remedy for all the evils of the world's literature. It contains the only elements which can counteract all the perils we have described, satisfy the demands of the human heart, and correct the wanderings of the human reason, and thus remedy the evils, be they literary or political, of society, by supplying those wants of our nature out of which these evils have sprung, and by restraining the excesses to which these wants lead. As to the casuistry and superstition, the fanaticism and persecution, that have sometimes abused the name of the cross for their shelter, we can only say that the doctrine is no more chargeable with these its perversions, than is the dread name of God responsible for all the fearful profanation made of it, when it is used as an oath to give sting to a jest, or to add

venom to a curse.

But some feel, and others have intimated, that the cross of Christ has been tried, and has failed. The church has tried substitutes for it indeed, and these have ever failed. But the cross itself has not yet been tried by the church continuously and fully. Protestantism even has talked too much of it as justifying the sinner, but shrunk from it as sanctifying him. As to its failures, when really tried, they have never been more than apparent. In the hurry and cry of the conflict, the voice of evil is louder than that of good. When most seeming to fail, the cross is but like its Founder, when, amid the growing darkness of his last agony, the dragon seemed writhed around him, and the fatal sting of death was transfixing him. For a time the race of mankind might seem to have lost their Redeemer, and the gates of Hope, as they swung slowly back, appeared about to close for ever upon a sinking world. But when that darkness was past, and the field of battle was again seen, it was the dragon that lay outstretched and stiffened, with bruised head-all feeble and still, in the shadow of that silent cross; while radiant in the distance were the open portals of heaven, and earth lay bathed in the lustrous dawn of a new Hope.

"For the gates of Paradise

Open stand on Calvary."*

And when some forty days have passed, there is seen in the glittering air over the summit of Olivet, the form of the unharmed and ascending Redeemer. As victor over death and hell, he is leading captivity captive, returning to his proper and native glory, and going before to prepare a royal mansion and a crown of righteousness for all his cross-bearing followers. Thus was seeming failure the secret and the forerunner of real victory. So has it since been. The day of the French revolution, when infidelity was ready to triumph, ushered in the era of foreign missions, when Satan's oldest seats underwent a new invasion. So will it continue to be. Every conflict, sore and long though it may be, will but add to the trophies of the Redeemer's cross, till around it cluster, as votive offerings, the wreaths of every science and the palms of every art-and that instrument of shame and anguish be hailed as the hinge of the world's history and destiny, the theme of all our study, and the central sun of all our hopes, the sanction to the universe of all God's laws, and the seal to all the faithful of our race of an endless redemption from the belief, power, and practice of all evil. In the coming years of the world's history, the presaging eye may look foward to the fierce clash of opinions, the tumult of parties, and the collision of empires. But when the waters are out, and one barrier after another is overwhelmed, and one sea-mark topples and disappears after another beneath the engulfing flood, God is but overturning what man has built. The foundation of his own hand will remain unshaken. The floods of the people cannot submerge it; the gates of hell cannot prevail against its quiet might.

* Montgomery.

W. R. WILLIAMS.

FREE-SPEECH TO MR. G. J. HOLYOAKE.

Sir,

You have largely professed your anxiety to rid debate of personalities, and imputation, and have taken credit to yourself for having, on your side, accomplished that desirable object. Had you really done this you would have deserved the thanks of every lover of truth; for little advantage is to be gained by the public in listening to the mutual recriminations of angry disputants. I have no fault to find with your theory of debate; it is your practice that shocks me. An occasional violation of your rules might be regarded as not inconsistent with honourable feeling towards an opponent, but what shall we think when the violation is almost constant? Can you name one gentleman with whom you have at any time debated, whose character or ability you have not afterwards attempted to lower in the estimation of the public? There are men who, in the maturity of their reason, repent the follies of their youth; but years and experience appear to bring to you no improvement. Loud as ever in your professions of fairness, your treatment of your antagonists looks more determinedly hostile than it has ever been. Your demand for "justification by conduct" can never be conceded by men who have marked the course you are pursuing.

Not satisfied with having attempted in the Glasgow discussion to fix the suspicion of being in "an unconverted state" upon Mr. Grant; the authority on whom you had relied having entirely failed your, you return again this week to the charge and try to substantiate it in a way which does honour to you neither as a debater nor a man. You think the matter of sufficient importance to devote to it two whole pages; and if ycur secularist readers come to the conclusion which you wish, on the evidence there presented, they must be as devoid of logic, as they believe themselves of souls.

As you accord to Mr. Houlding, on whose anthority you first rested the suspicion, the full benefit of his total denial of the remark; the items of proof are only two, and to these I call the attention of your reasoning faculty, which must surely have been "taking a nap" when you wrote.

The first item of proof stands before us in these words of yours;-"It appears that two members of Mr. Grant's committee, 'strait-laced men' did make the declaration as to 'Mr. Grant's unconverted state." You underlined the "two," in ecstasy I suppose, because you thought that thus the suspicion would be greatly confirmed, and the "did" to help your readers to a conclusion, which I do not think any jury of Englishmen would adopt on examining the grounds for it. Admitting, however, for the sake of argument that two men had made such a statement, does it follow that the statement is true? Two men, of whose character, capabilities, and opportunities of judging we know nothing, are of opinion that Mr. Grant is an unconverted man; therefore Mr. Grant is an unconverted man? Is this, sir, your logic of secularism? Is this your sense of right? In a British court of law, two or ten thousand opinions of the best men would not in the balance of justice have the weight of a feather against a criminal, if no fact were forthcoming on which those opinions rested. And to suppose that the working classes of Britain will condemn an advocate of Christianity on the mere opinion of any two or twenty men is an insult to their judgment. They have too much good sense to be led astray by such a perfect mockery of reason; and will set down your attempt to undermine the character of your opponent to the proper cause. "Mr.

Your second and only other item of proof is found in your statement; Houlding, one of Mr. Grant's committee at Todmorden, had been reported in the Reasoner as having said, that Mr. Grant was not 'a converted man'—a fact

obvious enough to hundreds whether he said it or not." This item is still more worthless than the other; for when analyzed it is nothing more than your own opinion. Deprived of Mr. Houlding's testimony, you become wise after the fact and say it was not needed. If the "fact was obvious enough to hundreds" you were not required to point it out or to search for proof. "It is obvious enough", is one of the desperate efforts of a bad cause when evidence fails; and your having recourse to it speaks not well of your generosity toward your opponent. Who made you a judge of his moral and spiritual state? Is it not because you cannot dispute the facts marshalled against you, as drawn from your own pages, that you seek to stab the Christian reputation of your assailant? These facts will remain even though his character should fall, and will carry with them the conviction wherever they are known, that your "policy," but ill conceals an inveterate and undiscriminating hostility to the purest religion known among men. People will see that you are weak in attack as you are in defence, and that when foiled at every point, you seek to escape by undermining the character of your opponent, which you should hold as sacred as your own.

In this too you have failed, but had you succeeded, it would have afforded another illustration of the inconsistency of your course. You say that Mr. Grant is an unconverted man, that is, an unchristian man. That in him which you condemn, you regard as opposed to Christianity, why then do you reject Christianity when you believe it does not sanction evil? Your argument is suicidal, and you tacitly admit that Secularism is worthless. Mr. Grant's course, you say, is bad; therefore, you reason, Mr. Grant is in an "unconverted state;" but an unconverted state is "a state of nature;" therefore, human nature is not, as you aver, sufficient for morality, but needs, what you deny, a Saviour from without. Of what use, then, are your boasted "guarantees of morality,"-human nature, utility, and intelligence? Mr. Grant has them all, yet according to you, he is not right, but wants Christianity to bring him out of a state of nature, and make him a model man. High tribute this to the value of the religion of Jesus! Damnatory fact to the Secularist doctrine that human "nature is sufficient for morality!" Christianity is exalted, in the condemnation of its advocate; and, in the confession that human nature is powerless against evil, Secularism is given up.

In conclusion, for the present, permit me to suggest, as you profess great fondness for logic, that you put this argument in syllogistic form, for the edification of your readers, and thus do something toward making good your claim to the title of "The Reasoner;" and permit me also to subscribe myself,

19th December, 1854.

Yours faithfully,
FREE-SPEECH.

THE PROGRESS OF OUR RACE.

It is because God is visible in history that its office is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet is the interpreter of heaven. He catches the first beam of light that flows from its uncreated source. He repeats the message of the Infinite, without always being able to analyze it, and often without knowing how he received it, or why he was selected for its utterance. But history yields in dignity to him alone, for it not only watches all the great encounters of life, but recalls what had vanished, and partaking of a bliss like that of creating, restores it to animated being. The mineralogist takes special delight in contemplating the process of crystallization, as though he had caught nature at her work as a geometrician; giving herself up to be gazed at without concealment such as she appears in the very moment of action. But history, as she reclines in the lap of eternity,

T

sees the mind of humanity itself engaged in formative efforts, constructing sciences, promulgating laws, organizing commonwealths, and displaying its energies in the visible movement of its intelligence. Of all pursuits that require analysis, history, therefore, stands first. It is equal to philosophy; for as certain as the actual bodies forth the ideal, so certain does history contain philosophy. It is grander then the natural sciences; for its study is man, the last work of creation, and the most perfect in its relations with the Infinite.

Look round on this beautiful earth, this temperate zone of the solar system, and see how much man has done for its subjection and adornment; making the wilderness blossom with cities, and the seemingly inhospitable. sea cheerfully social with the richly freighted fleets of world-wide commerce. Look also at the condition of society, and consider by what amenities barbarism has been softened and refined; what guarantees of intelligence and liberty have superseded the lawlessness of brute force, and what copious interchanges of thought and love have taken the place of the stolidity of the savage. The wanderings of the nations are greater now than they have ever been in time past, and productive of happier results. Peaceful emigration sets more myriads in motion than all the hordes of armed barbarians, whether Gauls or Scythians, Goths or Huns, Northmen or Saracens, that ever burst from the steppes of Asia and the Northern nurseries of men.

If Jehovah is the supreme governor of the universe; if God is the fountain of all goodness-the inspirer of true affection-the source of all intelligence-there is nothing of so great moment to the race as the conception of his existence; and a true apprehension of his relations to man must constitute the turning point in the progress of the world. And it has been so. A better knowledge of his nature is the dividing line that separates ancient history from modern-the old time from the new. The thought of Divine unity as an absolute cause was familar to antiquity; but the undivided testimony of the records of all cultivated nations shows that it took no hold of the popular affections. Philosophers might conceive this Divine unity as purest action, unmixed with matter; as fate, holding the universe in its invincible, unrelenting grasp; as reason, going forth to the work of creation; as the primal source of the ideal archetypes, according to which the world was fashioned; as boundless power, careless of boundless existence; as the Infinite one slumbering unconsciously in the infinite all. Nothing of this could take hold of the common mind, or make

"Peor and Baalim
Forsake their temples dim,"

or throw down the altars of superstition.

For the regeneration of the world, it was requisite that the Divine Being should enter into the abodes, and hearts of men, and dwell there; that an idea of Him should arise, which should include all truth respecting His essence; that He should be known not only as an abstract and absolute cause, but as a perfect Being, from whose perfect nature the universe is an effluence! not as a distant Providence of Infinite power, or uncertain will, but as God present in the flesh; not as an absolute law-giver, holding the material world, and all moral and intelligent existence, in the chains of necessity, but as a creative spirit, indwelling in man-his fellow-worker and guide.

When the divine Being was thus presented to the soul, He touched at once Man's aspirations, affections and intelligence, and faith in Him sunk into the inmost heart of humanity. In vain did the proud and ambitious Arius seek to overlay spiritual truth with the fabulous conceptions of heathenism, to paganize Christianity, and to subordinate its enfranchising power to false worship and to despotism. Reason asserted its right of supremacy, and the party of superstition was driven from the field. Then Mooned Ashtaroth was eclipsed, and Osiris was seen no more in Memphian Grove; then might have been heard the crash of the falling temples of Polytheism; and, instead of them, came that harmony which holds Heaven and Earth in happiest union.

Amid all the deep sorrows of humanity during the sad conflict which was protracted through centuries for the overthrow of the past and the reconstruction of society, the idea of an incarnate God, carried peace to the bosom of mankind. That faith emancipated the slave, redeemed the captive, elevated the low, lifted up the oppressed, consoled the wretched, inspired alike the heroes of thought and the countless masses? The down-trodden nations clung to it as to the certainty of their future emancipation; and it so filled the heart of the greatest poet of the Middle Ages-perhaps the greatest poet of all time-that he had no prayer so earnest as to behold in the profound and clear substance of the eternal light, that circling of reflected light, which showeth the the image of man.

From the time that this truth of the Triune God was clearly announced, he was no longer dimly conceived as a remote and shadowy causality, but appeared as all that is good, and beautiful and true, as goodness itself, incarnate and interceding, redeeming and inspiring; the union of liberty, love and light; the Infinite cause, the Infinite Mediator, the Infinite in and with the universe, as the paraclete and the comforter. The doctrine once communicated to man, was not to be eradicated. It spread as widely, as swiftly, and as silently as light; and the idea of God with us dwelt and dwells in every system of thought that can pretend to vitality; in every oppressed nation whose struggles to be free, have the promise of success; in every soul that sighs for redemption.

That God has dwelt, and dwells with humanity, is not only the noblest illustration of its nature, but the perfect guarantee for its progress. We are entering on a new era in the history of the race, and though we cannot cast its horoscope, we at least may in some measure discern the course of its motion.

Here we are met, at the very threshold of our argument, by the afterbirth of the materialism of the last century. A feeble effort is making to reconstruct society on the simple observation of the laws of the visible universe The system is presented, with arrogant pretension, under the name of "the Positive Philosophy," and deduces its lineage through the English unitarianism of Priestley and Belsham, and the French materialism which culminated in Broussais. It scoffs at all questions of metaphysics and religious faith as insoluble and unworthy of human attention, and sets up the banner of an affirming creed in the very moment it describes its main characteristic as a refusal to contemplate or to recognize the Infinite. How those who take their opinions from Hobbes and Locke and their continental interpreters, and still adhere to the philosophy which owns no sources of knowledge but the