb must have overlooked the fact that it was stated in Mr Crookes' paper that while the accordion was waving about and playing, Mr Crookes' assistant got under the table, and reported that the accordion was expanding and contracting; and that at the same time it was seen that the hand of Mr Homo which held it was quite still, and his other hand was resting on the table. That, surely, was a sufficient reply to any charge of fraud that might be urged against Mr Home. Even taking the experiments as a whole, they must admit that, call it what they may, something had been discovered that had been as yet unknown to the scientific world, though it should be kept in mind that Mr Crookes was not the first scientific man to investigate the subject, that there were men well known in the scientific world, Fellows of the Roya! Society, who had gone far further than Mr Crookes in their investigations of the new force. Professor Varley, for example, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and one who had made assertions regarding this new force far more decided than Mr Crookes had ventured to express, says that he had in broad daylight seen a small table raised off the floor and carried horizontally through the air for a distance of ten feet. Mr Webb in his paper had dealt with petty and trivial details, overlooking the main fact acknowledged by Crookes, Huggins, and Sergeant Cox, and which was the exist ence of some force. Some of the details to which he alluded were perfectly valueless; for example, that of the weight of the mahogany board. Granted, that the weight was inaccurately stated, still there was this fact not explained by Mr Webb, that Mr Crookes could not show on the index of the spring balance with his full weight resting on the mahogany board, as great a pressure as Mr Home could by merely putting his finger on the board. There was also the fact, which Mr Webb and those who found fault with every petty detail that might have been over-looked by Mr Crookes had yet to explain, and it was this: How was it that, no matter what the scientific training, or the reputation, or the intellectual ability of any person might be, no sooner did he come into the presence of Mr Home than he seemed to lose his senses I What sort of force was it that Mr Home had mastery of that enabled him to dupe, as it is said, his observers? Would not the fact of Mr Crookes being duped, of Dr Huggins being duped, of Sergt. Cox, notwith-standing his legal training, being duped, and of all those scientific men who had given in their adhesion to what is termed speculation, being duped, be far more wonderful than even the existence of a Psychic force? Until Mr Webb, or some of those who objected to Mr Crookes' conclusions, could explain this strange anomaly, it must be accepted, as being more probable, that Mr Crookes and other observers had observed the manifestation of some force not previously known to them, than that they, notwithstanding all their scientific training and intellectual ability, had been duped. Mr Crookes' reputation was well known, he being a Fellow of the Royal Society, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science, and also of the Chemical News. Dr Huggins had also a scientific reputation to lose, and Sergt. Cox was a well trained lawyer. Could it be said that these men were all, on the occasion alluded to by Mr Crookes, duped by Mr Home, and that their "mental temperature" was suddenly increased.
A short conversation ensued, and Mr Webb briefly replied to some of the remarks made by Mr Stout.
Some fossils from the Caversham Tunnel were exhibited by Mr. Blair, and the meeting then adjourned.
Through one of its office-bearers (Mr. J. S. Webb) the Otago Institute has twice invited me to contribute a paper to its Proceedings. Hitherto, though feeling honoured by the invitation, and being desirous of furthering, in any way that lays in my power, the objects which the Institute has at heart, I have not felt myself in a position to comply with the request, for various reasons, one of the chief of which was the difficulty of selecting a subject at once familiar to myself and of immediate interest to its members. Though I have still much unpublished material relating to the Natural History of New Zealand, and particularly to the Geology and Botany of Otago, it is the fruit of a visit paid to the Colony and Province more than 10 years ago, and in the interval I cannot doubt that most, or much of what I might have to say, has been said—and better said—by local naturalists having superior opportunities to those enjoyed by myself during the height of the first gold fever in Otago, in
The paper I have now therefore the honour of submitting consists of and contains—
1. A history of my connection with the two experiments of
2. An exposition of my special views relating to the following points connected with the transport of salmon ova across seas:—
3 Excerpts from my correspondence with
My chief correspondents of these classes were the following gentlemen who include some of the most eminent living authorities on the subject of salmon-culture:—
His History of the "Stormontfield Piscicultural Experiments," of If This "The Natural History of the Salmon, as ascertained by the recent experiments at Stormontfield on the Tay." Glasgow,
all the experiments that have latterly been made in the introduction of salmon to Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.nom de plume was founded on the fact that the name of the resident superintendent of the Stormontfield Pond was, and still is, Peter Marshall.Peter Marshall—the real "Peter of the Pools"—as Resident Curator.ex officio member of the Tay District Fishery Board.
About the close of
After acquiring a general knowledge of the topography of the interior of Otago, and especially of its river and lake system, by means of the admirable maps of the Survey Department, Dunedin, and conversations with various members of the Survey Staff, I had occasion to visit the Lower Clutha district. While there I had been much struck with the apparent adaptability of the Clutha (or Molyneux) and other rivers of the Province for the acclimatization of salmon and trout, and the desirability of giving attention to experiment in this direction was one of the subjects to which I ventured to draw the special notice of the settlers in my Dunedin pamphlet, [p. 29.]
The first intimation I had that the subject was attracting the attention of the provincial authorities was contained in a letter from Dr. Robert Burns, of Dunedin, of date
Dr. Burns intimated that the Otago Government might make application to me for assistance in carrying out their scheme for stocking their rivers with British salmon, and this hint determined me to lose no time in studying the subject, and in putting myself in communication with our first British authorities on Pisciculture. At this period, I had correspondence with Mr. Youl, Dr. Buckland, Mr. Buist, and Mr. William Brown. The most important communication I received was the following from Mr. Youl, of date
"On my return from Paris," [the International Exhibition,] "I found your "letter of the 20th inst., and, in reply, have to state that I am very pleased to "learn the Government of Otago have determined to get a supply of salmon "ova direct from England, instead of waiting until they have multiplied in "sufficient numbers to justify the Government of Tasmania in supplying their "neighbours. This course I have advocated for some tune past; and, in working model of the Stormontfield Ponds to Southlaud, so that ponds might be ready to receive the ova when they arrived.
"Having last August received from my friend, Mr. Thomas Ashworth, one "of the best and most successful pisciculturists of the day, a letter recommending me to advocate with the several Australian Colonies the desirability "of each of them getting a supply of ova direct from England, I sent his "letter, with one from myself, to the different local Australian leading journals for publication. It is therefore very pleasing to find the Otago people"have anticipated our appeal.
"I may just state that, since
"As I personally superintended both the successful shipments—as well as "both the failures—and packed the ova in the little boxes myself, I will be "glad to do the latter for you at the proper time; and to give you all the "assistance in my power to accomplish such a boon to the Southern Hemisphere as that of stocking its rivers with the king of fishes."
While thus corresponding with Mr. Youl, I received the following official communication from Mr. Auld, as representing in Britain, the Government of Otago—
"Edinburgh, 25 September, 1867 ."
Sir,—It has been suggested to me by his Honor the Superintendent of "the Province of Otago, New Zealand, to request the favour of your advice "and assistance in the following matter:—"The Provincial Government having voted a sum of money towards the "introduction of salmon ova into the rivers of the Province of Otago, the "Government has resolved to make the experiment from Britain direct; and "his Honor the Superintendent has, with this view, instructed me, as their "Home Agent, to forward a quantity of salmon ova to the Province; and has "also instructed me to engage the services of a suitable person thoroughly "conversant practically with the art of Pisciculture to accompany the ova, and "who should be able to superintend the breeding of the fish for the first year "or two in the Province.
"In a subsequent letter received by me at the same time, his Honor further "requests that a quantity of the ova of the Red Trout of the Rhine shall be "procured and transmitted along with the others. He states that, from what "he can learn, the Societies of the other Colonies have committed a mistake "in introducing the common Brown Trout, which never attains any size, and "is inferior as an article of food. While, on the other hand, the Rhine Trout "attains a large size, and, as an article of food, is little inferior to the salmon,
"It would appear that the roe of this latter fish are supplied in any quantity, "carefully packed, and forwarded to England and Scotland; so that probably "there will not be much difficulty in having them sent to the Province along "with the salmon ova. I am unaware whether the attention of the New Zealand Colonists has been drawn to he "hucho" of the Danube [Salmo
hucho], which weighs from 20 to 601bs; or to the "Lake Trout" of the Eastern United States and Canada, which are sometimes as large as salmon, weighing as much as 601bs., [e.g.,Salmo alipesespecially—withS.fontinalis—S. amethyatus—S. namaycush—S. siscowe. andS. erythrogaster]. In all probability some of the salmonidæ of the Easternses board of North America are common also to its Pacific coast rivers—a circumstance of importance in connection with my remarks on the salmoiudæ of California. On this subject Dr. Robert Brown remarks [in a letter ofDecember 6, 1872 ,] "as to the question of Salmonidæ common to the Eastern and Western States. I believe there is no doubt but that there are several—among others, the best of them, all,s. quinnat."His Honor also suggested for consideration the practicability of sending "out fish alive in swing tanks under proper care and attention; and remarks "that fish of groat delicacy have been sent from Java to Australia alive in "this way.
"The mode of transit suggested by his Honor, is by the steamship 'Great "Britain,' which carries an ice-house to Melbourne, from which place his
"Honor would have to make arrangements for continuing the passage. But "in another letter, he states, as a somewhat remarkable circumstance, that "the Victorian Acclimatization Society did not avail itself of this mode of "conveyance; and he thinks, therefore, that there must have been some "objection to it, arising perhaps from the oscillation caused by the engine; "and he is desirous, before this mode of transit be adopted, that the opinions "of competent judges should be taken on this point, before I commit myself "to any special mode of conveyance. "In these circumstances, his Honor,' knowing the deep interest you take in "this subject, has expressed to me his conviction that, if applied to, you would "kindly give me such information and advice as may enable me to carry out "my instructions with a reasonable prospect of success. This, and the very "great importance of the subject in reference to the progress and prosperity of "the Province, in which I believe you also to take an interest,—and I may "add, my own ignorance in regard to this matter, must be my apology for "intruding upon you.
"May I therefore very respectfully request that you will kindly favour me "with any instructions and advice which your experience may suggest on the "points before mentioned? and if, in addition, you can inform me who are "the most trustworthy persons to whom I may apply to procure the ova—"what is the most suitable time to do so!—and what precautions ought to be "observed?—I shall esteem it an especial favour.
"I have the honour to be Sir, "Your most obedt. servt., " Jonsr Auld, W.S."Agent of the Provincial Government of Otago."
I had been so struck with the unique experience of Mr. Youl, and with his willingness to undertake all the trouble connected with the more difficult and delicate details of the collection, package, and shipment of ova, that I did not hesitate to recommend Mr. Auld to place himself entirely in Mr. Youl's hands, expressing, however, certain strong views of my own (e.g.) regarding the port of shipment, which I thought ought to be the Clyde, and the preparations necessary for the reception of the ova on their arrival in Otago, pointing out, as regards the latter, that all arrangements in Britain would be rendered utterly futile by any failure in those connected with breeding ponds in Otago.
Mr. Auld replied to my suggestions to the following effect of date
"I have to thank you most kindly for your full and obliging letter of 26th "ult., and also for that of the 28th, enclosing letters from Mr. Youl to you" [and above quoted],
"Your observation about the necessity for having proper ponds constructed. "in Otago for the reception of the ova is most important, and I am not aware "that anything has been done in that direction. I yesterday, however, wrote "to his Honour the Superintendent on the subject, and pointed out that a "model of the Stormontfield Ponds had been sent to Southland."
"I have written to Mr. Youl. . . . . . It is gratifying to find, from "his letter to Transhipment is, no doubt, vexatious, but it is inevitable. In the Otago experiments the ova were transhipped from Port Chalmers to the Waiwera and up the Clutha. In the experiment of you, that he is willing to advise and assist. I believe that the "wisest course for me will be to follow his advice—find, in the first place, a "suitable person to superintend the construction of an ice-house, and the collection and package of the ova; and when l ascertain the time these can be "had, to have a ship in readiness. I believe the only course to be followed
"You will, I trust, allow me to apply to you again for advice, as occasion "may require."
Ultimately, my suggestion regarding the acceptance of Mr. Youl's offered services was acted upon, whereupon, believing the experiment to be in the best hands, I ceased to take any further personal share in its practical details. I had a third letter from Mr. Auld on the
Of the progress of the experiment I heard nothing of consequence till I received copies of the "Otago Daily Times" of
"Many thanks for sending me the two numbers of the 'Otago Daily Times' "of May, which I am reading with much interest. What has been done is "truly wonderful. No labour nor expense has been spared to promote the "great object, and the enthusiasm at Dunedin is astonishing. I am sorry to "say that from much I have read of what appears in the accounts of the "transmission and plantation of the ova, a sad disappointment awaits our "countrymen. I shall say no more at present than that it will give me much "pleasure to find my fears disappointed and their sanguine hopes realized."
I based my vaticinations of failure on the following facts or features in the history of the. Otago experiment of
London, which is probably the worst port of any in Britain from which ova could be shipped!premature package of the ova before the ship was quite ready for sea thus protracting the interval between collection in Britain and deposition in New Zealand.mouldy condition of the packing material and moss.faulty Bile and condition of the Waiwera Breeding Ponds.
The "special reporter" of the "Otago Daily Times" of Again, the bungled, through mistaken economy in small matters, or ignorance as to "minor constructive details, after the expenditure at home and the labours of "love which no expenditure could buy, the thing would be a long-lasting "disgrace to the Province and its Government." And now, bearing in mind that a model of Stormontfield was sent out in site of the ponds was a mistake, in so far as they were connected with a tributary of the Clutha, which contains the washings of so many goldfields.
But a second chapter of accidents appears to have occurred on board ship, or prior to its sailing. In the first place, we are told that the ice-house of the "Celestial Queen" was so built that it was necessary to get out a good deal of cargo before it could be reached or detached. Then "the rolling of the ship "had knocked the boxes into a state of confusion." The report of the subcommittee of the Acclimatization Society of Otago, and of Mr. Clifford, its manager, in the "Otago Daily Times" of
I heard nothing more of the Otago experiment of
"7, Westminster Chambers, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W., November, 22, 1872 ."
Sir,—Knowing the deep interest you take in everything connected with "New Zealand, I venture to apply to you for assistance in a further attempt "now about to be made to introduce salmon into that Colony."The Colonial Government has authorised the necessary expenditure, and "I have succeeded in making arrangements with Messrs. Shaw, Saville & Co., "for a fast-sailing clipper ship to sail on the 20th prox. The next thing is to "make sure of a sufficient supply of ova at the right moment. I have applied "to the Board of Conservators of the Leven fishing district, and I am depending on other sources of supply so as to guard against any failure at the last, "it being very essential that the ova should be brought in when the vessel is "on the point of sailing."
"Having been informed that
the Taywould be a suitable river for the "necessary operations, I am anxious, through your local influence, to obtain "permission to take say 30,000 to 50,000 ova from that source." The Tay seems to have been specially selected on this occasion—chiefly, apparently, on Br. Gunther's recommendation, as supplying to the London market the largest and finest-flavoured salmon in the world.
"In the event of this permission being granted, Mr. James Youl, who has "kindly undertaken to superintend the practical part of the operations, will "send a reliable agent to Perth to take and pack the ova and bring them to "London.
"I have the honour to be, Sir, "Your most obedt. servt., ' , "Agent-General."Ie. Featherston
In reply, I intimated my willingness to co-operate with the General Government in its effort to introduce salmon into New Zealand, but took advantage of the opportunity to explain the details whereupon I differed from the authorities charged with, the present and former experiments. I specially pointed out (e.g.) my strong objections to London as the port of shipment, my preference for steamers over sailing vessels, of California instead of Britain as the source of supply of ova, and my opinion as to the desirability of varying the mode of preservation or package. Dr. Featherston wrote me of date "
The reference in Dr. Featherston's first letter to the "further attempt" about
Mr. Youl, however, as will be seen from his letter of
Never doubting that the New Zealand Government in Dr. Buckland, in a letter of date all of these requests, without exception, had been reusednot to make any request for ova to the Tay Board; and I accordingly recommended Mr. Auld and Mr. Youl not to look to the Tay for ova, which were taken from the Leven and Tyne (England), Tweed (Scotland), Ush (Wales), and Sereal (Co. Gal way, Ireland) to the number of 300,000 (according to a letter in the "Times" of special meeting on 6th December. This was done; it was favourably received, the coveted privilege being at once granted, for the first time, to the surprise of many local influential friends, who had predicted the certainty of failure. To give ample time for his arrangements between the 6th and 20th December, I telegraphed next day to Mr. Youl, and wrote to Dr. Feathers ton. The former replied as follows, of date
"I cannot tell you how glad I was at receiving your telegram on Saturday "night that leave had been granted to take salmon from the Tay. It relieved "my mind from a load of anxiety. Mr. Ramsbottom, my right-hand man, so "far as taking the ova properly is concerned, having written that in consequence of the serious illness of his wife he would be unable to give me any
In a subsequent letter of December 14. 1.872, he continues:—
"I have read the letters you sent to Dr. Duller, and note the great trouble "you have taken to get permission to take some ova from the Tay—a favour "never granted to anyone before. I congratulate you on the tact and perseverance you have evinced being crowned with success. I am so "vexed that the ova cannot be shipped in the vessel sailing on the "20th, the time I had selected as the very best, for the purpose. The AgentGeneral and the owners believe they have bigger, better, and faster-sailing "ships for me to sail on the 15th January. But I know, from painful "experience, how difficult it is to get salmon ova after Christmas; and the "packing of them in January, with from 10 to 20 degrees of frost in the docks, "is almost enough to kill an old fellow like me. However, there is no help for "it now. As soon as I have the ice-house sufficiently advanced so as to be able to "judge when it will be ready to receive the first ova, I-will despatch Mr. Thos. "Johnson to Perth with a letter to you. He will assist Mr. Peter Marshall in "catching the fish; and after Marshall has manipulated the spawn he will "bring them up to me. This is a delicate and difficult matter to do properly, "requiring great care and attention, and Johnson is capital in the performanceof this part of the work. I hope to have two other persons at work at the "same time (elsewhere), so as to insure, if possible, a good supply (of ova), "and not to have all my eggs in one basket."
Dr. Featherston's acknowledgment of the intimation of the success of the application to the Tay Board was as follows, of date
"I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 7th inst. reporting the consent of the Tay Fishery Board to the taking of a certain quantity "of salmon ova from the Tay for the purpose of transportation to New "Zealand, while congratulating you on the success that has attended your application to the Board, I take this opportunity of thanking you, in the name of the "Colony, for the assistance you have so for rendered me in this very important "undertaking. I need hardly add that it will give me great pleasure to bring "your valuable services tinder the notice of the Colonial Government when I "submit my final report on this subject. In the meantime, I regret "to have to inform you that, for reasons which Mr. Youl "will explain more fully, it has been found impossible to ship the "ova by the 'Lutterworth,' as originally intended, and that it is arranged to "send them by the 'Oberon,' appointed to sail on the 15th prox. "I trust that this necessary alteration in our plaus will in no way interfere "with the proposed taking of ova from the Tay.
It will be noticed from the last-quoted letters of Mr. Youl and Dr. Featherston that when the much-desired concession by the Tay Board was at length granted, the authorities in London were not prepared to take advantage of it. It ultimately proved, indeed, that all efforts made, so far as regards Tay ova, became futile in consequence of the change of arrangements in London. The weather during the interval between Holding the views I do, I cannot say that I regret the result so far as concerns the Tay. Because I hope that before the next season for the collection of ova arrives, (November and direct from the Clyde; and (2) to adopt various forms of preservation, and package or storage of the ova.
Having now given the history of the experiments of
In the first place, I have never been able to understand why the New Zealand colonists came so far as Or, in actual figures, according to the circulars issued by Messrs. H. Stow & Co., London Agents for the said steamers—From San Francisco to Honolulu, 2,100 miles, or 10 days' sail. Honolulu to Auckland, 3890 miles, or 14 days' sail.Britain for salmon, when they may be had in much greater abundance at much less expense, and with much greater ease so much nearer home. In other words, I confess my surprise that ova have not been brought from California rather than from Britain—via San Francisco instead of London—and by the steamers of the United States New Zealand, and Australian mail steam ship line, rather than by ordinary sailing vessels which are liable to longer detention in the English channel from south-westerly gales, than would be occupied by the entire voyage from San Francisco to Auckland! The average passage between the two latter ports, is only 24 or 25 days—the distance being only about 6,000 miles.British salmon, simply because they are British, is not in itself a motive or object commensurate with the heavy expenditure and the great risks of failure; nor should prejudice against salmon that are not British, be permitted to operate to the exclusion of exotic Salmonidæ that nevertheless afford admirable food. The impression left on my mind by the perusal of various works of travel in British Columbia, California, and adjoining countries, forming the Pacific seaboard of North America, was this:—That the salmon of their rivers yield not only quite as excellent food, of quite as good flavour, as those of Britain; but they have the advantage of being infinitely more abundant, and therefore cheaper. I have recently noticed, moreover, from the American newspapers, that what are now called the "Pacific States" of North America, supply large quantities of potted or preserved salmon—not only to the Eastern States, to South America and to Jamaica, and other West India islands; but even to England and Australia! There is a steady and growing demand, which sufficiently testifies to the character or reputation of the article as food. The shipments take place from San Francisco, where the export trade in this article has already assumed an important character; while its future, as the newspapers of that city say, is "quite flattering," the markets supplied becoming daily more and more
from California via San Francisco, and not from England via London, I was desirous of procuring recent and trustworthy information as to
I therefore applied to my friend, Dr. Robert Brown, of Edinburgh, who spent several years as Naturalist Explorer in Vancouvers Island, British Columbia, the Queen Charlotte Islands, Oregon, and California; and who has published many memoirs on their Natural History, including their Zoology. He favoured me with the following most important information, which I quote at length for the benefit of those New Zealand colonists who are especially interested in the acclimatization of exotic Salmonidæ. It bears date
"Your idea about stocking the New Zealand rivers with Californian salmon, " The proper season for collecting ova in California and British Columbia, would appear to be the same as in Britain, viz.:—November and December. At Stormontfield ova are collected in November to December; and they do not begin to hatch till March or April—that is, three months after—more than ample time to permit of transport across seas by steamers. The average duration of the hatching process, when begun, is 13 days.via the mail steamers to that colony, is admirable. I wonder it was never " broached before. . . . . I have examined frequently the North-West "American Salmonidæ; but never made a direct comparison with those of "the Tay. However, that is immaterial, as I know they are different species. "As you ask particularly about California, I may mention that, though there "are—as elsewhere on the Pacific coast—several species of Salmo in that "country, yet the chief one, and the one likely to be introduced into New "Zealand, is the Salmo quinnat of Richardson. The common size is from 10 "to 301bs.; but they have been caught weighing as much as 621bs. It is an "admirable fish—quite as good as any European salmon for the table—and is "found on the North-West Coast in enormous numbers. The furthest southern limit is about Point Concepcion." [Considerably to the south of San Francisco.] "They are born in the rivers; but go down to the sea, where "they spend the greater part of the year. In November, they enter the Bay "of San Francisco, and remain in the brackish waters for about three or four "months. They then ascend the Sacramento and San Joaquim rivers, as well "as their smaller tributaries, deposit their spawn, and in June go back to the "sea again. They are lean when they come in, and lean when they go out; "but in early spring they are fat. Disliking the mud with which the streams "falling into San Francisco Bay are filled by the miners, they do not now go "far from the sea, or ascend the smaller tributaries. But elsewhere, as on "the whole North-West Coast, they ascend every little brook up to points "where there is scarcely water enough for them to turn. They may be seen "wobbling about in the pools, affording rare sport to the bears and their first "cousins, the Tigger Indians, who grow fat on the salmon's misfortune of being "in 'low water"—another illustration of the maxim, that 'It's an ill wind "that blaws naebody guid.' The female salmon having found a place, digs a "hole in the sand with her snout—the hole or trench being about 6 feet long, "a foot or so wide, and about 3 inches deep. Here she deposits her spawn, "throws a little sand over it with her tail, and departs. In May the young "salmon are found on their way to the sea, from 3 to 6 inches long. They are "believed to always return to the river in which they were hatched. Though "salmon are most abundant in the rivers from November to June, yet there "are always a few in the rivers all the year round, and are seen fresh in San "Francisco market every day in the year. . . . . You can judge from
alive "to New Zealand or Australia via San Francisco. Then there will be still "less trouble [in collection, preservation or package, and transportation], I "saw in the papers lately that ova had been taken out of the California rivers "to stock some of the now salmonless lakes or rivers in the Eastern United "States.
The late John Keast Lord, Curator of the Aquarium, Brighton.S. quinnatis also found in enormous abundance all along the N.W. coast, "right into Alaska, over all the Oregon, Washington territory, Vancouver, "and British Columbia rivers. In fact, without it, the Indians could not "subsist. I can confirm nearly all that Lordwaste of salmon on the "N.W, Coast. They will sometimes in the Fraser and other British Columbia "rivers attain a size of 75lbs.
"In California are also Salmo [or Fario], gairdneri and F. stellatus—the "latter weighing about 2 or 31bs. . . . . . Salmo gairdneri (Rich.) is "another common British Columbia salmon,—in the opinion of some, finer "than the 'quirinal.' They are valued by the Indians as better, and are "reserved by the aboriginal gourmands for high feasts and solemnities—such "as a good round murder! . . . . They weigh up to 11 or 12lbs. These "two [5. quirinal and S. gairdneri] are the spring salmon; but, in autumn, "there are others, though much inferior in quality.
"For instance, there is the ugly, flabby, white-fleshed one—S. scoutei, "(Rich)—S. quianut (Pallas). They ascend in great abundance in the "autumn, and remain until January and February; but return down stream "worn and emaciated, and hardly fit for food. The hump-backed salmon' "[S.protcus, of Pallas] is only another form of it at different seasons, and not "a different species. The ' dog salmon' [S. canis, Suckley] is also, according
"S. paucideus, Rich., 3 or 4 lbs., ascends rivers in company with S. quirinal "and s. gairdneri.
"S. aryyreus, Lord, 15 to 18 lbs. The 'Lotarp' of the Nisguallies of
"Puget Sound..
"S. pvffritah, Rich, the 'white salmon' of the settlers (?) "S. fornecatus, Suckley. Got, according to my observations, at least as far "north as Fort Rupert.
"S. gibbsii, Suckley. Columbia salmon trout (food), 5 or 6 lbs.
"S. conflueutus, Suckley. The To-oh odtt of the Nisquallies.
"S. clerkii, Rich, an autumn species.
" He does not specify S. maroni, Suckley and otherstrout, such as Salmo oreyonensis, the Oregon trout [which is mentioned in the article Trout in Chambers' Encyclopaedia, vol. ix., my pointing out this omission, he replied:—"What S. oregonensis is I know not. I can find if neither as a species, nor as a synonym, in any works on Western Ichthyology, which, just at present, I find at hand. Nor does he mention Salmo hearnii or S. rossii—Arctic Americar salmon. But he explains:—"As my Notes referred only to the salmonidæ of North-West America, [to the west of the Rocky Mountains, and south of the Arctic limit,] I neither mentioned the Eastern species, nor the Arctic ones. The latter, I apprehend, would not suit New Zealand; they require too cold water, and other conditions not likely to be found in that country. Moreover, they are fat and bilious brutes."—[Letter of varieties of others; but new ones will certainly be yet "discovered.
"I made many notes on them, with drawings, &c., and a magnificent collection of these and other fishes during the idle winter months; but, through "the gross neglect of those to whom these collections were consigned from "America, arriving in this country while I was absent in Greenland, all were "destroyed."
I put the question to Dr. Buckland and Mr. Youl, whether salmon ova had never been taken for acclimatization purposes from the Pacific Slates of North America; and, if not, why? The answer of the former was simply this:—"With regard to the N.W. American salmon, I have a great idea 'that they are bull trout, though I do not know for certain. The Duke of 'Northumberland's Chaplain is of this opinion; and I am trying to settle the 'point.'"—[Letter
Neither statement, however, really affects materially the suggestion that Though certain genera of Salmonidæ occur in the rivers of The The writer of the article CaliforniaSouth America, I am not aware of the existence of any species of the genus Salmo. But, even did they occur, their numbers must be insignificant, seeing that no rivers exist of any importance—they would be difficult of access, seeing that there is no regular communication of any kind between South America and New Zealand—while the distance between—say Dunedin and Patagonia—it; probably as great as between San Francisco and Auckland.species. My own impression is very strong, that the genera salmo and Fario abound in illustrations of the unnecessary and arbitrary divisions of
salmon trout of Britain [Salmo trutta] weighs up to 24 lbs.varieties or states. Moreover, for practical purposes—for such purposes as acclimatization in New Zealand, salmon and other trout should be considered in the same category with true salmon, which they often equal in size or weight, as well as in excellence of flesh and flavour.Salmon in Chambers' Encyclopaedia remarks very truthfully that, "concerning many of the species which have been named and partially described, there is still, however, great uncertainty."—[vol. viii., p. 449].bull trout mentioned by Dr. Buckland [Salmo eriox, or qriseus; otherwise known in England as the grey trout, and in Wales as the sewen, weighs 15 to 20 lbs.; is frequently mistaken for the salmon even in Britain, and is as abundant—in the Tweed for instance—as the true or Tay salmon [the S. salar], whose weight ranges from 20 to 83 lbs. External resemblance, however, or co equal abundance, does not by any means prove specific identity. It is at least extremely unlikely that all the Sahmonidæ mentioned by Dr. Brown as occurring in Pacific North America, should be referable to the single species, Salmo eriox! In a subsequent letter, of date
Mr. Youl's objection merely adds to the number of arguments that can be adduced in favour of the "permanent" appointment by the New Zealand Government of one or more officers [such as Mr. Peter Marshall, whose name has been so frequently and so honourably mentioned by Mr. Youl himself] t reside in New Zealand—have the superintendence of one of the principal Breeding Ponds, with perhaps a general supervision of the others; and who Would be available to despatch to California or other countries to collect, pack and convey, salmon ova to New Zealand, The ova require the most careful supervision, from the time the parent fish are spawned, to their hatching in the Breeding Ponds. Every step of the process is delicate and important; and failure in attention at any stage in the progress of the experiment may lead—and has over and over again led—to its failure as a whole. We have already seen how much importance Mr. Youl attaches to the artificial spawning of the salmon in our Scotch rivers, and how anxious he has been that this operation, including the impregnation of the ova, should be entrusted to Mr. Peter Marshall. It has also been seen how important he considers the process of conveying the fecundated ova per rail from Scotland to London—a process which he deputes to another special officer, Mr. Johnson. The pack-age of the ova in moss and ice in the boxes to be enclosed in the ice-house on shipboard he insists on managing himself. The use of a skilled officer on board ship may be judged of by what Dr. Ransom says in a letter to be hereafter quoted. The necessity of having a proper Superintendent at the Colonial Breeding Ponds, to unpack the ova, deposit them in their beds, and watch their gradual development into parr and smolt, is evident from the history of the Waiwera operations in permanent resident officer. The probability is
Dr. W. O. Ayres, of San Francisco, is, Dr. Brown tells me, the chief authority on Califomian fishes, and if applied to would, I doubt not, be glad to give his advice. But I would recommend the New Zealand Institute, or the Otago Institute, to place itself in communication with the "Californian Academy of Sciences" at San Francisco, and I have small doubt that its members would cordially co-operate in any scheme for stocking the New Zealand rivers with Californian salmon.
I have never been able to understand why sailing ships are preferred to Probably Mr Francis Francis, the author of a well-known work on Pisciculture, who is one of the editors, is giving his attention mainly, it is understood to steamers in the shipment of salmon ova, considering the obvious importance of permitting as short as possible an interval to elapse between the collection of the ova and their hatching. There seems to me no more reason to fear the oscillation of the engines or the motion of the screw of a steamer than the vibration of a railway carriage or the jolting of waggons over country roads. Nor is the motion on board a steamer, and especially a fast or mail steamer, at all to be compared with the shocks produced by the upset of boxes imperfectly fastened on board ship, while none of the possible drawbacks on board a steamer are so serious as the disadvantages of a protracted voyage in a sailing ship. I wrote the editor of the "Field,"fish.no reason why steamers should. "not be employed, provided the ova can be kept cool," which, of course, is a sine qua non in the present mode of package in ice. Mr. Youl's statement is that "steamboats were not used (1) because when the experiments wore first "made there was only one sailing to Australia—the 'Great Britain,' the "expense of freight in her would have been enormous, and she did not sail "at the right season; (2), it is very much to be feared that the vibration of "a steamboat on a long voyage would destroy the vitality of the ova." The latter objection, however, only amounts to a fear. The experiment, apparently, has not been tried; it is at least worth a trial; its results can hardly be more unfavourable than those of transport in sailing ships making a passage over 100 days from London, and, under all the circumstances, I repeat the recommendation to make use of the mail steamers between San Francisco and Auckland as a suitable means of transporting Californian salmon ova. The sensitiveness of the ova, or young salmon, is just one of those points in their natural history, regarding which there is much difference of opinion among the highest authorities—Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, London, Dr. Buckland, and Mr. Youl holding the most opposite views.
I have a very strong impression that means may yet be, and indeed ought forthwith to be devised for superseding the present expensive and destructive
If, as is stated by certain New Zealand and Australian Acclimatization Societies, Professor Turner points out, in a letter to me of Dr. Gray claims to have been the first to suggest "that the eggs of fish might be carried "in the same way as Dr. Davy (Sir Humphrey's brother) had sent trout and other "Salmonidæ from Cumberland into Devonshire, more especially as he had observed that the "eggs of fresh-water fish and frogs were retarded, and yet kept alive when they were in "places that were lost! The cost of the first shipment to Otago was £720, according to Mr. Edward D. Butts, Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the Southland Acclimatization Society at InvercargillVide "Paper relating to the Introduction of Salmon Ova," G. No. 26, p. 3, presented to both Houses of the General Assembly in form or direction of the experiments, I should not permit myself to be dissuaded or deterred by any speculation or the cry [e.g.') as to the results of the access or absence of oxygen or atmospheric air, or as to the action or non-action of endosmose or exosmose. Nor would I found too much on mere analogies drawn from (e.g.) the preservation of (a) vaccine lymph, (b) milk, (c) butcher meat, or (d) birds' eggs for hatchingbirds' eggs from Britain can be sent in a condition suitable for hatching by coating them externally with glycerine or other preservatives, it seems difficult to believe that some similar principle could not be applied mutatis mutandis to fish eggs.a priori to succeed, I would, therefore, try such plans as preservation in (a) hermetically sealed glass tubes, (b) charcoal, cotton wool, or other solids, (c) glycerine,fluids, the ova being steeped in them or coated with them—in the former case the fluid being in a freezingfrozen." (Papers relating to the introduction of salmon ova into New Zealand. P. 11.)
At the present day the most unexpected and surprising results are constantly being obtained from experiment on the origin and preservation of
As the result of his repeating certain of the experiments on spontaneous generation recorded by Bastian in his "Beginnings of Life." The paragraph from the "Times" was so headed Bactra "can proceed with the greatest activity in hermetically "sealed glass vessels from which almost the whole of the air has been "expelled by boiling."(e.g.) in the "North British Daily Mail" of by post, five small marine living fishes—the lancelet of the Mediterranean (Amphioxus lanceolatus). The package, which weighed 7 oz., arrived on the 9th, all the fish being exhausted, but four out of the five recovered when placed in running sea-water. They were sent to illustrate a lecture at the Crystal Palace. The writer of the paragraph, Mr. W. A. Lloyd, the well-known aquarium authority, tells us, moreover, that in England "small, hardy "fishes have frequently been sent by post during journeys "of twelve hours." We need not, therefore, despair of discovering some simpler and cheaper means both of preserving and transporting salmon ova!
My own leisure, however, is so fully occupied, and will be so for several years at least, that I cannot myself undertake any practical operations having such an end in view, involving as they would much time and personal labour. I venture, however, to offer here certain suggestions "to all whom it may "concern." In order to discover whether and how far my experimental views might be considered Utopian, I addressed a series of queries to various eminent zoologists. I have, as yet, failed in eliciting, by means of this correspondence, any specific data to support my own ideas; The nearest approach is contained in the letter of Professor Bastian, afterwards quoted.
The most important communication which resulted from this department of my inquiries was one from Dr. Ransom, of Nottingham. I was recommended to apply to him by Professor Turner, of Edinburgh, who described him as "the gentleman best fitted to give you information about the ova of "fish. . . . . . . He has worked for years at the impregnation of "ova artificially, and at the changes thereby produced" [letter of in extenso, the date being
"I will, as far as I can, give you my ideas on the subject of your letter. "But I cannot tell you of any method of transporting live salmon ova to the "antipodes which differs in principle from that now in common use.
"My inquiries were directed towards the physiological problems of impregnation only. But, as it was necessary for me to become familiar with "the structure and properties of the ova prior to and after impregnation, I "was led at the time to think over the question of transporting ova to "distant places.
"I cannot see any probability that the method used for preserving vaccine "lymph would meet the need of this case. Nor do I think that any of the "methods known to me of treating birds' eggs, to be used for hatching, "would be applicable to the ova of salmon.
"The method now in use for these latter is founded on the known "influence of cold in delaying the development of the embryo, and the eggs "of the salmon lend themselves admirably to this method, because they "withstand a cold of 32° P. But the details of the present system, as I "understand it, are open to amendment; and perhaps if they were so "improved as greatly to diminish the loss of eggs on the journey, it would "not be too expensive. I assume that you would take impregnated ova, so "as not to lose a day if possible. It is important that there should be few "or no unimpregnated ones among them, as these would decompose and "damage the healthy ones—partly by the foetid products of decomposition, "but more so by favouring the growth of a vegetable parasite, a species, "probably, of Saproglena [Saprolegnia he, no doubt, means]. The separation "of the unfecundated eggs is, however, difficult in the early stages except to "a very practised eye; and it may be necessary to abandon the attempt. "In that case the operator would choose, artificially or naturally, the impregnated ova, according as experience may have told him which yield the "smallest proportion of failures.
"The eggs-should be placed in a trough, in a single layer, upon pure "cotton wool, covered with ice-cold water about two inches deep, and then "with another layer of cotton wool above them—the trough to be furnished "with a perforated lid made to carry a layer of ice, the melting of which "would renew by percolation the water in which the ova are immersed. "The eggs would thus be kept in water at 32° F., and prevented from "shaking about by a very pure, soft package. I have found moss apt to "favour the growth of the parasite, and also that it is important to keep the "eggs quite covered by water, with as little shaking as possible. I cannotvery well, within the compass of a letter, tell you the grounds of these "assertions, but they rest upon Experiment and Observation.
"If possible, during the voyage, an intelligent man should be taught to "remove with a pipette all opaque ova, or those attacked by the parasite. "If this cannot be done, in any case, a weak solution of permanganate of "lime—say rose tint—in ice-cold water should be daily passed into the "trough by means of a tube inserted for the purpose By this method the "decomposing matter of dead or dying eggs is rapidly destroyed, and the "water purified. The deposit from the salt is quite harnless. Toward the "close of the voyage this should be done somewhat oftener. If the ice be "well packed it would not dissolve too fast; and a series of such troughs, "placed near to each other in a frame, would help, by their mass, to keep "down the temperature. The solution of the permanganate of lime might "be used with advantage by the manager on the arrival of the eggs at their "destination. The permanganate may be obtained in the crystalline form.
"I enclose a diagram to assist the description." Assuming, in the meantime, that ice is necessary to the preservation of salmon ova during a voyage to the antipodes, it still seems to mo that the storage of 20 or 25 tons of it might be avoided by the use of some means of
mechanical or chemical refrigeration, while there should be no difficulty in supplying any quantity of fresh water by means of distillation from sea water. Proper attention to the ice and water would, however, fitly occupy the attention of a special officer. Further, assuming that ova must, in the meantime, be conveyed in boxes or troughs, and that it is desirable to avoid every kind of shaking or mechanical shock, these boxes or troughs should always be slung or swung on the principle of the Bessemer saloon in the proposed new channel steamers, of swinging trays in ships' cabins, of compass boxes or barometers on gimbals, or of other similar fittings in all classes of ships.
Dr McIntosh, of Murthly (Dunkeld), suggests [in letter of
A still further development of the idea would be the conveyance of young or mature living fish in tanks or wells—on the principle in which live fish are brought to British markets in deck-welled vessels—often so long and so persistently advocated by Mr. Dempster, of Edinburgh. That this will some day be possible between even San Francisco and Auckland, I do not doubt—it is a mere question of time. It will be remembered that Mr. Auld, in his letter, mentions the successful conveyance of live fish between Java and Australia. From the nearest part of Java, to the nearest part of Australia, the voyage would not be long in fine weather—especially by a steamer. But the voyage from Batavia to Melbourne or Sydney, by ordinary sailing ships, in adverse weather, might (and no doubt frequently does) occupy as many days as the passage of the mail steamer from San Francisco to Auckland.
A friend of mine in the colony sent me, some years ago, the following "ingenious suggestions:—"For four years now it has been running in my head "that salmon and other fish even might cross the seas in other and simpler "ways than in ice. Three years ago, I got an old friend in Edinburgh to procure some fecundated ova from Stormontfield and transmit them to me" [for experimental purposes]. . . . . "Vaccine lymph can be preserved for "any length of time when hermetically sealed. . . . . It is a dreadfully "wild non-sequitur to assert that ergo salmon ova are to be preserved similiter. "But the question remains, is there that reasonable amount of probability in "the plan to justify one's trouble in packing up in glass tubes 10 or 12 pellets "of ova—separated one from the other by finely-ground charcoal—or any "other soft substance, and hermetically sealing the open ends of the glass "tubes, which could be done by corking, and then while the tubes were immersed to near the top in a jug of (hot or boiling) water, letting fall a drop "or two of melted glass on the cork."
The majority of my correspondents gave opinions adverse to the probabilty of success from such experiments as those here suggested. But I have lately had a long conversation on the subject with Professor Macalister, of Dublin, and I find that he agrees with me both as to the general desirability of making new or further experiments on the modes of preservation of salmon ova, and as to special direction of some of the said experiments—being unable, with me, to see any valid a priori ground for not making attempts at package and conservation in vacuo—in hermetically-sealed tubes—in various anti-septic fluids
I have no doubt that by some such means salmon ova might be preserved in a viable state "for one to three months!" There is nothing, therefore, that should discourage local experimentalists—having the requisite leisure and enthusiasm—from following out to a definite conclusion—whether favourable or the reverse—their own peculiar ideas or designs as to the precise form or direction of experiment.
It appears to me that, assuming all the New Zealand Breeding Ponds to be properly constructed on the model of Stormontfield, their site, in certain instances at least, is objectionable. We have already seen, from Dr. Robert Brown's statement, how salmon have deserted those Californian rivers or streams which contain the debris of gold diggings; and this kind of experience is far from peculiar to California. It is obvious, then, that Breeding Ponds should not be connected with rivers which drain goldfields; or which are contaminated with any other forms of mechanical or chemical impurity. The rivers selected should therefore be pure—they should have no industrial works of any kind on their banks. They should be cold—hence those of the extreme south of New Zealand should be preferred—those fed by glaciers, having the character of mountain rivers, with their sources in large cold lakes, and numerous rapid alpine torrents. For these reasons the Waiau, in Southland, appears to me to be by far the most suitable river in New Zealand, connected as it is with two large lakes and one smaller one, and draining a wild, virtually uninhabited, cold, mountainous region. Probably, however, it is too remote from Invercargill to render it—and especially its upper feeders—of easy access. For it is on these small upper affluents that Breeding Ponds should be placed, and not on the main stream near the sea. Mr. Buist, in his pamphlet descriptive of the Stormontfield operations, points out (p. 17) the importance of allowing the young fish to make their way "to the upper streams and tributaries of' a salmon river." It is no advantage to them to go to sea too soon, seeing that they are apt, according to their immaturity, to fall an easy prey to their stronger and very abundant aquine enemies. Of the Stormontfield smolt, some remain two years in the Ponds before they go to sea. The same objections that are to be urged against too easy and early access to sea, applies, with diminished force, to estuaries and the main trunks of large rivers. Hence salmon should be hatched and reared at as great a distance as possible from their hordes of natural enemies; and hence Breeding Ponds are most appropriately constructed on the smaller affluents of rivers, far from their embouchure, high up among the mountains, which give them birth. There should, however, at the same time, be easy access to the smaller mountain streams, as well as to the main branches of rivers, and to the lakes which form their reservoirs or back-waters.
There is, moreover, a difference of opinion as to the desirability of having breeding ponds at all. Dr. Gray holds an unfavourable opinion, but Mr, Buist controverts such adverse views in his pamphlet already quoted (p. 15),
There seems to be some difference of opinion, also, as to whether the ova selected for transport to the antipodes should be naturally or artificially impregnated. In a letter to me, of date
"I would recommend artificially fecundated ova in preference to collecting them off the salmon redds for the following reasons:—
"(1) A great portion of the ova deposited in the river in the natural way "misses the milt of the male, and is therefore lost.
"(2) In collecting ova from a redd a large per centage must necessarily be "injured in the process of collecting.
"(3) You can never be sure of getting ova of the same age, as there may have been more than one pair of fish at work on the same redd at different times."
Mr. Buist, in his pamphlet, (p. 15) also shows the disadvantage of taking naturally impregnated ova from the "redds;" while Mr. Youl appears invariably to have used artificially fecundated ova—the operation of fecundation in Scotland having always been performed by Mr. Peter Marshall, as aforesaid.
It is taking much too limited a view of the experiment of salmon acclimatization in New Zealand, to confine our efforts to a single shipment, or to one now and then. The operation of importing ova, hatching them, and turning the parr and smolt into the New Zealand rivers, should extend over a series of years; and should not be intermitted or put a stop to until either the experiment has become a decided success by the proved presence of multitudes of salmon in the Colonial rivers, or has as signally failed, notwithstanding the adoption of the best means of acclimatization under the circumstances most favourable to success. As before explained, such a persistent effort, or continuous series of efforts, is only possible in the event of the New Zealand Government possessing a sufficient staff of competent resident officers.
As a fitting conclusion to the present memoir, I am glad to have it in my power to append the following excerpts from another letter of Mr. Youl's, of date
"I am in receipt of your favour of the 26th, and will endeavour, as briefly "as I can, to answer the questions you have put.
"The first attempt to introduce salmon into Australia, was made in
"In ice must be used to cool the water in passing "through the tropics, while he maintained that the ice would kill the ova. "He judged that £400 would be ample to cover the expenses of conveying "safely 60,000 eggs to Tasmania; while I maintained that £1,500 would be "required to make any attempt likely to be successful. I could not afford "to spend so large a sum myself for an experiment from which I "would derive no benefit; and it was not until my first experiment, in charge of Mr. Black, and failed.
"The Governments of Victoria and Tasmania, however, were convinced from a "careful examination of Mr. Black, that, with more attention to arrangements, ova "or the young fry of salmon could be brought, and voted money for a further "attempt. I was requested to superintend it; and, in order to qualify myself for "the task, made two visits to Ireland, where in the Custom House at Dublin they "had a complete system of hatching salmon ova under the supervision of Mr. "Ffemelo, the then Superintendent of Irish Fisheries, and Mr Thomas Brag, the "then Secretary of the Board, from whom I received most valuable advice and "assistance. I also went by sea from London to Edinburgh, with two sets of "apparatus, with ova in them, to try which was the best. I visited the Stormontfield Ponds, and had several interviews with that veteran pisciculturist, Mr. Buist, "Perth, with whom I had been in correspondence, and who gave me a plan, drawn "by himself, of the way he would recommend the ova to be carried on board ship.
moss, which they were in "the habit of sending to different parts of France to re-stock their rivers. And "although, in reply to my question, they declared it impossible to send ova to Australia in moss, this visit led to my eventually adopting this plan, which has proved "so successful. I also went to Brussels to see their plan of artificial breeding.
"The result of all the information I collected, and the experiments I have carried "out myself, was that the ova should be placed on gravel and in small troughs; and "these fixed on a swivel like a swing-tray, or on gimbals like the compass, with a "stream of pure cold water constantly flowing over the eggs. When I had matured "all my plans, and the season had arrived for taking the ova, I could not get a ship, "although several shipowners whom I knew had promised me room in their vessels. "But, when they became acquainted with what I required, they all declined, from "the fear of the consequences of the melting of so large a quantity of ice, and other "equally, to my mind, frivolous excuses; and the only vessel the brokers I employed could get the offer of, was a new vessel just built at Newcastle for a firm "in Sydney. This small It is obvious that the larger the vessel, the loss the risk of motion in boxes of ova from pitching and rolling, which is also less in a steamer than in a sailing vessel. Were it possible, therefore, to secure such a steamer for such a purpose, the "Great Eastern" would he the sort of vessel that should be selected for the transport across seas of salmon ova.moss. I felt convinced the plan I had seen adopted in Paris would not succeed. I had also seen "some ova packed in moss and glass bottles, which a gentleman thought he could "send by this means safely to Tasmania—all dead within a fortnight after packing.
"Still, believing that a constant supply of cold water, however small, was necessary to the life of the ova, and that the dead ova would also injure the living—"and many would be sure to die under the most favourable circumstances—I hit "upon the plan of a small deal box, perforated with holes on the top, sides and "bottom, intending placing it at the bottom of the ice-house, and so covered with ice "that, as it melted, the water would run into the holes at the top sides of my box, "and out at the bottom, and away through the drainage pipe made for that purpose. I also placed some charcoal in the box, as a disinfectant, to take up the "noxious gases generated by the dead ova. Then making a nest of well-washed and "living moss at the bottom, and spreading my ova carefully in it, I covered it with "well-watered moss, and, on top of all, a handful of powdered ice.
"It was, however, at the last moment that I matured my plans, and could not " therefore put my box at the bottom of the ice, where alone it could be made safe "from rolling about; but amongst the ice. And I would here remark that, when "I produced my little box with the moss and charcoal, all those present on "board the ship ridiculed the plan as the most absurd. Fish, they said, must be "hatched in water, and not in moss. Now, some of these gentlemen were the best "Pisciculturists of the day, and had paid great attention to the subject: they looked "upon me as a mere tyro compared with themselves.
"The 'Beautiful Star' sailed, with my second attempt, to convey salmon ova to "Tasmania from the London Docks on the
"When the news of the failure of this experiment became known in Tasmania, "every kind of abuse was heaped upon me by the press and the people. If it can be any consolation to Mr. Youl, I can assure him that his case is by no means singular. The man who serves a Colonial Government, or public, must act upon the principle that "Virtue is its own reward." He must not expect gratitude as a necessary consequence of his devotion. Where it is offered, let him accept it thankfully! But, however pure and disinterested may have been his motives—however self-sacrificing his efforts—however unique his qualifications—however signal his ability or reputation—he must be prepared to have his motives misconstrued and misrepresented—his efforts depreciated—his qualifications sneered at—his reputation made the butt of ungenerous and unjust insinuations by a Press too frequently disposed to sacrifice truth to sensationalism!gratis. I believe the Govern "ment of Tasmania thought the packing in moss would succeed, although they did "not mention this in their correspondence with me. Neither did they give me any "credit for having put the little box on board as an experiment. They, however, "determined to try again; but, as the Colonial press wrote that 'it never "would succeed so long as the experiment was entrusted to such incompetent "persons as Mr. Youl,' they tried to gel somebody else. Failing in this, they "applied to me to superintend a third attempt. Feeling now confident of success—"notwithstanding their abuse—and, as I considered at the time, ingratitude, I accepted the trust.
"Messrs. Money, Wigram & Co., the large shipowners, most generously gave me "space on board their beautiful ship, the 'Norfolk,' in which I built an ice-house "and stowed away in it 181 boxes, containing about 100,000 salmon ova, and 3 "boxes containing about 2000 brown trout ova, packed in moss, and 25 tons of ice "on the top of the boxes. The 'Norfolk' sailed from London on the steamer "'Victoria,' and thence conveyed to the beautiful Breeding Ponds prepared for "them on the River Plenty—a tributary of the Derwent. The ova were placed in "the Ponds 91 days after being taken from the parent fish. On May 4th the first "trout was hatched, and on the next day the first salmon that ever made its "appearance in the southern hemisphere, was hatched; and, eventually it was "declared about 6000 salmon and 300 brown trout were hatched; and so my 10 "years of labour were at last crowned with success.
"A further and more successful shipment was made in the ship 'Somersetshire' "to Tasmania in The time may come when the rivers of New Zealand may be stocked with salmon from Tasmania; or those of Tasmania from New Zealand. But that period is yet far-distant, apparently, seeing that it is still problematical whether salmon of British or other parentage yet occur in the rivers of any of our Australian Colonies. The hopes of the Colonists should therefore, meanwhile, be directed to the teeming rivers of the Pacific seaboard of North America.supposed to have left the "Ponds, of the eggs per 'Norfolk'; and, in
"No salmon, that I am aware of, has ever been caught to prove that they have "come back from the sea to spawn in fresh water. But Sir Hobert Officer, who is "the Chairman of the Salmon Commissioners appointed by the Government especially to take charge of the experiment, and who lives on the banks of the Derwent, writes to me that he is sure he has seen salmon in the Derwent of not less "than 10 lbs. weight many times, and quite close to him; and many other gentlemen report the same. Sir Robert concludes that he is as certain salmon are there "as that he has a head on his shoulders. People here say, 'if salmon are there, "why don't they catch one?' Until they do, of course, there will remain a doubt of "the salmon being acclimatized.
"In
"Another shipment was made by me in
"In almost all the shipments I have made, I have obtained ova from the Tyne, "the Tweed, the Severn, the Ribble; and some from Ireland, No mention is here made of the Tay; and, in point of fact, no ova have as yet been taken from it. Mr. Youl himself, in a letter to Mr. Auld, [quoted in the "Otago Daily Times" of
"At the request of the Agent-General for New Zealand, I have undertaken to "superintend the shipment now preparing, and pack the ova in the moss with my "own hands. Not one fish has been hatched in Australia, the ova of which I "have not packed, except a few boxes in the 'Norfolk' when I was tired but "stood by all the time.
"I do hope we may get the services of Mr. Peter Marshall to take and impregnate some ova for this shipment. He is one on whom I can depend; and if the "owners of the Tay [fisheries] would let him take a few fish for this purpose from "that river, it would tend more than anything I know to the success of this shipment, the cost of which will be over £700." In my communication to the Tay Board in
Fergusson & Mitchell, Printers, Princes-St., Dunedin.
The Government having been empowered by recent Acts of the Legislature to enter into contracts for Insurances on Life, and for the grant of Endowments and Annuities, the Commissioner, acting under the provisions of the Acts, thinks it necessary to call public attention to the particular classes of business which will be undertaken, and to the advantages secured to persons insuring under them.
The Acts referred to are "The Government Annuities Act,
I. The Commissioner is authorized to enter into contracts Nature of contracts the Commissioner authorized to enter into.
1. The sale of Immediate Life Annuities depending on single lives; or on joint lives with benefit of survivorship; or on the joint continuance of two lives.
2. The sale of Deferred Life Annuities depending on single lives.
3. The payment of a Sum of Money on Death; or on death within a period agreed upon; or at the expiration of a period agreed upon; but only in respect of persons between the ages of sixteen and sixty.
4. The granting of Endowments.
5. Generally, any contract whatever in the nature of Insurance, Endowment, or Annuity, dependent on the contingencies of human life, where not repugnant to public policy.
For the purposes of such of these various transactions as are Tables.
Special powers of Commissioner.
1. That he may contract for the grant of Deferred Life Annuities on condition that the purchase-money paid shall, at the option of the purchaser, be returnable at any time before an actual payment of the Annuity, or that the purchase-money shall not be returnable.
2. That he may, in the case of inability to continue the payment of annual premiums for the purchase of a Deferred Annuity, grant to the person on whose behalf the payments have been made, an Immediate or Deferred Annuity equivalent in value to the amount actually paid.
3. Where a single sum has been paid for the purchase of a Deferred Life Annuity, he may grant, in lieu thereof, at the request of the person interested, an Immediate Life Annuity, proportionate to the amount paid.
Classes of Life Assurance confined to, &c.
1. For the payment of money at the death of the party whose life is insured—
2. For the payment of money on death or attaining a specified age, whichever may first happen—
3. For the payment of money on the death of either of two lives.
4. For the payment of money upon the death of one life, provided another he then living.
The tables before referred to show the premiums payable in each separate case.
IV. It is intended, for the present, to confine transactions in the nature of Endowments to Endowments for Children, to be effected either by the payment of one sum or of annual, Classes of Endowment confined to, &c.
Contracts of this nature may be made conditioned—
V. In the case of any Insurance for the payment of a fixed Insurance may at death be commuted for an Annuity.
VI. The following advantages are secured by special pro- Advantages provided in the Act.
1. All money received and paid by the Government under Account laid annually before the General Assembly.
2. In ease the funds held by the Government under the Any deficiency to be met out of Consolidated Revenue.
Insurers are thus not only enabled to obtain authoritative information of the exact position in each year of the transactions effected under the Acts, but have also the security of the Consolidated Revenue for the performance of the Commissioner's contracts.
3. Annuities payable under the Act are exempted from all Exempted from taxation.
4. Policies, powers of attorney authorizing the receipt of Exempted from stamp duty.
5. The following transactions, subject to the limitations Transactions exempted from Bankruptcy laws or seizure.
bond fide effected by the Assured upon the life of himself.
In the cases Restrictions on exemption of policies and premiums from Bankruptcy laws and seizure.a and b, however, no policy or the contri-
After five years to £500;
After seven years to £1,000; and
After ten years to £2,000.
In the case Restrictions on exemption of Annuity Contracts and Premiums from Bankruptcy law and seizure.c, the Annuity and the contributions towards it
Further restriction on protection of policies and Annuity contracts.
Married women may contract as if sole.
Restrictions on protection of policies held by married women.a. That a policy or contract for a Payment to be made on Death or otherwise, or for a Life Assurance or Endowment, held by any married woman, shall not be protected against the debts of her husband, unless it has endured for two years and then only to the extent of £200;
Restrictions on protection of Annuities purchased by married women.b. That an Annuity shall not be so protected unless the payments made on account thereof have been made at annual or more frequent intervals during a period of at least sis years, or unless purchased more than six years prior to the commencement of the Annuity, and that such Annuity shall not exceed £104 per annum.
Insurance for benefit of wife and children.
Duration of premiums.
Existing policies.
Apportionment.
Extent of protection.
Proof of age.
VII. In addition to the foregoing advantages, which are?
Advantages provided by Regulations.
VIII. Certain restrictions are imposed by the Acts upon deal- Restrictions imposed by the Acts.
1. By section 21 of the Act of Annuity contract not assignable.
2. By section 15 it is declared that the Commissioner is not Commissioner not affected with notice.
Contracts rendered void and payments forfeited.
Arbitration.
Purposes for which Regulations may be made.
Fixing limit of risk.
Form of policies, &c.
Proof of age, death, and identity.
4. For the management of the accounts required to be kept Management of accounts.
5. For prescribing beforehand the terms upon which pre- Terms on which premiums are to be returned.
6. For any purpose for which it may be necessary or For any purpose that may be necessary.
7. For imposing penalties not exceeding twenty pounds Imposing penalties. Rules and regulations to be published in Gazette.New Zealand Gazette, and to take effect from the day of such publication, or from such other day as shall be therein fixed.
1. Certain Post Offices, the names of which may be obtained Post Offices hare been opened for receipt of proposals.
2. Tables of the various premiums to be charged may be seen Tables may be seen and procured.
3. Any person desirous of effecting an Insurance or Endow- Application to be made to nearest office.
4. The officer in charge of the office will furnish the appli- Officer will furnish forms.
5. The applicant is advised, in each case, to produce as soon Proof of age should be produced as soon as possible.
The regulations specially bearing upon this matter are numbered 46 and 48.
As the contract is declared to be void in case of any misstatement on this point, it is essential that persons proposing transactions should be especially careful in regard to it.?
Best proof of age.
This should be accompanied by a statutory declaration by some third person able to speak to the fact of the identity of the person named in the copy or extract with the person on whose behalf the proposed contract is to be entered into.
Such a declaration may be made before any Justice of the Peace or Solicitor of the Supreme Court.
Commissioner may accept other proof.
Address of proposer.
Notice of claim must be given.and produce the contract upon which it is based, to the nearest officer authorized to receive proposals. The officer will indorse on the notice of claim such particulars as will direct the attention of the Commissioner to the particular transaction, and then at once forward the notice to the Commissioner.
Officer will inform proposer when any evidence is required.
Notice of change of residence should be given.
This notice will forthwith be forwarded to the Commissioner, who will then determine whether and upon what terms the requisite permission will be given.
Notice of change of occupation.
Notice of the determination of the Commissioner in each of Notice of decision of Commissioner.
All forms of proposal, and all notices and other documents, Handwriting should be clear and distinct.
The following Regulations are made under the authority of "The Government Annuities Act,
1. The Government Annuities Commissioner, appointed and Commissioner may appoint persons to receive proposals.
2. Every person who may he so appointed is, throughout Person so appointed to be termed Officer.
3. The Postmaster at any Post Office, whether the same shall Any Postmaster may be so appointed.
4. The Officer appointed in any place as aforesaid may Officer may receive any proposal.
5. Any person desiring to effect any such transaction shall Form of proposal.
6. Blank forms of proposal shall, on application to the Officer Blank forms supplied free of cost.
7. The person making any proposal shall, at the time of Declaration to be signed in presence of Officer.
8. The Officer to whom any proposal has been delivered Officer may refer Proposer to Medical Examiner.
Commissioner may order examination.
One guinea to be deposited before examination.
Deposit will be repaid.
Form of Medical Examination.
Medical Examiner may put other questions to Proposer.
Person examined to sign a declaration.
Proposal and papers connected therewith to be sent direct to Commissioner.
All tables to specify rate of premium for first-class lives only.
Premium to be fixed by Commissioner.
Commissioner to give notice of acceptance.
Officiating Minister allowed a reduction of 5 per cent.
20. Within thirty days after the receipt of such notice, the Deposit forfeited.
21. Upon payment of the money payable in respect of any Contract issued upon payment of premium.
22. Annual payments, payable under any contract, must be Periods of grace.
23. Every contract shall be deemed to be void, and all pay- Conditions of contract.
24. Every contract for the assurance of a sum of money pay- Voyaging and residence.
Occupation,New Zealand Gazette to be specially dangerous without the express permission of the said Commissioner, which permission may be granted by the said Commissioner on payment of such extra premium as the said Commissioner may deem adequate to the risk incurred.
Contract not in force till payment of first premium.
Contract may be renewed.
Death of Assured during days of grace.
Contract voided may be revived.
30. In case the person who has contracted for any Endow- Non-payment of premiums caused by death not to affect interest of child.
31. If the said Commissioner shall (either at the time of the Age may be admitted.
32. The said Commissioner may, instead of charging the usual Doubtful lives.
Contract may be surrendered.
Contract may be exchanged.
Proof of age and identity required before payment of claim.
Settlement of policy to be effected by Deed Poll.
Form of apportionment of existing policies.
Assignment may be made.
39. Any premium or other payment required to be made by Premiums may be paid by Money Orders.
40. If any person who shall have contracted for the purchase When purchase money is returnable, application for such return to be made on a form.
41. No Annuity shall be granted under the said Acts other- Annuities may be granted to trustees in certain cases.
Commissioner to pay by warrants. Claims for payment to be supported by proper vouchers.
Proposer to provide proof of age at his own cost, but not the cost of the Commissioner's inquiries, nor any medical fee.
Proposed Annuitants to pay a fee if required.
Notice of death to be given.
46. In every case where the age of any person upon the Proof of age.
47. Death may be proved by production of any of the following Proof of death.
48. The identity of the deceased, and the person upon the Proof of identity.
N.B.—As the difficulty of proving the age increases with time, holders of contracts are advised to send in proofs of the age of the person or persons upon the contingency of whose life or lives the contract is dependent to the said Commissioner, either before or as soon as possible after the contract is effected.
When proofs have to be obtained in Great Britain, the said On payment of a deposit, Commissioner will aid ill obtaining proofs.
Commissioner may discontinue or refuse to make inquiries.
Probate and letters of administration dispensed with in certain cases.
Evidence of the right of any person to receive payment of a claim must be produced.
Contract to be given up when claim paid.
Commissioner may accept other proofs.
Proofs made at the expense of person tendering
Payment of claim.
Form of Declaration to be indorsed on Contract for Life Assurance, where same is effected for the Benefit of the Wife, or of the Wife and Children, or of the Children or any Child of the Assured, under Section 8 of the Act of
"My wife," or "my wife and children," or "my children by my present wife," or "my child Know all men by these presents that the within contract of Assurance has been effected by me for the benefit of [a.b." [naming it], or otherwise as the case may require.Here insert words designating the person or persons to take benefit].
In case the Assured intends to apportion the amount of Insurance money, add as follows:—
And I hereby declare that the amount insured by the said contract shall be apportioned as follows [Here insert proposed mode of apportionment].
Table of Annual Premiums for a specified number of years, for the Assurance of £100 to be paid at Death, the Policy continuing in force after the Premiums have been exhausted.
Table of Annual Premiums, Until the Attainment of a Specified Age, for the Assurance of £100 to be paid to the party on attaining said Age, or to his heirs at his Death, if it happen sooner.
Rates of Premium for Assuring the sum of £100, to be paid when the child attains the respective Ages underwritten. The Premiums not to be returned if Death occur previous to the specified Age.
Rates of Premium for Assuring the sum of £100, to be paid when the child attains the respective Ages underwritten. The Premiums to be returned without interest in the event of the child not attaining the Age fixed for the payment of the Endowment.
Table shewing the Sum to be paid for an Immediate Life Annuity of £1, according to the Age and Sex of the person upon whose Life the Annuity is to depend. The First Half-yearly Payment of the said Annuity will in all cases become due, and be payable on the Second Quarterly Day of Payment, next following the day of Purchase.