Post Office Savings Bank open from 10.0 a.m. till 6.0 p.m. Money orders paid from 9.0 a.m. till 4.0 p.m. Ditto given from 9.0 a.m. till 6.0 p.m. [From the foregoing report, for which we are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Stockham, it will be seen that the business transacted at the Post Office is somewhat considerable, and such as to entitle the letter writing public of Willenhall to every convenience and facility. In order to add to the latter, the following reforms are now deemed necessary, and we hope ere long to see them introduced, viz: 1, A later despatch at night. 2, An afternoon delivery for Little London, &c. 3, A later hour allotted for the payment of money orders. As the town increases in importance, it will, we trust, induce the authorities to elevate Willenhall from a sub to a general Post Office, by which all these and many other reforms will follow as the result.-Ed. W.M.] Answers to Correspondents. NEMO, (Tipton).-How can we answer when “ nobody" asks a question. Pray, borrow a dictionary. J. EVANS.-We cannot find space for your communication; the matter has already been called into notice by Mr. J. Mitchell, at a meeting of the Board of Health. A WOULD-BE METHODIST.-We must respectfully decline your contribution. Though agreeing with you as to the glaring inconsistencies of many large professors, your criticisms are too personal for our pages. SOUTHALES.-The demonstration was, on the whole, creditable, saving certain foolish parodies of Scripture, and the presence of an inebriate dog. INQUIRER.-Yes! An Independent cause is now established in Willenhall, and there will be a resident pastor, we believe, very soon. PHILOLOGIST, (Spring Bank).-Declined, with thanks. It might go off in sermons or tea party speeches, but would not suit readers with any thought. "AUTUMN LEAVES."—We shall try in some future number to find room for this pretty song of our esteemed lady correspondent. X. Y.-In answer to the inquiry of yourself and others, we may state that a second article from the Rev. G. H. Fisher will probably appear in November. PROFESSOR.-Thanks for your exalted opinion. We can easily guess your enjoyment when discussing, with your tall chum at S., us and our heterodox doings. OBSERVER.-'Tis quite true! we ourselves have laughed abundantly, after hearing in a certain shaving shop the vast praises of a very small preacher. BIRMINGHAM: PRINTED BY WILLIAM H. DAVIS, 8, NEEDLESS ALLEY, TEMPLE ROW. WILLENHALL MAGAZINE. Faith and Boubt. BY THE EDITOR. I have somewhere read a German couplet, "Glaube ist des Wissen's Kern, Wissen ist des Glauben's Stern," which, methinks, embodies a doctrine worthy of some consideration. Faith (thus it reads), is the kernel or nucleus of knowledge; knowledge is the star of faith. As though to imply that belief is the basis of all that we call knowledge, we know by faith; and that the hope of a real, direct knowledge, some day to be attained, is as a luminous star seen, through all the dark of the world, by the steadfastly uplifted eye of waiting faith. Our knowledge is, a fabric built on faith. We give credence to the testimony of our senses, to the testimony of living witnesses, to the testimony of history and tradition. The result of this credence we term knowledge: and greater knowledge implies a more extensive acceptation of testimony, a wider faith. Does not reflection convince us of the truth of the saying, that, as yet 'we see through a glass darkly,' and that he alone deserves to be called wise who, like Socrates, has discovered and is ready to avow that he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. Without puzzling ourselves with the abstruse speculations of the metaphysicians; without adopting the extreme dogmas of Realists or Idealists, we may safely assert, that of the nature and essence of things we are ignorant, however glibly we may be able to recount their qualities. Yet what is this, but to amuse ourselves with the colours of the casket in which the treasure of nature's secrets lies hid. It is quite another task and beyond our utmost skill, to penetrate to those secrets, to lay them bare and hold them up to the light. A pregnant source of difficulties, to all who seek to gain correct notions of things from human testimony, lies in the fact, that as the mental standards of truth vary for each individual, so do individual verdicts differ, to an almost unlimited extent. Our prejudices, our temperaments, our physical organizations,-in fine, our numberless personal idiosnycrasies have much to do with the formation of our opinions on any topic. A gun is fired: the quick-eared man asserts that it produced a loud report; the dull of hearing that there was but a feeble sound; the deaf man that there was no noise at all. Musical instruments are performed upon: the untaught country clown is enraptured with music in which the trained musician perceives the utmost plainness and coarseness, or even detects painful errors; or the former wearily listens to the quiet recitatives, the choral symphonies, the elaborate fugues, and the complex harmonies, which the latter thirstily drinks in. Who in these two instances shall decide what is right and what wrong. The report of the discharged gun is not altered in its degree of loudness by the diverse opinions thereon, nor is the melody and worth of the music changed by the opposing verdicts in the other case. Considered absolutely, without reference to any man's opinion, the sound was neither loud nor low, the music neither melodious nor harsh. But it may be asked, what have we to do with absolute truth?—we who only know, who only can know, truth relatively, in the concrete, as it attaches itself to forms and things and beings within our cognizance. There is a way out of this difficulty. As Mr. Mansel puts it, 'regulative truth is relative truth:' that is to say, that knowledge of truth which is to regulate our conduct, and for which alone we are responsible, is that degree or kind of knowledge which we can attain relatively, through the circumstances which surround us and by means of the mental powers we possess. What is truth? is a question asked by others beside Pilate, but which need not too greatly trouble us. What the absolute truth is has been declared by Him who said, as distinctive of himself, I am the truth. And who shall comprehend that? Can the finite compass the infinite? But relative truth, that which must guide us, is the truth as we perceive it. This, however, leaves untouched the important question, how far we are responsible for the quickness of our perceptions of the truth, as consequent upon our neglect or diligence in the acquisition of the knowledge, which should stimulate and sharpen those perceptions. After all, there are not such great inequalities as would at first sight appear, in the capability possessed by different men to judge questions correctly. The dull-eared individual would judge as accurately of the distance of the gun whose report he heard, as he of the delicate auditory nerve: because, although his sensation of the sound would differ from that of the other, so too would his mental standard of judgment, created by experience. So, likewise, the lively careless jig may be as truly music to the dull brain and preponderent physique of the ploughman, as the most finished composition of the great masters can be to the connoisseur. To a person with a given formation of the eye, a yard would appear shorter than to another, But all distances and heights would be proportionately lessened, so that he might estimate as truly the number of yards in the height of a tower or the length of a wall as the other. The conviction of this principle is both good and evil in its effects. It is an advantage where it teaches a man his true position and the limit of his rights teaches him that, if he be rich and refined, he has no more right to stigmatize as vain, contemptible, and paltry the pictures or the pleasures of the poor man, than that some poor man has to term his ridiculous, fanciful, conventional;-no more right to call in question the poor man's taste for beer and ballad singing, than the latter to denounce his partiality for wine and Wordsworth. Taught to be content for himself with his own view of truth, he becomes charitable enough to believe that to other eyes, gazing on her from various points and altitudes, she may present different aspects. Though certain enough for himself that black is black, he is not prepared to assert that in other lights and to other eyes, it may not appear white. A grand day for the world will that be when this principle shall be generally adopted; when we shall begin to believe that other people are, possibly quite as honest, quite as sincere, and possessed of as clear a judgment as ourselves. It would do. away with a vast amount of rampant dogmatism, which now, as in William Shakspeare's day, is wont to cry out "I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope' my lips let no dog bark." But this conviction operates at times disadvantageously, in that, while freeing a man from too confident à presumption that he is right and all beside are wrong, it is apt to drive him to the other extreme, and lead him habitually to doubt the correctness of his own views of things. For, he will argue, I probably see but one side of the question; my knowledge is partial; could I but know all, my opinion and consequent course of action might be reversed. There is the Donbt which hampers the wisest of men : operating as a drag upon their actions, and making them appear the most timid and irresolute. Prospects which to the common eye are full of unalloyed promise, reveal to their scrutinizing gaze a thousand perils. The more a man knows, the more clearly is he aware of the countless possibilities of error, arising from the narrowness of that knowledge; and the more inclined is he to hesitate. On the contrary the more ignorant a man is, the more confident and unhesitating his course frequently is. Examples are daily presented to prove how often this blind daring wins the day; how often these men, fearing not, because seeing not, danger and evil, have rushed onward, as wiser men would say, rashly, and have come out of the battle not merely unscathed but triumphant. For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' They have seen but one object to be attained, but one peril to be shunned; and this unity of idea has produced in them a corresponding unity of action. Strong in one undivided purpose, they have accomplished their = desire. This unthinking faith which never dreams of failure, this unbounded confidence in one's self, although it may produce obstinacy, dogmatism, and an overbearing disposition, has thus its advantages. While on the other hand, the wise, the cautious, the calculating, stand weighing the chances and hazards of this or that movement, and are scarcely able to decide which to adopt, till the battle be well-nigh over and the opportunity passed by. So the whole world of men seems divided into two classes: the men of thought; the men of action: those who reflect, and scheme and plan; those who execute the plan, who carry out the scheme. The general when he' draws up the sketch of campaign, or arranges the order of a forthcoming battle, is assailed by doubts, and makes many a change before the final purpose is fixed. The soldier has not to trouble himself with considerations of the probable success of this or that evolution: it is his duty to put faith in his general, and march through fire and storm to the appointed spot. In life we are sometimes placed in the general's position: doubt and caution then become us. But oftener by far ours is the duty of the soldier, in which a moment's hesitation is criminal, and instant action the highest virtue. There are two extremes, the one of faith, not having attained to knowledge; the other of knowledge beyond all faith. There is the trustful, undoubting confidence of a little child, who goes straight to his object, and with simple mind, all undisturbed by calculation of chances or anticipation of difficulties, acts: if he succeed, well; if not, he has, at least, bravely tried, and then is failure no disgrace. There is the unfaltering, unswerving operation of a God: who, seeing fully and entirely the work before him, anticipates every difficulty but to provide for its removal; who, because His knowledge is complete, (although that completeness reveal a thousand paths to the goal, a thousand modes of effecting the object, yet) chooses that path of them all which is surest and most direct, that mode of working which is best. Which then shall be our choice; to abide in the simple faith of childhood, or to aspire to the perfect knowledge of Godhead? Because we cannot at once, and not at all, except through a discipline of doubt, attain to that Divine omniscience-which, growing in greatness, recedes as we approach it, are we to shrink from all knowledge, that we may keep our child-faith unshaken? Must we reject knowledge because it reveals imperfections and incompleteness; because it shews pitfalls here, and snares there, and ambuscades yonder, and thus makes us pause on the brink of every mighty endeavour? Were it not better to sleep on, dreaming blissful dreams of innocence, order, and justice, rather than to be rudely wakened by the intrusive daylight revealing the contraries in the bare, hard realities of life? Were it not better in the spirit of credulous affection,' to believe every man honest, every promise good, every assertion true, than to fall into that miserable scepticism which doubts whether there be an honest man or any truth or honour in the world? I know that gruff, surly, cautious doubt bids me see in each human being a treacherous enemy, with whom a struggle of cunning or strength is to be maintained for dear life. O, fortify, cries he, the entrance of your heart with battlement and watchtower, drawbridge and portcullis: shut out feeling; banish pity; inscribe on your banner, God and my right.' But I know too that there is a wisdom in the transparent candour and guilelessness which the great world calls folly; that in every human breast, however vile, there lurks a lingering reverence for innocence, which oftentimes, with no other protector nigh, has been a sufficient defence for the little child, the timid virgin, the fearless boy. Is there too for children and the childlike the unseen, watchful care of ministering angels to guide their footsteps right, and bear them over rough places, while we with all our wisdom fall, alas! how often! into hurtful snares ? And yet, however beautiful faith may thus appear, knowledge is nobler : for it is the prerogative of perfection, while faith is the characteristic of incompleteness. To attain to that unclouded vision, which is the centre of our desire, we must needs leave this faith born of ignorance, and yield up many cherished fancies. Enough for us if what is real and true remain. Meanwhile let us ask ourselves what should be the limits, on the one hand, of our faith, on the other, of our doubt? How far are we to accept commonly received opinions; how far obey what seem the convictions or intuitions of our own minds? Let us avoid extremes, "Not clinging to some ancient saw; Standing on the frontiers of a vast terra incognita, while slow to accept new theories, ours should be a philosophy wider than that of Horatio. Witnesses of the realization as sober certainties to-day, of what were once held to be the visions of wild enthusiasts, it would ill become us to proclaim that impossible, whose possibility we cannot comprehend. Amid the revolu tions wrought by time in the doctrines and creeds of science, philosophy and religion, doubt is at least excusable. For doubt in some matters is prompted by a feeling akin to reverence, and is the opposite of that unthinking acquiescence, which, almost without enquiry, rashly takes up some formula or creed, and does battle for it to the death. Must I judge for myself or give an unsatisfied adhesion to that opinion which some fellow mortal propounds? True wisdom would suggest that for us the only safe rule is, implicit faith in |