scious mind) can wield the whole strength of the affections, for only a person can reciprocate them, and what affection ever comes to its full maturity until it is reciprocated? And what person can wield that complete control over our highest and purest affections which is here sought, but One who shall be above us all, the realization of Infinite Perfection? The admission of the affections into the "religious sense of duty" naturally implies the idea of an Object on which to repose them; and the absence of any such object in Mr. Holdreth's theory is an incongruity somewhat like that exhibited by Tycho Brahe, who admitted that the planets revolved round the sun, but maintained that the sun and the planets together revolved round the earth. In the same way, Mr. Holdreth holds that all our faculties should be under the complete control of religion, but that religion itself is only dependent upon man, that is, upon the very being who needs the control. Perhaps he would reply with the heroic but most melancholy saying of Spinoza, "He who loves God aright must not expect that God should love him in return;" an idea which implies that the power of loving has been, in some mysterious way, monopolized by mortals, and is the only quality for which the Great Cosmos has no capacity. Now if the affection we receive from our fellow-creatures were in itself perfectly satisfying, and always at our command when deserved, there would be much plausibility in the theory that we have no concern with any other affection. But that such is not the case in human life, it would be superfluous to prove. Moreover, if there be one feature of Mr. Holdreth's writings more characteristic than the rest, it is the keenness and distinctness of his desire after an Infinite Object of affection.* It is therefore to the point to discover the estimate he himself takes of this desire. The fullest notice he has taken of it, as an argument for Theism, is as follows:

* Many critics of his poems were misled by this characteristic to under-estimate the reality of his Atheism, - a very easy mistake to arise in the minds of those who see the religious instinct, and who do not see the complicated intellectual difficulties which may coexist with it. We have frequently heard the remark, "Mr. Holdreth will not long remain an Atheist." But the question remains, Why is he an Atheist now?

"Some have urged that, since in Nature is found no want without a satisfaction, no appetite but for a purpose, it were contrary to nature to suppose man's natural instinct of worship and so to speak — desire of Deity implanted only to be balked. But to this it may be replied, that for artificial desires Nature provides not always gratifications; nor for all natural needs, except to those who have the capacity to seek their satisfaction aright. Accordingly, it is nowise to be accounted an anomaly in Nature, if she provide not a personal object of worship, such as shall satisfy the artificially excited imaginations and feelings of men and women, educated from youth to worship; or if she yield no gratification to those whose neglected intellect and uncultivated conscience can reverence naught that is not personal, and love only where they expect reward for loving. But for so much of this devotion as is natural in minds sound and healthily trained, there is a sufficient object in the Order, the Truth, the Beauty of Nature herself, in the Duty which springs from Law, and in the authority which belongs to Conscience."

Such is Mr. Holdreth's theoretical conviction. But what are the utterances of his natural feeling? Scrupulously passing by all such passages as he might possibly reject or modify now, we will illustrate this point by a few quotations. The first is from the opening of a lecture delivered in 1856, entitled "Theism the Religion of Sentiment."

"Stern indeed and strong must that heart be—if indeed it be not utterly callous and insensible- that has not at times, at many times, sighed after such a comfort. The strongest spirit has its hours of weakness, the most hopeful and elastic nature its moments of deep and hopeless depression. What comfort is theirs who in these moments can cast themselves on the ever-present arm of an Eternal Father, in calm reliance on his unfailing power and inexhaustible kindness! In the hours of loneliness and melancholy, when the heart feels itself as it were alone amid a deserted universe, how enviable is their state who feel that they are not alone,- that with them and around them is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother, a very present help in time of trouble! To the laborer whose twelve hours' toil can barely suffice to earn bread for his suffering wife and his sickly children; to the slave who sees before him no rest, no mercy, no escape but in the grave; to the lonely student on his solitary couch of sickness; to

* Reasoner, No. 630.

the starving and sorely tempted seamstress in her fireless and foodless garret; to the martyr of conscience in his dismal prison, or yet more dismal liberty; to the patriot exile, inclined almost to despair of the cause for which he has given all that was dear in life, what happiness to turn from the harshness and the misery of earth to the Father which is in heaven!

66 'And, on the other hand, how hard seems their fate who have no such hope and no such comfort, - who must endure through life the hardships of poverty, the sorrows of obscurity, the misery of unbefriended loneliness, and must at last pass to their graves with the bitter thought, that they have lived in vain for others, and worse than in vain for themselves! Truly, it is no light, no easy matter to be, much more to become, an Atheist." *

(How much, by the way, is implied in that parenthesis, "much more to become an Atheist"!) The next passage we quote appeared considerably later, and occurred in a review of the Eclipse of Faith. After quoting the only passage in that book which can be said to contain " any indication of an insight into the real feelings and position of a true Sceptic," Mr. Holdreth remarks on it thus:

"I presume that there is no thoughtful mind, which has ever been truthful and honest enough to enter earnestly upon the quest of truth, that has not very early in its career passed through the Slough of Despond that is here described. But this is assuredly not the language of a matured and deliberate scepticism; it is that of a mind which has floundered about in the quicksands into which it first plunged on quitting the barren rocks of Christianity, and which has never succeeded in reaching the shore beyond. Those who have gone through this state do not speak in this tone. They are satisfied either that there is no God, or that there is, or that we cannot tell whether there be or no. At any rate, they remain satisfied: if there be no God, the crying after him is childish and unmanly; if we cannot know him, it is futile and absurd; in either case experience soon teaches us that what we cannot in course of nature expect to have can be naturally dispensed with. It is only during the first stage of mental progress, while still enfeebled by the habit of dependence, still unaccustomed to love Truth as Truth, to pursue Duty as Duty, to repose confidence in Law as Law, independently of a God and a Lawgiver, that we hear these echoes of the bitter cry, 'My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?'"†

*Reasoner, No. 535.

† Ibid., No. 603.

Thus it is evidently felt by the writer, that the crying after God would not necessarily be childish and unmanly if He did exist; and that it is only because we cannot have Divine sympathy, that we must learn to do without it. Still further, our Atheist acknowledges that it is only after a painful process that the heart weans itself from this affection, and learns to cease "sighing after such a comfort." This is resignation, but not satisfaction; it is the manly endurance of a harsh necessity, but it is not a faith" which can exercise complete control over the affections, and wield their whole strength in the struggle."

How such a theory as Mr. Holdreth's would work in actual life, is a question which naturally suggests itself; and towards this we have a partial approximation in his novelette of "Conscience and Consequence," designedly written to show what life would be to a genuine Atheist. Our author has here endeavored to realize his faith in duty and his disbelief in God, side by side, in all their bearings, and the result is so unique as to demand special analysis.

The plot of the story is a bold interpolation into the history of religious opinion in England. The hero, Ernest Clifford, is expelled from Cambridge for Atheism; his father disinherits him in consequence, and he joins an Atheist propaganda in London, the leader of which, Francis Sterne, is the model Atheist of the tale, and the life and soul of a movement which would certainly have not been forgotten if it had ever existed. The date of the story is about the period of the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill (1829). At that time the Carlile agitation was going on, and it certainly contained many such adherents as the Hatherley and Carter whose coarse but genuine earnestness Mr. Holdreth has depicted; but the Freethinking newspapers of that day could boast of no such editor as "Arthur Clayton, the Melancthon of Atheism," nor did they possess among their contributors any such men as Francis Sterne or Ernest Clifford. The whole tale is an arabesque, in which all the combinations of circumstance are nearly impossible. As the author must be perfectly aware of this, we attribute to him the intention of aiming at coherence merely in ideal respects. Conceding to him this liberty, however, we

see, by the elements of which he builds his world, which are the points in the relation of theology to life that have most importance for him, either in feeling or observation.

In the first place, it should be remarked that, although the romance has great faults as a work of art, it displays one characteristic which many works of greater finish do not possess. It is a genuine attempt to paint from life, rather than to construct from mere fancy or theory. Although the dialogue is very defective in easy, natural flow, the conception and description of character indicate close observation and delicate perception. Especially does the writer's attention seem to have been given to the varying styles of character among Freethinkers. Nearly all the dramatis personæ are Atheists, yet all differ from each other as people do in real life; they are not sketched from their creed, inwards, but from their character, outwards. Perhaps Sterne is an exception to this rule; but Ernest, Clayton, Seaton, Louis, Arnots, and the rest, are clearly drawn from observation, and not from theory, and this. is no small merit in a tale written to exemplify a theory. It is a merit, too, in a deeper sense than at first appears. For this endeavor to paint men as they are, under the creed of Atheism, has thrown a light upon the effects of that creed which no Atheist ever gave us before. The author has laid bare the weak points of his own faith with the candor of one who has no purpose to serve but the perfect truth. We have not space to illustrate this as fully as we could wish, and must confine ourselves to the more salient points alone.

"

The first consequence" which the "conscience" of the Atheist entails upon him is, of course, the external loss of friends and position; but this is plainly subordinate in the author's view to the internal consequences resulting from the change. It is not only the human affections that Ernest is called upon to renounce, he has to part with hopes that had outsoared death, and to forsake the peace with which

"the heavenly house he trod,

And lay upon the breast of God."

"He regretted keenly the old hymns of the Church, in which he could never join again, as formerly, with simple, heart-felt faith. He regretted the Incarnate God, dear for his human love, and still dearer for VOL. LXVII. 5TH S. VOL. V. NO. III.

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