96 was never made. day's wages for a fair day's work.' A more modest motto, you will say, was never displayed in purple and gold. A more impossible demand No legislative power on earth could give them their fair day's wages for their fair day's work. They must look after that matter, each one for himself. Nay, if Parliament, in her 'omnipotence,' should settle what shall be a fair day's work and a fair day's wages, Parliament must next consult the gods and mother earth to know if these recognize the tariff. Your work and your wages are finally settled - somewhere out of Parliament. But now, if this clamor rises, if this motto becomes Far be it from us to question the doc- Now we feel bound to say, that after all we have read on these topics, and with every wish to be believers in some such theory, we find belief in this direction very difficult. That there are some traces of truth in such reasoning we admit, but they seem to us to be just enough to deceive the unwary, and not enough to satisfy the cautious and the thoughtful. In place of sustaining the huge conclusions founded upon it, it is all but swept away by the contrary indications which come up at almost every step. We think Seck- Nor is this all. Is it not a mistake, a most grave mistake, to expect moral results of such vastness from mere scientific forms of thought? Do such forms of thought where they exist, issue uniformly, or even generally, in such results? If this be not the effect of such supposed enlightenment on a small scale, why should its effect be such on a large one? The country in which advanced thinking has taken the form of political equality more thoroughly than in any other, is the United States. Are the moral relations between man and man more truly respected there than in many communities where the laws are less equal? Those equal laws are made to consist with Lynch law, and fugitive slave law. Railway inventions do not preclude railway gambling, fraud-unblushing fraud. The telegraph will make speaking possible between America and Europe, but will it have done much towards making lying by that means impossible? In short, nothing can be more unphilosophical than to expect a moral or political millennium as the result of dynamics, of mechanical contrivance, or of physical science in any form. No doubt, the intelligence which such progress implies will be opposed to vice in some of its old forms; but those turbulent rebels-appetite and passion, will still be in arms, and will not fail to find new modes of violating the second commandment when compelled to aban-pected millennium. To wait for that betdon some of the old ones. The war of the commercial speculators of our time is often every whit as immoral as the wars of savages. What is wanting is not so much that men should see their duty, as that they should be inclined to the doing of it. The grand reinforcement needed is a reinforcement of moral motive. The manscience, the culture of the man proper, in place of being the science to come last, is the science needed first, and, in fact, it comes first. The early inhabitants of the world could rub on without any great knowledge of anatomy, geography, or chemistry, but their sense of right and wrong, and their belief in the sanctions attendant on right and wrong, were indispensable, and were always in a fair measure present with them."Metaphysics," says Kant, "is the oldest of the sciences, and would still survive, even if the rest were swallowed up in the abyss of an alldestroying barbarism." Even the polished Greek knew very little of physics, but in metaphysics, and in ethics, he became so profound, that our moderns have added little to the results of his labor in that way. With the Greek, the manscience, instead of lagging behind the rest, was in advance of most of them. We have not remembered this as we ought. In fact, the great blunder in the political science of our time has been the blunder of beginning at the wrong end. We are intent upon realizing what we call free institutions, forgetting that, in proportion as communities become virtuous, all institutions become free. A nation of truthful and honest men, left to themselves, must be a free nation. It was their high moral principle, and their belief in the sanctions attendant on all such principle, that made our Puritan fathers the strong men they were in the senate and in the field. With them, to do right was not a mere expediency, it was the command of God. All men doing right were proclaimed as the children of the Allrighteous; while Hell from beneath was open to receive the miscreant who should dare to make light of His just authority. We are quite alive to the imperfections and exaggerations of our old Puritanism; but in a faith like that, the faith of sincere Christian men, there is a connection realized between heaven and earth, which may give to the earth, in its season, its exVOL. XLIV.-NO. I. ter day until our more academic modes of discoursing about the nature and fitness of things shall have brought it about, will be to wait, we suspect, for a very long time. What the world wants is not simply amendment, but regeneration — not merely the expansion of the good, but the eradication of the evil. Regeneration is a process which can never be self-originated, or self-sustained. It is not in the nature which has become the possession of" the strong man armed," that it should itself furnish "the stronger than he" who shall expel him. Deliverance in such case must come from without. If there be no hope from that quarter, then there is an end to hope. We say, then, that, as Christians, we can hope for a millennium. But had we nothing better than philosophy to depend upon, we should feel bound to make the best we may of the present, and should not be disposed to attach much value to speculations about the future. Too often it seems to be forgotten, that the process of decay is quite as truly a law of society as the process of growth. Modern civilization has its seat where the ancients would never have dreamt of looking for it—namely, northward of the Alps and of the Pyrenees. This may seem to have been so much pure gain to the race. But what a change for the worse has taken place over the whole of those countries where the civilization of the ancients so long flourished! Egypt, Southern Asia, all the lands bordering on the Mediterranean, present the appearance of an exhausted soil, doomed to weeds and barrenness. In the memories of their past there is greatness; in what is now known of them, there is nothing great, and we fear we must say nothing hopeful. For while the civilization of a barbarous people is a natural, and hardly a difficult process-alas! for the men whose labors are directed towards the regeneration of a people who have become the victims of a corrupt civilization! When did the dead in that shape ever live again? So the world seems to lose in one direction what it gains in another. In the mean while, over the vast regions of Africa, of Central Asia, of India, and China, embracing the great mass of the human family, every thing has remained all but stationary from the dawn of history to this day. Hitherto, the progressive 7 principle has been local, limited, shifting from place to place, covering altogether but a small section of the globe, and cultivating one spot in that section at the cost of deserting another. upon us. with two of the most prominent forms of religious thought and feeling in our time. The following is Seckendorf's description of the position of Romanism in this country. It is, as will be seen at a glance, an exaggerated description; still there is more truth in it than we are at all times disposed to admit : Clarence, indeed, in the volume before us, insists that modern civilization is a great advance upon the ancients, especially as being opposed to serfdom, as developing industry, introducing wages, and "And pray tell me, Clarence, you who have preparing the way for partnership and studied the signs of the times, and should know cooperation. All this we may admit; your own countrymen better than I do, is it but, even here, the sphere within which one amongst the symptoms of intellectual prothe better element operates, is painfully wards the Roman Catholic Church? Is this gress that there is a movement in England tocontracted; and this liberation of the movement at all connected with some political masses, by devolving on them the duty movement, some monarchical tendency? Does of attending to their own affairs, to a it result from pure love of truth and the spirit degree for which they are but imperfectly of inquiry? I, who was brought up in the prepared, has raised a host of new and great Catholic Church, have my partialities difficult problems. While in bondage, towards her, and might not be the fittest judge. there were those who naturally cared for not improbable that that ragged urchin who is How do you read this matter? To me it seems them; they must now care for themselves. chalking up 'No Popery on the walls of LonThey can not have the privileges of free- don, may live to see High Mass performed in men without the responsibilities of free- St. Paul's Cathedral. He himself will be kneelmen. If not to own mastership in ano-ing, an old man, bare-headed, on the pavement, ther, they must know how to master themselves. It is thus that a somewhat terrible question-unknown to antiquity namely, the labor question, has been forced How that question is to end the future only can show. Is there not room to fear that the democratic feeling underlying this question, by being pushed to excess, may tend to produce a reaction in favor of despotism, and even of slavery, rather than to introduce that wise system of liberty which some men expect from it? Mr. Smith's volume contains many acute observations bearing on this topic, but, on the whole, he does not help us much towards a solution of the difficulty. We repeat, therefore, that the future would be to us a very hazy and uncertain affair, we had nothing more potent to look to in relation to it than may be found even in the best forms of a merely human philosophy. But Clarence would answer, that he, too, is far from expecting a millennium from any merely human philosophy-that he looks for much from the influence of religion, and especially from the influence of Christianity. The volume before us, however, shows that even Christianity has formidable adversaries to encounter-such as will not be soon vanquished. Skepticism, as represented by Seckendorf, on the one hand, and Romanism, as represented by Cyril, on the other, are arrayed against it. In the creed of these persons we meet to be sprinkled by the holy water as priests pass by in gorgeous procession, bearing the Half immaculate Virgin on their shoulders. idle woman, are already ours. Every infidel, your clergy, half your aristocracy, and every who loves music better than sermonizing, is already ours. All who love pomp and sentiment better than perplexing dogmas, will welcome the change. As to the mob, we know of old how they are to be converted. The good MosNot always is the sword necessary. The Muezlems knew and practiced the art long ago. zin ascends the tower and calls to prayer; the people pelt him with stones; he ascends again, and calls still louder, and the people throw fewer stones; he still ascends, still calls, and the people drop their stones from their hands, and fall upon their knees. There is but one body in England from whom a stout resistance may be expected. if The Dissenters will not convert. The descendants of the old Puritans-the re publicans in religion-will stand out to the last. They will not convert, but they will burn; they are combustible. And if an age too fastidious rejects the aid of fire even in so great an emergency, there are your colonies— they can be transported. England, purified from their presence, will again be embraced in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. attribute it to the bias of early education."If I am a little too sanguine here, you must Pp. 206, 307. This passage sets forth some of the coarser forms of seduction to which our English men and women sometimes surrender themselves. But the case of Cyril is of a more refined and honest descrip To punish for revenge, he pronounced unchristian and irrational; he admitted no ends for the reformation of the criminal, which also was punishment but the protection of society and the best protection for society; nor would he allow that the first of these was an end which could be legitimately pursued without being coupled with the second."-Pp. 216, 217. tion, and gives him a claim on our forbear- | the true principles of criminal jurisprudence. ance, if not on our sympathy. He was the son of religious parents. His early years gave evidence of religious thoughtfulness. His apparent devoutness was observed with interest, and the members of his family began to hope every thing good concerning him. But as he grew from boyhood towards manhood, he was found to become more reserved on religious topics. At length it became known that he had learnt to regard the creed of his childhood with some misgiving. Great was the surprise and sorrow expressed. How could it have happened? What company had he been in? What books had he been reading? But it is well observed by our author, that in such cases: It will be remembered by some of our readers that this is a topic to which we called their attention in our last number.* Such was the dilemma between which timid and conscientious Cyril found himself. If his father's principle in relation to the sole end of retribution in human governments was sound, then the principle of retribution in the divine government as acted upon here, and especially hereafter, must be unsound-cruel, atrocious. The true and only moral principle of human government being, as alleged, purely reformatory, one of the doctrines following irresistibly from this principle is that of Universal Restoration. Not only must it be true that all suffering hereafter must be restorative in its influence, but we are bound to suppose that the veriest minimum of suffering that may suffice to that end is all that will be resorted to. Moral principle is immutable, eternal, every where the same. If to punish a criminal with any other view than to his restoration be in principle immoral, then it must be immoral in all cases, whether acted upon by an earthly magistrate, or by the Supreme Being, in this world or the next. "The enemy may approach in a far more insidious manner than by a direct attack. His father took a great interest in the subject of Reformatory Punishment, as it is sometimes called. (The combination of reformatory and educational measures with Punishment, would be a more accurate expression for the object which such philanthropists have in view.) Schemes of prison discipline formed the most frequent topic of conversation at his own home. The house was full of books treating upon this subject in every possible manner, either investigating the Rationale of Punishment, or proposing new methods for the moral restoration of the criminal. In short, it was the paternal hobby. Now in works treating on the subject of criminal jurisprudence, there will invariably be intermingled ethical discussions on the nature and objects of Punishment itself, and on the meaning which is to be attached to such words, for instance, as Retributive Punishment, and of Penalty, when imposed in order to secure obedience to a promulgated law. As I understood him, the perusal of these books, together with the constant reiteration in the family circle that the reformation of the criminal himself was never to be lost sight of as one of the ends of punishmennt, forced upon his mind the perception of a strange contrast between the ethi-"this is strange reasoning. It is true, cal principles which his father advocated when discoursing upon his favorite topic, and the ethical principles which he advanced or implied when he expounded his Calvinistic divinity. Cyril, at least, could not reconcile the two. He could not help saying to himself-though he recoiled at first with horror from his own suggestions that his father claimed for a human legislator, principles more noble and enlightened than those he attributed to the Divine Governor. The idea was at first repudiated; it was thrust back; but it would return. The subject was not allowed to sleep, for every fresh visitor at the house called forth from his father an exposition of what he deemed to be No doubt Cyril's father would endeavor to make a distinction between what an earthly magistrate may do in such cases, and what the Divine Magistrate may do. But we can readily imagine how Seckendorf would deal with an evasion of this sort. "Pious sir," we think we hear him say, the heathen men of antiquity were wont to confess that their gods were so faulty that it would be a sad time of day for any community were the people to become imitators of the objects of their worship. But it is a new thing to find a professed Christian taking that ground. You must admit that your God does often punish in this world where the end is manifestly not reformation but destruction. You profess to believe that he does so *The Ethics of Revealed Theology. 100 one. punish hereafter on a much larger scale, | reformatory principle is, no doubt, a good Criminals that may be reformed, and forever. Now, if he does this justly, what becomes of your principle? If he should be reformed; but it does not foldoes it unjustly, what becomes of your low that the magistrate should be the reGod? If retribution in this view be so former. Reform in such cases must be foul a thing that you could not for a world the result of moral and religious influences; soil your fingers with it, how is it that and it is a grave matter to say that civil you can so freely assign so much of this government should take upon it the funcsort of service to your Maker? Have tions of the moral and religious teacher. you no better place for your Divinity than In fact, we venture to say that it does not that of the Great Scavenger of the uni- belong to the magistrate to concern himverse, engaged in doing an infinite amount self with the reformation of criminals, any of work which is of such a nature that further than as the penalties of law may you would blush to think of touching it tend to reform them; and that it does belong to him to act for the good of society in any way yourself?" simply by means of the "terror" which he wields against the evil-doer. Where the penalty is capital, the reformatory principle is, of course, utterly precluded. The man is cut off, and cut off purely that the terror of his fate may operate for the good of society, by deterring others from sinning against it as he has sinned. And where the penalty is not capital, the prinThere is nothing in ciple is the same. the punishment thus connected with vice to dispose a man to love virtue. The penalty being so serious, to have fallen once under it may be enough. Or a man may be led by that consideration to weigh the penalty against the probable gains of the practice to which it is opposed, and may determine, as the result, not to become a criminal. Now, if the terror in the hand of the magistrate serve only this purpose, he has nothing further to demand. He does not make inquiries about the motives which prevent men from becoming evil-doers; it is enough for him that they do not so become. This is the scriptural view of the function of the magistrate. It embraces every thing taught in the New Testament concerning the province of the civil power in relation to offenders. We never expect to find Paul admonishing Nero, that it became him not merely to punish the criminals of his empire, but to see what could be done towards making them honest and virtuous men. And why not? Poor Cyril would be shocked at the harshness of Seckendorf's manner of dealing with such questions. Still, he would feel that in this case his views seemed to take consistency along with them, and he would tremble as he thus felt. His solicitude to be right in religious matters, and his sense of the difficulty in the way of his becoming so, deepened day by day. That the impress fixed on our immortal state should come from the mere speck of time through which this life extends, filled him with dismay-made life itself alarming, and death terrible. May there not -should there not, be some other probation before issues so tremendous were determined? His health broke down under this mental conflict. He rushed to the very edge of suicide. Incompetent to be an authority to himself, he at last seeks refuge in an external authority-an infallible authority-the authority of the Church of Rome. This is the path through which not a few men have passed into that communion, and a greater numBut all these have had ber of women. to decide for themselves whether the Church of Rome be the infallible Church they want or not, and deeming themselves competent to settle that question, they ought to have reckoned themselves competent to every other. How few of us, however, remember our inconsistencies as we ought! Fret about it as we may, it is manifest that there are many minds among us to whom the alternative seems to be-Deism or Romanism. The two Newmans, in taking the opposite sides, are representatives of much of the religious thought of our times. But Cyril's first difficulty-the difficulty about the principle that should regulate every system of rewards and punishments -demands a word or two from us. The But it will now, perhaps, be asked, what becomes, in this view, of all those scriptures which discountenance retaliation and revenge, and which so emphatically inculcate charity, forbearance, and mercy, even towards the injurious? We answer, the sphere of the magistrate is one, and the sphere of the private person is another. The magistrate's law has its place, and |