LETTERS TO DR. ADAM CLARKE.
BY JOHN CLARKE.

OF THE METHODIST CONNEXION.
Second Edition.

JUST PUBLISHED, price TWOPENCE,

BRANCH SECRETARIES.-The Laws 36 and 37,being obscure, in refer-
ence to the periodical change or reappointment of the Secretaries of
the Brunch Boards of Management, the Central Board have decided
that the Secretaries shall vacate office at the termination of each THE TEMPLE OF FREE INQUIRY
quarter, being subject to re-election.

P. C. MANCHESTER.-In the notice under this head, in the New Moral
World, of last week, for law 24, read law 26

MR. CONNARD.-The Central Board have received, for Mr. Connard,
2s. 6d. from a friend at the Hall of Science, Finsbury Branch, No.
16; also 1s. from Mr. Robinson, which should have been sent with
the monies collected before.

NEW MORAL WORLD.

The

A REPORT

OF THE PROCEEDINGS CONSEQUENT ON THE LAYING OF THE FIRST STONE

OF THE

MANCHESTER HALL OF SCIENCE;

BY

WITH AN ADDRESS
ROBERT OWEN.

32 Closely Printed Pages for Twopence.

ALSO, PRICE ONE PENNY, THE

T. E. Leicester, we dare say means well; but he is ignorant, or misinformed as to the motives which have produced our conduct in the matter he refers to, and, unfortunately, he has followed the fashion of the world at large, in ascribing the worst instead of the best. time may come when all may be satisfactorily explained: meantime, AMERICAN ANTITHEISTICAL CATECHISM; we recommend the practice of the charity he preaches, and assure Compiled from the Works of Robert Dale Owen, Miss Frances him our silence arises not from unfriendly feelings or insufficient Wright, &c. &c.

reasons.

C. R. W.-The objections have been received, and will be made use of.
THE SABBATH, Article 3. in our next.

J. D. received; next week.

J. L., Edinburgh, is thanked for two numbers of the True Scotsman. We shall endeavour to reply to Senex Barbatus when we have the whole of his weighty objections before us. Will J. L. continue his favours?

MR. JAMES LOWE acknowledges the receipt of 5s. from the Hulme Class for Mr. G. Connard. This Class deserves to be imitated by others; they pay an extra halfpenny per week, which is applied to help the contributions of their poorer brethren, and purchase books for the Class. The 5s. acknowledged is a portion of the accumulations arising from this source.

WE MUST DEFER THE SHEFFIELD LETTER till next week. It is delightful to read of the practical manifestation of their zeal.

E. C. SHAW should apply to the Central Board.

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MR. OWEN'S WORKS.

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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1839.

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CONTENTS.

Free Will Offerings

Christianity in China

887
888

Fruits of the Religion of Faith, or Christian
Charity exemplified

891

Progress of Social Reform at Manchester,
Birmingham, Kensington
Newcastle, and Preston
Socialism Annihilated
Gleanings

893

894

895

and pursued with such persevering ardour for years-is one worthy of and demanding the whole powers of a great mind. We should, therefore, counsel a division of labour; and while we should rejoice to see a junction between these two parties, advise that each should still specially attend to the subject they are best acquainted with. The measures which by their union could be effected would be equally open to the discussion and superintendence of both.

The defects of the allotment system have already been briefly alluded to, and it is unnecessary to recapitulate them. The most prominent is, that while the Educationalists make provision for the mental, and neglect the physical powers, the five-acre-farm advocate provides for the physical, and neglects the superior faculties. The position in which those small cotters would be placed, must almost entirely preclude the cultivation of these faculties upon a systematic plan, and correct principles. Society is one of the most potent agencies in calling the faculties into activity, and giving them a direction and employment. It is needless to say, that the society which would be created by this dispersive distribution of the labouring population, would be anything but favourable to high mental and moral excellence If, therefore, either of these parties desire to attain effectually the objects proposed as the end of their labours, they must unite: they have the same co-relation to each other as the physical, intellectual, and moral faculties of man, for whose improvement both of them labour, and which they will certainly fail in fully securing but by the union of their respective plans and efforts.

appals and sickens the observer. Some secure and quiet anchorage for the tossed and shattered bark of society is sorely wanted: and who can so fitly or speedily provide this as the partics we now counsel? Besides, until they have furnished some such unanswerable proofs of the soundness of their views, their verbal and written expositions will be thrown away; rampant selfishness and sectarian ignorance will continue to impede the progress of sound and substantial reform, and` embroil in intestine commotion and contest, a nation whose powers are all imperatively demanded at this crisis, to ward off a fearful revolution of blood and tears.

NERO's musical performances, amid the blazing ruins of Rome, were not more maniacal than the conduct of our aristocracy and capitalists at the present moment. Social disorganization has already commenced; it is seen in the bank, the manufactory, the warehouse, and the workshop; and instead of taking measures to restore health and soundness to the body politic, we hear nothing but party squabbles, bitter recrimination, and fierce polemical controversies; while the wild antics of religious revivals, with their attendant madness and melancholy deaths from nervous excitement, attest how rapidly social monstrosities are springing from the debris of irrational institutions. The Socialists would fain avert these evils, and their yet more bitter consequences, from their fellow-countrymen and the world; but, unfortunately, too many of them, blinded by prejudice or misled by craft, turn away from the only effective remedy for their maladies, with bitter loathing against both it and the physician. Like wisdom in the Proverbs we shall, however, not fail to lift up our voice in the market-place, and testify, not only against the evils of society, but also declare the remedy which can alone effect their removal. UNION the union of all moderate, experienced, and rational men, is the first step to be taken. Happy shall we be if our exertions, in any degree, tend to its furtherance.

It would be easy for these parties, with the power, wealth, and influence in their possession, to establish immediately Home Colonies, in which their respective principles could be tried, and their practical application to the formation of a superior character, and production of contentment and plenty, demonstrated. A few experiments of this nature would most powerfully assist in directing the attention of society at large to the plans by which the results were obtained; and do more, in three or four years, to advance their respective objects, ON THE EXISTENCE OF MORAL EVIL, than a couple of generations, spent in their present isolated, and, to a great extent, theoretical, efforts. Nor in thus paving the way for the speedy adoption of a rational, enlarged, and safe measure of reform, which would claim the support of the good and wise men of all parties, would the originators and supporters of the first experiments incur the slightest risk of pecuniary loss. Even if the establishments should fail in realising the results which sanguine people might look for, still,

at the worst, the labour bestowed upon the land would have increased its original value; but it is demonstrable, that with united labour and united expenditure, greater fertility and diminished consumption would be secured, and the return to the capitalists, who might venture upon such a benevolent experiment, become greater than any other investment, railroad, or otherwise, at the present day can produce. There would also be the certainty that the prosperity, intelligence, and wealth thus created would be permanent. One improvement would suggest another, and new powers and facilities for creating wealth and exciting fertility would accumulate from the possession of land, machinery, and active industry, under the guidance of knowledge and

experience.

One other pressing reason for the union of these parties is to be found in the present divided sectarian and excited state of the public mind. The nation seems reeling with mental riot and intemperance; religious and commercial madness appears to spread like an epidemic; insanity, suicide, and murders increase, till the black catalogue of evil

It is to be hoped that the recent elevation to office of Mr. WYSE, heralds inental and moral improvement, which though they may fall

short of the good aimed at by the Rational Reformers will yet matorially aid in reaching it.

AND ON THE INFLUENCE OF THOSE. CIRCUM-
STANCES WHICH ARE PLACED WITHIN THE
CONTROL OF SOCIETY.

ESSAY XVII.

For a long time previous to the advent of Christianity, it had been the practice of ancient Rome to allow all her subjects great toleration in matters of religion. This wise policy contributed, in some degree, to the rapid extension of her empire; it smoothed the way to her victorious career, by dispelling the fears of the weak minded, and deadening the hostility of an. influential class, whose favour it was not easy to conciliate; the conquered provinces, moreover, were less disposed to revolt, when they found, that by changing their masters, they had only diminished their vexations! Prompt payment of tribute, and orderly submission to the Legions, was nearly all the obedience required. No one was molested for speculative opinions, whether philosophical or theological! Sometimes, indeed, her victorious generals paid a visit to the temples of a vanquished nation, for the pious purpose of returning thanks to their Deity for the assistance he had vouchsufed during the struggle! On these occasions it was usual to relieve HIS shrine of superfluous ornaments, and his coffers of useless wealth-and if his effigy was skilfully executed in precious materials, they allowed it the honour of a distinguished place th their own

triumph, or obtained for it a niche or pedestal in the good objects of the Christian dispensation, was, to Pantheon, along with the guardians of the Capital. annihilate those absurd superstitions which selfish es

If these honours were peevishly declined, an image of Venus or Diana was sent to console the God for his desecrated altar, and to assist in replenishing his treasury. By these means a sort of bank for savings was created, in which the poor were permitted to deposit small sums for the general use of the State! But it was reserved for the piety of after-times to improve this device into a prolific source of revenue capable of principalities; against powers; against the rulers of the affording supplies, not only to the minor branches of a conqueror's own family, but to his nephews and cousins, to the remotest degree of relationship!

and ignorance had engendered in every part of the world, and to replace them by its own pure, simpie, and elevated ideas of one common FATHER, and common FRIEND. The persons who undertook to perform his dangerous office, fully appreciated the difficulties they would have to encounter; they knew full well, they had to wrestle, not against flesh and blood--but against darkness of this world; against spiritual wickedness in high places: therefore, they essayed rather to undermine, than to overthrow, the existing systems. To his The indulgent disposition of the Roman government end, they used only the most humble instruments, and produced a corresponding feeling in the inferior classes, the most simple language---but this language was o'ten The priests of numberless superstitions which infested fraught with lofty sentiments or profound thought, and every part of the empire, laid aside their animosities; generally obscured with hidden meanings, and dark or, being restrained by the laws within bounds of muendoes. Hence the admonition so frequently redecorum, lost their natural antipathies, and like village peated of he that hath ears to hear, let him her;' quacks, were sometimes so kind as to administer poison whose readeth let him understand.' &c. to each other's patients. Religion, thus bereft of its ancient aliment, fell into a state of apathy, and de-of Man, standing in the midst of seven Golden Candlegenerated from a lively sentiment, into a cold ceremony- sticks, holding in his right-hand seven Stars,' he himan affair of pageantry, procession, and sing-song! At self, explains that the Seven Candlesticks represent he times, indeed, the violation of a temple, or of a vestal, Seven Churches of his own Diocese, and that the produced a feeble and brief outcry, but the offence was Seven Stars denote the angels-that is, the Presbyters, soon forgotten, or forgiven, by the injured parties. Now or Ministers-thereto appertaining (Rev. i. 20), but he and then, too, an orator or public pleader for lack of moreover says, that out of the mouth of this likeness argument, or to round a period, invoked celestial aid; of the Son of Man' (meaning thereby himself, whose but statesmen, philosophers, and sensible persons of hair was thin, at the age of ninety, or so, as 'white as every kind, had lost all veneration for those aerial wool,') 'went a sharp two-elged-sword,' thereby intiphantoms which were fast melting away into the shades mating that the doctrines he was about to communicate of oblivion, while their votaries were descending by must, by them, be so modified, as to cut both ways, shoals into the gulph of materialism! This indifference that is so as to terrify the evil, and instruct the good, to religion had become almost general; for every class without exciting alarm in the powerful. above the rank of slaves were more intent on fame than

When John, the Divine, saw one like unto the Fon

salvation, and still more on luxury than either! The We have another mystical communication of a simitime not spent in tented fields was applied to the im-lar kind conveyed under the simile of opening a Book provement or embellishment of their dominions, or the first five Seals had reference to events already with Seven Seals. (Rev. v. and vi.) The opening of devoted to the most vivid and even fierce enjoyments; so that the whole people were either occupied in the passed; namely, to the divine mission of Christ; the construction of stupendous works, or spent their leisure destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; the false hours in military triumphs, processions, exhihitions, and Christs and heresy of the Nicolaitanes; the persecutions theatrical entertainments; even the slaves were at times under Nero, and the assumed reward of those martyrs gratuitously admitted to the sports of the arena, so much -but the opening of the sixth and seventh seals were calculated to inspire a moderate estimate of the dignity meant to be symbolical of events then commencing, or of human nature, or a heroic contempt of death. shortly expected to take place. By the Sun becoming black, as sackcloth of hair-the Moon becoming as blood-the Stars falling from heaven, and the heavens departing as a scroll when it is rolled together is to be understood 'he overturning of these pagan superstitions by which these objects were held in veneration, and of which catastrophe, symptoms had already begun to appear in the conversation of some of the pagan priests, (that is, those Stars, or Angels, or Ministers, had already begun to fall from their spheres or heaven!) Encouraged by these tokens, as well as by the fortitude and constancy, which the Christians had shewn in their recent persecutions, Saint John, anticipated triumphant

With a people thus circumstanced, the introduction of new religious opinions, of a highly speculative character, was not likely to attract much notice either from the learned, or from persons of rank and authority; especially as the Apostles addressed their appeals to the poor, and did not pretend to interfere with the duties of subordination; but the case was very different with inferior orders of citizens; the sympathy expressed for their lost condition-the concern evinced for their eternal welfare-the overwhelming and everlasting ruin with which they were immediately threatened, both body and soul, if they did not believe and repent, at once alarmed their fears and engaged their gratitude; so that the new doctrines had spread into every part of the empire, and multitudes of converts been already made before they began to excite any jealousy, even among the heathen priests.

*All these violent metaphors were evidently used to convey a figurative and occult meaning: for though we allow the Jews to have ancient civilised nations-it is not to be supposed they would have been in respect of physics and Astronomy, the most ignorant of the recorded as the word of God such nonsense as these passages contain, if taken in a literal sense! But as above stated, they were intended The reader needs not to be informed that one of the "The force of preaching, could no farther go!" not merely to instruct the faithful, but also to frighten the sclash!

and speedy success to the good cause of equality, jus- | ceremonies of the Jewish ritual, was a type of things in tice, and charity-for he says, "the kings of the earth the heavens, as St. Paul says, or of good things to come; and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief and it is classed by the great apostle of the Gentiles with captains, and the mighty men, and every bond-man, meats and drinks, and new moons, and other ceremonials, and every free-man, hid themselves in the dens, and in which were to cease at the coming of Christ. "Let no the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains man," says he, "judge you in meats or in drinks, or in and rocks, full on us, and hide us from the face of him respect of a holy-day, or the new moon, or the Sabbath that sitteth on the Throne, and from the wrath of the day, which are a shadow of things to come." (Col. ii. Lamb for the great day of his wrath is come, and 16.) "Ye observe days, and months, and years, who shall be able to stand?" he says, in another part of his writings "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." (Gal. iv. 10.)

:

How much to be lamented that these anticipations of the worthy old Saint, were not realised according to his expectations! for whether by the day of judgment, he meant the commencement of the reign of peace and justice, (agreeably to our construction), or the sovereign rule of reason, sense and truth; or (according to the mystical sense) the end and consummation of all things;' the mind sickens at the thought of the millions of MILLIONS that have since perished in misery, and whose souls, if the latter theory could be true, have been consigned to eternal perdition, (through the delay of this consummation) most of whom, never had the least chance afforded of even so much as to hear of that blessed faith, by means of which their doom might perhaps have been mitigated.

Seventeen hundred years have now elapsed since THIS GREAT FAILURE took place! It seems, therefore, full time, that some enquiry should be made into the cause of its occurrence as well as into the uses to which the assets of the original firm have been hitherto applied.

www

KEEPING THE SABBATH.
(Continued from Page 820.)

X

The most effectual and beneficial way to close "Gin Palaces" on Sundays, is, to open gratis, on that day, to the people, all other places of rational entertainment for intellectual recreation, the only true fulcrum on which to raise NATIONAL MORALITY, and secure the progress of civilization!

THE CLERGY CONDEMNED BY THEIR OWN LAW.

Let us examine these zealous Messengers of God by their own text; let us bring them to the bar of the Bible, and try them by their own law.

We have already seen, from the three specimens of Jewish persecution against Jesus Christ for Sabbathbreaking, that the modern Christians and the ancient Pharisees are of the very same breed.

It is the pure and unadulterated blood of Jewish hypocrisy, descended in a right line, and blackened and thickened a little in its course through the dark ages of

Roman Catholic Monkism.

It is the same Jewish blood, I say, which flows in the veins of the present generation of saints and "righteous men!" Otherwise, why show such a religious respect for mere formalities.

The Sabbath is a Jewish ordinance; it is one of the ten commandments given to Moses upon Mount Sinai, and given along with many other laws and precepts which are now annulled and abrogated.

Then, again, in another epistle, he seems to regard it as a matter of indifference: perhaps he saw the predilection for Sabbath-keeping too strong to be checked, and he writes in the following strain :-"One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike; let every man be persuaded in his own mind; he that regardeth the day, regardeth it to the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he doth not regard it."

POSITIVE INJUNCTIONS ARE GIVEN TO REFRAIN FROM
SABBATH-KEEPING.

Such is the opinion of the apostle Paul respecting the
Sabbath, and there is not a single injunction to be found
in the whole of the New Testament to continue the 'cb-
servance of it; but positive unequivocal precepts are
given to abstain from the keeping of holy-days, of which
calls itself a follower of Christ and St. Paul.
we have such abundance in the English Church, which

These positive injunctions to refrain from Sabbath and holy-day keeping, the church has despised, and not one month can be found in the almanack, which has not some of its days consecrated and set apart to the worship and memory of some of the blessed saints and angels. This is in direct opposition to Christianity; but it pleased their vanity, their gluttony, or cupidity, perhaps, and they ventured to differ in this from the inspired apostle.

That there was something of Epicurism in this opposition of the church to their standard of faith, will perhaps appear more evident, when we consider that there the Council of Jerusalem respecting eating, to which our are two positive precepts given by the Holy Ghost and pious clergy pay no more respect than they would to the braying of an ass or the chattering of a magpie. "It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us,' says this unrepealed edict of inspired apostleship, "that ye abstain from eating things strangled, and from blood." Repeat this command to a person whilst he is munching the breast of a fowl or a roasted hare, or carousing amid high-flavoured venison; he would only look at you with a satirical grin, and wipe the grease from his mouth. Here is consistency! Here is clerical piety and filial obedience to their heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost, their Comforter!!

They are commanded neither to keep the Sabbath-day nor any other species of holy-day, yet they keep the one, and adulterate every month of the year with the other; and to crown their hypocrisy, and despite of the spirit, they eat strangled fowls, in defiance of the prohibition. Yet mark this! they will not suffer a poor woman to sell oranges nor tea and coffee on a Sunday, because it is the "Lord's day!" If there is such a crime as impiety, or The Sabbath day, as well as all those other forms and blasphemy, surely this is it; but we, because we are in

THERE IS NO INJUNCTION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
FOR KEEPING THE SABBATH!