*

even of lofty and romantic morality, and a theology sublime, though mystical and unsound, he may be prone to conclude, that if the character of a religion is an index of its origin, these merits which his own possesses may be fairly held to outweigh its errors and impurities, and to evince its divinity. Such selfdelusion, by false reasoning, will not be looked upon as incredible by those who have only their general knowledge of human nature to teach them how men are blinded by partiality to their own systems and sects; and much less by those who understand from experience how much human reason is liable to become perverted and debased by the long-continued and hereditary action of false religion and false philosophy. Taking these and other circumstances into consideration, it would seem that a reasonable conviction of the truth may only be expected to arise, in the reflecting heathen's mind, by slow degrees; and that moral arguments, derived from the long-observed and consistent characters of virtue, piety, benevolence, and uprightness in the professors of Christianity, will often be the first foundations of his belief. Without underrating the strength of the evidences of Christianity, it should be ever remembered that they are calculated to strike different individuals with different degrees of force, according as, from a variety of circumstances, they feel more or less powerfully the claim which these evidences have on their own attention, and are, more or less, capable of appreciating their cogency; and it is consolatory to reflect that the responsibility of those persons, to whom the true religion is proposed, in regard to the reception which they give to it, must always be proportioned to the clearness with which its evidences can be exhibited to their minds.+

Such as those tenets of Hinduism which proclaim the superior excellence of an ascetic life, and exhort widows to sacrifice themselves on the funeral piles of their husbands. There is a grandeur in self-denial and self-devotion which we may suppose to be irresistibly attractive to some of the nobler spirits among the Eastern nations, as is, in fact, proved by the prevalence of asceticism, both among Hindus and Mohammedans. The Stoics had discovered this sympathy with their tenets among the Indians, as appears from the following passage of Lucan, and many others in the later classical writers :

"Quique suas struxere pyras, vivique calentes

Conscendere rogos. Pro! quanta est gloria genti

Injecisse manum fatis, vitaque repletos

Quod superest, donasse Deis!"

Lucani Pharsalia, iii., 239.

+ Penrose on Miracles, pp. 321-3. The same author discusses, pp. 305-11, the various degrees of strength with which the claims of Christianity pressed themselves upon the notice of the Jews and of the Greeks in ancient times, and now demand the attention of various persons in modern times. "There is not any one, who, when he reads St. Paul's eloquent complaint, that Christ cru

·

113

ART. VI.-A Bill to make provision for the Spiritual Care of Populous Parishes. London. 1343.

2. Speech of Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P., in the House of Commons, on Friday, May 5, 1843, in a Committee of the whole House, "to consider the question of Endowments of Ministers in Populous Districts." London. 1843.

3. Statistics of Dissent in England and Wales, from Dissenting Authorities, proving the Inefficiency of the Voluntary Principle to meet the Spiritual Wants of the Nation. London: Painter. IN an article on " Church Extension, in relation to the present National Crisis," which appeared in No. XX. of this Review that question was viewed in connexion with the then recently formed Conservative Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, and with the line of conduct he would probably pursue. The objections made by Dissenters to all measures which had for their object the spread of Church principles, and the increase of Church influence, were examined and refuted; and it was shown that the Church of England is not a denomination or sect-that it is unpatriotic and irreligious to object to grants of public money for Church Extension-that the free contributions of the wealthier classes, who are Churchmen, are not adequate to the providing sufficient church-room for the population-and, finally, that the most unanswerable facts could be adduced to prove that Church Extension was not only necessary, but indispensable. We then enquired, "How is this system of Church Extension to be brought about, and carried into full effect?" To that enquiry we replied, that it must be done by Parliament;" and we intimated to Sir Robert Peel and the Conservative statesmen of

cified was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness,' does not here feel that this error of the Greeks must have been far more pardonable than that of the Jews. And for this plain reason, that the real claim of Christianity could not ordinarily be exhibited to the Greeks, as possessing a degree of strength and importance equal to that which it must have assumed in the eye of the Jew" (pp. 308-9). The case of the Mohammedans and Hindus is thus stated: "Where lies the reason that we expect justly from the Mohammedan that he should weigh carefully the claim made on him by Christianity? Is it not that the Mohammedan himself recognizes the mission of Christ, and cannot be ignorant that for many centuries Christianity has been the most powerful rival of his own religion? So also as to the Hindu. At least one claim on him for Christianity is, that he sees it to be the professed religion of that power which is now predominant throughout the Eastern world. In short, all circumstances, whether fortuitous or otherwise, which actually attract, or ought to attract attention, either to the religion itself or to its particular evidences, are what constitute that claim to consideration which we perceive to subsist in the Christian miracles" (p. 311).

VOL. XIV.-I

this empire, our conviction, that this matter could no longer be kept in abeyance; and that those who were not with, were, in such times as those in which we live, most unquestionably against us. We said

"The first and foremost of all measures should be Church Extension. A Protestant Conservative Government must not ask for delay, for time to consider, and for at least one sessional pause before it plants its drapeau and proclaims its intentions.........Our support to public men must henceforth more than ever depend upon their measures. A cowardly friend is as injurious, nay, more so, than an avowed enemy. A cowardly friend to the Church, in such times as these, would throw back Church Extension a quarter of a century; and we, and millions of Conservatives like ourselves, put forward this measure, therefore, as the test of the sincerity of every Conservative Cabinet. It is not, who shall be the leader of the House of Commons? or even, who shall be the President of the Council? that interests us, and the great mass of Protestant Conservatives in this empire; but, are our institutions henceforth to be conducted on Protestant and Christian principles? The answer to this question may be found in the measures which the Government will propose for CHURCH EXTENSION.”

Since those observations were published, in October 1841, many months of uncertainty and anxiety have passed away, and our faith in the good intentions of the Government of Sir Robert Peel was, during that period, very often severely tried. We knew, indeed, how many subjects of vast moment were pressing on his Government, and how many interests he was bound to protect; how many exigencies to meet; how many demands to satisfy; how many foes to appease; and how many difficulties to overcome. There were the wars of India and China to conduct, as well as to terminate; a ruined exchequer to fill; new taxes to levy; old taxes to abolish; a tariff to re-construct and carry into operation; a sliding scale for the corn markets to alter, and a new system of averages to establish; an unpopular income and property tax to raise; the Chartists to put down; their leaders to discover and punish; a Chartist Parliament at Birmingham to meet; an Anti-Corn Law League, with its thousands of ramifications, to oppose and defeat; the whole subject of the Corn Laws, both as regarded the mother country and the colonies, to discuss, and in such a manner as to protect vested interests and rights, and yet not to injure the principle of reciprocity in trade and commerce; most difficult questions to adjust with America; a spirit of hate and perversity to grapple with and subdue in our relations with France; commercial treaties with Russia, France, and other states to forward; very thorny negotiations to conduct with Portugal; French influence to watch and diminish in Spain;

the Syrian and Eastern, and also the Servian questions to examine and arrange; and many incidental matters, arising out of the Indian and Chinese wars, to grapple with, or provide for. We saw that, in later days, the Government had to meet the formidable, and indeed awful disclosures, as to the moral and physical condition of the labouring classes, brought into very palpable and striking observation, through the rebellion of those classes in the north of England and Scotland, when the examinations and trials of the offenders took place. We saw the Government naturally embarrassed with the question of "What is to be done for those hundreds of thousands of children brought up in thick darkness, and in ignorance the most profound?" We saw it anxious to propitiate the Dissenters, whilst desirous to give the preponderance to the Church and to her authorized clergy. We saw it assailed on all sides, and, above all, by the Wesleyans, who forsook their accustomed ground of neutrality, and entered the field of controversy with a most bitter, as well as a most resolute spirit. The Irish Poor Laws, resisted by all classes, broke down before their eyes. The English Poor Laws became more and more unpopular. Church-rates were increasingly opposed. The agricultural interests were daily less satisfied and the manufacturing interests set into the most active and energetic movement all their weapons and organs against the Church and the State. Urged by the Whigs to consent to some measure of ecclesiastical reform, the Government consented to the plan of Sir John Nicholl, which it has since been compelled so to alter, as tomake it a new measure. Bound, in some degree, by the recommendations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, it has had to defend the projected union of the see of St. Asaph and Bangor, though that union is opposed to Conservative principles. The assassination of Mr. Drummond, and all the revelations made by that event of the spread of anarchical and even murderous principles, it has had to learn, to meet, and to deplore. In Wales it has had to contemplate a growing spirit of revolt, and to hear from the Welsh mountains and valleys the echoes of cries of dissatisfaction and rebellion. But, worse than all this, it has witnessed a schism in the Church of Scotland, which will be so injurious to the Conservative cause in that portion of her Majesty's dominions, that doubts are entertained by wise and prudent men, whether, in the event of a general election, even one Conservative member will be re-returned. We have felt, however, on this subject, with the Government, and against the Kirk. We have felt that the Government had to contend for a mighty principle, when it refused to recognize any party or section, however large, talented, or influential, until it should

begin by respecting the laws and obeying the tribunals. In fact, we felt that the whole foundations of human society were endangered by this frightful schism, and that should the Government yield in this matter, it would be irrecoverably lost. The Canadian Corn Bill, the English and Irish Poor Law Amendment measures, and the fiercest opposition ever yet heard of, got up in all quarters of the land by the Dissenters, against the educational clauses of the Factory Bill, were, and still continue to be measures and events which would alone be sufficient to occupy all the minds and thoughts of men of even more than ordinary attainments and courage. But, to crown all the rest, to add immensely to all prior difficulties and causes of embarrassment, a rebellious movement has been got up in Ireland, on a very large and appalling scale, and a half-starved population is excited by priests and demagogues to demand, at the very top of their voices, "THE REPEAL OF THE UNION." Whilst the English Dissenters pressed the Scotch secessionists to rebel and whilst the Irish Papists urged the Welsh mountaineers to rise, foreign emissaries were, and are still busily engaged in provoking the Irish to revolution. Never, perhaps, except at one period of our history as a nation, viz., that of the rebellion at the Nore, was any Government ever assailed with so many difficulties, by so many parties, and in such varied forms, as has been the Government of Sir Robert Peel since its first accession to power. It has met those difficulties one by one-some to our satisfaction, and others far otherwise; but it has met them all, and still it appears resolved to fight, inch by inch, every step of its way, with its multitudinous and implacable enemies.

Now we have taken this rapid review of the difficulties which the Government has had to encounter since its accession to office, really for the purpose of satisfying our readers, as well as ourselves, that, although a somewhat long period has elapsed since we called on it to demonstrate the sincerity of its Protestant Conservatism by an act in favour of Church Extension, really many excuses may most fairly be presented by it, and that it must not be hastily or inconsiderately condemned for the delay which has thus occurred. Not that we are by any means disposed to be satisfied with the measure now before us, or to accept it in any other light than as an instalment, and that but a small one, on a large unpaid debt; or to admit that it is to be accepted instead of those Parliamentary grants, which we still insist ought to have been, and ought now to be made; but simply we have thought it an act of justice on our parts to look fully in the face the difficulties which the Government of Sir Robert Peel has had to contend with, and thus to appreciate the